Reaching Out | Bucky Barnes

8 | Wednesday, June 2nd

When I'm finally showered and dried off, I examine the black suit laying on my bed, already cautious about how difficult it will be to get on.

Turns out I was right to be worried, because as I begin the process of suiting up, I'm stuck with no idea how to get the thing done up; the zipper is on the back.

Stupid placement for a skin-tight body suit.

I only get it halfway zipped before I can't contort my body anymore and I let out an annoyed huff, walking to my door and poking my head into the hall. "Bucky?" I whisper shout. "Bucky!"

"What?" he asks, opening his door. He wears black cargo-style pants, a black leather jacket, and has a pair of gloves tucked into his front pocket.

"I need help. I can't get the damn zipper up," I mutter. His eyes trail down my body so I wave a hand and point behind me. "Attention on the zipper man," I scold, before taking a few steps back into my room and turning around.

I hear him chuckle behind me before one hand gently touches my waist and the other pulls the zipper the rest of the way up. "Looks good from back here," he whispers in my ear.

Despite the pleasurable shivers that run up my spine, I plaster a mockingly annoyed look on my face. "If I knew your brain would be in the gutter all day, I wouldn't have done anything," I say turning around and poking his chest. "Focus."

His eyes teasingly trail down my body once more before he meets my eyes. "Fine. Fine. Focusing," he smiles.

"Alright, out. I need to finish getting ready and we need to be downstairs in like, 5 minutes."

"Okay, okay. I'll see you down there," he says before pecking me on the lips.

I smile as he turns around, then eye him on his way out. "Looks good from back here," I echo, seeing him turn with a brow raised as I shut the door.

After finishing getting ready, I braid and pin my hair out of the way then eye myself in the mirror.

This is definitely not what I had in mind when I first came here.

I take a deep breath, readying myself for the rest of the day before slipping out of my room and making my way downstairs.

"Hey y'all," I call to everyone dispersed throughout the living area.

"Late night?" Tony asks with a brow raised.

"Just took me a while to get to sleep."

Not a lie.

"Ah, first mission jitters—we've all been there. Don't worry, we've got the easy job," Sam smiles from the island.

"I know, I'm super excited to hang out in a most likely haunted old building," I joke.

Sam lets out a bark of laughter and we chat for a few minutes before Steve, Natasha, Bucky, and Rhodes join us, and we make our way to the conference table. Tony already has everything loaded, the same images and maps on the screens as were there last night.

"This is the weak spot in their perimeter; you should be able to sneak through there and hopefully avoid any security checkpoints. The veils should be enough to disguise your faces, but make sure you don't come into contact with any biometric scanners," Tony says, eyes landing on Bucky. "I'm sure they have your data in the system and that's the last thing we need."

"Trust me, I have no interest in getting stuck there," he chuckles.

They work out a few last kinks and shift to our plan. It's simple; we'll approach low, do scans for any activity, send in a drone, then head in. Hopefully the place wasn't razed after the explosion, although that's probably wishful thinking.