Stranger Who Knows All My Secrets [A Marvel FanFic]

Chapter 14: Coffee Rings

There is nothing more awkward than getting caught in the middle of a fight that has absolutely nothing to do with you and more than once since he found out that their relationship was on the rocks, Bucky had managed to get himself caught in the crossfire of several of Elena's fights with Lieutenant Torres. There should have been some kind of rule banning couples from going on missions together but Torres often found himself reaching out for help on behalf of the Airforce and somehow, Bucky and Elena were usually the only ones available to help him. 

They were harmless arguments most of the time, hushed bickering and rolling their eyes at each other though on some occasions things got heated and that was mainly because well... Elena was reckless and Torres was very overprotective. Sure, Bucky hated when Elena put herself in dangerous situations or acted without thinking first, but he never tried to undermine her quick-thinking decisions because they usually ended up being pretty damn smart.

Torres however had once lost them a chance at a meeting with a Moldovan arms dealer that Bucky and Elena had spent several assignments gathering intelligence on because the kid had gotten very uncomfortable and jealous when she began flirting with the jeweler who was going to make the arrangements for them. Bucky had never seen Elena so pissed off before, her face hadn't just hardened, it turned red and when she began screaming at Torres when they left the store in London, Bucky was certain she would actually try to choke the soldier out. 

She got so mad in fact that she started yelling at him in Romanian which led Torres to angrily shout back that he couldn't understand a damn thing she was saying. Bucky wasn't sure if he was supposed to translate or not, he just stood on the street corner telling passersby that everything was fine and that the woman screaming was just rehearsing for a play when she was actually calling her boyfriend an idiot in thirty different ways.

The smaller squabbles usually started because 1) Elena was terrible at showing affection and 2)  Torres had serious jealousy issues stemming from the he had totally found out that Elena made out with that go-go dancer. Except, Elena only made out with the other woman because she was absolutely drunk and mad at Torres for sleeping with his ex-girlfriend Grace whom the kid was apparently always comparing her to. 

Oh yeah, that happened, Elena was plastered when she told Bucky about it and the night had been perfectly normal up until that point. They'd been out at a bar with Sam and Natasha when Elena excused herself to the bathroom for longer than anyone should. Naturally, Bucky went to check that she was okay and that was when Bucky found Elena crying on the floor and throwing up in the toilet like the complete disaster that she was.

She had vomit in her hair, tears in her eyes and then she just shoued Joaquin fucked his ex!

Elena then proceeded to ramble on about how several weeks earlier, she had driven out to Torres' apartment out in Long Island for the weekend like he had asked her to only for him to come to the door looking very frazzled with lipstick all over his face and neck, his belt unbuckled and his pants halfway down. Apparently, Elena punched him in the face right there before she stormed off which explained why Torres had a broken nose on their last assignment. 

Bucky just stood there in the doorway of the bathroom with his mouth slightly agape from shock and his eyebrow twitching from trying to process the information. When Elena asked Bucky if he'd help her run him over with her car, he slowly backed out of the bathroom, closed the door, and apologized to the five women waiting to pee, before running to get Natasha because he had no idea how to handle the situation. 

Now, Bucky wasn't actually certain that Torres had indeed fucked his ex, that part was never fully addressed but he didn't think the kid had it in him to cheat. However, as time went by and the more of their fights he got stuck in the middle of, the more it seemed like Torres was framed though he did a terrible job of making that clear. He screamed at Elena several times that Grace had set him up, that she was jealous and blah blah blah. It was all entirely unacceptable in Bucky's opinion because even if his ex had lured him into a trap, Torres still let things go way too far. For fuck's sake, she caught him with his pants down and Bucky thought Elena should have dumped Torres on the spot but for some reason, she didn't.