Warnings: Mild Violence. Period expected misogyny.
Summary: A knight from another century crashes -literally- into a florist’s life and turns her world upside down.
Word Count: 4.1k
Previous Chapter - Masterlist
Bucky had survived a winter march with half the army dead of frostbite before they reached shelter. Had survived captivity, and the things that came after captivity.
He was fairly certain he could survive a modern bath.
"This way," she said, leading him down a short hall he hadn't noticed before, past two closed doors -one in front of the other- to another door at the very end.
He followed a half-step behind, close enough to catch her scent again, that same soap-and-flower warmth, and made himself stop noticing it. That particular exercise was becoming a full-time occupation, it seemed.
"Tell me something," he said, before he could think better of it. "The kitchen. That water, arriving without a hand to draw it." He kept his voice even, no longer troubling himself to hide his curiosity. "Does the bath work by the same principle?"
She glanced back at him, one eyebrow lifting slightly.
"You catch on fast."
"I am not an imbecile," he said again, for the second time that day. "Merely unfamiliar with how things work here."
"I know that." Something in her tone had softened since the kitchen episode. "Pipes. A boiler somewhere in the building does the heating. You turn the handle, water shows up already knowing what temperature you want it. Fancy, right?"
The room she led him into was smaller than the kitchen, tiled floor and walls both, pale and seamless in a way that made him think of the inside of an eggshell.
A white porcelain basin sat against one wall, not unlike the one in the kitchen but smaller, mounted at waist height with the same two-handled fixture. Beside it, something else entirely.
A low, white, seated thing. Porcelain, like the basin. A bowl set into a pedestal, water sitting still and clear at the bottom of it, and above the water, on the wall behind, a small metal lever.
He knew a garderobe when he saw one, a plank with a hole cut through it, seated over a shaft dropping into a pit somewhere below. He simply couldn't reconcile that knowledge with something built to sit inside a lady's own home rather than tucked into a stone alcove.
"A garderobe?" he said, testing the word against what he was looking at.
"If that means what I think it means… yeah, sure. Close enough." She crossed to it, unbothered by the topic, and pressed the small lever down.
Water rushed loudly with violence in the bowl that swallowed the still water whole and refilled the basin clean and clear a moment later, the sound tapering off into a soft hiss and then nothing at all.
He stared at it.
"The water… where does it go?"
"Pipes again. Out to the sewer line under the street." She shrugged, hands already moving toward the towels, like the miracle she'd just performed wasn't worth a second look.
"No pit," he said. "No need to empty it. No smell."
"None. I’m sure you’ll get used to it fast. Give it a day, and you'll forget people ever lived any other way."
He looked at the thing with something bordering on genuine reverence, and thought, distantly, that whoever had built this century had made something very close to a small miracle and simply hadn't noticed.
"C'mon," she said. "The good part's over here."
The tub sat at the far end of the room, white and deep, longer than most he'd bathed in, with a single faucet mounted at one end and three handles above it, identical in principle to the ones he'd already seen. Above all of it, a metal bar was suspended between two walls, and from it, a curtain of some pale, slick fabric, drawn back against the wall.
He studied the faucet.
"Same deal as the kitchen," she said, following his gaze. "Turn the handles, water comes out. Hot's on the left, cold's on the right, and don't ask me why, because I didn't design the plumbing."
He nodded slowly, filing it beside everything else he'd learned today. Simple enough. He could manage that much on his own.
"And that." He gestured at the metal ring overhead, the pale curtain hanging still, waiting for some purpose he hadn't yet worked out. "What is its function?"
"That's for the shower. Watch." She reached past him and turned one of the handles.
Water erupted from directly above the tub, not from the faucet at all, but from a wide metal disc fixed to the underside of that hanging ring, a sudden violent hiss of spray striking down into the bathtub below it, loud and fast and entirely without warning.
He was against the wall before he'd decided to move, one hand thrown up, the other reaching for a blade that wasn't there, hadn't been there in hours. He stood well clear of the tub, untouched; every part of him had gone tense and ready to fight.
He stared at the water driving down into the bathtub, chest heaving, and felt something in his face go hot that had nothing to do with the steam now rising off the spray.
She shut it off fast, both hands up, already talking. "Okay- sorry, sorry. Should've warned you first, I forgot that's not a normal thing to walk into."
"No." His voice came out rough, lower than he meant it to, and he didn't look at her directly. "You could not have known to warn me. I would not have thought to ask."
Then, unwillingly, the corner of his mouth lifted.
"A rain," he said, "that a man commands from a wall."
"That's the general idea, yeah. Very fancy. I promise it won't try to kill you."
She then crossed to a narrow cabinet built into the wall and pulled out a folded towel, thick and white, along with a smaller one, and set them both on the edge of the tub.
"Towels. Big one's for after, little one's for scrubbing." She reached to a shelf above the basin, plucking down a bottle and a bar wrapped in shiny paper. "This is soap. This is shampoo, for your hair, not the rest of you, no matter how good it smells. Work it in, rinse it out, don't overthink it."
He turned the bar over once in his hand, testing its weight, the uniform white of it, no grit or tallow-yellow to it anywhere.
"This is fine soap," he said. It wasn't quite a question.
"It's forty cents at the drugstore. Nothing fancy, I promise; they just make everything smooth now."
He had no notion what a cent was worth, but something in how easily she'd said it told him enough.
"Everyone bathes like this, then. Not only the wealthy."
"Pretty much everyone. Rich people just get bigger tubs."
She set both items beside the towels, and for a moment neither of them moved, the small room feeling smaller than it had a minute ago, the two of them standing over a bathtub with nothing left to explain.
She was close enough that he became abruptly aware of how filthy he must look, all the dried blood, dirt, the accumulated grime of a day that had started on a tournament ground and ended in a century that hadn't existed yet, all of it pressed close to skin that smelled of nothing but soap and something clean and feminine.
His eyes dropped, without his permission, to the bare skin above the neckline of her blouse.
He thought, with a clarity he immediately resented, of how his own hands would look against skin like that. Rough. Scarred across the knuckles, calloused from sword grip.
He wondered, briefly and with considerable self-loathing, how her hands would feel instead, all soapy against his chest, or rubbing the muscle in his shoulders that hadn't unknotted itself once since he'd woken on her stockroom floor…
He dragged his eyes back up before she could catch where they'd been, jaw clenching, furious at himself.
"Thank you for the soap," he managed.
Then, because his mouth had apparently decided to finish the thoughts his mind had been having without consulting him first:
"I know how to bathe myself."
He heard the words leave his lips and winced internally.
Why in God's name had he said that?
Her brows drew together, confusion plain on her face. "...Okay?"
Heat crawled up the back of his neck before he could stop it, fast and traitorous, and landed in his face a moment later, worse for knowing she could see it now.
"I meant only," he said, and heard how stiff it came out, "that you needn't trouble yourself further. On my account. I am capable."
"I wasn't going to offer scrubbing your back, Mr- Bucky." A beat. "Unless that's a service you're expecting. In which case, I have some very bad news about this century."
Christ.
The heat in his face redoubled, and he was abruptly, furiously aware of it: of being a knight who had stared down drawn steel without so much as a change in his breathing, currently losing a battle against his own blood rising to his cheeks over a bath.
"I am aware," he said, with as much dignity as a man could summon while visibly turning the color of a ripe plum. "I only meant to say-"
"You've said it. Three times now, actually, I've been counting." There was something at the corner of her mouth now, almost a smile. "I'll be right outside. Yell if the shower jumps you again."
She was already moving toward the door, and he let himself watch her go, then caught himself doing it and, with great determination, looked instead at the tiled wall.
The latch clicked a moment later.
He stood alone in the strange white room, his own reflection scowling back at him from the mirror -bruised, filthy, and blushing like a virgin bride over nothing at all- and decided, with grim finality, that he would not be examining that particular lapse in judgment any further that day.
He was, mostly, lying to himself about that already.
----
He looked at the tub a long moment, tempted. It would have been simple enough, in theory: fill it, sink into hot water until the ache in his ribs dissolved into something more bearable.
But he knew how filthy he was, layers of sweat and tournament dust and dried blood, and a full tub would foul itself before he'd even reached his second arm. He'd need two, perhaps three changes of water to come out decent, and he had no real certainty about how generous the water supply was.
The rain, then.
The metal disc overhead came alive with the same sudden violence as before, but this time he was braced for it and did not flinch back.
He undressed slowly, each piece of clothing its own separate exercise in pain, until there was nothing left but skin and the accumulated wreckage of the day. Then he stepped over the lip of the tub, drew the curtain closed behind him with a rattle of metal rings, and let the water find him.
He groaned before he could stop himself.
It came up from somewhere low in his chest, unbidden, entirely without his permission. He had spent the day being struck, thrown, nearly killed by a horseless carriage, and marched up three flights of stairs on cracked ribs, finally allowed to stand still and simply feel something that didn't hurt.
The water ran over his shoulders, down the ladder of his spine, hot enough to loosen muscle he hadn't realized he'd been holding rigid since the tournament grounds. He tipped his head back into it and let it beat against his face, his throat, and for one long, indecent moment thought of absolutely nothing at all.
It was, without exaggeration, the finest thing that had happened to him since he'd woken on her stockroom floor. Since way before that, if he was honest with himself.
He stood there longer than was strictly necessary before he reached for the soap.
It lathered easily, some pale film building between his palms with none of the gritty resistance of the soap he knew, and he worked it over his chest, his shoulders, the plane of his stomach where a fresh bruise was already purpling beneath older, yellowing ones.
Then he reached his left arm, and his hands slowed down.
He didn't need to look at it. He knew the raised, rope-like ridges running along it, pale against the rest of him even after a summer of tournaments spent half-armored under the sun.
But the water was sliding over it now, catching the lamplight in a way that made the old scarring stand out starker than usual, and some part of him looked anyway.
Traced one particular line with his thumb, the one that ran deepest, the one that still pulled tight when he reached a certain angle.
He'd spent two years in a cell. Give or take. He'd ceased the counting somewhere in the second winter, when the days had stopped meaning anything beyond dark and less dark, and had never quite bothered to pick the count back up once he was free of it.
He remembered the field, at least. Remembered that much clearly enough: the mud, the horse going down beneath him, a blade finding the meat of his upper arm somewhere in the chaos of falling. Remembered darkness swallowing the noise of it whole.
What came after, he remembered in pieces. A stone floor. A stone wall. The arm, swollen and wrong, heat radiating off it that had nothing to do with any fire in the room, because there had been no fire in the room. Ever.
There had been a rot-smell he associated with fever more than memory, and somewhere in there -hazy, unreliable, a thing he'd never been certain enough of to say aloud- the impression of a friar's hands.
Cool fingers against a forehead too hot to bear its own weight. A voice praying in Latin, or perhaps just muttering, he'd never been sure which. He didn't know if the man had been real, or a fever's mercy, some kindness his mind had invented because the alternative was believing no one had come at all.
He didn't know how he hadn't died of it. He genuinely didn't. The arm had swollen fat and tight as a wineskin, the skin splitting in places from the pressure of it, and by every rule he understood about the body, that should have been the end of him.
It wasn't.
He'd kept the arm. Kept his life, such as it was, for another eighteen months of the same stone wall, the same shackles.
The arm wasn't the worst of it. He thought that plainly, without drama.
Two years chained to a wall, and guards with too much idle time and inventive enough minds about how a man might be made to suffer without being killed outright, had seen to the rest, before whatever ransom or exchange had finally been arranged came through and put him back on a horse heading home.
He didn't examine that further. Never did. There was a door in his mind he'd built precisely for that particular room, and he'd learned long ago that opening it accomplished nothing beyond making the following days considerably harder to get through.
The water had gone from scalding to merely warm while he stood there. He noticed, distantly, and reached to adjust the handle before it could turn cold entirely.
Enough.
He finished with the soap, quick and thorough now, some old discipline reasserting itself over the part of him that wanted to keep standing there a while longer, arm bared to the water, letting himself remember things better left where he'd put them.
He thought of her, briefly, on the other side of the door. Of the stockroom that morning, and the dozen easier choices she could have made instead of the one she'd made. He didn't know yet what to do with that thought, so he set it down beside the door in his mind and finished rinsing.
----
She'd put the pot on for two and couldn't remember the last time she'd done that.Even with her friend Marion occupying the spare room, they ate mostly separately since their shifts were very different. She ate alone most days, the radio doing the talking.
It occurred to her, grating the last of the cheese into the pot, that she hadn't cooked for a man since her father passed.
Now, she was cooking for one who wasn't family, which was a different thing entirely, and she knew exactly what the neighbors would call it if they ever got wind of a strange man living in a single woman's apartment.
Oh well, they had their own dirty laundry to take care of, mind them.
She decided on mac and cheese. Something hot, something that would actually fill him, and God knew, after the morning he'd had, he needed more than another sandwich.
She had a box of the noodles in the cupboard and just enough cheese left in the icebox to make it worth the trouble. She was grating the last of it into the pot when she heard the bathroom door open down the hall, then his footsteps.
She didn't turn around right away.
"Almost ready," she said, still facing the stove. "Figured you could use something hot after the morning you-"
She turned around, and the rest of the sentence simply left her brain.
He'd managed the trousers. Managed the shirt too, mostly, buttons in the right holes, tucked in at the waist, and the belt in place. But the collar… instead of folding down the way collars did, he'd left it standing straight up around his throat, the points reaching almost to his ears, like something out of an old painting.
Filthy and bruised and half out of his mind that morning, he'd been undeniably good-looking in the inconvenient way of men in magazine ads.
Clean, in actual clothes -even worn wrong- he was something closer to a problem.
"Okay, hang on," she said, already crossing the kitchen, reaching up before he could react, reaching for the stiff edge of the collar. "You've got- here, let me just-"
He went rigid under her hands.
Utterly still, his eyes fixed somewhere over her shoulder like the wall behind her had suddenly become very interesting.
Her fingers were still on his collar. She was, she realized with something close to horror, standing close enough to feel the warmth still coming off his skin from the shower, close enough that this was… well. Too intimate.
This was invading his space, and she'd done it without even asking.
She dropped her hands and took half a step back.
"Sorry- is that- am I in your space?"
"No," he said, too fast.
He still wasn't looking at her.
"You sure? Because you went kind of statue on me."
"I said no." His voice had gone a little rough. He cleared his throat, gaze fixed somewhere near the icebox now. "Thank you."
She looked at him a moment longer than she probably should have, at the careful way he was very deliberately not meeting her eyes. His collar was still wrong, but she let it pass.
"Sit down," she said instead, turning back to the stove. "This should be ready in a few minutes."
He lowered himself into the chair, watching her stir the pot with open, unguarded curiosity. The same look he'd given the icebox, the same look he'd given the shower.
"What is it," he asked, "that you're making?"
"Pasta with a cheese sauce. Kids love it. Grown men who've had the day you've had love it even more, trust me, I've fed a few."
He said nothing to that, but she caught him leaning very slightly toward the stove when she wasn't looking.
She plated it a few minutes later and set the bowl in front of him -thick, golden, still steaming- and watched him study it the way he'd studied the sandwich that morning, turning the spoon over once in his hand before committing to it.
The first bite did something to his face that she was going to be thinking about for longer than was strictly wise.
His eyes actually closed.
"This," he said, very seriously, "is a very fine plate."
She pulled out the second chair and sat down across from him with her own bowl, because there was no version of this where she stood at the counter and watched a grown man have a religious experience over macaroni without joining in.
He didn't seem to notice her sitting, not at first, too occupied with the bowl in front of him, and she let herself watch him for a moment without the excuse of doing anything else.
The bruise along his cheekbone had darkened further since the morning, blooming into a deep, ugly purple that made her wince faintly on his behalf. The cut above his brow had scabbed over clean, at least, no longer weeping at the edges the way it had in the stockroom.
Clean, fed, dressed in clothes that fit reasonably well even if he'd worn the collar wrong, he looked, she thought, almost ordinary. Almost like a man she might have passed on Camden Street without a second glance. She wondered if that was easier or harder than the alternative -a man who was clearly, unmistakably not of this world-.
He ate like someone reacquainting himself with the basic mechanics of pleasure. He had manners, clearly, real ones. Every bite got his full attention.
She found herself, against her better judgment, charmed by it.
Stop that, she told herself, and looked down at her own bowl instead.
"It's really that good?" she asked, mostly to have something to say.
He looked up, spoon still in hand, and there was something almost sheepish in his expression, like he'd been caught at something.
"I have had feasts," he said slowly, "with roasted boar and spiced wine."
He looked back down at the bowl.
"I would trade some of them for this."
She huffed a short laugh, surprised into it. "It's a two-dollar box of noodles."
"Then this century has done something extraordinary with two dollars, whatever that means."
"I'll pass the compliment along to Kraft."
He didn't ask who Kraft was. She got the sense he'd decided to stop asking about every single thing, and was simply letting some of it wash over him instead.
She let the quiet settle after that, comfortable enough now that neither of them seemed to feel the need to fill it, and watched him eat while her mind, unhelpfully, went back to work on the question she hadn't managed to put down since the stockroom.
Who are you, really?
She thought again of the war. Of the men at St. Benedict's with the hollow stare, the ones who flinched at car horns and wouldn't talk about where they'd been.
Maybe that was still it. Maybe somewhere under all of this -the ring, the knight, the six hundred years- there was a man who'd simply broken somewhere overseas, badly enough that his mind had gone looking for somewhere safer to live and built an entire kingdom to hide in.
People did stranger things than that, she was fairly sure, when the alternative was staying inside their own memories.
Give it a few days, she thought, watching him scrape the last of the sauce from the bottom of the bowl reverently. Maybe it wears off. Maybe he wakes up tomorrow, or the day after, and he's just... someone.
A man with a hometown and a mother somewhere worried sick, and all of this comes back to him as something to be embarrassed about, and I get to hear the real story.
She waited for that thought to feel like relief, the way it should have.
It didn't, not quite, and for now she let herself off the hook for figuring out why. There'd be time for that too.
"Would you like more?" she asked, nodding at his empty bowl.
He looked at it as though the question had genuinely never occurred to him as a possibility.
"...I would not be imposing?" he mumbled.
"It's a pot of macaroni, not the crown jewels. Yes. It's permitted. Eat until you're full, nobody's judging you for being hungry."
He relaxed at that, and pushed the bowl toward her without further argument.
She got up to refill it, and told herself, refilling her own thoughts right alongside the bowl, that there was time. A few days, at least, before she had to figure out what came next.
C's corner: Just a soft little one shot to give me a break from the smut.
WARNINGS: fluff, mutual pining, awkward flirting, first kiss, mild mission violence, gunfire, brief mentions of Bucky’s time in hiding, Romanian used as a flirting weapon, Sam Wilson being nosy.
✍🏽WC: 3.6K+
SUMMARY: You survive gunfire without a problem. Bucky speaking Romanian? That's a different story.
The mission goes sideways in the least dramatic way possible. Not with explosions. Not with betrayal. Not with a villain monologuing in a warehouse with poor lighting and worse ventilation.
No, the mission goes sideways because James Buchanan Barnes opens his mouth and speaks Romanian.
That's it. That's the whole catastrophe.
You're crouched behind a concrete barrier in Bucharest, rain dripping from the edge of your jacket, earpiece crackling softly as Sam mutters something about the target moving south. The alley smells like wet stone, old cigarettes, and the kind of diesel fumes that make your lungs feel personally insulted.
Bucky is beside you, calm as ever, eyes tracking every shadow. He has his rifle tucked close, his hair damp at the ends, his jaw set in that unfairly sharp way that usually makes you annoyed because nobody should look that composed while being shot at.
You're fine, totally fine. Professional, even.
Then a door bangs open at the far end of the alley. A frightened older man stumbles out, hands raised, speaking too quickly for you to catch anything beyond the panic in his voice.
You tense, but Bucky steps forward before you can.
He lowers his weapon and then he says, low and steady, "Nu vă mișcați. Suntem aici să vă ajutăm."
The man freezes.
You also freeze. Not because of danger. Not because of strategy. Because Bucky's voice has gone soft and rough around the Romanian words, all warm gravel and velvet-shadowed consonants, and your brain immediately drops every file labeled mission protocol into a trash fire.
You blink.
What was that?
The man answers, still frantic. Bucky nods, listening, rain sliding down the side of his face. He responds again, smoother this time, a little faster.
"Înțeleg. Dar trebuie să intrați înapoi. Este periculos afară."
Your mouth goes dry, actually dry. Like your body has decided hydration is no longer compatible with the moment.
Sam's voice crackles through comms. "Everything good down there?"
Bucky glances your way.
You look at the wall. The wall is safe. The wall isn't speaking Romanian.
"We're good," Bucky says.
In English, a tragedy. A mercy.
The man hurries back inside. Bucky steps beside you again, brow furrowing when he catches your expression. "You okay?"
"Yes," you say too quickly.
His eyes narrow.
You nod with violent enthusiasm. "Mission. Great. Love those. Big fan."
Bucky stares at you.
You stare at the wall harder.
From the comms, Sam says, "Why did that sound weird?"
"It didn't," you snap.
"It did," Sam says. "It sounded like your soul tripped."
"My soul is agile."
Bucky tilts his head slightly. "You sure you're okay?"
You make the mistake of looking at him.
He's still damp from the rain. His lashes are wet. His mouth is set in a concerned little line. His voice is normal again, but your traitorous brain has already bookmarked the Romanian version of him.
"I'm perfect," you say.
"You don't look perfect."
"I look incredible."
Sam hums. "That part's true."
"Focus," Bucky mutters.
You nearly fold in half.
Because he mutters it under his breath, annoyed and fond, and for one horrifying second you think he might mutter something else in Romanian if the universe is feeling cruel.
Thankfully, the target chooses that exact moment to bolt from the building across the street. Gunfire cracks. The mission resumes. You throw yourself into it with the desperation of a woman fleeing not bullets, but feelings.
By the time the target is secured and you're back at the safehouse, you have made a decision. You're going to avoid Bucky Barnes until your body stops being ridiculous. This is mature This is tactical. This is self-preservation. It lasts eleven minutes.
"You're avoiding me," Bucky says.
You nearly drop your water bottle.
He's standing in the kitchen doorway, arms crossed, black Henley clinging to him in a way that feels frankly unnecessary. His hair is still damp from his shower, pushed back from his face. He looks domestic and dangerous, which should be illegal in every country you operate in.
"I'm not," you say.
His eyebrows lift. "You walked out of the room when I walked in."
You twist the cap off your water bottle and take a sip, except you're nervous, so you choke on it immediately.
Bucky steps forward. "You okay?"
You wave him off while coughing. "Fine. Water attacked me."
His mouth twitches.
You point toward the hallway. "I have to go do something."
"What?"
"Inventory."
"We already did inventory."
"Emotional inventory."
You flee.
The second you reach the living room, Sam looks up from the couch. "You look like you just saw a ghost."
"Worse," you whisper. "A bilingual man."
Sam slowly lowers his phone. His grin blooms like a terrible sunrise. "No."
"Don't."
"He spoke Romanian, didn't he?"
You glare at him. "Don't make this a thing."
"Oh, it's already a thing. It entered wearing boots and kicked the door down."
You throw a pillow at his head. He catches it. Unfortunately, Sam Wilson has reflexes and no respect for your suffering.
From the hallway, Bucky calls, "You two fighting?"
"No," Sam says, grinning at you. "She's just emotionally compromised."
You hiss, "I will put salt in your coffee."
Bucky appears in the doorway. "Compromised how?"
"No way," you say. "Absolutely not."
Sam stands, pats Bucky on the shoulder, and says, "Man, good luck." Then he leaves.
Traitor.
Bucky looks more concerned now.
You feel bad immediately.
That's the problem with Bucky. He can look like a thundercloud given human form, but the second he thinks he's hurt someone, all the storm drains out of him.
He steps closer, cautious. "Did I do something?"
Your panic skids to a stop. "What?"
"Earlier. After the alley, you got weird."
"I'm always weird."
"Different weird."
"That's rude."
"That's accurate."
You should laugh, normally you would. But his face is too serious. His eyes are too careful. He's watching you like he's already bracing for a hit, and the whole ridiculous situation folds in on itself inside your chest.
You weren't trying to hurt him. You were just trying not to combust.
"No," you say softly. "You didn't do anything wrong."
His shoulders don't relax. "Then why are you avoiding me?"
You look away. Terrible decision. There's a window beside him, and in the dark glass you can see his reflection watching you. There's no escape. There's only Bucky Barnes and your own poor life choices. "I'm not avoiding you because I'm mad," you mumble.
His head tilts. "Then why?"
You say nothing.
He waits. Bucky Barnes has many talents. Patience is one of the worst ones.
You sigh so deeply it may alter the pressure in the room. "Because," you say, "during the mission, you spoke Romanian."
His brow furrows.
You continue, each word dragging itself out like a prisoner. "And apparently my brain decided that was attractive enough to become a medical problem."
Silence.
The safehouse creaks around you. Rain taps the windows.
Bucky blinks. Once, then twice. Then his lips part slightly. "That's why?"
You cover your face. "Please don't make me repeat it."
"You've been running away from me because I spoke Romanian?"
"When you say it like that, it sounds stupid."
"It sounds..." He pauses.
You peek between your fingers.
Bucky is smiling. Small and stunned and soft at the edges, like you've handed him something fragile and unexpected. "It sounds kind of nice," he says.
You drop your hands. "Don't be sweet. I'm humiliated."
"I'm not being sweet."
"You're absolutely being sweet. Your face is doing the thing."
"What thing?"
"The dangerously tender thing."
His smile widens.
You point at him. "Stop that."
"Stop what?"
"Having a face."
He laughs then. Quiet and rough and warm, and it goes straight through you like a match struck in a dark room. "You're unbelievable," he says.
"I'm suffering."
"I can see that."
"No, you can't. You're the cause."
His expression changes. A tiny flicker. An idea landing.
You know it's bad before he says anything.
He takes one slow step closer.
Your spine hits the counter.
He's not crowding you, not really. There's space between you. Enough space to run if your dignity had legs. But he's close enough that you can see the amusement in his eyes.
Then he says, very softly, "Îmi pare rău."
Your knees nearly file a formal complaint. You grab the counter behind you. "That was deliberate."
"It means I'm sorry."
"You're not."
"No," he admits. "Not really."
"Barnes."
"Da?"
You make a strangled noise.
He looks delighted. Bucky Barnes, former Winter Soldier, current pain in your entire existence, looks absolutely delighted.
"You're enjoying this," you accuse.
"A little."
"You were worried five seconds ago."
"I'm adaptable."
"You're evil."
His gaze drops briefly to your mouth, then returns to your eyes.
The room gets very quiet. Not awkward quiet. Not dangerous quiet. Something softer. Something with teeth hidden under its tongue.
"I didn't know," he says.
"Know what?"
"That you liked hearing me speak Romanian."
"I didn't either. It attacked me in real time."
His smile settles into something warmer. "I used it a lot when I was hiding here."
That pulls you gently out of your embarrassment. Your hands loosen on the counter. "Yeah?"
He nods. "Had to. Groceries, rent, staying unnoticed. It helped."
There's an ache beneath the words, old and quiet. Bucharest wasn't just a city to him. It was survival. It was stolen peace. It was a tiny apartment, notebooks, plums in a market bag, and looking over his shoulder every day.
You soften. "I didn't mean to make it weird," you say.
"You didn't."
"I ran from you."
"That part was weird."
"Thank you."
"But not bad."
His metal hand rests on the counter beside you. Not touching, just there. An offer, a question without words.
Your fingers twitch.
Then, because apparently you have decided to continue making brave and foolish choices, you set your hand over his.
His eyes flick down. The smile fades, but only because something gentler replaces it. "You could've just told me," he says.
"You underestimate how embarrassing it is to look a man in the face and say, 'Hey, the way you told a civilian to go inside made me forget how knees work.'"
He huffs a laugh. "You liked that part?"
"Don't fish for compliments."
"I'm not."
"You are. You're standing there with your big sad blue eyes and your stupid tactical shoulders fishing."
"Tactical shoulders?"
"They're classified."
His thumb moves over your knuckles. Slow and careful. "Stai aici," he murmurs.
Your stomach flips. "What does that mean?"
"Stay here."
"See, that's the problem."
"What?"
"You can't just say things like that in that voice."
His eyes warm. "What voice?"
"The voice."
"I only have one voice."
"You absolutely do not. You have mission voice. Grumpy old man voice. I'm-going-to-pretend-I-don't-care-but-I-do voice. And now Romanian voice, which needs a warning label."
Bucky leans a little closer. "Should I stop?"
You swallow. You could say yes. He would. That's the worst part. He would stop immediately, no teasing, no pushing, no disappointment. Bucky would step back and never use it against you again.
But your heart is pounding, and his thumb is still moving over your knuckles, and he's looking at you like maybe this silly, flustered confession means more to him than you realized.
"No," you say quietly. "Just... maybe don't surprise me with it during missions unless you want me to get shot."
His face goes serious instantly. "Not funny."
"It was a little funny."
"No."
You squeeze his hand. "Okay. Not funny."
He exhales through his nose, gaze dropping again. "You scared me earlier," he admits. "Thought I crossed a line somehow."
Your chest pinches. "Bucky."
He shakes his head like he's brushing off the vulnerability, but you catch it anyway. "I know. I just..."
You step closer this time.
His eyes lift.
"I wasn't avoiding you because of anything bad," you say. "I was avoiding you because I like you, and my brain has the survival instinct of a spoon."
His mouth curves. "You like me?"
You stare at him.
He stares back.
"You know what," you say, "I take it back."
"No, you don't."
"I do. I like Sam now."
"Sam snores."
"So do you."
"I do not."
"You absolutely do. Quietly. Like a haunted lawn mower."
Bucky's face does something complicated. "Haunted lawn mower?"
"Emotionally complex machinery."
He laughs again, and this time you don't try to hide how much you like it. His hand turns under yours, fingers sliding between your fingers.
Your breath catches.
Outside, the rain keeps tapping the windows. Somewhere down the hall, Sam is probably pretending not to listen and absolutely listening with his whole nosy chest.
Bucky looks at your joined hands. Then at you. "Pot să te sărut?"
Your brain blanks. "Translation," you whisper.
His voice softens, dropping low enough that it almost disappears beneath the rain outside. "Can I kiss you?"
Your answer comes out embarrassingly fast. "Yes."
Something in his expression melts.
The corner of his mouth lifts into the smallest smile, equal parts relieved and disbelieving, like he'd been hoping for that answer but hadn't let himself expect it.
He gives you one last chance to change your mind. He doesn't rush. His flesh hand rises slowly, warm fingertips brushing your cheek with such care it sends a shiver racing down your spine. His thumb lingers just beneath your eye before tucking an escaped strand of hair behind your ear.
His forehead rests lightly against yours. "Still okay?" he murmurs.
You nod, smiling before you can stop yourself. "More than okay."
His breath catches in the smallest, quietest way. Then he closes the distance.
The first brush of his lips is impossibly gentle. It's less a kiss and more a question. As though he's memorizing the feeling instead of trying to deepen it.
You lean into him instinctively, your hand finding the front of his Henley, fingers curling into the fabric.
That's all the encouragement he needs.
The kiss deepens only slightly, still unhurried, still impossibly tender. His hand cups your cheek while the other settles lightly at your waist, holding you like you're something precious instead of something fragile.
Time seems to loosen its grip.
There's only the warmth of his lips, the steady beat of his heart beneath your fingertips, and the quiet realization that after everything he's survived, Bucky Barnes kisses like someone who's grateful he finally gets to.
When he finally pulls away, he doesn't go far. His forehead rests against yours again, both of you smiling without meaning to.
You keep your eyes closed for a second, breathing him in.
Then from somewhere behind the wall, Sam yells, "Finally!"
You both freeze.
Your eyes snap open.
Bucky closes his eyes like a man begging for strength from several gods at once.
You shout, "Wilson, I swear to God!"
"I've been emotionally invested for months!"
Bucky groans.
You bury your face in his chest, laughing so hard your shoulders shake.
His arms come around you automatically, holding you close. You feel his laugh rumble against your cheek.
"Months?" you whisper.
"Apparently."
"You knew?"
"No," he says. "I hoped."
Your laughter softens. You lift your head and he's looking at you with that tender face again, the one you told him to stop doing. He doesn't stop. Not even a little. "You hoped?" you ask.
Bucky brushes a damp strand of hair away from your temple. "Yeah."
You try not to melt. You fail with dignity. "Well," you say, "that's inconvenient."
"Why?"
"Because now I'm going to be unbearable."
His mouth twitches. "Now?"
You gasp. "Rude."
"Accurate," he says again.
You poke his chest. "Say one more thing in Romanian and see what happens."
His eyebrows lift. There's a challenge in his eyes now. A tiny spark. A flicker of playful danger.
You regret everything immediately.
He dips his head, lips brushing the shell of your ear as he murmurs, "Ești frumoasă."
Your entire skeleton tries to leave. You shove at his chest with both hands. "Nope. Absolutely not. Too powerful. Banned."
He laughs, catching your wrists gently. "You asked."
"I didn't understand the consequences."
"That means you're beautiful."
"I know what it means now, Barnes. The damage is done."
His smile goes so soft it almost hurts. "Good."
You narrow your eyes. "You're going to be a menace about this, aren't you?"
"Maybe."
"Bucky."
"Do you want me to stop?"
There it's again. The real question beneath the teasing.
You settle. Your fingers curl lightly around his wrists. "No," you say. "Just don't use it for evil."
He pretends to think about that. "Define evil."
"Making me walk into furniture."
His mouth twitches.
"Making me forget I'm armed."
A nod.
"Making me agree to things before my brain comes back online."
His expression turns innocent in a way that should terrify governments. "I would never."
"You absolutely would."
"Maybe a little."
You shake your head, smiling despite yourself.
Then Sam appears in the doorway with a bag of chips. "Are we done being emotionally constipated in here?"
Bucky turns his head slowly.
Sam pauses mid-crunch.
You step in front of Bucky, holding up one hand. "No murder in the safehouse."
Sam points at you. "Thank you."
Bucky mutters something under his breath in Romanian.
You slap a hand over your face. "That one sounded mean."
"It was."
Sam squints. "Was it about me?"
"Yes," Bucky says.
"Fair."
You look between them.
The warmth in your chest unfurls, ridiculous and bright. You had spent half the day dodging Bucky like he was a live wire, and now he's standing close enough that his hand keeps brushing yours, smiling like he has just discovered a new way to make your life difficult.
Which he has... unfortunately.
"You know," Sam says, "this explains a lot."
"No, it doesn't," you say.
"It explains the time he said your name during training and you dropped your knife."
Bucky looks at you.
You glare at Sam. "That knife was slippery."
"It was dry."
"Emotionally slippery."
Bucky's smile grows.
Sam grins. "Or the time he caught you staring, and you walked straight into the safehouse door."
You groan.
Bucky blinks. "That was because of me?"
"The door came out of nowhere."
Sam deadpans, "It's been attached to the wall for six months."
You point at the door. "Leave."
Sam holds up both hands, chips and all. "Fine. But for the record, this is great. Weird, but great."
He backs out of the room. Then pops his head back in. "Also, Barnes, please speak Romanian responsibly. She has bones made of soup."
You grab a spoon from the counter and throw it. Sam disappears before it hits the wall.
Bucky is laughing again.
You turn on him. "Don't encourage him."
"I didn't say anything."
"Your face did."
"My face has been accused of a lot today."
"And found guilty."
He reaches for you again, slower this time, giving you space to step away. His arms settle around your waist. "You gonna keep avoiding me?" he asks.
You pretend to consider it. "Depends."
"On?"
"Whether you're going to keep ambushing me with sexy vocabulary."
His cheeks tint pink, just enough.
Your entire mood lifts. "Oh," you say. "That got you?"
"No."
"It did."
"No."
"Bucky Barnes, are you blushing?"
He looks away.
You gasp softly. "You are."
"Drop it."
"Absolutely not. This is my emotional compensation."
He grumbles something again in Romanian.
You point at him. "Translation."
His eyes flick back to yours. A beat passes. Then he says, quieter, "I said you're trouble."
Your smile softens before you can stop it. "Yeah?"
His thumb traces a small line at your waist. "Yeah."
You rise onto your toes and kiss him again, quick and sweet. When you pull back, his eyes are half-lidded, expression dazed in a way that does marvelous things for your ego.
"Look at that," you whisper. "Romanian isn't the only weapon here."
Bucky's laugh comes out low. He tucks you closer. "Guess not."
You rest your cheek against his chest, listening to the steady beat beneath.
For a moment, neither of you says anything. The safehouse is still cold. The rain is still falling. There's a mission report waiting, a target to transfer, a world full of sharp edges waiting outside the walls.
But Bucky's arms are warm around you. His chin rests lightly against your hair and when he murmurs, almost too softly to hear, "Rămâi cu mine," you don't need the translation right away.
You feel it in the way he holds you.
Stay with me.
You smile against his shirt. "I think I'm going to need you to keep translating."
His eyebrows lift. "Forever?"
You look up at him. "Seems like the safest option."
His smile softens into something almost impossibly fond. "I can do that."
He kisses your forehead.
A quiet settles over the room, comfortable enough that neither of you feels the need to fill it.
Then Sam's voice drifts in from the hallway. "So... should I download Duolingo or am I just going to be excluded from conversations now?"
You laugh.
Bucky kisses your temple again. "I vote excluded."
Warnings: explicit sexual content, mutual pining, jealousy, possessive behavior, flirting, dirty talk, public flirting, model!reader, Avenger!reader, Bucky Barnes is bad at feelings, reader is a menace, oral sex, fingering, vaginal sex, praise kink, light manhandling, possessive sex, multiple orgasms
Summary:
You have been shamelessly flirting with Bucky Barnes for months, mostly because watching him pretend not to enjoy it is too much fun to resist.
He thinks he has your little game under control until a gala puts you in front of cameras, admirers, and one man who gets close enough to make Bucky finally stop pretending.
Author’s Note:
written for this request
i have been trying to post this since 7 am this morning but the airport wifi sucked and i havent had time until now to sit down and properly format everything for tumblr (and it's 10:25 pm)
Bucky Barnes first realized you were going to be a problem on a Tuesday morning, which felt insulting.
Problems, in his experience, usually had the decency to announce themselves with gunfire, alarms, compromised exits, or Sam Wilson saying, “Don’t be mad,” in a tone that guaranteed Bucky was about to be furious. They did not usually stroll barefoot into the Avengers compound kitchen wearing a silk robe, sunglasses indoors, and an expression that suggested you had never suffered a consequence in your life.
You had been an Avenger for three days.
Technically, you had been an Avenger for longer than that, if he counted the months of files, interviews, mission assessments, and cautious deliberation that had led Fury to finally put your name on the team roster. You had enhanced reflexes, a combat record that even Natasha raised an eyebrow at, and the kind of public image Stark’s media people had described as “valuable but chaotic.” You were a model, an occasional actress when a director could afford your schedule, a fixture at fashion weeks, charity galas, beach clubs, magazine covers, and gossip columns. You were also a very competent fighter with a worrying talent for making people underestimate you until they were already on the floor.
Bucky did not underestimate you.
That was what he told himself, anyway, watching you open every cabinet in the kitchen like you were personally offended by storage.
“Where do rich people hide mugs?” you asked.
Sam, who had been leaning against the counter with a bowl of cereal and the grim, protective posture of a man guarding the last of the Cinnamon Toast Crunch, looked at you over his spoon. “You mean cabinets?”
“I checked cabinets.”
“You checked one cabinet.”
“It disappointed me.”
“There’s a difference.”
“This kitchen has seven ovens,” you said. “That feels excessive for people who eat protein bars like they’re being punished.”
“That’s because we are,” Sam said.
“You poor thing. Do you want me to call someone?”
“God, you’re worse before coffee.”
You gasped. “I haven’t had coffee?”
“You’re standing in the kitchen.”
“I’ve been betrayed by architecture.”
Bucky had not meant to laugh. It escaped him before he could stop it, barely more than a breath against the rim of his mug, but you heard it. Of course you heard it. Your attention snapped to him with terrifying precision.
Your sunglasses slid down your nose.
“Oh,” you said, with the pleased interest of a cat finding a glass too close to the edge of a table. “You laugh.”
“No,” Bucky said.
Sam snorted into his cereal.
You smiled at Bucky as if he had personally made your morning. “That was definitely a laugh.”
“It was a cough.”
“You should see a doctor about that. It sounded handsome.”
Bucky stared at you.
Sam put his spoon down. “And there it is.”
“There what is?” you asked, all innocence, which made it worse.
“The thing you do.”
“I do many things.”
“Yeah, and most of them are illegal in at least three states.”
You drifted closer to the counter, apparently unconcerned by the fact that Bucky had looked less startled the last time a man had pulled a knife on him in a parking garage. You rested your elbows on the marble and propped your chin in one hand, turning the full force of your attention on him.
“What’s your name again?”
“You know my name.”
“I know lots of names.” You smiled wider. “I wanted to hear you say it.”
Bucky took a sip of coffee. It bought him three seconds and no dignity.
“Barnes,” he said finally.
“Barnes,” you repeated, like you were trying it on. “Cute.”
“No.”
“Strong. Classic. Slightly broody. Very marketable.”
“I’m not marketable.”
“That’s what makes you marketable.” You lifted your sunglasses from your face and pushed them up into your hair. “Don’t worry. I’ll win you over one day.”
Bucky blinked.
Sam closed his eyes as if in prayer.
You said it so easily, so brightly, that for a second Bucky did not know what to do with it. People flirted with him sometimes. Not often, not casually, and never with the delighted confidence of someone announcing tomorrow’s weather. The flirting he noticed usually came wrapped in caution, curiosity, or the strange, hungry attention people gave the Winter Soldier when they had read too much, understood too little, and wanted to see what a ghost looked like up close.
This was different. You were not looking at the Winter Soldier. You were not even looking at Sergeant Barnes, the tragedy, the history lesson, the man out of time. You were looking at Bucky, annoyed and under-caffeinated at the kitchen island, with his hair still damp from the shower and his left hand curled around a mug someone had bought as a joke because it said “I survived another meeting that should have been an email.”
“I’m not something to win,” he said.
Your expression changed only slightly. The smile stayed, but something behind it softened with recognition, like you had heard the line he had not said and decided not to touch it in front of Sam.
Then you leaned across the counter, stole Sam’s coffee, and said, “We’ll workshop the phrasing.”
Sam made a wounded noise. “That was mine.”
“You called me ‘worse before coffee.’ This is justice.”
“I called you worse before your coffee.”
“Details.”
Bucky left the kitchen before you could catch the second laugh.
That was where it started.
It should have ended there, but you treated restraint like a rumor and Bucky’s sanity like a hobby. Within two weeks, you had settled into the compound as if you had been born under Stark-grade security lights. You learned where Tony hid the expensive snacks, which elevators were fastest when FRIDAY was not pretending not to judge you, and which training rooms had the best lighting for the occasional sponsored workout post Pepper pretended not to know about.
You were good at being watched. That was the thing Bucky noticed first, even before the flirting became a problem with a schedule. Cameras loved you. Rooms adjusted around you. People tracked your movements before they knew they were doing it, drawn by the easy glamour of someone who knew exactly how she looked and had decided to make that everyone else’s issue. You could turn your head half an inch and change the temperature of a photograph. You could laugh at a reporter’s question and make it sound like an answer.
Bucky understood performance. He had been made into one. The difference was that yours belonged to you. He respected the precision of it. The public saw sparkle, flirtation, lazy smiles, and a model who sometimes saved the world and somehow emerged from the fight with her eyeliner still intact. The team saw more. They saw the hours in the gym, the quick reads you made in the field, the way you listened when Steve gave instructions and ignored him when you had a better plan. They saw that you could play dumb in four languages and threaten someone in six.
Bucky saw all of that.
He also saw the way you looked for him when you entered a room. That was harder to ignore.
At first, he assumed you did it to everyone. You were friendly with Sam, outrageous with Tony, conspiratorial with Natasha, affectionate with Wanda, and shamelessly dramatic with Thor, who adored you after you once told him his arms looked like a horny Renaissance sculptor had carved them. You flirted like breathing, lightly and often, always with enough humor that nobody had to take it seriously unless they wanted to.
With Bucky, you made it personal. You found him in the gym one morning while he was working through a knife sequence alone. The compound was quiet, still blue with early light, most of the team asleep or pretending to be. He caught your reflection in the mirrored wall and kept moving, blade turning between his fingers as he shifted his weight, stepped, struck, pivoted, and reset.
“Morning, future husband.”
The knife stopped in his hand.
He looked at you through the mirror. “No.”
“You’re right. Too soon.” You set your water bottle on the bench. “Morning, future emotionally unavailable boyfriend.”
Bucky resumed the sequence. “That’s worse.”
“Morning, handsome man who definitely missed me.”
“I didn’t know you were gone.”
“That’s hurtful and untrue. You stared at my empty chair at dinner.”
“I was looking at the door.”
“Because you hoped I would come through it.”
“Because I was considering leaving.”
You pressed a hand to your chest. “God, the passion.”
He turned, knife loose in his hand. “Do you ever get tired?”
“Of you? Never.”
“Of talking.”
“Also no.”
Bucky pointed the knife toward the door. “Some of us are training.”
“Wonderful. I love a man with discipline.”
His eyes narrowed. “You’re not training in that.”
You glanced down at yourself, as if surprised to discover you had arrived dressed for exercise. “This is athletic wear.”
“That sweatshirt has no back.”
“It has some back.”
“It has sleeves and ambition.”
You grinned. “You noticed.”
Bucky made the mistake of looking. The sweatshirt dipped low between your shoulders, leaving a long line of bare skin above the band of your sports bra. It was impractical, which probably meant it cost more than some cars. It was also distracting, which was clearly the point.
He looked away too late.
You saw it. You always saw it.
“I knew you liked me,” you said.
“I noticed fabric was missing.”
“You noticed my back.”
“Hard not to when half your shirt surrendered.”
Your laugh came bright and easy. “You’re funny when you’re pretending not to flirt back.”
“I’m not flirting.”
“You’re bantering. That’s flirting with plausible deniability.”
“It’s arguing.”
“With cheekbones like yours? Impossible.”
Bucky exhaled and turned back toward the mirror. “Are you here to train or talk?”
“I can do both.”
“I’m devastated.”
You came onto the mat beside him and held out your hand. “Give me a knife.”
“No.”
“Afraid I’ll impress you?”
“Afraid you’ll stab me to make a point.”
“Only a little.”
He should not have given you one. That was his first mistake. His second was forgetting that beneath the designer nonsense and the sparkling public menace was someone Fury had recruited for a reason.
You moved beautifully. Bucky had seen you fight on missions, but missions were dirty and practical, all impact and adaptation. Here, with nothing exploding and no one yelling in his ear, he could see the shape of your training. You were fast, lighter on your feet than he expected, with a dancer’s control and a vicious sense of timing. You let him push you back twice, then changed rhythm on the third pass and came under his guard, stopping the dull practice blade a breath from his ribs.
You looked up at him through your lashes.
“Oops,” you said.
Bucky’s hand closed around your wrist.
You did not pull away.
For a moment, neither of you moved. Your pulse beat steadily beneath his fingers, quick but controlled. You were warm from sparring, a flush high on your cheeks, and a loose strand of hair caught at the corner of your mouth.
Bucky noticed it. He hated that he noticed it.
Your smile softened into something less theatrical. “You okay?”
The question slipped under his ribs more effectively than the knife would have.
He let go. “Fine.”
You tilted your head. “That means yes, or that means stop asking?”
“It means fine.”
“Mm. We’ll workshop that too.”
“There’s no we.”
“There will be.” You spun the practice knife once and offered it back handle-first. “I’m very persuasive.”
“You’re very annoying.”
“Foreplay.”
Bucky choked on air.
You patted his shoulder as you passed. “Don’t worry, Barnes. I’ll win you over one day.”
He watched you leave because apparently he had lost control of his eyes.
From the doorway, without turning around, you called, “I can feel you staring.”
“I’m checking that you’re leaving.”
“Progress!”
After that, Sam started keeping score.
Every compliment became a point. Every accidental smile became evidence. Every time you blew Bucky a kiss across a briefing room, Sam looked personally blessed by the universe. Bucky threatened to throw him off the roof twice. Sam remained unmoved.
It would have been easier to ignore if you flirted with Bucky the way you flirted with everyone else, bright and careless and harmless enough to laugh off. But you saved him seats. You asked him to watch your back even when you did not need watching. You looked for him when you entered a room, and sometimes, when the joke softened at the edges, Bucky caught the dangerous shape of something honest underneath.
He liked your precision. He liked the moments when the smile slipped sideways into something observant. He liked that when you teased, you watched for the line. He liked that you had never once called his left arm cool, had never asked to touch it, had never stared at the place where metal met skin with anything but the same open appreciation you aimed at the rest of him.
He liked you, and that made the flirting dangerous.
Bucky had spent too long as a weapon in other people’s hands to enjoy becoming anyone’s entertainment. He knew that was not what you were doing. He knew it with the part of him that assessed threats and the quieter part that had begun to understand kindness when it wore teeth. Still, knowing did not make it easy.
You were a public person. You had exes whose names still trended whenever you attended the same event. Actors, athletes, heirs, musicians, one princess whose denial in an interview had been so unconvincing that even Steve had understood it. You had a reputation the tabloids loved because it sold beautifully: glamorous, flirtatious, unserious, impossible to keep, impossible not to want.
Bucky did not care about tabloids. He cared that you laughed when other people flirted with you. He cared that sometimes you touched their arms. He cared that you were generous with your attention in a way that made everyone feel chosen for exactly as long as you wanted them to. He cared that he had no right to care. He cared that the idea of being one more person orbiting you, one more name in a gossip column, made something old and defensive curl beneath his ribs.
So he pretended not to want.
It worked about as well as all his other bad ideas.
The mission in Prague should have helped. It did not.
You handled a weapons broker with old Hydra ties in a red dress and heels, broke his composure with a smile, and nearly broke his foot when he touched you without permission. Bucky watched from surveillance while Sam and Natasha pretended not to notice the exact moment his jaw locked.
By the time the mission went bad, you had already put two men down, stolen a handgun from a third, and greeted Bucky in the hallway with blood on your knuckles and a cheerful, “Hi, handsome.”
He caught your chin to check the graze on your cheek before he could stop himself.
“Careful,” you said softly. “A girl might think you like her.”
“Extraction first,” he said.
“Romance later?”
“Move.”
“Bossy,” you said, and then you moved.
After Prague, the teasing changed.
Not enough for anyone else to notice immediately. You were still shameless at breakfast, still dramatic in the gym, still prone to calling him gorgeous in public just to watch his left eye twitch. But sometimes, when the room was empty or nearly empty, you let the joke soften at the edges.
You brought him tea one night without making a big deal of it, setting the mug beside him on the balcony and leaning against the railing with your own. The city glittered below the tower, restless and alive.
“You’re thinking loudly,” you said.
He looked at you. “Didn’t know that was part of your power set.”
“It’s not. You get a line between your eyebrows.”
“Maybe I’m brooding.”
“You do that too, but this is different.”
He huffed, taking the mug. “You catalog my facial expressions?”
“Only the handsome ones.”
“Sounds time-consuming.”
“It is, but I’m committed.”
The familiar rhythm was there, but gentler. Bucky let it sit between you.
After a while, you asked, “Do you hate it?”
“What?”
“All of this.” You gestured vaguely, meaning the tower, the team, the city, the life none of you had chosen cleanly. “The attention.”
He looked down at the tea. “Some days.”
“Yeah.”
“You?”
You smiled without much humor. “Some days.”
It should have surprised him. It did not.
You turned your mug in both hands, rings catching the light. “People think it’s the cameras that get old, but cameras are easy. They don’t want anything you can’t predict. It’s the people who look at you and decide they know what’s there. The ones who think access and affection are the same thing.”
Bucky was quiet for a moment.
Then he said, “You’re good at making them think they got something.”
“I had to be.” You glanced at him. “It’s easier to choose what they take.”
He understood that too well.
Something in his expression must have shown it, because your voice gentled. “I don’t flirt with you because I think you’re easy to embarrass.”
“I am not easy to embarrass.”
“You once short-circuited because I called you pretty.”
“I didn’t short-circuit.”
“You walked into a chair.”
“It was in the way.”
“It was furniture, baby. That’s where it lived.”
Bucky shook his head, but the laugh came easier this time.
You smiled into your mug. “I flirt with you because I like you.”
The air changed.
You did not look away. Neither did he.
“You like everybody,” he said, because old defenses were familiar and his voice still worked around them.
Your smile stayed, but something in it dimmed.
“I’m nice to everybody,” you said. “That’s different.”
He knew that. He had known it for a while, which made his answer crueler than he meant it to be.
You looked back out over the city. “Anyway. Don’t look so scared. I wasn’t asking you to catch up all at once.”
He should have said something then. He knew that later, with a clarity that annoyed him. He should have told you that he liked you too and had no idea what to do with it because wanting things still felt like reaching across a minefield. He should have done anything except stand there holding the tea you had brought him and watching you retreat behind a smile.
Instead, he said nothing.
You did not punish him for it. That would have been easier. You kept being yourself, kept calling him handsome, kept saving him the seat beside you in briefings and pretending it was because you needed “emotional support eye candy.” But you stopped letting the softer moments linger.
Bucky noticed. Of course he noticed. He noticed everything about you now.
Which was why the gala was a disaster before it even started. The event was one of Tony’s, though Pepper had done the actual work and Tony had mostly provided money, branding, and three separate opinions nobody asked for. Bucky tried to get out of it. Steve said attendance mattered. Sam said Bucky needed to stop treating black tie like a war crime. Natasha said nothing, which was worse because her silence contained judgment.
Then you walked into the common room before the cars arrived, and Bucky forgot every argument he had prepared.
You were wearing gold. Not bright gold, not the kind that shouted for attention because it did not know what else to do. This was deeper, warmer, a liquid shade that caught the light when you moved and made your skin look sunlit. The dress crossed over your chest and left your shoulders bare, fitted through the waist before falling in a long line that split high over one thigh. Your hair was styled away from your face. Your mouth was painted soft and glossy. Diamonds winked at your ears like little threats.
The room went briefly, stupidly quiet.
Tony recovered first. “Okay, great. So we’re all underdressed at our own event.”
“You look beautiful,” Steve said.
Wanda smiled. “Very beautiful.”
Sam whistled. “Damn. Barnes, you breathing?”
Bucky looked at him with murder in his heart.
You turned toward Bucky last, which was deliberate. He knew it was deliberate because he knew you now, knew the rhythm of your performances, the way you built a moment and chose where to land it. Your eyes moved over him in his black suit, slow enough to be rude, warm enough to make his spine tighten.
“Well,” you said. “There goes my ability to behave.”
Tony groaned. “Please don’t start before we’re in public.”
“I make no promises.”
Bucky adjusted his cuff because his hands needed something to do. “You ever behave?”
“For you? I could be convinced.”
“Unlikely.”
“Progress,” you said, pointing one manicured finger at him. “You didn’t say impossible.”
Sam leaned toward Steve. “I give him two hours.”
Steve looked confused. “For what?”
“For whatever emotional constipation this is to resolve.”
“I can hear you,” Bucky said.
“I know.”
You crossed the room and stopped in front of Bucky. Up close, your perfume wrapped around him, warm amber and something floral he could not name. Your smile was bright enough for the room, but your eyes searched his face with a quieter question beneath it.
“You clean up nice, Barnes.”
“So do you.”
For once, the answer came without a fight.
Your expression flickered.
Then Tony clapped his hands. “Wonderful. Compliments exchanged. Sexual tension acknowledged by everyone except the two people causing it. Let’s go raise money.”
Bucky was going to kill him.
The gala was worse than he expected. Not because of the security. That was manageable. Not because of the crowd either, though he disliked being surrounded by people who wanted to shake his hand and pretend they were not checking whether the metal one felt cold.
It was you. It was the way you belonged there.
The second you stepped onto the carpet, the cameras found you. Your whole posture shifted, not into someone false, exactly, but into someone sharpened for public consumption. You became the woman from magazine covers and fragrance campaigns, the one whose face sold fantasies Bucky did not want to examine too closely while standing three feet away from you.
Reporters called your name, and you gave them what they wanted. A smile over your shoulder. A laugh when one of them asked who you were wearing. A teasing answer when another asked whether there was anyone special in your life.
“Oh, I’m working on it,” you said, and somehow your eyes found Bucky past the cameras.
The reporters followed your gaze.
Sam made a sound as if he were choking on joy.
“Is that Sergeant Barnes?” someone called.
You widened your eyes with perfect innocence. “Is it?”
“Are you two here together?”
Bucky braced himself.
You only smiled and said, “We’re teammates.”
It was the right answer. The professional answer. The safe answer.
Bucky hated it.
Then you reached back without looking, caught his sleeve, and tugged him forward.
“Come on, handsome,” you murmured, low enough that only he heard. “You look like you’re about to bite someone.”
“You’d enjoy that too much.”
“Depends where.”
His brain briefly stopped producing language.
You smiled for the cameras.
Bucky stood beside you under the lights and tried not to look like a man thinking about teeth marks on your skin.
Inside, the ballroom was all polished marble, tall windows, white flowers, and wealth pretending to be benevolence. The Avengers were strategically scattered around the room, mingling with donors and keeping a casual watch, but Bucky barely paid attention to any of it.
You disappeared into the crowd like light through water.
He tried not to watch. He failed immediately.
Everywhere you went, people leaned in. Men and women, donors and celebrities, people with expensive watches and practiced laughs. You gave them that glittering public smile, touched a forearm here, accepted a kiss on the cheek there, let someone admire your dress with a grace that made Bucky’s hand curl around his glass until he heard the stem complain.
Sam appeared at his side. “You’re gonna break that.”
Bucky loosened his grip.
“You know,” Sam said, accepting a champagne flute from a passing waiter, “for a guy who’s not interested, you sure look like you’re planning to challenge half the room to ritual combat.”
“I’m watching security.”
“Security is not six foot two, British, and trying to make her laugh by the ice sculpture.”
Bucky’s gaze moved before he could stop it.
Sam hummed. “Interesting.”
“I hate you.”
“That has been established.”
The man beside you was exactly the kind of person Bucky had seen in magazines he pretended not to notice on coffee tables. An actor, probably. Handsome in a polished, expensive way, with dark blond hair, a white dinner jacket, and the lazy confidence of a man used to doors opening before he touched them. He was standing too close. You did not seem bothered. That was part of the problem.
You laughed at something he said.
Bucky hated him.
“Who is he?” Bucky asked.
“Oh, we’re doing that?”
“Wilson.”
Sam took a sip of champagne and looked delighted by the entire situation. “Julian Hale. Actor. British. Very famous cheekbones. Dated a princess once, if the internet is to be believed, which it isn’t, but sometimes it gets lucky.”
Across the room, Julian Hale touched your waist.
It was brief. A guiding hand, barely there, the kind of touch that could be explained away by the crowd, by the noise, by the half step he encouraged you to take so someone could pass behind you. You did not flinch. You did not step away. You kept smiling.
Bucky’s vision narrowed.
Sam’s voice changed. “Hey.”
“I’m fine.”
“You look like you’re about to invent a new international incident.”
“His hand’s on her.”
“Yeah.” Sam’s tone was careful now, without the teasing edge. “And she can remove it if she wants to.”
Bucky knew that. The knowledge landed hard because it was true. You were not helpless. You were not cornered. You had broken a weapons broker’s foot in heels and threatened his hand in Russian. If you wanted Julian Hale away from you, he would be away from you.
The problem was not that Bucky thought you needed saving. The problem was that he wanted to be allowed to care.
That was worse.
You looked up then, as if you felt the weight of him watching. Your eyes met his across the room. For half a second, the public smile slipped. Something else took its place, something private and questioning.
Bucky did nothing.
Julian leaned down to say something near your ear.
You looked away first.
Bucky set his glass on the nearest tray and walked toward the balcony. The night air helped, but not enough.
Outside, the music softened behind the closed doors, reduced to bass and strings through glass. The balcony overlooked the city, all lights and distance, and Bucky gripped the stone railing with both hands until the cold settled into his metal palm and the other hand stopped wanting to hit something.
He was being ridiculous. He knew that. He had no claim on you. He had made sure of it, in fact. Every time you had stepped closer, he had stepped back. Every time you had offered him a joke with honesty folded inside it, he had taken the joke and left the honesty untouched.
Except you had never been holding a knife.
You had been holding out your hand.
The door opened behind him.
Bucky did not turn around. “I’m not in the mood, Wilson.”
“Tragic,” you said. “I wore the good dress and everything.”
His eyes closed briefly. Of course.
You came to stand beside him at the railing, close but not touching. For once, you did not fill the silence immediately. Bucky could see you in the corner of his eye, gold dress shifting in the wind, one hand resting on the stone, the other holding your shoes by their delicate straps.
“You left your own party,” you said after a moment.
“Not my party.”
“You’re on the posters.”
“Against my will.”
“You look very handsome on them.”
He glanced at you despite himself. “That why you came out here? To tell me I photograph well?”
“I came out here because you disappeared.”
“You were busy.”
Your eyebrows rose slightly. “Was I?”
“With Hale.”
Bucky regretted it the second it left his mouth. Not because it was false, but because it sounded exactly like what it was: jealousy dressed badly as observation.
Your mouth curved. “Julian?”
“You on a first-name basis with everybody who puts a hand on you?”
The silence that followed was not loud, not dramatic, but it cut cleanly through the air between you.
Your smile faded.
Bucky’s stomach dropped.
“That came out wrong,” he said.
“Did it?”
“Yes.”
“What part?”
He looked at you then. Really looked. Your posture had changed, the playful ease folding away into something guarded. Not hurt, exactly, or not only hurt. Disappointed. That was worse. He had seen you deflect rudeness from reporters, donors, strangers who thought your smile gave them permission. He had never wanted to be counted among them.
“All of it,” he said.
You studied him for a moment, then looked out over the city. “He’s an actor. We did a campaign together three years ago. He flirts because he likes attention, and I let him because attention is half of this room’s currency.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
Bucky’s jaw worked.
You turned toward him, shoes dangling from two fingers, the city light catching in your earrings. “Because that sounded a little like you think I don’t know when someone is touching me.”
His chest tightened. “I don’t think that.”
“Good.”
“I know you can handle yourself.”
“Great.”
“That’s not what bothered me.”
Your expression shifted.
The admission sat between you, more revealing than he had intended, but Bucky forced himself not to retreat. He was tired of retreating. Tired of watching you offer him chances while he pretended they were traps.
Your voice went softer. “What bothered you?”
He looked down at his hands on the railing. Metal and flesh. Past and present. Both capable of holding too tightly if he was not careful.
“I didn’t like him touching you.”
The honesty was rough, but it was honest.
You inhaled slowly.
Bucky made himself meet your eyes. “I know I don’t have a right to that.”
“No,” you said. “You don’t.”
The answer landed where it should.
Then you stepped closer.
“But you could,” you said.
Bucky stared at you.
The city noise seemed very far away.
You smiled faintly, but there was no performance in it now. No cameras, no audience, no easy escape disguised as a joke. “That’s been on the table for a while, Barnes.”
His heart beat once, hard.
“You flirt with everyone,” he said, because apparently some stubborn, stupid part of him needed to hear you say it again.
“I perform with everyone.” Your gaze dropped briefly to his mouth. “I flirt with you.”
He had no defense against that.
“You told me you liked me,” he said.
“I did.”
“I was an ass.”
“A little.”
“I’m sorry.”
Your expression softened. “I know.”
“I didn’t know what to do with it.”
“I know that too.”
The gentleness nearly undid him. Bucky could handle anger. Anger had edges he understood. He could handle teasing because it gave him somewhere to hide. But you were looking at him like you had seen the frightened thing beneath the jealousy and decided not to make it bleed for your entertainment.
He wanted to kiss you so badly it felt like pain.
You seemed to read that too. Your mouth curved, the menace returning just enough to make his pulse jump.
“Careful,” you said. “You’re looking at me like I’m winning.”
Bucky turned fully toward you. “You always this smug?”
“When I’m right.”
“You think you’re right?”
“I think you’re jealous, annoyed about it, wildly attracted to me, and about three seconds away from doing something reckless.”
He stepped closer. “That so?”
Your eyes brightened. “Two seconds.”
“Still think this is funny?”
“A little.” Your voice dipped. “I also think you should kiss me before I start flirting with someone else just to prove a point.”
His hand caught your waist. You went still, but not with fear. Bucky felt the change in you beneath his palm, the quick breath, the way your body answered before you had time to make a joke of it.
“Don’t,” he said.
Your eyes lifted to his. “Don’t what?”
“Flirt with someone else.”
The words should have embarrassed him. Maybe they would later. Right now, with you this close and the city wind moving around you, he could not make himself care.
Your smile faded into parted lips.
“Bucky,” you said, and it was the first time you had used his name instead of Barnes.
That was what broke him.
He kissed you. For a second, it was almost careful. His mouth found yours with all the restraint he had spent months pretending was indifference, one hand at your waist, the other still braced on the railing because touching you with both felt like admitting too much at once.
Then you made a soft, pleased sound against his mouth and everything careful in him snapped. Bucky pulled you closer. Your shoes dropped to the balcony with a quiet clatter, your hands coming up to grip his jacket as he deepened the kiss. You tasted like champagne and gloss, sweet and warm, and you kissed him like you had been waiting to do it for so long that patience had become offensive. Your fingers slid into his hair. He groaned before he could stop himself.
You smiled against his mouth.
He nipped at your lower lip in warning.
You gasped.
The sound went straight through him.
“Still annoying?” you whispered.
“Yes,” he said, kissing the corner of your mouth.
“Still not interested?”
He kissed your jaw, felt your pulse jump beneath his lips, and tightened his hand at your waist. “Don’t push it.”
“Oh, baby,” you breathed, and the endearment hit differently now, stripped of performance and made intimate by the way your voice trembled. “Pushing it is my best quality.”
Bucky drew back enough to look at you. Your lipstick was smudged. Your eyes were dark. The woman who had smiled for a hundred cameras looked at him like she wanted to be ruined somewhere private and had already decided he was the only man in the building qualified for the job.
His entire body went hot.
“We’re leaving,” he said.
Your brows lifted. “Are we?”
“Yes.”
“Together?”
He gave you a look.
There it was again, that wicked smile. “Just confirming. You’re new to this whole admitting-things process.”
Bucky bent, picked up your shoes, and caught your hand.
You laughed as he pulled you toward the door, bright enough that two people near the bar turned to look when you stepped back inside. Sam spotted you first, his face transforming with open delight.
Bucky glared at him. “No.”
Sam’s mouth opened.
“Wilson.”
Sam closed his mouth with visible effort.
You wiggled your fingers at him as Bucky guided you past. “Goodnight, Sam.”
Sam looked as if Christmas had come early. “Goodnight, future Mrs. Barnes.”
Bucky kept walking.
You nearly tripped over your own laugh. “Future Mrs. Barnes?”
“Don’t encourage him.”
“I don’t know. It has a ring to it.”
Bucky leaned closer as you reached the corridor. “Keep talking, and I’ll throw you over my shoulder.”
The sound you made was small, sharp, and not laughter.
Bucky stopped walking.
Your voice softened. “Promise?”
Something dark and hot moved through him.
“Car,” he said.
“Elevator,” you countered.
“We’re not doing this in an elevator.”
“Cameras?” you guessed.
“Cameras.”
You paused. “Right. Sensible. Deeply disappointing, but sensible.”
The ride back to the tower was torture. The partition stayed up. Your shoes lay abandoned on the floor. Your lipstick was ruined, his tie was crooked, and every time your hand drifted toward his thigh, Bucky caught your wrist before you could make the driver’s job any more uncomfortable.
“You’re very strict for a man who just dragged me out of a gala,” you murmured.
“You were going to behave until we got upstairs.”
“I never agreed to that.”
“No,” he said, pulling you across the seat and into his lap with one arm around your waist. “You didn’t.”
Your breath caught, hands landing on his shoulders as your dress rode higher over your thighs.
Bucky’s hands settled at your hips. “This a problem?”
“No.” Your voice came out softer than before. “Definitely not.”
“You wanted attention.”
“I usually do.”
“You’ve got it.”
Your smile flickered, and for the first time that night, you looked almost overwhelmed.
Bucky stroked his thumbs over your hips. “Still with me?”
“Yeah.” You let out a breath and laughed quietly. “Sorry. It’s just…”
“What?”
“You.”
That did something stupid to his chest.
His hands tightened on your hips.
“Me?” he asked.
You nodded. “I’ve wanted you for a long time, Barnes.”
His body reacted hard to the words, but underneath that, something else opened, uncertain and hungry in a way that had very little to do with sex and everything to do with being wanted by someone who knew he was difficult.
“Bucky,” he said.
Your brow creased. “What?”
“My name.” He swallowed. “When it’s like this, use my name.”
The softness that moved through your expression was almost unbearable.
Then you leaned down and kissed him, slow and deep, your hands gentle at the sides of his face.
“Bucky,” you whispered against his mouth.
He held you tighter.
By the time the car reached the tower, both of you looked bad enough that Natasha stopped in the lobby, took one look at your face, Bucky’s mouth, and the shoes in his hand, and smiled.
“So I see,” she said.
Bucky kept walking. “Don’t.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You were going to.”
“Eventually.”
Clint, who had been crossing the lobby beside her with a pastry in hand, pointed at Bucky. “Steve owes Sam twenty bucks.”
Bucky closed his eyes.
You grabbed his hand and pulled him toward the elevator. “Goodnight!”
Natasha’s voice followed you. “Hydrate.”
The elevator doors closed on your laughter. Bucky hit the button for the residential floors.
You leaned against the wall, still laughing. “Hydrate.”
“Don’t.”
“I like her.”
“Everyone likes her. That’s how she gets away with everything.”
“You like me, and I get away with almost nothing.”
Bucky looked over at you. “You think you get away with nothing?”
“With you? Absolutely not. You’re very mean to me.”
“You’ve been sexually harassing me for months.”
“I have been romantically persistent.”
“You called me a slutty Victorian ghost in front of Fury.”
“You were wearing that coat.”
“It was tactical.”
“It had drama buttons.”
Bucky stepped closer. “You like the coat.”
“I love the coat. I wanted to climb you like a tree in the coat.”
His mouth twitched. “At a debrief?”
“It was a very boring debrief.”
“You’re impossible.”
“And yet.” You hooked one finger into his loosened tie and tugged him closer. “Here you are.”
The elevator rose.
Bucky let himself be pulled. Your smile softened when he came near, and he thought, not for the first time, that the worst thing about you was not the flirting. It was the moments after, when the joke stepped aside and left all that wanting visible.
He cupped your jaw. “You sure?”
You blinked. “About you?”
“About tonight.”
The question sobered you slightly, but not in a bad way. You held his gaze. “Yes.”
“You’ve been drinking.”
“Two glasses of champagne over four hours, one of which I abandoned because Julian started explaining his movie to me.”
“Tragic.”
“Deeply.” Your fingers slid over his wrist. “I’m sure, Bucky.”
His name in your mouth still hit like a touch.
“And if I say something you don’t like?” he asked.
“I’ll tell you.”
“If I do something you don’t like?”
“I’ll tell you.”
“If you want to stop?”
“I’ll tell you.” Your voice softened. “I need you to believe me.”
He nodded once.
You leaned in, brushing your mouth over his. “Do you have any idea how much I want you?”
The elevator doors opened.
Bucky caught your hand and pulled you into the hall.
“Tell me,” he said.
Your steps faltered.
He looked back. “You had plenty to say before.”
Your mouth opened, then closed.
Bucky smiled.
It was not a nice smile.
“Oh,” you said faintly. “You’re going to be awful.”
“You like awful.”
