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Varnish and Bone

Summary: You're a governess who takes a position in a grand, unnervingly still estate, only to find your employer is a reclusive painter with rules, locked doors, and a gaze that lingers like a bruise. As fascination turns to tension, you uncover whispers of a curse woven into his art… and realizes some hungers don’t feed on blood.

Wordcount: 22.3k *coughs*

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Female Reader (no use of Y/N)

Warnings: vampire bucky (non-blood), cursed artist AU, artist AU, nanny AU, human x immortal, gothic romance, angst with a happy(ish) ending, lovers in denial, mutual pining, forbidden attraction, reincarnation, past lives, haunted house vibes, dark fairytale vibes, hurt/comfort, emotional slowburn, domestic moments, soft ending, angst and emotional distress, death & grief (past loss, mourning), mentions of dying and mortality, non-graphic illness, physical decline, possessive thoughts / fixation, power imbalance (employer/employee dynamic), forced separation / breakup, emotional manipulation (cruel words said “to protect”), invasion of privacy, threat of life-drain and non-consensual harm (attempted/avoided), fire, nightmares / flashback-like dreams, dissociation / fragmented memories (reincarnation)

Elixir's Arcade Event: Two Pairs with human x immortal + artist AU + nanny AU + lovers in denial

A/N: The notion of immortal and artist immediately made me think of Dorian Gray. Maybe I went a little overboard with this story, but I didn't want the "classic" vampire story. Cassie betaed read this as usual. Also, I want to say that, for once, I'm oddly proud of that story.

Masterlist

The lane narrowed until it stopped pretending it belonged to the map.

Hedges rose on either side like damp walls, their leaves blackened by rain. The driver said nothing as the tyres hissed over gravel. Mist clung low to the ground, softening the world into watercolor, and somewhere beyond it iron waited – an old gate, heavy and ornate, as if it had been forged less to welcome than to warn.

When it finally appeared, it did not creak.

It opened with the quiet obedience of something well-oiled and long-practiced. The pillars were stained with age and lichen; the family name, carved deep into stone, looked recently scrubbed, the way a bruise looked after someone tried to hide it with powder.

The house sat at the end of the drive like a thought no one finished.

Tall, wide, expensive in the way of money that had never been rushed. Windows stared out over the lawn with the blank patience of eyes that had seen too many arrivals and no departures worth remembering. There were no lights in the upper floors. There were no voices. Even the rain seemed to fall more quietly, as if the property had its own rules. When you stepped out of the car, the air took you by the throat. It smelled of wet stone and cold earth and – faintly, underneath it all – oil paint. Turpentine. Something sharp and almost sweet, like a memory you could not place. A man waited at the foot of the steps. He stood too straight to be merely a butler; he had the posture of someone who had been trained to disappear and chose, instead, to endure. His hair was silver at the temples, his suit dark and immaculate. “You must be the new governess,” he said, and his voice did not echo. “Welcome to the Barnes estate.” He did not offer his hand. You did not offer yours. There were hierarchies here, visible even in politeness. “I’m–” you began. “I know your name,” he replied smoothly, as if names were paperwork and paperwork was, in this house, an instrument of control. “This way.” Inside, the warmth hit you last. The entrance hall was vast, paneled in dark wood that drank light instead of reflecting it. A chandelier hung overhead like a frozen spill of crystal, the kind of opulence that seemed to have forgotten how to be joyful. Your footsteps fell on a runner that should have muffled sound, yet every heel-click felt too loud, too alive. There were paintings everywhere. Not the cheerful landscapes meant to prove good taste. Portraits, mostly. Faces turned away at the last second, mouths half-open, eyes caught in the precise moment before a thought became a confession. They were old and new and impossible to date, and you found yourself slowing without meaning to, your gaze snagging on brushwork so fine it looked like skin. “You are not to touch the artwork,” the man said, as if he had heard the change in your breathing. “I wasn’t going to.” He paused beside a narrow table where a letter lay neatly arranged with a sealed envelope. Beside it sat a small bell, antique brass. “My name is Jarvis,” he continued. “If you require assistance, you will ring and someone will come. Meals are served at eight, one, and seven. Housekeeping follows a schedule. Accounts are to be balanced every Friday. Staff wages are handled through me.” You nodded, cataloguing each instruction. This part you understood. Rules were comfort. Rules were something you could hold. “One rule above all,” Jarvis added, his tone unchanging. “The studio is to remain closed. You are not to enter it under any circumstances.” “Studio,” you repeated, and tasted the word like it might tell you more. “Yes.” His eyes flicked to the side – just once, just enough to betray the presence of a door. It stood at the end of the hall, darker wood than the surrounding paneling, with a lock that looked newer than anything else in the house. No dust lay on the threshold. Someone used it. Someone stood there often enough to keep it clean. “Mr. Barnes does not like to be disturbed,” Jarvis said. “Not while he… works.” “I was told he hasn’t painted in months,” you said before you could stop yourself. Jarvis’s face did not change. Only the air did – tightening, like a drawstring pulled. “People say many things,” he replied, and then stepped aside. “Your room is prepared.” You followed him up the staircase, past more portraits, past a landing where a tall mirror should have been and was not. The space was empty but for a narrow console table and a vase of flowers that had begun to brown at the edges.

No mirror. You noticed, and in the noticing, something in you went still. Your room was on the second floor, overlooking the grounds. It was comfortable in a way that suggested it had been arranged for someone else and left, waiting, for years. The bed was made perfectly. A small sitting area faced a cold fireplace. Your trunk sat at the foot, already carried up. Jarvis handed you a key. “This locks your door,” he said. “You will find a list of duties inside the desk drawer. If you have questions, bring them to me.” “And Mr. Barnes?” you asked. Jarvis’s gaze sharpened by a fraction. “Mr. Barnes will summon you if he wishes to speak.” He left without another word. For a moment, you stood alone in the quiet and listened. The house did not creak. It did not settle. It was too still for a building this old, like a body holding its breath. You unpacked with the brisk efficiency of someone who refused to be unsettled, folded your dresses into drawers, set your toiletries in the washroom, straightened the already-straightened chair by the desk. You checked the duty list.

It was, as promised, thorough. Meals. Staff oversight. Supplies. House order. “Ensure Mr. Barnes maintains proper nourishment.” “Discourage excessive isolation.” “Do not permit visitors without consent.” It read less like a job description and more like a set of instructions for keeping something delicate from breaking. By the time the clock downstairs chimed seven, you had rehearsed professionalism like armor. You found the dining room by scent. Roast chicken, potatoes, vegetables still steaming as they were arranged in silver dishes. The table could have seated twelve. Two places were set. Only one was occupied. He sat at the far end as if distance might serve him. James Barnes did not look like any employer you had ever met, and not because of wealth. There was an oddness to him that had nothing to do with tailored clothes and everything to do with the way he inhabited them – like a man wearing his own body out of habit rather than ownership. He rose when you entered, but the movement was so smooth it made you think of a blade being drawn. His hair was dark and slightly too long, falling forward near his cheekbones. His eyes were a vivid blue that seemed to reflect light instead of producing it. His face was handsome, yes, but there was a hollow under it, an exhaustion that did not belong to sleepless nights. When he looked at you, his attention landed like a hand on your throat. Not rough. Not cruel. Just… sure. “You’re the governess,” he said. Not a question. You held his gaze because looking away would feel like weakness. “Yes, sir. Thank you for having me.” The corner of his mouth twitched, as if the phrase amused him. “Sit,” he said. You sat at the opposite end, not because he offered, but because the chair was there and the distance felt necessary. Servants moved quietly, refilling water, placing food, never lingering. They did not speak to you. They did not speak to him. It was like watching people orbit a star that did not want their light. He lifted his fork, paused, and set it down again. You waited three seconds. Five. Then you cleared your throat lightly. “Will you be eating, Mr. Barnes?” His gaze snapped to you, sharp enough to cut. “Are you going to watch me chew?” “I’m going to make sure you don’t starve,” you replied, the words calm even as your pulse tried to climb. “That is, as far as I understand, what you hired me for.” His eyes narrowed. “I did not hire you.” “Your household did.” “Jarvis did,” he corrected, as if Jarvis were a force of nature rather than a man “And yet,” you said, tipping your chin a fraction, “I’m here. The food is here. And you haven’t touched it.” Silence thickened between you, heavy as velvet. When he finally spoke, his voice was softer, and therefore more dangerous. “You’re not my mother.” “No,” you agreed. “I’m paid. That means I have fewer feelings about your objections.” A laugh escaped him before he could stop it. It was brief. It sounded unused. His expression tightened immediately afterward, as if laughter was an indulgence he could not afford. He picked up his fork, speared a piece of potato, and ate it with the unenthusiastic precision of someone taking medicine.

You did not smile. You did not let yourself. But something loosened in your chest – relief, or victory, or the strange satisfaction of having made an impossible man do something human. He ate three bites and pushed the plate away. “That will be all,” he said. “It will not,” you replied, and the words surprised even you with their steadiness. “You can eat more.” His eyes flashed. “You have no authority here.” “I have a list of duties,” you said, and reached into the pocket of your skirt. You pulled out the folded paper, placed it beside your plate with careful neatness. “This one is underlined.” His gaze dropped, landed on the page, and for a moment something changed in his face. Not anger. Fear. It was gone so quickly you might have imagined it, except your skin remembered. He pushed back his chair, stood, and the room seemed to tilt around him, as if the house itself leaned closer to listen. “You will not go near the studio,” he said. You blinked. “I didn’t mention the studio.” “You won’t,” he corrected, and his eyes were cold now, the grey turning to storm. “You won’t ask about it. You won’t look at it. You won’t touch the door. If you value your position here, you will pretend it does not exist.” The words were too intense for a simple room. Your mouth went dry. “Understood.” He stared at you a second longer, as if measuring the shape of your obedience, then turned and left the dining room without waiting for dismissal. The servants moved again. Plates were cleared. The food disappeared. Your own appetite, which had been there a moment ago, evaporated. Later, when you lay in bed with the curtains drawn against the dark, you found that sleep came only in scraps. The house remained too quiet. At some point past midnight, you sat up, unsure what had pulled you from dreams. You listened. Rain tapped gently on the glass. The wind moved through trees like an animal trying not to be heard. And then… A sound. Not the creak of floorboards. Not the settling of old wood. A soft, rhythmic whisper. Bristle against canvas. Your breath caught. You slipped out of bed, bare feet silent on the rug, and cracked your door open just enough to see the corridor. Darkness pooled there, deep and patient, but it did not swallow everything; moonlight spilled in pale rectangles across the floor. The sound came again. Brush. Pause. Brush. It was not loud. It was not frantic. It was steady, intimate, like someone praying in a language only they understood. You eased into the hallway. The air was colder out here, and under the cold, that same sharp-sweet scent waited – turpentine, oil, something living trapped inside something dead. You did not go far. You did not have to. At the end of the hall, the studio door stood like a sealed mouth. There was no light leaking from beneath it. And yet you heard it clearly now, the quiet scrape of bristles on stretched fabric, patient and precise. You remembered Jarvis’s voice when you had let your thoughts slip about Mister Barnes not painting: People say many things. You remembered the way Bucky’s eyes had hardened at the mention of the studio, as if you had reached for a wound. The brush moved again. Your hand lifted without permission, hovering in the air as though it already knew the shape of the door. You stopped yourself. You lowered it. You went back to your room and shut the door with care, heart thudding as if you had run. In the dark, under the covers, you pressed your fingers to your wrist as if checking for something – pulse, warmth, proof that you were still entirely your own. You told yourself it was none of your business. You told yourself, very firmly, that you would follow the rules. And somewhere down the hall, behind a door that was never to be opened, a brush kept moving, stealing something you could not yet name from the night.

The studio door became a geography.

You tried not to look at it, the way you tried not to look at a bruise on someone else’s skin, but it pulled at your attention all the same – an unseen current, a quiet insistence. Every time you crossed the hall, your eyes slid toward the darker wood, the newer lock, the clean line of its threshold as though someone brushed dust away with devotion.

In the mornings, the house smelled of coffee and polished floors and something faintly medicinal. By noon, it smelled of paper and old books and the damp that no amount of wealth could bully out of stone. But at odd hours – when the corridors were empty, when your footsteps were the only proof you existed – the air shifted.

Turpentine. Oil. A sweetness like cut fruit left too long on a plate.

It made your mouth water in a way that had nothing to do with hunger.

You began to measure the house by that door: how far it was from the kitchen, the library, your own room. How quickly you could reach it if something happened. How quickly he could.

It was ridiculous. You knew it was ridiculous. You had been hired to keep order, not to develop obsessions.

And yet.

On the third day, you found him in the study before breakfast, staring at a fire that had burned down to ash without ever warming the room.

He sat in a leather chair with his legs crossed, sleeves rolled to his forearms, one hand around a cup that had gone cold. The lamplight turned his face into something carved – sharp and pale, as if the night had filed him down.

He did not look up when you entered. You knew he had heard you anyway.

“Mr. Barnes,” you said, and kept your voice practical because it was the only thing between you and the strange, electric pull in your chest. “I would like to see where you work.”

His fingers tightened around the cup. A small thing, a betraying thing.

“No,” he replied.

You waited. “No…?”

“No,” he repeated, flat and final.

You had expected resistance. You had not expected the immediate cold that filled the word, as if a door inside him had slammed shut.

“It would help me,” you said carefully, “to understand your schedule. Your needs. If you are going to be–”

“Supervised,” he cut in, and finally lifted his gaze.

It hit you like a hand at the small of your back.

His eyes were blue but not soft. They were stormwater in a stone basin – still until disturbed, then dangerous. He looked at you the way he looked at the portraits in the hall: like you were a question he did not want to answer.

“I don’t have needs,” he said.

