Summary: Bucky Barnes owns a quiet little bookstore in Brooklyn. You own the flower shop next door. Somewhere between shared coffees, rainy afternoons, and flowers appearing between the bookshelves, the two of you fall hopelessly in love.
Warnings/tags: afab reader, fluff, slow burn, mutual pining, meet cute, friends to lovers, idiots in love, soft Bucky, nicknames bookstore boy & flower girl, brooklyn neighbors root for them, weaponized peonies, reader forgets to eat while stressed, no use of y/n 🌷
Bucky notices your hands first... not in a weird way, and certainly not intentionally.
He notices because they move through his bookstore like they belong there, fingertips ghosting over spines with impossible gentleness, like every book on the shelf is something alive. Most customers come into his shop with a purpose. They ask for recommendations, wander toward bestsellers, scroll on their phones while they browse. But you move slowly. Thoughtfully. Like the smell of old paper, coffee, and worn wood means something to you.
And then he notices the rest of you.
The soft knit sweater slipping off one shoulder. The tiny crease between your brows while you read back covers. The tote bag hanging from your wrist with little embroidered flowers stitched across the canvas. You're beautiful in a way that catches him off guard completely. Not loud. Not flashy. Just warm. Like spring sunlight through a window after a brutal New York winter.
Bucky nearly drops the stack of returned books in his hands when you smile at him for the first time.
The bookstore is quiet that afternoon. Rain taps softly against the windows facing the street, blurring the city into watercolor streaks of yellow taxis and umbrellas. Somewhere in the back, an old jazz record crackles low through the speakers.
"Sorry," you say, holding up a novel. "Do you happen to know if this one's any good? Or am I about to emotionally ruin my entire weekend?"
Bucky looks down at the book in your hands. Then back up at you. And promptly forgets how words work. His mouth opens and then loses.
"It's..." He clears his throat. "It's devastating."
Your eyes brighten immediately. "Perfect."
God. Even your laugh is pretty.
He walks around the counter before he can overthink it, taking the book gently from your hands to flip through it. "The ending's worth it, though," he says. "Hurts like hell, but worth it."
"That's the best kind."
"Yeah?"
You nod. "If a book doesn't alter my emotional stability at least a little, what's the point?"
Bucky huffs out a quiet laugh, and something in his chest shifts strangely at how easy this conversation feels. You introduce yourself after that, offering your name with another smile that leaves him feeling vaguely concussed. He repeats it back carefully, like he wants to make sure he says it right.
"I'm Bucky."
"I know," you say casually. "Your store's famous."
His eyebrows lift. "Famous?"
"Well, neighborhood famous." You shrug. "People online keep calling you the grumpy hot bookstore owner."
Bucky stares at you. You stare back for exactly three seconds before dissolving into laughter.
"I'm kidding," you promise. "Mostly."
He rubs a hand down his face while you grin at him over the top of the counter, and for the first time all day, the rain outside doesn't seem so miserable anymore.
By the time you leave, you've bought three books instead of one. Bucky watches through the window as you disappear into the gray blur of the city with your tote bag clutched to your chest. He tells himself he's only watching to make sure you don't get caught in the heavier rain halfway down the block.
That's definitely why. Not because he already misses the sound of your voice in his store.
A few mornings later, Brooklyn wakes up loudly. Delivery trucks rumble through the streets. Steam curls from sewer grates in cold spring air. Somebody nearby is already mentally preparing himself for inventory hell when movement catches his eye.
You... standing right beside the storefront next door. The shop had been empty for weeks. Except now, it's not so empty. Your back is turned toward him while you unlock the door, and Bucky catches sight of painted lettering across the front window that he somehow completely missed before.
Brooklyn Blooms: Florals for every occasion.
Buckets of flowers sit just inside the glass, bursts of color spilling everywhere. Pale pink peonies. Sunflowers. Baby's breath. Wild eucalyptus hanging in bundles from the ceiling. More flowers than he could even name.
You glance over your shoulder at the sound of his keys jingling and smile immediately.
"Bookstore Boy," you greet warmly.
"You own this spot?" he asks, a small smile playing on his lips.
"Proud owner, in fact," you nod at him.
You laugh again, bright and effortless, and he swears the whole block feels warmer because of it.
"Well," you say, pushing your door open with your hip, "looks like we're neighbors."
Neighbors.
The word settles somewhere deep in his chest. He's going to see you more often than he thought. Bucky looks at your shop, then at you standing in the doorway with morning light catching against your hair, and realizes with sudden, horrifying clarity that he is absolutely doomed.
Brooklyn settled into both of them quietly. It wasn't some grand, cinematic sweep where music swelled, and strangers suddenly became inseparable. It happened in pieces each morning. In soft clinks of keys against locks at eight-thirty sharp. In sleepy waves exchanged across neighboring storefronts while the city still yawned itself awake around them.
Bucky found himself noticing your routines before he meant to. The way you always arrived, balancing a coffee tray and your tote bag at the same time, like gravity simply worked differently for you. The way you crouched outside Brooklyn Blooms every morning to rearrange the flower buckets on the sidewalk until they looked "welcoming," whatever that meant. The way you tucked loose strands of hair behind your ear while reading delivery invoices with an expression so serious it made him want to laugh. He learned your habits the same way he learned favorite lines from books. Slowly. Accidentally. By paying attention too often.
And somehow, over the span of one week, you became folded into his mornings so naturally it startled him.
"Morning, bookstore boy," you called one Tuesday while drawing little flowers on the chalkboard sign outside your shop.
Bucky unlocked his door beside you, coffee warming his hand against the chilly spring air. "You know I have an actual name."
You looked up immediately, smiling like you'd been waiting for him to say something back. "I know. But bookstore boy is more fun."
"You're annoying."
"And yet you keep talking to me."
Bucky hid the smile threatening at the corner of his mouth by turning toward his door. "Tragic, really."
Your laugh followed him into the bookstore like sunlight.
The thing was, Brooklyn Blooms changed the block.
Before you arrived, the storefront beside his had sat empty for months behind dusty paper-covered windows. Now, color spilled onto the sidewalk every morning. Buckets overflowing with peonies and tulips and hydrangeas stood outside your shop like little declarations of spring. The scent of eucalyptus drifted through the open doorway whenever the weather was warm enough, sneaking next door into Bucky's bookstore until paper and flowers became permanently tangled together in the air. He liked it more than he should've.
By Thursday afternoon, the sky turned strange. Dark clouds rolled low over Brooklyn, swallowing the sunlight until the whole neighborhood looked as if it were dipped in slate-gray watercolor. The wind picked up first, rattling storefront awnings and sending loose petals skittering down the sidewalk.
Bucky noticed the weather absently while shelving returns near the front window. Then he noticed you.
You stood outside Brooklyn Blooms with your arms crossed against the wind, staring down the street with growing concern. A delivery truck had just pulled up to the curb. And then the rain started. Not a gentle spring rain... a straight up downpour.
The sky cracked open so suddenly pedestrians shrieked and scattered beneath awnings. Rain hammered the sidewalks hard enough to bounce. Within seconds the street gleamed silver beneath the storm.
Bucky watched your expression shift from annoyed to horrified as the delivery driver opened the back of the truck to reveal buckets upon buckets of flowers.
"Oh, you've gotta be kidding me," he heard you groan faintly through the glass.
You rushed forward immediately, trying to drag the first heavy box toward the shop while rain soaked through your sweater in seconds.
Bucky didn't even give it a second thought. He grabbed his jacket and headed your way. Cold rain drenched him instantly. His boots splashed through pooling water as he crossed the sidewalk toward you. You looked up in surprise just as he grabbed the other side of the box in your hands.
For a second, neither of you spoke. Rain streamed from your hair. Your cheeks were flushed pink from the cold, your shirt clinging damply to your skin. Water dripped from your eyelashes while you stared at him like you couldn't quite believe he was there.
"Hi," you said breathlessly.
Bucky tightened his grip on the box. "You looked like you were losing a fight."
Your laugh burst out immediately, bright even beneath the roar of rain. "I was absolutely losing a fight."
Together, you hauled the flowers inside. The storm turned the next fifteen minutes into complete chaos. Buckets crowded the floor. Wet cardboard piled near the counter. Rainwater streaked across the hardwood while both of you rushed back and forth between the truck and the shop, soaked to the bone by the time the last delivery made it safely inside.
By the end of it, Brooklyn Blooms smelled overwhelmingly alive. Fresh roses. Wet soil. Lilies. Rain.
Bucky stood near the doorway, catching his breath while water dripped from the ends of his hair onto the floorboards. You looked equally wrecked. And somehow even prettier than the first day he met you.
Your sleeves were pushed up to your elbows now, damp curls sticking to your cheeks while you surveyed the flower-filled disaster around the shop.
Your eyes landed on Bucky and softened.
"You ran into a thunderstorm for me," you said quietly, like you were still trying to process it.
Bucky shrugged one shoulder like it was nothing. "Couldn't let the flowers die."
"That's very heroic of you."
"I'm basically a firefighter."
You laughed again. God, he was starting to think he'd do almost anything to hear that sound.
"C'mere," you said suddenly.
Bucky blinked.
You disappeared into the back room for a moment before returning with a towel in your hands. "You're dripping all over my floor."
"Sorry."
"You should be." You stepped closer without hesitation, lifting the towel toward his head.
Bucky froze.
Not visibly, maybe. But internally, something in him stalled completely as you gently rubbed the towel through his soaked hair. The gesture was so casual. So soft. Like taking care of him was the most natural thing in the world.
"There," you murmured. "Slightly less drowned."
Bucky looked down at you standing barely a foot away from him among buckets of roses and peonies and wildflowers while rain battered the windows outside.
Something warm unfurled low in his chest. Dangerous territory.
He cleared his throat roughly and glanced toward the nearest flower bucket. "So," he said. "Which one of these dies the fastest? I need to know what not to touch."
You grinned immediately, mercifully letting him recover. "You know nothing about flowers, do you?"
"Not a damn thing."
"Cute."
Bucky nearly choked on air. You either didn't notice or pretended not to.
The storm stretched through the evening, trapping both of you inside Brooklyn Blooms long after the delivery was unpacked. Eventually, the frantic energy faded into something quieter.
You made tea in the tiny back room while Bucky sat perched awkwardly on a stool behind the counter, surrounded by flowers in every direction. The hanging lights above the shop cast everything gold and honey-soft against the storm-dark windows.
"You know," you said while setting a mug in front of him, "you look weirdly intimidating holding a cup with tiny flowers on it."
Bucky looked down at the ceramic mug covered in painted daisies. "Feels threatening."
"I'm terrified."
He huffed out a laugh into his tea.
For a little while, neither of you spoke. And somehow the silence felt easy. Bucky realized then that he couldn't remember the last time being around someone felt this uncomplicated. No expectations. No noise. Just you across from him in your flower shop while rain tapped softly against the windows.
When the storm finally weakened into drizzle, the clock had already crept past closing time.
Bucky stood reluctantly near the door, tugging his jacket back on.
"Thanks again," you said softly. "For helping."
"Anytime." And he meant it instantly.
You glanced around the shop before suddenly reaching into a nearby bucket. "Wait."
Bucky watched you pull out a single pale pink peony, still slightly damp from the rainstorm.
You held it toward him. "A bookstore shouldn't be without flowers."
Bucky took the flower carefully from your hand, absurdly aware of your fingers brushing his for half a second.
"Goodnight, bookstore boy," you teased gently.
He looked down at the peony in his large hand, then back at you, standing warm and glowing beneath the hanging lights of Brooklyn Blooms.
"Goodnight, flower girl," he said quietly.
A full grin broke out on your face as he turned to leave. When he crossed back into his bookstore next door, he carried the flower as if it were something precious enough to break.
It rained for a few days in a row, so business was slow for both of you. Brooklyn smelled like spring after the storms. The sidewalks still held traces of rain in the cracks, darkened pavement glistening beneath the pale morning sun, while steam curled lazily from nearby subway grates. Someone down the block had music playing through an open café window. Delivery trucks rumbled past in slow fits. The neighborhood was waking up after the clouds had gone away.
Bucky unlocked the bookstore with coffee in one hand and sleep still clinging stubbornly to his shoulders. The bell above the door jingled softly as he stepped inside, and he immediately stopped.
It smelled different. It looked different. The familiar scent of old paper and cedar shelves lingered beneath something fresh and green. Floral. Clean in a way the bookstore had never been before. Tiny arrangements tucked carefully throughout the shop like little secrets. A vase of pale yellow daisies sat near the register. Sprigs of eucalyptus had been woven around the front display table beside stacks of hardcovers. Baby's breath rested between shelves in little glass jars no bigger than coffee mugs.
Bucky stared. Slowly, his eyes narrowed.
Next door, Brooklyn Blooms was just opening for the morning. And through the shop window, he could see you crouched beside flower buckets on the sidewalk, trying unsuccessfully to hide your smile.
Unbelievable.
The bell above the bookstore door jingled again twenty minutes later. You walked in carrying coffee and looking very pleased with yourself.
"Morning, bookstore boy."
Bucky crossed his arms behind the counter. "You break into my store, flower girl?"
You blink at him innocently. "Break in is such an ugly phrase."
"You had unauthorized floral access to my property," he responds.
"You gave me a key."
"I didn't expect you to use it for botanical warfare."
Your laugh rang through the bookstore instantly, bright enough to pull a reluctant smile at the corner of Bucky's mouth despite himself.
"I was helping," you defended, setting his coffee down on the counter. "Your shop looked emotionally unavailable."
"It's a bookstore."
"It looked like it listened to sad jazz on purpose."
"It does listen to sad jazz on purpose."
"Exactly my point."
Bucky shook his head while you wandered deeper into the store like you belonged there already. You moved naturally through the aisles now, fingertips grazing familiar shelves while morning sunlight spilled gold across the hardwood floors around you. Your tote bag bumped lightly against your hip as you browsed, pausing every few minutes to tilt your head thoughtfully at a title.
Bucky found himself watching you more often than he meant to. Actually, scratch that. Constantly. It was distracting.
"You're staring again," you said casually from halfway across the store.
Bucky nearly choked on his coffee. "I wasn't staring."
"Mhm."
"You're very smug for someone trespassing before business hours."
You grinned over your shoulder at him, and Bucky suddenly understood why people wrote poetry. Unfortunately.
The flowers became a thing after that. Every morning, Bucky would find something new somewhere in the bookstore. Tiny white carnations near the classics section. Lavender tucked beside the register. Once, an entire little arrangement of wildflowers sitting beside his coffee machine in the back room. And every single time, he pretended to be annoyed about it while secretly protecting those flowers with his life.
"You know those have to be watered, right?" you asked one afternoon while leaning against the counter.
Bucky looked offended. "I know how plants work."
"You absolutely do not."
"I've kept all of them alive."
"You almost killed the hydrangeas yesterday."
"They're dramatic."
"They were thirsty."
"Same thing."
Your laughter came easier around him now. So did his.
Somewhere between rainy afternoons and shared coffees and flowers appearing in his bookstore overnight, the space between your shops had started shrinking. The neighborhood noticed before either of you did. Mrs. Alvarez from the bakery next door leaned across Bucky's counter one morning while buying her usual mystery novels.
"That sweet girl from the flower shop has you smiling," she informed him bluntly.
Bucky nearly dropped the book he was holding. "I smile."
"Not before her." She patted his cheek like she'd solved him completely and walked out.
Things only got worse from there. The café on the corner started handing Bucky two coffees automatically every morning.
"You waiting for your florist today?" the barista asked with a grin one Thursday.
"She's not my florist."
"Sure, man."
Meanwhile, customers inside Brooklyn Blooms had apparently started asking questions, too.
A woman buying tulips glanced between you and the bookstore next door before smiling knowingly. "The handsome man at the bookshop your boyfriend?"
You nearly stabbed yourself with floral scissors. "Nope," you answered far too quickly.
Unfortunately, Bucky chose that exact moment to walk into the shop carrying a stack of mail. The woman's smile widened immediately.
"Oh," she said. "Definitely not your boyfriend."
Your face burned.
Bucky looked between both of you suspiciously. "Why do I feel like I walked into something?"
"Nothing!" you rushed the word out.
"Feels aggressive for nothing."
The customer looked delighted by your suffering.
By late afternoon, Brooklyn Blooms glowed warm beneath hanging lights while golden sunset spilled through the front windows. The shop smelled overwhelmingly like roses and fresh greenery. Soft indie music hummed quietly overhead while you stood behind the worktable assembling bouquets with practiced hands.
Bucky lingered nearby, pretending to organize a display of candles he had absolutely no reason to be touching.
"You know," you said without looking up, "most people buy flowers before hanging around a flower shop this much."
Bucky leaned against the counter. "Maybe I'm here for the free entertainment."
"You watching me process inventory?"
"You threaten hydrangeas in a very compelling way."
You laughed softly, shaking your head. Then, without warning, Bucky stepped closer behind you to reach for the scissors resting near your elbow. The movement brought him close enough that the sleeve of his jacket brushed your lower back.
The air shifted in a way you fully expected. You caught the scent of cedar and coffee and old paper clinging to him from the bookstore next door. Bucky suddenly became aware of the warmth of your shoulder, inches from his chest, the faint floral perfume wrapped around you like spring itself.
Neither of you moved immediately.
Then Bucky cleared his throat roughly and lifted the scissors. "Weapon acquired."
Your heartbeat stumbled annoyingly hard.
"Cool," you said weakly.
By closing time, the neighborhood had settled into evening calm. Storefront lights glowed amber against deepening blue skies while pedestrians drifted home carrying grocery bags and takeout containers. Somewhere farther down the block, someone laughed loudly enough for it to echo between buildings. Bucky locked the bookstore door later than usual that night after getting caught reorganizing shelves for nearly an hour.
The street outside had mostly emptied by then. As he shoved his keys into his jacket pocket, he looked into your shop window, just to see what you were up to. What he saw was a very asleep you. The lights inside your shop still glowed softly over scattered paperwork and half-finished floral arrangements. You sat slumped behind the counter with your cheek resting against folded arms, completely passed out beside an open inventory binder.
A tiny crease pinched between Bucky's brows immediately. You'd skipped lunch earlier. Again.
Muttering under his breath, he crossed the quiet sidewalk toward your shop. The door was unlocked. Girl...
The soft bell jingled faintly overhead as he stepped inside. Flowers perfumed the air around him while warm light spilled across the hardwood floors. You didn't stir. Bucky glanced around the shop before quietly flipping the sign on the door from OPEN to CLOSED. Then he disappeared briefly down the block.
When he returned ten minutes later, he had a paper takeout bag from the little deli on the corner. Carefully, he set it beside your sleeping form on the counter. For a second, he just stood there looking at you. At the way your hair had fallen across your cheek. At the exhaustion written softly into your sleeping expression. Something in his chest tightened unexpectedly.
Before he could think too hard about it, Bucky grabbed a pen from beside the register and scribbled across a receipt.
Eat something, flower girl.
He placed the note on top of the bag, then he quietly walked back out into the Brooklyn night before you could wake up and catch him caring too much.
Friday mornings in Brooklyn can be chaos. Very alive chaos. The sidewalks outside the bookstore were flooded with people before nine in the morning. Couples walking dogs, morning coffee runs, someone nearby playing music loud enough to echo between buildings. Doors are swinging endlessly open and shut beneath the rush of weekend customers.
Next to the bookstore, Brooklyn Blooms looked like it had exploded. Flowers crowded every available surface. Buckets overflowed onto the sidewalk beneath the striped awning outside your shop. White roses, pale blush peonies, delicate renunculuses, and full-bodied hydrangeas were carefully bundled beside ribbons and greenery spilling across a worktable near the back.
Bucky stood in the doorway of his bookstore with coffee in hand, watching you move frantically around the shop before he'd even technically opened for the day. Your storefront sat only a few feet away from his, but he could almost hear your voice through the open shop door when the street noise quieted.
You were already stressed, and he could tell immediately. Your hair was clipped up messily, though strands had escaped hours ago and curled around your face while you worked. Your apron had splotches of wetness and dirt on the front. A pencil was tucked behind your ear while you balanced a phone between your shoulder and your cheek.
“Yes, I understand the ceremony starts at four tomorrow,” you were saying patiently into the phone while trimming stems one-handed. “No, I absolutely did not forget the sweetheart table arrangements.”
There was a pause where your expression flattened. “No, ma’am, I do not think white roses symbolize bad luck.”
Bucky snorted into his coffee. You looked up to see him, standing in the shop doorway, and mouthed help me at him dramatically through the open doorway. Bucky only grinned before turning to open the bookstore.
By eleven, the entire building smelled like coffee and flowers. The wedding order had apparently consumed your whole life. Bucky learned this because you kept appearing in his bookstore throughout the morning, looking vaguely unhinged.
"Do you have tape?"
"Yes."
"Scissors?"
“You stole mine yesterday.”
“Rude. Do you have more?”
“You’re terrifying under pressure, flower girl.”
You pointed at him threateningly before hurrying back next door into Brooklyn Blooms again.
The thing was, Bucky liked watching you work. Maybe too much. Every time business slowed in the bookstore, his attention drifted instinctively toward the neighboring shop. Toward you, weaving between flower buckets with focused determination. Toward your hands, carefully tying satin ribbon around bouquets. Toward the concentrated little crease between your brows while you worked through invoices spread across the counter. You moved beautifully when you were busy. Quickly and gracefully. Every motion already existed in your body before you made it.
Around two in the afternoon, Bucky wandered next door carrying coffee and found you sitting cross-legged on the floor behind the counter, surrounded by flowers and ribbon scraps. You looked exhausted.
“Alive?” he asked.
“Debatable.”
Bucky handed you the coffee. Your fingers brushed his briefly as you took it, warm from handling floral buckets all morning.
“Thanks,” you murmured before immediately taking a desperate sip.
Bucky leaned against the counter nearby, eyes drifting around the shop.
The wedding order was enormous.
Half-finished centerpieces crowded every table. White roses rested in neat piles beside overflowing greenery. Soft instrumental music floated through the overhead speakers while sunlight streamed through the front windows, turning the whole flower shop gold.
“She looked relaxed, too.” You stared into your coffee bitterly. “Like she had peace.”
Bucky only laughed softly, and just like that, your shoulders loosened a little. That was becoming his favorite thing, watching stress leave your face around him.
By late afternoon, Brooklyn Blooms had turned warm and dreamy beneath hanging lights while evening settled slowly over the neighborhood outside. The bookstore had quieted too. Most of the foot traffic disappeared as dinner hour approached, leaving the block calmer than it had been all day. The sky outside glowed dusky blue beyond the windows while storefront lights flickered on one by one down the street.
Bucky locked up the bookstore around seven. Your lights are still on next door. He stepped out of the bookstore and crossed the few feet between your neighboring storefronts before pushing open the door to Brooklyn Blooms. The soft bell chimed gently overhead.
You didn’t notice him at first. You sat on the hardwood floor near the back worktable, surrounded by bouquet boxes and paperwork, one knee pulled against your chest while you tied ribbon around another arrangement with exhausted concentration.
For a second, Bucky just watched you. The shop looked softer at night. More intimate somehow. Golden light spilled low across the floorboards. Flowers cast long shadows against the walls. Outside, Brooklyn moved more quietly now beneath glowing streetlights and passing headlights. Inside, it felt tucked away from the rest of the world.
Your eyes lifted eventually. The second you saw him, your whole expression changed. Your body relaxed a little, and so did your mind.
“Store closed already?” you asked softly.
“Yeah.”
You nodded absently before returning to the ribbon in your hands.
Bucky frowned slightly. “You still working?”
A long sigh escaped you. “Unless one of these bouquets magically finishes itself.”
He looked around the shop at the mountains of flowers, at the exhaustion written all over your face, at the half-eaten pack of crackers abandoned beside your invoices. Then he looks back at you.
“C’mon.”
You blinked up at him. “What?”
“You’re done for tonight.”
“I literally am not.”
“You are now.”
“Bucky.”
“You haven’t eaten real food all day.”
“I had half a muffin.”
“That’s not food.”
“It had blueberries.”
Bucky crouched down in front of you before you could keep arguing. Close enough now that you could smell cedar and coffee clinging to his jacket from next door.
“Flower girl,” he said more quietly this time, “the flowers will still be here in an hour.”
Your breath caught a little at the softness in his voice. You looked down at the ribbon still tangled loosely between your fingers before finally mumbling, “I still need to finish the bridal bouquets.”
“Tomorrow.”
“The wedding’s tomorrow.”
“Then future-you can deal with it.”
You laughed tiredly despite yourself.
“There she is,” Bucky murmured.
Your chest squeezed unexpectedly. Before you could process that too deeply, Bucky reached forward and gently tugged the ribbon from your hands. Then he stood and held a hand toward you.
“Dinner,” he said simply.
You stared up at him. At the roughness of his larger hand, waiting patiently for yours, at the way he looked so certain you’d follow him, and maybe the dangerous thing wasn’t that you wanted to. Maybe it was how safe it felt to.
Slowly, you placed your hand in his. Bucky's fingers closed warmly around yours as he pulled you to your feet. Neither of you let go immediately after.
The tiny Italian restaurant sat three blocks away, tucked between a laundromat and an old tailor shop with faded green awnings. It was warm inside and crowded. The air smelled of garlic, wine, and fresh bread while soft Sinatra crackled through the overhead speakers. Candlelight flickered across dark wood tables packed close enough together that conversations blurred warmly into one another.
Bucky looked unfairly handsome there. You noticed that almost immediately. The low lighting softened the sharp edges of him while warmth colored his features in amber gold. His sleeves were rolled slightly up his forearms now, exposing strong hands wrapped loosely around a wine glass while he watched you across the table with quiet attention. He looked comfortable, relaxed in a way you rarely saw during busy workdays.
“This place is nice,” you said softly while tearing apart a piece of bread.
Bucky shrugged one shoulder. “Been coming here forever.”
“You know everybody in Brooklyn?”
“Most people know me.”
“You’re like a cryptid neighborhood uncle.”
Bucky nearly choked on his drink, laughing. “That’s the meanest thing you’ve ever said to me.”
Your laughter spilled between you easily now.
The evening stretched slowly after that. It was comfortable. The conversation wandered everywhere. You learned that Bucky grew up only a few neighborhoods away from the bookstore. He inherited the shop from an older family friend who retired years ago. He liked old records because they sounded “warmer” than digital music. That he secretly loved terrible black-and-white monster movies despite pretending otherwise.
And Bucky learned things, too. You moved to Brooklyn three years ago because Manhattan felt too loud. Those flowers reminded you of your grandmother’s garden growing up. That you talked with your hands when you got excited. Your smile changed completely when you laughed for real.
At some point, the waitress refilled your wine glasses and smiled knowingly at both of you.
“You two are cute,” she said casually before walking away.
Neither of you spoke. Bucky looked away from her and rubbed the back of his neck. You stared very hard at your plate. You mumbled a quick thank you as she turned to walk away. Your knee brushed his beneath the small table a few seconds later.
Outside, Brooklyn had settled fully into the night by the time you finally left the restaurant. The air felt cooler now. Soft. Streetlights reflected gold against damp sidewalks while the city hummed low and distant around you. Most storefronts had already gone dark for the evening, leaving pockets of warm light glowing across the neighborhood.
You walked beside Bucky slowly. Not because either of you needed to. Because neither of you seemed ready for the night to end yet. Your shoulders bumped occasionally along narrower stretches of sidewalk. Sometimes his hand brushed yours for half a second before pulling away again. Every tiny accidental touch felt enormous now.
When your storefronts finally came into view down the block, both of you slowed instinctively. Brooklyn Blooms glowed softly beside the bookstore beneath the apartment windows above. Bucky’s shop sat dark except for the warm lamp he always left burning near the front window overnight.
You stopped beneath the awning stretching across both storefronts. Neither of you spoke immediately. The city moved quietly around you while distant music drifted faintly through the street somewhere nearby.
You smiled at him softly. "Thanks for dinner, bookstore boy."
Bucky looked at you for a long second, like he was seeing something new.
"Anytime, flower girl," he said quietly.
Eventually, you glanced upward toward the apartment above Brooklyn Blooms before taking a small step backward.
“I should probably finish those bouquets,” you admitted reluctantly.
“Probably.”
“But I’m significantly less miserable now.”
“That’s my specialty.”
Your eyes drifted toward Bucky beside you, and your chest tightened a little at the sight of him standing there beneath the warm streetlight glow. His jacket hung open slightly from the walk back. His hands rested in his pockets like he was trying very hard to seem calmer than he actually was. But something about him felt different now.
Bucky looked down the street briefly before exhaling softly through his nose.
“So,” he started roughly.
You smiled a little. “So?”
His jaw shifted like he was reconsidering whatever he’d been about to say. “I've been thinking about what that waitress said.”
Your heartbeat stumbled immediately. “Oh?”
Bucky rubbed a hand over the back of his neck, suddenly looking deeply uncomfortable in a way you’d never really seen before. Not guarded, but very nervous.
“She said we looked cute together,” he muttered.
Warmth flooded your face instantly. “She did say that.”
“Yeah.”
Silence settled briefly between you again while distant traffic hummed somewhere farther down the block.
Bucky’s gaze dropped toward the sidewalk before lifting back to yours. “And I don’t know,” he admitted quietly. “I guess it got stuck in my head.”
Something soft opened painfully in your chest. The city suddenly felt very far away. Bucky shifted closer slightly beneath the awning, close enough now that you could smell traces of cedar and wine and old paper lingering on him from the bookstore.
“I just...” He paused, visibly searching for the right words. “These last few months with you next door...” A quiet laugh escaped him, almost disbelieving. “You kinda became my favorite part of the day.”
Your eyes widened when he finished his sentence, and Bucky... well, Bucky looked terrified after saying it.
“You come into the bookstore, and suddenly it doesn’t feel so empty anymore,” he continued softly. “And I keep finding reasons to walk next door even when I don’t need anything.” His mouth tugged into the faintest self-conscious smile. “Pretty sure everybody on this block figured it out before I did.”
Your eyes burned unexpectedly, because god... You'd been feeling it too. Every morning waiting for his bookstore lights to turn on beside yours. Every coffee shared between customers. Every flower he carefully kept alive like it mattered. Every moment he lingered in Brooklyn Blooms just to stand near you.
You stepped closer to him. "Bucky," you whispered.
His eyes lifted to yours immediately, hopeful in the smallest, most fragile way.
"I like you too," you admitted softly.
The tension in his shoulders loosened so fast it almost hurt to see.
“No,” you corrected gently, smiling despite the way your heart pounded. “Actually, I think I’ve been a little in love with you for a while now.”
Bucky stared at you, completely still. Like the words had knocked the air from his lungs. Then he laughed quietly under his breath, almost overwhelmed by it.
“Jesus Christ,” he murmured.
“What?”
“You can’t just say things like that to me, flower girl.”
Your smile widened helplessly. The look on his face right then nearly ruined you. Soft and warm, like he was seeing something precious.
Slowly, carefully, Bucky lifted one hand toward your face, giving you every chance to pull away. You didn't. His knuckles brushed your cheek so gently it made your chest ache.
"You sure?" he asked quietly.
And there he is... Bucky Barnes beneath all the gruffness and teasing and quiet staring. Careful with you, gentle.
You leaned into his touch slightly. "So sure."
Something tender cracked open in his expression. Then Bucky kissed you. Softly at first, tentatively. Like he was still half-convinced you might disappear if he moved too quickly. But the second your hand slid into the front of his jacket, and you kissed him back, something warm and relieved left him in a quiet breath against your mouth. It deepened slowly after that. Totally unhurried. His hand settled gently against your jaw while yours curled against his chest, feeling the steady, rapid thud of his heartbeat beneath your palm.
The kiss felt exactly like the last few months have felt with him. Warm coffee. Soft music through the walls. Rain against the flower shop windows. The faint smell of dirt and florals. The musky, cedar scent of the bookstore. Home.
When you finally pulled apart, neither of you had moved very far. Bucky rested his forehead lightly against yours, eyes closed briefly like he needed a second to recover.
“Well,” he murmured softly.
You laughed breathlessly. “Well?”
“Think the neighborhood’s gonna be unbearable about this.”
You grinned. “Mrs. Alvarez is going to throw rice at us.”
“Barista’s never letting me live it down.”
Your fingers brushed lightly along the front of his jacket. “You seem pretty okay with that suddenly.”
Bucky opened his eyes then. And the look there nearly stole your breath all over again.
“Yeah,” he said quietly. “I really am.”
Above you, apartment windows glowed warmly over Brooklyn Blooms and the bookstore while Brooklyn hummed softly into the night around you. And beneath the shared awning between your neighboring shops, Bucky kissed you again like he’d been wanting to for months.
All Chalky Rainbow Dividers used are made by @uzmacchiato, and you can find them here! Thank you <3
Thanks for reading! A reminder that my requests are open! <3
Summary: Bucky Barnes owns a quiet little bookstore in Brooklyn. You own the flower shop next door. Somewhere between shared coffees, rainy afternoons, and flowers appearing between the bookshelves, the two of you fall hopelessly in love.
Warnings/tags: afab reader, fluff, slow burn, mutual pining, meet cute, friends to lovers, idiots in love, soft Bucky, nicknames bookstore boy & flower girl, brooklyn neighbors root for them, weaponized peonies, reader forgets to eat while stressed, no use of y/n 🌷
Bucky notices your hands first... not in a weird way, and certainly not intentionally.
He notices because they move through his bookstore like they belong there, fingertips ghosting over spines with impossible gentleness, like every book on the shelf is something alive. Most customers come into his shop with a purpose. They ask for recommendations, wander toward bestsellers, scroll on their phones while they browse. But you move slowly. Thoughtfully. Like the smell of old paper, coffee, and worn wood means something to you.
And then he notices the rest of you.
The soft knit sweater slipping off one shoulder. The tiny crease between your brows while you read back covers. The tote bag hanging from your wrist with little embroidered flowers stitched across the canvas. You're beautiful in a way that catches him off guard completely. Not loud. Not flashy. Just warm. Like spring sunlight through a window after a brutal New York winter.
Bucky nearly drops the stack of returned books in his hands when you smile at him for the first time.
The bookstore is quiet that afternoon. Rain taps softly against the windows facing the street, blurring the city into watercolor streaks of yellow taxis and umbrellas. Somewhere in the back, an old jazz record crackles low through the speakers.
"Sorry," you say, holding up a novel. "Do you happen to know if this one's any good? Or am I about to emotionally ruin my entire weekend?"
Bucky looks down at the book in your hands. Then back up at you. And promptly forgets how words work. His mouth opens and then loses.
"It's..." He clears his throat. "It's devastating."
Your eyes brighten immediately. "Perfect."
God. Even your laugh is pretty.
He walks around the counter before he can overthink it, taking the book gently from your hands to flip through it. "The ending's worth it, though," he says. "Hurts like hell, but worth it."
"That's the best kind."
"Yeah?"
You nod. "If a book doesn't alter my emotional stability at least a little, what's the point?"
Bucky huffs out a quiet laugh, and something in his chest shifts strangely at how easy this conversation feels. You introduce yourself after that, offering your name with another smile that leaves him feeling vaguely concussed. He repeats it back carefully, like he wants to make sure he says it right.
"I'm Bucky."
"I know," you say casually. "Your store's famous."
His eyebrows lift. "Famous?"
"Well, neighborhood famous." You shrug. "People online keep calling you the grumpy hot bookstore owner."
Bucky stares at you. You stare back for exactly three seconds before dissolving into laughter.
"I'm kidding," you promise. "Mostly."
He rubs a hand down his face while you grin at him over the top of the counter, and for the first time all day, the rain outside doesn't seem so miserable anymore.
By the time you leave, you've bought three books instead of one. Bucky watches through the window as you disappear into the gray blur of the city with your tote bag clutched to your chest. He tells himself he's only watching to make sure you don't get caught in the heavier rain halfway down the block.
That's definitely why. Not because he already misses the sound of your voice in his store.
A few mornings later, Brooklyn wakes up loudly. Delivery trucks rumble through the streets. Steam curls from sewer grates in cold spring air. Somebody nearby is already mentally preparing himself for inventory hell when movement catches his eye.
You... standing right beside the storefront next door. The shop had been empty for weeks. Except now, it's not so empty. Your back is turned toward him while you unlock the door, and Bucky catches sight of painted lettering across the front window that he somehow completely missed before.
Brooklyn Blooms: Florals for every occasion.
Buckets of flowers sit just inside the glass, bursts of color spilling everywhere. Pale pink peonies. Sunflowers. Baby's breath. Wild eucalyptus hanging in bundles from the ceiling. More flowers than he could even name.
You glance over your shoulder at the sound of his keys jingling and smile immediately.
"Bookstore Boy," you greet warmly.
"You own this spot?" he asks, a small smile playing on his lips.
"Proud owner, in fact," you nod at him.
You laugh again, bright and effortless, and he swears the whole block feels warmer because of it.
"Well," you say, pushing your door open with your hip, "looks like we're neighbors."
Neighbors.
The word settles somewhere deep in his chest. He's going to see you more often than he thought. Bucky looks at your shop, then at you standing in the doorway with morning light catching against your hair, and realizes with sudden, horrifying clarity that he is absolutely doomed.
Brooklyn settled into both of them quietly. It wasn't some grand, cinematic sweep where music swelled, and strangers suddenly became inseparable. It happened in pieces each morning. In soft clinks of keys against locks at eight-thirty sharp. In sleepy waves exchanged across neighboring storefronts while the city still yawned itself awake around them.
Bucky found himself noticing your routines before he meant to. The way you always arrived, balancing a coffee tray and your tote bag at the same time, like gravity simply worked differently for you. The way you crouched outside Brooklyn Blooms every morning to rearrange the flower buckets on the sidewalk until they looked "welcoming," whatever that meant. The way you tucked loose strands of hair behind your ear while reading delivery invoices with an expression so serious it made him want to laugh. He learned your habits the same way he learned favorite lines from books. Slowly. Accidentally. By paying attention too often.
And somehow, over the span of one week, you became folded into his mornings so naturally it startled him.
"Morning, bookstore boy," you called one Tuesday while drawing little flowers on the chalkboard sign outside your shop.
Bucky unlocked his door beside you, coffee warming his hand against the chilly spring air. "You know I have an actual name."
You looked up immediately, smiling like you'd been waiting for him to say something back. "I know. But bookstore boy is more fun."
"You're annoying."
"And yet you keep talking to me."
Bucky hid the smile threatening at the corner of his mouth by turning toward his door. "Tragic, really."
Your laugh followed him into the bookstore like sunlight.
The thing was, Brooklyn Blooms changed the block.
Before you arrived, the storefront beside his had sat empty for months behind dusty paper-covered windows. Now, color spilled onto the sidewalk every morning. Buckets overflowing with peonies and tulips and hydrangeas stood outside your shop like little declarations of spring. The scent of eucalyptus drifted through the open doorway whenever the weather was warm enough, sneaking next door into Bucky's bookstore until paper and flowers became permanently tangled together in the air. He liked it more than he should've.
By Thursday afternoon, the sky turned strange. Dark clouds rolled low over Brooklyn, swallowing the sunlight until the whole neighborhood looked as if it were dipped in slate-gray watercolor. The wind picked up first, rattling storefront awnings and sending loose petals skittering down the sidewalk.
Bucky noticed the weather absently while shelving returns near the front window. Then he noticed you.
You stood outside Brooklyn Blooms with your arms crossed against the wind, staring down the street with growing concern. A delivery truck had just pulled up to the curb. And then the rain started. Not a gentle spring rain... a straight up downpour.
The sky cracked open so suddenly pedestrians shrieked and scattered beneath awnings. Rain hammered the sidewalks hard enough to bounce. Within seconds the street gleamed silver beneath the storm.
Bucky watched your expression shift from annoyed to horrified as the delivery driver opened the back of the truck to reveal buckets upon buckets of flowers.
"Oh, you've gotta be kidding me," he heard you groan faintly through the glass.
You rushed forward immediately, trying to drag the first heavy box toward the shop while rain soaked through your sweater in seconds.
Bucky didn't even give it a second thought. He grabbed his jacket and headed your way. Cold rain drenched him instantly. His boots splashed through pooling water as he crossed the sidewalk toward you. You looked up in surprise just as he grabbed the other side of the box in your hands.
For a second, neither of you spoke. Rain streamed from your hair. Your cheeks were flushed pink from the cold, your shirt clinging damply to your skin. Water dripped from your eyelashes while you stared at him like you couldn't quite believe he was there.
"Hi," you said breathlessly.
Bucky tightened his grip on the box. "You looked like you were losing a fight."
Your laugh burst out immediately, bright even beneath the roar of rain. "I was absolutely losing a fight."
Together, you hauled the flowers inside. The storm turned the next fifteen minutes into complete chaos. Buckets crowded the floor. Wet cardboard piled near the counter. Rainwater streaked across the hardwood while both of you rushed back and forth between the truck and the shop, soaked to the bone by the time the last delivery made it safely inside.
By the end of it, Brooklyn Blooms smelled overwhelmingly alive. Fresh roses. Wet soil. Lilies. Rain.
Bucky stood near the doorway, catching his breath while water dripped from the ends of his hair onto the floorboards. You looked equally wrecked. And somehow even prettier than the first day he met you.
Your sleeves were pushed up to your elbows now, damp curls sticking to your cheeks while you surveyed the flower-filled disaster around the shop.
Your eyes landed on Bucky and softened.
"You ran into a thunderstorm for me," you said quietly, like you were still trying to process it.
Bucky shrugged one shoulder like it was nothing. "Couldn't let the flowers die."
"That's very heroic of you."
"I'm basically a firefighter."
You laughed again. God, he was starting to think he'd do almost anything to hear that sound.
"C'mere," you said suddenly.
Bucky blinked.
You disappeared into the back room for a moment before returning with a towel in your hands. "You're dripping all over my floor."
"Sorry."
"You should be." You stepped closer without hesitation, lifting the towel toward his head.
Bucky froze.
Not visibly, maybe. But internally, something in him stalled completely as you gently rubbed the towel through his soaked hair. The gesture was so casual. So soft. Like taking care of him was the most natural thing in the world.
"There," you murmured. "Slightly less drowned."
Bucky looked down at you standing barely a foot away from him among buckets of roses and peonies and wildflowers while rain battered the windows outside.
Something warm unfurled low in his chest. Dangerous territory.
He cleared his throat roughly and glanced toward the nearest flower bucket. "So," he said. "Which one of these dies the fastest? I need to know what not to touch."
You grinned immediately, mercifully letting him recover. "You know nothing about flowers, do you?"
"Not a damn thing."
"Cute."
Bucky nearly choked on air. You either didn't notice or pretended not to.
The storm stretched through the evening, trapping both of you inside Brooklyn Blooms long after the delivery was unpacked. Eventually, the frantic energy faded into something quieter.
You made tea in the tiny back room while Bucky sat perched awkwardly on a stool behind the counter, surrounded by flowers in every direction. The hanging lights above the shop cast everything gold and honey-soft against the storm-dark windows.
"You know," you said while setting a mug in front of him, "you look weirdly intimidating holding a cup with tiny flowers on it."
Bucky looked down at the ceramic mug covered in painted daisies. "Feels threatening."
"I'm terrified."
He huffed out a laugh into his tea.
For a little while, neither of you spoke. And somehow the silence felt easy. Bucky realized then that he couldn't remember the last time being around someone felt this uncomplicated. No expectations. No noise. Just you across from him in your flower shop while rain tapped softly against the windows.
When the storm finally weakened into drizzle, the clock had already crept past closing time.
Bucky stood reluctantly near the door, tugging his jacket back on.
"Thanks again," you said softly. "For helping."
"Anytime." And he meant it instantly.
You glanced around the shop before suddenly reaching into a nearby bucket. "Wait."
Bucky watched you pull out a single pale pink peony, still slightly damp from the rainstorm.
You held it toward him. "A bookstore shouldn't be without flowers."
Bucky took the flower carefully from your hand, absurdly aware of your fingers brushing his for half a second.
"Goodnight, bookstore boy," you teased gently.
He looked down at the peony in his large hand, then back at you, standing warm and glowing beneath the hanging lights of Brooklyn Blooms.
"Goodnight, flower girl," he said quietly.
A full grin broke out on your face as he turned to leave. When he crossed back into his bookstore next door, he carried the flower as if it were something precious enough to break.
It rained for a few days in a row, so business was slow for both of you. Brooklyn smelled like spring after the storms. The sidewalks still held traces of rain in the cracks, darkened pavement glistening beneath the pale morning sun, while steam curled lazily from nearby subway grates. Someone down the block had music playing through an open café window. Delivery trucks rumbled past in slow fits. The neighborhood was waking up after the clouds had gone away.
Bucky unlocked the bookstore with coffee in one hand and sleep still clinging stubbornly to his shoulders. The bell above the door jingled softly as he stepped inside, and he immediately stopped.
It smelled different. It looked different. The familiar scent of old paper and cedar shelves lingered beneath something fresh and green. Floral. Clean in a way the bookstore had never been before. Tiny arrangements tucked carefully throughout the shop like little secrets. A vase of pale yellow daisies sat near the register. Sprigs of eucalyptus had been woven around the front display table beside stacks of hardcovers. Baby's breath rested between shelves in little glass jars no bigger than coffee mugs.
Bucky stared. Slowly, his eyes narrowed.
Next door, Brooklyn Blooms was just opening for the morning. And through the shop window, he could see you crouched beside flower buckets on the sidewalk, trying unsuccessfully to hide your smile.
Unbelievable.
The bell above the bookstore door jingled again twenty minutes later. You walked in carrying coffee and looking very pleased with yourself.
"Morning, bookstore boy."
Bucky crossed his arms behind the counter. "You break into my store, flower girl?"
You blink at him innocently. "Break in is such an ugly phrase."
"You had unauthorized floral access to my property," he responds.
"You gave me a key."
"I didn't expect you to use it for botanical warfare."
Your laugh rang through the bookstore instantly, bright enough to pull a reluctant smile at the corner of Bucky's mouth despite himself.
"I was helping," you defended, setting his coffee down on the counter. "Your shop looked emotionally unavailable."
"It's a bookstore."
"It looked like it listened to sad jazz on purpose."
"It does listen to sad jazz on purpose."
"Exactly my point."
Bucky shook his head while you wandered deeper into the store like you belonged there already. You moved naturally through the aisles now, fingertips grazing familiar shelves while morning sunlight spilled gold across the hardwood floors around you. Your tote bag bumped lightly against your hip as you browsed, pausing every few minutes to tilt your head thoughtfully at a title.
Bucky found himself watching you more often than he meant to. Actually, scratch that. Constantly. It was distracting.
"You're staring again," you said casually from halfway across the store.
Bucky nearly choked on his coffee. "I wasn't staring."
"Mhm."
"You're very smug for someone trespassing before business hours."
You grinned over your shoulder at him, and Bucky suddenly understood why people wrote poetry. Unfortunately.
The flowers became a thing after that. Every morning, Bucky would find something new somewhere in the bookstore. Tiny white carnations near the classics section. Lavender tucked beside the register. Once, an entire little arrangement of wildflowers sitting beside his coffee machine in the back room. And every single time, he pretended to be annoyed about it while secretly protecting those flowers with his life.
"You know those have to be watered, right?" you asked one afternoon while leaning against the counter.
Bucky looked offended. "I know how plants work."
"You absolutely do not."
"I've kept all of them alive."
"You almost killed the hydrangeas yesterday."
"They're dramatic."
"They were thirsty."
"Same thing."
Your laughter came easier around him now. So did his.
Somewhere between rainy afternoons and shared coffees and flowers appearing in his bookstore overnight, the space between your shops had started shrinking. The neighborhood noticed before either of you did. Mrs. Alvarez from the bakery next door leaned across Bucky's counter one morning while buying her usual mystery novels.
"That sweet girl from the flower shop has you smiling," she informed him bluntly.
Bucky nearly dropped the book he was holding. "I smile."
"Not before her." She patted his cheek like she'd solved him completely and walked out.
Things only got worse from there. The café on the corner started handing Bucky two coffees automatically every morning.
"You waiting for your florist today?" the barista asked with a grin one Thursday.
"She's not my florist."
"Sure, man."
Meanwhile, customers inside Brooklyn Blooms had apparently started asking questions, too.
A woman buying tulips glanced between you and the bookstore next door before smiling knowingly. "The handsome man at the bookshop your boyfriend?"
You nearly stabbed yourself with floral scissors. "Nope," you answered far too quickly.
Unfortunately, Bucky chose that exact moment to walk into the shop carrying a stack of mail. The woman's smile widened immediately.
"Oh," she said. "Definitely not your boyfriend."
Your face burned.
Bucky looked between both of you suspiciously. "Why do I feel like I walked into something?"
"Nothing!" you rushed the word out.
"Feels aggressive for nothing."
The customer looked delighted by your suffering.
By late afternoon, Brooklyn Blooms glowed warm beneath hanging lights while golden sunset spilled through the front windows. The shop smelled overwhelmingly like roses and fresh greenery. Soft indie music hummed quietly overhead while you stood behind the worktable assembling bouquets with practiced hands.
Bucky lingered nearby, pretending to organize a display of candles he had absolutely no reason to be touching.
"You know," you said without looking up, "most people buy flowers before hanging around a flower shop this much."
Bucky leaned against the counter. "Maybe I'm here for the free entertainment."
"You watching me process inventory?"
"You threaten hydrangeas in a very compelling way."
You laughed softly, shaking your head. Then, without warning, Bucky stepped closer behind you to reach for the scissors resting near your elbow. The movement brought him close enough that the sleeve of his jacket brushed your lower back.
The air shifted in a way you fully expected. You caught the scent of cedar and coffee and old paper clinging to him from the bookstore next door. Bucky suddenly became aware of the warmth of your shoulder, inches from his chest, the faint floral perfume wrapped around you like spring itself.
Neither of you moved immediately.
Then Bucky cleared his throat roughly and lifted the scissors. "Weapon acquired."
Your heartbeat stumbled annoyingly hard.
"Cool," you said weakly.
By closing time, the neighborhood had settled into evening calm. Storefront lights glowed amber against deepening blue skies while pedestrians drifted home carrying grocery bags and takeout containers. Somewhere farther down the block, someone laughed loudly enough for it to echo between buildings. Bucky locked the bookstore door later than usual that night after getting caught reorganizing shelves for nearly an hour.
The street outside had mostly emptied by then. As he shoved his keys into his jacket pocket, he looked into your shop window, just to see what you were up to. What he saw was a very asleep you. The lights inside your shop still glowed softly over scattered paperwork and half-finished floral arrangements. You sat slumped behind the counter with your cheek resting against folded arms, completely passed out beside an open inventory binder.
A tiny crease pinched between Bucky's brows immediately. You'd skipped lunch earlier. Again.
Muttering under his breath, he crossed the quiet sidewalk toward your shop. The door was unlocked. Girl...
The soft bell jingled faintly overhead as he stepped inside. Flowers perfumed the air around him while warm light spilled across the hardwood floors. You didn't stir. Bucky glanced around the shop before quietly flipping the sign on the door from OPEN to CLOSED. Then he disappeared briefly down the block.
When he returned ten minutes later, he had a paper takeout bag from the little deli on the corner. Carefully, he set it beside your sleeping form on the counter. For a second, he just stood there looking at you. At the way your hair had fallen across your cheek. At the exhaustion written softly into your sleeping expression. Something in his chest tightened unexpectedly.
Before he could think too hard about it, Bucky grabbed a pen from beside the register and scribbled across a receipt.
Eat something, flower girl.
He placed the note on top of the bag, then he quietly walked back out into the Brooklyn night before you could wake up and catch him caring too much.
Friday mornings in Brooklyn can be chaos. Very alive chaos. The sidewalks outside the bookstore were flooded with people before nine in the morning. Couples walking dogs, morning coffee runs, someone nearby playing music loud enough to echo between buildings. Doors are swinging endlessly open and shut beneath the rush of weekend customers.
Next to the bookstore, Brooklyn Blooms looked like it had exploded. Flowers crowded every available surface. Buckets overflowed onto the sidewalk beneath the striped awning outside your shop. White roses, pale blush peonies, delicate renunculuses, and full-bodied hydrangeas were carefully bundled beside ribbons and greenery spilling across a worktable near the back.
Bucky stood in the doorway of his bookstore with coffee in hand, watching you move frantically around the shop before he'd even technically opened for the day. Your storefront sat only a few feet away from his, but he could almost hear your voice through the open shop door when the street noise quieted.
You were already stressed, and he could tell immediately. Your hair was clipped up messily, though strands had escaped hours ago and curled around your face while you worked. Your apron had splotches of wetness and dirt on the front. A pencil was tucked behind your ear while you balanced a phone between your shoulder and your cheek.
“Yes, I understand the ceremony starts at four tomorrow,” you were saying patiently into the phone while trimming stems one-handed. “No, I absolutely did not forget the sweetheart table arrangements.”
There was a pause where your expression flattened. “No, ma’am, I do not think white roses symbolize bad luck.”
Bucky snorted into his coffee. You looked up to see him, standing in the shop doorway, and mouthed help me at him dramatically through the open doorway. Bucky only grinned before turning to open the bookstore.
By eleven, the entire building smelled like coffee and flowers. The wedding order had apparently consumed your whole life. Bucky learned this because you kept appearing in his bookstore throughout the morning, looking vaguely unhinged.
"Do you have tape?"
"Yes."
"Scissors?"
“You stole mine yesterday.”
“Rude. Do you have more?”
“You’re terrifying under pressure, flower girl.”
You pointed at him threateningly before hurrying back next door into Brooklyn Blooms again.
The thing was, Bucky liked watching you work. Maybe too much. Every time business slowed in the bookstore, his attention drifted instinctively toward the neighboring shop. Toward you, weaving between flower buckets with focused determination. Toward your hands, carefully tying satin ribbon around bouquets. Toward the concentrated little crease between your brows while you worked through invoices spread across the counter. You moved beautifully when you were busy. Quickly and gracefully. Every motion already existed in your body before you made it.
Around two in the afternoon, Bucky wandered next door carrying coffee and found you sitting cross-legged on the floor behind the counter, surrounded by flowers and ribbon scraps. You looked exhausted.
“Alive?” he asked.
“Debatable.”
Bucky handed you the coffee. Your fingers brushed his briefly as you took it, warm from handling floral buckets all morning.
“Thanks,” you murmured before immediately taking a desperate sip.
Bucky leaned against the counter nearby, eyes drifting around the shop.
The wedding order was enormous.
Half-finished centerpieces crowded every table. White roses rested in neat piles beside overflowing greenery. Soft instrumental music floated through the overhead speakers while sunlight streamed through the front windows, turning the whole flower shop gold.
“She looked relaxed, too.” You stared into your coffee bitterly. “Like she had peace.”
Bucky only laughed softly, and just like that, your shoulders loosened a little. That was becoming his favorite thing, watching stress leave your face around him.
By late afternoon, Brooklyn Blooms had turned warm and dreamy beneath hanging lights while evening settled slowly over the neighborhood outside. The bookstore had quieted too. Most of the foot traffic disappeared as dinner hour approached, leaving the block calmer than it had been all day. The sky outside glowed dusky blue beyond the windows while storefront lights flickered on one by one down the street.
Bucky locked up the bookstore around seven. Your lights are still on next door. He stepped out of the bookstore and crossed the few feet between your neighboring storefronts before pushing open the door to Brooklyn Blooms. The soft bell chimed gently overhead.
You didn’t notice him at first. You sat on the hardwood floor near the back worktable, surrounded by bouquet boxes and paperwork, one knee pulled against your chest while you tied ribbon around another arrangement with exhausted concentration.
For a second, Bucky just watched you. The shop looked softer at night. More intimate somehow. Golden light spilled low across the floorboards. Flowers cast long shadows against the walls. Outside, Brooklyn moved more quietly now beneath glowing streetlights and passing headlights. Inside, it felt tucked away from the rest of the world.
Your eyes lifted eventually. The second you saw him, your whole expression changed. Your body relaxed a little, and so did your mind.
“Store closed already?” you asked softly.
“Yeah.”
You nodded absently before returning to the ribbon in your hands.
Bucky frowned slightly. “You still working?”
A long sigh escaped you. “Unless one of these bouquets magically finishes itself.”
He looked around the shop at the mountains of flowers, at the exhaustion written all over your face, at the half-eaten pack of crackers abandoned beside your invoices. Then he looks back at you.
“C’mon.”
You blinked up at him. “What?”
“You’re done for tonight.”
“I literally am not.”
“You are now.”
“Bucky.”
“You haven’t eaten real food all day.”
“I had half a muffin.”
“That’s not food.”
“It had blueberries.”
Bucky crouched down in front of you before you could keep arguing. Close enough now that you could smell cedar and coffee clinging to his jacket from next door.
“Flower girl,” he said more quietly this time, “the flowers will still be here in an hour.”
Your breath caught a little at the softness in his voice. You looked down at the ribbon still tangled loosely between your fingers before finally mumbling, “I still need to finish the bridal bouquets.”
“Tomorrow.”
“The wedding’s tomorrow.”
“Then future-you can deal with it.”
You laughed tiredly despite yourself.
“There she is,” Bucky murmured.
Your chest squeezed unexpectedly. Before you could process that too deeply, Bucky reached forward and gently tugged the ribbon from your hands. Then he stood and held a hand toward you.
“Dinner,” he said simply.
You stared up at him. At the roughness of his larger hand, waiting patiently for yours, at the way he looked so certain you’d follow him, and maybe the dangerous thing wasn’t that you wanted to. Maybe it was how safe it felt to.
Slowly, you placed your hand in his. Bucky's fingers closed warmly around yours as he pulled you to your feet. Neither of you let go immediately after.
The tiny Italian restaurant sat three blocks away, tucked between a laundromat and an old tailor shop with faded green awnings. It was warm inside and crowded. The air smelled of garlic, wine, and fresh bread while soft Sinatra crackled through the overhead speakers. Candlelight flickered across dark wood tables packed close enough together that conversations blurred warmly into one another.
Bucky looked unfairly handsome there. You noticed that almost immediately. The low lighting softened the sharp edges of him while warmth colored his features in amber gold. His sleeves were rolled slightly up his forearms now, exposing strong hands wrapped loosely around a wine glass while he watched you across the table with quiet attention. He looked comfortable, relaxed in a way you rarely saw during busy workdays.
“This place is nice,” you said softly while tearing apart a piece of bread.
Bucky shrugged one shoulder. “Been coming here forever.”
“You know everybody in Brooklyn?”
“Most people know me.”
“You’re like a cryptid neighborhood uncle.”
Bucky nearly choked on his drink, laughing. “That’s the meanest thing you’ve ever said to me.”
Your laughter spilled between you easily now.
The evening stretched slowly after that. It was comfortable. The conversation wandered everywhere. You learned that Bucky grew up only a few neighborhoods away from the bookstore. He inherited the shop from an older family friend who retired years ago. He liked old records because they sounded “warmer” than digital music. That he secretly loved terrible black-and-white monster movies despite pretending otherwise.
And Bucky learned things, too. You moved to Brooklyn three years ago because Manhattan felt too loud. Those flowers reminded you of your grandmother’s garden growing up. That you talked with your hands when you got excited. Your smile changed completely when you laughed for real.
At some point, the waitress refilled your wine glasses and smiled knowingly at both of you.
“You two are cute,” she said casually before walking away.
Neither of you spoke. Bucky looked away from her and rubbed the back of his neck. You stared very hard at your plate. You mumbled a quick thank you as she turned to walk away. Your knee brushed his beneath the small table a few seconds later.
Outside, Brooklyn had settled fully into the night by the time you finally left the restaurant. The air felt cooler now. Soft. Streetlights reflected gold against damp sidewalks while the city hummed low and distant around you. Most storefronts had already gone dark for the evening, leaving pockets of warm light glowing across the neighborhood.
You walked beside Bucky slowly. Not because either of you needed to. Because neither of you seemed ready for the night to end yet. Your shoulders bumped occasionally along narrower stretches of sidewalk. Sometimes his hand brushed yours for half a second before pulling away again. Every tiny accidental touch felt enormous now.
When your storefronts finally came into view down the block, both of you slowed instinctively. Brooklyn Blooms glowed softly beside the bookstore beneath the apartment windows above. Bucky’s shop sat dark except for the warm lamp he always left burning near the front window overnight.
You stopped beneath the awning stretching across both storefronts. Neither of you spoke immediately. The city moved quietly around you while distant music drifted faintly through the street somewhere nearby.
You smiled at him softly. "Thanks for dinner, bookstore boy."
Bucky looked at you for a long second, like he was seeing something new.
"Anytime, flower girl," he said quietly.
Eventually, you glanced upward toward the apartment above Brooklyn Blooms before taking a small step backward.
“I should probably finish those bouquets,” you admitted reluctantly.
“Probably.”
“But I’m significantly less miserable now.”
“That’s my specialty.”
Your eyes drifted toward Bucky beside you, and your chest tightened a little at the sight of him standing there beneath the warm streetlight glow. His jacket hung open slightly from the walk back. His hands rested in his pockets like he was trying very hard to seem calmer than he actually was. But something about him felt different now.
Bucky looked down the street briefly before exhaling softly through his nose.
“So,” he started roughly.
You smiled a little. “So?”
His jaw shifted like he was reconsidering whatever he’d been about to say. “I've been thinking about what that waitress said.”
Your heartbeat stumbled immediately. “Oh?”
Bucky rubbed a hand over the back of his neck, suddenly looking deeply uncomfortable in a way you’d never really seen before. Not guarded, but very nervous.
“She said we looked cute together,” he muttered.
Warmth flooded your face instantly. “She did say that.”
“Yeah.”
Silence settled briefly between you again while distant traffic hummed somewhere farther down the block.
Bucky’s gaze dropped toward the sidewalk before lifting back to yours. “And I don’t know,” he admitted quietly. “I guess it got stuck in my head.”
Something soft opened painfully in your chest. The city suddenly felt very far away. Bucky shifted closer slightly beneath the awning, close enough now that you could smell traces of cedar and wine and old paper lingering on him from the bookstore.
“I just...” He paused, visibly searching for the right words. “These last few months with you next door...” A quiet laugh escaped him, almost disbelieving. “You kinda became my favorite part of the day.”
Your eyes widened when he finished his sentence, and Bucky... well, Bucky looked terrified after saying it.
“You come into the bookstore, and suddenly it doesn’t feel so empty anymore,” he continued softly. “And I keep finding reasons to walk next door even when I don’t need anything.” His mouth tugged into the faintest self-conscious smile. “Pretty sure everybody on this block figured it out before I did.”
Your eyes burned unexpectedly, because god... You'd been feeling it too. Every morning waiting for his bookstore lights to turn on beside yours. Every coffee shared between customers. Every flower he carefully kept alive like it mattered. Every moment he lingered in Brooklyn Blooms just to stand near you.
You stepped closer to him. "Bucky," you whispered.
His eyes lifted to yours immediately, hopeful in the smallest, most fragile way.
"I like you too," you admitted softly.
The tension in his shoulders loosened so fast it almost hurt to see.
“No,” you corrected gently, smiling despite the way your heart pounded. “Actually, I think I’ve been a little in love with you for a while now.”
Bucky stared at you, completely still. Like the words had knocked the air from his lungs. Then he laughed quietly under his breath, almost overwhelmed by it.
“Jesus Christ,” he murmured.
“What?”
“You can’t just say things like that to me, flower girl.”
Your smile widened helplessly. The look on his face right then nearly ruined you. Soft and warm, like he was seeing something precious.
Slowly, carefully, Bucky lifted one hand toward your face, giving you every chance to pull away. You didn't. His knuckles brushed your cheek so gently it made your chest ache.
"You sure?" he asked quietly.
And there he is... Bucky Barnes beneath all the gruffness and teasing and quiet staring. Careful with you, gentle.
You leaned into his touch slightly. "So sure."
Something tender cracked open in his expression. Then Bucky kissed you. Softly at first, tentatively. Like he was still half-convinced you might disappear if he moved too quickly. But the second your hand slid into the front of his jacket, and you kissed him back, something warm and relieved left him in a quiet breath against your mouth. It deepened slowly after that. Totally unhurried. His hand settled gently against your jaw while yours curled against his chest, feeling the steady, rapid thud of his heartbeat beneath your palm.
The kiss felt exactly like the last few months have felt with him. Warm coffee. Soft music through the walls. Rain against the flower shop windows. The faint smell of dirt and florals. The musky, cedar scent of the bookstore. Home.
When you finally pulled apart, neither of you had moved very far. Bucky rested his forehead lightly against yours, eyes closed briefly like he needed a second to recover.
“Well,” he murmured softly.
You laughed breathlessly. “Well?”
“Think the neighborhood’s gonna be unbearable about this.”
You grinned. “Mrs. Alvarez is going to throw rice at us.”
“Barista’s never letting me live it down.”
Your fingers brushed lightly along the front of his jacket. “You seem pretty okay with that suddenly.”
Bucky opened his eyes then. And the look there nearly stole your breath all over again.
“Yeah,” he said quietly. “I really am.”
Above you, apartment windows glowed warmly over Brooklyn Blooms and the bookstore while Brooklyn hummed softly into the night around you. And beneath the shared awning between your neighboring shops, Bucky kissed you again like he’d been wanting to for months.
All Chalky Rainbow Dividers used are made by @uzmacchiato, and you can find them here! Thank you <3
Thanks for reading! A reminder that my requests are open! <3
and he's always affectionate even in front of others
and he would do ANYTHING for her, literally anything and maybe they're talking abt it and then he proves it in different occasions
Bucky’s always been intense—it’s just that now all of it is aimed at you.
It’s obvious to everyone but him.
The first time Sam notices, it’s something small. You’re sitting at the kitchen island in the Tower, scrolling on your phone, legs swinging absentmindedly off the stool. Bucky’s standing behind you, mid-conversation with Steve, but his hand never leaves you—broad palm spread over your thigh, thumb dragging slow, distracted strokes like he doesn’t even realize he’s doing it. Every few seconds, he squeezes, grounding himself in you.
“Buck,” Sam says, eyebrow raised. “You know she’s not gonna disappear if you let go for five minutes, right?”
Bucky frowns like that’s the dumbest thing he’s ever heard. “Why would I let go?”
You snort softly, not even looking up. You’re used to it—used to him always touching you, always orbiting you like you’re the center of his gravity. His hand slides higher, fingertips pressing just beneath the hem of your shorts, and he leans down, brushing his mouth against your temple without breaking eye contact with Sam.
“See?” Sam mutters to Steve. “Sickening.”
Steve just shrugs, smiling into his coffee. “Let him be. He’s happy.”
Happy doesn’t even begin to cover it.
Bucky is gone for you.
It shows up in little things first—like the way he automatically reaches for your hand when you walk anywhere together, fingers lacing tight, like he needs the contact. The way he always sits you on his lap instead of beside him, no matter who’s around. The way he kisses you hello like he hasn’t seen you in weeks, even if you were in the next room five minutes ago.
But it’s more than that.
It’s the way he watches you.
Like you hung the damn moon.
“You’re staring again,” you murmur one night, curled up on the couch with him, your legs draped across his lap.
Bucky hums, unashamed, eyes tracing your face like he’s committing every inch to memory. “Yeah.”
“Why?” you tease, tilting your head.
He shrugs, but his hand slides up your calf, slow and deliberate, fingers squeezing gently. “’Cause I like looking at you.”
Your cheeks warm, but you don’t look away. “You always like looking at me.”
“Yeah,” he repeats, softer this time, like it means something deeper. “Always.”
And he does.
God, he does.
So when the conversation happens, it’s not exactly surprising—but it still hits you right in the chest.
You’re lying in bed, half asleep, tracing lazy patterns over the skin of his chest while he plays with your hair, gently untangling strands between his fingers.
“You know,” you mumble, voice thick with sleep, “you’re kind of ridiculous.”
Bucky huffs a quiet laugh. “Yeah? How’s that?”
“You’d do anything for me,” you say, like it’s a fact. “It’s… a lot.”
There’s no judgment in your tone, just soft wonder. But Bucky still goes still beneath you.
“Yeah,” he says after a beat. “I would.”
You prop your chin on his chest, peering up at him. “Anything?”
His gaze drops to you instantly, intense and steady, like the answer is carved into him.
“Anything,” he repeats.
You study him for a second, searching for hesitation, for doubt—there isn’t any. Just that unwavering certainty that’s so uniquely him it makes your chest ache.
“You’re serious,” you whisper.
Bucky’s thumb brushes over your cheek, slow and reverent. “You ask me for something, I’m giving it to you. No questions.”
You smile a little, teasing again to lighten the weight of it. “That’s dangerous, Barnes.”
“Not for you,” he murmurs.
You don’t realize how literal he is until later.
---
The first time he proves it, it’s stupid.
You mention, offhandedly, that you’ve been craving this specific dessert from a bakery across the city—something you haven’t had in years. It’s late, past midnight, and you’re already half asleep when you say it, voice drowsy and unfocused.
“Miss those little chocolate things,” you mumble into his shoulder. “With the caramel… remember?”
Bucky hums, pressing a kiss to your hair. “Yeah, I remember.”
You forget about it.
Of course you do.
Until you wake up a couple hours later, cold and alone in bed.
Panic flares for half a second—until you hear the front door click open.
You sit up, blinking in the dim light, just as Bucky walks in, hair tousled, jacket thrown over a t-shirt, a small paper box in his hand.
“Hey,” he says softly, like this is normal.
You stare at him. “Where did you go?”
He sets the box on the nightstand, opening it carefully. Inside are the exact pastries you mentioned—perfect, untouched, like he hand-delivered a memory.
“You said you wanted these,” he shrugs.
“Bucky,” you breathe, stunned. “It’s two in the morning.”
“Yeah.”
“You drove across the city—for dessert?”
His brow furrows, confused by your tone, like he doesn’t understand why this is surprising. “You wanted it.”
Something in your chest twists, tight and overwhelming.
“That’s not the point,” you whisper.
He pauses, studying your face, and then his expression softens when he sees it—how much it means to you.
“Oh,” he murmurs.
Your eyes sting a little as you reach for him, pulling him down into the bed, your hands cupping his face. “You’re insane.”
“Yeah,” he breathes against your lips, smiling faintly. “But you got your pastries.”
You kiss him, slow and deep, tasting the night air on his mouth.
---
The second time isn’t small.
It’s a mission gone sideways, a situation that escalates too fast, too dangerously. You’re pinned down, separated from the team, comm crackling with static.
“Bucky, don’t—” you start, trying to warn him, trying to keep him back.
But he’s already moving.
“Hold on,” he growls into the comm, voice sharp and unyielding. “I’m coming.”
“Bucky, it’s not safe—”
“Don’t care,” he snaps.
And he doesn’t.
Not when it comes to you.
He cuts through everything in his path—soldiers, debris, chaos—like it’s nothing, like the only thing that exists is getting to you. When he finally reaches you, dropping to his knees in front of you, hands immediately on your face, your shoulders, checking for injuries—
“Are you okay?” he demands, voice rough.
You nod, breath shaky. “I’m fine.”
He exhales like he’s been holding it the entire time, pressing his forehead to yours for a split second before pulling back, eyes blazing.
“Don’t ever tell me not to come for you,” he says, low and fierce. “You hear me?”
Your heart stutters. “Bucky—”
“I meant it,” he cuts in, softer now, but no less intense. “Anything. That includes this.”
You swallow, your hands finding his, squeezing tight.
“Okay,” you whisper.
---
The third time, it’s quiet.
You’re back home, safe, curled into his side while a movie plays in the background. His fingers trace lazy circles on your arm, grounding, steady.
“You really mean it, don’t you?” you murmur.
Bucky glances down at you. “Mean what?”
“Anything,” you say softly.
He doesn’t hesitate.
“Yeah,” he replies.
Your chest aches in that same overwhelming way, but this time it’s warm, steady, certain.
You shift closer, pressing your face into his neck, breathing him in. “Good.”
His arm tightens around you instantly, pulling you flush against him like it’s instinct.
“Why’s that?” he asks.
You tilt your head up, meeting his eyes, a small smile tugging at your lips.
“Because I’d do anything for you too.”
For once, Bucky’s the one who looks a little stunned.
And then he kisses you like he’s never going to stop.
Summary: Partners in the field, best friends everywhere else, and cowards about their feelings. It takes one bullet on Valentine's Day to rip the silence open.
Warnings/tags: gunshot injury, surgery mention, near death, angst, hurt comfort, steve/natasha/tony are alive, mission gone wrong, besties to lovers, only one use of doll, happy ending
The tower kitchen is too bright for six in the morning. You squint as the winter sunlight spills through the floor-to-ceiling windows, pale and almost silver, washing over the marble countertops and catching on the stainless steel appliances. The city below is still stretching awake, traffic thin, steam rising in soft curls from street grates. Up here, everything feels suspended, like the world hasn't quite started yet.
Bucky's already there, quietly facing away from the entry, watching the coffee drip into the pot. The light cuts across his back, metal reflecting the morning's glow. He looks soft in the light, though his features are sharp.
You don't say anything when you step in. The tile is cool beneath your feet, and the hem of your sweater brushes your thighs as you cross the room. The smell of the coffee hangs thick in the air. He doesn't look at you right away, but his shoulders ease a fraction when he notices your presence. He seems to know when it's you.
"Can't sleep?" you ask quietly, reaching past him for the coffee pot.
He steps aside, making room for you. His arm brushes yours, warm and solid. "Somethin' like that," he murmurs.
You pour your coffee slowly. The light catches the thin line of steam rising between you. You hold the pot toward him, signalling your willingness to refill his mug. He stretches his arm out, fingers curled around the handle.
Across the kitchen table, Sam lowers his spoon with a pointed clink against the bowl. "It's too early for this," he mutters. "It's Valentine's Day, and I'm having to do a stupid mission instead of wining and dining my lady."
"Sounds like you're doing plenty of whining," You smirk over the rim of your mug.
Sam points his spoon at you in accusation, but he's smiling. The kitchen feels warmer for a second, lighter, like this is just another morning and not the start of something dangerous. Not the kind of day that gets circled on calendars and wrapped in red hearts and pink lips.
Valentine's Day.
You hadn't meant to think about it all last night. It's easier not to; easier to pretend it's just another square on the calendar, just another mission day, just another early morning with mediocre coffee and tired eyes. Except it feels strange this year, almost... off balance. Because if you could choose where to be tonight, it wouldn't be at a restaurant or on a date.
It would be exactly where you usually are anyway, shoulder to shoulder with Bucky, sharing takeout containers and quiet conversations about everything and nothing. Your knees bumping his when you laugh at something he says. It's comfortable. Easy. Almost dangerous in a way that has nothing to do with the missions you go on.
He's your best friend. That's the name you gave it. It's safe that way. The one that lets you keep him around without risking the relationship. But lately the word feels small. You wonder, not for the first time, when "best friend" turned into the person you look for in every room before anyone else. The person whose footsteps you can pick out from the hallway. The one you save the last sip, the last bite, the last story of the night for.
Your gaze drifts to him without meaning to. It always does. You notice he's pretending not to listen to Sam anymore, but he definitely is. His mouth is doing that barely there thing, not quite a smile, but a small curl in the corners. The morning light sits in his hair, softening his appearance, making him look less like a weapon and more like a man who belongs in the kitchen at sunrise. Your chest tightens quickly. If anyone asked, you'd say today didn't matter. But man, it certainly feels like it should.
His eyes lift like he feels it. They land on you with quiet precision. Caught in the act, you forget to look away right off. For half a second, it's just the two of you in the kitchen, city glowing behind him, dust motes turning lazy circles in the light.
There's something unfair about how gentle he looks this early. No armor, no tactical gear, just a dark Henley stretched across his shoulders and sleep clinging to the edges of him.
"What?" he asks softly.
The word is low, private, and meant only for you, despite the fact that Sam is still loudly excavating cereal nearby.
You blink. "What, what?"
"You're starin'," he says, and there's a faint hint of humor in it, tucked into the corners of his mouth. Not a tease or a challenge, just a simple observation offered carefully.
Heat creeps up your neck. "Am not."
He lifts one brow, but he doesn't argue. Somehow, that makes it worse. Your pulse does that annoying stutter; it only ever does around him. You take another sip of your coffee to buy yourself a second. It would be so easy to tell the truth. I like looking at you. I always have.
Instead, you shrug. "You look grumpy. I was just checkin' if the coffee offended you again."
That earns you a real reaction, a soft laugh. "It's terrible," he says. "Think it melted the spoon."
"It's stainless steel, Buck," you reply.
"Still offended."
Sam groans. "I'm surrounded by chaos. Romance is dead."
You laugh, but your attention slides right back to Bucky Barnes, pulled there like it always is. His shoulder brushes yours when he leaves over to grab the coffee pot. It's a small, unconscious lean that he never corrects. Comfort settles in again, familiar and dangerous. It's the kind that makes you forget the lines you're supposed to stay behind.
Somewhere down the hall, the alert chime sounds. It's not too loud from where you are, but it's enough to make you sigh. You hear Sam push his chair back as he stands to bring his bowl to the sink. Bucky's expression shifts. The day is starting whether you like it or not.
Bucky sets his mug in the sink next to the bowl, already shifting into motion. Mission mode never looks dramatic on him. A straightening spine, a quieter face. All focus and no fun.
"You comin'?" he asks.
You nod and set your mug down. Your fingers bump the ceramic, still warm from his hand. The heat lingers for a second against your skin, and you hate how aware you are of it.
The hallway outside the kitchen is cooler, the polished floor reflecting the morning light in long pale stripes. Your footsteps fall into rhythm beside his without effort. They usually do. You've walked like this a thousand times, close enough that your sleeves brush, far enough that no one would think anything of it. Most of them think something of it, though.
Your shoulder knocks his lightly when he slows to let a tech hurry past. His hand comes up automatically, hovering near your back, not fully touching you. You feel it anyway, like he's protecting you.
"You bring your good boots?" you ask quietly.
He glances down at them like he has to check. "I always do."
"Last time you wore the old ones and complained for six hours."
"I did not complain."
"You narrated your suffering?"
"That's different."
You smile. There it is again, that almost smile of his in response, small but real. People sometimes say relationships are built on big moments. But yours is built on this. Shared steps and low voices. Knowing exactly how someone takes their coffee and hovering hands without needing credit for the catch.
Up ahead, the briefing room doors slide open. Screens glow blue against the dim interior. The rest of the team is already filtering in, half-suited, half-caffeinated. The room smells of coffee, still steaming in the single-use cups. A wide holographic display rotates slowly above the central table, throwing blue light across tired faces as everyone settles into place. You take your usual seat without thinking, and like always, Bucky ends up in the chair beside you. Your legs meet briefly under the table, and you smile at him before turning your attention to the front of the room.
A satellite image sharpens overhead. Industrial buildings, rail lines, and a river cut through the edge of the property line.
"Alright, lovebirds and lonely hearts," Sam says, dropping into his chair and spinning it once before stopping with his boots hooked on the table edge. "Let's ruin the most romantic day of the year."
"I had a whole speech about work-life balance prepared, but then illegal weapons trafficking ruined the mood," Tony says.
A few groans answer him.
"We intercepted encrypted chatter late last night. A breakaway weapons cell set up temporary operations here, inside an abandoned freight distribution hub just outside the city. They're moving product, and we think it's for something bigger."
"Define product," you say.
"Portable guided munitions," Tony answers. "Shoulder launcher, smart tracking, not very romantic. The kind of stuff that turns crowded places into headlines."
Everyone sighs. Thermal scans layer over the model. Moving heat signatures. Parked trucks. Guard rotations plotted in neat predictive loops.
"Buyer?" Steve asks.
"Still in the wind," Tony replies. "Which means if this shipment rolls, we get to play find the missile later. I hate sequels."
"Got it. So we hit it before it moves." Sam says.
"Gold star," Tony points a finger at him. "Transfer closes before noon. After that, distribution branches and our neat little problem become a messy big one."
Routes appear in colored lines. Entry vectors, blind spots, and jammer zones pulse red. Security notes scroll beside the map: patrol density, signal interference, and interior barricades built from old shipping containers.
"Outer ring is armed and alert," Tony continues. "Inner flor is compartmentalized. They're expecting competition, just not you specifically, which I find insulting."
"Tragic," Bucky deadpans.
"My reservation's at seven," Sam mutters. "Non-refundable."
Tony doesn't look up. "You've generously donated to the restaurant industry."
Sam gestures between you and Bucky. "Meanwhile, these two have zero plans ever and look the most offended."
You keep your eyes on the map. It's safer there. Assignment tags blink across the layout. Advance element, east service corridor. Your name. Bucky Barnes.
Sam makes a soft drumroll on the table. "Predictable and adorable."
Tony points at Sam, "Ariel sweep. No flirting with the hostiles."
"No promises."
The plan builds in layers, contingencies stacking clean and fast. Timing is everything in missions like this. Speed matters more. Every minute of delay increases the odds that those launchers leave the building.
"Go suit up. If we're fast enough, nobody should miss their plans tonight."
Chairs slide back, and you hear the sound of boots down the hall as the mission gravity settles in. You stand at the same time Bucky does. Of course you do. Your sleeves brush as you turn toward the exit. You're not exactly sure when you started noticing every little touch, or look, or breath he takes.
The corridor outside the briefing room is quieter than the main floors, with the lights set low for the early hour. Your footsteps echo in sync, a steady rhythm that matches the pulse in your throat. Pre-mission silence feels stretched tight, every sense tuned sharper. People don't joke as much out here.
Your hand flexes at your side, already thinking through your kit, blade placement, reload time, angles of entry. But there's something else layered beneath today's readiness, something more distracting. Maybe it's the date. Maybe it's him. It's probably the two combined.
"You good?" he asks.
He doesn't look at you when he says it. Eyes forward, scanning corners like you're already midmission.
"Yeah..." you answer. "You?"
"Always."
It's automatic, the reply. You know better. He knows you know better.
A tech team rolls a cart across the intersecting hall, and Bucky reaches up to grab your elbow to pull you back. You just missed the cart. You could live inside these touches. You already do.
"Whoa," you gasp. "Thanks, Buck."
His mouth curves faintly, there and gone.
The armory door slides open with a hydraulic hiss. Inside, the air smells like oil, cold steel, and polymer. Overhead strip lights reflect off neatly organized racks, labeled drawers, and charging stations blink green. You head over to your station.
Gear up is its own language. No wasted motions. You lay everything out first, same order every time. Twin knives balanced with familiarity in your palms. Widow bite gauntlets, compact and dark, you snap them open and check the charge indicators. Micro line launcher, shock disks, compact smoke pellets. Each piece of gear gets a touch, a check, and a place on your frame.
Across from you, Bucky works in heavier shapes and darker lines. Field pistols broken down and reassembled with fluid precision. Magazine springs tested, slides racked. He lines up his knives last, more of them than anyone else carries, edges catching the light like thin mirrors. You watch his hands for half a second too long, and he notices.
He spins one blade once, testing the weight, then loops up at you without lifting his head. "You're doin' it again."
"Doin' what?"
"Starin' at me."
"I'm observing craftsmanship, James."
"It's a knife."
"It's your knife."
His eyebrows raise. You feel the warmth creep up your neck. You step closer before you even think about it.
"Hold still," you say.
He does. The leather's twisted near the buckle. You straighten it, fingers working close to his collarbone. You can feel his warmth through the fabric, steady and solid. Your knuckles brush the edge of a scar. His breathing shifts just slightly.
"All set," you murmur.
Your turn comes faster than expected. His flesh hand checks the seal on your gauntlet strap, firm and careful. He always double-checks your restraints and closures.
"Good," he says quietly.
For a second, you're standing close enough that if either of you leaned in, even a little, the line you've protected for so long would disappear.
Boots thud past the armory entrance, voices come and go, and suddenly reality sets in again. Weapons loaded, armor ready, hearts doing things they shouldn't be doing. You push those feelings aside and steady yourself before heading toward the Quinjet.
The ramp hums under your boots as you board. Inside, the cabin lights glow low amber, casting long shadows across harness straps and cargo netting. The familiar shape of the jet feels steadier than the morning has.
Sam drops into the seat across from you and starts strapping in, still talking like the silence might actually kill him. "I just want it noted," he starts, "that if anybody asks, I was ready to be romantic today.
From the cockpit doorway, Nat glances back while running a systems check on her wrist display. "You say that every year."
"I mean it every year."
"It's never true, though."
He presses a hand to his chest. "That hurts."
She doesn't even look up. "You'll live."
Bucky takes the seat beside you, knees almost touching yours in the narrow spacing. He locks his harness with one clean pull, then checks yours without comment. Tug, glance, satisfied nod. Every flight, without fail. Across the aisle, Steve adjusts his gloves with a quiet focus. His posture is straight, even at rest. He looks up and scans the cabin, doing his own head count. He always does.
"Wheels up in thirty seconds. Primary plan still holds." Steve says calmly.
A few nods. Tension is thick, though, it always is before a mission. You lean forward to recheck your gauntlet charge. Green reflections dance across your knuckles. Bucky watches the motion, cataloging it without meaning to. He wonders, not for the first time, how someone built for sharp edges learned to move so carefully. He's supposed to be reviewing entry angles. Instead, he's memorizing the way your mouth presses into a thin line when you concentrate.
The engines deepen in pitch. The cabin vibrates through the soles of his boots. Mission gravity settles in his chest, a familiar weight that he's grown accustomed to. Danger is simple when you're a deadly assassin. Feelings for your best friend aren't. He's risked everything in wars, in prisons, in the blank spaces where his past was taken from him. Yet saying one honest sentence to you feels more terrifying than any of that.
You glance over, catching him looking this time. You lift your eyebrows in a silent question. "You're quiet," you say over the engine.
"Thinkin'," he answers.
"Uh oh."
"Yeah," he says softly. "Uh oh."
The jet lifts. Natasha's voice comes over the cabin channel. "Check comms. Jammers might be active."
Sam groans. "Nothing says Valentine's Day like signal interference and ass-kicking."
Bucky flexes his metal fingers once, then rests his hands on his knees. He's completely gone for you and running out of reasons to pretend otherwise.
The jet settles into descent with a controlled shudder, engines throttling down to a low, predatory hum. The cabin lights shift to red. Outside the small side window, the warehouse district spreads in gray blocks and skeletal remains of buildings that once held life. Morning haze clings to the river. Mission air feels thick and sharp.
Bucky rolls his shoulders once and lets the soldier part of him take the wheel, but it doesn't push everything else out. It never really does when you're within arm's reach. Harnesses click open in staggered snaps. Across the cabin, Steve stands first.
"Final check. Comms are good, keep them clear. We stay quiet unless we need to."
"Copy," comes Nat over the internal channel, already mission-ready near the ramp.
Sam taps his earpiece. "If I whisper any quieter, I'm technically thinking."
"You should try that more often." You say.
Bucky doesn't smile, but he feels the shape of one trying to happen. His attention keeps splitting, half on approach vectors, half on you doing your premission ritual. Adjusting your gloves for the third time, a tell you don't know you have: anxious, nervous, whatever you want to call it.
You stand from your seat and close your eyes. You cross your left arm over your chest, your right hand grabbing that elbow to stretch. You take a deep breath. Then you do the same motion with the opposite arms. You drop your arms and drop your head back, taking another deep breath. You shake your hands out by your sides. Bucky watches you every time. Infactuated? Captivating?
He wants to tell you to be careful. He wants to tell you to stay behind him. He wants to say I'll protect you. Instead, he checks your shoulder seam for a snag that isn't there and pulls his hand back as if nothing happened.
"Another day, another mission." You whisper, smiling at Bucky.
"We'll do fine." He nods, seriously. Stoic soldier fronting.
"That's why I love ya, Buck." You laugh quietly.
The ramp lowers just enough to slip bodies through. Cold air rushes in, damp and metallic, carrying the smell of wet concrete and old fuel. The jet sets down behind a derelict storage structure two blocks from the target, shielded from line of sight. Boots hit the ground softly with silent nods to the rest of the group. Formations take place instantly.
Tony's voice threads through the comms, filtered and dry. "Nice and warm here in the Tower, folks. Satellite drift in ninety seconds. After that, you're under local for another ninety. That cycle repeats. Try not to do anything cinematic."
"No promises," Sam whispers.
You and Bucky peel off together toward the eastern approach, cutting between stacked cargo containers beaded with condensation. Your movement matches his without signals, without discussion. Years of shared missions turned into instinct. He knows your pace, your angles, and how much distance you like between you and a partner when you're hunting quietly. He knows the sounds you make when you're trying not to be scared.
You're making it now, that almost silent breath through your nose. It's controlled. But he knows it, hears it. He wants to reach for your hand again. The urge is sudden and overwhelming. But it's not smart.
"In position," Steve says into comms. "Status report."
Bucky keys his mic with a minimal press. "East corridor. No visual compromise."
"Copy," Steve says. "We're staged west. Sam, status."
"Nothing above so far."
You crouch at the service door access panel, pulling a slim tool from your belt. Your shoulder brushes Bucky's thigh as you work. He watches your hands instead of the perimeter for half a bear too long, but he trusts his training to cover the gap. He knows the curve of your focused face better than he knows his weapons at this point.
The lock clicks open under your tool with a tiny metallic sigh. You glance up at him, eyes bright.
"Ready?" you mouth.
He nods once. Steady on the outside, but falling straight through the inside.
The door opens, and you slip in first. Smooth and low, Bucky follows close enough to cover your blind side without crowding your movement. Inside, the air changes. Stale dust, cold iron, and old oil soaked into concrete. Light filters through high cracked windows in pale vertical strips, turning floating particles into drifting static. Somewhere deeper in the structure, machinery rattles from the wind. The door eases shut behind Bucky with barely a sound.
Bucky's senses narrow and sharpen. Angles, shadows, and distance to cover fill his mind. The world becomes lines and timing. And you. Always you at the center of his awareness like a fixed star.
"East corridor entry complete," you say quietly over comms, voice steady and low.
"Copy," Steve answers. "West team moving to outer ring."
"Roofline set," Sam adds. "Two patrols above you, catwalk level."
You hold up two fingers, then point left. Your wrist gadget shows a heat signature under the next doorway. Bucky nods once. He shifts and draws a knife.
The guard steps halfway through the doorway and never gets the chance to finish his next step. Your widow line snaps tight around his ankles and pulls him off balance while Bucky closes the distance. One hand over his mouth, one precise strike.
You look at Bucky, quickly checking on him. He gives you a nod before he turns to continue through the door. Every time you move like this, efficient and alive, something in his chest aches with pride he has no right to claim. You're not his to protect, but he does it anyway.
You advance deeper. The corridor opens onto a loading floor the size of a football field, stacked with crates, hung with chains, and suspended walkways. Voices carry in broken reflections off metal walls. Engines idle near the far bays. Transfer is active, and Tony was right on the mark.
"Visual on cargo," you report calmly. "Multiple crates, launcher-sized."
"Confirmed," Tony says. "Tags match."
A laugh drifts across the floor from a cluster of armed buyers near a truck. They think they're safe. It's almost comical. They're casual and relaxed. Just hoping for the next big payday.
Bucky watches you scan sightlines, mark routes, and count bodies. You watch him when you can, too. How his head drops slightly when he's zoning in on a target. How he flips his knife before sinking into a hostile. How he always seems to be looking at you when you want to look at him.
He loves you. You love him.
The thought lands fully formed this time in Bucky's head, in his chest, in his heart.
It should feel like a crisis. Instead, it feels like the missing piece that he hadn't realized he was missing.
"East side, hold," Steve says over comms. "West is almost in position."
"Copy," Bucky answers.
You both settle behind a stack of wrapped pallets. Close enough that your arms are pressed along his from shoulder to wrist. His breathing is steady, and you count it without meaning to. His metal fingers flex once against the knife handle.
"West side set," says Steve in your ear. "Eyes on three exterior doors and the north catwalk."
"Roofline ready," adds Sam. "I've got overwatch on two trucks and a bored guy picking his teeth."
"Focus," Nat sighs.
"I am focused. On his dental hygiene."
You shift beside Bucky, leaning just enough to sight past the pallet edge. He adjusts with you automatically, your shoulders aligned, fields of fire interlocked. It feels like dancing, if dancing involved knives and suppressed rounds.
"Buck, you're cleared to move to inner cover."
You move together from pallets to crates to forklifts. Each crossing is timed between patrol turns and engine noise. Your wrist gadget flicks once, twice, disabling a camera node with a soft spark that vanishes beneath the echoing machinery.
Bucky tracks threats, but he also tracks you. The way you signal without looking. The way you trust him to be exactly where you expect. And you do. Because he's Bucky, the same guy who has never let you down even one single time. Who you love. Trust is a heavier weight than armor.
A buyer group shifts near the central truck, weapons sling careless. One steps away to smoke. Nat's voice threads in, low and certain. "Isolated target, south stack. I've got him."
Three seconds later, the man is quietly horizontal and out of the story.
"Outer ring is thinning," she reports.
"Timing's good. Tony says over comms. "Thermals show crate loading starting now. You're inside their window."
You pause behind a vertical beam, back almost against his chest as you peek at the angle. He can feel you breathe through layers of gear. He could say it right now, he thinks wildly. After this, he promises himself. After this push, we're home. No more waiting for the perfect moment.
Across the floor, Steve and Nat shift positions among stacked cargo, drawing attention with their subtle, deliberate movement. Guards are redirected over towards them. Lines of sight change. Everyone's watching something and tracking someone, adjusting for obvious threats.
"Let's move in, fast."
The warehouse erupts into motion, controlled and surgical. Steve and Nat make noise, a rolling wave of impact and command presence that pulls attention hard. Shouted orders are heard over the hum of machinery as hostiles make their way over. Eyes turn away from your sector exactly as planned.
"Go," Bucky says, already moving.
You launch with him. There's no hesitation between you, no verbal count. You both break cover on the same breath, splitting angles like mirrored instinct. Your widow line snaps out and yanks a rifle sideways just as its owner tries to shoulder it. Bucky's already there, driving forward, disarming with a brutal twist. He drops the man flat. You pivot off Bucky's momentum, plant a boot on a crate edge, and vault. Midair, you loosen a shock disk that pops up against a second guard's vest in a crackle of blue. He folds with a strangled yelp. Bucky doesn't even need to look to confirm. He knows you hit your shots.
He covers your landing with two suppressed shots, tight grouping, and clean. Your knife flashes past his shoulder a split second later and buries into the strap of a third hostile's weapon, pinning it useless against a post. It's just you and him, years of watching each other move, learning rhythms, building a shared combat language no one ever formally taught.
"Cutting center," Bucky reports.
"Seen," Steve answers. "Keep pushing."
A forklift roars to life near the truck bay as a driver panics. You're already moving toward it. Bucky beats you there by half a stride and shoots the hydraulics. The machine slumps sideways with a groan, blocking the exit.
You grin at him, quick and bright. "Show off."
He almost says only for you. Instead, he tosses your thrown knife back to you without looking. You catch it by the handle. More proof of how locked in you are with each other. Gunfire cracks from the catwalks, misdirected toward Steve's pressure line. Sam's voice cuts in.
"Topside scrambling. I'm herding."
"Copy," says Nat. "Left ladder clear."
Bucky steps into your space to redirect your line of fire by half an inch, his metal arm bracing briefly against your ribs so you don't overexpose yourself beyond cover. The contact is firm, protective, and gone way too fast. His heart is pounding harder from that than from the shooting.
He's dimly aware that if anyone watched you two long enough, they'd see it. Not just the efficiency, but the care threaded through it. The constant adjustments to keep each other safe. You've never fought like this with anyone else.
The last guard in your immediate lane drops. For half a second, it feels like the center is yours. Noise shifts and targets are thinning out.
Nobody calls out the guard on the far mezzanine. Bucky starts to turn toward you to say your name. The rifle cracks. The sound is wrong. Not the scattered echo of crossfire, not the muffled thump of suppressed shots. This one is sharp and clean and close enough that Bucky feels it in his teeth.
He's already turning toward you when it happens. Your body jerks like someone yanked a wire through you. The motion is small, almost confused, and then momentum disappears. The knife slips from your fingers and clatters across the concrete in a lonely metallic spin. For half a heartbeat, his brain refuses to translate what he's seeing. He sees the red bloom on your suit, and the color leaves your face.
"Contact, mezzanine!" Sam barks over comms a fraction too late. "High right!"
Bucky is moving before the words finish. He fires twice at the man who may have just killed you. Pure instinct, driving the shooter back behind the railing. You hit the ground hard. Everything drops out of focus. Sound narrows to a high rushing ring. The warehouse becomes distant shapes and irrelevant motion.
Training says to secure the threat, maintain formation, and keep the objective in sight. Bucky drops to his knees beside you instead. Your eyes are open but unfocused, breathing unevenly. Blood is spreading fast through the seam of your suit at your side, darker than the shadows.
"No," he hears himself say, rough and immediate. "No, no, no."
"What's going on?" Steve says through comms.
"We're hit, it looks bad," Bucky responds, no longer mission-focused.
His gloves are already slick as he clamps pressure over the wound, hands shaking despite iron strength.
"Stay with me," he says to you, voice breaking loose from control. "Look at me."
You try to focus on him. The pain comes in waves but never stops. You summon all the strength you have left to reach for his face, trying to cup his cheek. He reaches out to help you bring his hand to his cheek. You move your thumb once before feeling like you're fading away.
This is the moment he's rehearsed in nightmares, always wordless, always too late. He doesn't want this to be the end.
"Med evac is almost here," Nat says. "I'm moving to them."
"Shooter confirmed dead. We got 'em all." Sam comms.
Bucky leans closer, forehead almost touching yours, the world reduced to your barely there breath and the heat leaving your skin under his hands.
"I was gonna tell you," he blurts, the words tearing out unfiltered. "I was gonna tell you after this, I swear."
He presses harder on the wound, but the blood doesn't stop coming. You try to speak, but the words can't come out. You form what you think are words for Bucky, but they come out as pained moans.
"You can't," he says, voice fraying. This is the man under the soldier stripped bare.
Steve walks up to Bucky, who's still learning over your body.
"C'mon, Buck, we gotta get her out of her."
Bucky looks up at Steve, two lone tears stream down either side of his face. Steve puts a hand on his shoulder and gives it a light squeeze.
Bucky whispers in your ear, hoping you can hear him, "I love you. Please stay."
You're on the med jet, strapped to a stabilization board, with med foam packed right against the wound. Your face has gone too pale under the smear of blood and antiseptic. It launches almost the moment your stretcher locks into place. Priority transport. Gone into the morning sky before the rest of the team even finishes loading out.
Bucky watches it disappear through the narrowing edge of the ramp, jaw locked so tightly it aches. He doesn't realize he's taken a step after it until Steve puts a steady hand on his shoulder.
"They'll get her there faster this way." He reminds Bucky quietly.
Bucky nods once. It's not really an agreement, but he knows he can't do anything about it.
There's no banter on their flight home. No post-mission ritual. Just engine thunder and the low vibration through the deck plates. The cabin lights stay dim.
Bucky sits away from everyone else, his eyes stuck on the floor between his boots. Elbows resting on his knees, hands hanging empty between them.
The other three sit near enough to talk quietly. Nat cleans blood off her gloves with slow strokes. Sam takes worried glances at Bucky every now and then, checking on him silently. His wings are folded neatly, and he removes some gear for an excuse to fidget with something.
Bucky keeps replaying the moment in his head. He can still hear the sound of the gun going off. He can hear the gasp you let out when the bullet entered your skin. He can see the color drain from your face and the glossy look of your eyes before they finally shut. He'll never forgive himself if that's the last time he sees you. The last time he feels your warm skin and listens to you tease him for being a show off. His brain is trying to solve it differently, like there's still time to intercept the bullet.
After a while, Sam clears his throat. "She's stubborn," he says. "That counts for something."
"It counts for a lot."
Bucky swallows hard. He hasn't been able to trust his voice. Steve unstraps and crosses the distance, movements balanced against the jet. He doesn't sit down, just braces a hand on the seat frame beside Bucky.
"You did everything right," Steve says.
Bucky lets out a shaky breath that almost turns into a broken laugh. "I didn't, she still got hit."
"That doesn't mean you failed."
"It does to me."
Steve studies him for a moment, not pushing him to say more. "You broke the shooter's line of sight in under a second. You stopped that second round. You kept her alive."
What happened, Bucky thinks, is that he almost lost her. And he should have been the one to take the bullet. His hands curl into fists. Metal fingers whisper against each other.
"I finally said it," he says quietly, like a confession.
Steve knows exactly what he means. "Yeah," he answers. "I heard you."
Heat crawls up the back of Bucky's neck despite the cold cabin air. "Wasn't how I planned it."
"Most real things aren't," Steve says. "But you can tell her again later. She's gonna get through this."
The engine pitch shifts as they change altitude. The sound fills the pause.
"It's Valentine's Day afterall," Steve adds after a moment. "Kind of a perfect day built for saying what matters."
Bucky looks up at him then, eyes red-edged and exhausted. "What if she dies?"
Steve's grip tightens briefly on the frame. "We cross that bridge if we have to. Until then, you make sure you tell her again when she wakes up."
The jet keeps cutting forward through the morning, carrying all of them home without the one person Bucky keeps checking for. No one speaks after that.
The tower feels too normal when they land. Glass catching sunlight now that it's early afternoon. The kind of day that shouldn't exist when someone's life is hanging in the balance a few floors below.
They move through intake and security on autopilot, putting their gear back where it belongs. Logging weapons and writing signatures. No one lingers or jokes. The absence of your footsteps is felt by everyone on the team.
Debrief happens quickly. The conference room screens glow with mission playback, drone angles, heat maps, and timestamps. Freeze frames of impact points and takedowns. Tony stands at the head of the table, scrolling through data with tight, economical gestures.
"Shipment was secured," he says. "Inventory intact enough that we have full trace. Buyers' network is sweating, so that's a win."
No one reacts. Tony reads the room quickly. He swipes to a Redwing camera playback. The moment of the shot pauses mid-frame, but he doesn't play it.
"Crossfire variables stacked wrong," Tony says. "Early rotation and elevation shadow. That's on their dice, not your skill."
Bucky doesn't answer. He hasn't even sat down.
Steve chimes in, "Status?"
Tony exhales sharply, and there it is, the himan crack in the armor. "Out of surgery. Bullet passed straight through. Missed the worst of the organs by a margin."
Bucky's fingers flex at his sides. "When can we see her?"
