I really likeyour writing! I was hoping you still take requests. I was thinking like a best friends to lovers angst between loki and female reader somehow? I dont really have an idea just a vibe.
Thank you in advance!
Always Has (Oneshot)
Summary: On the day of your best friend Prince Loki's debut to a ballroom of eligible suitors, you're fixing the last seams of his outfit before you let him go. It's proving harder than you thought. Angst with fluff at the end. 2.4k words. Gets a bit steamy but nothing nsfw. No warnings.
Pairing: Prince Loki x royal seamstress!Reader
A/N: Thank you for the request!!! I'm so sorry this took so long ;-; I rewrote so many versions before smashing this one out tonight. I'm posting it before I rethink it again. I hope you like it! Requests still open for Loki, Bucky Barnes, Mr. Terrific!
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“How far do you think I could go before they find me?” He murmurs above you.
His voice is low, with the mischievous lilt that it always has. When you glance up at him in the mirror, silver pins gleaming from your mouth, you find him staring wistfully out the turret window. He would almost look crestfallen if not for the smirk playing on the corner of his lips. You roll your eyes and look back down at the hem of his pants, adjusting your measurements.
“I think Odin would be mad enough to hunt you across the universe if you were to leave right now.”
“Oh, that would be fun to see.” You glance up at him again. The smirk is now a smile, as if he’s relishing the idea.
You stick a pin in his leg. He yelps and jumps away a little, laughing. It’s easy, breathy, like he doesn’t have a care in the world.
And why would he? He’s almost married, after all.
Well, almost bethrothed. Coupled. Shown off to any eligible single royal in the Nine Realms that want a piece of Odin’s kingdom.
As you work on your measurements, you can almost hear the cacophony of tonight’s ball already happening in the courtyard below. Hundreds of choices will be mingling under your window, and you’ll have to see them all as you wait, alone, up here, for him to tell you every detail.
Like you always have.
“By the Norns, I didn’t even say anything that time!” He yelps from above as you catch him again with a pin, this time accidental and deep in his ankle. You sigh, rubbing the spot and mumble the one healing spell you know. The blood stops flowing but you keep rubbing absentmindedly.
“Are you alright?”
“Sorry. Just thinking.” You groan as you push yourself up to your feet, back cramped from bending over. Setting aside the maddening fact that Loki is getting married, the work put into making royal families court attire was an exhausting feat. Weeks of measuring, cutting, sewing, and cursing leading into this one painful day.
But you’re good at what you do. You always have been.
As you lean back to take him in fully, he poses. His outfit was mostly complete, save for last-minute hems that you can’t stop yourself from giving him. The silver trim along a green silk shirt to accentuate the soft blue undertone of his skin. The high collar to highlight his long neck. A form-fitting jacket with tails that ended in razor-sharp points, the fangs of the royal snake becoming a statement rather than a whisper behind his back.
You let yourself look up at his face, taking him fully in. He catches your eye and smiles, a tooth glittering in the sunlight streamed into the room. With his black hair tucked behind his ears and his high cheekbones, he almost looks like a mannequin. Perfect, poised, the perfect salesman for whatever he has on. Or whatever idea he has. You’ve been sold on enough from him before.
You let out a sigh you didn’t realize you’ve been holding.
It was finally almost done. The outfit you’ve spent weeks making after years of preparing for it. Every moment with him adding a stitch in your side, a reminder of what you can’t have.
The fabric glitters nicely. You knew it would from when you picked it out, with Loki and under his magic. He had disguised you both as an old couple, shopping in the market like it was any other day. You held scraps of textiles up to his skin while he offered his opinions, his wants. Asked banal questions and chatted about nothing. Another day together, like all the other days over the years of friendship you shared.
But you were together, close. His arm was in yours as you walked through the crowd. To keep you close for the spell, of course. But the heat from his body left the same warmth as if it was an embrace.
And the green silk shines on his skin like scales, just in the same way it did under that damned days’ sun.
“You’re quiet. Am I that ugly?” His head cocks to one side, catching your eye and bringing you back to the reality in your workshop.
“I’m fine. Just have to make sure this is right.”
“Do you ever make something wrong?” He murmurs with a playful smile as he magically turns the pedestal beneath his feet with a lazy finger. He barely even looks at himself, instead twisting slowly so you can get your full view, per usual.
“I know you don’t care, but it’s my head on the line.” You mutter, catching him by the elbow to stop him and snipping a stray thread on his neckline.
“Your head? Don’t be so dramatic. It’s a ball.”
“Don’t be stupid. You and I both know this isn’t just a ball.” You roll your eyes as you back away, which he doesn’t miss. He never misses the things you want him to miss.
He cocks his head to the side, brow furrowed in the way it does when he latches onto something. A tell, a quirk, a weakness. Your breath hitches in your throat; you’ve seen this face. It was cute when you were small and his obsession was about child’s play.
But your heart is not child’s play. Or available to him at all.
You drop back down to your knees, taking his ankle in one hand and nudging him forward, beginning to stitch his pant hem in silence.
A silence that seemed to grow heavier by the minute.
“It is just a ball, you know.” He says from above you. “Surely you don’t think I’ll actually marry anyone down there.”
As if he magicked them himself, voices from the courtyard below start to drift into the room. You pause before you accidentally stick him with another needle.
“Why should you not? I’m sure most are good matches.” You try and keep your voice clear though your heartbeat wavers.
“What constitutes a good match, friend?” He asks, casually. As if asking for advice.
“Someone in good royal standing. Attractive. Skilled in something. Able to handle your ego.”
He gasps in mock outrage, though when you look up, he’s smiling down at you wolfishly.
“I do not have an ego. You’re confusing me with Thor.”
“Thor’s ego has you beat by a beard hair, and that’s all. Pick someone down there that can handle both of you. I don’t know how I’ve survived all these years myself.” You mutter.
A moment. Your heart skips a beat again. Will you still be able to be with them, after this? After they have their someones? What place do you have here, other than the faceless tailor and seamstress?
You sink back on your ankles, looking absentmindedly at his. Your final stitches. As good as they were for the past few days, before you undid them for unseen flaws. But as more voices spill into the grounds below, you know you can’t hold onto him any further.
“You’re gone again.” He murmurs from above you, but in your dazed state, you can’t look up.
“What?”
“For weeks now, you keep disappearing. Thinking things that you don’t say out loud.”
“You don’t need to have my running monologue, Loki.”
“I don’t. But it’s a privilege you’ve shared with me in the past. Have I done something to upset you?”
“No.”
“Are you leaving Asgard?”
“What?” You look up at him again, this time locking eyes with the stone-faced prince. His hair has fallen from behind his ears, casting his face in shadow. It takes all of you not to tuck it again, to let his face see the sun.
“You’ve been fussing about this damned night for months now. Forget the clothing, every conversation we’ve had ends in what happens today.”
“It’s an important-”
“Save it. I know your lines now. It’s an important night for some, it’s a meaningless frivolity for others. I know my stance. But I don’t know yours.”
“I’m not trying to trick you, Loki.”
“I know. You’re better at tricking me. No, you’re just lying to me.” He points down at you with one finger, shaking it slightly as he chuckles and leans back. “You’re showing off your skills so you can impress someone down there, hmm? I’m a walking resume so you can get out of this damned castle.”
You spring up to your feet, scowling your way to your workbench, hurriedly putting up various needles and thread. Sharp points prick your fingers and you attribute your new tears to that, instead of him.
“After all of these years, you can’t afford me the respect of a goodbye?” His voice is even and low, but you still can’t look at him.
“I’m not leaving Asgard.” You force out through gritted teeth.
“Then you are leaving?”
“You are the one that’s leaving, Prince.”
“Don’t call me that. You, of all people, do not call me that.”
“I’m calling you what you are.”
“I called you friend.”
“And that’s not enough, is it?” You turn to face him, “I’m many things to you, Prince. A friend. A confidant. A childhood playmate turned into what? The help. Your help. Here to stitch you together into a Prince Charming for someone elses’ fairy tale. And that someone is down there. I’m just here, doing my job. Maybe we should have remembered that sooner than now.” You spit out the words, letting them fall like acid on the floor between you. Every word lowers your resolve more, especially as his jaw clenches more and more.
He stays silent for a long while, long enough for you to hear your heartbeat in your throat and the band start to play.
“Loki, I think they’re-”
“You’re not the help. You have never been the help.” He scowls, chest heaving once before he rips his eyes away from yours, turning towards the window and running a hand through his hair.
“Realistically, I-”
“Do the years we’ve shared mean nothing to you? Am I just some coddled man-child that’s been ignorant of your resentment this entire time?”
“I have not been resentful.”
“You have been. You just said it yourself. You’re just ‘doing your job.’”
“I am just doing my job.”
“Has your job been to babysit me? To talk with me? Sit with me through nights I couldn’t be alone, and to call me when you find vermin in the dark corners of your room?”
“No. My job is-”
“Hel, I can’t even count how many times we have walked the castle together. How many jokes we’ve made. How many times I’ve fallen asleep next to you, and still had dreams of your laugh. Your face consumes my thoughts, and I am just a job to you.”
“My face does what?”
“Haunts me! I am constantly thinking about you, and what you’re doing, and what you’re thinking about, and things to do with you. You have me walking like a dog by your side, and yet, I am just a job.” He’s evolved into pacing now, gripping his scalp as he rambles. He kicks a few bolts of fabric over by accident and curses, righting them with a wave of his hand.
Your body however, stills completely.
“A...dog.” You mutter dumbly, causing him jerk his face back towards you.
“I always have been. Yours.”
Footsteps run down the hall, past your door. The voices have all left the courtyard, having all entered the ballroom below. You never meant to keep him this long. But it feels so good to have him here, even with all of his anger burning a hole in your floor and heart.
He’s ‘your’ anything?
“My problem is that the thought of you getting married to someone else makes me sick.” You say finally and he blinks, brow furrowing.
“...What?” It’s his turn to be confused.
“Every time I think about you going down there, getting looked at and felt up and whispered to, Because it’s not my hand on yours.”
He turns towards you, face flickering orange in the setting sun that threatens to throw you both in darkness. You take a deep breath, two, before steeling enough nerves to continue.
“I think I fell in love with you so quietly that I didn’t know until the thought of today made me not want to leave my bed in the morning. It made every moment with you painful because I know it’s the some of the last ones I’ll have with you. The clock ticks so slowly when you’re away. The rest of my life is too long to live without you.” You say it all before you think it, leaving you breathless and propping yourself up on your workbench in order to stay upright.
The look he’s giving you is unreadable at best, unknowable at worst, but the intensity of his eyes never wavers, pinning you to your tenuous position. It still doesn’t waver as he steps towards you, slowly then quickly, lithe fingers reaching your waist and catching you before you fall.
It doesn’t waver until he closes his eyes, one hand sliding up to cradle the nape of your neck and jaw and drawing your head back as he pulls you into his embrace. He ghosts his lips above yours and your breath hitches before you close the distance, pressing into his kiss with an urgency you’ve been holding back. Your fingers crease his newly-made clothes as you grip onto his chest, his ribs, any part of him with the sole purpose of pulling him closer. He kisses you back with the same fervour you’re giving him, hot lips burning his brand onto your mouth and your thoughts cease to exist other than,
Wow. It’s really happening.
It must be forever before you disconnect, breathless and hot, but he only takes a second before kissing the corner of your lips, your cheek, your temple.
“I must be dreaming.” He mumbles against your skin, and you let loose a wry little laugh.
“I could say the same thing.” You barely get the words out before he kisses you again, slower this time, taking his time. His hands travel up, cupping your face gently, thumb swiping away at a tear you didn’t realize made its way out.
When he finally pulls away, he has a gentle smile on his face, as if he was wholly at peace.
It makes you pull him in again, sounds of a long-forgotten ball echoing from below.
“all powerful entity falls head over heels for the first shit ass mcnobody who dared to call them a bitch to their face” is, perhaps not the absolute best trope but it’s definitely up there I’d say
Finally posted a short one lol, thank you for the hype:
Shared Glances (click here to read).
Summary: When Mr. Terrific comes back to the lab late at night, Guy hot on his heels, you help stitch him up. 1.9k words, female reader, no use of y/n. No warnings.
I have another longer one in the works but I accept requests any time ^-^
Summary: When Mr. Terrific comes back to the lab late at night, Guy hot on his heels, you help stitch him up. Small (1.9k) fluff drabble that I wrote up and barely proofread. No Y/N usage. No warnings.
Pairing: Mr. Terrific x f!reader
A/N: Like I said, rough day, so saw Superman again. Came away with this. I'm about to pass out so just wanted it posted instead of it going through the normal 3-day editing process, lol. Hope you enjoy. Will probably write more. Let me know if you have any ideas or requests. I have one in my queue at the moment for Loki that will come out soon, but I will also take Mr. Terrific and Bucky Barnes ideas!!
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You turn the radio off with a free hand when you hear the Gang thundering back into the Hall. Well, when you hear Guy. His voice could grate on your nerves even through the shut lab doors. It’s taking all of you to keep your hand steady as it solders the delicate machinery of the disassembled T-Sphere in front of you.
You were supposed to go home hours ago, but just hadn’t felt the need. You told yourself that you just had a lot of work to do, so it was easier to sleep here, on the pull-out couch your boss designed for you. In reality, the lab felt more comfortable than your dingy apartment ever has been.
From the corner you set up in the back, couch by the bay window overlooking Metropolis, you had everything. Bookshelf filled with any book you want, your own desk and tinkering table, mini-fridge with your iced coffees and that horrible caffeinated-algae glop your boss drank. Hell, he had even fixed up your busted radio from college, adding a module that expanded the frequency pick-up. Now, you can listen to any station in the world, all from the comfortable sterile Terrific Lab.
It all sure lives up the name. In fact, the only bad part is when the Justice Gang’s missions end, and you can tell Guy is on your bosses heels; through the lobby, up the stairs, down the hall, right to-
The door bangs open and you jump, welding pen going flying behind you. You curse under your breath as you look at the drops of metal littering half of your components, and rip off your welding mask to scowl at the intrusion.
Mr. Terrific meets your gaze with an eye-roll as he walks in without ceremony, wiping away a drop of blood from a scratch above his eye. He pulls his gloves off slowly and roughly, throwing them at the hamper by the door without looking. There’s more gashes on his jaw and near the collar of his leather jacket, but he barely seems to notice as he stops just short of his desk chair. He jabs a thumb behind his shoulder at Guy, who looks barely worse for wear.
“Is he still talking?” His voice is perfectly even. That’s how you know he’s pissed.
You’re pissed too. Mr. Terrific doesn’t get scratched up unless something goes wrong. And what’s the probability that it was his fault?
Not very damn high.
He drops in his desk chair, leather creaking, and types out his password with piston presses that almost crack the keyboard. All the while, Guy keeps shouting about whatever, voice echoing around the room. You try to ignore him as you gather the medkit, but it’s hard to tune it all out. Especially when you see blood dripping down on the clean floor from Terrific.
“All I’m saying is that could have gone so much smoother than it did. And for what? Popularity? Are the police here so inept they have to call in the Justice Gang-”
“We’re not the Justice Gang.” Terrific says as you pull your chair up next to him, opening up the medkit with a sterile hiss. The smell of antiseptic fills the room as you snap your medical gloves on.
“We are, but that’s not up for discussion. What is up for discussion, is why we just spent hours hunting down some shithead petty thieves that the cops could have found with a magnifying glass!” Guy cries out, pacing by the door and gripping his head between his clean palms.
“Look over here.” You murmur under your breath, Terrific glancing to you, with your hands clean and workspace ready. You’re not going to leave him alone either.
He sighs, closing his eyes once before turning and facing you, leaning back in his chair. He looks tired. You don’t blame him. Guy wasn’t wrong on how long the mission took. They had said it would be a short mission, mainly just for the 6 o’clock news, but it was easily 4:00 a.m. by the time they came back in. Hawkgirl didn’t even sound like she came in the building. You’re almost jealous of her.
“We should be better than them. Be able to find them before they even get their grubby hands on the jewels-” Guy starts up again, and you’re not sure whether the wince on Terrific’s face comes from the alcohol wiping his neck wound clean, or Guy’s grating voice.
“They stole cash.” He mutters, mainly just to you, and you smirk a little as you gently peel off his disintegrating mask and setting it back in the nanite pool on his desk.
The T dissolves on contact, assimilating into the mass, ready to reform at a moment’s notice. For now, you just see Terrific’s face, brushed over with his own blood and a bruise forming at his temple. As you press the antiseptic pad to the gash above his brow, he winches fully this time, hand clenching on his knee.
“Sorry.” You murmur, cleaning it quickly.
He hums a note, fingers brushing your elbow, telling you to slow down without a word. It’s an easy directive to follow.
It was easy to tune out Guy when you were this close. But he always finds a way to be known.
“Y’know, I thought you were a lab assistant, not a nurse.” Guy barks, arms crossed as he stands in front of the door like a brick wall. You shrug a shoulder, cutting a nanothread bandage to match the cut.
“I don’t see you cleaning him up.” You glare at the man, who glares back.
“He’s a god-damn super genius. I don’t think he needs someone patching him up.”
“And you don’t need to talk as loudly as you do, and yet...”
Terrific huffs, shoulders settling slightly in his chair as you carefully bandage him. Guy scowls, directing his ire at Terrific’s rod-straight back.
“Funny. She’s funny. You hire her after seeing her one-woman show? Love it. There should be a sign on the door; Smart-Ass Comedy Club.”
“Think I could charge entry?” Terrific muses, and you nod.
“I’ll take a 50/50 cut.” You smile, and he nods back slowly, rubbing his chin.
“Hmm. Maybe. I’ll think on it.”
Guy groans, rubbing his face quickly with two hands as he starts pacing the room again.
“For two people who aren’t dating, y’all are the most annoying couple I have ever met.” He says through gritted teeth.
“For someone with a chronic concussion, you sure do talk a lot.” You say, flicking your eyes to meet his as he looks over his shoulder to glare at you again.
