Life After Death

by Team Damon

Sequel to Breath of Life. He's overcome a lot to get to where he's at, but he still has a long way to go. She knows that it's not going to be easy, but she also knows that he's worth it. And neither of them have the slightest clue what in the world they're doing. Bucky/OC, post-TWS and non-Civil War compliant. Now complete!

25. Chapter 25

It was as ordinary a day as ever, two Tuesdays after Paul and Sarah had headed back to California, and not one that Summer thought would really end up being particularly interesting. In fact, it was so mundane that she was wasting time on her phone sitting behind her desk, whiling away the morning by reading random bits of celebrity gossip in between looking up potential kindergartens for David come fall. Aside from finding out what Pepper wanted for lunch and waiting to be told what else to do with her day, there really wasn't much else to do, and reading the stupid gossip sites was at least keeping her awake.

For awhile, at least. After she nodded off once without realizing, a cup of coffee landed on her desk with a thud and sent her jumping awake as she looked up at Deanna, giving her an amused look. "Rough night?"

"No. Well... no," she shook her head, holding in a comment somewhere along the lines of depends on your definition. Sometimes Bucky let her sleep, sometimes he didn't. Last night had been closer to the latter. But her boss definitely didn't need to know that.

"Mmhmm. Well, take a drink of that and then you can go grab a new box of paperclips to wake yourself up."

"Okay," Summer replied as the woman headed back to her own desk, picking up the coffee and trying not to wince because whoever had made the stuff was not very good at it. Or maybe she was just used to the way everybody down in the apartment made it - way too strong, especially if Bucky had been the one doing it. She had once seen him pour a third of an entire bag of expensive coffee into the machine at once, and he hadn't understood why she had freaked out and spooned most of it back into the bag. She had made some remark about a little bit going a long way, and he had managed to turn that into an inescapable innuendo, as per usual. She could discuss the finer points of economic trade with China, and he'd find a way to turn that into something dirty, too.

After choking down the coffee and forcing her brain back on working, she leaned back in her chair and then forced herself on her feet. The office supplies were kept down on a lower floor, so she headed out of the office and towards the elevator, yawning once on the way and letting her mind drift to such mundane matters as to what to make for dinner once her shift was over.

She had decided on letting everybody order pizza so she could take a nap instead of bother with dinner as she stepped off on the correct floor and found the room that contained, among other things, a giant stack of paper clip boxes. She opened the door, walked in, grabbed a box, and then froze immediately upon hearing something odd. She narrowed her eyes and focused her hearing, quickly determining that it was rushed whispering in a different language that she was listening to. She couldn't be completely sure, but, having been somewhat well-acquainted with what whispered Russian sounded like, albeit under much more pleasant circumstances, she would guess that it was that.

She knew that Bucky would probably yell at her later over what she was about to do, but she did it anyway. With a box of paperclips as her only potential weapon, she crept closer to the sound, but she tried to stay far enough away to not get caught. It was most likely nothing, after all, but just in case it was something, she wanted to get a closer look so that she could then run out of there and call one of the number of Avengers she had saved in her phone to come down and check it out.

Instead, once she got the closer look, she didn't have time to dash away or pick up her phone. She saw a man huddled between two shelves, speaking hurriedly into his phone, and as soon as she laid eyes on him, he looked up and saw her, and that was when she knew that this was not nothing.

All in the blink of an eye, he pressed something on his phone and then threw it at her, and as she automatically flinched and tried to back away, it sparked and then blew up in a very small but very smoky explosion. It didn't hurt her, and the worst it did was completely destroy the phone and leave a burn mark on the floor, but it served its purpose, because as she coughed after the smoke began to clear, she looked up and saw the sole window in the room wide open.

She went to it and looked out, finding no trace of the man who had just jumped out of it. Getting one more good cough out, and mentally telling her freshly scattered nerves to calm down - after the last two explosions she'd experienced, the exploding phone was enough to almost send her spiraling into a PTSD-driven panic attack in a random corner - she grabbed her phone and then hurried out of the room, hitting the first number in her contacts.

When Bucky answered, he sounded out of breath, which meant he was likely about ten floors away in the gym. He also sounded highly surprised because she never called him, ever. "Summer?"

"Yeah... I think I just caught some random bad guy trying to like spy on the tower or something, I don't know what he was doing but he was on the phone and speaking in Russian and then he threw his phone at me and it blew up and he jumped out a window and -"

"What blew up?!"

She sighed, forcing herself to talk slower. "His phone, he threw his phone at me and it blew up but I'm okay, and then he jumped out the window."

"Where are you?" he said in more of an angry death-growl than anything.

"Uh... 41st floor, about to go back to work I guess but -"

"No. Stay where you are."

Less than a full minute later, Bucky came bursting out of the emergency stairwell, and Summer found herself whisked away down to the apartment some floors down. It was just the start to a couple of very strange but pretty exciting days.

---

Bucky was not happy. And the way that he was pacing through the living room made sure everybody knew it.

Tony was flipping through a holographic list of Stark Tower employees on one of his tiny, weird electronic devices, and Bucky could see that Summer was growing visibly impatient as she looked carefully at every single one. They had been doing this for an hour.

"No. No. No. Nope." She sighed. "Not that one either."

Tony sighed and turned the device off. "That was the last one. Guess he wasn't an employee. Got anything yet, Nat?"

From behind her laptop, Natasha didn't break her concentrated gaze. "Getting there."

All the while, Bucky paced. He caught Summer eyeing him nervously a few times, and he knew that she knew what he was thinking - that the tower was not safe, never would be safe, and maybe, just maybe, she would never be truly safe. The more time that passed, the more he became convinced of it, and he did not like it.

"Got him," Natasha finally said, then turned around her laptop so the others could see. "He got in a cab first and then switched into this car. I traced the license plate and tracked back to one of the owners of a club here in Manhattan."

"What club?" Steve asked.

"One that I cross-referenced with our list of potential HYDRA fronts, and sure enough, it's on there."

"Wonderful," Tony sighed. "These people never stop, do they?"

"Guess we know where the next mission is," Steve said.

"There's one problem, though," Nat said. "I could follow him through the traffic cams but I couldn't get a clear shot of his face. She's the only one who saw him, so she's also the only one who can I.D. him."

Bucky stopped pacing. He glared at Natasha hard enough to burn a hole through her skull and immediately said, "No."

"No to what?" Summer asked, looking around the room. "I'm confused."

Bucky ignored her, now in a staredown with Natasha, who merely replied, "She's the only one who saw him."

"I don't care," Bucky replied. "No." Then he looked at Steve, expecting backup, but Steve just looked at him a bit apologetically, so Bucky decided to glare at him, too.

"Could somebody please tell me what's going on?" Summer asked, getting impatient.

"We would need you to come with us," Natasha explained. "None of us know what the guy looks like. You do. We also don't know how many others would have the same information he does, so we need him."

Bucky looked at Summer as realization dawned on her. "Oh." She looked at him cautiously, then glanced around at the others as she said, "Well... I mean, that's okay with me. I'll help."

Bucky stared at her in disbelief. Was he the only one capable of thinking clearly?

"Good," Natasha said. "You'll only be there long enough to give the I.D., and then we can get you out and -"

This was unbelievable. Utterly unbelievable. Bucky watched as everybody in the room talked amongst themselves regarding this mission, fleshing it out with Summer listening intently and nodding whenever one of them would mention her role in things, and to stop himself from punching a hole in one of the walls and then throwing one of them through it, Bucky left the room and made a beeline for his own. Better to stew in solitude than out where he could snap and half-accidentally maim somebody for even entertaining this idiotic idea.

He ended up at one of his windows, which was still open from when Summer had opened it up that morning in an effort to, in her words, "get the smell of sex out of here". The fresh air, however, did nothing to calm his mind or his nerves, and he was fighting the urge to break something - anything - when he heard Summer's footsteps near the doorway. He kept his eyes fixed firmly on the skyline outside, even when he could feel her closer as she spoke.

"You look pretty deep in your pit of brooding," she remarked, probably trying to lighten the mood, but his mood could not be lightened, he decided. It might have been slightly childish, but he was prepared to be angry about this for the rest of his life. He just couldn't figure out who to direct his anger at - Natasha, Steve, Summer, or HYDRA.

She came closer, close enough for her to put her hand on his arm and her cheek on his shoulder as she looked up at his stony forward-glare. "Come on. You can at least look at me. Don't make me tickle you. I know where you're ticklish. I'll do it."

He finally turned, turning towards her and not softening his glare at all as he muttered, "What's the point?"

"... Of what?" she asked, obviously confused.

"What's the point of me trying to keep you safe, and swearing to your brother that I would, if this is what's gonna happen?" he asked.

She swallowed and began quietly, "Bucky..."