"Short version, not yet," Tony explains. "Long version, they'll page you when she is able to have visitors."
Tony looks straight at Bucky now. "She made it to the table alive because of you, Barnes."
Bucky gives a solid nod and turns to leave the room. He needs a hot shower, fresh clothes, and maybe a good cry if he can manage it.
---
The medical floor is too white, too bright, too controlled. Footsteps soften automatically on the polymer flooring. People speak in low tones, as if the volume itself were part of the treatment. Bucky waits through two checkpoints and one firm-handed nurse who makes him sit for exactly four minutes that feel like forty. He doesn't argue with her, although he wishes he could.
Finally, a door slides open down the corridor.
"Okay, Mr. Barnes. She's all yours."
He nods. The room is dimmer than the hallway. Monitors glow in gentle blues and greens. Lines run across one screen, and other machines breathe softly beside the bed. And there you are. Too still and too pale. Bandaging wrapped clean at your side, shoulder exposed above hospital fabric, skin marked with adhesive and sensor leads. Your hair looks wrong against the pillow, like it hasn't been brushed.
For a second, he can't even step forward. Battlefields never did this to him. Hydra never did this to him. You, quiet and hurt in here, almost drops him to his knees.
He moves to the bedside slowly. His metal hand hovers, then settles carefully around your fingers, mindful of the wires. You're warmer now, thank god.
"I'm here now," he whispers.
He studies your face as if he's relearning its map. The crease near your brow and the tiny scar near your chin. Of course, he knew they were there, but he had taken them for granted before.
"You picked one hell of a day to scare me," he murmurs. "I had a whole speech planned. You kinda ruined my timin'."
His thumb strokes once across your knuckles. "I meant it. I don't know if you heard me, but I meant it."
Time stretches in the recovery room until it no longer feels measurable. The monitors keep their steady rhythm. Your chest rises and falls quietly. Each inhale pulls his attention like a thread. Bucky sits forward in the chair, forearms braced on the mattress edge, still holding your hand. He doesn't even know what time it is, only that Sam has left to go have his "wine and dine" dinner date.
He keeps talking because silence feels like surrender.
"Remember that terrible takeout place you like so much?" he quietly smiles to himself. "I would do anything to eat their greasy food with you right now."
His thumb traces a slow line along your fingers.
"I was gonna grab that for us tonight. That was the big plan. Real smooth, right? Greasy food and probably a movie you'd pretend not to cry to." His voice tightens on the last word.
"Steve says timing's never right for the important stuff. Guess he's got a point. Still hate that he's right though."
Footsteps pass in the hallways. A cart rolls by. Life keeps moving outside this room, and it feels offensive. He bows his head a little, bringing his arm up as a makeshift pillow.
"I've jumped out of planes and fallen from trains," he sighs. "None of it comes as close as to how I feel right now."
Time moves by slowly and quickly all at once. It's eight o'clock now. Bucky only knows because a nurse came in to check on you. She wrote down the time on the whiteboard by the door. He's hungry, he's thirsty, and he'd rather die of starvation and dehydration than leave your side. He looks out the window in the room, wishing the two of you could be out in the city, laughing and hanging out. He wishes he could tell you how he feels and hear what you have to say.
There's a faint shift in your hand. So small that someone might miss it. He jerks upright, studying your face carefully. Another small movement. Bucky is frozen in place. Another tiny movement, your fingers trying to curl but not quite getting there yet. Your brows tighten like you're fighting up through deep water.
"Easy there," he whispers. "You're okay."
Your lashes flutter, stop, and flutter again. The monitor ticks a little faster.
"That's it," he encourages. "Come back to me."
Your eyes open a sliver, unfocused, light sensitive. Confusion takes over. Then discomfort. A low groan escapes your throat as you adjust. A throbbing ache at your side. You try to assemble the room piece by piece.
Bucky's the first thing that resolves clearly in your line of sight. Relief hits his face so openly it would scare him if he were capable of self-consciousness right now.
He lets out a breath, "Hey."
Your voice doesn't come out yet, but your lips part like you're trying. Your gaze drops, finds your bandaging, the wires, then climbs back to him with a question and a memory tangled together.
"Yeah," he says quietly. "You got hit. Thought you died."
Your fingers tighten weakly around his. Tears burn his eyes instantly, and he laughs under his breath. He tries not to let them fall, but he can't help it. A shaky breath comes out as he shakes his head.
"Told you not to get shot," he whispers. "You never listen."
Your throat works to get the words out. Your voice is barely there, scraped thin.
"...Gotta keep.. you on your toes."
He huffs a broken, grateful breath. Your gaze locked on his, hazy but sharpening by the second. The room comes to you in layers: sounds first, then light, then pain. But always him.
"I... love you, too." You manage to get out.
Emotion crowds his throat again, but this time he lets it stay.
"I wasn't supposed to say it like that," he continues, voice low and unguarded. "I had this whole night planned.
He glances down at your joined hands, then back up, blue eyes clear and terrified and certain all at once. "I meant it, though, every word."
You smile at him. Bits and pieces of the morning play in your head. You've never seen a man break down quite like Bucky had earlier. And honestly, you had been grateful you were able to hold his face one last time before the darkness took over.
"Thought I was a goner," You mumbled.
He nods, understanding exactly how you feel.
"You know, I've been in love with you for a while now," he says, simple and direct. "Didn't know if we should put a label on it. Was too nervous to ruin the relationship with my favorite person."
His thumb brushes your knuckles, but he keeps his eyes on you.
"Me too, Buck."
"I kept telling myself I had time," he goes on. "More missions, more mornings in the kitchen. More chances to say it at the right time, exactly how I wanted. But I wasn't sure I was allowed to want more."
Your eyes shine now, fully awake, completely present.
"The days leading up to Valentine's Day felt... complicated?" he admits. "Not because I didn't have someone, but because the someone I wanted was already with me, and I didn't know if we could be anything more."
Your fingers squeeze his with surprising strength.
He leans in a little, voice softer but steadier than it's been in hours. "I'm telling you right here, right now, I love you. As more than a mission partner, as more than a friend. I love everything about you."
Your eyes fill before he even finishes the last word. Not from pain, not from the meds, but from the way he's looking at you like the truth finally got tired of waiting and chose to come out. You study his face like you're confirming something you've known for a long time but never dared to name. The worry lines, the softness he only shows when he forgets to hide, and the way his grip never loosened.
"I thought..." you murmur. "I guess I thought it would be easier for me to pretend not to notice."
His brows pull together. "Notice what?"
"How it feels when you walk into the room."
He just looks at you, waiting for you to continue.
"I didn't say anything," you go on. "Because I didn't want to lose you. But honestly, best friends isn't enough for me."
Silence folds around you, warm and full instead of empty. His thumb is still moving over your hand, as if he can't stop touching you, as if touch is proof you're still really here.
"You sure this isn't the meds talkin'?"
You manage a faint, crooked smile. "If it were the meds, I'd have told you months ago."
And that does it. The last of his restraint gives way. He rises from the chair and leans in slow enough for you to stop him if you want. Close enough that you can feel his breath, warm and unsteady.
"My lips are so dry from this place," you whisper through a giggle.
"I don't care," he smiles.
The kiss is gentle, careful of tubes and soreness, and the fact that you're still healing. Soft, lingering, reverent. Not scared and rushed like a battlefield claim, not desperate to get the words out. This is more like a sweet beginning.
His warm hand cradles your jaw lightly. He kisses you as if he's been holding it back for years, and he plans to keep doing it for the rest of his life. When he pulls back, his forehead rests against yours, both of you breathing the same air.
"Happy Valentine's Day," he whispers.
"Took you long enough, James."
"You're worth the wait, doll."
———
Thanks for reading<3 Just a reminder that my requests are open! I’d love to hear from you!
pairing: tfatws!bucky barnes x reader | word count: 5.4k
prompt: "wait, it's valentine's day today?!" as part of the dear my darling reader event! organised by the one and only @salty-tang
warnings: established relationship, dry humping, smut, oral (f. receiving), face-sitting, male self-pleasure, unprotected p in v, breeding kink, mating press, creampie, praise, overstimulation, pussy pronouns, slight size kink, cum-play, aftercare, tooth-rotting fluff
summary: Bucky's the perfect boyfriend — sweet and attentive and does anything to make you happy — so who cares that he forgets this one valentine's day? Especially when he spends the morning making it up to you, nestled between your legs.
a/n: this is dedicated to the beautiful @pinksplace 🩷 dear sweet Pink, I hope you enjoy this lil valentine's fic as much as I always enjoy your fics! you are so incredibly talented! I was so excited to get to write this for you and had the best time doing so 🩷
You wake up softly, slowly — the kind of morning where your eyes adjust gently to the light peeking through the blinds, and your body gives a small stretch as you wake. Bucky’s nose nudges against the skin of your neck before placing a soft kiss there. He’s shirtless against you — in nothing but his boxers — his skin warm against yours, dog tags pressing into your chest.
“Mm— morning doll.” He nuzzles his face closer, metal arm wrapping around your waist possessively as his leg slings heavily over yours, pressing you further into the mattress. You welcome the feeling, his weight grounding and safe. You push your knee up, grazing your leg across his before settling into the weight of him on top of you, tilting your head to press your lips to his forehead. The smell of his shampoo washes over you as his hair tickles your nose.
You crinkle your nose up and bring a hand to his hair, pushing it back as you place another kiss to his head.
Bucky groans against your skin — a low, content sound, like the safest place to be is right here, with your hands in his hair and his arm draped across you, the sweet smell of your jasmine body wash pressed against his nose.
“Buckyy,” you singsong, gently brushing your hands through his hair. Your eyes flutter shut when his lips brush against your skin.
“Hmm?” His hot breath fans over your neck, eyes still closed, nudging himself impossibly closer.
You love him like this.
All soft and sleepy and completely yours. You feel his heartbeat against your chest and smile.
Steady. Safe. Yours.
“You not sleep good baby?” You’re peering down at him, nose tilted towards his.
Bucky never really slept well, always waking in the night to his chest pounding or his body shaking. Before you, he barely slept at all. He’d be lucky to get an hour or two. But tucked against you — you with your soft hands and fierce protectiveness you wrapped around him like a security blanket, you who never complained when he woke you by mistake — just slowly lulling him back to sleep with gentle, deep-pressure strokes across his back and sweet nothings whispered against his skin — he allows himself to breathe, lets himself rest.
“Mm, slept okay,” he grumbles, turning his head in towards the pillow, shielding his eyes from the light. You can’t help but smile at how young he looks when he does that, nose and eyes scrunched, and a little crease in between his brows.
You kiss it away.
“Valentine’s Day today…” you whisper, voice high, hopeful.
Bucky stirs before lifting his head from the space between your shoulder. His eyes blink the sleep out rapidly before meeting yours. His face is still soft with sleep — unguarded, slightly dishevelled, tiny creases on his cheek from the pillow.
God, he’s beautiful in the morning.
“Wait, it’s Valentine’s Day today?!” Bucky rubs at his eye, voice groggy and deep.
You smile gently despite the twinge of disappointment you feel.
“Mhm, you forget or something?” Your thumb traces his jaw lovingly and Bucky melts into it.
“M’sorry doll.” He kisses the inside of your palm resting on his face, eyes apologetic.
You don’t mind too much — not when he’s the perfect boyfriend in every other way.
Bucky’s attentive.
It’s instinct for him to pick up on small details. And ever since he met you, he’d been tucking away every single finding into his mind, filing them in alphabetical order, all kept as notes of how to love you right — care for you the way you needed. He’d notice the way you’d frown at people who were rude to servers, the way you’d flinch slightly at a raised voice or the way you’d curl into yourself and go quieter when you were burnt out. It was subtle; your smile not quite reaching your eyes, your breath slightly heavier, little sighs in between tasks and a slight wobble of your lip when he’d ask you what’s wrong.
He listens.
He knows the way you take your coffee, the way you don’t like the crusts on toast, the way you’ll have an extra sugar in your tea if it’s after dinner. He knows you like the fan on when you sleep, even when it’s cold. He always buys you the right jewellery, the right flowers — pink peonies wrapped in paper, tied with a soft pink ribbon.
Always plans out your birthday, takes you on dates.
Anything you want for, he gladly obliges.
Every whim, every crazy idea you have, every new hobby you pick up on a random Tuesday night, insisting — ‘Bucky, this is the one, I swear.’ Of course, it’s not the one and you pick up on another within a month and Bucky never complains — simply goes to the craft store yet again, picking out all the things you might need, handing them to you silently in a paper bag — yarn, crochet hooks and the soft little buttons you insisted you need for your plush penguin.
He listens to you talk about your junk journal, collecting silly items like the wrapper for his pastry or the tag from the new jumper he’d bought. He gets the hang of it, saving the movie tickets from your date, or the napkin from the coffee shop he’d been to and presents them to you. You’d tuck them away, face beaming, trying very hard to not squeeze his face between your hands.
You used to get anxious when first suggesting things to him — previous partners who’d get annoyed or frustrated that you’d started another DIY, who’d complain about the smell of hot glue or the half-finished projects scattered around the house. But you had quickly learnt that his silence only meant he was thinking of how to make it happen for you.
You wanted to turn the doorways in the apartment into archways? He’s helping you plaster and paint the walls. You want to paint flowers into the trimming? He’s washing your brushes and lining up stencils.
Anything to make you happy — to make you feel seen and heard and completely at home with him.
“S’okay Buck, I don’t really care that much about Valentine’s.” You lean forward, kissing him, before settling back against the headboard, pillows tucked in behind you.
“Let me make it up to you.” He’s slotting himself between your legs, head nestling against your chest, placing a kiss on your collarbone. His flesh hand is pressed into the mattress next to your head, bracing himself over you, his metal one squeezing your hip, thumb pressing into the strip of skin where your top has ridden up.
You arch up into him as he places another kiss to your sternum, your collarbone, then higher — dragging heat across your skin as your hands curl into the tendrils of his hair. You hum happily when his lips part against your throat, before moving to your jaw, placing soft kisses.
“Bucky.” You’re already needy — soft and wanting as he continues nipping at your neck.
You push back on his shoulders and Bucky gives, laying back for you to straddle him, knees pressing into either side of the bed. You feel your hips stretch at the sheer size of him.
Bucky looks up at you — your eyes sparkling and hair falling around your face, looking like the rest of his life. His chest swells at the thought — you with his ring on your finger, you round with his baby, in his home, in his bed — for as long as he’s lucky enough to be chosen by you.
And you’ll continue choosing him every single day.
A soft smirk plays at your lips, and he knows he’s gone.
Completely and utterly bewitched by every part of you.
“Fuck, you’re so beautiful. I’ll never get used to it.” His calloused hand comes to brush the hair out of your face — cupping it firmly, thumb stroking your cheek as you melt into his touch.
“You gonna make it up to me, James?” Your voice is smooth, sultry against his ear as your cheek presses to his — the stubble scratching at your skin.
“Yeah baby, gonna make it up to you.” He swallows hard, hand seeking out your face, cradling your jaw — pulling you to him, kissing you deep and slow — tongue slipping into your mouth as he tilts your head for him, fingers pressing deliciously into the back of your neck.
The kiss quickly turns desperate — all teeth and tongue and breathless gasps — Bucky letting out a low groan when you grind your hips down onto him. There’s barely anything between you, his boxers and a pair of your sleep shorts. You’re completely bare underneath. Your hands cup his face, his running up and down your sides, palms warm against your waist.
His hands are so big, curling around the expanse of your ribcage as they inch closer to your chest.
He thumbs at your nipples through your thin pink top, before pinching them gently, rolling them between his thumb and forefinger.
You gasp.
You lean into his touch, moaning into his mouth as you kiss him deeper, his fingers moving under your shirt, tracing the underside of your boobs before rolling your nipples between his fingers again, tugging at them gently.
“Mm— Bucky—” Your chest arches into his touch, your top somehow making its way to the floor, your breasts falling perfectly in front of him. You grind your hips down harder onto his growing bulge — thick and hard between your legs. The friction combined with Bucky’s mouth on your breasts makes your head go fuzzy.
Bucky loves the soft sounds you make before he’s even really started, always so pliant for him, your body molding to the shape of his, pressing towards him like you can’t get close enough — like you want to be consumed by him.
You kiss him again, guiding his jaw, nose pressing into his cheek. He hums into your mouth when your wetness coats through the fabric of his boxers, and you swear the sound could end you. It vibrates through you, travelling down your spine and melting into a puddle low in your stomach.
Bucky jerks his hips up to meet yours. You rock against him, hips moving in slow rolls against his throbbing length. Your hands twist into his hair as you kiss him deeper, letting Bucky guide your hips along his. You’re gasping against his mouth, wet hot desire pooling embarrassingly fast, soaking through your shorts and his boxers.
You reach down and pull his cock free, gliding your hand up and down the thick length, thumb spreading the pre-cum around his tip before brushing the underside.
“Oh fuck sweetheart.” Bucky pulls away from your mouth, leaning further into your touch, every part of him desperate for you.
“You wanna fuck me, Bucky? Hmm?”
“God, yes.” His voice traces over your neck. He can’t stop kissing you. Tasting you.
“I just, I can’t get enough baby. Let me taste you doll, please.”
Your eyes nearly roll back at the please. Your stomach flips at the way his head tilts back, looking up at you like you hold the answers to the universe.
The answers to him.
He doesn’t have to ask again before you pull your shorts off, throwing them to the side. He sheds his boxers quickly. You settle your hips back down flush against his, letting him feel your soaked folds against his hard cock.
Bucky lets out a low, visceral sound, gripping your hips tighter.
You can’t help but let your pussy drag up his length, once, twice — his tip nudging your clit, before catching between your folds. You let out a loud moan, grabbing onto him for balance. You push him down, hands dragging up the hard lines of his abs, through his chest hair before settling on his broad shoulders. You crawl up his body, letting your slick drag against the bare skin of his stomach, his chest.
Bucky moans at the feel of it, “So warm baby, so soft.” He’s not even saying it to you, more like muttering worship into the skin of your thighs.
His hands wrap around your legs and the way he looks at you can only be described as reverent. He kisses the inside of your thigh, teeth grazing slightly — his gaze never leaving yours.
He’s underneath you and you’re trembling — legs shaking on either side of his head as you hover over him. There’s something so intoxicating about having a man so big, so strong, completely taken by you. By your legs wrapped around his head. By the sweet smell of your pussy. Bucky pulls you down onto him, wanting nothing more than your full weight against him.
“C’mon doll, sit please.” His fingers dig into your thighs — metal and flesh — dragging you onto him.
You land with a broken little sound, still trying hard to not put your full weight on him.
He grips your thighs tighter, smirking before wrapping his lips around your clit, never easing you into it. The sound of it has your eyes rolling back — a low, wet pull — tongue flicking against your clit, and you collapse against his face.
“Fuck— Bucky— oh…” Your voice trails off into a moan as his tongue breaches your opening, slipping between the wet folds.
“Mm Bucky— you— mmph.” Your hips roll down against his face and Bucky groans — a low guttural sound that vibrates through you. He pulls your hips down, burying his face further into your weeping, aching cunt.
He knows every pull, every movement that makes your body tremble for him.
He lets his right hand reach down for his cock, his metal hand pressed into the curve of your ass, holding you to his face. His hand tugs at the length, stroking up and down as his tongue continues fucking into you.
Bucky looks up to take you in.
You’re a vision — skin flushed, dewy with sweat, brows pulled together in pure pleasure, chest heaving — his name falling from your lips over and over like a prayer.
And when your thighs tighten around his ears —
Bucky swears he’s in heaven.
The obscene slick sounds are muffled against his face, the sweet cadence of your moans echoing in his ears as you come against his face. Your orgasm washes over you in slow, soft waves, matching the pace of your hips as you ride it out, pushing his face further into your dripping cunt.
He pulls you off him and throws you down onto the bed before you even realize what’s happening. His lips are swollen, chin wet with your slick, beard soaked with you. He kisses you like he’s thanking you, letting you taste yourself on his tongue. You moan into his mouth, hands already moving to his cock, guiding him towards you.
“Please Bucky, need you inside me.” You stroke him up and down, tightening your hand just slightly at the base.
Bucky wants to tease you, drag it out — but he can’t. Not when your voice is begging for him so sweetly, not when one hand is tenderly placed over his heart, the other still stroking him, coating the tip in your slick. Not when you’re looking at him like he’s your whole world and every dream you’ve ever had.
So he moves your hand, bringing it to rest on the large expanse of his back and pushes in with a slow, deep thrust.
“Buckyy— fuck—” You gasp at the stretch — the delicious burn of him pushing further and further into your waiting cunt making your eyes roll back. He lets you adjust, kissing you through it, fingers slotting between yours as he pins your wrists to the bed.
“So tight baby, fuck, she’s squeezing me so good—”
Your hips roll up into his, letting out a soft whimper when his tip nudges something inside you and Bucky moves. He starts thrusting into you — deep, slow strokes that have you burying your face in the crook of his neck, letting out muffled moans into his skin.
When he thrusts harder, faster and you let out a soft little whimper — Bucky doesn’t hold back. It’s like the sound of your voice flips a switch inside him that exists only for you.
Something raw and animalistic overtakes him. He feels it crawl up his spine, posessive and dangerous, wanting nothing more than to claim you, to mark you from the inside out.
He didn’t get like this all the time, but god when he had you like this — spread out beneath him, legs bent on either side of his hips, hands resting on his waist, panting and open for him, he couldn’t help what it brought out in him.
“Gonna fill this sweet little pussy up— fuck—” Bucky almost collapses forward when you clench around him, looking up at him with faux innocence, like you don’t know exactly what that does to him.
His pupils go wide at the sight of your lower lip caught between your teeth, thrusting into you harder. His hands travel up the lengths of your legs, before pushing your thighs out and into your chest so fast, you forget how to breathe.
“Fuck Bucky — slow—” You cry out as his tip drags against a spot in you so deep, you swear you can feel it in your throat. You pull him impossibly closer — Bucky letting his full weight rest against the backs of your thighs, pressing you into the mattress.
“Can’t slow down baby. Look at you—fuck—” His eyes roll back as he watches your mouth fall open, completely soundless, too fucked dumb for anything to come out.
His shoulders press into the back of your knees, hips slamming against yours so hard, his dick nudges against your cervix, over and over and over.
“You want me to fuck a baby into you, huh?” Bucky’s metal hand goes under your back, somehow pulling you closer to him. It’s too much — his words, the drag and stretch of his cock in your warm, wet walls, the feel of your slick dripping onto his balls, your body folded in half like this is what it was made for. For him. To be used and bred by him.
“Yes Bucky yes, please, please— want your baby.” You let out a sob, the pleasure twisting with the sheer emotion of being so completely his.
Your hands twist desperately in the sheets as your body rocks back and forth under Bucky’s weight — your mind turning to mush as his thrusts slow, letting you feel every inch of him sinking into you.
“Bucky— I’m—” Your voice comes out broken, desperate little inhales as Bucky fucks you somehow deeper.
“Yeah, my pretty girl gonna cum for me?” Bucky’s voice is rough against your skin, his dog tags swinging against your throat as your head tilts back, pressing your face sideways into the pillow.
“Oh— oh Bucky!” You practically screech when his thumb rubs tight circles into your clit, tears pooling in the corners of your eyes.
“Look at me when I’m fucking you.” He growls, grabbing your jaw and pulling your gaze to his.
Your beautiful fucked-out gaze.
“Can’t— can’t— s’too much— fuckkk.” Your head threatens to tilt back, the pleasure building to the point you think you might just pass out, before Bucky grips your chin between his fingers.
“You can take it— cum for me doll, cum around my cock.” His thumb presses tighter against your clit, his dick hitting your soft spot with relentless precision.
You break.
Your orgasm hits you so strong, so sharp — your vision goes white. It spreads through your body like wildfire, clenching and pulsing, hips jerking up against his. Bucky fucks you through it, slow and controlled, murmuring praise, ‘So good for me baby, that’s it, that’s it— there she is.’
You whine, eyes glazing over, the overstimulation bordering on too much — one part of you wanting to pull away from him, the other wanting to slip further down the sweet spiral of insanity with him.
“You can give me one more. One more while I cum in this sweet little pussy. Gonna fill her up.”
Your knees are still pressed to your shoulders, the burn in the back of your legs only adding to the overwhelming pleasure as Bucky continues pounding into you.
“Bucky— I can’t— I can’t—” Your head thrashes side to side and Bucky grips your chin in his hands, so gentle compared to the way he was fucking you.
“You can baby, just one more, one more.” He kisses you soft and sweet.
And you nod, like he knows your body better than you do — because he does.
“She wants it, doesn’t she? She’s gripping me so tight doll— fuck—”
You’re babbling now, complete nonsense as you feel your orgasm building again.
“Oh fuck doll, gonna cum, gonna make sure it takes.” He thrusts into you twice more before you feel him cum, hot spurts filling you over and over until it’s dripping out around his cock.
“Take it sweetheart, it’s all for you. All for you.” He continues thrusting into you, riding out his orgasm, fucking his cum back into you.
“Bucky— I’m—”
“Give it to me doll, good girl— good girl.”
His thumb presses into your clit and you swear you black out as you cum, screaming his name like it’s the only word you know.
You’re both panting, completely breathless, your body still rolling with aftershocks as Bucky unfolds you, pulling out with a hiss, watching his cum drip out. He pushes his metal thumb between your folds, collecting what he can before pushing it back inside you.
“Bucky—” you whine, hips twitching around his thumb.
“Shh, shh, can’t let it go to waste, sweetheart.”
You lie there, too fucked-out to protest, letting him play with you. He places a final kiss to your clit before kissing up your body and resting his forehead against yours.
“You good baby?”
You nod, smiling up at him before kissing him, hand resting on the side of his cheek.
You barely register Bucky picking you up, carrying you to the bathroom with that super soldier ease. He holds you up while you shower — your legs still trembling, sore and sticky and thoroughly used. Bucky massages lotion into your thighs after, kissing your ankles, your knee— whispering praise into your skin.
And just as thoroughly as he ruins you — he takes care of you after, nudging his nose with yours, whispering sweet nothings against your lips as you giggle, mussing his wet hair.
“I was thinking we could do panc—” You stop mid sentence, the thought dying in your mind as your eyes land on the scene in front of you.
The apartment’s been transformed.
The living room is covered from one end to the other in hanging flowers, pink peonies wrapped around clear string, giving the illusion that the flowers are hanging freely.
You turn back to him, mouth agape.
Alpine struts up to the two of you, head nudging against Bucky’s leg before coming up to you. You pick her up, scratching behind her ear as she purrs happily. Bucky shakes his head at the sight, still slightly betrayed by his own cat having chosen you as her preferred human.
You look up at the roof, noticing the strings have been hung clumsily with pieces of bright red tape.
You laugh at the sight, shaking your head when Bucky mutters, ‘was the only tape we had.’
You put Alpine down before looking closer at the garlands hanging from the roof.
There’s little polaroid photos of the two of you hanging between each flower, ones of you from before you’d started dating, from date nights or just a photo he’d sneakily taken of you while playing cards late at night. Fairy lights are draped around the room, casting the room in a warm glow.
“Bucky— what?” Your eyes are filled with tears, looking between him and the room. He guides you over to the kitchen with an excitement that resembles a small puppy.
The kitchen island is scattered with heart shaped chocolates wrapped in pink foil. There’s a plate of pancakes covered with a net food cover (more to stop Alpine than anything else), tiny fake tealights lining the edges of the counter, setting a warm glow over the food. There’s a vase sitting in the middle — one you had made — with a bouquet of the most beautiful pink peonies, stems carefully trimmed and a ribbon tied around the neck of the vase.
There’s a small open box next to it, with small rolled up notes in a jar that reads ‘reasons I love you’ in Bucky’s handwriting. A scented candle sits next to it, as well as a gift voucher for your favorite craft store that reads ‘for whenever your next hobby comes around’.
Your bite your lip, tears falling freely from your eyes now and you don’t know whether you’re laughing or crying. You turn to him, shaking your head.
“You— Bucky—”
Bucky stands there with a goofy grin, eyes twinkling, reflecting the fairy lights. His hair’s still damp from the shower, a few wet drops on his white t-shirt and he’s never looked more like home.
“You like it?” He adjusts one of the flower garlands, before stepping closer to you, hand resting gently on your waist.
“Bucky— I— I— when did you—” Your hands travel up his chest, one hand resting on his cheek, the other on his shoulder.
He smiles sheepishly, looking down.
“Last night, after you went to sleep. And then I got up early and did the pancakes.” He shrugs like it’s nothing, like your heart isn’t threatening to burst out of your chest at any second.
“Oh my god how did I not wake up?” You laugh wetly, looking around the room in disbelief.
“You were out like a light baby.” His forehead rests against yours, hands sliding fully around your waist now.
“It’s perfect Bucky. So perfect. No one— no one’s ever done something like this for me before.” You pause, taking a shaky breath, like if you breathe too loud, the moment might disappear.
“Why— why?” Your eyes don’t meet his.
“Because you deserve it.” He pulls your chin up gently so your eyes meet his.
He says it like a fact — no room for argument, no questioning. Just simple. Like it’s the only reason there could be.
“And I’d do anything to see that pretty smile on your face.”
You can’t help but smile then, eyes tearing up as he looks down at you with so much love, you feel as though you have to look away.
“There it is…my perfect girl.”
You hide your face in his neck, hugging him close, feeling his laugh rumble through his chest.
You pull back, smacking his chest lightly.
“Oh my god, why’d you let me go on about making it up to me?”
He smirks.
“Any excuse to get you to sit on my face doll.”
“Buckyy.” You roll your eyes, smacking his chest again before pulling him into another hug.
“What, like you were complaining? You were rocking against my face like I was your personal toy baby. All ‘mm Bucky pleasee.’” He mocks you, laughing when you groan into his shoulder.
“If you make fun of me one more time, I’ll literally never moan for you again.”
Bucky laughs, “Like you can help it.”
“I can. Try me.”
“Is that a challenge?”
Bucky’s eyebrow cocks and heat pools low so fast at the sudden roughness of his voice, you don’t know how he does it.
One look and you’re a puddle for him.
But as much as you could probably go another five rounds with him, your stomach’s growling and the smell of the pancakes has your mouth watering.
“Mhm, but later, I’m hungry.”
He laughs, shaking his head and squeezing your ass before pulling away from you. He makes you a plate — pancakes and strawberries and maple syrup, topped with vanilla ice cream and presents it to you with a dramatic flourish.
“For you, my love.”
Your heart beats stupidly in your chest, like you’re five and it’s the first time holding a boy’s hand on the playground.
“Why, thank you.” You sit on the kitchen stool, giggling as he feeds you a strawberry from his plate.
You eat until you can’t eat anymore, laughing and talking about everything and nothing all at once. Alpine had jumped into Bucky’s lap at one point, trying to get his ice cream from his plate as he pushed it away from her. She had circled his lap before deciding there were better things to do with her time— jumping off to lay in the patch of sun shining through the balcony door.
“I still can’t believe you did all this.” Your hands wrap around your mug, the warmth lingering from the coffee.
Bucky knows it’s not because of him that you don’t believe it. He knows that deep down, you still don’t feel like you deserve it.
But he’ll keep reminding you.
As many times as it takes.
The way you do for him when his mind gets dark, when he disappears in his own head, when the memories of the Winter Soldier come back to him telling him he’s not worth it.
You remind him every day that he’s worthy of this love.
And he’ll do the same for you for as long as you need.
“You deserve it. I love doing stuff like this for you doll. It makes me happy.”
The air gets thicker — your eyes trained on your coffee, watching the little foam bubbles pop.
“You know, before I met you, I thought— I thought I only existed to show other people love…but with you— with you it’s like all the love I’ve poured into the universe put into one person and poured straight back to me.” Your hands are shaky around your mug as the words linger between you — somehow heavy and soft all at once.
“Doll—” Bucky sounds wrecked, chest tightening in that sweet, aching way, eyes tearing up as his hand comes to your face.
You put down your mug, turning your body into his warmth, hands sliding up his chest. He cups your face in both hands, the pads of his thumbs tracing back and forth over the apples of your cheeks, and rests his forehead against yours, taking a shaky breath.
“I love you Bucky.”
Bucky’s nose brushes yours, before tracing his lips up to your forehead, not quite kissing — just breathing you in like he can’t believe you’re real. Like he can’t believe it was even possible for him to be loved by someone like you — someone warm and patient and understanding.
He never could’ve imagined being here, back when you were his annoyingly cheerful, annoyingly pretty, neighbor — handing him freshly baked goods to “welcome him to the building”, like who does that? Of course, it had just been your excuse to get closer to him but Bucky hadn’t known that.
You’d wave hello to him in the hallways, coax more than a few words out of him in a way that no one else seemed to. You were easy to talk to. You never expected him to be anything other than himself. He remembers the first time he’d invited you to a movie night, heart pounding and face burning as the words hung between you. You’d nodded yes immediately, biting down on a smile.
And then quickly — without warning — you’d spread into every part of his life and turned it technicolor — coaxing all of his darkness out of the shadows, holding it in your safe, warm hands, gently picking at it, patiently untangling all the knots in his soul until it was something that made sense — something manageable. It didn’t mean it went away, just that he didn’t need to hold it alone.
You brought love and laughter and chicken pot pies and being with you was like stepping into the sun after years of being in the dark — blinding at first, then warmth — so warm and so fucking good and god, Bucky never wanted to be cold again.
His lips tremble gently against your skin, “I love you doll. More than you know.”
He presses his face into the crook of your neck, pulling you into him.
“My girl, my home.”
moodboard inspired by @juniebjonesin's gorgeous headers she always creates!!
@lolala1414 thank you for listening to me ramble about this story non-stop!!
wedding-hater groomsman!bucky x planning-the-wedding bridesmaid!reader
⤷ summary: It was supposed to be simple: plan the wedding, survive the vendors, don’t strangle Bucky Barnes. But perfection cracks when an unexpected disaster hits, and in the quiet aftermath you discover the last thing you'd expect - that falling in love isn't exactly what friends do.
⤷ warnings/tags: modern AU (reader is a journalist, bucky is an architect, but that doesn't matter too much); friends to lovers; side natasha x steve (they're the ones getting married!); generally fluffy/ romcom; a bit of arguing; mild feng shui slander.
barely proofread and certainly not beta read, but that does not in any way diminish my love for vale! (i'm just tired haha)
bonus smut at the end 18+ MDNI: unprotected p in v, finishing inside, use of petnames: baby, darling (you know i had to)
⤷ word count: 19.1k (take chapter breaks whenever there's a divider!)
⤷ A/N: written for the delightful @bedriddenbarnes as part of my very first event, the dear my darling valentines day fic exchange! there's so many other wonderful fics being posted, so please check out the masterpost!!
dear my darling reader masterpost || more bucky from me
The light should’ve felt peaceful. Instead, your head is pounding like you’ve spent the night sleeping beneath a church bell, each slow pulse arriving a fraction too loud, a fraction too bright. Your mouth is dry.
Urgh.
You breathe in slowly – linen and lavender detergent, sun-warmed cotton, and something unfamiliar beneath it. Cedarwood, maybe. Or the faint metallic coolness that clung to skin after too many hours outside under string lights and damp evening air. You wrinkle your brow without opening your eyes, trying to sort memory from sensation.
The wedding.
God, the wedding.
Your head throbs again, sharper this time – a warning.
You crack open one eye. The ceiling greets you first: white, slightly textured, edged with crown molding that doesn’t quite match the wallpaper. The second thing you register is the wallpaper itself – pink and white florals, sprigs of something that might be hydrangeas (Steve’s mom’s taste, unmistakably).
And the third –
Eyes. Arctic blue, and alarmingly close.
Bucky Barnes is lying on the pillow beside you, facing you, already awake. His expression is quiet, unreadable in the soft morning light. Peaceful, except for the severe crease between his brows that suggests that he too, is questioning the reality of this moment.
For one suspended moment, neither of you move. His breath tickles the loose strands of hair at your forehead. Yours has stopped entirely. His gaze stays on your face, steady but unreadable, let he’s waiting for you to say something first – or bracing for you to. His breathing is slow, controlled. Yours is not.
You become acutely aware of the absurdity of it all at once: the childhood bedroom, the floral wallpaper, the faint ache behind your eyes, the man you’ve spent the past month circling now lying inches from your mouth like this is the most natural place in the world for him to be.
Both eyes snap open fully, blinking sleep away and panic into focus. The entire night before come crashing back with nauseating clarity
The rain.
The ruined lake house.
The frantic salvaging.
Steve and Natasha’s incandescent smiles when it all somehow worked out.
The champagne you should not have accepted.
The second. Third. Fourth. Fifth. Nth glass you absolutely should not have accepted.
You – exhausted, delirious, running purely on adrenaline and relief – collapsing onto the nearest bed in Steve Rogers’ childhood home.
And somehow, inexplicably, Bucky ending up beside you.
He blinks, just once. The crease between his brows deepens, then smooths, like he’s made a decision you haven’t been briefed on.
You swallow. This is… a lot.
There’s too much context hastily skipped over, too many unanswered questions, entire conversations that need to happen. You really should say something – anything.
Instead, the both of you just lie there, staring at each other in the pale, barely-there light of early morning, and you have no idea – absolutely none whatsoever – how it started.
A month and a day earlier…
Saturday morning brunch is meant to be harmless.
At least, that’s what you assume when Natasha texts brunch? with no further explanation – which in your shared language means citrusy drinks with more alcohol than juice, Steve cheerfully announcing he’ll swing by to pick the two of you up, and maybe a passive-aggressive comment about how you never answer texts on time anymore since you made senior reporter.
The restaurant is bright in that deliberate, curated way – white tile, trailing plants, menus that list three kinds of toast and six kinds of alternative milks (for an upcharge, of course). Steve is already there when you arrive, standing to hug you like it’s been weeks instead of days. Natasha follows more smoothly, sunglasses still on despite being indoors, kiss to your cheek efficient and familiar.
You slide into your seat, shrugging off your jacket.
“So,” you say. “What’s the occasion?”
Steve grins. Natasha doesn’t answer.
You notice the table then – four place settings, evenly spaced. You pause, eyes flicking from the extra glass to the empty chair beside it.
“He said he’s coming from a morning meeting with new clients,” she continues, reaching for a menu. “So he might be a little late.”
You open your mouth to respond – but then Steve peers over your shoulder. “Oh, there he is.”
You turn just in time to see Bucky Barnes crossing the café floor, riding jacket slung over one shoulder, expression composed in the way of someone who isn’t that late anyways but will be apologizing anyway. He looks exactly as you remember him – tall, self-contained, like he sort of exists on a slightly different plane from everyone else.
He lifts a hand in greeting and slips into the empty seat beside you with quiet ease.
“Sorry,” he says by way of greeting. “Clients wanted to redo the entire second floor because their new feng shui master said the energies weren’t flowing properly. Whatever that means.”
“You’re fine,” Natasha replies. “We just got here.”
Then before you can interrogate Natasha on the true reason for why you both are here, the server arrives, menus appear, and the moment gets swept away in small talk. Drinks arrive and the table settles into that brief, expectant quiet that always precedes a big announcement.
Natasha and Steve exchange a look. It’s the look of two people who have already leapt and are now waiting for the ground to rise up and meet them.
Your stomach drops before your brain catches on.
“We wanted you guys to be the first to know,” Steve says. “We’re getting married.”
The sentence lands like a champagne cork popping somewhere inside your chest.
You blink once, because you’re reasonably sure you misheard – but Natasha is smiling in that precise, controlled way she does when she’s already braced for fallout, and Steve is beaming so openly it borders on reckless sincerity.
You make a noise. It is not a dignified one.
“What,” you say faintly, already halfway out of your chair.
“We’re getting married!” Natasha echoes, a million-watt grin on her face.
You scream.
There’s no other word for it. You scream, hands flying up, chair scraping back as you lunge across the table, nearly knocking over the water glasses in the process. She smells like citrus and coffee and something expensive and understated, and she laughs softly against your shoulder as you clutch her like she might vanish. “No. NO YOU ARE NOT DOING THIS TO ME RIGHT NOW!”
Natasha laughs as you throw yourself at her again, this time nearly climbing into her lap. “Show me,” you demand, pulling back just long enough to grab her hand, lifting it to the light, examining the ring from every conceivable angle. “Nat, this is – this is perfect. Steve, are you – are you seeing this? This is her. This ring is literally her.”
Steve looks unbearably pleased with himself. “I had a bit of help,” he admits bashfully.
“I’m screaming,” you announce, already doing so. You absolutely do not care that the table beside you has gone quiet. “I’m so happy I might pass out! How long have you been hiding this from me?”
“About twelve hours,” Natasha says dryly. “We decided you’d explode if we waited longer.”
She isn’t wrong.
You drop back into your chair, breathless, eyes shining, hands still trembling faintly with the aftershock of joy.
Across the table, Steve beams like he’s watching fireworks set off just for him. His ears are pink, his smile helplessly wide. He reaches for his coffee, then forgets to drink it.
Bucky, meanwhile, reacts the way he does to most emotionally significant announcements – by doing nothing at all.
He leans back in his chair, arms crossing loosely over his chest, gaze flicking once between Steve and Natasha as if he’s checking that this is, in fact, real. His expression is unreadable at first – then cracks just enough to reveal a fond resignation.
“Well,” he says eventually, nodding once. “Took you long enough.”
Steve laughs, delighted. “I knew you’d say that.”
Bucky reaches across the table and claps him on the shoulder, solid and affectionate. “Doesn’t mean I’m wrong.”
Natasha watches the exchange with a small, knowing smile. “You’re happy for us,” she says.
“I am,” Bucky replies immediately, without hesitation. “You’re good together. Always have been.”
You notice – how easily the words come out, how certain he sounds – and your heart squeezes a little.
Then he adds, dry as dust, “Still don’t know why you’d want a wedding.”
You blink. “How – how can you hate weddings? Weddings are –”
“Expensive,” Bucky supplies. “A waste of time. Full of speeches no one remembers and promises that half the room doesn’t believe in.”
You stare at him like he’s just announced he doesn’t believe in birthdays. Or seasons. Or the concept of marking time at all.
Natasha hums. “You’re projecting.”
“I’m being realistic.”
But then, he glances at Steve again, and his tone softens, “I’m happy for you,” he says. “Both of you. Really.”
Natasha nods once, satisfied. “Good. Because you’re the best man.”
Bucky freezes like she’s told him he’s being drafted. There’s that split-second tension, the recalibration. You, mid-sip of your mimosa, choke. Hah! Karma!
He looks from Natasha to Steve, then back again, as if hoping one of them will crack and admit this is a joke.
“I am what.”
Steve’s grin turns positively feral. “Yeah. Best man. Obviously.”
Bucky looks at all three of you in turn, trying to locate the hidden camera. “No,” he says slowly. “That’s not obvious. That’s a terrible idea. What part of I think weddings are useless did you not get?”
Natasha hands you a napkin. “And,” she continues, entirely unbothered, “she’s the maid of honour.”
Your head snaps up. “Me?”
“Of course you,” Natasha says. “Who else would I trust?”
Your whole body does a small, involuntary jolt, like someone pressed your internal panic-and-joy switch at the same time.
“Me?” you breathe. Then again, quieter, “Me.”
Natasha’s looking at you with that rare, unguarded sincerity she reserves for maybe three people on earth.
Your throat tightens. “I – yes. Of course. I’d be honoured.”
Bucky blinks once, slow, like he hadn’t expected quite that level of enthusiasm.
You’re just about to turn on Bucky for that face he’s making – something between disbelief and mild judgment – when the plates arrive, and for a brief, blissful moment, the promise of carbohydrates knock every uncharitable thought clean out of your head.
This turns out to be a mistake, because the second you’re buttering sourdough with the single-minded joy of someone about to be fed, you’ve already forgotten to stay annoyed at him. Another thought slips in – soft at first, then niggling – that there’s a wedding to plan.
“So,” you say, glancing up, smile bright. “I know it’s early, but when were you thinking of actually having the wedding?”
“Oh,” Natasha says, not evening looking up from her eggs. “Maybe August?”
You beam. “August,” you repeat dreamily. “That’s beautiful. Late summer weddings are so romantic – warm nights, golden hour photos, none of those terrible July storms –”
She nods. “Mm.”
“And that gives you loads of time to plan,” you continue, already halfway to bliss. “Plenty of runway.”
Natasha smiles. Then, lightly – certainly too lightly for the bombshell she’s dropping – adds, “August this year.”
The knife slips in your hand. The world stops. You laugh and it feels like it’s coming out all wrong. “Sorry – what?”
You turn instinctively toward the person nearest you, seeking grounding, confirmation, sanity. Your hand finds Bucky’s forearm without thinking.
He doesn’t pull away; he doesn’t reassure you either. He’s wearing a strange expression – half amused, half wary – like someone watching a beautifully engineered bridge begin to smoke.
“August,” Steve repeats serenely. “It’s kind of perfect, actually.”
You stare at him. “That’s,” you say slowly, “next month.”
“Yes,” Steve says, pleased. “Exactly.”
Then you laugh again, louder this time, shaking your head. “Okay, okay! But –” you inhale. “What’s the plan?”
“Well,” he says, folding his hands like this is the most reasonable thing in the world, “we were thinking simple.”
Your smile freezes.
Natasha nods. “Very simple.”
Your smile begins to strain. “Define simple.”
“Lunch,” Steve says. “At my parent’s place.”
“In the backyard,” Natasha adds. “Just family and close friends.”
The word lunch echoes in your skull like it’s been shouted down a hallway.
“A… lunch,” you echo faintly. Lunch is not a wedding word. Lunch is what happens when people have errands afterward.
“Yes,” Natasha says calmly. “Low-key.”
You lean back into your chair.
Steve chimes in, “We don’t really need much, we just want to get married.”
There it is, that gentle, sincere, devastating honesty.
You stare at the two of them, these people you love more than most things in the world, and feel something inside you crack open like a dropped champagne flute.
“No,” you say.
Steve blinks. “No?”
“No,” you repeat, firmer now. “Absolutely not.”
Beside you, Bucky exhales through his nose, clearly amused – a reaction you’ll pointedly refuse to dignify in favour of the emergency at hand.
“Oh, come on,” Bucky says, “what’s wrong with lunch?”
You swivel toward him, eyes wide. “Everything. Everything is wrong with lunch.”
“People show up,” he says, shrugging. “They eat. They say congratulations. Nothing different from a big party.”
You gesture helplessly between him and the couple. “This is a wedding. You don’t just – eat and disperse.”
Natasha finally looks at you properly. “We’re not trying to make a production of it.” Steve nods in agreement. “Between school starting again and Nat going back into full ballet rehearsal season, this is kind of our window.”
“There isn’t another one,” she adds. “Fall is gone. Winter is Nutcracker. And then the company tours in Spring.”
Steve shrugs apologetically. “And once summer’s over, I’m back with the kids full-time. We don’t want to wait another year just to line up calendars.”
“It’s sensible,” Natasha adds. “Not romantic. Just… real life.”
“But –” you start, then stop, searching for something that doesn’t make you sound unhinged. “But you deserve more than real life.”
“We have each other,” Steve says gently.
“That’s not –” You turn again, desperate now, fingers digging into Bucky’s arm without a shred of dignity. “Tell them. This is insane, right?”
He stiffens slightly, clearly unprepared to be conscripted into this fight. “I really don’t see the problem,” he says honestly.
Your jaw drops. “It’s a milestone,” you insist. “It’s about marking the moment. About saying this matters enough that it stops time for day.”
Bucky tilts his head. “Or,” he says, “they get married because they want to be married. The rest is optional.”
Natasha watches you both with interest. Steve’s head swivels between the two of you like he’s watching a tennis match.
“Behold,” you say dryly, gesturing at Bucky. “The patron saint of emotional rationing.”
He doesn’t miss a beat. “Better than being the apostle of overreaction.”
You release his arm with a huff. “You’re really telling me you’re fine with them getting married over sandwiches.”
“If they’re good sandwiches,” he says, unfazed. “Sure.”
You make a distressed, inhuman noise. Bucky studies you – really studies you – and for the first time since you met him, he seems to consider the possibility that something might be deeply wrong with you.
The table falls into a brief, careful quiet. It’s not uncomfortable, but it certainly is weighted. You slide your plate aside and, with the grim resolve of someone about to break an emergency story, pull out the battered journalist’s notebook you’re never actually without.
“Okay,” you say.
Three heads turn toward you.
“What if,” you say slowly, “I plan it.”
Natasha blinks. “You –”
“Everything,” you continue, gaining momentum. “The logistics, the vendors, the timeline. All of it. You don’t have to think about anything.”
When Steve starts to protest, you hold up a hand.
“No. Listen. You’re busy. I get that. You’ve both spent your lives showing up for other people.” You gesture between them. “Let us show up for you.”
Bucky watches you now, full attention, as if something in the room has shifted and he’s trying to locate the fault line.
“You two just –” you say, voice softer but no less certain, “you two just appear. Have a good time. Celebrate with us.”
Natasha studies you, eyes sharp, calculating. “You’d take this on?”
“Yes,” you say immediately. “Happily.”
Steve looks torn. “We don’t want to burden you.”
You laugh, quick and earnest. “You won’t. This is –” you falter, then recover. “This is important to me.”
A small, horrible beat passes in which you second-guess whether you’ve crossed a line.
Then Natasha exhales, long and thoughtful. “And you wouldn’t turn it into something enormous.”
You hesitate, just a tiny bit. “I wouldn’t turn it into something untrue,” you say. “I promise.”
That does it. Natasha reaches for your hand, squeezing once. “Okay.”
Steve smiles, relief washing over him. “Yeah. Okay.”
Your heart lifts – buoyant, determined, already sprinting ahead as you turn instinctively toward Bucky, eyes bright, dragging him into the moment without even thinking.
“And you,” you insist, “You’ll help.”
He stiffens. “I will not.”
“You’re the best man,” you say, steady, reasonable. “I’m the maid of honour. This is literally a two-person job, like it or not.”
His jaw flexes. “I don’t do weddings.”
“And I don’t do half-measures,” you shoot back. “So here we are.”
He opens his mouth, then closes it again – clearly deciding that arguing with you is both futile and dangerous to his peace of mind.
Natasha laughs. Steve shakes his head, amused. The conversation drifts on – dates, timelines, logistics – while you’re already sketching invisible plans in the air like a general surveying an impending campaign.
Bucky leans back in his chair, arms crossed, expression edged with a kind of begrudging vigilance, as if he now has to monitor whatever chaos you intend to unleash on his life. He doesn’t believe in weddings. And whatever this is – you, dragging him into a four-week matrimonial war zone – isn’t changing that.
It is, however, very clearly about to become his problem.
Three weeks and a day earlier…
“Remind me,” Bucky mutters, voice as flat as concrete, “why I’m here?”
You don’t answer immediately. You’re too busy absorbing the lake house foyer – the clean timber lines, the citrus-and-sunlight smell, the exact kind of curated serenity that makes your pulse rise with possibility.
Bucky stands beside you like he’s been forced at gunpoint to be here – jaw tight, arms crossed, weight shifted back on his heels.
“It’s indoor-outdoor, one of the top venues in the state, and seats exactly who we need it to,” you recite automatically, even though no one has accused you of anything yet. “And because I asked you to come.”
“I noticed,” he deadpans. “What I didn’t notice was any advance warning before being hauled into – whatever this is.”
You wave him off. “24 hours is plenty.”
“For you, maybe,” he replies flatly. “Some of us don’t move meetings unless something’s on fire.” He looks pointed around the perfectly intact room.
You open your mouth – ready to fight him, justify yourself, maybe both – but another couple steps in behind you. They’re glossy, coordinated, wearing the sort of high fashion monochrome palette that suggests they have a shared stylist and a joint credit card. The bride glances at you, then at Bucky, eyes flicking quickly over the height difference, the arm loop, the proximity.
Something in her expression sharpens. Territory has been staked, competition engaged.
Oh. So it’s going to be like that.
You are not losing this venue to someone wearing three different shades of black.
It is at this moment – this precise, irrational, adrenaline laced moment – the venue coordinator appears. She is a woman in earth-toned linen who steps forward with her arms held out wide. “Welcome! You must be –”
“Engaged!” you blurt out.
Bucky chokes so hard it could be a medical issue.
You thump him on the back and keep smiling like nothing is wrong. “Yes,” you continue, “we’re so excited to be here.”
The woman’s smile widens, though she looks a little confused. Nevertheless, she clasps your hands in hers. “Thank you for coming in person and not sending a planner. I do prefer to walk the space with the couple themselves.” She tilts her head, studying the two of you like a composition. “I designed it that way,” she continues lightly, “otherwise the space gets confused. It needs to feel the energy of two people together.”
Bucky’s jaw flexes once – a man making peace with his own unbelievable life choices.
You do not give him time to regret it.
You keep smiling, turning just enough to close the distance between you as you decisively slide your fingers around the widest part of his biceps. It’s an action possessive to sell the lie, and strategic enough that he can’t object.
“Of course, we must accommodate the space,” you lie cleanly through your teeth.
Bucky’s gaze flicks to your hand.
Then to the woman.
Then back to your hand.
Something in his expression tightens – disbelief first, then resignation, then a faint, startled awareness of how close you suddenly are. His jaw works once, like he’s swallowing a protest.
The woman beams, satisfied. “Wonderful,” she says. “I can always tell when a couple’s right for the room.”
Bucky blinks.
“The room,” he mutters for your ears only, “is not the only thing being lied to.”
You squeeze his arm a little tighter – a warning, a threat, a plea for cooperation – and steer him forward.
“Just play along,” you hiss.
You move without thinking, guiding Bucky along with you. He leans down slightly, voice low and dangerous. “You did not tell me,” he says, “that I was going to be fake-engaged today.”
You smile up at him. “I didn’t think you’d come if I did.”
“I can still walk out.”
“You won’t,” you say sweetly. “You’d never leave me to lose to them.”
His mouth presses into a flat line. “That’s not a compliment.”
The coordinator sweeps ahead, her linen skirts whispering across the polished floor, gesturing for all four of you to follow her deeper into the venue. Her energy is serene, ceremonial, almost priestly – the kind of woman who would absolutely believe a building has preferences.
You move first, still linked to Bucky because you can’t risk breaking formation now. His arm stays rigid under your hand, but he doesn’t shake you off. Not when the monochrome couple is still behind you. Not when the coordinator keeps glancing back, clearly assessing which pair the space prefers.
As you’re led deeper into the space – past long communal tables, a dramatic staircase, an absurdly beautiful internal garden that was built to reflect the chaotic natural energies of the lake – you let yourself breathe for the first time all week.
It has been chaos – that particular, grinding breed of chaos born from too many deadlines stacked on too little sleep. A week of logistics and emails, of vendor spreadsheets multiplying like rabbits. You’ve been sleeping with your phone pressed to your chest, waking up to half-drafted ideas and missed calls. Coffee is drunk consistently, at ungodly hours.
And somewhere in the middle of all that, your harmless little notebook of ideas has evolved into something far more serious: a swollen D-ring binder thick enough to cause wrist strain, complete with a colour-coded contents page, subsection tabs, and – because you hate yourself – a newly minted annex.
Bucky has watched this escalation with increasing distaste. He flips a page, pauses, then squints at it. “Why is this laminated?”
“It’s the Emergency Contingencies Index.”
He looks up at you like he’s just witnessed a war crime. “…You laminated contingencies.”
“Obviously.”
He exhales through his nose — long, beleaguered, resigned to his fate. “Of course you did.”
You ignore the jibe and slide a printout across the table toward him. “Venue viewing. Tomorrow evening.” You tap the date and time with your pen, already mentally drafting an email you’ll have to send from the back of the cab to work. “Just promise me you’ll show up.”
He exhales slowly, like a man considering his options. He said nothing, and yet –
Here he is.
You catch him out of the corner of your eye now, consciously shortening his stride so he doesn’t power ahead of you, free hand shoved into his pockets, jaw set in concentration as he maintains the fragile illusion of engaged unity. It shouldn’t matter, but it does.
The foyer opens into a long, sunlit corridor. Windows stretch floor-to-ceiling, throwing bright bars of late-afternoon light across the hardwood.
Beyond her, a sweeping wall of French doors opens onto the lake, the view so startlingly still it looks curated. The afternoon light pours in, warm and liquid, pooling over the polished floors as though the entire venue has been waiting – patiently, expectantly – for someone to notice how perfect it could be.
The other couple gasps appreciatively.
You smile, unsurprised. You know this view; you’d studied it from three angles online, read two overly reverent blog posts about it, and cross-checked Google Earth. Still, seeing it in person, it’s better – warmer, more alive.
Bucky notices, of course he notices, but he doesn’t comment – he’s too busy maintaining his posture of a reluctant hostage – but the corner of his mouth tightens like he’s bracing for you to sprint ahead and start taking photos.
You nudge him anyway. “Try not to look like someone dragged you out of a bunker.”
His glance is slow, unimpressed. “Try not to lie about our relationship status in front of strangers.”
“Tit for tat,” you murmur.
The coordinator begins talking about the original timber, about the intentional asymmetry of the beams, about the way light “wakes the room gently.”
You are listening with rapt attention.
Bucky is… enduring.
Every now and then she asks a question – Do you prefer natural wood tones? Would you want drapery? Do you lean toward a circular ceremony layout or linear? – and you open your mouth each time, prepared to answer.
But then Bucky answers first – Not with enthusiasm, or vision, or any interest in weddings whatsoever – but with that dry, unfiltered architectural practicality of a man who absolutely cannot help applying professional standards even when he hates the situation he finds himself in.
“A circular layout will bottleneck the aisle, especially if it’s indoors,” he says, hands in his pockets. “You’ll lose at least a third of the sightlines.”
The coordinator brightens. “Exactly.”
The monochrome bride stiffens.
You blink at Bucky, startled. He catches the look, scowls faintly, and mutters, “It’s obvious.”
It isn’t, but you let him have his dignity.
You walk on through another set doors, which opens wide into to the main reception hall – soaring beams, vast windows framing the lake, the whole space glowing.
“This,” she says reverently, “is where most couples choose to place their focal installation.”
You know instantly what she means. The chandelier. You’d flagged it in your notes – a suspended floral-glass hybrid piece, deceptively delicate, impossibly heavy.
You open your mouth to ask about load-bearing specs, but –
He’s frowning at the ceiling, hands still in his pockets, the posture of someone who cannot stop being an architect even when he’s pretending to be an engaged man-captive.
“You’ve got a reinforced steel bracket hidden behind the main truss,” he continues, nodding toward a nearly invisible seam. “But if you’re planning anything heavier than a statement pendant, you’ll need secondary reinforcement. Otherwise the whole thing will torque.”
The coordinator’s eyes go very round.
The monochrome groom swallows, while his bride tightens her grip on her designer purse.
You stare at Bucky, stunned.
He glances sideways at you – and the look he gives you is defensive, almost irritated, the look of a man who realizes too late that he has just demonstrated interest.
“What?” he mutters. “You were gonna ask.”
He’s right, and that annoys you more than it should.
The coordinator beams. “Most people never notice that bracket. You have an extraordinary eye.”
Bucky grimaces, as if being praised for competence in a wedding venue is worse than being shot.
You step in smoothly. “He’s very detail-oriented.”
“He’s very particular,” the monochrome bride echoes, except in her tone, it’s an accusation.
Bucky lifts one brow at her – slow, unimpressed – and the bride looks away first.
The coordinator, oblivious or delighted, continues. “Of course, if you were envisioning a suspended installation – glass, florals, even a sculptural arc – we can accommodate it. The space responds beautifully to verticality.”
“We are considering something suspended,” you say before you can stop yourself.
Bucky shoots you a look that reads: You’re making up lies faster than I can track them.
You shoot him one back: Keep up.
He exhales through his nose. “If we do that, we’ll need that secondary bracket. And a counterweight system.”
The coordinator nods rapidly, already mentally rearranging her entire lighting rig. “Of course. That can be arranged.” Something shifts subtly. Her posture softens, the way she nods is as if a check box has just been ticked.
The other groom glances back at you and Bucky, his earlier confidence visibly dented. You squeeze Bucky’s arm, unable to help the spark of satisfaction that flickers through you.
The moment the coordinator drifts out of both eyesight and earshot – no doubt to commune with the floorboards or interrogate the other couple’s aura – Bucky exhales like he’s been underwater.
“Okay,” he mutters, stepping back a fraction, putting space between your bodies the way a man pulls his hand away from a hot stove. “We’re done here. We saw the thing. You touched me. The room approved. Can we go?”
You stare at him. “We haven’t even reached the terrace. Or seen the lake.”
“We don’t need to see anything,” he says, already half-turned toward the exit. “You’ve clearly got this handled. The room is spiritually climaxing for you. I’m just taking up space.”
You blink at him. “Are you – mad?”
“No,” he says immediately, too quickly. “I’m not mad.”
He is mad. He is radiating annoyance in a very silent, very repressed, very Barnesian key.
You step in front of him before he can make a full escape.
“Bucky. What’s going on?”
“Nothing,” he says again, jaw tightening. “You lie through your teeth, drag me into a fake engagement, hold onto me like I’m part of the act, and suddenly we’re competing with –” he gestures vaguely toward the monochrome couple, “– those people. Nothing at all.”
You cross your arms. “I asked you to come. You came. That’s on you.”
His laugh is humourless. “You didn’t tell me I was signing up to be your emotional seeing-eye dog for a venue tour.”
You bristle. “I didn’t ask you to hold my hand.”
“You didn’t ask,” he shoots back, “but you sure as hell did it anyway.”
You open your mouth. Close it again in favour of studying him, as if the truth of this situation might be written across the rigidity of his shoulders, the hard line of his mouth, and the glint in his eyes that isn’t anger so much as it is something that he doesn’t want to name.
This is not about the hand, this is not about the lie. This is something deeper and he’s trying very hard – too hard – not to be affected by.
“Okay,” you say slowly. “So what are you actually angry about?”
He looks away first, toward the lake shimmering through the hallway windows. The light catches on the water, fractured and restless – and for a moment, so is he.
“You keep acting like this wedding is an exam you’re going to be graded on,” he says quietly. “Like if you don’t get the perfect score, you’d have failed something.”
Your heart climbs straight into your throat. His accuracy is unfair.
“And you,” you say, more sharply than intended, “act like caring about something automatically makes it ridiculous.”
Unexpectedly, he flinches – a tiny, involuntary contraction, like you’ve brushed into a decades old bruise.
“It’s just a venue,” he says, and there’s no mockery in it now. Only something raw, frustrated, almost… unguarded. “A pretty one. But you’re acting like it’s going to make or break their marriage.”
His mouth twists. “Like the right backdrop magically carries the weight of everything else. And I don’t get it,” he exhales through his nose, gaze fixed somewhere past you. “Why this – all this – matters so damn much to you people.”
You people. It stings, but not in the way he thinks. Because underneath the snark, you finally see the real wound: he doesn’t understand ceremonies, symbols, anything beautiful for the sake of being beautiful – because he’s never let himself want any of it.
“Because it’s Nat and Steve,” you say, letting your voice soften to match his. “And I love them.”
He goes still at that.
You press on, because if you stop now you might not ever get it out. “I can’t fix their schedules,” you say. “I can’t tell them to stop adjusting their lives for everyone else. For rehearsals, for classes, for performances, for deadlines, for everyone who wants a piece of them.” You gesture around the sun-dappled riverbank. “This I can make good. This is their onewedding, and I refuse to let it be mediocre.”
A whole taxonomy of expressions moves across Bucky’s face – irritation, disbelief, something like reluctant comprehension, and then something else entirely, quick and unguarded, before he shutters it.
“And if all it takes is twenty minutes of us pretending…” you continue, voice steadying as you meet his eyes, “then yeah, I’m going to ask you to pretend like your life depends on it.”
He swallows – a small, tight movement, the only tell he gives away. You hold his gaze, refusing to look anywhere else.
“I’m not asking you to suddenly believe in weddings, Bucky,” you say quietly. “Just help me make one thing in their life perfect.”
His jaw works once, the fight leaving him in a slow, resigned exhale.
“…Fine,” he mutters, looking away as he rubs the back of his neck, “Just – don’t grab my arm like that again unless you warn me first.”
You smile, stepping past him toward the terrace where the coordinator has drifted off with the other couple. “No promises.”
*
The tour funnels you down a gentle slope, the house falling away behind you as the riverbank unfurls in front of it – a stretch of soft grass tapering toward the water, framed on one side by a broad, ancient oak. Its branches arc outward like the ribs of a cathedral, heavy with leaves that whisper in the breeze. You hadn’t noticed it from the house; from this angle, though, it dominates the horizon, dignified and steadfast, the kind of tree that seems older than the property deeds themselves.
The coordinator steps onto the very center of the lawn with the assured gait of someone taking her mark on a stage. This, you know instinctively, is where she believes vows ought to be spoken – the exact patch of earth where a couple should stand, framed by river light and the watchful canopy of the oak. She closes her eyes, lifts her chin slightly, and inhales through her nose like she’s tasting the air for nuance, for resonance, for meaning.
Sunlight spills around her like she arranged it.
“Well?” she asks. “What has the space said to you?”
You open your mouth, but Bucky beats you to it.
He straightens with the weary precision of a man reaching for a tool he resents knowing how to use. And, with all the cool detachment of someone reading a zoning violation aloud, he replies, “We’ll need to check with our feng shui master first. Just to confirm the alignment. Of the house. Of the day. Of us.”
You nearly swallow your own tongue as the coordinator woman’s eyes go wide. The monochrome couple freeze like meerkats spotting a predator.
“Your… master,” she breathes, reverent.
Bucky nods once, faux-solemn. “Yes. We never make major choices without him aligning the energies of the space.”
Something dangerously close to hysteria bubbles up – laughter, disbelief, the urge to grab him by the collar – and you shove it all down in favour of hissing under your breath, “Where the hell did you get that from?”
Without breaking eye contact with the woman, Bucky whispers back, “Someone said it to me last week.”
“Well.” Her spine straightens, chin lifting in pride. “You may assure your feng shui master that this house was built to honour all schools of thought. East, West, traditional, contemporary, celestial, terrestrial – every axis, every current, every flow – perfectly aligned.”
“Oh, I don’t doubt it,” Bucky murmurs, and the audacity of him nearly floors you.
The woman stands a little straighter, the way someone does when intellectually challenged and spiritually provoked. Her eyes sweep once more over the riverbank, the grass, the house behind you – a slow, assessing glide, like she’s listening to vibrations only she can hear.
She inhales deeply, with great purpose. When she opens her eyes again, something in her expression has shifted. “The space,” she says, solemn as a vow, “has begun to speak.”
A hush seems to fall – not real, but perceptual, the kind that comes from someone making a proclamation with enough confidence that your brain scrambles to keep up.
She lifts her hands, palms open to the sky. “It is… forming an opinion.”
Behind you, Bucky stiffens in the exact way a man does when he desperately wants to object but also desperately does not want to extend this interaction by another minute.
The woman turns, serene and certain.
The monochrome couple immediately arrange themselves into a picturesque tableau – her hand on his chest, his chin lowered like he’s posing for a photoshoot. They look like they rehearsed this in the car.
She lifts her palms. “Energy reveals itself through contrast. This space,” she announces, “always reveals the truth of a couple.”
Bucky mutters, “Spaces are unreactive,” under his breath.
You nudge his ribs with your elbow, a warning.
The coordinator opens her eyes and turns toward the monochrome couple first. She tilts her head, studying them with a tight, delicate frown – the kind people give wilted herbs at a farmer’s market.
“Mmm,” she says. “There is… tension in your current alignment.”
The monochrome bride stiffens. “Tension?”
“Yes,” the coordinator says gently, almost apologetically. “A little blocked. A little… forced.”
Beside you, Bucky murmurs, “Told you posing wouldn’t help,” and you jab him again, harder.
Then the coordinator turns to you and Bucky and her eyes widen. She steps closer, blinking once, twice, as if a spotlight has turned on specifically above the two of you.
“Oh,” she breathes. “This… this is interesting.”
Bucky straightens, like he’s bracing to be insulted. Instead, the coordinator smiles – slow and reverent – as if she’s seeing the first bloom of spring emerge from frozen ground.
“Your energy is very strong together,” she says.
You blink. Bucky blinks harder.
“Our what?” he splutters.
“Your connection,” she clarifies, waving her hands vaguely between your bodies. “There’s an undeniable resonance. A grounding. A clarity. The space likes you.”
You nearly choke. “We – we just walked in.”
“Yes,” she says simply. “And the space settled. Didn’t you feel it?”
You feel Bucky staring at you, silently begging you not to say yes, which is why you smile sweetly and answer, “Of course.”
The monochrome bride sputters. “We’ve been engaged for fourteen months!”
The coordinator turns sympathetically toward her. “Sometimes longevity dulls resonance.”
Bucky quietly coughs to hide a laugh – or dies, it’s hard to tell.
The monochrome groom steps forward, indignant. “We’re very aligned. We meditate together.”
“Even more worrying,” the coordinator murmurs.
You bite your lip to keep from laughing. Bucky fails entirely; a tiny, traitorous sound escapes him.
The bride narrows her eyes at you like you might drop dead from the strength of her displeasure.
You loop your arm a little tighter around Bucky’s, partly to sell the ruse… partly because the absurdity has short-circuited your ability to stand upright on your own.
The coordinator makes a gentle sweeping motion with her hand. “Let us test the resonance.”
Bucky whispers, panicked, “What the hell does that mean?”
“How would I know?!”
But the monochrome bride is already stepping forward like she’s ready to ascend the throne, so you tug Bucky along to keep up.
The coordinator stands between both couples, waving her arms like she’s invoking some ancient rite. “Take one step toward each other.”
You and Bucky share a look – half dread, half the feral refusal to lose when the competition is right there. You both step forward in perfect sync.
You mouth, I’m sorry. A muscle twitches in his cheek – not annoyance – something closer to careful exasperation. His answer is a barely perceptible tilt of his head that reads, I know. Don’t worry about it.
You stop toe to toe, breaths brushing.
Nothing mystical happens, nothing supernatural – just Bucky Barnes standing close enough that the world seems to tilt around the space you share. You refuse to look him in the eyes – God knows what you’d see there – so you stare determinedly at the bridge of his nose, willing your expression into neutrality as the warmth of him crowds out every thought you were trying to have.
He inhales, sharp and quiet, like he wasn’t expecting you to be this close either. He too, appears to be doing his level best to not look at you, but it’s an exercise in futility. His gaze skims your mouth first – a flicker, unintentional and devastating – before darting up to your eyes like he’s been caught thinking something he absolutely shouldn’t.
Your pulse slams; he swallows once, hard – small, involuntary shifts, now kept between the two of you like a secret.
The coordinator beams. “There. You see? Harmony.”
Bucky stares straight ahead, face rigid, ears just barely pink.
The monochrome couple step forward too – but the groom hesitates; the bride overcorrects; their hands collide awkwardly.
“Oh,” the coordinator says softly, pained. “Oh no.”
Bucky mutters, “Yikes,” under his breath, and you actually pinch his arm.
The coordinator claps once, decisive. “I believe I’ve seen enough.”
Everyone tenses.
She turns to you and Bucky. “The space responds to you,” she says with priestess-level certainty. “It welcomes you. It expands for you.”
You’re about to thank her when Bucky murmurs, “If the space is reacting to anything, it’s your dramatics,” but fortunately only you hear it.
Then the coordinator swivels toward the other couple. “You,” she announces solemnly, “must reduce your guest list.”
The bride gasps. “But we – my mother – ”
“The room,” the coordinator says gravely, “has decided.”
The groom looks genuinely shaken.
Bucky leans in, voice barely audible. “I can’t believe this is working.”
You whisper back, “It’s not working because of me. It’s working because of that chandelier lecture you gave.”
“That was structural integrity,” he hisses. “Not flirting.”
But he doesn’t let go of your arm.
And you don’t step away.
The woman turns back to you both, her expression warm and resolute. “Take your time,” she says, though she looks like she’d happily build a shrine in your honour to expedite the decision. “But tell your master he will find no faults here. None.”
“We will,” you promise.
She glides away, leaving you and Bucky standing in a halo of lake-light and competitive triumph.
Bucky exhales, long and tired. “This is exactly how people lose their minds.”
You guide him toward the exit anyway, fingers still hooked through his sleeve – not intimate, not quite polite, just necessary.
“Welcome,” you murmur unapologetically, “to wedding planning.”
Two weeks and a day earlier…
The week takes off at a dead sprint. Your phone vibrates itself into delirium, screen lighting up with vendors, reschedules, quotes, “circling back” emails, and three separate florists who apparently all forgot they’d already spoken to you twice.
Bucky, for all his sins, is enduring it. At every appointment he trails half a step behind you – a man hoping proximity alone won’t make him legally responsible for whatever decisions you’re about to make. Hands in pockets. Jaw tight. Eyes narrowed as though each vendor is a fresh test of his moral fortitude.
And yet…
He comes. Without complaint, without needing to be chased.
And – this is new – somewhere between the cake tasting and the linen warehouse, the edge of him softens. Barely. A thaw measured in millimeters. A grunt instead of a sigh. A single, grudging nod when you ask what he thinks.
A man not enjoying himself, exactly, but acclimating to the weather.
It’s not much, but for Bucky Barnes? It’s practically enthusiasm.
*
On Monday, you take him to the bakery.
That is to say: you enter the bakery; Bucky is tugged in behind you by the elbow like a particularly resentful ox being led to market. He drags his feet with the weary fatalism of a man heading into a tax audit rather than a pastel shop filled with butter and joy.
The shop itself is – there’s no other word for it – whimsical. Pastel walls, delicate bunting, sunlight slanting through the front windows as though the cakes have been personally blessed by the heavens. The air smells of warm vanilla and soft nostalgia, the kind that makes even cynics briefly believe in birthdays.
Bucky looks around as though the décor has personally wronged him.
The owner, whom you had coaxed into giving you the earliest slot of the morning through sheer force of will, gestures proudly to the tasting platter.
“We’ll begin with the Earl Grey sponge and lavender honey buttercream,” she announces, serene and certain.
Your eyes brighten.
Bucky’s narrow. “What happened to good ol’ chocolate?” he mutters, as though chocolate has been unjustly exiled from its ancestral lands.
You kick him beneath the table. Lightly. But not so lightly that it could be mistaken for affection.
“Eat,” you instruct.
He gives you the kind of look usually reserved for dire medical diagnoses, then reluctantly scoops the smallest, most suspicious sliver of cake onto his fork. He puts it into his mouth like a man testing whether the food is poisoned.
And then – you see it, the betrayal of expression he cannot stop. First surprise, then reluctant delight, followed almost immediately by the horrified awareness that he has enjoyed something he fully intended to hate.
“It’s fine,” he blurts, far too quickly.
You lean in, delighted. “You liked it.”
He scowls at the table, then at you, then at the baker – who is now beaming at him with the radiant satisfaction of a woman who has converted a lifelong skeptic.
It is not just fine.
It is objectively delicious.
And he hates – truly hates – that you saw the truth flicker across his traitorous face before he could stop it.
*
On Tuesday, Bucky takes one look at the flowers and immediately starts sneezing.
The florist winces in sympathy. “Allergies?”
“He’ll survive,” you say before Bucky can flee, even though he’s already retreating toward the far end of the worktable like a man hoping distance alone might save him.
The shop smells like cut stems and cold water – green and sharp and very alive – petals spilling across every surface in soft, painterly chaos.
The florist laughs kindly and gestures to a bucket of eucalyptus. “Don’t worry – these are hardy and allergen-friendly. They hold up in anything. Weddings, heatwaves, surprise drizzle…” He shrugs. “Outdoor ceremonies love a bit of weather drama, but flowers don’t – unless you pick the right ones.”
You perk up. “Is rain even a concern this time of year?”
“Not usually,” the florist says, selecting a spray of greenery and trimming it with quick, deft movements. “But you plan as if it might. Storms are shy until they aren’t.”
Bucky snorts. “Weather’s weather. Either it behaves or it doesn’t.”
You shoot him a look. “Some of us prefer contingency plans.”
He arches an eyebrow. “Some of us have noticed.”
You ignore him – mostly – as the florist flips to an empty page of his notepad.
“All right,” he says. “What’s the vision?”
You inhale to answer –
“Classic,” Bucky says before you can speak. “And nothing that sheds on cloth.”
Your head whips toward him. “Since when do you get a vote?”
“I don’t want to walk around looking like I’ve been rolled through pollen.”
“Oh my god,” you breathe. “This isn’t about you.”
But Bucky isn’t listening anymore. Somehow he’s gotten hold of a ranunculus – pale, full, elegant – turning it between his fingers with a strange, unexpected tenderness, like he’s examining the architecture of it rather than the bloom.
“Steve likes texture,” he says quietly. “And Nat wouldn’t want anything that droops. These won’t.”
Your heart skips a beat.
He pretends he hasn’t said anything meaningful, already shifting his attention to the eucalyptus as if the leaves are deeply compelling. The florist pretends not to notice, though his smile is unmistakably knowing.
Bucky clears his throat. “What?”
“Nothing,” you say.
(Not nothing. Not even close.)
*
On Wednesdaythe décor warehouse tries to kill you.
It is cavernous and overwhelming, chandeliers dangling from the ceiling every two meters like glittering threats, and an entire aisle of linens that could double as medieval weaponry. Sequins glint, metallics glare, tulle menaces.
You are confronted with sequined tablecloths; Bucky is confronted with the very edge of his sanity.
“This,” he tells the décor consultant as he lifts one anyway, rubbing the cloth between his fingers with a frown so deeply judgmental it could be submitted for peer review, “is both a fire hazard and a crime.”
“It’s festive!” she chirps, a woman who has clearly never met Bucky Barnes before today.
“The weave is cheap,” you announce, already flipping to the corresponding tab in The Binder, which has now manifested in your hands like a grimoire. “It’ll pill and crease endlessly. And the reflective finish will give half the guest list a migraine before the night’s through. We need organic fibres. High drape. Low shine.”
Bucky’s head snaps toward you, narrowing his eyes at The Binder as if it is a sentient being he should probably file a restraining order against.
The consultant nods, chastened, and flips open a book of fabric samples. “Right. Understood. Organic fibres only.”
As she rifles through swatches, her gaze drifts upward – to you, then Bucky, then the two of you standing shoulder-to-shoulder, already leaning unconsciously toward the same bolt of ivory linen. Bucky has angled himself half a step in front of you in the quiet, instinctive way he does when something large or unwieldy is suspended overhead (in this case – chandeliers).
“You two work well together,” she says mildly. “That’s rare.”
Bucky stiffens, as if she’s accused him of tax fraud. You give her a serene smile. “We’re… efficient.”
The consultant brightens. “Wonderful! Now, what about centrepieces? I have a full catalogue –”
But you’re already unzipping The Binder. Its spine hits the table with a weighty thud, tabs fanning open like a legal case file.
The consultant startles. Bucky actually flinches.
“What is that,” he mutters, like you’ve revealed a cursed heirloom.
“My system,” you say, flipping to Décor – Appropriate Fabrics – Do Not Attempt. “I have a plan.”
“A plan,” Bucky repeats, staring at the colour-coded pages with something between awe and genuine concern for your psychological welfare. “That thing looks like it could beat me in a fight.”
You pat The Binder affectionately. “It could.”
The consultant beams, totally unaware that Bucky is staring at you like he’s just realised he may be assisting someone who is, clinically speaking, unhinged.
“Right,” she says brightly. “I’ll pull samples.”
Bucky looks at the chandeliers overhead. Then at you. Then at The Binder.
And for the first time all week, he whispers – almost reverently, “…I should’ve stayed in the car.”
*
It happens late on a Sunday, at a café that should have closed twenty minutes ago.
The whole week has been a blur of vendors and spreadsheets and Bucky’s increasingly elaborate attempts to pretend he’s not helping while very much helping. By Sunday evening, the two of you have collapsed into the only open seats you can find – a wobbly bistro table by the window, your laptop occupying most of the surface and Bucky occupying most of the silence.
You’re hunched over the screen, brow creased, staring down a ceremony timeline that stubbornly refuses to make structural sense. Bucky is across from you, sleeves pushed up, sketching something on a napkin with the grim focus of a man troubleshooting a structural fault in a bridge rather than a wedding.
You rub your eyes. “What are you doing?”
Without looking up, he mutters, “Fixing a bottleneck. Your aisle’s too narrow.”
“Why do you care?” you mutter just as carelessly, distracted by your task.
His pen stills, his shoulders shift, and slowly, reluctantly, he looks up.
For a moment, everything seems to hush – the espresso machine becomes distant, the street noise flattens, and the tired overhead lights soften around the edges.
Bucky taps the pen once against the napkin, like anchoring himself before he says something foolish. “Because you care,” he says. Then, quieter, as if the words escaped without permission, “and you shouldn’t have to do all of this alone.”
It lands inside you with alarming precision – a warmth, a weight, something perilously close to a beginning.
You can’t breathe for a second.
And he must feel it, because he looks away fast, jaw tightening, shoulders drawing in as if he’s trying to fold the moment back up and hide it inside himself again. Like he’s said something intimate by accident, and he regrets this sliver of honesty.
Around you, the world resumes: chairs scrape, someone calls out a drink order, the barista stacks cups with end-of-night urgency.
Bucky clears his throat. “Anyway,” he mutters, sliding the napkin toward you without meeting your eyes, “don’t make it weird.”
But it is.
It’s extremely, catastrophically weird.
The napkin is a clean little sketch of flow paths and corrected spacing, annotations in a tidy slant you didn’t know he had. A map of attention. Of care.
You fold it carefully before slipping it into your bag, feeling absurdly like you’re tucking away evidence of something neither of you is ready to name.
When you leave the café, the air smells faintly of rain – the kind that promises trouble but hasn’t yet arrived.
One week and one day earlier…
You do not sleep.
You perform the ceremonial gestures of sleep – lying down, closing your eyes, arranging your limbs in the socially approved configuration – but rest never actually arrives. Your mind conducts its own private military coup at 3:00 am, storming your bloodstream with insurgent thoughts: ‘Did the florist confirm final stem counts?’, ‘Did I remember to order table numbers?’, and ‘Would it work better if family speeches come before the entrées? Or after?’
You drift, jolt awake, repeat. Several times.
By morning, you’re running on nineteen minutes of sleep and pure vengeance. So, when the caterer calls you mid-zoom-interview at the press junket for Disaster Day to inform you they cannot, in fact, prepare the vegan entrée in a mini size, something in you goes very still.
You stare at your phone with the placid serenity of a war general who has already accepted casualties. “Can’t,” you say, voice crisp as a drawn blade, “is not a word in my vocabulary.”
Across the room, Bucky lifts an eyebrow over the rim of his laptop. He is technically working from home today – except “home” has quietly become your living room around 8:12 a.m. every morning. You’ve stopped asking why. He brings coffee. And pastries. And printouts for The Binder. And frankly, you no longer have the mental bandwidth to interrogate miracles.
“You shouldn’t threaten people before nine,” he says mildly.
“I haven’t threatened anyone.”
That is – generously – untrue. You have absolutely threatened everyone. Politely. With deadlines. And consequences. And lightly weaponised spreadsheets.
Bucky watches you pace while fielding the caterer’s excuses, your free hand slicing the air like you’re conducting an orchestra on fire. Something like amusement flickers across his face, but it softens quickly into concern – the subtle, steady kind he pretends isn’t happening.
And then, instead of retreating as any sensible person would before the detonation of a stressed maid-of-honour, he rises from the couch, crosses the room, and steps into your orbit.
He doesn’t grab your phone. He asks for it with one quiet, inexorable gesture of his hand.
“Give me that,” he murmurs. “Before the caterers fire us.”
“They are not going to fire us.”
“You’re vibrating.”
“I’m passionate.”
“You’re one ‘no’ from burning this whole city down.”
Before you can form a rebuttal, he slides your phone neatly out of your grip, taps the speaker off, and steps out onto the tiny balcony attached to your apartment. The door clicks shut behind him.
You watch him through the glass – leaning one forearm against the railing, phone at his ear, morning light catching on the metal lines of his arm. His hair curls slightly at the temples from the humidity, and he’s wearing that expression he saves for handling difficult subcontractors – patience wrapped in exhaustion, tied with a bow of menace.
He’s handsome in a way that feels entirely illegal before 9:00 am.
Three minutes later – just as you’ve abandoned your Zoom call in shame and are contemplating whether your cold muffin is a metaphor for your rapidly deteriorating sanity – the door opens again.
“All sorted,” he says, handing back your phone. “They’ll do it.”
“Really?”
“They just needed to be… encouraged.”
You narrow your eyes. “Encouraged how?”
He ignores you. Instead, he leans over your shoulder without warning, takes an enormous bite out of the muffin you were very clearly saving, grimaces, and declares, “These tasted better when they were fresh.”
“I hate you,” you lie.
He pats you on the head – like you’re a stressed-out Pomeranian instead of a full-grown adult on the brink of collapse – and sets the half-eaten muffin back on your plate.
“Be good,” he says absently, already grabbing his bag. “I’ve gotta be on the West Coast in…” He checks his watch. “Nine hours. Which is – too soon. Far too soon.”
“For the site walkthrough?” you ask.
“Yes,” he grumbles. “A walkthrough that could’ve easily been a Zoom meeting. But no. ‘In-person presence’ apparently matters when you’re paid obscene amounts of money to stare at blueprints and tell rich people their walls won’t collapse.”
He slings his jacket over his shoulder, pauses at your doorway, and glances back at you – at the chaos of your open laptop, the muffin carnage, the binder bristling with tabs like a hydra waiting to strike.
“You gonna be okay till I’m back?” he asks, voice low, deceptively casual.
You open your mouth to say yes. But your brain whispers table numbers and speech order and stem counts and seating charts and vegan mini entrées –
Bucky exhales, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I’ll bring more muffins tomorrow,” he says.
And then he’s gone.
Five days earlier…
By this time, you have achieved a certain notoriety amongst vendors. The florist replies to your emails instantly, the lighting techs refuse to take your calls unless you’ve sent a written agenda in advance, the décor rental company has assigned their most battle-hardened employee to answer your number specifically – the kind of woman who has seen things.
And that afternoon, you’re on the phone with her – Tiffany, destroyer of inventory lists – vibrating with equal parts impatience and righteous fear. “No, Tiffany, I don’t want these silver chairs,” you say, pacing your living room like a commander on the brink of mutiny. “I want the silver chairs in the original quote. No. No, don’t you dare. These are narrower. I can see it. Don’t gaslight me with measurements, Tiffany.”
Meanwhile, Bucky – freshly returned from LA and looking unfairly good for someone who spent six hours on a cramped plane – is crouched on the floor beside the coffee table, reorganising the seating chart with the laser focus of a man who has chosen physical labour over listening to you eviscerate a stranger.
He has rolled up his sleeves, exposing the long line of his forearms. He is using a ruler. A ruler.
The concentration is so intense it borders on devotional.
Your leg, jittering with fury at Tiffany’s incompetence, keeps brushing against his knee.
And Bucky… doesn’t move.
Not an inch.
He goes absolutely still, like someone attempting not to startle a wild animal – except it’s not fear pinning him there. It’s something tighter, quieter, more dangerous.
You don’t notice any of this. You’re too busy with convincing Tiffany about the discomfort of narrower chairs.
However, Bucky notices you. He notices the way your hair is falling out of its clip. He notices the focus in your eyes, the heat in your voice, the absolute refusal to compromise. He notices that every time your knee brushes his, it sends a pulse of something electric straight through him. And that his ears are burning.
He shifts the seating cards again – unnecessarily, compulsively – because it’s either that or he betrays himself.
You end the call with a victorious, “Thank you, Tiffany,” in a tone that means anything but, and drop onto the couch with a sigh.
Only then do you look down and see Bucky still on the floor, still close enough that your knee bumps his elbow, still very much there.
“Did you fix it?” you ask, nodding toward the seating chart.
He doesn’t look up immediately. When he does, his voice is steady in a way his pulse absolutely isn’t.
“Yeah,” he says. “I’ve got you.”
Four days earlier…
You are Time Itself. No one moves unless you decree it.
“Load-in is at seven,” you announce to the empty air – or perhaps to the universe, which should know better by now than to test you.
“It says eight on the schedule,” Bucky replies without looking up from his laptop.
“It’s seven,” you say. “Now.”
He exhales the kind of sigh reserved for malfunctioning printers and divine punishment, but he adjusts the timeline anyway. He’s the only person who could argue with you – and the only one who genuinely doesn’t want to.
Then the DJ calls.
He tells you, very cheerfully and very incorrectly, that your preferred recessional song is “technically unavailable.”
You stop breathing.
“What do you MEAN unavailable?” you shout into the phone. “Music does not disappear! It doesn’t migrate! It’s not an endangered species!”
Somewhere beside you, Bucky goes very still, like a man anticipating shrapnel. He gently pries the phone from your hand, tells the DJ, “Sorry, she’s been like this all week,” and steps away to do damage control.
“You need to eat something,” he says when he returns.
“You need to stop babying me,” you shoot back.
“Funny,” he says mildly, handing you a granola bar. “Because you’re acting exactly like a child.”
You glare at him. Then, still glaring, you bite half the granola bar in a single, furious chomp.
He says nothing – just watches as you flip through The Binder, muttering about back-up music options, crumbs dusting your fingers.
And then he smirks, just this quiet, unbearably fond little curve of his mouth – like he has, against all odds, successfully tamed a dragon.
Or worse, like he likes being the one who can.
Three days earlier…
You return to the venue for a walkthrough, overseeing the preparations, with the air of a small, determined weather system. A storm cloud in sneakers, striding across the lawn.
he grass is crisp underfoot; the late afternoon light glances off every rented surface. Staff scatter at your approach like startled deer as you fire off instructions rapid-fire.
“Those chairs need to be straight!”
“That table is too close to the aisle – Natasha will murder someone!”
“No, no, the lanterns go in a gentle arc, not – is that a semicircle? I said gentle! Arc!”
You are relentless. A force of nature. A benevolent tyrant.
And behind you, Bucky moves like the calm shadow of that storm – not blocking it, not dampening it, simply… shaping its path. As you pass through the space, he drifts after you with that quiet, commanding competence vendors obey without hesitation.
You bark, “The draping is too low!” Bucky adds, evenly, “Raise it four inches,” and the fabric lifts to exactly the right height.
You snap, “Why is that easel crooked?” He doesn’t even check – just straightens it in passing.
You whirl and demand, “Did we lose the programs?” Without looking up from the seating chart he’s reviewing, he murmurs, “Left table,” and somehow also manages to hand them to you as you spin past.
Somewhere in the chaos, the vendors begin turning to him instead of you – but he never answers without meeting your eyes first, the quiet your call? passing between you with the ease of something well-practised.
It shifts the atmosphere around you.
Not dramatically, not all at once – but enough that you feel it: the way people start to move around the two of you rather than through you, the way instructions seem to settle more cleanly when he repeats them in that low, steady voice. It isn’t deference so much as an unspoken acknowledgement that whatever this operation is, you and Bucky are its centre of gravity. Like the two of you have become a team. A pair.
The hours blur. At some point the sun shifts, turning the river gold; at some point you realise he has been tracking your movements by sound alone; at some point everyone else started stepping back when the two of you approached together, as if clearing a path for a unit that operates on instinct, not instruction.
And then –
He’s gone.
One moment Bucky is beside you, adjusting a lantern hook before you can work up the breath to scold it; the next, he’s simply… vanished. No warning, no explanation.
You freeze mid-step, wondering if perhaps the lanterns were the straw that broke the camel’s back. Maybe the arc was perfectly gentle after all. Maybe he’s halfway home by now, liberated from your tyranny, which is frankly more alarming.
Unfortunately, you don’t have time to worry about it. The rental company have just delivered the wrong chairs – again – and you’re rifling through The Binder for the order confirmation and delivery manifesto when you hear the tell-tale click of doors opening.
You don’t bother looking up. “Bucky, if that’s the caterer, tell them no, we do not want a cheese fountain. We already have a charcuterie table and this is enoughcheese as it is –“
“Not the caterer,” a voice cuts in, bright and very, very amused.
You freeze, snap your head to the door, and immediately want to scream. “Nat?”
She saunters in, sunglasses perched in her hair, dressed like she’s just come from robbing an art gallery. And behind her –
“Steve?”
He offers a sheepish little wave. “Hey.”
“What –” You spin around, scanning the unfinished chaos of the venue. The wrong chairs are still stacked in their delivery plastics, the table linens are half-unwrapped, and someone is vacuuming outside.
“What are you doing here?” you gasp. “We’re – this place is – not done.”
“Bucky called us,” Nat says casually, inspecting the archway of lanterns. “Said you were about to combust.”
You whirl around to glare at him. He’s loitering by the floral delivery, suddenly very interested in counting the number of petals on the hydrangeas.
Traitor.
Steve steps forward before you can explode. “Hey. We’re not here to stress you out. Just thought we’d – have a look. Say hi. Make sure you’re alright.”
“And point out any death traps,” Natasha adds helpfully.
“I –” you glance around the room as a bead of sweat slides down your spine. “I haven’t – okay, but the entryway’s a mess, and I haven’t confirmed if the florist finished –”
Steve claps Bucky on the back, murmurs something you don’t catch, and then turns to you with absolute sincerity.
“Just point out what’s left,” he says. “We’ll tell you if anything needs adjusting.”
You stare at him, hesitating.
There are a dozen things still bothering you – chair alignment, votive placement, aisle symmetry, the floral arch that’s slightly off-centre if you squint.
Natasha squeezes your hand. “Lead the way.”
So you do.
You walk them through the space, stomach clenched, waiting for them to flinch. Waiting for Natasha to raise an eyebrow. For Steve to say something painfully diplomatic like “Oh… interesting choice.” You start at the entryway, apologising for the seating chart station still being assembled. You usher them through the reception room hall, cringing at the wrong chairs. You pause by the catering tent, where someone’s left a crate of half-melted ice under the table.
But –
Steve is nodding. Nat is smiling. They’re chatting with the vendors like old friends. The florist’s assistant offers them tea. A tiny crack forms in the armour of your panic.
And then, you step outside, out onto the terrace.
The world opens.
The lawn rolls out before you, soft and immaculate, before dipping toward the lake – where the water is catching the last gold of the setting sun, shimmering in a way no Pinterest board ever adequately prepared you for. The breeze lifts warm against your face, and but beneath it, a cooler ribbon of air slips past your ankle.
And there, at the centre of it all, stands the arch.
It rises from the grass as though it grew there overnight: a sweep of branches and late-summer blooms woven together so seamlessly it feels alive. Moss softens the base, wildflowers spill through the latticework, and the whole structure glows in the amber light like it has been waiting – patiently, inevitably – for Nat and Steve to stand beneath it.
The trees along the waterline rustle, not loudly, but with that faint, anticipatory shiver of leaves that hints at a change in the air. The whole place feels momentarily enchanted.
Natasha inhales softly. “This is breathtaking.”
Steve wraps an arm around her shoulders, his expression lighting up in a way that makes your throat sting. “It’s perfect,” he says.
Perfect.
Perfect.
You have not heard that word in two weeks – not directed at you, not directed at anything you’ve touched. The sound of it seems to land somewhere deep in your chest, loosening a knot you didn’t realise had become part of your anatomy.
You turn slightly, catching Bucky watching you.
Not Steve.
Not Natasha.
You.
For a moment his expression is unreadable – steady, assessing, something flickering just behind his eyes as if he’s cataloguing the exact second your shoulders begin to unlock. And when they do, when that infinitesimal shift in your posture betrays just how close to breaking you’ve been, something gentler settles across his features. Something warm. Something proud in a quiet, devastating way.
He doesn’t say a word.
But the silence feels like one: See? I told you. You did this. You can breathe now.
Natasha spins to face you, eyes bright. “Everything looks incredible. Truly.”
You swallow, the question slipping out before you can stop it. “Really?”
“Really,” Steve echoes. “We wouldn’t change a thing.”
The breath leaves you all at once – a long, tremoring exhale you didn’t realise you’d been holding, as if your body had been bracing for criticism even now, even here. Your chest opens like someone finally snipped the last too-tight thread holding it together.
Maybe –
just maybe –
you haven’t been failing.
Maybe it’s all going to be okay.
Two days ago…
Bucky finds you by accident.
It’s late – late enough that the venue has finally exhaled. The last of the staff have gone, the caterer’s van taillights swallowed by the dark, the florist waving wearily before disappearing down the drive. Outside, a light drizzle patters on and off, the kind that can’t decide whether to commit to rain at all. The venue, which had buzzed like a disturbed hive all day, now settles into a deep, exhausted quiet.
He walks the grounds anyway.
The last staff car crunches over gravel as it pulls away; he stands under the overhang and watches its taillights disappear into the dark. He tells people go home, nods toward their umbrellas, makes sure no one is lingering in the drizzle out of politeness or fear you’ll summon them back.
Only when the final goodnight is called does he breathe out.
Inside, the place feels different. Dimmer. Reverent. The hallway sconces glow low, the air smelling faintly of wet cedar and the sweet scatter of greenery left behind. A final walkthrough, he tells himself. One last sweep before tomorrow.
He moves through the quiet halls checking what he knows: the service doors latched, terrace gate secured so the breeze won’t rattle it open, emergency exits clear. The air smells faintly of eucalyptus and wet earth drifting in from outside. Overhead, the timbers creak softly with the shifting weather.
He pauses beneath the hanging chandeliers – delicate strands of crystal beading suspended amongst shimmering lights. Dozens, maybe hundreds, trembling slightly whenever the drizzle swells and the wind nudges the eaves. He counts them again, and again, pretending it’s for safety, ignoring the truth humming beneath the surface:
Everything is done.
Everything is perfect.
Everything is so unmistakably yours.
He assumes you went home hours ago. He hopes you did. He hopes you’re asleep, or at least horizontal, phone finally out of your hands. He should be doing the same. He should stop orbiting the edges of this day and let tomorrow arrive on its own.
He’s halfway to convincing himself to go when he hears it – a soft, papery sound.
A rustle, quiet enough that he almost thinks he imagined it. He slows, frowns, and follows the sound into the reception hall, stopping short at the sight before him.
You’re sitting cross-legged on the polished wooden floor of the reception hall, right beneath the hanging lanterns. The lights are dimmed to a buttery glow; outside, the drizzle streaks silver against the windows. The room is nearly silent, save for the faint breath of the lake through the open vents and the soft, intermittent rain.
Around you lie small squares of colored paper – pinks, creams, golds – scattered like fallen petals. Your shoes are set neatly to the side, and your hair has slipped from whatever pinned it up earlier, trailing loose around your shoulders, a few strands catching light each time you bow your head to fold.
You’re folding each piece with slow, tender precision, hands steady despite the exhaustion etched into every line of you.
A small flock already waits beside you – dozens of cranes ready to be strung up.
Bucky stands there, frozen, something in his chest tightening.
You don’t see him at first. Then he clears his throat. “You planning on sleeping at any point today?”
You look up, startled, then soften when you realize it’s him. “Nope,” you say, far too chipper for someone clearly on the brink.
He huffs out a laugh as he approaches you. “Of course not.”
You lift a paper crane between two fingers, holding it up to the warm light. “There’s an old belief about these,” you say lightly, as if it’s an afterthought and not something that’s been sitting on your tongue all night. “In some traditions, a thousand cranes mean a wish. Or a promise. Health, longevity, good fortune… luck in new beginnings.”
Your eyes flick to the pile beside you – uneven wings, crooked beaks, all of them imperfect in a way only sincerity can be.
“The kids at Steve’s school made a bunch,” you explain softly. “But it wasn’t quite enough for the installation. So I’m… just adding a few more.” Your smile tilts. “Stacking the odds.”
“Not just a few more,” he says automatically.
“I know,” you say lightly, “but it’s for good reason.”
Bucky looks at the cranes again, not as decorations, not as something hung from wires and beams and carefully calculated weight limits. But as wishes. Hundreds of small, deliberate hopes, folded by all the people that love Steve and Natasha, one careful crease at a time, suspended above a room meant to hold a beginning.
Something tightens in his chest. He should leave. He should go home. He should not be drawn to the floor beside you like it’s gravity and he’s helpless against it.
He sits down anyway.
The wood is cool under him. our shoulder is close – closer than it has any right to be – and heat pools along the inside of his arm just from being near you.
You hand him a square of paper. Your fingers brush his. He pretends the touch doesn’t short-circuit something fundamental.
“So,” he says, staring at the paper like it might explode. “Instructions?”
You grin – tired, luminous, devastating. “I knew you’d ask.”
He pretends that doesn’t do something awful and permanent to him.
You lean in, showing him the first fold as your fingers settle over his without hesitation. A warm, electric pressure crawls up his wrist and into his ribs. He swallows. Focus. Fold. Don’t look at her.
“You’re overthinking it,” you say softly.
“I’m not you,” he mutters.
“If you say so.”
You show him how to crease the wing. Your thumb grazes the inside of his palm. His pulse kicks so violently he’s certain you must feel it.
You finish your crane before he finishes his. He pretends not to notice – or admire – the deft precision of your hands. The shape of them. The small, quiet strength of your wrists.
He’s doing a lot of pretending in this lake house.
“You know,” you say, setting another finished crane on the pile, “I think this is the first moment I’ve sat still in two weeks.”
He studies you. Really studies you.
The smudged eyeliner. The exhaustion tucked into the corners of your eyes. The way your shoulders sag only now that no one but him is here to see it.
“You did it,” he says quietly.
You blink. “Did what?”
“Everything.” His gaze sweeps over the decorated hall, the crane installation, the arch waiting outside for tomorrow. “You really built this whole damn wedding from the ground up.”
You laugh, soft and self-conscious. “With help.”
“With me,” he corrects. “And I didn’t even want to be involved at first.”
You smile. “You warmed up.”
“No,” he says before he can stop himself. “I just realized something.”
You turn your head. “Which is?”
This is the moment he feels something tip inside him, heavy and irreversible.
He should lie. He should joke. He should deflect until the truth loosens its grip.
Instead, he hears himself say, “I realized I like seeing you care.”
Your breath catches; it punches through him like a single, unguarded truth.
He looks down quickly, pretending to fix a crooked wing.
“You’re intense,” he says, voice softer than before, “and stubborn, and about half a step from terrifying when you want something done right.”
“Gee, thanks,” you murmur, already starting on another crane.
