Radioactive | Bucky Barnes

Captain America: The First Avenger (1)

The young woman picked her nails. They were uneven, hands calloused.

Rhiley Lucia Stark tapped her foot against the ground, waiting. The music blared through the walls. Stagehands rushed, getting ready for the big show. Then there was the main star, the famous inventor, the man behind the wheel of the world's first flying car. He jotted down notes in his little journal.

Howard Stark, her brother, who was famous for his inventions and for how overly confident he could be at times, licked his fingers and flipped the page in his journal. He does this a few times before he spoke up. "Can you please stop staring?" He asked, looking over at Rhiley. "Do you blink?"

Rhiley had been positioned, leaned up against the wall, arms crossed her chest, gum in her mouth. She hummed and tilted her chin up in thought. "What else do you reckon I do Mr. Stark?" She asked, one eyebrow raised.

Howard shrugged, "I don't know! Maybe talk to people? Make friends? Socialize?"

"I have friends." Rhiley huffed.

Howard send Rhiley a pointed look, "I'm your only friend," he gestured to her, "You make people uneasy with that."

"You just gestured to all of me?"

"Yeah, you intimate people with that-" He gestured to all of her again.

"I don't know what you're trying to say, Howie."

"Your personality is off-putting to people."

Rhiley snorted, "Thanks."

Howard did have a point that Rhiley couldn't ignore. She did rub people the wrong way quite a bit. She happened to be a bit bullheaded, and though she could talk up strangers on the job, she found it difficult to make friends past the 'small talk' and 'surface level' conversations.

"I guess I could go flirt with some soldiers." She suggests, pushing herself from the wall. "Since I'm clearly bugging you."

Howard sighed, dropped his pencil and ran a hand through his hair, "I mean emotional connections Rhiley," He stressed, "Not physical ones." He turned to find his sister had already left and he sighed and rolled his eyes. 'She really needs to make some friends.'

Of course, Howard loved his sister with his entire soul, but he swore his blood pressure spiked incredibly high because of Rhiley. He worried about her constantly, her job making his job at being her big brother twice as hard. (Big Brother - Five minutes older)

He shook his head and let out a small sigh. She was gonna be the death of him.

Rhiley made her way through the crowd, blending in, her feet hardly made contact with the ground. She made no noise with the way she walked, she brushed past people like a quiet breeze on a spring night. After all, she was used to being one with the shadows, it was, after all, her job to blend.

Today was Rhiley's final day before she could return to her duties. Three months, it had been three months since the accident. Three months of Howard Stark hovering over her like a concerned mother. Three months of being caged like an animal in her own home. Well, her brother's home.

She hadn't wanted to take this time off and if it was up to her she would have gone right back to work after she healed up. There weren't many women who did what she did, she didn't want to lose the upper hand. She couldn't afford to do that and if it wasn't for her last name she wouldn't have been able to get to where she was today. She wouldn't have been able to prove herself.

Rhiley had recently been helping Howard as his own personal bodyguard since the project he had been working on was top secret. He had been working with some kind of super-soldier serum and honestly, Rhiley probably shouldn't even know half the information she did know, but her brother was a blabber - at least - to her.