writings-andstuff

[writings-andstuff]

Day Four: The Past with Barry Allen

Check out my explanation for these drabbles here.

Happy Reading!

Pairing: None, just Barry helping me with stuff (my name’s not mentioned though, no worries)

Words: 852 words

Warnings: do I even have to write “swearing” at this point?

Excerpt:  At that point, Barry had gotten up and wrapped his arms around me, holding me tight to him as if he was holding me together, as if letting me go would make pieces of me fall to the floor, mismatched and broken. It was true—at that point, the only thing keeping me together was Barry and his warmth.

“Take it from someone who’s travelled there, the past isn’t a completely terrible thing. Not for everyone.”

I frowned. “Not for the ones who had good lives, no. But for us, it is.”

Barry was leaning against the doorway to the infirmary where I was restocking gauze and things for Caitlin so she didn’t have to. It was late, probably very late, but not late enough that either Barry or I had gone home. I wasn’t expected home until late anyways so I figured I might as well help out a little.

I didn’t look at him as I continued restocking and shutting down monitors.

Out of the corner of my eye, I could see him watching me until he moved forward and sat down on the wheelie chair. I kept working.

“As the Flash, I can tell you that the past is over, it happened, and changing it is going to do more bad than good.”

I continued pressing gauze pads into a little, white drawer. Giving a dry laugh, I closed the drawer and turned around, leaning against the chest of drawers. “And as Barry Allen?”

“I know that certain events in your past can haunt you, make you do stupid, irreversible things—things that give one of your friends uncontrollable superpowers and kills the other’s brother,” he said. I never really talked to him alone, but I realized now that he tended to run his mouth, a lot like me.

I suppose that was something to be expected of the fastest man alive.

“How do you get over it? How do you get over your mother’s death and your father’s incarceration?”

He sighed, lacing his fingers together in his lap. “I don’t think I ever will. It’s not something you get over easily. But if I had to be grateful for at least one thing that came from Flashpoint, I’d say it was being able to see her again—to live with her, to hug her, to feel her.”

I frowned. “But I don’t get that chance,” I said. “I’ll never get that chance. It’s not like my parents were good—it’s not like I miss the people, I miss the concept. I miss being able to say the words ‘mom’ and ‘dad.’”

“I get that,” Barry said, fiddling with his laced fingers. I shifted. “I mean, I never really got to say ‘mom’ or ‘dad’ ever again.”

“Yeah, until you’re dad came back,” I said bitterly, then immediately regretted it. “Oh crap, Barry—I’m—”

“No, you’re right,” he said, putting a hand up to stop me. “My dad did come back; yours didn’t. You have every right to be bitter and upset about that.”

There was a long pause, in which neither of us talked and I went back to shifting stuff around, though at this point everything I was doing was unneeded.

“But, you can’t let what happened to you define you anymore,” Barry said softly. I didn’t turn around and look at him; I kept doing meaningless work. “You’ve been in a bad mood for weeks now, and none of us know how to help you. And I know that it has something to do with that big fight—”

I turned on him quickly. “I was almost kicked out of my house! For something I said that I didn’t even mean! How ridiculous is that? My life was just almost ruined because of one word and someone who blew that one word out of proportion. And besides that, my mother will never realize what she did to me. She’ll never understand why I hate her—and yes, I hate her. And I hate my father for leaving, and again for dying.” I paused, not realizing I was crying until my neck was wet and my own tears were falling to the floor. I wiped at them angrily and continued. “Everything that’s happened to me, Barry, it hurts. It fucking hurts. It hurts to remember, it hurts—and I can’t make it stop hurting.”

At that point, Barry had gotten up and wrapped his arms around me, holding me tight to him as if he was holding me together, as if letting me go would make pieces of me fall to the floor, mismatched and broken. It was true—at that point, the only thing keeping me together was Barry and his warmth.

“Okay,” he whispered into my hair. “Okay. I got you.”

After a few moments, I calmed down.

“How do I make it stop?”

He hugged me tighter. “You accept that it happened—you find a way to accept it—and if you can’t, focus on now. You’re going to college soon, focus on that. Focus on your training—on anything—because it’s in the past, it can’t hurt you anymore. Not if you don’t let it.” Barry pulled away, but still held me relatively close. “And when you need help, ask for it. You have so many people who care about you and who love you—your aunts, your friends, all of us here—and we’re all here for you when you need us to be. All you have to do is ask. Okay?”

I nodded. “Okay.”

Forevers: @melanie451 @fairchild21 @gingergrad

[writings-andstuff]

Day One: Guilt with Dean Winchester

This project was definitely cathartic and I have a post here explaining my reasoning and stuff. 

Anyway. 

Happy Reading!

Pairing: None, just Dean helping me with a problem

Words: 774 words

Warnings: well, it’s me, so, little bit o’ swearing

Excerpt:  “You save the people you can, and you think about them, not the ones you couldn’t. Because any victory, even a small one, is a victory. You live your life, because you have no say in what other people do or how they live their lives. And you drop this whole guilty schtick because kid, you have nothing to feel guilty for.”

“Look, kid, if there’s anyone in the world who knows about guilt, it’s me.”

I looked up at him, all green eyes and serious demeanor. I sat in the library of the Men of Letters bunker, staring at a man who had ended and saved the world several times. He was right—if anyone knew about guilt, it was him.

My immediate thought was that I wanted to be doing anything but talking about this right now. I wanted to be running my fingers over the spines of the extensive Men of Letters library; I wanted to look into the telescope; I wanted to examine the war table; I wanted to shower.

But I was here now. Might as well work on my problems.

“But you don’t just hold guilt for things you’ve done,” I countered. “You hold everyone else’s guilt too.”

“And you don't?” he said, raising his eyebrows and moving to sit next to me at the table. Dean turned his chair to so he could face me. I pulled my knees up to my chest and hugged them. “You’re a kid. There’s nothing you can do about your shitty past or the shitty people who made it shitty in the first place.”

“You’re one to talk.”

“Hey,” he looked me straight in the eyes, “I’ve made my peace with what I’ve done.”

“No you haven’t,” I argued. “Saying you’re over it and that you’ve let it go is different than actually believing it.”

“Touche,” he said with a look of approval. “But this isn’t about me, this is about you. You’re trying to make this about me so we don’t have to make it about you.”

I sighed. This was going nowhere. It was the blind leading the blind: neither of us would ever be over what we’d done, even if we weren’t to blame.

We’d always blame ourselves. Two peas in a pod, I thought bitterly.

“You’re right,” I relented.

Both of us were silent for a few minutes, Dean clearly unsure of how to respond, and me hugging my knees as close as I could. Finally, he spoke.

“Listen, kid,” he began, “life’s not easy. Not for anyone, and especially not for hunters. We kill because we think we’re making the world a better place, and a lotta the time we are. But we have to live with the ones we don’t save, and sometimes living with it means doing bad things. But there’s a line between bringing work home and letting it become you. You have to know the difference between something that’s your fault and something that couldn’t be helped.”

I thought about that for a moment. I wasn’t a hunter, and I never would be, but I understood the analogy. Surprisingly, Dean and I were a lot more alike than I would have originally assumed. We both could dish out advice all we wanted, but we couldn’t listen to it ourselves.

He was telling me that things happen, and that sometimes that can’t be helped. But I had a problem with his argument.

“But I still feel guilty,” I said. “Even though I know I technically didn’t do anything wrong, I still feel guilty.” I let my knees go and put my legs down.

“People are stubborn,” he told me.

“Like you.”

He paused, clearly taken aback, but regained his composure quickly and leveled a finger at me. “This isn’t about me, kid. This is about you.”

“Fine.”

But we both knew this wasn’t just for me. It was also for Dean.

“I forget what I was gonna say now.”

I smiled. “That was the point.”

He frowned. “Look, I don’t want to talk about this as much as you don’t wanna listen to me talk about it. But you can’t just keep ignoring what’s going on.”

“I’m fine.”

He put his hand on my knee. “You’re not, kiddo. And none of what’s happened to you in your crappy life is your fault. I’ve learned the hard way that people don’t change, and you can’t make them. As much as you wanna change someone—”

“They won’t change unless they want to.”

It was just like what I always said: You can’t help someone who doesn’t want to be helped.

“Yeah.”

“So what do I do?”

“You save the people you can, and you think about them, not the ones you couldn’t. Because any victory, even a small one, is a victory. You live your life, because you have no say in what other people do or how they live their lives. And you drop this whole guilty schtick because kid, you have nothing to feel guilty for.”

