Too high, can't come down
It's in the air and it's all around
Can you feel me now?
With a taste of your lips, I'm on a ride
You're toxic, I'm slippin' under
With a taste of a poison paradise
I'm addicted to you
Don't you know that you're toxic?
And I love what you do
Don't you know that you're toxic?
~Toxic.
(By: Britney Spears.)
Decisions are usually easier to make when you're not the one making them. Sometimes you get your decisions taken by others for you and it just saves your time of overthinking about coming up with an answer.
On a beautiful day, Bucky was working in his office on a bombshell, he had been assembling for a while, now, when his landline started ringing.
Answering the call, he pressed the speaker button, "yes, Elena?" He asked, flipping a page of the file he was reading.
"Sir, you'll be leaving for a meeting in an hour and you don't have any other meeting for the next hour after that." Elena said while Bucky read through the lines.
"Why are you telling me my schedule for today, when I already know that." Bucky said in a monotone since she was just wasting his time.
"Sorry, sir. But I wanted to ask, if you could have a meeting right now?" She asked.
"With whom?" He asked, flipping another page.
"A Ms. Lin is here and was asking if you could meet?" Elena answered and Bucky furrowed his brows, keeping the file down on the desk.
"What's the full name?" He asked in a deep voice, feeling his heart beat a bit faster.
"Uhm- Connie Lin." Elena said and Bucky took a sharp breath, shutting his eyes. "Shall I assign a meeting room, sir?" She asked.
"Uh- just send her in my office, it's not a meeting." Bucky said in a low, deep voice and hung up the call with an unamused face.
He leaned back in his seat, running his fingers into his hair, looking at the ceiling.
"Just when I dared to think that today was gonna be a great day." He murmured to himself in a throaty voice and sighed before dropping his arms on the desk to get back to work.
After a while, Elena opened the door of his office to escort Connie inside.
"Thank you." Connie said in a cheerful voice to Elena, walking inside before she left and Connie looked at Bucky with a huge smile.
"Bucky Barnes." She said beaming at him and walking towards him.
"Connie Lin." Bucky exhaled deeply, turning his seat and standing up while buttoning up his suit jacket as he was walking around the table.
"How are you?" She asked in a shrill giving Bucky a side hug.
"I'm absolutely fine, thanks. How about you?" He asked, swaying his arm in the direction of the sofa in front of his seat, leading her up to it.
"I'm great. It's been a long time since we last met." She said in a thin voice, taking a seat while Bucky walked back to his and sat down. "You know, when we-"
"Yes." Bucky cut her off. "I remember, Connie." He added, raising his brows and she chuckled.
"I bet you do." She said, resting her arm over the armrest, holding her palms, together, looking at Bucky with a smirk.
Letting a soft chukle out, "Why are you here, Connie?" He asked in a husky voice, narrowing his eyes a little, keeping his palms over his desk.
"Well, you know, I had to." She replied in a shrill, raising her brows with a grin on her face. "After the word got around about the two business tycoons finally putting their faces to thier fame and fortune. You and Steve stole the whole market since you guys launched out in the magazines and what not, last month and it's still going up the charts" She added, smirking at Bucky.
Taking a deep breath, Bucky rolled his eyes, internally, at her response.
"Thank you for the compliments." Bucky said in a deep voice, slapping on a small smile while looking at her.
"Ofcourse." Connie said, twinkling at him. "But have to say, I was very disappointed when I found out about your little girlfriend." She added, dropping her smile and Bucky clenched his jaw with dark eyes, glaring at Connie.
Meanwhile, Krystal was on her way down to Bucky's office, to get an insight on an top shelf design, she had to send out today. Wearing a pair of dark peach pants and a black half turtle neck underneath a black blazer, she was striding down the corridor of his office.
"Uh- Ms. Ivy, Mr. Barnes is with someone." Elena said making Krystal's feet to stop infront of her.
