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to have and to hold office | part III

congressman!Bucky Barnes x widow!reader

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. 10.7k warnings. politics, everyone's bad at feelings, fake marriage setup, friends with questionable boundaries, bucky is quietly losing his mind, accidental truth serum dosing, sickfic elements, sam wilson, yelena is basically her sister, bucky is a first class yearner, he should teach classes at the yearning academy, a smidge of angst at the end because they're both idiots

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The problem with being fake married to Bucky Barnes was that he was very good at being fake married.

Actually, no. That wasn’t the problem. The problem was that he was good at being married. There was a difference, and you had begun to resent it.

It had been a little over a week since you moved into his townhouse, which was enough time for the house to stop feeling like his and start feeling like a crime scene you had tampered with. You had not hung curtains or rearranged his books alphabetically, though the temptation had been there. But things started appearing.

Your tea on the middle pantry shelf because he had cleared it without making a production of it. Your blue mug in the kitchen cabinet beside his plain white ones. Your hair ties in a little ceramic dish by the bathroom sink, where Bucky had started placing them when he found them on doorknobs, cabinet handles, his wrist once, though he had insisted that last one happened accidentally.

The townhouse itself had become an issue. You had expected to hate it on principle. You had expected the move to feel like a concession, an inconvenience, another piece of public staging in a week already full of too many soft smiles and controlled statements.

His house was infuriatingly nice. The locks were good. The windows were better. There was no upstairs neighbor who performed what sounded like tap dance exorcisms at midnight. You slept better there. That was the worst part.

You had told yourself it was because of the security, and that it had nothing to do with the fact that Bucky slept on the other side of the bed like a man trying to make himself less large, or that he always took the side closer to the door without mentioning it. When you woke from old dreams with your hand halfway under your pillow for a knife you had not slept with in years, he never asked.

You were thinking this while sitting on the bathroom counter, one of Bucky’s sweatshirts swallowing you to mid-thigh, your bare legs crossed at the ankles, a pen between your teeth, and a half-finished crossword folded over your knee.

Bucky stood at the sink shaving. Standard fake-married roommate behavior.

The bathroom smelled faintly of cedar soap, mint toothpaste, and the tea he had made you before coming upstairs. The mirror was beginning to fog at the edges from the shower he had taken earlier. Morning light came in through the frosted window, softening the lines of his face as he drew the razor carefully along his jaw.

You watched him for perhaps two seconds too long, then looked back down at the crossword because you had survival instincts.

“Seven letters,” you said around the pen. “Old-timey word for handsome.”

Bucky’s eyes flicked to you. “Why’re you askin’ me?”

“I’m consulting a primary source.”

He rinsed the razor. “Debonair.”

You removed the pen from your mouth and stared at him. “Of course you knew that.”

He looked unimpressed, going back to shaving. “You gonna write it in?”

“Don’t rush me. I’m deciding if I want to give you the satisfaction.”

His mouth twitched, which nearly ruined the clean line he was shaving beneath his cheekbone.

You pointed the pen at him. “Careful, honeybun. Wouldn’t want to have to clean up bloodshed in the bathroom before eight.”

“Honeybun?”

You nodded. “Yeah, m’trying out old school pet names. Trying to meet you where you’re at, and all that.”

Bucky snorted. “Yeah, alright, babydoll.”

You let it slide, writing in debonair into the little boxes with aggressive pen strokes.

He rinsed the razor again, then reached for the small towel beside the sink. He had placed your mug near your hip so you could reach it without leaning. You had not missed that. You had also not missed the way he did not ask you to get down from the counter even though you were taking up half the useful space and had moved his aftershave to make room for your crossword.

That was the worst thing about living with him. Not the bed or the sight of his ring on the sink while he shaved. The worst thing was how easily he made room. Not in a dramatic way, not with a speech. He just shifted until there was space where there had not been space before.

A shelf. A drawer. A towel hook. A place for your mug. The left side of the bed. The good sightline in the kitchen.

“Five letters,” you said, tapping the crossword. “Moral failing. Common in powerful men.”

“Pride.”

You glanced up, a cheeky smile playing on your lips. “Speaking from personal experience?”

Bucky gave you a look. “Observation.”

“I gotta tell Sam that one,” you said, writing in the letters. “He’ll think it’s funny.”

“You tell Sam anything before coffee, he’ll hang up.”

“Incorrect. Sam loves gossip. He pretends he’s above gossip because he has a shield now, but in reality? He’s a porch auntie.”

Bucky huffed. “A porch auntie?”

You nodded. “Yeah, he likes to sit, observe, and judge. Offer his opinions. Sometimes he offers snacks.”

“He’s downstairs.”

You froze, the pen stopped over the crossword. You looked at him.

“What?”

Bucky wiped his face with the towel, far too calm for a man who had just mentioned an intruder.

“Sam’s downstairs.”

“Since when?”

“About twenty minutes.”

You stared harder. “Samuel Wilson has been in this house for twenty minutes?”

“He knocked.”

“I didn’t hear him.”

“You were arguing with the crossword. He came over to go over scheduling for the donor reception next week.”

“And?”

Bucky glanced at you in the mirror. There was a tiny pause that meant he was choosing which parts of the answer to give you.

“And the bill,” he said.

You waited.

He reached for his aftershave, but you reached it first, moving it behind your back. He stared at you. You stared back.

“Give it.”

“No.”

“It’s mine.”

“Then answer me.”

He sighed through his nose. “Security, scheduling, and the bill. That’s it.”

“Which part of the bill?”

“The current part.”

“The current part,” you repeated. “Excellent. Specific. Very transparent.”

He groaned your name. “It’s early.”

“I’m awake.”

“You’re sittin’ on a bathroom counter in my sweatshirt interrogating me over aftershave.”

You lifted your chin. “And?”

His eyes moved over you, enough that something warm slipped beneath your ribs before you could kill it. He looked away first.

You tossed him the aftershave. He caught it without looking.

Show-off.

“I don’t like not knowing things,” you said.

“I know.”

“I especially don’t like not knowing things while wearing a wedding ring connected to a congressional office, an enhanced-persons bill, and your unresolved martyr complex.”

“My martyr complex is resolved.”

“It is not.”

Bucky smiled faintly, rubbing aftershave along his jaw. “Sam’s waiting downstairs with coffee.”

“Why didn’t you lead with that?”

“You were busy with your crossword.”

You slid off the counter, landing lightly on the tile. Bucky’s hand moved instinctively toward your waist before he caught himself and dropped it.

You pretended not to notice.

The sweatshirt hem shifted high on your thighs, and his eyes went to the wall with the discipline of a man in church. You brushed past him through the bathroom door, close enough for your shoulder to skim his arm.

This was absurd. You were a former Widow, you had done worse things than share a bathroom with a handsome man. You had survived handlers, extraction orders, kill rooms, and fake identities. You would not be undone by Bucky Barnes shaving.

Probably.

Downstairs, the townhouse smelled like coffee and toast, which meant Sam had made himself at home. That was not surprising. He sat at the kitchen island in a dark jacket, your blue mug’s less charming cousin set beside him.

