4.4 | Trigger ✓

03 | ржaвый

"Nightmares?" she asked at last.

He tensed before he spun around, then seemed to relax when he saw her. His eyebrows rose in a silent question, and she knew what he wanted to ask.

"I heard what Sam said earlier," she admitted softly. "And yes, you were right." He fixed his gaze on her and she shook her head. "We all have monsters in our pasts. Some monsters are just more terrifying and some pasts are just longer than others."

He slowly settled into the chair opposite. Sometimes, she wished she could get inside his head just to know what he thought. Everyone at her workplace were eager to talk. Sam and Steve were open books. But Bucky was an enigma.

"Do you want to talk about your nightmares?" she asked. Hesitation slipped across his features, before he shook his head. "It's okay." She smiled and picked up her pen again. "You don't have to talk if you don't want to."

He nodded and she returned to her work. But maintaining her focus proved difficult, especially when he sat opposite her. She could feel his gaze on her, even though he glanced away every time she looked up.

It was difficult to keep her eyes off him, even when he looked like this, and she'd lived the past few days with a fighting fit, smooth-as-hell Avenger along with Captain freaking America. But it wasn't either of them she was affected by – it was Bucky. He was heartbreakingly attractive, a combination of tight restraint and enigmatic mystery that appealed to her in a way not many men had before. She'd never denied it to herself before and there was no point denying it now.

"I know this song," he said unexpectedly. She looked up and found his hands tight around his mug, even though his expression betrayed nothing. But she heard it in his voice – that nostalgia and vulnerability, a heartbreaking blend of emotion.

"It's an old song," she mused, and reached for the remote to turn the volume up a notch. She went back to her work, humming it absentmindedly under her breath.

She was so caught up in her work that she didn't look up for several minutes. And when she finally did, Bucky had his head buried in his arms, his shoulders easing with steady, even breaths as he slept without nightmares for the first time in a long while.

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She'd soon become accustomed to his presence. Bucky moved so stealthily that she never heard him, but she learnt not to jump when she turned around and saw him there. So when she found behind her the next morning, she simply smiled. "James."

He didn't say a word, but she tried not to react when she heard him let out a quiet exhale, his breath warm on the back of her neck. Her nerves, however, felt alight with fire and she forced herself to stay calm, pushing herself up on the tips of her toes to get the mixing bowl from the shelf.

He was beside her the next moment, his tall frame having no problems at all reaching for the bowl. He set it down in front of her, before moving aside to start up the coffee maker for Sam and Steve. His metal arm, she noticed, didn't seem to be affected by temperatures because he picked up the boiling teapot with that hand and placed it on the dining table.

Bucky didn't seem to want to talk and she maintained the silence between them, only to throw glances over her shoulder every now and then to make sure he was handling the coffee and tea alright. He seemed to be managing it well enough, albeit a little roughly, and she bit her lip to stifle a smile when he broke a sugar cube in his metal hand and swore under his breath in Russian.

Bucky was about to fill her mug when Sam stepped into the kitchen. "Computer, coffee, hot," he quipped, "in a cup this time!"