"He doesn't attend meetings in his office." Krystal stated furrowing her brows at her. "Anyway, I won't take long." She said, walking past Elena and before she could say anything else, Krystal had already pushed the door of his office.
As she stepped inside, the door closed behind her and her eyes landed on Bucky's astounded face, flickering between her and the person sitting in front of him.
"I'm sorry to distur-" Krystal swallowed the rest of her words when the person sitting on the sofa, turned around with a smile, to look at her.
Krystal furrowed her brows, when she looked at Connie's already smug face.
"Hi, Krystal." Connie said in a rhythmic voice, sending her a toothy grin while tilting her head.
Krystal couldn't make up words in her mind as she didn't exactly know what to ask first. Ask her what she was doing there or why was she there or just storm out of the room. So, she was just staring at her making different faces as her brain got overwhelmed.
"Krys-" Bucky said standing up but she raised a finger at him, stopping him right where he was.
"What was going on before I came in?" She asked with raised brows still glaring at Connie.
"Connie was just leaving." Bucky said and Connie stood up, chuckling, softly.
"Yes, I was. It was really nice to meet you, Bucky. We're gonna be meeting, again, real soon." She mischievously said, sending Bucky a wink before, turning around and walking towards the door.
Connie narrowed her eyes at Krystal as she passed her and reached the door and opened it to leave the office.
"What. The fuck. Was she doing here?" Krystal asked, breathing heavily from anger and looking at Bucky who was walking towards her.
"She just read the published articles about us all and came to talk about them." Bucky said, standing infront of her, who had her heart racing for some reason.
"She came down here just to talk about the articles?" Krystal asked, wrinkling her eyes, looking up at him.
Bucky let out a stuck breath, "I'll explain it, doll. But I really have to be somewhere right now." He said, holding her arms and Krystal scoffed, shaking her head.
"Ofcourse, you do." She said sarcastically. "Just sign this, I have to send it." She said, slamming the file in her hand, over his chest and Bucky shut his eyes at the disrespect but he had expected that.
Holding the file, Bucky went back to his desk and signed the file before giving it back to Krystal.
"Krys-"
"Don't worry about it." She snatched the file from his hand and turned on her heels and stormed out of the office, not listening to him.
Licking his lips and stroking his lower one between his teeth, Bucky exhaled sharply before walking towards his desk and picked up a folder before leaving his office.
Striding out of his firm, Bucky went down to the Rumlow industries and since he knew that Krystal was upset with him because he didn't give any credible explanation for why Connie was in his office, he was a tad bit extra pissed off.
Reaching the building of the asshole, he had went to meet, Bucky went inside. To say that his reputation precedes him would be an understatement because the moment he reached the reception, he didn't even need to introduce himself and was escorted to where he wanted to go.
"Thank you very much." Bucky said in a low voice to the escort, who opened the door to Brock's office for him.
"Pleasure is all mine, sir." The girl said and Bucky sent her a sharp nod, before stepping inside and she closed the door, behind him.
"Well, if it isn't the infamous James Barnes." Brock said, sitting on a chair behind a desk with his elbows tucked over it, looking at Bucky with a smug face.
"Rumlow." Bucky said in a dark voice, standing opposite to the table, looking down at him.
"Did Krystal get on your nerves finally?" He asked, leaning back on his seat and Bucky clenched his fist in his pocket while his jaw tightened but he chuckled with a smirk, darkly at him.
"Unlike you, Rumlow, I have a widely successful company to run and don't have time to waste. So, I'll come straight to business." Bucky said in a husky voice making Brock to get stern, as well.
"Which is, what exactly?" Brock asked raising his brows a little.
"You are fired." Bucky spit out, narrowing his eyes at Brock, who furrowed his brows and let out a chuckle.
"Excuse me?" Brock said, with a smirk on his lips while a small smile crept over Bucky's, enjoying this whole situation.
