Pursue your happiness

Chapter 1 - Suspicions

Content Warnings: Talk of cheating; Angst; Abandonment

**********

You and Bucky had been together for a little short of 3 years. You met on an online dating app, his picture was of Alpine so you were sceptical at first. But after chatting on the app for a couple of weeks, he asked if he could FaceTime you. You agreed and when you saw his face for the first time, you recognised him as the former Winter Soldier and it suddenly made sense that he didn't use his own photo.

All the apprehension left you and immediately you thought to yourself; "I'm going to marry this man," Of course your logical side told you not to be so stupid, that you barely knew him and had never even met him in person, but your female intuition just nodded along with you. She knew you were right.

So when things started changing recently, you had to wonder how she, and you, could have got it so badly wrong. It started so subtly that you didn't notice it at first. Looking back, you know that you should have realised what was happening.

The first thing you noticed was his phone. He was checking it and smiling a lot more lately. Whenever you asked him he'd tell you that Steve or Sam just sent him a cute meme (which he pronounced me-me) or TikTok. But when you would ask to see it he'd tell you that he had already deleted it. Strange, but you didn't really take much notice of it at first, thinking it was just memes, or maybe he was devising a surprise for you for your upcoming anniversary.

Then you noticed he would quickly lock his phone or move it out of your view if you walked behind him, or came near him. You asked him what was going on and he just said that he didn't want to be caught up on his phone when you were there, he wanted to put all his time into being with you. Again, strange, but not suspicious on it's own.

Lately you have noticed him taking his phone everywhere with him - even into the bathroom when he showered or went to the toilet. Sometimes he would be in there for ages, coming out with a smirk on his face.

You started growing a bit more suspicious when you noticed him having sneaky conversations with Steve and Sam and even Natasha, quietly so nobody else could hear and they always cut off when you entered the room. Things were starting to add up to you and you weren't liking what the sum of all of these actions were.

Still, you decided not to confront him yet, there could be a perfectly logical explanation for all of these things, right? He wouldn't cheat on you, would he?

You were reading online about how to figure out if your boyfriend is cheating and everything that is happening is on the list. The article mentions that you would have to tick multiple boxes to be correct - but what if you could tick all of the boxes? Because from where you're sitting, you're only missing check marks in like 2 of them right now.

The last straw comes when you check the final 2 boxes on "the list". He has started having more boys days out with his friends - often not telling you until the last moment or not telling you where they were going or when they'd be back, or who was going.

Along with that, you've noticed him hiding the credit card statement, grabbing it as soon as it comes in and telling you he'll take care of it.

You didn't really have anybody you could talk to, everyone at the compound were his friends, and you didn't feel comfortable talking to them who probably know all about this new woman. You wish he'd just rip the bandaid off and tell you, so you didn't have to endure this will he/won't he for too much longer.

One Friday night, you were on the couch watching a movie, just the 2 of you. You decided to try and broach the subject, because he seemed super preoccupied that night.