“I like you.”
He nearly lost the thread entirely.
His room was closer than yours. He chose his because it was familiar. Controlled. Sparse, though less than it had been when he first moved in. A few books on the shelf. A jacket over a chair. Clean sheets because Steve had once broken into his room, taken one look at the bed, and muttered something about “bachelor despair.”
Bucky unlocked the door. You stepped inside and went quiet. That, more than anything, made him nervous. He watched you take in the room, the low light, the neatly made bed, the absence of clutter. There was no judgment on your face. Just curiosity, and something like care.
“You can say it,” he said.
You turned back. “Say what?”
“That it looks like nobody lives here.”
“I wasn’t going to.”
“But you thought it.”
“A little.” You walked to the bookshelf, trailing one finger along the spines without pulling anything out. “Mostly I thought it smells like you.”
Bucky shut the door. “That a good thing?”
You looked over your shoulder. “Very.”
The lock clicked. The sound changed the room.
He crossed the room slowly. You stayed where you were, one hand still on the shelf, chin lifted like a challenge.
“Last chance,” he said.
Your eyes darkened. “For you or me?”
“For behaving.”
That smile again. “I already told you I’m bad at that.”
Bucky stopped in front of you. “I noticed.”
“Still interested?”
His hand lifted to your face, thumb brushing the ruined edge of your lipstick. “I’m here, aren’t I?”
“Could be a friendly escort.”
“To my bedroom?”
“You’re old-fashioned.”
His thumb pressed lightly against your lower lip. “Open.”
Your lashes fluttered, and for one perfect second, you did exactly what he told you. Your lips parted beneath his thumb, breath warming his skin.
Then your eyes narrowed with returning mischief. You bit his thumb. Gently.
Bucky stared at you. You smiled around it.
He laughed once, low and disbelieving, and the sound seemed to please you until his metal hand closed around your hip and turned you, backing you into the shelf with careful force. Your breath caught. A few books shifted behind you.
“You think you’re cute?” he asked.
“I know I am.”
His mouth brushed your cheek. “You’ve been poking the monster for months, sweetheart.”
The pet name slipped out before he could stop it. He felt the effect immediately. Your breath stuttered, your hand tightening in his jacket. His gaze sharpened.
“Oh,” he murmured. “You like that.”
You looked irritated, which would have been more convincing if you were not flushed to your chest. “Don’t be so smug.”
“You’ve been smug since March.”
“I was charming.”
“You were a menace.”
“You liked it.”
His hand slid from your hip to your thigh, following the open slit in your dress. Your words caught as his fingers found warm skin.
“I did,” Bucky said.
Your eyes snapped to his.
He held your gaze, hand moving higher by slow degrees. “‘S’that what you wanted to hear?”
For once, you did not have an immediate answer.
He leaned in, his mouth hovering over yours. “You wanted to get under my skin so bad.”
“I did get under your skin.”
“Yeah.” His fingers tightened on your thigh. “You did.”
Your lips parted.
Bucky kissed you before you could fill the silence with something clever. He kissed you deep, pressing you back against the shelf until he felt your body yield beneath his. Your hands gripped his shoulders, then slid under his jacket, pushing it down his arms with impatience.
Your fingers went to his tie next.
Bucky caught both your wrists. You stilled immediately, breathless against his mouth.
His eyes searched yours. “Still okay?”
“Yes.”
“You sure?”
“Bucky,” you said, and the impatience in it soothed him more than any soft reassurance would have. “I swear to God, if you don’t touch me, I’m going to become difficult.”
“You’re already difficult.”
“I can get worse.”
“I know.”
You tugged against his grip. “Then do something about it.”
The last of his restraint went very, very quiet. Bucky released one wrist and guided you back toward the bed. You went willingly, though you tried to keep your smile in place. It slipped when the backs of your thighs hit the mattress. He stood in front of you, close enough that your knees brushed his legs.
For a moment, he just looked at you.
Your chin tipped up. “What?”
“Trying to decide where to start.”
Your breath caught.
Then, because you were you, your smile returned. “I can make suggestions.”
“I bet you can.”
“Several.”
“Generous.”
“I’m a giver.”
Bucky’s hand went to your jaw, not rough, but firm enough to quiet you. “You’re a brat.”
Your eyes lit.
He felt that reaction everywhere.
“And you like that too,” he said.
You swallowed. “Definitely.”
“Better.”
Your thighs pressed together.
Bucky noticed.
He lowered himself slowly, one knee touching the floor between your feet.
Your expression changed at once.
“Oh,” you said, much smaller than before.
Bucky looked up at you, his hands sliding over your calves. “Still got suggestions?”
Your mouth opened.
No sound came out.
He smiled again, slower this time. “Yeah. That’s what I thought.”
His lips brushed the inside of your knee.
You watched him like you were afraid to blink.
“I had a whole speech prepared,” you said.
His mouth moved higher. “Did you?”
“Very persuasive.”
“I’m sure.”
“I was going to tell you how much you want me.”
He kissed the inside of your thigh, just above the slit of your dress. “I know how much I want you.”
Your breath hitched.
“Do you?” you asked.
Bucky looked up at you. “You want me to prove it?”
The answer left you quickly. “Yes.”
He smiled. “Good.”
His hands slid farther beneath your dress, slow enough to make it deliberate, warm flesh and cool metal moving over your thighs with the same careful pressure.
Your fingers curled into the edge of the mattress. “You’re enjoying this too much.”
“I’ve listened to you run your mouth for months.” His lips brushed higher, close enough that your next breath went uneven. “Let me have my fun.”
“Your fun is very mean.”
His mouth curved against the inside of your thigh. “You want me to stop?”
Your answer came too fast to be dignified. “No.”
Bucky’s smile deepened. His hand slipped higher, thumb tracing the edge of your underwear beneath the dress, and your knees tried to close around his shoulders. He let them. He even turned his head and kissed the inside of one thigh.
“You’re quiet,” he said.
You gave a breathless laugh. “I’m being polite.”
“Liar.”
“I am a delight.”
“You’re soaked.”
Your entire body went hot.
Bucky looked up at you with the unbearable calm of a man who knew exactly what he had found. His thumb pressed again, dragging lightly over damp fabric, and your grip on the mattress tightened hard enough that your knuckles ached.
“Oh, sweetheart,” he murmured. “All that talking, and this is what you wanted?”
You swallowed. “Among other things.”
“Still making suggestions?”
“I’m trying to decide if I hate you.”
His eyes warmed. “You don’t.”
“I could.”
“You won’t.”
You wanted to argue, mostly on principle, but then he leaned in and kissed you over your underwear, and the argument vanished somewhere between your ribs and your throat. The sound that came out of you was embarrassingly soft. Bucky heard it anyway. His fingers flexed against your thighs, and the next kiss was slower, firmer, open-mouthed enough that your hips lifted before you could stop them.
He made a low sound of approval that went through you like heat.
“That’s it,” he said, the words rougher now. “There you are.”
His fingers hooked into your underwear. He paused there, waiting.
You looked down at him. “Bucky.”
That was all you had to say.
He drew them down your legs, taking his time despite the way his breathing had changed, and tucked them into his pocket with a look that made your pulse jump.
“Really?” you asked.
His hands returned to your thighs. “You want them back?”
Your mouth opened, then closed.
His smile was sharp. “That’s what I thought.”
Then he leaned in.
The first touch of his mouth was enough to knock the air from your lungs. Bucky groaned like he had been the one waiting, like the taste of you had answered some question he had been refusing to ask all night. His hands gripped your thighs and pulled you closer to the edge of the bed, and you fell back onto one elbow, the other hand flying to his hair.
“Fuck,” you breathed.
He hummed against you.
His tongue moved over you again, and your hand tightened in his hair.
“Bucky.”
He groaned at the sound of his name, one hand sliding higher to hold your hips down when they jerked toward his mouth. His mouth was hot and merciless, his stubble scraping the inside of your thighs, his metal hand cool against your hip where the dress had bunched around your waist.
You tried to say something. It came out as a broken little sound.
Bucky pulled back just enough to look at you. His mouth was wet. His eyes were dark enough to make your stomach twist.
“You had a comment?”
“I forgot it.”
“Good.”
“Smug,” you accused, but there was no strength behind it.
He kissed your thigh. “Pretty.”
That was unfair.
You made a sound that was half a laugh and half a whimper. “You can’t call me that when you’re down there.”
“I can call you whatever I want when you’re this wet for me.”
Your head tipped back, eyes closing. “Jesus.”
“That bother you?”
“No.”
“Then take it.”
His mouth returned before you could recover, and this time, two fingers pressed against you, spreading slickness before easing inside. Your body took him greedily, clenching around the slow push of his fingers, and Bucky’s groan vibrated against your clit.
Your hand tightened in his hair again. “Jesus fucking Christ.”
He set a steady rhythm, fingers curling inside you while his mouth worked over you with devastating focus. The room narrowed to the scrape of his stubble, the pressure of his tongue, the stretch of his fingers, the soft obscene sounds of his mouth between your legs. Your thighs began to tremble, and his metal hand shifted from your hip to your stomach, pressing you down when you tried to arch away from how good it felt.
“Don’t run,” he said against you.
“I’m not.”
“You are.”
“I’m preserving my dignity.”
He laughed softly. “Little late for that.”
You would have cursed at him if he had not chosen that moment to curl his fingers again, hitting the place that made your whole body go tight. His name broke out of you, too loud, too needy, too honest, and Bucky made a sound like that alone could have ruined him.
“That’s it,” he murmured. “Come on, sweetheart. Let me have it.”
The orgasm hit hard enough that the room went white at the edges. You came with his mouth still on you and his fingers buried inside you, thighs shaking around his shoulders while he worked you through it. He softened his mouth, slowed his hand, but kept touching until your breath turned into little broken sounds and you had to tug at his hair.
“Bucky,” you gasped. “Too much.”
He stopped immediately.
For a moment, there was only the sound of your breathing.
Then he kissed the inside of your thigh, gentle now, and stood.
You looked up at him through half-lidded eyes. His hair was a mess from your hands, his tie loose, his shirt still buttoned but wrinkled where you had grabbed him. His mouth was wet from you. He looked wrecked and controlled at the same time, which felt deeply unfair when you were sprawled on his bed with your dress around your waist and your ability to speak in complete sentences somewhere on the floor.
He leaned over you, one hand braced beside your head. “You okay?”
You nodded, then remembered words. “Yeah.”
His gaze searched yours. “Too much?”
“No.” Your hand lifted to his face, thumb brushing his lower lip. “Just enough to make me regret every time I let you leave a room without doing that.”
Bucky’s mouth twitched. “Every time?”
“I’m dramatic, not dishonest.”
He turned his head and kissed your palm.
You caught his tie and pulled. “Come here.”
He came willingly, covering your body with his and kissing you deep. You tasted yourself on his mouth and moaned into it, hips lifting against him. He was hard where he pressed between your thighs, thick and restrained by the fabric of his pants, and the feel of him made you impatient all over again.
Your hands went to his shirt.
This time, he let you.
The buttons were more difficult than they had any right to be, mostly because he kept kissing you and partly because your fingers had not fully recovered. Bucky made a low, amused sound against your mouth when you fumbled with the third one.
“Don’t laugh,” you warned.
“I’m not.”
“You are spiritually laughing.”
“Spiritually?”
“Don’t question me while I’m undressing you.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
The words were dry, but his breath caught when your hands finally pushed the shirt open. You smoothed your palms over his chest, feeling the heat of him, the hard lines of muscle, the scars where skin changed and history refused to be quiet. He went very still beneath your touch.
You noticed immediately.
Your hands slowed. “Okay?”
His eyes flicked to yours.
For a second, the room held its breath.
Then he nodded. “Yeah.”
“You sure?”
A faint smile pulled at his mouth. “Using my lines on me?”
“They’re good lines.”
His shoulders eased, just a little. “I’m sure.”
You sat up enough to kiss his chest, right over his heart. Bucky’s hand came to the back of your head, not pushing, just holding. You kissed another scar, then another, careful not because you thought he might break, but because you wanted him to know you saw him and wanted him anyway.
When you looked up, his expression had gone quiet in a way that stole some of the teasing from your tongue.
“Still with me?” you asked.
His hand slid along your cheek. “Yeah.”
The word came out rough.
You kissed him again. This time, the kiss was slower. His hands moved over your back, finding the closure of your dress, and you let him turn you enough to work it open. The fabric loosened with a soft whisper. He drew it down carefully, and you lifted your hips so he could pull it away.
Then you were in front of him in nothing but jewelry and the ruined remains of your composure.
Bucky stared.
You gave him half a smile. “Careful. A girl might get shy.”
“No, she won’t.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I know you.”
The answer landed low in your stomach.
He touched you then, both hands moving from your waist to your ribs, thumbs brushing beneath your breasts before he lowered his mouth to follow. Your head fell back as he kissed and licked and learned you with the same terrible patience he had used between your thighs. When his mouth closed around one nipple and his metal hand held your waist still, you arched hard enough that he had to press you back down.
“Sensitive,” he murmured.
“Observant.”
“Smart mouth.”
“You like my mouth.”
“I do.” His eyes lifted to yours. “I’ve thought about it a lot.”
Heat rushed through you. “Have you?”
“Every time you called me handsome in front of half the team.”
“You poor thing.”
“Every time you blew me a kiss across the gym.”
“I was motivating you.”
“Every time you bent over a briefing table like you didn’t know what you were doing.”
You blinked. “I always know what I’m doing.”
His mouth curved. “I know.”
Then he kissed lower, over your stomach, and the laugh that had been forming turned into a gasp.
You reached for his belt. “Bucky.”
He caught your wrist again, but only to bring your hand to his mouth and kiss your knuckles. “What do you want?”
“You.”
“Specific.”
“You are such an asshole.”
He smiled. “Specific,” he repeated.
You stared at him, breathing hard, pride fighting a losing battle with need.
“I want you inside me,” you said finally.
His expression changed.
“I can do that,” he said.
Your smile came back, softer this time. “Competent?”
His hand went to his belt. “Very.”
He stripped without performance, which somehow made it worse, shirt hitting the floor, belt sliding free, pants pushed down with a controlled impatience that told you he was closer to the edge than he looked. When he finally climbed back over you, bare and warm and heavy between your thighs, your ability to joke deserted you entirely.
He noticed.
“Quiet again,” he said, mouth brushing yours.
“Busy.”
“Doing what?”
“Reconsidering all my life choices.”
His smile softened. “Regrets?”
“Mostly that I didn’t try harder.”
Bucky laughed, but it caught when your hand slid between your bodies and wrapped around him. He was hot and thick in your palm, his hips pressing forward before he could stop himself. His forehead dropped to yours.
“Fuck,” he breathed.
“Not so cocky now, are you?” you whispered.
His eyes opened.
You smiled up at him, thumb stroking over the tip of his cock, and watched his restraint fray in real time.
He caught your wrist after another stroke. “Condom.”
It was not really a question, but you nodded toward the nightstand. “Please tell me Steve’s bachelor despair intervention included supplies.”
Bucky huffed a laugh and reached for the drawer. “He’s thorough.”
“Heroic, really.”
He found one, tore it open, then paused. “You’re sure?”
You looked at him then, at the seriousness under the heat, and something in you softened so quickly it almost hurt.
“I’m sure,” you said. “I want this. I want you.”
His jaw tightened.
You touched his face. “Bucky.”
He kissed you as he rolled the condom on, and the kiss was so intimate that it made the next moment feel even sharper. He settled between your thighs, one hand braced beside your head, the other guiding himself to you. The first press of him stole the air from your lungs.
He stopped immediately. “Okay?”
“Yes.” Your hands gripped his shoulders. “Just go slow.”
His forehead rested against yours. “I’ve got you.”
You believed him.
He pushed in slowly, inch by inch, giving you time to adjust even though his breath was rough against your mouth and his whole body shook with the effort of holding back. The stretch was intense, almost too much, then perfect, then overwhelming all over again. You clung to him, nails pressing into his back, and Bucky whispered praise against your mouth until he was fully inside you and both of you went still.
For a few seconds, neither of you moved.
You had flirted with him for months. You had imagined this, wanted this, teased him because wanting him quietly had started to feel impossible. But imagination had not prepared you for the weight of him, the heat of him, the way his body covered yours like he had finally stopped deciding whether he deserved to be there.
Your throat tightened.
Bucky brushed his nose against yours. “Hey.”
You swallowed. “I’m okay.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah.” You managed a smile. “You’re just a lot.”
His mouth curved faintly. “I’ve heard that before.”
You pinched his side.
He laughed under his breath, then groaned when the movement made you clench around him. His eyes dropped closed.
“Oh,” you said, interest returning through the haze. “You like that.”
“Don’t start.”
“I think I should start.”
He drew his hips back slowly and pushed in again.
Your words dissolved.
Bucky’s smile was brief and devastating. “That’s what I thought.”
The pace stayed slow at first, deep enough to make your breath catch every time he filled you. His metal hand slid beneath your hip, lifting you slightly, changing the angle until pleasure sparked bright and sudden through your body. Your head fell back into the pillow.
“Bucky.”
“I know.” His voice was rough. “I know, sweetheart.”
You wrapped your legs around his waist and pulled him closer, needing more of his weight, more of his heat, more of the quiet sounds he made when you clenched around him.
He kissed you through it. Messy, breathless kisses that kept breaking when one of you moaned or when his rhythm faltered because you dragged your nails down his back. He muttered your name against your mouth, then against your throat, then into the curve of your shoulder as the careful pace began to slip.
You liked the moment he lost patience.
You liked it more than you should have.
One second, he was controlled, moving like he could make restraint last all night if he had to. The next, your hips lifted into his at the wrong angle or the right one, and something in him broke. He caught your wrists and pinned them above your head with his metal hand, the cool pressure making your whole body tighten around him.
His eyes snapped to yours. “Okay?”
“Yes,” you gasped. “Yes, don’t stop.”
He did not.
The next thrust drove you higher on the bed, hard enough to pull a cry from your throat. Bucky made a low, wrecked sound and did it again, deeper this time, his body pressing yours into the mattress while his free hand gripped your hip. Every thrust pushed the breath out of you. Every drag back made you desperate for the next one.
“Still got something to say?” he asked.
You tried. You really did.
What came out was not language.
Bucky’s mouth found your neck, teeth scraping just below your jaw. “Mouthy little thing until I get my cock in you.”
The words should have embarrassed you. They did embarrass you, which was unfortunately part of the problem. Heat rushed through you so sharply that you clenched around him, and Bucky swore, hips stuttering before he recovered.
“There it is,” he said. “You like being talked to like that?”
“Yes.”
His hand tightened on your wrists. “You like me jealous?”
Your eyes flew open.
He lifted his head, looking down at you with his hair falling loose around his face and his mouth swollen from kissing you. There was vulnerability beneath the possessiveness, something exposed and honest enough to change the shape of the question.
You pulled against his hold, not to get away, but because you wanted your hands on him. He understood after a second and let go.
You touched his face at once. “I like when you want me enough to stop pretending you don’t.”
His expression shifted.
Then he kissed you, and the kiss was almost too much, too deep and too honest for the frantic movement of his hips. You held onto him as he fucked you harder, his body heavy over yours, your name breaking out of him like a confession. Pleasure built again, faster this time, sharpened by the orgasm he had already given you and the steady drag of him inside you.
“Bucky,” you said, voice breaking. “I’m close.”
His hand slid between your bodies.
You nearly sobbed when his fingers found your clit.
“Come for me,” he said. “Let me feel it.”
You did.
The orgasm tore through you, harder than the first, your whole body locking around him as pleasure crashed hot and bright through your veins. Bucky held you through it, thrusting shallowly while you clenched around him, his mouth at your temple and his voice rough with praise you could barely understand.
“Good girl,” he breathed. “Fuck, that’s it. So pretty like this.”
The praise only made it last longer.
By the time you came back to yourself, Bucky was shaking above you, jaw tight, every muscle in his body pulled taut with restraint.
You wrapped your arms around his neck. “Come on, baby.”
His breath caught.
You kissed the corner of his mouth. “I want it.”
That was enough.
Bucky buried his face against your neck and came with a broken groan, hips pressing deep as his body finally gave in. You held him through it, fingers in his hair, your own body still trembling beneath his. For a long moment, he stayed there, breathing hard against your skin, heavy enough to ground you but not enough to hurt.
The room went quiet around you.
Eventually, his arm shifted, bracing some of his weight. “Am I crushing you?”
“A little,” you said.
He started to move.
You tightened your arms around him. “I didn’t say stop.”
His laugh was exhausted and warm against your shoulder. “Brat.”
“Sweetheart,” you corrected.
He lifted his head.
You smiled up at him, softer than you meant to. “You said it first.”
Something flickered through his face.
Then he kissed you, gentle now. “Sweetheart,” he said, quieter, like he was testing how it felt when nobody was hiding.
You felt embarrassingly close to crying, which was rude of your body after everything else it had already done tonight.
Bucky noticed. His thumb brushed your cheek. “Hey.”
“I’m fine.”
His brow rose.
You huffed. “I am.”
“That means yes, or that means stop asking?”
The echo of your own question from months ago made your chest ache. “It means I’m fine.”
“Mm,” he said. “We’ll workshop that.”
You stared at him.
The smile came slowly.
“Oh, you absolute nightmare.”
He kissed you again before you could say anything worse.
Afterward, Bucky cleaned you up with a gentleness that left you strangely quiet. He disappeared into the bathroom for a minute and came back with a warm washcloth, his boxers pulled on haphazardly, his hair a disaster and his expression too careful. He moved slowly, checking your face more than he needed to, watching for any sign that you had changed your mind now that the wanting had settled.
You caught his wrist when he finished.
“Bucky.”
He looked at you.
“I’m fine.”
His shoulders eased by a fraction. His fingers turned in your grip until he was holding your hand.
“Yeah,” he said.
You tugged lightly. “Come back to bed.”
He did.
The bed dipped under his weight, and you shifted toward him immediately, which seemed to surprise him even after everything. You rested your cheek against his chest, one leg thrown over his, the sheet pulled messily around your waist. His arm hovered for half a second before settling around you.
“You’re thinking loudly again,” you murmured.
His fingers moved once over your back. “You’re going to be unbearable now.”
You smiled against his skin. “I was unbearable before.”
“Worse, then.”
“Probably.” You lifted your head enough to look at him. “You can handle me.”
His gaze moved over your face. “Yeah?”
“You’re very competent.”
That got you a small smile.
You rested your chin on his chest. “Are you okay?”
He was quiet for long enough that you did not think he would answer. Then his hand slid slowly up your back, warm and steady.
“I don’t know how to do this,” he said.
There was no self-pity in it. Just honesty, rough around the edges.
You softened. “Do what?”
“This.” His fingers brushed your shoulder. “Wanting someone. Having it. Keeping it without waiting for it to go bad.”
Your heart hurt.
“I don’t need you to be good at it right away,” you said. “I just need you not to punish both of us because you’re scared.”
His eyes met yours.
You held his gaze. “And I need you to talk to me before you start glaring at actors like you’re deciding where to hide the body.”
His mouth twitched. “He had it coming.”
“Bucky.”
“He touched your waist.”
“You dragged me out of the gala and fucked me in your bed. I promise you won that exchange.”
A laugh broke out of him, surprised and real, and you grinned because you had earned that.
After a moment, he said, “I don’t want to be one more person in the crowd looking at you.”
You went still.
Bucky looked away, as if the confession had cost more than he meant it to. Before he could retreat completely, you touched his jaw and guided him back.
“You’re not,” you said.
His eyes searched yours.
“You were never that,” you continued. “That’s why it was so annoying when you kept acting like you were.”
His brows lifted. “Annoying?”
“Deeply. Tragically.” You tapped his chest. “I was doing excellent work.”
“You were harassing me.”
“I was courting you.”
“You bit my thumb.”
“You liked it.”
He looked at you for a long moment. “I did.”
Your pulse jumped, even now.
Bucky noticed that too, and his expression warmed with a darker kind of satisfaction. “Interesting.”
“Behave,” you warned.
His mouth curved. “That’s my line.”
“You’ll live.”
“I might.”
You were smiling when the next words slipped out, too soft to be a joke and too honest to call back.
“I wanted a boyfriend, you know.”
He froze.
For one terrible second, all the warmth in the room seemed to hold still.
Bucky lifted his head.
You tried for a smile, but it felt shaky at the edges. “Emotionally unavailable boyfriend, technically. I’m flexible.”
His expression softened in a way that made your throat tighten.
“Yeah?” he asked.
You could have backed away. Made it a joke. Given him the escape hatch you had always been so good at pretending you did not need. Instead, you looked up at him and let the truth sit plainly between you.
“Yeah.”
Bucky’s hand came to your face. His thumb brushed over your cheek, so gentle it made the rest of him feel even heavier beside you.
“I can do boyfriend,” he said.
Your heart gave a stupid, hopeful little kick. “Can you?”
“I’ll probably be bad at it.”
“I’ll workshop you.”
He huffed a laugh. “Of course you will.”
“I’m very persuasive.”
“You’re very annoying.”
“Foreplay,” you said.
His mouth curved.
Then he kissed you, and this time, there was nothing frantic in it. It was slow and deep and almost painfully sweet, a kiss that felt less like surrender than arrival. You wrapped yourself around him and let him take his time, because Bucky was warm and solid beside you, because his mouth was soft when he wanted it to be, because the man who had spent months pretending not to want you had finally stopped pretending.
Much later, you woke to pale morning light and the smell of coffee.
For one disoriented second, you thought you were in your own room. Then you shifted and felt the pleasant ache in your thighs, the warmth of a body beside yours, and the weight of Bucky’s arm around your waist.
You opened your eyes.
He was awake, propped on one elbow, looking at you like he had been caught doing something private.
“Hi,” you said, voice rough with sleep.
His expression eased. “Hi.”
“You watched me sleep? Very gothic of you.”
“I woke up two minutes ago.”
“Liar.”
“Maybe ten.”
“You’re obsessed with me.”
His mouth twitched. “Apparently.”
The answer was too easy. Too honest. It warmed you all the way through.
You stretched carefully, then winced.
Bucky’s hand moved at once. “Sore?”
“A little.”
His face changed. “Too much?”
“No.” You turned into him, pressing a kiss to his shoulder. “Exactly enough.”
He looked unconvinced, because he was Bucky.
You sighed. “I will accept pampering, though.”
“That so?”
“Yes. I’m very delicate.”
He looked down at the marks his mouth had left on your neck, then back at your face.
You smiled. “Emotionally.”
That got you a quiet laugh. He leaned in and kissed your forehead, then your mouth, soft enough that you melted into it despite the morning breath concerns you decided not to acknowledge because romance required sacrifice.
A knock sounded at the door.
Both of you froze.
Then Sam’s voice came through from the hall. “I’m not coming in because I value my life, but Steve wants to know if you two are alive, Natasha says hydrate again, and Tony says if the bed is broken, it’s coming out of your paycheck.”
You buried your face in Bucky’s chest.
Bucky closed his eyes. “Go away, Sam.”
“I also brought coffee.”
You lifted your head. “Wait.”
Bucky looked betrayed.
You patted his chest. “Baby, I love whatever brooding domestic morning-after thing you’re doing right now, but I need coffee if I’m going to survive the team knowing you rearranged my insides.”
From the hall, Sam made a delighted choking sound. “Oh my God.”
Bucky threw a pillow at the door.
It hit with a soft thump. Sam laughed all the way down the hall.
You collapsed back against the mattress, laughing too, and after a second, Bucky gave in. His arm tightened around your waist, pulling you closer until your laughter softened into a smile against his skin.
“You’re trouble,” he said.
“You knew that on Tuesday.”
“I knew it before then.”
You tipped your face up. “And yet.”
His eyes moved over you, warm and a little helpless, the way they had looked last night right before everything changed.
“And yet,” he agreed.
You smiled, pleased enough that he narrowed his eyes.
“Don’t,” he warned.
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You were going to.”
“I was letting the moment breathe.”
“The moment can suffocate.”
Your smile widened. “You’re so romantic.”
Bucky rolled you beneath him before you could laugh again, his body settling carefully over yours, one hand braced beside your head. His hair fell around his face, soft with sleep, and he looked less like a ghost, less like a weapon, less like the man who had spent months standing at the edge of his own wanting.
He looked like yours.
Or almost yours. Enough to make your chest ache. Enough to make you brave.
“So,” you said, touching his jaw. “Did I win you over?”
Bucky looked at you for a long moment, then bent until his mouth hovered over yours.
“Sweetheart,” he said, voice low and warm, “you have no idea.”
Then he kissed you, and because you were a menace, because he was smiling against your mouth, because you had never known how to leave a victory unannounced, you wrapped your arms around his neck and whispered, “Progress.”
credit to @uzmacchiato for the cherry divider and @saradika-graphics for the Winter Soldier divider ❤️💛
Summary: You accidentally witness a murder by members of the Barnes Mafia and are brought back to live at the mansion since they don't know what to do with you. You then find out a lot more about your old boss than you could ever imagine and enter a new world you never knew existed.
"Aren't you going home yet?" Your co-worker asked.
"Ugh, I wish. I have to head down to the accounting department and help them organize their files. Since the cyber attack, Mr. Rumlow doesn't trust anyone, so I get to be the lucky one." You shuddered thinking of your boss' wrath on the IT department last month.
You worked at Hydra Enterprises and you were the CEO's personal assistant. You're recovering from a recent cyber attack on the company, but you weren't given too many specifics on why you were targeted, or what the result was. Your boss has kept quiet to most employees, even you.
All you knew what that someone targeted Hydra Enterprises, large sums of money were lost, account information was leaked, clients and investors bailed, and it was bad.
"I just finished re-confirming all of Mr. Rumlow's appointments for next week."
"Sounds fun."
"You know it. I'll catch you next week. Have a good weekend," you waved and grabbed a handful of files to bring down to accounting.
Mr. Rumlow had left a few hours ago for a meeting with his lawyer, and his parting instructions to you were to help accounting with re-entering information into the new system since they were short on staff from the mass firings he did since the attack.
You thought he was being a little paranoid but understood seeing as how you lost a huge chunk of money and business. He assured you he was on top of it and had wanted you to schedule as many meetings as possible so he could assure the investors all was well and secure as ever.
The job was easy enough and he paid you a metric ton of overtime in cash to do it, so you didn't mind. You huffed out a breath as you watched everyone else leave for the night, going home to their families and lives while you made your way to the drab accounting floor.
Whatever. You didn't mind working late since you were kind of a loner with the few friends you had. Growing up in the foster system was hard enough, being shuffled from family to family took its toll, but you somehow survived.
You got to your temporary desk and started inputting data and figures, making sure to set your alarm so you were done at 9pm. You're pretty sure you were the only one in the building seeing as how what remained of the accounting team left an hour ago, but you didn't mind.
You somehow always got more work done in a quiet place rather than a bustling office. You often worked late and alone regardless of this issue, and you knew the building was safe because of all the security passes and codes you were made to memorize, enter, and swipe since your boss was paranoid well before the attack.
You thought it was overkill, but Mr. Rumlow insisted. Finger ID, facial recognition, hand scanners, and regular old key fobs were the norm you just dealt with but almost understood seeing as how there were a lot of files he had on his investors, he needed to keep secure, until they weren't.
You're certain Mr. Rumlow outed the cyber company in charge of your company files and data and had them go bankrupt from their lack of privacy, so you're now working with a new one.
Your alarm broke your concentration and snapped you out of your work. You took your phone and tapped the screen to stop the noise, stretching and yawning from the day's work. "Alright, alright, I'm going home," you muttered. You took your files and filed them into the completed cabinets and went to grab your purse but grumbled to yourself.
"Of course I forgot it," you sighed.
Your mind was like a sieve sometimes. You left your purse in your desk outside of Mr. Rumlow's office.
"Ugh," you turned off the computer and headed back up to your regular floor.
The elevator doors opened revealing your floor, so you stepped off and made your way down the hall. The office was eerily dark, with a few blinking lights from the computer equipment as the blinds were all closed. It was unusual for all the blinds to be closed, but the cleaning crew was supposed to come through, so you figured they were the ones to close them. You walked towards your desk, bent down and opened the drawer, and got your purse when you heard a loud crash and some muffled shuffling.
"What the?"
You took a few steps towards your boss' office and opened the door since you saw there was a light coming from the room.
"Hello? Mr. Rumlow?"
You walked into the office, and your hands flew to your mouth in shock at what you saw, so you let out a scream.
---
"I'm only asking you one last time, where are the containers?"
Steve Rogers held Brock Rumlow by the collar. He was bent over his desk and struggling, flailing his arms.
"Fuck you and fuck the Barnes mafia," Rumlow spat in Steve's face.
Steve rolled his eyes and managed to wipe his face letting go of Brock's shirt, violently shoving him aside. Sam Wilson stepped in and landed a punch to Brock's jaw making his head jerk back with force.
Brock Rumlow's right hand man Jasper Sitwell lay on the floor next to his desk bleeding out. Steve made sure to get to him first since he's well known as a slippery rat.
James Barnes has had enough of Brock Rumlow creeping in on his territory. The odd arms deal or drug deal he could tolerate, but with the news of him trafficking women on his turf, James had enough and sent his men to dispose of Rumlow once and for all.
Rumlow's mob wasn't nearly as powerful as the Barnes mafia, but he had done some shady dealings and when word got out, he was trafficking women, some underage, that made James see red. He had to put a stop to it and fast plus by taking over Brock's fledgling mob, it will help James grow his connections to the piers. Something Rumlow controlled.
The cyber attack James ordered to take out Rumlow's company only stalled him, so James decided enough was enough, so his main men were paying one final visit to him once and for all.
Rumlow struggled to get his balance righted since Steve took out one of his kneecaps already.
"This is your last chance. Tell us where the containers are." Sam glared at Brock.
Brock was bent over and leaning against his desk, struggling to breathe. He looked around his office and snorted. He knew he was done for; he just wanted to prolong the inevitable. Steve rolled his eyes and took out his gun from his holster, cocking it as he raised it up to aim at him, waiting for a reply.
Just as Brock was going to speak, Sitwell stirred making both Steve and Sam look towards him.
"Warehouse, by the docks. Pier 57," then he slumped over, and his eyes rolled in the back of his head.
"Fuckin' rat," Brock muttered.
Their info matched what Sitwell said. Sam smiled at Steve who turned and in one quick motion, fired a bullet in-between Brock's eyes making him immediately slump down at his desk.
Then they heard a scream.
---
You saw the dark-skinned man's eyes shoot towards the one who fired the gun, and they both looked at each other.
"I thought you said the office was clear!" The shooter growled.
"I did. No one was here when we scanned it earlier." The shooter put his gun away then they both looked at you standing in the doorway to the office.
You were holding your mouth in shock, legs trembling at the bloody scene in front of you. The two large heavily tatted men seemed to stare at you while also panicking.
You saw Jasper Sitwell, Brock's lawyer lying in a pool of what was probably his own blood, then you looked towards your boss' desk and saw him slumped over it with a bullet hole in his forehead, eyes glazed over and blank. Your heart was racing.
"Oh my god! I have-I-I have to call someone," but you were frozen on the spot.
Your brain was racing a mile a minute with what to do.
"Woah woah, now," the dark-skinned man took a few steps towards you.
You managed to unfreeze yourself from the doorway.
"Back away..." Your voice trembled.
You looked around you and all there was to grab was your desk phone, so you yanked it from the outlet and held it up. Both men smirked at you.
"What are you gonna do with that sweetheart?" The shooter calmly asked.
"I-I..."
He was right. What the hell were you going to do with an office phone? Chuck it at him? He's got a gun and probably a bunch of other weapons you idiot.
"Put it down," he calmly held out his hands.
You were going to drop it and run, but you heard footsteps behind you. You were trapped. The dark-skinned man took out his phone and was calling someone. You shook where you stood, breathing heavily.
"Come on now, nice and easy. We aren't going to hurt ya," The shooter took a step towards you.
You heard the dark skin man talking to someone on the other end of the phone. "Yeah, we need a clean up crew. Rumlow's office." Then he hung up. "What are we going to do with her?" he asked the shooter.
The shooter looked around and he sighed.
"Let's bring her with us. The boss will want to see for himself. Probably has questions and she may be of use to him."
You shook while listening to them.
"Wh-where am I going?"
Both men looked at you and smiled.
"To see the boss."
You trembled. "Who's that?"
The shooter smirked. "You'll see. I'm Steve and that's Sam."
Sam gave you a slight nod as he stepped towards you.
"You gonna take that phone with you as a parting gift sweets?"
You looked down at the grey office phone you still held, then dropped it.
"I'm not going anywhere with you." You stood tall.
No way were these guys taking you anywhere.
"Oh, but you are. You're coming with us."
"You think it's a good idea?" Sam asked.
"Don't care. She wasn't on our list tonight and we can't let her leave with what she saw, she'll go to the cops. Buck will probably want to question her."
"Then what?"
Steve shrugged.
"Not our concern what he does with her after he gets his information."
Sam huffed at his cryptic reply, and the two men proceeded to leave Brock's office. Sam grabbed your arm tight and walked you to the elevator. You were ushered into a large blacked out SUV; Sam and Steve sat on either side of you while you weaved through the darkened city streets.
"So, what are you?"
Sam looked over at Steve, seeming unsure of what to tell you.
"All you need to know right now is, your boss wasn't a good man, and his company is being taken over." Sam shrugged his shoulder making you snort.
"Like you two are any better..." You grumbled. These two men were some shady people, especially the shooter.
"We did what we were ordered to do. We took out a problem, plain and simple," Steve added.
"So, someone told you to do...all that?"
You couldn't say the word murder; you were still processing everything you saw.
"Something like that," Steve smirked.
The SUV finally turned off the main road and was in front of a gate that surrounded what looked like a large compound with armed guards patrolling the perimeter. The security team waved you in as the heavy ornate iron gates closed behind you.
The drive was impressive with its tree-lined path, bright lighting, and large working fountain that sat in the middle of the driveway.
You came to a stop outside a large sprawling two-storey mansion, and you had to close your mouth in awe. You've seen places like this, but only on TV, or in those fancy overpriced home and architecture magazines at the grocery store.
"Woah," you breathed out.
"Come along then."
Sam got out of the car and ushered you inside, with Steve following.
"Word of advice don't piss off the big guy in charge," Sam whispered.
Just as you blurted out the word "Who?", you heard determined footsteps walk down a marble tiled hallway before you could ask anything else.
The foyer of the mansion was impressive as you looked around.
"Who the hell is this?" Came the deep voice that belonged to the man now standing in front of you.
Your mouth popped open in shock as the man pulled out a black handgun from his side holster and pointed it at you.
The metal of the gun matched his intricate dark hand and knuckle tattoos.
"What the hell?"
You shook in terror, rooted in place that there was a gun being pointed at you. You were beginning to feel like everyone had a gun they were all too happy to show off. Steve stepped in front of you and held his arms up in surrender.
"Easy Buck. She's Rumlow's assistant."
"I don't give a shit if she's his fuck toy, what the hell is she doing here inside my home?"
You were taken aback by his brash comment. No way in hell did you ever harbour any sort of romantic feelings for Brock. Sure, he was nice to look at, but you were his assistant, nothing more. Every interaction between you two had always been professional and respectful considering what you had recently learned of your former boss. Never once had your thoughts strayed to being romantic.
"Ugh, rude," you blurted out.
You saw Sam slap his forehead and wince at your comment.
"What was that?" The trigger-happy man cocked his gun at you.
"Easy Buck. She may have information and company access seeing as she worked directly with Rumlow everyday. She can help with the transition, computer logins, contracts, and files." Steve tried calming down the man and it may have worked.
The man stood glaring at you, but he eventually put his gun down and held it at his side.
The man known as 'Buck' stood tall in his perfectly tailored all black suit with the top button of his crisp white shirt unbuttoned. His dark hair was slicked back, and his blue eyes were laser focused on you.
He scanned you from head to toe then he turned to Sam, placing his gun back in his side holster.
"You had cleared the floor before you got there, right?"
You saw Sam take a gulp and nod.
This 'Buck' nodded and thought about it.
"No one was there when we entered." Sam whispered.
Steve shuffled a little but still stood almost blocking you, seeming to know what was about to come.
"So, explain her then," he pointed back at you and Sam looked at Steve for help.
Steve stood still like a statue and watched. Clearly, he wasn't getting involved.
"Well, we..." Just as Sam went to speak, 'Buck' leaned in and punched his jaw making Sam take a few steps back.
"What the hell Bucky?" Steve groaned.
Bucky turned back to Steve and glared at him.
"You assholes had one job tonight. Take out Sitwell and Rumlow."
"We did." Sam winced and rubbed his jaw. Bucky snorted.
"Then why did you pick up a fucking stray?" Bucky pointed at you.
Sam and Steve looked at each other.
"She witnessed everything. We didn't know what to do with her since she wasn't on our list," they admitted.
"How about kill her too?" Bucky spat at them.
They looked at you, then back at 'Buck'.
You still shook and trembled at what your fate was. Were you going to die in this mafia guy's foyer? Probably...but what a beautiful foyer it was. It was late and even though you were exhausted, you were on high alert.
These men killed two people you knew and worked with everyday. Two people who were into some shady shit where the fucking mafia was involved but still. Your whole world was a lie, and you were confused and scared.
Bucky rubbed his eyes with his fingers but stopped and looked at you. You shuffled nervously under his intense gaze.
His eyes looked you over from top to bottom like he was memorizing a fine piece of art. It should have felt uncomfortable, but for some reason, it turned you on and you wanted to punch yourself for having those thoughts on what you had just been through.
"Take her to the guest wing. Have Clint watch her tonight. I'll deal with this shit tomorrow." he grumbled then added, "I'm going to the club."
He looked between Sam and Steve then to you, then he left the foyer and got into a waiting SUV outside to take him to the 'club'.
"Well, that went well." Steve clapped his hands together making Sam snort.
You looked around, still in a daze. The hell was all that?
"Come along then."
Steve walked you up a large set of stairs towards one of the many rooms that lined the hallway.
"Wh-what's going to happen to me?" you asked.
Steve didn't reply. He showed you to a bedroom and gestured you inside. There was a large bed, chair, window with a built-in bench seat, closet, and what looked to be an ensuite.
"Clint will keep guard of your room. You're not to leave until you're told to. Bulletproof windows are locked, and security surrounds us 24/7 so you can't escape even if you tried as they're trained to shoot without asking questions. The only one to override the perimeter guards is Bucky, and he's not here. I'll see about getting some food sent up to you when you're settled." Steve gave you a small smile then he left. You heard the door close then the audible 'click' locking you inside.
"Great." You muttered.
You explored the room and tried looking for ways to escape, but there was no use. You looked out the window and saw the armed guards that patrolled the grounds, the bulletproof glass showed a wonky reflection around the edges, and a man named Clint was supposedly stationed outside your room like a hawk watching its prey. It was no use, you were trapped.
You looked down at your clothes and sighed. Your dusty black pants and rumpled blue blouse would have to do.
"Guess I'm living in this for the foreseeable future."
You sat at the end of the bed and waited. That Steve guy said he was going to drop off some food, but who knows how quick he'll be and what you'll even get. When he did, you were going to ask him for a change of clothes because why not?
You sat and thought about Brock, to see if you missed any warning signs of his alternative life and for the life of you, you couldn't come up with anything. Jasper Sitwell came in and had his weekly meetings but a lawyer meeting with a CEO wasn't unusual. Brock was always respectful towards you considering you just found out he was trafficking women in his spare time. Ew. Guess you didn't meet his 'requirements' you shuddered to yourself.
Looking back on it now, the extra security codes and passes you had to memorize kind of made sense.
You scheduled his meetings, transportation, dinners, events, and anything else he needed whenever he asked. You couldn't figure out how he had an entire (and highly illegal) secret life he kept hidden from you, but he did.
What else was he hiding?
You thought about the company and it's divisions and couldn't think of anything off the top of your head. You started worrying if you would be held accountable for their deaths or questioned by law enforcement. Would they believe you were innocent? You had scheduled his meetings all over the place and dealt with his personal finances, would they know you had no knowledge of this part of his life?
There was no way you were going to jail for being a part of something you had no idea existed, especially for a piece of garbage scum like Brock.
A knock sounded on the door snapping you out of your spiraling thoughts and Steve walked in carrying a tray.
"Here's some food."
He placed it on the end of the bed. You looked at the sandwich, bag of chips, apple, and bottled water. He walked towards the door, but you stopped him.
"Wait, are there any clothes I can have? I only have what I'm wearing..." you asked.
Steve sighed and rubbed his eyes with his fingers.
"I'll see what I can come up with." He gave you a lame smile and left.
An hour later, Steve came by with a bag of clothes for you. There were sweatpants, a few shirts, a random pair of flip flops, and shorts all too big for you, but you didn't care. You had no idea where he got any of it from, but you were grateful for a change.
"Thanks." He took the empty tray from you and left, leaving you alone for the rest of the night, or should you say morning since it was already well past midnight.
🔫👨🏻
You didn't sleep much so the following morning you were awake and ready for whatever greeted you. After a quick shower, you chose a pair of black sweatpants and an oversize grey t-shirt from the bag Steve gave you.
Your old clothes from the day before were folded and placed on a chair. You made the bed and tidied up the room for something to do when you heard the lock on your door click, then it opened, and a man you probably thought was Clint, stood there watching you.
He motioned with his head to follow him, so you did and followed him down the long hallway, nerves on high alert. He brought you to a large, darkened office.
"Sit." Clint gestured to a leather tufted chair that sat in front of an ornate desk.
You passed a large cream coloured sectional sofa that faced a cozy looking fireplace with bookcases surrounding it. You looked around and noticed there was someone who was sitting in front of you in the shadows of the room.
It was Bucky. He was glaring at Clint, and you. He wore his usual all black suit and scowl. He seemed completely put together, not a hair out of place or shirt creased or rumpled and was fresh like he got a solid 10 hours of sleep. Damn him.
You cringed thinking you must look like a gremlin compared to him.
Someone brought a tray of food and plunked it on the desk.
"Eat." Clint pointed to the tray and walked to the door to leave.
You watched him leave when Sam and Steve walked in after him. They both were holding what looked to be breakfast wraps.
"What are my clothes doing on her?" Bucky asked out loud.
You looked down and your face turned red. You were wearing Bucky's clothes! Your head snapped up to Steve since he was the one who brought you the bag of clothes and he shrugged like it was no big deal you were wearing the mafia leaders' clothes.
You wanted to melt away since flinging yourself out of the bullet proof windows wasn't an option.
Sam looked at Steve with amusement in his eyes.
"Needed something else to change into." Steve replied with a mouthful of wrap.
"This isn't a fucking shopping mall. She should be dead yet you two are playing fucking dress up with her." Bucky glared at you making your insides shrivel.
Steve flopped down on the chair that was next to you while Sam stretched out on the sofa.
"Well, she's not, she's here and you should use her however you need to." Steve shrugged.
Your face paled and you looked over at Bucky in pure fear who sighed and rubbed his fingers on his brow.
"Not like that...we don't do that here." He whispered.
Oh. Thank God. A mafia leader with a conscious. Lovely.
You pushed your sarcastic thoughts aside and nibbled at your food.
Bucky typed on a laptop then he turned the screen towards you that had your company login page set up.
"Login," was all he said.
"How did...?" You blurted out but he only smirked back.
"Ok..." You took the laptop and remotely logged into the company with your information.
"Wh-what are you looking for?"
Bucky rolled his eyes and took the laptop from you and started scrolling on it. Your login was linked to Mr. Rumlow's since you needed unlimited access to his information. Meetings, contacts, real estate, clients, it was all there as Bucky perused it.
"Financials?"
You hesitated to respond to Bucky.
"There's another login for that. I don't think you can find..."
Bucky typed again, and the banking system magically appeared.
Again, you had access to it since you used the company cards a lot for Brock when he went out and needed to reconcile them.
"I don't know what else I can give you" you said after logging into the site.
You watched as Bucky took the laptop and started looking at it.
"Wait, the cyber attack. That was you?"
No one said anything but the looks that passed between the men said everything you needed to know.
Bucky scrolled his way around, but he stopped, frowning at the screen.
"Who is this?"
Bucky turned the monitor and pointed to a meeting scheduled for that night in the calendar. All it said was 'Pierce' and a time of 7pm.
"Oh, just one of Mr. Rumlow's newest advisors. I've never met him though."
You saw the look that passed between the men. According to some employee's gossip, Pierce had moved away to try to start a sister company somewhere in Europe, but was unsuccessful, so he returned. That was the story you were given but who knows what's real after what has transpired in the past 12 hours. Brock was also interested in partnering with him outside of his work, but you weren't sure what he did or how that partnership would look but you now had a better idea of what that would be.
"Why?"
Bucky was still scrolling, and Steve cleared his throat.
"He's part of the trafficking too but we don't know how."
Bucky stopped and glared at Steve. "What? She knows..."
"Too much." Bucky interrupted and looked at you, then went back to his computer.
"Are you going to that meeting with Pierce?" Sam asked from the couch.
"More than likely." Bucky replied.
You looked between the men.
"She coming too?" Sam asked.
Bucky didn't say anything, but he looked at Steve who you saw give him a slight nod.
"We'll see. Take her back, I don't need her anymore."
Bucky kept his eyes focused on the screen. You scowled at him and wanted to say something sassy, but you held your tongue.
"Let's go." Sam got up from the couch and nodded towards the door with you following.
You didn't notice Bucky's eyes move from the laptop to follow you when you left the room.
🔫👨🏻
"She's proving to be a valuable asset." Steve took out his knife and studied the blade in the dim light.
Bucky grumbled something but kept scrolling.
"With her access, we can take the rest of this shit down and take over the piers like we had planned."
"She doesn't know anything about this life..." Bucky growled.
"True, but she knows Rumlow's contacts, meetings, what his coming and goings were and company information. We may be closer to figuring out who his buyers are by using her. She doesn't have to know ALL the details, only what she knows now, and we can piece it altogether ourselves. I can tell you already found something with her logins."
Steve played with his knife while Bucky shrugged and looked at his screen.
Of course he found information. Contacts and addresses of the scum involved. He had Parker remote into his laptop and was working on it as they sat there.
He paid Peter Parker a fuck ton of money to have the very best surveillance, and access to cameras, microphones, and any tech gear he needed. If something wasn't out they needed, Parker could make it himself. Bucky will more than likely have his men branch off and eliminate the buyers within 24-hours with confirmation from his tech team.
Sam walked back into the office and sat in the seat you were just in.
"Buck here still wants to off his pretty house guest after he gets the info he needs from her."
Bucky glared at his second in command.
"Cool, cool, so when do you want to do that?" Sam asked.
"We can take her out back at the gun range and shoot her execution style. Drown her in the pool? Slip some poison in her food? I'm sure Loki can come up with something more creative if you want..." Sam shrugged.
"For fuck sakes Sam!" Bucky yelled.
"Having second thoughts?"
"Shut up!"
Bucky scrolled through his computer.
"Can we focus here? I'm having Parker trace some of these accounts and holding companies. In the meantime, I need to get her to come with me to the meeting with this Pierce person. No one knows Sitwell and Rumlow are dead or that I'm taking over."
"Pierce know who you are?"
"Who cares but he will soon."
"You gotta get her some clothes Buck. She can't go to that dinner wearing your clothes."
Bucky glared at Steve. He knows that. He didn't want to admit seeing you in his clothes stirred some things in him.
"Get her whatever." Bucky waved to Steve.
Steve looked at Sam who smirked.
"Now, get the fuck out of here I'm done lookin' at you." Bucky sighed and typed away on his laptop.
🔫👨🏻
"What is all this?" You asked as Sam and Steve dropped off garment bags and boxes of clothes and shoes along with a full bag from Sephora.
"Bossman says you're staying here until we no longer need you. Thought it be best to give you some clothes of your own." They both looked at you.
No longer needed me. You gulped.
"Did you go shopping for me?"
You could have sworn both men blushed but all they did was shrug and leave, locking you in with your guard hawk on the other side.
"Fuckers." You mumbled and went to look at the clothes.
"Woah." You unzipped the garment bags and dug through them. Designer dresses, shirts, pants, shoes, and fancy accessories were strewn across your bed while you went through the pieces and held them up to examine.
"How did they know my size?" You shuddered to think how.
You carefully hung the clothes and put them away in the closet. The way you looked at it, if you were given clothes and the longer you helped them, they couldn't kill you. You had no idea how you could help them, but you were going to try since that meant staying alive. No way you going to die because of your deceased sketchy as hell boss.
You shuddered thinking you were part of all this in someway but then you started to panic to your thoughts from the previous night. What if the authorities arrest you for aiding Brock? Your mind started whirling on the possibilities when a knock sounded at the door.
It opened and you peeked your head out of the closet to see who it was.
"Be ready for 6pm. Dinner with Pierce. You're my new executive assistant. Congratulations on the promotion." Bucky stood in the doorframe of the bedroom.
Was that a joke?
You were confused and shocked he was there and didn't send one of his goons to tell you this information and wondered why. He glanced at the pile of clothes on the bed and rolled his eyes.
"Clean up that mess while you're at it. This isn't a pig sty." Then he turned to leave, with Clint locking the door after it shut.
🔫👨🏻
Bucky wandered the estate and came to the kitchen where he found Steve and Sam.
"What the hell did you both do?"
"What?" Sam looked over at him.
"I said a few clothes, not the entire god damn store."
Steve chuckled at his boss.
"Who knows how long you plan on keeping her Buck. She's a chick and chicks need things." Steve shrugged.
"How did you get her sizes?"
"Had Loki break into her apartment and go through her things after Parker ran the background check on her. He said she's kind of a hermit; only ever had one overdue library book with a late fee she paid immediately. Minimal friends, no family, solid executive assistant too. Loki noticed some things and told us. He probably took some of her stuff for himself, you know how tricky Loki is." Steve shrugged and handed Bucky the file on you.
Bucky snatched it, glaring at Sam and Steve before leaving to head to his office to learn all about his new assistant.
🔫👨🏻
"ClEaN uP tHaT MeSs." You mocked while hanging the rest of your new things. "Pompous asshole. Joke's on him, I wasn't even done." You muttered.
The bed was now clear, and your new clothes were put away, not because he told you to, but because you wanted to. You still had Bucky's clothes, and you made sure to keep those separate, preferring to sleep and lounge in them since there wasn't anything comfortable in your new wardrobe.
Do men still think women prance around in lingerie when they're at home alone?
Ugh, men.
Bucky wouldn't mind though...not that he would find out what you sleep in...
He would probably want that in a partner; someone to wear slinky lingerie for him and sit on his lap whenever he demanded it. Did he have a partner? Wife? A situationship? He seems single as do the other guys then you scolded yourself for thinking about their personal lives. You didn't want to befriend them if you were only a temporary situation.
You were grateful you had new clothes but were a little weirded out they had your exact measurements. While you were thinking about it, you were a lot weirded out since you were wondering who went shopping for your bras and underwear?
Weird.
The few times you've been out of your room, all you've seen are dudes, not a woman in sight.
You had no idea how you could help seeing as how Pierce was new to Brock, but you will try your best if it means surviving.
🔫👨🏻
"We haven't got all night. Where is she?" Bucky grumbled.
He stood waiting in the foyer with Sam and Steve on either side of him. Just as Sam was going to come and get you, you appeared on the staircase in front of Clint and walked down to meet them. Steve nudged Sam and they both looked up at you.
Bucky looked to see what his men were watching at and he turned, looking at the stairs seeing you descend them. Bucky forced himself to look away and not watch your legs in those heels descend the staircase.
He glanced at Sam and Steve who were gawking and he cleared his throat, glaring at his men who quicky averted their eyes from their unexpected house guest.
🔫👨🏻
Don't trip, don't trip, don't trip you thought while you descended the stairs. You wore heels and a black cocktail dress for this dinner meeting. Knowing where it was, you had to class yourself up for it, grateful you had a bag of goodies from Sephora. Your stomach was in knots with this dinner. You had no idea why you were going but you figured it was because of what you knew about Brock, but you were glad to get out of the mansion.
"About time." Bucky mumbled.
You glared at him and shrugged. Bucky's jaw ticked before he turned and took off out the door to the waiting SUV.
🔫👨🏻
You sat in the blacked-out SUV and fiddled with your fingers while you were driven to the restaurant.
"Stop fidgeting." Came the deep voice of Bucky. He was on his phone and didn't look up from it.
"I'm not." You boldly snarked back. You made a show of spreading your hands out on your thighs so he could see them.
Damn, it was hard not to fiddle with your fingers, another habit you did when you were nervous.
He needed you for this meeting more than you needed him so you felt you could give him sass right back.
He looked over from his phone and grunted, then returned to it.
Lovely.
The SUV made its way into the city.
"So, what are you having to eat?" You broke the awkward silence.
Bucky didn't answer your question. You tended to ramble if you were nervous.
"I'm torn between the steak or chicken myself, but I saw they had a cod dish people online have raved about."
James sighed and whispered 'Jesus Christ' to himself before he shoved his phone in his suit jacket pocket, rubbing his eyes with his fingers.
"What? You don't peruse restaurant menus online before visiting?" You gave him a side eye.
"I don't have to." Came his reply. "Wait, where did you look at the menu? You don't have a phone."
"I KNOW. Steve lent me his phone so I could plan my meal. i like to be prepared."
"Of course he did." James sighed, leaning back against the head rest.
"Well then Mr. Scary Fancypants. You're going to look like a dork when you can't figure out what you're going to have and we're all waiting for you to decide."
"I think I can manage just fine." James snapped at you.
You went to reply, but he held his hand up and said, "We're almost there so I need quiet to concentrate if you please."
"Fine then." You huffed.
You fiddled with your dress, not noticing the way James' eyes scanned your exposed legs and thighs.
James' jaw ticked at seeing the fabric rise, exposing your upper bare thighs when you moved. A part of his brain urged him to place his hand on your thigh and feel how warm and soft it was, but he held himself back.
You were his hostage and when he was done with the information you could give him, well, he would have you eliminated. There was no room in his life for a fling with the informant, regardless of how pretty he thinks you are or how convenient it would be with your room down the hall from his own.
He made a mental note to visit his club after this dinner.
He was about to tell you to stop fidgeting when the SUV came to a stop outside the restaurant.
🔫👨🏻
Bucky placed his large hand on your lower back, guiding you to the table and a part of you wanted to curl into his warmth and the other part of you wanted to turn around and slap him.
You made it to a table where an older man sat sipping an amber liquid in a short crystal glass. He looked up and his eyebrows rose, but he quickly composed himself.
"Yes?"
Bucky stood towering over the man.
"Pierce."
"Am I supposed to know you? Where's Brock?" He looked around for your deceased boss.
Bucky pulled out your chair and helped you sit.
"I'm James Barnes. Brock is no longer CEO. I've taken over." Bucky said.
Pierce's eyes widened and he went to stand, but Bucky flashed his loaded holster in his jacket before he sat, making Pierce swallow and still.
"Please, stay. I've heard the cod is good here." Bucky picked up the menu and looked it over.
You had to hide a snort and did the same thing to keep yourself busy.
A waiter came by and Bucky ordered wine for you and water for himself.
"And, who's this? Your woman?" Pierce pointed to you.
You made a snort sound and saw Bucky's eyes flash at you before he calmly answered.
"She's here to take notes. You may remember seeing her copied in on emails from Brock since she was his assistant. She's mine now."
Something about that statement made you fumble when you went to reach your wine glass and were thankful either men didn't notice.
Bucky placed the menu down and leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table. You were handed a small tablet in the SUV, so you took it out and placed it on the table, looking like you were ready to record the meeting.
"Now, what business do you have with Hydra Enterprises?" Bucky asked.
Pierce shifted in his chair slightly.
"I don't have to tell you anything. I answer to Brock..."
"He's no longer here. I am. As the new CEO, it's my right to meet with all our associates and contractors. I'm sure Brock would agree."
Pierce looked Bucky up and down but didn't say anything. He must have clued in to what Bucky had said.
The waiter came back to take your orders, so you ordered the chicken while Bucky ordered the cod and Pierce didn't order anything.
You could tell he wanted to leave as soon as possible.
"From my understanding, you were recently in Europe? Hydra doesn't have any offices there nor are they going to in the future. What were you really doing over there?"
Pierce cleared his throat and shrugged at the question.
The two men seeming to be in a standoff. You sat around and stared at each other.
This was a pointless waste of time.
"Um, from what I heard, Mr. Pierce, you were assisting Mr. Rumlow with expanding Hydra Enterprises by forming new divisions. Mr. Rumlow had told me a few weeks ago that your efforts were focused elsewhere and you should focus them here, at the Pier for the new shipping division of Hydra Enterprises."
God, you felt like an idiot knowing NOW what that new 'shipping division' really is but you managed to stay composed.
Bucky raised an eyebrow at you while Pierce scowled at you from across the table.
"You know nothing, silly girl."
"Watch it Pierce." Bucky growled.
"From my understanding from being copied in on your last email correspondence, you had wanted to demolish the warehouses only to build new ones in their place. Mr. Rumlow reminded you those warehouses were perfectly fine in his last email. Why would you do that knowing it would cost the company millions and add construction time creating more delays?" You asked.
The waiter came back and placed your plates down. Bucky slowly turned his head and watched you.
"And for that matter, why would you insist on the sale be sped up at the site of the new pier, costing more in lawyer fees, building permits, and land transactions when Mr. Rumlow didn't approve of them in the first place? He had given you the money and approved the new build for a separate warehouse, but from what I saw in the last financial statement, no ground has been broken or permits filed, so where are those funds Brock gave you to manage?"
Pierce was uncomfortable when he said, "This dinner is over. Congratulations on your promotion Barnes. I'm sure we'll see each other again."
Pierce rose and buttoned his suit jacket. He turned and looked at you and said, "Give my regards to Brock." He smirked, then turned and left.
Your heart was hammering wildly in your chest.
The hell?
Bucky picked up his cutlery and started eating.
"The cod is good." He said, reaching for his water.
This was the weirdest dinner you have ever been at.
"So, that's it?"
Bucky took a bite of the white fish and placed his cutlery down, wiping his mouth with the cloth napkin.
He looked over at you and said, "Yes."
Then he proceeded to finish his dinner like nothing happened.
Ok...
🔫👨🏻
"So, did you find anything new out?" Steve asked Bucky in his office.
After you finished eating, you headed back to the mansion. You were escorted to your room and locked in with Clint guarding your door.
Bucky, Sam, and Steve sat in the office.
"Not really. Pierce seems like he was in on Brock's warehouse storage for the trafficking, but he's not connected directly to it, just for the land sale and new build at the pier. We've found out, he's just an associate. I've got guys trailing him and will inform me if he does anything. He'll be instantly eliminated if he steps out of line. I don't need to be associated to him."
"How was Y/n?" Sam asked.
Bucky's eyes darted to Sam.
"She's fine."
He didn't want to elaborate any further. He was surprised at your knowledge and the directness of your questions to a man like Pierce. He was pleased you didn't cower and clam up.
Perhaps you would be useful to him throughout this process.
Steve watched his boss, then he looked over at Sam who was smirking from his chair, but they didn't dare say anything.
"Cool. Good to know." Sam nodded, pleased with himself for following his gut feeling about you.
"Well, I'm headed out." Sam rose and Steve followed.
"I've got eyes on the pier. You may want to check-in with Parker tomorrow and get the blueprints and security logs. According to the documents, a shipment is scheduled in a few days. I'll need you both down there observing."
"You don't want us to go in and dismantle the operation? I can have a team ready in half an hour."
"Not yet. I need to learn a little about the people involved first. From the financials Parker found with Y/n's login, there are a lot of investigations to do but Parker and his team is on it. When word gets out soon that Brock and Sitwell have been eliminated, then it's go-time for us."
"Fair enough." Steve shrugged before they left the office.
Bucky rocked back in his chair and sighed, running a hand over his neck.
He was in for a long night forgoing his earlier plan to visit his club. He wanted to work on formulating a plan and learn everything he can about his new personal assistant.
Something tells him, you're going to be his biggest asset, but he's not yet sure how.
summary: it's been a long time since you've enjoyed having someone in your bed, and you were okay with that. that's what your toys were for. however, they lose their luster once a certain super soldier joins the team.
w.c: 7.9k+
warnings: 18+ MDNI, smut, piv (protected), oral (fem! receiving), pussy pronouns, possessiveness, yearning, intense feelings of pleasure, big dick Bucky, Bucky Barnes in general
a/n: it's finally here! my labor of love and self-indulgence is finally here! this story is from my JuneJukeboxScribbles: tired of toys and devil red. you don't have to read them to get the story. this is a fic that combines both premises. not proofread bc i got tired and wanted to be done with it lmao. i hope you enjoy and if you don't: LIE!
thanks to @chateaubarnes for the dividers!
masterlist
Five years was a long time.
It was a little more than the average time to get an undergraduate degree.
It was longer than most graduate programs.
It was longer than most people spent in their first job.
It was long enough for a newborn to grow up and go to school.
And it was how long you had gone without having sex, or any intimate touch, from another living soul for that matter. You had forgotten what it felt like to be tenderly touched by another, or even how it felt to be ravaged by someone. Hell, the only touch you were used to was being tackled by enemies or the rough hands of the tower’s medic crew stitching you together from whatever injury you sustained during whatever mission.
Five years was a long time to rely on yourself for pleasure. At the beginning, it had been terrific; you were able to get yourself off when partners in the past had struggled to do so. You finally understood the hubbub around sex once you were able to experience a genuine climax. But the few silicon vibrators and dildos that you had could only do so much after a few years.
You weren’t really in the market to date, as being an Avenger took up most, if not all your time. If you weren’t on a mission, you were training, reviewing debriefings, learning to use Stark’s new technology, or trying to catch up on sleep. And on the rare occasion that you couldn’t catch a wink of sleep, you always resorted to the little box you kept tucked under your bed which held your favorite toys. After an hour or two with them, you were always able to get a few quality hours of sleep.
But recently, your vibrators and dildos weren’t doing what they used to do. You couldn’t find the right position. You couldn’t reach the same spots that you used to. It took longer for you to get off.
One night, less than a week ago, you had become so frustrated from not being able to climax that you had threw the vibrator across your room, trashed the box that held the rest of your intimate toys, and threw it into the back of your closet, never to see the light of day again.
Ever since then, you have been a little more on edge than usual.
“Hello,” Natasha drawled out, calling your name. “Are you paying attention?”
You shook your head, clearing your murky thoughts as you focused on the present. The two of you were in the tower’s gym, doing some cool down stretches after sparring and conditioning. Your friend was looking at you with slight concern, but you tried your best to brush it off.
“Sorry,” you apologized. “The training really took a toll on me.”
“Mhm, sure it did,” she agreed sarcastically. She took inventory of your posture and distracted look as she stretched her arms behind her head. “This doesn’t have anything to do with the lack of vibrations coming from your room the past few nights, does it?”
Immediately, you felt your face become engulfed in flames and your eyes bulge out of your head. Sometimes it was a gift to live so close to your best friend, but in this moment, it was curse. Damn the former widow and her sharp senses.
“Shh,” you practically hissed. “Someone could hear you! We live with super soldiers and a literal God.”
“Oh, relax,” Natasha waved off. “They’re grown men, they should be able to handle women talking about their sex lives… or lack thereof.”
You shook your head in disbelief. “Key word being ‘should’, Natasha. Steve and Bucky would go into a coma if they knew what women got up to in this day and age. And let’s not even talk about Thor. He would probably be so confused and ask us to clarify in horrifying detail what we were talking about.” You paused, considering her last jab. “Besides, what time do I have to fool around? Tony’s got us booked into next year unless we are on a mission.”
“Hmm, that just sounds like excuses – valid excuses, but excuses nonetheless,” the redhead replied, throwing you a teasing smirk as she jumped up from the mat and grabbed a towel nearby to dry her sweat.
Following in her footsteps, you got up and turned to grab a drink from your water bottle when the gym doors opened, revealing the two super soldiers you were just talking about. Steve was in his typical workout gear and he was avidly going on about something to his friend, but Bucky just gave minimal replies to his childhood friend.
Your attention remained on Bucky as he walked further into the gym with the blonde. The compression tank top that Bucky was wearing was sinful; clinging to his pecs and abdominal muscles like the fabric was about to rip at the seams. The tank top left his mouth-watering biceps on display and you could feel the saliva start to pool in your mouth. His gray sweatpants left nothing for your imagination as you could see his thick thighs straining under the fabric. If you looked close enough – and you certainly weren’t looking close enough – you could faintly see the outline of his dick through the pants. Your thighs clenched together faintly as you ripped your sight away from the Adonis in front of you.
“Afternoon, ladies,” Steve greeted you and Natasha as they came over to the benches to wrap their hands for their sparring session. “Good session today?”
“It’s always a good session when I get to wrap my thighs around someone’s head,” Natasha almost cooed, giving the blonde soldier something dangerously close to bedroom eyes.
It was no secret that Natasha and Steve were fooling around. Natasha was proud anytime she could make the All-American Boy blush, and Steve was still not used to having such blatant desire thrown his way.
Steve choked on his own spit and you could see his mind trying to conjure the image of her thighs wrapped around someone’s face; you just couldn’t tell if he was picturing you or him since he wouldn’t make eye contact with anyone.
With that response tucked into her back pocket, Natasha sauntered towards the communal showers after sending a wink over her shoulder to the Captain. He remained frozen in place even when Bucky waved his hand in front of his friend’s face.
You suppressed a laugh, amazed at how hypnotized the former Widow could leave the Golden Boy.
Bucky moved his attention to you, letting his friend sit in the moment and daydream to his heart’s content. You looked at the super soldier, anticipating him saying something, but he stayed rooted in his spot and just looked at you with eyes that contained a mix of many emotions that he was clearly trying to mask.
After several moments, you just gave him a shy smile and turned to follow Natasha to the showers. “Have a good session, boys,” you called out with a friendly wave.
Later that evening, you and Natasha were sitting in the common space on the floor that you shared with the two super soldiers. The men were still down in the gym, working out their heightened energy levels while you and Natasha were having quality girl time with each other.
There were cocktails, chips, and makeup strewn about the table in front of you. Natasha had it in her head that she was going to play around with her makeup skills to make sure she still had the skill under her belt. You had laughed at her and told her that she could never lose that skill since she looked amazing every day.
Currently, you were sipping your cocktail through a small straw while Natasha was putting some blush on your cheeks.
“You know,” Natasha started, “I think it’s time for you to get back out there. It’s been, what? Five years since your last relationship? Don’t you think it’s time to get a real dick in you instead of the silicone ones you use?”
You choked mid sip on your cocktail. Natasha and you shared a wall with your living quarters and you had been a fool to think Tony would soundproof the walls.
"I heard you throw something around a few nights ago after an hour of buzzing,” she continued, rooting around for a bigger reaction from you. She was lucky you were such close friends or you would have iced her out of your life for a comment like that.
“I mean, it was fun the first few years,” you started to explain. “My past partners never really knew how to get me there. They would always finish, roll over, and text their friends without doing much for me. So, the toys were a way that I could pleasure myself without fail.”
Natasha nodded along as she moved to pick up some eyeshadow, eyeliner, and mascara. You closed your eyes, already knowing she would need complete access to your eyelids.
You continued, “I learned new things about myself, but recently, it’s been getting predictable and I think I’m just used to the sensations. It’s losing its appeal to me.”
“Well, maybe you just need someone else to be the navigator while you enjoy the ride,” she said. “You’re predictable to yourself so getting another person involved in the mix might bring the zest back.”
“Maybe,” you agreed, taking another sip of your drink as you felt the assassin drag a brush over your lids. “But there’s no way in hell I’m going out to those gross clubs or jumping on the heinous dating apps just to get laid. It’s never been my scene and after working in this field, I don’t think crowds will ever appeal to me again.”
