Little Wing - Bucky Barnes x OC

Cherry Schnapps

A/N: To all my fragile little flowers, there's some mildly problematic shit in this one, so please proceed with caution.

TW: underage drinking and drug use, brief violence, and mildly dubious consent

~

Bucky had been gone for three days.

Dove had seen absolutely no sign of him whatsoever. He didn't call. He didn't stop by for meals or laundry. She didn't even see him around town. The urge to question Steve for his whereabouts was becoming more and more persistent as the days passed, but she figured the distance was for the best after their last conversation.

No one in her family seemed to pay any attention to his absence, so she thought it was safer to pretend she didn't notice either. She had only acknowledged his absence once when Sarah wondered where he'd been. Dove played along and pretended to look startled, then muttered something along the lines of "Oh yeah, he hasn't been back in a while." She spoke about him like she had forgotten he even existed. But she also made sure not to look too concerned, as if he was just a fleeting thought. As if.

She knew she should've hated Bucky after their conversation... but she didn't. After spending most of her life being ignored and misunderstood, she took extra care to listen to people. Her naturally understanding ways made her sympathize with the points he had made. He was right about one thing: nothing could happen between them. And she understood that.

Regardless, a much more compelling, stubborn side of her was trying to force her hatred for him back to the forefront of her brain. Needing to replace whatever affection she had come to feel for the guy with the longstanding distaste she held for him since she was young.

Any time Dove felt a pang of heartache over his rejection, she'd remind herself of one of his negative traits or something he had done to piss her off. Layers and layers of emotions were building inside of her. Heartache was covered with anger, embarrassment was covered with fury, and so on. Stacking these feelings to conceal that deep sadness she endured.

All of this left her to spiral a bit. She'd often find herself sitting in her window seat, whipping her head to look out the window any time she heard a car drive by, hoping to catch sight of the black BMW. Any time someone walked in the front door, she wanted it to be Bucky. Not even knowing what she would say if it were, but she just hoped it'd be him.

Trying to get herself out of the obsessive routine, she had called Mj and Peter, asking them to meet her at the bowling alley. It was already afternoon by the time she reached out, but they weren't doing any particularly exciting, so they agreed to meet her there.

Dove was riding her bike up to the archaic white stucco building. The neon sign sitting at the entrance of the parking lot flickered the obnoxious, bubble-lettered, The Lanes logo. There were a few cars outside, including Peter's.

Resting her bike just outside the front doors, she made her way inside. Her eyes scanned the noisy room that was bustling with conversation, the clacking of bowling balls crashing into pins, and music from the jukebox. In search of her friends, she looked over to the small alcove of rundown pinball machines and pool tables covered in rips, to the concession stand serving up cheaply priced junk food, landing on the lanes of varnished wood.

Mj and Peter were at the furthest lane. He was dancing back from taking his turn in the game, clearly having bowled a strike with the way he was cheering for himself. He bent down, landing an excited kiss to Mj's lips where she sat at the small corresponding table. She pulled back, laughing as she stood from her seat for her turn.