“But you care,” he continues, ignoring the way his pulse stumbles. “And watching you fight for this – fight for Nat and Steve – finally made me understand it. All of it.”
You stare at him. He stares at the crane in his hands.
“Bucky,” you say gently. “Look at me.”
He does. God help him, he does.
Your expression is open and warm, lit from within despite exhaustion. Something he wants to hold – gently, carefully, protectively – even though he shouldn’t want anything at all.
“I know you don’t care for weddings,” you say.
“I don’t,” he replies immediately.
You raise an eyebrow.
He sighs and tries again. “I just care about this one.”
He doesn’t mean the wedding, but he doesn’t clarify. He can’t.
The silence stretches – soft, thick, dangerous.
You place another crane gently on the pile. His chest aches.
He folds his next one wrong on purpose. Your hand comes up, brushing his to fix it and he nearly stops breathing.
“You’re getting better at this,” you tease.
“I have a good teacher.”
Your eyes flick up at that.
There’s a spark there, bright and undeniable. He has to look away, because if he holds your gaze any longer he’s going to say something he can’t take back.
You nudge his knee with yours – light, casual, intimate in a way that guts him. “Thanks for staying,” you say.
He swallows hard. “Yeah,” he murmurs. “It’s getting late.”
And that’s the truth.
The whole terrifying truth.
You smile again – soft, grateful, too much – as you place another piece of paper in his hands. And Bucky realizes with a clarity that terrifies him more than anything has – he’d fold a thousand of these damn things if it meant sitting beside you like this.
He folds the next one, and tries not to fall in love with the way you breathe beside him.
He fails spectacularly.
One day earlier…
Your blissful slumber’s interrupted by the knocking on your front door. Pounding down your front door, by the sound of things. You’re dragged violently out of sleep, heart slamming against your ribs before your brain can catch up.
You groan, roll over, and bury your face in the pillow.
It keeps going.
A fist. Hard, urgent, unreasonable.
“Open the door!”
You peel one eye open and squint at your phone – 7:25 am on the one morning you promised yourself you’d sleep in. The one morning everything was supposed to be done.
You stumble out of bed, wrap yourself in the nearest blanket, and shuffle to the door with murder in your bones.
You yank it open.
Bucky Barnes stands there, breathless. His hair’s damp and jacket half-zipped. But his eyes are sharp and wild in a way that snaps you fully awake in half a second.
“What,” you croak, “is your damage?”
“You weren’t answering your phone,” he says immediately.
You blink. “I was asleep.”
“You can’t be.”
“I will,” you insist petulantly. “The ceremony’s not until –”
“The storm last night –” he swallows once, “– a tree came down.”
The words don’t make sense. They hover between you like a foreign language.
“What?”
“At the venue,” he says, softer now, already holding his phone out. “During the storm last night.”
Your stomach drops before you even look.
You take the phone. The oak is ancient. Massive. The kind of tree people build towns around. Its trunk is split down the middle like bone. One half still rooted, the other flung sideways across the terrace roof as though the sky itself hurled it there.
The terrace pergola is gone – not damaged, gone – crushed into splintered ribs beneath the weight of bark and branch. The glass along the upper windows has blown outward. One beam hangs at an angle that makes your stomach lurch. Leaves are everywhere – plastered wet and dark against shattered timber, caught in gutters, smeared across the pale stone like something dragged itself there.
“No,” you whisper. “No – no, no –”
“I’ll drive,” Bucky says gently.
The drive passes in a blur of grey sky and tightening panic. Your hands are clenched so tightly in your lap that your fingers ache.
When you pull into the venue, the damage is worse up close.
The tree dominates. It has erased the terrace – erased the clean, architectural line you loved. The roof sags under the weight of it, one support beam visibly bowed. Sawdust coats the stone in damp, sticky drifts. Someone’s already tried to tarp part of it – the plastic snaps angrily in the wind like it’s offended that such a measly attempt could even begin to fix the damage.
The smell of wet wood and earth fills the air.
You stop walking.
Just… stop.
“It’s gone,” you hear yourself say. Your voice sounds very far away. “It’s all gone.”
Bucky steps closer, careful. “Hey –”
You don’t hear him.
You see the terrace where guests were meant to gather for pre-dinner drinks. The roofline that gorgeously frames the lake. The space you checked and rechecked and trusted.
Your chest caves inward.
“No.” You shake your head, once, then again, harder. “I checked the forecasts. I talked to the landscapers. I –”
Your voice fractures. “This tree is not supposed to fall!”
The venue owner stands nearby, wrapped in a shawl, staring at the fallen tree like she’s in mourning.
“The space mourns,” she murmurs to no one in particular.
A worker approaches her, clipboard in hand. “Ma’am, I know it’s just the terrace, but we can’t allow anyone inside until inspectors clears the entire premise. Forty-eight hours,” he says carefully. “Minimum. Possibly longer if structural damage extends into the main hall.”
Forty-eight hours.
You feel it then – the crack, the break, the thing you’ve been holding together finally giving way.
“It’s today,” you say, voice breaking. “The wedding is today.”
The owner looks at you, eyes wet. “I’m so sorry.”
You turn away blindly, stagger to a bench, and sit hard. Your breath comes in short, jagged pulls. Hot tears spill before you can stop them.
“I failed,” you choke. “I promised them – this was supposed to be perfect –”
Hands cup your face.
Firm. Warm. Steady.
“Hey,” Bucky says quietly. “Look at me.”
You shake your head.
“Please.”
You do, and you are met with an expression so fierce if startles you – protective, focused, utterly certain.
“I need you to breathe,” he says. “Because this isn’t over.”
You laugh, broken. “Bucky –”
Instead, he reaches into your tote – the one that has practically fused to your side over the past two weeks – and slides out The Binder. Your breath stutters. He holds it with the ease of someone who has done this before, who knows the weight, the tabs, the logic of your mind laid out in color-tabbed sections.
“I know you’ve got contingencies,” he says, flipping through pages with quick, efficient motions. “If it rains. If vendors can’t make it. If the power goes out.”
“Not – ” your voice cracks. “Not this.”
“No.” He closes The Binder gently. “Not trees falling.”
A beat.
A terrible, hollow beat where the question hangs between you: So what now?
You swipe at your cheeks. “We can’t fix the roof. We can’t move all the décor. We can’t – ” Your breath catches. “Bucky, we don’t have a – ”
“Venue?” he finishes, arching a brow.
You nod helplessly.
He looks at you for a long moment. Really looks. Then something in his expression shifts – subtle, almost imperceptible – like the first warm edge of dawn cresting over cold ground.
“Lucky for you,” he says quietly, “I’ve been spending a lot of time around someone who never accepts the first no.”
You blink. “Bucky – ”
“And,” he continues, the corner of his mouth lifting in a small, reluctant smile, “maybe some of that has rubbed off.”
You stare at him. “What are you saying?”
He exhales slowly, like he’s bracing for you to yell at him for the very thing that might save you.
“I’m saying,” he murmurs, “Steve’s parent’s backyard is flat. It’s big enough. The tent can be moved. The caterers can reroute. And the weather forecast gives us at least a until tomorrow morning before the rain starts again.” A pause. “If we start now, we can make it work.”
The world tilts. Not disastrously – but like a compass snapping north after spinning for too long.
“Why?” you whisper.
He doesn’t dodge. Doesn’t joke. His voice is soft, steady, unbearably sincere. “Because you care,” he says simply. “And I’m not going to let this break you.”
Your chest caves open. Relief crashes in, messy and overwhelming.
You breathe in once, twice.
“Okay,” you whisper back. Then louder, steadier, “Okay.”
He squeezes your hands once, grounding you.“Come on,” he says, rising to his feet. “We’ve got seven hours to save a wedding.”
*
The moment Bucky says “Let’s save a wedding,” things get moving – not metaphorically; literally.
He’s already striding away, already dialling, already speaking in that clipped, purposeful tone you’ve only ever heard when he’s absolutely out of patience or absolutely determined. “Steve,” he says, pacing toward the parking lot. “Change of venue. Backyard. Yes, your backyard. No, I’m not joking. Trust me.”
You stumble after him, still half undone, still blinking tears off your face. “Bucky –”
“Nat’s going to love this,” he says to you, unfazed. “Call her. Tell her not to panic, and tell her she doesn’t have to lift a finger.”
He looks over his shoulder. “Can you do that?”
“Yes,” you say automatically, phone already in your hand.
She picks up on the first ring. “Backyard wedding?” she laughs, delighted. “Perfect. I’ll see you at Steve’s.”
Steve is already texting his parents. Someone’s uncle has folding tables and someone else has a generator “just in case.”
It snowballs fast. The miracle of a small wedding becomes apparent very quicky – every guest is a real person, reachable by phone, reachable within minutes.
You start calling, texting, forwarding maps.
Change of plans! Still today! Bring a chair if you can!
And they’re all very amused by this development.
People reply with laughing emojis, with on our way, with honestly this is very them, with do you need cutlery?
By the time you reach Steve’s family home, the backyard is already transforming.
Someone’s SUV is backed into the lawn with its boot open like a mobile command station. Extension cords snake across the grass. A white rental tent is being muscled upright by three determined guests and one very determined aunt.
The caterers pivot without complaint, food arriving in trays that suddenly feel perfectly suited to long tables and paper plates. The DJ shrugs. “I’ve done a Punjabi wedding on a moving bus. This is nothing.” Music starts, soft and warm and easy.
And Bucky –
He moves through the chaos like a man who made peace long ago with the fact that the universe likes to test him. He directs traffic, helps carry tables, adjusts tent poles, and somehow gets everyone to listen to him without raising his voice once.
When you open your mouth to worry, he’s already answering.
When you start to spiral, he meets your eyes and says, “Handled.”
At some point he has The Binder. You don’t remember handing it to him. You’re not even sure you did. He simply has it now, tucked under his arm like holy scripture.
And then, when you’re midway through redirecting seating placements, walking away from the tent to take in the big picture view, you notice something shifting in the light, a shimmer of cream and gold.
You stop.
A line of delicate shapes sway gently from the tent’s ridge pole. You take two steps forward, then three.
They’re paper cranes – your paper cranes.
Every single last one that you folded and strung together last night, every last one that you had to leave in the reception hall when the world collapsed.
You stare up at them, breath suspended.
“Bucky,” you whisper. “How did – ? They were – They were in the reception hall.”
He doesn’t even stop tightening the rope he’s working on. “The reception hall wasn’t damaged,” he says. “Just the terrace. So I… grabbed them.”
You turn to him, struck speechless for a moment.
“You… went in?”
“The hall wasn’t damaged.”
“That isn’t the point!”
He shrugs once. “Doors are only locked if you don’t have the key.”
“You – this is – you could’ve gotten hurt!”
Bucky finally looks up at you, and he smiles. It’s a small one – crooked and almost shy. “I wasn’t leaving them behind.”
The cranes shift again in the breeze, glowing in the late-morning sun like tiny lanterns, catching glimmers of gold from the fairy lights someone is stringing between the trees.
The cranes shimmer faintly as the breeze lifts them, little beacons of luck and persistence swaying above the lawn. They look impossibly delicate – and yet here they are, surviving storms, travel, relocation.
You realise, as you take it all in, that the rest of the wedding is taking shape in much the same improbable fashion. Piece by piece, person by person.
Because when you turn, the lawn is filling with chairs – mismatched, ridiculous, perfect – carried in by guests who did not hesitate for a single breath. “Everyone bring a chair,” he’d said, and somehow… everyone did.
Kitchen chairs. Lawn chairs. Folding metal ones that look suspiciously like the ones from the high school Steve teaches at. A wicker bench someone absolutely took from their own porch.
It’s ridiculous, it’s perfect.
You finally dare to look at the time and, “It’s –” you begin, startled.
“Ten minutes to start,” Bucky says, checking his watch. “We’re on schedule.”
You gape at him. “How are we on schedule?”
He nods toward The Binder, lying open on a cooler like a general’s map. “The Binder,” he says with a shrug, “has all.”
And for the first time all day –
You laugh. Really, truly laugh. Because somehow, impossibly, disastrously – you’re going to pull this off.
Together.
*
The ceremony goes off without a hitch.
The tent stands steady despite the soft ground beneath it, canvas glowing warmly in the late afternoon light. Strings of bulbs flicker on as the sun dips lower, their reflections catching in the little puddles of water that have yet evaporated. The grass is a little muddy in places, trampled by hurried footsteps and borrowed chairs. Nothing matches. Everything belongs.
And as the first notes play and everyone rises, you realize something with a clarity that makes your knees go weak:
The wedding didn’t survive despite the chaos.
It survived because of it.
You take your place near the front, hands folded, heart already too full.
Natasha walks in first, not down an aisle so much as across a stretch of grass cleared by people who love her. Her dress is simple and devastating, hair pinned back just enough to frame her face. She looks radiant, not because of the dress or the light or the day, but because she looks certain that this is where she’s meant to be.
Steve is already waiting.
He doesn’t try to hide it, the way his face changes when he sees her – like the world has finally resolved into something understandable. He forgets where to put his hands. Forgets that there are people watching. Forgets everything but her.
You feel tears sting immediately.
The officiant says a few words – nothing grand, nothing rehearsed beyond necessity. Something about finding home in another person. Something about choosing, every day, to stay.
And then, it’s time for vows.
Steve clears his throat, nervous in a way that feels almost boyish. “I don’t have a lot of fancy words,” he says, smiling at her like it’s a private joke, like the entire universe has narrowed down to just him and her. “But I promise to keep choosing you.”
Natasha’s bottom lip trembles. Steve swallows and continues.
“I’ve spent a long time thinking that doing the right thing meant standing alone,” he continues, voice steadying. “You taught me it doesn’t have to. Whatever comes next, I want to face it with you.”
You feel tears prick immediately, hot and unbidden.
Natasha takes his hands when it’s her turn, thumbs brushing over his knuckles, grounding him, grounding them both.
“I don’t make promises lightly,” she says. “But I promise you honesty – even when it’s hard. I promise to stand beside you, not behind you.”
Steve exhales, like he’s been holding his breath for years.
“I’ve spent a long time surviving,” she continues, voice softer now. “With you, I want to live. And I promise I’m not going anywhere.”
And that’s when the something in your chest gives way entirely.
You swipe at your eyes and, in the motion, glance to your left – toward Steve’s side.
Bucky is watching you.
Not the ceremony. Not his best friend standing at the center of it all. You.
There’s no surprise in his expression when your eyes meet. Just something steady and unguarded, something that makes your breath catch. You smile at him – small, private, meant only for this moment.
He doesn’t smile back, not fully, but his shoulders ease, like he’s finally letting himself breathe. His gaze lingers before he looks forward again, jaw tight, eyes bright.
The officiant speaks again, voice barely registering over the rush in your ears.
“By the power vested in me –” The officiant barely has time to finish the words before Steve kisses Natasha like he’s been waiting his whole life to do it.
The backyard erupts – not in polite applause, but in cheers and laughter and the unmistakable sound of people witnessing something go right after so much nearly went wrong.
You look around – at the grass, worn and imperfect beneath polished shoes; at the mismatched chairs – kitchen chairs, folding chairs, one unmistakeable beach chair in the second row; at the tent, glowing softly against the darkening sky; at the faces – teary, smiling, wholly present.
Not a single dry eye.
And suddenly, with a clarity that feels almost sacred, you understand it.
This – this patched-together, last-minute, mud-on-the-hems miracle – this wedding is perfect.
You glance at Bucky again.
He’s watching the couple now, but there’s something thoughtful in his expression. Something changed. As if he’s seeing the whole thing differently – not as an event, not as a spectacle, but as a moment that matters simply because the people in it do.
He catches your eye once more.
This time, he does smile.
And in that small, quiet exchange – barely noticed by anyone else – you feel it settle into place.
Everything is exactly as it should be.
Presently…
This bed isn’t yours. This room isn’t yours. And beside you – facing you, chest rising and falling in a slow, even rhythm, is Bucky.
His eyes are closed, dark lashes resting against his cheek. There’s a smudge of sleep at the corner of his mouth, a softness to him you’re not used to seeing in daylight.
Your gaze drops – bare shoulder, collarbone, the fabric of his shirt rumpled from sleep. And then you feel it: his knee tucked lightly against yours beneath the covers, like neither of you moved much in the night. Like the space between you was never up for negotiation.
Your breath catches.
And in that moment, as the sun reaches across the bed and touches the curve of his jaw, you realize with slow, startling clarity –
You don’t want to move. You certainly don’t want to disturb this.
But then –
His blue eyes – soft with sleep, unfocused at the edges – blink open at the same moment. He inhales sharply, like waking into the shock of something impossible, like waking into you.
The two of you stare at each other.
The world holds its breath.
His hair is mussed, falling over his forehead. His mouth is soft, not yet disciplined into its usual guarded lines. One arm – his – rests over your waist like he reached for you in the night and never let go.
His voice, when it comes, is low. Rough.
“Hey.”
A beat.
A second.
A lifetime.
You swallow, suddenly acutely aware of how close your noses are. Of how his chest rises and falls against yours. Of how you ended up – both of you – pulled together into the same borrowed bed after the reception because there were no spare rooms left at Steve’s family house and “it’s fine, we’re adults, we can share.”
Except now you are awake and sharing feels like the smallest word in the universe.
Bucky’s eyes flick to your mouth. It is microscopic, the shift, but you feel it like a jolt of electricity down your spine. Your heart kicks painfully, traitorously, into your throat.
It feels like balanced-breath territory, the narrow space between what is safe and what is true.
Your throat works. “Hey.”
You can smell him – soap and clean cotton and something unmistakably him. Your heart starts to race.
“This…” you start, because the silence is suddenly too loud, too much, and you have the irrational urge to fill it. “This isn’t what friends do. Right?”
The words hang between you, trembling, dangerous and far too honest.
Bucky doesn’t move for a moment.
Then his gaze settles fully – wholly – on you, and everything inside him sharpens, awakens, and resolves.
“No,” he says quietly. “It’s not.”
Something in his voice makes your chest ache.
You shift, just a little. The mattress dips. His breath catches – not dramatically, but enough that you notice. Enough that it feels like a type of confession all on its own. His hand – warm, careful – slides from your waist to your hip. Not pulling. Just touching. Just holding you like the truth has finally found him.
“We should –” you start.
He doesn’t move away. Instead, he says your name once; just once, like it’s something precious.
“You think I do this –” he murmurs, eyes fierce, intimate, unbearably soft, “– with anyone else?”
You can’t speak.
He moves a fraction closer, the tiniest shift of the pillow, but it feels like the world tilting toward something inevitable and vast.
“I woke up,” he whispers, “and for a second I thought I was dreaming. Because you –” his voice hitches, “– you were looking at me like I was someone you wanted.”
You inhale sharply. “Bucky…”
“And if I’m reading this wrong,” he continues, tone still gentle, still unbearably composed for someone confessing like this, “then tell me. Tell me and I’ll –”
You don’t let him finish.
You lift your hand – shaking, barely steady – and cup his cheek.
His breath stops.
“I don’t exactly know when it started,” you say, voice barely above a whisper. “But I think I’ve been wanting you for a while.”
He closes his eyes once. Slowly. Like the world has finally righted itself.
And when he opens them again, he is not uncertain.
He is not hesitant.
He is not a man fighting himself anymore.
“You know I don’t believe in weddings – I still don’t,” he says softly. “I don’t believe in big gestures or perfect days. But, this, I believe in things like this.”
His hand lifts – stops, trembling on the edge of daring – before he leans in instead, touching his forehead to yours. The world narrows to warmth and breath and the barest graze of his nose against yours, close enough that all you can see, all you can feel, is him. Your skin sparks, electric, even without his hand on you.
“I believe in you,” he continues. “In the way you care. In the way you fight for people. In the way you stayed up all night folding a thousand paper cranes because you wanted something beautiful to exist in the world. In the way you planned this entire wedding like the universe would collapse if Nat and Steve had anything less than perfect – because for you, caring this much isn’t some kind of twisted vanity, it’s how you move through the world.”
Your eyes burn.
“And I love you and I want to be by your side,” he says simply. “Whether it’s in the chaos or the quiet. And I don’t want to pretend otherwise anymore.”
The room feels very still, very small, and very, very full.
You don’t trust your voice, so you do the only thing you can.
With your heart in your hands, you lean in and gently press your lips to his.
His breath shudders as your lips meet, like he’s been holding something back for a long time and finally lets go. His hand slides into your hair, cradling your head with reverence, not urgency.
The world narrows.
When he deepens the kiss – just slightly – it feels like a promise. When you kiss him back, it feels like an answer.
When you pull away, forehead resting against his, everything has changed.
He smiles then.
Not the guarded half-smile. Not the amused deflection.
A real one. Open. Unmistakable.
“Hi,” he murmurs.
You laugh softly, breathless, overwhelmed. “Hi.”
Outside, the house begins to stir to life with footsteps padding across the hallway, the low clatter of someone in the kitchen trying (and failing) to move quietly, a kettle starting its slow, rising hiss. Chairs scrape gently over the deck. Someone laughs, hushed and tender, the sound drifting through the floorboards like morning light.
Inside, wrapped in tangled sheets and the quiet aftermath of a perfectly imperfect wedding, you realize – with a certainty that feels almost sacred – that this is how it begins – not with spectacle – but with choice, with closeness.
And with love, finally spoken aloud.
When you wake up again, it is to heat.
More specifically – heat and weight and a slow, lazy grind at the small of your back that your sleep-fogged brain misidentifies as a dream right up until you breathe in and, oh, it’s Bucky.
The first time you woke up, it was barely dawn. Just light creeping around the edges of the curtains, your faces inches apart on the pillow, his voice rough as he admitted he didn’t want to be just your friend. A kiss that felt like a beginning. The dizzy, terrifying relief of hearing your own feelings echoed back at you.
Then he’d cupped your cheek, pressed his forehead to yours, and said, “We can talk more when it’s not stupid o’clock.”
You’d agreed. You were exhausted. Your eyes had burned. He’d pulled you in against his chest, arm heavy around your waist, and the two of you had drifted off again, warm and close and newly, precariously honest.
Now it’s later, and Bucky is still spooned around you in the narrow guest bed of Steve’s childhood home, one arm banded heavy around your waist, his chest pressed to your back. His breath ghosts over the nape of your neck in warm, even little puffs.
And his cock is hard, pressed right against your ass.
You go very still.
The arm around your waist tightens, drawing you closer like he’s chasing you in his sleep. His hips roll, just a fraction, like his body’s following a rhythm his brain hasn’t caught up to yet. The thick line of him drags against you through two layers of cotton, and a completely traitorous pulse of heat shoots through you.
“Bucky,” you whisper, not trusting your voice to go any louder.
He makes a low sound, half groan, half wordless complaint, nose nudging into your hair. “Mm. It’s too early.”
That seems to cut through the haze faster than any alarm. His body tenses behind you; his hips freeze. There’s a beat where you can feel him realize exactly where he is and what he’s doing.
“Shit,” he mutters, voice rough as gravel, dragging his face up from your neck. “Shit, darling, I –”
He starts to pull away and you instinctively reach back to grab his forearm.
“Wait,” you say.
He goes still again.
You could pretend you’re not already wet. You could pretend you’re not thinking about this every time he brushed past you in the venue kitchen this week, every time he stood too close at the lakehouse walkthrough, every time those stupid blue eyes lingered on your mouth a second too long.
You don’t.
“You’re not the only one,” you say quietly, rolling your hips back just enough that he can feel the way your body’s answering his. “If that makes you feel any better.”
Bucky lets out a shaky little breath right against your ear. “You’re gonna kill me,” he says, and there’s a muffled curse as his hand slides from your waist down over your hip, fingers digging in. He doesn’t move his hips. Yet. “You sure?”
You turn your head enough to see him, to catch his eyes, pupils already blown. “We already said this isn’t what friends do, right?”
“Pretty sure my friends don’t usually wake up tryin’ to fuck me,” he says hoarsely. His gaze drops to your mouth. “But I’m not complaining’.”
He kisses you before you can answer. It’s messy, morning-breath and sleep-warm, but his mouth is hot and eager and familiar in a way that makes your toes curl. His hand comes up to cup your jaw, thumb pressing under your chin, tilting your head where he wants you.
Behind you, his hips finally move. Slow, deliberate grind, the thick length of him dragging against you through the silky fabric of your dress. You gasp into his mouth; he swallows the sound with a low noise of his own.
“Been thinking about this for weeks,” he mutters against your lips. “You in that damn dress all day yesterday. Runnin’ around bossin’ everybody, climbing over me on those shitty folding chairs like it was nothing. You have any idea what you do to me?”
You push your ass back into him, just to feel how hard he is. “I think I’m getting an idea.”
“Tease,” he murmurs, and his hand presses low on your stomach through the dress, the heat of him burning through the thin fabric, fingers splaying like he’s steadying you for what comes next. “Can I?”
You nod, too quickly. “Yes. God, yes.”
He hums like that pleases him. His hand drifts lower, fingers skimming down, pushing the skirt of your dress up. He slides under it, into your panties, and finds you already slick and hot. His breath stutters. “Fuck, baby.”
He circles your clit once, light enough to make you whine, then slips his fingers lower, stroking through your wetness. “You this wet from just waking up next to me?” he asks, voice gone smug and filthy. “Or have you been dreaming about me?”
“Shut up,” you gasp, hips jerking. “You’re the one grinding on me in your sleep, Bucky.”
“Yeah, well,” he says, pushing two fingers into you, slow and deliberate, “if you start sleeping in my bed, there’s gonna be a lot worse than grinding.”
Your reply dissolves into a broken moan as he curls his fingers just right. He works you open with careful, steady thrusts, his palm rubbing your clit on every stroke. It’s obscene how fast he finds exactly how to touch you, like he’s been mapping out how this would go for weeks.
You reach back blindly and find him, wrap your hand around the thick length straining against his waistband. Even through the cotton, he’s solid, heavy, twitching under your fingers.
He swears, low and vicious. “You’re killing me,” he repeats, hips rocking forward into your hand. “Get these off.”
Between the two of you, your dress and panties end up somewhere at the foot of the bed. He groans when he sees you, bare and open in the afternoon light. His fingers slide back through your slick, spreading it, thumb drawing lazy circles over your clit.
“Prettiest thing I ever seen,” he says, almost to himself.
You push back, needy. “Bucky.”
“Yeah, I got you.” He shifts, fumbling one-handed with his own waistband until his cock is free, hot and leaking where it brushes the curve of your ass. He hisses through his teeth at the contact. “Fuck. You sure?”
You look over your shoulder, meet his eyes, and there’s no way he can mistake the answer. “Please.”
His expression crumples into something helpless and obscene. “Okay,” he says hoarsely. “Okay. I’ll take care of you.”
He lines up and pushes in, the blunt head nudging against your opening, then stretching you, slow, slow, until he’s buried thick and deep. You gasp, fingers clawing at the sheets, the stretch just shy of too much.
“Jesus,” he groans, forehead dropping between your shoulder blades. “You’re so fucking tight. Grippin’ me like you don’t ever wanna let me go.”
“You could move,” you manage, voice high and shaky. “That might help.”
He laughs, broken and breathless, and pulls back only to slam in again, setting a rhythm that has the old headboard tapping the wall in soft, insistent knocks. His hand finds yours on the mattress, lacing your fingers together, grounding you even as he fucks into you harder, his other hand still working your clit.
The slick sounds of him moving in you fill the little room, mixed with your gasps and his low curses. Every thrust hits that perfect spot; every drag of his thumb winds you tighter.
“Listen to you,” he pants, voice right against your ear now. “Making those little noises for me. You gonna come on my cock, sweetheart?”
Your answer is more of a strangled sob than a word. Heat coils tight in your belly, sharp and bright.
“Yeah,” he says, like he can feel you clenching. “There you go. Let go for me. Come on, baby. I’ve got you.”
It’s the way he says it – like a reverent promise – that tips you over. You shatter around him, muscles fluttering, vision going white at the edges. You hear yourself cry out, feel him groan into your shoulder as your body milks him.
“Fuck – just like that, just like that,” he grits, thrusts turning messy. A few more and he’s gone too, burying himself deep as he spills inside you, whole body trembling against your back.
For a long moment, the only sounds are your breathing and the soft tick of the old clock on the nightstand.
Eventually, Bucky shifts, carefully easing out of you, both of you hissing at the oversensitive drag. He collapses onto his back beside you, one arm flung over his eyes.
“This,” you say, staring at the ceiling, still trying to remember how lungs work, “is definitely not what friends do.”
He laughs, low and wrecked, turning his head to look at you. His hair’s a mess, cheeks flushed, eyes soft in a way that makes your chest hurt.
“Good,” he says, reaching over to tug you against his side, tucking you into the crook of his arm like it’s the most natural thing in the world. “’Cause I’ve never wanted to be just your friend.”
yap! i have a lot of feelings about weddings (i love weddings as a literary device as much as kevin kwan does LMAO) as you can tell... and i just got so juiced up with ideas i couldn't bring myself to cut anything so here we are! if you've read to the end, here is a kiss for you and i hope you enjoyed it and didn't find it too long! also im a wedding lover, my own wedding is going to be my superbowl. remember to check out the other event fics! there's so much care and love there!!
dear my darling reader masterpost || more bucky from me
everyone is born with a mark that matches their soulmate’s. but what if the red room erased yours before you were old enough to remember it?
word count: 15.7k+ ~ warnings/tags: 18+ only mdni! smut, post thunderbolts, ex widow reader, angst, themes of fate vs choice, heavy mutual pining, no use of y/n, reader is implied to be shorter than bucky, bucky is a level 84827282 yearner, mentions of trauma associated with the red room and hydra, pov switches, oral, reader is afab
author’s note: i haven’t posted anything for bucky in monthsss. this took me an embarrassing amount of time. i think i struggled with this more than anything else i’ve ever written but thanks to @fru1t4fr0gs continuous love and encouragement, i finally finished it after more than two months of writing.
i tried to keep physical descriptions to a minimum but this fic does feature soulmates being born with matching tattoos, birthmarks, scars, etc. also, this fic was inspired by “the prophecy” by taylor swift ♡ i highly recommend giving it a listen!
✧˖*°࿐⭒.⋆˖࣪⭑
Soulmate.
A word that fills most people with hope and peace.
Hope for those who have yet to find their other half, but know that it’s only a matter of time. Peace for those who have already found them, and fall asleep each night knowing that they’re exactly where they’re destined to be.
For others, it can be a word synonymous with grief. They found their soulmate and had to say goodbye to them too soon.
But for you, it means nothing. There’s no warmth, but also no ache. No hope, but no loss, either.
Because there’s no point in hoping for something that’s impossible, and you can’t lose what you weren’t allowed to have in the first place.
✧˖*°࿐⭒.⋆˖࣪⭑
“Are you sure you don’t want to come with us?”
You smile, and shake your head. It’s the third time she’s asked in the last half hour. You appreciate the invitation, but the thought of being a fifth wheel is somehow more depressing than spending your Friday night holed up in your bedroom eating an egregious number of peanut butter cookies by yourself.
“I’m sure, Lena.” You try your hardest to sound convincing. “It’s been a long week, anyway. I’m just going to relax and catch up on some laundry.”
She gives you an understanding look. At this point, you know she expects you to find some kind of partial truth based excuse to avoid whatever plans she, Bob, Walker and Ava have.
You can’t help it. It gets to you more than it should - seeing Walker and Ava walk hand in hand while Bob has his arm around Yelena’s shoulder and you awkwardly stand to the side or trail behind them.
It wouldn’t be as big of a deal if Valentina hadn’t used it as a marketing tactic to win people over. The New Avengers: not only did they save all of New York from being consumed by interconnected shame rooms, but four of them found their soulmates in the process!
It’s an effective strategy, you’ll give her that much. Really pulls at the heartstrings. People go fucking crazy over it.
“If you change your mind, you know where we’ll be,” she tells you gently before exiting the kitchen to catch up with the others, leaving you to finish baking your cookies. You exhale, roll up your sleeves, and turn back to the bowl of dough on the counter.
Everyone on the team has their own little rituals. Walker wakes up at the ass crack of dawn every morning to go on a run, no matter the weather. Yelena drinks peppermint tea before bed every night. Baking is your thing.
It’s usually a good distraction. It keeps your hands busy and your mind quiet enough. But tonight, on the six month anniversary of the New Avengers forming, your thoughts are louder than usual.
Tonight makes six months of watching almost all of your teammates fall into the kind of love that you have only ever dreamed about. Walker and Ava. Yelena and Bob. Even Alexei has his soulmate in Melina, Yelena’s mother figure.
You drop another scoop of dough onto the baking sheet and for probably the millionth time, you wonder how different your life would be if your soul mark had survived. If you’d only been old enough to remember what it had looked like before the Red Room erased it. Like Yelena. Hers too had been taken from her, but not before she was old enough to commit it to memory - the initials RR written in black cursive letters on her wrist.
But you’d been even younger than her when the Red Room took you, and you have no memory of what your mark looked like or where it had been on your body.
They vary person to person. Some soulmates are born with matching tattoos, others identical birthmarks or scars. Had yours been your mate’s initials, like Yelena and Bob? Or a constellation like Walker and Ava? Maybe a small, heart shaped scar like Alexei and Melina.
Whatever it had been, the Red Room did a phenomenal job of getting rid of it. You’ve inspected your body from head to toe more times than you can count throughout the years, and you’ve never been able to find the faintest trace of what could have once been a soul mark.
“Chocolate chip?”
A familiar voice interrupts your thoughts as you place the cookie sheet in the oven. You glance over your shoulder to find Bucky taking a seat at the kitchen island, undoubtedly returning from the gym or an evening run.
“Peanut butter, actually,” you hum, trying to ignore the way your heart rate spiked at the sight of him, flushed face and glistening skin.
“Peanut butter? You must be feeling adventurous. Friday night is usually chocolate chip night.”
“What can I say?” You sigh, unable to stop the way the corners of your lips quirk upwards. “Felt like changing things up.”
“It’s my lucky night then. Peanut butter is my favorite.”
Your cheeks heat up. You know peanut butter is his favorite, but you don’t tell him that. Just like the way you’ve memorized how he takes his coffee, or the exact protein powder he prefers - details he’s never actually said aloud, yet somehow, you know. Little things that stick in your mind without effort, even though he isn’t yours to take such notice of.
No matter how much you may wish that was the case.
You might know what his favorite kind of cookies are, but you don’t know the one thing you wish to know the most about him. Where or what his soul mark is.
You’ve never seen it, so it’s safe to assume that it isn’t somewhere highly visible, like his wrist or neck. But you can’t stop yourself from wondering sometimes - what does his mark look like? Has he found his soulmate? He’s single now, but has he always been alone? Maybe it was someone he knew a century ago, before the war? Before Hydra? Before his innocence and bodily autonomy were stripped away? Someone old and gray now, or someone that he’s already lost?
Or is he still searching, all these decades later?
As curious as you are, you don’t ask. Asking someone about their soul mark is like asking about their weight or salary. It’s taboo - you just don’t do it. If they volunteer the information, fine. But Bucky has never mentioned his mark or his mate, so it remains as much of a mystery to you as your own mark.
You realize that you’re staring at him and try to play it off. “Really? I would’ve guessed chocolate chip’s your favorite by the way you ate over half of them last week.”
There’s a look of exaggerated hurt on his face, but he can’t hide the amusement in his eyes. “I can’t believe you’d say that to your most loyal taste-tester.”
You roll your eyes. “Yeah, well, my most loyal taste-tester is going to have to start pulling his weight if he’s going to keep eating half of the product.”
“Pulling my weight?” His brows shoot up. His eyes dart back and forth from yours to all of the ingredients and baking supplies spread across the kitchen island. “I mean, I’d be happy to, but you’re gonna have to teach me.”
“Teach you?” You snort, unsure if he’s just messing with you. “Have you never made cookies before?”
“Well, not from scratch, no,” he admits with a sheepish grin. “But it’s better to learn at 110 years old than to never learn at all, right?”
You purse your lips to refrain from looking too excited at the prospect of getting to spend your Friday evening teaching him to make cookies, but you don’t doubt that it reaches your eyes. You can think of very few ways that you’d rather spend your time, but you don’t want to seem overeager. He probably just doesn’t have anything better to do tonight.
“I suppose it is your lucky night. I just so happen to have enough ingredients left for one more batch.”
He comes to stand beside you on the other side of the island. With all of the ingredients already on hand, you slide the mixing bowl in front of him. If he really wants to learn to bake cookies, the best way to do so is a little hands on experience.
You can’t help but think he looks a little apprehensive as he picks up a measuring cup. “Don’t tell me the Winter Soldier is intimidated by baking.”
He rolls his eyes, his already flushed cheeks turning a deeper red. “By baking? Psh. No. By how you’re going to critique my cookies? Maybe a little.”
“I’ll try to go easy on you,” you promise. You hand him a piece of paper with your handwritten recipe on it. “Now start by combining the peanut butter, unsalted butter, brown sugar, granulated sugar, and vanilla. Then mix all of that together until it’s smooth. Sound easy enough?”
“I think I can handle that.”
You take a seat on one of the barstools beside him and watch as he takes his time measuring each ingredient before dumping them into the mixing bowl.
Right away, he’s focused. His brows knit together and his lips are pressed in a firm line - by looking at him, you’d think he’s trying to diffuse a bomb instead of measuring out a cup of peanut butter. You try not to stare too hard, but you find it quite endearing.
It’s impossible to not notice the way a thick lock of his dark hair falls into his face when he leans over the bowl, or the way he seems to bite the inside of his cheek when he’s concentrating particularly hard on getting the measurement of the brown sugar just right.
It’s a far more gentle and domestic version of him than you see most days. It hits you how much you long to see this side of him more often. No training, no missions, no teammates surrounding you almost always.
For a moment, you allow yourself to pretend that soulmates don’t exist. That no one has marks that tell them who they should be with. It would be so much easier, in a lot of ways, you think. At least for people like you.
He turns to you, interrupting your thoughts as he shows you the pale brown mixture in the bowl. “Like this?” He asks, an almost eager smile on his face.
“Perfect,” you hum, hoping that your face doesn’t give any of your thoughts away. He smiles, visibly pleased with himself at your praise, and waits for the next set of instructions.
So you do all that you know how to do - push your thoughts down and enjoy this moment for what it is. Even if it’ll never be anything more.
✧˖*°࿐⭒.⋆˖࣪⭑
Bucky had lied to you, and he doesn’t regret it.
Well, partially lied.
Peanut butter cookies aren’t his favorite anymore. They had been - but these days he’s more partial to chocolate chip, thanks to you making the best chocolate chip cookies he’s ever had.
But an excuse to spend the evening with you is a valid reason for telling a white lie, in his opinion. He had been telling the truth when he told you that he’s never baked cookies from scratch before.
What can he say? Baking wasn’t exactly something he was interested in back in his twenties, and he’s been busy, to say the least, since he was pardoned a few years ago. For the first time in over seventy years, life is just now settling down enough for him to think about something as mundane as baking.
No, he’s never cared about baking too much, but that started to change about six months ago. Not even forty-eight hours had passed since The Void had nearly succeeded in turning New York into a giant cloud of shame rooms when he followed the scent of cinnamon and vanilla to the Watchtower’s communal kitchen, where he found you making cinnamon rolls from scratch.
You had been so immersed in rolling the dough into a perfect log that you hadn’t noticed him enter the room. Right away, his eyes were drawn to the dusting of flour that you’d somehow managed to get all over your cheek. He couldn’t help but think back to just forty-eight hours prior when instead of flour on your face, it had been blood and grime from the aftermath of The Void. You were just as pretty then, he thought, but there was something so peaceful about you in that moment that he couldn’t stop himself from watching you.
Until you inevitably looked up and saw him staring at you like a creep.
He had yet to decide whether he wanted to stay at the Watchtower or go home. Valentina had announced to the entire world that you’re all members of the New Avengers and an invitation to live in the Watchtower had been extended to the whole team, but Bucky already had his own place in Brooklyn - a city that had just started to feel like home again.
Did he really want to terminate the lease to his private apartment and move into the Watchtower with a bunch of people that he barely knew and Walker?
But as he stood there and watched you cut the rolled dough into equal sized pieces, the answer became clear to him: with you here, this is place could easily feel like home to him, too.
He felt a little crazy for thinking so. He barely knew you. He’d only met you a few days ago, but every time he was in close proximity to you, he felt it - a faint, phantom tingling sensation deep in the vibranium plating of his left forearm.
Right where his soul mark used to be.
Six months later, he still has to convince himself that he’s imagining it. Even if his mark hadn’t been ripped from his body when he fell from that train nearly a century ago, that isn’t how soul marks work. They aren’t magnets. They don’t tingle or glow or ache when one is in the general vicinity of their soulmate.
It’s wishful thinking for something that he’ll never have. That’s all. His mate is probably in a senior care facility or six feet under already.
He knows this. Reminds himself of it as he falls asleep each night. You and him - the two of you aren’t Bob and Yelena. Or Walker and Ava. No, the two of you didn’t get quite so lucky. His mark exists only in his memory and yours is a mystery even to you.
He wonders though, when he’s reminding himself of these things, if it would really be so crazy to forget about it all - soul marks, destiny, fate - and just choose each other.
Because when he looks at you, he finds it hard to care about the lack of ink on your skin. He thinks about what his own mark looked like, and the thought of yours having been different doesn’t lessen his feelings for you.
Maybe it should. Maybe he should hold out hope that his mate is still out there, waiting for him with a mark identical to the one he once had.
But the thought of that doesn’t excite him like it should. It fills him with a sense of dread. Because in the unlikely event of finding his soulmate at 110 years old, he’d be forced to face the reality that it isn’t you.
So instead, he hangs onto the tiniest sliver of hope he feels every time the phantom itch in the crevice of his vibranium arm flares up.
✧˖*°࿐⭒.⋆˖࣪⭑
“This sure would be a lot easier if someone could fly.”
The twelve foot tall tree in the middle of the New Avenger’s common area is almost fully decorated. Through the combined efforts of all seven of you, the branches of the bottom two-thirds of the tree now twinkle with ornaments and lights of every shape and color.
There’s no theme whatsoever, and it looks like a bunch of five year olds got their hands on it, but it’s been a lot more fun than you expected it to be. You don’t remember the last time you decorated a Christmas tree. Plus, Walker has only been somewhat of a control freak.
Bob rolls his eyes at Walker’s teasing and hands Yelena another ornament from where he stands at the base of her ladder. “Why don’t you try to fly, Walker?” says Yelena, always quick to match his energy. “Just step right off of that ladder and give it your best effort.”
You shake your head at them, focusing on the shimmery gold ornament in your hand. Unlike Yelena and Walker, you don’t have a ladder, instead choosing to add a final few ornaments to the bottom half of the tree. The branch you want to hang it on is just out of reach, even standing as tall as you possibly can on the tips of your toes. You lean a little farther, wishing your arm was just an inch longer—
Yelena yelps and Walker curses as the entire tree shifts slightly. Your foot slips on the tree skirt and you brace yourself to fall directly into the tree when firm hands grab onto your hips from behind, steadying you.
You instinctively step back, trying to put space between you and the gargantuan tree before you can completely knock it over, your back colliding with a solid mass that stops you in your tracks. You’re vaguely aware of Walker scolding you to be careful, but all you can focus on is the stark contrast of warm skin and cold metal on either side of your waist.
“I assumed that Alexei would be the one almost accidentally knocking over the tree,” Bucky laughs lowly. You feel the soft vibration of it against your back. Only when you tilt your head to look up at him does he drop his hold on your waist and step back.
“He doesn’t have enough eggnog in him yet,” you mumble, your cheeks hot from the sudden close proximity. “Give it another hour and we’ll see if this tree is still standing upright.”
Without taking his eyes off of you, he takes the ornament that you’d been attempting to hang on the tree out of your hand and comes to stand beside you. “Where did you want this?”
“Oh - uh,” you look away from him, back to the tree in front of you. Your eyes dart around, suddenly unable to pinpoint the branch that had seemed like the perfect spot just moments ago. “Just…right here,” you shrug, motioning to a random branch in the general vicinity of where you’d been reaching.
He smiles, placing the ornament on the branch without any difficulty. Show off.
“Is that good?” He asks, his gaze back on you.
“That’s perfect.” You nod a bit too quickly and your voice sounds breathier than intended, but if he notices, he doesn’t say anything.
He’s just being helpful, you tell yourself. He didn’t want you to fall into a tree. You would’ve knocked the entire thing over and dozens of ornaments would have shattered and then—
Yelena calls your name, breaking the tension between you. She’s climbing down from her ladder with an amused expression. “We are completely out of ornament hooks. Will you come with me to buy more?”
Something about the look on her face makes you nervous to say yes, but the alternative is to stay here and try to pretend like Bucky didn’t just make your brain completely short circuit, so you agree.
As soon as the elevator is in motion, she turns to you with a smile that makes your stomach tie itself in knots.
“I have a confession to make.”
You exhale. “Let me guess. We aren’t actually out of hooks?”
“Nope.”
You brace yourself. This would not be the first time she’s broached the subject - you and Bucky. She’s made little teasing comments here and there over the last few months, but she’s never pushed you too much. But between finding an excuse to get you alone and the look on her face, you know your luck has run out.
“So,” she continues, infuriatingly casual. “Who do you think will be the first to break? You or Bucky? Personally, I think it will be Bucky. Bob thinks it could go either way, but I suppose only time will tell.”
You snort, refusing to look her in the eye. Not that it matters - she can see right through you, anyway. “I hate to disappoint, but you’re wasting your time placing bets on me and Bucky. We’re just friends. That’s all. You know that,” you add in a smaller voice.
From your peripheral vision, you can see her shaking her head. “Just friends do not look at each other like that.”
“And how do we look at each other, exactly?”
You can’t help it. The question leaves your lips before you can stop yourself. It shouldn’t matter. The answer serves no purpose other than satisfying a selfish curiosity. Whatever she says won’t change the truth of the matter: you and Bucky will never be anything more than you are right now. Whatever that is.
“He…looks at you like you hung the moon and stars. Like you are the moon and stars, really.” She may have been joking about her and Bob betting on your love life, but she’s completely serious now. “And you…well, you look at him like he is the only thing you really want but will not let yourself have.”
The elevator comes to a stop at the first floor of the Watchtower. A large group of people are waiting to enter as soon as the doors open, and you can’t help but feel grateful for the brief moment it gives you to process what Yelena had just said. She grabs you by the arm, looping hers through yours as she guides you through the throng of people.
You don’t even bother trying to argue. Do you really believe that Bucky looks at you as if you hung the moon and stars? No, but Yelena does, and when she has truly made up her mind about something, there’s no point in trying to convince her otherwise.
“I don’t suppose it really matters, does it?” You sigh. “At the end of the day, facial expressions aren’t what make people…” You trail off, unable to bring yourself to say the word. It tastes a little more sour every time you do.
“Soulmates?”
“Yeah,” you grimace. “Soulmates.”
She doesn’t say anything for a moment. Just hums to herself in thought. Then, she hugs your arm tighter, as if you might go sprinting down the street at what she says next.
“Have you ever considered that it doesn’t matter as much as you think it does?”
You tense beneath her touch. “That’s easy—”
“Easy for me to say, I know,” she interrupts. “I know our situations are not exactly the same. I do not know how you feel. But I am not blind. I see the way you look at each other…it reminds me of how Bob and I look at each other. How Walker and Ava look at each other. How every pair of soulmates I have ever known have looked at each other.”
When you don’t respond, she continues. “It is only natural for you to wish to know the truth. But you may never get the answers you long for. Does that really mean you should resign yourself to being alone for the rest of your life when love is right in front of you?”
You swallow hard, trying to force down the sudden lump in your throat. “I don’t think it’s that simple.”
“Maybe not,” she agrees. “But simple or not, it’s still a choice that you have. The Red Room tried to take that choice away from you. All I’m saying is that you should not let them.”
You could tell her to drop it. Part of you wants to. Part of you wants to say but they already did. But deep down, you know she isn’t entirely wrong.
Truthfully, you’ve never had much of a reason to care. For as long as you can remember, you have told yourself that it doesn’t matter - the lack of answers. The matter of choice. You had resigned yourself to a life of solitude a long time ago. You’d made peace with it all. At least, as much as you could.
But that was before you met someone that made you want to say screw destiny and question all of the rules.
That was before Bucky.
“You’re really nosey sometimes. You know that?”
She snorts a laugh. “I might be nosey, but I am also right. Usually. Most of the time.”
You roll your eyes. “That’s reassuring.”
“Let me ask you this,” she implores. “If you were to find out today that he is not your soulmate, would it change the way you feel about him? Or would you still love him?”
“No pressure to answer me,” she continues quickly. “Just…give it some thought, yes?”
As if it doesn’t already consume your every waking thought.
✧˖*°࿐⭒.⋆˖࣪⭑
Bucky had been naive to think that he’d actually get to sleep in today. He hasn’t had a Saturday off in nearly two months, why would today be any different?
No, he isn’t surprised when his phone buzzes with a text from Valentina to the team’s group chat demanding a last minute meeting at the crack of dawn this morning.
Zero indication as to what is so urgent, of course. That’s not Valentina’s communication style. Just be at this place, at this time, and don’t ask any questions.
He’d been having the best dream, too. A dream he’s had more times than he can count - not all that much different than what he daydreams about while awake, but it always feels more lifelike when conjured by his subconscious.
You, prancing around an apartment that overlooks the city. He doesn’t recognize the place, but it looks how he’d imagine home to be. Low, soft lighting and a vase of fresh wildflowers on a dining room table just big enough for two. Occasionally, a small white cat makes an appearance, weaving herself between Bucky’s legs and purring in an effort to get his attention.
You never say a word. You don’t need to. He’s content to watch as you chop vegetables at the kitchen island, bare-faced and wearing nothing but an oversized t-shirt. Every few minutes, you glance up from your task and smile at him.
It’s simple. Impossibly so. There’s no New Avengers, no missions or impending doom. It’s just you and him, somewhere entirely your own. And it always ends too soon.
Reality is never quite as sweet.
Listening to Walker, Yelena, and Valentina all try to talk over each other at seven o’clock in the morning on a Saturday, before he’s had a chance to take a sip of coffee… that’s his reality.
You sit directly across from him, slouched back in your chair and pinching the bridge of your nose with your eyes closed. Bucky is at least attempting to hide his displeasure at this morning’s agenda, but yours is on full display. This doesn’t surprise him in the slightest, as you aren’t much of a morning person even in the best of circumstances.
“Alright, alright!” Val snaps at Yelena and Walker with enough bite to shut them up. Then, addressing the whole group with a sarcastic smile, “How lovely of you all to join me this morning.”
“Didn’t really have a choice, did we?” Ava mumbles.
“No, you didn’t,” Valentina agrees. “I have a flight to Mumbai to catch in a few hours so I need to get this over with.” In front of her are a stack of manila folders. One at a time, she slides the folders across the table to each member, starting with you.
Bucky watches as you open yours with a yawn, your tired expression morphing into something between confusion and unease within seconds of skimming the first page. Your eyes dart back and forth between Valentina and whatever it is you’re seeing. Bucky opens his folder the second it lands in front of him.
“What the hell is this?” You ask, not bothering to hide the annoyance in your voice.
Bucky’s eyes scan the first page. Key words catch his attention: Slovakia. Decommissioned Hydra warehouse. Low frequency signal detected. Encrypted, Hydra coding.
He knows this facility. He’s never been there personally, but he knows someone who has.
Someone sitting directly across from him, looking like she’s seconds away from jumping across the table and throttling Valentina or throwing up.
“This should be straight forward,” Val answers. “Details can be found in the dossiers I’ve given you all. All you really need to know is that there’s some kind of low frequency signal pinging from what should be an inactive Hydra base in Slovakia. The site was flagged three days ago. It’s weak and intermittent, but seeing as how Hydra fell over a decade ago, it should not exist.”
“So? What?” Yelena huffs. “You want us to do a welfare check on a haunted warehouse?”
“You’re verifying that the site is empty,” Val clarifies impatiently. “If it’s not, you neutralize whatever is there and secure anything of value. Files, tech, archives.”
Your eyes snap back to Valentina at that.
“You know your way around, I presume?” Val directs the question at you. “You were stationed there for a brief time, after all.”
Your face is unreadable. Bucky normally prides himself on being able to read you like an open book, but right now, he’s drawing blanks. When you’d first opened the folder, you looked like you were seeing a ghost. Now, your expression is impassive - eerily calm for someone who has just learned they’re being asked to return to a place they were once held prisoner and pumped full of drugs that took away their free will.
Whatever you’re feeling, whatever you’re thinking, you’re doing a great job at hiding it.
“If by brief time you mean over ten years,” you say flatly, “then yes. I know my way around.”
“That’s why you’re running point on this operation. No one else has been—”
“It can’t be too difficult of a place to navigate, can it?” Bucky speaks up for the first time since entering the briefing room. “Most Hydra bases are roughly the same. I’m sure that the five of us can handle it ourselves.” He glances around the room at Yelena, Ava, Walker, and Alexei. “I don’t think it’s necessary to make her go back—”
“I’m fine, Bucky,” you interrupt, gentle but firm. “No one is making me do anything.”
“Perfect.” The annoyed look on Val’s face is quickly replaced with a satisfied smirk. “The jet leaves in twenty-four hours. You’re dismissed.”
And just like that, the meeting is over. Chairs scrape back against the floor. Ava and Walker are already halfway to the door, Walker muttering something about Val wasting his weekends under his breath. Alexei follows, declaring he’s going to sleep the entire flight to Slovakia. Only Yelena hesitates, looking at you as she stands. She seems to be searching for the same answers as Bucky, but when you don’t look up from the folder in front of you, she reluctantly follows the others.
Bucky doesn’t move.
You slowly close your folder with a steady exhale. When you finally stand, you don’t look at him. You’re the only two left in the room, and you don’t say a word to him as you start to walk towards the door with the folder clutched to your chest.
“Hey,” he calls softly, standing to follow you. “Wait.”
You stop just short of the entryway. For a second, he thinks you won’t turn around at all. When you do, your expression isn’t quite as stoic as it was moments ago. Your face mostly remains neutral, but there’s a storm of emotions in your eyes.
“You’re sure you’re okay with this?” He asks, his voice low even though you’re alone now. “Going back there?”
You give a small shrug. “We’ve had plenty of missions far more complicated than this.”
He frowns. “That’s not what I asked. I’m asking about you.”
“I know what you’re asking, Bucky,” you say flatly, “and I said I’m fine. I’m going with you guys. Alright? Drop it.”
You’re turning around and walking away before he can get another word out. He stands there, staring after you with his mouth agape and your name on the tip of his tongue.
He feels it as he watches you disappear down the hallway. The faint but undeniable phantom itch in the bend of his vibranium arm. His flesh hand comes to rest atop the spot where his soul mark used to be.
It may as well be a tiny devil perched on his shoulder urging him to chase after you.
✧˖*°࿐⭒.⋆˖࣪⭑
You don’t go back to your room.
You take the file and go straight to the roof of the Watchtower. It’s windy, and cold, but the alternative is your bedroom where the silence is just a little too loud right now.
There’s something about the hum of the bustling city below that serves as calming white noise to your mind when it’s whirling. So, you often come up here when you need to clear your head.
There’s a small part of you that expects - and selfishly hopes - that Bucky will follow you. Still, you aren’t surprised when he doesn’t. You’d been short with him when he had shown concern for you, and he didn’t deserve that.
You’ll apologize to him later. It’s probably for the best that you aren’t near him at the moment, anyway. Looking at him will only make you second guess what you’re about to do.
Of course you don’t want to go back to Slovakia. Going back there is something that had never even crossed your mind until Val said the word archives and a lightbulb went off in your brain.
Archives that might not even exist anymore. That might have been destroyed ages ago. That might have never existed in the first place.
Archives with information about you.
You had been stationed there for over a decade, after all. You and dozens of other widows at various points. There had to have been some sort of records about all of you. Personal history, special abilities, weaknesses. Operations and procedures you’d undergone throughout your life. Maybe, just maybe - the smallest maybe possibly ever - documentation about your soul mark and its removal.
It’s a long shot. But it isn’t impossible.
And if you’re ever going to get an answer to the question that most people never even have to ask themselves because the answer is displayed on their bodies, this is your chance. What are the odds that you’ll ever have another?
You tighten your grip on the file in your hands as if the wind might carry it away. You try to read through the first few pages of the dossier, but all of the words just run together on the page. After trying to read the same paragraph for a fifth time, you slam the folder closed with a huff.
You can’t retain any of the information because you can’t get his fucking face out of your head.
Every time you picture his ocean eyes, or his plush pink lips, or his effortlessly perfect hair that most people would only be able to achieve with the help of a Dyson Airwrap, it makes your conversation with Yelena replay in your mind.
Have you ever considered that it doesn’t matter as much as you think it does?
If you were to find out today that he is not your soulmate, would it change the way you feel about him?
Or would you still love him?
Deep down, you know the answer. No, it wouldn’t make a difference. You’d love him. You’d love him no matter the truth.
But he has a mate. There’s someone for him, somewhere. And maybe, just maybe, if you can see proof that you have a mate - that there’s someone, somewhere meant for you - it’ll at least lessen the ache that you feel in your chest every time you look at him.
That’s what you’re going to keep telling yourself, anyway.
“I can tell that you’re plotting something.”
The sudden voice makes you nearly jump out of your skin. You jerk your head around fast enough to give yourself whiplash, though you know who it is before you see him.
“I’m not sure what it is,” Bucky shrugs, thumbs hooked in the front pockets of his jeans. “But I know you well enough to know you’re plotting something.”
You huff, though this time it’s more out of amusement than frustration. You look away from him, back to the morning skyline in front of you. “How’d you know that I’m up here?”
Soft steps thud against concrete until you feel his shoulder brush against yours.
“Like I said. I know you well enough.”
You hum. He might be a little cocky, but he isn’t wrong.
Here you are, as suspected. Plotting.
“I’m sorry I snapped at you,” you say, partially because it’s true and partially because it’s easier to apologize than it is to confirm or deny his assumption. You glance at him to find that he’s already looking at you.
He shrugs again. “I’ll let it slide if you tell me what you came up here to think about.”
You sigh. You know him well enough, too. Well enough to know he isn’t going to drop this easily. You breathe in, bracing yourself for what you’re about to say. Bracing yourself for whatever his reaction may be.
“I’m thinking about something I’m going to do in Slovakia.”
He shifts his weight, turning to face you fully and leaning against the railing. “Okay,” he says patiently. “Do you want to tell me what that is?”
You swallow hard, choosing to stare down at your hands instead of meeting his eyes.
“There might be files in the base,” you start. “Might be leftover archives. Records with information about the widows that were stationed there.” Your face warms under his stare but you still can’t bring yourself to look up. “I want to check. I want to see if there’s anything about me. About my past, what was done to me as a child. About what was…taken from me.”
For a moment, the silence between you is filled only with the sound of traffic below and the low howl of wind. And then—
“Okay,” he murmurs.
Your head snaps up. You blink. “Okay..?”
“Yeah,” he nods. “If you think there’s something there worth looking for, then we will look.”
We.
You shake your head. “No. You don’t have to—”
“I know.” His voice is gentle, but there’s no trace of pity. “I know I don’t have to. But you shouldn’t have to face that alone.”
Your mouth opens but nothing comes out. You aren’t entirely sure what you expected him to say, but it wasn’t this - no hesitation, no questions asked.
It makes your chest ache in a way that you can’t fully explain. There’s gratitude, but there’s also fear. Gratitude that he’s willing to help you with something so deeply personal. Fear that maybe the outcome - should you actually succeed in finding what you’re searching for - won’t affect him either way.
It crosses your mind, just for a split second, that you should ask him right then and there. What is your soul mark? Is it on your chest, your ribcage, your back? Do you hope that mine looks exactly like it?
But you don’t. You’re too scared of the answers.
“It might be a giant waste of time,” you murmur instead. “I don’t even know for certain if there were ever any files to begin with. Let alone all these years later…”
“If it helps bring you peace of mind,” he says softly, his gaze unwavering, “then it isn’t a waste of time.” He offers a small smile, though it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “You deserve answers. Whatever they may be.”
You nod because you don’t trust your voice enough to speak.
Best case scenario? A slight tremor in your voice when you try to say thank you.
Worst case scenario? You word vomit every thought you’ve had since learning you’ll be returning to Slovakia.
✧˖*°࿐⭒.⋆˖࣪⭑
Bucky wishes that he could be selfish when it comes to you. With every fiber of his being, with every molecule, he wants to be selfish.
And if he loved you just a little bit less, he would be. If he didn’t love you enough to care more about your happiness than his own, he wouldn’t hesitate to tell you that he doesn’t want you to step foot anywhere in Slovakia.
But he does love you that much. He loves you enough to stand by your side as you search for the revelation that fate says you belong with someone who isn’t him.
Not only stand by you - actively help you make that discovery.
Because if anyone deserves to know the truth, if anyone deserves that shot at finding true love, it’s you. Even if it leads to you eventually finding your soulmate and he has to watch you fall in love. Even if it isn’t with him.
“So, what’s the plan?” Bucky murmurs low enough that none of the other super-soldiers in the jet can hear him, taking a seat directly across from you. “Val put you in charge here, so I’m assuming you have a plan. What are we doing?”
Yelena is piloting with Ava beside her in the cockpit. Walker is cleaning his guns a few yards away and Alexei appears to be sleeping, but he isn’t snoring loudly enough to rock the whole damn jet, so Bucky isn’t convinced.
A couple hours into the nine hour flight to Bratislava, you’re curled up in one of the leather seats by the window with the mission folder open across your lap. You sit up straighter, your knees brushing against his.
“My memory is a bit hazy since I was under chemical subjugation the whole time I was there,” you say quietly, closing the file and glancing out the window beside you. “But from what I can remember, the building’s layout was relatively straight forward. I doubt it has changed very much.”
“We’ll sweep the basement,” you continue, now looking at him. “You and me. If there are any sort of archives, that’s where they’ll be. Yelena and Alexei will take the east wing and Ava and Walker will take the west. If they find anything of concern, we abandon our little side quest and go to them right away. Even if things go smoothly, we won’t have a lot of time to search. Ten, maybe fifteen minutes max.”
He nods in agreement. “However much time we have, we’ll make it count.”
You purse your lips, once again looking back to the endless expanse of ocean and sky outside of the jet. You’re nervous - he can tell by the tension in your jaw and the way you’re fidgeting with a ring on your thumb. He just isn’t sure if you’re more scared of not finding answers… or finding them.
“Hey.” He leans forward and braces his forearms on his thighs. His hand comes to rest on your knee - a featherlight touch to remind you that he’s there. That he’s with you, no matter how this goes. Your gaze flashes down to his flesh hand on your leg and then to his face.
“I mean it,” he murmurs. “We’ll take however much time we can get it. If there’s anything down there worth finding, we’ll do everything in our power to find it.”
You huff a humorless laugh. “You seem awfully sure for someone who’s never seen the place.”
He shrugs, his lips quirking ever so slightly. “Call it a gut feeling.”
That’s what he’s been calling it, anyway. Because he doesn’t know how else to explain the way he just knows that by this time tomorrow, everything will be different.
For better or for worse.
✧˖*°࿐⭒.⋆˖࣪⭑
The abandoned base is somehow even colder than you remember it being. Despite the well below freezing winter temperatures, you’re sweating through your tactical suit.
Yelena had noticed that you were distracted. Of course she had noticed. You’d barely been able to give everyone their mission instructions because your thoughts were running wild with all of the unknowns - all of your questions that may or may be answered by the time you’re back on the jet.
You’d tried your hardest to lie through your teeth and assure her that you’re fine. You doubt you were very convincing, but thankfully she didn’t have time to hound you before she needed to land the jet.
Like muscle memory, you find your way down to the lowermost level with Bucky right beside you. He’s been uncharacteristically quiet since your conversation on the flight to Slovakia, but the warmth from his arm brushing against yours every few steps is enough to keep you from completely spiraling at the unwelcome familiarity that has crept into your bones since you crossed the threshold of the building.
The overhead lights are long dead, leaving only the illumination of your flashlights to guide the way. Every sound feels infinitely louder down here, from the scuff of your boots against the concrete to the slow, steady drip of water from somewhere in the distance.
“This is it,” you whisper, more to yourself than to him. “This is the last level. I think.”
Bucky nods. “You’re doing good.”
You want to laugh at that. Your hands won’t stop shaking and your heart is beating so hard it feels like it’s trying to break out of your ribs. You’re barely keeping your composure.
A left turn. Then a right. You don’t have to think about it. Your body begins to remember the path, even if your brain wishes it didn’t. Soon, you stop in front of a rusted metal door. An old biometric lock is nothing but a dead panel now, a spiderweb of cracks running across the busted screen.
Bucky steps forward without hesitation. He wedges his metal fingers into the seam of the door and pulls. The screech of rusted hinges ricochets down the empty corridor, loud enough to make you flinch.
“Sorry,” he murmurs. He isn’t looking at the door - he’s looking at you, checking if you’re still with him. “You okay?”
You swallow and nod once.
Inside, the room is dark and the air is thick with dust and disuse. But the outline of shelves and dozens of tall, metal filing cabinets are visible in the glow of your flashlights.
Your stomach somersaults. This has to be it. If anything is to be found, it’s in this room. Bucky called it a gut feeling, but you feel it in your bones.
You don’t even know where to start. This had been one of the very few rooms completely off limits to the widows. Of course, you’d never questioned it at the time, but now you hope that the restriction had been in place to prevent you and the other girls from discovering certain information.
Bucky shines his flashlight towards the far right of the room. “We’ll start on opposite sides,” he suggests quietly. “Meet in the middle?”
He pauses, his gaze settling on your face before taking a step inside the room. He looks like he wants to ask are you sure you’re ready for this?
You wouldn’t know how to answer that if he asked. But you came all this way, so you suppose you have no choice but to be ready.
“Okay,” you whisper.
You move to the nearest cabinet. The metal handle is icy beneath your fingers. You hesitate for half a heartbeat and then pull it open with a rusty screech.
Inside are rows and rows of old manila folders, each labeled in Russian. You curse under your breath - your Russian is a bit rusty to say the least. You primarily spoke Slovak and Hungarian.
Dates. Identification codes. Names that you don’t recognize. Words in a language you aren’t fluent in.
You take a deep breath and begin flipping through the files. One by one, line by line, until you’re confident that each one contains nothing of value.
You try to move as strategically as possible, forcing yourself not to rush even though the voice in the back of your head keeps reminding you that you don’t have much time. Any of your teammates could call for help at any given moment.
Most of the files are filled with incident logs and mission reports, some are behavioral assessments of girls who may or may not still be alive. You don’t recognize any names.
You grab one at random and flip it open.
Not you. Another widow - someone you didn’t even know that you remembered until right now, looking at a grainy, black and white Polaroid of her young face.
You can feel your heartbeat pounding in your ears.
Is she still alive? Did she make it out of this place? Has she found safety? Happiness? A life for herself, like you have?
“Any luck yet?”
Bucky’s voice snaps you out of your trance. You clear your throat, quickly closing the file and cramming it back in the drawer.
“No,” you murmur, voice strained. “Nothing yet. Nothing about me.”
You keep going. Third cabinet, then fourth, then fifth.
Your stomach feels as if it is tying itself in knots, each drawer that turns up empty making bile rise higher in your throat. Maybe this was stupid. Maybe there’s nothing here. Maybe Bucky was wrong, maybe you were wrong, maybe this is a waste of time and—
Your fingers halt on a tab. The label is faded and the ink is smudged with age, but the writing is still visible. Still legible. Numbers - it’s how they identified you. Widows were just numbers to them. Just assets. Not people worthy of names.
“Bucky.”
Your voice is only a notch above a whisper, but he hears you. He pauses what he’s doing right away and walks the short distance to where you stand frozen with the manila folder clutched in your trembling hands.
“68465,” he breathes, then glances up at you. “That’s you?”
“Yeah,” you whisper. “This is me.” You place the flashlight you’re still gripping tight on top of the filing cabinet to take the file in both hands.
You could be seconds away from answers. From closure.
Still, you hesitate. Your mouth goes painfully dry and your fingers hover over the cover as you’re hit with the overwhelming realization that whatever you see when you open this file cannot be unlearned. Once you open it, there’s no going back.
But you came all this way for this. 4,263 miles, to be exact.
You take a deep breath and start to pull the cover back.
“Wait.”
Bucky’s vibranium hand closes around your wrist before the folder opens a fraction of an inch. You freeze, looking up at him. He’s already looking at you, mouth parted like he’s on the verge of saying something but holding himself back.
“What?” You breathe. “What is it?”
He doesn’t drop your hand. His grip is loose enough that you could pull away if you wanted to. But you’re still frozen in place, your heart pounding in your chest.
“Before you open that, there’s something you need to know. Something that I should have told you before now,” he says, voice low.
You nod because you don’t trust your voice enough to speak.
“I don’t care what that file says,” he starts, looking at you with a kind of intensity that you’ve never seen from him before. “It doesn’t matter to me.” He pauses, exhaling a shaky breath.
You shake your head meekly. “I don’t understand—”
“Because I’m in love with you.”
The confession is followed by the kind of silence that would allow you to hear a pin drop from down the hallway. You blink, trying to convince yourself that this isn’t your subconscious playing some kind of twisted joke on you.
Your body feels numb except for where the icy vibranium of his fingers still grip your wrist. You open your mouth, but nothing comes out.
“I’m sorry if that’s weird for you to hear,” he continues, swallowing thickly. “I know my timing isn’t great. But I needed you to hear it. At least once. Before everything changes. I’m in love with you. Even if you open that file and find out that you’re meant to be with someone else. Even if your mark looks nothing like mine, it won’t change the way I feel about you. I’ll love you just the same as I do right now.”
You hold your breath the entire time he’s speaking, only exhaling when heavy silence settles over the room and you feel lightheaded. A thousand different questions race through your mind.
“Bucky—”
Crackling static from your comms interrupt whatever thought hasn't even finished forming inside your head when you speak his name.
Yelena’s voice fills the silence and Bucky finally drops your hand.
“Guys? We think we found the source of the signal,” she calls, blissfully unaware of what she is interrupting. “Looks like some old equipment came back online. Probably just wires short circuiting from the recent snowstorm.”
Walker’s voice pours from the comms next, muttering some complaint about traveling so far for nothing, but you’re not paying attention to him.
Neither is Bucky. His gaze drops from your face down to the file in your hands.
“Barnes?” Yelena calls, followed by your name. “Can you two hear us?”
You click on your comm without looking away from him. “Yeah,” you answer, your voice cracking. “We hear you. Let’s get out of here.”
It’s not that you want to walk away from him. It’s that you can’t fucking think straight while he’s looking at you the way that he is. Like you have the ability to break his heart into pieces with whatever you choose to say next.
And even if you didn’t know that was possible until two minutes ago, breaking his heart is the last thing you ever want to do. But he just dropped a nuclear level bomb and said the last words you ever fucking expected him to say to you.
You don’t know what to think. What to feel. You’re torn between kissing him, looking in your file for the answers you came here for, and screaming at the top of your lungs.
You do none of these things, of course.
Instead of doing something in the heat of the moment that you might regret, you tuck the file under your arm and turn to walk away.
You haven’t even taken three steps when a hand closes around your wrist again. This time, warm skin instead of vibranium. You immediately come to a halt - both your steps and your breathing.
“Say something,” he pleads, voice low. “Anything.”
You don’t look back. Can’t quite bear to face him. At least until you’ve had a chance to clear your head and attempt to make sense of what you’re feeling right now.
But you don’t pull your hand away, either.
“I just need some time to think,” you whisper, though it feels like you’re shouting in the eerily quiet warehouse basement. “I don’t know what to say, Bucky. I just..need some time.”
His fingers twitch around your wrist like he’s debating whether he should let go or hold on. “Okay,” he whispers back. “I can wait. When you know what to say, you know where to find me.”
God. He’s so good. Gentle, patient, understanding. Even now, when you can’t bring yourself to say the one thing he most wants to hear.
You nod because your throat is too tight for words. You nod because if you open your mouth, you’ll let your heart make a decision that you aren’t ready for.
✧˖*°࿐⭒.⋆˖࣪⭑
The flight is calm in the familiar way that they usually are after missions. Everyone is ready to be home, and annoyed that the trip to Slovakia was essentially for nothing.
Well, to their knowledge, it was for nothing. Everyone except for Bucky remains unaware of what transpired in the warehouse basement, as you had managed to conceal your file in the interior of your tactical vest until you made it back to the jet.
Yelena was quick to curl up under a blanket across the aisle from you, her face now lit by the glow of her phone as she FaceTimes with Bob. Walker and Ava are cuddled up on a cot that is far too small for the both of them, already fast asleep. You’re not really sure where Alexei is - probably raiding the nonperishable food supply in the back of the jet.
Bucky, who detests flying and usually does everything in his power to get out of doing so, took it upon himself to pilot the trip back to Manhattan.
As soon as everyone was properly distracted, you crammed the file into your duffel bag. Out of sight, but far from out of mind.
You’d been so sure that you were moments away from answers. And you had been - just not the answers that you were expecting.
Bucky loves you. He’s in love with you.
You haven’t gone a full minute without replaying his exact words in your head since he first said them.
I don’t care what that file says. It doesn’t matter to me. Because I’m in love with you. I needed you to hear it. At least once. Before everything changes.
Say something. Anything.
But it isn’t any of these words that echo the loudest in your mind. Not the confession or the pleading for a response. No, it’s something else that he said - something that answers a question you’ve had since you met him but never had the courage to ask.
Even if your mark looks nothing like mine, it won’t change the way I feel about you.
The implication of the words isn’t lost on you. Maybe your mark doesn’t match his - but there’s a chance that it could. There’s a chance it could because he’s never found his soulmate.
Not at any point in the thirties or forties. Not during the war. Not when he was in and out of cryofreeze for decades, not during his time in Romania or Wakanda, not after the blip.
The weight of that truth sinks in as you lift your gaze toward the cockpit. You can only see the edge of his profile from here, the line of his jaw illuminated by the soft light of the controls.
The sight of him makes your chest ache. You dig your nails into the leather of your seat to resist standing up and going to him right now.
He loves you. Not because he’s meant to, not because a mark on his skin tells him to, but of his own free will. And that’s enough for you. More than enough - enough to keep the file closed and choose him, too.
And when you get back home, that’s exactly what you plan to do.
✧˖*°࿐⭒.⋆˖࣪⭑
Bucky doesn’t remember the walk from the jet to his bedroom. He barely even remembers going through the motions of showering five minutes ago, let alone flying a jet from Slovakia back to New York.
Honestly, it’s a miracle that he got everyone back safely. The last thing he should have been doing was piloting a fucking jet, but he needed something to focus on other than you.
You, and what he said to you, and how you looked at him in the old archive room where he begged you to say anything.
Maybe he should have kept his mouth shut. Maybe he should have just let you open the file. But he knew that once you did, he may never have the chance again. He knew that if he didn’t say it then, he may never say it at all.
And saying it hadn’t felt wrong. How could it? He meant every word. He meant it when he said he loves you, he meant it when he said that he doesn’t care if your mark doesn’t match his, and he meant it when he said that he can wait for you.
He sinks down on the edge of the bed, elbows on his knees, hair still damp from the shower and dripping onto the floorboards. He should be exhausted. He is exhausted. The digital alarm clock by his bedside reads that it’s nearly four in the morning. But his mind hasn’t stopped spinning since the moment you pulled away from him in that cold, musty archive room.
He has yet to stop replaying the look on your face. Equal parts disbelief and shock mixed with something that he wants to believe was longing. You may not have verbally returned his sentiments, but the way you’d looked at him had given him hope. At least a little.
He doesn’t blame you for not answering. Hell, what answer had he expected? You’d literally been holding the file in your hands and he physically stopped you from opening it when you were seconds away from learning crucial information about yourself.
Information you’d been denied your entire life. Information that he had no idea what it was like to not have. At least, not in the same way as you. He may have lost his arm, and with it his soul mark, back in the forties when he fell from that train - but he eventually regained his memories. This was your only chance to know what most people know about themselves their whole lives.
And he’d essentially asked you to choose him without knowing it. Without knowing anything other than he loves you.
That wasn’t fair.
He wonders if you’ve opened the file yet. Or if you crawled in bed and fell asleep as soon as you closed the door to your bedroom. Or if you happen to be wide awake and borderline spiraling like he is right now.
A quiet sound pulls him from his thoughts. A soft, tentative two tap knock against his bedroom door.
He freezes. For a split second, he thinks he imagined it - that it’s just sleep deprivation and he’s hallucinating. But a moment later, he hears it again.
“Bucky?” You call softly from the other side of the door. If he didn’t have heightened senses, he likely wouldn’t have heard you at all.
He’s on his feet before his brain makes the conscious decision to move. When he opens the door, you’re standing there. Barefoot in plaid pajama shorts and a tank top, file clutched to your chest.
“Hi,” you whisper. Your voice is hoarse, like you haven’t used it since the warehouse.
Bucky swallows. “Hi.”
“I know it’s late but…” You shift your weight nervously, looking down at the ground. “Is it okay if I come in?”
“Of course,” he murmurs, stepping aside and opening the door wider for you. “Always.”
For one, impossibly long moment, neither of you speak. You pause near the foot of his bed, looking like you aren’t sure if you should sit or continue to stand.
He parts his lips to speak when you take the words right out of his mouth.
“I’m sorry,” you blurt out.
He stiffens. “Sorry? For what?”
“For…back there.” You lift your eyes to meet his. “For not saying anything. For just walking away and leaving you hanging.” Your throat bobs as you swallow. He opens his mouth to tell you that you don’t owe him any kind of apology, that he shouldn’t have put you on the spot like that, that he understands - but you keep speaking before he can.
“I haven’t looked,” you murmur, looking down at the file in your hands. You release a shaky breath and toss the folder onto his bed. “Haven’t opened it. I didn’t even touch it again until I came here.”
His breath catches in his chest. He tries not to look relieved - knows he shouldn’t feel that way, but selfishly does. “You didn’t?”
“No.” You shake your head. “There’s something else I want to do more.”
You take a step closer to him. And then another. And another, until you’re close enough that he can feel warmth radiating from your chest and smell notes of vanilla from your perfume. Until you’re close enough that he can count each individual eyelash.
He doesn’t move. Couldn’t even if he tried.
Your eyes lock onto his, seemingly searching for some hint of hesitation that you aren’t going to find. Then, your gaze flickers to his lips and he swears his heart stops beating until the moment he feels your lips touch his.
The first brush of your lips is featherlight and still manages to send a shock through him. Your hands hover against his chest for a brief moment before curling into the fabric of his t-shirt and pulling him down to you.
He melts. There’s no better way to describe the way his vibranium hand grips your waist and flesh hand raises to cup the side of your neck, tilting your head slightly to deepen the kiss.
You’re somehow even fucking sweeter than he imagined you’d be. One taste of the birthday cake flavored balm on your lips and it suddenly makes sense why he fell from that train over seventy years ago.
He tries and fails to swallow a groan as your fingers trail up his chest, over his shoulders and into the still damp strands of his hair.
You let out the tiniest whimper against his mouth when his tongue rakes over the swell of your bottom lip and he’s convinced he’s dreaming. He had to have passed out when he got home and this is one of his dreams on steroids.
He’d happily stand here and kiss you until you both pass out from lack of oxygen or exhaustion, but you pull away all too soon.
“Did you mean it?” You breathe, spearmint breath fanning across his lips.
He doesn’t need to ask what you’re referring to.
“Yes,” he whispers, immediate and more sure than ever. “More than you know.”
You close your eyes with a shaky exhale, cupping his face in your palms. “That’s all I need. That’s all that matters to me.” You lean up on the tip of your toes, pressing your lips to his once more. It’s brief but still knocks the air from his lungs all over again. Before you pull away, he notices that your cheeks are damp and he can’t tell if it’s from your tears or his own.
“I love you, Bucky,” you whisper. “And I choose you. Of my own free will. Regardless of what any mark or piece of paper says, I love you.”
He doesn’t know who kisses who this time, but that doesn’t matter. All he can think about is the way you said you love him.
I love you, Bucky. I choose you.
Regardless of what any mark or piece of paper says.
It would be so easy to lose himself in this. Too easy to pick you up and carry you the short distance to his bed and continue to kiss you all over as you tell him exactly what he wants to hear until the sun rises.
Which is why it takes every ounce of strength he has to tear his mouth from yours - breathing hard and eyes squeezed shut like it physically pains him to stop.
“Wait,” he manages, missing the way you taste the second he pulls away. “Hold on just a second, baby.” The petname slips from his lips without a second thought.
Fuck, he hopes he won’t regret his next words.
You look up at him, dazed, and drop your hands from his face. “What’s wrong? Did I do something—”
“No, no. God, no,” he huffs, planting his hands firmly on either side of your waist. “Not at all. You have no idea how badly I want this. How badly I’ve wanted this for so long. But the last thing I want is for you to have any regrets. You deserve to know the truth. The whole truth.”
You shake your head, your eyes boring into his. “Bucky, it doesn’t matter—”
“Look… whatever is in there, it changes nothing for me. But it’s yours. It’s a piece of you that you deserve to have before making any decision. So please… don’t do it for me. Do it for yourself. Look in the file. And no matter what you find, if you want me, I’m yours.”
You exhale something between a sigh and a laugh. Then, a smirk blooms on your face. “If I look in the stupid file, will you let me keep kissing you?”
He releases a breath that he hadn’t even realized he was holding in. He smiles. “Of course.”
You stare at him for another moment before reluctantly stepping out of his hold and turning to where the file still rests on his bed.
His hands fall to his sides and he forces himself to stay still. To let you walk two steps without reaching for you again, to give you space until you’re ready to share whatever you may find. He doesn’t move, doesn’t sit, doesn’t even breathe. He just watches as you sit down on the edge of his bed, taking the file into your hands.
You glance up at him one final time, as if you’re expecting him to change his mind and tell you to stop. When he doesn’t, you take a deep breath and flip open the cover.
He watches as your eyes skim the first page before flipping to the next. At first, your expression is impassive, giving nothing away. Then, upon flipping to a third page, he hears a sharp intake of breath. He can’t see what you’re looking at from where he’s standing, but the way your teeth dig into your bottom lip and your brows knit together tell him what it must be.
“It’s your mark,” he murmurs. “Isn’t it?”
You don’t answer right away. Your fingers trace over something on the page. Then, slowly, without looking up at him, you nod.
His stomach sinks. He knew it was coming, but yet his stomach still sinks. He hesitates for a moment longer before taking a tentative step towards you, still unsure if you want him to see. Then, you angle the folder enough for him to catch a glimpse.
A Polaroid. A three inch by three inch square picturing a tiny arm. Too small. Barely the size of his fucking hand. And on that tiny arm, right in the ditch - right where his soul mark once decorated his own skin - is dark lettering. He can’t make out exactly what it says, but the location and positioning is so similar to his own that his knees nearly buckle.
“It’s in Russian,” you huff, holding the photograph out to him.
The brief hope he’d felt immediately disappears.
His soul mark hadn’t been a word in Russian - his had been a word in English.
Home.
“My Russian is rusty. What does it say?” You ask softly.
He reluctantly accepts the picture. His heart plummets at the sight of your tiny arm. You couldn’t have been more than two or three years old. He focuses on the soul mark in the bend of your arm. The picture quality is grainy but he can still make out the Russian letters.
The picture nearly falls out of his hands.
“дом.”
“дом?” You repeat, dumbfounded. “What does that mean?”
But his brain is reeling. His heart feels like it’s beating a mile a minute.
“Bucky?”
He opens his mouth, but no words come out. Just a breathless, incredulous laugh that leaves you looking more confused than ever.
He’s going to answer you. He’s going to tell you what your soul mark translates to in English. But first, there’s something he wants to find.
In just three large strides, he’s to the closet on the opposite side of his bedroom. He flings the door open and crouches down, sifting through random storage totes and boxes on the floor as you question what the hell he’s doing from behind him.
He knows he looks like a lunatic right now. But it’ll all make sense to you in a matter of moments, if he can just find—
There.
A manila folder. Similar to yours that lies on his bed just feet away. A folder that, years ago, Natasha Romanoff had managed to get her hands on. A folder that she gave to Steve when he first began his search for Bucky after learning that he was still alive. A file that, like yours, contains photographs of him.
Various photographs. One of him at just twenty-seven years old, in his army uniform. One of him in a cryofreeze chamber. And lastly, the one he’s about to show you.
A picture taken the day he fell from that train in 1945. A picture that has made him sick to his stomach every time he’s looked at it, until now.
Because now, it isn’t just the last picture ever taken of his left arm - mangled and bloody and barely attached to his body before Hydra fully amputated it and replaced it with a metal appendage.
Now, it’s physical, undeniable proof of what that pesky phantom itch in the ditch of his vibranium arm has tried to tell him since he first met you.
That you’re his soulmate.
✧˖*°࿐⭒.⋆˖࣪⭑
“Bucky, what the hell are you doing?”
It’s the third time you’ve asked that exact question in the last sixty seconds.
You can see what he’s doing - rummaging through his closet on his hands and knees. What you don’t know is why. He hadn’t given you any explanation as to what he’s doing - what he’s looking for.
He said a word in Russian - presumably the word that was once displayed on your arm - and started ripping shit out of his closet like his life depends on it.
“Jesus Christ,” you mumble, sitting down on the edge of his bed. “If you’re not going to tell me what you’re looking for, will you at least tell me what дом means? I didn’t bring my phone with me so I can’t exactly ask Google Translate—”
He turns around, a rectangular photograph visible in his hands. You freeze mid sentence.
“It means home,” he murmurs, his expression calm. A soft smile that reaches his eyes. He stands up and walks over to you, stopping when he’s standing directly before you. He holds the picture out.
“Home?”
You take the picture. At first glance, you grimace at the sight, not even entirely sure what you’re looking at. It’s an arm - barely attached to a human body cut off from the rest of the picture. No face, but you quickly deduce that it’s him. Then, after processing the initial shock of what you’re looking at, your eyes settle on black lettering in the middle of his arm.
Home.
It’s English. Not Russian like yours. But it’s on the exact same arm, exact same location, exact same font. Same word. Just a different language. Like Yelena’s and Bob’s marks - each other’s initials. They may not be identical, but they’re still a perfect match.
You look up at him to find him smiling at you. “Home,” he repeats quietly, as if he’s still trying to believe it himself.
“Does this really mean what I hope—”
“Yes.” His answer comes before you can finish your question, his voice gentle but certain. “That’s exactly what it means.”
You blink rapidly, fighting a losing battle with the tears that threaten to spill over. “You’re my soulmate. I’m your soulmate.”
They aren’t questions. Just facts - beautiful facts that you want to scream to the skies, but it’s the middle of the night and everyone else in this tower is undoubtedly asleep, so you’ll settle for saying it loudly enough for the two of you alone to hear.
“I am,” he hums. “You are. Always have been.” He crouches down in front of where you still perch on the edge of his bed, kneeling on both knees before you. “I’ve waited more than a century to be able to say that.”
You lift one hand and rest it gently on his jaw, your thumb brushing over his cheekbone. He seems to melt into the touch, his eyes fluttering shut. You just stare at him, overwhelmed with emotion and at a loss for words.
He’s so fucking pretty. You can’t help but feel a little silly for thinking so at a time like this, but it’s true. He’s so pretty. His hair - his beautiful hair that you get to run your fingers through. His gorgeous ocean eyes that you get to gaze into. His lips. Oh god, his lips that you get to kiss because he’s yours.
He’s really yours.
“Come here,” you murmur.
He braces his hands on either side of your hips on the mattress, pushing himself up just enough that your faces are inches apart. You can feel the warmth of his breath against your lips. He’s close enough that you can see every fleck of blue in his eyes. Close enough that he could kiss you if he leaned forward a fraction of an inch.
“I love you,” you hum. He swallows hard, like he’s having to physically hold himself back from pinning you to the mattress at the sound of those words leaving your lips.
His hands settle on your sides, one warm and one cold. You aren’t sure which causes goosebumps to erupt across your skin. His intoxicating scent, his close proximity, the feeling of his fingers twitching against your waist - it all makes you feel lightheaded. If you weren’t already sitting down, your legs would surely turn to jelly.
“I love you,” he breathes, his eyes darting between your eyes and your lips. “Remember how I said you could keep kissing me if you looked in the file?” Heat pools in your core. Your mouth goes dry. Too dry for you to form a verbal response, so you just nod dumbly.
“Yeah? You should do that now.”
Your heart thuds at the gentle command. You barely have time to register it before he leans in and closes the last sliver of distance between your lips and his.
This kiss makes the first ones seem tame by comparison. You quickly realize you had both been holding back, but there’s none of that now. No caution, no restraint. Just months and months of tension and longing pouring from one into the other.
You pull him onto the bed with you by the collar of his shirt until you’re lying flat and he’s hovering above you, caging you to the mattress. He supports himself with his vibranium armed braced next to your head, his flesh hand caressing the side of your neck as he explores every inch of your mouth with his tongue.
Your legs wrap around his waist, pulling him flush against you. Through his sweatpants, you feel the firm press of his erection between your legs and involuntarily roll your hips, earning a low, guttural groan from him.
He pulls his mouth away from yours with a breathless laugh before attaching his lips to the column of your throat. He sucks the flesh between his lips and then soothes the bite with a kiss before peppering more down your neck, all while you rock your hips against his.
There’s an unprecedented type of want blooming within you. It isn’t a want, it’s a need - like if you don’t get as close to him as humanly possible, you’re going to fucking combust.
You grab the hem of his shirt and begin to tug the fabric upwards. He realizes what you’re doing and leans back on his knees to yank his t-shirt over his head, tossing it to some far corner of the room.
With his long brunet hair falling around his face and his pink lips kiss-swollen, he looks ethereal staring down at you in the soft orange glow of the lamp light. Your gaze drifts to the jagged scar carved along his shoulder, and then lower - over the broad planes of his chest, the sharp dip of his hips revealed by low-hanging sweats, and the unmistakable outline straining against the thin fabric. Heat coils low in your belly, wanting nothing more than to touch every inch of him.
“You’re so pretty,” you hum, voice unrecognizable with adoration and arousal. Pretty is the understatement of the century, but you can barely form a coherent thought.
He blushes pink. “Pretty,” he scoffs lowly, shaking his head, though he can’t conceal the smirk growing on his lips. “You’re one to talk.” He trails a vibranium finger along the waistband of your pajama shorts before hooking it inside, pausing before moving the fabric. “Is it okay if I take these off and make you feel good?”
“Yes.” You can’t find it in you to care if you sound too eager, because you are. Your panties are uncomfortably sticky and the ache in your lower belly is growing by the second, desperate for release. “Please.”
He eases the cotton material, along with your underwear, slowly down your thighs and calves and then discards them haphazardly behind him. Feeling awkwardly half-dressed in only your tank top, you sit up just enough to yank it over your head before you can talk yourself out of it.
You’re left completely bare before him. Normally, if someone looked at you the way he is right now, you’d feel the urge to hide - to cover your chest with your arms or turn away. But with him, you feel none of that. You feel the opposite. You feel seen in a way that doesn’t make you feel like you need to shrink. You’re happy to open yourself up for him because you’re made for him. And he’s made for you.
His gaze drags down your body and back to your face, his normally bright eyes dark. “Ты идеальна,” he whispers, voice strained but still soft.
Heat blooms across your cheeks and you exhale a shaky laugh. “Gonna have to tell me what that means,” you murmur. “My Russian isn’t the best, remember?”
He doesn’t answer right away. Instead, he slowly parts your legs, his hands splayed over the skin of your inner thighs as he presses them down to the mattress. You bite your bottom lip to refrain from hissing at the sudden sensation of the tower’s chilly night air washing over your wet, sensitive folds.
“I said you’re perfect.” He answers at the exact same moment that he presses the pad of his flesh thumb over your slit, not taking his eyes off of your face as he massages the digit over your clit. A small gasp escapes you and you arch into his touch, giving your hips another roll.
He pulls his thumb away and you practically whine at the loss of pressure, but the digit is quickly replaced by his index finger teasing your entrance. He swirls the tip of it around your opening, coating it in your arousal before pulling it away, too.
Before you can so much as utter a noise of complaint, he brings the slick-coated finger to his mouth and wraps his lips around it. His eyes roll shut and he groans at the taste. “Perfect and so sweet.”
“Fuck,” you whimper. “Fuck, Bucky. Please.”
You aren’t even sure what you’re begging for. Something. Anything. There’s a fire blazing in your lower belly begging to be put out.
He hops off of the bed, hooking his arms under your knees and easing your body across the bed until your ass is level with the edge of the mattress, your legs dangling over. He crouches down, nestling himself between your legs, his face just inches away from where you need him most.
“What is it, baby?” He croons. “Tell me what you want.” Two cool vibranium fingertips tease your hole and you fight against the overwhelming desire to sink yourself onto them. “Do you want my fingers?”
Just as you open your mouth to plead with him, he glides those two metal fingers inside you - just up to his middle knuckles, but you still see stars at the welcome but sudden stretch and fullness.
“Or my mouth?” His breath fans across your cunt and he presses his lips to your clit in a brief kiss. Your fingers thread through his hair, nails digging into his scalp with just enough pressure to draw a half laugh, half hiss from him. He shakes his head in amusement, the tip of his nose brushing over the sensitive nub.
“Take your pick and stop being such a menace,” you sigh. “You’re really gonna torture your soulmate like this?”
“Sorry,” he huffs a laugh. “I’ll be nice now.”
His definition of nice, you quickly find out, is plunging the two thick digits the rest of the way inside you and curling them at the same time that he sucks your clit between his lips until you look like you’re having an exorcism. His flesh hand glides up your stomach and settles over your breast. He kneads it with enough pressure to send heat rushing through you, each squeeze making that coil in your abdomen grow tighter and tighter.
He alternates between sucking your clit and soothing it with soft kitten licks of his tongue while pumping metal fingers inside you at a torturous pace and in no time, you’re a borderline delirious mess, gasping out pleas and desperate sounds.
The sound of you whimpering his name has him moaning into you, the vibration of it giving you the tiny push you need to go tumbling over the edge. Your walls clench around his fingers as he continues to fuck you through the height of your climax, not ceasing until your body goes slack against the mattress.
Bucky presses one final kiss to the inside of your thigh before rising. He lays down on the bed beside you, propping himself up on his elbow. You’re still catching your breath when he tilts your face towards him in his flesh hand and leans down to kiss you slowly.
When he pulls back, he looks down at you hesitantly. “We don’t have to do anything else tonight. We can stop right here, if you want. We can take our time. We have all the time in the world now.”
Your heart swells at the promise. The promise of simply being with each other, for all time. You tuck a lock of his hair behind his ear and shake your head.
“Bucky,” you whisper, your voice shaky but sure. “I want you. All of you. Now that I have you…I’m always going to want all of you.”
“You have me,” he murmurs, flesh hand trailing down your arm, pausing when he gets to the spot where your soul mark once adorned your skin.
“All of me.”
✧˖*°࿐⭒.⋆˖࣪⭑ one year later ✧˖*°࿐⭒.⋆˖࣪⭑
“If we do the chicken marsala and the lemon rosemary chicken, is that too much chicken? That’s too much chicken. Right?”
Before Bucky can give you an answer, you’re switching topics and rambling about the seating chart - something about how Sam and Walker can’t sit too close together because even after all this time, they still bicker every chance they get - as you flip pancakes with your back to him.
It’s Sunday - the one day of the week that always looks the same. He wakes you up with fresh coffee, you cook breakfast for the two of you, and you spend the morning lazing around your Brooklyn apartment. From catching up on housework, going grocery shopping for the week, and eating lunch at that one sandwich shop you love so much, it’s usually a day of familiar comfort and routine.
But you’re on edge this morning. Frazzled. The wedding is a mere six months away and it’s time to lock in final decisions about the menu, seating arrangements, and all of the other things you’ve rattled off of your mental checklist before nine o’clock this morning.
Bucky had practically felt the stress radiating from you as soon as you woke up. He’d done what he could to help you relax, of course - not letting you leave the bed until he had taken his sweet time making you moan his name in that raspy, sleep-laced voice of yours that he adores so much.
Unfortunately, the effects of that had been temporary and your fretting returned tenfold by the time you started cracking eggs into a bowl.
Even Alpine seems to take note of your stress. The usually mellow white cat is perched on top of the fridge, tail switching as she watches you pace around the kitchen. Every few minutes she lets out a little mewl, like she’s trying to ask if you’re alright.
“And we need to decide on a wedding cake flavor this week, too. The lemon one tasted like floor cleaner, so that narrows it down a bit, but we still have to decide between red velvet and—”
Bucky doesn’t give a shit if the cake tastes like Pine-Sol or if Sam and Walker knock each other unconscious in the venue parking lot. He just wants to marry you.
“What about…no chicken, no Sam or Walker, and no cake?”
You glance up at him with an annoyed expression. “What are you talking about?”
He shrugs, trying not to smirk. He knows that even propositioning something like this is risky, but it’s worth a shot. “What if we just…didn’t? Didn’t worry about any of it? What if we just go to the courthouse and get married? Tomorrow morning.”
You freeze where you’re standing on the other side of the kitchen island, plating up the food. Your expression shifts from annoyed to amused, like you’re trying to figure out if he’s joking or not. He quirks his brow and takes a sip of his coffee.
“You’re serious,” you scoff. It isn’t a question.
“Dead serious.”
“But we - we already sent out invitations. And paid a deposit on the venue. And booked a photographer, and videographer, and—”
By this point, he’s already made his way to the opposite side of the island where you stand, pulling you to him by your waist.
“Look,” he starts softly, cutting off your panicked rambling. “If you want to have a wedding, we’ll have a wedding. Of course. I want you to have whatever the hell you want.” He takes your left hand in his, staring down at the ring on your finger. His mother’s ring, from the early 1900s, passed down to his sister, Rebecca, and then given to Bucky to give to you.
His soulmate.
“But I’ve waited a very long time to marry you. All I care about is that I get to call you my wife. None of the other stuff really matters to me. Not the color of the table linens or the—”
“Okay.”
“Wait. What?” He takes an involuntary step back as if you’ve physically shocked him. Whatever the next words out of your mouth were going to be, he definitely was not expecting okay. “Really?”
You’re smiling from ear to ear. “Really. I mean, a wedding sounds nice in theory, but…this is a lot.” You gesture vaguely to the dry erase board that you had used to sketch potential seating arrangements and an array of fabric swatches littered across the dining room table. “You’re right. None of that stuff really matters. In fifty years, we probably won’t even remember any of it. When we’re old and gray, all that will matter is our vows, the rings on our fingers, and the fact that it’s me and you.”
A soft laugh escapes him. He cups your face in his hands and leans down to bring his lips to yours, vibranium thumb grazing across your cheekbone. “Speaking of vows…” He sighs, pulling back, “if we’re doing this, I should probably finish writing mine.”
“Finish them? I haven’t even started mine. I’ve been too busy trying to keep up with how many fucking gluten free entrees we need to order.”
He cackles at that. “Well, you better start writing, then. Because tomorrow morning we’re driving to the county clerk’s office and I’m making you my wife.”
He starts to lean down to kiss you once more when a melodic purr sounds from the floor at his feet. He glances down to see Alpine weaving herself between your legs, her bright blue eyes blinking up at you both.
“What do you think, Alpine?” You coo, leaning down to scoop her into your arms. “Do you think your mommy and daddy should get married tomorrow?”
The cat nuzzles your chin in answer. Bucky grins, scratching behind her ear. “See? She thinks it’s a great idea, too.”
You laugh softly, pressing a kiss to the top of her fuzzy head before setting her back down. Bucky slides his arms around your waist the moment you straighten, pulling you against him. “Tomorrow,” he murmurs into your hair. “I can’t wait.”
You smile up at him, cheek still pressed to his chest. “Tomorrow,” you hum in agreement.
Right in his line of sight are the scattered linen samples, dry erase board, and a planner all taking up the majority of the small dining room table. “Should we, uh…do something about all of that?”
“Hm?” You follow his gaze to see what he’s talking about. “Oh. We can chuck all of that off the fire escape for all I care.”
He was so hoping you would say that.
✧˖*°࿐⭒.⋆˖࣪⭑
if you read to the end of this, thank you so much. i love you forever if you comment/reblog <3
summary: sam kisses you to save your cover on a mission, and bucky punches him… but you still don’t believe he’s in love with you?
notes: dear lord, i’m so sorry about this. i started it over a year ago, so it is probably a little disjointed, and i tried writing in present tense for some reason ??? anyway, i hope it isn’t too stupid! i’m trying really hard to get back into writing :)
word count: 5537 (i’m sorry)
“You astound me,” Natasha says, her words fed through the small radio piece tucked into your ear, “your heart rate is barely above seventy b.p.m.”
Your frown is only slight, your demeanour remaining cool and casual as the escalator descends toward the mall’s food court. Beside you, Sam has his cap pulled low on his brow and his sunglasses pushed high on his nose, one hand is resting on the handrail while the other is wrapped softly around your waist. You turn to him to feign conversation as you ask Natasha, “What is that supposed to mean?”
“You’re in the middle of a covert mission,” she says, “possibly gone wrong and you’re still so calm, but the minute Barnes is within a twenty-foot radius your heart rate goes of the Richter.”
Heat flushes through you, blood concentrating in your cheeks and turning them an embarrassed shade of pink, “Nat, what the-”
Sam chuckles and pulls you closer to his side, “Calm down. He lost our signal between the third and fourth levels below.”
Oh. The thrumming in your chest begins to slow again and you focus on keeping your balance as you step off the escalator. Bucky wouldn’t have heard Nat’s stupid remark because he is currently waiting beneath six levels of solid concrete inside a room made entirely of metal. Assuming he hasn’t been found out and tied up, he would be silently watching the mall’s CCTV footage of you and Sam making your way through the food court.
“Meet him outside, in front of Subway,” Nat instructed, “greet him like an old friend you didn’t expect to see. He knows the drill.”
Summary: A storm blew you off course and into his bed leaving an invisible string tying you to rugged farmer Bucky Barnes. Can he rodeo the red carpet while you write melodies in meadows?
