Scary Love | Bucky Barnes - [COMPLETED]

12 - Impatience

Monday: the day almost everyone in the world hates the most. It was a slow day at the office. Some people were barely awake, still recovering from a hangover they got from a party the night before. The same thing happened to Raj, who was laying face down on the cold surface of his desk.

"I can't wait for this day to end," he groaned, outstretching his hand to grab his best friend, who was sitting on the desk beside him. Lily was stunned by Raj's sudden touch and she pulled off her headphones, frowning towards Raj.

"What?" Lily asked briefly, for she simply couldn't hear what Raj said because of the loud, blaring music from her headphones.

The man pushed his glasses up his nose and pulled his hair in frustration. "I just want to go home," he almost shrieked, making a few heads around the room turn to find the source of the noise. They merely scoffed to find out that it was only Raj, complaining about Mondays as always.

"Hang on just a little more, Raj," Lily sighed impatiently. "Have you even done any work today?"

"Yeah, I-" Raj waved his hand around randomly, "I fixed a few of the bugs you told me last week."

"I need you to do more than that," the girl hissed and pulled her hair out of the ponytail, feeling a bit light-headed because of the constant pressure. "Nobody told you to go to that party last night, anyway."

Raj exhaled dramatically and slammed his back onto his comfy chair, reaching for his phone for the hundredth time this afternoon. He took it from his desk and flipped it over to see the screen. Meanwhile, Lily had focused back to her own monitor, continuing the unfinished workload for today.

After a few minutes of scrolling mindlessly, a notification from a news site popped up on Raj's screen, stopping his finger from scrolling. He opened the link and his eyes widened in shock. He screeched and turned swiftly towards Lily, suddenly yanking her headphones off. The girl glared at him, feeling very annoyed. "What now?" She said with a sharp tone.

The man said nothing; but instead grabbed Lily's hand and dragged her to a nearby meeting room. A few people glanced at them as Lily whispered nonstop in confusion and anger. Raj gave them an awkward grin before opening the door. The room was—thankfully—empty, and so he turned on the lights and slammed the door closed.

"What is wrong with you?" Lily exclaimed, trying to get an explanation. Raj shut her off quickly by showing her the news article, titled "Terrorist Bombing in Vienna, King of Wakanda Killed among Other Victims". Underneath the big bold title there was a picture of the suspected terrorist, and—it looked very much like the man she loved the most.

"That's your Bucky, right?" Raj asked in panic.

Lily was frozen. She raised the phone closer to her eyes, trying to get a clearer look of the black-and-white picture. The man in the picture was wearing all-black clothes and some kind of mask that covers almost all of his face, but he really looks like Bucky. The picture was blurry, but Lily couldn't deny that she recognized the face so well. She analyzed the picture over and over, trying to convince herself that it wasn't the man she loved; but his facial features were so familiar to her.

"Lily..." Raj whispered gently; he was concerned because his friend's face was bare of any expression.

"It's not Bucky," Lily muttered in a low voice. "It can't be. He wouldn't do this."

She skim-read the article and found out that the bombing happened during the United Nations ceremony, and she remembered that Steve told her about the Sokovia Accords and how it'd take place soon—this must be it. Lily pulled her phone out of her pocket and quickly dialed Steve; her heart raced as she waited for an answer. She tried again and again and again—until Steve finally picked up.

"Steve? Have you heard—"

"I have. I'm heading there now." He sounded rushed.

Lily gasped. "I'll come, too. I'll book the earliest flight I can find and—"

"No!" The man yelled, and it shocked her. "It's too dangerous, Lil. The last thing I need is everybody acting on whatever they want—it will just make things more difficult."

"What can I do, then? Last year when you told me he was in Portugal you wouldn't let me go. Now it's happening again and you wouldn't let me go either. Do you expect me to just sit here and do nothing?" She was holding herself back—she just wanted to yell at Steve; for not letting her come, for doing everything alone. She felt furious and hopeless—this was Captain America she was talking to, and she was—nobody. She was just a normal civilian and she realized that Steve was right: there was nothing she could do. Her heart started hurting again—she missed Bucky so much.

"Lil, I'm sorry," Steve spoke softly, feeling uneasy when he heard the girl sobbing on the other side. "I'm so sorry."

"It's not... him, right? It's not Bucky, right? He wouldn't do something like this, Steve. I know that," she cried in a painful sorrow and desperation.

Steve sighed and let a few seconds pass before answering. "I don't know, Lil. Look, I have to go. I'll call you later as soon as I get more leads, alright? Just wait."

Before Lily could answer, Steve already hung up. Lily's eyes met Raj's worried eyes and she leaned onto him weakly, crying all of her heart out. She kept praying that this was a nightmare and that she'd wake up soon, but she knew that this was definitely real. Raj put his arms around her, patting his best friend's back softly. He let her cry for a few minutes until he felt her stiff body relaxing for a bit.

"Come on, Lil. I'll take you home," he whispered, helping Lily stand on her own. Her body no longer trembled and it seemed like she was already tired of crying. Her eyes were puffy and red, and her face was wet from all the tears.

"No. Take me somewhere else," the girl shook her head, avoiding Raj's eyes. "I want to drink it out."

"Are you kidding? In this condition, you—"

"I don't care!" She lashed out so suddenly, her eyes started to get watery again. "What do you expect me to do? Just wait around miserably? Steve told me to not do anything, are you just gonna be the same? Right now I don't know what the right thing to do is—so I'll go drink it out, with or without you."

Lily stormed out of the room, and the panicked Raj ran along behind her. He was worried about her, and of course he wouldn't let her roam around by herself. "Wait—I'll come."

Soon enough they have gathered their things and got into Raj's car. He pushed his glasses up anxiously as he started the car, the engine revving softly. Lily was putting on the seatbelt—she hadn't said anything. Raj was miserable, but he didn't know what to do either.

Just wait, she replayed Steve's words to her in her mind. Just wait.

Nobody knew that she really hated waiting, and she didn't want to wait—if she couldn't do anything to help Bucky, might as well just forget about him for a while. So that night, the last thing she remembered was collapsing on the cold ceramic floor of the bar's restroom after vomiting her guts out into the toilet.