Bb Angst - Blog Posts

Hold Fast | Bucky Barnes x Reader

Summary: A winter mission goes sideways, forcing you to cross a frozen lake under fire. The ice doesn’t hold—and when you go under, Bucky is the only thing between you and the dark.

MCU Timeline Placement: Post Thunderbolts*

Master List: Find my other stuff here!

Warnings: THUNDERBOLTS SPOILERS, hypothermia, near-drowning, descriptions of drowning, blood, injuries, limb trauma, hospitalization, PTSD symptoms, emotional vulnerability, protective behavior, team banter, soft angst with resolution!

Word Count: 9.5k

Author’s Note: had so much fun with this request!! this one really reminded me of no way but through, which holds such a special place in my little cold-weather-loving heart. i loooove icy mission settings, hypothermic chaos, and painfully soft bucky barnes, so this was basically a dream to write. also couldn’t help myself and had to bring in the full thunderbolts/new avengers crew at the end. i am nothing if not predictable <3

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The wind off the lake bit harder than it had twenty minutes ago.

Not that it mattered. You’d stopped registering the cold a while back, after the second ridge, where the frost had started creeping into the inside seam of your gloves. Or maybe when you heard the first round of gunfire echo through the trees, half-muted by the thick snow-laden branches overhead.

Your teeth weren’t chattering. That would’ve meant your body had enough energy to waste on something so useless. Instead, everything inside you was pulling inward. Tightening. Conserving. Slowing.

“Keep moving,” Bucky’s voice snapped, low and close behind your left shoulder, and you did.

Not because he told you to. Because you had to.

The mission had gone wrong in the kind of way that didn’t leave room for debriefs. No secure exit point, no external comms, no second wave coming in behind you. Just you, Bucky, and the last evac flare tucked in Yelena’s pack two klicks east—across a frozen lake, through the trees, past whatever was still hunting you from the west ridge.

You hadn’t seen what hit the quinjet. Just felt the shockwave under your boots, then the plume of smoke curling over the horizon. Yelena had been the one closest to the treeline. She moved faster, covered more ground when it mattered, and she was carrying the extraction beacon. So when everything went to hell and the team scattered, it was you and Bucky left circling back to pull recon on the ones who shot your ride out of the sky.

Bucky walked behind you now, a half-step slower than usual. Calculated. Watching your six, probably watching your feet, too. 

“Northeast ridge is clear,” Yelena’s voice crackled softly in your comms. “Found an evac point. I’ll hold position.”

“Copy,” Bucky muttered. He was closer now. You could hear the rough edge in his voice, the constant scrape of concern just underneath it. “Let us know if anything shifts.”

There was a pause, a soft click, and then silence.

It had been thirty-two minutes.

Thirty-two minutes of sprinting across a frozen forest, every breath burning in your lungs. Thirty-two minutes of feeling Bucky’s presence hovering behind you like a shadow stitched to your spine, keeping pace, always watching. Watching your six, probably watching your feet, too.

“We’re near the lake,” Bucky said quietly.

You nodded once. Didn’t slow.

The lake had shown up on recon, a massive spread of black and silver on the satellite map, completely iced over and ringed by skeletal trees. You hadn’t planned to get near it. No cover. No depth perception. And the ice…

There were warnings. Cracks. Inconsistent freeze. The warm weeks earlier in the month had made it unreliable. Solid in places, dangerously thin in others.

Your fingers flexed around your weapon. You could still feel the scabbed-over cuts along your knuckles from the last mission. You hadn’t even gotten the blood out of the gloves. It had frozen stiff.

“They’re pushing,” Bucky said, eyes scanning the treeline. “Trying to flank.”

“We keep moving.”

“You’re hurt.”

“Not bad.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

Your jaw locked.

There was blood soaking into the seam of your left leg, trailing down to right where the fabric met your boot. You didn’t look down. Couldn’t. It hadn’t slowed you down yet. If it did, you’d think about it. Not now.

You didn’t tell him how deep the cut went. You didn’t need to. He could smell it by now, metallic, sharp, slicing through the scent of ice and pine. It left a trail behind you, carved like a signature across the snow. If any of the hostiles had dogs, you were as good as marked.

The lake came into full view as you crested the ridge. It didn’t shimmer, didn’t glint—it was too dark for that now. Instead, it stretched wide and waiting, flat as glass and just as merciless. A wound in the landscape, glossy and black, veins of fracture spidering out across the surface where the snow had been blown off by the earlier blast wave.

Bucky said nothing, but he stopped just behind you. You could feel the weight of his silence.

“We don’t have time to go around,” you said, voice thin. “They’ll have us before the trees thicken again.”

“There’s no cover out there.” His tone wasn’t harsh. It was worse, quiet, steady, resigned. “If they catch sight of us, we’re open. Sitting ducks. You know that.”

“They won’t.” You adjusted your grip on your weapon. The trigger guard was sticking, your blood had frozen at the seam. “There’s mist coming off the surface. It’ll give us some visual buffer if we move fast.”

“You’re bleeding.”

“Which is why I can’t climb another fucking ridge.”

Your voice barely made it past your lips. It felt thinner than the air you were pulling into your chest. You didn’t need to look at Bucky to know he was staring at you again—sharp, narrowed, assessing you the way he did before a breach. Not checking for weakness. Measuring the cost.

But there was no time for costs anymore.

The crack of gunfire ricocheted off the ridge behind you. 

Not the echo of distant threat, but close. Immediate. 

Bark splintered off a tree trunk ten paces from your position, and Bucky moved instantly, grabbing your arm and yanking you down into a crouch behind the lip of an ice-encased boulder. 

You landed hard on your knee, your injured leg screaming in protest. Warm blood surged and stuck to the inside of your pants, and it was only then that you realized the muscle was torn. Not grazed. Torn.

Bucky didn’t flinch at the impact, but you caught the way his jaw clenched. “They’ve got fucking elevation,” he muttered under his breath. “How the hell did they—”

Another round cracked off a rock to your left. You ducked lower.

You didn’t answer him. You were trying not to pass out.

The second ridge. That was where they’d circled back. They must’ve doubled back around while you were sweeping east, using the wreckage and smoke trail from the quinjet as cover. You should’ve clocked it. Should’ve seen the trail crossing itself on the HUD.

But you’d been too busy bleeding.

A comms stutter broke through your earpiece. Yelena’s voice, brittle and curt: “Multiple heat signatures—tracking southeast. Six or seven. Aggressive push. Fast. You need to move.”

“Noted,” Bucky muttered, and clicked off.

He turned toward you, and there was something behind his eyes now. Not fear. Urgency. That hard-edged tension you’d only ever seen once before, when he’d carried your unconscious body out of a compound fire and spent the next forty minutes in complete silence.

“We’re not getting around the lake,” he said flatly.

Another shot cracked the air.

You flinched. He didn’t.

“They’re herding us,” you said quietly, barely audible. “Driving us into the open.”

He nodded once. “They want the intel. They don’t want to kill us. Not yet.”

“Could’ve fooled me.”

More shouts. They were getting louder. You heard the low whine of an engine somewhere, a snowmobile, maybe. Not yours. Yours was ash.

“We need to split,” Bucky said suddenly.

You turned sharply. “No.”

“I’ll draw them off. You follow the lake’s edge. Keep to the trees.”

“They’re tracking us both. They know there’s two.”

“They don’t know where you are,” he said, already rising to his feet. “Not exactly. You haven’t fired since the breach. You’re harder to trace. Let me pull them west, and—”

“No.”

It came out louder than you meant it to. It silenced the forest.

You were breathing too hard. The edges of your vision had started to smear. Your leg was going numb.

“Bucky—”

Another shot. Close. Too close.

He didn’t hesitate.

He turned and hurled a flashbang toward the sound. The white light ignited against the snow with a violent hiss, smoke billowing out and momentarily masking your position.

Then—

Movement.

From your left. Fast.

You turned, raised your weapon, but it was too late. Something barreled through the trees and tackled you full force, body slamming into yours and driving you back, pain blooming white-hot in your thigh where the wound tore wider.

You hit the ground hard, your weapon flung into the snow. The hostile landed on top of you, mask fogged, breath rapid. He went for your throat. You reached for your boot knife, fingers numb, clumsy.

The lake was right there. Ten feet behind you. Maybe less.

You heard Bucky shout your name.

The knife slid into your hand. You didn’t think. You just moved.

You drove the blade up under his jaw, hard and clean, and rolled him off you before he could finish choking.

You were on your feet again—limping, half-hopping, gun lost, blood pouring down your leg now—and the others were coming.

You saw five through the smoke. At least five .

Too many.

You could try to crawl back to Bucky. Hope they didn’t shoot you in the open. Hope he could carry you.

Or—

Or you could do the thing you shouldn’t.

The thing that would buy you time.

The thing that would probably kill you.

You turned and ran toward the lake.

Bucky was still shouting, but his voice was muffled now, lost to the scream of your pulse and the way the air changed as you broke through the treeline.

Your feet hit the ice, and it sang beneath you.

A deep, haunted groan that vibrated up your legs and through your spine. The kind of sound the earth makes when it doesn’t want to be touched.

You didn’t stop.

The mist coming off the surface curled like fingers, wrapping around your boots, your knees, your breath. It shielded you, just enough. You heard the men behind you shouting, confused, uncertain. They’d lost you in the fog. For now.

But they’d find you again if you stopped moving.

You didn’t expect to make it across. That wasn’t the point.

You weren’t stupid. You’d seen the fractures on recon. Knew the freeze was uneven, knew the surface tension wouldn’t hold under sustained weight, and certainly not without punishing you for the arrogance of trying. You also knew there were at least four men behind you, maybe more, and you weren’t going to outrun them through another ridge. Not on a torn leg. Not dragging blood like breadcrumbs.

But you could give Bucky a chance. A window.

You weren’t going to last much longer anyway. Your sidearm was gone. Your rifle was jammed. Your limbs were starting to seize—not from fear, not from cold, but from simple math. The cost of staying alive had begun to outweigh what your body could give.

So you played the only card left.

If you could get two of them on the ice. Maybe three. And if you timed it right, kept your distance, baited them into giving chase, made them run heavier than you walked, there was a chance the lake would decide who stayed topside and who went under. You weren’t built like them. Smaller frame. Lighter gear. You knew how to move soft. They wouldn’t.

They were cocky. Angry. Trigger-happy and armored to hell. That kind of weight broke tension in seconds. You’d seen it happen. Watched it once during a training exercise, how a man with sixty extra pounds of ammo sank in four seconds flat when he tried to follow a sniper across a riverbed in spring thaw.

It might kill you too. But it might not. And if even one of them went in—

That was one less gun Bucky had to deal with. One less bullet in the air. One less thing clawing for your neck.

That was something.

Your breath came faster, colder. The cut in your leg had gone numb, finally, but you could feel the wetness inside your boot. The weight of it. The imbalance.

You didn’t know how far out you were.

The fog was thicker now, curling up your spine, swallowing the tree line. You could’ve been ten meters from shore or two. Could’ve been standing over solid ice or the thinnest patch on the lake.

Didn’t matter. You had to keep going.

There was shouting again. Closer. Heavier footsteps now, rapid and uncoordinated. They’d spotted your prints. One of them yelled to the others. Someone fired, blind and stupid, too far to your left to matter. The shot cracked across the lake and echoed, turning the world sharp and brittle.

You heard the ice answer.

A moan beneath the surface. A shift. A warning.

Still, you didn’t stop.

Another shot hit near your feet, spitting a web of cracks like a warning flare. You stumbled. Went to one knee. Pain flared up your hip. You hissed through your teeth and scrambled upright.

Behind you, closer now, another shout.

And then, footsteps on ice.

They were following you.

You felt the lake notice. The way it strained. The way it listened.

You started weaving, not running, but changing angles. You knew better than to move in a straight line. Spread the pressure. Make them adjust their balance. You could almost hear their weight dragging the surface down. Could hear how reckless their strides were. One of them slipped, boots sliding, cursing and shouting, and the others answered in angry Finnish.

You adjusted again, shifting your weight to the balls of your feet as you zig-zagged across the ice, lungs straining, vision speckled with spots. The cold had crawled under your skin now—made a home in the corners of your elbows, the hollow between your shoulder blades, the soft hinge of your jaw. You weren’t shivering anymore. That would have required your body to care whether it was dying.

Behind you, the men had begun to split. Two followed your path directly, weapons raised and boots clumsy across the frost, the third veering wide, trying to cut off your arc. You didn’t know where the fourth had gone. You didn’t have the capacity to guess. You’d passed beyond the edge of tactics and into instinct.

The ice beneath you moaned again, longer this time, a groaning, glacial sound that rippled underfoot like a living thing. The cracks spidered wider at the edges of your vision, faint lines of fracture glowing pale beneath the frost-dusted sheen. You counted every step in your head, each one a wager against weight and water.

You needed them closer. Just a little closer. You needed them to get stupid again, greedy for the kill.

And they did.

One of them shouted something guttural in Finnish, laced with adrenaline and mockery, and opened fire. The shot missed your side by inches, skimming the air close enough that you felt it kiss your ribs. You dropped hard into a crouch, used the momentum to pivot left, and rolled back into a full sprint. The surface answered with another shriek of pressure.

You couldn’t tell if it was a warning or a promise.

Then another sound, behind the gunfire—something real, something known.

Bucky’s voice.

Low at first, almost lost in the chaos. Then sharper, clearer, a shout that carved through the storm like a blade. He was yelling your name. You didn’t turn. Couldn’t. You could barely see anymore, and the fog curled tighter now, clouding everything but the space directly in front of you.

A second burst of fire came from the opposite edge of the lake—sharper, faster. Controlled. You recognized it immediately. Not hostile. That was him.

He was flanking.

You caught the flicker of movement through the mist just ahead and to your right. Bucky breaking the line of trees at a full sprint, a blur of black and gunmetal, eyes fixed on you like he could will you to stop. He was shouting again, but your ears had gone dull. All you could hear was the ice. The awful, pulsing hum of it underfoot, vibrating with your heartbeat.

And then one of the hostiles did what you’d hoped. He fired while running.

The recoil jolted his center of gravity, boots sliding out from under him as he fell sideways. He hit the ground hard, and the impact buckled the surface beneath him, cracks detonating outward like glass under a hammer. It sounded like thunder.

The other two tried to stop, but it was too late. One went down to a knee, skidding, scraping across the slick, and the third barreled into him, toppling them both in a tangle of limbs and shouted curses.

For a breath, you thought it had worked.

But it didn’t matter.

Because the fourth man, the one you couldn’t see, had circled wide, just like you feared. You didn’t hear him until he was right behind you. There was no gunshot. No shout. Just the thud of weight as he tackled you square in the back.

You hit the ice with a sickening crack, elbows slamming down first. The pain stole the breath from your lungs. Your vision whitewashed. Your cheek scraped frozen mist and split open.

He tried to roll you, get leverage to pin you down, but you were already moving. Already driving the knife from your belt up under his ribs, your fingers so numb you couldn’t tell if it connected.

It did. You felt him grunt, deep and surprised, before he staggered back, and you surged to your feet, but—

But the ice had had enough.

It screamed beneath you. A seismic groan, deeper than the others, wrong in every register. You felt the surface ripple like a muscle torn mid-strain. Your knees bent automatically, weight shifting light, trying to disperse, but it was too late.

The cracks burst outward from where the hostile had landed. The seams raced under your feet, intersecting, multiplying, fracturing the world beneath you in real time.

You heard Bucky shout your name again.

Closer.

Desperate.

And then he was there, just at the edge of your sightline. His face was bloodless, teeth bared, feet skidding to a stop as he reached out like he could catch you from twenty feet away.

“Don’t move!” he barked.

You didn’t.

Didn’t breathe. Didn’t blink.

But the ice moved anyway.

It bowed beneath you.

Then split.

The water came up like a hand and yanked you under.

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Bucky saw the ice go before he heard it.

Not the split, but the way your knees flexed, just slightly, the way your arms went out as if your body knew before your mind did. That half-second of weightlessness right before everything collapsed. Bucky knew that look. He’d seen it in jump footage, in buildings on fire, in the eyes of people who understood they weren’t getting out unless someone came back for them.

He was already running.

Not thinking. Not planning. Just moving. Snow churned under his boots, breath barely fogging the air. He heard your name tear out of his throat, loud and raw and useless.

You were looking right at him. Eyes wide. Mouth slightly open. But you didn’t say anything. Didn’t scream. Didn’t even move.

You just dropped.

The ice beneath you opened like a mouth.

He reached the edge just in time to see the water close back over you.

The sound was sickening. One second you were there, the next you weren’t. The lake swallowed you whole, and all that remained was mist and the soft sound of new cracks racing toward him.

Bucky didn’t hesitate.

He launched himself forward, boots slamming into the ice, the weight of his landing enough to make the surface whine under him. He dropped into a slide, knees bent, palm out to brace, momentum hurtling him across the ice toward the place you’d gone under.

The cold didn’t register. Not the air, not the wind, not the water as it seeped through the cracks already kissing the soles of his boots. The serum kept his blood from reacting the way a normal man’s would. No immediate shock. No burning in the lungs. But it didn’t make him immune to the knowledge of what cold did to you.

You had maybe ninety seconds before the water started convincing your body to stop trying.

His hand was already going to his comm.

“Belova, she fell through,” he said, voice sharp, clipped. “The lake. Northwest section. I’m going in.”

Yelena’s reply came fast, static, then her voice, tight with urgency. “That lake is thirty meters deep in the center, Barnes. If you lose her—”

“I won’t.”

“You better not. I’ll find a snowmobile. If you’re still breathing, I’ll come get you.”

He reached the hole, just barely visible now. It was a jagged, black wound in the surface, already sheeting over at the edges with a thin glaze of refreeze. He dropped to his knees, leaned over, peered in—

And saw nothing.

Just black.

No movement. No sound. No trace.

“Northwest,” he repeated, already stripping his rifle off one shoulder and driving it into the snow at the edge of the break. “Tell evac. We’ll need heat. And a med kit.”

“Copy,” she said. “Don’t die.”

He could feel the press of his heartbeat in his teeth.

“Shit.” His voice cracked out of him like a whip.

He stripped the rifle from his shoulder, shoved it into the snow behind him, and without another thought, threw himself in.

The lake gripped him like a vice.

It wasn’t like diving into water. It was like diving into a vacuum. It swallowed him. Crushed him. Everything disappeared at once. Sight, sound, weight. He didn’t kick. Didn’t thrash. He let himself drop, arms out, the metal of his left dragging him faster. One breath in his lungs. That’s all he allowed.

He opened his eyes.

There was nothing.

Only black, smeared with silver light from the hole above him, already shifting, narrowing. Snow-dust had drifted across the opening. It would vanish in seconds. He needed to find you now.

He rotated once. No sign of you. Kicked again, deeper. The pressure increased, the cold turning the skin of his right arm to fire. He ignored it. Turned again. Saw—

Movement.

To his left.

A flicker. A shape. Limbs caught in the water’s drag. No fight in them.

He pushed toward it.

You weren’t moving. Your arms floated loosely, your legs bent at strange angles, one boot still half-trailing a blood-red ribbon through the current. Your head was tilted, hair haloing out in the dark.

For a split-second, something in him broke.

He reached you in three kicks. One arm wrapped around your chest, hand braced under your jaw, holding your head above your shoulders. Your face was waxy, mouth parted, lashes spiked with ice. He pulled you in, curled his metal arm across your ribs, and angled upward.

The surface was gone.

The hole was gone, nowhere near.

He turned in a tight circle, one-handed, dragging you with him. No openings. No shadows above, no light. The ice was seamless.

His vision tunneled.

He launched upward, fist first, and when his knuckles hit solid, he didn’t stop. He punched.

The sound was muffled underwater, more sensation than noise. The vibration hit his bones, the resistance of ancient ice refusing to yield. He drove his arm up again—once, twice—until the metal met fracture.

The ice split.

The hole widened just enough. He kicked upward and shoved you ahead of him, breaking the surface with a gasp you didn’t make.

The air burned. The cold above was nothing compared to below.

He hauled himself out of the water, grabbing you under the arms and dragging you with him, the both of you half-dead and slick with lakewater, steam rolling off your clothes as the air hit them.

You weren’t breathing.

“No—” he rasped. He dropped to his knees, pressed two fingers under your jaw. Nothing. His hand flattened against your chest. Still nothing. He tipped your head, cleared your mouth, and without pausing, sealed his lips to yours and breathed.

Twice.

Again.

Your body jerked, but only from the force.

He pressed down hard. His hands trembled, just slightly. Not from the cold.

“C’mon,” he muttered, voice cracked and low, barely human. “Don’t you fucking dare—”

Another breath.

You coughed.

Violent. Wet. Your whole frame arched up before collapsing into him, lungs sputtering lakewater and whatever else you’d swallowed, mouth opening to drag in air like it hurt to exist.

Bucky’s arms locked around you the second your head tilted forward.

You were shaking now. Not convulsing. Not yet. But the kind of full-body tremor that said your blood wasn’t moving fast enough. That your skin was freezing from the inside out.

“I got you,” he whispered, over and over, voice half-strangled as he pulled you close, as close as he could get without hurting you more. “I got you, I got you.”

He didn’t realize he was rocking you until your fingers clenched in his jacket. A tiny, involuntary twitch—no force behind it, no awareness—but it was enough. Enough to tell him you were still here. Still fighting. Still fucking breathing.

“Easy,” he whispered against your hair. “Just stay with me. I’ve got you.”

You made a sound. Barely anything. A cracked whimper caught in the wreckage of your throat. He pressed a hand to the back of your neck, fingers splayed wide, trying to shield as much of your skin as he could from the wind.

Your body was ice. Every inch soaked through. Your gear, your boots, the back of your neck, all of it was clinging to you like a second skin, each layer working against you now, not for.

The low snarl of a snowmobile engine cut through the trees, carving hard across the frozen ground. He didn’t look up. Didn’t shift. Just curled tighter around you and angled his body between yours and the open lake.

The engine cut off twenty feet away, skidding to a halt. Snow crunched under boots. Then—

“Shit.” Yelena’s voice dropped the usual smirk. “She’s hypothermic?”

“Full submersion,” Bucky said, barely audible. “At least a minute. Maybe longer.”

Yelena was already moving, yanking her pack off and crouching beside him. “Then we need her out of those clothes, now. You too. You’re soaked.”

“I’m fine.”

“You’re wet,” she snapped. “You’re not immortal.”

“She’s freezing.”

“Exactly why we strip her down and use what’s dry. I brought a tarp rig for the back—get her on it. We’ll wrap her, I’ll drive.”

Bucky didn’t argue. He peeled his jacket off one arm, then the other, movements sharp and economical. It hit the snow with a wet slap. His gear vest followed. Then he reached for the zipper at your collar, fingers already numbing where they met the icy fabric.

“Hey,” he said softly, tipping your chin. Your eyes fluttered open for a breath, then closed again. “I know it’s cold. But we gotta get you out of this stuff. Alright?”

You didn’t answer. Just let him move you, limp and loose like your bones had gone slack. He tried to be fast. Careful. Stripped your coat first, then the soaked thermal underlayer, exposing your shoulders to the air. You flinched. He wanted to curse out loud. Wanted to punch the goddamn lake.

Yelena shrugged off her own jacket. “Here.”

He took it without looking and shoved your arms through the sleeves. It was warm. And dry. It didn’t matter if it was hers or his or stolen off a corpse. He’d have wrapped you in skin if it meant getting your body temp up fast enough.

But it wasn’t enough.

Your pants were soaked through. So were the boots. And your left leg—fuck.

He saw the blood pooled inside the boot as he started to peel it off. Frozen red around the seams. Your thigh was still bleeding, sluggish now from shock, but still enough to be dangerous.

“Yelena,” he barked without turning. “Gauze. Whatever you’ve got.”

“Med kit’s in the sled,” she called, already unrolling the tow platform and yanking the thermal tarp open. “Field wrap’s on the side.”

He ripped the second boot off, tossed both aside. The pants clung like wet parchment. He muttered something sharp under his breath and took the knife from his belt, slicing the fabric clean up the seam to the waistband. He didn’t pause. Didn’t look at your face. Just cut them free and tossed them into the snow.

Your leg was a mess. Torn muscle, ragged edge, blood sluggish but still weeping. He didn’t have time to be gentle. He grabbed the wrap from Yelena’s outstretched hand and packed the gauze into the wound, fingers fast and precise. Then he cinched the bandage tight just above your knee.

You groaned, weak and hoarse, but it meant you were still responsive.

“I know,” he muttered. “I know it hurts. Just hang on.”

Yelena was already back at the sled, lifting the flap on the side and unfurling the padding. “We’ve got maybe ten minutes before she drops out completely. Help me get her in.”

He moved without answering. One arm behind your back, one under your legs. You were a deadweight bundle of wet limbs and heatless skin.

Together, they settled you into the tow rig—padded, shielded at the sides, thermal canopy overhead. Standard evac mod. But it still looked like a coffin.

He hated that it looked like a coffin.

Yelena threw him a blanket roll, and he tucked it tight over your chest and shoulders, then your hips and thighs, arms crossed low over your ribs. Your skin was damp, your hair frozen at the ends, lashes rimmed in ice. He didn’t let himself stop moving. He kept one hand pressed just over your heart, the other ready to shield your face from wind.

His hand stayed there.

Just a second too long.

She didn’t call him on it.

“You’re going with her,” Yelena said instead, already climbing back onto the snowmobile. “I can drive. You monitor her breathing. Try and get her talking if you can. If she fully passes out—”

“She won’t.”

“I’m just saying—”

“She won’t.”

His voice was steel. He wasn’t yelling. He wasn’t pleading. He just knew.

Yelena didn’t argue again. She gunned the engine, and the machine roared to life.

He climbed into the tow sled, kneeling beside you, one hand on your chest, the other braced against the frame. Wind blasted past them as they launched forward, but he didn’t feel it.

All he felt was the shallow rise and fall beneath his hand.

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You surfaced slowly.

Not all at once. Not in a cinematic way—no gasping, no full-body jolt, no sudden realization that you were still alive. Just pressure. First behind your eyes, then in your chest. A tightness, dull and deep, like your lungs had been filled with stones and someone had stacked their weight across your ribcage to make sure they stayed there.

Your mouth was open. You hadn’t meant it to be. Something cool and artificial was feeding air through your nose, down your throat. Plastic tubing, you realized after a beat, half-formed thoughts dragging behind sensation. An oxygen cannula. 

Your head ached.

Not a sharp pain. Not even pain, really. Just distance. Like your skull had been filled with static and your thoughts had to crawl through it on hands and knees to reach you. When you tried to move, just a twitch of your shoulder, your body didn’t respond. Not fully. Your nerves were slow, reluctant. Your arms felt like they belonged to someone else.

Then, light. Soft, not blinding. White above you. Clinical. Cold. You tried to blink and felt the dry pull of your lashes against skin that had been left too long without moisture.

There were sounds now. Somewhere in the periphery.

Muffled voices. Beeping.

A hiss of something mechanical resetting. Maybe a vitals monitor, maybe a heat unit.

The next thing you noticed was your skin.

Your entire body felt like it had been peeled back and glued together wrong. Your legs ached. Not in the sharp, obvious way of a gunshot or blade, but deeper. Bone deep. Joint deep. There was a dull, pulsing throb in your left thigh that you couldn’t place, and you realized after a moment that you didn’t want to.

You were alive.

You weren’t supposed to be.

A slow breath pulled through your chest. It hurt. Not like you’d broken anything, but like your lungs had fought too hard to keep you, and they were punishing you for it now. You could feel the heaviness in them, the stiffness—residual fluid, probably. You weren’t coughing, but your chest was tight, and something wet shifted faintly every time you inhaled.

Hypothermia. Near-drowning. Soft tissue trauma. Blood loss.

The words filtered in one by one like files retrieved from a burned cabinet.

You didn’t remember the evac. Just ice. The smell of pine. A scream half-swallowed by the wind. The weight of water crushing your body into stillness. And then, heat. Arms. Metal against your ribs. Something solid that refused to let go.

Something you’d stopped fighting for before it found you.

There was a voice outside the room, beyond a curtain surrounding you. Sharp. Familiar.

Yelena.

“—two hours max. That’s what the doc said. She needs rest, not another round of brooding Bucky Barnes breathing exercises.”

A grunt. Quieter. Male.

“Don’t look at me like that.”

A beat.

“Oh my god. You’re already doing it.”

You tried to turn your head toward the sound, but your body was too heavy. The world tilted and dragged behind you. Then, footsteps. Two sets. One softer, reluctant. One clipped.

They didn’t come in.

Their voices faded just enough to let the quiet crawl back in. Only the monitors kept humming, a soft rhythmic count of your survival, like the room was measuring every second you stayed alive and wasn’t convinced yet that you would.

You lay there, still and heavy, unsure if your body would obey you at all. Everything felt wrapped in gauze. Muted. Far away. But your chest remembered. The weight, the pressure, the water. The ache that lingered behind your ribs told you the lake hadn’t really let go. Not completely.

You tried again.

It wasn’t even a word at first. Just a shift. A breath caught too sharply in your throat. Your fingers twitched against the blanket. Or maybe they didn’t. Maybe you imagined it. You turned your head, just barely, toward the voices outside the curtain, and let your lips part.

“Buck—”

Your voice wasn’t a voice. It was air dragged across a raw throat, shredded in the middle, collapsing before it made it to sound. But it was enough. Enough to make the effort real. Enough to make your pulse spike on the monitor. Enough to send a tremor through your lungs.

The curtain shifted instantly.

Then opened.

Bucky’s silhouette filled the space between the light and the noise. For a second, he didn’t say anything. Just looked at you, jaw clenched, shoulders set. His face didn’t change, but you saw it anyway. Relief. The kind that didn’t need expression to be known.

“You’re awake.” His voice was low. Too steady.

You swallowed—or tried to. It scraped. Burned. Your throat felt flayed.

He crossed the room in two strides, dropping into the chair beside your bed like he’d been ready to launch himself forward the whole time and was only now allowed. His hand hovered near yours, not quite touching.

“Do you need the doc?” he asked. “I’ll go get them. Just hold on—”

You moved before you could think.

Not much. Not even fast. But your hand lifted, weak and trembling, and curled around his wrist as he started to move. The motion cost everything. Your arm dropped a second later like it had been cut loose, but it did its job.

Bucky froze.

You tried to speak again. The word caught halfway up your throat and crumpled. You coughed instead, once, hard enough to burn, and his hand was on you instantly, palm flat against your sternum like he could keep you from falling apart just by holding you still.

“You’re okay.” His voice was different now. Thinner. “You’re okay. Just breathe.”

You tried.

Your chest shook with it. Your lungs were still too tight. Too full of memory. But the oxygen tubing helped, and eventually the coughing stopped. Your body settled back against the sheets, exhausted from the effort of existing.

His hand didn’t move.

“I’m fine,” you rasped. Or tried to.

The word sounded nothing like a word.

It scraped the back of your throat and shattered. You winced. He shook his head once, almost imperceptible.

“Don’t,” he murmured. “You don’t have to talk. Not yet.”

You blinked up at him.

He was too close. Not in a way that made you uncomfortable, never that, but in the way that made you aware of how much space he took up without saying a word. The way his presence made the machines quieter. The way the lines around his mouth looked carved from stone. The way his hand hadn’t left your chest.

“You scared the hell out of me,” he said, softer now. “I thought—”

He didn’t finish.

You didn’t need him to.

You felt it in the way his shoulders curled forward. In the way he kept watching your pulse monitor like it owed him something. In the way his eyes kept returning to your mouth, to your neck, to the shallow rise and fall that proved you were still here.

You opened your mouth again.

The words didn’t come. You weren’t sure they could. Your throat felt like someone had taken a wire brush to the inside of it. But you moved your lips anyway, slow, deliberate, shaping around the simplest thing you could mouth.

How long?

Bucky blinked.

For a second, you thought maybe he hadn’t caught it. Then his hand left your chest—not completely, just enough to curl around your wrist again, warm and solid, anchoring.

“Seven days,” he said quietly. “You’ve been under for seven.”

You let that sit. Let it press.

Seven days.

Not just unconscious. Unresponsive. Monitored. Kept warm. Intubated, probably, if your throat was any indication. You were certain there’d been a moment, maybe more than one, where they weren’t sure you were going to come back at all. Where your body might have decided to give up on the rest of you even after the lake let you go.

You let your head tip, eyes dragging slowly across the room. The motion made your neck ache. Even that, especially that, felt like a small defeat.

There was a table beside the bed. Narrow. Stainless steel. You hadn’t noticed it before.

It was cluttered.

Not with the usual medical shit. Not gauze or tubing or pill cups. Something else. Something… softer.

There were a few folded paper cranes, wings dipped in bright marker ink. A knitted square of fabric, uneven at the edges, with a giant uneven “W” stitched into the center in dark blue yarn. A cheap plastic snow globe—Branson, Missouri—with fake snow and a peeling label. A tiny flickering LED tea light. A single packet of hot chocolate. A folded sketch torn from someone’s notebook paper.

You stared at it. Confused.

Your brow furrowed, unsteady, and you felt Bucky’s eyes move with yours.

He shifted in his chair, the leather creaking faintly under him.

“Those are from Bob.” He nodded toward the cranes. “He said paper folding helps with anxiety. Sat outside your room for two hours trying to get that red one right. Said you’d like it because it was ugly. Had character.”

Your lips twitched. Or tried to. He saw it.

Bob had tried to teach you once, back when missions were lighter and your hands steadier. He’d brought a pack of neon origami paper into the rec room like it was contraband, all sheepish grin and muttered instructions, and you’d spent an hour cursing under your breath while he quietly folded a perfect flock beside you. 

You never managed a proper crane, just a deeply cursed paper lump with uneven wings, but he’d kept it anyway. Called it your “battle bird.” Said it looked like it had been through something. Just like you.

“The tea light is Ava’s,” Bucky continued. “She said you always lit a candle on briefing nights. Figured you’d want one burning when you woke up.”

You did. Always the same squat little votive, tucked on the corner of your desk, flickering through every debrief while the rest of the team pretended not to notice. Ava had, though—said the sound and smell helped her keep her pacing in check, the rhythm of it steadier than her own breath some nights.

Bucky pointed at the snow globe, grimacing. “Walker. No note. Don’t ask.”

You made a rough sound, not quite a laugh, and regretted it immediately. Your chest ached. You swallowed it down.

Of course he brought Branson, Missouri.

The man had one week of leave and spent it sending you unsolicited selfies from a dinner theater called “Yakov’s Last Laugh,” wearing a cowboy hat two sizes too small and arguing over text about whether Silver Dollar City technically counted as “historic.”

You’d told him Branson wasn’t a real place. Just a Midwest fever dream built entirely out of unlicensed Elvis impersonators and knockoff Dollywood energy. He’d called it “America’s soul.”

You’d called it “a cry for help in gift shop form.”

And now it sat beside your medical chart, a tiny, glittering monument to the world’s pettiest inside joke.

God help you if it made you smile again.

“The sketch is from Alexei,” he went on. “It’s supposed to be you in the snow, fighting a bear. Or dancing with one. He wasn’t clear.”

You blinked slowly. That tracked. He’d once told you, entirely unprompted, that your “ferocity under pressure” reminded him of a Siberian she-bear. You’d assumed it was a compliment. Probably.

“And that,” he added, gesturing to the hot chocolate, “Yelena. Said hospital cocoa was an abomination and if she caught you drinking any she’d pull your IV herself.”

You smiled faintly. Yelena was the one who started it. Midnight cocoa in the mess when neither of you could sleep, hands still shaking from whatever dreams you'd clawed your way out of. No talking. No questions. Just heat, sugar, and silence until your pulses evened out again. A truce in a mug.

Your throat was still raw. You didn’t dare try a full word, but the question was there—in the slow blink, the glance toward the yarn.

“That’s from Walker too,” Bucky said, deadpan. “He learned to knit. Apparently.”

Your eyes drifted back to him. He hadn’t looked away from you once. Not really.

There was one more thing on the table. You hadn’t noticed it before. Smaller than the rest. Set slightly apart. A small matchbox-sized tin. Dark blue. Metal. Worn at the corners.

Bucky followed your gaze. His jaw tightened.

You looked at him.

He didn’t speak.

Just reached over slowly, picked it up, turned it once in his palm like he wasn’t sure if he regretted leaving it there.

Then he held it out to you. Didn’t press it into your hand, just let it rest there, cradled against his fingers, waiting.

You tilted your head toward it, but your muscles were still too slow, coordination still too shot. He noticed. Said nothing. Just flipped the lid open himself.

Inside, nestled into the tin’s base on a folded strip of linen, was a tiny object. Barely bigger than your thumb. Faintly metallic. Dull silver at the edges, matte black at the center.

It was a music box cylinder. A fragment. Something old, worn smooth. The kind used in hand-crank players—the ones tucked inside the little wind-up boxes you used to fidget with as a child, flipping them open and closed like they were meant to be solved.

You blinked.

Once.

Twice.

Bucky was watching you. Carefully. Like the weight of your reaction might crack him open.

“You said,” he said quietly, “a few months ago… that you had one when you were a kid. Broke in a move. Said you remembered the sound but not the song.”

You remembered. You hadn’t thought he had.

You hadn’t thought anyone had been listening.

“I found that in a market in Riga,” he went on, voice low, roughened at the edges. “The guy didn’t know what it played. Didn’t have the housing. Just this. It was rusted shut. Took me a few days to clean it.”

He paused.

“I was gonna wait to give it to you. But I didn’t know when the right time was.”

You tried to speak again. Your throat clenched. No sound came.

Still—you pushed the air up, forced it out like it owed you something. Like you had to say it, even if it burned.

“Why?”

It rasped out of you like broken glass dragged across stone. More breath than voice. But the word made it past your lips this time, and that was enough.

Bucky didn’t answer right away.

Didn’t look at you, either. Not at first. His eyes had dropped back to the tin, as if the shape of it might tell him how to start.

The silence stretched.

You didn’t push him.

“I didn’t know if you’d want it,” he said finally. The words came low. Barely above a whisper. “Didn’t know if it meant anything coming from me.”

He shifted in the chair like he didn’t trust it to hold his weight. Like he was trying not to lean too close.

“You said that thing about the music box and it just—stuck. I don’t even think you realized you said it. We were talking about… something else. Some mission. I can’t even remember which. You were just fiddling with your comm and you mentioned it. How the song used to help you sleep, but now you can’t remember the tune. Just that it made you feel… safe. Back then.”

He rubbed his thumb over his knee, like he needed something to ground himself.

“I remembered,” he said again, quieter this time. “And I kept looking. For months. In every market, every junk bin, every fucked-up antique shop we passed through. Most of them were trash. Broken. Stolen. Or the wrong kind. But then I found that one. Just the cylinder. No box. No sound. Just…possibility.”

His jaw twitched.

“I figured I’d give it to you when… I don’t know. When things slowed down. When we weren’t bleeding every week or crawling through wreckage or losing people left and right. But things don’t slow down. Not for us. So I waited.”

He finally looked at you.

And the look in his eyes—God. It made your breath stutter beneath the oxygen tube. It wasn’t pity. It wasn’t soft, either. It was sharp. Too sharp. Like the only way he knew how to look at you was like he was still checking for exit wounds.

“I thought I missed my chance.”

He said it so plainly you almost didn’t feel it at first. But it settled in your chest like a weight. Like truth.

“I thought you were gone,” he went on. “On that lake… when I couldn’t find the surface, when I finally got you out, when your body—” He stopped himself. Shook his head. “You weren’t moving. You weren’t breathing. You were just drifting. And I remember thinking—that’s it. That’s the end. That’s where I lose you.”

Your chest tightened. Not from pain. Not from cold. Just the sound of him.

“I don’t lose people like that anymore,” he said. “Not like I used to. Not if I can help it. And sure, I’ve said that before. But this time—” His voice cracked, just once. “This time it was you.”

You blinked. Hard.

He leaned forward now, elbows braced on his knees, voice lower than before.

“You don’t get it,” he said, rambling on like the words were exiting his mouth before he even thought about them. “You think you’re just… part of the team. That you’re one of us. And you are. But it’s not the same. Not for me.”

He exhaled, sharp and tired and fraying.

“You get under my skin in ways that nothing else does. You keep me tethered when shit goes sideways. You ask questions no one else asks. You call me on my bullshit without making it feel like I’m back in some shrink’s office getting dissected. You make space. And I didn’t know how much I needed that—no—wanted it. Until I thought I’d lost it.”

You didn’t know you’d started crying until you tasted salt at the edge of your mouth. Just a few tears. Silent. Clean. Your throat hurt too much for sobbing. Your eyes hurt too much to keep them open.

But he noticed.

He sat forward quickly, hand reaching for the call button. “Shit—do you want the doc? I can get them, they said to page if you—”

You lifted your hand again. Just barely. Just enough to curl your fingers around his wrist.

“No,” you whispered. Barely there. Barely sound.

His hand hovered an inch above the call button, frozen. You felt the way his wrist flexed beneath your fingers, the way the tendons in his forearm pulled tight like he wasn’t sure whether to move or stay. His eyes searched your face again, sharp and clinical for one second—checking your color, your breathing, your pupils—and then he exhaled, quieter this time. Sat back.

Didn’t pull away.

You swallowed. The effort scraped down your throat like sandpaper, but you did it anyway. Forced air past the ruined edges of your voice until it shaped something. Small. Crooked. Yours.

“I didn’t… know you remembered,” you rasped, each word a dry scrape across something bruised and tender. “The music box.”

Bucky exhaled. Short. Quiet. Almost a laugh, except there was nothing funny in it.

“I remember everything you don’t think I do,” he said. “You always think no one’s paying attention. But I see it. All of it. The way you cover for people when they’re tired. How you pass your dessert off to Bob when he pretends he’s not hungry. That little stretch you do before every mission.”

Your lips parted, breath caught halfway to forming something else. But your throat cracked mid-inhale, so you let it go. Let him keep speaking.

He leaned forward again, this time more gently, his forearms braced on either side of your legs, like he was trying to fold himself smaller. Make himself quieter. Like he didn’t want the rest of the world to hear what came next.

“I see you,” he repeated, quieter now. “Even when you think you’re blending in. When you’re holding it together for everyone else.”

You blinked slowly. The tears had stopped, or maybe your body had just run out. Your eyes burned from the effort of keeping them open. But they stayed on him.

“I think…” You paused, tried to clear your throat, but it made it worse. You grimaced through it, blinked hard. He moved like he might reach for you, or call again, but you shook your head, barely. 

“Let me,” you croaked, voice shot to hell, every syllable catching like thread pulled through torn cloth. “I think I… do the stretch… because I’m scared.”

His eyes didn’t widen. He didn’t flinch. Just watched. Still. So fucking still.

You blinked again, slow and raw. “Not of dying. Not really.”

That earned a twitch of his mouth. Not amusement. Something darker. Sadder. Knowing.

“Of what, then?” he asked, voice low.

You swallowed hard. The air in your lungs felt too thick now, heavy with what you hadn’t said before the lake took you. “Of… getting close. Of being… close. And then it ending.”

Something in his expression fractured. Not broken, not open, just bare. Like you’d peeled something back without meaning to. Like you’d stepped too close to the place he kept boarded up with silence and mission reports and one-liners that didn’t quite pass for humor.

He nodded once. Not like he was agreeing. Like he understood.

“You’re not the only one,” he said quietly. “You think I didn’t notice how long it took you to unpack after the Bataysk job? You kept your bag zipped by the door for three weeks.”

You almost laughed. Almost. But it came out too soft, caught on the edge of a breath.

“You knew?”

“I always knew.”

You looked at him again. Really looked. His hands weren’t covered by gloves like they normally were. They were bare, calloused, fingertips nicked and bruised. His left hand rested beside your blanket, the metal dull and wet-lit under the fluorescents, motionless.

Your hand moved before your brain caught up.

Weak. Slow. You lifted your fingers and reached for the edge of his sleeve, but your arm shook with the effort and dropped short. He caught it before it fell completely—his flesh hand, warm and scarred and careful—and guided your palm over the metal one like it wasn’t strange at all. Like you’d done it a thousand times. His jaw ticked.

“It’s cold,” you whispered.

He nodded. “I know.”

“I don’t mind.”

He let his thumb brush across the edge of your wrist, slow and grounding. Not a stroke. Not comforting. Just there. “I didn’t think I’d get to tell you any of this,” he said. “When I pulled you out, when you weren’t breathing, I—” He cut himself off again, jaw tightening. “I thought you were already gone.”

You wanted to say something, anything, but the only sound you made was breath.

It was enough.

“I wasn’t ready to lose you,” he said. “Not like that. Not ever. But especially not without… you knowing.”

Your throat pulled tight.

“Knowing what?” you whispered, wrecked.

He didn’t hesitate.

“That I give a damn. That I think about you more than I should. That you’re not just some mission partner I cover in the field. That you matter.”

You opened your mouth again. Closed it. Your lips trembled.

Bucky moved closer, just slightly, head still bowed low like the words had weight. Like if he spoke too loud they might splinter.

“You matter to me,” he said. “More than I ever planned for.”

Your eyes burned. Your hand twitched in his, a pathetic excuse for a squeeze, but he felt it. He held on tighter.

You swallowed again, painful and raw. “Me too,” you said, barely audible. “You… matter.”

Something broke in his face. Not his composure. Not his strength. Just the smallest trace of distance, pulled away. A breath he hadn’t been able to take until now.

You saw it in his eyes.

And maybe that would’ve been enough. Maybe in another world—one with less noise, less blood—you would’ve stayed like that for another minute. Maybe you would’ve reached for him again, said something more, pulled the words from the ruin of your voice just to hear him say your name in that same, low, wrecked way.

But this wasn’t that world.

And the curtain tore open before you could even draw your next breath.

“MY BEAR CUB LIVES!”

Alexei’s voice exploded through the medbay like cannon fire, and before you could brace for it, before Bucky could so much as turn in his seat, there were arms. So many arms. Warm, clumsy, massive arms wrapping around you like a weighted blanket made of noise and Soviet linen.

You wheezed. A sharp, involuntary gasp you couldn’t help as Alexei crushed half your torso in a rib-cracking hug.

Bucky was on his feet instantly. “Hey—hey! Easy! Watch it, she’s still—”

“Bah!” Alexei cut him off with a wave of one enormous hand. “She is strong! Like small elk! Look at this—already upright, already beautiful, skin like ice sculpture!” He reached out and cradled your jaw for a second, then kissed your forehead in a way that nearly knocked the oxygen cannula askew. “You do not die on me. You are not allowed to die on me. I would never forgive you.”

“I tried to stop him,” Yelena muttered dryly, appearing behind him with arms crossed and absolutely no remorse. “I tackled him in the hallway. Didn’t matter. He just kept bounding.”

She was flanked by three more figures—Bob, shifting awkwardly and clutching a bouquet that looked like it had been stolen from a funeral arrangement, Ava hovering beside him with a look of cautious relief, and John leaning just far enough into the room to smirk.

“Look who decided to rejoin the land of the living,” Walker called, voice light but eyes sharp. “Don’t do that again. It’s bad for team morale.”

Bucky hadn’t moved far from your bedside, just enough to make room, to stop Alexei from inadvertently crushing a vein or breaking an already-bruised rib. He was still watching you, eyes flicking between your face and your vitals monitor like he couldn’t help himself.

Alexei finally released you with a thud and an affectionate slap to the shoulder that nearly dislocated something. You blinked hard through the swirl of motion, coughing once as your lungs protested the sudden influx of people and oxygen.

“Careful,” Bucky muttered again, more to himself than anyone else.

But you caught his wrist before he could move back.

Just a small touch. Nothing demanding. Just enough.

He didn’t say anything. Didn’t need to.

The others kept talking—Yelena launching into a commentary about how ugly the paper cranes were before realizing Bob made them and immediately changing the subject, Ava threatening to install a lock on the medbay door, Bob quietly asking if you wanted him to adjust the light overhead, Walker declaring he’d brought “real food” and pulling a suspicious-looking bag from behind his back that Yelena immediately swatted out of his hands.

It was chaos. Loud and jagged and human.

But you didn’t look at them.

You looked at Bucky.

And he looked at you.

And in that small, quiet moment—under the hum of machines, under the curtain pulled halfway back, under the noise and the mess and the aching throb in your chest—you felt it settle. All of it. The tension. The fear. The distance you’d both kept because you didn’t know what would happen if you crossed it.

He stayed exactly where you needed him. Elbow resting on the frame of your bed, hand lax in your grip, eyes never leaving yours even when someone bumped the curtain again or when Yelena started swearing in Russian under her breath because she had opened the bag Walker had and apparently it smelled.

You didn’t speak.

Neither did he.

But your fingers stayed curled around his wrist, weak and unsteady, still trembling from the cold that still lived somewhere in your bones, and he didn’t pull away.

Didn’t shift.

Didn’t give you some line about rest or recovery or needing to take a break from all this noise.

He just stayed.

Not because you asked.

But because that’s what he did.

What he’d always done, quietly, behind the chaos.

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Pink Skies | Bucky Barnes

Word count: 17k

Warnings: Death, Angst, sadness idk

A/N: Working on the next couple parts of Yours, Always. Found this fully finished One Shot i forgot to post i guess lol Not proofreading, enjoy!

He left, and the world didn’t end but something in you did. What followed wasn’t healing, not at first, just presence, patience, and hands that never let go.

-----

You met Steve Rogers long before you knew what it meant to be the man on the posters.

Before you knew what his name meant, before you saw they built statues in his honor, before you noticed what that shield truly meant and the silence and the burden of everyone else’s expectations. You knew him when his shoulders still carried guilt heavier than any battlefield. You knew him when his hands shook, when his voice cracked, when he sat in the dark listening to jazz records because the world had moved too fast and he couldn’t quite catch up and he knew you when you were still afraid of your own power, when the wind howled because your heartbeat did, when the ground trembled under your feet without you meaning it to.

Steve found you in the middle of a mission gone wrong young, scared, half-buried beneath the wreckage of a burning compound in the middle of the mountains, your fingertips lit with sparks of a storm that hadn’t learned how to rain gently. You were a weapon. You were a ghost. But he didn’t look at you like that. He looked at you like someone worth saving and from that day on, he never stopped saving you.

You were never just another mission report to him. You became the one he trusted to watch his six, the one who could calm his breathing when the air got too thin, the one who sat beside him after long battles when he didn’t have words for what he was feeling. You called him Cap for years, but eventually it softened into Steve and eventually, Steve became family.

So when the world broke apart, when the Accords tore the team in half and the sky stopped pretending to be safe you didn’t hesitate. You stood by him. Even when it meant running. Even when it meant losing everything else. Because you trusted him. Always, and when he told you Bucky Barnes was worth saving, you didn’t question that either. You helped him bring Bucky home. You helped him heal. Even if Bucky was a stranger to you, the kind with quiet eyes and decades of pain stitched into his silences. You didn’t need to know Bucky to believe in him.

You only needed to know Steve.

And then you were gone.

Dusted away in an instant that rewrote the sky and for what felt like seconds to turn out to be five years, there was nothing. No air, no sound, no time. Just nothing. But when you came back, when your feet hit solid ground again and your body remembered how to breathe it was Steve who was there waiting. He held you like you weren’t real, like you would slip away all over again. Like something he couldn’t believe had come back to him.

You didn’t realize then it would be the last time he ever looked at you like that.

The night before he returned the stones, you found him sitting on the porch of the cabin, the shield at his feet and the sky bleeding gold into the lake.

You hesitated in the doorway. Watched the way the light touched his profile, how tired he looked. How much older than the last time you’d really seen him. The silence between the three of you felt like something sacred, or maybe like something already ending. Bucky was leaned against the railing, arms folded, eyes locked on the horizon, like he was trying not to look at either of you.

You stepped forward, slow and careful, like your presence might crack whatever this moment was and you already knew. Before Steve said a word. You knew.

“You’re not coming back,” you said, your voice quiet, but steady. It wasn’t a question. It was already the truth.

Steve turned toward you. Met your eyes. “No,” he said softly. “I’m not.”

The air changed. The wind stilled. The world held its breath, just like you held yours. 

You stared at him, blinking slow, as if the weight of his words hadn’t fully landed yet. But then they did and the storm started building in your chest, hot and tight and shaking.

“You told me we’d be okay,” you whispered. “You promised me. After everything, we lost five years. Five years, Steve. And you brought us back. You brought me back. Just to leave?”

His jaw clenched, but he didn’t look away.

“Why?” you asked. Your voice was cracking now, because your heart was. “Why now? Why her?”

Steve exhaled, like the answer hurt him too. “Because I owe it to myself. To the man I used to be. I owe him a life.”

You shook your head. “And what about the life you built here? What about the people who needed you, who still need you?”

His voice was gentler now. “You’re strong. You always have been. You and Bucky—”

“Don’t!” you snapped, stepping back. “Don’t put this on him. Don’t act like we’re just going to pick up the pieces together because you decided to disappear.”

Steve swallowed hard. “I’m not disappearing.”

“Yes, you are,” you said. “You’re choosing to walk away. From all of this. From me.”

The look in his eyes nearly undid you. Regret and guilt. But no change of heart.

“You were the first person who ever made me feel safe,” you whispered. “You were the first one who didn’t look at me like I was dangerous or broken or too much. You were my family. You are my family and now you’re leaving. Just like everybody else.”

His voice was quiet. “You’re not alone.”

You didn’t answer. Couldn’t.

You turned before your hands started to shake. Before the tears made it to your throat. Before Bucky, silent and still as stone could say anything at all.

You walked back into the cabin, the storm at your heels and you didn’t come out the next morning.

Didn’t watch him step onto the platform. Didn’t say goodbye. Didn’t see him pass the shield to Sam. You stayed inside, staring at the walls like they might give you answers he wouldn’t.

Because the truth is, you didn’t lose Steve the day he went back. You lost him the moment he decided that his future didn’t include you.

He was never a maybe. Never a second guess. He was home. The closest thing to unconditional you ever had and losing that, losing him wasn’t just grief.

It was abandonment.

And nothing you could summon, not fire, not wind, not thunder could protect you from that kind of hurt.

Steve did technically come back, but not the way you needed him to.

Not as the man who used to sit across from you on long missions and fall asleep mid-sentence, head tilted back, shield leaning against his chair like it was just another piece of luggage. Not as the one who made you feel like you belonged in your own skin. He didn’t come back as the person who knew how to help you breathe when your powers spun out or how to stand close without making you feel small. He didn’t come back with his sleeves rolled up and worry in his voice and that firm, steady certainty that used to hold you up when you couldn’t hold yourself. No. He came back as something else. Someone else. An old man with a soft smile and the kind of peace in his eyes that made you ache, because it meant he wasn’t carrying you anymore. Because it meant he had set it all down. Including you.

You weren’t beside Bucky like Steve always said you would be. You had been long gone by then disappeared the way you always feared you might, turned invisible by grief and disbelief and something sharp that lived deep in your gut where your loyalty used to sit. And when Sam looked around after taking that shield, his hands heavier for it, his heart unsure, he didn’t see you. He glanced toward Bucky, quiet and tense, like the silence had finally gotten too loud.

“Is that why she’s not here?” Sam asked quietly, his voice dipped low. “Because of this? Because he left? Did you both know?”

Bucky didn’t answer right away. He kept his eyes on the trees on the exact spot where Steve had once stood, his hand on both their shoulders, telling them they’d always have each other. Like that promise hadn’t splintered the moment Steve chose the past over everything they were still trying to hold onto. After a long, brittle silence, Bucky exhaled. “Yeah,” he said. “We knew.”

Sam didn’t respond at first. Just nodded once. Like it hurts to understand. Like it hurt more than he thought it would. “Do you know where she is?”

Bucky shook his head. “No. I don’t.”

Because whatever had tethered the three of them had come undone the second Steve walked away and the only person who might’ve helped knot it back together was gone, because he chose to be.

The messages started a few days later.

Sam’s voice, softer than usual. Hesitant, like he didn’t want to push. Like he was knocking on a door he wasn’t sure he had the right to open anymore.

“Hey,” he said the first time. Just that. A beat of silence. “I don’t know where you are. Or what you’re feeling. But I hope you’re safe.”

The second voicemail came the next day. “I know you think nobody gets it. But I do. He was my family too.”

The third. “You didn’t lose everyone. Not this time. You still have me.”

The fourth. “You don’t have to call me back. I just want you to know I’m here. That you’re not alone.”

You never deleted them.

You listened in the dark, sitting with your knees drawn up to your chest, your phone pressed to your shoulder, eyes blank as the world went quiet around you. You didn’t answer. You didn’t speak. You just let the words sit there. Familiar, kind and unbearably gentle.

You didn’t know how to let them in.

Because something in you had cracked the day Steve came back and handed his shield to someone else. Something had broken when he smiled that soft, faraway smile and told you nothing was wrong. When he looked at you like a memory. Like something from a life he’d already closed the book on. He didn’t die. But he was gone. And he had left without looking back.

You made it to the hills two days later. Some forgotten stretch of land just outside a nameless town, where the grass grew high and the wind came easy. You didn’t pick the spot for any reason. You just kept driving until the road gave up and your body said enough. You climbed, slowly, barefoot and quiet, until you reached the highest point of the hill and sat down hard in the dirt. Your powers buzzed just beneath your skin, restless, raw, aching. But you didn’t call to them.

They came anyway.

A single dark cloud unfurled overhead, silent and heavy, pressing close enough to almost touch. The sky everywhere else was clear, soft and distant. But right above you, it mourned. The wind stopped moving. The trees stilled. The world held its breath, and then the rain came…thin, steady, cold.

It rolled down your spine, soaked through your shirt, pooled at your ankles. You didn’t move. You didn’t shield yourself from it. You let it fall. Because for once, it wasn’t your powers you couldn’t control.

It was your grief.

You didn’t scream. You didn’t crack the earth open or summon lightning or tear the clouds apart. You didn’t have it in you. You just sat there, completely still, and let the water blur your vision and the sky sob in your place.

Because this was what abandonment felt like. This was what it meant when the only person who ever truly saw you decided not to stay and no storm, no matter how loud or how bright or how wide could drown that out.

------

Steve’s house was quiet when they arrived. It always was these days. Tucked away on the edge of a field in Maryland, a one-level farmhouse with white siding, wide porches, and curtains that never seemed to change. It wasn’t the kind of place that called attention to itself. It wasn’t built for legends or gods or war heroes. It was built for a man who had done all that and just wanted to sit in a chair with the breeze in his hair and the weight of a life finally laid down. The nurse, Marisol qhad called earlier that morning. Said she didn’t think he had long now. That his breathing had changed. That he was asking for people who weren’t there. So Bucky and Sam got in the car and didn’t say much on the drive, just passed the time in silence, knowing what it meant. Knowing what they were walking into.

Steve was already out back in his favorite chair, a blanket over his lap and a book open in one hand that he wasn’t really reading. His eyes were tired, red-rimmed, but the second he saw them, something in his face shifted. The same soft warmth that had never quite left him, even when the rest of the world had. Sam walked over first, crouched beside him, clapped a hand on his shoulder. “Hey, Cap,” he said, voice low. “You’re looking old.” Steve huffed a laugh that broke halfway through and turned into a cough.

Bucky stepped forward after, just stood next to him, eyes on the book, not really knowing how to start. “You’re still reading The Old Man and the Sea?” he asked, mouth twitching. “Fitting.”

Steve smiled and shook his head. “It’s the only one I don’t get tired of.”

They sat with him like that for a while, not saying much, just letting the breeze move through the trees and the light shift across the porch like it always had. It was quiet in a way the world hadn’t been for a long time. Peaceful, almost. Like a page was turning in slow motion. Sam sat back on the step and asked about the old team, if Steve remembered the first time they all trained together in the Tower. Steve laughed again, wheezed, and nodded. “You mean when y/n knocked the power out because Tony said she couldn’t hit him?” Sam grinned. 

“Exactly that one.” Steve’s expression softened. He leaned his head back. 

“Haven’t seen her in a while,” he said, eyes drifting. “She missed coming by this week.”

That made Sam glance up. “Y/N?” he asked carefully. “She’s come by?”

Steve’s mouth pulled into a tired smile. “Every week,” he said, almost like it was a dream. “Tuesday mornings. She comes around for the day. We sit, we talk. She never stays the night, but she always leaves tea in the cabinet when she goes.” 

Sam’s brows furrowed. “Wait, you’re serious?” He looked at Bucky, then back at Steve. “She’s been here? I haven’t heard from her in months. I thought—” He cut himself off. “You sure this ain’t old age Cap?”

Bucky’s jaw tightened. “Are you sure, Steve?” he asked. “You’re not just… thinking about her?”

Steve turned his head slowly and looked over toward the sliding door, where Marisol was just stepping out with water. “You can ask her,” he said, voice thinner now. “She’ll tell you.”

Sam stood and met Marisol halfway. “Sorry—uh, quick question. Has Y/N actually been coming by here?”

Marisol smiled softly, nodding. “Oh, yes. Once a week, just like clockwork. Comes with a bag full of books and those little pastries from that bakery in town. Doesn’t talk much, but she always comes.”

Sam blinked. “Huh,” he said, almost to himself. “I thought she was still… out there.”

“She is,” Steve muttered, amusement filling his tone. “She just comes back to haunt me.”

Bucky crossed his arms. “So… you two made up?”

That made Steve laugh again, short and wheezing. It rattled in his chest. Sam reached for the glass of water, handed it to him without a word. Steve drank, coughed, then set it down on the arm of the chair and leaned back with a small shake of his head.

“She can hold a grudge better than anyone I’ve ever met,” he said with affection. “We didn’t make up but said she just couldn't leave me.”

Sam looked out over the yard. “How’s she doing? Should I be worried?”

Steve’s smile faded. His eyes didn’t lift from the trees. “You should be worried,” he said simply. “She doesn’t look well. She talks less. She’s smaller somehow. Like she’s still carrying everything and doesn’t have the strength to hide it anymore.”

He turned, not to Sam, but to Bucky.

“She won’t let Sam in. He’s been trying. But she alway used to answer you.”

Bucky shifted slightly, eyes narrowing. “I haven’t heard from her either.”

“I know,” Steve said. “That’s why I’ve got one last order for you, Captain's orders and all.” He raised a hand, a faint ghost of his old grin tugging at his mouth. “You need to look out for her. No matter how hard she makes it. Promise me that.”

Bucky stared at him, nodded once and reached for his hand. “Yeah,” he said. “I can do that for you.”

“Not for me Buck, but for her, for you.” Steve’s fingers gripped his just tight enough to feel. His voice was barely above a whisper. “‘Til the end of the line.”

Bucky held on. “‘Til the end of the line.”

The funeral was small, quiet. No cameras, no press. No flags or horns or long speeches. Just the people who mattered. The ones who knew him, not the symbol, not the legacy, but the man. Sam wore a dark suit, hands clasped in front of him, staring down at the casket with a tight jaw and tired eyes. Bucky stood beside him, still, arms crossed, the weight of the years between them showing in the lines on his face. There were a few others, Wanda, leaning quietly against a tree; Bruce and Clint, both with bowed heads; even Rhodey, who said little but nodded at every word spoken like he was hearing them for someone else, too.

The chair next to Sam was empty, until it wasn’t. The moment was quiet just before the minister began speaking. The wind had picked up, shifting through the grass and lifting the edges of the canopy. And then footsteps. Soft, slow and deliberate, you stepped into the clearing like a storm walking on two legs.

You weren’t dressed for the occasion, not really. A dark coat clung to your frame, too big, sleeves hiding your hands. Your boots were caked in dirt. Your hair was pulled back, but loose strands clung to your damp cheeks. The sky above you had gone darker than before, not enough to rain, not yet, but heavy with the threat of it.

Bucky turned first. Then Sam and when Sam saw you, his breath caught. “Oh my God,” he whispered.

You didn’t say anything. Just walked to the edge of the gathering and stopped. Eyes fixed on the casket. Shoulders trembling. One hand pressed over your ribs like you were physically holding yourself together.

Sam took a step forward like he might say something, but Bucky caught his arm gently and shook his head. Not yet.

Because whatever was happening in your chest, whatever storm you’d brought with you, it wasn’t finished breaking, it just started brewing and the sky above you, loyal as ever, waited for your permission to fall.

You left before the dirt hit the coffin.

Before the sound of it could settle in your chest. Before you had to hear the final thud of goodbye. You didn’t wait for the eulogies to end. Didn’t linger for the handshakes or hugs or the sympathetic looks that would’ve made you crack. The second they stepped forward to lower the casket, you turned. You walked away from the field and into the woods, taking the long path around the house, boots sinking into the wet soil. You didn’t care. You just walked and  when you reached the back porch, hand on the screen door, you paused only once just long enough to breathe in the air like it might still smell like him.

The house hadn’t changed. Everything was still there. His books you brought him are still stacked on the little side table near the fireplace. The same old wool blanket folded across the back of the armchair he always sat in. The fireplace was cold, but you could still feel the warmth of all the hours you spent there, long afternoons, Tuesday mornings, those quiet visits where nothing got resolved but everything hurt a little less. You stepped inside slowly, letting the screen door creak behind you, and moved toward the chair like it might move too if you didn’t walk carefully enough.

And then you stopped, you just stood there, frozen, staring at it.

The chair was empty and still…undisturbed. It felt wrong, seeing it like that. It had always looked the same but now it looked abandoned. The way a home looks after everyone’s gone and only the ghosts are left to sit in silence. You didn’t reach for it. You didn’t touch the blanket. You just stared, eyes fixed on the curve of the armrest where he used to drum his fingers when he was thinking, where his hand had rested the last time he said goodbye without saying it.

You didn’t hear them coming.

Bucky and Sam were still walking up the gravel path, their voices low, footsteps crunching in the quiet. They didn’t expect to see you there. Sam had just said your name, softly, like it might summon you from thin air.

“She’s still not answering,” he muttered. “I don’t know what else to do.”

“She was here,” Bucky said. “She showed up.”

“Yeah,” Sam said, stopping just before the steps. “But that wasn’t her. That was… something else. You saw her face.”

Bucky nodded. “Yeah. I did…I know.” 

He opened the door first, letting it swing inward. The two of them stepped into the front room and stopped short at the sight of you.

You didn’t turn around. You didn’t even flinch. Just stood there like you had been standing there for hours. A statue made of rain and memory. Sam’s breath hitched when he saw you. The way your shoulders had folded in, like you were barely holding your own weight. The way your hands were at your sides, clenched into fists so tight your knuckles had gone white.

“Y/N,” he said, voice barely above a whisper.

That’s when you spun around and they both felt it in their chests.

You didn’t speak. Your mouth opened, then closed. Once. Twice. Your lips trembled. But nothing came out. No words. Just tears, thick and fast, carving tracks down your cheeks. Your eyes didn’t blink. They were wide and wet and shattered, and Sam swore later he had never seen someone look so completely broken and then the wind picked up. Not through the door, not through the trees….from you.

The air in the room shifted like it had a heartbeat. Like it was alive with the sound of grief. A low groan in the walls. A pressure building beneath the floorboards. Bucky stepped forward carefully, like the wrong movement might tip the whole house sideways.

“Hey,” he said, soft. “Hey, it’s okay.”

But it wasn’t.

Because then the thunder cracked. Not overhead, not in the distance, right outside.

It ripped through the air like the sky couldn’t take it anymore, and then came the rain, fast and hard and angry. It beat down on the roof with enough force to rattle the windows. Water streamed down the glass like the house was crying, and still, you didn’t move.

Sam moved toward you slowly, palm up, helpless. “You don’t have to say anything. Just—just let us in. Let us be here, okay? Please.”

Your chest rose sharply and then your knees gave out.

The storm didn’t stop.

It just followed you down as you collapsed to the floor, shaking, silent, gasping for air between sobs that didn’t make a sound. Sam dropped to his knees next to you. Bucky was right behind. Neither of them spoke. Neither of them touched you. They just sat with you. In it. As the rain came down. As the house held all of it…the love, the pain, the pieces left behind.

Because grief like this doesn’t ask for permission. It just comes and it doesn’t stop until it’s done with you and Steve… he wasn’t done with you yet.

The rain was still coming down when Sam finally stood. He didn’t say much just reached over, rested a gentle hand on your shoulder for a beat, and said, “I’m gonna run into town. Get some food. Something warm.” His voice was quiet, the kind of quiet people use in hospital rooms and front porches after funerals, like sound itself might break something if it’s not handled carefully. You didn’t answer. You didn’t nod. You just stayed curled on the floor where your legs had folded beneath you, one hand braced against the old wood, the other limp at your side, fingertips barely twitching from the storm still humming in your bones. Sam’s eyes lingered on you for a second longer before shifting to Bucky. That look between them wasn’t loud, but it said enough. I trust you. Be gentle. Bucky gave him the smallest nod, and Sam pulled the door shut behind him.

The house went quiet again, except for the sound of rain on the roof and the storm moving in slow waves outside. You didn’t lift your head. You could feel Bucky sit down a few feet away, just far enough not to crowd you, just close enough that the space between you could hold something. The silence wasn’t awkward, it was thick. Dense with all the things neither of you had ever said. You kept your eyes on the chair by the fireplace….Steve’s chair. You remembered the way he used to sit there, worn cardigan sleeves rolled up to the elbows, book open, mug steaming beside him. You remembered the way he’d glance up at you mid-sentence when you’d arrive on Tuesdays, like he’d been waiting for you all day and now the room was whole. But now it was just a chair. Just fabric and wood and memory. It looked smaller without him in it and you couldn’t stop staring.

Minutes passed, maybe more. The storm didn’t ease, it just shifted, like it was waiting. Waiting for something to give. You didn’t speak until your throat ached from holding it all in and even then, your voice sounded foreign.

“I hated him for leaving.”

You didn’t turn to look at Bucky. You didn’t need to. The words fell out like water finally overflowing the edge of a cup.

“I hated him for choosing a life that didn’t include me. I know he earned it…I know he deserved peace. But I still hated him. Not for the dance. Not for the ring. But for how easy it was for him to say goodbye. Like I was never going to be part of the rest of his story. Like I was something he could set down….” You paused, inhaled, dug your nails into your palm until your hand started to shake. “I loved him. Not like that, not like the world thought. I loved him like he was the only person who ever made me feel like I belonged somewhere. Like I wasn’t just power and damage and the worst thing that ever happened to anyone. He was my family, he made my world quiet and then…. he left, then he sat in that chair every week like everything was okay, like still being here made up for leaving in the first place.”

You could feel Bucky’s eyes on you. You could feel the weight of it. But he didn’t move, he didn’t interrupt. He let you breathe through the thick of it.

“I know he gave you ‘orders’,” you whispered, voice bitter at the edges. “Told you to look after me like I’m a mission. Like I’m some wounded thing to babysit.”

Bucky’s voice came quiet but steady. “He didn’t think you needed pity.”

You finally turned your head to face him. Your eyes were swollen and rimmed in red, and your mouth trembled as you said, “I needed him to stay.”

“I know.”

Your throat worked like you were going to cry again, but you didn’t. You were already wrung dry. You looked back toward the fireplace, where the air felt heavier than the rest of the room. The storm outside had gentled a little, the thunder further off now, but the rain was still coming. It was always coming. You pulled your knees tighter into your chest.

“I’ve been angry for so long,” you murmured. “Angry at him. At myself. At the way people just… slip away and I know I made it hard for everyone to reach me. I didn’t want anyone to see me like this. I didn’t want anyone to see what was left after he walked away, I don’t even wanna see…me.” 

Bucky leaned forward, elbows on his knees, hands hanging between them, his fingers brushing the floor. “You don’t have to explain it,” he said. “I’ve been mad too, I am mad…I get it.”

Your voice barely came out. “Do you?”

He looked at you then, not just a glance, but full-on and he nodded once.

“I do.”

It was quiet again. You stayed beside him, knees drawn to your chest, head tilted slightly toward the fireplace, but your gaze lingered on Bucky now, he shifted his weight slightly and exhaled like it cost him something.

“I didn’t think he’d actually do it,” Bucky said, voice low, gravel-thick. “Not really. I mean…I knew. He told me, he told us. We talked about it. Said he was thinking about going back. Said it like it was some hypothetical, like he just wanted to see her again, maybe tell her what could’ve been. I thought it was just one of those things we say when we’re tired and full of ghosts. I didn’t think he’d actually go.”

You didn’t move, just listened.

“He told me, before he stepped onto the platform. Told me it was my job now. Told me Sam would take the shield, that I’d look after the two of you and I nodded like I understood.” Bucky’s mouth twitched slightly. Not a smile. Something sadder. “But I didn’t, not really, I still don’t. I stood there, and I watched him go, and part of me kept thinking he’d come back. That he’d walk out of the trees with that dumb expression like, ‘Did you miss me?’ You know the one.”

You did and it cracked something deep in your ribs.

“But then he didn’t… and when he did show up again… he was old, happy and I couldn’t get a read on whether I wanted to hug him or hit him.” Bucky rubbed his palm against his thigh like he could scrape the emotion off it. “I spent seventy years getting ripped apart and put back together. All I ever wanted was to get back to the man who knew who I used to be. The only one who remembered me before I was a weapon and when I finally got him back… he left.”

You turned toward him more now, slow and quiet. His eyes weren’t wet, but they were red at the edges, raw.

“I know he deserved peace,” Bucky said, voice softer now, more broken around the edges. “And I know I should’ve been happy for him, but I wasn’t….I was pissed. I was so fucking pissed. Not because he went back but because he didn’t say goodbye like he should have. Because he made that choice without thinking about what it would do to the people still here.” He looked down at his metal hand, turned it slowly in his lap like it might tell him something. “He said he believed in me. Said he trusted me to keep going. But he also knew how fragile I still was. He knew how hard I was hanging on and he still left, after everything, he still left me…” 

The confession hung there between the two of you, and your breathing picked up at the vulnerability filling the room.

“I didn’t even know who I was without him,” Bucky whispered. “He was always the one constant. The one person who didn’t look at me like a monster. Who never stopped seeing the kid from Brooklyn, even when I didn’t see him anymore.”

He finally lifted his gaze, met yours fully now, and the look in his eyes nearly undid you. “And now he’s gone…and I don’t know what to do with that.”

You inhaled slowly, sat with it, with him. With the wreckage he had so carefully hidden behind quiet strength and soldier training and all those years of not breaking. You reached out, not to fix it, not to make it better, but just to touch his hand. Real to real. Warm to cold.

“I don’t either,” you said quietly.

And that was the truth, you didn’t know what to do with Steve’s absence. You didn’t know what to do with the anger or the ache or the way the world felt tilted now, off-balance without his presence holding it steady. But at least you weren’t the only one who felt that way. At least in this house, in this quiet, in this storm, there was someone else who still understood what it meant to love him so much that his absence felt like a betrayal.

You sat with Bucky in that silence, your knees touching now, your hands close and let the storm pass outside, letting it cry for you both.

The rain had settled into something quiet by the time Bucky stood. You didn’t ask why at first. You were still curled in on yourself, breath moving slower, throat raw, but your body no longer shaking. You watched him move toward the fireplace, toward that chair, his chair and kneel down beside it, brushing a hand beneath the cushion like he was reaching for something he wasn’t even sure was there. You heard the soft sound of paper, faint and dry. The rustle of something old and deliberate. He pulled out a small, black journal bound with string and tucked beneath it and three envelopes. Each one marked with a name. Yours. His. Sam’s.

He held them for a second, just staring down at the ink. His name in Steve’s handwriting, the familiar curves. The weight of it, like seeing a voice he’d thought he’d never hear again. You watched him swallow, then move back toward you slowly. He didn’t say anything when he sat down. He just extended his hand toward you…your name on the envelope facing up.

You stared at it like it might burn you, like it might make it worse. But you took it anyway, your fingers trembled as you turned it over and slid your thumb beneath the flap. And when you opened it, you smelled him faintly. Cedar…..paper…..dust. Like memory, like home.

You unfolded the letter, you didn’t read it out loud but the words filled the room.

Y/N,

I never figured out how to thank you, not really. You gave me back parts of myself I thought I’d lost for good. When I brought you in, when I found you I didn’t know what I was doing. I just knew you didn’t need saving. You needed someone to stay and I did, for as long as I could. But I realize now, that maybe staying any longer would’ve made you smaller. Not because you needed me. But because I made it easy for you to stay where you were.

After I found Bucky again, after we had time, real time and I understood something I didn’t before. I wasn’t meant to stay. Not because I didn’t love this life. But because this life wasn’t mine to keep. It belonged to you. To Bucky. To Sam. To people who had years left to shape it into something new.

I’ve always believed people come into our lives for a reason and I know now that you weren’t brought to me so I could save you. You were brought to me so I could make sure you survived long enough to find the person who could.

Don’t close off the world, please..not now. Not when it’s just beginning to know who you are without me. You’re fire and rain and everything in between. You’ve got the kind of strength that doesn’t need a shield, it is one. Don’t be afraid to love again, any kind of love you find. Don’t be afraid to let someone love all of it. Even the parts you still flinch at.

And if you’re reading this, it means I didn’t come back. I’m sorry. I hope you never doubt that I loved you like my own. And I hope you’ll let him love you in the way I never could.

Your big brother forever, 

Steve

You didn’t realize you were crying until your hands blurred. Until your fingers curled around the letter so tightly the paper crinkled. You didn’t sob, you didn’t collapse. But the tears came quiet and slow, tracking down your cheeks like the rain on the windows. You stared at the words, reread them, then lowered the paper into your lap like your chest had just opened all over again.

Bucky didn’t speak.

But when you finally looked at him, his letter still unopened in his hand, he nodded like he already knew what Steve had said. Maybe not the words but the meaning, then he opened his. 

Bucky,

I don’t know how to write this to you without getting it wrong. I don’t think I ever really knew how to say the things you needed to hear when we were younger. Back then, I just tried to be loud enough for the both of us, hoping you’d never have to carry more than you already did. And when I couldn’t follow you into the dark, when they took you from me, I kept telling myself I’d find a way to fix it. That if I could just bring you home, everything we lost would somehow return with you. But it didn’t, it couldn’t.

I know I let you down more than once. I know there were times when you needed me to understand something I just… couldn’t. And still, you stayed. You let me believe in you. You let me call you mine, my brother, my better half, my reason. Even when the world tried to take that from you, you never stopped being the man I grew up with in Brooklyn. Not to me.

And I know how heavy it’s been, all of it. The blood on your hands. The years they stole. The weight of survival when you didn’t ask for it. But Bucky, none of that was ever your fault. You hear me? None of it. You were used. Hurt. Rewritten and rewritten and still, still, you came back with a heart that hadn’t hardened. A soul that still looked for light. I don’t know anyone stronger than that. Not even me.

I chose to leave. I chose to walk away from the fight. And I need you to know, I didn’t do that because I stopped needing you. I did it because I finally believed you didn’t need me to keep going. For the first time, I looked at you and saw a man who could build something without me in the picture. Not because I wasn’t proud of you. But because I was. More than I ever said out loud.

You spent so long in someone else’s shadow, carrying orders that were never yours. I wanted to hand you something that couldn’t be taken away. I wanted to give you space. The kind of space you needed to figure out who you are when no one’s telling you what to be. You don’t owe anyone anything anymore. You never did. What you choose to do now..it’s yours. That life, that future… it belongs to you.

Look after her. You know who I mean. Not because I said so, but because I know you will. Because you already do. You always did. Even when you kept your distance, even when you thought you were the wrong person for the job you saw her. Like you saw me.

You were never the weapon they made you. You were never a broken man. You’re the one who survived and I hope to hell you finally believe that.

Until the end of the line,

Steve

“He always saw more than he said,” Bucky murmured.

You nodded, tried to answer…couldn’t. And then you whispered, “He knew.”

Bucky’s voice was rough. “Yeah.”

“He knew that if he stayed, I would’ve kept hiding behind him.”

“And if he stayed,” Bucky said quietly, “I never would’ve stepped forward.”

The two of you sat there with the letters in your laps, the fireplace cold, the storm nearly gone. And in that moment, you understood. Steve hadn’t left because he didn’t love you. He left because he did. Enough to let you go. Enough to give you back to yourself. To give you to Bucky. To make space for the life that could only begin once he stepped away from the center of it.

The screen door creaked open just as the last echo of thunder rolled out over the fields. Sam stepped inside with two brown paper bags tucked under his arm, the scent of something warm trailing in with him. Fried chicken, cornbread. Something soft and southern, the kind of food that didn’t ask for conversation. His boots thudded gently against the floor as he stepped further into the living room and took one look at the two of you, your back leaned against the wall, Bucky sitting on the floor beside you, both of you holding the weight of something that no longer felt completely unbearable.

He paused, not saying anything right away. His gaze flicked to the letters in your laps, the open envelopes, the soft, wrecked look in your eyes and then Bucky stood, walked over, and without a word, handed Sam his.

Sam looked down at the envelope for a long moment. It was lighter than he expected, but somehow heavier in meaning. He sat the bags down on the kitchen table before opening it. He didn’t speak as he read. He just stood by the window, the letter held in one steady hand, the other braced lightly against the sill like he needed to feel something real beneath his fingers. You watched him silently, your stomach turning slow, heavy from more than just hunger.

Sam,

There were a lot of things I got wrong in my time. A lot of things I fought for before I understood what they really meant and a lot of things I held onto for longer than I should’ve. But you weren’t one of them. You were one of the few things I got right. From the moment I met you, I saw it, you were already doing the work. Already carrying people. Already making sure someone else got to live. You were never in it for the glory. You never needed the spotlight. You just needed to be in the fight, because it mattered. Because people mattered.

I know the weight of the shield isn’t easy. I felt it every day. Sometimes more than others. Sometimes it felt like a promise. Sometimes it felt like a grave. But I gave it to you not because I was tired, and not because I wanted to be done. I gave it to you because it was always meant to be yours. You’re the kind of man this world needs…especially now. Not just a soldier. Not just a leader. But someone who sees the cracks in people and doesn’t turn away. Someone who understands that strength isn’t measured in how hard you hit, it’s in how many times you get back up. How many people you bring with you when you do.

You didn’t ask for any of this. You never wanted to be Captain America. But you’ve always been the best of us and  when I looked at you that day, when I placed it in your hands, I saw the future. Not my future. Yours. One that would belong to the people who never got a voice in mine. I knew there’d be questions. I knew some people would say you didn’t fit the mold. But Sam….you were never supposed to fit the mold. You were supposed to break it.

You’ve carried so much, and I know there’ve been times you’ve felt alone in it. But I was always with you. I still am. In every choice. Every fight. Every moment you stand tall when it would be easier to walk away. You honored me just by believing I could be something worth following. And now I’m asking you to lead. Not for me. But for them. For her. For Bucky. For the kids who’ll never know our names but will still live in a world you helped shape.

You don’t need permission to carry the shield. You never did. You just needed to believe you were already enough.

And you are.

Thank you, Sam. For everything.

Your friend always, 

Steve

When he finished, Sam exhaled through his nose, long, deep, almost like it had to travel through years to reach the surface. His jaw was tight, his eyes wet, but he nodded. Once. Folded the letter back into thirds and slid it into his jacket pocket.

He didn’t say what it said.

He didn’t need to.

He turned back toward the kitchen, unwrapped the takeout, and placed it gently in the center of the table. Cornbread, mashed potatoes and chicken still hot in the foil. He pulled out plastic forks, napkins, nothing fancy. Just enough for the three of you to sit down and eat like people do when there’s nothing left to fix but everything left to feel.

You moved to the table slowly, shoulders still stiff, but lighter somehow. Bucky sat beside you. Sam across. The plates passed without question. Food taken without much thought. The kind of silence that used to stretch in cemeteries now sat at your table like a guest, but it wasn’t cruel. It wasn’t suffocating. It was just… still.

No one said a word until the last bite was done. Until Sam leaned back in his chair and looked out the window, eyes half-lidded like he was watching ghosts pass through the trees. Bucky was quiet, his fingers resting near yours on the table, not touching but close enough that you could feel the warmth of him. You hadn’t cried since reading your letter. The grief hadn’t disappeared but it had settled. Had folded into your spine like something you could finally stand upright with.

You pushed your plate forward, wiped your hands on a napkin, and looked up at them both.

“So,” you said, your voice still a little raw, but clear. “What’s our plan?”

Sam turned to look at you. Slowly. The smallest shift in his expression, then he blinked, sat forward a little.

“Our?” he echoed, like he wasn’t sure he heard it right.

You gave him a tired, crooked smile just enough to be real.

He smiled back, wide and warm and aching with something like relief. He didn’t say anything else, didn’t need to.

He stood up and walked around the table. Pulled you into a hug before you could overthink it. His arms wrapped around you with all the softness of a promise that didn’t need to be spoken aloud. You let yourself lean into it.

Bucky didn’t interrupt. He just watched, eyes steady, the corner of his mouth barely lifting.

-----

Grief didn’t stop, it just changed shape.

Time didn’t heal it. You didn’t wake up one morning lighter. You didn’t stand in Steve’s house and suddenly feel whole again. You just… kept moving. Kept breathing, kept waking up and doing the things you promised him you’d do, because that’s what people like you and Sam and Bucky do. You keep going. Even when everything aches.

The weeks after the funeral passed in a haze. You stayed in Maryland for a while, cleaning out drawers, folding blankets, rereading old notebooks you weren’t sure were meant for you to find. Sam took the couch most nights. Bucky would leave at sunset and return before the coffee finished brewing. You didn’t ask where he went. He didn’t ask why your room stayed lit until morning. There were no questions. Just routine, quiet survival and then the missions started again.

Not the end-of-the-world kind. Not the ones with exploding helicarriers or world-ending stakes. Smaller ones. Messy, complicated, real ones. People falling through the cracks. Power shifting hands. Shadow organizations still crawling out of the ruins of what was. You didn’t join back right away. You told Sam you weren’t ready. He said, “Okay. But when you are, you have a place.”

It took two months before you called him. Said, “Where’s the next one?” like it was nothing. But it wasn’t and you both knew it.

The first mission back was in Latvia. You flew with Sam and Bucky, shoulder-to-shoulder on a cramped jet that smelled like sweat and old metal. No one said much on the flight. You spent most of it staring at the clouds outside the window, your fingers unconsciously tracing patterns in the condensation. Bucky sat across from you, arms crossed, eyes closed, but you could feel him watching you every now and then. Not in a protective way. Just… checking. Like he didn’t quite know what to say yet.

That’s how it started.

No declarations, no epiphanies. Just you, Sam, and Bucky working side by side again. Rooming in rundown safehouses, passing intel across cracked kitchen tables, whispering strategy in back alleys and rooftops at two in the morning. You didn’t talk about Steve. Not out loud. But he was everywhere. In the way Sam barked orders with more authority now. In the way Bucky took corners with his body half-shielded in front of you, even when he didn’t have to. In the way you stayed up long after the others fell asleep, sitting with your back to the wall, wondering if Steve would’ve made the same call you did. If he’d be proud of who you were now. Of who you were becoming.

You started to trust your instincts again. Started to believe in your powers again. The first time you let the wind rise mid-mission, Sam gave you a look across the rooftop like there you are. The first time your lightning dropped a rooftop gang like dominoes, Bucky grinned as he cuffed the last guy and said, “Remind me not to piss you off.”

It was subtle at first, but things shifted.

Bucky started walking beside you more often, matching your pace. Started bringing you your coffee the way you like it, black with honey, without asking. Started leaning in during debriefs, his knee brushing yours beneath the table, neither of you moving away.

