𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐰 ❅ 𝐥𝐨𝐤𝐢 𝐟𝐫𝐢𝐠𝐠𝐚𝐬𝐨𝐧

𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐟𝐨𝐮𝐫 - 𝐦𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐚𝐠𝐞

"𝐢 𝐰𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐛𝐞 𝐚𝐧𝐨𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐟𝐥𝐨𝐰𝐞𝐫, 𝐩𝐢𝐜𝐤𝐞𝐝 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐦𝐲 𝐛𝐞𝐚𝐮𝐭𝐲 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐥𝐞𝐟𝐭 𝐭𝐨 𝐝𝐢𝐞; 𝐢 𝐰𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝐛𝐞 𝐰𝐢𝐥𝐝, 𝐝𝐢𝐟𝐟𝐢𝐜𝐮𝐥𝐭 𝐭𝐨 𝐟𝐢𝐧𝐝, 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐢𝐦𝐩𝐨𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐛𝐥𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐠𝐞𝐭."

❅

Several minutes later, Belle finds herself alone in a room with a now-sleeping wardrobe and a lot of fancy fabrics strewn across the floor.

Ignoring Wanda's soft snoring, Belle quickly rushes to the window at the other side of the room, grimacing when it slowly opens with a loud creaking noise.

To her dismay, as Belle gazes down the ice and snow-covered tower, she realizes that she must be more than 100 feet in the air--not optimal for a quick escape.

Damn it, she thinks to herself, desperately looking around the room for anything to aid her in her escape.

"Hey!" Belle whips around to see what inanimate object is interacting with her, but she quickly fails to see anything that could've sourced the whisper from moments ago. "Over here, by the fire."

Tentatively approaching the small fireplace in the corner of the room, Belle asks, "who are you? Or, I mean, what are you?"

"You see the hairbrush over there?" The voice rings out after a minute.

"Uh...yes," Belle says, gingerly picking up the hairbrush before saying, "er- hello?"

To her surprise, laughter rings out from behind her that definitely is not coming from the hairbrush in her hands.

"HAHAHA....you look....so dumb.....right now...." the voice wheezes out, pausing every few words as a new burst of laughter overtakes it. "Yeah, no, I'm not the hairbrush; I just wanted to see if you'd actually believe me right."

Belle scoffs, dropping the hairbrush back on the shelf where she found it before turning back to the fireplace. To her surprise, she sees a heavily animated fire poker twitching around in laughter, still unable to form a coherent sentence from his laughter.

"So you're the fire poker..." she confirms to herself. "What's your name?"

After finally seeming to calm himself down enough to engage in civil conversation once more, the fire poker turns his attention to the girl in front of him. "I'm Bucky. And you are?"

"Belle," she replies, shocked when she realizes that this is the first person/object/whatever the hell you call them to actually ask for her name.

"Belle," he repeats to himself. "A beautiful name, and not just because that's literally what it means."

"Uh, thanks?" She says, unsure of the motives behind his seemingly backhanded compliment.

"Say, you haven't been by the common area recently, have you?" Bucky asks, changing the subject before Belle can put too much thought into his previous words.

"Only briefly, before I found my father and was locked up by a Frost Giant."

"Damn it," he sighs, snapping Belle out of her self-pitying thoughts just long enough to listen to the man's words.

"Why? Is the something you need down there?"

"More like is there someone I need down there," he mutters. "My husband, Steve, was turned into a compass when all of this," he says, gesturing to his fire poker body, "happened. He can't walk up the tower stairs and I can't walk down, so I haven't seen him in ages."