buckyssmolbean (ur local writer) @buchananssmolbean - Tumblr Blog

Jamie - Oneshot

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Reader

Word Count: 9.5k

Summary: How James Buchanan Barnes, boring old paralegal got and lost the girl.

Warnings: angst, like a smidgen of fluff, alcohol use, drug use (mentioned not shown), unhealthy relationships, the 'I don't deserve you cliche', did I mention angst?, calling Bucky 'Jamie'

A/N: I wanted to make you guys cry.

This was written for the beautiful @sweeterthanthis's Quote Me On It 6k challenge, my chosen prompt is bolded down below. Congrats Lau on a huge milestone! You deserve it and so much more! I'll link her masterlist here, go check out her stuff, it's amazing. One of my personal favourites is: Come Home, Baby.

Also, a huge thank you @mellowdinonuggets for reading this over and making sure that my sentences are actually legible. Love ya tons!

To see if there’s a happy ending, click here.

Copyright Notice: I do not own any of the images or dividers used in this post, credit to their original owners. I do not own any of the Marvel characters, they belong to Marvel. This is my own creative piece of writing, you do not have permission to repost it as yours on any other sites and/or translate it (without my written permission). That counts as plagiarism, which is illegal. Reblogs are fine, and encouraged!

“When I saw you, four years ago…”

Three years ago, Bucky’s heart had been torn in two and abandoned, each half hanging loose from either side of his chest. And now, as it thumped a rhythm, something similar to what it had been playing three years ago, the stitches and the staples sent a rush of pain with each lub dub...lub dub…

Three years ago, Bucky suffered the worst heartache of his life, and was still suffering.

She seemed to have moved on just fine.

Four years ago, she had met her future husband in her apartment, a small get together with a couple of friends. Four years ago, when she met her husband, she was also Bucky’s girlfriend and madly in love. With whom?

That’s when it got blurry and the clean and pristine black and whites burst into an ever-changing, overwhelming myriad of colours. Beautiful, and messy.

Four years. He sighed and shook his head disbelievingly, earning a disapproving glare from the old lady beside him. That was over a thousand days, thousands of hours where he could have given her more kisses, roamed the smooth curves of her body more, stared more into those eyes that caused him to fall head over heels.

He didn’t know how many they had, kisses, touches, stares. They weren’t things people would normally count, and Bucky was people. He didn’t count them because he thought he’d always get them, that he’d be able to get as many as he wanted for the rest of his life. He’d never considered a world where the opposite were true.

For a minute, he thinks that had he known her kisses were finite, he would have counted each and every one. But, then, where would have been the promise? The promise and the hope that they wouldn’t have to be counting, that one day they could just go to sleep and never wake up again, never having worried about the number of times they’d held hands, because they just knew, it was enough.

He lets his eyes trace over the outline of her lips, and, inadvertently, the sudden rush of emotions that hit him the first time he gets to kiss her, rush back to him.

The little marinara sauce stain at the corner of her mouth, the way the moonlight shone on the side of her head, and the way, no matter how creepy it sounded, Bucky suddenly had the urge to bury his face in her hair and breathe. Breathe so deeply that the smell of her would be ingrained into his lungs, that on every exhale away from her, his chest would tighten up in disappointment that she wasn’t near.

Instead, he holds himself back, and with a gentle hand, brushes away at the parmesan cheese littering her black dress like the stars in the sky. Except that the few stars that could be seen were blocked by the clouds and… he’d been staring at her eyes.

She had cracked some lame joke about wanting to cop a feel, and he’d pulled back in shame, cheeks flushing with embarrassment, because damn it this girl had been different and he had wanted to try something different, to be different, someone else, someone better for her. At his rushed and broken apologies, one stumbling forward before the other got to finish, she had leaned forward, cupping his face between her hands.

In a sudden rush of clarity, his mind calmed down as he let his eyes trace the curves of her face, relishing in the feel of her hands against his clean cut. Normally, he would have let his left arm curl around her hip, play with the lace endings of her dress, enjoying the small bumps and ridges as he traced the flowers and twisting vines. But instead, because this was different, he kept them respectfully at his sides.

“I like you,” she giggled, leaning in and rubbing her nose against his in a soft gesture and driving his heart haywire. “A lot, maybe a little more than what’s good for me.”

He hadn’t known how he’d gotten into this situation really. One minute, he was on his way home from work on the subway, the other, the prettiest girl had stood up beside him, vacating her seat for an elderly woman. A girl so pretty that his heart ached not knowing what her voice sounded like, how the edges of her smile would look like up close, in her eyes. And just to quell the ache, to soothe the itch, he started talking to her.

And now, he was rubbing noses with her in an abandoned alley, walking her home like a gentleman and planning to leave a kiss on her cheek and whistle down the street, all the way back to his apartment. Except that she was leaning dangerously forward, and brushing her lips against his and he was frozen as to what to do.

“Not gonna give a poor girl a kiss, Barnes?” she teased with a pout.

And, with one fair swoop, he was kissing her… her. Something chaste, something simple, literally biting back his tongue so as to not move any faster than she wanted. Slowly, his hands crawled up the sides of her arms, coming to rest neutrally on her shoulders where they played with the netty fabric of her sleeves.

She had hummed happily in their kiss, letting her hands drift up into the short tendrils of his hair, prolonging it for as long as she could stand to be without air and then some. Pulling away, both of their lungs on fire, and his heart already singed, he’d stared dreamily at her, still not letting his hands stray from their safe haven.

“You’re pretty new to this dating thing, aren’t ya?” she tilted her head as she surveyed him up and down. “Either that, or you’re a time traveller from the forties. I really hope it’s the last one.”

