Chapter Text
As proof that he once existed in more than just you memory, your dad left behind his 1967 Chevrolet Impala just for you.
It was his "I'm sorry for leaving with another woman and starting another family in a different state, but truly, I loved you, babygirl ".
His words, not yours.
Well—those weren't his technical words, but it was what you heard nonetheless. You'd been old enough to not entirely resent him for it, you had seen the fights and the distance between your parents grow for a long time by then, and separation was something you had seen on the horizon and accepted long before they sat you down and confirm your suspicions.
The reason was what fucked you up. Them. The things he'd kept hidden from you and your mother.
Regardless—the car was the proof of the good old days when you were younger and your father spent hours in the garage fixing up and cleaning his cars while you talked and helped him whenever he let you.
That Impala was your baby.
Being your baby, you cared for it more than most possessions in your life—you always kept it clean, engine running with the same stuff, oil, and water in check, tires always on point.
So when that precious, well-cared for baby starts acting up, it's like your heart is about to start acting up with it.
You're fucked.
"You're not fucked." Sarah pulls your hoodie from the top of your head, chuckling lightly at your "dramatics", as she called it.
Blinking at the sudden light, you groan against the library table, still keeping your head between your arms.
"Didn't you say you use to take it to a mechanic? I remember you telling me about it last year—just take it there," says Sarah.
"I can't." Another sigh leaves your body. After another fight with Mr. Emmon, you had promised you'd find another mechanic—he was too close to your dad and although you liked him, it wasn't enough to handle all his 'lectures' every time you went there. "Mr. Emmon pissed me off for the last time and I told myself 'oh, it's okay Y/n, you'll find another good mechanic around this town that doesn't charge the eyes outta your face for fix-ups in an old, 1967 Impala, everything'll be okay'."
Sarah lifts one of her eyebrows at you, trying to stifle another laughter.
"And... lemme guess: you never found him?" she asks, faking seriousness.
"Stop laughing at me!" You pick up one of your pens and throw it in her direction, making her resolve fall and laughter come out of her.
A few feet away from you, Miss Penny shushes you both loudly.
Some pairs of eyes snap in your direction with a look that says yeah, shut up and both you and Sarah wince in apology towards them.
Having a meltdown in the university library is only acceptable if you do it quietly, so you sigh with your face hidden behind your hands.
"I didn't," you answer her, dropping your hands. "They're all so expensive it makes me wanna cry, S."
"Baby, I don't know what you expected." A miracle, you think. "This is New York, and we both know that what we get from our side-jobs is only enough to make it by ." She shakes her head, and you nod in agreement.
Going to medical school is a dream both of you can only achieve due to the help of family members—in her case, a brother who loves her a lot and in yours, a dad with enough guilt to fill up a really big lake.
"Is there anyone you trust, at least?" She leans in closer against the table to take a good look at you, probably trying to see how much of the drama is actual worry and how much is you being extra. "I could help with you with the bill if it's too much and you'll pay me back when you have time to do extra shots for your other job. You paid me back really soon when I lent you the money for the computer, I trust you."
That brought a fond smile to your face.
Grad school might've given you new headaches and too many bills to keep up with on top of all the school work and mountains of things you have to assimilate daily, but the gods granted you with a bigger gift to handle it all.
Sarah Wilson.
Knowing she had few girl friends since having two kids made no sense on your mind—how could people have a friend like her by their side and let it slip through their fingers was beyond you, but at least you ended up here, at the same time as her.
"Thanks, babe." You reached over the table to squeeze her hand. "There's no need for that, though—it's not even about the price at this point, it's just the quality of the work I've seen."
It was true; the only two options you'd found available (with prices salty enough to give you kidney stones) inspired little to no confidence at all to you.
Lazy, overpriced work.
Apparently, mechanics who worked with old cars and knew the inner-work of engines that didn't fall under these new modal types were rare to come by now.
Sarah straightens her posture suddenly, then lifts a finger in your direction. "Wait—I just remembered I can actually help you," she grins as she takes her phone out of her pocket.