You heard her hum in agreement before she gave your shoulder a small tap, letting you know she was done with her eyes. You relaxed back against the couch and took another sip of your cocktail as Natasha looked at the supplies before her to decide what she wanted to work on next.
“That’s fair,” she agreed. “But there are other ways to meet people. There are libraries, cafes, parks, even grocery stores.”
“Who meets people in the grocery store Natasha?” you asked in genuine disbelief. “Only serial killers pick up people from the grocery store.”
“Okay, maybe that was a bad example, but you know what I mean,” she chided, grabbing the tube of red lipstick. You played the dutiful client and leaned forward so she could swipe the crimson pigment across your lips. “I just want my friend to have a good time and not die from the shock of a frayed wire in an old vibrator.”
Once she was finished, you leaned back and turned to look at the mirror she had set up on the coffee table. Your breath caught in your throat momentarily as you looked at the woman staring back at you. You were mesmerized by her visage.
It had been ages since you wore makeup. It wasn’t necessary in the field you worked in. During your time not fighting crime, you were conditioning yourself in the gym, cooking in the kitchen, or lounging around.
The woman staring back at you still looked like you, but your features were more exaggerated and alluring in this sultry look.
As you stared at yourself in the mirror, you were so caught up in your thoughts that you didn’t hear the elevator doors open, dumping the two super soldiers out into the common room of your shared floor. You heard someone talking, but you couldn’t register much at the moment, still swept up in your features.
“What do we think?” Nat’s voice eventually broke you out of your thoughts and you turned to look at who she was talking to.
There, standing with his hands on his traitorously slim hips, was none other than Bucky Barnes. His skin was glimmering with the sweat that clung to him and you found yourself momentarily jealous of the beads of sweat that rolled from his temple all the way down to his clavicle. The muscles in his arms, chest, abdomen, and thighs looked particularly mouthwatering after his gym session and you had to remind yourself that you were in front of other people so you didn’t start drooling.
You tore your eyes away from him, looking down at your hands for a second to gather your wits. While you were collecting yourself, you heard shuffling and the sound of someone getting elbowed, making you look up at the men to see Bucky glaring at Steve and the blonde grinning at you and Natasha with an innocent expression.
Natasha arched an eyebrow, waiting for one of them to say something. You already knew she had some plan unraveling in her mind, you just didn’t know where you fit into it and what these two men had to do with anything.
After another long stretch of silence, Bucky cleared his throat, drawing everyone’s attention to him. “Uh…” His hand reached up to scratch the back of his neck as he looked straight at you and took in your appearance. “You look – you look really – um, you look -”
You basked in the attention he was giving you and hearing him stumble through his words to describe you sent small sparks shooting down your spine. There have always been moments between you and Bucky that you felt were charged. You never knew if he felt them too, if you were reading into your interactions too much, or if you were projecting your crush too loudly.
With another elbow to the side from his childhood best friend, Bucky cleared his throat again before looking at Natasha and nodding his head. “Uhm, it looks fine,” he said with a painfully awkward smile on his face and Steve eagerly nodded along like a dog who was loyal to its owner.
The sparks you felt earlier fizzled out upon hearing the word “fine” leave his lips. “Fine” wasn’t beautiful. “Fine” wasn’t gorgeous. “Fine” wasn’t ugly. “Fine” was… lackluster and a bit underwhelming.
“Fine” was what Bucky Barnes thought of you, apparently. It wasn’t what you wanted him to think of you. You wanted him to be enamored with you, enraptured or enthralled. His stuttering earlier had given you so much hope that he felt an inkling of the same way that you felt for him. But one word dashed all your hopes and dreams in less than a second.
“That’s all you have to say?” Natasha asked, thoroughly unimpressed by the former assassin in front of her.
“Fine is good, isn’t it?” Steve asked, clearly trying to help dig his friend out of the hole he had put himself in.
Your shoulders deflated the slightest bit and you quickly pulled on your proverbial mask, not needing anyone in the room to see what “fine” really made you feel. You grabbed your cocktail, downed the rest of the drink, and stood up quickly.
“I’m going to get another drink,” you said, making your escape without looking at anyone in the room.
Once you reached the kitchen, you ditched your glass in the sink and walked over to the balcony that was attached to the dining area. The cool air hit your face as soon as you stepped outside and it helped the stinging feeling of “fine” leave your system.
You leaned against the rail of the balcony and looked down at the city below. The bright lights of the buildings and cars beneath were hypnotizing. The sound of people going about their lives was a nice soundtrack to have as you attempted to sort through your thoughts.
God, what was wrong with you? How did one person have such a hold over you? It was silly. You were letting one word from a man that you happened to be yearning for dictate your mood – something you had promised you wouldn’t fall into again after your last relationship. You were more than how a man made you feel, even if said man was a Grecian God embodied in muscle and skin right before your eyes.
“Ugh,” you groaned to yourself, shaking your head. “Stupid men. Stupid words. Stupid feelings!”
Before you could continue on your barrage of insults towards the other sex, Natasha popped her head out from the door. She gave you a soft, knowing look that made tears of frustration well in your eyes.
“Hey,” she greeted calmly. “I’m headed to bed. Do you need anything?”
You gave her a tight smile and shook your head. “I’ll be okay. Thank you for the makeover, by the way. I haven’t seen myself like this in a long time.”
“You’re welcome, but just so you know, you’re gorgeous. Not just ‘fine’,” she said, winking at you as she went back inside and sauntered to her room.
After almost an hour of sitting outside, you pushed away from the balcony’s railing and walked back inside, coming to a halt when you saw a tall form with a metal arm standing at the fridge, looking through its contents for something to eat or drink.
At the sound of your footsteps stopping, the soldier turned around and met your gaze. You bit the inside of your cheek, not knowing what to say or do. The two of you just stood there, staring at each other, holding your breaths.
Bucky was the one who ended up breaking the silence. “Hey,” he breathed out.
You gave him a tight-lipped smile and nodded your head towards him. The silence consumed the space between you once more. Deciding that you wanted this moment to end, you gave him another nod before walking towards the doorway of the kitchen to go to your bedroom.
“Wait,” Bucky’s voice stopped you in your tracks. You turned to face him and saw him walk around the island so he could stand in front of you. “I’m… I’m sorry for that whole… thing back in the common room.”
Your eyes widened a bit in surprise.
He scratched the back of his neck again; a gesture you were coming to know was his tell when he was feeling put on the spot. “I haven’t exactly had practice talking to women the past few decades.” An awkward, self-conscious chuckle came out of his mouth. “Much less someone like you.”
“Like me?” you repeated, not understanding what that was supposed to mean exactly.
The hand that was on his neck dropped and clenched into a fist briefly before he let it go and shook his fist out. His eyes dropped from yours and flickered around the room before finding yours again.
“Yeah, someone like you,” he repeated. “Someone who is much more than ‘fine’.”
“Bucky, what –” He cut you off, answering the question you couldn’t fully ask.
“Someone who is probably the prettiest dame I’ve ever seen in my life,” he said quietly in a low tone. If you were three more feet away from him, you don’t think you would have heard him; but you did and now you had a blushing super soldier standing in front of you, looking at his feet because he didn’t want to meet your eyes after his confession.
Your whole body was stunned. Your feet couldn’t move. Your eyes were frozen wide open. Your mind was stuck on “prettiest dame I’ve ever seen”. Everything you had spiraled about on the balcony was all for naught after hearing Bucky’s words.
The more you thought about it, the more you realized that his actions around you have never been out of avoidance or convenience like you feared. Almost all the interactions you have had with Bucky have been awkward. Sure, you had a hand in making the encounters awkward with your incessant crush and never knowing what to say around someone you found physically attractive, but Bucky was also awkward during your encounters.
He was awkward in the way he would always send you a shy smile in the gym before immediately turning around to do something else.
He was awkward in the way he would scoot over on the couch during movie nights to make ample room for you before offering you three different blankets.
He was awkward in the way he fumbled over his words to you every time, except during missions.
It was all because Bucky was feeling awkward since he found you attractive, too.
The realization brought you out of your stupor and you shuffled forward half a step before reaching out to lift his chin with your pointer and middle fingers. While you moved his head up to hopefully make eye contact, you found that he was still avoiding your eyes. A slight chuckle came from your chest, effectively pulling his gaze back to you.
His blue eyes twinkled under the fluorescent kitchen lighting, making him look slightly more youthful and innocent. The blush on his cheeks earlier had yet to fade, still leaving his cheeks a dusty rose. His teeth held his bottom lip captive as he scanned your face, looking for something that might tell him he messed up. But he wouldn’t find anything like that.
You trailed the two fingers holding his chin up down the side of his throat, lightly petting the smooth skin beneath your digits. Something like a purr resonated from his vocal cords and chest, making the smile on your face pull tighter and wider.
“Prettiest dame you’ve ever seen, huh?” you gently asked him, watching as the blush across his cheeks intensify.
“Uh…” he cleared his throat. “Uh, yeah, I’d say so.”
You bit your lip to keep your smile from splitting your face in half. It was ridiculous how fast your heart was racing just because he was fumbling around in your presence. You could hear your blood racing in your ears and something behind your ribcage was threatening to break out at any moment.
“I don’t know how it took me so long to realize how awkward you are,” you whispered. His eyes widened in shock and a look of disbelief flashed over his features. You quickly put his worries to rest. “It’s super cute.”
Bucky groaned and squeezed his eyes shut, looking like he wished the floor would open up and swallow him whole. “Cute isn’t exactly what I was going for.”
“Yeah? Well, ‘fine’ isn’t exactly what I was going for, either,” you quipped, watching his face drop in mortification at the reminder of his blunder earlier in the night. Before you could think twice, you leaned in and gave his cheek a quick peck, making sure to subtly inhale his scent while you were this close.
The moment your lips connected with the skin of his cheek, Bucky’s body went rigid beneath you. You pulled back slowly, watching as he stared at your mouth and robotically brought a hand up to his cheek to touch the place where your lips had been.
You didn’t know what to do after this and there was a part of you that was dying to go to your room and scream into a pillow over the fact that Bucky Barnes found you attractive. So, you listened to that part of you and gave him a small smile before slowly walking backwards and leaving him to his own devices. Once you rounded the doorway of the kitchen, you squealed and ran to your room in record time.
The moment your bedroom door closed behind you, you started to jump around and twirl, needing to get the giddy excitement out of your body somehow. You launched yourself on to your bed and buried your face in your pillows, flailing your limbs around to express your bundle of emotions.
Your celebration was cut short, however, with a knock at your door. You sat up quickly, figuring it was probably Natasha coming to ask what the ruckus was. You stood up from your bed and skipped over to the door, throwing it open to tell your friend everything.
Where you expected to find a small redheaded woman, you found a tall brunet haired man with blue eyes that were almost eclipsed by his pupils.
“Buck-”
Before you could even get his name out of your mouth, the super soldier stepped forward into your space. His hands came up to cup your face as he pulled you into his orbit and covered your lips with his. The sensation of his warm, slightly chapped lips against yours was enough to send all your senses haywire. You saw stars behind your eyes, and you felt as if your body was about to fuse with Bucky’s massive frame. You would happily let him consume you if it meant you could keep kissing him.
It all ended too quickly for your liking. Bucky pulled away and stared into your hazy eyes with eyes equally cloudy.
“Bucky,” was the only word that was able to eek out of your brain.
“I’m sorry,” he apologized. “I’ve been wanting to do that a long time, but I should have asked before kissing you. I’m so sorry, I really am.” His hands dropped from your face and he took multiple steps backwards.
You shook your head, unable to conjure words to placate his mounting anxiety. You followed after him and grabbed the front of his shirt, stopping him from backing away from you further. The two of you stood in the hallway, staring at each other with heaving chests, not moving. The tension between you both was so tense, you felt something start to fray from being pulled too taught. And that something was your desire for the super soldier in front of you.
“Bucky,” you murmured, “you don’t have to apologize.”
“No, I do,” he countered. “I shouldn’t kiss you without your consent. My Ma is rolling over in her grave.”
You couldn’t help the laugh that bubbled up out of your chest. Even though the man in front of you had been a weapon for decades, there was still no taking the well-mannered boy out of his forties’ expectations.
“What if I told you I liked that you kissed me like that?”
That brought his attention back to the current moment between you. His pupils eclipsed his hypnotizing blue irises and you could see his body coil with restraint as you gently tugged him into your room by the front of his shirt. His hands flew to your waist as he stumbled forward, already under the spell of your confidence and persuasion.
He swallowed harshly before huffing out a laugh. “Then I would say, good, because I really liked kissing you.”
“How about we do it again?”
That was all he needed to hear before he wound his metal arm around you, entwined his flesh hand in the hair at the base of your neck, and pulled you forward into yet another breath-taking kiss. Your arms wrapped around his neck and you felt the muscles under his shirt shift as your hands touched his skin.
The hand at the back of your neck tilted your head back so he could deepen the kiss, causing a moan to burst from your throat. Bucky took advantage of the momentary opening of your lips and slipped his tongue into your mouth. The wet muscle traced your teeth before entwining itself around your tongue. Bucky was surprisingly very great at kissing for not being in control of his body for decades upon decades.
Your hands started to eagerly pull at his shirt, needing to feel his warm skin under your palms while the two of continued to explore each other. Bucky briefly pulled back from the kiss to rip his shirt over his head before pulling your body flush against his. The moment your hands touched his pectorals, Bucky let out the most pathetic whimper you had ever heard come from a man. Heat flooded your system and you swore you could feel your heartbeat in between your thighs.
You raked your nails over his skin, drawing another sound from Bucky. His hands started to paw at your body, one hand sneaking up your shirt and the other slipped under your pants, grabbing a handful of your ass. You gasped, not expecting Bucky to make such a bold move, but thoroughly enjoying the sensation of his calloused, warm hand grabbing the soft flesh of your bottom.
It was clear that he was enjoying himself by his growing erection poking your lower tummy. While you were able to see sublet outlines of his endowment through some of his sweatpants, he felt much bigger than you imagined he was, and the moan you let out as you rubbed yourself on top of him let him know just how you much you craved him.
“Off,” you mumbled against his mouth. “Clothes off.”
He broke apart from you slowly, as if it pained him to do so, before he stripped his pants and boxers off, leaving him bare in front of you.
Now, you had envisioned Bucky naked many times. You had seen him shirtless before, but never anything below the belt. In your mind, you gave Bucky a generous sized cock, surrounded by a trimmed, shallow bush, surrounded by his thunderous thighs. But seeing the real thing was making you feel guilty for not giving him more.
While he did have a smattering of chest hair and a happy trail that made you very happy, you were simply at a loss for words. Between his legs, hung the most thick, flushed, and lengthiest dick you had ever seen. It was menacing, to be quite honest. Your toys were based around the average male’s size and you had no idea if he could fit himself inside of you. However, the most mouthwatering part of it all was the thick, dense curls that sat at the base of his delicious cock. It was so rugged and masculine, and in the current state you were in, it was enough to make your knees actually quake. Bucky’s right arm shot out to steady you, thankfully.
“Are you okay?” he asked, worry seeping into his tone.
You nodded your head, unable to pull your gaze away from his groin. “More than okay,” you answered after gulping down the saliva that had pooled in your mouth. Bucky’s deep chuckle pulled your eyes back to his. While you had expected him to be flushed from the attention you were giving him, he appeared more confident under your hungry gaze. Dare you say: he was glowing from your blatant ogling. A small smirk sat on his devastatingly swollen, pink lips and you couldn’t hold back a groan as you lunged for his lips.
He held you back, much to your dismay. His eyes stared down at you and it felt like you were going to get sucked into the black hole that were his eyes. “You’re wearing too much.”
Suddenly, two sets of hands were ripping at your clothes. You were focused on your top and Bucky was working on the zipper of your jeans, shimmying them down your legs once they headed his demand. You tossed the cotton shirt to the ground and unhooked your bra. Before you could pull the straps off your shoulder, Bucky stopped you. His fingers took over the task, slowly pulling them down your shoulders, savoring the moment.
Once your breasts were free from your bra, you could hear Bucky grunt as if someone had dealt a blow to his solar plexus. In the next moment, his hands and mouth descended on your chest, enveloping the delicate skin with calloused and wet heat. Your hands flew into his hair and tugged on the roots, pulling his face impossibly closer to your chest. Every tweak to your nipples from his metal fingers or his teeth and tongue caused your underwear to cling to you more and more.
“Bucky,” you moaned, earning one back in response. Your fingers that were threaded through his thick hair pulled, trying to bring him back up to your mouth, but he stubbornly latched on to your breast and refused to move away. When his teeth came down gently around the peak of your nipple, you felt your legs give out from the overwhelming sensation. Bucky’s strong arm supported your weight as he slowly turned you around and backed you up to your bed.
He trailed his mouth to your other breast and laid the both of you down while he lavished his attention all over your chest. You never knew that you could feel so good from stimulation on your breasts alone, but what a revelation it was. Your back arched as you were laid out on the bed with Bucky’s weight hovering over you. He let out a satisfied moan when your action pushed your soft skin further into his hand and mouth.
After another moment, Bucky moved his attention from your chest and trailed wet, hot, sloppy kisses down your torso until he reached the cotton of your underwear. He looked up, catching your gaze, and you gave him a small nod of consent to pull your underwear off.
“I need your words,” Bucky softly chided. “I need to know you want this.”
“I do, yes!” you eagerly answered. “I want this so bad, Bucky.”
“Yeah?” he questioned as he pulled your underwear down with an excruciatingly slow pace.
You nodded your head, completely mesmerized as you looked down at him. How could you not be mesmerized when he looked at you with something akin to awe or worship? It was taking everything in you not to grab him, throw him down on the bed, and ride him until the break of dawn. But you would be a fool to rush your first time together. You wanted this moment to last forever. “I’ve wanted you – this – since you joined the team.”
“You’re telling me we could have been doing this since I joined?” he asked as he crawled back up your body, peppering kisses on whatever exposed skin he could. You nodded your head quickly and pulled him into another searing kiss. “We have a lot of time to make up for then,” he said between kisses.
You were about to draw him closer when suddenly, you heard something vibrating under your bed, sending small vibrations through the bedframe. The two of you pulled away and looked at each other with confusion, not understanding what was happening.
The vibrations continued, prompting Bucky to pull himself off you and move off the bed. After a few seconds, he came back up, holding a box you had thought was buried in the back of your closet. Your eyes grew wide like saucers as Bucky put the box on the bed and opened the lid before you could come to your senses and stop him from seeing what was inside.
His brows furrowed as he pulled out the culprit – your bright red, bullet vibrator. Bucky looked up at you with a puzzled expression. “What is this?”
You snatched the vibrator from his hands, turned it off and threw it across the room. “It’s nothing!” you immediately responded, feeling anxiety creep into your veins. What would Bucky think of your box of vibrators? What would his old-fashioned mind come up with and would he be finished with what you were about to do when he realized what it was?
“Nothing? Then why is there a note from Natasha in here?”
“What?”
You pulled the box closer to you and looked inside to see a small note inside. On it, Natasha just wrote "I dusted these off for you”, with a winking face underneath, a condom tapped to said note, and her initial. You groaned, burying your face in your hands. You knew she meant well, but it was mortifying to know she had dug around in your closet, found the box, and then put it back where you had it hidden before. You didn’t even want to know how she knew where it used to live.
“Hey,” Bucky said softly, grabbing your wrists to pull your hands from your face. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
You sighed, realizing there was no way to get around this other than going through the awkward moment. “Um, it’s a bit embarrassing, but… these are my… adult toys, you could say.”
When you looked at Bucky, you could tell he didn’t quiet get what you were saying. How could he when talking about sex was taboo during his youth and when he was a brainwashed assassin for the last however-many-decades.
"Uh, I kinda used to use them to help me… relax,” you tried again, hoping your euphemism would translate in his brain.
“Relax?”
You buried your head in your hands again and murmured.
“What did you say?”
“They’re my sex toys!” you burst out, looking up at him with wild, expectant eyes. You saw the moment clarity hit his brain. His face shifted from confusion to understanding to flushed in the span of one second. He was silent for a minute before he spoke up.
“Sex toys?” He said it like he wasn’t expecting an answer, so you didn’t respond to him, waiting to see how this situation would unfold. “You used these… while I was just down the hall.”
You sat there, frozen, watching as Bucky took the box from your hands and put it down on the floor before kicking it away from the bed. He stood up and crawled on to the bed, pushing you down gently before he laid his body on top of yours. The warmth, the weight, and the scent of him flooded your senses, making you effectively forget how to produce words.
“I never want you to use those again,” he growled. “Not while I’m here.”
With that, he gave you a scorching kiss before he moved down the bed, positioning himself at the apex of your thighs. He gently pushed your thighs apart so his broad shoulders could situate himself to access your pussy.
“She’s so pretty,” he cooed as he looked down at you with the hungriest look you have ever seen grace his face. He drew a finger through your slick folds, and a violent shiver made its way up your spine, sending your back arching off the bed. “Where do you think you’re going?” he asked darkly as he held your hips down with his beautiful vibranium arm. “I’m just getting started with her.”
His mouth descended on your core while his fingers continued to draw lazy shapes near your entrance. The moment his lips touched the hood of your clit, you practically let out a scream. Everything he was doing felt more sensitive than it should have been. You could say that was the one perk of being single for the last five years.
His tongue, lips, and fingers worked over your pussy with rapt attention. He held you down with every attempt your hips made to cant up into his touch, fully engrossed in the task he had set for himself.
“God, you taste so sweet,” he slurred against your sex.
Your hands gripped the sheets underneath you and your eyes rolled to the back of your head when his fingers finally entered you, curling inside your walls. Every drag of his fingers, every swipe of his tongue over your clit, every grumble and groan that came from his chest sent you soaring higher and higher. Your bones felt like they were catching fire while your muscles felt like they were turning to liquid. Your body was overwhelmed with pleasure and you came with a scream before you could voice anything to Bucky.
The solider between your legs eagerly lapped up every last drop of your release, moaning against you enthusiastically. Your chest heaved with uneven breaths as you rode out the warm waves of your orgasm. You were so encapsulated in the fuzzy warmth of your pleasure that you didn’t notice the Adonis of a man crawling back up your body until he connected his mouth with yours.
The tangy taste of yourself on his tongue made you reel even as you were coming down. Bucky’s hands closed around your wrists and brought your hands above your head, pulling your body taught beneath his as he settled on top of you once more. You felt a warm liquid bead just under your navel when Bucky pressed his hips into yours.
“Bucky, please,” you begged. “I need to touch you, please.”
“Shh,” he hushed against your lips. “I know, but I need to be inside of you right now before I lose my mind.”
You whined like a petulant child as you were denied from handling Bucky the way you had been dreaming about since you saw him, receiving a chuckle from the man above you.
Bucky pulled a hand away from your wrists, holding them with his other, while he wrapped his metal hand around himself. He dragged the angry red tip of his cock through your folds, lubing himself with your slick. Stars erupted behind your eyes as you basked in the feeling of him. After a moment, Bucky let himself fall against your core as he reached to get the condom he slyly put next to you before he kicked your box of adult toys away. He quickly ripped the package open with his teeth and rolled the condom on to his obscene length.
There was a brief moment where everything froze between the two of you and you just stared at each other.
“I can’t believe this is happening,” you whispered, afraid if you spoke too loudly that you would ruin the moment.
“This is just the beginning,” he said while lining himself up with your entrance. “I need you to let me know if I hurt you.”
“I’ll tell you,” you replied immediately, knowing that consent and safety were very important to Bucky after all that he had been through. “I promise. But I need you inside right now.”
A sly grin formed on his face before he started to slowly push in. Your hands fought against his hold, wanting to clutch his shoulders tightly while he was splitting you apart with his monstrous dick. The stretch was lethal. You could feel him impaling you, but there wasn’t any pain like you were afraid there would be with a man of his size. Instead, the stretch caused a blossoming heat to begin unfurling in your lower tummy.
“Oh, my God,” you moaned. The sound was borderline pornographic, but that was the least of your worries at the moment. “Bucky, you’re so big.”
Bucky dropped his head to your shoulder upon hearing your words. “You can’t say things like that while I’m inside you, doll. I’ll finish before we can even begin.”
You giggled, feeling the warmth increase at the thought of Bucky being too worked up and finishing before he was fully inside of you. There was nothing you found more attractive than Bucky loosing his cool at the thought of you or the words you said.
A groan tore out of his throat at your giggle. “You can’t laugh either. I can’t control myself when you clench around me.” You ceased your laughing for his sake and instead focused on his cock sinking into you. After a few more moments, Bucky was fully sheathed inside of you, and you had never felt fuller or this content than you did in this moment.
“Please, move,” you whispered into his ear, urging him on with a roll of your hips into his.
Bucky didn’t need to be told twice. He immediately set the perfect pace, pulling and pushing his hips into yours, eliciting lewd sounds from where the two of you were joined. Bucky’s head remained on your shoulder, but you felt his teeth sink into the flesh of your shoulder and the slight burst of pain sent a thrill down your spine and a moan fall from your lips.
“God, you’re so tight,” Bucky wheezed. “How are you this tight?”
“It’s been a long time since I’ve let someone into my bed,” you answered.
“No one else is allowed in this bed,” he growled, punctuating his possessive comment with a particularly harsh thrust of his hips. The tip of his cock brushed a spot inside of you that you had only been able to find once before with one of your toys. But with each thrust afterwards, Bucky had no problem reaching the same spot, sending all conscious thought out of your brain. “No one else will ever get to know what you feel like.”
You could feel the coil in your belly threatening to snap once again with each roll of his hips and every word that came out of his mouth. In this moment, it felt as if this man was made for you. The way his cock fit inside of you. The way his head fit perfectly in your shoulder. The way his skin felt against yours. The way the coarse hairs at the base of his cock brushed against your clit with each thrust.
Bucky’s hand let go of your wrists and flew to hold himself up on the bed as he began to speed up his strokes. With your hands free, you reached down and latched on to his shoulders, bringing your bodies closer together. With the pleasure building in your tummy, you felt yourself fly higher towards the sun.
If this was how Icarus felt, you understood why he couldn’t resist the warmth and beauty of the sun.
“I’m close,” you whined, sinking your fingernails into Bucky’s shoulder. “Right there. Please, don’t stop, Bucky.”
“Come for me,” he commanded. “I want to feel you come around me.”
With his permission, you felt the tight band of pleasure snap, flooding you with endorphins while you rode out the best orgasm of your life. Bucky whined above you as he stilled his hips and you could feel the condom fill with his release as the two of you came together.
The two of you laid entangled together afterwards and the weight of his body on top of yours was lulling you to sleep. When you felt Bucky shift above you, you latched on to him, not wanting him to go anywhere.
“I’m not leaving, I just don’t want to crush you,” Bucky laughed as he rolled you both on to your sides. With his head on your pillow, you soaked in the sight of him looking much lighter than he ever has. You reached out and brushed a strand of his hair behind his ear, dragging your thumb over the skin of his cheekbone. His eyes fluttered shut and he let out a content sigh. “I’m never leaving this bed,” he said.
Butterflies erupted in your belly as you thought about waking up to Bucky every day. It was a sight you knew you could get used to. “I guess we’ll have to send in our resignations to the team,” you joked, earning a genuine smile from the man out of time laying next to you.
He curled his arms around you, pulling you flush against his body. “About those toys,” he mumbled into your hair. You leaned your head back to look into his eyes and giggled when you saw the faux menacing look on his face. “We’re getting rid of those devil red toys tomorrow. First thing.”
You laughed and leaned in to press a kiss to his lips, not knowing how else to express your joy and awe for the man finally laying in your arms.
a/n: if you made it this far, THANK YOU!!! i hope you enjoyed this very self-indulgent fic of mine! reblogs and comments are much appreciated <3
summary: Every psychic and every tarot deck tells the same story: love isn't meant for you. Every reading ends the same way—until one skeptical customer pulls three cards that were never meant to belong to him. Suddenly, the future you've spent years trying to outrun refuses to leave you alone.
word count: 11.3 k
warnings: sort of enemies to friends to lovers, meet ugly, tarot, soulmates, slow burn, mutual pining, hurt/comfort, fluff, happy ending.
a/n: based on The Prophecy by Taylor Swift, been 7 weeks stuck in my drafts, I hope you like the outcome as much as I liked writing it for you! Beta read by @kileyking & @buckysdecaflove ❤︎ | dividers by @strangergraphics
read on AO3
Your family doesn't mean to hurt you. They just do.
It's the same every reunion, somebody's hand landing warm on your shoulder. When are you going to bring someone for us to meet? Are you ever gonna get married? That boat's sailed, hon. You missed your shot.
And their newest addition, just now: So, when's your turn? We really thought you'd be the next one walking down the aisle.
You're in your thirties now. Two cats, an apartment that's exactly how you want it, and you learned a long time ago to deflect, to laugh, to change the subject before anyone got too invested in your answer.
But those words stung.
Because god knows you've tried dating. You wanted the thing everyone kept asking you about, but you couldn't seem to hold onto it. Somewhere along the way you accepted that maybe you weren't meant to, just like the cards said once.
When the answer your cards gave you wasn't good enough, you tried something else: the oracle, rune-casting, pendulum, palmistry. You even ran the extra mile and paid someone to read your matrix destiny, but the answer remained the same: Not for you.
Apparently, the person meant for you was born over a hundred years ago, it wasn't meant to be in this life. Or at least, that's what the woman interpreted for you, it wasn't your line of work, but that night you pulled the cards alone and they confirmed it.
Your mom leans over, snapping you out of your thoughts. "They want you to say something."
You already knew this, you prepared days ago sitting in your apartment with your cats. You wrote and rewrote on your phone, trying to keep your words light and genuine.
"I've known Sarah since we were kids," you say. "She was always the one who knew exactly what she wanted. Not confused like the rest of us, not second-guessing. She just knew."
You can see her smiling, David's hand rest on her shoulder. You take a breath, your eyes are swelling with tears, but that's fine. That's normal at weddings.
"Sarah, David… you deserve each other, and you deserve the whole beautiful future you're about to have together. I hope you know how lucky you are, how blessed you are." Your voice wavers just slightly on that word. "Not everyone gets this, not everyone finds someone who loves them the way you love each other."
You're looking at Sarah and you mean every single word, even though it's cutting into you.
You raise your glass, trying to keep your hand steady despite the awful feeling sitting on your stomach. "To Sarah and David, and the future you deserve."
Later, when you're home at the outskirts of the city, with your cats curled on either side of you, you let yourself cry. Not angry tears, just the deep kind that come from watching someone else get the thing you've accepted you never will.
You think about the cards, about the woman who read your destiny and the words that have chased you since you were seventeen: The person meant for you was born out of time.
And your cousin's husband was born exactly at the right moment, in the right place, in the right life.
You're happy for her, you really are.
You're just so tired of helping everyone else find the life the cards promised would never belong to you.
The fair comes to the edge of your small town every spring, and you've been here for three years now. Your shop is small—just enough room for a folding table, two chairs, and the cards that you've been reading since you've been a teenager and decided to expand the gift you've inherited from your great grandmother.
The bell above the shop door chimes on a slow afternoon, and you look up from the velvet cloth you're arranging to find a couple standing in the doorway. The woman sees your altar in the corner, the crystals and the candles and her face lights up.
"Oh, this is perfect," she says, turning to him. "See? I told you we'd find someone authentic."
The man—dark hair, broad-shouldered, pierced-blue eyes and a very defined jawline— gives you a polite, slightly uncomfortable smile.
"Hey," he says. "She's been talking about you for weeks."
"Come in," you say, standing. You wipe your hands on your skirt. "Welcome to The Velvet Oracle, do you have an appointment?"
"I called yesterday," the woman says, stepping forward, hand extended. "I'm Hazel, this is Bucky. I want a couple's reading, we've been dating for four months and I just thought, you know, let's see what the future holds for us."
You gesture to the chairs across from you. "Sit, let's see what the cards have to say."
Hazel settles in, leans forward eagerly. Bucky sits back with his arms crossed. You don't let yourself look at him too long, because every time you do it you feel your stomach dropping, like when you miss a step in the dark.
You shuffle the deck, the familiar worn edges of the cards grounding you against your palms.
"Alright," you start. "For a couple's reading, I usually pull a few cards for each person individually, and then we'll look at the relationship as a whole. Sound good?"
Hazel nods enthusiastically, but Bucky's expression is somewhere between polite discomfort and outright skepticism.
"I gotta be honest," he says, glancing around the tent at the crystals and candles, "this isn't really my thing."
"I know, baby, but it'll be fun." Hazel tugs at his sleeve until he relents, uncrossing his arms. "Just let her do the reading, okay? For me."
He doesn't look convinced, but he nods and his expression softens for her. You don't know why, but that somehow makes you wanna cry.
You focus on Hazel, spreading the deck in a smooth arc across the velvet. "Go ahead and pull three cards when you're ready."
She leans forward, her fingers hovering dramatically before selecting. The first card makes you nod slowly—the Ace of Pentacles. A seed planted in rich soil. The second is the Empress, all abundance and growth. The third one is the World.
"Completion, fulfillment, a cycle coming to a close in the best possible way."
Hazel beams. "That's good, right?"
"Very good," you gesture at the Ace of Pentacles. "Pentacles are earth energy—practical, grounded, built to last. This is a new beginning with a solid foundation. The Empress suggests growth and nurturing, maybe even family, and the World is a major arcana card of fulfillment. Whatever you're building toward, the universe is supporting it."
"I'm a Taurus!" Hazel claps her hand together. "That's an earth sign. This is so accurate, oh my god! Earth energy for an earth sign, that has to mean something."
"It suggests alignment," you say carefully, because you've learned not to over-promise."The path you're on has stability written into it."
Hazel turns to Bucky with bright eyes. "See? I told you she was the real deal."
Bucky shifts in his chair, unmoved. "Great, so what about the rest of it?"
"Your turn," you say, trying to keep your voice light. "Three cards, same as before."
He looks at the deck like it might bite him. "I don't really believe in this stuff."
"It's just cards," you say. "They only have the power you give them."
Something shifts in his expression—not quite interest, but maybe a grudging willingness. Hazel nudges him with her elbow. "Just do it, Bucky. For me."
He sighs, leans forward and taps three cards with a soldier's precision. One, two, three. No hesitation, like he wants it over with.
You turn the first card: The Lovers.
Your breath catches. You force yourself to keep your expression neutral, but your fingers have gone cold against the velvet.
"The Lovers," you say, and your voice comes out steady, despite the static in your ears. "This card is about significant choices. A crossroad in a relationship or a deep connection that requires a decision."
Hazel practically squeals with excitement. "That's us! A deep connection!"
Bucky doesn't react. His eyes are on the card, but his face gives nothing away.
You turn the second card. The High Priestess.
The card you've pulled for yourself more times than you can count since you were seventeen. Intuition. The veil between worlds. The woman in the card stares at you from the table, and for a disorienting second you swear the woman on the card has your eyes.
"The High Priestess represents hidden knowledge," you manage. "Things beneath the surface, secrets, intuition… the parts of ourselves we don't fully understand yet."
"What does that have to do with Bucky?" Hazel asks, frowning slightly.
"I'm not sure yet," you lie, because you're suddenly horribly sure of exactly what's happening, and you want to sweep the cards off the table and pretend you never touched them.
You flip the third card with a trembling hand. The Ace of Cups.
The card of new love, emotional awakening. The beginning of something that fills the heart. It's the same card that you've always pulled up reversed for yourself every single time you ask the universe if there's anyone out there for you.
Now here it is, on his spread… along with your arcana.
"A new emotional beginning," you say after a moment of silence. "The Ace of Cups is the start of something in matters of the heart. It's a very powerful, personal card."
Hazel turns to Bucky, her earlier enthusiasm dimming. "Is that about us? Wait— water and earth complement each other, right? Bucky's a Pisces, that's a water sign, I'm earth. That's good isn't it? They balance."
"Water and earth can be very nurturing together," you say, because it's true, even if the cards aren't saying that. "But these cards feel more like a personal message for Bucky, something individual, not necessarily about the relationship."
You don't remember what you say after that. Something about water signs and intuition, something about the cards reflecting individual journeys within partnerships. You're very good at small talk, at telling people something they might want to hear while the cards tell you something else entirely.
Hazel pays you in cash, and she leaves with her hand tucked into Bucky's elbow, already chattering about dinner reservations. He lingers in the doorway for half a second, looking back at you with an expression you can't read. Then the bell chimes, and they're gone.
You sit in silence for a long time, staring at the three cards, still laid out on the velvet. You gather them up with shaking hands and slip them back into the deck, but you can feel them there, warm against the others, like embers buried in ash.
That night, you pull your own cards for the first time in months. You stopped asking about love a year ago, because the answer never changed—the reversed Ace of Cups, Ten of Swords, the Tower. But tonight, you need to know if you imagined it, if the shop was too warm, if you simply wanted something so badly your mind bent the cards to fit.
You shuffle the deck until your fingers ache and cut the deck three times before pulling: The Lovers. The High Priestess. The Ace of Cups.
Exactly the same spread from earlier.
You throw the deck across your kitchen table and watch the cards scatter like birds. You don't read them, you don't need to.
The dreams start three nights later.
You're in the shop, but once you pay enough attention you realize it's not your shop—it's larger, older, with windows that look out onto a street you've never seen, snow falling in thick, silent curtains. Bucky is there, sitting across from you, but he's different. Younger, somehow, though you can't explain how you know that. He's smiling at you, and he reaches across the table to take your hand.
You wake up gasping, your sheets are twisted around your legs, your heart hammering against your ribs.
The second time you dream of him, you're dancing. You're not able to see if it's anywhere specific. It's a dark room, there is music playing from somewhere distant, his hand on your waist, his cheek pressed against your temple. He smells like cedar and leather. You can feel the calluses on his fingers through the fabric of your dress. When you wake up, you can still feel them.
You start drinking chamomile tea before bed. You burn sage. You place an amethyst under your pillow and a black tourmaline at your door, but nothing works. The dreams continue, threading themselves through your sleep like a second life you're living in parallel, and in every single one, he seems like the answer to a question you've been asking for a very long time.
You don't tell anyone. Who would believe you? What would you even tell them? I had a tarot reading go wrong and now I'm psychically stalking my client's boyfriend in my dreams. You'd sound insane. Worse, you'd sound desperate.
You don't hear from Hazel or him again. You tell yourself it's a good thing. You tell yourself the dreams will fade, that the thread between you dissolves with distance and time… except they don't fade, they get worse.
In your dreams you're now in Brooklyn, walking down streets lined with brownstones, and he's beside you, close enough that your shoulders brush. He's telling you about his day, about his past, and you listen until his words start to fade. When you wake up, you can smell his cologne in the air.
You start taking walks in the afternoon, though you don't know why. You pull your cards again, desperate for something—anything—to change.
The Tower. The Star. The World.
Disaster, then hope, then completion. The cycle you've been trapped in for years, except this time the Tower doesn't feel like another heartbreak waiting to happen. It feels like change—the kind you can't stop even if you wanted to.
You don't sleep that night. You sit on your kitchen floor with your cats weaving between your legs, and you rearrange the cards in every configuration you know: Celtic cross, three card spread, relationship spread, past-present-future. Every single time, the same arc emerges: something is ending, something is beginning. And whatever comes next will leave you irrevocably changed.
Your aunt Margaret—Maggie, as you've called her since you were little—tells the family that she has broken her hip on the cellar stairs, that the surgery went fine, but she doesn't want a nurse or a help aide. She wants someone from the family who can come stay with her or she'll manage alone.
The call gets passed down through the entire family, but nobody offers to go take care of her. Your cousins have husbands, kids, mortgages, school pickups… Meanwhile, you have two cats and a tarot shop you can shutter for a season, and nobody says it out loud, but everybody means it: you're the one with nothing to leave behind.
You arrive on a Tuesday with your two cat carriers, three suitcases and the deck wrapped in a scarf at the bottom of your tote. Maggie is waiting in the front room of the brownstone, sat in a wingback chair with a cane across her knees.
"There she is, I knew you would come," she says. "Come kiss me."
You oblige before setting the carriers on the floor and opening them to let your cats wander around and recognize the place you'd be staying for a few weeks.
"I got two rules," Maggie starts, taking off her reading glasses. "The thermostat stays where I put it, and no cards in my house."
"Maggie—"
"I know what you carry around, I have enough ghosts in this old apartment, so there's no way I'm letting you welcome more through…that."
"They're just cards."
"Then it won't kill you to leave them in the bag," she settles back into the chair and picks her crossword up off the side table, and that is the end of it. "The kettle's on, you can take the room at the top of the stairs."
You know arguing with her would be useless, so you go and install yourself in that cramped old room and decide you'll read when she's asleep.
It becomes a ritual within the first week: you wait for the apartment to go quiet, wait for her snoring to even out and you sit at the kitchen table with the deck and a single candle as if you were a teenager sneaking cigarettes. Your cats take turns supervising from the counter, but you keep one ear on the ceiling the whole time, just in case.
Every single time, the same cards you pull at your shop with Bucky keep coming.
The Lovers. The High Priestess. The Ace of Cups.
The dreams don't fade with the distance from home, they sharpen. Now the businesses have names, because you've walked past it every time you go run errands for your aunt Maggie. The stoop where he sat beside you, close enough that your shoulders touched, you know it. You've seen the exact iron railing, three blocks east. In one dream he laughs at something, and you wake up missing something you haven't even seen in real life.
You try to build a reasonable conclusion: You've been here previously, you know this neighborhood. You just did one reading to a ridiculous handsome man eight months ago and your lonely, overworked brain latched on, and now it's trying to dress a crush in destiny because it's something you've been trying to change your whole life. That's all this is. A simple crush and a reader's block. It happens sometimes to some people, right?
At least that's what Reddit said last time you checked.
You've almost convinced yourself by the third Saturday in October, which is when you see him at the green market, standing at a fruit stall with a paper bag in one gloved hand. You stop so fast a woman with a stroller clips your heel.
Eight months and four hundred miles, and he's right here, wearing a canvas jacket with his hair shorter than you remember, frowning at the fruit, and your first coherent thought is run, but your feet are refusing to move.
He must've felt your eyes on him, because he looks up.
"You," he says it flat.
"Hi," your voice comes out steadier than you expect, and you silently thank god, the universe and every existent deity. "Bucky, right?"
He crosses the few feet between you, and up close you notice a tension in him that you don't remember from the shop. "What are you doing here?"
"Buying some groceries." You lift the bag as evidence. "I'm here taking care of my aunt and—"
"Right, so now your aunt happens to live here. Funny."
"You can come with me and check if you don't believe me," the bite gets into your voice before you can stop it. "Is there a problem?"
He laughs once, but there's no humor in it. "Is there a problem, you ask? Why don't you pull your cards and figure it out?"
"Okay—"
"Hazel broke up with me," he watches your face while he says it. "Three weeks after that reading, you want to know why?"
The market noise keeps going around you, crates and gulls and a vendor calling out prices, but everything is reducing to background noise while you feel the cold coming up from through your boots.
"She couldn't let it go," he continues. "You said something about a new beginning, some big personal message and she turned it over until there was nothing left. Every conversation we had circled back to it, who is she? When did it start? The cards don't lie. Four months, gone, because you laid out three stupid pieces of laminated paper and made it sound like some stupid prophecy."
"That isn't what I said— "
"Well, it's what she heard."
"I told her those cards were about you, individually. I was careful—"
"You were vague," he says, "which is the whole trick, isn't it? Say something soft enough to fit any shape, take the cash, let people destroy themselves filling in the blanks… there's a word for that." He shifts the bag of groceries to his other hand. "You're a fraud. The polite version is intuitive, a fraud with esoteric words."
You should let it go. He's a stranger, he's grieving a relationship, the market is crowded and you have other things to do, but you don't let it go.
"I didn't make those cards come up." You step in instead of back, and something flickers across his face—surprise, maybe, that you didn't fold. "I shuffled, you pulled three cards, it was your own hands, no hesitation. I read what was on the table and I softened it more than I should have, for her sake. What she did with it afterward isn't mine to carry, and neither is what you do with it."
A muscle moves in his jaw. For a second neither of you says anything, and you notice—stupidly, uselessly—that his eyes are exactly the color they are in your dreams.
"For what it's worth, I'm sorry about Hazel."
"Yeah, you sure do." He steps around you. "Enjoy Brooklyn and stay the hell away from me."
You stand there with your own groceries until your hands stop shaking.
That night you don't pull cards. You lie awake instead, replaying it, building better arguments hours too late, and when you finally sleep, he's there—sitting across a kitchen table that doesn't exist, pushing a cup of coffee toward you, smiling at you the way he has never smiled once in real life.
You wake up furious at your own mind.
The radiator in the front room dies the last week of October, the same week the temperature does.
You find Maggie in her wingback with a blanket over her knees and the phone already against her ear. "It's the front one again," she's saying. "It clanks like the devil and gives nothing… No, don't be silly, after lunch is fine. You'll eat here anyway." She hangs up before whoever it is can argue.
"I could've called someone," you say. "There's a service the pharmacy recommends—"
"A service?" She huffs a laugh, like you've said something completely irrational. "I have James, he does the whole block—the Russo's gutters, Mrs. Ferreira's stairs… he won't take a dime, but I tuck it in his jacket when he isn't looking."
"James," you repeat.
"You'll like him," she says, returning to her crossword. "He's a serious boy, it's good with hands, single…"
The doorbell rings at one. You open the door and there he is, on your aunt's stoop, a tool bag over his shoulder, and you watch the exact moment his face goes through the market all over again.
"You gotta be shitting me," he mutters.
"Yeah, well, I'm not excited either, but I told you I was taking care of my aunt."
From the front room, your aunt's voice: "James! Don't let the heat out, it's the one radiator still working in here!"
You look at each other and there's a long moment where you genuinely cannot tell whether he's going to turn around and walk back down the steps, and then he exhales through his nose and crosses the threshold, being painfully obvious at avoiding brushing your shoulder in the narrow hall.
What follows is the strangest two hours of your autumn. Because the man at the market and the shop doesn't appear. With your aunt, he's somebody else entirely—patient, dry, gentle in an odd way for the way he's treated you. He kneels on the floor and bleeds the radiator and lets her direct him with her cane without complaining. Asks about her hip, and actually listens to the answer.
You stay in the kitchen, mostly. You make the coffee she orders you to make and when you bring it in, Nova—the bolder of your two cats—has installed herself on the tool bag, paws tucked underneath him, supervising, and for your surprise, Bucky is working around her rather than moving her.
He glances up when you set the cup down near him, just out of his way.
"Thanks," it's dry, but it's not nothing.
"You take your coffee black, right?" you say, and then bite your own tongue off, because you don't know that. You've been dreaming of that.
He pauses with the wrench mid-turn. "Lucky guess."
"Well, you look like a man who likes to keep it simple." You say it lightly and walk away before your face can do anything stupid, and behind you, Maggie says something about you reading people, and then you hear the small clank of metal as something in his hands slips.
He doesn't stay to eat, despite your aunt's best efforts. At the door, shrugging the tool bag back up, he stops with his hand on the frame. He doesn't quite look at you.
"Her hip," he murmurs. "If she needs anything lifted, or any errands to run, whatever… Maggie has my number."
"Okay."
"For her," he clarifies.
"I understood you the first time," you say sweetly and shut the door on whatever his face does next.
In the front room, Maggie has watched this entire exchange over her glasses.
"You didn't tell me you know James."
"Barely."
"Mm." She picks up her pen. "It seemed like more than barely to me. But if that's how you treat men no wonder why you're still single."
You gasped audibly and she winked an eye at you before going back to her crossword.
You start running into him in an almost daily basis. The neighborhood is small—twenty thousand people and somehow the same six faces every single day— and now that you know he's in it, he's everywhere. Outside the hardware store with a length of pipe over his shoulder. At the pharmacy counter, when you go pick up Maggie's medications and he's talking to an Asian man. Across the green market, where you both pretend with great commitment that the other one is invisible.
But there's no real conversation until now.
You've misjudged the sky and the distance, so you're hauling two grocery bags and a sack of cat litter up Pierrepont when the cold drizzle turns serious. You stop under sycamore to redistribute everything you're carrying, water running off the end of your nose, and a shadow falls over you. You lift your gaze and he's there, hood up, his hand already out reaching for you.
"What? Your cards didn't tell you there would be a storm?"
"Ha-ha. Very funny."
"Give me the litter."
"I've got it."
"You're going to put your shoulder out being stubborn. I said give me the damn litter."
You could protest, but you know it's pointless to fight with him, so you give him the litter and walk the last two blocks side by side without speaking, rain hissing on the pavement, his boots and your boots out of step.
He sets the sack on the second stair of your aunt's gate, but he doesn't leave immediately.
"At the market," he murmurs, to the gate rather than to you. "When I— when I said those things to you… I was out of line."
"You were rude."
"I was out of line," he repeats.
"You called me a fraud, and you said my intuition was exactly that, a fraud with esoteric words."
"Well, if you were so intuitive, wouldn't you have known about the rain?" It takes you a second to hear it, the dry shift under the flat delivery, and you laugh before you decide to. He looks surprised, like he wasn't expecting the sound either.
"Go home, Bucky," you say. "You'll catch a cold."
"Is that a prediction?"
You rolled your eyes. "There's no need for that, it's logical."
"Tell Maggie I left the wrench in the bin by the door… for the sink." He's already turning. "Don't let her do the sink herself, she'll try."
"I know my aunt."
"Then you know she'll try." And he's gone into the rain, shoulders up, and you stand at the gate watching him go for longer than you should.
That night you dream of him again, except the dream is just this: the two of you under a sycamore, rain coming down, but this time he's laughing—really laughing, head tipped, the whole architecture of his face rearranged by it— at something you can't hear yourself say.
You wake before dawn with your heart going hard and the echo of his laugh still in your ears.
It's a crush, you remind yourself staring at the ceiling.
Then why does your heart feel so heavy?
By November, your aunt has invented a maintenance schedule that no brownstone in history has ever required. The storm windows, the cellar light, a cabinet hinge you're fairly sure she loosened herself, because you watched her test it with her cane the day before she called him.
"You're matchmaking," you accuse, setting her tea down.
"I'm maintaining my property." She doesn't look up from the crossword. "Seven across, six letters. Foreseen by the stars."
"Fated."
"That's five."
"Destined is eight. Fated is five." You count it on your fingers. "What's six?"
Maggie hums thoughtfully and writes something down where you can't see it.
Bucky comes back on Thursday to check the storm windows. It's the fourth time, not that you're counting, and something has shifted in the dynamic between you—the hostility has burned down to a kind of wariness, and that wariness keep springing leaks.
He lets you hold the frame steady while he drives the screws, close enough that you can smell the cedar on his jacket. He answers your aunt's interrogation about his week in actual sentences. When Nova bolts for the open window, Bucky catches her one-handed without looking, absorbs the betrayed yowl and deposits her on the sofa with a flat "No". You expect retaliation, but Nova—who has never once obeyed you—stays.
"Traitor," you tell the cat.
"She respects the chain of command."
Maggie goes up for her nap at three with a theatrical yawning that should embarrass her. Bucky's packing up the drill in the kitchen and you're making coffee because it's cold and the radio on the counter—her ancient radio, permanently tuned to an AM station that plays classics—is murmuring under everything.
And you go still.
It takes you a moment to realize, and another to find why: he's humming. Barely, under his breath, and the song sounds pretty familiar.
The mug slips, you catch it against the counter, there's coffee slopping over your knuckles, and the burn makes you realize that song was playing in the dream where he danced with you in a dark room. You've never heard it awake in your life until right now. You don't know its name either, you only knew the next three notes after he hummed them.
"You okay?" He's looking at you now.
"It's nothing," you run your hand under the tap. "Just… wanted to heat my hands a little bit."
It's just an old song, it's an old radio station. Men hum old songs; it's logical. You repeat it in your head twice but your hands don't believe any of it. And god forbid you, you neither.
When you turn around, he's leaning against the counter, watching you with an expression you can't quite read.
"I've been meaning to ask you," he starts. "About the cards. Why do you do it? And I don't want the speech, I want the real answer."
You dry your hands slowly, deciding how much truth he's earned.
"My great grandmother read cards," you start, leaning against the counter across from him. "She read for people in her village back in the old country. My mom said she could look at someone and see the shape of their life, like… like they were made of glass. She tried to teach my mother, but the gift skipped her and landed on me instead."
You take a pause, watching the radio, the floor, anything but him.
"I was seven the first time I saw something I couldn't explain. I touched my grandmother's deck and I knew things about her neighbor who was sitting at the kitchen table. That she'd lost a baby the year before, that her husband was sleeping with her sister, that she was going to leave him by spring." You swallow. "I said all of it out loud, like an idiot child, because I didn't know you weren't supposed to just say those things."
Bucky's quiet. You can feel him listening, like he's cataloguing every word.
"My mother was horrified. My grandmother on the other hand wasn't. She said the cards chose me, and that I should learn to read them properly so I'd stop blurting out unfiltered truth at dinner parties." A small, humorless laugh leaves you. "So I learned. By the time I was a teenager, I was pulling cards for friends, for strangers, for anyone who asked. And most of the time, it's just… pattern recognition and intuition working together. The cards are a tool, not a magic trick, but sometimes—"
"Sometimes what?"
"Sometimes they show you something that doesn't fit any pattern you know. And you have to decide whether to believe what you're seeing or pretend you didn't see it."
The radio changes songs.
"Is that what happened with my reading?" he asks quietly.
No, you think. It's worse than that.
"I read what was on the table," you say instead, because it's the truth, even if it's not all of it. "I didn't make it up, Bucky. I've never fabricated a reading in my life. The cards that came up for you were clear… unusually clear. And I softened them because Hazel was sitting right there and I didn't want to hurt her, but I didn't lie."
He studies you for a long moment, and you can see the war happening behind his eyes—the part of him that wants to believe you fighting the part that needs to think you're a con artist, because the alternative is harder.
"Okay," he says finally.
"O—Okay?"
"I'm not saying I believe in it. I'm saying I believe you believe it, and that's… different."
It's the most generous thing he's said to you since the market, and it lands somewhere under your ribs.
It's a Tuesday in late November, and Maggie has sent him to fix a leak under the kitchen sink that you both suspect she caused by hitting the pipe with her cane. He's on his back under the counter and you're handling him tools, trying not to notice the way his shirt rides up when he reaches for the wrench.
When he slides out, wiping his hands on a rag, he looks at you for a while.
"There's a place two blocks over. They make decent coffee, if you're done pretending you don't need a break."
"That's the worst invitation I've ever heard. You're just observing that I look tired."
"You do look tired."
"Wow, thank you. A true gentleman."
His mouth twitches. "Do you want coffee or not?"
You want to say no, because saying yes feels too much like stepping off a cliff, but the word comes out before you can stop it. "Fine, but only because you're paying."
Maggie, from the front room calls out: "Take your time! I'm perfectly fine!"
You both know she's been listening to every word.
The walk to the café is silent.
The place looks cozy—it's small, warm and smells like cinnamon and cardamom. He orders black coffee and you order a latte and a slice of walnut cake. You sit t a table by the window where the afternoon light comes in, and for a few minutes neither of you says anything.
It should be awkward, being here without Maggie or your cats between you, but it isn't.
"Would you mind if I ask you something?"
"You're going to ask whether I say yes or not."
"Smart man." You turn the cup slowly. "Why do you do this? The handyman thing… Maggie says you work for the whole block. But you don't charge, you won't take money—"
"I take money, I just don't like to ask for it, besides, Maggie always invites me to eat."
"She tucks money in your jacket while you're not seeing."
"She's not as subtle as she thinks." He takes a sip of his coffee and ten looks at you. "I like fixing things, always have. When something's broken, there's a right way to fix it, and when it's done, it's done, it's done. You can see the result, it's not…"
"Ambiguous?"
"Yeah, exactly. It's not ambiguous."
You understand suddenly why he hated the reading and everything related to it. You gave him a puzzle with no solution, a fix with no steps… you made him sit with something unfixable.
The conversation moves easier after that. He tells you about the neighborhood, about Mrs. Ferreira, about Yori—the Asian man you saw the other day who feeds pigeons from his window, about the old man on the fourth who swears at everyone in Italian. You tell him about your shop, about your cats—Nova and Salem, about the time you accidentally read cards for a man who turned out to be an undercover cop investigating a psychic scam two towns over, and how you spent forty-five minutes proving your cards weren't marked.
You see him laughing, not the polite sound from always, but a real one. You drink your coffee and eat your cake and try to not think about the dreams.
It becomes a thing. He finishes a repair at Maggie's or passes by to eat and you end up at the café, or walking the two blocks to the park where the benches face the water, or simply sitting on her stoop in the last cold light of the afternoon while you both drink coffee.
You learn things about him in pieces. He's from Brooklyn—born and raised, he says, but the tone on his voice tells you it's partly a lie. He has a best friend named Sam who's a pain in the ass. He doesn't talk about his family, but you don't push. He served in the military, a long time ago.
He learns things about you too, like the fact you talk with your hands when you're passionate about something, or that you hum when you're thinking and that hum is always off-key. He learns about your habit of reading strangers on the street and narrating your observations under your breath.
The first week of December arrives with an ugly wind that rattles Maggie's windows and makes your cats burrow under the blankets. Maggie has graduated from the cane to limping short distances without it, which means she's mobile enough to meddle full-time.
Bucky comes by Wednesday to check a draft Maggie swears she can feel coming from the baseboards. You both know there's no draft, but he comes by anyway.
You open the door and he's standing on the stoop with his hands in his jacket pockets, his tool bag over one shoulder, and there's snow in his hair—not much, just dust, but it's there, melting against the dark of it—and your heart does something complicated because of how good he looks.
"Maggie's napping," you say.
His hand comes out of his pocket. He's holding a folded napkin, and he holds it out to you like it's a wrench.
"I made reservations," he murmurs. "At Valentino's, this Friday, seven o'clock."
You stare at the napkin. "Did you just… write it on a napkin?"
"I didn't have a paper." He shifts his weight. "Sam says you're supposed to give the person a specific time and place, so… there it is."
"You asked your friend how to ask someone on a date?"
"Well, he tells me a lot of things, more of it is useless." He's looking at the doorframe while he speaks, then he glances at you. "This part seemed right."
You unfold the napkin. His handwriting is surprisingly neat—small, precise letters. Friday, 7 pm- Valentino's on Henry St. —B
"Is this because Maggie put you up to it?" you ask, because if this is charity or pity or Maggie's matchmaking you'd rather know now and bleed later.
"No. She might take credit for it, but no. I was going to ask you at the café last week, but then you started reading people and I lost my nerve."
Bucky lost his nerve.
"So, Friday… at seven."
"Is that a yes?"
"That's a yes."
He nods once, and you can see his shoulders drop half an inch. You want to laugh, or cry, or both, so you just fold the napkin carefully and put it in your pocket.
"Are you going to come in and check the nonexistent draft, or…?"
"Might as well, just to keep the appearances."
He brushes past you in the doorway, and unlike the first time, he doesn't avoid your shoulder.
When Friday night comes, you don't understand why you're so damn nervous, but here you are, changing your outfit twice before settling with a blue dress and a pair of boots that Maggie claims make your legs look like they go on forever. You're halfway down the stairs when the doorbell rings.
He cleans up well. That's the first thought you have when you open the door. He's wearing a dark jacket over a sweater, and his hair is pulled back in a way that shows the sharp lines of his face, and he smells so good you have to resist the urge to lean closer and breathe him in again.
"You look nice," he says when you open the door.
"You too." You grab your coat from the hook. "Don't wait up, Maggie."
"Go. Don't come back before ten, I have a television program."
"We're going to dinner, Maggie, not—"
"Door will be locked before ten o'clock," she insists, and shuts the door on your face before you can answer, letting you at the bottom of the stairs.
You turn to face Bucky and the way he looks at you makes you forget every argument you've ever had with yourself about why this is a bad idea.
"Ready?" he asks.
"It depends. Are you going to accuse me of fraud tonight?"
"Not tonight."
"Then I'm ready."
Valentino's is tucked between a laundromat and a bookshop. The hostess greets Bucky by name and leads you to a corner booth where the candlelight flickers against the red-checkered tablecloth.
"Fancy," you tease.
"I said it wasn't fancy."
"Exactly," you unfold your napkin and look around—warm brick walls, fairy lights strung along the ceiling, and and old man at the bar arguing with the bartender about baseball. "I like it."
He orders wine for the table without asking, but it's the good kind, the kind that tastes likes blackberries, and when he catches you watching him over the rim of your glass, he doesn't look away.
You're talking about the shop—what you'll do when you go back, whether you'll reopen at all—when he leans back in his chair and takes a deep breath. "I want to ask you something, but I don't want to fight."
"That's a promising start."
"Why do you believe in it? The cards, destiny, all of it. You're smart. You read people like they're open books. How do you also believe that pieces of cardboard can tell the future?"
It's not hostile. It's genuine curiosity, and that's worse, because you owe him a real answer. You down the rest of your wine for a bit of liquid courage.
"When I was seventeen," you start, and your voice is careful, like you're walking on ice, " my great grandmother died. She'd been sick for a while, and when I went to see her in the hospital she… she told me she'd been reading my cards since I was born. That she'd asked about my future every year on my birthday, the way she did for everyone in the family. And every year, the same cards came up."
The restaurant noise fills the silence—the clink of glasses, a murmur of conversation from the next table—but you're hyper aware of him.
"She said love wasn't meant for me." You trace the rim of your glass with your finger. "I didn't believe her, I was seventeen, I thought she was a dramatic old woman who loved tragedy, or that maybe she was way too high on her meds. So I started reading for myself, I pulled my own cards every week, every month, every time I met someone I thought could be something. And every single time, the same answer. Reversed Ace of Cups. Ten of Swords. The Tower. Not for you, not in this life."
You laugh, but it comes out humorless.
"I even paid a woman to read my destiny matrix, I tried runes, I tried everything because I wanted so badly for the answer to be different; but it never was. I tried dating, I did. I wanted so bad to be loved. Apparently, the person meant for me was born over a hundred years ago, and I was born now, so the timing was wrong, and that's it."
Bucky is very still across the table. He hasn't moved, hasn't reached for his glass, hasn't done anything except listen with an intensity that makes your skin prickle. The silence between you stretches. He's looking at you with an expression you can't decode.
"Bucky?"
He exhales slowly, and his jaw works twice. Then he leans forward, resting both forearms on the table. "You don't have any idea of who I am?"
"Should I?" you ask, confused.
He stares at you for a long moment like he's looking for some sign that you're joking. "You really don't."
"Bucky, you're freaking me out a little. Are you in the mob? A famous musician? Because I have to be honest, I don't really follow the news, and history was never my strong subject. I know the major stuff, but—"
He reaches into his back pocket and pulls out his wallet, sliding something across the table toward you.
It's his driver's license. You pick it up, squinting at the tiny photo—he looks exactly the same, of course he does, that hot bastard—and then your eyes drop to the birth date.
March 10, 1917.
You read it three times, but the numbers don't change. You look up at him, and he's watching at you with an expression you can't read.
"I was born in 1917," he says quietly. "Here in Brooklyn. I went to war in '43 and… I didn't come back the way I left. They did things to me, changed me. I don't age the way normal people do, and there's a lot of years in between that I'd rather not talk about in a restaurant."
Your hands are shaking. You set the license down on the table between you like it might burn you.
"The matrix destiny," you whisper. "It said a hundred years ago. You were born a hundred years ago."
"Yeah." He leans forward. "And here's the thing. I don't believe in fate. I don't believe in stars writing our stories for us, because if I did—" His voice breaks, just slightly, and he catches it. "If I did, then I'd have to believe that what happened to me was determined. That the things that I did, the things that were done to me, they were written in stone before I was even born. And that's too cruel, that's a crueler god than I'm willing to worship."
He's breathing harder now, and you realize with a start that he's scared. Bucky Barnes, who caught your cat mid-air and argued with you in the rain, is scared of what you might say next.
"But you," he continues, softer now. "You showed up in my neighborhood reading cards and talking about things you shouldn't know. And I kept seeing you everywhere, and I kept telling myself it was a coincidence, that Brooklyn is small and you were just… there. But there's something here. I feel it every time I'm in the same room as you, and I don't know if that's fate or if it's just—" He stops, running a hand over his face. "I don't know what it is. But I know I haven't wanted to spend time with someone like this in a long time. And if that means the stars finally decided to do something kind for once, then maybe… maybe I'm not as angry at them as I thought."
You don't know what to say. The pasta arrives and sits cooling between you, forgotten. You think about every card you've ever pulled, every spread that ended in the same lonely answer, every time you accepted that love wasn't meant for you. And now, he's sitting across from you, born in 1917, a hundred-year-old soul in a young man's body, and the math is so simple it makes you want to laugh and cry at the same time.
"You're quiet," he says.
"I'm not quiet," you manage, but your voice sounds like it's coming from very far away. "I'm just… I don't know what to say. You don't— you don't just drop 'I was born in 1917' into a conversation and expect someone to have a response ready."
The corner of his mouth twitches. "Fair."
"You fought in World War II."
"Yeah."
"And you're telling me you don't believe in fate, but you just handed me proof that the answer I've been getting my whole life wasn't wrong."
"I'm telling you that I don't care what the cards said," he reaches across the table, his hand hovering over yours for a moment before he covers your fingers with his palm. His skin is warm, calloused, and you feel it everywhere. "I care that you're here, right now. And I'm here. That's enough for me."
You look down at your hand under his, at the candlelight pooling in the hollow of his palm, and you think about the High Priestess card, the one you've pulled for yourself a hundred times. Hidden knowledge, the veil between worlds, secrets.
Maybe the secret was that you weren't waiting for a ghost after all.
You eat eventually, though you barely taste it. He tells you about Sam, about the boat they worked on together, about the neighborhood changing and staying the same all at once. You tell him about your cats, about the way Maggie pretends to be asleep every time he comes over so you'll have to answer the door alone.
But mostly, you sit in the candlelight and let yourself have this. Whatever this is.
He insists on walking you home. It's not far—five blocks, maybe six—and the December air is sharp enough to make you tuck your hands into your coat pockets. He walks on the outside of the sidewalk, closest to the street, the way men used to do when he was young, and something about that makes your chest ache.
"You okay?" he asks as you turn onto Maggie's block.
"Yeah." But you're not, not really. You're overwhelmed, full of things you don't know how to say. You want to tell him that you've dreamed about him, that you've known the shape of his laugh before you ever heard it, that you pulled his cards in your kitchen and you threw the deck across the room because it was too much to believe. You want to ask him if he feels it too, this gravity, this sense of falling into something you never expected to find.
But you don't say any of that. You just walk beside him in the dark, and when you reach Maggie's stoop, you turn to face him.
The streetlamp behind him casts a halo around his shoulders. You think about all the years he's lived, all the winters he's seen, and you can't believe any of them led him here. To you. To this moment in your aunt's cracked concrete steps.
"I had a good time," he says.
"Me too."
He steps closer. You can smell the wine on his breath, the cedar of his jacket, the cold night air clinging to his air. He's close enough that you have to tilt your head back to look at him, and his eyes are darker in the shadows.
"I don't think I need to." Your voice is barely above a whisper. "I think I already know how this goes."
"Yeah?" His hand finds your waist, tentative, asking permission. "How's it go?"
And then he kisses you.
It's soft at first, careful, like he's giving you time to pull away. But you don't pull away. You reach up and curl your fingers into the front of his jacket, and he makes a sound against your mouth before deepening the kiss. His hand slides to the small of your back, pulling you closer, and you can feel the warmth of him through every layer between you that suddenly feels like too many.
He tastes like red wine, and his jaw is rough under your palm, and when you break apart you're both breathing hard, foreheads pressed together.
"Okay," you whisper. "Okay."
"Okay," he repeats, and he sounds almost drunk with it. He kisses you again, lighter this time, on the corner of your mouth, your cheek, your temple. His lips brush your ear as he murmurs, "I don't care about fate. But if you want to tell me what the stars said, I'll listen."
You laugh, a little watery, and push at his chest. "Go home, Bucky. It's cold."
"I know." But he doesn't move. He tucks a strand of hair behind your ear, his fingers lingering against your jaw. "I'll see you tomorrow?"
"Tomorrow."
He finally steps back, down one step, then two. He's smiling, the kind that reaches his eyes and rearranges his whole face into something boyish and new. "Night, then."
"Night."
You watch him walk down the block, his hands in his pockets, his shoulders relaxed in a way you haven't seen before. You watch until he turns the corner and disappears, and you stand there for a long moment with your fingers pressed to your mouth, trying to remember how to breathe.
The front door opens behind you.
"You're welcome," Maggie says.
You jump so hard you nearly fall off the stoop. "Jesus, Maggie!"
She's standing in the doorway in her robe and slippers, her crossword in one hand and a cup of tea in the other. She looks entirely too pleased with herself.
"You were watching!" You accuse.
"I was observing, there's a difference." She steps back to let you in. "I told you he was a good boy, serious, good with his hands." She winks. "And now you know for sure."
"Maggie!"
"Don't 'Maggie' me. I didn't raise you to be ungrateful." She shuffles toward the stairs. "You can thank me properly at breakfast. And don't think I didn't notice you sneaking cards at my kitchen table for three months straight. I may be old, but I'm not blind."
You stand in the hallway, coat still on, cheeks burning, and listen to her cackle all the way up the stairs.
Your cats appear from the front room, twining around your ankles, and you bend down to scoop Nova up, burying your face in her fur. She purrs, loud and indignant, and you laugh against her soft orange head.
"Okay," you whisper to him, to the empty hallway, to no one in particular. "Okay."
You don't know what happens next. You don't know how any of this works, a tarot reader and a century-old soldier, two people the universe apparently decided to throw together just to see what would happen.
But as you climb the stairs to your cramped little room, you think about the spread you pulled the night before you left for Brooklyn. The Tower. The Star. The World.
Disaster, then hope, then completion.
Maybe The Tower wasn't heartbreak after all. Maybe it was just the world rearranging itself to make room for something you never dared to ask for.
You fall asleep that night without pulling any cards, without any dreams at all, and when you wake up in the morning, the first thing you hear is Bucky's voice downstairs, asking Maggie if she takes one sugar or two, and the sound it's better than any spread you've ever read.
June.
The summer breeze at Coney Island smells like salt and fried dough, and you were wearing the jacket Bucky lent you because you misjudged the wind off the water. It's still too big, the sleeves past your knuckles, and he keeps reaching over to roll them back up for you, his thumb brushing your wrist every time.
You can't remember whose idea it was to come here. Maybe yours, maybe his. Maybe it doesn't matter, because Bucky's hand is wrapped around yours. You've been official since January, though the line between before and after has blurred into something that feels like it started long before either of you were brave enough to name it.
The boardwalk is crowded with families and couples and teenagers laughing too loud, but Bucky moves through them like he was made for this—for cotton candy and carnival lights, for the easy joy of a Brooklyn summer night. He fits here, you realize. He fits now. A hundred-year-old soul learning how to be young again.
"Step right up! Test your luck!" A barker's voice cuts through the noise, and you follow it to a row of old arcade machines tucked beneath a stripped awning. Skee-ball, claw machines, a racing game with a faded steering wheel—and then you see it.
A fortune teller machine.
It sits in the corner like something out of another era, which, you suppose, it is. Madam Zola's Mystical Fortune Cards, the peeling gold paint reads. Insert coin. Receive Your Destiny. The mechanical woman inside has painted glass eyes and a silk scarf draped over her plastic hair, and her hand rests on a deck of cards that probably haven't been mystical a day in their life.
Bucky follows your gaze and laughs. "You're kidding me."
"I'm absolutely not kidding you." You're already digging in your pocket for a quarter. "Madam Zola and I are colleagues, I need to know if she's legitimate."
