Captain America and Bucky Barnes Imagines

101. STEVE: Ambrosia 3

           

A/N: This was requested by BuckysGirl42 a while ago! Hope you like it! Thank you everyone for 16K reads!

Words: 3.5K

The lights of a shimmery, shiny Tokyo blind the tired eyes of crowded cab car of Avengers. The most awake, excited of them all is the youngest—the one called Ambrosia. She's in disguise, like the others, wearing a dark colored jacket and a hat atop her head. Her pretty chestnut curls are tucked away beneath the cap, but the smell of her shampoo is still tangible in the stuffy, dusty cab. She leans over the laps of the bodies on either side of her to try and get a better view of what's going on outside the window. Her hands, small and green fingered, push on the knees of Steve and Bucky as she darts from side to side to peer at the view. The buildings themselves aren't what she finds most exciting. It's the big, bold lettered signs she can't read and the strange looking license plates of all the tiny cars that putter past. At this point Hazel can hardly remember where it is that this green cab is taking them. She's more involved with badgering Bucky to translate all of the signs she sees.

"What about that one? What does that say?"

"It's a dry cleaner." Bucky barely peeks an eye open before closing them again. He keeps trying to nap but the excited Hazel is disturbing him. He grunts unhappily as she clambers across his lap to try and get a better view as they near the biggest intersection she's ever seen.

"Oh my god! Are you guys seeing this?" Her voice is pure awe that has Steve's heart fluttering at how adorable she is. Her baby blue eyes are big as she stares wistfully at the city sights.

"Trying not to," Bucky replies. Steve reaches over to knock his friend in the arm for being rude. Bucky only rolls his eyes and tries, again, to sleep.

Nat's in the front seat with the selectively mute driver. She argues with him occasionally in Japanese about the quickest route to their destination.

"You could've given me the window seat," Hazel sighs.

"I get car sick," Bucky argues.

"No you don't," Steve calls Bucky out on the lie. Steve then taps on Hazel's knee to gather her attention. "Come look out mine, Sunshine. He's grumpy: just ignore him."

Hazel smiles over at Steve excitedly. She shuffles over—leaning across Steve's body so that she can get a proper view. He moves his arms out of her way, unsure of where to set them at first, before settling one of his open palms on the small of her back. When she doesn't seem bothered by this he relaxes into the motion of lightly brushing his thumb along the fabric of her thick sweatshirt.

It's the first big-mission trip for Hazel, more commonly known to the world as Ambrosia these days. The last big ordeal she'd been involved with had been that animal-robot fight in New Orleans. Now, a small collection of the heroes have been called to Tokyo. Steve added Hazel's name to the invitation list after seeing how well she's been adjusting to the pace and tempo of the group. She's amazing, he thinks, and he's afraid that it's more than just a workplace companionship attachment that he has growing towards her.

"This is so exciting," Hazel breathes.

Bucky grunts, "It wears off."

She huffs, "Maybe for you, old grump." She begins to smile again as the cab turns down an even busier, brighter street. People are everywhere wearing all sorts of colors and patterns that give her a welcomed headache.

Steve would've usually agreed with Bucky that the excitement of these things—travelling places unseen—grows old. But now, seeing it through Hazel's optimistic eyes, he has to admit that there's more beauty to it than he's been aware of in recent days. Even when they were in New Orleans a few weeks ago she'd managed to make him hyper aware of the small things: like the kids playing hopscotch on the corner outside of their safe-house and the smell of fresh seafood in the air.