"It's a joke," he said somewhat miserably. "You'll never be safe if you're with me, not really. But you don't have to walk into a HYDRA base and put yourself in that kind of danger. You don't, Summer. I don't care what any of them say."

"But I want to help," she replied. "Usually I can never help with anything but I can this time, and Natasha told me how it would go and -"

"She doesn't know how it'll go," he said. "You never know how it'll go until it's happening, that's the way it is."

"Yeah but -"

"You're not trained for this," he said, getting impatient.

"No, but I'm not completely useless, and I'm with the Avengers - and you - which means I'd be pretty freaking safe."

"Would you?" he asked. "And what if something happens to you?"

"It won't," she replied, and he was almost aghast at how convinced of this she seemed. "And I'll say the same thing I've said to Paul. I could get in a car accident or fall down the stairs or contract some disease, all kinds of things, and it would be more likely than what you're thinking about."

"You can't know that," he muttered.

"Well, maybe not, but you know what?" she asked, stepping a bit closer to him, "I want to help. I don't want to be locked up here in the tower for my own safety like Rapunzel or something. And I know it's hard for you and I get that but it's my choice. I'm not saying train me and turn me into an agent. I'd never want to do that. I'm just saying let me help this one rare time that I actually can."

His frown didn't budge from his face and a significant portion of his brain refused to accept what she was saying, but at the same time, he was slowly coming to terms with the terrible reality in front of him. She was right, though he was loathe to admit it. It was her choice. He couldn't stop her, as much as he indeed wanted to lock her in the tower just like Rapunzel.

And yes, he knew who Rapunzel was. David was currently on a Tangled kick.

"I don't like this," he eventually said, after a silence had passed by.

"I know," she said gently. "I mean, I'm not exactly excited about it. It's kinda like... going to the dentist. It's scary and I'll probably be so nervous about it that I won't eat a single full meal until it's over, but it's necessary, you know? Because it's either go and get it over with or have all your teeth fall out before they should. Except this is more of a life or death thing, so... scarier than a dentist, but. You get the idea."

He just stared at her, and when it fully sunk in that she had just compared a HYDRA mission with going to the dentist, he laughed. It wasn't a full laugh, more of a noisy exhale of breath, but it was enough to make her smile and exclaim, "I made you laugh! And I didn't even have to tickle you."

Shaking his head slightly, he waited for her smile to shrink some and replied, "I'm not gonna let you out of my sight. If you insist on doing this, you're gonna stay by side the entire time. And we'll leave the second you identify the guy."

"Okay," she nodded. "Totally. I leave all of that -" she gestured with her hands towards him - "up to you. You're the boss." Then she paused and added, "Apparently the place is a burlesque club."

He furrowed his brows. "... They still have those?"

"I guess so, because... wait." She gave him a look and smiled as she asked, "Does that mean you used to go to them?"

He answered with a shrug, pretty sure that he had, back in his old life. He'd had flashes before, of smoky clubs and girls dancing on the stage in elaborate outfits, and Steve's face as bright as a strawberry, but they weren't as clear as others. "Probably."

"... I bet you did all the time," she sighed, still smiling a little. "Well... anyway, she said I'd have to disguise myself since the guy got as good a look at me as I got at him. Plus it's kind of a classy type place. So I have to go shopping."

She looked more apprehensive about going shopping than she was about slipping into HYDRA territory. Bucky nodded and then asked, "Did any of them say when they wanted this to happen?"

"As soon as they can," Summer shrugged. "Sam's supposed to help like stake out the place or something tonight and then they want to do it tomorrow night." Then she added and grimaced, "Stake out. I feel like I'm badly out of date on my terminology with this stuff."

He let himself smile a little at her, but his frown returned and he walked off towards his bed, where he sat down on the side edge and continued to try to make mental peace with everything. He was getting there, albeit slowly, but he didn't want to punch a hole into any walls anymore, so he figured that was a good sign. He looked up when Summer appeared in front of him, just before she put an arm around his shoulders and sat sideways on his lap. His hand went to her hip and hers went to his hair, brushing it back as she smiled softly at him and said, "I know this isn't easy for you. So thank you for supporting me anyway."

He just shook his head slightly and replied, "Your brother would kill me."

"... Let's just... keep this to ourselves," she suggested, and unfortunately, he had to agree with her. And besides, he'd still be keeping his promise, because he would do absolutely everything in his power to make sure nothing would happen to her. Maybe Natasha was right, and it would be fairly routine and his initial doom-filled thoughts would stay in his head and out of fruition.

"Hey," she said, stealing his attention back, and he looked up to find a small smile back on her face. "Remember how when you came back from your last mission you were all hopped up on adrenaline and like super horny? Maybe we'll both be like that after this and we can just destroy this room."

He chuckled at her attempt to cheer him up, and pressed a soft kiss to her lips before he replied sincerely, "As long as you promise to not leave my side and do everything I tell you while we're there, we can do anything you want after."

---

Shopping didn't turn out to be as much of a nightmare as Summer thought it would be. Natasha was quite good at grabbing something from a rack, throwing it at her, and then the article of clothing in question turning out to be completely perfect for what Summer needed. This time was no different, and with that part of her worries laid to rest, all Summer had to do was wait and try not to go crazy in the meantime.

Steve, technically the "boss" when it came to Avengers ops, decided that they would wait for Saturday night, which would be the club's busiest night. The busier they were, the more secure they'd feel to do their secretive business behind closed doors while their patrons unknowingly lined their pockets. The upside to waiting a bit longer was that Summer had more time to plan for that night, and get a babysitter secured.

The downside of waiting was... well, waiting.

But when the day came, Summer's nagging anxiety suddenly sprang forward in full force, and she wished that she was still waiting and that the day hadn't come yet. It didn't matter, though, and all there was to do was suck it up and get past it, and remind herself that this was her chance to really help and contribute to all of this heroic weirdness that she was constantly surrounded by.

And the first thing that she had to do to contribute to said weirdness was stuff herself into the dress she had bought and get her very long, very dark brown hair shoved up underneath a glamorous blonde wig.

"Ow," she muttered as Natasha pinned her hair up above her neck, looking at herself half-ready in the mirror. Nat had been ready for an hour, in ridiculously high red heels and a long black coat buttoned fully, and while the others finished prepping, she had offered to help Summer get herself together.

"Sorry, but you don't want your real hair to fall out of your wig," she said, putting in the last pin as Summer breathed a sigh of relief. "Now for the fun part."

Not sure if it really qualified as fun to be putting the thing on top of her head that would likely be the cause of at least one bucketful of head sweat tonight, Summer sat still anyway and let Natasha grab the wavy blonde wig and carefully fix it on her head. She had never been blonde before, so once Nat had it on perfect and Summer was able to get a good look at herself, it was quite strange.

"My God, I'm Britney Spears," she said, unsure of how she felt about that.

"I don't know if that's what I'd go with," Natasha said. "Where's your eyeliner?"

"There in my bag," Summer replied, gesturing to a small makeup bag on the sink in front of the mirror she was still staring in.

"Turn around," Natasha said, locating said eyeliner as Summer turned.

"What are you doing?" she asked curiously.

"Making you look more vintage and less pop star," Natasha replied with a grin, and Summer sighed in relief.

"You know, you could have a second career as a stylist," she said as Natasha turned her regular eyeliner job into a flawless winged one.

"I could have a second career as a lot of things," Nat admitted. "You tend to pick up a lot, doing what I do."

After fixing her eyeliner, Natasha then said, "You should go with a red lipstick to finish off with."

"... I don't actually own any red lipstick," Summer replied, and Natasha looked at her incredulously before grabbing her own bag and pulling out a tube of lipstick from it.

"Every woman needs to own at least one good shade of red lipstick," she said, handing it to Summer.

"I never thought I could pull it off," Summer shrugged.

"Just like you didn't think you could pull off that black dress for Tony's party, but look at what you're wearing now," Nat pointed out with a grin, and Summer looked down at the dress in question, unable to believe how comfortable she really did feel in it.

"... You're getting at another lesson in confidence, aren't you?" Summer guessed, just before turning around to put on the lipstick.

"As long as you believe you can, you can pull off just about anything," Natasha replied. "Except crocs. I've yet to see a single human being who looks good in crocs."

Summer laughed, finishing with the lipstick and handing it back to her. Looking in the mirror was almost like looking at another woman entirely, with long, wavy blonde hair, and immaculately vintage makeup, but all she had to do was then almost trip over her own feet while standing completely still to remind herself that she was, indeed, the same person under her glamorous disguise.

"Try not to do that in the club," Natasha advised, giving her an amused look as she grabbed her bag.

"Yeah, I'll try not," Summer replied as she turned and followed Natasha out of the bathroom. "Hey, thanks for all your help as usual, I really appreciate..."