He still didn’t talk much. But when he did, it wasn’t sharp like it used to be, it was softer. Dry humor, honest observation and quiet concern. He was learning you. Watching how you worked. How you flinched when your powers got too loud in your chest. How your fingers trembled before a fight and stilled afterward.

You caught him once, standing outside a motel door after a long mission in Jakarta. He was staring out at the rain, face lit by the low hum of a streetlamp, his hands stuffed in his pockets like he didn’t quite know what to do with himself. You didn’t speak. You just stood beside him, both of you watching the water slide down the glass.

And he said, “You sleep better on the left side of the bed.”

You blinked, looked at him. “What?”

He nodded toward the other room. “The night we had to share a room. You stayed on the left. You slept through the night for once.”

You hadn’t realized he noticed and well, you started noticing too.

How he rubbed his thumb over the inside of his palm when he was nervous. How he always offered to take night watch but fell asleep sitting up with a book open in his lap. How he laughed louder when Sam was around, but watched you longer when it was just the two of you.

It was never loud.

It was never sudden.

It was… a slow unbreaking.

The kind of thing that grows in the quiet, in the aftermath, in the moments that don’t look like anything until you string them together and realize you’ve been building something without meaning to.

You weren’t falling in love…not yet.

But you were falling into something.

------

You were both bleeding, but neither of you would admit it.

The motel room smelled like sweat, smoke, and rust like too many fights and not enough sleep. The lights were dim, one bulb flickering in the corner near the peeling wallpaper. You were sitting on the edge of the tub with your sleeve rolled up, a long gash running along your bicep, crusted with dried blood. Bucky knelt in front of you, silently dabbing at it with a damp towel. His brow was furrowed, eyes sharp but soft, like he was focusing hard to keep his hands steady. You’d seen those hands snap necks, crush weapons and catch you mid-fall with barely a grunt. But now, they moved with the kind of care that made your heart pull in your chest. Not fragile…just deliberate.

“You don’t have to be that gentle,” you said, your voice low, amused.

He didn’t look up. “You flinched the last time.”

“That was because you dumped alcohol straight into an open wound.”

He paused, glanced up through his lashes, and the corner of his mouth twitched. “You passed out. It wasn’t that bad.”

You rolled your eyes, but your lips betrayed you. Smiling small and quiet. The kind of smile that only ever showed up around him now.

He pressed the towel once more to your skin, then leaned back on his heels. “You’re good. Just needs wrapping.”

You didn’t move. Just looked at him, chest rising slowly. “You gonna do that too?”

His gaze met yours, unflinching. “Yeah.”

You should’ve looked away. Should’ve joked. Should’ve said something snarky to break the tension crawling up between your ribs. But you didn’t. You just watched him tear the edge of the gauze with his teeth, metal fingers catching the edge as he leaned in again, brushing the skin of your arm with the backs of his knuckles as he worked. His face was close now. Closer than it needed to be. You could smell the sweat in his shirt, the iron in the blood on your own and still, he didn’t pull back.

You swallowed. “You always this gentle with your partners?”

He looked up, his hands still on your arm, and smiled slowly, tired, something darker behind it. “Just the ones I like…so, only you.”

You blinked, heart tripping.

Before you could answer, the door creaked open and Sam stepped in, wiping his hands with a takeout napkin. “I swear if you two are flirting while actively bleeding out—”

You both froze.

Sam looked between you, eyebrows raised. “Oh God, you are.”

Bucky stood, not flustered, but definitely caught. He leaned back against the sink, arms crossed like it would hide the pink warming his ears. You slid your arm down to your lap, suddenly very interested in your shoelace. 

Bucky had just wrapped gauze around your arm with hands too gentle for what they’d done hours before. You hadn’t said much since then. Neither had he. The energy between you was taut, not urgent, but pulled, like something invisible had been slowly tightening between you since that first mission in Latvia. Since the first time his hand found your lower back after a fight. Since the first time your name sounded different coming out of his mouth. There had been a moment in the bathroom his fingers brushing your wrist, his head bowed over the wound he was tending and you had to look away because if you hadn’t, something in you might’ve cracked. Something in you already had.

Now you were out on the balcony, breathing in the night air, the motel’s rusty railing cold against your palms. The world was quiet and soft mist curling under the parking lot lights, a radio playing low from a nearby room. You could still feel the echo of Bucky’s hands, the way his gaze had lingered on you for just a second longer than it needed to. You hadn’t spoken since. You didn’t trust your voice not to give something away.

The door creaked behind you, and you didn’t have to turn to know it was Sam.

He didn’t speak at first. Just stepped up beside you, leaned his forearms on the railing, mirroring your posture. The silence stretched for a few long seconds. He glanced at you once, then back at the street.

“I saw the way he looks at you,” he said finally, voice low, not teasing just matter-of-fact.

You blinked, didn’t answer.

“I’ve seen it for a while,” he continued, softer this time. “But tonight? It was different.”

You exhaled, slow. “I don’t know what it is.”

Sam nodded once. “That’s the thing about good things. You don’t have to know. You just have to let yourself have it.”

You turned your head slightly, looked at him through the corner of your eye. “You sound like him.”

Sam smiled small, bittersweet. “I think he saw it coming.”

You stiffened. “What?”

He shook his head, that smile widening just a little, like it held a secret you weren’t ready for yet. “Nothing,” he said. “You’ll see.”

He gave your arm a gentle squeeze before pushing off the railing, walking back inside and letting the screen door creak closed behind him and that’s when you looked.

Bucky was standing inside the room, leaning in the doorway between the bathroom and the beds, still in his undershirt, hair damp, arms crossed loosely like he was trying not to make the moment too heavy. But his eyes were on you, something swirling softly in the deep blues of them like he’d been watching, not waiting. Not expecting anything, just seeing you like Steve said he would.

You looked away first but not because you wanted to.

Because it was too much to hold all at once the way he looked at you like he already knew what this was and maybe he did, but what scared you worse was maybe you were starting to know too.

Later, when Sam was out cold in the other bed, snoring softly, limbs spread wide like his body hadn’t been through a firefight just hours before you and Bucky sat shoulder to shoulder on your bed, the television on mute, both of you staring blankly at the soft flicker of some late-night infomercial neither of you were actually watching. Your arm brushed his once… then again… then didn’t move. And after a long, unbroken silence, you turned to look at him.

He was already looking at you.

Neither of you said a word. You just stayed there, breathing the same quiet air, like even the space between your ribs had finally stopped trying to keep you apart.

----

It started with the small things.

You weren’t even sure when the flirting truly began, or if it had always been there, tucked into the way he called you trouble under his breath after a mission, the way you said his name with a grin that made him shake his head but smile anyway. Sam noticed it first, of course. He’d arch a brow when Bucky handed you your coffee without asking how you take it. He’d clear his throat dramatically when the two of you got just a little too close in the middle of strategy briefings, eyes narrowed, amused. But he never said anything out loud. Not yet.

On one mission in Cairo, the safe house was too small for all three of you. One bathroom, one kitchen, two beds, and a broken AC unit humming in the window like it was barely holding on. Sam went to bed early that night and said something about needing to be up for recon before dawn. You and Bucky ended up eating dinner at the tiny kitchen table alone, your knees brushing beneath it more often than they needed to. He passed you the last piece of flatbread without being asked. You poured him tea without looking. Every time you glanced at each other, one of you smiled like it couldn’t be helped. You didn’t talk about the mission or Steve or anything big. Just little things, places you wanted to see, foods you missed, the one time he accidentally fell asleep in a tree on a stakeout. You laughed so hard you had to cover your face with your hands. He didn’t stop looking at you for the rest of the night.

A few weeks later, after a long, bruising extraction in Munich, you both ended up back at a borrowed apartment Sam had secured through a favor. He knocked out early, still sore from the landing. You and Bucky collapsed onto the old couch, bodies aching, muscles spent. It was quiet. Not heavy, just worn-in and that’s when you talked about Steve.

You asked him what it was like. Not the war, not the headlines just him. What it was like to know him before the shield. Before the serum. What it was like to grow up with someone who ended up becoming a symbol to the world. Bucky’s voice was softer then. He told you about how Steve used to get in fights he couldn’t win. How he used to draw comic strips in his notebook. How he used to worry about everyone else before himself, even back then. You listened with your legs pulled up beside you, a pillow in your lap, heart full and sore in a way that didn’t feel painful anymore. 

You teased him after, nudging his shoulder. “He said you were a ladies’ man. Said you could twirl anyone around a dance floor.”

Bucky groaned, dropped his head back against the couch. “Oh God. He would bring that up.”

You grinned. “Is it true?”

He smirked, eyes on the ceiling. “I haven’t danced in ages.”

You tilted your head. “I’ve never danced, not once.”

That made him look at you. Really look.

“Never?” he asked.

You shook your head. “Why are you so shocked? I spent most of my life being trained like an animal. Dance lessons weren’t high on Hydra’s priority list.”

He didn’t laugh, not at that. His smile faded into something softer and sad, then it got quiet.

He stood up slowly, walked to the corner where Sam had left his old speaker, connected his phone, scrolled for a second and then the first notes of something old, something warm, began to float through the room. He turned back to you, the lighting dim, the edges of him gold with city glow, and held out his hand.

You narrowed your eyes. “What are you doing?”

His smile tilted. “Being your first.”

Your chest clenched. You tried to laugh it off, but your palms were already sweating.

“I don’t—Bucky, I don’t know how.”

He stepped closer. “You don’t have to.” His voice was low now, gentle. “It’s just me.”

The wind outside shifted, not violently. Just enough to nudge the curtains, he felt it.

And he whispered, “You’ve got nothing to be nervous about.”

You looked at his hand and then you took it.

His fingers curled around yours like they’d been waiting their whole life to. He pulled you in slowly, one hand at your back, the other holding yours steady, and you moved. Clumsy at first, stiff. Then warmer, smoother. Your eyes never left his face, not once. He watched you like he couldn’t believe you were real. You watched him like you’d finally stopped being afraid of letting someone else in.

The first song ended, another started and still, you didn’t stop.

You danced through five, maybe six songs, moving slowly around the living room like the world had shrunk to just this. Just the way his thumb moved at your back. Just the way your breath stuttered every time he smiled. You didn’t speak, you didn’t laugh, you just stayed in it.

At some point, Sam woke up, probably from the music. He padded out to the kitchen, opened the fridge, grabbed a bottle of water, and paused when he saw you. His hand on the fridge door, his mouth quirked up at the edges.

You didn’t see him.

You were too busy leaning your head against Bucky’s chest. Too busy letting yourself rest. 

Sam watched for another few seconds. Then walked back to his room without saying a word. On the way, he stopped by the window. Looked up at the sky and whispered, “Damn, Cap. You really were right about everything.”

----

Things changed more after the dance, not in any obvious way. No sweeping changes or whispered confessions. Just something quieter, steadier, slipping beneath the surface of everything. Bucky wasn’t just your partner anymore. He wasn’t just your shadow on missions or your quiet at night. He became something more without either of you saying it out loud. He was the reason your coffee was already waiting on the table when you came downstairs. The reason your ribs were wrapped tighter than you asked for after every fight. The reason your hand started brushing his a little more often, staying there a little longer, until the gap between you became the most natural place to be. You hadn’t kissed or anything, not even a hug but the air between you changed. Every time he looked at you now, it lingered and you let it.

There was a mission just outside Prague, bad intel, sharp turns, too much smoke, and not enough backup. You came back with a bruised rib and a busted shoulder, and Bucky hadn’t stopped pacing the room since they pulled you out. He hadn’t even taken off his jacket. Rain streaked the back of his neck, his hands clenched and unclenched at his sides like he didn’t know how to be still. You watched him from the edge of the couch, blood still drying down your forearm, and when you tried to joke “You should see the other guy” he didn’t smile.

 He turned and said, voice tight, “You could’ve died.” 

You tried to deflect. “It wasn’t that bad.” 

And he came apart. “You don’t get to say that to me. Not after everything, not after what we’ve already lost.” He sat down hard beside you then, eyes dark, hand hovering above your leg like he wasn’t sure if he was allowed to touch you. “I thought I was going to lose you too,” he whispered. And for once, you didn’t have anything clever to say. You leaned in, slowly, rested your forehead against his, and whispered, “I’m still here.” His hand found yours, gripped it without asking. You didn’t pull away.

In Romania, it was the fire. A temporary base, the kind of safe house with mismatched furniture and a fireplace that actually worked. The power had gone out mid-dinner and Sam had gone off to make a satellite call, leaving you and Bucky in the flicker of orange light. You sat on the floor near the hearth, the flames dancing against the curve of his cheek, and he told you he used to be afraid of silence. That after everything, after Hydra, after Wakanda, after losing Steve it was the stillness that scared him most. That in the quiet, he didn’t know who he was supposed to be. You didn’t say anything. Just watched him talk, watched the lines in his face ease as your hand found his without either of you thinking about it. That night, you lay side by side on the rug, an old record spinning low in the background, and Bucky read from some old book he found on the shelf in a voice that made the world feel soft again. You didn’t fall asleep, but you stayed still long enough that when you opened your eyes, he was already watching you.

In Greece, it was the ocean. Sam had gone off chasing a lead, and the two of you stayed behind to clean up the last of the mess. You walked the beach at dusk, wind in your hair, salt on your skin, and Bucky found you with his hands in his pockets, his jacket open, that look in his eye that meant he’d been thinking too much again. You asked him what was wrong, and he said, “I think I like who I am when I’m with you.” The words hit like a wave. Not heavy, just deep and real. You tried to make it lighter, asked if that meant he liked when you made him do recon reports and he smiled. But when you looked at him again something pulled in your chest. Something that whispered, this is the kind of love you grow into, not the kind that burns hot and quick. But the kind that roots into the soil and stays. You reached for his hand without thinking and when he held it, it felt like you’d done it a thousand times before and you knew that a thousand times more wouldn't be enough either.

Now, when you walk into a room, his eyes find you first. When you laugh, it’s often because he said something under his breath just for you. Now, when you come back from a mission with bruises, it’s his hands that hold your face and check for cuts before he even sits down. You haven’t called it anything. You haven’t needed to. But you’ve started to feel it like a rhythm, one that hums through everything now. Through the space between your fingers. Through the look he gives you before you fall asleep. Through the way he breathes a little easier when you’re in the room.

You haven’t said I love you, but it’s there.

 In the way he presses a kiss to the crown of your head after a hard day.

In the way you squeeze his hand twice when he’s lost in thought.

In the way you both stay, quietly, deliberately, always.

----

It wasn’t supposed to go sideways, that's what they all say but the mission had been clean on paper, tight formation, mapped exits, predictable resistance. You had your roles, your zones, your escape plan. You’d all done this before. Dozens of times. Sam had cleared the perimeter and was stationed at the upper south tower. You and Bucky were inside, splitting off to cover more ground, his route taking him to the data terminal, yours to the locked archive room. Nothing out of the ordinary. Nothing worth worrying about. Until the moment the gunfire cracked like thunder two floors above you and your heart stopped mid-beat.

You froze at first, just long enough to register the sound, too close, too rapid. Your comm buzzed in your ear, but it wasn’t his voice. It was static. Then it cut to nothing. You didn’t think, you ran.

“Bucky, come in.” You took the stairs two at a time, voice sharp in your throat. “Bucky, status report.” No answer. “Bucky, talk to me.” The static didn’t even hiss back. You rounded the next landing with your lungs clawing at your ribs, boots slamming concrete, your pulse thundering louder than the sound of the fight you couldn’t see. Every corner you turned felt too quiet. Every hallway too long. “Goddammit, Bucky, please respond.” You were screaming by the last word, the panic twisting around your voice like wire.

Still nothing.

You turned into another hallway and stopped dead. Blood, not a lot, not a puddle. But enough to make your knees buckle. A splatter across the far wall, fresh and red and human, and the kind of silence that only comes after something irreversible. Your grip tightened on your weapon, but your hands were trembling so badly the metal knocked against your vest. Your chest constricted like your own body was trying to suffocate itself. It wasn’t just fear, it was grief. Premature, bone-deep. A world cracking in half inside your chest. You whispered his name once, then again, then louder. You didn’t hear yourself anymore. Only your heartbeat, only your footsteps. Only the sound of something breaking behind your ribs as you whispered, “No. No, not him. Not him.”

And then, he came around the corner.

Hair plastered to his forehead, breathing hard, his shirt torn, his knuckles scraped. But alive, whole. There was a shallow cut over his temple, but he was walking…walking toward you like nothing had happened. And when he saw your face, the terror still carved into your expression, he stopped cold.

“My goddamn comms died,” he said, panting. “I—I tried to fix it. It wouldn’t come back.”

You didn’t speak. You couldn’t. The blood was rushing too loud in your ears. Your limbs had gone numb. You took one step toward him, and then another, until your hands found his arm and clamped down like he might disappear if you didn’t hold him still.

He looked down at your fingers wrapped tight around his sleeve, then back up at your face and something shifted in his eyes.

“Come on,” he said, his voice low, steady. “Let’s get to the roof. We need extraction.”

He took your hand. Without asking, without explaining. Just laced your fingers through his like it had always been meant to happen. You didn’t pull away. You couldn’t. Your breath was coming faster again, but you followed him up the stairwell anyway, your boots echoing off the walls, his hand not letting go once. Not even when you tripped a step. Not even when your free hand gripped the railing like it was the only thing keeping you upright.

By the time you reached the roof, the wind had changed. The sky above had turned metallic, the kind of gray that made the air feel electric. You let go of his hand the second your boots hit the top landing and walked out into the open, the cold air slapping your cheeks, your lungs too tight to function. Your pacing started before you even realized it…back and forth, back and forth, arms crossed, nails digging into your sides. You heard Bucky’s voice faintly behind you, radioing in for extraction. Sam’s voice came back over the line, saying five minutes out. But if a storm rolled in…..and you were the storm.

You were the reason the wind was climbing. The reason the clouds were swirling like bruises over the skyline. Your fear had nowhere to go but out, and the rooftop air was trembling with it. Then his voice broke through the noise, calm but weighted.

“You need to calm down, sweetheart.”

You stopped pacing. 

“The wind’s getting worse,” he said, taking a step toward you. “If a storm rolls in, we lose our window.”

“I know,” you whispered, chest rising too fast.

“Then talk to me.” he said gently. “Tell me what’s going on.”

You turned around like your body couldn’t hold it in any longer. And it all came crashing out.

You didn’t turn. You couldn’t. Your arms were crossed over your chest so tightly it hurt, your shoulder aching from where you’d landed hard earlier, your mouth full of the copper tang of fear, but not from the mission. Not from the fight, from something deeper, from what came after.

You finally turned around so fast it made you dizzy. The wind shoved your hair into your face, your clothes clinging to your damp skin, and Bucky was just standing there, rain beginning to speckle across his shoulders, worry etched so deeply into the lines of his face it hurt to look at. You stepped back, voice shaking before you even opened your mouth, and then everything just came out at once.

“I’m scared,” you said, the word leaving your body like it had claws. “I’m scared because I don’t know what this is. I don’t know what’s happening to me. I’ve never felt like this before. Not like this. With Steve…it was different. I loved him like family,  it was safe. It was different then…. It was… it didn’t undo me. This—” you waved toward him, toward yourself, toward the wind that was rising around your feet, “you…you terrify me. You make me feel like I’ve opened up something I don’t know how to close again. I can’t stop thinking about what happens when I lose you and I will. I always do. People always go. People leave, Steve was never supposed to leave and he did and I don’t know what I’m going to do when you do, because it won’t be like when Steve left. It won’t be like losing anyone else. It’ll be worse. Because this thing between us…whatever it is, it’s in my blood now. I feel it every time you look at me. Every time you don’t. Every time I think I’m fine and then I realize I’m only okay because you’re in the room.”

Your hands were trembling now. The wind whipped harder, tugging at the edge of your jacket, the clouds overhead shifting darker, lower. You took another step back like you could outrun it, outrun him, outrun the truth that had just spilled out of your chest, but he moved with you. One slow step forward. Then another.

“You think I don’t feel the same?” Bucky asked, his voice low and rough, cracking like it hurt him to say it. “You think I haven’t been waking up every morning wondering what the hell I’m supposed to do with this feeling? You scare me too. You scare the hell out of me. Because I’ve never had something like this before. Something I don’t want to lose more than I want to protect myself.”

Your throat clenched. You turned your face away, but he reached for you. Slowly, his hand touched your jaw with a trembling tenderness you weren’t ready for, and he wiped the tear from your cheek with his thumb before you even realized you were crying. His other hand reached down, found yours, and pressed it flat against his chest, right over his heart.

“Feel that?” he whispered. “That’s yours. All of it. I’m not going anywhere.”

You blinked hard, rain catching in your lashes now, your breath still ragged but beginning to slow. His heart beat steady under your hand, thudding like it had always been meant to sync with yours. Your voice came out as a whisper, broken, wet. “You promise?”

He nodded, lips twitching into the softest smile. “I promise.”

You pulled your hand back slightly, lifted your pinky between you. A little laugh broke through your panic as you said, “I need it. The pinky swear. I need it to be real.”

His smile grew, eyes bright despite the storm. He hooked his pinky through yours, held it like it was sacred.

“It’s real,” he said. “I swear.”

And then you surged forward, couldn’t help it, didn’t want to and kissed him. Not with urgency, not with desperation. But with everything you’d been too afraid to name. His arms came around you fast, holding you like the sky might take you if he let go, his lips soft against yours, sure. The rain came harder. The wind blew wild. But the storm inside you broke like glass.

Because you believed him.

The wind had slowed.

Not entirely, not all at once, but enough. The clouds above held steady, thick but no longer swirling, the air cool instead of electric. The tension that had knotted itself around your ribs had started to loosen, bit by bit, thread by thread as your forehead rested against his, both of you still clutching the aftermath of what had nearly torn you apart. Neither of you spoke. Neither of you moved. It wasn’t a silence that asked for distance. It was the kind that only exists when you’ve been through hell with someone and finally know, without a shadow of a doubt, that they’re not going to leave you in the ashes.

The sound of the rotor blades came next, faint at first, then rising. The extraction team cutting through the fog like it had all been cleared just for you. Bucky didn’t move until you exhaled. He felt it, your breath finally steady against his chest, your heartbeat no longer racing like a runaway train. When you leaned back just enough to look at him, his eyes were already there. The kind of look that didn’t demand anything from you, he wasn’t asking for a decision. He wasn’t pushing for more. He was just there.

The chopper descended slowly, blades whipping the air in loud, rhythmic pulses, the open hatch facing the far end of the roof. Bucky reached down and gently laced your fingers together again. You followed him toward the edge without a word. Your boots moved on instinct. Your hand never left his.

When the crew waved you over and dropped the ladder, Bucky turned to you like he wanted to say something, maybe thank you, maybe I love you, maybe I’m still here. But he didn’t need to. He just helped you up first, his hand pressed steady at your back as you climbed, the warmth of him staying even after you reached the cabin. And when he pulled himself up behind you, settling beside you on the bench with the door open to the night air, he didn’t let go of your hand.

The ride was quiet.

The kind of quiet that says, we made it through.

You leaned your head against his shoulder, the fatigue crashing down on you like a slow, gentle wave. He didn’t shift. Didn’t breathe too loud. He just rested his chin lightly on your head, his hand tightening just a little on yours every time the chopper jolted. You didn’t speak. Neither did he. Not even when the lights of the city began to blink below, and you knew you were almost home.

And you didn’t need to because everything that mattered had already been said in the way he held your hand, the way you leaned into him, the way neither of you let go.

The room was quiet when you stepped inside. Dim light from a single bedside lamp spilled gold across the floor, brushing over the edge of the bed like a hush. The air smelled like rain, clean, wet cotton, the faint trace of soap on your skin. You’d showered first. Bucky had insisted. Said you needed to feel warm again, said he’d go after. He hadn’t left your side once since the rooftop, but there was no fear in the distance now. Just room…room to breathe. Room to feel and you had. The moment the water hit your shoulders, your chest cracked open, and you let it. Let yourself cry, silently, under the pressure of the showerhead like it was safe to fall apart for once. Not because he wasn’t there but because you knew he was.

Now, you were curled in one corner of the bed, knees tucked under you, one of Bucky’s long-sleeve shirts clinging to your damp skin, your legs bare, the blanket piled around you but untouched. You watched the door without really meaning to. Your eyes had softened now. Your shoulders were loose. But part of you still wasn’t sure any of this was real.

The door clicked open softly.

He stepped inside slowly, hair damp, a fresh shirt hanging loose over his frame, his expression open and tired but still watching you like you were something precious he couldn’t stop checking on. He didn’t speak. Just closed the door behind him and crossed the room with slow, deliberate steps. He didn’t ask if he could lie beside you. He didn’t have to.

When he eased onto the bed, sitting first, then turning to stretch beside you, the space between you felt small. Your knees touched. Then your hand brushed his and then you shifted, just slightly and lay down on your side, facing him. He lifted his arm, just enough for you to nestle into the space beside him, and you fit there like you always had, like it had been waiting for you.

Your hand came to rest over his chest again, just like it had on the roof. The beat beneath your palm was slow now and he looked down at you barely a breath between your faces and murmured, “Still yours.”

------

The next motel was one of those quiet ones off the side of the highway, the kind that still used real keys and had chipped paint on the doorframes. You’d stopped in Maryland to rest, just a night between the last mission and the next. Sam had gone ahead to scout, and Bucky had said, “Let’s just stay close for a night, get some air.” You hadn’t argued. The room was small, two beds, even though you only need one, one flickering lamp, a little table with a stained coffee pot that neither of you trusted. The rain had started sometime after dinner, soft and steady against the window, and the whole world felt hushed. Like it knew what was coming.

You were sitting on the edge of the bed, legs curled under you, hair still damp from your own shower earlier. Bucky was in the bathroom, the sound of water running slowly fading as the door creaked open. He stepped out barefoot, towel slung low around his hips, steam clinging to his shoulders, and for a second, he didn’t say anything. He just looked at you. His expression unreadable. Something in his eyes caught hesitation. He grabbed the shirt he’d dropped near his duffel, pulled it over his head, slow and wordless.

Then he spoke, softly. “I was thinking… we’re close. If you wanted to—” He paused, rubbed a hand down the back of his neck. “We’re not far from where we buried him.”

You froze. You didn’t look at him. Just stared at the threadbare blanket under your hands, your knuckles curling slightly. Your breath caught in your throat and quieter than you meant to, you said, “Okay.”

He stepped closer, not all the way. Just enough that you could feel the shift in the air. “Are you sure?” he asked, voice gentler now. “We don’t have to if you’re not ready. I just thought—”

“No,” you said. Firmer now. Still not loud. But certain. “I want to, I need to.”

He nodded, said nothing more. Just crossed the room and pulled the covers down on the bed you shared, he laid back against the pillows in silence. He didn’t press, didn’t look at you. But he didn’t close his eyes either. He just stayed there, breathing steady, waiting.

You stayed seated, arms wrapped around your knees, eyes on the window where the rain had started to blur the world outside into streaks of light and water. You could feel it rising in your chest, the ache you’d been carrying like another rib, the thing you never said out loud because saying it would make it real. Steve was gone and you never told him the things that mattered. You never said goodbye. You never said I forgive you. You never said I understand.

It was well after midnight when Bucky finally drifted off. You watched the rise and fall of his chest, the way his hand still lay open beside him like he’d been reaching for you in sleep. You didn’t lie down. You pulled the motel notepad from the drawer between the beds and the pen that barely worked from your bag. Sat at the little table by the window. The lamp buzzed faintly, the storm rolled on and you started to write.

The words you’d been holding inside since the day Steve left, the one you needed to say more than anything else.

------

The headstone was simple. Nothing flashy. No shield engraved in marble, no list of accomplishments. Just his name, clean serif lettering, the years that never felt like enough, and a line you were sure he didn’t pick himself: A soldier. A friend. A good man. You stood there with your hands in your jacket pockets, wind curling around your ankles, boots damp from the early spring thaw. It was quiet out here. Not empty, not forgotten. Just still. Like the earth knew better than to be loud around someone like him. Bucky stood to your left, his hand brushing yours once in a while when the wind caught his coat. Neither of you had spoken in a while. The walk from the car to the hill was long, and your silence stretched comfortably between you, full of memory. When you reached the grave, you stopped and looked down at it like it might answer back. The sun was low, the air still cold, but the sky was soft. Like it had heard your prayers and was finally listening.

You looked over at Bucky. He didn’t look at you. His eyes were on the stone, the lines in his face deeper in the quiet. You could see the way his jaw ticked, the way his breath slowed, the way he stood like he was still bracing for orders that would never come. Now here you both were, standing over the resting place of the man who made you both whole once, and then broke you in the same breath when he left.

You hadn’t planned to say anything, not when Bucky first had the idea. You planned to come just to stand here, maybe leave the letter, maybe not. But when you looked down at the name carved into the stone, at the years that felt both too short and too full, your chest caught. Not in pain this time, in recognition. Because everything he left behind..this hill, this silence, he had brought you exactly where you were meant to be.

“I wrote him back,” you said, quietly. Bucky turned to look at you, eyes soft, and you pulled the letter from your coat pocket, creased and weathered from being touched too many times over the last few hours. 

He didn’t say anything at first, just stepped slightly back, then, “Do you want me to go?” he asked, voice low.

You turned to look at him, his face lined with worry, with knowing. With all the quiet kindness he gave you without asking for anything in return.

“No,” you said. “I want you to stay.”

So he did, like he said he always would. 

You stepped forward and unfolded the letter. The wind stilled, the moment held. You started to read, your voice was quiet. Not gentle, just tired.

Steve,

I was angry. For a long time. Longer than I admitted. Longer than I even realized. I wasn’t just grieving when you left, I was furious. You promised me we’d keep going. You promised you wouldn’t leave and I know you didn’t say the words. I know you didn’t look me in the eye and make some big speech about forever. But you didn’t have to. You made me believe in something again. And then you left me with it.

And it wasn’t just the leaving. It was how you smiled like it would be okay. Like we’d all understand. Like it was a simple thing to walk away from the life we bled for together. Like it didn’t matter that you were everything I had left, the only real thing I ever had. And I hated you for that. I hated you for thinking I’d be fine. For not looking back. For not choosing me, even just for a little while longer. And when you came back as someone older, someone finished, it felt like a betrayal I couldn’t explain.

I know now that it wasn’t meant to hurt. That you were chasing a kind of peace none of us could give you. And maybe you were right to take it. But it cost something. It left cracks in me I didn’t know how to fill. I disappeared for a long time. Shut down. Closed off. Because without you, I didn’t know who I was supposed to be. You were my center. My family. The only place I felt safe enough to be all of me. And when you left, I didn’t just lose a friend Steve, I lost the one person who made the noise in my head go quiet.

But something happened after you left. Something you probably saw coming before I did.

He didn’t walk in and save me. It wasn’t dramatic. There was no moment where everything changed. He just… kept showing up. Without asking anything from me. He fought beside me. Sat in silence beside me. Watched me fall apart and didn’t try to piece me back together, he just waited until I started to do it on my own.

And then one day I realized I was reaching for him without thinking. Listening for his voice in the dark. Watching his back and knowing he was already watching mine. I didn’t fall for him all at once. It wasn’t a wave. It was a slow tide pulling me back toward something I didn’t know I still had the strength to believe in. And it wasn’t because he reminded me of you. It was because he didn’t. He let me become someone new. Someone who didn’t need you to stay in order to become whole.

And I think you knew. I think that’s why you left when you did. Because you knew if you stayed, I would’ve kept looking to you for every answer. And Bucky never gave me answers, he gave me space. He let me choose.

I don’t know what we are yet. I’m not even sure it matters. What I know is that he’s home in the way I always thought you were. But this time, it’s different.

You were right, Steve. You were meant to find me. So that I could find him.

I don’t forgive you for leaving, not completely, not yet. But I understand now. And I think… I think that’s enough.

Thank you for everything. For finding me when I didn’t know how to be found. For trusting me. For loving me in your way. And for knowing when to let go. 

I’ll always carry you with me, but I’m not lost anymore and I’m not alone.

Love your little sister, 

Y/N

You folded the letter carefully, fingers trembling just a little now, and leaned down to tuck it beneath the smooth stone at the base of his marker. It didn’t feel like letting go. It felt like placing something down. Something you’d carried too long and when you stood again, your throat tight but your lungs full, Bucky was still there, watching you. His hand reached gently for yours, no words exchanged. Just pressure, just presence.

“I think he knew,” Bucky said quietly, his voice barely more than breath. “Even before we did.”

You nodded, looked at the hill one last time.

“I think he always did.”

And this time, when you walked away, the ache in your chest didn’t drag you down. It stayed behind, with the letter, with the stone, with the man who gave you back to yourself by stepping away.

Time didn’t stop for you. Not after the grave. Not after the letter. It didn’t shift in some poetic way either, it just kept moving forward. One day into the next. One foot in front of the other. But something inside you did change. Something in the way the weight in your chest settled. The ache didn’t disappear, but it wasn’t sharp anymore. It dulled into something manageable. Like scar tissue you’d grown used to tracing. Saying goodbye to Steve didn’t close a door, it opened your favourite one and in the weeks that followed, you started walking through it.

The three of you settled into something that almost looked like peace. Sam had found a rhythm with the shield, more confident now, less hesitant, like he finally understood that Steve didn’t choose him out of pressure, but because he believed no one else could carry it better. You saw it in the way Sam stood taller in briefings, in how people listened when he spoke, not because he barked orders, but because he always asked first. Always saw the human before the hero. Sam never tried to be Steve. He didn’t need to. He was already exactly who the world needed.

And Bucky, God, Bucky he changed, too. It wasn’t drastic. It wasn’t even visible, really. But you could feel it. In how he didn’t flinch at kindness anymore. In how he let himself laugh, not just under his breath, but full and unguarded. In how he touched you now, without hesitation. His hand on your back. His shoulder brushing yours. His lips against your temple when you passed him the report in the morning.  You saw it in how he reached for you before he fell asleep. In how he waited for you to take the first sip of your coffee before taking his. In how he called you “darlin’” under his breath like it slipped out when he wasn’t paying attention.

You were a team now, a family. The three of you, not just operationally but emotionally. The kind of bond that didn’t ask for loyalty because it had already been proven. You’d been through the worst together and you’d come out the other side, bruised and stitched up, but still standing. Missions came and went, so did the cities, the languages, the names on the files. But every time you came back to the little apartment you shared in D.C. the one with the creaky stairs and the view of the river, it felt like coming home.

You cooked together now or tried to. Sam was the only one who could make rice without burning it, and Bucky pretended to hate your taste in music, but still let you play your records in the mornings. Sometimes you all ate dinner in silence. Sometimes you argued about who got to pick the movie. Sometimes Bucky fell asleep on the couch and you curled up next to him, Sam throwing a blanket over both of you with a muttered, “Pathetic,” before smiling and grabbing another beer. It wasn’t perfect, but it was yours.

And one night, after a mission that went smoother than expected, you sat on the roof with Bucky, legs tangled, his arm around your waist. The city buzzed below, lights blinking in the distance. And without turning his head, without making it into a moment, he said, “I think I was always meant to find you.”

You turned your head at that. Slowly, like if you moved too fast, the moment would disappear. The words hung between you, not fragile, not uncertain, just real. His eyes were still on the skyline, but you could see it the slight tension in his jaw, the way his thumb twitched against your hip like his body was bracing for something, even now. You stared at him for a long time, studying the curve of his mouth, the scar that tugged just slightly at his temple, the steadiness he’d grown into. Not just as a soldier, not as the man Steve had left behind. But as himself, as the man who stayed. The one who didn’t run when it got too quiet. The one who learned to be soft with his hands even after a lifetime of them being used to break things. The man who looked at you like he couldn’t believe he got to keep you.

And then, still not looking at you, his voice dropped, barely a whisper, like he didn’t need it to carry far, just to you.

“I love you.”

You didn’t breathe, not for a moment. Not because you hadn’t been waiting for it but because somewhere deep down, you hadn’t believed he’d ever say it first. That maybe he’d carry it in the way he touched you, the way he stood between you and the worst of the world, the way he kissed your shoulder before missions and held your hand in sleep but never in words. But now here they were, raw and naked in the cool night air, and he wasn’t rushing to cover them up. He let them sit, let them breathe, let them be true and you smiled.

Not the practiced one you gave reporters, not the sharp one you wore in combat but the one that only ever belonged to him.

You leaned in close, lips brushing his jaw, your voice softer than anything you’d spoken all week.

“I love you too.”

His shoulders eased. His head dropped against yours. He didn’t speak again, and didn't have to. The words were out. Finally, after everything, they didn’t need an explanation.

You sat there a little longer, just like that, legs tangled, fingers woven, his heartbeat slow against yours. The city below kept moving. Cars passed, planes crossed overhead. Someone in the next building laughed too loud. Somewhere far away, trouble would come again. But for now, for this, you stayed still.

Maybe….just maybe, this was what Steve had seen before either of you could.

Not an ending, not even a beginning. Just the place where you’d finally stopped surviving and started to live.

High Water | Bucky Barnes x Reader

Summary: You’ve stopped keeping track of the bruises. Bucky hasn’t—and he doesn’t say anything, not until the patterns start looking too much like his own, and it’s almost too late to pull you back.

MCU Timeline Placement: Post TFATWS

Master List: Find my other stuff here!

Warnings: self-destructive behavior, implied suicidal ideation, self-injury, trauma responses, PTSD, medical neglect, emotional suppression, therapy, recovery/healing themes, canon violence, referenced eating irregularities.

Word Count: 12.9k

Author’s Note: hi friends—this one started as a simple request, and it ended up becoming much more than i originally intended, something much bigger, heavier, darker, and more vulnerable so please take care while reading and only engage with this if and when you're in the right headspace! there are helpful links and resources on the original request here if you need them <3

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Bucky didn’t like working with new people.

It wasn’t personal. He just didn’t trust the way most of them moved—too fast, too loud, too cocky in the spaces between orders. The ones who’d never had a knife held to their gut didn’t flinch when doors slammed. The ones who hadn’t been broken thought everything could be fixed.

You were different.

You came in quiet, already carrying whatever past had earned you the clearance to stand beside him. Torres had said you burned out in intel. Too good at your job. Too bad at pretending it didn’t eat you alive.

You hadn’t confirmed or denied it, and he hadn’t asked. He didn’t need the backstory. He could read it in your shoulders—how they tensed before anyone entered a room. How you always tracked the exits. How gunfire didn’t phase you, but the clang of a dropped fork sent a shudder down your spine.

More than that, you didn’t try to fill the silence. Not the thick, awkward kind, but the heavy kind. The kind that settled after the adrenaline wore off and the ghosts came out to stretch their legs. That kind of quiet made most people talk just to drown it.

You let it sit. Let it breathe.

He respected that. Maybe too much.

Your last mission had been nothing special. Your seventeenth time working together, not that he was counting.

It was a low-stakes intel grab that went a little sideways thanks to a hot-headed contact and a busted comm. You handled yourself fine—better than fine. You moved like someone used to ducking and fought like someone who wasn’t scared of getting hurt. That last part always stuck with him. 

You never really avoided damage. You just treated it like something inevitable. Routine.

There was something about the way you took a hit—clean, mechanical, almost practiced. No wince, no curse, no flinch. You had rolled your dislocated shoulder back into place like you were brushing lint off a jacket more times than he could count. 

Bucky had seen people trained out of pain responses before, had watched entire rooms of Hydra operatives bleed without blinking, but this was different. Yours wasn’t discipline. It was something else. Something harder to look at. Something all too familiar.

You had tells. Little ones. He’d started clocking them without meaning to a few months back. How you never reacted to shallow cuts but always stared a little too long at the deeper ones.

How you’d press a palm flat against bruises when you thought no one was watching, not to soothe them—but to feel them. 

Once, he saw you slam your hand against the edge of a crate when the briefing tech locked up. No outburst. No tantrum. Just one sharp motion, knuckles first, and then a blank look like you hadn’t even done it. The sound stayed with him the rest of the day.

He told himself not to keep track. That it wasn’t his job to take inventory of other people’s ghosts. But your file was getting thin. Too thin. And the pieces you left behind were starting to take shape.

You didn’t act like someone trying to survive. You acted like someone trying to burn off whatever was left. Quietly. Efficiently. Without leaving a mess.

That unsettled him more than anything else.

He hadn’t planned to check in on you after the mission. He just conveniently happened to be passing the med bay on the way to nowhere in particular, and paused. 

He told himself it was habit—old soldier instinct, routine perimeter checks, whatever excuse came easy. But then he saw the door ajar, the flicker of movement just beyond the frame. 

You never used the damn step stool.

That was the first thing Bucky thought when he found you half-balanced on the edge of the supply cabinet on the counter, rifling through gauze packs with your unwrapped wrist pressed tight against your chest like it wasn’t already swelling.

You didn’t look up but Bucky knew that you could sense his presence before saying a word.

“Don’t say it,” you said flatly.

He stopped just inside the door. Leaned against the frame, arms crossed, watching you from beneath the heavy slope of his brow.

“I wasn’t gonna.”

“You were,” you said. “You were building to it.”

He should’ve walked away. Should’ve let the moment pass like all the others—but there was something in the way your shoulders hunched, spine curled forward like you were bracing for a blow that never came, that stopped him cold. 

The cabinet edge bit into your hip, your hand already trembling from the strain of holding yourself steady, but you stayed there like it meant something. You stood there like you knew exactly how far you'd have to lean to hit the floor from the counter. Like the fall wasn’t an accident waiting to happen, but a choice you’d already measured. He didn’t realize his jaw had locked until it ached.

“You’re gonna fall,” he said finally.

“Wouldn’t be the first time.”

There was no heat behind it—no bite. Just exhaustion, scraped raw and held together by whatever dry humor hadn’t abandoned you yet. 

Before Bucky could even begin to think about how to respond, you jumped down without ceremony, boots hitting the tile with a solid thunk. The movement jarred something in your side. He could tell. You didn’t flinch, but your jaw set just a little too tightly for it to be nothing.

You walked past him, dropped onto the bench without a word, and started tearing the gauze open with your teeth. Your wrist shook on the third pull. Barely. A twitch, maybe. Most people wouldn’t have noticed.

He did.

He didn’t ask before moving forward and taking the roll from your fingers—just reached out, gloved hand closing around it with quiet finality. You looked at him like you were weighing something before finally letting go.

“You're not a medic,” you said.

“You're not either.”

He sat across from you, your wrist already in his hands before you could protest. 

It was already red, swelling around the joint. He turned it gently, noting the way your knuckles twitched. You didn’t wince, but the tension in your shoulder gave you away. 

He worked in silence, measuring the wrap with muscle memory and years of being too careful. He was always too careful now. Always calculating how much pressure, how much distance, how much weight a person could take.

There was a part of him that hated how steady he was now. How easy the calm came when he needed it. He used to think that was what healing looked like—discipline, composure, control. But it felt more like taxidermy. All the danger still underneath, just frozen in place. Stuffed into the skin of a man who knew better than to be seen for what he really was.

He tightened the wrap. Your face didn’t flinch, but somewhere in the back of his mind, something scratched.

He’d seen people dissociate through pain. Seen it in the field, in trauma units, in mirrors. But the stillness in your body didn’t feel like shock. It never did.

It felt like practice.

“You didn’t log this.” His voice wasn’t accusatory—just quiet, like a loose thread he already knew would pull something loose. “You filed a full report. Debriefed like clockwork. But nothing about this.”

You didn’t answer.

His thumb brushed the inside of your wrist, the skin there already darkening beneath the surface.  “What was it this time?” he asked, even though he already knew it wasn’t the mission. Not really.

“Doorframe. I think.”

“You think?”

You gave a small shrug, the kind that looked more like a concession than an answer.

“I was pissed off. The contact flaked. We almost lost the drop point. I...took it out on the wall.”

He didn’t say anything else, just wrapped your wrist slowly, evenly. 

He didn’t like how familiar your skin looked under his hands. Not in a way he could name, just in the way his gut clenched when he saw your bruises lining up with places he’d struck in another life. 

And maybe that’s why he kept his gaze fixed on the wrap, not on you, because something about your quiet made his own feel louder—like if he looked too long, he’d see himself in the stillness you wore like armor.

“You don’t have to do this,” you said eventually. Not bitter. Just quiet.

He kept working. “I know.”

The silence that followed wasn’t the same as before. It pressed in tighter. Less like space, more like weight.

He meant it. You didn’t ask for help, not once, not even when your wrist went limp trying to remove your jacket in the quinjet. You bit down on everything, discomfort, pain, maybe even gratitude, like it owed you rent. 

He couldn’t judge you for it. He just recognized it. The same way Sam had once looked at him, eyebrows low, mouth grim. The look that said: I know what you’re doing. I just don’t know why you think you have to.

When he finished the wrist, you didn’t pull back. You stayed seated, hands in your lap, body turned slightly away from him. The back of your shirt had risen when you sat, just enough for him to see a few inches of skin beneath.

He wasn’t looking for it. He wasn’t trying to notice. But it was there.

A bruise. Faded, old enough to be from another week, maybe longer. It was large enough that it likely reached along the edge of your ribs in a sickly spread of yellow-green, the kind of mark you only get from hitting something too hard and too fast.

Or hitting it more than once.

“You’ve had that one a while,” Bucky said, and the words landed heavier than he meant them to. He almost didn't even speak.

You stiffened. Subtle, but not nothing.

You shifted your shirt down, slow and unbothered. “Yeah. Couple days ago.”

He waited. Not because he expected honesty—he wasn’t naïve—but because part of him wanted to believe you might offer it anyway. That maybe the room was quiet enough, the moment still enough, for you to meet him halfway. 

But you didn’t. You just sat there, unreadable, like the bruise meant as little to you as the silence did.

“What happened?” he asked finally, the question leaving his mouth like it had to push through something on the way out.

“Table corner. I wasn’t paying attention.”

He nearly scoffed. He had heard better lies from Hydra agents. Worse ones, too. But never so... bored. Like you’d already had this conversation a hundred times, with yourself. With anyone else who tried.

“That’s a hell of a table.”

“I hit hard.”

There was something about the way you said it. Flat, mechanical, like the pain wasn’t worth the breath it would take to lie better, that needled under his skin. He’d known people who wore their wounds like armor. You didn’t. 

You wore them like afterthoughts. Like they weren’t worth tending. Like you didn’t think you were. And that did something to him he didn’t have language for.

It wasn't pity. Never that. But something close to anger, maybe, pressed tight behind his ribs—not at you, but at whatever kept teaching you this was normal. That damage could be shrugged off, that hurt meant nothing if it was quiet. 

He knew that logic. Had lived in it for years, let it hollow him out, let it keep him moving. And still, watching you now, he wanted to shake the silence out of you. Wanted to say your name like it might make you look at him. He hated how badly he wanted you to lie better. Hated that you didn’t even flinch at being caught.

But all he could manage was: “You ever get those checked out?”

You snorted. “You think I go to a doctor every time I get a bruise?”

“No,” he said. “I think you forget half of them are there.”

He didn’t mean to say it like that. Didn’t mean to show his hand, but it was too late. You looked at him then. Eyes sharp, not surprised. Just... measuring.

He met your stare, steady.

And beneath it all, that same thought clawed at the edge of his mind again. Familiar, but unwelcome. Like recognizing a song you didn’t want to remember the lyrics to.

Because there was something about the way you looked right through him—unafraid, unbothered, half-daring him to keep pressing—that felt like a challenge. Like you’d already decided he wouldn’t.

When you finally spoke, your voice was almost calm. “You don’t get to do that thing where you try to figure me out.”

His mouth twitched, not quite a smile. “Too late.”

He moved before he could think better of it. Not away from you, just far enough to breathe. The ache in his jaw told him how tight he’d been clenching it. He reached for the cabinet with the same control he used in combat: not rushed, not casual. Just exact. Like precision might hide the fact that he didn’t know what the fuck he was doing.

The ice pack he grabbed crinkled in his hand as he turned and placed it in your palm, watching your fingers curl around it like they weren’t sure what to do. That hesitation again—so quick most people wouldn’t see it.

But he wasn’t most people.

It wasn’t even about the cold. It wasn’t even about the bruise. The swollen wrist. It was really giving you something to hold that wasn’t your own skin.

“Thanks,” you said, low.

He gave a single nod. “Use it this time.”

The words came out sharper than intended, but he didn’t walk them back. He just watched you press the cold to your ribs like you were trying to freeze the damage into place. Like maybe, if it stayed cold enough, it wouldn’t spread.

────────────────────────

Bucky had stopped leaving sharp-edged or blunt things in the briefing rooms.

Nobody noticed. Not Torres, not Sam, not any of the rotating agents who filtered through between assignments. Nobody noticed when the cracked tablet screen on the west wall stayed unrepaired so you couldn't break it again. Nobody mentioned the disappearance of the busted chair with the metal bar that dug into your side when you always sat in it too long. And if anyone wondered why the gym’s weighted slam balls had quietly replaced the old concrete-filled med balls, they didn’t say it out loud.

But Bucky noticed. Because Bucky put them there.

He never said anything about it. Never drew attention to the way he started arriving early to training rooms, or the way his eyes tracked what your hands did when you thought no one was looking. You didn’t punch walls anymore, crack your knuckles too hard, or bite your lip until it bled, not while he was in the room. Maybe because the moment you twitched toward contact, his voice was already there—level, quiet, asking a question you’d have to answer out loud.

You were smart. You knew how to pivot.

But he knew that look. The way it simmered just beneath your skin, desperate for a release you didn’t have language for. So he gave it shape. Misdirected it. Rebuilt the landscape around it until it had fewer sharp corners to cut you on.

He started stocking the freezer. First it was one extra ice pack, then five. Then ten. Lined up behind the frozen stir-fry meals. There was always one ready. Always within reach. He never said anything about those either. Just made sure the stock rotated, that the seal wasn’t broken, that there was no excuse for a bruise or injury to go untreated.

Some nights he’d catch himself lingering in the hallway near the shared kitchen after missions. Listening for the hum of the freezer door. The low click of the pack drawer sliding open. If he heard it, he let out a breath he didn’t realize he was holding. If he didn’t, he lingered longer.

There were other things too. The black coffee you always left half-finished, now poured into a travel mug with a lid you couldn’t slap against the counter, material too thick to shatter. The reinforced strap he stitched into your field bag where the weight used to strain your shoulder when you refused to wear it normally. The tiny ceramic dish on your desk that hadn’t been there before—a place to put your rings, or your tension, or whatever else you’d started taking off at the end of the day.

He didn’t watch you use any of it. But his body tracked you anyway, across rooms, across shared mission floors, across the space between not-trusting and not-sure-how-to-care. His eyes would flick to your hands before your face. Always. Noticing. Counting. Waiting.

There were a dozen things he wanted to say. None of them came out right in his head. He didn’t know how to ask Are you okay? without sounding like a lie. Didn’t know how to say Don’t do what I did. Don’t go quiet the way I did. Don’t become a locked room nobody has the key to.

There was no blueprint for this. No mission protocol for how to keep someone from unraveling. He remembered what it was like to chase sensation—sharp, fast, punishing—because the silence underneath felt worse. Because numbness made a liar of the body, and pain, at least, was something you could feel happening.

He remembered walking out of Hydra cells with blood on his hands and not knowing whether it was his. Remembered slamming his fist into concrete until something gave, praying it would be bone. Remembered the look in Sam’s eyes the first time he said You’re not fine, and how it felt like someone opening a window in a room that had long since stopped needing air.

You hadn’t let anyone open yours.

So he did what he could. He changed the layout. Softened the noise. Kept your gloves clean and your path clear and the ice always stocked, like any of it might make the difference between a bruise that faded and one that you couldn’t stop tracing.

But the past few days had felt off.

You’d started pacing again. Not the usual kind, the kind you used to work through tension with your eyes half-closed and your hands stuffed in your jacket. No—this was sharper. Jittery. Your shoulders were too tight, your hands kept flexing like they needed to do something. Like your bones itched under your skin.

It was small things at first. The way you’d stopped wrapping your fingers before training. The way you skipped debrief and lingered too long in the equipment room, too interested in the shelves labeled discard. You were sleeping less. Eating less. Drinking your coffee like it was a dare.

It was almost enough to have Bucky pull you off the next mission. But they were short on bodies. Half the roster rerouted for a border raid in Belarus, and the rest grounded from a blown cover op in Cairo. You were the only one cleared who knew the terrain, the entry points, the grid rotation by heart.

And you’d volunteered before he could suggest otherwise.

They’d landed an hour before sundown, dropped low behind the industrial strip on the edge of the city where the power grid cut off and the roads turned to gravel. Intel had said six armed guards. Maybe seven. Standard perimeter for a black-market tech handoff. Small crew. Clean location. Nothing flashy. Get in, get the drive, get out.

But Bucky’s shoulder had been twitching since you stepped off the quinjet.

You didn’t say much during the brief. Just nodded once, already pulling your gloves on, jaw set in that way that meant don’t ask. Now, crouched beside the fence line with shadows bleeding up the length of your arms, you were vibrating with tension. 

Bucky clocked the way you gripped the chain-link, tight enough for the metal to groan, like you might try to tear it down with your bare hands. You didn’t. You just released it and gave him the signal.

Two fingers. Clear.

He moved up beside you, silent, crouching just behind your left flank. He always took your left. He didn’t know why. Just felt right.

The warehouse was twenty yards ahead—low, square, the windows blown out and tarped over. Lights flickered dim behind the stained-glass haze of the plastic wrap. One truck. Engine off. Two men visible through the broken slats of the door. Voices muffled, low and sharp. One of them laughing.

“Visual on the target?” Joaquin’s voice crackled in his ear.

Bucky pressed his comm gently. “Affirmative. Two outside. Might be more inside. Moving in three.” He glanced toward you, already moving. Too early. You didn’t wait for the count.

You darted low along the wall, shadow hugging shadow, not reckless but fast. Too fast. He followed, jaw tight, senses peeled raw as you reached the first guard and struck without hesitation. Quick elbow to the solar plexus. Heel to the knee. Knife to the collarbone, pressed just hard enough to drop him with a wheeze.

The second one turned. You could’ve waited for backup. Could’ve signaled.

You didn’t.

You ran straight at him.

Bucky cursed under his breath and moved, covering ground in a blink, but you were already on the guy, shoulder slamming him into the metal siding, fists snapping in sharp, surgical strikes. Not out of control. But close.

Too close.

He reached you just as the man dropped. You turned, panting through your nose, mouth drawn tight, not winded. Not even surprised. Like you expected him to be there, already cleaning up whatever you left behind.

“You good?” he asked.

You nodded once. Too quickly. “Peachy.”

Your voice didn’t match your eyes.

He wanted to stop. To grab your wrist. To say something—but the moment passed, and you were already signaling toward the next entry point.

“North entrance,” you said. “Should be unlocked.”

You didn’t wait for his reply.

He followed you in silence, teeth gritted, pulse ticking under the metal plate in his arm. Something was off. Worse than usual. And he didn’t like the way your shoulders moved, like you were chasing something you hadn’t found yet.

The two of you reached the door. You went to breach, but Bucky caught your wrist.

“Hold,” he murmured, voice just low enough to pin you in place. “You’re running hot.”

Your eyes snapped to his. Wide. Clear. Dangerous.

“I’m focused."

You pulled your wrist back—smooth, efficient, no heat behind it, like his hand had just been another obstacle to move through. And then you were gone, slipping into the dark.

Bucky followed, jaw locked tight, breath caught somewhere between his ribs and his throat.

The warehouse interior swallowed everything. No lights. Just the flicker of a dying bulb swinging at the far end of the room, casting erratic, ghostly shadows across pallets stacked in half-toppled rows. Machinery sat quiet, half-stripped for parts. The air tasted like rust and mold and something chemical under the surface. He could hear your boots ahead, controlled. Calculated. Coiled.

You didn’t move like you were tracking. You moved like you’d already made contact in your mind and were just catching up to it physically. He hated that he recognized it. Hated the way it twisted under his skin.

It wasn’t enough to make him call it. You’d run hot before. Moved like that before. You were sharp, reliable, relentless. You got the job done. And he’d gotten good at giving space when you needed it. At trusting his read. At trusting you. At trusting himself to cover your six if it came to that.

He passed through the entryway and hugged the wall, scanning. Your silhouette flashed ahead—knife drawn low, footsteps absorbed in the filth-clogged concrete. 

Static cracked in his ear, then Joaquin’s voice—tight. Focused. “Got movement ahead—cluster of heat signatures just lit up. Southeast corner. Looks like a nest. You two are headed straight for it.”

Bucky stopped just short of the next pallet stack, eyes tracking your back as you kept moving. “How many?” he asked, low into comms.

“Four, maybe five. Can’t get a clean count—they’re shifting.”

You didn’t wait. Didn’t respond. No hand signal. No check back. Just straight through the gap in the machinery like it was routine. Like walking into five heat signatures wasn’t worth a breath.

“Hey, hold up,” Bucky said. To you. To no one.

A shot rang out toward where he should’ve been if he hadn’t stopped two steps too far behind to respond to Joaquin.

Suppressor. East wall. Nest above the compressor vent. High ground.

“Contact, right!” Bucky snapped into comms, already moving—

But you didn’t duck. You ran. Toward the sound.

He nearly shouted your name. Held it in. Swallowed it like bile.

You vaulted the pallet stack, caught the edge of a rusted pipe, and swung up onto the adjacent platform like you’d rehearsed it.  His eyes swept the shadows, angles and cover points burning through muscle memory, but his focus was on your back—your speed, your silence. The way you didn’t wait.

“Hey—hey, Y/N, you’re moving too fast,” Joaquin cut in over comms, voice sharper now. “Pull back, you’re ahead of your flank—”

“I’ve got it,” you said, clipped. Calm. Like you weren’t running straight into something with a heartbeat.

Another shot. Closer.

You dropped down into a side corridor without checking what was waiting.

Bucky lunged, caught sight of movement to the left just as the barrel lifted from the shadow. Timing was too tight. You were too fast. Too exposed.

No time to yell.

So he moved.

His boots hit concrete with a crack that echoed too loud, too sharp—but you didn’t turn around. Didn’t look back to see who was behind you or how close danger was pressing in. You dropped into the corridor like you knew something was waiting for you.

The muzzle flash came before the sound. Clean burst. Controlled pattern. Not panic fire.

You ducked low, barely missing the first round as it shattered a pipe inches from your head, steam hissing out in a burning rush. You didn’t flinch. You rolled beneath it, came up in a crouch, and bolted forward, fast enough to make the shooter shift his stance. It was a kill zone. Exposed, tight, bad angles, no cover.

And you kept moving.

Bucky hit the far wall and pressed himself flat, gun raised. He tracked the shooter’s position just as the man shifted his aim. Not at him. At you.

“Fuck,” Bucky muttered, breath catching sharp in his throat.

But you dodged again. Not random. Not sloppy. A calculated pivot just inside the arc of fire—fast enough to look like instinct, but it wasn’t.

Bucky fired once—center mass—dropped the man before he could realign. But by the time the body hit the floor, you were already moving again.

“Shit—guys, hold up,” Joaquin cut in, static spiking. “We’ve got more heat signatures. North end—five, no, six. That wasn’t in the schematics. They're shifting fast—looks like a flanking pattern.”

“Pull back,” he said, tighter now. “That’s not containment—it’s a box.”

Bucky’s jaw locked. “Copy. Redirecting. Fall back to extraction—”

But you were already halfway down the hall.

“Could be the handoff,” you said, too steady, eyes flicking ahead like you wanted the confirmation. “We don’t want to lose the buyer.”

“This op was recon, not pursuit,” Joaquin snapped. “Pull back. Regroup and reassess—”

“Just need eyes on the target,” you replied, already rounding the corner. Another door. Another unsecured hallway.

Bucky cursed under his breath. He hesitated a second too long before pushing off the wall and following.

You kicked the door open so hard it snapped off its bottom hinge and went clattering into the dark. The echo rang through the warehouse like a dinner bell. You stepped into it like you were stepping off a ledge.

Bucky followed, pulse howling in his ears now, lungs burning. 

“Got more heat lighting up the grid,” Joaquin barked in his ear. “East quadrant, converging on your position. Fall back, now—both of you.”

Three came out of the dark fast—one close, two on the flank. Bucky dropped the first with a clean shot between the eyes, spun, caught the next with a punch that cracked his helmet and sent him sprawling. He barely registered the scream as he turned, gun raised, out of rounds, and took a blade to the arm.

Metal met muscle. Pain flashed white, but he didn’t stop. He twisted, slammed the attacker’s head into the wall hard enough to leave a dent, then drove a boot into his chest to keep him down.

Another pop of gunfire. Not at him. Ahead.

You’d already dropped one, but another was already engaging you—and you hadn’t even pulled your weapon.

The man’s fist connected with your side hard enough to stagger you, but you didn’t go down. You turned with the momentum, used it to drive your elbow into his throat, then kneed him in the gut hard enough to buckle his legs. You caught his wrist when he fell and twisted—a sick snap of bone. He screamed once, then dropped.

You stood over him, breathing hard.

And Bucky saw it.

The way you rocked slightly on your heels, like you were waiting for someone else to come. Like the blood rushing in your ears hadn’t peaked yet. Like you hadn’t gotten what you were after.

His stomach twisted.

He turned—too late. Another three coming fast, one already firing. He dropped behind the nearest crate, reloaded and returned fire, clipped a shoulder, rolled and came up behind the second. He slammed the man into a pipe, heard the breath leave his lungs, but didn’t wait to confirm. 

A boot connected with his ribs, hard, and Bucky dropped to a knee, gritted his teeth, twisted, and drove a knife into the attacker’s thigh. The man screamed. He yanked it free and threw it, end over end, into the throat of the one aiming at your blind side. Blood sprayed.

Still not enough.

Still more.

A fourth surged from the dark, and Bucky barely caught his arm in time—metal hand crushing bone, human fist swinging wide, a sickening crunch somewhere in the scuffle.

His shoulder jarred, pain sparking down the length of his arm. He took a punch to the gut, then another to the jaw, sharp and high, right where the comm was fitted in his ear. The crack of it was drowned out by the static burst that followed.

Joaquin’s voice cut in mid-command—“You’ve got two more coming in from the—”

Then nothing.

By the time he got to his feet, breath ragged and vision swimming, you were already rushing forward, still fighting, and something was wrong.

You weren’t reckless, but you weren’t guarding. You met your next opponent with clean moves, efficient strikes, but you weren’t ducking fast enough. Not checking your flanks. You were exposing yourself between each hit.

You kicked one of the attackers square in the chest, sent him flying into a stack of crates, and didn’t reach for cover. You stood upright. Open. Breathing hard but not alert. 

Bucky’s chest seized as he landed a punch of his own on another attacker, barely parrying the blade slicing toward his throat. He slammed the man’s head against the wall until he went still, vision tunneling, ears ringing.

There was a wide stretch of open space ahead, scattered crates, broken shelving, a flickering light still buzzing weakly from its hanging cable. One doorway, half-collapsed. Poor cover. Shit visibility. 

And still, you kept going.

Bucky shouted something, he didn’t know what, but his voice ripped hoarse as he blocked another strike, caught a forearm, twisted until it snapped. He shoved the attacker into a rusted beam and kept moving, kept looking. 

Kept his eyes on you.

Because he knew these moves.

Not in theory. But in muscle. In memory. In the way you angled your body just a little too far from the nearest exit. The way your hand hovered near your hip but never reached for your gun. You weren’t preparing to defend. You were giving them time to aim.

His mouth opened again—this time, nothing came out.

You didn’t see the two from the side hall. Or maybe you did and just didn’t care. One with a knife. The other with a rifle half-raised, hesitation written in the slack of his stance but not enough to stop him. 

Bucky surged forward, but something slammed into him from the left. A body, heavy and fast, barreling him into a stack of old scaffolding that cracked and collapsed under their combined weight. He grunted, drove his elbow backward, felt the attacker’s jaw snap beneath the strike. 

But another was already on him before the first one hit the ground. Fists rained down, wild and clumsy. He blocked two, absorbed the third with his shoulder, and twisted, slamming his knee into the guy’s ribs until he dropped.

He caught a glimpse of you between bodies, just a flicker of your profile in the flickering light.

You weren’t running. Weren’t crouched. You were locked with one of the last men, close range, his hand fisted in your collar as he shoved you hard into a rack of rusted shelving. But you didn’t fight like you should’ve. You weren’t trying to break the hold. Your elbow came up late. Your balance was off. And for one sick second, it looked like you were letting him keep you there.

Something twisted in Bucky’s gut, deep and hot.

Another one grabbed at him from behind, arms like steel cables, trying to lock around his throat. Bucky dropped his weight, slammed backward into the nearest wall, heard a crack, but didn’t stop. 

He ripped the man off and flung him into the others just as another attacker charged from the side. Blade raised. Aim precise.

He ducked, caught the wrist mid-swing, and drove his metal arm into the man’s chest so hard it crunched through armor. Blood hit the air. Bucky shoved the body aside and turned—

And saw the rifle level at your chest.

Something shifted in the corner of his vision, movement too close. Another attacker, sprinting toward him, blade glinting under the flicker of the overhead light. 

Bucky didn’t break stride. He turned just enough to meet him mid-charge, metal arm snapping up and crashing into the attacker’s throat so hard the cartilage gave out with a wet, crunching collapse. The man crumpled before his body even registered the hit.

Bucky was already moving past him.

Boots pounded concrete, blood roaring in his ears, breath caught between a curse and a scream.  You were still locked with the man holding you, his grip pinning your upper arm, your weight tilted wrong.

Bucky could’ve used him. Could’ve let the bastard take the shot meant for you, just one more body between you and the barrel. But the angle was too tight. The shot was already coming. And Bucky didn’t risk things he couldn’t afford to lose.

He didn’t hesitate.

He closed the distance like the air had stopped resisting him, like gravity owed him one. His hand caught the edge of your jacket, and yanked hard. Ripped you clean from the other man’s grip with force that sent you both reeling.

Hard enough to twist your body out of line—just as the round fired and punched straight into his back.

He didn’t feel it right away.

Just the force. The hot pressure. The way his knees buckled as he used his weight to drive you both behind cover, shoulder-first into the busted scaffolding that exploded into splinters around you.

The floor came up fast. His back hit harder.

Pain bloomed wide. Viscous. Familiar.

Metal met blood. His breath caught. But his arms were already around you, dragging you flat against him, shielding you from the next volley before it ever came.

────────────────────────

Bucky hadn’t seen you in fifteen days. Not properly.

There were sightings—passing flashes in corridors, your voice down the hall in conference rooms he knew you were in. But the moment you caught sight of him, you disappeared. Not subtle. Not polite. Not passive.

Sam had benched you two days after the mission. You’d barely made it out of the med bay before it happened, barely had time to snap at the nurse trying to check the stitches Bucky had bled through. The report said you’d deviated from protocol. That your “judgment in the field had been compromised.” 

Joaquin had called for backup the second you pushed deeper into the warehouse. Said he didn’t like how quiet you’d gone. That you’d shut off your comms the minute you hit the second corridor. Said Bucky’s weren’t working either, not after the jaw hit, just open static until the exfil team found them both half-conscious under the scaffolding, Bucky still bleeding, you refusing to let anyone touch him until they confirmed they were friendlies.

You said it was a misread. A gap in the heat signature intel, faulty comms, fragmented chain of command. You said you pressed forward to confirm the buyer before exfil because the window was closing and it was a judgment call. Nothing more.

You said it all too calmly. Too clean.

Like you'd practiced it. Like it was easier to call it a tactical error.

Bucky hadn’t argued, hadn’t questioned. Couldn’t. Not with bruises still darkening along his back and the memory of his body nearly not moving fast enough still looping in his skull.

He remembered the weight of you beneath him. Not from the fall. From the way you’d gone still in his arms. Like you were waiting for the hit. Like you still thought it was coming anyway.

He hadn’t told Sam that part. Didn’t know how to.

Now, you spent your time down in logistics—sorting mission reports, filing armory requisitions, locking yourself in the comms tower at odd hours pretending to run diagnostics. You didn’t have to. Sam hadn’t assigned it. But you stayed at HQ, floating somewhere between idle and insubordinate, burying yourself in busywork and carving out the parts of the building Bucky wouldn’t be in.

Which wasn’t easy. But you were precise.

He’d find a fresh mug on the kitchen counter, the one only you used, still warm, and know he’d missed you by a minute. An open file drawer in the comms room with your notes, underlined sharp and angry. A single chair pulled out at the far table in the library, pages from an intake folder half-folded inside a book on tactical restraint.

You stayed busy. Stayed invisible. Stayed just far enough out of Bucky’s reach to make it clear it wasn’t an accident.

And yet he felt you in every fucking hallway anyway.

You hadn’t texted. Hadn’t acknowledged the hit he took. Not the blood. Not the fact that he couldn’t raise his arm above his shoulder for three days after. Not the way his vision had whited out for a second when your weight hit him and he thought maybe, just maybe, he’d been too late.

And maybe that’s what gutted him.

Because you had been counting on that.

You hadn’t looked surprised. Not really. When he yanked you out of the way, when the shot slammed into his back, when you landed hard and scrambled to your knees with your hands still bloody—you didn’t look horrified. 

You looked stunned. Like you’d miscalculated. Like he was the mistake.

He kept replaying it. Over and over. The angles. The timing. Your body language. The fucking stillness in you when that rifle raised and you didn’t move, didn’t fight against the body holding you there. 

It hadn’t been shock. Not like he’d wanted to believe. It had been something closer to... acceptance. Or resolve. A kind of surrender he didn’t know how to look at without remembering how it used to feel in his own bones.

But the thought wouldn’t hold still.

Because his brain refused to believe that you’d wanted that—that you’d truly been hunting pain, no—death, something irreversible. That the person he’d come to watch as closely as his own pulse had stepped into the line of fire on purpose.

And yet, It made sense. Too much sense.

Which is probably why he’d been staring at the same half-finished mission report for the last hour, pen resting idle against the table while the rest of the building went quiet around him. 

He hadn’t meant to stay late. But his thoughts had been crawling too loud in his head, and the hum of the desk lamp had felt like the only thing tethering him to the present.

He closed the file without reading the last two lines. His hands were shaking again, just slightly. Just enough that he turned off the monitor before he could watch it. It was too quiet in the office. Too still in the air.

He needed out.

The corridor was cold and empty. Most lights dimmed to nighttime security mode. His boots echoed softer than usual as he made his way through the back wing and pushed open the glass door to the side balcony overlooking the north forest.

When he opened the balcony door, he wasn’t expecting anyone else to be there.

But the second the cold hit his face, he saw movement—still, but unmistakable. Just a fraction ahead and to the left, someone already leaned against the railing. No, not leaning, exactly. Perched.

Your spine curved ever so slightly against the silver rail, one leg drawn up, boot resting on the edge, the other dangling loose over nothing. You sat like you weren’t afraid of falling. Like you didn’t even register the ten story drop. The light from the hallway behind him didn’t quite reach you. Just enough spill to catch on the edges of your boots. The rest of you was silhouette, cut sharp against the tree line.

Your head was tilted slightly back. Toward the sky. Toward the dark.

Bucky stilled.

One foot over the threshold, breath caught at the top of his throat, pulse kicking hard enough against his ribs that it almost felt like warning. His hand lingered on the doorframe longer than necessary.

The glass door clicked shut behind him.

Your shoulders jumped and your head snapped around so fast it looked like it hurt.

He hated himself for it. For coming out here. For disturbing you, even when he didn’t know you’d be out here. For being part of the reason you were like this to begin with.

For half a second, your eyes landed on him. Wide. Not surprised. Not afraid. Just sharp. Like you were deciding how fast you needed to leave.

He raised both hands a little, just enough to show they were empty. If that even mattered.

“Hey,” he said softly. Voice worn at the edges. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to sneak up on you.”

You didn’t answer.

Didn’t look away immediately either.

Your gaze lingered on him a second longer before drifting back toward the trees. The forest stretched dark across the horizon, the sky hanging heavy and moonless above it. The only light came from the spill of windows behind him and the faint glint of your boots shifting against the metal.

Before he could psych himself out of it, he took a step forward. Careful. Intentional.

The wind pulled at the edge of his coat as he came to rest beside the railing, not close—he didn’t dare be close—but near enough that the chill coming off your body seemed to reach him before your voice ever would. 

He didn’t say anything at first. Just stood there. Let the quiet spread wide between you.

“You always come out here this late?” he asked eventually, but his voice barely carried.

You didn’t answer. Didn’t so much as tilt your head toward him. The forest below swallowed sound. Air too still. No bugs. No wind through the trees. Just silence and steel and the ache in his back where the rounds had gone in, still healing slow beneath the scar.

He folded his arms against the railing. Forearms pressed to the metal. Let his gaze drift out with yours, out over the black line of trees he couldn’t see past. He thought, stupidly, of how quiet your breathing was. How still you were. How if he hadn’t followed the wind out here, he might never have noticed you at all.

“You’re mad at me,” he said, quieter now. Not an accusation. Just a fact he’d been bleeding around for days.

You scoffed under your breath. Not loud. Just enough to let him know it wasn’t the right thing to say. But it wasn’t a no, either.

“You’re mad,” he said again. “And I get it.”

Still, no answer.

He swallowed, jaw twitching. His voice stayed low.

“You’ve barely looked at me. Haven’t said a word. Haven’t let me say one either.”

A beat passed. Another. Then your voice came, brittle and flat.

“You think there’s something to say?”

He turned his head. Not all the way. Just enough to see the line of your jaw in profile—the hollow under your cheekbone, the set of your mouth. 

“I think there’s a lot to say,” he replied.

You had barely moved since he’d come out here, but now, with the light behind you casting your face in angles, he could see it. The tiredness. Not exhaustion, not the kind that sleep fixes, but the kind that comes from being done. 

Worn out in the soul. Your eyes were dull in the way his had been once. Not empty. Just... disconnected.

There was a bruise, faint but sharp, just under your right eyebrow. Thin, purple-green. Not healing from the field. You hadn’t been on a mission in almost two weeks. 

He didn’t have to guess where it came from. The edge of a sink. A wall. The wrong angle of a door when you turned too fast and didn’t care whether you stopped. The kind of thing people brushed off with a lie they’d already rehearsed.

Bucky’s grip tightened around the railing. Not hard. Just steady. Too steady. Like the tension had nowhere else to go.

He should’ve said something. Weeks ago. Months ago. 

The first time he saw you press your palm into a bruise like you were checking it was still there. The first time you didn’t log an injury. The first time you bled without blinking and he just helped—quietly, silently—like that made him gentler, not complicit. 

He’d told himself words might push you further, that staying close without pressing was the better option. That if you didn’t flinch from him, it meant he hadn’t failed you yet. But watching you now, half-lit and barely holding yourself upright, fuck, he knew better. 

He’d waited too long. Let you burn slow beside him while pretending he wasn’t also holding the match.

His stomach turned. Something deep in his chest caved in on itself. You must’ve felt his gaze, because your fingers twitched against the railing and your jaw tightened. Then, without a word, you stepped down from your perch and turned from the edge, already moving.

His body moved before his brain did.

He reached out. Caught your wrist. Gentle. Certain.

You froze. Your spine straightened. And when you turned, your voice was sharp enough to cut through both of them.

“Don’t touch me.”

You tried to pull back. He held firm, but not rough, not controlling. Just there. Solid. Like a hand pressed against the door of a burning room.

“I can’t let you walk away.”

Your arm jerked, a reflex. He didn’t loosen his hold.

Not after the last time. Not after the image of you standing too still in that warehouse, breathless and wide open, had lodged behind his eyes like a round that never made contact.

You tried again. “You don’t get to decide—”

“You’re not okay.”

The words tasted like metal. Not because they were hard to say, but because they felt late. Like throwing water on a fire that’s already gone to ash.

You scoffed. That bitter kind of sound that pretends it’s anger, but Bucky had made that sound himself too many times not to recognize what lived underneath it.

“Jesus, Barnes, let go—”

“No.”

It came out quiet. Firmer now. Not from his throat but somewhere lower, heavier. His grip adjusted slightly, still gentle, but definite. Like he was anchoring you in place, like if he let go now, you’d drift so far he wouldn’t be able to find you again.

You didn’t look at him at first. Just breathed hard through your nose, like the air might burn less that way. He watched your throat work, the way your lashes flicked down. You always looked away when it got real. So did he.

“Why?” you said finally, voice thinner now, not quite cracking but close. “So we can have whatever conversation you’ve been rehearsing? So I can cry in the hallway and you can feel like you helped?”

The words landed harder than they should have. Harder than maybe you even meant them to. But they stuck. Sharp, sudden, true enough to hurt.

“I don’t want you to cry,” he said.

It was the only thing he could say. The only truth he had left that didn’t sound like a lie.

“Then what do you want?”

The words lashed between you, sharp enough that they left something splintered in the air. Your wrist was still in his grip, but the fight had gone out of it, not physically. Not all the way. But enough for him to feel the shift.

Something in you had already dropped. Fallen back.

He didn’t answer right away. Couldn’t. His mouth was open, but the shape of the words wouldn’t come out clean. They sat there, behind his tongue, thick with everything he didn’t know how to explain. His jaw flexed, throat tight. He didn’t want to say the wrong thing. But he couldn’t leave this one unsaid.

“I want you to stop hurting.”

You flinched. Not from the grip. From the way his voice sounded—like he meant it too much.

His fingers loosened slightly, but he didn’t let go.“I want to stop watching you walk into rooms like they’re loaded. Like you want them to be.”

You looked away, eyes glassy in the low light. Jaw clenched so hard it shook your whole face.

“I want you to stop doing that thing where you ask for the quietest seat before briefings so no one will notice if you leave early. I want you to stop skipping lunch and acting like coffee makes up for it. I want you to stop tying your boots too tight.”

Your breath caught, but you masked it with a scoff. It was weak. Brittle. You tried to yank your arm away again, but he held you fast, stepping in closer, his tone still low, still quiet, but firm now. The kind of quiet you couldn’t outrun.

“I want you to look me in the eye again without checking the floor first.” He exhaled slow, barely controlled. The kind of breath that had been sitting in his lungs for days, weeks. Long enough to rot.

“I want one goddamn day where I don’t have to wonder if I missed it—if this is the time you don’t come back and it’s my fault for not saying something sooner.”

That landed. Not in your chest, but your knees. They bent just enough for him to notice the shift in your stance, like something inside you had buckled under the weight of it.

He stepped forward once more. Close enough now that he could feel the tremor in your shoulders.

“But mostly,” he murmured, “I want you to stop pretending that none of this fucking matters. That you don’t matter.”

Your head snapped back around, eyes wild. But it wasn’t anger anymore—it was panic.

“Why are you doing this,” you whispered. “Why are you saying this?”

He didn’t blink. Didn’t look away. The weight of his gaze didn’t leave yours.

“Because, you— you were standing out in the open like you wanted to be hit,” he said, voice raw. “Because I can’t stop seeing it. You, just—there. Still. Waiting.”

You made a sound. Not a word. Just air twisted into something like grief.

“You can’t—” your voice cracked hard, “—you don’t get to turn this into some kind of fucking—redemption arc for you, okay? You don’t get to drag me into your shit and—what—heal through me?”

“I’m not.”

“You are!”

“I’m not.”

“Then why the fuck did you take the hit?!”

The words exploded out of you, louder than they should’ve been. Louder than you’d probably meant. But it was out now—ripped free from wherever you’d been hiding it. Your whole body shook with it. And when Bucky didn’t say anything—couldn’t—you shoved him.

Hard.

He barely moved.

“You think I don’t know what that was?” you spat. “You think I haven’t played it over a thousand times? That I didn’t feel how fast you moved? That I didn’t see the way you looked at me after?”

Another hit landed square in his chest, open palm, not full strength, but solid. You weren’t trying to hurt him. Not physically. But your hands kept coming anyway. Another shove. Then another. He didn’t stop you. Didn’t move.

“What was I supposed to do, huh?” you snapped, fingers curling into fists before slamming into him again. “You think I didn’t know what that meant? You think I haven’t had to lie awake every fucking night since then hearing that gun go off—feeling it—and knowing it should’ve been me?”

His breath caught, but he didn’t speak. Couldn’t. You kept hitting him—his chest, his shoulder, the flat of your palm against the thick fabric of his jacket, no real damage but a growing tremble behind every strike. Your voice cracked on the next one.

“You don’t get to do that,” you said. “You don’t get to just throw yourself into it and look at me like that afterward. Like you knew. Like you saw me. Like you fucking understood.”

Another hit. Sloppier now. Your movements had started to lose coordination, your shoulders shaking too hard to stay steady.

“Stop it—stop just taking it,” you choked. “Say something.”

He didn’t. Not because he didn’t want to, but because he couldn’t say what he really felt. That he had understood. That he had seen you. That some part of him had known, and worse, he’d recognized it.

So he let you keep going. Let you shove and strike and start to cry without saying a word. He let you unload every fractured piece onto him because he could take it. 

Because he’d done it, too. To walls, to enemies, to the people who tried to help him when he didn’t know how to ask for it. Because if this was what it took to pull some of it out of you—if this was what you needed just to keep standing—he would let you break his ribs before he told you to stop.

You stumbled forward, the last shove turning into something smaller. Your fists barely made contact before falling limp. Your arms trembled, body swaying forward like the strength had finally run out. Your knees buckled half an inch before he moved.

He caught your wrists, gently, palms firm but soft, just enough pressure to keep you from hitting him again. Not to restrain you. To hold you in place. And in the space between one breath and the next, you sagged, shoulders collapsing, forehead thudding softly against the center of his chest.

He barely had time to react before your full weight leaned into him.

His arms wrapped around you in a single movement to keep you from tumbling to the floor. One hand settled at your back, the other curling gently around your upper arm as your breath hitched against the fabric of his shirt.

You were so warm.

That was the only thing he noticed. Not your tears, not at first. But your heat. Like your body was trying to stay here. Trying to anchor itself against something even as your mind pushed to fold in and disappear.

He could feel your heart stuttering beneath the layers between you. And god, you were trying so hard not to make a sound. Like that would’ve meant surrender. Like silence still kept you safe.

His own throat burned.

“Don’t make a home out of pain.”

His voice didn’t lift, didn’t crack—it just came from somewhere low in his chest, as if it had been there waiting all along.

Your breath hitched hard.

He didn’t loosen his grip.

“I did that for years, decades,” he murmured, forehead tilted down, the words barely brushing the space above your ear. “Built a life in it. Slept beside it. Let it tell me who I was.”

Your fingers twitched against his chest. Not pulling away.

“I thought if I carried it quiet enough, no one would have to see it. That maybe I could burn it out of me piece by piece.”

You made a sound, something caught between a sob and a breath. Sharp. Shallow. Your shoulders jolted against his chest, not in protest, but because you couldn’t keep it in anymore.

“I didn’t mean for it to be you.”

It came out broken. Shattered at the center.

“I didn’t mean for you to be the one to—”

You choked on it. He felt it. The hitched inhale. The way your hands dug into the fabric of his jacket like you needed something solid to hold you here.

“I didn’t think—fuck, Bucky, I didn’t think anyone would even—”

He held you tighter, just a little. Just enough.

Your voice dropped to a whisper, barely audible against his shirt.

“If it had worked, if it had actually worked, you would’ve thought you weren’t fast enough. That you didn’t stop it in time. And I—” another sob cracked through, raw and shaking—“I almost let you carry that. I almost left you thinking that you failed. That you would’ve had to live with that.”

His jaw clenched. The ache behind his eyes lit up like static. He didn’t speak, couldn’t—not yet—but his hand slid up your back, slow and steady, palm warm between your shoulder blades. He pressed it there, like he could hold your ribs together from the outside. Like he could brace what was caving in.

When he finally spoke again, his voice was so quiet it felt like something sacred.

“I would’ve.”

You choked on another sob. He held you tighter.

“I would’ve carried it,” he murmured. “Every goddamn day. Thinking I was a second too slow. That I missed the one thing that mattered.”

You didn’t say anything.

But your breath caught sharp, and he felt your head shake once against his chest—not a no, not really. Just a movement. Something small trying to fight its way out of the wreckage.

Your voice came out raw, barely formed. “That wasn’t fair.”

He stayed still.

You pressed the words into his jacket like they might burn less if you didn’t say them to his face. “That would’ve fucked you up forever.”

He nodded, slow. “Yeah.”

“And I—I almost did that to you.”

“Yeah,” he whispered again. No blame. Just truth.

You curled tighter into him, like the sound of it hurt worse than the thought.

Your fingers curled tighter into his jacket, knuckles digging into the seams, and he could feel the tremor in your body shifting—less from rage now, more from exhaustion. From the come-down. From the weight.

It took a long time before you spoke again, voice rasped out against his chest, barely audible.

“I thought if I kept it small… it wouldn’t count.”

He didn’t move.

“I didn’t throw myself into traffic,” you murmured, like that excused it. Like that still meant something. “Didn’t slit my wrists. Didn’t take anything I couldn’t walk back from. I just…”

Your throat locked up. His hand didn’t leave your back.

“I just hit things,” you whispered. “Hard. When it got too loud in my head. Walls. Doors. Tables. Sometimes myself.”

The last two words were quiet. Not ashamed—just tired. Like they’d been buried too long under rationalizations and bullshit and had finally surfaced with nowhere else to go.

Bucky didn’t pull away.

He couldn’t.

He stayed exactly where he was and let the words live in the space between you, heavy and sharp and true.

“I wasn’t trying to die,” you added, softer still. “Not all at once. Not at first. Just… wear myself out. Bit by bit. So I couldn’t feel anything else. But lately I just…it wasn’t enough.”

That’s what broke something in him.

Not the admission. Not the method. But the logic of it. The way you described it like it made sense, like it was reasonable. Like the exhaustion had been the goal all along.

Of course you hadn’t cared about the bruises. Of course you hadn’t remembered when or how most of them happened. It was never about the moment. It was about the aftermath. About the ache in your joints the next day, the dull throb in your knuckles that reminded you you were still there, still capable of impact, even if nothing inside you felt real anymore.

He thought of your hands. How small they felt when he caught your wrists. How bruised and swollen one of them had been that day in the med bay, knuckles scraped raw and shoulders tight with something you hadn’t named.

You’d looked him dead in the eye when he saw the bruise on your side and said table corner.

And he’d let it slide.

Because he hadn’t wanted to push too hard. Because he’d been afraid of being wrong. Because some part of him had recognized it and still pretended not to.

“I didn’t think anyone noticed,” you said.

“I did,” he whispered. His voice cracked. “I noticed.”

You didn’t say anything. But he felt the tension spike again in your shoulders—guilt, maybe, or panic at having been seen too clearly. He tightened his grip slightly, just enough to keep you from pulling away.

“I saw every mark,” he said, voice low. “Every time you looked at a bruise too long. Every time you didn’t. Every time your hand shook when you thought no one could see.”

Your breath caught.

“I didn’t want to believe it,” he went on, slowly, steadily. “But I knew.”

His throat worked hard around the next words, like they didn’t want to come. “I know what it looks like. When someone’s trying to bleed in ways that don’t leave trails. I’ve done it. Every way there is.”

“I didn’t want you to carry it,” you said.

His answer came without hesitation.

“I’d rather carry it than bury you.”