“You eat,” you replied. “Occasionally.”

His mouth twitched with something that might have been humor if it had ever been allowed to grow.

“I am not a child,” he said.

“No,” you agreed. “Children are easier.”

Something flickered in his expression then – an irritation that did not quite hide… recognition. As if you had said something he had heard before, in another voice, in another century.

His gaze dipped, unintentional, to your hands.

You realized, with a sudden chill, that he was memorizing you in pieces. The curve of your knuckles. The line of your wrist where your sleeve shifted when you moved.

He caught himself doing it.

You saw it happen – the moment his attention jerked away as if he had touched a hot stove. He set the cup down too quickly, coffee sloshing darkly against porcelain.

“The studio is not open,” he said, and there was an edge now, sharpened by fear. “It will not be open. Do you understand?”

You held your ground. “I understand that you don’t want me there.”

“That is not what I said.”

You swallowed. “Then tell me what you meant.”

His jaw worked once, as if he ground his teeth on the inside of his mouth.

“You are not to ask again,” he said.

Silence stretched.

Then you nodded, because you were employed, because you were sensible, because you were not supposed to be the sort of person who pushed.

But as you turned to leave, his voice followed you, low and rough around the edges of something unspoken.

“And don’t linger near the door.”

You froze in the threshold.

You had not mentioned the door.

You did not turn around. You did not give him the satisfaction of seeing you flinch.

“All right,” you said evenly.

Behind you, you felt his gaze like a weight.

That evening, the house developed a heartbeat.

It happened slowly, the way dusk bled into shadow outside the windows, the way servants moved with their murmured footsteps and lit lamps that could not quite cut the dark. Jarvis informed you, as he had before, that Mr. Barnes would not be taking supper.

You found the tray in the kitchen ten minutes later, untouched. Soup cooling under a silver lid, bread turning stale at the edges.

You stared at it until your irritation became a decision.

You carried the tray yourself.

The corridor upstairs was empty. The portraits watched you pass, their eyes frozen in paint, their mouths forever on the edge of speech. When you reached his door, you knocked once – firm, not hesitant.

No answer.

You knocked again.

A pause.

Then, from inside, his voice: “Go away.”

You tightened your grip on the tray. “No.”

Silence.

You heard movement – footsteps, a chair dragging slightly against wood, a soft exhale like someone bracing.

The door opened just enough for you to see him.

He looked worse in the lamplight. Not sick, exactly – something older than sickness. His hair was slightly dishevelled as if he had run his hands through it too many times. His shirt collar sat open, no tie, the skin at his throat too exposed for a man who liked distance.

His eyes went immediately to the tray.

Then to you.

“Stop doing that,” he said.

“Doing what?” you asked, though you knew.

“Acting like you…” He stopped, swallowed, and the muscles in his jaw tightened until you wondered if they would crack. “Like you care.”

You stared at him. “I do care. That doesn’t mean I’m in love with you.”

Something in his face went very still.

You realized your mistake a half-second too late. It was the kind of sentence that should have sounded light, dismissive, a joke to cut tension – except your voice had come out too honest.

His gaze sharpened, then shuttered. “You shouldn’t say things you don’t understand.”

“I understand hunger,” you replied, and stepped closer before he could stop you. The scent of him hit you – clean soap over something darker, that same sharp sweetness that haunted the halls. “And I understand stubbornness. Eat.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“You’re lying.”

His eyes flashed. “You think you know me?”

“I think you’re trying to disappear,” you said, and the words softened without your permission. “And I was hired to stop you.”

For a moment, he did not move. He looked at you as if you had spoken a language he remembered but had tried to forget.

Then, abruptly, he stepped back, opening the door wider. Not an invitation. A concession.

You entered his sitting room. It was colder than the rest of the house, the fireplace unlit, the curtains drawn tight against the world. There were no mirrors here either, only dark wood and books and the faint, inescapable smell of paint.

You set the tray on the table and lifted the lid.

Soup steamed weakly, like it had already resigned itself.

Bucky sat across from you, elbows on his knees, hands clasped loosely as if he was holding himself together by habit.

He stared at the bowl for a long time.

“You’ll watch,” he said, and it was not a question.

“You’ll eat,” you replied.

A sound that might have been a laugh escaped him – more breath than amusement. Then he picked up the spoon and began, slow and careful, as if each swallow was negotiation.

You watched his hands more than his face.

There were faint streaks of paint at the edges of his nails. A smear of blue along the side of his index finger, half-scrubbed. When he noticed your gaze, he curled his hand inward, hiding it.

“You’ve been working,” you said quietly.

“I told you,” he replied, voice low, “not to ask.”

“I didn’t ask where,” you pointed out.

He looked up then, and fatigue peeled his distance back enough for you to see the raw thing underneath.

“You shouldn’t want to know,” he said.

“Why?” you asked before you could stop yourself.

He held your gaze for a long, measured beat.

Then he spoke as if answering a question he had been asked centuries ago.

“Because it ruins things,” he said.

Your throat tightened. “Art?”

His mouth twisted. “If only it were that simple.”

He set the spoon down. He looked past you, toward the wall, toward the space where the studio would be if you could see through wood and rules.

“People think painting is gentle,” he continued, and his voice did something strange – flattened into something too calm, too controlled. “They think it’s hands and light and color. They think it’s a hobby. Something you do to soothe yourself.”

You leaned forward, unable not to. “Isn’t it?”

His gaze snapped back to you. “No.”

The word landed heavy.

“It’s hunger,” he said. “It’s need. It’s the only way I… keep breathing.”

You blinked. “That’s dramatic.”

His smile was brief and sharp. “Is it?”

You hesitated. The sensible thing would have been to retreat into duties, into schedules, into safe conversation.

But his exhaustion made him reckless. His insomnia loosened his tongue.

And you were too curious to be careful.

“I think art can be a comfort,” you said, voice softer than you intended. “A way of… holding something without destroying it.”

Something stirred behind his eyes. Pain, maybe. Or memory.

“Comfort,” he repeated, as if he had forgotten the taste of the word. “That’s a nice lie.”

“It’s not a lie,” you insisted. “People paint to remember. To keep things close.”

He stared at you for a moment so intense it felt like standing under a spotlight.

Then he spoke, and his voice dropped lower, almost to himself.

“Sometimes keeping something close is the same as taking it,” he said.

Your skin prickled. “You talk like a thief.”

His gaze flicked to your throat, your pulse point, so quick you might have missed it if you hadn’t been watching him as closely as he watched you.

He looked away immediately, jaw tight.

“I am,” he said simply.

The room went quiet around the confession, as if the house itself held its breath again.

You forced yourself to breathe. “Then stop.”

He let out a sound that was not quite laughter and not quite despair. “It doesn’t work like that.”

“It does,” you said, and the governess in you rose like a shield. “Everything works like that. You decide. You do or you don’t.”

He looked at you then with something like disbelief.

“I did decide,” he murmured.

You frowned. “What did you decide?”

His gaze dropped to his hands. To the paint under his nails. To the faint tremor that he was pretending did not exist.

He did not answer.

Instead, he pushed the bowl away and stood too quickly, as if the conversation had become a fire he could not afford to sit near.

“That’s enough,” he said.

“You barely ate.”

His eyes flashed. “Go to bed.”

“You don’t get to–”

He stepped closer, and the air between you changed. Not romance. Not quite. Something heavier, older. A gravity you could not explain.

His gaze locked on yours, and for a second you saw the man behind the distance: exhausted, starving, terrified of his own hands.

“Please,” he said, and the word sounded like it had been unused for a long time.

It stopped you.

You swallowed. “Fine.”

You reached out without thinking, because the paint on his fingers bothered you in a domestic, practical way that felt safer than everything else.

“Your hand,” you said.

His posture went rigid.

You took his wrist gently anyway and turned his fingers toward the lamplight. Blue paint streaked the pads, dried in the creases. You picked up a damp cloth from the sideboard and began to wipe, slow and firm, like you were cleaning a child after a messy meal.

His breath caught.

It was a small sound, but it hit you in the chest.

You looked up, startled, and found him staring at you with a kind of strained intensity that made your skin feel too thin.

“You do that,” he said hoarsely.

“Clean paint?” you asked, trying for lightness.

“No,” he replied.

You stopped. “Then what?”

His gaze stayed on your face as if it hurt him.

“Touch me like I’m…” He swallowed. “…like I’m human.”

Your chest tightened. Your fingers paused on his skin, cloth damp and cool against his warmth.

You forced your voice steady. “You are human.”

His expression twisted, something bitter and aching. “No.”

Before you could ask what he meant, he pulled his hand away – gentle, but decisive – and turned toward the door.

“You should go,” he said again, firmer this time.

You hesitated in the threshold. “Mr. Barnes–”

“Bucky,” he corrected abruptly, and the name fell out of him like a mistake.

You blinked. “Bucky.”

His shoulders tensed as if hearing it aloud did something to him.

“Good night,” he said, and shut the door before you could say anything else.

That night, sleep brought you a place you had never been and knew by heart.

A ballroom, candlelight reflecting in mirrors that stretched the room into infinity. Music – strings, soft and aching. Your dress brushed the floor, heavy with embroidery. Your hand rested in someone else’s, fingers interlaced.

His hand was cold.

Not dead-cold. Just… unreasonably cool, like marble warmed by sun.

You looked up.

He stood before you in a dark suit, hair longer, eyes the same impossible grey. He smiled at you as if he had been waiting an eternity.

“Don’t,” you whispered, but you did not know what you meant.

“I have to,” he murmured back, and his voice wrapped around you like a vow.

You tried to say his name.

It was on your tongue, familiar and strange, a sound you had never learned and had always known.

“…”

The music swelled. The mirrors shattered. The room dissolved into paint.

You woke with your heart pounding and your fingers curled as if they still held a hand.

In the dark, you pressed your palm to your chest, trying to calm your breathing.

From somewhere down the hall, faint as a secret, you heard the soft whisper of bristles on canvas.

Brush. Pause. Brush.

And then, as if the house wanted to prove it could disturb you in daylight too –

The next afternoon, while you supervised linens in the drawing room, you found yourself humming.

You did not choose the melody. It arrived in you fully formed, slipping out between your lips like a thought you had forgotten to guard. It was old, lilting, the kind of tune that belonged to candlelight and spinning skirts.

You did not realize what you were doing until the air changed.

You looked up.

Bucky stood in the doorway.

He had not made a sound. He never made a sound.

His face had gone white – not pale, but bloodless, as if the world had drained out of him. His eyes were locked on you with the stunned intensity of someone watching a ghost walk in daylight.

You stopped humming mid-note.

“What?” you asked, suddenly uneasy.

He did not answer.

His mouth opened once, like he meant to speak, and then closed again. His throat bobbed with a swallow that looked too hard.

For a heartbeat, you thought he might step toward you.

Instead, he flinched back as if the song had burned him.

He turned sharply and left the room.

You stared after him, linen forgotten in your hands, the melody still trembling in the air like a question.

And deep inside you, under confusion, under irritation, under the strange ache you could not name –

Something answered. Quiet and certain.

He knew that song.

The first time you learned that the house had visitors, it was because it tried to hide them from you.

Jarvis’s footsteps became more frequent that afternoon – measured trips from the front hall to the study, from the study back to the front hall. Doors closed softly. Voices dipped into murmurs. The staff moved with an extra layer of caution, as if sound itself had become a liability.

You noticed, because noticing was your profession.

When you asked one of the maids who had arrived, she hesitated just long enough to tell the truth without wanting to.

“A gentleman,” she said finally. “For Mr. Barnes.”

“Is he expected?” you asked.

The maid’s eyes flicked toward the corridor that led to the study. “He says he is.”

You did not like the phrasing.

You found Jarvis near the vestibule, adjusting the cuffs of his gloves with the calm of a man who had survived worse than curiosity.

“Jarvis,” you said.

He looked up. “Miss.”

“There’s a visitor.”

“Yes.”

“You didn’t inform me.”

“I didn’t think it necessary.”

“It is always necessary,” you replied. “If someone enters this house, I need to know who they are, what they want, and when they are leaving.”

Jarvis’s mouth tightened, a near-invisible line. “Mr. Barnes prefers discretion.”

“And I prefer not discovering strangers in the hallways,” you shot back.

For a moment, Jarvis studied you as if weighing whether you were going to become a problem he could not neatly solve.

Then he leaned in – just slightly, just enough that his voice could be kept from the ears of the staff.

“Do not go near the study,” he said quietly.

Your stomach dipped. “Why?”

Jarvis held your gaze. “Because you will hear things you cannot unhear.”

He turned away before you could demand more.

Which, of course, meant you did.

Not immediately. You did not charge down corridors like a heroine in a penny dreadful. You waited until the staff had returned to their work, until the house resumed its careful stillness.

Then you moved as you had been trained to move: quietly, efficiently, like you belonged everywhere.

The study door was shut. A thin line of lamplight leaked beneath it. You approached until the carpet muffled your steps entirely, until you stood close enough to smell the smoke of a cigar and the sharpness of cologne that did not belong to Bucky.

Inside, two voices spoke low.

Jarvis’s, and someone else’s – male, polished, edged with a kind of practiced charm.

“…a private collection,” the stranger was saying. “Surely you understand the value of keeping such a – such a singular talent from fading into obscurity. The right buyers are prepared to pay an obscene amount for a Barnes.”

A pause.

Then Bucky’s voice, calm and cold. “You shouldn’t have come.”

The stranger chuckled softly, as if scoldings amused him. “And miss an opportunity? Never. James, there are people who have searched for you for decades. Centuries, if we’re being poetic.”

Silence, heavy enough to make your skin prickle.

“You don’t understand what you’re asking,” Bucky said.

“Oh, I understand exactly,” the stranger replied. “You stop painting, your name becomes a rumor again. You paint, and the world remembers. It’s simple.”