“Hate to be the bearer of bad news,” he smiled shyly, holding his hands up in defense. “James Buchanan Barnes, just your boring old paralegal.”

He didn’t have the heart to correct her. To tell her that he’d done everything besides dating. That he’d slither from bar to bar, been taken from one side of the city to the other, with men and women he hadn’t cared enough about to learn the names of.

If he’d truly shown her the darker twistings of his heart, then she would recoil in fear and disgust, and drop the other pieces that he had already blindly trusted her with.

Technically, he was new to this dating thing, wasn’t he?

“Well, James Buchanan Barnes, boring old paralegal-” she reached forward and took his hands in hers, guiding one to the small expanse of her back right above her ass, the other to the cusp of where her neck met her collarbone. “This is how you should be touching a woman.”

In that boring alleyway, with the simplest of touches, with the sweetest of kisses, the boring paralegal fell in love, and with him, the snow.

So started his fight with the inevitable, for three long months where he’d stare at himself in the mirror and try to banish the star-stricken look from his eyes after spending the past three hours on the phone chattering back and forth with her.

Where, standing at the top of the mountain they’d just hiked up, her forehead dewy with sweat, tendrils of hair clinging to her neck, he’d force himself to look away from her and spare a glance at the view below them.

Where, late at nights with her naked body pressed to his, the calming rhythm of her chest rising against his, he’d stare at the ceiling and try to force himself awake from the dream he was sure he was having. To try to convince himself that this was just some drug-induced hallucination and he would wake up in the back room of some club or other and he would stumble back to his bed and pass out.

Except he didn’t wake up, and looking down, tracing the curve of her nose with his eyes, he realized that there was no way that some slimy, backstreet drug could dream her up. With her soft smiles and free laughs and her...ugh. He was whipped and boy was it hard to keep denying it.

She shifted around in his arms with a low hum, and his blood ran cold, realising that he must have groaned out loud. Stickly, she opened her eyes and laid her head across his chest, looking into his eyes.

“What’s wrong?” her voice was like gravel as she tried to stifle a yawn, rubbing at one eye.

Bucky shook his head, holding her gaze softly.

He could see her fight the battle between sleep and him in her eyes, and he was about to tell her to go back to sleep, that he wasn’t worth her late-night worry, but she beat him to it, and leaning forward, pressed a long kiss on his lips. His eyes fluttered and closed, his restless, burnt heart settling in his chest, his breath flowing in and out of his lungs easier, as his hands gently came up and cupped her cheeks, keeping her mouth against his.

“Somethin’ is up with you,” she sighed, pulling back and pressing their foreheads together.

His hands travelled to the expanse of her back, letting them roam freely as he enjoyed the grounding feel of her weight on top of him. “Nothin’ that you should be worrying about, honey.”

“I care about you,” she sighed, tracing the line of his cheekbone with her nose. “I worry about the things that matter to me.”

He chuckled at her simple logic, ignoring the way his chest tightened in a foreign feeling at her words. She kept talking, a soft look in her eyes that Bucky hadn’t seen directed at him in over twenty years, “Why won’t you tell me what’s wrong? Maybe I can help fix it.”

He jutted his bottom lip out and put on his best puppy eyes, “I want a kiss, that’s what’s wrong.”

She frowned and hit his arm lightly, getting off of him and turning on her side. From where he was, he could only see her back, and though a selfish part of him wanted to see the rest of her, to hold her and feel her warm skin and remind himself that this is real, another part of him knew that her back is more than he deserves.

That had she really known who he was, that she’d pull away fear and all the trust that had built up between them would shatter in an instant. He knew that had she truly known, she’d stumble her way out of his bed, horrified that she was lying naked with a monster.

So, selfishly, he reached out and started to gently stroke the outline of her spine that sticked out from her back, before she flinched away from him and in a harsh tone said, “Don’t touch me.”

He pulled away immediately, and out of respect, inched his way to the edge of the bed, staring at his hand as if it was on fire, “Sorry.”

A poisonous silence laid down between them, and Bucky had to squint through it in order to see her and the curve of her head, resting against the pillow. He knew her breathing patterns well enough, having spent one too many nights lying awake and watching the gentle rise and fall of her chest, to know that though she was pretending at it, she was as wide awake as he was.

When the quiet got too unbearable, Bucky got up and off the bed with a sigh. He assumed that their conversation was over, just like whatever relationship they had built up until now. It was all he knew.

Soon, her daily texts would die down, the excuses would start flying and soon enough, Bucky would fall back into his old ways again and she would fall into the arms of someone more deserving of her love and, finally, order would be restored to the universe again.

He padded softly out her room and started picking up their clothes, wearing the ones that were his and folding hers neatly, placing them on the handle of her couch. He swallowed thickly, pushing the growing lump in his throat down, and he winced at how it hurt.

Going to the sink, he poured himself a glass of water and finished it with one breath. Guess this was it.

But Bucky Barnes was everything, if selfish, so he stayed put for a couple of seconds longer in her apartment, trying to memorize the little details so that when her face faded from his mind, he’d still have the messy stack of CDs beside the TV stand to fall back on.

He hated to admit it, but the past few months beside her had made him accustomed to a certain ‘lifestyle’, a certain amount of affectionate touches that didn’t stray much from her lips gently pressing against his forehead, her arms around his shoulders. Now that he knew what he’d been missing, he wasn’t sure he was going to be able to live without it.

His heart already starting to crack, Bucky turned around and started towards the door. He came to an abrupt halt at the sight of her in one of his shirts that he’d left over from the other week, pillow marks indented into her cheek. The epitome of good and warm, it was ironic really, that the moonlight was falling on her and keeping him in the dark.

“You’re leaving?” Bucky frowned, his mouth falling open in surprise, she sounded just as scared as him, as if she could have done anything wrong.