Tags/Warnings: strangers to lovers, smut (unprotected p in v, oral (m and f receiving), one spank, egregious use of a wooden fence), Bucky in a Stetson, no use of y/n, petnames (darlin’ and honey, Sarge and cowboy), alcohol consumption but no drunkenness, maybe vague implied animal farming, shifting POVs, yer
Note: Written for my darling @buckysdecaflove for the Dear My Darling Reader Valentine Fic Exchange hosted by the delightful @salty-tang. As promised because of our little matchmaking trio, the barest hint of a TSwift reference lolol
Word Count: 17k
Currently Listening: “Come In With the Rain” by Taylor Swift & “Good Directions” by Billy Currington 🎵
I'll leave my window open
'Cause I'm too tired tonight to call your name
Just know I'm right here hoping
That you'll come in with the rain …
Event Masterlist
His harmonica wailed out a lonely tune into the stormy night.
He’d watched the dark clouds blow in early afternoon, his small herd already crowding against the outer barn wall, bawling and mooing, making their agitation known. He’d pushed open the doors, letting his best girls amble into the barn for their safety while he cleared up for the day. Even Alpine, the fiercest prissy barn cat he’d ever met, had disappeared into the top rafters of the hay loft. Her bunker for the night ahead.
He stored the four-wheeler in the shed, the tractor already put away that morning, stowed his tools, and shut up for the night.
And he did it all alone.
When the sun disappeared, he didn’t know, the sky already painted black and blue with clouds.
Now, sitting out on the sheltered verandah, Stetson tilted low and bending notes on the blues harp as fast wind and heavy rain tore through his property, he didn’t bother to lament the devastation the storm was causing to his crops. Couldn’t think now about the old northern fence line that might not hold up in this weather. Instead Bucky found his mind wandering, craving the kind of company a cold, wet night like this always demanded.
What he wouldn’t give to have a warm body in his bed tonight. Someone desperate beneath him, their cries and warmth chasing off the chill of the storm. Someone to fall asleep to, to hold tight as the night cooled, and to pull closer as the morning filtered in.
A flash of lightening to the east broke his reverie and drew his gaze, and in the distance he saw it.
Two beams of light recklessly arcing over his field as some tiny car made its way down his property drive.
His hands dropped to his lap with the harmonica and he cursed, grumbling about idiots getting lost on country roads, taking the wrong turn-offs, disturbing his peace.
He hauled himself to his feet when the car ambled into his yard, a tiny thing not suited to long country drives, and watched until the engine cut and the figure inside peered up at him.
He walked back into the house.
You bit your lip as you approached the house slowly. A lone light shone in one window but the rain was crashing so hard against your windscreen you couldn’t make out anything else.
With every bump in the road as you rolled over uneven ground, you cursed the weather, the poor cell service, the shoddy country signage, and even your childhood friend who you had driven out to see in your precious spare time.
Your twenty-three-city-sixty-two-show tour of the US was over, most of the major music awards done with just one to go. You’d agreed to see your darling friend in her third trimester who was, as she said, in dire need of civilised company.
Inching along this wet dirt road in the middle of nowhere, the rain battering your poor car, desperately trying to reach the only buildings you had seen for miles, you were feeling rather un-civilised about the whole endeavour.
And what would you even say when you pulled up? The truth made you feel so foolish. Assuming whoever lived in this house didn’t abduct you or worse upon recognising you instantly.
You weren’t egotistical, but as the number one pop singer in the country regularly topping the charts, you were thoroughly aware of the cursed enormity of fame that dogged you like this storm chased your tailpipe.
Your headlights ambled hesitantly past the last posts flanking the dirt drive. Passing the final fence line you entered the bare bones yard, open grass to one side and an old rusted wreck to the other. The tracks you followed led further on to a parked beaten truck, but you halted directly in front of the house.
The windscreen wipers ticked frantically and the shadow of a person obscured by the rain stepped forward out of the dark, making you gasp.
At least now you were sure there was life out here.
You switched off the car but the roar of the rain was louder, unceasing noise as it battered your car with the wind.
A sign hanging from the verandah roofline swung in the wind and caught your eye. There was some word burned into the wood that you squinted to see in the low light…
J. B. BARNES
The stranger, whose shrouded figure you could barely see, promptly turned and headed back indoors.
Probably to fetch a shotgun to tell you to get off their property.
You hadn’t expected a warm welcome, but a door in the face before you’d even stepped a foot out was a bit much.
Gathering your things that had scattered during the drive into your handbag, you pulled yourself together and prepared to run for your life.
You opened the car door, the rain barrelling in immediately. Scrambling, your sandalled foot dropping straight into a muddy puddle, you clutched your handbag close, not even needing to close the door behind you—it slammed shut with the force of the wind. You hurried through grass and mud up to the verandah, hands uselessly trying to shield your face from the rain that soaked through your thin cardigan in seconds.
Climbing the wooden steps to shelter you halted, panting, looking back out at the blustery weather you’d braved, and gulped. The wood farmhouse broke the storm about you, wind and rain held at bay by its warm old bones, and you were grateful for the reprieve.
The farmhouse door opened, and you weren’t sure if the man that stepped out was a killer or not.
In that moment you didn’t care.
He was the most devastatingly handsome man you had ever seen.
Hollywood was full of models, men groomed and primed to polished perfection, but this rugged man before you drew your attention in the most primal way. His chiseled jaw was shadowed by a few days worth of scruff. His button-down shirt sat taught across his broad chest and arms, the top few buttons undone revealing a hint of chest hair and a chain that disappeared beneath where your hands itched to follow, the fabric hugging down his body to jeans that barely contained his strong thighs.
But when he tilted his head to look at you out from under his dark brimmed hat, it was his eyes, pools of stormy blue boring into you with barely held frustration, that had you swaying closer toward him.
“You lost.”
You tried to blink away your stupor. “Yes. I’m so sorry, my phone dropped reception and—“
“Wasn’t a question.”
Taken aback by his abrupt response, the words died in your throat.
Oh he was definitely going to murder you and bury you in a field somewhere. Maybe throw you in a pig pen like those documentaries. No one would ever know, they would never find you, you would be—
“There’s bad weather,” he said matter of fact, like you were stupid enough to miss it. “Come inside.”
And he walked back in without another word.
You hesitated by the door, looking down at your muddy sandals and feet. Gingerly you toed them off, swiping your feet on the doormat to try to remove the grime, before stepping inside.
The house smelled earthy, of lingering smoke and wood from the lit fireplace which closely warmed a couch and solid wood coffee table. A bureau sat disused in the corner surrounded by shelves, and the remaining open space was dwarfed with a heavy rustic dining table. The kitchen was surprisingly modern, still country but in a magazine-chic way, and your hero-slash-murderer rounded the counter, his presence filling the room and leaving a delightfully male scent in his wake.
Finally, in the soft light overhead, you caught the glimmer of a metal prosthetic as he palmed his phone and dialled out a number without saying another word to you
“Yeah, Sam. You still open?” Cold blue eyes settled on you. “Had a stray blow in with the storm.”
His face clouded over, eyes flashing, and he cursed to himself.
Obviously Sam didnt provide the answer he was looking for.
You inched forward, clutching your handbag tightly to you, knowing you should say something but not sure what.
He turned his back to you, leaning back against the counter, and you felt your mouth hang slack at the sight. He might as well be naked with how perfectly his shirt hugged every ripple of his back and shoulders.
A long ago conversation about not wanting country boys flew in your face. This man before you broke every rule you’d ever thought to set.
His voice dropped to a low murmur, and you tucked your wet hair behind your ear to listen in closer.
“… yeah, whole crops gonna be drowned come mornin’. Nothin’ I can do now.” A pause. “You sittin’ pretty out there?” Another pause. “And Sara?”
You found yourself smiling at the way his chuckle turned wickedly cheeky, barely hearing the agitated ear-bashing this Sam was giving him over the din of the rain. “Just being neighbourly is all. A’ight, man. Later.”
He turned back, tossing the phone onto the counter, and stared at you. His face was more relaxed now than it had been before, the laughter having eased the hard lines, but you still found yourself caught under his steady gaze.
“What’s yer name?”
You tensed. Eyes narrowing on him you hesitated to answer, looking for some kind of trick or prank. Did he not recognise you after all? Finding no reason in his openly bored expression not to respond, you told him your first name only.
No flash of recognition. No reaction at all really.
So you asked, “What’s yours?”
“Bucky,” he said instantly. Then— “James.” His faced twisted like he was annoyed at himself. “Everyone calls me Bucky.”
He cleared his throat.
“Want a beer?”
You nod.
“Bathroom’s down on the right.” He jerked his head in the direction of the hallway, and you stood still for a moment longer, unsure why he was offering up that information.
But curiosity about your reluctant host spiked, and you decide to investigate the bathroom. If that’s where he wanted you to go.
Floorboards creaked between flashes of lightening and you lightly traced your path down the hall with your fingertips against the faded yellow wallpaper.
A door at the end of the hall, cracked open, revealed the barest outline of a bed from the light from the hall. Quietly, you turn to the door on your right.
When you stepped foot in the bathroom, you realised exactly why he sent you.
Your hair, soaked from your dash in the rain, was still dripping and plastered to your head. Your makeup, not waterproof, had half dried again in ghostly trails across your cheeks, mascara now smudged in an unintentional smoky eye. Your cardigan was doing more harm than good, soaked as it was and making you colder. With a grimace you made for the sink, grabbing a fluffy towel for your hair, and tried to make yourself presentable again.
All the while you marvelled that for all his gruff behaviour he hadn’t said a thing about your messy appearance.
Back in the kitchen, Bucky was still staring off down the hallway, gaze unfocused as he awaited your return.
The sight of your sleek form, clothes rain-plastered around your gorgeous curves, seared like hot iron across his brain.
His streak was as dry as a dusty dirt road and you swanned into his farmhouse like a wet dream, all prim and proper. Just begging to be ridden dirty for a country mile ‘til you were stained with it.
He pressed the heel of his palm to his now too-tight jeans, trying to ease the rise you got out of him.
He’d retreated behind the kitchen counter to not scare away the poor city girl looking for a rescue.
And he had no doubt you weren’t from around here. No where near. Your doe-eyed expression was one thing, but you were too shiny. Too perfect. From the Big Apple license plate on your fancy car to your clothes and the way you held yourself, you were too good for where you found yourself stranded.
Maybe the devil himself had heard him and delivered temptation right to his door.
Hearing the water shut off, Bucky shook his head to temper his racing thoughts and cracked opened two beer bottles as you walked back into the room.
But he didn’t bother to hide the way his eyes raked over you from head to toe when you reemerged.
Fresh faced and drier than before, you looked far too pretty standing in his living room, clutching your bag and soaking wet jumper nervously.
So he pushed a bottle at you and took your jumper without a word, walking around to drag a chair away from the dining table toward the fireplace. He draped your piece of clothing over the chair back, arranging it so it would dry quick as a whip by the firelight, wondering what you thought that scrap of fabric was going to keep at bay in this weather.
Finally he dropped onto the couch, feet kicking up to rest on the solid wood coffee table and arm draping over the back cushions.
“Might as well get comfortable. Storm won’t clear ‘til mornin’.”
Only then did you move, placing your bag on the floor.
“I’m so sorry for intruding like this,” you began, rounding the couch and your eyes darting to the open space on the couch next to him. Though you still wouldn’t sit down. “I lost reception and my navigation dropped out. I didn’t know what else to do.”
Bucky sighed, taking a long drag from the bottle. Didn’t anyone keep maps anymore?
“In clearer weather you’d best have backtracked to somewhere you knew. But out here in this—“ he sucked on his teeth, shaking his head, “— roads this far out of town might wash away if the rain keeps up. Yer better off here than out there.”
You don’t look relieved by his statement and he wanted to laugh. So skittish. Probably never had a bad day in your life before now.
Poor city girl.
“Where you headed?”
Wrong question. Your expression shuttered and body tensed, same as before when he’d asked your name.
He held up a hand to stay the answer you weren’t going to give anyway. “Nevermind. Not my business.”
Your eyes softened and he felt strangely elated at having read you so easily.
“Who is Sam?” You inched closer, still no intention to sit, the beer bottle turning in your hands as nervous fingers sought to ease your tension. “That you called earlier? About me.”
“Owns the bar in town. Has a couple rooms upstairs.” Bucky shrugged, taking another sip. “But he’d locked up and left already.”
He eyed you over again and you shivered under his gaze. It definitely wasn’t from the cold— you were warm all over every time he looked at you.
Lightening flashed so brightly it illuminated everything outside the wide windows, and seconds later a crack of thunder nearby made you jump.
Bucky cursed under his breath. “Sit down already so I don’t gotta crane my neck to look at you.”
With another apology you quickly sat down next to him, the warmth in your body ticking up a notch higher as you feel the brush of his fingers against your shoulder where his arm resting on the back of the couch. Directly behind you.
Doing your best to ignore it, you twisted in the seat to better talk with him—and immediately regretted it. Only you didn’t, not really.
If you thought he looked delicious before, here before the fire, shadows and dancing light making the angles of his face harder and his eyes glow ocean-blue, he was absolutely sinful.
You bit your lip and desperately told yourself to ignore the way his eyes dropped to your mouth.
“Ain’t got much by way of lodgings, but you can crash here on the couch for the night.” His mouth pulled to one side in a not-quite smile. “Guest room ain’t prepped for guests, and wouldn’t be right f’me to let you head back out in this.“ Thunder rolled overhead, ominous and low, lending weight to his words.
“If it’s not too much trouble,” you murmured, the guilt mounting again at appearing on his doorstep like this. “I appreciate the kindness. Yours was the only place I could see around.”
He took another swig of beer instead of replying, and your gaze lingered on his prosthetic, fascinated. The firelight made its inset gold turn molten, the dark metal surrounds inky black as the night sky. It was a work of art.
Much like its wearer.
“So, what do you do, city girl?”
You shifted, still uncomfortable with his questions, but where was the harm? You were sure by now he either didn’t know who you were, or was a skilled liar. Based on his blatant honesty so far, that seemed unlikely. “I’m a singer.”
His brow raised, eyes showing nothing but interest — and not just in your answer. “Oh yeah? Have I ever heard yer stuff?”
“What do you listen to?”
You watched the way his mouth twisted as he mused on that for a moment. “Forties and fifties, mostly.”
“Then probably not.”
“Probably not,” he agreed. He motioned with his beer toward the shelves you’d spied earlier, saying, “Got grandmama’s old gramophone over there.”
You glanced back, spotting it nestled amongst the books and papers, and though you were fascinated it didn’t quite draw your attention the same way Bucky did.
“That’s neat,” you say politely. “I’ve never heard one play before.”
He nodded, his thumb gently gathering the condensation on the side of the bottle he held. Your eyes followed as one rivulet formed and rolled down, down, catching the bottom rung as a droplet before falling to his jeans clothed thigh.
In your mind, it hissed on contact.
“Ma used to love playing it on nights like this.”
You hummed a response, forgetting the conversation entirely, your mouth parched in a way that had nothing to do with thirst.
You took a swig of beer anyway.
He watched the way your throat bobbed as you swallowed.
“You live alone out here?”
He nodded slow, his eyes locking on your mouth. His tongue darted out to moisten his lips and you tracked the movement, bottom lip dragging between your teeth as you wondered what his lips taste like.
Thunder cracked directly overhead, the booming sound shaking the old walls of the farmhouse, and a strangled shriek escaped you.
Much to Bucky’s amusement. As his soft chuckle soothed your frayed nerves, you felt his fingertips at your shoulder again, touching burning into your skin, his arm on the back of the couch curving into you.
“Yer a flighty filly, hm?”
You realised you had plastered yourself to his side, clutching at his shirt, and yet you didn’t want to let go.
He took your beer bottle and his, placing them on the coffee table, and turned back to you.
“C’mere.” The low rumble of his voice tore through your body just like the storm raging outside. Your eyes dragged up to his. “I’ve got you.”
The last thing you saw was the blue of his eyes almost completely black, pupils blown wide.
Then his mouth was on yours.
You gasped into the kiss and he immediately swooped in, tongue tangling with yours in a groan.
You were kissing a complete stranger. Maybe possibly your future murderer.
And it was good.
You broke away. “We shouldn’t have done that.” Your eyes met his again and your voice grew small. “I don’t even know you.”
His lips slowly curved into the first real smile you’ve seen, eyes crinkling and teeth flashing. It transformed his whole face and your lips parted on a small breath.
You forgot why you stopped kissing him.
“Wanna know me?”
With a nod you fisted your hands in his shirt and fell into his chest, lips crashing against his and smothering the low groan he let out. His arm snaked around you, drawing you impossibly closer, metal hand sliding up the back of your neck and into your hair.
He tilted you in his grasp, deepening the kiss, and you were lost. Lost in the taste of him, in the way his hands held you steady even as you came apart.
And that was just his kiss.
So when he turned your body, pressing you back into the couch and pulling away, your hands scramble to pull him back, your lips seeking his.
“Trust me.”
You fell back limply against the couch, pouting just a little. “You can’t go kissing a girl like that then leave her.”
But Bucky’s chuckle was wickedly low as he slid from the couch and kneeled on the floor before you. “Not leavin’ you, darlin’.”
His eyes, hooded and dark, drag from your pouty mouth down your neck, scored red from his stubble, over your heaving chest and to your legs.
“Wouldn’t dream of leavin’ you hangin’.”
His hands clasped your knees, slowly, slowly, sliding up your thighs.
“Yes,” you whisper, mind finally catching up. With his help you unbuttoned your pants, peeling the slightly rain-damp fabric from your legs, a few giggles and chuckles from each of you slowing the process.
Your panties quickly followed.
You think you should feel cold, but with the fire burning before you and Bucky’s hands swiftly acquainting themselves with your bare skin, your temperature was soaring.
His touch drove you wild. His calloused hand on your bare thigh in stark contrast to the smooth metal of his other hand, both gripping and rubbing your skin as he watched you intently. Your breaths sped up with every inch he climbed higher.
Where he leaned down to press an open-mouthed kiss to the inside of your knee, your stomach clenched and your hips rolled, and there was that low chuckle again, a rumble you felt resonate within you.
“C’mere.”
He encouraged you to hook your legs over his shoulders, opening you wide to his gaze, his stubble grazing against the soft skin of your inner thighs.
“You said yer a singer?”
You could do nothing else but nod frantically.
“Let me hear you high pitched then, honey.”
You held your breath.
With the fire behind him you couldn’t see his face, shadowed between your legs, but even in the contrasting dark you didn’t miss the determined glint in his eye when his tongue licked that first achingly slow stripe between your folds.
No warning, no gentling you through it. You couldn’t control how your jerked against him, you were so shocked at the molten touch.
He wrapped his arms around your thighs, holding you down, holding you apart.
You watched, mouth open, as he licked his lips and leaned in again, tongue flat as he lapped at you real slow.
His groan matched yours.
“Taste like sugar.”
Then he devoured you. Tongue delving deep or swirling with earth-shattering accuracy. One hand left your thigh to plunge one finger in, then two, stretching you wide, curling just right, soothing and building an ache within you all at once.
There’s a noise, louder than the rain and the wind, louder than the howling storm outside, and you slowly realise it’s you. Your keening cries as you bucked against his tongue, as your thighs tried to close around his head— but he ruthlessly held your legs apart with his metal hand, holding you down, making you take his fingers and his tongue until your thighs shook and you couldn’t think anymore.
His fingers crooked and you shattered.
Heels of your feet digging into his back, hands clutching desperately at his hair, you arched as you came hard against his tongue and around his fingers, his name a broken prayer on your lips.
Fitting since sin incarnate knelt before you, hair tousled and chin wet with you. He pressed soft kisses to your inner thigh, beard scratching gently and making you shiver.
He shrugged your legs off his shoulders.
“Hold on.”
Wrapping your legs around his waist and arms behind his neck, Bucky lifted you easily, metal arm under your ass to keep you steady.
He covered the length of the house in a handful of strides, toeing open the door you had spied earlier into his bedroom.
Shuffling you in his grasp he sat on the edge of the bed with you straddling his lap, mouth seeking yours over and over again as his hands fumbled with the hem of your shirt. Finally he slid off your shirt and bra, baring you completely to his gaze.
He was still fully clothed.
Shivering, not from the cold but the sheer force of desire running through you, you placed your hands on his chest and pushed. He gave way, laying down on the bed, staring up at you with those hypnotising eyes that drank you in as you got to work on his shirt.
Unbuttoning slowly, you marvelled at every perfect inch of skin you revealed. Spreading the halves wide you stared down at him, not knowing your hips rocked a needy rhythm as you took in the sight of his chiselled body, honed from years of hard work, his dog tags and chain bright in the dark.
“Keep lookin’ at me like that, darlin’, and this ain’t gonna last long.”
Palm pressed flat he ran his hand from your navel up your stomach and between your breasts before grasping the back of your neck and pulling you down for a searing kiss. You writhed against him, his skin scorching hot under yours.
“I have to have you,” you mumbled into his lips, body arching with the way his palms travelled the planes of your back.
“Top drawer.” His hands dropped to clasp your hips and ground you down on him.
But with a whine you shook your head. “I’m on the pill. And clean. Please?”
A guttural groan tore from him and his head dropped back onto the bed.
“Lord, this woman might kill me yet.”
And you’d thought him the murderer.
You couldn’t wait any longer. Sitting back you started on his belt and buckle, fingers fumbling in their haste, the straining heat of him making his jeans impossibly tight.
The button popped and he toed off his boots, helping you shove down his jeans and briefs until he finally sprang free.
A sharp breath escaped at the sight of him, thick and full, pearl glistening at the tip.
Bucky swore when he caught your stare.
“C’mere.”
A word had never held so much power over you before, but if you heard him say it one more time—
Dragging you forward he slid between your slick folds, tearing a moan from you both as he rutted up into your heat.
With one hand between you he palmed himself, settling you over his thick bulge, and eased himself in.
You sank down slowly, hand braced against his chest, taking him inch by delicious inch. He stretched you, filled you, until finally, fully seated, your name escaped his lips in a guttural groan.
The fullness of him choked you, your hips already rocking with the need to ease the ache and chase more of it.
Lips parting on a breathless moan, you began to ride, his hands like a brand against you, guiding your hips, grasp steady as he showed you how to take him. A sheen of sweat over your thighs made you shine in the dim light.
Bucky watched you, devoured you with his eyes, fucking up into you with a strength that had you gasping and moaning and begging for more.
His hand pressed between you, rubbing against that perfect spot right where you joined that hurtled you quickly to the edge.
Your head rolled back, thighs shaking, grinding down against him.
With a grunt Bucky sat up and flipped you onto your back. Settling between your thighs he entered you again with one devastating slow roll of his hips, sinking so fully inside you saw stars. Legs hooked around his waist, and hands clawing at his shoulders, you took it all as he pounded into you again and again. You could feel every inch, every drag of him against your walls, driving into you, quickly bringing you to the edge and sending you soaring.
His name left your lips over and over in a broken sob. It’s raw, unguarded, so precious it’s holy, and you hear how it affects him, his ragged breaths ripping through the air.
He comes with a sound that starts with your name but devolves into a ragged groan, hips slowing, thrusting shallowly as he rode it out.
Until he slumped over you, weight caught on his arms, face pressed against the hollow of your neck.
You don’t know how long you lay there, hands gentle against the planes of his back, feeling every ripple as your breath slowed to match his.
It’s quiet.
The storm still raged outside, wind and rain and lightening battling it out across the fields, but here in this house all you listen for is the sound of his breath.
Eventually he pushed away, brushing a kiss against your cheek and padding out of the room. His naked silhouette in the dim light of the night burnt into your memory.
There’s the sound of running water, then he’s back, wordlessly handing you a damp cloth to clean yourself up.
He fell into bed beside you with a sigh, arm slung up over his head and eyes closing.
Clean, you dropped the cloth to the floor, drawing the covers over you.
Quiet descends again.
“I don’t normally do this,” you whispered into the room.
Bucky’s voice was thick with sleep, his words slurring when he answered, “‘S alright. Can be a dream y’had once.”
You didn’t quite understand what he meant, though it sounded sweet.
“Girl came in with the rain …”
But when you propped yourself up on an elbow to question him further you could see his chest rose and fell slowly, eyelashes pillowed in perfect crescents against his cheek.
And when you laid down again, resting against his open side, he grunted something inaudible and snaked his arm around you, drawing you in closer.
The morning brought aching muscles and an empty space beside you. You sat up, wincing at the way your body protested the movement, and looked around for your discarded clothes.
They were neatly folding in a pile on the end of the bed. Dry.
You stared at the pile for a long time, taking in the kindness of the gesture, before eventually getting up and dressing.
Decent, you peered out into the living area only to find it, too, empty. Your heart sank.
A crumpled scrap of paper sat on the wooden dining table. Glancing around again you walked over to read.
Neighbours fence down with the storm. Won’t be back before you’re gone. -B.
Beneath was a rough drawn map to get you back to the main road.
His words the night before drifted back to you, and your fingers ghosted across your lips as you remembered the way he kissed you. Your body still ached with how he’d had you.
A dream indeed.
With a nod to yourself, you gathered your things and left quietly, the scrawled paper tucked away in your pocket.
And when he got back late that afternoon, the sun sitting low on the horizon and your departing tyre marks the only trace of you, Bucky sighed, staring off down the long dirt road out of this place.
The next time he saw your headlights he was mildly surprised, to say the least. It was only days later. His lips kicked up in a half smile as your boots swung out first.
“You lost?”
“Nope. Maps go both ways.”
There’s a familiar scrap of paper held in your hand.
A bark of laughter escaped him, and he turned for the door, shaking his head as he stomped inside.
He left the flyscreen wide open for you.
Bucky had half a mind to offer you another round of beer, but the moment you stepped inside you dropped your bag on the floor and wound your arms around his neck, pressing your sweet little mouth to his in a kiss that sent a bolt of lightening straight to his cock.
“Hmm still taste like rain.”
Since you asked so nicely, he laid you down right there on the kitchen counter, pressing your thighs apart and eating at you nice and slow like, then turned and fucked you on the dining table for dessert.
And in the aftermath, with his spent body sweaty and deliciously heavy pressing you down into the wooden surface, you felt laughter bubble up.
You were happy.
“What you laughin’ at?” He murmured against your neck, his stubble scratching against your skin with every word.
“I wasn’t sure what kind of welcome I’d get second time around.”
You felt him exhale, then slowly he pushed up and away from you, finally pulling out of your body, and you sucked in a breath at the loss of him.
There was a decidedly smug lilt to his voice when he said, “We ain’t strangers and I don’t mind greetin’ you nice and proper.”
You’d walked in with such bravado, climbing those three steps of his porch under the swinging sign with his name like you knew them by heart, kissing him like you had every right to. But your insecurities and self-doubts crashed back to earth in the soft, emotional aftermath of sleeping with this unknown person. Again.
“I’m sorry for barging in—“
“I let you.”
“—and accosting you like a madwoman—“
“Can you accost me a few more times?”
“Bucky, please. I’m just trying to say—“
He shut you up the best way he knew how, with a slow, tender kiss that left you dazed and speechless when he pulled away again.
“‘S fine. You always this scared o’ yer own actions?”
He pressed his mouth to the valley between your breasts before hauling himself up, dog tags jangling, and he disappeared down the hall. Distantly you heard the sound of water running.
Were you always this scared?
You tried to lower your legs again and hissed at the way your hips protested the movement.
Your body was not used to being snapped in half this often in only so many days.
Bucky returned wearing a new pair of boxer briefs and with a damp towel in his hand.
“Here.”
With a tenderness you found surprising and endearing, he carefully helped clean your body.
There was a strange moment of bashful domesticity as you both hunted for your scattered clothing.
“Hungry?”
Dressed, silently musing all the while about whether Hollywood had taught you to never seize what you truly wanted, you perched on a stool at the counter and watched as he collected bread from the tin and fresh eggs from the pantry.
“Were you in the army?” You asked, motioning to his dog tags when he glanced your way.
“Yes ma’am. Sergeant Barnes.”
“Ooh Sarge,” you teased, and laughed at the withering stare he threw you that didn’t quite land, not when the smile that tugged at his lips gave him away.
“Me and my buddy, he was a Captain. Until I did this.” Bucky rotated his metal prosthetic. “Now it’s farm life for the rest of my days.”
You rested your chin in your hand, elbow propped on the counter. “And you wouldn’t have it any other way.”
He nodded firmly. “That’s the truth of it.”
You looked down as your phone buzzed with a text from your friend, whose house you’d stayed at for the last two nights as planned, asking if you were making it home in good time. You felt your cheeks heat and decided not to answer right away.
Bucky hummed a tune quietly as he cooked, and your eyes flew up to watch him.
You knew that tune.
It was yours.
“Thought you didn’t know any of my music.”
“I didn’t.”
“And now?”
He shrugged casually but you caught the way the tips of his ears turned pink. “It’s not all bad.”
“You looked me up,” you accused him, and the embarrassed flush spread down his cheeks and neck.
You snickered softly, watching for the little glances he shot your way.
“Wasn’t hard to find you,” he said finally, flipping the egg battered bread in the pan. He pinned you with a stare then, and you hoped you didn’t imagine the admiration you spied in it. “Turns out yer quite somethin’, huh?”
Your last album was recently lauded as the fastest album of the decade to reach five times platinum in the US, barely beating your previous album which had broke that same record. This following the sensational performance of your third tour that just wrapped up—You dropped your gaze, shrugging at the reality of his question. “I do alright.”
Bucky snorted. “No, honey, I do alright. Ain’t got much but what I earn from the crops and animals. You?” He whistled, impressed.
“Okay,” you began, squaring your shoulders. “You’re right. I’ve accomplished a lot. But it’s not hard work, not when I love it so much.”
He cocked his head, gesturing with the spatula for you to go on.
“I love to craft my own melodies, my own lyrics. Or have the producers send me a sample of something new and my mind run away with ideas. I’m just lucky people seem to like what I make.”
Bucky nodded along, his gaze focussed on cooking.
“All yer songs, they always this boppy?“
“Pop.”
“That.”
You laughed. “Yes, Sarge.”
He hummed another melody and with another laugh you half-sung the words, sliding off the stool and running your hand along the kitchen counter as you rounded it to stand with him.
Helping him collect plates and toppings he requested from the fridge, you smiled when he presented you with a plate.
“Egg bread.”
“This is French toast.”
Bucky looked down at the plates, then the sauces and vegetables from the fridge. “But it’s savoury.”
“Still French toast.”
“Egg bread,” he insisted, with a finality to his tone that had you cocking a brow at him. “‘S what my Ma called it.”
“Well, I’d never argue with Mama Barnes.”
“She would’a liked you,” he said, offhand, and you wondered at the way joy swept your body and curled your toes.
So you ate, talked, stared into his eyes far too long to be polite, and grinned more than once at the way you kept catching him doing the same. But this was a working farm, and this farmer had to get to it.
It was difficult to convince both of you of that when, after clearing up, he’d lifted you into the counter again, stepped between your legs, and kissed you senseless.
“I’d love to stay and …” he trailed off, gaze slowly dropping to where his hands squeezed your thighs, “… chat.”
He didn’t look like he wanted to chat. He looked like he wanted to devour you whole. Again.
“But I got some girls in the bottom paddock that need seein’ to.”
“Can I help?”
“Doubt it.”
No malice, just honesty.
“Yer welcome to stay,” donning his hat, his smile turned down at the corners, “But I imagine you got plenty important places to be.”
He was right. You found yourself wishing he wasn’t.
He jerked his head toward the dining table. “Left a present for you.”
And with one last kiss he was gone.
You lazily watched his figure cross the yard, admiring the way his jeans hugged tight, and his corded, tanned arm and stunningly designed prosthetic looked with his sleeves rolled up just so.
You’d stumbled on a diamond in the rough. In a storm, no less.
Finally dragging your gaze away you searched for his supposed present.
A scrawled note sat on the sturdy wooden table. Same place as before.
Next time doesn’t have to be a surprise - B.
And his phone number.
All you saw in your mind’s eye was blue. That pretty horizon over rolling hills. The colour rain clouds turned before lightening had its way. The covers on the cushions of a rusty swing chair on the porch. The faded paint of a old beat up Ford that saw better days long before he drove it.
And those eyes. Eyes deeper than the ocean and brighter than the sky. Eyes that saw right through you and saw all of you at the same time.
Eyes you’d only seen twice and already you hoped you could keep staring into them for the rest of your life.
You stepped inside the door of your New York townhouse, shutting it quickly behind you, blocking out the sound of camera shutters and probing questions of the paparazzi and fans lurking outside.
With a deep, fortifying breath, you carried your bags through to the living area and dropped them onto your couch with a sigh, breathing in the familiar scents.
It was good to be home.
But you grabbed your phone and snapped a quick picture right there in the room, your eyes tired and hair still tousled from the long drive. You sent it without overthinking too much, typing out ‘Home safe but thinking of rain and dirt roads’.
A reply came almost instantly.
‘When can you get lost again?’
Several visits later, there’s a tension to your shoulders he realised he’s seen before but hadn’t recognised. Your eyes were tired, skin flawless and beautiful as always but lacking the light that usually glowed from within.
You were exhausted.
“What’re they doing to you up in the city, huh?”
Your mumbled response was lost against his chest as he enveloped you in his arms. He could feel the way you sagged against him, clinging like only he could give you what you need.
He decides he can.
Hands under your thighs he lifts you easily, ignoring your shrill gasp as he tucked your body against his, and carried you into the farmhouse, kicking the door shut behind him.
Your arms wrapped around his shoulders, you buried your face into the crook of his neck. He smelled of hay, sweat, and something uniquely him.
You pressed closer to breathe in more.
He carried you through the house, old floorboards creaking their telltale tune all the way to the bathroom where he gently set you down until your feet touched the tiles. The huge clawed bathtub, generally unused, became your salvation as he begins to let it fill with piping hot water. You perched on its cold edge while you wait.
When it’s full he wordlessly accepts your clothes, the banked heat in his eyes as they sweep your body a mere promise of what’s to come.
Later.
First, you step gingerly into the bathtub, hissing at the blissful heat, and you sink in with a long drawn out sigh.
You were exhausted, and you hated that he saw it.
But you couldn’t hate this.
Eyes closing, you let yourself drift. Let the smells of the farmhouse envelop you, let the warmth of the water ease everything else away.
There had been contract questions. An interview. Some papers about the new project you were working on, and a bunch of people who decided their time with you was more important than everything else.
And you loved it. That was the hardest part; you relished every second of it. Of fitting so much into one day, of the balancing act. Sometimes the games too, because right now you were on a winning streak.
But as you drove and the roads turned rougher, the tiredness overwhelmed you. It was regrettably stronger than your excitement at seeing Bucky again.
So when he’d opened that door and you’d collapsed in his arms, you’d trusted him to catch you.
It was nice.
Even with the window propped open for the steam, it’s quiet. Just the fresh breeze outside, the far off sound of animals, and Bucky quietly moving through the house.
You doze in and out, mindful of slipping beneath the water, tension and worries leaching away as this house, this place, and the care of this farmer lulled you into an ease you had only ever found here.
Your whole body felt languid when you eventually stepped out, steam rising off your skin, colour darker with the heat. Humming, you dried off, dipping into your bag for fresh clothes, and ventured back into the house.
A wailing soulful tune lured you to the verandah.
Bucky sat on the wooden edge, afternoon sun burnishing his hair a deep brown, metal arm gleaming as he riffed a blues melody on his harmonica.
Eyes trailing from him out to gold and green fields specked with cattle, to the old barn and the endless open horizon beyond, you breathed it all in.
Without a word you sat beside him on the verandah, legs dangling off the edge as he bends notes on the harp, playing any kind of tune as it comes to him like he would on any other night.
When you learn his key and catch the beat, you hum along whatever melody comes to you first, and he places his free hand on your knee, thumb rubbing back and forth until the sun sets.
He’s up before you. When you see him, leaning against the wall by the hallway, arms crossed and staring right at you, you smile. The same one you always have when you set eyes on him.
A smile that grows larger when his face softens and his eyes crinkle just so. What he wears isn’t quite a smile, but it warms you like one just the same.
He pushed off and stalked toward you, heavy boots thudding loud in the room. Taking your shoulders in his hands, he drew you in to press a kiss to your forehead, and you close your eyes.
“I got some friends stopping by for lunch,” he told you, voice a low rumble and his breath fanning over your hair. “Steve and his missus. You gonna be right with that?”
Your heart thumped so loud you were sure he could hear it in the quiet of the day. Wrapping your arms around his waist and spreading your legs to pull him in, you nodded. “I’ll be alright.”
His lips brushed your skin. “Can I ask a favour?”
“Sure.” Reluctantly drawing away you looked up at him. “What kind of favour?”
“I need a couple things in town. Will you drive us in?” He rubbed at the back of his neck, but there was something about his gaze that had yours narrowing, skeptical.
“A couple things? My car’s not built to carry much.”
“Nah, that’s why you’ll be in my truck.”
Brow raised you looked at him wide eyed. “I’ve never driven one that big.”
The smirk on his face said it all. “Sure you have, darlin’.”
It’s a challenge to ignore the rush of heat pooling low within you.
“You want me to drive your truck?”
“Maybe I want you to be seen drivin’ my truck.”
“This feels like some kind of next step business,” you muse, heart fluttering. He wants you to meet his friends and be seen with him, it was enough giddiness to make you feel like a high schooler.
He shrugged, and you kissed the small smile playing across his lips.
The trip was eye opening, and not just because of the truck. The turning circle was wider than you’re used to, but you puttered along the tracks and road just fine.
No, what kept you entertained was discovering a new facet of the man you were still getting to know.
Bucky is even more tight-lipped here than in his own home, and no sooner had you jumped out of the truck, Sam Wilson was by the bumper welcoming you to town and slinging his arm around your shoulder like you were the oldest of friends.
The tic in Bucky’s jaw could not jump higher as he ground his teeth.
But when he asks if the stockfeed is open and if Sarah was working today, Sam is immediately stony faced and grumbling, telling him to stay in his lane. You learn quickly that not only can Sam Wilson get under his skin but Bucky lets him; a mutually aggravating camaraderie you don’t understand.
It’s in stark difference to the polite, gentlemanly way he speaks to Sarah at the stockfeed and hardware store, which makes you all the more curious to find out she and Sam are siblings.
Except when Bucky plops his Stetson on your head as you head back out onto the street, and you watch the identical way they cross their arms and watch him with matching eyes sharper than all the paparazzi in the city. You just know he’s gonna hear an earful when they get him alone next.
The meaning of wearing his hat is lost on you, but it gleams in both their eyes and everyone else’s on the street that day as you lug two bags of fence clips back to his vehicle.
You’re tempted to record the way he loads feed bags in the back of the truck like they weigh nothing. You imagine you’re one of them, slung over his shoulder until he grabs your waist with two hands and swings you down onto your back—
“Ready to go?”
With a gulp you nod and climb in.
Many eyes fervently follow your dust trail down the road.
You watch through the window as a flatbed truck pulls up the drive, and busy yourself setting out plates on the dining table.
Two doors slam and there’s a murmur of voices coming closer up the steps.
“What happened to the wagon?”
“On the fritz. Plus I’m picking up some hay when we leave.”
Wait a minute.
You knew that voice.
A tall blonde swung open the flyscreen, politely removing his hat and nodding hello before freezing in place.
“Steve?”
He paused in the doorway, looking at you slack jawed, when—
“Don’t block the door, I’m in dire need of a sit-down.”
“Peggy!”
In waddled your very dear, very pregnant and very surprised friend.
She blinked, mouth forming a delighted oh as you rushed in to hug her.
“Long time no see!” She says in a daze, clutching you close before holding you out at arms length, head shaking incredulously. “But how is it that you’re here?”
You helped her to a seat at the table, her eyes darting between you and Bucky who looked equally bewildered. Steve moved to his side, murmuring something low at his friend you couldn’t hear, and Bucky shrugged his response.
“Remember when I was delayed a day coming to see you? With the storm?”
“Yes,” Peggy said, hand covering yours on the table. “You had us worried sick. I had images of you lost in a ditch somewhere.”
She’d said as much the next day when you eventually turned up.
Ducking your head you admitted, “I didn’t stop at a motel like I said.” Your gaze rose and met hers. “I ended up here.”
“You’re the girl that blew in with the storm,” Steve said, his voice tinged with laughter. You looked over and Bucky was a delightful shade of pink, the flush high in his cheeks and running all the way down beneath the vee of his shirt.
Peggy regarded you warmly, her eyes gleaming with a new wealth of knowledge that put you on edge.
“I’m sure he took great care of you.”
“Alright, Peg,” Bucky interrupted with a grumble. “Steve? Want to take a look at that gear?”
When the men walked outside to the barn, gesturing animatedly and discussing farming things you had no idea about, Peggy followed you out and sat back into Bucky’s verandah swing chair with a sigh.
“I’ve loved every moment of this pregnancy,” she said through gritted teeth. “But my feet may never recover.”
You laughed, settling on the cushion next to her and helping her twist in the seat until she could lay back with her legs across your lap.
“I’ve wanted to set the two of you up for years now, you know.”
“The two of—“ Something clicked in your brain, several long-ago conversations crowding in all at once of a young feller with a rough exterior but a kind heart. “—This is James?”
He’d asked you to call him Bucky, you’d completely forgotten. Your eyes glanced up to the sign swinging gently in the breeze, emblazoned with his initials.
And Steve was a Captain! From the moment he was off active duty he and Peggy had tried for a baby, this pregnancy being the magic one that finally took.
A pregnancy that brought you out of the city for the first time in years to see your dear friend that you hadn’t visited in so long, only to end up on this very porch with Bucky Barnes sweeping you off your feet.
There was no way to know this could happen, but the threads were there. Your mind whirled, unable to consider the odds.
“And you said you’d never date a country boy.” Her voice was so smug you could do nothing but shrug.
“He’s no boy,” you whispered, and Peggy’s laughter peeled out across the yard, drawing Steve’s attention who smiled indulgently at his wife and gave you both a little wave.
Bucky was staring, face unreadable at this distance, but you could feel his eyes like a brand.
He watched you sitting there, so comfortable in his home, friends with his friends, looking more relaxed than he’s ever seen you.
Steve made a noise next to him, and he turned to see his best friend smirking and shaking his head.
“You got something to say, Rogers?”
“She’ll make an honest man outta you.”
Bucky scowled. “How would you know that?”
“I know you’ve never looked this happy since your folks passed and Becca moved away.”
Kicking at a weed tuft in the gravel, Bucky grumbled, “Yeah, well, you never mentioned you had a damn famous person as a friend.”
“Why would I?” Steve laughed. “Had you even heard of her before she fell in your lap?”
Bucky shrugged a non-answer.
“Besides, she’s not like that with us. And Peggy knew her from before all that anyhow.” As if that settled that matter.
He watched you there with Peggy, giggling like schoolgirls and all the while cradling her legs, making sure she was comfortable. In his house.
His voice was quiet but sure when he told Steve, “I got a good feeling about this one, Cap.”
“Yeah, Buck. Yeah, me too.”
It was late at night. The house was still alive with boisterous conversations and delightful reminiscing. Lunch had turned into card games which had turned into dinner and sitting by the fire. Peggy regaled you with the worst kind of stories about the boys, who had the decency to look bashful before sharing a few tales of their own.
You’d hugged your dear friend close, wishing her well for the last weeks of her pregnancy, Bucky promising over your shoulder he’d live up to his godfathering duties if they ever needed a hand.
The moment they’d left, disappearing down the dirt drive into the dark of night, Bucky took your hand and drew you back to the fireplace, showing you in the most delicious way possible how happy he was with the day.
“So.”
Pillowed in his arm amongst blankets and pillows strewn on the floor, you dragged your eyes away from the gentle rise and fall of his chest to meet his steady gaze.
“When do I get to return the favour?”
Even after the last hour of pleasure your body clenched at his words, heat sweeping from your cheeks down your neck and chest.
“Bucky,” you whispered, scandalised. “I already came three times, you don’t—“
His bark of laughter surprised you.
“‘M flattered, darlin’, but not what I meant.”
He rolled then, body curving into yours and his metal arm snaking around your waist, pulling you flush against him.
“When can I come to New York?”
Nothing about him changed, there was no shift in tone, but something in the question appeared so small and earnest, so hopeful, that your heart doubled over.
“You want to come to the big smoke with me?”
You felt his nod against your shoulder, his lips brushing your skin reverently.
“Wanna see your world, darlin’.”
You liked the escapism, that out here you’re just you, no watching over your shoulder or calculating the hidden meaning of every word spoken to you. With Bucky you could be yourself, and not consider the PR implications of an honest reaction.
But even out here in the calm, parts of your soul longed for home.
And one particular part buried in your chest swelled at the thought of showing off your gorgeous farmer to the world.
“What about the farm?”
“I got plenty o’ favours to call in.”
The first visit was a blur of motion.
The long miles faded quickly behind him, buildings piling up on the horizon as he drove his old truck steadily down the highway, but Bucky was unfazed.
When Becca left with her new husband he’d been into the cities a few times.
Turns out this was not like those times.
There was a country mile difference between walking the streets of New York and walking the streets of New York on your arm.
‘Be there in a song.’
When he arrived it was to the interested looks of people lurking outside your door, all who swiftly drew their cameras and phones when he walked up and knocked.
And there you were, thousand-watt smile and hands grabbing him, dragging him indoors to the sound of fast shutters as the photographers captured the moment. But how could he care about them when the second he was inside behind closed doors you squeaked a happy, ‘Hi Sarge,’ and threw your arms around his neck, kissing him like you needed his mouth to draw breath.
“You got gawkers outside,” he murmured to your lips, nudging his nose against yours.
“Nevermind them,” you said dismissively, taking his hand and showing him your expensive town house.
It’s big. Foot-for-square-foot it was bigger than his family home, but filled to the brim with life. Your life. Awards and photographs and music, so much music everywhere.
“So, this is where you spin yer tunes,” he said, pressing down the keys of your keyboard and frowning when they emitted no sound.
“It’s an electric keyboard,” you tell him, and his cheeks heat.
“Right. Of course.”
“Actually, it’s a workstation. It plays, but I also use it for sampling and recording when I’m struck by any new ideas.”
He plucks the silent keys a couple more times for good measure and lets you lead him on.
Through the tour he quietly takes note of how much money is invested around your house alone, and feels something within him tighten. No, strengthen.
You’re really something. He had an idea of it, of course, after searching you up online and learning. But it was a little different seeing the fruits of your labours here in person.
Bucky knew he’d better prove he’s worthy of you. That he could meet you halfway in all this.
“So, that’s everything!”
Your smile was brighter than the sun and hadn’t dimmed since the moment you set eyes on him.
“Ready for lunch?”
The little smile playing around Bucky’s lips, one that had his eyes softening and his head tilting just so, set your heart aflutter. He stared at you, simply taking you in.
“What?” You touched your cheek, then your nose. “You gave me pash rash with that kiss, didn’t you?”
He shook his head, slow and measured, and laughed to himself. You didn’t know the joke.
“You said lunch?” He collected his keys from his bag.
“Oh, um—“ you placed your hand over his, shaking your head, “—my driver is waiting to take us.”
His brow furrowed. “But my truck’s just out front.”
“And Happy is already waiting.” Embarrassment twisted inside you. What must he be thinking? This man who had seen war and managed a farm all on his own, while you have a driver for something as simple as lunch.
But Bucky gestured for you to lead the way, popping his Stetson back in place and tipping the brim low.
As promised, Happy Hogan and the black sedan sat just outside, beside Bucky’s beaten truck.
You took his hand, knowing yours was clammy as your nerves spiked with the onset of cameras and people calling your name.
You should’ve warned him.
Too late now.
The crowd pressed in, larger than when he had arrived, likely drawn in by the news of a stranger at your door. They surrounded the car, surround the two of you, and Bucky forcibly placed himself between you and them.
“Who’s your visitor?”
“Seeing someone new?”
“Sir, look this way!”
Keeping Bucky close down the stairs and the sidewalk, you smiled gratefully at Happy who hurried around to get your door.
“Welcome to New York, Mr Barnes,” he said as you both hopped into the car, and he promptly shut you away from prying eyes.
You turned to him immediately, watching the way his gaze lingered out the window at the gathered crowd as the car pulled away. “Was that a lot?”
“Do you have, uh—“ Bucky fumbled for words as he faced you, a deeply etched frown on his face. “A bodyguard? Or somethin’?”
“Yes.” You gestured beyond the privacy screen at the passenger side front seat where your bodyguard sat beside Happy. “Bruce? Say hello?”
Bruce Banner twisted in the seat and smiled brightly at Bucky, uttering a quiet hello before turning back.
Bucky’s face was all hard lines, a tic in his jaw jumping as he thought. Then his eyes met yours and you saw the concern etched there.
“They look after me,” you whisper. “I promise.”
He nods once, barely satisfied, and takes your hand in his. “Where we headed today?”
Twining your fingers in his, relishing the callouses that graze your palm, you tell him, “Burgers first. Then I wanted to take you to the studio.”
You smiled, watching the way his gaze softened when it landed on you. The way his eyes, weather worn, crinkled at the edges and the sun spots dusting his cheeks lifted with the apple of his smile matching yours.
And all the while he’s watching you back, unable to stop the way his lips curve as you stare up at him with those pretty eyes sparkling with something he hasn’t seen before.
This time when you step out the car, he’s prepared. Bruce opens the door first, helping you to your feet, and Bucky immediately follows behind. He has a hand around your waist, grasping your side firmly, but his eyes are up and out over the heads of people around them, guiding and shielding you in Bruce’s wake.
It’s not as pointed at last time, fewer people expecting your arrival, but there’s no mistaking the piqued interest at the company you brought. At him and the obvious connection between you.
Inside the restaurant in no time, Bucky politely slid off his Stetson. He blinked slowly, banishing the afterglow of camera flashes, his only tell that this wasn’t normal. Seeing your concerned face as you waited, he grinned at you, hand outstretched, gesturing to follow the server as they lead you to a table.
Bucky’s eyes flickered around, noting the stares and the phones sneaking photos of the two of you. He took it all in, cataloguing his surroundings. Keeping his expression neutral, ignoring the prickling sensation at the back of his neck at being watched so closely by so many complete strangers, he made sure you were comfortably seated before sitting.
Only once did he ask, “Is it always like this?” and you didn’t hesitate, knowing exactly what he meant.
“Yes. You get used to it.”
Even he was unsure if his grunted reply was agreement or not.
Frowning down at the menu, he took in his options.
“These ain’t gonna to be those tiny meals I see on TV, are they?” He murmured quietly.
A snort escaped before you could help yourself. “No!” Bucky’s lips twisted in a wry smile. “No, Bucky, I promise these burgers will fill up even a strapping lad like you.”
And when his eyes widened as your plates were delivered, you allowed yourself a moment to gloat as he gauged how best to eat the massive meal before him.
He thought he’d fed you hearty meals back on the farm, but there was a primal kind of satisfaction inside him at seeing you dig into a meaty burger that felt a little caveman-like.
He liked a woman that could eat, and he especially liked knowing you were taken care of.
Plus these burgers were darn tasty.
He kept his voice low over lunch, not for anyone else to hear, concerned for the other patrons and staff who are clearly listening in for a little celebrity gossip. A small part of him flinched at the idea of you being lumped in with a country hick, a regular ol’ redneck, and though he’s never been ashamed of his home he has a vague idea of what that might mean to these city folk.
“I can’t believe you’re here,” you say at one point, your expression so openly warm and pleased that he sits a little straighter.
“Darlin’, I’d follow you to the end of the earth if you keep smilin’ at me like that,” he told you gruffly.
His shoulders stiffen when he hears a faint collective ‘aww’ and sigh from the table over, but you’re oblivious, flushed from his compliment, hand snaking over the table to capture his prosthetic one and squeezing tight.
He risked a glance up and sees a table of women, friends hanging out he supposes, looking at the two of you with stars in their eyes. They made themselves look busy when they realised he was looking their way.
“Burger was good?”
He cleared his throat. “Ain’t as good as Sam’s brisket, let me tell you. But yeah.”
He looked between both your now-empty plates.
“Should we get goin’? Didn’t you have somewhere to be?”
“Hang on,” you said earnestly, waving over the server, “you have to try their pie.”
He placed a hand on his stomach. “Honey, I don’t think I got room.”
“Sure you do, cowboy.”
A slice was placed down on the table.
As you carved out a piece for yourself, Bucky’s spoon knocked yours. Deliberately. Giggling, you spared back, crossing his spoon with yours and making him drop the mouthful he had scooped up.
“It’s like that, is it?” He chuckled, holding up his spoon like a fencer before his face.
“Oh, Sarge.” You pointed your spoon directly at his chest. “It’s on.”
Your spoons clashed together in a loud twang and your laughter rang out through the restaurant, Bucky’s tenor underscoring it.
It wasn’t until you caught a server looking curiously at your spoon fight did you take in your surroundings, noticing the number of eyes and phones pointed toward your table. With a gentle cough you lowered your weaponised spoon.
“I yield. Even though you didn’t have room for it.”
Bucky chuckled, digging into the slice of pie, taking a large mouthful and grinning as he chewed.
“‘S real good.”
You lowered your gaze to the plate and carved out another piece for yourself, missing the charming smile and small salute Bucky gave the nosy table next to yours who continued to gawk.
You’re glad timing worked out the way it did, as you checked the text that just came in. You had a tiny surprise lined up for your dear farmer.
“Now we swing by the studio for five minutes,” you tell him in the car, Happy already making his way there. “I hope you don’t mind.”
“Honey, I’m here for you. Whatever you got to do, I’m a foot behind you.”
Stark Studios was surprisingly busy for midday, people from all walks of life bustling through its doors. But there was one in particular who promised they’d be there, and as you twined your arm around Bucky’s you felt giddy knowing he would find this fun.
The main lobby run off into a little gallery, pictures, posters, album covers and exemplary statistics showing just what a powerhouse Stark Studios was in the music business.
You’d left Bucky there to talk a little business with your manager and record executive, and when you returned twenty minutes later with someone else on your arm, you found him standing in front of the wall dedicated to you and your work. Your career so far.
There was a blank space still to be filled, with a cheeky sign stating, ‘For her future hits.’ Tony had thought it was both motivating for you and a challenge declared to the other artists signed to the record label.
Bucky chuckled and nodded when he saw it.
“Hey, cowboy? I want to introduce you to someone.”
You indulged him in dragging his feet, wide eyes taking in all the signed memorabilia and photographs.
This would be a treat.
But when you stood in front of the red head and gave their introductions, you smirked knowingly at his slack-jawed expression.
No, he hadn’t known of you when you first met, but Natasha Romanoff?
You’d found not one but three of her albums by the Queen of country music in his home one visit, and some of his favourite tunes to play on the harmonica were harmonies from her songs.
His ears tinged pink as he shook her hand. “Nice to meet you, ma’am.”
“Ma’am? Do I look that old, son?”
His gaze flickered to you, uncertainty clouding his baby blues, and you hip checked Natasha out of her pointed stare.
“‘Tasha, you’re scaring the poor boy.”
His eyes flashed. You smiled at him sweetly, knowingly.
You’d pay for that comment later.
And the exchange doesn’t go unnoticed. Natasha’s eyes were wickedly bright when she said, “I’m waiting for him to stomp around like an unbroken horse.”
He snorted out a breath heavily through his nose and that cracked her. She broke into a genuine smile, clapping him affectionately on the shoulder. “You’ll do.”
You stepped away and he clasped your elbow firm enough to draw your complete attention.
“Call me boy again and I’ll remind you what this man can do.”
He felt the shiver that wracked your whole body.
Stood to one side while he spoke with Natasha, you mouthed a thank you to your friend when she gifted him a signed poster and kissed him on the cheek, lipstick stain lingering and all.
You weren’t jealous of the starry eyed expression on his face, nor the way he rambled like a schoolboy all the way back to the car. Honestly, you were pleased he’d liked the surprise so much.
You still felt a little reminder of how much you cared was in order.
Bucky motioned you into the car first, watchful eyes on the street and surrounds, ever vigilante.
But he didn’t see you coming.
Pulling him roughly to the backseat, you could barely wait for Happy to shut the door before you got to work on his belt.
“Christ, darlin’, what—“
Kissing him firmly, you pulled back only enough to tell him, “Let me.”
His jaw clenched hard but his eyes were already darkening. You felt him twitch beneath your hands.
Bucky’s eyes flickered to the front seat over the privacy partition where Happy climbed in to drive them home.
Biting your lip, you pressed the button for the privacy screen to close.
“Bye, Happy.”
You ignored the man’s knowing smile in the rear view mirror as the glass slid in place.
Belt undone and jeans quickly pried open, you delved in, humming happily as your hand closed around his cock, already thick and heavy in your grasp. He bucked up into your touch and his head thunked back against the seatrest.
“Yer a madwoman,” he muttered, watching from beneath hooded eyes as you knelt on the seat and lowered your mouth to him.
The first touch of your lips made him jerk again, smearing precum against your mouth. Licking your lips to the sound of his gasp, you twirled your tongue against the swollen head and took him in, inch by inch, all the way until your lips touched your hand at his base.
“Darlin’, you can’t. You—“ he choked on a guttural groan as you swallowed around him.
You pulled away with an audible pop.
“Ssh, Bucky.” You didn’t recognise your own voice, deep and husky with want for him. “You don’t want someone to hear you.”
His cock twitched in your hand, his fist clenching hard.
“Be a good boy and stay quiet for me, Sarge,” you whispered, and took him in your mouth again.
When he began to rut up into your mouth you hummed your approval, your eyes rolling back as you felt him hot and heavy at the back of your throat.
And when he came for you on a muffled groan as you swallowed everything he gave you, you delighted in how wrecked he looked sprawled out in the car seat, mouth parted with heavy breaths.
He stared at you, your lips swollen and lipstick smeared, and grit his teeth, sending out a silent prayer to whoever listened for dropping you in his path.
Awake long before you, farm hours never gifting him the luxury of a sleep in, Bucky lounged in bed. Arm slung behind his head, nothing better to do with his time, he browsed the internet for something he never thought he’d care for.
Gossip.
He searched your name, searched his, scrolled through social media and news blogs, unable to fathom how quickly the world moved up here.
Day one in New York and he could map it through these posts and stories almost to the minute.
Photos of his arrival at your door, of his guarding you from the onslaught of attention. Where the two of you ate, who you saw at the studio.
Even analysis of where to buy a hat just like his. That got his hackles raised.
He felt you stir next to him, gorgeous limbs flexing and stretching like they ached from hard work.
He knew his grin turned wolfish at the reminder of how thoroughly you’d welcomed him to the city late into the night.
“Good morning.”
And what a good morning it was. Your hair tousled on the pillow, smile languid and warm, hand pressed against his bare stomach.
“Mornin’,” he rasped, his voice the only thing not yet woken from slumber. “Wanna know what the world thinks of your farmer debut?”
You huff out a laugh and shuffle closer, pressing your face against his side. “What do they say?”
“Mostly talk about how good-lookin’ I am.”
You thump him lightly with your fist.
Chuckling, he reads a passage from a particularly kind blog, one that called him rakishly handsome, softly spoken, and only drew on his military history. He chuckled reading it again.
“I gave ‘em nothing to talk about.”
“You can do that,” you pout. “If I don’t talk I’m labelled a snob.”
“That’s not quite what they say here.”
Interested, you pushed further up the bed, settling into the crook of his arm.
He kept his tone light while he read. “‘So smitten with her new beau, our pop princess barely spoke to anyone else, preferring to keep her attention — and her lips — on him.’”
He tilted his phone toward you, showing you the last photograph anyone had captured of the two of you yesterday.
A photo of you both stepping out of Happy’s sedan onto the sidewalk outside the townhouse, a close up of the red lipstick stains in his stubble and your perfect lip line all but disappeared, smudged around your swollen lips.
The bedsheets did nothing to hide his body’s reaction at the reminder of your gift to him in the car.
“They missed one thing,” he said, dropping his phone and rolling until he hovered over your body, one arm braced near your shoulder and the other tracing a line from the hollow of your neck down your chest.
You blinked up at him, eyes still sleepy but warming quickly to his line of thinking. “And what’s that?”
“That I can’t keep my hands off you either.”
His fingers found your side, tickling mercilessly.
With a shriek and a giggle you squirmed under his hands until the sounds devolved into moans, your body writhing in a different way as he settled between your legs.
The noise is constant. The texts, emails, calls. But also the voices, the cars, the underlying hum of everything.
He learns quickly that Happy and Bruce see you as a friend, a responsibility, not just a job, and he warms to them immediately.
He especially likes when your bodyguard hangs back because they know in Bucky’s hands you’re safer than you’ll ever be.
He doesn’t like the photographers and reporters in your face, urgent words and desperate requests jostling you when you’re only trying to get to the car, and he quickly becomes acquainted with how bodily the guarding of you keeps him occupied on every outing.
Until the day an arrogant paparazzo tries to get too close between him and your bodyguard.
“Get the fuck outta her way or I’ll bury you in a field where no one will find you.”
But somehow even that is brushed off, twisted into some heroic act, no mention of threats or an investigation.
The world is enamoured by the pop star and her farm boy, and for now you can’t go wrong.
He hates that whenever you step outside your home you’re no longer your own person, open to the whims of the paparazzi, fans on the street, demands on your time for stupid reasons like being seen in the right places and with the right people.
But he loves how you handle it all. Your grace and determination, especially when it’s your fans begging for a scrap of your attention, and you give it to them willingly because, as you say, who would you be without them?
He pictures you in his barn, hand gentle on his horse’s flank as he shows you how to whisper sweet words to his girl, and he thinks he has a pretty good idea of who you can be no matter where you are or who your audience is.
What he loves most are the evenings, the quiet hours nearing then passing midnight, when he can take you in his arms and soothe away the trials of the day. When he can make you tense and relax in the best way he knows how. And especially after, when you curl up against him like only he can hold the world at bay.
And for you he would.
There are days on the farm he wished he could say ‘no more’. Long, tiring days when the hard labour pulls too much and he entertains thoughts of throwing in the towel.
But watching you here in your giant plush king bed, the tension slowly leaching from your shoulders as you rest, your eyes still creased with the struggles you endure, he wonders how you push yourself through. No one works as hard as you.
“Yer guarded out here.”
His words made the hair on your head ruffle where he’s pressed his cheek to your crown.
You hummed. “I’m on display here.”
“‘S why yer so tired all’a time.” His accent thickened as he too felt tiredness set in.
Sighing, you buried your face closer, breathing him in. “It doesn’t help.”
“‘N why you question e’rythin’ you do.”
You felt for the seem of his prosthetic beneath his shirt, tracing the line over the fabric.
“Lucky I’ve got my own slice of paradise to escape to, huh?”
“Where’s that?”
Tilting your head back, you gave him a small smile. “Your place.”
“Hmm.”
He gazed down at you and you let yourself get lost in his big blue eyes.
“Can’t really keep chickens here anyhow.”
Scoffing, you pressed your face to his chest again.
“You’re an idiot.”
“Sergeant Idiot. And you picked me. In a storm no less.”
“Yeah,” you said, your hand resting over his fast bearing heart. “Yeah I did.”
You’re fussing over him, flitting through the townhouse like a whirlwind to make sure he hasn’t left anything behind.
He knew he hadn’t, knew everything was inside the duffle bag at his feet, but he didn’t mind leaving you distracted as he carefully he noted down the name and make of your keyboard, taking a photo for good measure.
You’d lamented the missing of it on one visit, dragging the whole thing stand, cords and all on another. He thought to save you the trouble next time.
What he did mind was the pain you tried to hide as you kissed him goodbye. He didn’t always have the luxury of seeing your face when the two of you parted, the farm always ensuring he was up at the crack of dawn and leaving you sleeping soundly in his bed until you were ready to drive. It was bittersweet, but in some ways easier.
Then he wouldn’t have to feel the tremor in your hand as you held his, walking him to the door and promising you’d see him soon.
And as you watched him leave, watched his old truck peel away from the curb and take the sunshine with him, you felt a pang in your chest that never truly went away until you were in his arms again.
The drive back to the farm was the longest he’d ever driven. Not by miles, but by the road stretching behind him.
The growing distance between him and you.
He’d never felt it so succinctly, seeing your car amble away down the the dirt track. But this ached in his chest in a way he’d never felt before.
He knew the name of that feeling. Knew those four letters without a doubt. He cursed himself for being stupid enough to only think it once the dust began to kick up behind his truck.
Nevermind. He’d tell you next time.
When he found not one but three separate photographers slinking around on his property, sticking their noses in places they shouldn’t because this was private land, he called the sheriff.
He promptly installed two shining new signs on the outer gate at the property line, warning about private property, trespassing and prosecution.
He chuckled as he surveyed them, snapping a photo to send you because he knew you’d get a kick out of it. And he wondered how different his life would be right now if he’d had those signs up on that fateful stormy day.
Probably no different at all, not back then. Same ol’ country boy on his family farm, labouring away day in and day out. This was the different future he’d longed for. You were the difference.
He was glad you’d never been warned away. He was glad you came in with the rain.
Another month, another country drive.
Cutting the engine in what had become your parking spot, you stepped out onto the grass and dirt of Bucky’s front yard and looked around.
His old Ford was parked up, but in one of the distant fields you could see some dust on the horizon.
Looks like you had a wait on your hands.
You glanced at the swing chair on the verandah, but something behind you tugged hard. You turned, your eyes settling on the wood of the fence line, and started forward.
You step first onto the bottom beam, pulling yourself up by the top second beam, then you swung your leg up and over, hauling yourself up to straddle the fence line. You rested your ass on the fence post and surveyed everything around you.
Gently rolling meadows. Fields of greens. A clear sky as blue as the eyes of the man you waited for.
You bit your lip, an idea for lyrics slowly swirling and forming in your mind, and you dug out your phone to capture the moment of inspiration.
And that’s how Bucky found you, an hour later, humming a tune into the receiver end of your phone as it recorded.
You visibly gulped when you caught sight of him, and didn’t miss the unmistakeable way his walk turned swagger as he approached.
He knew what he looked like, shirt plastered against his body, hands, arms and jeans dusty and dirt smeared from hard work, sweat beading deliciously on his forehead under the wide brim of his Stetson that drove you utterly wild.
“Hey there, honey.”
There was a dangerous glint in his eye as he helped you down, hands clasping your hips firmly and not letting go when he set you on your feet.
“Turn around.”
A voice of steel, commanding, slicing through you and melting any thought of denying him.
You turned in his grasp.
“Hands on the fence.”
You rushed to obey, hands gripping the top wooden beam.
He made a tsk sound and you trembled.
“Bottom one.”
Your face flushed hot as his hands encouraged you to slowly hinge at the hips, to bend over and place your hands on the lower beam.
“Good girl.”
He ground himself against you then with a slow roll and you felt exactly how happy he was to see you from the hot, hard length of him pressing against your core.
His hands dipped around, roughly unbuttoning your pants and shoving them down in one swift motion. You gasped when your panties followed suit.
Bucky groaned at the sight.
You squirmed as the cool afternoon air breezed against the most sensitive parts of you, damp flesh tingling cold. A soft whimper escaped, unbidden, and his chuckle stung with a little cruelty.
“You need somethin’, honey?”
You felt your body sway back, searching for that press of him against you again, but instead you cried out as his hand came down in a stinging slap against the bare skin of your ass.
“Use your words.”
It hit you then that you hadn’t spoken since he appeared from the barn, struck dumb by the sight of him.
Turned even dumber by this.
When you could speak, it came out broken and breathy. “B-Bucky, please—“
“Please, what?”
You didn’t know. You had no clue what to expect let alone what you wanted most. All you knew was you didn’t want him to stop.
“Please, I need more. I need— n-need”
“Know exactly what you be needin’, darlin’. And I’m gonna give it to you.”
A booted foot pressed between yours, nudging your stance wider, and the soft whoosh of him dropping to his knees in the grass behind you had you dragging in a deep breath.
But you lost it again a second later when he buried his mouth against your slit.
A groan escaped him at the first taste, guttural and ragged, his hands clasping each cheek and spreading you apart. You moaned with him as his tongue plunged deep.
He ate at you fiercely, like you were the first meal he had all day and he was a man starved. His tongue lapped and laved, his lips and mouth sucking and sipping at your flesh, drinking you in. You tried hard to contain the sounds desperate to spill out of you, but Bucky would have none of it.
“Let me hear you, darlin’,” he rasped, hand replacing his tongue as he gathered the slick drooling out of you and used it to circle your entrance. “Tell the meadows yer mine.”
He pressed a single finger in, thick and deep inside you, and your strangled cry echoed throughout the yard. Slowly, a second finger joined the first, stretching you wider, curling just so until you clenched hard around him.
And when his mouth fastened around your clit, sucking hard as his fingers pistoned in and out of you, you devolved into a mess of babbled words and broken moans as your orgasm tore through you with lightening speed. Still his mouth stayed on you, fingers deep but gentling, easing you through the waves and keeping you on edge.
Your legs buckled, and he wrapped his metal arm around your thighs.
“Got you.”
But he didn’t lower you down, didn’t gather you into his arms. No, Bucky pushed forward, easily lifting you inches off the ground and pressing you up and over the wooden beam until you rested on it. Your hands scrambled for purchase, your still-shaking body burning where the hard edge of the wood pressed into your skin, your shirt hardly softening the edge.
“Bucky, wha—“
When the sound of his belt unbuckling hit your ears you twisted around.
The sight you beheld would never leave your memory for as long as you lived.
Bucky behind you, jeans shoved down around his thighs, palming his raging erection with the hand still slick from you, the tip of him angry red and leaking. His shirt pushed up out of the way, his lean stomach and abs on display for your needy gaze.
He rested his metal hand against the small of your back, lining himself up with you, and only then did he glance down and catch you watching him.
His eyes were dark, blue swallowed whole by black, arousal flushed high on his cheeks and mouth open in heated admiration. His damn Stetson was as crooked as the smile he gave you as he rasped, “Ready f’me?”
He didn’t give you time to answer.
His gaze held yours as he pressed in, the thick heat of him stretching you in a delicious burn as he pushed every inch.
Your ragged moan covered his grunt of pleasure when he bottomed out inside you, filling you so completely your eyes rolled back and fluttered shut.
“Welcome back, honey.”
In one long breath he drew out again, then brutally drove home.
Your hips stung with every thrust as he pushed you against the fence beam over and over, and you knew come morning you’d be bruised and sore, but you didn’t care. You couldn’t, not when he fucked you so deeply, when he heaped praise and desperate grunts upon you in equal measure.
“So fuckin’ good,” he told you, each word panting out with a snap of his hips. “Missed this. Missed you. Fuck, I missed you.”
His words became lost in a series of groans as you clenched around him, your second orgasm drawing in, and his hips stuttered.
“Got another f’me?”
Your hips pressed back against him now, meeting him thrust for thrust, chasing that high only Bucky could give you. Your legs were shaking, your voice hoarse as you whined and moaned for him, your fingers white-knuckled where you clutched the fence.
He bent forward and thrust up into you, the angle driving the length of him against that sweet spot deep inside that had you bucking wildly in his grasp. His hand snaked around your body, finding your clit and rubbing with single minded determination.
You came with a strangled cry.
Bucky swore violently and fucked into you once, twice more, before burying himself to the hilt and spilling deep inside. You could feel every pulse, every bit of him as you clenched and fluttered around him in the aftermath.
The yard fell quiet, save for the sounds of both your soft panting breaths.
Bucky gently eased you back, gathering you into his arms as he lifted you and sat down on the ground against the fence post, folding you across his lap. You rested your head on his shoulder, feeling his heartbeat strong and rhythmic against you, and you sighed.
In the distance a cow mooed and you giggled helplessly.
“Who knew it could be like this,” you whispered, uncaring if there was an answer.
Bucky was quiet for a time, his cheek resting against your head and his hand idly tracing shapes against your thigh.
“I was ticked off when I saw headlights that night.”
Another laugh huffed out of you. “I thought you might murder me.”
You felt his chest shake with silent laughter.
“Now I get all melancholy when it rains and yer not here with me.”
“You mean that?” Your voice was small and you didn’t draw back to look at him, didn’t know how to handle whatever answer he gave you.
“‘M sittin’ bare-ass in the grass right now. Only f’ you.”
“Bucky.”
You felt his shrug, his lips pressing gently to your forehead.
“Fell in love with you when you ran up those there steps and kissed me. E’rythin’ else fell into place around that.”
That’s when you pulled back to look at him.
He met your gaze openly, no holding back, no doubt in his eyes. Only the surety of his feelings.
You didn’t say it then.
He didn’t need you to, kissing first the tip of your nose then pressing his lips to yours in an achingly soft kiss.
But later, when you winced as you climbed into bed beside him and he touched the line of bruises across your hips reverently, kissing your skin and apologising over and over for being so rough with you, it slipped out like it was the easiest thing in the world.
“You’re lucky I love you.”
He hummed agreement, his thumb rubbing soft circles against your skin, hoping to soothe the angry marks with touch alone.
“Yeah. I am.”
There was always something to do on the farm, and the animals always needed tending, but he felt a tug on his heart and an itch under his skin as the days stretched on.
So he texted you for another trip.
You called back that night, uncertain.
“I’m really busy with work,” you say, and it’s not an excuse to push him away, he knows that. It’s just your crazy schedule isn’t as routine as farm chores and country life.
He’s sitting in his truck, parked outside Sam’s bar, music and voices spilling out with the light from the door, and he knows there’s a cold beer waiting for him inside.
But he’d miss it all to keep talking with you.
“There’s an awards things coming up, and—“
“You gotta get dolled up?” That perked his interest. “Wear one of those slinky dresses, your hair all twisted up nice. Struttin’ down that red carpet like you already won?”
He pulls laughter from you, the tinkling sounds better than any song of yours he’s ever heard, and he doesn’t even mind when you chide him gently. He just laughs too.
Until your soft confession punches the breath out of him, setting his heart beating so hard his ribs would bruise. “I want to show everyone how in love with you I am.”
“Then I’ll come to the show,” he said gruffly. “You on my arm, the whole world knows who I belong to.”
“It’s not that simple.”
“Sure it is.” So cocky. So confident. Easiest thing in the world, to declare you were his. And he yours.
“Can I buy you a suit?”
“I got a suit.”
“Bucky.”
Ah, right. This was a fancy thing. “Not the right suit, hm?”
“I want to get you something tailored.” There’s a wistfulness to your voice that sends a bolt of heat straight through him. “Something that hugs you perfectly, shows off your shoulders and your arms—“
You broke off, letting out a soft sound he’s heard a million times before, and he wants to crawl through the phone to get at you.
“Yer gettin’ all wet just thinkin’ ‘bout me in those clothes. Wait ‘til you get ‘em off.” His accent comes out thick with a growl, and you whimper, actually whimper, making him curse and shift in his seat as his jeans grow too tight.
His voice is low and husky when he promises, “You can get me whatever you’d like, darlin’. Just let me be there with you.”
He doesn’t have a regular parking spot in New York, not like you do back home. There isn’t a growing bare patch in the concrete where his tyres sat while you were out and worked business all day.
Truth be told he kinda liked the way his dull paintwork stood out against the shiny black sedans, the stupid Teslas, and the little electric things. He liked that someone could glance down the street and see something different had arrived.
But he especially liked it when he got the spot right outside your building, those cold looking grey stairs leading from his rusty Ford door to the one that let him enter the one place in the big city that felt like a little entering heavens gates.
‘Cause they brought him to you.
And despite your hectic schedule, despite people vying for your attention all over town, you’re right there at the doorway every time he knocks to great him nice and proper with a kiss.
There’s a fitting at some snazzy building in the middle of the city, a private tailor upstairs from offices who go through more money in one day than he sees in a year.
It makes his head spin a little, but your pleased grin when he stands up on the podium wearing the suit you’d ordered is all he really needs to worry about.
“What do you think?”
The tailor is a lanky older gentleman, the type you see in all the old movies, and Bucky turns this way and that as he looks at himself.
If only his folks could see him now. They wouldn’t recognise him in all this.
“I don’t have a dog in this fight, sir.” He turned to you, sitting on the little couch by the window, looking pretty as a peach in a dress and smiling up at him. “Lady’s call.”
You stand, approaching him slow, your eyes telling him without a doubt exactly how good you think he looks.
“You’ll do,” you say on a sigh, and even the tailor chuckled. “Thank you, Jarvis.”
When Jarvis leaves the room, Bucky finds enough confidence to nod at his Stetson you carry in your hands. “Reckon they’ll let me wear it on the red carpet?”
You match his cheeky grin with one of your own, reaching up to place the hat on his head and turning him back to the mirror.
“Why do you think I picked this colour?”
You enjoy every moment of his surprise when he takes in the whole perfectly matching ensemble.
Time moved like an avalanche in New York. One minute he was sharing a light breakfast and early morning kisses with you, and the next you’re both in a hotel suite near Madison Square Garden. Hair and makeup stylists fussed over you in a seat before a mirror while wardrobe people and your management team talked logistics and the possibilities for the night ahead.
You sat in the middle of all the chaos, letting them paint your face and play with your hair, and all Bucky could do was stand to the side and let it all happen around him.
They’d already dressed him and messed with his hair and face an hour ago.
“Would you like us to shine your— um, your, uh…”
One of the poor wardrobe girls gestured hopelessly at his prosthetic and Bucky arched a brow at her. “What you gonna shine with? Shoe polish?”
She looked like the floor could’ve swallowed her whole.
“It’s a well-meaning thought, but not necessary,” you called out, your voice carefully measured. But when Bucky looked your way you seemed conflicted between rage on his behalf and the urge to laugh at the girl’s predicament.
He stepped forward to cool your temper, and put that fire to better use.
“All this pampering is, uh—“ he brushed his knuckles against his stubble and through his hair, peering at himself in the mirror over your shoulder. “It’s a fuss, but nice. Didn’t know it could sit like this.”
“Hmm a little clean for my liking.” You meet his gaze in the reflection.
“Yeah?”
“I like my farmer a little … rougher.”
“You like me dirty.”
There was a soft gasp from somewhere behind you both, but you didn’t care what they overheard. Not with the way Bucky’s eyes darkened and his gaze dropped to the soft robe you were wearing.
The robe with nothing beneath it.
“I have to dress,” you said quietly.
“Don’t need the robe to dress,” he said back, voice low enough for only you to hear.
Your eyes burned with the desire to give in, but you couldn’t. Not this time.
“If you let me dress in private now, I’ll let you take it off me later.”
He scoffed, lips curving in an entirely too-smug smile. “Let me?” He said, shaking his head and lifting your hand to brush a kiss against your knuckle. “Try to stop me.”
Because he hadn’t seen the dress before having only arrived in town long enough to have his suit finished, but he knew whatever design they had cooked up for you was going to knock him dead.
Time ticked by as he stood in the other room with your management team, Tony explaining to him exactly how the red carpet and ceremony would run, when the wardrobe team returned to the room.
He felt his hands grew clammy as you called out, “Ready?”
This felt like it could be his damn wedding day with how nervous he found himself.
But when you stepped into the room, everything else faded away. You were a vision, glowing in your gown with your hair perfectly pinned and face painted just right. You were always gorgeous in his eyes, but the hours of work they put in now finally seemed justified.
They turned you into a goddess.
“Do you like it?”
He laughed because how could you not know?
“Yeah, darlin’, it’s—“
But then he looked.
Really looked.
And his mouth fell open.
The colour. The colour stopped his heart.
Inky dark and shimmering, the black fabric hugged your figure and swept down around you, the stark colour the perfect background for the spears of brilliant golden arcs crossing and flowing, like lightening slashing across your body
Your dress matched his prosthetic.
For a moment Bucky was speechless,his hand reaching out to hover over the lines of gold reverently, mapping your body like he was learning you all over again.
“I asked them to make it look like kintsugi and lightening,” you told him quietly.
He said your name on a broken whisper. You could see in his eyes his emotions choked him.
“I told you, Bucky. I want the world to know who my heart belongs to.”
He met your gaze then.
He knew how long it had taken to perfectly apply your foundation and makeup. He knew and he didn’t care.
He kissed you. With all the force of the love beating hard in his chest, he took your face in his hands and kissed you like he could infuse every ounce of his being into you in that moment.
He stole your breath but he gave you back so much more.
“Are you ready?”
They asked you, but the question was clearly directed at Bucky.
He flashed his most charming smile, donning his hat and turning to offer you his hand so you could step out the vehicle.
“I’ll manage. And if I can’t, I’ll just stare at her.”
Like he could drag his eyes away.
Honestly the cameras were dazzling. He saw stars. He thought he was handling it well, expression stoic, steady hand at your back, thumb rubbing circles against your bare skin.
He stands where he’s told to stand, helps guide you where you’re told to go, only stepping away when your red carpet handler asked him to leave space for photos.
And when you looked at him, your thousand watt smile banishing any doubts as you murmur, “Eyes on me, Sarge,” he knew how much this mattered.
He’s here for you. He’ll do this right for you.
Later, in the grand open space full of hundreds of your peers, everyone seated according to who was who in the industry, you hold his hand and smile at him like he’s the only one there.
When your name is read from an envelope and you throw your arms around him in elation, he knows the two of you have got this thing right.
Until you steal his hat, hurrying away as you place it on your head to accept your award.
He doesn’t see the camera focussed on his face, capturing his wondrous laugh as he claps and beams with pride. He only has eyes for you up on stage, gushing with gratitude and thanking the world that helped you reach this pinnacle.
“And to the man that brought me here tonight—“
Your gaze locked with his from beneath his Stetson, eyes misty and smile shining brighter than the award in your hands.
“I do this for you,” you said, pointing through the fancy crowd right at him.
He thinks out of all the people here tonight, and for all these coveted awards, he might actually be the biggest winner of the evening.
a/n: this is officially the first smut I’ve ever written 🫣 only for you dear Decaf. Have a moodboard for Bucky’s farm to make up for it, and what I vaguely think the dress would look like
Summary: A storm blew you off course and into his bed leaving an invisible string tying you to rugged farmer Bucky Barnes. Can he rodeo the red carpet while you write melodies in meadows?
Tags/Warnings: strangers to lovers, smut (unprotected p in v, oral (m and f receiving), one spank, egregious use of a wooden fence), Bucky in a Stetson, no use of y/n, petnames (darlin’ and honey, Sarge and cowboy), alcohol consumption but no drunkenness, maybe vague implied animal farming, shifting POVs, yer
Note: Written for my darling @buckysdecaflove for the Dear My Darling Reader Valentine Fic Exchange hosted by the delightful @salty-tang. As promised because of our little matchmaking trio, the barest hint of a TSwift reference lolol
Word Count: 17k
Currently Listening: “Come In With the Rain” by Taylor Swift & “Good Directions” by Billy Currington 🎵
I'll leave my window open
'Cause I'm too tired tonight to call your name
Just know I'm right here hoping
That you'll come in with the rain …
Event Masterlist
His harmonica wailed out a lonely tune into the stormy night.
He’d watched the dark clouds blow in early afternoon, his small herd already crowding against the outer barn wall, bawling and mooing, making their agitation known. He’d pushed open the doors, letting his best girls amble into the barn for their safety while he cleared up for the day. Even Alpine, the fiercest prissy barn cat he’d ever met, had disappeared into the top rafters of the hay loft. Her bunker for the night ahead.
He stored the four-wheeler in the shed, the tractor already put away that morning, stowed his tools, and shut up for the night.
And he did it all alone.
When the sun disappeared, he didn’t know, the sky already painted black and blue with clouds.
Now, sitting out on the sheltered verandah, Stetson tilted low and bending notes on the blues harp as fast wind and heavy rain tore through his property, he didn’t bother to lament the devastation the storm was causing to his crops. Couldn’t think now about the old northern fence line that might not hold up in this weather. Instead Bucky found his mind wandering, craving the kind of company a cold, wet night like this always demanded.
What he wouldn’t give to have a warm body in his bed tonight. Someone desperate beneath him, their cries and warmth chasing off the chill of the storm. Someone to fall asleep to, to hold tight as the night cooled, and to pull closer as the morning filtered in.
A flash of lightening to the east broke his reverie and drew his gaze, and in the distance he saw it.
Two beams of light recklessly arcing over his field as some tiny car made its way down his property drive.
His hands dropped to his lap with the harmonica and he cursed, grumbling about idiots getting lost on country roads, taking the wrong turn-offs, disturbing his peace.
He hauled himself to his feet when the car ambled into his yard, a tiny thing not suited to long country drives, and watched until the engine cut and the figure inside peered up at him.
He walked back into the house.
You bit your lip as you approached the house slowly. A lone light shone in one window but the rain was crashing so hard against your windscreen you couldn’t make out anything else.
With every bump in the road as you rolled over uneven ground, you cursed the weather, the poor cell service, the shoddy country signage, and even your childhood friend who you had driven out to see in your precious spare time.
Your twenty-three-city-sixty-two-show tour of the US was over, most of the major music awards done with just one to go. You’d agreed to see your darling friend in her third trimester who was, as she said, in dire need of civilised company.
Inching along this wet dirt road in the middle of nowhere, the rain battering your poor car, desperately trying to reach the only buildings you had seen for miles, you were feeling rather un-civilised about the whole endeavour.
And what would you even say when you pulled up? The truth made you feel so foolish. Assuming whoever lived in this house didn’t abduct you or worse upon recognising you instantly.
You weren’t egotistical, but as the number one pop singer in the country regularly topping the charts, you were thoroughly aware of the cursed enormity of fame that dogged you like this storm chased your tailpipe.
Your headlights ambled hesitantly past the last posts flanking the dirt drive. Passing the final fence line you entered the bare bones yard, open grass to one side and an old rusted wreck to the other. The tracks you followed led further on to a parked beaten truck, but you halted directly in front of the house.
The windscreen wipers ticked frantically and the shadow of a person obscured by the rain stepped forward out of the dark, making you gasp.
At least now you were sure there was life out here.
You switched off the car but the roar of the rain was louder, unceasing noise as it battered your car with the wind.
A sign hanging from the verandah roofline swung in the wind and caught your eye. There was some word burned into the wood that you squinted to see in the low light…
J. B. BARNES
The stranger, whose shrouded figure you could barely see, promptly turned and headed back indoors.
Probably to fetch a shotgun to tell you to get off their property.
You hadn’t expected a warm welcome, but a door in the face before you’d even stepped a foot out was a bit much.
Gathering your things that had scattered during the drive into your handbag, you pulled yourself together and prepared to run for your life.
You opened the car door, the rain barrelling in immediately. Scrambling, your sandalled foot dropping straight into a muddy puddle, you clutched your handbag close, not even needing to close the door behind you—it slammed shut with the force of the wind. You hurried through grass and mud up to the verandah, hands uselessly trying to shield your face from the rain that soaked through your thin cardigan in seconds.
Climbing the wooden steps to shelter you halted, panting, looking back out at the blustery weather you’d braved, and gulped. The wood farmhouse broke the storm about you, wind and rain held at bay by its warm old bones, and you were grateful for the reprieve.
The farmhouse door opened, and you weren’t sure if the man that stepped out was a killer or not.
In that moment you didn’t care.
He was the most devastatingly handsome man you had ever seen.
Hollywood was full of models, men groomed and primed to polished perfection, but this rugged man before you drew your attention in the most primal way. His chiseled jaw was shadowed by a few days worth of scruff. His button-down shirt sat taught across his broad chest and arms, the top few buttons undone revealing a hint of chest hair and a chain that disappeared beneath where your hands itched to follow, the fabric hugging down his body to jeans that barely contained his strong thighs.
But when he tilted his head to look at you out from under his dark brimmed hat, it was his eyes, pools of stormy blue boring into you with barely held frustration, that had you swaying closer toward him.
“You lost.”
You tried to blink away your stupor. “Yes. I’m so sorry, my phone dropped reception and—“
“Wasn’t a question.”
Taken aback by his abrupt response, the words died in your throat.
Oh he was definitely going to murder you and bury you in a field somewhere. Maybe throw you in a pig pen like those documentaries. No one would ever know, they would never find you, you would be—
“There’s bad weather,” he said matter of fact, like you were stupid enough to miss it. “Come inside.”
And he walked back in without another word.
You hesitated by the door, looking down at your muddy sandals and feet. Gingerly you toed them off, swiping your feet on the doormat to try to remove the grime, before stepping inside.
The house smelled earthy, of lingering smoke and wood from the lit fireplace which closely warmed a couch and solid wood coffee table. A bureau sat disused in the corner surrounded by shelves, and the remaining open space was dwarfed with a heavy rustic dining table. The kitchen was surprisingly modern, still country but in a magazine-chic way, and your hero-slash-murderer rounded the counter, his presence filling the room and leaving a delightfully male scent in his wake.
Finally, in the soft light overhead, you caught the glimmer of a metal prosthetic as he palmed his phone and dialled out a number without saying another word to you
“Yeah, Sam. You still open?” Cold blue eyes settled on you. “Had a stray blow in with the storm.”
His face clouded over, eyes flashing, and he cursed to himself.
Obviously Sam didnt provide the answer he was looking for.
You inched forward, clutching your handbag tightly to you, knowing you should say something but not sure what.
He turned his back to you, leaning back against the counter, and you felt your mouth hang slack at the sight. He might as well be naked with how perfectly his shirt hugged every ripple of his back and shoulders.
A long ago conversation about not wanting country boys flew in your face. This man before you broke every rule you’d ever thought to set.
His voice dropped to a low murmur, and you tucked your wet hair behind your ear to listen in closer.
“… yeah, whole crops gonna be drowned come mornin’. Nothin’ I can do now.” A pause. “You sittin’ pretty out there?” Another pause. “And Sara?”
You found yourself smiling at the way his chuckle turned wickedly cheeky, barely hearing the agitated ear-bashing this Sam was giving him over the din of the rain. “Just being neighbourly is all. A’ight, man. Later.”
He turned back, tossing the phone onto the counter, and stared at you. His face was more relaxed now than it had been before, the laughter having eased the hard lines, but you still found yourself caught under his steady gaze.
“What’s yer name?”
You tensed. Eyes narrowing on him you hesitated to answer, looking for some kind of trick or prank. Did he not recognise you after all? Finding no reason in his openly bored expression not to respond, you told him your first name only.
No flash of recognition. No reaction at all really.
So you asked, “What’s yours?”
“Bucky,” he said instantly. Then— “James.” His faced twisted like he was annoyed at himself. “Everyone calls me Bucky.”
He cleared his throat.
“Want a beer?”
You nod.
“Bathroom’s down on the right.” He jerked his head in the direction of the hallway, and you stood still for a moment longer, unsure why he was offering up that information.
But curiosity about your reluctant host spiked, and you decide to investigate the bathroom. If that’s where he wanted you to go.
Floorboards creaked between flashes of lightening and you lightly traced your path down the hall with your fingertips against the faded yellow wallpaper.
A door at the end of the hall, cracked open, revealed the barest outline of a bed from the light from the hall. Quietly, you turn to the door on your right.
When you stepped foot in the bathroom, you realised exactly why he sent you.
Your hair, soaked from your dash in the rain, was still dripping and plastered to your head. Your makeup, not waterproof, had half dried again in ghostly trails across your cheeks, mascara now smudged in an unintentional smoky eye. Your cardigan was doing more harm than good, soaked as it was and making you colder. With a grimace you made for the sink, grabbing a fluffy towel for your hair, and tried to make yourself presentable again.
All the while you marvelled that for all his gruff behaviour he hadn’t said a thing about your messy appearance.
Back in the kitchen, Bucky was still staring off down the hallway, gaze unfocused as he awaited your return.
The sight of your sleek form, clothes rain-plastered around your gorgeous curves, seared like hot iron across his brain.
His streak was as dry as a dusty dirt road and you swanned into his farmhouse like a wet dream, all prim and proper. Just begging to be ridden dirty for a country mile ‘til you were stained with it.
He pressed the heel of his palm to his now too-tight jeans, trying to ease the rise you got out of him.
He’d retreated behind the kitchen counter to not scare away the poor city girl looking for a rescue.
And he had no doubt you weren’t from around here. No where near. Your doe-eyed expression was one thing, but you were too shiny. Too perfect. From the Big Apple license plate on your fancy car to your clothes and the way you held yourself, you were too good for where you found yourself stranded.
Maybe the devil himself had heard him and delivered temptation right to his door.
Hearing the water shut off, Bucky shook his head to temper his racing thoughts and cracked opened two beer bottles as you walked back into the room.
But he didn’t bother to hide the way his eyes raked over you from head to toe when you reemerged.
Fresh faced and drier than before, you looked far too pretty standing in his living room, clutching your bag and soaking wet jumper nervously.
So he pushed a bottle at you and took your jumper without a word, walking around to drag a chair away from the dining table toward the fireplace. He draped your piece of clothing over the chair back, arranging it so it would dry quick as a whip by the firelight, wondering what you thought that scrap of fabric was going to keep at bay in this weather.
Finally he dropped onto the couch, feet kicking up to rest on the solid wood coffee table and arm draping over the back cushions.
“Might as well get comfortable. Storm won’t clear ‘til mornin’.”
Only then did you move, placing your bag on the floor.
“I’m so sorry for intruding like this,” you began, rounding the couch and your eyes darting to the open space on the couch next to him. Though you still wouldn’t sit down. “I lost reception and my navigation dropped out. I didn’t know what else to do.”
Bucky sighed, taking a long drag from the bottle. Didn’t anyone keep maps anymore?
“In clearer weather you’d best have backtracked to somewhere you knew. But out here in this—“ he sucked on his teeth, shaking his head, “— roads this far out of town might wash away if the rain keeps up. Yer better off here than out there.”
You don’t look relieved by his statement and he wanted to laugh. So skittish. Probably never had a bad day in your life before now.
Poor city girl.
“Where you headed?”
Wrong question. Your expression shuttered and body tensed, same as before when he’d asked your name.
He held up a hand to stay the answer you weren’t going to give anyway. “Nevermind. Not my business.”
Your eyes softened and he felt strangely elated at having read you so easily.
“Who is Sam?” You inched closer, still no intention to sit, the beer bottle turning in your hands as nervous fingers sought to ease your tension. “That you called earlier? About me.”
“Owns the bar in town. Has a couple rooms upstairs.” Bucky shrugged, taking another sip. “But he’d locked up and left already.”
He eyed you over again and you shivered under his gaze. It definitely wasn’t from the cold— you were warm all over every time he looked at you.
Lightening flashed so brightly it illuminated everything outside the wide windows, and seconds later a crack of thunder nearby made you jump.
Bucky cursed under his breath. “Sit down already so I don’t gotta crane my neck to look at you.”
With another apology you quickly sat down next to him, the warmth in your body ticking up a notch higher as you feel the brush of his fingers against your shoulder where his arm resting on the back of the couch. Directly behind you.
Doing your best to ignore it, you twisted in the seat to better talk with him—and immediately regretted it. Only you didn’t, not really.
If you thought he looked delicious before, here before the fire, shadows and dancing light making the angles of his face harder and his eyes glow ocean-blue, he was absolutely sinful.
You bit your lip and desperately told yourself to ignore the way his eyes dropped to your mouth.
“Ain’t got much by way of lodgings, but you can crash here on the couch for the night.” His mouth pulled to one side in a not-quite smile. “Guest room ain’t prepped for guests, and wouldn’t be right f’me to let you head back out in this.“ Thunder rolled overhead, ominous and low, lending weight to his words.
“If it’s not too much trouble,” you murmured, the guilt mounting again at appearing on his doorstep like this. “I appreciate the kindness. Yours was the only place I could see around.”
He took another swig of beer instead of replying, and your gaze lingered on his prosthetic, fascinated. The firelight made its inset gold turn molten, the dark metal surrounds inky black as the night sky. It was a work of art.
Much like its wearer.
“So, what do you do, city girl?”
You shifted, still uncomfortable with his questions, but where was the harm? You were sure by now he either didn’t know who you were, or was a skilled liar. Based on his blatant honesty so far, that seemed unlikely. “I’m a singer.”
His brow raised, eyes showing nothing but interest — and not just in your answer. “Oh yeah? Have I ever heard yer stuff?”
“What do you listen to?”
You watched the way his mouth twisted as he mused on that for a moment. “Forties and fifties, mostly.”
“Then probably not.”
“Probably not,” he agreed. He motioned with his beer toward the shelves you’d spied earlier, saying, “Got grandmama’s old gramophone over there.”
You glanced back, spotting it nestled amongst the books and papers, and though you were fascinated it didn’t quite draw your attention the same way Bucky did.
“That’s neat,” you say politely. “I’ve never heard one play before.”
He nodded, his thumb gently gathering the condensation on the side of the bottle he held. Your eyes followed as one rivulet formed and rolled down, down, catching the bottom rung as a droplet before falling to his jeans clothed thigh.
In your mind, it hissed on contact.
“Ma used to love playing it on nights like this.”
You hummed a response, forgetting the conversation entirely, your mouth parched in a way that had nothing to do with thirst.
You took a swig of beer anyway.
He watched the way your throat bobbed as you swallowed.
“You live alone out here?”
He nodded slow, his eyes locking on your mouth. His tongue darted out to moisten his lips and you tracked the movement, bottom lip dragging between your teeth as you wondered what his lips taste like.
Thunder cracked directly overhead, the booming sound shaking the old walls of the farmhouse, and a strangled shriek escaped you.
Much to Bucky’s amusement. As his soft chuckle soothed your frayed nerves, you felt his fingertips at your shoulder again, touching burning into your skin, his arm on the back of the couch curving into you.
“Yer a flighty filly, hm?”
You realised you had plastered yourself to his side, clutching at his shirt, and yet you didn’t want to let go.
He took your beer bottle and his, placing them on the coffee table, and turned back to you.
“C’mere.” The low rumble of his voice tore through your body just like the storm raging outside. Your eyes dragged up to his. “I’ve got you.”
The last thing you saw was the blue of his eyes almost completely black, pupils blown wide.
Then his mouth was on yours.
You gasped into the kiss and he immediately swooped in, tongue tangling with yours in a groan.
You were kissing a complete stranger. Maybe possibly your future murderer.
And it was good.
You broke away. “We shouldn’t have done that.” Your eyes met his again and your voice grew small. “I don’t even know you.”
His lips slowly curved into the first real smile you’ve seen, eyes crinkling and teeth flashing. It transformed his whole face and your lips parted on a small breath.
You forgot why you stopped kissing him.
“Wanna know me?”
With a nod you fisted your hands in his shirt and fell into his chest, lips crashing against his and smothering the low groan he let out. His arm snaked around you, drawing you impossibly closer, metal hand sliding up the back of your neck and into your hair.
He tilted you in his grasp, deepening the kiss, and you were lost. Lost in the taste of him, in the way his hands held you steady even as you came apart.
And that was just his kiss.
So when he turned your body, pressing you back into the couch and pulling away, your hands scramble to pull him back, your lips seeking his.
“Trust me.”
You fell back limply against the couch, pouting just a little. “You can’t go kissing a girl like that then leave her.”
But Bucky’s chuckle was wickedly low as he slid from the couch and kneeled on the floor before you. “Not leavin’ you, darlin’.”
His eyes, hooded and dark, drag from your pouty mouth down your neck, scored red from his stubble, over your heaving chest and to your legs.
“Wouldn’t dream of leavin’ you hangin’.”
His hands clasped your knees, slowly, slowly, sliding up your thighs.
“Yes,” you whisper, mind finally catching up. With his help you unbuttoned your pants, peeling the slightly rain-damp fabric from your legs, a few giggles and chuckles from each of you slowing the process.
Your panties quickly followed.
You think you should feel cold, but with the fire burning before you and Bucky’s hands swiftly acquainting themselves with your bare skin, your temperature was soaring.
His touch drove you wild. His calloused hand on your bare thigh in stark contrast to the smooth metal of his other hand, both gripping and rubbing your skin as he watched you intently. Your breaths sped up with every inch he climbed higher.
Where he leaned down to press an open-mouthed kiss to the inside of your knee, your stomach clenched and your hips rolled, and there was that low chuckle again, a rumble you felt resonate within you.
“C’mere.”
He encouraged you to hook your legs over his shoulders, opening you wide to his gaze, his stubble grazing against the soft skin of your inner thighs.
“You said yer a singer?”
You could do nothing else but nod frantically.
“Let me hear you high pitched then, honey.”
You held your breath.
With the fire behind him you couldn’t see his face, shadowed between your legs, but even in the contrasting dark you didn’t miss the determined glint in his eye when his tongue licked that first achingly slow stripe between your folds.
No warning, no gentling you through it. You couldn’t control how your jerked against him, you were so shocked at the molten touch.
He wrapped his arms around your thighs, holding you down, holding you apart.
You watched, mouth open, as he licked his lips and leaned in again, tongue flat as he lapped at you real slow.
His groan matched yours.
“Taste like sugar.”
Then he devoured you. Tongue delving deep or swirling with earth-shattering accuracy. One hand left your thigh to plunge one finger in, then two, stretching you wide, curling just right, soothing and building an ache within you all at once.
There’s a noise, louder than the rain and the wind, louder than the howling storm outside, and you slowly realise it’s you. Your keening cries as you bucked against his tongue, as your thighs tried to close around his head— but he ruthlessly held your legs apart with his metal hand, holding you down, making you take his fingers and his tongue until your thighs shook and you couldn’t think anymore.
His fingers crooked and you shattered.
Heels of your feet digging into his back, hands clutching desperately at his hair, you arched as you came hard against his tongue and around his fingers, his name a broken prayer on your lips.
Fitting since sin incarnate knelt before you, hair tousled and chin wet with you. He pressed soft kisses to your inner thigh, beard scratching gently and making you shiver.
He shrugged your legs off his shoulders.
“Hold on.”
Wrapping your legs around his waist and arms behind his neck, Bucky lifted you easily, metal arm under your ass to keep you steady.
He covered the length of the house in a handful of strides, toeing open the door you had spied earlier into his bedroom.
Shuffling you in his grasp he sat on the edge of the bed with you straddling his lap, mouth seeking yours over and over again as his hands fumbled with the hem of your shirt. Finally he slid off your shirt and bra, baring you completely to his gaze.
He was still fully clothed.
Shivering, not from the cold but the sheer force of desire running through you, you placed your hands on his chest and pushed. He gave way, laying down on the bed, staring up at you with those hypnotising eyes that drank you in as you got to work on his shirt.
Unbuttoning slowly, you marvelled at every perfect inch of skin you revealed. Spreading the halves wide you stared down at him, not knowing your hips rocked a needy rhythm as you took in the sight of his chiselled body, honed from years of hard work, his dog tags and chain bright in the dark.
