Alrighty I decided it was time to reupload my old writing, since I changed my username. I’ll keep updating as I stumble upon old work :) Also I don’t write about 5sos anymore (unless you finna send some Calum requests bc I’m not an animal??)
Smut is marked with a *
Harry:
Unrequited Love- part 1 | part 2 | part 3 | part 4 | Harry and Y/n have always been best friends, but Y/n has also been in love with Harry just as long. When feelings are laid on the table, turmoil is inevitable.
Teasing Tactics *- Harry puts his hands to good use.
All I Want- Harry and you were in the midst of a budding relationship, but old habits get in the way and threaten to end things between them permanently.
Counting the Minutes- Harry stumbles upon his best friend naked, stirring up old feelings and new ones.
Heart Out *- Things get steamy when Harry accompanies Y/n to an old-flames wedding.
Eighteen- You two have quite literally been in love since you were 18.
She Way Out - Harry is the lead singer of White Eskimo, regulars at the Lonely Hearts Club, there he stumbles across Y/n.
Medicine - Harry is back in town and naturally you’re the first person he wants to call.
Nobody Compares *- The classic best-friends to lovers, with a little smut to seal the deal.
Sex Toys *- After accidentally stumbling across his best friends sex toys, Harry finds himself a little more than just intrigued.
#30 “It’s not what it looks like…”
#28 “Marry me?”
Sex with Harry- blurbs
Zayn:
Coffee Irises- Zayn has laid all his cards on the table, but will the fear of commitment and what saying ‘I love you’ entails be too much for you?
5sos:
It’s just a little rain - Calum and you have been neighbours for as long as you can remember, but recently something has shifted, feeling have started sparking between the two of you, but sometimes even the best slip up and risk spoiling things.
Liquid Courage- After a rocky ending, you and Luke have gone from friends-with-benefits to, well you’re not even sure you can call one another friends anymore.
Bassists and Band Tee’s: part 1 | part 2 | part 3 | Y/n is the bassist for the opening act travelling alongside 5sos, things go haywire when feelings for a certain blonde with a lip ring start to bloom.
Soulmate!5sos- part 1 | part 2
Popular!5sos- Highschool
Calum- “Come over here and make me.”
Cal- “Please, don’t leave.”
Luke- “I think I’m in love with you and I’m terrified.”
Luke- “The paints supposed to go where?”
Luke- “You lied to me”
Luke- “I wish I could hate you”
Luke- “Please, don’t leave.”
Luke- “This is without a doubt the stupidest plan you’ve ever had. Of course I’m in”
Luke- “Have I entered an alternate universe or did you really just crack a smile for me?”
Luke- “I can’t believe you talked me into this”
Luke- “Hey have you seen the..? oh.”
Luke- “You need to wake up because I can’t do this without you”
Luke- “I’ve seen the way you look at me when you think I don’t notice.”
Michael- “Have I entered an alternate universe or did you really just crack a smile for me?”
Michael- “Have you lost your damn mind!?”
Michael- “Is there a reason you’re naked in my bed?”
Mike- “You fainted… straight into my arms. You know, if you wanted my attention you didn’t have to go to such extremes.”
Ashton- “I think I’m in love with you. And I’m terrified.”
YOU. YOU GET IT
the issue of tying youth to desirability, whether sexually or culturally, doesn’t go away when you expand what youth is
youth worship isn’t just beauty standards, it’s saying that only the young have ideas or creations that have worth. that age means withering and decay. don’t expand what youth is, dismantle the idea that aging degrades your value as a human being
Story summary: Tired of your constant bickering, Sam sends you and Bucky on a mission alone. When the worst possible outcome happens and you’re forced to spend several days together in a small cabin, you finally get to see a different, more pleasurable side to the man whose flesh you’ve always had a thorn in.
Words: 5K (I totally blame my covid isolation. It was 2.9K before I started editing, woops)
The wind was howling against the walls of the cabin again.
Noisily, it was sending huge snowflakes flying around in the darkness outside, painting the windows white and blocking out what little light otherwise came in through the clean stains of the wobbly glass.
The entire inside of the cabin was wrapped in the familiar orange hue from the fireplace, and you thought to yourself that under normal circumstances it would’ve been comfy and cosy to enjoy the raging snowstorm from the warm sofa near the flames - but it wasn't normal circumstances. And it was neither comfy nor cosy.
It was tense. And quiet. And wanting. Full of distance, and long gazes, and stomach aches.
Both you and Bucky had tried your best to small talk all day, careful not to mention the passionate ending to the night before although it was hanging over you like a thick blanket in every conversation you held, the sexual tension almost suffocating.
He was sitting on his knees in front of the fireplace, trying to act very interested in stacking the kindling as optimally as possible, but from your position in the cold windowsill, you had noticed how he constantly sent you small, sideway glances before quickly turning his gaze back towards the logs in front of him, doing his best to ignore his burning cheeks.
"Is it still alive?" he mumbled and nodded towards Sam’s GPS tracker that was blinking lazily in your hand.
"Uhm - yeah," you awoke from your trance and rapidly turned the amulet over in your hands so you could count the seconds between the slow flashes of green, "- but he's still far away I’m afraid."
"Mmh…” Bucky grunted slightly, “so, we have what? At least another day here?" he sighed and stood up from the floor, dusting his hands off on his muscular thighs, his eyes running over your form again. Slightly bent forwards like that, small strands of chestnut hair were falling into his eyes, framing his high cheekbones, accentuating his straight nose, and drawing attention to his inviting pursed lips. There was a sadness to his eyes, something you hadn’t seen before, and you wanted to reach out and touch him, to comfort him, but you doused the aching desire in your limbs by quickly averting his gaze.
"Yeah, guess so," with a clearing of your throat, you directed your attention down towards your hands again where you sent the tracker a longing look when you realised that another day in the cabin also meant yet another day without anything to eat.
Bucky sourly looked away too and gave out a muffled grunt as he sat down on the sofa with his eyebrows deeply furrowed. "Do you miss him?" He asked, his voice weirdly dismissive and mechanical although he tried his best to feign casual lightness. “Sam…”
"I’m probably gonna be wildly unpopular with him but no. Not really," you put down the tracker in the windowsill and walked over to Bucky on the sofa, sitting down on the warm cushion beside him. "- Not as much as I miss food anyway," you tried joking to diffuse the straining tension between you that somehow only seemed to grow stronger with every sentence. “I swear, right now, I would hand him over to his worst enemy in exchange for some of that roast chicken you were talking about the other night,” you smiled at him, hoping he would react.
Bucky hummed in forced amusement but didn't say anything, his squinting eyes suddenly very focused on the dancing flames in front of him.
"Yeah alright…” you started again, this time a certain seriousness to your voice, “- I guess, if I'm being completely honest; I feel bad for Sam,” you admitted and felt how Bucky's entire body seemed to go stiff and rigid with your words, his gaze nervously flickering from the fire and over to your face before you continued; “he probably thinks we've chewed each other's heads off without his supervision. He must be worried out of his mind."
"Yeah," Bucky nodded slowly, a small smile forming on his lips as he breathed out a quiet sigh of relief. “Who would've guessed you and I had the ability to be civil around each other..."
"Not me..." you grinned and put your elbow on top of the back cushion, resting your head in the palm of your hand, happy to finally see him smiling again. "I really hope we can continue being friends when we get back home," you smacked your lips, taking in Bucky’s calm expression as he stared straight ahead. "- I'd like that."
He finally turned his face towards you, his gaze soft and longing as he slowly nodded. "Me too,” he muttered, sending you a cute smile as he carefully reached out and touched his hand to yours, squeezing your fingers in a friendly gesture.
It was a content feeling; having Bucky’s strong hand wrapped around you - like tasting that first, magical sip of water after having wandered in the desert for days, a warm shower after having been frozen to the bone, a cough drop to soothe your hoarse throat.
Taking your hand to show you that he wanted to stay close even after you arrived home was an innocent gesture but it was warm. And sweet. And welcome. So you gently twisted your wrist until your palm was finally pressed against his, slipping your fingers into the lonely crevices between the metal digits, holding on tight.
He was blinking rapidly, last night’s disappointment still oozing out of him like thick syrup, so you squeezed his hand a little tighter and moved closer to him. "You okay?"
Slowly, he nodded, his expression unreadable, "...yeah."
In the six days you'd spent in the cabin, the normal rough stubbles on his cheeks had turned into a short, scruffy beard and he looked even more handsome than usual as he ran his flesh hand through his unruly hair. The protruding veins on his forearm were large and enticing, the muscles underneath his skin tense and stiff, and you could feel your pulse picking up its pace as you imagined running your fingers over every inch of him; caressing his vibranium arm, kissing the angry scar at his shoulder, combing your fingers through his long hair.
At the mere thought of it, you felt your entire body tightening; the familiar black treacle was surrounding you again, thickening and pulling you under as small reels of last light played behind your eyelids; soft lips against yours, metal fingers atop your spine, quiet moans falling from his blushed lips, a sensitive erection pressed to your bottom.
You couldn't help it - you didn't want to stare - yet suddenly, you felt your gaze travel from his strong, bulky arms and up to his pouting lips that parted slightly, his breathing picking up as he chewed his inner cheek and gulped hard.
Your eyes met his again and it seemed to deplete your brain of oxygen as you immediately grew dizzy and delusional from his soft gaze, the strong metal thumb stroking softly over your index finger.
His eyes were huge and full of lust, his moist lips pursed and silently begging to be touched.
Your skin was burning, your insides melting, your chest on fire, and you couldn't stop yourself from disappearing into the treacle, and before you’d thought it through, you’d reacted to the primal instinct inside of you and leaned forwards, placing a soft, gentle kiss to his pink lips.
Softly, he groaned, his hands immediately on your hips as he slipped his wet tongue inside your mouth and pulled you over in his lap, starting off where last night had ended; hands on hips, pelvis against pelvis, tongues intertwining.
His beard was scratching along your jawline, his strong hands digging into you as you ran your fingers through his long hair, enjoying the familiar scent radiating from his warm body every time your fingertips met his scalp.
You were intent on making him growl for you again, determined to touch him - when suddenly and without warning, his wet mouth disappeared from yours and he pulled his entire body away from you.
With a slightly shocked expression on his face, Bucky panted quietly and ran his eyes over your face a couple of times before he let his head dip backwards until it met the backrest of the sofa, a groan escaping his lips.
"Please, tell me I misread that!" he croaked as he closed his eyes in tired frustration and pressed his lips together to form a thin, white line.
"Bucky..." you softly called his name and caressed his bearded cheeks, desperate to have him looking at you again.
"Tell me I misread that kiss!" he breathed hard, his handsome features accentuated as he gulped again, "-'cause if we both want this so bad, I'm not sure what to do anymore..."
“I know, I'm sorry,” You whined, realising what you'd just done, not only to yourself but to him as well. “I’m so sorry, I just - I shouldn't have kissed you like that - I just - fuck - I just wanted to feel you," you said rapidly in frustration, fisting his black t-shirt before gently putting your palms on his face again. "Is there any way we can just… kiss? I mean, kissing is just… kissing, right?”
Slowly, he opened his eyes and looked up at you.
For a second, it looked as if he was contemplating your words but then you felt his jaw clench beneath your fingers, and he let out a tired sigh. “Sweetheart... you know it’s not,” he said quietly and rubbed circles over your hips. "Not like this."
“Yeah,” you whined again, “I know… It's just..." you let out a gulp, "I'm torn between doing what I want and doing what is right!"
He let out a soft sigh and chewed his cheek. "I don't understand why the two choices are mutually exclusive. If you want this so bad, isn't it the right thing...?" he moved his hand up your spine, carefully caressing you.
"I don't know, Buck..." you admitted, "- I just don’t want the dynamics back home to change. We're a small team of only three people! How would you feel if the roles were reversed, and I was sitting like this with Sam? Wouldn't it make you feel weird and isolated from the two of us?”
“Oh sweetheart,” he breathed hard and grabbed your hips a little tighter, “I would absolutely hate it..." he snarled, his teeth slightly gritted as his eyes darkened considerably.
"Well there you have it," your hands travelled from his jawline and down to his sternum where you gently pressed in on his rapidly heaving chest, desperate to calm him down.
"It's just, the thing is..." he breathed, looking as if he was about to spill someone else's secret. "- The dynamics already have changed between us, don't you see that?" he reached up to brush a strand of hair out of your eye, "I mean… Look at us right now," he pointed between you, slightly tilting his hips upwards to remind you where you were sitting. "- we never would’ve sat like this a week ago… We never would've kissed - or let alone touched... I don't want to make decisions for you, and I don't want to put words in your mouth, but no matter what happens, just know that things won’t be the same when we get back home. Things have changed between us. And that's a good thing."
You took a second to comb through his words, eventually coming to the realisation that he was in fact right. The well-known group dynamic had changed the minute you and Bucky had stopped snapping at each other, relieving Sam of his babysitting duty.
“Yeah, I guess you're right. We're more… civil now,” you used his word from earlier, “- I really like this thing we have going on."
"Me too," he nodded, and gently moved his fingers over your hips.
"I don't want to ruin it..." you gulped. “I really like your company but I think we should slow things down. We are still coworkers afterall.”
"Yeah, I knew you'd say that," he smiled but you felt how his muscles tensed underneath the fabric of his dark clothes. “I agree.”
"I should probably climb down then.”
“Yeah,” he breathed, his eyes never leaving your face, the tension between you more electric than ever.
Fuck, you wanted to rip off his clothes. The thought of it being forbidden was slowly turning you even more on.
"Sweetheart - you have to stop looking at me like that," his eyebrows furrowed, "you're making me... feel things," he groaned and squirmed in his seat, his tongue slowly licking his lips.
Immediately, you felt every part of your nervous system set passionately aflame at the sight before you: he was looking at you with lust-blown pupils, trying to cover up the beginning erection in his pants as his hans were parked tightly on your hips. He was definitely thinking of ripping your clothes off too!
Whimpering, you had to push your thighs together in sweet desperation when he twitched longingly beneath you. "I'm sorry... It's just-" you desperately took in the way his eyelids slightly closed, how his muscles tensed and bulged as he flexed his upper body and let his plump lower lip fall down, opening his mouth. "- you're making me feel things too," you whispered and squirmed a little.
At the feel of your shifting muscles, Bucky’s gaze slowly skirted down from your face, coming to an abrupt halt on your hard nipples that were strutting tantalisingly through your tactical suit. "Fuck, sweetheart," he groaned and had to look away to calm himself down, the growing erection in his pants pressing up against you.
He was panting heavily, uncomfortably shifting around beneath you, moving his gaze from your nipples and up to your face so you could see his huge, dark pupils staring you down. His lips were swollen and red and so close to you that you could feel his hot breath on your chin, and that was when your desire took control of the situation, and you slowly moved your chest closer to his face, desperate once again for the situation to turn to more than just longing looks of lust.
"Touch me," you whispered.
"Sweetheart," he groaned, his lower lip almost chewed raw, “are you sure that's a good idea?”
“I don’t care,” you snaked your arms around his neck, kissing the sensitive spot just below his ear, "- I want you!"
"Oh God," You saw his eyes flutter shut and he gave out a guttural groan, allowing himself to feel your lips on his skin for a few seconds while his thumbs ran over the spot where your thighs met your hips. "Sweetheart," his words were a haze, the shaky voice coming in clouded while you nibbled and kissed and licked at his bearded jaw, pulling his earlobe between your teeth, and feeling your own senses heightening at the touch of his soft peach fuzzed ears against your tongue.
His fingers stopped moving, and you felt his heavy breathing against your neck as he fought out a whispered; “what about… what about Sam?” he gulped, his hand gently pressing you away from his crotch, “I - uh - I have to know - are you guys a thing?”
“We’re friends,” you panted and continued your movements, bringing extra attention to the sharp lines of his face while you inched nearer and nearer his lips.
“Are you sure about that?” he let out an involuntary soft moan when you kissed the skin right beside his bopping Adam’s apple, the stubbles on his neck scratching at your lips. “You seem pretty concerned about his well-being,” he gasped and the erection in his pants twitched and hit your sensitive nerve endings, causing you to grind down on him.
“Of course I’m concerned about him," your fingertips brushed over the cold metal of his left arm as you straightened your back and pushed your already sensitive nipples closer to his face. "I don’t want him to suffer because of something we choose to do. But as you said, the dynamics already have shifted - and let's be honest; he’s been yelled at by Fury before... He'll understand why we're being insubordinate," you whispered and twisted your fingers in his long hair and rocked your hips suggestively.
“Fuck baby,” he babbled and grabbed your waist, grinding his hips upwards and making a surge of warmth travel through all your limbs, centring at your belly.
“Kiss me, Buck…”
"Are you sure you want this?" He whispered as you ghosted your lips over his, "It's okay if you don't," he mumbled, "just say the word and it's done. I don't want you to do something you're gonna regret." His metal hand slowly left your waist and carefully found the hem of your suit's sleeve. Softly, he touched his fingers to the inside of your wrist, pulling your hand over to his lips so he could kiss the bundle of veins below your palm.
It felt more intimate than any other touch you’d ever been provided; a mixture of lust, and sensuality, and safety. You had never let anyone touch the pulse point with the fragile veins before, and in that moment, you prayed that you never had to.
You ran your gaze over him, drinking in every detail as you thought of his considerate words; the extreme lust in his clear eyes that he was ready to throw away if you just asked him to, the slightly flared nostrils as his flesh fingers clutched at the fabric near his crotch, the dark ring in his huge eyes, the cute freckle still and kissable on his tense cheeks, the small scar dancing nervously above his parted lips.
He was so handsome, and kind, and sexy. You'd never met anyone like him, and you'd never wanted anyone this much before.
"I want you," you whispered and let him kiss your wrist again, "I'm sure!"
The corners of his mouth curled upwards right before he put his hand on the back of your neck and pulled you closer, finally closing the distance between you by slipping his soft tongue inside your mouth with a wet moan.
He was moving ferociously against you, his warm lips desperate and frantic as he snaked his arms around you and held you close.
“Fuck, you're driving me insane!" He groaned against your lips and carefully found your tongue again, caressing it lovingly.
You let your palms wander across his broad chest, feeling every hardened muscle underneath the layer of black polyester as he breathed hard at your touch, his erection pulsing uncontrollably underneath you. "Fuck, darling," he hissed when your hands finally travelled downwards and palmed him through his trousers.
You panted against his lips and snaked your hand underneath the cool zipper of his trousers until you met the warm skin tucked away inside his boxers. "I want you," you licked the shell of his ear, "more than I’ve ever wanted anything before.”
"Fuck," he whimpered and put his lips on your jawline and placed small sensual kisses down along the thin skin of your throat until he reached your collarbone.
You were rubbing his erection slowly, hips rocking slightly back and forth on top of him as you grinded against his thighs with small whimpering noises.
Bucky's hands reached around your back, over your stomach, and up to your chest where he pinched each of your nipples through the fabric of your tactical suit before his fingers locked around the zipper between your breasts, bringing it down slowly until it had reached your navel.
"Take it off for me, peach," he whispered and pulled at the fabric.
With intense heat pooling between your legs, you were quick to obey him, pulling your arms free from the tight fabric until the only thing covering your upper body was your black sports bra.
Bucky's hands slowly travelled over your bare stomach and upwards until he reached your bra. "Lift up your arms, doll," he growled and pulled at the elastic band at the bottom. His eyes were laced with lust as he slowly pulled the fabric over your head, freeing your breasts that fell down in front of his eyes with a satisfying bounce.
"Fuck, you're so beautiful," he licked his lips at the sight of your naked chest and gently reached up to cup you, the sensation so welcome that your nipples pebbled and peeked out through his fingertips.
His eyes found yours, and when you let out a gasp at his touch, he smiled dreamily up at you, his cheeks rose-tinted again, his steely eyes hidden behind hooded eyelids. "So, so beautiful," he muttered as he started kneading your skin, pinching your nipples, and raising his hips slightly to meet yours.
You whimpered above him, your small, wanting noises filling up the room when he finally leaned in and placed his warm mouth above your areola, giving you a brief kiss before swirling his tongue around it while his metal hand was cupping your other breast, pinching the nipple between his thumb and index finger.
"Fuck," you panted above him, burying your hands in his soft hair when he gently started lapping lovingly at your chest. "Fuck, Bucky! I want to touch you," you whimpered as he pulled your nipple between his lips, sucking gently at it.
"We'll get there," he growled against your buzzing skin, giving you a hard suck, "I need you all nice and wet for me first," he flicked your nipple with his tongue before turning back to the other breast, giving it the same treatment.
"Fuck, it feels so good," you arched your back, pushing your already saliva-covered nipple further into his mouth.
"Mmmh," he hummed beneath you, wrapping a strong arm around your hips, shifting slightly in his seat so you could feel how hard he was because of you.
"Touch me," you grinded your hips down on his hard erection, "please!"
