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teamred · 7 years ago

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a hard night’s sleep

summary: lately, peter parker can’t sleep because all he thinks about is you. when you have to crash at his place for a night and share a bed with him, it doesn’t make his sleeping dilemma any better. pairing: peter parker x reader warnings: fluff, kissing, swearing word count: 2.1k words notes: prompt “There’s only one blanket.” for @onlytomholland and @peekaboo-parker‘s writing challenge! thank you for letting me participate! :) || combined with the prompt: You’re staying over, take my bed, I’ll sleep on the couch, yes i am yes i am yes i am yes i am no you’re not yes i am FINE WE’LL BOTH TAKE THE BED, happy!!?? (from happylilprompts)

gif posted by andthwip

Peter Parker used to sleep easily. School, saving the city, and extracurriculars always tired him out at the end of each day. Every night, his bed would welcome him with open arms and he’d fall face flat into his pillow, waking up energized once again in the morning.

But when the teacher assigned you to be his chemistry lab partner, his nights started to grow longer.

Then when you started to hang out with him, Ned, and Michelle outside of class, the nights became endless.

After his nightly escapades, he’d stare at his bedroom ceiling, ruffling his dark chestnut hair and wonder why it was so hard to sleep nowadays. He’d recount the occurrences throughout his day, but his thoughts always circled back to you, thinking what it’d be like to lace his fingers with yours. Walk arm-in-arm with you down Midtown High’s halls. Nudge his nose into your shoulder. Kiss your soft cheeks.

And, as always, he’d smack himself with his pillow.

Peter still couldn’t figure out why he couldn’t sleep at night like he used to.

“Hey, Peter?”

In the iconic red and blue get-up, swinging from building to building on his way back home, Peter picked up your call via Karen, his trusty AI built within his suit.

“Hey, what’s up?” he panted.

“You sound out of breath. Am I calling at a bad time?”

“No!” Peter practically screamed into his mask. “No, I was just running—that’s all.”

“Oh, okay. So, my parents are out of town for tonight and with all the recent break-ins in my building, I was wondering if I can stay with you for the night? Since you’re the closest one to me?” You asked Peter while curling your hair around your finger. “I mean, I’d ask Michelle, but she lives across town.”

Astounded, Peter fell mid-air, forgetting to shoot his webs keep him afloat. A moment later, he realized what was happening.

“Fuck!” He gasped, followed by a sharp thwip sound echoing through your end. Peter sighed in relief.

“Are you okay?! Did I say something wrong?”

“No!” The hero squeaked, shaking his head at himself. “No, I just hit myself on something. I’d love it—I mean, I wouldn’t mind if you came over.”

After he landed on top of a building, Peter rubbed his hand against the back of his neck.

“May isn’t home tonight, so I’m not sure if that makes you uncomfortable or not. I mean, not that I want to make you uncomfortable; I want to make sure you’re comfortable! I’m just saying that she isn’t home.” His hand moved from his neck to the front of his forehead, slapping it in the process.

Your bubbly laughter filled Peter’s ears. “That’s fine with me. You know I’m always comfortable with you, Peter.” His cheeks burned against the fabric of his mask. “I’ll be over in 15 minutes. Is that okay?”

New York’s friendly neighborhood hero noticed the sun setting in front of him, causing him to stop in his tracks. His head whipped around, realizing he had been going the opposite direction from home the entire time since you called.

“Make it 30? If that’s okay?”

“Sounds good! Thanks for letting me stay with you. I’ll see you in a bit.”

After you hung up, Peter huffed as he headed in the right direction.

“God, you’re so stupid, Peter,” he uttered to himself.

“I thought that went well,” Karen suddenly chimed in.

Peter thanked Karen and swung across the city, wasting no time to get back home.

A knock fell upon Peter’s apartment door and you waited patiently. You glanced down at the time on your phone and came ten minutes later than expected, knowing your friend had a habit of being late. Several loud, rummaging sounds later, a disheveled Peter putting on a loose grey sweater greeted you.

“Hey,” he beamed with a side smile.

Noting his chest heaving more than usual, you asked, “Just got home from your run?”

With widened eyes, he replied, “Uh… yeah!” He leaned against the frame of the front door with crossed arms before running a hand through his hair. “Yeah, I just got home. You look nice.”

Glancing down at yourself, you didn’t think you looked any different than your usual self in your jeans, t-shirt, and with your backpack on. Nevertheless, his words made you smile like no tomorrow. “Thanks, Peter,” you said while biting your lip.

Staring into each other’s eyes, it took a moment for Peter to remember why you were there in the first place. He shook his head from his daze and welcomed you to come in.

You stepped into Peter’s apartment and kicked off your shoes. Looking around, you still mentally photographed images of his place because you’ve only been to Peter’s place a few times before.

“Thanks again for letting me stay over.” You adjusted your backpack, releasing one of the straps off your shoulder. “So, where will I be sleeping?”

Quickly responding, Peter offered you his bed, while he insisted to stay on the living room couch. Shaking your head fervently, you exclaimed, “No, I can take the couch!”

“No, seriously. I can take the couch.” With his thumbs in his front jean pockets, Peter rocked back and forth on the balls of his feet. “My bed’s way comfier.”

“Well, that’s more of a reason for me to take the couch than you, Peter,” you commented as you made your way towards the couch, but in a blink of an eye, he stood in between you and the couch.

“No, you’re my guest—let me take the couch!”

You pouted and argued, “I’ll take the couch!”