“It’s not simple.”

“Then make it simple,” the stranger pressed, and his voice sharpened. “You can’t keep refusing commissions. You can’t keep turning away patrons. Your… condition–”

That word hit the air like a thrown knife.

Bucky’s voice cut in, dangerously quiet. “Don’t speak of it.”

“You’ll die,” the stranger said, and the bluntness stole the breath from your lungs. “That’s what you want? After all this time?”

A beat.

Then Bucky replied, and there was something in his tone that made your throat tighten, made your hand curl against your skirt as if you needed to anchor yourself.

“Maybe,” he said.

The stranger exhaled in disbelief. “Because of a girl?”

Your pulse jumped.

Bucky did not answer.

The silence that followed felt like confirmation.

Then the stranger spoke again, softer now, as if coaxing a skittish animal. “I’m not telling you to hurt her. Paint something harmless. An object. A landscape. A still life. You’ve done it before.”

“You know that isn’t enough,” Bucky said.

Jarvis’s voice finally entered, controlled but strained. “Sir, perhaps we should–”

“No,” the stranger snapped, and then lowered his tone again, returning to charm. “James, listen. You don’t have to take life. Not if you choose correctly.”

You frowned, instinctively. Take life.

The stranger continued. “Choose someone already near the end. Someone willing. Someone who won’t be missed.”

Your stomach turned.

Bucky’s voice went razor-sharp. “Leave.”

A chair scraped. Footsteps approached the door.

You backed away quickly, heart hammering, retreating down the corridor like you had every right to be there.

By the time the study door opened, you were halfway to the staircase, posture calm, pace unhurried, as if you had simply been checking the drapes for dust.

A man emerged – a stranger in a tailored coat, hair slicked back, smile too bright for a house that swallowed light. His eyes slid over you with interest that made your skin crawl.

“Ah,” he said, pleased. “You must be the one.”

You kept your face blank. “I’m afraid I don’t know what you mean.”

His smile widened. “Of course you don’t.”

Behind him, Bucky stood in the doorway of the study, all tension and pale stillness. His gaze fixed on the stranger with something close to hatred.

The stranger gave Bucky a small, mocking nod. “We’ll speak again.”

Then he walked past you, uninvited familiarity in his stride, as if he knew the path already.

When the front door closed, the house exhaled.

You did not wait for supper.

You found Bucky in the corridor outside the study, staring at the floor as if he could burn a hole through it with sheer force.

“Who was that?” you demanded.

His head lifted sharply, eyes narrowing. “You shouldn’t be here.”

“I live here,” you snapped. “I work here. I keep this household running while you – ” You stopped, because you did not know how to finish the sentence without admitting you had been listening.

Bucky’s gaze flicked toward the far end of the hall, toward the studio door, and his expression tightened as if he felt it watching too.

“Go back to your duties,” he said.

“No,” you replied, and the word came out steadier than you felt. “He said you’ll die.”

Bucky went very still.

Then he spoke, and his voice was carefully empty. “People say many things.”

“He talked about your condition,” you pressed. “And he said–” your throat tightened, disgust and fear tangling together, “–take life.”

Bucky’s jaw clenched. A muscle jumped beneath his cheekbone.

“You were listening,” he said flatly.

“You were hiding it,” you shot back.

A long, stretched silence.

Then, without warning, Bucky turned and walked away.

Not toward the stairs.

Toward the studio door.

Your breath caught. Your body moved before your mind could catch up.

“Bucky–” you called after him, the name tasting like a risk.

He stopped with his hand on the lock.

For a heartbeat, you thought he might open it.

He did not.

He stood there, fingers curled around the metal as if it was the only thing keeping him upright.

“Go,” he said, voice low.

“I’m not going anywhere,” you replied, and stepped closer.

His shoulders rose and fell once, a controlled inhale.

“Then you’re going to hear something you’ll hate me for,” he murmured.

You swallowed. “Try me.”

He turned slowly, and in the lamplight you saw it clearly – how tired he was. Not the tiredness of long days, but of long years. Centuries, if the stranger had been “being poetic.”

“You think I’m a vampire,” Bucky said.

The word should have been ridiculous. In his mouth it was not.

You forced yourself to breathe. “Are you?”

His lips twisted. “Not the kind in stories.”

“You don’t drink blood,” you said, remembering your own thoughts, your own unease at the way he watched throats, wrists.

He held your gaze. “No.”

“Then what do you–” You stopped, because the answer suddenly felt too close.

Bucky’s eyes drifted down your face, over your mouth, your throat, the curve where your pulse lived under skin.

You felt it like a touch.

Then his gaze snapped away, as if he hated himself for the instinct.

“I take what people spend their lives not noticing they’re losing,” he said, voice controlled to the point of cruelty. “Vitality. Years. The… momentum that makes you want to wake up tomorrow.”

Your stomach clenched. “How?”

His hand tightened on the lock behind him, knuckles whitening. “Through paint.”

The hallway seemed to narrow around you.

You forced the words out. “If you paint someone, you…”

“They fade,” he said, and there was no softness in it, no apology. Just the truth stripped down to bone. “Slowly, sometimes. Sometimes fast. Depends on the person. Depends on the work.”

You stared at him. “That’s–”

“Monstrous,” he supplied, his mouth twisting. “Yes.”

A cold wave rolled through you. Your thoughts tripped over each other, searching for something rational to latch onto.

“You have… paintings,” you managed, and your gaze flicked toward the portraits lining the walls. Faces caught in eternal near-speech.

Bucky’s eyes followed your glance, and something dark crossed his expression. “I do.”

“And the people–”

“Dead,” he said, and the word thudded into the air. “Eventually.”

You went cold.

Then anger sparked, hot and sudden, because it was the only thing that kept you from shaking.

“You let that man come here and talk about commissioning you like it’s– like it’s business,” you said, voice rising despite your effort. “You let him talk about choosing someone who won’t be missed–”

“I told him to leave,” Bucky snapped.

“You didn’t deny it.”

His eyes flashed. “What would denial change? The truth doesn’t care if you hate it.”

You flinched at the sharpness, then steadied yourself. “So you do it.”

Bucky’s breath came shallow now, the calm starting to fracture.

“I did,” he corrected. “I don’t–” He stopped, jaw working. “Not anymore.”

“Not anymore,” you echoed. “Since when?”

His gaze cut to you, and the honesty in it startled you.

“Long enough,” he said.

“You’re lying,” you accused, because you had smelled paint in this house, because you had heard a brush in the night.

His eyes hardened. “I haven’t painted a human in a long time.”

“Human,” you repeated, and the word sharpened in your mouth. “So you’ve painted something.”

Bucky’s gaze flicked away, and that was answer enough.

Your pulse roared in your ears. “Why would you ever–”

“Because if I don’t paint,” he said, voice rough now, stripped of its control, “I start to… stop.”

The hallway felt suddenly too small for breath.

“Stop,” you whispered.

He looked at you, and the exhaustion in his eyes turned human for a heartbeat. Vulnerable.

“I age,” he said. “I break. I end.”

Your mind skidded. “So you’re doing this to survive.”

Bucky’s laugh was short and bitter. “Survive is a generous word.”

You stared at him, the weight of it pressing down: the paintings, the portraits, the stillness of the house, the way everything here was preserved like a specimen.

“And you hired me,” you said slowly, “to keep you fed. To keep you… maintained.”

His gaze sharpened. “Jarvis hired you.”

“But you kept me,” you insisted. “Why?”

Bucky’s jaw clenched. He did not answer.

Because the answer was standing in front of him.

Because he was looking at it.

The studio door remained between you like a third presence, listening.

“Don’t,” he said suddenly, voice strained.

“Don’t what?” you asked, though your skin already knew.

He swallowed, and when he spoke again, there was something almost… pleading beneath the harshness.

“Don’t make me say it out loud.”

You held his gaze. Your heart hammered. “Say what.”

Bucky’s eyes moved over your face again – hungry, terrified, reverent in a way that made you feel exposed all the way down to your bones.

“I want to paint you,” he whispered.

The words did not feel like a compliment.

They felt like a threat.

You went very still.

“You shouldn’t,” you said, voice thin.

“I know,” he replied, and his hand slid from the lock to the doorframe, fingers splayed as if he needed to steady himself. “I know.”

Silence stretched between you, taut as wire.

Then, as if he needed to prove his own control, he forced his tone lighter – almost mocking.

“It would be a masterpiece,” he said, and the self-loathing in the joke was unmistakable. “You have the kind of face artists pray for.”

You should have recoiled.

Instead, something in your chest tightened painfully, a strange, forbidden heat.

Because being seen like that – truly seen – was intoxicating.

You hated yourself for it.

“Paint an object,” you said abruptly, clinging to practicality. “A vase. A landscape. Anything else.”

Bucky’s mouth twisted. “It’s not the same.”

“It has to be,” you insisted.

He stared at you. Then he exhaled through his nose, sharp.

“I could paint your hands,” he said, as if bargaining with his own hunger. “Just your hands on a teacup. It wouldn’t take much.”

“It would take something,” you said, and your voice broke on the last word.

His eyes softened – barely. “You don’t know that.”

“I do,” you replied, because you remembered the portraits in the hall, the half-open mouths, the frozen confessions. “And you do too.”

Bucky’s gaze dropped, a small surrender.

Then, after a long moment, he lifted his eyes again.

“Just a sketch,” he said quietly. “Charcoal. No paint. No… taking. Let me–” His voice caught, and for a second he looked younger than the centuries in his posture. “Let me see you properly.”

Your throat tightened.

Fascination and fear braided together inside you.

You imagined sitting for him, imagined the weight of his gaze, the drag of charcoal, the way his hand would move with certainty. The thought sent a shiver through you that had nothing to do with cold.

“No,” you said, and the refusal cost you more than it should have.

Bucky flinched as if struck.

Then his expression shut down again, hardening into the familiar distance.

“Good,” he said flatly. “Then we’re done.”

He turned away, and for a heartbeat you thought he might open the studio and disappear behind it, lock himself away with whatever monster lived on canvas.

Instead, he stayed in the hallway with you, breathing shallow, like a man holding back a tide.

“I’m going to have the locks changed,” you said, desperate for something to do with your hands, your voice. “No one comes here without my approval. Not that man. Not anyone.”

Bucky’s laugh was sharp. “You think a lock stops him?”

“I think I stop him,” you shot back.

His gaze snapped to you, and something dangerous and startled moved in it – like admiration he refused to recognize.

“Be careful,” he said quietly.

“I am careful,” you replied.

He stared at you for a long moment, and then the tension in his shoulders shifted.

“You shouldn’t be here,” he murmured again, but this time it sounded less like an order and more like a confession.

Before you could answer, the lights went out.

Not a flicker.

A full, sudden plunge into darkness.

The house swallowed the corridor in one breath, leaving only the faint grey shape of windows at the far end, the outline of Bucky’s shoulders, the soft sound of your own inhale.

Somewhere below, a servant cried out in surprise.

Thunder rolled outside, deep and close, shaking the glass.

A storm.

Your pulse jumped. “The power–”

“Stay,” Bucky said, and the word came out too sharp, too immediate, as if his instincts had leapt ahead of his manners.

Your breath caught.

Then he corrected himself, voice lower. “Stay close.”

You swallowed. In the dark, it was impossible to pretend you did not want the same thing.

“All right,” you said, and your voice sounded too small.

He moved then – quiet, sure, a shadow that knew the house better than anyone. You heard the soft brush of fabric, the faint creak of floorboards that had been silent for you but acknowledged him.

“You know where the candles are?” he asked.

“In the pantry,” you replied automatically. “And in the library cabinet.”

He made a sound of agreement.

“Library,” he said. “Come on.”

You followed the sound of him down the corridor, your hand skimming the wall to orient yourself. In the dark, the portraits became shapes without faces, a crowd of silent witnesses.

When you reached the library, he pushed the door open and the scent hit you – paper, leather, dust, and beneath it the ever-present undercurrent of paint, as if it lived in him now.

He found a match with practiced ease. The scratch of it flared into a small, fierce light.

For a moment, the flame lit his face from below, turning him into something carved and haunted.

Then he lit a candle.

The circle of light was small. It made the rest of the room darker by contrast. Shelves rose like cliffs around you, books looming, shadows pooling between them.

Bucky set the candle on the table and turned away, as if afraid to face you in this closeness.

“Sit,” he said.

You hesitated, then sat on the edge of a chair. Your hands folded tightly in your lap.

Bucky paced once, stopped, and then leaned his hip against the table, arms crossed. He looked like he wanted to leave the room and could not.

Thunder cracked again, closer. The rain hammered the windows.

In that small light, with the house powerless and the storm pressing in, the distance between you felt suddenly artificial – something you had both been maintaining out of habit.

“You said I would hate you,” you said quietly.

His jaw tightened. “You should.”

“I don’t,” you admitted, and the honesty made your chest ache. “Not yet.”

His gaze flicked to you, sharp with warning. “Don’t be generous. It’s wasted on me.”

You inhaled slowly. “Tell me why.”

Bucky’s eyes dropped to the candle flame. Its light trembled in them, making them look almost – almost alive.

“There was a woman,” he said finally, voice low.

The words slid into the room like a key turning.

You swallowed. “I know.”

He glanced up, startled.

“You talk about her,” you said, and tried to keep your tone light, practical, as if it did not matter. “In the way you avoid certain rooms. In the way you–” you stopped, because you did not want to say look at me like I’m her ghost.

Bucky’s mouth tightened. “You don’t know anything.”

“I know you lost someone,” you said softly. “And I know it wasn’t recent.”

His gaze turned distant, fixed on something that was not the library, not the storm, not you.