With one last hard suck on your nipples, he turned his attention back to your mouth, sensually swiping his soft tongue over yours as he gently lay you down on the sofa, briefly putting his weight on top of you before he sat up on his knees, palming himself through his trousers as he looked down at you.
"Shit sweetheart," he half-whimpered, half-groaned and pulled your tactical suit over your legs, tossing the fabric to the side.
He positioned himself on the sofa between your legs and started kissing the wet skin of your breasts, moving down towards your soft stomach with small, satisfied hums.
Carefully, he avoided touching the panty-clad area, instead moving directly to your sensitive inner thighs where he blanketed the area in particularly soft, wet kisses and licks.
"Mmh, baby," he brushed his nose over your clit, and it made you pant hard at the sensation. "I fucking love this!"
Painfully slowly, he pulled your panties down while kissing the inside of your thighs, his eyes never leaving you until you were lying wet and completely naked before him.
He let out a strangled moan and once more palmed himself through his cargo pants, panting hard and groaning loudly.
"Take off your clothes," you whined and pulled at his t-shirt. "Please! I want to see you!"
“Yeah,” he breathed and grabbed the neck of his t-shirt, pulling it over his head with one swift motion, immediately revealing his heavy-heaving, God-like chiselled upper body to you, a thin film of sweat glistening in the small hairs between his pecks. Quickly, his hands worked on the button and zipper of his trousers, and he pulled them over his hips, and down his knees before joining you on the sofa again.
He kissed your neck, suckling sweetly at the thin skin before his lips travelled down between your breasts, over your navel, and down to the apex of your thighs until he finally settled between your legs.
"Spread your legs for me, darling," he stared up at you with a dark look in his eyes and you quickly obeyed him, spreading your knees apart, allowing him to fall between your thighs.
"Shit," he hissed, "you're already so wet for me," he swiped a few fingers over your folds, and you panted hard at the sensation.
"Oh Buck!" you whined and threw your head backwards as his hands gently started playing with your wet folds, occasionally slipping two thick metal fingers inside you with a satisfying groan.
His fingers were pulsing and curling, godsend and evil at the same time, and you felt how your panting slowly graduated into small moans as he filled you up and squelched inside of you.
"There you go, baby, just like that!" he panted in a whisper when his name started rolling over your lips, and he finally added his mouth to your aching core.
His tongue was lapping at your folds, his fingers pulsing in and out of you in a steady rhythm and you could feel the coil in your stomach tense more and more as his soft lips kissed and nibbled at your wet skin.
"Fuck, you should see yourself like this," he mewled and sucked your clit between his lips as he added and extra finger and skilfully buried three metal digits inside of you.
"Bucky! Oh fuck - shit, Buck!” you chanted his name like a prayer when he finally touched the soft, spongy spot inside of you and hit it repeatedly, his warm tongue working slowly on your clit.
"You're so, so tight," his fingers squelched inside you, "I can't wait to feel you around me. I can’t fucking wait!”
"Oh fuck! Bucky!" Your moans were getting more frequent now and they gradually changed in length and pitch as he worked expertly on you.
"Mmh baby, be a good girl and cum for me!" he whispered against your skin and pushed his fingers as far inside of you as they could go while he sucked at your clit.
It wasn’t as much his movements as it was the beautiful sound of his syrupy voice spilling whispered praises from his lips that pushed you over the edge, but as soon as he mumbled out a "cum for me, baby," the coil in your abdomen snapped in two.
Loudly, you came hard against his lips, calling his name as pleasure rolled over you in white-hot waves, the sound bouncing softly against the quiet cabin walls.
"Oh sweetheart," Bucky chuckled proudly and leaned in to kiss you while you were still panting rhythmlessly, fighting hard to stay in what little remained of your high. "Don't worry," he kissed your collarbone, "I am nowhere near done with you," his fingers quickly pushed themselves inside you again, and you whimpered at the sudden touch to your still sensitive area.
"Fuck, Bucky!" you whimpered against him, clenching around his fingers as he found your g-spot again. "I want you inside of me! I need it, please!”
"As much as I love your begging-," he panted and sped up his movements, "I can feel you're close already."
"Yes," you whimpered and pinched your nipples while arching your back against the metal inside of you.
"That's it baby, moan for me!" he demanded and rubbed his fingers over the precum-stained area of his boxers, sending you over the edge with another cry of his name.
Your second orgasm hit you like an anvil, made you numb and deaf, and blurred your vision as Bucky whispered unheard praises against your wet skin, knowing exactly what he was doing to you. It left you shaking in its wake, his name falling from your parted lips as he planted a series of small kisses to your buzzing skin, urging your body to join him back down on earth.
"Peach…” he whispered, a soft look of something resembling love slapped across his blushed cheeks.
"Bucky, please..." you whimpered and sat up straight, "I want you inside of me... Please," you pleaded and stretched your fingers to touch him.
"Shit," he whined when you snaked your hand inside his boxers again, his warm erection pulsing in your hand as your thumb ran over his wet head. "Hold on," he panted and briefly stood up from the sofa, pushing his boxers down so his erection sprang free, his leaking head bopping up and down a few times before you reached out and wrapped your fingers around him.
"Sit down and relax," you said and slipped down on the floor, positioning yourself between his muscular legs, sending him a blinding smile that had his heart skip a beat.
“No, it’s not about me, baby,” he caressed your face sweetly but still let out a loud hiss when you wrapped your lips around him, your hand stroking him softly while your tongue swirled around his head. “Oh shit! Oh fuck!” his eyes briefly fluttered shut and he stopped fighting back.
The weight of his pulsing erection pushed over your tongue, small drops of salty pre-cum spilling down your throat, and he moved his fingers from your cheek to the back of your head where he wrapped his fingers around your hair and pulled it away from your face to get a better view.
“Fuck, I could look at you forever,” he panted and gently buckled his hips closer to your face, timing his thrusts with the wet slides of your lips, pushing himself further inside the warmth of your mouth.
Sloppily, your lips bopped up and down his length, your tongue bringing extra attention to the tight frenulum at his head as your hand softly cupped his balls and rolled them between your fingers.
"Oh God," he briefly lolled his head backwards before coming back all bubble-headed and red-cheeked, looking at you as if he was about to experience the orgasm of a lifetime. "...Sweetheart," he moaned and pulled on your hair, "I can't — you have to come up here..." he whimpered and exerted all his willpower to pull his throbbing erection away from your slippery mouth. "I have to feel you," he panted and pulled you up on the sofa next to him, kissing your breasts before positioning himself with one knee between your legs, his other foot firmly placed on the floor as he lined himself up with your entrance, pushing the tip inside with a groan.
"Bucky," you moaned his name and scratched your nails over his arms, urging him to push in fully. You wanted to feel the weight of him inside of you. Wanted to be filled up completely.
"I’m right here, baby," he panted and bottomed out before he gently started rocking his hips back and forth.
"Mmmh, Buck," you moaned and pulled at his wrist.
"Fuck baby, I love when you say my name!" he wrapped his metal hand tightly around your throat with a small moan, snapping his hips forwards.
Intent on making you his girl, the gentleness of his touch was still there but it wasn't soft and delicate any longer; it was primal and animalistic, harsh yet caring. He pulled at your hips, held your ankles together near his face and choked you.
He was desperate to hear you moan again, to feel your walls squeeze out every last drop of him, to push you over the edge with yet another strangled cry of his name.
"Mmh, baby, you're doing so well," he kissed the soles of your feet and thrusted deeper and harder as the grip he had around your throat tightened.
You panted hard against his hand, the few sounds that managed to claw their way up your constricted throat muffled and sinful as he continuously pushed himself inside of you with loud, primal grunts.
Suddenly, he grabbed your hips and pulled you on top of him, sliding inside of you with a loud groan as his fingers intertwined with yours. "Yeah that’s it,” he moaned, grabbing your fingers harder. “Ride me baby," he kissed your nipple and circled his tongue around it, and you slowly started rocking your hips on top of him, sheathing every inch of him. "Oh shit, oh fuck," he whimpered against your chest, his huge erection dragging sweetly against your tight inner walls. “Come on, be a good girl and say my name!”
"Bucky!" you whimpered and arched your back when you felt your third orgasm of the night roll over you in dull, satin waves as you panted and moaned for him, feeling his soft tongue swipe over your breasts as he hummed against you.
"You are so beautiful," Bucky cooed beneath you and started kneading your buttocks when you’d come down again. "You have no idea how hard it is to hold myself back," he shuddered, "you feel amazing around me," he started impatiently rutting his hips upwards again.
"I - I can't," you whimpered slightly and pulled at his hair in sweet desperation, "I want to," you connected your forehead to the thin film of sweat covering his entire body, "fuck, how I want to! - but I don't think I have another orgasm in me... you’ve worn me out…”
"I know you're sore baby, I know," he pressed a gentle kiss to your lips you while massaging your buttocks, "I just have to fuck you again," he panted and threw you down on your back, "one more time?" He kissed your stomach.
"I don't know if I can," you panted and moaned at the sensation of his erection rubbing between your lips.
"You can take it, sweetheart, let’s just try. I’ll stop if you want me to, just say the word okay?” he kissed your skin, lined himself up with your entrance and pushed himself a couple of inches inside, "you can take it, I know you can. Last one."
You heard yourself whimper at the delicious sensation and you nodded, "o-okay."
He slowly pushed himself completely inside, grunting hard as you finally sheathed him completely again. “You good?”
“Mmh,” you nodded, suddenly desperate to have him moving again.
"Look at you, doll!” he praised and put his thumb on your clit as he started rocking his hips back and forth again. “You're taking me so well, I'm so proud of you,"
"F-fuck Bucky, you're - you're..." your words drowned in a deep moan as Bucky pushed your legs back towards your head, hitting a spot deep within you.
He let out a deep chuckle, "you can't even form a single coherent sentence, can you?"
"I'm so close," you panted, "I w-want you to c-cum too!"
"I'm about to cum just from looking at you baby," he groaned and kissed your lips, "it won't be a problem, trust me. Just let go and I'll follow."
Your nails were digging themselves into the skin of his back and when he leaned down and pulled your nipple between his teeth again, a violent shaking orgasm hit you out of nowhere. Brutally, you jerked against him, moaned his name over and over and he sped up his movements, making the intense pleasure ride higher and higher until it peaked in slow-rolling, never-ending waves.
Your inner walls were hugging Bucky tightly, rhythmically tensing and letting go and with a couple of well-placed strokes, the small grunts he emitted turned to loud moaning.
You felt how he grabbed your hips harder as he threw his head backwards and yelled his release into the night.
He stilled a few seconds, fingers still digging harshly into your hips, Adam’s apple bopping up and down in his throat as he panted hard. After a few seconds, he let out a loud breath and turned his head to meet your eyes, his lips spreading in a broad smile. “You good?” he grinned.
“Am I good?” You giggled, “Bucky I am more than good! Holy fuck!”
“Yeah?” he sent you a toothy grin before he slipped himself out of you. "That was --" he panted, "-that was fucking amazing, sweetheart!" he rolled you over to your side and pushed his body behind you, wrapping an arm around your naked chest and kissing your earlobe.
"Yeah," you grinned sleepily against him, you body completely relaxed and spent. "- you really know what you're doing!" you tried to hide a tired yawn. "I've never felt so good before."
"Mmh, sweetheart," he whispered softly and gently kissed your damp skin, "you’re so tired, go to sleep. I’ll be extra good tomorrow. Promise.”
— summary: initially, bucky barely talks to you. then, he starts teasing you during practice and when you can’t stand the jokes anymore, you bite back. “you’ve got a lot of tips for someone who hasn’t joined me in the rings yet, sargent.”
there’s a round of murmurs from the teammates and bucky’s blue eyes pierce you like an ice castle lifting up around a prey.
too bad for barnes, you were a trained widow and held a secret only fury himself knew.
“is that an invitation?” bucky asked.
too late to back down, you decide to show a little of what you can do. the white wolf should be the perfect opponent for that.
— warnings: pg-17; violence, mentions of blood and injures
you knew the value of what laid in your hands every time you looked at it:
the team was new and the relationships had only begun developing, but everything needs a start. considering the responsibilities stacked on carol danvers’s back and the oath resting around stephen strange’s neck, those two particular avengers were mostly absent, but the remaining team was sufficient on its own.
sam wilson — not a perfect soldier, but a good man as the legacy held — held the title and inspired respect back into the shield that started its journey with steve.
on his right side, sargent bucky barnes provided the muscle needed in most dangerous missions, and the knowledge stored inside his brain due to decades of intense training and conditioning still proved to be helpful to this day.
a lot of bucky’s happiness nowadays came from twisting the things shoved inside him by hydra into something of good use. it helped a lot.
wanda — recently recovered after a lot of help from sam and bucky — had moved back into the stark compound, but only because of the newest addition to the team:
you.
your past was a mystery to the agents you worked with and apart from fury who somehow already knew your secret on the day of your hiring, wanda was the only one else who knew what made you such a unique widow.
why your web and your poison were so much sharper.
regardless of your past, though, there was no judgement from anyone. the youngest kid who trained with the team a couple of times a month, peter parker, seemed to have taken a liking to you, and sam’s ground-intelligence and new holder of the falcon title also liked your company.
you went as far as saying you were friends with your co-workers—the only mission you all had together had been an incredible success, which according to fury was a leap from how the attack on new york went around ten years prior.
everyone got along good and from the looks of it, this team had so much to prosper. you hoped somewhere on the back of your mind that you all even became friends—not a hopeless dream, but a difficult one considering this line of work.
the only person you couldn’t get a proper read on was the cause of your restlessness whenever you couldn’t sleep at night.
ppl who don't get cats will try to argue that cats don't love you meanwhile cats will cry and cry and cry and cry like the world is ending until you hold them like a baby and give them a kissy on their perfect lil forehead
— Pairing: Musician!Bucky Barnes x Reader
— Summary: The jury was still out if you believed in fate or not, but the marvelous occurrence of Bucky returning to your life had to be, without a doubt, one of the best things that happened to you. In only a few months of being your roommate, you and him bond in a way you do with very few people—so of course you have to ruin it.
One night and a dream about him change everything.
— Word count: 14.4k
— A/n: Happy holidays celebration season, darlings! This is the 8th commission I got for my beautiful Malin, whose incredible brain always gives me great inspiration, and I hope from the bottom of my heart she enjoys it. Join the winter celebrations and order your own 🌟 Happy reading.
⋅☾ My Masterlist | Ko-Fi ❥ | gif by Malin ☽⋅
— ❄️🎸🧥❄️ —
The advertisement announced by you for the vacant room in the loft had to be renovated two months before he appeared on your front door, to the surprise and delight of both of you.
James Buchanan Barnes, still known by others as "Bucky", one of the biggest sweetheart heartthrobs that any school had probably seen, stood on the other side of the door with that same look of awe on his face as you remember from years ago, only now he is grown. Adult.
Face-hair, shoulders-filled and easy suave of someone who's no longer troubled by teen problems kind of adult. There was still the strap of a guitar crossing over his chest, just like in Winston High, but it wasn't the same red and blue one that was almost as famous as him.
Well. He's definitely ended up exactly how I pictured. Many times.
"Y/n?" He smiles, finally recognizing you too.
"Hi, Bucky."
And that had been it. Bucky's interview to fill in the position became pure decorum the second you two shared the first laugh together.
Granted, you should have used the brain that got you a scholarship into NYU and realized how royally fucked you were that same night.
Bucky had been a student at your high school at the same time as your older brother, and given the wide age difference of seven years, all you remembered is that he was famous around school, very cute for a boy, and always carried a guitar around his shoulder.
That very cute boy was now an extremely dashing man, and he needed about twenty minutes to win you over and guarantee the second room in the place as his for the foreseeable future.
His direct approach was the first thing you took note of. Bucky kept to the facts, presented his interest and seriousness towards the housing and being a roommate and you wondered if this eloquence was a newly developed thing as New Yorker and a musician now, hoping in secret that some of it would rub it off on you.
Some of your inexperience with the city or everything new around you must show, because at some point during the interview Bucky asks:
“How long have you been here?”
He’s leaning with one elbow over the couch rest and the whole time, his eyes are fixed either on yours or on one of the details around the place.
“Six, seven months?” The semester had gone by so fast that it left you feeling that time-warp of when life starts running in a new rhythm. “I came by a lot before that since the place is my aunt’s. Usually when I was starting high school, though—I stopped before I applied ‘cause I didn’t wanna get my hopes up in case I didn’t pass or not.”
“I hope the city’s not being too mean to ya,” Bucky chuckles.
Is it that obvious? Your shoulders retract into your body, and you look away from him. “It’s a love-hate relationship. This city sucks and I don’t get why people wanna be around here so bad when everything turns grey and wet in the fucking winter—“
You spin around with wide eyes. “Right?!” Back where you two were born winters were harsh, but not like this. “And all I want is just stay in here, but—“ you shrug your shoulders. “Can’t do it.” With a sigh, you put on a smile back on your face. “Anyway. Whenever this city’s a bitch I just Uno-reverse it and call it a day. What’s your routine look like Bucky?”
Not always, you think, but close enough. Sometimes the whole ordeal of ‘following your dreams’ decided to beat the crap out of you and all you did was soak in a bathtub, eat horrible food, and make questionable decisions for a while.
Getting back up after times like those were a drag, but you did it.
“I work most nights,” Bucky answers, wincing in anticipation of your reaction to that information.
You shake your head to his concern. “Unless you’re the type to rehearse at3am, I couldn’t care less.”
He shakes his head. “No. I just work the worst shifts, most of the time.”
Bucky then tells you about his group of friends – or better yet, his bandmates – and how close they are. He guarantees none of them would show uninvited, but there would be chances of you coming home to a bunch of tattooed, grunge-looking adults lazing around the living room floor.
None of the information he offers checks the boxes of ‘reasons why I would never live with you’. When the scholarship came, your aunt’s graduation gift for you was to leave the loft vacant until you could move to attend university and for the first semester, she covered the other side of the rent so you could get used to living in the big city and learn to deal with the challenges that came with it.
For the past two months, all of the rent fell on your back and your savings were not for that, so you swallowed down the anxiety of sharing your space with a stranger and put out the ad.
Only to turn down people for weeks. Granted—you had a reason. Most of them were creeps, and the ones who weren’t were unreliable.
Bucky might have a smile too stunning for words, a melodic and almost tasty voice, enough manners and charm to make a grandmother fawn, but neither one of those were qualities that you could check as harmful in a potential roommate.
The only thing at risk there was your sanity. No big deal, then. Nothing you were too attached to, anyway.
Bucky moved in at the end of the week and all his belongings were brought not by a moving company, but by the first bandmates you had the pleasure of meeting:
Steve, the drummer. Blond, tall, built like a statue, and to put a cherry on top of it all, a golden retriever boy personality. Steve’s jeans were ripped at the knees and he wore a band t-shirt that in one look you knew had seen more concerts than you had been outside in your life, and his ears were littered in jewelry.
He saw you with your apple green sweaters – your War Clothes, as you called the pair – ready to help with the boxes and said, “Judging by the cool-ass outfit, you must Y/n.”
“Hey! And you are?”
Steve had huffed out a breath, rolling his eyes. “Of course the idiot didn’t even introduce us. Not even a pic.” He extended his hand, holding the box with just one arm, no struggle at all. “I’m Steve Rogers. You can call me Steve, though.”
“Or hoe, he answers to that, too,” a second unfamiliar voice said.
Both you and Steve whipped your heads around and saw a woman entering the apartment with two boxes in her arms.
The second member had been her: Tasha. The singer.
One of the best surprises that Bucky brought into your life.
Upon first glance, you and Natasha looked as different as they come: To start, the only tattoos on your body were dainty, thin-lined symbols with personal meanings to you, flowers, and things of nature. There were a couple of renaissance things modernized as well, but overall, you looked feminine. Clothes always bold, layered, and matching, hair always styled somehow.
You were your skin well, mainly thanks to your armor—knowing how to dress for any occasion was the one thing you were sure how to do. But there was still reservation in your eyes. Walls around your horizon, a polite cadence always in your voice.
Natasha was none of that.
She showed up in old baggy jeans and a black top. One of the many she owned, as you would soon find out. The only similarity between you two must be your love for accessories: Tasha had countless bracelets, more piercings than your eyes could catch at first sight, and, your biggest love, her choker.
(The whole collection.)
Tasha wore heavy, black make-up that somehow never looked smudged or anything less than perfect. And, of course, the cherry on her top: her shining personality to match.
Tasha’s outside reflected her inside. There was nothing separating her soul, her looks, her aura.
Natasha’s voice was deep as the ocean – thanks to her disgusting habit – and could be heard in the same unimpressed tone ninety percent of the time. She wore her skin perfectly and extra tight—a sight to behold, and how you loved a good sight.
