The Curious Incident of the Cat in the Night-time
A line of tension was a perpetual presence along Bucky Barnes’ shoulders these days. Maybe it was anxiety, or suspicion, or fear.
Maybe it was all of the above.
Who knows? Certainly not you.
He was back at his apartment now. With a hasty look thrown over his shoulder, Bucky jabbed his key into the lock, turning quickly and entering over the threshold.
It was only after he secured the last deadbolt that Bucky felt anywhere remotely near safe.
He had just moved to Brooklyn, because of a—situation. His messenger bag was dropped heavily into the plush cushions of his couch, and he stretched his newly freed shoulders of the throbbing ache they held all day.
He cast his gaze around the apartment expectantly for his cat, Alpine. The panic really began to spiral languidly around his spine when he couldn’t catch a single whisker or sleek white tail anywhere in the apartment.
“Fucky fuck fuck- I just lost my cat.”
In a haphazard haze of panic, Bucky frantically moved throughout the space like a rampant tornado. He was shaking. There were tears stinging his eyes. His beloved cat- the only thing he had now- was gone.
And the chant of you fucked up you fucked up you fucked up was reverberating between the walls of his skull.
Almost taken over by a wave of blinding hysteric sadness, he tripped over a lone cushion strewn on the floor, and then discovered it.
The broken vent.
Pulling his face up off the carpeted floor, Bucky spied an Alpine-sized hole in the vent grate that the little monster must’ve slipped through. The vent he shared with his neighbour.
“Shit.”
Immediately, he was off the floor and standing. He glanced at the clock. 11 o’clock. Shit. It’s too late for a house call in the name of cat rescue. He dragged a hand through his tousled brown hair, and pulled his bottom lip between his teeth as he thought. And thought. Thought. Thought. Thought a lot.
If only he had thought this much when he was making the decision that ruined his life.
Bucky sighed heavily. “It’s too late for a house call in the name of cat rescue,” he voiced his thoughts aloud as if it would help, mulled over his options, and gave up. For now.
Pulling out a worn paperback from the line of books on his shelf, he settled down next to his bag on the couch, and began to read through the stuttering staccato of his heartbeat.
Reading was always the thing Bucky did when he was overwhelmed.
It was a habit that came from his childhood desire to teleport into ‘The Hobbit’ everytime his parents fought, and from the desire to simply be mentally not present when Brock got angry.
Bucky shuddered. Brock. While he pushed the thought of him away, he concentrated harder on the words and clutched the book tighter in his grasp in a frantic effort to quell the sudden shaking that had seized his throat.
Fucking Brock. His mind seethed, but his hands shook.
He was angry. He was scared. Like hot and cold. No, he was angry because he was scared. Or maybe he was just kidding himself, because the words on the page swam together in a blur.
“Get it together. He’s not here,” he murmured. “It’s pathetic.” After swiping a hand over his face, Bucky settled, and read.
And then slipped into sleep.
A series of muffled profanities penetrated through the wall he shared with his neighbour startled him from his slumber. The soft light of early morning stinged his squinted eyes. A door opened and closed. Footsteps padded to his door. Three knocks echoed through Bucky's apartment. A petulant meow.
His kneecaps cracked obnoxiously as he pushed himself towards the door while pawing the sleep from his eyes. Honestly, who the fuck is up at 6 in the morning, willingly too?
Still grumbling about ungodly sleeping habits, he pulled the door open to reveal—
Oh wow.
There was an overridden scrabbling effort in his brain to stop Bucky’s eyes from drifting appreciatively all over the tall blonde at his doorstep. A kind face that was sharply contrasted with a chiselled jaw, padded muscle making him look strong and soft in a blend that must be illegal in some states. He was beautiful.
Alpine mewwed smugly from where she was nestled in the strangers arms. Little shit. A rush of warm relief flooded through him at the sight.
"Oh good, you found Alpine— there's a hole in the vent connecting our apartments so I was going to come and ask if you had seen her but then I fell asleep—” the words were out of his mouth before his executive functioning could stop him, “I'm really sorry— she keeps disappearing like this but I don't want to shut her in a cage. How’d’ya even manage to get her out?"
Bucky witnessed the amazing thing that is a smile on this stranger's lips. A smile that didn’t crease the corners of his blue eyes, but a smile nonetheless. It felt that— for a moment— the air was stolen from his lungs. Somehow, Bucky received a sense that smiles didn’t usually come to this beautiful stranger.
Then his neighbour lifted Alpine gingerly like a newborn (Bucky thinks he may be in love) and placed the bundle of purring white fur into Bucky’s embrace.
"It's okay," he said in a somewhat hollow tone, "Alpine is welcome in my apartment anytime since she's already made herself home there."
And with one last glorious smile, the blond is gone.
Bucky realised a long second after he closed his door that he forgot to ask for the stranger’s name.
“Fuck.”