“I’m just saying. You’re always in here, waiting to patch him up, or organizing his files, or tinkering with his shit.” He nods to the dismantled T-Sphere on your workbench. Terrific glances at it and lifts a brow at you, and you grimace.
“I was trying to expand the sensor range. I ruined a few of the components when he barged in.” You jerk your head towards Guy, and Terrific sighs.
“I’ll get some more.” He mutters, glancing over at the Sphere again. “You really disassembled that yourself?”
The question makes your heart flutter. All you can do is nod to avoid looking him in the eye when he glances back at you. He hums a little, under his breath, as if to just himself.
“Hello?! She’s messing with your damn orbs! This is not casual behaviour!” Guy almost shouts, and Terrific turns away from you to look at him. He jerks his head to the door.
“Get out, Guy.” His words are even and low, if clipped at the ends.
“What? No. We have to go over the mission.”
“Go yell at Hawk.”
“No. She’ll yell at me.” Guy crosses his arms again, and Terrific turns his chair fully towards him. He backs up a step, back against the door.
“I will make you wish she was yelling at your sorry ass.”
The air stills, both men staring at each other as if the other will disappear if they waited long enough. Guy grows impatient, setting his jaw and hissing at you through gritted teeth.
“You’re just in denial. Both of you. With your little game of shay raids-”
“Charades.” You pipe up from the back, and Guy scowls.
“Whatever! What-fucking-ever! Y’all are made for each other anyway.” Guy storms out of the room, slamming the door after him. Terrific sighs, turning back towards you.
“Are we done here? I have to see how bad you massacred my sphere.” He mutters, and you roll your eyes.
“I didn’t destroy it. Just... burned a few parts.” You shrug, steady hands moving as you slip into the familiar rhythm of wiping and bandaging the scrapes and bruises that refuse to stay hidden. “All done. Next time, try to use the spheres, not your face, mkay?”
You peel off your gloves, the sterile snap loud in the quiet lab. He’s already turning back to his screen, diving headfirst into whatever research obsession he’s wrapped up in. The medkit cleans up fast, but you hesitate, caught between routine and something softer pulling at your chest.
It’s late. Too late, really. But it wouldn’t feel right to leave now. Not without that familiar presence, that quiet habit you’ve claimed as your own. His missions and Guy’s endless complaints wear on him, but you know the weight doesn’t stop there.
You’re tired too.
His injuries barely cut deep, but they tug at something fragile inside you; a sudden fear of how mortal he is. How even heroes can bleed. How this lab, his sanctuary, can feel so hollow without him.
The fleeting glances. The whispered words, half-heard over microscopes. The casual brushes of shoulders as he fiddles with chips smaller than a fingernail. These moments stitch themselves into your days, the quiet pulse you look forward to.
A man you’re happy to see. Every day.
“Michael?” Your voice is soft.
“Yes.”
“Can we play some chess? If you’re too tired, it’s okay.” You offer the chance, breathless, as if daring him to say no.
His shoulders drop, a small smile touching his lips—the barest flicker, but for your heart, it shines like a beacon. You smile back, warm and wide. For a heartbeat, you swear he leans in, closing the space between you, filling it with the clean scent of soap and shea.
There’s something about these quiet hours. When his voice lowers, when the hum of the lab feels like a heartbeat, and you work in sync, like your thoughts are the same.
You never say the words out loud, but sometimes you think them.
You want more.
More of this.
More of him.
Not just his brilliance, his trust, or his permission to stay.
Just… him.
“I thought you’d never ask,” he murmurs, voice rough but steady.
You lean in, arms wrapping under his, pulling his chest just a moment closer before you pull away, rushing to the chessboard like a kid with a secret.
From across the room, he watches you, the tension Guy left behind slipping away like smoke. His shoulders ease, fingers rubbing the armrest with quiet thoughtfulness.
It’s easier for Michael to breathe when you’re near.
Easier to think.
Easier to feel.
Though he’d never admit it.
Not quite yet.
But every time you catch him looking at you, pen poised and eyes bright, it almost slips out of his mouth.
For now, his heart will have to keep its own steady rhythm. Though, not a day goes by that he doesn’t want to hear yours.
Today has been so annoying that I'm gonna go see Superman AGAIN and rage post THE FIRST MR. TERRIFIC DRABBLE I WRITE
Also what is his nickname. Terrific? Holt? Michael? I don't even know. Mr. Terrific when said flirtatiously is so serious of a flirt. Like what's next, his social security number?
Hi, new Mr. Terrific fans! Do you want to get to know him after watching the movie? Here’s a short and easy reading list for you!
Important details to note:
His name is Michael Holt
He’s a legacy character. There was a Mr. Terrific before Michael named Terry Sloane who has been dead for decades. He’s the reason why “Fair play” is written on Michael’s jacket sleeves.
His origin includes attempted suicide.
His mask has a purpose! It makes him a walking blind spot to cameras.
The New 52 Mr. Terrific is a completely different character.
Reading list:
The Spectre (1992) #54 (Michael’s origin)
JSA (1999) (He Joins the team in #11 and becomes chairman in #27)
Justice Society of America (2006)
Checkmate (2006)
The Terrifics (2018)
Mr. Terrific: Year One (2025) (A modern retelling of his origin. Currently two out of four issues are out. The third releases on Wednesday while the fourth comes out a week after that.)
If you have any questions, ask me at @fall-of-fall ! Happy reading!
Having a 10/10 pain day but still have a 7-9 pm meeting. Capitalism is hell. I'm bringing a journal so I can zone out and write during it but I just know my body is going to be so mad at me tomorrow for not calling out today.
Summary: Loki left you a long time ago, leaving your heart broken. Now, he's crawled back on your doorstep, half-dead. He has a lot of explaining to do. Angst, no smut. 2.7k words.
Loki x magicalhealer!reader
TW for those with emetophobia, or anyone not interested in hearing about blood.
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The mead makes your mouth feel full. Heavy with sticky sugar and alcohol, crawling down your throat to your chest and filling that up too. It’s hard to breathe, even as you sit on your porch staring at the gorgeous Midgardian sunset. It’s been your nightly view for decades, and yet you’ve only felt this dread weighing you down once before.
And now, that before is today again, come to sleep in your bed like he doesn’t have a care in the world. Your eyes flick down to the mess on the old wooden porch that you’ve been avoiding for hours. His blood has seeped into the wood, spreading out in splashes onto the wall, your front door, your mailbox. The only place he somehow avoided was the protection charm in white paint just below your doorknob. A little gift of security for anyone inside. Typical.
Self-serving snake.
That same selfish streak is probably what led him back to your door. As if he didn't leave you high and dry, millenia ago, in pursuit of some throne that haunted his nightmares. One you told him isn't worth all the pain he goes through. And inflicts, from what you heard on the on the radio before you willed it out of existence. Loki's true love of power is not something you needed to think about as you sat in the house you built to be away from him.
You finish the rest of your mead in a swallow, and it lands in your stomach like a stone. It takes a while to clean up as you scrub your frustrations out on the wood. You know plenty of cleaning charms for this; hell, you could completely change the look of the place with a few whispers and a detailed drawing burnt in offering. But the part of your psyche that you didn’t manage to drown out with alcohol holds you back. Whispers about good memories that you try to forget. So, you take your anger out on the wood, birdsong turning into the sharp strings of the crickets in the background.
Let him have nothing when you go back inside. Indifference. An ounce of your anger equals to gallons of admiration in his twisted mind. When you go back to your hated patients bedside, be nothing. Let him regret coming just as much as he must have regretted the time you had spent together.
He couldn't have fully regretted it. He's here now. After all, the magic his mother taught you is the magic that's going to save him. Her death left only you. And he knew the breadth of your knowledge, with all those long hours spent getting closer together in the books. Him coming to find you after your lesson to help you study. Over months, study lessons drew closer, whispering spells under his breath to make you lean in to hear him. Lips catching. He tastes like the rosemary in the salve you're trying to replicate, forgotten between you.
Study lessons that turned to study nights together, to nights together, to together. To apart. He had a shinier prize in mind.
When you go back inside, the sun has set, leaving the quaint kitchen awash in moonlight. The door to the back bedroom is as closed as you left it. In the quiet, the soft sound of his breathing takes up more room than it should. You remember a time that it brought you comfort, knowing he was just a few steps away, at peace.
You put the kettle on, if only to hear the scream that you wish you can make right now as the water finishes boiling. Tea time can be any time. Especially if you have to stay awake to save his sorry ass if he starts dying again.
He doesn’t, until a few hours go by. You continue reading as he slams your bedroom door open, rushing to the bathroom across the hall, falling to his knees with a thud and gagging into the tub. He groans as you finish your chapter and calmly close the book. Mixing together a potion and taking your time.
When you walk in, its obvious even in the dim light that has a sickly, pale blue tinge to him. His eyes glint red as he looks over his shoulder at you, spine arched over him as if his back was a shield. It wouldn't be surprising if it was, with the bleeding gashes crisscrossing his feverish skin. Your throat tightens, so you hold the bottle to him wordlessly.
Slowly, his hand reaches back out to yours, a limb of delicate smoke let out in a careful breath. His hand wraps around the bottle, his fingers hesitantly brushing against your palm in something both daring and apologetic. As he turns away and drinks, you clasp your hands behind your back, keeping away from him while you can.
Watching carefully, you track the rate of his deepening breaths, how fast his gashes slow their trickle of blood, and the red tone coming back into his skin. By the end of it, he’s sitting on the edge of the tub, elbows on his knees and holding his head as if it weighed a ton.
“Bad night?” You say.
When he chuckles, your heart soars in a sour mix of old happiness and fresh rage.
“You could say that.” His voice is rough. Tarnished silver.
“You need salves. Stitches, maybe.”
“Stitches.” He murmurs along after you. His blood drips on the floor.
“You’re cleaning up before you leave.” You sigh, getting the dusty sewing kit out of the medicine cabinet. Taking the thread, you whisper to it, waiting for it to glow brightly before threading it onto the eye of your needle. “Luckily for you, Midgardians have no need for godly thread. Unluckily for you, it burns like hell. Move over.”
A minute later, he’s groaning and muttering more curse words than you know as you crouch next to him to stitch a particularly deep gash in his ribs.
“What did this, anyway?” You ask, not really expecting a response. He gives one in between gasps and flinches, and you start to itch more. As if his words are burning your flesh too.
“I ran into some trouble on Jotunn.”
Figures. A moth to a flame. You roll your eyes.
“Ah, going back to that frozen hunk of sunshine. Good idea. Has always brought you good tidings.” Your anger comes out in a flash as you tug the thread once, hard, and he winces.
“You’re right.” He breathes out. You still.
He said you’re....what? Right?
“Look at me.” You snap, and he slowly does, turning his head in his hands and hooking his gaze onto yours, exhaustion knit in every line of his face. He doesn’t look blue, or faint. You feel his forehead with the back of your hand, trying to ignore your quickening heartbeat at the touch.
“No fever. Maybe you’re just run-of-the-mill delirious.” You mutter, and he tuts once at you.
It’s a familiar sound, one usually made after one of your quips or teases whispered to him in the hush of a shared moment. A wordless compliment, a one-note love song, a precursor to a kiss. Your lips are cold as you go back to stitching in silence. The minutes pass with tense distraction.
“I’m sorry.” He whispers finally, and you try to focus instead on the golden thread going into snow-white skin, stitching together muscle fibres into a blanket over bone.
This can’t be Loki. Loki would never apologize. Loki wouldn’t come crawling back in order to apologize. Unless its the version of him that everyone else saw. Ruthless, lying, sniveling little snake. The kind you didn’t believe existed for a naively long time.
“You should have said that a long time ago.” You mutter back, tying a tight knot at the end of your stitch. You move in front of him, tapping his elbow. “Move. Your chest is next.”
He sighs, unfolding from his hunched-over position. Your breath stutters as you start to clean the deep wound from the top of his shoulder to just under his throat, settled in the middle of his bruised chest. Up close and in the bubble of his body, the wounds on him hurt you too, with the reminder of how the healthy skin felt beneath your fingers. You carefully start stitching again.
“I should have.” He murmurs.
You ignore him.
“I spent a long time looking for you.” He says again, and you roll your eyes.
“Alright, Loki.”
“I did. Your protection charms-” He insists, tensing as you cut him off with a needle sharp laugh.
“You seemed fine enough walking away. I thought I’d be easy enough to forget by now.” You tug the thread hard again, but he winces before you do.
“I deserve that.” He sighs.
“Yes, you do. And you deserve at least half of the cuts you have. It’s going to take a month to replace the herbs you’re going to need to heal all of this.” You grit your teeth. “You’re scavenging all of it too.”
Expecting a barb back, you’re angrily surprised at his lack of response.
“Alright.”
Just a word? Even worse, a word of acceptance?
You sit back, spine ramrod straight, looking him over again with a harsher gaze. The cuts into his thin, paler than bone skin. Bruises littering the rest of him. Dirt under his fingernails. Shaggy hair over hollowed cheeks. Dark circles under dull green eyes, looking painfully up at you like a drowning man sunken deep.
“You look horrible.” You whisper.
He shrugs, a halfhearted jerk of a shoulder.
“You should have seen my enemy.”
“I don’t need to. I’m not idiotic enough to get myself in your shoes.”
“Lost those a long while ago.” He stretches out a leg, showing off a dirty, wounded foot.
Narrowing your eyes, you cross your arms, needle point gleaming between your fingers like a blade.
“What game are you playing, Loki?”
“I don’t have the energy for games.”
“You always have the energy for games. That’s your whole schtick.”
“Schtick? You’ve been around Midgardians too long.”
“And who’s fault is that? Who is the one who disappeared? You get no say in my neighbours.” There's an acidity in your words that burns your tongue.
He closes his eyes, turning his battered face away from you, as if struck. One hand runs down from his temple to his jaw, sliding back to palm the back of his neck. Self-soothing. A movement you used to mimic when petting him as he curled up in your lap.
“I’m sorry.”
“Save it.” You mutter.
You bend forward, avoiding touching him as much as you can as you stitch again. Quickly and efficiently like you always have, even through the wet haze of tears that are quickly overtaking your vision.
He had to leave. You had just gotten to equilibrium. A comforting separation from your feelings and into a world of being a simple saviour of sick human souls. Healing something.
“I realized on a trip through every world I could have imagined, that the only one I was trying to find was one with you in it.” He almost shook under you, gripping the edge of the tub with both hands as if it was the only thing keeping him from falling.
Your hand stutters but he continues unflinchingly.
“It’s true. I saw most of them. Been given thrones and trash piles. I’ve seen what a million versions of me never will. Fought the essence of nothingness itself. And yet, through all of them, you haunt me.” His voice is strained and he chokes on nothing, coughs.
Your hands still, finishing a stitch but not willing to move and risk looking at his face. It takes a minute for him to speak again.
“I left because I thought I could be better. Worth the love you looked at me with. Able to give you what you need.”
Pretty words that mean nothing.
“I didn’t need a throne, Loki. Or power. That was all you.” You hiss, and he flinches.
“I...I thought I was trying to give you stability. Protection. The assurance that you wouldn’t be where you were before my mother took you in. As if you didn't already have it in yourself. The hunt was for me. And I was too stupid to see past it all myself.” He sighs, and your shoulders drop.
There was only one question that had infected your thoughts constantly.
“Did you ever love me?” Whispering the words felt like pressing a bruise. What hurt more was hearing the soft gasp that came from him, as if hearing sadness manifest in a sound. You had heard it from your lungs enough in the past years.
His hand tentatively comes forward, resting on yours. It was as cold as marble, and you placed your other one on his in an effort of medicinal warmth.
"Look at me, please. Just a little." You keep looking at your hands until his icey fingers cup your chin, bringing your gaze gently to his exhausted one.
"Loki, you're-"
"I have never stopped loving you. Not once." The hand on your chin lifts to your cheek, wiping under your eyes. He sighs, taking in breath with a shudder. "You've been in my nightmares and my daydreams. Every second."
Silver-tongue. "You're a jackass." You turn your head, leaning away from his touch.
"I am. And yet, you still saved me." He bitterly laughs.
"Don't make my kindness mean anything." You say, taking your hands away from his and standing up, but he sways from your orbit. Drops. A sickening thud echos in the room as he hits the ground, freshly bleeding from an opened wound.
“Please.” He whispers to the ground.
You're at his side before you can think, taking his arm and shoulder and gently turning him to lay on his back on the tiled floor. He sucks air through his teeth as you examine the torn stitches. Dark lines claw out from the edges, and you set your jaw.
“Hush.” You mutter as he goes to say something else, and he listens, closing his mouth but not looking away.
You rummage in your sink cabinet, collecting every high-power salve in your stock. Neither of you talk while you work.
As you apply each charm in herbed paste over his wounds, you whisper spells under your breath to seal them. The rosemary claws at your nose, making your remember the days huddled over pages again. When he was helping you study because that was his goal; to be with you. Does he want that again, now? Is he thinking of rosemary, or is he thinking of the health it brings him? That gullible you brings him?
You wonder if Loki knows the nature of your charms. The ones painted everywhere, shielding the house behind them until the viewer is on their last hope.
Were you really Loki’s last hope? Did he truly hope for you at all? Looking over to his face, all you see is his pain. Sorrow. Tear stains down his dirty cheeks. Even through the anger, you remember how it felt to have his lips on yours. His little laughs in your ear, words whispered just for you. The constant flowers and trinkets presented, frozen in time in your closet. Food fed to you.
You remember him.
“You’re really hurt.” You say, clipping your words as you look back down at the carnage of his body.
“Feels like it.”
The silence echoes between you.
“You can stay.” His body tenses at your words. “Until you heal. Then you get out. Lies and all.”
Your body is tense alongside him.
“The only lying I am doing is with my back on the floor.” He whispers.
You take a moment, before getting up and stepping out to make up the rickety patient cot in the corner of your kitchen. Choosing the scratchiest blanket to adorn it with. A little taste of the feeling he’s given you.
When you pick him back up, he tries not to lean on you as you walk to the cot, but he almost falls across the doorway instead. You tut at him, shouldering his weight for the few steps and lowering him gently down.
He brushes his arm against yours as he lays back, looks up at you through half-lidded eyes that close unwillingly.