“Centuries,” he murmured, and the word sounded like ash. “I don’t even remember the year properly anymore. I remember her hands. I remember the way she laughed when she was trying not to. I remember–” He stopped abruptly, throat working. “I remember her dying.”

Your stomach clenched.

Jealousy flared in you so sudden and absurd you almost laughed at yourself for it. Jealous of a dead woman. Jealous of a memory.

And yet the emotion sat heavy, undeniable, because it was not really jealousy of her.

It was jealousy of how much of him belonged to someone else.

“You loved her,” you said, and the sentence came out like a bruise.

Bucky’s eyes cut to you, and in the candlelight you saw something raw there – pain and anger and a kind of weary devotion.

“I still do,” he said simply.

It should have made you step back.

Instead, it made your chest tighten so hard you had to swallow against it.

“That’s why you paint,” you whispered before you could stop yourself.

Bucky’s gaze sharpened, and for a second you thought he would snap again, shut down, retreat into coldness.

But the storm kept the house close. The candle kept you contained.

And his insomnia had already stripped away some of his armor.

“I painted her once,” he said, voice barely audible.

Your breath caught.

“The portrait is still perfect,” he continued. “She is still twenty-two in it. Still breathing. Still… there.”

You stared at him, skin prickling. “And she–”

His jaw clenched. “She faded anyway. Not because of the painting. Because time doesn’t bargain.”

The candle flame flickered, and for a moment his face looked haunted enough to be a confession all by itself.

“You wanted to make your art immortal,” you said slowly, piecing the shape of it together. “And something answered.”

Bucky’s gaze dropped. A bitter sound escaped him. “Something answered,” he echoed.

You could hear the unsaid words: and I paid.

Thunder rolled again, and the shelves seemed to tremble with it.

Your fingers tightened in your lap. “So why am I here?”

Bucky’s eyes lifted to you, and the intensity in them made the candlelight feel too bright.

He opened his mouth.

For a second, you thought he might tell you. The truth that sat between you like a third heartbeat.

Instead, he shut his eyes briefly, as if forcing the words back down.

“You were competent,” he said, the lie stiff and obvious. “Jarvis needed someone.”

You almost laughed. Almost.

“You’re a terrible liar,” you said softly.

Bucky’s mouth twisted. “I’m trying not to be a thief.”

The phrase hit you hard.

Your pulse jumped, inexplicably.

The candle crackled.

In the quiet, you heard your own breath, the storm’s rage, the faint shifting of the house like it resented being made mortal by darkness.

And beneath it all, low and insistent, the thing you had been circling since the day you arrived.

His hunger.

Not for blood.

For life.

For the urge to put you on canvas and keep you where nothing could ever take you away.

You stood abruptly, unable to sit with it anymore.

Bucky’s head snapped up. “Where are you going?”

“Kitchen,” you said, voice too tight. “We need more candles. The staff will be frightened.”

“And you,” he added, and the softness of the word made you hate how much it warmed you.

You hesitated, then forced yourself to meet his gaze. “I’m fine.”

His eyes narrowed, as if he did not believe you – because he could hear something in your heartbeat you were pretending wasn’t there.

“Don’t hum that song again,” he said suddenly.

You froze.

Your stomach dropped. “Why?”

Bucky’s jaw flexed. The candlelight caught the edge of his teeth, white and too sharp for comfort.

“Because it makes me forget,” he said, voice low.

“Forget what?” you whispered.

He looked at you as if the answer was too dangerous to say.

Then the storm shook the window hard enough to make you flinch, and the moment broke – thread snapped.

Bucky pushed away from the table, turning his back, the familiar distance slamming into place like a door.

“Go get your candles,” he said, cold again. “And stay out of the studio.”

You stared at him for a long beat.

Then you nodded, because what else could you do?

But as you left the library with the candlelight trembling in your hands, jealousy and fear twisting tight in your chest, you understood something with a clarity that made your skin go cold.

The studio door was not locked to keep you out.

It was locked to keep him in.

Morning became the closest thing the house had to mercy.

Not because the light changed it – sunlight did not banish anything here, it only revealed the dust you had already suspected – but because mornings were predictable. They were routine. They could be measured in kettles and keys and footsteps, in the mundane comfort of tasks that had nothing to do with curses.

And somewhere in the middle of your list of duties, Bucky began to appear.

Not dramatically. Not with apologies or explanations.

He simply… started showing up.

At first it was small: the sound of his chair in the study when you brought in the tray, the brief sight of him in the doorway as you passed, a nod – barely a nod – when you reported that the butcher had arrived or the roof had been patched.

Then it became a ritual.

You set breakfast on the same corner of the kitchen table, where the window looked out over hedges and grey sky. You placed the cup of coffee exactly where his right hand would reach without thinking. You did not announce it. You did not plead.

You simply did it.

The first time he sat across from you and ate an entire slice of toast without complaint, you had to look down at your own hands to keep from smiling.

He noticed anyway.

“You’re pleased,” he said, voice flat.

“I’m efficient,” you replied.

His gaze lingered on you a beat too long, as if the word had meant something else in another mouth.

After that, he began to eat because you were there to witness it.

It was absurd – two adults locked in a silent battle over soup and bread – but the absurdity became intimate in a way you could not admit out loud. You learned the things he tolerated. You learned what made him push the plate away. You learned the difference between his refusal and his fear.

And in return, he gave you proof of presence.

A pair of gloves appeared on the sideboard one morning, soft leather lined with wool. No note. No mention. They were your size.

You stared at them for a full minute before taking them.

That afternoon, when you wore them outside to oversee the delivery of coal, he watched you from the upstairs window.

You felt his gaze on your hands like heat.

Later, when you returned, he was in the hallway pretending to examine a portrait he had walked past a thousand times.

“They fit,” he said, without looking at you.

“Yes,” you answered, and then, because you were tired of playing games you didn’t understand, you added, “Thank you.”

His shoulders tightened, as if gratitude embarrassed him more than anger.

“You needed them,” he said.

It was always need with him. Always utility. Always something that could be justified in the language of household management and weather.

A week after that, a coat hung by the front door – dark, heavy, warm, with a lining that smelled faintly of cedar. You tried to refuse it. Jarvis merely raised an eyebrow and told you it was “Mr. Barnes’s instruction.”

You found Bucky in the library that night and held up the coat like evidence.

“I am not a charity case,” you said.

His eyes flicked over you, sharp and quick, like he was assessing how the fabric sat on your shoulders.

“You’re cold,” he replied.

“I have my own coat.”

“It’s thin,” he said.

“I am not–”

“Stubborn,” he cut in, and the word sounded almost fond before he smothered it. His jaw tightened. “Wear it or don’t. I don’t care.”

You stared at him.

He stared back for half a heartbeat longer than was polite, then looked away as if he had caught himself stealing.

When you wore the coat the next morning, he didn’t look at you at all.

Not directly.

But you felt him anyway, the way you felt the house settle around your existence – as if your presence had become a fixture, like the chandelier, like the portraits, like the locked door.

Like something permanent.

It terrified you.

The first time you recognized the poetry, it happened by accident.

You were dusting the shelves in the west sitting room, the one nobody used, the one that smelled faintly of dried roses and old smoke. Most of the books were untouched, their spines uncracked, but one volume sat half-pulled from its place, as if someone had been interrupted mid-thought.

You reached for it without thinking.

The cover was leather, worn smooth by hands that had held it a thousand times. The pages were thin and slightly yellowed. The text inside was not English.

Not French.

Not Latin.

It was… older.

And yet your eyes slid over it, and your mind understood before it had time to argue.

You read the first line aloud under your breath.

The syllables tasted familiar, like a song you’d learned as a child and forgotten you ever knew.

A shadow moved in the doorway.

You looked up.

Bucky stood there, frozen. His face had gone pale in a way you had only seen once before – when you hummed that melody and he fled as if daylight had turned to knives.

“What is that?” he demanded, voice tight.

You blinked. “A book.”

His gaze locked on the open pages. Then snapped to your mouth.

“You can read it,” he said. Not a question.

You swallowed, suddenly uncertain. “I– apparently.”

“That language,” he pressed, taking a step into the room without realizing it. “You’ve never studied it.”

“No,” you replied honestly. “I don’t even know what it is.”

Bucky stared at you as if you had just lifted the hem of the world and shown him what was underneath.

His throat bobbed with a swallow that looked painful.

“Say it again,” he whispered.

The request made your skin prickle. “Why?”

“Just–” His voice broke, and he recovered quickly, hardening it. “Say it.”

You hesitated, then read the line again, slower.

As you spoke, something shifted in the air. The house seemed to lean closer. The candlelight (because the lamps were always too dim in this room) trembled faintly, as if reacting to the sound.

Bucky’s eyes went glassy.

For one terrible second, you saw him lose the present entirely.

He stared at you like you weren’t you.

Like you were an impossible door that had opened.

Then his face tightened violently, and he turned away, one hand lifting as if to cover his mouth.

“You should put that back,” he said, voice rough.

“I didn’t mean to–”

“I said put it back.”

The coldness in his tone hit you like a slap.

You closed the book carefully, slid it into place, and watched his shoulders stay rigid, as if he was holding himself in a vice.

“What was that?” you asked softly.

Bucky did not answer.

He walked out of the room like a man leaving a fire.

After that, the house began to betray you in smaller ways.

You reached for a key in the kitchen drawer and found it immediately, your fingers moving with certainty you had not earned. You turned left in a corridor you hadn’t walked and found the linen closet as if you’d memorized the floor plan years ago. You woke some mornings with the taste of words in your mouth you could not translate, and the shape of music in your hands.

Once, while Jarvis reorganized the pantry list, you found yourself saying, absent-mindedly, “The silver polish is behind the flour.”

Jarvis blinked. “It hasn’t been kept there in decades.”

You stared at him. “It hasn’t?”

Jarvis’s expression went carefully blank. “No, miss.”

You felt suddenly sick.

And then, on a quiet afternoon when rain smeared the windows and the house felt like it was holding its breath, you walked into the study and found Bucky at his desk, head bent over papers.

His hair fell forward near his eyes, dark against pale skin. His sleeves were rolled up. Ink stained his fingers. He looked, for a rare moment, less like a ghost haunting a mansion and more like a man trying to pretend he had a life.

You set the ledger down and said, without thinking, in a tone that came from somewhere deep and unplaceable, “Don’t furrow your brow like that. You’ll make it permanent.”

The words hung in the air.

Bucky went completely still.

Slowly, he lifted his head.

The look he gave you was not anger.

It was shock.

It was grief.

It was hunger and horror braided together so tightly you could not separate them.

For one heartbeat, his eyes softened in a way you had never seen – warm, helpless, devastatingly human.

Like he had just seen someone he buried rise from the ground.

Then the warmth shattered.

He stood so quickly his chair scraped. “Don’t say that.”

Your throat tightened. “Why? It was–”

“Don’t,” he repeated, voice sharper now, the panic cutting through his control. His gaze locked on your face, searching it, devouring it. “Where did you hear that?”

“I didn’t,” you said, heart hammering. “It just– came out.”

Bucky stared at you, breathing shallow. He looked like a man trying not to break something fragile in his hands.

And then, before you could step back, before you could decide whether you were frightened or furious, he crossed the room.

His hand reached for yours.

He caught your fingers – not rough, not gentle enough to be safe, just… certain. His skin was cool, not cold. Alive in a way that felt wrong for him.

You inhaled sharply.

He did not let go.

His thumb pressed against the inside of your knuckle, a small, absent gesture that made your pulse jump so hard it hurt.

You looked up at him, and for a second, there was no distance.

No employer. No governess. No rules.

Just you, and the unbearable intensity of being held in place by someone who looked like he had been starving for centuries.

“Bucky,” you whispered, the name slipping out without permission.

His eyes flicked to your mouth.

Something in him cracked.

His grip tightened – then loosened, like he’d realized he was holding a blade.

He released you abruptly, as if your skin burned.

“I’m sorry,” he said, the apology clipped, immediate. His gaze dropped, then snapped away entirely. “I shouldn’t.”

The room felt suddenly too empty. Too bright. Too sharp.

You stared at your hand where his fingers had been, as if the imprint remained.

“You do this,” you said, voice trembling with something you hated. “You pull me close and then you– punish me for it.”

Bucky’s jaw tightened. “I’m protecting you.”

“From what?” you demanded.

He looked at you then, and the anguish in his eyes was so naked it stole your breath.

“From me,” he said.

You swallowed hard. Anger rose like a shield, because the alternative was admitting how much his touch had meant.

“I don’t need your protection,” you snapped.

Bucky’s gaze flicked to your throat again, involuntary, hungry.

Then he flinched back as if ashamed of his own eyes.

“You don’t know what you need,” he said, voice rough. “You don’t know what you are to me.”

Your heart stuttered.

“Then tell me,” you whispered.

For a moment, you thought he might.

Instead, he turned away, retreating into the only language he trusted – distance, cruelty, control.

“Go,” he said flatly. “Before I forget myself.”

You left the study with your hands shaking and your mouth full of words you had bitten down on.

You hated him.

You hated the house.

You hated the way your body remembered his touch like it had always belonged there.

After that, you began to notice the fragments.

The way his gaze landed, not on you as a whole, but in pieces – as if he was trying to break you down into safe parts he could look at without falling.

He watched your hands when you poured tea.

He watched the nape of your neck when you bent over a ledger, the soft line where hair escaped your pins.

He watched the pulse in your throat when you spoke too quickly.

Once, you turned and caught him staring at the hollow of your collarbone like it held a secret.

He looked away too late.

“You’re doing it again,” you said quietly.

“Doing what,” he replied, too fast.

“Looking at me like you’re–” you stopped, because saying composing me out loud felt too intimate, too true. “Like you’re measuring.”

His jaw tightened. “Paranoia doesn’t suit you.”

But that night you found a delivery slip in Jarvis’s hand.

