You stumbled to the bathroom and splashed cold water on your face, then leaned on the sink, staring down, trying to work out what the fuck your brain just did.
A dream about Bucky? A dream about kissing Bucky? What in the flying fuck?
It had to have been the alcohol from the party. The alcohol made your brain weird, then your little showdown with him in the hallway meant that your dream just tried to put two very odd trains of thought together.
Thinking Bucky was hot? No chance.
Although there was an odd throb below your stomach that you were trying to ignore.
It had probably all happened because it’s been so long since you’ve been with anyone. Your body was just trying to get whatever it could from your completely fictional dreams. That’s all it was, and that’s all it was ever going to be.
You decided to just have a shower and get started on your day, seeing as you weren’t really in the mindset to risk going back to sleep. You stood under the water, trying desperately not to think about your dream again, but your brain wanted to make you suffer, because it kept flashing images of Bucky kissing you, and your fingers kept tingling.
You stomped into your room after your shower, huffed your way through getting dressed, and stomped to the lab to get an early start on your work. As you stormed through, you noticed the clock was displaying a bright ‘8.42am’. Great, that meant you had at least 4 hours to yourself until Tony would wake up, going by his usual after party pattern.
You were wrong - Tony didn’t wake up until 2pm.
By that time, you had already ‘fixed’ DUM-E, already gone through the list of things that Tony wanted adding to the Mark 42 suit, and had actually started working on some new blasting arrows for Clint. You had a soft spot for the guy (even though you had never met), because you felt bad that he was trying to keep up with a band of super assassins, super soldiers, and super powered people. So, you tried to give him a helping hand when you could, and Tony always took the credit, as usual.
“Ughh I feel like death.” Tony groaned as he walked through the lab over to you. You didn’t even look up.
“There’s coffee on the side, you need to warm it up though.”
“Thanks kid.” He yawned as he ruffled your hair. “Great party. So many people came, they all had a great time,” He continued, shoving his coffee in the microwave. “Almost ran out of booze, they were having that much of a good time. Especially the gin.”
Your heart skipped the tiniest beat.
“Really, gin? Hardly surprising, everyone drinks that these days.”
“Hmm that’s what I thought as well.” Came Tony’s voice. You chanced a look at him. He was looking at you weird. “Turns out, there was someone earlier in the night that ordered quite a lot of gin for themselves.”
“Well, hopefully that person isn’t vomiting today.” You laughed, trying to join in the banter, but knowing very well that this was erring on a side of conversation that you didn’t want to have. After all, you had a lot of gin last night.
“I don’t think they would be. Ordering the amount of gin they did, it would have to be someone that ...handles alcohol very well.” The microwaved beeped, but Tony made no move to get it.
“Not sure Captain America is a gin kind of person, if that’s what you’re insinuating.” You said, looking back at your work.
“You know very well what I’m insinuating.” Tony said, his voice in that warning kind of tone that meant ‘you are in so much trouble’.
Luckily, you were saved by the bell. Well, the door. Someone knocking on the door.
You looked at Tony, who looked at you.
“I can’t answer it can I? I'm not supposed to exist.” You taunted, starting to stand up. Tony rolled his eyes and sighed before going to the door and tapping the peephole.
Then he suddenly swung the door open. You squeaked and rushed to throw yourself off the chair - what the hell was he doing, opening the door before you had disappeared?!
“Barnes.” You heard Tony say from above the counters. You internally groaned and hit your head on the floor in despair. Why? Why him? “My assistant is somewhere on the floor over there. Try not to step on her. Too hard.”
“Oh haha Tony you are absolutely hilarious.” You retorted, pulling yourself up and rubbing your aching butt, which you happened to land on. You saw stupid Bucky stepping into the lab with his stupid face.
Your brain instantly remembered your dream. You looked away from him.
“What can I help you with?” Tony asked him, making Bucky stop staring at you and turn to him instead.
“FRIDAY reminded me that you wanted to check on my arm today. Figured I’d pop in before heading to the gym.” Bucky replied.
Him and that goddamn arm. One day, he hopefully won’t need anything doing to it and he can bloody leave you alone.
“Oh yeah, sit down and I’ll have a look.”
You pulled yourself back onto your stool, purposefully avoiding both the men’s gaze and going back to your arrows.
“How are you today, Amy?”
Your eyes widened at Bucky’s question, and your hands froze. You knew Tony was still in the room. You didn’t look up.
“What did you just call her?” You heard Tony ask. You swallowed, painfully, and slowly set down your tools, with the idea of just running out of the room. “Did you just call her Amy?”
The silence in the room was deafening. You could imagine their faces behind you; Tony in utter confusion, and Bucky in utter shock.
“Uhh..yeah? That’s what she said her name was?” Bucky replied. You screwed your eyes shut. Please stop talking, please stop talking.