────────────────────────

The reception area smelled like too many kinds of tea.

There were five glass jars on the counter next to a kettle, each labeled in looping penmanship—chamomile, ginger, dandelion, tulsi, lavender. The paper sign said self-serve, but Bucky hadn’t touched any of them. Not because he didn’t want to, but because his hands had been too still in his lap for the last ten minutes and he didn’t want to break the spell of it.

The room was quiet. Not library-quiet. Not hospital-quiet. Just… soft.

A low lamp in the corner spilled a yellow glow across the rug. A record player in the back hummed with something instrumental and slow. There was a magazine rack in the corner with bent spines and a potted plant beside it that Bucky was pretty sure was plastic. 

He’d kicked it once by accident, just to check. The thing didn’t even wobble.

He didn’t know what kind of office this was supposed to be the first time he’d been here, at least not from the hallway. There was no plaque on the door, no framed diplomas on the wall, no receptionist typing quietly behind a desk.

He hadn’t asked questions when Sam sent him the address a few months back. Just showed up.

And then showed up again. And again. Every week.

The first few times, he waited for you in the car. The second time, he told himself he was only walking you to the door. Third time, you’d asked him—quietly, not looking at him—if he could stay inside just in case the session went bad. 

Now, he came in without being asked.

He sat in the farthest chair from the door. Always the same one. Kept his hands on his knees, palms down, fingers loose. Let his eyes flick between the door and the lamp and the coat hook on the wall beside it. Didn’t let himself drift too long in any one thought.

He hadn’t even realized the receptionist desk didn’t have a receptionist until the fifth visit.

The door clicked behind it sometimes. There were other rooms, other people in the back, but he never saw anyone else come out. No one ever went in except you. You, and the woman Sam had somehow managed to pull from a year long waitlist.

Bucky didn’t know what strings he’d pulled. He just knew the woman never looked surprised to see you. Like she’d already known you were coming long before you ever agreed to show up.

He didn’t know what the two of you talked about. He didn’t ask. But the first time he picked you up, your eyes had been red and your hands were shaking. You said nothing. Just got in the car and stared out the window until you got back to HQ.

He remembered waiting in rooms like this—but more gray, with more clipboards and laminated signs reminding you how to breathe. He remembered counting tiles. Flinching at coughs. He remembered that shitty little notebook his court-appointed therapist had made him fill out. All the times he left lines blank on purpose. All the ways he’d perfected saying I’m fine with a voice that didn’t shake.

He remembered her—Dr. Raynor. Tough. Clinical. Not necessarily cruel, just… blunt in a way that didn’t land right. A woman trained to treat a soldier, not the man stitched together from what was left of one. She’d called it progress when he stopped glaring. Called it recovery when he stopped resisting.

But this felt different.

The air in here didn’t feel heavy. No tension thickening in the corners. No judgment waiting behind the next sentence. It just was. Steady. Balanced. Like the space had been made soft on purpose. For people learning how to exist without holding their breath.

It had been three months. Every week, same building, same chair, same flickering lamp. You didn’t ask him to stay anymore. You never told him not to.

But you always looked for him first when you came out.

The door opened just as he exhaled, slow and quiet, like his body had timed the breath for your return.

You stepped through first, hood down, jacket slung off one shoulder, a pen still tucked behind your ear like you forgot it was there. Your eyes scanned the room automatically, and then settled on him.

Not just on him.

For him.

Like they always did.

Something passed across your face—too quick for anyone else to catch, but Bucky had been studying you longer than he ever studied enemy movements. It wasn’t surprise. Wasn’t even relief. Just something softer. Something that lived in the space between I’m still here and I’m glad you are too.

And you smiled.

Small. Asymmetrical. Real.

The therapist followed behind you, her steps easy, unrushed, her voice carrying that same warm weight the room seemed to hold—like she knew how not to push, only open.

“I know I’m sending you out into the world with a lot today,” she said lightly, a touch of humor in her tone. “But you handled the heavy part already. The rest is just practice.”

You turned toward her, adjusted your jacket with one hand while the other reached out, not instinctively, not forced. Deliberately. You took her hand, pressed your fingers around hers, and squeezed.

“Thank you,” you said. Voice steady, but soft. Like you hadn’t needed to rehearse it this time. “I’ll see you next week.”

She nodded once, her smile faint but proud. “And don’t skip your check-in list this time.”

“I won’t,” you said, even though you probably would, but less often than before.

Bucky stood as you turned toward him.

Not in a rush. Not like he’d been waiting for his cue.

But like the motion itself meant something. Like it mattered to meet you upright, at eye level, the same way he had all those weeks ago when you staggered into him sobbing and shaking and wrecked from holding yourself together too long. The same way he’d stood between you and a bullet. Between you and the weight you had been carrying alone for far too long.

“You good?” he asked quietly, stepping aside so you could pass.

You shrugged one shoulder, but didn’t brush it off as the two of you exited the office. “We’re on the part where I have to start noticing what I do before I do it.”

He nodded. Not because he understood, but because you were talking. That was enough.

You adjusted your bag on your shoulder, fidgeted with the zipper as you headed down the stairs. “She wants me to keep a log.”

“Of what?”

“What I’m trying not to feel when I reach for something to break.” You said it without flinching. “She says if I can name it, I can sit with it. Even if it sucks.”

His chest ached in a way he didn’t have a name for.

“And if you can’t name it?” he asked.

“Then I get to ask someone else to help.” Your fingers toyed with the seam of your jacket sleeve. “That’s the part I’m supposed to practice.”

At the end of the hallway, he pushed the glass door open for you. The air outside was colder than he expected—crisp with spring, the edge of something green just starting to break through the concrete. You stepped through first, your jacket flaring slightly behind you, and he followed a step behind.

Bucky let the door ease shut behind him, the click muffled by the wind and the weight of the last few months. His boots hit pavement a second behind yours. You didn’t wait for him—but you didn’t walk too far ahead either. Close enough that he didn’t have to reach. Close enough to hear you when you said, quietly, like it might break if it was said any louder—

“I hate logging shit.”

He glanced sideways.

“I figured.”

You huffed—not a laugh, not quite—but he caught the corner of your mouth tipping up. Just for a second. Just enough.

You crossed the darkening lot in silence for a few steps, your boots scuffing over a patch of half-melted ice. Bucky’s truck sat in the far corner, the passenger-side mirror still cracked from a parking garage you’d refused to admit you couldn’t clear nearly a year ago. He never got it fixed. Neither of you mentioned it.

“You still keeping yours?” you asked as the truck came into view.

He blinked. “My what?”

“That little black notebook from your sessions.”

He squinted at you, brows raised. “You asking if I keep it, or if I use it?”

You looked at him then, really looked. And he saw it: that thing in your eyes that used to live there like a threat, like a warning sign. It wasn’t gone. Not entirely. But it wasn’t sharp anymore.

He shrugged. “It’s hidden in the bottom of a drawer somewhere.”

You smirked slightly, nodding once. “Fair.”

He reached for the handle and opened the passenger door for you—not like a reflex, but like something intentional. Like a habit he wanted to have.

You blinked once, surprised maybe, but didn’t say anything. Just climbed in with a small nod, the same way you used to shoulder through debriefs and disappear down hallways. But now, there was no rush in it. No escape. Just motion. Movement that didn’t mean retreat.

He shut the door gently once you were settled, then rounded the front of the truck, boots scuffing over the cement. The sky overhead was softening and stretched thin, all dark cloud and late-evening haze, and for a second, he just stood there, one hand braced on the hood. Watching your silhouette through the windshield. The way your fingers tapped against your thigh like they hadn’t decided what to do with the quiet yet.

Then he climbed in.

The truck creaked beneath him, the seat familiar, the steering wheel warm from the setting sun. He turned the key, and the engine came to life in one slow, coughing breath.

“You know, if you’re not doing anything,” you said, still watching the road ahead like it might turn into something new if you stared long enough, “I could uh…go for some food.”

His brow twitched. “Food?”

“Yeah. You know. That thing we’re supposed to do three times a day.”

You didn’t look at him when you said it. Just kept your gaze locked forward, like the windshield gave you more room to breathe than the air between you. But there was something in your voice, something brittle at the edges and unfinished in the middle, like you were still figuring out how to let a sentence stretch into a want.

You hadn’t said you were hungry. You hadn’t said you needed company.

But the invitation was there. Quiet. Barely dressed up. 

The kind of thing that would’ve passed him by a few months ago if he hadn’t learned your rhythms. If he hadn’t spent night after night memorizing the difference between your silence and your distance. Between the tension in your jaw when you were angry and the way you bit the inside of your cheek when you were just trying not to vanish.

That landed somewhere deep in his chest. He didn’t show it.

“Anywhere in particular?”

You hesitated. Then: “Something greasy. Something you eat with your hands. Fries that are so fresh that they burn your fingers a little.”

His lips twitched. “You’ve been spending too much time around Torres.”

You blinked at him. “What?”

“There’s this place he won’t shut up about. Little burger joint off 89. Says they make onion rings the size of your face.”

You tilted your head. “Onion rings the size of my face?”

“He said it like it was the highest possible compliment.”

That coaxed a breath out of you—half a scoff, half a laugh, but it stayed. Lingered in the cab like something warmer than the heater. Like something earned.

“He’s got good taste,” you said.

“He also once ate gas station sushi on a dare.”

“Okay,” you amended, “he has… passionate taste.”

Bucky didn’t look at you, not fully, but his smile lasted longer this time. Not a twitch. Not a reflex. Just the kind of slow, quiet pull that lived in the muscles only when they weren’t preparing for loss.

The truck rumbled steady beneath them, tires chewing up road like time. You adjusted your bag in your lap, then reached up and cracked the window half an inch. The wind didn’t whip in like a threat. Just drifted. Light. Sharp with spring and pine and distance.

“You sure you’re up for it?” you asked eventually. “Sitting in a booth, being perceived.”

“I’ve had much worse days.”

He let those words stretch. Let the road roll out in front of him, long and dark and a little less hollow than it had been an hour ago.

And then—soft, like it wasn’t meant to be heard—you said: “You’re the only person I’d ask.”

His grip on the wheel didn’t tighten. But his knuckles ached anyway.

He didn’t respond at first. Couldn’t. Not without handing you the whole story of what those words did to him, how many nights he’d spent convincing himself that showing up wasn’t enough. That driving you here and waiting for you to come back through that door wasn’t a kind of love, just a half-step toward pity. That whatever thread was weaving between you, slow and invisible, maybe you didn’t feel it too.

“You’ll sit across from me, right?” you asked, suddenly. The words came fast. Too fast. Like they were covering something else up.

“Why?”

You didn’t look at him. “Just… if I sit next to people, I don’t always know what to do with my hands.”

He smiled then. Not wide. Just enough for it to pull in his chest, warm and sharp.

“Across is good,” he said. “Easier to steal your fries that way.”

You huffed. “You wouldn’t dare.”

You didn’t say it like a challenge. You said it like a prayer, something that might’ve meant don’t go, if said in a different key.

And Bucky—God, he could’ve said a hundred things. 

Could’ve told you that of all the days he’s ever walked through, this one didn’t ache in the same way. Could’ve told you that your voice saying his name after weeks of silence had stitched something back together in him he hadn’t realized was still broken. Could’ve told you that when you’d said you’re the only person I’d ask, something in his chest had folded in on itself with the same brutal gentleness you’d folded into him on that balcony months ago.

There was a time he might’ve doubted that. Not because you didn’t mean it, but because he didn’t think he’d ever be the kind of man someone asked for—not when it wasn’t about intel or orders or damage control. But this was different. This wasn’t about what you needed from him.

It was about who you wanted near you when you didn’t want to be anywhere else.

“Don't worry, you can steal my fries too,” he said.

And maybe it landed like a joke—soft, thrown just off-center—but it didn’t feel like one. 

It felt like a door unlatched. Like a scar uncovered, not to be examined, just to be seen. The kind of offer that didn’t ask for anything in return, not even thanks. 

Just meant I’m not going anywhere. 

Just meant stay.

tag list (message me to be added or removed!): @nerdreader, @baw1066, @nairafeather, @galaxywannabe, @idkitsem, @starfly-nicole, @buckybarneswife125, @ilovedeanwinchester4, @brnesblogposts, @knowledgeableknitter, @kneelforloki, @hi-itisjustme, @alassal, @samurx, @amelya5567, @chiunpy, @winterslove1917, @emme-looou, @thekatisspooky, @y0urgrl, @g1g1l, @vignettesofveronica, @addie192, @ponyboys-sunsets, @fallenxjas, @alexawhatstheweathertoday, @charlieluver, @thesteppinrazor

Lucky | Bucky Barnes

Part:1/2

Bucky x movie star!reader

Word Count: 19k

Warnings: Angst, fluff, ect

A/N: Found this in my google docs when i was looking for my layout of Yours, Always, it was supposed to be a long one shot but Tumblr wont let me post a 35k fic lol so its broken up in two parts, Its not proofreading it or edited

Last Part

Masterpost

------

The lights are blinding.

That’s the first thing you feel, not the cold wind slipping down the back of your silk dress, not the too-tight smile tugging at your lips, not even the ache in your ribs from the corset they cinched too hard. Just the lights.

They’re white, hot and endless.

“Y/N, this way!”

“Look over your shoulder!”

“Give us that million-dollar smile!”

“Who are you wearing?”

“Are the rumors true? Are you dating anyone?”

You turn, you pose.

Left side. Chin down. Eyes wide.

You were taught this. Programmed.

Smile like it doesn’t hurt. Laugh like the world hasn’t caved in three times this week.

Behind you, flashes burst like fireworks, one after the other, click, click, click. You’re the show. The proof that beauty exists. The doll everyone wants to dress up, photograph, praise, tear apart.

“She’s glowing.”

“She looks stunning.”

“She’s so lucky.”

You’re not listening, not really. You can’t hear anything over the pulse in your ears.

You shift your weight in your heels. Smile again. Flash another glance toward the cameras. They eat it up, you give them more.

Every pose is polished. Every hair is perfectly placed. Every reaction is rehearsed. But no one asks if you’re happy. No one would believe you if you said you weren’t and maybe that’s the worst part.

Because on nights like this, under the golden lights and velvet ropes, you’re not a person. You’re a thing. A body in couture. A name they know. A face that sells and the show must go on.

Always.

So you blow a kiss toward the crowd. You laugh at a joke you didn’t hear.

----

The kitchen at the compound was unusually quiet for 8 a.m.

Steve sat at the island with a tablet, squinting at whatever article caught his interest. Next to him, Bucky flipped through the newspaper, actual paper, the only man in the building still committed to ink and print.

“…They’re remaking Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,” Steve muttered.

Bucky didn’t look up. “Blasphemy.”

Footsteps, then a voice, too cocky for the hour. “Morning, grumpy,” Tony announced, striding in like he owned the place, which, technically, he did.

Bucky lowered the paper an inch. “Don’t.”

Tony stole Steve’s toast. Steve scowled. “Seriously?”

Tony dropped a thick folder onto the counter with a theatrical thud. “Got a mission for you.”

That got Bucky’s attention. He folded the paper, leaned back, arms crossed.

Steve raised a brow. “He’s not cleared.”

Tony shrugged, chewing toast. “This is different. No fieldwork, no guns. No jumping off buildings, unless she throws him off one, which… fair bet.”

Bucky opened the file. Glossy photo, sunglasses, silk scarf. Smiling like she had the world in her pocket, which he would come to learn she did.

“Who’s this?”

Tony smirked. “Y/N L/N.”

Steve squinted. “The movie star?”

Tony nodded.

Bucky blinked. “Why would a movie star need me?”

Sam entered just in time. “Wait, who’s getting you?”

“Y/N Y/L/N.” Tony pointed at Bucky. “He’s going to be her bodyguard.”

Sam nearly dropped his protein shake. “No fucking way.”

Tony grinned. “Knew you’d appreciate it.”

Sam grabbed the file, flipping through. “Dude. She’s massive. Like… stalkers, paparazzi, sold-out appearances, screaming crowds. Her life’s a circus.”

Bucky looked unimpressed. “So send a security team.”

“She asked for you,” Tony said. “Well, her team did. Wanted the best.”

Bucky scoffed. “Why me?”

Tony smirked, because of course he did. “Because you’re the best. I hate that you are, but facts are facts and I love facts.”

He dropped the folder on the counter like it weighed nothing. Bucky stared down at it like it might explode. Bucky stared back at the photo, you were beautiful there was no doubt. You looked perfect, but you were just some girl in diamonds and silk and an expression that didn’t mean anything. You looked like every other starlet in every other ad. All light, no weight.

“Why the hell would someone like her need someone like me?”

Sam plopped down at the counter, flipping through the file like it was a magazine. “Because she’s got stalkers. Serious ones. There’s one guy, I saw on this gossip site I follow, who has been sending her letters since she was sixteen. Broke into her house twice. Held her captive once, for, like, 24 hours.”

Bucky shook his head. All of it felt ridiculous, like a plotline from one of those movies you were probably in.

You were famous, beautiful. Everything he wasn’t. He was a mess of history and metal and trauma in a jacket that didn’t fit right.

“Do I have a choice?” he asked flatly.

Tony took a long sip of his coffee and turned for the hallway. “Nope.” Then he was gone, because of course he was.

Bucky looked down at the photo again. She was laughing in it. That fake, trained kind of laugh. He knew it because he’d worn the same one in his file photos. The ones they used to show he was “adjusting well.” Your smile didn’t reach your eyes.

A hand clapped him gently on the shoulder, Steve. “It’s not gonna be that bad,” he said. “At least you’ll be out of the Tower. Doing something, something normal.”

Bucky stared at him, normal….right. He was a guy with blood on his hands and a barcode in his brain. A guy who hadn’t had a real conversation that didn’t involve tactical strategy or surveillance in… well, ever…and now he was supposed to babysit Hollywood’s favorite face?

He sighed and picked up the file. “She probably smells like perfume and entitlement,” he muttered.

Steve just smiled, too used to him by now.

Bucky didn’t smile back.

----------

Your suite smells like roses, burnt espresso, and tension. “Absolutely not,” you say, calm and clipped, as you scroll through your phone. “Get someone else.”

Your manager, Brett, sighs like he’s been holding his breath since 6 a.m. “Y/N. It’s not up for debate.”

You set your phone down slowly. “It is if you expect me to share space with a guy who used to kill people because someone said a few magic words.”

“He’s not like that anymore.”

“Right,” you mutter. “Because trauma just disappears.”

There’s a pause, another voice, one of your publicists, because apparently you need more than one, Leah, trying to sound gentle. “He’s the best we could get. Discreet, physically intimidating and he’s an Avenger.. We need you alive, you have contracts to complete..”

You glance between them. Brett’s jaw is tight. Leah’s trying too hard. You already know this is non-negotiable, nothing ever is anymore.

You pick up your phone again and say coolly, “Fine, bring in the ex-brainwashed assassin.”

They exchange a glance. “He prefers ‘Sergeant Barnes.’”

-----

When you first lay eyes on him, he walks in like he doesn’t want to be there. You don’t blame him, you don’t either. Leather jacket. Black jeans. Expression like thunderclouds. You already know who he is before anyone says a word.

He’s not what you expected. You thought he’d look more… broken or brutal. Instead, he looks like someone holding himself together with string. Sharp eyes. Quiet fury, but those blue eyes, god they were gorgeous, he was too.

He doesn’t smile, doesn’t flinch. Just stands there while Brett introduces him. “Y/N, this is Sergeant Bucky Barnes.”

You glance at your manager, then at Bucky. “Do I salute, or are we skipping that part?”

Bucky raises an eyebrow.

“Guess we’re skipping it,” you say, grabbing your coffee from the table and walking past him.

“Don’t talk to the press,” you toss over your shoulder. “Don’t talk to me unless it’s necessary and don’t fall in love with me.”

You’re joking, no one ever would

----

Bucky rides in silence. You’re pretending to be texting someone, pretending to be fake-laughing at a meme. Your assistant is reviewing your schedule: press junket, interview, table read, fitting.

You don’t look at him. He watches you through the rearview mirror. Everything about you is curated. Nails, lashes, the way you sit, like you’re always in a frame, always on camera.

He doesn’t see the appeal.

He’s not impressed by fame. He’s seen the world from the shadows. Glitter doesn’t mean safety. Glamour doesn’t mean goodness. You’re just another rich girl in a diamond cage. Still, he watches you like a soldier, like a threat.

You breeze past him into the building, sunglasses on, smile ready. He trails behind, clocking exits, cameras, fans, your security team.

Inside, it’s chaos, assistants shouting, lights flashing, everyone talking about you like you’re not standing there. You say nothing. Just nod, pose, walk where you’re told.

You’re perfect, plastic.

You sit in a chair, silent, while three people adjust your outfit. Bucky leans against the wall.

Someone says something about your last breakup. You laugh, it’s fake….empty. But they all buy it, he doesn’t

Your phone buzzes. You read it, then lock the screen without reacting. Bucky notices your hand twitch, a tiny, involuntary move. No one else does.

You glance at him once in the mirror, just once and he swears he sees something in your eyes but then the mask is back.

----

He walks you to your suite. No one talks.

Your heels click against the marble, each step echoing like punctuation. You don’t look back. You don’t slow down. Your assistant is three steps behind you, frantically unlocking the door like her job depends on it because it probably does.

You step inside the suite without acknowledging either of them.

White roses, chilled water, room temp lighting. Everything exactly the way your team demanded it. The air smells like money and tension.

You don’t even glance around. Before the door closes behind you, you pause one heel pivoting delicately on the floor and glance back over your shoulder.

He’s still standing there. Stiff and ilent. Arms folded like he’s waiting for an excuse to walk off the job.

You tilt your head. Smile.

But it’s not a sweet smile. It’s the kind that’s been sharpened over years of interviews and red carpets. Poisoned at the edges. “You always look this miserable, or is that just for me?”

He doesn’t answer. Of course he doesn’t.

You smirk, slow and mean, a laugh without sound, and shut the door in his face.

The lock clicks and outside, Bucky exhales like he’s just made a deal with the devil.

This job is going to suck.

----

You wake up before your alarm.

You always do.

It’s not anxiety, not really. It’s… habit. You’ve trained your body like a machine. Five hours of sleep is more than enough when you’re running on caffeine and compulsion.

You lie there for a moment, staring at the ceiling. Neutral cream color. No photos on the walls. No sound except for the hum of the air conditioner.

Someone knocks, twice, precisely. That’s the cue. You don’t speak, you don’t need to. This part doesn’t require you. The door opens, and the day begins

You know Brett will want a smile today. Leah will say you look tired. Marcy will try to shove that green juice down your throat again. You’ll let them, that’s the deal. You don’t own your mornings, haven’t in years.

Somewhere between the third nomination and the second perfume line, you stopped asking for space. They never gave it, and you stopped missing it.

They take your phone before you can read any texts, not that you would have any real ones. “You don’t need distractions,” Brett says, without looking at you, you nod.

They unlock your bedroom door from the outside. You don’t react.

You sit still as they go through your day. Makeup in thirty. Car at eleven. Don’t speak to press directly. Don’t touch fans, don’t make eye contact unless it’s on a red carpet.

You sip the green juice.

You pretend it tastes good.

You don’t remember what you actually like anymore.

Bucky’s already waiting.

He watches, arms crossed, as Brett speaks to you like you’re a child. Leah adjusts your coat. Your assistant carries your bag, even though you could carry it yourself.

They swarm around you, and you don’t say a word. They move you like you’re part of the scenery. He notices your silence first. Not out of peace, out of resignation.

He notices how you never touch your phone. How you’re never the one who opens a door. How you glance at Brett before answering a question.

You don’t move unless told, you don’t exist unless activated. You’re like a prop in your own life. He’s seen prisoners act freer and the worst part is you let them do it.

------

You’re perfect.

Dress like liquid diamonds. Hair pinned like an old Hollywood starlet. Lashes long enough to cast shadows.

You smile on cue. Laugh at questions that aren’t funny. Tilt your head just slightly to the left, it photographs better that way.

Bucky watches from behind the velvet rope. Arms crossed, shoulders tight. He’s not fidgeting, but he’s bracing. Always is, around this kind of crowd. The glitz, the lights, the smiles that don’t reach the eyes.

He hears someone say you’re “effortless.” He wants to laugh. Nothing about you is effortless. You’re a war machine wrapped in satin.

Inside, you take your seat. Cameras move around the announcers, the lights dim. They’re showing the nominees now, Best Actress.

Five clips, five women, one winner. Bucky scoffs at the reality of it all, how stupid this all truly is. But he can’t stop watching thinking back to Sam’s text from earlier ‘$20 says she takes it home’ Bucky responded back with ‘$50 she doesn’t’

The first few are polished, clean. Impressive, maybe. But calculated, controlled.

The screen fades in: it’s you, 1940s costuming. Hair curled and pinned. A wool coat, buttoned wrong because your hands are shaking. You’re walking up a long stretch of dirt road in London, a telegram crumpled in your fist.

The sound design is too quiet. The only thing you can hear is your breath, shallow and shaky and the crunch of your shoes on the frostbitten earth.

A voice reads over the shot. Cold, military, detached.

“We regret to inform you…”

You don’t speak, you run.

You stumble as you sprint up the front steps of a brownstone. A woman in black opens the door like she’s been waiting for you. There are more behind her. Neighbors, wives, sisters. All of them dressed in mourning.

You don’t look at any of them.

You try to step forward, but your knees give. They hit the concrete. Hard. You fall like you’ve been shot.

Bucky sees the scrape on your knees as the camera pans in, blood smearing across grey stone. He wonders if that was real or scripted. He votes scripted, but the way your face twists in pain makes him doubt it.

Then you scream, It rips out of you like something that’s been caged.

“NO!”

The whole auditorium flinches, your voice cracks wide open.

“No, no, no—he promised! He PROMISED me—! He said he was coming back!! NO— I don’t believe you! No, no, no, no….”

You’re not crying for the camera. You’re grieving, your body is shaking, your heaving like breathing physically hurts you.

You pound your fists into the stone. You shove off the women who try to gather around you. They’re crying too now, holding each other as you come undone in the middle of the street.

You don’t sob, you wail and it’s a sound Bucky’s never heard before or maybe one he’s tried to forget.

It’s the sound he imagines came out of his mother’s chest the day a man in uniform knocked on her door. It’s the sound he hopes to god he never has to hear again.

His jaw tightens, his throat locks, his eyes sting, but he doesn’t blink. Because he can’t. He straightens his spine, just like he was taught. Tighten the muscle, stand tall, don’t feel it, not here, not now.

The screen goes black, applause follows. Loud, immediate…earned.

But Bucky doesn’t move. He looks down at his hands, balled into fists at his sides, slowly, he looks at you.

You’re sitting in the front row, smiling politely, accepting the praise like it’s just part of the job.

But he knows what he saw, that wasn’t a performance. That was grief, that was real.

The presenters open the envelope.

There’s a joke about the glue being too strong, the crowd laughs. So do you, you tilt your head just right, camera-ready.

Bucky exhales like he’s underwater.

“And the winner is…”

A pause.

“Y/N L/N!!!”

The crowd explodes, a standing ovation. Cheering like it’s the end of the world.

You stand slowly, carefully, like you’ve practiced this before. You smile like someone just told you they love you.

You make your way up the stage, dress flowing like silver water under the lights. You hug the announcers, take the heavy glass statue, and step toward the mic.

The room quiets as you speak.

“Thank you.” Your voice is calm, measured. Just the slightest crack around the edges. “This role was the most difficult thing I’ve ever done.” You glance out at the crowd, eyes glassy.

“To imagine living in a time like that, being in a world where people didn’t know if the person they loved was coming home, where a letter could end everything… it shattered something in me. It really did.”

“And I’m standing here because women lived through that. Women endured that and so did the men they loved and I wanted to honor them, I’m thankful I got to.”

You swallow hard, look down at the award.

“Acting has given me so much. But more than anything, it’s given me a voice I didn’t always know how to use.”

You look up again, past the cameras, past the lights.

“To the fans, to the crew, to the people who believed in me when I didn’t even believe in myself, thank you.” You blow a kiss into the air.

The room swells with applause. You smile one last time and you walk offstage, heels echoing like gunfire, shoulders slumped like you’re carrying something heavier than glass.

Backstage, Bucky doesn’t take his eyes off you. Someone hands you champagne, you drink it from the bottle. You hand off the award without looking at it, your face drops and your eyes go distant.

Bucky only takes his eye’s off you when his phone buzzes.

Sam: knew she’d win. she always does, you owe me $50.

Bucky stares at the text for a while.

He wants to write back: you should’ve seen her backstage.

But he doesn’t.

---------

You’re staring out the tinted window, face unreadable, while your assistant scrolls through your calendar.

“Lunch with Vogue,” she says.

You blink slowly. “I hate the editor.”

“She loves you, though.”

You nod. Because that’s enough of a reason.

Bucky sits in the passenger seat, watching your reflection in the mirror.

You haven’t said a word since you got in. Not to him, not to anyone, unless prompted. He chalks it up to ego or moodiness.

You bite your lip to stop the shaking. You smile when the camera flashes outside the car.

Bucky rolls his eyes. “Unreal.”

You hear it, you say nothing.

You’re filming a commercial. Champagne, slow-motion smiles. Music blasting. You’ve done this campaign six times. You fucking hate champagne.

“Again,” the director says. “More playful this time, Y/N.”

You do it again, you laugh on cue. You toss your head back. You hate how your earrings pull on your earlobes, but you don’t touch them. You hate the smell of the set perfume, but you don’t flinch.

From the sidelines, Bucky watches it all. Leaned against a lighting rig, arms crossed.

“She loves the spotlight,” someone says behind him.

Bucky doesn’t disagree. You stand in it like you were made for it, the way your chin tilts just enough for the cameras, the way your lips part in that rehearsed, polite smile. You seem to drink it in, all the flash and noise and attention. You look like you belong there.

But what they don’t see is that you haven’t eaten all day. That the corset is too tight, cutting into your ribs, that every breath is a performance, sometimes you wished you weren’t breathing at all. No one notices, no one asks.

They don’t know you haven’t really laughed in months. Not the kind that starts in your chest and makes your eyes water. Just the polite kind. The one they teach you for red carpets and late night interviews. The kind that photographs well.

They don’t know about the days where it all feels too quiet, even when it’s loud. When you drive up the coast alone and wonder how fast you’d have to be going for the curve to take you off the edge. Not out of sadness. Not even out of fear. Just… curiosity.

You don’t want to die. Not really. You just want to feel something that doesn’t come with a script.

After the take, you walk off set and sit in a chair by yourself. Bucky watches you hand your phone to Leah without being asked.

He watches Brett adjust your robe before you even touch it. He watches you smile at a crew member and then go completely blank the moment they pass. He thinks you’re cold, you think you’re conserving energy.

Bucky sees it from the hallway. He wasn’t meant to. Your door’s open slightly. You’re standing in front of a mirror, holding your face with both hands like you’re trying to keep it from falling apart.

You whisper to yourself, something he can’t hear and then slap a smile onto your face. You turn, open the door.

You jump when you see him standing there. “Jesus,” you mutter. “Creep much?”

He doesn’t apologize.

You brush past him, coat draped over one arm, pretending like you didn’t just rehearse a fake expression for the last two minutes.

Bucky shakes his head as you go. He still doesn’t get it.

You eventually get home and strip yourself of everything the day gave you, you lie in bed, staring at the ceiling, again. The TV is on but muted. You don’t know what channel. Your phone buzzes, Leah sends a revised schedule for tomorrow. You don’t respond, you don’t cry.

You just blink, slowly, and say to the ceiling, “Get through one more day.” You don’t believe it, but you say it anyway.

-----

The trailer lot was a mess.

Lights everywhere, crew yelling, someone spilled coffee on a cable and now half the power was out. The shoot was running behind…again.

Bucky stood with his arms crossed by the production trailer, watching the chaos like it personally offended him. He didn’t do chaos unless it involved something he could punch and then came the voice.

Yours. Loud, sharp enough to cut glass. “No! Absolutely not. I said no to the green one, does no one ever listen to me?!"

You stormed out of your trailer, heels clicking like gunshots, satin robe flowing behind you like a cape.

Your hair was half done, makeup already starting to melt under the lights, and you were holding what looked like a couture dress with two fingers like it personally insulted your family.

“Do I look like I just walked out of Mamma Mia?” you snapped at your stylist, voice cutting. “No? Then why the hell would I wear this?”

People scattered. Your manager started apologizing before you even finished talking.

Bucky just watched blankly. Spoiled, he thought. Completely unhinged, an un grateful brat who probably didn't know what a hard day actually was.

You tossed the dress at some poor assistant and marched back into the trailer, muttering something about firing everyone and never working in this town again.

“She’s exhausted,” someone said nearby. “She hasn’t had a day off in months.”

Bucky didn’t even look at them. He didn’t get it. Exhausted? For what?

You stood on a stage and talked. You wore pretty clothes and smiled at cameras. He’d lived in the woods for weeks eating bugs during wartime. He’d bled out in alleyways, dug bullets out of his own thigh. That was exhausting.

This? This was pretend. This was fake, you were fake. He didn’t say it out loud. Just shook his head, turned, and kept walking. That’s when he heard it.

The trailer door, not your trailer, but the office one was cracked open just enough. He didn’t mean to stop. He didn’t mean to listen. But your name came up, and his legs rooted themselves to the ground.

“He was outside her hotel again.”

“How the hell does he keep getting this close?”

“They think he’s hacked into call sheets. He’s finding her schedule before we even approve it.”

“He’s escalating. The notes are more aggressive, more personal.”

“She doesn’t even react anymore.”

“Yeah, well, she never does.”.

“We should lock her down this weekend. No events. Nothing public. Spin it as a scheduled break.”

Bucky blinked, slowly. The air felt heavier all of a sudden.

She doesn’t even react anymore.

He didn’t know why that line stuck, just that it did. Later, Brett flagged him down near the lot exit, sunglasses on like he was someone important.

“You’re off this weekend,” he said, waving it off like a minor inconvenience. “She’ll be locked in at the house. No press, no events. All quiet.”

Bucky raised an eyebrow. “And the stalker?”

Brett shrugged. “She’ll be fine. We’ve got in-house security. You’ve earned the break. She’s a lot, but… nothing at all. You know what I mean?”

Bucky didn’t. He didn’t know what any of it meant. But he didn’t argue. Didn’t even know why he felt the need to argue. This was a job, you weren’t his problem, you never had been and never will be.

He took his keys without a word.

You were heading to your car at the same time, heels off now, coat thrown over your shoulders like armor, hair pinned perfectly again, mask back in place. The driver was already waiting, of course.

You stopped at the car door, glanced over. “So,” you said, voice softer now. “You’re off this week?”

“Apparently.”

You smiled. Not the one from press junkets or award shows. A smaller one, more human. It didn’t reach your eyes, but it was the closest he’d seen. “Enjoy it.”

He didn’t smile back, just grunted. “Try not to cause any more trouble.”

Your laugh was quiet. Not a performance, just something real, pushed through exhaustion. “I’ll do my best.”

You slid into the car, the door shut and just like that, you were gone.

Bucky stood there for another full minute before walking away. Still trying to figure out why he felt like he’d missed something important.

————

Two days later, Bucky was back at the Tower. The city felt quieter here, less like performance, more like breathing. Steve and Sam were already in the kitchen, post-run, towels slung over their shoulders, sweat still drying.

Sam tossed Bucky a water bottle. He caught it one-handed. “So,” Sam said, leaning against the counter, “how’s the movie star?”

Bucky scoffed. “She’s a piece of work.”

Steve glanced up from the paper he was pretending to read. “That bad?”

“She doesn’t talk unless she has to. She’s always on, like everything’s some promo tour. Even off-camera, it’s exhausting.”

Sam raised a brow. “She’s been famous since what, ten? Maybe she doesn’t know how to turn it off.”

Bucky rolled his eyes. “Her team treats her like a product. I watched some assistant take her phone out of her hand mid-text. She doesn’t even open her own car doors. They tell her what to eat, where to go, what to say. She just does it, doesn’t blink.”

Steve frowned. “And she just… takes it?”

“She doesn’t flinch, it’s like she’s not really there.”

Steve folded the paper and set it down. “That kind of sounds like survival.”

Bucky looked at him, scoffs. “You’ve never met her, you wouldn’t know.”

“I don’t have to,” Steve said gently.

Bucky ignored him. “I watched her snap at some poor girl the other day over the color of a dress.”

Sam snorted. “You snap when we move your knives or reorganize your ammo stash.”

Bucky turned, glaring. “That’s different.”

“If you say so,” Sam said, smirking. “Come on, movie night. You’re coming.”

“I don’t—”

“Nope,” Sam said, already walking. “You’re coming.”

The Tower’s theater room was dim, the seats stupidly plush. Steve had a bowl of popcorn bigger than Bucky’s head. Sam handed him a beer with a shit-eating grin.

“What are we watching?” Bucky asked warily.

“It’s a surprise,” Sam said.

That should’ve been the first red flag, the lights dimmed, and the screen lit up. Bucky’s face twisted the second the title card appeared. “No,” he said flatly. “Absolutely not.”

“Sit down,” Sam said, tugging him back into the seat. “Watch the art happen.”

Your name lit up the screen, In The Quiet After. The same film from the award show, Bucky sighed so hard it came out like a growl.

Of course it was that movie, the one you won for. The one everyone was still talking about in quiet tones like it was sacred. Sam smirked and passed him the popcorn, Bucky didn’t touch it.

He was already watching and he hated that he watched

The first scene opened with a wide shot, London under a grey sky, everything washed in a cold, early-morning haze. A train pulled into the station slow and quiet. Inside, you sat by the window, your cheek pressed to the foggy glass, lips parted slightly like you’d just forgotten how to breathe. You didn’t say anything, didn’t need to.

Your eyes were already telling the truth, hollow, wide, tired. Like you were mourning something you hadn’t lost yet or maybe something you’d already lost long ago, but hadn’t let yourself feel.

It wasn’t acting. Not the kind he was used to, anyway.

The story unfolded slowly, like memory. You played the fiancée of a soldier who’d been missing in action for nearly a year. The war was winding down, but hope, the kind that hurt still lived in you.

There was a scene where you folded his letters, over and over, until they were so creased the words disappeared. Another where you danced alone in your kitchen with a record playing, eyes shut, holding a sweater like it was a person. Bucky didn’t breathe through that one.

Bucky sat forward, elbows on his knees, beer forgotten. Then the telegram came, the scene they showed when you won that award. A different scene started when you didn’t cry at first. You just stood in the hallway, dress wrinkled, light slanting through a window like it was trying to reach you. Your legs gave out again. Just crumpled underneath you, the sound you made this time wasn’t a sob, it was a whimper, low and shaking, like something breaking in a place no one could see.

You stood in front of his empty closet, touching the things he left behind, a medal, a book, a shaving kit and when you pressed your face to the shirts still hanging there, Bucky had to blink fast, jaw clenched.

There was a scene, a short one where your character sat at the edge of the ocean, shoes off, staring at the water like it owes you something and you whispered, “I wasn’t afraid until they told me he was gone and now I’m afraid of everything.”

That one stayed in his chest, the last shot was you sitting at the window, hair half brushed, looking out at nothing.

Not waiting, just existing. The screen faded to black, the credits rolled. The room was quiet. Sam shifted beside him, eyes still locked on the screen. Bucky sat there, frozen, a fist pressed to his mouth and when the credits rolled, he didn’t move.

Sam leaned over. “Admit it. That was good.”

Bucky didn’t say anything. He blinked, fast, and wiped a tear away so quickly it almost didn’t count but Sam saw it.

“Not you too,” Bucky muttered when he heard Steve sniff beside him.

Steve just shrugged. “She’s good.”

Bucky didn’t say anything.

He was still thinking about the look on your face in that last shot, how it wasn’t dramatic, or showy, or polished. Just tired, real. That scared him more than he’d admit. It felt real, he’s felt that feeling before himself. He swallowed hard.

The film moved him, it felt like what could have been if he found someone before he got his papers, watching you dance in the street with a man you loved, laughing like it hurt and when he died, you crumbled in silence, not tears. Just… nothing.

He was still watching the dark screen littered with white words of everyone who made the film, he couldn’t stop thinking of the scream. Not yours, but the one he never heard from his sister, or his mother, or the world that mourned him when he disappeared.

——

The silence at your house was overwhelming, it usually was.

No cameras, no crew, no voices in your ear telling you where to be. Just the soft hum of the fridge, the creak of the floorboards under your bare feet, and the muted echo of a house too big for one person.

You hadn’t turned the TV on, you didn’t want noise, not the fake kind. You sat at the piano in your sunken living room, hair pulled up, hoodie sleeves pushed to your elbows. You let your fingers hover over the keys for a long time before pressing the first note.

You wrote without meaning to, it came out slow, low, soft.

They put me in diamonds, tell me I shine. Pose for the photos, say the right lines. But nobody asks if I slept last night. Nobody asks if I’m really alright.

You played the chorus over and over until the melody started to hurt.

It's quiet now, no scripts, no gold. Just me in the dark, getting tired of roles. They all say I’m lucky, but they don’t have a clue…what it’s like to be seen and never seen through. When the laughter fades to air, I’m just a girl with no one there.

Your voice cracked once, but no one was around to hear it.

You liked singing more than acting, always had. Singing felt like you, writing felt like something real. But that didn’t sell, not the way your face did, not in the way your body did.

They’d said it so many times, you’d stopped arguing. You had the kind of face that belonged on billboards. So that’s where they put you, said you were too pretty to hide behind a mic. That your voice was fine, but your face was profitable. So you shut up and smiled and gave them what they wanted, you always ended up here, playing music for a room that would never applaud.

-------

The studio was freezing. The kind of cold that crept under skin and made bones ache. Probably on purpose, keep the talent uncomfortable. Keep them alert, keep them obedient, its what they use to do for him.

Bucky stood just outside the wardrobe trailer, arms crossed, metal fingers flexing now and then just to feel something. He didn’t shiver, he didn’t feel cold like that anymore.

He was watching nothing and everything at once, lights shifting across the lot, assistants rushing like ghosts with clipboards and coffee. The hum of production noise buzzed in the background. Mostly, he ignored it.

Until your voice cut through it. “I don’t want to do this!”

It made him blink.

He’d never heard you say no to anything. Not to your team, not to the cameras. Not to the weight of your own exhaustion. Now that he thought about it, that was because no one had ever listened long enough to hear you.

“I said I don’t want to do this,” your voice rose again, cracking on the edge. “I’m not doing nudity. I told you that!”

A pause.

A sound that made Bucky’s stomach turn. That sick, sharp snap of skin on skin. A sound his body recognized faster than his brain.

A slap.

He didn’t think, didn’t hesitate. He just moved. The door slammed open hard enough to rattle the hinges. Cold air rushed in behind him.

You were standing in the middle of the trailer, stiff and trembling. Satin robe gripped tight around your frame like armor. Your makeup was half-finished, but your eyes were all fire and fear. A bright red handprint bloomed across your cheek like war paint.

Brett turned, visibly irritated. “This doesn’t concern—”

Bucky stepped in front of you, slow and dangerous. “Move.”

Brett straightened his spine like it might make him taller. “You don’t tell me what to do! I tell people what to do.”

Bucky’s voice was like ice. “You gonna move me?”

Brett didn’t blink, but he didn’t answer either. Because the truth was: everyone knew who Bucky was. Maybe Brett wasn’t afraid of you, but he was sure as hell afraid of the man standing between you and him now.

Brett backed away, grabbed his tablet, muttered something about schedules, about budgets, about “not being done” but he was already retreating. The door slammed shut behind him.

The air in the trailer changed, it was thick and heavy. You didn’t look at Bucky right away. Just stood there, unmoving, one hand slowly rising to your cheek, like your body couldn’t decide whether to comfort itself or feel the bruise.

“Thank you,” you said, voice soft but unsteady.

He didn’t move either. “Just doing my job,” Bucky muttered.

You nodded, but something in your face cracked when he said it. Like the words “job” hit a little too hard, because of course he was paid to protect you.

“Of course.” It came out flat and empty.

Bucky shifted, watching you. You looked small at that moment. Not weak, just… unguarded. Like someone who was running out of ways to hold themselves together. “You okay?”

You nodded, eyes still on the floor. “Of course.” But the second time, your tone was different. Like you didn’t believe yourself either.

You didn’t wait for a response, you just walked out.

Chaos hit less than an hour later.

You were walking to the car, head down, wrapped in a coat you didn’t remember putting on, when the entire lot seemed to shift. Shouts rang out, radios crackled. Security scrambled to lock the gates. Flashes went off, someone screamed. The sound of feet pounding pavement.

Bucky was already moving. He didn’t wait to be told. He didn’t need clearance. He stepped between you and the sound, body tight and still, pressing close until your back touched his chest.

You didn’t flinch, of course you didn’t. Because this wasn’t new for you. None of it was, not the panic, not the threat. Not the way you had to keep walking like you weren’t being hunted. You didn’t even seem to care about your life being in danger.

Your publicist, Leah, came running, phone pressed tight to her ear.

“He’s here,” she said, breathless. “We think he followed her from the last hotel. How the hell does he keep finding her?”

Bucky’s jaw locked. His eyes scanned the crowd, already calculating exits, cover, line of sight. He reached for your hand, not hard, just firm and tucked you behind him like instinct.

Bucky was still inches from your back when Leah caught up to you both, still talking fast. “We’re not sending her to that appearance Friday. We’re leaking it anyway, we think he’ll show. In the meantime, Sergeant Barnes, you’re with her 24/7, you’re staying at the house.”

You didn’t argue, just nodded. “Why’s your cheek red?” Leah asked, barely looking up.

You adjusted your sunglasses. “Ran into a door.”

Leah rolled her eyes. “Of course. The beauty, but with no brains.”

Bucky winced at that one. He looked at you, waiting for your reaction but you didn’t have one, you didn’t respond, nothing you just kept walking.

———

You didn’t speak on the drive home.

When you unlocked the door and let him in, you didn’t say welcome. You didn’t offer a tour, you just kicked off your shoes, dropped your bag by the wall, and disappeared into the kitchen like he wasn’t there at all.

Bucky stood in the foyer for a minute, looking around. The place was immaculate, modern and well magazine-worthy. But there were no photos. No personal touches, no signs of family, no warmth. It was clean to the point of being sterile. You lived in a house that looked staged for a sale.

His footsteps echoed. You came back with a bottle of water, handed him one wordlessly, and went upstairs. The silence in the house wasn’t peaceful. It was suffocating, he couldn't imagine having to live here.

Bucky sat down in one of the perfect chairs in the perfect living room and stared at the wall across from him. This wasn’t how he imagined the world's biggest movie star to live, this was how ghosts lived.

The door buzzed just after six.

Bucky had been sitting on the perfect chair, trying to figure out what the hell to do with himself in a house that didn’t feel lived in. He opened the door before the second knock. The woman standing there didn’t even blink.

“Relax,” she said, holding up a tiny keypad and some wires. “Just updating her security. Won’t take long.”

She didn’t ask for permission. Just stepped inside like she owned the place. She didn’t even take off her heels.

“Gina,” she added, like that explained anything. “I’m her publicist or one of them, technically. You probably already met Leah, she's the hands on one, no way I could deal with our little diva all day.”

Bucky followed her as she moved to the wall near the front door, unscrewing a panel and installing a new keypad. He stayed quiet, watched every move. She knew she was being watched and didn’t care. “Just showing you where you’re sleeping,” she said casually. “Couple of days, right? Guest room’s down here. Hers is right above it.”

She motioned toward a sleek white door by the front hallway.

“Help yourself to anything,” she added. “Don’t touch her piano, don’t wake her up unless there’s an emergency. Don’t ask her too many questions, she won’t answer them.”

Bucky raised an eyebrow. “What’s the plan for the guy?”

Gina checked something on her phone. “We leaked that she’s going to an event on Friday. We’re hoping he shows, cops will be watching.”

Bucky crossed his arms. “Has he ever tried anything violent?”

Gina paused. “There was one incident. A few years ago, but she talked her way out of it. Manipulated him, acted her way out of it, that’s what she’s good at.”

She glanced at him, eyes sharp. “That’s why she wins awards, she’s good at faking it.” She smiled, a little too smug and walked out the door without waiting for a response.

Bucky waited until she was gone, then pulled out his phone. “Steve,” he said when the line clicked on.

“You good?”

“Define good,” Bucky muttered. “She’s locked in her own house because she has this stalker. The place has high level security. Some publicists just came by to upgrade the system even further, it's crazy for just one girl.”

Steve’s voice came calm. “The stalker?”

“Name’s Elias Corrin.”

“I’ll look into it.”

“Yeah okay,” Bucky said.

He hung up and leaned back against the door, staring into the quiet. He didn’t know what the hell he’d walked into. But he didn’t like how deep the hole looked from here.

That night he found you outside.

You were barefoot on the patio, legs pulled up into the chair, arms wrapped tight around your knees. The lights from the pool lit your skin in pale, blue glimmer almost otherworldly, like moonlight underwater. One empty bottle of wine sat on the table. Another was already open, half-gone.

You didn’t hear the door open. You didn’t hear his steps. It wasn’t that he was trying to be quiet. You just weren’t listening, your mind too loud.

You turned when you finally heard the soft slide of glass. Your voice was low, hoarse from the day. “You want a drink?”

“No thanks,” Bucky said. “I can’t get drunk.”

You tilted your head, like you were trying to figure out if that was sad or not. “By choice?”

“No, the serum.”

“Oh,” you murmured. “Right, super soldier.” You paused. “Weird that that stuff actually exists.”

He nodded.

You gestured toward the chair across from you. “You can sit. I’m not gonna throw anything.”

He hesitated, then sat.

You were humming something, a soft, sad thing with no real melody. Like you were just filling the silence so it didn’t swallow you. It wasn’t a song, it wasn’t for him. It was just for you, but Bucky… felt it. Low in his chest, somewhere hard to reach. Like the ache of something he hadn’t admitted yet.

You didn’t look at him when you said, “I know what you’re thinking.”

He didn’t answer, just kept his eyes on you.

“This house is cold, empty.” You took a sip. “Want to know something stupid?”

He waited.

“I used to dream about my perfect house. Not like this, not marble floors and designer furniture. I wanted a little white one. Big wraparound porch, a garden, wind chimes. Maybe photos on the walls of all the friends I’d have. A kitchen that actually smelled like something.”

You smiled at your wineglass. It didn’t reach your eyes.

“I pictured pots and pans hanging over the island. You know, the messy kind. With a coffee mug that doesn’t match the rest. Something that looked like someone lived there, oh my god, I can't forget about stained glass windows so when the sun shines, my house would be happy to.

He looked around at the manicured patio, the spotless glass, the perfect silence. “Why don’t you make it that?”

You shook your head like he didn’t understand.

“It’s never that easy,” you said. “Money buys a lot, but not silence that doesn’t feel like you’re drowning in it. Not real people, not anyone who stays.”

He watched you carefully, the way your voice dipped like a record dragging on the wrong speed.

“Aren’t you happy?” he asked.

“If there’s a camera around? Yeah,” you said, pausing briefly you took a deep breath, then softer, almost a whisper, like it wasn’t meant to be heard, “But no, not really.” The words hovered between you like smoke.

You stared out at the water, blinking slow. “I wanted to sing. That’s all I wanted. Just… write songs, play piano, maybe disappear into it.”

Bucky didn’t speak. He didn’t want to interrupt whatever this was, the first time in the weeks he’s been assigned to you that he saw you be real, and he wouldn't admit it but he was fascinated by this lifestyle that was the complete opposite to his.

“But they said my face was too pretty to waste, and said acting sold more. Said I’d be stupid not to take the offers.” You snorted into your glass. “So I did, because I didn’t know what else to do, who else to be.”

You shook your head. “Now I’m rich, alone…exhausted and everyone thinks I’m this spoiled little thing who throws tantrums about champagne or shoes or the wrong shade of lipstick…. sometimes I do it, y'know? Throw fits everyones expecting me to throw, just to feel something more than what I do.”

You turned to look at him. “But I don’t even know what I want anymore, Bucky. I just know it was never this.”

His name sounded different coming from your lips. It wasn’t flirtation or business, it was something honest. Like you were asking him to just see you, not fix you. He stayed silent. Sometimes silence was safer than saying the wrong thing, his mind was too busy reeling the you he made up in his head, the you that screamed for a different coloured dress because you were a brat, not the you that did it to give the people what they made you, to give yourself something to feel.

You took another sip, lips curling slightly. “You wanna hear something really fucked up?”

He gave you a slow nod.

“Every year, on my birthday, they throw these huge parties. Red carpet, champagne, some exclusive venue with a million fake people. The same faces, the same photos. But every year, I show up, smile, and think…” you laughed bitterly, “God, I can’t believe I made it another year.”

He frowned, finally responding. “What do you mean?”

You looked up, eyes shining with something sharp. “I mean, how does someone live this long,” you said, “without feeling anything at all?”

Just like that, the air shifted, it's like the earth felt it to become the wind picked up. Bucky felt it, the weight in your voice, the truth behind the joke. The kind of sadness that doesn’t scream or cry or beg. The kind that just exists, quiet and constant.

He didn’t know what to say, he barely did day to day with basic, easy conversations so he just stayed, like Steve did for him when he needed him to and that mattered.

You looked at him again, and this time, your voice cracked a little. “Don’t look at me like that, like I’m breakable.”

“I’m not,” he said. “I’m looking at you like you’re real.” He leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “I get it,” he said. It was barely more than a whisper.

You blinked. “You do?”

“Parts of it.”

You didn’t say anything back. Just stared at him for a long time, until the silence wasn’t heavy anymore, just quiet, then you just poured another glass and kept humming.

--------

The house is quiet again. Not in the eerie way it used to be, where silence felt like a scream. This kind of quiet is soft, bearable…almost warm. No one’s called for you. No cameras, no red carpet, just Bucky.

You woke up late, no alarms, no stylists, no fake lashes. Just sunlight cutting through the blinds and the faint clink of him making coffee downstairs.

He didn’t speak when you walked in, just slid a mug across the island like it was something he’d done a hundred times. You sat across from him in an old sweatshirt, knees curled under you. No makeup, no walls. He didn’t stare but he noticed. He always does.

It’s strange, how fast the noise fell away.

The city is still out there, of course. Cameras, crowds the mess of it. But here, even in this steril house it’s quiet in a way he doesn’t mind.

He watches you more now. Tries not to, but he does. You hum while you make toast, barefoot on marble floors. You read paperbacks and roll your eyes when the plot disappoints you. You talk more, not much, but more.

Yesterday, you asked about Brooklyn. About what music he liked before the war. Not as an interview, but just… because. He didn’t give you much. But you didn’t look disappointed and that scared him a little. Because this was supposed to be a job.

It’s late when it happens, hours past the point where anyone normal would be asleep. The house is dim, quiet. Bucky’s sitting in the armchair by the glass doors, a book open in his lap he’s not reading it’s just… there. Then he hears it, soft scuffling in the kitchen. A cupboard door thudding shut, another opening. A drawer slammed a little too hard.

“HA! I found ’em!” You pop up from behind the island, holding a crinkly bag of marshmallows like you just won the lottery.

He doesn’t say anything, just watches. You’re wearing flannel pajama pants and one of his sweatshirts you borrowed two days ago and never gave back.

You spin around, holding the bag in front of you like a trophy. “Come on.”

He raises an eyebrow. “No.”

You pout. “Come on, Sarge. I need you to start the fire or I’ll probably burn the house down.”

He groans but you hit him with it, the puppy dog face, not just any the best he’s ever seen, big eyes…lip jutted. That kind of ridiculous, manipulative sweetness that shouldn’t work on him but it does.

He sighs, pushes up from the chair. “Fine.”

Your whole face lights up and it’s not fake. Not for the cameras, just real and because of him and that’s when he thinks in this moment you don’t remind him of the sun. You remind him of the stars, bright, but only in the dark.

The fire pit flickers out back. You’re curled up with a blanket draped over your shoulders, holding a roasting stick like it’s some ancient tool. Bucky crouches near the flames, getting the wood just right.

“I feel like I should be paying you,” you joke.

“You are,” he says.

You laugh, really laugh, the kind that reaches your eyes. You hand him a marshmallow. “Don’t burn this one.”

He does, immediately but you make him eat it anyway.

You talk, and it’s easier now. You tell him about your first audition. How you tripped on your own heels and nearly threw up in front of three casting directors. You tell him about learning to cry on cue, about learning to smile when you wanted to scream.

You ask him about his family, not like you’re prying, but like you actually care.

He tells you about his mom. How she used to braid his sister’s hair before school, how she always left the porch light on for him, even when he came home past curfew. How his dad never said much but always made sure the heater worked. He doesn’t say much more. But it’s something.

You’re staring into the fire, the flames rising and sinking like they’re breathing. Your last marshmallow is too close, the edge catching and curling black. You don’t flinch. You let it burn a little longer before pulling it back, watching the char bubble and blister.

You pop it into your mouth anyway, ashy, sweet. You barely taste it. Softly, too softly for how heavy the words are you speak.

“I used to think I’d die young.”

It comes out like a throwaway thought. Like something you’ve said before to the ceiling at 3 a.m. But now it’s out here in the open, between you and the fire and him.

You roll your eyes at yourself, laughing once, dry and bitter. “Not in some big dramatic way. Not pills or headlines or anything that’d ruin the brand.” You shake your head. “Just… quietly. Like, one day I’d stop, fade out, a footnote.”

You glance at him, just for a second, then back to the flames.

“But yet here I am,” you murmur, “with a super soldier, roasting marshmallows, under lockdown because some guy thinks…” You don’t finish that sentence.

Bucky’s jaw ticks. His body goes still, but he doesn’t interrupt. You get the sense he knows better than to.

You keep going, because if you stop now, it’ll crush you.

“I’ve had everything they said I should want. All of it. Magazine covers, designer gowns, awards with my name etched in gold like that’s supposed to mean something.”

You laugh again, hollow this time. “I’ve been told I’m beautiful by people who don’t even make eye contact. I’ve smiled through breakdowns. I’ve clapped for co-stars who took everything I wanted and through it all, I thought eventually….eventually I’d feel full.”

You pause, let the fire crackle for you.

“But I don’t.” Your voice is lower now. “Most days, I don’t feel anything at all. Just… tired. All the time. Like I’m running on autopilot. Like I’m standing in the middle of a room full of people screaming my name and I’ve never been lonelier.”

The wind shifts and fire flickers. You don’t look at him when you say it, but it’s the truth that floors him.

“This is the most joy I’ve had in years and I’m paying you to be here.”

That quiet silence hits hard. You feel your throat tighten. So you turn to him, finally, and your eyes are glassy, not full of tears, just… worn.

“Does that make me crazy?”

Bucky doesn’t answer right away. He watches you, really watches you like you’re not a headline or a paycheck or a woman wrapped in satin on someone’s magazine cover. You’re just a person now, barefoot, burned out, asking if your emptiness means you’re broken.

“No.”

You blink at him.

--------

Wednesday morning starts slow, the kind of quiet that hangs gently in the air, like the house itself is still asleep.

Bucky’s already out on the patio, sitting on the bench, coffee in hand. His hair is still damp from the shower, sticking up a little at the back, and he’s wearing the same navy t-shirt from the night before, stretched a bit at the shoulders.

The air is cool, and the sky is soft gray. He’s not thinking about much, or maybe too much. He doesn’t know the difference anymore. Just staring at the garden, at the fence line, at the leaves trembling in the breeze. He hears the creak of the sliding door.

You step outside barefoot, sleeves too long on a borrowed hoodie. You’re balancing two mismatched mugs in your hands like they’re made of glass. You don’t say anything.

You just hand one to him. He looks up, surprised. He takes it without question, and puts his other one down.

You sit beside him, folding your legs up into the chair, knees pulled to your chest, like you’re trying to make yourself smaller. Your mug disappears into your hands.

Neither of you says a word for a while. The only sound is the wind brushing the trees and the faint clink of ceramic when one of you shifts. You sip slowly, so does he. You hated the quiet but this, felt different, this quiet sounded different.

You don’t look at him when you speak. “I hate the quiet, it makes me feel like I failed.” Your voice is soft and thoughtful.

Bucky turns his head, watching you.

You’re staring at the trees like they’ve got all the answers. “I know its stupid but if it isn't loud, if people aren't clapping, I thought it meant I wasn’t enough.”

You rest your chin on your knees. “I didn’t know quiet could feel… nice."

Bucky nods, not quick, just slow. Like he’s been thinking the same thing for years and never knew how to say it.

“It’s the only time I know I’m okay,” he says quietly.

You look back at him for a second, not too long just enough to let the words settle. “Yeah,” you say.

---

You’re in the screening room. You’re the one who picked Casablanca. Bucky didn’t argue, anything to get the last movie he saw out of his head, your movie.

The lights are dim, you’ve got a blanket wrapped around you, feet tucked under your legs, and a bowl of popcorn between you that neither of you are really touching.

He’s not watching the movie, he’s watching you.

The way you mouth the lines under your breath. The way your eyes crinkle slightly during the airport scene. The way your voice is quieter when you say: “We’ll always have Paris.”

You notice him watching. “What?” you whisper.

He shakes his head. “You’ve seen this a hundred times.”

You smile. “That obvious?”

“You don’t even look at the screen during the last scene.”

You shrug. “I know how it ends.”

He leans back, watching the flickering light dance across your face.

“You ever wish you had that? The whole ‘we’ll-always-have’ moment?”

You go quiet. “No, I think I’d rather have something that stays.”

You look at him, neither of you says anything after that. The credits roll, you don’t hit pause, don’t get up.

You both sit in the low blue glow, blanket still wrapped around your shoulders, his hand resting lightly on the couch between you. Not touching. Just there and when you eventually stand, stretch, and yawn into your sleeve, you look at him and you wish he was not just someone paid to be here.

He watches you leave, he memorises the way the blanket slips off your shoulder, the way your bare feet pad across the floor, the way you glance back once but don’t say anything.

He doesn’t move, doesn't stop you. Why would he?

But something in his chest feels…off. He wishes, just for a moment, that he wasn’t just the guy on the couch, the bodyguard. He wishes you had stayed, turned around or said his name again like you meant it. Long after you disappear, he keeps staring at the empty hallway. Still warm from you, still quiet in that way that feels like something is missing.

------

The Thursday morning sun is high when you find him.

You’ve just finished lunch or at least pushed half of it around your plate while pretending to eat and you spot Bucky out in the backyard. He’s sitting under the shade of the lone tree near the edge of the property, sleeves pushed up, hair messy, working on something with his hands.

At first you think it’s a knife, but as you get closer, you realize it’s a small block of wood. He’s carving. You’re not sure what, and you don’t ask.

You just drop down into the grass beside him, not bothering with grace or performance. Just you, in worn leggings and an old band tee, barefoot, your hair a little messy from the wind.

“What are you making?” you ask, casually.

He shrugs. “Don’t know yet.”

You watch his hands move, steady and careful, everything you wish you had. You realise you're staring at his hands too long, you decide to start a conversation “Tell me about Steve.”

He raises an eyebrow without looking up. “Why?”

You shrug. “You talk about him like he’s some mythical figure.”

Bucky smirks. “To me, he kind of is.”

You pick at the grass near your ankle. “What was he like? Before he got all tall and shiny.”

That makes him laugh, not some big one but real, you realising it's the best thing you ever heard.

“He got beat up every day,” Bucky says, carving knife still moving. “Small guy, loud mouth with a heart way too big. He was always standing up for people who didn’t ask him to. Even when he didn’t have the strength to back it up.”

You nod, resting your chin on your hand. “What about Sam?”

Bucky’s mouth pulls into something softer. “He’s the best guy I know. Smart, always knows what to say. He jokes a lot but… he means well, he sees people…really sees them, he saw through me. Sees the good in people before they see it.” He pauses. “They are two sides of the same coin, they’re the best people to have on your side.”

You pause. “You love them.”

He glances at you. “Yeah,” he says. No hesitation. “They’re family.”

There’s a moment of silence, the breeze picks up, ruffling the loose strands around your face. You lean back into the grass, legs stretched out, eyes closed against the sun. You speak so quietly he almost doesn’t catch it. “I don’t think I’ve ever had that.”

He sets the carving knife down slowly.

You open your eyes but don’t look at him. “Someone who just… knows me. Without all the filters, not the version of me they pay for. Not the headline, just….me. The way you talk about them.”

You exhale like you’ve been holding that sentence in for years. “I think I’d trade everything for that.”

You’re not expecting a response. You don’t even know why you said it.

But Bucky’s voice comes low. “You're not alone as you think.”

You turn your head to look at him, eyes narrowing just slightly, you don’t believe him but then he meets your gaze without flinching and your chest loosens, just a little.

You’re both in the kitchen. The sun’s gone down, but neither of you noticed, it’s the kind of night where time slips sideways.

You’re sitting cross-legged on the marble counter in worn socks and his hoodie, picking through the fridge drawer for grapes like you live there. Bucky leans against the island, arms folded, watching you with the kind of expression that’s halfway between amused and curious.

The little bird sits on the table behind him. It’s still rough around the edges, but it’s starting to take shape, something delicate carved out of something solid, just like him you think.

The air is calm, you’re not trying to fill the silence. You just exist in it together. You toss a grape at him, he catches it.

Out of nowhere, you say something, you don’t even remember what. Something sarcastic and weird and a little too honest about celebrity facial treatments or the time someone tried to sell your bathwater online.

Bucky snorts, actually snorts. It’s sudden and unexpected you freeze, mid-chew, eyes wide…then you snort, louder, messier, completely involuntary.

It hits you both at the same time.

You start laughing, big, belly-deep laughing. The kind that catches you off guard, the kind that makes your cheeks hurt.

“Oh my God,” you wheeze, pointing at him, “you snort when you laugh!”

His ears flush, but he doesn’t stop smiling. “Apparently.”

“Who would’ve thought? Sargent Barnes, war hero….snorts.”

He shrugs. “Haven’t done it in years. Maybe not since… my sister.”

That quiets the laughter, but it doesn’t kill the warmth. You shift, leaning back against the fridge. “What was her name?”

He nods. “Rebecca, I called her Becca. She was younger, smart….tough. Used to pretend she hated me, but she’d cry if I didn’t tuck her in when Ma was working late.”

You smile softly. “You were good to her.”

“I tried to be.” He swallows, “What about you? Do you have any siblings?”

You pause, then tilt your head. “You didn’t Google me?”

Bucky chuckles, low and tired. “There was a file. Mostly about your stalker. Ellis, right?”

You nod once. “Yeah, him.”

“Didn’t say much else,” he adds. “No siblings, no school records. Nothing normal. Just interviews and promo stuff and… threat reports.”

You look at him, expression unreadable. “I guess that tracks.”

He pushes off the counter, grabbing a glass of water. “I’d rather learn the real stuff from the source anyway. The internet’s mostly crap.”

That makes you smile, you nod. “I don’t have siblings, it was just me and my parents weren’t really in the picture, oh and I was homeschooled.” You don’t elaborate, and he doesn’t push.

Your eyes drift to the little bird on the table. You nod toward it. “What’s with the bird?”

He glances back. Picks it up in one hand, brushes his thumb over the grooves. His expression goes quieter, faraway.

“Birds don’t stay anywhere long,” he says. “They don’t belong to anyone. But they always find their way back, no matter how far they go.”

—————

It's Friday morning and you’ve barely touched your toast.

It sits cold on your plate while you curl into the window seat, knees drawn to your chest, sleeves pulled over your hands. You watch the driveway like it might come to life, like your stalker might materialize out of the shadows and end this awful waiting.

The house is too quiet, even the birds outside sound cautious. Your stomach churns, but not from hunger, from dread.

You keep hearing the same line in your head, over and over: They’re supposed to catch him tonight. As if that makes it safe, as if that makes it over. It doesn’t feel over. You don’t think it ever will.

Bucky finds you just after lunch, when he notices you’re not downstairs, not in the kitchen, not anywhere.

He walks past the stairwell and sees you, still there, still staring and something in him just knots. He doesn’t say your name, he just sits down beside you. The cushion shifts under his weight.

Your voice is quiet. Barely there. “You ever sit so still, it feels like the world’s moving around you?”

He nods, eyes on the window. “Yeah.”

You take a shaky breath. “They’re supposed to catch him tonight.”

“I know.”

You don’t look at him. Your voice is soft but sharp. “He sent me a letter once. Said he watched me sleep, said I looked like an angel.”

Bucky stiffens. Every instinct in his body coils tight.

“I was sixteen. I didn’t even know what the hell that meant. I just knew it made my skin crawl.”

You laugh once, it’s not a real laugh…more of a release. Bitter and brittle. “He thinks I belong to him. He’s… quiet. Calculated, smarter than anyone gives him credit for and he always finds me. No matter how many houses I buy. No matter how many bodyguards they hire.”

His jaw tightens. He wants to say he understands but he doesn’t. Not really, he’s been the shadow before. The one who follows, he knows what that kind of obsession looks like, what it feels like.

But this is different, this is….you, unraveling slowly in front of him, all he can do is offer his presence. “You’re safe now,” he says, his voice low. “With me, you are.” He swallows, “I wouldn't, I won't let anything happen to you.”

You turn to him, eyes tired. “I feel safe…here, with you.”

He doesn’t say anything, he does something he’s never done before…he just lays his hand over yours.

It’s warm and steady, something you’ve never felt before and to his surprise you hold it tighter than you mean to.

By Friday night he can tell you’re still wound up, still stuck inside your own head, even after dinner.

You smile at him when he offers tea, but it’s automatic. Your shoulders are too tight, your eyes are too far away.

So he says it, casually, like it’s nothing. “You play piano?”

You blink. “What?”

He shrugs. “Saw it in the sitting room, you said you loved music more right?”

You raise a brow. “What, you wanna sing a duet?”

Bucky huffs a laugh and shakes his head. “No, no, I just… miss music sometimes. Real music, not the garbage they play in stores now.”

You smile for real this time. It’s small, but it’s there. “I could play for you.”

He doesn’t answer, just gestures with his hand.

You lead the way. You sit on the bench and let your fingers rest on the keys, just for a moment. You don’t speak, you don’t explain what you’re about to play. You just start..it’s soft, slow. The kind of melody that makes the walls feel like they’re holding their breath.

Bucky leans against the archway, arms crossed, eyes locked on your hands. You don’t look at him, you’re somewhere else entirely.

Your fingers glide across the keys like you’ve done it a thousand times. Like the music lives in you, just waiting for the silence.

He watches and he feels something inside him break open a little. Because this? This is….you. No press, no cameras, no posing.

Just raw, haunting beauty.

He can’t imagine what your voice would sound like and maybe he doesn’t want to. Not yet. Because this, just this is already more honest than anything he’s ever known.

You finish the last note, and it lingers in the air like a held breath. You look over at him, eyes wide. A little nervous. “Well?” you ask.

Bucky just shakes his head once. Voice barely above a whisper. “That was… beautiful.”

You smile, but your eyes are wet. You don’t cry. But he sees how badly you want to.

———

It’s Saturday morning now, you barely slept.

You kept shifting beneath the sheets, cold despite the weight of the blanket. Your mind wouldn’t stop looping: He’s going to be caught. It’s almost over. He’s going to be caught. It’s almost over.

But it didn’t feel like peace. It felt like the second before an earthquake. Like stillness before glass shatters.

Your chest aches with nerves, your skin feels too tight. So you get up just after five. The sun hasn’t even risen, the sky is that pale kind of blue that makes the world feel like it’s holding its breath.

You pad into the kitchen in thick socks. Hair messy, hoodie hanging off one shoulder. You tie your hair back lazily and open the fridge, staring like you’re waiting for it to give you purpose.

You don’t know why you start making breakfast. You just… want to do something kind, something normal.

You make everything because you don’t know what Bucky likes. Toast, eggs, bacon and coffee in that old mug he keeps using. You cut the strawberries into little perfect slices. You line them into a fan on the edge of the plate, even though no one’s going to notice.

For a second, it feels like a house, like a home even in the white marble, sterile kitchen. Not a set, not a stage. A home. .

The front door slams open, you flinch so hard the knife in your hand clatters into the sink.

Footsteps and voices echo off the walls. Brett. Leah. Two others. Storming in like they own you, which they do. You let them.

“He’s in custody,” Brett announces, breathless, already half on his phone. “He was parked a block down. Had maps, call sheets, photos…creepy shit.”

You don’t move. The strawberries still in your hand. You don’t know if you feel relief or anything at all.

Bucky wakes the second he hears the noise. He comes down the hall shirtless, tugging a tee over his head, dog tags thudding softly against his chest, eyes sharp with instinct.

“What the hell’s going on?” he says, voice gravel and steel.

Leah doesn’t look at him. “We got him, it’s handled.”

She turns to you. “You need to go make yourself presentable. Interviews start at ten. There’s a presser at the hotel. You’ll speak briefly. We’re drafting the statement now.”

“I—” you start, dazed. “I made breakfast.” You say it like it matters.

Brett looks up from his screen, scoffs. “You’re on a diet. You don’t need this. We’ll order a green smoothie or something. Go change.”

And it’s gone, everythings gone. That small, warm thing you’d tried to build. Gone. You nod, slowly, like you’re moving underwater. Everything feels muted, numb. You started to feel real, feel human over the last couple days and just like that, like your shedding skin, it’s gone.

You turn toward the stairs. Bare feet soundless on the wood, skin cold against the polished surface. Everything feels far away, your body, your voice, the day itself. Like you’re floating inside a version of yourself that isn’t quite real anymore.

“I made you breakfast.”

You barely recognize your own voice. It comes out quiet, fragile. A whisper, almost childlike in its softness. Like if you speak louder, it’ll crack.

Bucky stops mid-step, freezes. You feel him turn, feel his gaze land on you and you hate how exposed you are.

You’re standing there in a faded t-shirt, too big on your frame. Sleeves shoved up to your elbows. Your hair’s still tangled from sleep, lips dry, eyes tired but not defeated, not yet.

You look at him like you’re trying. Like you’re trying so hard to keep this one little thing from slipping through your fingers. Trying to hold on to something normal, something kind. Just one moment that’s yours, he sees it.

He steps toward you carefully, slow, cautious. Like you might shatter if he moves too fast. Like you’re a bird that’s already half-decided to fly away.

He reaches out and wraps his fingers around your wrist. Not tight, just enough to anchor you.

You both just stand there, surrounded by chaos, shouts from down the hall, footsteps thudding across tile, Leah barking about call times, Brett’s voice cutting in and out of a phone call.

But all of it fades. It’s just you and him now, suspended in the noise.

Your voice cracks when you speak. “I just wanted to say thank you.”

He opens his mouth, voice low. “You don’t have to thank me. I—”

“I know.” You nod quickly, cutting him off, eyes flickering toward the floor. “You’re just doing your job.”

He shakes his head before you even finish, like he can’t stand hearing you say it.

“No,” Bucky says, and his voice is rough now, unsteady in a way that catches you off guard. “I’d do it again. In a heartbeat.”

That silence between you swells, full of every word neither of you has the nerve to say. Something real, something dangerous.

“Let’s go! We’re already late!”

Brett’s voice cuts like glass.

You flinch, again. Shoulders twitch up like you’re trying to make yourself smaller. Eyes drop, hands pull in close to your chest like you’re retreating and you start to turn, you always do.

But Bucky doesn’t let go. Instead, he reaches into his pocket. His hand brushes yours, careful, deliberate. He slips something into your palm, small, warm from his touch. His fingers fold yours around it like a secret.

You glance up at him, brows drawn together, confused.

He doesn’t explain, doesn’t speak. Just gives you the smallest nod, like he’s handing you something he didn’t know how else to say.

And you go, you don’t look back. Not until you’re behind the door of your bedroom, alone again. Where it’s quiet. Where you’re allowed to fall apart. You sit on the edge of the bed, your hand still closed in a fist.

When you finally open it, it’s the bird. The one he carved, the one he made.

It fits perfectly in your palm, smoothed down along the wings. Made with hands that have destroyed and protected and carried too much.

It’s not just a carving. It’s a message. I see you.

You let out a small gasp when you realize that someone finally sees you.

Bucky watches you disappear up the stairs barefoot, shoulders drawn, your fist still wrapped tight around whatever he gave you.

He lingers at the bottom for a moment, listening to the storm of voices in the hallway. He turns. “Where exactly was he?”

Leah barely glances at him, arms crossed, Bluetooth earpiece flashing as she flips through a stack of printed call sheets.

“Two blocks down. Surveillance caught him in his car, windows blacked out, engine running. He had her itinerary on the passenger seat. Press stops, hair appointments. Shit even we didn’t approve yet.”

Bucky’s jaw tenses. “And?”

“And nothing,” Brett cuts in, stepping out of the dining room, already dressed like he’s about to walk a red carpet himself. “NYPD took him in. He’s being processed. PR’s drafting a statement now. We’re controlling the narrative.”

“Controlling the—” Bucky stops himself. Takes a breath. He steps closer. “What exactly did he have?”

“Maps. Photos. Schedules. Hotel room numbers. Stuff that hasn’t gone public.” Brett shrugs like it’s just another day at the office. “Creepy, sure, but nothing that’s gonna stick longer than a few news cycles. We spin it right, she’s golden.”

“She could’ve died.”

“She didn’t,” Brett says, smiling like that’s the end of it. “And now she’s trending.”

Something hot twists in Bucky’s chest. Something that used to come before violence. He shoves it down.

He looks around the room, sees assistants carrying in garment bags, stylists setting up makeup lights by the floor-to-ceiling windows. The kitchen island is already cleared for curling irons and hot tools.

“She’s not even ready yet,” Bucky says, trying to track where you went.

Leah turns, pulling a compact from her purse and flipping it open. “She won’t need to be. We’ve got wardrobe, glam, full team en route. Hair in thirty, face in forty-five. Out the door in ninety.”

Bucky frowns. “She just woke up.”

“And?” Brett says, already texting again.

“She hasn’t eaten. She—” Bucky stops, then says it quieter, rougher, “She made breakfast for us.”

That makes Leah laugh. “Oh God, was that what that was?”

“She needs—”

“What she needs is to get out the door in full glam and pretend she wasn’t almost murdered again,” Brett snaps. “We’ve got donors expecting a statement. Sponsors asking for visibility. You want to be helpful? Stay out of the way.”

Bucky looks at both of them and all he sees are people who profit from your pain. You’re not a person to them, you’re a product. He turns before he says something he’ll regret.

Bucky wants to check on you, he wants to climb up those stairs so badly. God, he wants to, wants to knock gently on your door and ask if you’re okay. Not as your hired help, not as the guy who keeps things from getting too close.

Just as Bucky, as the guy who got to see you, the real you over the last few days but he doesn’t.

Instead, he walks out to the porch, still hearing the chaos inside the team barking orders, stylists setting up, the fucking sound of a steamer heating up in the kitchen like that’s more important than the fact that you haven’t even had a bite of the breakfast you made.

He takes out his phone and calls the only person who knows how to translate the weight he’s carrying.

“Hey,” Steve answers. “You alright?”

“No,” Bucky says.

It’s quiet on the other end for a moment, like Steve’s bracing. “Talk to me Buck.”

Bucky runs a hand down his face, presses his thumb against the corner of his eye like it might keep the ache there from settling in too deep.

“They got him,” he says. “Ellis, caught him last night outside that stuoid event, he had addresses, faked credentials, hotel floor plans. Stuff not even public.”

“Shit,” Steve mutters.

“He’s been watching her. Following her, probably inside her house at some point and no one even noticed. She told me he used to write her letters when she was sixteen. Said he saw her sleep. Said she looked like an angel.”

Bucky’s throat tightens.

“She’s lived her whole life being owned by people. By this industry. By her fear. Every room she walks into, someone’s already decided who she has to be. She’s surrounded by a team who talks over her. Who hands her protein shakes like they’re medicine. Who tells her what to wear and when to smile and what parts of her body she’s allowed to hate.”

He pauses, hand curling around the edge of the porch railing.

“She made me breakfast this morning. Got up before the sun. She sliced strawberries like she thought it would matter.”

Steve doesn’t say anything. He knows better than to interrupt.

“And when they came in, her team, they stormed in, started barking orders before she’d even had a chance to exist in the morning. They told her she didn’t need to eat. That she had press to do. That she had a role to play andI watched her disappear in front of me, Steve. I watched her vanish.”

There was a small moment of silence, Bucky’s voice softer, “She’s not who I thought she was.”

Bucky exhales, long and shaky, then his voice breaks a little when he continues. “She’s… funny. Quiet in the morning. Hums when she makes toast. She’s even more beautiful without the make up, and glamour and when she talks about the kind of life she wanted, just a garden and a messy kitchen and wind chimes, my chest, Steve it aches.”

He swallows hard.

“Because she doesn’t think she deserves it. She thinks the world has already decided what she’s supposed to be. She calls herself a product…a performance. But when she plays the piano, Steve…” he stops, voice catching, “it’s like hearing something alive for the first time.”

Steve’s voice comes, low and gentle. “You care about her.”

“I didn’t want to,” Bucky says. “But yeah, I do and I don’t know what the hell I’m supposed to do now, because I’m watching her put the mask back on. She went from crying on my shoulder to being someone I can’t reach again.”

“She’s protecting herself,” Steve says. “You gotta see that.”

“I do, that’s what makes it worse.”

Steve speaks again, carefully. “Bucky… if she feels safe with you, really safe, she’ll come back. Let her protect herself for now. But don’t let her forget she has another choice.”

Bucky nods, even though Steve can’t see it.

“Yeah,” he murmurs. “Yeah, okay.”

He ends the call, puts the phone in his pocket, stares out into the quiet for a long time. He’s not sure if he knows how to live with it, if he can’t protect the version of you the world never bothered to notice.

---

Steve lets out a long sigh as he hangs up the phone. He leans back in the chair at the long glass conference table, pinching the bridge of his nose, the way he does when something gets under his skin.

Sam walks in holding two coffees, casual in joggers and a hoodie. “What’s up, Cap?” he asks, handing Steve a cup before dropping into the seat across from him.

Steve’s quiet for a second. Just shaking his head like he’s still trying to wrap his mind around the call. “Bucky called.”

“Oh?” Sam sips. “Everything okay?”

Steve exhales again. “He’s rattled, says they caught the stalker this morning. Ellis.”

Sam’s brows raise. “Damn. That’s good, right?”

“Yeah,” Steve says, slowly. “But… it’s not just that.”

Sam raises an eyebrow.

Steve looks up at him, steady. “He talked about her.”

Sam pauses. “Her her?”

Steve nods. “He said she made him breakfast. Said she plays piano barefoot and hums while she makes toast. That she hasn’t worn makeup around him in days.” He pauses. “Said she looks sad even when she smiles. And that when she talks about what she wants… it hurts.”

Sam grins into his coffee. “He likes her.”

Steve gives him a look.

“No,” Sam says, holding up a hand, “like likes her.”

“He cares about her,” Steve says quietly. “More than I think he expected.”

Sam leans back, a slow smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “Good. I haven’t seen him care about someone in, well, ever.”

Before Steve can respond, the doors slide open and Tony walks in mid-sentence with himself, fiddling with a StarkPad. “I swear if Rhodey sends me one more email with the subject line ‘just checking in,’ I’m—”

He stops, glancing between them. “Why do you both look like someone died?”

“Bucky called,” Steve says.

Tony raises an eyebrow. “Is he still brooding around the movie stars mansion?”

“He said some things,” Steve answers. “About her.”

Tony’s mouth pulls into a small, knowing smile.

“No,” he says. “Not surprised. They’re the same side of a coin.”

Steve raises an eyebrow. “What does that mean?”

Tony shrugs, but there’s something in the way he does it like he’s downplaying too much. “C’mon,” he says. “Bucky’s all steel and ghosts and guilt. She’s satin and smiles and sadness. But inside?” He taps his temple. “They’re both haunted. Both performing. Just trying to survive in a world that used them up and kept asking for more.”

Steve shifts in his seat. “How would you know that?”

Tony sips his coffee, too casual.

“Do you know her?” Steve asks again, firmer this time.

Tony meets his eyes. “I knew her father. Worked with mine. That’s all.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

Tony holds the stare for a beat too long before finally answering.

“I know what it’s like to be a product of something you didn’t ask for. I know what it’s like to lose control of the narrative. So… yeah. Maybe I see it in her. Maybe I’ve seen it before.”

Sam looks between them. “So you’re saying she’s more like Buck than anyone else?”

Tony nods, quiet again. “I’m saying he might be the first person in her life who doesn’t want anything from her.”

Steve furrows his brow. “Her father worked with Howard?”

“Yeah,” Tony says, walking over to pour himself a cup of coffee. “Back in the day, scientist. Biochemical and neural interface research. Smart guy. A little twitchy. Always wore vests.”

“Like lab vests?” Sam asks.

Tony smirks. “Like bulletproof vests.”

That makes Steve straighten. “What kind of work were they doing?”

Tony glances at them both. “Classified.”

Sam sighs. “Come on.”

Tony looks at Steve. “You remember how many times people tried to recreate the serum after you?”

Steve nods, slowly. “You think it was that?”

Tony shrugs, leans against the counter. “I can’t prove it. But that’s the buzz I always heard. Quiet lab work, off the books. Lotta military interest. Howard kept it off the public radar. If it was about the serum, it was buried deep.”

Sam frowns. “What happened to him?”

Tony’s face darkens for a moment. “File says ‘deceased.’ No cause of death. No investigation. Just… gone.”

Steve looks down. “And she was how old?”

“Sixteen, maybe seventeen,” Tony says. “They emancipated her within weeks. Pretty much immediately after the funeral, which—” he glances between them, “there wasn’t one.”

Sam whistles under his breath.

“And then her team took over,” Tony finishes. “Press started building her up. Face of the future, Hollywood’s miracle girl. You know the rest.”

Steve leans back in his chair, jaw set. “No one ever asked questions?”

Tony lifts a brow. “When the world wants to sell a star, it doesn’t care where the kid came from. They just needed her to be pretty, quiet, and compliant and she played the part.”

Sam rubs his jaw. “No wonder Buck’s stuck.”

Steve nods slowly. “Yeah.”

---

You’re halfway through a late-day shoot in your living room. The lighting crew is moving softboxes across the marble floor while a makeup artist powders your cheekbones between takes, and someone’s telling you to “give them glass, not warmth” whatever the hell that means.

You’re tired. Not soul-tired, not yet… just worn. You’ve been in this same room for hours, modeling outfits you didn’t pick, smiling for a lens that doesn’t know the difference between a real expression and a pretty one.

You’ve got one heel kicked off under the coffee table. Your hair is perfect. You haven’t eaten since that stupid green juice and then the door bursts open.

Your assistant stumbles in like she’s running from something, breathless, gripping a heavy ivory envelope with trembling fingers.

“It just came.”

You blink. “What just came?”

She hands you the envelope like it might explode. “They couriered it. No one gets these.”

You take it, slide your thumb under the seal, and open it slowly, half-dreading some new obligation.

You read it once, then again. Your press team all but explodes around you. “They invited her to their tower, do you understand what this does for us?”

“This is next-level exclusive.”

“Q2 branding could double if we leverage this right—”

You tune them out. You’re still staring at the invitation.

Your name, printed in silver ink. A formal invitation from Stark Industries to a private event at Avengers Tower. No cameras, no press, no red carpet. Just the inner circle.