Peter turned you around by your shoulders, having your back face him, and began to push you towards his room; your socks slid against the floor effortlessly. You tried your best to fight against the force, leaning back to create more difficulty, but your best friend was a lot stronger than he looked. “No!”

“Yes!” You retorted, still trying to stop Peter from pushing you towards his room.

“No!”

Grunting and not wanting to give up the fight, you crossed your arms and stomped on the floor. Peter stopped pushing you and gave in.

“Fine, we can share the bed!” One second later, Peter registered what he said. He immediately followed-up, “I mean, if you’re comfortable with that. I can also sleep on the floor if anything.”

Content with the outcome, you willingly made your way to his bedroom with him following behind. “No one’s sleeping on the floor, tonight, Peter.”

Kneeling down beside your backpack, you began to unpack some of your items. “And, like I said before, I’m always comfortable with you. As long as you’re okay with sharing the bed, then I’m okay too.”

When you looked up at Peter behind you, he was like a deer in the headlights. Nodding in agreement, he watched you get up and make your way to the bathroom with your toiletries in hand. Once you were out of sight, he leaned the back of his head against his bedroom wall and exhaled, frustrated that his heart palpitated harder than when he was normally with you.

After ordering pizza for dinner and getting ready for bed, the two of you stood in front of Peter’s full-sized bed. He mentally thanked himself that he disposed his twin-sized bed three months ago.

“Sorry,” he mentioned while watching you get into the bed, positioning yourself on the inside of the bed next to the wall. “There’s only one blanket.”

You shrugged nonchalantly, sitting up on the bed as you adjusted the blanket and pillow for yourself. “Guess we’ll have to share,” you faced the boy twiddling his fingers. Half-jokingly, you added, “Don’t hog it, please. I get cold in my sleep.”

“I wouldn’t dare.” Peter lowly whispered to himself before turning off the light’s wall switch.

Carefully getting into bed, the boy kept himself near the edge of his bed. Both of you said your good nights to each other. After a few minutes, he glanced over to you huddled, leaning on side, and facing the wall. He turned his focus back to the ceiling like he normally did at night, except this time, he was stiff as a log. He already had a hard time sleeping nowadays; you being in the bed tonight did not help his problem at all.

Moments later, he figured you were already asleep when he heard your heart slowing down and some faint snoring. For the next few hours, Peter continued to stay wide awake. He kept on glancing at his phone’s clock every now and then, closing his eyes, and tried his best to lull himself to sleep. Despite the fact there weren’t any emergency alerts from his phone, he still considered going out to doing his nightly rounds around the city to tire himself out. But if you were to wake up in the middle of the night, he didn’t want to leave his favorite girl alone.

1:48am glowed against Peter’s face before the hairs on his forearm stood up, feeling something was wrong. Your heart rate was suddenly spiking and he heard you mumbling in your sleep.

“Peter,” you groaned with closed eyes, prior to turning around to face the anxious boy. You began to shiver and frown intensely—something Peter’s never seen from you before.

“I like you. Why won’t you like me back?”

He froze. Peter figured you were dreaming, but did he hear you correctly? On top of that, were you speaking words of truth, or simply saying things from a dream state?

Unsure of what to do, the concerned boy placed a hand on your shoulder and rubbed it tenderly. All of a sudden, you burst into tears, still not awake, and Peter immediately wrapped his arms around you, pulling your body into his. He began to soothe you and pet your head in the crook of his chest, telling you that it was going to be okay. Eventually, you woke up and realized you were crying in Peter’s arms.

“Hey,” he called out your name in a hush tone, looking down at you in his arms. “You all right?”

Still shaking, you managed to answer, “I-I just had a bad dream, that’s all.”

You looked into Peter’s eyes, recalling what occurred in your dream, yet unaware you were talking in your sleep and that Peter had heard your confession. In your dream, you confessed to Peter. Unfortunately, the Peter in your dream ignored you and didn’t reply. You knew it was only a dream, but you believed it was a sign that maybe you should finally confess to Peter what you’ve been feeling all this time.

“Peter?” You whispered against his face, your minty breath the equivalent of a gust of wind. He was trying his best to focus on you. However, it didn’t help that all he could think about was how your hair smelled fruity and sweet, like strawberries and peaches. God, he could drown in your scent forever.

“Yeah?” The tips of your noses touched. You placed a hand on his beating chest, then soon grabbed a handful of his grey sweater. Eagerly, you pulled your crush into you, and gently pressed your lips against his.

His heart bursted at the seams, the fire in his heart flaring and oozing in each movement of the kiss. All the times he wondered what it’d be like to kiss you were hitting him at 130 miles an hour and he didn’t want to stop this beautiful incident. Peter’s hands were still on your shoulders, holding onto you safely, feeling all the excitement overflowing in your veins too.

The question on your mind had to be asked, so you forced yourself to pull away and blurted:

“Do you like me?”

At first, Peter didn’t respond, still in shock over everything that was happening, so you continued, “As more than a friend?”

He continued to stare blankly at you, but then gasped when the lightbulb moment happened—you were the reason he couldn’t sleep at night.

Although Peter was aware that he liked you, he never realized it was why he couldn’t sleep at night.

“Of course,” he nodded excitedly with a shy laugh. “Do you like me?”

You nodded in response and had to pinch yourself to make sure that this wasn’t still a dream. Both of you smiled brightly in the darkness of Peter’s bedroom; you pulled him in again for another kiss. This time, the cognizant boy gained the courage to cup your face with his palms; the gentle pressure of the kiss juxtaposed his affectionate grip on you, not wanting to let you go.