"She's made of plywood."
"So judgmental." You find two quarters and press one into his palm, your fingers lingering against his. "For you, professional courtesy."
He looks down at the quarter, then back at you, and something softens in his expression. "Alright," he says. "But if this thing tells me I'm gonna die alone, I'm blaming you."
"Fair."
You drop your quarter in first. The machine whirs to life with a dramatic creak. Madam Zola's hand moves across the cards in jerky, mechanical motions, and after a moment, a small white card drops into the brass tray below.
You pick it up. It's not a real tarot card—just cardstock, cheap, the edges already soft from humidity—but the image printed on it makes your breath catch. Two hands clasped, reaching across a starfield. Beneath it, in gold script: The Lovers.
And underneath that, smaller: You've found the one. Don't waste time doubting it.
You stare at it. Bucky leans over your shoulder to read it, and you feel him go still.
"Huh."
"Your turn!"
"I don't need a card to tell me—"
"Your turn, Barnes."
He huffs, but he drops in the quarter you gave him. The machine grinds and another card falls. He picks it up. You don't see it at first, but you see his face—the way his jaw loosens, the way his eyes soften at the corners.
It's the same image, but the text beneath reads: What was written in the stars has come to pass. Trust the path, trust your heart.
The noise of the fair fades to a distant hum. You look up at him, and he's already looking at you.
"Bucky—"
"I don't care if it's rigged. I don't care if every card in that thing says the same thing. You're—" He stops, swallowing thickly. "You're it for me. You know that, right?"
Your heart is doing that complicated thing again, the thing it does every time he looks at you like you're the only person in the world.
"I know," you whisper. "Me too."
He kisses you then, right there in front of Madam Zola and half of Brooklyn, his hand cradling your jaw like you're something precious. When you pull apart, you're both breathless, and someone's wolf-whistled from the skee-ball line, but none of you seem to care at all.
"Come on," he says, lacing his fingers through yours. "I saw a ring toss on the way in, I need to win you something."
It takes him four tries and an embarrassing amount of money, and by the end he's swearing at the rigged bottles while you laugh so hard you have to lean against the counter for support. But on the fifth throw, the last ring catches, and the barker hands over the prize with a grudging nod.
It's a ridiculous bear, oversized and caramel-colored, wearing a tiny red bow tie. Bucky presents it to you as if he was handing you over the Holy Grail.
"For you. I was gonna go for the giant panda, but this one looked like it needed you more."
You crush it against your chest, burying your face in its soft synthetic fur. "I love him. I'm naming him James."
"You're not naming him after me."
"I'm absolutely naming him after you. Look at him, he has your expression."
Bucky stares at the bear's blank button eyes and then at you, and then he laughs, tilting his head back and you want to take a picture of him like this—careless, happy.
"Let's go to the photobooth," you demand, grabbing his hand. "Before the light changes."
"Bossy."
"You love when I'm bossy."
He doesn't agree, but he doesn't deny it either.
The photobooth is tucked behind the funhouse, a vintage four-strip model with a faded red curtain and a sign that flashes OUT OF ORDER every third flicker. But when you slide your money in, it whirs to life, and the first bulb flashes before you're ready.
"Wait—" you laugh, still adjusting the bear on your lap.
Too late. The first picture capture you mid-laugh, Bucky leaning in with his mouth open, probably saying something sarcastic.
"Okay, okay, be serious," you say, turning toward him.
"Serious," he repeats, but his eyes are dancing.
The second flash catches you pressing a kiss to his cheek, his hand coming up to rest on your waist. The third finds him turning his head at the last second so your lips meet his instead, his fingers threading into your hair. The fourth flash finds you both laughing into each other's mouths, your foreheads touching, the bear crushed between you. You don't remember who kissed who, but you don't care.
When the strip slides out of the machine, you hold it up to the light, watching the images develop in slow motion. Four tiny windows into a perfect moment. You look at them, and you think about al the cards you've ever pulled, all the lonely spreads and reversed cups, all the years you believed love wasn't meant for you.
And here you are. Here he is. A love out of time.
"I'm putting these on the fridge," you say. "When we get back to the apartment."
"Our apartment," he corrects and your heart flips.
You're moving in together next month. You found a place in Brooklyn with a windowsill wide enough for two cats and a fire escape that gets morning sun. He's already planning on building a spare room for your appointments, and built a shelf for your cards. You told him he didn't have to, that you'd find another place to do your readings and keep the cards in the closet if he wanted, and he looked at you like you'd suggested drowning a kitten.
"It's your gift," he said. "Why would I want you to hide it?"
Later, when the moon is high and the fair lights are starting to dim, you sit together on the boardwalk with your shoes off, toes buried in cool sand, sharing a funnel cake.
"We should get home," you say, but you don't move. "Salem and Nova are probably destroying something."
"They're fine, Nova's probably sleeping on my tool bag, and Salem's judging her from the windowsill."
"How do you know that?"
"Because that's what they do every time I'm there." He licks powdered sugar off his thumb. "Those cats have a very established routine. Nova loves me, Salem tolerates me… it's a good system."
You smile, leaning your head on his shoulder. "Salem tolerates everyone, that's just his personality. Nova loves anyone who gives her attention. They're not a good benchmark."
"Okay." He pauses. "Then you love me. And you're a much better benchmark."
You go still. The word hangs in the air between you, but he doesn't take it back. He just turns his head and looks at you, waiting, his eyes reflecting the last of the carnival lights.
"I do," you whisper. "I love you."
His smile is small and yet so full of hope it makes your chest ache. "I love you too. I think I started loving you the day you shut the door on my face."
"You have terrible taste."
"Must be the century I was born in, we liked 'em feisty."
You laugh, pushing at his chest, and he catches your hand and presses a kiss to your knuckles. You sit like that for a long time, watching the tide come in, his thumb tracing slow circles in your palm. Eventually, he reaches into his jacket pocket and pulls out the fortune card from Madam Zola's machine.
"Do you think it's true?" he asks quietly. "The whole destiny thing. Do you really believe we were supposed to find each other?"
You look at the card, then at him—the man who was born over a hundred years ago, who fought a war and survived things you can't imagine, that sometimes admit not knowing how to do any of this, but that tries anyway for you.
"I believe," you start, "that the cards pointed me in a direction. They told me to wait, to not settle for something that wasn't right." You turn his hand over, tracing the lines of his palm—his life line, long and unbroken; the heart line, deep and sure. "But I don't think they made this happen, Bucky. I think we did. I think you showed up at my shop and you were rude and impossible and I couldn't stop thinking about you anyway. I think we let Maggie manipulate us into falling in love. The cards didn't do that, we did."
"Okay," he says. "I like that better anyway."
"Me too."
He folds the car again and tucks it back into his pocket, over his heart. "I'm keeping this, though. As evidence."
"Evidence of what?"
"That sometimes the universe gets it right."
You don't pull cards that night, haven't done it for a while, because you don't need to. You fall asleep with Bucky's heartbeat against your back, Salem purring at your feet, Nova curled on the pillow between you like a furry chaperone, and you dream of nothing at all—just the deep, peaceful dark of a life that's finally exactly where it's meant to be.
installment list / previous chapter / next chapter
word count: 3,843
story content warnings: 18+ MDNI! war, violence, loss of limb, mental illness, medical talk and treatment, forced drug use, language, drinking, tense family situations, smut, pregnancy stuff, sickness, explosives. there’s fluff too, i swear! heavy warning on pregnancy and birthing things for this one
"Remember that for next time," Steve said to the team as Clint landed the quinjet they had taken in the hangar, the mission debrief taking place as they sped back to New York.
As Clint stood up from the pilot's seat, Pietro gently shoulder checked him as he said with a smirk, "I told you I could outrun your arrows."
A scoff of a laugh left Clint's lips before he replied, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know…"
"You two make a good team for attacks like that, you know," Wanda said when she caught up with the two of them as the team began walking down the ramp of the jet.
Before he could even make it ten steps, Clint was being attacked from both sides, small arms wrapping around his legs and torso, as in-sync shouts of, "Dad!" rang through the air.
"Hey, guys!" Clint said to his kids, kneeling down to embrace them and kiss their heads.
"Sorry, Clint," came the thick Russian accent of Natasha's sister, Yelena. "I tried to keep them distracted, but they saw the jet coming in and wanted to see it." In her arms was an awkwardly held newborn Nathaniel, who she lightly bounced as she said teasingly, "They thought it was cooler than the jet I used, which I beg to differ because I obviously got here faster."
"It was still fun, though, Auntie Lena!" Lila said as she climbed into Clint's arms to give him an even bigger hug.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa, what in the hell is going on right now?" Tony asked, a look of pure confusion on his face as he took in the scene in front of him. "Dad? Auntie Lena? Who is this person and why does she have a jet nearly as fast as mine?"
"Cat's outta the bag, I guess," Clint said as he ruffled Cooper's hair. "Guys, these are my kids. Cooper here's the oldest, then we've got Lila, and that little guy over here is Nathaniel."
"Named after yours truly," Natasha said as she held out her arms to take the baby from Yelena. She gently hip checked the blonde before saying, "And this is my sister Yelena. We grew up in the Red Room together."
"And Laura-" Clint started to say, but stopped when his phone began to ring. "Hey babe, what's-?"
"Get Barnes here, now," came Laura's voice through the phone, her tone even but with an obvious underlying urgency.
The line went dead a second later, prompting Clint to instead finish the sentence with, "Is telling us to get our asses to the med bay."
Without a word, Bucky dropped his mission gear on the floor and began hustling to the med bay with Steve and Clint hot on his heels. When they got to your room, there was a very controlled kind of chaos happening. Beth and Sara were working with Quinn to gather supplies while Laura stood behind the head of your bed, massaging your shoulders gently. There was a panicked look on your face as you held your swollen belly, your breathing labored and quick as rational thoughts left your mind altogether.
"Hey, hey, hey, I'm right here," Bucky said as he approached your bedside, taking one of your hands in his right and placing a kiss to the back of it. "I'm here now," he told you, grabbing your attention and getting your eyes to lock with his blue ones.
"You're just in time," Beth said with a quiet laugh, her gown being tied in the back by Sara.
"You're gonna do great," Laura told you as she took her hands off of you and went to stand beside Clint, who wrapped an arm around her shoulders and kissed the top of her head.
"Thank you for coming," Clint murmured into her hair, a small and ever-love-struck smile on his lips.
"So, this is the infamous husband, huh?" you managed to get out as your racing thoughts began to clear up with Bucky by your side.
"Hope you kept the stories to a minimum," Clint said, a quiet chuckle rumbling out of his chest.
"Oh, I told all of them, mister," Laura said, laughing as she leaned into his side.
"Hate to break up the conversation, guys," came Beth's voice from the foot of the bed, "but baby girl's head is just about ready to come out!"
When he heard those words, Bucky froze. This moment was months in the making. Over that time, he had many conversations with you, with Steve, with Rebecca, and even his therapist about what life would be like when your baby girl arrived. He had made plans and dreamed about what it would be like, and read what felt like every single book he could find on the subject of parenthood. Yet, as the moment crashed into him, he felt like a deer in headlights as every negative thought he had ever had surrounding the subject of being a father bombarded him.
What brought him out of this moment of pause was Steve's strong hand clapping him on the back. The ringing in his ears cleared up just in time to hear his best friend say, "You're ready for this, Buck."
With this bit of assurance, Bucky focused in, his attention on you again. He returned your smile before asking, "You ready?"
"I-I dunno…" you admitted, your own fears and doubts creeping into the back of your mind as more pressure built where the numbness had taken over your lower half.
"Whatever happens, it's you and me," he said firmly, in hopes that it would help trick both of your minds into being a little more confident about the situation.
"And her," you said, your voice wavering a little as a smile made its way onto your lips.
"That's right," he replied.
By then, Steve, Laura, and Clint had cleared out of the room, leaving just the medical team and the two of you as the impending moment inched closer. With a less crowded room and more clear minds for all parties, Beth sent you a warm smile before saying, "When you feel the urge, you just push, okay? I'll coach you through it. We've been preparing for this. You've got it!"
And so it began.
Offering out his left hand for you to squeeze to your heart's content, Bucky was steadfast by your side as more pressure built and built and queued you to push. Bucky kissed your hands, occasionally ran the cool metal of his left hand over your warm skin, and spoke encouraging words the whole time you were pushing. Then came the relief of the pressure and the cry of a baby!
"Oh my God…" you whispered, relief flooding your entire being as you leaned back into the soft pillow behind you. You swallowed hard through your tight throat, tears cascading down your cheeks as you were handed the baby after she was cleaned a little by Sara. When she was placed on the skin of your chest that was exposed for this purpose, an emotional smile made its way onto your lips, and your voice wavered as you whispered, "Hi…"
Bucky looked on in awe at the sight before him, the tiny baby settling down instantly the moment she came into contact with your warm skin. A few tears escaped his eyes before the biggest smile made its way onto his lips, leaning over to kiss the top of your head. His shaking hand gently touched the soft skin of her back before he murmured, "She's perfect…"
"Winnifred. Winnie…" you whispered, leaning into Bucky as much as you could from your position.
Bucky's mouth opened in shock for a moment, unsure how to respond when he heard the whispered name. Her name had been up in the air for months since you found out you were having a girl. You struggled to come up with a name that would fit, scared of choosing the wrong one and making her hate you years down the road. Bucky's mother's name had come up a few times, but you had never fully settled on it. Until now. All Bucky could do in his emotional state was give you a firm kiss to the top of your head, his tears coming in faster as everything hit him.
The blissful feeling of happiness only lasted a few more minutes after Winnifred was assessed and handed back to the two of you. It ended as Beth scrunched her eyebrows and asked, "Why isn't it stopping?"
"What's not stopping?" Sara asked, the conversation now piquing both of your interests.
When you looked up from your baby, the movement of your head made the room spin as dizziness took over. A firm pressure from Beth was placed on your abdomen as she massaged the top of your uterus, telling Sara, "The bleeding. She isn't contracting back."
"B-bleeding?" you asked, your voice breathy and shaking with the rest of your body. "No, no, no I can't be- This can't be- I-"
As your panic began to set in, Winnie began fussing on your chest, her little grunts of discontent earning her a rub on the back from Bucky as he asked, "What's going on?"
Despite the situation, Beth was calm as she told him, "Typically, after birth, the uterus contracts back to roughly its normal size which helps stop bleeding. Hers just...isn't… I'm pretty sure I've gotten all the clots out and she still isn't contracting…" She was quiet for a moment before saying to Sara, "Get a bag of Pitocin. We'll see if that works."
"Yes ma'am," she replied, rushing to the other side of the room to rifle through a drawer for all the supplies she needed. "Could it be that she just doesn't have any tone because of how hard the baby kicked?" she asked, throwing out the first idea that came to mind given the situation.
"Could be…" Beth replied thoughtfully. "This might hurt a little, I'm sorry," she told you before applying more pressure to your abdomen as she continued to attempt to push any clots out or else firm up the organ.
Your groan of pain only served to upset your baby girl even more, her little noises now beginning to turn into cries. A strange, instinctual feeling took over his body, and Bucky picked up the little wrapped bundle and began attempting to soothe her, a slight bounce from his knees doing the trick as he figured out how to hold her with one arm and hold your hand with the other.
The next few minutes felt agonizingly slow as the medicine flooded your system. The bleeding started to slow and Beth let out a sigh of relief, before panic filled her eyes when the bleeding started up again, worse than before. By then, you were beginning to feel the effects of the blood loss, barely able to keep your eyes open as you whispered, "I'm scared Buck…"
"What else can you do?" Bucky asked urgently, his voice firm yet wavering as he recalled the vision you had described to him that night you were taken from the Tower.
"This should be working…" Beth whispered, her mind racing with other possibilities of what could be happening. "First things first, we need blood. Sara, get the supplies for a mass transfusion. Now. That should buy us time to figure this out."
Without a moment's hesitation, Bucky said, "Use mine."
"Use- Bucky. We don't know-" Beth began to say, but didn't get to finish as he stood his ground.
"Our blood types are compatible. If we-"
"But the Serum!"
"Could help her body fight this!" Bucky told her, trying not to raise his voice. "Please…" he whispered, his emotions breaking his voice finally, "I can't lose her."
"Bruce is gonna kill me…" Beth whispered, her eyes closing as a sharp breath left her nose. "Fine. Do it! Make it quick! One unit of Bucky's and the rest regular! Go!"
"Stay with me, Doll," Bucky said as he settled back down into the chair beside your bed, resting Winnie back on your chest. The little girl snuggled into your warmth as Bucky added, "You gotta hold on. I've got you. Just keep those eyes open."
"You're…you're giving…me your blood?" you asked weakly, trying to keep your mind engaged in the world rather than fading away into the black threatening to take over your vision.
"Feels kinda poetic, huh?" he asked, a huff of a laugh passing his lips.
"It does, doesn't it?" you asked, your eyes closing for a moment as the memory of the first time you met flashed behind your eyes.
"Hey, keep lookin' at me," Bucky said, the tenor of his voice calling you back from the darkness that had tried to take over for a moment.
"You ready?" came Quinn's voice as they began quickly setting up the transfusion equipment at your bedside. Your nod was all they needed to start, using the IV not infusing the Pitocin to begin the transfusion.
It felt like there was a vacuum in the room that stole everyone's breath as they waited to see what would happen once the Serum-saturated blood hit your system. After a few seconds, your face contorted in pain, a scream being held in so you wouldn't scare the baby resting peacefully on your chest in spite of everything going on. "I'm gonna stop it…" Quinn said when they saw the pain wracking your body.
"Wait!" Beth called from her position on the other side of the bed, her hands still massaging at your fundus. "I think it's working…"
"Here," Bucky said, giving you his left hand once again to squeeze. He kissed your temple as he did, once again muttering assurances into your hair to keep you motivated.
The searing pain in your upper half only lasted a minute longer before it was taken over by a different type of pain and soreness in the lower half of your body. "Ah, fuck! What happened to the epidural?" you asked, your head thudding back onto the pillow.
"What do you…?" Beth asked before her eyes widened. "I…I-I see."
"Yeah, bad effect of the Serum is that most meds don't work because they're metabolized so fast," Bucky said, wiping away a tear that fell from your eye.
"But…it's working!" Beth said, relief flooding her body as she finally felt the familiar firming of your uterus under her touch.
"Good…" you whispered, relief evident in your voice as you relaxed into the pillow. You brought a hand up to cradle Winnie as you began to feel yourself perking up, the feeling of fear that had taken over your mind beginning to subside. "Thank you, Buck…"
"Anything for you," he replied, a kiss on your forehead punctuating the statement before he rested his head next to yours. His eyes closed for a moment and tears dripped down his cheeks as his mind attempted to process everything that had happened in the last few hours.
"How are you feeling?" Bucky asked as he brought you a cup of water.
"I feel…really good, actually," you replied honestly. A quiet laugh left your lips and slightly jostled Winnifred as you said in a loving tone, "Now that this one's made her way Earth-side, I feel a lot better. Not to mention…" you didn't finish the sentence, your eyebrows simply raising as you implied the blood transfusion that by now you knew had changed your body's chemistry just slightly.
"Right," Bucky said, settling down into the chair beside the other bed in the room that was more comfortable for recovery. "How's that feeling?"
"For the joke's sake, I'll say that I'm pissed the pain medication isn't working, but also I know that I would be way worse off without the Serum's effects," you replied. "There's some lingering soreness, but other than that, I feel fine. What are we gonna tell Steve?"
"He already knows…" Bucky told you earnestly, lacing his fingers in yours. "Told him while you were napping. Couldn't keep something like that from him. Not when it had to happen to save your life."
"And before you ask, no, I'm not angry about it," came Steve's voice as he approached the bed, having heard the conversation through the door as he and Natasha made their way to the room to meet the latest member of the family. "I think it was the right call in the moment. Think I would've made the same one given the circumstances."
There were a few moments of silence after the statement that were filled by Winnifred waking up from the little nap she had fallen into and making what you could only describe as the cutest noises you had ever heard. As she opened her eyes and looked up at you, you smiled at her before asking quietly, "You wanna meet your god parents? They've been waiting a long time to finally see you!"
Bucky took the little swaddled bundle from your arms, holding her in a way so she could face Steve and Natasha as they gathered around to meet her. "She's so perfect," Steve murmured as he looked at the little baby, staring in awe as he noticed features from both of you in her little face.
"And strong as hell," Natasha said, a quiet laugh passing her lips as she shook out her finger that Winnie had squeezed when she inevitably escaped the swaddle as Bucky held her.
"Yeah, I'm starting to think that getting things she isn't supposed to have when she starts grabbing stuff is gonna be an issue," you said, causing everyone to laugh.
Through the course of their visit, the air seemed to lighten as the conversation flowed and filled with talk about hopes for the future and what sorts of family adventures life would take you on. Seeing as it was, now, the mid hours of the morning, and you were completely famished, a nice brunch was requested from the kitchen staff. Before you knew it, Antonio was bringing in a nice spread of your favorite brunch foods, complete with a set of donuts that you had craved throughout your pregnancy.
Soon, Steve and Natasha left, leaving you once more time to be alone together as a family. Throughout the day as you recovered, you were visited by nearly everyone you were close to in the compound. You were showered with love, praise, and well-wishes as guests came and went, all of the words causing you to become very emotional as you thought about how truly grateful you were for the support system you had gained over the last couple of years.
Your last visitor of the day was Rebecca. When she walked in, she was holding a blanket, and on her face was an emotional look. She made her way over to wrap her arms around her brother, emotions obvious in her voice as she said, "Congratulations, big brother."
"Thanks, Becca," he replied, his own voice thick with emotion that he attempted to hide by muffling his voice in her shoulder.
"Wanna meet Aunt Becca?" you asked in a quiet voice to Winnie, who was stirring awake with the conversation around her.
"Have you washed your hands?" Bucky asked immediately as his sister reached for the baby.
"This isn't my first rodeo, Buck," she told him in a teasing tone, "but for your peace of mind, I'll do it again."
After she had washed her hands and picked up the little bundle of blanket, you asked, "Did he tell you what we named her?" When she shook her head as she expertly rocked the baby, you told her, "Winifred Barnes. After your mother."
A tear fell from her eye when she heard the name, and a smile made its way onto her lips as she said, "She would be happy to hear that."
The next half hour flew by as the three of you chatted in hushed voices, the time filled with more advice and care-taking knowledge, and stories of when her children were this little. By the time she left, she had taught you to swaddle Winnie just right in the blanket that she had made. By some miracle, this swaddle lasted way longer than when you had done it before.
When it was just the two of you again, Bucky chuckled and said, "You know…it's weird having my little sister giving me this advice. I always pictured it the other way around."
"Well, par for the course of our lives, it's just another thing we gotta take as it comes," you said sleepily, your voice slightly distorted by a yawn forcing its way out of your lungs. As you drifted off to sleep, you grabbed Bucky's hand and mumbled, "Thank you for being here for me. For all of this."
"Wouldn't trade it for the world, Doll," he replied, gently kissing the back of your hand before sitting back to relax into his own chair.
As you snuggled into Bucky's arms that night when you were back in your own bed, you couldn't stop your mind from thinking about everything you had gone through over the last year. Truth be told, while you were living it, everything had felt like a blur. You were living day to day, trying to grapple with the facts of the reality you had found yourself in. Sure, you had a lot of hard talks and gone through a lot of challenges during that time, but in the moments of quiet in Bucky's arms, you finally got to process all of it.
It was during this quiet moment that you thought back to what you learned after being taken by Commander Walsh. You thought about how you had made it your goal to support Bucky into embracing life as it came - not trying to control it, but to be in control of his own actions and reactions to the circumstances that life gave him. But then it dawned on you… He truly had been doing it all along, ever since he met you and started to regain control of his life.
You smiled to yourself as you leaned more into his strong and familiar embrace, thinking about every single time that Bucky had started to come into his own since the two of you met back in DC. This man, who lived in the fear of being out of control, and who lived a life that was defined by lack of control over many situations, truly had learned the lesson you had that day when you were taken. The one thing in this life you can control is yourself. This was a luxury that, for decades, Bucky didn't have, and it wasn't lost upon him how blessed he was to be in his current situation.
So, as you dozed off with a content smile on your lips, Bucky closed his eyes and thanked his lucky stars for the chance he had to have met you.
a/n: and there it is! you guys know i had to throw one last angsty piece in here before the story ended! i never planned on it in the beginning, but the transfusion of bucky's blood was destined from the very beginning, even if i didn't know it at the time. the subject of it just kept coming up, and it all culminated in that moment to save Reader's life. poetic. i love when bits of these little stories write themselves! we've got two more installments of this little love letter to Bucky Barnes, and i just can't wait to show you all what they have to offer!
oh also! yes! i have changed more canon things and made Nat and Yelena close and able to connect! fill in the blanks however you'd like for the little cameo, but this was just such a fun little tidbit to add!
as always, i hope you all enjoyed! likes, comments, and re-blogs are greatly appreciated! until next time! xo! <3
pairing: grumpy!trailer park!Bucky x fem!trailer park!reader
warnings/tags: 18+ MDNI, smut (soft dom!Bucky, breeding kink, unprotected p-in-v, oral - f!receiving, fingering, creampie, ass play, multiple positions, dirty talk, squint for daddy kink), age gap (r mid 20s, B late 30s), use of nicknames (ex: “kid”), mechanic!Bucky, semi-slow burn, so much angst, arguing, mentions of troubled pasts (ex: bad parents) mentions of prison, mentions of alcoholism, smoking, drinking, no use of y/n
words: 30.2k (WTF!!!!!!!)
summary: When your neighbor saves you from a tight spot, you go out of your way to thank him. You quickly find out that he doesn’t want your thanks — actually, he doesn’t want anything to do with you. The hurt stings while the curiosity burns, but the cracks begin to show when tensions rise. Is it a classic neighborhood dispute, or is there something bigger hiding beneath the surface?
sammy speaks: celebrating 1k+ followers by taking a trip to angst town. thank you for reading and following my blog, I love all you dearly!🤍 also rip to all the letter g’s that did not make it into this fic, you’ll see what I mean
“That doesn’t sound too good, hun.”
Through the windshield, you spot your neighbor standing in front of the hood with a full laundry basket against her hip. Donna’s eyes sweep suspiciously across your car, as if she thinks the ticking of your engine could double for a time bomb.
You groan, your forehead meeting the steering wheel with a dull thud. “I know.”
“What’s wrong with it? Battery dead?” she asks, coming over to your rolled down window. You crack an eye open at her.
“When I know, I’ll tell ya.”
Her answering look is sympathetic.
“Was never too good with cars myself. Harold did all the fixin’ when he was still around. You got somewhere to be?”
“Job interview,” you mumble, the leather digging into your brow; you’re trying not to focus on the sweat soaking through your best shirt, or your growing anxiety over your fast-approaching interview time. Donna shifts the basket to her other hip.
“Could try callin’ on Bucky. He works at Rogers’ garage down on Miner Street. It’s Sunday, so he should be home.”
Your forehead peels away from the sticky wheel. “Who’s Bucky?”
Donna nods toward the other side of the park. “Bucky Barnes. White trailer with the boots lined up all neat outside the door.”
“Have I met him?”
“Doubt it,” she replies. “He works mean hours, leaves before sun up, comes back when it’s dark. But he’s always ready to help a neighbor out when he’s here. Real sweet guy.”
You blow a stray hair out of your eyes. “You think he can fix whatever’s wrong with my car?” you ask, your doubt as strong as your hope.
Donna smiles like she knows something you don’t. “Bucky can fix anythin’ he gets his hands on.”
You turn in your seat, spotting the white trailer with the boots out front. It looks devoid of life, like it was plopped onto that spot of land by a strong gust of wind rather than by human design. The curtains are drawn, vines creep up the paneling, the gate on the far side of the yard swings in the breeze, but there’s a rusting brown pickup parked in front of it. Promising enough.
“Okay,” you say. “Bucky Barnes. Mechanic. Got it.”
“Good luck,” Donna says with a grin, tapping your arm before walking away.
You step out into the scorching heat of the late July afternoon and make your way across the park, stepping over discarded children’s toys and overgrown flower beds. As you near the trailer, you see the pairs of boots your neighbor spoke about lined up with military precision, all well worn but still taken care of, not a speck of dust or dirt on them, which is rare in a place like this.
You knock three times on the plain brown door before taking a step back, holding your breath. Grasshoppers hum, the wind whips; you don’t hear anything inside the home for an agonizing amount of time, enough time to double the sweat pooling on your lower back. You’re about to try knocking again when the door finally creaks open.
Out steps a mountain of a man.
Big arms and bigger shoulders, broad chest and long, thick legs. He wears boots identical to the ones outside, blue jeans that are in desperate need of a wash, and a black henley that offers an intimidating glimpse into what those arms are capable of. His dark hair is a mess on top of his head, sticking up in all different directions, and underneath it is a face so unexpectedly handsome, you’re not sure how it ended up in a rundown park like this instead of somewhere on a billboard advertising cologne. Sun-kissed, weathered, and deadly serious, but striking in a way you could never forget, triggering a blush on your already flushed cheeks. And then you meet his eyes: electric blue and narrowed at you under furrowed brows, raising the hairs on the back of your sweaty neck.
“Can I help you?” he grunts, voice low and gravely. It scrapes against your spine.
“Hey,” you say quickly with a 1000-watt smile, showing off your nerves. “Hi. Uh, Bucky, right? I’m your neighbor. I live—“ You hook your thumb over your shoulder. “—back that way. The one with the pink door. Um…I was hopin’ you could help me out. My car, it’s — well, it won’t start. Makes a clickin’ noise every time I try turnin’ it over. Donna said you’re a mechanic and might be able to help.”
His expression doesn’t change. He stares unblinkingly at you.
“I, um—,” you can feel yourself faltering, your heart rate rising as the seconds tick by, “I don’t mean to barge in on your Sunday, but I’m pretty desperate. I have an interview in, like, twenty minutes, and I really need this job. Do you think you could take a quick look?”
He eyes you up and down, assessing. You try not to smile wider in case it leans too close to deranged. “You live here?” he demands. You nod.
“Moved in about a month ago. Sorry we’re only meetin’ now, I should’ve introduced myself sooner.”
You offer your name and stick out a hand. Bucky ignores this, staring past you in the direction of your trailer. You watch as his eyes narrow, like he’s weighing the honesty of your words.
“Look, I can pay you, if that hel—“
“Is it the little silver thing?” he cuts you off.
Your lips part. “Uh, yes. Yeah.”
Bucky grunts and turns back inside, shutting the door behind him. The shock of it leaves you frozen in place, reeling, until he reemerges as fast as he left, carrying a toolbox half the size of you; he holds it easily in one hand like it weighs nothing, but you can hear the stock of heavy tools clanking around inside.
“Let’s go,” he mutters, stepping past you. You struggle to keep up with him as he stalks toward your car, like a man on a mission that he’s already running late for. You sneak glances at him while trying not to trip on the cracked walking path, noting the faded scars on the back of his hands, the ticking jaw underneath his beard, and the very tip of a dark tattoo peaking out from beneath his collar. A feeling churns in your gut.
Everything about him screams rough. Rude. Even potentially dangerous — from his imposing figure, to his curt words, he seems like the furthest thing from what you would call ‘sweet.’
But regardless of Donna overselling his altruism, beggars can’t be choosers, and you’ll call him sweet all day long if it gets you to your interview on time.
Bucky lets out a heavy breath when he sets the toolbox down next to your car. He nods at you.
“Try it again,” an order, not a request.
Your limbs twitch into action like a bee flew under your skirt. Sliding into the hot leather seat, you turn the key in the ignition and are met with the same low ticking noise from before. The lights flicker on your dashboard in protest.
“Terminal clamp.”
You jump, finding Bucky almost cheek-to-cheek with you while he leans through the open door. He’s close enough for you to smell dirt, sweat and something heavier on him.
“Shit,” you hiss in surprise, but he’s already pulling away and moving toward the front of the car.
“Pop it,” he calls out.
You exhale slowly and do as you’re told. Sweet, your ass. Bucky lifts the hood and locks it in place before bending over the hot engine, pushing up the sleeves of his shirt.
You step out of the car, hovering near the door but craning your neck to watch. “Terminal clamp?” you repeat.
Bucky takes a moment to respond, long fingers moving deftly through the cables and wires and plugs and bolts. He unscrews something, and steam leaks out.
“On your battery,” he grunts. “The part that connects it to the wires. It’s rusted down. Look.”
He beckons with two oily fingers crooked in your direction. It’s borderline crass, and you find yourself hurrying over without argument. Bucky’s mouth is set into a hard line as he watches you gaze down at the engine, looking without really seeing.
“There,” he points impatiently to a black box near the front. Your eyes catch on the rust growing over the top of it.
“Oh. Yeah.”
“Yeah,” he imitates you, high-pitched and sharp; your eyes snap back to him. He’s clearly not amused by your answer. “When was the last time you had your battery checked?”
“Haven’t had the time lately,” you answer, crossing your arms indignantly over your chest.
“Your daddy don’t check it for ya?” he prods, wiping his hands on the back of his jeans before opening his tool box. Irritation rears up inside fo you. Something about his tone, bitter and mocking, makes you think about hitting him over the head with one of his wrenches.
“My daddy hasn’t been sober enough to tell a battery from a brick since 2009,” you snap.
Bucky pauses while rifling through his tools, but only for a moment. “Batteries need replacin’ every four years. How old’s this one?”
You chew your lip, still thinking about the wrench. Bucky pulls out a small metal plate and a brand new cord, along with a screwdriver that looks like it’s seen better days. When he turns to you, his eyebrows lift expectantly.
“It’s…old,” you relent. Bucky snorts and leans over the car again.
“Define ‘old’ to me, princess.”
A zip of electricity runs down your spine at the pet name, angry and hot. “I don’t know,” you grumble. “It came with the car and I bought it five years ago. And don’t call me princess.”
A ghost of a smirk crosses his face. “Whatever you say, kid.”
You glare at him while he unscrews the rusted plate from the battery. Despite your growing frustration, and the nearing interview time, and the heat pressing down on you from all sides, you quickly become entranced with the way his hands move expertly with the replacement parts. It’s obvious he’s well-versed with the inside of a car.
“This will hold for a few days,” Bucky says, attaching the new cord to the engine. “But you need a new battery. Forget it, and you’ll be needin’ a new car. Am I makin’ myself clear?”
Something about the sternness in his voice creates a pressure on your chest that feels foreign and strange. “Yeah, new battery, got it,” you mumble.
He glances at you but says nothing, screwing in the clean plate. As he finishes up his work, you look back at your trailer, the paint on the front door peeling, the screens torn in most of the windows. You clear your throat. “Donna says you fix a lot of stuff for the folks around here,” you begin. Bucky makes a noise of acknowledgement. “You ever, uh…fix any showers?”
He pauses to look back at you, blue eyes sharp. “That a line?”
“What? No!” you sputter, cheeks on fire. “No, it’s — my shower pressure. It’s shit, it’s…not a pick up line. I’m askin’ if you can fix that, too.”
He grunts, satisfied with his finished product, and closes the hood with a snap. You step back, watching as he tosses the screw driver back into the box and wipes his hands on his jeans again. When he turns to you, his face is closed off, stoic.
“I’m busy,” he says, blunt and to the point. The rejection stings like a child daring to touch the point of a needle for the first time — sharp and surprising and oddly shameful. The embarrassment pulls your eyes away.
“But if I find some time, I’ll let you know.”
His gaze is steady and unreadable when you meet it again. You nod quickly.
“That’d be amazing,” you gush, hands clasped together, “thank you—“
“I haven’t even fixed it yet, save your thanks,” he cuts you off.
“Still,” you reply, taking a step toward him, “I’d owe ya big time. Oh, you’d be doin’ me a huge favor ‘cause I need all the help I can get on this place—“
“What’d I just say, kid?” He glares are you, hands on his hips. “Now go on before you start wastin’ any more of my time,” he snaps, jerking his chin toward the car. You hesitate with your hand on the door, the smile on your face flickering doubtfully.
“Is it…safe?” you ask slowly.
Bucky scowls, mean and dark. “Don’t insult me.”
That gets you scampering into the seat. You twist the key, and after a breathless moment, the engine roars to life, the vents blasting you with hot air, but air nonetheless. You let out a whoop and pat the steering wheel proudly, the hope creeping back in. When you look out the windshield, you see Bucky’s already packed up his tool box and is making his way back to his trailer.
“Hey!” You scramble out of the car. “Hey, wait!”
He doesn’t turn around, just lifts his free hand over his head.
“Thank you!” you call out. He doesn’t respond. You watch him as he rounds his truck and disappears into his home. Then your phone buzzes.
“Shit—“
You’re peeling out of the park in seconds, leaving behind a cloud of dust and two blue eyes that watch you go from the safety of his trailer.
You take the keys out of the ignition and lean back in your seat, the smile on your face still as big as it was when the owner announced you got the job. In that moment, it was like the sun had broken through the clouds after years of rain.
It isn’t anything special, just a serving job at one of the many roadside diners in this small town, but what it stands for is more than you’ve had most of your life. Independence, stability, roots — everything you’ve been chasing after for the last few years now finally within your reach. No longer are you relying on the kindness of so-called friends that kick you out when it becomes inconvenient for them, or the generosity of low-life boyfriends that expect indentured servitude for a bed to sleep in; no longer are you couch surfing your way down highway 70, wondering what your next meal is going to cost you, or if your mother will pick up the phone when you’re too low on cash for gas. Just by getting the job, by finding your own little place to call home, you’ve broken free of the chains that have held your pitiful family lineage captive for years.
That’s worth celebrating.
You grab the six pack off the passenger seat before climbing out of the car. Thankfully, the evening air is much cooler now, and settles gently on your skin. Crickets chirp their congratulations, the breeze pats your back, and the light left on inside your trailer welcomes you home.
You sigh as you take it in, a soft smile on your face. Just this morning, you found the peeling front door, weedy garden and crooked paneling daunting; now it looks like a project you want to dive headfirst into, an opportunity to create something beautiful out of nothing, much like your own life.
You’ve got one foot on the steps when the wind grabs your attention. The large oak tree in the middle of the trailer park groans as it shifts, and you glance back to watch the leaves sway in the dusk, shadowed and haunting in a strangely beautiful way, until your gaze catches on a patch of light just beyond it. The white trailer with the boots out front has its curtains open now, and you watch as a shadow passes across a window.
Bucky.
The pressure returns to your chest tenfold, the same as before. Because of him, you get to cheers to a new life with a cold beer on your ratty little couch, and he walked away without so much as a thank you…
You adjust your grip on the six pack when you make your decision, sudden but resolute, and you’re crossing the park before you can think twice about it. A reward is reaped better with others.
As you approach, the shadows in the windows become clearer; wide shoulders, strong arms, big hands that set a mug on a shelf. Your breath goes a little shallow remembering how he towered over you. Stepping up the path, you watch as he pauses in front of the window, as still as a deer in headlights. Your knuckles just meet the door when the light inside flicks off.
You blink, eyes darting back to the window. The trailer is now dark. You can’t see inside, can’t spot movement — it’s pitch black where his figure was, where he stopped in front of the window right as you walked up…
You knock anyway. The beer bottles are cold against the skin of your leg as you wait, condensation dripping down your ankle. But the light doesn’t turn back on and you don’t hear weight shifting over cheap flooring. The crickets that sounded so nice before start to mock you the longer you stand there. You count to ten before trying again, a light rap on the wood.
Nothing.
Your heart sinks before you can stop it, the feeling painful and confusing. You bite down on your lip hard enough to draw blood, cheeks blazing in the soft light of the moon, then set the six pack in front of his door.
Bucky’s lights do not turn on when you make it back to your trailer, and they’re still not on when you spare one last glance out the window. The beers sit untouched on his front step.
Embarrassment courses through you like a summer fever, hot and alive and consuming. It eats away at all of the previous joy from your new job, and that bothers you more than you care to admit.
With a shake of your head, as if to clear the feeling out, you toss the keys on the counter and move to your tiny bathroom to turn on the shower. The nozzle sputters twice before the bare minimum drizzles out. You’re reminded of how you asked Bucky to fix it, the cryptic response he gave you, and how you nearly melted in response — the heat floods back to your face.
You really wish you kept those beers.
When the dried sweat has been scrubbed from your skin, and you’ve pulled on the softest sleep clothes you own, your mind has officially moved from denial to bargaining.
Donna said Bucky works brutal hours — maybe he has a strict sleep schedule. Like he can’t function unless he gets a full eight hours. Maybe it’s a ‘no visitors, lights off by nine on weeknights’ kind of thing. That makes sense for a fully grown man to have…right?
The reasonings filter through your head long after you’ve crawled into bed, some more believable than others. Eventually you decide that you just caught him at a bad time, and that it had nothing to do with him possibly seeing you through the window.
You’ll run into Bucky and explain the beers left on his door step; he’ll explain that he was tired, or he was busy, or something else completely normal and valid, and whatever lingering feelings you have over the whole thing will dissolve into nothing. Maybe you’ll crack a joke, maybe he’ll actually smile. Maybe the ice breaks and you’ll have another neighbor to call a friend in this new home.
You tell yourself this over and over until your restless mind finally fades to black.
You rise with the sun the next morning for your first shift. Your head is pleasantly empty of last night’s internal discourse, and you take it as a good sign.
Breakfast is pitiful — coffee and toast — but you’re too nervous to fill your uneasy stomach with more. When you pull on your uniform and spin every which way in the cracked bathroom mirror, though, the nervousness begins to fade. The dress is threadbare and half a size too big, but the color compliments your skin and emphasizes how bright and giddy your eyes are, bringing a light to your face that you haven’t seen in years. That tattered hand-me-down is a beautiful gateway opening up to a better future, a real future. You already love it.
When it’s time to go, you step out into a quiet, windless morning that promises to be a scorcher later. As you toss your purse into the passenger seat, you hear the rumbling of an old engine approaching, growing louder by the second. A familiar brown truck with the windows rolled down pulls up to the exit, just a few yards from where you stand.
Bucky sits in the driver’s seat, sporting an off-white t-shirt and dark sunglasses. He adjusts the radio, touches the rearview mirror, and pushes his shades up his nose before glancing up. Even behind the tinted lenses, you know that he sees you, and your heart nearly jumps out of your chest. But you still manage a smile, lifting your hand in a small wave.
He stares at you, an immovable statue except for his fingers white-knuckling over the wheel. A moment passes that feels like both a millisecond and a lifetime. You wonder if you should say something. But before you can, he looks away, the truck roaring once more as he eases out of the lot and into the street like he never saw you.
You watch his taillights drop beyond the horizon, your stomach dropping with them. The blatant dismissal sinks in, heavy and cutting, and it brings back all of the embarrassment from the night before. You fight desperately against a few angry tears stinging your eyes, but the hum of your fully-functioning engine does nothing to drown out the ringing in your ears.
You’re not sure which is worse: him ignoring you, or your reaction to him ignoring you.
You’ve dealt with disregard your entire life. Your childhood is a treasure trove of disappointment and neglect, carelessness and chaos, all of it later contributing to your steel-thick skin and low expectations of others. So you’re not sure why a stranger is affecting you like this — and a surly, intimidating stranger at that.
But something about him actively choosing to pretend you don’t exist presses on a bruise you’ve had covered for years. It rattles you more than anything.
Hands shaking, you put the car into drive.
The journey to the diner passes in a blur as you kick yourself mentally for the weakness. Your biggest mistake is that you went to him when you were too vulnerable — you were practically cracked wide open with need, and all it took was a helping hand for him to slip past your usual defenses. Were the sharp edges and sharper tongue not obvious red flags? What is it about Bucky that made you assume so quickly that he would be your friend? You taught yourself much better than that.
Despite the evidence, at the root of you, you refuse to accept it. Bucky’s lack of reaction was completely out of sorts; you know he’s far from friendly, but to completely ignore you is crazy work. So crazy that it just doesn’t make sense. There has to be some explanation for it, other than the obvious.
But unlike last night, your brain draws a blank on reasons for his behavior.
By the time you make it to the diner, you’re determined to figure this out. You need to see him again, to create an opportunity for an olive branch, and to learn if he’ll take it.
You get your first chance less than a week later, when you’re headed toward the mailboxes before the sun’s fully risen. You see a hulking figure already in front of them that you recognize right away. Bucky’s distracted while rifling through his mail, looking disheveled but still undeniably handsome in the pink light; he even looks relaxed, for once, instead of his usual guarded attitude.
“Good morning,” you say, smiling as you open your mailbox.
He tenses as he turns your way, shoulders taut and face creased. His jaw works as he stares you down, like he’s considering words and biting back the harsher ones. But instead of saying what’s on his mind, he grunts, short and crude, before turning on his heel and walking away. Your eyes follow him as he returns to his trailer and slams the door shut. It scares a flock of birds out of a nearby tree.
You stand there with a hand on the mailbox, jaw agape. The message couldn’t be any clearer. But for some reason, you shut your mouth with a snap and stand straighter, determined. His petulant, teenage antics are not enough to get you to throw in the towel yet.
So you try harder. You learn that you both leave the park around the same time, and when his truck rumbles past you, you wave, even if he isn’t looking at you (in a very obvious way.) You don’t care. You still try. He never waves back or throws you any acknowledgment, although you would bet your life on him seeing you each time, and eventually he starts leaving earlier, truck already missing from its spot when you’re headed to your car.
On the few days you’re both not working, you often see him mowing his lawn, mending his fence or washing his truck, domestic things that may trick passerby into thinking he’s a normal, pleasant guy. You fall victim to it as well, even knowing what you know, and head over with the intention of trapping him in a conversation. But as soon as you get remotely close to Bucky’s property, he mysteriously disappears, leaving you to feel like you just saw a ghost rather than your very alive neighbor.
You still don’t give in, but he continues to make it harder. When your car pulls up next to his at a red light, he’s theoretically interested in the SUV in front of him. When you’re passing out day-old pies from the diner to the neighbors, he doesn’t answer the door even though you can hear the TV on inside. When you’re taking a stroll around the park and he’s headed your way, he turns around and walks in the opposite direction.
Frustrating is the politest way you can describe him, but your mind can’t seem to take the hint.
Until the delusion crumbles when you least expect it. You’re bone-tired after your shift, and even your purse full of tips can’t ease the pain from your back. Pulled up to your trailer, you notice a group of three people slowly making their way across the park. One quick look tells you it’s the Markhams, stooped and gray-haired, shuffling down the pathway, and in between them is none other than Bucky, carrying a dozen grocery bags on each arm that you know aren’t his.
You watch as he leans down toward Mrs. Markham, listening to something she says, and your eyes go wide when he throws his head back in a laugh, pure joy lighting up his face. The sound creeps into your car, oozing warmth and light that is at odds with the Bucky you know. Mr. Markham adds a comment that gets him laughing harder, lines crinkling around his eyes, nose scrunching up in delight. You greedily take in this new side of him while your stomach roils with something bitter and nauseating.
So the sweet side of Bucky does exist. You’re watching it in real time as he helps his elderly neighbors with their groceries, chuckling in amusement as they banter back and forth. He holds the door open for them, too, even with his arms full, making sure they cross the threshold safely before letting the door fall shut behind him.
This must be the Bucky that Donna spoke about. The Bucky that everyone but you, apparently, gets to see.
The realization settles inside of you like an anvil dropping from the sky. So it’s just you that he doesn’t like. It’s just you that he can’t bear to be a neighbor to.
Occam’s Razor strikes again.
You move mechanically out of your car and into your home, your body carrying you through the motions while your brain twists itself up into a painful knot. You comb through everything you did and said that Sunday afternoon when he fixed your car; did you offend him? Did you push an unknown boundary? Did you ask for too much? Did you say too little? Were you too loud or too quiet? Too slow to thank him for his help?
Yes, you snapped a few times, but you only ever matched his energy, and everything about him implied that he can take as good as he gives. So what happened? What did you do? Why is your neighbor so unconcerned with whether you live or die?
Whatever the reason, it’s done its damage. Bucky wants nothing to do with you, and that seems to be the way it is.
Later that night, when sleep evades you, and you’ve tossed and turned for hours on end, a terrible loneliness creeps in for the first time since you arrived at the trailer park. It’s familiar in the worst way, reminding you of all the horrible people you met and all the shitty pit stops you made on your journey here. You thought you left that feeling behind — you thought wrong.
It follows you around for the next few days, leaving you hollow and numb. You’re on autopilot most of the time: you smile at customers and make conversation with the neighbors, you gossip with your coworkers and play with the children next door. But it’s constantly there in the back of your mind, like a memory you can’t erase, and when you’re alone in your little home, you feel it wrap around you like a straight jacket.
You’re lonely. And Bucky’s indifference toward you brought it front and center. For you, companionship had always been fleeting and one-sided, transactional at best. You’d had enough of it to the point that companionship was something you began to avoid, even when it promised a warm bed and a free meal. You thought a place to call your own and a means to support yourself were enough to keep the grass greener on your side. Now a stranger who sees nothing to gain by being your friend has reminded you that you’ve never had anyone in your life that wanted to be there just because.
The grass slowly withers away to a dry, lifeless brown.
You think you’re hiding it well, but Donna asks about it when July has rolled into a rainy August.
“How’ve you been, hun?” she says around her cigarette, pushing back one of the many hairs falling out of her clip. “Feels like I haven’t seen you in a while.”
“I’ve been pickin’ up more shifts,” you reply automatically, pulling roughly on the broken piece of siding. Donna watches as you struggle with it, leaning against the far side of the trailer.
“You’re gonna work yourself into an early grave if you keep that up. You leave at dawn and don’t come back ‘til dusk seven days a week. Young thing like you needs time to herself.”
“I’m tryin’ to save up,” you grunt, snapping the siding in half. The part connected to your trailer swings down dejectedly. You look her way. “In case you haven’t noticed, this place is fallin’ apart, and it takes money to put it back together.”
She hums, tapping the ashes from her cigarette. “Why don’t you just ask Bucky for help?”
You pause from picking up the broken pieces of siding in the grass. “I don’t think so.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t wanna bother him,” you grumble, avoiding her eyes.
“Oh, please — Bucky would be happy to help.”
“Are you sure about that?” A sudden hint of irritation in your tone. Donna stands up straighter.
“Whaddya mean?” she asks, eyebrows raised. “Something happen?”
You shake your head quickly. “No, there’s not — no. He just seems really busy, that’s all. No use askin’ for his time when he doesn’t have any.”
There’s a brief silence as Donna considers your words. “Something happened,” she repeats. You toss your head, eyes narrowing in her direction, but she keeps going. “Did he say no to fixin’ your car? Or was he mean? Like he’d rather be talkin’ to anybody but you?”
You let out an exhale, long and ragged, and debate answering truthfully.
“Well, yeah,” you admit, “but that ain’t nothin’ I’m not used to. He was actually—“ Your jaw clenches. “He was helpful. Ruder than hell — and bossy, but he got it fixed and told me to get a new battery and stuff. But ever since then…” You trail off, Donna waits. “It’s like he regrets doin’ it. I’ll see him walk by and his eyes pass over me like I’m not even there. I try startin’ a conversation and suddenly he’s got somewhere to be. He’s avoidin’ me, and I don’t know why. I’d be fine with it if I knew what it was, but I got no clue.” Knees in the grass, you watch as a caterpillar crawls over a leaf and onto a piece of siding; you pick it up carefully, watching as the insect runs circles over the plastic, nowhere to go, just as confused as you. “Why’s he like that?”
“Oh, hun,” Donna soothes quietly, stepping closer to your crouched position. “Is that what’s been botherin’ ya? Bucky not bein’ welcomin’?”
“Yes — I mean, no. That’s not what’s botherin’ me, it’s just — it’s hard to explain.” You set the caterpillar down and stand, brushing the dirt and grass from your knees. “And it’s a lot more than just not bein’ welcomin’. I could get hit by a semi right here on Pueblo Street and I don’t think he’d even blink.”
“Now I know that’s not true. What’s goin’ on in that head of yours, sugar?” Donna asks patiently, putting her cigarette out on the broken siding.
You watch the ashes drop to the ground, fragile, crumbling, and still smoking. Your eyes scan the park, naturally pausing over the white trailer with the curtains drawn and boots out front; there’s no truck outside, so he must be working. Yet the empty house still stings a little to look at.
“I thought that the job and movin’ here meant I figured everything out,” you mutter. “Instead an old man decidin’ he doesn’t like me for no reason reminded me that I’m still on my own. I’ve dealt with it my whole life, so I get along just fine by myself, but I’m only human. I still want someone to — to care about me.” You fight through the sudden lump in your throat.
“And Bucky doin’ you a favor brought that up,” Donna confirms. You nod reluctantly.
“Guess so. It was just nice to have someone care, even if he was grumpy as hell about it. Now he pretends I don’t exist and I keep rememberin’ all the times I thought I found someone who cared, only for them to just—“ You flick your hand like you’re waving off a bug, inconsequential yet inconvenient.
“Honey, we care.” Donna wraps an arm around your shoulders, warm and tight, holding you to her. “You got all of us now, and we watch out for each other.”
You open your mouth to point out that one of them does not, but she beats you to it.
“Bucky is a special case,” she sighs. You watch as she gazes at the white trailer, too. “It took him a while to come around to us. He was quiet, kept to himself, coming and going at odd hours…but eventually we wore him down. Kept inviting him in even when we knew he wouldn’t come. Kept offering our help even when we knew he wouldn’t take it. But then he did. I think Bucky was gone for a few days when a big storm came through — a tree fell and knocked out the left side of his trailer, crushed the roof. We got together and started patching it up just as he pulled in. Told us he could handle it but we wouldn’t take no for answer and did it with him anyway. He was real grateful, awfully sweet and apologetic, extra kind to everyone that helped out, but we told him it’s what we do for each other. After that, it was like living next door to a whole new person. I think he just needed to see that we cared for him no matter what, and that we’d be there for him even when things were tough.”
You huff, kicking the dirt at your feet. “Doesn’t explain why he’s got a problem with me. What’s his deal?”
Donna’s hesitant to answer, pulling out another cigarette and lighting it thoughtfully. When there’s a cloud of smoke in the air between you, she says slowly, “He did some time at the state pen.”
Your eyes snap to her, but she shakes her head a little.
“He hasn’t said much, but from what I gathered, Bucky lost more than just his freedom when they handed him his sentence. Family don’t bother with him anymore, told him as much when he was paroled, and he had no choice but to make do alone somewhere else. That can mess a person up, make them suspicious of others, make them think bein’ alone’s the only way to go about this life.” She looks at you then, a soft smile on her lips. “Sounds like someone else I know.” Her words feel like a sucker punch to your gut, but she waves a hand at you. “That’s all I’ve got, though, so if you’re curious about it, you’ll need to ask him.”
You chew the inside of your cheek, replaying the story, picturing Bucky in an orange jumpsuit behind bars. For some reason, the image seems wrong, but your curiosity begins to burn.
“I doubt I’ll get the chance,” you mumble.
“Give it some time,” Donna chirps. “He’ll come around. But you—“ She wraps a thin hand around your wrist, squeezing with intention. “—next time you’re feelin’ a little too sorry for yourself, you come find me. By the time I’m done with you, you’re gonna be beggin’ for some alone time.”
A smile reluctantly breaks across your face, the first genuine one in weeks. “Sure, Donna. Thanks.”
You’d think your talk with Donna would help ease Bucky Barnes from your head, but it seems to have the opposite affect.
While your cocktail of emotions towards him has been watered down by Donna’s story, the urge to understand him is stronger than ever.
You still see him occasionally, driving past in his truck, stalking toward the mailbox, trudging around his yard; you pick up where you left off with your routine, waving and smiling and wishing him a good morning even when he’s already halfway across the park. Nothing changes in his attitude toward you, but it only makes you more curious.
Between grueling ten-hour shifts at the diner, you capitalize on a specific tidbit you learned from Donna, how the neighbors’ generosity got Bucky to crack. You know you have better things to do than trying to win over someone who doesn’t want to be won over, but your stubbornness has always gotten the best of you in your weaker moments.
You choose to act when he isn’t home, aiming to lessen the pressure instead of amping it up. You spend an entire day baking ten dozen cookies for the neighbors and make sure to leave a few at his door with a note to come by if he wants more (he doesn’t). You suffer through sunburn and dehydration while sweeping the entire walking path around the park, paying special attention to Bucky’s portion so that the dust doesn’t settle over his boots. You sprint through a downpour to pull his clothes off the line, covering your trailer in his shirts and jeans and — gulp — underwear to air dry before folding them up carefully and delivering them to his front step in your laundry basket once the sky’s cleared up.
It’s waiting for you outside your door the next morning as you’re leaving for work. No note, no sign of a thanks. You blink when you see it, wondering how he knew it was your laundry basket in the first place.
Still, nothing changes. You try really hard not to obsess over it. And life moves on as usual.
One Friday afternoon, you find yourself sitting in a cheap folding chair next to a handful of your neighbors; they caught you after a slow shift when your social battery hadn’t dropped below empty yet, calling you over with wide smiles like they’ve been waiting hours for you to show. The group is converged in a circle next to the oak tree, passing around beer and flasks of whiskey and shooting the shit. You’ve made quick friends with the girl two trailers down, Wanda, who isn’t much older than you but has a lightness to her that feels like a breath of fresh air. Her husband, who she calls Viz, sits with his arm draped around her shoulders and a look on his face like there’s nowhere else in the world he’d rather be. They ask you how you’re liking the park, how the repairs to your trailer are coming along, how your job is going. You feel a deep sense of gratitude forming the more you speak with them.
Neighbors filter in and out of the group like clockwork as the afternoon sun fades into the evening sunset. If they can’t stop for a drink, they still join in on the conversation, gossiping and commenting on the goings-on in town, or stirring up good-natured trouble before resuming their chores — Donna comes by to threaten you all with the hose if you don’t pick up after yourselves. You’re convinced you’ve met everyone in the park by this point, and you’ll need to make a list to get their names straight, but they all have one thing in common: they’re all pleased that you’re here.
The beer eventually begins to dwindle, but spirits are still high in the circle. Wanda’s in the middle of telling a story about a squirrel that got into the Markhams’ trailer when you hear the deep rumbling of an engine in the distance. Wanda doesn’t seem to notice it, but you know that sound anywhere. Sure enough, Bucky’s brown truck comes up the hill and pulls into the park as Wanda’s imitating Mrs. Markham’s screams from her standoff with the intruder. While the rest of the group roars with laughter, you watch as Bucky parks the truck in front of his trailer and steps out. That’s when Wanda spots him, too.
“Hey, Buck!” she calls out, hands cupped around her mouth.
Bucky turns toward the group, his eyes sweeping across the faces. You swear they pause on you for a half a heartbeat.
“Come join us! We’ve got beer!” Wanda shouts, waving a hand over her head. A few others in the circle add their agreement, ushering him over and shaking their flasks. Bucky stares for another moment, as still as the trees behind him, before turning around without a word and heading for his trailer. The door shuts with a slam. A few grumbles go up around you, but Wanda just shrugs, smiling lopsidedly. “Eh, if I got off work early, I’d probably want some peace and quiet, too.”
You let out a breath you didn’t know you were holding, a sense of unease tainting the picturesque scene around you. “Does he…do that often?” you ask as casually as you can.
“Get off work early? Never. He works more than anyone I know—“
“No, I mean…” your finger points vaguely in the direction of the white trailer, “does he usually just ignore you when you ask him to hang out?”
She tilts her head, lips curving. “No, he’s usually at these things when he isn’t workin’. But if he’s home already, it probably means he threw out his back or somethin’. I know Steve threatens to fire him if he doesn’t go home and rest when that happens. Leave it to Bucky to take an order that seriously.” She laughs. “I swear those two were soldiers in a past life.”
You nod, your mind already dissecting the new information. He didn’t look like he was hurt…but you remember his eyes resting on you for a beat too long. The beer and whiskey combo in your stomach churns.
You fidget with your drink for the next half hour, barely hearing the conversations around you. An uncomfortable feeling has settled in your chest, tight and anxious, and your racing thoughts do nothing to help it. Finally, you can’t take it anymore, feeling restless and in pursuit of answers. You excuse yourself and head for your trailer, but when you’re far enough from the group, you take the long way around the park to Bucky’s, your heartbeat growing louder with each step.
You knock on the door before you can convince yourself otherwise, listening to the laughter of the circle as you wait. There’s a shuffling on the other side, then a soft grunt, and the door swings open.
Your lips part.
Bucky stands before you in nothing but his blue jeans. Your eyes jump to the wide expanse of his chest, the hard muscles of his abs. A smattering of dark chest hair tapers off down his stomach and disappears into his pants, right below his belt buckle. You forget how to breathe.
He stares down at you while bringing a beer bottle to his mouth and taking a hard swig. A drop of condensation lands on the dip between his collarbones, and your tongue subconsciously darts out to wet your lips. He shifts his weight to lean against the door frame, expression neutral. “What do you want?”
You realize you look like a fish out of water and shut your mouth with a snap, swallowing thickly as you feel an unwarranted heat bloom in your gut.
“Um,” you start, silently cursing the way your voice shakes. “Not sure if you heard Wanda, but we — uh, we were wonderin’ if you wanted to join us. Patrick’s doin’ a run to the liquor store so there’ll be plenty of beer soon. Or we still have some whiskey. Unless you’ve got plans…” you trail off, eyes flicking to his shirtless chest.
Bucky’s face doesn’t change. “Don’t have plans.”
“Then you should drink with us.”
“Not interested.” You blink.
“…why not?”
He shrugs.
“Don’t feel like drinkin’ with company.” He takes another quick sip from his bottle. Your eyes catch on the label and recognize it immediately from your own preferences; when you look back at Bucky, you find him watching you closely, blue eyes hard and unapologetic. You suck in a breath through your teeth, a strange feeling buzzing beneath your skin. Maybe it’s the alcohol, maybe it’s the heat, maybe it’s the undeniable thrill of seeing him shirtless, but you feel close to exploding.
“Don’t feel like drinkin’ with company, or don’t feel like drinkin’ with me?” you say quietly, eyes ghosting over his frame.
A look crosses his face, something close to bewildered, before he hides it behind his usual expressionless mask. “What’re you talkin’ about?”
You flash him a tight-lipped smile though far from amused. “Sure, like you don’t know.”
“Kid, I don’t have a clue,” he grumbles, though the hand holding the beer bottle twitches.
“Oh, don’t play dumb,” you snap before you can stop yourself, a dangerous flush running through your body, “you know exactly what you’re doin’. What you’ve been doin’ for the last month. Avoidin’ me like I’m the tax man and you’ve got a debt to pay. You don’t like me? Fine. No problem. I don’t need you to be my friend. But I won’t put up with you actin’ like I don’t exist in front of everyone else anymore, and if you keep doin’ it, I’ll make your sad, lonely, little life hell. So just stay away from me and I’ll stay away from you. Got it?”
Your words hang between you for a sour moment, and not even the cheerful sounds of the group can cut through the tension. Your chest heaves as you scowl at Bucky; he scowls right back, though you notice that the tips of his ears have gone a rosy shade of red and his grip on the beer bottle looks close to destructive. Your eyes scan his hardened face one last time before you turn on your heel and kick up a cloud of dust behind you as you march back to your trailer. This time, you slam the door.
Inside the trailer, the urge to throw something, anything, is too strong to ignore. Your vision zeroes in on the laundry basket Bucky returned a few days ago, and you lunge. Taking the cheap plastic in your hands, you hurl it against the floor with all of your strength, gritting your teeth while biting back a scream, watching as it breaks into a hundred different pieces with concerning ease on your linoleum floors. What follows is a silence so bitter, you can taste it in your mouth.
Your temper slowly fizzles out as you absorb the mess you made. You shouldn’t have done that. You shouldn’t have let him get to you again. Now you’ve got a room full of shame and no laundry basket.
Exhaling heavily, you run a hand through your hair while peeking out the window to see if the circle of neighbors heard your crash out. Nobody’s looking your way, thankfully — instead, they’re cheering on Patrick as he emerges from his car with two new cases of beer. A pang of longing hits your chest, but you know you can’t go back out there now, not after this. So you resign yourself to picking up the remains of your laundry basket, piece by piece on your hands and knees until they ache from the pressure and you’ve cut your fingers on the jagged edges.
Later, when you’re nursing a small hangover with a cup of tea and an ice pack on your head, you wait for the regret to sink in over the heated words you threw at Bucky. But, strangely, it doesn’t. Now that the buzz from the alcohol and the leftover anger have vacated your body, you’re left with an odd sense of calm about it.
Sure, you got something off your chest that’s been weighing you down for weeks, but you had truly convinced yourself that you were optimistic over the Bucky situation. You had been foolishly hopeful that you could get through to him. Your outburst said differently. You should feel embarrassed, defeated, tired, but instead you feel…good. You handled it, just like you’ve handled every other hurdle in your life. Maybe not gracefully, but grace has never been your forte, and you don’t really mind.
You only wish that Bucky had shown some sort of reaction to being called out, a protest, a sigh, anything — but the man is as expressive as a bucket of cement. Knowing him, you wouldn’t be surprised if he didn’t listen to half the things you said. He probably thought the whole thing was a waste of time, something to forget about as soon as he shut the door…
Doesn’t matter. You’re not going to lose sleep over your emotionally repressed neighbor anymore. You’re not going to spend another second thinking about him.
This turns out to be easier said than done.
You get to enjoy a peaceful week without seeing or thinking about Bucky, until Sunday rolls around. You’re doing laundry, which proves to be harder than usual without a laundry basket, leaving you to juggle armfuls of clothes while trekking back and forth between the park’s shared washing machines and your trailer. While the last of your wardrobe dries on the line outside, you’re moving around your little home in a faded pink tank top and an old pair of some ex’s boxers. The radio plays rock classics while you prep dinner, and you hum along as you man the stove and chop vegetables.
Then a knock interrupts.
You set down the knife and glance out the window, but whoever’s outside is hovering next to the door out of sight. You think it’s Donna, coming by with eggs after she borrowed some from you the other day, but when you open the door, you’re downright shocked to find who’s on the other side.
Bucky stands with one hand against your door frame, the other holding his toolbox, dressed in dirty jeans and a plain black t-shirt that hugs his body in an ungodly attractive way. You take a step back in surprise when his eyes find yours. They’re bright, but guarded. He nods at you.
“You said your shower’s broken,” he says in greeting, voice low like he doesn’t want to be overheard.
Your mouth falls open. “Huh?”
His lips press together in an impatient line. “Your shower. You asked me to take a look at it the other day.”
Your mind feels like an old computer you had to reboot to get working again. You blink at him as it comes back to you.
“Yeah,” you answer slowly, “but that was before.”
He huffs, looking over his shoulder at the park behind him. “You want your shower fixed or not? I got things to do today.”
“Then go do ‘em.” You cross your arms over your chest, trying your best to look down your nose at him while being completely submerged in his shadow.
“Don’t be stupid,” is his retort, “I’m offerin’ you help.”
“Don’t need it. And don’t call me stupid,” you snap.
“You gonna fix the shower yourself?” Bucky challenges, tilting his head at you. You feel heat rush to your cheeks as his eyes sweep up and down your figure, taking in your thin tank top and rolled up boxers.
“Maybe,” you throw at him, though it lacks the previous bite. The corner of Bucky’s mouth curls up.
“Then at least let me watch.”
Your spine locks as a jolt of something new and strange spreads through your body. Your brain decides now is a good time to remember just how attractive he is beneath the oil and dirt and rough demeanor — especially when shirtless.
“That’s — I don’t — you—“ stammers out of your mouth. Bucky responds by pushing past you into your trailer. You stumble into your couch, still struggling for words as he fills your little kitchen with his wide shoulders and long legs, his hair nearly brushing the ceiling. He sets the toolbox down on your table, briefly glancing at your half-made dinner.
“Smells good.”
His gruff tone is a sharp contrast to his casual words. You shake your head, though you feel like you could use a solid smack to the face. “Do you normally go around bargin’ into your neighbors homes?” you ask, slightly breathless. He looks at you, amused.
“When the neighbors are bein’ dumb, yeah. This the bathroom?” He points to the pocket door on his left.
“I told you not to call me—“
“Stupid, I know. I didn’t call you stupid, though.”
Your jaw clenches hard enough to hurt, watching as Bucky pulls open the bathroom door and squeezes into the tiny room like it’s his house. The sound of the shower turning on comes a second later.
“I thought I told you to stay away from me,” you grit through your teeth. “You got a hearing problem, old man?”
From the bathroom, Bucky chuckles, soft and deep. “Old man,” he mutters to himself before shutting the water off and reappearing, eyes pinning you in place. “I can hear just fine. Heard all of your cute little temper tantrum the other day.“
Your entire body flushes against its will. ”Then why are you here?” you demand. Bucky begins rifling through his toolbox.
“You asked me to fix your shower.”
“Yeah, a month ago,” you scoff. “And before I knew how big of an ass you are.” Bucky’s mouth does that half-smile again as he picks up a wrench. It might be the same one you imagined hitting him over the head with.
“That ain’t very nice,” he murmurs, eyes flicking to you. “You hardly know me.”
Your lip curls. “And you don’t know me, but you already decided I wasn’t worth your time.”
He exhales heavily, swapping the wrench for another one and weighing it in his hands. “This again?” But before you can let out the blood-curdling scream that’s been building up inside of you, he sets down the tool and turns your way, shoulders set and face stony. “Look, if I hurt your feelins by not takin’ your invite, then that’s on you. It ain’t personal, neighborhood bondin’s not really my thing as you could probably tell—“
“Unbelievable,” you mutter bitterly, shaking your head. “First of all, I know you’re lyin’ — Wanda said you’re always around when somethin’ is goin’ on. Second, you’re completely missin’ my point.”
“I was gettin’ to it,” he says louder, pointing a sharp finger at you. “But it seems you have a habit of jumpin’ to conclusions before hearin’ a person out.”
“Hearin’ a person out!” you cry, throwing your hands up; the sarcasm drips thick into your tone. “When would I ever be able to hear you out when you walk the other way when you see me comin’?”
He levels you with a hard look, blue eyes burning into yours. Butterflies erupt in your stomach, unwelcome and distracting, but you hold your ground.
“I don’t do friends,” he grunts, “I’m not good at bein’ one and I’m too busy for ‘em anyway. Fixin’ your car that day, I could tell that’s what you were lookin’ for, and I didn’t want you to get the wrong idea in your head.”
You laugh, dry and harsh. “Well, you certainly got your point across, Bucky.” His hand twitches, a quick clench and unclench of fingers; you observe it coolly, eyebrow cocked. “You know, for a guy who “doesn’t do friends,” there are a lot of people in this park who think you do.”
“That’s different,” he’s quick to say, brushing it off, “I’ve known ‘em for years. Thin line between familiar and friends, not my fault if they pick one and I pick the other.”
You scoff.
“Sure, okay. So what happens in, say, five years — when I’m still livin’ across the park from ya?” you ask, taking a bold step forward. “Will I get grandfathered in to your half-assed friendship, or will we still be goin’ at it like this? ‘cause I’m startin’ to think it’s less about you bein’ anti-friends, and more about you not likin’ me.”
“You won’t be here in five years,” he says with a roll of his eyes. “This place ain’t anythin’ more than a pit stop on your way to somethin’ else. You’re young — real young — still got most of your life ahead of you, some great, big future out there somewhere, but it ain’t here. So, no. I don’t think we’ll ever be friends.”
With an inaudible crack, something shifts inside your chest, something heavy and painful as memories of your past flood your thoughts, ruthless and relentless in their intention to hurt. You pull your arms in close to your body, feeling goosebumps on your skin.
“You don’t know anythin’ about me and my future,” you tell him quietly. He shrugs.
“Maybe not, but I know restless when I see it. And I know grit. You’ll want something better eventually, and you’ll go after it.”