"Pack up your things and leave." The blue eyed man said, tilting his head at him and Brock laughed, shaking his head and Bucky licked his lips, glaring at Brock.
"Did you hit your head somewhere, Barnes?" Brock asked in a thin voice. "You're standing in my company." He added, dropping his guise and turning into sincerity.
"That's where you're wrong." Bucky's voice was deep and dark, when he took a step towards the desk infront of Brock. "As of today, I'm the owner of Rumlow Industries." He stated, slamming the file that was in his hand, on the table before taking a seat on the sofa, facing Brock.
Brock frowned and picked up the file while Bucky leaned back and kept his leg over the other, savouring the wave of expressions running over Brock's face as he was going through the pages in the file.
Taking a sharp breath, "Didn't your father teach you before handing over the company to you numskull that you should never leave 79% of your company's shares in the hands of others." Bucky said in a raspy voice, smirking at Brock who was breathing heavily, flipping the pages.
"H- how- you can't-"
"-be the sole shareholder other than you. Because it's in your bye laws, which your father transferred to you before leaving the company?" Bucky completed his words in shrewdness and Brock shot his head up to look at him, dumbfounded.
"Well, I'm not. I only own 40% of the shares but you know, it's good to have a best pal in your life who's ready to sign off on the deal to hold the other 39% of the company, to make me the majority shareholder." He added with a soft smile, intertwining his fingers, making Brock to swallow down, hard, and look at him with utter fear.
That right there is the face I've been dreaming to see since the day I saw this dumbfuck with My doll. Thought ran through Bucky's head.
"How did buy off the other holders?" Brock asked in almost a whisper making Bucky to let out a soft chuckle.
"Everyone's got a price, Rumlow." He replied in a raspy voice, running his tongue over his teeth with his mouth closed.
"But that still doesn't make you the owner." Brock said throwing the file with a spin on the table and leaning back on his seat.
Bucky grinned at his naive behaviour.
"Being the majority shareholder, I transferred the ownership of the company to myself and to legitimise the action, I got Steve Rogers' signature." He said calmly, enjoying it a little too much, seeing Brock crumble inside his own body.
Brock rested his arms over the desk, staring into the void while the whole thing seeped into his brain and Bucky smirked while standing up, shoving his hands in his pockets.
"Now, here's what you're gonna do-" Bucky said in a deep voice, looking down at a drowning Brock. "You're gonna sign off your 21% of the shares to a good friend of mine- Billy Russo within the hour because, you know, I could just hold a board meeting and do it myself." He added, smirking down at Brock who was looking as if he'll start crying at any moment, now.
Bucky took a deep breath, witnessing the moment he had been waiting for, for so long.
"And just take everything you want from this office, 'cause I'll be demolishing this building." Bucky said making Brock to snap his head up to look at him. "It looks too cheap for my liking." He added running his eyes over the dull walls of the office.
"No, no no no no no, please no." Brock said, standing up and spreading his hands infront of Bucky while he had his eyes squinted at him.
"It's my company." Just one sentence and Brock's whole egoistic nature came tumbling down.
"No, Barnes. This is what my father built. I gave my whole life to this company, please don't do this." Brock begged with tears on the brim of his eyes and Bucky was feeling satisfied seeing him so fucking helpless and weak, just like he had made Krystal feel all those years.
"You should've thought about this everytime you hurt Krystal." Bucky grunted out through his clenched jaw while his muscles, stiffened.
Brock was breathing heavily with his lips pressed together, brows were tucked in the middle while Bucky took everything from him in just a matter of minutes.
***
While working in her office, Krystal was having a hard time focusing because of her run in with Connie, earlier, in Bucky's office.
Slamming the pen in her hand, down on the file she was reading, she laced her fingers into her smooth hair, closing her eyes while resting her forehead over her palms and exhaled deeply.
Her phone started ringing.