You two exchanged one look over the other and while appearances may have pointed towards a crash, everything took a U-turn when the corner of Natasha’s lips turned upwards and she tilted her head to the side.
“But you can call me anything you’d like.” The words had an immediate effect, and the blush on your cheeks served as a direct line for her smirk to grow. “Nice to meet you. I’m Tasha.”
“Y/n,” you waved despite the clear embarrassment, ignoring wholeheartedly the way Steve had grown quiet and tried to suppress his giggle. “Nice to meet you too.”
“Bucky said we could just drop all of these in the living room?” Tasha asked you, pointing to the boxes.
“Yeah, I told him to bring anything he’d like to add to the house so brought some stuff that was in his storage, I think? For the living room and stuff. He’s gonna be paying half the rent, the house’s his, too,” you smiled. “You can leave it there. I told him I’d help organize everything later.”
“You got it,” Tasha nodded.
“So, Bucky said you study Fashion at NYU?” Steve asked as you three walked back to the corridor. Bucky was waiting downstairs getting all the boxes out of Steve’s and Tasha’s cars and now that you and they had been introduced, you felt more comfortable going with them.
“Yeah. I started a semester ago,” you nodded. It was weird remembering these people were basically a decade older than you, but they seemed exactly like your group of friends. “How long ago did you guys meet?” You asked.
“I’ve known these two idiots since their senior year in high school,” Tasha replied.
Steve opened the elevator for you both. “Bucky and I met in a battle of the bands and we became friends. Then, Tasha found us performing and basically adopted us under her wing,” he said with a smile.
Tasha rolled her eyes at him, but you could see she was one of those people who spoke swimming in rivers of sarcasm. “And I’ve carried them as regrets ever since.” She looked to the side where you were and did her head tilt again. “Do you work, Y/n? Or only study? ‘Cause last I heard that school’s pretty expensive.”
The elevator’s door opened and you three walked in as you answered. “I work all weekend as an event’s assistant anywhere the company sends me. It’s good to save money and get to know how these things go before I join the work market.” Tasha’s eyes were steady and sharp on you and your movements as you spoke, and for the first time in your life, you felt highly aware of yourself in the presence of a woman. “I got a full scholarship, though, so that’s one less concern in my life, I guess.”
Steve whistled and Tasha’s eyebrows rose in surprise. “Damn.” She chuckled, looking over your head to lock her gaze on her friend’s. “Stunning and smart.” With her eyes back on you, she added. “Can you do me a favor and turn me down, Y/n? Just so I can move on quicker.”
This time Steve couldn’t keep the laughter inside, and he had to look away from you both to stop laughing.
Tasha, feigning innocence, became the personification of the shrug emoji and shifted her look from you to Steve. “What?! You know it’s easier to move on if you know you have no chance.”
Unaccustomed to someone hitting on you so blatantly, you decided that Tasha was kidding.
This is probably how she makes friends, you told yourself, then tried to will away the blush on your cheeks by joining in the fun. “Sorry, Tasha. I’m cursed with the burden of liking men, unfortunately,” you gave her the saddest smile possible.
Your answer caused Steve to laugh more, and Tasha to sigh wistfully. “I feel for you, gorgeous.” That made you laugh, too, and Tasha’s lips almost curled into a true smile. “Thanks, though. I’ll work on moving on, now.”
“Of course,” you answered.
Tasha kept her eyes on you and your red cheeks for a heartbeat longer, and Steve decided to give Sanity on your mental board game a few more points by kicking Tasha’s leg behind your back. “Stop hitting on every pretty woman you see, man.”
The elevators doors opened and Bucky looked up as you three came out of the building with both arms opened wide. “How is this you two paying me back?” He asked his friends with a frown. “Get to work, people.”
“Oh, fuck you, Barnes,” Steve laughed.
Tasha flipped him off. “How’s this for payment?” She smiled when he flipped her off right back. “That’s my baby. Don’t worry, you whiny bitch, we’ll take all these boxes up, okay? We know we owe you one.”
“You could’ve at least paid us a beer,” Steve grumbled as he got another box.
Bucky looked between them and then his gaze landed on you, and it said ‘can you believe these fucking morons’. “What part of ‘I rescued your sorry asses from ending up in jail for the second time and now you owe me one’ is not connecting on your skull, my guy?”
Then, like a penny drops and a jukebox starts, something clicks on their heads and they all straighten up as they go:
“My GUY!” They yelled together.
You stood there with your indicators linked and your arms waiting for the box Steve was about to give you, staring at the three figures doubling in laughter as some internal joke you were unaware of made them lose it for a second.
As someone who had the same four friends since high school and zero ability to connect with the same ease people nowadays, these kinds of interactions were the ones that made your heart ache the most.
This kind of friendship was a diamond. There were many crystals, fake alleged ‘precious stones’ and wannabes out there, but true connections required things a lot of people lacked in themselves.
They had it.
You were yet to meet the other two, but there was no need with a display like this it was clear whatever Red Winter had, it was special.
The surprise was not in their special bond, but in the fact that unlike all previous times when you witnessed something like this, your brain didn’t go into its green jealous monster fit, but instead, it observed with quiet and distant longing.
It lasted only a second, but it was like you peeked into the window of someone’s home and enjoyed the sight of the family dining and laughing inside so much all you could think about was joining them.
The four of you found an easy rhythm and it wasn’t long before all of Bucky’s belongings were in the living room and the corridor, or piled up in his new room. The beers on the fridge were a secret you kept until the last box had been brought upstairs: when the four of you sat down, exhausted and happy with the results, you got up and brought back with you the four long necks.
The looks of pure happiness on their faces had been unprecedented.
Tasha shared her beer with Steve – drinking apparently was not her thing – and you four sat on the living room’s rug, getting to know each other better while waiting for the pizza to arrive. This meant a lot of talking on Steve, Tasha, and your part—you answered any questions they asked about you, they told you stories and answered the ones you asked back.
Bucky showed himself to be as quiet with his friends as he was with you. It soothed a lot of your unspoken anxieties and you stored that information for later—knowing his silence was part of himself and not a reflection of what he thinks or not of you would make living with him easier.
“Nah, the last slice is definitely mine, Barnes. I was the one who told you to keep looking for a place after that weirdo with the monkey and the circus leaflets and look where you are!” Tasha argued when Bucky tried taking the last piece.
She gestured around herself with a smug smile, and Bucky sighed as he caved and slid the box to her.
After she picked up the piece, Tasha nodded and spoke with her mouth full. “Thanks. I still can’t believe you get to live here with the pretty girl who’s way too nice to you while I have to share a place with this tormented soul over here,” Tasha kicked the sole of Steve’s boot. “But that’s cool.” She looked over to you. “If he gets out of line, threaten to cut one of the chords in his guitar and he’ll go back to his place.”
You laughed. “I told you before, he’s paying half the rent, this place is now his as much as it’s mine.” The pizza and the alcohol made you light enough to participate in conversation easily. You nudged Tasha with your knee since both of you sat on the floor. “You two can come any time you want, just please don’t rehearse here or you’ll get us both kicked out. Or get in my wardrobe without asking. Other than that, you’re golden.”
Tasha looked at you like her eyes deceived her. “You are so nice,” she whispered in awe. Then, with vicious eyes pointed at Bucky, she said. “Don’t you dare fuck this up.”
“I won’t,” Bucky chuckled.
And he kept those words.
Helping that night was the best idea you ever had.
At first, you thought about leaving the place while Bucky made his move so he could organize his things and make himself at home without you being there. Then, when you pitched the idea to your friend Duda, she said that could either make him feel at home or unwelcomed. The word stuck so hard to your brain that it pushed you out of your comfort zone: you texted Bucky you’d clear some space in all rooms for him as he drove with his friends and you’d help once they got there.
The idea paid off. Sharing a pizza with Bucky and two-fifths of his band – the most important part of his life – welcomed him into metaphorical open arms.
That night, Bucky stood in the kitchen after Tasha and Steve left and thanked you with the most genuine smile you’d seen on his face yet.
“Thanks for all the help.” He helped to dry the dishes, then blurted out the words like he’d been running them over in his head for a while. “I know how hard it is to leave the shell when new people are all up on our space, but—“ the admission of a fellow introvert made even more sense, and it brought a smile to your face. “We would’ve taken a lot longer without you.”
“No problem.” It really hadn’t been. Weirdly enough, it had been a pleasure.
Bucky smiled. “Cool.” He did the head tilt to the side, much like Tasha. “I’m gonna shower and pass out so hard now I might as well have died.” That made you laugh and he smiled at the reaction. “See you tomorrow, roomie.”
“See you.”
The tomorrows after that blended well together.
Bucky moves in at the last month of summer, and it takes him only the rest of the season to find his own little slot in the puzzle of your life.
The first few days you spent talking to the mirror and convincing yourself his presence would make no difference because this arrangement for him had no need to include you in his life too ended up at the end of your garbage bin before classes started all over again.
The change happened in a way so natural that you were sure both of you missed it.
You and Bucky were like Sun and Moon.
With the morning Sun came your routine: separate looks to later take pictures in, do your journal, read your syllabus, call and check on your friends who were either in one different university around the country. Your day was busy, usually running after errands or doing online work of reviews, reading about the industry—nothing dramatic. You, your books and clothes, some laughter with friends through the computer.
With the Moon came Bucky’s: he woke up in the afternoon and got ready for work, usually left four days of the week, and only came back early morning around the time you woke up. Bucky left exercise other days of the week – you saw the boxing gloves – and on the first week when you catch him studying on the kitchen counter and ask what is it, he smiled wide.
“I found some free courses online about music production so I’m learning what I can from the free material,” he gestured around the printed notebooks.
Exchanges between you two started off slow. Good mornings, evenings and small talk were the gateway—he always had a polite smile to offer and during the first couple of weeks, Bucky barely even left his room.
Eventually, small talk turns into small conversations about the situations you two find each other in.
Like the time Bucky passed in front of your room and since the door was open, caught you looming over a bunch of clothes lying on your floor.
He stared at you staring at the clothes with a pout and a frown on your face, oblivious to the fact that he was there watching until he spoke up.
“Are they offending you?” That was how he started the conversation.
You looked up at him, then down at the clothes again. “Actually… yeah.”
Bucky smiled. “What’s wrong with them?” He looked down at the numerous items on your floor, twisting his body so he could visualize it from your point of view. “Those outfits look amazing.”
Of course he’d think so—Bucky wore the same Metallica t-shirt since high school, probably. Lord, he had plaid in his wardrobe. Instead of saying that, though, you stuck to a less mean teasing. “Color scheme’s wrong, buddy. I can’t figure out which pants go better with that fucking top, though—it looked so good when I bought it, I was so sure I had something that could match. This looks wrong.”
“I… don’t see it.”
You wear plaid, darling. You’re hopeless. “Men can’t see as many colors. It’s not your fault,” you were glad that Bucky’s experience in sarcasm came through the form of Natasha because yours sometimes lacked in delivery and people thought you were serious.
He noticed it, though, and laughed. “I’ll blame every outfit that goes wrong now on that. Thanks.”
“Sure, roomie.”
After that interaction, prodding became a thing between you two. When you found Bucky sitting on the couch with a notebook in hs hands, you asked if he was attempting the rhymes of the next rock radio hit. He laughed and told you that was Sharon’s job—“Songwriting’s a passion I lack the finesse for,” Bucky said.
Three weeks in, he knocked on your door and poked his head in.
“Hey,” he smiled at you with your books spread all around you on the floor and then asked with a grimace. “This seems like the shittiest time ever to ask this.”
It didn’t take a genius to figure out what he wanted after that. You smirked. “You wanna play?”
He nodded.
“I meant what I said—unless it’s exams season, I don’t mind if you do it. I mean—four am melodies doesn’t exactly sound like my dream, but you could.”
“I’d never,” he shook his head vehemently. “If I practiced some songs now would it take away your focus?”
“Nah.” You pointed a finger at your earbuds. “There’s a concert playing, I can’t hear shit, Bucky.”
You had paused when he first poked his head in, but now he smiled in earnest. “Oh—fucking amazing.” He threw you a wink. “Thanks, Y/n.”
The prodding gets layered with the pulling—once Bucky discovers through prodding that you are as prone to sarcasm, dark humor, and being crazy sometimes as his close friends are, Bucky starts to pull you into his circle.
Whenever Tasha and Steve show up at the loft in the Summer, he makes sure to knock on your door and ask you to come to say hi, and the hi becomes ‘stay with us’ soon after; they all seem to take a liking to you, and when Sam and Sharon are added to the equation, the pull becomes as strong as the Force.
It’s Bucky, but it’s also his friends.
They like you, as it is stated by them a few times when they come over. It’s easy to get along with them. Before your semester even starts, Bucky is not only your roommate but someone you’re starting to consider a friend, and once it does start and his behavior only highlights how great he is to have around and how much he wants you to be in his life, friendship solidifies in a strong, solid base.
Bucky fits into your life by being him.
He’s a great roommate—never slacks off, picks up after himself, even the things one could consider to be problematic are impossible to. He’s an excellent player; listening to him rehearse becomes one of your favorite background music. Although he has little time to do it, Bucky can cook and sometimes does that for both of you when he’s in a good mood.
As the semester unfolds, he proves to be patient with your minor freak-outs and stressful days.
The best part, though, is the reason why Bucky fits better than a puzzle.
Because he wants to.
He sees something in you—what that something is, you’re unaware of, but Bucky smelled it the day you helped him move and with only a few months, he manages to water it until it’s blossomed.
Bucky sees the Y/n you have difficulty in showing to others. The one who’s funny and makes your best friends almost piss themselves in laughter, the one who gathered all her braveness in order to submit a portfolio containing all her vulnerabilities and inspirations to a university, the one who got into one fight in her entire life and it was to punch a transphobe in the mouth: He sees you, even though she’s usually hidden inside your little shell.
He coaxes her out by being himself.
It’s hard to believe someone so much older, cooler, and with a social life that makes yours feel pathetic and inexistent would want to spend so much time talking to you, getting to know you, integrating you as a part of his group of friends, but he does—the proof of that, is the balcony.
Just outside your kitchen, there’s a small balcony like any other balcony in New York City’s apartment complexes. Yours has a small round table and two comfortable bamboo chairs covered in comfortable cushions, as well as a few bean bags thrown on the floor that had never been used before the band came over.
The place becomes you and Bucky’s spot.
Yours.
It starts with one late-night where you find him smoking his joint outside with red-rimmed eyes and instead of asking questions, tell him about the only time you tried pot and how horrible that had gone, pouring as many details as you can remember even though that’s how not how you usually tell stories, but the outcome pays off. Bucky’s laughing by the time you’re done and you think you’re a little high by second-hand contact, but it’s okay because Bucky looks way happier than when he came back from work.
“I’m gonna make us some noodles,” he stated after the story ended and you two sat sharing a comfortable silence. His voice sounded rougher because of the smoke and his eyes looked tiny and red, but differently than before. “Don’t go anywhere?”
It sounded small.
A question and a request. Whatever happened to Bucky that night at his job touched an old scar or healing wound inside of him and you’d have done anything to wipe away that feeling.
You nodded and tucked your knees into your chest.
“I’ll be waiting,” you said.
That’s how it had started.
The balcony became the place you two met late at night or very early in the morning. Countless times you and Bucky watched the sun set or rise while talking about mundane subjects such as your favorite TV show and things that ran deep and you only ever spoke of with your best friend, so far.
The moonlight witnessed many existential conversations about the paths in life and what it all meant.
Is it all worth it, Y/n? Sometimes I wonder.
Remember high school, Buck? If the Y/n who entered high school saw me today, I think her jaw would drop to the floor. First, because I’m alive, and second because I’m actually doing okay? Most of the time, at least.
I miss my father sometimes. I’m sorry about the smoke when you’re trying to study—I just. It’s shitty how people who leave are never really gone and sometimes there are no good memories to use as a band-aid to that, you know?
I think my mom hates me sometimes. Is it bad that it’s mutual? I know she means well most of the time, but fuck—sometimes I just wish she would… shut the fuck up. Am I a horrible person?
Nothing felt like too much when you sat on the balcony.
You started off as strangers, but that balcony, the band and the numerous shared late-night ramen turned you and Bucky into friends.
He survived one full semester by your side, dragged you to concerts, made you a part of the ragtag group of misfits, and then, only then, he served the final blow.
It wasn’t his fault.
Bucky had no way of knowing you were blind and stupid to what was right in front of you. How could he know that feeling a hundred percent comfortable at last in what was now his home would do you in? Condemnyou? How could he have known that all it’d take was one dream to fuck up everything inside your head and turn your world upside down?
And that was all it took: one dream.
You liked to divide your life that way: Before The Dream. Post Dream.
BTD was a world filled with joy, camaraderie, new discoveries and pleasure.
Then, the dream happens. Post Dream is a world filled with looks, tension, the electricity in the air of a storm approaching, the shimmer inside your skin every time your skin brushed.
It was your fault.
And yet—you can’t bring yourself to care.
— ❄️🎸 BEFORE THE DREAM 🧥❄️ —
The best part of your second semester is the new routine of Thursday nights.
Red Winter gigs on a socialite club known for its big love of live music, good covers, and revealing new musical talents. When Tasha and Steve show you the pictures of the walls, your eyes become three times their size at seeing the images of many famous people now who performed there at the beginning of their career.
Thursdays become a day of the week where the loft is full, loud, and alive.
On the first few weeks it happened you couldn’t help but wonder why they’d come home with adrenaline still rushing through their bodies only to eat a shit ton of pizza, drink until they passed out, and have a laugh at ridiculous Tik Toks or things that happened during the week.
It was a mystery on your mind why they would rather do this instead of going out and enjoying the rest of their successful night. You knew the group was no stranger to a good party, but this was truly where their hearts lied.
A couple of weeks before Christmas you cave in and ask.
“Did you guys use to do this before? Gather at someone’s place after Djinn to eat pizza and shit-talk the idiots of the week?”
Everyone’s sitting in the living room somewhere and you still have your empty plate of pizza on your lap. The almost empty wine glass on your hand is the one responsible for your blush and the bluntness of the question.
The answer comes from Sam. “Yup!” He’s lying on the floor’s rug, his back leaning against a bean bag. “But it used to be at their place instead,” he points a finger at Tasha and Steve.
They raise their hands in response, as if this is a classroom.
“Bucky used to burp a lot more back then, though,” Tasha muses out loud.
The group laughs at him, poking fun at his “shyness” just because he’s in a new environment. Sharon, who’s sitting right beside Bucky on the couch, pinches his cheeks while muttering, “It’s almost like he has manners now,” in a baby voice.
Everyone laughs, listening to her words loud and clear despite the volume.
“I don’t get it,” you narrow your eyes at the duo opposite to you. Steve and Tasha still had glowing make-up on and they looked phenomenal. “Y’all should be out. Clubbing. Being cool.”
Sam groans. “I’m too old to be cool anymore.”
“Yeah, he’s got a point.” Steve nods with a serious face on. “And it’s nice of you to think I like to dance. Surrounded by people and shit—a sea of unknown bodies rubbing up on me.” Steve gives a full-body shudder. “I am not ashamed to admit I like it here much better. The inside. Indoors. It’s cozy, the bathroom’s squeaky clean—“
“Thanks, buddy, I cleaned it yesterday.”
“—nice job, Buck; and on top of it all, I can take a nap anytime I want without the fear of getting mugged.” Steve finishes his list and then gives another sharp nod. “Much better option.”
And I thought I was the old hag. You nod back. “Couldn’t agree more.” One look around the living room, though, and you were reminded of the reason you thought they looked out of the picture. “I’m just saying that ‘cause y’all look really good every time you go there.”
There’s a round of whistles and over-exaggerated ‘thank you’ as a response, and you hear Steve scream-whisper ‘oh my God did she just compliment my outfit’ to Tasha.
You laugh. “I did, Steve—you look good.” He put his hand over his heart in such a dramatic way that you had to throw your fortune cookie in his face. He caught it, wiggling his eyebrows in gratitude. “I’d think you wanna show off the sparkly jackets and spiky boots.”
“It’s the fanciest place we go,” says Bucky. He looks incredible even though his look is almost the same as the other locations—the differences with him are in the details: more accessories, better make-up, styled hair. “Gotta look the part.”
No one should look as good as he does saying something so simple.
He pulls it off with ease. The arm thrown over the couch rest is his preferred way to sit, just like you tuck both legs underneath yourself in the armchair almost every time.
“We should coordinate outfits one of these nights,” Sharon says to Bucky.
Red Winter’s guitarists would look good with complimenting looks—you can almost see it. Bucky is the lead while Sharon is the rhythm one in the group, and they’re always the tamest in looks.
Steve goes for the almost-naked upper half, which is fair considering the amount of upper body work he does.
Sam may have natural swag, but he’s the simple beauty among them. You’ve never seen him in anything flashy or out of the casual black look. As a bassist, you’d like to see him in some cool suit combinations.
