Stranger Who Knows All My Secrets [A Marvel FanFic]

Chapter 24: Counting Bilgesnipe

After the holidays passed everything seemed to slow down much like it had over the summer. The planet was oddly not in any turmoil and there was not a single mission that couldn't be handled by Thor or Carol. So with nothing for the rest of the team to do, everyone decided to take time for themselves but not all at the same time as Rhodey reminded them nervously. He didn't want a repeat of his mad scramble to put together a team in the event that something cosmic went down again. Bucky agreed to stay on call so that Sam could go down to Louisiana to see Sarah and the boys while Steve spent a few days with Kristen at her place in Westchester which was close enough to jump into action if needed. Natasha headed out to stay with the Bartons while Elena stuck around to water her plants which Steve didn't have the heart to tell either one of them was fake because they were so proud they had kept the psuedo-ivy alive.

Other than that, none of the other Avengers were ever really around. Banner lived in Connecticut and was preparing for the new semester, Tony was at home upstate with his family, Lang was in California, the Guardians were off-planet and Rhodey was finally taking a much-deserved vacation to Ibiza while Maria Hill volunteered to hold down the fort in his absence. Honestly, Rhodey worked too hard, and throughout his trip, he was sending messages to the team asking if everything was okay, or to check into something he saw on the news causing all of them to simply stop replying to him. Truthfully, there was very little communication from anyone during the lull in planetary peril.

It meant Bucky spent a lot of time alone staring at his phone waiting for some kind of life from the others. It also meant he haunted the same places: home and his therapist's office. When that finally got exhausting, he took to aimlessly wandering the city in the cold like a grumpy old man, sitting alone in diners or on a miscellaneous bar stool waiting for something to happen. He did run into Elena a few times, often forgetting she lived in the city just because he had no idea where she lived period. 

The first time they were both on dates and just so happened to end up at the same bar in Brooklyn and Bucky hadn't even noticed her honestly. He had been sitting with his date at the counter making small talk for about twenty minutes when the woman went to the bathroom and never came back. Of course, at that point, he chugged two beers and decided that everything sucked but as he sat at the bar nursing a third he got a text from Elena and it went something like this: Wish my date would go and not come back. Bucky's head quickly shot up, searching the crowded bar for her face only to find it looking exasperated while she nodded along to everything the guy sitting across from her was saying. 

She was dressed in a manner Bucky had never seen before, it was colorful in that she had on green high-waisted, wide-legged pants with white stripes running down them along with a matching top and a fuzzy brown sweater over it. Her hair midsection was showing, her hair was tied back and she even seemed to have on makeup and was wearing silver hoop earrings and a few rings on her fingers that complimented the cross she always wore. For some reason it made Bucky smile to see her out of her typical black and dreary attire.

Should I send in the cavalry? He texted her back, watching her glance down at her phone before giving him a look from across the room that said please. Bucky turned away and smiled to himself as he debated his plan for a moment, trying to think of the most plausible set of circumstances to get her out of the bind she was in. After finally settling on a bailout, Bucky chugged his drink, ran his fingers through his hair, straightened his shirt, and ordered another beer before finally walking over to her with the utmost confidence, like he was always out at bars about to crash his friend's date.

"Elena? Holy shit, I haven't seen you in years!" Bucky bellowed obnoxiously like every frat boy he ever hated.

"James..." Elena said, confused as to how this was helping and when exactly they had started referring to each other on a first-name basis.