Slow Burn [Bucky Barnes]

5

"You going to bed, Jack?" Tony asked, stepping into the elevator.

Everyone else had gone to bed an hour ago, and Tony and Jack had spent the past hour catching up.

She shook her head. "No. How about you?"

He smirked. "When have I ever gone to sleep at a godly hour?"

She smiled back. "That's what I thought."

"Do you wanna come see my lab? See what I've been up to?"

"Sure, in a little bit. I want to make some cookies, first."

Tony frowned. "What are you planning?"

Shoot. She had forgotten that he knew that about her. She always baked when she was plotting or planning something, and they had spent many hours baking together in their formative years. He knew everything about her. Well, not everything.

She kept her expression light, and shrugged. "We'll see."

"Okay. Try not to wake anyone up." He seemed suspicious of her, which she needed to fix. Immediately.

The elevator doors closed and Jack was alone. This left her to look for the kitchen, which she easily found only down the hall from the living room. She gathered the ingredients for a simple sugar cookie recipe, and set her brain to plot as she began mixing the dough.

I could do it, she thought. I could just go and kill him right now. He's sleeping. It would be so easy... But she convinced herself otherwise, for now. Stick with the plan.

❣︎❣︎❣︎

It was midnight. Jack was pulling out the flour container for her third cake. She already had four trays of sugar cookies that were cooling. The lights had dimmed as it got later, leaving only a small yellow lamp to light the room. Jack didn't mind, though. She liked the atmosphere it gave off.

She was so lost in thought that she didn't hear the footsteps approach.

"Jacqueline?"

She shrieked and dropped the flour. White clouds of the stuff puffed up onto her face. She spun. "What?" she snapped. Damn it. Calm down. Friendly. Make the Winter Soldier think you care.

His hair was up in a bun and he was wearing only a simple black tank top and sweatpants. And... fuzzy pink slippers?

He burst out laughing when he saw her floured form.

Get him close...?

Not right now.

She glared at him. "Do you know how hard it is to maintain hair like this? Now I have flour in it!"

He tried to stop laughing, but the way she was pouting over her perfectly curled, bleach-blonde hair was adorable, and it only made him laugh harder.

But what he didn't know was that she already had a burning hatred for him, and that his innocent laughter was just pissing her off more.

And he also didn't know about her pocket knife.

She had it out and opened before she knew it, keeping it close to her side.

Bucky's enhanced hearing picked up the sound of the blade flipping open. "Woah, woah!" he said, holding up his hands. "What do you need that for?"

Shoot. Jack thought quickly. She plunged the knife into one of the cakes, the only one she had decorated so far. She cut a slice and put it on a plate before placing it in front of a barstool near the kitchen island.

Bucky immediately relaxed. "Oh." He chuckled, embarrassed. "Sorry."

She sighed. Keep your cool. "It's fine." She was suddenly overwhelmingly tired.

Bucky sat by the piece of cake and simply picked it up with his hands, as she hadn't given him a fork.

Jack wet a dishcloth and wiped her face free of flour before finding a broom and sweeping up the flour on the floor.

"Oh my God, this is really good." Bucky said through a mouthful of cake.

"So I've been told." Jack mumbled. She swept the flour into a pile, then looked into the container. "There's pretty much no flour now."

"Jarvis, order some more flour." Bucky told the AI that Jack had not yet been warned about.

"Yes, Sir."

"The hell?" She glanced around the ceiling frantically, trying to find the source of the voice.

"Tony didn't tell you about Jarvis?"

"Jarvis? Like Edwin Jarvis?"

"There seems to be ground for speculation on what or whom I am named after."

Jack flinched at the sudden voice.

"I think Tony once told me that 'Jarvis' stands for 'Just A Really Very Intelligent System.' Which is true."

"You flatter me, Mr. Barnes."

"This is so weird." Jack said, dropping the broom in a corner. "I'm so tired. And so done. Do you think you could put away the cakes and cookies and stuff? I'll frost the rest in the morning."

Bucky nodded.

She glanced at him and giggled. She didn't even really have the energy to pretend.

His brow furrowed. "What?"

"You have frosting on your nose." And then she left.

He wiped the tip of his nose with the back of his hand, and there was indeed frosting. This made him grin, but he didn't quite know why. "Jarvis, make sure you put Jack—Jacqueline in the system."

"Of course, Mr. Barnes."