You run your finger along the edge of the paper like it might tell you why this feels different.

Across the room, Bucky is leaning against the wall, arms folded, jaw tight. He’s been watching you all day, the same way he always does now. Not like security, like he’s studying you.

He speaks over the noise, his voice calm, quiet meant just for you. “What’s got them all worked up?”

You walk toward him, still holding the envelope. “They invited me to Avengers tower, you're home."

He raises an eyebrow, taking the envelope when you hold it out. He scans it quickly, his eyes darting across the text like he’s reading a threat or maybe a puzzle.

He lifts his gaze. “Are you gonna go?”

You shrug. “Of course.” A pause. “I want to meet your friends.”

There’s something in the way you say it, not casual, not for show. You mean it. You’ve been building this quiet thing with him all week, and now you want to see the world he comes from, a real one. Not the world with red carpets, his world.

He hesitates, his fingers flex slightly around the envelope.

“Are you coming with me?” you ask, gaze steady.

He doesn’t answer right away. “As your bodyguard?”

You smile, real this time. Soft around the edges. “No, as my date?"

His chest tightens. You don’t see it, but he feels it. A stutter-beat under his ribs.

You turn before he can answer. Just like that, pivoting back toward the set, the lights, the camera waiting to eat you alive again. “Think about it,” you call over your shoulder.

Then you’re gone, humming under your breath again, barefoot now, holding the invitation like it doesn’t weigh anything. Like you didn’t just drop a grenade in the middle of his day.

Bucky stays frozen.

He watches the lighting crew adjust your hair. Watches your team scramble over themselves to draft a statement in case photos leak. Watches your smile flash for the camera, just like always.

But all he can hear is the way you said, I want to meet your friends. All he can feel is the way the word date landed in his chest. Because now he’s not thinking about your stalker or the shoot or holding that stupid envelope in his hand.

He’s thinking about your laugh. Your humming. Your bare feet on cold floors and the way his heart hasn’t beaten steady since Tuesday.

That night, the house is too quiet. Not peaceful quiet. Not the kind that settles you, the kind that presses.

Bucky stands in the kitchen, leaning against the counter, half-finished cup of coffee cooling in his hand. He hasn’t touched it in ten minutes. Doesn’t even remember pouring it.

The only sound is the faint ticking of the old wall clock above the stove. Somewhere in the house, someone from your team is packing up wardrobe racks. Someone else is wheeling out lights. But here, in the kitchen, it’s just him and his spiraling thoughts.

Why would you ask him? Why would you ask him to be your date? Him? You could have anyone, ask anyone.

He’s not the guy who gets invited to towers and black-tie things. He doesn’t wear suits well. He doesn’t schmooze. He barely speaks at all some days. He never even shows up for the galas or parties even though they are held where he lives.

You, on the other hand, you move through the world like you were made for it. A camera clicks and you breathe elegance. You throw your head back when you laugh like it was choreographed and still… you asked him.

No security detail. No “you’ll be close anyway.” You asked him to go as your date and that four letter word, it feels too big, too good.

You’re a star. A world built around flashbulbs and first-name fame and he’s just a soldier trying to forget what it felt like to be a weapon. Still trying to remember how to be human.

He stares down into the dark surface of his coffee and thinks, you shouldn’t want me.

He doesn’t hear you come in. Just senses you, soft footfalls, no heels, tired socks on polished hardwood.

You move past him toward the sink, the hem of your hoodie brushing your thighs. It’s yours this time, not borrowed. Your hair’s pulled up in a loose knot, mascara smudged slightly under one eye. You look worn in the way that means you’ve finally stopped performing for the day.

You fill your water glass without looking at him.

The soft hum of the faucet fills the silence, steady and familiar. Your back is to him, shoulders slouched just enough to say you’ve stopped performing, even if you haven’t fully let go. Not yet.

He watches the way you move, it's quiet and natural. The kind of stillness that doesn’t beg to be noticed but always is. The kind that tells him you’re finally not bracing for something. Your shoulders don’t tense when you hear him step closer. Not like they did the first day.

He hears himself speak before he’s fully ready. “I’ll go… with you.” His voice is quieter than usual. Less sure. Like he’s afraid the words might float back into his throat if you turn around too fast.

You freeze, hand still on the faucet, water still running. The moment hangs there for a breath, then another. You turn— low, deliberate, like you’re giving him time to take it back if he wants to.

But he doesn’t. Your eyes lock onto his, wide and searching.

“You will?” you ask, voice light but careful. Like you don’t want to tip whatever balance has just formed.

He nods once. “Yeah.”

Just one word. But it carries more than most people say in an entire speech. You stare at him for a second.

He watches it happen, your face changes slowly. That kind of expression that can’t be faked, not even if you tried. Your smile breaks through like sunlight, hesitant at first, like it’s checking to see if it’s allowed but then it settles fully, soft and bright and open.

Not for the cameras, not for your team. Just for him. Bucky’s breath catches a little. Because that smile? That one? It reminds him of the stars. The ones he used to stare at on the long walks home after curfew. The ones that stayed bright no matter how dark everything else got.

You laugh, barely a sound, just the smallest exhale with a grin in it. “I wasn’t sure you’d say yes.”

“I didn’t think I’d be someone you’d ever want to ask,” he admits, voice rough around the edges.

Your smile falters for a second not because it’s gone, but because something about that sentence hits. “You’re the only one I would’ve asked.”

It knocks the air right out of his lungs. Neither of you says anything after that.

The water in your glass is full now, long past full, but you don’t notice until it drips over your fingers and hits the floor with a soft tap.

You blink down at it, then smile again, smaller this time, almost shy. You turn the faucet off, shake the water from your hand, and start toward the stairs.

But halfway there, you stop and glance back at him.

“Don’t be late,” you say, voice quiet but warm.

He’s left in the kitchen, heart thudding against his ribs like it doesn’t know how to beat slow anymore.

-----

It’s late when Bucky finally shows up at the compound. The lights are dim in the common area, but Steve and Sam are still up, Steve nursing a cup of tea on the couch, Sam sprawled across a chair with his phone, feet kicked up like he owns the place.

Bucky drops his overnight bag by the wall with a grunt.

Sam barely looks up. “What, you get lost?”

“Traffic,” Bucky mutters.

Steve squints at him. “You’re flushed.”

“I’m not flushed.”

“You’re flushed,” Sam echoes.

Bucky rolls his eyes, crossing to the counter for a bottle of water.

“I thought you were staying at her place till Sunday?” Steve asks.

“Had to come back,” Bucky says casually, twisting the cap. “Tony invited her to that party tomorrow.”

Steve sits up straighter. “He did?”

Bucky nods once, sipping. “Whole team lost their damn minds.”

He hesitates, for a moment. Steve and Sam both notice.

They lock onto him like bloodhounds. Sam leans forward slowly. “And?”

Bucky shrugs, too casual. Way too casual for how it makes him truly feel. “She asked me to go with her.”

Sam bolts upright like he got shocked. “No fucking way.”

He looks like Christmas came early. Actually, like it broke through the window.

Bucky winces as Sam jumps to his feet. “You’re her date? Her date-date?! Like plus-one, wear-a-suit, maybe-dance-if-there’s-music date?”

“Calm down,” Bucky mutters.

“I will not!” Sam’s practically vibrating. “I get to meet her. I get to breathe the same air as her. I’ve seen every movie, even the one with the horse!”

Steve is laughing now, shaking his head.

“She asked you?” he says.

Bucky shrugs again, trying hard not to smile and he fails.

Steve grins wider. “Get up.”

Bucky frowns. “Why?”

“We’re raiding your closet,” Steve says. “Party’s tomorrow. We’re not letting you embarrass her.”

“Embarrass her?” Bucky echoes, affronted.

Sam’s already halfway to the hallway. “Oh, I know you own that funeral jacket you wear every time we go out, don’t even try it.”

Steve claps him on the shoulder. “Come on. Let’s see what you’ve got.”

The floor is littered with jacket options, half-buttoned shirts, and three separate pairs of boots.

Bucky is standing in front of the mirror, arms crossed, wearing his good jacket, the one he doesn’t wear because it makes him feel like he’s trying too hard. His sleeves are rolled just enough. So he doesn’t look like a bodyguard tomorrow night. He looks like a man trying not to hope for too much.

“You’re wearing the good jacket,” Sam says, eyeing him.

“You never wear the good jacket,” Steve adds, leaning against the doorframe.

Bucky shifts uncomfortably. “It’s just a party.”

“A party,” Sam echoes, eyes twinkling, “with her.”

Bucky doesn’t answer, not right away.

He looks at himself in the mirror. At the way his face looks less harsh when he’s not frowning. At the way his shoulders aren’t so tight tonight.

“She’s not what I made her out to be,” he says quietly. “ Just so you both know, It was all a front.”

Steve looks at him, steady. “Yeah, we know.”

Bucky doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t have to.

Because it’s all over his face, Sam just grins and says, “He’s so in trouble.”

-----

Bucky waits in the hall down the stairs from your bedroom, leaned casually against the wall like it’s just another day. He checks his watch once, twice. Runs a hand through his hair. He tries not to think too hard about what you might look like when you step out.

He hears voices downstairs, They’re not loud, not urgent but sharp.

“…she said she’d do that nude scene—”

He frowns, body stilling.

“She agreed to it?”

“Only on the condition that he go with her as her date tonight after we objected.”

His jaw tightens.

“She really played that one well.”

“She always does. That’s why she’s where she is.”

“She really wanted to go with him.”

He doesn’t catch every word, just those.

But it’s enough, enough to make something cold bloom in his chest. He’s not angry. Not exactly. He doesn’t even know what he feels just that it hits harder than he expected. Like someone just knocked the wind out of something he didn’t realize he’d been building.

Then the door at the top of the stairs creaks open and everything else drops, you step out slowly, one hand on the banister.

The overhead light hits the fabric of your dress and it glides across your figure like liquid. Black satin, off-shoulder. Cinched perfectly at the waist. Classic, timeless. Your hair’s swept back into soft waves. Your lips are a perfect, understated red. Diamond studs, no necklace. You don’t need one.

You look like you stepped out of one of Bucky’s memories from a reel that played in sepia tone, the kind he saw on leave, when the war felt far away and beauty felt possible.

He forgets how to breathe, under his breath, meant only for you “You…” You stop on the top step. He meets your eyes. “You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.”

Your lips part, not in shock, but like you’re about to say something, something real but your team swoops in like a wave, rushing around you.

“Okay, here’s what you’re saying tonight—”

“If anyone asks about the film, keep it vague—”

“No direct quotes unless we wrote them—”

“Give me your phone, you can have it back before the party.”

“You need to take photos for socials.”

You don’t flinch, you hand it over without hesitation, because you’ve done it a hundred times, it’s like a reflex.

That’s what hits Bucky hardest, not the dress, not the cameras, not the reveal. But the way you hand over your freedom like it’s just part of the outfit.

Still, right before you’re ushered out the front door, you glance back at him. Just once before you speak slowly, “You look beautiful too Bucky Barnes.”

The car ride over is quiet. But not the tense kind of quiet. Just a mutual, steady kind.

You scroll through your phone, half-listening to the muffled chaos of your team barking orders in the seats behind you. Your body is still, perfectly poised, but your thumb moves across the screen like you’re somewhere else entirely.

Bucky sits beside you, elbow resting against the door, tie slightly loose. He doesn’t say much but he doesn’t have to.

Halfway to the Tower, he pulls out his phone.

Bucky: Don’t let her team into the party. Names are Brett, Leah, Gina.

A few seconds pass.

Steve: Got it.

You glance over at him once, he pockets the phone without comment.

The car slows as it approaches the private entrance to the Tower. Security lights sweep across the windows before the gate lifts. The building looms above, sleek and cold from the outside, its glass glinting under the night sky.

You’re quietly staring out at the lights, legs crossed, hands resting in your lap. Your dress shifts as the car stops, the fabric pooling slightly at your ankles.

You don’t move right away, you glance toward Bucky. “So this is where you live?” you ask softly.

He nods, looking out the window with you. “This is where I live.”

You tilt your head. “Hmm, only a little bigger than my place.” You joke.

That makes him laugh, it's low and warm in his chest, like you caught him off guard in the best way.

“It’s Stark’s,” he says. “We all just stay here.”

The driver gets out, walking around to open the door, but Bucky beats him to it. He steps out first, straightening his jacket, and then leans down to offer you a hand.

You take it. His metal fingers wrap around yours, cool at first, but steady. He helps you out gently, careful of your dress. You rise with practiced grace, heels clicking softly on the stone.

He goes to let go, like he always does. But you don’t let him. Your fingers tighten around his, just enough to say not yet. He doesn’t pull away.

He looks down at your hand in his, then up at you. You’re watching the entrance, chin high, eyes calm but he sees the faintest tension in your jaw, so he holds on.

You walk together, hand in hand, toward the entrance past the glowing glass, the red velvet ropes, the security guards who already know your names.

You lean in just slightly, voice low. “Don’t let go, okay?”

His grip tightens. “I won’t.”

Inside, the marble foyer glows under warm golden lights. Everything sleek, everything Stark.

You and Bucky walk hand-in-hand toward the elevator, calm, in sync, effortless. People look, of course they do. But no one says anything.

You feel it the way the world shifts when you enter a room with him. Not just because of who you are. But because of who he is to you right now.

Your team isn’t so lucky.

“Y/N!”

Brett’s voice echoes through the glass and stone.

You glance back just in time to see all three of them, Brett, Leah, and Gina stopped firmly at the front door.

“We just need to confirm authorization—” Someone says.

Then the security guard doesn’t flinch. “Sorry. You’re not on the list.”

“What? Are you serious? We’re her team!”

“Exactly,” the guard says. “She’s inside. You’re not.”

You glance up at Bucky. He’s already looking at you, smiling small, smug, and satisfied. You smile back because you’re free even if it's just for a night.

Your fingers tighten around his metal hand. The one that he thought would scare you, that should scare you. But you don’t even think about it.

“Lead the way, Sarge,” you whisper.

The elevator doors opened onto the 33rd floor, and for the first time in weeks, you weren’t met with flashing cameras or screaming fans. No paparazzi pressed behind barricades, no handlers whispering cues in your ear.

Just warmth.

The party was already underway, not loud or flashy, but intimate in the way only real people make a space feel. Low jazz drifted through the air, the soft clink of glasses echoing gently against polished marble floors. Laughter, shoulder squeezes, familiarity.

Bucky walked slightly in front of you, your hand still in his not as security, not as a shield, but as something closer to a tether. You felt it. The way his hand adjusted to yours. Like he didn’t want to let go either.

“Well, well, well.” Tony Stark, of course, found you first. Drink in hand, half-smile already forming.

He stepped forward with that signature Stark ease, the kind that made everyone either lean in or want to slap him.

“Look who it is,” he said. “Good to see you again, Y/N.”

You smiled, not for show.. Small, but present. “You too, Tony.”

Bucky blinked, caught off guard. His brow creased slightly as he looked between the two of you.

“You know him?” he asked.

You nodded, still smiling, joking mostly. “Popular people have to stick together, right?”

Tony barked a laugh. “God, I love her. Go have a drink. Say it’s on me, even though it's an open bar, just sounds more generous that way.”

You chuckled as Tony wandered off into a sea of board members and Avengers alumni.

Bucky’s hand was still in yours as you made your way toward the bar.

He finally asked, quieter now, more curious than anything, “How do you know Stark?”

“My dad worked with Howard,” you said, eyes scanning the room. “I used to run around their estate when I was a kid. Tony was older, not around much.”

Bucky stopped slightly. Stilled, at the name. Howard. The weight of it, the war, the serum and everything that followed. He looked at you carefully now. Like a missing piece just shifted into place.

“What did your dad do?” he asked.

You shrugged, sipping your drink. “Scientist, biochem. I guess kind of a genius. He and Howard were obsessed with whatever they were doing, never saw him much, it was all classified”

He didn’t say anything, but he could feel the tension pulling tight inside his chest.

You glanced at him, catching it.

“He disappeared when I was seventeen,” you said. “One day he just didn’t come home. Papers said it was an accident. There was no body, no funeral.”

Bucky’s jaw clenched.

You continued like you were reading off a grocery list, detached and well-practiced. “My mom… I never met her. Gave birth, didn’t want the job and left.” It wasn’t bitter, it wasn’t broken, it was just empty.

Bucky didn’t know what to say to that, so he didn’t say anything at all. You took another sip, then looked up at him over the rim of your glass. Your lipstick left the faintest smudge.

“Take me to Steve,” you said softly. “I wanna meet your best friend.”

He nodded, led you into the room. Still holding your hand, still not letting go.

Before I Could Say It

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Reader

Synopsis: The three times Bucky almost confessed his love to you, and the one time he finally does.

Word Count: 5.9k

Warning(s): can be read as gn!reader bcs I didn't use any gender-specific words (pls advise me if this isn't true). canon divergence. no use of Y/N. use of the nicknames sugar and sweetheart. insecure thoughts. bucky feeling like he's not good enough. unrequited love (or is it?). alcohol consumption. a bit hurt/comfort. profanities. use of weaponry, including but not limited to guns and knives. depictions of violence, blood, injuries, and murder. (near) death experience. angst. fluff. open ending.

Author's Note: Hii guys. I know I should be focusing all of my energy on Faithfully Yours right now, but I had the idea for this story and just couldn't pass it up!! We have a bit of an open ending here. I wasn't planning on making a part two but I'll see what the general consensus say and will decide whether or not a part two is due from the responses. anywayy hope you enjoy this one xx don't forget to comment, like, and reblog!!

When Bucky tried to think about the beginning, his mind always drew a blank.

It had been five years since the first time destiny orchestrated your paths to cross, six if one were to count the one-year cryogenic sleep that Bucky spent in Wakanda. The Soldat met you first, back when you, Steve, Sam, and Nat fought him on that highway shoot-out that revealed his identity. After that, you were everywhere—in Bucharest with Steve to coax him out of hiding, on the tarmac battle where you went against half of your own family for his sake, and even in Wakanda, where your eyes became one of the last pairs he saw before his body succumbed to the unforgiving clutches of darkness.

And when he was finally woken up, you were there, too, waiting for him.

Since then, Bucky struggled to remember a time when you weren't there. You supervised his deprogramming in Wakanda, becoming Steve's eyes and ears while the Captain roamed the world as both a fugitive and a vigilante. When the Sokovia Accords turned void, and the scientists in Wakanda assured Bucky that his mind wasn't going to betray his heart anymore, you took him back to New York, offering solace in the form of your warmth pressing against his side on the plane ride to the States. 

Even once the two of you landed on the compound's grounds, you never strayed too far—standing between Bucky and a begrudging Tony as if you were ready to launch yourself forward should the billionaire try to do anything untoward. As if the ruthless Winter Soldier needed a human shield to prevent him from shattering into fragile little pieces.

Before Bucky knew it, his entire routine—his entire life—became you.

From your morning spar sessions in the gym, the long walks around Brooklyn in the afternoon, to the weekly movie nights that you roped him into in the name of reacquainting him with pop culture—everything in Bucky’s life started to shape and smell like you. 

It was a constant. 

You were Bucky’s new constant.

And somewhere along the way, Bucky’s little troublemaker of a heart decided, once and for all, to anchor itself to yours.

True to his fashion, Steve was the first person to notice. All of the lingering touches and longing glances, the hard-etched lines of Bucky’s countenance that seemed to soften every time you were near—they spoke of an affection beyond a mere loyalty one might harbor for their teammate. It spoke of love, one that was so unadulteratedly pure and raw that Steve was sure there was no room left in the crevices of Bucky’s heart where a piece of you didn’t reside in.

“You’ve gotta say something, Buck,” Steve said to Bucky one evening.

The two of them were standing in the convention hall of a lavish hotel deep in the heart of Manhattan, surrounded by a guestlist of people that Bucky was assured were some of the most influential figures of the twenty-first century. People tried to swarm him since the moment he entered the party, shoving business cards to his face and dropping names that Bucky knew should have meant something to him. He paid none of them any mind—not when his eyes immediately found you in that sea of ties and ball gowns, just like a moth enticed to a flame.

You were all dolled up for the night, wearing a fancy little number that screams you if only with a little bit of additional sparkles sprinkled on top. Bucky watched you move through the ocean of people, confidence oozing out of every step, a blinding smile as you received each handshake with an indisputable poise. Bucky’s head whipped towards your direction at every echo of laughter, searching for the source, drinking in your infectious glee as if it were the only way to sustain the rhythmic beating of his heart.

Bucky shifted in his feet, Steve’s unprompted advice forcing him to tear his eyes away from where you were standing by Natasha’s side. The blond beside him smiled knowingly, a teasing yet sincere tilt in his voice as he added, “You’ve gotta tell at some point, pal. Better sooner rather than later.”

The line in Bucky’s jaw ticked. He brought the glass of champagne to his lips, tipping the drink back as though the liquid stood a chance against his enhanced metabolism. “Don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Steve rolled his eyes. “Buck.”

“Punk.”

The Captain sighed, reaching for a drink of his own. “At least ask for a dance, will you?”

Before Bucky could register what was happening, Steve had shoved Bucky forward, sending him stumbling forth towards the direction of your canorous laughter. Steve hid his amused smile behind his drink when Bucky flipped him the finger, the latter continuing his steps on wobbly feet, trying to ignore the pounding travelling up his bloodstreams.

“Hey, Bucky,” you greeted as soon as he had reached you. The smile on your face could rival the sun even on its brightest day, and Bucky prayed to every divine being in the universe that he could be on the receiving end of that smile for the rest of his days.

“Barnes.” Natasha nodded. 

“Hey, guys. What’s up?” Bucky attempted a smile, tugging at the ridiculous material of his bow tie that Tony had insisted him to wear. In fact, Tony was the one who forced Bucky to attend this whole shindig in the first place—something about showing a united front to prove to the public that there was no bad blood within the Avengers’ team. 

It was a shit ton of bullshit, in Bucky’s opinion.

But at least, the party gave him a chance to see you all dressed up to the nines.

“Nothing much.” You shrugged, tilting your head slightly to the side. “Did you need something?”

“No. I mean, I do. I was, um, wondering—” Bucky cleared his throat, “—I actually wanted to see if you’d care to join me for a dance?”

Out of the corner of his eye, Bucky saw Natasha’s eyes widen slightly. The redhead immediately scurried to the side, feigning interest in the tower of chocolate fondue just a couple of feet away.

Bucky’s heart nearly leaped out of his chest when you extended your palm towards him. “I would love to, Buck. Lead the way.”

Your fingers emitted warmth inside his hand, and for a moment, Bucky faltered. He kept his composure enough to guide you through the sea of couples on the dancefloor, willing the erratic thumping in his chest to quieten down as he pulled you flush against his body. The scent of your perfume slithered through the air, filling Bucky’s lungs, attacking each part of his senses until everything Bucky saw, heard, smelled, and felt was you.

“You look beautiful tonight, Sugar.”

The admission tumbled from his lips before Bucky had a chance to stop them, before he could thoroughly process the implications of such candor. You didn’t seem to mind, though. Instead, your persistent smile widened ever so slightly, your eyes twinkling under the glimmering lights of the chandelier hanging from the ceiling.

“Why, you look plenty dashing yourself, Bucky.” You hummed appreciatively, raking your eyes up and down Bucky’s suit-clad figure. “I must say, I was sad to see your long hair gone, but this looks great as well.”

Your fingers skimmed the hard contour of Bucky’s shoulder, leaving goosebumps on their wake, before sneaking through the short tendrils on the nape of his neck. He fought off a groan at the contact, the heavenly feeling of your fingers tugging at his hair sending shivers all throughout his body. Meanwhile, you were still smiling up at him all sweetly, completely oblivious to the rush of heat that you delivered through Bucky’s entire being.

“Sugar,” the nickname fell off Bucky’s lips in a low grunt, and for the first time that night, your composure staggered. 

Your breath hitched around a squeak when Bucky managed to tug you closer, circling his arms around your waist until there was barely room for air between both of your bodies. All around you, the world ceased to exist. The only thing that remained were your bated breaths, a raucous disruption through the electric field buzzing between where you and Bucky were pressed against one another. 

“I need to tell you something,” Bucky revealed, his voice low and sheer, stripped by unease and something akin to fear. 

Your forehead furrowed, undoubtedly sensing the trepidation shining out of the blue of Bucky’s eyes. “What’s the matter, Buck?”

Your palm landed on his stubbled cheek, and Bucky had to fight the urge to lean in, to chase more of your warmth like you were an oasis in the middle of his desert of a life. He grappled for the confession to come, for the feelings in his chest to solidify into something comprehensible. All Bucky had to do was open his mouth and seize the moment.

But just as quickly as it had arrived, the moment splintered through his fingertips.

“Good evening, everyone!”

Bucky's whole body jerked in surprise, his accusatory eyes instantly finding the MC standing on the stage at the front of the room. The music had stopped, replaced by the MC's welcoming remarks addressed towards a dozen supposedly prominent names that Bucky couldn't care less about.

“Hey, let's go find a seat,” you suggested, circling your tender fingers around Bucky's wrist before leading him through the maze of tables.

The two of you sat down just in time for Tony to deliver his opening speech as a representative of the Avengers. You glanced at Bucky in the middle of Tony's heartfelt sentiment about “shaping the future”, your hand finding Bucky's flesh one on his thigh, unaware of the kind of turmoil you have summoned from a single touch.

“You okay, Bucky?” you asked, squeezing his hand. “What was it that you wanted to tell me?”

I wanted to tell you that I love you, Bucky's heart echoed. I don't know when it started, and I don't know how, all I know is that you're every good thing that I have going on in my life.

Bucky's throat tightened.

He never ended up saying the words out loud. Instead, he smiled thinly. “It's not important, sweetheart. I'll tell you later.”

You assessed him curiously before offering him a small smile and directing your attention back towards the stage. Bucky sighed in the aftermath, feeling the wild beating of his heart settled to a normal one.

And just like that, the truth died on the tip of his tongue.

Weeks passed, and between countless briefings, missions, and reports, Bucky was forced to push all matters concerning his heart to the side. It wasn't easy, not when you occupied every facet of Bucky's otherwise monotone life. Every waking moment was a painful reminder that you were always within reach, but never close enough for him to have.

Following a successful infiltration into an illegal bio-weapon factory in the outskirts of Poland, the team had landed their jet on one of the safehouse grounds somewhere near the border of Poland and Germany. Natasha and Clint disappeared inside the house immediately upon landing, while Sam and Steve stayed on the quinjet to go over a few intels they had managed to gather from the factory.

Bucky's boots scraped softly against the grass as he crossed the distance towards the small lake just a few yards left to the safehouse. The surrounding trees rustled in the wind, a symphony of reds and oranges beneath the solemn autumn sky. On the shore of the lake, Bucky found you sitting, a rare serene look on your face as you closed your eyes to welcome the impending breeze.

“Hi, Bucky,” you greeted, eyes still shut tightly.

“How'd you know it was me, Sugar?”

“I always know when it's you.”

The moment your eyes opened, Bucky's heart stuttered in its cage. The smile you rewarded him was soft, embellished with a tenderness that a man of his repute would never deserve. He knew he should have looked away, but the selfish part of him wanted to hold your stare in place, to relish in your kindness no matter how much he believed he wasn't worthy of it.

“Come on, sit with me.”

You patted the ground next to you, and Bucky obeyed without further questions. He lowered himself on the grass, damp from the lingering chill of autumn air, and stretched his legs out. For a while, neither of you spoke, opting to enjoy the sound of water lapping lazily against the shore, a stark tranquility to the horrors you faced during the mission earlier.

The sky dimmed a tad darker as the sun ducked behind the cover of trees, leaving behind streaks of purple and gold on the horizon. Beside him, you heaved out a sigh, the remnants of sun casting your skin in an ethereal glow.

“Sometimes I wish moments like this could last forever,” you murmured.

Bucky's eyes slid towards you, studying the contours of your face like a historian would an ancient scripture. His fingers twitched, itching to feel every soft and hard edge of your features under the brush of his touch. 

You're the only thing in this world I want forever with.

The words resonated in his head and all the way down to his chest, settling like stone sinking underwater, slow and heavy. He almost said it out loud—nearly laid his heart bare for you to judge and scrutinize. But at last, he fabricated a grin and nudged his shoulder playfully to yours.

“You always get sentimental when you're tired,” he joked.

You laughed heartily at his jab, a melodic thing that wrested at every coil of Bucky's heartstrings. The two of you proceeded to watch the sunset together, the silence stretching between you, warm and comfortable. The sky burned in more explosions of hues, casting its reflection upon the lake like a dream neither of you dared to disturb. 

If Bucky were a braver man, a better man—one that wasn't weighed down by his history and remorse—maybe he would have told you. Maybe, in another life, Bucky would have charmed you at first sight, claiming you as his before the day could even end. But for now, Bucky was glad to settle for this—for sharing a quiet moment with you, and to bask in your company as though he were worthy of even a fraction of your attention.

For now, Bucky would let the four-letter word wither inside him, locked in a hidden fissure somewhere within his chest, keeping it safe from ever seeing any light of day.

Days flew by, and it was getting increasingly harder for Bucky to ignore the way his heart gravitated towards yours, to ignore the fact that you were always the first person he searched for in the morning and the last one he wanted to talk to before falling asleep. To pretend like the mere mention of your name didn't send a jolt that revived his entire being. Every single day was a battle between wish and logic—the unruly desire to make you his, and the rational reluctance of dragging you into the mess that was his life.

“This is getting ridiculous, Buck,” Steve said as he leaned back against the bar right next to Bucky, following the latter's eyesight to find you standing at the end of it. “You're just gonna avoid it forever? An eternal silent treatment? The two of you need to talk, whether you like it or not.”

Bucky inhaled a long breath, swirling the Asgardian mead in his glass without ever taking his eyes off you. It was your birthday—a joyous occasion that called for this merry yet intimate celebration with the entire team. The common room of the compound had been transformed into something warm and inviting, lit by the soft glow of string lights draped along the walls. A cake sat on the counter, half-eaten, its candles long blown out, but the remnants of your laughter from when you made your wish still lingered in the air.

From across the room, Bucky watched as Sam teased you about getting older, earning the bird-man a playful swat on his arm. Wanda handed you a small, neatly wrapped gift, and your eyes lit up in a way that made Bucky’s chest ache. He didn’t know what was in the box. He didn’t really care. All he knew was that he wanted to be the reason behind that breathtaking smile of yours.

And then, your eyes lifted.

The eye contact was fleeting. Brief. Gone by the time Bucky realized what was happening and forced his gaze away. Even then, Bucky still caught the hint of surprise as your eyes found his, replaced almost immediately by a longing that Bucky understood all too well. It clutched onto his heart, sinking its sharp nails until the life organ in his chest was bruised and brutally torn apart.

The Captain sighed. “You're being an idiot, pal.”

Bucky knew Steve was right—he was being an idiot. A coward, even. It was his own damn foolishness that had kept him avoiding you for weeks, skipping your morning spars, slipping out of any room you occupied before you could even notice his presence. All because he couldn’t handle the feelings that had taken root in his chest, the one that was growing stronger by the minute, infiltrating deeper into his system every time you so much as looked his way.

The party was still in full swing by the time Bucky decided to retire for the night, forgoing the goodbyes, heading straight to the elevator that took him back to his quarters. It was a few hours later when a clumsy knock sounded against his door, breaking through the quiet that had settled in his room.

“Sugar?”

Bucky's hand clenched around the door handle, his eyebrows knitting together at the sight of you in front of his bedroom.

“Hi, Buckyyy,” you greeted, your words slurring into uncontrollable giggles.

 Understanding dawned on Bucky's shoulders. “Sweetheart, are you drunk?”

“Am not!” You huffed, pushing past a stunned Bucky to enter the bedroom. 

You looked around for a moment, humming to yourself every time you came across a familiar token that decorated Bucky's room. There was a photo of you and him on the nightsand, a sketch of the Brooklyn Bridge courtesy of Steve hanging on the wall, and a few vinyl records stacked neatly on the shelf, gifted by various members of the team. At last, your steps halted beside the bed, and without a warning, you dove head first into the mattress, chuckling to yourself as you attempted to make snow angels with his blankets.

“This is sooo niceee,” you mused, burying youself deeper into one of Bucky's pillows. “Smells like you, Buck.”

The super soldier tried not to dwell too much on the sight of you lying on his bed, looking like you had always belonged in the same place that Bucky took his rest. A shiver ran down Bucky's spine as he closed the door behind him, his feet quiet against the carpeted floor before he took a tentative seat on the edge of the bed.

“Sugar?” Bucky took your shoulders in his grasp, turning you around until his eyes locked with yours. His heart staggered. “You wanna get back to your room? I could take you.”

His offer made you sit up in seconds, so fast that Bucky feared you might have given yourself a whiplash. He stared at you as your lips trembled, your whole body turning away from him until you were just a breadth out of his reach.

His fingers contracted in grief.

“Hey, Sugar? What's—”

“Why do you hate me?”

Silence.

Bucky's forehead creased in confusion.

“Hate you?” Bucky tasted the accusation on his tongue—the word being so foreign and farfetched from anything he could associate with you that Bucky had to wonder if he had misheard what you spoke. “Sweetheart, I don't hate you.”

“Liar.” You scoffed, scooting towards the foot of the bed, seemingly adamant to draw as much distance as possible between Bucky and yourself. “You have been avoiding me for weeks. You don't want to talk to me, or do anything with me. You hate me.”

Bucky blinked, stunned into momentary silence before shaking his head as if trying to rid himself of the sheer absurdity of your words. “That’s not true,” he murmured, his voice rough with something that sounded dangerously close to regret.

You laughed at his response—a wry, sarcastic laugh that was void of even the smallest hint of your usual warmth. “Then what other possible reason could you have for avoiding me, Bucky? Hm?” Your head turned towards him, and for the first time that night, Bucky finally saw the telltale sign of tears in your eyes, a glassy sheen that erased any remnant of the wits that Bucky had grown to know and love.

His stomach churned.

Guilt was eating at him alive. He couldn't believe that his stupidity had caused this—that he had hurt you due to his own incapability of controlling his emotions. Bucky didn't know what he was thinking when he decided that the best course of action would be to completely evade you, but he certainly didn't think that it would result in this.

With you, sitting on his bed, crying your eyes out while simultaneously breaking Bucky's heart in the process.

Bucky exhaled sharply, as if the weight of his own remorse was pressing down on his chest. He couldn't stand it—the way your shoulders quivered, the way you tried so desperately to keep your composure together as tears welled in your eyes.

"Sweetheart," he rasped, reaching for you, his fingers hesitant at first before firming in resolve. "I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry.”

You stiffened at his touch, your lips parting as if to protest, but Bucky was already pulling you into his embrace, holding you tightly against the muscular panes of his chest. His hands skimmed soothingly along your back, whispers of sweet nothings falling from his lips as he rocked you in the safety of his arms.

“I don't hate you, Sugar,” he murmured, voice shattering around the edges. “I've never hated you. How could I?”

How could I hate you when you are the only source of light I have remaining in this world? How could I hate you when loving you is the only thing about my life that I am absolutely certain of?

Your breath hitched against his shoulder, fingers curling into the fabric of his shirt. “Bucky—”

“Shh,” he soothed, pressing his lips to your temple in a featherlight touch. “Just let me hold you, okay?”

Slowly, he guided the both of you down onto his bed, his arms never loosening from where they were wrapped around your body. His heartbeat thumped steadily beneath your cheek, his fingers drawing lazy patterns against your back. The tension in your body melted bit by bit with each gentle word, the rise and fall of his chest lulling you into something softer—something safe.

“Don't ever do that to me again,” you warned shakily. “Promise me.”

Bucky's hold around you tightened. “I promise.”

“Good.” You sighed, exhaustion wearing down every inch of your bones. “You're my favorite person, Bucky.”

The admission pierced Bucky's chest like a lightning strike. He knew he should not have read too much into it, that the revelation was nothing more than a drunken slip of tongue that you probably would not even remember in the morning. But for now, Bucky chose to let that little detail slide, to let himself pretend that the confession had been made with more purposeful intent behind it—that the words had meant as much to you as it did to Bucky.

"Sleep, sweetheart," he whispered, his lips brushing against your forehead. "I've got you."

Since that night in his bedroom, Bucky had made a vow: he wasn't going to run anymore.

Bucky had learned his lesson. He wasn't going to let his own fears dictate his actions, nor would he allow his emotions ruin the precious friendship he had built with you over the past few years. Whatever he felt—whatever torment clawed at his chest whenever you so much as looked his way—it was his burden to bear. You didn't deserve to suffer for his cowardice, and he swore to himself that he would never let it happen again.

That thought lingered in Bucky's mind as he moved stealthily through the abandoned industrial site, gun drawn, boots scraping silently against the cracked concrete floor. The mission was straightforward: take out remaining hostiles, extract any valuable intel, and regroup. Simple. A basic in and out job that would be done just in time for dinner.

The team had split into pairs, and as fate would have it—or rather, as Steve would have it—Bucky found himself assigned to the west wing of the site alongside you. The direct channel to your comms in Bucky’s earpiece was quiet, and the super soldier took it as a good indication that your side of the mission was going smoothly. Meanwhile, he swept through his own side of hallways with methodical precision, checking every room, muttering a curt “clear” to his comms for each canvassed area. 

The air was eerie with cold and mold when Bucky entered the last remaining room in the hallway. There was nothing particularly different about this one. It was just as empty and as menacing, smelling of rat’s piss and years of abandonment, though his seasoned instinct—one sculpted from years of fighting and survival—warned him that something was amiss. His fingers tightened around his weapon almost instinctively, feeling an immediate unease venture up his spine, raising the very hair on the back of his neck.

The silence was too perfect.

Bucky’s feet skidded to a stop, turning on his heel to retrace his steps back towards the entrance.

Then, it happened.

The ambush struck like lightning on water. One second Bucky was alone, and the next, shadows had flooded the room, faceless figures in tactical gears leaping towards him at the same time. They were fast and ruthless, and even though none seemed to possess enhanced abilities, Bucky was still outnumbered. He dodged the first three attackers easily enough—disarming the blade from the first assailant’s hand, ducking out of the swinging baton of the second’s, and rolling on the floor before redirecting the third one’s bullet with the palm of his vibranium arm.

Bucky dashed out of the room into the one right across, the group of attackers still hot on his tail. He ducked behind a metal table and started opening fires at the entrance, taking out the threats before they even got the chance to enter the room. A curse fell under his breath when Bucky realized that he had worked through his rounds, scrambling to replace the ammunition as footsteps thundered into the room.

Slamming the fresh magazine in place, Bucky inhaled a gearing breath, only to be met with a sudden hush that descended through the air.

He raised his gun.

Instead of finding himself at the end of numerous gun barrels, Bucky was granted the view of bodies scattered all over the floor. The tang of iron meshed detestably with the spoor of grime, fog swirling around the edge of Bucky’s adrenaline-honed mind. When the dust finally stifled, his focus immediately zeroed in on the figure standing amidst the wreckage, rising out of the smoke like a doomsday’s salvation.

“Hi, handsome.” You smiled around a heavy exhale, a crinkle in your eye that seized the very life out of Bucky’s lungs. “Miss me?”

Bucky let out a rough breath, somewhere between relief and admiration. The grip around his weapon slackened ever so slightly, his body still thrumming with fight-and-flight, though the sight of your beautiful smile had managed to wash him with the kind of serenity that no other person could compel.

“Was wondering when you’d show up, sweetheart,” Bucky said, rising from his makeshift fortress behind the table.

“Sorry, Sarge.” You hummed, casually brushing the dust off Bucky’s shoulder as though the contact didn’t send him skyrocketing to heaven. “You know I like to keep people on their toes.”

Bucky failed to suppress his grin, nudging your shoulder as the two of you headed towards the entrance. With the hostiles neutralized, and the information uploaded to the flash drive discreetly tucked in the safety of Bucky’s inside pocket, the two of you were prepared for extraction. He redirected his comms to the main channel, alerting the other team members that the two of you were ready to wrap up and get the hell out of this dismal place.

He was barely a foot out of the door when a loud bang resonated in the air.

In a split second, Bucky sprung in retaliation, taking aim at one of the bloody assailants on the ground that had somehow taken hold of a gun, Bucky’s finger pulling at his own weapon’s trigger, assassinating him in place.

The silence that followed was deafening.

Bucky’s heart throbbed in his throat, a silent prayer on his lips at how close of a call it had almost been. His gaze took a quick scan of the pile of bodies on the floor, making sure that none of them would pull a similar stunt, only allowing his shoulders to deflate when he saw no remaining signs of life.

“Bucky?”

Your voice barely reached him, thin despite the echoic air of this dingy site, but something inside Bucky twisted the moment he heard it.

When he turned, the initial relief that had flooded his chest instantly collapsed.

You were standing there, just a breadth out of reach with your gun still tightly clutched between your fingers. But the side of your neck—God, the side of your neck—was slick with red, thick and dark as it ran in angry runnels down your skin, staining the collar of your tactical gear, pooling on your shoulder and drenching everything it touched.

Your whole body swayed.

Bucky’s heart dropped to the pit of his stomach.

“No, no, no—” he rasped as he caught you, arms winding around your frame to prevent you from hitting the floor. His knees slammed onto the cold concrete below as he cradled you against his chest, the tremble in his body betraying the steel he was supposed to be made out of.

Bucky blinked, willing this moment to splinter into a dream, willing for his body to be transported back into the comfort of his bedroom where the scene playing out in front of his eyes would be nothing more than a heinous nightmare. But as Bucky’s arms tightened around your limp figure, the awful, gut-wrenching truth settled like ice in his veins. 

This was real. 

The blood seeping through your gear wasn’t imagined. The faint hitch in your breath, the loss of color from your face, the sheer terror clawing its way up his throat—none of it was a dream.

His chest crashed.

“Hey, hey. I got you, Sugar.” His voice cracked as he pressed a palm against your wound, despairingly staunching the warmth from slipping through his fingers. But no matter how hard he was grasping, the blood just kept on flowing—too fast and too much—soaking his hands and every corner of his battered soul.

“Shit. Stay with me, sweetheart. Please,” he begged. “Steve! Nat! Somebody get here now!” he barked into his earpiece, nails digging deeper into your skin. “We need a medic! We need a—fuck—just get down here!”

You made a sound, somewhere between a gasp and a whimper, your breath warm against his cheek as you murmured, “I-It’s gonna… gonna be o-okay.”

It was a lie.

You both knew it.

And it destroyed him. 

“Don’t do that.” Bucky shook his head, his voice cracking around a choked sob. He forced a smile as he looked down at your pale face. “You always suck at lying.”

Your lips parted, the faintest ghost of a smile trying to make its way through, only to be interrupted by a wet cough that made Bucky’s chest cave in.

“Gotta stay with me, sweetheart. Please,” Bucky whimpered. “The team’s coming. Help is on the way. Just gotta hang in there a little more for me, yeah? Just a little longer. Please.”

Bucky wasn’t entirely sure to whom he was begging—whether it was you, the universe, or any higher divine power that might have heard his wretched prayer and taken pity on him. A man who had lost everything and asked for nothing, who was now asking for someone—anyone—to save the only thing in this world that made his life worth living, even if it meant having to sacrifice his soul in exchange.

Your hand reached out tentatively, shakily, gripping the strap of his tactical jacket and giving it the faintest tug. 

“Bucky,” you whispered, voice dissipating like a wisp of smoke as soon as you had uttered his name. Your eyes, glassy and unfocused, searched for his, and when they finally found him, a weak smile curved at your lips. “I love you.”

A sound tore from his throat, raw and full of despair. His forehead dropped against yours, his entire body rupturing under the weight of your words.

“I love you.” Bucky’s voice stammered. “God, I love you—I love you, sweetheart, I love you so much.” He pressed his lips against your clammy forehead, again and again, as though he could tether you here, as though his love alone could be enough to keep you from slipping away.

He should have been happy—should have felt something else other than this hollow, scorching agony. The person of his dreams, the one he had spent sleepless nights longing for, had just made the one admission that his heart had been wanting to hear, and yet, all he could do was break. His whole being perished under the weight of everything left unsaid, every moment wasted, every regret carving him open from the inside out.

He should have told you sooner.

God, he should have just told you—should have braced past his insecurities and found the courage somehow, should have showered you with every drop of love he had neatly stowed in his heart until he was shriveled and had no else to give. He should have bought you flowers everyday, let you know that you were the most beautiful person Bucky had ever met on this goddamn planet—because you deserved it.

You deserved everything.

Not this.

Not bleeding on the filthy floor of this desolate place, fighting off death that had bludgeoned its way right through your door.

“You’re gonna be okay, Sugar. We’re getting out of here, you hear me?” His breath stuttered, his grip tightening as if he could physically gather all of your fragmented pieces and mend you as new. “I’m gonna treat you so good. You’ll see. Gonna spoil you rotten like I ought to. Just—please, just hold on—”

Your fingers twitched against his chest. Your eyes fluttered.

A quivering breath left your lips before your body went completely limp.

Bucky stilled.

“Sugar?”

Nothing.

No soft inhale. No faint murmurs of response.

No squeeze of your fingers against his jacket.

Bucky’s entire world came crashing down in the blink of an eye.

“No. No, no, no, no—”

His hand cupped your face, blood smearing from his skin to yours. Bucky’s fingers trembled as he tapped your cheek, as if the action alone could keep you here, could bring you back to him. His breathing ceased, his whole body shuddering as he rocked you in his arms, your name tumbling over and over again from his lips like a prayer, like a curse, like a plea to the universe to undo everything, to give him one more chance, to take him instead.

“Come back to me,” he whispered, his face wet with the fractured shards of his heart. “Please.”

The only thing that acknowledged him was silence.

And Bucky Barnes had never hated the quiet more.

The Bet

summary: The agents at SHIELD have not taken well to Bucky’s pardon. When he’s injured on a mission under suspicious circumstances, you take matters into your own hands.  

pairing: bucky barnes x reader

word count: 7.7k

warnings: canon level violence, bucky’s internalized self-punishing issues, shield agents being real pieces of shit, badass reader who would defend bucky to the death

a/n: I know I’ve been really inactive lately (life’s actually been going well so I’ve been busier but that leaves me less time to write unfortunately), but I’m still lurking here! This is a fic I wrote several months ago but finally got around to editing it. Hope you enjoy!

Bucky wasn’t sure how you managed it – the punch to his gut every time you walked in the room. You were dressed in your tactical suit; black fabric draped over every inch of your body, protective layers of Kevlar and technology beyond Bucky’s years, a weapon strapped to your thigh and knives hidden in your belt and at your ankle. Your hair was tugged out of place, sweat beaded on your temple from the sparring match in the gym moments before the two of you were called to service. In your right hand, you carried your combat boots, the laces hanging low enough to touch the ground.  

And still, Bucky held his breath as you approached. Stomach in knots, chest tightening until his heart threatened to stop entirely.

“My offer is fifty this time,” you announced, winking in his direction before you turned to head for the landing bay. “Take it or leave it, Barnes.”

Keep reading

Like he means it

Pairing: Roommate!Bucky x Reader

Summary: You can’t take another night of hearing Bucky fuck a girl who isn’t you.

Word Count: 13.6k

Warnings: Bucky is a fuckboy (but he’s still a sweetheart); lots of talk about unrequited love (but is it?); mentions of sex; crying; lots of desperation; longing; heavy confessions; feels; happy ending

Author’s Note: This is written for the lovely cinema themed writing challenge of @elixirfromthestars ♡ I had this kind of idea for a while but when I read those lyrics it somehow immediately came back to my mind and I needed to make something out of it. This is kind of inspired by your Boulevard Confessions because I loved it so much! And damn, I've already written so much about roommate!Bucky but I can’t help myself lol, I love him. Also, this got a little long, I'm sorry. Still, I hope you enjoy! ♡

Hold My Hand "Pull me close, wrap me in your aching arms. I see that you're hurtin', why'd you take so long to tell me you need me? I see that you're bleeding, you don't need to show me again. But if you decide to, I'll ride in this life with you. I won't let go 'til the end." — Lady Gaga

Masterlist

You hear the giggling before anything else.

It’s always the giggling.

And, as always, it grates on your nerves.

It carves through the air, seeps into the walls, into the floorboards, into you. It tears its way inside and scrapes its manicured nails along the rawest and most sensitive parts of you, only to bury itself deep, where you can’t simply dig it out.

Then comes the keys.

The light, metallic jingle, so careless in its melody, but so troubling in its meaning.

Then the lock turning, the click soft and yet so irrefutable.

Then the door opening.

More giggles.

His breathy chuckles.

Then the door closing.

Shoes being kicked off, one hitting the wall.

You press the pillow harder against your ears, as if you could suffocate the sound before it reaches you, as if you could bury yourself deep enough under the covers to escape what you already know is coming. But you can’t. You never can.

Your brain usually does you the favors of drowning out the parts in the hallway, knowing it will probably make your heart stop in an instant. Today, it doesn’t do you any favors and you close your eyes, accepting the sting behind them.

And then, his bedroom door.

And if all that wasn’t torture enough, it was only the easy part.

Because now is when it really starts. It’s when your throat closes up, the breath in your lungs turns heavy, thick, impossible. Because no matter how many times this has happened, no matter how many times you laid here in your bed, still, so still, waiting for the agony to stop, pretending it doesn’t happen - it never stops hurting. It never stops breaking your heart - or whatever’s left of it.

At first, there is silence. The small period where you almost dare to believe, to hope.

But then comes the moaning.

High-pitched and breathy, hinting at a pleasure that strikes you with a hammer.

Someone else. Always someone else. Someone who is not you, someone who never had to try, someone who will never know what it means to ache for him like you do.

Then, quieter, but just as devastating, Bucky’s voice. The low sound of him unraveling. The sound of something slipping from him that you will never be able to take.

And that’s what breaks you most. That’s what turns the ache into utter misery. Madness even. It’s the inescapable proof that he has something to give - something deep, something intimate - and he is giving it away. Over and over again, but never to you.

You close your eyes, as always. It doesn’t help, as always. The sounds don’t stop anyway. The images come anyway - the touches you have imagined, the way his hands would feel against your skin, the way his mouth would shape your name if you were the one beneath him. The way he might look at you, if only he could see.

But right now, you are just the ghost in the next room, curled in on yourself, ears filled with the sound of someone else living the life you always wanted.

And in the morning, or right after, when the door will open again, when the giggling will turn to goodbyes, you will still be here, where you always are. Where you always will be. Waiting. Wanting. Breaking. Wishing you could turn it off, this feeling. This unendurable and never-ending heartbreak.

And that finally makes the tears flow.

They well up before they spill over, down the slope of your cheek, gathering in the hollow beneath your nose before falling onto the pillow and wetting it like a pool.

You squeeze your eyes shut, so tightly it should hurt, so tightly it should make them stop. But they come anyway. They come despite the barricade of your willpower, despite the way your body coils tighter in on itself. They come despite the desperate war you wage against them.

They come because you have lost. Because it’s too much.

The moaning doesn’t stop, and it’s too much. It’s the middle of the night, and it’s too much. It’s the third night in a row, and it’s too much.

Bucky’s hushed voice shatters something inside of you, you didn’t know was left intact a few seconds ago.

Your breath turns sticky, only half of it making its way up your throat. The other half stays attached to the walls of your throat like honey gone rancid. It refuses to leave completely, snagging and trapping you in the awful space between breathing and choking.

Maybe if it stopped altogether, it would be easier. Maybe suffocating would be gentler than this slow and unsparing death of heartbreak.

Your hands are shaking. You bury your face into the pillow, willing it to just take you as a whole and never let you leave again. The fabric muffles the shuddering sobs, but it cannot do anything for the way your body trembles. But you know that the sounds of pleasure in the other room will tune out the sounds of your cries. The pillow is being clutched so tightly, you might tear the fabric. But it’s your heart that’s being torn into so many pieces. So what is a pillow compared to the ruin of your heart? It’s nothing.

You are alone in your grief.

The moans stop for a second - abrupt, cut off mid-breath.

Bucky’s voice comes. He says something but you don’t catch his words.

However, you do catch the displeased groan of his girl for the night. Drawn-out and petulant. Annoyed.

Bucky speaks again. Firmer, this time. Again, it’s too quiet to catch it.

And then you hear your name. It’s muffled still, but you would hear your name coming from his lips always and forever. You know the exact cadence of it shaping his mouth.

Everything in you halts. Your breaths are suspended somewhere in your throat, caught between shock and devastation.

The girl scoffs. It’s a snappy sound. Almost whiny. You would have rolled your eyes if you weren’t so troubled.

The moaning resumes. But it is quieter this time. Controlled almost. A courtesy. A mercy. But not for you. Not in the way you wish.

And it makes you know.

He asked her to keep it down. For you. He must have told her he has a roommate - you - and that they need to be mindful, that you might be trying to sleep.

Somehow, in all the infinite ways he could have cared for you, this is the one he chose. Not to love you, not to want you, but to make sure his flings don’t disrupt your sleep. As if that’s the worst of it. As if the noise is what truly keeps you up at night, and not the agonizing truth of it all.

Harshly, your teeth sink into your lip, fighting to stifle the sob that trembles on the edge of you. But again, you are losing.

Because hearing your name in the middle of something so intimate, spoken in the same breath of his pleasure, is pure anguish.

Because your name should not exist there. Not like this. Not casually sneaking into a mind occupied with pleasuring someone else.

If he were to say your name in a moment like this, it should be a soft whisper against your skin, entangled in sheets, buried in kisses that steal the air from your lungs. It should be something private, something sacred.

Not an idle afterthought. A consideration. A passing thought before he loses himself in someone else’s body. You have never heard him say any girl’s name before when sleeping with them, but hell you also don’t try to listen too closely.

You won’t talk about this. You never talk about this. When the morning comes and you meet Bucky in the kitchen for breakfast, you will not mention it. Just like you never mention the other nights. Just like you never dwell on the soft apologies he offers when they got too loud. And just like always, you will brush it off, force a brittle smile, and tell him that it’s fine.

It’s not. It never has been. And you don’t think you ever manage to make it sound like you mean it. But you are gone before Bucky can push or apologize again. Or see how deep the knife has gone.

Because he might be careful to be quiet. But he will never be careful enough to stop breaking your heart.

So what is the point?

You don’t want to do another morning like this.

You can’t do another morning like this.

Not three times in a row.

Not when the night has already taken your soul and what was precious of it, barely sewn together by the time the sun fights its way through the window.

Not when you know how it will play out. Like it has the day before. And the day before that.

The door to his room will creak open, the girl already gone. You will hear the shuffle of his bare feet against the floor, the sigh as he stretches, and the yawn that usually makes it past his lips. He never tries to stifle it.

And then, him standing there and watching you.

Disheveled. Bed hair sticking up in a mess. You never let your mind wander to how her fingers might have something to do with that. His shirt would loosely hang over his frame, probably thrown on in a hurry, collar askew, revealing a sliver of skin you shouldn’t be looking at.

That lazy and slightly flustered smile. Sleep still in the corners of his eyes, his lips, his voice, when he greets you with a scratchy morning.

Like nothing happened. Like he didn’t shatter you into a thousand unfixable pieces last night. And the night before that. And now this night.

You will do your best to greet him back without sounding pained. Focusing on making coffee. The way the steam normally curls into the air, the warmth of the mug in your hands. You will have to focus on it as if it’s the only thing keeping you upright.

And despite knowing you shouldn’t - despite hating yourself for it - you will slide a cup toward him. As you always do.

His smile would shift. Settling into something fond, something warm, something that digs its claws into your ribs and refuses to let go.

Because that’s usually the worst part. He’s always so sweet with you. Thoughtful, affectionate in ways that don’t count. In the ways that make you feel like maybe if you just hold on a little longer, if you wait just a little more, he might start feeling what you do.

But you are certain, he won’t.

Because for him, everything seems fine. For him, this will be just another morning. Another easy, comfortable start to the day. With his eyes on you and sipping his coffee, exhaling like he is finally at peace, and leaning against the counter with a lightness that always has your stomach all up in shambles.

He always makes it seem so normal. Starting conversation with you, talking to you as if nothing has changed. Like you didn’t spend the night curled in on yourself, swallowing down sobs so thick they feel like razor blades. Like you didn’t spend the night choking on the sound of him with her.

He never mentions them. Never says any of the girl’s names, not that you even know what they are. He never makes plans to see them again. Just another faceless but very loud girl. One to be forgotten.

But tomorrow night, there will be another.

Tomorrow night will be the same.

And in the morning nothing will have happened.

Only him standing there with his sleep-mussed hair and that sweet, easy smile, drinking the coffee you should have stopped making for him a long, long time ago.

You rise out of bed, not even aware of it. The cold air nips at your tear-streaked cheeks, your sheets thrown back in a mass of tangled fabric still warm from the ball your body was curled in, breaking in silence. The pillow is still wet.

Your hands move on their own, tugging on slacks, yanking a hoodie over your head as though the fabric could hide you, save you from the devastation caving a hole into your chest.

You fumble for your phone before throwing open your bedroom door.

The moans are louder again. Yanking at your resolve and laughing at the way your tears keep coming.

Your feet move faster. You don’t actually run, but it feels like running. Like fleeing. Escaping a burning building before it collapses. The living room comes into view and it’s like a cruel trick, like the universe is taunting you, because all you see are phantoms.

The coffee machine on the counter. How many times have you two stood there, still tousled with sleep, you making coffee for the both of you because Bucky burns everything. How many times did he lean on the counter, watching you with that stupid little half-smirk, pretending to judge your process but always humming in satisfaction when he took the first sip.

The bookshelf in the corner - the one you swore you could build on your own. And you tried, you really did, but the second the screwdriver slipped and you gasped out loud, Bucky was there immediately. Hands on yours, worry furrowing his brows, grumbling about your stubbornness and continuing to grumble when he passive-aggressively built it himself.

You sat cross-legged on the floor, watching him, pretending to be annoyed but secretly savoring the way he kept glancing at you, again and again, to make sure you were okay and giving you instructions as to how it’s done but throwing you a glare when you insisted on trying again.

The carpet. The same one you both collapsed onto after a night out with your friends, too tipsy to move, giggling like teenagers as you pointed at the ceiling, pretending to find constellations in the uneven paint. He named one after you. You named one after him. You fell asleep there, side by side, and when you woke up he was so close. So close.

The couch. The one he practically melted into last week when he had a fever, whining dramatically until you caved and brought him soup. He kept pulling you back when you tried to leave, pouting like a child, demanding your attention because I’m sick, doll. Can’t ignore me when I’m sick. Until you sighed and sat down, letting his head rest in your lap. He fell asleep like that. Snoring. And you didn’t have the heart to move.

And now he is in his room, tangled in her, moaning into her skin, kissing her - like it doesn’t mean anything. Like none of it ever meant anything.

Your breath is uneven, your hands shaking as you grab your shoes. The laces blur, your vision fogs, but you can’t stop.

You throw open the door to your shared apartment, barely thinking, barely breathing, only moving. It swings back into the frame with a sharp sound echoing through the hallway, louder than you had intended. But it doesn’t matter now. Because you are sure that Bucky doesn’t hear it. He doesn’t notice. He is otherwise occupied and you are utterly drained of thinking about with what.

The air outside the apartment feels different. Lighter and cooler, but it doesn’t bring relief. It’s thin and hard to pull into your lungs properly.

Natasha’s place isn’t far. Fifteen minutes on foot. You tell yourself that over and over, like a mantra, like something to grasp on.

No more moans. Lost to silence, left in a place that feels little like home right now. Still, they resonate in your skull, haunting reminders of that pain you can’t dismiss, that hurt that hangs off you like a heavy burden.

You slow your steps on the staircase and inhale deeply. It trembles on its way out.

You hate how fragile you feel. How breakable. Hate how much this affects you. How much he affects you.

But you keep walking.

Just yesterday, you talked to Natasha and she offered you to stay with her for the night, looking at you all sharp and knowing, but in her own way sympathetic. You declined. Because you thought you’d be fine. Well, you were wrong.

It’s past midnight now, completely dark, but you don’t care.

You know, Natasha will let you in. And that will have to be enough for tonight.

The city is alive even at this hour. Neon lights glow in the distance, their reflection shimmering in rain-slicked puddles that dot the cracked pavement. Somewhere across the street, there is a group of people laughing, and disappearing around a corner. A car flies past, with headlights unlocking long shadows lengthening down the sidewalk.

You focus on those things. On the shoes thumping against the pavement. The way the crisp air is somehow refreshing as it weaves through the fabric of your hoodie and stings slightly at the tear-streaked skin of your cheeks, keeping you awake and propelling you forward. Not that you need any more motivation to leave.

You wind your arms around yourself like a shield, like a last-ditch effort to keep yourself from falling apart completely.

You don’t look back.

Somewhere above you, there is a creak of a window opening.

It makes you freeze for a small second, before tightening your arms around yourself and picking up your pace.

Your stomach spins violently because fuck, you know that sound. You know the groan of that window when it moves, just a little off its hinges, just enough to make a noise you’ve heard a hundred times before. Because it’s the window of your apartment. And it makes a noise that has never felt so much like a punch to the gut.

“Y/n?”

You close your eyes.

“Y/n!”

Your name spills from his lips, laced with confusion, infused with something that makes your fingers clench around your arms.

You could ignore him. You should ignore him. Just keep walking, keep moving, pretend you didn’t hear.

But you can’t. You never can.

With a slow, dragging breath, you turn around.

Bucky is leaning over the frame, his torso reaching out the window, bare from the shoulders down. He is bathed in the hazy yellow glow of the streetlights.

His hair is messed up, brown tendrils all sticking in different directions. His brows are knitted in confusion. His lips in a frown so full of worry. And it’s just too much.

Too warm. Too intimate. Too familiar.

Your chest stutters, lurches, and swirls itself into a dozen moving shapes that hurt more than they should. Because he stands there shirtless. Shirtless. And you know why.

You swallow back your hurt, but it stays stuck in your throat and crawls right up again to make you taste it on your tongue.

You force your gaze away from staring at the curve of his collarbone, the slope of his throat, the soft lines of his skin, the hard lines of his muscles that she had her hands on just minutes ago.

“Where are you going?”

The tone highlights his concern, thick with the kind of worry that would have meant everything if it weren’t coming from him like this, not now. His voice is rough, remnants of the time already spent with that girl, but all you can hear is that damn worry in it.

As if you owe him an answer. As if he isn’t the reason your chest feels like it’s been hollowed out and left to rot.

You draw in half a breath and look away - down the street, down at your shoes, the bricks of your building. Anywhere that isn’t him.

“To Nat’s.”

It’s clipped and short. You don’t want to explain, don’t want to talk, don’t want to stand here in the night air beneath the window of the apartment you share with him like some pathetic wreck while he worries about you.

“Nat’s?” You can hear the bewilderment in his voice, the way he is trying to piece it together, the way his brain is already working overtime, scrambling to make sense of this - and you can practically feel the moment he decides he won’t let it go.

“Somethin’ happen?” His voice just won’t stop to be so perplexed, so concerned. It is softer now, but you only glance up at him briefly before averting your eyes again.

Because damn Bucky, yes, something happened. Everything happened. Every night that he brings someone home, every touch that belongs to someone else, every soft moan that isn’t meant for you.

All these moments, all these memories, every feeling left unsaid that swivels and stings and grows into what it is now - a storm inside your rib cage, a hurricane of almosts and never wills and why does it have to be like this?

But of course, you can’t say that. You won’t say that.

So you just shake your head, tighten your arms around yourself, and take a step back.

“Go back to bed, Bucky.”

Because you can’t do this right now. You won’t do this right now.

Not when you are already about to break.

“I- What?”

His voice is a little raspy, puzzled, and under any other circumstance, it might have been endearing. On a normal day, if this were some cozy Sunday morning and not the breaking stretch of midnight, you might have smiled at the sight of him like this - hair in a wild mess, eyes a little heavy from the day, bare shoulders shifting in the glow of the streets.

But this is not a Sunday morning. And nothing about this feels good or cozy or right.

You are so damn exhausted. So damn drained.

“You-” he starts again, brow furrowing deeper, but before he can get another word out, hands appear - slim fingers wrapping around the thick of his bicep, tugging, pulling, trying to drag him back inside.

Bile is pooling at the base of your throat.

She’s alone with him up there, in the space that you have spent so much time making into something warm, something filled with comfort. A space where you feel home. With him. And yet, it’s that random girl in there, laying in his bed, under his covers, in his scent, in him.

“Bucky, come on.” Her voice is thin and peevish, thick with impatience. And exhaustion you believe she has no right to feel when you are the one who has spent the time suffocating under her presence.

But Bucky doesn’t move.

His hand only grips onto the windowsill tighter, muscles in his arm locking.

And his eyes stay fixed on you.

Still searching. Still confused. Still trying to understand.

And it makes your hands clammy.

The way he looks at you like he is reaching for something just beyond his grasp, something that eludes him no matter how hard he tries to hold onto it.

He huffs out a breath that just borders on frustration when her fingers won’t stop pulling at him.

“Hold on, doll-” he calls out to you and unwinds her hands from his arm, barely sparing her a glance as he leans out the window again. There is a little something in his tone when he speaks to you again. Something like exasperation. But it’s not meant for you. “What’re you doin’ at Nat’s? Tell her it’s the middle of the goddamn night. Why would she let you walk over to her? She knows it’s not safe.”

You shake your head, already half turning away again. You just cannot do this right now.

“It’s fine. Just go back to bed, Bucky.”

“Y/n - hey. What’s wrong? What’s this about?” There it is. That softness in his voice. That concern. And it hurts. Because he doesn’t get it.

“Go. Back. To bed,” you repeat, sharper now, gritting it out between clenched teeth.

But Bucky has always been stubborn. And so infuriating. It’s like he doesn’t hear you at all.

“C’mon doll, did something happen? Talk to me,” he urges, voice gentle but he doesn’t seem to like the way you look as if you would bolt around the corner any second. His tone is coaxing in a way that makes you ache because this is what he does. This is what he has always done - pulling you in, making you feel safe, making you feel cared for, making you feel like you matter. Like he means it.

And it’s cruel. So cruel.

Because you are in love with him.

And he is standing in that window, bare-chested and rumpled from a night with another woman, while you are in slacks and a simple hoodie beneath him with your heart cracked wide open, bleeding into the pavement.

“I don’t wanna do this right now, Bucky,” you snip, voice losing patience. But you are so tired.

Bucky sighs and runs a hand through his hair, frustration growing, seeping into his voice. “You’re killin’ me here, sweetheart. Just tell me what’s goin’ on. It’s cold out, doll. You’re not even wearin’ a jacket.”

You swallow down a choked breath.

Because this is making things so much worse.

That he cares. That he is looking at you like this, like you matter, like you are his.

Like you are something he wants to figure out. And he wants to take his time with. Like he wants to fix you.

But you are not broken. You are just in love.

“Bucky,” that girl calls out again, dragging his name out, voice honey-thick and pettish. “Come on babe, let it go. Just-” She tugs at his arm again, nails skimming along his forearm. “Come back to bed.”

But he doesn’t move.

Doesn’t even glance at her.

His mouth twitches, jaw ticking as he exhales sharply through his nose, shaking her off with a firm roll of his shoulder. “Would you quit it for a sec?” His voice is edged now, tinged with a kind of terse impatience he seldom ever lets out. “Jesus, m’tryin to talk here.”

The girl huffs, clearly displeased, but Bucky doesn’t spare her another second.

But the one second he threw his head around at her was your chance. Your feet move before you can think, before you can talk yourself into staying, because if you do, if you let him pull you in, let yourself hope-

“Woah, doll, hey. Wait, I-”

His voice is frantic, stammering over its own syllables and filled with too many things your mind is too jumbled to focus on.

But it makes you stop your body in the midst of a step. And you grind down on your teeth against the frustration burning inside you.

You should keep walking. Shouldn’t have stopped.

But Bucky is leaning even further out now, his knuckles bracing against the sill, the night air tousling his hair, eyes wide and concerned, searching. One of his arms is reaching out, down to you as if he could touch you like this.

“Hold up, yeah? I’m comin’ down.”

You whip halfway back to him, brows snapping together, heart slamming against your ribs.

“No, you-”

He’s already pulling himself back inside, shaking his head as if it should be obvious. “I’m coming down,” he repeats, more insistent, more sure. Leaving no room for argument.

Your fists squeeze the fabric of your hoodie. Your stomach churns. “Bucky-” you try again. But he has already made up his mind.

“Wait there, alright?” His voice dips lower, steadier but still urgent. Resolute, as if he would run after you if you bolted down the street. “Doll. Promise me you’ll wait.”

Something in his tone, the look he is giving you, like he’s begging, almost a sweet-talking declaration. It’s catching your breath somewhere in your throat.

You could run.

You should.

You should turn right back around, disappear into the night, and leave him standing there, shirtless and confused and worried.

But you hold his gaze for just one long and heavy beat, then exhale shakily, shoulders dropping slightly.

“Okay,” you say weakly.

Bucky nods determined and taps his fingers against the windowsill, before rushing away, leaving the window wide open.

And you stand there hating yourself for waiting.

Hating yourself for hoping.

Technically, you could just leave.

Take a different route to Nat’s apartment, slip into the dark veins of the city where his voice wouldn’t reach, and let him walk out onto an empty sidewalk with his hair still tousled from another woman’s fingers and the taste of someone else’s lips still lingering on his own.

You could make him feel just a fraction of what you feel, with something hollow pressing up against his ribs when he finds nothing but cold pavement where you used to stand.

But you don’t.

You know you won’t.

Because it wouldn’t just frustrate him. It would hurt him.

And that’s the one thing you could never bring yourself to do.

Not Bucky.

Never Bucky.

You know him. The way he chews at the inside of his cheek when he’s trying not to say something reckless. The way his brows pull just a little too tight when he’s agitated but trying to play it off like he is fine. The way he folds his arms over his chest, not because he’s closed off, but because he needs something to hold onto.

You know exactly how he would react if he stepped out here and you weren’t there.

How the slight crease between his brows would deepen. How his fingers would twitch, opening and closing, like he’d missed his chance to catch you. How his lips would open and he would stare helplessly around and call your name.

And god, as much as this pain is devouring you from the inside out, pushing its way into the light but leaving you sitting in the dark, as much as your heart feels like being torn apart with unsaid words and unmet confessions - you cannot stand the thought of hurting him.

So you stay.

With feet planted on the concrete, fists clenched so hard, that your fingers start to cramp. You lift your trembling hands to your aching cheeks to hastily scrub away the fresh wave of tears surging forth downwards, willing your body to erase any evidence of your devastation.

But the more you wipe, the more it hurts.

You believe your cheeks are red from the effort of wiping so much, eyes swollen and puffy, your body trying to rebel against all of your commands.

Inhaling shakily, you force the breath down, down, down where you can pretend it doesn’t hurt so much. You angle your face slightly away from the building, hoping the dim spill of moonlight won’t betray your inner struggles.

Because the moment Bucky steps out that door, it will be the same as always.

He’ll look at you like you are his best friend. Like you are his safe place. Like you are the person he can always count on.

And you will look at him like you aren’t falling apart.

Like your heart isn’t unraveling at the seams.

Like you aren’t drowning in a love that will never be returned.

The door swings open with a force that startles you, the sound of it hitting the frame a little too sharp against the night.

Bucky storms out onto the sidewalk like he’s got something urgent to say, like the world might stop spinning if he doesn’t get to you fast enough. He doesn’t hesitate. Doesn’t pause. Just moves straight to you, his steps quick, closing the space before you can change your mind about standing here. He has a crumpled shirt thrown on and it hangs a little off. But it makes you want to run so hard.

His fingers wrap around your arms, not hard, not forceful but firm.

Those warm hands on you make you want to crumble.

His breath is coming fast, chest rising and falling, like he ran down the staircase to get here as fast as possible.

His eyes are so deep, deep and blue, roaming your face with so much intensity, searching and scanning and pausing.

Shadows cast over his sharp cheekbones at the way his brows are furrowed, his lips slightly parted.

“What’s going on, doll? You been cryin’?” His voice comes out rough and he talks fast. Urgent, breaths spilling over themselves as he rushed through the words, almost tripping on them in his desperation to get them out. “Why’ve you been crying? What happened?”

His thumb twitches against the fabric of your hoodie.

You open your mouth, close it again. Your throat is dry from the sobs you tried to silence earlier. You shake your head, a knee-jerk reaction.

“I was just going to Nat’s, Bucky. Nothing happened.”

It’s a weak excuse, said in a weak voice.

And you hate how it makes Bucky’s expression shift. That tiny wounded something that crosses his features, something that shouldn’t be there, because you did wait for him, you didn’t leave, but it’s still not enough. You lied to him. And he knows it. And he’s hurt. And you hate yourself.

He shakes his head, his jaw going tight.

“No,” he murmurs, eyes never leaving you, voice so low. “That ain’t nothin’, doll. C’mon. You’re runnin’ off in the middle of the night, how could this be nothing?”

You look away. Because if you keep looking at him, him with his concern and confusion and hurt all interflowing in the pool of those blue eyes, you won’t be able to hold yourself together much longer.

You swallow hard and force yourself to breathe slowly.

The sting behind your eyes is never really leaving you.

Bucky leans in, just a little. His grip on your arms tightens, but it’s not harsh. Only insistent. Desperate for you to give him something here.

“Somethin’ up with Natasha?” His voice is gentle, like he knows this has nothing to do with her, but he has to ask anyway to go through all the possible options of what might be going on.

“No,” you croak, barely managing the word.

He softens at the sound of it, but that frown doesn’t ease.

“What’re you doing then, huh? Why’re you running off like that? S’ not safe, you know that.” His voice is soft. Almost like he’s trying to soothe a skittish animal. But the concern is wrapping around every word. “What’s got you so upset, sweetheart? Talk to me, yeah? Please?”

His voice takes on a desperate intensity. Like he’s begging you to just let him in. To make him understand.

You bite down hard on your bottom lip, willing it not to tremble, willing your face not to crumble right in front of him, but the air is too thick for your airway, making it harder and harder to breathe.

And Bucky is looking at you, like you are breaking his goddamn heart. Like you took a shot straight for it.

He is so full of worry, it looks painful, the crease of his brow always there when he’s thinking too hard, when he’s feeling too hard. His lips are still parted, like he wants to beg for an explanation, for some string of words that will make this all click into place and turn this into something fixable.

Because Bucky Barnes fixes things.

But this might be the only thing he can’t fix.

His hands on you are a contrast to the way you feel as if you’re falling apart. You hate how much you just want to collapse into it, to let yourself lean into him, let him hold you up. Because he would. You know he would. He would pull you in without hesitation, wrap his arms around you like he has done so many times before.

But you don’t want him to hold you. Don’t want him to hold you like a friend.

You want him to hold you like he means it. Like you mean something more than the sum of all the nights you spent choking on your own silence, swallowing words you could never say.

So all you can do is stay frozen, bones locked, eyes burning, heart splitting itself open in the middle of the street where he doesn’t even know he’s killing you.

“I-”

You try. You really try.

But then the door swings open again. And the sound of it alone is enough to send a bolt of ice down your spine.

Because this time it’s her walking out.

She steps out onto the sidewalk like she has every right to be a part of this moment.

Like she hasn’t spent the first part of the night in Bucky’s bed. Like she hasn’t been touched by him, kissed by him, fucked by him, wanted by him in a way that you have only ever ached for.

Like she hasn’t taken something that was never hers to have.

But it’s not yours either.

She looks so composed, too. More put together than you would have imagined. Her hair smoothed, clothes adjusted, skin glowing in a way that tells you she wasn’t just sleeping up there - she was living in something you’ve been dying for. She probably took a moment in your bathroom to check herself, to fix her lipstick, maybe even to admire herself in the mirror while you were downstairs, breaking apart.

She had the time for that.

Meanwhile, you can barely stand.

Your body is alive with magnitudes of unspoken things, suffocating. You feel like you’ve been sanded down, like a piece of wood, leaving nothing but the ache and longing and all the words you can’t say. This destruction is slow and ruthless, it doesn’t come with an explosion, but rather a slow erasure.

Like you’re being unmade. Piece by piece.

Like you were never meant to be here in the first place.

And Bucky is still looking at you.

Not at her.

You.

And maybe that should be enough. Maybe it should mean something.

But it just puts more pressure on the knife that is already turning around in your flesh.

The girl doesn’t leave and Bucky stiffens.

“Bucky,” she drawls, almost lazy, like she’s bored with this already. “Are you coming back up, or…?”

Your stomach lurches.

You feel exposed, scraped raw, like you’ve been trampled over, flattened by something massive, left behind for everyone else to step around.

Bucky lets out a slow breath through his nose. His jaw works under pressure. And then, he huffs. Annoyed. Like she’s interrupting something important.

“Go home,” he flatly tells her, his attention still on you. Not even addressing her with a name. Perhaps he doesn’t even know it.

“Seriously?” she scoffs, crossing her arms. Her eyes flick between the two of you.

Bucky exhales another breath and drops one of his arms from you to scrub it over his face, pushing through his hair. He turns toward her just a little, stance rigid.

“Yeah, seriously,” he mutters, already turning back to you. “I’ll call you a cab if you need-”

“God, you’re such a dick,” she snaps, cutting him off, rolling her eyes with an exasperated huff. “Unbelievable.”

And then she’s gone.

But so are you.

You don’t even think about it. You just move.

Your arm slips from Bucky’s loosened grip, your body already shifting, already turning, already pulling you down the sidewalk, away from him, away from this.

It’s pathetic. You know this. But you have to get away.

Your vision is a blur, the streetlights smearing into a soft, hazy glow against the wetness welling in your eyes, and no matter how much you try to breathe through it, it’s too much. Simply too much.

You’re hurting. And you need to go. Now.

But Bucky doesn’t let you.

“Woah, whoah, hey!” His voice is quick, rushed, and then he is moving, closing the space between you. And this time, he cuts you off completely, stepping right into your path, right in front of you, blocking the way like a wall. He’s so broad in front of you, and so fucking present, making it impossible to escape.

You stop so fast it almost sends you stumbling back.

His eyes flick over you so quickly, so intensely, scanning for something he doesn’t understand but is so desperate to find.

“Alright,” he exhales, low and careful, holding his arms out as if ready to stop you again if you make a run for it.

“You want me to put you in chains to keep you still?”It’s a weak and failed attempt at humor.

And it’s not funny. Not even close.

His voice is too thin, too strained, and there is something in his eyes, something tight and aching, that makes it clear he is not even trying all that hard to make his joke work.

You don’t smile. Don’t look at him. Arms still around yourself.

Bucky’s throat bobs as he swallows, as he shifts his weight, as he lets out another slow and deliberate breath. He moves so slow. As if any tiny movement of him would make you walk away from him.

“What’s going on with you, mhm?” His voice is so soft. So concerned. Brooklyn warmth and worry combined with something gentler than you can handle right now.

“What’s this - this fight-or-flight thing you got goin’ on?” he continues, tilting his head just slightly, watching you too closely, reading too much. “You’re rushing off like the damn place is on fire. The hell is that about, doll?” Still so soft. So cautious.

His eyes are on you like you are the only thing in the world that matters, like he’s trying to solve you, like if he just looks long enough, he’ll figure it out.

But if he really understood, if he really found out, everything between you would change.

And you can’t handle that. You can’t handle anything at the moment.

“Just drop it, Bucky, alright?” It comes out sharper than you mean for it to. Harsher. A little spit of venom that you hate yourself for the second it hits the air. He doesn’t deserve your attitude. But you can’t hold it back.

You see the way it lands. The way his brows pull in tighter, the way his lips press together, the way his chest rises and falls so measured. But it’s all not out of irritation. He just tries to figure out where that came from. What is happening. What has you react the way you do.

His voice is even and calm. But oh so careful. “I don’t think I will, doll.”

You look anywhere than at him and his troubled face.

Your throat tightens so fast, you have to swallow hard against it, teeth digging into the inside of your cheek as you blink up at the sky like maybe that keeps the tears from spilling over.

And Bucky watches all of that.

His expression stays soft, but his eyes are burning with something deep, something real, something that makes you feel like you might actually drown if you keep looking at them for too long.

“Y/n,” he almost whispers, and it sounds so pained. “Why are you crying, sweetheart.” He’s so gentle, so tender, so fucking careful like he’s afraid that if he pushes too hard, you’ll just break.

You shake your head, arms around yourself tightening. “I’m fine.”

Bucky makes a quiet noise in his throat, somewhere between a sigh and a scoff, something deep and disbelieving.

“See, that’s bullshit.”

You’re about to turn again, but he anticipates and gets hold of your arms.

“Look,” he sighs, heedfully taking off a hand of you to rub it down his face. “You don’t wanna talk? Fine. You wanna bite my head off cause I’m askin’? Fine. But don’t stand here and tell me you’re okay. Because I’ve got eyes, doll, and I can see that you’re not.”

You want him to stop.

You want him to turn around.

You want him to leave you here to fall apart in peace.

But he won’t.

And you don’t know what to do with that.

And you break.

No matter how hard you bite your lip, it doesn’t matter.

The tears slip and streak down your face before there is anything you can do. A sob follows. You can’t choke it down. Your shoulders shake, your breath stutters, and your face tilts towards the ground as you bring trembling hands up to wipe at your cheeks, in a futile and desperate attempt to regain composure. It’s useless.

You feel so pathetic.

Embarrassed. Ashamed that you ran off like this. That you’re standing here, crying in the middle of the night, on a sidewalk with no explanation, making a fool of yourself in front of him.

And the second your face crumbles, his does, too.

The second your breath hitches, he is moving.

Strong arms envelope you, winding tight, pulling you straight into his chest like he doesn’t even need to think about it. Not for a single second.

You let him.

Because it’s either this, or you’ll collapse down onto the asphalt.

His grip is firm, grounding, warm in a way that makes you ache even more. His hand cradles the back of your head, tucking you against him, and you feel the press of his lips there, gentle, but somehow rough.

Like your pain is his own.

“It’s okay. Shh… it’s okay,” he breathes, pained and low, the words pressed into your hair, into your skin. Making space between your ribs. “Oh, doll.” He presses you tighter to him. His hand brushes over your hair. “It’s okay.”

There is something so deep and aching in the way he talks to you, like the sound of his own voice hurts him. Like you hurt him.

His other hand moves over your back, soothingly, trying to give you some strength.

“I gotcha,” he breathes. “M’here, doll. Okay? Just breathe. Gotta breathe for me, baby. Please.”

It’s a slip. Baby. A mistake.

And it makes you cry harder.

Because it’s so soft. Gentle. Because it falls from his lips like something that’s always been there, something that’s always belonged to you.

Except it hasn’t.

It doesn’t.

Not in the way you want.

You don’t know what he calls those girls he takes home. If they get to hear him say it. Girls who have felt his hands in places you never will. Girls who have heard his voice rasp against their skin in the dark.

But you are not one of those girls.

You never will be.

And you know you will never be able to untangle that damaging wrench in your stomach.

So hearing him call you that. Baby. Like it means something. Like it’s yours. Like it hasn’t been whispered in the dim glow of your apartment, murmured against someone else’s lips, someone else’s skin, just someone else just hours ago.

It’s too hard. too cruel.

You wish it didn’t matter. You wish it didn’t rip through you the way it does, splitting you down the center, carving you open.

But it does.

Because even if it doesn’t belong to you, you still want it.

So you cry harder.

Sobs wrack through you, your chest hitching with the force of them, your hands gripping the fabric of his shirt, clumping it in your fists.

Bucky feels it and he hears it and he grips you tighter, pulls you closer.

“Hey, hey, hey,” he coos, voice just above a whisper, more desperate now. Like he’s drowning in your hurt right along with you.

“Sweetheart,” he tries again, voice strained, thick. His lips are in your hair. “Please talk to me. Make me understand, baby, please! Tell me what’s wrong.”

But you can’t.

Because what the hell would you even say?

That you’re in love with him?

That you’ve been in love with him?

That seeing him with her - hearing the sounds that bleed through the walls, the ones you’ll never be able to unhear - feels like being skinned alive?

That you want him in a way you shouldn’t?

That you want him in a way he will never want you back?

You won’t.

So instead, you just press yourself harder into his chest and squeeze your eyes shut, letting him hold you like you are something precious. Like you are his. Even if you are not.

“Help me understand here, baby. Please,” he repeats with a voice so soft, that makes him seem afraid you might break apart completely if he speaks any louder.

Maybe he’s right. Maybe you’re already in pieces at his feet, shattered beyond repair, and he just hasn’t realized it yet.

He lets you cry when you don’t answer, hand stroking up and down your back, the other soothing over your head. He whispers into your hair, words you can’t even process, just the deep cadence of him, the low rasp of his voice against your temple.

His lips move to your forehead, brushing over it. His breath is warm against your skin. You don’t have it in you to pull away, but you wish you would.

Because none of this makes it any easier.

Because his hands feel too good, too steady, too right - and it’s a lie.

Because it’s him.

And that means it hurts.

You wish he would just go and let you have your pathetic heartbreak alone.

But Bucky Barnes has never been the kind of a guy to leave things unsolved.

He pulls back just slightly after a while, just enough to get a better look at you, and when you try to duck your head, to keep him from seeing too much, he doesn’t let you.

Strong, warm fingers cradle your face, thumbs brushing over the damp skin of your cheeks, tilting your head up and forcing your gaze to his.

He looks wrecked.

His brows are drawn, lips parted, chest rising and falling unevenly. His hands tremble just a little against your skin, but his grip stays firm. Solid.

“Don’t look away, doll. Eyes on me, yeah?”

You swallow hard, jaw tight. “You just ruined your good night,” you say, the words falling out bitter, self-deprecating, stiff with something that tastes like resentment but feels like heartbreak.

Bucky’s frown deepens, his lips pressing together, eyes scanning over your face like he’s searching for something, anything that’ll make this make sense.

“The hell I did,” he scoffs, shaking his head. Confused you even brought this up. “I don’t give a shit about her. Don’t even know her name, if I’m bein’ honest.” He lets out a huffed laugh.

But you don’t.

Because somehow this makes it worse.

And you hate it.

You hate that some part of you wanted her to mean something.

Because if she meant something, if she was special, then at least this ache in your chest would have a name. A reason. A shape you could hold in trembling hands and squeeze so hard that it stops hurting at one point.

Then, at least, you could maybe finally accept that there is no hope. No reason to hold on to those feelings.

But Bucky just shrugs.

It meant nothing. It never meant anything. Not with them.

Not with the girls that come and go, the ones who pass through his nights in the same easy way the hours do - fleeting, ephemeral, touched, and forgotten.

Not with anyone. Not even with you.

You have spent so long feeling this, holding onto it, trying to keep it hidden beneath layers of friendship and longing and careful restraint. You have spent so long pretending that it is fine, that it doesn’t matter, that you can live like this - on the sidelines, just the girl in the other room, in the shadows, in the spaces between what you want and what you’re allowed to have.

And he stands here and looks you in the eyes, telling you that it is nothing. That she is nothing. That they - all of them before her, and all of them after her - are nothing.

You can barely breathe past it.

You don’t say anything.

And Bucky freezes.

His hands, where they cup your face, stop their soft, absentminded strokes. His thumbs, which had been tracing reassuring circles along your cheekbones halt. His breath catches and his eyes shift.

There is something uncertain in there.

And then, his lips part. His brows go up ever so slightly. His pupils flare.

Something settles over his expression that you don’t recognize.

