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“Next agent to walk through that door, you have to ask out on a date. Date them for a month if you can and I will pay you $50.”
Bucky looks at Steve with wide eyes and mouth. “Why on earth would I do that?” He asks incredulously.
Nat swings her feet down from where they are on the arm of the chair. “You did say you needed some dating practice. Steve’s just trying to help you out.” Bucky glances between the two people he felt the most comfortable with. Maybe if they think this is a good idea he should listen, but his gut tells him something else.
“I promise it will be a good experience and you will get paid for it.”
Bucky leaned his head back on the couch with closed eyes and sighed. “Fine, what all do I have to do?”
Steve’s face split into a wide grin. “Take them out on a few of dates, bring them to a couple of movie nights, other than that the choice is yours.” Bucky ran his hands down his face.
Nat went to pipe up, but the door opening interrupted her. A beautiful woman walked into the room. You had a real pep in your step. “Hi, Fury sent me here. I am supposed to be helping you for a little while.”
Steve stood up and said, “Nice to meet you, I am Steve Rogers.” You replied with your name.
“How about I show you around?” Bucky asked you with a slight crackle in his voice.
You bounced on the balls of your feet. “Sure.” Your cheeks were dusted a light pink from his offer. He took you through the halls of the compound showing you important spaces.
After a little while when you were alone, Bucky stopped to ask you a question. “Would you like to go out on a date on Friday?”
You were a little taken aback by the question. Opening your mouth many times but receiving no words. You finally took a deep breath. “I would love to.” Your braids bounced as you skipped back to the common room. Waving to Nat and Steve you continued off in a random direction.
Nat just shook her head. “Anybody but her.”
Bucky and Steve shared a confused look. “You know her?”
Nat nodded. “I trained her. She is one of the sweetest agents out there. I don’t like the idea of you hurting her.” The ex-assassin’s arms were crossed over her chest.
Steve stood in front of her staring the redhead down. “Buck made a deal. This will be good for both of them. She won’t hurt Bucky, and she will realize the world is not all sunshine and rainbows.”
Nat puffed up her chest to give a rebuttal, but Bucky stepped in between them. “I already asked her out, and Steve’s right a deal’s a deal.” What they didn’t need to know is that Bucky already knew you, or at least he thought he did. The redhead deflated.
“I realized that I don’t know where I am supposed to stay. Mr. Stark offered me a room here while we work together, but I have no idea where to go.” You nervously brought their attention to you.
Nat gave the boys one last disapproving look before turning to you standing by the doorway. “Come on I’ll show you to your room.”
Your smile lit up the room. “Thank you, Habiba.” She led you down the hallway.
You got to the door in a short amount of time. “Here we are, Лунный свет (Lunny svet).”
You gave the ex-assassin a tight hug. “Thank you once again.”
Nat’s braid hit her shoulder when she shook her head. “Not a problem. If you need anything else let me know.” You nodded and waved as your mentor and best friend walked away.
Upon entering the room, you organized your bags into the closet and dresser. Next, you got on some workout clothes to take your mind off of things. Even when working out you seemed happy. Like nothing in this world could phase you.
That was what Bucky saw when he walked in for his afternoon workout with Steve and Sam. “As long as we don’t get a mission did you guys wanna get drinks on Friday?” Sam asked more to Steve than Bucky.
“Sure, I’m free, but Buck has a date Friday night.” Bucky turned his face to the floor to hide the light pink that had dusted his cheeks.
“No way! Terminator got a date. Man, that’s not fair.” Sam gave Bucky a playful punch on the arm. He gave Sam his best glare, which quickly got him to stop talking. Amid Bucky shutting Sam up, he didn’t realize that you had left the room.
You went back to your room to shower before heading back to S.H.I.E.L.D. to finish up some paperwork. Everyone noticed, including Fury, that you were even happier than you usually were. When you got back to your room that night it was already fairly late. You put on your pyjamas and crawled into bed. With the door locked you finally let the mask fall. The weight of the world seemed to weigh on you as you sank into the scratchy bed sheets. You tossed and turned most of the night before falling into a short rest, just as happened every night. You were awoken by a disembodied voice. “I was told to inform you that there is a meeting that you are required to attend in 1 hour.” FRIDAY’s voice rang across the room.
You pulled yourself out of bed and put on a flowy sundress, with shorts underneath. Fixing your hair, you looked into the mirror. A heavy sigh left your lips when you saw the slight circles under your eyes. You washed your face with water cold enough to wake your up, and taking one last look in the mirror, plastered a smile on your face and headed to where Bucky had shown you the meeting rooms.