Many kisses and little conversations followed and you two eventually passed out right before sunrise.

Albeit short, Peter hadn’t had such a good, peaceful sleep in a while.

In retrospect, he never minded staying up all those nights. Nights filled with you made him feel alive, maybe even more than saving the city.

And he looked forward to more nights with you, even if he lacked all the sleep and energy in the world.

#lenivicwc #peter parker #peter parker x reader #peter parker imagine #peter parker x you #one shot

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blackberrywidow · 7 years ago

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Undercover, In Over Your Head

Summary: Spy AU. After months of being undercover as Bucky’s wife, it’s time to finally finish your mission. The stakes are high with both of your lives on the line, but somehow the only thing you’re worried about is giving up your life as Mrs. Jones. Getting out of this alive is one thing, but getting out of it with your heart still intact is another.

Warnings: Nothing too bad. Language. Some mildly steamy action.

Word Count: 6.8k

Prompt: “Kiss me. Quickly!”

A/N: I’m doubling this up as a request from the lovely @everythingbooknerd and my submission for @peekaboo-parker and @onlytomholland-archive‘s writing challenge since the theme and timing worked really well together. I hope it doesn’t suck as much as I’m afraid it does. This took me entirely too long to write.

“So, how did you two meet?” Sandy asked, sipping on her long island iced tea like it was lemonade and giving your “husband” a look that made your blood simmer.

“College,” came your rehearsed answer accompanied by an even more rehearsed smile. You leaned in conspiratorially, licking your lips as your eyes locked on Bucky’s smiling face, and whispered, “We had chemistry together.”

“Oh yeah,” Sandy chortled, giving Bucky one last appreciative glance before giving you an I wish I was youlook. “I bet you did.”

Bucky glanced over at you then, catching your eye and smirking at you when he saw the slight tilt of your head and widening of your eyes that served as your pre-determined indicator that you wanted an out. He excused himself from whatever boring conversation he was currently sitting through with Mark, the engineer from across the street, and made his way over to you, all swagger and handsome smile.

“Mrs. Kavinsky,” he greeted, inclining his head at Sandy. She giggled obnoxiously, though you honestly couldn’t blame her. He had that effect on everybody—especially you, though you were loath to admit it. “Do you mind if I borrow my wife for a moment?”

“Of course.” Sandy shot you a coy smile and a wink before sauntering off to find her husband—he had disappeared from the party ages ago, and if you had to guess he was currently attempting to discretely sneak a cigarette in your upstairs bathroom despite his promises to his wife that he had quit months ago. You could smell the smoke from the back yard, and from experience knew that Mr. Kavinsky would return with an easier smile and steadier hands.

“You’d think you would be better at that.”

Your eyes snapped up to Bucky’s, taking in his small smile and the piercing blue of his stare. “At what?”

“At keeping a poker face. I can practically see the gears turning in your head. Which of our neighbors are you plotting against now?”

“Not plotting,” you corrected, your lips involuntarily tugging up at the corner. “Just observing. And I think that maybe you ‘seeing my gears’ has less to do with my shitty poker face and more to do with the years of experience you have, honey.”

Bucky smirked, slinging an arm around your shoulder and pulling you closer as you watched your guests mingle in silence. It was domestic. The perfect picket-fence life.

You could almost believe it was real, this perfect life of yours. A happy marriage to James Jones that spanned years. A lifetime of happiness to look forward to in suburbia.

In reality, you had been “married” to James for 256 days. Though Agent James Buchanan Barnes preferred Bucky when you weren’t undercover.

“I think I am finally figuring you out, Mrs. Jones,” he finally replied, taking a long pull from the beer bottle in his hand.

“What a relief,” you snorted, glancing at him out of the corner of your eye. “Now all you have to do is figure out who’s selling missiles to Hydra and we’re golden.”

---

“So… Marianne seems like a possibility,” you mused, taping a pen to your lips as you watched over the security tapes later that night.

“No,” Bucky responded immediately from where was reclined on the couch, tossing a ball against the ceiling before catching it seconds before it hit the ground, again and again. You wanted to be annoyed by his apparent lack of attention, but you knew by now that he was aware of everything you were saying and everything taking place on the screens. Besides, the rhythmic thumpand smack that rang through the small room with each pass of the ball was soothing in a strange way.

“She’s been having late night meetings with odd men in their cars for the past week,” you say in exasperation. “How can you be so sure she isn’t?”

“She’s selling pot.”

You whipped your head around, raising a brow as he smiled at you. “And how do you know this?”

Bucky shrugged, looking away from you and resuming his game of one-man-catch. “We talk.”

“Right,” you scoffed, turning your attention back to the tv screens and gritting your teeth as heat rose to your cheeks. “I suppose that explains why Sandy wanted to ‘kindly inform me’ that you two had been spending some time together while I’m at work. You know the whole point of this operation is to pass ourselves off as a normal married couple, right? If you keep doing this shit, it’ll raise suspicion.”

“Oh please,” Bucky said, rolling his eyes. “They would be more suspicious if I wasn’t seeing women behind your back. No one trusts a perfect marriage these days, (Y/N). You don’t have to be a highly trained intelligence operative to know that.”

“No,” you huffed, fiddling with the pen as you steadfastly avoided the gaze that you knew was now trained on your face. “But I suppose being a man helps.”

“Well one of us has to do something to speed this up. We’ve been here for almost a year, (Y/N). Fury wants answers and I want out of this suburban shithole. So I’m sorry if I don’t particularly care about how that makes our fakemarriage look to our fake neighbors.”

