Hi there ! My name is Hailu, I'm 26 (she/her). Autistic. INTP-T. 🎵 I like KPOP, One Piece, whales and anthroponymy 🌊 🎨 I make moodboards and fanfic snippets sometimes 📝 Please don't hesitate to say hi ! 🌻 This blog is my safe space 🌻
SUMMARY │Born and raised in a small isolated village, Ajla has never had any reason to question the beliefs and traditions she was raised to follow. Yet, on the most important day of her young life, a chance encounter with a traveler from the outside sparks a strange and haunting vision. Torn between her devotion to her village and finding the answers to her questions, Ajla must now decide the path she wants to walk.
PAIRING │Jongdae 종대 / Original Female Character
RATING │ T [SFW]
GENRE │ Fantasy!AU, Mythology!AU
LENGTH │ 7,089 words
NETWORK │ @exols-silver-christmas
MANY THANKS TO │ my two extraordinary betas, L. and C. I couldn't have done it without you !
AUTHOR'S NOTE │ This story was written for Ju (@breeze-of-sunlight) for the 2024 EXO-L Secret Santa event ! It is cut into three parts ; the remaining two will be posted sometime in the beginning of next year. This is my first story, so likes, comments and reblogs are very much appreciated ! ∼ Hailu
BEFORE YOU READ │ One of my original characters [Luan] has a name that is very similar to the name of an ex EXO member [Luhan]. Please keep in mind that these characters are not the same person ! While Luhan might end up mentioned in the other parts, Luan has a much more central role in the story and is bound to appear quite often.
Click here to listen to the little playlist I made for this story.
Grandmother once told me that this land was not always ours. It seems hard to believe, seeing how well acclimated we are to the mild weather and gentle winds of this place. Our people have lived here for a very long time: I was born and have grown up here, in this little village, as was Grandmother. The stories she tells, about foreign grounds and harder times, she learned from her own grandfather, a stern warrior who came here from the North with a few hundred others to seek shelter in a more welcoming land.
I am not sure what became of the people that were calling this place their home before we did. Grandmother said they were a peaceful kind, with strange customs and even stranger gods. I heard, most of them left, and the remaining ones adopted our traditions and practices. Eventually, our culture was the only one to remain.
A long time has passed since then, and our Holy One has allowed us to prosper and live in peace. Of all the villages my people have established in this region, I live in the smallest. Our numbers hardly reach a hundred souls, and I know that on this day, each and every one of them is going to attend the ceremony. It takes place every three years, in midsummer. On the day of the second full moon of the season, we can finally reap the fruits of our yearly labour. As a sign of devotion to our Holy One, every daughter who is at least twenty springs of age ought to enter adulthood through an entire week of uninterrupted prayer, after which she will finally be considered adult enough to marry and bear children.
“Ouch !” I say, reaching up to massage the part of my head where Mother has pulled my hair a little too hard. I stop right in my tracks when I hear a disapproving sound behind me.
“Don’t be a child, Ajla,” she sighs. I lower my hand, my scalp still throbbing. “Why is your hair always so tangled ?”
In a sudden moment of realisation, she grabs my shoulders and makes me turn around so I can meet her eyes. I instantly lower them to the ground, as I almost always do.
“You untied it for the night, didn’t you ?”
“I just… it was pulled too tight, I couldn’t sleep,” I tentatively try.
“Remember Ajla, the Holy One despises the arrogant and the vain. I should have cut your hair a long time ago,” she lets an exasperated sigh escape her. “We don’t have time now, we still have to help with the preparations for the ceremony and go get your prayer dress for tonight.” She finishes brushing my long messy blond hair in a hurry, and then braids it into a tight updo at the base of my neck. I hold back a wince at the harsh treatment she gives to my head.
“It is good you got a little sleep nonetheless. You’ll need all the energy you can get for the Prayer. Our Holy One will test your strength in a way you have never experienced before. You’ll never be quite the same after you come out of the Sanctuary, Ajla. It was the same for me.”
I listen silently. It is the first time Mother talks about how hard of a trial the Prayer can be. She is a stern woman, hardened by the trials of life, but she likes to talk about the Holy One, and she reveres Him in a way I don’t think I’ll ever really be able to understand. Our whole community, myself included, is very devoted to our divinity, but Mother believes in His power with her whole heart. She says, her faith in the Holy One is what gives her strength.
I know what the Prayer entails, everybody does, but the gap between knowledge and experience can sometimes prove to be dangerous. An entire week of prayer, locked in a small room with only enough food to keep us alive. It is complete isolation, no contact to the outside world allowed. The Prayer is supposed to test our faith and devotion to the Holy One, and no one is allowed to interrupt. Not that there would even be a possibility to interrupt, as the opening of the praying rooms get nailed shut to ensure nothing will distract the participants.
