Stranger Who Knows All My Secrets [A Marvel FanFic]

Chapter 8: Nuttier Than a Fucking Fruit Cake

★ TRIGGER WARNING: Graphic mentions of self-harm. ★

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If Bucky hated going on missions with Elena, then the days leading up to and following them were equally awful because it meant they were both restricted to the Avengers Compound while they briefed, prepped, debriefed, and received medical treatment. It meant being around Elena for longer than he wanted to and unfortunately for everyone else, it meant having to hear the two of them constantly shouting and calling each other names. Unsurprisingly, after several weeks of bumping heads things had gotten a lot worse between Bucky and his so-called partner.

Their arguments led to Stark soundproofing the upper floors of the compound where the Avengers resided, along with the gym and the armory because Bucky and Elena's screaming matches had begun disrupting everyone else in the massive complex. It also had more than a few people questioning Steve about how smart the idea was to pair up two people who clearly wanted to drop-kick the other in the face. It wasn't necessarily that Bucky hated Elena... No wait, it was still very much that, but also that Elena had gotten into the terrible habit of doing the dumbest things that usually led to her coming back from missions injured.

Dislocated shoulder, minor concussion, stab wound to the thigh, and even something as little as skinned knees. It was almost as if Elena was completely incapable of making it home from an assignment with anything less than a bloody nose and it caused a lot of tension from the moment they both entered the building, through an assignment, and right up until they both went home. Truthfully, the compound made Bucky long for his empty and depressing Brooklyn apartment because the second he stepped foot in the facility, he and Elena fell back into a vicious cycle they just couldn't seem to escape from.

It infuriated him, Bucky was trying so damn hard to keep them both alive and she just kept going about being reckless and attracting trouble like a damn magnet. So Bucky started yelling at her a lot and Elena had started to enjoy yelling right back at him though usually, she gave up halfway through the fight, listening to his criticisms with a straight face before shooting him a sarcastic yes sir when he was done and storming off to parts of the facility he'd never find her in. He so badly wanted to kick her teeth in.

On this particular occasion though, they were fighting about Yemen. As per Steve's orders, Bucky and Elena had gone to meet with two foreign intelligence agents to authenticate information concerning a sonic weapon capable of making people ill. It was supposed to be a good-faith assignment, no weapons and no wires but Elena didn't seem to understand the concept because she went to the meeting with her stupid serial killer knife strapped to her back. You know... The one Bucky was always telling her to leave at home. The spies felt it when they were patting her down and immediately drew guns on both of them and sure, they broke the agreement too but Bucky still blamed Elena because he was pretty sure they would have made it through the meeting just fine if that ridiculous knife had never existed.

Bucky chewed her out for it because they ended up getting taken as hostages and yes, Bucky could have easily overpowered the foreign agents and gotten him and Elena to safety, but the point was to show the spies they could be trusted. Elena did not know how to shut up though, that or she had a death wish because she felt the need to egg the men on, and for that, they kicked her ass repeatedly. Honestly, Bucky probably should have intervened a lot sooner but the spies seemed more willing to listen to him once they realized he was the more reasonable one since he wasn't constantly asking for a fist to the face.

Their brutality didn't seem to phase Elena though, she just took each hit like an overused punching bag, and at the end of each pounding, she'd lay there in her restraints laughing and grinning like she was the grand champion of the world. It was disturbing if Bucky was being honest and by the fourth day he finally spoke up and asked them to stop when one of Elena's bones audibly cracked and she let out a sharp strangled cry. Bucky still refused to fight so instead he gave the sales pitch of a lifetime and convinced the foreign spies he could cut them a deal with the U.S. government for the information they had on the new weapon, anything to move their attention away from the woman asking if that last beating was the best they could do.