Stranger Who Knows All My Secrets [A Marvel FanFic]

Chapter 44: Just A Few Butterflies

"You're so lucky I don't hate you." Elena sighed as she shoved a fistful of Bucky's socks into a drawer in her overflowing dresser that refused to close.

"I'll be out of your hair in a week, tops." Bucky promised, dropping three cardboard boxes full of his stuff into a corner of Elena's room once occupied by a fluffy lounger that now sat far too close to the radiator to not be a fire hazard.

"That's what you told Steve over the summer when your neighbor flooded your apartment." She reminded him, climbing over her bed to move Bucky's armchair closer to the wardrobe so it wouldn't block the bedroom door.

"Hey, it wasn't my fault they took so long to do the repairs. Plus, the power was out for two weeks, my apartment would have been ready a lot sooner." He defended, kicking the end of his rolled-up mattress further under the bed.

"Why aren't you staying with Steve again?" Elena asked, holding up a large framed black and white photo of the Brooklyn Bridge in her hands as if trying to figure out where the fuck she was going to put it.

"Because the last time I was there with Alpine, Dodger didn't react well to her." Bucky said, taking the frame from her and sliding it in the gap between the desk and wardrobe.

"She attacked him didn't she?" Elena chuckled.

"Yeah." He mumbled shamefully.

"I don't get it, she has no problem with Gurgen but she hates Dodger for some reason." He noted, squeezing past Elena into the living room where the rest of his crap sat waiting for a spot to dwell for the short term.

"So why didn't you just leave Alpine with me and move yourself and your shit into Steve's place?" Elena questioned, trying to find space next to her punching bag for his.

"I don't sleep well when I'm away from Alpine for too long." Bucky admitted childishly.

"Aww, who's cute?" She teased.

"Shut up and stop acting like me being here is an actual inconvenience for you." He reminded her earning him a playful smile from her.

Out of all of his friends and secret-lovers-in-the-night, of which Bucky only had one, Elena was the person that Bucky spent a wildly unnatural amount of time with and recently he stayed in her apartment so often that it took him three whole days to realize that his own was unlivable. It was a good thing he always took Alpine with him because his cat would have been dead from the gas leak that had everyone in his building and the ones next to it, out on the street looking for a place to stay. It was annoying to have to move all of his shit out especially while wearing an oxygen mask and the fire department rushing him and it probably would have made more sense to rent a storage unit but Bucky didn't have that much stuff and Elena had the space for what he did own.

Sure, he could have stayed at Steve's and left his cat with her but then Bucky would have had to explain his frequent late-night outings from which he often didn't return. Yeah, that would have been a great conversation to have with his worry-wart of a childhood friend: By the way Steve, I'm going to go fuck my emotionally unstable mission partner for a few hours but it's totally not a thing even though I want it to be a thing but I think Elena's starting to come around to me but she still won't kiss me on the lips although she does kiss my shoulder now, okay cool, don't wait up!

And yeah, Bucky could have just lied to Steve and said he was going to visit Alpine for a bit or say that he was on a date with a stranger but the blonde knew him too damn well to ever believe that was why he was gone for days at a time. He could have also stayed at Sam's place but it presented the same problem and even if Bucky had successfully lied to Sam, knowing the bird-brain, he would have sent his stupid drone to spy on Bucky. That was not how anyone deserved to find out about the dirty deeds Bucky committed in the dark with Elena.