You wait patiently behind her lifted finger. Sarah texts someone and her grins widen when her phone pings with a reply, and after she exchanges a couple more texts, she looks up at you with the satisfaction you usually see on her face after she aces a paper she worked really hard on.
"Who's the Superwoman of your life?" The question is rhetorical and judging by the grin on her face, she's aware of it.
"You are." You extend both hands towards her. "Please tell me you knew someone who knows a good mechanic. I don't even care if I'm gonna drown in debt the next month, I'll post double and pay it when I can, just—do you have it?"
Sarah wiggles her phone in the air. "You owe me a sandwich from Alex & MD."
"S, I'll bring you sandwiches for the next three weeks. Text me the number, c'mon," you giggle at her.
Sarah throws her hair over her shoulder, pleased with the negotiation, and you feel your phone vibrating with her incoming message.
"This is the address to my brother's friend's place." Sarah opens her textbook again, and starts separating her highlighters. "He's an army-vet too, they served together on Sam's last tour and when he came back, he opened the shop with the money he had saved. I've seen him only a few times, so I forgot about it—he's pretty nice, I don't think he's the type to overcharge for honest work, or at least he didn't seem like it when I met him."
"Hon, if Sam vouches for him, I'll sell my kidney on the black market, no problemo. Who needs kidneys anyway?" You scoff. "Not me. What do they even do?"
Immediately, Sarah answers.
“They control acid-base, water and electrolyte balance, remove toxins and waste products from the body, and— uhm…” she trails off, pursing her lips together in an effort to remember.
You pick it up from where she left off. “Control blood pressure, produce erythropoietin and—”
“Activate vitamin D,” she finishes with you.
You two smile at each other.
“And they said studying together doesn’t work.” She scoffs, and pushes the open textbook towards you. “Your turn. Gimme that Anatomy beast.”
You slide the Anatomy textbook to Sarah, picking up the one she gives you in return and placing it in front of you.
Then you open her text message, forwarded from Sam’s conversation:
sure I do! Bucky’s one of the best mechanics I’ve ever met. tell her to let him know she’s a friend of mine and he’ll look a little less intimidating ;) he’ll take good care of her ride.
Attached to the message was an address and phone number.
Quickly, you throw the address on Google and you see it on the street view the location Sam sent.
It’s a garage named Barnes Auto in big, bold blue letters. The sign is simple, black and blue, and the garage looks bigger than most you see on the main streets of NY, as well as more illuminated.
From the get go, it inspires a little more trust than the last places you’ve checked.
Plus—it was recommended by Sam.
Even if it’s a steeper price than what you can afford, your car is worth it. It’s your only possession so far in life, its seats and engine are filled with memories and even if it sometimes saddens you to remember why you have it in the first place, it’s still valuable and loved.
It’s where you and Sarah had your first heart-to-heart, it’s where you discovered you got in Medical School, and it’s where you want to have many more memories.
What if you have to spend the next few weekends doing some… extra work?
The promise you’d made to yourself that you’d take Bullet to the garage as soon as possible is left behind for almost a week in a haze of lectures, notes, essays due to the next day and, as always, trying not to lose your mind.
Work is helpful when it comes to paying you— both you and Sarah work as hostess in a very fancy restaurant up in the Upper East Side, which is wonderful for tips (old men slipping hundred dollar bills when they think you’re giving them special treatment is the highlight of your weekends) and even better to keep you afloat.
Still, working there doesn’t pay all the bills.
Sarah sells homemade cakes that she puts in cute little cups during break times in Uni, and you… well.
You sell pictures online.
Sarah’s the only person in your life who you’ve ever told about it, and knowing of your online “persona” and not judging you was the reason you two became so close.
“Honey, if people are paying money to see you pose in lingerie, you’re a damn genius in my book and nothing else.”
It had started when you turned seventeen and your mother opened up about the financial situation on your house, and why it had changed so much since your dad left— he was the biggest income of the house and she felt bad — your heart broke to this day to remember it — over not being able to give you as much as he did.
Granted, your father paid for your medical school, relieving you of a lot of debt, but—that was it.