He looked up when you entered, then looked at Bucky behind you. Then looked at the sweatshirt. Then at your bare legs. Then back at Bucky.

His eyebrows climbed.

“Good morning,” Sam said.

“No,” you said, pointing at him.

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You said it with your face.”

Sam took a slow sip of coffee. “Y’all look domestic.”

Bucky came into the kitchen behind you and went straight to the coffee machine. “Don’t start.”

“Oh, I’m starting.” Sam leaned back in his chair. “I’ve been downstairs twenty minutes listening to the two of you argue over a crossword clue like a retired couple.”

You set your crossword on the counter. “We are not retired.”

“No, just married.”

“Fake married.”

Sam lifted one finger. “Not legally. And from the sound of that bathroom, not in spirit.”

Bucky set your mug down in front of you.

You looked down. Not coffee, tea. He had brought your mug down from upstairs and refilled it without making a show of it.

Bucky leaned against the counter beside you, coffee in hand. “You said you were here for security.”

You took a long sip of tea and let the warmth settle you. The house was bright in the morning, sunlight catching the edge of the counter and the ring on your hand. Bucky’s kitchen had improved under your supervision. There were snacks now. A bowl of fruit, because Bucky had claimed he liked fruit. Crackers that did not taste like field rations. Jam, honey, and three kinds of tea.

“Security,” you said. “Talk.”

Sam’s expression sobered, though the humor stayed at the edges. “Donor reception next week. Private house. Half the people in the room got money, the other half want it. Bellamy’s people may be sniffing around.”

Bucky opened his mouth to respond but a sound interrupted him.

A soft click from the front door. Not a knock, a click. Your hand was under the island before conscious thought finished forming. There was no knife taped there. Of course there was no knife taped there. This was Bucky’s townhouse, not your apartment. You had considered taping one there two days ago and decided it would be too much too soon.

A mistake.

Bucky moved before you did, stepping quietly away from the counter. Sam’s posture changed in the same breath, easy warmth gone, shoulders loose but ready.

The door opened, and a blonde walked into the townhouse carrying a paper bag and wearing sunglasses.

You stared.

She stared back.

Sam slowly lowered his mug.

Bucky stopped in the hall.

Yelena pushed her sunglasses up onto her head and looked around the entryway, taking in the coat over the chair, your shoes by the table, the fact that you were standing barefoot in Bucky’s kitchen wearing his sweatshirt, and the incriminating diamond on your left hand.

Her mouth flattened.

“Wow,” she said. “Very nice. Domestic. Disgusting.”

You closed your eyes for one second.

“Yelena.”

“No.” She pointed at you with the paper bag. “Do not ‘Yelena’ me.”

Bucky looked at you.

You looked at Bucky.

Yelena had always had a talent for entering rooms like a thrown knife. She had been that way since the Red Room fell and the Widows scattered into a world they had not been raised to understand. Natasha had given so many of you freedom, and Yelena had taken that freedom like a personal assignment: find the ones still lost, drag them out, feed them if necessary, and call them family.

You had not been much younger than her. Enough that after Dreykov was dead and the chemical control was gone, Yelena had looked at you like someone had handed her a baby bird with a knife in its beak.

She had called you annoying, reckless, underfed, and badly socialized. But when you had woken from nightmares in safe apartments during those early months, she had been there.

Yelena set the paper bag on the entry table and walked into the kitchen.

“I had to learn from internet,” she said.

You winced. “I know.”

“From Tweeter. Not even good Tweeter. Political Tweeter. Everyone there is ugly inside.”

Sam nodded. “That is true.”

Yelena shot him a look. “Don’t agree with me yet. I am still deciding if I dislike you.”

Bucky cleared his throat. “Yelena—”

“You marry my sister and do not call me?”

Yelena’s eyes moved over Bucky, assessing him.

You spoke before he could take the blame too easily. “It happened fast.”

Yelena looked at you. “So does gunfire. I still expect update.”

“That’s not comparable.”

“It is very comparable. Both are dangerous and there are usually men involved.”

“She’s got a point,” Bucky said.

You turned to him. “Et tu, Robo-Brutus?”

Bucky frowned. “Robo-brutus?”

You lost the fight with your mouth and smiled.

Yelena saw it. Her face did something. Not softened, Yelena did not soften in obvious ways. But her anger shifted, narrowed, became less theatrical and more hurt.

“You are smiling,” she said.

You stopped.

“No, I’m not.”

“Yes, you are smiling in kitchen of secret husband.”

Yelena stepped closer, and for one second, underneath the sunglasses and the sarcasm and the controlled violence of her presence, you saw the woman who had found you after the Red Room and decided, without asking you, that you belonged with her now.

“You did not tell me,” she said.

You looked down at your mug. “I know.”

“You tell Captain America.” She nodded at Sam and sighed. “I am not angry you married sad congressman.”

“Great,” Bucky muttered.

“I am angry because you do stupid life thing and I am not there.”

Your throat tightened. A normal person might have apologized properly. You were not normal people.

“There was no cake,” you said.

Yelena blinked.

You continued. “It was a chapel. There was a package called Jazz It Up. You would’ve hated it.”

“Yes, probably.”

“And the rings were terrible.”

“I saw photo. Very terrible.”

“Vending-machine adjacent.”

“Disrespectful to vending machine.”

You nodded. “Exactly.”

The corner of Yelena’s mouth twitched.

Victory.

Small, but real.

Bucky moved toward the toaster.

“You want breakfast?” he asked.

Yelena turned to him with suspicion.

“What kind?”

“Toast. Eggs.”

“Do not use food to make me less angry.”

“I wasn’t.”

“He was,” you said. “He’s from the forties. If a woman is mad in his kitchen, he tries to feed her.”

Bucky looked over his shoulder. “That’s not—”

Sam cut in. “It’s exactly what you do.”

Yelena considered this, then removed her sunglasses completely and set them on the counter.

“This is manipulative,” she said, “but effective.”

Bucky nodded once. “Eggs?”

“Yes, but I remain betrayed.”

“Understood.”

“And I want toast.”

“Okay.”

“With butter.”

“Got it.”

“And something sweet.”

Bucky looked at you.

You shrugged. “You married into this.”

He gave you a look.

Yelena opened the paper bag she had brought and pulled out a pastry box.

“I brought cake,” she announced.

Sam looked at it. “You brought your own cake to confront them?”

“Yes.”

“Respect.”

You leaned against the counter, watching Bucky take eggs from the fridge like this was a normal morning. Like one of the deadliest women you knew had not broken into his townhouse. Like Sam was not sitting at the island with the expression of a man watching premium cable.

Yelena slid onto a stool and opened the pastry box. “So. Tell me everything.”

Tonight’s event was at a private house in Kalorama. Some kind of reception for the Enhanced Persons Protections Act, though half the guest list looked like people who wanted to support the bill and the other half looked like people who wanted to learn exactly how much it threatened them.

You had spent the morning reviewing names, spouses, companies, private interests, known grudges, possible Valentina connections, and one man whose entire file was just the word “weasel” underlined twice.

Bucky had asked if that was an official classification.

