In retrospect, Bucky’s night had gone pretty damn smoothly for once. He ironed out every little kink that he could, his plan working out almost down to the tee as he managed to follow a group of guys from the CARTEL he’d been tracking for weeks now down to a piss reeking warehouse by the water. He even got to hear an earful of their next plan and hell, these guys didn’t have book smarts but their street smarts sure were something. It was probably the first plan they worked out that somewhat made sense, but just as he was about to hear what was probably the most important part of it all, things started to go pear shaped, of fucking course. He got a little too ahead of himself trying to listen in and made a wrong move, which lead to a not so pretty take down of two of the six guys way sooner than he intended, and now their blood was on his hands, literally, and dripping off of his clothes.
And he let those assholes get away again.
He stripped out of his blood soaked civvies as soon as he got home, glad that he decided to wear something that was easier to clean than his black suit for once. He throws them all in the sink to let them soak for awhile, knowing from past experience that it’ll come out a lot easier that way, and then he stands at the sink, scrubbing his arms clean the best that he can with a couple of drizzles of dish soap and a mildly annoyed look on his face. He can’t believe he let those assholes get away again. He tries to go back to the moment and think about what he could of done differently, wondering what would have happened if he grabbed one of the guys and took him downtown for a little interrogation, and he’s so lost inside of his own head thinking about it all that he doesn’t hear the click of the front door opening until it’s too late and then…
“what the actual fuck?”
Is exactly what your best friend and room mate should say when they come home to find you covered in blood.
Bucky freezes, warm water still running and red rivulets of blood still sliding down the drain. Ironically, Lydia was the only thing that hadn’t crossed his mind while he was thinking about ‘things that could possibly go wrong tonight’. When she hadn’t been home he just assumed she had been working one of her later shifts, but clearly that wasn’t the case since it was almost four o'clock in the morning. He starts to PANIC, not because he’s worried about where she’s been, but because he literally has no way to explain this without coming clean, he doesn’t exactly think she’ll believe him if he says it’s paint, and coming out to her about being another one of those New York anti-heros wasn’t exactly something he had been planning on doing anytime soon.
Then he’s panicking for a whole different reason when he turns around and actually sees his room mate. It was like he was almost looking in a god damn mirror, expect for he’s stripped down to his boxers now and Lydia’s just standing there, covered in just about as much blood as he’d been when he came in not 30 minutes earlier.
And he doesn’t have anything to say to that, but his jaw nearly hits the floor, his eyes going comically wide. He’s speechless.
What the actual fuck.
It takes a long MOMENT before her mind catches up to what she sees. Clearly, Bucky hadn’t expected her to come home, or else he wouldn’t have tried cleaning the blood off in the goddamn kitchen. And then she notices the way his eyes nearly fall out of their sockets, and realizes that—-right.
Well, this is awkward.
Her mind is blanking as she tries to come up with an explanation that doesn’t involve her going around late at night, shooting down arms dealers and bank robbers, while at the same time trying to make sense of the mess in the kitchen and the flecks of blood on her roommate’s skin.
“Bucky,” she says using the tone of voice she used when he ate the last cupcake, or dropped her favourite mug, “who’s blood is that?”
In the end, Lydia decides to address the scene in the kitchen rather than owning up to her own extracurricular activities. And really, she’s more worried about what the hell Bucky was up to, because it would really suck if it turned out her best friend was the sort of guy she’d want to put an ARROW into.
“If acting doesn’t work out, I plan to do food photography and just eat my way through the entire world. I’m a big foodie, and if I could make some career out of it, that would be fantastic.”
Lips turns up into a small, reassuring smile, and she barely flinches at the sting of rubbing alcohol over her wounds. Then her expression grows a little more serious.
❝No, but seriously. I need you to help me hide the body.❞
‘I win for a little while. Are you my life coach? Or are you my friend?’
➳ ❝A temporary victory isn’t much of a victory, y’know. I’d like to think I’m some mystical voice of reason to make up for everyone’s apparently lack of comment sense.❞