She trailed off because as soon as she stepped out of the bathroom, her eyes fell upon Bucky sitting on the bottom edge of her bed, in a dark gray suit with a freaking bow tie, and his hair - she didn't even know how to describe the state of his hair and she completely missed the way that he was staring equally dumbfounded at her, mostly because she didn't have the chance to before David jumped up from the floor and hid behind Bucky.

Half-snapping out of it, Summer saw David peek out from behind Bucky's back before darting back again, and she asked in confusion, "... Is something wrong, or..."

"I don't think he recognizes you," Natasha said as she headed for the door. "By the way, don't take too long. We leave in ten."

Then Natasha was gone, and Summer was approaching Bucky and her freaked-out son, trying not to focus too much on the way that Bucky's mouth was half-hanging open and his eyes were moving slowly up from her heels to the rest of her. Ignoring him as best she could, she looked behind him and smiled at the way that David was clinging to the back of Bucky's jacket.

"David," she said gently, pulling the blonde hair back from her face, "it's me - I've just got fake hair and weird makeup on. See?"

Slowly, David relaxed as he looked at her more closely, and then he let go of his death grip on Bucky and sat back, though he still looked quite confused as to why she looked like that. She tried to think of a reasonable excuse that he would understand, but the best that she came up with was, "I, uh... I wanted to see how I'd look with blonde hair! And... yeah! So see, nothing to worry about."

David seemed to accept that answer, but he also looked like he thought that she was nuts, giving her one last look before getting off the bed and returning to his spot on the floor in front of the TV. Now that he was no longer under the impression that there was a blonde intruder in his room, Summer was able to refocus on the other person demanding her attention, who had not taken their eyes off of her once since she had first walked into the room.

She looked at him a bit shyly, for some reason losing some of her nerve now that she had no excuse to not look at him and die all over again. In fact, she was getting a very distinct vibe from his overall look, and it would be totally complete if he only had...

... Wait. Were those glasses he was holding in his lap?

She was interrupted from her thoughts by his right hand reaching out and touching above her knee, below where her short dress ended on her thighs, and she watched him look up from her legs, over her dress and up to her face as he said quietly, "You look like you just walked out of a movie."

Well. If that was true, she supposed there was no better way to look when about to leave to go bust HYDRA.

She smiled as he stood up, his hand trailing up from her leg to over her hip and stopping over her waist. "I take it I don't make a terrible blonde, then."

He laughed softly, then took a few pieces of the hair between his fingers and said, "Not at all. It's different, but... damn."

Her smile widened and she felt like an idiot, but then she remembered what he was holding in his other hand and asked, "Are those glasses?"

He held them up and nodded. "Yeah, these are Steve's. They're fake. He said I should try to disguise myself a little more, but..."

She was about to say that yes, yes he should, but then he pulled the glasses apart and slipped him on his face, and she had to bite her lip to keep from her first thought popping out of her head.

Then she decided screw it and verbalized the thought anyway. "You look like a hot professor and I might die."

He laughed at her sudden rushed outburst of words, and she suddenly wondered if she would even be able to focus on the mission at hand when this was what would be by her side all night.

---

She might have thought that he looked like a "hot professor", but to him, she looked like the kind of woman that a teenage version of himself would have wanted to pin up a picture of in his bedroom.

Beyond the shock of the long blonde hair framing her face, her dress was a force all its own. Short enough to give him a perfect view of her legs that looked absolutely perfect standing in her heels, it was a deep scarlet and hugged the rest of her like a glove. It was cut like a halter, with the neckline split down into a shallow V that gave just enough of a peek of what lay beneath without being too much. Then, when she had turned slightly to talk to David, he had seen the back of the dress, which exposed her upper back and criss-crossed over the middle and lower parts, giving glimpses of her skin that made him stare, and it all did a fantastic job of briefly making him almost forget why they were even there in the first place.

But then he remembered. He had two things to give to her before they could leave.

As her eyes continued to dart down over his suit and then his face, especially the glasses, she almost distracted him all over again with the way that she bit her lower red lip. But he kept the immediate thoughts of that lipstick smearing on his own lips and other places at bay as he cleared his throat quietly and then pulled a tiny little earpiece from his pocket.

"You have to wear this," he said, and she snapped out of her daze, blinking as she looked down at the earpiece and nodded.

"Oh. Okay. Wow. This is like a TV show," she said, and he controlled his urge to point out that it was much more dangerous than that. She already knew that. She was just still processing her role in this mission.

He reached up and gently put the piece in her ear, and once they'd tested it, he turned around and grabbed her black coat off of the bed. "I had this lined with Kevlar on the inside."

Her eyes widened to comic proportions as she slowly took the coat from his hands, looking from it to him several times before she half-stuttered, "But... holy crap... Kevlar?"

"I don't know how long you'll be able to keep it on without attracting attention," he said quietly, "but try to keep it on as long as you can."

"O...kay," she said, inspecting the coat and then blowing out a breath of air as she added, "I'm gonna feel like Batman wearing this thing."

As long as she was safe, he didn't care what kind of real or fake superhero she felt like, but he was fairly sure that she meant it in a good way. Then, just as she had started to put the coat on, he stopped her because he had just remembered a third thing that he still needed to give her. He took her hand and led her to his room, and she followed without question.

"Sit here," he said, leading her to sit down on the edge of his unmade bed, and with one fleeting thought that ran through his head of how he was going to end the night with her in that very bed, overwhelmed with relief at everything having gone well and being over, he forced himself to look away and turn towards his dresser. A moment of rummaging later, he turned back around and watched her curious expression become one of slight dread.

"Man. I was hoping you'd forget that," she said, eyeing the knife and leg holster in his hands like it was just about the last thing she wanted to say.

"I know. But," he said, kneeling down in front of her, "it's extra protection in case something goes wrong." Then he looked at her and asked, "Remember what I showed you?"

She nodded. "Where to aim with a knife, which spots will do the most damage the fastest," she said quietly. He nodded. He hadn't enjoyed that lesson either, but she had needed to know. "I wish you'd just give me one of those guns I know you've got hidden under that suit."

"Harder to hide under this dress," he pointed out with a slight grin, and then his hand was on her knee, pulling her leg slightly more apart from the other while his other hand slid the hem of her dress up higher. Then he set the knife down and focused on getting the leather holster on her leg, sliding it as high on her thigh as it could comfortably go and then fastening it snugly. He didn't look up as he grabbed the knife, knowing that what he would see would be too distracting, so he carefully slid the knife within the sheath and double checked the holster to make sure it was fastened well, before he gently tugged her dress back down and over the weapon. Then he allowed himself to look up.

She was watching him intently, her bottom lip between her teeth again, looking like the picture of false innocence under her shiny blonde hair and eyes that were still taking in his "disguise" and betrayed the thoughts surely going through her head. He knew her, knew how her mind ran wild with things she'd never say out loud but might write down instead.

He leaned up slowly and she leaned down at the same time, and just before he could have the one taste of those red lips that he would allow himself to have before they had to get down to business, Steve's voice in their ears ruined the moment.

"Waiting on the lovebirds."

She jumped a little, like she had forgotten about her earpiece, and then she let out a nervous laugh that made him smile and chuckle a little in turn. His forehead against hers, he raised a finger to his ear and replied, "On our way." Then he kissed her cheek, and after he stood up, he reached down and helped her stand to her feet. "Ready?"

She took a breath and gave him a look. "Actually, yes. I'm starving. After this is over, maybe I'll be able to actually get something down my throat without gagging." Then, just as she started to walk, she stopped, raised a finger, and told him sternly, "Don't say what I know you're thinking."

He just smiled at her and replied, "I actually wasn't going to say anything. Maybe you're the one with the dirty mind." Then he grabbed her hand, and they walked out of his room together, him grinning and her rolling her eyes.

After that, Summer grabbed David from her room and brought him out to the person who had agreed to watch him for the night, who was in the kitchen stealing a spoonful of cookie dough that Summer had made in a fit of nervous energy the day before. When Darcy looked up from the spoon and saw them walking out of the hallway, she choked a little and exclaimed "Holy f...udge!"

"Thank you for the censorship," Summer smiled, "and thank you again for agreeing to do this."

David quickly scampered off towards the television, bored already with the talking, and Darcy replied, "No problem, but what the hell! You're blonde! And... you're seriously so hot right now that I would make out with you!"

Summer laughed, still nervously, and replied, "... Thanks, I guess. But, uh, yeah, so, he's allergic to -"

"Peanuts and bananas, yeah, I memorized that very long list of instructions you gave me," Darcy waved off, turning her gaze to Bucky. "And you! You know what you look like with that suit and those glasses?"

"Hot professor?" Summer guessed.

