I was sitting on the end of the couch watching the TV when I felt Bucky came in the room. The feeling of calm rushed over when he came closer to me.
"Hey." He said, kissing the top of my head before he lay down next to me, resting his head on my lap. He let out a deep sigh and didn't even bother to look at the TV.
"You ok?" I asked as I ran my fingers through his hair. He was tired. I could tell from the dark circles under his eyes and the fatigue-like feeling I got from him.
"Just... exhausted." He answered with his eyes shut. "I'm just too worried about you to sleep." He thought truthfully.
I turned off the TV, took one of his hands and rubbed my thumb across his knuckles.
"Well I'm here and I feel fine. Just nap here for a bit." I said. Bucky smiled and lazily brought our hands up to his mouth and kissed my hand.
"I love you." He mumbled.
"I love you too." I said with a small smile.
Soon enough, Bucky fell peacefully asleep. Soft snores left his mouth as I sat there, lightly scratching his head. The peacefulness I felt coming from him made me feel calm too.
I didn't bother to turn the TV back on, 1, I didn't want to wake Bucky and 2, nothing was interesting on the TV right now.
Later, Tony came into the living room. He looked down at me and saw Bucky asleep.
"Why is he asleep at 2:30 in the afternoon?" He asked.
"He's not been sleeping well. It'll just give him a boost." I answered.
"Well fine. He needs to go on a mission anyways." He said. I gave him a puzzled look. Tony doesn't tell me about someone else's missions. I also didn't know that Bucky had to do missions for the Avengers too. Tony realised my confusion and started to explain.
"It's just a scouting mission in Manhattan. There's something big that's come up that needs investigated. We just need him to check it before the end of the day." He said. I nodded my head and looked down at Bucky.
"Can you wait an hour so he can function enough for the mission?" I asked. Tony sighed and pulled out his phone from his pocket.
"As long as the mission is done by the end of the day I do not care." He answered.
"Thanks Tony." I replied.
Tony and I quietly chit-chatted for about 40 minutes until he brought up Bucky and I letting everyone know about telling the team, or what's left of them anyways. I was on the fence about the idea to be honest. I liked our relationship being private, it added something special to it. But it wouldn't make things awkward if I were to just be able to hold Bucky's hand with the team or generally be a loving girlfriend.
"It's your choice... but I'd tell Barton, being the dad of everyone and all." Tony said, closing off the conversation.
"Bucky can decided, I'm fine with whatever." I replied.
"What am I deciding?" He thought as I saw his eyes flutter open. I took my hands off of his head and let him sit up.
"Ah hello you ray of sunshine." Tony said to Bucky as he rubbed his eyes to take away the sleep from them.
"Come to the conference room in about 20 minutes." Tony said before he put his phone back in his pocket and left the room.
Bucky crawled across the couch to be above me. He leaned down and kissed me. We kissed again and again, and again, and again, until I stopped kissing back. He sat in between my legs and I pushed his hair away from his face.
"Tony wants to know if we're telling the team about us." I mentioned, breaking the silence.
"I don't mind." He said. "Who's actually present in the team though?" He asked.
"Well..." I began. "Me, You, Tony, Rhodey, Happy, Pepper, Scott, and Clint"
"So literally no one." He said.
"Well no, because we can tell Nat when she comes back and same with Steve and Sam." I reasoned. "And plus, Wanda already knows, so if Wanda knows Vision knows too. Same with Pepper and Tony" I added.
"So, We'll tell about 4 people about us seeing as 4 out of the 8 present Avengers already know." He calculated.
"Yep." I said, popping the 'p'. Bucky rubbed his eyes and shrugged his shoulders.
"Okay then, whatever." He said, answering the original question.
"Great! We'll tell them when you get back." I said, jumping off of the couch and walking over to the doorway to wait for him.
As Bucky stood up I felt confusion come from him.
"Why when I come back? Why am I leaving?" He asked.
"Oh, you have a scouting mission. Tony needs you to do it." I explained briefly. "Hence the conference room meeting."
"Oh, right." He said.
We both walked out of the living room and made our way to the conference room. We went into the elevator and I pressed the button for level 7. While we waited to get to our floor, I leaned into Bucky's side and held his hand.
"You okay Beau?" He thought as he kissed the top of my head.
"Yeah, just... feeling weird about it all I guess?" I answered.
"I'm sure Tony wouldn't mind if you left halfway through the meeting if you really wanted to." He said.
"Yeah that's true, I might as well." I replied.
The elevator door opened and I leaned away from him. We walked down the corridor and entered the conference room. Everyone else was already there. Pepper, Happy, Peter, Rhodes and Tony.
"Great! Everyone's here. We can get started!" Peter said. I sat down next to him and Bucky sat next to me on the other side.
Tony stood up and clicked a button on his phone, a screen popped up and a huge group of men with a flag of the HYDRA emblem behind them.