Tasha is the best surprise in them all.
First, in her voice. The first time you went to a presentation of the group, unaware of what to expect, you had to thank the gods you went in the dark. The sheer pleasure of discovering Tasha’s sultry, growly tone was untranslatable. Her vocal power was insane, and sometimes, she and Bucky harmonized on stage.
Something wicked and thick danced inside of you when that happened.
Bucky snorts at Sharon. “I’ve seen your wardrobe. No, thanks, blondie.”
“Hey! Half of my clothes I stole from my girlfriend. They're super fashionable,” Sharon argues.
“You need to buy your own clothes, Ron,” says Tasha in a mocking tone.
Sharon lets the words come in through one ear and out of the other. “Your wardrobe is nothing to sing songs about either,” she points at Bucky.
“Never said it was,” Bucky shrugs his shoulders.
“You two should borrow some of her jackets,” you point with your head to Tasha. “She’s the one with the killer outfits.” Tasha’s shoulders straighten up some inches at your compliment, and you smile at her. “I have no idea how people are not throwing VIP tickets are your feet at the end of shows.”
And that’s how you find out. Tasha’s smile never falters as she answers. “They are. I just don’t go.” She shakes her head, her straight red hair flowing like satin. “The higher up the shittier the music industry gets. I’ve been clean for ten years and I’d like to keep it so. Those people at Djinn are the ones who are friends with people who are friends with Drake. You know the type? Whatever it is they have on them and at the parties they go, it’s the last thing I need around me,” she chuckles humorlessly. “These fools love keeping me company,” she adds.
Ten years ring on your head and it creates echoes so big they become waves one could surf in.
“I’m proud of you for all your sobriety years,” I know how hard they can be. Harmful behaviors were difficult to quit. Resistant to die. “These fools probably, like—love you, or something like that.”
“Ew,” says Tasha, smiling back at you the exact same way.
“Would you borrow them?” Sam asks, pulling the attention to him. He’s looking at Tasha with narrowed eyes. “I’ve seen the way you’re careful with those bomber jackets of yours, would you really let us use it?”
Tasha gives one of her rare cackles—one honest ‘hah’. “Those two?” She points at the couch. “Fucking never. You could if you wanted. Steve already knows he can, he just claims to be too big for them.”
“They are too big for me, love.” He sighs. “Have you seen these shoulders? I’d love to be able to share clothes with you.”
Conversation shifts from clothes to Steve’s growth spurt and over the discussion, when Tasha’s eyes lock on yours, there’s a silent nod of appreciation in them, with a brush of awe, or fondness.
It’s the same one you see in Bucky’s gaze a couple of nights later.
He’s cooking breakfast for you two after coming back from work and when plating the omelets for you, his eyes graze over the screen, catching on the unlocked image of your own TikTok account.
You were pouring juice and left the phone open. The following count is big enough to call attention, so you understand when his eyes widen and he stares.
“Do you have more than half a million followers on this thing?”
You feel like a deer caught in the headlights, but manage a nod under his piercing eyes. “It’s—I started long ago. When it started. The app. That’s all—I even stop posting content for a while, it’s luck I still have them.”
Bucky nods. “Wow.”
You can tell through breakfast that he’s still thinking about your account. Sometimes he gives you a look, narrows his eyes, then goes back to chewing.
After you’re both done and decide to sit outside to enjoy a bit of the morning Sun while it still comes, Bucky asks you to see your videos.
“Sure,” you give him your phone.
He watches them. Many of them. You can see he’s enjoying by the expressions on his face, the same way you can tell that whatever he was thinking during breakfast grows branches and maybe even leaves in his head as he scrolls down and down.
“Why don’t you post more?” He asks finally.
Your content was very limited—your fashion tips had been good enough to make almost all of your video blow up. You taught people without showing your face or your friends how many key items in a wardrobe could work in two different body types. It was what you did—with the help of a skinny friend, you showed how some clothes looked on smaller bodies, then you put the same or alternatives on you to show how they’d work on bigger bodies.
No one’s faces showed in any of the videos, and you had no videos with a personal touch.
You shrug. “Lots of things.” Insecurity. Fear. Laziness. “It’s hard investing in these accounts ‘cause they start demanding a lot more work as it goes.”
Buck nods. “That’s true.” He sips on his tea, and you two sit in silence for a bit more. “You’re really good at this.”
“Thanks, Buck.”
“No, I mean that in emphasis—like, really fucking good.” He makes sure to wait until you look him in the eye so you can see the seriousness in him. “I love the suit combinations. You look fantastic in suits, and I say that as a thirty-year-old who wishes he could look half as good as you.”
You laugh. “Shut up!”
“I’m serious!” He’s smiling now, probably because he thinks your laugh is funny. “The fact that you post how much the looks cost, too—that’s amazing for people to have a realistic idea on putting something together.”
“I just want people to know that being fashionable can be affordable,” you sigh. It's ’he hill you were willing to die on, and Bucky’s smile widens at how passionate you sound.
“Good.” He nods. “You’re doing good with that.”
You smile behind your cup, and he sees it. It’s good how Bucky likes you now to the point where he will carry a conversation himself. He’s not one to ask many people questions.
“Y/n?”
“Yeah?” You turn to him.
He looks at you and you feel it—sometimes, his eyes are cold as ice, or maybe it’s the fact that you can feel it everywhere. “I think the people that follow you would be very fucking happy to see the things you pull off every week. Blessed. Content,” he rectifies.
It makes you bite your lip in thought—all the looks you recorded so far in the semester play in your head as accusatory evidence. Sickening looks. You found so many beautiful new items in the last thrift store you and Duda discovered.
You scratch your neck. “Thanks, Buck. I’ll think about that.”
The happiness in his face is as evident as when he sees recording your outfits one week straight—he even goes as far as giving you thumbs up every time he catches you doing it, giddy at the sight almost every time.
During the holidays, Bucky comes up as a conversation topic at the dinner table and your older brother smiles, delighted to hear about the coincidence.
A few days later, you use the opportunity when you and your brother are sitting outside sharing eggnog to ask him. “Did Bucky always keep to himself?”
Your brother nods. “Yeah. I wasn’t really friends with him back then, but Clint knew him well. Said it drove his girlfriends nuts. Why is it that ‘mysterious guys’ get women so easy? It’s like they loved not getting him”
Why? He’s so easy to read.
Not talking much affected nothing when it came to Bucky and his communication. He always spoke his mind and if not that, his eyes did.
When he gets sick after New Year, you learn all his talking is reserved for his whiny, ill days. It’s when he demands your company for the first time to watch movies, and also he starts showing you his music.
It becomes a habit after that. Bucky saw the excitement on your face and from then on, shared anything he worked on.
His love for music could be felt in every technique he learned to produce his solo tracks, and the band all shared the same view on what they wanted out of this job.
They tell you as much on a spring day, everyone squeezed together in your small balcony.
“You guys don’t want to put an album out?” You ask.
Tasha and Sam were sitting on top of each other in one bean bag, Steve and Sharon shared another one in an awkward tangle of limbs and you and Bucky sat in the armchairs since you were there before the rest of the gang arrived.
From the floor, Tasha gave you a disgusted look.
“Hell, no,” she shakes her head.
Everyone from the band goes, “Hear, hear.”
You frown. “Why not?”
“’Cause that would mean joining the music industry in ways we have zero interest in,” Bucky explains. He offers you the joint they’re all passing around, but you shake your head. He hands it to Sharon in front of him. “We’re still together ‘cause none of us wants that.”
“Fame, money, and rock’n’roll isn’t our goal,” says Sam with a small smile. “It all sounds pretty glamorous but we’re all anxious, queer, and highly adverse to the idea of anyone on your fucking business.”
“Hmm. I can see how fame would get in the way of that,” you nod, trying to contain your laugh.
That same night, Bucky tells you why he fell in love with music.
After the gang is gone and it’s only you two at the balcony, Bucky pours wine on your glasses, sits by your side, and closes your notebook for you.
“Stop checking.” He knew you were waiting for a few grades to drop and your thumb already suffered at the hands of your anxiety—the skin was red and bitten, and Bucky removed the finger out of your mouth and placed the wine on your hand instead. “You did great.”
“You don’t know that,” you grumble. Bucky gives you a look, and you sigh, resigned.
Bucky waits until you sip the wine to take a seat.
He looks tired, too—there are bags under his eyes from taking extra shifts with the catering company he works at, and it makes your stomach churn.
“You need to sleep.” It’s a hypocritical statement coming from you, and the indignant smile on his face says as much.
“I’ll get sleep on the weekend.” He sips the wine and turns the chair to the side so he can face you. “Are you going to the festival next weekend?”
The festival was a small rock gathering where Red Soldier had their first lineup of the year. Tasha already bribed you in numerous ways to be there and Sharon said her girlfriend was dying to meet you, so chances were you’d be there.
You notice you went back to biting on your thumb because Bucky smacks his teeth at you, staring intently at your hand. “I know it’s exams season, but you need to relax, Y/n.”
“I know,” you pout.
“Then go.”
“You rock stars forget us mortals like to dwell on our misery,” you respond, but your pout is already turning into a smile as a result of Bucky’s fond and sharp command. That’s how he gets you to go places—he shows up at your room’s door and says, “Hey, babe, we’re going out for drinks tonight”, or texts you before he’s even home, “Be ready when I get there! Laser tag tonight !!! My co-workers forced me to go so that means you suffer too !! Also, I need your help if I wanna wipe the floor with Clint’s ass. Thanks babe :D”.
“Forget it? Did you miss my whole notebook filled with emo-ass lyrics about all the miseries?”
“How could I? You’re always leaving that thing lying around.”
The notebook is ground base for Bucky teasing you about your glitter always showing up on his stuff, and the conversation gets lost in roommate teasing for a while.
Steve is always talking about how you two speak and act like an old married couple, sometimes, and it made sense in your head that it would be the case—you two lived together. Teasing Bucky about his dirty socks or how he always comes back home early morning with donuts or some form of bribery for being out.
Eventually, though, conversation floats back to the festival and you ask him. “You really like playing in these big gigs?”
Bucky hates the people. He loves talking to music lovers, but the people who somehow feel entitled to an artist’s space after a show are one of his biggest pet peeves and you imagine the situation is much worse in festivals.
Idol worship is the main reason he and Steve claimed to want distance from the industry. Considering their Greek-god looks, it made perfect sense.
“Yeah.” The smile on his face grows—it’s one of his stage smiles. The one reserved for music. “It’s why I do it in the first place—the crowd in a performance. The bigger the better.”
“Really?”
Bucky nods, smiling at you. “It’s the reason I love music. The connection it brings.” Something in Bucky’s memory must pull him back because his eyes drift elsewhere. “Music’s a form of community bonding. We all find solace in some sort of rhythm, or lyrics, or vocals. It soothes some… hunger, deep in our soul.” The memory must be a good one because Bucky’s smile softens like never before. “I’ll never forget the first concert I went to. Me and my dad—Metallica. Fucking mind-blowing,” he laughs, and you laugh with him because Bucky’s happiness is contagious.
“That sounds awesome. I really like that band,” you tell him.
“Yeah, me too.” Bucky’s eyes focus back on you, leaving the Metallica concert which woke the spark inside of him. “Big concerts are cool. And the security’s usually really good, so we don’t have a lot of problems,” he shrugs.
That means there aren’t people harassing any of them after the shows.
“Oh, to be a rock star and have people pushing their fantasies on you and falling at your feet,” you tease him.
Bucky rolls his eyes, trying to put his smile away. “It’s annoying.”
You scoff. “No one asked you to look like a Calvin Klein model, buddy.”
Bucky gives you an exasperated look. “It’s genetics!” He screams-whispers, then groans when you laugh in his face. “Slipknot had it right. We should’ve just gone with masks and called it a day.”
“You think girls wouldn’t be falling at your feet then?” you snort in disbelief.
“Maybe. Maybe not.” Bucky shrugs his shoulders. “Not like it matters anyway.”
“Right. None of them is good for you,” you say with a teasing tone again, and Bucky shakes his head at you.
“You’re worse than Steve, god,” he groans out loud. “And I know you’re mocking me right now, but none of my dates are groupies, I’ll tell you that.”
None of my dates.
Out of all the words he just said, those four seem to have a problem going down your throat. Before the silence stretches for too long, you sip on your wine to push them down and say, “I’ll take your word for it, Buck Bear.”
Using Steve’s nickname which Bucky hates is a tactic, and it works. He laughs, then asks you if you’ve ever been to a festival. The change in topic is good, but you have unfortunately lost the ability to give your whole focus to the conversation. If Bucky notices or not, he keeps it to himself—you two go to bed with smiles on your faces that night, and you do end up going to the festival.
It’s there that you see it.
Bucky and the girl, one pressed against the other one of the walls backstage, his hand tight around her waist and his mouth on her ear.
None of my dates are groupies.
But there are dates.
It’s stupid that you freeze on the spot, hypnotized by the image of Bucky being charming like you never saw him be before, but someone bumps on you by accident and you use the reality drop to walk away from the sight.
You heard Sharon and Sam teasing him before about being a lady killer. A lady pleaser.
It just never crossed your mind before that he would be taking the girls he meets somewhere else.
You’d be living with him for almost a year now, of course there had been girls. Not meeting them didn’t mean they never existed.
You wonder if it’s because you saw him with someone else or if it’s the words that are still stuck on the walls of your brain that trigger it.
That stupid. Fucking. Dream.
It was probably a mix of both.
Until the festival, everything was going perfectly. That day, you come back home alone. Bucky said goodbye before he went on stage, and after you and Tasha watched the other concert together, both of you shared a cab back home.
The loft’s emptiness welcomes you, and all the alcohol rushing through your blood is what knocks you out, thank the gods. Had you been awake, the absence of Bucky’s noises in the kitchen or his guitar fiddling would sink hooks into your chest.
Instead, you take off your make-up, shower while drinking the last beer on your fridge, then pass out on the mattress.
You wake up soaked.
Panting.
Dripping wet.
Your brain is fuzzy, but your body is burning up. Disoriented, bothered and with your head pounding, you take a look to the side table and see the clock. The numbers read 13:17, and you want to die.
The wetness in your panties is so prominent that your hands are slipping inside your sleeping shorts before you think a second time about it—you’re so fucking wet, and your legs are feeling a little weak and you know exactly why.
The memories of Bucky pressing you to the wall instead of the girl are still crystal clear.
“Fuck.”
His tongue and teeth nibbled on your ear in your dream, his hands roamed your body like they craved you or wished to check if you were real, but it was the talking that must’ve made a real life mess out of you.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck—“ you get up with a frustrated groan and head to the shower.
Why did you have to dream it? How and why did it have to be so real? You could barely form a single thought without your stomach doing flips and turns, and the feeling of wanting to crawl out of your skin reached new heights as you thought about facing him after this.
Unlike Bucky, there were no casual hook-ups that you could go to somewhere in the city. Sex had been ruined for you a long time ago, even if you still engaged in it every now and then for your utter disappointment. It was something you wanted, but stopped thinking about it or dwelling on it after it brought you nothing but stress.
And now you were dreaming about your roommate fucking you so hard you saw stars. Fucking you deep, slow, while whispering filth in your ear that could only come from the goddamn erotica novels your Kindle had plenty of.
Dream Bucky turned you upside down and took you in at least five different positions until Real Life You got startled by your own screams in the dream and woke up to this.
What a fucking mess.
You’re a fucking mess.
That’s the thought that leads you to run away from Bucky for a total of two days. After you shower, stress clean, and then stress study for an hour, you decide you can’t be home when he arrives and take the subway straight to Duda’s house. Bucky texts you when he’s back home asking for you, and it gives you at least one day of an excuse to be anywhere he is not.
It works until Duda kicks you out with a kiss and an “I don’t know what you’re running from but go face it, hot stuff,” as if it was that easy.
Three days after the festival is when you see him for the first time. You’re sitting on the balcony with a scrapbook, scissors and a bunch of cut-outs when he gets home. He knows the scrapbook only comes out when you’re managing your anxiety levels, and being Bucky, he orders Chinese food and eats while talking to you about anything light.
He’s trying to distract you from your mind without needing to know what it is that bothers you in the first place.
It works. Some of the worries leave your chest and just sitting there and talking to him—he’s Bucky, so of course things were gonna be fine. He’s a good friend and even if you have weirdly specific – and intense, and erotic, sensual – dreams about him, he has no idea of that.
Nothing needs to change.
That’s what you think until his gentlemanly manners open the doors for the real problem.
It goes like this:
Bucky asks you, “You know you can talk to me about anything, right?”
To which you answer. “Yeah. Yeah, I know, Buck.” The scissors on your right hand gleam under the moonlight, and you stare at anything other than his eyes. “You don’t have to worry,” you snicker.
“I do, though.” He sounds serious. “You look really worried.”
Then, for some reason, you justify yourself with, “I just had a stupid nightmare."
It would’ve been better to keep quiet. Why do you have to mention it at all?
“Wanna talk about it?”
That’s why. Because Bucky cares, and whether he’s being a sex demon to you in another realm or not, in this plane of existence you and he can talk about anything.
But not this.
“You don’t have to,” he adds quickly after you go a heartbeat too long in silence. He shakes his head and hands, and he looks adorable doing so. “I know better than anyone how fucked up our head can get and how mean it can be.”
“My nightmares are just about—it’s stupid. Nothing anyone else would consider a nightmare.” Your mouth is talking, but your brain is going faster now, and the voice of what you imagine to be Reason is whispering in despair what the fuck are you talking about why don’t you shut up why would you bring this up?
“No one’s scared of the same stuff,” says Bucky.
“Yeah, but it’s not really a… fear.” You glue one of the images on the scrapbook to have something to do with your hands, ignoring the best way you can the screaming in your head. “More like—disappointment. Trauma.”
According to your therapist, a wound.
“You dreamt about something that disappointed you?”
“Yup. Only this time it wasn’t disappointing,” you snort. The scrapbook is coming together better than you imagined it. A part of you wants to burn it. “I—sorry.” You shook your head, realizing Bucky was listening intently and waiting for you to elaborate on your thoughts.
He gives you an empathetic look. “It’s okay. I’m following.”
You look up. Bucky listens with his whole body. He’s one of the few people who talk without their phone in hands, and who listen without ever looking away.
His gaze on you burns again, but only because this time your brain has Dream Bucky to compare to.
“It’s just… most people think it’s weird when something like sex is ruined for you.” Not ruined—wounded, your therapist’s voice always reminds you. “Wounded. Whatever.”
“I think a lot of people can relate to that,” says Bucky. “And whoever thinks that’s weird is a fuckhead.”
You smile. “I guess.” This page of the book is done, so you put your scissor down and turn it around. “I just think it’s stupid how our brains get attached to things sometimes and simply—run with it. Never forget,” you roll your eyes, only it’s at yourself.
“Hey! Human interaction can be traumatizing.”
You’re telling me.
Bucky waits patiently as you try to find the right words to tell him. Why you want to share something like this to the reason these feelings are surfacing in the first place is beyond you, but it’s in his patience that you find solace.
Cutting up the pictures, you decide direct honesty is the best approach. “Senior year of high school I went out with Colton,” you tell him, finally. “Nice boy, and all. We went on a few dates. He wasn’t even the first guy I hooked up with, but the first one that—that made me feel wanted? Like. It was good. I think it was one of the few times I actually had fun in bed, which is ridiculous,” you scoff. “And after he was done with me, I heard him. Outside the school, he was talking to a friend of his. I overheard him say ‘yeah, I smashed her. It was alright. Nothing to sing hymns about, but she was the only big girl in here I hadn’t tried yet, so you know I had to’ and…” you wished again that one day you forgot those fucking words.
Burned it out of your brain.
“I never forgot,” you conclude. “Stupid. I’m aware, but—“
“You. Are not. Stupid,” Bucky counters.
You look up from your art to see Bucky clenching his hands together and a frown etched on his forehead—you’d seen that pissed-off look before in bars whenever a guy tried feeling up a girl or if any of you turned the news on and something horrible was being broadcasted. Anger.
Bucky shakes his head and looks away with a deep breath. “I’m so sorry, Y/n. Fuck—I—it makes no sense in my head?” Bucky sounded like he was trying to keep his voice down. “How the fuck.” He shakes his head harder, and looks back at you, placing his focus on you. “Anyway. That’s not stupid and I’m sorry. That you heard that—that this idiot had a chance with you and hurt you like this.”
Bucky wasn’t the first to say he was sorry, but his empathy sticks better than any of the previous attempts.
He looks sorry, and slightly enraged at hearing someone would say those things about you. It makes you feel less pathetic about the whole ordeal, and putting a bridge between you and Dream Bucky much easier.
If only you’d known that the real problem is Real Life Bucky.
Well—not him. But the fact that you would find out in exactly one week how much better he was than Dream Bucky at anything he did.