“Get dressed, we’re going to the storehouse first,” Mother says before leaving me alone in the room. I sigh, and walk towards a small hook attached to the wall. The women of our village must always walk around with their body covered to maintain modesty : for that reason, it is common that we wear a flowy upper garment on top of our dresses, that we call “kiva”. Mine is long enough for the sleeves to almost reach my fingertips. As is tradition, it also has a hood so I am able to properly cover my hair. Father mentioned once, that showing my body too much would only bring me dishonour, that what I was hiding was to only be shown inside of my home in the presence of my close family and, when I am wed, of my husband. That this was the Holy One’s will. Sometimes, I wonder if we do the things we do for the Holy One, or for the sake of some old traditions that have existed since long before my birth.
After making sure my kiva is on correctly, its hood held in place with pins in my hair, I join Mother, who is waiting for me at the doorstep. In a few short weeks, summer will yield to autumn ; the days will become shorter and the leaves will turn orange and yellow. Right now though, the heat, if not quite stifling, is still well present. We start walking slowly towards the storehouse, where we keep all our food, and apart from the bustle of the final ceremony preparations, this day feels like any other summer day.
Yet, when my eyes land on a small stall filled with strange items and foreign designs, I understand that something about today will be different from usual. Today will bring change.
They look different, misplaced in this little village of mine that is not accustomed to receiving visits from foreigners. They are dressed in various colours, some bright and some dark, a stark contrast to the sea of cream and brown coloured clothes that my people commonly wear.
I see a middle-aged woman smile gently at the passersby, showing a few of them the items she is selling. She does not look like me, or any of my people, but I find her utterly beautiful. Her hair is long and dark, draping over her shoulders in messy curls, and she’s wearing a strange embroidered headband. Her long tunic is a deep red colour and decorated at the seams with patterns I have never seen before, leaving part of her shoulders bare, exposing golden, sun kissed skin. It is a couple tones darker than my own, my kiva perpetually keeping it hidden from sun and moon alike. Her eyes all of a sudden find mine, and she smiles at me from where she stands, behind her stall. I look at her curiously, and find myself wanting to smile back.
It is at this moment that I feel Mother’s hand on my back, urging me forward. She takes her place at my other side, positioning herself between the woman and me, blocking my view.
“Do not talk to them, Ajla. I forbid you to even look at them, do you hear me ?” she whispers, her tone serious and authoritative.
“Why so, Mother ? We do not see foreigners very often and–”
“And it is best that way. They are heretics, Ajla. They are not like us.”
I can sense from the tone of her voice that she will not accept any more discussion about the travellers, so I stay quiet and we walk the rest of the way in silence. The storehouse is always a flurry of activity, especially during harvest season. My people mainly thrive thanks to the fruits and vegetables we grow within the walls of the village. While we sometimes eat meat from the small animals we raise, we no longer hunt like our ancestors did. Seeking larger prey would mean stepping a foot in the forest, and the woods are dark and scary, the foliage of the trees thick enough that it is not possible to see the sun from the ground. I have never left the village – Father says, it is best I stay where I belong, in the safety of the walls that have seen me grow – but I heard rumours once, about how the forest and the mountain are places that the Holy One cannot reach.
My thoughts are interrupted by the rumpus of men and women in the storehouse, gossiping loudly as they wash the produce we harvested a few days ago so it can be prepared in the kitchens. Had today been any other day, the presence of foreigners in the village would have surely caused a commotion, but everyone seems to have forgotten them now that the Prayer is approaching.
“Mother ! Ajla ! Over here !” my brother yells, waving his long arms to catch our attention from the very back of the room.
I shouldn’t feel this way, but it breaks my heart just a little to see Mother’s face instantly break out into a bright smile. I have no memories of her ever looking at me with that same affection in her eyes. I had an older brother once, who was Mother’s pride and joy. She was never quite the same after his sudden death at the age of six, brought on by a feat of uncontrollable fever. She cried for years, prayed for days on end, tried everything in her power to give birth to a second son. I can barely remember his face, but I’ll never forget Mother’s tears. In hindsight, I think a part of her died with Adem. Luan was the one that gave her a new breath after three long years of mourning her lost child. And then there is I, Ajla, always stuck in the middle, between Adem’s memory and Luan’s sweet smile, neither truly seen nor completely invisible.
For the next couple of hours, I help with whatever needs to be prepared. It’s hot inside the storehouse, and the effort starts to make me sweat, my kiva keeping my arms and my hair covered not helping with the afternoon heat. Luan’s chatter is a welcome distraction from my thoughts of family, faith and foreigners, even though I still feel nervous about the upcoming ceremony and Prayer. When he asks a question excitedly, I turn and smile at him, answering with as much liveliness as I can muster. He does not seem to pick up on my thoughts and somewhat sour mood, and I thank the Holy One for that. My little brother just turned twenty summers old, and by the time the next ceremony takes place, he’ll be aged enough to be married. Luan has always been adored and doted on by the whole family, including me, and despite his tall stature and long limbs, childlike features still linger on his face, giving him an uncanny resemblance to the older brother that he has never known. For that reason, and to Luan’s dismay, Mother has a hard time letting him out of her sight.
