im in love✨💕 @apkavy - Tumblr Blog

Mar 3, 2022

light, asunder

“Don’t ever do that again.” It would sound like his usual chastising, but Bucky’s voice is soft. If you weren’t crying so hard, struggling to catch your breath, maybe you would hear the note of fear within his words. “Don’t care how mad you get, don’t care how much I piss you off. You don’t go running off into the woods where I can’t find you, Star. Never again.”

You curl your fingers into the fabric of his shirt, right above where his heart lay beating in his chest, and hope he realizes that it’s a promise. A swear.

Characters: merc!Bucky Barnes/princess!fem!Reader

Warnings: 18+ (no smut), royalty!AU, violence and gore, death, suggestions of dubious consent (not made by major characters), blood, family trauma, strong language, mentions of war, reader uses a nickname (Star), enemies to lovers with a happy ending

Word Count: 8923

A/N: Thanks for reading! This is a commissioned fic for @pham-tastical! Thank you so much for your commission! I hope you enjoy! Thank you so much for your unending patience as I worked through mental health and physical health issues, I'm so sorry this took so long! But I really enjoyed writing this fic and there's a very good possibility to have a follow up fic in the future 👀 we'll see. Big shoutout to @loving-bucky-is-easier for hyping me up! If you are currently waiting on a commission, they'll be coming soon. Contact me for more info 💖

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The grounds are burning, and with it, your feet.

Behind you, the castle is swallowed by flames that grow tall enough to reach the stars, to scrape the sky above. The birds have long flown from the trees, escaping like the screaming servants could not—shot down with arrows, gored through by bloody spears. The ones who made it out were the ones who pushed past you, who didn’t look over their shoulder to help you, whose scrambling feet stomped over your trailing dress and tripped you until your knees were bloody from the fall.

Cowards. Traitors. The men who came from across the sea—their promises of a golden alliance were as cheap as the furs they wore on their back.

But you’re the same as them, aren’t you? Flames lick at the bare soles of your feet, heels kicked off and left behind, but you aren’t running for safety. Your dress drags along the blackened earth, trim nearly catching fire as its edges smolder.

You’re running for the forest.

“Princess!” He calls for you, voice loud over the crackle of the castle as it burns down to nothing. “Princess, please! Where are you?”

Gone, you think, breathless and tired. I’m gone, gone, gone.

“Princess!”

Your pursuer is fast, faster than many, but you’ve got a head start. Even as he calls for you, every step you take makes his voice quieter and quieter as you traipse into the forest, knowing not where you’re going. It’s silly. Some might call you stupid, airheaded, brainless. To wander into a forest while an army is after your head, not knowing the path, without even a weapon to defend yourself from the beasts that stalk the trees.

But this is your only escape.

“Princess!”

And doesn’t it feel good, you think as you run off into the woods, lungs wheezing for air as you emerge from the cloak of black smoke and plunge into darkness.

“Get up, princess!”

The name alone startles you awake, gasping for air as the wagon jostles you from the bale of hay you must’ve fallen asleep upon, tossing you against the barren wooden bottom. The wheels click and clack, the horses’ hooves click and clack, and your teeth click and clack in time with the pounding of your fearful heart. The farmer who graciously allowed you to hitch a ride, he knows who you are, doesn’t he?

But when you sit up, he’s not even looking at you. All you see is the shining bald spot in the back of his head, his figure outlined by a town on the horizon ahead. Finally, you think. Salvation. The scraps of your golden gown, shimmery and ruined by the ashes of your past life, are stuffed away in your bag. Your hair is shorn—shorter than before. The only thing you wear is the ragged, blood-stained servant’s dress you stole off a still-warm body, shoeless and blistered feet begging for reprieve.

“Town’s up ahead,” he says at you, not really to you. His worn, well-worked hands flick the reins in his grip. “This is as far as I’m takin’ you.” He punctuates such a statement by hocking a wad of spit at the ground, wheels of the cart you not-so-graciously bounce in running right over it. Your mouth tastes like soot and something rotten.

No. No one could know you anymore. You’re so far from that burning castle, from the bloodied stairwells carved out of marble and gold.

You’re not royalty anymore.

“Thank you,” you say, starting to gather your things. There’s not much that you have, but you gather it up anyway and sling your bag over your shoulder. “I wish I could pay you something.”

“Yeah,” the man gruffs. “Wish in one hand, piss in ‘nother. See which one fills up faster, princess.” He jerks his horse to a stop, cart following, and still refuses to look at you. But it’s a very clear sign for you to hop off.

Legs weary, feet worse off, you jump down from the rickety old thing and bite back a groan the minute your toes touch earth. “Thank you,” you bid the farmer one last time, but he doesn’t respond. He just strikes the reins against the horse’s back and off he goes, rattling away into town.

And now you’re left completely alone, bodies bustling around you as they enter and exit town. A woman rides her horse on the path back the way you came, so tall she blocks out the shining rays of sunlight. A poor beggar boy dressed in rags, not so dissimilar to your own, bows his head and holds out an empty bag for coins. A band of heroes, jovial from their latest conquest, strut into town.

One of them, a man with dark skin and a vibrant smile, teeth gapped in the middle, bumps into you. He grabs your arm to steady you, an apology tumbling out of his mouth, but you have no time to respond before a taller, brooding man shoves him forward, chastising him. They swagger off, not even looking back at you.