— ❄️🎸 AFTER THE DREAM 🧥❄️ —
The week goes by as if nothing had happened, and it lulls you into a fall sense of security that’s probably the reason why you sink yourself even further into the problem when the trap presents itself.
Part of you wanted to blame Bucky, or perhaps the alcohol, the adrenaline.
Truth it—you still blame yourself.
If you kept your mouth shut about the dream, nothing would come out of it.
Bucky wouldn’t have that knowledge about you stuck on his mind for an entire week, growing bigger each day.
When you go out with the gang to celebrate on Saturday, you and Bucky down your respective sorrows in tequila, and it’s the tequila you taste when things go down later that night.
It comes out of nowhere.
You and Bucky are sitting home, drunk out of your minds after the bar, lying on the couch and trying to wait for the take-out order to arrive when he drops his head from the couch rest on your shoulder and then shakes his head.
You ask, “What?”
And he answers, “Can’t stop thinking about it.”
It sounds slurred, but in your drunk mind, it’s perfectly understood. “About what?”
Bucky tilts his head, looking up at you. “How much a gorgeous girl like you deserves better than douchebags making you feel some type of way about sex.” His voice is low. Rough like sandpaper. You can smell the tequila, and his words go straight between your legs. “You’re so…”
Weird? Basic? Fashionable as hell, and that’s it?
“So fucking hot, Y/n,” he groans.
You whimper, and that’s the nail on the coffin. It can be heard like a pin dropping in an old theater arena—loud and clear. The air between you two goes from zero to a hundred, and Bucky’s right-hand goes to your knee. “I should be shutting up right? Don’t wanna make you uncomfortable. Don’t even know if you’re attracted to old men like me,” he laughs at himself.
Instead of answering, your knees spread apart a little and you hear Bucky’s sharp intake of breath.
“Y/n?” He asks. It sounds like a request more than your name, and when you turn around to face him, he must see the answer on your eyes because his lips find yours.
You wished you could pin the blame on Bucky, but the only thing you can blame him for after that night is the discovery that your wound can be healed if it’s in the right hands.
The kiss you share is sloppy and messy, as it’s the rest of the sex.
Bucky picks you up and takes you from the living room to his bedroom, where he proceeds to unravel your body like it’s a mathematical equation and he is a descent of Einstein himself. He pins your writs above your head and commands, “Stay”, then runs his hands over every curve of your body.
His eyes are heavier than the midday Sun, and his burn much brighter.
He takes your clothes off and puts his mouth and hands where his words are—and there are many, many words. Bucky likes to give compliments, ask “do you like this?” or “does this feel good? Or is it better like this? yeah, that's how you like it, baby?” and to finish driving you mad, he smiles and moans out loud whenever he finds a spot or does something to make you quiver.
Bucky makes you cum on his fingers first, then on his tongue, and before you feel almost dead on your feet, he makes you cum with both of those at the same time.
It’s when you sit on him that soberness dawns on you, but Bucky feels perfect inside of you, not too big to hurt but big enough that you feel full like you’re a stuffed doll and you want nothing less or more than to ride that feeling into abandon.
That’s where the real problem lies.
Because Bucky takes it. He lets you sit on him and take everything you have to offer, praising you and egging you on with filthy smiles and slaps on your ass that you would feel the next day.
Bucky pistons his hips upwards to meet your movements when he feels your legs losing strength, and then he comes with a shout that’s muffled on your neck, dragging his thumb over your clit until you cum one final time all over his dick.
His kisses on your collarbones are the only thing grounding you to Earth by that point.
And that’s how you fall asleep—his arms wrapped around you, his lips covering the skin they can find in kisses, his raspy voice still whispering praises to you.
You can hear his chuckles because of your dopey smile when he asks questions you’re too out of it to hear, and the last thing you see is Bucky coming back to bed with a towel.
You wake up to an empty bed.
The place next to you is still warm and your body feels sore all over, but the emptiness wakens your mind more than anything else. There’s music playing in the kitchen, and when you look up, a glass of water and a Tylenol is waiting for you.
Like clockwork.
Bucky always takes care of you after a night of drinking.
Waking up without him makes the previous night rush back as if it’s a pointing finger or an accusatory tape. God, the sounds you made. The screams, the groans, the moaning. Bucky’s bed is still a mess and you can almost hear his moans on the bottom of your ear.
You decide that thinking about the previous night will only serve to make you horny or way too anxious, so you hop into his shower instead. You wrap the towel around your body after a close inspection on the mirror for the marks you find there, then tiptoe to your room so you can put clothes on before facing him in the kitchen.
Bucky’s waiting for you with the same deer-in-the-headlights look that you know you have on.
“Hi,” he says, tentative.
“Hey.”
“You slept okay?”
“Yup. You?”
Bucky nods, and you both stare at each other in nervous anticipation for a moment, until Bucky caves in and looks away. “I hope—I didn’t force anything last night you completely regret, right? I know it was good, but. I really don’t wanna lose you,” he gets out in one quick breath. “Did I fuck this up?”
Did I fuck this up?
Well—that’s one way to go about it. You shake your head, swallowing down the desire you had to walk to him and kiss him on the mouth. He thinks this is a fuck up.
“No.” You put on a smile, even though it hurts in your chest to do so. “I—it was good. Really good,” you two share an awkward laugh. “No pushing happened. No forcing. Nothing’s fucked up.”
The evidence of relief on his face hits you so hard that you can’t even bring yourself to be mad at the situation.
Or at Bucky.
“Breakfast?” He asks with a more genuine smile now.
“Sure.”
He’s not the one to blame for you having sex dreams with him – something he still has no idea of – and worse, wanting to make amends for you somehow. Bucky’s words the previous night come back to you now, as you eat his omelet and hear him talking about his summer plans.
You deserve to feel good, gorgeous.
If Bucky notices your random blushes that morning, he’s polite enough to pretend not to.
You try convincing yourself it wasn’t pity that drove him to go to bed with you—Bucky sounded, looked and acted like someone having a blast.
That’s still the feeling that drags you on.
And it changes your dynamic.
The more you and Bucky try to fix the ‘nothing’ that you claimed to not be fucked up, the more obvious it becomes something definitely is.
Before the sex, there were moments when it seemed like you two shared a single brain cell back and forth, but those moments get further in-between as the weeks go by.
It’s a domino effect—the weirder you feel, the weirder he acts around you.
Both you and he are trying to fix something, but instead of knowing what that something is, you’re wandering around with the tools in your hands with the lights off, trying to find something that fits.
Before summer begins, the rest of the group has noticed.
Tasha’s the first one to ask. “What the hell happened between you two?”
The band’s at a fair buying shit none of you need and Bucky is walking ahead of you and the girls with Sam on one side and Steve on the other, both talking to him like they’re trying to convince him of something.
“No idea what you’re talking about,” you reply.
“You’re a shit liar, babes,” says Sharon.
“Eh. Not true, she’s kinda good,” Tasha sticks up for you. “I’m just trying to learn how worried I should be.”
“Yeah, on a scale of ‘he’s been leaving stinky socks on my couch’ to ‘he fucked up and now I’m thinking of kicking him out’ how ready should we be?” Sharon asks. “’Cause you should know we’re adopting you in this divorce.”
“No one’s divorcing,” you roll your eyes. Your best friend and I fucked a few weeks ago and now shit’s weird, you wanted to say, but that would include admitting why that became a problem. It made me notice I might be in love with him.
“Yeah—then why he pouting like someone is?” Tasha pushes.
As if hearing you’re speaking about him, Bucky turns around with a square smile and thumbs up.
Dork.
I am totally in love with him.
Sharon looks at Tasha. “It’s like that time when you and Steve fucked before you knew for a fact you’re a lesbian and things got awk-ward!”
Your eyes grow wide and both women gasp at the same time.
“You did not!”
“Oh, fuck, that explains so much,” Sharon whispers to herself. “Was it good? Was it bad? Is this is why it’s awkward?”
“It was fine and it’s awkward ‘cause he doesn’t want that to come between us.”
“And it has,” Tasha concludes.
All you do is nod.
That’s the reality—the problem’s in your head. Trying to convince yourself that everything’s okay when neither you nor Bucky know how to be around one another anymore without the air becoming charged enough one could levitate in it is impossible.
Things thread these waters for more than a month before it starts affecting you personally.
The thing about things becoming awkward with Bucky at the same time you realize that you are definitely in love with your roommate is that you miss him. Bucky is a great friend—he’s loyal, funny, and once he opens up with you there are layers to him that only his close friends get to see.
You start missing him knocking on your door to bother you while you study, or the way he pouted and said anything that crossed his mind whenever you two watched TV late at night together.
It’s easier when the group’s around—you and Bucky manage to talk again and exist in each other’s presence almost like nothing went wrong or nothing’s changed whenever there’s someone else around, but as soon as you two are alone together, the night of sex becomes an invisible blanket that eventually falls and looms over your heads like the night is fated to paint the sky black every night.
You miss shit-talking people with him in the balcony, or watching him get high there and make up silly stories about the people walking underneath you—the balcony itself becomes a place you both avoid, almost as if you’re scared of what can come if you sit together in it.
The many nights shared in that balcony talking about your lives and what to expect of your futures turned that balcony into sacred ground.
That was the floor where you opened your stupid mouth to tell him someone hurt me a long time ago and I still about it ‘till today!
Needless to say, you two avoid it like the plague.
I don’t wanna lose you.
And you didn’t want to lose him, but it feels like you are.
You carry those thoughts and thorns inside of you for almost two months until one day when Bucky is not around makes you snap.
He’s your friend. You know him. All you have to do is try and maybe things can be okay again. So what if the sex happened? If Bucky’s first instinct was to make sure this doesn’t come between you two, you can show him that’s exactly what you want too.
The thought springs you into action.
While Bucky’s at work, you take advantage of the first summer day to organize the place, order some take-out and put a queue for your favorite show together.
There’s a couple of hours before he comes back and you use that to do some work on your TikTok account, one that had grown a lot more thanks to Bucky’s tips.
You separate outfits, take some pictures and videos, saving all the content for later use as you wait for Bucky to arrive. Two hours turn into three, and then four, and when midnight strikes, the crippling anxiety of negative and intrusive thoughts starts getting the best out of you.
He could have traveled. He’d never leave for a while without saying goodbye, your mind argues.
He might be out with friends. That’s an easier one to hit back, Bucky never goes out without inviting you.
What if he was invited somewhere by new people? He’d still text you letting you know he’s not gonna be home and that he’s safe.
He could be at some girl’s place.
Your mind has no arguments to that.
It’s the first drop in your insanity jar. It’s easy for thoughts to spiral when things don’t go the way they’re meant to—you want Bucky around because you miss his presence, but what if his presence is never the same? What happens when he finds not a date, but a girlfriend, and you have to be only his roommate again?
What happens when he’s calling someone else babe?
The dress you’re trying to put on loses a button when you pull on it too hard, and that’s all it takes before the waterworks start.
Stress crying is one of your ugliest traits in your opinion, but being stood up when the other party wasn’t aware there was something waiting for them in the first place brings it out of you.
And because the universe has a twisted, dark sense of humor, that’s when Bucky arrives.
At almost one in the morning, looking tired and worn out, he finds you with the upper half of your dress torn, tears streaming down your face and you angrily shoving the looks back inside their bags.
All his worries seem to go momentarily forgotten when he sees your state and he locks the door and crosses the living room in only a few steps.
“Y/n? What happened? Are you okay?” He’s reaching out with both his hands, and his worry weighs on you like a cloak.
The crying gets worse because you have no desire to fight the hug that Bucky offers. He wraps his arms around you and lets you cry, one of his hands running up and down your back while the other cradles your head, caressing your hair lightly.
“Shhh, it’s okay.” He hugs you tight and stays right there, making no move to leave. "Whatever it is, it’ll be okay.”
It takes a while before the tears dry and the hug leaves you feeling less empty than before. “I’m sorry,” you sniffle.
“You have nothing to be sorry for,” Bucky says, his tone as sweet as his caresses. With your tears done, he seems to realize the difference around the place and his eyes bulge a little. “Did you clean everything alone?” His head whips to the counter where the take out is already cold. It looks pathetic—two portions of everything that you two love ordering whenever you watch your shows. “Is that from Wang’s place?”
Bucky still has one arm around your back and the one hand cupping your nape, so when he looks down at you, the feeling that hiding from him is inevitable feels twice as larger.
How can you hide from him when he looks right through your soul?
“Y/n, were you waiting for me?” The softness with which he asks it makes hot tears pool in your eyes again.
You push down any of the thoughts calling you pathetic for it, but your lips still tremble a little. “Yeah. I just wanted to do something nice.” I miss you. I never got along with anyone like I do with you. “I know I haven’t been the easiest to be around.”
Bucky shakes his head. “You’re always a delight, shut up,” he says it with so much conviction that it makes you chuckle, but unlike other times, your amusement is not enough to take the frown out of his expression. “Should I be worried? Did something happen?”
God, why is he the way he is?
Things would be so much easier if Bucky were less… himself.
“Nothing happened.” You shrug your shoulders, and the motion makes him notice he’s still holding you so he drops both arms and takes a step back. It makes the ugly emptiness rear its head inside of you, and it pushes the words out. “I missed you, I guess.”
He was turning to look around in the kitchen, but halts at your words. Like you stung him, or put him under a freezing spell.
“Y/n…” he drifts off, not finding the words and unable to look you in the eye. He shakes his head. “I don’t deserve all of this,” his words come out in a whisper, and leave you feeling confused.
“What?”
“All of this,” he looks at the TV where your favorite comfort show is on—both of you have lost hours together laughing at Modern Family. “I miss you too,” he whispers back. “I did this, didn’t I?”
“Bucky—“
“I should’ve stayed in bed that day until you woke up and just—I should’ve stayed. But if I did, you’d see my feelings written all over my face and the last I wanted was to scare you.” Bucky sighs, completely unaware of your heart stopping, and continues. “I came here to clear my head and all I could do was look to the balcony door and keep hearing out talks there? So I needed—you know what, it doesn’t matter. I know we didn’t—“
You take two steps, closing the distance between you two and cup his face in your hands, making him look at you.
The gesture shuts him up and when Bucky looks down at you, seeing the wide watery eyes that stare back at him as well as the incredulous smile threatening to split over your face, his gaze falls on your lips.
You feel it in every inch of your skin.
“What did you just say about feeling?” You ask, breathless.
“You’re kidding me, right?” Bucky breathes out, but seeing the seriousness in your surprise he chuckles. “You’re actually serious.” His hands come up and he mimics your gesture, cupping your face in return. “Baby. Oh my god, I owe Steve and Sam so much money.”
“What?” You’re laughing now, because Bucky’s happiness is contagious and he is happy. You can feel it radiating off of him, in waves that knock you down and you happily drown in it.
He shakes his head, smiling from ear to ear. “Never mind that. You’ll find out eventually,” he laughs. Then, Bucky leans in and presses his lips on your forehead. “Let me apologize all over again, but do it right this time,” he says with the lips still there.
When he pulls back, Bucky looks serious. “I’m sorry I made you miss me. I missed you too. I left that morning ‘cause I was honestly terrified I’d pushed you to do something you never considered before while sober and the idea of not having you in my life fucking sucks. Big time. So I came here—I woke up and all I could think was that I was gonna lose one of my best friends.” He takes a deep breath. “Which would’ve sucked. ‘Cause I’m in love with you, and I was just scared you didn’t feel the same.”
Your eyes close on their own accord as your whole body tries to absorb the words that came out of his mouth. ‘Cause I’m in love with you.
Bucky’s in love with you.
It should defy the laws of physics that right now, your soul weights absolutely nothing as opposed to one hour prior where it weighted as much as Saturn. Bucky’s works sink to the bottom of your core and they float through you, and your body is no longer your own.
You push yourself up on your tip toes and lean your head to find his lips.
Bucky guides your head with his hand, and his mouth touches yours, soft, yet firm. He’s sort of smiling into the kiss, which makes it hard to do it in the first place, but the more he smiles the more you correspond.
You two pull back with a laughter, and you nod. “That’s good.” It’s good that you two are the same kind of idiot. “It’s good that we’re on the same page.”
“We are?” He confirms, and you open your eyes to see his smile.
The crinkles on the corner of his eyes mean everything to you.
“Definitely.” The notion that Bucky is in love with you almost seems like a superpower. It takes you a moment to realize you can kiss him, touch him, with no worries of him leaving or anything like that again.
The words Bucky said to you that night are blurred and hazy, but you can almost taste them again.
While worrying about the dream and what all of it meant, it never occurred to you that Bucky could be in the same predicament as you.
“Can I kiss you some more?” Bucky asks, licking his lips. “We can go eat later, but—I just realized we could’ve been kissing for weeks now and—fuck. I’m kinda pissed off at myself, I won’t lie.”
You burst out laughing, and Bucky’s arms remain tight around you.
“You definitely can.”
He seems happy with the answer, but his response comes already in the form of his lips against yours.
— Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Reader
— Summary: Control lived in every corner of his life, every metal plate in or around him, any room he walked in. Until Bucky met you, his life surrounded order, created and meticulously kept by him. He left behind the field and Sam to pursue peace, and a part of him thought that was all he wanted—the quiet, the ordinary.
There is nothing ordinary about the way you make him feel, and even through the ups and downs, Bucky learns he'd take that any day over a future without you.
— Word count: 9.5k
— A/n: This is the 11th commission I got for my darling Esme, as part of the holidays celebration, and I hope from the bottom of my heart she enjoys it. 🌟 Happy reading.
— Warning(s): This is a work of mature content. 16+ recommended reading. Mentions of violence, death, weapons.
all my lists | marvel master list | ko-fi ❥
Control lived in every corner of his life, every metal plate in or around him, any room he walked in.
It was needed. Through his journey of becoming the White Wolf, Bucky found he could live in peace if he found a balance between his body and mind, and kept himself grounded. A fine line between healthy and indulging, safe and exploring, letting go and living.
Bucky's sanity depended on how much he knew of his surroundings and the people he knew, for as long as he remembered. It's one of the biggest things he worked in therapy and, granted to his therapist, he's been learning how to let go of what he can't control.
A lot of why he's been trying to give his best has to do with you.
Until Bucky met you, his life surrounded order, created and meticulously kept by him.
He left behind the field and Sam to pursue peace, and a part of him thought that was all he wanted—the quiet, the ordinary. Order.
Then, on his first day teaching the new agents for the Shield course as a part of his life rebranding and personal favor to Nick Fury— a request which came to him like lightning across a dark sky, or spiritual awakening of sorts— there you were.
Shoulders back, chin up high, hair styled to perfection and skin glowing like Bucky never knew it could.
He never stood a chance.
Among all the candidates, with not a single line of expression on your face until a girl next to you nudged you and said something on your ear. He recalls as your face went soft, a small smile on your lips as you replied, keeping your posture poised at all times.
He remembers meeting you clear as day.
It was one of the first times in over a century of his existence that Bucky remembered the physical reaction of being struck by someone.
There were fifty people standing in ten lines that day, people of different races, genders, heights and all with different sets of skills.
There was no reason as to why you should stand out.
Sure, you were gorgeous—Bucky gave his introductory speech and advice, just as he planned and rehearsed in the mirror, all while analyzing the faces of everyone in the group.
Yours was the one he could remember the more details at the end of the day. The heart-shaped curve of your upper lip, lined by make-up, a perfect color match of your eyebrows to your outer lips. The elegant way you styled your baby hairs, the freckles on your cheeks Bucky couldn't tell if they were real or not.
All those tiny details, and that mouth on you.
The one who asked, "Is that all, Sergeant?" and giggled in the driest, cockiest way possible when you finished all of the first day's activities in one of the first five spots.
There was no reason as to why you should stand out, yet you did.
From day one, Bucky can tell your pitch apart from your group mates.
He cal tell apart from your step after just three days, and if you're one of the agents closest to him, Bucky swears he can even smell your shampoo.
At the end of the first week, ten of the agents have gone home, he's already making bets as to who'll graduate, and for his favorite surprise—he's starting to enjoy the job.
Except—you.
One week into the course Bucky goes from guessing to knowing: you hate him.
Maybe not "hate", but there's something in you that keeps you away from him, unlike your other teammates. Bucky's surprised when he starts getting along with his trainees, and despite his initial attempts, you're not one of them.
Surely he knew you were a difficult person when he first overheard you talking to other agents at lunch—your humor was dry, dark, and, frankly, nasty.
After stifling his laughter behind bites of the food, Bucky concluded you were the type of woman who'd be friends with anyone they deemed worthy of their time.
He also figured that day you were the type of person who's difficult to make laugh, and he'd been right. After seeing you go through the first test, he also assumed you'd pass and be one of the best students in the group.
He'd been right about that, too.
Everything else he tried predicting when it came to you turned out to be wrong or incomplete, and Bucky is at a loss for the first time ever.