“It is in my office,” you had said.

Now you were standing in the kitchen, trying to put your earring in while glaring at your phone.

“Bellamy is sending Eleanor,” you said.

Bucky looked up from the tea kettle. “His wife?”

“His wife, his fundraiser, his most effective weapon, yes.”

“You like her?”

“She once ruined a councilman’s career over brunch without putting down her mimosa. Of course I like her. I’m not made out of stone.”

“Tea?” Bucky asked, reaching for your mug in the cabinet.

“Yes, please. Something with mint if we have it.”

He nodded and opened the pantry.

There were actual snacks. Crackers, cookies, a small tin of cocoa. A tiny glass bottle with a handwritten label that said peppermint extract.

Bucky picked it up. The handwriting was yours. The bottle was small, dark amber glass with a little dropper cap. It looked like something from a health store or one of the strange specialty markets you and Yelena liked.

He unscrewed the top and sniffed.

Peppermint.

Sharp, clean. Normal enough. He added a few drops to your tea. Maybe four. Possibly five.

You were still glaring at your phone.

“Do not say anything kind to Senator Vale tonight,” you said.

Bucky stirred the tea. “Wasn’t planning on it.”

“You sometimes default to polite when startled.”

Bucky handed you the mug. You took it, still distracted, and drank. Bucky watched your face for a second. No reaction. You lowered the mug and finally looked at him.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“The tea is fine.”

“Fine?”

“Don’t get needy.”

He huffed and turned toward the stairs. “Need your dress zipped?”

You turned without comment, presenting him with the open back of your dress.

This was still the part of fake marriage he had not gotten used to. The ordinary things. The things that had no business feeling like trespassing. A zipper. A mug. You standing in his kitchen asking him to close a dress he was not allowed to think too hard about.

Your skin was warm beneath his knuckles. He looked at the wall over your shoulder and pulled the zipper up slowly. The dress closed along your back, dark fabric settling into place like armor.

“There,” he said.

You looked back at him. “No lecture about how I should wear a coat?”

“I was saving it for the car.”

“How gallant of you, soldier boy.”

“‘S cold out.”

“It’s fifty-two degrees.”

“Still cold.”

“You were frozen for seventy years.”

“Yeah, and I didn’t like it.”

That got you to laugh. A quick one. Real. Gone too fast.

Then you stepped away, grabbed your other earring, and finished getting ready while narrating an assassination of Bellamy’s entire family tree that you claimed was “rhetorical and therefore legal.”

The car came to pick the both of you up shortly after. You spent most of the car ride quizzing Bucky on the guests that would be attending the event, and to your surprise, Bucky had done his homework.

By the time you arrived, the reception was already loud. The kind of low, polished noise that came from old floors, expensive shoes, crystal glasses, and people laughing in a way that suggested no joke had actually been told. The house was all tall windows and oil portraits and floral arrangements large enough to hide surveillance equipment in.

Bucky placed a hand at your back as the host approached. You leaned into the touch by half an inch, just enough to sell the picture. Maybe less than half. Maybe he imagined it.

“Representative Barnes,” the host said, smiling too widely. “And Mrs. Barnes. We’re so pleased you could make it.”

Bucky felt you stiffen at Mrs. Barnes, but your smile did not move.

You moved through the first half hour easily. Better than easily. You were good at this. Better than he was, though you would never frame it that way unless you were trying to annoy him. Bucky could stand and look sincere. He could talk about the bill. He could shake hands, remember names, and answer questions.

You could make people comfortable enough to reveal themselves. You smiled at a donor’s wife and had her talking within three minutes about who was nervous about the bill. You complimented Eleanor Bellamy’s earrings and got a quiet list of who had arrived together and who was pretending they hadn’t. You spoke French to a Belgian attaché just long enough to make him nervous, then Russian to a private security consultant who nearly dropped his drink.

Bucky watched it all with a mix of respect and unease. Marriage had changed the way people saw you. That had become obvious fast.

As his chief of staff, people braced themselves when you walked into a room. They watched their words. They knew you had teeth.

As his wife, they underestimated you differently. Some still knew better. Women mostly, the smart ones. But men with expensive watches kept making the same mistake. They treated you like an accessory. Like you were there to soften him, decorate the room, translate his silence into charm.

You returned to his side after speaking with Eleanor Bellamy, your smile still in place, your hand sliding into the crook of his elbow with a practiced ease that made several people nearby look on fondly.

“What’d you find?” he asked under his breath.

“Eleanor thinks Harrington’s group is nervous.”

“About the bill?”

“About the subpoenas.”

Your finger tightened briefly against his sleeve, then Mr. Harrington himself approached.

He shook Bucky’s hand too firmly, then turned to you.

“Mrs. Barnes,” Harrington said. “I imagine married life has softened the congressman.”

Bucky felt you shift beside him.

“No,” you said. “He was already soft where it matters.”

Bucky went still. Harrington blinked. You blinked too. Then you looked at Bucky with alarm.

Harrington laughed uncertainly. “Well. That’s one way to put it.”

“He makes married life easy,” you admitted. “I couldn’t imagine being married to anyone else.”

Bucky looked at you.

You looked back, eyes wide for half a second.

Something was wrong.

You apologized to Mr. Harrington, saying you suddenly felt unwell, and Bucky pulled you quietly to the side of the room.

“Are you alright? You seem off,” he asked softly once you were a few steps away.

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?”

“It was like I had an inside thought and it became an outside thought.”

“That happens to you.”

“Not like this.”

Before he could respond, a woman from the veterans’ coalition intercepted the both of you, smiling warmly.

“You two are so lovely together,” she said. “Is it difficult, working with your husband?”

You opened your mouth. Then shut it.

Bucky watched you physically fight your own face.

“Yes,” you said.

Bucky’s eyebrows lifted.

You continued, visibly horrified by yourself. “He is stubborn, exhausting, overprotective, and much more attractive than is necessary in a workplace setting.”

The woman’s smile widened.

“Oh,” she said, delighted. “That’s very sweet.”

You excused the both of you again, your eyebrows furrowing in concern.

“Bucky, something’s wrong,” you muttered, a wave of nausea rolling over you.

Bucky held your elbow to steady you. “Are you alright?”

Before you could answer, Sam turned the corner and took in the sight in front of him.

“What’s going on here?” He asked, looking between them.

You shook your head. “I suddenly feel sick. Don’t ask me questions.”

Sam’s eyebrows rose. Bucky’s attention sharpened.

“Why not?” Sam asked.

You pressed your lips together. Your eyes went slightly unfocused, like someone holding a door shut from the other side.

“Because,” you said, “I’m having trouble not answering them.”

Sam’s face changed. Delight. Then suspicion. Then delight again.

Bucky stepped between you by half an inch. “Sam. Don’t.”

Sam looked at you. “You okay?”

You made a small, strangled sound. “No.”

Bucky’s chest tightened. The answer came clearly. You never admitted you weren’t okay that quickly.

He lowered his voice. “What’s happening?”

You looked at him. Your pupils were not blown, exactly, but your eyes were brighter than they should have been. Your breathing was controlled, but too controlled. Your hand had gone tight around his arm.