Like a switch has been flipped.

Like a puzzle piece has clicked into place.

Like suddenly he is seeing something in your eyes, something like an answer, something that has been there all along.

His fingers tighten, anchoring himself. Making it seem that if he lets go, if he moves even a fraction, something will break. In him, or you, you’re not sure.

He pulls back. Not far. Just an inch. But he needs to see you better. Just enough to search your face for something he needs to know. His gaze locks onto yours and holds you there, testing something, making sure.

His voice is hushed when he talks. Breathless.

“Is that what this is about?”

It’s quiet, the way he says it. Like he’s afraid of it. Like he’s careful with it. There is disbelief on his face. Astonishment.

You shake your head too fast, too sharp, like if you deny it hard enough, it’ll erase the way he’s looking at you right now. That it’ll undo the meaning of his words and the way they sit between you. Something fragile on the verge of breaking.

“No,” you say, but it barely comes out, barely sounds convincing. Your voice is hoarse, scraped raw form holding back everything you don’t want to say. Your lungs refuse to work in sync with the rest of you. You swallow, eyes darting away, grasping for something to latch onto.

But Bucky doesn’t let you.

“Doll…” It comes like a sigh. Weightless and soft. His hands don’t drop from your face, don’t loosen, don’t give you the space you’re so desperately trying to carve out between you. If anything, his grip grows more robust. Just enough to keep you there.

“Hey. Look at me.” His tone is low, carrying the kind of warmth you’d usually like to lean into, but now all you want is to get away from it. You don’t want to meet those stormy blues.

Bucky’s thumbs are sweeping, so feather-light, over the curve of your jaw, smoothing along the damp trail of your tears, and his voice dips even lower. Softer. He is so close.

“C’mon, sweetheart. Give me somethin’ here.”

It’s not fair that he gets to call you all those sweet names like he means them. Like you mean something. Like it’s not the same word he probably called her and all those others who got to have him, even if only for a night.

“I don’t-” you try, but your voice is trembling and thick with tears, and Bucky’s gaze shadows.

“Don’t what?” he coaxes, leaning in just a little, close enough that his breath skims your skin, warm and stable in a way you aren’t. His fingers slightly move against your cheeks, as if resisting the urge to pull you closer.

You shake your head again, your hands wrapping around his wrists - not to push him away exactly, but to have something to hold onto. You have no idea what to say.

“It’s- It’s not-” Your words trip over themselves, stuck somewhere between your throat and your ribs, tangled up in everything you’ve never let yourself say.

But Bucky just watches you, unreadable things swirling in those impossibly blue eyes. Wary things. Still so damn careful.

He exhales and his hands slide down, skimming the column of your throat, settling against the curve of your neck like he’s grounding you. Holding you both together.

“Doll,” he sighs, and it’s too much.

It’s not teasing. It’s not playful. It’s not easy. Not the charming lilt he likes to throw in his tone.

It’s vulnerable. Tender. Substantial.

“You’re breakin’ my heart here.”

And that’s what has another tear slip over your lashes.

Because you’re breaking his heart?

What does that even mean?

You were the one trying to escape the heartache he caused and now he tells you it’s his heart that hurts?

“Please,” he whispers, and his voice is wrecked, gravel thick in his throat. “Just tell me, doll. Tell me what I did. Tell me so I can fix it.”

His lips stay parted, trying to find air, trying to find some kind of solid ground. There is a sheen over his eyes.

“I can’t-” Your voice cracks, but you don’t look away this time. His hands won’t let you. He won’t let you.

His eyes are pleading.

“Can’t what, sweetheart?” he urges, dipping closer, voice just a rasp of sound between you. His thumbs wipe away the new tears and he winces while doing it as if it actually causes him pain that they fell.

The streetlight flickers above. It casts shadows across his face, highlighting the sharp line of his jaw, the tight pull of his mouth. His fingers flex against your face.

“Is it-” he starts, then stops, then starts again, throat bobbing and voice rough and hesitant. “Is it those girls?”

A shallow gasp slips from your lips. Fractured and tripping over something unseen. Your shoulders grow stiff.

You can’t answer. You only shake your head, not in denial, not in confirmation, but in something else, something tired and so fucking done with feeling like this.

You try to pull back, try to slip free from the heat of his palms, try to turn away. Another tear drops onto the back of his hand.

Your reaction must be answer enough.

Bucky’s head, Bucky’s hands, Bucky’s eyes, Bucky’s whole body - everything is moving so much, keeping you from slipping away, reaching for you, not letting you go.

A breath. A pause. Like his brain needs an extra moment to process what this all could mean. His breath catches in his throat and you can feel the exact moment he gets it.

The exact moment he realizes.

“Shit,” he breathes, so quiet you almost miss it. His grip tightens. It grows distressed. Despairing. Keeping you from leaving his hold, although you don’t stop trying.

You sob and his hands press into your cheeks, thumbs smoothing away tears like he can erase this, like maybe if he holds you tight enough, he can go back five minutes, five months, five years, to a time before he made you feel like this.

“Shit, doll, I-” His voice breaks, gravel and regret and anguish - and something so painful - landing with every syllable.

You don’t stop trying to pull back, trying to push him away. You can’t talk. You can’t stop crying. You can’t look at him.

But Bucky is devastated. And he is desperate. And he won’t let you go.

“No, no, don’t - please, Y/n, don’t.” He runs through his words, frantically getting them out, frantically trying to make you look at him.

He reaches your face again and holds on like it’s important. Your tears won’t stop falling. A whimper falls from your lips when you realize he won’t let you leave.

Bucky panics.

His swallow seems to hurt him. Everything he does seems to hurt him.

“Oh, sweetheart - fuck, fuck, I didn’t-” He lets out a rough breath, one of his hands letting go of you to scrub over his face, pushing through his hair in frustration.

Not at you.

At himself.

“Doll, I didn’t - Jesus Christ, I didn’t know.”

It comes out hoarse, scraped down to nothing but feeling. Each word drags from his throat like sandpaper against silence. Coarse and raspy.

And then he’s shaking his head, hands sliding to your shoulders, his hold firm, his eyes darting over your face like he is trying to memorize it, searching for the right words in the curve of your lips, the glisten of your tears, the way your breathing is a single shuddering mess.

“I didn’t - fuck, I didn’t mean-”

He seems to hold back a scream.

Sucking in another sharp breath, he squeezes his eyes shut like he’s in pain, angry at himself, wanting to go back and rewrite everything, tear out every page where he made you feel like you were anything but his.

You wish you could believe it.

“Bucky-” you croak out.

“No, don’t-” His head doesn’t stop shaking. His jaw is clenched tight. Hands shaking against you. “Don’t say my name like that.”

“Like what?” Your voice is whisper-thin.

His breath shudders out, and when his eyes meet yours again, they are so earnest. Glossy with a sheen of tears.

“Like it’s over.”

Your throat closes around your next breath, never making it reach your lungs.

Because what is he saying? Nothing ever had the chance to be anything.

“I didn’t know, doll,” he whispers, voice breaking. “I swear to God, I didn’t know. You gotta believe me, I - fuck, I never wanted to hurt you. Never wanted you to feel like- I didn’t think you’d-”

He cuts himself off, voice choking.

His hands drop suddenly, like he doesn’t even deserve to hold you anymore. Like the guilt is weighing them down.

And then, unsure and hesitantly, he lifts one of them again and pauses before cupping your face, waiting for something - permission, maybe, or just a sign that you won’t pull away this time.

When you don’t, when you just keep standing there, frozen and broken and bewildered, he lets his palm settle warm against your cheek, his thumb brushing so lightly it sends a shiver down your back.

“Tell me how to fix it. Tell me I can,” he pleads, like he means it. Like he would do anything. “Tell me what to do, baby. Anything. I’d do anything. Just gotta tell me. Please,” he chokes out.

Cars roll past you. There are voices in the distance. A neon sign flickers. But none of it touches this.

This thing between you.

Bucky’s hand shakes against your cheek. His breath stirs against your skin so ragged and he leans in. His forehead presses to yours, his body curling toward you like he doesn’t even realize he’s doing it, just needing to be close.

“I’m so sorry,” he gasps out. “God, I’m so fucking sorry.”

Never have you seen Bucky like this. He keeps things easy, keeps things light, and shrugs off pain like it never quite reaches him. But it does now.

It consumes him.

His fingers curl at the back of your neck, not pulling, just holding, grounding himself against you. And when you continue standing there, breath shaky, tears still trembling in your lashes, his whole body sags.

His chest heaves with a breath so deep it sounds like it’s costing him something.

“I never meant for this to happen. Please, believe me.”

His forehead presses harder to yours, seemingly trying to press his words straight into you, that maybe if he gets close enough you’ll feel how much he means them.

And you do. You just don’t know what the hell is going on.

He lets out a sound that resembles a sob. And then you feel the damp heat of a tear where his face brushes against yours.

Bucky is crying.

It breaks you. You don’t know what to do with all this pain. His and yours. Don’t know how to ever let it go.

You pull back. Just slightly. Just enough to breathe, to think, to process.

But Bucky’s whole body tenses, and his eyes squeeze shut as if he knew it was coming but it still pains him. Bracing himself for something he already knows is going to hurt. His hands drop to his sides.

And maybe that should give you some kind of satisfaction, a tiny sense of justice for the nights you spent lying awake, wondering if you meant anything to him while he had his hands on someone else.

But it doesn’t.

Because the way he is looking at you, when he cracks his eyes open again, when he meets your gaze with so much open ache, makes your chest hurt. It makes something inside of you quake.

“Bucky,” you start, but your own voice is so small, so lost. You shake your head, scanning his face, trying to piece it together, to make sense of something that refuses to fit. How the tables have turned. You just can’t seem to find the irony in it. “What are you even - I don’t - I don’t I understand.”

His throat bobs, thick and tight, and he pulls in a breath like it’s the last one he’s going to get.

“I love you.”

Your mind blanks. You flatline. Your knees go weak.

He says it like it’s the simplest thing to say. As if it is the most obvious thing in the world. But it isn’t.

Because if it was then why has he spent all those nights with those seemingly meaningless girls. Why has he let you ache for him while he touched someone else.

“I love you,” he says again, softer, trying to make sure you believe it.

But you don’t know how to.

Your lips part, but nothing comes out. You feel the words, heavy and warm and terrifying, but your body doesn’t know what to do with them. Your mind is screaming at you to run, to protect yourself, to build the walls back up before it’s too late, but your heart doesn’t listen.

Bucky’s hand trembles when it reaches for you, fingertips ghosting over your jaw, waiting, waiting, waiting for you to pull away.

You don’t and he steps closer again.

His whole body thrums as if he is scared to touch you but more scared not to. He looks at you with those red-rimmed and puffy eyes, so tremendously bare, holding onto your own eyes like he is drowning and you are the only thing keeping him afloat.

“Say something, doll,” he pleads, his voice so unsteady, that it guts you.

But what could you say?

Because love is not supposed to feel like this, to hurt like this. It isn’t supposed to feel like your heart has been split open and stitched back together all in the same breath.

But looking at him and at the way his eyes are just as pleading as his words, at the way he is breaking right in front of you - it makes you wonder if maybe it was hurting him all along, too.

“You-” you begin, voice barely more than a whisper. You have to stop, have to pull in a breath that doesn’t seem to want to settle, have to force your hands to stay at your sides instead of reaching for something - for him - that you don’t know if you can take. “But that-” Another inhale, sharp and broken. Your chest hurts. Your whole body hurts. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

Bucky exhales, long and slow and then he drops his head. Shoulders slumping, spine curling, like something inside of him, has just given out.

Guilt.

It sits heavy in his frame, in the set of his jaw, in the way his hands jerk like he wants to touch you but knows he shouldn’t.

“Yeah,” he mutters, a humorless little laugh escaping, barely more than a breath. He drags a hand down his face, through his hair, before letting it fall uselessly at his side. His voice is lower when he speaks again, raspier, weighed down by something that feels an awful lot like regret. “I know.”

You watch him, waiting. Because he owes you this. Because he cracked open something you weren’t ready for, something you tried to bury, and now you need to understand.

And Bucky must feel that. Because after a beat, after a deep, shuddering breath, he looks at you again.

“I didn’t think I could have you,” he admits, voice quiet. Cautious. The words fragile in his mouth. “Didn’t think I was allowed to even want you. To this extent, anyway.”

Air enters you unevenly, shaking on the way in like a shiver made of sound. “Bucky-”

“You’re my best friend,” he pushes on, stepping in just a fraction, like he can’t help himself. His voice is getting rougher, rawer, like something in him is unwinding too fast for him to stop it. “I didn’t wanna mess that up, y’know? Didn’t wanna lose you over somethin’ I couldn’t control.”

Something tightens in your chest. Something shifts.

“So you-” you swallow, shaking your head, trying to put it together, trying to make sense of it. “So you just went around to go get yourself other girls you can fuck?”

Bucky flinches. Actually flinches.

Gaze dropping in shame, his features form a grimace. “I tried,” he croaks out, gesturing at his chest with one hand. “Tried to stop feeling like this. Tried to move on, tried to-” He exhales sharply, tilting his head side to side, something torn playing out with the movement. “It didn’t work. Nothin’ worked. Didn’t even make it easier. But I was afraid to face it. Really face it. So I just kept going.”

It hurts.

It hurts in a way you don’t know how to hold. Don’t know how to carry.

You thought, for so long, that the way you love him, ache for him, is a one-sided agony.

But he is confessing to you, eyes red and weary, voice splintering, telling you that he’s been afraid to speak it aloud too.

That he loves you, that he tried to kill it, that he thought losing himself in someone else would somehow erase you from his mind.

Bucky’s words are a fist curling around your ribs, squeezing the air from your lungs.

It should matter. It should mean something that he’s standing in front of you, breaking apart, pleading for you to understand. Shouldn’t it be enough that he’s telling you it was always you? That no one else ever came close?

But he still touched them.

Still chose them, even if only for a meaningless night.

While you sat in your room, staring at the ceiling, wondering if you were going insane. While you clenched your fists so tight beneath your sheets at night, biting your tongue, swallowing it down, because Bucky is your friend and friends don’t ache like this.

And yet, he is telling you, showing you, he aches too.

But instead of sitting with it, instead of letting it consume him the way it consumed you, he tried to make it disappear.

He tried to fuck it away.

And now he looks at you like you are the only thing that has ever mattered, like the ground beneath his feet, is unsteady, like he is afraid you are going to bolt at any second.

You feel like the ground beneath your feet shits a fraction of an inch, not enough to send you falling, but enough to make you question if you were ever standing solid in the first place.

“But, doll, it-” he rushes forward, watching your pain, stepping into your space until there is barely anything between you. “It never meant anything. Swear to god, none of ‘em ever meant something to me.” His hands wrap around yours, squeezing, grounding, begging. “They weren’t you. Couldn’t be you. Didn’t matter how hard I tried, how many times I told myself to stop thinking about you because you’re supposed to be my best friend, but I wanted so much more than that - it didn’t matter. Nothin’ worked.”

He is struggling to force the words out, but he does. And they leave him with a catch in his voice. Faltering.

“I thought about you, sweetheart. Every fuckin’ time.” His voice turns frantic and he leans in to make it convince you. He watches your lips tremble and shakes his head quickly. “Thought about how you’d feel. How you’d sound.”

Your breath stalls.

Bucky swallows, taking a quick pause but continuing, voice growing softer. Lower. Reverent. “Tried to picture you instead. How you’d look under me, wrapped around me. So goddamn beautiful.” His voice cracks. “But it wasn’t you. And I know it was wrong, but I couldn’t help it.”

He stumbles over his words, afraid of saying too much, of pushing too far, or admitting too much - but it doesn’t stop hurting.

Even if you know it might not be fair.

But the thought of him with them, the thought of his hands gripping someone else’s skin, his lips murmuring something soft against someone else’s throat - it makes you sick.

And he sees it.

You try to blink back another wave of tears.

His hands are on your face again, thumbs swiping furiously at your damp cheeks like he can rub the hurt away.

“Please tell me I didn’t ruin this.” His voice cracks through the words, the panic breaking through. Your silence seems to suffocate him, squeezing his ribs until there is no space left for air.

“I’m so sorry, baby! I wish I could take it all back. I would.” His bottom lip trembles and he bites down on it before continuing. “Tell me I can fix this. There’s gotta be somethin’ I can do. Anything.”

You blink rapidly, vision swimming, breath hiccuping in your throat. You don’t know if there is anything to fix, if there was ever anything there, to begin with, but he is looking at you like there was. Like there is. Like it is still hanging in the air between you, waiting to be caught, waiting to be named.

And you want to catch it. To press it to your heart and cherish it.

But the wounds are fresh. Still bleeding. Still open.

The images you conjured up in your mind, him with all those girls. The sounds of him bringing one after the other home - the routine.

The giggling. The keys. The apartment door. More giggling. His chuckles. The hallway. His bedroom door. The goodbyes. The mornings.

But worst of all is that you can’t even blame him.

Because what was he supposed to do? Wait for something that was never promised? Hold out hope for something that was never offered?

You had no claim on him.

But still, you hate how he tried to fuck you out of his system. Hate that he couldn’t, that he’s standing here now, telling you it was all for nothing, that you were always in his head, in his bones, and that that somehow is supposed to make it better.

You don’t know if it does now. But you hope - you hope so dearly - that it will get better. If he’ll stick with you.

“No more girls.” The words choke out of you, weak and broken, barely a breath. But he jolts like you have screamed them.

“Never,” he breathes immediately, shaking his head as if to get rid of his own images, gripping you tighter, his thumbs pressing into your cheeks, his eyes burning through yours. “No more, baby. No one else. Not ever.”

Your breath catches, body sways.

There is a burn behind your ribs, not quite pain, but not far from it. It is something that pulses in time with your heartbeat. Too quick. Too uneven.

“Only you,” he adds, his forehead dropping to yours, noses brushing, his breath warm against your lips, his hands trembling where they hold you. “It’s only ever been you.”

Heat rises up your throat, something between nausea and electricity, a burst of too much all at once.

“I got a lot to make up for.” His tone is unraveling at the seams. But it sounds firmer now. Convicted. “I know that. I know I- fuck, I screwed this up before I even knew I had a chance. And that’s on me.”

You squeeze your eyes shut, because it’s too much - his voice, his touch, the way he is looking at you like you hung the damn moon when you’ve spent years feeling invisible to him in the way that mattered.

“I don’t wanna rush this, alright?”

You blink up at him. Your chest feels stretched too tight, as if the ribs themselves are holding onto something they shouldn’t, something too large, something too consuming.

“I don’t wanna mess this up more than I already have. I don’t wanna push or expect anythin’ from you - I just wanna do this right. For you.” His voice wavers on the last word, still scared of saying the wrong thing, scared of losing something he only just realized he had. “You understand me?”

You nod wordlessly. Almost feeling hypnotized by him. His eyes are so intense. So full.

“I’ve been waitin’ for this, hopin’ for this - Christ, I don’t even know how long.”

Your stomach flips, something curling in your stomach at the heaviness of his confession, at the realization that you weren’t alone in this. Maybe never have been.

“And now that it’s happenin’ - now that I have you, even if I don’t deserve it - I wanna take my time. I wanna make this good for you. Have to. I have to make this right,” he says, voice filled with something gravelly, rough like something barely holding together.

His fingers slide over your jaw, tracing along the column of your throat, memorizing the feel of you beneath his hands.

“And I hate-” his voice falters, eyes squeezing shut for a moment before he forces himself to look at you again. “I hate that it’s happening like this. That I hurt you first. That I didn’t see this sooner.”

“Bucky-”

He cuts you off with his eyes and a shake of his head.

“Please I- I gotta do this. Gotta say this, baby.”

You nod.

He closes his eyes again for a moment like he wants to go back and shake his past self by the shoulders, tell him to wake the hell up and stop hurting the one girl he ever cared about.

He continues, voice hoarse. “I would do anything to make this different. Better. The way you deserve.”

Your breath is shallow, not quite catching, but hovering just short of where it should be, as if your body can’t decide whether to brace itself for collapse.

You’ve spent so long breaking for him, wanting him in ways he never seemed to want you back. But now he is pouring his heart out and asking for something he already has but isn’t sure he is worthy of.

“You don’t gotta say anythin’ right now, doll,” Bucky whispers. Afraid of scaring you off. “I know I shoulda told you sooner.” He grimaces, disgusted with himself. “I shoulda known sooner. I was so fuckin’ stupid. So fuckin’ blind.”

You don’t even notice you started leaning further into him.

Bucky stares at you for a moment. You look back.

“I don’t deserve you,” he says quietly. Whispers really. He exhales shakily and you feel the breath fan along your cheeks. “But I swear to God, I will.”

You don’t weigh the hurt against the want, don’t let the war in your head talk you out of your next move.

Your hands reach up, curling into the fabric of his shirt and before he can say anything else - before he can tear himself apart further - you kiss him.

And for a split second, Bucky freezes.

Not believing this is happening, not expecting it even after everything he just told you.

But then, he exhales this soft and quivering breath against your lips, relief knocking the air out of his lungs.

One hand flies to your waist, pulling you in, the other threading into your hair. He kisses you back like he is starving, like he has been dying for this, like he can’t believe you are real and this moment is something he’s imagined a thousand times but never thought he’d get to have.

And he is so warm. So solid. His lips move against yours, soft and slow at first - savoring you, afraid to go too fast, to push too much. But when you let out a little sigh and your fingers tighten, Bucky melts, pressing in closer, enveloping you in his arms in a way that has you feeling he tries to make sure you never go anywhere else again.

He breathes you in like you are something holy, tilting your head and deepening the kiss. He is not forceful. He takes what he can get and he cherishes it. Like he said, he wants to take his time with you. It makes you fall in love with him even more.

It’s like he can’t believe you are even letting him have this. But he kisses you with a hope and a determination that this will not be the only time he gets to have this.

And when you pull back again, he rests his forehead against yours once more. You feel the way his chest rises and falls against your own, the way his breath shakes, the way his grip does not loosen at all.

“Jesus, doll,” he rasps, panting. “You tryna kill me?”

And the way he says it, the way he looks at you, so full of longing and desire and relief makes you realize that maybe he’s been suffering just as much as you have.

“I want you. It’s as simple as that. I’ve spent a great deal too much of my life already trying to convince myself that I can make do with less but I can’t. You hear me? I’m done. I’m not giving up. A life without you is not enough.”

- Beau Taplin

Bucky Barnes | One Shot | Rebound

Part two to Underground

Pairing: Fighter!Bucky Barnes x Reader

Plot: You lose your last tether to the normal world and Bucky has to make a decision. You’re officially part of the Underground. Does he help you, or not?

Warnings: 18+. Angst, violence, fluff and smut.

Words: 5OOO

The demanding throbbing in your feet nearly feels delightful as you drag yourself home to your cramped apartment. As the sun rises and the city turns pink and orange, your building starts to come alive. Though you can barely manage to keep your eyes open.

You can tell the Underground is starting to toughen you up. You make longer days, are a bit paler in your face, making your features sharper, and the bravado you muster as you survive every night is surely something that has started to cling to your face and posture permanently. The people that start their days at sunrise, the ones that weren’t blipped from society and still have a life to return to, they walk around you in a big circle now.

It only makes you feel smug. The society slowly casting you out – starting to fear you.

However, your confidence has a short lifespan when you walk up to the front door of your apartment. The fresh paper with red capital letters stamped on it shouldn’t come as a surprise. You have tried to hold this moment off for as long as possible, going even as far as to take small side jobs in the fighting dome to make some extra money.

You suppose it was only a matter of time before you’d have the words ‘EVICTION NOTICE’ stamped across your door.

And your adrenaline spikes again, realising the time has come that you are officially homeless. You have been well and truly cast out by society, something both you and Natasha had been trying to fight and hold off for as long as possible. This is why the spy had introduced you to the Underground, to make some sort of living. And Nat had never judged you for staying in denial a little longer, even though you knew you would have to get used to the Underground fast, because it was only a matter of time before it would be your new home.

So no sleep for now.

You rip open the door and start packing, leaving all the old furniture that was already there and ending up with one big, stuffed duffel bag and a smaller bag. And then you stand in your place that is no longer your place and truly has never really felt like your place. You look around and feel angry …and hurt. After all, you have been chewed up and spit out, like so many before you.

You stuff that feeling far, far away and vacate the building right as de evening rolls back in. Evening already – since you have tried to put off this moment for as long as possible, have extended packing for hours. Since you don’t have a clue where Natasha lives, if she even resides in the country right now, you are forced to step to the one person you do not want to go to…

As you enter the dome, the place eerily quiet since the nightlife is a long way from commencing, you mildly greet the bartenders and crewmembers readying for the night. You scrunch your face at the stench, wondering if the place ever really gets cleaned. In the darker corners you see things that you decide are none of your business and you drag yourself through centre of the Underground, the capitol of dodgy business.

Making your way to the locker room, you breathe a sigh of relief when you find it empty. Finding a locker in the far back, you stuff it full with your last belongings and pray that none of it gets stolen. Maybe you can find a place in this building to sleep in. You have definitely seen other people crash here for the night, though you debate how safe you’d be. You hardly think you’d close an eye in a place like this.

Then, all the hairs on your body stand up straight.

You slowly turn to find Bucky staring at you, one brow quirked and that being the only sign of his curiosity. “Why are you already here?”

You swallow, “Just trying to get some extra work in.”

Neither of you have talked about what happened nearly a month ago. How you rode his leg with his fingers inside of you until you had one of the most intense orgasms of your life. And how that had been enough for him to come nearly untouched. Well, you say untouched, but you had felt just how heavy he was on your tongue and that’s where you wanted him coming next. Badly.

And you can’t exactly say the tension between you has shifted much. Something that made you realise just how high tensions between you already were. But you dropped it, so had he.

“You have to be careful with those side businesses,” he tells you as he turns to his own locker, one that does have a lock. “People will take advantage of a woman like you.”

“I can take care of myself just fine, thank you,” you snap at him and move to find your bag of supplies for the fight. You try to calm your breathing as you find the bag, kneel down and rummage through it, checking if you need to restock any of your supplies, if only to give yourself something to do for the upcoming hours.

But your spine stiffens again and it’s a little darker around you. So you turn and immediately stand up with you see Bucky looming over you. His eyes rove over your face, peering straight through to your soul, where it quivers before him.

“If you could take care of yourself,” he drawls, “you wouldn’t be homeless right now.”

You startle, “What? How do you know?”

He smiles, but it feels more vindictive than smug. “Because word travels fast, sweetheart, and a pretty girl like you on the loose is gold in the Underground.” He pauses and then his smirk turns smug, “Especially when she’s desperate.”

“I’m not desperate!” you squawk in outrage and he takes a step closer, close enough to feel his breath fanning over your face.

He clenches his jaw, eyes hardening. “What are you going to do?”

“I’ll figure it out.”

“How?”

“That is none of your concern.”

Bucky lets out a humourless laugh, tilting his head up and running his tongue over his teeth in annoyance before he lowers his gaze back to yours. “You see, it seems like I’ve signed a stupid fuckin’ contract where that is my concern. So please tell me you have a plan and I don’t have to intervene.”

“Intervene?” you sneer and roll your eyes. “Please, it’s not like you can offer me anything out of this place. You’re not here by choice.”

He quirks his brow, seemingly intrigued by that assumption. “Is that what you think? What if I was here by choice, huh? What if I chose this life?”

You fall silent at that, and decide to keep it like that. An argument with him won’t be worth it. Besides, what are you going to tell him? You have nothing and no one. You are officially at your wit’s end and for you, that is saying a lot. The silence stretches… and stretches…

“Give me something to do,” you tell him quietly –deflated– when he doesn’t break the silence either. You don’t see Bucky’s face soften when he watches the defeat in your face before you stare down at the ground.

Bucky’s skin prickles like there is electricity in the air. Because he’s angry. He’s pissed and furious and so fucking angry. That the world can spit out a woman like you, like it has let down so many good people after the Blip.

And the anger doesn’t cease. It only gets worse, like magma bubbling under his skin and boiling his bones. That night, he beats up opponent after opponent in what seems like a record time. People get killed in these fights all the time, they fight to the death all the time. After all, there are too many people and they know what they signed up for when they enter this place. Yet, it’s a line Bucky has never crossed, never will cross. Not anymore.

It’s difficult, to stay of this side of that line tonight. He wants to kill. He feels the soldier crawling under his skin, flipping knives in anticipation, begging Bucky to unleash him. And he thinks he has hardly been this angry before. Bucky yanks on that leash and fights, each punch and kick doing nothing to quench his thirst for justice.

Win after win, Bucky ruins everyone who dares to take it up against him. But he doesn’t hear the crowd – the screams for more blood and sensation, the cheers that he is the most dangerous man in the Underground. He only hears the rushing of his blood in his ears as he thinks about the woman the world has abandoned – as he thinks about you.

…

“Grab your bags. You’re coming with me.”

You gape at your two bags sitting on the leather bench and peer back at all of the lockers, each of them seeming like they have been ripped open with brute force, some of them dented in a manner that looks like a metal hand gripped its edges. You briefly glance at his metal hand and then up to his face.

Unflinching. His command and his face.

So you grab your bags and follow after him silently. Through countless of alleys and wild crowds that seem to think the night of violence has only just begun, even though the sky is turning lilac with dawn. You sometimes hobble to catch up with the soldier, your arms quaking under the weight of your duffel bag. But you keep marching onward, the last dregs of your energy fuelled by what is to come.

The stairs of the industrial building are almost too much, but you try not to stumble since Bucky is walking behind you and that would severely hurt your pride. The fatigue is making every step feel like torture, like you’re climbing a sandy hill and you have to move carefully to keep from slipping into the dark depths. When you do stumble slightly, the weight of your duffel tipping you backwards, you feel the faintest nudge of a warm hand at your lower back, just enough to tip you back and let you continue your trek up the stairs.

Bucky overtakes you at last and opens a door with around twenty locks attached to it, all of them unlocked. He walks in like it’s habitual and you trudge after him, your energy spiking enough to take in the sight. Bucky walks over to the floor to ceiling windows and rolls down the beige canvas curtains. Just as the sun peaks over the horizon of the city and orange light pours into what you can only assume is Bucky’s home.

It's big. Simple and imposing, but cosy nonetheless. There are plants, a fact that has you fighting to keep from smiling. And brown leather furniture, a beautiful and clean kitchen… You turn your gaze back to the man of the house, who is now standing beside a massive bed with cream sheets and fluffy pillows. Your eyes become bleary at the sight, sleep fighting its way to the surface and threatening to drag you to the floor.

Bucky panics slightly at the look on your face and strides over, grasping your bag from your trembling arms. He has to hold back from cursing at the thought that you must not have slept for over forty-eight hours and how dreadful the past day must have been for you.

He guides you to his bed and lets you collapse into the sheets as he pulls off your boots. Bucky knows you would have put up more of a fight if you weren’t so exhausted, but he won’t use it against you. Just like you didn’t use his weakness against him when you were massaging him.

That massage.

He cannot cast the thought from his brain. Never mind what followed the massage. The woman that was on his knees for him, that came around his fingers and was moaning for him so beautifully – she seems like such a far cry from the woman before him. How you can be so careful and feisty, yet such a dream when it comes to his most sinful fantasies. What you did to him in that locker room that day has been playing in his head on repeat. And he wants to slap himself for wanting to crawl beneath the sheets now, drag those clothes off your body, spread your thighs and bury his face between them–

He quickly stands from the bed and clears his throat, casting you one more look before he’s off to the kitchen area and refill his energy in other ways.

…

When you wake up, it’s dark again. It takes you a while to orient yourself, your body fighting off the heavy blanket of sleep you have been swaddled in. The bed below you is more comfortable than anything you have ever felt and the smell–

Pushing up to a seat, your body becomes alert of your surroundings just in time to hear the rattle of about twenty locks opening. In walks Bucky, slumping as he moves his bruised body across his own floors. He notices you, doesn’t pay you any mind, and then plants himself to sit at the edge of the bed you are laying in. He bends down with a quiet grunt, unlacing his boots and peeling them from his feet.

He seems exhausted. And judging by the darkness, he has called in an early night. You push off the sheets and crawl towards him. Bucky tenses almost imperceptibly, but you gently put your palms on his wide shoulders. You swear you see him shudder, before his back bends over more in relaxation.

“I lost tonight,” he tells you as you slowly circle your warm palms over his back.

He lost. That’s unlikely. Something must have happened for him to lose. He must have been distracted. Or someone new has joined the Underground. Something’s maybe different. Shit, you were supposed to take care of him yesterday. He’d fought harder than you’d ever seen him fight. He must have been broken this morning– But, no. He has fought fights without your care for God knows how long. It couldn’t have made a difference now.

“What happened?” you ask, doubtful he’ll open up to you.

His head snaps backwards and you flinch at the look in his eyes. “What do you mean ‘what happened’? You happened. Can’t fucking focus with you being all dramatic with your personal bullshit.”

You draw back. “Excuse me?! I don’t recall making my problems yours!”

“Well, they are now, aren’t they?” he snipes back and runs his hands through his hair in frustration.

And you think maybe it’s not you he’s frustrated with.

“What do you want from me?” you ask quietly. Timidly.

You barely hear him, his voice muffled by his hands as he speaks, “I want you on all fours.”

But you did hear him. Some part of you heard him, that’s for sure. The heat that left your body after your endless sleep is returning to you in a different form, pebbling your skin with anticipation. You swallow hard and barely manage to get out, “What?”

Bucky takes a deep breath and slowly turns to you.

“Lie on your stomach.” The order is soft, but so, so clear and not gentle by any means. You search his eyes frantically, but only find his immovable self. Your traitorous body lights on fire at what she finds. So you do as you’re told.

And you wait.

Two large, warm hands travel up your clothed legs. Kneading your calves, your thighs, until they knead your ass. You cannot help but push your hips back to seek the pressure. You feel his looming presence crawl over you and you hold your breath. Soft lips press to your shoulder that got exposed after your shirt slipped slightly.

His hands slip around your hips and under them. The feeling of your jeans popping open, makes your core throb with need. He pulls your jeans down, but not off. No, just far enough down for access and to keep you in place, barely enough give even allow you to squirm.

Then, you feel his weight press into your body and you could have never imagined feeling his weight would be enough to make you want to moan. That’s when you register the feeling of his hard bulge against your ass and you push up against him again. Bucky answers with a muffled growl against your shoulder, followed by a gentle bite as a warning.

“Careful,” he drawls, one hand holding him up slightly as his other spreads over your side and slips under your shirt to feel your bare skin. You shudder at the feeling and bite your lip, your fingers curling into the pillow below your head.

How is this even possible? How can you deteriorate so quickly when he has barely touched you? His breaths turn heavy against your neck and you twist your head to hear him better, your mouth so close to his now. You wonder why it is that his breathing is coming out more laboured, but the only thing you can come up with is that it’s plain old restraint that is stiffening his body, his lungs.

One of your hands reaches back and up, and you scrape the pads of your fingers over his stubble. Bucky’s grip on the sheets tightens and his hips roll down into you in response. His mouth attaches itself to your neck and he hums as he grazes his teeth over your skin, his tongue soothing the pain instantly.

“Bucky,” you whisper and he rolls his hips again. The hand under your shirt slides to your front and grabs your breast, kneading the flesh in his hand. Desperate, clingy. He groans.

Something is shifting between the two of you and you feel a rawness coming to the surface. You remind yourself Bucky is requesting this for a reason, but he might be lost in it. In you. Then, you hear him mumble against your skin. Something you’re not sure he wants you to hear, but you give a soft coo to urge him to repeat himself.

“Please,” he moans softly. “Please.”

His hand slides down and wastes no time before slipping into your underwear, his entire hand cupping your cunt as he rolls his fingers through your folds. You gasp and let out a moan, writhing your hips when you cannot choose between moving up or down.

He’s rutting into you like a starved man, his fingers indulging in their exploration like he’ll find salvation between your legs. You open your mouth to ask him what he wants, but he rolls his fingers over your clit and you let out a whimper instead, making Bucky nuzzle his nose right below your ear.

“You’re all warm,” he mumbles and kisses your neck, your jaw – so close to your lips. His fingers are torture, so devious yet so innocent. As if he’s completely content playing with you like this for hours. Your belly flutters and tightens and warms at the sensations he coaxes to the surface.

It’s selfish, what he’s doing. This is all him, trying to console himself.

“Don’t,” you breathe desperately and roll your hips into his hand. “Don’t tease, Bucky.”

“ ‘M not. Just feeling you,” he whispers and you open your mouth to fight him on it, but then his warm mouth covers yours and the moan that spills from your throat is sinful. His tongue immediately invades you and you melt as he consumes you everywhere that he can. One finger slips through your wetness and into you and Bucky inhales the response you give him, groaning in response.

He grinds down, so do you, completely out of sync and with mouths moving desperately over each other. You cling to your pillow with one hand and bury your other in Bucky’s hair, pulling when he adds another finger and his weight keeps you from moving into him more. You whine against him, sensations at war within you when he keeps playing with you like a selfish cat.

“I’m so fucking wet,” you whimper and Bucky grunts in agreement, nibbling on your bottom lip. “Just stop playing–”

Bucky laughs then – laughs – a manly chuckle as he nudges his nose against yours. You want to cry for mercy and your toes curl when his fingers do, making you clench around him tightly. Your orgasm is being dangled in front of you like a carrot and you wonder if he just wants you to feel the way he feels. Frustrated, angry. Like he has no control whatsoever.

But what he does next goes so fast, it makes your head spin. Your body goes cold when his fingers leave you and when his body rises from yours, leaving you behind. But your hips get lifted and the pillow below your head gets snatched and shoved beneath your hips. You try to move, if only to accommodate his inexplicable actions, but your jeans are keeping you from moving.

You feel him crawl over you again and this time, you do moan at the pressure, bending your back to press up against him. He grinds down in response and you feel the pressure of the pillow against your womb, shooting tingles through your limbs when you realise what he’s done.

One of Bucky’s hands slides over yours and pins it to the mattress, your fingers automatically curling around the security of his. And it’s nice, the feeling of him engulfing you. It feels safe and warm and insanely intense. You turn your head, hoping to find him near. Your heart swells when he presses a kiss to your cheekbone.

“I want to fuck you,” he murmurs against you skin and you nod frantically, making him chuckle again. “I’m not against begging for it at this point.”

And apparently, you’re not entirely gone, since your lips curl into a smirk and your voice drops to a low purr when you tell him, “Please beg for me.”

How ironic, to beg someone to beg for you. Though, your brief confidence doesn’t falter. If anything, it is about to skyrocket.

“Come on, baby,” he murmurs against your ear, his soft lips moving against the sensitive skin. “Let me inside you. Let me make you feel good.” He sounds so genuine, so depraved and full of longing. You have to swallow down the carnal desire that crawls up your throat. You nearly choke when you feel the tip of his bare cock nudge against your folds. “Open up for me. Let me slip right in and I’ll fuck you into the mattress, okay? My mattress.”

You nearly whine, all ready to completely cave for him. And then he finishes it with a whisper in your ear, “Please, sweetheart. Let me have you.”

Yeah. Yes. Oh, yes. You mouth the words, but no sound comes out. You might be slipping outside of your body. The way Bucky sounds – his voice so deep, yet needy. You can only nod your head and squeeze his hand, rubbing yourself up against the tip of him.

“Hm, good girl.”

He slides home with one easy thrust, pressing you down into the mattress and skating his cock over each of your swollen walls. You cannot form a sound, or a thought, or catch a fucking breath. Especially not when he rotates his hips slightly and presses down even further.

You nearly choke, quiet for a long second, before you heave in all the oxygen that you can manage, “Oh my god!”

He pulls out slightly and rolls back in, keeping you full and stuffed and only nudging your spot with the tip of him. Over, and over, and over–

“That’s the spot, huh?” he pants against your ear and ruts into you further. “Right… there.” You gasp on a whine and he presses a kiss to your temple. The pillow adds a delicious pressure and you wish to put your hand there, just to feel him move in and out of you.

It’s so perfect, so sating, so much and deep and– You didn’t know it could be like this. Didn’t know it was possible to suddenly realise how screwed you are for the future. How nothing and no one will ever be able to compare to this. To him.

Your orgasm crawls closer and it feels like nothing you have felt before. Your clit is throbbing and aching and your walls are hugging Bucky like he’s never allowed to leave. Your hips tighten and your shoulders scrunch as your orgasm clamps down on you like a snake ready to strike.

“Bucky, I’m–”

He tightens his grip on your hand and latches onto your hip. “Yeah, I know. Me, too.”

You hear the strain in his voice, the hint of disappointment and you scramble to get your brain back in order. “Come in me, Bucky. Come inside me,” you rush out through quick breaths. You can’t elaborate. You just need him to fill you.

He leans back over and slows his thrusts, his breath fanning over your flushed skin. “Yeah? You want me to make a mess of you? You want proof that I fucked you deep enough?”

You let out a grumpy whine and he laughs beautifully as he drops his forehead to the back of your head. He picks up his thrusts, slow and deep and steady. His swollen cock slides over every cushion inside of you and you shudder at how sensitive your are so close to your orgasm. But it comes quicker than you anticipated. You wanted him to go faster, but with this tempo, you feel the orgasm that is coming closer might drown you.

You open your mouth to protest, to tell him to speed up, but the wave has already reached the shore and your ears hollow out.

The tremors seem to start from within as you swell with pleasure, seizing around Bucky and threatening to curl up. You think you might be grasping for something to hold onto as Bucky remains consistent through your orgasm, fucking into you with a steady rhythm and meeting you with every contraction of your high.

It is so completely overwhelming that you barely feel it when he comes, if it isn’t for the litany of beautiful moans and whimpers from him against your neck. He bites your skin to ground himself through his own orgasm and then melts over your body, pulling your hand to his lips.

Bucky quiets his own breaths to make sure he hears yours and is happy to learn how sated and satisfied you sound with your soft pants. He crawls off of you and gently tugs you over on your back, smiling as he watches you bend to his will.

Peeling off your jeans, he keeps his eyes on you, mesmerised with the sight and the feeling of having you in his bed. A feeling he had yesterday, too. Not just lust…

Your eyes peel open and you peer down at him while he strokes his sweaty palms up and down your calves and thighs. “Is this part of my ruse as a physical therapist and personal nurse now?”

Bucky quirks a brow at your wit and you feel something unfamiliar at the relaxation on him. How he seems more expressive and gentle and less guarded.

“No, this is private.”

Bucky’s eyes rove over your body and you flush with warmth, both from his words and from his assessing stare. You feel him drip from between your legs and swallow, fighting the urge to close your thighs. But Bucky, ever the trained assassin, immediately notices and lets a smirk crawl over his face.

He leans down and presses his lips to your left knee, eyes narrowing in on your cunt. “I thought I was going to have a heart attack when you told me to come inside of you.” You freeze at his words and keep a close eye on him. “I fucking knew the sight would be good, but–”

He lets out a starved groan.

You sound wary, “Bucky.”

He spreads your knees and crawls down to kneel at the foot of the bed, tugging you towards the edge. Surely, he wouldn’t–

You throw your head back when Bucky dives head first between your legs, running a flat tongue through your folds. You’re not sure if it’s the taste or simply the idea of him licking you clean of himself, but Bucky growls and hauls you closer, nudging his nose against your clit like he’ll never find anything better than what’s between your thighs.

You cannot help but bury your fingers in his hair, the wild throbbing between your legs pushing your mixed essences out and onto his tongue where Bucky drinks it up appreciatively. His fingers dig into your flesh and it takes a while for Bucky’s ministrations to have any other purpose than to taste you. But when he sucks your clit into his mouth, you tug on his hair with warning, making him chuckle.

“You don’t fight fair,” you choke out and he grins up at you.

“Oh, sweetheart, if you knew what the prize was, you wouldn’t fight fair either,” he murmurs and moans in delight as he continues his feasting. “Now how about you give me that prize and come on my tongue, huh?”

No, Bucky didn’t lose tonight.

electric touch (part 1)

Pairing: Bucky x medical team! reader

Summary: Getting a spot on the field medical team was your dream. And your closest work friend Bucky Barnes finally asking you out? That was the cherry on top of your good news. Now all you had to do was pass your training week. Seems easy enough until you’re faced with someone who doesn’t want to see you win.

Warnings: abuse of power, verbal abuse, physical assault, some PTSD (but none of these are because of Bucky!!!!)

Wordcount: 7k

Part 2

Notes: hello! Are you hungry for a lil slice of ‘who did this to you’ pie with a big dollop of protective Bucky Barnes on top? Dig in!! I aim to be as nondescript as possible for the reader but I will note reader is shorter than Bucky and wears glasses. Thank you for reading and I'd love to hear your thoughts! please consider reblogging, it helps my work reach more lovely people here on Tumblr. <3 merci!

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Your regular lunch dates with Bucky started unintentionally. In fact, your friendship with Bucky had started that way – very unintentionally.

In retrospect, you couldn’t believe you had been late on your first day. You had intentionally set extra alarms to make sure you got to Stark Industries early.But you couldn’t control the inconsistencies of the New York subway system. When you skirted into the training room, only one seat was left – beside Bucky Barnes himself.

It was funny to think that the mandatory onboarding applied to new Avengers, too.

Of course, you knew who he was – the former Winter Soldier – but you didn’t realize he had to sit through the boring health and safety discussions and HR seminars like everyone else. When the first lunch break arrived, you turned to him and asked if he wanted to join you for lunch at the burger place down the street.

Initially, it looked like he was fighting off the urge to decline, but then he said: “Sure.”

Your conversations were very stilted in the beginning, which you didn’t mind. But as the week carried on, you felt the foundations of a friendship.

(He told you, later, that he appreciated your kindness that first day. That he had been really fucking scared to sit in that room with strangers judging him. He liked that you treated him like a normal person.)

It had grown organically since then – but you were simply just work friends. Your roles at Stark Industries slash The Avengers Initiative didn’t always overlap, but you did occasionally see him in the halls or if he happened to be by medical when you were working. Then, one day, you saw him eating alone in the cafeteria and you dropped down across from him to catch up.

Then lunch turned into a routine for you both. Typically on Wednesdays you’d sit together, if Bucky wasn’t on a mission or you weren’t on the night rotation. Sometimes Sam or Steve or some of the other nurses joined you, but secretly, you liked when it was just you and Bucky. Sometimes it felt like he preferred it that way too.

“So, guess what?” You sat down on the chair across from him, your tray knocking against his. He slowly moved his eyes from the pages of his book – he almost always had his nose in a book at lunch, regardless of the company – and matched your smile.

“I take it you got good news?”

You searched his face then frowned. “Wait, do you already know? That’s not fair.”

“Sam showed me the roster.”

A groan rumbled from your chest. “Boo.” You tipped your head to look at him as you paused. “Can you just pretend you’re about to hear this for the first time?”

Bucky smirked, putting down his book and politely stacking his hands to give you his full attention. “Sure. Start again?”

“Guess what?” You repeated, rolling your eyes.

“I’ve got no clue, doll. What?”

“You are looking at the newest member of the field medical team!” The chair legs squeaked as you danced in celebration.

“Congratulations,” Bucky replied, a wide smile crossing his face. He reached out and offered his fist, which you met with your own. You knocked your knuckles into his twice then wiggled your fingers at one another - a silly secret handshake you had invented together over a Taco Tuesday lunch one day, mostly out of annoyance to Sam.

You deflated afterwards, though, as reality set in. “Hopefully I can make it through training next week. It’s going to be hard but.. I can do hard things.”

Bucky reached over and grabbed your hand, holding it for a moment though he quickly pulled back. “You’re going to do great. You wouldn’t have been picked if you weren’t capable. You’re more than ready and, well, uh, I’m proud of you.”

You smiled, glancing down to where his hand had briefly made contact with yours. It felt.. hot, for some reason. You resisted touching the skin there. This had been happening more than you wanted to admit recently – a new spark when you saw him, when you touched. You thought you had easily avoided the possibilities of a developing crush on Bucky but.. something had been brewing for you. And maybe the same was happening with him, too - when you thought about how he looked at you, how considerate he was…

You wouldn’t know with any certainty unless you asked and you were way, way too scared to ask. Ruining your friendship may not be worth it. Especially if you were joining the medical team that would accompany the Avengers on some of their missions. What if you made it weird? What if you went on one date and it was terrible and your friendship never recovered? What if you asked Bucky out and then he laughed in your face and –

“We should go out and celebrate,” he cut you off. 

Wait. Was his voice shaking?

You met his eyes. Was he nervous? “I still.. I have to pass the training.”

“I know,” he nodded. “And tomorrow I leave for.. an undisclosed location for the week. So. When I get back and you’ve crushed the training and have the new job title, let’s go out.”

“Just you and me?” You asked, swallowing hard.

Bucky took a deep breath. “Yeah. If you..”

“Like a date?”

He closed his eyes, face scrunched up. It was cute. “Yeah, like a date, sweetheart. Just you and me.”

Okay, well, okay. Yes. Okay, that answered your question. You supposed the risk was being taken either way. There. He did the thing before you could even talk yourself out of it.

You smiled, nervously adjusting your glasses. Oh my god. You hadn’t even answered. With eyes wide, you reached for him. “Yes, that sounds.. that sounds wonderful. I’d love that.”

He grinned, squeezing your hand. “For a second there, I really thought I screwed all this up.”

---

Bucky couldn’t believe it had taken him this long to finally just do it. Asking you out had been at the top of his list for a long time and although it scared the shit out of him, this follow-up feeling of anticipation had been totally worth it. Now he just needed to get through a grueling mission with a sweet reward at the end – a date with you.

You- the first stranger who treated him like a regular person. You - who cared so deeply about your job. You - who seemed to always hear his snarky comments and always laughed, giggled, snorted, at them. With a smile that could make his entire body warm up. 

You. He couldn’t wait for that damn date. 

A date was the scary next step. But he was tired of waiting and tired of denying his feelings. And thank god you had reacted just as positively. The foundation of your friendship was so important to him but he had a feeling things could be even better. He prayed he wouldn’t fuck it all up.

When he showed up at the compound early in the morning to get on the jet, Bucky was surprised to see Sam prepping in the pilot’s seat.

Sam jumped in with an answer before the question even left Bucky’s lips. “Natasha had to join Clint on the Belize mission, last minute. So it’s you and me, pal.”

Bucky rolled his eyes. Though he wasn’t mentally prepared for a week with Sam, he could handle it. Bucky was certain he could handle anything that he faced this week, knowing it was your face on his mind keeping him going.

As you crossed his mind again, another thought surfaced.

“If you’re here, who’s taking over the training for the med field team?” Bucky reached for his phone then cursed. They were going dark for this mission so he’d left his phone in his locker. Although he had sent you a message after he got up that morning, he wanted to reach out one last time and send some extra reassurance your way. 

“Don’t worry,” Sam knocked his shoulder, standing up to do a final check of the gear. “Your girl is in good hands.” Sam added in a wiggle of his fingers in Bucky's direction.

You weren’t Bucky’s girl.. yet. He didn’t feel bothered by the term. In fact, he loved it and so badly wanted you to be okay with him saying it some day too. Though it was still worth correcting Sam. It didn’t seem fair to put a label on something without consulting you first. Not to mention Sam’s teasing about you and Bucky had been going on for months and Bucky did not want to indulge him.

“She’s not mine,” Bucky replied, scrubbing a hand down his jaw.

Sam carried on. “Boone is doing the training protocol instead, but I’ll manage the final evaluations next week.” 

A quiet groan escaped Bucky’s lips. “Boone is a jackass.”

“I don’t disagree that he can be a bit too self assured - but he has proved himself in the field and will be a great mentor to this cohort.”

“Wasn’t he one of the agents Steve benched a few months ago - after his annual physical? What’s the term they used - he was doping?”

Sam sighed. “He was clean but a couple of his buddies were thrown out. But Boone is good, Buck. She’s gonna be fine.” With a final glance at the screen between them, Sam clapped his hands. “Let’s get this over with, shall we?”

---

When you applied for the job at Stark Industries for their medical team, you weren’t entirely sure what the role was going to entail. Your years of working as a nurse at the busiest emergency room in Chicago had given you plenty of experience with, well, everything and anything imaginable. You were always prepared for the unexpected.

What you hadn’t expected though was the pace - it was significantly slower than you imagined. Most of your days revolved around small visits from agents for anything from minor injuries and lacerations to annual physicals. On occasion you’d support when the Avengers came in, but usually they worked directly with Dr. Cho or the other on site doctors.

You figured the cure for your unrelenting desire for more was to get on the field medical team - a group of agents and trained nurses who accompanied the Avengers or other strike teams on missions, acting as a resource for any injuries to civilians and team members alike. Not every mission needed a team and sometimes it would involve last minute travel, but you didn’t mind.

When your application for transfer was finally accepted, you couldn’t get over how excited you were. You had been working hard for months getting into better shape, especially your stamina. Sure, maybe you could do a bit more when it came to targeted strength training but you had qualified on the initial testing to even get into the training level, so you’d be fine.

You could do this.

Truthfully, you were really excited about it. And Bucky had sent you the most encouraging message before he left that morning and you just.. You knew you could do this.

Bucky's words echoed: “...you wouldn’t have been picked if you weren’t capable. You’re more than ready and, well, uh, I’m proud of you.”

You were going to do this well and you were going to make yourself proud, too.

Most of your excitement depleted when you walked into the gym though. You joined the rest of the agents in the training group and braced yourself when you saw Agent Nathan Boone standing with his tablet, calling out names for attendance. 

“Wilson had to suit up as Falcon and jump on a critical mission this morning so I’ll be running the training program this week,” he explained as he sized up his group, which included you plus another half a dozen training agents. 

Without a doubt, Boone was the worst replacement for Sam you could think of. Boone exuded a confidence you couldn’t quite wrap your mind around, given his frat guy personality. Hiding behind his smarmy grin, linebacker build and perfectly coiffed hair - he was a real jackass. 

You tried not to let your mind race as Boone walked you all through the upcoming week of training. You’d be going over everything from basic self defense skills to hand to hand combat strategies to overall endurance drills. Then he explained that next week it was Sam Wilson who’d be doing the final evaluations.

“So let’s prove to him you’re all a good batch, okay?” Boone’s demeanor shifted as he got into his coaching mode. “Let’s start with a warm up run. Onto the treadmills.”

This wasn’t your first interaction with Boone, though you weren’t sure he would remember you. 

During your first few weeks you’d been responsible for doing the annual physicals for most of the agents. It had been a very repetitive (and boring) assignment, until some anomalies came up in the test results. A few agents, including Boone, had weird things flagged on their blood and urine tests - mostly markers that indicated steroid use. Which was completely against standards for agents and employees at Stark Industries. 

One of them, some bulky aggressive asshole, tried to convince you to look the other way but you had ultimately reported it. The fallout caused a huge uproar between the medical team and the agents, with the consequence coming down on a handful of agents who were fired due to drug use. Boone had escaped that fate somehow, passing his re-test with perfect results. And even though HR promised you it was a sealed case, you were always worried it had left a bit of a target on your back.

Nothing had come from it. The next round of physicals you assisted with didn’t involve any of those field agents and no other concerns had been flagged. Everything seemed back to normal.

In fact, you had seen Boone once since that whole controversy. A few months ago you passed him flirting with one of the admins in your department but you kept your head down and ignored him. That was it.

Hopefully the week of training wouldn’t be soured by your history with him but you figured it was safest to go in with an open mind. 

Thankfully, by the end of your run, as you were moving onto some basic tactical drills, he continued treating you just like everyone else. Generally firm and distant overall, but nothing strangely out of the ordinary. His barked orders were delivered to everyone evenly. If he had any recollection of your connected history, he didn’t bring it up.

The first day of training had been tough, especially since you still had a few extra hours of work to log afterwards. When you returned to your reporting station in the medical wing, you had to really settle your mind down and talk your way through the unkind thoughts racing around your brain.

You could do this. 

The second day focused exclusively on muscular endurance, which wasn’t really your strong suit but you managed to keep up with the group all the same.

Boone had the entire cohort going hard - with a lot of tough but constructive encouragement coming from him along the way. When one of the other trainees dropped their barbells, it seemed to irritate Boone immensely too. He let out a few curses as he helped them pick the weights back up then apologized for his reaction but the flare of anger was evident. 

When you were all heading back to the locker rooms, it was one of the other agents muttering about ‘roid rage’ that raised a red flag for you. 

It was during the third day of training that you felt the first tug of resistance with Boone. It was small things that you couldn’t help but file away. The way he delivered supportive commentary to everyone else in the group but only gave you critical feedback. During one of the practical scenarios, he undermined all your answers.

“I see why you’d think that way if you’ve never done this before but I can tell you by experience, it wouldn’t work. Bit of an amateur way of looking at things, actually. You need to do better if you’re going to be in the field with experts. Are you sure you passed the interview for this role?”

He said things in a way that didn’t always seem personal to you, but he certainly delivered them in a condescending tone. 

But, maybe, well, maybe you were just reading into things. You were feeling tired already and not really sleeping, so your focus was a bit off. 

Yeah, you could do better, strategize better, think things through in a better way.

On the fourth day, after a morning of weapons training and spending time at the range, the session moved onto sparring drills. It was quite basic - Boone walked the group through easy to follow hand to hand techniques, spending time here and there with each person to adjust their form. 

Everyone who qualified for the med team had to pass certain physical testing standards already. You had been working hard in the gym for months to get your mind ready, though you knew you weren’t very experienced in anything related to defensive techniques.

When he got to you following one of the scenarios, there was a firm frown on his face. “You need to be less in your head.”

You nodded, flexing and stretching your hands out. “Okay. Uhm okay, well, do you have any tips on how to–”

He was quick to cut you off. “Figure it out. I don’t have time to teach you critical thinking skills.” Following a sharp finger snap, he pointed directly at you. “And what’s with the glasses?”

“Ran out of contacts this morning, but I can do without them if I need to. Its–”

“They’re a safety risk.”

He didn’t care for your explanation or offer you any other advice, instead just muttering something as he moved on and tapping something into the tablet. None of his feedback had been helpful. Christ, you figured maybe it was worth starting a list to consult with Sam about following your evaluation instead. 

You just had to get through one more day with Boone. You were tired - down to your bones, from the physical and mental work during this week.

But it was nearly the weekend and that meant next week was approaching. Most importantly, the training would be done and you would have a real date with Bucky on the books, too. You couldn’t wait.

---

The last training day was mostly a culmination of everything you had gone over from the week. There was more endurance testing, some strength and performance work and the day ended with more sparring and situationals. 

You knew this was the light at the end of the tunnel. And when everything was wrapping up, you were relieved to finally be done with taking instructions from Boone, too.

Until his final speech. “You’ve been a great group and I would say most of you are ready for next week. Wilson will be impressed.” After a few more notes and instructions for the following week, he dismissed everyone. As you headed back towards the locker room, he called your name.

That made your stomach drop. He waved you back over towards the mats.

“I just wanted to give you a heads up,” Boone started slowly, eyes glancing around the empty room before he looked down at his tablet screen. “Here is the report on your training this week.” He turned the device so you could read over it.

After the first line, you took it from his hands. “Wait - what?”

“I just don’t think you’re ready.” Boone crossed his arms. “You’ve got the medical knowledge, sure. But the rest of it, even if you had another two months to train, I’m doubtful.” He took the tablet back and continued scrolling, as if he hadn’t just delivered such a disappointing blow to you. “It’s up to you whether you still want to do your test with Sam next week, but if I was in your shoes, I’d tap out.”

You swallowed hard, head tipped slightly to the side as you took in what he was saying. “That doesn’t make any sense. I kept up with everyone here this week.”

“This is a controlled environment; I don’t think you can hack it in the field.” Boone shrugged. “Like I said, you’re more than welcome to do your evaluation but I don’t think this will impress The Falcon enough to solidify your spot on the field team.”

“Good thing you’re not in charge of this decision then,” you bit in return, taking a step back. It felt like he was egging you on and you didn’t like it. Even worse that you were alone with him in the gym. “I don’t have to prove shit to you.”

“You don’t have to, or you simply can’t?” He countered, tossing the tablet to the side as he crossed his arms. He sized you up, eyes drawing up the shape of your body. “Let’s try something.” He motioned to the mats. “I’ll give you another chance to change my mind about that report. Maybe I misread your abilities and intentions.”

You knew the right thing to do would be to walk away and ignore how he was antagonizing you. But a tiny voice in the back of your head kept reminding you that you were good, that you had earned your place here. That you needed to show him that. 

No, you didn’t.

Yes, you did.

You took a deep breath and stepped forward, placing yourself in the middle of the mat. “Fine. Let’s do it.”

Boone laughed, standing in front of you. He scanned you over again. “Scenario. You’re in the field, there’s a civilian who needs medical attention. You’re alone with them as everyone else explores the area for threats. But, it's night time, it was a busy bit of action and –” Boone reached over and pulled your glasses off. “And you lost your glasses in the chaos.”

Before you could protest about the logistics of this stupid scenario, he threw them to the side.

You shook your head and immediately stepped back. “What the fuck?”

“Maybe you should have worn your contacts today.” He replied and this time, there was something more at the edge of his words. Something unsettling.

This was a bad idea. But he was waiting for you to reply, to call his bluff and tap out. You growled to yourself and stayed.

“The civilian has a broken limb so you’re on the ground beside them.” Without even hesitating he placed both his hands on your shoulders and shoved you down to your knees.

None of this made any lick of sense. This wasn’t a scenario you’d end up in. You wouldn’t be alone or you’d call for backup.

He continued without a second thought, moving to stand behind you, placing his hand on the crown of your head. “And someone comes at you from behind – now you’re compromised and so is your civilian.”

You sat there on your knees, chock still. A red flashing light was going off in your mind but for some reason, you stayed.

A low, grumbly laugh escaped him. “See? Not only are you a terrible nurse but you have no fucking instinct—”

You immediately swung your leg up to hook behind him, not sending him down to the ground but gaining enough of your own momentum to plot out your next move. Planting a foot, you lunged forward and grabbed his waist, pulling him towards the mat.

That really set off whatever anger had been simmering in him. The next thing you saw was the training mat as your face and torso were being shoved against it. 

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Your shouting felt useless as your body writhed under his weight. Your cheek dragged across the plastic mat as you moved, burning against your skin. “Get off of me, you—”

“Defend. Yourself.” Boone barked back, adjusting to grab your arm. He gripped your elbow, then twisted your wrist behind your back. A jolt of pain rushed down your shoulder. “Took me a few days but then I remembered your face.”

You cried out, squeezing your eyes shut. “Please just stop. What is—why are you—”

“Three of my friends, my brothers – you ruined their lives, you know that? They lost all their job prospects, they have fuck all left because of what you did. You know, we need that stuff - to keep up with supersoldiers. There is nothing fucking wrong with some pharmaceutical help. If I’m backing up Captain America, I deserve the boost.” With his knee pressing against your back, he leveraged himself to sit up a bit straighter. But his grip on your wrist remained, growing tighter and tighter. “If you had just turned the other way and ignored those tests—”

“I was doing my job,” you mumbled back at him. “They were the ones who broke the rules and—”

His voice hadn’t quite grown to shouting but the intensity grew. “And you are the one who suffers now, alright? And you sure as hell aren’t joining the field team. I’m going to make sure of it.”

---

All Bucky wanted to do when they got back to the compound was text you. It was late Sunday night but he didn’t care.

After the grueling week he and Sam had, Bucky took comfort in knowing soon enough he’d get to see you. He wanted to know about everything from last week - from training to everyday life, he just wanted to talk to you. Crossing the threshold from friends to something more was scary but during his long, sleepless nights, you provided a strange sense of comfort to him.

Without doing a dang thing. Just knowing you made him better, inspired him to be better and to be present. 

“Hey,” Sam tugged on Bucky’s arm before he headed to the locker room. “Medical check first. Then you’re free to send your little smiley face emojis to her.”

Bucky grumbled but didn’t have the energy to argue with Sam. The mission had gone well but hadn’t been the smoothest for either of them. While they both returned unharmed, Bucky knew coming down from these sorts of weeks properly was important.

Finally, after a clearance from the nurse and a quick shower - Bucky was turning his phone back on.

He dismissed all the messages from Steve and an Avengers group chat he liked to ignore then finally found his way to his conversation with you. Seeing a slew of your thoughts over the course of the week made him smile.

You: good luck this week - come back in one piece, please <3 

You: made it through day one and two, turns out my five-story walkup apartment is good for my cardio skills after all lol You: remind me of that next time I complain about the stairs

You: day three has proved that I do need to work on my upper body strength You: wanna be my personal trainer? ;)

You: miss you, hope everything is going safely You: this week has really kicked my ass

Your messages did peter off by Friday and although Bucky longed for more, he assumed you were probably just tired after the long week. Plus, the training wasn’t for the light of heart. Sam had shown him the schedule and although it was standard, its intensity was intentional. Not that Bucky doubted you - he knew you’d been preparing as best as you could since you had shown an interest in joining the field team months ago. But that could really exhaust someone by the end of it.

And tomorrow you had to power through a final evaluation with Sam too, so Bucky hoped you got to spend the rest of the weekend resting.

He dropped down onto one of the benches and planned his response.

Bucky: hey doll, made it back safe and sound Bucky: in one piece, I promise :) Bucky: can’t wait to hear about last week, I’m sure you did great Bucky: good luck tomorrow, I’ll come find you after the eval Bucky: sweet dreams 

---

Bucky felt a little bit silly, lingering outside the training gym. At least he wasn’t pacing, that would have been an even worse look. He leaned against the opposite wall to the doors, arms crossed.

Something just felt a bit off for him and, well, finally seeing you would help ease his mind. It was just strange – the lack of communication. Sure, he had sent his message quite late the night before but he assumed he might hear something back from you during the day.

But no, it had been radio silence. He could attribute it to your needing to prepare for your evaluation but that didn’t seem like enough of a justification. In all the times you and he had been friends, you always managed to send a reply.

He would just have to settle for an in person update, following your testing with Sam. Five other agents exited the gym by mid afternoon, but you never showed up at the door. 

Sam did eventually emerge, tapping quickly against his tablet. He came to a halt when he spotted Bucky waiting, arms now tightly locked behind his back.

Bucky looked over Sam’s shoulder, trying to glimpse into the gym before he met his eyes. “How’d she do?”

Sam let out an awkward laugh. “Well, she didn’t show. She sent me an email earlier saying that she was sick.”

Bucky’s brow furrowed slightly. “Oh.” 

“I know, weird. What’s even more weird though is that when I said we could reschedule her for another date, she tapped out.” Sam raised his shoulder to shrug then showed Bucky the screen.

Bucky scanned over the message and frowned. It was true. Your reply to Sam was short, explaining you didn’t want to reschedule and declined any further interest in the field team. That was it. You were out.

“Given how she sent me a five-paragraph essay explaining how excited she was to join the team, this seems out of character.” Sam tucked the screen under his arm and patted Bucky on the shoulder. “Give me an update after you talk to her.”

“What makes you think—”

“Oh, I already see your wheels turning. You’re doing the math on how quickly you can get to her place.” Sam called after him as Bucky turned to leave. “Let her know I can reschedule her anytime!”

---

You knew you couldn’t ignore Bucky forever. It was just.. it felt like too much, thinking of a way to reply. After what happened with Boone on Friday, every single thing in your life felt like climbing the steepest mountain.

It was absurd how quickly things had escalated. You should have just walked away the instant Boone brought up your evaluation. Getting on that mat with him was really fucking stupid and.. here you were.

You could barely remember how you got home Friday – dazed and confused and numb. After Boone finished screaming and you had stopped trying to fight back, you curled up on yourself. You fought back tears over the humiliation and pain, hands shaking as you grabbed your things from the locker room. One ridiculously overpriced cab ride later and you made it home to your studio in Astoria.

Then you cried in the shower and all the way to your bed - where you stayed as long as you possibly could on Saturday, dousing yourself in painkillers just to try and stay asleep.

You knew you needed to go to urgent care, or even just an emergency room - somewhere you could afford the x-ray. You had never broken a bone before but you had seen plenty of hand fractures during your time working in triage. You couldn’t make a fist, your hand was bruising up towards your wrist and the pain was excruciating. The image of Boone stomping on your hand and wrist as you tried to crawl away was imprinted in your mind…

You were stuck on the climb though. The mental battle of trying to figure out the best lie to tell the admitting nurses anywhere was daunting. Christ, how would you explain this?

You had to - you had to tell someone. The way Boone had flown off the handle, how he attacked you verbally and physically, he couldn’t get away with it. You knew the right thing to do but… fuck if you weren’t scared. He had made it pretty clear he’d be keeping an eye on you. And there was no way you’d be able to do your test with Sam now.

If you reported him, you’d probably have to get HR and the police involved and what if he denied everything and—

You ended up in a helpless loop every single time.

Saturday came and went. You only left your apartment to visit the nearest drugstore for a new compression bandage and more pain medication. Sunday passed by just the same. You skipped your normal spin class and barely spent time outside of your bed. 

The pain in your hand was growing worse and worse. You had to use your left hand to send Sam and your manager messages - because even just moving your right hand made your stomach swirl. And the guilt about not responding to Bucky was growing bigger and bigger too. 

How could you explain it? Boone had pressed your buttons and you pushed back and look what happened. How could Bucky be proud of you now?

Your phone had buzzed mid afternoon, just after you were supposed to be doing your session with Sam.

It was Bucky - worried and asking if you needed anything for whatever illness was plaguing you. 

You ignored it.

When he called, you ignored that too.

You were balled up on the end of your couch, eyes glazed over as another episode of your favourite show loaded up on Netflix. You knew you needed to eat something, that the pain medication on an empty stomach was a recipe for disaster. But… you couldn’t get up. Laying perfectly still with a bag of frozen vegetables on your hand was the closest thing to relief you had.

Then, someone was knocking at your door. The noise made you gasp, though you couldn’t move. You could ignore the noise along with everything else. It was probably just your downstairs neighbour back to complain about your TV again and –

Whoever was at the door knocked again, this time calling out your name. 

You recognized the voice.

Bucky.

He called your name out again. “Listen, I don’t care if you’re sick. I just want to make sure you’re alright. I grabbed some soup from that place I was telling you about.”

You sucked in a deep breath and pulled yourself up off the couch. You really, really wanted to see him - just the idea of his smile made everything feel a bit better. But then you couldn’t hide anymore and… hiding felt safe.

“I’m okay,” you finally replied as you got approached. “Feeling better but I might be contagious, Buck.”

You sensed some relief from him as his feet shuffled on the other side of the door. “Sweetheart, I.. I can’t even get sick, okay? I just need to see you.”

“My apartment is a mess.”

“I don’t care.”

You swallowed the lump in your throat. “Bucky, I’m.. I’m not at my best right now.”

“I don’t care.” He said your name once more. “Please.”

You pulled up the hood of your sweatshirt then reluctantly reached for the door knob.

---

When you finally opened the door, Bucky was relieved. But when you immediately turned away to return to your couch without a word, his relief felt misplaced. Something was wrong. Your sudden weekend illness and dropping out of the new job training weren’t adding up to anything that felt good.

He was worried.

Bucky had never been inside your apartment before. There were a handful of occasions after work or some happy hour thing when he dropped you off but this was new. He liked the idea of seeing your home but he wished it had been different circumstances. 

Home was a little studio, with a compact kitchen ahead of him across from the door. Beside it was a cozy living room area separated from the bed and windows, divided by a short bookcase. It was so very you and Bucky wanted nothing more than to just be there with you, scan over the books you like and curl up together on the couch.

But it wasn’t the time to daydream. Instead, he stepped into the kitchen to deposit the takeout bag, retrieving the soup before moving to where you were curling back up in your blankets. 

“How are you feeling?” He took another step closer but stopped when you leaned away from his approach. He took a seat opposite you and extended the container in your direction. 

“Yeah, I’m.. okay,” you replied with a shrug. “Thanks for the soup.” You took it from him, reaching across yourself awkwardly with a shaking hand, and rested it on your lap. 

He took the moment of silence to get a better look at you. Behind your glasses, your eyes were swollen, as if you had been crying. Bucky watched you carefully maneuver the spoon and it wasn’t lost on him you were favouring your left hand. In fact, your right arm was barely moving. 

“Do you need anything else? I could run to the pharmacy..” He trailed off as his eyes shifted to your coffee table, which was littered with an array of pill bottles. Mostly painkillers and what looked like a melting bag of frozen peas. And tucked under the table was… a half empty bottle of wine. Not exactly the type of self medication for a stomach bug or the common cold.

You closed your eyes, taking another taste of the soup before gently moving it to the table. “I think the worst of it has passed. Just.. tired now, I guess. I’ll be back at work tomorrow.” You smiled, just barely, then it disappeared as your eyes shut.

Bucky considered that the perfect opportunity to change the subject. Your name left his lips. It was quiet. You peaked one eye open to look at him.

“What happened last week?” he asked.

You laughed, though it came out quite empty. “Just five very intense, rigorous training days. I wasn’t great but.. I managed, I guess.” 

Bucky cut to the chase, though he couldn’t predict your reaction. “So how come you’re not doing the final evaluation?” 

A long sigh escaped you, rolling your eyes before leaning back again. You stared at the ceiling. “Should I just start adding you to all my correspondence with Sam?”

“Don’t be mad at Sam,” Bucky replied. “I asked him and he only told me because he was worried.”

You laughed again, with more of your body. The same emptiness remained and this time it seemed to cause you pain. You winced, swallowing an uncomfortable look on your face as you turned to peer at him. “I’m not mad at Sam. I’m mad at..” You shook your head. “At myself, I guess.”

“Why?”

“It doesn’t matter, alright? It’s over and I missed today and–”

“Sam offered to resch–”

“Bucky, it doesn’t matter!” You snapped this time, cutting him off. 

Bucky shook his head. Something else was going on. He had never seen you like this before - despondent and… broken. Sure, your friendship had rarely escaped the walls of work but the foundation between you both was solid. He had seen your ups and downs, and you had seen his too - recalling bad dates and ranting about missions and laughing over lunch and all of it. 

He knew you. The person sitting across from him, it wasn’t you. 

“Sweetheart, please tell me what’s going on.” 

Your eyes were closed again, head shaking. “Nothing is..” Your lip trembled. “Maybe you should just go..”

Bucky stood from the couch, but he didn’t move to the door. Instead, he crouched right in front of you. “If that’s what you really want, I’ll go, okay? I’d never stay if you didn’t want me here. But you opened that door for me. You could have already sent me away, soup in hand. I’m here right now because I care about you.” He said your name again, like a plea for you to look at him. “I can help, okay? Whatever is going on, I can help. Let me help, please.”

Your breath picked up, intertwined with winces of pain as you adjusted on the couch. You crossed your legs then moved your arms carefully, using your left hand to tear away your sweatshirt. Finally, you opened your eyes and extended your right arm to Bucky.

Despite being wrapped in a compression bandage, the swelling was evident on your fingers. Bruises littered your hand too and continued upwards to your t-shirt line. 

Bucky dropped to his knees, looking from your face down towards your arm. He whispered out your name, desperately trying not to fill in the blanks without getting more information from you. “What happened?”

You simply shook your head, swallowing whatever response was trying to escape. 

“Can I–” He motioned to your hand, cautiously reaching for it. You didn’t move, allowing him to unwrap the bandaging. You winced at the touch and change in pressure, eyes clamping shut again as you breathed deeply. 

Bucky skated his fingers along the side of your forearm, down towards your wrist and hand. Light shades of purple and blue decorated your skin but the swelling was what concerned Bucky the most. 

“I’m worried something is broken.” You finally said quietly, letting out another groan of pain as Bucky flipped your hand over to assess the underside. 

He wanted to reply with ‘yeah, no shit’ but figured that wouldn’t be helpful. If you hadn’t sought out medical attention by now, there was probably a good reason. You were smart, a nurse who could easily figure out her own symptoms. But something was stopping you. Embarrassment, guilt.. Maybe fear? 

Bucky was gentle as he held your hand. Christ, his mind was racing. “What happened? Did you fall? Did something go wrong last week?”

You shook your head.

Although there was one giant fucking obvious glaring answer to his next question, Bucky wanted to hear your response. Maybe you had fallen or dropped something on it this weekend. Maybe you had crushed it between a door or something, anything else than someone hurting you. Because the thought of anyone doing that, inflicting any intentional harm –

Bucky sucked in a breath and looked back at you. Your lower lip was already trembling again. He had to ask. He didn’t want to, but he fucking had to.

“Sweetheart, who did this to you?”

“I should have walked away, Bucky. I..” You immediately trailed off, head shaking again as you tried to collect yourself. 

With you, Bucky would be patient. He would always be patient. A few moments ticked by as he waited, still holding your injured hand in his. 

“It was supposed to just be a routine scenario, a test sort of thing I guess. But he was… he was volcanic. The anger erupted and he - he.. Bucky, I was just doing my job, it’s not my fault his friends lost theirs an-and he got so mad. I tried to get away but he just kept going.”

He said your name quietly. “Take a deep breath for me, okay?” You did, breathing in tandem with him a few times as you steadied yourself. “You’ve gotta tell me a name, please.”

After another deep breath, you nodded. “It was Boone.” You closed your eyes. “I think he’s taking drugs, steroids–again and he just.. I shouldn’t have engaged him at all. And I tried to get away once I realized he was freaking out..”

Bucky stilled, lips pulled into a straight line. “Hey, look at me.” He waited for you to meet his gaze. “This isn’t your fault.” God, he wanted to say so much more but the simmering anger below the surface was bubbling up. And that wasn’t important. You needed an x-ray and real medical attention. Then, maybe he could face the rage coursing through his bones. “Sweetheart, we’ve gotta get this looked at, okay?”

Reluctantly, your head shook. “I know. I just.. I don’t want to have to go to urgent care and explain what happened. I should have already gone and I feel so stupid about the whole thing and-and–”

He placed his free hand on your knee to stop you. “Okay. It's okay. I think I know where we can go. Let me make a few phone calls.”

---

PART 2

The Two of Us - Masterlist

Summary: You and Bucky go to investigate the phenomenon happening in Westview, New Jersey. While attempting to understand the issue, you yourselves are sucked into Wanda’s world of pretend. Now, you believe yourselves to be the happily married Mr. and Mrs. Barnes; in real life, you are most definitely not a happy pair. It is up to you and Bucky to piece together what’s happening while dealing with one another inside the hex.

Pairing: bucky barnes x avenger!reader

Warnings: descriptions of violence, mind control, angst, arguing, fluff, smut, and WandaVision spoilers.

Word Count: 39.7k

This series is planned to be updated 1-2 times a week. If you’d like to join the taglist for The Two of Us, please click here.

Part 1 (50s)

Part 2 (60s)

Part 3 (70s)

Part 4 (80s/90s)

Part 5 (90s/2000s)

Part 6 (late 2000s)

Part 7 (2020s)

Epilogue

Completed: November 13, 2021

i’m in the water.

summary. | He’s in the wind, and you’re in the water. Nobody’s son, nobody’s daughter.

warnings. | non/dubcon, smut, angst, protectiveness, kidnapping (implied), stockholm syndrome, obsessiveness, death/violence, dark themes, DDLG undertones, creampie kink, choking, piss kink (both pee), degradation, pet play undertones, p in v sex, Master kink, dacryphilia, crawling, slapping, hair pulling, face fucking, boot riding, orgasm denial, spitting, gagging, manhandling, praise, and more. 18+ MINORS DNI.

word count. | 8.5k

pairings. | Dark!Winter Soldier x Naive!Reader.

a/n. | please heed the warnings! i hope you enjoy, and please don’t forget to reblog! if you take ANY inspiration from my fics (and i’ll know, trust me) and you don’t give credit, you will be blocked and i’ll let others know. they’re both very hydrated! this takes place in the 90’s! thank you so much @asadmarveltrashbag and @mypoisonedvine for proof reading for me ilysm!!

From the day you were born, you always felt as though your legs are broken. Always needing crutches throughout your life to hold you up, always needing support. But you never really had these crutches, so you'd always drag your hands against the brick walls to support yourself. Vulnerable, breaking away at the edges, falling down. Nothing kind ever came, and it stays the same for a while.

So maybe that’s why you lean into his icy cold touch. So abrasive and yet so caring. His aspects are juxtaposed to each other, just like in those Magritte paintings your art teacher would show you. She was always a kind lady, but you don’t care enough about her to wonder where she is in life now. She was kind to you, though, so you hope that she isn’t suffering like you are.

Your goosebumps raise for the fifth time in this painfully slow hour.

“Are you cold, кролик?” he asks even though he knows the answer. You hum. You always do. Your voice doesn’t raise in an affirmation. It stays flat; he knows what that means. “Thinking again?” he gruffly presses, squeezes your bare arms. The thin, grey shirt with torn sleeves does nothing to protect your body. But why do you ask for protection against the man who has done everything for you?

“Why… Why do people believe that grey is a boring colour?” you ask him, looking around the dark cell that surrounds you. Soldat grunts, not knowing what to say. “I think it’s quite beautiful. All colours have different shades, yes, but there’s something about grey. Each shade comes with a different emotion. Don’t you think so?” you ask him, looking down to your lap.

A carrot toy sits there. It’s filled with cotton balls from the medical room, by his request. “Yes…” He bites the tip of his tongue, not sure what to say because the Soldat only has a few emotions and a few words. “Why can’t we get a different wall colour?” you question him, turning around to face the man.

“It’s not allowed,” he reminds you. You feel like you’re experiencing déjà-vu, but then again, the days have blurred together so well that you can’t tell if the tape is being put on rewind already. You have to assume that your celluloid scenes are fading away along with your sanity. It’s torn at the seams. Threads hanging that just need to be ripped or cut out.

“Beige would look lovely…” you point out solemnly. The Soldat doesn’t know what shade of beige you’re thinking of, but he believes it would be beautiful nonetheless. “I… have a mission,” he tells you after a while. You hum in that same monotonous tone again, so he squeezes your arm even tighter. “When, Master?” you curiously ask, only now taking in his words.

“Tonight. Approximately at twenty-one hours,” he informs you in that mechanic voice of his that you hate. It makes you feel more trapped and vulnerable, even though there’s quite literally a chip in the back of your neck. “How long?” you ask him softly, a frown already beginning to display itself on your face.

He doesn’t like it when you frown. He prefers the lines that your smile provides over the lines your frown forces. That innocent glint in your eyes shines a bit, flickering like a dull light on the verge of completely blowing. Though it’s not much, it’s still something. And when it goes away, his entire being is filled with darkness.

You’re the light of his life, the fire of his loins.

“Not sure. Extraction of information. Senators and mayors…” He begins to ramble, and you shake your head. “Sorry, кролик,” he apologizes as he notices how uncomfortable you’re starting to get. You hum again. He wonders if you were a bird in your past life, perhaps a hummingbird, to be more exact. Or maybe even a swan or a dove because you’re just as beautiful as they are, if not more.

“You know how to behave, right? Потому что ты мой хороший маленький кролик?” he asks, and you don’t understand the second question, but you understand the former. “I know, Master,” you breathe, an airy ending to your words. “You’ll be good, кролик?” he questions one more time, and you lazily nod. You’re tired. Your body moves at a drowsy pace, and you don’t like it.

You don’t want to sleep, though. Scared that if you shut your eyes for too long, the monsters will come back, and Soldat won’t be able to save you. He always saves you. You’re his damsel, constantly in distress, locked away in a gilded cage. But he tells you it’s not a gilded cage. It’s not a run-down cell built in the fifties. It’s your home, even though you haven’t known what home is like for a while.

“I’ll always be good for you, Master. Please don’t leave for long. I get lonely easily,” you express in small bits of sadness and distress. “I know, кролик, я знаю,” Soldat says as he hugs you closer. You tilt your head backwards and let it lull on his shoulder. “I’ll be back as soon as possible,” he promises, and you know it’s not true because he never fulfills it. “But my carrot can’t keep me company for all those hours… Please stay? Please?” you plead with tears welling in your eyes.

“Я могу составить ей хорошую компанию,” the soldier standing outside the cell mutters under his breath, earning a few snickers from his coworkers. I can keep her in good company, is what he said. And it’s truly unfortunate that the guards have forgotten that the Soldat — the Asset — has super-hearing. Their laughter dies down into sighs, and Winter’s chest begins to heave.

He puffs up like the big bad wolf he is, and he tosses you to the side like a rag doll. You watch him as he strides his way over to the guards. Each step carries the weight of the Winter Soldier, the one who’s ready to kill whoever is in his sight. Except for you. His bionic hand reaches through the metal bars that separate him from the outside world.

He wraps his fingers around the guard’s neck, and he squeezes his throat tightly. As Winter crushes the guard’s windpipe, you watch him behind slightly squinted eyelids. Tears blur your eyesight, and you remember that time when you were holding off the tears so well, you couldn't see the HYDRA van driving ahead of you.

Maybe if you could control your emotions a little better, you wouldn’t be here.

But then again, where would you be without the Soldat? Miserable, stuck in the worst parts of town without anyone. Having to drag your hands across those brick walls, again and again. Surviving on your own, teetering on the edge of death. Just like these men at the hands of the Soldat.

The crunching of bones and the screams of men are all blocked out for you. You focus on Soldat’s arm whirring in the most satisfying harmony you’ve heard in the past two years. Other than the orchestra you both have managed to make almost every day. But you still cup your hands over your ears.

Winter pulls a knife from the guard’s limp body. That very same knife ends up inside his heart, stopping it from pumping. The guards begin shooting at Winter, but he easily shields himself with the metal arm. It goes silent, but you keep your hands over your ears. Muffled talking steps in place of the silence, and you look up to see members of HYDRA staring at your Winter and you.

“Солдат, Что ты натворил?” One of the head agents asks. You believe his name is Vasily Karpov because that is what Winter has told you. “The… The guard said something about my кролик. He’s not supposed to,” Winter explains, looking to the ground. Karpov mutters a chain of curse words under his breath that you’re not too happy about. One of the other agents asks him to speak up, and he snaps.

“Just get him to the armoury! We need to prep him,” he shouts before stalking away from the scene. They all stick around a few more seconds before scurrying off like little mice. The dead bodies still lay on the floor, but nobody seems to really care. What’s happened has happened, and there’s no changing it.

“Привести с собой солдата!” A rough voice blasts through the intercoms, and suddenly, more guards show up at your cell. You curl up into a ball and rest your forehead against your knees. You can’t bear to watch them take him away. You wait until the cell door swings shut, and then men stomp away. But even then, you cannot look up.

Bring the Soldat.

He wears that mask of his. The last time you saw it, it was caked with dirt and blood. You can hear his hard breathing behind it, almost sounding as though he’s just run a marathon. He sits in the edge of the cot — the left corner, to be exact — and he watches you. The Soldat states as you look down at the array of snacks he’s provided you with.

“Kролик,” Winter gruffly calls, and you turn around. You hum and your voice raises at the end. You haven’t done that in a while, so it startles him a bit. “Which one?” he asks, stretching his neck out just a bit to see what snack you’ve chosen. “N… Not sure,” you shyly whisper, ducking your head down in fear.

“Green one,” he says after a while, and you place your hand on it. “I don’t know what it is?” you confusingly say. The Russian text on it confuses you, so you hand it to Winter. “ Sour Patch Kids…” Winter reads out loud, knitting his eyebrows together in confusion. “Oh, I like those!” you eagerly cheer, sitting up on your knees. You turn around and reach your hand out for him to give them to you.