You tuck him in, lingering longer than you mean to.
When you finally make your way to bed, you leave your door cracked open. Just enough to let his soft breathing lull you to sleep.
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A/N: Hope you liked it! Needed some more angst in the Loki fanfiction realm. If you have any more ideas for Loki, let me know. I may do a part 2 of this, I'm unsure. Have a good day!
Summary: Loki left you a long time ago, leaving your heart broken. Now, he's crawled back on your doorstep, half-dead. He has a lot of explaining to do. Angst, no smut. 2.7k words.
Loki x magicalhealer!reader
TW for those with emetophobia, or anyone not interested in hearing about blood.
---------------
The mead makes your mouth feel full. Heavy with sticky sugar and alcohol, crawling down your throat to your chest and filling that up too. It’s hard to breathe, even as you sit on your porch staring at the gorgeous Midgardian sunset. It’s been your nightly view for decades, and yet you’ve only felt this dread weighing you down once before.
And now, that before is today again, come to sleep in your bed like he doesn’t have a care in the world. Your eyes flick down to the mess on the old wooden porch that you’ve been avoiding for hours. His blood has seeped into the wood, spreading out in splashes onto the wall, your front door, your mailbox. The only place he somehow avoided was the protection charm in white paint just below your doorknob. A little gift of security for anyone inside. Typical.
Self-serving snake.
That same selfish streak is probably what led him back to your door. As if he didn't leave you high and dry, millenia ago, in pursuit of some throne that haunted his nightmares. One you told him isn't worth all the pain he goes through. And inflicts, from what you heard on the on the radio before you willed it out of existence. Loki's true love of power is not something you needed to think about as you sat in the house you built to be away from him.
You finish the rest of your mead in a swallow, and it lands in your stomach like a stone. It takes a while to clean up as you scrub your frustrations out on the wood. You know plenty of cleaning charms for this; hell, you could completely change the look of the place with a few whispers and a detailed drawing burnt in offering. But the part of your psyche that you didn’t manage to drown out with alcohol holds you back. Whispers about good memories that you try to forget. So, you take your anger out on the wood, birdsong turning into the sharp strings of the crickets in the background.
Let him have nothing when you go back inside. Indifference. An ounce of your anger equals to gallons of admiration in his twisted mind. When you go back to your hated patients bedside, be nothing. Let him regret coming just as much as he must have regretted the time you had spent together.
He couldn't have fully regretted it. He's here now. After all, the magic his mother taught you is the magic that's going to save him. Her death left only you. And he knew the breadth of your knowledge, with all those long hours spent getting closer together in the books. Him coming to find you after your lesson to help you study. Over months, study lessons drew closer, whispering spells under his breath to make you lean in to hear him. Lips catching. He tastes like the rosemary in the salve you're trying to replicate, forgotten between you.
Study lessons that turned to study nights together, to nights together, to together. To apart. He had a shinier prize in mind.
When you go back inside, the sun has set, leaving the quaint kitchen awash in moonlight. The door to the back bedroom is as closed as you left it. In the quiet, the soft sound of his breathing takes up more room than it should. You remember a time that it brought you comfort, knowing he was just a few steps away, at peace.
You put the kettle on, if only to hear the scream that you wish you can make right now as the water finishes boiling. Tea time can be any time. Especially if you have to stay awake to save his sorry ass if he starts dying again.
He doesn’t, until a few hours go by. You continue reading as he slams your bedroom door open, rushing to the bathroom across the hall, falling to his knees with a thud and gagging into the tub. He groans as you finish your chapter and calmly close the book. Mixing together a potion and taking your time.
When you walk in, its obvious even in the dim light that has a sickly, pale blue tinge to him. His eyes glint red as he looks over his shoulder at you, spine arched over him as if his back was a shield. It wouldn't be surprising if it was, with the bleeding gashes crisscrossing his feverish skin. Your throat tightens, so you hold the bottle to him wordlessly.
Slowly, his hand reaches back out to yours, a limb of delicate smoke let out in a careful breath. His hand wraps around the bottle, his fingers hesitantly brushing against your palm in something both daring and apologetic. As he turns away and drinks, you clasp your hands behind your back, keeping away from him while you can.
Watching carefully, you track the rate of his deepening breaths, how fast his gashes slow their trickle of blood, and the red tone coming back into his skin. By the end of it, he’s sitting on the edge of the tub, elbows on his knees and holding his head as if it weighed a ton.
“Bad night?” You say.
When he chuckles, your heart soars in a sour mix of old happiness and fresh rage.
“You could say that.” His voice is rough. Tarnished silver.
“You need salves. Stitches, maybe.”
“Stitches.” He murmurs along after you. His blood drips on the floor.
“You’re cleaning up before you leave.” You sigh, getting the dusty sewing kit out of the medicine cabinet. Taking the thread, you whisper to it, waiting for it to glow brightly before threading it onto the eye of your needle. “Luckily for you, Midgardians have no need for godly thread. Unluckily for you, it burns like hell. Move over.”
A minute later, he’s groaning and muttering more curse words than you know as you crouch next to him to stitch a particularly deep gash in his ribs.
“What did this, anyway?” You ask, not really expecting a response. He gives one in between gasps and flinches, and you start to itch more. As if his words are burning your flesh too.
“I ran into some trouble on Jotunn.”
Figures. A moth to a flame. You roll your eyes.
“Ah, going back to that frozen hunk of sunshine. Good idea. Has always brought you good tidings.” Your anger comes out in a flash as you tug the thread once, hard, and he winces.
“You’re right.” He breathes out. You still.
He said you’re....what? Right?
“Look at me.” You snap, and he slowly does, turning his head in his hands and hooking his gaze onto yours, exhaustion knit in every line of his face. He doesn’t look blue, or faint. You feel his forehead with the back of your hand, trying to ignore your quickening heartbeat at the touch.
“No fever. Maybe you’re just run-of-the-mill delirious.” You mutter, and he tuts once at you.
It’s a familiar sound, one usually made after one of your quips or teases whispered to him in the hush of a shared moment. A wordless compliment, a one-note love song, a precursor to a kiss. Your lips are cold as you go back to stitching in silence. The minutes pass with tense distraction.
“I’m sorry.” He whispers finally, and you try to focus instead on the golden thread going into snow-white skin, stitching together muscle fibres into a blanket over bone.
This can’t be Loki. Loki would never apologize. Loki wouldn’t come crawling back in order to apologize. Unless its the version of him that everyone else saw. Ruthless, lying, sniveling little snake. The kind you didn’t believe existed for a naively long time.
“You should have said that a long time ago.” You mutter back, tying a tight knot at the end of your stitch. You move in front of him, tapping his elbow. “Move. Your chest is next.”
He sighs, unfolding from his hunched-over position. Your breath stutters as you start to clean the deep wound from the top of his shoulder to just under his throat, settled in the middle of his bruised chest. Up close and in the bubble of his body, the wounds on him hurt you too, with the reminder of how the healthy skin felt beneath your fingers. You carefully start stitching again.
“I should have.” He murmurs.
You ignore him.
“I spent a long time looking for you.” He says again, and you roll your eyes.
“Alright, Loki.”
“I did. Your protection charms-” He insists, tensing as you cut him off with a needle sharp laugh.
“You seemed fine enough walking away. I thought I’d be easy enough to forget by now.” You tug the thread hard again, but he winces before you do.
“I deserve that.” He sighs.
“Yes, you do. And you deserve at least half of the cuts you have. It’s going to take a month to replace the herbs you’re going to need to heal all of this.” You grit your teeth. “You’re scavenging all of it too.”
Expecting a barb back, you’re angrily surprised at his lack of response.
“Alright.”
Just a word? Even worse, a word of acceptance?
You sit back, spine ramrod straight, looking him over again with a harsher gaze. The cuts into his thin, paler than bone skin. Bruises littering the rest of him. Dirt under his fingernails. Shaggy hair over hollowed cheeks. Dark circles under dull green eyes, looking painfully up at you like a drowning man sunken deep.
“You look horrible.” You whisper.
He shrugs, a halfhearted jerk of a shoulder.
“You should have seen my enemy.”
“I don’t need to. I’m not idiotic enough to get myself in your shoes.”
“Lost those a long while ago.” He stretches out a leg, showing off a dirty, wounded foot.
Narrowing your eyes, you cross your arms, needle point gleaming between your fingers like a blade.
“What game are you playing, Loki?”
“I don’t have the energy for games.”
“You always have the energy for games. That’s your whole schtick.”
“Schtick? You’ve been around Midgardians too long.”
“And who’s fault is that? Who is the one who disappeared? You get no say in my neighbours.” There's an acidity in your words that burns your tongue.
He closes his eyes, turning his battered face away from you, as if struck. One hand runs down from his temple to his jaw, sliding back to palm the back of his neck. Self-soothing. A movement you used to mimic when petting him as he curled up in your lap.
“I’m sorry.”
“Save it.” You mutter.
You bend forward, avoiding touching him as much as you can as you stitch again. Quickly and efficiently like you always have, even through the wet haze of tears that are quickly overtaking your vision.
He had to leave. You had just gotten to equilibrium. A comforting separation from your feelings and into a world of being a simple saviour of sick human souls. Healing something.
“I realized on a trip through every world I could have imagined, that the only one I was trying to find was one with you in it.” He almost shook under you, gripping the edge of the tub with both hands as if it was the only thing keeping him from falling.
Your hand stutters but he continues unflinchingly.
“It’s true. I saw most of them. Been given thrones and trash piles. I’ve seen what a million versions of me never will. Fought the essence of nothingness itself. And yet, through all of them, you haunt me.” His voice is strained and he chokes on nothing, coughs.
Your hands still, finishing a stitch but not willing to move and risk looking at his face. It takes a minute for him to speak again.
“I left because I thought I could be better. Worth the love you looked at me with. Able to give you what you need.”
Pretty words that mean nothing.
“I didn’t need a throne, Loki. Or power. That was all you.” You hiss, and he flinches.
“I...I thought I was trying to give you stability. Protection. The assurance that you wouldn’t be where you were before my mother took you in. As if you didn't already have it in yourself. The hunt was for me. And I was too stupid to see past it all myself.” He sighs, and your shoulders drop.
There was only one question that had infected your thoughts constantly.
“Did you ever love me?” Whispering the words felt like pressing a bruise. What hurt more was hearing the soft gasp that came from him, as if hearing sadness manifest in a sound. You had heard it from your lungs enough in the past years.
His hand tentatively comes forward, resting on yours. It was as cold as marble, and you placed your other one on his in an effort of medicinal warmth.
"Look at me, please. Just a little." You keep looking at your hands until his icey fingers cup your chin, bringing your gaze gently to his exhausted one.
"Loki, you're-"
"I have never stopped loving you. Not once." The hand on your chin lifts to your cheek, wiping under your eyes. He sighs, taking in breath with a shudder. "You've been in my nightmares and my daydreams. Every second."
Silver-tongue. "You're a jackass." You turn your head, leaning away from his touch.
"I am. And yet, you still saved me." He bitterly laughs.
"Don't make my kindness mean anything." You say, taking your hands away from his and standing up, but he sways from your orbit. Drops. A sickening thud echos in the room as he hits the ground, freshly bleeding from an opened wound.
“Please.” He whispers to the ground.
You're at his side before you can think, taking his arm and shoulder and gently turning him to lay on his back on the tiled floor. He sucks air through his teeth as you examine the torn stitches. Dark lines claw out from the edges, and you set your jaw.
“Hush.” You mutter as he goes to say something else, and he listens, closing his mouth but not looking away.
You rummage in your sink cabinet, collecting every high-power salve in your stock. Neither of you talk while you work.
As you apply each charm in herbed paste over his wounds, you whisper spells under your breath to seal them. The rosemary claws at your nose, making your remember the days huddled over pages again. When he was helping you study because that was his goal; to be with you. Does he want that again, now? Is he thinking of rosemary, or is he thinking of the health it brings him? That gullible you brings him?
You wonder if Loki knows the nature of your charms. The ones painted everywhere, shielding the house behind them until the viewer is on their last hope.
Were you really Loki’s last hope? Did he truly hope for you at all? Looking over to his face, all you see is his pain. Sorrow. Tear stains down his dirty cheeks. Even through the anger, you remember how it felt to have his lips on yours. His little laughs in your ear, words whispered just for you. The constant flowers and trinkets presented, frozen in time in your closet. Food fed to you.
You remember him.
“You’re really hurt.” You say, clipping your words as you look back down at the carnage of his body.
“Feels like it.”
The silence echoes between you.
“You can stay.” His body tenses at your words. “Until you heal. Then you get out. Lies and all.”
Your body is tense alongside him.
“The only lying I am doing is with my back on the floor.” He whispers.
You take a moment, before getting up and stepping out to make up the rickety patient cot in the corner of your kitchen. Choosing the scratchiest blanket to adorn it with. A little taste of the feeling he’s given you.
When you pick him back up, he tries not to lean on you as you walk to the cot, but he almost falls across the doorway instead. You tut at him, shouldering his weight for the few steps and lowering him gently down.
He brushes his arm against yours as he lays back, looks up at you through half-lidded eyes that close unwillingly.
You tuck him in, lingering longer than you mean to.
When you finally make your way to bed, you leave your door cracked open. Just enough to let his soft breathing lull you to sleep.
-----------
A/N: Hope you liked it! Needed some more angst in the Loki fanfiction realm. If you have any more ideas for Loki, let me know. I may do a part 2 of this, I'm unsure. Have a good day!
Overall Summary: When you're targeted by a violent stalker, Sam sends Bucky to guard you in a remote safehouse. You clash instantly, but in the growing tension, something more fragile begins to take root. If you can learn to trust him in time. No Thunderbolts spoilers!
Chapter Summary: After a rough night, you scramble in your mission to apologize and he scrambles in emotions he can't even name. You come together under the stars, and try to find place for each other.
Tags: Hurt/Comfort, Fluff and Angst, Reluctant Attraction, Forced Proximity, Yearning (dear lord the yearning in this chapter had me clawing my own walls lol), Protective Bucky/Reader. Bucky POV in this chapter! In this chapter, you don't know constellations or the legend of Orpheus. Or maybe you do and he's hot and you want to be near him. Whichever.
Word Count: 6.3k
Warnings: trauma response/disassociation, general violence, bombs, gun mention, kidnapping/experimentation. Reader is hard on herself for a bit :,) More description of trauma.
When the shower turns on, you’re already awake. Aching, exhausted, but awake. Your muscles haven’t forgotten the shock of yesterday’s meltdown.
You woke up at the first sign of him, ears attuned to his presence even in a state of half-consciousness. The squeak of the old couch springs, the soft grunt he makes when he stretches, his soft footsteps as he comes upstairs, avoiding the creaky floorboard by your door.
His tired sigh can be heard through the thin wall separating your bedroom and the bathroom as he turns the water on. The guilt starts creeping back up your throat. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Just be happy he’s there at all, and not shoving you in the back of the car and driving you all the way back to New York.
Why are you happy about that at all?
You’re already dressed (if you can call clean pyjamas ‘dressed’), and out the screen door before you can stop yourself. The sun hasn’t fully risen yet, barely lighting your way to the garage. As you wrench the door open, the dust still dances in the dim light. expecting chaos but instead find it clean.
Normal.
Like you never happened.
The shelves are back up. Tools put away. Dust and debris swept away into nothing. Even the car, pushed into the garage door, was righted and its shattered headlights fixed. You’re frozen in the doorway, gripping the shitty plastic handle with enough force you feel it bend.
He did fix it. All of it. Like he said he would.
The only evidence of your sin is the wall. Cracks spiderweb from a central, deep hole in the plaster, showing the studs hidden beneath. Coming closer, you examine it with bated breath. He hit here because of you. This probably wasn’t the worst beating he’s ever had, but still. It wasn’t your worst shockwave either.
You reach forward and touch the hole, dust clinging to your fingertips. Just beneath your hand, on the floor, you see a dot.
Red. Blood, dried into a few round drops in a pool of dusty white. In your mind, you twist around last nights version of him, looking for any evidence of hurt. Nothing physical. Only in his eyes, staring into yours with that uneasy worry and sharp edge of some other emotion you can’t place. Your mind betrays you, blood dripping down his forehead in rivulets, and you have to pinch your thigh hard to rid yourself of the vision. It has as much efficacy as slamming your brakes on black ice.
Rubbing the plaster off your fingers, you leave the garage. You don’t let the newly risen sun warm you as you hurry inside. Guilt snaps at your heels like a wild dog, and you find yourself flitting around the house uselessly.
Bucky’s couch-bed is neatly made. His duffle bag of clothes, old books, and ammo cases is zipped up and put away. The place is swept clean, surfaces shining. Hell, he even did the dishes.
You pace, looking around the room like a madwoman. Your plan of a silent admission of guilt and reparation is quickly going down the toilet. Your skin still feels barely held together and the thought of having another shockwave and hurting him again makes your chest tighten. You close your eyes tightly and try to breathe.
Damn him. Why does he have to be so thoughtful all the time? He always seems to be thinking, analyzing, acting. No matter how much you shove him away. You tried being standoffish, being mean, yelling at him. Your body even tried throwing him across the room. And yet, he stays. Staring at you from afar, avoiding the creaky step outside your closed door, even doing the dishes.
The thought of him always being in the corner of the room is becoming worryingly comforting.
Damn him.
He’s still in the shower, and you rush through his morning routine in your head. He wakes up without opening his eyes, shifts. His face hardens.
He waits a few minutes, then stands with a stretch and a groan that shows his true age. He showers. He comes downstairs, reads the paper, and has his coffee and dry cereal. Eyes flying open, you look at the table. No signs of any food.
Quickly, before he can get out of the shower, you throw something together. Easy. Quick. Warm. An ‘I’m sorry, I hope this is good, I hope this makes you feel better, please don’t leave me alone even if I’m the worst.’ whispered into french toast, pan-fried in butter and given a generous helping of cinnamon.