The silence that follows is deafening. You look everywhere but him, unwilling to show him just how much his words got to you, but he keeps his eyes steadily on you, unblinking, unwavering, like he’s finally noticed you for the first time and needs to learn everything he can about you in this very moment. Finally, he sighs, running a hand through his thick hair and frowning at the floor.
“But…I think maybe I was…doin’ too much. I didn’t see it that way before, but I do now,” he says, still gruff, but softer now. “Lemme fix your shower. To say sorry for bein’…for bein’ an ass. I know what it’s like to be ignored…and I should’ve realized how things might’ve come across to ya.”
You exhale shakily. So, no. I don’t think we’ll ever be friends. You look away, struggling to separate the sting of his words from the peace offering in front of you.
“Alright,” you relent, packing up the pain and setting it aside. He nods before picking through his toolbox again. You shift your weight, feeling awkward and out of place in your own home. Clearing your throat, you bravely add, “Does this mean I can expect a wave in the mornings?”
Bucky makes a noise in the back of his throat that could pass for a laugh. “Don’t get too ahead of yourself now. Just because I’m sayin’ sorry doesn’t mean I take back what I said about bein’ friends.”
“Yeah. You’re a grumpy old man who likes to be alone. Got it.”
He tosses you a look over his shoulder, equal parts irritated and amused, while you bite your lip to stop yourself from acting on the hurt simmering inside of you. As the fight in you deflates, you take a few careful steps into the kitchen, leaning against the counter as Bucky sorts through a handful of knuts and screws. “So…” you start, searching for a stop to the thoughts inside your head, “what’d you end up doin’ that night?”
“What night?” Bucky grunts.
“The night we were drinkin’.”
He hums, pocketing the screws and picking up a screwdriver. “Finished up a couple projects,” he says slowly. “Got some chores done.”
“Really,” you state, brows furrowed. “Didn’t look like you were up to anythin’.”
He looks at you then and his eyes are unreadable. “Why do you say that?”
“Because you answered the door without a shirt. And you were drinkin’ a beer. The beer I left at your door when you were too scared to answer it, by the way.”
Bucky snorts. “You askin’ for a thanks? I had my head under car hoods all day. I think I deserved a cold drink.”
He turns for the bathroom again; this time, you follow, hovering in the doorway as he starts loosening the shower head from the pipe. “Do you always answer your door halfway to nude, or did I just get lucky that day?”
Bucky laughs, really, truly laughs. Whatever burdened expression you were wearing is wiped clean off your face as you bask in the sound of it.
“It’s called laundry, sweetheart. I smelled like a wet dog on an oil rig after workin’ twelve hours in the heat, and I didn’t care to sit in it any longer.”
“Still,” you mutter, watching as he catches the unattached shower head before it drops to the ground, “you could’ve put on a shirt before greetin’ me like that.”
“Like you’re much better,” he says, glancing over his shoulder at you; again, his eyes rake up and down shamelessly, but this time it feels more concentrated, observant. The blue looks a shade darker than before. You gape at him.
“It’s — well, I’m just—“
“Doin’ laundry?” Bucky supplies quietly. You snap out of it when he turns back to the shower, pulling out his screwdriver.
“Whatever,” you grumble, feeling hot, “just let me know when you’re done.”
You leave him in the bathroom to pick up where you left off chopping vegetables. You should probably have a clearer head when handling a knife, but you’re too riled up to sit still and wait for him to finish. What was that look about? He says he doesn’t want to be your friend, then he stares at you like you’ve got something he wants. Is he waiting for you to snap at him again, or is it something else?
You’re silent while you work, just the radio and the sounds of Bucky working on your shower filling the trailer. Every now and then you’ll hear the water run, or a hushed curse under his breath. You’re just turning off the heat on the stove when he steps out of your bathroom and puts his tools away.
“Pressure’s fine now,” he tells you, snapping the toolbox shut. You turn to him, hands on your hips.
“Mind if I check?” Another half-smile from him as he gestures for you to go ahead. You shuffle past him, brushing his shoulder as you go. You’re shocked to feel how warm he runs, almost hot to the touch; your cool skin begs you to step closer. In the bathroom, you turn the handle and are pleasantly surprised to see water shoot out at a mostly normal rate.
“Nice work,” you call out before turning it off. Bucky’s waiting for you in the kitchen, leaning against the table with his arms crossed and a curious look on his face. “What?” you can’t help but ask, stopping in your tracks.
For the first time since meeting him, Bucky looks slightly put off, like a thought’s crossed his mind that he’s wondering if he should voice aloud. “Are you—“ He clears his throat. “Where were you before this?”
You blink. You haven’t heard that question in a while. “La Junta. But I grew up in Dodge City.”
He nods thoughtfully. “Got family there?”
“Maybe,” you shrug. “Couldn’t tell you where my daddy is. Mom’s got a new boyfriend, don’t know if they moved.”
“What about you? You got a boyfriend?” he murmurs, examining his dirty hands.
“I wouldn’t be askin’ you for help if I did,” you answer, blinking, and you turn back to your food to hide the heat crawling up your face. Bucky hums. Then, to your immense surprise, you hear him ease himself into the tiny chair at your table.
“So you’re on your own,” he comments, as if what he did wasn’t completely at odds with your earlier conversation.
Your shoulders tense instinctively. Well, isn’t this just ironic? The man who made you feel lonely wants to know how lonely you are.
“Could say that,” you respond slowly, “but Donna and the others have been real welcoming. They say the door’s always open.”
You hope he catches the barb in your words, the subtle call out, but Bucky just sighs. “Yeah, they’re like that. Would give you the clothes off their back in the middle of a snowstorm if you needed it. Good people — too good, sometimes.”
“Nobody can be too good,” you say, eyeing him over your shoulder. “I think the world could use a few more people like them.” He meets your gaze before dragging it down your figure again, but it’s softer this time, less analytical and not necessarily uncomfortable. You quickly turn back to the stove. “Didn’t take you as the type to chit chat,” you quip.
“Oh, am I bein’ too friendly now?”
“I thought you got things to do today.”
“I do,” he grunts. “I’ll get to them.”
It hits you suddenly that you’re not sure if you want Bucky to leave yet. When you chance another glance at him, you’re struck with how comfortable he looks sitting there. His broad frame takes up a whole side of the table, and he’s slouched down just enough in the chair with his legs spread wide, like he owns the place, like he knows the inside of your trailer well, like he’s familiar with the way you move around the kitchen.
A teasing smile makes its way onto your face. “If I didn’t know better, it sounds like you’re lookin’ for a friend to pass time with—“
“Don’t be difficult,” he mutters, head tilted as he crosses his arms; his biceps bulge, the golden skin stretching like an invitation for you to touch, taste, bite—
“You sure like givin’ orders, huh?” you remark, matching his stance. Those blue eyes find yours and don’t let go.
“Only when it’s needed,” he says, voice lowering to a pitch that could rumble the floors beneath your bare feet. To your chagrin, it goes straight to your gut, settling there with a deep heat that awakens something inside of you. You scramble to push it down, afraid of the truth showing plainly on your face.
“Bossy,” you mutter under your breath, looking away. Bucky chuckles, somehow making it worse.
“Somethin’ tells me you don’t do well listenin’ to others.”
Your hand tightens over the plate you’re pulling from the cupboard. “Yeah, well. Most people tell you to do things ‘cause it’s better for them, not for you.”
He hums. “You listened pretty well to me.”
Your cheeks flush. “Judgment error,” you mumble.
“Did you get the new battery like I told you to?”
“Uh…” You have the grace to look sheepish because, truthfully, you forgot. You close your mouth before telling him that if he hadn’t completely derailed all of your rational thinking with his avoidant behavior, you’d have remembered.
“I stand corrected,” he mutters, pushing out his chair. Bucky only needs to take two steps until he’s looming over you, pulling out a card from his back pocket. He takes your hand in his and places the card there before his fingers slide to your wrist, gripping tight. “Rogers’ garage on Miner Street. I want you in there this week for a battery change. Unless you’re tryin’ to blow that hunk of junk up.”
You gulp, looking down at where he’s holding you. “I have work,” you whisper.
“After work, then. I’ll be there.” He searches your face, waiting for your confirmation. You nod, but he doesn’t let go. A moment passes where it’s just the two of you breathing along to the soft melody of the radio.
“You’re helping me again,” you blurt. His fingers dig a little deeper into your flesh.
“And?”
You take a steadying breath, your brain picking through your words carefully. “Awfully friend-like, if you ask me—“
Bucky groans, pulling away and leaving sparks along your skin. He picks up his toolbox, giving you a quick glance. He looks like he’s about to say something, and you find yourself desperately wanting to know what it is. But he seems to think better of it and makes for the door, opening it up to the heat of the August evening. His eyes meet yours one last time. “Enjoy your dinner.”
He’s a step out of your trailer when you call his name. He stops immediately, looking over his shoulder. “Thank you,” you say in a rush. “For fixin’ the shower.”
A pause, then, “No problem, kid.” The door swings shut. Through the window you see him traipse across the park and to his truck where he tosses the toolbox into the back, then he disappears into his home. Whatever things he had to do seem to be forgotten. Or nonexistent. A smile curls across your face before you can stop it.
The following weeks feel like a fever dream compared to the last month. You find yourself face-to-face with Bucky a number of times, some by coincidence, some by design.
A quick nod as he drives past you in the morning turns into a quick conversation at the mailbox the next day. It’s mostly you talking, but he stands there nonetheless, listening quietly to your unprovoked story of a difficult customer from the other week. Following that, you bump into him on a walk around the park with Wanda, where he manages to crack a smile when you recount how the little kid next door ran you over with his bike earlier that morning. He makes you promise to treat the patch of road rash on your thigh with rubbing alcohol, warning against infection and causing you to blush like a school girl being told off.
A storm rips through the town later that week, ripping off shingles and felling trees, making the lights flicker uncertainly from time to time as the wind batters the side of your trailer. After the worst of it’s passed, you step outside to assess the damage; you think it’s superficial, nothing that threatens the structural integrity of the outbuilding, but you don’t know the first thing about evaluating storm damage.
Luckily, Bucky materializes out of nowhere like he could read your mind from across the park, offering to check for leaks and punctures that could lead to greater troubles down the road. He claims he does it for all of the neighbors, waving off your word vomit of gratitude with a huff and a scowl, but once again, he either forgets about the others, or those intentions never existed, because when he’s finished fortifying your trailer, he sends you a small salute before crossing the park and disappearing back into his home.
A few days later, you find yourself at the mailboxes with Bucky after he came up behind you with a muttered, “mornin’”, and now he’s listening to you talk about your boss’ erratic revamp of the menu. You manage to pull from him that he’s partial to the danish pastries your diner sells, so you knock on his door later that night with a bag full of them and a smile on your face, watching as the tips of his ears glow bright red when you hand them over. He thanks you in that gruff way of his that doesn’t sound grateful at all, but it’s enough for you.
But to your shock, he repays the favor the next evening.
You’re curled up on the couch with a book, listening to the weak clicks of the AC unit in your window, when you feel your trailer give a sudden lurch. Your glass of water topples off the side table, your basil plant spills into the sink. You’re questioning the probability of earthquakes when it happens again — this time more powerful than the last.
When you open your door, the last thing you’re expecting is Bucky — shirtless again — using a hammer to extract the rotting pieces from the walls of your trailer. You call him crazy — it’s ten o’clock at night and he’s just finished a fourteen-hour shift, after all — but he just grunts and tells you that they were an eyesore, that he was getting too impatient not to do something about them. You’d be offended if your body wasn’t humming with a pleased rush of adrenaline from his attention, however workaround it may be.
You spend the remainder of the evening watching from your open door as he fixes up your little home. Despite the cooler night air, he still gleams with sweat from the effort, and you learn to appreciate this quickly; he looks like trouble and heaven wrapped up in the likeness of God’s surliest angel. By no means are you religious, but all other explanations for how a man that looks like that winds up in your yard seem to defy natural laws. Watching the muscles in his arms ripple as he tears the siding off its hinges, you’re convinced a higher power had to have intervened for this moment to happen.
You’re all too eager to offer him a beer when he finally finishes. He takes it before sitting down wordlessly next to you on your stoop. Then it’s silent except for the crickets and the bullfrogs, but you find it peaceful rather than charged like it usually is between you.
Up close, the tattoo that once teased you that fateful day that you met is on full display. It’s an intricate piece that extends across his back from shoulder to shoulder; black ink curls around three names written in elegant calligraphy: James, Winnifred, and Rebecca. The longer you stare at it, the more your fingers itch with the need to touch it, to trace the whorls from point to point.
You take a large sip of beer for courage.
“What’s this?” you murmur, the tip of your pinky barely grazing the ‘a’ at the end of Rebecca. You feel Bucky tense up beneath your touch, and you know right away that you’ve crossed a line, possibly tearing down what little you’ve built since he fixed your shower. You wait for the blow to come, for the other shoe to drop, for him to stand and leave you all alone in the dark.
But he doesn’t. Instead, Bucky slowly relaxes, muscle by muscle. “My family. I don’t…see them much anymore.”
You let that sink in for a moment. “So you’re on your own,” you comment, using his words.
Bucky hears this and turns, unleashing the full force of those big blue eyes on you. Something flashes across them, and it could be anything: pain, recognition, anger, validation. All real emotions for a situation you’re only too familiar with.
“Yeah,” he finally mutters, looking down. Your gut twists.
Just from that one little word, you could glean all of the history behind him, the past that’s riddled with regret and hurt, and you push against the sudden urge to wrap him in a hug. Too much too soon for begrudging acquaintances. You settle instead for soft words in the form of a distraction.
“Well, except for Donna. She doesn’t know how to leave anyone alone.”
Bucky gives a half shrug, sipping on his beer. “You’re not wrong.”
“Y’know, everyone here kind of adores you.”
“I doubt that.”
“You should hear Donna talk about ya.”
The corner of his mouth ticks up as he glances at you. “That bad, huh?”
“She says you’re the sweetest guy,” you share with him conspiratorially. “That you help out a lot, actually. And that you’re quiet, but you’re really kind when you wanna be—“
“Alright, I get it,” he mutters, eyes scanning the park. “Easy to believe the lie when she says it like that.”
There isn’t any venom to his words, just a simple statement around a beer bottle. You tear your eyes away from watching his neck extend on a swallow, dazedly finding the oak tree. “I know it’s not a lie,” you say, picking at the peeling label of your drink. “I saw you the other day, helpin’ out the Markhams. All of you were laughin’, too. It was…sweet.”
Bucky’s quiet for a moment. He leans back until his forearms rest against the step behind him, stretching out his long torso like he’s asking you to count all six abdominals. “Don’t get used to it,” he mutters darkly, and it sounds like a threat more than anything, but the little pout on his face negates whatever abrasiveness he was hoping for. It makes you giggle.
“Uh-huh, sure. I know a big softie when I see one.”
He rolls his eyes before taking a sip of his drink. “Believe what you want, kid, but I’m not the type to give flowers or sweet nothins.”
Your attention sharpens at his words, a spike of curiosity jetting through your bloodstream. “How else do you woo your woman then?” you tease, just enough to hide the neediness in your voice, the urge to know the answer.
Bucky turns to you, brows furrowed. Then — so quick, you almost miss it — his eyes dart to your mouth and back. The wind shifts, your fingers tingle, Bucky pushes up so that he’s brushing shoulders with you again; you feel like they’re fused together by some invisible, magical weld. He stares straight ahead, elbows on his knees, thumb running circles around the rim of the beer bottle. “Don’t have one,” he mutters.
You blink.
“Really?” His face twists into a scowl. “Huh. Guess it’s hard to believe a good lookin’ guy like you doesn’t have a few crawlin’ all over him. Unless it’s by choice.”
Bucky frowns impossibly deeper, it’s almost laughable. “Why would it be by choice?”
“Because apparently you can barely handle havin’ a friend, or so you say,” you point out.
“Doesn’t mean I’m a fuckin’ loner,” he grumbles. “I just don’t…get out that much.”
“I bet you’d do pretty well for yourself if you did, sittin’ all alone on a barstool with the sad guy look you got goin’ on.”
“I got what?”
“Y’know,” you start with a grin, “the sad guy look. When you’re all mysterious and unavailable. Add in broody, quiet and stares a lot, women will think it’s hot.”
Bucky goes so still, even his thumb pauses.
“Oh, yeah?” he asks quietly, looking very thoughtfully at the oak tree. “Is it doin’ somethin’ for you, kid?”
The smile flickers off your face. Oh. Oh no.
“Uh…”
He eyes you sideways, and you know you’re as red as a stop sign. You gave yourself away before you could even go on the defense. You take a big sip to buy you time, but he’s there and leaning into the spot where you skin touches, and all the sudden your thoughts explode in a hundred different directions, because why is he still staring at you, and why is he actively getting closer, and why, for the love of all that’s good and holy, does he still not have a shirt on?
You think he’s never paid closer attention to you before now, and he’s destined to see through your lie when your face is there to direct him to the truth. So you gamble on a half truth.
“I think it’s a pretty universal thing to be attracted to,” you say with a shrug, giving a mediocre performance on playing it cool. He hums.
“But do you like it?” Bucky presses softly, and your stomach drops into a flip. The wind shifts again, and this time, you can feel something mysteriously close to electricity buzzing back and forth between your skin and his. Why does he care? you ask yourself, as if you know the answer.
“I…” your voice wobbles traitorously, but you know there’s no way out of it now, so you’ll go down swinging. You turn to him, and your eyes connect like a head on car crash: dangerous, devastating, impossible to look away from. “Yes,” you whisper.
He smiles faintly. “Thought so.”
“Please don’t,” you groan.
He chuckles but doesn’t look away, and you’ve already developed Stockholm Syndrome from being held hostage by his gaze. His reaches out to brush a hair from your face, natural, instinctive, and you’re holding your breath without even realizing, feeling the zip of chemistry from the tips of his fingers as they touch your cheek. You’re so close, you could lean in and brush noses with him if you had the nerve to. Or more, which you’re starting to think about—
“You might be the prettiest thing this town’s ever seen,” he murmurs, low and rough, and oh, does your heart try to leap out of your chest and drop into his hands.
You feel your cheeks flush, your sense of reality growing hazy, because is this really Bucky Barnes sitting in front of you saying that?
But he pulls back before you can even think of a response, chancing one last glance at your mouth before silently falling back into position next to you.
For a while, he doesn’t say anything. You don’t push him to. And when your finger brushes the ‘a’ again, he leans your way. Your mind is oddly free of thought as you trace the names gently — you’ve probably gone into shock over him letting you touch him like this. You’re not sure what compelled you to do it, nor what convinced Bucky to allow it, but for a few quiet moments, you feel yourself breaking through one of the walls he had up between you. You wonder if he feels it too.
Later, after he calls it a night and you’re lying in bed, watching as the patch of moonlight crawls across your ceiling, you feel like maybe he was right — maybe you weren’t going to be friends. Because maybe you were always meant to be something more.
Saturday arrives with a bang as thunderstorms roll through the county and soak everything in its reach, but by the time your shift ends, the sky has opened up to an endless portrait of oranges and pinks and purples. You take the scenic route home, windows down to let in the smell of earth and rain, and a smile on your face that hurts your cheeks and feels dangerously close to permanent. A stack of pastries sits in your passenger seat, boxed carefully and tied with a string to keep them from sliding.
When you pull up to your little trailer, Donna’s waiting for you outside your door. She descends on you immediately, taking the pastries from your hands and whisking them away to the middle of the park where the neighbors are setting up for a barbecue.
“Thanks, hun!” she calls out. “Now get outta that rag and put on somethin’ cute — we’re dancin’ later!”
By the time you emerge from your trailer, uniform swapped for something lighter that sways in the wind, the park party is in full swing. Donna’s taken up the mantle as the Chief of Staff of the buffet line, Viz is unloading cases of sodas and waters from the back of his truck, little Mrs. Markham tenderly sets up a s’mores station for the children, and Wanda’s tossing strings of lights through the limbs of the oak tree.
You rush forward when she gets tangled up in a line, stopping the threat of a hard tumble by unwinding it from her ankles. Wanda grimaces. “Thanks. Guess I can forget that career in the rodeo.”
Viz perks up from filling a cooler with drinks. “I wouldn’t say that, honey. You’re a hell of a cowgirl to me.”
Wanda blushes as red as her hair while you fight back a laugh. “Viz,” she mumbles, but her husband just sends her a wink before turning back to the cooler. “Sorry,” she says to you, the color slowly fading from her cheeks. “He can be…pretty affectionate when he’s home.”
You shake your head, smiling. “No, don’t be sorry. I think it’s sweet.” Your fingers work with hers to straighten out a knot in the lights. “Is he gone pretty often?”
She nods. “Three weeks of the month, usually. Long-haul truckin’ definitely wasn’t our first choice. It’s dangerous, and the time apart can feel painful. But the pay’s decent and…well…” She looks around cautiously before leaning in. “We’re tryin’ to start a family.”
“Wanda,” you breathe, eyes wide. She hushes you gently, but she’s smiling now.
“I know. But you can’t tell anyone — especially Donna. She’ll make it a whole thing.” She scrunches her nose adorably.
“My lips are sealed,” you vow, miming a zipper closing across your mouth.
“Thank you,” she says, squeezing your hand. “Now let’s get the rest of these figured out.“
After several more attempts at lassoing lights onto branches, the two of you end up abandoning that plan and decide to treat the trunk like a maypole; each of you take hold of a string and run circles around the tree until not an inch of bark is visible. Your side splits from laughter as you try not to trip over the exposed roots, chasing after your newfound friend. You collapse onto the grass after, knocking shoulders and gulping down air as the rest of the neighbors start to mingle around you. The smell of grilled meat and oil lanterns fills the air. Conversation is a constant hum that provides a comforting white noise. Children race across the grass, dragging bubble wands behind them and leaving a whimsical trail for the lightning bugs to follow. You take a look around the park, at your friends and neighbors sending you easy smiles and carefree waves. They don’t know the quiet impact it has on you, what it means to be on the receiving end of their kindness. It’s like they’re standing at the open door, waving you in and welcoming you home.
Viz comes over and hands you both a water. You take it with a muttered thanks, grateful to have something to distract you from the swell of emotions rearing up inside of you.
That’s when you hear it: the sound of an old engine revving up the hill. Your breath hitches as you watch the brown truck pull into the lot, Bucky’s figure shadowed by the setting sun behind him. Your lips part when you notice he isn’t alone.
The truck comes to a stop next to Viz’s. “Ah,” he says, pushing himself up from the ground. “Finally. Bucky’s here with the good stuff.”
Bucky jumps out of the truck with the ease of a seasoned cowboy dismounting from his horse. Dark shades cover his eyes, but he flips them up as Viz approaches; they shake hands, Bucky clapping Viz on the back. “Good to have you back,” you hear him say, a crooked grin on his face. In the back of your mind you know you’re blatantly staring, but this is new material that your curious brain is desperate to consume. His passenger comes around the other side of the truck, a tall, broad man with sandy blonde hair and oily jeans that give Bucky’s a run for their money. His face is weathered and chiseled like the driver’s, but there’s a softness to it that begs you to trust him, like all of your problems could be solved with just a look.
“Steve,” Viz greets, extending a hand. The newcomer shakes it, grinning.
“Good to see you again, Viz.”
You’re drawn back to Bucky as the other two catch up. His blue eyes sweep across the park, intentional and analyzing. When they fall on you and Wanda, he goes still for a moment. A part of you shrinks in fear, your heart racing in your chest when you remember the last time he picked you out of the crowd.
But Bucky’s hand comes up in a simple two-fingered wave. Wanda waves back. “Hey, Buck!”
“Wanda,” he says in that low tone of his, but his eyes never leave you. “Hey, kid.”
“Hi,” you answer, the faintest trace of a squeak in your voice. Bucky nods, an indefinable look on his face, before turning back to the truck and opening the back. Viz gives a whoop of delight when he sees the kegs waiting to be tapped.
“Right on time, Barnes. You did good.” Bucky shakes his head.
“This was all Steve. That red-headed bartender at Bruce’s is sweet on him.” Bucky’s companion chuckles, bashfully ducking his head.
“Nat’s just a friend.”
“Yeah, pal. Be sure to thank her extra nice for us when you’re at her place tonight.”
The party really takes off once the three men drop the kegs near the coolers. The rest of the group crowds around it like bees on honey. Wanda recruits you to set up a table of solo cups and sharpie markers, but you’re not much help for the urgency she needs. You’re finding Bucky lifting 160 pounds of beer like it’s a sack of feathers to be very distracting while trying to un-stack cups.
Viz christens the first keg with a spray of foam that everyone groans at, but his effacing smile tells you there’s very little that could dampen his spirits, including a botched keg. He quickly fills two cups (of mostly foam) for you and Wanda, and you laugh when she cheers you to “the rodeo life.”
You toss it back like medicine, hoping the alcohol clears your mind of the mysterious haze of self-awareness and poor attention span that Bucky brought with his arrival. The beer dribbles down your chin, and as you move to wipe it off, you glance up.
As predicted, your eyes find Bucky standing a few feet away; by all accounts, he’s locked into a conversation with Steve and Patrick that requires all of their heads to be pulled close together. But while Steve and Patrick exchange enthusiastic words, Bucky’s tight-lipped while staring at you.
You blush, an embarrassed smile flashing across your face while you use the back of your hand like a napkin. You expect him to look away, like a normal person does when they accidentally catch eyes with someone, but he doesn’t. He coolly takes a sip of his own drink, a muscle ticking in his jaw while he watches you. A ripple of heat runs down your spine that has nothing to do with the weather; it’s reminiscent of the feeling you had when his hand held tight to your wrist in your trailer, but it’s like it’s been cranked up to level 1000. When he swallows, you can see the tip of his tattoo curling at the base of his neck, and your fingers give an involuntary twitch as they remember the feel of it beneath them. Bucky shifts a half-step in your direction, and for one delusional second, you think he’s going to come over. But Donna wanders into your line of sight before the heat of his gaze can fully brand itself into your skin.
“Can I get your help with the salad? Mary went to get more plates.”
You’re dragged away before you can say a word.
Throughout the rest of the night, Bucky always seems to be on your periphery. Wherever you turn, he’s there, just a few feet away. Not close enough to warrant a conversation, but not far enough to be coincidence. You know the park isn’t big, but the proximity seems constructed, considered, careful, especially when you can feel his eyes on you at all times. When you refill your drink, he’s finishing his. When the line for the food forms, he’s three people behind you. When you pass by with a tray of desserts, he steps out of the way wordlessly, pulling Steve with him before you can excuse yourself. And he watches you go.
As the sunset melts into twilight, and Wanda’s lights begin to steal the show, you find a chair next to the speaker softly playing Fleetwood Mac. Across from you, Viz is coaxing Wanda into being the first ones to dance; she shakes her head, adamantly against it, but allows him to pull her from the chair anyway. Donna has a content look on her face as she oversees cleanup, which she shooed you away from almost immediately. Bucky’s coworker is doubled-over with laughter listening to Mr. Gonzalez’s tale of a fishing trip gone wrong. But Bucky is missing.
Your eyes scan the park instinctively, even delving into the dark corners between trailers or the full parking lot on the other side. You’re halfway out of your chair — to do what, you’re not sure — when you hear something drag across the dirt.
Bucky pulls up a chair and takes a seat beside you before you can blink. He has a fresh beer in one hand and a pack of cigarettes in the other, which he tucks into the front pocket of his red flannel.
“Enjoyin’ yourself?” he murmurs in greeting, observing the party in front of him. You can smell traces of smoke on him, layered beneath the scent of oil and something that reminds you of the woods behind his trailer.
Your gaze drops to the drink in your hand. “Yeah, this is great. Never been to something like this before.” Bucky settles into the chair, his knees spreading wide until one just barely grazes yours. “Did you guys close up the shop for this?” you ask, nodding toward Steve.
“Have to. Otherwise Donna would have our asses.”
You laugh softly. “Yeah, I got the impression this is pretty important to her when she made me RSVP.”
A ghost of a smirk flits across his face. “Her and Harold used to host this every year. After he died, she dug her heels into keepin’ it a tradition since it meant so much to him. Hard to say no to her when she’s got her mind set on somethin’.”
“I didn’t know that,” you admit. “I just thought she really likes barbecues.” Bucky laughs into his drink, and you nearly preen at the sound. “That’s really sweet, though. I wish I could’ve met him.”
“He was a good man,” Bucky agrees. “Had a lot of strong opinions about things I had no idea about. Most of it sounded crazy to me, but I ended up learnin’ my fair share from him.” He looks sideways at you. “Taught me how to use a lawnmower.”
“Really?” you laugh in disbelief. “When was this?”
“Maybe four years ago,” he says.
“Oh, shut up, you’re just lyin’ now. You build cars from scrap metal for a livin’ — there’s no way you didn’t know how to run a lawnmower.”
He shrugs. “Didn’t have a reason to until I moved here,” he says simply, like that explains the issue.
“Whaddya mean?”
He shifts in his seat before taking a sip of beer, looking past the party at the woods beyond. “There’s no grass where I come from.“
Your head tilts, eyes assessing his profile. The lined planes of his face remain as impassive as ever, but his shoulders don’t meet his ears like you expect. He seems relaxed — or at the very least, prepared — for your inevitable follow up question about his past.
“Where you from, Bucky?” you ask. He opens his mouth, but you quickly point a finger at him with a sudden burst of inspiration. “No, wait. Lemme guess…El Paso.”
The corner of his mouth curls up. “No.”
“Hmm,” you take a sip of your drink, pretending to take your time considering his accent like you don’t already have it memorized and catalogued neatly into a quiet corner of your brain. “Amarillo?”
“Nope — not Texas.”
You pout. “Gimme a hint.”
“East coast.”
You stare.
“Give up already?” he teases, but you wave him off.
“East coast, no grass, bad manners—“ Bucky snorts. “You from Jersey or somethin’?”
“Worse. Brooklyn.”
Your jaw drops. You weren’t expecting that answer. “You’re kidding, right? You’re not from Brooklyn.”
“Born and raised,” he mutters with a grin, amused by your response.
“But how do — where did you — you don’t sound like — what?”
“A story for another time.”
He’s still smiling, but there’s a shuttered look in his eye that doesn’t come from sitting next to you; it comes from revisiting ghosts in your mind while the world moves forward without you. You sit back, occupying yourself with another sip of beer while he comes back to the present.
“For what it’s worth, you can push a lawnmower like a sonofabitch now,” you venture.
He laughs, and your heart swells as you listen to it. It’s surprisingly high-pitched and breathless for a man as big as he is, but it contains something childlike that sounds tragically beautiful to someone who never laughed much as a kid. You count the lines around his eyes, you commit the scrunch of his nose to memory, you hold your breath as his knee knocks into yours and stays there.
“You watchin’ me mow my lawn, kid?” he hums into his drink, eyes flashing.
You balk. “I never said that—“
“You’re implyin’ it.” His husky voice encourages the color in your cheeks to saturate.
“It’s just somethin’ I noticed in passin’,” you plead. He takes mercy on you, for once.
Shaking his head, he mutters, “How’s the diner? It’s Tony’s place, right?”
“Yeah — do you know him?”
He purses his lips in thought, watching as the Markhams begin a slow sway on the makeshift dance floor while Wanda and Viz twirl around them. Several other pairings have joined in on the fun, spinning and dipping and waltzing along to Dire Straits.
“I know him…not very well, though. Friend of a friend, more like,” he adds, nodding at Steve. Then he clears his throat, offering you his drink when he sees that yours is now empty. “He a — he a good boss? He’s not doin’ anything he shouldn’t, right?”
“He’s fine,” you share, accepting his cup with a blink. You’re hyper aware of your lips hugging the rim exactly where his did as you take a sip. “Likes hearin’ the sound of his own voice, but that’s the worst of it.”
Bucky nods. “Good…good.”
Donna marches past then with a firm hand on the shoulder of a young teenage boy. The face beneath the crew cut is fifty shades of red, and his hands are covered in — what you hope is — melted marshmallows. Bucky snickers as Donna hauls the boy up to a group of middle-aged women chatting by the tree; one of them, who you can only assume is his mother, erupts into angry chastising as soon as she spots the teenager.
“Uh oh,” you mumble, watching the scene unfold. You can see how the boy takes after his mother as her face transitions to cherry red the longer she berates him. Bucky‘s still chuckling.
“Nate’s always been a trouble-maker, but he don’t mean much harm by it,” he murmurs in your ear. Donna watches with a sharp eye as the mother points a shaky hand in the direction of their trailer, and Nate slinks away, head bowed. “Oh, he’s gettin’ off easy,” Bucky says. “That’s a lot better than facin’ Donna’s justice.”
You grin. “No kiddin’. She runs this thing like the Navy Seals. I almost dropped the potatoes earlier, thought she was gonna spank me,” you giggle.
Bucky’s head whips around faster than humanly possible, the movement so quick it stops the laughter right in your throat.
“Can’t say stuff like that to me, kid,” he says, voice like silk over gravel.
You stare at him. In the low light of the lanterns, you can just see that the blue irises have changed shades into something darker, heavier; they’re locked on you with an intensity that doesn’t match the lightheartedness of the party. You gulp, he notices.
“Why not?” you whisper. And then his eyes drop to your lips, indisputable and poignant. Your breath hitches as the shape of him changes in front of you, as the delicate foundation of a relationship based on tolerance gets crushed to pieces by just one quick look.
“A man could get ideas,” he rumbles softly.
Your heart begins to pound in your chest, echoing faintly inside of your head. The noise of the barbecue fades. “What kind of ideas?” you push recklessly, and your eyes sink to his own mouth. His tongue darts out to wet his lips as if in answer.
“Ideas he shouldn’t be havin’ about his neighbor…who thinks he’s an ass.”
“I don’t think you’re an ass,” you breathe. He smiles faintly.
“No? All it took was a few weeks of bein’ your friend to change your mind?”
“Thought you didn’t wanna be friends,” you reply quietly. Something makes him pause, taking the time for a slow inhale and exhale to ground him. But underneath it is pure and unadulterated restraint — you can see it clear as day in the lines of his face, a sailor fighting valiantly against the storm.
“No, I don’t wanna be your friend,” he murmurs. But the words are not a rejection, they’re an invitation.
“Then what do you wanna be, Bucky?”
You bite your lip, and his eyes zero in on the tug of your teeth against the flesh. He leans in ever so slightly, like a magnet’s suddenly activated between your mouth and his, and your body hums with a desperate need to know what he tastes like—
“There you are!” Donna’s voice cuts in. She steps in front of you with her hands on her hips, and you jump in your seat like you touched an open wire. “Well, what are you doin’ sittin’? I told ya we’d be dancin’ later, and that dress looks too good on ya not to swing it around.” She looks at Bucky. “And whaddya know, you’ve got a partner right here!”
Your heart stutters in your chest as she points at him, anticipation already squeezing your lungs at the thought of Bucky’s hands holding you close while you sway gently to the music—
“Come on, Donna, you know I can’t dance. I’m not gonna make the poor girl suffer through me steppin’ on her feet,” Bucky answers gruffly.
The dismissal snuffs out the growing heat in your veins like a bucket of ice water on a candle. Your face drops, your eyes finding the dirt beneath your feet.
“That excuse is gettin’ real old, Bucky,” Donna counters, looking suspicious.
“Because it’s true,” he grumbles. “Not my fault you insist on there bein’ dancin’ every time you put somethin’ together.”
Exhaling shakily, you plaster an apologetic smile on your face as you meet Donna’s eye. “Yeah, actually Donna, I think I might turn in. I picked up a shift tomorrow mornin’ and I should at least try to show up sober.”
You see Bucky turn to you out of the corner of your eye. Donna frowns. “The party’s just gettin’ started, sugar, this ain’t the time for sleepin’.”
Chuckling dryly, you push yourself to your feet, the beer catching up to you momentarily as you take an extra step to steady yourself. You feel Bucky’s hand hover near your waist before you see it. You do your best to ignore it.
“I know, and I’m sorry. I should’ve told you sooner. But you know how it is. I got bills to pay and supplies to buy.” You roll your eyes like it’s not physically hurting you to be pulling away from her and the rest of the group, but you can’t be near Bucky right now. Not until you’ve reconciled all of the feelings you’ve felt tonight with the reality of your situation with him. You’ve learned the hard way how logic wins out over emotions, and you’re just sober enough to recognize you need a moment to align yourself with this self-inflicted mentality. You place a quick peck to Donna’s cheek, squeezing her arm. “The party’s beautiful, Donna. Truly, I’m honored to be a part of it. Thank you for hosting.”
She gives you a sad look, one meant to keep you in place, but your feet are carrying you away before you can let it pull you back in. You throw a wave over your shoulder at Wanda, but she’s too busy wrapped up in Viz’s arms to notice. You think some distance between you and Bucky will help to elevate your heart rate, but footsteps behind you put an end to your theory before it can be tested.
“Can I help you?” you ask, struggling to keep your voice light. Bucky’s stride matches yours easily, and he takes a glance at you.
“Thought I’d walk you back.”
You make a face. “It’s thirty feet away, Bucky.”
“Yeah, well, it’s dark out.”
“You can see my door from here.”
“Don’t be difficult,” he rasps like the back and forth is exhausting him. He takes half a step closer to you.
Your jaw clenches, but you say nothing as he walks you to your trailer, just out of reach of the lanterns and music and chatter. You step up to the door but turn sharply toward him when you feel his foot on the little stoop. “Alright, I’m home.”
“What happened back there?” he asks, eyes scrutinizing your face, probably reading right through you. “You were fine and then you weren’t.”
You gulp before bravely sticking your chin in the air. “Nothin’ happened. Just remembered I got work, that’s all.”
“You don’t work Sundays,” he says, shaking his head. Your back meets the door when he leans in. “Why’d you lie to Donna?”
“I didn’t lie, I picked up a shift to help a friend out. And how do you know I don’t work Sundays?” you ask, voice sharper than you intended for it to come out. At least it’s better than cracking on the tsunami of emotions you’re barely holding back.
Bucky blinks at you, going still. You’re not a mind reader, but you can hear the gears turning as his expression evens out into something you can only describe as inescapable resolution. Slowly, so slow you’re wondering if he even knows what he’s doing, he places his hand on the door next to your head; with his arm so close, you can smell how the sun’s baked into his skin, how metal seems to be an undertone all over him. And now his nose is an inch from yours.
“‘cause I watch you,” he murmurs, as soft as the evening breeze. His eyes fall to your mouth, and you can physically feel it, the pressure there, the charge of the unknown next step. Your hands flatten on the door behind you in an effort to hold yourself back.
Your mind plays over the different paths laid before you. Should you lean in? Change the course of this poor excuse of a friendship forever? Should you wait for him to make the move? Let him deal with the consequences of potential bad decisions in the morning? Should you pull away? Give yourself the time to cool off and clean up this mess of emotions following you like a shadow all night?
“You’re thinkin’ too much,” Bucky says. Your eyes refocus on his — his pupils are so wide, you’re afraid you’ll fall into them.
“I’m just tryin’ to figure you out,” you whisper, your breath mingling with his.
“Probably better if you don’t,” he answers, a hint of sadness in his tone. You search his face, but it reveals nothing; only his eyes offer any indication that he’s in control of what’s happening.
“You think that’s enough to stop me?”
Bucky’s mouth curves, but it quickly fades away. “You’re somethin’ else, kid.”
Then, as quick as it was cast, the spell is broken. Bucky leans back, his fingers lingering on the door. “Have a good shift tomorrow,” he says, voice solemn as he steps down from your stoop. And then he’s walking away.
It takes you a minute to gather yourself. The night presses in around you, cool air replacing the heat of Bucky’s closeness from moments before. With a shuddering breath, you slip into your trailer, closing the door on the party, on your friends, on Bucky behind you.
Endless rain floods the countryside the following week. Roads close, streams overflow, leaks and cracks in the trailers are exposed. You unwillingly enter into a war with a certain corner of your roof, and an empty ice cream bucket takes up permanent residence underneath it as your counterattack.
But every time you have the urge to knock on Bucky’s door to ask for help, something stops you. Flashes of the night of the barbecue, of the suggestive pitch of his voice, of his face a breath away from yours, consume your thoughts until you’re frozen in place with indecision paralysis. The ‘almost’ of it all has you twisted up in ways far more complex than when he tormented you with his indifference.
You go over every interaction in your head like a DVD menu on repeat at three in the morning. You think your signals to Bucky couldn’t have been clearer, yet he pulled away, even after giving you every indication that he wanted it, too. Confusion is too simple of a word to sum up how you feel, and you’re still too riled up from Saturday night to dissect it all head on.
Work offers a necessary distraction — at first. The weather brings in a rush of people seeking shelter from the downpour, which means less time for you to think about where you left things with Bucky, and the hours leave you exhausted to the point of collapsing onto your bed and tumbling into sleep as soon as you make it home. Then you wake up and do it all over again.
Eventually your coworkers begin to notice the toll it’s taking on you. You’re still a novice while they’re veterans, fully acclimated to the ebbs and flows of roadside diner foot traffic, so they urge you to take the first cut of the day after already battling through four grueling shifts that week. You don’t have the energy to fight them. You’re ushered out the door with orders to take a hot shower and a nap as soon as you get home. The rain soaks your uniform instantly as you rush to your car, but it’s still warm enough outside to keep your lips from turning blue as you start the journey home.
While the diner had been bustling with activity, the roads are eerily devoid of other people and vehicles. Most likely due to the flood warnings, but unlike them, you don’t have much of a choice.
You haven’t seen another car in ten minutes when the lights on your dashboard flicker. Your eyes snap to it immediately, recognizing the warning signs that nearly derailed you almost two months ago. A soft whine escapes from your chest as you feel the car begin to shake.
“Come on,” you breathe, pressing on the accelerator. The engine whines back. The radio cuts out, your lights turn off, and the car slows to a crawl. It’s with tears in your eyes that you step on the brakes and put the car into park. “No. No, no, no, no, no.”
Your forehead meets the steering wheel. You get a sick sense of dejavú.
Sniffling, you turn off the car and wait before trying it again. You hear a familiar ticking sound over the patter of rain on your roof.
“Fuck,” you whisper as the first tear falls.
Your mind is too sleep-deprived to come up with solutions. Your cell phone died hours ago because you forgot to charge it overnight. Your body aches everywhere from being on your feet all day, and you think if you tried to walk home, you’d pass out in a ditch after fifty yards. You’re stranded — literally stranded on the side of the road.
So you let yourself cry, great heaving sobs that sound warped and hollow in your little car. While the release feels compulsory, it offers no relief, and that makes you cry even more. Outside, the rain persists its assault on the empty county road.
When your cries have turned into hiccups, you’re left shivering in your wet uniform. A chill has crept through the vents as darker clouds roll in. You hug your arms to your chest, breathing deeply to calm yourself down, but your body continues to vibrate past normal human function. You glance at the back seat, where an old sweatshirt lays crumpled and wedged next to the door. You crawl into the back, extracting the fabric with shaking hands and curling up underneath it. It provides some warmth, but not much.
You don’t know how long you lay there, fighting off exhaustion and self-loathing. You have no sense of time since the clock on your dash powered off with the car. The only things you register are the rhythm of raindrops and your slowed breathing.
And then you hear it.
It’s faint, almost like you’re imagining it. But it grows louder and louder the longer your ears strain to catch it. Your head lifts off the seat, and through the side mirror you spot headlights.
A brown truck with an old, rumbling engine drives past your car before slamming on the brakes. The red tail lights blind you momentarily. It quickly backs up a few meters until it’s parked right in front of yours. The driver’s door opens, and out steps Bucky.
You let out a whimper, your eyes squeezing shut. This isn’t real. It can’t be.
But he’s there pounding on your window, calling your name. You shoot up, shaking again, and lock eyes with him through the glass. Bucky’s dark hair is plastered to his forehead, beads of water dripping down his nose and off his beard. You watch as he takes in your wet uniform, your flimsy blanket, your trembling chin.
“Sweetheart,” he says softly, voice muffled through the window. Slowly, you crawl across the seat to open the door. He swoops in before you can say a word; large hands grasp your arms and pull you out of the car. He practically carries you to his, a hand shielding your face from the rain, before setting you down gently on the bench seat of his truck. His touch moves to your shoulders, your throat, then your face, thumbs brushing wet strands of hair from your eyes. “Are you okay?” he demands to know. “Are you hurt?”
You shake your head. “N-no, just c-c-cold. My c-car, it — it d-d-died.”
Bucky’s lips press into a dangerously thin line before he reaches across you to crank up the heat in the truck. “Stay here,” he mutters, then closes the door on you. You whimper again, your eyes following him as he runs to the back of the truck and grabs his toolbox. He reaches inside your car to pop the hood, and then he rolls up the soaked sleeves of his red henley before getting to work.
Burning hot shame floods your body. You don’t need to be a mechanic to know what’s wrong with your car.
Your gaze slides to the empty road past the windshield. The headlights reflect off the puddles of water accumulating on the gravel, creating distorted spots of light in your vision further warped by the sheets of rain. The heat from the vents touches your skin, but does little to permeate the cold that’s seeped into your bones. You slide into the center of the bench, sticking your numb fingers into the slats to warm them up faster. A quick glance in the rearview mirror shows Bucky’s already closed the hood of your car; he stands in the downpour rubbing his face with both hands. You scurry over to the far end of the bench when the door opens a moment later, and he drops into the seat, drenched and silent.
You don’t look at him, he doesn’t look at you. The rain continues to fall.
Bucky inhales. “It won’t start.”
You clench your jaw to keep your teeth from chattering, inching closer to the heat. Your mind is a mess of fragmented responses.
His hand flexes on his thigh, the scars turning white against his skin. He exhales. “I told you to get the damn thing replaced,” he says, voice so low you can barely hear him. He turns to you, burning a hole into the side of your face with his stare. “I told you to come in to the garage.”
Your eyes sting with fresh tears, but whatever resilience is left within you refuses to let them fall. Not in front of him. “I kn-know.”
“But you didn’t.”
The barely suppressed anger in his voice triggers something in you like a fight or flight response. You meet his eyes and see the storm inside of them that rivals the one outside. Passion not so different from the kind you saw Saturday night.
“I didn’t have t-time,” you say, as calmly as you can. Bucky’s hand flexes again.
“Bullshit,” he counters.
“It’s the truth—“
“No, it’s not. I said to come in after your shift. I said I’d be there. And you still didn’t come.”
You shake your head. “I just — I forgot, okay? I was g-grateful for the help, I still am—”
“Kid, you got an odd way of showin’ your appreciation. Do you actually want the help, or did your deadbeat daddy fuck you up so bad that you don’t know how to accept it?”
There’s never been a louder silence than the one that follows his words. He recoils from it before you can, shoulders slumping like the weight of the world’s been dropped on them, a pained look slashing across his face. Your chin wobbles harder than before as the remark echoes in your head.
“Fuck, kid, I didn’t…” Bucky huffs. His hand crosses the distance of the bench, fingers grazing the skin of your thigh. You smack it away on instinct, but it doesn’t go far, dropping to the leather bench inches from you. “I’m sorry,” he says softly. “I shouldn’t have said that. I went too far.”
A single tear rolls down your cheek. You brush it away quickly like it’s an open wound you need to cover.
“Please look at me,” he whispers. The fight in you balances on a razor-thin wire, one side begging you to explode on him, the other offering peace. You find your car in the side mirror, a lone figure of used and abused metal, struggling desperately to just stay alive.
Bucky lets out a heavy breath when your eyes meet his.
“I’m sorry,” he repeats. You see the relief on his face mixed with the regret; it radiates off of him in waves. Slowly, you nod, your body trembling from the cold and something deeper. Bucky notices and draws back, his gaze tracing your figure.
“Come here,” he says gently, opening his palm to you.
You hesitate, the fire still burning in your eyes, and he waits.
But not for long. You slide into his arms with a soft grunt, too willingly, too easily. He catches you and holds you tight against him, hands rubbing along your arms to bring heat back to them while yours land on his chest. Your head fits perfectly into the crook of his neck, your nose skimming the wet skin. He smells like he always does, of oil and metal and pine. You inhale greedily, and it’s like a tonic to your frayed mind, clearing it of the scattered memories of a broken home.
“I didn’t mean it,” he whispers into your hair. Your eyes close.
“I know,” you whisper back.
This silence is softer, easier. You fall into it gratefully as your body slowly begins to relax against him. Bucky’s pure muscle beneath you, but it’s not uncomfortable; you mold to him like you were made to.
He shares his warmth by leaning into you, his nose dragging along your hair; the rhythm of his breaths is stable, even, and yours falls into sync with it naturally. He shifts closer, a hand curling around your waist. Because your history of push and pull dictates an eventual separation, you take the time to feel the steady rise and fall of his chest, the scratch of his beard on your temple, the wet fabric of his jeans brushing against your legs, and you memorize it all, something to hold you over late at night when the loneliness howls at your window and begs to come in like a stray cat. You sigh as your fingers curl into his shirt with every intention of never letting go. Bucky responds with a deep, measured inhale, stabilizing, grounding, human. You soak in every ticking second of this temporary peace. And then his lips, impossibly warm, find the shell of your ear, and your eyes shoot open.
You wait for him to move, to pull away, to gruffly say he’ll handle your car and take you home. He’s done his job, you’re practically burning up by now, and you know he can feel it, too. But he doesn’t let go of you. If anything, he holds you closer. Your heart begins to race — not from his actions, but from what you’re about to do.
You pull back slowly, just far enough for him to see the silent permission in your eyes, the wordless request for him to close the minimal distance between your lips and his. Bucky’s breath hitches in his chest, that steady rhythm halted.
And then he kisses you.
Softly, tenderly, delicately. Words that have never been tied to Bucky before. This hardened, uncompromising man moves his mouth over yours like it’s a gift from the heavens that could be ripped away from him at any moment. A low sound escapes from deep inside his chest, a strained variation of a sigh of relief.
You echo your relief back to him, a barely there whimper against his lips that reverberates down your spine. His fingers tighten around your waist, dragging you closer, while his tongue swipes across the seam of your lips. You open for him, physically, mentally, emotionally. He tastes faintly of metal, of smoke, of coffee, of days spent eagerly waiting for him to return home, of long nights tangled up in old sheets, of oversized sweatshirts and stolen bites of food and messy toothpaste kisses. Of a gentleness you’ve craved your whole life. You’re instantly addicted to the brief taste of this improbable future.
His tongue caresses yours and he groans, his hands and lips quickly turning rougher, needier; you welcome it eagerly. A fire’s been lit inside of you, and grows with every stroke of his mouth. You pull at his shirt, he tugs at your waist. You follow his hands as they move you across his lap, your legs bending to straddle him in the tight space of the bench seat, your chest pressed to his. Bucky breaks away from your lips to gulp down air, but one look at you hanging breathless over him eradicates his need to breathe. He wraps a large hand around your neck and pulls you back down. Your hips roll on top of his instinctively as he ravages your mouth, earning you a soft grunt when your center meets the stiff bulge beneath his zipper. He greedily presses down on the small of your back, encouraging you to do it again. And again. And again.
The hand around your throat tightens imperceptibly when you drag your heat across his erection, whining as the jeans provide a delicious friction to your core. He thrusts up into it, as if he can feel it through the layers of fabric. He groans like a starving beast that’s just found the only thing that can satiate him.
“Bucky,” you pant against his lips, an implied request for more.
His eyes flutter open. He looks at you. You think he’s about to completely make you his.
And then he gently pushes you off his lap.
Your body goes cold immediately. From the loss of his warmth and from the sudden change in tension. He unhooks your fingers from his shirt and presses himself carefully against the car door, running a hand down his face. “Fuck,” he breathes.
“W-what did I do?” you whisper. He shakes his head, unable to meet your eyes.
“You didn’t—“ He swallows. “You didn’t do anythin’.”
“Then why did you stop?”
He exhales through his nose, lips pressed into a tight white line. He’s mad. Or disappointed. Or something between the two. “Kid, I…I shouldn’t have kissed you.”
You swear you can hear the sound of your heart cracking in two. “But I wanted you to,” you tell him, a tremble in your voice.
“I know. You shouldn’t.”
Your throat tightens. “What do you mean?”
He finally looks at you then, and you see his blue eyes are filled with agony, his face lined with regret.
“I’m no good for you,” he murmurs. Your mouth opens, but he cuts you off before you can say a word. “I’m old, and I’m poor, and I’m goin’ nowhere in this life. I can’t — I can’t be what you need.”
“You don’t know what I need—“ you start, but he shakes his head.
“Yes, I do. You need a man that can give you the kind of future you deserve for pullin’ yourself out of the shit. Gettin’ tangled up with someone like me will only hold you back.”
You have to bite down on the sob threatening to burst from your chest. Through gritted teeth, you say, “That’s not your decision, though. You don’t know the kind of future I want for myself.”
“Kid, I’m an ex-con with one too many skeletons in the closet. I live on the fringes because that’s the only place that’ll take me, and I’ve got no way out of it. There is no future with me.”
“Bucky, you’re not—“ your voice shatters and splits. “I don’t care about any of that, ‘cause that’s not how I see you. You’re more than your past. What you’ve done doesn’t mean you aren’t allowed to want more—“
He barks out a humorless laugh.
“Fuck, I know a lot about wantin’ more. It’s all I do these days, and it’ll all your fuckin’ fault.” His eyes flash as they find yours, vicious with pain. “I’ve wanted you ever since you stood at my door yellin’ ‘bout makin’ my sad, lonely, little life hell. Couldn’t stop thinkin’ ‘bout how I wanted you to do it, ‘cause hearin’ you throw a fit at me was the first time I felt excited about somethin’ in years. And when I’m not thinkin’ about it, I’m dreamin’ about it. About comin’ home to your sweet smile waitin’ for me, and I wake up emptier than I ever felt sittin’ in a jail cell because I know it ain’t real. You got your claws in me so deep that I can’t go a minute without thinkin’ ‘bout you. And I can’t do nothin’ about it.”
All the air has left your lungs, and Bucky’s chest heaves like he stole it from you. He looks like he’s on the brink of imploding, or breaking apart, or jumping out of the car and sprinting into the woods. You reach for him, the only thing you can think of to do—
He flinches back, turning to the window. “Don’t,” he mutters. “Don’t make this harder than it already is.”
“But it doesn’t have to be hard, Bucky!” you cry. “I want to be waitin’ for you, I want—“
“You don’t know what you want, but I promise it ain’t me.”
Tears prick your eyes, hot and painful. “Stop,” you whimper. “Stop tellin’ me what I want and don’t want. You’re not bein’ fair — you’re not even givin’ this a chance—“ He shakes his head quickly, meeting your gaze to deliver the death blow.
“You can argue all you want, but I won’t see it any different. I won’t trap you here with me. This can’t…this can’t happen.”
His words sting like a slap to the face; you reel back, pushing distance between you and him. Bucky lowers his eyes, as if he can’t bear to watch the fallout he caused. Another silence settles in the cab of the truck, this one heavier than the others, and thick enough to strangle you. You lean back in your seat, one hand on the door handle, the other pressing down on your chest, keeping you held together.
“I wanna go home now,” you whisper, blindly staring out the windshield.
He obeys instantly. Bucky’s silent as he shifts the car into drive, From the corner of your eye, you see his face is set in stone, a familiar look from the days he wasn’t speaking to you. You know what it means — he’s already shutting down, already pushing you out of his life again.
The drive to the trailer park seems to stretch endlessly; seconds feel like hours, minutes feel like months, ruthlessly challenging your inherent idea of time. When you crest the hill and pull up to your trailer, your body has gone numb from willing time to move faster.
Bucky avoids your eyes once the truck’s in park. “I’ll have your car brought into the shop,” he mutters, voice monotone and clipped. “I’ll drop it off tomorrow.”
Your lips press together to steady the tremble in your chin.
He fidgets in his seat, knuckles going white around the steering wheel. “I’m sorry.”
Your jaw clenches, your heart aches, rejection is a slow-moving poison in your veins. And you’re angry.
“Maybe it’s best if you actually stay away from me this time,” you say, ice embedded in every word. He flinches, but you don’t care. You’re sliding out of the truck and shutting the door on him before he can respond, not daring to look back as you trek through the downpour to your home. When you’re safely inside, you stand very, very still, listening to his car idle listlessly before he slowly drives away, taking your heart with you.
The worst part of it all is that Bucky is right.
Never mind the confusion over how a man that shunned you for your kindness could look at you like you were his last hope. Never mind the embarrassment of making the neediest sounds for someone that refuses to hear them again. Never mind the terrible grief you feel for something that almost existed.
What hurts the most is that he’s right. You’ve felt it in your bones since the day you signed the lease to the trailer — your future wouldn’t stop here. The miles you’ve put behind you don’t exist because you were meant to settle.
Make no mistake, you love the trailer, you love the diner, you love everything they’ve given you and everything they stand for. They bought you freedom from a life condemned to shitty boyfriends and stacked pennies and a lingering taste of resentment at the bottom of every numbing bottle.
But there’s more out there that you ache for; still undefined, still obscure, yet it calls to you in the quiet moments between work and sleep.
And Bucky…
You’ve had enough time to reflect on his words that you can read between the lines of them. His life outside of prison started and ends where he is now, whether he wants it to or not. His future has concrete guardrails that won’t budge for a whim or an opportunity, and most certainly not for a girl lacking direction with a history of going where the wind takes her.
You understand what he saw when you hovered over him in the cab of his truck, that look in your eyes that dared him to follow you into the unknown.
His life is figured out. Your very presence urges him to challenge it.
He’s the rock to your balloon. Better to cut the string now than let you wear yourself thin trying to take him with you.
Your realization makes it easier to avoid Bucky, not that you see much of him anyway. Your car appears in front of your home before your shift the next day. No note, no knock on the door, no indication that it was even Bucky who brought it back. You don’t consider tracking him down to thank him, and you’re not sure how you would: he starts leaving for work before you wake up, returning home only when you’re tucked into bed, like he knows your schedule intimately enough to avoid you completely. Remembering what he once said about watching you, maybe he does.
On Sundays, he’s tucked inside his trailer with the curtains drawn tight, his once-pristine yard slowly becoming overgrown with weeds and disrepair that is so unlike him, it would cause you worry if you didn’t know better. When the probability gods smite you both and you’re walking towards the mailbox at the same time, you stop in your tracks, eyes meeting across the park like magnets drawn together. You turn around and walk the other way before you can do anything stupid — like beg him to reconsider. You’d think it would feel good to turn the tables on him, but it feels like ripping out the stitches on a wound that’s far from healed.
Following the mailbox incident, you both become hermits, which is a hard role to take on in a community as active as this one. Donna’s already forced her way into your home multiple times, demanding your participation in some neighborhood event or another. You think if she asks one more time, it might just kill you to see the look on her face when you tell her no.
You escape to work when you can, picking up enough doubles that Tony pulls you aside and asks in his signature beat-around way if you need a loan. For a moment, you consider taking it and getting the hell out of dodge, setting off in pursuit of whatever it is that you’re chasing. But you wouldn’t know the first place to go — it’s hard to find treasure without a map — and abandoning your boss after taking his money seems like a quick way to put the journey to an end before it even starts.
So you tell him about the repairs to the trailer, and he shrugs to hide his relief before approving your fifth double of the week.
The days roll into nights roll into days. Your brain works through a constant stream of food orders and the future and instant coffee and Bucky. Only in the silence of your room in between wake and sleep do you let yourself remember his charged admission to wanting you, or the fantasized future he dangled in front of your face before snatching it away. Sometimes you can barely breathe for the weight of it all pressing down on you, curling in on yourself like he took a tire iron to your gut instead of telling you it isn’t meant to be.
But you’re a resilient girl. So you carry on, always aware of the option of a next step but never knowing what it is.
You’re coming off a seven day bender of double shifts when the next step becomes clear.
The drive home from the diner is silent — you don’t bother turning on the radio these days, and the views of the mountains and forests that once made you feel alive hardly catch your attention anymore. You’re too tired, too preoccupied, caught between your car and an imagined life where you go home to a trailer that isn’t empty.
But an empty trailer is what you’re expecting when you pull into the trailer park. You tumble out of your car, exhaustion sitting heavy on your eyes.
“Where’ve you been?”
You jump a foot in the air, a tight breath tumbling from your lips as you look around for the source of the voice. Bucky’s sitting on your stoop with his knees bent and a half-empty beer bottle hanging from his hand; illuminated by the moonlight, you can see that his hair is a mess, like he’s been running his fingers through it all night, and his face is severe with apprehension. You breathe deeply to settle your racing heart, but the sight of him has skyrocketed the beat all over again.
“Bucky,” you sigh — you’re surprised you could find your voice so quickly. “What are you doin’ here?”
His gaze rakes over you, from your beat up shoes to your hair falling out of its clip, before he takes a large gulp of his drink. “You’ve been comin’ home late. Later than me.”
You stare back at him, wondering where this is going, and not oblivious to the fact that you’d have to crawl over him to get into your trailer. Casual intention at its finest — he’s making sure you talk to him.
“I’ve been workin’ doubles,” you tell him, glancing at the door.
“What for?”
“Because truck drivers make great conversationalists.”
He rolls his eyes and sets the beer down, unfinished. “Don’t be difficult. Just tell me.”
A rush of anger surges through you at the familiar words. “I think I earned the right to be as difficult as I want.”
Bucky stands, taking a step toward you that feels like more than just him closing the physical distance between you. Your breath gets caught in your chest when you see the storm brewing behind his eyes.
“I know you’re mad at me,” he murmurs. “I get it. You can be as mad as you want. But I’m just tryin’ to make sure you’re okay.”
Your chin lifts. “I’m fine.”
He scans your face, searching for the lie under the surface. “You in some kind of trouble?”
A breathless scoff escapes you. “No, I’m not in trou—”
“You need money?”
“What?” Your expression goes sour. “Bucky, no, what the fuck? I don’t need money, I’m just workin’ more, that’s all—“
“Why?” he presses. You growl at him.
“Because.”
“Because why?”
“It’s none of your business, Barnes.”
“Kid, just tell me why and I’ll leave you be—“
“Because it helps me to not think about you!”
The outburst catches him off guard; he leans back like he’s avoiding the blast radius, a frown creasing his face. He runs a hand through his already-mussed hair, and it sticks up at odd angles that a part of you desperately wants to smooth down.
“I didn’t…” He sighs, hands on his hips. “Okay.” You cross your arms over your chest, suddenly finding interest in the dried coffee stain on your shoes. Bucky shifts his feet in the dirt next to them. Neither of you move, but you can feel his gaze on you again. “You look tired,” he says.
“Gee, thanks.”
“I just meant…maybe a break from the doubles wouldn’t hurt. You look dead on your feet. You gotta take care of yourself.”
“Right, because no one else is gonna,” you shoot at him. “I think I got it handled.”
“Kid…”
“I can take care of myself, Bucky, you don’t need to check on me just ‘cause you feel bad.”
“That’s not why I’m here—“
“Oh, yeah?” you cut him off with a surge of venom in your voice, watching as he fails to meet your eyes. “Why are you here then? ‘cause I thought I made it pretty clear that I want you to stay away this time.”
Bucky stares past you at the oak tree, his jaw clenching and unclenching in time with his breaths. “Yeah,” he mutters quietly, “you did.”
“Obviously not, since you’re here.” You finally have the courage to step around him, taking care not to brush his shoulder as you pass him on your way to the door. “Maybe third time’s the charm—“
Bucky says your name, painful yet reverent, and it cuts through the calm of the evening like a knife.
You turn slowly to face him, the keys forgotten in your hand. You didn’t hear him come up behind you, but suddenly, he’s right there, a foot away and looking like the remaining distance is torturing him.
“It doesn’t matter,” he murmurs. “You could tell me a million times over and it still won’t work.”
You inhale sharply. “What are you sayin’?”
He shakes his head, testing a cautious step forward, and the little gap between you shrinks. “I’m sayin’ I can’t stay away from you.”
Your heart jumps to your throat. “Bucky…”
“I can’t stay away from you,” he repeats, firmer, more certain now. “I hate myself for it, for not bein’ able to do the one thing you asked of me, but I feel like I’m dyin’ every day I don’t see you. And that makes me hate myself even more ‘cause I know I don’t deserve you — and you deserve more than anythin’ I could give you — but I lose all my fuckin’ willpower when it comes to you.”
His words land like a blow to your chest and a kiss to your cheek. Sharp yet sweet, violent yet comforting. You stare at him, lips parted with a hundred questions and a million emotions.
Bucky’s eyes meet yours as he closes the last few inches between you, calloused hands reaching for your face hesitantly, afraid to overstep, afraid to spook you, afraid to worsen the devastation he’s done. You think about the last time he held you, what it cost you to be haunted with that feeling of forever thinking you’d never get it again, and for a moment, every cell within you screams to push him away. Danger, danger, danger, your instincts tell you, reducing him to nothing better than the boys that have come before him, the ones that let your heart go carelessly only to yank it back when it was beneficial for them.
But this is Bucky. Not the pathetic excuses for men that potholed your journey here. Even when he broke your heart, he did it for you.
His fingers are gentle as you let him cradle your face, a passing look of relief turning his eyes a softer blue.
“I know I told you this can’t happen, and you told me to stay away, but I don’t have it in me to see either of those through,” he whispers, thumbs sweeping across your cheeks. “I’ve had enough of my own restraint holdin’ me back. I spent the last seven years convincin’ myself that I don’t deserve a good life because I threw half of it away for people that don’t give a shit about me anymore.”
He takes a deep, shuddering breath, and his eyes flutter shut at whatever memories haunt him. When he opens them again, his gaze is clearer, steadier, like he quietly made a deal with his demons to leave him be for the night. His eyes drop to your lips, just a brief glance that could easily be missed, but it isn’t, because you can’t take your eyes off him. Not when you can practically hear his heart beat in his chest, can feel the heat of him beneath his top, the rough skin of his hands reminding you that this is very, very real and not some imagined scenario you’re still stuck in on your drive home. His fingers tighten around your jaw and Bucky leans in to press his forehead gently to yours.
“When you said you wanted me,” he begins, voice rough and hushed, “it was like comin’ up for air after bein’ under for too long. You’re a livin’, breathin’ example of going through shit and still comin’ out the other side of it, and for the first time in years I thought maybe that could be me, too. But I panicked — I pushed you away like I already knew you were gonna leave because everyone else did. I’m more sorry than you’ll ever know for hurtin’ you like that. I’m a fuckin’ idiot. I’m a stupid old man.” He holds you closer, his grip on the verge of leaving marks. “But kid, I’ll give you everything I got, all the time I have left on this earth, whatever you want…if you’ll have me.”
The world tilts a little. You might have stumbled if Bucky wasn’t holding you like you’re the last light left before the armageddon. He’s so close that you can taste the beer on his breath, and you inhale deeply, drinking it in like it’s straight from the bottle. But a small voice is there in your head, providing clarity on the point of contention that drove him away in the first place…
“Bucky,” you whisper, pulling back. His eyes frantically dance over your face, brows furrowed. Your heart pounds painfully against your chest. “I think…I think you were right. What you said in your truck.” Your eyes fall shut. “About me wantin’ more than what I have now. There’s something else out there that’s meant for me and I…I realized I can’t leave it be. That I’ll do whatever it takes to have it.”
He inhales sharply, his large frame stilling against yours. You look at him then, and he’s stricken, balancing on a fragile fence between panic and hope. Your heart aches more for him now than it ever did while you kept your distance, for this rough, immovable, larger-than-life man. Despite the tears, despite the wicked words, despite it all, he calls to you. He calls…
You blink. “But it isn’t what you think.”
As you say the words, something aligns inside of you, a shifting of your soul. It settles comfortably, like it was waiting patiently for you to figure it out. What you’ve been chasing after all this time is no longer abstract or vague. It’s clear as day, as bright as a beacon, and it’s right in front of you.
Reaching up to cover his hands with yours, you thread your fingers through Bucky’s, appreciating the warmth and sturdiness of his grasp. He’s still looking at you frantically, like you might pull away at any second and tell him to get lost. You squeeze gently.
“This whole time I thought a better life meant gettin’ out of the cycle of hell back home. Leavin’ it all behind so I wouldn’t have the chance to become another sad statistic in that shit town, and makin’ my own way so I’d never have to rely on others who only saw me for what I could give ‘em.”
You shift closer to him, until your noses brush, until your lips are ghosting each other.
“And then I met you,” you breathe. “And I realized how lonely it is. I don’t know what it’s like to be loved or taken care of or given kindness just because. I wasn’t searchin’ for it when I ran, because I didn’t think it mattered — as long as I could dig myself out of where they tried to bury me. But somewhere along the way with you, it all changed.”
Your hands slide up his arms, slowly, carefully, leaving goosebumps on his skin in their wake. The tension leaks from Bucky as your arms wrap around his neck, a soft sigh escaping from his parted lips.
“The trailer and the job — you’re right, they’re not enough. They aren’t gonna give me the future I want. Because the future I want is a place to call home with someone who can give me what’s been missin’ from my life. And I want it to be you.”
A pause. Heartbeats racing in sync. Your eyes meet.
Bucky’s mouth is on yours before you can register him leaning in, and there’s an urgency to his kiss that you sends a thrill down your spine. One hand tangles in your hair, the other maps your body until it finds your waist and drags you closer as he pushes your lips open with his tongue. He moves differently than before, fueled by an emotion that doesn’t fall under a single name, but his determination is as tangible as ever. He’s taking what he wants now.
You pull away with a gasp, forehead resting against his. “Baby,” he murmurs, soft and husky, “it’s already yours.”
Your fingers find his lips and press lightly into wet skin. “You mean it?” you ask with wide eyes.
“I meant every word,” he promises. His hand tugs lightly at your hair, tilting your chin up just how he wants it. “No more stayin’ away. Couldn’t get me to if you tried.”
He seals it with a kiss, demanding and brutal, yet burning with his adoration. Your body’s pulled flush against his and it feels like coming home. Those hard planes fit against your soft curves like puzzle pieces that pledge a lifetime of coming together like this again and again.
You’re panting by the time you pull apart. Bucky’s eyes are half-lidded and full of dark intentions, but you can feel him holding back, testing his restraint, handing you the controls now.
It’s the easiest decision to make.
You pull at his shirt while slowly backing up the stoop. He follows, scooping up the keys you dropped before placing a gentle kiss to your cheek, your temple, your jaw, and unlocking your door. He pulls you into his arms once you’ve crossed the threshold, mouthing at the juncture where your neck meets your shoulder. Your breath hitches on little gasps and moans as his hands find your ass and massage it with interest.
Bucky walks you deeper into your little trailer like he owns the place, feasting on your skin and stopping only at the bedroom door. He pulls away to meet your gaze, and you see his pupils are blown.
“Kid, I’m not here just for this,” he murmurs, mouth hovering over yours. “I need you to know that.”
“I do,” you whisper while your heart swells from his words. “But I want this. I want you.”
He groans, backing you against the wall as his brow meets your temple, sighing against your ear as his thigh slides between yours. “I’ll be so good to you, baby, I promise. Lemme take care of you…”
Hands guide your hips down onto the rough fabric of his jeans, easing you across his thigh with a drag that sets off fireworks in your stomach. You breathe heavily as each pass of your clit over his muscled leg fuels the building heat within you. Bucky kisses the hinge of your jaw, the shell of your ear, whispering, “Fuck, I can feel you. Soaked already…drivin’ me crazy.”
“B-Buck— more,” you whimper as you roll your hips, searching for more friction. He grabs your jaw, something just short of gentle, and makes you meet his eyes as he presses you further into the wall. The arousal slides hot and sticky out of you, soaking your panties and sure to leave a mark on his jeans, making you glide faster on top of him. He groans when your mouth falls open in a choked gasp.
“You look too good like this, baby, gettin’ yourself off on me,” he breathes. “So goddamn pretty.”