His routine disappears those first six months.
You, personally, throw a good portion of it out of the window.
Without understanding where your dislike comes from, a side of Bucky's personality that so far had been dormant awakes without his permission and, if Sam hadn't pointed out, without his realization.
When Bucky's met with your challenging look for the first time, something very James inside of him comes to the surface.
Not Bucky—James.
The first initial jokes and jabs during practice or tests, Bucky lets it slide. They simmer under his skin, but slide off after measured breaths. Then, when he notices you enjoy being a little shit to him, the James of all those decades ago tilts his head at your behavior, measuring you up and down. The James who won over one of the brattiest loud mouths in his neighborhood—a five foot four blond boy, raised by an Irish mother, whose mouth was dirtier than a sailor's.
That James.
The James who got into fights for a punk, only for later to fight the punk himself so Stevie has something better to do than just throw fists at any person who crosses his path. Boxing with Bucky was a better outlet for his anger than jerks in alleys who would obliterate his face, anyway.
That James hears you running your mouth one lazy afternoon, answering one of his orders with a mumbled, "God, was he always this grumpy?" to one of your friends, and he's had it.
"Agent Y/L/N, I've been grumpy since before your mama learned how to steer a wheel, now would ya care for ten more laps to warm up?"
It may not have been his best moment, but the look on your face.
Oh, priceless.
Part of Bucky wanted to go to the main office in the Compound, get security cameras and frame the second you realized he could be a loudmouth too, and he could talk back just fine.
From that moment on, it's a battle of wits.
Living at the Compound like all of the students has its benefits, like the knowledge he's in a secured facility, or the easiness of having restaurants, gyms and tiny forest areas you can walk around in and take a breath of fresh air.
There are negative points, as well.
Insubordinate agents who want to crash the Shield contract and go out for a night in town, for example.
Or the many nights when Bucky finds you outside your quarters way past lockdown time, hanging just outside what you know are the magnetic shield's limits just so you can have the pleasure of a few clouds of smoke; that is definitely one of the first tests in his actual patience.
The way you smiled up at him.
"Hey there, Sargeant."
Your voice was nice.
He'd never admit it out loud, or even to himself if he was being honest, but your voice was one of his favorite things about you.
"Aren't you supposed to be inside—or at least not outside?" He asked, hating how his hands clasped behind his back and the military stance took over his body as an opposing instinct to the sluggish way you sat on the fence.
"Aren't you supposed to be like—getting your beauty sleep?" He could tell by the way you smiled around the cigarette that you enjoyed yourself too whenever you teased him.
"Is that your way of calling me pretty, Y/n?"
"Never, Sergeant." You looked away from him, smiling sarcastically. "It was my way of telling you that you kinda need it."
"Well, not all of us have time to do face masks and line our lips before practice at eight in the morning."
"You have time to be here annoying me, though."
"Please get back inside. You're aware of the fact that standing at the threshold of the magnetic protection fields can affect the fucking functioning, Y/n."
"Jesus fucking Christ, Bucky—I'm also aware of the fact that when there's a breach, even if minimum, the Tower picks up on it and the control room turns the camera to it for monitoring. They're watching me, literally over there—," you wiggled your hand holding the smoke in the direction he knew the camera was. "Hi, night guard. I'm having a smoke. Wanna join?"
Sometimes, Bucky wondered if he the dislike he felt and the angered you managed to rise on his skin was real.
"Alright, you seem to be capable of being responsible for any invasion or issue that comes from the South area, so I'll be going to bed."
Whether it was real or not, the way you rolled your eyes and sighed made his hands itch. For some reason, every time that happens around you he recalls a distant and vague memory of his father telling him that 'anything that's got your hand itching's a good omen, James'.
"You are so fucking dramatic." You said that as you jumped out of the fence, and when you passed by him with that same challenge in your eyes, he had to look away.
He can't think for the life of him what would be good about an intelligent, bratty and impulsive woman who looks too good in black smoky eyes and whose laughter sounds like the sensual honey soundtracks of good indie movies, but he doesn't want to find out.
He wants you to graduate, and get out of his sight.
Bucky tries forcing the idea of 'discipline' and 'you' in the same sentence or room, but it fails almost on instinct, every time.
Those three words — 'hey there, sergeant — start showing up in his dreams and from then on, Bucky is fucked.
Four months in, and all Bucky can think of is how happy he is that the second phase of training is carried out by Maria instead of him.
He's aware that the dislike is mutual, and just the idea of you and him going out to a field together sounds ludicrous.
Part of him thinks you'd shoot a hole in his leg just for the fucks of it if a Glock was placed in your hand. Just to see how fast he'd heal, or something like that.
Every time you catch his eyes at the cafeteria, or across a training field on a day off and your eyes make him feel volts of electricity, he's aware of the fact—you hate him.
"She doesn't hate you," Sam counters, sounding adorably naive on the entire subject.
Bucky thinks: you don't know what this girl does. You don't know the innuendos, the defiance in the eyes, the teasing jokes, and the number of times she's tried embarrassing me. And failed, of course. you don't know about the strange conversations, strained between jabs and acidic comments. The times I'd caught her out having a smoke and, weirdly, we talked about constellations, and how the next day, she pretended I didn't even exist.
How just last week I found her sitting outside her cabin at 4.a.m with wet hair and a haunted look, we sat side by side and she asked me questions, real questions about my life, questions about things no one cares about or gives a damn and I had one of the nicest conversations I've ever had since I can remember having memories.
How the next day, she looked shy about it. Sad.
How much she confuses me.
What he says is, "Yeah, she does." He knows better than Sam and he's heard you talking to Colton and Pixie.
The other students who could be found by your side daily since the training started tried reasoning with you about toning it down with the way you treated Bucky, but Bucky heard you talking back to them, too.
"I heard her."
"What did you hear?" Sam asks.
Bucky remembers the words because that was the first night he considered the hypothesis there was something more to your way of sticking up to him than just brattiness or millenial disrespect.
When Pixie asked you 'why are you always trying to get under Sargeant Barnes' skin?', you fired back your reply so quick that Bucky knew you meant it.
You said: 'yeah, well, he got under mine first, so—'.
Had he done that? Had Bucky gotten under skin?
"He got under mine first."
He spent days thinking those words over. The notion that he had any effect on you before you had on him—it couldn't be.
How had Bucky gotten under your skin?
What could have he possibly done to make you look at him with a clenched jaw, or hold back all the funny and nice things he hears you say to other people?
It makes no sense because he met you during the first day of training. He remembers it—remembers the soft and subtle scent of your perfume, the way you performed the tasks asked with excellence, and only later did he find out through Hill how you were one of the surprises in the program—no nepotism, no rich family, just a lot of talent and training. How non-afraid you'd been of sweating it out.
He'd never forget.
Especially since he'd told Sam day that, "One of the girls in the program seems really talented. She kinda reminds me of this strategist we had in our battalion—that's crazy, right? ... I think we'd be friends. I mean, if she passes the whole course, we might be, since she's gonna work here. She seems really nice."
How innocent had he been.
"He got under mine first."
He spends useless days mulling the words over, but it's only when he overhears you again a week later that he gets it.
After you succeed in the training session involving a security breach problem, a phase that Bucky knew you'd kill, you miss him coming back and he can hear you saying "I won't if he still thinks none of us 'boys' are worth his time."
His own words rush back to him.
It's suddenly the first day of training, he's standing outside the main building where the agents should be waiting inside. Sam was eating a burrito, the shield thrown over his back inside its case, and Bucky had a few of the "previews" Fury gave him.
They were just some of the students, and he was talking to Sam about the boys Nick showed him and their files. When he made the comment, "I know none of these boys are gonna be worth my time', you'd been around, somewhere. You heard him and misunderstood that for his assessment of the whole class.
Little did you know he meant his words—he spoke of the boys, only.
He'd been right about that part, too. The only agents going to the third phase which would last the final three months were you, Pixie, Ruth, and a non-binary trainee called Kam.
Bucky ran to Sam that night and brought him a bottle of whiskey so they could discuss Sam's case and, at last, you.
When the silence hovers the air after Bucky and Sam discuss the strategies and they have something to eat, Bucky can no longer hold it in and tells him. "She thinks I'm some... antiqued... troglodyte."
"Huh?" Sam turns around in the sofa. "Who are you talking about?"
Four months of this and he still had no idea? "Y/n," he states blankly.
Sam's face goes open and, "Ohhhh." He nods to himself. Duh.
"She thinks I'm old." Bucky tapped his head, so Sam could understand. From the laughter he hears, Sam understood it just fine and thinks he's funny. "I'm serious. The first thing she heard me saying was a bit, eh," he grimaces. "But she didn't have the whole context."
"Is that so?"
"Yeah. And I've been looking back on our interactions ever since I heard her say that, and I realized all of our little fights and banters, I always said some shit she could've taken the wrong way," Bucky had analyzed their interactions thoroughly, and the assessment was simple: his mouth was too big for him, and when a pretty, firecracker girl entered the equation, Bucky became an idiot.
"You do have the tendency of putting your foot in your mouth, man," Sam chuckled.
"That's why I don't say anything!" He sighed.
"Of course you do! You talk too much, actually—"
"You talk too much."
"—but what you need, is how to communicate nicely." Sam finished without rising to his childish bait and then got up to make eye contact for the next part. "You forget you've been like, surrounded by weird people and some really, uh—unique figures over the past decades."
"Aliens and enemies and shit," there was a reason Bucky chose a quieter life. There's been too much of everything, and it was ridiculous at this point.
"Exactly." Sam nodded. "And that kinda people don't exactly make for the best conversation, you know. You can come across very—" Sam frowns with extra force to get his point across. "And broody. And when you don't say much, it gets harder. You should let people get to know the nerdy goof that lives under this hard, pretty shell."
They shared a look, and both of them burst out laughing in the end.
It had been funny to hear Sam try to hide how much he meant the advice.
Bucky had no idea why you out of all people would be interested in his nerdy side or any side of his that wasn't the professional one, but he took the advice to heart.
Bucky Barnes was going to show you he was not old.
Not an antiqued asshole with outdated opinions, a brain of a gargoyle, and the manners of a sexist douchebag.
"Have you... been reading?"
"Shut up, Samuel."
"Holy shit, you've been reading!"
"I said shut up."
"You've been reading feminist novels, haven't you? And books on privilege and all the modern problems that just everybody cares about lately, haven't you?"
"I don't know why you're laughing, they're kinda educational."
"I'll bet."
"I'm serious. I know I'm crazy and all, but I've learned a lot these past two weeks. I like how political everyone's getting about everything—is it a lot to take in? Fuck yeah. But it's also good that things are being addressed, I guess... People deserve to be heard."
"...Damn, dude."
"What?"
"All of this over one chick, huh."
"This isn't over—what are you talking about?!"
"Okay, okay—we'll pretend that your mission to make Agent Y/n like you now instead of hate your guts has nothing to do with why you're putting so much of your pretty old brain to work after all these decades."
"...."
"Am I wrong? Tell me I'm wrong."
"I thought I told you to shut up."
"HA! Exactly."
"[...]"
"Yo, Bucky."
"...Yeah?"
"I'm glad."
"What are you glad about?"
"I'm glad you're like—joining the modern world. Learning, evolving, and shit. Getting woke—"
"I will literally throw this wrench on your fucking head."
"Hey, chill, White Wolf. I'm just happy to see you picking up a kindle and tryna make friends with pretty girls, that's all."
"I'm not tryna make friends with her 'cause she's pretty, Sam."
"I know, I know."
"I'd just like for her to see I'm not a total idiot, maybe. Not too much to ask, right?"
"Nah, Buck. It's not."
⋅✧⋅
Despite hating each other for those initial months, it comes as a surprise to him how easy it is to transition into friends.
Over the course of the next three months, Bucky uses the one side of his he knows you respect and admire — his tactic brain — in hopes of getting on your good side.
He succeeds, too.
It's easy in the way that it takes nothing more than just him.
Some people — Steve, Natasha, Yoki, his mind recites — needed more than just words or gestures to get over a fight. They required gifts, extra gestures, or even just a few extra works. An 'owe you one' type of situation.
With you, there's none of that.
All Bucky needs is to let his guard down, talk to you like a normal person, and, as much as it pains him, stop trying altogether.
He stops trying to keep it cool, or to hold back, and even from caring if he catches you doing things you are technically not supposed to.
No one gives a real damn about what the Agents do unless it harms someone, and Bucky finds it that not antagonizing you flows easier than doing so.
Obviously, you catch onto the change just days after it happens.
It's the second time Bucky delivers one of your papers back to you and only offers a "Nice work" as a response.
You stop with the tactic assignment in hands, narrowing your eyes at him. "That's it?" You ask.
Bucky holds back a smile since laughing wouldn't help in you taking him seriously, and satisfies himself with a nod. "Sure. It was a nice resolution for the problem."
"And you have no comments about my annotations?" You confirm, a smile spreading on your face.
Every tactic assignment he'd handed out so far returned with annotations, doodles, and random recommendations written on them. Bucky wasn't petty enough to remove points of your assignments because of them due to how good they were, but he'd always complained and, at any chance he got, debunked one of your recommendations.
(This all happened because on your first assignment you wrote your name in a glittery gold pen, and Bucky was a dick about it. In hindsight, he's grateful for being in a shitty morning that morning considering most of the books he read to get familiar with nowadays' problems came from your list of recommendations.)
"None whatsoever. This was a better recommendation than last month's, but I think I like it when you get political rather than philosophical," Bucky answered honestly.
Your face then was also worth a million bucks.
"Wait—" and there it was. "You read the things I recommended to you?"
Bucky saw Pixie swayed her body side to side in a way that reminded him a lot of Luna Lovegood, waiting patiently for her turn. He turned back to you and nodded again. "Yup. I'm trying to get back to the habit of reading."
Being honest was the fastest way to avoid miscommunication. Bucky learned that when Sam entered his life, all the mess with Steve stayed behind.
"Huh." Seeing you too stunned to remember to school your face into impassiveness amused him. "That's—that's nice to hear. It's a good habit to have."
"It really is." In his brain, a flash of something he thought was long gone came back like a lost puzzle piece—Bucky saw the pages of a book illuminated by a lantern, the book positioned in one of his hands as the other held the light. "I used to read everywhere I could, all the time. Trains, field, home, breaks at the docks. I kinda like the kindle thing, though."
Then, something beautiful happened.
A startled burst of laughter came out of you—a bubbly chuckle, which you quickly ate by pressing both your lips together, tight. It was a genuine surprise like you were seeing something amusing for the first time.
"Wow." You spoke, and Bucky noticed your voice lost its sharp edges. "It's the first time I see someone your age give up a good book and the smell of books, you know?"
Bucky laughed back at you, surprised and unable to contain the loud laugh, too. "Someone my—wow. Kindle is efficient."
"It's not a book," you shrugged your shoulders, and damn. You two were already bantering again.
"I can take fifty with me to a trip to Moscow, last fucking minute," he smirked. This banter felt different than the others. Lighter, and fun.
You shook your head at him, still smiling amusedly. "It doesn't smell like a book, Sarge. Not the same." The little shoulder shrug you did reminds him of Yelena.
You were just as intelligent, and just — if not more — chaotic.
"Is that your only argument?"
"It's the only argument I need," you said, then chuckled to yourself. Bucky smiled because he recognized the reference this time, and when you noticed he did, your smile widened. "Damn, kindles and modern memes. Alright. Color me surprised."
There were some hiccups, eventually.
The last three months in the course are the most intense, in every sense of the way.
Surprise missions and tasks, mental and physical strain, less and less time to rest between one even and another.
It's not the life an actual Agent at Shield has—the recruiting re-started for the purpose of giving older agents their due retirement and move up the chain. Nick took good care of his employees and tried his best not to overwork anybody.
Regardless of how decent the working conditions were under the new Shield, the agents needed to be ready for chaos, for difficult times, for the unexpected. Shield alongside other government's top intelligence organizations was the first line of defense on Earth and as such, the people who made part of it had to rise to that standard.
Bucky could tell you were tired.
The soft make-up he saw before on your face is gone one day, and Bucky misses the 'natural' look you had going on.
It's obvious you look perfect either way. With your hair styled or a tangled mess, your outfit coordinated or you in the first hoodie and jeans your found on the floor—Bucky likes your company, but he sees this is the further you've been pushed.
When the final month arrives and graduation nears, something in him expects for your mean short answers or your curt nods, but they never arrive.
No matter how tired you are or how hard he is on you when it's needed, the truce prevails.
The final task involves one of the shittiest and hardest parts of the job. In your hands, it’s handled meticulously. The mission involves a target selected by the government, usually, a felon with an extensive record who’s been on the run for too long and the Feds have been unable to capture. On the last week of graduation, every agent has to see their file through the end, eliminating the threat, whatever it is.
Mutant, human, woman, man, or alien—the file was placed in the hands of all seven agents, and Bucky wondered how many would see the other side of the compound.
Four days of the week, you step inside his office with the blue file in one hand and your gun in the other.
“Agent.”
“Sergeant.” You place both in front of him, and stand in a poised posture waiting for him to assess what you delivered. “Special Agent Hill said I could leave tonight after you’re done background checking?”
Your voice has no cracks or changes. Bucky recognizes the tones and undertones of your moods by now—seven months is more than enough to get to know someone in the most intimate ways if you know what to look for.
The two of you may have started as opponents in a gladiator dome, but you’re okay now. “From what I can see here, you can already start packing.” Bucky could imagine you were ecstatic for a chance to see people other than the same faces you’ve seen for the past seven months and even hear the sirens, and even if he’d miss you, the pride overshadowed anything else.
You nodded, then seemed to look in his eyes for permission to leave, but Bucky found himself just looking at you for a second.
Your poise scared him, sometimes. In a good way, like a shiver that starts at the back of your neck. “Y/n?”
“Yeah?”
“I’m proud of you.” It was true. Bucky knew how much you wanted this, he had heard it in your tone when you told him why you were here in the first place. “You’re the first one to deliver your completed mission—that means I won my bet with Sam,” he added just for what followed.
Your laughter was slowly becoming one of his favorite things. “You betted on us?”
They had. “Of course we did.” Bucky didn’t know that yet, but Sam’s bet would deliver her file only a few hours after Y/n left his office. “Thanks for the extra cash.”
“Hey, happy to help.”
Until you pass the initial phase of the exam, Bucky has managed to weave into your life as something close to a friend.
Then, the break comes.
Sergeant Bucky Barnes goes from being your trainer slash enemy to trainer slash friends, then just your friends. He gets your number the night after the graduation ceremony—both you and Pixie are people he’d love to have a drink with, and Sam agrees that all four of the agents who graduated under his Phase One will be great assets to Shield.
You two text for two months, getting closer than ever.
Bucky even FaceTimes you.
He swore to himself he’d never become one of those people who always seem to have their phone in their hands but in two weeks, you two are watching tv shows together even though he’s on the other side of the planet. He gets used to hearing your rants about what it’ll be like to go through Phase Two, and Bucky finds himself handing out great advice.
Even Sam says so after hearing one of your talks.
“I never knew you could be this nice, master Yoda.”
Bucky frowned because that reference was old, but not appropriate. “She’s just nervous about fieldwork.” He rolled his eyes at that again—he’d seen you eating at the side of your thumbs like an anxious teenager or Steve before he had to deliver a commissioned work of art, and it was ridiculous how the people who had the least to worry did it the most. “As if that’s gonna be any hard for her.”
“Yeah, but you know what it’s like before jumping outta the plane for the first time.”
“I know, but that’s the problem—she’s already jumped off from it before. Numerous times. Metaphorically or not.”
Sam laughed at him, his expression changing from sympathy to amusement. “Oh, I know that—but her anxious brain doesn’t. And what I was emphasizing is that you managed to explain that to her without being a dick like a real nice fella.” Sam nailed that on the head; Bucky hadn’t dismissed your worries or scoffed at them. “It’s a long way from where you two came, that’s all.”
That was a good point.
“Yeah… She’s a good Agent. She’s got nothing to worry about.”
Looking back on it, Bucky should’ve seen it coming.
He should’ve expected things would go down the drain when he became so confident about the whole ordeal.
Bucky Barnes should’ve seen it coming from miles away, and maybe it wouldn’t have blown up in his face in the monumental way it did. It was a whole spectacle when it happened.
When you went back to hating him, Bucky witnessed the entire friendship you two built blow up like a firework show, unable to move under the freezing and piercing gaze of him being so fucking wrong.
But the point is—he should’ve seen it coming as soon as the aloof pride mingled with admiration settled in his bones.
Sam would ask him, “How’s Y/n’s training going?”
And Bucky would snort, “How d’you think?” She was his student, after all. His friend. “She’s killing it.”
And you were.
You killed the seven months of training carried out by Maria Hill, graduated with honors as a Shield Agent, and all while doing that, managed to solidify a spot in Bucky’s life as one of his all-time favorite people.
