"Don't do this."
"Hello to you too, Bucky." I snorted as I stopped in front of the stairs of the grand residence I was trying to gain access to.
"Don't do this." He repeated, his voice gruff and forceful.
I sighed in exasperation as I nervously ran my hands through my chestnut hair and ruffled it in order to try and calm down. I was foolish to not expect Bucky to pull this stunt. In hindsight it was pretty bloody obvious he would attempt a last ditch effort to try and get me to stay. I just hoped after what was meant to be our final goodbye this morning that he wouldn't. I'm an idiot for letting wishful thinking get in the way and that I had not prepared for this earlier.
"Move, James." I hissed using his real name to emphasize my anger.
"No. You're about to make the biggest mistake of your life. This isn't even about me… or us," He stated as his voice began to falter and go soft "I just care about you too much to watch you do something so completely stupid. I won't let you."
He was on the third concrete step of the residence, blocking both of the large blue doors. I knew he was far too strong for me to sneak around him and would overpower me in a heartbeat. But getting frustrated and angry wouldn't move him either.
Think, Anna. Think.
I took a step towards him onto the first landing of the miniscule stairs. He was still much taller than me as he was on higher ground, so I had to look up for my grey eyes to meet his resentful blue ones.
"Why are you doing this?" I sighed, softening my face to try and remove the animosity between us.
He just stared at me for a while with an unreadable expression on his face. He was frowning, and staying silent as his eyes bore into my face. I was about to ask my question again thinking he wasn't going to answer, but then he spoke up. Surprisingly, he even kept his voice calm.
"You know I think this is a really, really dumb idea. I'll spare you another lecture as you know my reasons why this is stupid. But I'm here to stop you from running off to another universe with your boyfriend by using any means necessary."
"Any means necessary?" I asked as I cocked up an eyebrow. I didn't know whether to be amused by his audacity, or annoyed by it. I couldn't lie, I was really curious what his grand plan was to stop me from entering Doctor Strange's manor and going through with the plan to send both Peter and myself to Peter's universe.
"Anna, it kills me to have to resort to this, it really does. I hate that it's come down to this. Even if you spend the rest of your life hating me and never talk to me again, it's worth it to stop you from doing this." Bucky stated.
Before I had time to process his words and get angry and creeped out by his controlling and frankly out of character statement, the two blue doors were flung open and my boyfriend came strutting out in all of his red, white and blue suited glory.
He immediately raised his wrist and a thick web emerged, which he attached to a power pole above us. With graceful ease he was able to hoist himself up and swing right over Bucky's head. He landed next to me and grabbed me affectionately around the waist in a side-hug. This caused me to stumble back a little away from Bucky.
"Ma'am is this man bothering you?" Peter asked me playfully.
"Yes," I bluntly replied, not bothering to downplay Bucky's actions "He said he's going to stop me from coming with you back to your world by any means necessary."
I noticed Peter's head snapped towards Bucky's scowling face. I couldn't see under his red Spider-Man mask, but I would bet money that he was glaring towards Bucky right now.
"Bucky man, it's time to let go. Annabelle has made her decision to come with me to live in my universe. She's a big girl, she can make up her own mind." Peter shot towards Bucky. His voice was playful and light, but I knew it was only coating the malice that Peter was intending to convey.
"Anna is free to do anything she wants to do out of her freewill. But that's the thing, I don't think this is her freewill. I think you've manipulated her into this irreversible decision because you're being selfish. You can't bear to never see her again." Bucky coldly stated.
"The only one attempting to put a stop to her freewill is you, my friend. You're the one quite literally standing in her way to stop her from doing what she wants. I'd say you're the one trying to manipulate her because you can't bear to never see her again." Peter responded with a shrug. His voice was still light, but he did let go of my waist and take a step towards Bucky.
I hated feeling so useless. I felt like a feeble, helpless idiot having two men argue over how I should be feeling. Speaking as if I wasn't even present. I wanted to interject but I decided to let Peter fight my battle for me. As much as I hated feeling like a weak and foolish girl for needing my boyfriend to speak up for me, he was probably more likely to get Bucky to step out of the way. That was the end goal after all.