Heat rises to your cheeks. You reach for him as you hit a new angle that makes your body sing, fingers curling in his hair to bring him in for a savage kiss, a lustful mark of new territory in your relationship; his thumbs dig into the crease where your legs meet your hips, and you can just feel the hard outline of his length straining against his jeans as it presses into your stomach, making your head spin. Bucky’s teeth nip at your bottom lip, pulling a whine from you that he swallows whole.
It’s almost too much. Like jumping off the deep end and not knowing how far down it goes. It’s terrifying, it’s disorienting, it’s perilous. But you still want to touch the bottom. You still want to know where this goes. You want more.
“Bucky,” you exhale against his lips. He holds you tighter. “Make me yours.”
His eyes flash with possession, with desire, with an enduring need that is rooted in something deeper than the lust you share for each other. It’s trust in its purest form. An exchange of souls, an agreement of devotion. Bucky gathers you up in his arms until you’re pressed against him.
“All mine,” he swears, rough and low, and carries you into the bedroom.
Bucky tosses you on the bed quickly before kicking the door closed and leaving the moonlight as the only witness to what comes next. When he looks at you, something’s shifted — something that makes the heat in your core rise to dangerous temperatures.
“Off,” he demands, dark eyes falling to your uniform. You push up to a sitting position, fingers trembling in anticipation as you slide the dress down your body until it crumples on the floor in front of him. Bucky kicks it aside, unable to look away from the sight of you in nothing but your thin bra and panties.
“Jesus,” he breathes, voice rough, licking his lips while he gets his uninhibited fill of your body. “Look at you.”
Your self-consciousness is short-lived when he leans over to press a tender kiss to your mouth, cradling your jaw like it’s a priceless treasure.
“So fuckin’ beautiful,” he whispers.
Your skin is set on fire when a large hand skims your bare thigh, pushing your legs apart until you can feel a cool breeze against the mark your arousal left on your panties. The vulnerability makes you gasp, but his touch is there to keep your legs where he wants them.
Bucky pulls back to watch as his knuckle drags across your center, teasing the ache just on the other side of the fabric that grows more insistent by the second. You’re throbbing for him, failing to hide your wanton moans as your pussy clenches around nothing but air. He moves his fingers gently over the fabric, finding your entrance and circling it expertly.
“This mine now?” he asks you, lips hovering over yours. You nod desperately. You’ve never been so turned on it your entire life. “Say it.”
You gulp. “It’s yours, Bucky. All yours.”
“All mine,” he echoes, “been wantin’ her for too long.” He traces your folds until he finds your clit. You cry out, legs spreading wider for him like he pressed the magic button. He swears under his breath before capturing your lips in another bruising kiss.
“Perfect girl,” he rasps into your mouth. You melt beneath him as he plays with your clit through your panties, a pattern of soft circles and hard presses that makes your toes curl.
But just as the pleasure begins to crest, his hand is gone. A sound rips from your chest, half-growl, half-whine, as you’re edged for a second time with no relief. Bucky just smirks and slowly pulls his shirt over his head, muscles rippling as he reveals his broad chest and tight abdominals, like a curtain being dropped for the grand finale. Immediately, your hands reach out to touch him, the sharp edges of his body, your lips pressing to the center of his stomach before you can help it, and you look at him as your mouth moves lower.
But Bucky cuts the trail off by sinking to his knees in front of you. “You can suck my cock like a good girl another time. Let your man eat first.”
His thumb sweeps across your jaw gently, then pulls at your bottom lip until you suck it into your mouth. He groans as you bite down lightly, tongue swirling its promises for another night. Bucky’s other hand finds the clasp of your bra, popping it open with practiced ease that should frustrate you but instead elevates your heart rate. Your bare chest is eye level with him, and he wastes no time admiring the way your body is illuminated by the moonlight.
“Fuck,” he breathes, and his thumb is tugged from your mouth so that he can cradle both breasts in his hands, the pads of his fingers stroking the delicate skin until goosebumps erupt under his touch and you’re arching into his hold. “Been hidin’ these from me,” he grumbles, thumb flicking your nipple. You whine when his teeth graze the other, soft and gentle, the bark before the bite.
“Bucky,” you whine, “touch me.”
“I am touchin’ you,” he says around your nipple, a smile in his voice as he sucks heavily at the skin. Your hips jerk up, seeking out some sort of friction that he’s not giving yet.
“More, Bucky, please.”
He mouths at your breast, confident, intentional, and mind-blowingly skilled, while his other hand squeezes tightly around the unkissed one.
“You beg so sweet, baby, but be patient f’me,” he mutters, switching sides. You’re inching closer to the edge of the bed, to grind against what, you’re not sure, but your core is dripping with arousal that snakes a heady trail down your thigh while your pussy throbs from the lack of attention. As he laves at your chest, you bury your hands in his hair, and he makes a small noise of satisfaction before moving his kisses lower, down your naval. He pushes you back slowly until your spine brushes the bed, a thin squeak leaving your lips as his hands find the juncture of your thighs and pulls them open wider to settle between them.
His teeth catch on the waistband of your panties. He looks up at you, and you’re outrageously close to coming just from the sight of it alone.
You realize he’s waiting for your permission, so you offer a frantic nod.
“Good girl,” he says through his teeth, pulling the fabric down your legs with swift efficiency until you’re completely naked before him. He sits back on his heels to stare.
“Don’t,” you whimper, eyes squeezing shut as his thumbs rub tiny circles that get closer and closer to your leaking center with each swipe.
“What?” he answers. “Just lookin’ at what’s mine.”
You can feel his gaze like a physical caress on your folds. It makes your back arch, your hips jerk, and he hasn’t even fucking touched you yet. A man who wouldn’t even meet your eye two months ago can’t look away from the most intimate part of you, and it’s making you come apart in ways that should require psychic evaluation.
“Hold still, sugar,” he orders, voice stern and hold unforgiving as he pins you in place.
“But—“
“No.”
You bite your lip, daring to lift your head and meet his eyes. They’re still focused on your aching cunt, watching as it drools so easily for him. And then he leans in.
Bucky presses a kiss to your clit, just a whisper of a touch that has you twitching yet again. But before the first noise of frustration can slip out, his mouth moves an inch lower, then another inch lower, a line of gentle pecks until he reaches your entrance and curls his tongue into you.
Your mind blanks out while your body reacts, thighs clenching around his shoulders, fingers twisting into his hair, every muscle in your body locking up. Oh.
He eats like it’s his livelihood, tongue circling your entrance before digging inside with a precision so intense, it’s like he already knows exactly what you need. His mouth dances there before his tongue revisits your clit, small flicks before heavy strokes of his tongue to get you writhing until the cycle repeats itself. The tell-tale coil in your gut tightens, your orgasm on the horizon.
“Taste so sweet,” Bucky rumbles, his eyes shooting up to find you already watching him. A dark look crosses his face, something you’ll remember for the rest of your life, before he buries himself back into your center. You whine, head falling back against the bed.
“How does it feel, baby?” His beard tickles the skin of your thighs. You pant and grip his hair tighter.
“S-so— so good—“
“Yeah? Can my girl take more?”
“…m-more?”
Bucky’s mouth is teasing your clit when you feel the blunt ends of two fingers circle your entrance. Your eyes pop open, and you manage to pull yourself onto your elbows in time to watch as his long fingers sink inside you, making your jaw fall open on a whimper. The feeling of them sliding against your walls immediately unlocks a new level of pleasure that is different from anything you’ve felt before, a level that you know only Bucky could have reached.
He curls his fingers, moving them in and out at a deviously slow pace while his tongue flicks faster and faster against your clit. A cry rips from your throat. The coil in your stomach grows tighter, hotter.
“Bucky,” you warn.
“Yeah, baby,” he mumbles between licks, meeting your eyes again. “Give it to me.”
A soft moan tumbles out of you. Pressure that is as cruel as it is generous snaps like a thread, and you come apart on his mouth like it’s the first time your body’s allowed you to feel alive.
“That’s it,” Bucky mutters into your core, easing you through it, “just like that, sweet girl.”
The pleasure strips you raw until you’re nothing but a live wire, twitching and moaning at every swipe of his tongue, every curl of his fingers. He sighs deeply into your cunt, contentedly, like your release was his release, too.
“Fuckin’ hell, woman,” he rumbles, forehead dropping to your thigh as his fingers slowly pull out of you. “Those sounds...Could make a man addicted.”
He pushes up from the floor while you struggle to catch your breath, watching you like a bird of prey that just found its next meal.
The golden skin of Bucky’s torso draws the gaze of your sluggish, post-orgasm brain. It grows closer and closer as he crawls over you, and your tongue darts out to wet your lips. Or to lick every inch of him. Either could apply here.
He settles between your legs easily, naturally, and your hands find his arms as they brace himself on either side of you.
“Be a doll and get my belt, yeah?” he murmurs against your ear, brushing a kiss to the shell of it. You shiver, your hazy brain finally registering the feel of his jeans on your thighs, and reach down with trembling fingers to unclasp it slowly, the zipper following with a sound that splits through the tension of the hot night air.
He kisses you deeply then, a strong hand around your jaw, your name whispered against your lips.
Your hands drift up to his shoulders, fingers curling into the ends of his hair as he pushes his jeans down, his boxers with them. Your eyes gravitate toward the hardness now tucked against your leg, and all it takes is a quick glance to realize that Bucky is truly a big man in every way. A whimper slips from you as you catch the shiny red tip twitch with need.
“What is it, sweet girl?” he murmurs, tilting your chin up to meet his eyes. There’s a light in them that suggests he already knows the answer to his own question.
You swallow thickly. “What if it doesn’t…”
He chuckles softly, brushing his lips to your cheek. “It will. You wanna be a good girl for you old man, don’t you?”
“Bucky,” you mumble shyly, cheeks tinted pink as something warm spreads through your stomach.
“I said I’d be good to you, and that’s what I plan on doin’.”
His hands move you effortlessly until you’re flush with him, just enough space for Bucky’s hips to rock with slow, shallow movements, his cock sliding through your folds and coating himself in your dripping arousal. You bite down hard on your lip when it rolls over your clit, and his eyes snap to your face, watching intensely as the mounting pleasure begins to show.
You let out a shaky exhale when he notches his cock at your entrance, lashes fluttering.
“Eyes on me, baby.”
And in an inevitable moment of tenderness, Bucky’s hand finds yours, fingers intertwining as he brings it up over your head. Then he pushes in.
You gasp, Bucky curses softly, a tension leaking from both of your bodies as he finds his sweet relief in your warmth. You’re stretched out right away, and he’s only halfway in, but it’s a fullness that that makes you feel complete, rather than feeling intrusive. You tug at his hair, pulling him closer until he eases through your tightness and slides in to the hilt. Your consequential moan harmonizes with his.
With all the restraint left in him, Bucky holds still, feeling the walls of your pussy spasm around his cock. The pattern of pressure could make him blow his load right now if he eased up even an inch on his self-control, so he grits his teeth and focuses instead on the look on your face as you adjust to him. You’re so beautiful, even with tiny tears slipping down your cheeks, that little crease between your brow. And you’re such a good girl for keeping your eyes on him.
His good girl.
“You okay?” he whispers, kissing away the tear streak on your jaw.
“Yes,” you breathe, blinking. “It feels…you feel so good, Bucky. I didn’t…”
A sound rumbles in his chest as he tests out a soft grind. You squirm instantly, hips rolling to meet his for double the pressure. His cock touches something deep within you that makes the room blur, makes you cry out.
Bucky’s free hand pushes down on your hip. “Sweet girl, if you do that one more time, this is gonna be over before it even starts.”
The pout comes automatically. Bucky kisses it off your face with the eagerness of a teenage boy, sucking your lip and folding your tongue with his as he begins a snail’s pace of little thrusts. Your cunt still pulses around him like it did when he first slid in; it makes him shake as he tries pulling out, only to be sucked back in at the first chance. His hand tightens around yours.
“Oh, God,” you whimper when he gives you a harder thrust.
“Jesus Christ, baby,” he sighs, “so fuckin’ tight, tryin’ to kill me.”
“Keep goin’, Bucky. Harder.”
“Fuuuuuck…” He picks up speed, cock dragging heavily against your walls, hips snapping. You can hear it, the wet slick of your bodies meeting, and it makes your eyes roll back as you picture his cock drenched in you.
“Perfect pussy,” he grunts. “Fuckin’ made for me. Can feel it.”
Bucky’s cock throbs while he pounds into your cunt, and the rhythm transitions into something deep and desperate and almost out of control. All the while, you can’t look away from him; even as your body jolts and moves with every thrust, your eyes are glued to the broken expression on his face, the raw vulnerability of him seeking out his pleasure in you while on a mission to give you yours.
“Fuck, Bucky,” you moan, back arching as he hits your sweet spot suddenly. His mouth descends on your throat, beard scratching at your skin.
The weight on your hip disappears when Bucky grabs your other hand, pulling it up beside the first. His thrusts get impossibly faster as he holds you down, determined to find the sweet spot again, and again, and again, until stars burst in front of your eyes and you’re clawing at his back, drool spilling from your lips while you mouth half-formed words that don’t exist.
Bucky pulls back enough to take it in, eyes roving from your face to where your bodies connect and back. “You look so pretty like this, baby,” he pants between thrusts. “All dumbed out on my cock, like you should be. Takin’ me so well.”
You whimper when you feel your stomach tighten, your muscles beginning to lock up in that way only an earth-shattering amount of pleasure can create.
“Gonna cum,” you whisper, the first coherent sentence you can think of. Bucky groans, pulling you in for a bruising kiss as his hips pummel into yours.
“Do it,” he growls into your mouth. “Wanna feel you.”
Your body trembles as it explodes and puts itself back together just to explode again. The corners of your vision go blurry. Your orgasm crashes into you with a ferocity stronger than the last, your pussy fluttering around Bucky’s cock.
His pace slows as you come back down to earth, but you’re barely given enough time to catch your breath before he’s slipping out of you and turning you over onto your stomach. You whine softly when he pulls your hips up, settling behind you on his knees.
“Goddamn, you’re a dream,” he mutters huskily, and you feel his warm breath fan over your lower back. A soft kiss is pressed to the swell of your ass before he palms roughly at it with a strong hand. “Should’ve taken you sooner.”
His hand slides lower until it cups your folds, fingers exploring and rubbing and circling freely, making you bury your face into the sheets when he brushes your sensitive clit. He learns what touch triggers the neediest sounds from you and capitalizes on it until you’re all but wriggling away from him. He catches your waist and pulls you back.
“No no no,” he soothes. “Lemme take care of you.”
Bucky slides a finger into your hole, then a second, just because he can, curling them up as if to hook you in closer. You cry out and he hums in response before his thumb brushes over your other hole, the one that’s tight and quivering from the pressure of his fingers working your cunt.
“Fuck, baby,” he breathes, pushing on the muscle enough to get you careening back into him. “You’d let me take you here, too, wouldn’t you? You’d be so sweet to me, so fuckin’ tight around me where no one else has been…ain’t that right, sweet girl?”
All you can do is jerk your head in a nod. He plays with both holes like he owns them, and at this point, he does. The pleasure that hadn’t really died down from your last orgasm is already on the rise again, spiking and cresting in ways you’ve never experienced before the more he circles that second hole.
“Bucky,” you gasp as he presses down on it; not going in, but just enough to break through the rim.
“Next time,” he says wistfully, pulling his fingers out of you. His cock is there to replace them in a heartbeat, and then he’s pushing back into your pussy like he never left.
“Shit—“ you exhale.
Bucky’s length feels different in this position. Longer, bigger, heavier. You don’t have to look to know he’s making your stomach bulge. He lets you adjust for a moment before taking on a pace that’s steady yet intentional. He finds his grip on you, one hand on the back of your neck, the other on your hip, pushing you when he pulls back, pulling you when he pushes in. Smack-smack-smack.
“J-J-Jesus, Bucky, it f-f-feels— t-t-too much—“
“You’re doing so good for me,” he murmurs, grabbing your neck tighter. “Such a good girl.”
He grinds into you, reaching a new depth that has you sputtering on a dry sob, pussy clenching down on him. Bucky groans.
“I know, baby, she’s been waitin’ so long for it. Gonna fill her up…make sure you’re mine for good…keep doin’ it ‘til everyone knows whose bed you’re in…”
His hips jerk suddenly, sporadically, a powerful thrust that bullies the deepest part of you and pushes you up the mattress. A breath expels out of him that could almost be categorized as a whine.
“Fuck,” he pants, “I’ll keep goin’ ‘til it takes. ‘Til you’re mine in every way. Never lettin’ go of ya—“
Your heartbeat thuds in your chest, in your veins, in your ears. You barely hear his words, let alone process them, but they still send a jolt of pleasure straight to your gut. You can’t think of anything but the drag of his cock on your walls, the stretch of your entrance at this new angle, the hold of his hand on your neck that suggests he doesn’t plan no letting you go anytime soon. And why would you want him to?
“Fill me, Buck…please. I want it…” you whisper into the pillows.
Bucky comes almost as soon as the words leave your lips, with a couple of quick, stuttered thrusts before burying himself so deep inside you, you feel him in your chest. His groan is long and ragged as the sticky release leaves his body and enters yours, settling with a finality that leaves more than just a mark on your insides. You sigh deeply as you feel him slowly relax behind you, the last of the shockwaves making his cock twitch as he pulls out. His spend leaks from your entrance and down your thigh, but a quick swipe of Bucky’s thumb returns it to where it belongs.
“Ahh—“ you hiss, but Bucky moves with purpose, gently hauling you up by the neck until you’re cradled against his chest, arms wrapped around your middle. His breathing is heavy in your ear.
“You good?” he mumbles. You only have the capacity to nod, sinking into the sweaty warmth of his skin while he places chaste kisses on your neck. “C’mon, then.”
He picks you up off the bed and carries you to the bathroom, letting you be for a moment to clean yourself up, and you know the image of his bare ass walking away is burned into your retinas for good. He returns with a set of panties and the wifebeater he was wearing before, now dressed in his boxers. He helps the shirt over your head, holds the panties for you to step into, and the act is considerate and intensely intimate, something you weren’t expecting even after the endless devotion you just received from him. His blue eyes watch you closely, softly, still dark from the throes of passion, but free from any haziness and uncertainty. He is where he wants to be, doing what he wants to be doing; there’s no room for doubt, not when you see him look at you like that.
A slow kiss is pressed to your shoulder once you’re dressed. He tugs you back into the bedroom, a possessive hand on the small of your back that guides you beneath the sheets. Bucky slips in behind you, enveloping you in his familiar scent of sweat and metal and evergreen, pulling you to him after so many days of pushing you away.
“Bucky?”
“Yeah?”
You bite your lip. “Was it really me yellin’ at you that did it for ya?”
There’s a small pause before you hear a soft chuckle, just a puff of breath on your skin.
“I’d be lyin’ if I said it wasn’t. But…it was also the before, and the after, too. Still bein’ able to have a smile that big and pretty after all the hell life’s put you through. After all the hell I put you through…it’s hard not to fall for that. You’re a…good person to be around.”
Your stomach erupts with butterflies, your skin zings with electricity wherever he touches you. His words are exactly what your soul craves, so much so that it hurts.
“Careful,” you whisper, “this is startin’ to sound like the sweet nothins you say you don’t give.”
You can feel his smile against your spine. He tugs you closer. “Don’t be difficult.”
“Me? Never.”
A few beats of silence pass, and it’s the easiest thing in the world to lie next to him without saying a word.
“I meant what I said,” he eventually murmurs, absentmindedly stroking your collarbone.
“What part?” you whisper, lips brushing his hand.
His voice is gruff in your ear, low and tentative. “‘bout not lettin’ you go.”
A smile cracks across your face. “Oh, yeah?…what about the other parts?”
He makes a quiet noise in his throat. “Y’heard that?”
You crane your neck to look back at him. He’s focused on a spot on your shoulder, smoldering intensity written across his face dulled only by a touch of sheepishness.
“I heard all of it,” you tell him softly. His eyes meet yours, dark blue storms drowning you in their path.
“Couldn’t help myself,” he says, licking his lips before placing a hot, open-mouthed kiss on the back of your neck. You bend toward him like a flower to the sun. “I want you waitin’ for me when I get home. I want you givin’ me hell for being late for dinner. I want you doin’ laundry in my underwear.” His lips brush your skin again, hands wandering beneath his shirt. “I want you keepin’ me up all night, lovin’ on me ‘til I know nothin’ but you. I wanna show you in every way I know how that I can be what you need.”
Your hand curls in his hair, forcing him to look at you. “You already are,” you whisper.
Bucky slots his mouth over yours with a groan, promising tomorrow, and the next day, and the next, with his kiss.
sammy speaks again: if I told you this took me two months to write would you believe me? 30k words too like I could have shortened it sammy let’s be real, but I think my body physically rejects the idea of not providing an encyclopedia of a build up. which this seriously is, holy introspection and emotions like can I write normally for once? anyway idk what happened to me but I’m just grateful I’ve finally broken through the funk!
good news is I feel way more open and inspired to write my other wips after signing the dotted line on this one. let me get through a couple shorties and then I’ll be back with one of those!
as always I appreciate all the love and feedback, and thank you again for following this blog❣️
Warnings: Mild Violence. Period expected misogyny.
Summary: A knight from another century crashes -literally- into a florist’s life and turns her world upside down.
Word Count: 4.3k
Previous Chapter - Masterlist
The brief encounter with the street outside the store had done nothing to prepare him for this.
He counted the buildings without meaning to. Four here. Six there. All of them tall in a way that offended his understanding of what stone and mortar were meant to do.
Small stone, at that.
He tilted his head back once, studying the face of a structure looming over the street, and felt something close to vertigo.
The bricks -if that was even the word- were absurdly small, identical, and stacked in rows so precise they might have been drawn with a ruler and simply willed into permanence.
Higher than any keep he'd laid siege to. Higher than the bell tower at Wintermouth Cathedral, which had taken forty years and three master masons and had still needed scaffolding twice in his lifetime.
How does it hold?
She stopped in front of one such building, smaller than its neighbors, though smaller was doing considerable work in that sentence, and mounted three steps to a set of doors.
She pulled one open without ceremony, without announcing herself to anyone, without a steward or a porter to bar entry to a stranger, and walked inside as though the building belonged to her the way a woman owns a shawl.
He followed, because there was nothing else to do, and stepped into a hall.
Marble underfoot, or something convincingly like it. A row of small brass boxes set into one wall, each with a slot and a number, they purpose entirely opaque. Light again without flame, hanging in a glass fixture overhead, steady and shadowless.
This is not a florist's household, he thought.
He knew what it was to walk into a great house as a guest and be received as one. He knew, with rather more bitterness, what it was to walk into a great house as staff, had spent enough of his squireship fetching, carrying, standing at attention in halls not unlike this one, waiting to be noticed or ignored, whichever suited the lord in question that day.
Was that it, then? Flowers by morning, service by evening? some second position in a household large enough to warrant it, explaining the marble, the brass, the strange indifferent grandeur of the place?
He said none of this. He had learned, in the space of one morning, that his conclusions about this century had a poor survival rate once spoken aloud. So he held his tongue and followed her toward a narrow staircase at the back of the hall.
The climbing did nothing to improve his opinion of the day, since each step was a constant reminder of the state of his bruised ribs. He kept his breathing even through will alone, one hand trailing the rail, and said nothing.
She glanced back once, near the second landing, some question half-formed on her face. He gave her nothing to work with, so she turned around and kept climbing.
By the third floor, sweat had gathered along his spine beneath the ruined shirt, and his vision had gone a touch too bright at the edges, a warning he chose to ignore in favor of counting doors instead of stairs.
---
She'd clocked it two flights ago, the careful, deliberate way he was breathing, the hand that never quite let go of the rail, the fact that a man who'd crossed half of Camden without complaint had gone very quiet somewhere around the second landing.
She didn't say anything. She had a feeling he'd sooner collapse on her stairwell than admit to needing a minute, and there was something in the set of his jaw - stubborn, absurdly proud, entirely unbothered by what it was clearly costing him - that she found herself, against her better judgment, a little charmed by. Which was not a thought she had time for right now, with a bleeding stranger three steps behind her and a landing still to reach.
She kept climbing. Slower than she strictly needed to. Just in case.
----
A corridor stretched ahead of them, narrow, lined with identical doors, and identical brass numbers screwed into identical wood.
He catalogued it out of habit -the width, how many doors stood between them and the stairs- before it occurred to him that there was likely nothing here worth defending against, and the habit still refused to switch itself off.
From behind one door, there was music. Not lute or pipe, but something layered and strange, a woman's voice threaded through with instruments he couldn't place.
From another, the smell of onions frying, rich enough that his stomach gave a low, traitorous rumble.
He frowned at that second door as they passed it.
The kitchens were on the third floor. It made no sense.
Kitchens belonged low, ground level, or below it if the house could afford the excavation, close to the well and the fuel stores, far enough from the sleeping quarters that smoke and grease didn't creep into a lord's bedding.
Every keep he'd ever served in, ever laid siege to, ever simply visited, kept its kitchens low. He turned it over, half convinced he was missing some obvious explanation, and came up with nothing.
Unless this household ran differently. Unless the entire logic of the place inverted itself the way everything else in this century seemed determined to.
She stopped in front of a door indistinguishable from the others save its number, and drew a ring of keys from her purse, finding the right one without hesitation, the ease of long habit. The lock turned, and the door opened onto a narrow entry, dim and modest, but unmistakably a dwelling.
He stood in the corridor a moment longer than necessary, his gaze moving once more down the row of identical doors stretching in both directions. Service quarters, he decided.
"You may introduce me to your employer at your convenience," he said, following her through. "I would prefer not to be mistaken for an intruder in his household a second time today."
She turned to look at him with an expression he was rapidly learning to be wary of, the kind that came right before she informed him he'd misunderstood something, in a manner she found simultaneously exhausting and, despite herself, a little bit funny.
He didn't yet know what he'd said wrong. That, too, was becoming familiar.
"My employer," she repeated.
"The lord of this house." He gestured back toward the corridor and its row of doors, already bracing -without quite knowing why- for the ground to shift under him again.
She closed the door behind him and looked at him a moment, one hand still on the latch, working through how precisely to explain something she'd clearly never had to explain to a grown man before.
"Mr. Barnes," she said slowly. "There is no lord."
"Then whose house-" He stopped himself. Every theory he'd voiced aloud today had met the same fate, and he saw no cause to expect this one would fare better.
"This is my apartment." She said the word carefully. "It's mine. I pay rent on it every month, out of what the shop makes. Every one of those doors you just walked past, that's not one household. That's a different family behind every single one. A different kitchen, different bathrooms. Strangers to each other, mostly, sharing a staircase and nothing else."
He stared at her, and felt the shape of the building rearrange itself in his mind. It was not a great house at all, but something closer to a hive. Dozens of lives stacked one atop the other with nothing holding them together but shared stairs and walls.
"An entire building," he said slowly, "of strangers."
"Yes."
"Stacked."
"...Yes."
She was watching him, but with an attention that had nothing to do with the conversation they were having, and he felt it land somewhere just beneath his collar before he'd decided what to make of it.
"Hey," she said, softer than before. "You look like you're about to go down again. Sit for a minute?"
She gestured toward a low, upholstered thing pushed against the far wall. Two cushioned seats joined into one continuous piece, the fabric a bright, unrepentant orange.
He had never seen its like. Not a bench, not quite a settle, too soft-looking for either, its cushions plump and uniform in a way no upholsterer he knew could have managed by hand.
It looked, if he was honest, extremely inviting.
It also looked new. Unmarked. The kind of thing a household kept for guests of consequence, and he was aware, with some discomfort, of exactly how far he fell from that description at present.
"I would ruin it," he said.
She blinked. "What?"
"The seat." He gestured at himself, at the dried blood, the dirt ground into the linen, the general catastrophe of a man who had crossed six centuries without the benefit of a bath. "That fabric will not survive contact with me. And I am not dressed to sit in a lady's parlor regardless."
Something flickered across her face, not quite amusement, but not quite exasperation either.
"It's not a parlor," she said. "It's just the living room. And it's a couch, Mr. Barnes, not a coronation throne. It'll survive."
"All the same." He held his ground, aware even as he did it that the ground in question was faintly ridiculous: a man arguing etiquette while swaying on his feet in a stranger's home, in a century that had already proven it cared nothing for the rules he knew.
He couldn't seem to let go of them regardless. They were, at the moment, nearly the only thing of his own he still had. "If you have something less consequential."
She studied him a moment longer, then exhaled through her nose in a way he was beginning to recognize as her particular flavor of surrender. "Fine. The kitchen, then."
She led him into a smaller room with a tiled floor, pale and clean, a window over a deep basin, and, against the wall, a small table with two chairs, their seats covered in the same relentless color as the couch, though blue instead of orange.
He lowered himself into one carefully, his ribs complaining the entire way down, and studied the chair beneath him.
Bright, even, unfaded blue. The kind of pigment that, in his experience, cost more per yard than the chair itself was likely worth.
For kitchen furniture.
"Water?" she asked, already moving toward the far wall.
He nodded, distracted, still cataloguing the room: the smoothness of every surface, the absence of soot anywhere. Then she opened a tall white cabinet set against the wall, and he stopped cataloguing anything at all.
Cold air rolled out of it. He felt it from where he sat, and some old instinct, the one that had kept him alive through winters of campaign, sat up and took notice before the rest of him had caught up.
"What," he said slowly, "is that?"
"The icebox?" She glanced back, one hand still on the door, a bottle in the other.
"It has no ice."
"It doesn't need ice, it's electric. Keeps things cold on its own."
He rose, forgetting his ribs for exactly as long as it took three steps to carry him there, and looked into the cabinet himself before she could object.
Shelves. Bottles. A bowl of eggs, pale and ordinary, sitting beside butter, unmelted, in a room warm enough that any butter he'd ever known would have long since gone soft and glistening on a table.
He found himself wanting, absurdly, to touch it, to confirm with his own hand what his eyes were telling him couldn't be true.
"How?"
"I don't actually know," she admitted, and there was something almost sheepish in it. "Something with wires, a motor… I don't know the mechanics of it any more than I know how a telephone carries a voice across town. It just works. You plug it in, and it's cold, and that's as far as my understanding goes."
He stared at the shelves a moment longer, at the ordinary miracle of butter refusing to soften, and felt something very close to wonder. And beneath the wonder, quieter, something that felt uncomfortably like grief.
Traveling through centuries, he had arrived at a place where a woman kept the dead of winter locked in a box in her kitchen and thought nothing of it.
She poured water into a glass -clear, flawless glass- and set it in front of him as though it were nothing at all.
He was hardly positioned to complain, since she had taken a bleeding stranger into her home and fed him besides, but he found himself glancing toward the cabinets regardless, expecting a jug of small ale, a pitcher of cider, anything a household of any means offered a guest before water.
Water alone, had killed men he'd known. Good men, careful men, who'd survived worse than a bad well and gone down anyway with their guts turned to fire. Almost every house's table poured ale or wine for that reason as much as for taste.
That this place, with its marble hall and its brass boxes and its indifferent grandeur, should hand him water and nothing else struck him as strange enough to notice.
He lifted the glass and drank anyway, telling himself that whatever this century had done to its water, it had also apparently solved the preservation of food in a cool box, and a man who trusted one miracle might as well trust the other.
The taste caught him off guard. It wasn’t unpleasant, but strange. No hint of the barrel it had traveled in, no faint rot at the back of the throat that a man learned to drink around.
It tasted, as far as he could tell, of nothing at all. Clean. He'd never had water that tasted that clean, and some old, wary part of him kept waiting for the sickness to follow regardless.
"Is it safe?" he asked, careful to keep the question light, a thing he was merely curious about, rather than a thing he genuinely needed answered before his next swallow.
"Perfectly. It's tap water, comes straight out of the faucet, city runs it through filtration before it ever gets to a pipe. You could drink it all day and never think twice."
Faucet. He turned the word over, another one for the stack, and said nothing.
She caught the blankness on his face and rose, crossing to the basin set into the counter.
"Here. If the jug ever runs dry and you want more, don't wait around for me. Just do this." She turned a small metal handle.
Water came. No need to pour, carry, or draw it up on a rope from some hidden well; it simply arrived, a clear, steady stream falling into the basin, as though the house itself had a vein opened somewhere and this was where it bled.
He was on his feet before he'd decided to be, some part of him needing, absurdly, to see the mechanism of it, as if enough looking might finally make it make sense. "Where does it come from?"
"Pipes. Underground, runs under the whole city, connects to a reservoir north of here. Every building's hooked into it." She watched him with open curiosity now. "You want it hot instead of cold, there's a second handle."
"Hot?"
"Mm-hm."
He looked at the two handles. Looked at her. Looked back at the water, still running, and felt the day's tally of impossible things tip over into something he no longer had the will to keep counting.
"You are telling me," he said slowly, "that every house in this city commands its own well. Hot and cold both. Without a servant, a bucket, or a rope."
"That's the general idea, yeah."
He said nothing for a long moment, turning it over, what a man could build, what a man could stop needing, if he never again had to haul water himself.
He thought, unbidden, of every squire and servant he'd ever sent down to a well at dawn, or even gone himself when he squired, and wondered what those boys would have made of this.
She reached past him and shut the tap. The water stopped as abruptly as it had come, and the silence that followed felt, absurdly, louder than the sound itself had been.
----
She watched him sit back down, slower than he probably wanted her to notice, and felt her own worry sharpen in response.
He was pale under the bruising. Worse than in the stockroom, now that the adrenaline of the street and the stairs had burned off and left him with nothing to run on but stubbornness. She was starting to suspect stubbornness was mostly what he had left today.
He needed a bath. Badly. And rest, and quiet, all of which she could actually provide here, behind a locked door, away from patrolmen and gossiping bakery owners. That part, at least, she could manage.
What she couldn't provide was clothes, and that was the part actually nagging at her.
He couldn't wear what he had on; there was no version of a corner grocery where a six-foot-something man in a laced medieval tunic and thigh straps walked in without every head turning. She'd been running through options since the stockroom and kept landing on the same one.
"I can wash what I'm wearing," he offered, apparently following the direction of her thoughts more accurately than she'd expected. "It only wants soap and water. I've done worse with less on campaign."
"It's not really a laundry problem, Mr. Barnes." She said it as gently as she could manage, not wanting to make him feel worse than he already seemed to about needing help. "Even clean, that's not something a man wears walking down Camden Street in this year."
"I have nothing to offer you outright," he said, after a moment, "but I could part with something of value. The belt. The leg straps." He nodded down at the heavy leather still buckled across his hips and thighs, the only thing of worth currently on his person. "The leather alone is good work. It should fetch enough for whatever I need."
She wasn't sure whether to be touched or exasperated, and settled, after a second, on both at once. There was something almost unbearable about how hard he was working to make sure he didn't owe her anything. "I'm not taking your pants apart for scrap, Mr. Barnes."
"It is not scrap. It is craftsmanship."
"I believe you. I'm still not doing it. I know a place. Charity, secondhand, mostly donated. You don't have to pay, and you don't have to give me your belt to make yourself feel better about not paying. It's fine."
He didn't look like he agreed that it was fine, but he said nothing further, which she was coming to understand was as close to agreement as she was likely to get from him. She'd take it.
"Stay put and drink your water," she said, smoothing her skirt. Then she crossed to a basket near the icebox and drew out a cloth bundle with biscuits, plain and slightly dense.
"You're probably still hungry. One sandwich isn't much, considering whatever it is you've been through today. Eat those while I'm gone. I'll be as quick as I can."
He looked at the plate, then at her, something in his face she couldn't quite name, and she decided not to push for a name for it.
"Thank you," he said, quiet enough that she almost missed it over the sound of her own keys. "And… Bucky." He said it almost before he'd decided to. "Please. Call me Bucky."
She paused with her hand on the door, caught off guard. It was a small, private surprise hearing a man this formal hand her something informal on purpose, like he'd decided she'd earned it.
"Alright then," she said. "Bucky."
She was out the door before she could decide what to do with the rest of it.
----
She took the stairs two at a time, bags of flour-sack cloth knocking against her hip with every step, and allowed herself a small, private satisfaction over the haul.
Two pairs of trousers, both plain, both in decent shape. Two undershirts. Three button-up shirts, all in the largest size the donation bin carried; apparently the largest size was also the least popular, because she'd had her pick of three, tags barely worn off. Socks, a few pairs, unmatched but clean.
She'd even swung by the little men's shop on the corner for the one thing charity boxes never carried enough of, sliding two pairs of short underwear across the counter to a clerk who hadn't so much as blinked. Small mercies.
Not bad, she thought, climbing the last flight. Not bad at all for forty minutes and whatever cash she'd had folded in her coat pocket.
The apartment was quiet when she let herself in, quiet enough that her stomach gave one small, unpleasant lurch before she registered why. The living room was empty, and for one dumb second her mind went straight to worst-case: gone, hurt because he meddled with something unknown, collapsed somewhere she couldn't see.
She set the bags down just inside the kitchen doorway and leaned in.
There he was. Exactly where she'd left him, same chair, same table, the plate of biscuits reduced to crumbs and one lonely survivor. Relief hit before she'd even fully processed why she'd been braced for something worse.
His head had tipped back against the wall at some point, throat exposed, mouth slightly open, one hand still loosely curled around the water glass as though he'd meant to keep drinking.
He hadn't heard her come in. Whatever was going on with him, and whatever had actually happened to leave him bruised and half-convinced he was a knight out of a storybook, the exhaustion was real, and something about seeing it made her chest ache a little more than she felt entitled to on a few hours' acquaintance.
She crossed the room slowly, quiet out of some instinct she didn't examine too closely and stopped a few feet away. He frowned in his sleep, and she found herself wondering what a man like him dreamed about. Nothing good, probably.
It was, she noted with some irritation at herself, deeply unfair how good-looking he still managed to be while doing it. Even bruised, even filthy, even asleep in a kitchen chair with his neck at an angle that was going to cost him.
Great, she thought. That's exactly the thought you needed to be having right now.
She shook it off, mostly, and refocused on the more immediate problem: he was going to wake up with a crick in his neck to rival his ribs if she let him stay like that much longer.
"Hey," she said, gently, crouching down to something closer to his eye level before she reached out. She touched his shoulder. Lightly, carefully, and tried to say his name again.
It happened faster than she could track.
One second her hand was on his shoulder, his name half-formed on her lips for the second time, and the next, his eyes had snapped open, his hand had closed around her wrist like a manacle, and his other hand was at her throat.
Not gripping, not yet. Just a half-second suspended somewhere between reflex and intention, fingers pressed light but certainly against her skin, the pressure of a man who knew exactly where to close his hand and how much force it would take, poised on the edge of applying it.
Her whole body had gone very still, some animal part of her taking stock of the situation faster than the rest of her could catch up.
Then he saw her. Not whatever ghost his sleeping mind had conjured in her place, and his hand recoiled from her throat like he'd touched a stove.
He let go of her wrist a half-beat after, both hands snapping back, and shoved himself away from her so hard the chair legs shrieked against the tile.
"I'm sorry." Low, fast, wrecked. "I'm sorry- I didn't- are you hurt, milady? Did I hurt you?"
Milady? Well, at least it wasn’t wench.
"I'm fine." She kept her voice level, even though her pulse hadn't quite caught up with that fact yet, one hand coming up unconsciously to touch her own throat, still warm from where his'd been. "I'm… fine."
He didn't look like he believed her, and honestly, she wasn't sure she believed herself either. Not shaken by what he'd done, exactly, but by how close it had come, and how little time there'd been between his eyes opening and his hand finding her throat with that kind of certainty.
He was staring at his own hands now, jaw working, color gone from his face in a way that had nothing to do with the morning's injuries.
"May I see?" His voice had dropped, quiet and careful, stripped of all its usual formal armor. "Please. I need to see that I didn't-" He didn't finish it. "Please."
She lowered her hand and let him look, some instinct telling her this wasn't a moment to argue with him about it, that he needed the proof more than she needed the space.
He stepped close, close enough that she could feel him not quite touching her, his eyes moving over her throat, but there was nothing to find. The barest ghost of pressure, gone already, nothing that would leave a mark.
She was abruptly, uselessly aware of how near he was standing, and annoyed with herself for noticing it now of all moments.
He looked at her face once he was satisfied, and whatever was in his eyes in that moment, she didn't have a word ready for it.
"I shouldn't have grabbed you like that," she said finally, quiet. "Waking someone up out of a dead sleep, I should've known better. My fault too."
"No." His answer was fast, firm, and with no room in it for argument. "It is not. A man does not require permission to be startled to see reason before he raises a hand to a woman who has done nothing but show him kindness. No excuse covers what I nearly did. I won't let you make one for me."
She opened her mouth to push back -some instinct to smooth it over, to meet him halfway- then closed it again, because the look on his face told her plainly this wasn't a fight she'd win today, maybe not ever.
"I'm sorry," he said again, and this time it landed somewhere lower and more tired than the first two.
She let it sit a moment before she moved. Then she nodded toward the doorway, toward the bags still waiting where she'd left them, glad for once to have somewhere else to point his attention, and hers.
"C'mere. I want to show you what I got."
It wasn't subtle, the redirection of the topic, and she suspected he knew exactly what she was doing. But he let her do it anyway and followed her the few steps to the kitchen table, watching her upend the flour-sack bags across it with something that might, in a better hour, have been curiosity.
Trousers. Shirts, still stiff with the fold-lines of whoever had donated them and never worn out. Socks in mismatched pairs. A single undershirt he picked up and turned over in his hands, studying the cut like it was a garment he half-recognized, and half didn't.
"They're not much," she said, "but they'll get you through the next few days. We'll figure out the rest as we go."
He set the undershirt down and looked over the rest of the pile with careful attention.
"Thank you," he said. She was starting to lose count of how many ways he'd found to say it, and how much he seemed to mean it every time and how much, against all reason, she was starting to like hearing it.
"Don't thank me yet." She managed something close to a smile, enough to pull the air in the room back toward ordinary. "You still have to survive a bath. And getting dressed. I have a feeling that's going to be its own adventure."
He looked at her like he had no idea what she meant by that.
installment list / previous chapter / next chapter
word count: 3,357
story content warnings: 18+ MDNI! war, violence, loss of limb, mental illness, medical talk and treatment, forced drug use, language, drinking, tense family situations, smut, pregnancy stuff, sickness, explosives. there’s fluff too, i swear!
"Sam, where the hell are you going?" you asked, your voice a sharp whisper cutting through the mostly quiet room.
"I thought I saw something down this way!" he replied, maneuvering toward where he had seen the beam of a flashlight move across the floor.
"I think the gang's holed up this way! If we go through this hallway, we should be able to bust up their front!" you replied.
"Yeah, but what if that flashlight was someone starting to move their stash? No one expected us to be here at this hour, it could be them trying to move! If we sneak up from behind…" he said before proceeding to follow the movement of the flashlight beam.
You rolled your eyes and laughed to yourself before following him, moving carefully through the shadows, right behind him. Much to your chagrin, Sam was right. As the two of you turned the corner, all Hell broke loose as the man with the flashlight realized the two of you were there! "Get him!" you shouted, pulling out your firearm to threaten him.
"Someone's here!" the man shouted, and as he did, the sound of dozens of distressed chickens filled your ears as a second man pulled a lever that released all of them from their cages!
"Shit!" Sam shouted, running after the two men as they made a break for it, both with large bags hauled over their shoulders.
It took some expert ducking and dodging, but the two of you managed to subdue the two men! Before making your own getaway through a back door where you had a car waiting, you grabbed the bags off of their unconscious and tied up bodies. As a final farewell to the no-good-doers, you tossed a bit of chicken feed near them and watched with a laugh as the chickens began surrounding them. By the time you and Sam got back into the car, with him in the driver's seat ready to peel off before the cops showed up, you were laughing so hard that you had tears rolling down your cheeks!
Placing your game controller down on the couch beside you, you wiped away your tears and massaged your cheeks, that, at this point were sore from laughing and smiling so much. "I didn't know GTA was this fun," you commented once you were through the worst of the giggling fit.
"It's a good way to distract yourself," he told you, his focus on the screen as he navigated the car away from the scene, keeping clear of any police in the area. Off-handedly, he added, "Sorry Bucky had to go out on a mission so close to your due date."
"It's okay," you told him before taking a sip of water from the cup you had on the side table nearby. As you placed it down, you said, "They're working on getting the guy who took over once Walsh stepped away from being a Commander in Afghanistan. It's important. I get it."
"Excited to get some more charges against that bastard?" Sam asked, drifting the car into your characters' shared warehouse where you stored all your cars and money.
"Show off…" you muttered, a smile teasing your lips as you began moving yourself from the couch to your wheelchair to go grab something to snack on. "I don't know if excited is the right word for it. I'll be happy when he finally gets his sentence, though. I know he's being held up in the military prison until the trial, but… It doesn't feel official yet."
"Don't worry, he's gonna go away for a long time," Sam assured you for what felt like the millionth time.
In the middle of shifting your hips from the couch to the wheelchair, you felt a warm gush between your thighs, followed by a dampness that began to slowly soak your leggings. "Shit…" you breathed, all of the air leaving your lungs as you roughly fell into the seat of your chair.
"What's wrong?" Sam asked, his eyes tearing away from the screen when he heard your tone.
"I… My water just broke…" you whispered, a slight tremble in your hands and voice as your head began to spin with anxious thoughts.
"Shit…!" Sam whispered sharply, throwing his controller down on the couch and jumping up to grab the handles of your wheelchair. As he began wheeling you toward the med bay, he stuttered out, "Do you have a bag or something? Sarah had a bag! Is Beth here? Shit, we need to call Bucky! What about-?"
"Sam!" you said, voice slightly louder than his. After you said this, a tight pressure shot through your abdomen that you now realized was different than the kicks you usually got. When he quieted down for a moment, you blew out a breath before telling him, "Let's just start with getting me to the med bay and getting Bucky here. Please."
"Right!" he said, pushing you through the halls quicker. His thoughts still raced, though, and he made a mental check list of what he thought he may need to do once the two of you got to the med bay. Of course this would happen on the one day when practically no one else was at the compound! The mission at hand was a very important one that many members of the Avengers were sent out on - Tony, Clint, Steve, Natasha, Wanda, and Pietro were all out, leaving just him, Bruce, and Rhodey at the Compound, with Thor off-world once again.
As Sam approached the med bay, he dialed the desk's phone, telling Quinn urgently, "Open up, we're coming in hot!"
Jumping up from their post at the desk where they had been documenting, Quinn followed the order quickly, opening up the door as Sam pushed you through and began wheeling you toward the room Tony had designated as yours once he had all the latest in birthing technology installed in the room. "What's going on?"
"Water broke! Baby's coming!" Sam told them urgently.
"Shawn? A little help?" Quinn called toward the supply room, quickly walking to keep up with Sam's rapid pace toward the room.
The three of them worked together to help you out of the wheelchair, but as they did, another contraction hit, causing you to double over as you held onto your abdomen and groaned in pain. Quinn held you tight, their feet planted firmly on the ground and their arms under yours, their voice close to your ear as they said, "You're fine. I'm right here. You're not going down. Breathe through it and then we'll get you in bed."
Their voice was soothing despite the chaos unraveling around you, so you nodded, taking a deep breath and blowing it out slowly. The pain subsided with the breath, and when you were able to stand a little straighter, the three of them got you into the bed. Once you were settled, Quinn gave Shawn a list of supplies to grab before telling Sam, "We need Beth here. I know what to do in an emergency, but I think we'd all prefer for her to be here…"
"I'll get Bruce on the line. He'll be able to get a hold of her quicker," Sam said in turn, about to walk away with Quinn to make the call, but he was stopped when you grabbed his forearm to prevent him from walking away. "What's up?" he asked immediately, concern in his eyes as he turned his attention back toward you.
"Please don't go. I…I don't wanna be alone…" you said quietly, a tear falling down your cheek as your mind flashed to the vision Wanda gave you that day in the Tower.
"You got it," Sam said firmly, pulling the stool nearby closer to the bedside before giving your hand a light squeeze of assurance that he wasn't going anywhere. Quinn came back a few moments later with a gown for you to change into, and Sam turned his back as he began dialing Bruce. He finally picked up on the fourth ring, and before he could say anything in greeting, Sam blurted, "The baby's coming! We need Beth!"
"O-oh! Okay! I-" The phone's speaker left his mouth, and his voice was slightly quieter in Sam's ear as he said, "Beth! We gotta go! Baby's coming!" There was a few seconds of silence as Bruce flagged down their waitress, telling her, "Hey, I'm sorry, but we gotta go! The bread was great!"
Sam chuckled, pressing the phone to his chest as he told you, "Sounds like your little girl's stopping Banner from gettin' some lovin' tonight."
You couldn't help the laugh that fell past your lips, calling out in hopes that Bruce would hear you, "Sorry for interrupting dinner!"
By this time, Sam had turned the phone on speaker, and you could hear Beth's slightly breathless voice saying, "Don't worry about it! We're about forty-five minutes away! I think Sara can make it in twenty if she speeds! Stark's got the police around there in his pocket, doesn't he?"
"That's not how he likes to word it, but yes," Bruce said as the pair of them hustled out of the restaurant and to Beth's car.
"Everyone be safe! We'll see you soon," Sam said before ending the call. "Okay, now Bucky…" Sam muttered as he began tapping away at his phone to get remote access to the secure coms system.
It took a few minutes, but once he was in, you could hear the chaos of an intense firefight on the other side of the open com link system shared between members of the team. Of course, JARVIS notified Tony immediately of the presence of a remote access point, so he said into the system, "Whoever just accessed the coms system better have a damn good-" A grunt of pain interrupted his sentence as a blast from a turret knocked into his armor, and the rest of his sentence was slightly clipped as he said, "You better have a damn good reason!"
Judging by the background sounds, you didn't want to immediately reveal why Sam had called, worried that it would compromise the team's, and mostly Bucky's, attention and safety. There was no time to warn Sam of this worry, though, before he was blurting out, "Yeah, I think a baby coming warrants an emergency call!"
"W-what?" you heard Bucky's shocked voice breathe out. "She- She isn't due for another week and a half, what-?"
"Well, baby decided to come early!" Sam interrupted. "I may be Uncle of the Year five years running, but I have no idea what the hell to do in this situation!"
"Watch out!" came Pietro's voice through the coms, running towards Bucky and shoving him out of the way of flying debris that had been knocked loose during HYDRA's retaliation against the team.
Another contraction hit you and you tried to keep your groan of pain quiet as Sam continued on, quickly spilling his thoughts as he said, "Is there a bag you two have ready for this? What about a carrier? Is there anything you need from the nursery for this? What about something comforting for her? I don't know what-"
Clint's voice broke through the coms next, telling him, "Calm down!" He sighed before saying, "Nat, get Laura there. I don't care how, just do it."
"Laura? Who's Laura?" Tony asked in quick succession.
"Doesn't matter," Clint replied, an arrow going straight into a flying bogey he had spotted nearby.
"Does, too!" Tony retorted.
Natasha was next to speak, snapping at Tony, "Now isn't the time to be arguing about who Laura is! What she can do is provide support that none of us can from where we're at right now!" No one spoke in the moments following, leaving Natasha time to finish with, "Now! What we need to do is finish this mission and get outta here!"
"God, I love when you take charge," Steve said with a quiet chuckle.
This comment earned a disgusted, "Ew, gross. We do not need to be hearing about your kinks right now, Spangles," from Tony.
A furious blush ignited on Steve's cheeks, and he couldn't even come up with anything else to say before Natasha said, "Focus, you two!"
"Right," Steve said. He cleared his throat before telling the team, "We've got 'em on the ropes. All we've gotta do is take down this final wall of gunners and we've got him. Once he's secure, then we're home free. Bucky, do I need to change you and Clint's positions?"
"No," Bucky told him firmly, using the sight on his weapon to target one of the gunners, sending a stunning round into him from his sniper's position.
"Good," Steve said as he watched the man go down. "Then the mission continues on as planned. Let's make this quick," Steve said before he got to work laying into the melee fighters coming at him.
Sam looked like he was about to hang up, so you took a shaking breath and called out, "Be safe guys! Especially you, Buck. I need you back safe."
"You got it, Doll," he replied, and even though the slight digital modulation, you could hear the emotion in his voice.
"How far apart are your contractions?" came the breathless voice of Sara, Beth's nurse practitioner and study assistant as she ran through the doors of the room you were in.
"Like…five to ten minutes? Somewhere in there?" you asked.
"Then we've got time!" she said with relief in her voice as she threw on some gloves.
Sam hadn't had time to hang up before the intrusion, and you heard Tony, say, "You heard the woman! We've got time! We'll get you home in time to catch that baby, Robo-Cop!"
You laughed quietly and rolled your eyes at Tony's nickname for Bucky, signaling for Sam to cut off the system before you distracted the team any more than they already were. Sara took a moment to examine you before nodding and saying, "Okay. Yes. We have time. You're at about five centimeters. Still a little while before baby comes!"
"That's a relief…" you said, finally able to relax a little knowing that she wasn't already halfway out while Bucky was halfway across the world…
"Remind me, are we doing meds?" Sara asked as she discarded her gloves.
"God, yes," you told her, your eyes snapping open in shock at the thought of doing this without medication. You'd gone through a lot in your life, dealing with more pain than the average person will ever endure, but quite frankly, you were done with the pain that had come out of this pregnancy.
Sara laughed quietly before nodding, telling Quinn what supplies and medications to grab to be ready for when Beth arrived.
By the time the door to your room was sliding open again, you had gone through two more contractions, each more intense than the last. You finished having one as the door shut and you had tears rolling down your cheeks as you let go of Sam's hand that you had a death grip on only moments before. "I can take it from here," came an unfamiliar voice that was nothing short of soothing.
While Beth began calling out orders for Sara and Quinn to follow, you were met with the gentle hands of a woman you had never seen before. She helped you sit on the side of the bed and sent you a warm smile before telling you, "Hey. I'm Laura. Clint and Nat sent me to step in - help you get through this 'til they can get back."
"Hi, Laura," you said breathlessly as you clutched the side of the bed while Beth prepared your back for the epidural. "I'm assuming you know a lot more about this than Sam?"
Laura laughed quietly, nodding before telling you, "Just went through it myself not too long ago."
"Okay, now lean forward," Beth told you.
"I've gotcha, I'm right here," Laura said, opening her arms for you to lean into before rubbing the upper portion of your back. You cringed when you felt the sharp poke of the needle pierce your skin, but breathed through it and just listened to Laura's voice as she attempted to distract you, saying, "You know, this isn't as bad as my husband made it out to be. He nearly fainted for two of the three I got for our kids."
You couldn't help but laugh, sitting up when Beth told you to as you said, "He not used to the medical stuff?"
A slight look of mischief crossed Laura's features before she laughed and said, "He's mostly on the receiving end of things, not watching it happen to others."
"Ready for the medicine?" Sara asked as Quinn and Laura got you settled back into the bed.
You nodded your response as you shifted around to find a comfortable spot on the bed. When you finally settled into a spot and focused back on your body, your mouth popped open in shock, a small gasp of air coming into your lungs as you froze in place. "Everything okay?" Laura asked, concern evident in her voice as she took in your facial expression.
"Y-yeah, I…" you breathed, unable to form a coherent sentence for a few moments. A fresh wave of tears cascaded out of your eyes as you relaxed into the bed, a sigh of relief heaving out of your chest before you said blissfully, "There's no pain." Ever since the baby had started kicking, you were damn near constantly in pain either from being actively kicked or from your body recovering from the extremely strong kicks. Those, combined with Braxton-Hicks contractions once they had started left you feeling absolutely miserable most of the time.
But now…there was nothing. No pain. No soreness. Just…numbness.
"Amazing, isn't it?" Laura asked as she pulled up a chair to sit beside your bed.
"Absolutely…" you replied, a yawn ending the sentence that you covered up with your arm.
"If you're feeling tired, you might as well take a nap now before the hard part starts," Laura told you. "I didn't with my last one, and when I tell you I was crabby afterward…"
You laughed lightly when she said this, your eyelids becoming heavier by the second as your body relaxed as much as it could. "Tell me about them," you murmured, nestling into the comfortable pillow behind your head.
"The kids? Oh, they're great!" Laura replied brightly, her voice quiet so she wouldn't disturb your peace. "Nathaniel, he's the newborn, is the sweetest. He's the best baby! Sleeps through the night, eats when I eat, I really couldn't ask for any better of a postpartum experience! His aunt is always video chatting when she isn't busy, and he's fascinated by the phone! His dad, bless him, is as busy as his aunt, but we make it work."
The soothing sound of Laura's voice talking about her kids lulled you to sleep soon after, the sleep so restful you were even able to ignore the pressure that came with the next contraction that hit you. As you slept over the next hour or so, Sam snuck back into the room, draping a soft weighted blanket over you that you had taken to over the last few months. "Can I get you anything?" Sam asked, his voice quiet as he lingered near the door, outside of which Sara and Beth were going over their notes from the course of the pregnancy.
"I'm good, thanks," Laura replied. Flashing a look toward her phone, she said, "You may wanna go play greeting party for the team. They should be landing any minute."
Sam was about to ask how she could have known that, but his attention was grabbed by his phone going off with an alert from Steve, telling him the exact same thing. So, instead of questioning the helpful, yet mysterious woman, Sam just nodded and started making his way to the hangar to greet the team when they landed.
a/n: it's tiiiimmmeee! baby is on the way! i can't wait for you all to meet her! (much like my sister's baby, this little girl is coming a tad early - how crazy would that have been if i had uploaded this chapter that same day, that would have been wild...) also, when i was writing this, i asked my fiance what the most ridiculous GTA missions were and i landed on the one written in the beginning of this chapter! alsoooooo, Laura!!! it was so fun writing the subtle hints throughout the last few chapters leading up to meeting her! buckle up for the last few chapters!
anyways! i hope you all enjoyed! likes, comments, and re-blogs are greatly appreciated! i love hearing from you guys! until next time! xo! <3
$ log - bucky barnes has a lot of feelings with no idea how to say them. you have a lot of anxiety and absolutely no idea what he means!
$ warn --sfw --gn!reader --soft!bucky --fluff
$ wc -w 1.7k
$ cd masterlist
$ echo "manager said it's wfh day tm!!!1!111!11" > authors-note.txt
$ vi dont-shoot-your-shot.txt (v1) dont-shoot-your-shot-v2.txt
Steve is gone before you finish turning around. You don't see him leave. One moment he's there and the next there is just an empty gym and the distant sound of someone who has decided this is not his problem anymore.
You turn back around. Bucky is standing next to the punching bag.
He'd been glaring — you'd clocked that much in your peripheral vision, the familiar weight of it, incident number thirty-something.
But the moment your eyes land on him something happens to his face that you don't have a category for yet. It goes through several things very quickly: the glare, then something that isn't the glare, then nothing.
Then a very deliberate attempt at a neutral expression that doesn't quite land because he's already reaching out to punch the bag next to him with the energy of a man doing a completely normal thing he'd planned to do all along.
The punch is too light. He knows it's too light. So, he does another one, also too light.
You watch this for a moment.
Okay. You work with the Avengers. You have stood in rooms with people who could level buildings. You have completed extractions in active combat zones. You have done things that required considerably more nerve than walking across a gym floor and asking one man what your problem is. You can do this. You are doing this. You're going.
You go.
Across the gym, Bucky is having a separate but related crisis.
Say it, he thinks. Sam said say it. Sam said just say it, James, stop making it weird, it cannot possibly get weirder than it already is, so just —
He watches you stand up straighter, watches you set your jaw the way you do when you've made a decision. He watches you start walking toward him, and every single prepared sentence he's spent four days constructing evaporates completely.
He straightens up, putting his shoulders back. He breathes out once through his nose.
Say it.
You stop in front of him. He's looking at you. You're looking somewhere around his collarbone because his face has always been the problem, the weight of it, and you can't look at it directly right now.
"I've been meaning to ask you something," you start.
"I need to tell you something," he says at the same time.
You both stop. He gestures, slightly, with one hand. You first. You shake your head. You first. He nods once, like accepting a mission parameter. Then there is a brief silence in which he appears to be locating something inside himself that doesn't come easily.
"I think about you," he says. "A lot. More than — " he pauses, seems to decide that more than is a road he doesn't know how to finish, and reroutes. "You're the first thing I think about in the morning. Most mornings."
You stare at him. Your brain does a fast, wrong translation.
"I'm sorry," you say.
Something moves across his face. "What."
"I'm sorry," you repeat, to his collarbone, "for whatever I did. I've been going over it and I can't figure out what, but clearly something — "
"That's not — " he stops, and tries again. "I wasn't saying that as a bad thing."
"Right," you say, in the tone of someone who absolutely does not believe that.
He looks at the ceiling for a moment and then looks back at you. Bucky plants his feet straight.
"When you're in a room," he says, slowly, carefully, like he's translating from a language he's still learning, "it's quieter. In my head. It's been loud for a long time and when you're around it — stops. That's not something that happens to me."
You are quiet for a moment.
"Is it the mug?" you say.
Bucky blinks. "What."
"I used your mug. The grey one. I washed it but maybe I put it back wrong or — "
"This isn't about a mug," he says, with great patience.
"The obstacle course?"
"No."
"I beat your time."
"I know."
"By four seconds, I know that probably — "
"I don't care about the obstacle course," he says. "I've never thought about the obstacle course. Please." He exhales, trying to find the thread again, somewhere. He does, and pulls on it. "I gave you my rifle," he says.
You go very still.
"I've never given anyone my rifle," he continues. "I want you to know that. I need you to know that, actually, because I think — " he stops, rebuilds. "I gave it to you because I wanted to. Because I trust you with things that matter to me."
The silence stretches long enough to be uncomfortable.
"Did I scratch it?" you say quietly.
"What — " he closes his eyes for just a second, before opening them. "No. You didn't scratch it. It's fine. You were — your shots were incredible, that's the — " he stops again.
Bucky's three sentences away from where he wants to be and he can't seem to close the distance. He looks at you. You're looking at the floor, tracing the edge of a panel with your eyes, and he's looking at the ceiling again, at the flickering light in the far corner that no one has fixed.
There are approximately four feet between you that feel considerably larger than that. He tries one more time.
"I like you," he says. Just that, flat and direct and stripped of all the scaffolding because the scaffolding isn't working. "I like you and I don't — I'm not good at this. I know I'm not good at this. But I needed you to know that the way I've been — it was never — it was always — " he stops and looks at you. "It was never a bad thing, what I feel. It's not a bad thing."
Something small and white walks into the gym. You both look down.
Alpine surveys the situation with the expression of a creature who has found two people being unnecessarily complicated about something very simple.
Swalks in a slow deliberate figure of eight between your legs, purring at a volume that seems unreasonable for her size. Something in your face does the thing it does when you're not performing anything.
"Oh," you say softly. "Hi. Hello, who are you?"
Alpine headbutts your hand with considerable force. You make a small sound. You are now entirely focused on the cat, which means you are no longer focused on your own hands, your own shoes, the specific floor panel you've been staring at.
So, you’re certainly not focused on Bucky, which is the only reason you miss what happens to his face when he watches you with her.
He crouches down.
"Hey, baby," he says, to Alpine, in a voice about forty percent softer than anything you've heard from him, and Alpine abandons you immediately to climb onto his knee. He lets her. He runs his hand down her back and she presses into it.
He exhales, quietly, and then — because he's down here, because it's a different angle, because he's spent weeks looking at you from across rooms and corridors and ridgelines but not like this, not close and low and quiet — he glances up.
The thought arrives before he can stop it. He'd looked at you from many angles. Across briefing tables, through scope lenses, from the other end of long corridors. But this one — you close, and soft, and unguarded, not knowing he's looking — this one was different. This one he thinks he'll carry for a while.
You reach down to pet Alpine. He catches your wrist.
Not hard — barely anything, just his fingers closing gently around it. You go still, and he turns your hand over slowly, pressing his lips to your palm. Quiet and certain. The way he does everything when he's actually sure of it.
You look at him.
He's already looking at you. That same look, the one that's been there for weeks in the corners of rooms and the edges of missions. Except now there's nothing between you and it. And there’s no misconception or misunderstanding. It’s just his face, open in a way you've never seen it, and the understanding of what you've been seeing this whole time settling into place all at once.
"I like you too, Buck," you murmur. Your eyes move over his face like you're still learning it, this version of it, the one he's been keeping underneath everything else. "I was scared I'd disappointed you. That's — that's why I couldn't look at you. I thought you were angry and I couldn't figure out what I'd done and I just kept — " you stop, almost laughing a little. "I kept waiting for it to get worse."
Something in his expression shifts — not pain exactly, but close to it, the specific kind that comes from understanding something too late.
"No," he says, quietly. "Never that."
Alpine climbs off his knee and sits between you both with the air of someone who has successfully managed a very difficult negotiation and would like to be acknowledged for it.
In the doorway, Sam stops walking, with Steve, two steps behind him, stopping also.
They stand there for a moment, looking at the scene across the gym — Bucky on one knee, your hand in his, Alpine between you, the particular quality of the quiet from this distance —
"Is he — " Steve starts.
"No," Sam says immediately.
"Sam, he's on one knee — "
"He's petting the cat, Steve — "
"He was petting the cat, now he's holding her hand — "
"That's not a proposal, that's a — "
"You told him to go talk to them and now he's on one knee holding their hand, Sam — "
"I told him to confess," Sam says, with great emphasis, "I did not tell him to propose, those are two entirely separate conversations that I very clearly delineated — "
Steve turns to look at him with an expression of profound betrayal. "You said you had it handled."
"I did have it handled. Look at them, Steve. It's handled."
Steve looks. The gym is very quiet from here. Bucky is saying something low that they can't hear, and you're laughing — actually laughing, the real one, not the polite one — and Alpine is sitting between you both like she planned the entire thing.
Something in Steve's face settles.
"...okay," he says, after a moment.
"Thank you."
"You're still an idiot."
"Absolutely," Sam agrees, and neither of them moves toward the exit yet, standing there a little longer in the doorway, not wanting to be the thing that breaks it.
$ tag @twentytomidnight @froggibus
$ vi dont-shoot-your-shot.txt (v1) dont-shoot-your-shot-v2.txt
summary. After a late-night in New Orleans, Congressman Bucky Barnes and his chief of staff wake up legally married. An annulment should be simple, but unfortunately, nothing about their lives is simple. With Bucky's reputation on the line and her past threatening to resurface, staying married starts to look like the safest option. It's only supposed to be temporary. Public appearances, a convincing story, and a quiet divorce once the headlines fade. But fake marriage is harder when everyone else believes it. Especially when Bucky is already in love with his wife.
word count. 6.8k
warnings. pregnancy rumor hijinks, minor angst, jealousy, miscommunication, donor wellness retreat from hell, bucky saying everything except that he's in love with her, no use of y/n
masterlist | series masterlist | last chapter | next chapter
By noon, Bucky had read the same paragraph of the same memo six times and retained none of it.
The memo was not difficult. It concerned the amended oversight language in the Enhanced Persons Protections Act. He knew the material.
But the words would not stay where he put them.
They kept shifting into other things. Your voice in the kitchen and your face when you said you deserve good things. No joke afterward to drag the moment back into something safer.
Bucky leaned back in his desk chair and dragged one hand over his mouth. You were in the conference room with Mia and two legislative aides going over the guest list for the donor dinner now linked to one of the shell companies from the drive. He could see you through the glass wall if he turned his head.
You looked fine.
Which meant nothing.
You were good at looking fine.
He turned back to the memo, but didn’t get far before the memory returned again. Your head tilting tiredly in the kitchen. His mouth against your forehead before he had the sense to stop himself.
It had not been strategy. It had not been public. He could have explained a hand at your back. He could have explained holding a door, pulling out a chair, warming the car, checking your bruise because you had been hurt on a mission he should have been on. Bucky had explanations for all of those, even if some of them were bad.
But the forehead kiss had slipped out of him like habit. A dangerous habit.
His phone buzzed.
A text from Sam.
Wilson
You alive?
11:35
Bucky stared at it, then typed back: At work.
Sam replied immediately.
Wilson
That is not what I asked.
11:36
Bucky huffed despite himself and set the phone facedown.
A minute later, Sam Wilson walked into his office without knocking.
Bucky looked up. “Door was closed.”
“Was it locked?”
“No.”
“Then it was open.”
“‘S’not how doors work.”
Sam shut the door behind him and dropped into the chair across from the desk. He wore a dark jacket, no shield, no visible weapons, and the expression of someone who was far too entertained to be in a government building.
“I’m busy,” Bucky said.
Sam leaned forward and looked at the first page. “You’ve been on page two since I texted you.”
Bucky set the memo aside because pretending to read it was starting to feel more embarrassing than being caught. “What do you want?”
“Wanted to check on you after last night. She texted me last night.”
Bucky blinked. “She texted you?”
“Texted Mia first, who told her not to engage. So naturally she texted me with twelve jokes she is not allowed to post. I ranked them.”
Bucky exhaled and leaned back in his chair.
Sam smiled for a second, but it softened quickly. “She okay?”
“Yeah. Sore knee and bruised shoulder, nothing serious.”
“Did she let you look at it?”
Bucky’s eyes narrowed. “Why?”
“Because it’s a miracle every time that woman lets someone help her, and I like to keep track.”
“She let me look.”
Sam nodded. “Good.”
Bucky looked toward the glass wall before he could stop himself. You were still in the conference room, standing now, one hand braced on the table while Mia pointed at something on a tablet. Peter entered with a stack of folders, nearly dropped one, recovered too fast, and then looked around as if hoping no one had noticed.
Bucky noticed.
There was still something strange about that kid.
Before he could focus on it, you looked through the glass and caught his eye. You lifted your brows slightly, a silent question from across the office. You were asking if he was fine.
He nodded once.
You gave him a look that said you did not believe him but lacked time to prosecute, then turned back to Mia.
Sam’s eyes sharpened. “What happened?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Try again.”
Bucky looked down at the desk. The ring on his left hand caught the light from the window. It looked real on his hand. That was one of the daily cruelties of his life now.
“I kissed her,” he said.
Sam stared.
“On the forehead,” Bucky clarified.
Sam blinked.
“That’s it?”
Bucky looked up.
Sam lifted both hands. “I’m sorry. I’m not trying to be dismissive, but are you middle schoolers? Call me when you have sex.”
Bucky’s jaw tightened. “Sam.”
“Buck.”
“I shouldn’t have done it.”
“Why?”
“Because she didn’t ask for that.”
Sam’s expression changed, the exasperation giving way to something more careful. “Did she pull away?”
“No.”
“Did she say anything?”
“No.”
“Then maybe don’t put a felony charge on a forehead kiss.”
Bucky stood and crossed to the window and looked down at the street below. Staffers from other offices cut across the sidewalk with coffee, badges, phones pressed to ears.
“It’s not about the kiss.”
“No kidding.”
Bucky kept his eyes on the street. “I get to be married to her. I get all the parts that look like a life. She lives in my house. Sleeps in my bed. Leaves her tea in the pantry and her knives in places she thinks I haven’t found. I know how she likes eggs.”
Sam did not interrupt.
Bucky swallowed. “And none of it’s mine.”
The office noise dulled behind him. Someone outside laughed. Through the glass reflection, Bucky could see Sam in the chair, watching him with that tired, patient look he wore when he was trying not to punch through a friend’s self-loathing.
“She doesn’t want it,” Bucky said. “Not like that. If I forget for one second that this isn’t real, then I’m the guy who used a bad situation to get close to her.”
“You’re not that guy.”
“She doesn’t know,” Bucky said.
Sam’s voice came lower. “I know.”
“If she knew, she’d never trust me again.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I know her.”
“You know the parts she lets you see.”
Bucky turned. “That supposed to make me feel better?”