Chewing at the edge of his lip he nodded.

“Do you-” she cleared her throat from the sleep congesting it “-do you want to go?”

Harshly, a lump ran up his throat and before he had time to control it, a tear stole its way down his face and his lip quivered. He whimpered out in shame and covered his eyes, shaking his head and cowering into himself.

In an instant, her arms were wrapped around him, still warm from the layers of blankets on her bed. They fell down together on the cool tiles of the kitchen and he burst into sobs, his shoulders shaking with the exertion of trying to hold them back. His ears were deaf to her sweet coos as he clung to her like it was the last time she would ever let him near her again.

Once he had calmed down, sniffling quietly and taking in shaky breaths, he started to hear her soft humming, something akin to what his mother used to sing to him when the thunder kept him up at night. In a hoarse whisper, tightening his grip on her shirt savouring the last few moments he had left with her, he said, “I don’t want to go.”

His heart lurched into his throat at the sound of her chuckle, that even when she was mocking him, was still made out of honey, “Then don’t go, baby.”

“R-really?” his voice cracked as he looked up at her with watery eyes.

She leant down and kissed the space between his eyebrows, humming in agreement.

Frowning in disbelief, his knuckles turned white because of the force with which he was clutching her, “Ya sure?”

“I’m sure, sweetheart,” she smiled at him and moved around so she could lean her back against the cupboards, letting Bucky’s head rest on her chest. Her hands came up and started playing around with his hair. “M’sorry if I made it seem like you had to.”

He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Here was an angel walking on earth, allowing him to be so close that he could see the stretchmarks on her breasts, when she could have easily taken the opportunity to banish him away back to the darkness she’d pulled him from, and here she was, apologizing.

“I-no, look-” he started moving in agitation, before her arms tightened around him and pressed onto his shoulder blades, keeping him firmly where he was.

“Let me finish, baby,” she said, still softly. He stilled immediately and waited with baited breath, “I care about you, Jamie. Maybe a little too much, but I do, and-and, sometimes it feels like you don’t.”

“What?” his heart started to pound in his chest.

She sighed, “It sounds...stupid, when I say it out loud, but I don’t think I know you.”

“But-but you do, sweetheart-” he wiggled around anxiously and came up to sit beside her as her grip on him loosened, rubbing furiously at the itchy tear marks on his face. “You know what type of coffee I like to drink, and-and my sister’s name! Nobody knows her name-”

“Surface level things, Jamie,” she interjected, looking at him with so much hurt in her eyes that he had half a mind to just lay down everything about himself, good or bad, just to see that look go away.

He sat on his hands to stop their trembling, “I-I ok, ok, sweetheart. What do you wanna know? Hm? Anythin’ you wanna know and I’ll tell ya. How ‘bout…how ‘bout we make a game of it, huh? Sound good? You ask a question and I ask a question-”

With a cry, she brought her knees to her chest, burying her face in her hands, “We’ve been together for six months Jamie, now’s not the time for twenty questions.”

“Yeah,” he swallowed, his mind scrambling for a solution. “Yeah, you’re right. I-uh, we could...sweetheart what do you want to know? I’ll tell you everythin’ about me, startin’ from my birth. I ever tell you I was a breech baby? Damn near gave the doctors a heart attack. It won’t be a hell of a story but-”

She turned to him, eyes puffy with tears, “I want to meet your friends.”

His blood ran cold, “Now, honey, I told ya, they ain’t the best people around and-”

“I don’t care!” she yelled out with a crack in her voice, startling the two of them, and in a more tired tone continued, “I don’t care. You’ve met everyone I know, and I haven’t even met your friends yet.”

“Look, sweetheart, I-we talked about this-”

“You’re no better’n Brock,” she whimpered, inching her way across the floor to the darkest corner of the kitchen. “All he did was lie and lie and make up excuses. You’re no better’n him and you’d promised me, you were different Jamie.”

The sounds of her quiet cries fell, slowly gathering in a small pile at Bucky’s feet, each one a dagger he willingly pierced into his own chest. He knew that if she met his friends, she’d recoil away in fear, staring at him in shock. Honestly, he wasn’t even sure if he could call them friends, considering that he’d slept with most of them and abandoned them the next day. How would they even react when they saw that the infamous Bucky Barnes had finally ‘settled down’, was at least trying his hand at something serious.

Before he had time to consider the consequences, he blurted out a small, “I am different, sweet girl.” She sniffled in response, making herself even smaller in her corner, and that was enough for Bucky to know that she’d never believe a word out of his mouth if he kept this up. Sam and Natasha weren’t that bad, in comparison to some of the others. If only Steve hadn’t holed himself up in London.

“I am,” he countered in defense.

“Go ‘way, Jamie,” she mumbled. “Don’ wanna see you right now-”

“When’s our next date night?” He cut her off. “Hm? Wednesday? No, Friday, we had tickets for that new play, right?”

Balling her fist, she rubbed at her eye with a vengeance, “Don’t need to ask me, you can take someone else-”

“No, no, sweetheart,” he said, panic dripping from his voice. “I’ll sell those tickets, ok? There’s someone at work who’s really into theatre.”

“What’ll we do then, Buck, stay holed up in here and fight?” she grumbled.

“We’ll meet my friends,” he said, already feeling the panic rise in his chest at the thought. “Well, I won’t meet them, but you will. I’ll arrange somethin’ for the four of us at that bar down the street, and you can meet my friends.”

She didn’t respond and Bucky became afraid that this was screwed over for good, that the more words fell at his mouth, the worse it got.

“Waddya say, pretty girl?” he asked nervously, his voice shaking. “How ‘bout we meet Sam and Natasha on Friday?”