They’ve wiped him. You know it, and you hate it. They’ve taken all emotion away from him, and now he’s just an empty shell of a man. His softness from just a few hours ago has now gone away, and you don’t know what to expect of himself. But then again, you never do.

Hesitatingly, he hands it over. “Don’t eat now. Sugar will keep you up,” he warns, and you nod. Your father would say the same thing when you were younger. The only difference is that your father had more love in his voice than Winter ever will. “We need to go over the rules,” he speaks up after a few seconds. You hum again, and he continues. “Do you remember your rules?” Winter asks, and you hum once more.

“Кролик,” he growls, and you look up. “Do you need me to repeat the rules?” Winter questions and you shake your head in objection. He doesn’t listen, though, because he knows you don’t remember them. You never seem to remember the big, important parts of the puzzle. Only the small corner pieces that don’t really matter. “I’ll tell you them anyway, and you’re going to listen to every word I say. Understood, кролик?” he raises his eyebrow, not leaving any room for protesting.

You gulp thickly and nod. “Don’t make any noises, don’t touch yourself, don’t talk to the guards, don’t let anyone touch you, don’t hurt yourself and don’t even think of escaping,” he lists, and the last one makes tears sting your eyes. “I won’t escape. ‘S not like I can even do anything in here,” you whisper under your breath, and he stands up. Metal fingers grip your chin tightly, and Winter slowly kneels down in front of you.

You’re watched like a pet. You always have been. Not even a pet, more like a possession. Seen as an object with no feelings and no emotions. As though you don’t have a heart that pumps crimson blood and lungs that expand with each breath you take. “Don’t ever speak like that again. I can easily stitch those pretty lips of yours shut, кролик,” he threatens, and you feel your tears beginning to leak.

No, no, no, no, no. Not now.

He laughs. He fucking laughs, and you want to cry even more because you need him. You need your support, but he doesn’t want to give it to you. You should’ve just kept your mouth shut. “You’re so fucking… precious. Especially when you shed those tears of yours,” he tells you with a hidden smile behind his mask. He squeezes your jaw even tighter, and you whimper out a small ‘thank you, Master’ to him.

“I wasn’t finished listing the rules, so keep your fly shut,” Winter sneers, and you nod your head slowly. “When I get back, which will be in around three hours, you have to finish drinking all those bottles of water,” he stays, snapping his fingers to grab your attention. Your eyes follow those very same fingers as they point at the four bottles of water sitting by the bed.

You never noticed them until just now. “Oh, and you can’t go to the bathroom until I say so,” he adds with a slight humorous chuckle to his voice. Your eyeballs nearly fall out of their sockets. “Don’t worry, кролик, I’ll be back so quickly, it’ll feel like a few minutes,” he promises, and you feel a wave of relief wash over you. It reminds you of when you were young, and your parents would take you to the beach.

Your parents would build sandcastles with you until they got tired. You would beg your father to piggyback you into the sea, and he would do exactly that. Your mother would carry her disposable camera with her just to take photos that would end up in the green photo album from the thrift store.

And when you got a bit older, you’d go by yourself—older in the sense that you have to start paying the bus fare of $3. You’d head to the beach after dinner and before your parents came home from work. The sky would either be a dark, dark grey or a lovely mix of pastels. The water would wash beneath your feet, pulling and loosening clumps of sand.

Taking it away the same manner Winter took your innocence.

“And remember, if you break any of these rules, I’ll know. And the outcome won’t be as pretty as your face or that pussy of yours, кролик,” Soldat warns, and you nod your head. “Yes, Master,” you shyly say to him. You want to look down at the concrete flooring so badly, but his iron-clad grip on you doesn’t loosen until a minute after your words. He looks down at you, and you look away. His strong gaze is just as powerful as the summer sun that would beat down on your skin.

“Прощай, кролик.”

You never realized how thirsty you were until just now. You’ve finished all four bottles in the span of two hours, and now you’re counting down the minutes until Soldat arrives. There are no guards standing outside your cell, so you’re all alone. Not even your intrusive thoughts have visited, and you wonder if the water was spiked.

You were never that good at telling time. It would always take you a few seconds to find the minute hand and the hour hand. But the digital clock that is on the wall across from your cell is quite helpful. It even has seconds on it, too. So you count down out loud, trying to ignore the full feeling in your stomach.

Stomping echoes down the hallways, and you don’t know if he’s close by or meters away from you. You never could tell. Russian words fall off the agents’ tongues, and sometimes you wish you could understand them. Maybe then you wouldn’t feel like such an outsider even though you’re trapped in their home. “Ты свободен, солдат,” one of the agents say, and you can hear Winter grunt.

You’re free to go, Soldat.

His big, heavy feet stomp down the hallway. The sounds bounce off the greyish-green walls, stained with different things such as blood and dirt. You can hear his metal arm whirring, and your heart jumps with fear. You’re not scared of him; you’re scared of what he’s capable of.

Oh, who are you kidding? You’re terrified of him.

The guards open up the cell door, and you look up, locking eyes with his. They’re dark and empty as they usually are. “Кролик,” he growls, and you whimper. You run up to him and hug him, feeling the water slosh inside of you. You slow your breathing down the same way your elementary school nurse told you to when you were younger and try your hardest not to throw up.

“Missed me, hm?” Winter questions and you nod meekly. Though you didn’t want to admit it two years ago, you do now. “Missed you lots, Master,” you tell him. The leather is cold against your warm skin. If you focus just a bit more, you could feel the creases of the fabric as well. But you’re too busy with him, so you ignore it. “W- Was the mission good, Master?” you nervously ask him, only out of curiosity and nothing more.

“As always. Were you good, кролик?” Soldat questions in return, rightfully so. You nod eagerly and fiddle with your fingers behind his back. He acts like he can’t feel it, just for you not to stop hugging him. “Good girl… You seem like you want something. Out with it,” he orders, and you gulp in fear.

“I… I was wondering if I could go to the bathroom,” you meekly tell Winter, looking down to the ground. His boots are shiny and polished. Cleaner than anything you’ve seen before, and it’s confusing. He usually comes in covered with dirt, sweat, tears and blood. “You need to go to the bathroom, кролик?” he asks as if he didn’t hear you beforehand.

You shyly nod and unwrap your arms from around his broad torso. You wonder if he left the mission unscathed or not. Winter chuckles. It’s breathy, airy, sly and dark. “Aw, кролик, you’re adorable, the cutest кролик of them all. It’s too bad I’m not going to let you,” he sneers in that faux fantasy tone of his. You furrow your eyebrows and so desperately want to beg him, but it’s out of line, and he never asked, so you stay quiet.

Winter grabs your hand and drags you to the cot, reminding you of the way you’d pull your parents to the shore so they can play in the water with you. They’d both laugh before your father would tackle you in the water, and your mother would push him down in retaliation. You’d always resubmerge from the water with a smile on your face and laughter bellowing throughout the beach.

You miss those times.

You let him guide you to the bed you wish wasn’t yours. “What did you do while I was gone, кролик?” Soldat questions, sitting down on the canvas of the bed. You’re placed on his lap, almost as though he’s forcing you to reclaim a throne you need. And it’s true; you need him. His hands fall to your waist, and Winter holds you in place. “I drank all the water as you asked, and I just sat here, Master,” you recount to him, leaving out the parts of the past three hours he doesn’t need to know.

He hums in the same manner as you. “That’s all?” he questions, and you slowly nod your head. “Good, I’d hate to have to punish you this late in the night,” he says, pinching the skin on your torso. You don’t whimper because you’re used to it. He calls it affection, and so do you. Winter’s hands move from your sides to the front of your stomach, caressing you with a bit of pressure being put on your bladder.

You whimper and try to play it off with a cough, but you know deep down he doesn’t buy it. Soldat continues to run his hand against your stomach the same way you’d run across the shore. Slow, wary, yet with care from the ground beneath you. You like to think of the simpler, more happier times. You know if Winter pushes a little harder, you may not be able to control yourself any longer.

The pressure in your bladder grows every few seconds, so you squirm around in his lap. Your weight shifts from his left thigh to his right thigh, over and over, and he knows exactly what’s wrong. “Кролик… Are you feeling all tingly?” he asks you. You nod your head, but you take in his words. Meanings and implications are always lost with you. They fly over your head the same way birds do, and you only see them with someone's direction.

“N- No, Master, I just have to pee really badly…” you clarify to him, and he nods his head in understanding. You smile as a spark of hope lights inside of your heart. “I don’t think you do, кролик, I already told you,” he assures, and you sigh. “I- I know, Master, I’m sorry,” you apologize and drop your head down. “I think you’re having those tingles, кролик, is your little cunt wet?” Soldat questions even though you don’t have to answer.

His hand travels between your legs and to your pussy, cupping it tightly. You whimper and involuntarily grind against his hand. “You’re absolutely soaked, кролик! Were you thinking of me?” he interrogates, and you just go with it. “Y- Yes, Master, was thinking of you all the time,” you whisper to him. He squeezes your cunt tighter and purrs in your ear. “Then why didn’t you tell me beforehand, кролик?” Winter presses, and you feel fear pump through your veins.

“I- I knew you were tired from the mission, so I didn’t want to bother you, Master. I’m sorry, please forgive me!” you plead, and he clicks his tongue in disapproval. Your heart sinks to your stomach with each sound he makes, and you want death to take you right here, right now. The Soldat pushes you to the ground, and you fall with a loud ‘thud!’. Your knees hit the concrete hard, and you can feel your old scars open up a bit.

One was from a poor fall at the beach. Your father carried you home, and your mother tried to soothe you. You were only six at the time, but it felt like your world was ending.

Winter’s metal hand grabs your hair and tugs on your locks painfully. You bite back a pained moan as he yanks your head back. It’s not the first time he has nearly given you whiplash. He changes moods faster than anyone you’ve ever met. The Soldat walks around you, and you follow him with your eyes. “It’s okay, кролик. I’m not mad at you. I’m gonna treat you so well; you’re gonna love me even more,” he promises with a dark glint in his eyes.

He wedges his boot between your legs and underneath your cunt. “Get comfy, шлюха,” he orders. You shift yourself a bit, trying to alleviate any aches you feel, but it seems as though he wants you to be uncomfortable. Your pussy rests on his foot, and you wonder what he’s up to. His hand tilts your head to look up at him. You want to look away, just like when you’d look at the bright sun on a hot summer day. It was always too much to look at, but the sight was so captivating you couldn’t turn away.

“You said you wanted to go pee, right, маленькая потаскушка?” he questions, and you confusingly nod. “Then go ahead, do it,” he orders. You gasp, quite loudly, in fact. The reaction doesn’t please your Master, so he yanks on your hair a little tighter. “What’s wrong, сука? I thought that’s what you needed?” he interrogates, and you nod. “Yes, Master, but not like this,” you reason, and he growls. “I give you protection, I give you food, I give you my cum, I give you everything you need. What’s wrong now? Don’t you love me?” Winter asks.

Your heart quite literally breaks in two.

“I do, Master! I love you so much!” you promise, feeling those stupid tears of yours starting to well up. “Then why aren’t you listening to me, you dumb baby? Hm?” he presses, and panic begins to rise in your chest. The tears stream down your face the same way the waves would engulf you at the age of 7. “It’s just uncomfortable, Master, that’s all…” you reason with him. “Well, I don’t care. You’re gonna do it anyway, okay? I thought you were a good bunny for me…” Winter trails off as if he’s lost all hope and cause.

It makes you want to cry even harder.

Sniffling, you wipe your tears and try not to give up. “I am your good bunny, Master. Please don’t make me do this. I don’t want to!” you beg once again, and he grows weary of your patheticness. Winter bends down, and his flesh hand goes to the front of your flimsy shirt. Thin cotton rips away easily, with barely any strength coming from his behalf. The grey cloth is in two pieces, and he pushes them off your shoulders.

Your nipples harden as soon as the cool air brushes against them. Winter’s hand leaves your head, and you feel alone without his touch. “Seems like you forgot your place, кролик… You don’t get what you want; you get what you deserve. And what you deserve is to be put in your place,” he tells you, and your bones rattle with fear. The sound of a belt clinking and a zipping being pulled down grabs your attention, and you hold back a hearty sigh.

The Soldat stares you down as he throws his belt to the side just like he did you a few hours ago. “I can’t believe you, honestly. Думая, что ты так выше меня, пытаясь помешать мне делать то, что я хочу. After this, you’re going to regret ever talking back to me like that ever again,” he rants under his breath like the mad man he is. Your tears have dried up, but your bottom lip starts to wobble again. He huffs, tired of seeing you cry.

Winter halts his movements and goes to remove his mask, the one thing that’s been hiding that sinister smirk of his. The dark, matte material is clutched between the tips of his cut-up, bruised fingers. He carefully places the mask on your face, covering your mouth and nose. The action shuts you up, just like how he wants. You look up at him without blinking your tears away. You let them fall and soak the mask, staining it with your waterworks.

The Soldat pulls his big, thick cock out of his tactical pants. His cock is as hard as a rock, blooding pumping down to it, and his veins throb on the side of his shaft. Beads of precum drip down from his tip, rolling down his cock. He’s a raging red, desperate to be inside of you. His metal head returns to your head, and he brings you higher up in your knees. Your neck cranes at such a painful angle that the ache in your knees is ignored.

“You better fucking look at me while I teach you your lesson, шлюха,” he warns, and you listen to him easily. Through your haze of pained tears, you manage to look into his eyes. You’re not sure what he wants to do and what he’s going to do. You never do. The Soldat is unpredictable, and even in your two years of knowing him, you’ll never understand how the gears in his mind turn.

“Not so dumb after all, huh,” he chuckles before shaking his head. Winter sighs and smiles down at you. “One last chance, шлюха,” he tells you in a sing-song voice. You don’t say anything, and the Soldat clicks his tongue. Suddenly, instead of the delicious precum, he would usually make you lap up like a kitten, clear streams of warmth hit your chest. You gasp behind the mask, but it comes out as muffled nonsense to him.

“Stop!” you cry out to him, but your words are once again muffled. His pee soaks your chest as he relieves himself from the pressure in his bladder. Your hands bat at his stiff thighs, hitting them just so that he can stop humiliating you and treating you like you’re all but human. Winter growls, and his metal arm drops your head, and he slaps your hands away. His pee covers your tits and drips down your skin, staining you with disgust and humiliation.

The streams soon stop, and you’re sobbing even louder now. “Oh shut it, this isn’t even as bad of a punishment. I’m going easy on you, шлюха, I could easily do worse,” Soldat growls as the slightly tinted liquid drips from the tip and onto the ground. Your chest stutters with sobs, and you can barely breathe. You’re covered and coated like a freshly bought canvas, and Winter’s just ruined you. Almost in the same manner that you’d destroy your father’s canvas with your cheap, dollar store paint.

Winter bends down and grabs what was once your shirt and is now just a piece of cloth. Kind of like how your mother would give you any leftover scraps of fabric to make something for you. She’d never let anything go to waste. He uses it to wipe the drops of urine that still drip from his cock, and then he throws it at you like you mean nothing to him. You let it fall to the ground because there’s no possible way a piece of cloth that was once on your back can fix your honour.

But who are you kidding? You lost your honour the moment you gave into the Soldat, just like you always do.

You stretch your arms out to him, silently pleading for comfort from him. But he shakes his head with a sly smile on his face. “Aw, you want your Master to help you out, мой питомец?” Winter questions, and you eagerly nod your head. His metal hand goes to remove the mask, but he stops as soon as he touches it. “Say please,” he orders with faux sympathy in his voice. “Please, Master,” you beg to him, and he smiles.

Winter places his hand back on the mask and yanks it off of your face. The sides scratch your cheeks a bit, but that’s not what matters. “T- Thank you, Master. I love you so much,” you tell him before struggling to put a smile on your face. At the end of the day, no matter how brutal he is with you, you’ll always love him. ...Right? “You’re welcome, кролик,” he says as he throws the mask to where his belt lies.

Your cheeks are sticky and stained with tears, much like your chest. Winter’s flesh hand cups your left cheeky lightly, and he’s back to being the gentleman who has killed for you on numerous occasions. He wipes away the wetness on your cheek as his other hand goes to his cock, grabbing the base of it. “Say ‘ah,’ моя маленькая шлюшка,” he orders before you can even register his signature Cheshire smirk.

His cock is shoved inside your mouth without any warning. He always does that. No heads up, no preparation, nothing. Zip, zilch, nada. Winter wiggles his foot that’s underneath your cunt, and the sudden friction is startling. He calls you bunny because of this reason. You can get off on anything, and you’re always needy for him. “I can see how wet you are, шлюха. You’re soaking my boot with that little pussy of yours,” he coos.

You don’t realize how wet you are until he points it out. You’re absolutely soaking, and you’re not sure why. But for the utmost incomprehensible reason ever, you don’t care.

His cock slides down your throat until your nose nuzzles against his pubic bone. His balls touch your chin, and your saliva coats his cock thickly. Your throat and side of your kissable mouth both hurt horribly, but you ignore the pain just for him. “You’re my good little bunny, right?” he questions, and you nod while his cock rests on your tongue. “And good little bunnies like you always listen to their Masters, right?” Winter asks, and you nod again.

He smiles. His hand on your cheeks moves to the back of your head slowly, returning to its newfound home. “I bet you want to come, don’t you, кролик?” he interrogates, and he’s not wrong. You really do want to come, and you’re a bit ashamed of it. “Master will let you come, don’t worry. I’m gonna let you have cummies, кролик,” he promises, and you happily giggle around his cock.

“Go on, hump my boot like the little bunny you are,” he pushes, and your eyes nearly fall out of their sockets. You want to protest so badly, but the memories of what he just did to you freshly flood your mind like the memories from when you were younger. “Are you that stupid that I have to explain how to get yourself off? Or are you just not listening to me, кролик?” he asks in a tone that reminds you of subdued thunder.

You shake your hand and try to move your hips around a bit. Your soaking wet pussy grinds against the leather of Winter’s shoe, and your clit throbs at the feeling. Winter’s cock slides out of your mouth until the fat tip of it is all that’s left, and then he quickly shoves it back in. Your loud gags and his moans fill the room like music. Your loss of oxygen makes you see stars, and you can recall how much your father loved to paint the midnight skies until he couldn’t keep his eyes open.

Your old toothbrushes would serve as the home of the clouds of dust that the stars would be born from. His fingers would be covered in white paint that would fall off in the water and swirl down the sink. His black t-shirts would have white freckles on them, and your mother would always suggest for him to turn the cloth into a galaxy. He’d always tell her one day, and you’d always remind him of that day whenever you’d catch him painting.

“Fuck, you always do look even prettier with my cock in your mouth, кролик,” he swears, and you smile around his cock. Oh, well, you at least try to smile. You continue to rub yourself against his boot as he uses your throat as he pleases. Your hole drools with want, and your slick gives his shoe a shine that is unmatched by any other substance. The burning, fiery feeling on your clit spreads to your abdomen, and you can feel yourself being brought closer to the edge.

You’re moaning around his thick cock, sending sinful vibrations throughout him. “Fuck, are you gonna come, кролик?” he questions as he feels you hug his leg. You nod around his cock, and he begins to push your head back and forth of his cock, matching your desperate movements. He uses you like a fleshlight, and you’re used to it. “Well, too fucking bad, шлюха, you’re not allowed to come,” he spits, and your hips freeze in place.

“I didn’t say stop, did I? No, I didn’t, continue, шлюха,” he sneers, and you listen to the Soldat. You’re not sure how you’re going to stave off your orgasm, but you’ll do anything for him. You slowly begin to grind your hips back and forth on his boot again, trying to slow your breathing down, and Winter fucks your face sloppily. “Fuck, you want my cum, don’t you, кролик?” he questions, and you squeeze his leg tighter.

Winter pulls his cock out abruptly and pinches the base, staving off his release only for a few seconds. “I said, don’t you want my cum, шлюха?” he asks once again, and you nod. Saliva coats your mouth, and you can barely catch your breath. “I- I really want your cum, Master, please! Please give me your cum,” you plead to him with a ditzy look in your eyes. You wiggle your hips side to side just to give off the impression that you’re getting yourself off.

But you can’t fool the fooler. Nobody can.

“I’m going to give you all my cum, шлюха, and you’re going to take it all like a good girl,” he moans as he shoves his cock back into your mouth. Winter shoves himself deep inside your throat until you can’t take any more of his length. You swallow around his cock, and he moans loudly, swearing in Russian. The words roll off his tongue skillfully, and you feel yourself getting even wetter.

He grabs your head even tighter and bobs your skull up and down his cock a few more times before finally hitting his release. His balls tighten up, and a deep, throaty moan leaves his mouth in the best way ever. Hot, sticky ropes spurt down your throat before you can even register the way he throws his head back. Winter’s long hair spills on the sides of his head as his cum spills down your throat. You have no choice but to swallow, but it’s not like you want to spit his seed out anyways.

Winter lets out a deep moan that goes straight to your core, and his hand pats your head in a praising manner. “Good girl, such a good fucking girl,” he praises as he slowly pulls his sensitive cock out of your mouth. Your cunt flutters with sensitivity, and you want to come so badly, but you just can’t. The Soldat takes a few steps back, slipping his foot away from your aching pussy. You let out a whimper, and he smiles.

“I’m not done with you, маленький кролик,” he tells you, and your heart flutters. You’ve managed to ignore the building pressure in your bladder, but now it seems to come back stronger. “C- Can I go pee first, Master?” you politely ask him, still on your knees. Even that ache has returned, but it’s the least important thing as of now. He ignores your question as he works on the numerous straps on his battle uniform.

Skillful fingers take off the leather vest he wears, revealing a bulletproof protectant that saves him from certain dangers. “Get on the bed, кролик,” Winter orders as he continues to strip himself. You begin to stand up on your wobbly, scarred legs, but he tuts. “Uh uh, not like that,” he interjects, walking back to you. He pushes you back onto the floor, and you fall with a sob. “On your knees, because that’s what you deserve. Nothing more, шлюха,” he sneers, and you sniffle.

You slowly crawl to the bed. Each time your knees touch the ground, you burn up with both arousal and humiliation. And it’s not like the action is making your need to go to the bathroom any better. The abrupt movement makes the liquid slosh inside you, and you want to burst out in tears, begging Winter to just let you relieve yourself. Your hands have slight scars from your nails, and it reminds you of when your father would encourage you to do the monkey bars.

You’d always try to swing yourself to the end with all your might. But you never could do it. You’d fall down to the ground and leave the park wailing. The scars and blisters on your hand would make your parents so upset, but that never stopped you from wanting to go back and try again. Eventually, you got too old to try, and it would always upset you. Maybe one day you’ll be able to try again— one day.

You hear zippers unzipping and velcro cracking behind you as you get on the bed. The coolness of the sheets is so refreshing against your hot skin. It soothes you for a few seconds, but it eventually loses its worth. You turn around and face him with a sort of dumbfounded look on your face. He fucking loves it; Winter always does. He’s naked, fully naked, and even his signature tactical boots have been discarded.

If you squint, you could see the way your wetness shines on his boot. “Good girl, such as good little bunny,” he praises, and you can feel yourself get flustered. Winter climbs onto the bed, staring you dead in the eyes. He kneels in front of you with a wicked smirk, and he brings his flesh hand up to your throat. You let out a gasp as he squeezes your neck tightly before he leans in closer to you.

The Soldat’s face is just a mere few centimetres away from yours. You can feel each breath that he takes against your skin. His hard cock rests against your sticky chest, and he’s still hard as fuck. “Open your mouth, кролик,” he orders, and you instantly do so. You wait for his cock to be stuffed in your mouth once again, but it never comes. You watch as he puckers his lips up before spitting right by your mouth.

You choke in surprise as his saliva slowly drips into your mouth, landing on your sore tongue. You whimper at the feeling, and Winter has a proud smile on his face. He pulls his head away from yours, in the same manner your father would whenever he’d finish one of his masterpieces. “Swallow it all, кролик, I know you want to,” he orders in a sing-song voice.

You follow his demand obediently. You can’t lie; the sheer act of him spitting in your mouth and forcing you to swallow it makes you even wetter. You’d take anything he gives you. “You’re such a good girl, you know that right?” he questions, and your chest heaves. Winter’s cock twitches against you, and you so desperately want him inside you. But there’s nothing you want more than to go relieve yourself.

His metal hand comes up to your face, and you think he’s going to lovingly hold you. You absolutely adore it when he strokes your cheeks. The Soldat’s thumb touches the soft yet slightly sweaty skin of your face and moves back and forth. Chills run down your spine, and you smile into his touch. He suddenly pulls his hand away, and he strikes you roughly. You let out a cry as your skin stings and prickles from the hit.

He does it again and again until your tears soak his hand. Your cheek is practically numb from the pain. You can feel his cock leaking with cum, and you know that he’s going to fuck you, just like you want him to. “Did you forget your manners?” Winter harshly questions, and you quickly shake your head. “T- Thank you, Master,” you whisper to him, and he smiles.

“Master… Can I please go to the bathroom? Please, it hurts,” you beg to him, but he just shakes his head. “P- Please, Master? I’ll be a good girl, I promise!” you plead to him as your tears run down your face even quicker. He ignores your cries for relief, and he instead slams you onto the bed. Your mind is a mess as he combs on top of you, and the aches you have only get stronger.

The hand that was slapping some sense into you finds a new home on your stomach, right above your swollen bladder. He pushes down on your stomach slightly, and you kick your legs. “Shh, none of that, no, stop it,” he shushes, and you try your hardest to not let go right there and then. “Master knows what you need, okay? And right now, you need my cock, маленький кролик,” he tells you, and you sob.

The hand on your throat moves to his cock, and he grabs his thick base. The veins on the side throb with need, and in one thrust, he bottoms out inside you. You barely have the time to register what’s just happened. The painful stretch of his cock radiates throughout your core, and you dig your nails into the scarred skin of your palms. His tip nudges against your g-spot, and you coat his cock with your wetness.

Winter is buried inside you to the hilt, filling you up to the brim. His swollen, heavy balls rest against your ass, and you both try to get used to the connection. The painful stretch dulls down to an exquisite pleasure, and Winter loves the way your tight cunt gets used to his thick cock. He’s splitting you in two, but he simply does not care. His hand returns back to your throat, and this time, he squeezes the sides of your neck even tighter.

Winter pulls his cock out until his fat tip is the only thing resting inside of your pussy. He slams back into you roughly, and you let out a cry. Your jaw falls slack as the Soldat begins to fuck into your relentlessly. His balls slap against your ass, and your loud, short-lived moans fill the cell that you’ve grown to love. “Fucking hell, кролик, your pussy feels so good,” he growls, slamming into you even harder.

Your tits bounce with every movement he makes. The pleasure sears through your body as Winter hammers against your poor g-spot with each thrust he makes. “Master, please, I need to go really badly,” you beg to him as he continues to fuck you. He shakes his head in objection before pushing down on your stomach even harder. You let out a wail and try to squirm away, but you only worsen things for yourself.

“No, you don’t, кролик. The only thing you need is my cock,” the Soldat tells you, and you upsettingly toss your head back. “No, Master, please, I don’t wanna make a mess,” you reason with him, but he just doesn't seem to want to listen. “I know that, кролик, but you need to listen to me, okay? You don’t need to go; you just need me,” he growls lowly, and you can feel him pushing harder on your bladder.

“No- Wait, Master, please stop pushing on me,” you implore to him as a moan follows your words. Your silky, wet cunt hugs his cock as the tingly feeling in your bladder becomes stronger. You want to cross your legs and stop it from growing, but you can’t. Pressure builds up in your core, and you’re not sure if you’re going to come or if you’re going to make a mess and humiliate yourself.

“Let go, мой тупой ребенок, I know you want to so badly. You can make a mess, do it,” Winter urges, and you shake your head. “No, Master, please stop it,” you cry to him, but he only fucks you harder. One specific thrust hits your cervix, and you yell out in pain before even realizing what’s happened. Warmth trickles down your thighs and onto his cock. You let out a wail as humiliation blossoms from your soul.

Though there’s nobody else watching, you’re still embarrassed. And that wicked smirk on Winter’s face does nothing to help you out. The sound of it makes your back sweat, and you want the ground to open up and take you home. Your urine wets the sheets beneath you, and your tears wet your face. “God, look at you. You finally got what you wanted, and here you are, crying like a fucking brat. You’re so ungrateful. Do you even deserve my cum?” he questions with disgust on his tongue.

You struggle to nod, but you do it anyway. The last thing you need is to have your Master upset with you. “‘M sorry, Master, please forgive me,” you plead to him. You continue to relieve yourself, and he continues to fuck you despite the mess you’re making in his shaft. “Такой грязный, глупый малыш. Ты такой жалкий, ты же знаешь это, да?” he questions even though you only know one simple word of Russian. You moan loudly as you slowly stop making a mess and begin to feel your orgasm building up.

“Aw, are you gonna come, кролик?” Winter asks you in a condescending tone, one that makes you even wetter. The lewd sounds that come from your pussy as just as humiliating as what you’ve just done, but you don’t care. You’re too busy getting fucked stupid. “Fuck, I can’t wait to fill this pussy up with my cum; watch it leak out of you. You always do look prettier when you’re filled up with my cum,” he moans as his thrusts grow sloppy.

“Master, ‘m gonna c- come,” you whimper to him, laying in your own piss. “Go ahead, шлюха, come on my cock. You already made a mess on me twice, might as well do it for the third time,” Winter growls, moving the hand that lays on your stomach. He grabs your hips roughly and pulls you closer towards his cock. Hot flames lick at your abdomen as you hit your climax, seeing stars in your vision.

Your reality is warped as you can barely make out the look on Winter’s face. Darkness takes over your vision in the same manner as the clouds would take over the skies on those hot summer days. They would hide the pretty sun for a few minutes, and then they’d leave eventually. Your pussy clamps down on his cock tightly as you coat him with your juices, making him moan.

You wail loudly as you clench around him, making him groan. “Fuck, you like that, don’t you?” he asks without waiting for an answer. You nod as he fucks you through your orgasm, not even caring about how overstimulated you are. His cock slips in and out of you with ease and his thrusts begin to grow sloppy. “Tell me how much you want my cum,” he demands, fucking you even slower.

“I- I want your cum really badly, Master. I need it so badly; please fill me up with your cum!” you politely beg to you as you come down from your much-needed high. “Fuck, I’m gonna fill you up so nicely, кролик, you’re gonna beg me to fuck you again,” Winter husks as his balls tighten up. A string of Russian words leave his mouth, and you have to assume that it’s all foul language.

Warm, white ropes of cum paint your walls as he pushes deep inside your cunt while coming. Winter’s blue eyes squeeze shut, and you both moan at the feeling. He fills you up just like he promised, and you bite down on your lips. Everything has dried, and you feel disgusted, so you try to focus on the way his cum pumps inside you. His cock stays inside you, but he doesn’t soften at all, and you know what that means. Winter falls on top of your sticky chest with a sigh, and tears sting your eyes.

Though he says you need him, you wonder if that’s really true.

Sleeper

Summary : When Bucky falls in love with the antihero he’s sleeping with, he offers her a place in the Thunderbolts*.

Pairing : Thunderbolts!Bucky Barnes x antihero!reader (she/her) 

Warnings/tags : Violence, death, sex (a prominent theme but not graphic), cursing. Borderline obsessive behaviour. Congressman Barnes as per the Thunderbolts teaser. Batman/Catwoman-like dynamic. (Let me know if I miss anything.)

Word count : 6.5k

Note : This fic was genuinely written because of the van scene in the Thunderbolts trailer. That’s it. That’s how down bad I am for Thunderbolts Bucky. Reader is an antihero called ‘Sleeper.’ The Thunderbolts are referred to as ‘the team.’ The reader and Bucky first met a little bit before FATWS. I also have a cap! Sam fic coming out soon because my god. I am drooling over these two. Enjoy!

Bucky first heard of your existence in whispers.

He had heard your codename in hushed tones when he got off the ice in Wakanda, after Shuri helped rid his brain of the trigger words that haunted him.

Several of the Dora Milaje had crossed paths with you in Ivory Coast, and they had told everyone in the palace about how terrifyingly efficient—and violent— you had been. They said you finished the job before they even got there.

Your codename was nothing but silent rumours by those on the fringes of the intelligence community. They called you ‘Sleeper’— it wasn't a name you chose for yourself, but you have chosen to embrace the fear that people associated with it. 

You were an antihero, a vigilante who left rivers of blood in your wake.

Four years ago, you started tracking down the same corrupt officials and Hydra remnants that Bucky was trying to arrest.

The difference: Bucky set out to turn them in, you had your heart set on killing them, fast and efficient, as you always have been.

The first time you crossed paths with the former Winter Soldier, it was in a crumbling KGB safehouse in Eastern Europe. Bucky had taken down most of the guards, ready to haul the high-ranking operative to a jail cell in DC where he can await his trial. He was tired, the strain of therapy and sleepless nights holding him down, but this mission kept him focused.

But when he reached the operative’s office, the target was already slumped over his desk, cold and lifeless. 

"Guess I beat you to it, soldier," you said, voice laced with a confidence that made his stomach twist. You let him process the sight of you—fitted black suit, gloved hands, and a smirk that told him you were not only dangerous, but damn well aware of it. A mask obscured your eyes, but even with half of your face covered, he could see how smug you looked.

“I didn’t ask for your help,” he said, voice low.

“Good thing I wasn’t asking for you permission.” You tilted your head, the ghost of a laugh in your voice. You were watching him, sizing him up with those sharp eyes that felt like they could through see every part of him he tried to keep hidden. 

“Sergeant James Barnes, right?” You said his name with a familiarity that sent a jolt through him. “I’ve heard a lot about you. Never thought I’d actually run into you, though. Lucky night for me.”

He narrowed his eyes, not trusting this mysterious stranger, though he couldn’t deny he was intrigued. “And you are…?”

“I have no name to claim for myself,” you shrugged, leaning back against the wall, “but people call me Sleeper.” You let the name linger, knowing he’d recognize it. 

His memory reeled back to Ayo and the Dora Milaje, who had warned him of you: ruthless, volatile. A ghost who disappeared without a trace, always a step ahead. He’d just never expected Sleeper to be… so easy on the eyes.

“I didn’t ask for your help.” He repeated with no conviction. He narrowed his eyes at the body. “Especially not like this.”

You shrugged, pushing off the wall and strolling over. “Relax, soldier,” your gaze met his, “I only go after the ones who deserve it. Just because I do it my way doesn’t mean I’m the villain here.”

“Still doesn’t make it right,” he muttered, but there was a flicker of curiosity underneath his stormy blue eyes.

“Then stop me,” you challenged softly, leaning close enough to feel his breath. “If you can.”

His breath hitched ever so slightly.

You grinned, a spark of intrigue lighting up in your gaze. “I’ll be waiting, James.”

And before he could respond, you were gone.

He knew he should’ve stopped you— but some part of him was glad he hadn’t. 

As you disappeared, he felt something he hadn’t in a long, long time: excitement.

—

From that day on, Bucky couldn’t get you out of his head. 

At first, it was frustrating. You were hard to track, ruthless—and yet there was a sickening righteous principle to your actions that he couldn’t deny.

As the weeks went by, something else rooted in his brain when he thought of you. Fascination. 

His mind often wandered about you during his quiet, sleepless nights, wondering who you were beneath the mask, beneath the mystery and the whispers.

Sam noticed, of course. He'd raise an eyebrow whenever Bucky lingered too long over case files where you'd been mentioned. He’d nudge if he seemed overly eager to volunteer for missions that involved your typical targets.

“Maybe you’ll get lucky and she’ll show,” Sam teased once, nudging Bucky. “She’s dangerous, though. Is that your type?”

Bucky scoffed, but he knew Sam was right. And maybe that danger was part of what kept him intrigued.

—

The next time you crossed paths, it was in a dark alleyway, both of you dripping with sweat and breathing heavily after taking down an underground fighting ring. 

“You know,” he’d said, “killing them doesn’t make it justice.”

“You think turning them in is enough?” Your voice had cut through the air like a knife, but there was no malice behind it. You wanted him to understand your line of thinking, wanted him to know. “People like them are everywhere. They’ll get out. They’ll come back.”

“So you think you get to decide whether they live or die?” he challenged, jaw tight.

“No,” you said, readjusting your mask. “But I do it anyway.” There was a flicker of sadness in your gaze that he noticed, even if you tried to hide it.

What had happened to you? He thought to himself. What have you been through?

In that moment, he noticed the pain behind your eyes, the kind of pain he knew intimately. You weren’t just someone who killed for vengeance; you must have had your reasons. You must have carried scars that ran deep, maybe deeper than his.

—

From that point on, Bucky made it a habit to look for you on every mission. It was like an unspoken game, this cat-and-mouse chase. Every time he saw you, the tension between you grew. 

Sometimes, he’d get there first, managing to intercept before you could execute the target. Other times, you’d arrive at the same time. He’d try to talk you out of it, to make you see things his way, but you’d laugh him off, the kind of laugh that hinted at more than your fair share of heartache. 

And sometimes, you’d tease him, push boundaries he wasn’t sure he should cross.

“You like this, don’t you, James?” You’d whisper it low, close enough for him to catch your scent, a faint hint of gunpowder and vanilla perfume. “The chase. Getting to play the hero while I get my hands dirty.”

He wanted to deny it, but he couldn’t. 

—

Bucky grew obsessed, even if he wouldn’t admit it. Every encounter left him more and more drawn to you. He’d search for files on you for days on end without sleep, but all he found were reports with no concrete evidence. He found himself looking for excuses to track your movements, hoping he’d be there to stop you but not quite sure he wanted to succeed.

One night, after another close call, you leaned into him as he pushed you up against the wall. He could feel the heat radiating off you, the electricity charged in the space between you. You looked up at him, the smallest hint of vulnerability peeking through your mask.

“Why do you keep doing this, James?” you asked, voice softer this time. “You can’t save me.”

“Maybe not,” he replied, frowning as his eyes looked down to the edge of your lips, “but I can try.”

That night, he wondered just how long he could keep up this dance before one of you finally gave in.

—

One night, while you were on a caper in Prague, everything changed for the two of you. 

The mission had been bloody, chaotic, and a little too close to mayhem for Bucky’s liking. You had taken down an entire network of arms dealers, setting fire to one of their last remaining munitions blocks and leaving it to burn. 

Bucky had arrived too late, frantically trying to contain the chaos you’d left in your wake, alerting local authorities, making sure the flames didn’t spread to a nearby market.

When he caught up to you, adrenaline ran hot through his veins. 

He'd followed you through winding streets and up dark staircases, up to the hotel you were holed up in. He followed you into your room, locking you both in.

His voice was tight, anger simmering beneath. “You’re careless.” His blue eyes were striking underneath the european moonlight, “you could’ve taken out half the neighbourhood, and for what?”

“I got the job done, James.” You shrugged, trying to look unbothered. “It’s not pretty, but it works.”

He stepped closer, and you held his gaze, “You know, I’d turn you in if you weren’t so…” he paused, his voice faltering, as if the words were lodged in his throat, “Weren’t so…”

Your pulse quickened. “If I weren’t so what?” You snapped, daring him to finish, to admit what had been hanging between you two since the day you met.

But he didn’t answer. Instead, he pulled you into a fierce, bruising kiss.

You didn’t hesitate—you kissed him back with just as much fire, your hands tangling in his hair.

Bucky’s hands found your waist, fingers digging in with enough pressure to leave marks. He pushed you back until your shoulders hit the wall, lips moving down your jaw, then hot against your neck. His breaths were ragged, matching your own, and he was holding you as if letting go would mean losing control entirely. 

You couldn’t help the gasp that escaped your lips as his mouth found a sensitive spot on the dip in your collarbone, his hands roaming possessively over your back, down your sides.

You pulled him back to your mouth, desperately needing that connection. 

When you finally broke apart for air, his forehead rested against yours. You untied your mask and threw it across the room.

Fuck. he thought as his eyes widened, taking in your full facial features for the first time. You were even more beautiful than I imagined you to be. 

Fuck, fuck, fuck, he thought to himself, I’m done for.

He was ready to throw you in jail cell. Instead, he ended up in your bed.

That night, in the dim light of your cheap hotel room, clothes were shed in hurried, frustrated movements, and all that pent-up tension finally found its release.

That first time had been desperate, raw. Both of you were driven by the need to let go, to feel something other than the weight of the cold blooded kills and the darkness you both carried.

Ever since then, every time you crossed paths, it was the same: adrenaline-fueled clashes and heated conversations about morality turned into hotel room rendezvous, hands grasping, lips colliding, both of you seeking the kind of solace you could only ever find in each other. 

—

You’d never admitted it out loud, but Bucky had an effect on you. When he was around, you found yourself hesitating just that split second longer before slicing your target’s arteries and leaving them to bleed.

You didn’t feel the need to wipe out every enemy anymore, and his disapproval of your methods had started haunting you in ways you’d never expected. Maybe that was why you’d started allowing him to find you more often, taking on jobs you knew he’d be there for. 

It was a dangerous game, but you kept playing it. He was obsessed with finding you, and you weren’t about to stop him.

He’d learned to read you better, your patterns, the places you tended to show up. By the time you landed in some city on the opposite end of the globe, he’d be there like clockwork, showing up right before you finished a job, confronting you before you could disappear into the night.

But the nights you spent together were… different. 

You never asked about each other’s pasts; you kept it in the here and now, keeping him at a safe distance even as you let him pull you under the covers time and again.

Every time he asked your real name, you’d smile and brush him off, deflecting his curiosity with a kiss or a teasing answer. He didn’t press, but you could see the questions in the way his brow furrowed, could feel the affection in the way he lingered in the mornings after, with a soft smile in his eyes that made your heart beat faster.

Each time, he told himself it was just catharsis, just a release of frustration for both of you, nothing more. But that excuse had worn thin over the years, and Bucky knew it as well as you did. 

He knew it wasn’t one sided either. He wasn’t blind to the way you’d look at him as he drifted to sleep next to you. Once, he caught a flicker of something vulnerable in your eyes before you put the walls back up. 

And God, was he drawn to you, to the side of you that fought so fiercely, that showed just enough vulnerability to keep him coming back. He was so fucking desperate to understand you better, to see more of the person underneath the mask.

—

One night, after a mission in Manila, you’d both ended up in a small, worn-down cheap hotel room overlooking the city lights. You were leaning against the headrest of the bed, a hint of sweat clinging to your skin, breathing still unsteady as you came down from the high you gave each other.

He watched you, his gaze lingering on the barely-perceptible rise and fall of your chest. 

“Don’t look at me like that,” you muttered, voice thick with exhaustion. There was a tremor in your tone, a flicker of something vulnerable that he wasn’t sure you meant for him to hear.

“Like what?” he asked, nuzzling closer to you. His now long hair was tied back in a low bun, your hair tie holding it together because he didn't have one of his own.

“Like you want something from me that I’m too broken to give,” you said, refusing to meet his eyes. But he reached for you, tipping your chin up until you had no choice but to look at him, and there it was—that flicker of affection he knew ran just as deep in you as it did in him.

“Maybe I want it anyway,” he murmured, his voice low and filled with a quiet intensity. “You ever think of that?”

“This is just a release, James.” Your gaze softened for just a second, long enough for him to catch it before you shook your head, pulling yourself from his grasp. “It’s just something we both need.”

Even as you said it, you weren't convinced. He reached for you again, pulling you close, and kissed you because that was the only thing you’d let him do.

You melted into him once more, you found yourself wondering just how much longer you could keep him at arm’s length.

—

The shift in Bucky’s life had been as dramatic as it was unexpected. You’d never pegged him for politics—neither had he, to be fair—but here he was, representing his district, looking sharp in a suit that cost more than the last few hotels you’d met in combined. 

He’s upgraded. Freshly elected, polished up, all suited and respectable as a congressman, fighting for reform from a marble office by day and for justice in dark alleys by night. 

But tonight, with that half-smile he only gets with you, he’s still the same— still carrying that simmering tension in his lips, his hair tousled from a long night of pursuing you through the shadows. 

After a mission that had you both knee-deep in an abandoned bunker hunting a rogue assassin, you found yourself together once again. Only this time, the hotel he’d booked was far from cheap. 

He brought you to a five-star suite. The bed was massive, the sheets soft, and the view from the window sprawled out over the city skyline, a stark contrast to the dingy rooms you’d gotten used to. 

Now, lying beside him in the rumpled silk sheets, you watched him catch his breath. You moved off of his lap to lay next to him, euphoric from the guilty pleasure you both indulged in. 

“You know, the second someone finds out Congressman Barnes has a relationship with a violent vigilante, you’re out of office.”

He looked over at you, eyebrows raised. “Relationship?”

Fuck. He caught you slipping up. He caught you thinking about a relationship with him.

“Casual sex is still a relationship, James.” You shrugged, trying to save face. You turned to him, with a lazy, unconvinced smile, “Strings attached or not, it counts.”

He shifted, the corner of his mouth twitching as he watched your wall break, even if only one brick at a time. “Casual,” His fingers traced idle patterns along your bare shoulder. “Is that what we’re calling it?”

“Unless you’re pretending you don’t want it anymore.” You paused, leaning closer, “Or maybe you just like that I could ruin everything. That I could say one word to the press, post one picture online and your reputation is finished. You’d be back to square one.”

He chuckled, his fingers grazing down your arm. It was terrifying, how comfortable he’d become with you. “I trust that you wouldn’t,” he said softly, voice laced with that steady confidence, like he knows you better than you know yourself.

His declaration hung in the air, and you felt guilt striking in your chest.

This wasn’t supposed to be part of this arrangement. Trust was for partners, for couples, for people who wanted things that lasted. 

You shook it off, leaning back, a little smirk tugging at your lips as you lifted a brow. “You’re right. I do have a soft spot for you, Congressman Barnes,” you added, the title rolling off your tongue with a touch of sarcasm, “Consider it my gift to democracy.”

He laughed, letting his head fall back against the pillow. His hand drifted down to catch yours, holding it in a way that felt too natural, too comfortable for what you were supposed to be. 

You both knew, despite the banter and the invisible boundaries, this thing between you was already past casual. It was the reason he keeps showing up where you showed up, the reason you’re letting him into your life in ways you never let anyone before. You were both just too stubborn to say it.

He pulled you closer, pressing his lips to yours in a way that feels almost… affectionate. For a moment, you let yourself sink into it, forgetting the consequences, the danger, the fact that this man might just unravel you completely and you would have no say in it whatsoever.

When you pulled back, his fingers trailed over your bare waist. “Maybe it’s more than just a soft spot,” he suggested, his voice barely above a whisper.

You raised an eyebrow, heart beating out of your chest. “Let’s not get sentimental, James,” you brushed, letting your fingers graze his jaw as you murmured, “You’ve got an image to protect, after all.”

He lets out a sigh that’s part laughter, part frustration. He knew you were deflecting. “Right,” he said, brushing his lips against yours again. 

“You and your image,” you chuckled, “Out there, shaking hands and making speeches about justice while you sneak off to hotel rooms with someone like me.”

He grinned, not a trace of shame in his expression as he turned his gaze back to you. “Someone’s gotta keep you in line. Even if it takes…” His voice lowered, dropping into that deep, teasing tone that made your stomach knot. “…a hands-on approach.”

You rolled your eyes. “You’re the last person who’d ever get me in line, James.” You leaned closer, though you didn't believe a single word you said. 

There was a long silence for a while. He eventually reached out, brushing a lock of hair back from your face, his thumb tracing over your cheek.

“Maybe you’re right,” he murmured, his eyes never leaving yours. “Maybe that’s why I keep coming back.”

As the city lights cast a faint glow over the room, you lay there in silence, limbs tangled together in a way that felt a little less no strings attached every time.

—

The next time you meet, you were on a late-night operation on the dark outskirts of the city. You’ve tracked down a group of mercenaries. They’re as ruthless as they were careless, leaving a trail of devastation across the criminal underworld. But tonight, their recklessness will end with you. 

You moved through in silence, precise, methodical. One by one, you took them down, not killing, but incapacitating them. Your fists were quick, your strikes precise. It’s what you’ve done for years, a grim pattern of efficiency that never required a second blow. Just as you reached the man who hired them with your knife drawn—a local crime lord—you felt his presence before you saw him.

“Think twice, Sleeper,” Bucky said from behind you.

You froze, heart pounding as you stood over the crime lord begging for mercy. It would be so easy to end this now, but with Bucky watching, you hesitated.

You lowered the knife.

Instead of killing him, you tied him up alongside the other mercenaries, ignoring the questions in their fearful eyes. Bucky made a call, alerting local authorities to pick up the mess you’ve left behind.

“What now?” you asked, walking away from the carnage. You were expecting the usual pattern: another hotel room, a brief reprieve from the violence, nothing more. 

But he surprised you, lacing his hand in between your fingers, warm and secure. 

He had never, ever, showed affection outside closed doors.

“Come with me.” 

—

You didn’t expect Bucky to take you back to his place, but soon you were standing outside a sleek high-rise in the heart of the city. You followed him up to his penthouse apartment. It’s almost disorienting— the polished floors, the floor-to-ceiling windows.

You found yourself standing in the quiet entryway of his home. The walls were painted in light, earthy tones, and the furniture was clean, modern, yet warm.

You glanced around, taking in the small details that hinted at Bucky's life beyond the missions. There were bookshelves lined with novels and memoirs, some old and looked like first editions, others barely touched. A few black-and-white photographs decorated the walls—New York City at dusk, a forest path, a beach sunset. It was an oddly peaceful place for a man like him. Certainly too peaceful for someone as broken as you.

“This is risky, James,” you said, looking up at him as he closed the door behind him “Showing me where you live.”

“No, it's not,” he replied, his conviction absolute. “I trust you.”

There it was again. That word. Trust. The thing you never quite knew what to do with, especially coming from him.

You studied the way his favourite leather jacket was tossed on a chair, a half-read book by the couch. It felt like stepping across an invisible line. You set your mask down on the table before he grabbed your waist and pulled you close.

“This feels like crossing a boundary, James,” you admitted. You knew he should pull back, give you a chance to retreat. But you didn't want him to.

So he didn’t.

Instead, he cupped your face as he tilted your chin up gently. “What boundary?” he asked.

He knew that there were nothing separating you two. Not anymore.

The space between you vanished as his lips met yours. You kissed him back, losing yourself in the process of tasting him. His hands slid to the small of your back, pulling you closer. Kissing him felt like falling— like surrender.

You made your way to his bedroom, bodies tangled together, a blur of heated whispers and gasping breaths. Clothes fell away, discarded like old skin. The way he looked at you, it was like he was memorising every inch of you.

In that moment, you realised: the boundary had never been there. Not for him. Maybe not for you either.

—

The room was quiet as you lay tangled up in Bucky’s sheets. The duvet smelled like him, unlike the neutral, sterile scent of the usual hotel sheets. 

You’d never admit it, but it was intoxicating. 

The satisfied pulsing in your body had put a hazy filter over everything. 

Bucky smiled softly, kissing your forehead before reaching to his bedside drawer, pulling out a small glass box, placing it gently on your palm.

"Here," he murmured, almost shyly. He opened the box to reveal a hair tie inside. 

Oh. You recognised it. The ends were a bit frayed, the colour faded.

It was the hair tie you’d given him in Manila, a lifetime ago, a little piece of you that he’d tucked away in a corner of his home

You blinked, caught off guard. "You still have that?"

He shrugged, but his eyes wouldn’t meet yours. Was he… embarrassed? "I thought it was... worth keeping."

"Careful, James,” you couldn't help but tease him, nuzzling closer into his arms. “Keep this up and you might just start falling in love with me."

You felt his breath hitch.

He looked up, finally. Nervously.

Instead of denying it, he leaned closer, his voice dropping to a low, warm whisper. "Would that be so bad?"

His fingers brushed against yours, sending a shiver through your spine. Your heart fluttered irregularly, your head spinning in a daze as you tried to keep your thoughts down.

No.

You couldn’t let him see that he was getting to you like this, so you did what you always did: you deflected, grinning forcefully and rolling your eyes.

"Yeah, right," you said, brushing off the moment. As much as it broke your heart to deny the truth, you were doing it for his sake and yours. "I'm not that easy to love, James."

He chuckled softly, the warmth of his breath brushing your skin as he pulled you closer, tucking a stray hair behind your ear. "Maybe that's why I do." 

You shifted away from him, wrapping yourself in the sheets as if they could shield you from what he was offering — and from the ache in his gaze. 

"We can’t…" you said, voice barely above a whisper. "We can’t do this."

Bucky's eyes darkened, but he would be alright. He expected this from you.

He sighed, running a hand through his hair as he tried to collect himself. You could see the struggle in his eyes, the battle between his desire for you and something else… there was something bigger. 

"I need to tell you something," he said quietly. “I have… a team.”

That caught you off guard. 

Bucky? On a team? He’d always seemed like a lone wolf, just like you. 

“There’s a couple of former Widows, who you’d get along with. Two other super soldiers. And someone who can… phase. Quantum experiment gone wrong.” He paused, “We’re trying to make something real here. And it’s missing someone.” His fingers trailed down your forearm, eventually clasping your palm in his, “It’s missing you.”

He pushed a strand of hair behind your ears, trailing your jawline delicately with his metal hand, “I need you.”

The invitation went unanswered for a moment. You swallowed, caught off-guard by how badly he seemed to want this, how he wanted you to be part of it.

“I work alone, James,” you said, brushing off the offer with a small, bitter smile. “You know that.”

“But why not?” His voice was barely more than a whisper. “Why won’t you let someone else in for once?”

The frustration in his tone was raw, and for a moment, you thought you saw a flicker of pain flash across his face from this rejection.

“This is your chance to do something good the right way,” he pressed, and there was a quiet urgency in his voice. “No more hunting down bad guys with no direction. No more living like you’ve got nothing left to lose.”

His words sank in, and your walls felt shakier than ever. The idea of leaving the past behind, of actually building something… you hadn’t let yourself imagine it in years.

“Just think about it,” he said softly, placing his forehead on yours. “You don't have to decide now. Just… consider it.”

You gave a noncommittal shrug, but the truth was that his offer echoed in your mind, louder than you wanted to admit. He smiled at your dismissiveness, recognizing the crack in your armour. He didn’t push further. 

You realised that for the first time in a long time, you weren’t entirely sure if you wanted to say no.

—

The next time you saw Bucky was in the middle of a mission neither of you had wanted. 

Just a week had passed since you’d spent the night in his apartment. Since then, you had told yourself you shouldn’t return. You couldn’t. You were getting too close, feeling too much.

It was getting dangerous.

But then Bucky had reached out to you, voice tight and desperate, the kind of desperation that stripped away all his pride. It was a vulnerability even you hadn't seen from him before. His team was in over their heads, he’d said. He needed you. 

You’d agreed to help, but you’d been careful to remind him that this was a one-time thing. One mission, and that was it.

But then everything went wrong.

It happened so fast, you barely understood how everything had gone wrong. 

You were with Bucky, fighting side-by-side, the two of you moving as if connected by some invisible thread. 

You had taken a blow, separating you from everyone else. You tried standing up but fuck! The impact had shattered your ankle, sending a searing pain through your leg. Your nerves were on fire in a way they had never been before.

You couldn't move. 

You couldn't get up. Couldn’t run.

And then the ground shifted, an explosion roared from behind, and the next thing you knew, a van was thrown across the road, hurtling straight toward you.

For a single, frozen heartbeat, you realised this was it. 

It was over.

You saw the faces of bystanders staring from the sidewalk, their eyes wide, too horrified to look away. You let go of the cold steel of your knife still gripped in your hand. The acrid taste of smoke on your tongue intensified. And the truck—a wall of twisted metal hurtling closer, closer, impossibly fast.

You’d spent so many years brushing so close to death that you always thought you’d be ready.

But now, all you felt was regret.

Regret that this was how you’d die: in the middle of a cold, empty street, surrounded by strangers who would never remember you, never know who you were or what you’d done. 

Alone. 

You thought of Bucky in those last seconds—his quiet smiles, the way he’d look at you like he could see through every wall you put up, the silent crutch he’d offered without expecting anything in return. Bucky, who’d trusted you, who’d somehow cared for you even after everything you’d done. 

For the first time, you felt regret for every life you’d taken, every person you’d left to die in your wake.

Your life had been nothing but survival and bloodshed. You had told yourself it was necessary, that it was the only way. But here, now, with your own death inches away, it all felt hollow.

You’d given up hope, abandoned the idea of redemption long ago—because you were too broken.

And yet, with Bucky, something had changed. He had looked at you and somehow seen past it all. He’d made you feel as if maybe, just maybe, you were something more than the ghost you’d become. Maybe, instead of running, you could have found a way to fight for something real, something that mattered. 

Maybe you could have been someone better. 

You would never know now.

The world narrowed, and you braced yourself for the inevitable, hoping it would be quick and painless. Your fingers tightened, clinging to the memory of him in those last, precious seconds as you waited to feel the impact—

But it never came.

Instead, there was a rush of air, a deafening crash, and then—silence. You blinked, dazed, your heart still hammering, and when you looked up, Bucky was standing there, his metal arm outstretched, braced against the van that he’d deflected away.

He turned to face you, his expression raw, worry carved deep into his features as he scanned you, checking for injuries. For a moment, he just stared, his breathing uneven, as if he’d been the one facing certain death.

“Are you okay?” he asked, his voice panicked.

You tried to answer, but the words tangled, caught in your throat. You managed a nod, barely able to process what had just happened. 

“Shit,” he kneeled next to you, “Is your ankle broken, can you walk?”

You stared at him, trembling as he tore a part of his shirt and wrapped it around your injury for support.

Bucky had saved you. He had thrown himself in front of a hurtling vehicle without a moment of hesitation, as if your life were worth that sacrifice. 

He had saved you.

You were alive because of him.

Alive, when you’d already accepted that you were going to die alone.

No one had ever done that for you. No one had ever saved you—not like this, not without asking anything in return. Hell, you never thought that you deserved to be saved.

“You’re okay, Sleeper,” he said, his voice softer now, like he was reassuring himself as much as you. “I’m here.”

His words settled into the cracks that had broken open inside you, filling them in ways you hadn’t thought possible. You hadn’t realised how empty you’d felt until now, how long you’d carried the weight of loneliness, of believing that this life—this endless, solitary fight—was all you deserved. 

Bucky made you feel like maybe, just maybe, you didn’t have to be alone. That maybe, even after all you’d done, there was a place for you outside the shadows.

“Don’t call me that,” your voice trembled, “I don’t want you to call me Sleeper anymore.”

Bucky stopped for a second, confused. “What do you want me to call you, then?”

You couldn’t hold it back anymore. Something inside you broke, raw and vulnerable, and the name you’d hidden for years slipped from your lips before you even realised it. Your real name—your last, fragile piece of self you’d kept locked away, hoping one day you’d be able to reclaim it. 

It felt right with Bucky, like you could trust him with it, like you could let yourself be seen.

Bucky’s eyes widened, his face softening as he repeated it, almost reverent, like he wanted to remember how it felt to say it. 

Hearing him say your name, like a prayer, like it was sacred, like it mattered— tore down whatever walls you had left. He’d given you something you didn’t know you could have: the feeling of belonging to yourself again. The feeling of belonging to the world again.

Without thinking, you wrapped your arms around his neck, fingers shaking. He moved, pulling you closer. His touch was grounding, steady—a lifeline that anchored you to the moment, to this fragile reality where you didn’t have to be alone anymore. 

You pressed your lips to his, but this kiss was different— it wasn't casual or sexual as it has always been. This time, it was gentle, carrying something other than desire, something precious and fragile. 

Something worth nurturing.

When you finally pulled away, he looked at you lovingly. 

“I’ll join you,” you said, the words coming from some deep part of you that had been waiting for someone to give you this chance, this choice.

Now you realised that this choice was yours all along. All you had to do was take it.

And you did, because maybe, instead of running from yourself, you could find a way to make things right. Maybe you could fight for something greater than yourself.

For the first time, wrapped in Bucky’s embrace, you believed that maybe you could be someone worth saving.

—

A month later, you were all gathered around a small campfire, tucked away in a quiet corner of nowhere. 

The night was cool, the fire warm, and laughter bubbled up from the group as you shared bits and pieces of each other's lives. 

“Team bonding,” John had said.

John passed around a nearly empty bag of marshmallows, Alexei poked at the fire, and Yelena and Ava exchanged eye rolls at everyone else’s antics, though they leaned closer together under the same blanket.

Eventually, the conversation drifted, as it often did, to you and Bucky. 

“So… how did the Winter Soldier and Sleeper even meet?” Yelena asked, raising an eyebrow as she threw another marshmallow into her mouth. 

The moniker you had adopted still twisted in your stomach every time you heard it, but it had lost its edge. This time, you felt in control. Like you owned it.

"I have theories,” Alexei nodded, crossing his arms, “but I have to know."

You shared a look with Bucky, a small smile creeping on both your faces. “There was a Hydra agent we were both after.” you began, biting back a frown. “And… well, I was angrier back then.” 

He placed his arm on yours, a comforting gesture.

“You wanted him alive,” you said. “I had… different ideas.”

“After that—” Bucky wrapped his arm around your shoulders. “—She was all I could think about. I kept showing up wherever she was, trying to figure her out.” 

“So basically,” John said, trying to hold back a laugh, “Bucky is a bit of a stalker.”

“A stalker?” Bucky echoed incredulously, “I think the word you’re looking for is ‘dedicated.’” 

“No, no,” Ava interjected, “you followed her everywhere did you not? ‘Stalker’ is the right word, Barnes.”

“Fine,” he admitted jokingly, “But what can I say? It was love at first sight.” 

Yelena gagged theatrically and John clutched his stomach in a fit of laughter.

Alexei just chuckled and muttered something about “American romance.” Ava made a face, disgusted but secretly amused.

You couldn’t help but laugh along with them, leaning against Bucky’s shoulder, feeling the steady rise and fall of his breath. You could see him out of the corner of your eye, looking down at you with a quiet smile.

In some way, this still felt too good to be real.

For the first time, you realized you’d found exactly what you’d been missing all along. A home. Maybe even the closest thing you’ve ever had to a family.

A place where you belonged.

And you knew, looking at all of them—especially at Bucky—that this was just the beginning.

-end

blurred lines

Bucky Barnes x female!reader one-shot

summary: When choosing a female agent to send back in time to gain young Sergeant Barnes's trust, everyone's in agreement that it should be Sharon. Until Bucky, the man that you barely get along with, speaks up and lets everyone know that it could only be you.

warnings: angst, smut, profanity, pet names (only sweetheart & baby), mutual pining of sorts, enemies to lovers (kinda), jealous!Bucky, possessive!Bucky, one bed trope, teasing, masturbation (male & female), brief thigh riding, dry humping, nausea/vomiting (not graphically described and not a major part of the story, apologies to my emetophobic girlies), oral sex (female receiving), fingering, unprotected sex, MINORS DNI, 18+.

word count: 43.2k

a/n: Thanks again to @littlemiss-yeehaw for reading all of my shit and listening to my unhinged ramblings when I write, and for her amazing artwork. Thanks to @flowersforbucky for also reading my shit and for taking the time to tell me that it isn't as shitty as I think. Without them, this fic would be unreachable in the depths of my laptop's trash bin. Pics included in the title image for this fic are not representative of reader, location, etc.

            Insufferable. Is that really the right word? Can someone be insufferable when all they do is mope around in silence, giving you looks of disdain? Maybe insufferable is a word better suited to describe someone who says more than five words at a time. And yet, you still feel that Bucky Barnes is insufferable.

            Raindrops patter rhythmically against the roof of the car, making the all-too-quiet stakeout a little more bearable. You shift in the passenger seat, letting your eyes fall closed for a moment as you press your head against the leather headrest behind you. You’ve been sitting here for two hours. That’s two hours of listening to nothing more than the sound of your own breathing, Bucky’s occasional annoyed sighs, and the shitty audio feed of the abandoned storefront just up the street. You’re contemplating giving in and taking a nap when you hear the sound of gravel crunching beneath tires somewhere outside of your parked car, and your eyes shoot open. You catch a glimpse of the flashing yellow lights of a security vehicle in the rearview mirror and Bucky groans, quickly powering down the surveillance equipment and dropping it down to the floor at his feet.

            “Just what we needed.” Bucky says sarcastically, with frustration edging his tone as the security guard pulls in closer and closer. He’s about twenty meters behind the car now, moving slowly. You’re sure he’s taking down the make and model of the car, the license plate, and noting the fact that it’s currently turned off. It looks suspicious as hell, you have no doubt. Your mind is moving a million miles a minute as you start shrugging your jacket off of your shoulders and mussing up your hair. “What are you doing?” Bucky asks, raising a brow in your direction.

            “Getting us out of this.” You mumble, glancing back in the rearview mirror one last time. You see the security vehicle coming to a stop a few meters behind, so you move a little quicker. You’re climbing over the center console in a flash, placing your knees on either side of Bucky’s hips as you come to straddle his lap. You hover over him, with your ass pressing against the steering wheel so hard that it’s a wonder you aren’t honking the horn. “Move your seat back.” You whisper harshly, gripping his shoulders with both hands as you stare down at him. Bucky swallows hard and narrows his eyes at you as if he wants to throw you right back into your own seat, but he reaches down with his vibranium hand and starts sliding the driver’s seat backward.

            Bucky can’t stand you. As you lower yourself down to sit on his lap, he keeps his hands stiff, with one resting along the driver’s side door and the other resting over the center console. His hands curl into fists when you lean in and press your lips against his neck. It’s soft and hesitant at first, as if you’re not really sure that it’s an acceptable thing to do. Bucky’s chin tilts upward and to the side instinctively, giving you more access and a clear go-ahead that has your second kiss coming in a little more desperate and firm against the column of his throat. Bucky tenses beneath you but the barely audible groan that slips past his lips has you wondering if he hates this as much as he’s trying to portray. You glance over his shoulder and see the security guard approaching the car now, his eyes scanning the rear windshield as he speaks lowly into a handheld radio.

            “Barnes, I swear to god if you don’t put your hands on me and make this believable…” Your threatening tone has a roguish smile tugging at the corners of Bucky’s mouth, but he refuses to let it take full form. His hands move quickly now, grabbing onto your hips and tugging them downward. He realizes as he basically grinds your clothed center over the semi-hard front of his jeans that he probably shouldn’t have done that. When you feel his partial erection pressing against you, you falter for a moment, your lips stilling against his neck and your breath hitching in your throat. “And here I thought you couldn’t stand me.” You whisper against his skin.

            “I can’t.” He responds dryly, sliding his hands up the sides of your waist and letting his fingers splay out over your ribs.

            “Are you sure about that?” You ask teasingly, swirling your hips in a circle as you press down on his lap. He grunts and lets his right hand glide up your back, moving higher and higher until it’s tangled in the hair at the crown of your head.

            “Pretty damn sure.” Bucky rasps as he uses his hold on your hair to tug your head back. He takes the opportunity he’s given himself to attach his lips to your neck, sucking a nice little red mark right below your ear before smoothing over it with his tongue. The whimper that leaves your lips at the feel of his tongue against your skin is enough to turn his semi-hard cock into a raging hard-on. The bright ray of a flashlight shining through the driver’s window catches your attention, and you feign surprise as the security guard taps on the window with his knuckles one, two, three times. Bucky’s letting go of your waist and hair and pushing the door open as a sly chuckle climbs up his throat.

            “I told her we shouldn’t do this here.” Bucky says smugly, shaking his head as you place your hands on his chest and lean back, glaring down at him. “I can’t keep her off of me.”

            “Could you uh, dismount? Ma’am?” The officer requests. You turn your head and take in the short, balding man. Blush colors his cheeks a deep shade of red and you wonder if this is the most action he’s seen all year. Moving off of Bucky’s lap, you come to stand just outside of the car, crossing your arms over your chest as the cool night air hits you. You regret taking your jacket off earlier.

            “I’m so sorry.” You say ashamedly, hoping you look as faux-embarrassed as you’ve made your voice sound. The man offers you a shy smile, his eyes wrinkling around the corners as Bucky climbs out of the car next. You smirk at the way Bucky tugs his jeans down and adjusts himself, trying his best to disguise the tent beneath the fabric. He glances in your direction, his eyes briefly flitting down to where your arms are crossed over your chest, before shrugging off his leather jacket and tossing it to you. You’re still for a moment, until you realize that it would probably look questionable if you refused the kind gesture in front of the security guard, so you drape the jacket over shoulders and wrap it around your upper body. Your little act was so believable that Bucky only has to spend about one minute chatting back and forth with the security guard before he lets you both off with a warning. He didn’t even ask to see your IDs. Bucky’s pretty good at bullshitting, you’ll give him that.

            Infuriating. As Bucky stands beneath the steady stream of hot water, letting it soak his hair and drip over the curves of his shoulders, it’s the only word on his mind. You’re fucking infuriating. How he continues to end up on missions with you is beyond him. He never thought he would miss the days of having Sam as his partner, but god, he misses them. He might even take Walker on as a partner if it means getting the hell away from you. Actually, he’d rather put up with you than with Walker. But anyone else? He’d happily work with anyone else out in the field.

             Bucky’s just beginning to rinse the shampoo out of his hair when the sound of his bedroom door flying open registers in his mind. He freezes, both hands hovering at the sides of his head as you angrily rush through his room. The bathroom door is thrown open next, and he feels a whoosh of cold air floating over the top of his glass shower door.

            “A hickey?” Your voice is laced with malice. The fiery rage inside of you is stoked by the sound of Bucky laughing behind the fogged-up glass. “Are you sixteen?”

            “You made a pretty little sound when I gave it to you.” He points out, continuing to work the shampoo into his brown locks.

            “I was playing the part.” You argue. You take a moment to glance around his bathroom, noting the way it looks exactly like yours except it’s devoid of any personality. He has dark gray rugs on the floor, a matching dark gray towel hanging over the shower door, and even a dark gray toothbrush sitting in a little white cup beside the sink. Is he allergic to every other color?

            “The security guard couldn’t hear anything inside the car, you don’t have to lie to me. You liked it.” Bucky says coolly. He rinses the suds out of his hair and even with his eyes closed, he’s sure you’re standing there with your arms crossed. It’s your signature pose in his presence.

            “I have shit to do tomorrow, Barnes. Now I have to worry about covering this up.” You complain. You snatch his towel off of the shower door and use it to wipe at the fogged-up mirror over the sink. You’re studying the sizable red mark below your ear in the reflection when Bucky turns off the running water.

            “You have three seconds to put my towel back before I walk out of here without it.” His voice is low and threatening now. You roll your eyes before tossing the towel back up and over the shower door, he grabs it immediately. When he steps out a moment later, he has the towel wrapped firmly around his waist. As he steps into the view of the mirror, your eyes roam over his wet, toned body in the reflection. Your gaze follows a few drops of water as they drip from his hair and trail down the side of his neck. You stand still in front of the mirror, unmoving as Bucky meets your gaze and narrows his eyes, taking a few steps forward to close the space between you. He comes to a stop with his bare chest nearly brushing against your clothed back, and then he moves his hands to grip the edge of the countertop on either side of your hips. Leaning forward the tiniest bit, his lips graze the shell of your ear and every single muscle in your body tenses up. “Why cover it? You don’t want people to know that you like being marked up?”

            “I can’t stand you.” You spit coldly, crossing your arms over your chest and glaring at him in the reflection. Bucky chuckles lowly before letting go of the edge of the countertop and turning away from you, leaving you alone in his steamy bathroom.

            “I can’t stand you either.” He calls back to you.

            When you stomp through his bedroom a moment later, he watches out of the corner of his eye as you disappear out into the hall and let his door fall shut behind you. He knows that on some level, you’re both liars. There are so many things that you can’t stand about each other, and yet, there’s an undeniable force that seems to keep you both coming back. You could simply stay away from each other when you’re in the tower. You live across the hall from each other but the place is so damn big that you could easily avoid each other anytime you’re not working together in the field. He’s sure that somewhere beneath the haze of false hatred and tension, you can feel that incessant pull just as much as he can. That’s why he can’t stand you. That’s precisely the reason why he finds you so infuriating. Because you act like you can’t feel it.

            The Howling Commandos files have taken up nearly every waking second of your time for the past three days. You’ve read every word, combed through every grainy black and white picture, and taken enough notes to fill nearly twenty pages of the little notebook that currently sits open in front of you. And yet, you haven’t been able to formulate a solid plan. That’s why the conference room is packed full of people with varying skillsets and thought processes. Fury sits at the head of the table, leaning back comfortably in his chair as he twirls a black pen in his right. Sam sits to his left, staring down at the same files you’ve studied for hours. Beside him is Sharon, who looks equal parts bored and entirely over the situation at hand. Knowing the things that she’s been up to lately, she probably has more important places to be right now. A few people are littered around the room, leaning against walls and quietly conversing with each other as they try to come up with the best course of action to solve the present issue. You’re seated at the far end of the table, opposite of Fury, tracing the lines of your left palm with your right thumb.

            Bucky stands near the door, with his back pressed against the smooth wall and his arms crossed over his broad chest. He wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t labeled a mandatory meeting. Hell, even with it being labeled mandatory, he considered skipping it. He doesn’t particularly enjoy watching everyone read up on his past life, even if it was the era that he considers his glory days. Being a part of the Howling Commandos was one of the few good things he ever did, but letting himself think about that time only leads him down a darker path. He thinks about how each Howling Commandos mission that he was a part of brought him closer and closer to getting captured, to losing his arm, to losing himself. Shaking his head, Bucky pushes away from the wall and stands straight, he wonders if anyone will notice him slipping out the door.

            “I don’t like time travel.” Fury says evenly, keeping his eyes on the pen in his hand as he twirls it around just above the surface of the conference room table. Bucky freezes, his eyes narrowing as he looks to Fury. Everyone in the room halts, all eyes moving in the same direction to follow the commanding voice. “I don’t like time travel at all. It’s risky and it tends to fuck things up in the long run.” Fury takes a moment to cast his eyes around the room, taking in each and every person present. After making the first round, he turns his head to the right and focuses on Bucky. “Unfortunately, I think this situation calls for something risky.”

            Goosebumps spread over the surface of your skin and you tense in your seat. You follow Fury’s gaze and your eyes land on Bucky, who stands tall beside the door. His arms hang still at his sides, and for once, his vibranium arm isn’t hidden behind a long shirt sleeve or leather jacket. The black and gold glints in the fluorescent lighting of the room, drawing attention like a bright red flower draws bees.

            “The intel that we need from a currently non-existent HYDRA base doesn’t exist. The Howling Commandos weren’t tasked with collecting evidence or documenting what they found at each base.” Fury continues. Bucky swallows hard but maintains eye contact. He already doesn’t like where this is going. “So, we send someone back in time to get what we need.”

            As tension rises in the room and the air begins to feel like its crackling with anticipation, Fury lays out the only two potential plans he can think of. The first plan is automatically a no, because of how risky it is to send a full team back in time. The first plan would’ve been to send someone back in time to infiltrate a specific HYDRA base moments before the Howling Commandos take it out, so the intel can be gathered and brought back to the present. But the second plan is the one that has discussion raging around the conference room.

            “Steve wouldn’t trust someone he’s just met, we’d need to get through to Peggy first, then she can sway him and the rest of the Howling Commandos.” Sharon argues, leaning forward and clasping her hands together over the table. Your eyes flit over to her as her blonde hair falls over one shoulder and obscures the side of her face. She’s right, 1940s Steve Rogers wouldn’t even come close to trusting a new person in the midst of a war, let alone one who’s so obviously from the wrong time period. You see Sam laughing to himself further down the table and you’re sure he’s remembering the story Steve used to tell of his past self attempting to kick his present self’s ass during his time travel stint.

            “Peggy wouldn’t be wholly trusting either.” Fury points out, barely looking up from the surface of the table before him. “We need to get Peggy and at least one of the Howling Commandos on our side for this to work. The rest will follow.”

            “What if we go at this from a slightly different angle?” Torres asks. He stands a few feet behind your seat, leaning against the wall as his thumbs rapid-fire away at the phone in clutched in his hands. Everyone turns their attention to him and he finally looks up, blinking once before clicking the phone off and sliding it into the back pocket of his jeans.

            “We’re listening.” Fury says, his interest clearly piqued.

            “We pick someone that Peggy could relate to, someone she would like, maybe become fast friends with.” He starts slowly, letting his gaze roam over each person in the room as he speaks. His eyes stop when he reaches Bucky, and you don’t have to look over your shoulder to know that Bucky’s staring right back at him. “And that same person needs to be someone Bucky would like, someone he’d be drawn to. Steve would trust Bucky’s judgement, and at least by choosing to make Bucky the center of this, we have the advantage of having him right here.”

            It’s silent for a beat as the idea is mulled over. You turn around and look back to Fury, watching as his face shifts from a blank, almost bored expression to a thoughtful one. He nods slowly before tucking the pen he’s been twirling around into the pocket of his jacket.

            “Sergeant Barnes…” Fury’s eyes shift to his right, landing on the stiff super soldier who looks like he’d rather be anywhere but here right now. “Does that sound like a feasible plan?” It feels as though everyone is collectively holding in a breath as Bucky remains silent. You can tell he’s thinking, you can almost see the gears turning behind his blue eyes as he zeroes in on Fury. A small nod from him is all it takes to get the conversation churning around the room again. He's in.

            “I can be in and out and have this whole thing finished within just a few seconds of passing time here, I need maybe two days in the past.” Sharon says calmly, leaning back in her seat as she tucks a stray lock of blonde hair behind one ear. You really don’t even know why the discussion is still ongoing at this point. Out of everyone left in the conference room, the majority is most definitely in favor of sending Sharon back in time for the mission. It’s not like there were many other options. You didn’t exactly volunteer yourself and as of right now, you and Sharon are the only women on the team. Sure, Fury could’ve shopped around the agency a bit and found a few other suitable agents to screen for the task at hand, but Sharon seems pretty set on handling it herself.

            “Okay, say you gain Peggy’s trust easily. What about Bucky? What’s your plan for getting him on your side?” Sam asks with a raised brow. The room grows quiet and all eyes land on Sharon as she filters through the possible methods she could use. Your eyes flit over to where Bucky is still leaning against the wall by the door, looking slightly less disinterested in the conversation than he was earlier. He’s studying Sharon with an unreadable expression painted on his face. Instinctively, your hand lifts up to the healing hickey that’s hidden beneath a layer of concealer and foundation right below your ear. For the briefest moment, he turns his head and tracks your movement, his eyes roaming down to the tips of your fingers as they brush over the skin of your neck. You drop your hand in an instant and his blue eyes meet yours. You can feel the arrogance radiating off of him and you roll your eyes before looking back to Sharon. You swear you hear Bucky chuckle under his breath, but when you glance around the room, no one else seems to have heard a thing.

            “I just put on a pretty outfit and dance with him. It can’t be that hard to woo a soldier in his bachelor phase.” Sharon laughs out. A few softer laughs ring out around the table, but Torres’s next question quiets everyone.

            “Bucky, what kind of girl would you have asked to dance back in the forties?”

            You think it must be Bucky’s lack of an immediate response that sucks the air out of the room. It’s so quiet you can hear the sound of your own heart beating in your ears, even though it’s beating at a normal rate and rhythm. You steal a look at Bucky once again, who’s face is cast downward at the floor. He seems to find his shoes overly interesting all of a sudden. Everyone’s staring at him.

            Bucky’s mind is churning, running through all of the girls he ever shared a moment with back in his golden days. He has a type in more ways than one. It’s not just a physical type. He’s always been drawn to women with certain personality traits, women with certain ways of carrying themselves, certain ways they flirt. One wouldn’t think he was picky with the number of girls he found himself in the company of back in the day, but he damn sure was. And he still is. That’s why his heart beats a little harder, vibrating against his ribcage as he lets out a deep breath and finally looks up. He can feel everyone’s eyes on him, but he focuses in on the one person that he’s sure his younger self will trust. Bucky’s staring right at you.

            “It needs to be you.” He says firmly, fixing his gaze on your face as the color drains from it. If the air hadn’t been sucked out of the room when Torres first asked a question, it sure as hell would’ve been now. Your breath is hitched in your throat and the skin over your hidden hickey suddenly feels like it’s on fire. No, scratch that. Every inch of your skin feels like it’s on fire. Color returns to your cheeks as quickly as it first disappeared, and suddenly, you’re flushed pink.

            “Me?” The word leaves your lips as an unintended whisper, but you can’t be bothered to clear your throat and try again. You know he heard you. He nods slightly, looking quite sure of himself, but his expression is still unreadable and it’s driving you mad.

            “Her?” Sharon questions, narrowing her eyes at you and pursing her lips. She’s looking at you in disbelief, but not because it’s questionable that you’d be someone’s type. She’s looking at you like that because she knows, like everyone knows, that you and Bucky are at each other’s throats more often than not. Why would that be any different with a younger version of himself? The last thing the team needs is you getting sent back in time to argue with yet another version of Bucky Barnes.

            “Her.” Bucky shrugs, shooting Sharon a look that easily shuts her up. She leans back in her seat once more and crosses her arms over her chest, indicating that she doesn’t like where this is going.

            “Are you sure?” Sam asks with a raised brow, his eyes flitting between you and Bucky. Bucky pushes himself away from the wall and turns to face the door that leads out into the hall. As his flesh hand wraps around the door handle, he finds himself biting down on the inside of his cheek. He’s sure that his younger self will be drawn to you, that he’ll trust you, yeah. Is he sure that this is a good idea? Hell no.

            “It’s her.” Bucky confirms. Then, he walks out of the conference room as if he didn’t just drop a fucking bomb in the middle of the goddamn gunmetal table. What the hell does he mean it’s you?

            Your silence is unsettling. Bucky thought you might come storming into the gym during his evening workout, ready to give him a violently worded piece of your mind after he left the conference room earlier, but you never did. Then, while a mix of sweat and suds spilled down the drain of his shower, he listened intently for the sound of his bedroom door flying open, but it never came. He sits on the side of his bed in the dim light of a lamp, thumbing through the little red notebook that once belonged to Steve. He isn’t digesting its contents. Really, he isn’t even skimming over the words that are written in pencil before him. He’s zoned out as he strains his ears to listen for you across the hall. He knows you’re in your room. It’s late, just a bit past midnight now, and you’re always tucked away in there by ten. But you’re not asleep, that’s for damn certain. He can hear the occasional sound of your footsteps against the soft rug you have spread over your bedroom floor. Every few minutes, he hears an uncharacteristic scuffling sound, following by a thud. What the hell are you doing over there?

            He waits a moment longer before his curiosity and impatience get the best of him, and then he’s tossing the notebook onto his bed and taking long strides toward the hall. If you won’t come to him to argue about today’s conference room situation, about what’s now lingering on the horizon, then he’ll go to you. Arguing about it will be far better than sitting around while you do whatever the hell sort of noisy thing it is you’re doing over there right now, Bucky thinks.

            In retrospect, he should’ve knocked. By the time he’s throwing your unlocked door open and taking the first step into your room, he’s already sporting a half-hard cock beneath the all-too-thin fabric of his sweats and boxers. The dog tags hanging against his bare chest give away the increased rate of his breaths as his eyes skate over you. You’re on your hands and knees in the center of the room, with your cheeks flushed pink and your oversized t-shirt making it look like you’re not wearing anything else. As you stare up at Bucky, both of you frozen in place, you’re acutely aware of the compromising position he’s found you in. You sit back on your knees quickly, dropping the last few stray rings into the small jewelry tray in your left hand.

            “What the hell, Bucky?” You look up at him with a mix of confusion and annoyance in your eyes as the rings clink against the ceramic tray. Bucky swallows hard as he stares down at you, trying to figure out what the fuck you’re doing in the middle of the floor. His gaze lands on one single golden ring glinting in the low light of your room and your eyes follow his.

            “You missed one.” He says lowly. You reach out and pick it up with your thumb and index finger before setting it on the small tray along with the rest. “What are you doing?”

            “Rearranging.” You respond dryly. You stand carefully, making sure not to dump all of your rings out a second time, before crossing the room and setting the tray on your recently moved vanity. Bucky’s only been in your room once or twice before, but he notices the changes immediately. You’ve moved your vanity from the right side of the room to the left. The chair you used to have sitting near the window now sits in a corner near the bed. A few other small pieces of furniture are strewn about haphazardly, as if you haven’t quite decided where you want them yet.

            “At midnight?” Bucky raises a brow, catching your eyes as you turn to face him once more.

            “What are you doing in my room, Bucky?” In his peripheral vision, he sees the slight reflection of light in one last piece of jewelry on the floor. It’s just a foot in front of him, so he steps further into the room, letting the door fall shut behind him as he bends down and scoops the rose gold ring up in his palm.

            “You haven’t said anything since the team meeting earlier today.” He points out. He studies the small ring in his hand, realizing for the first time just how much smaller your hands are than his. You don’t make a move to take it from him, so he continues fiddling with it as he stands in the middle of your room.

            “You walked out.” You remind him. You turn your back to him and begin straightening up a few things on your vanity. It’s weird to have him in your room like this. Your skin feels warm while the air in the room feels cold. Your oversized t-shirt feels too small while his presence feels much too large.

            “I didn’t have anything else to say.” Bucky takes a few more steps forward and turns, bending at the knees to sit on the foot of your nicely made bed. You watch him in the reflection of your vanity mirror, wondering why the hell he seems so comfortable in your room.

            “And I should? What do you want me to say?”

            “Anything.” His single-word response makes the air in the room feel even icier, and suddenly, you’re wishing you’d put on sweats tonight. A deep breath rattles in your chest before you turn around to face him.

            “It’s not me.” You say evenly. You cross your arms over your chest and focus on his face as he stares back at you. He’s still fiddling with the ring, running the pad of his thumb back and forth over it mindlessly.

            “It’s you.” He sighs. He almost seems tired with the conversation, which is frustrating considering he’s the one who came in here and started it.

            “It’s not, and having me deal with two of you is a recipe for disaster. I can barely handle one Bucky Barnes in this century. Sharon’s the better choice.”

            “It’s not Sharon.”

            “Bucky—”

            “It’s you. I don’t know what you need me to say or do to convince you, but it’s you. The sooner you accept it, the sooner we can start making a plan and preparing for the mission.”

            His words swirl around in your head, bouncing off of the walls of your mind like it’s a fucking pinball machine. It’s not you. You’re pretty damn sure that what 1940s Bucky Barnes needs is anything but you. Maybe Bucky’s so far removed from his younger self that he just doesn’t realize how wrong you are for this mission. He’s gotten too used to working with you in the field lately and he doesn’t want to figure things out in the field with a new partner. Whatever his reasoning is, you need him to figure his shit out before you’re sent back in time to fuck up the op.

            “You can’t convince me.” You reply stubbornly, narrowing your eyes at him. “Sharon is right for this mission and everyone sees that but you.” When he glances up at you this time, his eyes settle on the light pink mark beneath your ear. His mark.

            “You’re my type.” The words slip past his lips before he can stop them, and he’s gripping the ring tightly in his flesh fist.

            “What?”

            “I’m not saying it again.” He decides, pushing himself up to stand. You’re frozen in stunned silence, your eyes wide. You’re sure you’re about to watch him walk out the door after dropping his second bomb of the day, but he turns to face you. He’s moving forward before you have a chance to do or say a damn thing. Bucky doesn’t stop until your arms are dropping down to your sides and his hands are resting on your hips. He walks you backward one, two steps, until your ass hits the edge of the vanity and a gasp parts your lips.