"Yes!" Darcy exclaimed. "Exactly what I was going to say."

Bucky couldn't help but be slightly confused. He was just about to ask what was so appealing about that particular look when Summer tightened her grip on his hand and said, "It's completely true. But we've gotta go, so -"

"Yup," Darcy nodded, flapping her hands in a shooing manner. "Go. Have your weird 'date night'. Your kid is safe with me."

Summer expressed her deep thanks, and then after telling David goodbye one more time, they were finally in the elevator and officially on their way.

In the brief quiet moment, Bucky looked over at Summer and asked as she buttoned up her coat, "What is it with this professor thing? Am I missing something?"

Summer just looked up at him in disbelief before smiling like she was holding in a laugh. "Wow. You're serious. Um... I'll tell you later."

"Why?"

He watched a blush creep up her cheeks as she shook her head and said, "Because if I think about it enough to explain it, I'm gonna majorly mess up my focus and I'm nervous enough. Just... trust me."

He took her word for it and didn't press any further. He did grin slightly to himself though, not having anticipated such simple things as a fake pair of glasses and a bow tie to be such a standout thing.

Then, when the elevator had nearly reached its destination, he looked over and felt his grin return as Summer groaned and muttered, "Dammit. Now I'm thinking about it anyway."

---

Thankfully, Summer got her focus back as soon as they had cleared the tower and were on the way to the club. Everybody was getting there in different ways, and for her and Bucky, that meant that she got to ride in the passenger seat of one of Tony's sportscars. And not just any one of them, but a brand new European model that she couldn't even pronounce the name of, and she had to ask as she tried to watch the road and not the visual feast that was Bucky driving the thing, "Isn't this going to draw attention?"

"Not really," he replied, and she absolutely refused to watch his right hand as it shifted gears. "This will actually make us look more like we belong there."

"I didn't know that rich people were so into burlesque," Summer remarked, anxiety starting to creep higher the closer they got to the club. Her fingers were playing mindlessly with the buttons of her coat, which, surprisingly enough, didn't feel all that much heavier despite the fact that Bucky had it turned essentially bulletproof without her knowledge. She didn't know whether to be touched or terrified by the gesture, but she was currently floating somewhere in between and reminding herself for the billionth time that it was relatively unlikely that anything horrible would happen tonight.

When Bucky drove them not to the club directly but to a parking spot on the street a short walk away, she gave him a curious look to which he replied, "We don't want to be waiting on a valet when we're done in there."

"Oh. Right. Makes sense," she said, taking off her seatbelt once the engine was off. He stopped her before she could reach for the door handle.

"I know I've made you go over this a lot already, but..."

She sighed and drew a breath. "Act natural. Smile. Appear as if I'm there on a date with you, which means look happy and relaxed. Scan the crowds but don't do it too much. And the minute I see the guy, either tell you or put my hair behind my ear, which will be the signal."

Bucky nodded. "All right. And don't leave my side."

"What if I have to pee?" she asked half-jokingly.

Without blinking, he said, "Then I'll sneak in the bathroom with you and if anyone notices we'll make them think we went in there to have sex."

Her eyes widened slightly and she asked, "Wouldn't that get us kicked out?"

"Just... leave all of that to me," Bucky shrugged.

She nodded, deciding that she would just do her best to not have to pee while they were there, and then Bucky was getting out of the car and opening her door for her before she could gather her wits about her fully. He helped her step out of the car, then slid his arm around her waist as they began walking down the sidewalk. She could see the club up ahead and see people walking into it, and if Bucky could somehow sense her last wave of anxiety, it sure seemed that way, because he leaned in as they walked and said into her ear, "Don't be nervous. I'll compromise the whole mission if it means keeping you safe."

She looked up at him, unsure how to react to that at first. In that split second, she remembered the man he had once been, confused and angrier than Bruce Banner on a bad day, a man who only decided to not lodge a bullet in his own brain for the sake of staying alive to seek revenge. That had been his only purpose in staying alive, but now, now, he was willing to let those enemies slip past him and slither back into safety just for her sake. And she could tell by the look in his eye that he wasn't the least bit apologetic by it.

She realized just before they reached the club that this must be what it felt like to be put first, in every sense of the word.

She never had a chance to answer, though, because then they were at the club's entrance, and after that, it was all about getting in and doing her best to act natural - not be paranoid looking and not appear overly happy, either, and she figured that she must have been fine, because they got through the front security detail with no problem. All the while, Bucky kept his hand on her waist, keeping her close but not close enough to look out of the ordinary.

She didn't know what she was expecting, but she felt like she was walking into an old movie when they walked through the small hallway in the entrance and then out into the main room. Everything was awash in red and gold and accents of black, dimly lit and more spacious than it appeared on the outside. Tables lined the space in front of the main stage, and there was a bar on the opposite side of the room, which was where Bucky steered them towards until a friendly woman offering to take Summer's coat for her appeared.

She had not expected that to happen, but going off the whole "act natural" thing, Summer smiled and gave up her coat to the lady, and as soon as the lady was gone, Bucky muttered under his breath, "I wish you would have said no."

"You said act natural!" she hissed quietly as he started leading her back towards the bar. "It's not even cold outside, and it's definitely not cold in here."

He didn't say another word about it, and she simply focused on trying to look normal, whatever that meant, as he helped her into a seat at the bar before taking the one next to her and sliding it slightly closer to hers. He smiled pleasantly at her and took her hand in his, and she remembered that they were supposed to look like they were on a date, so she smiled back and tried not to jump when she heard Natasha's voice in her ear.

"Second floor's full of VIP rooms," she said, and Summer listened as she watched Bucky signal to the bartender. "Keep an eye on those, seems like most of the activity is there."

Summer glanced up and briefly took in the rooms that Natasha had mentioned, but before she could really get a good look at any of them and the people walking in and out of them, the lights dimmed and all of the attention in the room became focused on the stage.

Bucky squeezing her hand stole her attention from the three girls who had just appeared on the stage. She looked at him and he nodded towards the drink in front of her, and she took one look at it before she smiled and gave him an incredulous look. He merely smiled in turn and leaned in and said, "Take small sips. Act natural."

"But whiskey?" she asked, knowing that he knew full well that it took very little of the stuff to knock her off her feet.

"Suits you, remember?" he replied, and she tried not to roll her eyes as she gave in and picked up the glass. One very tiny sip later, she was wincing and setting it back down. It was not quite up to par with Tony Stark's personal collection.

Then she turned her eyes back to the stage, where the girls were about halfway to undressed, and down in one of the tables, she spotted Steve and Sam's heads turned towards the show. She scanned the other men present, wherever the lighting allowed her to get a clear look, but nobody looked anything like the guy she'd seen. Unfortunately, the guy had a fairly generic look, too - Caucasian, average height, brown hair, most likely brown eyes though she wasn't 100% sure. The only defining feature that she was hoping would for sure identify him was what she was pretty sure had been a thin scar on the left side of his mouth.

If she was wrong, and if she ended up not being able to identify the guy and all of this was for nothing...

She grabbed the whiskey and took another unpleasant sip, mentally hushing her own thought process and glancing at Bucky as he stared ahead. To anyone else, he would have looked relatively engrossed in the show, but she could tell that his brain was as far away as hers was. She also caught his eyes darting around quickly, noticed how much he was paying attention to everything without looking like he was, and when he caught her staring, he grinned at her like they really were on a date and asked, "How's your drink?"

"... Almost drinkable," she replied, and when he leaned in to peck her cheek, she asked into his ear, "Where's Natasha?"

"Infiltrating," he whispered back, and though she furrowed her brows in confusion as to what that meant, she quickly smiled like they'd been whispering sweet nothings to each other and then watched him knock back half of his own drink in one gulp.

On the stage, the three girls were just about done with their routine, finally removing their corsets with a graceful flourish, and Summer couldn't help but stare a little wide-eyed for a moment. She wasn't familiar with burlesque beyond a few references in movies here and there, so getting a fairly up-close look left her knowing that she would never look at tassels the same way again. But, much more than that, she immediately admired any woman confident enough to get up and do that with the kinds of breezy playfulness that the women had.

"I'd never be able to do that," Summer sighed as the ladies blew kisses to the crowd before disappearing behind the curtain. "Not even... like... in the mirror."

She caught Bucky's look that he gave her, a sort of amused but completely sincere kind of look as he shook his head and said, "You can do anything, Summer."

To be fair, she decided, she was sitting in the middle of a HYDRA hangout with a knife strapped to her thigh and the Winter Soldier at her side. He might be right. Slightly. Just not when it came to the dancing mostly naked thing.

She just still couldn't get past the damn glasses on his face.

"Should we get a table?" she asked when the lights went back up some, as he finished his drink and she forced herself to take another drink of hers.

