After Bucky left, you were frozen to the spot. Watching the open door like he was about to come back. Half wishing that he would.

You'd brought Nick back to relieve some of this stress. It had been exhausting. Your hands weren't nearly as good. Everytime you (unwillingly) thought about Bucky and you in the gym, your brain screamed at you to text him, to get him to come down, to kiss you senseless. To fuck you senseless. Your pride and principles stopped you everytime. You didn't like Bucky. Not what he'd done, not who he'd worked for, and not the fact that he was so insistent on pushing your buttons every time you spoke. You didn't like him as a person. You just liked how amped up he made you. You just liked how commanding he was when you riled him up. You liked how he grabbed you.

You stomped back to your room, Nick waiting on your bed, grabbed his face and kissed him, trying to expel all of your frustrations into his mouth.

A few days passed, and neither you nor Bucky tried to contact the other. Nick had gone back to his base. The team were busy planning the recon mission in Peru, with Tony splitting his time overseeing the strategy meetings, and overseeing your work. You had been working tirelessly on checking every suit, every weapon, the comms links. Nick's information was helpful, but it was now a week out of date. They didn't know if there would be more agents at the base than they were expecting; they had to be ready.

Around midnight one night, the beeper in your room sounded. You looked up at it.

Bucky.

You could either ignore it, or answer it. He must have known you were there alone, considering the fact he had come in the dead of night. Or maybe he was just you were there alone.

You weren't sure if you could face him after the other day. You had this unnatural feeling, this kind of pull, to everything even closely related to him. Whether it was Tony mentioning Bucky in passing, working on his weapons, his words replaying over and over in your head non-stop - every single time he came up, you felt a rush of desire. A rush of wanting him. Then waves of guilt that it was someone like him that you wanted.

You ignored it.

A few seconds pass and then the beeper sounded again. You put your tools down. You slowly headed over to the lab door, stopping a few metres in front of it as the beeping stopped. You waited, seeing if he would do it again.

He knocked again. This time, his voice also came through the door.

"Princess, I know you're in there." You heard him say. His tone didn't give anything away. He didn't sound desperate, he didn't sound angry, he just sounded...bored.

You breathed in, and then opened the door.

There was a moment of silence as you both stared at each other. He looked good. Wearing a dark blue Henley and sweatpants, his hands in his pockets and somehow making his chest seem...broader.

"I thought you had a little beeper to tell you it was me." He said with a little raise of his eyebrows.

"I do."

"Then why did it take you so long to answer?"

"I didn't want to." You replied with a blunt edge to your words. His expression didn't falter. Instead, he just smiled.

"I wanted to come and check on my weapons, if you're okay with that?" He asked, nodding his head behind you.

That seemed innocent enough. Painless, and quick. Even if he had waited til midnight to do it.

You just turned and headed over to the bench holding his and Nat's weapons, considering they were all pretty similar. You stood to the side and gestured your hand over them before folding your arms across your chest. You were silently trying to express your annoyance at him being here, but Bucky either didn't notice, or he didn't care.

He started picking up each item, turning it over in his hands, making the occasional hum, but not saying anything else.

"You know, you made those arrows for Clint that follow the target." He finally said after an incredibly painful couple of minutes of silence.

"Yeah, not that he needs them." You grunted, leaning your hip against the table.

"Would be useful to have some of my knives do that."

"I thought the almighty Winter Soldier could aim without tracking technology."

He looked up at you and smiled a little.

"I can. Just thought it could be an added bonus."

"So you really aim?" You taunted.

"I can aim just fine. So can Barton. Just wanted to know why he gets special arrows and I don't get special knives."

"Because Barton isn't a science experiment. If you're really that awful then I'll consider it." You said as you glared at him. He held your gaze, thinking over your challenge for a second.

"How can we prove it?" He asked.

You smirked, grabbing the knives off the table and shoving them into his hands, then walked over to the door, closing it and then standing in front of it. You gestured with your head for him to stand in front of you. His face fell.

"I can't throw knives at you." He said.

"Why not?"

"You'll kill me."