Forevers: @melanie451 @fairchild21 @gingergrad

[writings-andstuff]

Drabbles

So, I was going through old stories today to submit as part of one of applications, and I found two drabbles I had written for a project in English a month or so ago. We had to do something for seven days and write about the experience. So of course, because I’m so extra, I decided to write a drabble a day on something I was having trouble with. I only got to day four, but I’m pretty proud of the progress I made with them.

Here was my thought: I’m working on part three of Coincidences, but in the meantime, I thought maybe I’d let you guys in on a little bit about what I was going through while I was gone using these drabbles. 

They’re both only about 750 words, and the ones I’m going to post here are only two of the four. Here was the premise:

Day One: I was feeling terrible and my school psychologist had been talking to me about why I felt like I had to hold the guilt of something that wasn’t my fault. Why did I always feel guilty, even in situations that I couldn’t have done anything? I couldn’t answer her. So this short drabble is one with the one and only Dean Winchester. He’s probably not the best to be giving advice about guilt, but I thought it worked. 

Day Two: A drabble about memories with Percy Jackson and Jason Grace that I am not gonna post here. 

Day Three: A drabble about masks and facades with Leo Valdez. I’m not gonna post that one here either. 

Day Four: This was the last one I got to before I broke down and couldn’t continue. It was about the past and I used Barry Allen as my character of choice. I don’t generally talk about my past much, mostly cause it sucked ass, but I was having a lot of trouble with it at this moment after getting into an awful fight with my aunt about something. So. I’m gonna post this one. 

Who knows, you might like them, you might not. But I’ll feel a little better getting them out there and showing people that there’s more to me than just typed words on a computer screen. 

Anyway, I’m gonna fix them both up and post them today sometime so lookout for them if you’re interested. 

Over and Out!

~Sara

[writings-andstuff]

A Wild Sara Appears

Alright, I admit, I’m shit at due dates. Know what I’m even more shit at? Updates. But here’s an update: I was on a semi-hiatus thing for a while, but I’m back now!

No, your eyes do not deceive you. I have returned, four months, six college applications, one failed relationship, one self-awakening, and a weight loss of twenty pounds later. 

So, I promised myself for new years that I would get better at deadlines, both for school and for here (HA!). We all know I won’t get very far with this, but I’m gonna give it an honest try this time. I promise. And I get you guys have no reason to believe be after leaving your hanging for four months with Coincidences, but I have good news, I promise.

So, as I left it, part three of Coincidences was almost halfway done, and I know you’re gonna get mad and say, “But Sara, why didn’t you just finish it and get it done and then go on hiatus?” Simple: life fucking sucks.

I won’t vent to you guys. That’s not fair. After all, I left you guys. So. Yeah.

But Okay! I’m back. And I’m ready to finish this series, come hell or high water. I got a lead in the play, I’m a freaking senior in high school, in six months high school will let out and I will begin figuring out what to bring to college with me; I’m moving forward, and avoiding the responsibility of this blog forever is gonna kill me. I love writing. It’s what I do. So therefore you won’t be getting rid of me anytime soon.

That said, I’m gonna work my ass off getting this third part prepped and primed to send out to you poor peeps. I won’t make any promises about when it’ll be posted because I don’t wanna let you guys down, but I hope to have it done within the next week. 

I’m so sorry that I left you guys. And I will make this up to you all for however long I have to. 

I’m gonna tag everyone on my taglist (including the people who sent in asks wondering if they can be tagged) and update the list. 

Anyways, I’m back. 

Over and Out!

~Sara

Forevers: @melanie451 @fairchild21 @gingergrad

Marvel: @alwayshave-faith

Bucky Barnes: @langinator

Coincidences: @lovemarvelousfics @colagirl5 @winenighthoe @rachelcollier @bethanyv10 @buckyismyaesthetic @dinorapreira @socialheartbreak @ssweet-empowerment @hollycornish @sebastianst-n @babygirlizz @iggytheboywonder @sebstanwassup 

[writings-andstuff]

Updates and Stuff

Hey guys! So I just posted a TagList just to help me keep my stuff together. Of course, once I finish Coincidences, I’ll still keep the TagList the same, just in case I end up posting anything else pertaining to it. 

This is probably going to be the biggest project to date for me. I’ve never written something this long, and I can already tell it is going to be long. The longest fic I ever wrote was a Barry Allen x Reader trilogy from my old blog that I never re-posted. 

That said, I am going to start working on chapter 3 of Coincidences today and hopefully I’ll have it done by Wednesday, 8/23. Tomorrow, essentially. 

So here is my thought: I know that I’m bad at deadlines, but I really do need to regiment myself with my writing or I know I simply won’t do it. Here’s my plan: I am going to aim to post something every Wednesday, probably at night. If I am not able to finish a full fic by then, I may post one from my old blog just as a placeholder until I finish the fic. 

I wonder if I’ll be able to keep up with this. I hope so. I’m really going to try. I didn’t take too many difficult classes for my senior year of High School, so I shouldn’t have too much homework to worry about during the year. 

Over and Out!

-Sara :)

[writings-andstuff]

TagList

Updated: January 3, 2018

This is more for me than it is for you guys. It’s getting a little difficult to keep track of tags, and I am so happy. Like, guys, this is amazing. You all actually want to read what I write. You actually want to be notified when I write something. That’s amazing. So I am going to make a list of forevers and series tags just to help me keep track. Again, I am so thankful that you guys actually like my writing, you have no idea. So here goes:

Forevers: @melanie451 @fairchild21 @gingergrad

Marvel: @alwayshave-faith

Bucky Barnes: @langinator

Coincidences: @rachelcollier @lovemarvelousfics @bethanyv10 @buckyismyaesthetic @dinorapreira @socialheartbreak @ssweet-empowerment @hollycornish @sebastianst-n @babygirlizz @iggytheboywonder @sebstanwassup @colagirl5 @winenighthoe

Let me know if I missed one of you guys. My tag list is always open. I don’t care if I have to spend hours tagging people, I am okay with that. 

I will add more as more come in. 

Over and Out!

-Sara :D

[writings-andstuff]

I just read Coincidences AND JESUS CHRIST IM DEAD GOD BLESS YOU I NEEDED THIS AND I DIDNT EVEN KNOW IT ahhhhhhh I'm sorry I'm just shook I love the way you write and the story thank you so much

Oh my gosh, I can’t even find a reaction gif good enough for my reaction to this. I squealed. A lot. Like, A Lot. 

I didn’t even get the comments and the love and the wonderful asks on my last blog. This is amazing. You’re amazing. Everyone who left me nice comments or asked to be tagged, you’re all amazing. 

I can’t thank you enough, Nonnie. This is the kind of comment that makes me blush and squeal and want to write. This is why I even write in the first place: to make you guys happy and it makes me so happy that I’m doing my job. 

(Insert 9*10^40 heart emoji’s here)

Over and Out!

-Sara :D

[writings-andstuff]

If you don't mind me asking, what happened to your old blog?

Of course I don’t mind, Dear Nonnie. 

It’s a sad tale. My best friend and I had this joint blog for the story we’re writing together. Or, rather, the story I am writing with her input. She’s an artist, so she draws comics for the story. 

It’s sorta like we both brainstorm and then I sit down and write it out. 

So, we had this blog, and we had only a few posts, but we both decided that we were going to completely rework the plot and change the story. It was just easier at that point (as we had no followers and nothing to really worry about) to delete the blog. 

Here’s where my lack of tech skills and the fact that we made the blog on my account and just linked it to hers as an admin come in. I went to delete that one blog, as I’ve deleted one of my blogs before (on purpose). 

And I deleted all of my blogs. 

I proceeded to have a semi-panic attack because I hadn’t backed up all of my fics to my Google Docs. I had lost everything. All of my followers. All of my work. Even some art I did on my other, more nerdy blog (though that wasn’t a total loss as we all learned that I am way better at writing than I am at art). 

And that’s the story of how I managed to delete a year and a half of work in one minute of stupidity. 

The moral of the story is: always back your stuff up. No matter what it is, if it’s important to you, have it saved in two places. 

So yeah, that’s it. I hope you have learned something from my mistake. I now save everything I write to my Google Docs before I even post it. 

Thanks for asking, Nonnie. Fells kinda good to get it off my chest. 

Over and Out!

-Sara :)

P.S. We made a new blog, but I’m still working on finishing at least two chapters before I put anything up on there. 