“Keep lookin’ at me like that, darlin’, and this ain’t gonna last long.”
Palm pressed flat he ran his hand from your navel up your stomach and between your breasts before grasping the back of your neck and pulling you down for a searing kiss. You writhed against him, his skin scorching hot under yours.
“I have to have you,” you mumbled into his lips, body arching with the way his palms travelled the planes of your back.
“Top drawer.” His hands dropped to clasp your hips and ground you down on him.
But with a whine you shook your head. “I’m on the pill. And clean. Please?”
A guttural groan tore from him and his head dropped back onto the bed.
“Lord, this woman might kill me yet.”
And you’d thought him the murderer.
You couldn’t wait any longer. Sitting back you started on his belt and buckle, fingers fumbling in their haste, the straining heat of him making his jeans impossibly tight.
The button popped and he toed off his boots, helping you shove down his jeans and briefs until he finally sprang free.
A sharp breath escaped at the sight of him, thick and full, pearl glistening at the tip.
Bucky swore when he caught your stare.
“C’mere.”
A word had never held so much power over you before, but if you heard him say it one more time—
Dragging you forward he slid between your slick folds, tearing a moan from you both as he rutted up into your heat.
With one hand between you he palmed himself, settling you over his thick bulge, and eased himself in.
You sank down slowly, hand braced against his chest, taking him inch by delicious inch. He stretched you, filled you, until finally, fully seated, your name escaped his lips in a guttural groan.
The fullness of him choked you, your hips already rocking with the need to ease the ache and chase more of it.
Lips parting on a breathless moan, you began to ride, his hands like a brand against you, guiding your hips, grasp steady as he showed you how to take him. A sheen of sweat over your thighs made you shine in the dim light.
Bucky watched you, devoured you with his eyes, fucking up into you with a strength that had you gasping and moaning and begging for more.
His hand pressed between you, rubbing against that perfect spot right where you joined that hurtled you quickly to the edge.
Your head rolled back, thighs shaking, grinding down against him.
With a grunt Bucky sat up and flipped you onto your back. Settling between your thighs he entered you again with one devastating slow roll of his hips, sinking so fully inside you saw stars. Legs hooked around his waist, and hands clawing at his shoulders, you took it all as he pounded into you again and again. You could feel every inch, every drag of him against your walls, driving into you, quickly bringing you to the edge and sending you soaring.
His name left your lips over and over in a broken sob. It’s raw, unguarded, so precious it’s holy, and you hear how it affects him, his ragged breaths ripping through the air.
He comes with a sound that starts with your name but devolves into a ragged groan, hips slowing, thrusting shallowly as he rode it out.
Until he slumped over you, weight caught on his arms, face pressed against the hollow of your neck.
You don’t know how long you lay there, hands gentle against the planes of his back, feeling every ripple as your breath slowed to match his.
It’s quiet.
The storm still raged outside, wind and rain and lightening battling it out across the fields, but here in this house all you listen for is the sound of his breath.
Eventually he pushed away, brushing a kiss against your cheek and padding out of the room. His naked silhouette in the dim light of the night burnt into your memory.
There’s the sound of running water, then he’s back, wordlessly handing you a damp cloth to clean yourself up.
He fell into bed beside you with a sigh, arm slung up over his head and eyes closing.
Clean, you dropped the cloth to the floor, drawing the covers over you.
Quiet descends again.
“I don’t normally do this,” you whispered into the room.
Bucky’s voice was thick with sleep, his words slurring when he answered, “‘S alright. Can be a dream y’had once.”
You didn’t quite understand what he meant, though it sounded sweet.
“Girl came in with the rain …”
But when you propped yourself up on an elbow to question him further you could see his chest rose and fell slowly, eyelashes pillowed in perfect crescents against his cheek.
And when you laid down again, resting against his open side, he grunted something inaudible and snaked his arm around you, drawing you in closer.
The morning brought aching muscles and an empty space beside you. You sat up, wincing at the way your body protested the movement, and looked around for your discarded clothes.
They were neatly folding in a pile on the end of the bed. Dry.
You stared at the pile for a long time, taking in the kindness of the gesture, before eventually getting up and dressing.
Decent, you peered out into the living area only to find it, too, empty. Your heart sank.
A crumpled scrap of paper sat on the wooden dining table. Glancing around again you walked over to read.
Neighbours fence down with the storm. Won’t be back before you’re gone. -B.
Beneath was a rough drawn map to get you back to the main road.
His words the night before drifted back to you, and your fingers ghosted across your lips as you remembered the way he kissed you. Your body still ached with how he’d had you.
A dream indeed.
With a nod to yourself, you gathered your things and left quietly, the scrawled paper tucked away in your pocket.
And when he got back late that afternoon, the sun sitting low on the horizon and your departing tyre marks the only trace of you, Bucky sighed, staring off down the long dirt road out of this place.
The next time he saw your headlights he was mildly surprised, to say the least. It was only days later. His lips kicked up in a half smile as your boots swung out first.
“You lost?”
“Nope. Maps go both ways.”
There’s a familiar scrap of paper held in your hand.
A bark of laughter escaped him, and he turned for the door, shaking his head as he stomped inside.
He left the flyscreen wide open for you.
Bucky had half a mind to offer you another round of beer, but the moment you stepped inside you dropped your bag on the floor and wound your arms around his neck, pressing your sweet little mouth to his in a kiss that sent a bolt of lightening straight to his cock.
“Hmm still taste like rain.”
Since you asked so nicely, he laid you down right there on the kitchen counter, pressing your thighs apart and eating at you nice and slow like, then turned and fucked you on the dining table for dessert.
And in the aftermath, with his spent body sweaty and deliciously heavy pressing you down into the wooden surface, you felt laughter bubble up.
You were happy.
“What you laughin’ at?” He murmured against your neck, his stubble scratching against your skin with every word.
“I wasn’t sure what kind of welcome I’d get second time around.”
You felt him exhale, then slowly he pushed up and away from you, finally pulling out of your body, and you sucked in a breath at the loss of him.
There was a decidedly smug lilt to his voice when he said, “We ain’t strangers and I don’t mind greetin’ you nice and proper.”
You’d walked in with such bravado, climbing those three steps of his porch under the swinging sign with his name like you knew them by heart, kissing him like you had every right to. But your insecurities and self-doubts crashed back to earth in the soft, emotional aftermath of sleeping with this unknown person. Again.
“I’m sorry for barging in—“
“I let you.”
“—and accosting you like a madwoman—“
“Can you accost me a few more times?”
“Bucky, please. I’m just trying to say—“
He shut you up the best way he knew how, with a slow, tender kiss that left you dazed and speechless when he pulled away again.
“‘S fine. You always this scared o’ yer own actions?”
He pressed his mouth to the valley between your breasts before hauling himself up, dog tags jangling, and he disappeared down the hall. Distantly you heard the sound of water running.
Were you always this scared?
You tried to lower your legs again and hissed at the way your hips protested the movement.
Your body was not used to being snapped in half this often in only so many days.
Bucky returned wearing a new pair of boxer briefs and with a damp towel in his hand.
“Here.”
With a tenderness you found surprising and endearing, he carefully helped clean your body.
There was a strange moment of bashful domesticity as you both hunted for your scattered clothing.
“Hungry?”
Dressed, silently musing all the while about whether Hollywood had taught you to never seize what you truly wanted, you perched on a stool at the counter and watched as he collected bread from the tin and fresh eggs from the pantry.
“Were you in the army?” You asked, motioning to his dog tags when he glanced your way.
“Yes ma’am. Sergeant Barnes.”
“Ooh Sarge,” you teased, and laughed at the withering stare he threw you that didn’t quite land, not when the smile that tugged at his lips gave him away.
“Me and my buddy, he was a Captain. Until I did this.” Bucky rotated his metal prosthetic. “Now it’s farm life for the rest of my days.”
You rested your chin in your hand, elbow propped on the counter. “And you wouldn’t have it any other way.”
He nodded firmly. “That’s the truth of it.”
You looked down as your phone buzzed with a text from your friend, whose house you’d stayed at for the last two nights as planned, asking if you were making it home in good time. You felt your cheeks heat and decided not to answer right away.
Bucky hummed a tune quietly as he cooked, and your eyes flew up to watch him.
You knew that tune.
It was yours.
“Thought you didn’t know any of my music.”
“I didn’t.”
“And now?”
He shrugged casually but you caught the way the tips of his ears turned pink. “It’s not all bad.”
“You looked me up,” you accused him, and the embarrassed flush spread down his cheeks and neck.
You snickered softly, watching for the little glances he shot your way.
“Wasn’t hard to find you,” he said finally, flipping the egg battered bread in the pan. He pinned you with a stare then, and you hoped you didn’t imagine the admiration you spied in it. “Turns out yer quite somethin’, huh?”
Your last album was recently lauded as the fastest album of the decade to reach five times platinum in the US, barely beating your previous album which had broke that same record. This following the sensational performance of your third tour that just wrapped up—You dropped your gaze, shrugging at the reality of his question. “I do alright.”
Bucky snorted. “No, honey, I do alright. Ain’t got much but what I earn from the crops and animals. You?” He whistled, impressed.
“Okay,” you began, squaring your shoulders. “You’re right. I’ve accomplished a lot. But it’s not hard work, not when I love it so much.”
He cocked his head, gesturing with the spatula for you to go on.
“I love to craft my own melodies, my own lyrics. Or have the producers send me a sample of something new and my mind run away with ideas. I’m just lucky people seem to like what I make.”
Bucky nodded along, his gaze focussed on cooking.
“All yer songs, they always this boppy?“
“Pop.”
“That.”
You laughed. “Yes, Sarge.”
He hummed another melody and with another laugh you half-sung the words, sliding off the stool and running your hand along the kitchen counter as you rounded it to stand with him.
Helping him collect plates and toppings he requested from the fridge, you smiled when he presented you with a plate.
“Egg bread.”
“This is French toast.”
Bucky looked down at the plates, then the sauces and vegetables from the fridge. “But it’s savoury.”
“Still French toast.”
“Egg bread,” he insisted, with a finality to his tone that had you cocking a brow at him. “‘S what my Ma called it.”
“Well, I’d never argue with Mama Barnes.”
“She would’a liked you,” he said, offhand, and you wondered at the way joy swept your body and curled your toes.
So you ate, talked, stared into his eyes far too long to be polite, and grinned more than once at the way you kept catching him doing the same. But this was a working farm, and this farmer had to get to it.
It was difficult to convince both of you of that when, after clearing up, he’d lifted you into the counter again, stepped between your legs, and kissed you senseless.
“I’d love to stay and …” he trailed off, gaze slowly dropping to where his hands squeezed your thighs, “… chat.”
He didn’t look like he wanted to chat. He looked like he wanted to devour you whole. Again.
“But I got some girls in the bottom paddock that need seein’ to.”
“Can I help?”
“Doubt it.”
No malice, just honesty.
“Yer welcome to stay,” donning his hat, his smile turned down at the corners, “But I imagine you got plenty important places to be.”
He was right. You found yourself wishing he wasn’t.
He jerked his head toward the dining table. “Left a present for you.”
And with one last kiss he was gone.
You lazily watched his figure cross the yard, admiring the way his jeans hugged tight, and his corded, tanned arm and stunningly designed prosthetic looked with his sleeves rolled up just so.
You’d stumbled on a diamond in the rough. In a storm, no less.
Finally dragging your gaze away you searched for his supposed present.
A scrawled note sat on the sturdy wooden table. Same place as before.
Next time doesn’t have to be a surprise - B.
And his phone number.
All you saw in your mind’s eye was blue. That pretty horizon over rolling hills. The colour rain clouds turned before lightening had its way. The covers on the cushions of a rusty swing chair on the porch. The faded paint of a old beat up Ford that saw better days long before he drove it.
And those eyes. Eyes deeper than the ocean and brighter than the sky. Eyes that saw right through you and saw all of you at the same time.
Eyes you’d only seen twice and already you hoped you could keep staring into them for the rest of your life.
You stepped inside the door of your New York townhouse, shutting it quickly behind you, blocking out the sound of camera shutters and probing questions of the paparazzi and fans lurking outside.
With a deep, fortifying breath, you carried your bags through to the living area and dropped them onto your couch with a sigh, breathing in the familiar scents.
It was good to be home.
But you grabbed your phone and snapped a quick picture right there in the room, your eyes tired and hair still tousled from the long drive. You sent it without overthinking too much, typing out ‘Home safe but thinking of rain and dirt roads’.
A reply came almost instantly.
‘When can you get lost again?’
Several visits later, there’s a tension to your shoulders he realised he’s seen before but hadn’t recognised. Your eyes were tired, skin flawless and beautiful as always but lacking the light that usually glowed from within.
You were exhausted.
“What’re they doing to you up in the city, huh?”
Your mumbled response was lost against his chest as he enveloped you in his arms. He could feel the way you sagged against him, clinging like only he could give you what you need.
He decides he can.
Hands under your thighs he lifts you easily, ignoring your shrill gasp as he tucked your body against his, and carried you into the farmhouse, kicking the door shut behind him.
Your arms wrapped around his shoulders, you buried your face into the crook of his neck. He smelled of hay, sweat, and something uniquely him.
You pressed closer to breathe in more.
He carried you through the house, old floorboards creaking their telltale tune all the way to the bathroom where he gently set you down until your feet touched the tiles. The huge clawed bathtub, generally unused, became your salvation as he begins to let it fill with piping hot water. You perched on its cold edge while you wait.
When it’s full he wordlessly accepts your clothes, the banked heat in his eyes as they sweep your body a mere promise of what’s to come.
Later.
First, you step gingerly into the bathtub, hissing at the blissful heat, and you sink in with a long drawn out sigh.
You were exhausted, and you hated that he saw it.
But you couldn’t hate this.
Eyes closing, you let yourself drift. Let the smells of the farmhouse envelop you, let the warmth of the water ease everything else away.
There had been contract questions. An interview. Some papers about the new project you were working on, and a bunch of people who decided their time with you was more important than everything else.
And you loved it. That was the hardest part; you relished every second of it. Of fitting so much into one day, of the balancing act. Sometimes the games too, because right now you were on a winning streak.
But as you drove and the roads turned rougher, the tiredness overwhelmed you. It was regrettably stronger than your excitement at seeing Bucky again.
So when he’d opened that door and you’d collapsed in his arms, you’d trusted him to catch you.
It was nice.
Even with the window propped open for the steam, it’s quiet. Just the fresh breeze outside, the far off sound of animals, and Bucky quietly moving through the house.
You doze in and out, mindful of slipping beneath the water, tension and worries leaching away as this house, this place, and the care of this farmer lulled you into an ease you had only ever found here.
Your whole body felt languid when you eventually stepped out, steam rising off your skin, colour darker with the heat. Humming, you dried off, dipping into your bag for fresh clothes, and ventured back into the house.
A wailing soulful tune lured you to the verandah.
Bucky sat on the wooden edge, afternoon sun burnishing his hair a deep brown, metal arm gleaming as he riffed a blues melody on his harmonica.
Eyes trailing from him out to gold and green fields specked with cattle, to the old barn and the endless open horizon beyond, you breathed it all in.
Without a word you sat beside him on the verandah, legs dangling off the edge as he bends notes on the harp, playing any kind of tune as it comes to him like he would on any other night.
When you learn his key and catch the beat, you hum along whatever melody comes to you first, and he places his free hand on your knee, thumb rubbing back and forth until the sun sets.
He’s up before you. When you see him, leaning against the wall by the hallway, arms crossed and staring right at you, you smile. The same one you always have when you set eyes on him.
A smile that grows larger when his face softens and his eyes crinkle just so. What he wears isn’t quite a smile, but it warms you like one just the same.
He pushed off and stalked toward you, heavy boots thudding loud in the room. Taking your shoulders in his hands, he drew you in to press a kiss to your forehead, and you close your eyes.
“I got some friends stopping by for lunch,” he told you, voice a low rumble and his breath fanning over your hair. “Steve and his missus. You gonna be right with that?”
Your heart thumped so loud you were sure he could hear it in the quiet of the day. Wrapping your arms around his waist and spreading your legs to pull him in, you nodded. “I’ll be alright.”
His lips brushed your skin. “Can I ask a favour?”
“Sure.” Reluctantly drawing away you looked up at him. “What kind of favour?”
“I need a couple things in town. Will you drive us in?” He rubbed at the back of his neck, but there was something about his gaze that had yours narrowing, skeptical.
“A couple things? My car’s not built to carry much.”
“Nah, that’s why you’ll be in my truck.”
Brow raised you looked at him wide eyed. “I’ve never driven one that big.”
The smirk on his face said it all. “Sure you have, darlin’.”
It’s a challenge to ignore the rush of heat pooling low within you.
“You want me to drive your truck?”
“Maybe I want you to be seen drivin’ my truck.”
“This feels like some kind of next step business,” you muse, heart fluttering. He wants you to meet his friends and be seen with him, it was enough giddiness to make you feel like a high schooler.
He shrugged, and you kissed the small smile playing across his lips.
The trip was eye opening, and not just because of the truck. The turning circle was wider than you’re used to, but you puttered along the tracks and road just fine.
No, what kept you entertained was discovering a new facet of the man you were still getting to know.
Bucky is even more tight-lipped here than in his own home, and no sooner had you jumped out of the truck, Sam Wilson was by the bumper welcoming you to town and slinging his arm around your shoulder like you were the oldest of friends.
The tic in Bucky’s jaw could not jump higher as he ground his teeth.
But when he asks if the stockfeed is open and if Sarah was working today, Sam is immediately stony faced and grumbling, telling him to stay in his lane. You learn quickly that not only can Sam Wilson get under his skin but Bucky lets him; a mutually aggravating camaraderie you don’t understand.
It’s in stark difference to the polite, gentlemanly way he speaks to Sarah at the stockfeed and hardware store, which makes you all the more curious to find out she and Sam are siblings.
Except when Bucky plops his Stetson on your head as you head back out onto the street, and you watch the identical way they cross their arms and watch him with matching eyes sharper than all the paparazzi in the city. You just know he’s gonna hear an earful when they get him alone next.
The meaning of wearing his hat is lost on you, but it gleams in both their eyes and everyone else’s on the street that day as you lug two bags of fence clips back to his vehicle.
You’re tempted to record the way he loads feed bags in the back of the truck like they weigh nothing. You imagine you’re one of them, slung over his shoulder until he grabs your waist with two hands and swings you down onto your back—
“Ready to go?”
With a gulp you nod and climb in.
Many eyes fervently follow your dust trail down the road.
You watch through the window as a flatbed truck pulls up the drive, and busy yourself setting out plates on the dining table.
Two doors slam and there’s a murmur of voices coming closer up the steps.
“What happened to the wagon?”
“On the fritz. Plus I’m picking up some hay when we leave.”
Wait a minute.
You knew that voice.
A tall blonde swung open the flyscreen, politely removing his hat and nodding hello before freezing in place.
“Steve?”
He paused in the doorway, looking at you slack jawed, when—
“Don’t block the door, I’m in dire need of a sit-down.”
“Peggy!”
In waddled your very dear, very pregnant and very surprised friend.
She blinked, mouth forming a delighted oh as you rushed in to hug her.
“Long time no see!” She says in a daze, clutching you close before holding you out at arms length, head shaking incredulously. “But how is it that you’re here?”
You helped her to a seat at the table, her eyes darting between you and Bucky who looked equally bewildered. Steve moved to his side, murmuring something low at his friend you couldn’t hear, and Bucky shrugged his response.
“Remember when I was delayed a day coming to see you? With the storm?”
“Yes,” Peggy said, hand covering yours on the table. “You had us worried sick. I had images of you lost in a ditch somewhere.”
She’d said as much the next day when you eventually turned up.
Ducking your head you admitted, “I didn’t stop at a motel like I said.” Your gaze rose and met hers. “I ended up here.”
“You’re the girl that blew in with the storm,” Steve said, his voice tinged with laughter. You looked over and Bucky was a delightful shade of pink, the flush high in his cheeks and running all the way down beneath the vee of his shirt.
Peggy regarded you warmly, her eyes gleaming with a new wealth of knowledge that put you on edge.
“I’m sure he took great care of you.”
“Alright, Peg,” Bucky interrupted with a grumble. “Steve? Want to take a look at that gear?”
When the men walked outside to the barn, gesturing animatedly and discussing farming things you had no idea about, Peggy followed you out and sat back into Bucky’s verandah swing chair with a sigh.
“I’ve loved every moment of this pregnancy,” she said through gritted teeth. “But my feet may never recover.”
You laughed, settling on the cushion next to her and helping her twist in the seat until she could lay back with her legs across your lap.
“I’ve wanted to set the two of you up for years now, you know.”
“The two of—“ Something clicked in your brain, several long-ago conversations crowding in all at once of a young feller with a rough exterior but a kind heart. “—This is James?”
He’d asked you to call him Bucky, you’d completely forgotten. Your eyes glanced up to the sign swinging gently in the breeze, emblazoned with his initials.
And Steve was a Captain! From the moment he was off active duty he and Peggy had tried for a baby, this pregnancy being the magic one that finally took.
A pregnancy that brought you out of the city for the first time in years to see your dear friend that you hadn’t visited in so long, only to end up on this very porch with Bucky Barnes sweeping you off your feet.
There was no way to know this could happen, but the threads were there. Your mind whirled, unable to consider the odds.
“And you said you’d never date a country boy.” Her voice was so smug you could do nothing but shrug.
“He’s no boy,” you whispered, and Peggy’s laughter peeled out across the yard, drawing Steve’s attention who smiled indulgently at his wife and gave you both a little wave.
Bucky was staring, face unreadable at this distance, but you could feel his eyes like a brand.
He watched you sitting there, so comfortable in his home, friends with his friends, looking more relaxed than he’s ever seen you.
Steve made a noise next to him, and he turned to see his best friend smirking and shaking his head.
“You got something to say, Rogers?”
“She’ll make an honest man outta you.”
Bucky scowled. “How would you know that?”
“I know you’ve never looked this happy since your folks passed and Becca moved away.”
Kicking at a weed tuft in the gravel, Bucky grumbled, “Yeah, well, you never mentioned you had a damn famous person as a friend.”
“Why would I?” Steve laughed. “Had you even heard of her before she fell in your lap?”
Bucky shrugged a non-answer.
“Besides, she’s not like that with us. And Peggy knew her from before all that anyhow.” As if that settled that matter.
He watched you there with Peggy, giggling like schoolgirls and all the while cradling her legs, making sure she was comfortable. In his house.
His voice was quiet but sure when he told Steve, “I got a good feeling about this one, Cap.”
“Yeah, Buck. Yeah, me too.”
It was late at night. The house was still alive with boisterous conversations and delightful reminiscing. Lunch had turned into card games which had turned into dinner and sitting by the fire. Peggy regaled you with the worst kind of stories about the boys, who had the decency to look bashful before sharing a few tales of their own.
You’d hugged your dear friend close, wishing her well for the last weeks of her pregnancy, Bucky promising over your shoulder he’d live up to his godfathering duties if they ever needed a hand.
The moment they’d left, disappearing down the dirt drive into the dark of night, Bucky took your hand and drew you back to the fireplace, showing you in the most delicious way possible how happy he was with the day.
“So.”
Pillowed in his arm amongst blankets and pillows strewn on the floor, you dragged your eyes away from the gentle rise and fall of his chest to meet his steady gaze.
“When do I get to return the favour?”
Even after the last hour of pleasure your body clenched at his words, heat sweeping from your cheeks down your neck and chest.
“Bucky,” you whispered, scandalised. “I already came three times, you don’t—“
His bark of laughter surprised you.
“‘M flattered, darlin’, but not what I meant.”
He rolled then, body curving into yours and his metal arm snaking around your waist, pulling you flush against him.
“When can I come to New York?”
Nothing about him changed, there was no shift in tone, but something in the question appeared so small and earnest, so hopeful, that your heart doubled over.
“You want to come to the big smoke with me?”
You felt his nod against your shoulder, his lips brushing your skin reverently.
“Wanna see your world, darlin’.”
You liked the escapism, that out here you’re just you, no watching over your shoulder or calculating the hidden meaning of every word spoken to you. With Bucky you could be yourself, and not consider the PR implications of an honest reaction.
But even out here in the calm, parts of your soul longed for home.
And one particular part buried in your chest swelled at the thought of showing off your gorgeous farmer to the world.
“What about the farm?”
“I got plenty o’ favours to call in.”
The first visit was a blur of motion.
The long miles faded quickly behind him, buildings piling up on the horizon as he drove his old truck steadily down the highway, but Bucky was unfazed.
When Becca left with her new husband he’d been into the cities a few times.
Turns out this was not like those times.
There was a country mile difference between walking the streets of New York and walking the streets of New York on your arm.
‘Be there in a song.’
When he arrived it was to the interested looks of people lurking outside your door, all who swiftly drew their cameras and phones when he walked up and knocked.
And there you were, thousand-watt smile and hands grabbing him, dragging him indoors to the sound of fast shutters as the photographers captured the moment. But how could he care about them when the second he was inside behind closed doors you squeaked a happy, ‘Hi Sarge,’ and threw your arms around his neck, kissing him like you needed his mouth to draw breath.
“You got gawkers outside,” he murmured to your lips, nudging his nose against yours.
“Nevermind them,” you said dismissively, taking his hand and showing him your expensive town house.
It’s big. Foot-for-square-foot it was bigger than his family home, but filled to the brim with life. Your life. Awards and photographs and music, so much music everywhere.
“So, this is where you spin yer tunes,” he said, pressing down the keys of your keyboard and frowning when they emitted no sound.
“It’s an electric keyboard,” you tell him, and his cheeks heat.
“Right. Of course.”
“Actually, it’s a workstation. It plays, but I also use it for sampling and recording when I’m struck by any new ideas.”
He plucks the silent keys a couple more times for good measure and lets you lead him on.
Through the tour he quietly takes note of how much money is invested around your house alone, and feels something within him tighten. No, strengthen.
You’re really something. He had an idea of it, of course, after searching you up online and learning. But it was a little different seeing the fruits of your labours here in person.
Bucky knew he’d better prove he’s worthy of you. That he could meet you halfway in all this.
“So, that’s everything!”
Your smile was brighter than the sun and hadn’t dimmed since the moment you set eyes on him.
“Ready for lunch?”
The little smile playing around Bucky’s lips, one that had his eyes softening and his head tilting just so, set your heart aflutter. He stared at you, simply taking you in.
“What?” You touched your cheek, then your nose. “You gave me pash rash with that kiss, didn’t you?”
He shook his head, slow and measured, and laughed to himself. You didn’t know the joke.
“You said lunch?” He collected his keys from his bag.
“Oh, um—“ you placed your hand over his, shaking your head, “—my driver is waiting to take us.”
His brow furrowed. “But my truck’s just out front.”
“And Happy is already waiting.” Embarrassment twisted inside you. What must he be thinking? This man who had seen war and managed a farm all on his own, while you have a driver for something as simple as lunch.
But Bucky gestured for you to lead the way, popping his Stetson back in place and tipping the brim low.
As promised, Happy Hogan and the black sedan sat just outside, beside Bucky’s beaten truck.
You took his hand, knowing yours was clammy as your nerves spiked with the onset of cameras and people calling your name.
You should’ve warned him.
Too late now.
The crowd pressed in, larger than when he had arrived, likely drawn in by the news of a stranger at your door. They surrounded the car, surround the two of you, and Bucky forcibly placed himself between you and them.
“Who’s your visitor?”
“Seeing someone new?”
“Sir, look this way!”
Keeping Bucky close down the stairs and the sidewalk, you smiled gratefully at Happy who hurried around to get your door.
“Welcome to New York, Mr Barnes,” he said as you both hopped into the car, and he promptly shut you away from prying eyes.
You turned to him immediately, watching the way his gaze lingered out the window at the gathered crowd as the car pulled away. “Was that a lot?”
“Do you have, uh—“ Bucky fumbled for words as he faced you, a deeply etched frown on his face. “A bodyguard? Or somethin’?”
“Yes.” You gestured beyond the privacy screen at the passenger side front seat where your bodyguard sat beside Happy. “Bruce? Say hello?”
Bruce Banner twisted in the seat and smiled brightly at Bucky, uttering a quiet hello before turning back.
Bucky’s face was all hard lines, a tic in his jaw jumping as he thought. Then his eyes met yours and you saw the concern etched there.
“They look after me,” you whisper. “I promise.”
He nods once, barely satisfied, and takes your hand in his. “Where we headed today?”
Twining your fingers in his, relishing the callouses that graze your palm, you tell him, “Burgers first. Then I wanted to take you to the studio.”
You smiled, watching the way his gaze softened when it landed on you. The way his eyes, weather worn, crinkled at the edges and the sun spots dusting his cheeks lifted with the apple of his smile matching yours.
And all the while he’s watching you back, unable to stop the way his lips curve as you stare up at him with those pretty eyes sparkling with something he hasn’t seen before.
This time when you step out the car, he’s prepared. Bruce opens the door first, helping you to your feet, and Bucky immediately follows behind. He has a hand around your waist, grasping your side firmly, but his eyes are up and out over the heads of people around them, guiding and shielding you in Bruce’s wake.
It’s not as pointed at last time, fewer people expecting your arrival, but there’s no mistaking the piqued interest at the company you brought. At him and the obvious connection between you.
Inside the restaurant in no time, Bucky politely slid off his Stetson. He blinked slowly, banishing the afterglow of camera flashes, his only tell that this wasn’t normal. Seeing your concerned face as you waited, he grinned at you, hand outstretched, gesturing to follow the server as they lead you to a table.
Bucky’s eyes flickered around, noting the stares and the phones sneaking photos of the two of you. He took it all in, cataloguing his surroundings. Keeping his expression neutral, ignoring the prickling sensation at the back of his neck at being watched so closely by so many complete strangers, he made sure you were comfortably seated before sitting.
Only once did he ask, “Is it always like this?” and you didn’t hesitate, knowing exactly what he meant.
“Yes. You get used to it.”
Even he was unsure if his grunted reply was agreement or not.
Frowning down at the menu, he took in his options.
“These ain’t gonna to be those tiny meals I see on TV, are they?” He murmured quietly.
A snort escaped before you could help yourself. “No!” Bucky’s lips twisted in a wry smile. “No, Bucky, I promise these burgers will fill up even a strapping lad like you.”
And when his eyes widened as your plates were delivered, you allowed yourself a moment to gloat as he gauged how best to eat the massive meal before him.
He thought he’d fed you hearty meals back on the farm, but there was a primal kind of satisfaction inside him at seeing you dig into a meaty burger that felt a little caveman-like.
He liked a woman that could eat, and he especially liked knowing you were taken care of.
Plus these burgers were darn tasty.
He kept his voice low over lunch, not for anyone else to hear, concerned for the other patrons and staff who are clearly listening in for a little celebrity gossip. A small part of him flinched at the idea of you being lumped in with a country hick, a regular ol’ redneck, and though he’s never been ashamed of his home he has a vague idea of what that might mean to these city folk.
“I can’t believe you’re here,” you say at one point, your expression so openly warm and pleased that he sits a little straighter.
“Darlin’, I’d follow you to the end of the earth if you keep smilin’ at me like that,” he told you gruffly.
His shoulders stiffen when he hears a faint collective ‘aww’ and sigh from the table over, but you’re oblivious, flushed from his compliment, hand snaking over the table to capture his prosthetic one and squeezing tight.
He risked a glance up and sees a table of women, friends hanging out he supposes, looking at the two of you with stars in their eyes. They made themselves look busy when they realised he was looking their way.
“Burger was good?”
He cleared his throat. “Ain’t as good as Sam’s brisket, let me tell you. But yeah.”
He looked between both your now-empty plates.
“Should we get goin’? Didn’t you have somewhere to be?”
“Hang on,” you said earnestly, waving over the server, “you have to try their pie.”
He placed a hand on his stomach. “Honey, I don’t think I got room.”
“Sure you do, cowboy.”
A slice was placed down on the table.
As you carved out a piece for yourself, Bucky’s spoon knocked yours. Deliberately. Giggling, you spared back, crossing his spoon with yours and making him drop the mouthful he had scooped up.
“It’s like that, is it?” He chuckled, holding up his spoon like a fencer before his face.
“Oh, Sarge.” You pointed your spoon directly at his chest. “It’s on.”
Your spoons clashed together in a loud twang and your laughter rang out through the restaurant, Bucky’s tenor underscoring it.
It wasn’t until you caught a server looking curiously at your spoon fight did you take in your surroundings, noticing the number of eyes and phones pointed toward your table. With a gentle cough you lowered your weaponised spoon.
“I yield. Even though you didn’t have room for it.”
Bucky chuckled, digging into the slice of pie, taking a large mouthful and grinning as he chewed.
“‘S real good.”
You lowered your gaze to the plate and carved out another piece for yourself, missing the charming smile and small salute Bucky gave the nosy table next to yours who continued to gawk.
You’re glad timing worked out the way it did, as you checked the text that just came in. You had a tiny surprise lined up for your dear farmer.
“Now we swing by the studio for five minutes,” you tell him in the car, Happy already making his way there. “I hope you don’t mind.”
“Honey, I’m here for you. Whatever you got to do, I’m a foot behind you.”
Stark Studios was surprisingly busy for midday, people from all walks of life bustling through its doors. But there was one in particular who promised they’d be there, and as you twined your arm around Bucky’s you felt giddy knowing he would find this fun.
The main lobby run off into a little gallery, pictures, posters, album covers and exemplary statistics showing just what a powerhouse Stark Studios was in the music business.
You’d left Bucky there to talk a little business with your manager and record executive, and when you returned twenty minutes later with someone else on your arm, you found him standing in front of the wall dedicated to you and your work. Your career so far.
There was a blank space still to be filled, with a cheeky sign stating, ‘For her future hits.’ Tony had thought it was both motivating for you and a challenge declared to the other artists signed to the record label.
Bucky chuckled and nodded when he saw it.
“Hey, cowboy? I want to introduce you to someone.”
You indulged him in dragging his feet, wide eyes taking in all the signed memorabilia and photographs.
This would be a treat.
But when you stood in front of the red head and gave their introductions, you smirked knowingly at his slack-jawed expression.
No, he hadn’t known of you when you first met, but Natasha Romanoff?
You’d found not one but three of her albums by the Queen of country music in his home one visit, and some of his favourite tunes to play on the harmonica were harmonies from her songs.
His ears tinged pink as he shook her hand. “Nice to meet you, ma’am.”
“Ma’am? Do I look that old, son?”
His gaze flickered to you, uncertainty clouding his baby blues, and you hip checked Natasha out of her pointed stare.
“‘Tasha, you’re scaring the poor boy.”
His eyes flashed. You smiled at him sweetly, knowingly.
You’d pay for that comment later.
And the exchange doesn’t go unnoticed. Natasha’s eyes were wickedly bright when she said, “I’m waiting for him to stomp around like an unbroken horse.”
He snorted out a breath heavily through his nose and that cracked her. She broke into a genuine smile, clapping him affectionately on the shoulder. “You’ll do.”
You stepped away and he clasped your elbow firm enough to draw your complete attention.
“Call me boy again and I’ll remind you what this man can do.”
He felt the shiver that wracked your whole body.
Stood to one side while he spoke with Natasha, you mouthed a thank you to your friend when she gifted him a signed poster and kissed him on the cheek, lipstick stain lingering and all.
You weren’t jealous of the starry eyed expression on his face, nor the way he rambled like a schoolboy all the way back to the car. Honestly, you were pleased he’d liked the surprise so much.
You still felt a little reminder of how much you cared was in order.
Bucky motioned you into the car first, watchful eyes on the street and surrounds, ever vigilante.
But he didn’t see you coming.
Pulling him roughly to the backseat, you could barely wait for Happy to shut the door before you got to work on his belt.
“Christ, darlin’, what—“
Kissing him firmly, you pulled back only enough to tell him, “Let me.”
His jaw clenched hard but his eyes were already darkening. You felt him twitch beneath your hands.
Bucky’s eyes flickered to the front seat over the privacy partition where Happy climbed in to drive them home.
Biting your lip, you pressed the button for the privacy screen to close.
“Bye, Happy.”
You ignored the man’s knowing smile in the rear view mirror as the glass slid in place.
Belt undone and jeans quickly pried open, you delved in, humming happily as your hand closed around his cock, already thick and heavy in your grasp. He bucked up into your touch and his head thunked back against the seatrest.
“Yer a madwoman,” he muttered, watching from beneath hooded eyes as you knelt on the seat and lowered your mouth to him.
The first touch of your lips made him jerk again, smearing precum against your mouth. Licking your lips to the sound of his gasp, you twirled your tongue against the swollen head and took him in, inch by inch, all the way until your lips touched your hand at his base.
“Darlin’, you can’t. You—“ he choked on a guttural groan as you swallowed around him.
You pulled away with an audible pop.
“Ssh, Bucky.” You didn’t recognise your own voice, deep and husky with want for him. “You don’t want someone to hear you.”
His cock twitched in your hand, his fist clenching hard.
“Be a good boy and stay quiet for me, Sarge,” you whispered, and took him in your mouth again.
When he began to rut up into your mouth you hummed your approval, your eyes rolling back as you felt him hot and heavy at the back of your throat.
And when he came for you on a muffled groan as you swallowed everything he gave you, you delighted in how wrecked he looked sprawled out in the car seat, mouth parted with heavy breaths.
He stared at you, your lips swollen and lipstick smeared, and grit his teeth, sending out a silent prayer to whoever listened for dropping you in his path.
Awake long before you, farm hours never gifting him the luxury of a sleep in, Bucky lounged in bed. Arm slung behind his head, nothing better to do with his time, he browsed the internet for something he never thought he’d care for.
Gossip.
He searched your name, searched his, scrolled through social media and news blogs, unable to fathom how quickly the world moved up here.
Day one in New York and he could map it through these posts and stories almost to the minute.
Photos of his arrival at your door, of his guarding you from the onslaught of attention. Where the two of you ate, who you saw at the studio.
Even analysis of where to buy a hat just like his. That got his hackles raised.
He felt you stir next to him, gorgeous limbs flexing and stretching like they ached from hard work.
He knew his grin turned wolfish at the reminder of how thoroughly you’d welcomed him to the city late into the night.
“Good morning.”
And what a good morning it was. Your hair tousled on the pillow, smile languid and warm, hand pressed against his bare stomach.
“Mornin’,” he rasped, his voice the only thing not yet woken from slumber. “Wanna know what the world thinks of your farmer debut?”
You huff out a laugh and shuffle closer, pressing your face against his side. “What do they say?”
“Mostly talk about how good-lookin’ I am.”
You thump him lightly with your fist.
Chuckling, he reads a passage from a particularly kind blog, one that called him rakishly handsome, softly spoken, and only drew on his military history. He chuckled reading it again.
“I gave ‘em nothing to talk about.”
“You can do that,” you pout. “If I don’t talk I’m labelled a snob.”
“That’s not quite what they say here.”
Interested, you pushed further up the bed, settling into the crook of his arm.
He kept his tone light while he read. “‘So smitten with her new beau, our pop princess barely spoke to anyone else, preferring to keep her attention — and her lips — on him.’”
He tilted his phone toward you, showing you the last photograph anyone had captured of the two of you yesterday.
A photo of you both stepping out of Happy’s sedan onto the sidewalk outside the townhouse, a close up of the red lipstick stains in his stubble and your perfect lip line all but disappeared, smudged around your swollen lips.
The bedsheets did nothing to hide his body’s reaction at the reminder of your gift to him in the car.
“They missed one thing,” he said, dropping his phone and rolling until he hovered over your body, one arm braced near your shoulder and the other tracing a line from the hollow of your neck down your chest.
You blinked up at him, eyes still sleepy but warming quickly to his line of thinking. “And what’s that?”
“That I can’t keep my hands off you either.”
His fingers found your side, tickling mercilessly.
With a shriek and a giggle you squirmed under his hands until the sounds devolved into moans, your body writhing in a different way as he settled between your legs.
The noise is constant. The texts, emails, calls. But also the voices, the cars, the underlying hum of everything.
He learns quickly that Happy and Bruce see you as a friend, a responsibility, not just a job, and he warms to them immediately.
He especially likes when your bodyguard hangs back because they know in Bucky’s hands you’re safer than you’ll ever be.
He doesn’t like the photographers and reporters in your face, urgent words and desperate requests jostling you when you’re only trying to get to the car, and he quickly becomes acquainted with how bodily the guarding of you keeps him occupied on every outing.
Until the day an arrogant paparazzo tries to get too close between him and your bodyguard.
“Get the fuck outta her way or I’ll bury you in a field where no one will find you.”
But somehow even that is brushed off, twisted into some heroic act, no mention of threats or an investigation.
The world is enamoured by the pop star and her farm boy, and for now you can’t go wrong.
He hates that whenever you step outside your home you’re no longer your own person, open to the whims of the paparazzi, fans on the street, demands on your time for stupid reasons like being seen in the right places and with the right people.
But he loves how you handle it all. Your grace and determination, especially when it’s your fans begging for a scrap of your attention, and you give it to them willingly because, as you say, who would you be without them?
He pictures you in his barn, hand gentle on his horse’s flank as he shows you how to whisper sweet words to his girl, and he thinks he has a pretty good idea of who you can be no matter where you are or who your audience is.
What he loves most are the evenings, the quiet hours nearing then passing midnight, when he can take you in his arms and soothe away the trials of the day. When he can make you tense and relax in the best way he knows how. And especially after, when you curl up against him like only he can hold the world at bay.
And for you he would.
There are days on the farm he wished he could say ‘no more’. Long, tiring days when the hard labour pulls too much and he entertains thoughts of throwing in the towel.
But watching you here in your giant plush king bed, the tension slowly leaching from your shoulders as you rest, your eyes still creased with the struggles you endure, he wonders how you push yourself through. No one works as hard as you.
“Yer guarded out here.”
His words made the hair on your head ruffle where he’s pressed his cheek to your crown.
You hummed. “I’m on display here.”
“‘S why yer so tired all’a time.” His accent thickened as he too felt tiredness set in.
Sighing, you buried your face closer, breathing him in. “It doesn’t help.”
“‘N why you question e’rythin’ you do.”
You felt for the seem of his prosthetic beneath his shirt, tracing the line over the fabric.
“Lucky I’ve got my own slice of paradise to escape to, huh?”
“Where’s that?”
Tilting your head back, you gave him a small smile. “Your place.”
“Hmm.”
He gazed down at you and you let yourself get lost in his big blue eyes.
“Can’t really keep chickens here anyhow.”
Scoffing, you pressed your face to his chest again.
“You’re an idiot.”
“Sergeant Idiot. And you picked me. In a storm no less.”
“Yeah,” you said, your hand resting over his fast bearing heart. “Yeah I did.”
You’re fussing over him, flitting through the townhouse like a whirlwind to make sure he hasn’t left anything behind.
He knew he hadn’t, knew everything was inside the duffle bag at his feet, but he didn’t mind leaving you distracted as he carefully he noted down the name and make of your keyboard, taking a photo for good measure.
You’d lamented the missing of it on one visit, dragging the whole thing stand, cords and all on another. He thought to save you the trouble next time.
What he did mind was the pain you tried to hide as you kissed him goodbye. He didn’t always have the luxury of seeing your face when the two of you parted, the farm always ensuring he was up at the crack of dawn and leaving you sleeping soundly in his bed until you were ready to drive. It was bittersweet, but in some ways easier.
Then he wouldn’t have to feel the tremor in your hand as you held his, walking him to the door and promising you’d see him soon.
And as you watched him leave, watched his old truck peel away from the curb and take the sunshine with him, you felt a pang in your chest that never truly went away until you were in his arms again.
The drive back to the farm was the longest he’d ever driven. Not by miles, but by the road stretching behind him.
The growing distance between him and you.
He’d never felt it so succinctly, seeing your car amble away down the the dirt track. But this ached in his chest in a way he’d never felt before.
He knew the name of that feeling. Knew those four letters without a doubt. He cursed himself for being stupid enough to only think it once the dust began to kick up behind his truck.
Nevermind. He’d tell you next time.
When he found not one but three separate photographers slinking around on his property, sticking their noses in places they shouldn’t because this was private land, he called the sheriff.
He promptly installed two shining new signs on the outer gate at the property line, warning about private property, trespassing and prosecution.
He chuckled as he surveyed them, snapping a photo to send you because he knew you’d get a kick out of it. And he wondered how different his life would be right now if he’d had those signs up on that fateful stormy day.
Probably no different at all, not back then. Same ol’ country boy on his family farm, labouring away day in and day out. This was the different future he’d longed for. You were the difference.
He was glad you’d never been warned away. He was glad you came in with the rain.
Another month, another country drive.
Cutting the engine in what had become your parking spot, you stepped out onto the grass and dirt of Bucky’s front yard and looked around.
His old Ford was parked up, but in one of the distant fields you could see some dust on the horizon.
Looks like you had a wait on your hands.
You glanced at the swing chair on the verandah, but something behind you tugged hard. You turned, your eyes settling on the wood of the fence line, and started forward.
You step first onto the bottom beam, pulling yourself up by the top second beam, then you swung your leg up and over, hauling yourself up to straddle the fence line. You rested your ass on the fence post and surveyed everything around you.
Gently rolling meadows. Fields of greens. A clear sky as blue as the eyes of the man you waited for.
You bit your lip, an idea for lyrics slowly swirling and forming in your mind, and you dug out your phone to capture the moment of inspiration.
And that’s how Bucky found you, an hour later, humming a tune into the receiver end of your phone as it recorded.
You visibly gulped when you caught sight of him, and didn’t miss the unmistakeable way his walk turned swagger as he approached.
He knew what he looked like, shirt plastered against his body, hands, arms and jeans dusty and dirt smeared from hard work, sweat beading deliciously on his forehead under the wide brim of his Stetson that drove you utterly wild.
“Hey there, honey.”
There was a dangerous glint in his eye as he helped you down, hands clasping your hips firmly and not letting go when he set you on your feet.
“Turn around.”
A voice of steel, commanding, slicing through you and melting any thought of denying him.
You turned in his grasp.
“Hands on the fence.”
You rushed to obey, hands gripping the top wooden beam.
He made a tsk sound and you trembled.
“Bottom one.”
Your face flushed hot as his hands encouraged you to slowly hinge at the hips, to bend over and place your hands on the lower beam.
“Good girl.”
He ground himself against you then with a slow roll and you felt exactly how happy he was to see you from the hot, hard length of him pressing against your core.
His hands dipped around, roughly unbuttoning your pants and shoving them down in one swift motion. You gasped when your panties followed suit.
Bucky groaned at the sight.
You squirmed as the cool afternoon air breezed against the most sensitive parts of you, damp flesh tingling cold. A soft whimper escaped, unbidden, and his chuckle stung with a little cruelty.
“You need somethin’, honey?”
You felt your body sway back, searching for that press of him against you again, but instead you cried out as his hand came down in a stinging slap against the bare skin of your ass.
“Use your words.”
It hit you then that you hadn’t spoken since he appeared from the barn, struck dumb by the sight of him.
Turned even dumber by this.
When you could speak, it came out broken and breathy. “B-Bucky, please—“
“Please, what?”
You didn’t know. You had no clue what to expect let alone what you wanted most. All you knew was you didn’t want him to stop.
“Please, I need more. I need— n-need”
“Know exactly what you be needin’, darlin’. And I’m gonna give it to you.”
A booted foot pressed between yours, nudging your stance wider, and the soft whoosh of him dropping to his knees in the grass behind you had you dragging in a deep breath.
But you lost it again a second later when he buried his mouth against your slit.
A groan escaped him at the first taste, guttural and ragged, his hands clasping each cheek and spreading you apart. You moaned with him as his tongue plunged deep.
He ate at you fiercely, like you were the first meal he had all day and he was a man starved. His tongue lapped and laved, his lips and mouth sucking and sipping at your flesh, drinking you in. You tried hard to contain the sounds desperate to spill out of you, but Bucky would have none of it.
“Let me hear you, darlin’,” he rasped, hand replacing his tongue as he gathered the slick drooling out of you and used it to circle your entrance. “Tell the meadows yer mine.”
He pressed a single finger in, thick and deep inside you, and your strangled cry echoed throughout the yard. Slowly, a second finger joined the first, stretching you wider, curling just so until you clenched hard around him.
And when his mouth fastened around your clit, sucking hard as his fingers pistoned in and out of you, you devolved into a mess of babbled words and broken moans as your orgasm tore through you with lightening speed. Still his mouth stayed on you, fingers deep but gentling, easing you through the waves and keeping you on edge.
Your legs buckled, and he wrapped his metal arm around your thighs.
“Got you.”
But he didn’t lower you down, didn’t gather you into his arms. No, Bucky pushed forward, easily lifting you inches off the ground and pressing you up and over the wooden beam until you rested on it. Your hands scrambled for purchase, your still-shaking body burning where the hard edge of the wood pressed into your skin, your shirt hardly softening the edge.
“Bucky, wha—“
When the sound of his belt unbuckling hit your ears you twisted around.
The sight you beheld would never leave your memory for as long as you lived.
Bucky behind you, jeans shoved down around his thighs, palming his raging erection with the hand still slick from you, the tip of him angry red and leaking. His shirt pushed up out of the way, his lean stomach and abs on display for your needy gaze.
He rested his metal hand against the small of your back, lining himself up with you, and only then did he glance down and catch you watching him.
His eyes were dark, blue swallowed whole by black, arousal flushed high on his cheeks and mouth open in heated admiration. His damn Stetson was as crooked as the smile he gave you as he rasped, “Ready f’me?”
He didn’t give you time to answer.
His gaze held yours as he pressed in, the thick heat of him stretching you in a delicious burn as he pushed every inch.
Your ragged moan covered his grunt of pleasure when he bottomed out inside you, filling you so completely your eyes rolled back and fluttered shut.
“Welcome back, honey.”
In one long breath he drew out again, then brutally drove home.
Your hips stung with every thrust as he pushed you against the fence beam over and over, and you knew come morning you’d be bruised and sore, but you didn’t care. You couldn’t, not when he fucked you so deeply, when he heaped praise and desperate grunts upon you in equal measure.
“So fuckin’ good,” he told you, each word panting out with a snap of his hips. “Missed this. Missed you. Fuck, I missed you.”
His words became lost in a series of groans as you clenched around him, your second orgasm drawing in, and his hips stuttered.
“Got another f’me?”
Your hips pressed back against him now, meeting him thrust for thrust, chasing that high only Bucky could give you. Your legs were shaking, your voice hoarse as you whined and moaned for him, your fingers white-knuckled where you clutched the fence.
He bent forward and thrust up into you, the angle driving the length of him against that sweet spot deep inside that had you bucking wildly in his grasp. His hand snaked around your body, finding your clit and rubbing with single minded determination.
You came with a strangled cry.
Bucky swore violently and fucked into you once, twice more, before burying himself to the hilt and spilling deep inside. You could feel every pulse, every bit of him as you clenched and fluttered around him in the aftermath.
The yard fell quiet, save for the sounds of both your soft panting breaths.
Bucky gently eased you back, gathering you into his arms as he lifted you and sat down on the ground against the fence post, folding you across his lap. You rested your head on his shoulder, feeling his heartbeat strong and rhythmic against you, and you sighed.
In the distance a cow mooed and you giggled helplessly.
“Who knew it could be like this,” you whispered, uncaring if there was an answer.
Bucky was quiet for a time, his cheek resting against your head and his hand idly tracing shapes against your thigh.
“I was ticked off when I saw headlights that night.”
Another laugh huffed out of you. “I thought you might murder me.”
You felt his chest shake with silent laughter.
“Now I get all melancholy when it rains and yer not here with me.”
“You mean that?” Your voice was small and you didn’t draw back to look at him, didn’t know how to handle whatever answer he gave you.
“‘M sittin’ bare-ass in the grass right now. Only f’ you.”
“Bucky.”
You felt his shrug, his lips pressing gently to your forehead.
“Fell in love with you when you ran up those there steps and kissed me. E’rythin’ else fell into place around that.”
That’s when you pulled back to look at him.
He met your gaze openly, no holding back, no doubt in his eyes. Only the surety of his feelings.
You didn’t say it then.
He didn’t need you to, kissing first the tip of your nose then pressing his lips to yours in an achingly soft kiss.
But later, when you winced as you climbed into bed beside him and he touched the line of bruises across your hips reverently, kissing your skin and apologising over and over for being so rough with you, it slipped out like it was the easiest thing in the world.
“You’re lucky I love you.”
He hummed agreement, his thumb rubbing soft circles against your skin, hoping to soothe the angry marks with touch alone.
“Yeah. I am.”
There was always something to do on the farm, and the animals always needed tending, but he felt a tug on his heart and an itch under his skin as the days stretched on.
So he texted you for another trip.
You called back that night, uncertain.
“I’m really busy with work,” you say, and it’s not an excuse to push him away, he knows that. It’s just your crazy schedule isn’t as routine as farm chores and country life.
He’s sitting in his truck, parked outside Sam’s bar, music and voices spilling out with the light from the door, and he knows there’s a cold beer waiting for him inside.
But he’d miss it all to keep talking with you.
“There’s an awards things coming up, and—“
“You gotta get dolled up?” That perked his interest. “Wear one of those slinky dresses, your hair all twisted up nice. Struttin’ down that red carpet like you already won?”
He pulls laughter from you, the tinkling sounds better than any song of yours he’s ever heard, and he doesn’t even mind when you chide him gently. He just laughs too.
Until your soft confession punches the breath out of him, setting his heart beating so hard his ribs would bruise. “I want to show everyone how in love with you I am.”
“Then I’ll come to the show,” he said gruffly. “You on my arm, the whole world knows who I belong to.”
“It’s not that simple.”
“Sure it is.” So cocky. So confident. Easiest thing in the world, to declare you were his. And he yours.
“Can I buy you a suit?”
“I got a suit.”
“Bucky.”
Ah, right. This was a fancy thing. “Not the right suit, hm?”
“I want to get you something tailored.” There’s a wistfulness to your voice that sends a bolt of heat straight through him. “Something that hugs you perfectly, shows off your shoulders and your arms—“
You broke off, letting out a soft sound he’s heard a million times before, and he wants to crawl through the phone to get at you.
“Yer gettin’ all wet just thinkin’ ‘bout me in those clothes. Wait ‘til you get ‘em off.” His accent comes out thick with a growl, and you whimper, actually whimper, making him curse and shift in his seat as his jeans grow too tight.
His voice is low and husky when he promises, “You can get me whatever you’d like, darlin’. Just let me be there with you.”
He doesn’t have a regular parking spot in New York, not like you do back home. There isn’t a growing bare patch in the concrete where his tyres sat while you were out and worked business all day.
Truth be told he kinda liked the way his dull paintwork stood out against the shiny black sedans, the stupid Teslas, and the little electric things. He liked that someone could glance down the street and see something different had arrived.
But he especially liked it when he got the spot right outside your building, those cold looking grey stairs leading from his rusty Ford door to the one that let him enter the one place in the big city that felt like a little entering heavens gates.
‘Cause they brought him to you.
And despite your hectic schedule, despite people vying for your attention all over town, you’re right there at the doorway every time he knocks to great him nice and proper with a kiss.
There’s a fitting at some snazzy building in the middle of the city, a private tailor upstairs from offices who go through more money in one day than he sees in a year.
It makes his head spin a little, but your pleased grin when he stands up on the podium wearing the suit you’d ordered is all he really needs to worry about.
“What do you think?”
The tailor is a lanky older gentleman, the type you see in all the old movies, and Bucky turns this way and that as he looks at himself.
If only his folks could see him now. They wouldn’t recognise him in all this.
“I don’t have a dog in this fight, sir.” He turned to you, sitting on the little couch by the window, looking pretty as a peach in a dress and smiling up at him. “Lady’s call.”
You stand, approaching him slow, your eyes telling him without a doubt exactly how good you think he looks.
“You’ll do,” you say on a sigh, and even the tailor chuckled. “Thank you, Jarvis.”
When Jarvis leaves the room, Bucky finds enough confidence to nod at his Stetson you carry in your hands. “Reckon they’ll let me wear it on the red carpet?”
You match his cheeky grin with one of your own, reaching up to place the hat on his head and turning him back to the mirror.
“Why do you think I picked this colour?”
You enjoy every moment of his surprise when he takes in the whole perfectly matching ensemble.
Time moved like an avalanche in New York. One minute he was sharing a light breakfast and early morning kisses with you, and the next you’re both in a hotel suite near Madison Square Garden. Hair and makeup stylists fussed over you in a seat before a mirror while wardrobe people and your management team talked logistics and the possibilities for the night ahead.
You sat in the middle of all the chaos, letting them paint your face and play with your hair, and all Bucky could do was stand to the side and let it all happen around him.
They’d already dressed him and messed with his hair and face an hour ago.
“Would you like us to shine your— um, your, uh…”
One of the poor wardrobe girls gestured hopelessly at his prosthetic and Bucky arched a brow at her. “What you gonna shine with? Shoe polish?”
She looked like the floor could’ve swallowed her whole.
“It’s a well-meaning thought, but not necessary,” you called out, your voice carefully measured. But when Bucky looked your way you seemed conflicted between rage on his behalf and the urge to laugh at the girl’s predicament.
He stepped forward to cool your temper, and put that fire to better use.
“All this pampering is, uh—“ he brushed his knuckles against his stubble and through his hair, peering at himself in the mirror over your shoulder. “It’s a fuss, but nice. Didn’t know it could sit like this.”
“Hmm a little clean for my liking.” You meet his gaze in the reflection.
“Yeah?”
“I like my farmer a little … rougher.”
“You like me dirty.”
There was a soft gasp from somewhere behind you both, but you didn’t care what they overheard. Not with the way Bucky’s eyes darkened and his gaze dropped to the soft robe you were wearing.
The robe with nothing beneath it.
“I have to dress,” you said quietly.
“Don’t need the robe to dress,” he said back, voice low enough for only you to hear.
Your eyes burned with the desire to give in, but you couldn’t. Not this time.
“If you let me dress in private now, I’ll let you take it off me later.”
He scoffed, lips curving in an entirely too-smug smile. “Let me?” He said, shaking his head and lifting your hand to brush a kiss against your knuckle. “Try to stop me.”
Because he hadn’t seen the dress before having only arrived in town long enough to have his suit finished, but he knew whatever design they had cooked up for you was going to knock him dead.
Time ticked by as he stood in the other room with your management team, Tony explaining to him exactly how the red carpet and ceremony would run, when the wardrobe team returned to the room.
He felt his hands grew clammy as you called out, “Ready?”
This felt like it could be his damn wedding day with how nervous he found himself.
But when you stepped into the room, everything else faded away. You were a vision, glowing in your gown with your hair perfectly pinned and face painted just right. You were always gorgeous in his eyes, but the hours of work they put in now finally seemed justified.
They turned you into a goddess.
“Do you like it?”
He laughed because how could you not know?
“Yeah, darlin’, it’s—“
But then he looked.
Really looked.
And his mouth fell open.
The colour. The colour stopped his heart.
Inky dark and shimmering, the black fabric hugged your figure and swept down around you, the stark colour the perfect background for the spears of brilliant golden arcs crossing and flowing, like lightening slashing across your body
Your dress matched his prosthetic.
For a moment Bucky was speechless,his hand reaching out to hover over the lines of gold reverently, mapping your body like he was learning you all over again.
“I asked them to make it look like kintsugi and lightening,” you told him quietly.
He said your name on a broken whisper. You could see in his eyes his emotions choked him.
“I told you, Bucky. I want the world to know who my heart belongs to.”
He met your gaze then.
He knew how long it had taken to perfectly apply your foundation and makeup. He knew and he didn’t care.
He kissed you. With all the force of the love beating hard in his chest, he took your face in his hands and kissed you like he could infuse every ounce of his being into you in that moment.
He stole your breath but he gave you back so much more.
“Are you ready?”
They asked you, but the question was clearly directed at Bucky.
He flashed his most charming smile, donning his hat and turning to offer you his hand so you could step out the vehicle.
“I’ll manage. And if I can’t, I’ll just stare at her.”
Like he could drag his eyes away.
Honestly the cameras were dazzling. He saw stars. He thought he was handling it well, expression stoic, steady hand at your back, thumb rubbing circles against your bare skin.
He stands where he’s told to stand, helps guide you where you’re told to go, only stepping away when your red carpet handler asked him to leave space for photos.
And when you looked at him, your thousand watt smile banishing any doubts as you murmur, “Eyes on me, Sarge,” he knew how much this mattered.
He’s here for you. He’ll do this right for you.
Later, in the grand open space full of hundreds of your peers, everyone seated according to who was who in the industry, you hold his hand and smile at him like he’s the only one there.
When your name is read from an envelope and you throw your arms around him in elation, he knows the two of you have got this thing right.
Until you steal his hat, hurrying away as you place it on your head to accept your award.
He doesn’t see the camera focussed on his face, capturing his wondrous laugh as he claps and beams with pride. He only has eyes for you up on stage, gushing with gratitude and thanking the world that helped you reach this pinnacle.
“And to the man that brought me here tonight—“
Your gaze locked with his from beneath his Stetson, eyes misty and smile shining brighter than the award in your hands.
“I do this for you,” you said, pointing through the fancy crowd right at him.
He thinks out of all the people here tonight, and for all these coveted awards, he might actually be the biggest winner of the evening.
a/n: this is officially the first smut I’ve ever written 🫣 only for you dear Decaf. Have a moodboard for Bucky’s farm to make up for it, and what I vaguely think the dress would look like
✦Bucky Masterlist - Main Masterlist - Read on a03!✦
✦summary: Bucky keeps you secret from his team, but your effect on his life might not be something he can hide.✦
✦warnings/tags: thunderbolts!bucky, wife!reader, no use of y/n, soft Bucky Barnes, no description of reader, shenanigans, tooth-rotting fluff, he's so down bad for you it's crazy ✦
✦wc: 6.1k✦
✦Author's Note: request from anon! i love letting him be happy like he'd be such a wife guy trust me✦
Bucky Barnes has been bringing a lunchbox on missions.
It’s not a sparkly lunchbox. Nothing flashy that grabs attention—like Yelena’s bedazzled, personalized lunchbox and it’s three hundred rhinestones, required to stay in the jet no matter how much she insists upon it being an asset—but everyone notices anyway.
Not because of the lunchbox itself, made of smooth black metal and could easily be mistaken for just another part of the jet. Because of it’s contents.
Strawberries.
Heart-shaped strawberries, put in a baby blue Tupperware and arranged neatly in a little circle around some honey.
“You dip fruit in honey, Bucky Barnes?” Alexei asked when he saw it.
Bucky had only shrugged. “It tastes good.”
“Would be sweet, no? Very sweet. Like cream.”
“It’s not like cream.”
“No, not cream, cream.”
Bucky had stared at him incredulously, and Alexei had sighed, snapping his fingers.
“Yelena, what is word for cream in English.”
“Cream is word for cream.” Yelena hadn’t looked up from her phone, and Alexei had sigh.
“No, cream is word cream. This is other cream. White and fluffy like cat. Soft, like baby’s bottom, sweet like world between woman’s legs-“
“Jesus, man.” Walker had groans. “Are you talking fucking whipped cream?”
Alexei had clapped his hands with a grin, everyone had started groaning, and Bucky and his strawberries had gone unnoticed for the rest of the flight.
But the next one, it was Yelena asking if he bought them, or cut them himself. Walker wanted to know if Bucky liked strawberries because they were girl fruit, and Yelena punched him in the face. Bob nervously asked to taste one, and Bucky had handed it over because he was the only one not being an ass about this. Even Ava teased that if he could do heart, he must do other shapes, and everyone distracted themselves coming up with what other form the strawberries could be cut into.
They seemed to be entertained by the thought of Bucky eating strawberries cut in the shape of dicks, and Bucky had let them laugh. It didn’t bother him all that much, when he was the one eating them, they tasted perfect—you’d done something with cinnamon that he didn’t understand, but was as amazing as you were—and he knew the answer to all their questions, no matter how mocking they were.
“Why honey?” He’d asked you while you cut them, leaning over your body with his chin on the top of your head.
“Because it goes with cinnamon.” You’d hummed, and Bucky had grunted.
“Well, why cinnamon.”
“Because it tastes good, James.”
“Why.”
“Because.” You’d leaned back, giving him an amused look. “You’re like a toddler, you know that?”
Bucky had smiled—the small, secret smile he saved only for you—and leaned down to press a deep, sweet kiss to your lips.
“Only for you.” He’d murmured, and you’d smiled, looking back to the strawberries with a pretty flush.
He loved standing like this. Where you were wrapped tight in his arms, and he could pretend he was never going to have to let go. He could bury his nose in your hair and smell the shea butter you made him use as well, but always just smelled better on you. He could rub his hands on your sides and feel you squirm, just press his face into your neck and feel your every word vibrate through his body.
Bucky would stand like this forever, if he could.
But he did have a job. A job he had to go do, soon.
So you made him lunch, to tide him over until he saw you again. A little reminder that he was loved, that someone as good as you loved him. The rest of the team could have their jokes, because Bucky was loved.
Loved by a woman who he might’ve been able to woo in his best years—before he was missing a damn arm and woke up in the middle of the night fighting ghosts—but who he’d never even dared to dream of having a chance with now.
He didn’t like strawberries before you liked them. He didn’t care to bring lunch to work—he didn’t even need it, if he had a large breakfast—before you started volunteering to make it for him.
“I don’t want you to get hungry.” You’d said, pouting up at him, and he’d have to be a fool to tell you no.
Not when you take so much time to make it, just for him. Not when you can do other shapes—stars and moons and flowers and even a damn snowflake, and probably a dick if Bucky asked, although you might start giggling so much it wouldn’t be safe to let you near a knife—but you do hearts just for Bucky.
Because somehow, you’re something that’s just for Bucky.
A secret, good thing that he doesn’t have to share with the team.
Love that isn’t caught up in politics or old fights that bleed through time. Just you, and Bucky, and heart-shaped strawberries.
He lets the team keep teasing.
It’s hard to mind, when he’s the one who gets to eat the strawberries in the end.
Yelena notices it first.
They’re in the truck on some mission in Alaska, with no wifi for streaming and the truck rattling so loud it gives her a headache. She asks Bucky to put on the radio while he drives. He says no. She keeps asking, over and over, until he caves and turns it on with a scowl.
And she’s happy with it. It’s just a top 100 station—some good, some bad, depending on taste—but Yelena likes it plenty, and it’s enough to calm her brain down.
Once her brain is calm, she starts to notice things.
Things like Bucky’s hand tapping on the wheel. Like his mouth, moving silently along with the lyrics of a few songs.
How his nose scrunches when some songs start—like he knows they’re going to be bad—but he smiles to himself for others. His knee bounces with some baselines. His head bobs along with the music.
He knows the songs.
“You like pop music?” Yelena asked, and Bucky started slightly. Like he forgot she was there.
“No.” He grunted, and Yelena scoffed.
“Really.”
“Yeah. We’ve had this conversation. I like-“
“40s music. I’ve heard.” Yelena narrowed her eyes, watching him carefully. “You seem to know the radio songs.”
His jaw ticked. “I have ears. I remember things.”
“Impressive, since you are a million years old.”
Bucky gave her a tired look. “I’m a hundred.”
“Most people have no minds by a hundred. But you- Look at you. You enjoy Lady Gaga.”
“I don’t know what that is.”
He was lying through his damn teeth, and they both knew it, but Bucky was pretty sure he had the upper hand. Yelena could accuse him all she wanted, she’d never guess why Bucky already knew all the songs. Never be able to work out that he listened them so he’d know what you liked. That he liked certain ones more than others because he’d think of you singing them in the shower. That he hated certain ones because you hated them, and you knew more than he did.
Bucky would sit at your feet and listen to you ramble about racist country singers for the rest of his damn life, if he could. He’d listen to you talk about anything, because you were passionate about everything, and you never looked prettier than when you cared.
You’d get all flushed, your nose would wrinkle, your hands would wave around as you gestured, and Bucky didn’t understand half of the actual words you were using—what a stan was, how idol seemed to have a meaning very different that he remembered, or what the hell a fandom was—but he liked how you said them. Like how you’d just pet his head sometimes while you spoke, and how happy you’d look when he repeated something you said a few days later, to prove he’d been listening.
So he’d learned all the words to your favorite songs, because it made you happy. Just like you’d learned how to dance to 40s music with him in the kitchen, even if you stepped on his shoes and mostly just stared at him with shining eyes while he led you around.
He didn’t mind doing that, either. It felt like heaven to have you in his arms. And you’d always giggle when he spun you around, and ask him questions about the 40s he only would ever give you the answers to. You’d smile at all his stories. You’d ask to watch the movies he liked, read the books he’d enjoyed, listen to more of his music.
The least he could do was memorize a few songs. It made you smile.
And Bucky felt like a real good husband, when he made you smile.
Nobody needed to know that the Winter Soldier enjoyed pop music. That didn’t strike fear in the hearts of adversaries, and people would probably want to know his opinions, when they were just yours echoed.
He did sing along to the next song, though. Under his breath, but audible. Just to mess with Yelena.
She gaped at him. “You- You are singing-“
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Bucky drawled, smirking at the road.
Yelena narrowed her eyes. Turned down the radio and leaned forward, scanning over Bucky’s face.
He gave her a bored look, brows raised in amusement.
Yelena leaned closer.
“You are strange, Bucky Barnes.” She muttered, and Bucky snorted.
“Really? Hadn’t noticed.”
“Stranger than usual.” Yelena continued, like she hadn’t heard him at all. “Very strange.”
Bucky just shrugged, and Yelena hummed.
“I am onto you. I will figure out what strange music secrets you keep.”
Bucky laughed again. “You do that.”
“I will.”
“Alright.”
“Alright.” Yelena mocked, slumping back into her seat. “What do you think of Rihanna, Bucky Barnes?”
Bucky knew what you thought of Rihanna. Knew that you wished she’d make more music, something he actually agreed with. The woman had good beats, and used a lot of real instruments. Those had been some of the easier songs to get through.
“I don’t know who that is.” He repeated, but probably after pausing for too long.
Yelena huffed like she didn’t believe him. Bucky was probably playing with fire, by not shutting this down firmly. But he really couldn’t bring himself to care.
He wouldn’t stop listening to the songs. And it wasn’t his fault they were so damn catchy.
He did wish Yelena could hear you sing along to them, though. You did it a hell of a lot better than he did.
And Bucky got lost in thought about you again. He didn’t feel his grin, pulling at his face from the thought of you.
Yelena narrowed her eyes.
Something was up with Bucky Barnes. Music and strawberries. Soft things, for soft people, which he was not. Maybe he had been kidnapped, and this was a clone. Yelena could fight a clone. That would be quite easy.
But the easy thing was rarely the answer. Which was annoying.
It didn’t matter.
Yelena would figure out what Bucky was hiding.
And if it was something that let her fight a clone, well. Worse, stranger things have happened.
Bob and Ava realize next.
They’ve known about the strawberries. Everyone has known about the strawberries. Only Bob knows about the music—Yelena told him—but Ava’s noticed things as well.
Liking Bucky smiling at his phone. Going to bed before everyone else, and waking up before them as well. And it shouldn’t be strange that a solider goes to bed early, but it’s how he goes to bed.
Bucky makes a big show of it. He stands up, announces that not to bother him unless someone is dying, and still try to handle that yourselves, then marches off to his room.
Ava walked past it last week. And she knows she’s not supposed to—something about privacy—but Bucky had a book she’d wanted, and doors are just suggestions that people think keep them safe anyway.
She phased through the wall, and found the room empty. Completely and totally empty. No noise from the bathroom, no lump in the sheets. Nothing.
The book had been on the nightstand. She’d taken it and gone, but wondered.
If the room was always empty.
If Barnes was up to something.
Bob just thought the music thing was nice.
“Maybe he just likes pop music?” He’d offered to Yelena, who’d shaken her head.
“No. Bucky Barnes does not like this.”
“I- That can’t be true-“
“It is.”
“He likes some books.” Bob had said, a little desperately. “And… Sam Wilson’s his friend. They have to do something together.”
“They fix boats.”
“See! That’s liking something-“
“This is not a boat, Bob.” Yelena had snapped. “This is music. It is important, because Bucky likes it, and he does not like things.”
And that wasn’t entirely true.
Bucky didn’t like most things. He didn’t like crowds, or snow, or most movies until you liked them and suddenly he understood what everyone was making such a big deal about. He didn’t like planes or trains, and boats were fine, and he hated going most anywhere until you’d started riding on the motorcycle with him. He didn’t like resting, or eating, or the dark, but then you made him do spa nights with him and suddenly all those things were fine.
“Your hair is better than mine.” You’d murmurs, running your fingers through it, and he’d sighed.
“That’s not true, doll.”
“It is.”
“Nothin’ I got is better than you.”
You’d hummed, smiling to yourself as you started to braid on of the thicker locks. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.” He’d sighed, like he was pained you didn’t believe him. “I don’t sneak around for just anyone y’know.”
“Well, you don’t have to sneak around for me-“
Bucky had said your name, rolling onto his back with a sigh.
You’d given him an innocent look, and he’d swallowed. Reached up to trace your features, his voice low and serious.
“You know I can’t risk something happenin’ to you. I don’t like hiding either, but-“
“I know.” You’d kissed the inside of his wrist. “I’m just reminding you. Just in case.”
You’d smiled at him, and he’d smiled slowly back. His eyes shining with that quiet, relaxed awe that was yours, and yours alone.
The world could have Bucky in whatever role they made him play. He always went along with it, as long as he was helping, no matter how many times you casually floated the idea of him retiring. There was always another reason he had to keep going. Another part of him they wanted to take away from you.
But this, the peace and silent, but immeasurably powerful love that radiated off of him, it was all yours.
“I love you.” He’d murmured, and you’d brushed a little hair from his face.
“I know.”
He’d frowned. “You’re not gonna say it back?”
“You know I love you-“
“Yeah, but I like hearin’ you say it, doll-“
“I love you, James, I love you so much-“
Bucky had rolled his eyes. “Now you’re just bein’ mean to me.”
You’d giggled, leaning down until you were hovering only inches away. “You like it,” you’d whispered. “Gives you an excuse for later.”
Bucky’s eyes had flashed, his hand slowly sliding down around your neck, and you’d laughed again. Sat back up and gently nudged his shoulder.
“I love you, old man.” You’d pushed a little harder. “Flip over, I’m braiding your hair.”
He’d groaned, but still flipped back onto his stomach. His face had been pressed into your thigh, one arm around your middle and the other rubbing up and down your calves as you braided. When you’d finished, you’d tied it, and he’d dove for you like an animal.
The braid had somehow survived the night, even if you couldn’t really walk.
And Bucky had kept it in. It was a little under the thicker top layer of his hair, so no one would see it, and if he couldn’t wear his ring at work he wanted something that was made of you.
Then the hair tie would got lost in a fight, and the braid came almost completely undone. He used to go back to you, and sheepishly ask you to redo it. And you always would with a smile and no complaints, and Bucky could never hate time he got to spend at your feet, but he also liked learning things.
Braids were good for ropes. They could busy his hands, if he was stuck on the jet too long and no one was looking at him.
If you ever had daughters together, he’d need to know how to do them, the exact way you did.
So he asked, and you taught him.
And Bob and Ava are in the common room talking about the Baby Shark song with Ava tries to braid her hair, but she’s not all that good at it. She usually just keeps it inside the suit.
Bob offers to help. He’s worse.
They’re seconds from going to grab Yelena when Bucky walks in with a bored expression, and finds Bob’s hands in Ava’s hair, both of them looking like they just got caught doing something wrong.
“What’s wrong with you two.”
“Bob can’t braid hair.” Ava says plainly, and Bob frowns.
“Well I- I’m trying- But it’s- There’s so much of it-“
“Yeah, I got it.” Bucky sighs, then frowns at Ava. “Can’t you braid your own hair?”
Ava sniffs, raising her chin. “I never learned. But thank you, for reminding me of that childhood norm I missed out on-“
“Christ, it’s not like I’m all sunshine and-“ Bucky had sighed, ran a hand over his face, then nodded to himself. “Alright. Bob, move.”
Bob had moved, hands in the air like a surrender, and Bucky had taken his place.
He’d worked fast. Very fast. Fast and neat, because he’d been practicing on himself and you, and he was pretty damn good at it now.
That was a good braid. Bucky stood back with his hands on his hips, nodded, and marched out without another word.
Bob and Ava sat there for a moment. Bob stared, and Ava reached back carefully to touch the braid.
It felt alright. There weren’t stray hairs, and the pattern was tight.
Which meant Bucky had given her a braid of… Above average quality.
Ava looked at Bob, and found his mouth open. Their eyes met, neither really sure what to say other than-
“What the fuck was that?”
Alexei notices next.
He doesn’t know it, but the rest of them have a running bet. Yelena told Bob about her theory, Bob pulled Ava into the room, and they all put a week of chores on the line for who’s going to realize last.
Yelena thinks it’s going to be Bucky, not picking up on the fact that everyone is onto him. Ava thinks it’s John, his head too far up his ass to make such observations. Bob thinks it’s Alexei, simply because no one else had money on Alexei, and he wasn’t allowed to simply not participate.
For a while, it seems that they’re all on even footing. Bucky keeps coming and going, smiling at his phone and suddenly knowing how face masks and baking and different soaps work, and no one else seems to be picking up on anything odd.
Then Alexei asks Bucky to go out with him.
“Night on the town, Bucky Barnes.” Alexei claps his shoulder with a wide grin. “We will find many beautiful woman, all looking for attention from great Red Guardian and Winter Soldier!”
Bucky grunts. “I’m good, thanks.”
“I know, you enjoy moping around Watchtower, why am I so alone, where is love- It is because you hide, I will help you stop hiding-“
“I’m not-“ Bucky sighs, and shakes his head. “Maybe next week. I’ve got plans tonight.”
He walks away, leaving Alexei frozen in the middle of the room.
Bucky Barnes does not have plans. He does not do plans. He’s dragged places by his neck, then returns to sulking in mysterious places around the tower. Usually when Alexei asks him to go out, he gets a very similar no, but then he asks again and gets a grumbled fine.
Alexei doesn’t want to go out anymore anyway. There is no better drinking partner than Bucky Barnes. His moody, handsome face pulls in attention, and Alexei gets to swoop in and charm everyone that Bucky turns down with tight words and a half apology. It’s a perfect system.
Bucky is messing with the perfect system.
“Yelena.” He stomps into the living area with a scowl. “Something is wrong with Bucky Barnes.”
Bob groans. He’s the first person to lose the bet.
Alexei doesn’t believe it at first, when they lay it out for him. Strawberries and pop music are not evidence of having a woman. Hair is not either. Alexei can braid hair. He used to do it for Yelena and Natasha, all the time.
“Mother taught you how.” Yelena points out, and that is a fair point. He’d leave it in knots before Melina showed him how not to.
But he would have noticed, if Bucky Barnes had a girlfriend. He lives in the tower. Alexei is Guardian, he knows who comes in and out of their home. If Barnes was hiding secret girl, he would have been the first to realize.
“Or she doesn’t live in the tower.” Ava drawls. “Bucky has been hiding an awful lot, lately. Maybe he goes to her.”
Alexei thinks this is insane. Why would one ever leave the Watchtower? It has magic robots, a kitchen with two ovens, and a pool. America is beautiful country. Robots. Ovens. Pools.
But Ava is exactly right.
The first few months of your relationship, Bucky had still been staying at the Watchtower. He’d entertain Alexei’s outings, knowing he was just there for—as you say it—eye candy. He’d drink and mope about not being with you, maybe call you and tell you how pretty you are, then stumble home and dream about being in your arms. Sometimes he would end up in your arms, managing to drink enough that it actually effected him, thinking home when he got in the Taxi, and ending up swaying on your doorstep.
You’d smile at him, when you opened the door.
“Did you drink the whole bar?”
“Only half.” He’d mumble, leaning against your door. “I love you.”
You’d giggle. He loved your giggle. It was a sound of pure joy, almost like the songs his Ma used to make him sing in church.
He understands church more, now that he has you. He’d build a whole house in your name, and make sure it was even half as beautiful as you were. He talks to you every day, texting even when he knows you won’t respond for hours, the chance of your attention worth every bit of his time.
“I love you too.” You’d say, flushing and beaming at him. You’d get bashful and nervous, the first times he’d say it. Like you weren’t sure it was real.
And back then, he’d have to linger like a street dog at your door, staring at you hopefully under you asked him inside.
Now he has a key. He takes off from the Watchtower while no one is paying attention. Stops at the corner store to get you chocolate and flowers—he does this every time, you’re considering opening a shop—before heading to the other side of town.
To you.
He has a key to your apartment now. It’s his apartment too.
Houses are the kind of thing you have to share, when you’re married.
“You’re an hour early.” You say when he opens the door, and he chuckles.
“Can’t be early to my damn home, doll-“
“Bucky-“
He turns from closing the door, and his jaw almost falls off his face.
He is very early.
You’re in one of those thin, lacy things you get yourself to try and give him a damn heart attack. Sheer and tight, highlighting curves and making you somehow more than naked. There’s still the small robe, but it doesn’t hide anything at all.
But your hair isn’t done, your face clear of makeup for him to ruin.
Part of him likes it more. You look like an angel.
And it would be a shame for him to make you waste all your fancy products and put in so much effort, when he’s going to wreck you no matter what.
“I’m early.” He rasps, and you cross your arms.
“You have to go out. I’m not ready yet-“
“You look pretty ready to me, doll.”
You flush under his heated, almost rabid gaze. You’re already getting sore between your thighs, and he’s just standing across the room.
Setting down the flowers and rolling up his sleeves. Waiting patiently for you to beckon him over, tongue darting over his lips as his gaze rakes over your body, and your knees are getting weak.
“I’m trying to give you something nice.” You squeak, and Bucky laughs.
“You are giving me somethin’ nice-“
“Well, it- It’s going to be better than this-“
“I don’t think that’s possible.”
You breathe sharply, and Bucky raises his brows.
He’d been ravenous before you were married. Somehow, now, it’s even more than before. He touches you like he’s trying to leave a mark. To remind you that even when he can’t be home, there isn’t a single moment you’re not on his mind.
“Green light?” He mutters.
You nod, then remember the rule.
Words.
“Yes. Please.”
He doesn’t need to be told twice.
And outside, Yelena, Ava, Bob, and Alexei, frown up at the series of windows, trying to figure out which one Bucky disappeared into. It was Alexei’s idea to follow. He wanted to prove Bucky was simply sick, rather than leaving him to try and pick up women alone.
Right now, his odds aren’t looking good. Bucky doesn’t buy chocolate and flowers for himself.
“Maybe he’s on the other side of the building?” Bob suggests, after almost an hour of staring at Bucky-less windows.
The words are barely out of his mouth before Yelena spots it.
Bucky and a strange woman, stumbling into a room, their mouths practically attached. His shirt is gone. She’s wearing something that looks like it used to be lingerie. Bucky tosses her onto the bed, kisses her ankle, then moves to the window.
He closes the blinds, leaving the team gaping up on the street, all thinking the same thing.
Bucky Barnes has a secret girlfriend.
John notices last.
They’re on a mission in some small city, and it’s fast. Clean. No slip-ups—for once—which means no extra paperwork to file. Yelena makes them go to the mall. They have a Petco, five makeup stores, and a cinnabun. There’s never going to be another chance like this.
It’s in one of the makeup stores that John finally gets clued in. Yelena doesn’t like any of the perfumes she’s looked at—and made everyone else look at, because they should all stop smelling like sweet and damp ass—and Bucky points out that she hasn’t been cleansing her nose after each one with the coffee.
He suggests a specific perfume. It’s not overly floral and sweet like what Yelena’s been trying. He thinks she’d like it, and she does.
And John is suspicious.
“Barnes has a wife.” He hisses to Ava, and she snorts.
“Aren’t you late.”
“What does that mean-“
“It means we’ve all known he has a girlfriend for months, you’re the last person to-“
“No. I didn’t say girlfriend. If he’s with someone, it’s a wife.”
Ava pauses. Looks over her shoulder, to where Bucky is staring at this phone, lost to the world.
He smiles at something on the screen, then looks up like he’s checking nobody saw.
“Why do you think it’s a wife.” She says slowly, and John shrugs.
“He knew perfumes.” Walker says loftily. “You don’t learn perfumes for a girlfriend. That’s wife shit.”
Ava frowns. His logic is flawed. Downright incorrect.
But he did reach the right conclusion, even with the wrong equation.
Bucky learned perfumes for you before you were even engaged. Before he got a key to your apartment, or you talked about a future, or he bought the ring. And he’d gotten that ring fairly early, too.
Right after he spent three hours before your anniversary, researching perfumes to figure out the exact kind you’d like as a gift. He’d gone to stores, looked up guides on line, even sneakily asked Yelena questions to figure out what she liked, how it related to her personality, then apply his findings to you.
He’d been nervous when he’d made his choice. He didn’t get nervous anymore, but his palms had been sweating, his thoughts racing at what might happen if you hated the gift. You were too sweet to break up with him over just a perfume, but Bucky knows how small things can crumble a whole foundation. A good gift showed you he cared. That he’d been paying attention. It build trust, and grew affection. With that, he’d be showing you how serious he was about this. If you knew he was serious, that opened a million more doors that he’d only been holding as fantasies.
Moving in together, sharing a life. Marriage. Maybe partial retirement, removal from the public eye. Being allowed to go out with you in public without having to be so damn careful. Eventually getting a house. Maybe a cat—he liked cats—and, if you wanted it, one or two kids.
But none of that would happen if you didn’t know he was serious. If he’d already messed up by getting you the wrong perfume.
He’d played it super normal, when he’d given you the bag. Collected and suave, not sweating out of his ass, certainly not praying to the whole universe that you’d at least not hate it-
“Bucky.” You’d gasped, holding the bottle with delicate hands, like it was made of crystal. Like it was his heart, rather than some glass. “You didn’t have to-“
“Wanted to.” He’d grunted. “Do you-“
“I love it. I- I’ve wanted this one for a while, actually, but- James, I know how much this costs-“
Bucky had kissed your cheek, letting the prideful, golden feeling in his chest bloom.
“You’re worth it.” He’d muttered, and your smile had been worth more than a whole damn store of perfumes.
He’d gotten the ring that Monday, before he went back to the tower. Spent every moment apart from you that weekend researching cuts and carats, just like he had the perfumes.
When he’d proposed, he’d told you that he’d been half a man before you.
You’d told him that even if that was true, you would’ve fallen in love with him if he was a tenth of a man. That just a sliver of him was easier to love than every other man on the planet combined.
They’re all dancing around it. How to tell Bucky they know about his girlfriend—or wife, as John keeps loudly insisting.
A few times, Alexei tries to start a conversation about what kind of women Bucky likes. Bucky stares at him, giving only grunts as answers, and Alexei gives up fast. Yelena asks if he’d want to go on a vacation to the Bahamas with anyone, and he just shrugs. Ava’s taken to stalking him through the tower, trying to catch a slip-up that gives her the perfect moment for confrontation. Walker has been talking about jewelry and perfume so much, Bucky asks if he’s getting back together with his ex.
Bob doesn’t really want a part of any of this. He thinks that if Bucky wants this to be a secret, they should respect that.
Everyone else thinks that’s boring.
They’ve pooled their time, to manipulate the perfect way to reveal that they know. It’s a needlessly elaborate plan, with far too many uses of a t-shirt gun, a blimp, and a pure-bred horse.
But it will work. They’ve spent months getting it right. By the end of the week, Bucky will admit he has a girlfriend—or wife—and they can start teasing him about it, as is their right.
The plan will be implemented tomorrow. They’ve prepared. Nothing will go wrong.
Then, in the middle of a meeting about some organization either having too many automatic rifles—or not enough, but none of them are really paying attention—there’s a knock on the door.
Everyone freezes. There’s not a single person in the building, who doesn’t know the rule. Never interrupt Valentina. Not even if the world is ending. You wait until she’s ready to hear about the apocalypse, then you speak.
She’s scowling at the head of the table, but waves a tight hand for Mel to answer the door.
When she does, everyone cranes their head to see who’s about to get fired. But it’s not an employee or agent, standing in the hallway.
It’s a beautiful, anxious looking woman holding a smooth lunchbox. She’s shifting on her feet, wearing a thick coat and diamond ring, looking around like the walls are the tallest thing she’s ever seen, and-
She’s the girl from the window.
Wearing a ring.
John would be smug, if he wasn’t trying to wrap his head around how that was Bucky’s wife. But it’s not just him.
You’d looked pretty from the window. Up close, it’s no wonder Bucky wanted to keep you to himself. You might’ve been able to defeat Thanos with a smile.
“Hi,” your voice is soft, your expression like a doe in headlights. “I- Um- Bucky forgot his lunch.”
You hold up the black box, and Valentina clears her throat.
“And you’re who exactly?”
“Um-“
“An assistant?” She shoots Bucky a glare. “I don’t see why you should get an assistant, James, you barely even do anything-“
“Bucky does things.” You stand a little taller, eyes narrowing on Valentina. “He does a lot of things, and- You don’t even give him pet insurance-“
“He doesn’t need pet insurance-“
“Yeah, because my boss is a nice person-“
“Darling.” Bucky stands up quickly, moving to block you from Valentina’s venomous glare. “You didn’t tell me you were coming, I would’ve met you downstairs-“
“I wanted to surprise you.” You mumble, lips pulling into a pout. “Sorry.”
“’S alright.” He glances over his shoulder, to everyone’s aghast, almost offensively shocked expression. “I gotta finish this meeting, you know where my room is?”
You nod, still looking too damn sad, and Bucky sighs. He leans forward to kiss your cheek, keeping his voice low enough only you’ll hear.
“I coulda gotten something from the café, y’know.”
“Yeah, but- You’d forget to.”
Bucky chuckles, squeezing your waist gently. “You’re too good to me, doll.”
“Hm.” Your smile returns, paired with a pretty flush. “I don’t think I am.”
You touch his arm, leaning forward to press a tiny, quick kiss to his lips. It takes everything Bucky has, not to drag you back and make out until you’re both dizzy. The only thing that manages to stop him is the eyes of his teammates, glaring daggers into his back.
You walk away with one last smile over your shoulder, and Bucky waves with a foolish grin.
Then he turns, braces his hands on his hips, and sighs.
“We’re gonna do this now, aren’t we?”
Valentina scoffs. “Do what, make you explain why you’re bringing your little civilian into the tower without approval-“
“She is approved.” Bucky grunts. “She’s my emergency contact, that grants her automatic access.”
Bob’s eyes widens. “Wow, it’s- You’re that serious? Not that you wouldn’t be, just- I didn’t know girlfriends could be emergency contacts. I always thought it was, um- Family. Only?”
“Anyone can be a contact.” Bucky grunts. “And- Jesus-“ He sighs, running a hand over his face.
There’s no point lying about it now. Might as well get it over with.
“She’s not my girlfriend. She’s my wife.”
Walker shouts I knew it. Yelena starts demanding her winnings from Ava, and Alexei starts grumbling about not being invited to the wedding.
But none of them are all that surprised.
“Did you all… Know?” Bucky snaps, and Yelena rolls her eyes.
“Of course. You were obvious, like dog after bone.”
“I was not, and- That doesn’t make sense-“
“We all knew, Bucky.” Ava shrugs. “But it makes sense. She’s beautiful.”
At that, Bucky grins. He’ll be angry at them later.
Right now, he’s just standing tall with pride.
“Yeah. She is.”
✦End note: deeply upsetting that we're probably only going to get the one Thunderbolts movie I was 50 of them like the Avengers.✦
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✮ synopsis: bucky's gotten good at keeping his distance from his harmless, sunshine-y neighbor. but when you get taken because of him—because someone figured out you're his weak spot—he realizes how spectacularly that plan backfired. turns out the winter soldier's soft spot is a lot more dangerous than he thought.
✮ pairing: post-thunderbolts!bucky x fem!reader
✮ disclaimers: violence, kidnapping, blood and injury, torture (not graphic), angst with a happy ending, emotional hurt/comfort, established feelings but complicated relationship, second person POV, fem!reader, miscommunication, intense yearning, emotionally constipated!bucky, past trauma, mild language, fighting sequences
✮ word count: 10.6k
✮ a/n: first fic on this blog and it's basically just 10k words of soft bucky yearning xoxo
main masterlist
The first time Bucky Barnes sees you, you're trying to shove a couch through a doorway that's at least six inches too narrow, and losing spectacularly.
He's coming home from another pointless congressional hearing—the kind where everyone talks in circles about defense budgets while carefully not mentioning the alien invasion from three months ago—when he spots you in the hallway. You're wedged between the arm of what looks like a vintage velvet monstrosity and the doorframe of 4B, hair escaping from whatever you'd tried to contain it with, muttering a stream of increasingly creative profanity.
"Fucking—come on—you absolute bastard of a—"
The couch shifts. You yelp. Bucky's halfway down the hall before he realizes he's moving.
"Need a hand?"
You twist around, and something in his chest does this stupid, inconvenient flip. Your face is flushed, one cheek smudged with what might be dust or maybe yesterday's mascara, and you're looking at him like—well. Like he's not Bucky Barnes. Like he's just some guy in the hallway who might know how geometry works.
"Oh thank god," you breathe, and the relief in it makes his mouth twitch. "I've been battling this thing for twenty minutes. I think it's winning."
He assesses the situation with the same tactical precision he'd use for a Bulgarian arms deal, if arms deals came upholstered in emerald green and smelled faintly of vanilla perfume mixed with fresh sweat. The angle's all wrong. You've been trying to force it through horizontally when it needs to go vertical, then rotate.
"Here." He steps closer, and you shift to make room, your shoulder brushing his chest in a way that absolutely doesn't make his pulse stutter. "If we flip it—"
"Oh, you're strong," you say, like an observation about the weather, as he essentially deadlifts one end of your couch. The metal arm whirs faintly. You don't flinch. "That's convenient."
Convenient. Right. He maneuvers the couch through the doorway in three efficient moves, trying not to notice how you smell like coffee and something floral, how you hover just inside his peripheral vision like you're trying not to crowd him but can't quite stay away.
"There." He sets it down in what's clearly the only spot it could go in your tiny living room. The space is chaos—boxes everywhere, art leaning against walls, books stacked in precarious towers. "You just moving in?"
"Yeah, from—" You wave a hand vaguely eastward. "Nicer neighborhood. Turns out freelance graphic design doesn't pay for Manhattan rent. Who knew?" The self-deprecation comes with a grin that transforms your whole face, and Bucky has to look away, focus on the box labeled 'KITCHEN SHIT' in aggressive Sharpie. "I'm—well, you probably don't care what my name is."
He does, actually. Cares in a way that makes his teeth ache.
"Bucky," he offers, even though you clearly already know. "4C."
"The grumpy congressman." Your grin goes wider, teasing. "I've seen you on C-SPAN. You look like you're being held at gunpoint during those hearings."
"Feel like it too," he mutters, and the laugh you give him hits like a shot of whiskey—warm and slightly dizzying.
"Well, Congressman Barnes of apartment 4C, you've just saved my Saturday. Can I pay you in beer? I've got—" You dig through a box, emerge triumphant with two bottles. "Hipster IPA or hipster IPA?"
He should say no. Should maintain boundaries. Should remember what happened the last time he let someone get close—the scar on his ribs from Belgrade still aches when it rains.
Instead, he finds himself accepting a bottle, listening to you chatter about the neighbor who warned you about the rats (definitely real) and the ghost (probably not real but who knows), watching how you gesture with your whole body when you talk, like you're too much for your own skin.
It's dangerous, how easy you are to be around. How you look at him like he's just Bucky, not the former Asset, not the killer, not the congressman who can't pass a single fucking bill. Just a guy who helped with your couch.
He stays too long. Drinks two beers. Helps you unpack exactly three boxes before some long-dormant self-preservation instinct kicks in and he makes excuses about constituent emails.
"Thanks again," you say at the door, and there's something in your eyes—curiosity, maybe. Interest. "For the couch. And the company."
"No problem."
He's halfway to his own door when you call out: "Hey, Barnes?"
He turns. You're leaning against your doorframe, backlit by the disaster zone of your apartment, smiling that smile that makes his chest tight.
"I make really good coffee. You know. If congressional hearings ever drive you to caffeine dependency."
It's an offer. An opening. Everything in him screams to close it, lock it down, maintain operational security. Instead, his traitorous mouth says, "I'll keep that in mind."
He's so fucked.
The thing is, Bucky's gotten good at keeping people at arm's length. Seventy years of being a weapon teaches him that distance equals safety—for them, not him.
When you're already dead, what's a little more damage?
So he shouldn't notice when you start leaving your apartment at 7:23 every morning, shouldering a bag that's always slipping off your shoulder. Shouldn't time his own exits to avoid those encounters, then feel like an asshole when he succeeds. Definitely shouldn't lie awake listening through the thin walls as you sing along to whatever pop music you play while cooking, off-key and enthusiastic.
But here's the other thing: you make it really fucking hard to maintain distance.
You leave cookies outside his door with notes that say things like "for emergency constituent-induced rage" and "survival fuel for C-SPAN." You knock when you know he's home, ask to borrow sugar or vodka or a screwdriver, then stay to chat like his apartment isn't just bare walls and a couch Sam made him buy. You touch—casual, constant. A hand on his arm when you laugh, fingers brushing when you hand him things, like physical contact isn't something that makes his brain static out.
"You're a really good listener," you tell him one evening, three weeks into whatever this is. You're sitting on his floor, back against his couch, because you'd knocked asking for wine and then somehow ended up staying. Your knee presses against his thigh. He's catastrophically aware of every point of contact. "Like, actually good. Not just waiting for your turn to talk."
"Not much of a talker," he says, which is true and also easier than explaining that he's memorizing everything—how you twist your rings when you're nervous, the way your voice drops when you're saying something real, how you look in his space like you belong there.
"Bullshit." You bump his shoulder. He doesn't flinch anymore, which is either progress or a sign he's completely fucked. "You're just selective. Quality over quantity."
You say things like that—observations that feel like being seen, really seen, not just looked at. It's terrifying. It's addictive. It's going to get you killed.
Because here's the thing Bucky knows down to his bones: everything he touches turns to ash. Everyone he cares about becomes a target. And you—with your sunshine laugh and your disaster apartment and your way of looking at him like he's worth something—you're exactly the kind of light that attracts the worst kind of dark.
He should stay away.
He doesn't.
"So," Sam says, watching Bucky check his phone for the third time during their coffee meeting. "Who is she?"
"What?" Bucky pockets the phone. You'd texted asking if he knew how to fix a leaky faucet. He knows seventeen ways to kill a man with a faucet. Fixing one can't be that different. "Nobody. Work thing."
"Uh-huh." Sam's doing that face, the one that means he's about to be insufferably perceptive. "That's why you just smiled at your phone. Over a work thing. You. Smiled."
"I smile."
"No, you do this thing with your mouth that's like a smile's evil twin. This was an actual smile. So. Who is she?"
Bucky takes a long drink of coffee, considering how much lying is worth the effort. "Neighbor."
"Neighbor." Sam leans back, grinning. "Cute neighbor?"
The memory of you last night, paint in your hair and gesturing wildly about your latest client, flashes unbidden. His silence is apparently answer enough.
"Buck. Man. This is good. You need—"
"I need to not get people killed," Bucky cuts him off. "I need to remember that anyone who gets close to me ends up hurt. I need—"
"You need a life," Sam interrupts right back. "You need to stop punishing yourself for shit that wasn't your fault. You need to let yourself have something good."
Bucky's jaw works. The phone buzzes again. He doesn't check it.
"She doesn't know what she's getting into," he says finally. "She's—" Bright. Warm. Good. "She's not part of this world."
"So keep her out of it." Sam makes it sound simple. Like there's a way to compartmentalize, to have you without putting you at risk. "Be her neighbor. Be normal. Be happy, for once in your goddamn life."
Normal. Right. Because nothing says normal like a centenarian ex-assassin with more kills than most armies and a metal arm that could crush a skull like an egg.
But then he thinks about your smile when he fixed your garbage disposal last week. How you'd said "my hero" in this teasing, fond way that made him want impossible things. How you treat him like he's just Bucky, not a weapon someone else aimed.
"I don't know how," he admits, quieter than he meant to.
Sam's expression softens. "Nobody does, man. You just try anyway."
The faucet thing turns into a whole production.
You answer the door in tiny pajama shorts and an oversized t-shirt that says "FEMINIST KILLJOY" in glitter letters, and Bucky's brain shorts out for a solid three seconds. Your hair's piled on top of your head in what might generously be called a bun, and there's toothpaste at the corner of your mouth, and he wants to—
"Oh good, you're here," you say, grabbing his arm and pulling him inside. Your fingers are warm through his henley. "It's making this noise like a dying whale. I tried YouTube tutorials but I think I made it worse."
The kitchen is a disaster. Tools scattered everywhere, water pooling on the floor, YouTube still playing on your laptop ("—sure to turn off the water main first—"). You've clearly been at this for a while.
"Did you turn off the water?" he asks, already knowing the answer from the growing puddle.
"I turned off a valve," you say defensively. "Several valves. None of them seemed to be the right valve."
He finds himself fighting a smile as he locates the actual shut-off. You hover behind him as he works, close enough that he can feel your breath on his neck, keeping up a running commentary that's part apology, part stand-up routine.
"—and then the wrench slipped and I maybe screamed a little bit, and Mrs. Nguyen next door started banging on the wall, and I had to yell that I wasn't being murdered, just defeating by plumbing—"
"Hand me the—" He turns to ask for the wrench at the same moment you lean forward to see what he's doing. Your faces end up inches apart. Time does that thing where it forgets how to work properly.
Your eyes are very wide. There's a water droplet on your cheek. Bucky's hand twitches with the urge to wipe it away.
"Wrench," he manages, voice rougher than intended.
"Right. Wrench. That's a—" You scramble backward, nearly slip on the wet floor. He catches your elbow automatically, steadying you, and your skin is so warm under his fingers it feels like a brand. "Thanks. I'm not usually this much of a disaster. Actually, that's a lie. I'm exactly this much of a disaster, you've just caught me on a particularly disastrous day."