“No. It’s supposed to make you stop acting like you’re the only person in this marriage with complicated feelings.”
“What are you sayin’?” Bucky asked.
“I’ve had you in my ear for two months telling me you can’t say anything because she doesn’t want you. I told you to tell her the truth about New Orleans.” Sam leaned back in the chair again. “I told her to stop assuming she knows what you feel. I have been consistent, mature, and handsome in extremely difficult conditions.”
Despite himself, Bucky huffed.
Sam pointed at him. “Don’t laugh. I’m mad.”
Bucky sat back down.
Sam’s tone sharpened. “You’re making decisions for each other. You’re deciding what she can handle. She’s deciding what you want. Both of you are wrong often enough that I should be getting some sort of pay for putting up with it.”
Bucky looked down.
“I can’t tell you what she feels. That’s not mine to give you. Same way I won’t tell her what you said to me. But you are not doing either of you a favor by standing in the middle of the road waiting for a truck because you feel bad about New Orleans.”
Bucky’s mouth tightened. “That’s not what I’m doing.”
“Buck.”
Sam let the silence sit for a moment, then lowered his voice.
“You made a mistake. And you’re gonna have to tell her. Every day you don’t, you’re building something with her on top of a thing she doesn’t know. And the longer it goes, the worse it gets.”
Bucky said nothing. He knew that. He knew it so well the knowledge had become part of the room he lived in.
Sam shrugged once, but his face stayed serious. “You kissed her forehead. Fine. Maybe you shouldn't have. But if your worst crime yesterday was being gentle with a woman you love, then congratulations. You have become annoying in a very normal way.”
Before Bucky could answer, the office door opened without warning, and you stepped in with a folder under your arm and a brown paper takeout bag in your hand.
“Am I interrupting something?”
Sam leaned back. “Yes.”
“No,” Bucky said at the same time.
You looked between them. “Terrible coordination.”
“You need something?” Bucky asked.
“I need many things. A better printer, for starters.” You held up your takeout bag. “I need my lunch courier to stop having a crisis.”
Bucky frowned. “Your what?”
“What did you do?” Sam asked.
You reached into the bag and pulled out a container of soup, a wrapped sandwich, a bottle of ginger ale, and a pickle sealed in plastic. “I allowed Peter to pick up my lunch.”
Bucky stared at the food, then looked through the glass. Peter stood near Priya’s desk, clutching a stack of mail and trying not to look into Bucky’s office. The second Bucky looked at him, Peter looked away so quickly he nearly hit himself in the face with the envelopes.
Bucky turned back to you. “Why did Parker get your lunch?”
“Because some men still have manners, dreamboat.”
“Why did he think you needed lunch?”
You opened the soup container and smelled it with great satisfaction. “I may have mentioned that I was craving this specific soup from the place on the corner.”
Bucky closed his eyes. Sam started laughing.
“Chief.”
“What?”
“You told Parker you’re pregnant.”
“I did not tell Peter I’m pregnant.”
Bucky opened his eyes.
You held up one finger. “I may have insinuated the baby wanted ginger ale.”
Bucky stared at you.
You shrugged. “The tabloid introduced the premise. I just explored the available consequences.”
“By letting the office think you’re pregnant.”
“I created an atmosphere of possibility.”
You looked up at him with the spoon halfway to your mouth, eyes bright with trouble. You were enjoying this. Not the rumor itself, but the chaos that came after. Someone had handed you a stupid misunderstanding, and you had turned it into soup.
Bucky should have been annoyed, but he was trying too hard not to smile.
“Parker,” Bucky called.
Peter appeared in the doorway so fast Bucky wondered, again, what the hell was wrong with the kid.
“Yes, sir?”
“Why did you buy my wife lunch?”
Peter’s face reddened immediately. “Oh. Um. I was going out anyway.”
Bucky crossed his arms. “If my wife were pregnant, I wouldn’t have another guy running around attending to her.”
You stopped with the pickle halfway to your mouth.
Sam’s eyebrows rose.
Bucky cleared his throat. “I can take care of her just fine.”
“I-I’m sorry, sir. There was the article—and Mrs. Barnes said I was a kind young man who understood urgency,” Peter stumbled over his words. “The next thing I knew I was outside buying soup.”
You nodded. “And you did beautifully.”
Peter looked trapped between pride and terror. “Thank you?”
“She’s not pregnant,” Bucky reminded him.
You threw your hands up. “James. You are robbing me of a very important cultural moment.”
Bucky stared at you. “What cultural moment?”
“The moment where the internet decides you’re a problematic older man who knocked up his much younger wife after a suspiciously sudden wedding.”
Sam leaned back in his chair. “Oh, I’d read that thread.”
“Exactly,” you said. “Where is the outrage? Where is the discourse? Why is no one asking whether Congressman Barnes should be cancelled for being a cradle-robbing menace to democracy?”
Bucky’s eyes narrowed. “You’re not that much younger than me.”
You blinked at him.
Sam blinked at him.
“Bucky,” you said carefully, “you fought in a war that has documentaries in black and white.”
“I was frozen.”
“Oh, convenient excuse.”
Peter’s mouth hung halfway open. “So… she’s not pregnant?”
“No.”
“Oh.”
“She was messing with you.”
Peter processed that with the grave disappointment of a young man encountering betrayal. “So the baby doesn’t want ginger ale?”
“There is no baby,” Bucky said.
“Not with that attitude.” You rolled your eyes.
Sam lost the fight and laughed openly.
Peter took one step back. “Should I go?”
“Yes,” Bucky said.
“No,” you said at the same time. “Peter, thank you for the lunch. You showed initiative, compassion, and excellent pickle judgment.”
Peter nodded uncertainly. “Okay.”
“You did nothing wrong,” Bucky said, because the kid looked one sentence away from drafting his own resignation letter.
Peter looked relieved. “Okay. Good. Great. I’m sorry for implying anything about your personal life or family planning or, um, biology.”
“Peter.”
“Yes?”
“Breathe.”
Peter inhaled sharply. “I’m going to file constituent letters now.”
“Good idea,” Bucky said.
Peter left quickly, but not before nearly colliding with the doorframe and apologizing to it.
Bucky turned to you, fixing you with a look.
You sighed, irritated by your own conscience. “I will apologize to Peter."
“Good.”
“I will not return the soup.”
“I didn’t ask you to.”
“And I will be keeping the ginger ale.”
“That’s fine. Keep eating your soup.”
“Is that an order?”
“More of a suggestion.”
“Right. Because the baby needs nourishment.”
Bucky looked toward the ceiling. “There is no baby.”
Sam leaned back, enjoying himself.
You stood from the chair, picked up the ginger ale, and came around the desk. The office was small enough that he should have stepped back. He did not. You stopped just inside his space and tilted your head up at him, eyes bright, mouth doing that pleased little thing it did when you had committed to a bit.
“Would you peel grapes for me?”
“No.”
“What about oranges?”
“No.”
“What if the baby developed scurvy because of your neglect?”
Bucky tried not to smile. “There is no baby.”
You nodded. “It’s good to know that there are limits to your devotion. I’ll remember this.”
“You do that.”
You lifted the ginger ale between you. “I think I’ll name the baby Minestrone. Minestrone Barnes. That has a good ring to it, yeah?”
“We’re not naming the kid Minestrone.”
“Ah,” you said, delight dancing across your features. “So you are acknowledging the baby now.”
“Get out of my office.”
“Minestrone is a hell of a lot better than Borscht Barnes. Or Chicken Noodle Barnes.”
“Out.”
“Or maybe they should take my last name. French Onion—”
“Now.”
You backed toward the door, looking unbearably pleased with yourself again. “Fine. I know when I’m not wanted.”
Bucky’s stomach turned.
You said it as a joke. He knew you said it as a joke. It was part of the bit. Still, his voice came out before he could stop it.
“You’re wanted.”
You stopped.
Sam went very still.
Bucky did too.
The office noise beyond the door seemed to thin out. Bucky’s pulse beat once, hard, beneath his collar.
Then you smiled. Smaller this time. “Careful, Congressman. That sounded almost sincere.”
“It was.”
Your face shifted again, softer and more uncertain than he meant to make it.
Then Oliver called your name from the bullpen, asking something about Mia and the revised statement. The moment snapped like a thread pulled too hard.
You lifted the ginger ale in half salute. “Duty calls.”
Bucky’s eyes followed you until you were out of eyesight, at which point he turned back to Sam who was regarding him with something between disappointment and annoyance.
“Are you kidding me?”
“What?” Bucky asked.
“‘You’re wanted’?” Sam made a gagging noise.
Bucky rolled his eyes. “Yes, exactly. I’m being obvious. I couldn’t be more obvious.”
“Oh, you absolutely could. Have you ever tried ‘hey Chief, I want you. I want to wake up next to you and smell your hair and hold your hand and be your husband forever and ever and ever.’ You ever try that?” Sam stood from where he was seated and stretched.
“No, haven’t tried that one yet.”
“Well that’s your problem.”
“You’re my problem.”
Sam fixed him with a look. “You’re your own problem. I can’t be flyin’ in here all the time every time you have a middle school crush.”
“I didn’t ask you to fly in here.”
“And you’ll never have to. But you seriously need to do something about this.”
“I have been doing something about it.”
“What, you think kissing her on the forehead and staring at her with puppy dog eyes while you’re in the office is doing something about it?”
Bucky narrowed his eyes. “Well I’m not going to ‘smell her hair’ if that’s what you want me to do.”
A slow smile spread across Sam’s face.
“Y’know, maybe you do need to up your physical game. Here, I’ll be you—”
“No.”
“—and you be her.”
“No.”
But Sam was already crossing the office, his voice dropping to a lower register in an attempt to imitate Bucky’s voice. If you would have asked Bucky, it sounded nothing like him.
“Gee whiz, sweetheart. I know I’m a grumpy 200-year-old super—”
“I’m not that old.”
“You sound nothing like her.” Sam scowled. “It’s like you’re not even trying. Now where was I? I know I’m a grumpy 200-year-old super soldier, but you’ve really put the razzle-dazzle on my ticker. Better call a doctor, ‘cause I’ve got a case of the feelings and there ain’t no penicillin for it!”
Bucky stared at him.
“Penicillin existed when I was young.”
“No one likes doing bits with people who fact check them.” Sam snapped back into the voice. “Dollface, you’re the bee’s knees, the cat’s pajamas. I’m awfully sweet on ya, but unfortunately I’m too committed to being a stoic flimflam to do anything about it.”
“You’re not even using those terms correctly,” Bucky said, picking up the memo once more. “This is terrible advice.”
Sam’s grin widened. “Try this one: listen here hussy—”
“I have never called someone hussy in my life,” Bucky said, dragging a hand down his face. “And I certainly wouldn’t call her that.”
“—I like you an awful lot, but I’m too much of a coward to say anything about it. So I oughta show ya!”
Before Bucky could process what was happening, Sam had grabbed Bucky’s face in his hands and was leaning in to place a sloppy wet kiss on him.
Bucky realized what was happening with just enough time to hold Sam at an arm’s length, but Sam was persistent. Despite Bucky’s super strength, Sam was able to plant a kiss on his cheek, prompting Bucky to throw him off of him.
“What the hell is wrong with you?”
Sam couldn’t respond over his fit of laughter.
Before Bucky could throw his best friend out the window, you appeared in his doorway again, this time without the soup, the ginger ale, or the ridiculous performance of pregnancy theater. You held a folder in one hand and his reading glasses in the other.
He frowned. “Where’d you find those?”
“Windowsill.”
“I looked there.”
“You looked near there. You were probably too busy making out with Wilson to look properly.”
Sam coughed.
Bucky took the glasses. Your fingers brushed his for barely a second. He put the glasses on and opened the folder.
You leaned one hip against the doorframe. “Mia wants your approval on the revised statement before she sends it.”
“Is it going to say you’re not pregnant?”
“It is going to say we do not comment on private family matters.”
“That sounds like you’re pregnant.”
“It denies nothing. It confirms nothing. It lets the story die without us chasing it around with a shovel.”
Sam nodded. “She’s right.”
Bucky turned to him. “Don’t you think you’ve done enough for one day?”
“Can the two of you work out your couple’s dispute on your own time?” You said.
Bucky signed off on the revised statement and handed it back. “Tell Mia it’s good.”
“I’ll tell her it passed the old-man desk.”
“Don’t call it that.”
“You have a wooden letter opener.”
“It was a gift.”
“You use it.”
Sam pointed at Bucky. “She has you there.”
“You are both in my office,” Bucky said.
“You’re only in this office because of me,” you pointed out. “Dinner is at seven. We leave at six-thirty.”
You left, and Sam took that as his sign to finally leave Bucky alone, muttering something about being late for a meeting with the president.
Bucky sat alone with the memo, the revised statement, the faint smell of your soup still lingering near his desk, and the sound of your voice drifting through the office as you told Peter yes, the sandwich was his.
“I thought this was going to be a networking event.”
You hated this place.
It was not even a real resort. It was a private wellness retreat outside the city with too many windows. A major supporter of Bucky’s bill had insisted that he and his wife attend the one-day donor wellness intensive because it would be “a meaningful opportunity to connect with the more human side of the coalition.”
You had assumed that meant lunch.
Maybe a roundtable.
It had not meant sitting in a circle while a woman named Marigold asked each pair to “share one unspoken emotional request through eye contact.”
You had stared at Bucky for eight full seconds and tried to communicate kill me.
He had looked back at you with calm blue eyes that somehow communicated behave.
You were now thirty-seven minutes into something called a partner attunement sequence, and Bucky Barnes, former Winter Soldier, current congressman, and fake husband, was holding both your hands while Marigold circled the room barefoot with a small brass chime.
Around you, other couples murmured soft things to each other. One foundation director and her husband had already cried twice before lunch. Somewhere near the windows, Senator Vale’s wife was telling her husband that his listening face needed work.
Bucky leaned slightly toward you. “We only have to make it to four.”
“Time stopped during the compassion labyrinth.”
A muscle in his jaw moved.
The truth was, you had been teasing him all morning. If you stopped, you would have to notice the fact that this whole thing was designed to make couples behave like couples. Couples who did not have to decide whether holding hands was a strategy or a habit.
And the problem was that you and Bucky were good at this.
In the mirrored movement exercise, his hand had lifted at the same time yours did, both of you reaching for balance before anyone instructed you to. You were beginning to suspect fake marriage looked very different from the inside than it did from the outside.
Marigold announced they would be moving into a guided intimacy practice, clapping her hands softly.
“Before we begin, take a moment with your partner. Ask: What do I need from you that I have not asked for?”
You stared at Bucky.
Bucky stared back.
There were too many answers in the room, and you didn’t like any of them.
Then, from somewhere behind a tall arrangement of pampas grass and a table of herbal tea, a familiar blonde head appeared.
You froze.
Bucky’s hand tightened around yours.
Yelena stood near the refreshments table wearing a cream-colored staff tunic, a name tag that read Juniper, and a deeply satisfied expression of a woman who had lied her way into paradise and was disappointed with what she found.
You blinked.
She lifted two fingers in a wave.
Bucky turned his head toward you. “Is that Yelena?”
“No.”
“Her name tag says Juniper.”
“Then clearly that’s Juniper.”
You closed your eyes.
Bucky said, very quietly, “Why is she here?”
“Am I my sister’s keeper?”
Yelena picked up a small tray and began circulating with lemon water as if she had been born for hospitality and minor espionage. She stopped beside you with practiced politeness.
“Infused water?” she asked.
You stared at her. “What are you doing?”
“My job.”
“You have a job?”
“Many.”
Bucky looked pointedly at her name tag. “Juniper?”
“You may call me Miss Juniper. This is a professional setting.”
You took a glass from the tray. “Why are you here?”
Yelena’s eyes brightened. “I wanted to see this.”
“This?”
“Yes. Couples retreat with husband.”
“Fake husband,” you corrected in a hushed tone.
Yelena smiled. “Sure.”
You narrowed your eyes. “Leave.”
“No.”
“You are not staff.”
“I have uniform.”
Marigold glanced over. Yelena immediately straightened, serene and helpful.
“Everything all right here?” Marigold asked.
“Yes,” Yelena said. “The couple was just working on open communication.”
Marigold nodded solemnly. “Wonderful.”
When Marigold drifted away, you hissed, “I am going to put you in the koi pond.”
“You would have to catch me,” Yelena replied.
“Don’t tempt her,” Bucky said.
Yelena looked him over. “You look less miserable. Marriage is growth.”
Then she swept away with the tray.
Bucky leaned closer. “We are not telling Sam.”
“We are absolutely not telling Sam.”
Marigold began instructing couples to close their eyes, hold each other’s hands, and match their breathing to one another.
You patted his hand. “If you die from poisoned cucumber water, I get everything, right?”
He opened one eye to look at you.
You expected an eye roll. A dry comment.
“Everything I have is already yours.”
You stopped breathing. Which was so not the point of the exercise.
Bucky seemed to realize what he had said only after it was too late. His gaze dropped briefly to your joined hands. His thumb was resting near your ring.
“Careful, dreamboat. Dangerous thing to say to an ex-assassin,” you said quietly.
His mouth curved faintly.
“Also,” you added, “was that a will update, or do men from your era just hand over their assets at wellness retreats?”
Bucky looked down at your joined hands. “You always this difficult when someone says somethin’ nice to you?”
“Yes. It keeps me young. You should try it.”
Marigold rang her chime again.
The intimacy and boundaries exercise began with instructions that were uncomfortably intrusive. One partner would ask a question. The other would answer without deflection. Then they would switch.
Bucky looked too large for the mat. The linen shirt did unfair things to his shoulders. You hated the shirt. You hated wellness. You hated Yelena’s little uniform.
Marigold instructed the first partner to ask, “What boundary do you need honored in this relationship?”
You and Bucky looked at each other. Neither of you spoke. Around you, couples began murmuring. Soft, earnest answers drifted through the room. More alone time. Don’t read my texts. Please stop signing us up for pickleball.
You stared at Bucky. He stared back.
Because you were tired and cornered, and deeply irritated by the fact that this room had been designed to foster sincerity, you said the first thing to come to your mind.
“Are we allowed to sleep with other people?”
Bucky went perfectly still.
“While we’re fake married, I mean. Not that we have to, it’s just we’ve been at this for months—and I’m not complaining—but this whole situation has really put a damper on dating.” You heard yourself continue before you could stop. “Y’know, having a very public marriage and all. I haven’t been laid in—”
Bucky interrupted you, saying your name softly.
The room around you kept murmuring, oblivious. Somewhere behind him, you could feel Yelena’s eyes watching the two of you.
“You want to?” Bucky’s voice came low.
“No,” you said quickly.
His face shifted.
“I mean,” you corrected, because now you had started and you never knew when to put the shovel down, “not with a specific person. I don’t have a candidate waiting in the wings with a number ticket. But it’s been months, and I still have… well, needs, right?”
Bucky’s jaw tightened.
You pressed on, hating every word more than the last. “It just seems like something we should discuss.”
“Here?”
“Would you rather discuss this during tax preparation?”
“Maybe not in a room full of donors and politicians doing yoga.”
“This isn’t yoga.”
“Hardly the point.”
You made a face. “God forbid a girl try to engage with the retreat.”
“That wasn’t an open invitation to bring up our sex life.”
“Our sex lives. Theoretically separate. Which is the issue at hand.”
Bucky looked down for half a second, then back up. “Right.”
You hated that you had said anything. You hated that some stupid, reckless part of you had wanted him to say no immediately. In a way that meant he could not stand the thought any more than you could. You hated that you had no right to want that.
So you made your voice brisk.
“We can be adults about it.”
“Yeah.”
“If one of us wanted to, discreetly, obviously—”
“Obviously.”
“No staff. No donors. No one connected to the office.”
“God, no. No one in the townhouse.”
You nodded.
Your hands were still in his. You wondered if he was thinking of someone. Some woman from before you. Some veterans advocate with kind eyes. Some woman who didn’t come with a suitcase full of trauma and a fake marriage license.
Whoever she was, you hated her.
Which was unfair, because you had invented her less than four seconds ago.
“If that’s what you want,” Bucky said.
It was not what you wanted. It was not even adjacent to what you wanted.
But you had brought it up, and now pride had locked the door behind you.
You nodded once. “It’s practical.”
“Sure.” His mouth tightened.
For one second, something almost broke through his expression. Hurt, maybe. Or anger. Or want. You could not tell, and that was the problem.
The exercise moved on around you. Couples switched roles. Marigold rang that stupid chime. Someone nearby cried quietly into a bamboo napkin.
You and Bucky did not ask the next question.
You sat there facing each other in a room full of people trying to become more intimate with their spouses, having just given one another permission to be with someone else.
Three days after the wellness intensive, Bucky discovered that agreeing to something and surviving the idea of it were two separate skills.
He had agreed because it was fair.
That was what he told himself.
It was fair for you to have a life outside a marriage neither of you had planned.
Fair for you not to be trapped by the ring on your finger, by the townhouse, by the office, by every camera and donor and staffer who thought the two of you had stumbled into something romantic instead of something legally inconvenient and increasingly difficult to survive. Fair, too, for him to say yes without making his feelings your problem.
So he had said yes.
The worst part was that nothing had happened yet. There was no one. Not that he knew of. You had not come home late with a lie in your mouth or a new perfume on your coat. You had not guarded your phone. You had not started smiling at texts. There was no evidence of anything at all.
Which meant the entire problem was Bucky’s.
He knew that.
He did not need Sam in the room to tell him.
He could hear Sam anyway, which was one of the drawbacks of having a best friend with a loud moral compass.
You agreed to it, man. Don’t get jealous about imaginary people.
Bucky adjusted the cuff of his shirt and looked across the ballroom.
You were talking to General Adrian Vale.
Not Senator Vale. His brother. Retired Air Force, now some kind of senior defense liaison attached to a multinational security commission. Silver at the temples. Navy dress uniform.
He was standing too close to you.
Close enough that when the crowd shifted, Vale leaned slightly toward you instead of away. Close enough that his smile lasted half a second longer than the conversation required. Close enough that when you said something, he laughed and looked down into his drink like he needed a moment to recover.
Bucky hated him immediately.
Then hated himself for hating him.
You were not doing anything wrong.
That was the trouble. You were doing your job. You were working the room the way only you could, all sharp charm and careful attention, letting people underestimate you right up until they handed you exactly what you needed.
Your dress was dark, simple, expensive enough to disappear among donor wives and embassy staff, but cut with enough precision that Bucky had not known what to do with his eyes when you came downstairs earlier.
You had asked, “Too much?”
He had said, “No.”
Now you were across the room in that same dress, laughing with General Vale.
Bucky took a slow sip of water and listened to Congressman Pike explain something about appropriations that Bucky should have been tracking. He heard enough to nod at the right place. He had become good at listening while his attention was elsewhere. A useful skill in government. A necessary one in war.
A miserable one at a diplomatic reception where his fake wife was maybe, possibly, probably not flirting with a man who had once commanded fighter squadrons.
“Representative Barnes?”
Bucky looked back at Pike. “Sorry. Say that again?”
Pike smiled a closed-mouth smile. “I was only saying that your wife has made quite an impression tonight.”
Bucky’s eyes went to you again before he could stop them.
Vale was speaking now. You were listening. Your head had tilted slightly.
“She does that,” Bucky said.
Pike chuckled. “General Vale is not easily impressed.”
Bucky did not like that either.
“Good for him.”
Pike blinked, then laughed because he thought Bucky was joking.
Bucky had been, technically.
You glanced over then. Across the bodies, the polished floor, the low lights, the embassy flags lined along one wall. Your eyes found his like they always did in crowded rooms. Not dramatic. Not searching. Just a quick touch, a check-in.
You lifted your glass slightly.
Then Vale said something, and you looked back at him.
Bucky’s hand tightened around his glass.
He forced it to loosen.
This was what he had agreed to.
Not this specifically. Not you and Vale at a reception full of defense money and polite predators. But the possibility. The right for you to decide that someone else interested you, that someone else might give you something uncomplicated, physical, easy.
Bucky set his glass down.
Pike was still talking.
Bucky said something that passed for an answer and excused himself before the man could decide whether it fit the conversation.
He imagined what you might be saying.
My marriage is complicated.
No one has to know.
It’s not like that with him.
That last one made something in him go cold.
Someone stepped into his path. A woman from the veterans’ coalition, gray-haired, kind-eyed, with a drink in one hand and a gold pin shaped like a dove on her lapel. Bucky recognized her but could not immediately remember her name, which made him feel worse.
“Congressman,” she said warmly. “Your remarks earlier were wonderful.”
“Thank you.”
She followed his gaze before he could stop it.
“Your wife is very good in these rooms,” she said.
“She is.”
“That must be a comfort.”
Bucky looked at her.
She did not seem to mean anything by it. Maybe she only meant what everyone meant when they saw you beside him: that the marriage helped soften the edges of his public life, gave him someone to look at across rooms, made him seem less alone.
“Yeah,” he said. “It is.”
By the time Bucky looked back, Vale had stepped away. You were alone near the archway leading toward the quieter side corridor, looking down at your phone with your drink tucked against your wrist.
Bucky crossed the room before he could decide not to.
You did not look up until he was almost beside you.
“There you are,” you said.
He stopped. “You looking for me?”
“No. But it sounds nicer than ‘why are you looming by the ficus?’”
“Funny.”
“I am very funny. People say this.”
“Who?”
“People with taste.”
Your eyes flicked over him. “You’re doing the jaw thing.”
“What jaw thing?”
“The one where you’re either angry, hungry, or trying not to say something.”
“I ate.”
“So we’ve eliminated one.”
He looked toward the ballroom.
You followed his gaze. Your expression changed just slightly.
“Ah.”
“What?”
“General Vale.”
He looked away, irritated that you had seen it so easily. More irritated that he had given you something to see.
Your voice softened by one degree. Not enough for anyone else to hear. Enough for him.
“I was working.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
“Yes.”
You studied him for a second.
He wished you would stop. He wished you would keep going until you found everything and put him out of his misery.
“You get anything?” Bucky asked.
“He mentioned a closed briefing last month. Defense liaison, two private security contractors, and someone from a humanitarian foundation that does not appear on any of the public schedules.”
“Valentina?”
“Maybe. Not directly. But adjacent enough that I want the guest list.”
Bucky’s shoulders eased a fraction. Information helped. Work helped. Work gave him somewhere to put the jealousy other than his teeth.
Bucky kept his hand at his side. He wanted to touch his ring and refused to let himself. “I meant what I said at the retreat. You can do what you want.”
Your mouth tightened.
He hated that too.
“But?” you asked.
“No but.”
“I’m trying to help you find the sentence.”
For a second, the room almost fell away. He could tell you. Not all of it, maybe. Not New Orleans. Not here. Not in a corridor with donors fifteen feet away and a military liaison who had smiled too long somewhere on the other side of the archway.
But something.
He could tell you that he hated watching Vale touch your arm. He could tell you that he didn’t want anyone else.
“Just be careful,” is what he landed on.
Something in your expression closed.
“Of course,” you said.
He knew he had taken the wrong turn, but he could not find the road back fast enough.
“I don’t mean—”
“No, I know what you mean.” You lifted your drink slightly, smile returning with too much polish. “No reporters, no donors, no lobbyists. I’m careful, Barnes.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
That should have ended it. It almost did. You stepped slightly away from the wall, as if preparing to return to the room, and Bucky felt the chance slipping.
Then you paused.
“Relax, hotshot,” you said. “If I were looking for something discreet, which I am not, I would pick someone less obvious than a man in uniform at an event with six photographers.”
“You don’t have to explain yourself to me,” he said. “I’m sorry.”
Your expression flickered. “For what?”
“For making it your problem. I don’t want to be that guy.”
“What guy?”
“The one who says yes and then punishes you for taking him at his word.”
“Bucky, I don’t—” You stopped, which was rare enough to catch him completely. “I… I don’t have anyone in mind. I’m not actively looking.”
He did not move.
You looked at your drink. “For the record.”
“For the record,” he repeated.
You both stood there caught in all the words that weren’t being said.
You didn’t have anyone in mind. Neither did Bucky. He wanted to say it then: that he didn’t want to use the loophole at all. That he just wanted you. There was no one else.
He could feel the sentence forming, simple and plain.
Before he could say anything, a woman from the embassy staff appeared at the edge of the corridor, looking relieved to find you.
“There you are,” she said. “Mrs. Barnes, General Vale was hoping to introduce you to Minister Armand before he leaves.”
You nodded. “Of course.”
The staffer disappeared back into the room.
You stepped closer, just enough to make it look from the ballroom like an affectionate aside between spouses. Your shoulder angled toward him. Your voice dropped.
“I’m going to talk to him because he has information,” you said. “Then I am going to complain about him in the car ride home.”
“You don’t need my permission.”
“I know that.” You looked at him, something unreadable passing behind your eyes. “That’s why I’m telling you, not asking.”
Then you walked back into the ballroom.
Bucky stayed in the corridor for a moment, watching you cross toward Vale and the minister. You did not look back immediately. You did not need to. Halfway across the room, you lifted your hand slightly and touched your earring, the tiny signal you used when you wanted him to know you had eyes on exits and everything under control.
Warnings: Mild Violence. Period expected misogyny.
Summary: A knight from another century crashes -literally- into a florist’s life and turns her world upside down.
Word Count: 4.8k
Previous Chapter - Masterlist
She dragged an empty wooden crate across the floor, the scrape of wood against concrete sharp in the quiet warehouse. When she sat, she left a careful gap between them, close enough to talk, far enough to watch his face.
Not because she thought he'd hurt her. If he'd wanted that, he'd had hours alone with her already. But she needed distance to read him properly, to catalogue every micro-expression and tell.
Needed to figure out what, exactly, she'd just fed and cured and lied to a policeman for.
"Alright, Mr. Barnes." She laced her fingers together in her lap, spine straight. Professional. "I think we need to have a frank conversation about where you actually came from."
His jaw shifted. A muscle jumped near his ear. "I told you-"
"You told me you're a knight who came here through a magic ring." She kept her voice gentle, the tone she used with customers who were difficult but not deliberately rude. "And I'm trying very hard to be understanding, but you have to see how that sounds."
"I am aware," he said quietly, "how it sounds."
The resignation in his voice caught her off guard. He sounded tired.
She studied him, trying to catalog the pieces that didn't fit.
The vocabulary. Nobody spoke like him unless they were performing, and he did it too naturally, even when he was startled or off-balance. That took education. Years of it.
A professor, maybe. Before the war.
Except professors were bookish men with ink-stained fingers and reading glasses, who got winded on staircases and couldn't lift a sack of flour without wheezing.
This man was not that.
This man's shoulders tested the seams of that linen shirt every time he breathed, and had calloused hands.
An enthusiast, then. One of those men who took historical recreation seriously. Joined societies, learned swordplay, commissioned authentic reproductions.
That would explain the clothes, the boots, and the strange belt with its reinforced straps.
It would even explain the confusion with modern objects, if the war had... broken something, sent his mind retreating into the safer world of his obsession.
She'd heard of that. Men who came back believing they were still in the trenches, or still dodging things that had stopped falling years ago.
Why not a man who believed he was a knight?
"You were in the war," she said.
He blinked. "Which war?"
"The war," she repeated. "World War II.”
"I know nothing about that war."
Her stomach did something complicated.
"You... don't know World War II."
"No."
She sat back slightly.
Amnesia could do strange things. She knew that. Trauma could erase memories, create gaps, make a man forget his own mother's face.
"What about… Hitler?" she tried, her voice careful. "Roosevelt? Eisenhower?"
Each name landed with the same blank incomprehension.
He wasn't pretending; his expression was genuine.
"Alright," she said slowly. "What about... England? You know England?"
"Of course I know England." His shoulders stiffened. "I'm not an imbecile."
"I didn't say you were. Who's the king of England?"
"Henry of Monmouth." No hesitation. "Son of Henry Bolingbroke."
She stared at him, her hands gone still in her lap.
That was... specific.
The kind of detail a professor would know, certainly. Or an enthusiast with an encyclopedic knowledge of the period.
"Henry of… Monmouth," she repeated.
"Yes."
"Not Queen Elizabeth."
"Who?"
"Queen Elizabeth. The Second."
He looked at her with perfect, uncomprehending silence.
"A queen," he said finally. "Reigning. Not beside a king."
"That's right."
“You don’t think a woman can hold a country together.”
“I think a country is held together by men willing to bleed for whoever wears the crown,” he said, leaning forward slightly, as if the point mattered enough to close the distance for. “And such men are not moved by right alone. They want coin, land, fear, favor, God, glory… something. A queen may rule, yes. But every lord who doubts her will call that doubt reason, and every lord who wants more than he is owed will call it principle.”
“That’s almost progressive of you, Mr. Barnes.”
"I am simply experienced in how quickly men forget their oaths when it's convenient." Something flickered behind his eyes, brief and unreadable, gone before she could name it. His jaw clenched around whatever it was, and he didn't offer it to her.
She let the quiet be for a moment, then circled back to the part that actually mattered.
"Who's your king? Now, I mean. Currently."
He lifted one eyebrow, as if she'd asked him what color the sky was. "Well. I told you, the king of England."
"I asked you who the king of England was, not your king. Didn’t see you as one." She blinked.
"I am a knight of the Realm." Said slowly, and he straightened as he said it, shoulders pulling back like the title still meant something even here.
She studied him properly now, turning the new information over. It explained nothing and complicated everything.
"You don't sound English," she said.
His brows drew together, that particular brand of offense she was starting to recognize. "My speech is perfectly proper."
"I'm not saying it isn't proper. I'm saying it's not-" She gestured vaguely with one hand, searching for the word. "You don't sound like an Englishman. You sound like-"
Like nothing she could place, was the honest answer. Not quite American, not quite anything she'd heard from the newsreels or the actors who played dukes in the pictures. The vowels were wrong. The rhythm was off.
"I assure you, wench, there is nothing wrong with my diction."
The air between them went very still.
"I beg your pardon?"
He paused, reading something in her face that made him go very still, the same stillness she imagined he used right before a fight.
Her voice had dropped to something soft and dangerous.
"What did you just call me, you inconsiderate piece of-"
"But you are," he cut in, baffled, hands lifting slightly, palms out in a universal gesture. "How else would you have me address you?"
Her mouth fell open. Heat crawled up her neck.
"Something polite would be a fine start."
"I was not impolite."
"You called me a wench."
"Yes."
"That is not polite."
"It is not an insult."
"It absolutely is."
His frown deepened, not with anger this time, but with concentration. His head tilted slightly, eyes narrowing like he was working through a puzzle with missing pieces.
"It means a young woman," he said slowly, his hands opening wider as if to count off points in an argument he was now losing. "You are a woman. You are not old. I made no accusation beyond the obvious."
She stared at him.
He stared back, and now he looked genuinely wrong-footed. His weight shifted slightly on the crate. The set of his shoulders had gone uncertain.
"I never thought," he added, the words coming slower now, more careful, "that I would live to meet a woman offended by being called young."
For one second, her hand twitched in her lap.
Then she inhaled through her nose, long and deliberate.
"Mr. Barnes."
"Yes." His posture changed: spine straighter, chin tucked just slightly. He'd learned that tone meant something was coming.
"Do not call me that again."
He considered this. His jaw worked, muscle jumping beneath the skin. She could see the struggle play out across his face ,pride pulling one way, survival pulling the other.
"As you wish," he said at last.
"Thank you."
A pause. The warehouse settled around them, the distant drip of water from a pipe somewhere in the back.
And then, because apparently he couldn't help himself, his head tilted. His mouth opened.
"But for the sake of accuracy-"
"No."
His mouth shut.
"And do not call any other woman that either," she added. "Unless you have a particular fondness for being slapped."
His brows drew together, and something in his expression suggested he was filing this away with real seriousness. Useful intelligence, not a reprimand he needed to absorb.
"This century is very particular."
"You have no idea."
He let that sit, some of the tension easing out of his shoulders, though his jaw stayed set in the particular way of someone who still believed himself in the right and had simply decided the argument wasn't worth the cost of continuing it.
She watched him for a moment. Watched the stubbornness, watched him go quiet again, and felt the conversation circle back, unbidden, to the question she hadn't actually answered yet. The one underneath all the others.
What are we going to do with you?
He had -technically- no family. No household. No money she'd seen, no papers, no anything that would let him walk into a rooming house and rent a room for the night without someone asking questions he couldn't answer. He didn't know what a dollar looked like. He'd nearly died crossing a street that had a stop sign on it.
He could not survive a week alone in this city. She was fairly certain he couldn't survive an afternoon.
His alternatives, if he really had no one, were bad. A precinct cell. A ward. Some institution that wouldn't ask whether his story was true so much as whether it was inconvenient, and either answer would end with him strapped to a bed and explaining himself to men with far less patience than she currently had.
She thought of the flinch on the sidewalk.
That decided it, more than the king or the dates or any of it.
She exhaled slowly, already regretting the sentence before she'd finished thinking it.
"Mr. Barnes."
"Yes." He asked, wary now.
"How many of your people live here? In this city, I mean. Anyone you could go to."
"None." Flat. No hedging, no attempt to dress it up.
"Right." She pressed her lips together, She pressed her lips together, snapping a loose splinter from the edge of her crate under her thumbnail."And you have no money that would mean anything here, no papers, no notion of how anything works, and you nearly got flattened by a car within five minutes of standing on a sidewalk."
His chin lifted, and he opened his mouth, presumably to defend the car incident, his jaw already set, and she lifted a hand to stop him.
"I'm not finished."
He closed his mouth, though not without making her wait a beat for it, as if closing it on his own schedule rather than her command. A tiny, huffed breath escaped his nose, sharp with annoyance.
"So here's where we are," she said, and hated, faintly, how reasonable she was about to sound about something so spectacularly unreasonable. "You can't go anywhere. You can't be left anywhere. And the only people who'd take an interest in a man who thinks cars are-" She stopped herself. "Well. The only people who'd take interest are exactly the people you do not want taking interest."
His expression had gone very still.
"What are you implying?" His voice had dropped, low and careful, no irritation left in it now.
She took a breath.
"I think," she said carefully, "that for the time being, it would be sensible for you to come stay with me."
He blinked once, slow, like he was making sure he’d heard the words right.
"Your home," he said.
"It's a few blocks from here. It's not big, but it has another little bedroom that was occupied until two months ago." She crossed her arms. "It's the only option that doesn't end with you in a cell or a ward, so."
He studied her for a long moment, and she could see him working through it methodically.
"Who else lives there?" he said. "What relatives?"
"None." She said simply.
His brow creased slightly. "Servants, then."
She huffed a short, dry laugh at that.
"No servants."
The crease deepened. He seemed to turn the information over again, searching for the piece he was missing, and when he spoke again, there was a faint reluctance to ask a question he wasn't sure he wanted answered.
"...Husband?"
"No husband."
"This plan is improper."
She rolled her eyes so hard it was nearly audible. "Here we go."
"A woman, alone, inviting a man into her home, with no one else present-"
His gaze dropped, just briefly, to her lips before he dragged it back up to her eyes.
She noticed. It wasn't the first time he did that.
"Mr. Barnes." She held up a hand. "I live alone. I have lived alone for four years now, and the world has not ended yet."
"It is not done."
"It's done plenty. It's just not talked about plenty." She shrugged. "It's not exactly admired, sure. If my father were alive, he'd have an opinion. The ladies at church would have more opinions. But nobody's going to drag me out into the street over it. A woman living alone doesn't get burned for it anymore, metaphorically or otherwise."
He did not look reassured by this. If anything, his jaw set harder.
"All I'm saying," she went on, "is that it's not ideal, but it's not the end of the world either. What would be the end of the world is if you were wandering this city alone for another five minutes. So." She spread her hands. "We just need a story. Something that holds up better than cousin from up north."
He was quiet for a moment, jaw tight, visibly weighing decorum against the plain, undeniable reality of his situation. When he finally spoke, it was with the air of a man conceding a point he still didn't agree with.
"A story," he repeated slowly.
"Not family," she said. "I thought about it, but it won't hold. I've got an old lady two streets over who knows every branch of my family tree better than the family does, and if she so much as hears the word cousin, she'll want to know which side, whose son, why she's never heard the name. It'll fall apart in a week."
"You said that already. To the officer."
"I panicked. It was the first thing that came out of my mouth, and it's already on borrowed time." She shook her head. "We need something that doesn't put you inside the family, just close enough to it that nobody questions why you're suddenly attached to me."
He waited, watching her think, arms loosely crossed, which she found oddly easier to do with him quiet than when he was arguing.
"I could say… I'm employing you," she offered. "Heaven knows the shop could use the extra hands, lifting and deliveries and all that. But a woman hiring a man she's never met before, taking him into her home on top of it-" She made a face. "That's not believable either. It's not even wise, frankly, even though it's exactly what I'm doing."
"Then what." His voice was calm, no impatience in it.
"We merge them." She sat up a little straighter. "Something like... you're the son of a friend of my uncle's. Out east, far enough that nobody local would know the family to dispute it. Your father wrote ahead, asked if I could help you find work and a place to land while you got settled in the city."
His eyes narrowed slightly, thinking it through.
"And if someone asks the name of this uncle, this friend?"
"Then we'll have an answer ready before anyone asks the question." She tapped her fingers against her knee. "It just needs to be boring enough that nobody wants to follow up. Nobody interrogates a dull story. They interrogate interesting ones."
A pause. He glanced at her sideways, something almost wry settling into the line of his mouth.
"I am, apparently, an interesting story," he said dryly.
"I have to admit," she said, "that you are the single least boring thing that has happened to me in years."
----
Bucky looked at her, and for a moment, he said nothing.
There were several ways to answer that. Most of them, unkind.
Least boring.
It was not her fault, exactly. She had meant it lightly, or as lightly as a woman could mean anything after finding a wounded stranger in her stockroom, lying to a city guardsman for him, feeding him, tending his face, and then offering him a place beneath her roof with the practicality of someone discussing bad weather.
But the words settled poorly all the same, a low weight behind his ribs that had nothing to do with the wound there.
To her, perhaps, he was strange. A problem. A curiosity dropped through the ceiling by whatever god had run out of better things to do.
To him, this was his life.
Or what remained of it.
His room above the cooper's shop. His armor left beside a cold hearth. His prize chest with the coins. The estate he had meant to rebuild, as if enough work could make a ruin into a home and a man into something other than what captivity had left of him.
All of it was gone.
Not destroyed, or stolen. Not even lost in any ordinary sense.
Simply elsewhere.
Hundreds and hundreds of years behind him, if she was to be believed.
If the calendar was to be believed.
If the things outside, the light without flame, the clothing, the speech, the queen ruling England, the glass and wires, and horseless carriages were all to be believed.
He had more questions than there were saints to hear them.
But questions did not put food in a man's belly. Questions did not give him coin, shelter, papers, allies, or a road back to where he belonged.
The woman across from him might.
That was the difficulty.
She sat on the overturned crate with her arms folded, her mouth set in a way that made it clear she expected an argument and had already prepared to be irritated by it.
There was soil on one sleeve. A smear of dust near the hem of her skirt. Her painted lips had held their color through the entire catastrophe of the morning, which continued to seem unreasonable and... distracting.
He found himself tracking the small movements of her mouth when she spoke and the way her bottom lip caught briefly on her teeth when she was thinking, before he caught the direction of his own attention and dragged it back where it belonged.
Focus.
The room smelled of cut stems and damp paper, sweet rot under something green, nothing like the smoke and tallow he knew. It should have unsettled him more than it did. Instead, it was her voice that kept pulling him back, low and certain, cutting through everything else like a familiar sound in a foreign field.
People did not take in strangers for no reason. They did not endanger their reputations, lie to men in uniform, and offer spare bedrooms out of the goodness of their hearts unless there was something wrong with them, something wanted, or something hidden underneath.
He had learned that lesson well enough. Kindness was rarely free, and mercy even less so.
"What do you gain from this?" he asked, leaning forward slightly, elbows finding his knees.
Her brows drew together slightly.
"What?"
"This arrangement." He kept his voice even, though something in him stayed braced, waiting to hear the price named. "My staying in your household. Working in your shop. This story you are building around me."
"I'm not building-"
"You are." He watched her face as he said it, the way her chin had lifted half an inch, almost daring him to push further. "You seem to have taken care of the situation and threaded some narrative. You seem good at it."
That stopped her.
A little.
Not because the words were flattering. They were not meant to be. A person could be good at lying for a great many reasons, most of them unpleasant.
Her expression shifted, offended first, then thoughtful despite herself, her arms tightening around her body.
"I am trying to keep you out of trouble."
"Why?"
"Because if you haven't noticed, you are in trouble."
"That is not an answer."
"It is a perfectly good answer."
"It is a charitable answer." His hand tightened once over his knee before he made it relax, the motion deliberate, the way he might force open a fist mid-fight. "Charity is what people name a thing when they would rather not name its price."
She stared at him. He had said too much, perhaps.
No. Not too much. Enough.
"So what do I gain, you want to know?" she repeated.
"Yes."
"A scandal, probably. More work. A great deal of inconvenience. The pleasure of explaining traffic laws to a man who thinks bicycles are sorcery. Possibly an ulcer."
"I do not know what that is."
"Lucky you."
For the first time since she had mentioned the spare room, something like amusement tried to move through him.
He did not permit it far.
She leaned forward slightly, elbows resting on her knees now, close enough that he caught the faint warmth of her body, and soap and something floral from the shop clinging to her skin.
"Look," she said. "You want a price? Fine. The price is that you work. You do what you're told when you're in the shop. You carry crates, sweep, make deliveries once I can trust you not to get lost, and keep your opinions about my clothes and my lack of chaperone to yourself."
A muscle in his jaw shifted. His gaze dropped, briefly, to the offending hem of her skirt, then back up.
"It remains improper." He said it flatly, arms crossing over his chest.
"It remains none of your business." She matched the posture, her own arms tightening around herself, chin tilting up to hold his gaze.
"If I am under your roof," he said, his voice dropping low rather than rising, "your reputation becomes my business." He uncrossed his arms, and the linen of his sleeves brushed against his skin as he leaned forward, closing the gap between them by the width of two hands. Close enough to see the flecks of color in her eyes, the slight flare of her nostrils.
Her mouth opened. Closed. The quick inhale of breath was audible in the quiet warehouse.
There. He still had some ground beneath his feet, then.
"I may not understand this place." He weighed each word before speaking it, refusing to let her impatience rush him. "But I understand that a woman's name can be damaged by a man's presence. That has not changed. You said so yourself."
Her eyes searched his face.
He let her, holding still, giving nothing away on purpose.
"I will not be the cause of that," he added.
He was many things. Some of them worse than she knew. But he was not that.
Her expression softened, and the change in her face made his own shoulders tense. Softness was dangerous. It made men careless, made them reach for things they had no right to take.
"My point is-"
"The point is," she cut in, “that if we both manage to behave decently in front of the neighbors-"
She stopped.
His eyebrows rose. The slow tap of his boot against the floor ceased instantly. He went utterly still, letting the silence stretch.
Heat flooded her cheeks, quick and sudden. She glared at the floor, angry with herself, before transferring the glare to him.
"Not that we would behave indecently out of sight," she said, the words tumbling out quick and uneven. "Obviously. I- if we behave decently. In general. Everywhere. At all times." She bit off each syllable, her arms crossing tight over her chest, hands gripping her own elbows as if she could physically squeeze the sentence back into nothing.
"There should not be a problem with that," he agreed, his voice dropping a fraction, unhurried and thick with a sudden, dark amusement he couldn't entirely swallow.
"Exactly."
"But there may be... talk," he finished, steering them back to the danger he saw.
Her mouth pressed into a thin line.
"Yes," she said. "There may be. People talk. People always talk. They talked when I decided to live alone after my father died, when I kept the shop instead of looking for a husband, and they'll talk if I take in a stray cat. I can't live by people's imagination."
"I am not a cat."
"No." She looked him over. Her gaze moved from his broad shoulders down to his scuffed boots and back up to his face. "You are much less convenient."
Despite himself, the corner of his mouth twitched upward.
She pointed at him before it could become anything, putting the line back where it belonged. "You'll help in the shop, carry deliveries, stay out of trouble, and sleep in the spare room. That's the arrangement. Boring, practical, and temporary."
Temporary.
Of course, it was needless to say.
He would find his footing. He always had. Could earn coin, acquire what he needed, find his way back or -if God and all his saints had truly abandoned him-find a way forward.
But not today.
Today, he had no coin that meant anything here. No horse, no blade, no armor. The clothes on his back were torn and bloodstained, and he could smell the sweat and dirt on himself. His ribs were a constant, grinding ache every time he drew breath. The cut on his face throbbed dully where she had cleaned it.
He had nothing, except this woman, with her sharp tongue and her poorly-concealed softness, offering him a place to land as if that were not an absurdly reckless thing to do.
He straightened slightly, ignoring the pull of bruised muscle along his side.
"I accept," he said.
Her shoulders dropped half an inch.
Relief. Quickly hidden, but not quickly enough.
"Good," she said. "That's… good."
"I am in your debt."
"No, you-"
"I am," he repeated.
His voice came out firm enough to stop the protest before it could gather momentum. She closed her mouth, but the objection remained in her eyes.
He extended his hand across the narrow space between them, palm open, offering what little he had left to offer. His word. His obligation.
She looked down at his hand, then back up at his face. Then she placed her hand in his.
Her palm was warm and smaller than his, but not fragile. There was work in it, a faint roughness on her skin from whatever this century asked of a woman who kept her own roof and business.
He closed his hand around hers with care, then bent his head and pressed his mouth to her knuckles.
The kiss was brief. Formal. The way a knight acknowledged a debt to a lady, the way oaths were sealed.
Her breath caught. He heard it, a small, sharp inhale that made the space between them feel suddenly smaller.
But she didn't pull her hand away. She went still instead, her hand resting in his, her skin warm beneath his mouth, and for the length of one heartbeat, the gesture became something less simple than it should have been.
He knew better.
He did.
She had offered him shelter, not an invitation. Terms, not softness. And yet his body, treacherous and exhausted and starved of gentleness, noted the warmth of her hand as if it were a thing worth remembering.
His lips lingered a moment longer than strictly necessary, and his thumb brushed once -accidentally, or perhaps not- against her pulse point.
When he lifted his head, her eyes were wide, fixed on his face with an expression he couldn't quite read. Surprise, yes. But not alarm.
That was the part he noticed, and he shouldn’t have noticed.
He released her slowly, letting her hand slip from his grip by degrees. His fingertips trailed against hers at the last, a final, improper accident neither of them commented on.
"Thank you," he said quietly.
Her hand dropped to her lap, where it closed once into the fabric of her skirt before smoothing flat again.
"You're welcome," she murmured.
Dust motes drifted lazily through the slant of afternoon light, as the smell of foliage and broken soil surrounded them.
She cleared her throat, the sound small but deliberate.
"Right." She stood, brushing her palms against her skirt in a quick, nervous gesture. "We should probably go. You need to get cleaned up, and I need to find you something to wear that won't get you arrested for vagrancy."
His ribs ground out a complaint sharp enough to darken the edge of his vision, but he ignored it. There would be time to hurt later. Or there would not. Either way, standing was required first.
"Lead on, then."
She nodded once, already turning toward the door. But her hand -the one he'd kissed- stayed closed loosely at her side, fingers flexing once before going still.
Bucky looked away before she could notice him noticing.
Beyond the door waited the shop, and beyond the shop, the street. The roaring carriages, the wires in the sky, the glass-eyed windows, the women walking with bare calves as if the world had always allowed it.
He drew one careful breath.
Then another.
And forced himself to cross the threshold after her.
The social hierarchy of State University was rigidly defined, and you, existed comfortably near the bottom of the food chain.
Not out of malice or exclusion, but entirely by your own design. You were a psychology major, armed with an arsenal of color-coded highlighters, an endless reservoir of empathy, and a bright, easy smile that people often described as blinding. You liked quiet corners in the campus library, cheap coffee from the ancient machine in the student union, and minding your own damn business. You were the girl who held the door for strangers, the one who sent study guides to the entire class before midterms, the literal embodiment of campus sunshine.
‘James Buchanan Barnes’ Bucky to anyone who didn't want their teeth kicked in, was the exact opposite.
Business major. Star wide receiver. He walked across the campus quad like he owned the concrete, usually sporting a scowl that could curdle milk.
He was aggressively handsome, notoriously cocky, and perpetually pissed off.
Where you blended into the background, Bucky demanded attention without even trying. Girls practically threw themselves at him at frat parties, and guys cleared a path when he walked into a room. He was a force of nature, entirely wrapped up in his own arrogant bubble of football, business frat networking, and whatever casual hookups he entertained on the weekends.
You two existed in completely different universes. You shouldn't have even been on his radar.
And yet, you were.
You had absolutely no idea how it happened, mostly because you hadn't done a single thing to try and catch his eye. There had been no dramatic, rom-com collision in the hallway where he helped you pick up your dropped textbooks. There was no witty, sassy retort at a party that put him in his place.
It was a rainy Tuesday. You had been sitting in the student union, laughing hysterically at a terrible joke your friend Sam Wilson had made, sharing a box of overly sweet, powdered donuts. Bucky had walked in, soaking wet, his broad shoulders tense and his expression downright murderous after getting into a screaming match with the head football coach. He had scanned the noisy room, his icy blue eyes practically daring someone to look at him wrong.
And then, his gaze snagged on you.
You were glowing, practically radiating warmth in the dreary, fluorescent-lit room, wiping powdered sugar off your chin with a bright, unbothered laugh. You hadn't even glanced his way, entirely captivated by your conversation with Sam.
But from that day forward, the grumpy, untouchable football star had developed a new, agonizing fixation. You didn't know it, but Bucky had spent the last three weeks watching you. He noticed how you bit the cap of your pen when you were stressed. He noticed the oversized, ridiculously soft sweaters you wore. He noticed that you were too fucking nice to everyone.
Which brought him to his current, deeply pathetic predicament.
You were sitting cross-legged on top of a desk in the empty Psychology 301 lecture hall, tossing a crumpled-up piece of loose-leaf paper into the trash can while Sam paced the front of the room, complaining about your abnormal psychology professor.
“I'm telling you, the man is a sadistic fuck!” Sam groaned, aggressively rubbing his temples. “He assigned three chapters in a single night. Who the hell does that?”
“He just wants us to actually read the syllabus for once, Sam…” you laughed, swinging your legs off the edge of the desk. “It's really not that deep. Just skim the case studies, you'll be fine.”
“Bullshit!” Sam countered, pointing an accusatory finger at you. “You're just saying that because you already color-coded the entire textbook, you psycho.”
You giggled, reaching out to shove his shoulder playfully. “I can lend you my notes if you stop whining.”
Before Sam could accept the offer, the heavy oak door to the lecture hall suddenly slammed open, hitting the adjacent wall with a loud, violent thwack.
You jumped, instinctively clutching your notebook to your chest, while Sam merely let out a long, deeply suffering sigh, rolling his eyes toward the ceiling.
Bucky Barnes stood in the doorway, looking entirely out of place among the posters of brain anatomies and motivational Freud quotes. He was wearing his standard uniform, a tight black henley that stretched obscenely across his broad chest and did nothing to hide the ridiculous bulk of his arms, dark denim jeans, and his trademark scowl.
“Barnes…” Sam said, sounding thoroughly exhausted. “What the actual fuck are you doing in the nerd wing? Did you get lost looking for the weight room?”
Bucky didn't immediately answer. His jaw ticked, the muscles jumping beneath his skin. His icy blue eyes swept over the room before landing squarely on you. He stared, unabashed and intense, taking in the way your cardigan had slipped off one shoulder and the way your hair was pulled up in a messy, haphazard clip. The sheer intensity of his gaze made your breath hitch.
“Came to pick you up.” Bucky finally grunted, his voice a low, gravelly rumble that seemed to vibrate straight through the floorboards.
Sam barked out a harsh laugh, crossing his arms over his chest. “Pick me up? We didn't have plans, you cocky bastard. And since when do you walk four blocks out of your way, past the business building, to escort me to the cafeteria?”
“Changed my mind. I'm fucking hungry now,” Bucky snapped, stepping fully into the room. He walked with a heavy, deliberate swagger, closing the distance between the door and where you were sitting. He stopped just a little too close to your desk, his imposing frame casting a shadow over you. “Are you coming or what, Wilson?”
“You walked here?” you asked softly, unable to help yourself. You were polite by nature, and the sheer, unspoken hostility rolling off Bucky made you want to defuse the tension in the room. “You came all the way to the psych building... just to get Sam?”
Bucky's gaze snapped back down to you. Up close, you could see the faint smattering of freckles across his nose, a sharp contrast to his intimidating aura. The absolute ferocity in his eyes softened for a fraction of a second, though his posture remained rigidly defensive.
“Yeah. Problem with that, sunshine?” Bucky asked, his tone dropping an octave, slipping into something dangerously close to a purr.
Sam snorted loudly, clearly catching onto the absolute bullshit flowing out of his friend's mouth. “Right. Sure. You're just such a caring, devoted friend, Bucky. Tell me, did you suddenly develop an interest in cognitive behavioral therapy, or did you just want an excuse to stare at Y/n again?”
“Shut the fuck up, Sam!” Bucky growled instantly, a faint flush creeping up his neck. He didn't look away from you, though. His eyes dropped momentarily to your lips before flicking back up to meet your gaze. “Get your bag. We're leaving.”
“I don't know…” you chimed in, a teasing, innocent lilt to your voice as you smiled up at the grumpy giant standing in front of you. “Sam and I were actually going to head to the library to study. Unless you wanted to join us, Bucky? I have extra highlighters.”
Bucky looked at you like you had just offered him the moon. He swallowed hard, his throat working as he stared at your bright, welcoming smile. For a guy who was used to people cowering or throwing themselves at his feet, your genuine, sweet offer seemed to completely short-circuit his brain.
“I don't highlight shit…” he muttered, though the bite was entirely gone from his voice. He shifted his weight, leaning one large hand on the desk right next to your thigh. “But... I guess… I could sit in the library. If Wilson shuts his mouth.”
That single, bizarre library session became the catalyst for an entirely new reality. What started as Bucky reluctantly sitting at a study table, glaring at a textbook he wasn't even reading while you and Sam reviewed psychological disorders, quickly evolved into a routine.
It didn't take long for Steve Rogers to get dragged into the mix. Steve was the golden-boy quarterback, Bucky's best friend since childhood, and a guy whose polite, gentlemanly demeanor matched your sunny disposition perfectly. You and Steve clicked instantly. You bonded over your mutual love for old diner coffee and your shared exasperation regarding Bucky and Sam's constant bickering.
Natasha and Wanda didn’t need any introduction, they had introduced themselves in style and brutal teasing.
However, Steve and Sam saw right through Bucky's tough-guy act immediately.
They could literally see him falling for you in real-time, watching as the notoriously untouchable campus god tripped over his own ego every time you walked into a room. They knew exactly how pathetic he was being, but they allowed it. Mostly because they genuinely liked you, and partly because watching James Buchanan Barnes mentally short-circuit over a sweet, sweater-wearing psychology major was the funniest shit they had ever witnessed.
Slowly, almost seamlessly, you and Bucky actually became friends.
You started having basic interactions that didn't involve him grunting with passion. He would hold the door for you, buy you your overly sweet vanilla lattes without you even asking, and sit next to you on the bleachers during the team's open practices.
You thought he was just warming up to you. You thought the grumpy exterior was finally melting to reveal a fiercely loyal friend.
You were completely oblivious to the fact that internally, Bucky was screaming every single time you flashed him that blinding, affectionate smile.
You were also entirely unaware of the lethal, terrifying glares he shot at anyone who dared to look in your direction. In Bucky's intensely stubborn, territorial mind, you were already his. You just didn't know it yet. Cute.
If a frat brother so much as glanced at your legs when you wore a skirt, Bucky would stare the guy down until he practically wet himself and sprinted in the opposite direction. He was a possessive menace, guarding you like a fiercely protective dragon hoarding its most precious treasure, all while hiding behind the guise of being ‘just a friend.’
Until the dam finally broke.
It was a crowded Thursday afternoon in the main dining hall. The air was thick with the smell of cheap fried food and the deafening roar of hundreds of college students. Bucky, Sam, and Steve were crammed into a booth near the back. Bucky was aggressively sawing at a notoriously tough piece of cafeteria chicken with a dull, serrated steak knife, his jaw clenched as he listened to Sam complain about an upcoming sociology paper.
Then, Bucky looked up.
Across the dining hall, near the soda fountains, you were standing with a guy from your abnormal psych study group. The guy, some generic, khaki-wearing asshole named Bradley was leaning in way too close, laughing at something you said and casually resting a hand on your shoulder.
The steak knife in Bucky's hand suddenly halted its downward motion. His icy blue eyes darkened, locking onto Bradley's hand like it was an active explosive device.
“Who the fuck is that?” Bucky growled, his voice dropping to a terrifying, guttural register.
Sam paused mid-sentence, following Bucky's murderous gaze. He took one look at the scene playing out by the soda machines and immediately burst into a loud, obnoxious laugh. Steve just sighed heavily, burying his face in his hands.
“That's Brad,” Sam said, highly amused. “He's in her study group. Looks like he's making a move, too. Good for her. Guy has a trust fund, I hear.”
Bucky's knuckles turned stark white around the handle of his knife. The muscle in his jaw ticked so violently it looked like it might snap. “She's not going out with fucking Brad.”
“Why not?” Sam challenged, leaning across the table with a wicked, shit-eating grin. “He's nice. He's smart. And, oh yeah, she's single. Because somebody is too much of a cowardly bitch to do anything about his massive, pathetic crush!”
“Shut the fuck up Wilson!” Bucky snapped, his eyes never leaving Bradley's offending hand. “She's my girlfriend. He needs to back the fuck off before I break his fingers.”
“Newsflash, Barnes!” Sam clapped his hands loudly right in front of Bucky's face, forcing him to blink and look away. “She is not your girlfriend! You haven't made a single fucking move! You just sit around glaring at people like a constipated gargoyle. If you want her to be yours, you have to actually use your words and ask the girl out!”
Steve peeked through his fingers, offering a supportive, if exasperated, nod. “He's not wrong, Buck. You're driving us all insane. Just ask her out. She likes you.”
“You're goddamn right she likes you!” Sam hyped him up, slamming a palm on the table. “You're Bucky fucking Barnes! You're the star wide receiver! You have abs that make girls weep! Go over there, claim your woman, and tell Khaki Brad to take a hike. Be a man, Barnes!”
Fueled by a lethal combination of blazing jealousy, Sam's aggressive over-hyping, and his own raw, unfiltered possessiveness, Bucky stood up so fast his chair nearly tipped backward. He didn't say a word. He just locked his eyes onto you and started marching across the cafeteria like a man on a mission.
He moved with a terrifying, predatory grace, cutting through the sea of tables. Students instinctively scrambled out of his way, parting like the Red Sea as the notoriously grumpy football star stomped past them.
You were mid-laugh, politely trying to inch away from Bradley's overly enthusiastic personal space, when you felt a sudden, massive shift in the atmosphere. The temperature seemed to drop, and a shadow fell over you.
You turned around, the smile freezing on your face.
Bucky was standing right behind you. His chest was heaving slightly, his broad shoulders squared, and he was looking at Bradley with an expression so violently hostile it belonged in a war zone, not a college cafeteria.
Bradley gulped loudly, immediately dropping his hand from your shoulder and taking a rapid step backward. “U-Uh... hey, Barnes.”
Bucky didn't even acknowledge the guy's existence. He stepped deliberately between you and Bradley, effectively boxing you in against the counter with his massive frame. He looked down at you, his chest rising and falling heavily, his icy eyes burning with an intensity that made your heart hammer against your ribs.
“You.” Bucky said, his voice a low, commanding rumble that sent a shiver straight down your spine. “Me. Tomorrow night. Dinner. Seven o'clock.”
You blinked, completely stunned by the aggressive, out-of-nowhere ambush. You looked up at him, your mouth opening slightly in surprise, before your gaze drifted downward.
There, clutched tightly in his right fist, knuckles white with tension, was a cafeteria steak knife. He was pointing it vaguely in your direction as he demanded a date.
You stared at the knife. You stared back up at Bucky's intense, demanding face. It was literally a scene pulled straight out of Bates Motel.
“Bucky…” you said softly, your voice trembling slightly with a mix of utter disbelief and nervous amusement. “Are... are you threatening to stab me if I say no?”
Bucky blinked, his expression faltering. He looked down at his own hand, completely oblivious until this exact moment that he was still gripping the dining hall cutlery like a weapon. The terrifying, possessive aura shattered instantly, replaced by a violent flush of scarlet that crept up his neck and flooded his cheeks.
“Fuck!!!” Bucky choked out, panicked. He scrambled to drop the knife onto the nearest counter with a loud clatter, instantly shoving his hands into the pockets of his jeans. The big, bad, untouchable campus god suddenly looked like a terrified, mortified puppy. “No. Christ, doll, no. I forgot I was holding it. I swear to god I wasn't… I'm not going to…”
Across the room, you could hear the distinct sound of Sam Wilson wheezing, completely dying of laughter, practically falling out of his booth while Steve tried to hide his own laughter behind a napkin.
You looked at the dropped knife, then back at Bucky, who looked like he wanted the linoleum floor to open up and swallow him whole. Despite the aggressively weird, vaguely terrifying delivery, you knew this boy. You knew he bought you your favorite coffee. You knew he softened his voice only for you. You knew he was an absolute idiot.
A slow, bright smile spread across your face, bringing the sunshine back into the room.
“Okay…” you said gently, reaching out to lightly wrap your hand around his tense bicep.
Bucky's head snapped up, his eyes wide and hopeful. “Okay?”
“Yes Bucky!” you giggled, rising up on your tiptoes to press a soft, quick kiss to his flushed cheek. “I will go to dinner with you tomorrow night at seven. But please, leave the cutlery at home.”
Bucky let out a massive, shuddering breath, the tension finally bleeding out of his shoulders. A slow, incredibly rare, genuinely boyish smirk finally broke through his grumpy exterior, transforming his entire face. He leaned down, his forehead practically resting out of the dining hall in terror.
“Deal, sunshine.” Bucky murmured, his voice finally soft, dipping low just for you. “Just you and me.”
The fallout from the cafeteria incident was immediate and relentless. Unbeknownst to you, Bucky was currently pacing the length of his shared apartment's living room, aggressively dragging his hands through his dark hair while Sam and Steve sat on the sofa, thoroughly enjoying his misery.
“I'm just saying, man, serial killer chic is a bold strategy for a first date!” Sam cackled, tossing a grape into the air and catching it in his mouth. “Are you taking her to a nice Italian place, or are we burying a body in the woods?”
“Fuck you, Wilson!” Bucky snapped, his voice tight with genuine panic. He stopped pacing and practically collapsed into the armchair, dropping his head into his hands. “Christ, I am such a fucking idiot. She looked terrified for a second. I practically held her hostage.”
“She said yes, didn't she?” Steve pointed out, trying and failing to hide a small, amused smile behind his coffee mug. “She kissed your cheek, Buck. She likes you.”
“That doesn't matter!” Bucky groaned, peering through his fingers with a deeply agonized expression. “It was a fucking mistake asking her out...”
Outside the slightly ajar apartment door, your fiercely protective best friend, Natasha Romanoff, had paused with her hand hovering over the doorknob. She had come to drop off a borrowed textbook for Steve, but hearing Bucky's frustrated, booming voice, her protective instincts flared. She immediately pulled out her phone, hitting record just in time to capture his agonized confession.
“It was a fucking mistake asking her out...”
Natasha’s blood ran cold. Her jaw set into a lethal, furious line. She didn't stay a second longer, immediately ending the recording and spinning on her heel to march right back down the hallway to find you. She wasn't going to let some arrogant, emotionally stunted jock play games with your heart.
Because of her abrupt departure, Natasha entirely missed the second half of Bucky's desperate, self-loathing rant.
“...with a goddamn knife.” Bucky finished, rubbing his face aggressively. “I sounded like a possessive, jealous caveman. I wanted to do it properly. I wanted to take her somewhere nice, buy her flowers, and actually ask her like a normal, functioning human being. Not ambush her while wielding dining hall cutlery because some guy in khakis got too close to her. If I fucked this up before it even started, I swear to god...”
Across campus, you were sitting on your bed, happily sorting through your closet to find the perfect outfit for tomorrow night. Your heart was fluttering with a giddy, nervous excitement. Bucky Barnes the grumpy, untouchable Bucky Barnes, was taking you on a date.
The door to your dorm flew open, hitting the wall with a loud bang. Natasha stood in the doorway, her expression a terrifying mix of fury and sympathy.
“Nat? What's wrong?” you asked, the smile slipping from your face as you dropped a floral sundress onto your mattress.
“I am so sorry, babe…” Natasha said softly, walking over and sitting beside you. She didn't soften the blow, she wasn't the type. She just handed you her phone and pressed play.
You watched the short, out-of-context clip. You heard the exhaustion and regret in Bucky's voice as he declared asking you out was a ‘fucking mistake’. The words hit you like a physical blow to the chest. The bright, sunny warmth that usually radiated from you snuffed out in an instant, replaced by a cold, suffocating weight.
Your vision blurred with hot tears as you handed the phone back, your throat entirely closing up. He didn't want this. He had only done it because of the pressure from Sam, or maybe out of pity.
While you were quietly shattering in your dorm room, Wanda Maximoff was currently terrorizing the boys.
She had been sitting with you and Natasha when the video was shown, and while Natasha stayed to comfort you, Wanda had marched straight to the business frat house, her eyes practically glowing with pure, unadulterated rage.
She kicked the door to the boys' apartment open, stepping inside like an avenging angel. Bucky, Sam, and Steve all jumped, startled by the violent intrusion.
“You are a pathetic, cowardly piece of shit, Barnes!” Wanda hissed, crossing her arms.
Bucky blinked, completely blindsided. “What the hell are you talking about, Wanda?”
“Y/n is crying her eyes out right now because of you!” she yelled, her voice echoing off the walls. “Natasha showed her the video. The one where you told your little frat bros that asking her out was a mistake! You broke her heart before you even took her out, you asshole!”
All three men paled simultaneously. The blood completely drained from Bucky's face, his heart stopping dead in his chest.
“Video?” Bucky choked out, standing up on shaking legs. “What fucking video? I didn't… Wanda, I didn't mean it like that!”
“Save the bullshit!” Wanda spat, though Steve immediately intercepted, stepping between them.
“Wanda wait, you're missing the context…” Steve pleaded, his polite demeanor replaced by sheer urgency. “He said it was a mistake asking her out witha knife. He was beating himself up for being a jealous idiot and not doing it romantically! Where is Natasha?”
Ten minutes later, the three massive football players and Wanda cornered Natasha outside the library. Bucky looked like a man on the verge of a literal heart attack, his chest heaving, his blue eyes wild and desperate.
“Where is she, Nat?” Bucky demanded, his voice cracking.
“I'm not telling you!” Natasha snapped back, unintimidated by the three giants looming over her. “You hurt her.”
“Because you didn't listen to the whole goddamn sentence!” Sam yelled, throwing his hands in the air. “He was saying he wanted to buy her flowers, you psycho! He's obsessed with her!”
Natasha faltered, her fierce glare softening into a look of horrific realization. “I... I didn't know that. I only heard the first part. I was just looking out for her.”
“Where. Is. She?” Bucky growled, entirely out of patience, his entire body vibrating with the need to find you and fix the catastrophe.
“She went for a walk to clear her head…” Natasha admitted quietly. “Towards the old science building.”
Bucky didn't wait. He took off sprinting across the campus, his lungs burning as he scanned the pathways for any sign of you. He had to explain. He had to tell you that you were all he thought about, that asking you out was the only good, right thing he had done all year.
But timing had never been Bucky's strong suit.
