Chapter Text
The Watchtower is interestingly silent at one in the morning.
A typical day in it consists of misunderstandings, a whole lot of yelling, and a fragile type of camaraderie born out of going to dangerous missions together that could potentially kill one or all of them, if they were unlucky. But once midnight strikes, those irritating noises eventually fade into a gentle hum that should’ve lulled Bucky into what qualifies as sleep for him nowadays.
Tonight’s not that kind of night, however.
Instead, he finds himself standing near the kitchen counter, holding a cup of coffee he doesn’t want to drink at all, and looking out the window to watch the world outside, just for something to actually do at this hour.
Then Bucky hears the footsteps before he sees the person making them. Soft, unhurried, a little uneven from fatigue.
Ava.
He recognizes them right away. After all, she moves like someone who has never entirely trusted the floor to stay solid beneath her - a habit that probably formed after years of phasing through it.
Besides, she’s often the only one of the team usually still up at this hour, anyway.
Well, aside from him.
“You look like you’re considering jumping out from that.”
Bucky glances at her, finds her leaning against the doorway instead of entering the kitchen fully. “You never know. I just might.” Then he inclines his head to the coffee maker. “You’re welcome to a cup, by the way. It’s decaf.”
Ava winces immediately. “Wow. Still hoping you’ll be getting some sleep later, huh?”
“Something like that.” Truth was, he grabbed the coffee container by mistake, and didn’t want to waste anything by brewing another batch.
“I admire your optimism.”
Then she pushes herself off the frame and wanders into the kitchen, dressed in loose black sweats and a faded T-shirt that definitely doesn’t belong to her. Her hair is tied up in something that gave up being a proper bun hours ago. Ava opens the door of the fridge, pauses, and says, “Could’ve sworn there was a tray of chocolates here a while ago.”
Bucky shrugs. “Yelena ate them.”
“‘Course she did,” she replies, shutting it close. “That bitch.”
Her poisonous tone made Bucky smile, despite himself.
Then she opens a cabinet, squints inside, and shuts it again with quiet disappointment. “Are we out of bloody biscuits, too? I thought we–”
“Second shelf, left side,” Bucky cuts in.
Ava glances at him, turns back to the cabinet, and finds them immediately.
“God, you’re useful,” she murmurs right after, already opening the package. Then she settles onto the counter opposite him, swinging one foot idly while she eats.
For a few minutes, neither of them says anything. It’s the comfortable kind of silence that comes from months of doing missions, watching each other’s backs, and living together. And, unlike John, Yelena, or Alexei, Ava never felt the need to fill the quiet with useless chatter.
Bucky appreciates that about her.
And, to show his appreciation, Bucky pours her a cup of coffee and slides it in front of her. She grimaces, but accepts it all the same.
Eventually, she sighs.
“You been sleeping well lately?” Ava asks, her tone light.
For a second, he contemplates lying. Then Bucky replies, “No.”
“Same.” Another biscuit disappears into her mouth. “Can’t remember the last time I did properly, actually.” Then she sighs again, louder this time.
Ava spends the next minute studying him - like he was some sort of fascinating insect under a microscope. Her expression is thoughtful in a way that immediately makes him suspicious.
“Ava,” he says her name slowly.
“Hmm?”
“You look like you’ve got something to say to me.”
“That’s… highly perceptive of you.”
“Am I wrong?”
“Not entirely, no.”
She finishes the biscuit and brushes crumbs off her fingers. Then she tilts her head, considering him again with a level of calm that doesn’t match the strange tension that Bucky felt had suddenly crept into the room.
He takes a sip of his coffee before prompting, “You planning to keep it a secret or should I start guessing?”
Ava exhales through her nose. “Wow, you’re very impatient tonight. Is it the decaf speaking or–”
“Ava.”
“Right. Fine. I’m saying it.” And then she inhales before blurting out, “You ever think we’re both catastrophically bad at relaxing?”
Whatever it is that he thought she was about to say, it wasn’t that.
“Well,” he says, “it does come with the job.”
“I know, I know,” she says easily. “But still. You’d think after saving the world or whatever, someone in the old Avenger lineup would’ve invented a decent coping mechanism for superheroes by now. Someone like Stark or Banner.”
“Dunno about that,” Bucky says with a shrug. “But there are easy ways to do it. Some people drink.”
“And some people brood,” she adds, motioning towards him. “Like you.”
He narrows his eyes slightly. “I don’t–”
“And some people,” she continues thoughtfully, like he hadn’t spoken, “try to find… alternative stress relief methods.”
There’s a pregnant pause after that.
Bucky sets his cup down on the counter. “Ava.”
“Yes?”
“Where are you going with this?”
She doesn’t answer immediately. Instead, she studies the side of the biscuit packet as if it contains the secrets of the universe.
Then she looks back up at him.
“I’ve been thinking about… things,” she says. “And before you panic, I want to be absolutely clear that I’m not having some sort of emotional crisis here.”
“That’s very reassuring,” he says dryly.
She smiles. “I’m serious. I’m thinking of a more… practical approach, actually.”
“Practical.”
“Yep.”
