In the Dark

The Date

{A MONTH LATER }

Sofia walked into the living room and plopped down next to Bucky who was sitting comfortably on the couch watching a movie. She crossed her arms over her chest, staring at the TV for a couple of seconds before looking over at Bucky.

"Stressed already?"

Bucky snorted, replying back without looking at her. "You wish."

It had been a couple of weeks since Bucky became her bodyguard and she knew it wasn't easy to handle it all, but then again this was Bucky. He had been President Wilson's bodyguard for 8 years. She was sure this was a piece of cake for him. And if it wasn't, he was very good at not letting on.

"So, anyway—" Sofia tucked her right leg underneath her left thigh. "I have a date tomorrow."

Bucky felt his heart stop and a little green, angry monster crawl up onto his shoulder. Sofia was nothing of his but yet he still couldn't help but feel jealous that someone else was going to enjoy her time.

"Oh."

Sofia frowned. She didn't know what she expected from him. She did know that Bucky wasn't going to jump for joy at the news. Then why did she feel upset?

"Coulson always fought me on the next part but uh..." Sofia trailed off nervously. "You have to come with."

Bucky looked away from the television to lock his light blue eyes with Sofia's dark brown ones. "So I'm going to basically chaperone..."

"Sort of? Look, I know that you don't want to do this and I understand but—"

"You're assuming I don't want to."

"Yes?" The look on her face was that a confused one. Was he not objecting?

"It's my job, Miss. Gonzalez. I don't have a choice now do I?"

Sofia shrugged. "I guess not... I don't know. Maybe I just expected you to give me a hard time as Coulson did."

Bucky let out a laugh as he turned back to look at the television screen again. He watched an action scene unfold systematically, opening his mouth to ask an unimportant yet important question.

"Who's the lucky guy?"

Sofia felt her neck and cheeks go warm. "Oh! Uh, you remember Tony from the other day," she started as she watched his eyebrows furrow. "Stark. Tony Stark. We met him at the Ellen show."

Bucky hummed and Sofia continued. "Well, his people got in contact with my people and he got my number, obviously, and now we're here; I'm prepping to go on a date with him."

Bucky pressed his lips together and nodded. Of course, Tony-genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist-Stark set his eyes on Sofia. Who wouldn't? She was all kinds of perfect.

"But I mean, who knows if it'll even work out," Sofia rambled on. "'Cus Tony is on a whole other level than me, you know?"

Bucky nodded, only half-listening to what his client was going on about.

"So... yeah." She crossed her arms over her chest again and Bucky cleared his throat awkwardly.

A second later, Sofia got up from the couch and made her way up to her room, shutting the door behind her and jumping onto her bed. She grabbed her phone from the nightstand and unlocked it using her thumbprint, quickly going into her messages and pressing on the pre-existing thread she had with Peggy.