You waited patiently through Bucky’s rant, noting the way the way the rhythmic thump-smack sped up in time with your heart rate. You hid your hurt though, the way you always did—with a blank expression and watchful eyes. The way spies like you were trained to hide everything they felt. You tried not to take it personally anyway—Bucky didn’t hate you. He hated long missions with little to no action. He missed Steve. He probably missed not being “married.”

At least, that’s what you told yourself. For all that Bucky showed, he may very well hate you or hold you responsible for the length of your mission. It was always hard to tell with spies. It’s why you had a very strict rule against dating them—there isn’t room for two liars in a relationship.

But Bucky Barnes was certainly enticing enough to tempt you. That is, if he ever pulled the stick out of his ass.

“Are you done?” You finally asked after ten full seconds of silence, giving Bucky enough time to cool down and you enough time to stop imagining what it would be like being married to him for real.

“Yeah,” he sighed, sitting up and hanging his head as the ball made one final thump against the ceiling and fell to the ground, forgotten. “Sorry. I know this isn’t exactly a cakewalk for you either. It’s just… if I have to hear about how fantastic Nancy Mitchell’s fucking casserole is one more time, I’m gonna lose it.”

A surprised laugh burst out of you, breaking through your mask and forcing a smile on your face. “You know what her secret ingredient is, don’t you?” you teased, smile widening when Bucky’s expression only saddened.

“I really, really don’t care.”

“No? Well, that’s too bad. I was going to recommend that you warn your friend Marianne that she has competition. She’s smuggles coke in it—hands it off to all the exhausted moms in her spin class as an innocent ‘gift’ and gets paid with Target gift cards in the mail. The woman has a shopping problem, to say the least.”

“Cocaine?” Bucky asked, suddenly perking up—a reaction that had you laughing so hard you doubled over. “I can’t believe your story is better than mine! How did you find out?”

“I run the surveillance, remember?” You shook your head, forcing your outburst to subside enough to give him a decent answer. “I looked into it three weeks ago—I thought it was weird that she did so much online shopping and paid for it all in gift cards. Especially since she has everything delivered to her office and sneaks it all inside when her husband isn’t home. But no illegal arms dealing—just a normal wife playing drug dealer to fund her shopping addiction.”

Bucky scoffed and shook his head before standing to watch over the cameras next to you. “Is that what we consider normal now?”

You shrug, eyes trained on the cameras once more as Mr. Kavinsky exited his home. A little unusual at 10 o’clock at night on a Thursday, but nothing worth your concern yet. “Normal is relative, Bucky. Our normal is full of the kind of evil that would make these people terrified to leave their homes. But they’re just as fucked up as we are, in a way. They create their own monsters and can’t see past their front lawn as far as others’ welfare is concerned. That’s normal here. People throw away their chance at a simple, happy life for a few bucks and the thrill of being ‘bad’ when they don’t actually know the meaning of the word.”

You saw Bucky look at you out of the corner of your eye, his expression carefully neutral. “That seems like a pretty harsh assessment. “

“This coming from the guy who just told me that I shouldn’t care that people think my husband is cheating on me.”

“That is compl—”

“Hey,” you cut him off as you furrowed your brows and whipped your pen up to point at one of the TV screens. “That look suspicious to you?”

Bucky reluctantly tore his eyes away from you and scoffed. “You’re the tech expert. You tell me…” you watched as he trailed off, his whole demeanor shifting when he caught sight of Mr. Kavinsky waiting for a town car only to have a man spring out to throw a bag over his head and pull him into the backseat of the car before it sped off.

His shoulders straightened, his face fell back into an expressionless mask, and his blue eyes seemed to become hyper focused on the screen as he said, “Get your coat.”

You turned away to comply, smiling widely and suppressing the shiver that wanted to run down your spine. As much as you enjoyed playing the domesticated happy couple with Bucky, you loved it when he was like this. Like the highly trained special operative that he was. The one who could use that tone and get you to do anything he wanted.

It was a vulnerability—a dangerous one, considering your line of work.

You were glad, in a way, that Bucky didn’t reciprocate your feelings. Love was a luxury you couldn’t afford in your world of assassins and espionage. The closest you would ever get was being Mrs. James Jones.

You were almost sad that that this may have to be the night you had to give her up for good.

---

“Oh, this is definitely it.”

Bucky’s excitement was palpable, and you tried not to let it disappoint you.

“I think you’re right,” you whispered, taking one last peek through the binoculars. They had hauled Ray Kavinksy out of the vehicle and he was now nervously pacing in the penthouse of a hotel across the street. “We should call Hill and report this.”

“Wait.” Bucky grabbed your wrist, halting you in your attempt to go back to the car and retrieve your cell phone. “Look. It’s him.”

“Who?” you huff, turning back around to snatch the binoculars out of Bucky’s hands. And almost immediately dropped them.

It was Alexander Pierce.

“No,” you said at the same time Bucky said “I’m going in.”

“This is huge, (Y/N),” Bucky whisper-shouted at you, as though you weren’t already aware. “He runs the entire American division of Hydra—we take him down, we take them all down.”

“You’re right, Bucky. Which is exactly why we should at least try to contact Hill—let her know what’s going on so she can give us our orders.”

“We already have our orders. This doesn’t change that.” Bucky’s tone left no room for argument. He stood up from where he had been crouching near the edge of the parking garage you currently occupied and started walking toward the car.

You followed, hot on his heels. “Our orders are to observe and gather and intel. Not attack a high-ranking Hydra operative. We need to call this one in, Bucky. You know that.”