If you called to ask him how he’s doing, chances of getting an answer were slim to none.
He thought the money made up for all the rest.
So, you’d decided to make extra cash in a way no one would find out, but you knew it paid off if done right—you started selling sexy pictures.
You’d never sold a fully nude, most of your pictures were viewed as “teasing” or “erotica”, and the spicier ones included new lingerie sets you only managed to afford because of the pictures you started selling, but overtime, the persona you created and the teasing Q&As served for good savings.
The point was: you were never swimming in money.
If something could be pushed off ‘till the next check, it was.
Unfortunately, Bullet — because yes, your car has a name — decides that working properly isn’t something it feels like doing anymore and on a Sunday of all godforsaken days, it starts doing the same noise it did before.
While you’re going back home. Tired from work, at nine pm, Bullet starts making weird and groaning sounds through its engine and you turn it off, pulling it to the first open side of the road you find.
“Oh god, please be open, pretty please, please.”
The number Sam had offered you rings three times while you shiver in the chilly October air, and before you can lose hope, the call goes through.
“Barnes Auto, this is Bucky speaking.”
“Oh, thank god,” you cry. “I thought you’d be closed by now, oh my god I’m so lucky and so, so stupid. I should’ve taken the car there days ago but I forgot, and now I’m rambling on your ear—I’m sorry.” You take a deep, shaky breath, then try again. “Hi. This is Y/n, and my precious, precious baby is about to die. I can’t let that happen. Sam Wilson told me you could help? You’re Bucky Barnes, right?”
After your embarrassing introduction, you’re expecting a gruff and exasperated tone answering you.
Instead, a low chuckle comes through the line.
“Only Bucky around.” And oh— that’s a nice voice. Smooth, melodic in a way. “I’m assuming you’re Y/n, Sarah’s girl.”
You wince with your whole upper body— Sam had even warned his friend that you’d drop by. God, you’re a lost cause.
“That’s me.” There’s sheepishness in your voice, the guilty and unsaid ‘sorry I haven’t dropped by yet’, and Bucky must hear it, because he chuckles at you again. “Is this like—a horrible time? Are you closing? I could just tow the car to your place and be there first thing in the morning. I can do a few days without it—I live a bit far from the school, but I’ll get around. I just—I know there’s a problem somewhere and it isn’t with the basic stuff ‘cause I’m always checking those and… And I’m rambling again. God, I’m so sorry,” you shiver again.
“Are you on the road side?” Is all Bucky asks. If he’s bothered by any of your nervous rambling, it doesn’t come out in his voice.
“Uhm—yeah?”
“It’s cold. Call the tow truck and get here; I can squeeze you as the last job of the day.” The way he says it leaves no room for argument, but after a relieved sigh, you still feel the need to thank him.
“Okay, yeah— I’ll call them now.” You take another deep breath, feeling most of the nervousness leave your body with Bucky’s certain and steady tone. “Thank you so much, Bucky. Really— thank you .”
With his next chuckle, you realize just how nice he sounds laughing, even if it is at you.
“Don’t thank me yet, I haven’t even touched your baby.”
“I’ll make sure to thank you when you do, then.” Usually, smiles this honest are hard to be invoked in you, but Bucky seems to do it easily with his teasing.
“Sure thing.” There are a few noises on his side of the line, and then he exhales. “I’ll be waiting.”
“Kay.”
He hangs up and you stare at your phone for a second, a little lost on why this small exchange relieved you so much.
Oh, well.
The tow truck is called and soon, you’re inside your car on your way to Barnes Auto, praying to anything that’s hearing that his bill won’t look like the dinner bills at the place you work at.
The driver leaves you at the street and you drive Bullet inside of the auto shop with your radio blasting your playlists at an ungodly volume, as per usual.
With snaps and rumbles that sound as horrible as they probably are, you park in the open garage and the only life you see inside of it comes from the few dim lights that are still on.
Then, the noise of the garage door being pulled down behind you points to the life your eyes have been searching for—through the rear mirror you see there’s a figure in dungarees closing the shop, and you exhale happily that you made in before ten pm, because Bucky Barnes is already at angel in your eyes to be working until this hour on a Sunday.
