Harmless (Bucky Barnes)

(vi)

Your place or mine? ;)

He stares at the text.

The right answer is mine. See you at the lair.

"Y'all are dating now?" Clint peeks over his shoulder.

"Fuck no," Bucky says indignantly. "God forbid."

"Okay, man," he retracts, giving Bucky space to turn around and face him. "What do you want to call your mini dates then?"

"Missions," Bucky corrects him.

"No one wants to go on a mission. You volunteered to go back there."

"It's for the good of the tristate area."

"I bet." The snort he lets out contradicts his words. "Whole world is depending on you, Barnes. Go save them from the treachery of your crush."

"Enemy."

"Girlfriend."

"Mortal nemesis." Bucky narrows his eyes at him. "Go further, I dare you."

"What are you gonna do? Choke me? Punch me with your metal arm?" Clint cranes his neck. "Bring it, big boy. I'm not scared of some kinky shit."

He hates living here.

The door is left open for him.

This time, even though the lair is still illuminated by the green light out in the front, there's a minor change. Sunlight streams in through a skylight in the roof.

There's a ladder there, leaning against the rim. It gives him an entrance to the roof, which, judging by the lack of any other presence in the lab, is where he's supposed to go.

As he gets closer he notices there's a note on one of the rungs.

'Evil' with an arrow pointing upwards.

He rolls his eyes, discarding it on the floor before swiftly scaling the steps.

"Ah, Mr. Barnes," he hears your voice call out even before his head pops up above the surface. "We've been expecting you."

He pauses, looking around. "Who's with you?"

Because other than the gigantic machine pointed up towards the sky, there's only you with a visor and sunglasses. The best way he can describe its design was that it was shaped like a pine cone, had a large antenna pointed towards the sky, two handlebars near its base to manoeuvre it with a large button in between them.

"Just imagine I have my henchmen with me," you urge. "I'm on a budget, man, I can't afford them yet. Maybe when my cloning machine finally works-"

He doesn't answer.

"It's a James Bond reference," you add when he doesn't show any signs of answering.

"Haven't watched it yet." Bucky shrugs. "We're doing Star Trek right now."

"You're done with Star Wars?" you, receiving a nod in confirmation. "Nice. You'd find the spy shit ridiculous anyway, it's way below your level."

"I'll keep that in mind." He makes a mental note to add the Bond movies to the list.

"Speaking of stars," you begin, gesturing to the machine. "I'm going to harness the power of the sun."

"For what?" He doesn't bother asking how, he already knows you've figured out something.

"There's a science exhibition and my team's stupid solar car experiment isn't working and I need it for them to win."

"So build a better one."