Checkmate (BuckyBarnes x OC)

Sea Swim

I woke up with the break of dawn only to find myself embraced deeply in Bucky's arms. I could hear his barely audible snoring behind my neck and into my ear. I chuckled at the thought, but at least it meant that he actually fell asleep. For some reason I had a feeling it had something to do with us giving comfort to eachother with our presence. I carefully manouvered myself out of his reach as to not wake him. After I'd stood up and stretched I turned back to still asleep Bucky lying on the floor. I studied him. His face was actually relaxed and wasn't showing signs of worry with his usually knitted eyebrows and scrunched eyelids. It wasn't wrinkled in any way, if anything he had some small wrinkles around his eyes which indicated happiness. His mouth was slightly opened. That would explain the snoring. Even if I wasn't in his reach anymore his arms were still stretched in front of him as if he'd be searching for me. I found it adorable.

However, I had work to do. We still didn't want to cause suspicion of our existence while on the run, so we had an unspoken agreement that whoever wakes up first has to clean up our camp spot to the point where it can't be seen that anyone was there. Even though I felt guilty about it, I have to admit that it was usually me who overslept and woke up when there was no sign of a camp spot anywhere. Bucky was good at doing this job.

I started with the fireplace. I threw the rocks that were sorrounding it towards the forest, each in different direction. Then I tried my best to scoop what was left of the ashes from the firewood in my hands and scour it in the sea. The current would take care of it afterwards, spreading the pieces around, leaving no trail of us being here. I started picking up the moss I slept on carefully as to not wake the man still occupying pieces of it and bringing it back to the spots where I saw Bucky rip it from the floor. We always tried not to harm it too much so it would be easier to put it back and no one would ever even see it was ripped and used as mattress stuffing.

After I was done I simply sat down by the seaside and waited for Bucky to wake up so we could continue our journey. It was still really early in the morning, but we'd have to get going soon if we wanted to reach Bucharest by nightfall. At times like these I would deeply wish for a quinjet from the Tower or one of Steve's motorbikes to speed up the travel. Or maybe Thor could give me a ride with his Mjolnir. My lips quirked up. I didn't even have time to realise how much I've missed them. Or maybe I just didn't want to admit that I do. Bucky was never talking about people he'd missed, so I figured I shouldn't either. If I would it would possibly make him upset or feel unimportant and to avoid that I ignored the thought of my friends. It hasn't been that long since I've seen them, maybe a month, but it seemed like a century has passed since I last hugged Natasha and wished her good luck. Huh, I wondered if anything happened with her and Bruce. They'd deserve it.

I missed Natasha's midnight talks, I missed Sam's quirky and clever comments, the morning runs I've had with Steve.. Hell, I missed just hanging about in the tower, either cleaning or cooking. It made me feel like a lady of the house rather than a fugitive on the run. It seemed I'm more destined for the former that being an actual wifey. Right now I'd actually be attending one of Tony's parties rather than running from my father who's turned to the dark side. I wondered how long he'd lied to me. And what was he talking about, about how he made the right choice? The right choice for what? What had he done? I hoped my mother would have the answers to the questions that kept running through my mind whenever I had a minute of not knowing what to do with myself.

I heard something shift behind me and I glanced at the still asleep Bucky, only to see his face messed up together, as he was struggling to sleep, as per usual. I sighed. He must be having a bad dream again. It seemed the second I was gone from under his fingers he was left to the repressed memories he'd tried so hard to hide. It happened a lot, pretty much every night. It was only this morning I've seen him as content as a baby. But to be fair, I barely saw him in the morning, as he was usually the one to wake up first.