AUGUST || Bucky Barnes x OC

9

When they arrived Val felt the knot in her stomach, once again, grow bigger. It had been twisting and turning, keeping her up all of last night since her brief conversation with Bucky.

"Have you been here before?" Valerie asked Sophie, trying to do everything to get the focus off of herself for a second.

"No, I've only seen it from your parents house" She responded, her eyes growing wider the further into the property they got.

Valerie would get on her bike and ride down this exact road every night. The property was huge, encompassing around 10 acres of land in total. There was the main house, the cabin house, the guest houses and then the lake.

The driveway was about 0,8 miles in itself, taking you through a long winding road covered with the most beautiful oak trees on each side. When you got far in enough, the main house was revealed. Peeking out from hiding, its majestic stature wrapping around you. Four stories of dark deep cherry brick and wood.

Sophie marveled at the sight. "what does his family do again?" She whispered.

"They're in the logging business. They own some of the largest sawmills around the world" Valerie responded unamused.

They parked the car and headed back towards the lake that twisted around most of the estate.
Every step that Valerie took rattled her core, her palms were sweating and she couldn't seem to keep her thoughts in check. The memories were flooding back to her. Her and Bucky on the dock. Her and Bucky in the cabin. Her and Bucky in his room in the main house. Her and Bucky-

"VAL! SOPHIE!" Wanda waved her arms frantically, jumping up and down at the sight of them.

Valerie was greeted by a very drunk Wanda, jumping into her arms, and then doing the same thing to Sophie.

"Wanda, you're gonna scare her out of marrying my brother. Stop it! I promise we're not usually like this" Valerie turned to Sophie, who seemed to be really enjoying the not so up-tight conditions for a change.

"Hey ladies" Bruce made his way over, greeting his wife-to-be and then his sister. He wrapped his arm around Sophie, walking her over to the dock where they had set up some chairs, a speaker and a table to play cards on.

"I thought you guys went fishing?" Valerie asked, confused.

"We did, but we left at like 4 AM" Steve took a sip from his beer.

"You guys are already drinking?! It's not even noon!" Valerie used her most judgemental voice.

"Alright, we're on vacation, tone down the judgment, Val!" Steve snapped back jokingly.

"That's right, can't drink all day if you don't start in the morning!"  Sam did a little dance flaunting two beer bottles in his hand, making Bucky laugh.

Valerie grabbed one of the beer bottles from him, and hit the top of his glass bottle with the bottom of hers, making all his beer foam and pour out of the top. Sam quickly jumped on it, trying to drink it all up but failed and was met with the entire group laughing as he was drenched in white foam and beer.

"I hate when she does that!" Sam whined. Flicking his wet beer hand at Valerie, making her scream and jump away.

They decided to stay out there all day. Playing cards and drinking. Wanda fell in the water a few more times, at least twice without Sam pushing her. And Valerie couldn't help but feel the nostalgia of it all pull at her heartstrings. If she closed her eyes and just listened to the chatter, the voices, the music. It felt like nothing had changed. Like this was still four years ago. Before everyone went their separate ways and became too busy to see each other more than once a year.