Do You Trust Me? // Bucky Barnes

6

Ava

Ava had watched as the one with the metal arm sat grinning to himself on his phone. He'd sent three messages that she had counted and laughed after the last, but when he looked back to her all of the warmth and amusement slipped from his eyes and his glare turned cold. 

Flecks of navy hid in the icy blue that washed over her and she leant forwards in the seat she had taken in the back of the fancy little jet they'd pushed her into. She ran her eyes over him, drinking in the scruffy shadow of stubble that lined his jaw and the way the t-shirt he wore clung to the defined muscles of his chest. She flicked her eyes back to his, raising one eyebrow in defiance as he watched her waiting for her to stop her ogling, but nothing met his eyes. No amusement, or resentment, or intrigue. The man before her was an impenetrable wall and for some reason she found herself drawn to the challenge.

"You know," the kid - whose name she now knew was Peter - muttered as he pushed to his feet and moved to the very back of the space, "the silence is painful now."

She couldn't help the laugh that slipped from her lips as her staring challenge rival jutted his chin out slightly and she winked. He still didn't smile.

"Okay, if you two are just going to sit and stare at each other, I'm gonna build something." Peter grunted in disapproval and Ava leant back where she sat, allowing her eyes to pull away from the man in front of her and follow the child now pulling holographic images out of thin air and typing furiously against a screen that seemed paper thin. 

Her eyes traced the fine lines of technology she hadn't seen before and her fingers itched with the desire to feel it in her hands. The desire to create something. She watched as Peter pulled another image up - a suit of metal and microbots - and she pushed to her feet. Her steps were tentative at first, hovering back, away from the boy as he tinkered and tested new formulas and she chewed the edge of her thumb as she squinted past him to the numbers and letters that indicated which compounds he was using pulsating on the screen.

"You know," she murmured, stepping closer with a soft smile, "if you substitute the metal for kevlar it would be a lot lighter."

"Yeah." Peter beamed at her, his hands folding over his chest as he watched her twist holographic suits between her fingers and her eyes danced with awe and wonder. "But I'd also be more likely to die."

"Not -" her fingers brushed over the keypad quickly, altering sequences as she glanced back to the teenager now inching closer to see what she was doing "-if you do this."

"Woah." Peter's eyes widened as the suit before him shifted and changed, absorbing impact from simulated situations and wrapping itself around weak areas of the wearers body. "That's new. How? Did you discover that?"

Bucky

A sadness seemed to wash over the woman standing beside Peter. Bucky had been referring to her as a girl. Her photograph had shown her to be just that; a girl with a gun and something to prove. But the woman on the jet with them now was darker than that photograph somehow. She was stronger too. Bucky could see it in the set of her jaw and the way she held her head high, but now, as Peter flicked the image of a suit between them and laughed like he was with someone he'd known his entire life, Bucky saw something else.

Ava Hall's head dropped the tiniest bit and she swallowed. Her eyes glistened as she averted her eyes only to meet his own, and when he cocked his head to the side he could have sworn she brushed away moisture as she pushed a strand of her hair away from her face.

Strange, he thought, that she seems so fragile.

Watching her struggle to find the words to answer Peter's question Bucky felt a tug in his gut - not sympathy or worry - pity maybe? - and he pushed to his feet. "Enough chit-chat," he barked in their direction. "We're here. Move it."

Ava

"Stop doing that, man." The new Captain America leant against the wall as he watched Torres tap the keyboard of his laptop aimlessly, his leg jigging and his lip pulled between his teeth, the way it always was when he was nervous and Ava felt her chest tighten as her eyes misted and her lips pulled into a relieved smile.

"If it isn't my favourite Jackass." Her voice trembled as she took a step towards him, his eyes snapping up to meet hers and his jaw slackening. "It's good to see you, T."

"Sarg?" Torres stood immediately, pushing towards her, ignoring the looks of everyone staring at them, and wrapped her in a tight embrace. 

Ava felt the tension slip from her shoulders, the weight she had been carrying falling away like a layer she didn't know she could remove, as his nose pressed in against her neck and her eyes closed. Here, wrapped in the arms of someone who had known her before, it felt almost as if it had never happened. It felt as if the last year was a bad dream and the five that were missing was nothing but a blink in time. It felt like she wasn't entirely broken.

"I - I don't know what to say," she whispered as his hands gripped her waist and he pulled away to look at her. Her fingers brushed over his face, skimming over the features that had changed so much since she had last seen him. "You look - everything's so different, T."

"It is," he agreed, his eyes closing and his voice shaking. "And you have a lot of explaining to do, Sergeant."

Ava nodded, wrapping herself around him once more and breathing in the fact he was in her arms. She was here and he was here and nothing felt the same anymore.

Bucky

Bucky hung back as he watched the woman holding Sam's friend. He watched as she ran her fingertips over the creases around his eyes and down his cheeks. He watched as she held onto his shoulders and clawed at his back, pulling him close to her and breathing him in. He watched as she wrapped around him as if he were a lifeline and he scowled.

In the corner of the room Sam stood watching him. His face was contorted into a glare that didn't fit his usual sunny disposition and when Bucky finally met his eyes he cocked his head to the side, indicating for Bucky to follow him to the next room.

A small groan slipped through Bucky's defences as he pulled out his phone and started to delete footage and texts. This would be bad enough without the evidence.

"What are you glaring for?" Bucky grunted as he followed into the next room and Sam came to a halt in front of him. "I got her here didn't I?"

"Peter said you let her walk, Buck. What if her car hadn't -" Sam paused as he closed his eyes and brought his hand to his face. He pinched his skin and took a deep breath, opening his eyes to a grin that Bucky couldn't shake. "Please tell me you did not blow up her car."

"Relax," Bucky grinned as he relaxed back into the dusty and torn couch shoved in this damp room. "It was all done remotely. Not a single person was hurt."

"Bucky! You can't just go around doing shit like this!"

"It worked didn't it?" Bucky laughed. "Besides, it wasn't my idea."