As you put it on the table, you pinch yourself absentmindedly, chasing away the image of him throwing it in the trash. That’s not what Bucky would do. You think, anyway. Over the past month, he’s done the opposite of what you’ve expected him to do. Just the fact that he’s still here in the morning is confusing enough. The hopeful part of you is whispering, but you stamp it back down. It doesn’t know what’s good for it.
You look at the clock. The man can’t be bribed into a shower longer than 15 minutes, and it’s getting close. You rush upstairs, avoiding the creaky board. Just making him the food is hard enough, facing him without a built-up shield of indifference is worse. Though, after the past couple days, you don’t know if you can call that particular coping mechanism back up to bat. You open your bedroom door and-
“Mornin’.” His voice is smooth and light, and you turn to face him instinctively.
“Morning.” Your voice is shaky by comparison. Especially when you see he’s barely dressed, towel slung low on his waist and one around his shoulders. He’s almost leaning out of the doorframe, having obviously hurried to open the door. Every inch of him looks like a super soldier; broad shoulders, taut muscles rippling under the skin, ready for whatever problem needs to be done. Drops of water cling to the hair thatched on his lower stomach, falling into the towel and on the bathroom floor. His metal arm is foggy, but you can still see glimpses of your tense body in its reflection.
He’s hot. Red hot. His skin is bright from the boiling water he must shower with, and you see far too much of it for your own sanity. As your eyes flick all over him, trying to find a safe place to land, they fall on the scarred connection between metal and flesh on his shoulder. Healed gashes claw out across his skin, showing a painful past without a word. Your own scars itch at the connection, and you rub the one at the base of your skull absentmindedly.
“Do I have somethin’ on my face?” He says, smooth as butter, and you snap your eyes to the floor.
“Don’t flatter yourself.” You mutter, pasting on a smirk that you’re hoping is aloof.
“How’d you sleep?” He asks. He leans against the doorway, adjusting the towel slightly, it dipping deep beneath his navel. Your face burns. Hopefully HYDRA didn’t give him heat vision.
“Fine. You?”
“I slept alright. You’re up early, are you okay? Do you need the bathroom?” He asks. His head cocks to one side, and you bite the inside of your cheek. Damn him.
“No, Bucky. I’m fine, thanks. I just went to see the garage.”
“Ah. Well, no need to go out there. Unless you want to throw some shit around again.” He shrugs. You look away from him and to the wall, crossing your arms over your chest and rubbing a thumb over the spot you’re trying not to pinch in front of him.
“Sorry for leaving you to clean it up.”
“As I said yesterday, it’s no problem. I’ve cleaned up much worse.”
“I bet. And...are you okay? I saw some...blood.” You spit out the last word and look hurriedly over his wet hair. He shakes his head.
“I’m fine. Again, I’ve had worse.”
“So you did get hurt?” Your heart sinks to your stomach and you step forward, looking closer at his head. He watches your face for a second before bending down, showing you a small gash above his temple.
“Just a little cut. Doesn’t even need a kiss to make it better.” He murmurs, looking at you through his eyelashes.
He stills as you reach forward, taking his short hair between your fingers and pulling it to the side slightly. The cut is small and jagged, but already starting to heal. Static crackles between your fingertips. You step back away and he straightens once again.
“I’m sorry.” You whisper, and he shakes his head and sighs. He cocks his head to the side again and looks you over. This time, you can’t help but look back.
He looks tired. Small lines etch their way down his face, showing their wear. The dark circles under his eyes are more prominent than usual, and he looks at you with a weariness that you know you must have caused. But, the gentleness of his gaze is breaking your heart more than that. He almost bows to you, keeping his palms and arms open as you stand across from him like a cornered rabbit.
Rabbit. Always running. The sharp voice of Him ricochets in your brain, and you pinch the soft flesh of your inner arm.
“You sure you’re okay?” Bucky’s gentle voice comes rumbling through, and you let out a breath you didn’t know you were holding in. He’s smiling softly at you, leaning forward slightly to fill the empty air between you. You smile too, unwillingly, like it’s a dog leash being ripped from your fingers. His grin widens.
Is he really smiling just because you are, or is he just that good at faking his face? It has to be the latter.
“I’m okay. Just a bit tired.” You say, looking away.
“I bet. Eat yet?” He asks, and you shake your head.
“I’m not hungry. I’m just going to go back to bed.” He raises an eyebrow.
“Really? No food at all?”
“I had some cereal.” You lie. He stares at you, obviously seeing through it. His shoulders tense slightly. How bad have you gotten at lying that he can catch that?
“Alright. You’ll eat later, though?”
“Sure.” You acquiesce.
“Good. Let me know if you need anything.”
“I will.”
With that he goes back into the bathroom, holding his towel on his waist, and you go back into your room, slower than before. Now, all you want to do is go back into his presence, all smiles and steam and soft words. Your cold bed has more edges than you remember.
Bucky leans his weight on the bathroom door, forehead pressed to the wood. It’s cool, solid against his tacky skin. He closes his eyes.
You seem fine. Tired. Shaky and small. Not like someone that threw him like a damn ragdoll across the room without breaking a sweat. And yet, you still look at him in fear. Big doe eyes under the black hole of a gun. You hadn’t even said a word when you exploded, just flinched like he had burnt you. He looks down at his metal hand, clenching and releasing it. It shines up, dull, cold. Had he burned you?
And yet, you still crept out to clean the garage in the dim hours. He said he’d take care of it, and thank God he did. If you’d seen the wreck it was last night-
No. No use thinking about your reaction now. You didn’t have it. He made sure of that. Still, he sighs, emptying his chest.
Were you scared of his reaction? The memories of last night race through his head. He wasn’t angry, he thought. That wasn’t what he meant to be. Was he too forceful about you opening the door?
But you did. You opened it that fraction, just enough for him to see the tears streak down your face, the half-moon indents from your nails on your upper arm. But you had said it, in that light voice of yours. “You didn’t hurt me, Bucky.” A band-aid on a bullet hole. Did you mean it?
He takes a deep breath, trying to focus on your words. Last night, they haunted him. Now, it’s the only thing keeping him from falling further into that darkness. A tenuous grip to whatever reality he’s drowning in.
When he comes out of the bathroom, your door is closed. He holds his breath, listening for yours. Calm, slow. Asleep, thankfully. His shoulders relax just a fraction. His tension is a surprise, once it falls away.
As he hurries downstairs, he holds himself lightly so he wouldn’t wake you. There’s still a pile of debris out back to get rid of bef-
The smell hits him first. Warm. Sweet. Unreal. He stops short on the last stair, blinking into the dark living room.
Is that french toast?
He stares across the room at the plate on the table, coffee mug still steaming next to it. Three slices of breakfast instead of his normal bowl of dry cereal. Even the paper is brought in from the mailbox at the far end of the drive. His jaw tenses.
Did you make this?
What did he do to earn this? Cause you to freak out? That isn’t an action that deserves kindness. Hell, he’s pretty sure he has enough bad karma to ensure he never gets a good thing again. And yet, the food is there, at his seat, with his paper. You really went all the way down the drive to the mailbox?
He has to will himself to come closer, examining the plate like it’s an IED. Cinnamon, maple syrup, golden heavy butter. Dropping down onto the couch, he takes the fork gingerly, examining the bread more. Looks fine. He takes a bite.
Damn. The fork handle bends in a little as he grips it tighter. It’s good. He glances behind him at the stairs, feeling like a thief. Your door remains shut. It must be for him. The next bite is hard to swallow.
The plate is finished before he wants it to be. By the end of it, the fork is a hunk of metal, strangled to death absentmindedly. He throws it on the table with a clatter, rubbing his face and glaring down at the maple syrup swirls like there’s a message written for him that he’s too stupid to read.
Damn it. It was hard enough to be here without you being all...kind. Sneaking past his defenses in ways he never expected. You never do anything he expects. Damn it.
He falls back against the couch, closing his eyes and rubbing the spot between his eyebrows, willing his racing thoughts to shut up. The taste of maple syrup won’t leave his tongue, creeping down his throat and to his chest, twining itself around his ribs. It’s painful, this sugary affliction, as it embeds itself into places he didn’t know he had in him.
He about smashes the phone when it rings next to him. He picks it up in a second flat, putting it to his ear without looking at the caller ID.
“What.” He barks.
“Well hello sunshine, you seem chipper this morning.” Sam drawls into the line.
“What do you want.”
“Are you both alive out there?”
“Barely.”
“Really, Barnes? You hate her that much?”
Bucky’s jaw tenses. Hate isn’t the right word. Not even close. But any other word chokes him when he tries to say it.
“No. I’m the one barely alive.”
“What’d you do?” A car door slams from the other side of the phone. Bucky sighs again, taking a minute to will away the flash of your eyes before he got thrown away. Fear, hurt. The little lean of your face into his fingers before you ripped yourself away.
“Touch her cheek.”
“Well yeah, that’ll do it.”
“What?” Bucky closes his eyes, rubbing his temple. Riddles from Sam never failed to make his head hurt.
“She doesn’t like touch. Thought you knew that, Mr. Observant. How’d you get close enough to touch her, anyway? She avoids me like we’re the same magnetic poles.”
“Could you have said that in a nerdier way?”
“Want to hear me try?”
“Not really.”
“Good. Then shut up. I have news. We found the...encampment. Bunker. Hole in the ground.”
Bucky’s brow furrows. He didn’t really pay attention to Sam’s side of the assignment, focusing instead on how to navigate his own. Protecting you was never in the HYDRA training regiment. Hell, it felt leagues harder than most of the assignments they put him on.
“What are you talking about, Sam.”
“The place she escaped from, Buck. In the woods.”
“She escaped from somewhere?”
“Oh. Damn, she hasn’t told you?”
Bucky sits up, ice trickling down his spine. No, you hadn’t told him shit.
Glancing up at the empty staircase and the closed bedroom door just off the landing, he talks low into the phone.
“What happened there?”
“I don’t know. All she told me was some guy was after her. That she escaped from him once, now she has to escape him again. She was going to run off. Asked me to feed the stray cats that come up to her deck. I thought that was stupid and short-sighted. If he already found her once, he’ll find her again. That’s the point of the house. Of you.” Sam mutters, sounding exasperated. Bucky’s mind whirls. The visits before the guard house were full of hushed discussions between the two of them. He never paid attention, looking at the blast patterns in the shithole you call an apartment. The secured entry points to the building. The egregious amount of locks on all of your doors. Dots connect in his head, and he curses under his breath.
Bucky closes his eyes and makes an effort not to crush the phone, counting down from five silently.
“She explodes, Sam.”
“She what?”
“Good God. She blows up. Not physically, she’s all in one piece, but she just...blows up. Things go everywhere. I just finished clearing out the garage of half-broken shit.” He neglects to mention that he was caught in the blast. It hurt you enough to see his cut, for whatever reason. You didn’t mean to. Letting Sam know about it feels like an attack on your character. Sam’s sigh crackles over the speaker.
“Fuck. Well. This place looks like it’s been blown up, so that tracks. I wasn’t joking with “hole in the ground”. It’s basically just rubble. Except, the guys here think some things are missing.”
“Missing? How can they even tell?”
“There’s enough beat-up generators here to power D.C. for a year. But, and here’s the weird part, no tech. No computers, no equipment, nothing. And, even worse, the blast patterns don’t match up with all the pieces.”
“What the hell does that mean.” Sam’s riddles are bad at the worst of times. Hearing them now is just torture.
“It means that someone came here and took everything we could use to trace them. Either their whereabouts, or what they did. Or, with what you’re telling me, all the tools to make a living bomb.”
Bucky doesn’t respond, half-formed thoughts running around his head. Closing his eyes, he presses on his temple in an effort to make them stop. They don’t.
“So this is the guy that’s after her, yes?” He says after a minute.
“I guess so.”
“And we know nothing about him.”
“Nope. Just that he’s out there, and he has everything that he had then. Now, I don’t know anything about the explosions, but-”
“So, there were no placed bombs. She was the bomb.”
“Would stand to reason.”
“Why wouldn’t she tell either of us?”
“Hmm, gee, I don’t know, Bucky. I know every girl locked in a cage, experimented on, and turned into a walking bomb is the most stable and trusting individual walking the earth. I couldn’t imagine why she wouldn’t share this with a guy she barely knows that glared at her for the few months he’s known her.”
Bucky’s tongue is too big for his mouth.
“Caged?” He chokes out.
His own hole in the ground flashes in his memory. The smell of his blood and sweat mixed with the searing pain at his temples. The stinging pain at his fingertips as he clawed his way back to consciousness in a dark cell. The lingering pain in his jaw after biting down too hard on thick leather. Feeling small, cornered, while on display behind bars.
Coming out different. Changed. With blood on his hands, knowing that he did it. Knowing that he couldn’t take it back.
Did you wake up the same way?
“Yeah. The team found metal bars. Half-melted. If it really was her that caused it, she’s pretty damn powerful.”
Crack. Bucky swears and glances at the phone. Fractures spiderweb across the screen. Sam’s face in his stupid profile picture fractured in a web of damage.
“Barnes. You there?” His voice pipes up from the speaker, and Bucky puts it back to his ear.
“Yeah.”
“I have to go. If you find out anything more, call me.”
“OK.”
“Bucky.” Silence. Sam sighs. “Be careful, alright? Both of you. This seems bad on every level. Just be careful.”
“When am I not?” Bucky hangs up the phone, tossing it aside and holding his head in his hands. He takes a deep, shuddering breath, willing the tension in his shoulders to fall away, but his body doesn’t listen to him. Muscles hold firm, coiling under his skin like angered pythons waiting to strike.
He jolts up, he falls into routine. Intent on locking the house down until even a tornado couldn’t rip it away.
The cameras change first. New ones, old ones retooled. Fields of vision stretch across the house to parts unknown except to his tablet. Their red eyes blink steadily, but it’s not enough.
More trip wires next. Spread across the windowsills, the floor beneath the windows, the doors. He glances at your door, then continues on. You’re smart. You’ll look before you step. He rigs motions sensors to the glass, the doors, the bottom of the stairs. Outside, cameras hide under awnings and drain pipes. One red eye blinking at the bottom of the mailbox. Just past it, farther than any delivery guy would go, he adds more wires, stretched across the grass and shining lightly in the light of the dimming sun. He kicks dirt on them to hide them.
And yet, his muscles stay tight, his spine rigid. Eyes locked onto the second-floor window, showing your closed door. He’s up there before he fully realizes what he’s doing.
The final step is one he can’t do, but he can’t turn away from your bedroom door either. Your breathing is still even and slow. He watches the golden light slipping from under your door, tracking the setting sun. He can’t barge in like he did before, though the same unease is in his chest.
Instead, he runs a finger over the cool barrel of the gun in its holster, now strapped tight even in sweats and a t-shirt. He matches his breathing to yours on the other side of the door, letting it take away the marionette string keeping him upright. He sinks down, head tipped back, eyes unfocused.
The house still feels uneasy. Vulnerable. The dark windows feel like eyes looking in rather than out, keeping him blind.
He can see his ghostly shape in the reflection of the one past the bathroom door, crouched in wait like a ghoul.
How often has his body taken this shape in the shadows?
He hangs his head, rubbing a temple with his metal hand, flinching at the cold touch. And still, through it all, maple syrup clings to his tongue. Nothing but a memory, but worse memories have stuck to it.
“Fuck.” He says softly, to himself, to no one.
“Bucky? What are you doing?” You say, and Bucky snaps his head up, looking at you. You blink sleep out of your eyes, holding onto the bedroom door like it’s the only thing keeping you upright. You tilt your head to the side, eyes dropping to him huddled on the ground like an animal. He shoots upright.
“I was sittin’.” Bucky says, dumbly. One of your eyebrows raises up, your lower lip sucking in slightly as you bite it, trying to be discreet. So many of your little movements are when you’re trying to be secretive. Hiding from him.
“I can see that. Are you drunk?” You lean against the door, steadying yourself.
“No.”
“So, just sitting outside the room, on the floor. For no reason. Have all the chairs disappeared?”
“No. That would be weird.”
“Like this isn’t.”
“I can’t sit without being interrogated?”
“Oh, yeah. I’m the crazy one in this scenario. I should’ve totally expected you to be hunkered down by my door like a crazy person as I slept peacefully.” You scoff, crossing your arms over your chest.
He watches your fingers, waiting for the pinch that always comes.
“Peacefully?” He raises an eyebrow. You still, looking away. You always look away.
“Yeah.” You sigh, then glance back at him. His forehead, rather. “How’s your head?”
“The head wound you gave me? It’s doubled in size since the last time you asked about it. Worst injury I’ve every had.” He smirks, but regrets it when your eyes widen and you jut forward towards him, leaning up to see it again. He holds out his palms, steadying you without touching you. “I’m kidding, doll. I’m fine. I don’t even see it anymore.”
The look in your eyes could burn him as you lean back against your doorframe, scowling.
“Don’t joke about that.” You whisper.
You both fall silent. You stare past him, somewhere far beyond the cramped hallway. He only stares at you. Your shoulders are rigid, your breathing calculatingly even. Fingers gripping your arms but not hurting them. The sun has set, leaving you both in the dark hallway, barely existing under the cover of night. The only evidence you exist at all is one bar of moonlight from the window behind him, falling on your eye and descending down your chest. When you look back at him, he can hear his heartbeat. You’re steady. Calmer. Walled off but not locked away.
He wants to say something aloof. Dance along the edge of your fear with plaintive words and a sarcastic bite. Maybe back downstairs and guard from there, leaving you in your comfortable fear.
But the tired, hopeful look in your eyes makes his fingers tremble. You’re not panicking. Not even hurt. He knows what your fear looks like. Now you just look...resigned. A wounded gazelle waiting for the lazy leopard to finish the job.
“Want to go stargazing?” The words fall out of his mouth before he can hold them back.
“Now?” You bow your head a little, looking at him from under your eyelashes. “Isn’t it cold?”
“I’ll get you a blanket.”
You watch him, carefully, rubbing your arm where you hold it with your thumb. You’re going to say no. Bucky knows all the reasons for you to. Too cold, or in the open, or not wanting to be with him.