“There was this bar in London, the Whip and Fiddle. I went there with Steve and the guys a few times.” Bucky starts. His tone is low and gravelly and his lips are so close to yours that they nearly touch with every word he speaks. He’s looking down into your eyes with an intense look, a look that keeps you firmly in place, along with his hold on your hips and his muscular frame pressed partially against your front. A shiver runs down your spine, but you stay silent, waiting for him to continue. Bucky’s right hand glides upward, following the curve of your body until his fingertips are ghosting over the side of your neck. He presses his thumb against your healing hickey lightly, feeling you tense against him at the touch. “If younger me saw you walk into that bar, even with all of the noise and the low lights, he’d fucking swoon. It would all be over. The chasing girls around, only ever learning first names and hometowns, the bachelor shit. It would be over. He’d follow you anywhere.”

“Bucky—”

            “It’s you. Not Sharon, not anyone else damn it, it’s you.” His vibranium hand tightens over your hip and his right hand slides further back behind your head. His fingers tangle in your hair but it’s a gentle, careful act. You tilt your head up and take in his serious expression. His brows are furrowed and his gaze heats your face as he stares down at you. He isn’t fucking with you. He isn’t trying to get in your head or manipulate you into being a part of this mission. He means every word of what he’s saying right now and it scares the shit out of you. You move quick, drawing your arms up between the two of you and pressing your palms flat against his bare chest. You shove him back hard, forcing him to take one big step away from you. He doesn’t look surprised at all, and his expression never shifts, the seriousness never leaves his face.

            “You can’t stand me.” You remind him, though the words feel empty as you say them. You’re questioning the notion, as if he hasn’t said those words himself a hundred times before.

            “I can’t.” He agrees, nodding slowly. You take a deep, shaky breath in and let it out through your teeth. “But for some reason, it’s still you.”

            You stand still, with the edge of the vanity still digging into your ass and your chest heaving as Bucky turns his back to you and heads for the foot of your bed. You watch through narrowed eyes as he leans over and scoops up the ring he left sitting there. He straightens up and looks down at the small shiny object held precariously between his thumb and forefinger.

            “Do you know how to dance?” The question rolls off of his tongue so casually that for a moment, you wonder if anything that just happened really happened. Did he not have you pushed up against the vanity only seconds ago? Was he not touching you and leaning in close like you meant something to him after months of acting like you’re nothing more than his shit-giving coworker?

            “What?” You nearly choke on the word. Your throat is so dry after seemingly forgetting to swallow at all in his presence.

            “Do you know how to dance?” He repeats, craning his neck to the side to look at you.

            “What the hell does—”

            “He’s going to ask you to dance, and you’ll have to say yes.” Bucky says matter-of-factly. You find it a little odd that he refers to his younger self as if he’s someone else, but you don’t comment on it. “I can teach you.”

            “Fine.” Bucky freezes at your quick and unexpected caving. He raises an eyebrow at you, still fiddling with the ring between his fingers. “Help me move my dresser.” Your eyes dart over to the large piece of furniture across the room and Bucky’s gaze follows. He looks at it for a second as the realization dawns that you’re really asking for manual labor in exchange for agreeing to go back in time for this mission. The fact that you’re going to do it, that you’re going to be the one who does this with him, leaves an unfamiliar calmness settling inside of him and he lets out a deep breath.

            The sounds of furniture scuffling around the room and soft thuds carry on for the next half hour as Bucky uses the serum in his veins to set your room up just how you want it. When everything is finished and you seem satisfied, he walks over to your vanity and drops the last ring into the ceramic tray. Your eyes rake over his bare back, taking in the way there isn’t even the slightest sheen of sweat present on his smooth skin. You should’ve asked him to move your furniture two hours ago when you first started doing it yourself. If you’d known it was so damn easy for him, you might’ve even said please.

            “You should probably lock your door at night.” Bucky says as he heads toward it. He wraps his hand around the door handle and you watch as the muscles of his flesh arm ripple slightly.

            “Why? Are you going to keep barging in?”

            “You’ve done that a lot more than I have.” He points out, tugging the door open to reveal the darkened hallway beyond.

            “So, start locking yours then.” You retort. He can hear you rolling your eyes. A small smile plays on his lips as he steps out into the hall and runs a hand through his messy hair, keeping his back to you.

            “My door’s always open for you, sweetheart.”

            “Fuck you, Barnes.” You say coldly, just as the door clicks shut between the two of you.

            You can’t stand him.

            Sam doesn’t let things go easily. Sure, if he was really pushing Bucky’s buttons, he might back off a bit, but he hasn’t gone too far yet. Yet.

            “I just want to know how you can go from barely getting along with the woman to demanding that she’s the one for your little forties self.” Sam says through a smirk. He falls into step next to Bucky as the two of them jog through the heavily wooded trails behind the tower.

            “If you’re going to keep talking about this, you can finish the run alone.” Bucky threatens, shooting Sam a deathly sideways glare.

            “I’ve been telling you for months that there was something between the two of you, and you shot it down every time. I don’t get to gloat now?”

            “There’s nothing to gloat about. There isn’t anything between us besides this mission. You’re reading too far into shit, Sam.”

            “That super soldier serum didn’t teach you how to be a convincing liar, huh?”

            “I’ll see you back at the tower.” Bucky says flatly, immediately picking up his pace to an ungodly speed and leaving Sam behind in literal dust.

            Bucky’s ears are filled with the sounds of his feet pounding against the dry dirt path below and his own steady, even breaths as he speeds along the trail. The mission is the only thing between you, he tells himself. There isn’t anything else. As much as he wants there to be, as much as he feels something there, you fight against the tension like it suffocates you. You fight against it tooth and nail, pushing Bucky away every time you think he might be getting a little closer to you. Is it just him? If it was someone else running dangerous ops with you, saving your ass regularly, and sitting through stake-outs with you late at night, would you push them away just as hard? Or is it just because that guy is Bucky?

            Thunder rumbles in the distance, tearing Bucky away from his troubling train of thought momentarily. He glances up through the crowded tree branches and catches sight of the gray sky above. He can smell rain in the air, so he picks up the pace a little more, intent on beating it.

            He can still feel the curve of your hip against his vibranium hand and the way every muscle in your body tensed up when he pressed his thumb against the mark on your neck last night. Fuck. Bucky feels beads of sweat forming around his hairline, and it’s not from the hellish pace he’s bent on keeping. His mind falls even further back to that last stakeout. The memory of you moving over the center console of the car and seating yourself on his lap so effortlessly plays out in front of him like a movie. He doesn’t even realize how fast he’s running until the tower comes into view a whole lot sooner than he expected it to. With sweat dripping down the back of his neck, he tugs his shirt off and scans his palm at the back entrance to the gym.

            He can feel the weight of your body settling over him, feel your thighs pressing against either of his hips as you straddle his lap. Bucky bites down on his bottom lip as he tugs the door open and glances over his shoulder for any sign of Sam. He lets the door fall closed behind him when he realizes that he’s probably still a couple of miles back in the woods. Lifting the t-shirt that’s hanging from his right hand, Bucky uses it to wipe the sweat from his brow and neck. Fuck you. Fuck you for acting like you’re oblivious to whatever the hell has been brewing between the two of you for months now. It’s right in front of your face and yet you act like you can’t see a damn thing, like you don’t feel a damn thing. Fuck you for giving Bucky just enough of you to fantasize about but not enough to feel satisfied. He heads straight for the locker room, shoving the door open hard as he uses one hand to untie the drawstring of his shorts.

            He won’t let himself do what he needs to do. He comes to stand in front of the mirror, placing his hands on the edge of the sink as he drops his head and sucks in a deep breath. He won’t do it. Bucky lifts his head a bit, looking his reflection in the eye for a moment before flicking the faucet on and splashing a handful of cold water against his flushed face.

            Fuck. He’s going to do it. He’s rushing for one of the showers within the next second, turning the hot water on just before he shoves his shorts and boxers down. He steps out of them, already mentally chastising himself for what he’s about to do.

            He’s only been in the shower for a minute when heat begins to spread down his spine, sending a warmth over the surface of his skin and pushing him to lean forward. He rests his forehead against the cold tile wall of the shower, telling himself that this is pathetic. His flesh hand works quickly, moving back and forth while staying wrapped tightly around the shaft of his cock. A shaky breath snakes past his lips as his eyes flutter closed and his hips piston forward once, twice, three times. He fucks his hand roughly, letting out a low groan when the pad of his thumb brushes against the sensitive spot on the underside of the head of his cock. He hates that this is what he’s resorted to. Never once has he left himself do this with you on his mind. It feels shameful, even offensive. You’d kick his ass if you ever found out, he’s fucking sure of that. Still, he continues on, working himself up until he’s teetering on the edge of bliss. It’s the memory of you on his lap in that damn care, letting him tug on your hair and tilt your head back so he could suck on your neck, that almost finishes him. His movements grow sloppy and his breaths come out a little more ragged. He replays the sweet little sound you made when he left that hickey on your skin, when he left his mark on you.

            “Shit.” Bucky groans, scrunching his eyes shut even tighter and stroking his cock a little harder. A shudder races through him and he bangs his vibranium fist against the shower wall just as his climax hits. He opens his eyes and watches as ropes of cum paint the tiles. The steamy shower water washes it all away and carries it down the drain within seconds. What a waste.

            You’ve been lying on your stomach in bed ever since you woke up, watching every video you can find that depicts anything remotely close to dancing in the forties. It’s stressing you the hell out. How long do you have to learn this shit? Does Bucky even remember how to do this? You can’t picture him doing something so…lighthearted.

            You roll over onto your back, tossing your phone to the opposite side of the bed before pressing the heels of your hands into your eyes and letting out a frustrated groan. Why the hell did you agree to this? Oh, right. The memory of last night starts playing in your mind on a loop. Bucky barged into your room like he had every right to. He sat on your bed. He pushed you up against the vanity and…and did absolutely nothing. So, why does your heart race merely at the memory? If it was nothing, why did it feel like something? You let out a louder groan and run your hands through your messy hair, tugging at it a little and feeling the slight stretch of your scalp. You’re thinking about pulling the covers over your face and going back to sleep for the rest of the rainy morning, but your train of thought shifts over to the contents of the communal fridge in the kitchen down the hall.

            Bucky’s chosen to avoid you today. If what he did in the shower half an hour ago is any indication of the dangerous territory that he’s put himself in, he knows he needs to pump the brakes now. So, he stands in the kitchen, leaning against the edge of the countertop as he sips on a glass of orange juice in near-silence. The sounds of rolling thunder and heavy rain are all he can hear as he tries to ignore the guilt eating away at him. He really fucked his hand simply at the memory of being close to you last night. He’s in way too fucking deep and he needs to get a grip before this mission really starts. Maybe he should’ve just let it be Sharon. She probably could’ve pulled it off. Younger Bucky wasn’t really all that picky if he’d had a few drinks, and Sharon could’ve easily been coached to put on a personality that Bucky would’ve been drawn to. But no, he had to make sure it was you. God, he’s kicking himself for it all now.

            He stiffens when he hears your door open down the hall, fighting against the urge to make a dash for the elevator just to avoid you. He glances at the time displayed over the stovetop. It’s still too early to get ready and rush off for his therapy session, but maybe if he drives really slowly Dr. Raynor won’t have to question why he’s there an hour and a half ahead of time. Bucky lets out a heavy sigh as your footsteps patter down the hall in the distance. He’s being dramatic. He knows that. He had a moment of weakness in the shower this morning and it was his own fault. He shouldn’t have let his thoughts carry him that far and he sure as hell shouldn’t have been in your room doing and saying the things he did and said last night.

            When you appear in the main living area, you’re still wearing that damn oversized t-shirt and distinct lack of pants that you were last night, and Bucky stifles a frustrated groan. His eyes roam over your body so quickly that you don’t even notice the look as you enter the kitchen and give him a small nod. You tug the fridge open and rummage around for a few seconds as your mind races. Your heart is beating wildly in your chest, you can feel warmth creeping into your cheeks, coloring them pink. You hate this. Why the hell did he decide to flip a switch this week? You were fine barely getting along, just giving each other shit in the field and then coming home after missions and going your separate ways for the most part. Why did he have to say all of that shit about it being you that his younger self would want?

            Your appetite dissipates more and more with each passing second, until suddenly you’re shutting the fridge and taking a step back. You see Bucky out of the corner of your eye, sipping on an almost empty glass of orange juice as he studies you.

            “You’re manipulative.” You say lowly, crossing your arms over your chest as you turn to face him. He raises a brow at you and takes another sip from his glass, but says nothing in response. “What you did last night wasn’t fair.”

            “Moving your furniture around?” He questions, keeping that one brow raised. You can tell by the look in his eyes that he’s being facetious and it pisses you off. Your tongue presses against the inside of your cheek as you look him over. He’s clearly fresh out of the shower with messy, damp hair. He’s dressed in dark gray sweats and a navy blue t-shirt that hugs the muscles of his upper body a little too snugly for your liking.

            You could just respond to his question with a verbal answer, you know that. You could just open your mouth and remind him about what it was that he did last night that you’re referring to as being unfair and manipulative. But your feet carry you forward. You move slowly, giving him a multitude of opportunities to step around you and leave the kitchen unscathed. Bucky remains planted there, leaning against the kitchen counter with the glass in his hand. When you’re only a foot away from him, you reach out with your right hand and take hold of the glass. He watches you carefully, with his head slightly cocked to the side as your grip tightens and his loosens. When he lets you fully take the glass from his hand, you lift it to your lips and swallow the last sip of orange juice. Bucky’s cock twitches beneath the fabric of his sweats as he watches your lips retreat from the exact spot that his once pressed against the glass. He bites down on the inside of his cheek in an attempt to dissuade the hardening of his already tired cock.

            “Do you really think I’m talking about you moving my furniture around?” You ask in a whisper, taking one more step forward until your chest is nearly brushing against his. You reach past him with your right arm and set the glass on the countertop behind him, holding your breath as your bottom lip comes within a centimeter of his chin. You keep your head tilted up, watching his eyes as the distance between you diminishes. “I couldn’t possibly be talking about you pushing me up against the vanity and putting your hands on me, right?” His eyes flutter closed and you smirk, feeling satisfied with the effect that you’re clearly having on him. You let both of your hands rest against the edge of the countertop on either side of him and suddenly you’re close enough that when you stop tilting your head upward, the tip of your nose is threatening to brush against the column of his throat.

            “Did that do something for you?” His words come out slightly raspy and it sends an unfamiliar warmth surging low in your stomach. You pull your head back a couple of inches and look up at him through your lashes, tilting your head to the side.

            “Not a damn thing.” You lie. He chuckles darkly and lets out a breath that fans across your face. A smug smile takes over his features and you feel your confidence wavering.

            “Right.” He says absently, as his flesh hand begins to move. You can feel your heart rate doubling as you anticipate his touch, and it infuriates you. Since when does he get this kind of physiological reaction from your body? As his fingertips make light contact with the side of your neck, you inhale sharply and let your eyes fall closed. You want so badly to remain stoic, to look as unbothered as ever as his fingers ghost over the now mostly invisible hickey that he left days ago, but you fail.

            Bucky knows that when he presses his thumb against that spot, just like he did last night, your body will tense up. Even with the alarm bells going off inside his head, with that little voice inside of him screaming for him to run, to do anything but the stupid thing he’s about to do, he can’t help himself. His wraps his vibranium around your waist and presses his cool metal palm against the small of your back before tugging you forward. The moment your chest collides with his, he pushes the pad of his thumb against that spot beneath your ear and revels in the feeling of your body tensing against his. Fuck. He’s in deep, but he wishes he was in so much deeper.

            “Not a damn thing, hm?” He teases, looking down at you as your eyes flutter open.

            “I really can’t stand you.” You retort, but you make no move to get out of his hold. You’re sure that he can feel the dangerously high rate that your heart’s beating at, but still, you stay there against him.

            “I know.” He smirks. He lets his thumb trail down the side of your neck until it reaches your collarbone, and then he moves it right back up to the spot where he first marked you. “But you agreed to be a part of the mission anyway, so you’re stuck with me for now.”

            “I still think it’s a bad idea.” You point out. You’re coming to your senses now, realizing just how compromising of a position you’re both in right now and how beyond stupid and careless this is. What are you thinking? You pull your hands up between your two bodies and place your palms against the soft blue fabric of his shirt, getting ready to push yourself away from him. He knows what you’re about to do so he tightens his vibranium arm around your waist and slides his flesh hand back to tangle in your hair.

            “I didn’t convince you last night?” He asks roughly, narrowing his eyes at you as if he’s slightly annoyed. You shake your head and push lightly against his chest, not putting any real effort behind your movement. He holds you impossibly tighter against his chest before dipping his head down toward your neck.

            “Bucky.” You breathe his name out softly, with no other words coming to your mind.

He’s feral. He’s fucking feral. He’s fighting with every ounce of restraint that he possesses to keep from leaving five more marks on the skin of your neck, just to replace the one that’s now faded from there. It’s as if he didn’t fuck his hand to completion less than an hour ago, because his cock sure seems to have forgotten. He bites down on his bottom lip before nudging the tip of his nose against the column of your throat. God, he wants to fucking taste you.

“You know where to find me if you need more convincing.” He says lowly, nipping at your neck one single time before releasing you from his grip and pushing past you. He needs to get the fuck out of here.

            You spend the rest of Saturday morning in bed, just like you’d planned, though you didn’t get much sleep. You laid there under the covers, lazily scrolling through your phone, until you heard Bucky’s door opening, closing, and then locking right before he headed for the elevator down the hall. With him out of the tower, you finally felt like you could breathe. So, that’s what you did. You laid in bed and breathed. You took a nice, deep breath in as you rolled over onto your back and let your hand snake down beneath the waistband of your panties. You let a long breath out as you ran your fingertips through the wetness that had gathered along your folds. Then, you drew a shaky breath in as you circled your middle and ring fingers over your clit, using your own arousal as lube. You don’t feel good about what you did to yourself the moment Bucky was out of earshot. You don’t feel good about pretending that your hand was really his. You really don’t feel good about his name being on the tip of your tongue as an orgasm shook you to your core. But you feel good about the fact that you didn’t actually say his name out loud. That’s something, right?

            As you put the final finishing touches on your makeup look for the night, you force yourself to push Bucky Barnes far out of reach of your mind. You know that you’ll have to deal with him enough come Monday, when there’s another team meeting about the mission, but for now, you tell yourself that he’s off limits. He’s off limits and you get to spend the night thinking about anyone and anything else. Maybe that’s exactly what you should do. Think about anyone else.

            The bar that Sharon chose for tonight is dimly lit and overly full of patrons. You feel like you touch a minimum of three people every time you try to take a step in any direction, so you settle into a cramped booth with your drink and good company, hoping you can get away with sitting there for at least the next hour while the crowd thins out.

            “You could’ve picked a busier place.” Maria remarks sarcastically, shooting Sharon an annoyed look as they both slide into their seats across from you. You take a long sip of your drink before setting it down on the wooden surface of the table and double-checking that nothing was swiped from your clutch on your way through the bustling bar.

            “You need to get used to being around normal people, Maria.” Sharon wiggles her eyebrows. “No gods or mutants or super soldiers, just good old fashioned normal men.”

            “I came here under the impression that this was going to be a girls night.” Maria says as she lifts her drink up to her lips. A mischievous look takes over Sharon’s face and her eyes glimmer as she looks between you both.

            “A girls night where all the girls go home with a plus one.”

            “Oh, fuck off, Sharon.” Maria scoffs, shoving her shoulder playfully. Sharon snorts and casts her gaze around the crowded bar, seemingly browsing the vast menu of eligible men. As you follow her line of sight, you notice that there are significantly more men than women here. Including the three of you, you count maybe a total of ten women versus at least fifty men.

            “Sharon…” You start, narrowing your eyes as you face her.

            “Maybe I chose a bar that’s currently having their weekly guys night.” Knowing that both you and Maria are ready to start in on her, Sharon raises a hand and closes her eyes. “But I did it with a good heart. You both need to get laid.”

            As much as you want to kick her from underneath the table, you know she’s right. You shake your head as you take another long sip from your drink, and wonder just how many of these you might need before you agree to go home with one of the strangers in this bar.

            “I don’t think I’m the one that needs to get laid tonight.” Maria says quietly, casting a pointed look in your direction. Your eyes widen at her insinuation.

            “Why are you looking at me when you say that?”

            “You’re about to spend a whole lot of time with not one, but two Bucky Barnes.” She responds. Sharon nods eagerly, suddenly leaning forward and resting her elbows on the table as she joins Sharon in staring you down.

            “You need to fuck someone and clear your system before this mission takes off. Make sure you’re going into it with an empty tank, you know?” You’re sure that Sharon’s mostly joking, but there’s still an air of seriousness to her words.

            “You both think that I’d be tempted by him?” You raise an eyebrow at both of the women before you. They share an indecipherable look between themselves before all eyes are back on you.

            “Aren’t we all?”

            Bucky doesn’t usually pick whiskey. Nowadays he’s more of a beer kind of guy. Especially when he wants to drink a lot and reminisce about the times when he could get drunk. The feel of a cold glass bottle in his hand and the lip of it pressing against his mouth with each sip reminds him of a time when just a few of those would do him in. But tonight, he’s drinking Four Roses.

            As he swirls the amber liquid around in his glass, he scans the packed bar. The crowd is thick, with men heavily outnumbering and swarming the few women that are milling about.

            “I didn’t take you three for the guy’s night type.” Maria’s familiar voice sounds from behind Bucky’s left shoulder. He turns in unison with Sam and Torres. When their backs are to the bar, they all come face to face with Maria Hill. Bucky gives her a subtle up-and-down look, feeling a bit odd seeing her in an outfit that doesn’t resemble anything tactical for once.

            “I wouldn’t have taken you for the guy’s night type either.” Sam laughs out before taking a sip of his beer.

            “Trust me, I’m not.” Maria responds with a slight grimace, casting a glance over her shoulder in the general direction of where she came from. Bucky follows her gaze and spots a few booths off to a side wall, but it’s too dim for him to tell which one she might be looking to. He focuses back on her as she pushes between him and Sam to get to the bar. She orders three different drinks in quick succession, but only the last one catches Bucky’s attention. It’s your drink. “Is that you guys that I feel staring or is it the rest of the sleazy men in this place?” Maria asks jokingly, looking over her shoulder again. Sam and Torres both laugh, but Bucky’s barely paying any attention. He’s scanning the room again, studying each face with a watchful eye as he searches for you. “They’re in the third booth against the far left wall.” Maria says reluctantly, when she catches the look in Bucky’s eye. She may find him attractive as hell, like everyone else does, but she knows he’s essentially off the market. He may hide it well with the constant bickering and brooding façade, but he’s so fucking into you. Maria knows it as well as anybody else. Well, anybody but you. Sometimes she wonders if Bucky himself even knows it.

            Bucky shoots Maria a sideways look and she shakes her head.

            “They won’t be happy that you guys are crashing girls’ night.” She clicks her tongue disapprovingly, just as the bartender starts working on her drinks.

            “Oh, come on. They’ll be thrilled.” Sam jokes, immediately heading off in the direction of the booth Maria described. Torres stays with her, but Bucky follows Sam closely. He should be running in the opposite direction. He knows it’d be in his best interest to down the rest of his whiskey and run right out the door. And yet, his feet carry him forward like his entire goal since this morning hasn’t been to avoid you.

            You were having a half-decent night before you laid eyes on Bucky Barnes. When he comes into view, wearing one of his signature leather jackets and dark gloves, your heart skips a beat. You’re sure it’s skipping a beat out of protest rather than anything more meaningful, but still, it skips a damn beat. You don’t even hear Sam’s initial greeting, or the immediate banter that he and Sharon get into the moment he’s within earshot of the table. In fact, every single sound in the bar seems muffled all of a sudden. He’s staring at you. Bucky’s looking right into your eyes as he hovers near the end of the table, with his expression as bored and unreadable as ever.

            The intense eye contact is only broken when Maria and Torres appear, and she uses her shoulder to nudge Bucky out of the way so she can set the three drinks down. As soon as she slides the small glass in front of you, the din of the bar is loud again and you’re itching for a higher blood-alcohol level. You down the fresh drink in one long gulp, ignoring the burning in your throat as all eyes fall on you.

            “I think I need something a little stronger.” You say flatly, after clearing your throat and setting your empty glass down on the table. Sharon raises an eyebrow at you but within a second, she re-engages with Sam. Maria and Torres are quick to take your side of the booth the moment you rise to your feet, and Sam slides in next to Sharon. As you saunter off toward the bar, you can hear the sound of Bucky dragging a chair over to the edge of the table to give himself somewhere to sit.

            Bucky can’t seem to tear his eyes away from you as you make your way to the bar. You’re wearing a little black dress that hugs your curves and accentuates every part of you that he’s been trying not to think about all goddamn day. The heels you chose are surely killing your feet with every step you take, but god, they keep drawing his gaze down your legs and then the dress drags him right back up again. The front of Bucky’s jeans have started to feel a bit too tight and his mind is reeling. He wants to pour his glass of whiskey into his eyes. It may be the only way he can stop fucking staring at you.

            Though you feel Bucky’s eyes burning a hole in the back of your head, you refuse to look back. He can stare all he wants, but you’ve decided not to give a shit. He messed with your head last night and manipulated you into being a part of next week’s mission. Then, he messed with your head again this morning, telling you to come find him if you need anymore convincing. What the hell did he mean by that? You swallow hard as you reach the bar, reaching out and grabbing onto the edge of it to steady yourself. You’re two drinks in now and starting to feel a little buzzed, but you sure as hell won’t be stopping if the guys are sticking around. You order something significantly stronger than your last two drinks and then start fiddling with a stray lock of hair that’s hanging over your shoulder as you try to look unapproachable. This place feels like a testosterone festival and although Bucky’s stare was the only one you felt at first, you’re acutely aware of quite a few more pairs of eyes on you now.

            Bucky’s aware as well, so fucking aware. He watches with veiled frustration as you become the center of attention over at the bar. He can tell you don’t even want the attention simply by your body language, but that doesn’t stop men from ogling shamelessly. He knows you can handle yourself, so he bites down on his bottom lip and tries to return his attention to the table, choosing to pick his battles wisely. He tunes into a semi-heated conversation about who’s worse at holding their liquor amongst everyone at the table, but every now and then, his gaze flits back over to you.

            Two minutes go by before Sam notices the tension seemingly rolling off of Bucky’s broad shoulders. The brooding super soldier sits stiffly in the wooden chair at the end of the table, gripping his whiskey glass so tightly in one gloved hand that Sam’s surprised it hasn’t shattered under the pressure. When he follows Bucky’s gaze across the room, he finds the source of all of that angsty tension. There you are, looking undeniably gorgeous in that little black dress of yours with a fresh drink in hand as some tall, charismatic guy tries his best to win you over. Sam chuckles under his breath and watches for a moment, noting the way the guy continues getting closer to you every time you lean away from him. He sees the fake smile painted on your face and the way you keep nodding your head in the direction of the table as you speak in short sentences, probably letting the guy know that you have a group waiting for you.

            “Go get your girl, Bucky.” Sam finally says, lifting his half-empty beer bottle in your direction. “Haven’t you two been a fake couple at least a hundred times by now? Pretend to be her man and get her out of that.” Bucky winces at the idea. Conversation at the table dies down as everyone starts shifting to get a look at you.

            “What do you want me to do?” Bucky asks dryly, taking a long sip of his whiskey as he analyzes Sam’s expression over the rim of the glass. “She can get out of that herself if she wants to.”

            “Yeah, or you could make it easy for her.” Sam points out. Bucky turns his head to look at you again and he doesn’t like what he sees. The man takes one step closer to you, nearly closing the gap between your bodies entirely. He makes it seem as though he was pushed into you, which you seem to buy given how crowded the bar area still is. You let out a stiff but polite laugh, and then the man rests his right hand on your hip as he leans down and whispers something in your ear. That’s enough, Bucky decides. He downs the last of his whiskey before standing up and setting the empty glass on the edge of the table. He’s moving toward the bar before he has a moment to tell himself to stop. In an instant, his gloves are being tugged off one at a time and shoved into the pocket of his leather jacket.

            Bucky could just shove the guy away from you. He could throw a punch and start a good old-fashioned bar fight, maybe get himself kicked out into the street along the way. He could even waltz up and call you some sweet little pet name, because maybe, just maybe, the guy would be respectful enough to ditch the moment he thinks you’re spoken for.

            But as Bucky’s flesh hand tangles in the hair at the crown of your head and he tugs you back harshly, every other possible way to handle the situation is trampled under his feet. His movements are rough but calculated as he separates you from the guy and places his own body between you. Your lips part and you nearly spill your drink as Bucky uses his hold on your hair to tilt your head up so you’re looking right into his blue eyes.

            “Bucky, what—” The. Fuck.

            With his right hand still fisting your hair and his left moving to wrap around your waist, he pulls you flush against his chest and leans in. You don’t realize it, but even in your shocked state, you lean in to meet him. He tilts his head to the side and sucks your bottom lip in between his teeth instantly, barely even kissing you before he’s biting down on it hard enough to draw a gasp from you. He takes the opportunity to slide his tongue between your parted lips and taste you. Fuck. He didn’t mean to do it. He didn’t mean to put his tongue in your mouth, but now that it’s there? Fuck, he’s ruined. Bucky kisses you so intensely, so fucking passionately that for a moment, you’re convinced it’s real. It isn’t until his grip on your hip falters and he has to pull back to take a breath that you realize why he did it, that you realize it most definitely wasn’t real. You’re fighting to catch your breath as he lets you go and glances over his shoulder, making sure the guy is gone. When he looks back at you, you’re pressing your fingertips to your lips lightly, while clutching your drink in your other hand. Your eyes are wide and your hair messy from his touch. His eyes skate over your face, taking in the way your cheeks and nose are rosy and your pupils are dilated as you stare at him. Bucky runs a hand through his own hair and bites down on his bottom lip. Wait, is he…flustered?

            “Stop looking at me like that.” He says lowly. As much as you want to give him hell for that stupid stunt, your brain only seems to be able to focus on one thing.

            “You taste like honey.” Your voice comes out soft but raspy, and your fingertips still ghost over your lips as you speak. Bucky looks taken aback by your response, and he stills for a moment as he looks down at you, his eyes narrowing.

            “You taste like strawberries.” His gaze darts down to your lips, but then quickly back up to your eyes. Shaking your head to snap yourself out of whatever trance you’ve found yourself in, you brush past Bucky, making a break for the table.

            Bucky needs a fucking minute. With your scent swirling around him and the ghost of your mouth on his, he needs a minute to adjust the raging hard-on he’s sporting and gather himself. What the fuck did he do that for? He’s gritting his teeth as he turns on his heel and heads for the bathrooms off to the side of the bar. When he steps foot in the men’s room, he scans the floor of each stall quickly, making sure he’s completely alone before locking the door to the entire bathroom and moving to stand in front of the large mirror displayed across the wall of sinks. Strawberries. Bucky stares down at the ceramic sink in front of him as his hands move to grip onto the edge of it. He fights the urge to break it into a million little pieces as he licks his lips, picking up a hint of your taste. Lifting his head and catching his own gaze in his reflection, he bites down on his bottom lip nearly hard enough to draw blood. The twinge of pain is enough to snap him out of whatever the hell kind of haze he’s in, and he flicks the sink on with his flesh hand. After washing his hands, he splashes a bit of cold water on his face before drying up with a few paper towels. He doesn’t leave the bathroom without adjusting his cock, tucking the head of it beneath the waistband of his boxers and pants to ensure his unchecked arousal won’t be noticed by anyone.

            With lively conversation passing back and forth across the table, no one seems to notice the thick tension brewing between you and Bucky. You haven’t glanced at him once since he came back from the men’s room looking utterly unbothered by the display of public deception that he’d put on just moments earlier.

            Bucky steals looks at you throughout the evening as you go through three of your usual drinks and two shots of vodka with Maria and Sharon. He notices that you smile a lot more when you have some alcohol in your system. You also look at him a hell of a lot less, and he hates that. He can’t seem to go more than a minute or two without searching you out, while you don’t even seem to notice that he’s still in the bar. He watches with a knotted stomach as two other guys attempt to move in on you when you’re up at the bar with the girls, but the knot unties itself when he sees you quickly turn them both down. Why hadn’t you done that with the first guy earlier tonight? A weird sensation bubbles up in his chest as he wonders if maybe you’d actually been attracted to the man you were talking to before Bucky stormed over and stuck his tongue in your mouth. Did you only turn the last two men down because you were worried that Bucky would try to kiss you again?

            As much as you would’ve liked to avoid looking at Bucky all night, your plan is thwarted when Sharon ends up a little past tipsy and Maria decides to Uber back to her apartment early. Not wanting to wrangle a semi-drunk Sharon in an Uber by yourself, you accept Sam’s offer for a ride. With Sam driving and Torres immediately sliding into the passenger seat, you push Sharon into the backseat on the passenger’s side and shut her door. You watch with a small smile playing on your lips as she promptly leans against the door and closes her eyes. You’re sure she’ll be asleep before Sam ever pulls up to her apartment complex.

            You cross around the backside of the car to find Bucky standing, holding the other back door open for you. You glance inside, noting the small middle seat and shake your head.

            “I’m not sitting in the middle.” You say stubbornly, crossing your arms over your chest. A small shiver wracks through your body as the chilly night air blows over your exposed skin. Bucky’s shrugging his jacket off before he even realizes it. When he holds it out to you, you look at it warily, but another cold breeze wafts by and you reach out and grab it. Draping it over your shoulders, you narrow your eyes at him. “I’m still not sitting in the middle.”

            “Yes, you are.” He responds roughly, resting his left forearm on top of the open door as his right hand moves to rest on his hip.

            “No, I’m not.” You’re aware of the fact that you sound like two children arguing over something so trivial, but still, you maintain your stance. Bucky bites the inside of his cheek before stepping back and pushing the door shut. You hear Sam shout something out of confusion, probably wondering what the hell you two are doing out there in the cold delaying the ride home, but you both ignore him.

            “You kissed me back.” He says in a low, raspy voice, making sure no one in the car could possibly make out his words. Your eyes widen and you pull his leather jacket tighter around your shoulders, trying to ignore the way his scent is rolling off of it and surrounding you.

            “You put your tongue in my mouth.” You respond stiffly, glancing over your shoulder at the car.

            “I’d do it again if it would shut you up and make you get in the car.”

            “Sounds like you’re looking for an excuse.” You say, letting out a fake laugh. Bucky rolls his eyes, clearly unimpressed with your accusation.

            “You really think I’d look for an excuse to do that again?” Bucky asks, taking a step toward you and reaching past your body for the door handle. When he’s close enough to you that his lips are nearly grazing against the shell of your ear, your eyes flutter closed. “I think we both know I wouldn’t need one.”

            Bucky tugs the door open just as you open your eyes and look into his.

            “Get in the damn car.” He says authoritatively, holding the door open as you glare at him. You want to dig in your heels and stand on the curb until the sun rises in the morning, but with how cold you are and how late it is, you know you’re fighting a losing battle. You give Bucky a look that could kill as you slide into the middle seat and let out a frustrated sigh. You use his jacket to cover your legs and maintain what little body heat you have left. When Bucky slides in after you and pulls the door shut, Sam’s driving off before either of you have buckled your seatbelts. Bucky fastens his own before noticing that you’re not making a move to buckle yours, so he takes matters into his own hands. He leans over you and grasps the seatbelt in his flesh hand as he brings his lips close to your ear again, lowering his voice to a whisper. “Always so fucking stubborn.”

            With every little curve and bump in the road, Bucky’s leg brushes against yours and you tense up each time. You’re always quick to pull your leg away and back toward the middle of the floorboard, until you start to notice that he never pulls his away. You stare out of the windshield ahead as Sam weaves through the city, heading toward Sharon’s downtown apartment. When you turn your head and glance over at her, she’s sound asleep with her mouth wide open as her head rests against the door beside her. Another bump jostles the car and Bucky’s leg collides with yours, but instead of pulling away this time, you stay still. As the heat of his leg permeates the thick fabric of his jeans and warms your bare knee, you find yourself relaxing a little. It really is way too cold to be wearing such a tiny dress.

            Bucky’s gaze is fixed outside of his window, but he can feel you letting your head fall back to rest against the headrest behind. He tries not to move too much, sensing that you’re somewhat thankful for his body heat warming your leg and side. It’s cold as shit tonight and you picked what has to be the thinnest dress in your wardrobe. If he didn’t love it on you so much, he’d have told you that you were fucking stupid for risking hypothermia by wearing it.

            You let your eyes fall closed as goosebumps prickle across the skin of your arms and you lean back against the headrest. Sharon’s apartment is just another ten minutes away, and then the tower will be an extra thirty on top of that. If you clear your head and pretend like the man beside you is merely a stranger in a shared Uber, and not someone whose tongue was in your mouth only an hour ago, you might be able to get a little sleep before you’re home. But Bucky’s leather jacket sits heavy over your thighs, and his intoxicating scent swirls around the backseat, begging to be inhaled. He’s not a stranger. He’s a fucking coworker who left a hickey on your neck and what feels like a black hole in your gut after offering up some kind of half-baked confession of attraction a couple of days ago. Younger me would fucking swoon. Who the hell says something like that to a girl who thought she was the last person he’d ever be into? Does he get off on looks of confusion and bewilderment?

            The car tires screech against asphalt as Sam slams on the brakes and the car struggles to meet his demand. You’re lurching forward in an instant, the seatbelt pulling coarsely across your chest as it locks and holds you in your seat. But it isn’t the sudden unexpected stop that has everything moving in slow motion. It’s Bucky’s hand gripping your mid-thigh tightly over the fabric of his leather jacket. As your back thumps against the seat and your eyes dart out toward the windshield ahead, you see that Sam narrowly avoided running a red light with a traffic camera posted on the street corner. He mumbles something about refusing to get another citation, but your ears are ringing as you cast your gaze downward. Bucky’s hand is still right there, his knuckles nearly turning white with how hard his fingers are digging into your leg. For a moment, a fleeting moment, you let yourself think about how nice his touch feels. You can feel the warmth of his palm even through the leather jacket covering your legs and the chill in your body begins to dissipate. In reality, he’s only been holding onto your thigh for two seconds, but it feels like it’s been two minutes. You let out a shaky breath as the stoplight turns green and Sam starts driving past it. Bucky’s grip loosens and he starts to withdraw his hand, but something within you stops him. You’re reaching out and grabbing his hand in yours, tugging it back to your thigh and resting it atop the leather jacket again. Neither one of you turns to look at the other. You both stare straight ahead, silently letting the moment play out.

            It feels as though a fire’s been ignited deep in Bucky’s chest. As you move your hand away from his, he has to turn his head and look out the window to keep from looking down at where he’s touching you. If he gets a glimpse of where his hand is at right now, he won’t be able to scrub the image from his mind no matter how hard he tries. And his hand is only on your damn thigh. He takes even breaths through his nose as he watches the city lights dance around outside. He estimates that Sharon’s apartment complex is less than ten minutes away. What happens after those ten minutes? Will you push his hand away and pretend like the moment never happened?

            Each passing minute feels longer and longer as Bucky’s hand remains heavy on your thigh. Two minutes go by before he starts alternating between squeezing your leg and letting his hand rest loosely atop the jacket across your lap. When you reach the third minute, your cheeks are flushed pink and sparks are igniting throughout your body at the slightest touch. There aren’t many thoughts floating around in your head now, which is probably why it’s so easy for you to slide your hand over his and quietly guide it beneath the fabric of the jacket. He doesn’t resist. He doesn’t pull his hand away or fight your movement, and when you feel the warmth of his palm pressing against the bare skin of your thigh, you withdraw your own hand and cover his with the jacket carefully. Bucky’s clenching his teeth as he grips your leg and scrapes his trimmed, blunt nails along the inside of your thigh. He feels you shudder against his touch, but then you seem to press into him a little closer and he can’t fucking breathe. The backseat of this car is suddenly feeling too damn small for either of you, and he wants nothing more than to drag you out at the next red light and find the nearest alley with a brick wall he can back you into.

            She’s just cold. Bucky keeps reminding himself that that’s why you’re letting him do this, that that’s why you’re encouraging him to touch you this way. But are you really that cold? Your skin feels almost overheated beneath his hand. He grips your leg again and then starts drawing lazy circles with his fingertips along your inner thigh. He never once tries to move his hand any higher or lower than the exact spot that you placed it in. You’re having a hard time figuring out if that excites you or disappoints you, especially when all you can do is focus on keeping your breathing unnoticeable and eyeing the three other people in the car to make sure no one is the wiser.

            The tension in the backseat of the car is so thick that you could cut it with a knife by the time Sam’s pulling into a parking spot in front of Sharon’s building. Bucky’s fingertips dig into the skin of your thigh one last time before he drags his hand out from underneath the jacket and back to his own lap. You start to unbuckle so you can help Sharon out of the car and up to her apartment, but Sam shakes his head at you in the rearview mirror and pushes his own door open quickly.

            “We’re not going to make you walk her all the way up there when you’re in heels.” Sam tsks, signaling for Torres to hop out as well. “We’ll take her up and get her settled, just stay in the car.”

            “Are you sure? I could do it, she can probably walk fine, she’s just sleepy.” You say softly, glancing over at Sharon as she begins to stir. She shoots you a sideways smile and starts unbuckling her seatbelt with sloppy movements.

            “Don’t say that, let them carry me.” Sharon jokes, slurring nearly every single word she speaks. You laugh lightly before pushing a bit of her blonde hair away from her face and leaning over her to open the door on her side.

            “Fine, but don’t give them too much trouble.” You concede, watching as Torres takes both of her hands and helps her out of the car. You find your heart racing as she straightens herself up and takes just enough steps forward for Torres to shut the door again, leaving you and Bucky alone in the dark car. You let out a shaky breath as you watch Sam, Torres, and Sharon all move further and further away from the car. You don’t move a muscle. You stay seated right there in the middle of the backseat, painfully aware of how your left side is still brushing against Bucky’s right side.

            Bucky’s sitting stiffly in his seat, wondering if you can hear how hard his heart is thumping against his ribcage right now. His eyes flit downward to where his leather jacket has shifted off of your lap a bit and the skin of the thigh that he was just toying with is now exposed. Gritting his teeth, he reaches over slowly and pinches the edge of the jacket with his fingertips before dragging it back up to cover your lap entirely. Your head moves quickly, tilting downward to watch what he’s doing. You swallow thickly as thoughts start swirling around in your head. It’s a mixture of sane, rational thoughts about thanking him for the jacket and dirty, irrational thoughts about putting his hand back where it was before the car stopped here. Even as your mind is formulating a coherent sentence to spit out, you know you should sit here quietly and act like nothing happened. You know so much better than to speak when tensions are running this high, and yet…

            “I did kiss you back.” The words roll off of your tongue so quietly that you fear Bucky might not even have heard them. But when he stops staring out his window and drops his gaze down to where his hands rest in his lap, you know he heard you.

            “You did.” He says just as quietly, shifting in his seat a bit. You let out a soft sigh and glance over at the empty seat beside you. You know it’ll look a bit odd to Sam and Torres when they get back to the car and see you still sitting in the middle of the backseat. You’re thinking about sliding over and buckling yourself in when movement catches your eye. Bucky’s flesh hand reaches over slowly, and his fingertips take hold of the edge of his jacket just like they did a moment ago, but instead of making sure the fabric covers your thighs, his moves it further down your legs this time. Your breath hitches in your throat as he pushes it down just an inch, revealing the hem of your short dress and the tiniest bit of skin across the tops of your thighs. Goosebumps prickle across your skin, but it has little to do with the fact that you’re still a bit cold. “I put my tongue in your mouth.” He rasps. You’re frozen in place as he starts tracing the hem of your dress with the tip of his index finger. His words hang in the air, swirling around with the thick tension like a heavy fog early in the morning. Bucky leans in as you stare down at his hand. He leans in until his forehead is nearly touching the side of your face and his lips are ghosting around the shell of your ear. “Would I need an excuse to do it again?”

            As your eyes flutter closed and you suck in a deep breath, Bucky can only think of one thing. He can only think about how fucking perfect it felt to have you kissing him back, to push his tongue past your lips and really taste you for the first time. Of all the times he’s kissed you for undercover missions, it was never like that. He never dared to let his tongue get involved, not until tonight. Now he fears he might be ruined.

            You’re thinking about the same damn thing. You’re thinking about how he tasted like honey and citrus and vanilla all jumbled together. You’re replaying the feeling of him fisting his hand in your hair and pulling you toward him in a way that should’ve done nothing other than piss you off.

            Neither of you realizes that you’re both glancing toward the apartment building entrance at the same time, both checking to see if Sam and Torres are anywhere nearby. Are you really about to do this? You finally turn your head to face Bucky, and find him already staring at you intensely. His blue eyes reflect the tiniest bit of light from a street lamp in the distance, and you swear you can see something akin to flames dancing around in his gaze. He stares back at you for one, two, three seconds before the tension hanging in the air between you both shatters. In a flash, you’re shoving the leather jacket onto the floor and moving toward Bucky just as he’s grabbing you by the waist and tugging you toward him. Your lips meet before your bodies do and you’re kissing him so desperately that you almost feel a bit of shame. You’re acting like a horny teenager having her first bit of alone time with a guy on prom night, but as your dress hikes even higher up your hips and Bucky settles you not over his lap, but over his right thigh, every trace of shame disappears. You’re straddling the toned muscles of his thigh as he curls his fingertips against your scalp and takes a handful of your hair in his fist.

            “You like when I do this, don’t you?” He asks lowly, nipping at your jawline as he pulls on your hair just enough to tilt your head back. A soft whimper escapes you and you grind down on his thigh, feeling just the right amount of friction as the fabric of your panties meets his jeans. He falters for a second and looks down, his grip on your hair loosening as you grind against his leg again. “Fuck, don’t do that.” He growls, squeezing your hip with his vibranium hand to make sure you’ll be still.

            “But it feels so fucking good.” You whisper, fighting against his vibranium hand and dragging your clothed cunt against his thigh again. A guttural sound crawls up his throat and he pulls you in for a kiss, sliding his tongue past your lips instantly. There’s that honey taste again. He doesn’t try to stop you this time when you grind down, so you keep doing it over and over again for a few seconds, giving your clit exactly enough friction to elicit a sense of pleasure. If his side of the backseat was bigger, you’d settle yourself over his lap and grind on the bulge that you know is hiding behind the zipper of his jeans, but you’ll take what you can get.

            “Is that enough for you?” Bucky asks roughly, the second he pulls away from your lips and glances down at where you’re grinding on his thigh once again.

            “They’ll be back any minute.” You whisper. You place your hands on his shoulders as you crane your neck to glance back at the apartment building again, ensuring Sam and Torres are still out of sight.

            “Say it isn’t enough.”

            “Bucky—” Both of his hands move down your back and he cups your bare ass beneath the fabric of your dress, squeezing hard enough to leave red fingerprints in your skin. He leans in and presses an open-mouthed kiss to your neck before dragging the tip of his tongue up toward your ear and biting down on your earlobe softly. “It isn’t enough.” You moan out as your back arches and your chest presses against his. Bucky lets out a groan before reaching down with one hand and unbuckling his seatbelt. The thin strap moves between your two bodies quickly before clicking against the door, and then Bucky’s wrapping one arm around your lower back and moving to lay you down in the backseat. He hovers over you as your legs spread a bit to accommodate him, and then he sinks down on top of you. There’s something about feeling the full weight of a man over you that makes it hard to think rationally. That’s why when you feel the outline of his hard cock press against your damp panties, your back arches and his name leaves your lips in such a desperate, sultry moan. That’s why you let him grind and rut against you relentlessly for at least thirty seconds, listening to the sounds of his grunts and heavy breaths as he buries his face in your neck and moves his hips rhythmically. That’s why you let yourself get so dangerously close to an orgasm that you’re circling your own hips against his. It’s because you’re not thinking rationally, not one tiny bit.

            You don’t hear it, but Bucky does. He hears the distant click as the door to Sharon’s apartment building swings open. He knows he only has a few seconds left before Sam and Torres will be close enough to see the car, so he presses his hips into you one last time, making sure you feel the entirety of his hard length against your clothed cunt before he looks down into your eyes and memorizes the look of pleasure on your face. He kisses you one last time, savoring the taste of your lips and letting his tongue dance with yours for one fleeting moment. Then, he’s pulling himself away from you and grabbing your hands to pull you back into a sitting position beside him. You’re in a daze as he leans down and scoops his leather jacket up off of the floor. The sound of Sam and Torres’ voices ring out in the distance and you move yourself to the seat Sharon had previously occupied, quickly smoothing out your dress and hair before buckling yourself in. Bucky holds the jacket out to you just as Sam and Torres are nearing the car, and you take it, draping it over your lap carefully.

            Sam and Torres’ incessant small talk is the only sound to be heard as the car carries you all back to the compound. You’re keeping your legs tightly crossed and your hands folded neatly in your lap as you stare out your window and try to avoid thinking about what just happened. Adrenaline is still surging through your veins, almost cancelling out the alcohol in your system. On top of that, the sexual frustration that you feel from having not finished what you and Bucky so recklessly started in the backseat is giving you a bit of an attitude. You chew on the inside of your cheek as the damp panties trapped between your thighs begin to feel uncomfortable and the gravity of what you just did, what you would’ve done if Sam and Torres hadn’t showed up when they did, begins to set in.  You’re compromising not just the upcoming mission, but your entire working relationship with a damn good partner. And for what? Not even an orgasm. He didn’t even give you that. You have no doubt that he would have if you’d had the time for it. Hell, you were pretty damn close to one with him grinding against you like that and those sounds he was making. Your mind starts to float back into dangerous territory and you bite the inside of your cheek a little harder, nearly drawing blood. You shudder at the sensation of pain, but continue staring out the window, wishing Sam would drive just a little bit faster.

            He could cum right now. Bucky could actually cum in his jeans right now, and it’s been a solid ten minutes since he even looked in your direction. His cock is still painfully hard and fighting against the front of his jeans, threatening to pop the zipper if he doesn’t free it soon. He glances around Sam’s headrest to see that he’s already doing five over the speed limit. Still, it’s not fast enough. Not when you just did what you did, and you’re sitting only a foot away with Bucky’s scent all over you. Actually, that’s not even the worst of it. The worst of it all is the fact that you left wet spots on his thigh and over the crotch of his jeans, both of which hold the scent of your arousal. Bucky lets out a heavy sigh and shifts uncomfortably in his seat, adjusting the seatbelt over his lap so it won’t restrict his cock any more than it needs to. He catches you turning your head in his direction out of the corner of his eye, but he doesn’t dare look back at you. Screwing his eyes shut, he pinches the bridge of his nose with his flesh index finger and thumb as he presses his head back against the headrest. He can survive the last twenty minutes left in this car ride, but as soon as the car pulls up to the tower, he’s getting the fuck out of here.

            Sam, ever the courteous and thoughtful designated driver, let you, Bucky, and Torres all out of the car right at the front entrance to the tower before heading off to park the car in the underground garage. Bucky almost decided to stay in the car and take the ride down to the garage with Sam, just to keep from being stuck in the elevator with you. However, it turns out that Torres is pretty damn good at icing over the fiery tension in a small space. Bucky is leaned against the back wall of the elevator, staring at the leather jacket hanging off of your shoulders as you stand a few feet in front of him. You’re so close to the metal doors that if you stuck your tongue out, you’d probably be licking them. Torres stands oblivious off to one side, scrolling through his phone absentmindedly as the elevator carries the three of you closer and closer to the main living quarters.

            “Have you two gotten started on the dancing lessons yet?” He asks casually, without looking up from his phone. You say nothing. You stay still, staring at the metal in front of your face as the elevator continues on. Bucky clears his throat lightly and you hear him shift somewhere behind you.

            “Tomorrow.” Bucky replies stiffly, offering no more than that single word. You turn your head the tiniest bit to see Torres nod, still looking down at the device in his hands.

            “Saving it for the last minute?” He jokes. Your eyes dart upward and you see that you’re only a few floors away from the living quarters. “Fury wants you guys back in the past within the next two days.” You swallow hard at the reminder as an uneasy feeling settles in your gut.

            “There isn’t going to be much to teach.” Bucky’s tone is flat, but still somewhat polite. You see Torres nod in your peripheral vision, and then the elevator is dinging and it’s slowing to a stop. You’re hurrying out the second the doors begin sliding open. You hear Torres’ phone ring and he mumbles something about taking the call down in the conference room, but you’re already halfway through the main living area. Your heels click against the hard floor as you make your way toward the dark hall, refusing to look back at the super soldier who can only be a few yards behind you.

            “You don’t have to walk so damn fast.” Bucky mutters, watching you storm ahead. You’re still about ten feet from your door when you slow down and turn on your heel. Now you’re standing there looking at him as he continues walking toward his own door at a normal pace. You stand there and stare at the man you didn’t want to look at for another second tonight. He’s nothing but danger and bad decisions and you’re learning not to trust yourself around him anywhere but in the field.

            “My feet hurt.” You say matter-of-factly, narrowing your eyes at him. You watch as he comes within a couple of feet of you and turns left to face his door that’s right across from yours. “I want to take off these heels and this dress and shower and just…” Your voice trails off and you catch Bucky looking over his shoulder at you with a raised brow. “And just sleep this off.” You finish, making it clear that you’re talking about whatever it is that’s between you right now. He turns to face you right as you’re turning your back to him and reaching for your own door handle.

            “Sleep it off, huh?” He scoffs, noting that you’re still keeping his leather jacket draped over your shoulders. “Whatever this is, it’ll just be gone in the morning?” You keep your hand on the downturned door handle but you pause, not yet pushing the door open fully. You shrug your shoulders and Bucky watches as his jacket moves up and down once around your frame. “Kinda hard to forget what happened tonight if you wake up and see my leather jacket beside your bed in the morning.”  You snort out an amused laugh before casting a glare at Bucky over your shoulder.

            “Maybe you should take your jacket back then.” You respond calmly. As you’re facing your door, letting your head turn forward once again, you hear Bucky shuffling behind you slowly. A chill spreads beneath the surface of your skin as he grows closer and closer, until his body heat is enveloping you and his proximity has your hand faltering on the door handle. When he comes to a stop right behind you, so close that one deep breath from you would have your back pressing against his chest, he braces himself against your doorframe. Both of his arms are outstretched, his hands grasping the doorframe on either side of you as he leans in close to your ear, just as he’s done so many times tonight.

            “But it looks so damn good on you.”  He coos, taking a chance to inhale your sweet scent after he speaks. His breath tickles the side of your face as the wetness in your panties suddenly feels a little less uncomfortable and a little more exciting. You’d like to say your body is beyond your control when you draw in a deep breath and let go of the door handle. When you let your palms glide over the surface of your door and arch your back just enough to push your ass against the front of Bucky’s jeans. You’re met with the same hard-on he was rubbing all over your clothed cunt in the car just a little while ago and warmth pools low in your stomach. Bucky’s hips lean in, pressing himself against your ass a little harder as his flesh knuckles turn white and his vibranium hand whirs with exertion against the doorframe. He gives you a chance to open the door and disappear for the rest of the night, but when you circle your hips back against him a second time, his hands quickly move down to your hips and he pushes your front into the door firmly. He crowds in behind you, dragging his lips over the skin of your neck as you tilt your head to the side. He makes sure your bodies never part as he kisses down the column of your throat and bites down lightly on your collarbone. You grind your ass into him one more time and his control starts slipping.

            “Keep that up and I’ll fuck you against this goddamn door.” Bucky rasps against your neck, tightening his hold on your hips to keep you from grinding anymore. You wriggle in his grasp, but he only curls his fingers against your dress even more, before dragging his lips back up toward your ear. “You’ll wake up tomorrow wondering why the fuck you can’t walk.”

            “I’d blame the heels.” You whisper, surprising yourself at the fact that you’re going along with this. But everything he’s saying, everything he’s doing makes it hard for you to think straight. Bucky lets out a surprisingly gentle, genuine laugh before letting go of your hips and tugging his jacket off of your shoulders. He steps back suddenly, leaving you a bit cold and wanting for his touch. You turn around to watch as he walks over to his own door and pushes it open. “That’s it? You just walk away after that?”

            “You can’t stand me, remember?” He replies. You can hear his smirk showing through his tone. “Should be easy for you to sleep it off.”

            With that last line, Bucky’s shutting his door and you’re left in the dark hallway alone. You have half a mind to kick his door in and ruin your pretty heels, but the other half of you knows he’s doing the right thing. What did you really want him to do? If you’d invited him in and spent the night with him, you have no doubt that your professional life would’ve gone to shit before the end of the week. If he’d invited you in, or even worse, fucked you against right there in the hall like he’d said, the outcome would’ve been the same. You can’t mix work and play. You know that all too well. But why is it turning out to be so damn fun to blur the lines with him?           

            You take your time peeling off your dress and heels, soaking in a long, hot shower, and then getting ready for bed. By the time you’re flicking off the bathroom lights and pulling back the plush covers on your bed, it’s already a bit past one in the morning and the aching between your legs hasn’t ceased. You refuse to indulge your fantasies after having already made yourself orgasm once within the last twenty-four hours at the mere thought of the man across the hall. Twice would be too much, way too much when you’re actively trying to tell yourself that you need to start keeping things strictly professional with him. You choose to lie in bed and scroll through your phone for a bit, but still, Bucky remains at the forefront of your mind.

            Bucky vows not to touch his cock in the shower ever again. Tonight was the last time. As he towels himself dry and avoids looking at his reflection in the bathroom mirror, he’s surprised at the fact that he doesn’t feel so much shame this time. He has a feeling you might’ve even been flattered by just how much cum ended up being washed down the drain after he thought of nothing but you as he stroked himself. Okay, maybe that’s wishful thinking. But seriously, with the things you did to him…with him tonight, he knows that you wouldn’t have kicked his ass for what he had to do in the shower. He has a feeling you might’ve even been tempted to do something like that for yourself after you parted ways.

            One text. That’s all you need to send to give yourself a little peace of mind and maybe set things back on the right track with Bucky. It’s why you’re staring at the typed out message on your phone screen and your thumb is hovering over the send button. It’s late. Maybe too late to be sending him a text. But you feel like you have to do it. You’ll clear things up now and tomorrow everything will go back to normal, or as normal as things can be before a mission like this. When you hit send, let out a deep breath and let your head fall back on your pillow a bit dramatically.

            When Bucky’s phone vibrates on his nightstand, he’s rolling over and grasping it in one hand almost instantly. Holding it over his face and quickly dimming the brightness of his lock screen, he sees your name at the top of the notification and he narrows his eyes. How many times have you texted him since you’ve started working together? Once? Maybe twice? His heart thumps a little harder than it previously had been as he unlocks his phone and reads your message. You don’t need any more convincing? His tongue darts out and wets his lips as he sends his overly simple response through.

            Two question marks. That’s all you see as you stare at his text. Heaving a sigh, you type out a slightly longer message, making sure you’re abundantly clear. You need to make sure that he knows he doesn’t have to keep going with whatever act this is that he’s been putting on the last couple of days. If he’s only been fucking around with you to convince you that you’re the one his 40s self would approach in a bar, he doesn’t have to keep doing it. You’re thoroughly convinced. It’s only a few seconds after you’ve sent your message that you see the little gray typing bubbles pop up on his end of the message window.

            You watch those three little dots with bated breath as your thumbs hover over your phone screen. When his final text comes through, your heart rate nearly doubles and warmth rushes up to color your cheeks a soft shade of pink.

            Shit. You exhale noisily, before clicking your phone off and setting it on your nightstand. Your mind starts rushing back to all of the missions you’ve worked together, all of the times you bantered back and forth or argued and yet, every mission was carried out seamlessly. Was the tension between you two something that you’ve been misreading up until now? Had you been mistaking it for the type of tension felt between two people who don’t really get along, when all of this time it was that kind of thick, suffocating tension that you only find between two people who are oblivious as to how right for each other they really are?

            You wrap yourself up in your bedsheets and let the darkness of your room envelope you. No fucking way. You do not have feelings for James Bucky Barnes. And even more than that, he most definitely does not have feelings for you. There’s simply no way.

            When you finally drift off to sleep, what happened in the car on the way back from the bar replays in your dreams on a loop, growing slightly filthier with each rerun. You wake up three hours in with a pillow wedged between your legs and your hips instinctively grinding down into it in search of friction. You wake up a second time just before sunrise and you almost can’t take the ache between your legs.

            If you really couldn’t stand him, if this was really nothing, you would’ve been able to sleep it off. And that scares the shit out of you.

            Glimmers of early morning sunlight peek through your curtains, casting your room in a hazy yellow glow. Stretching out your legs beneath the covers, you rub the sleep from your eyes and blink a few times. Your gaze settles on the white ceiling above and you notice a slight twinge of pain behind your eyes as a headache begins to set in.

            The night before replays in your mind, almost like a highlight reel, as you push the covers back and move to sit up on the side of your bed. You see yourself being pulled away from that stranger in the bar, being pulled to Bucky’s chest as he kissed you like you belonged to him and no one else. You squeeze your eyes shut and massage your temples with the middle and index fingers of your right hand. You see Bucky’s hand on your thigh in the car, and then him lying you down in the back seat before crawling on top of you and…fuck.

            Tonight had nothing to do with convincing you. His last text to you from just a few hours ago is displayed across a billboard in the forefront of your mind. You rush through pulling on an outfit for the gym, settling on a lazy hairstyle and light makeup to hide the dark circles under your eyes from the poor sleep you got last night. It might be Sunday and you might not have much to do today, but you know good and well that sitting here in your room is only going to send you straight into a spiral of thoughts you don’t need to be dwelling on right now.

            You listen carefully through your door, straining to detect any sounds that might let you know someone else is up and about this early. When you’re sure the coast is clear, you make a dash for the elevator and ride it all the way down to the gym.

            Sam’s sitting in the conference room with Fury and a very hungover Sharon just a little past eight. He’d probably be laughing if she didn’t look so miserable. Her blonde hair is pulled back into a messy ponytail and the dark circles under her eyes are aging her by about five years. He can tell her head must be throbbing by the way she keeps squinting at the bright lights overhead and glancing over at the light switch across the room. Maybe he should’ve made an effort to end the fun a little earlier last night, but in his defense, none of you really made an effort to do that. Besides, he had no idea Fury would want to see them first thing on a Sunday morning.

            “We’ll be sending you in tomorrow to bring Peggy Carter up to speed and establish a safehouse for the mission.” Fury explains slowly, eyeing Sharon as he speaks. She nods along, keeping her hands folded in her lap beneath the table. “You’ll have one day to get it done.”

            “It won’t be a problem.” Sharon affirms confidently, letting her eyes shift between Fury and Sam. “One day is plenty of time. What stipulations do you have for the safehouse?”

            “As long as they have a place to sleep and a door to lock at night, I don’t care. Whatever Peggy can help you find is going to have to do. They’ll only be there for two nights.” Fury responds. His phone chimes and he quickly stands up from the table, pushing his chair in gently. He casts Sam and sideways glance as he heads for the door.

            “Maybe don’t take her out drinking tonight.” Fury advises, letting out a half-hearted laugh as he reaches for the door handle. “And let me know how those dance lessons go later. If those two can’t get along long enough to make it through one song, I have half a mind to scrap the whole damn mission.”

            “They got along pretty well last night.” Sam snorts, remembering the way Bucky kissed you in the bar. Sure, he was the one that encouraged him to do it, but Sam knows for damn certain that it was anything but fake. He wonders for a moment just how complicated this mission might end up being with the two of you being thrust into the past without backup readily available. You’ve always worked well on missions before, but this is so different. This is the kind of mission that’ll make or break a partnership, and he’s very much aware that your partnership is somewhere on a tightrope between being rock solid and completely falling apart at the seams. If he had to place a bet, he’d say neither of you come back from this one the same as when you went in. Something’s going to change.

            It doesn’t feel real. As you stand on a platform that looks like something straight out of a sci-fi movie, wearing a quantum suit in the darkest shade of black you’ve ever seen, you feel a bit like an imposter. It should be Sharon in your position right now. You know she was just in this same spot yesterday, heading back in time to establish a safehouse and make the first contact with Peggy Carter, but still. Who the hell decided that you’re qualified not only to run ops in this century, but to send you back to the last one to run an op as well?

            “Hey.” Bucky says quietly, drawing you out of your spiraling thoughts. You turn your head to the right and take in the sight of him as he takes the few steps up onto the platform. He moves to stand directly in front of you, taking in the apprehension written all over your face. You tuck a stray lock of hair behind your ear and let out a shaky breath as you meet his gaze. “Just another mission.” He assures you, keeping his voice low so only you can hear it. You nod, but you’re sorely unconvinced. This is not just another mission. You know it and he knows it.

            “It should’ve been Sharon.” You mumble, averting your gaze and choosing to watch Bruce, Scott, and Torres as they work seamlessly behind a table of screens and electronic devices. Bucky shakes his head and narrows his eyes at you, but you refuse to look at him again.

            “Okay, let me hit a few main points before we do this.” Bruce says suddenly, clapping his oversized, green hands together as he approaches the edge of the platform. “You have one roundtrip each, please make every effort to come back from this together. You can come back earlier if you have to but for the love of all things scientific, don’t come back later than planned. What feels like five minutes to you might be fifteen years here.”

            “Bucky, you’ll keep your watch on at all times in the past. Take that thing off and lose it and you’re stuck in the forties, which I get might not be all that unappealing to a man who’s over a hundred years old, but still…keep it on.” Scott says pointedly. You glance down at your own time-space GPS device. While Bucky’s does resemble a normal wrist watch, yours was made to look more like an inconspicuous necklace so you could continue wearing it in the forties and still be dressed for the time period. “Don’t let anyone take that off of you.” Scott directs his warning at you. You nod curtly, reaching up and running your fingers along the dainty device lightly.

            “Try not to go changing the past.” Bruce takes over again, but he’s backing away from the platform now and moving back toward the table of screens and devices. “Stick to the mission. Get in with the Howling Commandos, get what you need from the HYDRA base, and then get the hell out of there on time. Are we all on the same page?” Both you and Bucky nod in unison, and you finally face forward to meet his piercing stare.

            “It could only be you.” Bucky whispers across the short distance between the two of you. Warmth floods your chest and you barely hear the sound of Bruce beginning to count backwards from twenty.

            “I told you I didn’t need any more convincing.” You remind him, matching his low volume. “I’m here, I’m doing this. I just think Sharon would’ve been the smarter choice.” Bucky shakes his head at you almost disappointingly as Bruce reaches the ten second mark. You see something flash in Bucky’s eyes, something passionate and intense as you ready yourself to activate the helmet and face mask on your suit. When Bruce calls out eight seconds left, Bucky rushes forward, taking two steps before grasping the sides of your face firmly in his hands.

            His lips are soft and gentle when they meet yours, but in less than a second he’s kissing you like it’s the last time he’ll ever get the chance to. It sucks the air right out of your lungs and sets a fluttering sensation off deep in your stomach, but then he’s pulling away and stepping back. You activate your helmets and face masks at the same time, right as Bruce is nearing the end of his count.

            “Three, two, one…”

            With a flash of light and an unusual feeling that the gravity beneath your feet has just increased by a hundred-fold, you’re being dragged through time and space, hurtling toward a period of time that you’re sure you don’t belong in.

             Rain pours down heavily on the roof of the car as Peggy drums her fingertips along the top of the steering wheel. She glances down at the coordinates scrawled on a small scrap of paper for the fifth time, even though she knows she’s exactly where she’s supposed to be. She can’t help but feel a little on edge. The street light perched above her car gives off just enough light for her to lean over in front of the rearview mirror and reapply her red lipstick one last time. It’s a bit of a nervous habit really, because it’s not like she has much reason for her makeup to look perfect with the role she’s about to play. A glorified cab driver. That’s what she is tonight. A flash of light in the distance catches her attention, and it isn’t lightning. She turns the key in the ignition and watches as her headlights suddenly illuminate the alley ahead.

            She isn’t quite sure what she expected the two of you to look like. She should’ve assumed that Sergeant Barnes would age well, but the fact that he’s barely aged has her raising a brow as she studies him from a distance. She notes the fact that he seems taller and much more muscular than the Sergeant Barnes she’s come to know through Steve and the Howling Commandos.

            “Welcome to London.” Bucky mutters under his breath, as he raises a hand to shield his eyes from the bright headlights ahead. He squints slightly and catches sight of Peggy’s characteristic red lip and brown curls through the windshield of a dark Morris eight. You cut your eyes to the side and take in the sight of him, with his hair already soaked through and rainwater dripping down the side of his face. Before you have a chance to say anything back, he’s moving to stand behind you and placing a hand against the middle of your back, lightly guiding you toward the car.

            The rain sends a chill racing from your head to your toes as Bucky reaches past you, tugs the front passenger door open and ushers you into the seat. He leans down before closing the door, letting his scent invade your space as he looks past you to Peggy.

            “Peggy Carter.” He says with a soft smile, looking at her as if he’s seeing an old friend after so long apart. You’re stuck staring at him. You’ve never seen this look on his face before and it lets you see him in a slightly different light.

            “Sergeant Barnes.” Peggy’s British accent is almost musical in a way. You finally turn your head and get a good look at her. She looks perfectly put together and polished with her bright red lipstick, styled hair, and navy blue pantsuit. “If you’d like to hop in and allow your partner here to close her door, we just might make it to your safehouse before you’re both thoroughly soaked.” A laugh slips past Bucky’s lips, but he listens to her and steps away from the door, closing it for you gently. Once he’s settled in the backseat, Peggy shoots a sideways smile in your direction before putting the car into reverse. “Does he always listen that well?”

            “Not at all.” You respond honestly.

            Peggy guides the car backwards out of the alley and onto the very sleepy, rainy streets of London. It’s an odd feeling to be in such a major city but see so little traffic or nightlife. You’re taking everything in with widened eyes, noting all of the little differences between the forties and the time period that you come from. Bucky’s soaking it in as well, but instead of exciting him, it relaxes him. He sinks into the backseat and lets out a deep breath, watching as the old buildings and signs roll past his window. He almost feels at home here.

            The drive to the safehouse on the outskirts of the city doesn’t take anywhere near as long as it would’ve taken in the modern world. When Peggy turns into the long driveway of one of Howard Stark’s many homes, you’re starting to feel the effects of time travel. Your head feels a little fuzzy and you have a sensation almost similar to that of motion sickness. Peggy says something about the house being a bit small for two people, mentioning it being one of Stark’s occasional residences for when he travels alone.

            “Everything you need will be inside. Clothes, food, a few choice weapons for the mission at hand. Please let me know if I missed anything, but I think I was rather thorough.” Peggy says cordially as she leads the way up the paved driveway toward the front door. You take a few steps away from the car but stop short, scrunching your eyes shut as a heavy wave of nausea hits. Bucky’s behind you in an instant, letting his palm press against your lower back as he stands at your side and leans over to look at your face.

            “What’s going on?” He asks in a hushed tone with concern lacing his words.

            “I’m good, it’s just the time travel thing.” Bruce made you both read an obscene amount of research on the potential physiological effects of time travel, but assured you that you probably wouldn’t experience any of them. Yet, here you are, experiencing a bout of time sickness before you’ve even made it into the safehouse. Bucky scrutinizes your expression, searching your eyes for any sign that you’re downplaying whatever’s going on with you. You wave a dismissive hand at him as rain begins to come down a little heavier.

            “Are you two coming?” Peggy asks from the door up ahead, looking at you both with a raised brow. Bucky turns his head for a second to glance at her, but quickly looks back at you as his hand falls away from your back. He watches you carefully as you put on an unbothered expression and take a couple of steps forward. Shit. The nausea increases ten-fold and suddenly you’re rushing over to the edge of the driveway and leaning over with your hands on the knees of your quantum suit, losing the contents of your stomach all in one go. Bucky’s beside you within a second, gathering your hair up in both of his hands and holding it back behind your shoulders.

            “Don’t say it.” Bucky warns as you turn your head to look up at him, wiping your mouth with the back of your hand.

            “It should’ve been Sharon.” You groan, straightening up and tugging your hair away from his grasp. He shakes his head at you and you can already see an argument gearing up in his head, so you brush past him, feeling significantly better now that you’re completely empty.

            Peggy can’t seem to stop herself from reading into the way you and Bucky interact. When she met Sharon just yesterday, it was made abundantly clear that you and Sergeant Barnes are partners but don’t always play nice with each other. From what she’s seeing now, Bucky wants nothing more than to play nice with you. She has to wonder if the bickering and constant tension that Sharon talked about is a façade, a thick wool blanket over what’s really at the core of your partnership.

            You feel fine just long enough to run your fingertips over the green and cream floral wallpaper that covers the kitchen walls and admire the pristine white oven that anyone’s great grandmother would love. But the moment you turn your attention to the living area just a few steps outside of the kitchen, a fresh wave of nausea begins taking up residence in the pit of your stomach and you breathe in deeply through your nose. Bucky watches you apprehensively from the foyer, waiting to see what you’ll do. He can tell you feel miserable. He can tell you want to get a good look at the safehouse and settle yourself in, but you’re looking a little green and fatigued as you move toward a large dark green couch in the living room.

            You sink into the couch and let your head fall back against the cushion behind you. As you reach up and wrap your fingers around your necklace, your quantum suit deactivates and you’re left in leggings and a black pull-over. Bucky glances around the house, noting the short hallway that leads to the master bedroom and what looks to be French doors leading to a study off to one side. He takes a few steps forward until he’s moving around the couch, and then seats himself in a dainty looking floral-patterned lounge chair that’s angled toward you across from a coffee table.

            “Is this really just a time travel thing?” Bucky finally speaks. Your eyes flutter open and you take in the sight of him in that lounge chair. If you didn’t feel so shitty you might laugh at how out of place he looks in such a pretty little chair.

            “What else would it be?” You ask. Bucky watches closely as you run your fingers through your damp hair and stare right back at him. He narrows his eyes at you and cocks his head to the side and you immediately know what he’s thinking. What is it with men always thinking that a woman is pregnant if she pukes? You just fucking time traveled and he still feels the need to rule it out?

            “I’m not pregnant.” You sigh, letting your eyes fall closed again as you kick your shoes off and draw your knees up toward your chest. “I can’t be.”

            “Can’t be?”

            “I haven’t done the thing that you need to do in order to be pregnant in a long time.” Bucky finds relief in your words. He didn’t really think you were pregnant, but he sure as hell likes knowing that you haven’t slept with anyone recently. He leans back in his chair and lets his gaze float around the comfortable space. The homey kitchen makes him think of his mom. The wooden floor boards make him think of how carefully he’d have to tiptoe around his childhood home to keep from letting his parents know that he was awake past his bedtime. The slight chill in the air guides his eyes over to the fireplace that spreads across one wall of the living room. If it gets any colder he’ll have to start a fire.

            “I kissed you.” He says evenly, turning his head back to you. You open your eyes and give him a hard stare, trying to read his indecipherable expression as his blue eyes zero in on your face.

            “Yeah, you keep doing that.” Your nausea worsens and you draw your knees up even tighter against your chest before dropping your head down to rest on them. Bucky pushes himself out of his chair and heads for the kitchen. You listen as he opens and closes a few drawers, rummaging around for something. A few seconds later you hear the kitchen sink running and then it cuts off. Bucky stands there, wringing out a wet cloth as he purses his lips.

            “You haven’t stopped me.” He points out. He turns on his heel and carries the wet cloth in your direction. When you feel his weight sink into the couch cushion beside you, you lift your head from your knees and find yourself face to face with him. He lifts the wet cloth to the side of your neck and dabs at it gently, watching as your eyes close and you take a deep breath in.

            “I’ll make sure it doesn’t happen again.” Sarcasm drips from every word. Bucky slides the cloth to the back of your neck and holds it there for a moment.

            “He’s going to try to kiss you tomorrow.” Bucky seems almost annoyed with his own statement and you steal a sideways glance at him as he moves the wet cloth to your forehead. He seems to almost resent the way his younger self behaved.

            “He moves that fast?” Bucky nods, chewing on the inside of his cheek as he contemplates how much to tell you.

            “You’ll meet and he’ll ask you to dance. You’ll dance and he’ll ask if you want to leave the bar. He’ll take you out into the city, try to show you a good time.” Bucky slides the wet cloth down the side of your face until it’s right below your chin. You look into his eyes, watching as his gaze darts down to your lips for the most fleeting moment. “He moves fast.”

            “I can handle it.” You assure him, but your words come out a lot quieter than you intended. Bucky pulls his hand and the cloth away from your chin and dabs your neck with it again.

            “I know.”

            “Then why does it seem like you’re worried?” Bucky shrugs his shoulders as he focuses in on the skin of your neck. He’s staring at the spot he once marked with his own lips, dragging the cool cloth over it slowly.

            “I don’t like the thought of him touching you.”

            “Bucky…” Your stomach churns violently and you’re rushing off of the couch at lightning speed. Your feet carry you down the hall, into the master bedroom, and into the bathroom quickly. You’re lucky you make it in time to drop to your knees in front of the toilet before the last remnants inside of you start to come out. You hear Bucky step into the bathroom only a second later and he’s tugging your hair back just like he did in the driveway earlier. “Don’t say shit like that.” You groan, grasping the wet cloth that Bucky’s holding out beside your head. You wipe at your lips and reach up to flush the toilet as you stay in place, not trusting that your gut is finished betraying you.

            “Like what?”

            “You shouldn’t care if someone else touches me. We’re partners. We can’t keep blurring the lines like this.” You explain. Bucky’s hands stay firmly in your hair as he waits to see if you’ll get sick a third time.

            “The lines have been blurred for a long time.”

            “Doesn’t mean we should keep blurring them.” You assert. Though you don’t peer over your shoulder to look at Bucky, you can sense the look of frustration that’s written all over his face. He lets out a weighted sigh before moving away from you and reaching over to turn on the shower. As the sound of running water fills the room, you gauge the heaviness in your stomach and decide that you definitely feel better. You remember Bruce’s little pamphlets saying that the first hour after moving through timelines is when you experience the most side effects, and you’re nearing the forty-five-minute mark now. You lean away from the toilet and drop the lid down before pushing yourself up to stand. Though you feel a tiny bit wobbly on your feet, the nausea is mostly gone and the steam from the shower is making you feel a little less chilly.

            “I’ll go grab you some clothes.” Bucky says quietly as he brushes past you and heads back into the bedroom. You take the free moment to search the contents of the bathroom drawers until you find a new toothbrush and some toothpaste. Bucky comes back in when you’re brushing your teeth in front of the fogged-up mirror. “I get the feeling you aren’t going to wear these.” He says with a smirk, dropping a deep red set of folded pajamas beside the sink. You give him a wary side-eye, tucking the toothbrush into the side of your cheek before reaching for the pile of fabric. As soon as you unfold the top, you realize it’s a long sleeve button down shirt with matching pants. It looks like the kind of pajamas you see families wear on Christmas day in lifestyle magazines. Shaking your head, you fold the top and set it back on the countertop. Bucky crosses his arms over his chest and leans against the doorframe as you bend over the sink and spit out a mouthful of water and toothpaste.

            “That’s all there is?” You rinse off the toothbrush and set it along the side of the sink before reaching down and gripping the bottom of your shirt. You already have it pulled over your head by the time you realize what you’re doing. Bucky stands frozen in the doorway, staring at you with narrowed eyes as you drop the shirt to the floor at your feet. He tilts his head to the side, never letting his eyes stray from your face even as you stand before him in a bra.

            “How is this not blurring the lines?” He questions, jutting his chin out at you. You narrow your eyes back at him and cross your arms over your chest, matching his stance. There’s a palpable heat in the air, and it’s not just from the steamy shower. As you and Bucky stand there staring each other down, each of you refusing to break first, tensions soar and you find yourself itching to push him out of the bathroom and shut the door. He can see the idea forming in your head so he speaks up before you actually have a chance to go through with it. “There was a floor-length nightgown if you’d rather wear that.” He says with another signature smirk. You shake your head firmly.

            “Were t-shirts not a thing in the forties?”

            “You’re going to wear a t-shirt when there’s only one bed?” Bucky asks, raising a brow. A genuine laugh erupts from your chest as you uncross your arms and run your fingers through your damp hair.

            “The bed’s all yours, Bucky.” You say, raising your hands up in a gesture that makes it clear you don’t want the bed for yourself. “I’m taking the couch.” Bucky scoffs as he reaches over for the folded pajamas beside the sink. As he steps out of the bathroom, he gives you a look you can’t quite read. It’s something between longing and frustration and it makes your cheeks feel warm. He pulls the door shut behind him, leaving you alone in the steamy bathroom. As you strip your clothes off and step under the stream of water, so many things are stuck in your head. The way Bucky rushed over and held your hair back not only the first time you puked, but the second time as well. He cares. You know he cares. He cares and it scares the shit out of you. The way he pressed a wet cloth to your neck and sat with you on the couch, even if he was using the moment to warn you about his younger self and reveal a little hint of how he feels about you. I don’t like the thought of him touching you. Bucky’s confession may not have surprised you, but it wasn’t what you were expecting him to say. What did he think was going to happen when he insisted you be a part of this mission? He could’ve let Sharon handle it and he never would’ve had to deal with the jealousy or possessiveness or whatever it is that’s coursing through him right now. But no, it had to be you. It could only be you. As you scrub a sweet-smelling soap into your skin, your mind wanders back to that moment on the platform earlier today. He kissed you. He kissed you in front of some of your coworkers without a care in the world. The lines are so fucking blurred that you wonder if he even knows where they are anymore, or if he cares. You look down as soapy suds circle around the drain near your feet. Do you know where they are? Do you care?

            Bucky rummages around in the bedroom until he finds a plain white t-shirt that he’s sure Peggy meant to be for him. It looks like it’ll probably be a bit oversized on you, so he tosses it onto the bed and stands still for a moment, listening to the sound of the shower running through the wall. He knows you feel the same thing he feels. Every time he’s kissed you, he’s reminded that you feel it. Do you try to deny it because you don’t want to feel it? Sometimes he just wants to grab you and ask what it is that keeps you from being real with him.

            Bucky shakes his head, trying his best to clear all thoughts of you from his mind, before tugging his shirt over his head and dropping it on the bed. He leaves his tactical pants on as he moves through the house, searching for an extra pillow and blanket. He sure as hell isn’t going to let you take the couch, especially not a couch made eighty years before the couches you’re used to sitting on. You’ll wake up in the morning with a stiff neck and aching back. He’ll take the couch and leave you the bed.

            It’s just a few minutes later that you’re stepping out of the bathroom, wrapped tightly in a towel as you pad across the bedroom floor quietly. You glance around but see no sign of Bucky. Eyeing the crisp white t-shirt on the bed, you can tell he left it for you. You run your fingers over it while clutching the towel around your chest with one hand.

            “Is that what you wanted?” Bucky’s voice is low and gravelly as he speaks from the bedroom doorway behind you. Clutching the towel a little tighter, you turn to face him with the white shirt fisted in one hand. Your eyes roam over the expanse of his bare chest, coasting down to the ripples of his abs and the v-line that so prominently drags your gaze even further down to the front of his tactical pants. He smirks at the way you’re ogling him, but he doesn’t mention it. When you finally tear your eyes away from him, the dresser beside the doorway catches your eye. You move closer to it and rummage around in one of the top drawers until you find a pair of simple black panties. Bucky’s eyes follow your movements carefully. He leans against the doorframe just like he did in the bathroom earlier, keeping his gaze trained on your face as you lean over and guide the panties up your legs beneath the towel. You’re just careful enough to make sure not to flash Bucky, but you wonder if his eyes would even stray from your face if you flashed him.

            “It’s fine.” You say, referring to the t-shirt. “Are you gonna shower?” You ask, trying to keep your gaze from drifting down his torso again. You turn away from the dresser and head back for the foot of the bed, dropping the shirt onto the mattress before peeling the towel away from your body.

            Bucky stiffens in the doorway as you let your towel fall to your feet. He’s never seen you this way. As you stand there with your back exposed, wearing nothing but a pair of black panties, he has to bite down on his bottom lip to keep from saying something stupid. Who’s blurring the lines now? He wants to point out your hypocrisy, to make it blatantly obvious, but he stays quiet as you tug the t-shirt over your head and slide your arms through the short sleeves.

            “Did you want to keep staring or were you going to shower?” Your voice rings out playfully as you cut your eyes at Bucky over your shoulder. He tamps down a groan at the way you look at him through your lashes, but then he’s moving toward the bathroom door.

            “If I find you on the couch when I get out, I’m moving you myself.” He threatens, not daring to steal another look at you as he nears the bathroom.

            “I already called it.” You shrug, bending over to scoop your damp towel off the floor.       

            “Take the bed, unless you want me joining you on that damn couch and blurring the lines even more.”

            As you settle into the bed, letting go of your signature stubborn nature for the time being, Bucky’s all you can think about. It’s not the fact that he looked undeniably attractive standing there in the doorway without a shirt on. It’s not the fact that he insisted you take the bed and leave him with the surely uncomfortable couch. It’s every little thing he’s said and done in between that has your heart racing and your mind reeling. What if, just this once, you let yourself explore the tension? What if instead of waiting for the tension to snap like a twig, instead of waiting for him to lay you down in the backseat of someone else’s car in the heat of the moment, you took the initiative and tried to figure out what the hell this is between the two of you? He was right when he said that the lines have been blurred for a long time. Maybe instead of trying to tiptoe around and avoid blurring them, you should just shift them. Shift the lines and see if things end up crashing down in flames. If everything goes horribly, it’s not like you had anything to lose. But if things go well? A shiver runs down your spine and you tuck yourself in underneath the covers of the oversized bed. You sink into the pillow behind your head and let your eyes fall closed as you imagine a moment where your field partner becomes something more. You imagine a moment where all the stolen kisses and touches lately stop being so stolen, and instead are given and taken freely. You imagine what it might feel like to stop running and fighting against this thing that you feel so strongly. Warmth spreads through your body and you relax against the mattress.

            When Bucky steps out of the bathroom a few minutes later and catches sight of you curled up in bed with your eyes closed and the covers pulled up to your shoulders, he lets out a quiet sigh of relief. He really thought you’d try to tough it out and sleep on the couch. He stands in the doorway between the bathroom and bedroom, fiddling with the dog tags around his neck and wondering if he should look for some pajamas of his own instead of crashing on the couch in just a pair of black boxers. When he glances over at you again and sees the peaceful look on your face, he can’t bring himself to go digging through the dresser or closet and risk waking you. Though it’s chilly in the house, he could make it through the night just fine by starting a fire in the living room fireplace and using the spare blanket he set out on the couch while you showered. As he starts moving forward, his dog tags clink against his bare chest and the wooden floor creaks under his feet on the second step. He stills and holds his breath, not even moving to look over his shoulder and see if he’s woken you with those little sounds. After waiting a second, takes another cautious step forward and the floor creaks a little louder. Fuck it. He makes it to the door quickly, with only a few more creaks of wood beneath his feet, but as he exits the doorway into the hall, he hears you stir behind him.

            “Bucky?” Your soft sleepy voice stops him in his tracks. He exhales deeply, feeling a bit guilty about waking you but loving the way you sound when you’ve just woken up. He turns around in the doorway and faces you. You’re propped up on one elbow, squinting at him through the dark room.