“Really?” she said warily, lifting her head in his direction.

“Yeah, yeah, baby,” he said breathlessly. “You’ll love’em, best couple around.”

Bucky blinked his eyes and she was in his arms again, giggling and pressing kisses all around his face, mumbling how sweet he was, that she was sorry for ever comparing him to Brock, she knew he was different, but sometimes she was paranoid, that she loved him…

She loved him.

He stiffened suddenly, not allowing his gaze to drift away from the pieces of lint stuck in her shirt.

“Jamie?” her hands nervously flitted over his face. “I-uh…”

He couldn’t breathe, leave alone think about what to say in response, all he could hear was the thunderous pounding of his heart. How had he let it get this far? That fateful day on the train, when he had cursed himself for missing his usual one, and had suddenly struck up conversation with the angel with hidden wings-

“If you’re wondering if I meant it…” she trailed off, moving around anxiously on top of him. “I did. I mean, well...I do. I love you, Jamie.”

“And-uh…”

“You don’t have to say it back,” she mumbled nervously, picking away at his t-shirt just to give her hands and eyes something to do. “You shouldn’t be pressured into saying it. You’ve already done a lot, lettin’ me meet your friends n’all and-”

“I do,” he blurted out, snapping his eyes to meet hers. “I’ve loved you for a while now, pretty girl, and...well, call me a coward.”

“You mean that?” she asked, biting at the inside of her cheek.

With a small smile, Bucky reached up to the small indent at the side of her face and massaged so that she would release the hold of her teeth, “Yeah, I-uh, guess I do. Can’t remember a time that I didn’t.”

She squealed and shyly hid her face in the cusp of his neck. “Same for me...I love you, Jamie.”

“I love you most.”

“I promise to love and cherish…”

There was a reason that Bucky never tried his hand at something serious. Why he was content with his late night trysts. How was it that after six months, she’d managed to convince him to lay down his heart in her hands, and even after four years, he still hadn’t managed to get it back, while she had given hers away to someone else.

It was love. That fickle slimy little liquid had filled his veins in a blink of an eye and hadn’t stopped coursing through his body with each pound of his broken heart. He couldn’t understand it. Why, when the day was practically made for an outdoors wedding and reception, which he surely would have gone with had he been the one up there with her, she had agreed with the groom to have the ceremony in a stuffy little church.

The old woman beside him sniffled as they finished their vows, wiping at her eyes with an embroidered handkerchief.

“...speak now or forever hold your peace.”

How long had he been lost in his thoughts? How long had he been dreaming up the image of her eyes as they opened up slowly in the morning, the sound of her sighs as they fell into bed together, the…her.

This was why he had come here in the first place, wasn’t it? To speak now. The silence was deafening, as Bucky started to count the pauses between seconds. He swallowed thickly, blood rushing to his legs as he started to move them forward to stand.

But then, his eyes fell on her and he froze in his spot. Three years. Three years he’d spent with her and dreamed of the day he would be the one she’d meet down the aisle. And never, in either those years or dreams, had he ever seen her smile like that at him, the way she was now at her groom. He could only imagine the way her face would fall if he stood up and spewed out whatever half-assed confession of love he’d been trying to piece together as he decided whether or not to accept the wedding invite.

He stayed put to the spot. Throughout their whole relationship, he’d been selfish, asking for more kisses, more soft touches, storing them away for when he would need them most. He’d taken and taken from her, like any monster would, leaving only a shell of the woman he’d met behind.

He couldn’t do this, and take away the good, pure, wholesome thing she’d built together with the love of her life. His memories would suffice, they had to suffice, since he wasn’t entitled to them in the first place. People like Bucky Barnes should only dream about having something good and pure like her. And if the stars suddenly were flung out of order and, just like those infamous three years, Bucky was able to get a hold of something good like her, he’d only ruin it...which he did.

She was late. It’d been two hours and she was late and not picking up her phone and if Bucky didn’t order another appetizer soon, they’d kick him out. And if she didn’t answer his texts soon, he was going to riot.

He didn’t know what had led to her sudden disappearance. Things had been a little strained between them for a while, Bucky having shown up late to one of their dates late and tipsy, another night not having come home to their shared apartment until the early hours of the morning. So early, or late, in fact, that he had caught Steve, having returned from England for over a year now, on one of his morning runs.

He’d flopped into bed with a grumble, completely missing the hard line of her mouth as she sat on the chair, her arms crossed. Thankfully, she let it slide, and with a sigh, got up and helped him out of his clothes, drawing back the covers and slipping into bed beside him.

It was only until she was certain that his thundering headache had subsided, sometime late the following afternoon had she sat him down and yelled at him. She screamed and yelled and threw pillows at the walls, strategically missing the photos they’d hung up together.

He let her get it out, he deserved it. And once she had cried her fill, she collapsed on the ground, curling into a fetal position, whimpering and shaking like a leaf. Slowly, to give her time to flinch back, to hit him and throw him out their home, he curled up behind her, pulling her close to his chest even if he was the last person she wanted to then.

To his surprise, she’d turned around, nuzzling down into his arms and pressing a soft kiss to the tip of his nose, so soft that it made him tear up.

“I’m sorry,” she had whispered. “I’m sorry, I just, I worry and you didn’t let me know where you were and I was tired...You know I hate seeing you in pain and-and, your job’s been stressing you out, I know...I just wish you would tell me things instead of shutting me out.”

His phone rang and he let out a sigh of relief, wincing as the knife on the table dug into his elbow. Fumbling, he finally managed to press the green button and he started rambling immediately, “Pretty girl, sweetheart, please, where are you? We can go there for our date instead just-I’m sorry, whatever I did-”

“Sir,” a strange voice came over the phone and his heart stopped beating. He blindly went through the motions of writing down the address of the bar she was at, paying for his half-eaten food and getting a cab.