His eyes swept along the entire building, top to bottom, in less time than she could check her cell phone, and then she tried to do the same thing, albeit probably a lot less subtly. She saw some movement up above, a few men in suits leaving them and then one entering one with a scantily clad girl on his arm, but none of them looked like the guy that they were looking for.

"Yeah," Bucky finally agreed, leaving a small stack of money on the bar and then taking her hand and helping her down to her feet. He immediately pulled her in with his hand on her waist, the way that he'd been walking her around all night, and she took the walk towards the tables as an opportunity to get a better look around. But still, she saw nothing.

Before they got to a table, the lights went down again. Summer was following Bucky down a small number of steps when she looked up and promptly let her jaw fall to the floor. Bucky hadn't been kidding about Nat infiltrating the place.

Alone on the stage was none other than Natasha herself, sauntering out in a long blood-red dress with a slit that ran all the way up her leg, a sweetheart neckline at the top that pushed up her assets in a way that could make even Summer drool a little bit. As if that wasn't enough, she had black leather gloves on that ended well past her elbows, and as she stared, Summer's first thought was that somewhere, Jessica Rabbit was seething in jealousy.

But, as Bucky's tug on her waist reminded her, they weren't here to stare at Natasha. She started walking again, following him and sitting down beside him at an empty table as a slow, sensual jazz tune wafted through the air, the brass instruments almost whining in temptation. Nat swayed teasingly to the underlying bass, her eyes half-lidded and red lips curved in a teasing smile. Since most of the club was too dark to see much beyond what was in front of her, Summer kept watching, feeling her admiration for Natasha jump even higher than it had been before. There truly was nothing the woman couldn't do, it seemed.

Slowly but surely, Natasha had smoothly inched off the leather gloves and tossed them behind her after giving them a few swings. But, the very best part came a few moments later. As the music reached new heights, she slowly turned her back to the audience and unzipped the back of the dress, revealing the creamy white skin of her back. Then, by swaying her hips, the dress fell lazily down her body, until it was eventually in a pool at her feet that she kicked away with one high heeled foot. She then turned around, her predatory gaze immediately going to one particular face in the crowd as she showed off her ensemble of royal blue and black lingerie - a black-lace trimmed strapless bra, matching garter and panties and black hose. Summer looked across the tables to Steve and saw his mouth hanging open and a blush that could rival her own when Bucky tortured her. She couldn't help but wonder aloud, "You think the blue and red thing was just a coincidence?"

"... Nothing she ever does is a coincidence," Bucky replied, and Summer had to concur. Steve was a lucky soldier. That much was beyond obvious.

After she looked again at Steve and smiled at the way that he was utterly dumbfounded at what he was seeing, Summer used their new angle to her advantage and looked up at the top floor again. The rooms had glass walls but were darkened for privacy, and it really was hard to see anything with the lights, but, to her immediate surprise, she saw something. She saw the outline of a man, a younger one, walking up the stairs and then heading to one of the rooms with not one but two girls. He looked towards the stage once, and that was when enough light hit his face for Summer to see that he might have been the guy that they were looking for.

She slipped her hand on Bucky's leg and leaned in like she was going to nuzzle or kiss his neck. "I think I saw him. Second room on the right."

She pulled away by an inch or two then, and he looked down at her before leaning in himself, kissing her cheekbone and looking up at the rooms through the cover of her hair as he asked, "You're sure?"

Not at all opposed to this form of sneaky communication, she turned and kissed his lips briefly before moving closer to his ear and replying, "I need a closer look."

"That's a problem," he whispered back.

"I know," she sighed. Then, a light bulb suddenly went off in her head. She pulled back and looked at him with suddenly bright eyes. "I have an idea."

Mere seconds later, Summer was dragging Bucky by the hand up the same flight of stairs that the potentially bad guy had been jogging up a moment before. She then turned around and gave him a flirty smile as she took his other hand as well, pulling him towards the door of the room and watching a grin to mirror hers spread across his lips. That was her only warning before he pounced on her, slamming her to the door and kissing her almost brutally, just as they had planned downstairs.

As he ruined her lipstick and one of his hands made her previously immaculately wig look every bit as messy as her normal hair would have at this point, his disguised left hand made a fist and broke the door open, then loosened and took her waist as they stumbled into the room. He then pushed her into the nearest wall, and she moaned shamelessly loudly as his tongue warred with hers, his hands moving down to her lips and one moving down to grip the back of her thigh and pull her leg up over his as he let out a moan of his own.

That was when she heard an irritated voice to her right shout, "Oh, come on, guys - get your own room!"

Breaking apart like they had only just then realized that they weren't alone, Summer smiled apologetically while Bucky obliviously started kissing down her neck. She took a good look at the guy, who had a girl on either side of him on a leather couch, and exclaimed, "I'm so sorry! We thought the room was empty!"

As soon as she saw him, she knew that it was the same guy, scar and all. Before he had a chance to respond, she turned and whispered into Bucky's ear, "It's him."

"Stay behind me," he whispered back immediately, and then she watched him stand up straight and switch from ravenous lover to utterly lethal threat in the blink of an eye as he turned towards the man. She stayed behind him as ordered while he pulled a gun out from his jacket, aimed it at the man who instantly turned as pale as a ghost, and then ordered the girls next to him, "Get out."

They scrambled out of there in less time than it took to breathe, and then Bucky slowly advanced on the man, whose hands were up in surrender. "You're coming with me. One word and you'll regret it."

As pale and terrified as the guy was, he still managed to smile weakly and reply, "Too late."

And then Summer watched chaos erupt.

No less than seven armed men then burst into the room, and for one very terrifying moment, she thought that everything had gone horribly wrong. But, as she shrank back into the corner even more than she already was, it quickly became apparent how absolutely routine this was for Bucky.

The men converged on him and ignored her, perhaps thinking that she was one of the ladies from downstairs and thus irrelevant, and two of them instantly crumpled to the ground with distinctly metal thumps to the head. All she could see was a blur of movement, of limbs and weapons and bodies struggling, and she jumped when she heard a gunshot go off, followed by another, but the first one ricocheted off of Bucky's arm and the other went into a man's leg. That man hit the ground, and then Summer got a brief clear glimpse of what was happening.

The guy they had come here for was starting to scramble away, and Bucky was kicking one of the security guys in the chest while another had him in a chokehold from behind. She watched as Bucky reached back and grabbed the guy by the arm and then threw him into the wall in front of them, cracking the glass and sending the man to the ground with a dull thud, and then he only had two more to deal with. But, Summer quickly realized that their actual target was not trying to get away but was coming for her, and she forgot all about the knife on her thigh as she instinctively stepped back and knocked into the wall behind her.

Maybe he planned to stick a gun to her head and use her as leverage, or maybe he was going to grab her and try to make off with her as his hostage or something - she had no clue, and she didn't want to find out, and in her panic, her hand brushed on something hard behind her, on the wall.

It turned out to be handcuffs. She had exactly a fraction of a second to register the various little "toys" behind her, on the wall, and before she could even think it through, she grabbed a riding crop just as the guy reached down for a gun that had been thrown to the floor, only a few feet away from her. She lunged forward and whipped him across the face, and to her shock, he cried out and stumbled to the floor before he had even touched the gun. She kicked it away and then held the riding crop like the weapon she had turned it into, heart pounding and head really wishing that he wouldn't get up.

But he did. So she hit him again, and again. It seemed to be working pretty well in keeping him at bay, so she kept it up until she got him so hard that it instantly opened a gash in his forehead and he stumbled again, this time against a wall, as his last security guy hit the ground across the room.

That was when she looked up and saw Bucky rush over, looking no worse for wear aside from a bullet-shaped hole in his left jacket sleeve. She stood there, riding crop still firm in hand, panting from the effort as he looked first at her, then what was in her hand, and then the guy bleeding from his face against the wall and half on the floor. Then he looked at her again, and she couldn't tell if it was pride or admiration or just sheer amusement, or all three, that she saw flicker through his eyes right before he kicked the guy in the head and knocked him unconscious.

And just then, Natasha burst into the room, gun raised and still dressed in what was left of her lingerie - the garter and hose were gone - and after she took a look at all the unconscious men on the floor, Summer still holding the riding crop with her wig very messy, and Bucky standing there with her lipstick smeared on his lips, she lowered her gun and said with a slight smirk, "Well. Looks like I missed the party."

Summer laughed, and the sound surprised even herself. She dropped the riding crop to the floor then, and as she continued to laugh, she put a hand to her face and realized that her heart was pounding probably dangerously hard and that her legs were shaking quite hard beneath her. She moved to lean against a wall, and as the laughter subsided, she looked up at Bucky first, who was now smiling at her, and then Nat, who looked pretty amused, and with a shrug, Summer asked, "... Mission accomplished?"

