Dating Game ☆ Bucky x Reader

Chapter 8

The sun is bright like a knife when you open your eyes the next morning. Your mind works through a few things fairly quickly…

One, you don't remember climbing the stairs and crawling into bed, yet here you are. Oh lord, I shouldn't have been downing those drinks so fast. Well that's embarrassing. I hope he got home alright. 

Two, you changed before getting into bed, apparently. You are comfortably dressed in a lavender purple tank top and your favorite pajama pants. They have silly cartoon owls dotted all over them. 

Third, your phone is laying on the pillow a few inches away from your head, notification light blinking persistently. You unceremoniously smack at your phone and it lights up the lockscreen.

There's a notification from Natalie with the text - <<Since he wasn't home when I got home this morning, I assume the date went well? -N>>

The time said 10:04 am.

That was when you suddenly realize, fourth, that there are shuffling noises and quiet clanking coming from the kitchen downstairs.

A sense of panic starts to bubble up from your chest at the implications of those noises about the same time that the scent of bacon wafts up to hit your nose. The panic turns into confusion because you know, for a fact, that you didn't have bacon in your fridge.

You try, as quietly as you can, to shift out from under the blankets, grab your favorite fluffy robe from the back of the chair in the corner, and walk down the stairs. The stairs squeak a little like always and you jump when you hear a loud clatter and a familiar voice let out a string of loud curses. Your anxiety hits your throat by the time your foot hits the floor at the bottom of the stairs.

He notices you before you notice him and cringes. "Oh! Oh no. Did I wake you? When I dropped the spatula? I'm sorry! I was trying to let you sleep but I got hungry and then I noticed you didn't have much in the way of breakfast food in the fridge so I ran out to the store and got…" His long jumble of a nervous sentence trails off when he realizes you are just standing there staring at him in shock and horror.

There, in your kitchen, is the man you went on a date with the night before in flannel pants and an objectively too small white undershirt, but that wasn't what had you worried. The arm holding the kitchen knife was a perfectly average looking, albeit broad and thickly muscular, arm. The left one was shiny plates of silver metal from fingertip to shoulder. He watches your eyes trail from the silver hand leaning against your island countertop to the bright red star gleaming from his shoulder. The plates whir and shift when he tenses as if that was a replacement for flexing muscles. The mechanical sound seemed impossibly loud in the quiet of your apartment.

"Wait! I can explain, I promise! I got you home, got you up the steps, handed you some clothes out of your closet because you asked, and you passed right the hell out. I didn't want you to get sick, or heaven forbid fall down the stairs - who the hell puts a bed all the way up there and no bathroom anyway?" James says, the words spilling out of him as he runs a hand through his sleep tousled hair, "So I slept on the couch." He points in the general direction of your couch where there's a blanket and a few of your throw pillows bunched in the corner.

While yes that is something that you wanted to know it is slightly lower on the list than why the mass murdering assassin with a metal arm you saw a very blurry photo of on the news last week is standing in your kitchen about to burn a pan of bacon.

"You - you're that guy from the news! The one that killed all those people! How stupid can I be? Oh God. Does Natalie know? She wouldn't willingly set me up with...with someone like you would she? What the hell is going on?!" you shout, flopping down onto your couch with your head in your hands trying to quell the panicked pressure you feel sitting on your chest.

"Oh. That," he winces, looking from his arm to you curling in on yourself. He takes the slightly overcooked bacon out of the pan and places it on a plate. "I, uh, I can kind of explain that too."

"Kind of? Kind of! What do you mean kind of?! Wait, you're….not going to kill me, are you?" you sputter.

"Doll, if I was going to kill you I wouldn't have stood here and made you breakfast. I would have done so from the top that building through the top of that window," he says matter of factly as he gestures towards the tall windows on the other side of your apartment, "with a rifle before you even came down the stairs and you wouldn't have even known I was there." James smirks before realizing that was probably the worst possible thing to say. His expression slowly falters. "Wait. That came out wrong."

"You would have what?! What the actual fuck is going on?" Your words are abruptly interrupted by the large man walking over and shoving a forkful of pancakes in your open mouth.

"Here. Try this and stop shouting at me," he says before giving you a sad smile, "Let me start over. Hi. I'm Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes. Call me Bucky if you want, everyone else does. And I'm not going to kill you, at least I don't think so. Natalia says my cooking is questionable at best and that might kill you."