"Broken Toys"
After some scandal involving a forgotten library book, Maria had been forbidden to play with her toys for two weeks. And so they remained, cramped in her toy box, waiting for their little girl to come back to them. At least there had been time to say goodbye, so they knew it was temporary.
She had the biggest heart in the world, taking in the toys nobody else wanted: the broken, the dented, the badly painted, the leftovers at garage sales. She was also very orderly, and organized them by type of damage so that she would know if anyone went missing.
Unfortunately for the Agent, that meant that he was always propped up close to the Winter Soldier, and invariably faced him, while the Winter Soldier never looked at the Agent.
The Agent, if a toy had lungs, would have sighed over his lost cause. If only the Winter Soldier would look at him, maybe he would become as enamoured. But the Agent wore only a suit, and had a badge and gun. The Winter Soldier had a much bigger one, he was all in black, and he had a fancy red star on his arm. He had much more to recommend him than the Agent.
But the Agent pined nonetheless, hoping that maybe, someday, he'd be able to play with the Winter Soldier properly. That someday, maybe, he would be the one being watched.
Unless Maria was there, the toys couldn't move; so no matter how much he strained, the Winter Soldier couldn't even turn his head.
Somehow, he always ended up facing a bit away from the Agent. He knew the Agent was equally favoured among the toys, so it just seemed to be back luck that the Winter Soldier could never quite see him. Only out of the corner of his eye, which was not in the least bit satisfying.
It wasn't curiosity. Not… just curiosity. He'd seen the Agent plenty of times outside of the box, especially when Maria wanted to play Secret Spies with them.
But the Winter Soldier was sure the Agent must have been tired of always looking at him. It's not like the Winter Soldier was particularly nice to look at. They all had their scratches and breaks, which Maria and her father tried their best to fix, but the Winter Soldier hated his clunky replacement arm that started to squeak if Maria forgot to oil it, and he hated that red star sticker. It was too… red. Like that one time Maria accidentally cut herself and cried. There was bad red that time.
The Winter Soldier wished his start was the same colour as the Agent's eyes. That would be nice.
So he sat there, frustrated, for the two weeks Maria was grounded, and finally got a glimpse of the Agent when Maria took them all out of the box, saying how sorry she was, and that she would be more careful in the future. But then the Winter Soldier's arm squeaked loudly, and he wanted desperately not to see the Agent's face at the embarrassing sound it made.
As I said on Tumblr, no idea where to go from there. And what the hell was I thinking when I came up with this story idea? No clue. Anyone got any suggestions on how to continue?
Please review!