You try turning off your sound system, but it only lowers and raises the volume—great, now the problem’s infiltrated the electrical part of the car.
“Are you kidding me?” You mutter to yourself. “Bullet, this is not the time.”
In the rear mirror, the figure approaches your car.
Through your speakers, Hozier is still singing.
With the war of the fire, my heart moves to its feet. Like the ashes of ash, I saw eyes in the heat, feel it—
The tall and broad figure of Bucky stops outside your driver’s door just as you finally manage to turn the sound off.
When he leans down to peak his head inside, the both of you stare at each other for a heartbeat that stills everything in your mind.
The man standing outside of your car is nothing of what you'd expect.
Matter-of-factly, you realize looking into deep blue eyes that you hadn't spared a second to what Bucky must look like. The only information you had was offered by Sarah—" Barnes has a prosthetic metal arm, and he usually answers questions about it depending on how they're asked, but my brother's told me before he doesn't really like talking about it".
Nothing in the report included Maldives-Ocean blue eyes, chiseled jawline, and pretty, pink lips. There was not a single footnote about the smooth, long hair which he kept in a low bun at the back of his neck, or the strand of hair that escaped and framed his sharp cheekbones.
Not that Sarah had the duty of warning you of a beautiful man.
Even if she had , you think, it wouldn't have prepared you for that face mere inches away from yours.
"It has a name?" Is the first thing Bucky says to you in person.
Completely lost in the shade of his eyes, your eloquent answer is: "Huh?"
God, you must look like a fool. Bucky scratches the back of his neck with his left hand and you catch a metallic glimpse with the motion.
"Your car? It has a name," he repeats, still sounding a little like a question.
"Oh!" He heard you complaining. You feel the heat rushing to your cheeks, burning them entirely. "Yeah—this is Bullet." You run your hands through the steering wheel and turn your eyes away from that face before your heart leaps out of your chest.
Holy fucking god.
Bucky Barnes has got to be one of the prettiest men you've ever seen.
Fuck—you curse mentally how flustered you feel to be under his observing gaze, your heart beating way too fast for your liking.
"Nice name." Nice voice, you answer mentally. "Can I have the keys? I wanna move it to the back. It's where I work."
Right! You ignore the Grinch-like voice screeching around your brain about this man's godly beauty, and then remove the keys from the ignition to place them on Bucky's waiting palm.
You slide to the passenger seat. When he's fully seated inside, you focus your attention on the panel to talk again, since looking at Bucky's face seems to do things to your insides. "Now that you've touched it, thanks."
It's only Destiny's irony that Sam's apparent best friend and now your savior would be the first man to actually spike your interest in, well—forever.
And of course you'd be trapped in work clothes with him inside your nearly broken baby.
Bucky chuckles at your side and starts the engine. "How d'you know I'll know what's wrong with it?"
At least that's an easier question. "Sam vouches for you." From the handful of times you've met the paramedic, you know Sam's one the most trustworthy people ever. "And you didn't make the face when seeing that it's a 60s car."
"What face?"
"The 'ugh, this isn't an automatic BMW or Hyundai, why is she driving this piece of shit?' face." You've seen it enough times by now. You shrug your shoulders, still not meeting his eyes again. "Most mechanics nowadays seem to be allergic to them."
"Any mechanic worth its money should smile seeing an old beauty like this."
"Not a lot of them running around lately." Bucky opens with remote control the next garage door, then leads the noisy Bullet towards the open and large garage at the back. "Trust me, I've looked."
"How long have you been looking?" He asks you.
Humming, you think about how long it's been since you stopped going to Mr. Emmon.
"A year, I think?" Feeling a little bolder now that Bucky's opening your door and exiting the car, you steal another glance at him. "Haven't found anyone that seems to know truly know what the fuck they're doing and when I did, they either seemed to think I'm an Upper East Side girl with money to blow—which I'd love to be, but am not, or a stupid and naive little girl that they can rip off to their liking, which I also am not, so." You sigh and exit the car too. "That took around a year."