Pigments. Brushes. Fresh canvases.

You stared at the inked list until your vision blurred.

When you looked up, Jarvis’s expression was the same careful blankness he always wore.

“You ordered these?” you asked.

Jarvis hesitated just long enough. “Mr. Barnes did.”

Your throat went tight. “He said he wasn’t painting.”

Jarvis’s eyes held yours, and for a moment, there was something almost sympathetic there.

“Mr. Barnes says many things,” he replied softly.

The brush in the night returned.

Not every night. Not at first. But often enough that you began to dread the sound even as your body leaned toward it, listening, tense and alive.

Bucky grew sharper around the edges.

He slept less. You heard him pacing in the hours between two and four, footsteps whispering across the floor as if he could not outrun himself. He snapped at servants for mistakes that barely existed, then apologized in murmurs you weren’t meant to hear.

And he began to circle you like a man haunted.

Possessive in the smallest ways: appearing in doorways when you spoke to the gardener too long, asking – too casually – where you had gone when you were out of sight, insisting the windows be locked before nightfall.

“You’re not afraid of the dark,” you accused one evening.

His gaze flicked to you, sharp. “I’m afraid of what I do in it.”

He always made it about duty.

About safety.

About locks and schedules and storms.

Never about the way his eyes followed you like he was starving.

Never about the way your heart lifted, traitorous, every time you heard his footsteps and knew he was close.

One afternoon, when the new canvases arrived, you found him in the entry hall, hands shoved deep into his pockets as the delivery men carried the supplies past him.

His face was taut, jaw clenched, as if he was forcing himself not to reach.

You stepped beside him, low enough that the men wouldn’t hear.

“You bought paint,” you said.

He did not look at you. “No.”

You stared at him. “That’s… a box of paint.”

“It’s for–” He stopped, because he had no lie prepared. His throat bobbed with a swallow. “It’s for objects.”

“Liar,” you murmured.

His gaze snapped to you, furious and frightened. “Stop.”

“Stop what?” you asked, heart hammering. “Seeing?”

For a moment, his face tightened like he was in pain.

Then, softly – so softly it felt like the house might swallow it – he said, “I’m trying to be good.”

The sentence hit you harder than any confession could have.

Because goodness, in his mouth, sounded like starvation.

You watched him for a long moment, and you realized with sick clarity:

He wasn’t buying paint because he wanted to make art.

He was buying paint because he was losing control.

And you – constant, familiar, impossible – had become the one thing he could not stop needing.

The house had not been waiting for you like a decor.

It had been waiting like a mouth.

And Bucky was starting to open it.

The night the house betrayed him, it did so with water. It began as a soft, irregular sound in the walls – an uneasy tapping, like fingers drumming from the inside. You noticed it in the late afternoon while you reviewed accounts in the kitchen, pen poised over columns, the fire low. At first you thought it was rain shifting direction. Then a maid appeared in the doorway, pale and breathless. “Miss– there’s… there’s water,” she stammered. “Upstairs.” You were on your feet before she finished the sentence. “Where?” you demanded. “Near the west corridor,” she said. “It’s dripping through the ceiling–” Your stomach tightened. The west corridor. Where the studio door sat like a sealed wound. You moved fast, skirts gathered, heartbeat too loud in your ears. The house smelled different up there – damp plaster, cold stone, and beneath it the sharp, familiar sweetness of turpentine. As you reached the corridor, you saw it immediately. Water ran in a thin, persistent line down the wallpaper near the studio door, soaking the runner, pooling darkly at the baseboard. A drop fell from the ceiling with a steady, maddening rhythm. Drip. Drip. Drip. Jarvis was already there, sleeves rolled, jaw tight. “You need to shut the water off,” you said. “We’ve tried,” Jarvis replied, controlled. “The valve is stuck. We’ve sent for a plumber, but the roads–” Thunder grumbled outside, distant but present. The weather had been turning all day. You looked at the studio door. The lock gleamed like a warning. “If it’s above the studio,” you said slowly, “the ceiling could collapse.” Jarvis’s eyes went flat. “Miss.” “I have to check,” you insisted. “No,” Jarvis said, and for the first time since you arrived, the calm cracked. “Absolutely not.” “It’s a hazard,” you snapped. “If there’s electrical wiring– if there are solvents–” Jarvis’s gaze flicked to the wet wallpaper. To the growing stain. Then, reluctantly, he exhaled. “Wait here,” he said, and moved away, quick and silent, down the hall. You stood alone with the drip and the door. The house held its breath. You told yourself you were thinking practically. You told yourself this was duty, not obsession. But your hand lifted anyway, hovering near the lock. A hard footstep sounded behind you. You turned. Bucky stood at the end of the corridor. He looked as if he’d been pulled out of a fever – shirt half-buttoned, hair damp at the temples, eyes too bright and too hollow at once. He took in the water, the stain, the bucket a servant had placed beneath the drip. Then his gaze snapped to you. To your proximity to the studio door. His expression went utterly, violently still. “What are you doing?” he said, and his voice was so quiet it raised the hairs on your arms. “There’s a leak,” you replied, forcing calm. “It’s coming through–” “You’re not opening that door,” he said. “I didn’t say I was,” you lied. Bucky moved closer, and the air around him seemed to tighten. Not menace, exactly. Fear. “It doesn’t matter what you said,” he murmured. “It matters what you’re about to do.” You lifted your chin. “If the ceiling collapses, it could destroy everything in there.” His eyes flashed. “Good.” The word hit you like a slap. You stared at him. “Good?” Bucky’s jaw clenched. “Yes.” “Is it that dangerous?” you demanded. “Is that what you’re hiding? Flammable chemicals? Guns? Bodies?” Something like pain crossed his face at the last word – too fast to name. “Go downstairs,” he said, the command harsh. “Now.” “No,” you replied, and your voice trembled with anger more than fear. “You can’t keep barking orders like I’m–” Bucky’s gaze flicked to your throat. Then away. Then back again, as if his eyes could not help themselves. “Please,” he said, and the word came out rough, wrong in his mouth. “Don’t make this worse.”

You took a steadying breath.

This was not about paint. Not really. This was about whatever lived behind that door. “If you won’t let me in,” you said, “then you go in. Check it yourself.” Bucky’s face tightened. For a moment, he looked trapped – between the leak above and the hunger below. Then, abruptly, he turned on his heel, pulled a key from his pocket, and unlocked the studio door with a quick, practiced motion. The click sounded like a bone snapping. He opened it just enough to slip inside. And then – because your job was to prevent disaster, because your blood was full of stupid courage, because you had been living in a house that made your curiosity ache – you followed. The studio swallowed you in one breath. It smelled like oil and old wood and something metallic beneath it, a note that made your stomach twist. The air was colder here, as if the room refused warmth. Tall windows were covered with heavy drapes, turning the world outside into a dull blur of grey. Canvases leaned against every wall. Some were blank. Some were half-finished – shapes emerging from darkness, landscapes that looked like dreams that had been cut off. Jars of brushes sat in clusters like bouquets. And everywhere, everywhere, there were sketches. Pinned to boards. Strewn across tables. Stacked like discarded thoughts. Your breath caught. Because they were of you. Your profile in charcoal, the line of your nose, the curve of your lips caught mid-sentence. Your hands, so carefully rendered it felt like he’d touched every knuckle with his eyes. The hollow of your throat. The dip of your collarbone. Even your hair, loose in a way you wore only when you were alone. You stared, frozen, heat rushing to your face. Your heart pounded with a sick mixture of awe and betrayal. Then you saw it – the newest sheet, still dusted with charcoal, the beginnings of a portrait: your eyes, not finished, but already too alive. Your stomach dropped. “Don’t touch anything,” Bucky said behind you, voice tight. You turned slowly. He stood near the door, one hand braced on the frame as if he needed it to hold himself up. His eyes were on the sketches – not with pride, but with horror. “You came in,” he said, and the accusation in his voice was thin paper over panic. “There was water,” you replied, and your voice came out smaller than you intended. “I had to–” “You didn’t have to,” he snapped. “You wanted to.” You swallowed hard, eyes flicking back to the wall of your own stolen image.

“How long,” you demanded, voice rising. “How long have you been doing this?” Bucky’s jaw clenched. “Get out.” “No,” you said, and stepped further into the room, unable to stop yourself. “You’ve been watching me like I’m– like I’m–” “Get out,” he repeated, louder. You stared at him, anger flaring hot enough to burn through the embarrassment. “You don’t get to act like I’m the one who crossed a line,” you said. “You have pages of me. You have–” His eyes flashed. “Because I’m trying not to paint you.” The confession slammed into the air, raw and ugly. Your breath hitched. “You’re trying not to,” you repeated, and your voice shook. “So the only thing stopping you is… what? Morality? Or fear?” Bucky’s nostrils flared. “Both.” “You told me you hadn’t painted a human in a long time,” you said, and hurt sharpened the words. “Was that a lie too?” Bucky’s gaze snapped to your face, tortured. “No.” “Then why do you have–” You gestured wildly at the sketches. “Why do you have this?” His shoulders rose and fell once. He looked like he was holding himself back by force. “Because you’re here,” he said, voice rough. “Because you keep touching my hands like I’m human. Because you hum songs you shouldn’t know. Because you look at me like you don’t realize what I am.” “And what are you?” you demanded, stepping closer, because anger made you brave and grief made you reckless. “Say it. Say it out loud.” Bucky’s jaw worked. His eyes went to your throat again, helpless. “A thief,” he said. “You’re worse than that,” you whispered. Bucky flinched as if struck. Good. You wanted him to hurt, because you were hurting. “You make portraits that don’t age,” you said, voice trembling now. “And the people you paint… fade.” Bucky’s gaze dropped. “You could do that to me,” you said. “You could take everything I am and hang it on a wall like decoration.” Bucky’s head snapped up, fury and fear igniting. “I won’t.” “Why?” you demanded, and the word broke apart on the edge of tears. “Why won’t you? Because you’re noble? Or because you’ve already lost someone and you can’t stand to watch it happen again?” Something in his face cracked. His control slipped for one second, and in that second he looked devastated. Then he lunged forward. Not to hurt you. To close the distance. His hands caught your face, fingers splayed along your jaw, cool and trembling. His touch was not gentle, not cruel – urgent. Like he was anchoring himself. You froze, breath caught, every nerve screaming. He leaned in, and you felt him inhale. Not at your mouth. At your skin. At the pulse in your throat. It was the way a starving man breathed near bread. The way an artist breathed near paint. The way a monster breathed near life. Your eyes burned. Your hands lifted, not pushing him away, not holding him closer – caught between instinct and betrayal. “You’re doing it,” you whispered, voice shaking. “You’re–” Bucky’s eyes widened. Horror flooded his face so fast it made him look young. He released you like you had burned him. He stumbled back, one hand clenching into a fist over his mouth as if he might bite down on his own teeth. “No,” he rasped, the word ripped out of him. “No.” He shook his head once, hard, as if trying to dislodge the feeling. You stood there, shaking, tears hot on your cheeks before you even realized you were crying. “Tell me the truth,” you demanded, voice breaking. “Tell me why you look at me like I’m– like I’m someone you’ve already lost.” Bucky’s breathing went uneven.

For a moment, you thought he might say it. Might say the name that haunted him. Might confess the shape of the ghost he kept trying not to see in you. Instead, his face went cold. Not calm. Weaponized. He straightened. His voice flattened into cruelty so practiced it sounded like a familiar coat he pulled on. “You want the truth?” he said. You swallowed, tears still on your cheeks. “Yes.” His eyes swept over you – deliberate, slow, like an appraiser. And you realized, sickly, what he was doing. He was making himself hate you. He was making you hate him. “You’re just a fixation,” he said. The words hit like a slap. You flinched. “That’s–” “You don’t belong here,” he continued, voice sharp, eyes cutting. “This house will swallow you, and I won’t–” His jaw tightened, and the smallest crack of real emotion showed before he crushed it. “I won’t ruin another life.” You stared at him, devastation blooming. “You’re lying,” you whispered, because you had seen the sketches, because you had felt his hands on your face. Bucky’s gaze hardened further. “Am I?” He crossed the room in two steps, grabbed a leather portfolio from the desk, and shoved it into your hands. It was heavy. Inside, papers shifted – stiff and official. “A letter of recommendation,” he said coldly. “Jarvis will pay you through the end of the month. You will leave tomorrow.” Your fingers tightened on the portfolio until your knuckles hurt. “You can’t do that,” you choked out. “I can,” he replied. “I’m doing it.” Anger flared through your grief like lightning. “You don’t get to decide what happens to me,” you snapped, voice shaking. “You don’t get to keep me and then throw me away like– like you’re saving me.” Bucky’s eyes flashed, and for a heartbeat the mask slipped. Pain. A kind of desperate love he refused to name. Then the mask snapped back into place. “I’m not saving you,” he said. “I’m saving myself from becoming something worse.”

He moved to the door, yanked it open, and stood aside with a gesture that was almost polite.

“Out,” he said.

You stared at him, shaking.

Your chest hurt with every breath. Your skin still remembered his hands, the press of his thumbs on your jaw, the way he had breathed you in like a drug.

Humiliation crawled up your throat.

“I hate you,” you whispered, because you needed something sharp to hold onto.

Bucky’s eyes flickered.

For a second, you saw him – the real him – bleed through the cruelty.

“I know,” he murmured.

Then, colder again: “Go.”

You walked out of the studio on legs that did not feel like yours.

Behind you, the door shut.

The lock clicked.

It sounded final.