She hops down from the counter and walks a few steps closer, stopping on the other side of the kitchen island. The distance between them is not large, but it suddenly feels very… noticeable.
“Look,” she says, folding her arms loosely. “We’re both adults. We spend most of our lives stressed out of our minds due to conditions way out of our control. We barely sleep, and the closest thing anyone here gets to a personal life is Yelena trying to emotionally terrorize one of us for her enjoyment.”
Bucky doesn’t say anything. He does watch her carefully, however.
“So,” Ava continues, “I thought perhaps we might… you know. Consider a mutually beneficial arrangement.”
Bucky continues to quietly stare at her. The pieces begin to assemble in his mind, but he refuses to jump to any conclusion just yet.
So he asks, “What arrangement?”
Her expression is maddeningly calm as she elaborates, “I mean us sleeping together.”
The sentence lands gently, almost casually - like she was only suggesting ordering takeout.
Bucky blinks. “That’s… one hell of a thought past midnight.”
“If it makes you feel better,” she says, “this isn’t the first time I’ve thought about it.”
No.
No, it does not make him feel better, actually.
Bucky stares at her for several more seconds, for once completely robbed of anything to say.
She squints at him and says, “You know, this is the part where you’re supposed to say something.”
He raises a hand. “I’m trying to. I’m–I’m getting there.”
Ava grabs her coffee and snipes, “That’s good and all, but I need you to get there faster, Barnes.”
Bucky exhales.
He opens his mouth.
Closes it.
Opens it again.
And says, “You’re serious about this.”
“Completely.”
She says the word with the composure of someone proposing a mere workout schedule.
And, well, technically sex could be considered a workout, but–
–the thought is not helping him process things.
Bucky runs a hand over the back of his neck. “You’re talking about friends with benefits.”
“If you insist on labelling it like that,” she says, shrugging, “then sure.”
He rubs his nape again. “Ava, you just… you can’t just jump this on me out of nowhere.”
“But it’s not out of nowhere. Not really,” she says. “I mean, we get on well. We trust each other. Not to mention there’s a certain degree of mutual attraction between us, unless I’ve catastrophically misread the room.”
He adamantly does not confirm or deny that part.
“And,” she adds lightly, “I thought it might help with the insomnia.”
Bucky exhales loudly. “You’re really coming to me to help you sleep better?”
“I reckon it’s going to help you sleep better, too. Besides, I wasn’t going to ask Alexei.”
Despite himself, Bucky lets out a short laugh.
Except she continues, “Walker’s technically still married. And Bob–” Ava grimaces. “Well. Yelena’s going to kill me if I so much as think about Bob that way.”
He frowns at her. Indignantly, he asks, “So I’m your last option?”
“No!” she answers incredulously. “Well, yes, but mostly no. I was just listing the ways the others don’t work for me, whereas you, on the other hand, do.”
Bucky crosses his arms. “Good to know, thank you. For a while there, you managed to throw me off with the whole ‘mutual attraction’ pitch.”
“Well, it’s still true,” Ava insists. “At least, on my part, it is. Have you seen you?”
Bucky also doesn’t answer that.
Ava leans closer to him. “Look. I’m not asking for any sort of emotional attachment here,” she says quickly. “The arrangement’s simple. There’d be no expectations, no complications. Just two people requiring stress relief, blowing off steam whenever one of us needs to.”
Bucky leans back against the counter, still trying to process the sudden shift in gravity that has happened in the middle of the kitchen at one in the fucking morning.
It’s crazy.
It’s fucking dumb.
And yet, once the concept is introduced to his brain, he couldn’t stop thinking about it.
Alongside the many catastrophic ways it could go wrong.
“This is–” he says. “You realize this arrangement could mess things up between us, right? And not just us, but the entire team?”
She merely rolls her eyes at him. “That’s a bit much, don’t you think? If we’re both adults about our expectations and the whole situation, then it definitely shouldn’t mess with anything.”
The worst part of it is that she sounds entirely sure of herself that Bucky begins to suspect that he may just be overreacting a bit here.
And really, there’re only two ways this could go.
He could say no. He should say no.
But he could say yes, too.
Either answer changes something between them.
And because she’s expecting an answer right now, he settles with, “I need to think about it.”
Ava nods immediately. “Thought you might. Though just know that if the answer’s no, then it’s completely fine. I’m not going to throw myself dramatically out a window because of it.”
Then she pushes herself off the counter, grabs the biscuit packet and her coffee cup, and heads out of the kitchen.
But she pauses in the doorway and says over her shoulder, “Do consider it, Barnes. Or don’t, no pressure. Whichever works for you.”
Then she disappears down the hall.
Bucky stares at the empty doorway for a long time.
Somehow, the coffee on the counter before him is warm again.
Apparently, he’d heated it in the microwave sometime after she left, only he doesn’t remember doing it at all.
Bucky doesn’t sleep well after that conversation.
Not that night.
Not the next one, either.
Ava, meanwhile, behaved as though the talk had never happened between them.
She shows up to training the next morning in her usual gear, hair tied back, her expression calm. Very normal, even. She makes a sarcastic comment about Yelena stealing the last of the chocolate in the fridge, spends an hour sparring with John, and the rest of the afternoon reviewing mission files in place of Alexei.
