Eternity

Chapter 5: Meddling in Mysteries

"Natalia Alianovna Shostakov would win you a lot of points in scrabble..."

She groaned, turning and burying her head into his shoulder, pulling the sheets around her body tighter. "James, will you let it go!" She grumbled against the cool metal. She always found this spot on him oddly comfortable despite its hard looking exterior.

Bucky shrugged a little, allowing a half grin onto his lips as he watched her roll her eyes. He'd been going on about her previous relationship to Alexei since they woke up, dropping random questions here and there into the conversation. It had finally sunk in that she had never mentioned him, but he wasn't overly bothered by it. Mostly his only interest was to playfully torment her, but it was only natural to be a little jealous when your girlfriends long lost ex-husband reappears from nowhere. A little teasing to fuel his ego was allowed, he believed.

"You don't gets points for names in scrabble. But besides that, it was barely a relationship." She sighed, trailing her fingertips across the ridges of his pecs, attempting distraction away from this topic. "More like a business transaction of fucked up, KGB sorts. Happy?" She raised a brow and lightly trailed her hand down his abs, hoping to put an end to this whole conversation. Bucky was unfazed by her attempts at distraction, smirking at the ceiling as he lay with his human hand behind his head.

"Not if he's kept the receipt for an exchange." He winced as she poked his side firmly and rolled away from him out the bed, pulling her robe that was hanging on the bathroom door over her slender frame. "C'mon, I was just teasing!" He called after her, lifting himself up onto his elbows.

"You're being insufferable." She grumbled, standing at the mirror above the sink as she tied the belt around her waist, securing the robe in place. The urgency at which she did this was enough for Bucky to realise he was taking it too far. Not so far that she would call him an Мудак, asshole, and storm out the apartment, but close enough. He silently eased out of bed, appearing behind her in the mirror.

"I'm sorry." He smiled apologetically as he places his large arms around her waist, letting her fold her arms across her chest and deny the hug. He nuzzled his chin onto her shoulder, watching her glare at him through the mirror. "I'll drop it."

She frowned, turning to face him as she kept her arms tightly folded. "Why are you so bothered by this?"

"I'm not." He kissed her forehead, rubbing her arms gently. "I'm not bothered by him, only that someone got to put you in a puffy white dress before me."

"Okay, there was definitely no puffy white dress and there will be no puffy white dress...ever."

"What about a non-puffy white dress?" He grinned, watching her eye him suspiciously.

"If bringing up my past and trying to get me into a hideous dress is your way of proposing, you're less romantic than I thought." She started to smirk as he laughed, shaking his head.

"No, no I'd have a much better way of ask-...Hey! I'm romantic!"

It was her turn to laugh, a soft melodic sound that might have made him melt if he wasn't so offended. Natasha cupped his crestfallen face in her hands and kissed his nose before lightly rubbing hers against his. "I know you are, I was just teasing."

**

Argentina, South America.

The jet was on autopilot as they all gathered around the small table constructing their usual plan of action before a mission. It was a constant struggle at the moment, since the downfall of Hydra multiple new sources with similar objectives kept appearing all over the world. They had started as small extremist groups, but were multiplying and gaining power like a virus spreading across continents. They occasionally were sent as a full unit to the more successfully intrusive groups, hoping to crush and deliver some form of justice before they escalated out of control and caused mass destruction.