By morning, your belongings were already packed. Two trunks sat in the entry hall like proof of exile. A carriage waited outside. Jarvis stood nearby, expression unreadable, as if he’d performed this ritual before. You descended the stairs with your hands clenched at your sides, throat tight, eyes burning. Bucky was not there. Of course he wasn’t. Coward. Monster. You reached the bottom step and stopped, because leaving without seeing him felt like being erased. “Tell him,” you said to Jarvis, voice raw, “that he’s not the only one who gets haunted.” Jarvis’s gaze softened by a fraction – barely. “Miss…” You shook your head. “Don’t.” You stepped toward the door. And then... A sound above. A soft footstep on the landing. You looked up. Bucky stood at the top of the stairs, half in shadow, hair uncombed, face pale. He looked like he hadn’t slept at all. Like he’d spent the night staring at a blank canvas and trying to convince himself it was enough. He did not come closer. He did not speak. He simply watched you with an expression so raw it made your chest ache. Your mouth opened, but nothing came out. Because what could you say? Don’t do this? He already was. I love you? You didn’t even understand what you felt, only that it tore at you. You swallowed hard. For a heartbeat, his eyes softened. Then, deliberately, he turned away. He chose solitude. The door opened. Cold air rushed in. Rain misted the threshold. You stepped out, and the house behind you stayed standing, rich and silent and unchanged – like it had never needed you at all. But your body did. It felt wrong without the weight of his gaze, without the pull of that locked door, without the strange gravity that had begun to define your days. It felt like you had been ripped out by the roots.

Inside the studio, Bucky destroyed you. Not the way he could have. The way he refused to. He tore sketches from boards and ripped them cleanly in half, then in quarters, then into pieces so small they could not be reassembled. Charcoal smeared his fingers black. Paper fluttered like wounded birds to the floor. His breath came harsh. His hands shook. He burned some. Not all – he couldn’t. He could not bring himself to put flame to the curve of your mouth, the slope of your neck, the way your eyes looked up at him in lines of graphite. He tried anyway. He failed. He ended up on his knees in the middle of the room, surrounded by fragments. In front of him stood a blank canvas. White. Waiting. Merciless. He stared at it for hours, unmoving. Because he had made his choice. And it tasted like ash. Because the only thing worse than stealing your life… Was living forever without it.

Two years did not pass like time. They passed like weather – slow, relentless, getting into everything no matter how carefully you tried to shut the windows. You left the Barnes estate in rain so fine it barely counted as rain at all, and you told yourself, in the carriage, that you would forget. That you would file him away as a strange employer, a beautiful house, a brief madness you had survived. You told yourself that the ache in your ribs was indignation. Not grief. Not loss. Certainly not longing. The new position was in a different city, a different sort of wealth – bright chandeliers, dinner parties, laughter that spilled too loudly into hallways. Children who ran and shrieked and demanded stories at bedtime. A staff that spoke freely, who asked your opinion and invited you to tea, who treated the house like a home instead of a mausoleum. It should have been easier. And in practical ways, it was. Your days had rhythm. Your work had visible results: polished banisters, balanced accounts, full plates returned empty. When you insisted someone eat, they rolled their eyes and obeyed. When you spoke, people listened. No one looked at you like you were a wound they couldn’t stop touching. No one watched your hands like scripture. No one locked doors against themselves. And yet your body did not believe you were safe. You woke some nights with your throat tight, the taste of turpentine sharp at the back of your tongue, as if you had been breathing it in your sleep. You dreamed of candlelight and mirrors, of a ballroom that shattered into paint, of a hand – cool, steady – closing around yours. Sometimes you dreamed of a door. Always locked. Always calling. In daylight, the world conspired to remind you anyway. A painter on a street corner cleaned his brushes in a jar, and the smell hit you so hard you had to sit down on the curb, suddenly dizzy, heart punching at your ribs like it wanted out. A frame shop window displayed a gilded oval, and your skin prickled at the sight of the shape, of the promise of a face inside. Music became a trap. A violin in a theatre pit, a melody drifting from an open window – anything lilting and old made your stomach turn, made you want to hum along and then bite your tongue until it hurt. You refused to think of him. And still, everything led back. You started avoiding art galleries. You stopped walking past antique dealers. You turned away from the portraits in your new employer’s hall as if they might look back. But nostalgia was not something you could outrun by changing streets. It lived under your skin, stubborn as bone. There were days you caught yourself pausing in a corridor, listening for footsteps that weren’t there. There were mornings you set a cup of coffee down on the table and felt, for a split second, the expectation of someone quiet and pale sitting across from you. And when no one did, the emptiness felt like an insult. You told yourself it was because you had been wronged. Not because you missed him. Not because you still, sometimes, pressed your fingers to the place on your jaw where his hands had held your face and tried to remember whether his touch had been gentle. Not because you wondered, in the softest, most shameful corners of your mind, if he was starving without you.

In the house on the hill, seasons changed without permission. Jarvis kept the staff at the same efficiency, the same controlled silence, but something in the building began to sag at the edges – as if the estate itself had been held upright by a force that had stopped exerting itself. Bucky did not paint. Not a stroke. Not a sketch. He locked the studio and threw the key into a drawer and then, when he couldn’t trust himself, had Jarvis take it away. He stopped buying pigments. He stopped ordering canvases. The last box of brushes sat unopened in a cupboard like a coffin. At first, nothing happened. He still moved with the same smoothness. His skin stayed pale and unblemished. His eyes stayed sharp, their grey unchanging. He had been unaging for too long to unravel all at once. But hunger did not like being denied. It made itself known in subtler ways: a tremor in his hand when he signed a letter, a hollowing in his cheeks, a faint tightness around his eyes that hadn’t been there before. He began to sleep – real sleep, heavy and unglamorous – only to wake exhausted anyway. He began to feel cold. Not the poetic cold he’d always worn like a second skin. A human cold that settled in his joints. In late autumn, Jarvis found a hair on the collar of Bucky’s shirt that was not quite black. It was threaded with silver. Jarvis stared at it for a long time, expression controlled, and then quietly removed it as if it were evidence. Bucky did not notice. Or did, and chose not to acknowledge it. Winter came. The house remained too quiet. The portraits watched, unchanged, their subjects eternally paused in near-speech. Bucky began to cough. It started as a rare irritation – one harsh exhale into his fist when he had walked too quickly up the stairs. Then it became more frequent, a dry, stubborn thing that lingered in the mornings. The first time his knees ached enough that he paused on the landing, one hand gripping the banister, he looked down at his fingers as if surprised to find them capable of weakness. Jarvis suggested a physician. Bucky laughed. The sound was thin. “Bring him,” Bucky said finally, voice flat. “Let him look at the miracle.” The doctor arrived on a clear, bitter day, his breath visible in the air. He was a man of science and skepticism, and he looked at the estate as if it were a misdiagnosis. He examined Bucky thoroughly. He took his pulse. He frowned at his lungs. He asked questions Bucky answered with bland, polite lies. In the end, the doctor stood by the fire, rubbing his hands together, confusion creasing his brow. “I can’t make sense of this,” he admitted. “Your symptoms – fatigue, pallor, joint pain, a persistent cough – suggest a slow decline, but you’re otherwise…” He trailed off, staring as if Bucky might explain himself. Bucky’s mouth twisted. “Human,” he supplied quietly. The doctor blinked. “Excuse me?” Bucky did not elaborate. He simply looked past the doctor, past the study, as if he could see through walls to the locked studio. Jarvis escorted the physician out. After he left, Bucky sat alone by the cold fireplace for hours, hands clasped, eyes fixed on nothing. If he had been asked, he would not have called it illness. He would have called it consequence. And he chose it. Every day he did not pick up a brush was a decision. Every day he ate without appetite, slept without rest, felt time press its weight into his bones – he chose it again. He chose to grow old. He chose to die. He chose it because the alternative had your face. Your throat. Your life, framed and hanging on a wall while your body wilted in a bed somewhere else. He would not. Even when the hunger clawed at him. Even when the studio door became a phantom in the hallway, calling him like a drug. Even when he stood outside it at night with his forehead pressed to the wood, breathing shallow, hands shaking, whispering a name he refused to say out loud. He did not. He let himself unravel instead.

You found the portrait on a Tuesday. It was not dramatic. It did not come with thunder or premonition. It came because the children in your care had been restless and your employer had requested something “uplifting,” and the only thing that met the requirements was a museum exhibition opening in the city. You walked through bright halls with too many voices and too much light. You stood in front of landscapes and still lifes and tried to pretend the smell of varnish wasn’t making your palms sweat. Then you turned a corner and saw an oval frame. Your feet stopped without your permission. The painting was hung at eye level, under careful lighting. The placard beneath it named the artist in neat black letters. J. Barnes. Untitled (Lady in Blue), c. 18th century. You felt your blood drain. The woman in the portrait looked out from the canvas with an expression caught between amusement and sorrow. She wore a gown the color of deep water, pearls at her throat. Her hair was arranged in curls, pinned back with a ribbon. Her face… You lifted a hand to your own cheek without thinking. It wasn’t identical. It couldn’t be. And yet it was. The same mouth. The same shape of jaw. The same slight asymmetry in the brow that you had only ever seen when you stared too long at your own reflection. Your heart thundered. The world narrowed to paint and breath. Then you saw it. A small detail, half-hidden by the curve of her sleeve: a bracelet at her wrist, delicate and old, with a tiny charm – an engraved flower. Your stomach dropped so violently you had to grip the railing. Because you owned that bracelet. Not the same style. Not a similar charm. The bracelet. You had worn it since you were sixteen, found in your mother’s old jewellery box with no explanation of where it came from. You had always assumed it was an heirloom. Now you stared at the painted version of it on the wrist of a woman who had supposedly lived centuries ago. Your skin went cold. A memory flickered at the edge of your mind – candlelight, a cool hand fastening the clasp, a voice murmuring something soft in a language you didn’t speak and somehow understood. You swallowed hard. The museum noise rushed back in, too loud, too bright, too alive. You stepped closer until you could see the brushstrokes, the care with which each line had been laid down. The way the artist had painted the pulse at her throat, the suggestion of warmth beneath skin. Not just skill. Reverence. Possession. You stared at her eyes – your eyes – and felt something in you shift, slow and inexorable. This was not coincidence. This was not resemblance. This was a thread pulled tight across centuries, and you were standing on it, trembling. Somewhere deep inside you, under the shock and the nausea and the ache you’d been refusing for two years, a thought rose with terrifying clarity. He knew. He had known the moment you walked into his house. And you – without understanding why – had been drawn to his studio door like something returning home. You stepped back from the portrait, breathing shallow, heart racing. You looked at the name on the placard again. J. Barnes. You had avoided galleries for two years. And still, the world had brought you back to him in paint. You left the exhibition without telling the children why your hands were shaking. That night, in your small rented room, you opened your jewellery box with fingers that did not feel like yours. You took out the bracelet. The tiny flower charm glinted dully under lamplight. You held it up and stared until your eyes burned. Then, without meaning to, you began to hum. A melody old as candlelight. A melody that made your throat tighten and your skin prickle, because your body remembered what your mind still refused to name. And in the silence between two notes, you finally allowed yourself to whisper, to the dark, to the ceiling, to the ghost of a locked door: “Bucky.” The name did not feel like an accusation anymore. It felt like a summons.

The knock came like a mistake.

It was not loud. It was not urgent. It was simply there – three measured taps that did not belong to your house, your street, your new life.

You looked up from the mending in your lap, needle paused mid-thread.

The children were asleep upstairs. The fire had burned down to embers. The kettle on the hob gave off a soft, steady hiss as it cooled. Outside, the city breathed in its usual way – distant wheels on cobblestone, a muffled laugh from somewhere down the lane, the faint, constant murmur of other people existing.

It was a normal evening.

Which meant the knock had no right to unsettle you the way it did.

You rose slowly, heart already tightening. You told yourself it was a neighbor. A messenger. A late delivery.

You told yourself not to be ridiculous.

You crossed the small front room and opened the door.

For a second, you did not understand what you were seeing.

The lamp outside threw its light in uneven shapes across a figure in a dark coat. Rain clung to his shoulders, beading on wool. His hair was damp, pushed back from his face in a way that made him look older.

He stood on your threshold like someone who had forgotten how to stand.

Then your mind caught up.

Bucky.

He looked up, and the breath went out of you in a quiet, involuntary sound.

His eyes were still grey. Still too sharp. But the skin beneath them was bruised with exhaustion, shadows carved in as if time had finally learned how to touch him. There was a fine line near the corner of his mouth that had not existed before, a faint crease between his brows, as if worry had been allowed to settle and stay.

His hands – when they lifted slightly, uncertain – shook.

Not dramatically.

Just enough to break you.

You stared at him, frozen in the doorway, the cold air slipping past your ankles.

“You–” you managed, and the word came out like a wound. “What are you doing here?”

His throat moved. He swallowed hard, as if the answer hurt.

“I…” His voice was rough, scraped thin. “May I come in?”

You should have closed the door.

You should have slammed it.

You should have done anything other than stand there and let the sight of him rearrange your entire body.

Instead, you tightened your grip on the edge of the door and said, with a steadiness you did not feel, “No.”

Bucky flinched.

Good.

You wanted him to.

“You don’t get to show up,” you continued, voice low, controlled, “after two years and ask for–” You cut yourself off because you didn’t know what he was asking for and that terrified you most of all.

His gaze dropped to the threshold, to the space between your shoes and his boots, as if he could not quite look at you directly without collapsing.

“I know,” he murmured. “I know I don’t.”

A silence stretched.

Rain ticked against the lamp glass.

Your chest ached with the effort of breathing.

Then Bucky’s knees buckled.

It happened so fast you moved on instinct, hand shooting out – catching his coat sleeve, his arm, the solid weight of him dropping.

He sank anyway.

Down onto both knees on your doorstep, head bowed, shoulders shaking once like a man swallowing a sob.

Your fingers tightened on his sleeve, stunned by the reality of it: Bucky on the ground, Bucky begging without even looking like he had the right to speak.