He fixes the faucet in under ten minutes. You insist on making coffee as payment, which turns into leftover pizza, which turns into three hours on your couch watching some reality show about people making elaborate cakes. You provide running commentary that's funnier than the show itself, and Bucky finds himself actually laughing—not the dry chuckle he's perfected for public appearances, but real laughter that comes from somewhere deep in his chest.
"See?" you say during a commercial break, grinning at him. "I told you this show was addictive. Next week they're making a life-size dragon cake that actually breathes fire."
"Next week?" The words slip out before he can stop them, too revealing.
Your grin softens into something else, something that makes his chest tight. "Well, yeah. You can't miss fire-breathing dragon cake. That's un-American."
It becomes a thing. Thursday nights, your couch, increasingly ridiculous cooking shows. You always have too much dinner ("I'm terrible at portions, shut up"), he always fixes something that's broken ("it's not broken, it's just temperamental"), and somewhere between cake disasters and your laughter, Bucky forgets to maintain distance.
"Your boyfriend's here," Mrs. Nguyen announces loudly when Bucky knocks on your door a month later, because apparently the entire floor has decided they're invested in whatever this is.
"He's not my—" Your voice cuts off as you open the door. You're wearing a dress, which is new. Red, which is newer. Lipstick, which is going to kill him. "Hi."
"Hi." His brain's stuck on the curve of your shoulder, the way the fabric clings. "Going out?"
"Wedding. Old college friend." You're fidgeting with your earring, a sure tell that you're nervous. "I hate weddings. All that optimism and overpriced chicken."
"So don't go."
"Can't. I already RSVP'd, and I'm a good friend even if I'm a wedding-hating gremlin." You pause, still fiddling with the earring. "Unless..."
He knows what's coming by the way you're biting your lip. "No."
"You don't even know what I was going to ask!"
"You were going to ask me to go with you."
"...okay, so you did know." You lean against the doorframe, giving him a look that's probably supposed to be convincing but mostly just highlights how your eyes catch the hallway light. "Come on. You're a congressman. You must love overpriced chicken and small talk."
"I really don't."
"There's an open bar."
"Still no."
"I'll owe you one. One big favor. Anything."
That makes him pause, but not for the reason you think. The idea of you owing him anything makes his skin itch. You already give too much—your time, your laughter, your casual touches that rewire his brain. But the idea of watching you navigate a wedding alone, of other people getting to see you in that dress...
"Fine," he hears himself say. "But I'm not dancing."
The smile you give him could power Brooklyn for a week.
He's absolutely, catastrophically unprepared for how you look in candlelight.
The wedding venue is one of those rustic-chic places that thinks exposed beams equal personality. You're at table eight, which puts you safely in "college friends but not close enough for the wedding party" territory. You've been providing whispered commentary all through the ceremony ("five bucks says she wrote her vows the night before"), your shoulder pressed against his in a way that makes paying attention to anything else physically impossible.
"See that bridesmaid?" You nod toward a blonde who's definitely already three champagnes deep. "That's Amber. We were roommates sophomore year. She once tried to seduce our RA by leaving Post-it poetry on his door."
"Did it work?"
"Depends on your definition of 'work.' She did get his attention. Also a conduct violation." You're playing with the stem of your wine glass, fingers tracing patterns. "Thanks for this, by the way. I know wearing a suit and making small talk isn't exactly your idea of fun."
He could tell you that wearing a suit is nothing compared to tac gear, that small talk is easier than Senate hearings. Could mention that the way you keep unconsciously leaning into him makes any discomfort worth it. Instead: "It's fine."
"Such enthusiasm." But you're smiling, soft and maybe a little fond. "Dance with me?"
"I said no dancing."
"You said that before you had champagne. And before they played—" You tilt your head, listening. "Oh my god, is this Bon Jovi? We have to dance to Bon Jovi. It's the law."
"That's not a law."
"It's a law of wedding physics. Come on, Barnes. One dance. I promise not to step on your feet much."
The thing is, he can't say no to you. It's becoming a problem. You want him to fix your sink? Done. Need someone to hold your laptop while you Skype your mother? He's there. Want him to dance to "Livin' on a Prayer" at some stranger's wedding? Apparently, that's happening too.
You're a terrible dancer. Genuinely awful. You have no sense of rhythm, keep trying to lead, and you're laughing too hard to even pretend otherwise. It's perfect. He spins you out just to watch your dress flare, pulls you back too close, and for a moment—your hand in his, your face tilted up, surrounded by fairy lights and other people's happiness—he forgets why this is a bad idea.
"See?" you say, slightly breathless. "Dancing's not so bad."
His hand is on your waist. He can feel your pulse through the thin fabric. "No. Not so bad."
Someone bumps into you from behind, pushing you fully against his chest. Your hands come up to steady yourself, one landing over his heart, and he knows you can feel how it stumbles. Your smile falters, shifts into something else. Something that looks dangerously like realization.
"Bucky—"
"They're cutting the cake," he says, stepping back. The loss of contact feels like losing a limb. "Should probably watch. For your show."
You blink, then recover. "Right. Yeah. Cake."
But you're quiet for the rest of the reception, and he catches you looking at him with this expression he can't decode. Like you're working through a complex equation and not liking the answer.
He drives home. You spend the ride fiddling with your phone, uncharacteristically silent. When he pulls up to the building, you don't immediately get out.
"I'm sorry if I—" you start.
"Don't." It comes out harsher than intended. He tries again, softer: "You didn't do anything wrong."
"Feels like I did." You're still not looking at him. "I forget sometimes, that you're—that we're—"
"Friends," he supplies, even though the word tastes like ash. "We're friends."
"Right." You finally meet his eyes, and there's something careful in your expression now. Guarded. "Friends."
You're out of the car before he can figure out what to say to fix this. He watches you disappear into the building first, red dress like a wound in the grey evening, and knows he's fucked everything up without quite understanding how.
You pull back after that.
It's subtle—you still smile when you see him in the hall, still text him memes at inappropriate hours. But you stop knocking on his door for impromptu dinners. Stop touching him casually. When he offers to fix your eternally-dripping showerhead, you say you'll call the super instead.
"You're moping," Sam tells him two weeks later, during one of their mandatory "make sure Bucky's not spiraling" brunch dates.
"I don't mope."
"You're the Black Widow of moping. The Michael Jordan of emotional constipation." Sam pauses. "That neighbor you mentioned?"
Bucky's silence is damning.
"What'd you do?"
"Why do you assume I did something?"
"Because you always do something. You get close to someone, panic, and pull some self-sabotaging bullshit." Sam's voice gentles. "Talk to me, man."
Bucky stares at his coffee like it holds answers. "She wanted to dance."
"...okay?"
"At a wedding. And I—we danced. And it was..." He doesn't have words for what it was. How you felt in his arms, how the world narrowed down to just the two of you, how for a moment he forgot he was dangerous. "And then I shut it down."
"Why?"
"Because." He sets the mug down too hard, coffee sloshing. "Because she's sunshine, Sam. She's late-night cooking shows and glitter pens and leaving snacks for the delivery guy. She has no idea what I've done, what I'm capable of—"
"Did you ever think maybe she does know and doesn't care?"
"Then she's naïve."
"Or maybe she just sees you better than you see yourself." Sam leans forward. "Buck, you can't protect people by pushing them away. That's not how it works."
"It's worked so far."
"Has it? Because from where I'm sitting, you're miserable, she's probably confused as hell, and nobody's actually safer."
Bucky wants to argue, but then his phone buzzes. Your name pops up: my smoke alarm is having an existential crisis. is it supposed to beep in morse code?
He's already standing before he realizes it.
"Go," Sam says, shaking his head but smiling. "Fix her smoke alarm. Talk to her like a human being. Maybe try not to fuck it up this time."
Your door is already cracked when he gets there, smoke rolling out in lazy waves.
"I'm not on fire!" you call before he can knock. "Well, the oven mitt was, but I handled it."
He finds you on a chair, ineffectively fanning the smoke detector with a dish towel. You're wearing those little pajama shorts again and his brain still isn't prepared for the sight.
"How does an oven mitt catch fire?" He reaches up, disables the alarm with practiced ease.
"Well, when you forget it's on your hand and rest it on the stove burner..." You shrink a little at his look. "I was distracted."
"By what?"
You don't answer, just hop down from the chair. This close, he can see the flour in your hair, the way you're worrying your bottom lip. "Thanks. Sorry for texting, I know it's late—"
"Why are you apologizing?"
"Because—" You make a frustrated gesture. "Because I'm trying to give you space. Because you clearly regretted the wedding thing and I'm trying not to be that neighbor who develops inconvenient feelings—"
"Feelings?" His brain snags on the word like cloth on a nail.
You go very still. "Shit. I mean. Not feelings. Just. You know. Neighbor...ly concern. Very platonic. Super appropriate."
"You're a terrible liar."
"Yeah, well, you're terrible at—" You stop, visibly collecting yourself. When you speak again, your voice is carefully level: "I like you, okay? More than I should. And I know that's not what you want, and I'm trying really hard to be okay with that, but you standing in my kitchen looking all concerned while I'm having a feelings crisis is really not helping."
The words hit him like a physical blow. You like him. More than you should.
"You don't know me," he says, defaulting to the easiest argument.
"Bullshit." There's heat in your voice now. "I know you reorganize my bookshelf when you think I'm not looking because the chaos bothers you. I know you bring me coffee on Tuesdays because you noticed I have early meetings. I know you have nightmares—yeah, the walls are thin—and I know you pace afterwards like you're trying to walk off whatever you dreamed about."
Each observation feels like being flayed open.
"I know you're careful," you continue, softer now. "I know you think you're dangerous. And I know you've probably got reasons for that. But Bucky? I also know you'd never hurt me. Ever."
"You can't know that."
"Why? Because you're what, too damaged? Too dangerous?" You step closer and he should step back but he's frozen. "You carry my groceries. You fixed my faucet. You danced with me at a wedding even though you hate dancing. Really dangerous stuff there, Barnes."
"You don't understand—"
"Then explain it to me." Your chin juts out, stubborn. "Give me one good reason why we can't—"
He kisses you.
It's the wrong thing to do. Selfish. Stupid. But you're standing there in your flour-dusted pajamas, looking at him like he's worth fighting for, and his self-control just...snaps.
The sound you make—soft, surprised, maybe relieved—shorts out every rational thought in his head. Your hands come up to frame his face, fingertips cool against his burning skin, and then you're kissing him back like you've been waiting for this, like you've been drowning too.
You taste like smoke and whatever you were baking, sweet with an edge of burn, and he's dizzy with it. His hands find your waist, fingers spreading wide against the soft cotton of your shirt, and he pulls you in until there's no space between you, until he can feel your heartbeat hammering against his chest. You're so warm, so alive, radiating heat like a small sun, and he wants to map every degree of it with his mouth, his hands, his—
Reality crashes back like ice water.
He jerks away, but his hands won't let go of your waist, like his body's in revolt against his better judgment. You're both breathing like you've run miles—harsh, ragged pulls of air that fill the space between you. Your lips are swollen, kiss-bruised, and he did that, he marked you, and the savage satisfaction of it wars with the knowledge that he's just made everything infinitely worse.
Your eyes are huge, pupils blown wide, and you're looking at him like he's just rearranged your entire understanding of the universe. One hand is still on his face, thumb pressed to the corner of his mouth like you're trying to hold the kiss there, keep it from escaping.
"That's why," he says roughly. "Because I want—because you make me want things I can't have."
"Says who?" Your eyes are very bright. "Who decided what you can have?"
He doesn't have an answer for that. Doesn't know how to explain the mathematics of survival, how everyone he's ever cared about becomes a liability, a target, a grave.
"I should go," he manages.
"Or," you say, "you could stay."
The offer hangs between you like a lit fuse. He can see the future unspool in both directions: leave now, go back to safe distances and polite nods in the hallway, watch you eventually move on with someone who doesn't come with a body count. Or stay, and risk you realizing what a mistake you're making. Stay, and selfishly take whatever you're willing to give for however long you're willing to give it.
You're still looking at him, patient and terrified and hopeful all at once.
He leaves.
The word echoes in his head all the way back to his apartment. Coward. Coward. Coward. But it's the right thing to do. The safe thing. You'll hurt for a while, maybe hate him a little, but you'll be alive to do it.
He doesn't sleep. Just sits on his couch, staring at the wall that separates your apartments, listening to the muffled sounds of you cleaning up. The shower runs at 2 AM. He knows you cry in the shower when you think no one can hear—learned that three weeks into being neighbors, when your freelance client stiffed you on a big project. He'd wanted to break the fucker's legs then.
Now he wants to break his own.
You're a better person than he'll ever be, which is why you still smile at him in the hallway.
It's careful now, contained. The kind of smile you'd give any neighbor, not the one that used to light up your whole face when you saw him. You don't knock anymore. Don't text about your smoke alarm or your leaky faucet or the rat you're convinced lives in the walls. You just...exist, parallel to him, in a way that makes his chest feel like it's full of broken glass.
"Fixed it myself," you say one morning when he catches you wrestling with a new deadbolt installation. Your drill slips, gouging the doorframe. "YouTube University, you know?"
He could fix it in under a minute. Could show you how to align the strike plate properly, how to test the throw. Instead: "Good for you."
Your smile flickers. "Yeah. Good for me."
Mrs. Nguyen gives him dirty looks now. The whole floor does, really. Like they know he's the reason you don't laugh as loud anymore, why your music's quieter, why you started getting grocery delivery instead of making three trips up the stairs, arms overloaded, dropping things and cursing cheerfully.
It's fine. It's working. You're safe.
He tells himself that every night when he hears you through the walls, moving around your apartment like a ghost of the person who used to dance while cooking.
Three weeks post-kiss, Valentina calls them in for a mission that's barely legal on a good day.
"Weapons shipment," she says, sliding photos across the conference table with her usual theatrical flair. "Enhanced tech, off-market, very much not supposed to exist. The kind of toys that make governments nervous."
"So we're stealing them," Walker states, not asks.
"Recovering," Val corrects with a smile sharp enough to cut. "For the safety of the American people, of course."
Yelena snorts. Alexei's already studying the compound layout like there'll be a test. Bob's doing that thing where he shrinks into himself, trying to become invisible. Bucky catalogs exits, counts guards in the surveillance photos, and tries not to think about how you looked last night, hauling groceries with your hair falling in your eyes.
The mission goes sideways in minute three.
"Intel was wrong," Ava's voice crackles through comms, too calm for the situation. "Triple the guards. And—"
The explosion cuts her off. Then another. The "barely defended warehouse" is a fucking fortress, crawling with military-grade security who definitely got the "shoot to kill" memo.
"Fall back," Bucky orders, but Alexei's already charged ahead, yelling something about Soviet glory. Walker's trying to flank, Bob's panicking, and somewhere in the chaos, Yelena starts laughing like this is the best thing that's happened all week.
It takes two hours to fight their way out. By the end, Bucky's left arm is sparking, his ears are ringing, and he's pretty sure at least three ribs are cracked. Yelena's favoring her right leg, Walker's bleeding from somewhere he won't admit, and Bob—Bob's dissociating so hard Bucky has to physically guide him to the extraction point.
"Well," Val says over comms, observing from her safe distance, "that was bracing."
Bucky doesn't trust himself to respond.
They limp back to New York in sullen silence. No debrief—Val's already spinning the disaster into something palatable for the brass. Bucky goes straight home, ignoring Sam's calls, ignoring everything except the need to get somewhere quiet before he starts breaking things.
His hands are still shaking when he reaches his floor. Adrenaline crash, probably. Or the delayed realization that they'd all nearly died for some bureaucrat's idea of asset recovery. Or—
Your door is open.
Not open-open. Cracked, like it didn't latch properly. Like someone left in a hurry. Or—
The deadbolt is broken.
The one you installed yourself three weeks ago. The one he'd watched you struggle with, pride keeping you from asking for help.
Bucky goes utterly still.
His body moves before his brain catches up. He's through your doorway, cataloging details with mechanical precision: lamp knocked over, books scattered, coffee table shoved sideways. Signs of a struggle. Signs of—
Blood.
Not much. Just droplets on the hardwood, leading toward the kitchen. But enough. Enough to make his vision tunnel, his chest compress until breathing becomes theoretical.
"Sweetheart?" The pet name slips out, raw. No answer. He clears each room like he's back in Hydra facilities, except his hands won't stop shaking because this is your space, your things, your—
Your phone is on the kitchen floor, screen cracked. There's a handprint on the wall—bloody, smeared. Too small to be anyone's but yours.
Something inside him breaks. Clean, sharp, like a bone snapping. The careful distance he's maintained, the walls he's built, the conviction that keeping you at arm's length would keep you safe—all of it crumbles in the face of your empty apartment and that small, bloody handprint.
He's already moving, phone out, calling in favors he's been hoarding. Because someone took you. Someone came into your home—the home he was supposed to be protecting by staying away—and took you. And they're going to learn exactly why the Winter Soldier's name still makes people flinch.
His phone rings. Unknown number.
"Barnes." He doesn't recognize his own voice.
"Ah, the infamous Winter Soldier." The voice is male, amused, completely at ease. "I was hoping we could talk."
"Where is she?"
"Safe. For now. Though that really depends on you, doesn't it?"
Ice spreads through his veins, familiar as an old friend. This is what he was trying to prevent. This exact scenario. You, hurt because of him. You, taken because someone figured out—
"What do you want?"
"You've been playing house, Barnes. Getting soft. Forgetting what you are." A pause, calculated. "I'm going to remind you. And your little neighbor? She's going to help."
The line goes dead.
Bucky stands in your ruined apartment, surrounded by the evidence of his failure, and feels something fundamental shift. Not break—he's been broken before. This is worse. This is the cold clarity that comes after, when there's nothing left to lose.
Someone made a mistake today. They touched you. They made you bleed.
He's going to paint the city red for it.
"Buck, slow down—"
"No." He's already moving, gathering gear with brutal efficiency. The weapons he's not supposed to have. The tech that's definitely illegal. Every favor, every resource, every skill Hydra beat into him over seventy years.
Sam's on speaker, trying to be the voice of reason. "You can't just go in guns blazing—"
"Watch me."
"This is exactly what they want. You, isolated, operating without backup—"
"They have her, Sam." The words come out raw, flayed. "They took her because of me. Because I was stupid enough to think distance would keep her safe."
Silence on the other end. Then: "What do you need?"
That's why Sam Wilson is Captain America. No more arguments, no more trying to talk him down. Just immediate, unwavering support.
"Intel. Cameras in my building, surrounding blocks. Last twelve hours." He straps a knife to his thigh, then another. "And get me backup."
"I can rally your team. Get Walker, Yelena—"
"No." The word comes out sharp. Another knife. Extra magazines. "The Thunderbolts are compromised. That clusterfuck of a mission proved it."
"Buck—"
"They're not ready for this. Half of them can barely work together without Val pulling the strings." He's checking his tactical vest, muscle memory taking over. "This isn't a government op. This is personal."
"So what, you're going in alone?"
Is he? Bucky stops, considers his options. The Thunderbolts are a mess on a good day—Walker's still trying to prove something, Bob's hanging on by a thread, and Alexei treats everything like a performance. They're not who he needs for this.
"They touched her," he says simply.
"I know, man. I know. But—"
"Get me what intel you can. I'll handle the rest."
"Buck, come on. At least let me—"
"They have her, Sam." His voice cracks, just slightly. "Every second we waste talking, they could be—"
"Okay. Okay. Intel coming your way. But Barnes? Don't do anything stupid."
"Too late for that."
Bucky stops in your doorway, looks back at your apartment. There's a photo on your bookshelf—you and him at the building's July 4th party. Mrs. Nguyen had insisted on taking it. You're laughing at something, leaning into him, and he's looking at you like—
Like you're everything he never thought he'd get to have.
"I'm coming for you," he tells the empty room. A promise. A threat. A prayer to whoever might be listening.
Then he disappears into the night, and the Winter Soldier goes hunting.
The trail goes cold in six hours.
Whoever took you, they're not amateurs playing at being dangerous. They're ghosts—professionals who know exactly how to disappear in a city of eight million people. Every camera angle's been scrubbed. Every witness suddenly develops amnesia. Even the blood in your apartment leads nowhere; cleaned of DNA markers by something that makes Bucky's teeth ache with familiarity.
"Talk to me, Buck." Sam's voice through the earpiece, carefully level. "Where are you?"
Bucky stands on a rooftop in Queens, staring at another dead end. Another empty warehouse that should have had something, anything. "Nowhere."
"That's not an answer."
"It's the only one I've got." His metal hand clenches, servos whining. Below, the city keeps moving, oblivious to the fact that you're somewhere in it, hurt, taken because of him. "They're good, Sam. Too good."
"We'll find her."
We. Like this isn't Bucky's fault. Like his past isn't bleeding into your present, staining everything he tried so hard to keep clean.
He drops from the rooftop, lands hard enough to crack pavement. A passing couple startles, hurries away. Good. He doesn't feel particularly human right now anyway.
Hour twelve. Yelena finds him in your apartment, sitting on your couch like a grieving statue.
"This is pathetic," she says, stepping over the crime scene tape he'd ignored. "Even for you."
"Get out."
"No." She perches on your coffee table, uncharacteristically serious. "You think sitting here feeling sorry for yourself will find her? You think guilt helps?"
"I said—"
"I know what guilt looks like, Barnes." Her voice cuts, precise as the knives she carries. "I know what it is, failing someone you—" She pauses, searching for the English word. "Care about. But this?" She gestures at him, at the apartment, at the bloody handprint he can't stop staring at. "This is just... как это... self-pity? No, worse. Useless."
The laugh that tears out of him is ugly. "Thanks for the pep talk."
"Someone needs to knock sense into your thick skull." She leans forward. "Whoever has her, they want you like this. Emotional. Sloppy. Making mistakes."
"I know that."
"Then stop giving them what they want."
Easier said than done when every surface in this apartment carries your ghost. The mug on the counter with your lipstick stain. The book splayed open on the side table, marking your place. The sweater thrown over the chair—his sweater, actually, stolen three weeks ago when you'd claimed your apartment was freezing.
"Keep it," he'd said, trying not to notice how it made something primal in him satisfied, seeing you wrapped in his clothes.
"Just until I fix my radiator," you'd promised, but you'd worn it three more times that week, and he'd never asked for it back.
"Barnes." Yelena snaps her fingers in his face. "Сфокусируйся. Focus."
"I am focused."
"You're spiraling." She pulls out her phone, shows him surveillance footage he's already memorized. "Look again. Really look. Use your brain, not your bleeding heart."
He wants to tell her he's looked at nothing else for twelve hours. Instead, he watches you leave your apartment at 6:47 PM, mail in hand. Watches you come back at 6:53. The timestamp jumps—7:31 to 8:15, forty-four minutes missing. By 8:15, your door's ajar and you're gone.
"Professional crew doesn't need forty-four minutes for grab," Yelena says, her English getting rougher as she thinks. "So why take so long? What were they doing?"
Bucky's phone buzzes. Unknown number.
His blood turns to ice, then flame.
"You're going to want to watch this alone," the familiar voice says. "Though I'm sure your friend is lovely. Hi, Yelena."
She stiffens. Bucky's already moving, putting distance between them, some instinct screaming danger.
"Just me," he says. "Let her go."
"See, that's your problem, Barnes. Still trying to protect everyone. Still thinking you can control who gets hurt." A pause. "Check your messages."
The video file is already there. His hand shakes as he opens it.
You're in a concrete room—could be anywhere, everywhere, the kind of place that exists in every city's bones. Sitting in a metal chair, wrists zip-tied but not apparently hurt beyond the cut on your temple still sluggishly bleeding. You're still wearing his sweater.
"Say hello, sweetheart." The voice comes from behind the camera.
You look up, and the defiance in your eyes makes his chest seize. "Go fuck yourself."
The slap comes fast, snaps your head sideways. Bucky's phone creaks in his grip.
"Language." The camera shifts, focuses on your face. "Try again."
You spit blood, manage a smile that's all teeth. "Hi, Bucky. Nice weather we're having."
Another slap. Harder. Your lip splits.
"I told you he made you weak." The voice continues conversationally as you work your jaw, testing damage. "The Winter Soldier, reduced to playing house with some nobody. It's embarrassing, really."
"You talk a lot for someone hiding behind a camera," you mutter.
This time it's a fist. Your head rocks back, and when you look up again, your nose is bleeding. But you're still glaring, still unbroken, and Bucky loves you so fiercely in that moment it feels like drowning.
"Here's what's going to happen," the voice continues. "Every hour Barnes doesn't come alone to the address we'll send, things get worse for you. And before you get any ideas—" The camera pans to show three other men, armed, professional. "—we've planned for contingencies."
Back to you. Blood drips onto his sweater. You notice the camera returning, look directly into it. "Don't you fucking dare," you say, and despite everything—split lip, bloody nose, zip-tied to a chair—you mean it. "You hear me, Barnes? Don't you—"
The video cuts.
Bucky stands very still in your empty apartment, phone in pieces at his feet.
"That bad?" Yelena asks.
He can't speak. Can barely breathe around the rage threatening to tear him apart from the inside. Somewhere in the city, you're bleeding because of him. Hurt because he was selfish enough to let you close, stupid enough to think distance would be enough.
Another text. An address in Red Hook. Come alone or we start cutting.
"Is trap," Yelena says, dropping articles like she does when she's focused. "Obviously trap."
"I know."
"You can't just walk in there like idiot."
"I know."
"So what's plan?"
He looks at her, and whatever she sees in his face makes her step back. "I give them what they want."
"Barnes—"
"They want the Winter Soldier?" His voice sounds wrong, mechanical, like something dredged up from permafrost. "They've got him."
The address leads to a warehouse because of course it does. These people, whoever they are, lack imagination. Bucky counts heat signatures through thermal imaging—six outside, unknown inside. Doable, if he's what he used to be. If he's willing to be what he used to be.
"Don't you fucking dare."
Your voice echoes, but it's drowned out by older programming. By muscle memory that never quite faded, no matter how many therapy sessions or good days or shared dinners with someone who looked at him like he was worth saving.
"In position," Sam's voice, because fuck going alone. Fuck giving them what they want. "West entrance."
"Rooftop," from Yelena.
"Back door," Walker, surprisingly. "For the record, I think this is stupid."
"Noted," Bucky says, and walks through the front door.
The space is exactly what he expected. Concrete floors, exposed beams, the kind of place that swallows sound. They're waiting for him—five men in tactical gear, no identifying marks. Professional contractors, not ideologues. Which makes this personal.
"Dramatic entrance. I respect that." The voice from the phone materializes into a man in his forties, military bearing, forgettable face. He's standing next to a metal table laid out with tools that make Bucky's scars ache. "Though you were supposed to come alone."
"Yeah, well." Bucky spreads his hands, easy target. "I've never been good at following orders. Ask anyone."
"Funny." The man circles him, predator studying prey. "That's not what your files say. 'Perfect compliance.' That was the phrase, wasn't it?"
Old wounds, precisely targeted. These people have done their homework.
"Where is she?"
"Close. Alive. For now." The man stops in front of him. "You know, I studied you. The Winter Soldier. Hydra's perfect weapon. And then you just... stopped. Became this." He gestures dismissively. "James Barnes, failing congressman. Playing superhero. Pretending you're not what we made you."
"We?"
The man smiles. "Not Hydra, if that's what you're thinking. Hydra was sloppy. Cult-like. No vision beyond control." He pulls out a tablet, shows Bucky a logo—a chimera, three-headed. "Cerberus. We're more... refined. We deal in weapons, not world domination. And you, Barnes? You're a weapon pretending to be human."
"Cool speech." Bucky's cataloging angles, distances, how fast he'd have to move. "Must've practiced in the mirror."
The man's smile tightens. "Bring her out."
Two more men emerge from a side room, dragging you between them. You're conscious but barely, feet stumbling, head lolling. They drop you on the concrete, and you don't get up.
Everything in Bucky goes very, very quiet.
"So here's the deal," Cerberus continues. "You're going to work for us. Exclusive contract. Your particular skills in exchange for her life."
"No." Your voice, cracked but clear. You push yourself up on shaking arms, meet Bucky's eyes across the warehouse. "No deals. No trades."
"Sweetheart—"
"Don't you 'sweetheart' me." You manage to get to your knees, swaying. Blood's dried on your face, but your eyes are blazing. "You think I don't know what they're asking? You think I'd let you—" You have to stop, catch your breath. "I'd rather die than be the reason you become that again."
"How touching," Cerberus says. "But not your call." He nods to one of his men, who pulls out a knife. "Barnes? Your answer?"
The knife moves toward you.
The world explodes.
Flash-bangs through windows, smoke grenades, the distinctive whine of repulsor beams. Cerberus shouts orders, but it's too late—the Avengers don't do subtle when one of their own is threatened.
Bucky moves. Not the measured approach of a soldier, but the brutal efficiency of a weapon. The man with the knife goes down first, arm snapping under metal fingers. The second barely has time to scream. He's not thinking, just reacting, just removing threats between him and you.
Someone shoots him. Barely feels it. Someone else tries hand-to-hand, which is adorable. He puts them through a wall.
"Barnes!" Sam's voice, sharp. "Shield up!"
He spins, catches the thrown shield, uses it to deflect a spray of bullets meant for you. You're trying to crawl to cover, leaving bloody handprints on the concrete, and the sight shorts out whatever restraint he had left.
When the smoke clears, Cerberus is the only one left standing. Backed against the wall, gun trained on you because of course it is. These people are predictable to the last.
"Come any closer and—"
Yelena drops from the ceiling, lands on him like gravity given form. The gun goes flying. Cerberus goes down choking on his own blood, Yelena's knife finding the gap in his armor like it was designed for it.
"Predictable," she says, wiping the blade clean. "I told you they were predictable."
But Bucky's already moving, dropping to his knees beside you. You're conscious, breathing, alive. That's all that matters. Everything else—the mission, the cleanup, the questions—fades to white noise.
"Hey," he says, hands hovering over you, afraid to touch. Afraid to hurt. "I've got you."
"Took you long enough," you manage, then promptly pass out in his arms.
He catches you, holds you against his chest, and something in him breaks. Or maybe it finally, finally mends. Either way, he's done pretending distance keeps anyone safe. Done acting like he deserves to make choices about your safety without you.
"Med team's three minutes out," Sam says quietly.
Three minutes. He can hold you for three minutes. Can keep you safe for three minutes.
After that? After that, everything changes.
But for now, in the blood and smoke and aftermath, Bucky Barnes holds the person he was stupid enough to fall in love with and makes a promise:
Never again.
Never fucking again.
The medical bay at the Tower is too bright, too sterile, too full of people who keep looking at Bucky like he might snap. Maybe he will. He's been sitting in the same chair for four hours, watching machines monitor your breathing, and every beep feels like an accusation.
"You need to get that looked at," Sam says, nodding at the blood seeping through Bucky's shirt. Gunshot wound, probably. He honestly can't remember.
"I'm fine."
"You're bleeding on their fancy floors."
"I'm fine."
Sam exchanges a look with Yelena, who's been uncharacteristically quiet since they arrived. She's cleaned the blood off her hands but keeps flexing them, like she can still feel it.
"At least change your shirt," she says finally. "You look like extra from horror movie."
He doesn't move. Can't move. Because what if you wake up while he's gone? What if you open your eyes and he's not there, again, like he wasn't there when they took you?
"Barnes." Dr. Cho's voice cuts through his spiral. "She's stable. Three broken ribs, concussion, various contusions, but nothing life-threatening. She's lucky."
Lucky. The word tastes like copper in his mouth. Lucky is winning the lottery, not surviving a kidnapping because you had the misfortune of living next to him.
"When will she wake up?"
"Soon. The sedatives should wear off within the hour." She pauses, studying him with that look medical professionals get when they're about to say something pointed. "You, however, need treatment. You're actively bleeding on my floor."
"Sam already made that joke."
"It wasn't a joke." But she moves on, knowing a lost cause when she sees one. "I'll send a nurse with supplies. Try not to die before she wakes up. The paperwork would be tedious."
She leaves. Sam leaves. Even Yelena eventually wanders off, muttering something about vodka and terrible life choices. And then it's just Bucky and you and the steady beep of machines he'd tear apart if they stopped working.
Your hand is smaller than his. He knows this—has known it since the first time you grabbed his wrist to drag him to see some neighbor's new puppy—but it feels more pronounced now. More fragile. Your knuckles are split from fighting back, and there's still blood under your nails. His blood? Theirs? He doesn't know, and the not knowing makes him want to put his fist through the wall.
"You're spiraling again."
Your voice is hoarse, barely above a whisper, but it might as well be a gunshot for how hard it hits. His head snaps up to find you watching him, eyes half-open but alert.
"You're awake."
"Mmm. Kind of wish I wasn't." You try to sit up, wince, immediately abort that mission. "Fuck. Did anyone get the number of the truck that hit me?"
"Don't—" He's hovering, hands fluttering uselessly, afraid to touch you. "You shouldn't move. Dr. Cho said—"
"Dr. Cho can kiss my ass," you mutter, but you stop trying to sit up. Your eyes track over him, cataloging damage. "You're bleeding."
"It's nothing."
"It's literally dripping on the floor, Barnes."
"It's fine."
You stare at each other. Four hours of practiced speeches evaporate in the face of your actual consciousness, leaving him with nothing but the memory of your blood on concrete and the sound you made when they hit you.
"So," you say finally, voice carefully neutral. "Cerberus. That was fun."
"Don't."
"Don't what? Make jokes about my kidnapping? Process trauma through humor? Acknowledge that you're sitting there bleeding because you decided to Rambo your way through—"
"You could have died." It comes out louder than intended, raw. "You almost died because of me."
Something shifts in your expression. "Bucky—"
"No." He's standing now, needing distance, needing space between him and the way you're looking at him. "You don't get to—to act like this is fine. Like this is some funny story you'll tell at parties. They took you because of me. They hurt you because of me."
"They took me because they're assholes who thought they could use me as leverage." You're struggling to sit up again, ignoring whatever pain it causes. "That's on them, not you."
"You're only leverage because I was selfish enough to—" He stops, runs his hand through his hair. "I knew better. I knew what would happen if I let someone close, and I did it anyway."
"Let me get this straight." Your voice is gaining strength, and with it, heat. "You think you 'let' me get close? Like I didn't have any say in it? Like I didn't practically force-feed you cookies until you acknowledged my existence?"
"That's not—"
"And what, you think keeping me at arm's length would've magically made me safer? News flash, Barnes: I live in that building because it's what I can afford. That makes me a target for regular criminals on a good day. At least with you around, I had someone who actually gave a shit if I made it home."
"Don't." The word cracks. "Don't act like I was protecting you. I'm the reason you were bleeding. I'm the reason they—"
"You're the reason I'm alive!" You swing your legs over the side of the bed, bare feet hitting the floor with determination that makes his chest tight. "You think they took me because they wanted leverage? They took me because they were cleaning house. Because they knew you'd gotten soft, gotten close to someone, and that made you unpredictable."
You stand, sway, catch yourself on the bed rail. He moves forward instinctively, and you hold up a hand.
"No. You don't get to touch me right now. Not when you're about to do something stupid and noble and self-sacrificing." You take a step, then another, closing the distance between you despite your own warning. "They were going to kill me either way, Barnes. Whether you came for me or not. The only difference is that you did come, and now I'm alive to be really fucking pissed at you."
"You don't understand—"
"I understand perfectly." You're close enough now that he can see the bruises forming on your throat, the way you're holding your ribs, the tears you're refusing to shed. "You think you're poison. You think everyone you touch gets hurt. You think the best thing you can do is be alone forever because that's what you deserve."
"Stop."
"No. Because here's the thing, James Buchanan Barnes—you don't get to make that choice for me." Your voice breaks, just a little. "You don't get to decide I'm better off without you. You don't get to kiss me in my kitchen and then run away like a coward. And you sure as hell don't get to sit there bleeding and act like it's some kind of penance."
The medical bay feels too small suddenly, like all the air's been sucked out. You're looking at him with eyes that see too much, that refuse to let him hide behind the careful walls he's rebuilt in the last three weeks.
"They hurt you," he says, quieter now. Lost.
"Yeah. They did." You reach up, slowly, telegraphing the movement. Your hand cups his face, thumb brushing over the bruise on his cheekbone. "And it wasn't your fault."
"How can you say that?"
"Because blaming you for what they did is like blaming a bank for getting robbed." Your other hand comes up, framing his face, forcing him to meet your eyes. "You're not responsible for other people's evil, Bucky. You're only responsible for what you do about it."
"I should have protected you better."
"You literally threw yourself between me and automatic gunfire."
"I should have never let them take you in the first place."
"Oh, so you're psychic now? Can predict the future?" Your laugh is watery. "Add that to the resume. Congressman, ex-assassin, part-time fortune teller."
"This isn't funny."
"It's a little funny." But your smile fades, replaced by something fiercer. "You want to know what's not funny? Spending three weeks watching you shut me out. Sitting in that chair, knowing you were hurting, and not being able to do anything because you decided I was better off without you."
"You are—"
"Finish that sentence and I swear to god, Barnes, concussion or not, I will punch you in your stupid, self-loathing face."
He almost smiles. Almost. "You could barely stand five seconds ago."
"Adrenaline's a hell of a drug." But you're swaying again, and this time when he reaches for you, you don't stop him. His arms come around you carefully, mindful of injuries, and you lean into him like you've been waiting for permission. "I'm so fucking mad at you."
"I know."
"Like, incandescently furious."
"I know."
"You don't get to leave again." It comes out muffled against his chest, but he hears the steel underneath. "I don't care if the entire population of supervillains decides I'm their new favorite target. You don't get to leave."
His arms tighten fractionally. "Sweetheart—"
"No." You pull back enough to glare at him, and even bruised and exhausted, you're the most beautiful thing he's ever seen. "No 'sweetheart.' No soft voice and sad eyes. You're either in this with me or you're out, but you don't get to half-ass it anymore. You don't get to knock on my door at 2 AM because you had a nightmare and then pretend we're just neighbors. You don't get to dance with me at weddings and then act like it meant nothing. You don't get to—"
He kisses you.
There's no grace in it—just collision, pure physics as his mouth finds yours with the same brutal efficiency he'd use to take down a target. Except this isn't violence, it's something worse. It's capitulation. It's three weeks of want compressed into the space between one heartbeat and the next.
The noise that escapes you—half gasp, half sob—unlocks something feral in his chest. Then your teeth catch his lower lip, sharp and unforgiving, and his vision whites out entirely. You kiss like you fight: dirty, determined, taking no prisoners. Your tongue slides against his and his knees actually buckle, what the fuck, he's faced down alien armies without flinching but you're going to be what finally kills him.
His hands fly to your face, metal and flesh cradling your jaw like you're something precious even as he devours your mouth like you're anything but. You're pressed so tight against him he can feel every hitch in your breathing, every shudder that runs through you when he angles his head and deepens the kiss into something filthier, something that has you making these broken little sounds that he wants to bottle and keep.
The medical bed hits the back of your thighs—when did he walk you backward?—and you use the leverage to pull him down, down, until he's curved over you like a question mark, like gravity itself has reorganized around the heat of your mouth.
When you finally break apart, it's only because biology demands it. You're both wrecked—breathing like you've run marathons, lips swollen and spit-slick, staring at each other like you're not quite sure what just happened.
Your pupils are blown so wide he can barely see the color of your irises. There's a flush spreading down your throat, disappearing beneath the hospital gown, and he has to physically stop himself from following it with his mouth. His hands are trembling where they frame your face, thumbs pressed to your cheekbones like he's checking you're real.
"That's not an answer," you manage, but your voice is thoroughly fucked, and your hands are still twisted in his vest like you'll shoot him if he tries to move away.
"Yes, it is."
"No, it's really not. It's a deflection. A really nice deflection, but—"
"I'm in." The words feel like jumping off a cliff. Like defusing a bomb. Like coming home. "I'm in. Whatever that means, whatever that looks like. I'm in."
You study him for a long moment, and he tries not to fidget under the scrutiny. Finally: "You're going to therapy."
"I'm already in therapy."
"You're going to actually talk in therapy instead of just staring at the wall and hoping Dr. Raynor gets bored."
"...fine."
"And you're going to let me have a say in my own safety. No more unilateral decisions about what's 'best' for me."
"Okay."
"And you're going to teach me self-defense. Real self-defense, not just how to throw a punch."
"Deal."
"And—" You sway again, this time more dramatically. "Oh. Okay. Maybe sitting down now."
He guides you back to the bed, hands steady even if nothing else is. You let him fuss, let him adjust pillows and pull up blankets, and he tries not to think about how easily you fit into his hands. How right this feels, even with blood on his shirt and bruises on your skin.
"For the record," you say as he settles back into the chair beside your bed, "I'm still mad."
"I know."
"Like, really mad. There's going to be yelling. Possibly throwing things."
"I can take it."
"And groveling. Lots of groveling. I'm talking flowers, chocolates, the works."
"Noted."
You reach for his hand, lace your fingers through his. "And you're going to tell me you love me."
He freezes. You squeeze his hand.
"Because I know you do. I've known since you reorganized my bookshelf by genre and then pretended you didn't. And I love you too, you absolute disaster of a man, but I need to hear you say it. When I'm not concussed and you're not bleeding. When we're both safe and no one's trying to kill us and we can actually have a real conversation about what this means."
His throat feels tight. "I can do that."
"Good." You close your eyes, exhaustion finally winning. "Now get your gunshot wound treated before you bleed out on my watch. I'm not explaining that to Sam."
"It's not that bad."
"Bucky."
"Fine."
But he doesn't move. Not yet. Instead, he sits there holding your hand, memorizing the way your fingers fit between his, the steady rise and fall of your chest, the fact that you're alive and here and somehow, impossibly, still want him around.
The sun's coming up by the time a nurse finally corners him, threatening sedation if he doesn't let her treat the gunshot wound. You're properly asleep by then, fingers still tangled with his, and he lets the nurse work around your grip rather than let go.
"She's tough," the nurse comments, applying what are probably too many bandages.
"Yeah."
"And stubborn."
"Definitely."
"Good." She pats his shoulder, maternal despite being half his age. "You're going to need it."
He doesn't ask what she means. Doesn't need to. Because you're right—he's a disaster. A work in progress on his best days, a barely controlled catastrophe on his worst. But you looked at all that and decided he was worth fighting for anyway.
The least he can do is try to prove you right.
When you wake up again, he's there. When Dr. Cho kicks him out so you can rest, he goes to therapy and actually talks. When Sam asks if you're together now, he says yes without qualifying it.
And when you're finally released, when you're back in your apartment with its new locks and its carefully cleaned floors, when you knock on his door at midnight because the nightmares found you too—he opens it. No hesitation. No distance.
"Hey, neighbor," you say, and the smile you give him is worth every risk, every fear, every moment of doubt.
"Hey yourself."
You step inside, and he closes the door behind you, and for the first time in longer than he can remember, Bucky Barnes stops running from the possibility of happiness.
Summary: The team knew something was off about you, the one who kept hijacking their comms and saving their asses with pop music and precision. What they don’t know is that you’re Bucky Barnes’ secret wife.
MCU Timeline Placement: Thunderbolts*
Master List: Find my other stuff here!
Warnings: blood and injury detail, combat violence, gunfire, language, references to past trauma, mentions of HYDRA and Red Room conditioning, high-adrenaline tension, implied PTSD, emotionally repressed idiots in love
Word Count: 9.3k
Author’s Note: ok this was unhinged levels of fun to write and i regret nothing. i love the chaos. thank you again to the incredible request!! will i be writing more of this flavor of secret marriage? absolutely. also: i’m working through more requests soon so if i haven’t gotten to yours yet, i promise i haven’t forgotten!! thank you for being here and screaming with me always <3
The mission had gone to shit six minutes ago.
Yelena had called it first, with that vicious kind of sarcasm she reserved for the moments just before blood hit the concrete. “Ah, yes. Reinforcements. Wonderful. So glad we were not warned about that.” Somewhere ahead of her, gunfire cracked in frantic bursts, too far left for the recon drone’s range. The team had split off in the chaos. Ava had gone radio silent, Alexei had wandered too far into the smoke, and John—somewhere in the middle of it all—was bleeding too much for someone who insisted he had it handled.
Bucky moved like a phantom, silent and sharp, pulse pacing steadily with the beat of crisis. Not panic. Not anymore. He’d spent too many years being the last line between chaos and carnage to waste energy on nerves. But this was the kind of mission that reeked. Hasty intel. Unexpected players. A mess of underpaid mercenaries with too much firepower and no clear objective.
Something was wrong. And it wasn’t just the lack of backup.
He ducked behind a half-collapsed column, adjusting the comms in his ear. “Ghost, come in.”
Nothing.
“Belova, status?”
“Busy,” Yelena snapped back, followed by the heavy thud of a body hitting concrete.
“Walker?”
Crackling. Then, “Still upright. Not loving it.”
Not a lot to love. Their extraction point had been pushed back two miles, and the enemies just kept coming. Sloppy formation, uncoordinated, like someone was using them to smoke them out. But why? Sure, they were the newly named “Avengers”, but they weren’t even a proper unit yet. Just a bandage stretched too tight across a bleeding world.
A second burst of gunfire lit up the smoke ahead of him. Bucky pressed forward, adjusting the rifle over his shoulder.
His ribs ached. Something had cracked when he hit the wall earlier, but he was used to working broken. There wasn’t time to slow down. Another figure emerged from the mist and he recognized the clumsy footwork, the huffing breath. Walker. He was limping, red blooming across his arm, jaw clenched tight enough to crack enamel.
“They’re circling back,” he growled. “Either we regroup or we go down swinging.”
“We’re not dying here,” Bucky said simply.
The comms hissed.
Just a stutter of static at first. Barely enough to make anyone flinch. Then a pulse. Faint. Rhythmic. Almost like—
“Oh god,” Bucky breathed, just as the bass dropped.
It was unmistakable. Blown-out, over-compressed pop blaring directly into his left ear. Not military comms. Not interference. Music. High-energy, aggressively hyper-feminine, shamelessly catchy.
“Don’t cha wish your girlfriend was hot like me…”
“Are you—what is that?” Walker barked, slapping at his ear like the sound had crawled inside it.
Yelena’s voice buzzed back into the channel. “Is someone playing Pussycat Dolls on our frequency?”
Bucky didn’t answer. Couldn’t. His blood had turned to static. That song. That voice—not the lyrics, but the one threaded over the top of it, smooth and low and familiar. One he hadn’t heard in weeks and one he wasn’t supposed to be hearing for another few days.
“Miss me?”
Bucky turned and it was like watching the opening beat of a nightmare you hadn’t allowed yourself to dream in years.
The smoke curled around you first—black against the pale concrete, shivering in the aftermath of a concussion blast—and then you stepped through. Leather at your thighs, a familiar half-mask pulled just low enough to show your mouth, batons already swinging. One of the mercenaries clocked you too late. You dropped him with a strike to the temple, pivoted cleanly into another, ducked a swing and hit back twice as hard.
You weren’t supposed to be here.
Not in this fight, not in this city, not in this life.
At least, not anymore.
You had promised. Not with words, never with words, but in the quiet, liminal moments between missions. The soft touches passed like contraband between bodies that only knew how to break things. The way you said enough without ever needing to say it. The way you’d disappeared, with him, years ago, when it became clear the world didn’t need you anymore.
But you’d always needed him.
That much, apparently, hadn’t changed.
“Who the hell—” John started, eyes wide as he tracked your path through the battlefield.
“Shut up,” Bucky snapped. Too loud. Too fast. Too revealing. He kept his eyes on you. Didn’t dare blink.
You moved like you’d never stopped. Like the years hadn’t dulled you. Like civilian life had been a dream someone else lived for you.
Another merc tried to grab you from behind. You shattered his kneecap without looking, then tased him mid-collapse with a baton charged enough to light his vision up for a week. You were grinning now. Not wide. Not cocky. But with the same edge he’d seen years ago when you’d told him you didn’t believe in peace, just long stretches of boredom between moments worth bleeding for.
The team closed in slowly, instinct dragging them toward you without understanding why. Ava reappeared from a wall, phasing in with her hand on her weapon. Alexei lumbered forward, red suit charred at the edges. No one said a word. They all watched as you handled the remaining mercs like it was nothing. Like it was fun.
Then came more boots.
Bucky heard them before anyone else did, just barely, just over the last distorted chorus still crackling through the comms. A dull percussion of heavy soles slamming rhythmically into the concrete, coming fast through the fog of gunpowder and ruin. More reinforcements. He didn’t need eyes on them to know they weren’t freelancers this time. These steps were uniform. Trained. Unrushed.
Whatever this operation had started as, it had just shifted into something colder. Measured. Intentional.
“Movement,” he said, sharp into the mic. “East side. Full formation.”
Ava phased halfway through a concrete wall, scanning. “Tactical gear. Gas masks. No insignia.”
They were boxed in. Walker had maybe one clip left. Ava was half in and half out of phase, red bleeding under her ribs. Yelena’s shoulder was hit. Alexei’s arm was dislocated again and he kept wrenching it back into place like it was a door hinge.
And then there was you.
Standing calmly in the center of the chaos, blood on your knuckles, mask cracked at the jawline. Not tense. Not afraid. Just… assessing. Like you’d seen this play out already.
The first soldier in the oncoming wave raised a weapon.
And you moved.
Not back. Not for cover. Forward.
The stereo signal shifted with you, leaping from Bucky’s comms to the mercenaries’ headsets, hijacking every open frequency on-site. A different song—now louder, sharper, folding itself into the space like a knife into bone. The bass thudded through the pavement, disorienting, impossible to ignore.
“This place’s about to blow—”
The lyric hit just as you sprinted toward the advancing line, coat flaring behind you, batons tucked back into your belt. You didn’t need them now.
Two soldiers opened fire. You dropped low into a slide beneath their aim, boots skimming waterlogged concrete. You came up spinning, driving an elbow into one throat, then swinging around to knee the second across the jaw with enough force to crack his visor.
Bucky couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t move.
You were in the center of it now, alone. Completely surrounded.
And utterly untouchable.
One mercenary tried to grab you in a bearhold from behind. Your head snapped back into his face before he could tighten the grip, cartilage crunching under the blow. You twisted free, used his moment of stunned pain to launch yourself off his chest, flipping backward into a double-leg kick that sent two more sprawling.
They were trying to flank you. Six at once now. You moved too fast to corner, slipped between them like smoke through fingers.
You caught a rifle midair—torn from one man’s grip—then swung it by the barrel, not to shoot but to break. Shattered it across another soldier’s helmet. Sparks flew. He screamed.
You tossed the ruined weapon aside like trash.
Another tried for a taser jab. You caught his wrist in one hand, yanked it forward, and let your forehead crack against his temple with a sickening thunk. He dropped. You rolled over his body, grabbed a sidearm from his hip, twisted the battery cell out of it mid-motion, and used the casing as a projectile. Hurled it into the next man’s throat with such force that he stumbled backward coughing blood.
You weren’t improvising. You were performing. A display in violence so surgical, it felt rehearsed.
There was nothing showy about it. No wasted breath. No excess.
But it was beautiful.
More than one of them hesitated now. The last cluster fell back into each other’s lines, rifles up—but jittering. Off-sync. Unsteady. You were outnumbered five-to-one and you looked like you were winning.
No comms. No backup. No partner on your six, despite Bucky standing right there.
And still, no one could touch you.
Alexei had frozen, one hand still holding his dislocated shoulder. He squinted through the haze. “Is that—are they doing this without a gun?”
“She’s using a speaker and spite,” Yelena said, breathless.
Bucky barely heard them. Every atom in him had locked onto you.
He hadn’t seen you like this in years. Not since the war-torn corners of places no one dared map. Not since missions that left no record. He’d watched you walk away from this life—bloody, ragged, swearing you were done with men who handed out orders and didn’t come home.
But here you were.
“This place's about to blow—oh oh oh—”
The beat peaked again. You moved with it.
Bucky didn’t realize until later, until the playback logs came through, that you’d used the signal bounce from the comm hijack to trigger a proximity ping in one of the mercenaries’ own mines. Subtle. Elegant. Just a single pressure charge set beneath the concrete underpass.
You’d timed it to the music.
The explosions hit not with a flash, but a boom—a deep, guttural bass that ripped through the center of the formation. It threw bodies. Concrete cracked. Rebar snapped like bones. The wave of force didn’t kill anyone outright—it was too clean for that. But it sent the force scattering, screaming, radios buzzing with confused shouts in languages the translation software couldn’t keep up with.
You walked through the smoke, now. No urgency.
One of the last men standing raised a trembling pistol.
You were on him in a breath—disarmed him with a spin, yanked the weapon apart in two brutal motions, and slammed the butt of the magazine into his vest until he collapsed, gasping, eyes wide with disbelief.
Bucky took a step forward. And then another. He didn’t know he was moving until the smoke curled at his boots.
Silence followed like a held breath.
When the last one fell, your music still bumping faintly over the comms, you finally looked at Bucky.
“Hi, baby.”
It wasn’t breathless. It wasn’t mocking. Just a quiet, dangerous kind of intimacy.
His heart felt like it stopped.
You moved to him casually, eyes raking over the bruise at his temple, the smear of blood under his collar. You tilted your head, inspecting him like he was a car you’d loaned out and found parked crooked in the wrong neighborhood.
The mask muffled your voice slightly, but not enough to hide the dryness in your tone. “Now that was a proper encore.”
The comms crackled again, faint and dazed.
“…Okay,” Walker muttered. “What the fuck just happened.”
No answer. Not from anyone.
Bucky approached you like someone walking through a minefield he already knew was active. Your eyes met his, slow and deliberate, as you reached up and peeled the broken edge of your mask back enough to speak.
“You look like shit,” you said simply.
“You blew up a fucking parking garage.”
“I nudged the pressure plate,” you corrected. “The garage blew itself up. Poor structural planning.”
Yelena finally spoke, somewhere off to the right. “Who are you?”
You didn’t look at her. Just exhaled through your nose like the question barely warranted a pause. “Old friend,” you said simply. “Fewer ethics, better taste in music.”
It hung there, ambiguous enough to pass but barbed enough that it didn’t invite further questions. You knew exactly how to deflect. How to disappear even while standing in plain sight.
You turned back to Bucky. The tilt of your head, the shift of your voice—both softened, only fractionally, but enough that he would feel it in his ribs. That awful, aching familiarity.
“You weren’t going to tell me about this op,” you said flatly, voice low, just for him.
“You're not supposed to be tracking me.”
You hummed. “And yet.” You tapped a gloved finger to his chest. Right above the hidden seam of his tac vest. He knew there was a tracker there. Or, he would now.
Behind you, the others were beginning to recover, weapons slack in their hands, confusion settling in like dust.
“Again, who is that?” Ava asked, still half in phase, her eyes narrowed.
“Nobody,” Bucky said quickly.
You turned to him again, one brow lifted.
He didn’t flinch.
The silence pressed in again. You could hear Walker muttering something—something about vigilantes, unregistered allies, probably some offhand comment about being underpaid—but it didn’t matter. Not right now.
You leaned in close enough for only Bucky to hear. “I don’t care who you work for now,” you murmured. “But if you’re going to keep playing hero, I’m not going to sit at home hoping you come back with all your pieces. You trained me better than that.”
“I didn’t train you to break into comms systems mid-op and hijack the sound system with—what was that?”
“Don’t Cha.” You smiled faintly. “It slaps.”
He closed his eyes for half a second. Breathed deep. Then opened them again. “You can’t do this.”
“Sure I can. I’m not a part of your team. I don’t need clearance. I just need one good signal bounce and an encrypted network to patch into.”
“And a speaker,” he added, dry.
You shrugged. “I improvise.”
Another pause.
“I’m not here to start saving the world again,” you said. “But I will show up when you’re two seconds from bleeding out in a parking garage in Bratislava because your team has shit intel and someone decided not to bring extra clips.”
He didn’t argue.
You patted his cheek briefly. Nothing overt, just enough to make the breath catch in his throat.
Then you turned, vanishing into the smoke just as casually as you’d arrived, music still pulsing faintly behind you.
Yelena said what everyone was thinking.
“What the fuck just happened?”
No one had an answer.
Bucky didn’t offer one either.
He just stood there, aching in every limb, and wondered how many more of his missions were going to end with Pussycat Dolls blaring through government-issued earpieces—and how many more trackers he was going to have to tear out of his suit.
The debrief had ended thirty minutes ago.
No one had left.
Yelena sat cross-legged in one of the overstuffed chairs, a protein bar crumpled in her palm like she’d forgotten she was holding it. Her blonde hair was scraped back in a half-twisted bun that had begun to unravel midway through the meeting, and her expression had only grown more pointed with every breath Bucky refused to waste explaining you.
Across from her, Walker was pacing—slow, agitated, like a caged animal that hadn’t quite figured out what corner to piss in yet. He’d ditched the tac vest but kept the sleeves rolled, flexing a bruised bicep every time he turned. Alexei had already snagged half of the post-mission snacks from the shared kitchenette and was now loudly crunching on something suspiciously orange. Ava sat against the far wall next to Bob, legs crossed at the ankle, arms folded, as silent and sharp as a scalpel.
Bucky sat alone near the far end of the table, arms folded loosely across his chest, gaze fixed on the blacked-out screen of a wall monitor.
“So,” Yelena said, picking at the wrapper. “Are you going to tell us who they were, or do I have to keep guessing?”
Bucky didn’t move.
Alexei pointed a carrot stick in his direction. “They knew you. Very well. This is not up for debate. They called you ‘baby.’” A pause. “Is that normal? Do coworkers in America do that now?”
“She hijacked our comms with bubblegum pop and flipped a full tactical team without breaking a sweat,” Ava said quietly. “I’d like to know who’s training with that kind of precision and not wearing a uniform.”
“She’s not on any registry,” Yelena added. “I checked. No files. No background. No facial ID. She doesn’t exist.”
“She’s not a threat,” Bucky said. Flat. Final. The tone of someone who’d been interrogated before and wasn’t interested in playing along.
“No. You don’t get to do that,” Yelena said, sliding off the table with a thud. “You don’t get to stand there all quiet and broody after someone cartwheeled through an active war zone, made our entire unit look like unpaid interns, and then blew up a parking garage with what I’m pretty sure was a Bluetooth speaker.”
Walker let out a bark of laughter and didn’t bother hiding it. “Thank you. Finally. I thought I’d imagined that.”
“You did not,” Ava said flatly, still watching the skyline. “I checked the audio logs. She used a frequency bounce to route music through nine of their channels simultaneously. Bounced it again to mask her own comm signature. She was using earpieces as echo chambers.”
“That’s not even real,” Walker scoffed. “That’s comic book shit.”
“So are we,” Yelena shot back.
Bucky rubbed his jaw, said nothing.
Bob looked up from where he’d been twiddling with the strap of his watch in the corner of the room. “I liked the song.”
Four heads turned toward him.
He blinked slowly. “I listened to the audio logs too. It was catchy.”
Alexei made a noise like he was preparing to argue with the furniture itself. “She took out twenty-five men, minimum. With her hands. And rhythm. I am sorry, but this is not someone who just wandered in from the street. This is not some random playlist enthusiast. You know her.”
Bucky didn’t flinch. “Yeah.”
That answer hung there, not quite satisfying.
Yelena stepped closer, arms folded, chin tilted like she was examining a lie for cracks. “Okay. So who is she. What’s her name.”
“I don’t know if she’s using one right now,” Bucky lied easily. “We worked together a long time ago. That’s all.”
Walker barked out another laugh. “Bullshit.”
“We ran ops in a couple regions,” Bucky said. “Mostly when things got too quiet for comfort. Off-books. Years ago. She walked away before everything really came apart.”
“She tracked you across a continent,” Yelena said.
He met her eyes. “She likes to be thorough.”
“Was she CIA?” Ava asked. “Because I’ve seen their psychological profiles and that was not the average ex-operative response to stress.”
Bucky shook his head. “No. Not Langley.”
“HYDRA?” Walker said too quickly.
“Jesus,” Yelena muttered.
“She moved like someone from a program,” Ava said, voice quiet but deliberate. “Someone conditioned. That kind of precision doesn’t come from basic black-ops.”
“She trained under someone worse than HYDRA,” Bucky said.
And just like that, the room shifted. The quiet got heavier. Bob looked away. Alexei stopped fidgeting. Ava stilled completely.
Yelena narrowed her eyes. “Red Room?”
“I didn’t ask,” Bucky said. “Didn’t need to.”
“But she knew you.” Ava again, calm, focused. “That kind of familiarity doesn’t just show up after a few jobs.”
Bucky looked up at her. “I didn’t say it was just a few.”
“You said she walked away.”
He paused.
“She did.”
Silence again.
Walker shifted, elbow on the back of his chair. “Well, wherever she walked to, she kept your damn tracking frequency. I still can’t get the ringing out of my left ear.”
Bucky didn’t look at him. “You’re welcome, by the way. For being alive.”
“Sure,” Walker said dryly. “Thanks to your mystery friend with a war crime mixtape.”
“And now she’s… what? A rogue asset?” Ava asked, tilting her head. “A merc? A vigilante with a playlist?”
“She’s not on anyone’s leash,” Bucky said simply.
“Except yours,” Walker muttered.
Bucky’s glare snapped to him. “She doesn’t answer to anyone. Not to me. Not to you.”
Alexei muttered something in Russian under his breath that sounded vaguely admiring and possibly inappropriate.
Bob finally spoke again, more alert this time. “She’s not joining us, is she?”
“No,” Bucky said.
He said it fast.
A beat.
“I’m sorry, why not,” Alexei said, throwing both hands into the air. “We have room! We have so much room! She could have the bunk above mine, I would even switch.”
“She doesn’t want to be on a team,” Bucky said. “She’s not the type.”
“You mean she’s not the type to follow orders,” Yelena said, eyes narrowing again.
“No,” he said slowly. “I mean she doesn’t give a shit about headlines, or missions, or doing this the right way. She shows up because she wants to. That’s it.”
“And you’re okay with that?” Ava asked. “Someone that volatile just showing up whenever she decides?”
“She’s not volatile,” Bucky said, the words a little sharper than intended.
Yelena caught it. Instantly.
She stepped forward, crossing into his space—not aggressive, but direct. Like someone circling a bruise. “You trust her.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“No,” she said, “but you didn’t have to.”
Bucky didn’t speak.
“She’s not just an old op,” Yelena said, eyes still locked on his. “That wasn’t nostalgia out there. That was instinct. You moved like someone watching something yours walk into fire.”
Ava glanced between them. “She did save your life.”
“She saved all of us,” Bucky threw back.
“Okay, but why doesn’t she have a file,” Walker cut in. “Why doesn’t anyone know about her? If she’s that good, someone would’ve picked her up.”
“She’s good at disappearing,” Bucky said.
“And you just let her go?” Walker said. “After she pulls a fucking Mission: Impossible and struts off into the fog like a Bond girl?”
“I don’t let her do anything,” Bucky said. “She’s not mine to handle.”
Yelena leaned back in her chair. The protein bar wrapper crinkled in her palm.
“She’s not going to show up again, is she?”
Bucky shrugged. “Depends on whether I do something stupid again.”
He didn’t mention that you’d texted him two hours ago asking if he wanted to stop for groceries on his way back. He didn’t mention that the front porch light would be on tonight. That you’d probably be curled on the couch in socks and one of his old shirts, pretending you hadn’t crossed any borders this week.
They didn’t need to know that.
He rose from the table and grabbed his jacket off the back of the chair. The room watched him like he was walking out of an interrogation and back into something no one else could follow.
“Tell Val I’ll finish the debrief report tomorrow,” he said.
Yelena tilted her head. “And where are you going?”
Bucky paused in the doorway.
He didn’t look back.
“Home,” he said.
And then he was gone.
The porch light was on.
Not a floodlight, not a security cam. Just the soft golden bulb above the narrow step that flickered twice when the wind caught it wrong. One of the screws had loosened a few months back during a storm. Bucky had said he’d fix it. You’d said it didn’t bother you. It still hadn’t been fixed.
His boots were scuffed and his shoulder ached and there was probably still smoke in his hair, but he stood on the welcome mat for a second longer than necessary anyway, hand resting on the doorframe like he needed to feel something solid.
Then he unlocked it. Quiet. Familiar. Two clicks, one turn.
Inside smelled like clean laundry and old books and that lemongrass balm you always used for burns.
The record player was humming in the background, stylus long since run dry. You must’ve forgotten to turn it off again. He stepped into the living room and shrugged off his jacket, moving through the space like muscle memory. His eyes caught on the half-finished mug on the end table, a folded blanket on the couch, the sleeves of one of his shirts pushed up over your forearms where you were curled up sideways, knees tucked, reading a book with your bare feet propped against the armrest.
You didn’t look up. Just turned a page.
“I thought you’d be home earlier,” you said softly.
“Got cornered by the team.”
Your voice was light, almost teasing. “They want answers?”
“They want blood.”
You snorted and finally glanced over the edge of the book. “Yelena first?”
“Obviously.”
“Did she throw anything?”
“Just looks.”
You hummed and set the book aside, leaning forward to make room as he collapsed onto the couch beside you. He sat like a man whose bones hadn’t stopped vibrating. You shifted, swung your legs over his lap, and rested one arm lazily across his chest like it had always belonged there.
He didn’t speak. Just closed his eyes for a moment, the side of his head tilted toward yours.
You let the silence stretch. He needed that.
Then—
“Bob said he liked the song.”
You grinned against his shoulder. “He’s got taste.”
“He said it was catchy.”
“He’s not wrong.”
“Again, you blew up a parking garage.”
“I was subtle.”
“You were wearing a speaker rig stitched into your coat.”
“I didn’t say I was quiet.”
He huffed, a small thing. Almost a laugh.
You leaned your head back against the cushion and studied the ceiling. “They’ll figure it out eventually.”
He didn’t ask what.
You didn’t clarify.
“They’ll dig,” you continued, “because that’s what they do. Not because they don’t trust you. But because they can’t afford not to. You don’t keep ghosts around without asking where they sleep at night.”
“They’re not stupid.”
“No,” you said. “Just loyal.”
He rubbed a thumb along the inside of your wrist. You’d skinned it, just barely, probably during that slide beneath the gunfire.
“They think we’re ex-coworkers,” he said after a beat.
“Mm. That won’t last.”
“I know.”
You shifted to look at him, gaze steady. “You want me to stay gone next time?”
“No.”
It came out faster than he meant it to. And quieter.
You didn’t say anything.
His fingers ghosted across the edge of your thigh. “I just—this thing with the team. It’s still new. Messy. They’re watching me like I might snap. Or disappear.”
“You’ve earned that,” you said, not unkindly.
He nodded.
“They trust you more than they think,” you added after a moment. “Even Walker.”
“Walker thinks I’m one fight away from dragging a metal arm through a convenience store and snapping someone in half over a cereal shelf.”
You smiled. “You did that once.”
“I was sleep-deprived and the guy had it coming.”
“I’m just saying,” you murmured. “They’re not wrong to wonder.”
He let the silence settle again, the weight of your legs grounding him where he sat. Then he glanced over at you. “And you?”
You raised a brow. “Do I think you’re going to snap and kill the team in a cereal aisle?”
“Do you think you’re going to keep crashing my missions with bubblegum pop and a body count?”
You smiled, sharp and warm at once. “Only if you keep making it interesting.”
He stared at you for a moment. Then he reached out, brushed his fingers under your jaw—light, thoughtful, like he was confirming you were still here.
“I meant what I said,” you added, quiet now. “I wasn’t there to play hero. I’m not looking for redemption. Or recognition. That world chewed me up and spat me out long before I met you. I’m not going back.”
“I know.”
“But I’ll always come back. For you.”
His throat tightened.
You felt the shift before he said anything. The way his fingers stilled just under your jaw, how his gaze dropped for the barest second, like whatever he was about to admit weighed more than it should have.
“They’re going to find out,” he said finally. Voice low. Steady, but only just. “Not just who you are. What we are.”
You didn’t look away. “You sound like you’re bracing for it.”
“I am.” He leaned back slightly, enough to study your face. “I’ve kept a lot of things buried over the years. Some of it for good reason. Some of it because I didn’t know how to tell anyone without it sounding like a confession. But this—us—it’s not something I want in the crosshairs.”
You tilted your head. “You think they’ll aim at it?”
“I think people don’t like what they can’t label. And right now, you’re an anomaly with a body count, a comms breach, and no file. Add in a secret marriage to someone like me, and that’s a storm waiting to happen.”
You were quiet for a moment. Then: “You really didn’t tell them anything?”
“No.”
“Not even that we live together?”
“No.”
You nodded. Not in judgment. Just understanding.
“You scared they’ll treat me like a threat?”
He hesitated. “No. I’m scared they’ll treat us like one. Like I’ve been compromised. Like I’m… hiding something dangerous.”
“You are,” you said, with a small, lopsided smile. “But that’s never stopped you before.”
He didn’t smile back. Just ran a hand down his face, thumb braced at his temple. “Yelena’s already circling. Ava’s not far behind. Walker’s an idiot, but even he knows something’s off. And Alexei—Christ, I think he’s trying to adopt you.”
“I could do worse,” you deadpanned.
“He asked if you wanted the bunk above his. Said he’d move.”
You laughed, soft and sharp. “God, he’s going to be crushed when he finds out I’m not single.”
Bucky’s jaw tightened. “That’s not funny.”
You reached for his hand, interlaced your fingers with his. His skin was calloused, palms scarred, familiar in ways your body had memorized years ago.
“James,” you said, and your voice gentled, “I don’t care if they like me. Or believe in this. Or approve. I don’t need them to. I didn’t marry them. I married you.”
His eyes flicked to yours, something fierce and unspoken just behind them.
“You’re not a risk I regret,” you added. “And if they want to dig, let them dig. We’ve survived worse than a nosy debrief room.”
He leaned forward again, this time slower, and rested his forehead against yours. The press of skin, the shared breath, the quiet tension wound tight between your ribs—none of it felt like surrender. Just something harder to name.
He spoke quietly. “If this gets out, they’ll question my judgment.”
“Let them.”
“They’ll dig into your past.”
“Let them.”
“They’ll—” He cut himself off, exhaled. “They’ll try to separate us.”
You tilted your chin. “They can’t.”
It wasn’t a challenge. It was a fact. Solid. Unmoving.
Bucky didn’t answer, but you felt the way his breath dragged out through his nose, how his grip on your hand shifted—fingers tightening, not like fear, but habit. Like holding onto you was muscle memory. Like letting go wasn’t an option he entertained anymore.
You reached up with your free hand and pushed your fingers into his hair, slow and loose at the nape where it was just starting to curl from the heat. It was damp. He hadn’t showered yet. He hadn’t really come home yet. Just crossed the threshold.
“Go wash off the garage dust,” you said. “You smell like diesel and nerves.”
“Thought you liked how I smelled.”
“I do,” you murmured. “But I like it better when it’s under cedar soap and not post-combat sweat.”
He stayed where he was for another beat, forehead still resting against yours. Then he pulled back enough to look at you, just long enough for his gaze to drop to your mouth. He didn’t kiss you. Just studied you the way he always did when you told him the truth—like he was adding it to some invisible tally, a list only he kept track of.
Then he rose without a word.
You watched him walk down the hallway, unzipping the tactical vest as he went, shoulder muscles moving beneath the black fabric like tension still hadn’t learned how to let go. The bathroom door clicked open. You heard the water pressure shift in the pipes before the sound of the shower started.
You waited thirty seconds. Then you stood, peeled his shirt off your frame, and followed.
It had been nearly five months since Bratislava.
Since the parking garage. Since the Pussycat Dolls. Since you’d lit up half a mercenary task force with a smirk and a frequency bounce. Since you’d vanished again into the smoke like a goddamn myth, only to be curled up on the couch that next night asking if he wanted to split a sandwich or order out after the two of you spent far too long in the shower.
In that time, the team had gotten better. Not good, no one in that unit would ever be clean enough to call themselves that, but sharper. More in sync. Intel got vetted. Missions ran smoother. Yelena had even stopped threatening to stab Walker more than once per week.
But the bruises still came. The blood still dried in the seams of their suits. And when shit did go sideways, which it inevitably did, it was always in ways that no one could predict.
The second time you showed up, Bucky had barely made it through the post-mission patch-up before Yelena cornered him outside medical with her arms crossed and murder in her eyes.
“Was that Britney Spears?”
He didn’t answer.
She didn’t need him to. Ava had already ID’d the audio footprint as a hacked signal ping bounced from a cell tower two miles outside the safe zone. Alexei had hummed the song for three days afterward. Walker sulked about it until Bob offered him a playlist of his own.
Three weeks after that, you crashed an op in the Balkans with the entirety of Beyoncé’s Renaissance album queued up in reverse order. You landed halfway through “Pure/Honey,” took down thirteen hostiles, winked at the drone cam, and disappeared before the satellite feed could reorient.
By the time mission four hit, some remote hellhole near the Georgian border with shit reception and worse exits, the team was already halfway joking about which track you’d use next.
It was Kesha again. Naturally.
You’d popped out of a burning APC with "TiK ToK" already mid-chorus and a grin like you’d been waiting for someone to hit the big red button. That time, you didn't leave right away. You passed Bucky a protein bar before the team got on the extraction chopper, kissed his temple, and told Alexei he had a nice ass. He hadn't shut up since.
They were still digging, of course. Yelena and Ava, mostly. Alexei kept making increasingly unhinged guesses about your background—sometimes Russian ballet, sometimes MI6, sometimes something about Vatican ninjas that no one had the heart to correct. Bob just watched. Always quiet. Always listening. And Walker…
Walker had developed a twitch.
He’d started referring to you—loudly, bitterly—as “Bucky’s little bat-signal,” like if he said it enough times it’d turn into a punchline and not an ache. It never landed. Not really.
No one could prove anything. Not about your identity. Not about your methods. You moved too fast. You left nothing behind.
And Bucky never said much.
He never needed to.
But they were all watching. Closer. Louder. Testing the tension in every mission like they were waiting for it to snap.
Which is why, when everything finally went to hell, no one was surprised when Yelena snapped first.
The op was supposed to be simple. In and out. A weapons drop moving across eastern borders, underground tech funneled through an abandoned train yard. Bucky had checked the coordinates himself. The team had split into pairs. Ava and Walker on overwatch. Alexei by the perimeter with a surveillance drone. Yelena at Bucky’s six, teeth gritted, gun loaded.
It wasn’t an ambush.
It was an execution.
There had been too many of them, real mercenaries this time. Not freelancers. Not idiots. Not chaos agents looking for a payout. These ones moved together. Synchronized. Coordinated. Ava had gone down first, wounded. Not out, but down. Phasing between pain. Walker had followed, clipped hard in the leg, trying to cover her.
Alexei was pinned.
And Bucky was breathing too hard, right arm shattered at the elbow, the sound of blood slapping metal every time he moved.
Yelena was cursing. Loud and vicious. Ducking behind rusted train cars as bullets slammed through metal and concrete like the world had narrowed to pure impact.
“Fuck,” she spat, reloading. “We are going to die in a parking lot for stolen tech and Valentina’s shitty paycheck—”
Bucky’s teeth were red. His side was worse.
He grunted, low. “We’ve been through worse.”
“Speak for yourself,” she hissed. “This is bad. This is the bad kind. Unless your little friend plans to show up again with backup dancers and a boom box, we’re dead.”
Bucky would have replied—maybe something bitter, something deflective—but his jaw locked before he could open his mouth. His vision was graying at the edges, muscles refusing to follow orders. His right arm was entirely dead weight now, slung awkwardly against his chest, blood still slick at the wrist. He couldn’t tell if the warmth in his boots was from a burst vein or just the heat of the rail yard’s scorched concrete.
And you weren’t here.
That was the thought that hit him hardest. Not the pain, not the bodies, not the brutal math of angles and ammunition. You weren’t here.
You’d always been here before.
Not early. Not announced. But you showed up. On the edge of disaster, somewhere between the breaking point and the fallout, wrapped in leather and snatched frequencies and songs that shouldn’t have made sense on a battlefield but always did when it was you. And he never called you, never asked. You just came.
Because you always found him.
Because you tracked him.
Because you always knew.
He’d grown used to it without realizing. The hum of music bleeding in when the comms got too quiet. The shape of you moving through smoke like it wasn’t a threat but a threshold. He’d never said it aloud, but it had comforted him. Knowing you were out there, watching, waiting. Knowing he couldn’t disappear without you noticing.
But this time?
This was the worst it had been in months.
And still… nothing.
A part of him, the part that hadn’t already fractured under the pressure, felt it like abandonment. A dull edge of fear pressed hard to his sternum. Not because he doubted you, but because it meant something was wrong. Maybe the tracker hadn’t worked. Maybe the jet wasn’t prepped. Maybe you were late. Maybe you were hurt.
Before Bucky could fully spiral into his own thoughts, a sound split the air.
A low, dull rumble that climbed too fast, too smooth, to be more gunfire.
His head snapped toward the east quadrant of the yard, vision still smeared at the edges from blood loss. The others heard it next—Yelena ducked lower, muttering another string of obscenities. Walker flinched, dragging Ava back behind a stack of rusted shipping containers, weapon raised. Alexei braced one arm against a splintered wall of aluminum and groaned something about incoming air support.
“Jet,” Ava gritted out, barely upright. “No clearance on the feed. That’s not ours.”
Bucky blinked once. Hard.
The shape sliced low across the clouds. A short-range VTOL, clearly military-grade, but gutted and rebuilt. Fast. Loud.
Yours.
And then the music hit.
“Let’s go, girls.”
“Is that—” Walker squinted, staggering.
“I swear to God,” Yelena muttered, slapping another magazine into place. “If that hatch opens and she’s wearing denim, I’m going to cry.”
The jet didn’t touch down gently. It landed loud and hot, braking hard against concrete and kicking up a storm of soot that coated every blown-out car and corpse in a hundred-foot radius. The engines hadn’t even cooled before the rear hatch cracked open with a hiss and the speakers ratcheted louder.
“Man, I feel like a woman…”
And there you stood.
Framed by smoke and floodlights, one hand braced on the hydraulic frame, the other already holding a med bag like you’d jumped in from a dream with combat boots and a temper.
No weapons. No fanfare. Just get in the fucking jet energy radiating off your entire body.
“Everyone in,” you barked. “Now.”
Walker didn’t wait. He hauled Ava toward the ramp with one arm slung around her waist. She was still phasing in and out, blood coating her knuckles, the blur of her shoulder wound sparking faint with tech static.
Alexei limped next, muttering something about Canadian pop singers and spinal trauma. Bucky barely registered it. He couldn’t feel his arm. Could barely hear the pounding in his ears over the scream of the engines and the bassline.
You moved before he could, stepping off the ramp and into the smoke, boots crunching across grit and glass as you crossed the yard at a dead sprint.
“Jesus,” you snapped as you reached him, one hand already going to the blood-soaked hem of his jacket. “What the fuck, James.”
He didn’t answer. Couldn’t. You pressed one palm to his side, felt the heat radiating off his ribs, and looped your other arm under him to carry him to the jet.
“I couldn’t get the signal,” you said, voice tight. “The tracker was acting up.”
He hissed through his teeth as you shifted his weight, setting him down on one of the jet seats. “Where was it this time?”
You didn’t blink. “The right boot. Back corner. You never put your shoes back in the closet, so I figured I’d stick one there.”
Yelena turned her head so sharply it was audible. “What?”
You ignored her.
Bucky narrowed his eyes, breath still ragged. “I hadn’t even worn those boots in a week.”
“Yeah,” you said, voice edged and sharp, as you tugged off his jacket, “and you left them by the dryer again, James, so guess what? That’s where I put it. Along with three aspirin packets, a ten-dollar bill, and the spare keys you keep forgetting to bring with you.”
Yelena’s eyes went wide. “Wait. Wait, what?”
“Not now,” you snapped. “Stitches first, questions later.”
Yelena froze.
She had just stepped into the bay behind Alexei, one arm looped around a support pole, blood streaked down her left cheek. Her head turned slowly—very slowly—back toward the now closing loading ramp, where you were currently pressing gauze to Bucky’s side and muttering something about his inability to buy new med kits even though you were the one who’d asked for them on the last Target run.
“Hold on. Spare keys,” Yelena repeated, voice pitching up like a red flag had just gone up in her brain and she was sprinting to catch it.
You didn’t look up.
Neither did Bucky.
There was a beat—just one—but Bucky felt it ripple through the cabin like a hairline fracture under pressure. Yelena didn’t blink. Ava, still bleeding and silent, lifted her head just an inch off the headrest. Walker muttered something low under his breath, too quiet to catch. Alexei stilled completely.
You were still working.
You’d stripped back the ruined plate of his tac vest, fingers moving fast over the gauze tape. Your hands weren’t shaking, but they weren’t calm either—tight at the knuckles, decisive in that way they always were when someone you cared about had bled more than they should have.
Bucky sucked in a breath. It rattled at the end.
He could feel it happening. The shift. The attention tilting, zeroing in. It was like watching a tripwire get brushed in real time.
“Did you just say Target run?” Yelena’s voice cracked straight through the tension. “Like the store?”
You didn’t respond.
Walker made a strangled sound. “Hold on. You’re telling me this—this frequency-hacking psycho just casually shops for med kits in her downtime for you?”
“I didn’t say I shopped,” you muttered. “I said I asked. He’s the one who keeps forgetting the list.”
“I got the shampoo,” Bucky said through his teeth.
“You got the wrong shampoo.”
“It had the same label!”
“It was 3-in-1.”
“That’s efficient—”
“It’s disgusting, James.”
And just like that, the whole jet tilted again—only this time it wasn’t from blood loss or the pitch of the wind. It was the silence. The stunned, dawning silence that came from realizing something was very, very off.
Ava blinked. “James?”
Yelena’s mouth opened.
Then: “No, no. You don’t get to just drop a spare key confession mid-evac and not explain. What the fuck are you two on about?”
“Explain what?” Bucky barked, more out of pain than defensiveness, but it landed anyway.
Alexei staggered up from his seat, bleeding from the shoulder and grinning like he’d just watched his favorite soap opera hit a mid-season twist. “You two live together, yes?”
“No,” you said, at the same time Bucky said, “Yes.”
Yelena stopped cold. “What.”
“Fine. She has a drawer,” Bucky muttered, wincing as you pressed harder with the gauze.
“You have a drawer?” Yelena repeated, voice rising. “Do you have a shared grocery list too? Matching towels?”
“Technically,” you said, “we share an Amazon account, but only because I hate ads—”
“You share an address?”
You didn’t answer.
Walker limped past, dragging himself into the seat across the aisle. “I swear to God, if this turns into some Mr. and Mrs. Smith bullshit, I’m out.”
Bucky exhaled sharply through his nose. “It’s not like that.”
“Then what is it like,” Yelena snapped. “Because the last I checked, secret girlfriends don’t get comm access and personal extraction aircraft with customized playlists!”
“She’s not—” Bucky started, then stopped.
You paused, fingers frozen just inside his tac vest as you reached for the dressing pack in his inner lining. “James.”
His jaw flexed. “She’s not some secret girlfriend.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Yelena said, eyes wide now, practically vibrating with the sudden thrill of someone else’s exposed personal business. “Are you saying she’s not a girlfriend because she’s a roommate with benefits, or because she’s a literal government ghost you, what? Accidentally fell into bed with during an overseas op and neglected to tell us for five fucking months—”
“She’s my wife.”
The words snapped out like a misfired round—loud, brutal, final.
The silence that followed was thick enough to choke on.
You straightened slowly, the antiseptic wipe still in your hand, now hovering somewhere between the edge of Bucky’s ribs and the cratered hole in his bloodstained shirt.
No one moved.
No one spoke.
Then Walker, voice hoarse and stunned: “I’m sorry. Wife?”
Ava, barely conscious, cracked one eye open. “What?”
Alexei groaned from the corner. “I knew it. I said they were either married or psychic. Maybe both.”
“Wait. Wait, no,” Walker held up a hand, bleeding. “You’re married? Like—married married? To her?”
You finally looked up. “Do you have another her in mind?”
Bucky winced. “Now’s not the time—”
“No, no, I think it is exactly the time,” Yelena said, stepping forward, pointing between the two of you. “Because we’ve all been getting tossed around like ragdolls for months while you two have been playing he’s mine, she’s chaos behind the scenes.”
You rose slowly, blood on your palms, face shadowed by the hatch lighting.
“We weren’t hiding it,” you said simply.
Yelena threw both arms in the air. “You were absolutely hiding it!”
“We were keeping it quiet,” you corrected. “There’s a difference.”
Walker sat down hard on the floor. “I’m gonna pass out.”
Ava, leaning against the wall, finally let out a low breath that might have been a laugh. “That explains so much.”
“I—what the fuck?” Walker’s mouth opened and closed twice. “Like with rings and vows and tax brackets?”
“Jesus Christ,” you muttered. “It was a courthouse in Budapest. No photographer. No playlist. Not even a Pinterest board.”
Alexei, who had been silently mouthing tax brackets, perked up. “How long?”
“None of your business,” Bucky said immediately.
“Four years,” you said, at the exact same time.
Yelena made a noise like a cat being punched.
“Four years?” she barked. “You’ve been married for four years and not one of us knew? Not even a hint? Not even a bad fake name on your emergency contact form?”
“Technically, it’s under her alias,” Bucky said, wincing as you pressed gauze to his side with more force than strictly necessary.
“Her alias,” Ava echoed from the back, eyebrows barely raised but eyes locked on you. “That’s comforting.”
Yelena dragged her hands down her face. “I need to sit down.”
“You’re already sitting down,” Walker said numbly. “We’re all sitting down. In hell.”
Alexei was shaking his head slowly, staring at you like you’d sprouted horns. “I can’t believe we have been flying into death zones with Captain Popsicle and his mystery combat Barbie and the two of you have been married this whole time?”
“Don’t call her that,” Bucky snapped.
“I meant it with admiration!”
“She’s a human being,” Ava said flatly.
“And his wife,” Yelena added, throwing her hands up again. “Which apparently gives her license to break every rule of engagement we’ve ever signed.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” you bit out, finally stepping away from Bucky just long enough to snap a fresh syringe out of the case and toss it to Ava. “Would you have preferred I not show up with an extraction vehicle and leave you all dying in a pile of your own egos?”
“You’re not even cleared!” Walker said, still stuck somewhere between disbelief and cardiac arrest. “You don’t have files. You don’t have a record. You married a former Hydra asset with no fucking paper trail—”
“John,” Bucky said, and his voice didn’t rise, didn’t shout. But the threat in it stopped everything.
Dead.
Walker’s mouth clamped shut.
You turned your back and crouched again, cracking open a package of suture strips with steady, sharp fingers. He didn’t look at you, but he didn’t move away either.
“You married him,” Yelena said slowly, like she was putting the last piece into a conspiracy board. “And you didn’t tell anyone.”
“Correct,” you said, without looking up.
“Why?”
You paused. For the first time since stepping onto the jet, you were still.
Then, quieter: “Because it was ours.”
Yelena blinked.
Walker slumped sideways, muttering something that sounded like Jesus Christ, I’m too concussed for this.
Ava didn’t say anything. She just studied you like she was adding this new truth to a map no one else could read yet.
And no one, not one of them, could argue with that.
No one said anything for a long time.
The jet rumbled beneath them, steady now. Altitude rising. Stabilizers evening out. The air had gone colder, thinner. Bucky could feel it in his lungs. How the heat of the rail yard had been replaced by that sterile chill of recycled pressurized air and drying blood.
He sat slumped against the inner wall of the aircraft, the pain at his side dulled but ever-present, a pulse of heat beneath the bandages. The lights overhead buzzed faintly. Across from him, Walker had gone quiet. Not passed out, just silent. That silence that came when you didn’t know how to re-enter a world that had just rearranged itself without warning.
Yelena didn’t have that problem.
“Where are the rings?”
You didn’t even blink. Just kept pressing the edge of a suture strip flat against Bucky’s ribs, calm as ever. “We don’t wear them on missions.”
“No, I mean—where are they. What are they. Are they like, hidden daggers? Laser-tracking nanotech? Poison darts? Do they explode?”
“We got tungsten bands off a street vendor in Pest,” you said, flicking the end of the strip down with surgical precision. “Ten bucks each. Mine’s probably under the couch.”
Yelena stared. “You’re telling me you got married with street metal and hid it like it was a war crime?”
You finally looked up. “We didn’t hide it. We protected it. There’s a difference.”
“Yeah,” Yelena muttered, flopping back against the padded bulkhead, “try that line at our next psych eval.”
Alexei perked up slightly. “Did you write vows?”
“Alexei—”
“No, I’m curious! Was it romantic? Did she threaten him? Did he cry?”
You turned to Bucky then, not grinning, not smirking—just steady. “Did you?”
He didn’t answer right away.
He remembered the cold marble floor of the consulate. The cheap pen. The tension in your hand when you signed. The way you didn’t smile, not once, but your shoulders had dropped like something finally let go. He remembered how you’d kissed him afterward, not like a new beginning but like something that had already been burned into your bones and you were just honoring the facts of it now.
He hadn't cried.
But he remembered feeling something break open inside his chest that hadn’t fully closed since.
“No,” he said quietly. “You did.”
That earned a scoff from Walker, who still looked half-sick. “You people are insane.”
“And you’re alive, you’re welcome,” you shot back, not even looking at him.
That shut him up.
Ava tilted her head slightly from where she sat, chin resting against her shoulder. “Are there any other secrets we should be aware of? Kids? A bunker in the Alps? Shared Spotify?”
“We don’t talk about the Spotify,” you said immediately, too flat to be joking.
“I knew you had a playlist,” Yelena muttered.
“Who do you think you’re talking to? I have several,” you corrected.
Bucky let the rhythm of your voice wash over him, the way it always had. It calmed something in him he didn’t have the words for. He wasn't sure he'd ever have the words for it. But that was the thing, wasn’t it? You’d never asked for the language of it. You just stayed. When everything else fractured. When he did.
He let his head tip back against the wall, the throb of the flight engines a dull hum against his skull.
You kept talking.
Yelena asked about Budapest—what song was playing in the cab, what flavor the celebratory gelato was, whether you’d told anyone or if you’d just ghosted the next assignment like it never happened. You didn’t flinch under any of it. You answered what you wanted to. Dodged the rest with a precision that made it clear you'd spent years doing exactly that.
And Bucky watched you.
Listened to the cadences you used with the team—how they shifted only slightly when you got tired, how your sarcasm always dulled at the edges when you were checking someone's wound without being obvious about it. How you deferred to Ava without making it feel like yielding. How you redirected Yelena’s prying with just enough detail to satisfy, just enough space to stay unreadable.
They’d come around.
Eventually.
They always did.
But it wasn’t for them that you showed up in a jet at the eleventh hour. It wasn’t for glory. Or redemption. Or to earn your seat.
It was for him.
And that, Bucky thought, pressing a blood-soaked gauze pad tighter against his ribs, was something no intel report could ever quantify.
He let his eyes slip shut, your voice still in his ears, arguing now with Yelena about the legality of impersonating air traffic control in four different countries. He didn’t smile. Not really.
But he breathed easier.
For the first time in hours.
Maybe days.
Maybe longer.
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✦Read on a03! - Bucky Masterlist - Main Masterlist✦
✦pairing: Bucky Barnes x female!reader✦
✦summary: You know Bucky hates you. He's not secret about it. He hates you so much, he can't seem to stand you even getting along with an agent on a mission, and can't help but rush to your side when you need him. That's what hate is, right?✦
✦warnings/tags: thunderbolt!reader, (not) enemies to lovers, pushy and creepy men, emotionally constipated Bucky Barnes, protective Bucky Barnes, light angst, fluff, pining, shameless smut, love confessions, (fingering, p in v sex, feral!bucky, possessive sex, softdom!bucky), no use of y/n✦
✦author's note: Slight warning for creepy men being creepy. Not Bucky tho. My king would never. Also shoutout to @deanwinchestersunhappythoughts for convincing me to finish this one!✦
Everyone knows that Bucky hates you.
It’s not something he hides, and if he’s trying to, he’s not doing it well. He leaves every room you enter, slipping out with a scowl and not a single word. If there’s a meeting, he sits so far across the table that it’s like he thinks you’re carrying the plague. Once he had to stand next to you in the back of a transport truck, and he spent the whole trip making a face like he was about to vomit.
You try to ignore it. There’s not much else you can do. It’s not like you haven’t spent countless nights staring at the ceiling, trying to figure out what you did to him. If it’s just your general face that he can’t stand, or your personality, of if you did something to deeply offend him the first time you met, and now you have no shot at even a friendship.
You don’t think you did. There hadn’t been a bump in the elevator, or a misunderstanding in the lobby, or some time a while ago where you’d been in the same Subway car, and sneezed on him. You’d know by now, because you’ve replayed every single subway ride you’ve ever taken over and over in your head, looking for a flash of Bucky’s face. There, on the street, in a coffee shop or some random building where you might have told him to go fuck himself, and forgotten entirely.
It seems unlikely. You don’t have a habit of telling people to go fuck themselves.
That’s the whole reason you have this job in the first place.
You’re the nice one. The diversity hire, who’s only there because she knows how to smile and not look like someone holding a gun to her head. You don’t run into conflict, and you always stick to the plan, and you don’t even like to leave a dirty dish in the sink for later, because you don’t want to force someone else to clean up after you. Let alone your grumpy, brooding roommates.
It’s painfully stark, the difference between them and you. It’s only grown more apparent, as time has passed. You run training with Yelena, and she has to give you time outs every time you apologize for punching her in the face. You’ll eat dinner on the night that Ava cooks, tell her that it’s good—it’s not amazing, but it’s food, and you know she worked hard on it—and she’ll look at you like you just announced you were blowing your brains out after dessert. John has taken to covering your mouth with a hand during meetings, because you always try to offer motivation or sympathy with the targets, and none of them care about that.
“You are weird little bird,” Alexei once told you, frowning at you from across the room.
You’d laughed softly, folding the corner of your book between your fingers. “Yeah?”
“Yes. You smile.”
“You smile.”
“I am complex man. I live full of happiness and anger. You are only happiness.” He’d narrowed his eyes. “Is there silent anger, brimming below songbird’s surface?”
“Don’t call her that.” Bucky had muttered, and you’d blinked. You hadn’t even realized he’d entered the room.
He’d walked over to the bookshelf, hands in his jacket pockets, not sparing you a single glance. Alexei had scoffed.
“Bucky Barnes, I am doing investigation. This is serious business, do not mock-“
“I’ll mock, Alexei, when you’re doing something pointless. There’s nothing to investigate.” He’d grabbed a book, and turned to Alexei, his back firmly to you. “She’s clean. We’ve checked.”
He’d walked out without another word, and you’d bitten on your lower lip until you tasted blood. Of course it hadn’t been a real defense. Bucky doesn’t care enough about you to defend you. He just didn’t want Alexei to waste his time on something as pointless as you.
So you know, that Bucky hates you. And he has no secret reason, because it’s just you. The rest of them got used to you after a few months, and even like you know. Yelena doesn’t bitch about the breaks, and lets you hold her guinea pig as long as you let her hold your crows. Ava sits with you while she reads, and doesn’t roll her eyes at every single thing you say. John once called you not entirely useless, which is John for incredibly important and useful.
Alexei made you a—rather poorly constructed, but very sweet—cake for your last birthday, and insisted everyone buy you at least one gift. They all put a shocking amount of effort into it as well, and it had been clear that you weren’t just Valentina’s happy, pretty invader anymore.
Even Bucky had gotten you something, and you’d pretended it meant something. That it hadn’t just been because Alexei threatened to rip out his spine if he didn’t.
It had just been a jacket. Thick and warm, shoved into your hands like he couldn’t let go of it fast enough.
“You get cold.” He’d grunted. “On missions.”
“I- I don’t-“
“Yes, you do. Your fingers shake, and your heart picks up. It’s dangerous.” He’d nodded to the jacket. “Wear that.”
You’d swallowed, as he’d walked away.
And you do. Wear it. You’re the exact kind of over-emotional and pathetic fool he thinks you are, so you wear it on every mission, and look at Bucky to see if he’s noticed.
He never has.
The rest of them love you, but Bucky doesn’t. There doesn’t seem to be much you can do about it, but you don’t give up. You’re still nice to him, and it’s only a little in the pathetic hope that he might look at you one day and realize that he was wrong. Until then, you cling to the fact that the rest of them like you. That it was a long, natural curve to get there—given how you got here, and what you are—but they all genuinely like you.
Of the team, Bob gets on with you the best. None of them question why—they likely assume you both just don’t like fighting—but you eat breakfast together every day, do the crossword puzzle, and go out for walks at least twice a week.
You’ve seen Bucky glaring at you, when you get back. He might think you’re wasting time, or putting you both in danger by just going outside as superheroes. As if he doesn’t know that if anyone is least likely to be in danger of an attack, it’s you and Bob. Like you didn’t have your fucking GPS’ on the whole time, and he’s not your boss anyway.
“You’re going to catch a cold, if you keep goin’ out there.” He’d grunted once, as you’d made tea in the kitchen after.
“That’s- Not actually how colds world.” You’d mumbled. “And I don’t get sick anyway.”
“Hm.” He might have been looking at you. You weren’t going to dignify it with a glance, because you’d see the loathing in his eyes, and your heart might split down your chest.
He’d just walked away. You’d stood in the kitchen for about five minutes after, head bowed, taking deep breaths through your nose.
Everyone loved you.
It was the in your nature, quite literally, to have everyone love you. That’s why you’re here. Not to whine about your own problems, not to burden people with your pain, but to be the lighthouse. Your powers and sweetness smooth over the violence and anger of the team. Your presence calms down press events, because none of them are ever mean to you. If there’s hand to hand combat you’re entirely, hopelessly useless, but no one even throws a punch at you, so it’s not a problem.
You’ve wondered if that’s why Bucky hates you. Because he thinks you’re messing with his brain, and he’s had enough of that for a lifetime.
But you’ve told them. You turn it on and off, and you never use it on people you’re close to.
Maybe Bucky didn’t believe you.
It doesn’t matter. He still hates you.
And it hurts more, than if anyone else did.
Because you’re an idiot, and you’ve had a crush on him since you were in fucking middle school. You watched all the Howling Commandos documentaries in history, and stared dreamily at him in the grainy footage. You’d liked his smile, and his loyalty, and his general, pretty face. When the news about Hydra, then Sokovia had broken, you’d had some friends mock you about your old man crush was a war criminal. When he’d been pardoned and ended up on the news with Captain America, you’d watch the footage maybe a little longer than you needed to.
You’d never wanted to meet him.
You’d never wanted to be a superhero in the first place. But college was fucking expensive, and the job market was shit, and you’d needed money fast. Valentina had offered it, as long as you used your powers.
That was something you hadn’t wanted to do either. You didn’t want to do most things. Didn’t want to go places people could hurt you. Places you could mess up, or disappoint someone, or be seen.
And this has been your greatest dream and worst nightmare.
Everyone can see you. You’re in the public eye every day, and held up like a shiny diamond to be admired.
They all love you. Last month a magazine ran a s hit piece about the New Avengers, and still called you The Princess, because you were all smiles and sweet words, lovely to look at and talk to, but not worth much in a fight. Compared to what they said about everyone else—calling John the Prince, because no one took him seriously, and he was a foolish ass for thinking they did, and Bucky The King, because he used fear from his past to enforce the New Avengers and their status now—they might as well have sent you flowers.
People had even been mad online, that they’d ever say something mean about you.
Bucky had heard that in the damage control meeting, and snorted.
Your heart had turned to fractured, tiny piece of glass that cut at your stomach and hands. You’d felt sick, and hadn’t been able to do much for the rest of the day, as his cruel little snort played over and over in your head.
He’d been your foolish dream, since you were a kid. You’d never wanted to meet him.
Because exactly what you thought would happen, did.
He hates you.
Bucky Barnes hates you.
And he doesn’t even care enough about you to do it behind your back.
“I don’t want anyone arguing with me about this one.” He says in the jet, and you don’t bother to look up from your feet.
You know he’s looking at you. You can feel it. And you don’t argue with him, not like the rest of them do. You just offer some ideas for how to improve the plan, or point out holes in his idea with polite words. He always looks at you like you spat up vomit on his suit.
So you don’t say anything.
That’s your goal for this mission. Be as nothing to Bucky as possible. Don’t let his glowers and cold words loop in your head for hours after, making you feel like you’re even less than you already know you are. Don’t think about if he’s looking at you, don’t try to be his friend, don’t indulge the fantasy of his attention.
Any attention. Even if he’s sneering that you’re an insufferable brat who needs to be coddled, it would be attention. Even if he touched you with anger in his hands and hatred in his eyes, at least he’d be touching you.
You’ve realized, that him hating you isn’t doing anything to make your crush on his go away. If anything, it’s making the whole situation worse, because apathy is harder to indulge than the idea of him slamming you against the wall and fucking you until all his frustration feels eased.
Which is the exact type of thought you’re not supposed to be having.
So you just keep staring at your hands. Bucky clears his throat, like he’s waiting for something, and you don’t give him the satisfaction.
He moves on.
“I got us a connection with a mercenary in the area, who’s been hunting these people down for years. We’re working together, so everyone is going to be civil with him. Right?”
Ava raises her hand next to you. “What are we calling civil?”
“I don’t know. Use your judgement. Or- Actually-" Bucky sighs. “No name callin’, no yellin’, and- Try to act like you’re a damn adult for two days. Can we do that?”
“You name call all the time, Bucky-“
“I’m the oldest, Walker. I’ve earned it.”
John rolls his eyes, and Yelena jumps in.
“Can we pheromone him?” She looks to you. “Can you pheromone him?”
“Um-“ You flush, your eyes instinctively shooting to Bucky.
His jaw is clenched, hands braced on his hips, and glaring at you with the usual silent disgust. You swallow, heat crawling over your skin. You can’t tell if it’s shame, or just the usual hunger for him. It doesn’t really matter anyway.
“I technically can.” You mumble, ripping your gaze away from Bucky. “If we need it. But- Bucky says he’s on our side. I don’t think I need to, right?”
You look to Bucky again. His nostrils flare, the fury on his face almost leaking into the air.
“Right.” He grunts, glare moving to Yelena. He launches into a longer brief, about the drug ring you’re going after, the agents details, but you don’t hear most of it. You’re too busy staring at the floor, hiding the tears brimming in your eyes.
Useless.
You can’t even make a choice by yourself. Fucking useless.
