With Him | Bucky x Reader | Enemies with Benefits

-10-

Y/n's POV:

I was sitting on the deck again, taking in the last of the evening sun before heading to the pool for one of my daily swims, I didn't like to swim with others around me so I often waited until it was dark and most people had gone to bed or when most people were at dinner.

"Hiya!" I heard Olivia sit down beside me. Was this woman never with her husband?

 "Hi," I replied with a slight tiredness to my voice and covered a yawn with my hand, in reality, I had just downed a coffee but I hoped she would get the message, but she did not.

 "So where abouts are you from? I don't think I ever asked." I stuck with our pre-arranged story 

"Oh, I used to move around a lot as a kid, and the habit of moving around sort of stuck, we're living in NYC at the moment but we'll probably move again next year," I replied, the point of this story being that neither James nor I would claim specific ties to a place so nobody would expect to know us. "What about you?" I responded, even though I wasn't really interested. 

The sun had set, and I wanted to get a good swim in before returning to the cabin. 

"Oh, just New Jersey. How long have you been in New York?" She answered, I just smiled and replied curtly.

"Just under two years I think," I was about to make an excuse to leave, but Olivia carried on talking. 

"So you weren't there for the battle of New York? Have you ever met any of the avengers? I'm a big fan." 

Luckily, neither Bucky nor I had made any large public appearances (excluding when he was framed for terrorism and his tribute in the Smithsonian) so she shouldn't have recognized us, and if she did she would surely have said something before...right? 

"No, I haven't. But I once saw Iron Man fly overhead." I worried a little, did that seem like a normal amount of exposure to superheroes? She continued to ask questions, to be honest, it felt a bit like an interrogation or an interview, but she nodded along to my answers and looked satisfied.

 Finally, once the sky had darkened enough to see the stars she made an excuse and began to leave before turning around and asking. "Oh, would you be on for another double date tomorrow night?" I nodded and began to leave, "Bye Y/- Lola!" I almost froze.

 Luckily my back was facing her and I called back "Bye Liv!" Before pacing quickly to the pool.

Swimming back and forth, I let my mind wander as I settled into a rhythmic breathing pattern. I was thankful for my solitude in the pool, with nobody else there to distract me. Was she about to say my name? Did I let it slip or was she some kind of agent? 

The likelihood of that had to be extremely low, didn't it? What else could she have been saying? I thought back to the conclusion that Barnes and I had come to not long ago... we didn't think the smuggler could be a crew member because they didn't have enough time and she had mentioned that she had been on multiple of these cruises before, could it be Olivia?

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Bucky's POV:

Where was she? I had tried messaging her but I had gotten no response, I tried calling her but it just went to voicemail. Y/n couldn't just walk off without telling me where she was going, we were meant to be a team! Pacing to and fro in the room, I tried to think of where she could be, she spent a lot of time on the deck with her friend Olivia but I didn't want to leave the room unless she came back.

Eventually, I heard the latch of the door click and Y/n walked through the door, "Pull up any files you can on Olivia, find out the dates of any cruises that she's been on before while I try to see her contacts." She demanded, plonking herself on her side of the bed and opening her SHEILD issue laptop. 

"Where were you?" I asked, "You've been out for hours and you didn't tell me where you went." 

She looked closer at her computer screen and replied, "Aww, were you worried about me?" In a patronizing tone, not unlike the one you would use with a baby. 

"No, I'm irritated. My mission partner is going off the rails and can't seem to focus on the task at hand." 

She laughed bitterly, "Oh yeah. 'Cause what we did the other night was so vital to the mission." She mocked. 

There was a long pause before either of us said anything "I was swimming." She said.

 "What?" I asked, confused at the phrase out of context. 

"That's where I was. I go swimming every day and just now I was swimming." I nodded as a form of truce. "Oh and we have dinner with Olivia and David tomorrow evening, I think she might be the weapons dealer, she kept asking if I had connections with the avengers and I'm about 78% sure that she almost called me Y/n. And I know I didn't let my name slip." She explained,

"It is possible..." I replied, pulling up the file we had curated on her. "Her cruise dates correspond with all the other shipments."

(914 Words)