Destruction ━ Bucky Barnes [2]

16 ━ ENDING AFFAIR

DESTRUCTION.
( chapter sixteen. )

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ANDY WAS TIRED. Incredibly so— to the point that she struggled to blink against dry eyes. Sunrise had passed hours before, and she was surrounded on either side. Her seat at the couch felt more like a fortress, supported by pillars of filed boxes.

Strucker was dead, killed by Ultron, who had joined together with Maximoff twins. The unforeseen alliance and murder meant something bigger. With Ultron then wiping their system of information, it only further proved this suspicion. The AI was trying to keep them in the dark.

  Ultron was far more intelligent (and dangerous) than Andrea had originally thought.

Luckily for them, Stark kept an impeccably organized filing system in the tower. So, the team had resigned to filtering through it. It was their safest— and only option.

However, Andy was less than ecstatic about the lack of care Tony had with their pile of folders. She watched as Stark flung another file, subsequently knocking over her own delicately stacked pile. She immediately frowned.

  "Go on," Tony said, "say it."

  Andrea glared at him, "If you toss one more folder, my foot is going up your ass."

Tony met her gaze from where he sat on the couch across from her. "You know that's not what I meant," he told her.

Andy looked away. She knew what he meant, she just didn't care. To put it simply, Andrea Claire Jones didn't have the time or effort to be angry with Tony Stark. He was prone to mistakes, as were many others on their team.

  And, after all, she was least inclined to judge.

Tony continued, "You don't have to stick up for me, you know."

The brunette rolled her eyes, gaze landing back on him. He didn't bother to notice, pretending to be invested in a folder he'd already gone through. 

  After a long moment of silence, Andy finally spoke, "There's no point in us fighting about something we can't change."

It was Andrea's turn to look elsewhere as Tony eyed her curiously, "You're not angry with me?"

She sighed, "Why would I be? It's not like you built Ultron expecting it to become the villain from iRobot." Tony gave a half-hearted smile at the joke.

Andrea was glad he didn't seem too broken up about it, but she knew it nagged at him. The team butted heads a lot, but this was something different. Ultron was an unexpected variable with unknown consequence.

  And, to be fair, she was a little ticked off.

  Mostly because this new turn of events had left her own plan in shambles. Andrea was growing increasingly anxious about Bucky. His distance scared her; who could say that his safety was guaranteed?