You’re alone.

Freedom is colder than you thought, somehow.

Freedom is also much more expensive than your daydreams made it out to be. When you would stay up late into the evening, staring at your ceiling, you pictured stealing away with your bag stretched fat with golden coins. You’d hide jewelry under a plain dress, wrap yourself up in servant furs, and buy yourself a ticket to anywhere.

You didn’t dream of fleeing home with nothing. Didn’t picture yourself dressed in cotton stained with blood.

And you most certainly didn’t think you’d be flat broke.

Hunger is painful, you realize now. Have you ever felt it before, truly? Gut empty, stomach howling for food. Painful pangs clawing up your throat, the raw taste of acid on your tongue. It makes you feel hollow, like you might fall at someone’s feet and start to beg for a crumb of bread.

Those beggars you once looked down on, not out of hatred but out of ignorance—you understand them now.

“Please—I just—I’ll do anything,” you tell the woman at the market stand, embarrassment hot across your cheeks as people begin to look in and stare. A princess, begging for food out in the open. How unladylike, how improper, how sad.

You’re not a princess anymore.

“Anything?” she asks, raising a brow. “Then why don’t you run along to the brothel down by the docks. I’m sure they would even have work for a dog like you. Some men need leather as tough as their boot to chew on. Begone.” With one flick of her wrist, she waves you off.

It hurts more than it should, her words. When you cut your hair by the blade of your dagger, it felt liberating. It felt like the wind always felt on your naked back, like water falling over your head and submerging you.

Now, it feels like an ache in your tooth, decay before death.

A hand pressed tight to your yowling stomach, you shuffle away from the stand. The rest of the market is crowded, but when your eyes glance over to the shopkeeper a few paces away, he refuses to meet your gaze. The rest of them, the ones who’ve heard your begging, they do the same.

You won’t eat tonight. Maybe you won’t eat tomorrow. Perhaps your freedom will die, along with you, at the jaws of hunger.

“You alright?” A woman’s voice breaks you out of your spiraling thoughts, and when you turn to look, she’s smiling at you. Her hair is copper, sun setting on the strands as if a lonely man weaved silk out of straw. She’s dressed well for travel, a white linen dress shirt billowing out from beneath a red satin corset drawn tight around her waist. Her brown leather boots rise up to her knees, dark breeches tucked inside the laces.

“Yes,” you answer dutifully, as a princess would. Pride hot in your chest.

“Are you?” she asks again, head tilting to the side.

But you are no longer a princess.

“I… No,” you say. “No, I don’t think I am.” You wring your hands together, wanting to cover up and get out from under her watchful eyes. “I’m sorry.”

She laughs, scrunching her nose at you. “Why don’t you come sit with us? The sun is going down, it’ll only get colder tonight. We have fresh bread and fish on the fire. Come,” she says, gesturing toward a well-worn path that leads to the forest surrounding the city, still smiling at you.

And though you want so badly to say yes, to jump at the chance for food, for a fire, for a place to lay your head—for a friendly face—you are too wary.

“Why?” you ask her, taking a step back. “I’m just a beggar, you don’t know me.”

The woman stares at you for a second longer, and you’re convinced in that moment that she’ll take back her offer as quick as she handed it out. But she doesn’t. Instead, she nods her head.

“Maybe I don’t know you,” she admits, “but you don’t seem like you’re just a beggar to me. Come, join us. Just for a night, won’t you?”

It prickles the hair on the back of your neck, makes your skin crawl. Does she know who you are? Could she recognize you, hair short and face dirty and clothes bloodied? Is she hunting you, luring you into her trap with the promise of a hot meal?

“Fresh bread and roasted fish,” she reminds you.

Your stomach will be the death of you, one way or another.

“Fine,” you say, and she smiles even wider. With gentle hands, she takes your shoulder and begins to lead you down the path, away from the town, away from the stares that make your face flush with heat.

“I’m Wanda,” she tells you. “What’s your name?”

And now you realize… you don’t have a name anymore either. Your name is one that will be spoken in the search parties, whispered at funerals, calligraphed on paintings where you looked drab and beautiful.

Your name stays locked behind clenched teeth now. The dead don’t have names.

As if a god could answer unspoken prayers, a breeze smelling of salt and sea rolls through the market and the chime of hollow shells bursting against one another catches your ear. When you look, dried starfish, shriveled and dead and dyed with indigo and safflower, hang on fishing line threaded through punched holes in their arms.

“Star,” you tell her, because you are like them. Free from drowning in the ocean you called home, hung out on a line to dry and die. “My name is… Star.”

Wanda’s eye starts to move to where your gaze lands, and you quickly snap away from the seashell chimes that blow in the wind. Her smile turns uneasy, brows narrowed as though she can see right through you. Maybe she can, with her eyes green and curious. Knowing eyes, your mother would have called them.

Hunting eyes, your father would have said.

“Come on then, Star.” She presses you forward, still gentle somehow. “Let’s get some food in you.”

By the time you reach Wanda’s camp, canvas tents pitched and a blazing fire spitting embers onto the barren ground, the sun sits on the horizon and sinks below. Wanda was right—it’s gotten colder as the light of day weans away.

You can hear them from afar, laughing and joking and strumming what sounds to be a lute, but you don’t expect them to look familiar at all. However, in the bright glow of the flames, the dark skin of the gap-toothed man finds you at the same time that he seems to. His smile is just as wide as it was when he bumped into you.