[writings-andstuff]

Coincidences Part II (Bucky x Reader)

You guys have waited way too long for this and for that I’m sorry. But here it is, so I won’t start it with my usual long-winded preamble. 

Happy Reading!

Pairing: Bucky x Reader (Modern AU thingy)

Words: 5046 (yikes, that’s the longest fic I’ve ever written)

Warnings: The usual tiny bit of swearing

Excerpt:  For a moment, you wonder how this became your life. Yesterday, you were just another girl worrying about everything except her lack of a love life. Now that’s all you can think about because you’re flirting with a complete stranger. How insanely insane is that? For all you know, he could be a forty-something year old dude with three ex-wives and a beer-belly that could carry triplets. Somehow, though, you don’t think that’s likely.

Series Tags: @melanie451 @sebstanwassup @colagirl5 @winenighthoe @lovemarvelousfics @gotnotfeature @sebastianst-n @alwayshave-faith @hollycornish @iggytheboywonder 

Tags: @langinator @fairchild21

Your name: submit What is this?

New Message from Mr. Catarcs

3:42 a.m u up?

You blink your eyes blearily and shift in bed. The sheet is wrapped around your legs like sweaty vines, constricting your movement. You growl angrily and throw them off, sitting up and relishing in the cool air of your apartment. Despite the frigid cold outside, you somehow still manage to wake up sweating. Maybe you’re a mutant. 

Glancing over at your phone, it dings again to impatiently let you know that you still haven’t opened the text that woke you up. Usually your phone is switched to silent because of your job at the diner. There are always so many phones going off that it’s almost impossible to tell which is which. It’s just easier having your phone on silent because then you’re never worried about whether your phone is ringing or if it’s someone else’s. It saves you a lot of unnecessary anxiety. 

But ever since last night’s conversation with James, you decided that you wanted to hear your phone ring with a text. It’s the first time in your life that you don’t want to miss a text. 

You pick up the offending piece technology and swipe it open. Sure enough, the text is from James and you grin despite the fact that this message is the same one that woke you at—you squint at your alarm clock—3:49 a.m. 

Deciding you are both thirsty and in need of some time in the open air of your apartment and not under the suffocating sheets, you get up and stretch. The floors are cold as you pad to the kitchen and fill a glass with water, shooting a text back to James. 

3:51 a.m I am now

You wait for an answer while downing your glass of water and putting the empty glass in the sink again. Maybe he fell back asleep when you didn’t answer right away. 

For a moment, you wonder how this became your life. Yesterday, you were just another girl worrying about everything except her lack of a love life. Now that’s all you can think about because you’re flirting with a complete stranger. How insanely insane is that? For all you know, he could be a forty-something year old dude with three ex-wives and a beer-belly that could carry triplets. Somehow, though, you don’t think that’s likely. 

You have no proof of this, and absolutely no reason to believe he isn’t a creep except for a gut feeling. You resolve to ask his age whenever he decides to answer you. 

You think about that. He could lie to you and tell you that he’s 20 when he’s really a lot older than that. The only way you’d truly know is if you meet him in person. 

Suddenly you’re a little dizzy. This is just way too much to worry about at four a.m. You decide to just talk to him. You genuinely like his personality, and you don’t have to worry about all that other stuff until you actually meet him. If you actually meet him. That’s a big, neon-colored, flashing sign in the middle of absolute nowhere if.  

Your phone dings and you look over from where you’re clutching the counter. You don’t notice how hard you were gripping the counter until you pull your palms away and it stings, lines etching themselves across your palm. 

4:03 a.m srry didnt mean to wake u

Before you can even formulate a response, he’s texting you again. A double text. Gasp.

4:04 a.m just couldnt sleep. i was wondring if u wanted to talk

You tilt your head at your screen. He’s up in the middle of the night, and the first thing he does is text you? Why? Does he not have other people he can talk to? A stupid part of you, the same part that wants to meet him in person, thinks that maybe it’s because he wants to talk to you. 

Maybe he does. Probably not. It’s too much to hope for. All his other friends are probably asleep. Regardless, not answering is not an option. Well, it is, but it’s not one you’re likely to explore, not when your chest has those freaky bubbles in it and your stomach is doing that stupid flippy-thingy. Nope. This, you decide, feels like High School when a cute boy texted you first and the instinct to giggle shot up to level 12. 

4:06 a.m alright. what about?

Capitals, Y/N. What the hell happened to capitals?

You take your phone and pad back into your room, perching yourself up against the headboard with your knees drawn up to your chest and your phone in your hands as you wait for a response. Worrying your bottom lip, your mind drifts to work. You’ll have to get up in about three hours to be at work on time. Man, you’re going to be tired. 

It’s then that your phone dings. You decide then that talking to him makes it worth the fatigue. 

4:11 a.m twenty questions?

4:11 a.m Fine, but since you woke me up you have to go first.

The three dots that mean he’s typing pop up three different times before the response finally comes through. 

4:15 a.m whatd u go to school 4?

You laugh. 

4:15 a.m getting down to the nitty gritty personal stuff I see

You think for a moment. Telling him what you do isn’t divulging too much about yourself, so you decide it’s okay.

4:16 a.m lol yup thats me. i want the deep personal stuff. might just ask what ur fav color is nxt

4:16 a.m 1. editing; 2. sorry, that’s sacred info

4:17 a.m 1 ah i understand y ur a grammar nazi now…2 obviously

Thinking for a moment, you decide that favorites are just too cliche. Any conversation anyone has with some new friend ends in questions that start with “What’s your favorite…” You really want to know how old he is, but you figure you need an ice breaker before you get to the actual nitty gritty. 

First, though, you must take the bait to piss him off:

4:19 a.m What would you have done if I hadn’t gone to college?

With a yawn, you lie back down and curl on your side, sitting your phone on the nightstand in front of you with your eyes glued to it. Once you realize that staring at it isn’t going to make him type faster, you turn over. 

You’re totally not too eager. There’s no—

Ding!

You flip over so fast that you rip the sheet from the other side of the bed and end up with half of it between your stomach and the bed. It pulls from the bottom corner of the bed and is slightly uncomfortable, but you don’t care. 

4:22 a.m high school?

4:23 a.m I didn’t go to high school FOR anything 

You’re not sure if the use of caps-lock is weird, but you send it off anyways, deciding that emphasis on that one word is crucial to your meaning. He replies within seconds. 

4:23 a.m i mean dunno bout u but i went to learn

You laugh, probably louder than is necessary. 

4:24 a.m Touche. What’d you go to school for?

4:26 a.m repeating questions isnt alowed

Frowning, you wonder if he actually didn’t go to college. Should you push it? Maybe you should just change the question. There’s a part of you, the curious part that wanted to be a reporter when you were young, that really wants to know. 

There isn’t too much time for you to think all of that before he’s texting you again. Usually, you’re the one to mercilessly double-text. James, it would seem, has you beat in this department. Also, you didn’t want to double-text a complete stranger. 

Before you even look at the text, it hits you again: this is a complete stranger. The thought of not answering enters your mind again, but you push it down. No harm in just talking if neither of you meet, right? Right?

Right. 

4:27 a.m i joined the military right out of HS

It’s a real Oh moment, and you find yourself staring at your screen as if it’s a real person. The military? What are you supposed to say to that? What’s the protocol for a text that you’re not sure how to answer? Should you just leave it alone? No; if you leave it alone then he’ll think he freaked you out. He hasn’t. Your brain is just short-circuiting on an answer. 

Should you think him for his service? No. Not yet. You don’t want to call too much attention to it in case he doesn’t want to talk about it or he’s had bad experiences, but you’re still not sure how to respond. Have you taken too long already? 

You summon up some courage and type out a message. 

4:31 a.m Oh wow. Well, what would you have studied if you had gone?

You cringe, totally not meaning for that to sound like you were completely skipping over the issue altogether. James doesn’t seem to mind though, if his response is any indication. 

4:32 a.m hmm history i think. ive always liked ww2 4 some reason

4:33 a.m well you’ve got AP european history girl right here. 1 of only 11 in the whole senior class to take it. 

4:34 a.m well, smartypants i get 2 q’s bc u asked 2 

You feel that you handled that effectively, and you were already beginning to formulate a plan in your head while he thought about his questions. 

See, you know next to nothing about the military or what it’s all about except that it is for valiant people who want to serve their country. You can respect that, but you want—nay, need—to learn more. Convincing yourself that it’s purely for research purposes and not for anything else.