You were walking back toward your dorm, your eyes red and puffy, clutching your cardigan tightly around yourself to ward off the evening chill. You just wanted to crawl into bed and forget the arrogant, stupid football player who had made you feel so completely worthless.
You turned the corner near the quad, and you stopped dead in your tracks.
There was Bucky. But he wasn't alone. A girl, a blonde cheerleader you recognized from his usual crowd, had him cornered against the brick wall of the student center. Her hands were tangled in his shirt, her body pressed flush against his, and she was leaning in, trying to aggressively make out with him.
The remaining pieces of your heart shattered into dust. It made perfect sense now. He regretted asking you out because he belonged with girls like her. Not a quiet, boring psychology major who studied too much.
A choked, muffled sob escaped your lips.
The sound was tiny, but to Bucky, it might as well have been a gunshot. His head snapped in your direction, his icy blue eyes locking instantly onto your tear-streaked face. In an instant, his expression shifted from deep annoyance to absolute, unadulterated horror.
He had literally just been jogging past the building, desperately looking for you, when this girl had ambushed him, throwing herself at him completely unprompted. He had been trying to push her off without being overly physical, but the moment he saw your heartbroken face, all restraint vanished.
“Get the fuck off me!” Bucky roared, forcefully shoving the girl away from him so hard she stumbled backward.
But it was too late. You had already turned around, running away into the darkening campus as fast as your legs could carry you, leaving Bucky standing alone, screaming your name into the night.
For the next three days, you made it your absolute mission to avoid James Buchanan Barnes like the plague.
You skipped your usual coffee shop, took the long way around the science building, and hid in the darkest, dustiest corner of the campus library. You were heartbroken, embarrassed, and determined to never look at his stupidly handsome, grumpy face ever again.
The problem was, your friends were absolutely not going to let that happen.
The combined forces of Natasha, Wanda, Sam, and Steve had formed an impenetrable, highly aggressive coalition dedicated to fixing the catastrophic mess Bucky had made.
They knew the truth, that Bucky was completely, hopelessly obsessed with you and entirely innocent regarding the cheerleader ambush and they were thoroughly exhausted by the mutual, agonizing pining.
But before they could orchestrate their master plan, Natasha and Wanda had to deal with your current state of absolute denial.
You were pacing the small floor space of your dorm room, aggressively clutching a throw pillow to your chest. Natasha was sprawled casually across your bed, munching on a bag of pretzels, while Wanda sat cross-legged on your desk chair, watching you with deep amusement.
“I don't even care!” you lied through your teeth, your voice completely lacking its usual bright, melodic tone. You scowled, trying to mimic Bucky's signature glare. “He's a jerk. I can be a bitch. I'll just be rude to him if I see him. I'll destroy his ego. I am a very intimidating person when I want to be.”
Natasha let out a loud, sudden snort, nearly choking on a pretzel. She covered her mouth, her shoulders shaking with silent, ruthless laughter.
“I'm serious, Nat!” you huffed, crossing your arms over your chest. “I can be extremely rude.”
“Oh, sweetie, no you can't.” Natasha wheezed, wiping a tear from her eye. “You literally apologized to a doorframe yesterday when you bumped into it. You are the human equivalent of a golden retriever puppy. You don't have a single rude bone in your body.”
“I do too!” you argued stubbornly, your cheeks puffing out in frustration.
Wanda smiled gently, her eyes dancing with affection. “You're too cute to be intimidating, babe. If you really think you can be a badass, rude bitch... prove it. Say the word 'fuck'.”
You froze. You blinked at Wanda, then at Natasha, who was now grinning like a shark. You took a deep breath, squaring your shoulders. You opened your mouth, fully intending to drop the F-bomb with all the venom of a hardened criminal.
“F-F... fudge,” you squeaked out.
Natasha completely lost it, rolling onto her back and cackling at the ceiling, while Wanda just cooed at you. You dropped your face into your hands, groaning loudly. You couldn't do it. You were fundamentally, molecularly comprised of sunshine, highlighters, and politeness. You couldn't even swear properly, let alone destroy the campus's most intimidating football star.
Accepting that you couldn't rely on being cold and aloof, you finally let your guard down, opening the door for your friends to begin their relentless, wildly inappropriate matchmaking campaign.
It started with attempt number one, ‘The Hilarious Closet Trap.’
Sam, deciding that forced proximity was the only logical solution, texted both you and Bucky to meet him in the athletic department's equipment room. The moment you both stepped inside the tiny, windowless space, Sam slammed the heavy metal door shut and locked it from the outside.
“Work your shit out!” Sam had yelled through the metal.
Unfortunately, Sam had miscalculated the lighting situation. The bulb was dead. It was pitch black.
Bucky, absolutely terrified of accidentally touching you or stepping on your toes in the dark, pressed his back flush against the wall and stood as rigidly as a wooden board for forty-five agonizing minutes. He barely even breathed. You ended up sitting on a crate of footballs, softly asking him if he was having a stroke because he hadn't moved a single muscle. The tension was entirely unbroken.
Then came attempt number two, ‘The Chaotic Coffee Spill.’
Steve Rogers, bless his heart, tried to be a wingman. He coordinated a ‘casual’ run-in at your favorite off-campus coffee shop.
Steve's brilliant plan was to literally shove Bucky into you in line so Bucky would have to pay for your drink. Instead, Steve tripped over his own massive feet, violently shoving Bucky directly into a waiter carrying a tray of four iced macchiatos. Bucky was drenched in sticky espresso and milk, standing in the middle of the café dripping like a wet, furious cat, while you politely handed him an entire stack of napkins.
Attempt number three was purely chaotic.
Wanda decided to hack the library's private study room booking system. She arranged for you and Bucky to be double-booked in a tiny, soundproof glass room during finals prep.
The plan was for him to finally use his words. Instead, Bucky sat across from you, sweating profusely, staring at his sociology textbook upside down. He was so incredibly stressed out by your presence that he spent an entire hour aggressively sharpening the same pencil until it was nothing but a tiny nub of graphite, never uttering a single syllable.
Attempt number four was hilarious again.
Natasha decided subtlety was dead. During a massive group lunch in the quad, Brad the khaki-wearing guy from the cafeteria, walked by and waved at you. Natasha immediately stood up and ‘accidentally’ tripped Brad, sending him sprawling into the dirt, all while looking expectantly at Bucky to swoop in and act like an alpha male to protect your honor.
Instead, Bucky looked horrified by Natasha's casual violence, and you spent ten minutes checking Brad for a concussion while Bucky glared at a nearby squirrel in utter defeat.
And finally, attempt number five, ‘The Perverted Sabotage.’
Sam was out of patience. He snuck into the laundry room while you were washing your clothes and stole a pair of your lacy, extremely delicate black underwear. He then shoved them directly into the front pocket of Bucky's gym bag with a note that said, ‘Return this and ask her out. Don't be a little bitch.’
When Bucky found them in the locker room, he nearly went into cardiac arrest. He marched across campus, his face so violently red he looked like a stop sign. He cornered you outside your dorm, entirely unable to make eye contact, sweating bullets as he pulled the tiny piece of lace from his pocket using only his thumb and index finger, holding it out to you like it was radioactive material.
“Sam is a dead man,” Bucky had choked out, his voice a full octave higher than normal. “I am so sorry. I didn't look at them. I swear to god, I didn't look.”
You had snatched them back, your own face burning hot enough to fry an egg, before bursting into uncontrollable, hysterical laughter at the sheer, traumatized panic in his eyes.
“I’m going to burn them!”
“You definitely should!”
That ridiculous, highly inappropriate underwear incident finally shattered the ice. You couldn't stay away from him after that. The tension broke, and you both slipped back into a comfortable, albeit heavily charged, friendship.
You sat together at the library. You shared lunches. You talked. And true to form, Bucky immediately resumed his role as your personal, terrifying guard dog. While you were busy being sweet and polite to everyone you met, Bucky stood slightly behind you, leveling death glares at any male student who dared to linger in your personal space for more than three seconds. He was still entirely, internally convinced that you were his.
But the air still needed clearing, and it finally happened on a quiet Friday evening.
You were sitting together on the bleachers of the empty football field, the stadium lights casting a soft, golden glow over the turf. Bucky had brought you a vanilla latte, and you were sitting close enough that the warmth radiating off his massive frame completely chased away the autumn chill.
“Bucky…” you started softly, tracing the rim of your paper cup. “We never really... talked about it. What happened.”
Bucky went completely still. His broad shoulders tensed, and he slowly turned his head to look at you, his icy blue eyes completely stripped of their usual grumpy armor. He looked vulnerable.
“The video…” you clarified, your voice barely above a whisper. “When you said it was a mistake asking me out.”
Bucky let out a long, ragged sigh, dropping his head to look at his hands. “Sunshine, you have to believe me. I never meant it the way it sounded. Natasha didn't record the whole thing.” He turned his body toward you, his expression agonizingly earnest. “I said it was a mistake asking you out with a goddamn knife. I was beating myself up because I acted like a possessive, unhinged caveman. I wanted to do it right. I wanted to ask you out beautifully, and instead, I terrified you.”
You blinked, processing his words, “You... you were mad about the knife?”
“Yes!” Bucky groaned, dragging a hand down his face. “I looked like a serial killer! And then... then you ran away later, and I saw your face.” His voice cracked slightly, the memory clearly torturing him. “That girl outside the student center. I didn't want her. I swear on my life. She cornered me. I was literally running across campus looking for you to explain the video when she grabbed me. I shoved her off a second later. I don't want anyone else.”
You stared up at him, your heart doing a wild, violent gymnastics routine in your chest. The sheer desperation in his eyes, the absolute honesty in his gravelly voice, it completely washed away the last lingering remnants of your heartbreak.
A soft, bright giggle bubbled up from your throat, breaking the heavy tension.
Bucky looked at you like you had lost your mind. “Are you laughing at me?”
“You were mad about the knife,” you repeated, a full, blinding smile breaking across your face. “Bucky, I knew you were holding the knife. I thought it was hilarious. You're just so... grumpy. It made sense to me.”
Bucky stared at you, absolutely mesmerized by the way the stadium lights caught the joyful crinkles around your eyes. A slow, deeply relieved smirk spread across his own face, and he let out a breathless chuckle, the sound vibrating deep in his chest.
“You're a menace, sunshine…” he muttered, shaking his head.
“I'm really not…” you beamed. “I couldn't even say the F-word when Wanda told me to.”
Bucky barked out a real, genuine laugh, the sound echoing across the empty bleachers. He shifted closer, entirely invading your personal space, his large hand coming up to gently cup the side of your neck. His thumb brushed softly across your jawline, sending a shiver of pure electricity straight down your spine.
“Let's try this again…” Bucky whispered, his voice dropping to that low, purring register that made your knees weak. He looked incredibly nervous, a faint blush creeping over his cheekbones. The big, bad football star was stumbling over his words for you. “Y/n, L/n. Would you... would you do me the absolute honor of going on a date with me? No weapons. No screaming friends. Just me and you.”
You looked up into his icy blue eyes, entirely melted by the sweet, awkward sincerity radiating from him. Your own cheeks flushed deeply, and you nodded, a shy, flustered smile gracing your lips.
“I'd love to, Bucky…” you breathed.
He didn't hesitate this time. He leaned down and pressed his lips to yours. The kiss was surprisingly soft, deeply tender, and completely opposite to his rough exterior. It tasted like coffee and sheer, undeniable relief. You melted against him, your hands coming up to grip the soft fabric of his henley, grounding yourself against his massive chest.
From that night on, the dynamic shifted permanently. You began officially dating, becoming the most infamous, wildly contradictory couple on campus. The Grumpy and the Sunshine.
You dragged him to quiet art exhibits and forced him to wear matching pastel scarves, which he complained about loudly but secretly loved. He carried your ridiculously heavy psychology textbooks, bought you endless pastries, and kissed you senseless against the library bookshelves when no one was looking.
The reality of dating James Buchanan Barnes was a masterclass in elemental physics. It was the absolute, undeniable proof that opposites didn't just attract; they collided, fused, and created something entirely indestructible.
You were the sunshine, undeniably bright, perpetually optimistic, and fundamentally incapable of being cruel. Bucky was the storm cloud, a notoriously grumpy, broad-shouldered cynic who operated on a baseline frequency of pure, unfiltered hostility toward ninety-nine percent of the human population.
But that remaining one percent? That was you. And the sheer, staggering contrast between how he treated the world and how he treated you was precisely what made the relationship so incredibly perfect.
It started in the mornings. You were a morning person, the kind of absolute psychopath who woke up with the sunrise, stretched with a smile, and hummed while making coffee. Bucky, predictably, despised the mornings with the fiery passion of a thousand burning suns.
You were currently lying in the center of his massive, messy bed in his off-campus apartment. The morning light was just beginning to peek through the blinds, casting a warm, golden glow over the tangled sheets. You were already awake, tracing mindless, soothing patterns over the expanse of Bucky's bare chest. He was sprawled on his stomach, his face entirely buried in the pillows, one heavy, muscular arm thrown possessively across your waist to literally pin you to the mattress so you couldn't escape.
“Bucky…” you whispered softly, a fond smile playing on your lips as you nudged his shoulder. “Babe, your alarm is going to go off in ten minutes. You have morning weights with the team.”
A low, vibrating groan rumbled from deep within his chest, sounding more like an agitated grizzly bear than a college student. He didn't open his eyes. Instead, his heavy arm tightened around your waist, dragging you flush against his warm, hard side.
“Fuck the team…” Bucky mumbled into the pillow, his morning voice thick with sleep, gravelly, and unbelievably devastating. “Fuck the gym. I'm staying right here. If Steve wants me to run routes, he can come drag my dead body out of this bed.”
You giggled, the sound bright and musical in the quiet room. You shifted, propping yourself up on your elbow to look down at his messy, dark hair. “You're the star wide receiver. You can't just skip practice because your bed is comfortable.”
“It's not the bed that's comfortable, sunshine, it's you!” Bucky grunted. He finally shifted, turning his head to crack one icy blue eye open, glaring weakly at the sunlight hitting the wall. He looked thoroughly pissed off at the sheer concept of dawn. But then his gaze shifted to you. You were smiling down at him, your hair wild and sleep-tousled, wearing one of his oversized vintage band tees that swallowed your frame.
The absolute miracle of your dynamic happened instantly. The heavy, dark scowl that permanently resided on his features melted away like snow on a hot stove. The rigid tension in his jaw slacked. He let out a long, heavy sigh, rolling over fully to pull you down flush against his chest, burying his face in the crook of your neck. He inhaled deeply, breathing in the sweet, vanilla scent of your shampoo.
“God, you're so fucking pretty it actually pisses me off…” he murmured against your skin, pressing a hot, lingering kiss to your collarbone. “How are you this cheerful before I've even had caffeine? It's unnatural, doll.”
“Someone has to balance out all your brooding…” you teased, running your fingers through the thick strands at the nape of his neck. “If we were both like you, we'd live in a cave and hiss at the mailman.”
“Sounds like paradise…” he grumbled, though he tipped his head up to capture your lips in a slow, deep, incredibly thorough morning kiss. His tongue slid smoothly against yours, entirely lazy but undeniably possessive, a silent reminder that before he went out to glare at the rest of the campus, he was entirely yours.
This was the core of your perfection. Your sunshine didn't irritate his grumpiness; it thawed it. And his grumpiness didn't dampen your sunshine; it protected it.
You were fundamentally a people-pleaser. As a psychology major, you were deeply empathetic, which meant you had a horrible habit of letting people walk all over you because you were simply too nice to tell them to fuck off. You would overextend yourself, tutor people who didn't deserve it, and agree to shifts at the campus library when you were already drowning in coursework.
Bucky became your shield. He was the ruthless, unforgiving barrier between your bleeding heart and the leeches of State University.
It was perfectly demonstrated later that same Tuesday. You were sitting at a small table outside the student union, desperately trying to finish a color-coded abnormal psych presentation on your laptop. You were stressed, chewing nervously on the cap of your pink highlighter, when a guy from your seminar, a notorious slacker named Greg, approached your table.
“Hey, Y/n” Greg said casually, leaning entirely too close to your screen. “Listen, I totally blanked on the case study analysis for Dr. Aris's class. You already did yours, right? Be an angel and just email me the file? I'll just tweak a few words. You're the best.”
You froze, the familiar, uncomfortable knot of anxiety tightening in your stomach. You had spent twelve hours on that analysis. You didn't want to give it to Greg. But the word ‘no’ always felt like a physical hurdle in your throat. You forced a tight, polite smile, trying to figure out how to gently let him down. “Oh, um... Greg, I actually haven't quite finished proofreading it yet, and Dr. Aris is running it through the plagiarism checker, so I don't think…”
“It's fine, just send the draft.” Greg pushed, completely ignoring your obvious discomfort, reaching out to tap the edge of your laptop. “Come on, don't be stingy.”
Before you could panic, a massive, heavily calloused hand clamped down on Greg's shoulder like a steel vice.
Greg gasped, his knees actually buckling slightly under the sheer force of the grip.
Bucky had appeared from the crowd like a heavily muscled phantom. He was wearing his gray sweatpants, a tight black hoodie, and a look of absolute, terrifying murder. He didn't even look at Greg right away, his icy blue eyes were locked entirely on your stressed, wide-eyed face, assessing your comfort level. Once he saw the relief wash over you, he slowly turned his deadly glare onto the boy squirming under his hand.
“She said no, you freeloading piece of shit!” Bucky growled, his voice so dangerously low it barely carried over the noise of the quad, but the absolute malice in it was undeniable.
“B-Barnes, man, chill out, I was just asking for a favour…” Greg stammered, his face draining of color.
“Do you have a hearing problem?” Bucky interrupted, his grip tightening until Greg actually whimpered. “She's not giving you her notes. If I ever catch you bothering her again, or trying to guilt her into doing your fucking homework, I'm going to snap your collarbone and feed this laptop to you. Are we clear?”
Bucky released him with a rough shove. “Then get the fuck out of my sight.”
Greg scrambled away so fast he nearly tripped over a trash can. Bucky watched him go, his chest heaving slightly with residual aggression, his jaw clenched tight. He was practically vibrating with the need to hit something. But then, he turned back to you.
You were looking up at him with a soft, deeply appreciative smile. You didn't scold him for being rude. You didn't tell him he overreacted. You knew exactly what he was doing. He was taking on the burden of being the ‘bad guy’ so your sunshine could remain untarnished. He was protecting your peace with his hostility.
You reached out, gently wrapping your small hands around his thick wrists. “Thank you, Bucky.”
Instantly, the terrifying campus god deflated. The murderous tension drained from his shoulders. He let out a long breath, pulling a chair right up next to yours, pressing his thigh flush against yours to ground himself. He leaned over and pressed a soft, lingering kiss to your temple.
“I fucking hate people…” he mumbled against your hair, wrapping an arm around the back of your chair. “You shouldn't have to deal with assholes like that, sunshine. Just point them out to me. I'll handle it.”
“I know you will…” you giggled, leaning into his solid warmth, instantly feeling your own stress melt away. “But you can't go around snapping collarbones, baby. Steve will bench you.”
“Worth it!” Bucky grunted, snatching your pink highlighter and aggressively crossing out a typo on your printed notes just to be involved in whatever you were doing.
The reverse was equally true. While he protected you from the world, you were the only thing that protected him from his own dark, brooding mind. Bucky ran hot. He was easily irritated, incredibly stubborn, and carried the immense pressure of his football career and his demanding business major on his shoulders. When the world got too loud, too annoying, or too overwhelming, he didn't want space. He wanted you.
Friday night at the business fraternity's mid-semester bash was the ultimate proving ground for your dynamic.
The frat house was a chaotic, sweaty mess of pulsing bass, cheap beer, and screaming college students. Sam and Steve had dragged Bucky there under the guise of ‘team bonding’ and naturally, Bucky had refused to step foot inside unless you came with him.
Currently, Bucky was standing in the darkest corner of the living room, his arms crossed over his chest, his face set into a devastating, unapproachable scowl. He was wearing a dark henley, radiating an aura of pure ‘do not fuck with me’ energy. Several girls had tried to approach him, only to be met with a glare so cold they practically turned to ice and shattered.
He was absolutely miserable.
Until he saw you.
You were across the room, talking to Sam and a few other guys from the team. You were wearing a little black skirt and a soft, cropped sweater, holding a red plastic cup. You were laughing, that bright, musical sound that cut straight through the heavy bass of the music. You were literally glowing in the dim, neon lighting of the party, chatting easily, making sure everyone felt included, radiating an effortless, magnetic warmth.
Bucky watched you, entirely transfixed. Steve walked up beside him, handing Bucky a beer.
“You're staring, man…” Steve teased over the music. “You look like a total creep.”
“Shut up, Rogers,” Bucky muttered, his eyes never leaving your form. “Look at her. She's actually having a conversation with Jenkins. The guy has the personality of a wet napkin, and she's making him laugh. She's a fucking angel.”
Steve chuckled, patting Bucky's shoulder. “She balances you out, Buck. You need her so you don't turn into a complete hermit.”
“I know,” Bucky admitted softly, the absolute raw honesty in his voice surprising even himself.
Across the room, your eyes finally caught his. You saw him standing in the dark corner, looking miserable and incredibly handsome. You immediately excused yourself from Sam and Jenkins, weaving through the crowded dance floor, your face lighting up as you approached him.
The moment you were within arm's reach, Bucky's hands were on you. He completely abandoned his beer on a nearby table, grabbing your hips and pulling you flush against his solid body. He buried his face in the crook of your neck, inhaling a massive, shuddering breath, completely ignoring the hundreds of people around them. He was hiding in your light.
“Hi, grumpy…” you teased softly, wrapping your arms around his thick neck, running your fingers through the hair at the base of his skull. You could feel the tight, coiled tension in his muscles starting to unravel the second he touched you. “Are you having a terrible time?”
“I hate everyone in this fucking house,” Bucky grumbled against your collarbone, his voice vibrating against your skin. “It's loud. It smells like cheap vodka and desperation. And Jenkins was looking at your legs.”
You laughed, a bright, soothing sound, pressing a kiss to the side of his head. “Jenkins was telling me about his golden retriever, Bucky. Stop glaring at people. You're going to give yourself a wrinkle.”
Bucky lifted his head, looking down into your bright, sparkling eyes. The absolute devotion and adoration in his icy blue gaze was staggering. The rest of the party simply ceased to exist. It was just him, grounded entirely by your warmth.
“Let's go home, doll…” Bucky murmured, his hands sliding down to grip the back of your thighs, pulling you even tighter against him. His voice dropped into that dirty, explicit register meant only for you. “I want to get you out of this sweater. I want to take you back to my bed, lock the door, and spend the next five hours worshipping you until you can't remember your own goddamn name. Let me take you home, sunshine.”
Your breath hitched, your heart doing a violent flip in your chest at the dark, promising hunger in his eyes. The contrast was so sharp it was dizzying, the sweet, innocent sunshine of your personality completely engulfed by the dark, possessive, unapologetic intensity of his. You didn't hesitate. You nodded, your cheeks flushing a deep, pretty pink.
“Okay…” you breathed, “Take me home.”
Bucky's smirk was triumphant, utterly arrogant, and terrifyingly hot. He grabbed your hand, lacing his thick fingers perfectly through yours, and began dragging you toward the front door. He didn't say goodbye to Sam. He didn't say goodbye to Steve. He just parted the crowd with his massive frame and his lethal glare, shielding you from the chaos as he led you out into the cool night air.
That was the magic of the grumpy and the sunshine. You gave him a reason to tolerate the world, and he gave you a safe place to shine without ever being dimmed. It was chaotic, it was loud, and it was absolutely, undeniably perfect.
And naturally, your friends were always there, acting as your own personal, chaotic security detail. Sam and Steve continued to mock Bucky relentlessly about his protective nature, while Natasha and Wanda threatened to completely ruin him if he ever made you cry again. But they didn't have to worry. Bucky Barnes was entirely, utterly, and happily owned by you, his sunshine, and he was fully prepared to glare down the rest of the world to keep it that way.
Greek Myth AU | Demigod! Bucky Barnes x Nymph! Reader where Bucky has a forge near the woods where you live.
TW battle trauma, magical prosthetic metal arm, food, theft, grumpy x sunshine, son of Hephaestus! Bucky
Bucky Barnes hasn't gone to battle since he encountered the Hydra.
He still remembers the marsh and the screaming and the sound of teeth closing around bone. He remembers how the monster dragged him down into the mud by the arm and the whole world went white with pain. The poets say he fought bravely, that he stood his ground, that the son of Hephaestus didn’t break, even beneath the jaws of a beast older than most kings.
Bucky knows better.
There was nothing noble about it. There was blood in his mouth, poison in his veins and hands clawing uselessly at the wet earth underneath. And then there was pain, and then there was nothing.
When he opened his eyes, his father was standing over him in the red light of a fire.
Hephaestus made him a new arm.
What else could the god of the forge do to repay his son for running his errands? Console him? Talk to him? Say son, I’m proud of you and I’m sorry this happened? Ha!
No, gods aren't really known for their stellar parenting. Instead, his father built something out of it.
It was state of the art, if such a mortal phrase could be used for something made by divine hands. It was made of bronze and celestial iron, gold-threaded mechanisms beneath the plating, joints so fluid they moved like water. His father carved protective spells into the inner frame and fitted it to him so perfectly that Bucky could still feel heat, pressure, texture, weight of everything.
It didn't feel so different from the arm he had lost, and that made it worse.
Because men saw it and thought it was a miracle. Kings saw it and thought it was weapon. Heroes saw it and thought it was an advantage. They stared at the shining metal and forgot there had ever been flesh beneath it. They forgot a monster had taken something from him before his father gave anything back.
So Bucky stopped going to war.
He let other men chase glory while he stayed in Lemnos.
His father gave him the forge there, the greatest forge on the island, built deep into black volcanic stone where the heat rose from the earth itself. The whole place breathed fire. The walls glowed at night.
Or, at least, everyone said it did.
The son of Hephaestus in a forge, the man with the metal arm making metal things. Very poetic. People loved when suffering became useful.
And Bucky was useful. That much, no one could deny.
He made swords for kings who wanted their enemies to slain before sunset. He made armour for heroes who spoke of destiny as though destiny had ever once done the washing up after a war. He made arrowheads for hunters, axes for warlords, helmets for princes, daggers for queens who pretended they had no use for daggers at all.
His work was legendary. A blade from Barnes’ forge did not dull. A shield from Barnes’ forge did not crack. Chainmail from Barnes’ hands could turn aside a spear thrust, a lion’s claw, sometimes even a god’s temper.
Men came to him asking for things that could cut, pierce, crush, defend, maim, conquer, survive.
And Bucky gave it to them.
Because that was what all his hands were good for.
At least, that was what he believed.
And then you come in.
You are a wood nymph, Bucky realises, because no ordinary girl walks into a forge with leaves in her hair and moss on the hem of her dress. You look too kind for all the heat and smoke here, too green and alive for a room full of fresh weapon.
For a second, Bucky forgets to be rude.Then he remembers.
“Forge is closed,” he says.
You blink at the swords on the wall, the armour hanging from hooks, the coals burning bright enough to turn the whole room gold. “Oh,” you say with a frown. “I just… I heard you fix things.”
Bucky froze.
Nobody… has ever said it like that before.
They say he makes weapons. They say he forges armour. They don’t say fix, like his work made people happy.
You open your palm and show him a broken anklet, thin gold, little leaves dangling from the chain. “It caught on a root.”
“A root,” Bucky repeats.
“A rude one,” you say, as if you have a personal vendetta against the tree. You probably do.
He should send you away. He has a sword half-finished for a king and a shield waiting for Ares demigod. He doesn’t mend pretty little things for pretty nymphs with sunlight in their eyes.
But you’re looking at him like he can help.
So Bucky sighs, reaches for the anklet, and mutters, “Fine.”
Your smile blooms so quickly he has to look down.
It is the first time anyone has asked his hands to make something that wasn’t meant to hurt.
He pretends that doesn’t matter.
But the. you keep coming back.
At first, Bucky assumes it is coincidence. Wood nymphs probably break things all the time. You live in forests. Forests have branches, rocks, rude little animals with grabby mouths. So when you return three mornings later with a bent hairpin, he only grunts and takes it from your hand.
“Another root?” he asks.
“A bird,” you say.
Bucky huffs despite himself and fixes it in less than five minutes.
Then you come back with a clasp from your dress. Then a little bronze bell. Then a ring made of twisted copper that you swear belongs to a dryad friend, though Bucky notices it fits your finger perfectly when he gives it back.
You don’t have gold or silver, and Bucky knows that, so he insisted you don’t pay him. You said nonesense! And only ever pay him in flowers.
He’ll never admit it but it’s… sweet.
You gave him small white blossoms, bluebells, white thyme, and tiny yellow things you say grow near the river. Sometimes you bring fruit wrapped in leaves, because apparently you’ve decided he forgets to eat and apparently you’re right.
The first time, Bucky says, “This isn’t payment.”
You look genuinely worried. “Do you not like them?”
“No, I—” He stops, because saying I like them feels impossible and saying I like you feels too vulnerable. He looks down at the flowers in your hands, too bright for his forge, and mutters, “They’ll die in here.”
You smile. “Then I’ll bring more.”
And you do.
Soon there are flowers everywhere, tucked into old jars, hanging upside down from the rafters where the heat dries them beautifully. One little daisy sits in a crack on his workbench for three days before he realises he’s been carefully moving around it.
He tells himself he is only being polite.
Except he starts saving pretty scraps of gold and copper and stone because maybe you’ll bring him another broken little thing and maybe he can make it better than it was before.
You ask him to fix a chain, and he adds tiny leaves to it.
You ask him to mend a pin, and he shapes the end into a flower.
You ask him if he can make a clasp stronger, and he makes it so beautiful you stare at it with no thoughts for a full second.
Bucky looks away every time.
He’s not making pretty things because he thinks you’re pretty. That would be ridiculous. He makes swords for kings and armour for heroes. He doesn’t sit in his forge at night thinking about what different shades of gold would look like against your skin.
Ugh. Fine. He does.
One day, Bucky realises you have not come by in too long.
The forge feels too quiet without the little chime of your anklet, without you leaning over his workbench and asking if something hopelessly broken can still be fixed.
So he goes looking, until he realizes he doesn’t actually know where you live.
He asks a fisherman near the cliffs says he saw a wood nymph by the olive groves that morning. He asks an old woman carrying figs and says she thinks you keep to the trees by the river when you are upset, though she doesn’t explain how she knows that and Bucky doesn’t ask. A shepherd points him farther inland.
By the time Bucky finds you, he is already in a temper, but not at you. At the world, mostly. At whatever has kept you away. At himself for caring enough to come all this way.
Then he sees you, sitting by the riverbank with your knees drawn up, your face turned away, shoulders hunched so small The whole grove is green and dappled with afternoon light, lovely in the way nymph places always are.
You are crying.
Oh.
He clears his throat.
You look up, startled, and then your eyebrows softened when you see him. You are relieved.
“Bucky,” you say, and your voice wobbles.
He hates whoever caused that.
He comes closer. “What happened?”
You wipe at your face with the heel of your hand and laugh a little, embarrassed. “It’s silly.”
He waits.
You glance down at the grass. “I made a flower crown this morning.”
Bucky says nothing.
“I know,” you say quickly. “It sounds ridiculous.”
“It doesn’t.”
You look at him then, something in Bucky’s chest goes tight.
“I spent all morning on it,” you murmur. “I made it from river jasmine and clover and the little blue flowers that grow by the reeds. It was very pretty.”
He can imagine it.
You make a face that is halfway between misery and indignation. “A local river god stole it.”
Bucky blinks.
“He said it was the prettiest thing he’d seen in a long time,” you continue, clearly offended all over again, “and then he just… he just took it. Put it on his own head and disappeared back into the water.”
For a moment, Bucky can only stare.
That little river bastard.
Bucky knows a little of what that’s like. He has spent his whole life making beautiful things only for someone else to walk away with them. At least, though, he’s beautifully compensated for it.
“Come to my forge in three days,” he says.
When he gets back to his forge, three men are waiting with commissions. And enough money to last him many months.
Bucky looks at all of them and says, “No.”
Then he shuts himself inside the forge and begins to make the most intricate thing he has ever made.
He bent gold into branches and shaped silver into tiny blossoms. He embeds blue stones like river flowers, set like dew. Each leaf was made by hand, each petal delicate beneath his metal fingers.
He has made a flower crown that will not wilt.
The, you come to his forge.
Bucky hears the anklet first, that soft little chime he has grown helplessly fond of. He pretends to be busy, pretends he has not spent three days thinking of you.
Then you step inside, and the forge feels warmer for reasons that have nothing to do with fire.
You have flowers in your hair again. Little white ones this time, tucked messily behind your ears, already wilting from the heat.
Bucky unwraps the crown after you say hi.
And it’s clear it’s not a crown for a queen. It’s not meant for a throne. It’s simply little piece of your grove, shaped by fire.
For a moment, you only stare.
Then your hands come up to your mouth. “Oh, Bucky,” you whisper.
“If the river god tries to take this away,” His chest goes tight. “Tell him a son of Hephaestus will come for him.”
You look at him like that is the most romantic thing anyone has ever said to you.
Maybe, from him, it is.
You take it so carefully it makes his heart ache, setting it on your head with delicate fingers. Firelight catches in every petal, every leaf, every little stone, and Bucky forgets all the clever, gruff things he might have said to survive the sight of you.
You look like spring wandered into his forge and decided to stay.
You touch the edge of the crown, shy all at once. “Does it look pretty on me?”
Bucky’s answer comes without a filter. “Everything’s pretty on you.”
Oh, Bucky.
So you rise onto your toes and kiss him.
Bucky freezes because he’s not expecting it, startled still as stone, both hands hovering uselessly in the smoky air. But you are warm and gentle and careful with him, and when you start to pull away, he finally wakes up and chases another kiss.
His human hand finds your waist, his metal one touches your cheek.
He kisses you softer, deeper, like he is learning how to love again for the first time since the Hydra nearly killed him.
When you part, you look away shyly and rest your forehead against his chest. Bucky tries to ignore the patch of green growing by your feet magically, your emotions are bursting from the ground, but he can’t help but smile anyway.
The crown glimmers in your hair.
Bucky finally looks down at his hands, one flesh and one bronze, and thinks of every weapon he has ever made. All those years, he believed that that was all his hands were good for.
But you’re standing in his arms, wearing metal spring on your head, and for the first time in his life, he thinks maybe that was never true.
Maybe his hands can make beautiful things, too.
Maybe they were meant to hold you.
(You come back in a few days with a freshly made flower crown, of course. When it dries, he casts it in iron 🫶)
Warnings: Mild Violence. Maybe I'll add more in the future.
Summary: A knight from another century crashes -literally- into a florist’s life and turns her world upside down.
Word Count: 6.1k
Previous Chapter - Masterlist
The street outside the shop wasn't like any street he had ever known: too wide, too clean, and yet unbearably loud despite the sparse crowd, cut through by monstrous metal carriages that moved without horses and coughed smoke into the damp morning air.
One passed close enough that the wind of it tugged at his tunic.
He started walking.
His gaze roamed over everything: the glass fronts of the shops, the painted signs, the wires strung between buildings like black veins against the grey sky. And the people.
Lord, the people.
Men in strange short coats and narrow hats. Women with bare legs, bare arms, painted mouths, walking alone as though the world had not lost its mind.
Another contraption rolled past him.
A man balanced on a device with two impossibly thin wheels, propelling himself forward with his own legs pumping at metal arms near the ground. No horse. No visible engine or magic. Just the man and the skeletal black frame beneath him, moving at a speed no human should manage on foot.
Bucky stopped dead.
The thing came at him with no reins, no visible means of being controlled beyond the rider's boots working those narrow metal arms. Its wheels were impossibly thin, its bell giving a sharp little trill that cut through the street noise like a thrown knife.
The rider leaned around him at the last possible moment, coat flapping, one hand lifted from the handlebar in furious accusation.
"Watch it, pal!"
Bucky turned with him, tracking the motion, the insult, the impossible narrow-wheeled thing as it shot past his shoulder close enough that he felt the brush of air against his sleeve. His boots moved half a step off the curb before his mind had decided anything useful.
A horn blared. A flat, mechanical scream that didn't belong to any animal he'd ever heard.
He turned back just as one of those horseless carriages -wide and green and shining like a beetle's carapace- bore down on him with two round eyes burning pale through the grey morning. For a heartbeat, he stood rooted to the ground, unable to make his legs obey.
Then, a hand closed around his left wrist.
The contact went through him like a struck bell, and his whole body answered before thought could intervene, muscles jerking in the direction of the grip, boots scraping over wet pavement as he stumbled backward.
Pain lit up his ribs, white and vicious. The green beast roared past close enough that its wind slapped cold against his face, horn still bellowing as the driver shouted something filthy through an open window and did not stop.
Bucky hit the edge of the sidewalk hard enough to jar his teeth.
The woman struck him in the arm a second later with her free hand. Not hard, exactly, but sharp enough to snap him back to his senses.
"What is wrong with you?"
He stared at the place where the carriage had been, watching it disappear down the street.
The traffic kept moving as if nothing had happened.
Another one followed behind it. Dark blue this time. Smaller. More of them farther down the road, parked along the curb like sleeping beasts, their windows reflecting pieces of the sky in impossibly clear glass.
His wrist was still held.
He looked down at it.
Her fingers were wrapped tight enough to blanch the skin beneath her own knuckles. She seemed to realize it at the same moment he did and let go at once, as if his skin had burned her.
Her mouth moved. Red. That impossible red, angry now.
"Do you have a special wish to die this morning?"
He heard the words. Understood them individually. Could not make them gather into meaning.
His hands were empty. He had no sword. No shield. No idea what kingdom this was, what laws governed it, what god had built machines to transport people without horses as though it were the most natural thing in the world, people walking past in their strange attire as if nothing remarkable had happened.
His chest worked once.
Then again.
The breath would not settle.
He tried to force it down into the place where his discipline lived. The old place. The trained place. The place that had carried him through broken ribs, frozen marches, cells too dark to measure time in, men asking questions with tools because words had failed to satisfy them.
It was there.
He could feel its shape, familiar as the weight of a sword, but he simply could not reach it.
The street stretched wide before him, slick and grey, full of motion. The wires overhead trembled in the wind. Somewhere nearby, unseen machinery thudded and clanged. A woman laughed. A dog barked. Another horn sounded in the distance, and his shoulders flinched before he could stop them.
----
She saw the flinch.
It was small, almost nothing, just the quick betrayal of his shoulders at the distant horn, but it made whatever else she had been about to say die behind her lips.
Her question was still there between them, and he had not answered it.
Not that he was ignoring her. Not exactly. Men ignored women in a variety of ways, and she had developed, over the course of owning a business and being alive in general, a fairly extensive catalogue.
This wasn't that.
This man was not ignoring her.
He was… not there. Not properly.
He stood six inches from her on the sidewalk outside her own shop, broad and filthy and absurd in those boots, and looked past her with eyes that had gone distant in a way that made the back of her neck prickle.
The color had drained from his face.
The bruise along his cheekbone looked darker for it, purple-black against the sudden pallor. The cut above his brow, which she had almost forgotten in the general catastrophe of him, had opened again somehow; a thin line of red slipped down toward his temple.
His body was trembling.
Not dramatically. Nothing anyone passing by would notice unless they were close enough to see the tiny, involuntary shiver running through his hands. Through his jaw. Through the tendons in his neck, standing out like rope under skin.
She saw it because she was standing too close.
Because she had grabbed his wrist and felt the shock.
Because for one terrible second, when the car had come at him, and he had simply stood there, she had known with absolute certainty that he was about to die in front of The Sweet Briar before the shop had even opened for the day.
Her own heart was still beating in her throat.
"You could have been killed," she said, quieter this time.
He did not answer.
His gaze flicked once to the street, then to the cars, then upward to the wires, then back to the place where the green car had disappeared around the corner. Too much. That was what his face said now, beneath the stubbornness, beneath the absurd severity of all that knight-of-the-realm nonsense.
Her anger lost its footing.
Damn him.
Damn him for being frightening, and rude, and possibly insane, and then standing there looking like a lost thing that had wandered too far from wherever it belonged.
"Mr. Barnes," she said carefully.
His eyes moved to her face. Not focused, at first.
She lifted both hands a little, palms angled toward him in what she hoped was a calming gesture.
"Listen to me," she said. "You need to come back inside."
His jaw shifted.
"No."
Of course.
Of course the man who had nearly been flattened by a sedan five seconds ago still had room in him to be obstinate.
She took a breath and counted to three.
"Fine. Stay out here. Get yourself killed. But do it after lunch hour, so at least my customers don't have to step over you to buy lilies."
Something passed across his face. A flicker. Not amusement, exactly, but something close to it. Then his attention cut past her shoulder.
She followed it automatically.
A patrolman was coming down the opposite side of Camden Street from the corner near Levinson's pharmacy, where the sidewalk opened into a clear view of the street in front of her shop.
He must have seen the bicycle swerve. Must have seen the car skim by close enough to make two women outside the bakery gasp into their gloves.
And now he was looking directly at her companion.
At the strange clothes. The long hair. The bruising on his face. The blood at his brow. The size of him. The way he stood there, pale and shaking and not quite oriented toward the world around him.
The patrolman adjusted his cap and crossed the street at an angle, long strides eating up the wet pavement with purpose.
Oh, wonderful.
Perfect.
Exactly what the morning needed.
She turned back to Mr. Barnes.
Something in him changed. The trembling did not stop, but it went underground, forced beneath a sudden hardening of posture. His shoulders squared. His chin lifted. The lost look vanished so quickly that if she had not been watching, she might have thought she'd imagined it.
A mask, she realized.
No. Not a mask.
An armor.
He didn’t have one, so his face became it.
"Don't," she said under her breath.
His eyes did not leave the approaching patrolman. "Don't what."
"Whatever it is you're about to do."
"I am doing nothing."
"You're standing like you're about to challenge the entire police department to single combat."
His gaze cut briefly to her, offended despite everything. "I don't know what that is."
"That," she said, pointing with one discrete motion of her head toward the uniform, "is a policeman. He keeps order. He asks questions. He carries a gun. And if you call him a knave or try to throw him to the floor, this morning is going to get much worse for both of us."
The word gun did something. His eyes narrowed slightly.
"A guardsman."
"Close enough."
"Yours?"
"What?"
"Is he yours?"
She stared at him. "No, he is not mine. I don't keep policemen."
The patrolman was halfway across the street now. She had perhaps eight seconds before he reached them.
Eight seconds to decide whether to tell the truth -which would sound insane- or lie.
This strange, injured man appeared in my locked stockroom. He says he's a medieval knight and believes I'm a witch. Oh, and he almost died because he doesn't understand automobiles.
Yes, officer, please take him somewhere kind.
But there was nowhere kind, and that was the problem.
She knew enough about the state institutions to know that. A man like him was not gently escorted to a warm bed and a sensible doctor. A man like this would get handcuffed if he startled the wrong person. A cell if he argued. A hospital ward, if someone felt charitable. An institution, if someone with authority decided his mind was more inconvenient than treatable.
The officer stepped up onto the curb.
"Morning, ma'am," he said, though his eyes stayed mostly on Barnes. "Everything all right here?"
She smiled.
It was not a good smile. It arrived quickly and had too many teeth, the kind of smile that fooled absolutely no one but was required by the social contract.
"Good morning, officer."
Barnes looked at her.
She felt it rather than saw it, the sudden sharp turn of his attention. Suspicious. Assessing. Probably wondering if she was about to have him arrested, detained, executed, or whatever else knights expected from guardsmen in impossible cities.
She kept smiling.
"Had a little scare, that's all."
The patrolman's gaze moved over the man beside her again, slow and professional, cataloguing details. "Looked like your friend here nearly stepped in front of a car."
Friend.
The word hung there, wrong and convenient.
Barnes's expression did not change, but she could feel his objection forming between his brows like a gathering storm.
She stepped on it before it could speak.
"My cousin," she said.
The patrolman blinked. So did the man beside her.
She did not look at him.
"My cousin," she repeated, silently kicking herself for the flimsy excuse even as she committed to it. "From up north."
The patrolman's brows lifted slightly.
"Up north."
"A little town near Mount Katahdin. Very remote, really. Hardly any roads to speak of."
Behind her, he drew a slow breath through his nose. She could feel judgment radiating from him like heat from a stove. She ignored it.
"He came in early this morning, he’s looking for a job, you see," she continued with a bright tone. "He's had a long trip and hardly slept. He’s a stubborn backwoodsman with no sense around traffic. He was bewildered by the view, and then that bicycle startled him, and- well. You saw what happened.”
"I saw him walk into traffic."
"Yes. He does that."
The patrolman squinted at her, and she immediately regretted having a mouth.
"I mean," she amended quickly, "he doesn't usually do that. Obviously. That would be very troubling as a habit. He's just tired. Disoriented. And he took a fall yesterday, so he's not entirely himself."
The officer's gaze went to the bruise on Barnes's cheek, then the cut above his brow, lingering there with professional interest.
"A fall."
"From a horse," she said.
That, at least, felt thematically appropriate.
Barnes's head turned very, very slowly toward her.
She gave him a look that she hoped communicated several things at once, including but not limited to: be quiet, I am saving you, and if you ruin this, I will personally murder you with a pair of pruning shears.
Miraculously, he said nothing.
The patrolman studied him for a long moment.
"That true, sir?"
His eyes moved from her to the officer.
A pause. Too long. Much too long.
Then, with grave reluctance, "I was unseated."
Her eyes nearly closed with relief.
The patrolman seemed to accept this, or at least failed to find the obvious hole in it quickly enough to press. Maybe it was too early in the morning for him, too.
"Looks like you ought to have a doctor look at that."
"He will," she said firmly.
"I do not require-"
"He will," she repeated, louder, and smiled harder at the patrolman. "As soon as I get him inside and settled. He also needs a change of clothing, as you can see. Can't have him walking around looking like he lost a fight with a hay wagon."
The officer looked between them, considering.
The moment stretched.
Someone across the street had stopped pretending not to watch. Mrs. Kaplan from the bakery stood with one hand on her door, eyes bright with the terrible appetite of neighborhood gossip that would fuel conversations for a week.
No.
Absolutely not.
She could not have this become a story before mid-morning.
The patrolman finally nodded once, seeming to decide the situation was odd but not dangerous.
"Best keep him out of the road, then."
"That is very much my plan."
The man's gaze flicked to Barnes one more time. "You take care, sir. City streets aren't forgiving."
He looked at the road, then back at the officer, and when he spoke, his voice was quiet and oddly sincere.
"No," he said. "They are not."
Something in his tone made the patrolman pause, a flicker of concern crossing his features. But then he simply tipped his cap to her.
"Ma'am."
"Officer."
He moved on, though not quickly. She watched him walk back down the block toward the pharmacy, glancing back once before he reached the corner.
Only when he had turned out of sight did she let the smile fall off her face like an abandoned coat.
He was staring at her.
"What," she said flatly.
His expression was unreadable again, which she was beginning to suspect meant he was feeling several things at once and had decided none of them were fit for public display.
"Your cousin," he said.
"It was the first thing that came to mind."
"From up north."
"It seemed plausible."
"It did not."
"Well, he bought it, didn't he?"
"Did he?"
She looked toward the corner where the patrolman had disappeared. Then at Mrs. Kaplan, who was still watching from the bakery window like a hawk spotting a rabbit. Then at the two women whispering near the bus stop. Then at him, standing there like a brawl in human form, bleeding gently onto the collar of his impossible shirt.
"Maybe," she admitted.
A horn blared somewhere down the street, and he flinched.
Small, contained and brutally fast.
But she saw it.
His jaw clenched afterward, as if he could trap the reaction between his teeth and kill it there.
She sighed, feeling what was left of her anger drain away and leave behind something uncomfortably close to pity. And the very reasonable desire to shove him back into the street herself and let nature finish what the sedan had started.
But beneath all of it was the fact of him: pale, shaking, hurt, completely unmoored, and looking at Camden Street as if it were a battlefield he'd stumbled onto without armor or weapons or any idea which side he was meant to be fighting for.
"Inside," she said.
His eyes narrowed.
She pointed at the shop door behind them.
"Now."
"I told you-"
"I lied to a policeman for you, Mr. Barnes, so unless you'd like me to call him back and explain that you are not, in fact, my cousin from up north, you are going to walk through that door, sit down somewhere that is not my begonias, and let me clean the blood off your face before Mrs. Kaplan decides to come over here and ask questions I cannot answer."
He stared at her.
For one second, she could almost see the refusal rise in him, proud and immediate and utterly stupid.
Then another car passed, and he did not look at it; that was how she knew it had frightened him. Then, he turned toward the flower shop without another word.
The bell above the door gave its bright chime as he stepped back inside.
She followed, locked the door behind them, and flipped the sign to CLOSED with more force than strictly necessary.
----
Bucky heard the bolt slide into place with a soft, final click.
A small sound. Ordinary, probably, to her. To him, it landed with considerably more weight. The sound of a cell door, a gate closing, an exit sealed.
He turned his head to her.
She reached up and drew down a strange fabric stretched between narrow wooden slats that clattered softly as it descended, stopping halfway down the window. Not a curtain, exactly. Something that rolled and caught on a mechanism he couldn't see.
He noticed everything, apparently, except the things that might keep him from nearly being killed by horseless carriages.
"Come on," she said and walked past him toward the rear of the shop.
There were, at present, too many questions in his head. They had gathered in his head like crows on a battlefield fence, black and loud and waiting for something to die.
So he followed.
The shop looked different from behind her.
That was not a thought he should have had.
It arrived anyway, unbidden and unhelpful.
Her skirt moved when she walked, a soft, hypnotic sway that drew the eye and then punished the man attached to it for having one. The fabric brushed the backs of her knees with each step, and below that -God help him- her calves were bare, the skin catching the morning light filtering through the half-drawn shade.
The sight shouldn't have affected him the way it did.
He'd seen far worse immodesty in camp followers, tavern girls who unlaced their bodices for coin, even a countess once who'd been shameless enough to receive him in his own chambers in nothing but a loose shift that left very little to imagination.
But this felt different somehow.
Deliberate in its casualness. Ordinary in its brazenness.
As if every woman in this godforsaken century simply walked around like this, and he was the fool for noticing.
He wrenched his gaze toward the nearest bucket of flowers with such determination that he might as well have been preparing to duel it.
Roses.
White ones, their petals just beginning to unfurl, with the faintest blush of pink at the heart of each bloom. Innocent. Chaste. Entirely safe to look at.
Unlike certain other things in this room.
She reached the back room and stepped aside, pointing toward a chair beside the worktable.
"Sit."
He looked at it with immediate suspicion.
The chair was made of metal. Thin silver legs bent in a precise curve, holding up a seat covered in some smooth green material that was neither leather nor cloth. It shone faintly under the light overhead, reflecting the ceiling in a way that seemed unnatural.
Bucky stared at it for a second too long.
"It's a chair," she seemed fit to clarify.
"I can see that."
"Wonderful. Then use it."
He should not have.
There were several reasons he should not have.
For one, it was unwise to place himself at a disadvantage in a room he did not understand, with a woman he did not know, in a century that seemed very committed to making a fool of him at every opportunity.
For another, it was utterly inappropriate.
There was no servant. No matron tucked into the corner with her embroidery and her sharp little coughs to remind them of propriety. No chaperone at all to lend respectability to the fact that this woman was about to put her hands near his face, possibly his body, while the two of them were alone behind a locked door.
A decent man would object.
A prudent man would leave.
He sat.
The metal chair gave a faint protesting creak beneath his weight but did not collapse, which was more than he had expected from something built with legs that narrow. The act of lowering himself was unpleasant. His ribs had apparently chosen this moment to remind him -in exhaustive detail- that they had been cracked before the universe had lost its mind and had not improved during the intervening catastrophe.
His breath caught despite his best efforts.
She noticed. Her gaze flicked down to his side, then back up, too quick to be called staring and too sharp to be accidental.
"You hurt your ribs?"
"No."
She gave him a look that suggested she had heard better lies from children.
He met it stubbornly.
A pause.
"Yes," he admitted.
"Thought so."
She turned toward a small wooden cabinet mounted low on the wall and crouched down. From inside, she pulled out a metal case. Small, rectangular, with a hinged lid and a painted red cross on the top.
A coffer, his mind supplied automatically, though it was made of metal rather than wood, and far too uniform in its construction to have been hammered by any smith he knew.
She set it on the worktable and flipped the latch.
The cross should have been reassuring.
It was not.
Inside were bottles, tins, folded cloths, strange implements he had no names for. She began sorting through them, and he watched her hands move.
Competent hands. Not delicate, though they looked as if they could be when they wanted to. She knew where things were, even in the disorder. She found a clean cloth, a small brown bottle, and a roll of white bandaging and set them on the table.
He cleared his throat and she glanced over her shoulder.
The words should have come easily. Courtesy did, when one was raised with enough of it beaten in by tutors and lords and the general expectation of civilized behavior.
He had thanked lords he despised, maesters who'd prodded at wounds, servants who'd brought water, boys who'd held horses, women who had done far less for him than lie to an armed city guardsman.
Still, it took him a moment.
"For what you said to the guardsman," he began carefully. "Outside."
Her hands stilled completely. She turned to face him, the cloth still held loosely in her fingers.
"The policeman," she corrected gently.
"The policeman," he repeated, the word still feeling foreign on his tongue. He met her eyes. "For that. You have my thanks."
Something in her expression softened. The wariness didn't disappear entirely, but it eased.
"You're welcome," she said simply.
She set the cloth down on the worktable and leaned back against it, her hands bracing on the edge behind her. The posture was less guarded than before.
"Though for the record," she added, and there was the faintest hint of amusement in her voice now, "you made that more difficult than it needed to be."
He shifted in the metal chair, wincing slightly as his ribs protested. "I said very little."
"You said it with the face of a man about to fight." She tilted her head, studying him.
“I was inquired by a law enforcement."
"You were asked whether you fell off a horse." She crossed her ankles, settling more comfortably against the table. The motion drew his eye briefly to those impossible shoes before he forced his gaze back to her face.
"I was unseated," he corrected with careful dignity.
She blinked at him for a moment.
Then her lips curved into something that was almost a smile, warm in a way that made something in his chest tug unexpectedly.
"Fallen, unseated…" she said softly, waving her hand.
The strange thing was, he almost wanted to explain. Wanted to tell her that it was not the same thing at all.
That falling could be clumsy, careless, the result of poor seat or a man who didn't know his business. Being unseated meant impact, skill, another man's force meeting yours at the exact angle required to take you from the saddle despite everything you did to prevent it.
There was dignity in the distinction.
But she was looking at him with something gentler than he'd seen from her yet. So he did not explain. He was, as she had said, trying not to make things more difficult than they needed to be.
Also, and more pressing, he was hungry.
The realization came with embarrassing force now that he was seated and no longer fighting for his life against bicycles and automobiles. He had not eaten since before the tournament.
Had meant to, after. Had meant to remove his armor, find bread and stew at the tavern down the street, and perhaps sleep for half a day if his luck could be persuaded toward mercy for once.
Instead, he had put on a cursed ring and been thrown into a florist's back room nearly six centuries from where he belonged.
His stomach gave a low, traitorous growl that echoed in the stockroom with all the subtlety of a church bell at matins.
The woman paused mid-motion.
He closed his eyes briefly.
Lord.
When he opened them, she was looking at him with something that might have been concern or exasperation or both.
"When did you last eat?"
He considered lying.
His stomach, apparently tired of his pride, made the answer unnecessary by growling again, louder this time.
She set the cloth down with a soft sigh.
"Right," she said. "Blood first. Food after."
"That’s not-"
"Mr. Barnes."
He stopped.
Her tone had changed. It was the voice of a woman who had discovered the exact amount of patience she possessed and found him standing at the far edge of it with his boots on.
"You are bleeding, you nearly got killed by a car, and I have already lied to a policeman before midday.” She gestured at the chair, less sharp than simply direct. "Sit still and let me clean that before you pass out and make this morning worse than it already is. Then, we'll figure out food."
He was opening his mouth to object-
"Please," she added, and something about her tone reached him. So he leaned back in the metal chair and said nothing.
She seemed to take that as victory.
Perhaps it was.
She stepped closer, and the air between them shifted. He caught her scent more clearly now: flowers, yes, but also something faintly powdery and sweet that he couldn't name. Soap, perhaps. Or some cosmetic concoction women of this time favored.
The cloth in her hand was damp; he could see the darkness of moisture against the white fabric.
He kept perfectly still.
She bent toward him, close enough that her breath would have touched his face if she'd spoken, and then her fingers touched his jaw.
The contact was brief, impersonal, the gesture of someone accustomed to arranging things precisely.
It went through him like a strike of flint.
His breath caught with the sudden, with the unwelcome awareness of how close she was. How warm. How the neckline of her dress sat just low enough that if he dropped his gaze even slightly-
He locked his eyes on the ceiling and kept them there.
"Hold still," she said quietly.
He was already still. Rigid as a man in armor, every muscle tense by the maddening fact that her thumb was resting just below his jaw, her fingertips cool against the edge of his beard.
The damp cloth touched his brow.
Cool. Clean. It stung where the cut was, a sharp little bite that he barely felt through everything else.
What he felt was her.
The bend of her body as she leaned in. The brush of her skirt against his knee. Brief, accidental, gone before he could react. The small crease of concentration between her brows as she worked, utterly focused, utterly unaware of what the simple act of touching him was doing.
She tilted his face slightly toward the light.
His jaw shifted under her hand, and the movement made her fingers slide -just barely- along the line of bone and muscle beneath his ear.
Heat crawled up the back of his neck.
This was absurd.
She was cleaning a wound. Nothing more. She had shown him no interest beyond the bare minimum of human decency, and even that had been grudging. She thought him mad, or damaged, or some combination of both. She had called him cousin to a lawman to avoid further inconvenience.
And here he sat, breathing too carefully, thinking about what it would feel like if those hands moved with intent instead of practicality. If they slid into his hair. If her thumb pressed just a little harder against his throat. If she leaned closer and-
Fuck.
He was acting like some green boy again.
Worse. He was acting like a man who hadn't been touched by anyone in far too long, and whose body had decided now -of all the godsforsaken moments- was the time to remind him of it.
The cloth moved to his cheekbone, gentler now, following the edge of the bruise.
"It's not deep," she said after a moment. "Won't need stitches. Just needs to be clean."
"I've had worse." He managed.
"I don't doubt it."
She stepped back, and the absence of her touch was immediate and disorienting. She studied her work, then reached for the brown bottle, uncorking it with a soft pop.
The smell hit him immediately. Sharp. Medicinal. Something that burned the inside of his nose and made his eyes water.
"This is going to sting," she warned.
"I can-"
She dabbed it on before he could finish.
It did not sting.
It burned like the fires of hell had been distilled into liquid form and applied directly to his face.
He did not move. Did not make a sound.
His hand, however, gripped the edge of the metal chair hard enough that he heard the frame creak.
"Sorry," she said, and she actually sounded it. "It's awful, but it'll keep it from getting infected."
He managed a nod, not trusting his voice.
She corked the bottle and set it aside, examining the cut again, and then stepped back fully, putting a respectable distance between them, and he could breathe again.
Then his stomach growled. Again. Loud and shameless.
She paused.
He watched something shift in her expression, watched her think. Her gaze went to the little corner table where the tin of those dried herbs sat, and her mouth pressed into a thoughtful line.
"I don't have much here," she said slowly. "It's a stockroom, not a kitchen. Tea and stale biscuits in some corner, mostly."
He opened his mouth to tell her it didn't matter, that he required nothing-
"Wait here," she said abruptly.
Before he could object, she was already moving toward the front of the shop, pulling a key from somewhere in her skirt and unlocking the door.
"Don't touch anything," she added over her shoulder. "And for God's sake, don't go outside again."
The bell chimed.
The door closed.
He sat alone in the stockroom, surrounded by buckets of flowers and incomprehensible objects, with no earthly idea where she had gone or whether she would return.
For a brief, ungenerous moment, he considered the possibility that she had simply gone to fetch the authorities after all. Left him here to be collected like a stray dog.
He could not have blamed her if she had.
But he stayed.
Partly because his ribs ached and his legs felt unsteady, and the metal chair, absurd as it was, held his weight. Partly because the door to the street terrified him in a way he was not prepared to examine.
And partly -mostly- because some quiet, exhausted part of him had decided to trust her, and he was too tired to argue with it.
Time passed. He did not know how much. Somewhere beyond the walls, the muffled sounds of the impossible city continued: horns, voices, the rumble of those horseless carriages.
Then the bell chimed again, and he heard the click of her heels through the shop. She reappeared through the storage door with a brown paper sack clutched in one hand.
"Here," she said, crossing to him and holding it out. "Eat this before you fall over."
He took it cautiously.
The sack was warm. And the smell…
God, the smell.
Something rich and savory drifted up from inside, meat and bread and something he couldn't identify, and his mouth flooded with saliva before he'd even looked inside.
He opened it.
Within was a strange construction: two thick slices of bread pressed together, and between them, slices of roasted meat layered with melted cheese, what appeared to be a cooked egg, and some green leaves he didn't recognize.
He turned it over, examining the oddity from several angles.
"It's a sandwich," she said, watching his confusion with poorly concealed amusement. "Roast beef. From the diner on the corner. You eat it. With your hands."
A sandwich.
He had never heard the term. Never seen meat and bread arranged in such a deliberate, portable fashion. In his world, meat was served on a trencher, or in a pie, or skewered over a fire. Not... stacked.
The smell did not care about his confusion, and his stomach growled a third time, traitorous and insistent, and he abandoned his examination in favor of simply eating.
The first bite was a revelation.
Warm bread. Tender meat, properly seasoned. The richness of the cheese, the unexpected softness of the egg, the crunch of whatever green leaves she'd called them.
It was, without exaggeration, one of the finest things he had ever tasted.
He ate with more control than he felt, forcing himself to chew, to pace himself, to not devour the entire thing in three bites like a starving animal.
She watched him for a moment, then turned away to give him privacy.
He was grateful for it.
When he'd finished -every crumb, every scrap, the paper sack reduced to a crumpled ball in his fist- he set it down carefully and cleared his throat.
She turned.
"Better?"
"Yes." His voice came out rough. "Thank you. That was..."
He didn't have words for what it was.
A sandwich, apparently.
"...generous of you," he finished.
She nodded, accepting it, and for a moment neither of them said anything.
The silence stretched, not quite comfortable but not hostile either. Finally, she crossed her arms over her chest in a way that was becoming familiar.
"So," she said. "What are we going to do with you, Mr. Barnes?"
He looked at her standing there in her scandalously short skirt and her impossible shoes.
Summary: Y/N has always had the uncanny ability to know where Bucky and Steve are. After Bucky and Steve are declared dead in WWII, Y/N’s power reveals they are still alive. With the help of Peggy Carter, she goes in search of the boys.
Y/N sat in the makeshift waiting room, leg bouncing anxiously. Steve sat next to her, watching her. “Relax Y/N,” Steve said. “He’ll be fine.”
“I know but,” she sighed. “I just can’t imagine the pain he was in. Is in. “
“Howard’ll take care of it,” Steve reassured.
“At this rate we’re gonna owe Howard a whole baseball team.”
Steve’s mouth twitched, wanting to laugh but not wanting to agitate her more. “Does Bucky know yet?”
“Not yet,” Y/N said. “It seemed like too much the day we rescued him. And then there was the ship celebration, the SSR celebration, the general celebrations-“
“Everyone’s just glad the war is over.”
“I know, but it seemed like a lot. Plus I figured he’d want this done before he found out.”
The door opened, Howard striding out proudly. Y/N and Steve stood up, anticipating. “It was more work than I thought,” Howard explained, “but I think I did a damn good job.”
“A great job,” Bucky said, walking into the room. He rolled his shoulder, revealing a new black and gold arm. “I still miss flesh and bone, but at least this is more subtle than that monstrosity.” He shuddered.
Howard nodded briefly before perking up, switching the subject. “You guys going to the party at Buckingham Palace tonight?”
“The what at where?” Steve asked, wide eyed.
“The war’s over party at the palace,” Howard restated nonchalantly.
“How the hell did you get that invite?”
“Well you see-“
“Thanks but no thanks,” Bucky interrupted, wrapping an arm around Y/N’s shoulders. “We need our rest.”
“We’re flying back to New York tomorrow,” Y/N clarified.
Howard shrugged, “Suit yourself.” He slung an arm around Steve, guiding him down the hallway against his will. Steve glanced back, mouthing help me.
“Come on Doll,” Bucky said, “We gotta pack.”
Everything in their suitcases, Bucky and Y/N stood in the bedroom of her London apartment, Y/N unwrapping Bucky’s wedding ring from the handkerchief she kept in her pocket. “I kept it safe, like you asked.”
“Good,” Bucky said, “I don’t know what I woulda done if I lost it.”
Y/N reached for his new hand, but Bucky pulled it away.
“Put it on my right,” Bucky instructed, placing his flesh hand in hers. “I want to be able to feel your love.”
“Okay.” Y/N slid the ring onto his right ring finger, recreating the scene from their wedding night. “Mr. Barnes,” she whispered as she removed her wedding ring, handing it off to Bucky.
Bucky placed it on her right hand. “Mrs. Barnes.” He leaned in for a kiss, but Y/N stopped him, pressing her palms flat on his chest and pushing away slightly.
“Bucky, there’s one more thing.”
Bucky’s brow arched in confusion. “What is it? You didn’t get hurt coming after me did you?”
Y/N shook her head. “No Bucky, this is a good thing I promise.” She smiled up at him, taking both of his hands and maneuvering them, placing them on her stomach, her hands resting on top of his.
Bucky gasped, understanding the gesture. “You mean?”
Y/N nodded. “Yes Bucky, I’m pregnant.”
Bucky’s mouth broke into a grin, his hands moving to her waist, holding her close. “Y/N I…..I….shit,” he chuckled, stammering with his words. “I don’t think I’ve ever been this happy in my life.”
******
She didn’t know what earned the bigger reaction, telling Bucky’s family they were married or telling them they were expecting. Needless to say, the Barnes’ were happy their dreams for Bucky and Y/N came true, doting on them. Y/N was about four months along, folding some baby clothes Rebecca had made to place in the nursery drawer when Bucky came up behind her.
“Bucky,” Y/N giggled as his kisses tickled against her neck. “Shouldn’t you be at work?”
“I took the rest of the day off,” Bucky said. “I’m allowed to do that as the bosses’ favorite.”
“Second favorite,” Y/N corrected. “You know Peggy outranks you on Steve’s list.”
“Technically she outranks us all. Peggy was made director of the SSR today.”
“Really? That’s amazing!”
“Mhmm,” Bucky hummed, placing another kiss on her skin, “but that’s not why I’m here.”
Y/N placed the onesie she was folding on top of the dresser. “Oh?”
Bucky moved, backing away and taking her hand. “Come with me.”
They found themselves outside of the familiar house, Howard and Jarvis leaning against a car up front. “What’s this?” Y/N asked.
“Your new home,” Howard said, handing Y/N a key. “For you and your growing family.”
Y/N turned the keys over in her hands. “Howard, you’ve done so much for us already, we can’t accept this.”
“It’s actually not a gift,” Howard clarified, tilting his head at Bucky.
Y/N turned, facing Bucky, a mischievous grin on his face. “Told you I’d buy us a house,” he said, referencing a promise he made to her when they were thirteen.
Y/N returned the smile, shaking her head fondly. “I distinctly remember you also saying you didn’t need a wife and kids?” She teased.
Bucky took her hands, guiding her closer to him as he leaned in. “I believe I said I didn’t need them because I have you.”
Y/N giggled, kissing her husband.
*******
Steve and Peggy swayed across the floor, looking radiant and in love. The wedding guests watched them in awe, except for Bucky, whose eyes were locked onto Y/N’s stomach. “You sure you’re okay?” He asked.
“Yes Bucky,” Y/N rolled her eyes. “You’ve asked me fifty times already.”
“Just making sure,” Bucky settled into his seat. “Doctor said any day now.”
“But not today,” she motioned with her head at the newlyweds. “Today is about them.”
Bucky finally turned his eyes to his best friend. “Steve’s happy,” he observed.
“Yeah, he deserves i-oh…..”
Bucky whirled his head around. “Oh?” He queried.
Y/N grabbed his arm, breath shaky. “Bucky, it’s time.”
Bucky went to rise but Y/N yanked him back down. “Not yet, wait till the song is ov-“
“What’s wrong?” Steve interrupted her, having saw Bucky’s unintentional swift movements in his peripheral.
“Nothing,” Y/N faked a smile.
“It’s happening,” Bucky said at the same time.
Peggy clapped her hands, taking control of the wedding as if it was a noisy war room. “Alright! Everyone clear a path. Move it! Steve! Get the car!”
“Are you kidding?” Bucky asked.
“It’s your wedding!” Y/N added.
“Are you kidding?” Steve replied.
“We wouldn’t miss this for the world!” Peggy exclaimed.
******
Bucky paced the waiting room, unable to sit still.
“Relax Buck,” Steve said.
“How can I?” Bucky snapped. “Y/N’s back there, all alone.”
“It’s tough,” Mr. Barnes interjected. “But it’s just how it’s done. I had to wait out here when you kids were born.”
“You don’t wanna be back there,” Howard chimed in. “My dad said when I was born, the doctor told him my mother was cursing up a storm. Said she never wanted to see his goddamned face ever again for doing this to her.”
Bucky stilled, thinking about the pain. His hands flew to his hair, fingers carding through wildly. “Oh my God, I did put her in this!”
Steve and Mr. Barnes facepalmed, whilst Peggy shot Howard a glare. “Thanks Howard for that wonderful commentary,” she said sarcastically.
“What if Y/N needs me?” Bucky asked. “What if somethings wrong? What if-“
“Mr. Barnes?”
Bucky straightened up, spinning on his heel and facing the nurse who stood in the doorway. “Yes?”
The nurse gave him a warm smile, side stepping so he could enter. “Right this way.”
Bucky tried hard to maintain his composure, following the nurse at a pace that was steady, not too quick to seem too worried but not to slow to appear disinterested. Finally she swung a door open, revealing Y/N lying in bed, worn out, but a loving expression on her face as medical staff hurried about.
Bucky forgot about appearances and rushed over to her, perching on the edge of the bed. “Hey,” he said, gently wiping the sweaty hair that stuck to her forehead away. “How are you doing?”
“Tired,” Y/N admitted smiling at him. “But so happy.” She glanced up, nodding at the nurse.
A nurse walked over with a bundle in her hands, “Congratulations Mr. Barnes, you have a daughter.” SHe lowered the bundle, revealing a tiny baby girl, swaddled on a blanket.
“A little girl,” Bucky said in disbelief. The nurse placed his daughter in his arms, adjusting his hands so held her correctly. Bucky gazed down at the baby, heart swelling. “Oh Doll,” he said, voice cracking with emotion. “She’s beautiful.”
“That’s not all,” Y/N said moving to take the baby from Bucky.
“What?” Bucky peered up, seeing another nurse with a bundle.
“Congratulations Mr. Barnes. You also have a son.” Another baby was placed in his arms, the nurses giggling at Bucky’s surprise.
“Twins?” Bucky asked, his eyes flashing between both his children.
“Mhmm,” Y/N hummed, staring at their children. “It was a surprise for me as well.”
“Little Buckies and Y/Ns,” Bucky said, recalling a conversation from their past. He turned his attention back to Y/N, admiring the woman who had been by his side his whole life. All this time Bucky thought Y/N was the finder, always finding him to save him from trouble. But the truth was, Bucky was a bit of a finder too; every time Y/N came for him, he found something too, his love for her.