“Hey!” he calls, standing up from the ground and taking a few steps toward you and Wanda, meeting you there. “You bringing strays in again, Wan?”

“Perhaps,” she tells him, matching his grin. “This is Star, and she’s not from here.” You never told her that. “I thought we could share a meal with her for tonight.”

The other man, broody and broad from earlier too, scoffs and pretends that you don’t exist. You’ve never been scorned like that before, not so brazenly. If a member of court snuffed you like that, their head would roll from the block.

But you have no court anymore.

“I’m Sam,” the man in front of you says, holding out his hand. “Wanda and I run this traveling band of idiots. Welcome, Star. I hope you’re hungry.”

God, your stomach hopes he has enough to feed you.

You take his hand, almost shyly, and barely grip it. “A pleasure to meet you, Sam. Thank you.”

Before you can pull away, Sam brings your hand to his lips and presses a chaste kiss to your dirty skin. It makes you recoil, makes you want to bolt and hide away. How could he? Many men and women alike have kissed your knuckles, but always freshly washed, bathed in lavender, swathed in silk. Does your skin taste of soot? Does it smell of the manure you mingled with in the back of the farmer’s cart? Does dirt not cling to your hands?

Wanda leans in close, whispering in your ear, and you think you must smell like livestock. “Sam is a charmer, watch your back.”

Another woman, dressed in leather armor and with daggers gleaming at either side of her hips, stands as well. Her hair is a shock of red, less copper than Wanda’s and more like fresh blood on snow. She doesn’t extend a hand, but her lips quirk up in something you assume to be a smile.

“I’m Natasha. Eat your fill, but don’t steal anything. I’ll have your hands for that.”

An indignant heat rushes through you, your royal blood spiking mad, but Wanda shoots her a chiding look.

“Nat, she’s not a thief. I invited her here, so I’ll take responsibility.” She nudges you with her elbow. “Nat is one of our mercenaries, protecting us weak little merchants.” Her tone is teasing, but you can’t force out a laugh to match her energy. “Our other merc is…”

Wanda trails off, her eyes darting over to the broody man still sitting near his tent. He’s sharpening his sword it looks like, still pretending you’re not here. Blatantly ignoring you.

“Well,” she says, unamused. “His name is Bucky, and he’s a bastard. Don’t mind him.”

The tight sound of the blade running over stone fills the air, sharp over the crackling embers in the fire pit. A shadow falls across his face, dark and menacing, as his eyes flick up to you for a split second. You can’t make out what color they are, not from the light that bends orange over his skin.

But you think, if he just simply smiled, he’d be more beautiful than any of the princes your father swore he would marry you off to.

Before you can say anything else, plucky notes from a lute start up again and then a silver-haired man with a boyish grin fills up your vision, stepping in front of you. His dexterous fingers move quickly over the instrument, a jaunty tune playing around the campsite. Behind him, Natasha groans and sits back down.

“Well hello there, my lady fair,” he says melodically, his crystal eyes studying your figure. “A fitting name for a starry dame.”

Wanda reaches out and smacks his shoulder. “Pietro, go away.”

Pietro’s brows shoot up, offended, as he strums his lute in a staccato. It matches the scene too well. But then his shoulders drop, the teasing gone from his visage, and he smiles warmly at you.

“My sister takes me for a flirt,” he says, and you can almost see the resemblance now in the faint creases at the corner of their eyes, the way their noses bridge. “But I’m harmless, I assure you, Lady Star.”

“You are,” Wanda deadpans, rolling her eyes and stepping toward the fire. “Get lost and let Star eat. Or better yet, why don’t you make yourself useful and go rummage up some donations from the tavern down the road, huh?”

Pietro sniffs. “You wound me, sister. Maybe I’ll go spend some coin instead.”

Shock is the only feeling you can identify within yourself right now. Maybe unease. This wasn’t what you expected when you took Wanda’s offer for a hot meal, but what had you expected at all? Certainly not a band of traveling merchants so lively as this to a beggar girl, to a stranger.

It doesn’t sit right in your stomach, not when you have no heavy emeralds hanging from your ears or gold-stacked necklaces sitting against your collar. Not when you are dressed in stolen rags and hungry enough to eat scraps.

And you almost do—eat scraps that is. You stuff bread and butter and cheese and fish down your gullet like you’ve seen the prisoners down in the dungeon do. No one laughs at you, no one comments. Only Wanda smooths her hand up and down your back as you eat, keeping silent, but soothing you anyway as if she can hear the nasty thoughts swarming your head.

You eat your fill, just as Natasha said. Bucky refuses to join by the fire while you sit with his friends, and he eats alone instead. They let you lay down by the fire and sleep, an extra straw pillow beneath your head. They say goodnight to you as though you are one of them, as though they mean it truly.

And in the morning, Wanda gives you new clothes and helps you wash your hair down in the freshwater creek in the woods. Sam feeds you bread and fresh juice from the market. Pietro plays a song that features your name. They tell you they’ll take you with them, that they’ll find you a job to do, that once upon a time, many of them were beggars just as you were.

When you help them load up their cart and everyone starts to scramble into their seats, Bucky reaches a hand down to you and helps lift you—as if you’re weightless—into the back. He doesn’t say anything to you, doesn’t look at you, doesn’t sit next to you as Sam and Natasha snap the reins against their two horses.