“I don’t know,” you said, your face twisting with irritation.

Bucky turned to you fully now, blocking more of the room from seeing. “Did you eat anything strange?”

You shook your head.

“Drink?”

“Just your tea.”

“My tea?”

“The tea you made me while we were getting ready.” You said. “Did you put anything in it?”

Bucky stared at you. “Peppermint extract.”

Your face went perfectly blank. Bucky had seen that look before. Not often. Not in safe rooms. It was the expression you wore when your body got to the answer before the rest of you wanted to.

“What bottle?”

“Small. Amber glass. Handwritten label.”

Your eyes closed.

“That wasn’t peppermint extract,” you said.

Bucky went cold. “What was it?”

You looked past him toward the crowd, then back at him. Your voice was dangerously calm when you spoke again.

“Truth serum.”

The room seemed to narrow around him. Sam made a sound that was probably not helpful. Bucky did not look away from you.

“Why would you label your truth serum as peppermint extract?!”

Your skin was too warm. Your mouth tasted like mint and metal. The lights in the donor’s foyer had grown hard around the edges, each chandelier throwing bright little blades into your eyes. Every laugh from the reception behind you arrived too loudly, too close, too full of teeth. You could feel your pulse in your throat, in your wrists, under the ring on your finger.

Worst of all, beneath the nausea and the chemical heat, there was the constant pressure of honesty building behind your teeth.

Not truth, but compulsion. Truth was a choice, and this was not that. This was old Widow chemistry crawling through your veins, dragging answers out like wire through skin.

Bucky put himself between you and the rest of the reception without seeming to. His hand settled at your back, light enough to pass as husbandly concern, firm enough that you knew he was ready to catch you if your knees gave out.

“You’re sweating,” he said under his breath.

“Thanks, Captain Obvious.”

Bucky’s hand shifted. “Okay. We’re leavin’.”

“We are not leaving.”

“We are.”

“We are at a donor reception for your bill.”

“You’re sick.”

“I have been sick at much more important events.”

Sam, from your left, muttered, “That is not the defense you think it is.”

You wanted to tell him to shut up. You also wanted to ask if the wallpaper was moving or if it was just your nervous system trying to flee your body.

“Get the car, Sam,” Bucky instructed.

Sam pointed toward the front doors. “I’ll pull the car around.”

“Good.”

“I’m helping.”

“You’re grinning.”

You tried to laugh, but the motion made your stomach lurch. Bucky’s hand moved instantly, his palm spreading across the center of your back as you bent slightly at the waist and breathed through your nose.

The reception continued around you, softened by distance and your own rising fever. Voices blurred. Someone laughed. A glass clinked.

You pressed a hand to your stomach and let Bucky guide you toward the hallway. The movement was too smooth to look urgent, too intimate to draw alarm. To anyone watching, Congressman Barnes was simply taking his wife outside for air. His hand at your back. His body angled close. A good husband.

A fake husband who had accidentally drugged your tea and now looked like he wanted to throw himself into traffic about it.

You wanted to make fun of him for that. You wanted to tell him that guilt was unattractive, except it wasn’t—not on him. It was terrible. It was familiar. It was also one of the reasons you had trusted him, because Bucky Barnes was one of the few men you knew who was actually afraid of what he was capable of.

The thought tried to come out your mouth. You clamped your lips shut. Your stomach rebelled immediately.

Bucky felt it. “Don’t fight it.”

You glared at him. “Easy for you to say. You’re not currently one stray question away from announcing state secrets to Kalorama.”

“I’m sorry, sweetheart,” he said, voice laced with guilt.

“Yes,” you said, because the serum grabbed the answer before you had the chance to soften it. “You should be.”

Bucky stiffened beside you.

Damn it.

You stopped walking, which made the nausea worse, but the look on his face was worse than that. You put a hand on his wrist, fingers tightening around the cuff of his jacket.

“Not like that,” you said.

His eyes found yours.

The hallway had arrowed around him. Around his face, his mouth, the crease between his brows. The worried set of his shoulders. You could hear the party behind you, but it felt like it belonged to another building.

“I mean you should be sorry in the way people are sorry when they step on someone’s foot,” you mutter. “Not in the way you get when you decide you’re personally responsible for every bad thing that has happened since 1943.”

He blinked.

“Sorry, too honest.” You swallowed hard.

His hand turned under yours until he was holding your fingers. “Still true?”

“Unfortunately.”

His thumb moved once over your knuckles.

“C’mere,” he said, pulling you closer to his body so he could support you better. “Car’s here.”

Sam had pulled the SUV directly to the curb and was standing beside the open back door with the posture of a man who had decided he was both chauffeur and audience.

“Your getaway car awaits,” he said.

You pointed at him as Bucky helped you down the front steps. “Sam, stop enjoying this.”

The cold air outside should have helped. It did not. It hit your overheated skin and made you shiver so hard Bucky’s hand tightened at your waist.

You hated needing support. You also hated that he was good at giving it.

He helped you into the backseat with an amount of care that would have been insulting if you had not been trying very hard not to throw up on his shoes. You slid across the leather seat, intending to sit upright with dignity, but the SUV moved half an inch as Sam climbed into the driver’s seat and your stomach dropped through the floor.

Bucky climbed in before you, taking his jacket off and placing it under your shoulder before you could complain. His metal hand braced against the seat while his right hand guided you down with careful pressure at your upper back.

“Lie down.”

“Bossy.”

“Yeah.”

“I am your chief of staff.”

“You’re my wife.”

“Fake wife.”

“Sick wife.”

The argument unfortunately held traction.

You lay down across the backseat, your head ending up in his lap because the universe had apparently decided humiliation should arrive in layers. Bucky went very still beneath you.

For one suspended second, the truth serum, the nausea, the evening, the donor reception, all of it thinned into one clear fact: your cheek was against his thigh, his hand hovering near your shoulder, and you could feel the warmth of him through the fabric of his trousers.

The SUV pulled away from the curb and your stomach lurched again. You groaned and pressed the back of your hand against your mouth. Bucky’s hand came down immediately, broad and warm against your hair.

“Breathe,” he said.

“I am breathing.”

“Through your nose.”

“I know how breathing works.”

“Coulda fooled me.”

“You’re becoming quite bold for a man who poisoned his wife.”

Sam made a sound from the front seat.

Bucky closed his eyes.

“I deserved that one,” he said.

“You deserve several. I’m spacing them out.”

Bucky snorted. “Appreciate it.”

Sam adjusted the rearview mirror, which you noticed because even poisoned and nauseous, you were trained to notice people adjusting mirrors.

He was looking directly at you, not even pretending he wasn’t.

“Wilson,” Bucky said.

“What?”

“Drive.”

“I am driving.”

“Then look at the road.”

“The road is still there.”

“Sam.”

“Fine.”

He looked forward for approximately four seconds.

“So,” Sam said. “Truth serum.”

“Shut up, Wilson,” you grumbled.

He did not.

“I’m just clarifying the situation.”

