Bad Company Blues - Bucky BarnesxOC

FINALE: from eden

Honey, you're familiar, like my mirror years ago
- Hozier, "From Eden"

Sharon has been pacing back and forth behind her desk for five minutes. You could hear a pin drop, it's so quiet. Even the traffic outside seems terrified to interrupt her fit of rage.

Eden is too tense to speak and the only sound either of them hear from Bucky is the odd sigh. He's totally disinterested in Sharon's reaction. Bucky didn't even give Sharon the time to say hello to them before he started unloading on her about the mission. Eden watched in horror as Sharon's smile slowly faded and became a twisted grimace.

And then she started screaming.

And swearing.

And tried to flip her desk over. Thank God she wasn't strong enough to do it.

Before they got out of the car to meet Sharon, Bucky told Eden they wouldn't get fired - and even if they did, they have enough money to live on for a while before they find another bounty hunting gig. They could even open up their own office if they wanted to, but Bucky doesn't want to work with the cops.

Unless they're Wanda. They've both grown on each other since they caught Rumlow.

Eden opens her mouth to speak, unable to handle the tension that's filling the room and suffocating her.

"Sharon–"

"Shut up!" She snaps.

Eden winces and Bucky rolls his eyes, checking his new Rolex. Eden begged him not to get it. It's so ugly. And tacky. But Bucky insists that he's always wanted one. He had to sell his last one to pay his alimony when he and Natasha first got divorced. He promised Eden it was the ugliest thing he would ever buy. She held him to it when he started looking at a pair of snakeskin boots.

The man already dresses like an eight-year-old who just found a thousand dollars on the sidewalk; the fact that they actually have money now only amplifies that quality in him. Now it's her job as his girlfriend to get him to tone it down.

Bucky is tapping his foot against the ground, glancing around Sharon's office. They dropped off Natasha's money, along with her engagement and wedding bands, yesterday. It was the final nail in the coffin for them, and Bucky couldn't have been happier. The second they got out of the police station, he picked her up and twirled her around like a ragdoll, planting kisses on her lips.

"It's just you and me now, babydoll."

The euphoria was short-lived when the reality of telling Sharon about their assignment begins to sink in. They're quiet for most of the plane ride back home to Chicago.

"Let me get this straight," Sharon snarls, pacing back and forth behind her desk. "I just want to see if I can get a good picture of the way this all went down. You bet Eden in a game of poker with Hydra, just happened to win that game by sheer dumb luck, went to Zemo behind my fucking back and agreed to work for him... then you got stuck in a safehouse during a blizzard and started..." she sighs and waves her hand. "Doing that – which, I don't even have the time to process, by the way. It's totally unbelievable to me. Then you went to Wilson fucking Fisk?! Do you have any idea how stupid you are!?"

"Well, when you lay it all out like that, it looks really incompetent," Bucky replies, lighting a cigarette.

"You're goddamn right it does, Barnes! I owe the cops Rumlow! Where is he?"

"Zemo scheduled a cremation," Bucky mutters. "Rumlow's scattered in the Hudson by now. His mother turned herself in to the NYPD for harboring a fugitive."