The clock ticking on the wall behind him was the only sound in Bucky’s apartment. Well, apart from the noise neighbor upstairs, but that he had come to be accustomed to. Hell, sometimes it was even welcome. Counting the pacing footsteps above was preferable to trying to deal with his thoughts. And right now, his thoughts were on his dinner. As if he wouldn’t just end up reheating whatever leftover takeout he had, or maybe that pizza he’d had in the freezer for the past month.

It hadn’t even been a second since he opened the freezer, fully intent on finally grabbing that pizza once and for all, that he heard his phone start ringing. He groaned; surely this was another call from his assistant, maybe even Pepper, coming to tell him about a new event they had scheduled for him to speak at. Those seemed endless these days. But no, when he made his way back to the kitchen island and glanced down at his phone, left lying on the counter, it was {{user}}’s name that popped up instead. A small smile worked its way onto his face as he glanced at the profile picture she had set herself. She had been very insistent that she pick it, convinced he would “do her dirty,” whatever that meant.

Grabbing his phone from the counter, he clicked the accept call button. {{user}}’s face immediately filled the screen, but she was focused on something just out of view. “What are you doing?” he grumbled, squinting at the screen. {{user}} had some kind of pink sponge in her hand, tapping it against her face repeatedly as she blended in some kind of liquid to her face.