#agent peter

“We’re never gonna fool them,” Peter had said to him, the first night they’d been tossed into the hotel together,. 

“I’ve never failed a mission.” Bucky replies, eyes on the floor plan, committing it to memory. 

Peter’s hand splays across the papers and Bucky is forced to meet his eyes. Jesus, does the American government not take anything seriously? How young are their agents? He looks away. Peter scoffs. “They’re not going to believe we’re married if you can’t even look at me.”

Bucky levels him with his best glare. “Don’t you worry about my performance. Let’s just complete our mission.”

Peter throws his hands up in annoyance. “What? We can’t get to know each other? Anything that might make this just a bit more bearable?”

“I’m not here to make friends.”

Peter narrows his eyes in a way that Bucky can guess means something dangerous. He tries to be stealthy as he watches Peter head over to the record player. 

“Don’t turn that on.” Bucky warns, but Peter hums over him.

An upbeat pop melody fills the suite and Bucky forces his eyes down onto the papers when he realises Peter is dancing. 

Still, out of his peripheral, he can see that slim, lithe body swaying, that thick hair being tossed backwards and forward, the way the red sleep shirt slips off one shoulder exposing that lovely collar. 

Then the music gets louder.

Bucky grits his teeth. 

“Would you turn that down please.”

“If you dance with me,” Peter hums, carrying the record player into the bedroom, turning it louder still. 

Bucky winces, senses on high alert. This isn’t being inconspicuous. 

With an irritated growl, he paces after Peter into the bedroom where the boy is still dancing.

Bucky tries to get past him to the record player, but Peter steps in his path. Again. Again.

Then Peter catches his hands in his, and shimmies them a little. 

“Come on, don’t you know how to dance?” Peter asks, and he grins up at Bucky then, and Bucky startles a little. 

What a smile. Beautiful. 

“Like this, cha-cha-” 

Bucky lets him, just for a moment, even though he towers over Peter, he lets the boy dance them around a little. Lets his guard drop, just a touch.

And that’s when Peter kicks him in the throat.

Bucky careens backwards, regaining his balance quickly and sweeping Peter’s legs out from under him.

Peter grunts, before lifting one of the lamps and bringing it crashing onto Bucky’s head. 

Okay fuck the kid’s strong- but-

Bucky manages to get a hand around the boy’s neck, but Peter’s got him pinned- and their faces are so close together.

Peter’s lovely thighs are splayed across Bucky’s chest, keeping him pinned, one arm bracketed on the ground, faces just a breath apart.

Bucky loosens his hand around the boy’s throat. Touch becoming gentle, lingering, trailing down to the arch of that lovely collar. 

They could kiss, Bucky thinks. Peter looks like he’d be nice to kiss. He cranes his head up, just a little-

And Peter rips the wire from his chest. 

“I knew it.” Peter hisses, blood trickling from his nose as he holds the bug triumphantly. “You’re spying on us?”

“Can’t trust an American.” Bucky grins breathlessly, “everybody knows that.”

Peter narrows his eyes. “You’re gonna have to trust me. We’re partners. Partners have to rely on each other.”

Bucky doesn’t like that. “I work better alone.”

“Well you’re not alone.” Peter insists, but it’s soft. “I trust you’ll look out for me, but we’ll lose this mission if you don’t trust that I’ll look out for you.”

“You just hit me in the head with a lamp.”

“Because you don’t trust me.”

It’s too intimate. Talking about trust when he can feel the heat of Peter’s core, when they’re still so close together, when Bucky’s hand is still on Peter’s shoulder, no reason- just to touch. 

“Clean yourself up,” Peter says, getting to his feet. 

Bucky glares. “I don’t take orders from you.”

“Let’s get cleaned up,” Peter sighs diplomatically, “and then lets figure out how we’re going to play husbands.”

*

“It’s a garden party, Barnes.” Stark sighs, “why are you dressed like you’re going to a funeral?”

“Functional.” Bucky bites back, downing his coffee.