Bucky’s fingers moved through your hair once, almost absent. Maybe he did it to comfort you. Maybe he did it without thinking. Either way, your whole body noticed, which was extremely inconvenient given that your body was already filing numerous complaints.

“How long does it last?” Sam said.

“Depends on dose, metabolism, training, whether the serum was stabilized properly, and whether your fake husband has a heavy hand.”

Bucky looked down at you. “I put in five drops.”

You lifted your head just enough to glare at him. Five drops.

Bucky’s face changed.

“What?”

“Five?”

“You said you liked mint.”

Sam started laughing.

You dropped your head back into Bucky’s lap and closed your eyes again. “I hate both of you.”

“No, you don’t,” Sam said.

Your mouth opened and your stomach seized. You sat up halfway so fast Bucky had to catch you by the shoulders.

“No,” you said, voice tight. “I don’t.”

Bucky leaned forward with you, one arm around your back now, steady and immediate. “Don’t answer.”

“I know that.”

“Then don’t.”

“I’m trying.”

Sam’s laughter died. “Wait, it makes you sick if you don’t answer.”

You swallowed hard, eyes shut, willing the wave down. “Yeah, bird brain. If I fight too hard. Or try to lie. Yes.”

Bucky’s arm tightened around you.

Sam went quiet for a moment.

Then in a much more careful voice: “Okay, that part’s not funny.”

“No,” you said. “But I’ll recover.”

Bucky exhaled through his nose. “Lie back.”

You did, partly because the nausea was fading to a simmer and partly because his hand at the back of your head made it easier to let go. He arranged you with the same maddening care as before, jacket under your shoulder, your head in his lap, his palm resting lightly against your temple as if he could measure your temperature through sheer concern.

Maybe he could. Maybe it was a feature that came with your super soldier.

Not your super soldier.

The SUV weaved through D.C. traffic, the city lights breaking across the windows in long white and red lines. The backseat smelled like leather, Bucky’s aftershave, and the faint medicinal sharpness of your own poisoned breath. Up front, Sam drove with one hand on the wheel, posture loose, but you could tell he was listening to every breath you took.

He was having too much fun, yes, but he was also worried.

“Alright,” he said after a while, too casually. “Safe questions only.”

“No such thing.”

“Sure there is. Widow stuff.”

Bucky’s head snapped up. “That is not safe.”

Sam ignored him. “Could you really kill a man with a paperclip?"

You opened one eye. “What kind of paperclip?”

Sam’s grin returned in the mirror. “Standard office.”

“Yes.”

Bucky looked down at you. “Really?”

“Not quickly.”

Sam nodded in approval. “See? Educational.”

“Stop asking about murder,” Bucky said, his thumb brushing your temple.

You tried not to enjoy the touch.

You failed.

Sam kept going, because mercy was not one of his spiritual gifts.

“Could you beat Bucky in a fight?”

“Yes.”

Bucky raised an eyebrow.

You did not open your eyes.

“That was fast,” Sam said.

“It was true.”

Bucky’s voice lowered, amused despite himself. “You think you could beat me?”

“I know I could beat you.”

“Super soldier.”

“Predictable.”

His eyebrows lifted. “Predictable?”

“You fight like a man who is used to being stronger than everyone else.”

Bucky’s hand stilled in your hair. You opened your eyes and looked up at him. His face hovered above yours, upside down from your angle, dark hair falling slightly forward, expression caught between offense and interest.

“You rely on force when irritated,” you said. “Your left side is overprotected because of the arm. You assume people will avoid it. I wouldn’t. Also, you hesitate when you think you might hurt me.”

The SUV went quiet. Bucky’s throat moved.

You blinked up at Bucky, realizing what you had said.

Then you added, because you could not help yourself, “I would also cheat.”

Sam laughed so hard the car drifted half an inch before he corrected it.

“Road,” Bucky said, looking forward.

“I got it,” Sam said, still laughing. “I got it.”

You let your eyes close again, heat creeping across your face. You were not sure if it was the serum, the fever, or the fact that Bucky had gone silent beneath you.

His hand resumed its slow, absent motion over your hair after a moment.

You wanted to bite him.

Possibly affectionately. You were not going to examine that.

Sam cleared his throat. “Okay. Next question. What happened to my Valentine’s Day donut?”

Bucky’s brows drew together. “What?”

“Last year,” Sam said, “I brought a dozen donuts to Buck’s office. Special ones from that place in Alexandria. I put a note on the box that said, ‘Do not eat the pink one, Sam is saving it.’ I came back from a call and the pink one was gone.”

You kept your eyes closed.

Sam said your name again.

You said nothing.

Your stomach turned sharply.

Bucky’s hand pressed lightly to your shoulder. “Hey.”

“I ate it,” you said, and immediately felt better.

Sam gasped.

Bucky looked down at you with something like amusement.

“You lied to me,” Sam said.

“I said Bucky looked suspicious.”

“Bucky always looks suspicious. That was low-hanging fruit.”

“Hey,” Bucky interjected.

“I knew it,” Sam grumbled. “You said you didn’t even like strawberry frosting.”

“I don’t.”

Both men waited.

You sighed. “It had jam inside.”

“It had a note.”

Bucky actually laughed then, enough that you felt it in the muscles beneath your cheek. A warm low vibration. You hated how much you liked it.

“Alright,” Sam said, shifting gears. “Serious question.”

“No,” Bucky said immediately.

“You don’t even know what it is.”

“I know your tone.”

Sam ignored him. “How many aliases have you had?”

You considered not answering.

The nausea warned you.

“Thirteen active. More if you count burn names and one very short-lived Belgian art dealer identity.”

Sam’s mouth opened.

Bucky went still again.

You felt his silence before you saw it.

He knew things about your past. More than most. Less than all. He had read the sanitized files, heard the stories you offered like jokes, pieced together the rest from old mission reports and the way you woke up when someone spoke Russian too softly behind you.

But numbers were different.

Thirteen lives. Thirteen names. Thirteen versions of you created to enter rooms, ruin men, disappear afterward.

Bucky’s hand settled against your cheek, not forcing you to look at him. Just there. You did not open your eyes.

Sam’s voice was quieter when he asked, “Did you like any of them?”

“One.”

The answer hurt on the way up.

Bucky’s hand stilled.

You opened your eyes and looked toward the dark window, where city lights blurred against your reflection.

“She had a dog,” you said. “I mean, a fake dog, but—”

“Still counts,” Bucky said softly.

You stared up at him, mesmerized by the way you could still make out the blue in his eyes in the dark of the car. Mesmerized by the way he handled you so gently when you knew you didn’t deserve it. Didn’t deserve him. You fought the urge to tell him how gorgeous he was, how much you enjoyed the feeling of his hands in your hair, how you’d like his hands to be—

Your stomach turned so violently you lurched upright again, hand over your mouth.

Bucky moved with you, arm around your shoulders, his other hand already reaching for the little paper bag Sam had shoved into the seat pocket from some takeout place. He got it open in front of you before you could ask.

You did not throw up. Barely.

But your body shook with the effort, and Bucky held you through it, one hand firm between your shoulder blades, his voice quiet near your ear.