But his hand was warm and his grip strong as he welcomed you into your new life.

Freedom, you think, is staring at brooding bodyguards as beautiful as him.

“Come on,” he groans, a blistering look marring his face. “How many times are you gonna fuck this up?”

You huff, trying and failing to catch your breath. Sweat is pouring down your face, trickling through the river of tendons that make up your neck and disappearing down the valley of your breasts. It’s hot—unbearably hot here in this arid place, the sun beating down on your back and baking your skin.

“I’m trying,” you snap at him, back of your hand wiping the dampness from your temple. “Maybe if you were a better teacher I wouldn’t fuck it up so many times!”

With a growl, Bucky throws down the wooden sword he’s been using to teach you basic defense and takes two giant steps toward you, eyes flashing angry. You want to draw up your shoulders and cower away, want to take three steps back and flee, want to do anything but look him straight in the eye.

But once upon a time, a princess meant to marry off across the sea to secure allies, you were taught to never back down under an enemy’s stare.

Only the weak break under duress, your father said. Only the weak run from a challenge.

“What did you say to me?” he asks lowly, tone even but shivering with fury. The wooden sword in your grasp trembles.

“I said—” you spit out, “—maybe if you were a better teacher, I wouldn’t fuck it up so goddamn much!”

Bucky doesn’t hesitate. In a mere second, he reaches out and grabs you by your shirt, pulling you to him. He’s so close you can feel the warmth of his breath, see how his nostrils flare mad. You’re forced to look up at him, steeling your eyes so he doesn’t see the fear glitter in them like a solar flare.

“I don’t have to do shit for you. I offered to help you out. Got that, princess?” The way he grits your nickname out is so violent compared to how they used to shower you in praise with that title. “You think I’m a bad teacher? Go find someone that cares then.”

He forces you away with a hard push, releasing your shirt from his tight grip and watching as you stumble away. Then, for good measure, Bucky picks up the wooden sword where he dropped it and forces it over his knee, breaking it clean in two. Splinters and slivers of wood burst from the break, and he tosses it back into the dirt.

You stand there, frozen in place as the heat of the day feels as though it melts you down like wax in a brass candelabra.

Bucky has always hated you. He’s hated you from the day you joined Wanda and Sam, has protested against taking you anywhere, and always argues to drop you off and leave you in whatever random town you pass through to sell wares. And though Wanda always vouches for you, reminding Bucky that you do your share of work, Bucky never believes it.

If the caravan ever got hit by bandits, you’re pretty sure Bucky would leave you to die. And he’d probably enjoy the thought.

Whenever you ask Natasha why he hates you so much, she just shrugs. Only once have you ever gotten an answer out of her, and she merely mentioned that Bucky thought you were useless to travel with because of your lack of skills.

He’d be right. It’s why he adopted your nickname, of course. Princess.

Wanda taught you how to wash your clothes and your hair. Sam taught you to cook. Pietro hasn’t taught you anything worthwhile, but he’s definitely taught you how to win at cards. And Natasha—well, Natasha taught you how to make coin in less than morally right ways.

So he’d be right. You lacked so many skills when they first brought you along on their caravan. But he’d be so wrong too. Because you’ve worked hard to learn so much, to learn to take care of yourself and take care of the others too. Maybe you didn’t pull your weight in the first few weeks, but you caught on quickly.

And as soon as Natasha revealed this, you’d gone to Bucky and begged him to teach you self-defense. It took him a whole week to finally say yes.

Now you’ve gone and ruined it. But how many times can a person be called a fuck up? How many times can you face being called a mistake? It reminds you of a life left dead now, piles and piles of books written in different languages all stacked on your desk, your father striding from one side of the room to the other, barking out that you’ll never be a proper princess if you can’t learn to speak four languages at once.

It hurts somewhere deep in your chest, behind a locked door you refuse to uncover. A place to mourn that haunts you. The catacombs of your heart carrying your father’s tomb all heavy with marble and stone and bones.

Don’t cry, you tell yourself. Don’t you dare fucking cry.

Swallowing back a burning in your throat that tastes like salt and something mean, you turn and pick up the wooden sword you don’t know when you dropped. It’s still intact, unlike the one Bucky used. You swing it around in a movement that he taught you, taking a stance you know he’d call “too wide” until he helped you adjust, mimicking a parry and a thrust. With no partner, it just seems silly.

“Fine,” you say to no one. “I don’t need you anyway.”

Swinging that little sword, practicing those maneuvers Bucky taught you begrudgingly, you head further into the forest and away from camp. You don’t want to be near him. Don’t want him to come back and give you some half-assed excuse as to what crawled up his ass and died. Don’t want to hear him bark about your failures anymore.

Determination is running through you, hot like liquid metal. Once, when you were too small, you snuck out of the castle and ran away to town and the blacksmith there let you fan the flames of his forge. The heat was immense, hotter than anything you’d ever felt before. The embers that blew back at your face made you cry, though they didn’t singe you.

It’s what you feel now as you find a tall oak that sits wider than Bucky’s frame, bending your knees and falling into a defensive stance. You can hear his voice in your head like he’s circling behind you. Head down! Eyes up! Shift back! Twist forward!

You breathe in through your nose, out past your lips. And then you twist on your heel and lunge out to strike.