Regardless, you need to know more. It’s probably better to get it from someone who has been through it rather than from some cold, impersonal online source. And besides, you just so happen to know someone who was in the military. Someone who, in fact, lost a limb in the line of duty: Bucky Barnes. 

As far as you know, Bucky lost his left arm in the military. You’d asked him before how he lost it and he hadn’t answered you, opting instead to change the subject to Steve and his new (at the time) art studio. It had been suspicious, but you understand that it must not be easy to speak about something like that. 

You’ll have to go talk to Steve tomorrow morning to get Bucky’s number, but you think that maybe you’ll treat him to lunch in exchange for him giving you some details about the whole military thing. At the company, you get an hour off for lunch, which is just enough time to go out, interrogate a friend (respectfully, of course), and head back before the hour is up. 

The plan was formed and you had your head already set on it. By the time James’ reply comes in, you’ve tuckered yourself out thinking that whole plan out. It is really late—er, early—after all. 

4:41 a.m 1 how was ur day 2 how r u likely to spend a friday night

4:43 a.m I feel like I’m taking a Buzzfeed quiz

You yawn again and type out your answers.

4:44 a.m my day’s just begun. it’s four a.m. And probably reading or something

You put your phone down, thinking that you’ll just leave it there and wait for his reply, but you end up turning over and falling asleep. 

In the morning, you turn your phone on silent again while you get ready for work, playing some music while you apply some light make-up. 

It turned out that James hadn’t answered you anyway, so you would have been up waiting for a text that wasn’t going to come. Good thing you passed out. 

Glancing at the clock, you notice that it’s 7:02 a.m and that Steve should be up. You don’t have to be at work until 8 and it’s not a long bus ride to get to work so you figure you can spare half an hour to haggle your best friend into giving up Bucky’s phone number. You wonder why you haven’t thought to get it sooner, figuring that you just never needed it. 

You and Bucky only ever hung out with Steve or the rest of the gang. He was a friend of yours, but the two of you had never been too close in the two years of knowing each other. That said, you had heard a lot about each other even before meeting from Steve, and Bucky had expressed in the past how annoying he found it when Steve was constantly mentioning you in casual conversation. 

It was the same with Bucky for you. Steve had been talking about his best friend Bucky ever since you had met him. It was in that way that you and Bucky had gotten to know each other sort of inadvertently. 

Heading out the door and across the hall, you knock on Steve’s door lightly a few times. He’s a light sleeper anyways, and you don’t want to wake the whole hall with loud knocking. You only opt for knocking this time in case he’s not decent or something. Otherwise, you would have used your key.

Sure enough, Steve answers the door within a few minutes, clad in flannel pajama pants, a white V-neck, and holding a steaming cup of coffee. It smells amazing, and you realize then that in your rush you’d forgotten to make yourself some. 

“Got another one of those and half an hour?”

Steve raises an eyebrow but steps aside to let you in. He’s a morning person, so you were sure on your way over here that you wouldn’t receive any resistance. 

“What do you need?” he asks you, pouring you a cup of coffee not unlike how he’d done it the night before. He pours in a generous amount of milk and some sugar before stirring it and handing it to you, just the way you like it. 

Blow, sip—“Mm,” you hum. “I need Bucky’s phone number.” You say it as nonchalantly as you can manage so as not to raise any flags to Steve, but by his surprised expression you can tell that you’ve raised them all. 

“Bucky? Why?”

You shrug like it’s no big deal. “He has some info that I need.” It sounds so covert and cheesy that you almost giggle, but you manage to keep your composure while sipping your coffee again. 

Steve tilts his head to the side almost imperceptibly, leaning his back against the counter across from you as you sit at a stool by his island. Said island juts out from a wall to half-enclose the kitchen area like a wrap-around ‘J’ with the island as the tail. 

After a few moments of silence, it becomes clear that Steve is waiting for you to elaborate, and when you don’t indulge, he sighs, setting his cup down and crossing his arms. 

“Okay, but don’t call him now,” Steve says, already ruffling in a drawer for a pen and paper. “He—he has trouble sleeping, and he needs as much of it as he can get before he has to work. And he’s taking Friday off so he has to log in more hours to make up the difference.” Steve hands you a piece of paper with numbers scribbled on it. 

“Got it,” you said, taking the paper and sticking it in your bag. “Thanks, Steve.”

“Yeah,” he smiles at you. “No problem.”

You stand and head to the door, plan in motion and feeling good about it. Then you remember something and turn as you’re walking toward the door. 

“Steve?”

He lifts his head from where he’s still standing in the kitchen sipping his coffee. You realize you’ve left yours there, but decide that it’s okay. You’ll survive. Somehow. 

“Yeah?”

“Mom is bringing over pasta around two, but I won’t be home,” you can already see his eyes lighting up. “I told her to make extra and that you should be back by then. Can you—”

“—keep it here until you get home?” He knows you so well, it’s scary. “Yeah, but don’t expect me not to try some of it first.”

You fix him with a warning finger. “I’ll be over at seven and I will expect there to be enough for dinner and lunch tomorrow.”

He holds his hands up. “Hey, we all know my metabolism requires a lot of calories per day, and two is just in time for a late lunch.”

“Steve,” you warn. 

“Alright,” he laughs. “I’ll leave some of your mother’s pasta for you for dinner.”

“That’s all I ask.” 

You walk back over, kiss his cheek, take one more sip of your coffee, and then leave. 

You tap your foot on the ground impatiently as you wait at your desk for the clock to turn from 11:29 to 11:30 so you can head for a bathroom break to call Bucky and find out if he’s busy for lunch. 

James hadn’t texted you all day, but you figure that’s okay. He doesn’t always have to text you. He has a life. You push him mostly out of your head, or you try to. You fail miserably. 

He’s the reason you’re meeting with Bucky anyways. As much as you don’t want to admit it, that’s the truth. Of course, you can’t tell Bucky that. You’ll just sound stupid. And then Bucky will tell Steve and Steve will have some sort of “talking to strangers is bad” intervention with you. You definitely don’t want to endure that. 

11:30 hits and it’s officially been half an hour since your actual bathroom break. You don’t want to call attention to yourself in the office that you share with a whole bunch of other people in too-tightly-packed cubicles. You grab the slip of paper Steve had given you and head to the elevator. 

By the time you make it to the downstairs bathroom, you realize that you forgot your phone upstairs on your desk. Great. Now what are you going to do? If you go back up to get it, you’ll look suspicious. Of course, you shouldn’t really care what your coworkers think of you, but you do. Everybody says they don’t care about peer acceptance but most actually do. 

It’s human nature.

You sigh angrily and look around. The lobby is all marble floors and a little shop where they sell overpriced snacks and drinks. There’s a desk to the left of the elevator bank with one woman sitting in a black wheelie chair making and taking phone calls.

Can you just ask her to borrow one of her phones? There’s an empty seat next to her. Maybe you can explain your situation and just ask this woman if you can borrow the phone. 

The only thing is that you don’t know this woman. Your supers rented the office space with the endless rows of cubicles  from the people who owned the building. This woman obviously works for the building management, and not for anyone you know. 

You decide it’s better that she doesn’t know you. It’s less personal. You can call Bucky, discuss details, and be done with it. 

You sidle over and lean on the high desk. Its polished marble top is so high that you have to lean over it a little to see the woman. She’s plump, with dark hair, blue eyes, and a squished face. She looks the opposite of friendly. She’s wearing a black headset that you realize is some sort of Bluetooth. 

You wait until she is done speaking to talk to her. 

“Um, hello?”

She doesn’t look at you for a moment, reaching up instinctively as if she thinks you’re in her headset before she realizes she’s speaking to a real person. She eyes you. 

“What?”

You were right to guess she wasn’t very friendly. 

“I was wondering if I could borrow your phone,” you say kindly. “I have to call someone and I accidentally left my phone upstairs.”

She looks bored and eyes you for another second before looking back at her computer screen. “Just go up and get it.”

“It’s urgent,” you lie. Man, this is going to be awkward after you make the call right in front of her and she finds out its personal.

She eyes you again. “You have five minutes.”

You smile at her. “I’ll only need three.”

You wait as she plops one of the black phones on top of the counter, and it’s so high that you have to go up on your tiptoes to see the number pad. 

“Type extension 382 first, then the number.”

With that, she gets back to her work and you pull the phone from the receiver. You flatten the paper on the desk and do as she instructed. 