“Breathe. That’s it. Don’t fight it so hard.”

“I’m not—”

You stopped.

Bucky’s fingers pressed lightly against your back.

“You are,” he said.

You hated that he knew. That he was right. You breathed slowly and the nausea loosened.

Sam had gone quiet in the front seat, his joking temporarily stripped down to concern. He drove more carefully now. Fewer sharp stops. Slower turns. He was not careless, not ever, when it mattered.

You sank back down, exhausted now, your head finding Bucky’s lap again like it had been assigned there.

“Done with serious questions,” Bucky told Sam.

Sam nodded once. “Yeah.”

For about a minute, the car was quiet.

Then:

“Can I ask a stupid one?”

Bucky sighed. “Sam.”

“She likes stupid ones.”

“I do,” you admitted.

Sam brightened. “See?”

Bucky looked down at you. You looked up at him.

His expression was soft with worry, but there was a question there too. Permission.

You nodded once.

Bucky looked forward. “One.”

Sam grinned. “Worst date you’ve ever been on?”

Bucky’s entire body went still. “You don’t have to answer.”

You smiled despite the nausea. “I do, actually, if I don’t want to redecorate your lap.”

His mouth shut, a faint red touching his ears.

“The worst operational date was with a French arms broker who cried after sex and asked if I thought his mother loved him.”

Sam made a strangled sound. Bucky looked like he had been hit.

You continued. “The worst real date was with an assistant U.S. attorney who said he liked strong women, but got genuinely scared when I was giving orders in the bedroom later.”

Sam laughed again, quieter this time.

Bucky’s hand had stopped moving through your hair.

You glanced up, his jaw was tight. That was very interesting.

“Barnes?” you said softly.

“I’m fine.” He grunted.

“You’re lying. I can tell because I currently cannot.”

“This is incredible,” Sam whispered.

Bucky looked toward the front seat. “Ask your last question.”

“I already asked my last one.”

“Then be quiet.”

“But now I have a better one.”

“No.”

“It’s not for you.”

“No.”

Sam looked at you in the mirror, the grin returning with terrible caution. “Do you think Buck is handsome?”

Bucky’s hand tightened in your hair. You couldn’t stop yourself from thinking about how you’d like to feel his hands in your hair in a different circumstance.

Your body reacted before your mind could build a wall around it. Heat climbed your neck. Your mouth opened, then shut. Your stomach turned hard.

“No,” Bucky said.

You pressed your lips together. The nausea surged. Bucky felt your body go rigid. He looked down at you, alarm replacing everything else.

“Hey. Don’t answer. Sam, stop.”

Sam lifted a hand from the wheel. “Okay. I’m done.”

But the question was already in the car.

Do you think Buck is handsome?

Stupid question.

Easy question.

You could have said yes. You had said worse tonight. But this felt different with your head in his lap, with his jacket under your shoulder, with his fingers in your hair and his whole body bent around the effort not to take what the serum was trying to hand him.

The answer sat behind your teeth. The refusal sat in your stomach like a blade.

You turned your face into Bucky’s thigh and groaned.

Bucky’s hand slid to the back of your neck, warm and steady. “I’m sorry ‘bout him, sweetheart. Just breathe for me.”

“I hate him,” you said.

“I know.”

Sam said, much quieter, “I’m sorry.”

“No,” you opened one eye toward the front seat. “No, you’re not.”

“I am a little.”

“You’re sorry because Bucky is going to murder you.”

Sam considered this. “That was a factor.”

The serum dragged at the answer, punishing the locked door because it could not get through. Bucky’s thumb moved slowly against your neck, grounding and patient. The kind of touch that made you want to tell the truth for reasons that had nothing to do with chemicals.

“Objectively,” you said finally, voice muffled against his leg, “yes.”

Bucky stopped breathing.

You kept your eyes shut. “He is very handsome in a very annoying way. It’s irritating.”

No one spoke.

The nausea eased at once, which was humiliating.

You continued, because apparently the door that had been open couldn’t be shut.

“And his shoulders are a problem. His hair is usually a problem. The eyes are…” You stopped. Tried to stop. Failed. “The eyes are worse.”

Bucky was very still beneath you.

You opened your eyes and looked up.

Bucky’s face was turned slightly away, but you could see the red at the tips of his ears. The tightness in his jaw had changed into something else. Something shy, almost. Embarrassed and pleased and guilty for being pleased.

That made your chest hurt.

“Also, he dresses like a widowed history professor.”

Sam barked out a laugh.

Bucky looked down at you, and the expression on his face finally cracked.

A smile. Small, helpless, warm.

“You done?” he asked.

“I hope so.”

“Feel better?”

“Physically, yes.”

Sam shook his head. “For what it’s worth, I thought that was beautiful.”

“Wilson, drive into the river.”

“See? She’s fine.”

Bucky gave him a look.

You closed your eyes again, drained from nausea, embarrassment, and the emotional labor of not confessing anything more catastrophic.

His hand resumed its movement through your hair, slower now.

“You okay?” he asked softly.

You wanted to say obviously. The lie rose. Your stomach warned you. So you told the truth.

“No.”

His hand stilled.

Then, gently, “Okay.”

You opened your eyes and looked up at him.

His face was still flushed, still worried, still guilty. His ring caught the passing streetlights where his hand rested near your cheek. His fake wedding ring. Your fake husband.

“You’re very guilty,” you said.

“Yeah.”

“It was an accident.”

“Still happened.”

“You are not allowed to self-flagellate in the back of an SUV.”

“That a rule?”

“Is now.”

His mouth curved faintly. “Okay.”

“And if you apologize again, I’ll say something graphic about your arms just to make you uncomfortable.”

Sam made a noise. “Please don’t threaten him with a good time while I’m driving.”

Bucky shut his eyes.

You smiled weakly.

The SUV turned onto Bucky’s street.

Home, you thought, and immediately wished you had not.

You tried not to think about the fact that the safest place you had been all night was with the man who had accidentally poisoned you.

By the time Sam pulled up in front of the townhouse, Bucky had already decided he was carrying you inside.

He did not announce this.

Announcing it would give you time to argue, and you had already spent the last twenty minutes nauseous, honest, and stubborn enough to keep trying to sit up every time the SUV slowed at a light.

The truth serum had not knocked you out. That might have been easier, in some ways. Instead, it had left you too aware of everything. Too hot, too sick, too sharp around the edges. You kept blinking like the streetlights were too bright. Every so often, your mouth would open like a thought had tried to escape, and you would clamp your lips shut so hard your whole body went tense.

Bucky felt it every time.

Your head was still in his lap. His jacket bunched beneath your shoulder. One of your hands had curled loosely around the fabric near his knee, like you had grabbed onto the nearest thing during a bad turn and forgotten to let go.

Sam put the SUV in park and looked at the two of you through the rearview mirror. His face had lost most of the teasing by then, leaving behind concern and something quieter Bucky did not want to name.

“You need help gettin’ her in?”

“No,” Bucky said.

You opened one eye. “I am not luggage.”

“You’re right,” Sam said. “Luggage is easier.”

You lifted one hand, weakly, and pointed at Sam. “Your betrayal has been noted.”