Today you’ll master this move, even if it kills you.

You’re unsure of when the sun started hanging low in the sky, or even when it started sinking below the plains. All you know is the cooling sweat down your brow, the taste of blood where you bit your tongue, the smell of upturned mulch under your boots as you strike at the bark of the tree again and again and again.

Bucky would be proud, you think. You’re sure of it. And then you wonder why you care so much about his approval—you don’t need him. You have everyone else to give a shit about you. Why does Bucky not caring make you so goddamn angry?

Not angry. Hurt.

With a battle cry that comes from the bottom of your stomach, all mean and empty, you thrash your sword against the tree’s trunk one last time and it splits with a loud snap that echoes through the darkening forest. Panting, you stare at the remains of it, littering the ground.

“See?” You huff a laugh. “I can do that too.”

There’s no answer back.

Now, you realize that the light of day is retracting from the horizon, disappearing under the earth. It’s a long walk back to camp, especially with how exhausted you are. You can’t drag your feet—not if you want to make it back before nightfall.

A memory flashes through your mind. Grand horses, a blond knight who lifts you onto the saddle and climbs behind you to take hold of the reins. A princess doesn’t walk, someone tells you, an unfamiliar voice. Your slippers are dirty.

The hem of this dress is ruined, you say to them, almost smugly.

Your mother won’t be happy, he replies, and you can almost conjure the smell clinging to his neck.

Like a ghost is tailing you, cold creeping up on your spine, you hurry off toward the edge of the forest. You need to get back to camp, the others will start to worry if you don’t show up soon. And more than that—you shiver as a cool wind blows by—you don’t want to be alone once the world dips down into the inkwell of night.

Monsters live in the woods at night, you remember your mother always telling you.

No worse than the monsters that dwell in court, your father would scoff.

Something is telling you to flee the forest.

Though every muscle, every bone in your body protests, you pick up your pace. But with the shadows moving, the sun setting, the sky turning dark as time moves, the trees start looking unfamiliar. What path did you take? Had you taken a turn before? You don’t recognize this foliage at all, are you going the wrong way?

You wince with every step, exhaustion from pushing your body so far setting further into your limbs. Panic is starting to rise in your throat, making it harder to breathe.

Violet light filters through the forest and you realize you’re lost. Chest heaving, you stop in your tracks, frozen in place, anxiety gripping you. You’re lost.

That’s when they find you.

A pair of arms wrap around your torso, pinning your arms to your side. Before you can inhale enough to scream in fear, a dirty hand covers your mouth, muffling the sound. You struggle against your attacker, but nothing gives. Nothing at all.

“Caught you,” a voice whispers in your ear. “Did you think you were safe?”

Suddenly, you can smell it. The paint as it burns, acrid and heavy. You remember it so perfectly in your mind, watching from the hidden corridor as the flames of their torch swallowed the portrait of your father.

“The king is dead,” a knight, muffled by his helm, shouted down the halls.

You never stuck around to hear the rest of their war cries.

They’re here for you. They’ve come to get you. Tracked you down to the middle of nowhere, riding along with a caravan of merchants too nice to turn away a girl who needed help. Will they kill them too? For abetting a princess whose kingdom has been conquered? Will they slash Wanda’s neck and gut Sam alive? Will Natasha fight back, only to have her neck broken as she tries to save Pietro from death?

Will Bucky curse your name as his sword clashes with a knight’s, vindicated that his words about you were true?

But when one of them steps in front of you, grinning in victory, you realize—

“Pretty little dancer girl,” he says. “I have a proposition for you.”

—it’s not them. It’s not the men who came from across the sea with promises of a golden alliance, only to behead your father in his throne and let his body bleed across the marbled floors.

These are men from the nearby town. They’re dressed in ragged clothes too nice to belong to beggars. Bandits, you think. They must be, with the swords that hang from their belts and the bows on their backs and the teeth missing in their gums. Your eyes dart across the scene, counting one, two, five, six, of them.

Too many to take on your own, if you could even pull it off. You have no weapons, know little self-defense. Bucky was right. Bucky was right.

“We saw you dancing in the market.” His hand sits on the hilt of his sword, shoulders lax and casual but still a threat. “Pretty little dancer girl, do you like it? Dancing for everyone?”

“I dance for coin,” you snarl at him.

“What about for your life?” he asks, lips curling into a menacing smile. “We want you to come dance for us. We’ll keep you fed, keep you dressed—not much, but it’ll do.” He laughs, toothless, and his men chuckle along with him.

You think back to earlier that afternoon when you twirled through the market streets dressed in gauzy fabric swathed across your shoulders, sparkling hem trailing the dusty cobbled paths. The hem of this dress is ruined, it echoes in your head as your hips move to the strum of Pietro’s lute. Your mother won’t be happy, it follows you through the crowd as you smile at the men who watch and throw gold coins at your slippered feet.

Mother’s never happy with me, you think you must say to the knight who smells of warm clove.

She is, you think he must have said back to you. She loves you very much, Princess.

The sound of a man screaming snaps you out of that faraway memory. Your head snaps to where blood spurts from a new wound, where it drips fat onto the forest floor. Swords rush from their sheaths as the bandits prepare for battle, but you know they’ll be too slow.

Because Bucky’s blade is pulled from the corpse and he slashes it in an arc, fatally wounding two more men in one sweep.

