bucky barnes imagines

xxx. RIVALRY (one)

You groaned sleepily as you leaned across to switch your alarm off. The time on your phone read 6:30am – usually, you would just go back to sleep, but today you were being forced to wake up early by none other than Tony Stark himself.

It was summertime, which meant that the temperature in New York was swelteringly hot. As a result, nobody wanted to train – no amount of air conditioning could cool down the gym at the tower.

Eventually, Tony decided that he was fed up of the team's laziness and had hired a couple of personal trainers who were apparently incredibly strict. Every Avenger who lived at the tower would have to participate in the training sessions, which began at 7:00am every single morning, much to your dismay.

Before you could fall asleep again, you dragged yourself out of bed and got ready, hastily pulling on some gym clothes and taking a few bites out of a cereal bar before heading to the training room. Almost everyone was already there. You joined the group and politely introduced yourself to the new trainers – a young man and woman, Ben and Allie.

After a short warm up exercise, Ben clapped his hands loudly to get everyone's attention. "Today's session will be an easy one – you'll just be sparring with each other. Although many of you possess superhuman powers, it's good to know how..."

He continued to talk about fighting patterns and techniques, but you stopped listening as you heard the door slam. Bucky Barnes walked in, giving a small nod as a greeting before coming to a standstill directly behind you.

"Late," you muttered, just loud enough for him to hear, "and unreliable as ever."

You heard him scoff and you smirked, happy that you were already getting on his nerves.

"Yeah? At least I took the time to make sure my hair doesn't look like a bird's nest," he shot back. You sighed and combed through your somewhat messy hair with your fingers, suddenly feeling the need to fix your appearance.

It was no secret that you and Bucky had some sort of rivalry going on. Something about him just made you angry and the feeling seemed to be mutual, because the two of you were constantly insulting each other. Sometimes his comments offended you, but you simply ignored the feeling and fought back.

By the time you focused on the current situation again, Ben and Allie had almost finished pairing people up for the training exercise. Suddenly, after Steve and Natasha walked away together, you realised that the only two people left were you and Bucky, meaning you would be partners. You turned around, horrified. He smirked as your eyes met his.

"Think you can do this without complaining, princess?"

You rolled your eyes at the question and the teasing pet name, while he harshly grabbed your hand and lead you over to the mats. For a split second, you found yourself being slightly dejected when he pulled his hand away again.

Before Bucky had a chance to do or say anything, you immediately punched him in the face – a cheap, simple move, but effective anyway. He stumbled backwards but quickly regained his balance and began to fight back.

When it came to sparring, you found that you were almost as skilled as Bucky, which surprised you. Although you would never outwardly compliment him, you were impressed by his unpredictable fight pattern and lightning fast reaction times.

After a while, you became increasingly consumed by your own thoughts – strange thoughts which you'd never had before, like how pretty Bucky's eyes were, how good he looked when he was concentrating (or how good he looked in general), what his metal arm would feel like against—

You were ripped out of your rather PG-13 thoughts as Bucky, realising that you were distracted, pinned your arms against your back. He swiftly kicked your legs from under you and hovered a few inches above you as you landed flat on your back.

You blinked slowly, stunned. While you would usually be angry over your defeat, on this occasion you couldn't help but notice how close Bucky's face was to yours. If you tilted your head up a little, if you wanted to, you could kiss him.

If you were being honest with yourself, maybe you did want to. Maybe you would if you weren't so sure that he hated your guts.

After realising that you'd been intensely staring directly into Bucky's eyes for a little too long, you shoved him to the side and stood up. You quickly exited the room, ignoring the confused glances of your teammates as the door swung shut behind you.

When you were gone, everyone turned their attention to Bucky. But he didn't notice. He sat on the floor with his head in his hands, frustrated, thinking to himself—

"I wish I had the guts to kiss her."

—— ★ ——

PART TWO COMING SOON.