It's Forbidden

It Was Time

Steve pats him on the back and smiles at him. "You've got this brother." Steve tells Bucky. Bucky smiles. He needed that now more than ever. "Thank you Steve." Bucky tells him, and he walks out, going to find Aspen.

Bucky sees Aspen sat at the bar with Natasha, where he had left her. He walks over and wraps his arms around her. Aspen smiles and holds his arms around her tight. "Yay my Bucky's back!!" Aspen says. She turns her head and kisses him.

Natasha rolls her eyes. "I see I am chopped liver." Nat says. She was obviously kidding, smirking at the end of her sentence. Aspen knew this, she shrugged her shoulders and laughed. "Sorry I missed my Bucky." She says. Bucky smiles but he looks anxious. He squeezes Aspen tight. "I missed you too doll." He tells her.

Aspen sees  the look on buckys face and she can tell somethings wrong. "Why do you look like you're going to shit yourself?" She asks him. She could have asked more sensitively, but...sometimes things just slipped out and she didn't say if like she meant to. Bucky's face twists and he cringes. He didn't know she noticed how nervous he was.

And he was used to Aspen saying out of pocket things, it was one of his favorite things about her, he found her hilarious when she had no filter, but sometimes it caught him by surprise. He sat on the barstool next to her and held her hands in his. "I-I don't I-I just, I don't know." Bucky stuttered.

He cursed himself internally for the extremely lame attempt at a cover up. It didn't work at all. Aspen knows he was nervous about something and trying to lighten the mood and get his mind off it, she lets go of his hand and she traces her hand up his thigh, bucky's breathing stopped for a minute, he didn't expect the action, maybe if he wasn't so nervous, but he was extremely nervous so he didn't.

Aspen leans in, pressing her lips to Bucky's ear. "Hmm." She hummed. "Well do you wanna make this interesting and go find a closet you can rail me in?" She asked. Buckys eyes went wide. He had no idea whether or not he heard that right. He was a complete mess tonight. "What?" He asked, making sure he heard it correctly.

Aspen backed up and looked at Bucky, she traced her fingers over his lips and her other hand continues to caress his upper thigh. "You heard me." She whispered to him, her lips close to his. Bucky realizes he did hear her correctly. "I did." He tells her.  He may have been nervous but he was thinking clearly enough to know that something was going on with Aspen.

There was something different in her tonight, at least right now. She was acting different, her demeanor was different. Bucky knew something wasn't right. He was afraid she knew about the proposal, someone let something slip and now she didn't want to get married. But he tried to talk himself off the ledge.

He couldn't get ahead of himself because he was nervous enough as it is, if he kept the spiraling he would end up burying himself. "Why are you acting like this?" Bucky asks her. He takes her hand off his thigh and holds it, his other hand rested on her hip, his thumb tracing circles around her skin, soothing her.

He didn't know what was wrong but he knew that was what she needed, she always loved when he rubbed her back or shoulders or her waist, it always calmed her down, so he did it now, she needed to be calmed down, and it also helped calm him down. And he really needed that right now. They both needed it.

"What do you mean?" Aspen asks. "I'm acting normal." She tells him. "No this is different." Bucky tells her. He leans in and rests his forehead against hers, another thing that calmed both of them down. "Asp what's wrong?" He asks her. Leaning up slightly to place a kiss on her lips then dropping his forehead back to hers.

"I don't wanna be here anymore." Aspen tells Bucky. She was tired and this party she thought was just like all the others, she's rather watch movies with Bucky in their room than go through all the same stuff with people she didn't even know. If it were just the team, her friends it would be different, but it's not.

"Okay." Bucky tells her. "All you had to do was tell me that, okay?" He asks. He lifts his forehead from hers and brushes his thumb against her cheek. "Let me take you back to the room, okay?" He asked. "I'm sorry I don't feel good and it's too crowded I don't know what's wrong with me. And I thought it was funny." Aspen tells him, she pokes her lip out and pouts.

"It's okay doll." Bucky tells her. "Let's go." He says. He takes her hand helping her off her barstool and they're about to walk away when Nat stops them. "Are you up for one more song before you go back to your room?" Nat asks her. The plan. This was it. She was making sure it was seen through.

Bucky had forgotten about it, Aspen was more important than the proposal that he could do later. She wanted to leave so he would take her to their room and he would propose another way, he didn't want her to be uncomfortable, but Nat took the chance, and she wanted to see this through for both of them. "A song?" Aspen asked. Bucky grabbed his beer and he downed it. It was time.