"Looks that way," Natasha smiled. "Steve and Sam are securing the first floor. Good job."

Summer let out a deep, relieved breath, deciding that regardless of how terrifyingly exhilarating it had all been, she definitely didn't want to do this again anytime soon. She thought that it must have showed on her face, because then Bucky was closer and pulling her into an embrace that she sank into with a slight giggle that was a result of her leftover nervous energy.

"Why didn't you go for the knife?" he asked against her ear, and she could hear rather than see the slight smile on his face.

She shrugged against his shoulder. "... Riding crops are more my style, I guess?"

He laughed quietly, and it was a low rumble against her chest that made her smile as she drew back a few inches, wondering how he could smile at her so warmly and sweetly after having just pounded about eight guys into the ground.

But, everything had turned out all right after all. And it was an adventure she would never, ever, forget.

---

"Oh my God, I am starving. Can we get food on the way home?"

Bucky smiled at Summer as she slumped into the passenger seat of the car, all of her anxiety and nervous energy gone now that the operation was over and they were on their way home. He turned on the car and replied, "I guess so. What do you want?"

"Like... the world's largest fry and a triple cheeseburger," she said, closing her eyes before they shot open and she added, "And a milkshake. I haven't had a milkshake in like a year."

He chuckled again, driving out on to the street and feeling quite a heavy sense of relief of his own now that it was over. He had gone into the mission prepared to let every HYDRA operative in the building go if it meant keeping her from harm, and he had left it achieving the objective and also gaining a new appreciation for Summer's quick thinking and resourcefulness in tight situations. The way that they had burst into the VIP room had been all her idea, and her creative use of a riding crop would be forever seared into his memory.

She had once pointed out that for an average girl from Virginia, she was pretty tough. He agreed on all but one point - she was far from average.

She babbled the whole way home, through many mouthfuls of french fries, about the mission and how terrifying but bizarrely awesome it had been, how hot he looked when he was taking down a roomful of armed HYDRA goons ("Like because I've never seen you in action before, besides with just a few people at once, and there was like eight guys and you just dropped them all like flies and damn!"), how stunned she still was over Natasha's routine ("It's not even fair! She's perfect! If I was a dude, I would so want her to have all my babies. I would worship her."), and how nice it was to finally be able to eat ("Oh my God, this is the best five pounds I have ever put on in one meal.").

Meanwhile, he simply tried to not be too distracted by her high-heeled foot propped up on the dash. It was her right leg and it was extremely unladylike, considering how short her dress was, but he controlled the urge to lean forward and steal a closer look. He just needed to get her home, and put that leftover energy between them to better use.

Once they got back to the tower, he returned the car back to its place in Tony's garage and then they headed up to the floor they called home. She grabbed his left arm and examined the bullet hole in his sleeve, frowned at it but accepted his explanation that the bullet had bounced harmlessly off of the metal after burning through the sleeve. He stared at her and held back the desire to push her against the elevator wall and kiss her until he couldn't breathe, because he knew that any minute the elevator doors would open and Summer would be putting David to bed while he waited for her in his room.

And that was exactly what happened, except David was already passed out on the couch.

"Wow!" Summer whispered to Darcy, who was sitting next to David and playing on her phone. "He's asleep already?"

"I might have let him eat so much junk that he passed out after an epic sugar crash," Darcy replied. "Sorry about that."

"It's fine," Summer shrugged, stepping around the couch to pick him up, still in her wig and heels and all. "Thank you again. I'll pay you as soon as I get my next paycheck."

Darcy waved a hand at her and shrugged, "Don't worry about it. It was fun. He killed me at Smash Brothers, though. Kid's got mad skills."

Bucky watched Summer smile and reply, "I know! I don't even have to let him win on that game."

Then, a few seconds later, she was carefully carrying the boy out of the living room and towards the hallway. When she passed Bucky, who had been reaching up to finally take off his fake glasses, she stopped and whispered, "Don't take those off yet. Please?" When he slowly dropped his hand, leaving them on and giving her a curiously amused look, she blinked a few times and said, "It's like you and your thing with wanting me to keep my shoes on. Kinda."

Before he could reply, she reddened a little and then dashed off towards her room. He smiled to himself, then glanced behind him and noticed Darcy watching with her arms crossed over the back of the couch.

"She asked you to keep the glasses on, didn't she?" Darcy guessed. When Bucky didn't immediately answer, she sighed and turned around, flopping against the couch. "You sickeningly pretty people and your disgustingly awesome sexcapades."

His eyebrows furrowed slightly, but he wasn't about to ask. Instead, he looked back towards the hall, and he realized that he wanted to do something a bit special for Summer tonight, having just watched her exhibit considerable bravery and determination tonight and indeed since she had caught the HYDRA guy in one of Stark's supply rooms. But what?

He had a feeling that the best part of the night for her would be something he made up as he went along. But for now, his eyes drifted towards the part of the kitchen were the alcohol was kept.

A short time later, he was in his room, shoes and suit jacket off, and he was sitting on the bottom of his bed and undoing the bow tie under his neck when he heard two soft little knocks followed by the door creaking open. She always knocked, even though by now he thought it was pretty unnecessary.

She slipped inside, wig gone and dark hair down and hanging nearly to her waist, smiling almost shyly as she closed the door behind her. She was still in her dress and her heels as well, and though he appreciated the gesture and the way her legs looked in them, he wished that she wouldn't further abuse her feet just for his benefit. He almost said something about it, but then she spotted the champagne and two empty flutes sitting on his desk and she asked, "Champagne? Are we celebrating our first... joint night of HYDRA busting?"

He smiled and stood up, motioning for her to follow him to the desk. "Sort of. I also thought you could use something to take the edge off."

"Surprisingly, I feel pretty good," she said, stopping next to him as he worked on uncorking the bottle. "I'm kinda tired, but nowhere near ready to fall asleep."

Getting the cork off with a noisy pop, he gave her a look in reply to her last remark, and she grinned at him before he turned back to the champagne and poured it into the flutes. Then, he handed her a glass and then took one for himself, turning to face her as he said, "I'm glad it's over."

"Me too," she sighed before taking a healthy sip. He took a smaller sip, watching her throat as she swallowed and after she drew the glass away from her lips, she moaned faintly and said, "Man, that's good."

She had no idea how the little things like that drove him crazy. All it took was a little moan barely audible to human ears over the taste of expensive champagne and he was ready to throw his own glass down and shove her against the wall again.

But he didn't. He had something to say first.

"Thank you for listening to me tonight," he said quietly. "You were perfect."

She looked a little surprised as she smiled and replied, "Well... I trust you, and I know that that is your territory and what you're best at. I knew I was safe with you."

He nodded, never taking expressions of her trust for granted. "I'm sorry that you had to beat a man's face with a riding crop," he said with a completely straight face, at least until she smiled and started laughing.

"You'll never let me forget that, will you?"

He shook his head. "Nobody will."

She groaned and finished her champagne in one more gulp, then said, "Sam already said that if I became a superhero my weapon should be a superpowered riding crop."

Bucky chuckled with her, then took the empty glass from her and set it back on his desk before turning back to her and reaching his right hand to a strand of hair on her cheek. He brushed it behind her ear and said quietly, "One more thing before I stop controlling myself from having you right now on the desk." Her eyes widened a little and she instantly blushed slightly at the unexpected words. He grinned and then said, "Explain the professor thing and why I'm still wearing these glasses for you."

Her blush deepened and she smiled, looking down and shaking her head. "It's... oh, man. You're really making me do this."

He nodded and tipped her chin up with finger so that she couldn't stare at the floor. "Yes I am."

He could see her squirming where she stood, and he could see that whatever it was, he'd have to coax it out of her. "Well... okay, so it's just... a thing. A thing that I have, and I've had it for awhile, but keep in mind that I've never actually met or encountered an actual hot profess-oh..."

He smiled against her neck, having just leaned in and pressed his lips to it while she was mid sentence, and as he kissed upwards, he murmured, "Go on."

He could feel her swallow under his lips before she spoke again. "You know how my brain works. I've got a writer's brain and it just goes with things and ideas pop up the second I see something and... and..."

One hand in her hair and the other on the small of her back, pressing her hips into his as he turned her and slowly pushed her back to the desk, he kissed his way to her ear and breathily said, "And?"

"... And kinda like I did with the farm thing... the minute I saw you in that suit and glasses all I could think of was you and me as a professor and student."

Her lower back hit the desk, and he pulled back far enough to look at her as a grin spread across his lips. "Oh. You didn't mention the student part before."

She widened her eyes slightly and replied, "Well... duh."

