When Bucky gets his hands on Alpine, he’s gonna kill her.

He’d been worrying for days, wondering where the little gremlin had gone off to. He’d been leaving her favourite food outside the front door, just in case, doing circles around the neighbourhood in case she’d managed to get out and decided she wanted to explore. He’s pretty sure he’s going grey from the stress of it all, and a good thirty years have probably been knocked off of his already too-long lifespan.

It wasn’t until Bucky was on his way out to go and print off missing posters that he heard that traitorous little meow, and his head snapped up.

Through the glass of your cracked window, he saw his cat lounging, enjoying the sunlight. The little bastard did it on purpose. He was sure of it.

See, Bucky Barnes is a coward. Sure, he’d gone through years of training to be a merciless super soldier, an assassin, but that didn’t leave him much time for dating. Or forming any healthy human connections at all, really.

You’re cute. Insanely cute. And his next door neighbour, who he hasn’t had the courage to hold so much as one single conversation with. The two of you had been alone in the apartment block’s elevator one time together, and he was sure he would throw up before he even managed to get back to his apartment.

He doesn’t really know what to do, or say, in your presence. And now, his stupid cat’s decided to become your best friend, so he’s going to have to suck it up and talk to you.

The thought alone has him wincing as he makes his way back into the block, watching the numbers of the elevator slowly climb up until it reached your shared floor. Instead of barrelling it to his door like he usually does, he stops in front of yours.

He can do this. It’s fine, totally fine. He’s a grown ass man, he can manage one conversation with his unfairly attractive neighbour. He swallows thickly, then raises his hand to knock.

His mouth suddenly runs dry as you open the door, his brain bluescreening as soon as he lays eyes on you. A vague part of him registers that he’s staring — then again, he’s always had a bit of a staring problem — but he struggles to make himself stop. A steady mantra of don’t be a creep, don’t be a creep, don’t be a creep plays in his mind as he musters up the courage to speak.

“I think you have something that belongs to me.” He says gruffly, voice coming out slightly menacingly. Alright, he’s definitely way out of practice. Definitely came off a little creepy.

“Uh, I mean…” His expression twists into discomfort, his hand coming up to rub the back of his neck sheepishly. “My, uh, cat? I saw her, she managed to get out.”

He laughs awkwardly, letting his hand fall to his side. This is going… great. You probably think he’s, at best, socially inept, and at worst, a serial killer. “She’s like a little Houdini.” He jokes, trying to convey that he is, in fact, harmless. When it comes to you, anyways.

People from this decade do still remember Houdini, right? God, Bucky was a kid when he died. That thought is really not helping his general awkwardness.