"Only if you hit me."

"This is a terrible idea."

"If you don't want to do it, you can deal with your normal knives and go back to your room." You snapped. He swallowed."Then let's go." You gestured again for him to stand opposite you, which he did, jiggling the knives in his hand as he thought.

"Don't move." He muttered. You chuckled, then just crossed your arms over your chest. He held up a knife by his ear, plotting the course, breathed deeply, then threw it.

It slammed into the wood, and you turned to look at it.

"Oh come on, that's like a foot away from me!"

"That's where I was aiming for, actually."

"Stop being an idiot and do it properly."

"I did." He teased.

"Closer." You ordered. He huffed. "You won't hurt me." He looked at you. He could tell you were telling the truth. He wasn't sure what he was more scared of, nicking your skin, or pissing you off.

He tried again. This one landed closer to your ear, but still not close enough for you, judging by your expression.

He threw the third one.

This one skimmed your shoulder, landing about a centimetre above it. You smiled.

"That's more like it. Now do the same on the other side."

"Yes ma'am." He saluted, before he took his aim again.

The fourth one came flying towards you, and you could tell instantly it was too close. You had to swipe your hand in the air to divert it's trajectory, sending it flying into the other wall instead.

"THAT ALMOST HIT ME!" You yelled.

"YOU TOLD ME TO THROW THEM!" He argued back.

"YEAH NOT AT MY FUCKING FACE!"

You growled loudly into the air as you spun around, wrenching the knives out of the door and whirling back around, to see that he had stormed up to you and was now directly in front of you.

"You're not getting new knives." You said bluntly.

"You said if my aim was terrible you would-"

"You did it on purpose and you're wasting my time."

"Now why would I do that?" He asked, a smirk playing on his lips and his eyes glinting a little. He rested one hand on the door, next to your head.

"Because you're an annoying Frostman who seems to get off on pissing me off."

"I don't think I'm the only one who's getting off on our little game, do you?"

You sucked in a breath. His blue eyes were holding you under his gaze, and you couldn't look away. You saw his mouth open slightly, his tongue peeking out to run along the bottom of his teeth. Your retort died on your lips as his entire presence enveloped you, dragging you back to that night in the gym, slamming your brain straight back into the memory of his body against yours.

When his fingers grazed your jaw, you suddenly realised what he was trying to do, and you slapped his hand away.

"Go." You said, your teeth clenched. Not waiting for a response, you ducked out from underneath him, walking over to the table you'd got his knives from, and started reorganising them. Well, moving them. Your brain was mushed and you weren't really sure what you were trying to achieve, other than not being that close to him.

You didn't hear him come behind you.

You only knew he was there when his hand slid over your waist from behind, coming to a stop just above your belly button. Your body tensed.

"I guess your little rendezvous with your old friend didn't do much in releasing your frustrations." He whispered in your ear. The tingle ran straight down your spine. You felt your eyes wanting to close, your hips wanting to push back, to feel him on you, but you forced yourself to stop.

He was right. He was fucking right. After he visited the lab when Nick was there, you tried desperately to, for lack of a better term, use Nick to your advantage. After Bucky left, however, you could barely handle Nick touching you for more than a minute, before telling him it probably wasn't the best idea and stopping the whole thing. It felt wrong. Which meant that you were back at square one, and your brain would only think about Bucky easing your tensions.

Whatever was going on with Bucky was ruining you.

When his other hand slid around your neck, pulling, guiding your head to the side, his lips brushing over your skin, you felt yourself starting to give in.

"I know you were just trying to make me jealous. But you know why it didn't work? Because I know that you know I'm the only one who can do it. Just tell me what you want, princess." He continued, making your legs start to feel like jelly. You leant your hands on the table subtly, trying to act like he wasn't affecting you.

"Don't call me princess." You muttered back, realising after how your words didn't come out as a sarcastic retort, but breathier, softer. He laughed into your neck, the sound rumbling through you.

"Then how about I use your real name?" He replied. You licked your bottom lip before breathing out.

"You don't know it."

"Don't I? Try telling me that again - Luka."