Sam turned around enough to look at you properly. “You gonna be okay?”

Your mouth opened.

You seemed to consider the question. Or maybe fight it. It was hard to tell now. The serum had started to wear at you in waves, dragging honesty up at odd intervals and punishing you when you tried to push it back down.

Finally, you said, “Probably.”

Sam’s face shifted. “That sounded real.”

“It was.”

Bucky slid carefully out from under you. The second your head left his lap, your eyes shut tighter and your hand went to your stomach.

“Easy,” he said.

“I hate cars.”

“You used to jump out of them.”

“I hated them then, too.”

Bucky got out first, then opened the back door on your side. Cold air slid into the SUV, and you shivered once, hard enough that Bucky stopped thinking about anything except getting you inside.

He leaned in. “C’mere.”

“I can walk.”

“Didn’t ask.”

“Yeah, it’s implied by the way you’re looming.”

“You gonna fight me?”

You opened your eyes and looked at him.

For half a second, he saw the urge. Not a real fight. Not tonight. Just the reflexive objection to being helped. The old, embedded thing in both of you that said needing someone was another way to get trapped.

Then your stomach turned again. Your face tightened, and the fight went out of you with a quiet miserable breath.

“No,” you said.

Bucky reached in and lifted you carefully, one arm beneath your knees, the other around your back. You were warm against him, too warm. Your head tipped into his shoulder like you were too exhausted to keep it up.

The movement made your dress shift against his hand, smooth fabric under his palm. He kept his grip careful. Clinical. Useful. He had carried injured people before. Soldiers. Civilians. Strangers bleeding out in places they never should have been.

That was not the problem.

You were not a stranger. You were not a mission. You were his wife, except not really. His chief of staff. His best friend. The woman who had spent the last car ride accidentally telling him just how attractive he was.

His ears went hot again just thinking about it.

He adjusted his hold and looked at Sam.

“I’ve got her.”

Sam nodded, but his eyes lingered on Bucky’s face for one second too long.

“Yeah,” Sam said quietly. “I know.”

Bucky carried you up the steps and into the townhouse. Sam followed with Bucky’s jacket, your bag, and the folded paper bag Bucky had kept ready in case you got sick again.

Inside, the house was dark except for the entryway lamp Bucky had left on before the reception. Your shoes were still near the console table from earlier. Your coat hung over the arm of the couch. A stack of your folders sat on the coffee table, one marked with a color-coded tab system Bucky did not understand but respected too much to disturb.

His house looked lived in now.

You shifted against him. “Don’t carry me like I’m consumptive.”

Sam shut the door behind you. “Do people still say consumptive?”

“She’s been using historical terms,” Bucky said. “Says she’s tryna ‘meet me where I’m at’ or whatever. But it’s a good sign. Poisoned and still doing her vocabulary.”

“I’m not poisoned,” you muttered into Bucky’s shoulder. “Just, ah, chemically inconvenienced.”

Bucky glanced down at you. “You gonna let me take care of you?”

Your eyes opened. The serum was still in you. He saw it in the way your expression flickered, in the tiny pause before you answered. A fight behind your face.

Then, quietly, “Yes.”

Bucky carried you upstairs. You were quiet against him now, your fingers resting near the collar of his shirt. He could feel the warmth of your breath through the fabric at his shoulder. Every few steps, you swallowed hard, and his grip tightened even though there was nothing more he could do.

He hated all of it.

The tea. The five drops. The look on your face when you had realized what he had done. The fact that you had spent the last hour fighting your own body because of something he had given you.

At the top of the stairs, he carried you into the bedroom and lowered you onto the edge of the bed. He meant to step back immediately, give you space, get water, get a towel, get anything useful.

But you swayed.

He caught you by the shoulders.

“Still with me?”

You looked up at him, your eyes were slightly glassy, but focused.

“Unfortunately.”

His mouth softened despite himself. “Yeah, there she is.”

Sam appeared in the doorway with your bag. “You want me to stay?”

Bucky looked at you.

You were already shaking your head.

“No. I cannot have you asking any more questions near my sickbed.”

Sam put a hand to his chest. “I’m wounded.”

“You’ll live.”

Bucky took your bag from him. “I’ll call if anything changes.”

Sam’s expression sobered again. “You sure?”

“Yeah.”

“Drink water,” Sam told you.

You lifted one hand without looking. “Goodbye, porch auntie.”

Sam laughed softly and left. Bucky heard the front door close downstairs.

Too quiet.

He stood by the bed, your bag in hand, watching you breathe through another wave of nausea. You pressed your fingers to your mouth, eyes shut, shoulders tight beneath the straps of your dress.

Bucky moved immediately.

“Bathroom?”

You shook your head once.

“Bowl?”

You nodded.

He grabbed the small trash bin from beside the desk, emptied the papers into a pile on the floor, and set it beside the bed. Then he went into the bathroom for a washcloth, ran it under cool water, wrung it out, and brought it back.

When he pressed it gently to the back of your neck, your whole body loosened by a fraction.

“Thank you,” you said.

He sat beside you, leaving space. “You need anything else?”

“My pajamas.”

“Okay.”

“And help.”

Bucky went still.

You seemed to realize what you had said only after it had left your mouth. The serum had loosened you enough to ask for something before pride could cut it down.

“I can do it,” you said immediately.

The lie hit you fast.

Bucky reached for the bowl, but you pressed a hand to your stomach and breathed through it.

“You don’t need to lie,” he said.

“I hate this.”

“I know.”

“I hate asking.”

“I know.”

He did. Better than most.

He kept his voice low. “I’ll help however you want. You tell me what to do.”

Your hands went to the side zipper of your dress, clumsy with exhaustion. Bucky looked away at once, but not before he saw the strap slide down your shoulder.

He turned to the wall, jaw clenching.

Behind him, fabric shifted. The dress hit the floor with a soft sound. Bucky stared at the paint like it contained answers.

It did not. It was just a wall. A very lucky wall.

“Barnes.”

His voice came out rough. “Yeah?”

“You can turn around. I’m not naked.”

He turned carefully.

Bad idea.

You were sitting on the edge of the bed in your bra and underwear, one arm wrapped around your stomach, hair mussed from the car ride, cheeks flushed from the serum. The washcloth had slipped from your neck to the mattress. Your dress lay pooled at your feet like it had surrendered.

Bucky’s brain stopped being useful.

He had seen you in evening gowns, tactical gear, sweats, blood, rain, a hospital blanket, his sweatshirt in the kitchen that morning. None of that had prepared him for this. For the ordinary intimacy of you half-undressed in his bedroom, too tired to posture properly, looking up at him.

He forced his eyes up to your face.

Your mouth curved faintly. Even sick you noticed.

“Don’t pass out, dreamboat.”

“I’m fine.”

“Sounded like a lie.”

“Wasn’t.”

“Mm.”

You leaned back on your hands. “Top drawer on the left. Pajamas.”

“Left dresser?”

“Yes.”

He moved too quickly, crossing to the dresser and opening the top left drawer. He froze.

Not pajamas.