“And while we’re jumping through SHIELD’s hoops, what if he gets away? Or worse: what if we do call this in to Hill and she tells us to leave it? You know Pierce and Fury have history. If we give them the chance to say no, we’ll regret it, (Y/N). Please, just… let me do this.”

You sucked on your bottom lip, arms crossed as you took in his pleading eyes and determined tone. You knew that Bucky and Pierce had history too—a mission gone south several years ago that had ended in days of torture at Pierce’s hands that had nearly claimed Bucky’s left arm before Steve and his team had found him.

The right thing to do would be to call Deputy Director Hill and let her make the call. But looking at your partner now, you knew you couldn’t do that to him.

“Two conditions,” you finally said, to which Bucky immediately scoffed and shook his head. “I’m serious, Bucky. If we do this, we aren’t going after Pierce—at least not directly,” you hastily corrected when Bucky started to protest.

“Okay, I’m listening,” he conceded, leaning back against the car and looking at you in careful contemplation.

“Alright. So, condition one: you’re not assassinating Pierce. You know as well as I do that isn’t going to fly. We stick to our mission—observe, gather intel, and report it. If we happen to get enough evidence to take down Pierce along with Kavinsky and his buyer? Just icing on the cake. Icing that won’t end up biting us in the ass if Fury decides that killing a Hydra official on an intelligence mission was the wrong call.”

He hesitated a long moment, biting his lip as he considered your proposal. His dark blue eyes bored in to yours, and you held your breath and prayed that he would see reason, knowing you couldn’t stop him if he didn’t. Knowing it could get him killed at worst and expelled from SHIELD at best.

“Fine,” he finally conceded, making you sigh in relief. “We’ll do it your way. What’s the second condition?”

“Oh, I thought the second condition would be obvious.” You breezed past where he was leaning against the tan SUV SHIELD had given you—the one Bucky referred to as a “mom car”—and opened up the hatch to begin rifling through your stash of hidden weapons. “I’m going in with you.”

“Absolutely not,” Bucky growled, grabbing your arm and whipping you around to face him. You reeled back against the car in surprise, but he pressed forward, touching every inch of his chest against yours as he got in your face. He pressed his lips against your ear, causing an involuntary shiver to rack your body as he whispered, “You’re going to stay here and run surveillance from a distance. You’re a non-combatant—that’s your job. You are not going to get within ten feet of Alexander Pierce, understand?”

“No. Way,” you hissed between clenched teeth, planting your hands on his chest and managing to push him back just enough to look him in the eyes. “We’re in this together, honey, and what kind of fake wife would I be if I let you run off and blow this entire operation on your own? I’m going with you, and we’re both going to stay clear of Pierce. Do you understand me, Barnes?”

Bucky shook his head and took a step back from you, but if you didn’t know better, you would have thought a small smile was tugging at his lips. “You don’t know what you’re getting into, (Y/N). This is bigger than some weapons dealer now. Pierce is involved, and he’s… Alexander Pierce is a dangerous man, Doll—if he or his men get ahold of you, I…”

He seemed to become lost in thought, eyes going distant as he trailed off. You stepped forward, placing your hands against his cheeks and turning his head back to face you. His blue eyes locked on yours, wide and haunted, and you knew that he was reliving every second he spent under Pierce’s knife. It made you want to go in there and kill him yourself, but it was even more of a reminder of why you couldn’t.

“That’s why we’re doing this together, Bucky. We won’t make contact with Pierce, and we’ll have each other’s backs. Then we’ll take everything we find to SHIELD, and we’ll take Pierce and the entire American-sector of Hydra down. It’s the smart play. You know that.”

Bucky stared back for a long second, not saying anything as he simply allowed you to hold onto him before finally bowing his head and sighing, giving you a single nod. “Okay. Minimum weapons then, and we’ll need to find a way to get close to him without raising suspicion.”

“I’m already ahead of you.” You smirked and turned your back on him, bending down to continue going through the weapons you would need just in case things didn’t go according to plan.

“Here,” Bucky reached over you to grab something, making you roll your eyes. He was perfectly capable of moving around you to get what he wanted. He was such a tease. However, all thoughts of teasing Bucky slammed to a halt when he handed you the knife you had been looking for. “This is the one you always use, right?”

You nodded mutely, taking your lucky knife that had been your trusty companion since you first joined SHIELD, and lifted your knee-length black cocktail dress you hadn’t bothered changing out of enough to slide it into the holster on your thigh. Your eyes were still trained on the knife, so you didn’t see Bucky reach for you, causing you to jolt when his knuckles grazed your cheek.

Your eyes snapped back up to his, letting him brush a strand of wayward hair behind your ear. He was staring at you again, in the way that made your heart seize in your chest and reminded you that out of all the missions you had been on, this one was somehow always different. You wondered if he was thinking the same thing.

You wanted to ask, but he seemed to gather himself and dropped his hand before you could. “Be safe,” was the only thing he offered you.

You tried not to dwell on it too much as you climbed into the passenger seat so Bucky could drive you across the street to the hotel. This was it—either your last night as Mr. and Mrs. Jones or your last night alive. You needed to be completely focused if you wanted to survive such a close encounter with Hydra.

---

“How’d you manage to get this?” Bucky asked, looking around the hotel room you had procured for yourselves for the night.

“I asked nicely,” you replied, smiling coyly at him from over your shoulder as you set up the surveillance equipment.