He’s beautiful, and you hate it. Those blue eyes of his, like sapphire gems set in a silver crown, are narrowed in focus and fury. Not the kind of anger that he directs at you, glaring down at you and making you feel small beneath his stature. It’s something more feral than that as he slices through another bandit with precision, a wild strand of his long hair falling from its messy braid.

The man who’s been holding you drops his grasp and lets you fall to the ground in favor of fighting, pulling his bow from his back. Without even thinking about the consequences, you lunge at his legs and throw him off balance, taking him down. Bucky’s blade is quick to follow, sent straight down the bandit’s throat.

Warm blood splatters your cheek. It smells like the servants who littered the castle halls, all trying to run from certain death.

All is quiet in the forest. The sun has disappeared beneath the horizon, leaving only the moon’s light to shine down through the canopy of the woods. You stare at the bodies, chest tight and breathing labored.

He moves before you do, sinking to where you’re collapsed among the leaves. His hands swallow your shoulders, grip tight but not painful, as he looks down at you.

“Are you alright?” There’s something in his eyes, blue and bright and not so steely now, that you’ve never seen before. Is it worry? “Star—God’s sake, Star—Are you alright?”

You blink up at him, sucking in a shaky breath. “I’m—I’m okay, Bucky. I’m sorry.” Suddenly, your eyes burn like they did as you fled from your home, smoke trailing behind you and stinging until tears flooded your lashes. They do now, too, even though there’s no smoke to be seen. “I’m so sorry, fuck.”

Bucky pulls you into his embrace as you sit there, trembling, hiccupping on apologies. It’s the first time he’s touched you longer than a few seconds to adjust your stance or help you onto the cart before the caravan pulls out of town. He holds you against him, letting you bury your nose in the cotton of his shirt.

“You’re okay,” he whispers gently. More gentle than you’ve heard him before. “You alright now, I’ve got you. Fuck, Star. What were you thinking? Why did you come so far into the forest? Don’t talk now, I’ve got you.”

Like a child clinging to their mother, you cry against Bucky’s chest, wailing into the night. You wonder if you ever cried to your father before, if you ever hugged him before he lost his crown when his head rolled across the castle floor. A wolf howls in the distance, somewhere far off, and its mates join in.

Bucky scoops you up into his arms, cradling you to him, and begins to navigate back out of the woods. He finds the path much easier than you could and carries you to camp still murmuring soothing words to you.

You curl your fingers into the fabric of his shirt, right above where his heart lay beating in his chest, and hope he realizes that it’s a promise. A swear.

(Your return, by the way, is met with many, many hugs. Wanda cries. Sam swears not to let you out of his sight. Pietro apologizes for ever suggesting you and him perform for money. Natasha watches Bucky very, very carefully.)

Things change, slowly. And by things, you mean Bucky.

After the day he found you in the woods, he hardly lets you out of his sight it seems. When you go out around the towns you travel to, he insists on coming, usually with some excuse that is so transparent it doesn’t seem like an excuse anymore. When you go to the streets and dance, Pietro behind you whistling on his flute or plucking his lute, Bucky is never far from the crowds, watching you with burning eyes. He asked you, once, if you would stop dancing. That Wanda and Sam always made enough money, that you could learn to play Pietro’s harp, that you could do anything else.

But you said no. Dancing was the only thing you had, the one thing you loved, the one thing that could pull your weight on the caravan.

He had looked so stricken by your words—his own words thrown back in his face—that he never asked again.

So you dance, and you dance, and Bucky watches. You make coin, bring it to the market stalls and buy yourself honeyed treats, and offer him one. He always takes what you give him, never says thank you, but he always sits on the cobble and eats with you before he walks you back to camp.

He teaches you more, too.

The wooden swords from so long ago never make another appearance. Instead, Bucky teaches you hand-to-hand combat for self-defense. Many times, he puts you in the same hold that the bandit kept you trapped in and murmurs soft commands in your ear on how to break it.

Bucky doesn’t go easy on you, but you learn anyway. And the first day you break his hold is the first day you see him grin all toothy and gorgeous—at you, and no one else.

And one day, the day that will be burned into your memory forever, he presents you with a dagger.

“It’s sharp,” he warns you as your fingers run over the blade, unsure of what to say. “It’s meant to save your life. Maybe I won’t be there next time.”

Your head snaps up, eyes locking onto his. “You won’t?”

Bucky stares at you, an impossible look flashing over his visage.

“I will,” he promises. But he presses the dagger further into your hands and closes your fingers over the hilt.

Bucky changes slowly, and with him, so do you.

When the caravan pulls into Izark, a seaside town that’s almost reminiscent of the one you first met Wanda in, you’re expecting it to be like any other town that you travel to. You’ll head to the markets, your friends will set up shop, and you and Pietro will dance until the sun goes down. Maybe you’ll perform in the streets, maybe in whatever tavern will let you, but you’ll dance until you’re gasping for air and smiling so brightly it rivals the light of day.

But Izark isn’t like that. Almost as soon as your crew heads past the gates of the city, you realize something is happening. People are bustling through the center of town, the markets crowded not with stalls, but with tall arches decorated with fresh flowers and twine.

In fact, there are a lot more flowers than those on the arches. Flowers cover nearly every surface of the city, and people carry bundles in their arms. You glance at Wanda, who shrugs.