He couldn’t breathe again until he found her, cowered into a corner of the manager’s office, away from the rambunctious laughter of a group of bikers and the booming music from the jukebox. She was holding a plastic water bottle, clearly forced into her hand by the bartender.

“Oh, baby,” he sighed, moving towards her slowly. “What did you do?”

With a wail, a couple of tears fell down her face and splotched the blue fabric of her dress, his favourite dress. A dress too pretty to have been worn to a bar like this, to have been wasted on a guy like Bucky, to be reeking of alcohol and covered in little pretzel crumbs.

He knelt down and brushed away her tears with his knuckles. At the gentle feel of his hand, her lips started quivering and they broke into a frown. He shushed her quietly, brushing away some of her hair and taking the water bottle from her hands, pressing it against her forehead. It wasn’t as cool as it was when it must have been taken from the fridge, but it still brought some comfort to her as she sighed.

His eyes softened as he took in her distraught form, “What happened, baby? Bad news?”

“No,” she shook her head, hiding her face in her hands again. “I-I always tell Jamie bad news.”

“Then what is it now, honey?” he moved beside her, twisting her body so she could lean on him a little more.

“Wanted to see what it was he liked,” she mumbled, instinctively curling towards him.

Brushing his hand against the back of her head, ever patient, only glad that nothing had happened to her, “About what?”

“Drinkin’.”

He sighed, pulling her closer to him, “Now, why would ya do a thing like that, pretty girl?”

She started up, catching his eyes, “Jamie? S’that you?” With a small nod from him, she burst into tears, clutching to his shirt in desperation, managing to get out only broken apologies. “I so sorry, Jamie, I…”

“You don’t have a thing to apologize for, sweetheart,” he countered. “Not a thing, you hear me?”

“I do,” she lightly pushed at his chest. “I got all pretty for you t’night and now-now s’all ruined…” she wailed out the last bits of her sentence, breaking down into tears and weakly gesturing at her dress and hair.

Leaning down, he kissed her cheek and brought her face towards his, “You’re just as beautiful like this, baby. You don’t gotta be sorry for that. You know yourself that you’ll always be my pretty girl and that nothing’s ever gonna change that.”

“Ya sure?” she frowned as her eyes went out of focus and her hands came up in panic to hold at his shoulders.

Bucky mustered as genuine a smile as he could considering the circumstances, pressing another kiss in the space between her eyebrows, “‘Course honey, I ain’t sure of a lot of things in my life, but I know a pretty girl when I see one,” he leaned forward as if telling her a profound secret. “And you’re one gorgeous girl.”

She turned away from him in shame, hiding her face, “Bet you say that to all the girls.”

“I sure don’t,” he placed a comforting hand on her knee and tried to keep a cheerful tone in his voice. “I’ve never seen a girl as pretty as you, swear on my life.”

“Oh God,” she whimpered, moving so that her whole back was facing him, letting his hand fall loosely on the floor.

“What’s wrong, baby, hm?”

“I go’ a guy at home,” she slurred, her shoulders shaking. “He’s real sweet.”

He knew he shouldn’t have been taking advantage of her vulnerable state, taking her home and into bed was the best course of action which he was only delaying but he couldn’t stop his curiosity and hence the next words that came out of his mouth, “What else?”

“And sad,” her voice cracked. “So sad, I don’t know what to do with him sometimes. And I wanna help, so much. He doesn’t lemme in.”

A silence fell between them, pressing up against Bucky’s arm and leg with a strong force, extending a hand and wrapping it around his neck.

“Bet you wanna get home to him now, don’t ya?” Bucky managed to choke out.

She nodded, still not facing him, “He need ta know I luv’ him. He silly, cause he forgets a latta the time.”

With a sigh, Bucky got on his knees, gently guiding her until he could pick her up bridal style, ignoring her protests that she was too heavy. “Let’s get you back to that Jamie of yours, ok?”

She fell asleep just a few minutes later and didn’t bat an eye all the way home, not allowing her strong grip around his neck to falter for even one minute. It was probably for the best that she was unconscious, it gave Bucky a moment of reprieve from the hastily constructed mask he’d put on in the office. He let his tears fall freely and silently, as he leaned his head against the window and allowed the cooling sensation to wash over him.

When they arrived, he shook her awake, and helped her stumble up the few steps to their apartment complex. It was much the same as he tried to remove her makeup, his memory failing him as he struggled to remember the familiar motions she went through every night as they got ready for bed. She passed out right afterwards, and he let her sleep, going to the kitchen to make her something to eat.

He came back with a tray, setting it to the side gently. Pushing back the lump in his throat, he shook her awake and helped her change out of her clothes. As he leaned down to undo the complicated lacings of her shoes, he didn’t notice the way a couple of his tears started to fall down. It was only when he came back up, sitting back on his knees that he noticed.

But by then, it was too late to hide them. She gasped in horror, “Jamie! What’s wrong?”

“Nothin’-” his voice cracked and he cleared his throat, trying to start over. “Nothin’, just a-”

He stopped abruptly as she reached forward and placed her overly warm hands on his cheeks, trying to wipe away his tears. “Don’ cry, I’ll make it all better…soon. I gotta know first.”

“Know what, sweet girl?”

“Why you-” she pushed him in the chest with her pointer finger “-like it so much. Then I can help. Jus’ need a little more time, s’all.”

He didn’t have the energy left in him to keep asking, to piece together the fragmented bits of her sentences, and frankly, she didn’t seem able to stay awake any longer. As he helped her change, convinced her to eat and drink a little, finally tucking her into bed and crawling in beside her, her breaths already evened out, he couldn’t shake off the feeling that the beginning of the end had started, and was already coming to a close.

