Days passed, and Bucky never texted me back.
I knew they weren't in too deep to use their phones; I'd called Natasha to ask what sort of groceries she wanted me to stock her kitchen with, and she'd answered and gave me a list. Granted, I'd heard gunshots in the background, and she'd had to put down the phone for a few minutes while I listened to her beating someone up. So I imagined Bucky was busy as well. I tried not to read too much into his silence.
I'd started sleeping on Wanda's couch. The first night that Nat was gone, I hadn't felt comfortable enough with Wanda to ask to stay with her. I'd only met her the previous day, after all.
But I'd heard a knock on the door of Nat's apartment before I went to bed that night. When I opened it, Wanda was smiling and holding up a bottle of rosé.
She'd told me that she thought I wouldn't want to be by myself. And that was true. But I think she'd wanted a friend too.
As it turned out, she had more wine in her apartment, and by two in the morning, I was drunkenly painting her nails (and a large area of skin around her nails) and telling her how beautiful her cuticles were. We passed out on her bed with The Office autoplaying in the background.
The work week was stressful. My mom had seen some pictures online of me hugging Tony in the coffee shop, and I'd lied to her when she called in a panic, asking why I was around an Avenger again. I told her I just met up with Tony for a coffee. I'd have to tell her I was quitting and coming back eventually, but I'd do it in person, where I could make sure she would be okay.
I'd turned in my resignation, so I was wracked with guilt at leaving them short a professor for next semester, and I still had to get my students through finals.
After four nights of hearing me complain on her couch as I graded and emailed, Wanda had become invested in my students. "Did Hunter ever get his shit together?" she asked as I began entering grades on Friday night.
"Nope. He failed."
"Dammit, Hunter!"
"He'll be fine. Rich parents."
Wanda shook her head in disgust. "What about Heather?"
"A on the final. Brought her to an 89% for the class, but I'm bumping it to an A."
"Amazing. Iconic. Inspirational. Both of you."
"We try."
"Hey, did Bucky ever text you back?"
"Nope," I laughed. The way she said it made me feel like a teenager at a sleepover. I'd never experienced that before, and I couldn't imagine Wanda had either. It was fun. Something about having gossip to discuss with her was almost worth the sting of rejection.
"He must be dead."
"Um, I hope not. He's probably busy."
"Dead makes more sense. It doesn't make sense that he wouldn't take 5 seconds to text you otherwise. I've been in his head. He's basically obsessed with you."
I could've shuddered at the wording, remembering how Natasha had said the same thing about Rumlow. "Don't say "obsessed" like that. He's not."
"Okay, infatuated, then."
"Well, I think he changed his mind."
"What a dick!"
"When you read his thoughts," I began, deciding how to breach the subject. "...Is that, like, on purpose?"
"No," she said, somber, and began choosing her words carefully. "Or, not always. He thinks very loudly sometimes. Louder than anyone else. It's hard to describe—he...is not well. In his head. When I start to feel something very personal from him, I tune it out and stop listening. But I've had to leave the room before because of the noise. He's in so much pain. When you wouldn't expect him to be—in a meeting, he'll look blank faced, but inside is so dark."
"So...why did you listen to him thinking about me the other day?"
"Okay, I stayed for that one on purpose," Wanda admitted. "I felt his energy when he came in. He was thinking about—well, I shouldn't tell you. A bad memory. I was already in his head on accident, so I felt his energy shift when he saw you."
"Aw, really?" I said, warm.
She laughed, shaking her head at me. "Don't say 'aw' like that. He just got horny."
"Oh."
"I tease him about smaller thoughts like that so he's aware that I can hear sometimes. Just so he'll know to...be careful around me. So he knows not to think certain things around me. I don't think he would respond well if I approached him about it directly. And I don't think he'd want to know that his thoughts stand out so much in comparison to others."
"That's really thoughtful of you, actually."
"Well, thinking comes with the territory," she said painedly, pointing at her head, as if to signify 'mind powers.' "But I do have to confess that I looked in your head too. When you were speaking to Bucky, I mean. I was feeling nosy, but I also wanted to make sure you weren't uncomfortable with how he was flirting with you."
"Oh, did I seem uncomfortable?" I asked, wondering if Bucky thought that too.
"No, but some women are very good at hiding it. I do it in bars, too. Just little peeks to see if they need an exit. You certainly didn't."
"Huh. I wish you'd been there on my last date."
"I wish that too! Seriously, I'll follow you on dates if you want me to. Steve and Nat keep saying I need to practice being covert anyway."
"Maybe you can practice hiding in a bush or something next time I'm on a date. If Bucky keeps ignoring me, I mean."
"I'm going to look in his head for you next time I see him if he still hasn't texted you back," she said uncertainly. "Is that bad? I feel bad, but I also feel like it would be for his own good. He's so self-destructive sometimes."
"I don't know. Still probably not great."
"I'm going to do it, I think. He needs it so bad, Grace."
"Needs what?"
"Sex."
I blinked. "I don't think that's gonna fix his problems."
"No, this is a separate thing. Not about his thoughts. I just think he'd benefit in general from a nice girl touching his dick sometimes."
I sighed and rested my head back on the couch behind me, staring at the ceiling. "I bet it's really big," I said wistfully.