He can leave. Watch from inside as you look away from him, towards something bigger than yourself. Maybe you can find the same peace he did. It’s easier without him crowding around you like a rainstorm.
And yet, the idea of watching from inside makes his jaw tense, teeth locking together like they have many times before. The gun weighs heavy on his hip. He’ll have to watch over you from the porch.
When you finally speak, your eyes flick to his arms, crossed tightly over his chest, then slide down to his holster. Obvious and brutal. He shifts, pushing the gun out of your view.
“Will you be there?” You ask, your voice barely a murmur.
“I’ll be out there.”
“No, I mean, are you watching the stars with me? I don’t know any of the constellations out here.”
“Oh. Yeah, I’ll show you the ones I know.” He says. You give him that small smile of yours, the corners of your lips barely turning up, but your eyes crinkling at the edges. His heart soars and he stamps the dramatic thing down. Clearing his throat, he moves aside and bows his head, moving out of the way as you go downstairs.
By the time he comes out with the blankets, you’re sitting in the tall grass, hugging your knees to your chest. When you hear the sound of the screen door close, you look back at him with a small smile, resting your head on your knees. The moon shines down at you, and Bucky almost loses his footing.
He throws one blanket on the ground, spreading it out, and you shuffle onto it, taking the other blanket in his outstretched hand with a silent thank you. He hovers over you as you get situated, unsure what to do. He hesitates, still standing, uncertain. You save him the trouble by patting the space beside you.
He lays next to your crouching form with a grunt, crossing his hands under his head. High above, the stars twinkle in the inky void of the dark. Neither of you say a word, the crickets filling the silence. After a moment, you shift, laying down and playing with the edge of the blanket you’ve thrown over yourself with the hand next to him. He avoids looking at it.
“I don’t see how any one could see anything up there.” You break the silence. Bucky tilts his head, studying the same sky you do. The connections between the stars are almost real in his eyes. If he loosens the tight grip he has on his thoughts, he could almost see his mothers finger in the corner of his vision, pointing up at the void and drawing the constellations with a manicured nail. Just for him.
He points to one bright star in the distance.
“You see that one?” He murmurs and you nod, “That’s Vega. It’s the top corner of Lyra. It goes down and makes a diamond. Turning into the Lyre of Orpheus.”
He draws it, glancing at you. You squint, chewing the inside of your lip as you look up. The moon highlights the curve of your cheek, the soft spot between your neck and your jaw, the way your eyes glitter like a shard of quartz under a calm riverbed. Bucky quickly looks back to the sky, coughing. You seem alright.
“What’s the story?” You ask, breaking through the silence. He drops his hand, putting it safely back under his head.
“Orpheus’s lover died when she was running away from some asshole. Stepped on a snake. He was so distraught, he went to hell with a lyre, trying to bring her back. Hades, the king of the dead, said he could lead her out as long as he never looked behind him. He messed up, and did, and she had to wander the dead forever.”
“Wow. Thanks for nothing.” You scoff. Bucky chuckles, surprising himself, coughing to cover it.
“I guess he couldn’t help it. If your lover died and you weren’t sure you were actually bringing them back, you’d want to check, no?” He asks. You shrug one shoulder.
“I’d trust them to be there. If we’ve gotten to the point of me going to hell for them, I’d never want to look away from them again.” You murmur. Clouds cover the sky, the moon’s light hiding away. Bucky takes the chance to look at you fully, seeing only the whisper of your lips in the near-pitch black.
“You don’t trust easily, do you.” He says it without really meaning to. A statement more than a question, and as it slips out, he hopes you don’t take it as an insult. You stay silent long enough for his hands to start to twitch, wishing they could grab his words and choke them back down his throat.
“You don’t either.” You murmur. His turn to be silent as you turn your face to him. His breath hitches until he manually lets it out.
“I try to. When it comes to the right person.” He says. The blanket of the void is making him comfortable, settling around him in a way that feels like a trap. But he can’t help himself.
“Do you have that person?” You ask.
Silence.
“I don’t think they trust me.” He breathes out.
You’re chewing the inside of your lip again, sucking in your cheek as you study him. He tries to be an open book.
“Are you a trustworthy person?”
“I’m not a weapon.” He breathes out.
“And I am.”
“I know you’re not.”
You say nothing, turning your head back up to the sky. He sighs.
“The last time I looked at the stars, I was half-dead in a snowbank in the Alps. My arm was a bleeding stump and I couldn’t keep my eyes open. The last thing I heard was Steve screaming my name from a train I had no way to get back to. All I had left was the stars. Dizzying, never-ending, stars. But they kept me alive. Calm. Most of humanity have used them to navigate, tell time, tell stories. I don’t know what constellations they have in Austria. I made my own. I told those same stories to myself when I woke up, my arm twisted into a hunk of metal and my brain shocked into a husk of itself. All I had left were the stories.” The words fall out of his mouth easily, broken past the shitty dam he’s made himself build up, but as you look at him, he avoids your gaze.
“On bad missions, when I didn’t know who I was, or what I was doing, I would look at the sky and tell myself stories. About the world, about whoevers neck I was crushing, about myself. About how I was kind, something in the wrong place, wrong time. I didn’t see myself as human. Just a weapon with a poetic streak.”
He chuckles dryly.
You don’t.
He continues, “When Steve woke me up, when I lost my arm, when they replaced it in Wakanda, I still looked to the stars. I didn’t feel anything inside. Just felt myself lost in the sky. I still look up there, looking for myself. I think I’m more down to Earth now, but it’s still comforting. The stories I can see up there can be true, now. I kept looking to the stars. I didn’t feel anything inside, just felt myself lost in the sky. Still do, sometimes. Still looking for myself.” He sighs, rubbing his face with his metal hand and letting it drop to his side, weary.
“I don’t have to be a weapon. I can be a guide. Even if it’s just for myself. You can be, too.” He says, letting the air out of his lungs to lay there like a rock. The crickets are silent now, or at least Bucky can’t hear them with his heartbeat pressing against his eardrums. Worse, you’re quiet too, your gaze still burning a hole in his cheek. He flinches away, turning his head to look anywhere but to you.
When you touch his cold metal hand with your warm fingers, it takes all of him to not jump out of his skin, even as every crevice in his mind becomes alight in thoughts he can’t focus on. The only thing he can keep track of is your index, tracing lightly up his wrist, into his palm, pressing in as the rest of your hand comes with it and spreading his fingers apart as you nestle your hand there, gripping tightly. Your thumb starts rubbing slow circles on the back of his. His shoulders relax to a point they haven’t in years.
“You’re not a monster, Bucky. You never have been.” You whisper. He looks at you.
“And you’re not either.” He whispers back.
The way you look at him is criminal. Doe eyes underneath eyelashes, wet tears on the brink of falling out. He fights back the instinct to brush them away, to grip your shoulder and bring you against his chest, nestle your head safely under his jaw and keep you pressed to him in a promise. Instead, he just grips your hand, and you close your eyes.
“That french toast was great, by the way. Perfect amount of cinnamon.” He whispers, and a ghost of a smile plays against the corner of your lips.
“I wanted to say thank you.” You whisper back.
“For what?”
“For staying.”
“Why wouldn’t I?” His question goes painfully unanswered as your thumb continues to rub his hand.
“I thought you’d throw it away.” Your eyes flutter open, looking up at his, cautiously.
“Who would throw away french toast that tastes like that?” He scoffs, managing to thread a laugh out of you, like windchimes in a light breeze. His chest aches with something unbearably sweet.
“Will you eat it with me tomorrow?” He asks.
A beat, then you shrug, smile still on your tranquil face.
“Of course.”
His brain empties, and all that’s left is you.
A/N: I had a rough month which means that this chapter definitely had some emotions in it, lol. Rewrote it from scratch a few times. I guess if you want a mentally ill character, you need a mentally ill author? Idk. I hope you enjoyed it, and sorry for the wait. Also, I love the gif I chose for this one. It's EXACTLY the face he makes when he's looking at you, by the way.
If anyone has any ideas for a oneshot, PLEASE let me know, I think I can write it faster if I don't have to worry about Overarching Story Structures. My brain is pudding. Taglist below, let me know if you want to be added!
Overall Summary: When you're targeted by a violent stalker, Sam sends Bucky to guard you in a remote safehouse. You clash instantly, but in the growing tension, something more fragile begins to take root. If you can learn to trust him in time. No Thunderbolts spoilers!
Chapter Summary: After a rough night, you scramble in your mission to apologize and he scrambles in emotions he can't even name. You come together under the stars, and try to find place for each other.
Tags: Hurt/Comfort, Fluff and Angst, Reluctant Attraction, Forced Proximity, Yearning (dear lord the yearning in this chapter had me clawing my own walls lol), Protective Bucky/Reader. Bucky POV in this chapter! In this chapter, you don't know constellations or the legend of Orpheus. Or maybe you do and he's hot and you want to be near him. Whichever.
Word Count: 6.3k
Warnings: trauma response/disassociation, general violence, bombs, gun mention, kidnapping/experimentation. Reader is hard on herself for a bit :,) More description of trauma.
When the shower turns on, you’re already awake. Aching, exhausted, but awake. Your muscles haven’t forgotten the shock of yesterday’s meltdown.
You woke up at the first sign of him, ears attuned to his presence even in a state of half-consciousness. The squeak of the old couch springs, the soft grunt he makes when he stretches, his soft footsteps as he comes upstairs, avoiding the creaky floorboard by your door.
His tired sigh can be heard through the thin wall separating your bedroom and the bathroom as he turns the water on. The guilt starts creeping back up your throat. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Just be happy he’s there at all, and not shoving you in the back of the car and driving you all the way back to New York.
Why are you happy about that at all?
You’re already dressed (if you can call clean pyjamas ‘dressed’), and out the screen door before you can stop yourself. The sun hasn’t fully risen yet, barely lighting your way to the garage. As you wrench the door open, the dust still dances in the dim light. expecting chaos but instead find it clean.
Normal.
Like you never happened.
The shelves are back up. Tools put away. Dust and debris swept away into nothing. Even the car, pushed into the garage door, was righted and its shattered headlights fixed. You’re frozen in the doorway, gripping the shitty plastic handle with enough force you feel it bend.
He did fix it. All of it. Like he said he would.
The only evidence of your sin is the wall. Cracks spiderweb from a central, deep hole in the plaster, showing the studs hidden beneath. Coming closer, you examine it with bated breath. He hit here because of you. This probably wasn’t the worst beating he’s ever had, but still. It wasn’t your worst shockwave either.
You reach forward and touch the hole, dust clinging to your fingertips. Just beneath your hand, on the floor, you see a dot.
Red. Blood, dried into a few round drops in a pool of dusty white. In your mind, you twist around last nights version of him, looking for any evidence of hurt. Nothing physical. Only in his eyes, staring into yours with that uneasy worry and sharp edge of some other emotion you can’t place. Your mind betrays you, blood dripping down his forehead in rivulets, and you have to pinch your thigh hard to rid yourself of the vision. It has as much efficacy as slamming your brakes on black ice.
Rubbing the plaster off your fingers, you leave the garage. You don’t let the newly risen sun warm you as you hurry inside. Guilt snaps at your heels like a wild dog, and you find yourself flitting around the house uselessly.
Bucky’s couch-bed is neatly made. His duffle bag of clothes, old books, and ammo cases is zipped up and put away. The place is swept clean, surfaces shining. Hell, he even did the dishes.
You pace, looking around the room like a madwoman. Your plan of a silent admission of guilt and reparation is quickly going down the toilet. Your skin still feels barely held together and the thought of having another shockwave and hurting him again makes your chest tighten. You close your eyes tightly and try to breathe.
Damn him. Why does he have to be so thoughtful all the time? He always seems to be thinking, analyzing, acting. No matter how much you shove him away. You tried being standoffish, being mean, yelling at him. Your body even tried throwing him across the room. And yet, he stays. Staring at you from afar, avoiding the creaky step outside your closed door, even doing the dishes.
The thought of him always being in the corner of the room is becoming worryingly comforting.
Damn him.
He’s still in the shower, and you rush through his morning routine in your head. He wakes up without opening his eyes, shifts. His face hardens.
He waits a few minutes, then stands with a stretch and a groan that shows his true age. He showers. He comes downstairs, reads the paper, and has his coffee and dry cereal. Eyes flying open, you look at the table. No signs of any food.
Quickly, before he can get out of the shower, you throw something together. Easy. Quick. Warm. An ‘I’m sorry, I hope this is good, I hope this makes you feel better, please don’t leave me alone even if I’m the worst.’ whispered into french toast, pan-fried in butter and given a generous helping of cinnamon.
As you put it on the table, you pinch yourself absentmindedly, chasing away the image of him throwing it in the trash. That’s not what Bucky would do. You think, anyway. Over the past month, he’s done the opposite of what you’ve expected him to do. Just the fact that he’s still here in the morning is confusing enough. The hopeful part of you is whispering, but you stamp it back down. It doesn’t know what’s good for it.
You look at the clock. The man can’t be bribed into a shower longer than 15 minutes, and it’s getting close. You rush upstairs, avoiding the creaky board. Just making him the food is hard enough, facing him without a built-up shield of indifference is worse. Though, after the past couple days, you don’t know if you can call that particular coping mechanism back up to bat. You open your bedroom door and-
“Mornin’.” His voice is smooth and light, and you turn to face him instinctively.
“Morning.” Your voice is shaky by comparison. Especially when you see he’s barely dressed, towel slung low on his waist and one around his shoulders. He’s almost leaning out of the doorframe, having obviously hurried to open the door. Every inch of him looks like a super soldier; broad shoulders, taut muscles rippling under the skin, ready for whatever problem needs to be done. Drops of water cling to the hair thatched on his lower stomach, falling into the towel and on the bathroom floor. His metal arm is foggy, but you can still see glimpses of your tense body in its reflection.
He’s hot. Red hot. His skin is bright from the boiling water he must shower with, and you see far too much of it for your own sanity. As your eyes flick all over him, trying to find a safe place to land, they fall on the scarred connection between metal and flesh on his shoulder. Healed gashes claw out across his skin, showing a painful past without a word. Your own scars itch at the connection, and you rub the one at the base of your skull absentmindedly.
“Do I have somethin’ on my face?” He says, smooth as butter, and you snap your eyes to the floor.
“Don’t flatter yourself.” You mutter, pasting on a smirk that you’re hoping is aloof.
“How’d you sleep?” He asks. He leans against the doorway, adjusting the towel slightly, it dipping deep beneath his navel. Your face burns. Hopefully HYDRA didn’t give him heat vision.
“Fine. You?”
“I slept alright. You’re up early, are you okay? Do you need the bathroom?” He asks. His head cocks to one side, and you bite the inside of your cheek. Damn him.
“No, Bucky. I’m fine, thanks. I just went to see the garage.”
“Ah. Well, no need to go out there. Unless you want to throw some shit around again.” He shrugs. You look away from him and to the wall, crossing your arms over your chest and rubbing a thumb over the spot you’re trying not to pinch in front of him.
“Sorry for leaving you to clean it up.”
“As I said yesterday, it’s no problem. I’ve cleaned up much worse.”
“I bet. And...are you okay? I saw some...blood.” You spit out the last word and look hurriedly over his wet hair. He shakes his head.
“I’m fine. Again, I’ve had worse.”
“So you did get hurt?” Your heart sinks to your stomach and you step forward, looking closer at his head. He watches your face for a second before bending down, showing you a small gash above his temple.
“Just a little cut. Doesn’t even need a kiss to make it better.” He murmurs, looking at you through his eyelashes.
He stills as you reach forward, taking his short hair between your fingers and pulling it to the side slightly. The cut is small and jagged, but already starting to heal. Static crackles between your fingertips. You step back away and he straightens once again.
“I’m sorry.” You whisper, and he shakes his head and sighs. He cocks his head to the side again and looks you over. This time, you can’t help but look back.
He looks tired. Small lines etch their way down his face, showing their wear. The dark circles under his eyes are more prominent than usual, and he looks at you with a weariness that you know you must have caused. But, the gentleness of his gaze is breaking your heart more than that. He almost bows to you, keeping his palms and arms open as you stand across from him like a cornered rabbit.
Rabbit. Always running. The sharp voice of Him ricochets in your brain, and you pinch the soft flesh of your inner arm.
“You sure you’re okay?” Bucky’s gentle voice comes rumbling through, and you let out a breath you didn’t know you were holding in. He’s smiling softly at you, leaning forward slightly to fill the empty air between you. You smile too, unwillingly, like it’s a dog leash being ripped from your fingers. His grin widens.
Is he really smiling just because you are, or is he just that good at faking his face? It has to be the latter.
“I’m okay. Just a bit tired.” You say, looking away.
“I bet. Eat yet?” He asks, and you shake your head.
“I’m not hungry. I’m just going to go back to bed.” He raises an eyebrow.
“Really? No food at all?”
“I had some cereal.” You lie. He stares at you, obviously seeing through it. His shoulders tense slightly. How bad have you gotten at lying that he can catch that?
“Alright. You’ll eat later, though?”
“Sure.” You acquiesce.
“Good. Let me know if you need anything.”
“I will.”
With that he goes back into the bathroom, holding his towel on his waist, and you go back into your room, slower than before. Now, all you want to do is go back into his presence, all smiles and steam and soft words. Your cold bed has more edges than you remember.
Bucky leans his weight on the bathroom door, forehead pressed to the wood. It’s cool, solid against his tacky skin. He closes his eyes.
You seem fine. Tired. Shaky and small. Not like someone that threw him like a damn ragdoll across the room without breaking a sweat. And yet, you still look at him in fear. Big doe eyes under the black hole of a gun. You hadn’t even said a word when you exploded, just flinched like he had burnt you. He looks down at his metal hand, clenching and releasing it. It shines up, dull, cold. Had he burned you?
And yet, you still crept out to clean the garage in the dim hours. He said he’d take care of it, and thank God he did. If you’d seen the wreck it was last night-
No. No use thinking about your reaction now. You didn’t have it. He made sure of that. Still, he sighs, emptying his chest.
Were you scared of his reaction? The memories of last night race through his head. He wasn’t angry, he thought. That wasn’t what he meant to be. Was he too forceful about you opening the door?