I stop working when I feel the gentle press of a hand on my shoulder. The girl looking at me is dressed in a similar fashion, with a long dress and cream-coloured kiva to match. Under her hood, her hair is some shade of blond, a characteristic shared by many of our people, though her striking grey eyes are a little unusual. She takes my wrist in her hand and smiles warmly. After hours of working here, it seems we are both ready to escape the storehouse mission we’ve been given. We just need to ask for permission first.
“Master, it is getting late and both Ajla and I still need to stop by the tailoress’ shop. I was planning to go now, would you mind if we go together ?” Ema asks, her gaze low. Father is not a bad man, but he is tall and intimidating, and even though Luan is growing up to share most of his traits, I hope he retains the gentleness that has characterised him since he was a baby.
“Rona, didn’t you want to go with our daughter?” Father asks his wife.
“I… I was planning to, but she might as well go now. We have work here still,” she says, and I would be lying if I said I am not a little glad to finally have a chaperone my age.
Luan smiles at my friend. “They will also not be able to see each other again until after the ceremony, so it’s important to enjoy each other’s company now. Right, Ema ?” he smiles at my friend. His back is turned to our parents, and his teasing wink is lost to them. Ema’s cheeks redden, but she nods politely.
Father looks at my brother and accepts without too much of a fight. Other than the fact that Luan has had our parents wrapped around his little finger since his birth, he also has the advantage of being male, which the Holy One has decided would be the stronger and wiser gender. His support is precious, even if we soon will be wed and not part of the same household anymore. Ema and I leave the storehouse, and though the walk to the tailoress’ shop is short, it is filled with excited ramblings from my friend, who seems to be in a vastly different mood than I.
“I can’t wait to prove myself to our Holy One,” she says, and I look at her a bit perplexed.
“Aren’t you scared ? That you are not going to hold up with so little food and rest ?”
“Well, there aren't really any alternatives, are there ? And then we’ll be out, and we’ll finally be able to get married !” She exclaims. “Do you have anyone in mind ?”
It wouldn't matter in the end, the decision is not ours, just like it had not been my parents’ choice to be wed. But I know that Ema is already aware of that fact, and I do not want to crush her spirits. This casual banter feels somewhat good.
“I do not,” I say truthfully. “What about you ?”
“Oh– um, yes, I actually do, you know, have someone in mind,” Ema answers, her face becoming redder by the minute.
I smile to myself. It’s Luan. My friend thinks she's good at hiding her fancy of my little brother, but I am convinced that everybody, including Luan himself, knows about it. I hope the people of my community will take Ema and Luan’s wishes into account when making their decisions. I hope they choose someone good for me, too.
Ema and I were never really close until a few years ago, around the time of the last ceremony. To participate in the Prayer, all girls must be aged of at least twenty springs, but I was born at the very end of the summer, making me half a season too young at the time. Ema was born in the autumn a couple weeks after me, and we both bonded over the knowledge that when our Prayer would come around, we would be the oldest participants.
The shop is small, but peaceful. The business used to be held by a man, until his death a decade ago. His wife has taken over the affairs of the shop since then, handling the business with an iron hand and a heart of gold. Everybody in the village likes Nona, but I like to think she and I have a closer bond. She was Grandmother’s dearest friend, and talking to Nona feels a lot like it used to feel talking to her.
I see the old woman at the back of the room, adjusting a big piece of ivory-coloured cloth. She smiles instantly when we greet her, the curve of her lips accentuating all the wrinkles on her face. Her hair is covered, like mine and Ema’s, but I can see a hint of grey where her hood is a little misplaced on her head.
“Look who’s here ! Aren’t these girls a little late ? Everybody else has collected their dresses already,” Nona says, with a tiny hint of disapproval in her voice. Nonetheless, she heads for the backroom and comes back only a minute later, carrying in her arms two identical outfits.
The shape and looks of the ceremonial outfits never change from one ceremony to another. Year after year, they stay the same simple flowy dress and kiva, and are not decorated with any patterns or symbols. They look very similar to our daily clothes, except for their colour, an almost blinding whiteness, that is meant to represent the participants’ purity, both moral and physical. I have seen this dress on so many girls, yet it’s still hard to realise that in just a few hours, I will be the one wearing it.
“They’re beautiful,” Ema gasps next to me, taking her outfit in her arms with the utmost care, as if it was some fragile thing going to break. This dress has meaning for my people, as the ceremony dates back to long before most of my ancestors were born. It is stunning, and one of the most beautiful pieces of clothing that I will ever wear. Yet, I am not sure how to react, as the weight of what such a garment means slowly but surely crashes on me. Feeling Nona’s gaze on me, I settle for thanking her for her hard work. She gives me a carefully guarded smile.