The room was directly underneath the penthouse Pierce had commandeered. It was the best possible place for you to gather intelligence without raising suspicion—you had booked the hotel under your covers’ names and were keeping a distance. No one would recognize you, other than Mr. Kavinsky, but Pierce and a good number of his men had seen Bucky before. If the wrong person got a glimpse of him, it was all over.

“So, here’s the plan: we’re doing audio from down here. I’ve got it all set up already. Then we wait for them to move and go upstairs and go through his shit. Easy peasey.”

Bucky’s lips twitched as he watched you bounce around the room, quietly setting up all of the necessary equipment you had hidden in your luggage. “You know that things usually don’t go that well, right?”

“I do, but I’m optimistic. So, everything is going to go well and neither of us is going to get caught or killed, got it?”

“Got it boss,” Bucky replied with a lazy salute and an even lazier grin.

The next several hours were incredibly boring, as most stake-outs tended to be. You and Bucky sat quietly, attentively listening to the feed coming from the floor above, making notes of anything you thought was of particular importance or just screwing around while you waited for them to finally stop drilling poor Mr. Kavinsky about the weapons he was smuggling in under his company’s name.

“It’s been three hours,” you sighed, slumping against the side of Bucky’s chair from where you sat on the floor. “It’s almost two in the morning. How long is this going to last? Don’t these people sleep?”

“Didn’t you know? ‘Ain’t no rest for the wicked,” Bucky chuckled, knocking his knee against your side, causing you to swat at him in annoyance.

“Now I know it’s too late for us to be up. You’re making lame jokes.”

“Hey,” Bucky protested, only sounding half as offended as he intended. “None of my jokes are lame.”

“Yeah, okay. Keep telling yourself that, but I distinctly remember hearing you tell a knock, knock joke at the Millers’ barbeque last week.”

“Yeah, a funny knock, knock joke.”

“There is no such thing as a funny knock, knock joke, Bucky.”

“That’s discrimination.”

“Discrimination?” you snorted, dropping your head against his knee and allowing your eyes to drift shut. “I think the lack of sl—”

“Hey,” he cut you off, leaning forward so suddenly you fell forward and hit the carpet face-down. “They’re moving.”

And suddenly you were awake, your eyes springing open as you scrambled to get up and gather what you would need to properly search the penthouse for evidence against Pierce.

“Are you ready for this?” Bucky asked, giving you one last once-over as you met him by the door. “No going back now.”

“There never was, Bucky.” You gave him a small smile, willing some confidence into your appearance. “Pierce and his men are dangerous, but we’ll never even come into contact with them. That’s what makes espionage so fun. Not getting caught.”

Bucky rolled his eyes, opening the door and allowing you to step out first. “Right.”

You walked to the elevator, deciding that using it to go up one floor would be less conspicuous than taking the stairs.

“Shit,” Bucky muttered, eyes narrowing on the spot designated for the keycard required to get you to the penthouse. “We need—”

“I’ve already got it,” you sang with a smirk, fishing the card out of your bra (not having pockets in your dresses was a crime, really). “I swiped it from the front desk on our way up.”

“I love you,” Bucky said, shaking his head and grinning at you, making your stomach swoop. It was a phrase that you had gotten used to over the past nine months, said with laughter or soft looks, but always in the presence of an audience. Always for the sake of the mission. Never like this, in close quarters when it was just the two of you and with something like admiration in his eyes. You tried not to read too much into it, but God did you want to.

“You’ll love me even more when we pull this off, Barnes. So get ready.”

You scanned the card, and the elevator jolted as it took you up to the next floor. Bucky took a step back, facing the door and placing a hand near the inside pocket of his jacket, ready to pull his gun out if the situation called for it. According to your surveillance, the room should be cleared now that Pierce moved the meeting down to the basement of the hotel where Kavinsky had moved the weapons. But you could never be too careful.

Bucky stepped out first, drawing his gun and making a sweep of the room while you followed behind him in suit. “Clear.”

Bucky kept his gun raised and ready while you raced across the room and got started. This was what you were best at: gathering intel that you could use to bring empires to their knees. You could fight, sure, but the real spy work was where you thrived.

You found the laptop situated in the corner of the room and your fingers flew across the keyboard as soon as you sat down, hacking into their system with an ease that came with natural talent and years of practice.

“Beautiful,” you breathed, pulling out the flash drive you had hidden in your bra and plugging it in, eyes scanning the screen relentlessly.

“I take it that’s good?” Bucky asked, not looking away from the elevator door.

“It’s better than good,” you replied, fingers once more clacking against the keyboard as you sifted through the information it held. “Pierce’s name is all over this stuff—bank statements, hit orders, weapons sales, you name it. Not to mention the names of at least thirty U.S. government officials in connection with him. It’s a pretty secure system, one that is nearly impossible to get into unless you’re working directly on this drive. It must be Pierce’s personal computer. It’s got everything you would need to take him down.”

“And now we have it,” Bucky replied, glancing back at you with a warm smile.

“Yup,” you said, popping the ‘p.’ “See? I told you this was the way to go. This will publicly out Pierce and destroy everything he’s ever built. Better than just killing the guy. It’s almost surprising that—oh shit.”

“What?” Bucky asked, immediately abandoning his post to go to your side.

You were frantically typing now, eyes focused on the screen as you tried to fix what you had just done. “A security system,” you replied after a moment through gritted teeth. “It’s already alerted him, and someone from the outside is trying to kick me out. I’m so sorry Bucky—I didn’t see it before it was too late.”

“But you can fix it, right? You can finish the download?”