But you did. You opened it that fraction, just enough for him to see the tears streak down your face, the half-moon indents from your nails on your upper arm. But you had said it, in that light voice of yours. “You didn’t hurt me, Bucky.” A band-aid on a bullet hole. Did you mean it?
He takes a deep breath, trying to focus on your words. Last night, they haunted him. Now, it’s the only thing keeping him from falling further into that darkness. A tenuous grip to whatever reality he’s drowning in.
When he comes out of the bathroom, your door is closed. He holds his breath, listening for yours. Calm, slow. Asleep, thankfully. His shoulders relax just a fraction. His tension is a surprise, once it falls away.
As he hurries downstairs, he holds himself lightly so he wouldn’t wake you. There’s still a pile of debris out back to get rid of bef-
The smell hits him first. Warm. Sweet. Unreal. He stops short on the last stair, blinking into the dark living room.
Is that french toast?
He stares across the room at the plate on the table, coffee mug still steaming next to it. Three slices of breakfast instead of his normal bowl of dry cereal. Even the paper is brought in from the mailbox at the far end of the drive. His jaw tenses.
Did you make this?
What did he do to earn this? Cause you to freak out? That isn’t an action that deserves kindness. Hell, he’s pretty sure he has enough bad karma to ensure he never gets a good thing again. And yet, the food is there, at his seat, with his paper. You really went all the way down the drive to the mailbox?
He has to will himself to come closer, examining the plate like it’s an IED. Cinnamon, maple syrup, golden heavy butter. Dropping down onto the couch, he takes the fork gingerly, examining the bread more. Looks fine. He takes a bite.
Damn. The fork handle bends in a little as he grips it tighter. It’s good. He glances behind him at the stairs, feeling like a thief. Your door remains shut. It must be for him. The next bite is hard to swallow.
The plate is finished before he wants it to be. By the end of it, the fork is a hunk of metal, strangled to death absentmindedly. He throws it on the table with a clatter, rubbing his face and glaring down at the maple syrup swirls like there’s a message written for him that he’s too stupid to read.
Damn it. It was hard enough to be here without you being all...kind. Sneaking past his defenses in ways he never expected. You never do anything he expects. Damn it.
He falls back against the couch, closing his eyes and rubbing the spot between his eyebrows, willing his racing thoughts to shut up. The taste of maple syrup won’t leave his tongue, creeping down his throat and to his chest, twining itself around his ribs. It’s painful, this sugary affliction, as it embeds itself into places he didn’t know he had in him.
He about smashes the phone when it rings next to him. He picks it up in a second flat, putting it to his ear without looking at the caller ID.
“What.” He barks.
“Well hello sunshine, you seem chipper this morning.” Sam drawls into the line.
“What do you want.”
“Are you both alive out there?”
“Barely.”
“Really, Barnes? You hate her that much?”
Bucky’s jaw tenses. Hate isn’t the right word. Not even close. But any other word chokes him when he tries to say it.
“No. I’m the one barely alive.”
“What’d you do?” A car door slams from the other side of the phone. Bucky sighs again, taking a minute to will away the flash of your eyes before he got thrown away. Fear, hurt. The little lean of your face into his fingers before you ripped yourself away.
“Touch her cheek.”
“Well yeah, that’ll do it.”
“What?” Bucky closes his eyes, rubbing his temple. Riddles from Sam never failed to make his head hurt.
“She doesn’t like touch. Thought you knew that, Mr. Observant. How’d you get close enough to touch her, anyway? She avoids me like we’re the same magnetic poles.”
“Could you have said that in a nerdier way?”
“Want to hear me try?”
“Not really.”
“Good. Then shut up. I have news. We found the...encampment. Bunker. Hole in the ground.”
Bucky’s brow furrows. He didn’t really pay attention to Sam’s side of the assignment, focusing instead on how to navigate his own. Protecting you was never in the HYDRA training regiment. Hell, it felt leagues harder than most of the assignments they put him on.
“What are you talking about, Sam.”
“The place she escaped from, Buck. In the woods.”
“She escaped from somewhere?”
“Oh. Damn, she hasn’t told you?”
Bucky sits up, ice trickling down his spine. No, you hadn’t told him shit.
Glancing up at the empty staircase and the closed bedroom door just off the landing, he talks low into the phone.
“What happened there?”
“I don’t know. All she told me was some guy was after her. That she escaped from him once, now she has to escape him again. She was going to run off. Asked me to feed the stray cats that come up to her deck. I thought that was stupid and short-sighted. If he already found her once, he’ll find her again. That’s the point of the house. Of you.” Sam mutters, sounding exasperated. Bucky’s mind whirls. The visits before the guard house were full of hushed discussions between the two of them. He never paid attention, looking at the blast patterns in the shithole you call an apartment. The secured entry points to the building. The egregious amount of locks on all of your doors. Dots connect in his head, and he curses under his breath.
Bucky closes his eyes and makes an effort not to crush the phone, counting down from five silently.
“She explodes, Sam.”
“She what?”
“Good God. She blows up. Not physically, she’s all in one piece, but she just...blows up. Things go everywhere. I just finished clearing out the garage of half-broken shit.” He neglects to mention that he was caught in the blast. It hurt you enough to see his cut, for whatever reason. You didn’t mean to. Letting Sam know about it feels like an attack on your character. Sam’s sigh crackles over the speaker.
“Fuck. Well. This place looks like it’s been blown up, so that tracks. I wasn’t joking with “hole in the ground”. It’s basically just rubble. Except, the guys here think some things are missing.”
“Missing? How can they even tell?”
“There’s enough beat-up generators here to power D.C. for a year. But, and here’s the weird part, no tech. No computers, no equipment, nothing. And, even worse, the blast patterns don’t match up with all the pieces.”
“What the hell does that mean.” Sam’s riddles are bad at the worst of times. Hearing them now is just torture.
“It means that someone came here and took everything we could use to trace them. Either their whereabouts, or what they did. Or, with what you’re telling me, all the tools to make a living bomb.”
Bucky doesn’t respond, half-formed thoughts running around his head. Closing his eyes, he presses on his temple in an effort to make them stop. They don’t.
“So this is the guy that’s after her, yes?” He says after a minute.
“I guess so.”
“And we know nothing about him.”
“Nope. Just that he’s out there, and he has everything that he had then. Now, I don’t know anything about the explosions, but-”
“So, there were no placed bombs. She was the bomb.”
“Would stand to reason.”
“Why wouldn’t she tell either of us?”
“Hmm, gee, I don’t know, Bucky. I know every girl locked in a cage, experimented on, and turned into a walking bomb is the most stable and trusting individual walking the earth. I couldn’t imagine why she wouldn’t share this with a guy she barely knows that glared at her for the few months he’s known her.”
Bucky’s tongue is too big for his mouth.
“Caged?” He chokes out.
His own hole in the ground flashes in his memory. The smell of his blood and sweat mixed with the searing pain at his temples. The stinging pain at his fingertips as he clawed his way back to consciousness in a dark cell. The lingering pain in his jaw after biting down too hard on thick leather. Feeling small, cornered, while on display behind bars.
Coming out different. Changed. With blood on his hands, knowing that he did it. Knowing that he couldn’t take it back.
Did you wake up the same way?
“Yeah. The team found metal bars. Half-melted. If it really was her that caused it, she’s pretty damn powerful.”
Crack. Bucky swears and glances at the phone. Fractures spiderweb across the screen. Sam’s face in his stupid profile picture fractured in a web of damage.
“Barnes. You there?” His voice pipes up from the speaker, and Bucky puts it back to his ear.
“Yeah.”
“I have to go. If you find out anything more, call me.”
“OK.”
“Bucky.” Silence. Sam sighs. “Be careful, alright? Both of you. This seems bad on every level. Just be careful.”
“When am I not?” Bucky hangs up the phone, tossing it aside and holding his head in his hands. He takes a deep, shuddering breath, willing the tension in his shoulders to fall away, but his body doesn’t listen to him. Muscles hold firm, coiling under his skin like angered pythons waiting to strike.
He jolts up, he falls into routine. Intent on locking the house down until even a tornado couldn’t rip it away.
The cameras change first. New ones, old ones retooled. Fields of vision stretch across the house to parts unknown except to his tablet. Their red eyes blink steadily, but it’s not enough.
More trip wires next. Spread across the windowsills, the floor beneath the windows, the doors. He glances at your door, then continues on. You’re smart. You’ll look before you step. He rigs motions sensors to the glass, the doors, the bottom of the stairs. Outside, cameras hide under awnings and drain pipes. One red eye blinking at the bottom of the mailbox. Just past it, farther than any delivery guy would go, he adds more wires, stretched across the grass and shining lightly in the light of the dimming sun. He kicks dirt on them to hide them.
And yet, his muscles stay tight, his spine rigid. Eyes locked onto the second-floor window, showing your closed door. He’s up there before he fully realizes what he’s doing.
The final step is one he can’t do, but he can’t turn away from your bedroom door either. Your breathing is still even and slow. He watches the golden light slipping from under your door, tracking the setting sun. He can’t barge in like he did before, though the same unease is in his chest.
Instead, he runs a finger over the cool barrel of the gun in its holster, now strapped tight even in sweats and a t-shirt. He matches his breathing to yours on the other side of the door, letting it take away the marionette string keeping him upright. He sinks down, head tipped back, eyes unfocused.
The house still feels uneasy. Vulnerable. The dark windows feel like eyes looking in rather than out, keeping him blind.
He can see his ghostly shape in the reflection of the one past the bathroom door, crouched in wait like a ghoul.
How often has his body taken this shape in the shadows?
He hangs his head, rubbing a temple with his metal hand, flinching at the cold touch. And still, through it all, maple syrup clings to his tongue. Nothing but a memory, but worse memories have stuck to it.
“Fuck.” He says softly, to himself, to no one.
“Bucky? What are you doing?” You say, and Bucky snaps his head up, looking at you. You blink sleep out of your eyes, holding onto the bedroom door like it’s the only thing keeping you upright. You tilt your head to the side, eyes dropping to him huddled on the ground like an animal. He shoots upright.
“I was sittin’.” Bucky says, dumbly. One of your eyebrows raises up, your lower lip sucking in slightly as you bite it, trying to be discreet. So many of your little movements are when you’re trying to be secretive. Hiding from him.
“I can see that. Are you drunk?” You lean against the door, steadying yourself.
“No.”
“So, just sitting outside the room, on the floor. For no reason. Have all the chairs disappeared?”
“No. That would be weird.”
“Like this isn’t.”
“I can’t sit without being interrogated?”
“Oh, yeah. I’m the crazy one in this scenario. I should’ve totally expected you to be hunkered down by my door like a crazy person as I slept peacefully.” You scoff, crossing your arms over your chest.
He watches your fingers, waiting for the pinch that always comes.
“Peacefully?” He raises an eyebrow. You still, looking away. You always look away.
“Yeah.” You sigh, then glance back at him. His forehead, rather. “How’s your head?”
“The head wound you gave me? It’s doubled in size since the last time you asked about it. Worst injury I’ve every had.” He smirks, but regrets it when your eyes widen and you jut forward towards him, leaning up to see it again. He holds out his palms, steadying you without touching you. “I’m kidding, doll. I’m fine. I don’t even see it anymore.”
The look in your eyes could burn him as you lean back against your doorframe, scowling.
“Don’t joke about that.” You whisper.
You both fall silent. You stare past him, somewhere far beyond the cramped hallway. He only stares at you. Your shoulders are rigid, your breathing calculatingly even. Fingers gripping your arms but not hurting them. The sun has set, leaving you both in the dark hallway, barely existing under the cover of night. The only evidence you exist at all is one bar of moonlight from the window behind him, falling on your eye and descending down your chest. When you look back at him, he can hear his heartbeat. You’re steady. Calmer. Walled off but not locked away.
He wants to say something aloof. Dance along the edge of your fear with plaintive words and a sarcastic bite. Maybe back downstairs and guard from there, leaving you in your comfortable fear.
But the tired, hopeful look in your eyes makes his fingers tremble. You’re not panicking. Not even hurt. He knows what your fear looks like. Now you just look...resigned. A wounded gazelle waiting for the lazy leopard to finish the job.
“Want to go stargazing?” The words fall out of his mouth before he can hold them back.
“Now?” You bow your head a little, looking at him from under your eyelashes. “Isn’t it cold?”
“I’ll get you a blanket.”
You watch him, carefully, rubbing your arm where you hold it with your thumb. You’re going to say no. Bucky knows all the reasons for you to. Too cold, or in the open, or not wanting to be with him.
He can leave. Watch from inside as you look away from him, towards something bigger than yourself. Maybe you can find the same peace he did. It’s easier without him crowding around you like a rainstorm.
And yet, the idea of watching from inside makes his jaw tense, teeth locking together like they have many times before. The gun weighs heavy on his hip. He’ll have to watch over you from the porch.
When you finally speak, your eyes flick to his arms, crossed tightly over his chest, then slide down to his holster. Obvious and brutal. He shifts, pushing the gun out of your view.
“Will you be there?” You ask, your voice barely a murmur.
“I’ll be out there.”
“No, I mean, are you watching the stars with me? I don’t know any of the constellations out here.”
“Oh. Yeah, I’ll show you the ones I know.” He says. You give him that small smile of yours, the corners of your lips barely turning up, but your eyes crinkling at the edges. His heart soars and he stamps the dramatic thing down. Clearing his throat, he moves aside and bows his head, moving out of the way as you go downstairs.
By the time he comes out with the blankets, you’re sitting in the tall grass, hugging your knees to your chest. When you hear the sound of the screen door close, you look back at him with a small smile, resting your head on your knees. The moon shines down at you, and Bucky almost loses his footing.
He throws one blanket on the ground, spreading it out, and you shuffle onto it, taking the other blanket in his outstretched hand with a silent thank you. He hovers over you as you get situated, unsure what to do. He hesitates, still standing, uncertain. You save him the trouble by patting the space beside you.
He lays next to your crouching form with a grunt, crossing his hands under his head. High above, the stars twinkle in the inky void of the dark. Neither of you say a word, the crickets filling the silence. After a moment, you shift, laying down and playing with the edge of the blanket you’ve thrown over yourself with the hand next to him. He avoids looking at it.
“I don’t see how any one could see anything up there.” You break the silence. Bucky tilts his head, studying the same sky you do. The connections between the stars are almost real in his eyes. If he loosens the tight grip he has on his thoughts, he could almost see his mothers finger in the corner of his vision, pointing up at the void and drawing the constellations with a manicured nail. Just for him.
He points to one bright star in the distance.
“You see that one?” He murmurs and you nod, “That’s Vega. It’s the top corner of Lyra. It goes down and makes a diamond. Turning into the Lyre of Orpheus.”
He draws it, glancing at you. You squint, chewing the inside of your lip as you look up. The moon highlights the curve of your cheek, the soft spot between your neck and your jaw, the way your eyes glitter like a shard of quartz under a calm riverbed. Bucky quickly looks back to the sky, coughing. You seem alright.
“What’s the story?” You ask, breaking through the silence. He drops his hand, putting it safely back under his head.
“Orpheus’s lover died when she was running away from some asshole. Stepped on a snake. He was so distraught, he went to hell with a lyre, trying to bring her back. Hades, the king of the dead, said he could lead her out as long as he never looked behind him. He messed up, and did, and she had to wander the dead forever.”
“Wow. Thanks for nothing.” You scoff. Bucky chuckles, surprising himself, coughing to cover it.
“I guess he couldn’t help it. If your lover died and you weren’t sure you were actually bringing them back, you’d want to check, no?” He asks. You shrug one shoulder.
“I’d trust them to be there. If we’ve gotten to the point of me going to hell for them, I’d never want to look away from them again.” You murmur. Clouds cover the sky, the moon’s light hiding away. Bucky takes the chance to look at you fully, seeing only the whisper of your lips in the near-pitch black.
“You don’t trust easily, do you.” He says it without really meaning to. A statement more than a question, and as it slips out, he hopes you don’t take it as an insult. You stay silent long enough for his hands to start to twitch, wishing they could grab his words and choke them back down his throat.
“You don’t either.” You murmur. His turn to be silent as you turn your face to him. His breath hitches until he manually lets it out.
“I try to. When it comes to the right person.” He says. The blanket of the void is making him comfortable, settling around him in a way that feels like a trap. But he can’t help himself.
“Do you have that person?” You ask.
Silence.
“I don’t think they trust me.” He breathes out.
You’re chewing the inside of your lip again, sucking in your cheek as you study him. He tries to be an open book.
“Are you a trustworthy person?”
“I’m not a weapon.” He breathes out.
“And I am.”
“I know you’re not.”
You say nothing, turning your head back up to the sky. He sighs.
“The last time I looked at the stars, I was half-dead in a snowbank in the Alps. My arm was a bleeding stump and I couldn’t keep my eyes open. The last thing I heard was Steve screaming my name from a train I had no way to get back to. All I had left was the stars. Dizzying, never-ending, stars. But they kept me alive. Calm. Most of humanity have used them to navigate, tell time, tell stories. I don’t know what constellations they have in Austria. I made my own. I told those same stories to myself when I woke up, my arm twisted into a hunk of metal and my brain shocked into a husk of itself. All I had left were the stories.” The words fall out of his mouth easily, broken past the shitty dam he’s made himself build up, but as you look at him, he avoids your gaze.
“On bad missions, when I didn’t know who I was, or what I was doing, I would look at the sky and tell myself stories. About the world, about whoevers neck I was crushing, about myself. About how I was kind, something in the wrong place, wrong time. I didn’t see myself as human. Just a weapon with a poetic streak.”
He chuckles dryly.
You don’t.
He continues, “When Steve woke me up, when I lost my arm, when they replaced it in Wakanda, I still looked to the stars. I didn’t feel anything inside. Just felt myself lost in the sky. I still look up there, looking for myself. I think I’m more down to Earth now, but it’s still comforting. The stories I can see up there can be true, now. I kept looking to the stars. I didn’t feel anything inside, just felt myself lost in the sky. Still do, sometimes. Still looking for myself.” He sighs, rubbing his face with his metal hand and letting it drop to his side, weary.