At least, not only pajamas.

The top layer contained silk and lace, folded things in black and red and dark blue, fabric so delicate it barely looked capable of existing in daylight. It took his brain half a second to understand what he was looking at.

Then his entire body went hot.

Bucky shut the drawer halfway on instinct, then stopped because he still needed the damn pajamas.

“They’re in there,” you said behind him.

His eyes closed.

Of course they were. Of course your pajama drawer also contained lingerie. Of course he had opened it while you sat half-dressed on the bed behind him, sick and trusting and completely unaware that his mind had just betrayed every decent intention he had.

He stared at the drawer again. Pajamas. Find pajamas. He moved a black lace thong with two fingers, like it might explode. Before he could stop himself, he was imagining you in it.

You standing in this room with the lamp low and that sharp little smile on your mouth. You telling him to touch you, and him obliging you instantly. The feeling of the thin lace against your hot skin. Your legs tossed over his shoulders carelessly.

And then he imagines you wearing it for someone else. Letting someone else see the softness under all that armor. Someone else’s hands at your waist. Someone else pulling the straps down. Someone else making you laugh in a bedroom that was not his.

His stomach twisted.

Because of course you owned lingerie. You were an adult woman with a life before this fake marriage and a body that did not belong to him. Of course there had been other men. Other women, maybe. Other names. Other rooms. Other hands.

The ring on your finger was not a claim. The house was not a claim. The bed was not a claim. The word wife was not a claim, not the way he wanted it to be, not when you had agreed to stay married because it was safer than the scandal and not because you wanted him in any of the ways that kept him awake at night.

Still, the thought burned and he hated himself for it.

He hated that some small, ancient, selfish part of him wanted to know whether any of that lace had been worn for someone specific. Whether you had packed it because you planned to wear it again. Whether you had folded it into his dresser like a normal thing because, for you, it was normal.

“Everything okay?” You asked.

“No,” he said, because apparently your truth serum had become contagious.

You laughed weakly. “Find something scandalous, old man?”

He cleared his throat. “Pajamas.”

“Mmhmm.”

He found them at last beneath a folded slip he refused to examine too closely. Soft cotton shorts. An oversized T-shirt. Not his, thank God, because he was not built for that tonight. He closed the drawer with more care necessary and turned back.

His face felt hot.

You noticed immediately. Your eyebrows lifted.

“Oh.”

”Don’t.”

“What did you see?”

“Pajamas.”

“You are an abysmal liar. Are you blushing?”

“No.”

“You are.”

“I’m not.”

He held the pajamas out without stepping too close. “Here.”

You took them, fingers brushing his.

And then, with absolutely no warning and no apparent concern for his survival, you reached behind your back for the clasp of your bra.

Bucky spun around so fast his metal hand clipped the dresser.

The drawer rattled.

You started laughing.

He faced the wall. “What? You’re changing.”

“I was also changing thirty seconds ago.”

“I wasn’t looking thirty seconds ago.”

“You absolutely looked.”

“By accident.”

“Sure.”

He stared at the wall with the grim focus of a man trying to survive interrogation.

“You’re very committed to the gentleman act,” you said.

“It’s not an act.”

You made an unconvinced sound.

The bed shifted as you pulled on the t-shirt.

“Decency restored.”

When he turned around, you were in bed, or halfway there, sitting against the pillows in the oversized shirt and shorts. Your hair was loose around your face. Your skin still looked too warm. The bowl sat on the nightstand beside a glass of water.

He sat on the edge of the bed, far enough away that there was space between you. He wanted to touch your forehead. He wanted to check your pulse. He wanted to keep his hand in your hair until the tight line around your mouth went away.

“Serum wearing off?” He asked.

You nodded slowly. “I think so. It’s less loud.”

“Loud?”

“The honesty feels… loud.”

His throat tightened. “I’m sorry.”

You closed your eyes. “You already apologized.”

“Still.”

“I know.”

“You asked me not to self-flagellate.”

“I did. Very wise of me.”

“Trying not to.”

Your eyes opened. Softer now. Exhausted.

“You didn’t mean to.”

“That doesn’t make it okay.”

“No.” You looked at him for a long second. “It was an accident.”

He nodded.

Bucky should have left it there. He should have told you to sleep, turned off the lamp, gone downstairs, called Sam, and spent the next several hours hating himself in the kitchen like a gentleman.

Instead, he heard your voice in the car again.

The eyes are worse.

He knew better. Knew you were still under the serum, knew asking near the edges was unfair. But the words had been inside him since the car, pressing against old wants he had spent months burying under strategy and restraint.

He looked at you.

“Did you mean what you said?” He asked.

Your fingers tightened around the blanket and he regretted it immediately.

“Sorry,” he said. “Don’t answer that.”

“No.” You swallowed. “It’s okay.”

“It’s not.”

”I can answer.”

“You don’t have to.”

You looked toward the window, then back at him. Your eyes were clear enough now that he let himself hope the serum had eased.

“In the car,” he said carefully. “You said some things.”

“I said many things.”

“Yeah.”

Bucky looked down at the ring on his hand. “I know you were dosed. I know it wasn’t fair. I’m not asking because I want to hold you to anything.”

“Then why are you asking?”

Because I love you.

Because I need to know if there is any part of this that is real for you too. Because every day in this house is killing me a little and I would thank you for it if you asked.

He did not say any of that.

Instead, he said, “I don’t know.”

You watched him for a long moment. Then your expression changed.

“Bucky,” you said. “We’re friends.”

He held still.

You continued, voice careful. “We’re friends. And colleagues. And we get along better than most people who accidentally end up married for press management reasons.”

He felt something in him begin to shrink.

You gave a small shrug, eyes not quite meeting his now.

“I meant what I said in the obvious way. You’re attractive. That’s just… objective information. Like weather. Or the fact Sam talks too much.”

He tried to smile.

“So that’s all?”

You hesitated a fraction, then nodded.

“That’s all.”

The words landed entirely too cleanly.

Bucky had been shot before. Stabbed. Frozen. Cut open and remade into something else. He knew pain in plenty of forms.

This one settled heavy behind his ribs.

Right. Of course. Friends, colleagues, fake spouses. Two people who worked well together and had made a bad decision in New Orleans. That was all it had ever been for you. That was all he had any right to expect.

He nodded once.

“Right,” he said, “of course.”

You looked at him then. Something flickered across your face, but he was already standing, already turning away because he could not sit there and let you see all of it.

“You should rest,” he said.

“Bucky—”

“I’ll be downstairs. Bowl’s there. Water too. Call if you need anything.”

His voice sounded normal. That was good. He had practice.

Bucky crossed to the door and paused with his hand on the frame. He did not look back. If he looked back, he might do something embarrassing, like ask again or apologize or tell you the truth when you didn’t want to hear it.

“Try to sleep,” he said.

Then he left, shutting the bedroom door behind him.

Bucky Barnes had survived wanting things he could not have before. He would survive this too.

He went downstairs, not seeing you grab the bowl he had left beside the bed and bend over it, shaking and miserable as your body rejected the words you had forced through your teeth.

That’s all.

You had lied.

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