You wonder if he’ll even pick up. This will be an unknown number to him, and you know that if it were you, you wouldn’t answer. 

It rings three times before a familiar, gruff voice answers.

“Hello?”

“Bucky? It’s Y/N.”

He sounds surprised. “Y/N?” There’s a pause, a honking noise, and then he sounds as if he’s realized something. “Steve gave you my number.”

“Yeah,” you say. “I had to call you from a work phone, though.”

You catch the woman looking up at you briefly and can tell she’s annoyed that this is a personal call. You’re sure this call needs to be as short as you can possibly make it or else you’re afraid she’ll just cut it herself. 

“Oh.”

“Listen, are you busy for lunch in, like, half an hour?”

Bucky thinks for a moment on the other line and the lady looks at you again, her gaze becoming more venomous. You’re pretty sure that once she looks at you a third time she’s going to end your call for you. 

Just as you’re about to scold him for an answer, Bucky speaks up. 

“Yeah, I’m—”

You feel bad, but you have to cut him off. 

“Okay, great. Meet me at the Deli down the street from Steve’s studio at 12 sharp. My treat.”

Bucky chuckled on the other end. “Your treat? What do you need from me?”

You smile despite the situation. “Just your brain.”

“Sure you don’t want Banner or Stark for that one?”

“I’m sure,” the woman was giving you her last angry glare. You had to go. “See you then, Buck.”

“Looking forward to having my brain probed. Bye, Y/N.”

You hang up, thank the lady, and make your way back upstairs as fast as you can. 12:00 can’t come quick enough. 

Bucky wonders what you want to talk to him about as he drives a company truck to the deli and parallel parks a couple blocks down. The flatbed of the truck is filled with mismatched pieces of junk, from broken computers to the plastic from the top of a printer. It’s all stuff that can be broken down and reprocessed at a plant. 

The city is taking down an old building and putting a new office building up in its place. It’s Bucky’s job as the assistant to take all the not-so-useless junk and dispose of it somewhere where it can be reused. 

He doesn’t have to be at the plant until two, and he finished loading everything up early, so he has about two hours or so to spare. 

Walking into the Deli, he’s hit with a wave of merciful heat and he immediately pulls his coat off. The deli is small with few patrons a small line for take-out. One woman is sipping an iced coffee through a straw while she types madly on a computer. Two men are sitting at a table wearing yellow vests and eating huge subs. Bucky wonders if he would have ended up as one of them, working for the DPW if he hadn’t begun working with the demolition company. 

It takes him barely a moment of looking around to find Y/N sitting in a corner flanked by two windows with an empty seat across from her. There’s a wrapped sandwich and a water sitting on the table in front of the other seat. 

She’s smoothing out the wrapper of her own sandwich as if the creases in the paper wrapping are offending and should not be allowed to exist. 

“Hey,” he says, walking over and taking a seat in front of her. 

She looks up at him and smiles. “Hey,” she shoots back, and then nods to the sandwich. “Got you a BLT.”

Bucky’s suspicions are steadily growing. He pulls the paper from around the sandwich and lays it on the table as Y/N had done, though he couldn’t care less about the creases. He looks between the sandwich and the girl, eyeing both with the suspicion of someone who thinks he’s being played. 

“What’s this about?” he asks. 

She swallows and puts her sandwich down, looking like she’s about to ask him a ground-breaking, life-changing question. Her eyes quickly flick over to his arm and he’s suddenly very sure he knows what this is about. 

But that’s strange. Yesterday—or really early this morning—he was talking to Y/M/N about him having been in the military. Now Y/N is eyeing his arm like she really wants to ask what happened but she doesn’t want to sound impolite. 

Then there’s the fact that they’re both editors. That’s weird. And how Y/N reminds him of Y/M/N. 

He’s an apopheniac, he has to be. He’s seeing coincidences where there really aren’t any. It’s his brain playing tricks on him. In truth, maybe he just wants this strange girl to be Y/N. Though, probably not. Then again, maybe this whole time he thought he was jealous of Y/N for being so close to Steve, he was really jealous of Steve for being so close to Y/N. 

That thought derails him so fast that he doesn’t hear it when Y/N actually asks her question. 

She lets out a breath as if it’s a load-off to finally ask him, and he’s struck with the realization that if he says he didn’t hear her, she probably won’t take it well. He waits for her to say something else, but when she doesn’t he takes a leap of faith based on her glance at his arm. 

“You want to know how I lost my arm,” he says, rather than asks. If her expression of shock and discomfort is any indication, he’s screwed up. 

Big time.

Shit.

“I mean,” she straightens in her chair. “I guess—it’s sorta part of it? Yeah.”

She sounds so lost and he feels so bad. 

He still has no idea what her original question was though. ‘Part of it.’ His thoughts drift back to his earlier conversation with the girl he’s been talking to over text. The military. Could that be what Y/N wants to know about?

No, it’s just too weird. There’s no way. But he has to know. 

“The military? You want to know about the military?”

She nods, looking slightly guilty. “Yeah,” he tries not to let his breath of relief show, “I—uh, fact-checking. I’m fact-checking an article.”

Bucky nods slowly, sandwich forgotten. She’s a terribly liar. “You’re a terrible liar.”

Sitting back as if she’s been punched in the gut, she blinks once, twice, three times—“I’m not lying.”

“Your body language gives you away.”

“Is that something you learned in the military?”

Bucky chuckles. “That’s something I learned from a whole lot of spy movies. Seriously, why do you want to know?”

She takes a bite of her sandwich and speaks around it. Altogether, not the most sexy, but that’s okay. 

“Research,” she says slowly.

Bucky creases his eyebrows. “For?”

“For a project?”

“If you’re going to lie, at least lie with conviction,” Bucky says. “One of these days, I’m going to teach you how to lie the right way.”

Laughing, she pulls her chair in a little more and sits forward. The picture of seriousness, she says, “Alright, if I tell you, you need to promise me you won’t tell Steve.” She sounds reluctant to tell him at all. This must not have been her plan. 

Bucky draws a cross over his heart with his index finger. “Cross my heart or hope to die.”

She shakes her head. “Gotta be stronger than that. You have to pinkie promise.”

He gasps dramatically. “Not a pinkie promise. This must really be serious.”

Reaching over, she swats his arm. “Buck, I’m serious.”

“Okay, okay,” he surrenders, holding up his pinkie. She links hers with his and he’s momentarily struck by how soft her skin is. Then it’s over. “Tell me.”

She steels herself, he can see it. Jeez, it must really be something serious or she wouldn’t be swearing him to secrecy using childish, yet efficient tactics. It strikes him that she tells Steve everything, same as him, so for her to say she doesn’t want him to know must mean it’s not necessarily something good.

He lets himself think for a moment that she might be about to confess that she’s the mystery girl he’s been texting. It’s much more likely, though, that she’s about to tell him she’s got feelings for Steve or something. 

Steeling himself as well, he waits as she takes a deep breath. 

“I may or may not—”

“You may,” he corrects. She glares at him. 

“—have answered a text from a guy who was trying to text someone else—” 

This is where Bucky stops listening and his internal monologue becomes one word: 

Fuck.

[writings-andstuff]

OMG Coincidences is SO GOOD !!! I'm absolutely obsessed

Aw! Thank you so much! That really means a lot. 

Thank you for taking a moment to let me know what you thought of my fic. You have no idea how much I appreciate the positive feedback. 

Over and Out!

-Sara :D

Coincidences

[writings-andstuff]

Problems With Tags

@bethanyv10 So, I tried to tag you in Coincidences, but it won't let me. So I hopped on mobile and figured I'd see if it'll work here. Tada! It works. But only on mobile for some reason. Tumblr is being stupid. So here's the deal: if Tumblr let's me tag you for part 3, then yay! Otherwise, I'll post something similar to this with you tagged via mobile, as well as whoever else Tumblr is feeling like not letting me tag. That way, you still get thee notification that I tagged you in something the day I post the fic. Over and Out! -Sara :)

[writings-andstuff]

Coincidences Part II (Bucky x Reader)

You guys have waited way too long for this and for that I’m sorry. But here it is, so I won’t start it with my usual long-winded preamble. 

Happy Reading!