Wanda groaned. "Don't be horny on my couch. Go somewhere else."
"I'm not horny, I'm sad. There's a difference."
"You're sad that his dick is probably big," she repeated.
"Yeah, 'cause he's not texting me back."
"Okay, never mind. You need it worse than he does, apparently. Just find another date. You don't have to wait for him."
"I don't want any random date."
She rolled her eyes. "Do you use dating apps?"
"Yeah, I'm on Bumble. But I don't really have time to use it. That date I was talking about was, like, a year ago, and it didn't go anywhere."
"When was the last time it...went somewhere?" she asked, scrutinizing me like she was trying to figure out just how pent up I was.
"Another professor at the university," I told her. "He's the only person I've ever slept with, and it only lasted a couple months. This was a year or so ago. It was just hard to meet people for a long time, I guess. 'Cause I was so young in high school and college. I was never around people my own age. I just listened to Taylor Swift and pretended someone broke my heart."
"What happened with the professor?"
"Oh, bad decision. I was like, 'ooo an older man in a tweed jacket wants to do me on the desk in his office, I'm finally becoming the main character in a romance novel.'"
"And it wasn't a romance novel?"
"Yeah, he just wanted to sleep with me because I was young and inexperienced and easy to manipulate. He teaches law. He dumped me for being too sensitive."
"Oh, no. I'm sorry. I'll kill him."
"No, thanks," I said. "I'm over it. But I haven't really felt secure enough with anyone since."
"I'm asking only out of curiosity: weren't you going to sleep with Bucky the day after you met him?"
I hadn't really thought about that. But she was right. I'd never felt so comfortable so fast with a man who was acting interested in me. I hadn't been lying when I told Bucky I'd never said yes to giving someone my phone number.
I thought about him—"Do you want me to go?"
"How do I get you to warm up to me?"
"You better take some control back."
Something about the way he put things in the open, too. He was never manipulative or rehearsed or calculating—he didn't seem to think much at all before speaking, and it still always ended up being sweet and well meaning in his way. Clumsy, sometimes. An embarrassing train wreck, sometimes. But safe and genuine and wary of making me nervous.
"I just—I know it's big, Wanda," I said. "I felt it a little bit when I was on his lap, so I'm pretty sure I'm right."
She gave me an exasperated look, like she knew that wasn't the whole story. I didn't really want to tell her how enamored I was with Bucky already.
"Give me your phone," she said, extending her hand. "I'll find someone else."
While I graded, I let Wanda swipe through my Bumble, narrating along the way as she found matches for me and messaged them. It seemed innocent enough; I thought she just wanted to immerse herself in some tepid drama.
I wasn't worried until she started snickering to herself. I craned my neck to see what she was doing, but she jerked the phone away.
"What? Who are you messaging?"
She threw her head back to cackle and kept typing.
I moved my laptop off my lap and leaned over to look at the screen. "Oh my god, is that Sam Wilson?"
She nodded through her laughter.
"I didn't even know he was in New York right now," I said. "What did he say? What are you saying to him? Stop typing—I'm gonna have to see him at work! You were supposed to just talk to strangers!"
"Calm down, he thinks it's funny that you matched," Wanda said.
"He swiped right on me as a joke?" I asked, offended.
She looked up curiously. "Does that...bother you?"
"No," I said quickly.
"Oh my god," Wanda laughed, catching on. "You have a crush."
"I had a—" I started to correct her, then gave up. "It doesn't matter. What's he saying?"
"I think he swiped right because you haven't been speaking to him anywhere else," she said. "Have you been ignoring his texts? He asked why. He's worried about you."
I sighed. "I was ignoring everyone's texts before I came back here."
"Do you want me to ask him on a date for you?" she asked.
"No!" I said.
"How should I tell him you're doing?" she asked. "Pining over Bucky's—"
"Tell him I'm fine and not to worry."
She typed out a reply, then looked up again.
"Now he's asking how Spooky Rick is doing? I don't know how to reply. Who's Spooky Rick?"
I snorted. "That's an android that he hated. It was kind of terrifying because I'd used an old mannequin head as a stand in for what I'd wanted to add later, and Sam kept making a big deal about it. So I used to reprogram it sometimes so it would haunt him. He'd be trying to eat or work in peace and he'd see its creepy Old Navy mannequin face in the corner. I wasted two days of work just bothering him with it."
Wanda stared at me blankly. "...Is that what you think flirting is?"
"Shut up," I said. "But you're right, it was awful. No one thought it was funny except us. When I was packing my stuff when I quit, I finally let Thor smash it with his hammer. So just tell Sam Spooky Rick's back in Hell where it belongs."
"It's good you guys have inside jokes, I guess," Wanda muttered as she typed. "He wants to see you really badly. You're going to have to see him soon. Should I try to make it sexy? See what he says?"
"I'm going to kill you."
"I can keep it platonic?"
"Keep it platonic!"
She narrowed her eyes at me. "Coward."
I sighed in relief when she typed something else and put my phone down. I returned to my laptop.
Seconds later, my phone dinged again. Wanda reached it before I could.
"Do you ever send nudes?" she asked.
"You're banned from my phone. Give it back. You're gonna ruin my life."
"It's not for Sam! Different guy, seems really nice—"
"YOU'RE BANNED."
A/N: lyke and subscrb