Winter's Lost Gem - A BuckyBarnesxOC Story

Chapter 10

Bucky found that he had a hard time adjusting to dating life in a digital world. He was constantly worried he was reading too much into things, not reading into them enough, and overall uncertain about Emma. For the most part she was in the moment with him when they were together in person, unless, of course they were at work. At first, he thought it was just because of work, afterall a lot had been happening the past several months with SHIELD issues, Avengers issues, more issues than Bucky could count. He slowly realized as they reached almost a year together, however, that unless he was with her at the compound or out somewhere that she was always busy. Her nose was always in files, archives, on computers. When asked her answer was always the same; "just catching up on what I've been missing all these years."

Being that he, too, was not from this time, at first he didn't find it so strange. Understood it, actually. But after what felt like the billionth time of her dropping text conversations and missing phone calls, Bucky found himself suspicious of her. He didn't want to be. After all, he'd fallen in love with her over the time they actually did have together. Haleigh suggested he have an adult conversation with her about it after he'd spent weeks trying to convince himself that it was nothing. He even worried she could have found someone else though any of the other signs Haleigh pointed out weren't in fact there.

Bucky took a deep breath. It took him all week to work up the courage to interrupt her while she worked in the compound's archives area. He peeked inside, finding her sitting amongst a mix of old and new papers, articles, even what looked like microfiche. He licked his lips a moment before walking in, acting like he just happened across her.

"This where you're always hiding?" He teased, smiling awkwardly.

Emma glanced up in surprise, it taking a moment to return his smile. "Hey there, stud. Just doing some light reading." She cleared her throat, moving to cover what she had in front of her.

He glanced at her movements a moment before returning her gaze. "Looks like a lot for 'light reading.'"

"Oh, probably. But history is pretty vast and I've been moving around a lot of a long time."

"That's... true." He trailed off. He looked around the room a moment before he cleared his own throat. "Uh, hey, can we talk?"

"Uh oh. Am I going to like this talk or should I just go start packing my things?" She cocked a brow.

"Packing your thi- What? No. I mean. I don't think so. I just. I think we need to talk about all of this." He gestured to her work table.

"This?" She glanced at the stack of papers she had attempted to hide.

He nodded. "I know you say you're catching up on time but I can't help but notice, seeing you here in person, that you have a ton of very specific files in front of you all labeled with red 'TOP SECRET' stamps on them. That doesn't really seem necessary to me, I guess? And I'm just wanting some clarification on things.."

"Spit it out, Buck." She stared at him.

Bucky sighed. "You're spending more time with these S.H.I.E.L.D. reports more than me. I'm not the only one that's noticed. And aside from my pride being hurt that you're not here for me, I'm concerned that you've changed sides."

Emma blinked. "What?"

He suddenly became flustered. "Look. I just. This kind of stuff was things I had to do as part of Hydra sometimes and I need to know what you're doing."

She pushed her chair back slightly. "Are you accusing me of being Hydra?" She didn't mean to, but it came out a little harsher than what she intended.

He made a face. "I don't want to accuse you but you're being pretty suspicious. You're the most important person to me, Em, I don't want anything bad to happen to you. I don't. But I barely see you. You're rarely home. I basically see you for missions and the occasional date when I'm able to finally complain enough to separate you from whatever the hell it is you're doing in here. Is something wrong? Are you being threatened?"