remains • b. barnes

2

"You'd be dead right now," Bucky was yelling at someone. "Is that how you wanna go? You wanna asphyxiate trapped in a stairwell?"

Darcy snorted. "He's gonna Dwight Schrute us one day. He's gonna set off a real bomb just to test our preparedness."

It was Monday morning. All 100 or so employees were gathered outside the building for an emergency evacuation drill. To be fair, at the old facility, we actually had to use the evacuation procedures for real bomb threats/small fires/general mayhem at least a couple times per year.

But now, in the middle of October, I was also freezing, and I might have welcomed a real fire just for the warmth. I was shivering, arms around myself, bouncing on the balls of my feet. My office had been particularly stuffy, so I'd taken my cardigan off earlier. I'd forgotten to grab it on the way out, since I'd been so startled by the alarm cutting through the silence that it took a few minutes for my brain to catch up with my actions. So I was just in the maroon tank top that I'd been wearing underneath it, and I was seriously wondering whether Bucky would yell at me if I tried to go in to get it.

I was turned toward Darcy, half in conversation with her, but I was paying attention to Bucky, off to my left. He was difficult to ignore, loud and commanding, clearly irritated. I'd seen him like this on a couple of occasions, whenever he had to deal with organizing people, and I always tried really hard to blend in and do what I was supposed to do. I knew I'd start crying if he yelled at me.

I saw, from the corner of my eye, the moment he caught sight of me, because he suddenly lost interest in emergency preparedness, clapped Sam on the shoulder like he was dumping sole responsibility onto him, and came over to me.

"Hey, doll," he called as he approached, taking his jacket off, the same leather one he'd worn on Friday. He still had long sleeves underneath it. "I didn't see you when I was coming in this morning."

He proceeded to put the jacket on me, no acknowledgement of it–just draped it over my shoulders and tucked it around me. It swallowed my frame. I froze, shocked, but I didn't acknowledge it either, instead replying, "Oh, I was running late today."

That was true. I was still embarrassed about Friday night, so I came in ten minutes later than usual to avoid him.

"Did your—Put your arms through, doll—" he added offhandedly when I still wasn't moving. "Did your weekend get any better?"

"Yeah, it did," I said, slipping my arms through the too-long sleeves. "How was yours?"

I couldn't imagine him relaxing. I knew he must at some point, but he was always so tense when I saw him.

"Fine," he said distractedly, not painting me a picture. His attention had shifted to something over my shoulder. "Fuck, I've gotta deal with that."

I was going to turn to look, curious, but his right hand suddenly touched my chin, tilting my face up to look at him directly. I met his eyes for the first time ever, and I wasn't surprised by their intensity or the way they made me squirm in his jacket. But I was maybe a little surprised that they were blue and pretty, and that there was a softness in them that made me realize he'd never yell at me after all.

"Don't avoid me again," he said seriously.

My eyes widened. He waited until I nodded in agreement, and then he was gone, hurrying past me, already yelling at someone else about whatever situation he needed to address.

Okay, apparently he knew exactly why I wasn't on the elevator this morning.

I folded my arms over myself, warm now in his jacket, but not wanting to face Darcy. She stepped into my eyeline anyway, her jaw already dropped.