Bucky's leaning with his hips on the hood of Bullet and listening to you with the hint of a smile on his face.
'He doesn't talk much, but Sam was right — just say you're our friend and he should seem a little less intimidating. He's not to keen on new people, that's all. '
Sarah's words make a lot more sense, now.
"You do have some of the Upper East glamour," says Bucky.
Thankful that the high glass ceiling and the low lighting of the back of the auto shop aren't enough to illuminate the flush that's back on your cheeks, you roll your eyes at him with a smile on your face.
"Thanks, it's all the hours spent watching actual Upper Easters eating their thousand dollars dinner and guiding them to the bar for the hundred dollars drinks."
It's said with sass, but you actually enjoy your job.
Bucky laughs under his breath. "Fair enough." He points to the hood of the car. "May I?"
"Oh my god, yeah—it's all yours."
He gives you half a smile again and goes to the front to open the hood.
You exhale slowly when he's out of your sight.
You can see now why Sarah warned you before coming here.
Bucky's reserved, quiet and pulling as much as a smile out of him seems to be harder than with most people.
You're not the friendliest person — an eternal case of Resting Bitch Face tends to keep most unwanted interactions away from you — but when you try , people flock to you easily.
Making others smile and laugh with their whole chest is far from a task to you.
People are your thing. Helping them when it hurts—that's a talent you were born with.
Even still—Bucky seems to be different.
You swallow thickly, a knot forming on your throat at the racing thoughts on your mind.
Why should you want to see him smile? Bucky seems happy underneath the seriousness, he is far from being your patient (as far as you are from being a doctor) and you're literally just met.
Logically, you're aware of all that.
Still, for some reason, you want to hear him laugh.
"Bullet's well-cared for." His voice snaps you out of your thoughts, and you see him leaning to the side of the hood to look at you. "You take good care of him," he praises.
It goes straight to your head, and the blushing only gets worse.
"Oh—thanks." Tentatively, you take a couple of steps closer. Leaning against the side of the hood, you can see Bucky looking at the engine with hands that already black from a whole day of work. "I don't get the engine parts and the inner works, but I can get by with the basics."
He looks up at you with raised eyebrows. "What's the basics?"
Unlike all the other mechanics you've met, his question feels laced with genuine curiosity other than entitlement.
Like he wants to know how much you do for the car, instead of "testing" your knowledge.
You clear your throat. "Well, I always keep the oil in check and change it before it starts to get darker—I know with newer cars you can wait 'till it's at the point of changing, but with older ones, it's better to keep it fresh to help keeping the engine clean." Your dad made sure you remembered that before he left. "Water's always filled up, brake pads were checked last year, and I always keep an eye on the tires."
When you're done listing all the things you're familiar with, Bucky's hidden smile becomes an actual smirk.
"D'you know how to change tires?" He asks, the curiosity lacing every word.
You shrug. "Yeah, of course."
"'Of course', she says." He gives a breathy chuckle, looking down at your car's engine again. "I had mechanic students enrolling last year who didn't. Well—he claimed he knew it 'in theory', but never changed a tire before in his life." Bucky sounded very amused for someone who was rolling his eyes. When he opens your water reserve tank, he looks up at you. "Have you changed one before?"
Now he's teasing you.
"Yes, Mr. Barnes. I've changed tires before in my life," you answer with enough sass to rev a Porshe engine. "Every friend I have that learns I can change a tire calls me when they have a flat one."
He nods at that, smiling a bit more. "Good, good."
"Do you know how to change a tire?" The silly and teasing question is out of your lips before you can stop yourself.
You freeze on the spot, but Bucky looks up at you surprised, and then, he bursts out laughing.
Oh, what a lovely song.
"Yes, ma'am. I do."
He's still chuckling when he looks down at Bullet's engine again, shaking his head at himself.
"D'you wanna take a seat? This is gonna take a few minutes." He points to the bench that's in the middle of all the cars parked in this area, but there isn't an inch of you that wants to move.