“Young man?”

Bucky snapped out of his reverie to find the church empty, except for him and the woman beside him. His eyes focused in closer and he saw her rapidly moving her handkerchief up and down to catch his attention.

“Oh, uh, sorry ma’am,” he cleared his throat, getting up and doing up his suit jacket. “Can I help you out?”

She made a dismissive gesture, waddling out of their pew, “I’m younger than I look, but I’ll never turn down some company.”

He nodded, jogging so he could fall in front and open the door for her. The late afternoon sun struck him harshly in the face, making him squint in order to adjust to the light. Zoning in and out of the lady’s ramblings, so he could answer if she asked any questions, he let his mind wander.

So that was it. The deed was over and done with, and there was nothing Bucky could do about it. Probably for the best. It was only a matter of time that their little relationship, or semblance of one, would soon come tumbling down.

“And how do you know the happy couple?”

Bucky flinched at that question, his mind scrambling to find an answer.

“Young man?” the woman pressed against.

“I’m a-uh, mutual friend of the bride and groom,” he said, reaching for the door of the reception venue.

He knew it was coming, it was almost a countdown. The days dripped by slowly, his coffee turning blacker and blacker until he skipped the creamer altogether. Her ramblings died down as well. Her hopes and dreams that she used to share with him. She stopped dropping hints about adopting a cat together, stopped cooing at baby onesies when they went shopping.

Instead she talked of the sky, and the trees, or what she was going to make for dinner.

The future had turned into something that was shunned from their little home.

With a sigh, he parked his car at the little garden just outside the city, overlooking a small body of water. It had been one of their favourite spots to picnic at, during the early days of their relationship.

She was already there, having set up a blanket for the two of them, and a couple of dishes of food, though she hadn’t taken off their lids. He was grateful for that, he wasn’t sure that he could stomach anything.

“Hi, Jamie,” she turned to him, a tissue already crumbled in her hand, tear streaks on her face.

“Hi, pretty girl,” he smiled tightly, taking a seat beside her. Frowning, he looked at her hand, fiddling with a necklace resting on her collarbone. A few moments later, she spoke up.

“Remember that first time we came here?” she asked, turning so she could search his face for recognition. “You gave me this necklace and I cried ‘cause no one’s ever given me anything that pretty...ever. Then you said-”

“I’ll buy you all the pretty things I set my eyes on, sweet girl,” he finished for her, his chest tightening up at the memory.

“Then I cried some more ‘cause no one had ever called me ‘sweet girl’ before,” she let her gaze fall back to the garden around them.

“I didn’t know what to do,” he reminisced. Sam had suggested that he get her some jewelry and he’d spend every lunch hour for close to two weeks at the jewelry store across the street, scrutinizing each and every choice. “You cried and cried, almost got the cops called on me.”

She laughed humorously underneath her breath, “We used to come here a lot, didn’t we? I was close to obsessed with the place.”

“Yeah,” he couldn’t find it in himself to smile. “Dragged me here near every night of the week.”

“It was pretty,” she defended herself simply.

“Doesn’t hold a candle to you, honey, you know that,” his heart still fluttered at the little gasp of surprise she let out, allowing her eyes to stray towards his.

Shaking her head, she let them fall to her hands, “You shouldn’t be sayin’ things like that, Jamie.”

“M’know,” he sighed, looking away and towards the view. “It was wrong of me.”

“Gonna miss that, ya know?” she let her hand rest softly on the back of his. “Never had anyone compliment me like you do.”

“Only tellin’ the truth, sweet girl, ain’t a word of it that ain’t true.”

“Still,” she sighed. “It had to end, didn’t it?”

Bucky had put her through a world of pain, of that he was certain, so to save her from some more, he lied, “It did.” At least, it did have to end, doesn’t mean he wanted it to.

“I almost proposed to you,” she confessed, lying down on the ground and staring up at the sky. “Chose the ring and everything. They make engagement rings for men now too, I think it’s just wonderful.”

She was like that, loved saying the words ‘just wonderful’ at any chance she could get, it had opened up Bucky’s eyes to a world of wonderful things he’d been living in for over thirty years.

“Why didn’t you?” his heart was too tired to start pounding again. It was too busy trying to keep itself together as an inevitable crack made its way down the centre, leaving two chambers on the right and left, making his body incapable of staying alive.

“Can’t fix a relationship with a marriage.”

“Been seein’ a shrink?” he scoffed.

“Am I lying?” she retorted back in a harsh tone.

“What if I proposed?”

“Don’t say that Jamie,” she snapped.

“I have the ring,” he fished around in his pocket for it. With an aggravated huff, he pulled out the box and opened it, revealing a small ring in the middle. “It’s my ma’s.”

“Stop, James,” she demanded. “You’re making this harder than it already is.”

“What do you mean?” he frowned, pushing the box into her lap, though she refused to take it in her hands. “I love you and I want to marry you.”

“You know we don’t work well together,” she bit her lip to stop it trembling. “We’re not good for each other.”

“But I love you!”

“This-” she weakly gestured between the two of them “-won’t work, you can’t throw marriage at this to make it better, Jamie, we’ll only get hurt even more.”

“But-”

“What are we gonna do when marriage doesn’t work, huh? Kids?”

“Yes!” she flinched at his voice. “If that’s what it takes,” he sighed under his breath, taking the box and holding it in his hands again. “Now, won’t you marry me and make me the happiest man alive?”

His tone suggested everything otherwise. It was drowning in pain and desperation, a small glimmer of unreasonable hope in it as well that everything would be ok. That he’d wake up, gasping and parched for water. That he’d wake her up and find the ring and propose to her in the dead of night before his dream came true. For a couple of moments, Bucky let himself believe that he had a chance of having someone like her beside him for the rest of his life.