That’s probably why on your first mission, he asked Fury to be included, “for nostalgia purposes”. It’s probably why he felt his stomach stitched to the back of his ribs the whole time and, when things went down, Bucky surrendered to the stupidity of what he felt instead of using his brain and interfering with your mission. Like a fucking idiot.
Thanks to whatever forces ruled the universe, you managed to salvage the situation.
Bucky had made it worse, but after some wiggling on your side, some yelling from Nova and Pixie on the intercom, and you piercing him with the biggest and hottest I’m gonna fucking kill you eyes ever, the situation gets handled.
Then Bucky’s ass gets handed to him by you, who looks so visibly pissed off beyond words he’s scared of those shots he expected back when he first met you to arrive. You have the Glock now—the reason, too, as you yell in his face.
“You fucking embarrassed me!”
“Listen, Y/n, I know you’re upset—”
“You know? Oh, he KNOWS!” Although not raised to be Widows, all Agents and their training pointed towards learning to control and mask their emotions. Bucky knew his fuck up had been big when you didn’t even care to hide yours. “God, if you know, then everything’s just a-ok!”
“Y/n, there were thirteen agents—”
“I don’t give a flying fuck how many agents were there, Bucky.” The ice on your voice was sharp. “You were the one who fucking taught me how to dispose of tricky situations, including this one. How the fuck are you supposed to teach me, then turn around and on the FIRST chance I get to prove I know what I learned, you treat me like a fucking idiot?”
“I wasn’t trying to treat you like an idiot! I was trying to HELP!”
“But you DIDN’T!” You turned around, and your back faced him. Bucky saw you raising both hands to your hair, and rubbing them down your face. “I can’t even believe you. I can’t… I don’t even know what I’d do if we weren’t in the middle of fucking Switzerland right now.”
The disappointment.
So tangible, so palpable.
“We gotta go back to the plane—”
“I know.” The sharpness around the edges. Both in your tone and your demeanor—Bucky fucked up to the point where you retreated into your shell, the one who kept most people outside of your tiny bubble and your energy.
He felt the cold of being on the outside again, and tried figuring out how he could possibly make it up to you.
“Can we go?”
When you nod and follow him without any other words, something tells him it’s not gonna be as easy as the first time.
⋅✧⋅
Working in the same place as you, but not seeing you often, that's what drives Bucky insane.
The first few times his calls go through, Bucky spirals.
Just a little.
All sorts of thoughts cross through his mind, from ‘you fucked up, you totally fucked up, she’s never gonna talk to you again’ to ‘this isn’t even about her—you always fuck up, can you even make friends still?’ and Bucky presumes someone must pass the message to Y/n that he’s wallowing in self-pity because a message eventually pings on his phone with the only name he’s wanted to see.
Y/n:
I’m still pissed off at you.
When I don’t feel like testing my aim on your metal arm, I’ll let you know
:)
Read — 02:44am
The smiley face makes him laugh.
Crazy how two punctuation marks put side by side could be so someone. So you.
It was just another emoticon, but it was more.
That smiley face was the same square smile you gave people whenever something idiotic left their lips. Both of your pretty, plump lips pressed together in a thin line, more of a grimace than a smile, really. Like so: :]
Bucky liked when you used those faces because he’s seen you using them, and he knows you make the faces as you type them.
That’s why he smiles.
He sees you in your bed, somewhere on the planet, a frown on your face as you imagine what you can say to your stupid friend slash mentor who behaved like a dick, and eventually settling for the thing both of you are most fond of: the simple, honest truth.
It feels a bit choked up, his laughter, but he takes it anyway. Bucky stares at the message for what feels like forever. Eventually, he types something back.
You:
Understandable.
Is this your whatever-your-time-is awakening of the day?
‘Cause it kinda sounds like it.
Read — 02:49 am
Y/n:
I see you trying to be cute, and it’s not gonna work.
Go to bed, BB.
I know what time it is where you are.
Read — 02:50 am
You:
Awwwn. You still care about your old man’s beauty sleep
:)
Read — 02:51 am
Y/n:
🙄🙄🙄
I said I’m still pissed at you.
Bye!!!!
Read — 02:52 am
He wants to reply with ‘that’s a lot of exclamation points for a person who’s upset’, but Bucky knows a win when he sees one, so he shuts his phone off and does as you told him, closing his eyes to his first dreamless night in days.
It takes a few tries before you’re back to being okay with him again.
Bucky knows that you meant every word in that outburst of yours.
Even though you let your emotions on the loose, you were too well-trained and, frankly, too mature to just speak mindless words. He thought often about how much it must have hurt you that the same person who first trained you seemed to not trust you, or if trust existed, seemed to forget it when the moment that mattered the most came.
‘You fucking embarrassed me’ rings in his mind, echoing in the walls of his dreams and nightmares.
He’s not sure what hurt him the most—knowing he did that to you, the clear disappointment in your voice, or the fact that even after a month following the incident he’s unsure about why he did it to begin with.
It’s like a splinter lodged under his skin, or a rash that leaves and comes back every night.
Bucky revisits the day often.
He walks through it with Sam, who only gives him a look.
“Are you serious right now?” Is what Sam asks him when Bucky tells him he’s still trying to figure out why his visceral reaction.
He looks back at his friend. “Uh, yeah? Obviously.”
Sam blinks a couple of times, then snorts a laugh. “Man, if you don’t know the why, I sure as fuck can’t be the one to tell you.”
“Why not?”
“What if I’m wrong?” Sam asks, serene as the quietude of mornings.
“I’ll shelf your opinion in the Wrong section, then.”
“It’s not that simple. I could plant an idea on your head that wasn’t there to start, and then it’ll be my fault if you can’t stop thinking about it, and—you know what? You’re a clever boy. Why don’t you just run that scenario again over and over ‘till the answer pops up, huh? I’d love to be around to watch that ‘lamp over your head’ cartoon moment, but I’ll take my happiness with you knowing.”
Sam’s answer is so cryptic and yet, somehow feels so real, that it shuts Bucky up.
That’s fine. He can run the scenario a few more times, if that’s what it takes.
He has the time, especially since you’ve been making him earn your trust back.
Bucky likes that about you.
He actually loves how real you are with the ones around you—your friends, family, close partners. People in your life know where they belong, who they are, what they mean to you.
It only hurt so much to hear the disappointment in your voice and go back to square zero with you because Bucky knew he’d gotten close.
He’d caught sight of what you looked like at three in the morning, almost manic from excitement over a tv show, burping the liter of soda you drank to down the half of pizza you ate. He knew what your friendly banter sounded like, your worried voice whispering for him to be careful over the phone, your giggles after being a menace and making the best worst comments ever.
He knew that, and it was impossible to let it go.
Bucky runs the scenario of the mission over and over in his head, coming empty every time.
The only thing he can feel is the overwhelming dread, the sensory overload of watching the agents on the screen walking in your direction with nothing but intent of murder in their minds.
His mind goes blank every time.
Bucky tries to follow Sam’s advice, but it fails to do its job because he’s incapable of following through with the scene, and so, he slips back into your grace over the next few months.
Everything just flows, the days weaving together as you grow in the company, as Bucky starts to let it go, until he’s known you for a total of two years and you trust him again, and that mission is left in the past.
Facing what’s right in front of him is an obligation of his life on this Earth.
Part of his mission, if one likes to call it that way.
Whether it’s Steve’s blue eyes saying his name across from a building’s roof, and the shine of the Captain shield reflecting the awed and phantasmagoric look on a face he recognizes or you sitting across from him on a plane to another country, all dressed in a black-suit geared the same way the Widows are when he gets it.
Sam’s advice proves to be worthless until he’s obligated to face it, and Bucky swallows thick around what comes on the other side of it.
“You okay, BB?” You look relaxed on the bench. There’s a briefcase with special vials opened in front of you, and you’re putting the liquid content inside the needles, leaving them all prepared.
Bucky nods to you. He’s doing terrible—the second he closed the seatbelt on him and saw you sit down opposite to him, giving him an encouraging smile, Bucky felt himself close up. “Yeah, I’m good. What’s that?”
“Oh, this is just a serum to induce some level of intoxication on the guests. Nothing visible—just, in vino veritas, you know?”
Bucky knew, so he nodded. “You made that?”
Back in training, Bucky watched as your eyes lit up in the first Chemicals special course.
“Yeah, you wanna know how?” The childish glee in your smile is what makes him nod, and he’s grateful for the explanation as a distraction.
He needs it.
When the plane took off, Bucky noticed for his unfortunate that he would have to do what Sam advised him to if he plans on following through with the mission and having a different outcome than the first time.
The realization comes when you place your seatbelt, and all Bucky sees are flashes of the monitor, the strut of the agents coming your way.
It’s the beginning of a panic attack, and on the other side of that has to be the reason why you’re different from any of the other Agents he’s met.
Bucky listens to you ranting about poisons, chemical composition ligaments, and all things he has no in-depth understanding of, but likes listening to anyway because it’s in your voice.
It grounds him as he thinks.
As the scenario follows through. As Bucky watches you unbuckle yourself from the seat when the altitude is high enough. As you navigate the plane with the same comfort and ease he remembers seeing from Natasha once, in what feels like a different lifetime.
It grounds him as he witnesses what kind of Agent you turned out to be in his absence.
Through his training too, of course, and Bucky sees his teachings in the smallest details of how you carry yourself, making him so proud he has to look away.
Observing you grounds him because Bucky can slowly comply with what Sam told him to, and on the other side of the scenario, is the answer he’s been blinding himself to.
It’s harder to close his eyes to the truth when it’s right under his nose.
Maybe it’s the altitude, or just seeing you in action, but Bucky is surrendered, frozen at the mercy of you.
Bucky’s supposed to be your eyes on the ground, and that’s what he does.
He drops the pilot off on the island and you two carry together for the final destiny.
The goal of the mission is retrieved by you through stealth and intelligence—you use a lot of tricks he knows you learned from Belova, and it makes him grin a lot.
He teases you over the ear-coms, knowing you can’t reply.
Belova showed up at his apartment a month ago, ranting endlessly about how cool you were. He should’ve figured you two would get along so well.
But then again—Bucky’s an idiot.
An intelligent idiot, but an idiot nonetheless.
When the situation goes south in your mission — as it’s customary in top missions such as this — he takes a deep breath and gives you the coordinates and tips to help you conclude everything, no loose ends.
It’s hard, but you manage.
He only drops to the ground when you request assistance, and sitting through the feeling of bile at the back of his throat pays off well. Helping you proves to be the right move when it comes after a request of yours, because you were trained by the best.
Bucky lets you take the lead of the mission without interfering, and when all the targets are neutralized, you two end up using the last fuel on the plane after the two detours to land on the island where you’ll get some reception to be rescued.
Waiting at the beach with you when you’re high on endorphins and still upset at the horrors you see makes his skin on edge.
You’re a great agent, but you’re only that great because there are a lot of feelings behind all that you do.
That’s the truth for most great agents. Hiding the feelings never erases their existence.
“At least it was easy,” Bucky says, breaking the silence for the first time.
You stop the pacing you’re doing on the beach cabin’s porch. Throw him a stare worth a couple of daggers, then go back to pacing.
He chuckles.
“Alright, not counting the two de-tours we had to make to follow through, it was pretty easy.” The relief he felt being there with you and alive surprised even him, but it seemed to have a different effect on you.
It seemed to piss you off. “Since when are you Mr. Giggles?” There’s a warning sign of sharp spikes around every word of yours, so Bucky bites down on his relief and smile, then walks to you.
“Hey.” He enters the porch and you’re almost about to pass through him to continue pacing, so he puts both hands over your shoulders. “Y/n.”
With his touch, your body stops moving and you stand there in front of him, muscles tense and jaw set. “What.” It’s not a question, but he answers it anyway.
“You did good. I know it didn’t go like we planned, but most top missions never do—”
“No.” You interrupt him shaking your head, one of your hands lifting in a spread palm between your bodies. “No. I don’t want bullshit about how this is how it goes or whatever, I fucked up and almost lost a human trafficking Czar, Bucky.”
He hates when your voice is strained and serious like that, so he tries again. “Well… you did. And then you fixed it. That’s the point, isn’t it?” He sighs when your frown deepens and tells his body to cool down. The slightest look from you can have the biggest effect on him, but now is not the time to let you get him worked up, too.
Not when you two are lost on a desert island with little to no communication to the outside world.
“Y/n,” Bucky caresses his thumbs on your shoulders. “You carried a solo mission from beginning to end, and you did it with excellence. There are no loose ends in this and you know how hard that is. You can breathe.”
Instead of breathing, you exhale all the air in your lungs and get away from his hold. “I know, I know it is—thanks.”
“Why are you mad at me?” The question slips out before he can form a thought.
Well—there goes not letting you get under his skin.
“I’m not mad at you.”
“Lying through your teeth doesn’t suit you.” Any of the reassurance is gone from his voice, and suddenly, Bucky wants to scream. “Especially when I can fucking see your face and hear your tone loud and clear.”
How fucking easy it is for you to mangle all the thoughts in his brain and all the wires in his body?
When did that happen?
At his last words, you spin around with the resolve falling from your expression too. “Oh, you’re a specialist in my tone now?” The way you scoff makes Bucky’s hands tingle. “Fucking marvelous. I wonder what happened that last year you couldn’t figure out from my fucking tone that I had it, then.”
Oh, now Bucky is really pissed off.
“Are you fucking serious? This is what this is about?” The one night he regrets, and the one night that can turn his head upside down. Running the scenario through until the end like Sam advised proved to be a thick pill to swallow, but Bucky still has the result in his mouth. He might be dwelling to chew on it and try to stomach it, but it’ll have to happen. “I know I was a dick.” I had to be. “I am sorry I was a dick, okay?” his voice is rising, but only because so is his heartbeat. “I told you I was sorry before, Y/n. Multiple times. I never meant to do that.”
I just couldn’t watch it. I could never handle the mere thought of seeing anything happen to you.
You take a moment to reply, but when you do, Bucky sees you letting go of anything else you were trying to hold on. “I know you are. But you also have no idea what it's like to know the one person you wanted to make the proudest had no faith in you to begin with.”
Bucky frowns. “That never happened.”
“I was there, Bucky.”
“It never happened.” He can’t tell you why it happened, but Bucky will jump out of an airplane again before he lets you think something stupid like that. He walks until he’s facing you again, not daring to touch you this time. “I never doubted you for a second.”
“Bullshit.” The accusation stung, but he breathed through it. “I was there. You never even gave me a second. You never considered the option that I’d make it.”
Why was it so hard to talk to you without his chest feeling like it might explode?
Before you, Bucky’s thoughts were ordered. Organized, filed, folded.
His life was almost entering the realm of ordinary, and he loved it.
The thing is—there is nothing ordinary about the way you make him feel, and even through the ups and downs, Bucky learns he'd take that any day over a future without you.
“I wasn’t thinking, Y/n,” he sighs, rubbing a hand over his face.
“You’re always thinking,” you countered with a scoff. “That’s like—all you do. D’you have any idea how hard it was to do my next missions? Like—fuck. Fuck, Bucky, why couldn’t it have been like this the first time, huh? Why couldn’t you have just put a little faith in me and thought ‘hey, I trained her and handed her her graduation diploma, might as well believe she can carry out one fucking task’? It was all I needed!”
“It’s not like that!”
“Then what is it like? Because from where I’m standing, I wasn’t good enough back then and I’m still not good enough now!” Your face contorted in pain, and you spun away from him sharply. “I would’ve never fucked up this bad if you weren’t here,” your voice is so low he almost misses it, distracted for a moment by how emotional you sound. “I—you make me nervous. I can’t fucking think straight when you’re hovering, and I’d like to think that one day I can carry out a mission with you without feeling this fucking… stupid. But I can’t. Not now, at least.”
Bucky’s trying in vain to swallow around the knot on his throat when everything stops.
All his thoughts halt and go—wait a minute.
He got under mine first.
You make me nervous.
Bucky’s been holding the pill of discovering he is in love with you because he’d thought it’d be medicine to get over it.
Like—realize it exists, acknowledges it, moves on.
“Y/n.”
Something in his voice must trigger you, because you turn around at once, eyeing him with worry.
“Months ago, I said to Sam ‘I can’t wait to see her on the field. She’s gonna kill it.’” He steps closer, and breathes in deep. “I knew you were gonna kill it,” he chuckles, breathing it out. “And then, when the bug failed and the alert went off in the mansion, I saw them.” Bucky knows you’re hearing it—the emotion in his voice is impossible to miss, and it seems to have gathered all your attention. “There were thirteen agents in total coming your way. Four different directions.” His hands shake at the memory, and he chooses to give them something to do by moving the strands of your hair away from your face. “I know now you could’ve probably diffused that situation through at least… three different angles. The universe knows you’re capable of it.”
When Bucky sees the tremble on your bottom lip, he chases it with his thumb.
“I’m sorry I made you feel anything other than capable for even a goddamn second,” he apologizes. “But here’s the thing—when I saw that, my mind went white. No thoughts, no training, no nothing. Just this… overwhelming and drowning feeling of she’s on the field, she can get killed, and—,” Bucky stops himself, because he doesn’t like the idea of saying the words.
“Bucky…” You never whispered his name before. Bucky was fucked forever, because he definitely enjoyed that. “What are you saying?”
“You know what I’m saying.” Both of you did. “I was too in love to think straight, and I’m too in love now to keep my mouth shut.” He took his fingers out of your hair, but then you stopped him.
Your fingers gripped around his wrist gently, and slowly, you lifted his hand back to where it was. You placed it on top of your cheek, and at that moment, Bucky felt braver than he ever did in his life.
Present and past versions included.
“Say it again.” You closed your eyes, and Bucky admired your eyelashes under the moonlight.
He felt like a character in a movie scene, or just a romantic lost in the line of time, because right there and now, Bucky could only focus on you.
Closing the distance between your bodies, Bucky cupped your face properly. His other arm slid around your waist, and he marveled in the soft exhale you gave at being embraced by him.
“I’m afraid I’m unable to join you in future missions, Special Agent Y/n.”
You smiled, opening your eyes just a little, just to look at him.
“Why’s that?” You asked.
“Me being in love with you is what we consider a compromising situation. I’m sure our boss Fury would love to explain to us all the extents to why.”
You laughed, and let your head fall against his chest. “Oh, shit. We’re totally gonna have to hear from him.”
“We will?”
“Well, yeah—I can’t go to missions with you, either, Sergeant Barnes,” your laughter sounded bright. Light as a feather. “Haven’t you heard? You’re a major fucking distraction. We wasted liters of plane fuel because you are so fucking distracting. That’s my fault, though. I can’t function properly around someone I’m stupidly in love with.”
Wow. Bucky could sympathize with your laughter—he followed suit, laughing too, and he’d tease you more about it in a second.
First things first—he pressed his lips against yours, chasing the taste he could now admit his brain had been curious about for months.
It’s one of the few things he doesn’t know about you, and Bucky would like to know everything there is.
Story summary: Tired of your constant bickering, Sam sends you and Bucky on a mission alone. When the worst possible outcome happens and you’re forced to spend several days together in a small cabin, you finally get to see a different, more pleasurable side to the man whose flesh you’ve always had a thorn in.
Words: 4K
Warnings: Heavy petting 😈
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Day five
Shit, you were freezing now! The cold had reached your bones again and you could no longer swing the heavy axe high enough to cleave the logs all the way through. By your side, Bucky was still moving annoyingly effortlessly around in the cold, his huge arms bulging underneath his thin jacket every time he raised the blade above his head and brought in downwards with a low, inarticulated, stomach-churning grunt.
He had been a tease all day and it was driving you insane from the minute you’d opened your eyes and felt his sculpted body up against yours. Somehow, his t-shirt was more fitted than normally, his long hair softer looking than usual, his scent more captivating in your nostrils than ever before, and every time he locked eyes with you and smiled, he looked so dreamily, you briefly forgot how to breathe. You weren’t much for admitting it, but the exact same desirable feelings that had coursed through your veins last night had been clouding your mind all day, the only frustrating difference being that today, you couldn’t blame it on the rum.
Trying your best to shake off his most recent spine-tingling grunt, you raised the axe high above your head, determined to take your frustration out on the log in front of you, but immediately regretted your movement when your triceps cramped behind your ears.
"Buck," you groaned in defeat and let the axe slip from between your fingers and down into the snow where it landed with a dull thud. "I think we have enough wood for the fire now - can we please go back inside?" you wrapped your arms around your body, desperate for just a little heat as you took notice in the way his gaze immediately found yours.
He was softly staring at you, his cheeks all red from the cold, his hot breath turning into a misty vapour in the air as his chest heaved deeply. With a small pant, he too lowered his axe and brought his arm to his face, slowly wiping his forehead on his sleeve. "You're cold already?" He asked and skirted his piercing gaze down over your body just as you had caught him doing several times during the day.
