Your Ivy Grows

Chapter 22

Bucky

Three weeks. Three whole fucking weeks. That's how long it's been since he last saw Alexis and that shouldn't feel like a fucking eternity, but it does. Especially when all he can seem to think about is John's hand on her back, his arm around her shoulder. He's had three weeks to be haunted by images of the two of them together. Three weeks of imagining that her nails dig into John's back the way they do his. Does she moan for him in that same way? The way that has Bucky counting backwards from one hundred when he's inside her so he doesn't come.

B: When can I see you again?

He'd like to say it took him the whole three weeks to give in to temptation and text her. But he's not that strong, not when it comes to her. She makes him so fucking weak. Two days. That's how long he resisted the urge to contact her. It's pathetic really, just how quickly he gave in and sent that text. He'd tried his best to sound as casual as he could, knowing how much of a flight risk Alexis Walker is. If he pushes her too hard, he knows she'll run in the opposite direction. It would appear she already has. What did he get in response to his message? Radio silence. No text. No call. Nothing.

It stung him; he can admit that. After three days of her ignoring him, he'd told himself he didn't care, that he didn't want to see her again anyway. But while Bucky has got exceptionally good at lying to other people, he can't quite fool himself. It wasn't even that he wanted to see her again; he needed to. He seems to need her the same way he needs oxygen, as if he won't fucking survive if he goes without her for too long. What the fuck is happening to him?

After five days of silence, he couldn't stand it any longer and he'd reached out again. And then again. And again. He didn't stop, couldn't stop. Every day she ignored him hurt more than the last. After two weeks he'd even called, but it had gone straight to voicemail. He's ashamed to admit that he thought of anything he could say that would finally get her to talk to him. His last-ditch effort had been a thinly veiled threat, a desperate attempt to have her speak to him.

B: If you don't reply soon, I'll contact John instead.

He felt if anything could get to her respond to him, that would be the one. It wouldn't have even mattered at that point what she'd said. He'd have happily taken a text just telling him to leave her alone. Anything was better than the silence because the silence was killing him.

"What is so interesting on that phone, Buck?" Sam sounds annoyed and he has a right to be. They're supposed to be coming up with a plan to hunt down Karli and the Flag Smashers, but he can't get his mind off of Alexis.

"Nothing." Bucky puts the phone face down on the table, ignoring the voice in his head telling him to try calling her again. He's tried more times than he can count; the calls won't even go through.

"Clearly not nothing, Bucky. You haven't stopped looking at it since we sat down. Before today I wasn't too sure you even still had a phone, seeing as you never fucking answer my calls."

Bucky stays silent because he can't lie, he does ignore him. He ignores most people. The only person he wants to contact him is doing an excellent job of acting like he doesn't exist.

"Is this nothing about Alexis Walker?" The look Sam gives him makes it obvious he doesn't expect a response; he already knows the answer.

"I said it's nothing." Bucky says it with finality, wanting to put an end to the conversation before it begins.

"No, Bucky, that's the problem. It should be nothing, but it isn't. That woman shouldn't even be a blip on your fucking radar. But don't think for one minute that I actually buy that you two disappeared for so long that night at the club so you could go and fucking dance."