Oleander - Bucky BarnesxOC

CHAPTER ONE: DANGEROUS TYPE

No content warnings.

Dahlia rushes down the street shoveling a burger into her mouth with one hand while she's got a bottle of Mountain Dew under her arm. She's swiping through Tinder with her free hand, only occasionally looking up to make sure she's not veering toward a building or another person.

She sighs, swiping left on dud after dud. This app has been a hellscape lately. It's mostly guys messaging her pictures of their dicks or lame pickup lines. Sometimes they have a picture of a cute animal, but that's just to lull you into a false sense of security so that they can ask you what you're wearing, tell you about what a nice guy they are and other girls just don't understand - or telling you how big their dick is. Mostly, she's just fucking tired of men.

Still, she keeps trying. Dating in this city sucks and even though she's been on far too many shitty dates and hookups - but she keeps waiting for some Prince Charming to magically appear on her phone.

Dahlia has very specific dating criteria. Wanda always gets on her case because she can never actually name said criteria, she just knows it when she sees it. It's a certain combination of tall, dark, and handsome that does it for her. So far, all she's getting is "lives in his mom's basement" and has accents of cheeto dust in his beard.

A text from Wanda sails through.

[wands 🍃] The orchid delivery is here!!! AND ON TIME! Shocker!

Dahlia smirks and quickly punches out a reply.

Good. It'll get that bridezilla off our case.

[wands 🍃] You want me to call her?

Nah, I'll do it.

[wands 🍃] Thanks. She scares the shit out of me.

Lol I know. Be there in a few minutes.

She picks up the pace and switches back to Tinder. Dahlia is so focused on swiping and eating and swiping and eating that she doesn't even see the person in front of her before she collides with them. Her burger falls onto the ground and she almost loses her bottle of Mountain Dew... and her phone. She glances up and sees a tall blonde guy with broad shoulders in a ridiculously expensive suit frowning at her. He has a dusting of blonde stubble on his chin and his brows knit together. His large tattooed hand clutches his phone and he tears it away from his ear.

"Walk much, kid?"

Kid? Fuck this guy.

Dahlia's inner monologue is much more aggressive than her facial expression. She looks down forlornly at her discarded burger and then back up at him. This guy looks like he could snap her in half with his pinky finger. She'll save the attitude for the fuckboys on Tinder. Dahlia swallows her anger.

"Sorry," she whispers.

He huffs, smooths out his jacket and brushes past her, putting the phone back to his ear.

"Sorry, Buck. No, it's fine. Some stupid fuckin' kid ran into me - yeah, I'll be there soon."

Dahlia sneers at him as he gets swallowed up by the crowd.

"Asshole," she mutters as she shoves her phone into her pocket and stomps toward the flower shop.

In Bloom was her dad's shop that Dahlia took over the second she got the chance. She dropped out of college to run this place after her dad died, and so far... business has been... well, Wanda would describe it as "mind-numbingly slow" but you can't exactly trust someone who is stoned from the second they wake up in the morning. Wanda barely knows what day it is sometimes. Dahlia was amazed she could even text her.