i hate you but

“Aren’t you going to go after the other one?” Bucky questioned, staring at the door of the room where Ethan rushed into. y/n gave him a look, as though she too were contemplating if she should talk to Ethan or not, before shaking her head hesitantly and returning to her task at hand; getting Allie to keep her food in her mouth and off her hands.

“With all due respect, Mister—wait, what’s your name again?” Olivia raised a brow as she tried to recall the same words her baby sister was yelling out again, “Mister Bucky, Ethan’s taking the news pretty hard and he’s stubborn. I don’t think he’d talk to Aunt y/n if she tried to,” Olivia exclaimed, eating a forkful of pancakes.

“Well, maybe I can talk to him. Man-to-man, you know?” Bucky suggested jokingly. y/n gave him a stern look before shaking her head.

“I’m not letting you talk to my nephew. Knowing you, you’d eradicate any chances I have of getting him to warm up to me so there is no way in hell you’re talking to him before I get to,” y/n chuckled.

“You’re my teammate, how could you not trust me?” Bucky crossed his arms over his chest and pouted.

“Aren’t you the teammate who cracked an egg on my shoe right when I was about to leave for a mission?” y/n questioned, easily recalling the events of last month’s mission.

That day, Bucky was I charge of making breakfast and when y/n tried moving past Bucky to grab a protein bar from a cabinet, but he wouldn’t let her pass through. Annoyed, she stomped on his toe so she could reach the cabinet. Bucky didn’t really appreciate having his toe stomped on so in retaliation, he tossed an egg onto y/n’s combat boots.

“It was hilarious!” Bucky exclaimed in his defense.

“The rookies were laughing at me!” y/n rolled her eyes before tossing a spoonful of Allie’s baby food at his hair.

“You were their S.O! If they laughed at you, you probably didn’t lecture them well enough on the consequences of laughing at a superior officer,” Bucky pointed out, recalling the times when he had to train a few SHIELD agents who ended up laughing at his manbun. Can you believe the audacity of those rookies?

“Oh, and you know how to handle a situation any better?” y/n scoffed.

“As a matter of fact, yes. I made them run twenty laps around the compound,” Bucky smirked proudly.

“Oh? What were they laughing at you for? Being older than the exhibits at the Smithsonian?” y/n giggled.

“No. They made fun of my hair,” Bucky frowned, running a hand through his dark brown locks. It was then, y/n broke out it a fit of heavy laughter.

“God, I forgot you were worse than Thor when it comes to your hair obsession!” she exclaimed, recalling that time he got mad at her for borrowing his conditioner without his permission.

“At least my hair doesn’t eat the hands of HYDRA agents,” Bucky shook his head. On a mission, one of the HYDRA agents y/n fought made an attempt to drag her by her hair. It did not end well when he realized his gloved hand was stuck in the endless jungle of knots known as y/n’s hair. Not once has Bucky even seen her run a brush through her hair in the compound!

“Man, that glove was worse than bubble gum,” y/ frowned. The agent’s hand was stuck in her hair so she had to sit next to him on the ride back long enough for Doctor Cho to come up with the best way to remove his hand from her hair. Even after then, y/n still didn’t brush her hair before or after missions.

“I’ve got to get going. I’ll see you around,” Bucky waved off, grabbing his keys from the countertop before walking out the door.

“I don’t think you will!” y/n joked out half-heartedly. God, taking care of four kids was more exhausting than taking down a whole HYDRA base. At least villains didn’t make a mess at her apartment like Allie and Jackson did.

“Oh, so you’re a house aunt now?” Bucky stopped in his steps, leaning against the doorway.

“I guess. Tell Sam not to call me onto missions if it’s not an emergency, please? Also, if you could explain this clusterf—” y/n stopped herself before she could swear in front of the kids, “—mess to the rest of the team, that would be great,” y/n smiled before feeding Allie her last spoon of baby food.

“I can’t promise I won’t tell him you kidnapped the kids, though,” Bucky grinned before shutting the door and running down the hall, probably disrupting the residents. Everybody working and living on the compound knew y/n and Bucky would chase each other around the compound when one said something the other didn’t exactly appreciate.