She even jokes with Bucky about a mistake he apparently made with one of the reports.
Not once did she begin looking at him any differently.
Nor does she bring up the topic of her creative insomnia solution any time after that.
Which, Bucky decides by day three, is incredibly unfair and irritating.
After all, the proposition had landed in his brain like a grenade, and he’d spent the last seventy-two hours replaying every moment of it. Even the way she’d framed the whole arrangement like it was nothing but a joint problem-solving exercise.
By the fourth day, he’s beginning to feel a little insulted. Well, more insulted than finding out he was, apparently, her last option. After all, doesn’t she need his answer, anyway? Then why isn’t she seeking him out to hear it?
By the fifth day? He realized he’s also… curious.
Which made everything a thousand times worse, considering his brain is now, very helpfully, conjuring the many ways they could, in her words, ‘blow off steam whenever one of them needs to.’
And, well, it would be easy. Ava hadn’t catastrophically misread the room when she spoke about mutual attraction, because the truth was, he was attracted to her. That had never been the problem. He’d simply chosen not to do anything about it for the good of the team, and would have been perfectly fine continuing the pretense for who knew how long.
Except she’d cut the act short by looking him in the eye and suggesting they start sleeping together.
And now? He can’t stop thinking about the arrangement.
And her.
Thankfully, he finds her alone in the kitchen that evening, leaning against the counter with a mug of tea.
“Ava,” he says.
She looks at him and, with an impish look in her eye, replies with, “James.”
Her tone’s perfectly normal.
Which only irritates him further.
“We need to talk,” he says gruffly.
“Do we?”
“Yes.”
She sighs and straightens up. “Alright then. What’s on your mind?”
What’s on–
Bucky steps further into the kitchen. “What do you think?”
She blinks at him.
And then, quietly, she says, “Oh.”
Oh.
“That’s it?” he says incredulously. “Oh?”
“Well,” she says, crossing her arms, “how was I to know you’ve been thinking about it all this time?”
…what. “I told you I needed time to think about it, didn’t I?”
“Yeah, well, I assumed your silence was the answer.”
Bucky stares at her. “It’s only been five days.”
She shrugs. “Five days of non-answer usually counts as a no, Barnes.”
“No, it doesn’t,” he tells her. “It’s only a no if I say it’s a no, and so far, I haven’t said ‘no’.”
Ava wraps her hands around her mug of tea and says, her tone very amused, “Wow. You’re really getting worked up over this.”
He places his hands on his hips. “Yeah, well, I’m sorry if I’m not taking the thought of having sex with you very lightly.”
That catches her off guard.
“How very old-fashioned of you,” she murmurs before taking a sip.
Bucky points at her. “Don’t start.”
Ava studies him more carefully now. “Alright, then,” she says slowly. “Guess this is the part where I’m supposed to ask what did you decide?”
And then, even after all his words, Bucky still finds himself hesitating.
Before finally saying the response that’s been circling his brain for about five days now.
“…Alright.”
Her eyebrows lift slightly, like she’s not comprehending things. “Alright?”
“Yeah.” He takes a breath and corrects it with, “Yes.”
For a moment, she doesn’t react.
Then she stands even straighter now.
“You’re… actually saying yes to me.”
He nods. “I’m saying yes to you.”
She searches his face carefully. “You’re sure about this?”
“No,” he admits honestly. “I’m not sure this is the right thing to do. But–” Here, Bucky actually meets her eyes. “I want to.”
That answer seems to satisfy her enough that a slow smile begins to appear on her face. “That’s very promising for us, Barnes.”
Bucky shakes his head.
Then, as often is the case, his next sentence is, “We should probably set some ground rules.”
At that, Ava actually laughs. “It’s a casual hookup, Bucky. Not a world-saving mission.”
“I’m serious, Ava,” he says, crossing his arms. “This way, we won’t have to deal with unnecessary complications.”
“Fine,” she tells him, slowly making her way around the counter so she’s standing in front of him. “What rules are you proposing? Let's hear them, then.”
“No interfering with missions,” he says first. “No messing with team dynamics. And, like you said, we have to be adults about this. If either of us wants to stop for whatever reason, we stop. Full stop.”
Ava nods. “Agreed,” she says. “That way, there’d be no drama.”
“Exactly.” A beat. "As for the rest... we'll just come up with them as we go."
"That's fair," she tells him.
And then, because he absolutely does not know what he should do next, Bucky just sticks out his hand to her.
She stares at it incredulously. “You want to shake on it?”
He shrugs, trying hard not to feel stupid about the whole thing. “Feels appropriate for an agreement, don't you think?”
Ava laughs under her breath but takes his hand anyway.
For a moment, they simply stand there, hands clasped, both of them aware that they had just agreed to something that will most likely explode in their faces.
Ava releases him first.
“So,” she says lightly, crossing her arms.
“So.” And no, his face does not feel warm at all.
She tilts her head and studies him again. “We could start now, you know. I mean, if you want.”
Bucky chokes on his own breath.