You did your best to not let his wandering eyes affect you too much, tried not to imagine the feel of his warm hands rubbing over your arms instead of your own, but he was looking so big and burly and incredibly handsome that it was easier said than done.
"Yes, I’m cold,” you chuckled in disbelief at his shocked words, "- aren't you? You have ice crystals in your beard!"
"Huh..." he touched his hand to his bearded chin and gently moved his fingers along the soft stubble lining his sharp jaw while gazing enchantedly at you. Frustrated and slightly turned on, you had to chomp down hard on your tongue to control the whimper that threatened to spring out of your mouth when you wished it was your hand caressing his handsome features. “- hadn't noticed," he muttered and nodded towards your legs with a cute little nose scrunch, "I think you might need a new suit, it's soaked again."
"Yeah, I know," your teeth clattered in the cold as your arms wrapped themselves tighter around your chest to hide away your sensitive and hard nipples, "- now can we please just call it a day? It's been dark for hours!"
"Yeah, sure," Bucky nodded and furrowed his eyebrows, shooting you a concerned look, "I don't want you to freeze..." he mumbled, sitting down his axe in the snow.
"Thanks," you sighed in relief and rapidly scooped up some of the already cleaved logs before hurrying inside the cabin with Bucky following you closely.
You dumped all the wood in a big pile beside the fireplace before quickly rushing over to the sofa where you wrapped a blanket around your shivering body. "Ah shit," your teeth clattered as you threw your body down on the sofa and snuggled against the warm cushions.
"You okay?" Bucky chuckled and sat down next to you with a grin, nodding down towards your soaked ankles.
“Yeah," your teeth kept clattering as you pulled your knees to your chin in a desperate attempt at blocking out his alluring scent that was slowly sneaking up on you. “Just frozen to the core s’all...” you muttered. “How cold do you reckon it is?”
“No clue!” he shook his head as if in slow motion, looking at you with his clear, bright eyes. “Minus twenty or something...?”
“Minus twenty," you repeated in a quiet whisper, the realisation of exactly how cold that was slowly dawning upon you as his eyes discretely travelled over your face, "- can’t believe you’re not freezing in minus twenty!”
“Yeah, it’s unfair...” he smiled, “haven’t really been cold since before the serum. Barely remember what it feels like anymore.”
“You’re lucky!” You muttered and wrapped the blanket closer around you, snuggling further down into the warm cushions, “- I’m always cold.”
“So I noticed," he cocked his head to the side, a captivating smile shortly flickering over his plump lips as he slung his arm over the armrest of the sofa and finally looked away from your face, instead resting his eyes on the flames in front of him. The orange colour from the fire was dancing temptingly across his cheeks, and you thought to yourself that he looked particularly soft and dreamy as he pulled his hair back and casually smiled at nothing in particular.
“So, what do you reckon?” He asked after a peaceful moment, turning his face towards you with a flirtatious glint in his eye, “- are you so cold we have to strip you of your clothes again?” he let out a deep chuckle that made the small happy wrinkles lining his eyes dance merrily above his boyish grin.
You rolled your eyes at his teasing comment but still couldn't hold back the laugh that erupted in your chest, making Bucky look oddly proud of himself. "Yeah, I bet you'd like that, wouldn't you?" you laughed and watched him smirk and shrug playfully.
“Just trying to make sure my favourite girl doesn’t fall ill,” he smiled softly and shifted around on the sofa, turning his upper body slightly towards you as he carefully ran his eyes over your form, taking in the way his words had you squirming uncomfortably in your seat.
You weren’t exactly sure whether he’d done it on purpose or not, but from the position he suddenly occupied, it looked as if he wanted you to come closer, to put your head on his shoulder and snuggle up against him.
At first, you didn’t know whether to accept or not; last night’s extreme sexual tension was still hanging over your head like a thunderstorm, and you were scared it was clouding your judgment, because even though he was looking extremely kissable right now, you didn’t know if you could handle the repercussions of giving in. - On the other hand, however, it felt stupid not to utilise the fact that there was a huge super soldier several degrees hotter than you sitting no more than a foot away.
You didn’t want to get hypothermia…
Thus, after few seconds of going back and forth, you finally decided to accept what you desperately hoped was a silent invitation, using his elevated body temperature as the winning argument of your inner debate.
Carefully, you scooted closer to him until your cold back hit his warm torso, and you pressed your leg firmly up against the thick muscle of his thigh as you closed your eyes and savoured the feeling of the warmth connecting the two of you. “Mmh,” you whimpered softly as you leaned your head backwards, and almost cried at the relief washing over you when Bucky - without hesitation - carefully put his arm around your shoulders, snuggling you a little closer to his chest.
You sat in silence for a while, the weight of Bucky’s arm comfortable around your body, his thumping heart beating fast and heavy against your spine and you thought to yourself that even though you’d been sleeping in almost this exact position for several nights in a row now, it still felt more intimate to be doing it while wide awake.
"Thanks," you said softly after a couple of minutes, already feeling how he had heated you up immensely.
“Don’t mention it,” he gulped softly before letting out a small chuckle that rumbled in his broad chest and settled like a dusty warmth on your cheeks. “- you know," he grinned, "you’re actually doing me a favour. I was getting all cold anyway,” he repeated your words from a few nights ago with a quiet snicker while softly drumming his fingers over your upper arm.
“Alright, alright, don't get smart,” you smiled and pressed the back of your neck against his t-shirt-clad pecs, his homey scent welcome in your nostrils.
“Sorry," he snickered and stopped drumming, instead letting his fingertips slowly drag over your arm giving your elbow a gentle caress, "I just keep playing it on repeat, it was such a sweet gesture…” he muttered slowly and shifted his body a little so he could wrap his arm across your chest, his hand holding you firmly in place, “you're really special, you know that, right? You’ve always been very kind to me,” he said quietly, “-despite my earlier behaviour.”
“Of course," you breathed, feeling your pulse rise quickly as he softly touched you, his whispered words fuzzy in your ear.
He snuggled a little closer to you and carefully found the hem of the blanket that was draped across your body, pushing his big, warm hand underneath the plaid, letting it feel around for a bit before he gently wrapped it around your fingers. The blood was rushing past your ears, your heartbeat pumping in your fingertips, and you went momentarily deaf when he slowly ran his thumb over the back of your small hand, squeezing it slightly and moving a little closer to you.
“Fuck me, you’re cold,” he muttered and cupped your icy fingers, gently trapping them between warm flesh and sleek metal.
Your entire body acted up; his tone of voice alone had your stomach squeeze at your organs, a rubbery shiver rolling over the lower part of your spine as his velvety voice was laced with thick, viscous honey, depleting every sensible thought from your already fuzzy brain. "Come here,” he whispered and put his face close to your ear, the light scratch of his beard welcome and sensual against the skin of your neck, “let me help you heat up, sweetheart…”
Sweetheart.
He had let the pet name slip sensually from his blushed lips on purpose and now he was checking to see your reaction; if you also felt the same electrifying tension crackling between you.
Sweetheart.
You tried not to react, tried not to give into it, but a tsunami of scorching desire washed over you at his words, and you could feel your pulse running completely out of control as he looked down at you, his huge doe eyes soft and beautiful and just oh so blue that you could look at them forever without wanting to look away.
His heart was beating rapidly against your body, his breathing slightly laboured as he slowly blinked and sent you a crooked smile that seemed to heat up the very last bit of your frozen bones. Intimately, you watched as his soft, pink tongue swiped over his buzzing lips and parted them in a flirtatious smirk while his beautiful cerulean eyes travelled down your face, carefully taking in every feature.
"Stop looking at me like that," you whined in a whisper, the words escaping your mouth before you’d had a chance to stop them.
"Like what?" he chuckled and scooted a little closer, his flesh hand squeezing at yours, his eyes with the heavy-hooded eyelids warm on your face as he blinked slowly, sensually.
"Like... that," you gulped with a small, intoxicated smile and nodded towards him, "- like you're thinking about kissing me."
"Well," he drawled out, briefly looking down at your lips before his eyes skirted upwards and found yours again, "...what if that's exactly what I'm thinking about?" he carefully leaned closer and ran his index finger over your thigh, enjoying how you gave out a cute little whimper that you weren't able to hold back as his strong jaw was no more than a few inches away. "Because I really - really - do want to kiss you right now, doll," he breathed slowly and danced his fingers over your thigh, his fingertips warm against the fabric of your suit, his scent more intoxicating than ever as a shiver crawled up your spine. “It’s all I can think about,” he whispered softly and dipped his hand down to your inner thigh, moving his bearded chin along your throat. “You’ve been driving me crazy all day.”
You whimpered slightly at his hushed words, not sure if you wanted to disappear down into the cracks between the soft cushions or throw yourself into his arms, not a care in the world for the consequences.
Slowly, Bucky leaned forwards, his enticing lips inching nearer and nearer your face.
You couldn't drag your eyes away from him. He was so beautiful, and he was looking at you with such lust! Such hunger!
Completely mesmerised by the desire radiating from him, you were completely swept away, unable deny yourself the pleasure of finally feeling his softness in your mouth, his manhood pressed up against you. You wanted to kiss him!
Fuck, you had to!! Screw the consequences!
He ghosted his lips on top of yours a few seconds, his warm breath brushing over the thin skin of your parted lips, and you suddenly hated that he stopped moving when all you wanted was for him to douse the fire in the bottom of your stomach and kiss you like there was no tomorrow.
“Sweetheart," he whispered and brushed a stray strand of hair away from your face. “Just tell me if you want me to stop, okay?”
You wanted to tell him that you were feeling wonderful in his arms, that he could safely close the distance between you, but the only thing that you managed to get across your lips was a tight whimper as you grabbed his arm and pulled him a little closer.
You could feel a welcome inner heat spread throughout your limbs, could feel all your muscles tense up as he softly laid a hand over your hips, digging his metal fingers into the soft skin as his jaw moved suggestively on top of yours.
“Fuck, doll,” his breath shuddered at the tension between you, making your nipples harden underneath the tight fabric of your tactical suit as you pressed your torso up against his, desperate to feel his fingers directly on your skin. The feeling was powerful and overwhelming; you had never craved a touch as much as you craved his, and when you finally pulled yourself together and closed the last remaining millimeters between you, your chest exploded in a cacophony of bright colours as you pressed your lips to his in a long-anticipated kiss.
The gravity of his lips was inescapable, electrifying rays of desire shooting through every vein, bone, and organ, making you hyperaware of the soft touches he provided you on the outside of your suit. He was engulfing you, pulling you out to a sea of desire and pleasure and letting you float in it as he slipped his softer than silk tongue inside your mouth while gently caressing your face. “Mmh,” he hummed into your mouth, putting a large hand on the back of your head as he shifted around on the sofa to gain better access.
Your fingers twisted themselves in his long locks and you pulled slightly and pressed your torso up against his so he could feel your hard nipples on his chest.
"Shit, sweetheart," he hissed and spread his legs slightly, re-capturing your lips in a hungry kiss that sent shockwaves throughout your limbs.
He was panting slightly, hands frantically travelling from your warm cheeks and down to your waist where he grabbed hold and pulled you over in his lap, his fingers immediately landing on your ass where he started kneading the skin.
"Fuck, you are so beautiful," he whispered and pulled your hair to the side so he could kiss your throat, his lips and teeth gently nipping at the sensitive skin below your ear.
His wanting hands ghosted along your spine and all the way down to your hips where he rounded the soft curve of your ass, pressing you closer to his pelvis and the beginning erection in his pants. “I love when you're in your little tactical suit," he mumbled and desperately grabbed at the tight fabric with closed fists as he pulled your earlobe between his teeth and pressed his pelvis upwards, resulting in a gasp falling from your mouth.
“Fuck,” you panted and arched your back.
“That’s it baby…” he shuddered and ran his hands up your ribs, “I can see every beautiful curve of your body in this," his erection twitched in his pants, and his lips sloppily travelled from your ear and over your cheek until they found your wet mouth again. “You’re such a goddamn little tease, I keep losing my head when we're out on missions.”
His comment sent proud waves of raw, passionate excitement pulsating through your already sensitive nerve-endings, and you wanted to grind down on him, to be filled by him so badly, the thought of his touch alone, his weight on top of you so overwhelming and overpowering that you almost cried out his name before he'd even touched you. - But it also reminded you that Bucky was a co-worker, a teammate in a small group of only three people, and that sleeping with him could bring along all sorts of complications.
With a crazy amount of will-power, you managed to pull your face back from his, looking down at his relaxed features, his heavy-hooded bedroom eyes as his hands slowly rubbed over your thighs and his wet mouth found your sensitive skin again.
"Barnes," you panted and gripped him tighter, not really wanting to let go of him, "...should we even be doing this?"
"Yeah, why not?" He whispered in-between sensual licks and kisses to your throat, pulling you down on top of his erection with a wet moan.
"We're teammates," you gasped and arched your back so your heated core grinded down on his crotch, a flash of lightening travelling through you at the satisfying touch.
"And?" He groaned, slipping a hand between your thighs, touching your sensitive nerve-endings with a satisfied grunt.
"Barnes, I'm serious," you pulled your throat away from his lips, your thorax away from his chest, "- won't it complicate things?" you panted hard.
“Complicate things?” he was staring up at you, his eyes huge and wondering, his chest heaving rapidly underneath you as his gaze travelled over your face, his eyebrows furrowing in the process.
“Yes,” you nodded with a gulp, trying to sit as still as possible even though everything inside of you was screaming at you to rip off his clothes.
His hands were still digging into your skin, his thighs tense and rock hard beneath you as his confused eyes travelled across your face. Eventually, he gave out a defeated sigh and licked his swollen lips. "I don't know, sweetheart," he said sincerely, a crestfallen look slowly forming as he rubbed his thumbs over your hips. “If you think so…”
"It's just..." you too gave out a sigh, connecting your forehead with his, laying your palms flat against his chest to show him that you really wanted this too. That you were just as disappointed as he was. “We have to think about Sam."
Bucky stopped breathing, a look of horror flashing across his face as he pulled his entire torso backwards so he could examine you. "...Sam?" he whimpered in mortification, his eyes huge and dark.
"Yeah," you breathed and carefully caressed his face, looking into his blue eyes, "we're a team, the three of us. Think of our situation when we get back home - if anybody gets ahold of it, it’s not just our asses on the line, it’s all gonna fall back on Sam as well because he’s our captain.”
Bucky breathed hard, his eyebrows furrowing with defeat, "yeah... yeah, guess so... You wanna-“ he gulped, “-you wanna stop?”
“We better,” you whispered against him, “- don’t you think?”
“Yeah,” he breathed and let his arms fall to his sides, the vibranium hand landing on the sofa cushion with a sad plonk.
"I'm sorry," you whispered and caressed his heaving chest before you climbed down from his lap, disappointment growing hot in your stomach as you took in his suddenly blank face as he was doing everything in his power to avoid your eye. "It's not because I don't want to. It's just-"
"- Sam. Yeah. I get it," he wiped the corners of his mouth and sat up straight, his entire body rigid and tense, his face curled in a slightly panicked expression. “We should probably just head to bed then,” he said mechanically and ran a hand through his hair as if composing himself. “Before we can’t control it,” he nodded slowly as if he wasn't really listening to his own words. “Yeah, I'm gonna do just that, that's probably a good idea, yeah,"
"Barnes..." you breathed and cocked your head, taking in his dead expression.
Slowly, his hurt eyes found yours and he shifted his face to a neutral expression that was so unnatural and unnerving that your stomach folded in on itself. “What? It's fine!" he nodded and licked his lips.
"You're not okay," you put a hand on his thigh and saw how his eyes rapidly moved between your face and the hand you had placed on top of his cargo pants before finding your gaze again.
"No! I am! I am! Please don’t feel bad!" he nodded and forced a smile as he looked over at you. "I won't say anything to Sam if that's what you're worried about, okay?" he ran a hand through his hair and nervously licked his lips, "- I promise! It was just a silly little kiss because we were bored and hungry and probably a little delusional from all the... smoke," he pointed to the fireplace without removing his gaze from you, a deep wrinkle forming between his eyes as he spoke. "- It's not like it meant anything anyway."
"No…” you shook your head, “no you're right," you agreed although you weren't so sure if either of you truly believed it.
"Right," he nodded mechanically and scooted as far away from you as he could, sending you a short-lived look of longing before he turned his back towards you with a deep sigh. "Well, goodnight..." he said carefully, almost too peppy.
"Goodnight then," you gulped as you took in his shoulders that were heaving slowly, controlled even. "It was - it was really nice, Barnes..."
He went quiet for a couple of seconds, his breathing coming in more and more ragged with every gulp of air until he finally took a deep breath and mumbled out a "yeah, sweetheart…” The disappointment was seeping out of him, “- it really was."
A/N: there’s just something about neighbour!Harry hearing you get off that’s so hot to me, so, this happened.
WC: 2,583
“Work this early after yeh were out last night? Yer brave,” he jokes softly with her, watching her tired eyes gleam a little.
She wasn’t being quiet when she left her apartment, so Harry’s about damn certain she’s seeing someone. She huffs out a laugh and rubs her face with a groan.
“I got called in as an emergency,” she explains through another yawn before her face is holding a jokingly stern expression and she’s pointing a finger at him.
“And in my defence, you can hardly count last night as a night out. I was home by 11 and asleep by 1,” she explains.
or
You’re Harry’s neighbour and the walls between your apartments are paper-thin.
Alrighty I decided it was time to reupload my old writing, since I changed my username. I’ll keep updating as I stumble upon old work :) Also I don’t write about 5sos anymore (unless you finna send some Calum requests bc I’m not an animal??)
Smut is marked with a *
Harry:
Unrequited Love- part 1 | part 2 | part 3 | part 4 | Harry and Y/n have always been best friends, but Y/n has also been in love with Harry just as long. When feelings are laid on the table, turmoil is inevitable.
Teasing Tactics *- Harry puts his hands to good use.
All I Want- Harry and you were in the midst of a budding relationship, but old habits get in the way and threaten to end things between them permanently.
Counting the Minutes- Harry stumbles upon his best friend naked, stirring up old feelings and new ones.
Heart Out *- Things get steamy when Harry accompanies Y/n to an old-flames wedding.
Eighteen- You two have quite literally been in love since you were 18.
She Way Out - Harry is the lead singer of White Eskimo, regulars at the Lonely Hearts Club, there he stumbles across Y/n.
Medicine - Harry is back in town and naturally you’re the first person he wants to call.
Nobody Compares *- The classic best-friends to lovers, with a little smut to seal the deal.
Sex Toys *- After accidentally stumbling across his best friends sex toys, Harry finds himself a little more than just intrigued.
#30 “It’s not what it looks like…”
#28 “Marry me?”
Sex with Harry- blurbs
Zayn:
Coffee Irises- Zayn has laid all his cards on the table, but will the fear of commitment and what saying ‘I love you’ entails be too much for you?
5sos:
It’s just a little rain - Calum and you have been neighbours for as long as you can remember, but recently something has shifted, feeling have started sparking between the two of you, but sometimes even the best slip up and risk spoiling things.
Liquid Courage- After a rocky ending, you and Luke have gone from friends-with-benefits to, well you’re not even sure you can call one another friends anymore.
Bassists and Band Tee’s: part 1 | part 2 | part 3 | Y/n is the bassist for the opening act travelling alongside 5sos, things go haywire when feelings for a certain blonde with a lip ring start to bloom.
Soulmate!5sos- part 1 | part 2
Popular!5sos- Highschool
Calum- “Come over here and make me.”
Cal- “Please, don’t leave.”
Luke- “I think I’m in love with you and I’m terrified.”
Luke- “The paints supposed to go where?”
Luke- “You lied to me”
Luke- “I wish I could hate you”
Luke- “Please, don’t leave.”
Luke- “This is without a doubt the stupidest plan you’ve ever had. Of course I’m in”
Luke- “Have I entered an alternate universe or did you really just crack a smile for me?”
Luke- “I can’t believe you talked me into this”
Luke- “Hey have you seen the..? oh.”
Luke- “You need to wake up because I can’t do this without you”
Luke- “I’ve seen the way you look at me when you think I don’t notice.”
Michael- “Have I entered an alternate universe or did you really just crack a smile for me?”
Michael- “Have you lost your damn mind!?”
Michael- “Is there a reason you’re naked in my bed?”
Mike- “You fainted… straight into my arms. You know, if you wanted my attention you didn’t have to go to such extremes.”
Ashton- “I think I’m in love with you. And I’m terrified.”
Ashton- “Hey, I’m with you, okay? Always.”
Sex With: Michael, 2 | Calum | Ashton | Luke
Roommates with: Calum | Luke | Michael | Ashton
Neighbours with: Cal | Luke | Ashton | Michael
- finest line - @cheap-packof-cigarettes - Tumblr Blog | Tumgag
