“What…is this?’ Bucky asked curiously.
Jim Morita’s face was red, though from lack of oxygen or embarrassment, Bucky couldn’t immediately tell. Stevie’s face, though, was pure blushing. Bucky felt a smirk spreading across his face.
“Now, stop that right now,” Jim said to Bucky, trying to separate himself from where Stevie was wrapped around his back, one skinny arm reaching around the front to try to choke him out. He casually hooked his right leg around hers and flipped her gently onto her back, jumping off of her and stepping up to Bucky. “You told me ta’ train her to fight.”
“I’m just impressed to see her almost choking you,” Bucky admitted.
Stevie glared up at him, trying to save face from what had looked like quite the compromising position, even if Bucky had known what they were doing, “I just don’t understand the locking the arm part of the choke hold.”
“It’s cause you don’t actually want to hurt Jim. Here, try it on me,” Bucky shrugged off his leather coat and settled onto the mats in front of her.
"Like she wants to hurt you anymore than me," Jim scoffed.
The thing with the Howling Commandos was that Bucky insisted on everyone being trained in all methods of fighting.
The problem with Stevie was finding a way for her to defend herself that worked on tiny, underfed girls.
Bucky had eventually settled on Jiu Jitsu, a method of grappling that really lent itself to females because you didn’t have to be physically stronger than your opponent to win. Stevie did fairly well at it, especially the drills part, repeating how to fall correctly over and over again. She had not done as well at the practical aspects. Bucky saw it over and over again. She didn’t want to accidentally hurt any of them in training, and she refused to put enough force behind it.
Jim snorted, “I told her to remember how I stole the last cookie.”
Bucky smirked as Stevie warily faced off against him, her shoulders pulled back, “That’s not gonna work on this one. She doesn’t care as much about food as the guys.”
She went for his ankles, as he expected her to. It was a good move, if she could move hard enough on his ankles or knock out his knees, he’d be off balance, and she might be able to drop him.
Too bad for her that he was expecting exactly that.
He reached out with his longer arms and larger hands, grabbing her wrist and pulling her into him, effectively knocking her off balance as she was trying to do to him.
Locking one leg around her leg, he applied just a bit of pressure, so it was uncomfortable.
Her face grimaced while his hands were already moving to pin her arms above her head. He looked down at her pinned beneath him and couldn’t help but to grin widely at the look at her face. She felt the pressure of his leg on her leg, how easily he could break it, and she clearly hated the feeling of being corralled. He leaned closer, pressing down on her to ensure she didn't shove him off suddenly and take back control of the fight.
He loved how fierce she was for all of her gentleness.
Noting the silence, his mind marked that Jim must have quietly made his exit from the training room.
Bucky thought through what he could possibly say to her to make her fight back with her true strength. He leaned in closer so he could whisper into her ear, even though there was nothing stopping him from just talking at a normal volume.
Stevie unconsciously leaned up into him, allowing him better access. His lips just brushed the tip of her ear, and he was so close to her that he could feel how she shivered slightly beneath him.
“Imagine I’m some jerk making cruel passes at one of the freshmen. Forget who I really am. Think of the other day at school,” he whispered for only her ears.
It worked to some extent, but even as she rolled him over and tried to pin him, his mind was working. He didn’t have to think of his next moves to quickly pin her back down.
Jumping up, he offered her an absentminded hand as a plan formed in his mind, “Come on, it’s time for school anyway.”
Stevie sighed slightly as she walked to the bathroom to get changed. Bucky still examined her closely to make sure she wasn’t too out of breath, a spare inhaler tucked into his glove box and one of the lockers and up in his bedroom. Thrown in the ottoman of the living room. Inhalers everywhere he could think of.
They headed out of the previous manufacturing factory that a previous leader of the Howling Commandos had turned into headquarters and towards Bucky’s motorcycle. He threw Stevie a simple black helmet while tugging one on himself.
“I’m going to drive my own motorcycle one of these days,” she said clearly.
“Of course,” Bucky agreed, and smirked as she hit him on the back for his disbelieving tone. If he was honest with her, he was sure she could handle a motorcycle of her own, but he liked the feel of her riding with him. He liked to imagine she did too which was why she hadn’t pushed more for her own.
At school, Bucky quickly spotted who he was looking for, Brock Rumlow.
Black hair, jawline strong enough to cut cheese, possibly made out of stone.
The tall senior was well known for his fighting skills and his lack of loyalty. It made Bucky’s jaw clench.
Sometimes the man would help with a project of the Howling Commandos, but Bucky knew he wasn’t truly loyal, only to himself.
Bucky also happened to know that Stevie wasn’t particularly fond of Brock, even though one of the teachers had put the two into a group project. She wasn’t fond of the comments he made to girls or the rather handsy way he could present himself to freshmen girls.
A cruel grin spread across Bucky’s face.
Yep, this was what Stevie needed in her training. No matter how many times Bucky told her to imagine himself as a predator, it was a lot simpler for them all to simply put her up against a true predator. Then he could see where her training still needed work.