"This, is the group of people that took Annabel over a month ago." Tony said, looking at me with stress in his eyes. Bucky sat up and I felt tension rise from him. I also felt the stress Tony was feeling blast out of him. I didn't like how this was going.
"Now, They seem to have appeared again but stronger and more aggressive." He added.
"Okay so... what can we do to stop them?" Peter asked.
"That's the thing kid. I was sent a video earlier today." Tony said. I slid my hand under the table to hold Bucky's hand. He took it instantly and squeezed it.
"HYDRA wants you dead Annabel." He said bluntly. "And they are not going to rest until they have killed you." He added.
"What?" I asked.
The whole room was in an uncomfortable silence. Thoughts were zooming through my head, questions that were too difficult for me to put words to.
"Why couldn't they have killed me over a month ago?" I finally asked after several minutes.
"Because they wanted to see if you were strong enough for their missions." Bucky spoke out. "That's what they did to me before Steve and Wakanda saved me." He finished.
"Bell we will do whatever it takes to keep you safe." Pepper said. "We plan on moving you to Wakanda to live with T'Challa. He's also letting Bucky visit once a week for you." She explained.
I said nothing but just sat there. I felt eyes on me from everyone in the room. Tony obviously felt the tenseness in the room and clapped his hands.
"Alright then. Bucky, can you go to downtown Manhattan and check something out for me? There's some strange activity and we need someone who can be quiet." He said.
"Yeah sure." Bucky sighed. He let go of my hand and moved it to rest on the table.
I couldn't take it anymore, I stood up, left the room and slammed the door shut. I was livid. I couldn't believe that he announced death threats towards me in a meeting. I'd rather he would've told me when we were alone together. And I didn't want to move away. This was my home and I didn't want to leave it.
I went downstairs into the training room. I grabbed some tape from the nearby bench and wrapped it around my knuckles. I instantly started punching the shit out of the punching bag, getting out my anger and frustration. The more angrier I felt, the more aggressive my punches got.
As I punched harder and harder, I began to see blue. But I wasn't scared, it felt like I was meant to feel like that. Eventually the blue overpowered my whole vision entirely and my power started spiralling out of my hands. I began to scream as my punches were getting so hard that I stopped and splayed my hand towards the punching bag. It flew across the room as my vision came back to normal and I started to feel less shitty.
I stayed in the training room alone for the rest of the day - not being able to use the punching bag though because I had destroyed the last one in our supplies. Nobody bothered to talk to me until I grabbed dinner from the kitchen. Peter and Pepper were both eating pasta together at the dinner table that was rarely used for eating.
"Hey Bell!" Peter said with some hope.
"Hi." I muttered. "Is Bucky back yet?" I asked.
"He's on his way back. He'll be about 40 minutes." Pepper answered.
"Is he alone?" I asked additionally.
"Yes." She replied.
Would you like the usual Annabel?
"Yes please FRIDAY." I replied.
"What she makes you your food?!" Peter asked in disbelief.
"Yep. See when you live here alone long enough, even the AI become better friends with you than your real friends are." I answered with slight annoyance in my voice. "Sorry FRIDAY." I muttered.
Quite alright Miss Walker you are allowed to have a dig.
Moments later, a plate of fries with some chicken nuggets appeared in front of me. I took the plate and walked out of the kitchen and into my room.
I heard Peter speak out a 'goodnight' but I could not be bothered to reply.
I looked at my food. I instantly just wasn't hungry anymore. So, when I got in my room, I dumped the food into my bin and the plate on my desk.
I lay down in the middle of my floor in defeat and rubbed my face.
"FRIDAY?" I called out
Yes Annabel.
"Can you call the vehicle that Bucky is in please?" I asked.
Of course. Would you like the call recorded?
"No. And please don't inform Tony of this." I requested.
Certainly. Making the call now.
I waited in a few moments of silence until I heard.
"Hello?"
It was Bucky's voice coming through the speakers. I sat up abruptly.
"Beau?" He called out.
"Hey." I said.
"Are you okay?" He asked.
"Not really... I'm not really safe anymore, how can I be okay?" I answered.
"Right, bad question. Sorry." He replied. "Did you need anything?" He asked.
"I just wanted to know what you found." I answered.
"Ah well, I think I found one of their suppliers. I saw them trading in weapons and ammunition for what seemed like innocent people. The stronger the people looked, the stronger the weapons looked. Maybe that's why they wanted you. You would get them the strongest weapon they have." Bucky said. I smiled softly at his comment.
"Anything else?" I asked with hope.
"Nope. But I will not rest until HYDRA is gone. You are my top priority over anything else." He said. My soft smile turned into a genuine one as we remained in a silence.
I let out a small yawn from my mouth, it gave me the realisation of how tired I was.
"Well, I'm gonna go to sleep." I announced to Bucky.
"Okay, I'll be back soon so just hang tight." He replied.
"I love you." I said.
"I love you too, Beau." He replied.
"FRIDAY, end call." I instructed. The call quickly ended and I stood up and jumped onto my bed. I went under the covers and quickly fell asleep.