Flinching, slightly, at the ring, Krystal moved her gaze over to the her phone, sitting on the desk beside her file and saw an unknown number flashing on the screen. Sighing, she picking up the phone and answered the call.
"Who's this?" She asked in a gruff, sinking her head into her palm with her phone over her ear.
"Woah, grumpy." Deep voice of a man came through.
Frowning, "Grant?" She asked, pulling her head back and keeping her arm down on the desk.
"Yes, ma'am." Grant said and Krystal could see his smile on the other end of the call. "Are you alright? You sound exhausted." He asked.
"Yeah, no, I'm fine." Krystal said, sighing deeply. "What's up?" She asked, rubbing her forehead with her free hand.
"Uhm- I was wondering if we could get a cup of coffee and just catch up?" Grant asked, hesitantly and Krystal took a deep breath, listening to him.
"Oh- uhm-" she got caught off-guard by the offer but then Connie's face spiked in the back of her head. "You know, what? Yes, let's go for a coffee." She answered, confidently.
"Great. When are you free?" Grant asked, cheerfully.
"Uhm- how about right now?" Krystal asked wrinkling her eyes, hopefully.
"Uh- yeah, yeah, sure." Grant replied, chuckling, lightly.
"Perfect." Krystal said, smiling to herself.
"Yeah-" he chuckled. "I'll text you the address." He added in a soft voice.
"Okay, I'll meet you there." Krystal said, holding the grin.
"Alright. Bye."
"Bye." Krystal said before hanging up the call and stood up from her seat.
Picking up her blazer from the backrest of her seat, Krystal wore it while walking out of her office.
As she was going down the building, she received the address from Grant and went down to the coffee shop. Pushing the glass door of the shop, she stepped inside and ran her eyes over the place to find the familiar face and soon her eyes landed on Grant sitting on a circular couch facing her with a smile.
Krystal twinkled at him before striding down to him.
"Hi." She said while he stood up to greet her.
"Hello. How are you?" Grant asked, giving her a side hug.
"I'm great, thanks. You?" She asked, taking a seat infront of him with a smile resting on her lips, while Grant took his seat back.
"I'm good, too." Grant said, sending her a tight smile and Krystal nodded her head with a grin.
"So, How have you been? What did you do the last two years?" She asked, chuckling softly and resting her arms over the table, looking at him.
Raising his brows with a smile, "Well, after I went back to LA, I pretty much buried myself into work, closed myself off from the world, from all attachments." He said, chuckling and Krystal pressed her lips with a little smile, feeling like it was her fault.
"Hey guys, what can I get you two lovely people?" A waiter asked, holding his arms in his front with a smile, catching both of their attentions and Krystal thanked the god in that moment.
"Uhm- a café au lait for me, thanks." Krystal said looking up at him with a grin.
"Yes, make that two, please." Grant said, sending the man a soft nod.
"Perfect. Thank you." The man said before walking away from their table and Krystal looked back at Grant, finding the whole thing a tad bit awkward.
"So, how did you and James, meet?" Grant asked, keeping his arms over the table, looking at Krystal with tenderness.
"Oh-" slipped from Krystal's mouth while a smile reached her lips. "We both went to the same art school..."
Krystal went on to tell all about her and Bucky's love story. They both shared words over their cups of coffees, reminiscing a few good days from Grant's last visit to New York.
"So what happened after I left? I didn't exactly speak to Brock after that day." Grant asked, taking a sip of his coffee and Krystal took an irregular breath, thinking about the day.
"Nothing, really. He was upset, ofcourse, but after a while he forgave me, so it was alright." Krystal lied through her teeth, not matching Grant's eye line and he chuckled, lightly.
"Even after two years, you still can't lie, Ivy." Grant said in a raspy voice, glaring at her.
"Well-" Krystal smiled just to play it off. "He was really angry but he was still engaged to me and that wasn't gonna change." She giggled, looking at him. "But, yeah he was pretty furious but got over it after a while." She pressed her lips. "Anyway, forget about it." She chuckled, flicking her hand with a chuckle.