Pairing: Bucky x Reader (Modern AU thingy)

Words: 5046 (yikes, that’s the longest fic I’ve ever written)

Warnings: The usual tiny bit of swearing

Excerpt:  For a moment, you wonder how this became your life. Yesterday, you were just another girl worrying about everything except her lack of a love life. Now that’s all you can think about because you’re flirting with a complete stranger. How insanely insane is that? For all you know, he could be a forty-something year old dude with three ex-wives and a beer-belly that could carry triplets. Somehow, though, you don’t think that’s likely.

Series Tags: @melanie451 @sebstanwassup @colagirl5 @winenighthoe @lovemarvelousfics @gotnotfeature @sebastianst-n @alwayshave-faith @hollycornish @iggytheboywonder 

Tags: @langinator @fairchild21

Your name: submit What is this?

New Message from Mr. Catarcs

3:42 a.m u up?

You blink your eyes blearily and shift in bed. The sheet is wrapped around your legs like sweaty vines, constricting your movement. You growl angrily and throw them off, sitting up and relishing in the cool air of your apartment. Despite the frigid cold outside, you somehow still manage to wake up sweating. Maybe you’re a mutant. 

Glancing over at your phone, it dings again to impatiently let you know that you still haven’t opened the text that woke you up. Usually your phone is switched to silent because of your job at the diner. There are always so many phones going off that it’s almost impossible to tell which is which. It’s just easier having your phone on silent because then you’re never worried about whether your phone is ringing or if it’s someone else’s. It saves you a lot of unnecessary anxiety. 

But ever since last night’s conversation with James, you decided that you wanted to hear your phone ring with a text. It’s the first time in your life that you don’t want to miss a text. 

You pick up the offending piece technology and swipe it open. Sure enough, the text is from James and you grin despite the fact that this message is the same one that woke you at—you squint at your alarm clock—3:49 a.m. 

Deciding you are both thirsty and in need of some time in the open air of your apartment and not under the suffocating sheets, you get up and stretch. The floors are cold as you pad to the kitchen and fill a glass with water, shooting a text back to James. 

3:51 a.m I am now

You wait for an answer while downing your glass of water and putting the empty glass in the sink again. Maybe he fell back asleep when you didn’t answer right away. 

For a moment, you wonder how this became your life. Yesterday, you were just another girl worrying about everything except her lack of a love life. Now that’s all you can think about because you’re flirting with a complete stranger. How insanely insane is that? For all you know, he could be a forty-something year old dude with three ex-wives and a beer-belly that could carry triplets. Somehow, though, you don’t think that’s likely. 

You have no proof of this, and absolutely no reason to believe he isn’t a creep except for a gut feeling. You resolve to ask his age whenever he decides to answer you. 

You think about that. He could lie to you and tell you that he’s 20 when he’s really a lot older than that. The only way you’d truly know is if you meet him in person. 

Suddenly you’re a little dizzy. This is just way too much to worry about at four a.m. You decide to just talk to him. You genuinely like his personality, and you don’t have to worry about all that other stuff until you actually meet him. If you actually meet him. That’s a big, neon-colored, flashing sign in the middle of absolute nowhere if.  

Your phone dings and you look over from where you’re clutching the counter. You don’t notice how hard you were gripping the counter until you pull your palms away and it stings, lines etching themselves across your palm. 

4:03 a.m srry didnt mean to wake u

Before you can even formulate a response, he’s texting you again. A double text. Gasp.

4:04 a.m just couldnt sleep. i was wondring if u wanted to talk

You tilt your head at your screen. He’s up in the middle of the night, and the first thing he does is text you? Why? Does he not have other people he can talk to? A stupid part of you, the same part that wants to meet him in person, thinks that maybe it’s because he wants to talk to you. 

Maybe he does. Probably not. It’s too much to hope for. All his other friends are probably asleep. Regardless, not answering is not an option. Well, it is, but it’s not one you’re likely to explore, not when your chest has those freaky bubbles in it and your stomach is doing that stupid flippy-thingy. Nope. This, you decide, feels like High School when a cute boy texted you first and the instinct to giggle shot up to level 12. 

4:06 a.m alright. what about?

Capitals, Y/N. What the hell happened to capitals?

You take your phone and pad back into your room, perching yourself up against the headboard with your knees drawn up to your chest and your phone in your hands as you wait for a response. Worrying your bottom lip, your mind drifts to work. You’ll have to get up in about three hours to be at work on time. Man, you’re going to be tired. 

It’s then that your phone dings. You decide then that talking to him makes it worth the fatigue. 

4:11 a.m twenty questions?

4:11 a.m Fine, but since you woke me up you have to go first.

The three dots that mean he’s typing pop up three different times before the response finally comes through. 

4:15 a.m whatd u go to school 4?

You laugh. 

4:15 a.m getting down to the nitty gritty personal stuff I see

You think for a moment. Telling him what you do isn’t divulging too much about yourself, so you decide it’s okay.

4:16 a.m lol yup thats me. i want the deep personal stuff. might just ask what ur fav color is nxt

4:16 a.m 1. editing; 2. sorry, that’s sacred info

4:17 a.m 1 ah i understand y ur a grammar nazi now…2 obviously

Thinking for a moment, you decide that favorites are just too cliche. Any conversation anyone has with some new friend ends in questions that start with “What’s your favorite…” You really want to know how old he is, but you figure you need an ice breaker before you get to the actual nitty gritty. 

First, though, you must take the bait to piss him off:

4:19 a.m What would you have done if I hadn’t gone to college?

With a yawn, you lie back down and curl on your side, sitting your phone on the nightstand in front of you with your eyes glued to it. Once you realize that staring at it isn’t going to make him type faster, you turn over. 

You’re totally not too eager. There’s no—

Ding!

You flip over so fast that you rip the sheet from the other side of the bed and end up with half of it between your stomach and the bed. It pulls from the bottom corner of the bed and is slightly uncomfortable, but you don’t care. 

4:22 a.m high school?

4:23 a.m I didn’t go to high school FOR anything 

You’re not sure if the use of caps-lock is weird, but you send it off anyways, deciding that emphasis on that one word is crucial to your meaning. He replies within seconds. 

4:23 a.m i mean dunno bout u but i went to learn

You laugh, probably louder than is necessary. 

4:24 a.m Touche. What’d you go to school for?

4:26 a.m repeating questions isnt alowed

Frowning, you wonder if he actually didn’t go to college. Should you push it? Maybe you should just change the question. There’s a part of you, the curious part that wanted to be a reporter when you were young, that really wants to know. 

There isn’t too much time for you to think all of that before he’s texting you again. Usually, you’re the one to mercilessly double-text. James, it would seem, has you beat in this department. Also, you didn’t want to double-text a complete stranger. 

Before you even look at the text, it hits you again: this is a complete stranger. The thought of not answering enters your mind again, but you push it down. No harm in just talking if neither of you meet, right? Right?

Right. 

4:27 a.m i joined the military right out of HS

It’s a real Oh moment, and you find yourself staring at your screen as if it’s a real person. The military? What are you supposed to say to that? What’s the protocol for a text that you’re not sure how to answer? Should you just leave it alone? No; if you leave it alone then he’ll think he freaked you out. He hasn’t. Your brain is just short-circuiting on an answer. 

Should you think him for his service? No. Not yet. You don’t want to call too much attention to it in case he doesn’t want to talk about it or he’s had bad experiences, but you’re still not sure how to respond. Have you taken too long already? 

You summon up some courage and type out a message. 

4:31 a.m Oh wow. Well, what would you have studied if you had gone?

You cringe, totally not meaning for that to sound like you were completely skipping over the issue altogether. James doesn’t seem to mind though, if his response is any indication. 

4:32 a.m hmm history i think. ive always liked ww2 4 some reason

4:33 a.m well you’ve got AP european history girl right here. 1 of only 11 in the whole senior class to take it. 

4:34 a.m well, smartypants i get 2 q’s bc u asked 2 

You feel that you handled that effectively, and you were already beginning to formulate a plan in your head while he thought about his questions. 

See, you know next to nothing about the military or what it’s all about except that it is for valiant people who want to serve their country. You can respect that, but you want—nay, need—to learn more. Convincing yourself that it’s purely for research purposes and not for anything else.

Regardless, you need to know more. It’s probably better to get it from someone who has been through it rather than from some cold, impersonal online source. And besides, you just so happen to know someone who was in the military. Someone who, in fact, lost a limb in the line of duty: Bucky Barnes. 

As far as you know, Bucky lost his left arm in the military. You’d asked him before how he lost it and he hadn’t answered you, opting instead to change the subject to Steve and his new (at the time) art studio. It had been suspicious, but you understand that it must not be easy to speak about something like that. 

