Avengers Imagines

Don't Look Back (Pt. 2/6)

"So what you're going to do is avenge this random woman?" Bucky was familiar with his friend's infuriating sense of righteousness which often got on his nerves and on one occasion, given him nausea. However, this was new. New and stupid.

Steve's face lost lustre. "No, I just want to find out who killed her. This girl did not die of a domestic accident, I don't care what the police say."

"That may be so but isn't this something her family should be doing? Her significant other?" Bucky knew Steve like the back of his hand - he knew exactly why Steve was going out of his way to bring you justice, even though he had never shared his feelings about you in so many words.

Steve was impervious to the connotation behind his friend's inflexion. "That's the thing, I don't think she has any. There were like eight people at the funeral, including me, and most of them were neighbours who lived above and below us."

"Just don't go marrying her postmortem because you wish you'd done it earlier." The exasperation on Bucky's face quickly turned into a supple glow. "Speaking of marriage, how did we do on our date with the handsome billionaire?"

Steve flushed into a bright red. That was answer enough for Bucky. "How many of those have we been on, three? Looks promising to me."

"Stop saying we." Steve snapped, in no small part due to lack of a realistic alternative. Bucky turned to stone, staring into his eyes as if to declare the termination of their friendship. "If you think you're going to find yourself a man and forget all about me, you're wrong, punk."

"Buck, no, I'm not going to be any less of a friend to you just because I'm seeing someone." Steve was eager to cut to the chase - if he could have his way he would flip Bucky upside down and shake him in order to get his hands on the documents he had asked of his friend. "Did you...could you find anything on her?"

"Well, I'm retired and my friends at the PD could only help out so much, but yeah." Bucky produced an unnamed folder from his backpack and handed it over. "I found no birth records, no educational trail, no online presence, nothing. There is no (Y/N) (L/N)."

"So everything in here is..." Steve flipped through the entirety of the three pages that the folder contained. Bucky had been waiting to share his findings. "It seems she popped into existence at the age of nineteen. Radio silence since then until about a month ago, when she applied for a driver's license and enrolled into a law degree."

The two dots were far from connecting in Bucky's head, and by the looks of it Steve was nowhere close to it either. A distant knock echoed in the air, having a metaphorical effect of knocking on their minds, for revelation to open a door. Until it became a distraction, with an unwanted voice calling out. "Ms. (L/N)?"

Almost as though it would be you who were calling out your own name, in the voice of a man no less - Steve burst into action, nearly tearing his door off its hinges - and portrayed rightful disappointment upon coming across a complete stranger waiting at your door, who was ready to book it at the sight of two gigantic men headed right for him. "Ms. (L/N)?"

"What do you think?" It irked Bucky to no end, how indulgent Steve became when things were about you. He could not, for the life of him, find the source of gratification. The small strange man held out a key, as if holding a cross to ward off demons. "Ms. (L/N), she had a locker with us. I am here to hand over the key."

"She is no longer with us." Saying the words leeched energy from Steve's very core. Tension loosened from the other man's limbs. "Oh, I'm sorry. Any family or next of kin?"

Steve shook his head. Bucky's regard flitted between the two men, "He was involved with her!" He would have exploded had he not intervened. "Very committed. Engaged. He's her fiancé."