“Cheerful, and punctual? I have a feeling you are going to do just fine, while you are here.” Tony said as he set up something on his tablet.
“Thank you, Sir, I hope so.” He looked up at your comment.
“Please call me Tony, Sir makes me feel old.”
You let out a small giggle, as Bucky and Steve walked into the room. Bucky could have sworn that was music to his ears. He had to focus extra hard on what Steve was saying, to still miss most of it. Everyone got situated and the meeting started right when it was supposed to, to Tony’s surprise. You wrote notes, as you tried to keep that smile on your face, even though you were bored out of your mind.
“What do you think, Agent?” You looked up at Steve who had taken over from Tony at some point. Looking over your notes to actually understand what he had been talking about, you shrugged.
“It’s a very grim way to look at this. I understand we need to be reasonable and know that escaping without lost lives won’t be easy, but we shouldn’t just accept it. They want us to fear them. Let’s show that fear is not a bad thing, that we are afraid but not of them because we will use our fear for our fellow agents’ lives as fuel to defeat them. One of the best techniques for those who don’t necessarily feel fear for most people, find one person on the mission, that you can’t lose. Once you do that you just have to learn to harness it. which is one of the reasons I was sent instead of someone else. I am an expert in training to use fear to make you stronger. I based my training program on Dreykov’s fear-elimination techniques that the widows had to go through. Though I will say that mine has had the much better well-being of the trainees afterward, and during.” Everybody seemed very intrigued to know what this training program was. “I think with some minor alterations this plan will be a good way to achieve the mission.” You said as you stood up and smiled at everyone.
Then you walked out of the room. That confused everybody in there. Nat caught up to you. “Where are you going?” You just blinked at Natasha. “The meeting isn’t over until we have the details worked out,” Nat explained softly, worried about her friend.
“Oh sorry.” You quietly stated before heading back with Nat. “Sorry everyone, it’s just that usually after I would say something like that to my team back in SHIELD, no one would know what to do, so they would do nothing. So we would all separate until someone had a way to fix the mission plan.” You stated as you stared at the table.
Another agent who you had never seen before rolled his eyes. “Yeah, well you’re not at SHIELD anymore, are you?” He snapped before mumbling under his breath. “But I guess that is where someone like you belongs.” Bucky did not like what this agent was saying, but he knew he shouldn’t make a scene.
The meeting continued for a while before everyone was finally allowed to go their separate ways. Bucky noticed that you didn’t get up at the end of the meeting, but he didn’t want to be weird by asking about it.
He went to grab something to eat before he headed down to the gym to work out. When he got there and set his water bottle down, he heard a voice just above the shower in the changing room. “Stupid, you should have never thought things would have been the same here.” He heard more mumbles that he couldn’t quite make out. Continuing his workout he kept his eyes on the door to see who was beating themselves up, but no one ever came out. Even long after the shower had shut off and there was no longer any noise coming from inside.
You made your way back to your bedroom, trying to keep quiet to not disturb anyone. Gathering yourself, you plastered the smile back on your face and went out of your room. The common room was bustling with Avengers and other agents alike, as they tried to get to know each other. Your face was a wide smile as you looked around. Noticing that Nat looked into her cup and sighed when she found it empty, you grabbed a bottle of Nat’s favourite. You shocked your friend as you started to fill the empty cup.
“Oh, thank you, Лунный свет (Lunny svet).” You smiled at Nat and nod as you left the bottle and made your way over to help someone else with something.
Friday came and you were in your room trying to find something that would make a good impression on your date. You hadn’t been on one in a little while, but you had a feeling that even then Bucky wouldn’t quite be like any of the others. After making yourself look presentable you went down to the common room where Bucky had said for them to meet. “Hey Habiba, do you think I look okay?” You asked getting Natasha’s attention.
When the ex-assassin looked up, she smiled. “You look beautiful, Лунный свет. Are you sure you want to do this?” You nodded with enthusiasm, and the redhead knew that there was something deeper there.
Bucky walked into the common room and his thoughts stopped at the sight of the woman who was waiting for him. “You look beautiful. Are you ready to go?”
You smiled as you turned around to face him. “You look quite handsome yourself.” You took the arm he offered you. As you left, you spared a quick wave to Nat. The date went by wonderfully in your mind, and Bucky asked you on a second date. What you didn’t know was Bucky was struggling through the entire date. At the end of the date, when you both got to your bedroom door, you were slightly disappointed that he only hugged you. You did understand though, he probably wanted to take things slow.