After asking around, Sam finds out that Izark’s annual Flower Festival is tonight, and that everyone is welcome to join. It’s something you’ve never considered before—that you could join in on a festival where you weren’t sitting below your father’s throne, watching, but never participating. Excitement, like lightning, crackles through your body.

It’s decided, right then and there, that you’ll all stop here for the night and enjoy the festival, then try and catch some travelers on their way out in the morning to make some coin. Pietro rambles nonstop about the beautiful ladies he’ll surely find until Wanda smacks him quiet.

Later, when you’re perusing through the shops, Natasha comes up behind you and blocks you from Bucky’s view.

“You should buy yourself a new dress for tonight,” she suggests, hand running over the silk fabrics you’ve been looking at. You don’t wear silk anymore, only cotton.

You raise a brow at her. “Why would I do that? It’s only a night. One of my other dresses will do, won’t it?”

Natasha hums. “But it’s been so long since you’ve worn something nice, hasn’t it, princess?” She says it with meaning, with weight, pulling a gown of gold out from the rack of others as if to show you. Her eyes don’t meet yours, her body language so nonchalant.

Your mouth is dry. The scraps of golden, burned, charred fabric of your past life are buried deep in your bag, your hands unable to rid themselves of it.

“Gold’s your color,” Natasha says. And then, as quickly as she arrived, she’s gone again. You’re left staring at the dress in silence, unsure of what to say or do. Unsure of what this means. Unsure of everything.

But when you glance back, to catch her, your gaze falls on Bucky. He’s standing outside the shop, leaned against a stone alleyway, arms crossed over his chest and staring at you. As soon as you meet eyes, he glances away—almost shyly—but doesn’t move from his spot. He’s always watching over you, isn’t he? Would he watch over you at the festival too?

When you step out of the shop, a package wrapped in burlap and tied with twine, you smile at him. “Were you waiting on me?”

“No,” he gruffs, still not meeting your eyes. “Let’s go, the others already left.”

And then he pushes off the wall, gesturing for you to start walking. Shoulder to shoulder, Bucky just one step behind you to match your stride, you head back to camp. The gown stays stuffed under your arm, and you wonder if you’ll have the courage to wear it.

It’s beautiful, you think. Or maybe it’s the sweet wine Pietro’s let you sip on that makes the stars in the night sky look so much like the diamonds you used to wear around your neck. The world spins as he twirls you around the town square, the gossamer of your dress floating on air and revealing your leather boots as they click against the stone.

Freedom, you think, is dancing to music played loud by the common people, fresh flowers braided into your grown-out hair in a crown much lighter than the ones you’ve worn, as a silly boy grasps your hands and spins you out in a crowd.

In this moment, bright and pure and happy, you forget that your name isn’t Star. You forget that you come from a kingdom that burned in war. You forget everything that isn’t the here and now as you dance beneath the moonlight. Fire burns the torches that light the festival and the smell of smoke doesn’t make you dizzy with memories of death.

You feel reborn—This life is the one you were always meant to lead.

The music comes to an end and everyone stops, laughing and panting and clapping their hands for the musicians. Pietro’s gaze seems to spot a young, pretty woman in the crowd of dancers, and he gives you a wink and pulls away. With no partner and the music starting back up, you turn and look back.

And there he is, as always, watching you dance. But this time, he’s moving toward you, that unreadable look on his face yet again.

Bucky approaches you, clearing his throat and offering his hand. “Would you—”

“I shall,” you answer before he even finishes, placing your hand in his as daintily as a princess should, and he looks surprised. Like he didn’t expect you to say such a thing. If the glow of the lamps and torches weren’t so bright, you’d think his cheeks might be the slightest bit pink.

Without another word, Bucky gently leads you into the crowd, his warm hand falling to your waist and pulling you just a touch closer. It makes you swallow, makes you wonder if he likes the feeling of the silk under his palm. You think about all the times he threw you down on the ground while he taught you to fight, all the times he refused to recognize your existence, all the times he was so standoffish to you.

And then you think about all the times he protected you, watched over you, made your heart race in your chest when he praised you in the little ways.

It’s racing right now, too. Hammering against your ribs, chasing something on a faraway horizon you’re not sure even exists. But you want it. You want it.

Whatever it is, you want it.

The music that the band plays isn’t slow at all. It’s jaunty and quick and the people laugh and dance and sing around you. But Bucky keeps you close, closer than even a prince would be allowed to at a ball, and moves you in gentle circles. It’s slow, and the way his blue eyes gaze into yours is heady. It feels like time has slowed between the two of you, matching the patient crawl that was your relationship.

His lips part to speak, tongue darting out nervously to wet his lips. “You look…”

Beautiful, you hope he says.

“...like sunlight,” he says instead. “You look like a ray from the goddamn sun, princess.” His hand, careful and soft, pulls at the thin, gauzy layer of fabric that sits atop the silk gown.

It makes something hot—not anger, not fear, not anything you’ve felt before—rise up within you.

“Thank you,” you say quietly, cheeks feeling flushed by that unfamiliar warmth in your chest. “It’s not—It’s new, I don’t know why I bought it.”

Bucky flashes you that rare smile, lips curled but pressed together. “I’m glad you did.”