“Don’t,” you said, the word sharp. “Don’t do that.”

He did not rise.

He lifted his face slowly, and the lamplight made him look painfully human.

“I stopped,” he said, voice barely audible. “I stopped painting.”

Your breath caught.

“I haven’t touched a brush,” he continued, and his throat worked as if each word had to be forced past something lodged there. “Not since you left.”

You stared at him, the memory of charcoal sketches flashing behind your eyes, the studio smell in your nostrils, the way his hands had held your face.

“You threw me out,” you said, and your voice broke on the last word despite your effort. “You told me I was a fixation.”

Bucky’s eyes flinched as if you’d struck him. “I lied.”

“I know,” you whispered, because you did, because the lie had been too sharp to be anything else.

He swallowed hard. His gaze searched your face like a starving man searching for mercy.

“I chose to lose it,” he said. “The–” He closed his eyes briefly, jaw tightening. “The eternity. I chose to let it go.”

Your heart pounded. “Why are you telling me this?”

His laugh was a broken breath. “Because it’s the only thing I can offer you that isn’t theft.”

You stared at him. Your anger, so carefully held, wavered.

You looked at his hands again – at the slight tremor, at the veins more visible than before, at the faint roughness of knuckles that looked like time had begun to write its signature into him.

He had changed.

He had paid.

And the knowledge made you furious all over again.

“You think this makes it better?” you demanded. “That you suffered alone like some– some martyr?”

Bucky’s gaze dropped. “No.”

“Then why are you here?” you snapped, voice rising. “Why now?”

He drew a shaky breath, shoulders lifting and falling.

“Because I tried,” he whispered. “I tried to be without you.”

The sentence landed in your chest like a stone.

Bucky lifted his eyes to yours, and there was no dignity left in them. Just truth.

“A life without you isn’t life,” he said.

You went very still.

Your throat tightened so hard it hurt. You hated him for saying it. You hated him for making the words sound like something inevitable.

You forced your voice to work. “You don’t get to decide what my life is.”

“I know,” he said quickly, desperate. “I know. That’s why I made you leave. That’s why I made you hate me– so you’d go. So you’d live. Because if I painted you, you would–” His voice broke. He swallowed hard, eyes bright with something he refused to let fall. “You would fade.”

Your hands clenched on the door. “And you thought throwing me away was kinder.”

Bucky flinched again. “Yes.”

You stared at him, heart hammering, the memory of his hands on your jaw burning on your skin even now.

“You were afraid,” you said slowly.

“Yes,” he admitted, and the simplicity of it made you want to scream. “I was afraid of killing you. Afraid of loving you and doing it anyway. Afraid of… repeating it.”

Your stomach twisted. “Repeating what?”

Bucky’s eyes flickered, and something old and raw moved behind them.

Then he reached inside his coat with shaking fingers.

You tensed instinctively, but he only pulled out a small object wrapped in cloth.

He held it up like an offering, like an apology.

A ring.

Old gold, worn smooth, a small stone set into it that caught the lamplight and turned it into a faint, watery fire.

Your breath stopped.

You had seen that ring before.

Not in your life – not in any memory you could claim as yours.

In your dreams.

On a hand that held yours in a ballroom that smelled of candle wax and perfume.

You stared at it, unable to blink.

Bucky’s voice dropped to a whisper.

“I kept it,” he said. “Like an idiot. Like it meant something if I held on tight enough.”

Your throat tightened. “Why are you showing me this?”

His gaze lifted to your face, raw. “Because I can’t keep pretending I don’t know.”

A cold wave rolled through you.

“What you don’t know?” you whispered.

Bucky’s mouth opened.

For a heartbeat, he hesitated – as if saying it might break the last barrier keeping the past from swallowing the present.

Then he spoke a name you had never heard and still recognized like a scar.

“Eveline.”

The world tilted.

The lamplight flared too bright. The street noise vanished. Your lungs forgot how to work.

And then – memory hit you in fragments, not a clean return but a storm of sensations:

A hand fastening a bracelet at your wrist, fingers cool and careful.

A laugh swallowed behind your palm.

The scent of oil paint and rain and cedar.

A voice – his voice – saying, soft and warning, Don’t furrow your brow like that. You’ll make it permanent.

Except you had said it.

To him.

In another room. Another century. Candlelight trembling as you leaned over his shoulder to see a sketch.

Your knees went weak.

You grabbed the doorframe harder, nails biting into wood.

Bucky’s face went white.

He surged forward on his knees, stopping himself as if terrified to touch you without permission.

“I shouldn’t have said it,” he rasped. “I shouldn’t have–”

You stared at him, shaking, the name echoing in your skull like a bell.

“That’s not–” you whispered. “That’s not real.”

Bucky’s eyes glistened. “I wish it wasn’t.”

You swallowed hard, breath coming shallow.

The streetlamp made his face look older, yes, but it also made him look… undone. Like the man you had known and the monster he feared were both stripped bare in the cold.

“I didn’t come to claim you,” he said quickly, as if he could hear the terror in your silence. “I didn’t come to take anything. I just–” His voice broke. He looked down at the ring in his palm, then up again, pleading without pride. “I couldn’t do it anymore. I couldn’t keep living like I was already dead.”

Your mouth opened.

No sound came.

Your anger was still there, sharp and hot, but now it tangled with something else – something older than anger, older than the two years you had spent trying to forget.

A familiarity that sat in your bones and whispered, This is the same man. This is the same pain.

You forced your voice to steady. “Get up,” you said.

Bucky froze, searching your face. “What?”

“You’re blocking the doorway,” you snapped, because practicality was the only thing keeping you from shattering. “Get up, Bucky.”

His breath hitched.

Slowly – carefully – he rose, as if his knees didn’t quite trust him anymore.

You saw it then: the faint stiffness as he stood. The slight wince he tried to hide.

Human frailty.

Chosen.

Paid for.

You stepped back, still gripping the door.

You did not say come in.

You did not say I forgive you.

You simply moved enough to allow him to cross the threshold.

Bucky hesitated, eyes flicking to yours like he expected you to slam the door in his face.

Then he stepped inside.

The air between you trembled.

Behind him, rain whispered on the street.

In front of you, your small home waited – warm, ordinary, full of sleeping children and a kettle and the life you had built without him.

Bucky stood in the center of it like a sin.

Like a prayer.

You closed the door.

Not gently.

Not cruelly.

Just firmly, with hands that still shook.

When you turned back to face him, he stood utterly still, coat dripping onto your floorboards, eyes fixed on you with the terrified devotion of someone who had finally reached the edge of himself.

You looked at the ring in his palm.

At the name still ringing in your skull.

At the faint line at the corner of his mouth that time had carved into him.

And you realized, with a clarity that made you feel sick and dizzy and alive all at once:

This was not the end.

This was the moment the past decided to step into the room and demand to be acknowledged.

You drew a slow, shaky breath.

“Tell me everything,” you said.

Bucky’s shoulders sagged, relief and dread collapsing together.

“Yes,” he whispered. “Yes. I will.”

And for the first time since you had left his house, he did not look like a man hiding behind locked doors.

He looked like a man ready to be judged.

He did not sleep that first night.

Neither did you.

Not in any meaningful way. You dozed in brittle fragments on the edge of your bed, listening to the house breathe, listening for the creak of floorboards that did not come, listening for the sound of him leaving so you wouldn’t have to decide what to do with the fact that he’d returned.

But he stayed.

You knew because the kettle was refilled when you woke. Because the latch on the back window had been checked – twice. Because the small, careful order of your front room had shifted in the way it always did when someone lived there instead of visited.

Bucky sat at your table with his hands around a mug he wasn’t drinking from, staring at the steam as if it could teach him how to be a person.

You stood by the sink, staring at your own reflection in a spoon because there was no mirror in your house either – just habit now, a shadow of his.

“Tell me,” you said, voice hoarse. “All of it.”

He did.

He told you about the first portrait – the one he’d painted in arrogance, in hunger, in the belief that art could outwit death. He told you about the moment the paint had dried too quickly, as if the canvas had inhaled. He told you about the years that followed: the way the studio became a mouth, the way the hunger grew teeth, the way it demanded new faces the way fire demanded new wood.

He did not romanticize it.

He made it ugly.

And you listened, shaking, because the ugliness was the only thing that made the love survivable.

When he finished, the room sat in silence, thick and ordinary: a ticking clock, a distant carriage, a child turning in sleep upstairs.

You stared at his hands on the mug.

Older hands now. Not dramatically, not enough for strangers to remark on, but enough for you to see. The faint roughness at his knuckles. The delicate betrayal of a new vein. The slight tremor when he lifted the cup and set it down again.

Time had started writing on him. “Then this is it,” you said quietly. “You don’t paint. You die.” Bucky’s throat moved. “Yes.” “And if you paint…” Your voice tightened. You couldn’t say I die. Your lungs refused it. Bucky’s gaze lifted to yours. “I won’t.” “You already wanted to,” you snapped, and the anger came sharp because it had to, because if it softened you’d fall apart. “You wanted to paint me so badly you drew me in pieces like prayers. You held my face like you were going to–” He flinched. His jaw tightened, eyes bright with something he refused to let spill. “I know,” he said, rough. “I know what I was.” You swallowed hard. “So what do you want from me now?” Bucky stared at the table, knuckles whitening around the mug. “I want…” He exhaled. “I want to be near you while I can.” The simplicity of it hurt more than any grand declaration. You looked away, throat burning, because the part of you that remembered candlelight and a ballroom and a hand fastening a bracelet wanted to say yes without thought. But you had lived two years without him. You had made a life. You had learned, the hard way, that love did not excuse a knife. “No,” you said. Bucky’s head snapped up. You held his gaze, forcing your voice steady. “Not like that. Not as some– some beautiful tragedy where I sit by your bedside and watch you fade because you decided it was noble. Not as another story you can tell yourself where suffering counts as love.” Bucky’s mouth opened. Closed. He looked like he wanted to argue and didn’t deserve to. You stepped closer, hands clenched so tightly your nails bit your palms. “I am not going to be painted,” you said, each word deliberate. “Not for your survival. Not for your art. Not for eternity. I am not going to become a sacrifice again.” Bucky’s breath shook. “I wouldn’t ask you,” he whispered. “I know,” you said, and the ache in your chest sharpened. “That’s what makes it worse.” His eyes held yours, devastated. “Then what do we do?” The question landed between you like a knife with no handle. You stared at him, at his pale face now marked with time, and something in you steadied – not because the choice was easy, but because you finally understood the lie that had governed both your lives. The lie that love was something you kept. That you could preserve it. That you could pin it to canvas and call it safety. You took a slow breath. “We live,” you said. Bucky blinked, as if the word was foreign. You stepped even closer until you were within reach, until you could feel the cold of him and the heat of your own anger braided together. “We live,” you repeated, voice softer now. “Not as a portrait. Not as an excuse. You don’t get to keep me. You get to… be with me. In the world. In time. Even if it’s short.” Bucky’s throat bobbed. “And then I die.” “Yes,” you said. His face twisted. “I can’t–” “You can,” you cut in. “Because you already chose it. You chose it for two years. You chose it when you walked to my door with lines on your face and shaking hands.” His eyes fluttered shut for a second. When he opened them again, they were wet. “I did,” he admitted. You swallowed hard, the lump in your throat aching. “You used art as a substitute,” you said quietly, and the words felt like pulling a thorn from your own skin. “You used immortality as a way to avoid losing anyone again. And it cursed you.”

Bucky stared at you as if you had named the exact shape of his shame.

“I wanted to make it immortal,” he whispered.

“And you made it hungry,” you replied.

Silence stretched.

Then Bucky’s gaze shifted – past you, to the window, to the grey daylight, to the world he had avoided for so long.

“There’s… something else,” he said.

Your stomach tightened. “What?”

Bucky’s hand lifted, trembling slightly, and pressed against his own chest as if he could hold the truth in place.

“It isn’t just that I need to paint to keep myself,” he said. “It’s that the first portrait–” His jaw clenched. “It’s still there.”

You froze. “In your house.”

He nodded once, sharp. “In the studio. Behind a curtain. Locked away like a– like a god.”

A cold wave rolled through you. “The one that started it.”

“Yes.”

You heard the unspoken weight: the original theft. The original bargain.

You set your jaw. “Then destroy it.”

Bucky stared at you as if you had suggested he cut out his own heart.

“I can’t,” he whispered.

You tilted your chin. “Why not?”

His eyes flicked to yours, raw with terror. “Because it isn’t just paint.”

The air in your small kitchen seemed to thin.

“What is it,” you demanded, voice low.

Bucky swallowed. “A pact.”

The word tasted bitter in the room.

“Not with a devil,” he added quickly, as if you might picture horns and smoke. “Not like that. With… the rule. The thing behind it. The hunger that answers artists when they ask for too much.”

Your skin prickled.

“You mean a curse,” you said.

He nodded. “And it speaks in the only language it cares about.”

You stared at him. “What language.”

Bucky’s mouth tightened. “Payment.”

Outside, a child laughed somewhere on the street – bright, oblivious.

Inside, Bucky looked like a man standing on the edge of a cliff.

“I tried,” he said, voice rough. “Once. I tried to tear it. The canvas… resisted. Like skin. Like it didn’t want to let go.”

Your stomach turned.

“And if you destroy it,” you said slowly, “what happens?”

Bucky’s gaze dropped to his hands.

“I think…” He swallowed. “I think it breaks the cycle. I think it lets time back in. Fully.” You watched his fingers tremble. “You’ll age,” you said. “Yes.” “And die,” you added softly. Bucky nodded. A quiet settled in your bones – a terrible kind of peace. This was the choice, stripped bare: not immortality versus love, but hunger versus living. Taking versus being. You reached for his hand. He flinched automatically, as if touch was still a danger. You held steady. Your fingers closed around his, warm over cool, firm enough to anchor. “You’re not alone,” you said. Bucky stared at your joined hands like he didn’t understand how they could exist without theft. Then he tightened his grip, just slightly, as if afraid you’d vanish. “All right,” he whispered.