You’ll have to go talk to Steve tomorrow morning to get Bucky’s number, but you think that maybe you’ll treat him to lunch in exchange for him giving you some details about the whole military thing. At the company, you get an hour off for lunch, which is just enough time to go out, interrogate a friend (respectfully, of course), and head back before the hour is up. 

The plan was formed and you had your head already set on it. By the time James’ reply comes in, you’ve tuckered yourself out thinking that whole plan out. It is really late—er, early—after all. 

4:41 a.m 1 how was ur day 2 how r u likely to spend a friday night

4:43 a.m I feel like I’m taking a Buzzfeed quiz

You yawn again and type out your answers.

4:44 a.m my day’s just begun. it’s four a.m. And probably reading or something

You put your phone down, thinking that you’ll just leave it there and wait for his reply, but you end up turning over and falling asleep. 

In the morning, you turn your phone on silent again while you get ready for work, playing some music while you apply some light make-up. 

It turned out that James hadn’t answered you anyway, so you would have been up waiting for a text that wasn’t going to come. Good thing you passed out. 

Glancing at the clock, you notice that it’s 7:02 a.m and that Steve should be up. You don’t have to be at work until 8 and it’s not a long bus ride to get to work so you figure you can spare half an hour to haggle your best friend into giving up Bucky’s phone number. You wonder why you haven’t thought to get it sooner, figuring that you just never needed it. 

You and Bucky only ever hung out with Steve or the rest of the gang. He was a friend of yours, but the two of you had never been too close in the two years of knowing each other. That said, you had heard a lot about each other even before meeting from Steve, and Bucky had expressed in the past how annoying he found it when Steve was constantly mentioning you in casual conversation. 

It was the same with Bucky for you. Steve had been talking about his best friend Bucky ever since you had met him. It was in that way that you and Bucky had gotten to know each other sort of inadvertently. 

Heading out the door and across the hall, you knock on Steve’s door lightly a few times. He’s a light sleeper anyways, and you don’t want to wake the whole hall with loud knocking. You only opt for knocking this time in case he’s not decent or something. Otherwise, you would have used your key.

Sure enough, Steve answers the door within a few minutes, clad in flannel pajama pants, a white V-neck, and holding a steaming cup of coffee. It smells amazing, and you realize then that in your rush you’d forgotten to make yourself some. 

“Got another one of those and half an hour?”

Steve raises an eyebrow but steps aside to let you in. He’s a morning person, so you were sure on your way over here that you wouldn’t receive any resistance. 

“What do you need?” he asks you, pouring you a cup of coffee not unlike how he’d done it the night before. He pours in a generous amount of milk and some sugar before stirring it and handing it to you, just the way you like it. 

Blow, sip—“Mm,” you hum. “I need Bucky’s phone number.” You say it as nonchalantly as you can manage so as not to raise any flags to Steve, but by his surprised expression you can tell that you’ve raised them all. 

“Bucky? Why?”

You shrug like it’s no big deal. “He has some info that I need.” It sounds so covert and cheesy that you almost giggle, but you manage to keep your composure while sipping your coffee again. 

Steve tilts his head to the side almost imperceptibly, leaning his back against the counter across from you as you sit at a stool by his island. Said island juts out from a wall to half-enclose the kitchen area like a wrap-around ‘J’ with the island as the tail. 

After a few moments of silence, it becomes clear that Steve is waiting for you to elaborate, and when you don’t indulge, he sighs, setting his cup down and crossing his arms. 

“Okay, but don’t call him now,” Steve says, already ruffling in a drawer for a pen and paper. “He—he has trouble sleeping, and he needs as much of it as he can get before he has to work. And he’s taking Friday off so he has to log in more hours to make up the difference.” Steve hands you a piece of paper with numbers scribbled on it. 

“Got it,” you said, taking the paper and sticking it in your bag. “Thanks, Steve.”

“Yeah,” he smiles at you. “No problem.”

You stand and head to the door, plan in motion and feeling good about it. Then you remember something and turn as you’re walking toward the door. 

“Steve?”

He lifts his head from where he’s still standing in the kitchen sipping his coffee. You realize you’ve left yours there, but decide that it’s okay. You’ll survive. Somehow. 

“Yeah?”

“Mom is bringing over pasta around two, but I won’t be home,” you can already see his eyes lighting up. “I told her to make extra and that you should be back by then. Can you—”

“—keep it here until you get home?” He knows you so well, it’s scary. “Yeah, but don’t expect me not to try some of it first.”

You fix him with a warning finger. “I’ll be over at seven and I will expect there to be enough for dinner and lunch tomorrow.”

He holds his hands up. “Hey, we all know my metabolism requires a lot of calories per day, and two is just in time for a late lunch.”

“Steve,” you warn. 

“Alright,” he laughs. “I’ll leave some of your mother’s pasta for you for dinner.”

“That’s all I ask.” 

You walk back over, kiss his cheek, take one more sip of your coffee, and then leave. 

You tap your foot on the ground impatiently as you wait at your desk for the clock to turn from 11:29 to 11:30 so you can head for a bathroom break to call Bucky and find out if he’s busy for lunch. 

James hadn’t texted you all day, but you figure that’s okay. He doesn’t always have to text you. He has a life. You push him mostly out of your head, or you try to. You fail miserably. 

He’s the reason you’re meeting with Bucky anyways. As much as you don’t want to admit it, that’s the truth. Of course, you can’t tell Bucky that. You’ll just sound stupid. And then Bucky will tell Steve and Steve will have some sort of “talking to strangers is bad” intervention with you. You definitely don’t want to endure that. 

11:30 hits and it’s officially been half an hour since your actual bathroom break. You don’t want to call attention to yourself in the office that you share with a whole bunch of other people in too-tightly-packed cubicles. You grab the slip of paper Steve had given you and head to the elevator. 

By the time you make it to the downstairs bathroom, you realize that you forgot your phone upstairs on your desk. Great. Now what are you going to do? If you go back up to get it, you’ll look suspicious. Of course, you shouldn’t really care what your coworkers think of you, but you do. Everybody says they don’t care about peer acceptance but most actually do. 

It’s human nature.

You sigh angrily and look around. The lobby is all marble floors and a little shop where they sell overpriced snacks and drinks. There’s a desk to the left of the elevator bank with one woman sitting in a black wheelie chair making and taking phone calls.

Can you just ask her to borrow one of her phones? There’s an empty seat next to her. Maybe you can explain your situation and just ask this woman if you can borrow the phone. 

The only thing is that you don’t know this woman. Your supers rented the office space with the endless rows of cubicles  from the people who owned the building. This woman obviously works for the building management, and not for anyone you know. 

You decide it’s better that she doesn’t know you. It’s less personal. You can call Bucky, discuss details, and be done with it. 

You sidle over and lean on the high desk. Its polished marble top is so high that you have to lean over it a little to see the woman. She’s plump, with dark hair, blue eyes, and a squished face. She looks the opposite of friendly. She’s wearing a black headset that you realize is some sort of Bluetooth. 

You wait until she is done speaking to talk to her. 

“Um, hello?”

She doesn’t look at you for a moment, reaching up instinctively as if she thinks you’re in her headset before she realizes she’s speaking to a real person. She eyes you. 

“What?”

You were right to guess she wasn’t very friendly. 

“I was wondering if I could borrow your phone,” you say kindly. “I have to call someone and I accidentally left my phone upstairs.”

She looks bored and eyes you for another second before looking back at her computer screen. “Just go up and get it.”

“It’s urgent,” you lie. Man, this is going to be awkward after you make the call right in front of her and she finds out its personal.

She eyes you again. “You have five minutes.”

You smile at her. “I’ll only need three.”

You wait as she plops one of the black phones on top of the counter, and it’s so high that you have to go up on your tiptoes to see the number pad. 

“Type extension 382 first, then the number.”

With that, she gets back to her work and you pull the phone from the receiver. You flatten the paper on the desk and do as she instructed. 

You wonder if he’ll even pick up. This will be an unknown number to him, and you know that if it were you, you wouldn’t answer. 

It rings three times before a familiar, gruff voice answers.

“Hello?”

“Bucky? It’s Y/N.”

He sounds surprised. “Y/N?” There’s a pause, a honking noise, and then he sounds as if he’s realized something. “Steve gave you my number.”

“Yeah,” you say. “I had to call you from a work phone, though.”