And that’s it. That’s all. Bucky dances you around and around and around in tight circles, slow and not in much of a rush, as the music plays on all jovial and quick. It doesn’t seem to bother him much that he’s dancing out of rhythm, and when he pulls you even closer to his body, you don’t seem to mind it either.

After another song, his eyes catch yours again, and his adam’s apple bobs in his throat.

“Will you walk with me? Not far, just—just to the water.” There’s a hint of something else, something nervous maybe, in his voice.

“Yes,” you say, because why would you ever say no to him?

Bucky seems to relax at this, clearing his throat as he pulls away just a step. Your hand, that’s been clasped in his as you dance, falls to the crook of his elbow easily. It’s a perfect fit. As you both walk through the square, out to the edge of the town, slipping through toward the docks, the music fades into the distance until it’s just a hum in your ears. Further out here, the lamps go unlit, and the water is blacker than the night sky all lit up with stars.

Bucky shifts, turning to you and taking your hands in his. They’re so much bigger than yours, swallowing your fingers up in his warm palms. He stares at the ground for a moment, as if trying to figure out what he wants to say. He’s always been a man of few words. When he speaks, he’s usually sat on his thoughts for a long while. And now, it seems he wants to sit on them for just a little longer.

When he does speak, his voice is quiet. “I’m sorry.”

Your head falls to the side, confusion marring your face. “For what?”

He swallows hard again. “For the way I treated you when we first met. If I could take it back, I would. I’m—I’m ashamed of the things I said, the way I must’ve made you feel. I just… don’t take kindly to strangers.”

“I know,” you tell him softly, squeezing his hands. “I know, Bucky. It’s alright.”

“It’s not,” he presses. “I made you feel useless—”

“I was useless,” you cut him off. “I didn’t know a thing! I was stupid, naive, and completely worthless—”

And now Bucky cuts you off, his hand cupping the back of your head and bringing your face to his, lips meeting yours in a kiss. It isn’t rough, but forceful. Steady. Unyielding and unwilling to give up. It’s so Bucky.

It’s so perfect. So wonderful. Better than you ever imagined it might be.

Freedom, you think, tastes like Bucky’s lips against yours.

His lips are chapped, his scruff rough against your skin, but his lips move as if he’s trying to say he wants you. And when he pulls away, his forehead resting against yours as you both catch your breath, he says it, too.

“You aren’t any of those things,” he tells you. “And I should have given you a better chance. I’m sorry. Will you forgive me?”

How the hell could he ask that when he just kissed you senseless? It burns you something fierce, and you reach up to grab the back of his neck and pull him down for another. And another. And you keep him there for another, lips melding into one, noses bumping into each other, hands scrambling to feel something on one another, something, anything.

“Forgive you?” You laugh sweetly at the thought. “Bucky, I think I’ve gone and fallen in love with you.”

He looks stunned for a moment, blue eyes all wide and beautiful, a look you’ve never seen before on him. When he doesn’t reply, just stares down at you, you realize you’ve gone and ruined it just like before. In the end, you really were just a naive girl, weren’t you?

But Bucky takes your hands again, raises them to his lips, and presses a kiss to your knuckles. His eyes are closed as he takes a moment to think of what to answer with, or maybe he’s simply enjoying the instance you two are locked in.

“Good,” he finally says. “That’s good. Because I’ve been in love with you for a while, Star.” He leans in to kiss you again, and it’s so sweet, but it’s so painful, so fucking painful, aching like a leaking wound in your chest where he’s gone and reached into your chest and pulled your heart from where it belongs.

Because that’s not your name.

Your hand falls to his collarbone, pushing him away gently. His brows draw together, looking confused, thinking he must have done something wrong.

“Bucky…” you whisper, staring at the hollow of his throat because you can’t bear to look at him. “Star—Star isn’t my real name.”

“I know that.” He ducks down, trying to catch your gaze. “Couldn’t be your real name, I knew. But I don’t care where you came from, princess. Don’t care what kinda past you’ve got. Just want you, is all.” His voice is almost pleading. A tone you’ve never heard from him before.

It breaks your heart into pieces, makes you want to believe him. Because you want to tell him all of it. Want to tell him about the burning grounds, the paintings they set on fire, the people they set alight. You want him to know your father’s name, your mother’s name, the name they chanted as they conquered your kingdom.

You want to tell him your name.

“Can I…” You inhale deeply, trying to find courage somewhere in your bones. “Can I tell you my name, Bucky?”

His eyes meet yours in a clash of color, a hint of worry behind those stormy blues, but he nods. “‘Course you can. I want to—I want to know. I want to know everything about you, want to love every part of you, if you’ll let me.” He says it like truth, like he wants nothing more than this one simple thing for the rest of his life.

There it is—the little bit of courage you need.

And right when you’re about to say it, a name that belongs to the dead, unfamiliar on your tongue, someone else calls it out for you.

Your eyes snap to a figure cloaked in black, every vein in your body seizing as the stranger comes closer. Bucky steps in front of you, a hand on his sword, ready to jump into action to protect you.

But the figure pulls back his hood, revealing a head of blonde hair and crystal blue eyes.

“Princess,” he calls to you, eyes boring into you. “I’ve finally found you, Princess. It’s time to come home—Your kingdom needs you.” The brooch that holds his cloak together is made of your family crest, something you thought you’d never see again.

“Steve?” you ask, unable to breathe.

“Your people need you,” he repeats, face grim. “They need their queen.”