"Alright." Grant said in a shrill, smiling at Krystal and her eyes caught the clock hanging on the wall.
"Woah, I totally lost track of time." She said, picking her phone from the table.
"Oh, yeah. Me too." Grant said, letting out a soft chuckle, while they both stood up, getting out of the table.
"It was really nice to catch up, Grant. I'm glad we could move past the awkwardness." Krystal said, giggling while giving him a side hug.
"Me, too. See you soon." Grant said with a soft smile while Krystal sent him a nod before walking away.
Leaving the coffee shop, Krystal went down to the firm to meet Bucky. Reaching his office, she pushed the door in to find him sitting on his desk, speaking to someone on the phone.
"No, it's not a big deal, man. I know how much calibre you have, I can't think of a better man for the job." Bucky said on the call while Krystal came inside and his eyes followed her as she took a seat infront of him.
"Alright, meet you soon, Bill." Bucky said in a deep voice with a small smile before hanging up the call.
Krystal was leaning back on the sofa with her legs crossed and palms resting over her thighs, looking at Bucky.
"Where were you?" Bucky asked with raised brows, intertwining his fingers over the table.
"I went for a coffee with Grant." She bluntly answered with no hesitation and Bucky gulped down, taking a sharp breath.
"With Grant?" He asked with drapped eyes, looking at her and she hummed while nodding her head.
"But, it was just as friends, we talked about common stuff, no innuendos. Don't be an insecure boyfriend." Krystal said just to clarify the situation.
"I'm not insecure." He said in a dark voice. "But why, him?" He asked, furrowing his brows a little.
Taking a deep breath, "I was getting a headache thinking about Connie and then he called and asked if I wanted to catch a coffee, so I said yes." She shrugged, rolling her eyes a little.
"That's it?" Bucky asked sternly.
"Yes, Buck. Can't say the same about you, though." She answered, throwing her head back and Bucky exhaled sharply.
"About that-" he said. "Connie saw the articles about our firm and when she saw you with me, she remembered you from college and just came here to see if it were true." He added in a deep voice and Krystal looked at him through her lashes.
"Really? Nothing else?" Krystal asked in a husky voice while her face turned into a plump.
"Nothing else." Bucky stated with a soft smile. "I love you, doll. But you do look cute when you're jealous." He said squinting his eyes, playfully.
"I wasn't... Jealous." She murmured while her cheeks started burning, looking at Bucky's eyes, piercing into her soul. "Okay, fine. I was." She squealed, beaming at him. "But there's just too much history between you two and I can't bear the thought of losing you to anyone." She said, wrinkling her brows and pouting at Bucky.
Listening to her, Bucky stood up from his seat and went around the desk to get infront of her while her eyes travelled up to meet his. He held his palms out and Krystal slipped hers into his, before he pulled her up into his chest. His back was leaning on the desk while his arms rested on her lower back with hers over his chest with her lips pressed into a thin smile.
"You'll never lose me, doll." He muttered in a deep voice, gazing into her brown eyes. "I promise. You belong to me and I belong to you." He added before snaking his arm up to hold the back of her neck and smash her lips over his.
Covering her lips, Bucky kissed her dominantly, holding her head, making her moan into his mouth and wrap her arms around his neck to deepen the kiss while Bucky, slightly, thrusted her back upwards into his body.
Krystal broke the kiss when they both ran out of breath with closed eyes.
Breathing heavily, "I love you so much." She whispered, slowly opening her eyes to meet his and Bucky smiled, lightly before attaching their lips to give her a loving gentle kiss.
"I love you, furmoasa." Bucky mumbled in a raspy voice making Krystal beam at him with a fluttering heart.
Turns out, talking things out is always a better option than acting like a teenager and come up with your own versions to a story. But was Bucky telling her the truth is the real question to ask.
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