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If asked, and you’re never asked, there was no connection between you and James Barnes. Maybe once or twice you could have been in the same postal code, but that would have been the extent of it.
It was the same on Bucky’s side of the story. No one had ever asked about you, never even uttered your name, but he would have the answer anyway. “Who is that?” he’d respond, waiting for the original asker to fill in any details.
This was done on purpose. No one needed to know the truth. It was no one’s business that you had met in the early hours of the morning. That he volunteered to walk you back to your car after an overnight shift. That it became a tradition for Bucky to do this every time he could. No one would ever realize that Bucky was the one you offered rides to when you were able. Or that he was the one adjusting your passenger seat to fit a taller man.
“Why do you keep it so cold?” Bucky asked the second time you gave him a ride.
“It’s not that cold, you’re just a baby.” You had responded.
Bucky altered the temperature, nonetheless. “I just think it’s kinda cold.”
“Baby,” You said again. Creating his pet name used whenever you could.
His pet name for you changed every night, every time you were together. You were his Beautiful in the mornings. Sweetheart with your drink in his hand. Princess while teasing. And Doll on the phone.
These pet names were the only evidence of your existence. Rumors and stupid smiles created from a phone conversation made a little too loud. Sam speculated and teased, Natasha smiled but said nothing, and Steve already knew.
Of course Steve already knew. He knew about every girl, about every guy, about everyone that had ever gotten access to Bucky’s heart. The difference was he didn’t have a picture of you. Whether physical or just a mental image scrapped together from the glances he catches of you together.
He only gets that picture during the wedding. A solitary ceremony with six guests between the bride and groom. With no legal paperwork and no public announcement it was a party done quietly in the late hours. What little guests there were doing their best to hide yawns, most doing so poorly.
The kiss was passionate at the encouragement of the guests. Steve doing his own part to made the moment more than a chaste kiss. The kiss ending with smiles and lipstick slight smeared.
If a serious investigation was done. If the guests were found and interrogated then the world could know about the wife of James Barnes. As with everything in the life of an Avenger, a former war criminal, and honorary Avenger the worst-case scenario was bound to come at some point. For now that was for the future. For now you were in his arms, and you were his Beautiful.