Bucky decided to ignore Peter, taking a small step to his left to address me directly over Peter's shoulder.
"Anna, you know this isn't you. I remember the first time we ever spoke properly you told me you thought Steve was an idiot for what he did to be with Peggy. This is even worse. You're not going to a different timeline, you're going to a whole different universe just to be with some guy."
I chose not to answer and instead looked down at the neat white concrete step that I was standing on. He was right. I did say that to him. It was quite a passionate conversation we had too. I always thought Steve took a large gamble for a reward not worth the risk by going back in time to be with a woman.
I hate this. I hate hearing Bucky's words. I hate looking like a lovesick girl. I hate that Bucky thinks this of me. I want this to be over. I want Bucky to go away.
I'm not sure whether Peter was offended by Bucky's words or if he was seeing my hurt reaction. But I could tell he was fired up when I raised my eyes, even though I couldn't see his face under his mask. But Peter Parker was not one to initiate violence. He fought with words and by playing with his prey. Bucky was no exception and Peter was about to cut Bucky as deeply as he could using words and not violence.
"Let it go, man. She chose me. Anna and I have a future. Anna won't even be in your future. Save your dignity and just walk away." Peter taunted him.
Without warning Bucky quickly took a step towards Peter. Peter had anticipated it clearly, as he quickly pushed me out of the way but he didn't have enough time to defend himself from Bucky's attack. Bucky grabbed Peter's shoulder and threw him to the ground roughly.
"Bucky!" I shouted loudly with disapproval as I jumped off the steps and rushed over to Peter, who was groaning on the ground.
"A-are you alright? He hasn't broken your shoulder or something has he?" I worriedly asked Peter as I kneeled down to inspect him.
"I'll be fine. Just knowing I have your love is all I need." Peter teased, watching Bucky carefully to clearly show his statement was meant for Bucky and not for me.
"Yeah, yeah, you're both in love. Whatever," Bucky rolled his eyes. He stayed still and didn't make any attempts at attacking Peter again, but I did notice that he was watching Peter carefully in anticipation of retaliation.
Peter seemed to notice this too.
"Don't worry, I'm not going to fight back. Truth be told I am actually in a lot of pain and I kind of learned my lesson the last time we fought."
Bucky didn't bother to respond but kept his stoic face focused on Peter to gauge his movements. He did this for a few moments before flashing his eyes to check on me. Then it happened. It happened extremely quickly.
Bucky losing his attention for mere nanoseconds was all the distraction that Peter needed with his quick and agile reflexes. It all happened so swiftlyI barely had time to register what was happening.
Peter jumped up from the ground and grabbed my waist tightly before raising his left wrist and using his web shot to burst open one of Doctor Strange's large blue doors before dropping the web to free his arm. He then used his right wrist to shoot web inside the door and had clearly managed to attach to something inside. He kicked off from the ground and swung the two of us right inside the residence, flying right over Bucky who only realised what was going on when it was too late to stop us.
Once we were inside the door slammed shut behind us and there was a sturdy click to indicate the door was locked. The house was completely silent for a few moments with all sounds of the New York street outside melting away due to the soundproofed walls.
"Are you alright?" I asked Peter with a cringe as I eyed his shoulder. There were a lot of thoughts racing through my head after what had just happened, being concerned for Peter's wellbeing was probably the most constructive distraction.
"Yeah, it's fine. He didn't get me with his freaky robot arm, so no damage was done." He grinned as he rotated his shoulder to show off his lack of pain.
Thud, thud, thud.
"Speaking of which…" I muttered, as dull knocks came from the outside of the door. Even though the grand residence seemed completely shut off from the outside world, it appeared Bucky was hitting the door so hard that the sound was able to travel inside.
"We should probably go find Doctor Strange and get the show on the road. The sooner he can cast his spell to send us back to my universe, the less time Bucky has to stop us." Peter stated.
I was silent, but sent him a nod to show that I agreed.
Even after the emotional last few minutes, there was only one thing I could think about. It was strange to think that my life was completely normal and conventional path until I was twenty years old and had an extremely brief fling with Steve Rogers. Although the fling itself was short and meaningless it created the chain of events that led me to this moment right now.