“Jamie, please you’re making this harder than it has to be.”

“It’s the ring isn’t it?” He looked down at the old-fashioned design. “I’ll get you another one sweet girl, anything you want. I-I get my paycheck in a couple a’weeks and-”

He halted abruptly when her hand came over his, taking the box from him. For a minute, she was quiet observing the simple gold ring. Then, keeping her eyes away from him, she said, “It’s pretty. I wouldn’t have wanted another one.”

“Then why won’t you take it?” he pleaded, his voice starting to crack.

“It’d be wrong for me to take it,” she started, swallowing visibly before continuing. “And there may have been a time where I would have wanted nothing more...but, face it Jamie, I’m not enough for you-”

“Yeah, ‘cause you’re more than enough-”

“I can’t give you the things you need,” she finished, her eyes glistening with tears. “I wish I could, baby, but I can’t and it’s eating away at both of us.”

He scoffed, a failed attempt at trying to hide the sob that was making its way up his throat, “Now what do I do, huh?”

“You’ll find someone else, if that’s what you want,” her voice carrying a world of pain in it.

“You made me fall in love with you and now you’re leavin’ me all alone,” it was a low blow, and they both knew it. But, Bucky was hurt and just a few moments away from crying out for his mother, so he covered it up with anger and spite.

“I loved you for three years as well, Jamie,” she reasoned, letting the box rest on the space between and reaching out to take his hand. “And I’m still going to love you like that for a long time.”

“Pretty girl,” he said. “I don’t know what I’m going to do without you.”

“I told ya, Jamie,” she managed to smile a little at him. “You’ll soon find someone else and you’ll forget all about me.”

Yet, Bucky couldn’t find it in himself to believe what she was saying. He’d only been loved by one person until now, which, in itself, with a terrifying stroke of luck, and he wasn’t sure that the fates had another one prepared for him. He had one chance and he’d blown it.

“I doubt that,” he whispered, more to himself than to her.

“Well, Jamie,” she said with a thoughtful tone to her voice. “Whatever happens tomorrow, we’ve had today...And-and if we should bump into each other sometime in the future, well that’s fine too. We’ll be friends.”

“Friends?” he wasn’t sure if he would be able to make do with her friendship. Not when he had experienced such a soul-crushing vulnerability with her for so long. Not that he had the right to complain. He should have been sounding out the trumpets that she was still offering him her friendship.

Bucky was always selfish, he always wanted more. This time was no different.

“Yeah,” she was speaking as if the idea was new to her as well, giving him a little more comfort. “You’re a pretty great guy, sweetheart, you don’t give yourself enough credit.”

“You’re gonna get yourself killed one of these days, I swear,” he smiled genuinely for the first time in over a week. “Always seein’ the best in people, you’re worse than Steve.”

“I guess I might,” she let the thought mull around in her head for a while, before continuing. “But I saw the best in you and I fell in love with a guy who drops compliments like honey.”

“What-” he started picking at his cuticles, trying to prepare his mind for her answer “-what did ya think of me when you first saw me?”

“I…at first I thought you’d hit your head somewhere,” she giggled at Bucky’s shocked expression, before her face became more serious again. “‘Cause guys that look like you usually don’t go for girls like me. But then you started talking and you were funny and sweet and so charming...and-and sad. Jamie, you looked so sad that it nearly broke my heart in two. I just wanted to wrap you up in a blanket and give you hot chocolate and never let the world touch you again.”

“I…” his mind blanked at an answer but he couldn’t find one, leave alone an excuse. He could have easily said he’d had a rough day at work, that his boss had been pushing him to meet an early deadline, but they both would’ve known that was a lie and Bucky was tired of pretending.

“Maybe I should have left,” she shrugged, looking away from him in shame. “Probably would’ve saved us so much heartache, but I’m glad I didn’t...we had good times together, didn’t we, Jamie?”

“Best of my life, pretty girl,” he answered. “Made me the happiest man in all of New York.”

They stayed quiet for a few minutes. She lay down first on the blanket again, letting her gaze wander to the sunset that had painted the sky a fiery red. He followed soon after, leaving his palm facing up between the two of them as he fought and failed to keep his tears back, letting them run one after another down his temple and wetting his hair.

Out of his jumbled thoughts, he blurted out one word, “Angel.”

“What?” She turned her head to face him but he kept his eyes forward. He was scared that if he faced her, he would lose his courage and never say what he wanted to.

“When I first saw you, I thought you were an angel,” he explained. “We were goin’ through one of those damn tunnels and my heart was racing, and then I saw you, sittin’ there like you were just waitin’ for me to see ya and all of a sudden I couldn’t breathe.”

“Jamie-”

“And I didn’t start breathing again until I started talking with you and I heard that voice a’yours. I swear, you could cure cancer with a voice so sweet,” he sighed, finally letting his eyes look away and into her watery ones. “Then, once I got home with your number, I pinched myself over and over just to make sure it wasn’t a dream like all those other times.”

He sighed out when her hand rested on top of his, intertwining their fingers together and bringing his hand to her mouth. She started to gently press kisses all over his knuckles, and Bucky closed his eyes, trying to memorize everything, from the soft feel of her lips to the gentle brush of her breath against his hand.

“Then I realized,” he continued, and her mouth stopped moving abruptly, still keeping her lips pressed against his ring finger. “I could never dream up somethin’ like you, pretty girl. I don’t have that much good in me.”

She didn’t know what to say. Instead, she moved closer to him and kissed him, lingering and long, as her hands came up and cupped his cheeks. His tears started again, and each one was caught by her before they had a chance to roll down his neck.