You catch the woman looking up at you briefly and can tell she’s annoyed that this is a personal call. You’re sure this call needs to be as short as you can possibly make it or else you’re afraid she’ll just cut it herself. 

“Oh.”

“Listen, are you busy for lunch in, like, half an hour?”

Bucky thinks for a moment on the other line and the lady looks at you again, her gaze becoming more venomous. You’re pretty sure that once she looks at you a third time she’s going to end your call for you. 

Just as you’re about to scold him for an answer, Bucky speaks up. 

“Yeah, I’m—”

You feel bad, but you have to cut him off. 

“Okay, great. Meet me at the Deli down the street from Steve’s studio at 12 sharp. My treat.”

Bucky chuckled on the other end. “Your treat? What do you need from me?”

You smile despite the situation. “Just your brain.”

“Sure you don’t want Banner or Stark for that one?”

“I’m sure,” the woman was giving you her last angry glare. You had to go. “See you then, Buck.”

“Looking forward to having my brain probed. Bye, Y/N.”

You hang up, thank the lady, and make your way back upstairs as fast as you can. 12:00 can’t come quick enough. 

Bucky wonders what you want to talk to him about as he drives a company truck to the deli and parallel parks a couple blocks down. The flatbed of the truck is filled with mismatched pieces of junk, from broken computers to the plastic from the top of a printer. It’s all stuff that can be broken down and reprocessed at a plant. 

The city is taking down an old building and putting a new office building up in its place. It’s Bucky’s job as the assistant to take all the not-so-useless junk and dispose of it somewhere where it can be reused. 

He doesn’t have to be at the plant until two, and he finished loading everything up early, so he has about two hours or so to spare. 

Walking into the Deli, he’s hit with a wave of merciful heat and he immediately pulls his coat off. The deli is small with few patrons a small line for take-out. One woman is sipping an iced coffee through a straw while she types madly on a computer. Two men are sitting at a table wearing yellow vests and eating huge subs. Bucky wonders if he would have ended up as one of them, working for the DPW if he hadn’t begun working with the demolition company. 

It takes him barely a moment of looking around to find Y/N sitting in a corner flanked by two windows with an empty seat across from her. There’s a wrapped sandwich and a water sitting on the table in front of the other seat. 

She’s smoothing out the wrapper of her own sandwich as if the creases in the paper wrapping are offending and should not be allowed to exist. 

“Hey,” he says, walking over and taking a seat in front of her. 

She looks up at him and smiles. “Hey,” she shoots back, and then nods to the sandwich. “Got you a BLT.”

Bucky’s suspicions are steadily growing. He pulls the paper from around the sandwich and lays it on the table as Y/N had done, though he couldn’t care less about the creases. He looks between the sandwich and the girl, eyeing both with the suspicion of someone who thinks he’s being played. 

“What’s this about?” he asks. 

She swallows and puts her sandwich down, looking like she’s about to ask him a ground-breaking, life-changing question. Her eyes quickly flick over to his arm and he’s suddenly very sure he knows what this is about. 

But that’s strange. Yesterday—or really early this morning—he was talking to Y/M/N about him having been in the military. Now Y/N is eyeing his arm like she really wants to ask what happened but she doesn’t want to sound impolite. 

Then there’s the fact that they’re both editors. That’s weird. And how Y/N reminds him of Y/M/N. 

He’s an apopheniac, he has to be. He’s seeing coincidences where there really aren’t any. It’s his brain playing tricks on him. In truth, maybe he just wants this strange girl to be Y/N. Though, probably not. Then again, maybe this whole time he thought he was jealous of Y/N for being so close to Steve, he was really jealous of Steve for being so close to Y/N. 

That thought derails him so fast that he doesn’t hear it when Y/N actually asks her question. 

She lets out a breath as if it’s a load-off to finally ask him, and he’s struck with the realization that if he says he didn’t hear her, she probably won’t take it well. He waits for her to say something else, but when she doesn’t he takes a leap of faith based on her glance at his arm. 

“You want to know how I lost my arm,” he says, rather than asks. If her expression of shock and discomfort is any indication, he’s screwed up. 

Big time.

Shit.

“I mean,” she straightens in her chair. “I guess—it’s sorta part of it? Yeah.”

She sounds so lost and he feels so bad. 

He still has no idea what her original question was though. ‘Part of it.’ His thoughts drift back to his earlier conversation with the girl he’s been talking to over text. The military. Could that be what Y/N wants to know about?

No, it’s just too weird. There’s no way. But he has to know. 

“The military? You want to know about the military?”

She nods, looking slightly guilty. “Yeah,” he tries not to let his breath of relief show, “I—uh, fact-checking. I’m fact-checking an article.”

Bucky nods slowly, sandwich forgotten. She’s a terribly liar. “You’re a terrible liar.”

Sitting back as if she’s been punched in the gut, she blinks once, twice, three times—“I’m not lying.”

“Your body language gives you away.”

“Is that something you learned in the military?”

Bucky chuckles. “That’s something I learned from a whole lot of spy movies. Seriously, why do you want to know?”

She takes a bite of her sandwich and speaks around it. Altogether, not the most sexy, but that’s okay. 

“Research,” she says slowly.

Bucky creases his eyebrows. “For?”

“For a project?”

“If you’re going to lie, at least lie with conviction,” Bucky says. “One of these days, I’m going to teach you how to lie the right way.”

Laughing, she pulls her chair in a little more and sits forward. The picture of seriousness, she says, “Alright, if I tell you, you need to promise me you won’t tell Steve.” She sounds reluctant to tell him at all. This must not have been her plan. 

Bucky draws a cross over his heart with his index finger. “Cross my heart or hope to die.”

She shakes her head. “Gotta be stronger than that. You have to pinkie promise.”

He gasps dramatically. “Not a pinkie promise. This must really be serious.”

Reaching over, she swats his arm. “Buck, I’m serious.”

“Okay, okay,” he surrenders, holding up his pinkie. She links hers with his and he’s momentarily struck by how soft her skin is. Then it’s over. “Tell me.”

She steels herself, he can see it. Jeez, it must really be something serious or she wouldn’t be swearing him to secrecy using childish, yet efficient tactics. It strikes him that she tells Steve everything, same as him, so for her to say she doesn’t want him to know must mean it’s not necessarily something good.

He lets himself think for a moment that she might be about to confess that she’s the mystery girl he’s been texting. It’s much more likely, though, that she’s about to tell him she’s got feelings for Steve or something. 

Steeling himself as well, he waits as she takes a deep breath. 

“I may or may not—”

“You may,” he corrects. She glares at him. 

“—have answered a text from a guy who was trying to text someone else—” 

This is where Bucky stops listening and his internal monologue becomes one word: 

Fuck.

[writings-andstuff]

Hey

Okay, so I'm working on Part 2 of Coincidences. I'm sorry. I've had a really busy past two weeks, but I'm getting it done. I promise. It's going to be long, there will be a third part, probably more too, and it should be coming out either late tonight (Eastern Standard Time) or early tomorrow morning. Most likely late tonight because I really want to get this done for you guys. Everyone who has asked to be tagged will be and there's always room for more of you lovely people on the tag list. Over and Out! -Sara :)

[writings-andstuff]

I’m Back!

Hey guys! So, I’m sorry it took me so long to even get around to starting part 2 of Coincidences, but I’m starting it today. 

I went on a two-week vacation to Georgia to see my grandparents and look at the University of Georgia and Georgia Tech as possible schools to go to. Yeah, this Jersey girl might just become a country girl for college. 

But yeah, I’m gonna try and do the entire second part for you guys today and have it finished by tonight. I’m sorry I didn’t give you guys more notice to my disappearance, but for a while I actually wasn’t even sure when I was going. 

But now I’m finally home and ready to get back into the swing of things. 

So yeah. Hope you guys are doing good. 

Over and Out!

-Sara :)

[writings-andstuff]

Hey! I absolutely loved part one of Coincidences, could please tag me? Thanks! 💕💕

Of course! 

- Sara :D

[writings-andstuff]

Hi! Could you tag me in Coincidences? The first part was amazing!

Consider it done, my friend!

- Sara :D

[writings-andstuff]

I LOVE YOU GUYS

So, I just got 100 followers and I just. Wow. I didn't think I'd get this many this fast. You guys are amazing. And I'm so glad you're sticking with me despite my horrible attendance and my inability to stick to my own deadlines. 

In short, you guys are amazing. And I'm so happy to have every one of you.

 Over and out! 

- Sara :D