FORTUITY ☆ B.BARNES ✔️

34: Beautiful On The Inside

"SO, THIS IS DOMINIQUE."

Maeve looked up to see a blonde, blue-eyed woman who looked like she was in her late twenties, smiling at her. "Hello." She said, sticking out her perfectly manicured hand. Maeve was dumbfounded, only being able to stare at the woman but as soon as she snapped out of her daze, she was sure to shake her hand.

"Nice to meet you, Dominique. Welcome to the team!"

Dominique grinned, nodding, "Please, call me Dom."

That was all Maeve could make out of their conversation as Bruce interrupted, "Oh, right. Ms. Conerly, since Maeve's all better, I suppose you'll be returning to your office a couple of floors below." Dom sighed and accepted it, she gave Maeve one more smile before walking away, her black heels clicking obnoxiously against the marble floor. Something about Dominique wasn't right, it was a bit unsettling. The way she smiled made Maeve's skin crawl.

Maeve sighed as she headed for the kitchen to make something for herself. She was very surprised to see Scott, making an omelet. When he noticed her, he started to fidget and almost burned his omelet. "You good?" She asked, peeking from the refrigerator. He nodded and continued to cook the omelet, stealing glances at Maeve every now and then. When she found the frozen pizza rolls, Maeve thought it was like winning the lottery, there wasn't always a time when junk food was around in the Avengers Tower, mostly because Nick Fury wanted to keep everyone in shape. Maeve turned around to find Bucky finally awake, and on the couch, eating his favorite cereal straight out of the box and watching TV.

After microwaving the pizza rolls, Maeve plopped down on the couch next to him and snuggled up. "So I heard you met the new girl." He says, a mouthful of Frosted Flakes. "New girl? She's like thirty," Maeve snorts, "But yes I did. I gotta say, she's kinda weird." Bucky looks at her confused, "Really? She seems fine to me." He replies focusing on the TV. Maeve said nothing more as she buried her head on the side of his shoulder wanting to sleep a lot more.

-

"No. Absolutely not. You are not going to fight just yet."

Maeve was bewildered and angered, she crossed her arms and pursed her lips.

"Why the hell not? Rocket gets to go and he's a raccoon!" Rocket groaned and climbed on top of her shoulder.

"Hey! Call me a raccoon again and I'll cut off Fabio's arm."

Bucky instinctively grabbed his metal arm and sent her a puppy look, one of those looks that you just can't say no to. "Oh, please, she's right. That's what you are. A raccoon." Peter added, enjoying a can of soda and a bag of chips. Maeve mouthed a small "thank you" to the space bounty hunter, and he responded with a subtle wink.

"Okay little missy, YOU have to rest. It's only been a day." Bruce argued, patting Maeve on the back in hopes of calming her down but she was far from it.

"No way! That's bullshit! Come on, I heard you were making me a new RED so pleaseee?"

"No."

"Pretty please?"

"Nope."

"Pretty please with a cherry on top?"

"What? No! Maeve- stop!"

Maeve silenced herself as she became a little scared of Bruce getting angry, he sighed, and massaged his temples.

"Listen, we can't afford to get you hurt again. Trust me, it's worse the second time, it's always worse the second time."

The others nodded in agreement, recollecting their past memories of receiving their second set of battle injuries. Maeve, annoyed and confused by this, only crossed her arms with a defeated demeanor and sighed, "Fine!"

As if on cue, the familiar but infuriating sound of black heels clicking against the floor caught everyone's attention. Dominique, holding a triumphant smirk, entered the room with a set of files clasped tightly under her arm.

"Hello, guys. Here's your new mission reports sent by Fury. I'm supposed to deliver it."

Maeve noticed Dominique's eyes were on Bucky, eyeing him hungrily as Bucky paid no mind to her and was conversing with Mantis. Maeve watched as she sashayed her way across Bucky, trying to make him have his eyes on her. She then unnecessarily bent over to set the files on a large desk. To be honest, Maeve felt like she was watching a horribly scripted teen movie, because the way Dominique dressed looked like she was playing her part as the hot teacher. Her white shirt was unbuttoned a little to show her popping cleavage, something Maeve barely had. Her black skirt was riding up to her ridiculously large butt and she had a vibrant, bold red lipstick on. Around her, Maeve felt self conscious, and tugged at her own dress to straighten in out.

"I'll never be as pretty as her' she thought.

It was like pure instincts when Bucky's eye fell on his girl, and saw her discomfort. He wondered what was wrong but figured it was probably because she didn't get to go on the mission with Captain Marvel. Bucky was taken aback when he saw her stare daggers into the back of Dom's head. He had never really seen her dislike another person, so it was a foreign feeling. Sure, Maeve had a lot of things to her, but disliking people for no reason wasn't something she'd do. Of course, Bucky was completely and utterly oblivious as to why Dom was such a bad person in the eyes of his Maeve.

"I'll be going now," Dom purred to Bruce and Bruce absentmindedly dismissed her, too engaged in his lab work. She glanced once more at Bucky, and smirked.

-

"Something's wrong with her, right?" Peter asked during dinner. There was a chorus of disagreements and agreements.

"Woah, guys calm down. Dom's not evil!" Bruce argued, talking with his mouth full. He was then shut up by Wanda, using her magic to shut him up.

"Don't talk and chew."

Bucky laughed for a moment before glancing at Maeve, who was nodding along to what Peter Parker was saying about Dom. "Yeah, I'm not saying she's evil but there's something off about her. I can't put my finger on it." Maeve added.

"Oh no way, Conner! I think she's cool." Rocket replied chewing on a chicken wing.

"Shut up, Rocket. You're only saying that cause you think she's hot." Retorted Maeve, causing the entire table (except Rocket) to laugh.

"She is right. I don't like her, she's very, very weird." Mantis piped in from beside Maeve. The fact that Mantis was an empath and even she could see through Dom was quite comforting to say the least. Drax also agreed, but stayed silent and only nodded along.

"Drax! Not you too!" Rocket moaned.

Drax let out a genuine belly laugh, almost causing the dinner table to shake a little.

"I like a woman with some meat on her bones. This Dominique woman is far too bony!"

While Maeve heard that, she stopped laughing and felt self-conscious again. She also felt quite hurt.

"If she's skinny what am I?" She asked.

Drax searched for an answer with his one remaining brain cell. He managed to come up with a response in under 10 seconds. In retrospect, it was probably a bad idea.

"Um, s-since you are an acquaintance, and you are my friend, I'd say you're beautiful - on the inside."