She looked a little embarrassed, but also incredibly turned on as she slid her hands into his hair and bit her still-red lip. He let one of his hands slide across the bare skin of her upper back and teasingly brushed his lips along hers as he said, "So tell me why you like it."

She bit back a whine as she cringed slightly, though her cringe quickly faded as he kissed the corner of her mouth and then began a slow trail back down to her neck. "I... well... it's the... you know, it's really hard to think when your tongue is... ugh..."

He smiled again, nipping where his tongue had just teasingly flicked, and then he raised his head and lifted one eyebrow at her. "I'm waiting."

She sighed and closed her eyes before blurting, "It's the forbidden thing, you know? The super hot forbidden affair with a super hot guy in a position of authority. It's dramatic and it's just ugh because you know that to cross a line like that you'd just have to be dying desperate for the person."

"...Position of authority," he repeated, the wheels turning in his head as he mulled over her words. He could see the appeal. But he'd see it even clearer if she spelled it out for him, and he was starting to really want her to.

"Yeah." She shrugged. "I'm a writer. It's what I do. Think up ideas that make me want to rip my own hair out and scream. Especially when they involve you."

He smirked faintly and then finally kissed her properly for the first time that night. She kissed back hungrily, like she was dying of thirst and he was water on her lips, and he lifted her up on to the desk, making her groan slightly, and he allowed her to believe for a few moments that the talking portion of the night was over. In truth, he just couldn't stop himself from tasting her and feeling her lips against his. As much as he loved everything they did together, kissing her would always hold a special place among it all. He could kiss her for hours and still not get enough.

Once he knew that her mind was off of fictional stories, he brought it right back there by breaking the kiss and saying against her lips, "Tell me what you would write."

Her eyes opened and stared at him in confusion. When his words sunk in, her mouth fell open a bit and she shook her head. "I... oh God, Bucky, I can't."

"Yes you can," he nodded. "Say it, and I'll do it."

Her embarrassed, slightly mortified expression became one of pure shock as she gaped at him. Then she smiled and half-gasped, "Are you serious?" He nodded, and she said in disbelief, "You're actually into this?"

He loved how surprised and almost giddy she looked in that moment. "You know I like how your mind works."

She bit her lip and then nodded, her hands on his shoulders as she then shook her head and closed her eyes briefly before smiling widely and saying, "Okay... um... wow. This might be a little weird saying it all out loud instead of just writing it, but..."

He kissed her again, then began slowly moving down, muttering, "Just talk. I'll distract you."

And he did, moving his lips over her throat and down to the open part of her dress, teasingly nuzzling the little peek of her breasts there as she began the story.

"So I'm a student... obviously... let's say I'm in my last year and I'm really close to graduating," she said, her hand in his hair as he began trying to figure out how to pull down her dress from behind her neck. "And what kind of professor would you be?"

He paused in his movements, no clue as to answer to that one.

"Languages," she said. "No. Russian. And I have to take a language as part of the required stuff."

"So you pick Russian," he chuckled, finally figuring the dress out and kissing her shoulder as he slowly eased it down.

"Sure, why not?" she asked, already sounding a bit out of breath. "So then, imagine my surprise when I go and have my first day of class and the professor's not an old gray-haired guy but instead he's..."

She faltered a little as pulled the dress down to her waist, his hands going to her breasts as he kissed over the swell of one. He glanced up at her. "He's what?"

"... You, exactly how you look today," she sighed, taking a deep breath to steady herself. Her hand in his hair tightened as he kept teasing her. "And at first, I do okay in the class. But eventually I can't focus. You're... you... just..." She leaned back on with her free hand on the desk as slowly drove her insane, suckling and licking and making her legs twitch around him. "You make it impossible to focus on anything but the way you sound when you're speaking the language. You catch me staring and you give me looks but I... ugh... I convince myself that it's all in my head and maybe you haven't even really noticed."

Taking a breath, he pulled his lips away from her breast and looked up at her before switching to the other one. "And then?"

She moaned, and the sound sent shivers down his spine and his blood rushing downwards as he continued his torture upon her. "And then... I try to completely ignore you. Just stare at my book and take notes without looking at you, but the thing is, your voice is enough to torture me. And when I try to ignore you, it seems like you call on me for answers more. And I almost always get them wrong."

He relented when her hand pulled on her hair, and he slid back up, planting his hands next to her hips as he asked, "What do I do about that?"

"Call..." she paused when kissed under her ear, "call me into your office. Ask me what's wrong, what I need to do better because you know I'm not stupid and I should be getting better grades. I say it's just my focus that's messing me up, but I can't tell you that you're the reason I can't focus." He hummed in response, and she added, "And the whole time I'm in your office, you can't stop staring at my heels."

He chuckled against her neck, and she continued on, perhaps now getting into the groove of this form of storytelling. "And I'm pretty sure I'm imagining it, but still, from then on, I wear a different pair to every one of your classes. And every time, I catch you looking, either as I walk by or sit so that they're always in your line of sight."

"Tease," he smirked before capturing her lips in a short but deep kiss. She was painting a vivid picture in his head, and the thought of watching her like that, a couple days a week, knowing that she was looking at him and thinking things that would mean dire consequences for both of them if they ever came to fruition...

He was starting to get why she liked this scenario so much.

"This goes on the whole semester," said, breathing shortly as she pulled him down by his collar to pepper some kisses of her own on his neck before going on. "Stares and a lot of C's and a lot of money spent on shoes I buy just in the hopes that you'd stare at them and like them." He groaned slightly, and she pulled away to look at him as she slightly switched tactics, "Would you like them?"

The question, and the slightly innocent way that she asked it, made an unexpected wave of heat blow through his veins. He swallowed and then glanced down at the heels she still wore before replying, "I'd imagine you in nothing but them every time I'd close my eyes."

She whimpered. "Oh God, you're good at this."

"Keep going," he urged her, unsure of how much more he could take of this before he had to have her.

"Okay," she nodded. "So... I try, I really do, but I've missed a lot when I should have been paying attention to what you were saying instead of how you were saying it. It's the worst that I've done in a class, ever, and you look seriously pissed one day when you tell me to come and see you in your office after class."

He hummed, his hand running down her leg as she lifted it up over his, both of them clearly needing more but holding off against their will. She took an unsteady breath. "So I walk in, in a dress a little more appropriate than the one I'm wearing now, but same shoes, and it's towards the end of the day, so you look kinda like you do now, with the top of your shirt unbuttoned and bow tie undone - which kinda makes me die inside - and you don't even look up at me when you tell me to lock the door. My heart stops when you say it, but I still convince myself that it must be for some... other... reason that you want it locked."

This alternate student version of her was quite naive, he chuckled to himself.

"I sit down and you get up, still looking pissed, and you come around the desk and kind of half-sit on it. You ask me why I'm still doing so bad. You've given me extra time, chances for extra credit, given me breaks that you don't normally give anyone, and yet I'm still not getting it. My face gives me away, because I blush like a complete idiot, but I still blame my focus and just about anything I can think of. You don't believe me."

"What do I do about it?" he asked, back to dragging his lips along her neck, feeling the fluttering pulse at the base of it quicken the more that she spoke.

"You... quiz me."

He looked at her, getting the feeling that she was getting to it now. She was blushing just as much as the fictional version of herself currently was.

"You tell me to stand, so I do. You pace around the room, saying random things in Russian that I have to translate. Things like... I don't know... 'good morning'..."

"Доброе утречко," he said flawlessly, and he felt her instant shudder at the common greeting.

"'It's raining'," she added, clearly trying to think of the most mundane things possible to say.

"Дождь идет," he replied, and she smiled, closing her eyes briefly as the words rolled off his tongue.

"I can translate most of the words, so I start to feel a little better. But then you stop pacing and all of a sudden you're right behind me, and I feel you before I hear you, even though you're not touching me. And..." she took a moment, and he could almost see her next words forming in her mind, "You ask me in Russian, almost too quiet for me to understand, 'What do you think about when you look at me'."

His tone as he spoke those words in Russian was every bit as quiet and strained as she was describing. "Что вы думаете о том, когда ты смотришь на меня?"

He then watched her shudder again, and with her eyes closed, she said, "I... I freeze, because I know I'm caught and I know you know, and I can't breathe, I can't talk, can't think. And then you... you reach out and touch my hair, pull a piece of it behind my shoulder, and just that one little touch makes me..."

Her eyes were still closed, and he watched her in pure fascination, realizing by the slight furrow in her brow and the way that her lips were parted how deeply into the scene she was. And then he had an idea.

"Makes you... what?" he asked lowly, taking her hands and leading her off of the desk. The motion made her eyes open, and she looked at him questioningly before he pulled her dress slightly back up over her body and then turned so that he was behind her. Her eyes followed him until he saw them light up with understanding, and he suppressed a grin as she turned her face back forward and he stepped fully "into character". After all, he had promised her earlier that when the mission was over, they'd do anything she wanted to. And this was turning out better than he had imagined already.