"Actually... does it bother you if I watch?" You ask in a smaller voice. Something about the calm and calculative way Bucky roams the pieces of Bullet with makes you feel good. "You can totally say no—I know lots of people hate being watched working. I'm just—I like watching. I used to sit in the garage with my dad as he re-did some stuff on his cars and pass him the tools, you know? It soothes me."
You have no idea what on earth brings you to offer the last bits of information to him—it's not as if Bucky cares why the hell a strange woman wants to watch him work, but talking with him is so easy that it just... slips by.
When he looks up at you, he watches your face for a few moments before shrugging his shoulders.
"Feel free." He points to a chair that's close to the garage door. "You can grab that."
For the next twenty or thirty minutes, you sit in silence a few feet away from Bucky as he analyzes superficially what can be wrong with Bullet.
In every other auto shop visit, you spent the entire time thinking about cash and your father.
In here, all you can think about is how beautiful Bucky's metallic arm looks under the moon and the led lights.
How calm he looks while picking apart a machine that you can only begin to understand.
You watch Bucky work with a tilted head, only glancing at your phone vibrating like crazy to see how much time has passed.
Looking and reading the messages you received is unnecessary now: Sarah's gonna have to wait.
(You had sat down and texted her only two things: YOU owe me Alex & MD sandwiches for a week. A warning would've been nice.
He's the prettiest thing I've ever seen, S. Wtf? )
When Bucky's done with his superficial diagnosis, he sighs deeply.
Immediately, you groan out loud and drop your face behind your hands.
"No, no—hey, it's not that bad." There's the sound of Bucky steps coming near you, but you're too scared to look up. "The time away from a mechanic's probably why one problem led to another, but from what I've seen, it shouldn't be too hard to fix."
You open your fingers just enough to peek your eyes at him.
"Promise?" You ask.
Bucky smiles at you fully for the first time.
"Yes. Leave Bullet to me, I'll run a complete diagnosis and by the end of the week, I'll tell you how much it'd cost to fix it all." He starts cleaning his fingers with the rug that was on his shoulders. "If it's too much to do it all at once, we can see what needs to be fixed to get it running again—once you give me the green light, I'll start working on him."
Whether it's his reassuring smile or the fact that he calls your car by its name, you feel like you'd leave anything on this man's hands.
"Yeah. Sure." Your smile grows wider when he nods in satisfaction. "I hope Bullet behaves with you— she acts up whenever other people try driving her and stuff." You get up from the chair with a low chuckle. "I'm kinda sad I'll miss all the good bits."
Bucky starts walking back inside in direction of what looks like the shop's office, and you follow him closely.
"You really like knowing all the nitty-gritty details?" He asks.
The look he sends back at you is the same as when he asked what was the 'basics' you knew—curiosity.
"I really do." The reason was sappy and something he'd hardly find interesting, so you try to keep it short. "I understand very little of what's going on, but I still think it's a really cool process. Operating machines is not up my alley."
Bucky laughs at you again. "Aren't you studying to operate the most complicated machine ever ?"
Huh. He has a point.
"Good point." Bucky opens the office door and gestures for you to get inside, and as you enter you curse the better lighting inside it because in here your blush can't be missed, even on your tanned skin. "I guess it depends on the machine, then."
"The ones with oil and water are much easier than the ones with blood and... other fluids." Bucky gets behind his desk and starts looking through the papers.
"Are you trying to get me to change careers, Mr. Barnes?"
Bucky doesn't seem much older than you—you're in your mid-twenties and he must be ten years older than that, tops.
His lips curl in a funny manner at the 'Mister'. "That sounds like you're talking to my pops—just Bucky 's fine." He finds what he's looking for, and you can read from where you stand 'clint file'. "And don't worry, Mrs. Y/L/N, I wouldn't dream of tryin' to change your ways."
You scrunch your nose, much like he had a second ago.
"Okay, I see it now; just Y/n is fine too." He chuckles at you, then pushes the paper towards you. "I think it'd be a bit late for me, anyway."
"Never too late to learn something you like." He seems to be quoting it from memory, and you look up from the paper to him. "'s what my dad used to say. May be a little harder, but never impossible."
