9

(This is the one where everything goes to shit ba bada ba da sorry my brain is only working at like 2% of its usual capacity)

Bucky POV  

The door to the bedroom slowly creaks open. It's probably Steve. He likes checking on me. He circles around the bed and lays down next to me on the floor. I roll onto my side to look at him and he wraps his arms around me and holds me close. I don't like it. It feels different now. 

"I don't hate you, Buck," he says softly. "I promise. You're my best friend. I promised till the end of the line, remember?" 

I grunt noncommittally into his shoulder. 

----------- 

A few weeks later, Steve tells me that he has invited Jennifer over for dinner and that I have to be polite. He's taken the collar off on account of my good behavior. My arm is still acting up, though. 

"If this goes well, I'm going to ask her to marry me," he admits. He looks at my completely unimpressed face. "You don't seem surprised. Like, at all." 

"What do you expect?" I say flatly. "She's the only thing you've been able to talk about for weeks. The only surprise is that it's taken so long." 

He grins at me. What a stupid man. He's such a punk. 

"I know you don't like her, Buck, but can you please give her another chance? I really love her." 

He's looking at me with stupid manipulative puppy dog eyes that I can't help but fall for. 

"Fine." 

"Thank you! You're the best." 

"I know." 

"And you promise you'll be nice to her?" 

"If I don't have anything nice to say, I won't say anything at all." 

"Thank you." 

-------------- 

It starts to rain. That's good. Maybe it'll ruin Jennifer's makeup and Steve will see how ugly she is and not want to marry her. 

When Jennifer arrives, I recite the apology I wrote on my hand five minutes prior. It's a little sloppy, since I wrote it on my right hand and I'm right handed and my metal arm isn'tworking very well, but it's still readable. She definitely notices that I'm reading off a script, but she accepts my apology anyway. 

"It's okay," she assures me. "Really. I started it, anyway." 

Yes, you did, is what I would like to say, but that doesn't really count as being polite. 

I used to be so nice to women. What happened to that? Maybe Steve stole my charm. Or maybe I just hate this specific woman. 

-- 

"So," Jennifer starts halfway through the dinner I don't want to be at, "I noticed you're only using your right hand. Is something wrong with your murder arm- I mean, metal arm?"

Steve doesn't seem to catch her intentional slip up. That, or he's ignoring it because he likes her too much to tell her she's awful. 

"Did you just say 'murder arm?'" I ask and she laughs a little. Haha yes. Life must be so hilarious when you're a dumb bitch. 

"Right, I forgot you're a foreigner," she says and raises her voice and talks slowly as if she's talking to an elderly person. "I said, 'Is something wrong with your metal arm?'" 

That's just plain rude. 

"I'm- I'm not a foreigner," I tell her. Steve just sits there, looking content. Being completely unhelpful. "I'm from Brooklyn. And I'm right handed, so of course I'm using my right hand."

"His fake arm hasn't been working right," Steve adds obnoxiously. Just because he likes this woman doesn't mean she gets the right to invade on my business. "We're gonna see a friend about it soon. She'll know how to fix it." 

We called Shuri about it a few days ago. She plans to come visit us some time this week, partially to look at my arm, but mostly she just wants to see New York. 

"Well, what's wrong with it?" 

I look at Steve and shake my head, but he answers her question anyway. 

"It either doesn't move at all, or it does, uh..." He looks around for an example, and then points down the hallway at the framed hole in the wall. "That." 

She looks terrified. Good. Be scared. Run away in fear. 

"That's horribly dangerous! Why don't you just take it off?" 

"I don't know how," Steve says. 

"Couldn't you just pull it off?" 

"That would hurt a lot," I say and at the same time, Steve says, "I wouldn't want to break it."

"I can take a look at it," she offers. "I'm sure I could figure out how to get it off. Stevie isn't very good with technology." 

"Neither is Bucky!" Steve protests jokingly. 

"I don't want you to," I decline. 

"She won't hurt you, Buck." 

"I don't want her to," I repeat forcefully. 

"There's no harm in letting her look-" 

"He said no, Stevie," Jennifer pretends to have an ounce of common sense. "I won't do anything he doesn't want me to. We don't know each other very well, and I wouldn't want to overstep any boundaries." 

Well, why not? Steve's all about overstepping boundaries lately. 

"Thank you," I say softly, to which she nods. 

--------- 

"Makin' pancakes, makin' bacon pancakes," I sing softly to myself the next morning as I cook breakfast because Steve likes to pretend he knows how to cook but his skills are nothing compared to mine. 

It's raining. I like it. Rainy mornings are peaceful. 

Jennifer comes into the room and I don't even bother with trying not to glare at her. 

"What are you doing here?" she asks bitchily. 

"I... live here?" 

"No, what are you doing in the kitchen? Who said you're allowed to cook?" 

"Steve is an awful cook, and I'm the only other person who lives here, so I cook most of the time." 

"Stevie isn't worried that you'll poison him?" 

"No, and if he starts worrying about that, I'll know exactly who to blame." 

She puts her left hand to her chest and mocks being offended. 

"You say that like you don't trust me," she pouts. 

"I don't trust you." I notice the ring her left hand now flaunts. "How was the proposal?" 

"So romantic." 

"Hm." I doubt that. There is literally nothing romantic about inviting your girlfriend over for dinner with your jealous roommate. 

"Can you keep a secret?"

"No." 

"Well, I don't think you'll want to tell anyone this one." She motions for me to bend down to her height. She's a lot shorter than Steve and me. I don't. I stay standing straight up. She sighs and speaks at normal volume instead of whispering like she intended to. When she speaks, it's in Russian. "Longing~" 

My head snaps towards her as she continues. 

"Rusted." 

I grab her by the throat and throw her across the room. She screams to alert Steve, who comes into the room shirtless. Gross. 

He tries to stop me, but I push him out of the way and advance toward Jennifer, who plays the victim and scrambles away from me. Steve grabs the hot skillet off the stove and whacks me in the face with it. It hurts a lot but I have to protect Steve from the HYDRA agent. 

"She's with HYDRA!" I try to explain, but he doesn't listen and instead chooses to throw me onto the floor and kick me away from his lying fiancee. 

"You can't just say she's with HYDRA just because you don't like her!" he screams at me. 

I try to defend myself, try to tell him that I am not saying she's with HYDRA just because I don't like her, and that she is, in fact, working for HYDRA, but he cuts me off. 

"No. No. I'm done with you, Bucky. I've tried to be patient with you, but you've just been a problem, and I can't handle it. I don't want to handle it. You were supposed to be normal now, but you're not even trying and you've just been getting worse. And for the past few weeks, I've honestly been considering taking Sam up on his offer to have you live with him instead. Yeah. He offered. Because he knows how much of a goddamn burden you are! I don't want you anymore, so get the hell out of my house, you mentally ill freak!"

He doesn't mean it. He doesn't mean it. He doesn't mean it. He doesn't- 

Steve's hand curls threateningly into a fist. He means it. Not wanting to make him any angrier, I get up and run out of the house. 

It's still raining. I hate it. It makes my clothes- Steve's clothes; I don't have any of my own- stick to my skin. In my oversensitive state, it's a suffocating feeling.