            “If I knew the floors were so loud I would’ve just slept in the shower.” He says halfheartedly, speaking quietly to match the sleepy mood of the house.

            “I wasn’t really asleep.” You whisper back. Your eyes follow the curve of his vibranium arm down until you’re studying the black and gold fingertips that hang at his side. Bucky raises a brow at you.

            “You were asleep.” He murmurs, cocking his head to the right. He glances over at the empty side of the bed, noting how little space you take up even when you have your legs stretched out.

            “I was just thinking.”

            “About what?” Bucky wonders aloud. He takes a step forward and leans against the doorframe like he’s done multiple times tonight. He crosses his arms over his chest as you let your head fall away from your hand and lay back on your pillow again. You stare up at the ceiling as nervousness begins to swell up in your chest. You bite down on your bottom lip and screw your eyes shut, holding your breath for a second before deciding to speak again.

            “Blurring the lines.” As you lay there in the dark, refusing to prop yourself back up to look at Bucky, your heart starts beating wildly against your ribcage. He’s silent for a second too long and it has you regretting opening your mouth. When you hear the wood floor creak, you force yourself to open your eyes. Pushing yourself up on your elbows, you see Bucky moving toward the bed slowly. His dog tags swing with each step, clanging against his chest a couple of times before he reaches your side of the bed. You watch with bated breath as he nudges your legs through the covers. Getting the hint, you sit up and pull your legs in closer, drawing your knees to your chest. Bucky sits down on the side of the bed but keeps his face cast downward at the floor.

            “That night you tried to sleep it off…” His voice trails off as he leans over and rests his elbows on his knees. He looks down at his hands as he presses his palms together. “Did it work?” You swallow hard but don’t hesitate to shake your head. You know he catches the act in his peripheral vision, so you don’t say a word. Bucky nods slowly, studying his hands as if he’s memorizing every detail of them. Your eyes drift to his shoulders as he takes steady, even breaths. They rise and fall rhythmically as moonlight from the window across the room filters in through the curtains and highlights them.

            Bucky wants to say more, to ask you more. He can tell that you’re open to talking right now, probably more open than you’ve ever been before, but he has this sinking feeling that you’ll say something that’ll break him. He doesn’t know if he can handle hearing you say out loud just how one-sided you think this thing between you really is. Even though he’s sure it’s not actually one-sided, hearing you say that it is might really break him. He won’t give you the chance to do that yet. He wants to hold out hope a little longer. So, Bucky rises from the side of the bed and exhales deeply. When he turns to head for the door again, intent on settling into that stiff green couch in the living room for the night, every sensory receptor in his body fires at once at the feeling of your hand reaching out and grasping his flesh one. He drops his gaze quickly and sees exactly what he feels: your palm sliding against his and your fingers intertwining with his softly. His throat feels dry and every thought leaves his mind as you tighten your grasp and tug on his hand slightly.

            “Lay with me.” You whisper. Your tone is so meek that he can tell exactly what’s going through your mind right now. You’re afraid he’ll say no. You’re afraid that he’ll reject you and continue on to sleep on the couch, leaving you here alone, feeling vulnerable and stunted. The tone of your whisper puts the tiniest crack in his hard exterior.

            Bucky’s silent as you drop his hand and scoot closer to the middle of the bed, pulling back the covers for him. He moves slow as he settles into the warm spot you’d been occupying, inhaling your sweet scent as he pulls the covers over his body and rolls onto his side to face you. You’re just a few inches away, lying on your folded arm since he moved the second pillow to the couch earlier. He could get up and go grab the pillow. He’d only be gone for a few seconds. But he fears the moment he leaves your sight, you’ll change your mind about having him here and he’ll have ruined everything. That’s why he tugs the pillow out from under his head and moves it toward you, watching with a softened gaze as you accept it and slide it beneath your own head.

            You’re falling asleep right in front of his eyes a few minutes later, when suddenly your eyes flutter open and you reach out for him beneath the covers. Your warm palm lands on his side, skating around to his back before you pull him toward you. He moves in carefully, apprehensively, until his chest is nearly pressed against yours. He watches as you drag the pillow until it’s in the shared space between you and both of your heads fall to rest on it evenly. With Bucky’s body heat keeping you warm and the light patter of rain on the bedroom window lulling you to sleep, your eyes are closed only a few minutes later and Bucky finds himself missing the heat of your stare until he too drifts off into an unusually peaceful slumber.

            You awake in a tangle of limbs with lightning flashing through the curtains and illuminating the room with a ghostly glow.  Everything looks a little scarier in an antique house at three in the morning. Thunder rumbles loudly just above the house, shaking the roof and rattling the glass window. As you fully come to your senses, you figure out just where your limbs are in relation to Bucky’s and your heart rate picks up quickly. He’s asleep directly in front of you, with his face looking more relaxed than you’ve ever seen it. But his legs and arms…

            A shaky breath flows out through your nose as you close your eyes and try not to move. Bucky has one thigh wedged snugly between yours and an arm thrown lazily over your waist. You can tell that your t-shirt has ridden up above your hips and ass, with his forearm resting against the hem of it on your waist. Blurred lines. So fucking blurred.

            You close your eyes tightly as a loud crack of thunder reverberates through the house. Bucky’s instantly awoken as the thunder rolls and you tense up against him. He focuses on your face, on your tightly closed eyes and the way you’re holding your breath. He moves the arm that’s draped over your waist slowly until his hand is ghosting over your hip. His fingertips just barely graze the hem of your t-shirt as thunder sounds again. You look into his eyes right as you move your left hand to clamp down over his, forcing his palm to press flat against your hip and his fingers to curl against your skin. As you stare into each other’s eyes and the storm rages on just outside, the tension rising between you feels just like it did in the car outside of Sharon’s apartment that night.

            “I don’t want to keep blurring the lines.” Bucky rasps as he squeezes your hip once. Your eyes trail down to his lips as he speaks only inches from your face. He leans in slowly until he’s so close that one little shift of your head would have you kissing him. He lets the tip of his nose brush against yours gently before moving down and pressing his lips to your jawline. He leaves kisses in a row all the way back to your ear, moving at a torturously slow pace until he’s nipping at your neck in that way that always drives you crazy.

            “Then what do you want?” You ask breathlessly. Bucky pushes the knee that’s trapped between your legs upward until he’s applying the tiniest bit of pressure against your clothed cunt. A soft moan escapes your lips as you squeeze your thighs around his and focus on the feel of skin against skin.

            “I want to cross them.” He whispers against your neck. You tilt your head back to give him more access as his tongue swirls against the column of your throat. “I want to lay you down on the line and just…” Bucky tugs the neck of your shirt to the side and bites down on your collarbone lightly. “Fuck you on it.”

            “Bucky…” His name is a whimper that floats from your lips and fills the space around you both. Moving his hand back down to your hip, Bucky curls his fingertips into it and pulls you down, making your grind against the firm muscle of his thigh. This time a sultry moan slips out and your back arches slightly, causing your chest to press against his.

            “How am I supposed to keep my hands off of you when you say my name like that?” Wetness pools between your thighs and begins to dampen the fabric of your panties as he pushes his thigh upward again, at the same time that he pulls your hip down and applies pressure to your clit just right. You know you should have better sense than to lay here and let him do unspeakable things to you. You should remind him that you’re partners, that you’d be risking things professionally if you let things go on this way. You should remind him that you’re technically on a mission right now, but his name just falls from your lips again. You’re actively emptying your mind of any thought that would have you push him away when he attaches his lips to your neck again and pulls you in against his chest. You try to push his shoulders and force him onto his back so you can move on top of him, but he fights against you, rolling on top of you instead. He pins your arms down on either side of your head and lets his nose brush against yours a second time. He lowers his hips down slowly as your legs spread on their own accord, giving him the space to press his clothed erection against your wet panties.

            “How do we keep ending up like this?” You whisper against his lips, staring up into his blue eyes as your question hangs in the air. Bucky presses his lips to yours in a short, shallow kiss. “I keep telling myself this can’t happen and we keep ending up here.”

            “Let me have you.” He begs, dropping his forehead to yours. You look at him through your lashes as your breath hitches in your throat. “Let me have you just this once.”

            “Just this once? That’s all you’re asking for?” The words come out airy and light as you struggle to take in a full breath. Bucky grinds against you, circling his hips slowly while he keeps your arms pinned to the mattress.

            “I’d ask you for a lifetime if I didn’t think it would scare the shit out of you.” Goosebumps prickle across your skin and you bite down on your bottom lip hard enough to draw blood.

            “We can’t fuck.” You say decidedly. The surety of your voice surprises you, with how malleable you feel having Bucky grind against you like this. You fear that if he really asked you for something specific, you’d say yes in a heartbeat. He circles his hips into yours impossibly harder and shakes his head above you.

            “I wasn’t asking if I could fuck you.” Bucky takes in the confused look on your face and he can’t help but to lean in and kiss you. He envisions what he really wants to do to you. He pictures the way he wants to push your legs apart and eat you out like your pussy is his last meal. Then he kisses you like that’s exactly what he’s doing. His tongue delves into your mouth relentlessly, leaving you gasping for air when he finally pulls back. He lets go of your forearms and pushes the covers away from his back as he shimmies down. He kisses your neck, then your chest through the t-shirt. He leaves soft, gentle kisses all the way down until he’s settling himself between your legs and pressing his lips against the waistband of your panties. You look down at him through your lashes, wanting nothing more than to tangle your fingers in his hair and pull his face closer to where you need it. “I was asking if I could taste you.”

            “You say you want to lay me down on the metaphorical line and fuck me, and then you get between my legs and ask if you can just taste me?”

            “I’m not fucking you until I know I can do it without you running off and pretending like it meant nothing to you.” He plants an open-mouthed kiss right over your clothed clit. The warmth of his tongue seeps through the fabric, sending a jolt of pleasure dancing up your spine and a knot tightening low in your stomach. “When I fuck you, you’re not going to get all in your head about how you shouldn’t have let it happen. You’re not going to have regrets and feel like we ruined everything we had.” Bucky hooks a finger in your panties and gently pulls them to the side, but he never looks down. He maintains eye contact as he starts pressing the pad of his thumb against your now exposed clit. Him finding your clit instantly without even looking, without having your anatomy perfectly memorized, almost ruins you. “When I fuck you, you’re going to realize that you were just delaying the inevitable.”

            “You keep saying when.” You point out between heavy pants. You can’t resist the urge to tangle your fingers in his hair any longer, not when he’s toying with your clit this way and looking at you so intensely. You reach down with both hands, carding your fingers through his hair and tugging on it lightly.

            “Inevitable, sweetheart. Tell me what that word means.” He finally lets his eyes angle downward and settle on your wet cunt. You watch as his pupils dilate and his tongue darts out to dampen his lips as he admires you from just a couple of inches away. He starts circling your clit with his thumb, applying just enough pressure to have your back arching off of the bed and your fingers curling in his brown hair. Bucky inches closer to your pussy and you feel his tongue press against your entrance firmly, before he’s dragging it upwards and using it to replace his thumb. He pulls back abruptly, leaving you whining out in frustration. “If something’s inevitable, it’s certain. It’s unavoidable, it was bound to happen.” His warm breath fans over your pussy as he speaks in a low voice. Bucky sucks on your clit roughly before pulling back again. “When I fuck you, when the inevitable happens, you won’t be able to pretend like there’s nothing between us anymore.”

            You’re torn between wanting to argue with him and wanting to clamp your thighs around his head and grind against his tongue. Bucky smirks up at you and you tug on his hair a little harder out of spite.

            “It’s already happening, isn’t it?” He asks just before flattening his tongue against your clit and letting your circle your hips against him. Your eyes flutter closed as that knot in your stomach tightens more and more. “It’s getting harder to pretend.”

            “Fuck you.” You moan out the insult, but it’s useless as he slides down and pushes his tongue inside of you. His thumb takes over stimulating your clit once again as he starts eating you out like he’s dreamt of doing it since he’s known you. His tongue works you up higher and higher, closer and closer to the edge of the cliff as a sweat breaks out across your forehead and you struggle to keep your ass on the bed.

            “You’re getting close.” He groans against you. You whimper as he drags his thumb away from your clit and switches to rubbing it with his middle and ring fingers. He moves slow now, sliding those fingertips away from your clit and toward your entrance.

            “Bucky…” You say his name in warning. You know what he’s about to do. He plunges both fingers into you, stopping when they’re halfway in and your back is arched inches off of the bed. Your fingertips scrape against his scalp as you hold in a moan that would’ve been damn near pornographic if you’d let it out. Bucky lets out a frustrated sigh before dragging his fingers out and then pushing them back in all the way. As he holds them inside of you knuckle-deep, you cry out loudly. It’s been so long since you’ve let anyone do something like this to you and he isn’t giving you much time to adjust, but god, it feels so fucking good.

            “Breathe, baby.” He says as he presses a soft kiss to the inside of your thigh. He starts fucking you with his fingers slowly, almost gently. In and out they go, first just halfway each time, but then he starts thrusting them deeper and going a little faster with it. “I would’ve gone a little easier on you if you hadn’t held in that pretty little sound.”

            “Just…fuck, Bucky.” You moan, hooking your legs over his shoulders as a loud crack of thunder sends the window rattling again. “I’m close.”

            “Trust me, I know.” He groans, pressing a sloppier kiss to the inside of your thigh as he curls his fingers inside of you. You cry out again, but this time your hands leave his hair and go to grip the sheets on either side of your head. “Are you going to imagine you’re cumming on my cock when this orgasm hits?”

            “No.” You say defiantly, shaking your head as he curls his fingers again. He laughs darkly, clearly calling your bluff.

            “You know you squeeze the hell out of my fingers when you lie?”

            “I do not.”

            “That’s it, baby.” Bucky coos. He positions himself to attach his lips to your clit as he continues his ministrations with his hand. “Keep tightening around my fingers until you fucking cum.”

            Some part of you wants to keep defying him. You want to be stubborn and refuse to give him this piece of you, refuse to give him one of your orgasms. It feels like if you let go and give it to him, you’re going to tumble right over the edge of a cliff and into the unknown. But why does it feel so damn good as you stand on the edge of that cliff? When you stop resisting and let your orgasm wash over you, when Bucky watches as your face contorts with bliss and your knuckles turn white against the bed sheets, he’s just as far gone as you are. You’re cumming around his fingers while he laps at your clit, and he’s cumming in his boxers without even having realized just how close he was to doing it.

            There’s an odd feeling brewing in his chest as he puts your panties back in place and collapses beside you in bed. He can’t quite figure out what it is. When you catch your breath and look over at him, taking in the sight of Bucky Barnes with your arousal painted over his lips and chin, you feel your heart skip a beat. Bucky looks back at you, but he only gets a second to see your dilated pupils and flushed cheeks before you’re leaning in and swiping your tongue across his bottom lip.

            As your lips move against his in a gentle, familiar way, his lungs burn and his heart is pounding in his ears. Because he knows what this is. He knows what that unusual feeling in his chest really is. Love. He’s in love with the girl who lives to ignore her feelings.

            You’re in too deep. You can’t even try to reason with yourself. As you lie in a tangle of sheets, listening to the mixed water sounds of Bucky showering and rain falling lightly just outside the bedroom window, you feel utterly fucked. And not just because Bucky fucked you with his mouth last night. You let out a frustrated groan before rolling onto your back and fisting your hands in your messy hair. You can’t tell yourself to be professional because you’re so far past professional now that it’d be insulting to you both if you tried to revert. You can’t tell yourself to stop crossing lines with him because you know just how good it feels every time you do it. Bucky was onto something last night when he asked you if it was getting harder for you to pretend that there’s nothing between the two of you.

            Your eyes float over to the partially closed bathroom door and you watch for a moment as steam floats through the space between it and the doorframe. Is it steam from the hot shower or is it just radiating off of the man that said your pussy gets tighter when you lie? Blush creeps into your cheeks at the memory of him saying such a filthy thing while his fingers were inside of you.

            Bucky tenses up in the shower when he hears the bathroom door creak open the tiniest bit. When your bare feet lightly tap along the cold floor and he hears them stop in front of the sink, a small smile plays on his lips.

            “You’re not coming in?” Bucky’s smirk is evident in his tone and you’re biting on the inside of your cheek as you reach for your toothbrush.

            “You remember me saying we can’t fuck, right?” You ask, though even as you say it, it feels like a weak statement.

            “Do you remember me saying it’s inevitable?” He retorts playfully. You should tell him to fuck off, but you only find yourself tempted to actually join him in the shower. As you spread a bit of toothpaste along the bristles of your toothbrush, you shake your head to yourself.

            “I’m brushing my teeth in the kitchen.”

            “That’s fine.” Bucky replies nonchalantly, seemingly unfazed by your slight rejection. He spends the next ten minutes lathering and rinsing for the second time in less than twelve hours. He isn’t normally someone who takes a shower both in the morning and at night, but after he came in his boxers last night, he fell asleep next to you and didn’t take the time to clean himself up. He woke up feeling like he’d had a wet dream.

            Peggy sits on the foot of the bed, waiting patiently as you try on a third dress.

            “Are you alright in there?” Peggy calls out politely, uncrossing her legs and readying to rise from the bed if need be. You laugh softly from inside the walk-in closet before pulling the door open and revealing the deep blue dress she picked for you to try a few minutes ago. It has cap sleeves, a high neckline, and an A-line style skirt.  “I think that one looks wonderful on you, don’t you like it?” She asks, pushing herself up and coming to stand in front of you. She catches the pinched look on your face before you’ve even formulated a response. You didn’t quite like the first two dresses either, and at this point there are only a handful left to try. She has to wonder if maybe it’s the dissonance between forties-style dresses and modern dresses that’s throwing you off. “Sergeant Barnes.” Peggy calls for him loudly.

            Bucky’s rising from the couch and heading down the hall as soon as he’s been invited into the bedroom. He was kicked out pretty much the moment he finished up his morning shower, with Peggy showing up and saying she just had to get started on your look for tonight. He was a bit skeptical about how much time it’d really take, but after hearing you try on three dresses and dislike every single one, he sees why she came so early.

            “What do we need him for?” Confusion is written all over your face as you smooth down the blue dress and raise a brow at Peggy.

            “He’s the one that needs to like the dress, isn’t he?” She questions, motioning for Bucky to come in. He takes a few steps into the room and rubs the back of his neck awkwardly as his eyes coast over the dress. It’s pretty, it’s definitely very forties-esque, but it’s not you. It’s not you and it’s definitely not for him. “Help her pick a dress for tonight.” Bucky stares at her for a long moment before she starts moving toward the door. She pats his shoulder as she passes him, leaning in to whisper in his ear just as you’re disappearing back into the closet. “She needs you for this.”

            You feel Bucky’s presence in the closet without having to turn around and look at him. He stops just a few inches behind you, looking over your shoulder at the row of dresses that you have to choose from.

            “It’s a little different than your closet back home.” He says softly, watching as your fingertips dance across the fabric of each hanging dress.

            “You haven’t seen my closet back home.” You point out, tugging on the side of a dark navy dress. As soon as you see the front of it, you let it go. Your fingers continue on, looking for another dark fabric.

            “If you’re looking for something like that little black dress you wore last weekend, you won’t find it in here.” Bucky replies. Thinking about that little black dress sends your mind back to the night in the bar, when Bucky kissed you in front of everyone. Then your mind wanders to what happened in the car after, and you have to shake the thought of it from your head. Your fingers brush along a bright red dress and you don’t even consider checking it out. Bucky steps up close behind you, so close that you feel his body heat permeating your skin through the blue dress you’re wearing. He reaches around you with his right arm and grasps the edge of the only black fabric amongst all of the dresses hanging there.

            “Peggy said something colorful would be best.” You murmur as he removes the dress from the hanging rack and holds it out in front of you both.

            “He won’t be paying much attention to the dress.” Bucky assures you. He leans in close to your ear before whispering his next words. “And you look good in black.”  A chill runs through you but you reach out and grasp the hanger quickly before turning around and pressing a hand against Bucky’s chest.

            “Let me change.” You push against his chest gently and he takes a few steps backward until he’s out of the closet. As he moves across the room to sit on the foot of the bed where Peggy previously was, he hears the sound of your blue dress unzipping but not the sound of the closet door closing. He takes a cautious look as he sinks down onto the edge of the mattress. There you are, slipping out of that deep blue fabric while giving Bucky an almost clear view of you in forties-style black lingerie. His cock is awake instantly and is hardening within the already sort of tight-fitting sweats he took from Stark’s dresser earlier this morning. Bucky leans forward and rests his elbows on his knees as he drops his line of sight to the floor.

            You walk out only a moment later in the dress he chose. It’s all black, with off the shoulder sleeves and a fairly low-cut neckline. It hugs your body tightly. It’s quite similar to the shape of the red dress that Peggy wore when he first saw her in the Whip and Fiddle.

            “Don’t look at me like that.” You say lightly, watching as Bucky’s eyes glide up and down your figure multiple times. He clears his throat and sits up straight before motioning with his flesh hand for you to come closer. You move forward until you’re a couple of feet in front of him, but then your eyes drop to his lap and you see his erection pressed against his sweats. Confidence rolls off of you in waves as you stop thinking and take a few more steps toward him. You don’t stop until you’re standing between his legs and he’s looking up at you. You let your hands rest on his shoulders as his move to ghost along the outsides of your thighs.

            “Don’t go too far with him tonight.” Bucky’s tone is almost pleading as he searches your eyes, but his expression is unreadable.

            “How far is too far?” You swallow thickly after asking your question. Bucky curls his fingers into your hips and draws in a deep breath.

            “I don’t know.” He admits, but he does know. He knows that he doesn’t even want you to let this younger version of himself dance with you. He doesn’t want to let him lean in and whisper in your ear, he doesn’t want him to even get the chance to consider kissing you.

            “You told me he moves fast, and we need him and Steve to be on board for this mission tomorrow. I can’t reject him.” You explain quietly, glancing over your shoulder to make sure Peggy’s still in the living room. When you turn your head forward again and look down at Bucky, he’s leaning in closer to you. You watch with your breath hitched in your throat as he lets the tip of his nose brush against your dress, just below your breasts. He moves slow, dragging his nose upward and letting his lips follow in their wake until he’s halfway up your chest. Your hands slide up the sides of his neck and tangle in his hair, tugging him back to look at you again.

            “Why did you ask me to lay with you last night?” Bucky finally asks the question that’s been on his mind since he woke up this morning. You exhale slowly, absentmindedly massaging your fingers into his scalp while his thumbs rub circles against the front of your hips. He watches as you chew on the inside of your cheek, trying your best to come up with a safe answer.

            “I wanted to know what it would feel like…to stop pretending.” You whisper.

            “How did it feel?” His eyes stray from your face, taking in the swell of your breasts over the low neckline of the dress. Filthy memories of last night flood your brain and you clench your thighs together slightly. It wasn’t slightly enough, because Bucky catches on instantly and he tugs his bottom lip between his teeth. While you’re remembering the feel of his kisses against your inner thigh and his tongue on your clit, he’s remembering the sweet taste of your cunt and the pretty sounds you made just for him.

            “Good.” Your whisper is even quieter now, and your nerves are rising knowing Peggy’s just down the hall in the living room.

            “Just good?” Bucky fishes for more. He tests the waters, letting his hands slide down your thighs, closer to the hem of the dress. You don’t move away, you don’t swat at his hands or tell him to stop.

            “Just good, Bucky.” You answer. But as his fingers hook beneath the hem of your dress and he starts guiding it higher and higher up your legs, you know your resolve and will to pretend is crumbling.

            “I think you’re lying.” He says calmly, staring up at you with those blue eyes as the hem of the dress nears the middle of your thighs. You squeeze his shoulders as he lets his flesh thumb graze the lace edge of your panties, close to where your thigh meets your center.

            “Peggy’s here.” You whisper the reminder, but make no effort to break away from him. In fact, you find yourself leaning into his touch. Bucky’s quick as he slips one finger into your panties and drags it along the length of your folds, gathering the slick arousal that’s started collecting between them.

            “Shh, I just want to see if you’re lying to me.” Bucky hushes you just as his gaze is dropping to your lower body and he’s nudging your feet apart with his right foot. You don’t stop him. You don’t do anything but close your eyes and dig your fingertips into his shoulders as he dips a finger inside of you. Your mouth falls open and you inhale sharply as he curls it against your walls. “How did it feel last night? To stop pretending for a little while?” He gazes up at you with what you think is a look of lust, but he knows is all fucking love. “Just good?”

            “Bucky…fuck.” He pulls his finger out before plunging it in deeper than before, and then he curls it again.

            “That’s not an answer.”

            “It felt good…it felt, shit, Bucky.” He starts thrusting his finger in and out of you at a medium pace as you try to piece together your answer. “It felt right.” He slows to a stop as you say that last word. Though you’re tight as fuck, just like you were last night, he doesn’t feel that characteristic clenching when you give your answer. You’re telling the truth. Maybe that’s a stupid way to interrogate you, but his theory is proving true so far. He pulls his finger out of you and brings it to his lips, sucking it into his mouth and savoring your taste. You look down just as he's pulling it away from his lips and tugging your dress back into place.

            “Black heels.” He says lightly, patting the side of your thigh as you step away from him. He rises in front of you and moves a stray lock of hair behind your ear with the same finger that was just inside you. “The third ones from the closet door.”

            Bucky’s waltzing out of the room, tucking his hard-on into the waistband of his sweats as you’re left standing there dazed. Dazed and beyond aroused. Part of you wants to grab him by the back of his shirt and drag him back into the room, telling him to finish what he started. The other part of you knows better than to give him the satisfaction. So, you grab that pair of black heels from the closet and keep your mouth shut.

            You feel uncharacteristically nervous for what should just be another mission on your long list of undercover ops. Maybe it’s because you have one version of Bucky Barnes listening through the in-ear monitor you’re sporting, while you’re moments away from meeting another version of the same man. Or maybe it’s because you’re trying to walk the very fine line between hating Bucky Barnes and loving him. Whatever it is, you’re nervous and it’s showing.

            Peggy walks close to your side, leading the way down the busy street in her red dress and matching heels. You can hear the watch on her left wrist ticking away as you approach the Whip and Fiddle.

            “You seem worried.” Peggy voices her observation softly as she slows her pace a bit and casts you a sideways glance. You let out a stiff laugh before pushing a curl over your shoulder. She did your hair and makeup in a way that has you feeling like something fresh out of a forties fashion catalog. “Is it the mission itself or the man involved?” You swallow thickly, knowing Bucky can hear the entire conversation through your in-ear monitor. You could reach up and turn it off, have a quick girls chat with Peggy while leaving Bucky in the dark. But you’re sure Peggy would instantly realize that you’re on comms and you don’t know how she’d feel about not being let in on it sooner.

            “I’m fine, just not used to life in the forties I guess.” You respond curtly.

            “Well, that wasn’t very convincing.” She huffs. When she slows to a stop beside you, you know it’s futile to keep walking toward the bar, so you stop and turn to face her. “He looks at you like he would’ve given you the world and his last name in any timeline.”

            “Peggy—”

            “Now you have to spend an evening flirting with a younger version of him when you don’t even know how you feel about your version of him. You don’t have to lie to me just because he’s listening in, he knows that you’re conflicted.” Your eyes widen as she lets you in on exactly how perceptive she is. You hear Bucky clear his throat through your ear piece and pink begins to color your cheeks, you’re sure it’s even showing through the blush Peggy applied for you earlier.

            “I’ll be fine.” You assure her, though the words don’t come out sounding quite as convincing as you’d hoped.

            “I’m sure you will be. Sergeant Barnes will show you an exceptionally great time tonight, but it won’t make your problem any easier to figure out.”

            “My problem?”

            “You’re in love with your partner and you don’t know how to handle it.”

            “You just met us last night and you’ve already decided that?” You ask incredulously, crossing your arms over your chest as Peggy glances over at the door to the Whip and Fiddle. You see a few soldiers spilling out of the place with varying degrees of unstable gaits and boisterous laughs. You don’t recognize any of them as Steve or Bucky, so you turn your attention back to her.

            “It doesn’t matter when I met you, I look at you and I see me.” That’s how Peggy sees your situation so clearly. She’s in the same one. She’s in love with Steve Rogers and she doesn’t know what to do about it. She doesn’t know how to handle it yet. You let out a deep sigh and let your arms fall to your sides. Bucky’s staying quiet on the other end of comms, so quiet that you can’t even hear him breathe. “I want to ask you how things end for me in the future…how things end for us, but I won’t.” You know that she’s referring to herself and Steve and your heart breaks a little for her. “Don’t let fear get in the way of the rest of your life. You could live a wonderful life with a man that feels what he feels for you, but you can lose it all by being too afraid to give him a chance.”

            Your black heels are frozen to the sidewalk as Peggy’s words echo in your mind. When she turns and starts heading for the entrance to the bar, you stay still and quiet.

            “They end up together.” Bucky’s voice plays in your ear so quietly that you think you’ve made it up for a moment.

            “How do you know?” You finally ask, speaking under your breath as you start moving in Peggy’s direction slowly. Bucky lets out a long sigh, like he’s dwelling on a memory.

            “It’s the only reason Steve would’ve stayed behind like he did.” Bucky listens to the slow, steady clicking of your heels against the pavement as he grows closer and closer to losing you to his younger self. He wants to say so much more. He wants to point out that you didn’t deny it when Peggy said you were in love with him. He wants to ask if you’re really afraid, if she was right about that. But it’s not the time. It’ll probably never be the time.

            He leans back into the couch as he listens to the distant din of the Whip and Fiddle. The in-ear monitor won’t pick up much background noise, but he hears the sound of a bell chiming as the door opens for you and the sound of way too many soldiers clamoring around the space that you’re in. His eyes scrunch closed and his vibranium arm whirs as he curls his hand into a fist.

            “Captain.” Peggy’s accent carries the title with an air of class as she approaches a man seated at the bar. You recognize the back of his head instantly. Steve Rogers. He turns around quickly, coming to stand only two feet in front of Peggy as his eyes quickly, and quite respectably, roam over her figure.  The room slows and everything starts sounding muffled when the man seated next to Steve turns around and his eyes meet yours. Bucky. You stare at each other for a few long seconds, neither of you saying anything.

            “Agent Carter.” Steve addresses her, breaking you out of your trance. You look over at the tall super soldier with his perfectly styled blonde hair and dress uniform, noting the way his eyes never leave Peggy.

            “Howard has some equipment for you to try.” Peggy’s mouth is speaking business, but her eyes are saying something else entirely as they lock onto Steve’s and refuse to stray. You can feel Bucky’s eyes studying you intensely over Peggy’s shoulder as you avoid his gaze and watch the exchange that’s happening in front of you instead. “Maybe after tomorrow’s mission?”

            “Sounds good.” Steve keeps his replies short, but every word is thick with tension. Peggy leans back a bit and glances across the bar, noting a particularly lively table of men. They lean into each other as they sing along to a tune someone’s banging out on a beat up piano in the corner of the bar.               

            “I see your top squad is prepping for duty.” She says facetiously.

            “You don’t like music?” Bucky asks, tilting his head to the side and cocking a brow at her. Her gaze remains fixed on Steve as Bucky steps to the side to get a better look at you.

            “I do, actually. I might even, when this is all over, go dancing.”

            “And you?” Bucky directs his question at you now, nodding his head in your direction as Peggy steps to the side and gives you space to join the conversation. “Do you dance?”

            “With the right partner.” You reply softly, trying hard not to get lost in his blue eyes. Though he’s younger and so much more naïve, you see the Bucky you know all over the man in front of you. You see him in every artistic feature of his face, you see him in the way he cocks his head to the side and flashes a smirk at you.

            “Then what are we waiting for?” He asks playfully, nodding his head toward the more open part of the bar. You don’t rush to take his outstretched hand, but once your palm is against his, you get the same feeling that you’ve felt every time your version of Bucky has ever touched you. It feels electric. It feels like every nerve ending beneath your skin is on fire. It feels like you’re on the edge of a cliff and a strong wind is about to blow through and send you spiraling down.

            Back at the safehouse, Bucky’s stomach is twisting into knots as he pictures you wrapped up in the arms of anyone but him. He knows it’s stupid. He knows that this guy, in some way, really is him. But it still feels wrong. He listens reluctantly as this younger, more charismatic version of himself flirts and banters with you through multiple dances. He listens as the young soldier leans in close to your ear and tells you how you took the breath out of his lungs the moment you walked into the bar. He starts to feel a little nauseas and wonders if he’s finally heading into his own bout with time sickness when he hears the sound of a genuine laugh slipping past your lips at whatever it was that the young soldier said to you.

            It isn’t long before Bucky’s ripping the in-ear monitor out and tossing it on the kitchen table. He paces back and forth, focusing on the sound of his feet thudding against the wooden floorboards. Don’t go too far with him tonight. Bucky can still hear the way he pleaded with you earlier today. It was pathetic, but it was heartfelt. This younger version of himself would be completely on board with your mission even if you’d just flashed him a smile. Fuck. He runs his hands through his hair and curls his fingers into the soft brown locks, tugging them away from his scalp as he stops pacing. What the hell is he doing? You invited him into bed last night. You slept next to him. You let him slip between your legs and eat you out so thoroughly that he swears he can still taste you now. You let him finger your pussy just so he could find out if you were lying or not. You’re not going to let this younger version of him take things too far after all of that, right?

            Bucky exhales through his nose as he sinks back into one of the kitchen chairs and stares down at the earpiece on the table. He takes it in his flesh hand and rolls it between his middle and index finger for a moment, knowing he has to put it back in. When did he turn into such a jealous guy?

            The young Sergeant Barnes is captivated by you. He watches from the bar as you breeze through casual conversation with Peggy. You have a way of seeming so genuinely interested in anything that anyone says to you. You wholeheartedly hang on every word spoken and you get this look in your eye like nothing is more important to you than whatever’s being said. You seemed every bit as invested in Bucky’s spiel about Ferris wheels as you were when he leaned into your ear and told you about his family back home.

            “She’s a lady, Buck.” Steve says lightly, lifting his drink to his lips and taking a short sip. Bucky swirls amber colored whiskey around in the bottom of his glass as his blue eyes glimmer in the low lights of the bar. “Don’t get any ideas, she works with Peggy.”

            “You work with Peggy.” Bucky points out, casting him a disapproving glance before zeroing in on you again. “And you have ideas.”

            “I have ideas.” Steve mumbles, nodding curtly in surrender. He can’t lie to Bucky.

            “You don’t want to take your ideas over there and ask her to dance?” Bucky shifts his gaze to Peggy. He can almost imagine her proper accent as he watches her lips move in conversation with you. He has no doubt, just from the little interaction between Steve and Peggy when you girls first arrived at the bar, that Steve’s head over heels. Not only Steve, but Peggy’s envisioning a life with him too.

            “It’s not the right time.” Steve replies, setting his mug down on the bar and turning to face the same direction as Bucky.  

            “If you keep waiting, you’ll miss the time entirely.”

            “Can you miss fate?” Steve asks thoughtfully. Peggy lifts her gaze and turns her head slightly to the side, meeting his gaze across the bar for a fleeting second.

            “I’m not going to wait around here with you and find out.” Bucky’s downing the last of his whiskey and heading for you just as Peggy’s heading for Steve. His eyes are all over you as he approaches, sending your confidence soaring and your nerves stirring in the pit of your stomach. When he steps in close and wraps an arm around your waist, letting his right hand rest on the small of your back, you melt into his touch.

            “How much of London have you seen?” He whispers the question in your ear, letting his lips ghost so close to your ear that a shiver rolls through you.

            “Not enough.” You admit, biting down on your bottom lip as he curls his fingertips against the back of your dress.

            “Let me show you?” It’s a request. But when he pulls back and looks into your eyes, there’s no way you could deny him.

            No. Bucky’s clenching his fists atop the safehouse kitchen table as he listens to the sound of his younger self pushing open some creaky door. The din of the bar fades into the background as your heels click against pavement. You’re outside of the bar now. You’re not going to see London, that’s for fucking sure. Bucky grits his teeth as his own voice plays through the earpiece. He’s never wanted to wring his own neck so damn bad.

            “There are a lot of parts of the city that aren’t safe with the war going on, but if you work with Peggy, I’m guessing you’re used to that.” You stand still at the side exit of the bar, watching as Bucky carefully places his army uniform hat over his head. Somehow, the dark brick walls of the alley make his eyes seem more blue.  

            “Are we going somewhere dangerous, Sergeant Barnes?” You ask softly, looking up at him through your lashes as he straightens up his uniform jacket. You let your eyes coast down, taking in the sight of him in full uniform. Why don’t they still dress men this way?

            “Sergeant Barnes, hm?” He repeats the name slowly, taking two steps toward you as you take one step back toward the brick side wall of the Whip and Fiddle.

            “That’s your name, isn’t it?”

            “You don’t like calling me Bucky?” Another step forward and the fabric of his jacket is brushing against the fabric of your dress as your back meets the brick wall. He leans in and raises his arms, letting his palms rest against the brick on either side of your head as he cages you in. Truthfully, you don’t like calling him Bucky. You’ve avoided saying his name all night. It feels weird, it feels wrong. Just last night you were moaning that name with a slightly different man between your legs. By calling this one something different, you can at least separate the two a tiny bit.

            “You don’t like when I call you Sergeant Barnes?” You skirt around his question with one of your own. He chuckles as a smug look spreads over his features. He drops his head lower and lower until his lips are a mere inch away from yours and his blue eyes are staring so far into you that you’re sure he can see every thought in your spiraling mind.

            “You can call me anything you want and I’m damn sure I’ll love it.” He whispers. Your eyes track the movement of his tongue as it darts out and wets his lips.

            Your world shifts when you grab the front of his jacket and pull him in. His lips are soft as they part against yours and move in the way that only men named Bucky Barnes seem to move their lips. He kisses you like he’s done it countless times in every timeline that exists. Even as rain begins pattering down, soaking his uniform and your dress, you only tug on his jacket a little harder and angle your head to the side. As his tongue dances along your bottom lip, you hesitate for the shortest second. You can hear a voice echoing in your head, asking you not to go too far tonight, but his tongue is in your mouth and your guilt only multiplies when the taste of honey-tinged whiskey soaks into your taste buds.

            You taste like honey.

            You remember the first time your version of Bucky slipped his tongue into your mouth as the rain begins to pour down. You don’t mean to be so rash, but you’re loosening your grip on the uniform jacket and pressing your palms flat against his chest in an instant.

            “What were you drinking tonight?” You ask in a raspy whisper. You let Bucky stay close enough that your foreheads are nearly touching as he sucks in a deep breath and bites his bottom lip. Shaking his head like you’ve just asked him the most out of pocket question he’s ever heard, he releases his bottom lip slowly.

            “Four Roses.” He answers just as quietly. You nod to yourself as you commit the name to memory. He lets his left hand trail down the wet brick wall, moving it closer and closer to your face until you feel his warm palm press against your cheek. The fact that his palm isn’t a cool vibranium metal one contrasting with your heated skin makes you draw in a sharp breath and close your eyes. Why the fuck are you having so much trouble with this? You should be able to make out with the guy and put on a convincing act for five minutes. But no, he tastes like honey and you’re done for. You’re suddenly acutely aware of just how long it’s been since you heard even the tiniest noise through your earpiece, and your guilt increases tenfold. As if the man before you can read your mind, he lets his hand fall away from your face. “You’re not mine to kiss like this, are you?”

            “That’s the problem.” You whisper shakily, curling your fingers into the coarse fabric of his jacket lapels one more time. Your eyes float upward and meet his as you fight the urge to swallow the words you’re about to speak. “I think I am, and that scares the hell out of me.”

            Something changed for you at the Whip and Fiddle tonight. Peggy isn’t quite sure what it is, but she senses it. She senses it in the air in the same way she senses the coming rain. Even if she couldn’t see the dark clouds gathering along the edge of the city, if she couldn’t smell the rain in the air, she could feel the atmosphere changing as the storm approaches. Everything is set for tomorrow. The Howling Commandos are going to take down yet another HYDRA base, and now that you have an in with the forty’s version of Bucky, it shouldn’t be all too hard to use the connection to your advantage and slip inside of the base yourself. As far as he knows, you work with Peggy and you can hold your own pretty damn well. So, as you sit in the passenger seat of Peggy’s car staring straight ahead, why do you seem so off? If everything is going according to plan so far, what’s wrong with you?

            “Sergeant Barnes seemed quite taken with you.” Peggy comments as she guides the car away from the city. You’re not really paying much attention to her words, not when you’re still mulling over the realization you came to when you kissed the young sergeant in the alley earlier tonight. You couldn’t stand the fact that his left hand was his own, or that he was missing that characteristic darkness around him. It was Bucky, of course, but it wasn’t really Bucky. It wasn’t the Bucky you know. Sure, when you kissed him he tasted the same, he even smelled the same. But you were kissing a version of Bucky that hasn’t yet experienced any of the things that made the man you slept next to last night. You feel like you’ve been carrying around a perfectly crafted piece of pottery, neatly sculpted and fired in a kiln. It’s been hardened and glazed with dark earthy tones, completely finished. Then, someone shoved that piece of pottery into the back of a kitchen cabinet and handed you a wet mound of clay. You don’t want the soft, unmolded version of Bucky. You want the hardened, finished version.

            “He still drinks the same whiskey.” You don’t know why you’re dwelling on that little detail. You reach up with one hand and press your fingers against your lips, feeling a frustrating warmth awaken low in your stomach. Peggy looks over at you briefly, not letting her gaze linger for long before her eyes are back on the road ahead.      

            “Steve and I…we wait until it’s too late, don’t we?” Peggy’s question snaps you out of your thoughts and your hand drops to your lap quickly. You turn your head and stare at her, but she remains focused on the dark street that the car is rolling down.

            “What makes you ask that?”

            “I have a feeling.” She sighs heavily, pursing her red lips at the end of her sentence. “I have a feeling that we don’t allow ourselves that happiness in this lifetime, and you’re not allowing it for yourself either.”

            “It’s different for me.”

            “How so?” She asks softly, taking a right turn. The car begins coasting down a street you recognize and you know the safehouse is just a couple of minutes away now.

            “It’s just different. I can’t just give in and see if things turn out okay. We work together, we live across the hall from each other.” You’re grasping for excuses.

            “You trust the man with your life but you don’t want to trust him with your heart?”

            Peggy has a way with words. You don’t have a response for her as she slows down and turns into the driveway of Howard Stark’s house a couple of minutes later. As the car idles in front of the house, you feel a heavy weight settling on your shoulders.

            When you reach the front door, you find that Bucky’s left it unlocked for you. You slip in quietly, leaning against the wall of the foyer for a second to gather your thoughts. The house is mostly dark except for a small light glowing in the kitchen. Your stomach is churning as you tiptoe through the foyer and peer into the kitchen, careful not to let your heels tap on the floor. You see no sign of Bucky there. When you turn your eyes to the dark living room, you see him sitting in the middle of couch with his back to you.

            “The mission is set for tomorrow.” Your words come out sounding meek and uneasy as you stare at the back of Bucky’s head. He’s leaning forward, resting his elbows on his knees like he’s lost in thought. He doesn’t even move at the sound of your voice and nervousness starts to bubble up inside of you. “Bucky?” He visibly tenses at the sound of his name rolling off of your tongue.

            “I stopped listening when you kissed him.” Bucky rubs his palms together slowly as he stares down at the living room carpet. He doesn’t move from the couch, and he can tell by the silence behind him that you’re not moving either. “Honestly, I didn’t think it would bother me that much.” Bucky lies, tracing the lines of his vibranium hand with his flesh index finger. It’s dark, but he has the golden crevices memorized.

            “Bullshit.” You say flatly, crossing your arms over your chest. “You knew it would bother you, but you swore I was the right person for this op anyway.” You’re not going to let him act like you did something wrong, when you’re doing exactly what you were brought here to do. You watch the back of Bucky’s head as he nods slowly.

            “Okay, that was bullshit.” Bucky agrees. Rain begins to patter against the roof, starting out slow and soft but quickly picking up until the sound of it is filling the house. “I knew it would bother me. I guess I just didn’t expect you to let him take things so far.”

            “How far do you think he took things?” You ask incredulously, with offense evident in your tone. If Bucky stopped listening when the kiss first started in the alley of the bar, then he didn’t hear a damn thing. He didn’t hear the brevity of the kiss or the way you pushed back and stopped it. He didn’t hear you coming to the realization that you already belong to him. He didn’t hear shit.

            “Pretty damn far, if he’s me.” You scoff at his answer and run a hand through your hair, leaving it looking a little tousled and messy.

            “It’s 1943. If pretty damn far means we kissed and went back inside then sure, he went pretty damn far.”

            “That’s it?” Bucky asks, pushing himself up to stand and turning around to face you. The couch and a few feet of distance stand between the two of you as Bucky raises a brow. He doesn’t believe you.

            “He’s not like this modern version of you.” You say defensively, gesturing at him as you speak. “He didn’t want anything more than a kiss from me.” You know your words aren’t necessarily true, but you say them anyway. Bucky shoots you a pointed look before shaking his head and crossing his arms over his chest.

            “Yeah, he did."

            “No, he didn’t.” You argue childishly, narrowing your eyes at him. “He was sweet and kind and we had innocent fun.”

            “Innocent?” Bucky repeats the word and narrows his eyes at you in return. You bend one knee and lift your ankle up toward your ass as you start undoing your heels.

            “That’s what I said.” You huff as your heels clatter to the floor and you push them over to the nearest wall with your foot.

            “I was anything but innocent in the forties.” Bucky says lowly. When your eyes land on him, he’s approaching you slowly, moving around the couch but keeping his gaze trained on you. Something about the way he’s looking at you is dark, making your skin feel warm and your muscles tense up. Bucky runs a hand through his messy hair as he continues taking slow steps in your direction. “You’re really telling me he didn’t have you pushed up against a brick wall in some dark alley tonight?”

            You swallow hard, feeling like a kid caught in a lie. Of course he knows exactly what happened. He doesn’t need comms or a surveillance team to know what he himself would’ve done with a pretty girl on a night out. You say nothing as Bucky moves around the couch and comes to stand right in front of you. You take a small step back as he invades your space, but he doesn’t stop. He presses forward until he’s backing you against the living room wall.

            Bucky’s fighting to keep up the charade. He wants nothing more than to just be honest and tell you that he’s jealous. He wants to tell you that even though it was only another version of himself that you went out with tonight, he couldn’t fucking stand it. He needs you to know that he sat here for hours, thinking about nothing but you. He watches you with an intense gaze as your back collides with the wall and you look up at him through your lashes. He’s so close that he can see the wispy black mascara tinting them. It isn’t smudged in the slightest bit and that, at the very least, calms him a little. Bucky’s hands find your hips and he holds you still against the wall as he leans in and nudges the curve of your jaw with the tip of his nose.

            “He didn’t touch you like this?” Bucky whispers against your neck, as his flesh hand glides around to your ass. He grabs a handful and curls his fingertips against the soft fabric of your dress. You offer no response, because although you didn’t let him touch you like that, you know Bucky won’t believe you now. Bucky groans as he nips at the column of your throat, taking your silence as confirmation. He kisses his way up to your lips and then drags his tongue up your chin until he’s letting it delve into your mouth. You tilt your head as he kisses you, feeling a burn in your chest from the lack of air. He pulls back suddenly, and cradles the back of your head with the same hand that was just grabbing your ass. “He didn’t kiss you like that?” He questions, already assuming the answer. You whimper as Bucky tugs on your hair lightly and moves his lips down to your neck again. Instead of simply kissing your skin this time, he sucks on it and scrapes his teeth down toward your collarbone. When he lets go of your hair and slides his hand down your thigh, your back arches off the wall and you swear you feel him smile before he pulls back and smirks down at you coldly. Curling his fingers behind your thigh, he hitches your leg up around his hip and uses his body to push you further into the wall. “He didn’t pull your leg up like this?”

            It’s as if Bucky’s following a script. He knows himself so well that he’s able to carry out every single move his younger self would have made on you if you’d let things continue in the alley earlier. Bucky leans in and presses one last chaste kiss to your lips before he steps away from you entirely, leaving you struggling to catch your breath as he turns on his heel. You watch, thoroughly flustered, as he heads right back to the living room and takes a seat on the center cushion of that ugly vintage couch.

            “That’s what I thought.” He says lowly, causing a pang of guilt to bubble up inside of you. You let out an exaggerated sigh before reaching behind yourself and undoing the back of your dress. Bucky listens as you let the dress slip off of your frame and fall to the floor. He’s still for a moment, refusing to look back as you stand there in nothing more than a lacy black bra and matching panties. You glare at the back of his head for a second too long before stalking off to find a t-shirt and some sweats to put on before you continue the conversation at hand.

            “You don’t get to judge me for what he did tonight, for what you think he did.” You say coldly as you emerge from the bedroom a few seconds later. Bucky’s still sitting on the couch, now with both of his arms outstretched along the back cushions and an almost bored expression on his face. “You told me that your younger self would swoon and that’s exactly what happened. You knew what you were sending me into, you knew he’d want to do all of those things. So, if you want to be pissed, be pissed at yourself. Your current self or your former self, I don’t care. But stop being pissed at me.” Your feet thud against the hard floor, overtaking the sound of rain pouring down on the roof as you come to stand in front of the couch, facing Bucky.

            “I’m not pissed at you.” He says plainly, cocking his head to one side as he studies you. You’re wearing an oversized white t-shirt that he assumes you pulled from his side of the closet, rather than picking any of the forties-style pajamas from your own side.

            “Then why make me feel like I did something wrong? I did exactly what I was supposed to do on this mission.”

            “I’m jealous.” His confession sucks the air out of your lungs and leaves you stunned.

            “What?”

            “I’m jealous.” He repeats calmly, looking you right in the eyes. “It took everything I had not to stop you from leaving earlier. I knew what he’d do. I knew that he’d kiss you, that he’d take every inch you gave him and ask for a mile more.” The fact that Bucky’s so calm and stoic as he confesses all of this has you shaken to your core.

            “No, you don’t get to do this.” You say angrily, running both hands through your hair as you turn away from him. He’s sitting there with his arms outstretched along the back of the couch and his expression as unreadable as ever and it’s only making you more mad. “You don’t get to say shit like that to me. You don’t get to be jealous. You sent me into that situation even after I made it abundantly clear that I didn’t think I was the right person for this mission.” You turn back around and look at Bucky with a fiery rage burning in your eyes, but then your gaze settles on his calm, almost serene expression. He cocks his head to the side as you study him, with whatever angry words you were about to spit at him temporarily on hold. Your eyes float down his chest, passing over the dark t-shirt he’s sporting. With the way his arms are outstretched along the back of the couch, you can see the outline of his abs clearly through his thin shirt. When your eyes land on the front of his sweats, you notice two things. The first is that he's sitting with his legs spread in a way that tells you he’s comfortable as hell on that ugly couch. The second is that his cock is semi-hard and pressing against the fabric of those sweats shamelessly.

            You want to leave. You want to head for the front door and run out into the rain, losing yourself somewhere in this city that you don’t know and this timeline that you don’t belong in. You don’t want to be in this house with Bucky for another minute. You can’t think straight when you’re around him. Here you are, angry as hell over something you can’t even recall in this exact moment, because when you look at him and he looks at you this way…you’re torn between wanting to run and wanting to straddle him right there on the couch. Bucky can tell exactly what’s on your mind when your eyes zero in on his lap. Even though the anger hasn’t dissipated from your features, he can tell it’s sitting on the edge of an abyss, ready to fall in and disappear if he says the right thing.

            “Go ahead.” Bucky says firmly, narrowing his eyes at you.

            “What?” You cross your arms over your chest like he’s seen you do a thousand times before as you stand in front of him. You watch as Bucky looks down at his lap for a moment, letting his gaze linger on his thighs before he lifts his head up and stares into your soul. Your heart begins to race as he tilts his head to the side slowly, the expression on his face never changing.

            “Sit.”

            The three seconds that you stare back at Bucky with your arms crossed over your chest feel like three hours to him. When you finally do take a step forward and let your arms reach out to him, he’s fighting to hold in a sigh of relief. You move slowly, lifting your right knee up to the edge of the couch first and letting it touch the outside of his left thigh. When your left knee lands on the couch beside his right leg, you carefully position yourself over his lap as your hands come to rest on his shoulders. Bucky’s fingertips curl into the fabric of the couch as he wills himself to keep his arms along the back of it, refusing to grab your hips and guide you to sit on his lap himself. You’re apprehensive as you stare down into his blue eyes and sink onto his lap at a painstakingly snail-like pace. Your breath hitches in your throat when you feel the outline of his erection pressing against the black lace panties you have on underneath the white t-shirt, but you don’t stop. You seat yourself firmly on his lap, with your knees bent on either side of his hips and your palms pressed against his opposing warm and cool shoulders. It bothers you that he doesn’t move his arms, that he doesn’t try to touch you. It really bothers you that his expression is still unreadable, as if having you on his lap doesn’t do a damn thing to him. If his cock wasn’t hardening more and more with each passing second, you’d truly believe that you weren’t having any sort of effect on him right now.

            “You don’t get to be jealous.” You whisper, shaking your head just barely as Bucky studies your face.     

            “Why not?”

            “Because this is just…” Your eyes flit down to where your legs are spread over Bucky’s lap, but his never leave your face. He knows what you’re about to say and he’s already wishing you wouldn’t. This is exactly what he’s been trying to avoid. “This isn’t real.” It feels every bit as shitty as he thought it would, hearing you say it out loud. The muscle along the side of his jaw ticks as he clenches his teeth together. “It’s just tension. We let it build up too much and then we don’t know how to handle it, and we think it’s something more but—"

            “But it isn’t.” Bucky finishes your sentence stiffly. You nod, but your eyes are searching his. You want him to convince you, you want him to tell you that you’re wrong like he has before. You need him to tell you that this isn’t just tension. But he stays quiet, staring at you like he doesn’t really give a shit what you need right now. So, you ramble on.

            “Maybe if we take a break from being partners after this mission is over. We could let things cool off and give each other space.” The words tumble out of your mouth quickly, but they leave a bad taste. “But it’s hard to give each other space when we live across the hall from each other.” Bucky nods along, cocking his head to the side as he watches you scramble for other options. He doesn’t know why you’re still sitting on his lap if this is the direction you’re taking things, but he isn’t ready to push you off and end this just yet. Not if it might be the last time you let him get this close to you.

            “Do you want space?” He asks lowly. You struggle to find a reasonable answer when his tongue darts out to wet his lips. You watch as it slides across his bottom lip slowly before disappearing into his mouth. He shifts his legs beneath you slightly and it causes his hard cock to press against your barely clothed cunt just a little more firmly than before and you inhale sharply, curling your fingertips into his shoulders as he stills once again.

            “I want to stop thinking about you the way that I’ve been thinking about you.” Bucky’s heartbeat is rising steadily as your words sink in. You’ve been thinking about him. God, he wants to tangle his hands in your hair and pull you in closer, refusing to let go of you until you admit that you fucking want him. “I want to go back to when we had a normal, uncomplicated partnership in the field.” He wants to say fuck normal and uncomplicated and have his way with you, but he stays still. “I want to fuck.”

            Bucky’s stunned. He blinks twice before squinting his eyes at you and letting out a long, slow breath.

            “You want to fuck.” Bucky repeats under his breath, seeming like he doesn’t think he’s heard you right. You nod, coming to the realization that that’s exactly what you want.

            “Maybe if we fuck, it would all just go away.” Bucky scoffs as soon as you’ve said it. He’s never felt as frustrated as he is right now. It isn’t just emotional frustration, but sexual as well. You’re fucking tormenting him. While you sit on his lap actively denying the fact that this thing between you is real, you’re simultaneously telling him you want to have sex with him. You tried sleeping it off once before and it didn’t work out for you, so now you want to fuck the feelings away. He’s pissed honestly. As he sits there, with his arms outstretched along the back of the couch and the girl he’s in love with on his lap, he’s pissed.

            “Go ahead then.” He says roughly, jutting his chin out at you as his eyes flit down to where your legs are spread over him. “Go ahead and see if you can fuck it all away. It’ll work about as well as when you tried to sleep it off, but I’m willing to let you give it a shot.”

            Thunder rumbles in the distance and rain patters against the windows as tensions rise all around you. It feels like the thunderstorm outside has somehow shifted through the walls and lightning could strike you at any given moment. Though your heart is racing and your breaths are coming in quicker than before, you don’t back down. You maintain eye contact as you lift your ass up slightly and then grind back down, dragging the fabric of your lace panties along the front of Bucky’s sweats. You feel his cock twitch in its confines, but his face never changes. Fuck him and his perpetually cold expression. You grind down again, harder this time, and watch as his hands curl into fists at the ends of his outstretched arms. What do you have to do to get him to put those hands on you?

            Lightning strikes somewhere outside as you lean in and dip your head down, pressing your lips to the side of Bucky’s neck in an open-mouthed kiss. You feel his pulse thumping in his carotid artery as your tongue swipes over it. If you’re going to get this out of your system, you can’t take your time. You need this to be quick and dirty. Bucky senses that and isn’t surprised at all when your right hand starts tugging at the waistband of his sweats.

            “I said go ahead.” He rasps, tilting his head to the side to give you more access to his neck. “Take what you want.” You take the encouragement and run with it, slipping your hand into the waistband of his sweats and boxers, quickly finding his length and wrapping your hand around it. He lets out a shaky but controlled breath as you start stroking his cock. He has to bite down on his bottom lip when you tighten your grip around the head and he feels his precum wet your palm. This is going to haunt him forever. He wants this, you, so fucking bad that he’s willing to take whatever he can get. And this is the most he can get. Your hand is around his cock with the sole intention of fucking around with him until you forget your feelings. He should feel used. He does feel used, but if you’re only okay with using him, then he’s fine with it. He’s fine with it because he fucking loves you.

            You feel Bucky’s chest rise and fall at a quicker pace against your own as his cock twitches in your hand. Thunder shakes the house again and a tear slips down your cheek. It feels clinical when you push Bucky’s waistband down further and drag your lips along the curve of his jaw.

            “He kissed me outside of the bar.” You whisper against the column of Bucky’s throat, hating the way he tenses up underneath you. You let your hand fall away from his cock and shift it between your legs, tugging your lace panties to the side beneath the oversized t-shirt. “And I couldn’t fucking stand it.” Your voice breaks and Bucky curls his fingers into the couch cushions so hard that he might’ve heard them rip if the storm raging outside wasn’t so loud. “You weren’t listening, so you didn’t hear me stop him.” Another tear falls as you rise up on your knees and guide the head of Bucky’s length to where it belongs. “But I stopped him.” Lightning strikes and you swear it nearly hits the house as you let out a shaky breath and start lowering yourself down. The sheer size of him makes your thighs ache and the walls of your cunt burn with the stretch. “I stopped him and he knew, before I said anything, that I wasn’t his to kiss.” Bracing your hands back on Bucky’s shoulders, you sink down onto him one slow inch at a time as he stares up at you. His expression isn’t so unreadable now. It’s showcasing the torment he feels, the torture you’re putting him through…the torture he’s enduring just because he loves you.

            “Whose are you then?” He asks, his voice tense and strained as you seat yourself entirely on his cock. He can tell by the look in your eyes that you’re not going to answer his question. You know the answer, the tears rimming your pretty eyes and the pleading look taking over your face tell him that much. But you just can’t bring yourself to say it out loud. You’re his.

            You didn’t give yourself any time to adjust to his size and you’re paying for it as you start riding him. You move slow at first, lost in the way he’s looking at you, wondering why the hell he won’t touch you. But as the storm picks up outside, so does your pace. Faster and faster you lift and lower your hips until it couldn’t possibly be more obvious that you’re trying to fuck your feelings away. Bucky’s pushing past the obscene sounds of skin against skin, past the rumbling thunder and heavy rain on the rooftop, until all he can hear is your heartbeat. You don’t even realize you’re doing it, but you’re timing each bounce of your hips with the steady beat of your heart. He focuses in on that when the walls of your pussy begin fluttering violently around his shaft, because if he lets himself focus on anything else, he’ll fall over the edge with you and he refuses to let it happen this way. Your goal isn’t to get him off, it’s to get something out of your system.

            Bucky clenches his teeth when you start coming undone around him, he clenches his teeth and his vibranium arm whirs loudly along the back of the couch as you grip his shoulders and ride out your orgasm. It’s only a few seconds later when you blink your eyes open and let a few tears fall onto the fabric of his shirt.

            “Did it work?” Bucky asks breathlessly, fighting the urge to wrap his arms around you and pull you against his chest.

            “What?”

            “Did you fuck it out of your system?” He narrows his eyes at you. He’s sure the answer is no, but he isn’t so sure that you’ll admit it. As you stare back into his blue eyes, he can tell you’re giving up and something akin to hope stirs in his chest. You shake your head gently, loosening your grip on his shoulders as the weight of your silent confession settles over you both. “Okay, let’s try again.”

            Bucky doesn’t give you a chance to full catch your breath before he’s slipping his flesh arm around your back and rising from the couch, keeping his cock buried inside of you.

            “Bucky—”

            “You want it out of your system, don’t you?” He asks roughly, carrying you away from the couch and toward the kitchen table. You swallow hard as he skillfully uses his vibranium hand to shove a kitchen chair to the side before laying you down on the table. Still, his cock never leaves your pussy. “If we go at it from another angle…” Bucky’s voice trails off as he pulls his hips backward slowly until only the tip of his cock is left inside of you. You whimper at the loss of his length, hating the way your pussy fights to grip onto what he’s left you with. Bucky pushes your white t-shirt up until it’s sitting just below your bra. Though he doesn’t let himself get a glimpse of your chest, he has no problem with sliding his hands beneath the shirt and running his palms over your breasts. You arch into his touch and another whimper leaves your lips. “This might be the right angle.” He whispers, dragging his hands down until his fingers are curling into your hips roughly. You see stars when he pistons his hips forward so hard that the table shakes beneath the force and you feel him brushing against your cervix.

            “Fuck.” You moan the word out as your tears begin to dry. Your hands circle around Bucky’s wrists as he holds your hips in place and starts fucking you relentlessly. Your mascara is smudged beneath your eyes but you still look so pretty that it hurts him to look at you. You wrap your legs around him as his head falls back a little and a guttural groan escapes him. It feels so damn good, you feel so damn good, but this isn’t how he wants you. Your whimpers and occasional swears turn into uninhibited, borderline pornographic moans as he fucks you until you’re lost in the bliss of it all.

            “If you cum on my cock a second time, is it going to be enough?” He wonders aloud, slowing the pace of his thrusts and simultaneously deepening them as much as he possibly can. His balls press against your ass as a loud clap of thunder leaves the lights flickering. You’re shaking your head before your brain has a chance to reason with your heart. It won’t be enough. “You don’t think so? You seemed pretty damn sure of yourself when you said that this isn’t real. Cumming on my cock this time should be enough for you.”

            “Shit, Bucky.” You let out a frustrated moan as he pulls his hips back slowly and starts giving your cunt the most shallow thrusts yet.

            “This is so fucking real to me that I’d let you do it a thousand times if that’s what it takes to make you realize you’re wrong.” Bucky snaps his hips forward and hits your cervix again, admiring the way your body reacts to him as your back arches off of the table and your t-shirt rides up a little more. A tiny bit of the black lace of your bra peeks out beneath your shirt and Bucky lets out another groan before thrusting hard again. He wanted to slow down and make you feel even just a shred of the torment he’s been feeling tonight, he wanted to give you shallow, unrhythmic thrusts and delay your orgasm, but he’s already fucking his cock into you at an unforgiving pace and depth. His name falls from your lips in a breathless moan as your fingernails leave little crescent-shaped indents in the skin of his wrists and your pussy tightens around his shaft all over again. He has to bite down on the inside of his cheek, nearly drawing blood, just to keep from cumming with you. His own level of restraint is surprising himself. He hasn’t done something like this in decades and yet, he’s holding himself together pretty damn well.

            “Bucky.” You gasp as your orgasm washes over you and he continues to pump his cock into you. He lets his thrusts slow more and more with each passing second until he’s just lazily circling his hips, giving you the faintest sensation of pleasure mixed with overstimulation.

            “Did it work that time?” He asks between pants. He lets go of your hips as his eyes scan over the expanse of your skin where he had gripped you so tightly before, checking for marks. He can see his own handprints on each hip, but they aren’t red enough that he thinks he’s left bruises. You stare up at him as a sigh of relief slips past his lips. When his eyes finally meet yours, you know he’s waiting for an answer.

            “It didn’t.” You admit. The lights flicker again, going out for a few seconds before coming back on. “I’m sorry I—”

            “I don’t want to hear you say sorry.” God, that’s not at all what he wants to hear you say. He wants to hear you say you were wrong or that you were lying and this is as real to you as it is to him. He wants to hear you say that no matter how many times his cock slides into your pussy, the feelings aren’t going anywhere. As his hands find yours and your fingers intertwine, he tugs you up into a sitting position on the edge of the table and then slips his palms around to cup your ass as he lifts you once more. “We’re going to try this one more time and if it doesn’t work, if you can’t fuck the feelings away…” His voice trails off as the lights flicker one final time before shutting off completely. Bucky carries you down the hall and through the bedroom door in near total darkness. Every few seconds, lightning flashes and illuminates the house through the windows and sheer curtains, and you get a glimpse of Bucky’s serious face. “If this doesn’t work, you have to say it.” Keeping his flesh arm around your lower back, he lowers you onto the bed, hovering over you as his still-hard cock slips out of your sore cunt. You prop yourself up on your elbows as he stands at the foot of the bed and reaches back over his shoulders, grasping the fabric of his t-shirt and tugging it over his head in one smooth move. Lighting strikes again and you watch, with warmth pooling low in your stomach, as Bucky pushes his sweats and boxers down to the floor.

            “I have to say what?” You ask, fighting hard to keep the stutter out of your question. Bucky wraps his right hand around the base of his cock tightly, but he doesn’t dare stroke it. He gives it a quick squeeze before moving that same hand down and palming his balls in an effort to slow himself down.

            “You have to say that you’re mine.” He has no idea that you’ve already said it once tonight. He took his earpiece out, thinking you were having a heated moment with another man, when you were really telling that man exactly what Bucky wanted to hear.

            “That’s how this works? You fuck me a few times and then I’m yours?”

            Bucky can’t stop the dark, hair-raising chuckle that tumbles past his lips when you tilt your head to the side and narrow your eyes at him. He moves toward the bed slowly, placing one knee on the end of the mattress and leaning forward until both of his palms are flat on the bed. He’s hovering over you, his face only a few inches from yours when a burst of thunder rings out.

            “You’ve been mine since the day we met, sweetheart. I just let you run around and deny it for too damn long.” Your breath hitches in your throat as he angles his chin toward the headboard, silently letting you know that he wants you to move further up on the bed. You scoot backward, keeping your eyes on him as the room grows impossibly warmer and goosebumps prickle over your skin. When your back lands flat on the bed and your head is laid comfortably on the only pillow there, Bucky’s over you in an instant, nudging your legs apart with his knee as he settles between them. The head of his cock, still dripping with precum, presses against the lace of your panties and he hisses at the contact. He hasn’t let himself cum yet and he’s dangerously close to losing control over his impending orgasm.

            “Since the day we met?” You ask, scrunching up your face in confusion as you think of all of the missions you’ve been on, all of the senseless arguments and shit-giving. Did it all have a deeper meaning for him? Bucky nods as he stills above you and braces himself with his arms next to either side of your head. When he looks into your eyes you can tell that he’s straining to maintain his composure and it almost makes you feel guilty. Here you are two orgasms in and he’s hanging on by a fucking thread. You slide your hand down between your bodies, wrapping it around his length and giving it a few long, slow pumps as his eyes flutter closed and his head falls to your shoulder.

            “I can’t stand you.” You say evenly, as he starts rutting into your hand carelessly. His small thrusts are sloppy and restrained, but he continues on as you stroke his cock and smear his precum around the length of it. He groans in response and bites down on your shoulder hard enough to make you inhale sharply. “I can’t stand the way you slept so close to me last night, because the next time I sleep alone, I’ll feel like something’s missing.” Bucky freezes, but you continue your ministrations with your right hand. He doesn’t lift his head, fearing that if he so much as moves an inch you’ll stop talking. “I can’t stand the way you say my name, because when anyone else says it, it doesn’t sound as good.” He lets out a shaky breath as he builds up the courage to move. Snaking his vibranium hand down between your legs, he starts tugging your panties to the side just like he did earlier. You move in tandem with him, guiding the head of his cock to your entrance as he clears the way. “And I really can’t stand the way you kiss me, because if I ever let anyone else kiss me, I’ll only ever be disappointed.”

            Bucky pulls his head back and stares down at you with a furrowed brow, looking as though he’s thinking hard. The head of his cock notches into your pussy and he pushes his hips forward just enough to sink the first couple of inches inside of you, watching as your mouth falls open and your eyes close tightly. He’s staring at you with such an intense focus in his blue eyes that when you finally look back up at him, you feel like his gaze alone is burning a hole through your head. You spread your legs a little, bending your knees slightly to give him a better angle as he pulls his hips back slowly. When only the head of his cock is sheathed inside of you, he licks his bottom lip before snapping his hips forward and delivering one hard, deep thrust that forces the headboard to slam against the wall.

            “I love you.” Bucky says the three words with conviction, with a confidence you’ve never heard before. You wait a few seconds, trying to recover from the earth-shattering sensations of your pussy being destroyed and actual bliss. His words sink into your skin and melt into your soul with an unexpected warmth as he drags his cock out of you and then pushes back in again. He loves you.

            “You can’t stand me.” You correct, not even trying to hide the smile that’s beginning to spread across your lips as Bucky starts setting a rhythmic pace. He laughs, but then groans as you scrape your nails down his back roughly.

            “I can’t, but still…”

            “You love me.” You repeat smugly, finishing his sentence. He doesn’t need you to say it back yet. Just the fact that you didn’t shove him away and flee the house when he said it is enough for him right now. A few sultry moans play in his ears and he pushes himself up to sit on his knees, moving your legs so that one is over each of his shoulders before he starts fucking you so hard that he thinks Howard Stark might need to buy a new mattress, new headboard, and maybe even have the damn wall re-plastered.

            The next few minutes consist of nothing more than filthy, pornographic sounds. With skin slapping against skin, the headboard snapping against the wall, your moans, and Bucky’s strained groans, neither of you can really hear the storm raging outside anymore. You focus in on Bucky as much as you can, watching as his abs ripple and the muscles of his flesh arm flex repeatedly. He catches you staring at him as he fucks you and he holds eye contact, letting his mouth fall open and his eyelids drop down halfway as he watches you watch him. Filthy. It’s filthy the way he's fucking his cock into you in someone else’s bed. You moan his name out in a raspy tone and it sends him over the edge. He guides your legs down, setting them back on the bed before crawling over you and fucking you missionary while he swallows every moan you let out. His lips brush against yours over and over again, but you don’t kiss. You breathe each other in until you feel his cock twitch and his thrusts grow sloppy.

            “Fuck, I’m gonna cum.” Bucky groans, thrusting a little harder and deeper as he nears his release. You grip his sides and bend your knees as your own orgasm looms. “You’re so fucking tight and….fuck, you’re just…shit, baby.”

            “Bucky, I love you.”

            He loses every last remnant of control when you finally admit it. He can’t stop the flood of cum that starts spilling out of his cock and into you. Truthfully, he wouldn’t want to stop it. He thrusts as deep as he can and grinds his hips into you, watching your eyes scrunch closed and your mouth fall open as you take every last drop of his cum. It’s everything to him. Not you taking his cum this way, not you letting him have you like this, but you telling him the one thing he never thought you would. You love him.

            His post-orgasm haze should last longer than yours. He should be collapsed next to you on the bed right now, but as you lay beneath him trying to catch your breath, he’s staring down at you with perfect clarity.

            “If you go back to pretending you don’t feel anything after this…” Bucky’s voice trails off as he feels a good bit of his cum dripping out of you and back onto his shaft. He moves in a little closer and pushes his cock the rest of the way inside you as gently as possible, earning himself a whimper from your pretty lips.

            “You’ll what? Fuck me on another table?” You tease, smiling up at him. He shakes his head and bites down on his bottom lip in an attempt to hide his own smile, but you catch it anyway.

            “Why would I do that when there are so many other surfaces we haven’t tried out yet?”

            “I hate you.” You retort playfully, sliding your hands up his chest and preparing to push him off of you. His cock hasn’t softened in the slightest bit yet and you don’t know if you can take another round tonight. His small smile turns into a hearty grin as his cock twitches again.

            “That’s a lie.” He smirks, dragging his tongue along his teeth after speaking. You narrow your eyes at him as you realize he’s still leaning on his ridiculous theory that your pussy clenches down when you lie. “You love me.” He says slowly, dropping his head down and pressing his lips against yours. He kisses you gently at first, pecking your lips twice before going in for a longer one. After a few seconds, he slips his tongue into your mouth and the longer he kisses you, the more weight you feel lifting from your shoulders. You didn’t realize how exhausting it was to deny this for so long. But now that you’re here, letting it happen, you can’t stop the tear that starts rolling down your cheek. Bucky pulls back as soon as he feels it, searching your eyes to see what’s wrong. “What did I do?” He asks quickly, preparing to separate himself from you. You stop him, sliding your hands down his sides and curling your fingers against his skin to hold him in place.

            “Nothing.” You answer honestly, smiling up at his look of concern even as that tear continues to roll down your cheek. “Peggy has a feeling that she and Steve wait too late in this lifetime, that they don’t let themselves have this kind of happiness.”

            “I told you they end up together.” Bucky says gently, using the pad of his thumb to wipe the tear from your cheek.

            “I know. I wonder if this is how they felt when they finally made it back to each other.” Bucky takes a moment, really thinking about it before he moves a stray lock of hair away from your face and lets out a deep breath.

            “How do you feel?” He asks, speaking with a soft tone as he eyes you closely.

            “Like if you asked me for a lifetime, it wouldn’t scare the shit out of me.”

            As Bucky stares down at you, you can see that all of those times you thought his expression was so unreadable were because you didn’t really want to read what was there. All you see in his eyes is love. Love and probably some kind of half-assed plan to ask you for a lifetime while his dick is inside you, just so he can see if you’re lying or not.

tag list

@mostlymarvelgirl @randomnobody187 @parasiiite @mushroomsuckersblog @slowgabinaburninroom @annabethboleyn @promptly-mercy @sunnyhummingbee @gyokujyn @jenniferpendragon @siciliano13 @ordelixx @crist1216 @twlkdead @claireelizabeth85 @charmedbysarge @blackhawkfanatic @kentokaze @eecummingsandgoings @nyashonality @h2oaffirmations @sadeyes61 @aka-tua-braindump @immortalfangirl @valenftcrush @andrometda @sillysillygoose444 @all-will-be-well-love @hallecarey1 @pono-pura-vida

Love is a Choice (series masterlist)

Main Navigation || Bucky Barnes Masterlist

Pairing — Bucky Barnes x Agent f!Reader Series Summary — In your experience, relationships only bring drama and heartbreak, and you want absolutely none of it. That is, until an act of sheer recklessness brings Bucky Barnes back into your life.

Warnings — Language, ANGST, forced proximity, Hydra aftermath, ptsd, trauma (physical and emotional), blood and injury, past character death, brief reference to animal death, canon-typical violence, past betrayals, torture, grief, minimal fluff, soft but non-explicit smut in the last chapter. Please double check the beginning of each chapter for more detailed warnings, if applicable.

Last Updated: March 27, 2024 Status: Completed

Chapter 1 (w/c: 3.2k) Chapter 2 (w/c: 4.1k) Chapter 3 (w/c: 4.3k) Chapter 4 (w/c: 4.4k) Chapter 5 (w/c: 4.8k)

Taglist — @cjand10 @pbs-theundeadmaggot @nerdreader @crist1216

Notes — This is my first time posting a fic here, so please be nice! I would also love to hear some feedback, if you would be so kind 🥺

Unwanted Masterlist

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Avenger!Fem!Reader

Summary: When your FWB relationship with your best friend Bucky Barnes turns into something more, you couldn't be happier. That is, however, until a new Avenger sets her sights on your super soldier and he inadvertently breaks your heart. You take on a mission you might not be prepared for to put some distance between the two of you and open yourself up to past traumas. Too bad the only one who can help you heal is the one person you can no longer trust. WIP

Warnings: 18+ Minors: GTFO; I don’t serve your kind here. "*" indicates explicit sexual content (each chapter will feature its own warnings as needed), language, alcohol/drug use, drunk!Bucky, pick-me!oc, angst, mentions of CSA, angst, emotional affair, angst, physical infidelity (dependent on your pov), canon-level violence, emotional trauma, did I mention angst?, some fluffy moments, destructive behavior, injury, medical conditions, poorly translated Russian. More will be added as the story progresses, and some chapters will have specific warnings that I will keep under wraps to avoid spoilers. When we get to those sections, I will let you know, so if there is a specific trigger that you absolutely cannot handle, let me know and I will tell you if the section is safe. As always, please let me know if I miss any warnings.

Word Count: Currently 113.5k; Total TBD

A/N: And here I present unto you, my beloved, the fruit of my labors these many past moons. I haven't decided yet if I'm going to wait to completely finish this and post it all at once, or if I'll trickle it out while I continue to write it. I guess it depends on how generous my muse is to me, lol. Tagging @jmeelee to make her start reading this ;) I love you with custard and a wooden spoon! Banner By: The absolutely amazing @mrsbuckybarnes1917

Part 1 (Posted 3/6/24) Part 2 (Posted 3/6/24) Part 3 (Posted 3/6/24) Part 4 (Posted 3/6/24)

Part 1 (Posted 3/8/24) Part 2 (Posted 3/8/24) Part 3 (Posted 3/9/24) Part 4 (Posted 3/9/24) Part 5 (Posted 3/9/24)

Part 1 (Posted 3/10/24) Part 2 (Posted 3/10/24) Part 3* (Posted 3/10/24)

Part 1* (Posted 3/11/24) Part 2 (Posted 3/12/24) Part 3* (Posted 3/13/24)

Part 1 (Posted 3/15/24) Part 2 (Posted 3/15/24)

Part 1 (Posted 3/16/24)

Part 1 (Posted 3/17/24) Part 2 (Posted 3/17/24)

Part 1 (Posted 3/18/24) Part 2 (Posted 3/19/24) Part 3* (Posted 3/19/24)

Part 1 (Posted 3/21/24) Part 2 (Posted 3/22/24) Part 3 (Posted 3/23/24)

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3

Part 1 Part 2

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3

Part 1 Part 2

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3

IDGAF -- One-Shot

Fandom: Marvel AU

Pairing: Bucky Barnes X Reader

Characters: Bucky Barnes, Natasha Romanoff

Author: @amandaoftherosemire

Rating: Mature

Word Count: 6539

Format: One-Shot

Warnings: Language, angst, fluff

Summary: Standing in line for coffee, cursing the ex-boyfriend who won’t leave you alone, you lay eyes on Bucky Barnes for the first time.

A/N: I started to write this months ago because my darling @hellzzzbelle was having a hard day and I wanted to make her feel better. Unfortunately, once I got half-way through I couldn’t get it out of my brain and onto the page. Once my long fic was out of the way, however, this was one of the first things I finished. I figure this is another opportunity to make “Better Late Than Never” the tagline of my life. I hope y’all like it, especially you, peach.

As you stood in line for coffee, you glared down at your phone in disbelief.

I don’t know why you’re being so childish about this.

“Oh, fuck you and everyone who looks like you, James.” You were muttering under your breath and figured no one in the coffee shop could hear you but to your surprise, the giant in front of you turned around.

“I beg your pardon?”

Keep reading

Pride and Privacy MASTERLIST

Bucky works on himself as he gets used to a roommate. Turns out, she has a much better room than him and he crossed the line.

(18+. Smut, fluff, angst and mentions of violence) (COMPLETED)

◌ Prequel: The Sessions.

◌ Part I : Nightmare.

◌ Part II : Weakness.

◌ Part III : Boundaries.

◌ Part IV : Bruising.

◌ Part V : Promise.

◌ Part VI : Sabotage.

◌ Part VII : Home.

MAIN MASTERLIST

Teddy Bear

Summary: soulmate!au in which when one soulmate loses something, their other half finds it. 

When Bucky begins finding things that don’t belong to him, he realizes he has a soulmate in the modern world after all. Even though they should be perfectly matched, he struggles to find a reason why he should meet her, and be a part of her life, convincing himself she’s better off without him. 

Pairing: Bucky x Reader

Word Count: 4175

Warnings: Mentions of some WS stuff, nothing graphic. 

Author’s Note: Thank you to my lovely Tanya @velvetofyourheart for gracing me with the idea for this fic. I hope you all like it!

Lost things don’t float into the ether. They don’t remain in the world of dropped chapsticks, misplaced rings, forgotten jackets on park benches.

They arrive, sooner or later, in the hands of someone that will keep them safe. People delight in the fact that their soulmates things come to them for safekeeping. It’s like getting a small gift from the person that’s meant for you.

Bucky had thought he was mateless. Had prayed to a god he didn’t believe in that he didn’t have a soulmate. He certainly didn’t have one before.

Before the war, before the fall, before he died and suffered and was reborn.

And he had been confused when objects he didn’t own first started appearing after. He thought any mate he could have had would be long dead, though he remembers being disappointed day after day when he never found anything that wasn’t his own.

Piles of handwritten letters, a necklace, a shoelace, a bottle of nail polish, hair tie after hair tie after hair tie. One sneaker, a journal, homework.

Mostly though, his soulmate seems to lose letters.

Purposefully, it would seem.

Keep reading

your hands have made some good mistakes

“I kneel into a dream where I am good and loved. I am loved. My hands have made some good mistakes. They can always make better ones.” - Natalie Wee

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Female Reader

Summary: Bucky has to spend six months locked up with a stranger.

His teammates went on an international press tour and left him behind. They hired someone to supervise him, per the conditions of his pardon— a roommate, they said.

A roommate?

In which: Bucky’s heart slowly thaws, he develops a soft spot for his idiot roommate, he discovers his vibranium arm is extra-sensitive, he rediscovers that whole ‘sexual attraction’ thing, he has Not Great mental health including nightmares and therapy, he has a complicated relationship with his ex, he reminisces about the 40s, he’s an absolute fluffy sweetheart, he really enjoys blow jobs, he deals with the backlash from his criminal trial, he addresses internalized guilt and shame, he gets laid for the first time in decades, he gets irrationally jealous, he realizes WHY he was irrationally jealous, he digs up old feelings, he rescues Steve on a mission gone wrong, he takes pain meds and traumatizes everyone in the room, he's a smug little shit, he considers getting rid of his metal arm, he's loved implicitly, he speaks to a journalist about his past, he celebrates birthdays, he’s stupid in love, he gets drunk on Asgardian whiskey, aaaaaand more.

Warnings (added as they occur): 18+ minors DNI, angst, Bucky’s mental health is Not Great, cursing, lots of awkwardness and banter, pining x100, SMUT, masturbation (m), alcohol consumption/drunkenness, needy!bucky (he gets a warning), not-so-dry humping, a Steve Rogers plot twist, hand jobs, slightly subby Bucky, vaginal fingering, oral (m and f receiving), outercourse, human disaster Bucky Barnes, angst (it bears repeating), legal proceedings, panic attacks, PIV sex, creampie, cum kink, possessive behavior, jealousy, semi-public sex, past/period-typical homophobia, ~complicated~ relationships, slight emotional infidelity, sexual fantasies about current partners & others, hurt/comfort, blood, hospital setting, medicinal drug use, premature ejaculation, metal arm kink, sex pollen trope/dubcon, voyeurism/exhibitionism

Word Count: 141k+ (phew!!!)

a/n: This is the xreader rewrite of my hands have made some good mistakes (yes, I think I’m clever). Told (mostly) from Bucky’s POV. Not really an AU, just not Endgame/TFATWS compliant (everyone is alive).

My Masterlist

Find me on ao3: dewystars

❤️‍🔥 = contains smut

✨ = personal fav

Send me asks, thots, requests, or drabbles about this series and I’ll love you forever 🥰

Summer

Part 1 - The Babysitter

Part 2 - Embroidery

Part 3 - Sergeant

Part 4 - Like the Tide

❤️‍🔥 Part 5 - Static on the Lines

Part 6 - The Nightmare

Part 7 - Celebration

❤️‍🔥 Part 8 - What If

✨❤️‍🔥 Part 9 - Back in Brooklyn

❤️‍🔥 Insatiable 9.1 - Lovers' Lane Posted 3/10/22

❤️‍🔥 Part 10 - Supernova

❤️‍🔥 Part 11 - Barnes Beach

✨❤️‍🔥 Part 12 - Spiraling

❤️‍🔥 Part 13 - Minefield

Fall

❤️‍🔥 Part 14 - Jealousy

❤️‍🔥 Part 15 - Jealousy, Reprised

❤️‍🔥 Part 16 - Samson

Part 17 - Just a Taste

Part 18 - Native Tongue

❤️‍🔥 Part 19 - Lucky Posted 2/18/22

❤️‍🔥 Insatiable 19.1 - Against the Sheets Posted 2/22/22

❤️‍🔥 Insatiable 19.2 - Stamina Posted 2/26/22

❤️‍🔥 Part 20 - Shimmer Posted 3/04/22

❤️‍🔥 Part 21 - Aphrodisiac Posted 3/22/22

❤️‍🔥 Part 22 - What Now? Posted 4/4/22

Winter

❤️‍🔥 Part 23

❤️‍🔥 Part 24

Part 25

Bonus Content

❤️‍🔥 Insatiable: a yhhmsgm collection - a series of standalone smutty incidents that fit into the yhhmsgm timeline. Will be posted horribly out of order. No thoughts, just thots.

❤️‍🔥 Bucky’s nsfw alphabet

Bucky character meta

Annotated playlist

✨ Hot Mess - Bucky’s dance moves

Graveyard

summary: As the unofficial healer for the Avengers, you pride yourself on the ability to mend heroes with the touch of your hand. Only, your gift comes at a heavy price — one you keep secret from your friends —and when Bucky asks you to do the impossible, they’ll discover why your gift is called a sacrifice, too.  pairing: bucky x healer!reader word count: 10k warnings: canon level violence

As a child, you were told it was a gift; placed upon a pedestal above the quaint suffering of a rural town and removed of your innocence for the good of strangers. You’d been made to be revered – honored – for the touch that could mend the broken.  

It began with a cut upon your father’s finger – a slip of a kitchen knife that had left a small bead of blood in its wake. Curious eyes glanced up at your father as he hissed at the sting of it and you’d reach forward to place your infant hand upon the cut, a grip so mall it barely wrapped around his finger. He stilled as a soft glow began to emit from your palm. When you removed your hand and began to cry, your father was stunned to find his skin perfectly intact – no trace of a scar in its place.  

They told you it was a gift, celebrated you as if you were a blessing from Heaven itself. But they were cruel in their rejoice, selfish in their praise. They had not considered your gift was not a gift at all – but a sacrifice.  

Like energy, pain could not be destroyed— but it could be absorbed. It could be transferred. Your father’s cut had not simply disappeared, but instead manifested on the finger of an infant for a few short moments before it faded into your skin; laid to rest amongst a sea of foreign injuries that did not belong to you.  

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