“I don’t have to be a weapon. I can be a guide. Even if it’s just for myself. You can be, too.” He says, letting the air out of his lungs to lay there like a rock. The crickets are silent now, or at least Bucky can’t hear them with his heartbeat pressing against his eardrums. Worse, you’re quiet too, your gaze still burning a hole in his cheek. He flinches away, turning his head to look anywhere but to you.
When you touch his cold metal hand with your warm fingers, it takes all of him to not jump out of his skin, even as every crevice in his mind becomes alight in thoughts he can’t focus on. The only thing he can keep track of is your index, tracing lightly up his wrist, into his palm, pressing in as the rest of your hand comes with it and spreading his fingers apart as you nestle your hand there, gripping tightly. Your thumb starts rubbing slow circles on the back of his. His shoulders relax to a point they haven’t in years.
“You’re not a monster, Bucky. You never have been.” You whisper. He looks at you.
“And you’re not either.” He whispers back.
The way you look at him is criminal. Doe eyes underneath eyelashes, wet tears on the brink of falling out. He fights back the instinct to brush them away, to grip your shoulder and bring you against his chest, nestle your head safely under his jaw and keep you pressed to him in a promise. Instead, he just grips your hand, and you close your eyes.
“That french toast was great, by the way. Perfect amount of cinnamon.” He whispers, and a ghost of a smile plays against the corner of your lips.
“I wanted to say thank you.” You whisper back.
“For what?”
“For staying.”
“Why wouldn’t I?” His question goes painfully unanswered as your thumb continues to rub his hand.
“I thought you’d throw it away.” Your eyes flutter open, looking up at his, cautiously.
“Who would throw away french toast that tastes like that?” He scoffs, managing to thread a laugh out of you, like windchimes in a light breeze. His chest aches with something unbearably sweet.
“Will you eat it with me tomorrow?” He asks.
A beat, then you shrug, smile still on your tranquil face.
“Of course.”
His brain empties, and all that’s left is you.
A/N: I had a rough month which means that this chapter definitely had some emotions in it, lol. Rewrote it from scratch a few times. I guess if you want a mentally ill character, you need a mentally ill author? Idk. I hope you enjoyed it, and sorry for the wait. Also, I love the gif I chose for this one. It's EXACTLY the face he makes when he's looking at you, by the way.
If anyone has any ideas for a oneshot, PLEASE let me know, I think I can write it faster if I don't have to worry about Overarching Story Structures. My brain is pudding. Taglist below, let me know if you want to be added!
Check out my Bucky Barnes x f!traumatized!reader fic here:
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | AO3
Pairing: Bucky Barnes x any!reader (though you're shorter than him, but not much.)
Overall Summary: It’s late and Bucky comes home tired to find you waiting with a surprise birthday cake. What starts as awkward nerves quickly melts into a quiet, tender moment full of shared smiles, gentle touches, and a first kiss that changes everything. Sometimes the smallest gestures mean the most.
Tags: Fluffy, just fluffy. I barely alude to his past/present.
Word Count: 3.3k
Warnings: You eat cake, it's vanilla (I will not have vanilla slander, he likes vanilla in one sense only and that is in cake).
A/N: I found this deep within my drafts from 2022. I'm currently disliking all the stuff I have currently, so I just copy-edited this. 2022 Alien knew how to write fluff. It's more difficult for 2025 Alien, lol. 2025 Alien would not be as PG either.
Feel free to send in requests! They may take a while but I will write something with it. Bucky/Loki/Stardew Valley x Reader.
His sliding door opens softly. You don’t look up until you hear his customary grunt as he sits down.
“Hey.” You say as you close your book and look over the short partition separating your two balconies.
“Mornin’.” He says, scratching his stubbled jaw with a metal hand. Bucky’s looking you over, looking at your book, just looking. You let him. It’s how he really says hello. With how much he stares, you stopped feeling self-conscious long ago.
He never judges. Makeup or no makeup, ratty t-shirt or nice dress, it never mattered. His eyes meet yours again, and you smile. He doesn’t smile back, but he eases in his chair.
“How’d you sleep?” You ask.
“Fine enough. You?”
“Well.” He nods at your answer, looking out over the busy New York street below you. His damp hair gleams in the rising sun, drying slowly.
He always seems freshly showered when you see him, as if he’s obsessed with being clean. You wonder what kind of shampoo he uses. Is that weird to wonder about your platonic neighbour? Probably. But you always wonder things about him; like what his favorite food is, or he dreams of at night.
You know it’s nothing good. His muffled yells through your shared bedroom wall have woken you up with a heartache more than once.
But the truly selfish questions come to you after that. What he smells like. What his metal arm would feel like holding you. What his lips would feel like on your skin.
Usually, you can hold back these thoughts. Ever since he first came out onto your half-shared balcony a year ago, you’ve been keeping in your words, worried that if you ask them that he’ll be scared off.
Instead, you sit on your distant chairs, and look at each other, and talk. Usually you more than him.
Every morning, you come outside and sit with a book, or a hot drink, or with nothing at all, and he comes out only a few minutes later. Freshly showered and looking at you like he cares what you’re saying. Or, on those rare late nights; dirty, covered with ash and blood, but hearing you all the same.
That’s why you need to know more about him. You care what he’s saying, even when he doesn’t say anything at all. The way his eyebrow raises when you complain about your coworkers, or when the corner of his lips turn up into a smirk when you tell a really good joke.
But today, those little bits aren’t enough.
“Bucky?” you say, and he raises an eyebrow as a silent “go on”. “What’s your favorite food?”
“Hmm.” He mumbles, looking back over at you with a furrowed brow. “I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?” You say, incredulous.
“I’d have to think about it.”
“Think, then. I don’t have work today. You have all the time in the world.”
“All the time, huh? You going to wait around here for that long?” He says, raising an eyebrow again. You shrug in return, heat filling your cheeks. He smirks, then scratches his chin again.
“Vanilla cake.” He says after a few minutes. You smile. It’s so...fitting.
“A classic.”
“Yeah. My mom made me that cake for every one of my birthdays. Until I got sent off, of course.” He clears his throat and looks away from you, back to the cityscape that stretches out into the risen sun.
“That’s very sweet.”
“It was. My sister hated vanilla. I got to have it all to myself.”
“Typical brother behavior. So selfish.” You say. He looks back at you, the corner of his lips twitching into a smirk, and you stick your tongue out at him.
“I was a great big brother, thank you very much.” He says.
“I bet. Just one that never let his sister have any cake.”
“It was my birthday!”
“Fine, fine. I guess you shouldn’t be expected to share on your birthday.”
“Damn right. She can get her own cake. Freeloader.”
You laugh, and he smiles with you. The sight of his face, happy, fills your heart with pride.
“When is your birthday anyway?” You ask, and his brow furrows.
“What day is it today?”
“March 9th.”
“Hmm. Tomorrow.” He says, casually.
“What?!” You jump forward in your seat a little. He’s still smirking, but one brow knits in confusion.
“I completely forgot about it.”
“Your birthday is tomorrow?”
“That’s what I said.”
“Are you going to do anything for it? Go out with friends? Coworkers?” You ask, and he shakes his head.
“There’s no one alive left that knows the day. Except for you now, I guess.”
You blink, speechless.
The only one alive, other than him. And even then, he almost forgot.
You know about his backstory, as much as you ignore it for his sake. After bumping into him in the hallway as you moved in, you were intrigued by the metal arm. He kept it hidden in his signature leather jacket, but you still saw the glint from his wrist. A customary search on the internet satisfied enough of your curiosity on that front.
A man bent into a weapon. A far cry from the man you talk with every morning, who sits and listens to you and your rambling. Who gently offers advice, or a dry joke. Who showed his metal arm in the gleaming sun after you never said a word about it, or his past, or his present.
That first day, when he rushed out of his apartment in a huff, gripping the railing of his balcony and taking deep shaky breaths, you knew that you would never bring it up. His screams that night had awoken you already, leading you out here.
You don’t remember what you said, but he sat down, taking deep breaths as you rambled. Ever since, you meet in the morning. Every day, you yearn to move closer to him. Hope to help calm him down when he’s fighting against the chains of his past, to make him smile in the light of a new sun.
And now, you know his birthday. Another piece of him, offered so casually, though you know better than to ever believe it’s a casual detail.
Now that you think about it, his chair has been moving closer and closer to the shared partition for a while now. He’s basically a couple feet away. Your breath hitches in your throat.
“Hello? Are you on Earth?” You snap out of your thoughts to see him standing now, looking at you. You smile up at him. He smooths his hair back.
“Now I am. Are you going somewhere? It’s barely seven.” You say.
“I have to go in early. A few big...meetings.”
“Oh. Are you going away again?” Your heart sinks. The mornings during his ‘assignments’ always feel so cold and dull.
“Not yet. I’ll be back tonight. Then tomorrow, I’m gone for a couple weeks.”
A couple weeks? That’s basically a lifetime now, after having met him.
“I’ll miss you.” The declaration slips out. He stills, keeping his gaze locked on you and his hand on the back of his neck, silent. When he doesn’t respond, heat rises to your cheeks again, and you break eye contact. “Who else will listen to my stupid rants?” You try to save the moment.
“You could talk about the Earth being flat and I wouldn’t call it ‘stupid’.” He says, voice low but tone light.
You laugh again, looking back up at him. He has the ghost of a smile on his face, but once you blink it’s gone and he’s at his doorway.
“I’ll see you later?”
“Yeah. I’ll see you later.” He moves to go inside, but stops at your words.
“You promise?” You say, softly.
His shoulders tense, but he nods.
“I promise.” He steps back inside his apartment, the screen shutting softly. You watch the sun for a few moments longer, half-hoped dreams and thoughts running rampant in your head. You don’t realize you’re going inside, getting dressed and pulling your shoes on, until you’re grabbing your wallet.
Doubt starts to creep up, but Bucky’s smile beams in your head, and you know it’s better to take a chance rather than doing nothing at all.
- -
It’s very late when Bucky finally comes back home. The light in his living room clicks on, flooding the balcony with an orange glow. You sit nervously on your porch chair, pretending to read as you hear the soft sounds of him taking his shoes off, putting things away, finally coming up to the balcony door, and sliding it open.
“The hell are you still doing awake? It’s almost midnight.” He says gruffly from the door, his own exhaustion sneaking through.
“I wanted to do some late-night reading.”
“It’s pitch black out here.”
“There’s enough light to read.”
“Do you have night vision? You have to tell me if you have night vision.”
“I don’t have night vision.” You roll your eyes, laughing.
“Good. I do too much embarrassing stuff in the dark. I’d have to explain a lot.”
“Now I’m worried about what you’re doing in the dark.”
“Certainly not reading.”
Your gaze lingers on him. He’s dressed in a tank top and sweatpants, barefoot and ready for bed, leaning in the sliding glass doorway. Backlit by the warm glow of his kitchen, he looks inviting. Like home. Your heart skips a beat when he smooths his hair back. That one piece always falls in his face, tempting you to put it back for him.
“How was your day, Buck?” You ask. He shrugs a shoulder.
“Fine. Long. I’m happy to be home.”
“Are you tired?” You ask. He raises an eyebrow.
“Kind of. Why?”
“Stay there.”
You get up before he can say anything that will make you lose your resolve, rushing inside your apartment. Quickly, you assemble everything, hands shaking as you try to flick the lighter on. Finally, you take a deep breath, steeling yourself. It’s Bucky. What is he going to do? Laugh at you? You shake away the thought, letting better dreams and unconscious instincts soothe you.
You’d rather be embarrassed than never try for that fantasy.
Your hand is steady as you light the candle and take up the cake in your hands, walking through your balcony door, and to the partition that separates you both. You look down at the vanilla cake, talking nervously.
“I tried to get 109 candles, but then I thought it would be too much fire and that it would singe your hair off, and I didn’t really want that. Or for the icing to melt. So I only got the ten. It’s vanilla on vanilla. I got it from-”
“This is for me?” He says, breathlessly, and suddenly close. You stop rambling, looking up to see he’s only a few inches from you, looking down at you with wide eyes. Only the wall separates you, but he’s almost leaning over it and toward you. Gripping the cake plate harder, you try not to lean in to him as well.
You’ve never been this close to him. Through the smell of the candles and sweet icing, you can still smell him. Soap and cedar; clear and clean scents that feel so natural to be on him. And even worse, his eyes. So watchful and warm from afar, but are deep pools that you fall in as you look deeper in. You quickly lose any words and just nod, inching the cake towards him.
“You got me a cake?” He asks again, whispering as if to himself. His brow furrows in confusion down at it, like he doesn’t believe it’s actually there.
“Of course I got you a cake. It’s your birthday.” You whisper back.
“You did this for...me.” It’s not a question, but a statement. One he doesn’t believe in, judging by his incredulity.
“Of course I did."
He steps closer, hips pressing against the wall, and you gasp a little breath. He eyes flick up to yours, the candles reflected in them, and you shakily smile.
“Bucky, I promise. It’s all for you. You don’t have to share. But, you do have to make a wish.”
“What?” He whispers.
“The candles, Buck.”
“Oh. Right.” He slides his eyes off of yours, looking at the candles for just a second before blowing them all away with one quick puff. You laugh. The more you’re near him, the less tense you become.
“That was fast.” You say.
“I knew what my wish was.”
“What is it?”
He smiles at you, his face suddenly at an ease you haven’t seen from him before. He braces himself on the wall, almost imperceptibly pushing towards you further. The only way you notice is by suddenly seeing the little scars on his temples. You hold back the urge to rub them, wipe away pain that you weren’t there for, and focus on his eyes.
“Now, it’s been a while since I’ve made a wish, but I don’t think I’m supposed to tell you that.” He says, face breaking into a smile.
A real one. One that makes the corners of his eyes turn up, that shows his teeth. Your heart skips a beat, and you wobble, almost dropping the cake. He moves off the wall quickly, taking your forearms in his hands and steadying you.
“Are you okay?” He asks, and you laugh breathlessly.
“Yeah, Buck. Sorry. I guess I’m a bit tired.”
“Too tired to share some of this?”
“What?”
“Don’t tell me you hate vanilla.”
“No, no I like vanilla-”
“Then perfect.” He plucks the plate from your unsuspecting hands, holding it in one hand and extending the metal one to you. “Come on over. If you want, of course.”
You look at the hand for a second before taking it. He doesn’t move at all as you lean on him to get over the partition, and when you’re finally over it, he still doesn’t let go of your hand as he leads you inside his apartment, only letting go of you once you’re past the doorway. You look around at his bare walls and basic furniture, not leaving your spot by the door, as he clatters around in the kitchen. He looks over his shoulder at you, then jerks his head to the side.
“C’mere.” He says, and you quickly follow, standing next to him at the kitchen counter. His sudden assertiveness is new, but not unwelcome, especially as he hands you a fork. “Dig in.”
“What? Just into the cake like that? You’re not going to cut it up?” You say and he shrugs.
“It’s our cake. I don’t care. What, do you have cooties?” He smirks at you, and you can’t help but smile back.
“Yes. I do have cooties. It’s a really horrible affliction, you shouldn’t joke about it.” You say solemnly, and he shakes his head as he takes a bite of cake. He makes a small, strangled moan.
“This is so good. Made today?” He asks, and you nod as you take a bite too.
“From the place at the corner.” You say after a minute, and he shakes his head to himself.
“You got this for me.” He mutters, and you smile as you eat another bite.
“It wasn’t any trouble. Happy birthday, old man.”
He rolls his eyes, looking over at you, then his brow furrows.
“You really didn’t have to, you know. I didn’t tell you so you’d get me somethin’.” He says. Now, it’s your turn to roll your eyes.
“It’s not that, Buck, I just...I just thought you’d like it. That’s all.”
“That’s all?”
“Do you like it?”
“I haven’t had a birthday since 1943.”
You glance up, catching his eye.
He’s smiling. Another real one.
Your heart aches. A cake was all it took. Your mind starts to race with all the other things you could do to bring that same smile to his face, again and again.
He motions to his lip.
“You have some icing on your face.” He murmurs, and you wipe at your lip, trying to mimic him. He tuts and shakes his head, reaching for your face with his metal hand. He cradles your face, fingers reaching your jaw, and uses his thumb to swipe your bottom lip carefully.
“There.” He whispers, not moving his hand, looking at you with a soft smile. His hand is cold against your face, and unconsciously, you reach up to hold it, your fingers running over the back of his.
His hand tightens on your face, then loosens, cradling your cheek and head in one strong palm. He’s scanning your expression, and you hope he can’t feel the heat rushing to your cheek.
He leans in, closer and closer, until you can feel his warm breath on your face, but he won’t close the distance, staying just out of reach.
“Buck-” You whisper, unable to take any more of the heavy silence.
“This whole time, I thought I was intruding on your life. Taking your mornings hostage for my own selfish want to look at you. I was just happy that you would give even a part of your day to me.” He whispers, his words brushing against your lips.
“Bu-”
“And now, you do this. You listen, and you care, and you act. What did I do to deserve this? I’ve done the bare minimum. You deserve more than me.”
“I just want to see you happy, Bucky. That’s what you deserve.” You whisper back, gripping his hand that’s cradling your face like you’re the most delicate thing in the world. His other hand comes up to your waist, holding onto it like an anchor in the ocean of the small kitchen.
“You just want to see me...happy.” He murmurs. You nod, rubbing your thumb over his. He tenses his hands, taking you in tighter, before dropping his shoulders with a sigh.
Suddenly, he presses forward, closing the minuscule distance between you and presses his warm lips to yours. You show no hesitation and kiss him back, gripping his tank top and pulling him closer. He obliges, pressing you against the kitchen counter before taking your hips and pulling you easily on top of it. Breathless, you giggle, causing him to smile against your warm skin as he peppers kisses on the corner of your lips.
Opening your legs, you pull him closer, crushing his chest into yours. He takes your face back in his hands and takes hold of your lips again. His stubble is rough against your face and as you kiss, you taste the sweet vanilla icing on his lips.