Which is why it shocked him when she never chased after him that day. Well, she was a busy woman, he shrugged it off and headed down the elevator.

He drove his motorcycle to where the van was, adjusted the van seats, and slowly lifted his motorcycle in the van. It probably would have been more convenient for him if he’d just asked y/n to drive the van back to the compound rather than him having to haul his motorcycle into the van.

When he was sure his motorcycle was safely placed in the van, Bucky got in the driver’s seat and drove to the compound; ready to tell Sam about his discovery.

He parked the van, pulled his motorcycle out, parked that too, and headed into the main lounging area of the compound where he found Sam, Wanda, Clint, Rhodey, and Peter gathered around the TV. The moment the elevator dinged, letting his presence be known, all heads turned to him as though to ask where he’d been…or why he had baby food in his hair.

“y/n has kids,” Bucky explained quickly, plopping down on the couch between Peter and Sam.

“y/n? Kids? That’s funny, tell another one,” Wanda chuckled, popping a piece of popcorn in her mouth as her gaze was still fixated on the screen. At this point, she was used to having Bucky and y/n make up rumors about each other and she could not trust a word one would say about the other.

“Wait, let me rephrase that. Sam, y/n told you she was taking a break because of a family emergency, right?” Bucky questioned, looking expectantly at Sam.

“Well, yes, but I don’t see how that means y/n has ki—” Sam shook his head only to get interrupted by Bucky shushing him.

“That family emergency was her sister died a few days ago and y/n got custody of four kids! Look, I know this isn’t easy to believe and shit, but y/n’s the legal guardian of two teenagers and two kids!” Bucky exclaimed, as if he himself could not believe what he’d just witnessed half an hour prior to that.

“I’m pretty sure y/n didn’t take a break just so you could make up a rumor about her,” Wanda chuckled, shaking her head.

“That’s the thing! They had a fight over breakfast and y/n was trying to make the little boy stop crying and then the baby started crying so I went over there to pick her up and god, I thought I killed the kid, but I didn’t. Then, she looked up at me with those big e/c eyes while screaming my name. God, that kid was adorable,” Bucky rambled on as though falling into a trance as he remembered the feeling of having someone so innocent look up at him with an emotion that wasn’t fear for once.

“Assuming this actually happened, how the fuck did you find y/n? Didn’t she block any location tracking on her when we found her at that cooking class?” Clint questioned, raising a brow in disbelief.

“I made FRIDAY look for my van and it was at y/n’s apartment place. She only let me in because she thought I was the gelato guy,” Bucky chuckled, shaking his head, “God, she looked so tired.”

“Is there anything else y/n wanted to let us know? She promised we were going to watch all the Star Wars movies next week,” Peter frowned, hitching his feet up onto the table.

“I’m pretty sure y/n has better things to worry about than a Star Wars marathon,” Sam shook his head in dismissal.

“She did mention the fact that she’s still willing to go on missions as long as they’re important ones. Like some really ‘life-threatening where a lot of people could die’ type of shit,” Bucky explained with a shrug.

“I still had no idea y/n had an apartment. I thought she lived on-base when I first met her,” Clint chuckled, shaking his head.

“Am I the only other one here who’s been to her place?” Wanda’s brows furrowed in confusion.

“Wait, you’ve been to her place? She told me she had some underground bunker she lives in because she was preparing for the zombie apocalypse and I kind of assumed that was a joke and she just lived here,” Peter shot up from his seat, staring at Wanda in disbelief.

“Oh yeah, that too. I’ve been to both places. I even have a room in the bunker,” Wanda winked as Peter’s jaw dropped. He thought y/n was joking when she mentioned the underground bunker. I mean seriously, would you take someone seriously if they told you they had an underground bunker beneath central park?

“Well, I guess if the compound gets compromised during an apocalypse, we know who to follow,” Clint broke out in a fit of laughter. After that, Bucky kind of just blanked out, not really knowing what else to say. It wasn’t as if he knew much about y/n besides the basics and what he’d discovered earlier.

He leaned back into his chair before stealing Peter’s bucket of popcorn and watching whatever the Avengers decided they wanted to watch that afternoon, ignoring all the teenager’s complaints.