“Maybe,” you said, still typing furiously, eyes trained on the screen. “But they’re probably already on their way up. If we don’t go now—”

“They’ll find us,” Bucky affirmed, nodding and taking a step back. “Fine. I always liked this plan better anyway.”

“Bucky, no. I don’t have time to argue with you about this right now, but we are not attacking Pierce.”

“Doesn’t seem like we have much of a choice, Doll.” Bucky was moving back to the elevator, taking a position to the side that would provide him cover and a clear shot.

You took a deep breath, not pausing in your typing, determined to find a way to get the information andsurvive.

After what felt like years but was in reality only a few moments, you managed to break through their defenses again and finish the download without really even knowing how you did it—your mind was only focused on getting out of this alive with Bucky by your side.

You shot back from the computer once it reached 100%, snatching the flash drive up with a loud whoop.

“What?!” Bucky called from across the room, not looking away from where he had his gun trained on the elevator and the quickly rising number that promised your death when it reached your floor.

“We gotta go,” you whispered, grabbing his arm and pulling him up with you as you ran for the door that led to the stairwell.

“But we can’t go without the drive,” Bucky said, pulling against your hold and looking at the elevator with frantic, murderous eyes.

“I’ve got it, Bucky. We can go,” you huffed, desperately tugging on his arm.

“But I thought you said—”

“I’ve got it Bucky. Please, we have to go now.”

“Pierce is coming,” Bucky said, eyes distant as he stared in the direction of the elevator. “I could end him right here. Right now.”

“Bucky, you can’t. There are too many of them to take on your own, you know that. Please, just come with me. We’ll take him down, I promise. Just come on,” you plead, holding out a hand to him in desperation.

“Take the flash drive (Y/N). Report back to Hill. I’m not letting him get away again.”

Bucky was focused on the door as the numbers slowed the closer they got to you, gun raised and ready to fire at Pierce the second he laid eyes on him. You knew it would be the last thing he did. You suspected that Bucky knew that too.

“Fine,” you said, resigned as you stuffed the flash drive back in the bodice of your dress and withdrew the gun from your thigh holster. You preferred your knife, but a fight like this called for something with a little more range. “Then we’ll stay.”

“What are you talking about?” Bucky snapped, looking back at you with wild eyes. “I said get out of here!”

“We’re in this together, Bucky,” you reminded him, shaking your head with a sad smile. “’Till death do us part, yeah?”

Bucky stared at you for a long moment, taking in your determination and the fire in your eyes as you offered up your life to his need for vengeance, and he seemed to come to some sort of decision.

“Fuck it,” he growled, lowering his gun and taking a large step towards you. “I told you he’s not gettin’ within ten feet of you, remember?”

He snatched up your hand and you bolted for the stairwell at the same moment the elevator dinged.

You let the door slam behind you as you raced down the single flight of stairs, Bucky fishing out his key and swiping it to give you access to your floor once you reached the door. You couldn’t believe that it was that easy after all—you had gotten the information you needed and talked Bucky out of getting himself killed just to get a shot at Pierce. All you had to do was make it to your room and hide out until Hydra cleared the hotel. You were almost in the clear.

Then you heard the thunder of footsteps pounding down the stairs, dozens of men on their way to find you.

“Shit,” you cursed under your breath, hearing their footsteps beat closer and closer with as your heart thudded against your rib cage in tandem. “They’re coming down the stairwell now. They’re probably searching every floor.”

“Yeah, I hear them. Come on,” Bucky pleaded, tugging on your hand and increasing his pace, trying to get you to your room. “It’s just down here.”

“No time,” you hissed when you heard the door to your floor open. You spun yourself in front of him, grabbing him by the collar of his white button up. “Kiss me. Quickly!”

Bucky wasted no time in complying. He dropped his hand to your waist, grabbing you roughly and pulling you forward into a searing kiss. You went willingly, pressing one hand against his chest to hide your gun and keep it ready to fire while the other twisted in his hair.

He grunted into your mouth, dropping a hand to your thigh and yanking it up, prompting you to jump up and wrap your legs around his waist. He slid his hand under you skirt, keeping the gun he still held hidden in the folds of your dress as he pressed you against the wall. After leaving you suitably breathless, he moved his lips down to your neck to nip at the sensitive skin there. You gasped, bucking your hips against him involuntarily, eyes fluttering open just enough to catch the eye of one of Pierce’s men further down the hall.

They were clearing the hall, looking for any suspects, but they were all trying very hard to keep their eyes off of the two of you. Your friend and fellow agent Natasha was right—public displays of affection made people uncomfortable. Well usually, with the man staring at you in open disgust apparently being an exception.

“Get a room,” he sneered, shaking his head and whispering something to his men that prompted them to head back to the stairwell.

“We’re working on it,” you giggled breathlessly while Bucky held up his left hand to wave your key at the Hydra agent, not lifting his head up from where it was still buried in your neck.

The man snorted, rolling his eyes but not saying another word as he followed his men back to the stairwell, apparently not finding anything suspicious about a young married couple getting it on in the hallway.

“He’s gone,” you whispered in Bucky’s ear once you were sure the door was firmly closed behind them, and he dropped you gently back to the ground, hands still on your waist.

“You good?” he asked, smoothing your mused hair back and looking you over with searching eyes.

“Do I look good?” you teased, biting your lip and smiling at him before snatching the keycard out of his hand and moving the last few feet down the hall to your door.

“You always look good, (Y/N),” he breathed in your ear, making you jump. You hadn’t realized he had followed so closely behind you, his steps always so silent. “But yeah, you look reallygood right now.”