When you land, you’re first out of the jet. Your arms wrap tight around your stomach, head down, not glancing back to check if Bucky’s venomous glare is still trained on you. If it is, that’s fine. It’s fine. You’re fine, because it’s nothing new, nothing you didn’t expect, nothing you’re not just going to have to grow the fuck up about and get over-
You’re too lost in your own self-pity to see where you’re going.
You slam right into someone’s chest.
“Woah!” A deep voice laughs, big hands grabbing your shoulders and steadying you against a firm body. You squeak, trying to back up, but the hands just tighten. “Hey, are you-“
“She’s fine.” Bucky’s snaps from behind you, and whoever’s grabbing you stills.
“Barnes, you look like shit-“
“Six hour flight. We all look like shit. Let her go.”
The man releases you, and you stumble back a few paces. Into Bucky’s chest.
He grabs your upper arm, and your breath hitches pathetically. It’s the metal hand, and it’s solid and firm through your jacket, and your head starts to race with images of it running down your thighs with that same tight grip, sending shivers up your spine and molding you exactly how he’d want you-
He doesn’t want you.
Bucky’s hand flexes like he can’t bear to touch you, and he moves you off to the side. You swallow down the shame. He doesn’t get the satisfaction, doesn’t get to see how he’s slowly fucking killing you.
“What’s wrong with her?” The new man asks, and Bucky grunts.
“Told you. Long flight.”
You bite your lower lip, fingers curling on your side. If he didn’t just hate you, this might be considered cruel. It might be cruel anyway. But your skin is still burning where he touched it. And your heart still skips a beat when he says your name.
“This is Mulder. Mulder, this is-“
“I know who this is.” Mulder cuts Bucky off with your name, and you blink up at him in surprise.
He’s not bad to look at. Same dark hair as Bucky, just beardless and a little more of a haircut. His eyes are blue as well, if not a little more gray. He’s got a strong jaw. Thick build, and a friendly smile.
That’s directed at you. You return it tenitivly, and he laughs.
“Wow. You’re even prettier in person, sweetheart.”
You flush, standing a little taller. “Oh, um- Thank you?”
“No problem. You’re my favorite, you know.” He winks, still grinning. “I like these assholes just fine, but you? Very excited to work together.”
“I’m- Me too.” You offer, and Mulder opens his mouth—maybe to compliment you again, which you’re not sure you can emotionally handle right now—but Bucky cuts him off.
“We have time for talking later, Mulder. You bring the car?”
Mulder rolls his eyes. “Course I brought the car, Barnes. You think I’m a damn idiot.”
Bucky doesn’t answer. When you risk a glance over, he’s looking at Mulder with a coldness in his eyes you’ve never seen before. Even when he glares at you, there’s some heat in the hatred. Like he’s trying to figure out what kind of fire will smoke you out, like he hates you so much it’s making him recoil and physically tense at your mere existence.
He’s tensed as he glares at Mulder, too.
But rigid. Not a live wire set to snap. Something deeper, and less forgiving, that seems to be making his tongue sharper and words clipped.
“You live in these… Woods?” Yelena asks as Mulder piles you into his truck, and he shrugs.
“No, just been here for years, trying to catch these bastards. They’re slick, keep figuring out how to avoid me, I’ve chased them half across the world. Who knew they’d be holed up in the backyard of my damn operation.” He chuckles, glancing over to Bucky. “But that’s how Hydra stayed underground, wasn’t it? Plain sight?”
Bucky grunts. “Don’t know. Wasn’t exactly invited to all the strategy meetings.”
Mulder laughs again, and you frown. Bucky doesn’t like to talk about his time in Hydra with anyone. And laughing about it makes your gut prickle wrong, your tongue aching to jump in and say something about how it’s not really anyone’s business anyway, let alone Mulder’s to comment about. But Mudler continues before you can.
Probably for the best.
The last time you defended Bucky at a press event, he didn’t look at you for a week.
“We’re going to have to head into the city for a few days. Trace these asshole to their exact base, play it careful. I’ll send some of you in first, they know I’m looking for them. ‘Course, they’ll be thrilled to see me, but I’m trying to play it humble. Makes the attention I do give all the more exciting.” Mulder winks at you, and you flush.
Bucky didn’t mention if this man had powers. If that comment was just a coincidence, of if he’d known what you’ve been thinking about Bucky. If he’s a mind-reader, that’s going to be a real problem. You don’t know how to guard against a mind reader, and all your thoughts are pathetic, and what if he tells Bucky about them-
“How you know Bucky Barnes?” Alexei jumps in, staring at Mulder with almost open affection. “You go to pretty assassin school together? You take super solider serum?”
“Nope.” Mulder laughs again. He does that a lot. “I worked with Wilson, a while ago. Back when he was just a normal guy like me. Trained in Shield, left to figure out where my life is going after the fall. I admire the enhanced, though. You’ve gotta be a good person, to go through that change and come out the other side a good person.”
Bucky, Ava, and John all tense across the Van, Alexei puffs out his chest, and you just shrink into yourself.
Mulder says your name, still wearing that charming smile. “You especially, with what you can do? A worse person would abuse that.”
“I- I don’t-“
“She barely uses it.” Bucky grunts, and your nails dig into your side.
“Wow, Barnes. Didn’t know you spoke for her.”
Bucky works his jaw, and you really don’t understand what’s going on with him. He’s the one who said to play nice.
The least you can do is try and play nice for him.
“He’s right, Mulder.” You mumble. “It’s kind of- For emergencies only.”
“Again. Admirable.” Mulder grins at you in the mirror. “And you can call me Jack.”
You nod, still smiling, and glance back to Bucky. His face has settled into an almost unreadable stone mask.
Almost. You’ve spent so much time silently staring at him that you can read.
He’s furious.
You haven’t even started the job yet, and Bucky looks like he’s about to rip someone’s spine out. You don’t understand why—no one’s messed up, Mulder seems like a bit of an ass, but no more than the rest of you, and you haven’t done anything to piss him off yet—but you’re not foolish enough to ask.
You just let out a slow breath, and tip your head back against the rattling wall of the truck.
The mission is going to be long.
And you’re going to be caught in the center of it, just trying to keep your head above water around Bucky, and be a little fucking useful to the team.
To Mulder.
Because even if he’s an ass, you’re his favorite. And that makes the hair on your arms stand up, because what if you disappoint him. What if, when this is done, he decides that you’re not at all worth what you seem to be on paper.
That, at least, is something you can try to prevent. You’ve already lost Bucky—though you know you never had him in the first place—so you don’t need to waste the mission worrying about if he’s seeing you. It’s going to be all about Mudler.
“Jack,” he reminds you again, as you unload equipment in his makeshift base of a motel room. “You can call me Jack, sweetheart.”
You won’t mess this up.
“Okay.” You smile at him. “Jack.”
He grins right back, and across the room, there’s a loud crack as something breaks.
“Fuck, Bucky!” John shouts, and you look up to see him gaping at the mess of a computer on the floor. “What the hell, why did you-“
“It was weak.” Bucky grunts, and you can feel his glare on you again. “Just fuckin’ snapped when I picked it up. Not my fault.”
Mulder laughs, giving Bucky another lazy grin. “Well, don’t go breaking any of my other shit. I might start to take offense.”
“Noted.” Bucky grunts.
He doesn’t even crack a smile.
And you’ve seen him be grumpy on missions before. It’s almost his default setting, to act like a dad with a pack of unruly children who refuse to be house trained. But this is different. He looks like he’s seconds away from either breaking his own jaw, or slamming his fist into the wall.
The next few days are spent gathering intel about the operation, taking what Jack already has and blending it with anything the rest of you can find. Alexei translates some Russian documents, because every time he’s thrown into a field like this he just ends up getting drunk with the gang members. Yelena and John track down a few of the inner circle members. Bucky and Ava grab them and drag some information out with questionable methods, before dumping them in the snow. You and Jack track down a few of the known bases, as well as some of Jack’s informants, and get whatever you can.
“You should do your thing.” Jack mutters in your ear. He’s taken to standing rather close behind you. Close enough that you can feel the heat of his body.
You don’t mind it. It’s just a little strange.
“I don’t do my thing unless it’s an emergency.” You remind him softly, and he shrugs.
“If you don’t do it, I’ll never get to see it, and we might have to be on this case for weeks.”
“Jack…” You sigh—this isn’t the first time he’s tried to make you do it, and it probably won’t be the last—but he shakes his head, cutting you off smoothly.
“Actually,” his lips brush your ear, and you swallow. “Don’t do it. I want to stay on this case together.”
You weren’t going to do it in the first place. But there’s not really any good response to that, so you just hum and laugh weakly. The man you were waiting for walks through the door, and you’re saved from the conversation.
When you get back to the motel room, Jack runs the team through what the man told you. And for once, Bucky isn’t glaring at you. He’s glaring at Jack.
He’s been glaring at Jack a lot.
“We should reshuffle teams.” He grunts after a week, and Ava mock pouts.
“Aw, you’re sick of me already, Barnes?”
“No.” He snaps. “I just think it’s bad to stick to the same pattern on a mission like this. They’ll pick up on it.”
“Good point.” Jack nods, and Bucky shoots him such a withering glare you’re shocked it doesn’t actually kill him. “But it might be even better if we move into teams of three and four.”
Bucky opens his mouth, still glowering, but John cuts in first.
“Can I be with you two? If Yelena keeps shit-talking me in Russian, I’m actually going to punch her.”
Yelena snorts. “Walker, you could not lay a single little finger on me-“
“You wanna fuckin’ bet-“
“Hey.” Bucky snaps, and they both fall silent. “The hell did I say on the jet?”
“Not to insult him.” Yelena nods to Jack. “There was nothing about each other.”
“Yeah, Yelena’s right, we can fight, that’s our right as teammates-“
“John. Shut up.” Bucky rubs a hand over his face, letting out a low, long groan.
His eyes flick to you, then away just as fast. He lets out a heavy breath like someone’s physically hurting him.
“Fine. Whatever. John, you’re with them. Yelena, me and Ava.”
John grins, marching over to your side and raising his hand for a high five. You give it awkwardly, Jack a little more enthusiastically, and John flips off Bucky’s scowl.
“Suck it, Team Loser. We’re going to grab those dipshits first.”
You sigh, placing a hand lightly on his shoulder. “Not a competition, John.”
He rolls his eyes, grumbling something about how it could be, but drops it fast.
Bucky keeps glaring at you. You bite down the pain of it, same as always.
There’s still a job to do. Jack still likes you enough to want you on his team. You won’t mess that up.
The next few days pass in a blur. You’re closing in on the gang, Bucky’s still acting like everyone is insulting his mother to his face, and Jack hasn’t stopped trying to get you to use your powers.
He just wants to see it, is what he says, over and over. Even John jumped to your defense at one point, but Jack just laughed again, and said that John’s luck enough to be around you all the time. He just gets this moment.
“Unless you want more.” He smirks at you, and you flush.
John groans. “Jesus, no wonder Bucky hasn’t been sleeping.”
“Bucky hasn’t been what?” Your eyes shoot away from Jack, and John just shrugs.
“We’ve been bunking together. And Alexei, but I’ve tuned him out, he snores like a fucking monster truck-“
“No, I- I know that. Why isn’t Bucky sleeping?”
“Oh. ‘Cause.” John waves a hand, then moves on down the hallway. You open your mouth to call after him, but Jack stops you with a hand splayed on your lower back.
“Don’t worry about Barnes, sweetheart. I know how he can be.”
You frown at him. Bucky can be a dick, but you can all be a dick. And he’s got a lot on his shoulders, and a lot of shadows behind him. It’s amazing he’s standing at all, let alone still fighting. He’s earned being a little bit of an ass, even if it rips your heart out of your chest every single time.
“Bucky-“
“Come on.” Jack cuts you off, rubbing his hand up and down your spine. “Let’s go find this ass. So you can do the thing.”
You smile at him weakly. You won’t do the thing. But Jack, also, doesn’t seem willing to give up on asking you.
It’s almost three weeks, when you finally have a solid lead. Three weeks of Bucky looking like he wants to shoot someone and Jack being stuck to your side, before you finally have an ending in sight. There’s a bunker in the mountains, that should have all the evidence you need to bring the gang down.
You have one day, before a snowstorm blows in, and it becomes inaccessible for months. So you’ll move out in the morning, and spend the night doing what you do before every big move on a mission.
Drinking.
It’s a tradition they started before you joined. It’s time honored and well-kept, to the point that you’re pretty sure Alexei would throw actual tantrum if anyone forgot. You find somewhere with a pool table, a jukebox, and liquor. Everyone drinks until the room is spinning, and you’re all giggling and forgetting about your problems. The morning seems a million miles away, and the pain seems even further. It’s not drinking to celebrate. It’s drinking so that if tomorrow goes wrong, at least you were alive tonight.
Then you’re up at the crack of dawn, and you finish the job.
Usually, you spend the evening next to Yelena, having whatever she puts in front of you, giggling at stupid jokes, and pretending you’re not staring at Bucky’s handsome profile down the bar. He usually sits with Alexei or Walker, silent and annoyed by the whole thing, but slowly loosening up over the night. He’ll go play darts or chat with the bartender. If she’s lucky, he’ll be in a good enough mood to give some random girl a little attention, and you’ll go to the bathroom with your mouth tasting like bile.
You’ll splash your face, remind yourself that he hates you and you have no right to be bitter about this, and try not to look at him for the rest of the night. Which usually means dancing, trying to learn how to play pool—it’s been two years, you’re nowhere close, no matter how much John yells at you—and turning in the moment you spot Bucky’s random girl sitting on his lap.
But tonight, there’s no girl. A few of them have walked up to him, and he’s flat out ignored them. You feel a little bad for them, as they storm back to their friends. You understand, more than they could ever imagine, what it feels like. The sour sting of Bucky’s rejection, that feels like an open, infected wound. At least their’s will heal. You just keep poking at yours, until your guts are spilled all over the floor, and you can’t be bothered to pick them up.
You really are trying, not to look at him. To pay attention to what’s in front of you, because there’s no point. Bucky hates pity, even more than he hates you, and combining the two isn’t going to do anyone any favors. But he looks so sad. Still angry and hostile, but with a slump to his shoulders that tugs on your heart. Maybe now, if you just extended a slim, delicate olive branch—just an offer to listen, that will snap in half and take you with it—he’d accept it.
That’s all you can think about. Yelena’s sliding drinks in front of you, and Jack is cooing in your ear, but you can’t see or hear anything but Bucky. His gloved hand is turning the glass, his gaze trained on the movement of the water inside. His chest heaves, jaw ticking and mouth setting in a thin line. Jack says your name, but it sounds far away, so you just hum in acknowledgment.
“You’re gorgeous.” He murmurs in your ear, and you tilt your head at Bucky.
He’s oddly tense. Like he’s bracing for a fight.
“And you smell like sugar.” Jack is still talking. Bucky’s stopped turning his glass, his head bowing lower than before. “Look like an angel. Do we know if God is real, yet? Did he send you?”
“I dunno.” You mumble. Bucky’s spine just stiffened. Maybe there’s danger, and he just doesn’t want to worry anyone.
Jack plays with a strand of your hair. “If you’re not an angel, you’re a siren. I mean,” he laughs. “Cheap joke. That’s your code-name. But shit, you really nailed it. So smart, too.”
“She didn’t come up with her name.” Yelena says, some distance away. “Valentina did. She doesn’t like being called it, either.”
“Hm. She doesn’t like using her powers, doesn’t like her codename.” Jack laughs. “Maybe she should retire. Come live with me, sweetheart, you’ll never have to worry about anything again.”
You can hear Yelena respond something sharp, but you don’t really hear it.
A new, brave girl approached Bucky. He’d looked her up and down slowly, expression almost unreadable. The same stone mask from before, but just a little heavier.
He’s tired.
And he looks to you. For a split second, Bucky’s eyes lock with yours. You stare at him, leaning a little further forward. Jack is still playing with your hair, and you can feel his hand slide up your spine.
That pure coldness flashes through Bucky’s gaze, and he looks back to the girl.
Smiles at her.
He never smiles at you.
“I’m going to bed.” You tell no one particular. You don’t want to keep drinking. You’ll just start crying.
Jack volunteers to go with you. He keeps his hand on your back, as he walks you out of the bar. You can feel Bucky staring daggers at your back as you leave.
You’re able to hide your tears, in the sting of the cold wind. If Jack suspects they’re anything else, he doesn’t say anything. He’s mostly just babbling about how long he’s been working on this, and what he wants to do after, and what he likes doing with his free time.
“Do you like Vegas? You must be fun in Vegas.”
“I’ve never been to Vegas.” You mumble, wiping your nose on your jacket. It’s the jacket Bucky gave you.
Your throat hurts. He’s a good man. He’s a strong, good man who sits with Bob when he doesn’t feel well, and mocks John relentlessly but has his back in fights. He helps Ava with her suit upgrades, gives Yelena advice, and indulges all of Alexei’s stories about the Good Old Days, even throwing in a few extra facts if he’s in a good mood.
It’s just you.
You’re the only one who he treats like this.
So, somehow, it must be your fault.
“What the hell is up with Barnes anyway?” Jack says, and suddenly your brain decides to pay attention.
“He’s under a lot of stress.” You mumble, and Jack rolls his eyes.
“We all are. You know, last time I met him he wasn’t like this, he must not have gotten laid in a year.”
You make a face, but don’t say anything. Jack rubs your back, sighing dramatically.
“He’s such a damn ass to you, sweetheart. Can’t stand it. You deserve better than that.”
You might. You probably do. You’ve told your heart that over and over, but it doesn’t seem to be willing to hear it. The rhythm of its beat falls in line with Bucky’s name.
You’re starting to hate yourself for it.
Jack doesn’t need to know that, so you only hum.
“Have you tried your thing on him?” He asks, and your body recoils.
You stumble away, eyes wide in disgust as a foul, sickening taste creeps up your throat.
“No- I- No.” You shake your head frantically. “I would never- I don’t use it for anything like that, I’ve never used it for that, and I- Bucky isn’t- How could you say that?”
“He’s just such a dick to you,” Jack says your name, taking a large step forward. Pressing you back against the wall. “Come on, you’ve at least thought of it-“
“No, I- I would never-“
“You don’t have to lie, it’s just me-“
“I’m not lying-“
“Sweetheart.” Jack coos, taking another step forward, leaving your back pressed against wall. “It’s not wrong, to have thought about it. I would have thought it. But I also,” he reaches up, tracing a hand over your cheek, and you shrink back into your body. “Would never be so mean to something as pretty as you.”
You swallow, tears still burning at your eyes. Jack’s breath smells like liquor, fanning over your face, and it’s making the room feel like it’s flipping and spinning. Not in the pleasant, dizzying way that Bucky’s body near yours does.
This feels wrong.
“Can you please back up?” You whisper, and Jack chuckles.
“Why would I do that, sweetheart.”
The tears slide down your cheeks. “Please?”
Jack shakes his head, his lips brushing over yours. You try to lean back, but there’s only the wall.
You close your eyes. He did want to see it. He begged to.
“Jack.” Your voice slips into the other one. The sweet, musical one that’s almost floats through the air. Less of a voice. More of a call. “Can you please back up?”
He’s frozen for a moment. You don’t dare to breathe, in case it breaks the spell.
Then he vanishes. His hands near your head, his smell, his lips and the sticky, suffocating heat of his body. You pull your eyes open, and let out a shaking breath.
He’s just standing. Face entirely void of himself. Nothing more than a puppet.
You hug yourself tight, voice almost cracking as you speak again. “Walk away. And- Please don’t speak to me or look for me, until the morning.”
Jack nods slowly, and turns away. His eyes stare at the floor, and he almost glides down the hallway, away from your room.
You swallow, and slip into your room without another word. It feels like there’s a thin layer of grime over your skin, but no matter how you rub at it in the shower, it doesn’t go away. You sink to the floor, pressing your face into your knees, and cry in the safety of the burning water. If the veil it offers, to mask the sound of your sobs, to hide you in the steam.
You don’t know how long you just sit there.
You know when you go to bed, you’re still sniffling.
And when you fall asleep, it’s like the tide dragging you under.
Impossibly pain in your chest. A feeling like you can’t breathe, as you fold yourself into the cushion.
Then just black. And a long, heavy sleep.
Bucky didn’t count himself a good man.
It wasn’t just that he’d done bad things, and he’d done… A lot of bad things. The kind of bad things that people, apparently, made documentaries about. The kind of bad things he shouldn’t be forgiven for, no matter what Sam used to say about it not really being him who did it.
It had been his hands. His body.
His mind, that had caved to the programming. That hadn’t fought back against Hydra, and let them use him as a weapon.
He might not have chosen to do the things, but he still did them. And it didn’t matter anyway.
He still wasn’t a good man.
It wasn’t about only his actions. It wasn’t about everything he did to repent, and how people now looked at him like he was a hero, when he knew the truth. That he was tricking them, and if they saw the ugly beast under the surface—the part of him that was barely better than an animal—they’d shoot him in the goddamn skull.
Because he thought things. Craved things. Was hungry for things he had no right to desire.
One thing.
Really, it was just one thing, that drove him out of his mind every fucking night. That made him glare at himself in the bathroom mirror, trying to drill it into his stupid head that he was barely more than a mutt, and had no right to ask for something so priceless.
Her.
Bucky wanted Her.
He had to right to even want anything at all. Wanting Her felt like a crime.
She was made of soft things he’d long lost to the bottom of the ocean, swept smooth and empty with the water of time. She had the kind of shine Bucky had only ever been able to dull, and the kind of gentleness that did go well with biting guard dogs. Bucky was a weapon. She was stained glass, casting the light soft and gentle through his life. He’d been gone the moment Valentina had showed them the picture of the new hire.
Then She’d walked into the room, smiling and bright eyed, and Bucky had known.
He wanted Her on his arm during events, smiling mostly at him instead of the cameras—Her real smile, not the well-polished, overdone one she gave the photographers—then hanging off his body as they drank and whispered in the corner. She’d sit next to him on missions, his hand on Her thigh and her foot bumping his under the table. They’d hold hands and… Do whatever modern couples did. Go for walks and eat food. Not dancing, because he’d seen where people danced now and it was pretty damn loud, but maybe just sitting in the living room together. His legs over Her’s, Her head on his chest, talking about nothing at all.
And he’d have Her in his bed. Fantasies of Her lips on his, bodies pressed tight together and whispers soft and teasing, it was what he thought of in the shower. In his own big, lonelier bed as he groaned Her name to the dark.
Bucky wanted Her like he wanted to touch the sky, when he was a boy.
So much he dreamed about it.
Impossibly, and desperately, and knowing fully well that if he ever did, he’d never want to go back down to Earth.
Bucky was never going to want anything as bad.
And under no fucking circumstances should he be allowed to have Her.
He set distances. Made boundaries, less to keep Her away and more to keep himself at bay. Whenever he accidentally touched Her, she’d mold into him, and he’d have to rip his hand away like it was burning. If he didn’t, it might mold into Her, and he’d never let go. Or worse, She’d rip herself away, and he’d have to remember what it was like to touch Her, then lose Her.
It was a fate he could tolerate, to watch from afar. But holding Her, having all that sweetness in his hands then letting it slip through his fingers, he’d never forgive himself. He saw how soft She got, how deeply she took everything, how much She glowed under praise. He wouldn’t be able to live with breaking Her heart, because she’d shatter. Hell, She pouted to herself when Yelena so much as told her she misinterpreted some intel. Her actually crying, and Bucky being the cause of it, that might destroy him.
And he wasn’t being arrogant. He wasn’t blind. He saw how desperately she smiled at him, heard the extra light in Her voice when she spoke to him, basked in the extra attention she gave him, because it was a sliver of Heaven he got to steal, and keep all to himself.
But She didn’t know what she was doing. She was young, She’d develop feelings, and they’d pass once She found someone better.
Then Bucky would just sit here. Alone in the dark, torturing himself with what could have been.
At least they’d be friends. Bucky could live with friends. He tried to be nice to Her—even if he hadn’t been sure how to do that, in at least a decade—and made sure to give Her respectable friend distance and words. He bit down every inappropriate or slightly wanting comment on his tongue.
It was most of them.
Almost all his thoughts around Her had slowly become that he wanted and needed Her, that she was beautiful and kind and maybe the best person he’d ever met, and they were lucky to have Her on the team, powers or not.
He didn’t want to send mixed signals. Didn’t want to get Her confused about what he could give Her, because it wasn’t much.
One day, She’d find someone who could give her everything, and Bucky would just be Her friend.
He’d been ready for that.
He hadn’t thought it would happen this fast.
Jack’s eyes had glinted, when they’d stepped off the jet. Bucky had known that look. He saw it in the mirror, every damn morning. And She’d smiled at Jack. Stuck with him the whole fucking mission. Bucky had felt like he was going to drive himself out of his goddamn mind.
She wasn’t his. He had no fucking claim to Her. It was his own damn fault, that She hadn’t been talking to him at the bar. The he hadn’t been the one touching Her, wasn’t the one who walked Her out.
Knowing that hadn’t stopped the creeping rage and disgust with himself. The ice-like, almost painful hated of Jack, festering into a vileness that curled his fists.
At one point, it had gotten so intolerable that he’d suggested they switch up the teams. He could put himself with Her. Steal just a little bit more of Her attention.
She’d been drawing away from him a little big before the mission as well. Bucky wasn’t sure what he’d done, but She hadn’t even been looking at him. He’d wanted to ask, to fix it, to do anything that would make things go back to normal. He might’ve asked the night they landed, if it wasn’t for fucking Jack.
And now they might be in Her room.
Which Bucky was fine with. They were adults. She was smart, and could make Her own choices, and he didn’t deserve Her anyway.
He still lingered outside Her room for hours, thinking about going in. Shouting his love to Her shocked face, then watching Her turn away from Jack and run into his arms.
The last part was just in his head. There was no way She’d do anything but throw him out of his ass, after he waited so long to tell Her.
If Jack was what She wanted, she deserved to be happy.
Bucky still didn’t sleep that night, his mind racing with the idea of someone else touching Her. Having Her, how he wanted.
Jack wouldn’t treat Her as well as Bucky would. He’d treat Her like a Queen.
Then lose Her. That kind of closeness was always something he lost.
He had to haul himself out of bed in the morning. He didn’t want to see Her and Jack standing next to each other. Didn’t to live in the world that was coming, where Her pretty eyes glazed right over him, like he was nothing more than a potted plant.
It was only to desire to get the hell out of this job, that got him moving.
But when he got to the group, She wasn’t there.
Not just late.
Missing.
Jack was there. When asked, he just shrugged. Bucky narrowed his eyes—the man had been fawning over Her last night, he’d had Her on his arm, and she was pretty damn hard to lose sight of—but Yelena just sighed and stomped off to go grab Her.
They waited awkwardly, shifting on their feet.
“Storm’s coming.” Walker muttered, and Bucky shot him a glare. “What? I’m just saying, we should be heading out-“
“No.” Bucky grunted. “Team first, John.”
Walker sighed, and gave him a flat look. Somehow he was the only person who knew. About a month into Her being on the team, Walker had cornered him and asked what the hell his problem was with Her. He didn’t let up, until Bucky shouted that he might have some feelings for Her.
He’d, shockingly, kept the secret.
That didn’t stop the silent mocking and pointed looks. Bucky had learned to ignore them.
“She does not feeling well.” Yelena announced, storming back into the room. “She wants to stay here.”
Bucky frowned. “She looked fine last night.”
“You were across the bar, Bucky Barnes. You could not tell.” Yelena grabbed her baton, moving on before Bucky could protest. “We have to beat the storm. She will wait, but I left her gun. In case someone tries to mess with her, she can-“
Yelena made a mock gun sound, and Bucky’s frown only deepened. She never missed a mission. Once he’d been forced to bench Her, because she had a fever and was trying to join the field work. Even then, She’d talked him into surveillance and intel.
It was probably a good thing Yelena had checked on Her. Bucky would’ve caved to damn near anything She told him, long as it didn’t put her in danger.
But She’d volunteered to stay.
It didn’t sit right. Bucky didn’t have a choice but to let it happen—the wind was picking up, the sky turning gray—but it kept turning, in his skull.
He knew almost everything about Her, because he listened and watched and memorized Her like a song he wanted stuck in his head forever. He knew that She loved animals, and got cold fast, and enjoyed those romance movies but always liked books better. She didn’t like to feel useless, so he tried to remind Her of things she did after missions, and she liked learning so he’d throw in suggestions for how she could improve.
She never used Her powers, even if they could let Her take over the world in an afternoon.
And She never just sat out a mission. Especially not one that would be really damn useful to have Her for.
“Would be useful, for songbird to be here.” Alexei echoed Bucky’s thoughts, dragged the guard they’d knocked out over to the thumbprint pad. “Her song, soothe angriest man.”
Bucky grunted an agreement, but Jack-
Jack scoffed. And rolled his eyes.
Bucky wasn’t the only one who caught it. Yelena’s eyes narrowed as well.
“What was that?”
Jack waved her off. “What was what?”
“That face. The one that you just made.” Yelena mimicked it. “What was this?”
“Oh. Nothing.”
“No, it was something. Say what.”
Yelena wasn’t suggesting. She was ordering. And it was hard, to be stupid enough to defy her.
“It’s not a big deal. Just,” Jack said Her name, and Bucky’s jaw clenched. He didn’t like the tone, like She wasn’t something holy, gracing their tongues.
“What about her?” His voice was lower than he wanted it to be. The fury felt like it was boiling over inside of him.
“Nothing. She’s- I don’t know, why all make such a big deal about her, when she’s such a bitch.”
Bucky saw red. Jack was still talking.
“I mean, she used her powers on me last night.” Jack looked around between them, lips curled in disgust. “Isn’t that fucked up?”
He expected sympathy. Bucky could read that, all over his ugly, about to be flattened face.
But Bucky knew Her. They all did.
She didn’t use her powers on people.
Not unless she was forced to.
For a moment, Bucky wasn’t thinking. His body was reacting, without needing his mind to command it. His fist flew up, and collided with Jack’s jaw. There was a sickening crack sound, as the man fell to the ground, but no one lunged to help him.
Bucky turned. The red behind his eyes was turning white, turning from wrath into worry. She was just alone, after what Jack had done. No one there to take care of Her, no one she trusted to talk to.
He’d would be there. Damn the mission, the rest of the time could work it out themselves, then leave Jack to be buried in the fast-falling snow.
Bucky was going to be there for Her.
It had gotten so cold, so fast.
You’d been lying in bed, when Yelena came to check on you. You’d mumbled that you didn’t feel like doing much today, and she’d let it go. She knew you wouldn’t ask if you didn’t really feel horrible. You’d gotten an awkward pat on the head, a feel better, and she’d left you to wallow alone.
You’d twisted. Turned. Stared at the ceiling, then been unable to keep your eyes open to see your own body and flipped over. Your tears stained the pillow, so you flipped that over too, and the blankets on your body were suffocating but still couldn’t be heavy enough to make you feel safe and warm.
Slowly, as the day stretches on, everything gets darker. Not just in your head, spinning around the hallway last night—Jack, Bucky’s apathy and cold stares, everything that had been bending all week set to snap any fucking second—but literally. It was 9am, when you had to turn a lamp on to see. There wasn’t any sunlight leaking through the curtains, and when you forced yourself up to shuffle over and check the windows, the world was gray.
It was snowing. Snowing so heavily, you couldn’t see anything but the flurry an inch outside the glass. There was a chill on your face, just from being near the glass, and your fingers shook as you closed the curtains again.
The team had left hours ago. The bunker was only an hour away, and if they did their jobs well, they’d be fine.
There might be fifty percent chance they’re already dead.
You drag out your personal computer, and turn on the local news to keep an eye for avalanches. You even keep your phone face up as you huddle in your blankets, in case they need to message you.
The tears are still falling randomly and heavily, freezing on your cheeks like snowflakes and coming from a hollow in your chest.
A part of you had expected that, from Jack. You hadn’t wanted to, when he’d been so nice to you, but people fascinated by your powers rarely seemed to care for you. For the weight of it on your shoulders, never able to understand that you weren’t just making people to do something.
You were stripping them down to puppet.
You watched the person fade from their eyes, and become just a doll for you to move around. You could never bare it. The first time it happened, completely on accident, you hadn’t spoken for a week out of fear you’d do it again.
So you hate him for it. Hate Jack, for forcing you to use it, and hate yourself for not being able to find another way out. You could’ve said please again, could’ve shoved him, could’ve screamed. There’s no promise it would have worked—it probably wouldn’t have—but at least you would’ve tried harder.
He wasn’t doing something good.
There’s an itch and crawl over your bones, because you did something worse.
This is why Bucky doesn’t want you. What you are. Deep in your core below the smiles and lies, you’re just a something Bucky would never want to touch, and you’re going to turn into a forgotten, hollow shell trapped in the cold, frozen in your own body and alone.
You gather the sheets closer, pulling them up to cover your face. The news is nothing but a muffled mumble in the background, and your fingers are still shaking.
Your phone buzzes, but it’s not Yelena. It’s a notification from the motel, informing you that the power has gone out and the heater is broken. They’re lighting a fire in the lobby. You can’t bring your legs to pick up and carry you out of bed.
The sun is gone behind the storm, and time passes like snow melting. Slow and fast all at once, building up and up and up until you’re unable to move or dig yourself out. The skin under your nails is the wrong shade, and when you flip your camera on, so are your lips. You’re shaking under the layers, but it’s nothing to warm you up, and when you dig your fingers into your own sides, they’re like icicles. Maybe you’re still crying. Maybe your eyes froze, and you’re never going to be able to cry again. It doesn’t really matter because you can’t feel anything but that hollowness.
You don’t think you’ve ever been more alone in your life.
And your eyes are hooded and fluttering, when there’s bang on your door.
Bucky’s voice calls your name, and a whine leaves your throat that’s too small to be heard. Maybe he wouldn’t even hear it if you screamed. You’re sure your voice would crack like ice, and he doesn’t even like you anyway. You’re not sure what he’s doing here at all.
He calls your name again. He sounds urgent.
Maybe you’re just dreaming. You’ve certainly had dreams like this before, where he swoops in and declares that he secretly loved you the whole time, and you laugh and kiss on a giant, floating pink cloud.
It’s more likely a nightmare. He’s going to storm in and turn to a monster, snarling and sneering about how useless and cancerous and wrong you are.
He’s shouting now, and any second his voice with turn to a growl. You burrow further under the covers, another weak whine leaving your throat.
Bucky slams against the door, and you cower. You’re too cold to even brace yourself, but at least you know you can still cry.
It breaks open, and you’ve never heard Bucky use that tone before. It’s broken and desperate, strange for a man who can’t bear to look at you. He may think you’re dead, and is just upset nature got to you first.
He says your name again, and you feel strong arms wrap around you. He could just be trying to choke you out anyway or going to dump you out in the snow to preserve your body, because there’s no other reason for him to be lifting you up-
“You’re- Why the hell are you so cold-“ He swears under his breath, and you feel the mattress dip down.
He’s sitting.
That can’t be right.
“Can you say something, doll? Anything so I know you’re hearin’ me, ‘cause-“ A warm hand brushes over your brown, then lingers near your mouth. “You’re breathing. Shit, you’re breathing, but- Say something. Please.”
He asks so nicely. You pull a deep, ragged groan from your chest, and you feel him tense around you.
“Alright, that’s- Good. Can work with that.” He seems to mostly be talking to himself. “Basic hypothermia, nothin’ that’ll kill you. Not if I’m here, and- Gonna kill that ass, I swear- There are some tall building that don’t have very good safety nets, and- ‘m sorry about this, sweetheart.”
You want to frown and ask what—what could possibly be making Bucky sound frantic—but you can’t feel your tongue enough to move it. There are shuffling noises, and he disappears from your side. You curl further into yourself, trying both to dredge up a plea for his return, and shove it down so you don’t make a fool of yourself.
Then suddenly, you’re cold, so so cold, so cold you think it’s going to drag you under something you can’t get out of-
And you’re warm.
The warm comes slower. You can hear muttered apologies, and shocks of warmth on your skin. You feel bare, and even colder, then there’s nothing but heat.
It’s pure heat wrapping around you, tangling between your legs and dragging over your arms and spine.
“Arm’s got a heater in it.” Bucky mutters, his voice somewhere near your head. “Wakanda, huh?”
There’s a dry chuckle, and your brain is slow to understand what’s happening. It’s dragging through the draft of the wind, the cold pushing back against you, and sometimes you’ll almost connect something, then the strings will fly out of your hands.
But you get warmer and warmer, and there’s a pleasant sound that’s deep and vibrates near your chest, and-
Bucky.
Bucky’s in your bed. Stripped down, and holding you. You’re stripped, to nothing but your underwear, and in Bucky’s arms.
He’s heating you up.
And this is a different kind of heat. It’s uneasy, staining shame for him having to do this for you. Shame and twisting guilt, for how you like it. You really have dreamed about this, and you’ve held sheets at night to pretend they’re the shape of his body, but it’s nothing compared to the real this. To the dips and curves of his chest near your cheek, the strength of his thighs and rippling arms around you.
There’s shame for how the heat is pooling, slowly but steadily, near your stomach. It feeds the shame, and something in you likes the embarrassment—at least it means you have Bucky’s attention—and that just makes you more shameful, and it feeds into itself like a raging wildfire.
You can speak again. You’re afraid to.
You might moan.
At last, breaking the silence, you pull the soft words from the hollow in your chest.
“You came back.”
Bucky stops humming, then sighs heavily. “Yeah.”
“Why?”
“Jack. Knew he made you use your powers. Wanted to check on you.”
You frown against his skin. That doesn’t make sense. “Check… On me?”
Bucky grunts. “Make sure he didn’t hurt you.”
“He couldn’t-“
He says your name sternly, and your words die fast. “We both know you don’t just use your powers. Whatever he did to make you-“ Bucky cuts himself off, his voice straining oddly. “Are you alright.”
“Yeah.” You breathe out, voice still hung with confusion. “I- I’m okay.”
Bucky makes a low sound, and it rolls through your whole body. Between your legs.
You shift against him, trying to relieve some friction. He holds you tighter. He smells good, like pine trees and something warm that’s just Bucky, and it’s intoxicating. You manage to twist so that you’re facing away from him, because being this close to him and keeping yourself from moaning—whenever his hand dips too low on your back, or his thigh flexes too close to your core—is almost impossible.
“I punched him.” Bucky breaks the long silence.
“Who?”
“Jack.”
You swallow on a lump in your throat. That wants that to mean something, when you know it doesn’t. “You didn’t have to do that-“
“I did.” He grunts, and your lips press in a tight line.
“And then you… came back?”
He sighs, breath warm near your ear. Nods.
“Why?”
“I told you.” Bucky sounds heavy. It’s nothing compared to the weight of him on your ribs, over your heart.
“No, I-” Your voice wavers. “Why for me? You- You don’t even like me.”
Bucky stills completely. His hands splay against you, branding your skin, and you can hear him lick his lips near your ear.
“What are you talkin’ about?” His voice is oddly rough, and you frown at the air.
“You- You don’t like me. Which is- It’s fine, you don’t have to, but-“
“I like you.”
You blink, at the harshness of his words. “No, you don’t.”
“Yes. I do, we’re-“ His voice is getting lower, like he’s trying to convince himself. “We’re friends.”
“No, we’re not?”
“Do you… Not like me?”
It’s so painful, the way the end of his sentence drops off. Hesitant. Unsure.
You really don’t understand what’s happening.
“I- I don’t-“ You’re stammering, heat flooding your cheeks. “That’s not- You don’t like me, so I-“
“Doll, I-“
“You don’t like me,” your voice is rising. It’s not helpful, to have his bare body so close to yours for him. “You don’t, you- You’re always glaring at me, and we don’t hang out-“
“We sit in the kitchen together-“
“Yeah, but- You never talk to me!”
Bucky’s fingers are digging into your sides. “Yes.” He grunts. “I do.”
“Only when you tell me how I fucked up a mission-“
“I’m givin’ you tips, and- Fuck-“ His voice caves a little again, until it’s only a rasp. “Do you really not think I like you?”
He sounds hurt. As if you did something wrong, you always do something wrong to him, and-
You’re crying again. The tears stream silently down your cheeks, and you can’t stop yourself from turning your face into Bucky’s shoulder to hide it. Everything is still so cold, and there’s confusion and dread building in your stomach that you’ve twisted something all wrong, and he’s so warm and safe.
His hand flies to the back of your head, and he rolls over you, shielding you from the worlds. A metal thumb comes to your cheek, wiping the tears then trying to angle your chin up.
“This isn’t- Shit- Can you look at me?” Bucky says your name, and you try to twist away. “No, don’t- I don’t hate you. I don’t. I- Fuck, I’m not good at this, but- Look at me-“
Something hotter enters his voice, and your eyes snap up to his. Bucky looks at you with such open relief, you’re not sure you didn’t die.
“Bucky…” You breathe out, grabbing his wrist. “I- I’m sorry, you-“
“Don’t.” He grunts. “Don’t, I’m not- You never gotta apologize. Not to me.”
You shake your head, because that doesn’t make any sense, and Bucky’s throat bobs.
“I like you, doll.” He murmurs, dropping his brow against yours. Like something impossible to hold is on his shoulders. “I like you. Always liked you, I- Fuck, I used to be good at this-“
He stares at you like you’re something priceless. You feel exposed, completely Bucky’s with nothing to show for it, and he’s looking at you like you’re priceless. His thumb brushes over your lower lip. His voice is so deep, you can almost feel it in your chest.
“I like you.” He mutters, thumb tracing the corner of your mouth. “I like you, please.”
Something in you snaps, at the pure, open vulnerability in his voice. At how fragile you feel, and how if his heat doesn’t melt you, it will mend you together. You surge up without thinking.
Press your lips against his, harsh and fast. The timing is all wrong, and it’s nothing but a bumping of nose and smashing of lips. He doesn’t kiss you back, until the very last second, when you’re already pulling away.
He dives down after you, then recoils.
Glaring down at you, an expression identical to what you’ve seen so many times on his face.
The only difference is his mouth hanging open. And his heartbeat, under your hand.
Fast.
He stares at you. You stare back, tears pricking back at your eyes, and-
Bucky almost falls over you. And this kiss is just as sloppy as the first, but it’s anything but awkward. Bucky kisses you like he’s trying to tell you something, that nothing but his body can say. His hands wander, as his lips move relentlessly against yours. He angles his head, deepening the kiss, and all the built-up heat floods you like a wildfire.
Your arms fly around his neck, as you kiss him back. Bucky groans, doubling his force, and you’re pinned between him and mattress. Your legs glide apart to accommodate his space, and you shiver as his metal hand finds the base of your spine, pushing you up into the muscle of his torso.
“Bu- Bucky-“ You gasp, and he growls against your mouth. “Oh- Oh my-“
Your hips roll, because it’s too much to bear. How much you need him, how consuming he is, how happy you’d be to drown if it’s under him. Your legs drag wider, and Bucky starts a warpath down your throat, lips burning every bit of skin he can find.
Your back arches into him, your fingers flying to his hair. It’s wet and messy, a painful pleasure when you try to chase him but find nothing. His teeth graze your neck, and it sends a shiver down your spine.
“Please, fuck-“ You writhe below him, unable to keep still as he works you like an instrument. “More- I, I need you, so bad, Bucky, please-“
He crashes back up, kissing you until your toes curl and your head spins.
“You are…” He pulls your head back, deepening the kiss. “Fuckin’ beautiful. You really didn’t know, did you doll. Just what you were doin’ to me, how much I wanted-“ He pulls your lip between his teeth, and you moan openly. “This.”
There’s a force, behind his kiss and his touch. It’s demanding, and you’re more than willing to give.
Your legs are spread as wide as they can go, your hips humping up into Bucky’s body. His warmer hand slams down, right over your barely clothed core, pressing it back down into the bed.
“Don’t do that. I’ve been tryin’ to keep it together, but if you-“ He groans, as he feels the damp spot on your panties. “Fuck, you- You’re-“
“Bucky,” you sound downright pathetic, lashes fluttering as you try to plea with him. “Need you-“
“No, you don’t-“
“Yes, I do.” Your voice breaks in a sob. He can’t just do this, then not give you more. He must really hate you, for him to torture you like that-
Bucky cuts your thoughts off with another, softer kiss. It’s impossibly sweet, making your heart flutter and a sigh escape your lips.
“Don’t cry, babydoll.” Bucky murmurs. “Nothin’ here to cry about.”
You disagree. “Please.” You whisper, holding his hooded gaze, and his tongue flicks over his lips.
His hand presses harder, and a ruined moan escapes your lips.
“James…”
You don’t know what makes you say it. But Bucky’s reaction is immediate. His breath catches, his eyes flashing, there’s almost a predatory focus on his face. He drags two fingers, slowly over the wet spot.
You shudder below him, moaning again, and his nostrils flare.
“Say it again.” His words are firm, and you obey freely.
“James, please-“
Bucky kisses you again, cutting off your words into a moan. But this time, he builds up. His fingers apply a little more pressure, his palm rubbing back and forth against your clit. His tongue slides against yours, as he drags your underwear to the side, and teases his fingers over your pussy lips.
You squirm below him, and he doesn’t break the kiss.
“Be patient, pretty girl. Waited years.” He dips into your wetness, gathering it up before smearing it on your clit. “Gonna take my time.”
All you can do is scratch at his back and shoulders, trying to urge him on. Bucky just chuckles, rolling around your clit before moving back down, and notching his fingers right at your entrance. You aren’t strong enough, to move against him and pull him inside. Just blunt nails graze you, and your eyes roll back in your head.
Then suddenly, he’s gone.
It’s a split second, where your eyes fly open and you almost choke him, in an attempt to stop him from leaving.
But he’s not even trying to.
He’s just switching hands.
The metal, now cool and biting against your skin, spanks your pussy lightly, and you go limp below him.
“I’ve got you, doll.” He mutters against your lips, his eyes trained between your bodies. On where his hand is resting against your cunt. “So wet, for me. ’S for me?”
He glances up, and smirks when you nod.
“I know.” He plants a mockingly sweet kiss on your lips. “Always knew, just thought you saw it. How much I dreamed about this, you and your pretty fuckin’ pussy-“
He slides a finger into you, and you clench tight around him, still managing to stare up at him and cling to his every word. He groans, as he pushes further in. Presses his cheek against yours, his breath hot on your ear.
“Relax.”
You try to. You close your eyes, and let his body ease you down. Eventually you get it, and your body goes limp. You breathe heavy through your nose, as Bucky pushes his finger fully into you. Starts to pump it slowly, letting you feel him work open your walls, hitting that deep spot inside of you every time with ease.
Bucky groans. “Knew you’d take me so good. Fuckin’- could smell when you got wet, smelled like candy, made me feel like a dog. I would’ve gotten on my knees for you, doll, but I like you like this, too.” He pushes up over you, finger picking up pace. Grins at your open, wanting expression, your arms wrapping around your stomach. “Wrecked on my fingers. Soakin’ the sheets,” he reaches up, brushing a stray tear from your cheek. “So damn needy, and mine.”
You moan, and Bucky smirks. His fingers pick up pace, and it makes you feel like you’re going to burst into starlight.
“Say it,” he grunts, and the glare is back.
Not a glare of hate, you realize in your lustful haze.
A glare of hunger. Desire.
And something dangerously close to adoration.
“I- Bucky, fuck-“
“Say you’re mine,” he lowers himself back down, his lips brushing yours. “Please.”
He asked so nicely again. “I- I’m yours-“ You whimper, his thumb flicking against your clit. “I’m yours, Bucky, I’m-“
You moan into his mouth, as he kisses you open and desperate.
“I can’t believe you think I could hate you.” He mutters against your lips, and you swallow.
“James-“
“Who the hell could hate something so beautiful?”
That does it.
Heat rushes through you, and your vision swims as you cum hard enough to light you on fire. When you float back down, Bucky is still over you. His metal hand is stroking your thigh, and it’s so quickly clear.
That’s not enough.
He must see it on your face, because his brows raise. There’s the glare again.
And a tension in his body, like he’s trying to hold himself back.
“You need more, babydoll?” He mutters, searching your face. “You want-“
“Yes.” You moan, and you’ve never seen Bucky move so fast in your life.
He sheds his underwear like they were burning him, and in the split second you see him, your mouth falls open. He’s beautiful, but thick, and you don’t know if you can take it.
Bucky makes it easy. He mutters a quick check about birth control, tapping his head on your clit. You nod, and he kisses your forehead, breathing raggedly as he slides into your dripping cunt.
“Fuck…” He moans, fingers finding your clit to stop you from fluttering around him. “’S… So good-“
Whatever suave words he had before are gone. Bucky bottoms out, and sits inside of you, chest heaving as he gives you a second to adjust.
And when he starts moving, it’s controlled. Careful, pulling far out of you before slamming back in, his eyes fixed on the way your body reacts. He rolls his hips, grabs your legs and hikes it up, hitting a sweet, deeper angle that makes you see stars.
A broken James falls out of your lips.
And he snaps.
Bucky grabs your hands, from around your body, and pins them over your head. His hips start to drill into you, his cock slamming against every deep and sensitive part inside of you. You can only blink up at him, too cock-drunk to speak, sparks seeming to fly up your spine as he fucks you into a wrecked, blissed-out oblivion.
He’s trying to talk to you, broken praise falling from his lips, but it all comes out in feral sounds. You’ve never seen him like this, his brow pinched and lips parted, body flushed and movements sharp and wild. Almost nothing he says makes much sense, and every single grunt seems to mean the same exact thing that’s lost in the friction of your bodies.
Then his mouth lands over yours, his thrusts turning short and desperate. You’re so close, seconds from tipping over the edge, and-
“Love you,” he chokes out your name, taking a deep breath as he ruts into your g-spot. “Love you so much.”
You cum around him, arching off the bed from the full force of it. Bucky groans, swallowing your every cry of his name with his mouth, and pulls out with a groan.
He fists himself, the head of him still tapping against your clit, and he moans your name as he paints your thighs and abdomen white.
Bucky leans down, the kisses sweet again. Soft.
Taking time.
You’re too boneless to do much but return them, one hand moving up to cup his face. He grabs it, and kisses the inside of your wrist. Stands and grabs a towel from your bathroom, cleaning between your thighs in a comfortable silence. You feel like you’re floating, somewhere higher than heaven. Your head is empty, except for his touch.
You only really know two things.
It’s so cold, while he’s gone.
But warm again, when he slides into bed at your side.
Safe, and warm, and loved.
“I don’t,” he mutters in your ear, voice still rough. “Hate you.”
You smile at the air, rolling over to press your face into his chest.
“Okay.” You hum, wrapping your arms around his chest. “I believe you.”
And as he kisses your hairline, lips soft and delicate, you really do.
✦End note: What is fanfic for if not indulging delusion.✦
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✦divider by @/kitsunecafe✦
Summary: You’re bleeding out alone in the snow and your brain does the only mercy it has left: runs every version of Bucky Barnes you’ve ever known in hopes that the real one makes it in time.
Author’s Note: hi friends <3 i fell down that whole “pov: you’re dying in the snow” rabbit hole that was floating around online a while back and my brain said oh bet?? cue me listening to no surprises by radiohead on repeat and accidentally writing this beast. lmao i’m so sorry and also absolutely not sorry. this is also not proofread :'(
Snow had a way of erasing the world. It fell between breath and bone, layered over footprints, swallowed distance until the tree line blurred and the hills became one pale unbroken thought.
You watched it drift through the crosshairs of your vision, lashes spidered with frost, every flake a soft impact on the heat that poured from your side. The sky had been iron when you went in and now it was the purest white, a ceiling with no seam.
Your radio had died somewhere between the second perimeter and the drop to your back. You knew because the last thing you heard was static chewing through Bucky’s voice, a cut-off syllable that might have been your name.
Your hand pressed into the wound on your side. It gaped with a slow-warm intelligence, a second mouth opening and closing around your palm. Your breath steamed in uneven ropes as you struggled to blink.
In an unsettlingly clean way, you understood that if you closed your eyes you would not open them again, so you fixed them on the sky and let the snow find you, let it rest on your cheekbones where your skin still knew how to be skin.
The treetops were black wires against the white sky. A rook cawed once and then the forest went back to listening. You had always thought the snow would be silent if it came to this, a pillowed quiet, a gentle drift into nothing, but it was not.
It crackled where it landed on your jacket, hissed where it touched blood. You could hear the far low groan of ice shifting in the ravine. Your breath whistled at the edges, a thin reed instrument you could not quite control. Somewhere to your right, your rifle lay half-submerged like a sleeping animal. The scope glass had frosted over. The magazine was still heavy. Useless now.
You tried the comm again because that is what you would do. Thumb found the push-to-talk and held it, out of habit if not hope. The headset answered with the same blunt silence, the same small stutter of static that might have been wind crawling along the antenna.
You pictured the little red light on your vest, the one that had stopped blinking. You pictured the map in your head, the way Bucky had tracked it with a gloved finger over the hood of the truck, the way he had tapped the switchback that led to the outbuilding and said he would keep to your flank.
He always did that. Quiet promises. No showy heroics. Just the fact of him at your side when things went bad.
It had gone bad at the bend, where the cut barrels ringed the slope, where the snow hid the old razor wire and the men inside the outbuilding were faster than they looked. You heard the shots the way you might hear bees. You had not felt the first hit at all, only a sudden looseness in your knees, the ground reaching up, the smack of your shoulder on ice that felt like a door closing.
The second hit had been a flower opening under your ribs. There was maybe a third, but you couldn't remember. After that there had been movement and then there had not. Someone had shouted. You had returned fire and the fire had not mattered because the world had already tilted toward this.
He would be coming.
You believed that because it was true every other time.
Bucky Barnes did not leave people behind. He did not leave you behind.
He could move through a fight like a shadow that knew exactly what needed to be done. He could put his body where the bullets wanted to be. He had a way of speaking into your comm when you were about to do something reckless, a low note that slid under panic and clicked into place.
You could hear it then like you always did, the memory of his tone more than the words. Steady. Breathe. Two more steps. On your six. He never told you to be careful. He never told you to wait. He met you where you were and made all of this survivable.
The cold creeped into the wound on your side like unwelcome fingers. You felt it as a clarity first, as a kind of antiseptic truth. Then you stopped feeling the edges of it at all. Your fingers had gone rigid where they cupped your side.
You meant to dig in harder and there was no difference. You meant to curl your knees and they were heavy stone ovals under the snow. You had a thought about how you might look from above, the black of your suit like spilled ink, the red staining out around you like a map you had not intended to draw.
You did not like that thought, so you watched the snow again and let it occupy you.
Footfalls would sound, you told yourself once more.
He made no noise when he wanted to, but for you he would call out first. Bucky had learned that after the first time a year back in Russian tunnels when you put a round into the wall an inch from his head.
He had laughed later, head tipped back, teeth bright and quick in the dim light, but his voice had gentled when he came up on you after that. He would say your call sign before he said anything else. He would say it like a question with an answer built in.
You heard it now the way you wanted to hear it. The syllables hit the frozen minutes and shattered, nonexistent.
You couldn’t turn your head, so you turned your eyes. The world rimmed in salt-white. The wind barely moved and yet every flake fell as if purposeful, one after another. You counted them as if counting could keep you awake. You ran out of numbers and began again, and the counting became a hum that anchored you to the moment of your breath and the moment after that.
Your tongue had the taste of iron. Your throat felt lined with glass. You swallowed and the glass complained. You tried to cough and even that was too much. The cough lived inside your chest without moving the air.
On the edge of hearing, like a trick the brain plays when it catalogs what it misses, a radio chirped. You froze inside the body that could not move. The chirp became a crackle. The crackle opened like a curtain to a voice that was there and not there, a sound shaped like him.
You did not know if it was memory or mercy. You knew what he would say if it was real. You waited for the habit of him to arrive.
You had met Bucky Barnes in winter, which felt like a private joke you had never admitted out loud. He was winter the way a river is winter. Cold only to the touch. Underneath, the force of him moved dark and certain.
He wore layers like armor and then shed them like a man shrugging out of a story he did not want anymore. He stood with his weight balanced as if ready to break into motion with a breath and he could be still for longer than anyone else.
The first time he had handed you a thermos after a long, dead stakeout, his mouth had moved around the shape of a smile that pretended it was not one. That motion lived in your head even now, precise as a photograph. You let it play behind your eyes to distract yourself from the creeping quiet at your extremities.
Another minute slid past with the round edges that minutes have when they are running out. The treetops shifted. Somewhere distant, an engine coughed and went silent. You could not tell if that was the truck or a memory of a truck you had slept in once, shoulder to shoulder in the back while frost filmed the windows and the only warmth was breath and shared curses.
Bucky had said you snored. You had said he slept with his eyes open sometimes and it creeped you out. You had wanted to touch his knuckles where his flesh hand rested on his thigh. You had not. You were very responsible about some things.
Now you wanted a miracle and all you had was snow.
You wanted a hand to move the hair out of your face because it had stuck there, stiff with melted snow and blood, because it tickled in the way you could not reach. You wanted Bucky to cut through the tree line with that clean, predatory economy of his, to drop to his knees beside you and say your name like you had not wrecked him for weeks with an almost-confession you did not know you had made.
You wanted his breath in your ear as he told you to hold on, and you wanted to because he would say it.
But you did not have that.
You had the memory of his palm spanning your shoulder when he pushed you down behind a barrier two missions ago. You had the sound of his boots on concrete, always closer than you expected. You had the little ordinary things he did that felt like a prayer. He fixed the strap on your holster without comment. He handed you his spare knife when yours went skidding. He stood in the door while you fell asleep and then left to watch the hallway whenever the two of you were stuck in a safehouse.
He never made it feel like a favor. It was just that he was there.
You thought about how he would be angry at himself for not being faster, how he would scuff the snow with the heel of his boot while he gathered you up, how he would look at your face first and then at his hands to check for what he had missed.
He would allow himself that one loss of composure, that tiny tic of self-cruelty, and then force it down because there was work to do. He did not yell when it mattered. He moved. He made use of whatever he had.
He had you. And that had always surprised you more than it should have.
You let your eyes slide to the right as far as they would, just enough to catch the slope where the path cut through. You imagined the curve of his body as he dropped into a run. You imagined the precision of the vibranium arm, the way the plates caught light and gave it back in sharp pieces.
You had once watched him at a bench under a bad flickering bulb, oiling the joints with the concentration of a man tending a garden. You had wanted to ask what it felt like. He had looked up at you as if he had heard the question anyway. He had said it felt like a hand. He had said it felt like the rest of him. You believed him.
Snow settled in the hollow of your throat. It itched like a memory you could not place. You wanted to laugh because it was so stupid, to be bothered by that while the center of you opened into the cold.
Your breath clouded and thinned. You tried to flex your fingers and the signal did not travel. You tried to say his name and the sound stuck to your teeth. The wind shifted and brought you the faintest scent of gunpowder and sap. The outbuilding door slammed somewhere behind the drift and the sound was very small from here, like a door closing in another house in another life.
You knew you should keep fighting. You knew the list of things to do, the order in which to do them. You had given that brief yourself like a bedtime story before ops. Breathe. Pressure. Elevation. Communicate. Stay awake. Count. Catalog your surroundings. Find a landmark and fix on it. Feed yourself tasks so the panic has no room to move in.
You had been good at it because you were stubborn and because you wanted to keep coming back to the people who made the fight make sense. You wanted to keep coming back to him and the unspoken thing that sat between you like a live wire taped neat and tucked out of sight.
He had said your coat looked ridiculous that morning. He had said it in a way that meant he liked it. You had rolled your eyes and said his needed patching and he had allowed the insult because you were the one who did the patching. He had watched your hands move the needle through the fabric with a stillness that felt like being seen.
If you closed your eyes now you could see that exact thread shining between your fingers. If you closed your eyes now…
No. Your eyes stayed open. They burned. They watered. The world doubled at the edges and then sharpened again like a lens trying to find you. You focused on the nearest branch where a clot of snow thickened and slid in slow motion, fell without a sound, punctured the layer beside your ear. You tried again to drag breath past the weight in your chest and the breath went in like a reluctant guest.
When he looked at your headset later he would press it to his ear as if that could pull your voice back through. You saw that so clearly it might as well have been happening beside you. He would check the wiring, not because he did not know but because his hands needed a job.
He would track the blood you had left against the white and it would lead him here. He would call for you then, low and sure like he could will it into an answer. He would kneel and the snow would creak and the world would tilt back toward the side where you lived.
You wanted that. You had never wanted anything the way you wanted that.
The wind picked up. A veil of snow dusted across your face and your eyes blinked clean on reflex. It was getting darker in a way that had nothing to do with time. The clouds had thickened into a single sheet and the line of the hill melted into it.
You thought for a split second that you heard his boots. You thought for another that you saw a shadow detach from the trees and start down the path. You held yourself ready for the relief that would follow, for the way your body would answer that presence by remembering itself.
It was only the wind playing with the shape of the trees. It was only the little mean tricks the cold does as it settles into you.
You told yourself a story anyway, because that had always been how you kept the worst edges from cutting too clean. You told yourself he was close enough to hear your heartbeat. You told yourself he was swearing in that quiet way of his, the syllables clipped, the heat under them banked.
You told yourself he had the med kit out and the tourniquet ready. You told yourself his breath clouded the air above you and you turned your face into it because it was warm. You told yourself you would give him hell for taking so long and he would give it back, eyes crinkled at the corners, mouth a line he could not stop from lifting.
Your story could not move your blood. It could not knit flesh. It could only hold you in place while the world kept snowing.
Pain flared once, brilliant as a flare against fog, and then folded into itself and left a ringing quiet. You breathed into that quiet and felt something in you unspool, a slow ribbon, warm where it left.
If he had been here, you would have leaned into his chest while he got the bleeding under control. You would have let the lines of him hold the lines of you together. You would have listened to the steady drum of his heart like a metronome you could set yourself to. He would have said your name then. Not your call sign. Your name. He would have said it like a fact, like an anchor thrown into deep water that hits bottom and holds.
You thought you saw a figure again and you let yourself believe it this time without interrogating it. The snow had a way of making lies tender. You watched the shape come closer in the long patience of someone who had run out of choices and found, to your small surprise, that there was no fear in you at all. Just the strange, clean relief of not needing to move.
If it was him, he would kneel. If it was not, you would not have to know.
If he was coming.
You took another breath because breath was a thing you could still do. The snow touched your lips like hands would. Your vision narrowed its aperture. For a heartbeat the world clicked into focus with such precision it hurt. Every needle on the firs was an individual thing. Every flake was a star with a private trajectory. Every memory of how he looked at you slotted into place behind your eyes like rounds into a magazine.
You felt the heat of your blood where it pooled under your palm. You felt the stiffness of the fabric where it froze at the edges. You felt the small ceiling of sky press down and you pressed back by staying.
The figure did not resolve. The comm did not spark to life. The snow kept falling because that is what it does. You tasted iron. Your tongue was heavy. Your throat had learned silence and did not want to unlearn it.
You thought of the way he held the world together when he could. You thought of how he would hate this. You thought of his hands, one flesh, one forged, both equally careful when they touched what mattered.
You let those thoughts sit with you in the snow like companions. You let them be enough to keep your eyes open one minute more. Then another. You let them be the warmth you did not have, the promise the moment did not offer, the echo of a voice that had so often been the last thing between you and the dark.
Hold on, you heard, whether from memory or mercy you did not know. Hold on.
You did, the way you always had, with your teeth even when your hands had nothing left in them, with your attention fixed like a blade on the next small thing you could ask your body to do.
Breathe. Watch the snow. Wait for the sound of him. Refuse the easy closing.
The snow on your lashes blinked, and when your eyes opened, it was dust floating in the gym's fluorescent light.
You were still on your back, but the sky had become a ceiling, low and stained and hummed through with old wiring. The cold pressing into your spine softened into the thin ache of concrete that had stored years of footsteps. Your breath no longer streamed white; it fogged in front of your face in little bursts that smelled like recycled air and metal.
Somewhere nearby, a door slammed, the sound familiar in a way the crack of gunfire had never been.
You knew this room. You knew this version of the world like the inside of your own mouth. The compound. Early days. Before anyone trusted you with anything that mattered; before you believed them when they did.
You watched the dust drift between you and the light overhead and realized you were not lying on snow anymore but on the mat inside the gym, chest heaving, lungs burning from the last set.
"You good?"
Bucky’s voice came from just beyond your line of sight, lazy as if he already knew the answer and didn't trust it.
You turned your head and there he was, sitting with his back against the wall, knees drawn up, forearms resting across them. Hair damp at the temples, a darker ring on the collar of his shirt where sweat had soaked through. Dog tags winked once when he shifted, catching the light like a tiny, private snowfall.
"Pretty sure I'm dying," you had rasped, and the way your voice sounded then layered perfectly over the way it sounded now, raw and edged with something you hadn't named yet.
He huffed, that almost-laugh he did when something amused him but he refused to give it the satisfaction of a real reaction. The corner of his mouth tilted. His eyes dragged over you, fast and brief, like a scan for damage first and always.
"If you were dying, you wouldn't be whining about it," he said. "You'd be quiet. Terrifies me, remember?"
You remembered. You remembered the way he'd said it once after a mission, when you came back bleeding and making jokes, and his shoulders dropped like someone had cut a wire. Quiet, for him, meant missing. Meant gone. Meant tombstones with names that never should have had dates carved underneath.
He preferred noise. Preferred the way you swore when you took a hit, the way you grumbled when he pushed you too hard, the way you argued about tactics with hands moving in sharp little arcs.
You hadn't understood how much that meant, back then. You only knew the look in his eyes now, in this hallway, as he watched you fight for breath after another training session you insisted on taking too far. The look that said he was cataloging you into the part of his brain where things he couldn't lose got stored.
"You should've let me stop two rounds ago," you said, still trying to drag air into lungs that didn't want to expand.
"You said don't go easy on you," he reminded you, shrugging one shoulder. "You wanna take it back, now's the time."
"Not in front of a witness." You gestured weakly at the doorway to the gym, where the heavy bag still swung on its chain. "Gotta maintain my image."
He snorted, finally, a real sound. It scraped warm along your spine, an internal reflex you didn't have a name for yet. His metal hand flexed once against his knee, the plates catching the light in that soft ripple that fascinated you no matter how many times you saw it.
"Your image," he said slowly, "is the person that doesn't back down when a guy like me tells them to call it for the day."
Guy like me. You heard it the way he meant it, heavy with every history he still wore like old scars under his shirt, the ones no serum could smooth out. You pushed yourself up on your elbows, hands shaking, and looked at him full-on, your vision still rimmed in spots.
"A guy like you is the reason I'm not dead already," you said. "So if I wanna keep up, I can't tap out every time my muscles cry about it."
He watched you while you said it. Didn't look away. That was new; for months he had skated around full eye contact like it would reveal something he hadn't agreed to show. Now his gaze stayed on you, steady, thoughtful.
The blue of his eyes was darker here than it looked under the harsh lights of the briefing rooms. Closer, you could see every line at their corners, the little tightness that settled in when he was thinking too much.
"You keep talking about being dead," he said quietly. "Kinda makes me wanna wrap you in bubble wrap and lock you in a closet."
"Kinky," you had shot back, on instinct more than intention.
Silence, then, followed by a slow blink and a breath that might have been a laugh if he'd let it. He shook his head at you, hair falling into his eyes for half a heartbeat before he smoothed it back with his flesh hand.
"You're impossible," he said. "Get up. Hydrate. Before I end up explaining to Steve why you passed out in the hallway."
You remembered the way his hand had hovered for a moment before it caught your forearm to help you to your feet. The warm hand first, a firm grip, fingers bracketing bone. The metal one resting loose on his knee, deliberately not touching. As if he had made some kind of private rule about where each belonged when it came to you.
You let him haul you up, your legs wobbling, shoulder bumping his chest when you overshot your center of gravity. For one heartbeat you were pressed up nearly against him, every breath you took syncing with his, your cheek inches from his sternum. You remembered the way his heart had felt like a steady drum against your skin, even through layers.
He smelled like soap that had nothing to do with who he was and everything to do with who he was trying to be now. Coffee and gun oil ghosted under it. Something citrus, faint.
"Careful," he had murmured, reflexive, hand tightening on your arm.
"That's your job," you'd said, and then the hallway, the gym, the dust all shifted as if the whole compound inhaled and exhaled at once.
The air changed temperature. The fluorescent buzz smoothed itself into the softer hum of an old refrigerator. The light over your head yellowed, warm and uneven. Your back didn't ache from concrete anymore but from the unforgiving springs of a cheap mattress. The smell of metal and sweat thinned into the smell of rain hitting pavement outside a cracked window, exhaust and wet asphalt and cheap takeout.
You blinked, and you were on your side in a safe house bed, blanket tangled around your legs, shirt twisted, heart doing something reckless in your chest. The room was small, all peeling paint and mismatched furniture, but it felt too big with just the two of you in it.
The storm outside smeared shadows across the ceiling. A leak tapped somewhere in the corner. The warmth in the air was borrowed from an ancient space heater rattling in the corner.
Bucky was sitting on the edge of the bed, back to you. His metal arm reflected faintly in the gloom, the delicate seams between plates tracing their own geometry. He was rolling his neck like it hurt, head tipped back just enough to show the strong line of his throat.
You shouldn't have been awake. You should have been sleeping off the mission, letting the adrenaline seep out of your muscles. But he had been too quiet when you came in, too neat with his movements, and your body had learned to wake up when quiet wrapped itself this tight around him.
"You're thinking loud," you said, voice soft in the thick, late hour. The words arrived in this room and in the snow at the same time, as if they had never left your tongue.
He half-turned, enough for you to see the line of his jaw, the way his mouth pulled when he tried to decide whether to deny it. He didn't. He just shrugged one shoulder, the muscles there jumping, the metal arm resting on his thigh like an animal at ease.
"Can't sleep," he said simply.
"Nightmare?"
You watched the way his hand—flesh this time—tightened on his knee. The flicker at the corner of his eye. He didn't answer and that was answer enough. Your chest ached in that familiar way it did when you thought about all the nights he had lived through that had no decent ending.
"C'mere," you said, like you were offering him a glass of water instead of the mess of your own heart.
He hesitated exactly long enough for you to know this wasn't simple. And you knew it wasn’t.
Finally, he shifted, the mattress dipping under his weight as he turned toward you. The room was too small to pretend this was casual; when he lay down on top of the blanket, it was with a care that bordered on reverent.
He shoved his boots off, like he was taking at least one step toward comfort but refusing the rest. The metal arm stayed angled away from you at first, braced against the headboard, like a part of him was holding himself up off you even while the rest sank down.
You rolled onto your back to make room. The old bed squeaked. Your shoulder brushed his. The contact felt like it should have set off alarms. You stared up at the cracked plaster above you, tracing the faint water stains with your eyes.
"You know," you said, after the silence nested too comfortably in the room, "you are allowed to sleep. The world keeps spinning without you supervising it."
"Does it?" His voice was quieter here than it was on the field, as if the walls might tell on him. "Pretty sure every time I let my guard down, something goes sideways."
"The heater's the only thing going sideways tonight," you replied. "And if it explodes, at least we'll go in our sleep. Real mercy kill."
He made a sound that might have been a laugh or a frustrated exhale; with him, they were almost the same. You could feel the vibration of it through the mattress, through the few inches between you.
His gaze flicked over to you in the dark, catching just enough of your features to make them real: the curve of your cheek, the line of your mouth, the way you stared stubbornly at the ceiling as if refusing to look at him too much might save you from something.
"You got a real cheerful streak, you know that?" he murmured.
"I work with what I have." You let your hand rest near his on the blanket, not touching but close enough that the heat of him gathered in your palm. "You wanna talk about it?"
The storm outside filled the pause. Rain hit the window like thrown gravel. Somewhere far off, a car rolled through water, the sound dopplering away. He breathed in, slow and precise, like a man approaching a minefield.
"Same old," he said. "Faces I don't remember. Things I did. Things I didn't do."
"And me?" you asked, before you could tell your tongue to mind its business. "Do I show up in there yet?"
You had meant it as a joke. Light, deflecting. You had not expected the way it landed between you with weight.
His head turned, full-on now, eyes finding yours in the half-light. There was something like surprise in them and something like resignation, like he'd been waiting for you to ask and had hoped you wouldn't.
"No," he said simply. Then, after a beat, "You show up after."
"After?"
"Yeah." He let his gaze drop to the line of your shoulder, your throat, the rise and fall of your chest. "After I wake up. After I remember where I am. You're there. You sound annoyed. Tellin' me I'm hogging the covers or snoring or…something." He swallowed. "It's not like the dreams. It's quieter. Easier to breathe."
You could have said a dozen things. Any of them might have broken the fragile, careful balance of the moment. So you picked the least dangerous one and hoped it was enough.
"For the record," you said, voice softer than you meant it to be, "you absolutely snore."
"I'm a professional," you replied. "I observe. I report. I'm very thorough."
His fingers moved then, just a fraction. The metal ones, where his arm had been anchored to the headboard. They flexed like they wanted to close around something. Maybe around your hand. Maybe around his own throat.
You shifted your hand the smallest distance, letting the back of your fingers brush the cool plates where his wrist rested near your head. The contact was brief, accidental on the surface. It lit up a whole system in you that had nothing to do with nerves or blood and everything to do with the careful way he drew in his next breath.
"Gonna put that in the report too?" he asked, but his voice had gone lower, roughened at the edges.
"Only the important parts," you said. "Bucky Barnes: snores, hogs blankets, represses emotions, has decent hair."
He rolled his eyes, but he was smiling now, real and reluctant. He let the metal hand turn under yours so your fingers could rest in the thinner seam between plates, the place where warmth leaked through from the machinery underneath. You felt that warmth travel up your arm, lodging somewhere inconvenient behind your ribs.
"Decent?" he repeated. "That's the best you got?"
"Don't push your luck," you murmured.
The room held onto that, tucking it into its corners, into the creak of the bed, into the whisper of rain on glass. You had laid there, side by side, not touching more than that point of contact, and felt the entire axis of your life tilt by degrees you couldn't measure.
Outside, someone in the world was dying, someone was being born, someone was making coffee, someone was stealing a car. Inside that little room, the biggest thing happening was two people lying very still, pretending breathing wasn't a confession.
The bed beneath you now, in the snow that had become the gym that had become this safe house, gave one long, low groan, and you blinked again.
The warmth of his arm under your fingers cooled, the hum of the heater faded into the distant, steady roar of engines. The rain against the window turned into the shudder of metal walls under heavy wind. The mattress pitched, and you were strapped into a seat instead, shoulder harness biting into your chest. The air tasted like high altitude, thin and filtered, tinged with jet fuel and sweat and something like anticipation.
You looked up at the interior of the quinjet around you, all matte black surfaces and exposed wiring, the faint blue glow of instruments painting everyone in cold light. Across the aisle, Bucky sat with his forearms braced on his knees, eyes fixed on the floor between his boots. Gloves on this time. Strap secured. Weapon at his feet. The set of his shoulders said he was thinking too much. Again.
"You look like you're about to bolt," you said over the engine noise, because you had never really learned how to leave him alone when he folded into himself like that.
He lifted his head, eyes dragging up to meet yours, and the motion happened here in the jet and out there in the snow where you imagined it, where you waited. The duality of it made your lungs stutter. He frowned at you, familiar and fond.
"Remind me which one of us jumped out of a plane without a parachute once?" he called back, mouth quirking.
"Peer pressure," you shouted. "Terrible influence in my life."
"You volunteered," he said. "I remember."
"You asked," you shot back. "There's a difference."
He gave you that look then, the one he reserved specifically for you, where exasperation and something softer wrestled to a draw. His gaze flicked over you quickly, checking gear, checking weapons, checking the line of your mouth like it could tell him if you were lying about being okay.
"You don't gotta prove anything," he said, the words bending around the roar of the engines but still reaching you clearly. "Not to me."
"Maybe I'm not doing it for you," you said, but it came out gentler than you intended. "Maybe I like jumping out of planes."
"You're a menace," he muttered, but there was a hint of pride threaded through it. "You stick to the plan this time, yeah?"
"I always stick to the plan."
He arched a brow.
"Most of the plan," you corrected. "Some of the plan."
His eyes closed briefly, like he was making a wish he didn't believe in. When he opened them again, they were steady, all business, that sharp, clear soldier-killer-operative gaze that saw everything and revealed nothing. Except—when it landed on you, there was that fraction of a degree softer, that fractional tilt of world where you fit.
"Just…" he said, pausing, the word hanging between you. His hand lifted, then dropped, as if he'd thought about reaching for you and changed his mind at the last second. "Come back."
It wasn't an order. It wasn't even a request. It was more like a fact he was trying to negotiate with the universe directly. You felt something in your chest catch on it, like cloth snagged on a nail.
Before the feeling could settle, he added, "I am not writing a report on this mission if you die halfway through. That's paperwork I don't need."
"You too, Barnes," you replied, trying to keep it light.
He shook his head, lips twitching. Then, quietly, not quite over the noise but close enough that your brain filled in the missing pieces, he added, "Not planning on going anywhere."
The jet bucked slightly, turbulence or a shift in altitude. You remembered the lurch in your stomach, the way your fingers curled around the strap of your harness. You remembered thinking, let him be right. Let him be right this time.
The engines roared louder. The jet blurred. The straps bit a little deeper into your shoulder, then loosened like someone had cut them. The black interior faded to gray, then to white. The air thinned and sharpened. The metal floor under your boots dissolved into snow again.
You blinked back into your own body, the one lying on the slope, blood soaking into cold earth. The flash of his face in the quinjet flickered like a film frame over the blank sky. For a second you saw both at once: him across from you under humming lights, and the emptiness above you now where his silhouette should be.
The snow brushed your cheek. Your breath hitched, shallow, then steadied again in its fragile rhythm. Your mind, stubborn thing, refused to stay in the present for long. It reached for him again and found him somewhere else, somewhere softer.
The compound kitchen this time. Late enough that the overheads were dimmed. The fridge hummed louder than seemed reasonable. The world had shrunk down to the island countertop, the half-empty mug in front of you, and the way he leaned against the opposite edge like he owned the space without meaning to.
He wore a t-shirt that had seen better days, a line of text you couldn't quite make out in the low light, and sweatpants that told you he'd likely been asleep before a nightmare yanked him out of it. His hair was a riot, sticking out in directions that made him look younger, almost, if you ignored the tired etched into the corners of his mouth.
You had been raiding the cabinets for something with sugar in it, bare feet cold on the tile. The mission was over, debriefs done. Your formal mask was off. You were holding a spoon in one hand and a jar of Nutella in the other like they were standard-issue equipment.
"You know they make actual food here," he'd said from the doorway, surprising you but not really. He had a way of appearing wherever you were like the universe had assigned him the job of shadowing you.
"This is actual food," you answered, dipping the spoon. "It's got nuts. And…ella."
"That's not how that works." He pushed off the doorframe and came closer, eyes narrowing at your haul. "You plan on sleeping ever again, or you just gonna ride that sugar high 'til you pass out?"
"Bold of you to assume I sleep now," you said. "Besides, you drink coffee like it's a religion. At least my terrible coping mechanism tastes like chocolate."
He made a face like he wanted to argue and couldn't quite find a foothold. After a second, he extended a hand, palm up, expectant.
"What?" you asked.
"Gimme the spoon," he said.
"Get your own."
"I'm not stickin' my fingers in there like an animal," he replied. "Now share before I tell Sam you got caught double-dipping in the communal snacks."
"Coward," you muttered, but you handed over the spoon anyway, heart doing that stupid flip it did when he took something from you like it was the most natural action in the world. His fingers brushed yours in the exchange, warm and callused. He didn't seem to notice. You absolutely did.
He took a scoop and made a face like he wanted it to be terrible and it foolishly, traitorously, wasn't. The spoon clicked against his teeth. He handed it back with a little nod.
"Okay," he admitted. "Could be worse."
"High praise," you said. "I'll take that glowing review to my grave."
The word lodged in the air between you in this kitchen the way it was lodging in your throat in the snow now. Grave. You had meant it as nothing, throwaway hyperbole. A joke. As you always did. You hadn't known how literal it would feel later when cold seeped into your bones.
He set the jar down on the counter, closer to you than to himself. His metal hand rested on the edge, the fingers leaving tiny crescents in the laminate where the pressure concentrated. You watched his knuckles turn faintly white in the flesh hand.
"Don't talk like that," he said, quietly enough that the fridge almost drowned it out.
"Like what?" You took another scoop, feigning ignorance.
"Like your grave's a funny punchline all the time," he said. His eyes were on the spoon, not on your face. "Like you're not…" He exhaled, searching for the word. "Like you're not important."
Something inside you stilled. You leaned your hip against the counter, letting the spoon hover halfway to your mouth.
"Bucky," you said, because his name felt like a hand wrapped around your wrist, steadying. "I'm not—"
"I know what it looks like out there," he cut in, finally meeting your gaze. "I know how quick it can go bad. I know you think if you joke about it all the time, it won't get to you. But it gets to me."
The honesty in it landed like a blow. You swallowed, the taste of chocolate turning faintly metallic at the edges. The kitchen seemed too small to hold all the implications of that sentence.
"It gets to you," you repeated, because you needed to be sure you heard him right.
He nodded, once. Barely. "Yeah."
"Because…?" you prompted, the word gentle as you could make it.
He made a small, frustrated noise, like the problem wasn't what he felt but the fact of being asked to name it. His fingers tapped once on the counter, a little staccato rhythm. Finally, he shook his head and settled on the simplest version, the one that carried the least risk but still told the truth.
"Because I don't want anything else on my conscience," he said quickly. "And that includes you."
It wasn't the whole truth. You heard the missing pieces in the space between syllables. But it was enough to send a flush creeping up your neck, enough to make your chest feel like it had grown too small for your ribs.
"Well," you said softly, the jokes falling away one by one until only sincerity remained, raw and exposed, "for what it's worth, I don't particularly wanna end up dead either. So." You lifted the spoon in a mock toast. "I'll do my best not to traumatize you and ruin dessert for everyone."
He snorted again, but his eyes softened. You watched the tension in his jaw loosen by fractions. He reached over and, without comment, took the spoon back from you, scooping one last bit before setting it deliberately in the sink.
"Alright, that's enough," he said. "You'll be bouncing off the walls."
"Jealous?" you asked. "You could join me in the sugar high, stay up all night. We could make a whole thing of it."
He shook his head at you, fond and exasperated. "Go to bed," he said. "We move early."
"You bossing me around again?"
"Somebody has to," he replied, already turning toward the door. Then he paused, glanced back over his shoulder. "And hey," he added, tone lighter, almost tentative. "Try to get some actual sleep, okay? Just because you're up doesn't mean you gotta…think the whole time."
You stared at him, caught off guard by the care in the suggestion. "You too," you said, because it felt like something you owed him. "No brooding in the dark. Doctor's orders."
"You're not a doctor," he said, but the corner of his mouth twitched.
"Field medic," you shot back. "Close enough."
"Goodnight," he said, and it sounded heavier than the word should, like it was doing more work than just ending the conversation.
He left the kitchen smelling like sugar and something fragile. The overhead light buzzed once and then steadied. You had stood there a moment longer, hand wrapped around the jar like an anchor, feeling the shape of his concern settle over your shoulders like a jacket you weren't sure you had earned.
Now, in the snow, with your blood seeping out into the earth and your body growing too heavy to own, that jacket felt like the only thing keeping your mind from sliding off the edge. Every memory of him layered over the last—gym, safe house, quinjet, kitchen—until they formed a continuous film, running frame by frame behind your eyes.
You felt the shove of his hand between your shoulder blades when he pushed you behind cover. You heard the crack in his voice the one time he said your name like a plea instead of a warning. You saw the way his face had changed the first time you came back from a mission you were supposed to be too far away from, how shock melted into relief so intense it nearly knocked him to his knees.
All of it lived inside you now, playing on a loop as the present thinned around the edges.
You didn't want to die.
The snow kept falling. The sky kept being indifferent. But in your head, you were still in all those rooms with him, still laughing, still arguing, still pressing fingers to scars and pretending you weren't memorizing their map. You were still hearing his voice cut through static, through nightmare, through the heavy, dragging exhaustion of a life you hadn't expected to survive this long.
You realized, with a strange, quiet clarity, that if this was the last thing your brain chose to circle around—the shape of him in doorways, the weight of his gaze, the way his hand felt when he chose to touch you and when he chose not to—it wasn't the worst road to go out on.
You took another breath, thin and rattling and precious. The white above you blurred, then sharpened, then blurred again. Suddenly it was dark. You must've closed your eyes. Somewhere in the overlapping layers of your life, he was still sitting on the edge of your bed, still arguing with you in the quinjet, still stealing your spoon or mug in the kitchen. Somewhere he was still saying your name like a promise, even if he never meant you to hear what sat under it.
The corridor of memories snapped like someone cutting film.
All of it tore away in one sharp, white-hot jerk, and you were back in your body like slamming into a wall. Cold vaulted up your spine. The snow on your face was real again, not dust or rain or flickering fluorescence. Your lungs forgot how to work for a second, then clawed for air that burned going in.
Sound arrived in pieces.
First, the muffled crush of boots in snow somewhere above you. Then the ragged, too-fast drag of someone breathing hard, closer than your own, overlapping it. A voice, too low and blurred to make out at first, like the comm when it had started dying—static wrapped around syllables, desperation chopped into fragments.
Then, all at once, the volume snapped up. The world caught.
“—no, no, no—”
The words landed right above you, sharp and terrified and half-swallowed, and if you hadn’t known better you would have thought they belonged to someone else.
The weight in your side changed. Something pressed harder against the wound, firm enough to drag a rough sound out of your throat. It hurt in a way that felt almost bright, almost clarifying. Your eyes flew open on reflex.
Sky. Still white, still falling. But there was a shape cutting into it now, leaning over you, blocking some of the snowfall. A shadow with a familiar outline. Broad shoulders in dark gear, hair half-plastered to a sharp, pale face framed in the blurred halo of his breath.
Bucky.
You stared up at him through lashes crusted in frost and whatever your brain had left of coherence tried to reorder itself around the reality of him actually being here. He wasn’t a memory version this time. He wasn’t lit by kitchen fluorescents or quinjet LEDs. He was right there, real, close enough that flakes were catching in his hair and melting on his skin.
His eyes found yours like they’d been looking for that exact thing and nothing else.
“Hey,” he said, too loud, too rough, like the word scraped its way out of his chest. “Hey. Look at me. Stay with me, sweetheart.”
Sweetheart. The nickname cracked something in you that pain hadn’t touched. He didn’t toss that one around easy. It slipped in the spaces when he was tired, when his guard thinned. Hearing it here, now, felt like your name and something more, stuffed into one, pressed into your ribs.
You tried to say his name and your tongue—or maybe your whole mouth, your whole fucking face—didn’t get the message. It came out in a broken exhale, more air than sound. You weren’t even sure it made it past your teeth.
His gaze dropped to your mouth for half a heartbeat like he was checking, like he was reading the shape of what you’d tried to say.
“Yeah,” he breathed, quieter, like you’d managed it anyway. “It’s me. I’m here. I got you.”
His hands moved at your side, all business, the familiar, efficient brutality of field triage. The pressure on your wound redoubled, making the edges of your vision bloom black and crowd in. You felt the firm, unyielding plates of the metal hand digging in over your own useless fingers, the warm clamp of his flesh one above it, like he was trying to compress not just skin and muscle and ruptured vessels but the entire situation down into something he could actually handle.
You made a sound. You didn’t mean to. It wasn’t a word, just a hoarse, wet choke that twisted up and out of your throat. The cold had lined you on the inside; every breath felt like you were inhaling razor wire.
“I know,” he said immediately, the words snapping down over your noise like a shield. “I know, I know. Hurts like hell. That’s good. Means you’re still with me.”
You focused on his mouth because his eyes were too much—too full, too bright, too terrified. You could see the line of concentration there, the way his lips flattened when he was doing a dozen calculations at once. Distance to extraction. Time to bleed out. Temperature. Your weight. His own stamina. Probability curves. You knew that brain. You’d watched it grind through worse.
He shifted his weight and your world rocked with him. The snow beneath you squelched, a wet sound that had nothing to do with melt. He peeled your hand away from your side—somehow, at some point, your fingers had gone numb enough that they didn’t even try to resist—and replaced it with a balled-up compress from the kit. Pressure. Constant. Unrelenting.
“Lost you on comms,” he said, hands working while his mouth did. “Went dead right as you hit the bend. Static, then nothing. You know what that does to a man with my track record?” His voice cracked once, just a fracture in the middle of a sentence that he pretended wasn’t there. “Drove me fuckin’ crazy trying to pick a signal outta snow and concrete.”
His movements were fast but controlled. Tourniquet pulled tight above the wound. Seal slapped over an entry you couldn’t see. Somewhere, he’d ripped your jacket open; you didn’t remember when. The cold had burrowed into every exposed inch of you, but where his hands were, it was just heat, just pressure, just the fierce, stubborn insistence of him refusing to let anything leak out that he hadn’t given permission to.
“Thought—” He cut himself off, jaw locking. You saw the muscle jump there, the tendons stand out. He swallowed hard and tried again. “Fuck. You weren’t where you were supposed to be. Trail was half-covered. You bled all over my damn map, sweetheart.”
There it was again. A soft name in a place it didn’t belong, said like he didn’t have time to filter anything. You latched onto it the way your body tried to latch onto oxygen.
You could hear other noises now, too. Distant, on the periphery. Voices over his shoulder—Sam, maybe, or whoever else had made it to the treeline with him. Footsteps crunching, the whine of a quinjet engine ramping up in the far-blue distance. Someone on comms yelling coordinates. But all of it sounded like it was happening underwater. He was the only thing in crisp focus.
Your lips moved again. It felt like dragging them through wet cement. You were trying for something simple. Two words. You came. It was a stupid thing to say, redundant and childish, but it was the only thought that had enough weight to make it to your mouth. You had pictured him not making it over and over in the snow. The fact of him kneeling here, cursing under his breath and leaving dents in the earth with his knees, felt like it needed acknowledging.
It came out a fragile stutter of consonants and air. “Y—you… c—”
His head dipped, forehead nearly touching yours as he leaned in, like he could catch the sound before it froze.
“What?” he said, and the word was gentler than anything had any right to be out here. “Say it again. I got you. I’m right here, I can hear you.”
You tried. You dragged breath in past the thick, heavy thing sitting on your chest and shaped it as best you could. “You… came.”
It barely existed. Not even a whisper, more like the ghost of one.
But he heard it.
Of course he did. This was the man who could pick out the click of a safety in a firefight. Who heard the difference between your footsteps and anyone else’s in the hallway. His eyes flared, a flash of something raw that made your pulse jump weakly in your throat.
“Yeah,” he said, voice going rough again in a whole new way. “Yeah, of course I came.” He let out a shaky, humorless huff. “Took you long enough to notice, layin’ here making snow angels in your own damn blood.”
You blinked up at him, slow and stupid, and for half a second his mouth actually curved. The expression was a mess: relief trying to be a joke, fear trying not to be a sob, anger at himself coated in that familiar exasperation he used to keep from unraveling.
“Had to make, you know,” you rasped, every syllable sandpaper. “Dramatic… entrance.”
“Yeah?” he said. “Almost made a dramatic exit, too. Overachiever.”
He slid his hand under your head, lifting it just enough to wedge something rolled—his jacket? your pack?—beneath it to keep you from sinking deeper into the cold. His fingers were warm against the back of your neck. Calluses pressed into skin. You felt the precise care in the way he moved you, every angle measured so he didn’t jostle the hole in your side any more than he had to.
“Stay with me, okay?” he said, and the steadiness in his tone did not match the frantic glitter in his eyes. “I know you’re tired. I know. But you don’t get to tap out on me now. We’re not done arguing about proper nutrition or whatever dumb thing you’re gonna pick next.”
You wanted to tell him you’d absolutely fight him about nutrition, about sleep, about whose turn it was to wash the damn mugs in the kitchen. You wanted to point out that if he’d wanted you to rest, maybe he shouldn’t have made breathing around his presence so difficult. Instead, all that came out was a small, wrecked noise that could have been a laugh in a better world.
“S’rry,” you breathed, though you weren’t sure what for. For bleeding on the snow. For dropping comms. For scaring him. For not being stronger. For all of it and none of it.
His face hardened, not at you but at the word.
“No,” he said, sharp and immediate. “No ‘sorry.’ You hear me?” He shook his head once, snow scattering from his hair onto your cheeks. “You got nothing to apologize for. I should’ve been closer. I should’ve—”
He cut off again, like he’d hit a wall inside his own head.
Should’ve. You knew the rest of that sentence without hearing it. Should’ve checked the bend myself. Should’ve stood in front of you instead of trusting the angle. Should’ve known the comms were about to die because everything that could go wrong tended to when he had something to lose.
You wanted to tell him to shut up. That it wasn’t his fault. That you never listened to perfect plans anyway. That if he’d been any closer, maybe the bullet would’ve gone into him instead, and that was a timeline you refused with a kind of exhausted certainty that surprised you.
Your lips tried to shape his name again, but your throat rebelled. Your lungs were working so hard on the simple inhale-exhale loop that adding consonants seemed rude.
He saw the effort and leaned in like he could carry some of it for you.
“I know,” he said, soft. “I know what you’re tryna say. Save your breath for yelling at me later, okay?”
The metal hand kept pressure on the wound with relentless, uncomplaining force. The other was everywhere at once—checking your pulse at your throat, brushing wet hair away from your face, adjusting the angle of the bandage, reaching back to gesture furiously at whoever was behind him.
“Med evac, now!” he snapped, hand coming quickly to his comms, without looking away from you. “I don’t care if you gotta land that bird on one engine, Wilson, you get it down here.”
“We're landing, as fast as we can” Sam’s voice crackled through faintly, far and tinny to your ears but apparently in his. “You just keep them breathing.”
“Working on it,” Bucky muttered, more to himself than the comm, his hand moving back to you.
You felt his thumb drag once along your jaw, an absent, grounding touch like he wasn’t even aware he was doing it. There was a smear of red across his knuckles now, not all of it yours; he moved like he’d already gone through dozens of other people to get to you.
“Eyes on me,” he said. “Don’t look at the sky. Don’t look at the snow. That’s my job. Yours is just…” He hesitated, searching. “…just stay here.”
“I… am… here,” you mumbled, every word a separate, clumsy attempt. The syllables frayed at the edges, but you got them out.
“That’s right,” he said quickly, like he was rewarding a kid for doing something hard. “That’s it. That’s my girl.”
The phrase detonated quietly between you. He seemed to hear it a second after he said it, because his mouth pressed into a thin line—and for half a breath his eyes flicked away, like he needed to look at anything else.
My girl. You would have replayed it a thousand times in your head if you’d had the spare oxygen. As it was, all you could do was let the resonance of it hum through the spaces pain hadn’t filled yet.
You swallowed, the action slow and foreign. It felt like the first time you’d tried to use your voice after a bad smoke inhalation mission—everything scraped, everything resisted. “Thought…” you managed, vowels dragging. “You… didn’t… like… paperwork.”
He blinked, thrown. “What?”
“Reports,” you slurred, vaguely proud of yourself for getting the word mostly intact. “If I… didn’t… come back… you’d… have… to…”
“You are not, not dying because I hate forms,” he said, incredulous, and for the first time since he’d appeared, something like real, rough amusement flickered through his panic. “Jesus. Only you would try to guilt-trip me from a bullet hole.”
“Tactic,” you whispered. Your chest hurt from this much talking, but you couldn’t make yourself stop. It felt important to crowd the air with anything but silence. “Weapon… of choice.”
“Yeah, well, it’s working,” he said. His hand slid from your throat to your cheek, thumb pressing lightly at your cheekbone as if to keep your eyes open by sheer force. “Don’t you dare check out on me, you hear? I’m not done givin’ you shit for this. You went off alone, comms dead, no backup on the blind side—”
“Backup…” you wheezed before thinking. “S’pposed… to be… you.”
He flinched like you’d hit him. Just a tiny jerk, barely there, the kind someone who didn’t know him would’ve missed. You felt it in the way his fingers tensed.
“It was,” he said, voice dropping low and rough, like gravel under tires. “It is. I’m here now. I’m sorry.”
You might have reminded him of his own rule about apologies. You might have told him you didn’t blame him. Instead, your body chose that moment to curl in on itself, a cough tearing up from somewhere deep. It felt like your lungs turned inside out. Pain stabbed through your side like a hot, clean blade, and for a second everything white-ed out, the world narrowing to a rushing in your ears.
You would have rolled if you could move. He stopped you before the impulse even finished firing.
“Whoa, hey, easy—easy,” he said, bracing you with one hand splayed against your sternum, the metal still clamped at your side. “You gotta breathe gentle, sweetheart. Little sips. In and out. Don’t fight it. Atta girl.”
His voice did something to the panic clawing at your chest. It cut through the animal urge to thrash, to escape the burn, and threaded command through the chaos instead. You clung to it. In. Out. The breaths were shallow, ragged, but they happened. Your vision stuttered, then steadied enough to find his face again.
“There you go,” he murmured, relief bleeding into the words. “There you are.”
You saw it then, in the tiny lines around his eyes, in the way his mouth kept trying to settle and couldn’t: he was terrified. Not the kind of fear that froze. The kind that sharpened everything until it cut him from the inside.
“Couldn’t—” You swallowed, tasted blood. Your eyes pricked. “Couldn’t… hear you.”
“At the bend?” he asked, knowing exactly what you meant. “Yeah. I know. Comms fried. Whole channel went dead. I was callin’ you for twelve full minutes, felt like two goddamn years.” His jaw clenched. “By the time I got eyes on this slope—”
He glanced down at the trail you’d left, the carved red path in the snow. You watched his throat work like he had to physically swallow something.
“—I thought I was too late,” he finished, quietly. “Thought I was gonna be diggin’ you out, not patching you up.”
“Almost,” you croaked, because honesty had never really left you a choice. “I… thought… you weren’t…”
“I know what you thought,” he said, and there was a rawness in his tone you’d only heard a handful of times. The night he’d told you about the first time he woke up in HYDRA hands. The time he’d confessed, in a roundabout way, how many names he woke up with on his tongue.
He leaned in closer, until his nose almost brushed your temple. You could feel the heat of his breath on your ear, the trembling in it he was trying so hard to hide.
“I’m sorry,” he said again, quieter. “For that. For that feeling. For every second you lay here thinking you were alone. You weren’t. I swear to you, you weren’t. I was coming. I was… I’m here now.”
Your vision blurred—not from blood loss this time, but from something hot that had no business existing in this cold. You blinked hard, lashes sticking.
“Didn’t… want…” You had to stop, breathe, gather what little strength you had left. “Didn’t want… you… to see.... if I...”
His head drew back a fraction so he could see your face. His brows pulled together.
“See what?” he asked, genuinely confused.
“Like this,” you whispered. It sounded pathetic out loud, but there it was. “You’ve… seen enough.”
The words hung between you, heavy with all the images you knew lived behind his eyes. War. Blood. The bodies he’d made and the ones he’d failed to save. You weren’t arrogant enough to think you’d be some special exception to that catalog. Still, the idea of your shape joining that crowd in his head made something in you rebel.
His expression shifted, something fierce and almost offended tearing through the shock.
“Hey,” he said sharply, fingers tightening just enough on your jaw that you had to look at him. “You don’t get to decide what I can handle. You hear me? You don’t get to take choices away from me ‘cause you’re trying to protect me.”
You would’ve laughed if you had the breath for it. “Hypocrite,” you rasped.
He barked out a strangled sound that might have been a laugh, might have been a choked sob. “Yeah,” he admitted. “Yeah, I know. But I mean it. You think I want my last image of you to be a fuckin’ radio going quiet? An empty patch of snow? No chance.”
His thumb stroked once along the hinge of your jaw, almost reverent. He looked at you like he was trying to memorize every line, every fleck of color in your eyes, every shape your mouth made—even while those eyes fluttered and that mouth barely moved.
“If this is what I get,” he said, voice low and rough, “if this is the moment I gotta hold on to if everything goes sideways, then I’m gonna be here for all of it. You don’t get to protect me from that. That’s not how this works.”
The if in that sentence sat in your chest like a stone. He’d said if, not when. He believed in some version where you walked away from this. You wanted that too. You wanted it so badly it felt like a second wound under the first.
“Bucky,” you whispered, and this time your mouth cooperated, got all the letters out.
His eyes shut for a second, just one. When they opened, they were bright in a way that had nothing to do with the snow.
“There you go,” he said, like you’d done something heroic by managing two syllables. “That’s me. I’m here. Look—” He shifted his grip, lifting your hand with his, guiding your fingers clumsily to press over the back of his metal knuckles where they pressed into your side. “You feel that? That’s me. Not going anywhere.”
The metal was warm, almost hot, from the constant work. Under your numb fingertips, the faint whir of servos thrummed, steady as a heartbeat. You latched onto it, on the pressure of his hand and the solidity of his arm, as if the contact alone could tether you.
“You’re… gonna be okay,” he said, like he could bully the universe into compliance. “We’re gonna get you on the jet, we’re gonna get you to a med bay with actual walls and not these goddamn trees, and then I’m gonna sit in the corner and glower at every doctor that comes near you until they’re too scared to discharge you before I say so.”
“Gonna… scare… them,” you breathed, a ghost of a smile twitching at your mouth.
“Good,” he said promptly. “They should be scared. You’re my favorite pain in the ass. I’m not lettin’ anyone half-ass your care.”
Favorite. The word slid in under your ribs. It fit with my girl in a way that made your chest throb for reasons that had nothing to do with trauma.
Somewhere behind him, closer now, you heard the heavy thump of the quinjet’s ramp hitting snow. Voices rose, clearer. Sam calling his position. Someone else—maybe a med tech—barking orders. The world expanded slightly, the edges of your focus dragging outward to include more than just Bucky’s face.
He didn’t look away.
“Okay,” he said, more to himself than you. “Okay, they’re here. We’re gonna move you now. It’s gonna suck. You’re allowed to hate me for it. You can yell at me later. Right now, you go limp, you hear? Don’t fight it. Let us do the work.”
“Bossy,” you muttered, the word slurring.
“Yeah,” he said. “Somebody’s gotta be. You’re terrible at following suggestions.”
