Stranger Who Knows All My Secrets [A Marvel FanFic]

Chapter 15: Bestvengers Breakaway

★ TRIGGER WARNING: Brief display of self-harm. ★

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The second half of the summer was strangely laid back much to Bucky's surprise. It was as if the universe had collectively agreed to chill the fuck out for a little bit and in response Rhodey gave the core team a few weeks off, assuring them all that the people he had on standby would be able to help should anything of absolute importance arise. It was a nice gesture as Steve, Natasha, Sam, Bucky, and Elena really needed the rest and relaxation after months of non-stop assignments but truthfully, Bucky was dreading the thought of being home alone for more than two weeks. 

Everyone kept themselves busy until then, trying to make plans and decide what they wanted to do with the time but they all came to the startling realization that they didn't really have lives outside of kicking butt and saving the world. Everyone except for Sam that is. He had Sarah and the boys but it turned out the days he had off were the same days she had planned on taking the kids to Disney World and she didn't want him to interfere with their mother-son bonding time but mainly because she had worked herself to near exhaustion to save up for the trip and didn't want him taking any credit for it. Sam understood, so he backed off.

At Steve's birthday dinner, Natasha suggested a group trip which she dubbed the Bestvengers Breakaway. Sam was onboard immediately and the two made a little jingle out of it over appetizers which they sang together the entire night as they tried to convince the rest of them to go along with the idea. That sounded much worse than staying home in Bucky's opinion and he decided the moment they brought it up that he didn't want to go which annoyed the hell out of Natasha who proclaimed he was ruining everything. 

It wasn't like he didn't like the idea of relaxing with his friends... Maybe if he was a different person, the old version of himself before the war, he would have been more up to it but the reality of it all was that he was a little afraid they'd discover how little he actually slept and just how insecure he was about his beach body. Yet despite all of his protest and his firm stance that he wasn't going, on the first Saturday morning of his enforced time off Bucky was roped into it.

He had been woken up out of a nightmare that morning by the sound of a car outside his building, its horn being honked repeatedly and loudly. Bucky thought nothing of it, instead stretching out across the floor of his apartment where he always slept and staring at the ceiling anxiously, trying to calm himself down after a night of bloody images flashing across his mind but after several minutes of lying there listening to the horn inflate the headache he had woken up with, he finally got up to see who the asshole was making so much noise so early. 

There was an old beat-up blue station wagon double-parked outside his building which Natasha leaned against nonchalantly, waiting patiently but also looking very annoyed in a cute pink summer dress and dramatic cat-eye sunglasses. Bucky scrambled for his phone instantly, hitting a few of the buttons only to realize that it had died in the middle of the night, hence all the honking. His neighbors probably hated him and Bucky groaned loudly, knowing there was no way in hell Natasha was going to leave until he got in the car with her for the Bestvengers Breakaway. 

With a grumble, he tossed some clothes into an old duffle bag and threw on a clean pair of sweatpants and a long-sleeved shirt before heading out of his apartment, down the stairs, and into the daylight where Natasha's irritation turned into happiness. She gleefully took his bag and shoved it in the trunk while telling him he had to sit in the back because she had shotgun. Bucky only tsked, he really hated riding in the backseat of cars, it always unsettled him and made him a little nauseous and his nervousness only grew when he found Elena in the driver's seat and the biggest dog on the planet sitting where he was supposed to.