"Just that touch..." his fingers mimicked what she had said, brushing it back behind her shoulder, "just that alone makes me stop breathing and makes my heart just about explode in my chest, because I know what it means and for once I can't convince myself that I'm just making something out of nothing. But... but you're still waiting for an answer, so you lean in close and hiss in Russian, 'answer me'."

"Ответьте мне," he hissed, just shy of her ear, since she hadn't specified that he had touched her as he said this.

She moaned, quietly in her throat. "I... I try, but nothing comes out, and I can feel you just barely come closer... you move my hair all the way over my shoulder," she said, eyes still closed, and he did as she said, "and then you kiss the back of my neck... so soft I can barely feel it but I know it's your lips and it's one of the best things I've ever felt."

He kissed her exactly how she described, and when she moaned the way that the student version of her would have at the simple touch, he did too.

They had barely gotten started and he was already on the edge of the kind of desperation that she had been talking about earlier.

"Then you turn me around," she said, and he did. Her eyes were heated and more than a little dazed as they met his, and it took everything in him not to grab her and completely ruin the rest of the story. Then she surprised him and asked, "What would you do next?"

He blinked a few times, this question decidedly more complex than her last. It was easy to just listen and follow her thoughts through her words, but now he stopped and wondered... if this was real, and she was completely off limits, the very definition of unethical behavior, and yet weeks and weeks of tension and suppressed desires had made all of that seem as irrelevant as it was... and now he had her here, in front of him, with no more false pretenses between them... what would he do?

The answer was obvious. He would give her a choice.

He stepped forward, eliminating the last bit of distance between them, and then he dropped his forehead against hers. "If you don't want this, then leave and I'll never touch you again. But if you do want this... and I know you do... just say the word, Summer."

His hand was in her hair now, and hers was on his wrist, the air hot between them, and she asked with a slight smile on her face, "What's the word?"

"Да," he said, and he thought that she was lucky that the word was so easy to pronounce, sounding like da and meaning yes.

And then she repeated the word, softly and with her smile still on her face, and he let a part of his self control snap as he buried his fingers in her hair and brought his lips crashing down on hers. They both moaned at the searing, desperate contact, and then they couldn't get close enough. Her words had left him lost, adrift in a pulsing need that he couldn't fully even comprehend anymore, torn between fantasy and reality and quite enjoying having both at the same time.

He just needed more. So much more that he wouldn't be able to breathe until he got it.

As they kissed and clawed each other into oblivion, he managed to break away long enough to whisper roughly, "What next?"

She blinked, seemingly as lost as he was before her eyes refocused a bit and she replied, "You... uh... you'd pick me up and put me on your desk and -"

That was enough for him, he decided as he followed her lead and tossed her on the desk with far more determination than he had earlier. Now that she was back on track, she kept up the story once more, in between kisses to her lips that were almost sloppy in how needy they were. "You take my dress off, but you leave my heels on," she said, and he had her dress off so fast it could have caught fire. She smiled widely at him and then drew him back for another stifling kiss as she started frantically undoing the buttons of his shirt.

It was a storm of lips, teeth, and hands, fitting for a desperate and scorching first time, and in a way, it was. One thing that Bucky had noticed as of late was that this, the physical side of things, never seemed to get the least bit boring or predictable. The minute he would think that he knew what to expect, she would write him a story or, like tonight, tell him one, and something would result that he hadn't seen coming but welcomed with open arms.

He'd tell her later how absolutely perfect of a lover he thought she was. Right then, he needed to know what to do next, and thankfully, she provided the answer.

"Tell me what you thought," she said before correcting herself, "what you would have thought during all those classes, since you know what I thought but I don't know what you thought."

In response, he pushed her down flat on the desk, her legs staying firm around his hips as his hands ran slowly down her bare upper half, thinking carefully about his answer before he dared to speak. Finally, he leaned down and began kissing down her chest, looking up at her periodically as he replied, "That you're beautiful." His hands squeezed her breasts as his mouth moved lower. "Sexy. Smart, though you weren't acting it." He nipped near her side and she giggled, the sound becoming a moan as he then continued creeping lower. "The first time I knew the heels were for me, I'd have to leave the class for awhile. Go to my office. Imagine you waiting there on my desk in nothing but the heels. Imagine how you'd feel, how you'd taste, how you would moan and shake when I'd find out."

"Oh my God," he heard her whine, and he knew it wasn't just because of the kisses he was spreading down her stomach. He knew how close he could push her to the edge just through his words. He didn't take it for granted. It came naturally now, unlike when they had first started to become intimate. He had always enjoyed teasing her, but this... this had taken time. And he wouldn't change it.

As tempting as it was to slip down a few more inches and feast, he moved back up her body and kissed her lips before looking down at her perpetually-flushed face and saying, "And now that I'd finally have you... it would kill me but I'd take my time. You know where I'd start."

She bit her lip and smiled, indeed knowing where his mouth would go next, but then she said with a false tone of innocence, "I'm just your student. I don't know anything about you yet, aside from your high heel fetish." He narrowed his eyes slightly at her, taking those words as a sign that she was taking this fantasy all the way to the end. He was all right with that. Then she shorted out his brain by reaching up and placing her hands on his chest as she said in the same falsely innocent tone, "I need you to teach me. Sir."

He couldn't answer. He could do nothing but let his lips part further as he stared down at her, those words nearly his undoing, sending him into a kind of state that he never would have guessed something as simple as a suit and Steve's pair of fake glasses would have been responsible for.

Really, it all just came down to something that he only grew more convinced of with each passing day; while his past told a story of the world's most unlucky soldier, his future might just be that of the luckiest.

---

Meanwhile, out in the living room, most of the Avengers were going over the results of that day's mission.

"So what do we know about this guy aside from -"

Crash. Bang. Very loud moan.

Losing his train of thought, Tony rolled his eyes and stood up from the couch he had been on, telling his fellow Avengers, "Come on. Downstairs. I can't hear myself think over all the sounds of Winter in Summer happening down the hall."

Natasha glanced at Steve, who just looked resigned to having to listen to said very loud sounds for the rest of his life and had actually been tuning it out until Tony had mentioned it. Regardless, they got up to follow Tony, and Sam glanced at Darcy sitting next to him and shrugged just before getting up to go himself.

"Hey," Darcy said, stopping him. She grinned as she said, "Please tell me you've got a pair of glasses laying around too."

He grinned back and then got up, calling out, "Hey, Steve. Got any other pairs of -"

"No," Steve replied without bothering to look behind him. "But maybe Bucky will lend you his."

"I don't know if I'd want to borrow them after... whatever it is that they're doing in there," Sam said, face slightly pinched.

"You can just wear mine!" Darcy called out as they all piled into the elevator.

After the doors closed, Tony remarked, "Somebody should call Bruce. Apparently his look is now highly in demand with the ladies."

Nat chuckled, and then all was silent for a good two minutes. Then Steve froze briefly with a look of dawning realization, then sighed and said, "Winter in Summer. I just got that."

"Wow, Cap," Tony laughed along with the others, "your age is really showing right now. But it's okay, we all get slower the closer we get to 100."

Perhaps sick of the jokes at his expense, or maybe just ready to prove that he could make some of his own, Steve just shrugged and then nonchalantly replied, "Depends on what you're talking about. I might be 95 but my tongue doesn't seem to be getting any slower, right Nat?"

Tony choked so hard on a drink of water he'd been taking from a bottle in his hand that he couldn't breathe right for ten minutes. Natasha looked at Steve like she had just fallen in love right at that exact moment, and Sam just wished that he had gotten the moment on video.

Bucky would later be slightly miffed that he had missed this apparently instantly legendary moment known as "Steve's first legitimately dirty joke in front of someone other than Bucky", but, all things considered... he was quite happy with where he was that night.

A/N: My apologies for this slightly late update, but on the bright side, this is one of my favorite chapters so far and I am quite excited to post it :D This one took a little longer than usual to fully edit, and I owe a lot of thanks to midnightwings96 for having helped turned a half-coherent idea of mine into something actually writeable (she does that a lot :D) AND, on top of that, helping to co-write Natasha's dance and give that scene a level of detail that I couldn't have. Action and dancing are my writing weak points, and she has helped me with both many times, so I am highly grateful and happy to have her help filling in those blanks :) Also, my thanks to you wonderful readers & reviewers - last chapter got the highest reviews of any so far aside from chapter four, so you all have my deep gratitude for sticking with this monster story and sticking with me :D I will see you all next week! (P.S. - if any of you speak Russian out there, feel free to correct the Google translate Russian that I had to use here! I'm sure it's all wrong lol)