Hands slid under you—Bucky’s, solid and sure, and another pair you couldn’t place. Maybe Sam’s. Maybe the medic’s. The moment your body lifted off the ground, pain screamed through you in an electric wave so intense your vision went fully white. You didn’t even realize you’d cried out until you felt your throat rasping.
“I know, I know,” Bucky’s voice cut through, right at your ear. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Breathe. I’ve got you.”
Your head lolled against something firm and warm. You realized it was his chest when the rhythm of his heartbeat crashed into your ear—fast but steady, a pounding drum against your skull. The world tilted as they carried you, the snow-sky trade flipping: white above, then sideways, then replaced by the dark maw of the quinjet’s cargo bay.
“Watch the IV line—no, we don’t have one yet, goddammit—just get them in and shut the door!” someone yelled.
The ramp clanged under booted feet. The air changed, the outside cold trading places with the metallic warmth inside. The thrum of the engines deepened, vibrating through the floor, up through Bucky’s legs, into your bones.
He didn’t put you down right away. Even when they reached the stretcher, he lowered you onto it like he was afraid you’d shatter. His hands never fully left you—palm on your shoulder while the medic worked, fingers brushing your wrist when they inserted a line, the metal still hovering near your side as if he’d punch anyone who got the tourniquet wrong.
“BP’s in the toilet,” a voice said somewhere to your left. “They need volume now. Who did this dressing?”
“I did,” Bucky snapped.
“It’s solid,” the medic said immediately, no challenge in it. “Good work. Let’s build on it. Hey—” A face swam into your peripheral. “Stay with me, alright? Can you squeeze my hand?”
You tried. Your fingers twitched weakly. The medic smiled like you’d just done a backflip.
“There we go. Keep that up. What’s their name?” they asked, presumably to Bucky.
He answered without hesitation, your name landing heavy in the air. Hearing it like that, in his voice, made you ache. Made you want to live out of sheer spite, just to hear it like that again without blood in your throat.
“Okay, Y/N,” the medic said. “I’m putting something in your line that’s gonna feel really warm. That’s normal. Gonna help your blood remember what it’s supposed to be doing. You’re doing great.”
Warmth spread up your arm, alien and strange, different from the dull, dead cold of the snow. This was sharper, focused, purposeful. It raced to your chest and blooming there, chasing some of the heavy fog back from the edges.
Bucky hovered at your head, his body between you and the rest of the world. He was a wall you’d never been more grateful for. He kept one hand braced on the stretcher as the jet shifted, like he didn’t trust the laws of physics to handle it alone.
“You still with me?” he asked, leaning into your line of sight again. His face was closer now than it had been on the ground, every freckle, every scar, every crease up for inspection. “C’mon. Gimme somethin’. Blink if you’re planning on ignoring my orders for another few years.”
You blinked. It took effort. Felt like pushing against a heavy door. But you did it. Once. Twice.
His mouth kicked up in a breathless, disbelieving grin that looked like it hurt him to make.
“That’s my girl,” he said again, softer. “God, you’re stubborn.”
“You… like…” you tried, the words slurring beyond recognition even to your own ears.
“Yeah,” he said, not even bothering to pretend he didn’t understand. His eyes didn’t leave yours. “I do.”
You didn’t know which part of that he was answering. Your weird half-formed accusation. Your blink. Your existence. It didn’t matter. The warmth of it threaded with the medicine in your veins, tangling until you couldn’t tell where one ended and the other began.
The medic rattled off numbers. Someone said something about ETA to the facility. The engines roared, then steadied as the jet leveled out. The pressure in your side settled into a brutal, throbbing ache rather than an active, tearing burn. Each breath hurt, but it was less like drowning now and more like treading water with bricks tied to your ankles.
“You’re doing good,” Bucky murmured. “Proud of you.”
You almost rolled your eyes at him. Proud of you, like you’d done anything but lie here and bleed. But you could hear what he meant under it: thank you for not dying. Thank you for still being here where I can see you. Thank you for not adding another ghost to the pile.
“Can’t… get rid… of me…” you forced out, the words thin but there.
The edges of the world dimmed again, but it was different this time. Less like slipping away into cold and more like someone gently turning the lights down. Your body had reached its limit. You could feel it in the way your limbs refused every command, in the heavy pull at the back of your eyes.
Sleep, your bones whispered. Just for a second. Just to stop holding everything together so hard.
You must have let some of that show, because Bucky leaned closer, his forehead almost touching yours.
“Hey,” he said, and his voice had gone soft and dangerous, the way it did when he meant every word. “Listen to me. You wanna close your eyes, you can. You earned that. But you remember—this isn’t you checking out. This is you letting us carry some of this for a while. You get to rest because we’re not lettin’ go. You understand?”
You stared at him, at the lines of his face, at the snow still melting in his hair, and thought, wildly, that if this was the last thing you saw, it wouldn’t be the worst. But something stubborn and mean in you, something that had survived things it shouldn’t have long before you’d ever met him, reared up at the idea.
“‘Kay,” you breathed, because it hurt to argue even in your own head. “But… you’ll… be… there.”
It wasn’t a question. It felt like one anyway, hanging between you.
His eyes went glassy at the edges. He nodded once, like swearing an oath.
“Yeah,” he said. “You wake up, I’ll be the one you’re pissed at for letting the nurses poke you. I promise.”
You held his gaze for one more beat. Two. You watched his mouth press into a line that was half determination, half fear. You felt his thumb stroke along your cheekbone again, slow and almost absent, like he couldn’t stop touching you now that he’d started.
Then, finally, you let your eyes slip closed.
You woke up to the sound of something insisting you were alive.
A steady, thin beeping cut through the dark first, clinical and patient. It met the dull throb in your chest and the heavy ache in your side and negotiated with them, beat for beat. Light came next, too bright even behind your eyelids, pressing red against them like someone had laid the sun on your face. Your mouth tasted like cotton and metal and the ghost of plastic. Your throat ached deep, as if something had been there that didn’t belong and had been yanked out in a hurry.
For a second, you didn’t move. Couldn’t, really. Your limbs felt wrong—too heavy, too far away—as if someone had put your bones in the wrong gravity. Even trying to tell your fingers to twitch was like shouting down a long, empty hallway.
You cataloged what you could without opening your eyes. The air was warm and dry, smelling faintly of antiseptic, recycled ventilation, and the weird, overboiled tang of hospital food you hoped wasn’t for you. Sheets brushed your forearms, stiff and too clean.
Something tugged at the inside of your elbow—IV line, taped down. A cuff squeezed your bicep in steady pulses. There was weight across your midsection, not crushing but firm: heavy bandage, maybe a brace. Something cold and foreign sat against your ribs on one side, the ache around it deep and pulsing. Chest tube, your training supplied, clinical and calm. Good. Bad. Both.
You were in a med bay. Facility, probably—one of the ones with real walls and humming machines and doctors who glared at Avengers like they were walking malpractice suits.
You were not in the snow. You were not staring up at a white sky and waiting to find out if the last thing you saw would be nothing.
The beeping ticked on, counting heartbeats you had been very close to not having.
You pried your eyes open. Slowly. The world came in a messy blur—light overhead, pale ceiling. Peripheral shapes of monitors and hanging bags. The room swam once, then steadied. Your vision sharpened in increments until you could track lines and edges again.
To your right, in a hard plastic chair shoved as close to the bed as physically allowed, was Bucky.
He looked wrong in med bay lighting. Too human and too haunted at the same time. The overhead fluorescents bleached the color from him, highlighting every shadow under his eyes, every line carved into his forehead.
His hair was a wreck, pushed back in a way that spoke of frustrated fingers and zero regard for mirrors. Stubble darkened his jaw. He was slouched forward, elbows on his knees, metal hand braced around his own wrist like he needed the grip to stay anchored.
His eyes were closed. For half a second, you thought he was asleep. The idea of Bucky Barnes letting his guard down enough to actually sleep in a chair next to you made your chest lurch. Then you saw the way his thumb kept tracing the line of your wrist where your hand lay in his, skin to skin, as if he needed the movement.
Not asleep.
Your throat tried to clear itself and immediately regretted it. The cough you meant to be quiet scraped up like broken glass. You choked on it. Every muscle between your neck and hip spasmed in miserable protest. Pain flared white-hot along your side, radiating out from the bandaged hole like someone had poured acid into your nerve endings. Your lungs seized, then dragged in air too fast, too shallow. The monitor at your head sped up, a frantic little staccato.
Bucky’s eyes snapped open instantly.
“Hey—hey, whoa,” he said, already on his feet, the chair skidding back with a harsh squeak. “Easy.”
He was at your side before you’d even finished the first broken inhale. His hand left your wrist only long enough to hit the bed control, raising the head a fraction so you weren’t flat. The movement made your side scream again. You winced, teeth grinding together, fingers clawing at the sheet.
“Buck,” you rasped. Or tried to. It came out like someone dragging a shovel over gravel.
His gaze dragged up to your face. When your eyes met, a whole storm passed through his expression in about half a second—shock, relief, anger, something so raw and bright it almost hurt more than your side.
“Yeah,” he said, voice gone rough, like he’d been yelling or not talking at all for too long. “Yeah, it’s me.”
He put his flesh hand around the back of your neck, not lifting you, just steadying, thumb careful against the tender tendons there. The contact grounded you in a way the machines couldn’t. Your pulse thudded under his fingers, frantic but real.
“Slow,” he added, softer, eyes never leaving yours. “Breathe slow. They gave you some fun stuff. Your lungs are gonna feel all kinds of weird about it.”
You tried to listen. In through your nose, out through your mouth. Each breath dragged over the sore spot in your chest where the tube sat, but it settled, inch by inch, into something more manageable. The monitor agreed, its panicked blip easing back into a steadier rhythm.
“Where…?” you managed, glancing around, though moving your head even that much made black spots flirt at the edges of your vision.
“Med facility,” he said. “Off-grid. Good docs. Good equipment. Terrible coffee.” He hesitated a beat. “You’re okay.”
The word hung there. Okay felt like a stretch. You felt like you’d been run over by a truck, stripped for parts, then stapled back together. Your side burned in a deep, wet way that said serious internal damage, not just a flesh wound. The bandage pulled uncomfortably with every breath. Your chest ached in time with the IV pump.
But you were not dead.
You blinked, trying to fit that fact into your skull. Your brain snagged on another question instead.
“How… bad?” you whispered.
His jaw flexed. You watched him decide between lying and not. The lines around his eyes tightened. He hesitated for a moment, dragging the chair back with his free hand and sitting back down.
“Bad,” he said finally, because he respected you too much to sugarcoat. “Bullets went in shallow, but it hit all the wrong shit—ricocheted, tore through part of your liver, nicked your lung. Lots of blood. You gave the surgeons a real workout.”
You swallowed. Your mouth felt like sand. “And I…?” You had meant to ask something flippant—did I win? do I at least get a lollipop?—because that was how you handled this stuff. The effort of forming the words stripped the humor out of them.
“You made it,” he said. No joke in his tone. Just flat, stubborn certainty. “They had to transfuse you, patch you up from the inside out, shove a tube in your chest to help you breathe. They were talking about percentages for a while. I didn’t like their math.”
You pictured him, pacing like a caged animal outside an OR door, counting every second with his teeth. It did something ugly to your heart.
“How long…?” you asked.
He glanced at the cheap wall clock in the corner like it had offended him personally. “You’ve been out, off and on, for…about four days. Longer if you count the part where you were half-conscious in the snow and arguing with me.”
The fact that he was measuring time in arguments almost made you smile. Almost. Everything in your face hurt when you tried.
“Sorry,” you said automatically, because the idea of him stuck in this room that long, with nothing to do but watch monitors and think, made guilt crawl under your skin.
His eyes snapped back to yours, sharp. “What did I say about that?”
You frowned, brain moving slow through the fog.
“No ‘sorry,’” he reminded you, voice softening but not backing off. “You did your job. Didn’t exactly throw yourself in front of a bullet for fun.” He paused. “At least I hope not, ‘cause that would really ruin the ‘you’re not expendable’ speech I’ve been rehearsing.”
You huffed a tiny sound that might’ve been a laugh if it hadn’t felt like your ribs were full of knives. “You… rehearsed… a speech?”
He shifted his weight, suddenly looking almost…sheepish. It didn’t sit naturally on him, like the chair under him. “Yeah, well. Had some time on my hands.”
You let that sink in: Bucky Barnes, former brainwashed assassin, current pain-in-your-ass, sitting in a too-small med bay chair for days, crafting a lecture about your value. Because of course he did.
“You… didn’t have to…” you started.
“Yeah,” he cut in, “I did.”
The firmness in his tone made your breath stutter. His hand at your neck tightened fractionally, thumb resting in the hollow under your skull.
“You remember,” he went on, staring at you like he could pin your attention in place, “all those times you joked about not making it? About your grave? About going out in some blaze of glory?”
Heat flushed under your skin, embarrassed and defensive all at once. “That’s…just how I cope, Buck.”
“I know,” he said. “Believe me, I know about coping mechanisms.” His mouth twisted. “But seeing you lying in the snow after following a trail of your blood, looking at you half-frozen and half-gone, hearing you wheeze about how I ‘came’ like you were surprised I showed up? That wasn’t coping. That was…”
He broke off, eyes closing for a second. When he opened them again, they were too bright.
“That was you actually thinking I might not get there,” he finished, quieter. “That I might not come. And that? That’s not a joke I can live with.”
You stared at him, throat thick. You remembered it all too vividly: the snow, the silence, the distance between where you were and where he might have been. The way your brain had quietly considered the possibility that he wouldn’t make it in time, and how you’d tried to make peace with that by replaying him in your head.
“I didn’t…” you started, then stopped. Honesty tasted like antiseptic and fear. “I didn’t want you to see me like that.”
He let out a humorless scoff. “Newsflash: I’ve seen worse.”
“That’s exactly the point,” you said, voice scraping but gaining a little strength. “You’ve seen too much. Done too much. I didn’t want to be another—” You gestured weakly, the IV tugging. “Another body on the ground somewhere in your head.”
His jaw clenched. You watched the tendons jump.
“You’re not,” he said, firmly. “You’re not a body on the ground. You’re—”
He cut himself off again, looking abruptly away, like the words had gotten too close to something he hadn’t decided whether to say. His metal hand flexed at his side, fingers curling and uncurling with a faint whir.
“You’re loud,” he muttered instead, after a second. “Annoying. Stubborn. You steal my coffee. You hide my knives as a ‘trust exercise.’ You call me on my bullshit. That’s what you are in my head. Not…this.”
“Loud,” you repeated, trying to keep your mouth from shaking. “I almost died and that’s the best you can do?”
He shot you a look, exasperated and fond and utterly, painfully familiar. “Don’t start,” he said. “I’ve been nice to you for like seventy-two hours straight. I’m exhausted.”
You would’ve rolled your eyes if they weren’t already fighting to stay open. “This is you…being nice?”
“This is me not putting you in a medically induced coma myself so I can yell at you without anyone interrupting,” he said dryly. Then the humor drained, leaving something softer behind. “This is me telling you I’m glad you’re still here to piss me off.”
Silence settled between you for a moment, thick and humming. The monitors filled it with a steady, background reassurance: you’re here, you’re here, you’re here.
“You stayed,” you said, because it felt necessary to name it. “The whole time.”
He shrugged, as if he were answering a question about the weather. “Yeah.”
“You could have…slept. Showered.” You sniffed faintly. “You smell like jet fuel and bad coffee.”
“Romantic,” he murmured. “Look, they came in and poked you, and cut on you, and yelled about blood loss. You coded once.”
You blinked. “I…what?”
“For about eight seconds,” he said, voice going flat in that way it did when he forced his emotions into a box. “Heart stopped. They shocked you. You came back.” He inhaled slowly. “I did not feel like going to take a nap after that.”
Eight seconds. A tiny rip in time. Long enough for him to stand in a doorway and watch your monitor flatline. Long enough for every bad thing that had ever happened to him to line up behind that moment and wait its turn.
You swallowed hard. “Bucky…”
He shook his head once, like he could physically dislodge whatever memory you were about to apologize for.
“Doc says you’re past the worst of it,” he said. “Liver’s patched. Lung’s reinflated. They’ll pull the tube in a day or two if your numbers behave. You’re gonna hurt like hell for a while. You’re gonna hate physical therapy. You’re probably gonna try to skip half your meds and pretend you’re fine.”
“That sounds…accurate,” you admitted.
“And I,” he continued, “am going to be here, making your life miserable, making sure you do none of that.”
“You gonna…hover?” you asked, the word weaker and more hopeful than you meant it to be.
He huffed, eyes flicking heavenward like he was asking for patience. “I’m gonna make sure you don’t pull your stitches trying to prove something,” he said. “If that qualifies as hovering, then yeah.”
You let your gaze roam over him properly now, taking in the details you’d missed in the initial foggy panic of waking. The dark crescents under his eyes. The dried smear of something on his sleeve that looked like blood but might not be yours. His shoulders were hunched in that way that told you he’d been braced for bad news, arms crossed so tight over his chest earlier he might have left bruises on his own ribs.
He looked like something a storm had chewed up and spit out. And still, he was here.
“You look like shit,” you said, because that’s what you did when things edged too close to unbearable.
His mouth actually curled. “You always this charming after almost dying?”
“You always this…clingy after saving someone?”
“Only the ones who make fun of their own funerals,” he said. “Gotta keep an eye on you. Can’t trust you not to try and skip out on your own wake.”
A memory flickered: the kitchen, the jar of Nutella, the way his face had gone hard when you joked about taking what he said to the grave.
“Guess I’m not as funny as I thought,” you murmured.
He exhales through his nose, slow. “You’re funny,” he said. “You kill me sometimes. But maybe ease up on the death jokes for a bit, yeah? They hit different when I’ve watched you bleed out.”
You swallowed around the sudden lump in your throat. “Too soon?”
His gaze softened, the edges of his eyes crinkling in a way that always made you feel like the air had thickened. “Way too soon,” he said. “Gimme, like, ten years. Then you can start with the graveyard material again.”
You tried to laugh, then winced as the movement tugged your side. He caught the wince like it was his own.
“Okay,” you said, breathless. “No more…grave jokes. At least for a while.” You paused. “Maybe… just favorite patient jokes?”
He blinked, something flickering in his expression that wasn’t just relief. “You’re not my patient,” he said, almost automatically.
You raised a brow, or tried to. “I'm not?”
He looked at you for a long moment. Then his shoulders dropped a fraction, as if some invisible weight had shifted. His metal fingers flexed against the bed rail, a tell you’d learned to read like a paragraph.
“You’re more than that,” he said quietly.
The words slipped out too honest, too bare. He didn’t look away this time. He let them sit there between you, like a live wire.
Your pulse monitor ticked up a notch. You felt it. You were sure he heard it.
“Bucky…” you started again, for what felt like the hundredth time, and this time you didn’t know what you were apologizing for or trying to say. You only knew that the room felt too small for everything pressed into your ribs.
He beat you to it.
“Thought I was gonna lose you,” he said, the words coming out low and fast, like if he didn’t get them out now, he never would. “Out there. On that hill. In here. Eight seconds on a flatline feels a lot like every other time I watched somebody die. And I—I can’t—”
His voice cracked, just once, violently. He sucked in a breath like it hurt.
“I can’t go through that with you and pretend you’re just another teammate,” he finished hoarsely.
Your heart did something painful and grateful at the same time. “Good,” you whispered. “Hate to be…generic.”
He let out a strangled laugh that sounded a little like he might cry. “You’re the least generic person I’ve ever met,” he said. “You drive me up the wall. You scare the hell out of me. You make me…want things. For myself. That I thought I was done wanting.”
You stared at him, words gone.
“When I couldn’t reach you on comms,” he went on quietly, eyes fixed on the line of your shoulder now, like looking directly at your face might be too much, “all I could think about was every stupid joke you’ve ever made about not making it. About going out. About it not being a big deal. And I was—I was furious. At you. At me. At every bastard who ever made you think that maybe you were…not worth staying for.”
Your throat tightened. “Bucky—”
He looked up then, finally, and the intensity in his gaze pinned you to the bed more effectively than any strap.
“I would miss you,” he said. No hesitation. No deflection. “I do. When you’re gone for an hour on a run, I feel it. When you’re not in the kitchen at 2 a.m. raiding the cabinet, I notice. When you’re not bitching about my music or falling asleep on the couch with a book on your face, the whole place feels…wrong.”
The monitor tattled on you, speeding up again. He didn’t flinch.
“You’re in my day even when you’re not there,” he said. “So don’t you ever think for one second that I wouldn’t move heaven, hell, and every goddamn city left on this earth to get to you.”
You blinked hard, the world blurring in that way that had nothing to do with drugs.
“I only joked like that,” you managed, voice small, “because…if I said it serious, it would sound pathetic. Needy. Like I wanted…more than I should.”
His expression shifted—something pained and tender all at once.
“You’re allowed to want more,” he said. “Especially from me.”
That last part hung there, thick as smoke.
“You…want more?” you asked, because apparently you’d almost died and your brain had decided to stop filtering anything.
He let out a breath that sounded like surrender. “Maybe,” he said. “Yeah.”
He raked his flesh hand through his hair, like he was bracing for impact.
“I didn’t mean for it to happen,” he said. “Didn’t go out and decide, ‘hey, let’s catch feelings for the one person on this team who actually has standards.’ It just…kept happening. Every time you rolled your eyes at me. Every time you patched me up without making it a big deal. Every time you made some awful joke about us going out in a blaze of glory but still checked my six before your own.”
He shook his head slightly.
“I kept telling myself it was just…combat attachment,” he said. “Buddy cop bullshit. Shared trauma. Whatever label made it easier. But the second you went quiet out there, it wasn’t tactical. It wasn’t about losing an asset. It was—”
He swallowed. The word stuck. He pushed it out anyway.
“It was personal,” he finished.
You lay there, heart pounding unhelpfully fast, trying to process the fact that Bucky Barnes was confessing he cared about you more than made sense, in a tone that suggested he’d been fighting it every step of the way.
“Funny,” you whispered, “that you think I have standards.”
His mouth twitched. “You do,” he said. “They’re just weird.”
A breathless laugh escaped you. It hurt. You didn’t care.
“You know,” you said, “I kept…joking about dying because…honestly, I thought that’s how it’d be. Quick. Messy. No warning. That nobody would…care enough for it to really…matter after the fact.”
His fingers tightened on your neck again, gently but firm enough to yank you back from that cliff.
“Wrong,” he said, simply. “On all counts.”
You believed him. Maybe it was the drugs. Maybe it was the fact that you’d seen the look on his face in the snow, the way his hands had moved over your wound with a desperation he hadn’t allowed into his voice. Maybe it was the way he was standing here now, like the only thing keeping him upright was the fact that you were.
“Bucky,” you said, letting his name hold everything you couldn’t fit into sentences yet. “I…didn’t plan on this either, you know.”
“On what?” he asked, voice cautious.
“You,” you said, because there was no point dancing around it anymore. “Getting under my skin. Making it…hard to breathe, and not just because I have bullet holes in my side.”
A soft, disbelieving breath of laughter escaped him.
“You’re really gonna make jokes in the middle of this?” he asked.
“That’s how you know it’s me,” you murmured.
He nodded, eyes damp at the corners. “Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, that tracks.”
You wet your lips, gathering what scraps of courage you had left. “I didn’t want to…say anything,” you admitted, “because I figured…if you didn’t feel the same, I could just…keep joking about dying and never have to deal with it.”
He winced, like he’d been physically hit.
“That,” he said, “is the worst plan I’ve ever heard you have. And you’ve had some terrible ones.”
“Hey,” you croaked. “I survived. Mostly.”
“Yeah,” he said. “In spite of your best efforts.”
You let your head sink a little deeper into the pillow, exhaustion pulling at your edges. The IV pump clicked. The monitors hummed. Somewhere outside the door, a cart rattled by, tires squeaking. The world felt weirdly distant, like you were wrapped in glass. The only thing that felt real was the way his thumb kept moving in slow circles against your skin, like he needed that contact as much as you did.
“So what now?” you asked softly. “We…pretend this didn’t happen? Go back to making morbid jokes and hiding in safe house kitchens?”
He took a breath, slow and deliberate, like he was bracing to step onto a minefield.
“No,” he said.
The word settled in your chest like a warm weight.
“I can’t go back to pretending I don’t…” He trailed off, searching for the right phrasing, as if every word was a potential trap. “That I don’t care this much. That you’re just another mission file. That I’d be fine if you didn’t come back one day. I’ve done enough pretending in my life.”
“Me too,” you admitted.
His gaze softened, something like pride flickering in it.
“So we don’t pretend,” he said. “We…figure it out. Slowly. Carefully. When you’re not on enough meds to take down an elephant.”
You snorted, the sound dissolving into a wince. “Are you…asking me out…or scheduling a…feelings debrief?”
He shook his head, a wry smile tugging at his mouth. “Little of both, maybe,” he said. “I’m sayin’…when you’re cleared, when you’re not held together by staples and sheer spite, I’d like to take you somewhere that isn’t a safehouse or a warzone. Get coffee that isn’t from a shitty machine. Maybe sit in a park like normal people and argue about something stupid.”
“Sounds dangerous,” you whispered.
“Yeah,” he said, eyes crinkling. “Terrifying. I’ll bring backup.”
“Sam?” you asked.
“Hell no,” he said. “He’d never let me hear the end of it.”
You smiled, small and wobbly. “I’d like that,” you said, and the simplicity of the words nearly undid you.
His shoulders loosened, just a fraction. You saw the tension bleed out of him like air from a too-tight balloon.
“Okay,” he said, like the decision had been a battle and he was finally letting himself believe he’d won. “Okay.”
The room seemed to breathe with you then. Everything felt a little less sharp, a little less precarious. The pain was still there, deep and insistent, but it had context now. It had a shape that wasn’t just fear.
“You know,” you murmured, because your brain refused to stop offering up mortifying honesty, “if this had gone the other way…you would’ve been the last thing I thought about.”
His face went very still.
“I know,” he said quietly. “I could see it on the hill. You were looking right through me like you were seeing everything all at once. I figured at least some of that was my charming face.”
“Always,” you whispered. “Annoying to the end.”
He huffed, but there was no bite in it. Only relief.
“Do me a favor?” he asked.
“Depends,” you said.
“Next time you wanna test-drive dying,” he said, voice dipped in dry sarcasm to hide the shake under it, “don’t.”
You nodded, or tried to. “I’ll…put in a formal request,” you said. “File it with…whoever’s in charge of…mortality.”
“I got connections,” he said. “Guy with a hammer owes me a favor. I’ll see what I can do.”
You snorted again, exhausted and weirdly light.
“Can I…sleep again now?” you asked, suddenly bone-deep tired. The drugs and the adrenaline crash and the conversation had wrung you out. Your eyelids felt like they had weights sewn into them.
He studied you for a moment, then nodded. “Yeah,” he said softly. “Yeah, you can sleep.”
“You’ll still…be here?”
He didn’t even pretend to consider the alternative. “Yeah,” he said. “Right here. When you wake up, when you start trying to sign yourself out against medical advice, when you worry about the scars—I’ll be here for all of it.”
“That’s…a lot of Bucky,” you mumbled, already drifting.
“Well, get used to it,” he said, like it was the easiest thing in the world.
You smiled, eyes finally sliding shut. The darkness that rose this time was softer, edged in steady beeping and the low hum of the med bay. Somewhere in the middle of it, his thumb kept tracing that slow, grounding circle at the base of your skull.
Right before you slipped under, you heard him say it, voice barely above a whisper, like he was talking to himself.
“I love you,” he murmured. “So don’t pull that shit again.”
If you’d been any more awake, you might have grabbed his wrist, forced him to repeat it, teased him until he turned red. As it was, the words sank into you like morphine, warm and heavy and strangely clean.
You drifted, pulled under before you could shape even a half-formed answer. Maybe that was for the best. It gave you something to wake up to. Something real, not imagined in the snow.
no more taglists! tumblr’s @ limit said no 💔 follow @cheekybarnesupdates + turn on notifs for all fic drops!
I Don't See Your Mistakes, I See You | Bucky x f!reader
Pairing: Thunderbolts*Bucky Barnes x enhanced female character
Summary: A peaceful evening in Brooklyn turns into emotional chaos when Bucky comes home and brings unexpected guests.
Word count: 9k
Warnings: Thunderbolts* spoilers!, established relationship, enhanced female character with magical powers, third person narration but no name is called, swear words, angst, soft comfort, slow burn, sexual tension, heavy petting, dry humping, (not porn but +18 minors pls stay away!), teasing, flirting, protective and tired Bucky, mild wound description, talk of magical powers, depression, references to past trauma, English is not my first language
Note: Watching Thunderbolts* got me heavily daydreaming about Bucky and his new friends! It's also been a very therapeutic experience to write this for the past 2 weeks (yes, that long). I hope at least someone will enjoy it!
(Edited)Tagging @loving-barnes @kinanabinks @real-jane @cheekybarnes @marvelstoriesepic @aquaticmercy @witchywithwhiskey @sergeantbarnessdoll @mercurial-chuckles @navybrat817 and @captainsimagines because when I think of writing, I immediately think of you! I won’t tag you again if you don’t want it, just wanted to share my inspo with you
The late afternoon carried an ambiance of comfort. The smell of cooling air after a slightly warmer day; the soft hum of the city somewhere in the distance, broken by a clutter of local shops closing down nearby. The sun already hid behind the tall horizon of Manhattan, but the city was still very much alive.
The apartment in Carroll Gardens was like a safe haven. Nested in the middle of a quiet neighborhood, close to the park and surrounded by families or people who crave a respite in the middle of a crowded city. A quiet street of brownstones and aged trees led to a renovated block, slightly modernized to facilitate to the everchanging world, yet still full of soul, of Brooklyn heart, of the things that brought Bucky the most peace.
The long-stretching Thursday was coming to an end, but her night was only beginning. A quick and effective plane trip from D.C., an overly expensive taxi drive from the airport, and you made it to your second home.
Or first, depending on the day of the week, time of the year, time of their lives.
The home in Washington was where legislations, reports, and analyses were read. Where congressman and strategic liaison ate quick breakfast and indulged in a late-night dinner on a commitment-free evening. Walls were bland, countertops marble, and kitchen big enough to fit a multigenerational family. Something that felt closer to a temporary solution rather than a home for years. Only a couple of personal touches here and there – misplaced accessories, loose change, a piece of jewelry she took off once and forgot to put back on. A pair of colorful mugs, because she refused to drink from plain whites that came with the interior. Bucky’s suits and tuxedos were there, fitted to perfection, dry-cleaned and delivered straight to the door, only a couple blocks away from the center of the country’s government life. A place where she managed not to kill only one succulent, because the time spent inside these walls was not dedicated to hobbies. This is where they worked, where they came back after their long days – Bucky from the Capitol Hill, and her from the Agency.
But the home in Brooklyn?
Not ideal or picture-perfect. With mismatched furniture in their bedroom, because they couldn’t agree on one style, yet somehow creating their own world. A soft, off-color sofa, deep and slouchy, remembering many movie nights and hushed conversations. Soft lighting, making the bookshelves glow with colors of many loved and exchanged titles. Spare blankets thrown over bedding and chairs. A place where they laughed, cried and loved. A safe haven for the time they need to breathe, be in peace, be themselves. With a kitchen that hosted a few too-many gatherings for Bucky’s liking, but that proved to them that they can live a normal life.
Entering the building of their Brooklyn home felt like a ray of sunshine after months of gloomy winter. Unlocking the door was a warm hug.
The apartment was empty, but the familiar walls spoke to her in their own way. When she breathed deep enough, she could sense the good, soft comfort of a judgement-free space. The empath in her recharged in a place full of hers and Bucky’s things and memories. She quickly fell into a routine that brought her so much ease. She took a shower, to take off the smell of office buildings and public transport, put on a quick laundry load, and slowed down.
Slowing down was as close as she could get to relaxing, when she hadn’t heard from Bucky in two days. Three, if we count the whole day he was held up in meetings, before he shared with her a change of heart, a new plan, and promised to be back soon. She knew he had reasons, had a hint of what this might entail, and just waited, trying to carry on.
The soft glow of the semi-open plan kitchen welcomed her. The floors were soothingly cool against her bare feet, grounding in the moment. With hair still wet from the shower and seeping through the shoulders of Bucky’s old t-shirt, she fixed the waistband of her leggings and exhaled some of the tension that was still left and strong in her body.
The quiet whirring noise of the washing machine died down in the background when garlic and shallots started sizzling on the pan. When she occupied her hands, her mind could focus more and wander less. She tried really hard not to look at her phone, and really poured her heart into making a hearty meal. A therapeutic resolve, some might say, but it really was one of the healthy outlets she could use so that her magic doesn’t go on an uncontrollable rollercoaster of anxiety. She stirred in two cans of the good tomatoes from the Italian shop two streets away and let the sauce simmer. With the dinner slowly cooking away, she leaned on the kitchen island over a notepad and a bright screen of her laptop, reviewing some of the files from the last intel she requested, before the CIA went through a major lockdown due to events that Bucky was supposedly notinvolved in. She knew better than to read too much into it, so she focused on the facts – the data logs, mission reports, and a side of agency’s new recruits’ evaluation, that she was actually being paid for.
Long minutes passed, the sauce sizzling away and pasta water ready in the pot. She was rinsing her hands when she felt it – an emotional tug at her heart. A sprinkle of tension pulling her magic through the veins, making her aware of her heartbeat and suddenly perked up attention. She stopped the music playing from her laptop and turned off the stove, listening in. She was hyper sensitive, but lacked the enhanced hearing of a super soldier, so the silence that followed only frustrated her. She closed her eyes and tried to listen to her senses, but a heavy bang at the door startled her instead. She visibly flinched, loose sparks flying around her fingertips at the intrusion.
Another harsh movement against the door and before she could even react, it burst open, the handle hitting the wall in the hall. She spun around and felt the heat trickling down her fingertips, right when a familiar voice rung out through the apartment.
“Hey, it’s me. Not alone. Don’t hex anyone.”
Right when she exhaled, she felt how tight her chest had been a second earlier. The sparks swirling around her hands died down with the flow of his voice, and she briefly touched her chest, taking one more grounding breath.
“I swear, if you scare me like that one more time…” She walked out to the hall and saw him. A bloody bruise on his cheek, dusty forehead and a trickle of either dirt or dried blood down the side of his neck. His tactical shirt cut in a few places, definitely by something sharp and she hoped not by a knife. Left shoulder lifted in slight discomfort and right palm of his hand flexing uncomfortably. But he was standing, breathing, and looking at her with a tinge of relief.
He was most definitely not alone – the crowd behind him was bigger than she could have expected:
John Walker, scrunching his forehead so hard that at least one of these wrinkles could become permanent.
Yelena, assessing her surroundings with caution and desperately needing a band aid to her temple. She let go of the forearm of a guy whose picture covered half-a-page in the files that she briefed through mere minutes earlier.
Red Guardian, blocking off almost the entire entryway, smiling in awe and in a suspiciously cheerful nature.
Ava, leaning her side on the door, limping and tugging at the neckline of her suit with desperation.
When her eyes were quickly assessing the situation, Bucky stepped closer to her and exhaled with visible remorse.
“I should’ve given you a heads up,” he said, voice low, eyes scanning her face. “I know we planned a quiet weekend. Things just went sideways fast.”
She lifted her hand to his chin, angling it gently to examine the gash above his stubble. The blood had dried in a jagged trail down his neck. “You need patching up.”
“We need to lay low and figure out our next step,” he said, though his eyes stayed on her more than the group behind him. His tone held that familiar thread of guilt — like he’d brought more than dirt into their home.
She did pay attention to what he was saying, but not more than to the exhaustion visible around his eyes, the tension that he carried in his muscles and nerves that trickled from behind him, from the group of guests he brought.
“When you said you know someplace safe, I thought you meant like a safe house,” John pitched in, taking measured steps forward, still cautiously watching his surroundings as if it was a trap.
“It is a safe place, and it is a home. Anything else you need to fit the description?” Bucky turned back and gestured them to move forward. He made sure to close the door with the secure lock and offered Ava his arm to offload her weak side.
Some of them knew who she was, but she offered her name anyway, just to stick to the friendly pleasantries. They needed security, she could feel it. She invited them in and made a beeline for the heavily equipped first aid kit hid in the bathroom.
She carried the large box and a few towels in to the table, laying the kit out. Bucky gestured for Ava to sit down and helped her find the antiseptic and sterile bandages.
Yelena leaned over the table with a surprised look on her face.
“That’s not an ordinary first-aid kit.”
“You’re in a house of people who refuse to go to urgent care,” she piped in with a lightness to her voice. She took a look at Yelena’s gash on the temple and sprayed an antiseptic over a gauze. “and in case you didn’t notice, he is the type to attract knives and bullets.”
“Yeah, I know the type.” Yelena replied, nodding in thanks for the help.
“If you want to clean up, bathroom is down the hall,” she pointed to the corridor and already started walking that way. “I’ll get more towels.”
She got accustomed to tuning out people’s feelings. It took years of practice as an empath. But the moment a group of troubled, battered and bruised fallen heroes entered their home, her mind was struggling. So, she switched into action mode, preferring to be of service and of help, rather than linger around and fight the feelings that creep in. She piled the spare cloths on the dresser in the corridor and made sure Yelena got the right door – which she did, because she immediately let out an impressed whistle.
Taking a moment to breathe in the empty hall was a mistake – she started spiraling. She didn’t understand why. Bucky is home. He is safe. He trusts these guys, because he brought them in. Why is my mind screaming?
The apartment became too loud. Not in volume, but in energy. Something was stretching her mind to stay open, and she couldn’t contain the input of feelings. She didn’t dare pull on the threads – they weren’t hers to play, not tonight. But something definitely triggered her soul – something powerful and unknown. A new source of energy that she hadn’t felt before.
She moved. Mechanics and focus were a taming tactic, so she settled on a kind attitude and acts of service. A large pitcher filled with water, ice packs that were always on the top shelf in the freezer, and almost all of the glasses they owned. She set them all on the table. The heat on the stove put back on, water slowly coming to boil under the pan.
When she carried a bunch of napkins to the table, Bucky was closing the first aid box. She looked up to his face and still saw the bright red scratch atop of his cheekbone. That woke her up from the haze.
“No, no. You’re getting cleaned up.” She tried taking the box from him, but he pulled it behind him too quickly.
“I’m fine.” He said it too calmly and too confidently, so it riled her up. Steered her hears away from whatever ate at her, and made her narrow her eyes at him.
“Fuck fine, you’re bleeding.” She tried reaching out for the box again, but took a hold of her hand instead. He shook his head lightly and let their gazes meet for a silent conversation.
“I am fine. Later, I promise.” He softens his voice, squeezing her palm briefly in reassurance. It makes her release a heavy breath and finally nod in acceptance, understanding that she won’t be able to push him now.
“We’re waiting for pasta to boil. Dinner should be ready soon.”
That sparked interest. While she was still looking up his gorgeous eyes, trying to find comfort in his presence, the word dinner seemed to have perked up almost everyone in the room.
A packet and a half of spaghetti was carefully thrown into the boiling water, barely fitting and almost overflowing the pot. People started moving, matching the rhythm of the bubbling heat on the stove. Someone dragged a chai and moved the table to fit more people; the clinking noise of jackets taken off and weapons meeting the floor echoed through the walls almost naturally. A few relieved exhales followed, mimicking a moment of peace for the loud minds.
“Can I help you with anything?”
The question startled her, pulling at the invisible trigger of her anxiety even harder, making her drop the spoon. The quietest guy, Bob, shyly lurked into the kitchen. His eyes were kind, soft, almost scared, but something dangerous and dark tingled her fingertips when she paid too much attention. “I-I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.”
The harsh noise of the metal spoon against the tiles kept on ringing in her head, but she tried to shake away the feeling. The unnerving moment stretched until Bob took a cautious step forward, probably in worry, and Bucky walked into the room, intentionally.
“Yeah, um…” She started to break off the static that clouded her brain in weird, dark clouds. “The plates are just above you,” she pointed to the cupboard and started moving towards him to help.
“I got it,” Bucky stopped her, and pulled the door open instead. He looked to her with quiet concern painted on his face, lips pursed. The unusually tall stack of plates was laid on the counter near the stove. She focused on trying if the pasta is soft already, adding spices to the sauce and stirring more than necessary.
In the fleeting moment of quiet cooking, Bucky stayed with her. Eyed her for a moment, resting his hip against the counter and switching his attention between her determined movements, aggressively boiling pasta and focused eyes that watched the steam blow away from above the pot. He moved closer, his side meeting hers, and rested his hand gently on her waist, enveloping her in a cautious embrace. The heat that travelled from his body made her eyes flutter and upper back lean into his side, resting some of her weight on him. The thread of anxiety loosened where he held her. He was leaning in, the way he always was when he wanted to kiss her head, but his breath only escaped near her forehead, interrupted.
“It smells like you’re actually gonna feed us,” Yelena appeared, hair slightly wet and skin visibly cleaner, even the gash on her temple was smaller once the dust was not sticking to it. Bucky moved away towards the fridge, and her fingers subconsciously wandered over the countertop to find the oven mitt and safely drain the pasta.
“Well, it looks like it,” she gently poured the pasta into the pan with bubbling sauce and blew air over her hands, feeling the heat from the steam prickle at her skin. “I don’t expect you all had a shawarma on your way here,” she glanced at Bucky, who has already taken out cheese and still fresh enough salad mix from the fridge, but was still fidgeting to find a quick snack. “I’m not going to eat by myself and have you watch me. That’s creepy.”
“Ah! That’s a good home with a good hostess. Whatever else would you need from a safe house?” Alexei’s loud voice shook the walls and made Bucky sigh with exasperation.
“Your hands to set the table,” she smiled, holding out a handful of forks and knives. He took them with a small bow and a hand salute, and it weirdly fit to his huge posture, bright red costume and a crooked smile.
With focused precision, she laid out hearty, more or less even portions of pasta for their guests.
“You are so calm for a person whose night just got ruined by a bunch of strangers with guns and knives,” Ava wondered in curiosity from her spot at the table and showed a shadow of an honest smile when a steaming bowl was set in front of her.
Others were already coming in to the table and grabbing a bowl, only John was still standing off to the side, his eyes cautiously eyeing the corridor to the bedrooms, lurking in to get a peek of what is on the pictures hung on the wall.
“Walker,” Bucky’s warning made everyone look up at him in curiosity, “if you’re so desperate to snoop around, there are spare chairs in the entryway closet.” It made the others snicker or hide a chuckle.
“I’m not snooping around,” he mumbled like a stubborn child. Before she carried in the last two portions – a bigger one for Bucky, smaller and just enough for her - John was already carrying in four folding chairs, a confused grimace still glued to his face. “I just- I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be disrespectful or anything,” he turned to her briefly with a somewhat apologetic tone. She only raised a brow and took a seat at the last free corner of the table, next to Bucky.
“Usually when you say you don’t want to be disrespectful, you already are.” Yelena chipped in, blowing on the pasta wrapped neatly around her fork.
“No, listen –“he hesitates, rubbing his eyes in frustration. She could feel the bubbling confusion threatening to slip out from his aura, and it made her hide her smile. She should not laugh at their guests, even if it was John Walker. “it just doesn’t make sense. Why would Barnes bring us to a place like this?”
“Like what?” Bucky raised his eyebrow, which could pass as a warning, but she could see a tint of amusement in the way his lip twitched.
“I don’t know, this feels too… cozy,” He gestured vaguely around the living room. “I didn’t expect you to hide away at a place that has colorful pillows and scented candles.”
Ava snorted, “You thought he sleeps in a cell?”
“No,” he replied almost too quickly, defensive mode kicking in. “It just doesn’t fit the general description, I guess.” He shrugged, then looked from the flickering candle on the countertop, to the soft lights that shined near the corner of the living room. “I thought you would crash somewhere between government reports and military bases.” He said the last sentence directly to Bucky across the table. She could feel his chest rising heavier than before, so she laid her hand on his thigh, massaging in calming rhythm.
“That’s not really a nice thing to say to someone who trusted you and invited you to their home.” She said calmly, with a tint of a kind smile on her face, looking carefully to Bucky. Her sentence made him loosen up, exhale a breath and almost chuckle. Almost, because it died down in the awkward series of coughs from the team, and earned a wide-eyed stare-down from John.
“Wait, hold on—”
“You really didn’t see that coming, Walker, did you?” Ava cut him off between bites.
“You’re a clueless boy, John Walker,” Yelena mused, and then turned to her. “This is really good, by the way. Do you have any hot sauce?”
“Yeah,” she nodded and almost got up, but Bucky beat her to it, putting away his napkin and steadying her on her chair with a warm hand on her shoulder.
“I’ll get it.”
John watched Bucky retreat back to the kitchen like a hawk, the gears in his brain working overtime. Then he looked back to her, like he tried really hard to match two puzzle pieces together.
“I know you.” He said bluntly, which made her smirk.
“Do you?” She asked from above her bowl, twirling the fork around another string of spaghetti. She tilted her head, almost in a challenge, surely in amusement.
“You were there when we fought in Riga,” he started, his eyes focused like in a distant memory, “and then in New York… Shit, yeah. You were with Sam and Bucky there.”
“And you were acting like authority, yelling and breaking things.” She blew on another bite of pasta before eating with composure. The unnerving feeling danced around the table, she could still feel it, but John provided her enough of a distraction to lower the tension in her chest.
“Ha, I wish I could see it!” Ava’s chuckle lifted the atmosphere.
Bucky came back with a bottle of sriracha and passed it to a brightly smiling Yelena.
“Okay, alright – as far as I remember, you weren’t exactly a definition of peaceful, either.” John held up his hands in defense. “I mean, you were waving your fingers with this weird energy, making people dizzy.” John doesn’t let go, but at least manages to sit down at his waiting spot and take a hold of his fork. “You were giving very strong ‘weird glitter witch’ vibes.”
Bucky chose to walk around the table to his seat. His stride didn’t break, but only faltered for a millisecond, when his open palm flicked into Walker’s head with dull force.
“Hey!” He held his hand up and recoiled. Bucky was already sliding into the chair. “What was that for?”
“For the weird glitter witch.”
She bumped her knee into Bucky’s and sent him a grateful look. She put down her fork and cleared her throat, before speaking up with a measured tone.
“I like glitter. My magic shines like sparkles when it’s visible, look,” she turns to Alexei right next to her and lifts her hand above the table. She let a tingle of emotion to travel through her body and stop at her fingertips. A few light sparks started to dance around her nails, swirl around like calm beacons of energy, delicate enough to mesmerize whoever watched.
“Oh, that is pretty.” Alexei widened his eyes and leaned closer, admiring the spark of magic.
From next to John, Bob spoke up with curiosity and fascination. His voice resonated with calmness, but it made her hand tremble with something unknown. “What else can you do?”
She pursed lips and tried to choose her next words wisely. Looking to Bucky and seeing no hesitation from him, she took a breath and continued.
“I’m an empath.”
“So, you mess with people’s heads. I thought so.” John nodded to himself, but his face was not dismissive anymore.
“Do you really?” Yelena perked up, more curious than wary.
“Not exactly,” she started, letting the sparks die down. With elbows now resting on the table and soft focus, she looked at John and just listened. “Right now, John is curious and very defensive. He’s angry at himself for…” she pauses, filtering what to display for others, and what could be too private. “…some of the things that happened today. And you hate it that the clasp on your jacket is broken.” She smiled up at him gently, trying to not add on to the overwhelming situation.
The table was silent for a moment, broken only by a soft clutter of a fork against the plate. Ava whistled under her nose and avoided eye contact.
“You do that to everyone?”
“No.” She shakes her head lightly and feels Bucky’s fingers rest on her thigh in quiet comfort. “I control it. I know when there’s a lot of emotions bubbling up in a room at once, but I won’t listen in without consent. Well, not unless my line of work requires it.”
“The most accurate intel I’ve ever worked with.” Bucky said quietly, and the fond look in his eyes wrapped warmly around her heart.
“And you make a very good pasta. Impressive, for a last-minute host.” Yelena’s nod of appreciation was enough for the conversation to die down a tone, and everyone to continue their dinner.
She took a deep breath, playing with the last few strings of spaghetti in front of her, letting the twinkles of magic settle in her body. At least Bucky’s arm was still brushing hers, reminding that he’s back home.
They clink of plates slowly died down, everyone resting more comfortably and enjoying the moment of peace. Exhaustion was written all over their faces; some deep in thought, others slowly scrapping off the outer layers of their suits.
Bucky’s arm laid atop of the back of her chair, fingers brushing her shoulder briefly. It made her look up to him, notice his irises already shining. She reached up to tuck a stray lock of hair behind his ear. Her fingertips brushed the stubble of his cheek for a fleeting moment, before they locked gazes in a silent conversation. He nodded towards the group – a movement barely noticeable, but she could feel it against the palm of her hand. He exhaled a heavy breath and she knew what it meant – they needed shelter. She could only agree to that, so she sent him a sad smile and let him kiss the inside of her hand.
“If you want to avoid being chased by Valentina, her strike force or reporters, I suggest you stay the night,” Bucky cleared his throat. Someone sighed, someone nodded pensively, but she only looked at him with patience and curiosity. “I guess we could fit everyone, right?” He looked back to her, to which she immediately nodded.
“How do we know they won’t knock on your door in the next five minutes?” Yelena asked, pushing away her plate.
John immediately agreed with that, “Exactly. I mean, she’s Val, right?” He looked around the table, “nothing should surprise us anymore.”
“Well, if she has a reason to, I’m sure she will try hard to find you,” She spoke up carefully, but kept on eyeing Bucky. A slight raise of her brow told him that she has questions, but whether they should be answered right now or later, she left for him to decide. “but she won’t succeed here. We made sure it’s a secure home. Only a handful of trusted people can find it.”
Bucky pursed his lips and nodded.
She couldn’t shake the feeling that a lot more happened than they managed to share. She kept her eyes on Bucky’s face, watching as it scrunched in confusion at a comment that someone made. The way the corners of his eyes dropped told her that he had a long day, and endured more than he was prepared for. With the omnipresent unnerving feeling of anxiety that drifted around the table, she felt even more braced and worried, struggling to not let anything inside her consciousness. Keeping her magic at bay after a bunch of neurotic, special people faced something difficult, was harder than she wanted to admit. Already zoned out of the conversation, she stood up slowly and grabbed a few plates to start cleaning up. Bucky watched her, but was still talking back to John and Alexei about something, so he didn’t manage to stop her.
Ava and Bob helped. She was mid-rinse, still holding the dirty pan, when they came in with two stacks of dirty plates.
“You should be careful with that wound,” She pointed to her bandaged side, but knew better than to stop a hurt agent who wanted to feel useful. “There are some more pain meds in the box if you’ll need them during the night. Just… take it easy.”
“Thanks,” she showed half of a smile, “I’ll be fine.”
She let them take over the dish duty and paid attention to the notorious buzzing that resonated from the countertop. Her long-lost phone laid on top of a closed laptop, screen facing down, but vibrating as if it was ready to burn a hole in everything nearby.
Four missed calls and a long list of new text messages.
SAM WILSON: Call me back.
SAM WILSON: We need to talk.
UNKNOWN NUMBER: You need to see this
Then, a stream of breaking news alerts and notifications. Against the better judgement, she started scrolling through all of the key words and headlines. Her heart rate sped up and her mind started tightening in a mix of worry, confusion, fear and disbelief.
DARK CLOUD ATTACKING MANHATTAN
DISRUPTIONS AND DISAPPEARANCES IN THE CITY. WHAT CAUSED THE MASS PANIC?
THE NEW AVENGERS ASSEMBLED.
VALENTINA DE FONTAINE: ‘THE NEW AVENGERS!’
DID CIA PLOT THE TRAGEDY TO UNVEIL THE TEAM OF FUGITIVE HEROES?
“You didn’t know what happened before we arrived, did you?” Yelena’s voice broke the nauseating screams in her head and made her look up. Cheese grater and an empty glass in hand, her eyes were almost sympathetic. Ava and Bob looked at each other but didn’t speak up.
“No.”
Even though her response was quiet and measured, it sparked a burst of fearful emotions to try and kick into her soul with a crashing effect. She couldn’t pinpoint the source, but with Yelena turning back to wave Bucky over, nothing would make sense. It could be a combination of everything, so she didn’t look for the cause of overwhelming feelings. She only looked up at her partner, walking into the kitchen with a worried look on his face, eyes resembling those of a scared puppy.
“I was going to tell you later,” he started, taking slow steps and looking briefly to Yelena. She didn’t back off, but just leaned on the opposite wall and pretended to help with the clean-up.
“Tell me what?” She didn’t know what was she expecting, but she needed something. She showed him the screen of her phone and let him look through her notifications, speaking for themselves.
“There’s a lot more to the story than the news is covering.”
This feeling, again. A simmering tension, pulling at her emotional strings harder than anything that Bucky’s words could cause in that moment. Sparks shone in her eyes as she quickly looked around the room, uncomfortable enough to break up the conversation. A particularly louder clank of a dish in the sink and that’s when she noticed it – Bob’s staring. Not dangerous, but fearful. Scared, but also fierce and with underlying certainty. He looked away quickly, but not enough to lose her attention.
“What’s up with Bob?” She suddenly asked, and the weight of emotions sounded like shrill cry. Everyone looked up at her and then to Bob, who straightened up and dried his hands on the fabric of his shirt.
“I’m okay…”
“Bob’s just fine.”
Him and Yelena replied at the same time. Bucky sighed in defeat. She felt cornered, attacked by everyone in the room by asking just that question, so she took a breath to calm down. She could read the room.
“That didn’t sound nice, I’m sorry.” Apologizing seemed to have a calming effect. Yelena leaned back on the wall, losing her braced stance. Ava continued to put away the dirty cutlery into the dishwasher, the world moved on.
“You said you’re an empath,” Bob started quietly, with a shadow of a kind smile. “Maybe you could, you know…”
“Not happening,” Bucky suddenly cut him off, stepping one step in front of her, like a predator ready to pounce. He then turned back to her with a determined look, “you are not reading him.”
“Why not?”
“Because you aren’t.”
“Huh,” she breathed, “thank you, honey, that explains it all.”
That shut him up. With squared jaw and soon-to-be pleading eyes, he didn’t have any immediate response. He started to understand that he might not win.
“Bob,” she turned to him, forcing a gentle tone. Bucky’s eyes were burning holes in her face but she just let him. “Are you sure you’ll be fine with this?”
He shrugged, but took a moment before speaking up again. “How does it work?”
“To make it easy on the mind, I would touch your hand and just… feel whatever you feel right now. I might see the emotions that drive you, or how they manifested for you recently. You won’t feel a thing.”
“You might do, though.”
Yelena’s comment made her turn her head.
“How so?”
“I’m a little enhanced, too.” Alexei’s boisterous laugh echoed through the apartment at Bob’s response. “But-but I won’t do anything to hurt you, I promise.” He added immediately.
“This is a terrible idea.” Bucky shook his head, disappointed.
But she did it. She crossed the short distance to Bob and reached out, waiting for him to take a hold of her hand. When the palms of their hands clasped around each other, darkness filled her mind.
She felt it all. The darkness. The Void. The fear of a regular guy who just wanted to be better. The overwhelming dark cloud, turning the minds of thousands of people into their darkest memories. She could seeall of it. She was everywhere with him: in the lab in the Philippines; in Utah, feeling the first spark of something hopeful; in the old Avengers tower; on the streets of New York in the spotlight of cameras, giving way into something too forceful to fit inside her mind. The overpowering depression and its camp set up in Bob’s mind. The depths of it stretched onto everyone who came into their home today. Disturbing images of people struggling, fighting their old demons. A soul-crushing image of screaming Bucky, tied up to a chair.
Then, something strong pulling her in – a weave of power different than hers. Pulling her into a very specific scenery from her childhood, where the sight of her mother was the first alarming point. She was slowly losing control of her magic and giving way to Bob’s powers, and it took a toll on her. Dark fumes wanted to hide her sparks flowing through her blood, and she couldn’t let it happen. The only way was through pulling his darkness in and shifting it into something better, so she focused on the beauty of being an empath. She imagined taking care of a broken mind, tending to a hopeless soul, giving reassurance and caressing the thoughts. She didn’t want to be trapped in a memory she knew as long gone – she pushed away, let the darkness slip, imagined a stream of golden power that could light up every room and pushed it away, towards the heavy train of thoughts.
She let go of his hand as soon as the light gave her enough strength to pull away. The eyes of everyone in their apartment were focused on her; Bob stood there, as if nothing happened, still shyly looking up at her with an expectant look. Tears were streaming down her face and she looked around, trying to ground herself in the walls of their home. Bucky was immediately next to her, steadying her frame against his side, letting her rest. The silence stretched for a very long moment, until she managed to find her voice again.
“I’m so sorry for what happened to you, Bob.”
The rest of the evening carried on with more of a quiet understanding. After they finished cleaning up, spare pillows and bedsheets were pulled out of the depths of the hallway closet. Bucky was in charge of setting up the pull-out bed in the living room and the extra mattress on the floor, and she worked in the peace of the guest bedroom, fluffing the fresh sheets and adding an extra blanket on the armchair. It was comfortable enough for a mid-reading nap, so it had to suffice for a few hours of sleep.
When she carried the last of the decorative pillows that could help someone sleep better into the living room, some guests were already setting camp in their sleeping spots. Alexei started to doze off in the armchair so the voices – if any – were now a bit more hushed.
She noticed Yelena in the corner of the room, standing still, eyes focused on the wall where a few pictures were stuck to the corkboard. The makeshift office corner was full of papers, files and random things that they didn’t clean up the last time, but that didn’t matter. The picture of Natasha was the sole focus, radiating happiness from her captured smile and the tight embrace that they had on each other. The took it during one of their cheer-up movie nights, two years into their new reality after Thanos had snapped his fingers. Another shot from the same night, but with Steve in the frame too, was right next to it.
“She talked a lot about you, you know?” She was careful with her words, but poked Yelena’s hard to read exterior anyway. “She never really stopped looking for you during the blip. The same way I always kept looking for him,” a finger pointed at a slightly bigger picture of the couple, Bucky hugging her from behind and looking down at her with love painted all across his face. “Steve was the only one to actually try and move on, before we found a way to get everyone back.”
Yelena’s eyes didn’t leave the picture of her sister, when she finally spoke up. “She called you Sparkles. Didn’t say much, but enough for me to understand that you kept her company in times she least expected it.”
Her face scrunched in grief, but only for a fraction of a moment. Neither of them moved, just stayed still with heads full of memories that spoke without words. She didn’t have to look into Yelena’s mind to know that grief has started to mix with grace. It reassured her, knowing that her friend’s sister is finally coming to terms with some of the more difficult truths. Natasha would want her to find peace.
“The bed in the guest room is still empty, you can still beat Walker to it if you make it before he leaves the bathroom.” She said after a moment of silence. A corner of Yelena’s lips twitched upwards and she simply nodded, sneaking away to find respite in the more convenient sleeping arrangement.
Most of the lights in the living room and in the hall went off. A peaceful quiet was broken only by random murmurs of movement around the apartment. Their home was full, a questionable mix of characters, preferences, and assassin skills sizzled in their safe space, but there was an odd familiarity to it. Something that she sometimes felt hanging in the air back in the Avengers compound.
Before entering their bedroom, she hovered by the doorframe for just a second. She could still feel the tension hanging low between her and Bucky, the unspoken heaviness was starting to lift slowly with the layer of exhaustion that took the reins of their bodies.
The bedside lamps were on, and a trickle of light traveled from underneath the bathroom door. Their bedroom felt like a soft embrace, even though her heart was still probed at with a stick of emotions. Darkness threatened to loop around her veins, especially when she sat down on the bed and opened her laptop that still had classified files open, screaming at her. Her fingers tapped on the mousepad until they reached the last documents that were sent to her: the designs behind the Sentry Project. Eyes scanning the page, her hands shook with nerves.
The water in the shower was still running when she stopped reading. His shower was now longer than usual. With something forceful still squeezing her heart in discomfort, she let go of the intelligence, files and access passwords. She closed everything she worked on earlier and put her laptop away, desperate to ease her consciousness into something easier. Something she missed in all of this.
She softly knocked on the door that would usually stay creaked open when they were alone. Her knuckles made a rather quiet sound on the wood, so she thought he did not hear her, but then a very low “Yeah?” travelled through her ears.
He was in the shower, standing still under the forceful stream of water, his back to her, arm resting on the wall for support. His head hung low, tilted only slightly when she came in, enough to recognize her presence. He didn’t turn back to her. Didn’t stop the shower or make any move to finish it.
She stripped of her clothes, leaving a pile on the tiles next to the door. Without thinking, she stepped into the shower. Tried not to hiss when she felt how cold the water was. It made her hurt for him, so she reached his body in no time. Wrapped her arms around his waist and held him tight, her lips finding the skin between his shoulder blades. He was tall, stood strong, muscles almost ripped at the seams, and the tension in his body pulsating with each breath. Her hands travelled higher, to his chest, finding the spot where she could feel the steady beat of his heart. He exhaled with something that reminded her of relief and covered her hand with hers, intertwining their fingers. Her lips kept on pecking his wet skin until she also breathed, inhaling the familiar scent that followed her every time they were close. Her mind, gentle touch and kisses begged, Come back to me.
One of her hands wandered off to the shower knob, twisting it until the water warmed up at least a little bit. His muscles softened almost instantly, his skin giving way for her fingers to hold his skin tighter.
“You’re freezing,” she mumbled, caressing the skin of his chest, letting her hands rub on his skin up to the shoulders and down his arms, just to help him get rid of the goosebumps quicker.
“Got lost in thought for a minute,” his voice was softer around the edges now that they were alone. He got a hold of her hands and slowly detached them from his skin, taking measured steps in place to face her instead.
Lukewarm water streamed down their bodies, scars lined up on his torso glistening under the shower. Her hands traced his chest and arms with subtle movements, until she reached his head. Wet hair flopped down the back of his head and she run her fingers through it, gently massaging the scalp and taking out any remaining bubbles of shampoo that he didn’t manage to rinse out. He hummed in soft contentment at the drag of her nails, his hands landing on her waist for grounding.
“Cold shower and poorly washed hair?” Her voice was soft, but with a tint of something bright and warm. She tilted his head under the stream for the last good rinse and rested her hands on his cheeks, caressing his rough stubble. “I might think it you wanted me to come and save you from your poor washing habits.”
He breathed out a small laugh at that, light enough to mistake it for a gasp of air.
“You got me, baby.”
She leaned in to his chest, landing a kiss above his heart and feeling the way his hands started to weight more on her hips.
“I do,” she murmured into the bruised skin. “always.”
She tugged him out of the shower and passed him a fresh, fluffy towel. They both dried each other slowly, and then stood close when they brushed their teeth. She slid back into her underwear, pulled the same t-shirt over her head and grabbed the small tubes of ointment and antiseptic from the drawer.
She made sure there is enough light on his side of the bed, but not too much to disrupt their tired haze. She pulled out the covers so they could slide right in, and sat down on the side of the mattress. He came in to the bedroom a minute later, clad only in his black boxers, excess water shaken off from his dark hair.
“Sit down, Mr. Soldier.” She pointed to the bed and sent him a barely-there smile, mocking the name Alexei kept on using all evening. He shook his head in disappointment, but climbed in bed and rested his back on the headboard nonetheless.
“He thinks I got the ‘fancy stuff’ with the Hydra serum.” His low voice leaked annoyance, but his face was too tired to show it, too.
“Well,” she breathed out a chuckle. She went up on her knees on the mattress and walked up to him, climbing over his lap. “I think you are my fancy stuff.”
That put a brief, but cheeky smile on his face. He took a hold of her hips and helped her land in a comfortable spot on his thighs, but never let go of her body. His warmed-up hands traveled underneath her shirt and set camp on her skin, moving around ever-so-slightly, but never breaking contact.
She leaned to his torso to inspect the bruises that were already formed over his ribs, checking for any cuts. There was an already closed-up gash on his side, wide enough to think that a sharp object was pushed into his skin, and then pulled out quickly. The line was faintly pink, healed nicely because of the serum, but still enough of a tell that recently something caught him off guard.
Bucky watched her in silence. Eyes scanning her focused face, looking down at the delicate inspection of her fingers, and the caring and focused way she watched him, reserved only for him.
“I should’ve told you sooner,” he whispered at some point, when her focus switched from his chest to his face. She held his chin gently, inspecting the scratch above his cheekbone. She sat back on his thighs and worked with the ointment tube, pushing out the right amount on a cotton swab. “I should’ve told you that the situation changed. Not just barged in with a group of strangers. I’m sorry.”
She didn’t say anything at first. Her eyes still focused on dripping the antiseptic on the right spot beneath his eye.
“You’re allowed to do your thing. You can bring people home,” she started gently, while the cotton swab precisely rolled over the torn tissue. “Just…” she sighed, straightening up and putting away the medication. “Seeing how severe the situation was, what unveiled and how messy it will be now…” Her mind kept going back to every image that Bob showed her earlier. “I just wish I knew sooner.”
“I know. I’m sorry, doll.”
“I didn’t even know you were hurt until I saw your face.” She whispered with a sad smile, caressing his clean cheek. He leaned into her hand and sighed, closing his eyes briefly. “I wasn’t watching the news, I had my notifications off - except for yours, of course,” she kept on talking, feeling her chest swell with the accumulated worry and affection. “and then Bob showed me everything. I saw the pain you were in,” she gulped, trying to contain her emotions. He tugged on her hips to bring her closer, letting her fall forward and rest her forehead on his. “It’s been a minute since you were out in the field. I guess it scared me.”
Bucky took a deep, shaky breath, his fingers flexing on her skin, slowly drying hair loosely falling over his ears.
“I didn’t think it would escalate this quickly.” he whispered right into her lips. His flesh hand traveled up to her face and caressed her cheek, wiping underneath her eye to take away the first tear that threatened to drop.
“I know.”
“And now with Valentina claiming us as the New Avengers?” He mused, letting out a dry chuckle. He kissed her nose affectionately and let them breathe together. “This definitely wasn’t on my campaign.”
She smiled at him then, locking their gazes in a comfortable stare-off. She could feel her magic start to turn blue, the same color as his eyes. Something that happened whenever their hearts were on their sleeves, and where they both were feeding off each other’s love.
“Sam needs an explanation. He called so many times.”
“Yeah,” he sighed, a fake seriousness flashing across his face. “good luck with that.”
She gasped at that, smacking his arm playfully.
“What? He called you, not me. My phone was dead.” He smiled. She started to climb off his lap but he stopped her, sitting up and tugging her in for a very tight embrace. “No, don’t leave me. I’ll call him tomorrow.”
“You better do it before I do.” He tucked his face into the crook of her neck, kissing her skin and smelling it deeply.
“Yes, ma’am.” Bucky looked up at her, eyes shining, smile threatening to break.
Finally, she relaxed into his body, leaning in with purpose. Her nose touched his gently, before their lips connected in a gentle, loving kiss. Her hands hugged his shoulders and tugged him closer, deepening the kiss and breathing in his scent. Bucky let out a quiet sound from the back of his throat as they pushed toward each other, with more relief than desire at first. Then, with each of the caress against the other’s lips, with each tug of his hair and delicate scratch of her fingernails, the need grew.
She kissed him like she almost lost him, and he kissed her back like he never wanted to let go. Her thighs firmly wrapped around his hips as she moved impossibly closer, earning another groan from his wet lips. She smiled into his mouth and he bit her lip in response, grazing his teeth across tender skin and teasing her with purpose.
“I thought you were tired,” she murmured against him.
“I am,” he agreed, “but I missed you more.”
His breath got heavier. Their mouths kissed harder, hungrier, chasing each other like careless teenagers who have just realized how magnetic it is to make out with someone you love. Her hips rolled forward, out of habit, causing a whimper to shake her lips against his. He held her tighter, vibranium palming and kneading her ass, the other hand moving freely under her shirt. Magic trickled at her fingertips, making each of her nervous ending even more sensitive to the feeling of his body against hers. Another move of her hips, a raspy groan from Bucky’s throat, and—
A creak of the floor, movement on the pull-out sofa, or maybe even a footstep towards the kitchen. A quiet sound that made them stop, freeze in their embrace. Her hand travelled to his chest, letting his heart beat hard against her fingertips, catching a breath.
“Don’t,” he almost begged, leaning in again to kiss her neck in places that make her shiver. “If we stop now, I might cry.”
A breathy laugh escaped her mouth. She tucked her face into his shoulder, holding him close.
“If we can hear them moving, they will definitely hear us, baby.” She whispered, peppering his jaw in short and chaste kisses. “We’re enough of an entertainment to Walker.”
Bucky groaned in response, wrapping his arms around her waist tightly and rolling them over. With a huff, she landed on top of her pillow and spread her legs enough to let him lay between them. He caged her head with his arms and leaned down for another kiss.
“Don’t talk about Walker when you’re making me hard.”
She chuckled quietly, letting his nose travel along the side of her face. Warmth enveloped her whole body and she wished they could stay like this forever. With no care in the world about politics, agendas, no missed deadlines or events to attend. No one else around them, just her and Bucky, tangled in the sheets of their Brooklyn home.
“Hey,” he nudged her cheek and searched her eyes. They looked at each other for a few moments, engraving this moment in their memories. “How was your day?”
“You’re asking that now?” She lifted her eyebrow in question, gently caressing his face and tucking away the loose hair that threatened to cover his eyes.
“Now is perfect.” He mumbled into her cheek, leaving a wet kiss behind. “It’s just me and you.”
She sighed, trying to focus and gather her most mundane thoughts of the day.
“They put me in the middle seat on the plane from D.C.”
Bucky fake-gasped at that, “How dare they?”
“I know, right?” she smiled at his disappointed face. “but I survived in that middle seat. Can you believe it?”
“Impossible,” another kiss to her cheek, before he rolled over and landed on his side, his legs tangled with hers, tugging her as close as possible so they could still stare in each other’s eyes. “What else happened?”
He listened to her until her eyelids turned heavy. Until her lips started moving slower and slower, pushing forward one last time to touch his skin. He covered them with the sheets and held her close, watching as a single blue spark flew away from her fingertips, fading into the night. Her breathing evened out, arm still tucked in his torso. A quiet ‘I love you’ mumbled to each other in a sleepy haze, like nothing else mattered.
Summary : Sam sets Bucky up with you, a human ray of sunshine.
Pairing : FATWS! Bucky Barnes x Sunshine! reader (she/her)
Warnings/tags : Fluff, smut-ish, nothing too explicit but still very steamy, sexual themes. Kind of grumpy x sunshine, reader is mentioned to be Sam’s gym buddy, Bucky has an annoying neighbour, cursing, reader is secretly kinky in this. set immediately after FATWS (Let me know if I missed anything!)
Word count : 6.2k
Note : I originally aimed for this to be around like, 3k words, but oh well. Enjoy!
The Saints game blared through Bucky’s apartment, the volume louder than necessary because Sam insisted he couldn’t feel the game unless it rattled the windows. Bucky sat slouched in the armchair, arms crossed, looking every bit the human embodiment of a raincloud.
“What’s up with you?” Sam raised an eyebrow while he sipped his beer, noticing his friend a bit lost on his phone for the better half of the game.
“Online dating,” Bucky muttered, stabbing a fork into the takeout container on his lap. “I tried it, but it was a disaster, Sam. You swipe left, you swipe right… I feel like I’m making decisions about people like I’m picking produce. It wasn’t like this in the ‘40s.”
Sam didn’t look away from the screen. “Yeah, in the ‘40s all you had to do was show up and girls tripped over their own feet.”
Bucky glared. “It wasn’t like that.”
“Buck, please. Steve told me you were the original pretty boy of Brooklyn,” he laughed, scoffing with amusement. “Don’t rewrite history just because you’ve lost game.”
“People actually talked back then,” Bucky grunted, “We courted. It took time. Now it’s all emojis and ‘wyd.’ What the hell does that even mean?”
Sam rolled his eyes. “It means: what are you doing.”
“I know what it means,” Bucky rolled his eyes.“I’m just saying…. It feels impersonal. And half the time we stop talking before we even get to dinner.”
“Maybe because you open conversations like you’re writing your memoir,” Sam said. “You sent that one girl five paragraphs on your favorite plums.”
“They were good plums.”
Sam opened his mouth to argue, but it seemed like the universe would cut him off.
Knock knock knock.
Both men jumped. Then came the voice.
“James!” Mrs. Carmichael, the old lady who lived next to him, shouted through the door. “Turn that infernal game down! Some of us are trying to sleep before our arthritis medication kicks in!”
Bucky looked at the clock.
It was like, 6 p.m. And it wasn’t even that loud.
Bucky groaned and got up, dragging himself to the door. He cracked it open just enough to see the elderly woman in her robe and slippers, her scowl carved so deep, he wondered how long it had been since it was permanently etched into her mouth.
“Sorry, Mrs. Carmichael,” Bucky said. “Sam’s really into the—”
“I don’t care if Sam is into it. Turn it down!” she huffed, wagging a finger.
Bucky sighed. “Yes, ma’am.”
She eyed him another moment, then shuffled back toward her apartment muttering about “handsome men with no manners.” Bucky shut the door.
Sam burst out laughing. “She still lives next door? Oh man, I remember when she tried to get you evicted for using your vacuum cleaner.”
“She’s gonna live there till she dies. And that’s assuming that she can die.” Bucky hopped on the couch and went back to sulking.
Sam watched him for a moment, eyebrows furrowing. He knew his friend had always been grumpy in the 21st century… but he can’t remember the last time Bucky even tried to date. That effort must’ve counted for something. Right?
“You know… I might know someone,” Sam started. “Someone who’s not into emojis. She’s sweet. Real sweet.”
Bucky stiffened. “Are you setting me up on a date?”
Sam shrugged. “If you want. I think you’d like her. More importantly, I think she’d actually like you.”
Bucky scoffed, staring at the floor. “I doubt it. I’m… a lot.”
“C’mon, man.” Sam leaned forward. “She’s the kind of person who could brighten a dungeon. You’re the dungeon. She’ll balance you out.”
Bucky spent the entire subway ride rehearsing how not to sound like an idiot.
Sam’s voice echoed in his head: She’s easy to talk to. Just don’t scowl like you’re interrogating her.
He tried to relax his face. It felt wrong, almost unnatural. Apparently, according to Joaquin, he had a ‘resting bitch face,” whatever that meant.
The café Sam set you up on was cosy, warm, and smelled like cinnamon. Bucky stepped inside and immediately spotted you at a booth by the window: bright smile, sunny sweater, waving at him like he was an old friend instead of a stranger.
His stomach did something embarrassing.
“You must be Bucky!” you said, standing up and offering your hand like you genuinely couldn’t wait to meet him.
He shook it. “That’s me.”
You laughed softly. “Sam showed me your picture. He didn’t show you mine, did he?”
“I—I didn’t ask.” (He absolutely should have asked. He would’ve stress-panicked less if he knew you were this gorgeous. Or maybe he would’ve panicked more. Who knows?)
You sat back down, folding your hands in front of you. “Sam talks about you all the time. He said you two were watching football and yelling at the TV when your neighbor threatened to evict you?”
Bucky groaned. “He told you that?”
“We go to the same gym,” you said with a little shrug. “He shares a lot during cooldown stretches.”
“Yeah, he shares too much in general,” Bucky said, and managed to pull out a genuine chuckle this time.
You laughed again, like you thought he was charming instead of off-putting. Bucky didn’t know what to do with that.
The waitress came by, and you placed your order with cheerful confidence. Bucky panicked and just echoed whatever you picked.
You talked after that. About little things, stories from work, a funny moment at the gym, how Sam always stretches like he’s performing for an invisible audience. And Bucky… listened. Not because he didn’t know what to say, but because for once, listening didn’t feel like a chore. It felt as natural as breathing.
Every time he did speak, even if it was just a small “mmm” or a hesitant answer, your eyes warmed like something important had come out of his mouth.
It had been a long time since someone looked at him with interest, without fear or pity.
Your hands wrapped around your coffee cup as your laughter spilled quietly into the air. Your ankle brushed his by accident and he went still, not out of fear, but because a hopeful part of him had opened its eyes.
He liked how you made the world feel lighter.
He liked the way you filled silences with warmth, not noise.
He liked… you. Immediately. More than he’d expected or prepared for.
When it was time to go, you slipped into your coat, still smiling (always smiling) and Bucky realized he didn’t want the moment to end. Not the cinnamon-scented room, not your sweet voice, not the warmth in his chest he’d thought he wasn’t capable of anymore.
“I had a really, really good time,” you said, meeting his eyes sincerely. “If you ever wanted to do this again… I definitely would.”
And Bucky felt his heart flutter under his ribs.
“Yeah,” he managed. “I’d like that.”
You gave him one last bright smile and your number before stepping out into the crisp evening, the bell on the café door chiming behind you like a promise.
Bucky stood there a long moment before pulling out his phone to text Sam:
She’s… nice.
Sam replied instantly.
Nice?? That’s it?? Did you at least smile???
Bucky didn’t answer right away.
He just looked out the window at the spot you’d disappeared around the corner and let his mouth, slowly, tug upwards.
Eventually, he typed back:
Yeah. I smiled.
—
Date two was Bucky’s idea.
He texted you a simple “Coffee? Same place?” and immediately regretted the lack of emojis, punctuation, of anything. But you showed up with the same bright smile anyway, excited just to see him.
This one felt easier.
You talked about your week, your favorite silly shows, Sam’s terrible gym playlists. Bucky found himself watching your hands when you talked, the way they moved gently through the air like you were painting your words.
He told you a little more about himself this time. Nothing heavy, just small glimpses, like jazz records he liked, a diner he missed, and that he never understood why people thought biscotti was edible (he always got crumbs stuck in his teeth. You, on the other hand, didn’t mind it.)
You laughed, and Bucky realised he didn’t mind being teased by you. Not at all.
When you said goodbye, you touched his metal arm lightly.
He felt the warmth for hours.
—
After a whole week of texting and adorably calling in the middle of the night, you pulled the trigger on the third date.
You took him out on an evening walk, warm air, ice cream dripping down your fingers as you both wandered down a quiet street.
Bucky walked close enough that your shoulders brushed sometimes. Close enough that he noticed how you smelled sweet, like clean laundry and just as comforting.
You talked less tonight. It wasn’t awkward, just… peaceful. You pointed out pretty windows, he made small comments, and every silence felt like a blanket, not a void.
When the walk ended at your corner, you stood together, streetlights glowing above you.
“I had fun,” you said, voice smaller than usual.
“Me too,” he answered, and it came out lower than he meant.
You stepped closer. He froze, not out of fear, but because he didn’t want to rush, didn’t want to misread, didn’t want to ruin the warmth that had grown between you.
But you just tipped your face up and whispered, “Bucky?”
“Mhm?”
“Can I?”
He barely got out a nod before your lips met his. You kissed him like you knew he needed slow, not fast; soft, not deep.
His heart did a wild backflip behind his ribs.
When you pulled back, he was still half-leaning toward you, like gravity was confused.
“Goodnight, Bucky,” you whispered.
—
Bucky didn’t go home right away after you kissed him goodnight.
He needed… a minute. Maybe more than a minute. His heart was still beating too fast, his lips still tingling, and his head felt strangely clear and warm at the same time. Like you had cracked open a window in a room he didn’t know was stuffy.
He ended up walking a few blocks before pulling out his phone.
Sam was usually up late, but Bucky hesitated anyway. He typed, deleted, typed again.
You awake?
Sam responded within ten seconds.
Yep. Did you ruin it?
Bucky rolled his eyes at the screen, but the smile tugging at his mouth wouldn’t go away.
He typed back.
No. I… actually wanted to say thanks.
Another quick reply.
???
Bucky exhaled slowly. Then he called him.
Sam picked up on the first ring. “What’s up?”
Bucky stopped under a streetlight, staring at the pavement like he could make sense of the last two hours by studying it. “Just had the third date.”
“Oh, that’s what this was about,” Sam sounded way too proud of himself. “How did it go?”
“It was good.” He swallowed. “I haven’t…Sam, I haven’t felt like this in a long time.”
Sam went very quiet.
Bucky continued. “She’s… kind. She smiles at me like—like I’m someone worth smiling at.”
“Buck,” Sam chuckled, something like relief threading through his voice.
“There was a moment,” Bucky said softly. “We were walking. And she just… slipped her hand into mine. Like it was the most natural thing in the world. And for a second, I forgot to be nervous.”
“Oh damn,” Sam whispered. “You’re in deep.”
Bucky huffed a laugh. “Yeah. I think I might be.”
He leaned back against a closed shop door, watching the city glow. His chest felt full, and it was a new feeling. A good one.
“Thank you,” Bucky said. “For setting us up. For thinking she’d… like me.”
Sam snorted. “You’re like a sad puppy with muscles. Girls eat that up.”
“Sam.”
“Fine, fine.” Sam paused. “But seriously—,you gonna see her again?”
Bucky didn’t have to think. “Yeah. Definitely.”
“Atta boy.”
—
Date four was dinner on a Thursday night. You both sat closely in a dim corner booth, your knee pressed against his the entire time.
You told him more about yourself. Dreams, fears, silly stories. Bucky listened like each word mattered. And sometimes, he reached out, just lightly, brushing your fingers, your wrist, like he was memorizing the texture of your presence.
When he walked you home, you held his hand and came in for a hug.
He didn’t even register how much he was touching you until you turned your face into his neck and whispered, “Bucky?”
He hummed.
“You can kiss me.”
So he did.
One kiss became two. Two became a handful. Your fingers curled into his shirt.
Before you knew it, you pulled him into your apartment. There, he found a couch and he pulled you gently into his lap, mouth brushing yours.
His heart pounded under your palms, not out of fear, but out of want. He whispered your name against your lips and sighed.
At one point you pulled back just enough to look at him, “You feel so good.”
It sent a shiver straight through him.
He kissed you again, laying you down on the couch, guiding you gently beneath him, one of his knees braced by your hip. He didn’t rush. He didn’t even seem to think about anything except the sounds of your gasps, your fingers curling in his shirt.
You tugged him closer, and Bucky let out the smaller, rasped sound right against your lips—
KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK.
Bucky froze.
You froze.
A very familiar voice shouted through the door.
“Hey, you home? I gotta talk to you bout somethin’” He paused, listening for a response. “Why is it so quiet? You dead in there? Did Bucky kill you?”
Sam.
It was Sam. Knocking on your door in the most unfortunate of moments.
You buried your forehead to Bucky’s shoulder as you tried not to laugh. Bucky’s hands stayed on your waist, gentle, protective, and mortified all the same.
“Don’t—” he whispered urgently, “don’t make a sound.”
But you were shaking with laughter anyway.
Sam knocked again. “Uh… if you’re not answering, I’ll just wait out here—”
You scrambled out from under him so fast it would’ve been funny if he weren’t panicking.
The moment you cracked it open, Sam barged in like an overprotective sitcom parent.
He pointed at you. Then at Bucky. Then back at you.
“Good. You’re alive.”
You blinked. “I… what?”
“I came to check you weren’t breaking my boy’s heart.” Sam waved a dramatic arm at Bucky. “Because if you hurt him, gym buddy or not, I’ll make your next leg day a personal hell.”
You rolled your eyes and chuckled. “Sam!”
Bucky buried his face in both hands. “Get out.”
Sam ignored him entirely. “I mean it. He told me how much he liked you the other day and if you don’t like him back—”
“Sam,” you interrupted, cheeks burning, “I like him. A lot.”
Sam looked between you two… finally really saw the flushed faces, the messy hair, the way Bucky refused to make eye contact because he was trying not to die of embarrassment.
“Well,” Sam clapped his hands together. “Glad we cleared that up. Now I can go, unless…”
He glanced at the table, where you have a jar of sweets.
“…you got snacks?”
Bucky closed his eyes in despair.
You, of course, too nice for your own good, beamed. “Come in.”
“No,” Bucky muttered under his breath, horrified.
But Sam was already stepping into your living room.
“Smells like cookies,” he said, before looking at the messy cushions on the couch and the super-soldier size dent that was left in it. “You two were definitely making out.”
“Samuel,” Bucky growled.
You patted Bucky’s arm. “It’s okay. It’s kinda cute.”
“See, Buck?” Sam snorted. “She thinks you’re cute. She thinks you’re cute. Wow. Never thought I’d see the day.”
You and Bucky ended up on one side of the couch while Sam plopped himself in the armchair like a self-appointed cockblocker.
The makeout session was now officially over. And you were too sweet to say no to hanging out with a mutual friend.
But you still leaned your head on Bucky’s shoulder. And Bucky slipped his hand into yours.
Even with Sam loudly narrating the movie (“Girl, don’t go in there, the killer is ALWAYS in the basement!”), Bucky felt grounded and stupidly, unbelievably happy, with his girl on one side and his best friend on the other.
Later that night, when Sam finally left, you turned to Bucky with a smile.
“It’s very late, and I got work in the morning, but you can come back tomorrow,” you whispered, brushing your thumb over his cheek, “this time, I promise I won’t let Sam in.”
—
When tomorrow came, you didn’t even bother pretending it was anything but continuing what Sam had interrupted.
When Bucky walked through your door, your smile was mischievous, eyes glinting like you knew exactly what the two of you were going to do.
“Hey,” you greeted, stepping close enough that your hip brushed his. The touch was deliberate, teasing, enough to make him tense and melt at the same time. “Come on in.”
He kicked off his shoes, aware of the way you were watching him, the way your gaze lingered on his lips, the curve of his necklace, the muscles under his shirt. His own hands itched to touch you, but he waited, because you wanted this. You were daring him, and he could feel the pulse in his chest quicken at the thought.
You guided him toward the couch, your fingers grazing his hand as you settled close. Just brushing him was enough to make him take a deep breath. His body was already on fire from your proximity and the tension between you that had been building since yesterday.
When your lips finally met his, it was urgent and hungry, but careful. His hands moved to your waist, gripping gently, pulling you closer, tilting your hips just so, pressing you into him with a controlled force. Your lips parted beneath his, sighing against him, and he groaned low in his chest, feeling the coil that ran down your spine.
“You feel so amazing,” he murmured against your mouth, lips trailing down your jaw, brushing against your neck. His teeth caught your collarbone in a teasing nibble, and you gripped his shoulders for balance.
You tugged at his shirt, breathless. “Bucky… I want you.”
He froze for a moment, eyes darkening, chest rising and falling. “You don’t have to ask me twice.”
Every kiss, every touch, was deliberate, teasing, filled with heat and care. He slid his hands under your shirt slowly, savoring the feel of your skin, watching your reactions, every moan driving him further. You did the same, fingers threading into his hair, tugging him down.
At some point, your clothes began to come off and he carried you to your bed. His hands traced your curves while exploring, making you sigh against him. You whispered against his lips, little words that made him groan and press closer.
“Bucky… please,” you gasped, breathless, sliding your hand along his chest.
“Shh,” he whispered back, “just let me take care of you.”
And you did. You let him take the lead, let him guide, let him touch and tease in ways that made your knees weak and your heart race.
You gasped and grabbed his back, pulling him closer, pressing your body against his in every way possible without words.
An hour passed in a haze of warmth, kisses, and touches. Every time you paused to look at each other, the world outside vanished. Bucky’s hands, both vibranium and flesh, mapped you, memorizing your body without ever rushing. Your hands did the same, threading through his hair, across his shoulders, down his back, feeling every inch of him, claiming him just as he claimed you.
Finally, when you both rode out your high, you curled into his chest, tangled together in a blanket. Your thumb brushed against his cheek, and you whispered, “I don’t think I’ve ever felt this relaxed after sex.” You chuckled, kissing his nose. “In a good way.”
Bucky smiled against your hair, brushing his lips over your temple. “Yeah?” he said, chest full, voice thick. “What do you usually feel?”
You winked playfully, “You’ll see… if you take me out again, soldier.”
He chuckled, pulling you impossibly close, heart swelling with a feeling he hadn’t felt in decades.
“Oh… I will.”
—
Bucky absolutely took you out again.
He would’ve taken you out the very next day if he hadn’t been dragged off on a two-week mission with Sam and Joquin. And the entire time he was gone, he had one plan waiting for him the moment he got back: invite you over to his place for the first time, cook dinner, maybe cuddle on the couch, kiss you breathless, and, if he was lucky, fall asleep with you in his arms again.
What he didn’t plan for was… whatever the hell tonight turned into.
Your first official sleepover at his apartment started perfectly normal.
He cooked. You teased him about how seriously he took seasoning. He tried (and failed) to not stare at you like you were the prettiest little thing that ever walked into his kitchen.
Then you two curled up on the couch to watch a rom-com with way too many sparkles. Halfway through, you leaned over and kissed him, soft at first… then deeper… then longer.
Eventually, you kissed him long enough that the movie became irrelevant and breathing became optional.
And then…
Well.
Everything escalated so fast he didn’t remember where the ground went.
One minute you were straddling his lap, his hands on your hips, your mouth hot against his. The next, he was being guided, no, maneuvered— back toward his bedroom, his thoughts crashing, his self-control slipping, and you whispered dirty nothing in his ears like, “aw, Buck… you get so obedient when you’re worked up.”
And at one point he actually had the clarity to think my sweet sunshine… Was this filthy?
Because you were so bubbly in the daylight, warm in conversation, golden when you smiled, and yet here you were pushing him onto his own mattress like he weighed nothing, kissing him like you were claiming territory, looking down at him with this wicked glint that should’ve been illegal.
He genuinely wondered if he should be embarrassed by how fast he let you take over.
Or how he didn’t even protest when you slid his hands up over his head.
Or how quickly he nodded when you reached into your bag, casually, like you were grabbing lip balm, and pulled out a pair of pink, fuzzy metal handcuffs.
“Why do you have those anyway?” he’d asked, dazed.
“Just felt like it,” you said with a shrug. And he swore the universe shifted.
He’d never been that man before.
The kind who wanted to be pinned, teased, ordered, and handled in bed.
But with you?
He was helplessly, shamelessly that man. He would be any man you wanted.
And oh, you took advantage of that on the best way
You wrecked him, rewired him, and made him want to give it.
Without going into much detail, the headboard might consider legal action. The poor mattress probably shifted into another dimension. And Bucky discovered an entire list of kinks he had absolutely zero idea he possessed.
By the time you were done, you were draped across his chest, both of you trembling and completely undone. Your limbs tangled with his like you’d melted into him. His wrists were free now, but faint red marks lingered on his human one as an evidence of trust, surrender, and the fact that he definitely did not want you to stop. He knew he could easily break free, but fuck— he didn’t want to.
His hands settled on your waist, grounding himself through you as his chest rose and fell under your cheek.
“Holy hell…” he rasped, voice shredded. “Sweetheart, what was that?”
You laughed weakly into his neck. “Fun?”
“That was…” He shook his head, trying, and failing, to catch a full breath. “I didn’t even know I liked half that stuff.”
“You do now,” you giggled, lips brushing his stubble with a smug smile.
His groan was almost a confession.
You kissed him again, softer now, pulling him down from the high. His fingers traced lazy, soothing shapes on your back.
After a long, blissed-out silence, you pushed yourself up on shaky elbows. “I need to shower before everything gets… sticky.”
“It’s already sticky,” he mumbled, hooking an arm around your waist like he could will you back onto him. “C’mon, sweets. Stay with me a minute.”
You swatted his metal arm away. “Behave.”
“After what you just did?” His eyebrow arched. “Absolutely not.”
You kissed his chin, grabbed the towel waiting on the chair, and wrapped it around yourself before wobbling toward the bathroom.
“You sure you can walk?” he teased.
“Barely,” you shot back. “That’s your fault.”
“Best compliment I’ve ever gotten.”
You closed the door before he could continue being insufferably pleased with himself. The shower turned on, steam curling out from the edges, and your quiet humming drifted through the running water.
Bucky fell back into the mattress, staring at the ceiling.
His wrists tingled. His mind spun with flashes of you, your hands, your voice, your wicked smile.
So that’s what you meant…
He dragged a hand over his face, then let it fall again, smiling like an idiot. He could feel you even with the door shut.
He could smell you on his sheets, on his skin, in the air he breathed.
I’m a lucky man, he thought. So unbelievably lucky—
KNOCK. KNOCK. KNOCK.
“I know you’re in there!”
Bucky shot upright like he’d been hit with a stun grenade.
For a second, and just a second, he truly believed the universe had taken personal offense to how thoroughly you’d ruined him. As if fate itself had peeked into his bedroom, seen the bite marks and heart the things you whispered in his ear that rewrote his entire understanding of himself, and gone Absolutely not. Consequences time.
The knocking thundered again.
He launched himself off the mattress, only then realizing the room looked like a hurricane of love and passion had wreaked havoc through it.
There was a tank top dangling off the lampshade like a surrender flag, your bra clinging to the bedpost for dear life, and the sheets halfway down the mattress.
And, dear god, the handcuffs were sitting perfectly centered on the pillow, catching the light like holy relics.
The voice shrilled through the door again, “Barnes! Don’t make me call the police again!"
Bucky froze in a pose reminiscent of a startled deer halfway into sweatpants. “Again? Oh, just kill me now,” he whispered to no one, wrestling his legs into the pants like they were trying to escape.
He managed to yank them up (inside out, backwards, incorrect in every conceivable way), grabbed the nearest shirt (inside out as well), and attempted to flatten his hair (no luck on that either).
His metal arm gleamed and the skin around it was marked. His neck… well. You’d left plenty of love letters there in the form of dark kisses and very illegal-looking scratches.
Phenomenal for his ego.
Horrific for dealing with his neighbor, Mrs. Carmichael.
Two years he’d lived next to that woman. Two long, traumatic, hyper-vigilant years.
She was, without exaggeration, the undisputed heavyweight champion of unnecessary noise complaints. The woman had called the police on Bucky last summer because he played “Bring It On Home to Me” at a volume that could be accurately described as “normal human.” She once accused him of running “illegal industrial machinery” at 10 a.m., which was just him making a protein smoothie. She left notes under his door if he so much as coughed after 9 p.m. And she had threatened to contact the landlord the one time he dropped a plastic bottle on the floor.
She also had—Bucky had seen it with his own eyes—a laminated, color-coded folder titled: Building Violations.
So tonight, with how loud both you and Bucky have been?
Oh, tonight would be her Superbowl.
“Okay,” Bucky whispered to himself as he staggered toward the door. “You survived seventy years of brainwashing. You can survive… an angry cat lady.”
KNOCKKNOCKKNOCKKNOCKKNOCKKNOCK—
“No I can’t,” he whimpered.
He swung the door open before she could pound a hole through it.
There she stood, in her pink robes and slippers shaped like furious cats, holding a binder labeled Noise Ordinance Laws – PERSONAL COPY clutched like a holy scripture. (Bucky knew he didn’t violate it. It was only 9.30 PM. Quiet hours in New York start from like, what, 10PM?)
Her eyes traveled from his face, down his neck, over the suspicious red marks, to the shirt that was definitely inside out, and then lower, to where his sweatpants sat incorrectly on his hips like a toddler dressed himself.
She sniffed.
“Well,” she announced. “I see you’ve been… active.”
Bucky sighed. “Mrs. Carmichael, I really don’t—”
She raised the binder like an executioner’s axe.
“Do you know,” she barked, “that the walls in this building are six inches thick? SIX! That is not my fault! That is YOUR responsibility!”
Bucky blinked, mortified.
She charged on.
“The noises coming from your unit tonight were outrageous. Absolutely obscene. Groaning, thumping, banging, the headboard knocking like a cat was stuck in a dryer.”
Bucky choked. “That is NOT— I mean—no one was— there’s no—”
“And the language!” She clutched her chest. “I’ve never heard filth like that in my life! And I was married to Richard Carmichael for forty years!”
Bucky wanted to melt into the floor.
Halfway through his attempt at a defense, you got out of the bathroom and made your way into the living room wearing nothing but a towel.
Oh no, Bucky thought, gotta protect you from Mrs. Carmichael.
But you were clueless, still glowing from the shower, smelling like warm vanilla and sin, water dripping down your collarbones as if you were walking out of a movie scene.
Bucky could feel his soul leave his body.
“Buck?” you asked gently, sweetly, “Everything okay?”
Mrs. Carmichael looked at you so quickly it was a miracle she didn’t injure herself.
“Well I— I— I was just—” Bucky started, but of course the building dragon interrupted him.
“Everything is not okay young lady—“ she started, but you just smiled sweetly, interrupting her in return.
“Oh!” you beamed. “Your robe is adorable. I love the color on you!”
Mrs. Carmichael actually stopped and blinked.
Her entire posture relaxed like someone had unplugged her battery. “T-thank you?”
You stepped closer with that gentle, disarming sweetness that could make a demon repent. “I don’t think we’ve met properly yet.”
“Well, Martha,” you said, tone honey-smooth, “why don’t you come inside? I was just about to make some tea.”
Bucky’s jaw dropped. “Sweets—she literally tried to have me evicted—last month—”
You patted his cheek lovingly.
“Honey,” you murmured. “Go shower.”
He blinked at you, dazed, almost bewildered.
You guided Mrs. Carmichael— his mortal enemy, as far as he was concerned— inside. Martha fussed with her robe, suddenly shy.
“Well…” she said. “If you insist… I do enjoy a good chamomile.”
You looked over your shoulder and winked. “I got this.”
Bucky backed into the bedroom like a man fleeing a battlefield, closing the door behind him before resting his forehead against it and groaning into his hands.
—
Bucky took one of the fastest showers of his entire existence.
Partially because he was still overheated, skin buzzing with the afterglow. Partially because he was terrified of leaving you alone with her.
The woman who once accused him of “walking too aggressively for a man of his size.”
He shut off the water and just stood there dripping, towel in hand, bracing both palms against the wall like he was preparing to charge into battle.
“Okay,” he pep-talked himself. “They’re probably done talking. She probably drank her tea, yelled about me again, threatened to call the cops, and left. Right. Right.”
He dried off, threw on actual clothes this time, not inside-out panic-wear, and dragged his fingers through his wet hair.
Barefoot, heart thudding, he padded down the hallway.
As he reached the living room…
He stopped dead in his tracks.
Because sitting on the couch—on his couch—was Mrs. Martha Carmichael, pink robe draped like a queen’s mantle, angry-cat slippers still on her feet, holding a delicate teacup in one hand, offering her other hand to you as you, still just in a towel, sat cross-legged on the coffee table in front of her, painting her nails a glossy, shade of cherry red.
You were laughing.
She was giggling.
Giggling.
The woman who once threatened to report him to the FAA because she heard a “jet-engine-like noise” from his apartment at 4 a.m. (he had snored).
Bucky rubbed his eyes, fully convinced he was hallucinating from dehydration or post-orgasm brain fog.
“—and then,” Martha was saying in a tone far too lively, “he had the audacity to tell me I was the reason he couldn’t finish! Can you believe that? The nerve!”
You gasped like she was confessing to a federal crime. “Oh my god. I can't believe he blamed you for his incompetence.”
“That’s what I’m saying!” Martha slapped her knee. “Forty years, and the man couldn’t find—well, we don’t need to get into that, but let’s just say Richard was a walking, talking disappointment.”
You hummed sympathetically, rotating her hand to finish the coat. “Trust me, I get it. I got lucky with Bucky, I mean he could rattle my insides like a sailor on leave— but my ex? He was useless. Genuinely didn’t have a clue—”
“HEY,” Bucky barked before either of you could talk about something far more embarrassing.
You looked up with wide eyes.
“Oh! James! There you are.” Martha lit up like a Christmas tree. “We were just discussing men with poor… aim,” she added as if this was a normal Tuesday.
Bucky made the sound of a man dying inside.
You winked at him, as if you hadn’t just implied to his enemy neighbor that he rearranged your organs.
He pointed helplessly between the two of you. “You’re… still here?”
Martha lifted her newly painted nails to the light, admiring your work. “Yes, dear. We were bonding.”
“Bonding,” Bucky repeated slowly, like the word was foreign.
You flashed him a pleased smile that nearly put him on his knees.“She’s a sweetheart once you talk to her.”
Martha actually blushed. “Oh, stop.”
“No, really,” you continued, “you have fantastic taste in robes. Which means we’re kindred spirits.”
“Oh, you’re such a lovely girl.” Martha preened like a bird. “And your skin! My goodness, do you moisturize, exfoliate, what do you use? I’ve been trying everything but nothing makes me glow like that.”
Bucky stared in awe.
You had healed the neighborhood menace.You had actually domesticated the building’s final boss.
A few minutes later, after you’d finished her nails and given her your skincare routine (soap, really), Martha stood.
“Well,” she said, smoothing her robe, “I should get going. I don’t want to intrude.”
She leaned toward you, “But you must stop by for brunch sometime. Anytime. I make wonderful blueberry scones.”
“I would love that.” Your eyes lit up. “But only if you let me bring more colors.”
“Deal,” Martha agreed immediately.
Then, as the miracle to end all miracles, she turned to Bucky and smiled.
“You take good care of her, James,” she said with a wag of her freshly painted finger. “Or I’ll file a noise complaint.”
“Wait—what did I—why—?!” Bucky sputtered.
“Just kidding.” She chuckled. “Mostly.”
She left peacefully, the first time she had ever left his apartment without threatening legal action.
The door closed behind her with a click.
Bucky stared at the door for a good minute before he turned to you.
You sat there, legs swinging lightly off the coffee table, absolutely glowing. “We’re best friends now.”
Bucky tilted his head “How did you do that ? I was in the shower for ten minutes and she wanted me evicted. You talk to her for ten minutes and suddenly she’s telling you about her dead husband’s… performance issues!”
You blinked up at him innocently as you wrapped your arms around him and pressed a kiss to the corner of his mouth. “She just needed a girl’s girl.”
His brain short-circuited.
God, the way you were looking at him now… so gentle and so in love without even saying it—
It hit him like a truck.
I’m gonna marry her.
He hid his face in your neck, arms locking around your waist like.
You giggled again, rubbing his back. “What’s going on in that pretty head, Barnes?”
“Nothing,” he lied, breathless.
You kissed the crown of his head, completely unaware of the way he was in awe of the woman you are, caring and kind to him, a sunshine to everyone else around you, yet so damn filthy when you needed to be.
But he knew.
Oh, he knew.
I’m gonna marry this girl, he thought again, helpless and certain.
And Bucky Barnes had never been so sure of anything in his life.
-end.
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