The Barnes estate looked smaller when you returned. Not in size – its walls were still tall, its windows still watched with blank patience – but in power. It felt less like a god and more like a building. A place. A thing made of stone that could burn. Jarvis opened the door and went very still when he saw you beside Bucky. For a heartbeat, something like relief flickered across his face. Then it was gone, replaced by duty. “You’ve come back,” he said quietly. Bucky’s jaw tightened. “Only to end it.” Jarvis’s gaze slid to Bucky’s hands, to the faint tremor, to the subtle lines time had begun to carve. He understood without being told. He simply stepped aside. The corridor was the same. Portraits watched you pass, their faces frozen in eternal nearly-speech. The air tasted of dust and varnish and something sharp beneath it. Your skin crawled as you walked past the studio door. Bucky paused there. For a second, you thought he might break – might run, might collapse, might give in. Instead, he pulled a key from his pocket. It looked heavier than metal had any right to be. His hand shook as he put it in the lock. “You don’t have to,” you said, voice low. Bucky’s laugh was thin. “Yes. I do.” He opened the door. The studio swallowed you again, cold and sharp and too alive. It smelled the same – oil, wood, turpentine – except now there was something else underneath, a metallic tang like blood on a tongue. The canvases leaned like silent witnesses. Jars of brushes sat like bouquets on graves. Charcoal dust stained the floor in faint ghosts of footprints. Bucky walked to the far wall without hesitation, as if his body remembered the route even if his mind wanted to deny it. A heavy curtain hung there, dark velvet, thick enough to drink light. He stopped in front of it. His shoulders rose and fell once. “You don’t have to look,” he said, voice rough. “I do,” you replied.

Bucky’s hand lifted and caught the edge of the curtain. For a heartbeat, he didn’t pull – frozen, like a man about to reveal a corpse. Then he yanked it aside. The portrait was large. Larger than any you’d seen in the halls. The frame was ornate, gold worked into vines, but the paint inside was the real trap. The woman on the canvas looked out with eyes so alive it made your stomach lurch. She was beautiful. And familiar. Not because she looked like you now, but because you recognized the shape of her, the tilt of her head, the defiant softness in her mouth – as if you had once worn that face and dared the world to hurt you. Her skin glowed with impossible health. Her cheeks were flushed. Her throat showed the suggestion of a pulse. A pulse trapped in paint. You swallowed hard. Bucky stood beside you, rigid. His gaze fixed on the portrait like it was a weapon pointed at his heart. “That’s her,” he whispered. The name – Eveline – did not need to be said. It hummed in the air anyway. Your vision blurred with sudden, sharp memory: candlelight, laughter, a hand clasped in yours, a kiss you hadn’t yet earned. You steadied yourself with a breath. Then you looked at Bucky. “This is the lie,” you said quietly. “This is what you clung to instead of living.” Bucky’s jaw clenched. “I wanted to keep her.” “And you turned her into payment,” you replied, voice trembling with anger and grief braided together. “You turned love into a bargain.” Bucky flinched. Good. He deserved to. He stepped closer to the portrait, hands shaking. For a moment, he looked like he might reach out and touch the painted cheek. Instead, he pulled his hand back into a fist. The hunger in the room stirred, as if offended. The air thickened. The studio seemed to lean toward the portrait, toward him, toward you. And then – so softly you might have imagined it – a whisper threaded through the space. Not a voice. A sensation. A pressure behind your eyes. A thought that wasn’t yours: Immortality demands a cost. Your breath caught. Bucky’s shoulders jerked, as if he’d heard it too. He stared at the portrait, lips parted, eyes bright with terror and fury.

“I know,” he whispered. The studio responded with silence so heavy it felt like hands on your skin. Bucky’s breathing turned uneven. His gaze flicked to you – panicked, pleading, apologetic all at once. “You can leave,” he said hoarsely. “You don’t have to be here for this.” You stepped closer to him instead. You took his trembling hand and laced your fingers through his. His skin was cool. His grip was desperate. “You’re not alone,” you said again, and this time the words felt like an oath. Bucky swallowed hard. Then he nodded once – sharp, like a man choosing a blade. He crossed the room to the workbench, hands moving with practiced familiarity. He opened a drawer and pulled out a small tin of oil, a rag, a metal blade used for scraping paint. Not elegant tools. Just honest ones. He set them down, stared at them, and his hand shook harder. The hunger in the room pressed closer. Bucky closed his eyes. “Stop,” he whispered. “Stop asking.” Then he dipped the rag in oil and tossed it onto the floor beneath the portrait. The smell hit hard – sharp and flammable. He took a match from the desk. His fingers fumbled it once. Twice. You squeezed his hand. He looked at you, eyes wet. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “For what?” you asked, voice breaking. “For wanting to keep you,” he said. “For thinking love could be… owned.” Your throat tightened. “Light it.” Bucky’s breath shuddered. He struck the match. Flame flared, small and fierce, and for a second it was just a normal fire – light and heat, nothing supernatural. Then the flame touched the oil-soaked rag. The fire caught. It climbed fast, hungry, bright, and the studio filled with heat and smoke. The portrait did not burn like normal canvas. For a heartbeat, the flame licked the surface and slid away, as if the paint repelled it. The woman’s eyes stared out unchanged, unblinking, alive in her prison. The room pulsed with resistance. Bucky made a sound – half snarl, half sob. He grabbed the blade and ran it across the canvas. The fabric gave with a sound like tearing skin. A long, violent rip opened from the woman’s shoulder to her waist. Pigment bled down the frame in thick, dark streaks – red-brown, too wet, too real. The smell turned metallic. Your stomach lurched. Bucky’s hands shook as he ripped again, harder, deeper, tearing the portrait open like he was cutting a wound that had been festering for centuries. The fire surged into the tear. This time it held. Flame poured through the split canvas, devouring the painted skin, the painted pulse, the lie of immortality. The woman’s face warped in heat, her eyes melting into dark hollows. The studio seemed to scream without sound. Pressure slammed against your chest, making it hard to breathe. The whisper rose again, furious: Cost. Cost. Cost. Bucky staggered, jaw clenched, eyes squeezed shut, as if something inside him was being yanked loose. It wasn’t pain in the ordinary sense. It looked like withdrawal. Like a drug ripped away. His grip on your hand tightened to crushing. You held on anyway. “Bucky,” you gasped, smoke burning your throat. “Look at me.” He did, eyes wild. “You’re here,” you said fiercely. “With me. Not with the canvas. With me.” Bucky’s breath hitched. His shoulders shook. Then, finally – slowly – something in him softened, like a muscle unclenching after centuries. The fire roared. The portrait collapsed inward, frame blackening, canvas curling as it burned. A wave of heat blasted your face, and you flinched, but you did not let go of his hand.

Bucky stared at the flames with an expression that was grief and relief intertwined so tightly it was impossible to separate them. As the last section of canvas curled and fell, the air in the studio shifted. Not lighter. Different. The pressure behind your eyes eased, like a hand releasing your skull. The hunger receded – not satisfied, but severed. And in the sudden, aching quiet that followed, you felt it: time. Not as an idea. As a weight settling onto Bucky’s shoulders. He swayed slightly. His breath came in harsher pulls. He looked down at his own hands like he didn’t recognize them. A new line had carved itself deeper at the corner of his mouth. A faint shadow of grey threaded his hair, visible even through smoke and firelight. He swallowed hard. “It’s… real,” he whispered. “Yes,” you said, voice shaking. “It’s real.” Bucky’s eyes lifted to you, raw. “You’re not fading,” he whispered, as if he needed to hear it aloud. You held his face with both hands – warm, solid – and forced him to look at you. “No,” you said. “I’m not. And you’re not taking me.” A broken sound left his throat – half laugh, half sob. He leaned forward until his forehead rested against yours. Not a kiss. Not a claim. A surrender. Outside the studio door, the house remained tall and rich and silent. Inside, the curse burned itself down to ash. And what was left was not eternity. It was something smaller, braver, and infinitely harder: A life measured in mornings. In ordinary breath. In love that did not need to be preserved to be real.

Spring arrived like it had been invited. Not dramatically – no sudden bloom that made the estate look like a painting – but steadily, insistently, the way real seasons did when no curse held them at bay. The hedges softened from black to green. The air lost its metallic bite. Somewhere in the trees beyond the drive, birds began to argue at dawn, rude and alive. The Barnes house did not collapse without its hunger. It simply… changed. The first change was light. You pulled the heavy curtains open room by room, letting sun spill onto wood that had spent too long pretending it preferred darkness. Dust rose in slow, shimmering clouds, visible now, unapologetic, and you did not rush to erase it like a sin. It was proof. Proof that time moved. Proof that things settled. Proof that the world touched this place again. Jarvis watched you the first morning you did it, standing in the doorway of the drawing room with his hands clasped behind his back. He did not scold you. After a long moment, he nodded once, almost imperceptibly, as if accepting an order he had been waiting centuries to be given. The second change was sound. Bucky began to cough less, slowly, as if his body was learning new rules. His steps creaked the stairs now – quietly, but honestly. There were mornings he woke with a stiffness he could not hide, and he made a face at his own joints as if personally offended by them. You teased him for it when you could, because teasing was ordinary and ordinary was sacred. “You’re frowning,” you told him once as he sat at the kitchen table, rubbing his knuckles like they belonged to a stranger. “Careful. You’ll make it permanent.” He froze. Then he looked up, and his eyes did not fill with panic this time. They softened. They found you in the present. “I already did,” he said, and the corner of his mouth lifted in something small and real. “Haven’t I?” You crossed the room and pressed a kiss to his temple – quick, practical, unceremonious. “Eat,” you said. He sighed like a man sentenced. Then he did. Some of it was habit. Some of it was love. Most of it was your refusal to let him disappear quietly into martyrdom. He still offered you useful things. He brought home a stack of books from the city – household ledgers disguised as poetry, history you didn’t need and novels you pretended not to like. He repaired a loose latch before you noticed it. He left a new shawl draped over your chair on a particularly cold morning, as if you might not know how to wrap yourself without him. You caught him once, hovering near the shawl like he’d been afraid to give it. “You know you can just hand it to me,” you said. His gaze flicked to yours, embarrassed. “I didn’t want to make a fuss.” “You’re making a fuss by sneaking,” you replied. His mouth twitched. “You’re still difficult,” he said, and it sounded like affection finally had permission to exist. “So are you,” you shot back, and felt the warmth of it settle into your bones. You stayed. Not as a governess. Not as staff. Not as a temporary solution. As home. Your room became your room, not a prepared space waiting for someone else’s ghost. You moved your things into his world without asking permission, because he had spent too long pretending he deserved nothing and you were done indulging that lie. And the house – God, the house – learned. It learned how to be lived in instead of preserved. It learned the sound of your laughter in the corridor. It learned the smell of bread in the mornings. It learned the mess of shoes left by the door because you were tired and the world didn’t end when things were out of place. It learned that love was not a museum.

Bucky painted again. Not right away. At first he sat in the studio with the door wide open, as if refusing secrecy was part of penance. The room still smelled of oil and wood, but the metallic tang was gone, burned out with the portrait that had started everything. The blank canvases remained – silent, patient – but they no longer felt like mouths. They felt like paper. Possibility. He began with landscapes. A view from the upstairs window: hedges in spring, rain on glass, the sky bruised and shifting. A bowl of fruit in the kitchen, stubbornly ordinary. A chair by the fire with the throw you always stole and never folded properly. He painted objects like he was relearning what it meant to look without taking. Some days his hands trembled. Some days he stopped mid-stroke and stared at his own fingers like they’d betrayed him. You never made it a tragedy. You brought him tea. You sat on the floor with a book. You let the silence exist without turning it into a performance. “You don’t have to prove anything,” you told him once, when he stared too long at a blank canvas like it might bite. He swallowed, throat tight. “I do. To myself.” You nodded, because you understood. Then you said, simply, “All right. But you’re not doing it alone.” He glanced at you – eyes tired, grateful, terrified – and went back to his brush.

One morning, months later, you found a small canvas propped against the kitchen wall, still drying. It was unassuming. No ornate frame. No dramatic lighting. Just paint on cloth. You stepped closer and felt your breath catch. Your hands were on it. Not your face. Not your throat. Not the curve of you that had once made his hunger sharpen. Just your hands, resting around a teacup on the kitchen table. The light was soft. The brushwork tender. The composition quiet. Alive. And when you looked at your own hands – real hands, warm and steady – you felt no drain, no dizziness, no creeping chill. Nothing had been taken. It was simply… a memory made visible. You turned slowly and found Bucky in the doorway, watching you watch it. His posture was hesitant, like he expected to be punished for daring. “Is it…” he began. You held his gaze. “It’s beautiful.” His shoulders loosened by a fraction, relief settling into him like a breath. “It didn’t hurt you,” he said, voice low, almost disbelieving. “No,” you replied. You crossed the room and took his hands – cool, older, human – and pressed them to your lips. “It didn’t.” He closed his eyes briefly, like the sensation overwhelmed him. Then he opened them and looked at you with an honesty so simple it made your chest ache. “I don’t want eternity,” he said. “I want mornings.” Your throat tightened. Outside, birds argued in the hedges like they owned the world. The kettle began to sing. Dust floated in sunlight like tiny, harmless ghosts. You squeezed his hands. “Then have them,” you whispered. “All of them.” He leaned forward and kissed you – soft, careful, not claiming, not desperate. Just present. And when you pulled back, you rested your forehead against his and let the truth settle, gentle and irrevocable: Immortality had been a cage. Love was the door.

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