He couldn’t be with her 24/7 and it was always possible something could happen to the Howling Commandos that he had watching her too.
Bucky Barnes wasn’t looking to keep a glass princess in a tower; he meant to create a woman who used their own glass shards to stab men while he watched with a grin.
“Rumlow, heard you had a date yesterday. How old was she, thirteen?” he asked.
“Screw off, Barnes,” Rumlow shot back.
Stevie’s eyebrows raised, “You didn’t deny what he said?”
Rumlow got closer to Stevie, “What does it matter to you pipsqueak? While I was on my date, did you complete our group project for science?”
Stevie stepped closer to Rumlow and Bucky stuck a lollipop into his mouth as he watched her transform from the thoughtful art student to this masterpiece. This gunslinger unafraid of the solid foot of height that Rumlow had on her and well over fifty pounds.
“One, it’s a group project, did you complete your share? Two, were you on a date with a child?” Stevie shot back, voice solid and much louder than her height would have suggested.
“Didn’t ask her name or her age, wasn’t needed for my business,” Rumlow smirked.
Then Stevie was moving.
Bucky documented the way she got in close to Rumlow, heading straight for vulnerable spots like the knees. One eyebrow went up when Stevie successfully dropped Rumlow to the ground.
Pinky Pinkerton stepped closer to Bucky, “Uh Boss, we gonna let her just get into a brawl?”
Jacques Dernier scoffed, “Stupide, the boss is checking how her training is going. Now there, finally! A decent chokehold from her after I have been working on that with her for a week!”
“Oh right, obviously,” Pinky said, “Couldn’t we have fought her to check that, though? We aren’t actually going for blood.”
“She won’t take the fights seriously enough,” Jim replied, also joining the watching Howling Commandos.
“I think fille is going to win,” Jacques remarked with excitement, and Bucky felt his growing excitement turn to dread.
Jim immediately whacked the back of Jacques head, “Now you’ve jinxed her!”
Bucky was moving before he even saw what happened, already so sure that the fight was about to turn.
Sure enough, Rumlow had slammed his head back into Stevie’s head, knocking the solid bone right into her nose. Bucky caught her eyes as they immediately started filling with tears.
He thought about the pain in those blue eyes as he slammed Rumlow’s head into the concrete outside of the school.
Bucky wasn’t paying attention to too much else as he punched Brock’s face until he was suddenly pulled off and dangling in the air. He turned brown eyes toward Thor, who was holding him by his shirt in the air. Bucky thought about hurting Thor, but the lumbering quarterback simply smiled at him.
“Friend! You have certainly defended the lady’s honor, yes?” Thor’s voice always boomed, and his thick Scandinavian accent was quite different from the New York accents that regularly filled their school.
Bucky glanced back at Brock and smirked as he saw the amount of blood running out of his nose.
Thor sat Bucky on the ground next to Stevie and crouched down to her level, “Lady Rogers, you did well with your chokehold!”
Stevie smiled at him hesitantly, “I’m not in pain, my eyes just won’t stop watering.”
“Nose injuries always water a lot, even when they do not hurt a lot. It was a dirty trick to try to avoid being bested,” Thor told her, patting her on the head like a puppy and Bucky again contemplated punching the gentle giant. Even more when Stevie smiled back at him.
“What is going on here?” the math teacher was suddenly there, more teachers arriving, and Bucky was actually grateful for a moment that Thor had already pulled him off of Rumlow, “What happened to Brock? Who fought him?”
Everyone was suddenly very busy getting ready for school as more teachers tried to demand answers. Bucky tugged his leather jacket down over his slightly bloody knuckles, trying to avoid another detention.
Stevie followed him straight into the boy’s bathroom, and he raised his eyebrows at her while she started to wash the blood off his knuckles.
“Don’t give me that look. You set me on him on purpose,” Stevie said.
“Maybe, you wouldn’t take the training seriously this morning,” Bucky shrugged unapologetically, glancing down at his hand held in both of hers. The cold water felt good even though none of his skin was bruised. He spotted a scratch on her hand and suddenly her hand was held in his as he held it gently under the water.
“That was stupid,” she told him, glancing up at him.
“You asked me to teach you how to fight, to make you tough. I’m just doing that,” he defended himself, noting absently how Stevie felt tucked up against him. She was just the right height in his opinion, not too short like she felt.
He paused, looking over her face, trying to decide if she was actually mad at him.
Her nose looked a bit swollen, it wouldn’t bruise, but it might be a bit sore.
His eyes dropped lower, towards her lips.
Lips that were suddenly smiling as she took a step away, “You’re right. It’s crazy, but you’re right. And it almost felt good to fight him. Isn’t that crazy too? Good to fight, but it felt nice while I was winning.”
At that moment, Bucky wondered if he was somehow the one with asthma instead of her as he watched her confidently walk out of the men's bathroom and into the rush of the school. It had only been a few months but she was changing so quickly. He felt like he was a rock in her current, watching to see if she would build up enough power to take him along. The craziest part to him was how the school had overlooked her for so long.