“Now that, Peter, darling, perfect.” Tony drawls, and Bucky turns to see Peter, a vision in the summer hues of yellow and lilac. “Take a note, Barnes. You look like an assassin.”

“I was an-”

“Now, now, honey,” Peter laughs, hooking his little hand into the crook of Bucky’s elbow. “Let’s be on our way. We’d hate to be late.”

Bucky gives Tony a death stare, but lets himself be towed away. 

The party is everything Bucky hates. All bright colours and open spaces and entry points galore and-

“Right, darling?” Peter beams, and Bucky is drawn away from surveilling his list of suspects, into the bland conversation Peter is having with some old lady. 

“Right...sweetheart.” He agrees, and feels the pinch of Peter’s warning where their hands are held together.

He manages to convince Peter to let him do a walk around the perimeter. That’s where he sees one of Rumlow’s associates, and knows that Tony’s intel was right. 

He’s going to tell Peter when he sees him being flirted with by a tall, broad blond Italian. 

He’s not in control when he strides over, wrapping his arm low around Peter’s waist and kissing his temple. “We should be going, gorgeous.”

Peter blinks up at him, delighted surprise in his eyes. “Well, George here was just going to-”

When they’re in the car on the way back, Bucky can feel Peter’s smug eyes on the side of his face. 

“What.”

“Nothing, gorgeous.” 

***

Tony looks surprised, if a little irritated to see him, when Bucky knocks on his door at quarter to midnight. 

“I like him.” He confesses, storming past Tony into his suite. 

Tony sighs and closes the door. “I see. And what do I have to-”

“I can’t stop thinking about him. I want to- to- hold him. And make him happy. And when he smiles-”

“Barnes, please.” Tony pinches the bridge of his nose. “I’m not the one this big romantic speech should be directed to-”

“He makes this sound when he’s hurt, and it just cuts me up, Stark-”

“Bucky-”

“And I want to be fake married to him- not just- not for the mission, and not- not fake. I want-”

“Barnes!” Tony grabs his shoulders and shakes him hard. “I get it. You love him.”

Bucky deflates. “Do you think he knows?”

“If there’s one thing I know about Agent Parker, is that he’s oblivious. He doesn’t know. You have to tell him.”

*

Stark makes everything sound so easy. 

Peter’s tossing and catching his blades when Bucky gets back and he beams at the sight of him. 

“I thought you’d gone to do more investigating without me.” He says, packing away his knives. 

“No, I was just- Stark.”

“Sure,” Peter nods happily, patting the spot next to him on the lounger.

Bucky feels hot all over. Doesn’t know what to do. He’s all pent up. 

“Let’s dance.” He offers, and Peter’s eyebrows lift and he laughs.

“Sure, okay, let’s dance.”

The song’s difference to the first one they heard, but Bucky bops to it awkwardly anyway. 

Peter laughs, lifting Bucky’s metal hand above his head and twirling under it. He’s like a ballerina. Probably trained, Bucky thinks.

“Are we re-creating that first night?” Peter wonders and Bucky nods, throat dry. 

Peter doesn’t kick him this time. No lamps are thrown, but Bucky ends up on the floor anyway, Peter straddling him, the song playing.

Bucky puts his hand on that slim waist and looks him in the eye. 

Peter’s breath catches. “Oh.” He says.

Bucky cringes. “There was a whole speech- but I did it to Stark by accident.”

Peter laughs, a melody, and kisses Bucky’s cheek. “You should ask me out sometime. After the mission.”

“After the mission,” Bucky repeats wondrously, already thinking of restaurants with good vantage points.

Peter kisses his cheek again.

*

“Here.” Bucky mutters, holding out his hand. Peter looks down at it in surprise. 

“Where did you get a ring?”

“We’re fake-married. It’s just being thorough.”

“Did you already have it on you?” Peter hums, twisting the ring onto his finger and admiring it under the light of the sun. It’s a perfect fit. 

“It was my mother’s.”

“Bucky-”

“Take care of it.”

Peter nods, and the two of them walk arm in arm to the rendez-vous point. 

*