#‘main character’s mother tries to send him to conversion therapy.’ ‘boy gets jealous because other boy is spending more time with girl.’

[caphasamericasass]

The Tin Man and the Viper

Bucky Barnes x OC

Sucky Summary: AU Post Civil War Steve Rogers returns from Wakanda with a partially repaired Bucky Barnes to the reconstructed Avengers Tower.  Excited to introduce his first best friend to his BFF of the 21st century (OC), he’s shocked to discover that a deep change has occurred in her from when they were last united.  Bucky’s never been one for puzzles but finds some solace in her silence in a new world that’s spinning out of their control.  

Word Count: 1.9+

Characters: Steve, Bucky, Pietro, Wanda (mentioned), OC

Warnings: None Yet

Bucky’s POV

“Wait until you meet her Buck, she’s so much like her old man it’s uncanny,” Steve says as he drags me through Avenger’s Tower looking for her. “She’s quiet around strangers, I’ll tell you right now, but once she warms up to you…well I think you’ll really appreciate her sense of humor.”

I nod absentmindedly from Steve’s side, thinking about the picture on of his wall of himself and her, decked out in Brooklyn and LA Dodgers outfits. Steve said that she had bought them the outfits, hers the modern version, and taken them to the LA Dodgers vs. New York Mets game for his birthday shortly before the accords.  Her long dark hair had been tucked behind her ears, with golden eyes sparkling underneath her LA cap worn backwards.  She looked taller, Steve’s arm wrapped around her ribs, and she held a firecracker popsicle in her fingers.  Steve smiled widely whereas she, closed lipped and demure, but happy.  When trouble began stirring, she was called away for emergency business with the X-Men and disappeared, assumed to be in hiding when war broke out and in the aftermath.  Steve brought her up often while I recovered in Wakanda, however I can’t help but wonder why she wouldn’t have fought by his side in war if they’d been so close.  I don’t blame her for not protecting me, but that doesn’t stop me from wondering.  Her grandfather Jacques Dernier was no coward.

“Pietro!” Steve calls upon spotting the silver haired speedster leaving the gym. He waves at us and pauses as we approach him.  

“Hey Piet, this is Bucky.  Buck, you re-met his sister Wanda at breakfast.”  I nod at Steve as Pietro looks on warily but forcing a small smile. “Have you seen Stella around lately? I sort of expected to see you two attached at the hip,” Steve says.

Pietro swallows a gulp of water from his plastic bottle thickly.  “We are not uh—well we are not really together anymore. We do not talk.”

Steve furrows his eyebrows, the surprise and confusion evident on his face. “Tony said she’d just gotten back a few weeks ago, how’d you manage to screw up that quickly?”

“Is that all Stark said about her?  She is different now.  Something changed.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Perhaps she will talk to you.  Your friend,” Pietro tips his bottle in my direction, “he seems to be the silent, brooding type.  Perhaps that is more her speed now,” he says, growing more agitated as he speaks.  I scoff impolitely, but the kid’s being just as rude.  “I do not know what to do with her anymore,” he says lowly before turning back away from the gym.

“Wait—“ Steve tries to recapture his attention but it was too late and we watch as wisps for silvery blue energy lay in Pietro’s wake.  “Well that was weird.  He probably just did something stupid that made her mad.  Remember how bad I was with girls back in the day? He’s like that, but completely unapologetic.” Steve says reaching to rub the back of his head.  “She’s a bit like Peggy in the way that she’d probably shoot at him if he made her jealous or something too.”  I raise an eyebrow at Steve in response, thinking she sure sounds like a real gem.  As if he can read my mind he tries to reassure me, “you’ll love her, I promise. We’ve just gotta get ahold of her…”

We spend the rest of the late morning and midday roving around the facilities looking for Stella high and low.  You know how he gets when he’s all determined.  Steve checked all of her regular spots ranging from her bedroom to the research center when he decided we should grab a late lunch in the main kitchen.  The Wakandan psychologist that I worked most closely with had stressed to Steve how important developing and keeping with a scheduled routine would be before getting me ready for the field again and since then he’s been a mother fucking hen.  We’d slept a few hours after arriving back at the compound in the dead of the night before getting an early start in the gym. Then we went to the private kitchen that the Avengers shared for breakfast before embarking on their private search mission.  Steve considered taking me to the public cafeteria now, but decided that I might appreciate a less populated area after all of the introductions and reintroductions I’d been forced into today.  Not that I had been terribly social, I can acknowledge that I’d merely hung back behind Steve and nodded along absentmindedly with the conversations that he participated in.

That’s how we’ve finally stumbled across Stella, preparing something on the stove with her back towards the entrance of kitchen.  Pietro’s sitting at the kitchen’s central island with a glass of water in his hands watching her intently instead of eating the meal plated before him.  Guess the brat didn’t bother sending Steve the message that he’d found her.  His blue eyes are dark and so focused that he only looked up as Steve cleared his throat, catching both of their attentions. Steve grinns largely when two blank yellow eyes train on him.  “Long time no see, kid!”