“Oh really? And when did she say this?”
“She is in the room you know?!” You snapped, whirling around to them. Tony had his arms crossed over his chest, glaring at you.
“Your name isn’t Amy?” Bucky asked. You rolled your eyes.
“No shit sherlock.” You muttered.
“Not a bad name though.” Tony commented. You threw eye daggers at him. “When did you have this conversation about your name?” He asked you, but just as you opened your mouth, Bucky replied instead.
“Last night, after the party.” Bucky said, before looking over at you with a victorious look in his eyes. How dare he?
“The party? Well that’s interesting, considering Amy wasn’t allowed to go, and the whole room was secured.” Tony said in a very serious tone of voice as he stepped towards you.
“I did think that, but there she was, at the party, having a chat with everyone.”
You wanted to kill Bucky. You physically wanted to kill him. You glared at him with murderous eyes, but he just kept a sickly innocent smile on his face.
The tense air was interrupted when the cutting machine next to you suddenly came alive and started whirring.
You flinched. Tony jumped. Bucky snapped his head over to it. You panicked.
“Stupid machine. Always doing that.” You laughed, humourlessly, rushing over to turn it off. You caught Tony’s eyes, which had now morphed from being not impressed, to being scared.
“You need to go to your room.” Tony snapped. “We will talk about this later.”
You didn’t know what came over you. Whether it was the fact that your dream was still lingering in your mind as Bucky was staring you down, or the fact that Tony clearly already knew you went to the party, or the stupid machine scaring the shit out of you - you’d had enough.
“Look. Tony, you knew I went to that party. This isn’t shocking to you. Bucky, you’re being an asshole, knowing that Tony said I couldn’t go. Now, SOME OF US are trying to work, so if you would just fuck about with his arm and all shove off, I WOULD FUCKING APPRECIATE IT!” You yelled, storming over to the counter you were working on, grabbing your tools and the half finished arrows, and heading to your room.
Tony stepped in front of you, blocking your way.
“Out the way Tony.” You muttered, not wanting to deal with this right now.
“You can’t talk to me like that then run off.”
“There’s someone else here.” You whispered, hoping he had the good sense to leave it for now.
“I’m aware. What I’m also aware of, is that Barnes is apparently the only person that pushes your buttons more than me. And right now, you’re pushing my buttons. So here’s what is going to happen.” Tony put his hands on your shoulders and turned you around to face the asshole supersoldier, who had just been sitting there like a lost puppy the whole time. “You want time out of this room? You got it. But wherever you go, he goes.” Tony said, pointing at Bucky.
The arrows and tools clattered out of your hands.
“WHAT?!” You shouted.
“That’s the deal. You want out, and frankly, I’m sick of keeping you out. You can go wherever you want, as long as he is there with you.”
“Absolutely not.”
“Then you’re not leaving.” Tony concluded.
The room was tense, once again. The anger was bubbling inside of you. You couldn’t believe that Tony was even suggesting this. There was no way in hell that you would be walking around willingly with Bucky fucking Barnes.
“Don’t I get a say in this?” Bucky finally piped up. “I don’t really wanna be stuck with her either, whatever her name is.”
“I think this is the least you could do.” Tony warned, and Bucky shrank down a little. “It’s a deal then? Great. FRIDAY, make sure they have each other’s numbers.” He turned to you. “You text him whenever you want to leave, wait for him to get here, otherwise FRIDAY will make a shitshow of an alarm through the compound, got it?”
You had nothing to fight back with. You had no snarky comment. No rebuttal. No argument at all. And your fingers felt like they had pins and needles in them.
You nodded.
“Great. You can go now.” Tony replied, gesturing to your room, which you gladly stormed off to.
Then, as if nothing happened, Tony picked up his tools again, and headed over to have a look at Bucky’s arm. The two men were silent for a few moments, until Bucky asked the question burning in his mind.
“What is her name?” He asked. Tony chuckled.
“You’ll have to get that information out of her I’m afraid.”
“I just...I’m confused. The last impression I got was you didn't want me, or anyone anywhere near her."
"Where did you get that idea?" Tony scoffed. Bucky just raised his eyebrow."Yeah okay, I get it. Look, she's going to be going wherever whether I like it or not, and to be honest, you apparently seem to find your way to each other every time. So, that’s the deal. Consider your debt officially paid off, and consider her officially off my back.” Tony said, looking into Bucky’s arm.
"I...why not ask Steve?" Bucky managed to ask.
"She is very good at persuading people. And, with everything that's happened between us, I don't think you would double cross me, even if she asks you to." Bucky gulped at Tony’s reasoning, then nodded.
Well, Bucky thought, the good news was that now he had more time with you to try and break down some of these walls you had up.