After a moment, you pull away and breathe deeply for air, dizzy and smiley from excitement. He’s left leaning in, and he slides his hands down to brace himself up on either side of you. His lips and cheeks are flushed, his hair now ruffled, with its customary strand in front of his eyes. Your body acts on its oft-ignored instinct, putting it behind his ear, leaving it at his cheek as you cup his face. He nuzzles into it, closing his eyes.
“You wouldn’t believe how often I wished for that.” He murmurs into your palm, giving it a warm kiss.
“Was that your birthday wish?” You ask, and he nods.
“Was the only wish that I didn’t have to think about.”
“You didn’t have to waste a wish on that. I’ve been wanting to kiss you since you moved in.” You say, cheeks heating at the declaration. He chuckles a little, opening his eyes and looking at your lips.
“I guess we have a lot of kissing to make up for, then.” He murmurs, and you take his grizzled face in your hands and kiss him deeply again. He melts along with you, and even when you disconnect for air again, he peppers your cheeks and jaw with kisses.
“Bucky?” You say, breathless. He hums against your jaw.
“Yes?”
“Happy birthday.”
He kisses you again.
Maybe next year, you’ll light all 110 candles, just to see him smile for every one.
When he finally pulls away, he lets you breathe, taking another bite of cake and feeding you gently. You kiss him after every bite.
Check out my Bucky Barnes x f!traumatized!reader fic here:
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | AO3
Pairing: Bucky Barnes x any!reader (though you're shorter than him, but not much.)
Overall Summary: It’s late and Bucky comes home tired to find you waiting with a surprise birthday cake. What starts as awkward nerves quickly melts into a quiet, tender moment full of shared smiles, gentle touches, and a first kiss that changes everything. Sometimes the smallest gestures mean the most.
Tags: Fluffy, just fluffy. I barely alude to his past/present.
Word Count: 3.3k
Warnings: You eat cake, it's vanilla (I will not have vanilla slander, he likes vanilla in one sense only and that is in cake).
A/N: I found this deep within my drafts from 2022. I'm currently disliking all the stuff I have currently, so I just copy-edited this. 2022 Alien knew how to write fluff. It's more difficult for 2025 Alien, lol. 2025 Alien would not be as PG either.
Feel free to send in requests! They may take a while but I will write something with it. Bucky/Loki/Stardew Valley x Reader.
His sliding door opens softly. You don’t look up until you hear his customary grunt as he sits down.
“Hey.” You say as you close your book and look over the short partition separating your two balconies.
“Mornin’.” He says, scratching his stubbled jaw with a metal hand. Bucky’s looking you over, looking at your book, just looking. You let him. It’s how he really says hello. With how much he stares, you stopped feeling self-conscious long ago.
He never judges. Makeup or no makeup, ratty t-shirt or nice dress, it never mattered. His eyes meet yours again, and you smile. He doesn’t smile back, but he eases in his chair.
“How’d you sleep?” You ask.
“Fine enough. You?”
“Well.” He nods at your answer, looking out over the busy New York street below you. His damp hair gleams in the rising sun, drying slowly.
He always seems freshly showered when you see him, as if he’s obsessed with being clean. You wonder what kind of shampoo he uses. Is that weird to wonder about your platonic neighbour? Probably. But you always wonder things about him; like what his favorite food is, or he dreams of at night.
You know it’s nothing good. His muffled yells through your shared bedroom wall have woken you up with a heartache more than once.
But the truly selfish questions come to you after that. What he smells like. What his metal arm would feel like holding you. What his lips would feel like on your skin.
Usually, you can hold back these thoughts. Ever since he first came out onto your half-shared balcony a year ago, you’ve been keeping in your words, worried that if you ask them that he’ll be scared off.
Instead, you sit on your distant chairs, and look at each other, and talk. Usually you more than him.
Every morning, you come outside and sit with a book, or a hot drink, or with nothing at all, and he comes out only a few minutes later. Freshly showered and looking at you like he cares what you’re saying. Or, on those rare late nights; dirty, covered with ash and blood, but hearing you all the same.
That’s why you need to know more about him. You care what he’s saying, even when he doesn’t say anything at all. The way his eyebrow raises when you complain about your coworkers, or when the corner of his lips turn up into a smirk when you tell a really good joke.
But today, those little bits aren’t enough.
“Bucky?” you say, and he raises an eyebrow as a silent “go on”. “What’s your favorite food?”
“Hmm.” He mumbles, looking back over at you with a furrowed brow. “I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?” You say, incredulous.
“I’d have to think about it.”
“Think, then. I don’t have work today. You have all the time in the world.”
“All the time, huh? You going to wait around here for that long?” He says, raising an eyebrow again. You shrug in return, heat filling your cheeks. He smirks, then scratches his chin again.
“Vanilla cake.” He says after a few minutes. You smile. It’s so...fitting.
“A classic.”
“Yeah. My mom made me that cake for every one of my birthdays. Until I got sent off, of course.” He clears his throat and looks away from you, back to the cityscape that stretches out into the risen sun.
“That’s very sweet.”
“It was. My sister hated vanilla. I got to have it all to myself.”
“Typical brother behavior. So selfish.” You say. He looks back at you, the corner of his lips twitching into a smirk, and you stick your tongue out at him.
“I was a great big brother, thank you very much.” He says.
“I bet. Just one that never let his sister have any cake.”
“It was my birthday!”
“Fine, fine. I guess you shouldn’t be expected to share on your birthday.”
“Damn right. She can get her own cake. Freeloader.”
You laugh, and he smiles with you. The sight of his face, happy, fills your heart with pride.
“When is your birthday anyway?” You ask, and his brow furrows.
“What day is it today?”
“March 9th.”
“Hmm. Tomorrow.” He says, casually.
“What?!” You jump forward in your seat a little. He’s still smirking, but one brow knits in confusion.
“I completely forgot about it.”
“Your birthday is tomorrow?”
“That’s what I said.”
“Are you going to do anything for it? Go out with friends? Coworkers?” You ask, and he shakes his head.
“There’s no one alive left that knows the day. Except for you now, I guess.”
You blink, speechless.
The only one alive, other than him. And even then, he almost forgot.
You know about his backstory, as much as you ignore it for his sake. After bumping into him in the hallway as you moved in, you were intrigued by the metal arm. He kept it hidden in his signature leather jacket, but you still saw the glint from his wrist. A customary search on the internet satisfied enough of your curiosity on that front.
A man bent into a weapon. A far cry from the man you talk with every morning, who sits and listens to you and your rambling. Who gently offers advice, or a dry joke. Who showed his metal arm in the gleaming sun after you never said a word about it, or his past, or his present.
That first day, when he rushed out of his apartment in a huff, gripping the railing of his balcony and taking deep shaky breaths, you knew that you would never bring it up. His screams that night had awoken you already, leading you out here.
You don’t remember what you said, but he sat down, taking deep breaths as you rambled. Ever since, you meet in the morning. Every day, you yearn to move closer to him. Hope to help calm him down when he’s fighting against the chains of his past, to make him smile in the light of a new sun.
And now, you know his birthday. Another piece of him, offered so casually, though you know better than to ever believe it’s a casual detail.
Now that you think about it, his chair has been moving closer and closer to the shared partition for a while now. He’s basically a couple feet away. Your breath hitches in your throat.
“Hello? Are you on Earth?” You snap out of your thoughts to see him standing now, looking at you. You smile up at him. He smooths his hair back.
“Now I am. Are you going somewhere? It’s barely seven.” You say.
“I have to go in early. A few big...meetings.”
“Oh. Are you going away again?” Your heart sinks. The mornings during his ‘assignments’ always feel so cold and dull.
“Not yet. I’ll be back tonight. Then tomorrow, I’m gone for a couple weeks.”
A couple weeks? That’s basically a lifetime now, after having met him.
“I’ll miss you.” The declaration slips out. He stills, keeping his gaze locked on you and his hand on the back of his neck, silent. When he doesn’t respond, heat rises to your cheeks again, and you break eye contact. “Who else will listen to my stupid rants?” You try to save the moment.
“You could talk about the Earth being flat and I wouldn’t call it ‘stupid’.” He says, voice low but tone light.
You laugh again, looking back up at him. He has the ghost of a smile on his face, but once you blink it’s gone and he’s at his doorway.
“I’ll see you later?”
“Yeah. I’ll see you later.” He moves to go inside, but stops at your words.
“You promise?” You say, softly.
His shoulders tense, but he nods.
“I promise.” He steps back inside his apartment, the screen shutting softly. You watch the sun for a few moments longer, half-hoped dreams and thoughts running rampant in your head. You don’t realize you’re going inside, getting dressed and pulling your shoes on, until you’re grabbing your wallet.
Doubt starts to creep up, but Bucky’s smile beams in your head, and you know it’s better to take a chance rather than doing nothing at all.
- -
It’s very late when Bucky finally comes back home. The light in his living room clicks on, flooding the balcony with an orange glow. You sit nervously on your porch chair, pretending to read as you hear the soft sounds of him taking his shoes off, putting things away, finally coming up to the balcony door, and sliding it open.
“The hell are you still doing awake? It’s almost midnight.” He says gruffly from the door, his own exhaustion sneaking through.
“I wanted to do some late-night reading.”
“It’s pitch black out here.”
“There’s enough light to read.”
“Do you have night vision? You have to tell me if you have night vision.”
“I don’t have night vision.” You roll your eyes, laughing.
“Good. I do too much embarrassing stuff in the dark. I’d have to explain a lot.”
“Now I’m worried about what you’re doing in the dark.”
“Certainly not reading.”
Your gaze lingers on him. He’s dressed in a tank top and sweatpants, barefoot and ready for bed, leaning in the sliding glass doorway. Backlit by the warm glow of his kitchen, he looks inviting. Like home. Your heart skips a beat when he smooths his hair back. That one piece always falls in his face, tempting you to put it back for him.
“How was your day, Buck?” You ask. He shrugs a shoulder.
“Fine. Long. I’m happy to be home.”
“Are you tired?” You ask. He raises an eyebrow.
“Kind of. Why?”
“Stay there.”
You get up before he can say anything that will make you lose your resolve, rushing inside your apartment. Quickly, you assemble everything, hands shaking as you try to flick the lighter on. Finally, you take a deep breath, steeling yourself. It’s Bucky. What is he going to do? Laugh at you? You shake away the thought, letting better dreams and unconscious instincts soothe you.
You’d rather be embarrassed than never try for that fantasy.
Your hand is steady as you light the candle and take up the cake in your hands, walking through your balcony door, and to the partition that separates you both. You look down at the vanilla cake, talking nervously.
“I tried to get 109 candles, but then I thought it would be too much fire and that it would singe your hair off, and I didn’t really want that. Or for the icing to melt. So I only got the ten. It’s vanilla on vanilla. I got it from-”
“This is for me?” He says, breathlessly, and suddenly close. You stop rambling, looking up to see he’s only a few inches from you, looking down at you with wide eyes. Only the wall separates you, but he’s almost leaning over it and toward you. Gripping the cake plate harder, you try not to lean in to him as well.
You’ve never been this close to him. Through the smell of the candles and sweet icing, you can still smell him. Soap and cedar; clear and clean scents that feel so natural to be on him. And even worse, his eyes. So watchful and warm from afar, but are deep pools that you fall in as you look deeper in. You quickly lose any words and just nod, inching the cake towards him.
“You got me a cake?” He asks again, whispering as if to himself. His brow furrows in confusion down at it, like he doesn’t believe it’s actually there.
“Of course I got you a cake. It’s your birthday.” You whisper back.
“You did this for...me.” It’s not a question, but a statement. One he doesn’t believe in, judging by his incredulity.
“Of course I did."
He steps closer, hips pressing against the wall, and you gasp a little breath. He eyes flick up to yours, the candles reflected in them, and you shakily smile.
“Bucky, I promise. It’s all for you. You don’t have to share. But, you do have to make a wish.”
“What?” He whispers.
“The candles, Buck.”
“Oh. Right.” He slides his eyes off of yours, looking at the candles for just a second before blowing them all away with one quick puff. You laugh. The more you’re near him, the less tense you become.
“That was fast.” You say.
“I knew what my wish was.”
“What is it?”
He smiles at you, his face suddenly at an ease you haven’t seen from him before. He braces himself on the wall, almost imperceptibly pushing towards you further. The only way you notice is by suddenly seeing the little scars on his temples. You hold back the urge to rub them, wipe away pain that you weren’t there for, and focus on his eyes.
“Now, it’s been a while since I’ve made a wish, but I don’t think I’m supposed to tell you that.” He says, face breaking into a smile.
A real one. One that makes the corners of his eyes turn up, that shows his teeth. Your heart skips a beat, and you wobble, almost dropping the cake. He moves off the wall quickly, taking your forearms in his hands and steadying you.
“Are you okay?” He asks, and you laugh breathlessly.
“Yeah, Buck. Sorry. I guess I’m a bit tired.”
“Too tired to share some of this?”
“What?”
“Don’t tell me you hate vanilla.”
“No, no I like vanilla-”
“Then perfect.” He plucks the plate from your unsuspecting hands, holding it in one hand and extending the metal one to you. “Come on over. If you want, of course.”
You look at the hand for a second before taking it. He doesn’t move at all as you lean on him to get over the partition, and when you’re finally over it, he still doesn’t let go of your hand as he leads you inside his apartment, only letting go of you once you’re past the doorway. You look around at his bare walls and basic furniture, not leaving your spot by the door, as he clatters around in the kitchen. He looks over his shoulder at you, then jerks his head to the side.
“C’mere.” He says, and you quickly follow, standing next to him at the kitchen counter. His sudden assertiveness is new, but not unwelcome, especially as he hands you a fork. “Dig in.”
“What? Just into the cake like that? You’re not going to cut it up?” You say and he shrugs.
“It’s our cake. I don’t care. What, do you have cooties?” He smirks at you, and you can’t help but smile back.
“Yes. I do have cooties. It’s a really horrible affliction, you shouldn’t joke about it.” You say solemnly, and he shakes his head as he takes a bite of cake. He makes a small, strangled moan.
“This is so good. Made today?” He asks, and you nod as you take a bite too.
“From the place at the corner.” You say after a minute, and he shakes his head to himself.
“You got this for me.” He mutters, and you smile as you eat another bite.
“It wasn’t any trouble. Happy birthday, old man.”
He rolls his eyes, looking over at you, then his brow furrows.
“You really didn’t have to, you know. I didn’t tell you so you’d get me somethin’.” He says. Now, it’s your turn to roll your eyes.
“It’s not that, Buck, I just...I just thought you’d like it. That’s all.”
“That’s all?”
“Do you like it?”
“I haven’t had a birthday since 1943.”
You glance up, catching his eye.
He’s smiling. Another real one.
Your heart aches. A cake was all it took. Your mind starts to race with all the other things you could do to bring that same smile to his face, again and again.
He motions to his lip.
“You have some icing on your face.” He murmurs, and you wipe at your lip, trying to mimic him. He tuts and shakes his head, reaching for your face with his metal hand. He cradles your face, fingers reaching your jaw, and uses his thumb to swipe your bottom lip carefully.
“There.” He whispers, not moving his hand, looking at you with a soft smile. His hand is cold against your face, and unconsciously, you reach up to hold it, your fingers running over the back of his.
His hand tightens on your face, then loosens, cradling your cheek and head in one strong palm. He’s scanning your expression, and you hope he can’t feel the heat rushing to your cheek.
He leans in, closer and closer, until you can feel his warm breath on your face, but he won’t close the distance, staying just out of reach.
“Buck-” You whisper, unable to take any more of the heavy silence.
“This whole time, I thought I was intruding on your life. Taking your mornings hostage for my own selfish want to look at you. I was just happy that you would give even a part of your day to me.” He whispers, his words brushing against your lips.
“Bu-”
“And now, you do this. You listen, and you care, and you act. What did I do to deserve this? I’ve done the bare minimum. You deserve more than me.”
“I just want to see you happy, Bucky. That’s what you deserve.” You whisper back, gripping his hand that’s cradling your face like you’re the most delicate thing in the world. His other hand comes up to your waist, holding onto it like an anchor in the ocean of the small kitchen.
“You just want to see me...happy.” He murmurs. You nod, rubbing your thumb over his. He tenses his hands, taking you in tighter, before dropping his shoulders with a sigh.
Suddenly, he presses forward, closing the minuscule distance between you and presses his warm lips to yours. You show no hesitation and kiss him back, gripping his tank top and pulling him closer. He obliges, pressing you against the kitchen counter before taking your hips and pulling you easily on top of it. Breathless, you giggle, causing him to smile against your warm skin as he peppers kisses on the corner of your lips.
Opening your legs, you pull him closer, crushing his chest into yours. He takes your face back in his hands and takes hold of your lips again. His stubble is rough against your face and as you kiss, you taste the sweet vanilla icing on his lips.
After a moment, you pull away and breathe deeply for air, dizzy and smiley from excitement. He’s left leaning in, and he slides his hands down to brace himself up on either side of you. His lips and cheeks are flushed, his hair now ruffled, with its customary strand in front of his eyes. Your body acts on its oft-ignored instinct, putting it behind his ear, leaving it at his cheek as you cup his face. He nuzzles into it, closing his eyes.
“You wouldn’t believe how often I wished for that.” He murmurs into your palm, giving it a warm kiss.
“Was that your birthday wish?” You ask, and he nods.
“Was the only wish that I didn’t have to think about.”
“You didn’t have to waste a wish on that. I’ve been wanting to kiss you since you moved in.” You say, cheeks heating at the declaration. He chuckles a little, opening his eyes and looking at your lips.
“I guess we have a lot of kissing to make up for, then.” He murmurs, and you take his grizzled face in your hands and kiss him deeply again. He melts along with you, and even when you disconnect for air again, he peppers your cheeks and jaw with kisses.
“Bucky?” You say, breathless. He hums against your jaw.
“Yes?”
“Happy birthday.”
He kisses you again.
Maybe next year, you’ll light all 110 candles, just to see him smile for every one.
When he finally pulls away, he lets you breathe, taking another bite of cake and feeding you gently. You kiss him after every bite.
