Bad Company Blues - Bucky BarnesxOC

Part 2: I Me Mine

She stays for one more drink to calm her nerves (and to make sure that Bucky is really and truly gone) before she gets into a cab and heads home. Inside the car, she's stewing. How the fuck is she supposed to work with this arrogant, selfish, self-serving prick? And why did he go off on that tirade like he knows her? It's insulting.

Eden wishes that Bucky's personality matched his looks a little better - handsome, debonair, and confident. Instead, he's just a smarmy pig who refuses to take anyone without a penis seriously. She doubts he even takes Sharon seriously.

The only person Bucky respects is himself.

The last thing she wants to do is meet him tomorrow to go canvassing. It's such a waste of time. All they have to do is figure out where Rumlow and his cronies hang out, infiltrate it when he's not there, and get some leads. It's the best way to make yourself invisible. Bucky wants to traipse around Chicago advertising that he's looking for Rumlow? That's a good way to get shot.

Fucking idiot.

The cab stops in front of her apartment and Eden hands him a wad of bills before heading out and stumbling inside. There are some people lingering in the lobby. She decided to move into one of the fancier buildings in Chicago. That means she gets snotty looks from some of her neighbors for coming home with bruises or bloody noses. This is a "crime free" building. It's a joke that rich people like to tell themselves - that they're safe, that they live in good neighborhoods. Little do they know that their friends and neighbors have their hands into some pretty sticky shit. Everyone's got secrets here, some people are just better at keeping them than others.

But, if she wants to keep living in this place, she'll play their little game. She straightens up and smiles at them. At least she looks good tonight. The last time they saw her, she was wiggling one of her teeth with her tongue after it got knocked loose in a fight.

Eden pulls out her keys and takes the elevator up. She makes sure she's alone so she can slam her head repeatedly against the wall and curse herself for ever picking up that phone call from Sharon the other day.

She slams the door to her apartment and grunts, ripping her purse off of her body. Eden hurls it to the ground as she kicks her heels off and trips over them. That just makes her angrier.

"Motherfucker!"

She's been seething the whole car ride home. He was so goddamn disrespectful, talking to her like she's some kind of child. It's worse now that she can't get away from him, or retaliate. They have to work together now, and he has the ability to make her life a living hell. Who knows how long they're stuck together...

"What's up, babe?" Wanda calls from the couch.

"Ugh, it's just... this guy at work."

"Barnes?"

Wanda always knows.

"Yeah," Eden sighs. She looks around. Wanda's bags are here and her coat is hung up. "What the hell are you doing at home?" She stumbles into the living room, her heels dangling from her fingertips. She tosses them on the ground and walks to the kitchen, grabbing a bottle of wine and yanking the cork out with her teeth before she pours two glasses. "You're supposed to be undercover for another month."

Wanda looks over the couch with a huge smile on her face as the TV buzzes behind her.

"Caught the scumbag early."

"Which guy is this? Drug trafficker or pedophile?" Eden asks.

"He's both," Wanda replies. "And now he'll be doing 75 years if the judge has anything to say about it." She puts her feet up on the coffee table and sighs. "Got a lot of paperwork to do over the next few days and a lot of witnesses and victims to interview, but at least I don't have to pretend to be in love with one of those greasy bikers anymore."