Finally, it might have been hours later for all that Bucky was concerned, she pulled back and pressed their foreheads together, still not letting her hands stray from where they were.

“Can you at least wear the ring?” he asked meekly, reaching for the box above his head. “I-uh, I’d like to see how it’d look on ya.”

“I’m not sure that’s the best thing for me to do, Jamie,” she replied warily.

“Please? I just wanna pretend…”

With a sigh and a small smile, she reached for the ring, taking it out of the box and letting it rest for a few minutes in the palm of her hand. It was a simple gold band, a pearl nestled in the middle and a diamond on each side.

Bucky remembered asking his mother about the pearl when he was younger. All the other mothers had glistening diamonds, laid beside more diamonds on a thick band. His mother always responded that she thought diamonds were too cliche, too fickle and flimsy. His father, however, wanted the cliche and so they had to settle. A pearl from her grandmother, two diamonds from his. There wasn’t much money left over at the end of the day, and they told the jeweller designing the ring to choose the cheapest band.

Her hands started shaking and she dropped it several times before, Bucky picked it up and with a steady hand, slid it on her ring finger. He smiled at the sight and looked back at her, “Just like I thought, a perfect fit.”

“It’s gorgeous, Jamie,” she sighed.

“A pretty ring for a pretty girl.”

She broke out into sobs, burying her face in the crook of his neck, and for the last time, Bucky made her cry, and for the last time, he comforted her until she’d calmed down. Night had fallen by then, and he helped her pack away the uneaten food and fold the blanket, taking the bag from her like he always did and walked her towards her car.

Slamming the trunk shut, he turned around to face her with a sigh, “Guess this is it, sweet girl.”

Nodding she caught a tear before it fell, and managed to give him a watery smile.

“Take care of yourself for me, alright?” he asked.

“You too. Maybe we could go out for coffee sometime?”

“I’ll need a few months,” he mumbled.

She hummed agreement, pulling him into a tight hug, and whispering, “I’ll miss you, Jamie.”

“I will too.” He pulled back and pressed a gentle kiss to her forehead, using all of the muscles in his body to smile down at her.

He was about to reach his car before she called out to him, “Jamie, your ring!”

Turning around, “Keep it.”

“No,” she took it off and pressed it into his hand. “You need to keep it and give it to some other girl at least.”

“You’re my only girl,” he said simply, keeping his hand limp, so he could pretend that for a minute, they were holding hands again.

“Your mother at least,” her voice cracked and immediately, his hand tightened, taking the ring away from her.

“Died five years ago.”

Her eyes watered and in a raspy voice she said, “Three years and you never told me.”

And with that, she turned away from him and walked away. She had given him her ring back, but had taken his heart away and with it, drove into the darkening night.

She still held his heart in his hands when she joined him outside the reception venue in her white dress. Bucky had needed a few minutes to himself, there were only so many times that he could mask his empty chest over with joy for the happy couple. The cool air did him well clearing his head, while the few fingers of whiskey in his hand kept a soft fuzz around it, so he wouldn’t truly understand what happened until the following morning.

“Y’know,” she started from beside him. “He wanted to have the ceremony outside. But I couldn’t stand the idea.”

Bucky turned around and took in her form, fiddling with the glistening rectangular diamond that was, even in the night, shimmering with what little light there was.

“I always wanted to marry you outside, in our little garden,” her throat closed up and she cleared it, continuing. “It was one of the reasons why I always took you there.”

“You really liked dropping hints didn’t ya?” he said in a thick voice.

“Brock made me like that,” she defended. “Spent hours in therapy before I could straighten myself out.”

He said her name softly, making her catch his soft gaze, “I-uh, am I another Brock for ya?”

She shook her immediately, “No, Bucky. You don’t need to be worried about that.”

“I’m real happy for you, ya know?” he said thickly. “He’s a great guy. You two were practically made for each other.”

“Ya think?”

“I know so,” he tightened his lips into a semblance of a smile. “Know that feeling when you finally finish a jigsaw puzzle and there’s only a piece left? Then ya click it in and everything’s right with the world? I look at you two and get that feelin’.”

“Y’know,” she paused and moved closer to him so that their pinkies were brushing against each other. “I used to get that feeling with you, even during the bad days.”

“Then why-”

“I couldn’t do it anymore,” she finished for him. “I was giving you everything I had and you kept holding back, like you thought you didn’t deserve me. And whatever I did to make you see different, made no difference, you wouldn’t listen.”

“That’s ‘cause I didn’t deserve you, sweet girl,” they both flinched at the nickname he’d let out without realizing it.

“But you had me,” she argued, pushing at his shoulder out of anger. “You had me and I was yours and you still thought you weren’t supposed to have me. I gave you everything I had and you threw it all away because of some screwed up notion you built inside your head.”

Bucky stayed silent, taking in her quivering frame.

“You had me,” she repeated to herself in a more tired tone.

“Is everything ok here?” her husband asked in a nervous tone as he took in the two of them in front of them.

Bucky nodded while she made up some excuse about wanting to get fresh air. With a smile, she moved towards the door again, telling her husband she would come back in just a few seconds. When he’d sent another wary look to the two of them and left, they were alone again.

“Well, guess it doesn’t matter now, does it, Jamie?” she said thickly, blinking her eyes rapidly.

He couldn’t meet her eye, as he stared down at his shoes.

“Goodbye, friend.”

“Goodbye, Mrs. Rogers.”

Thank you so much for reading! If you liked this, please consider leaving some feedback in my asks, and you can find the rest of my writing here. If you wanted something really fluffy after that, here are two of my personal favourite fluffy oneshots: Looney Tunes and Hands.

If you want to be tagged for any of my works, you can send me an ask.

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