The sad smile Bucky gives you wrenches your heart impossibly tight.
"Mr. Barnes sounded very wise."
With your comment, his sad smile turns a little bit brighter.
You two sit in a comfortable silence as you fill in the form and Bucky explains the shop's working hours; apparently, this Sunday he'd been here doing paperwork that was overdue and you had caught him by luck.
You must thank him at least four more times before everything's written down and he closes the office behind you two.
"Uhm—I'd offer you a ride, but I came on my bike and I don't have a spare helmet, so—" he starts, but you interrupt him shaking your head profusely.
"Bucky, you've done plenty for me tonight, trust me." He laughs a little at your eagerness and scratches the back of his neck with his metal hand. You've noticed it seems to be a nervous habit of his. "I'm just gonna call an Uber and head home. Don't worry about lil' old me."
"Don't call yourself old in my presence, for the love of god," he groans.
Without looking up from your phone, you snort. "If you try to tell me you're one day older than thirty-five, I won't believe you, so I don't know what you're on about."
His silence makes you look up, and finding Bucky looking at you with his head tilted to the side and an inquisitive expression on his face is the last thing you needed at the end of the week.
He looks so curious . So soft.
"Thanks." He's trying to hold his smile back again, and for some reason, it makes you blush again. "But I'm thirty-nine."
Oh. "Liar."
He laughs at you, the same bright chest laughter as before when you asked if he could change a tire.
"Alright," says Bucky.
He starts shifting his weight from one foot to another, and you notice that he hasn't moved from your side because he's about to wait for you to get inside the Uber before he leaves.
Just what you needed on top of everything else—the man is a gentleman.
Do they even make men like this anymore? You'd been thoroughly convinced that the mold which made a kind, beautiful, and funny gentleman had been broken a long time ago.
"You didn't have to wait with me," you tell him in a whisper.
Bucky looks to you again with a frown on his face. "'Course I did."
Simple as that; 'of course' he did.
"D'you uhm... d'you want to have follow-ups for what I do to Bullet?" He asks, scratching his nape once more.
Not following, you tilt your head. "What do you mean?"
Bucky shifts his glance from you to where his bike is, then licks his lips.
"I don't usually offer this to clients 'cause most of them don't give a damn about what's done as long as it's done well, but you said you liked knowing, so—you don't have to, of course. You might like just watching, but if you wanna know, I could text you the updates."
The rushed, matter-of-factly and false careless way with which Bucky offers you that are the reasons why you're unable to lie to yourself: He's nervous.
Nervous to offer you this, as if you'd be crazy enough to say no.
"Of course!" His eyes widen a little at your enthusiasm, and this time you could care less about the heat on the top of your cheeks. "I mean—that's really nice of you to offer. If it's not gonna bother you or your work, I'd love some updates. I'm gonna miss her."
Bucky exhales clearly, then laughs lightheartedly.
"Why's it her?"
Your Uber notification tells you they're one minute away, so you use the gateway braveness to tell him.
"All my dad's rides were a 'her'." Even the one he hid for years and left you for. "He was a man of many hers, it turns out," you bitterly add.
Bucky catches on to the hidden words quickly, and his expression turns very somber.
"Many men are." His voice sounds lower when he's being serious, but still as melodic as ever. "It just means they aren't enough by themselves. So they need 'hers' and the highs to fill up imaginary holes, I've learned."
If this man impressed you anymore during one night, you'd end up leaving your heart in his shop's office drawer.
Thankfully, your ride pulls up just in time.
"Seems like the wisdom of Barnes passed on the next generation." You extend your cellphone towards him. "Number. I'll text you something so you can update me on Bullet."
Bucky smiles down at your phone as he types his number, then offers it back to you with a tight-lipped, shy smile.
"I'll see you, Y/n." He looks at the Uber with calculating eyes. "Take care, yeah? Text me when you get home."
"Yeah, okay."
All the home, your thoughts linger on the way he stood in front of his shop watching your car leave.
When you get home, you text him: Lady Bullet's owner here. I'm home :)
And as a reply, you get: Happy you're home safe. Good night, Lady Bullet.