You turned to face him as you stepped back in the room. His eyes were heated as he drank the sight of you in, and you told yourself that it was the adrenaline or the thrill of finally getting enough evidence to put Pierce away for good. But you really hoped it wasn’t.

“We need to report this,” you finally said after a long moment, clearing your throat. “Before any of those goons find us.”

Bucky hesitated, but nodded and moved further into the room to grab his phone. “I’ll call Hill. You pack up. We’re out of here the second we get a clear exit.”

“Yes sir.” You smirked at him as you passed by on your way to take down your surveillance equipment, ignoring the thrill that shot through you at his words.

You had a job to do right now, which involved you staying out of Hydra’s way and alive while they tore the hotel apart looking for you. You would have time to consider you feelings for Bucky and the fact that by the end of the day your pretend life as a married couple would be over later. Hopefully one that involved ice cream and sad music that made you feel less shitty about your life.

---

“Excellent job, agents,” Hill congratulated you much later that day, actually smiling for once. “You’re done for the day. We’ll call you when we have your next assignment.”

“Thank you, ma’am,” you and Bucky chorused, turning to leave the room and the final nail in Pierce’s coffin behind.

You were back at SHIELD headquarters in D.C., almost twelve hours after you got out of Pierce’s penthouse alive. Mr. and Mrs. Jones had officially moved out of their home on Crestwood Drive and Agents Barnes and (Y/L/N) were back to their normal lives. Well, as normal as your lives could be.

“Last night was fun, huh?” Bucky asked, shadowing you as you made your way to the elevator that would take you one step closer to your bed.

“You mean the part where we almost but didn’t quite die? Or the long hours of listening to Pierce talk about shit I don’t care about?” you asked, sarcasm coloring your tone almost as much as your exhaustion did.

“Nah,” Bucky said, catching the elevator door, keeping it open as people streamed out of it past you. “I was talking about the part where Mr. and Mrs. Jones ruined some Hydra agent’s virgin eyes in a public hallway.”

You grinned, looking at him over your shoulder as you stepped onto the elevator. “It was. I was beginning to worry that Mr. and Mrs. Jones were never going to come to their senses, but it’s nice to see that a high stress situation can always be trusted to bring a loveless marriage back together.”

Bucky returned your smile but didn’t say anything for a long moment as the doors slid closed behind you and you made the long descent down.

“You know, I was kind of getting used to it.”

“To what?” you asked, rolling your head to the side to gaze up at Bucky from where he was leaning against the wall next to you.

“The married life,” Bucky answered nonchalantly, arms crossed as he stared straight ahead. “At least, with you. And I meant that before I stuck my tongue down your throat, but now I reallymean it.”

You laughed, shaking your head and fighting the blush that rose to your cheeks. “The picket-fence life isn’t for us Bucky. It’s not our normal, you know that.”

“Yeah, but I think it could be. We choose our normal, right? I think that if I had a choice, I’d want my normal to be you.”

He finally glanced up and caught your gaze, and you could do nothing but stare at him in shock for a long moment. Your throat was dry, and you could feel pressure building behind your eyes, and you wanted to blame your emotional reaction on your lack of sleep, but you had a feeling that this was the only possible reaction to Bucky fucking Barnes telling you that he wanted you to be his normal. Which was kind of lame but incredibly sweet at the same time, in the way only he could be.

“So, what?” you say, unsure of how you should react to him saying everything you wanted and everything you feared in the same breath. “You’re saying that you want that? To leave SHIELD behind and pick up where we left off in suburbia?”

Bucky shrugged, holding your gaze as his lips quirked up in a small smile, the most genuine you had ever seen on him. “I don’t know. Probably not. But I do think that we could find something that works. We can have the picket-fence andthe late-night stakeouts. As long as you’re with me—that’s what I want.”

You laughed lightly in disbelief, shaking your head. “When did you decide this? We’ve been ‘married’ for almost nine months and this is the first I’m hearing about it.”

“I used to think there was nothing I would choose over taking out Pierce after what he did to me. But last night I found out I was wrong.” Bucky shrugged, looking as casual as ever. As though he wasn’t shattering your reality with a few words and the hope they planted in your chest. “Nothing else seems important after that, y’know?”

You nodded, because you did know. You knew a long time ago that you had been falling in love with Bucky Barnes, that it wasn’t just an act and it wasn’t just the mission. You had made a decision too last night—to stand by Bucky and face death rather than leave him to face it alone. He was right. Why waste any more time pretending?

Love was vulnerability, but it wasn’t one you could choose. Bucky Barnes made you vulnerable the second he stepped in your life. It might end with one or both of you dead or heartbroken, but you may as well enjoy the ride while it lasted.

“Okay,” you sighed, leaning your head back against the wall and smiling. “But first, sleep.”

“Seriously?” Bucky asked, a surprised chuckle leaving him in a huff. “I just confess my undying love to you and all you can think about is sleep?”

You crack your eyes open just enough to look at him. “You can join me.”

“Deal,” Bucky said, grabbing your arm and hauling you off the wall as the elevator door opened. “Sleep, and then can figure our shit out.”

“Sounds good,” you mumbled against his shoulder as he lead you out of the SHIELD facility. And it did. Figuring out the rest of your life with Bucky by your side sounded better than good. It sounded like your new normal.

Tagslist: @everythingbooknerd, @desir-ae

#marvel fanfiction #mcu fan fic #Bucky Barnes #Winter Soldier #Bucky Barnes x Reader #Bucky Barnes x you #Bucky Barnes x OC #Spy AU #lenivicwc #my writing

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