Do You Trust Me? // Bucky Barnes

10

Bucky

As Sharon Carter approached the small cafe, Bucky watched her closely. She was carrying; her weapon tucked against her side and displayed slightly as she pushed her jacket back and shoved her hands into her jeans pocket. He'd expected as much. Carter was, after all, CIA again. But something about the fact she was approaching them in a quiet corner of New York, where no one knew or cared who they were, with a fully loaded weapon didn't sit right with him. Especially when they'd come unarmed.

His eyes drifted to the seats by the window - the table sitting in direct sunlight - and its occupants. Ava was laughing again. Dressed in some old jeans and a Metallica t-shirt that had been stuffed into the back of a dresser in the apartment, she looked more relaxed - younger somehow - and less dangerous today. Her eyes crinkled as she shook her head and scrunched her face in disgust at something Peter said to her and Bucky shifted where he stood, positioning himself in front of the two of them as Sharon stepped up to where he stood waiting.

"Hey boys," Sharon smiled at the two Avengers and Bucky watched as Sam stepped forwards to embrace her; he stayed firmly in place. "Can we step inside?" 

Her eyes darted over Bucky's shoulder, to where Ava and Peter poured over a Chemistry book and his back stiffened.

"Sure thing." He stepped back, gesturing for Sharon to step inside first and followed behind her. 

As Sam walked alongside him, Bucky glanced to the kid. Peter was grinning as he scribbled answers to his homework and Ava sipped some frothy coffee concoction that had smelt like a kitchen load of spices had exploded into it when Bucky had payed for it. Despite his reluctance to be too kind to the kid from Queens, there was something endearing and sweet about him - something Rogers-like - that made him want to keep him safe. Unfortunately, Bucky couldn't tell if Ava was the threat, or if he was following the real threat inside.

"What are you thinking, Cyborg?" Sam whispered, his hand catching the crook of Bucky's elbow and pulling him to a stop before entering the building. 

"I'm not sure what it is," Bucky admitted. "But something isn't right."

"With Ava?"

Bucky sighed as he stepped forwards. "No. Not with Ava."

*

"Toomes is just the tip of the iceberg." Sharon had been speaking for almost twenty minutes straight, and yet it didn't escape Bucky's notice that she'd offered no information they didn't already hold and she had absolutely nothing on Ava Hall that Torres hadn't told them.

"We figured that, Carter." Bucky grunted as he shifted in the small wooden chair pushed against a wall. Every inch of his body screamed for him to get up and move - to go outside and see what was happening - to check that Ava hadn't upped and disappeared on him. Them. Hadn't disappeared on them. He shook his head as he stood. "What's the point with all this?" 

On the table between them all were mountains of papers. Some were rap sheets for known names in the weapons industry, others were news reports surrounding the increase in organised crime in the city since half the worlds population reappeared. Others were clippings of Ava's life before the snap; pictures of her with a group of soldiers overseas, a newspaper clipping of a younger version of herself - more open and happy - with a little boy grinning up at her, some science award in her hands as the woman beside her beamed with pride. Everything from before the snap screamed at Bucky. They jumped and shouted and begged for his attention as criminal mug shots turned their heads and faded into the background.

"My point, America's Sidekick," Sharon quipped, picking up files and packing them all away, "is that The Power Broker is on American Soil. And I think she might be helping America's favourite arachnid with his Chem work."

*

Ava

While Sam and Bucky had disappeared inside with Sharon Carter, Ava had worked hard to keep her mind quiet and her body still. She had kept her head down - her eyes on the textbook between her and the kid and her breathing slow. She'd glanced up just once, meeting the cold glare of the woman who controlled her fate, and an ice had settled over her. 

Sharon Carter was here to spread chaos and danger. Sharon Carter was here to help her or to hurt her, and whichever she decided, Ava needed to be prepared.

"So," Peter bounced in his seat, dragging Ava's mind back to the present and away from the panic wrapping around her. "I have an idea."

The Chemistry work was long finished and Peter was growing restless as they waited.

"Shoot." She pushed the sleeves of the leather jacket she still hadn't given back to Barnes up and leant back in the chair.

"Okay. So we know that Mr Barnes doesn't seem to like you."

Ava snorted and Peter raised his eyebrows as she tried to school her features into something more serious. 

"I'm sorry," she giggled, "that just felt like an understatement. Please continue."

Peter shrugged as he span his mug between his hands. "Right. Anyway. You're both very scary people too, right?"

She nodded with a smile. "Terrifying."

"Well." Peter squared his shoulders, his back straightening and his lips pulling into a worried frown as he steadied himself and Ava grinned as she pushed her feet up onto his lap. His own smile broke through his mask of seriousness as he placed his hands on her legs and glanced down to where she was relaxing against him. "I think he could actually maybe kind of like you, and I think, if you were receptive to it of course, that the two of you - together - could be kind of terrifying. You know together. As a couple. Maybe."

Ava pulled her legs back and wrapped her arms around herself as Peter grimaced and she glared.

"Little Bug -"

"Just hear me out, okay?" His words spilled from his lips as he reached for her hand and pulled her forwards so she was connected to him and Ava watched as he wrapped his fingers around her own. "I know I don't really know you, but you have a dark past, right? So does he. And you're like insanely smart, and he kinda is too. Plus I've seen the way you look at him and I know you pretend it's just to mess with him but I don't actually think I believe that. And if you two were to maybe give it a try, then maybe when all of this is done and you've helped us get what we need, well then maybe you could stick around a little longer. I just think that would be nice. For you, I mean."

She wanted to tell him he was ridiculous, really - that she and Bucky Barnes were too different to peacefully coexist, let alone for anything to develop between them. She wanted to tell him that if she could stay, she would. She would stay for the kid who smiled too widely and trusted too easily and wanted so desperately to see the good in her when that good had died away the second the world went dark on her; she would stay for Peter Parker. But she couldn't, because as she opened her mouth to speak and Peter shuffled his seat closer to her and began to beg, the door to the coffeeshop swung open and The Power Broker stepped out, shoving a phone into her pocket and very deliberately flashing her gun in Ava's line of sight. 

"Little Bug," she sighed as she pulled her hands from his hold and ran them over her face. "How much coffee have you had this morning?"

"Like five cups," he admitted dejectedly, his eyes trailing over her face as a sadness crept over his features. "But that's not the point. I think you two would work together. And I think you could stay, Ava."