I observe the girl from over the back of Steve’s shoulder.  Pretty as the picture, that was for sure.  But unlike the picture, Stella looks empty as hell. Her eyes are cold and distant the moment they set on Steve, but change gears nearly mechanically, glimmering with a new sense of familiarity.  She smiles the same closed, pink lipped smile from the picture, but it fades when she looks over Steve and caught sight of me.  She knitts her brown brows tightly and bit her cheek in pensively.  Steve looks shocked, like he’d expected her to run majestically into her arms or somethin’, and maybe he had but that sure wasn’t what was he was getting today.  He stirrs briefly in the silence before stepping aside and gesturing at me, “this is Bucky Barnes.  The mythical man your grandfather once coined so affectionately ‘The Fallen Glorious Bastard’.”  He chuckles awkwardly; he’d mentioned some of the things that had been said about me after the fall, probably in some attempt to make me feel like some kinda martyr instead of mass murdered.  Instead of nodding, I stare at her staring at me.  I bet she unnerved a lot of men this way, but two can play that game.  Stoicism is my Winter Soldier specialty.  

“Jesus Christ, Estella,” the fast kid groans.  “You are really going to do this to the Captain as well?”

She shoots him a nasty, glowering glare instantly, then turns back to the stove spooning what looks like ramen from the pot into a bowl she grabbed from nearby.  

“Stella?” Steve asks quietly.  He gets no response.  Stella moves to put the pot in the sink, then takes a spoon out from random drawer. She moves to the fridge and stares in it for about fifteen seconds like she’s trying to decide if she’s thirsty as well but shuts it without taking anything out.  

Picking the bowl back up she moves like she’s going to walk pass us and leave Steve confused and pathetically devastated but before she can take a step Pietro is up and standing before her with his back towards us grabbing at her shoulders with both hands.  “Estella!” he shouts angrily, and desperately I might add.

Before Steve can intervene I see the change in her eyes.  The disgust she wears for the Sokovian flickers, and I can see the fear before drops the bowl, noodles going everywhere.  Pietro swears letting go of her and she moves to cover her face before still silently bolting from the room.  Steve makes to catch her but I pull him back.  “I don’t think she wants to talk to any of us,” I mutter, not particularly in the mood to deal with a woman who must be seriously PMSing.

Steve adheres to my words but whips around angrily towards the boy who is pitifully staring at the shattered red ceramic on the floor.  “What did you do to her, Maximoff?”

“Nothing!  I did not do anything!  Ask Tony, ask Wanda, ask anyone and if they tell the truth it will be nothing!”

“Wanda didn’t mention anything a breakfast,” Steve says.

“She does not like to talk about it.  This silent treatment that Estella is giving us all makes her sad.”

“She just came back like this, and no one bothered to find out what’s actually going on with her?” Steve questions.

I shift uncomfortably in the doorway.  It’s my curiosity that keeps my feet planted and not going back to my room although that I know this discussion isn’t any of my business and I definitely don’t wanna get anymore involved in this.

Pietro sighs.  “That is not completely true.  The first week she was fine, it was as if nothing had changed at all.  She worked with Stark in his lab, went shopping with Wanda, we did what he normally used to do…she even helped Rhodey in his physical therapy.  Then the second week rolls around and she became ah—more reserved.  Refuses projects that Stark requests her assistance with, withdraws from my sister, becomes distant with me, but it is only a little bit and Wanda says that I should not worry too much, that she is most likely readjusting to life after the accords.  The accords and Civil War that she will not talk about by the way.  Even my sister has forgiven me for siding with Stark, but I do not know what side Estella would have taken had she been here. She would not speak about her absence aside from asking when you would return—I think she only rejoined the Avengers because you were coming back.  But by the third week she has snapped.  We were in the bedroom and everything was fine.  We are undressing each other, it is normal-“ at this Steve is seethingly glaring daggers but Pietro quickly notices and stresses again that it wasn’t his fault.  “It is normal and mutual, I swear!  And then all of the sudden she is shoving me off of her and screaming.  It happens so quickly that not even I could catch it. I jump back alert and search the room for an intruder or someone in the window or something but she begins to throw things from her nightstand—books, the alarm clock, and she reaches for the lamp and I realize it is me she is screaming at.  I get so panicked that all of the English sounds so muddled and I cannot understand why she is screaming and covering her eyes so I run from the room in only my boxers to find Wanda.  By the time I arrive back with her, Stella has locked her door and will not respond. We ask F.R.I.D.A.Y. if she is okay and if she is alone and F.R.I.D.A.Y. confirms these things but that Stella will not respond.  And Estella has never made a sound since then,” Pietro finishes.  Poor jerk, I think.  He looks like he could start bawlin his eyes out at any moment and maybe he’s slept as much as I have in the last few weeks.

          “That doesn’t make any sense,” Steve finally says.

          “That’s one thing that hasn’t gone and changed in the last 75 years, punk.  Women don’t ever make any good sense,” I say quietly.

          “Not Stella,” Steve replies.  “Stella has always made sense to me.”

PART TWO

#bucky barnes #winter soldier #fan fiction #writing #bucky barnes x oc #pietro maximoff #captain america #civil war #oc