“You remind me so much of your grandmother,” she says fondly, with a hint of melancholy in her voice. “She was scared too.”
“I– I’m not scared, Nona” I stutter, a little panicked that she would doubt my faith in our Holy One, that I would dare be frightened by the prospect of honouring Him.
“Oh but you are, Ajla. We all are, before we step foot in the Sanctuary. And then we endure ; the hunger, the weariness and the weight of the confessions we make. You’ll learn to endure too. In the Prayer and in life, you’ll endure.”
She slowly grabs my hand and takes something out of her kiva’s pocket to put it in my palm. It's a white handkerchief, embroidered with beautiful pink flowers, a rarity in my community, where clothes are plain and neutral in colours.
“This belonged to your grandmother. She got it from her own mother. She was wearing it on her wrist when she did her Prayer. She wanted you to have it. Her only granddaughter. She wanted you to find your way, for our Holy One to give you strength.”
Even though it is not written in law that the participants to the Prayer must not have any additional garment or accessory, it is not conventional enough that Grandmother thought it would be safe to give me her handkerchief through my parents when my time came. I am not surprised ; for all the love Grandmother had for her culture, her people and her customs, she always found Mother, her daughter-in-law, to be a little too stern.
I thank Nona profusely, and part ways with Ema in front of the shop. We both have to return home now, and we live on opposite sides of the village. I walk slowly, as if getting home later was going to push back the time of the ceremony. With both hands busy holding my dress high in my arms to avoid creating creases, I can only lightly grasp the handkerchief with the tips of my fingers. The sun will set in a couple hours and the heat of the early afternoon is long gone, replaced by steady winds.
I gasp when Grandmother’s handkerchief slips from my fingers, stolen away by a gust of air, and I hurry past surprised passersby, trying to catch up with it as it dances further and further away from me. It seems as if the winds are having fun playing with something I hold so dear to my heart. The delicate piece of cloth swirls around, as light as a feather. Each time I come close to it, the handkerchief starts its crazy escape again, seemingly mocking me.
Eventually, it slips under a table filled with goods on sale, and one of the merchants bends down to pick it up. I stop right in my tracks. Grandmother’s handkerchief is in the hands of one of the foreigners I saw earlier on my way to the storehouse with Mother. I am still a good distance from them, but he’s undoubtedly male. The heretic cradles the cloth in his palms like it's some fragile treasure, and seems to gently brush some dust off of it before raising his head and starts looking around, obviously searching for the owner. Searching for me.
Flustered and still out of breath, I duck behind a nearby wall, a hand on my chest to calm my racing heart. What shall I do now ? Mother said not to talk to them, she even forbade me to get too close. I should let it go, pass them by without sparing a glance in their direction.
On the other hand, I do not wish to let go of the only thing Grandmother has left me. She said it would help me, she said it would bring me strength. Besides, what could happen if I just asked for it ? Surely the stranger will give it back ? I just have to make it quick, so Mother will not see me if she returns from the storehouse earlier than planned. Yes, that is what I should do. What Mother does not know, can not upset her.
I fold my uniform in my arms, forgetting all about not making any creases, and start to make my way over to the stall, with an assurance that is not quite authentic. It is not the first time I see travelers, but it is the first time Mother has explicitly forbidden me to talk to them, her earlier words of distrust engraved in my mind. It is obvious that they do not worship the Holy One ; as otherwise their women would not show their arms and their hair so openly. They could be dangerous, but our numbers outweigh theirs and we are in the heart of the village. The day of the ceremony is the best to trade and sell goods. There is a crowd in the streets, all the shops are open. Nothing can go wrong.
The heretic calmly watches me get closer, his gaze fixed on me. I stop right before the stall, a table filled with various colourful items, the only thing separating us. Up close, I am able to see him better ; he looks about my age, maybe a little older. Unlike Father or Luan, he is not very tall or imposing, only outsizing me by half a head. Like the other foreigners, he is wearing an embroidered headband, the piece partially hidden under loosely curled hair the darkest shade of brown I have ever seen. Though all headbands have similarities in design, patterns and colours differ, making each piece completely unique. He is dressed in a simple blue tunic that is creased and folded all over, and closed at the shoulders by two pins, allowing whoever is looking to see his entire arms.
Busy as I am staring at the man in front of me, I realise a minute too late that he is examining me as well, the shadow of a cheeky smile tugging at the upturned corners of his lips. Not wanting to spend more time than I must in the presence of the stranger, I extend my arm towards him, palm upturned.
“I have lost my handkerchief. I would like to have it back,” I try. He keeps looking at me with the same expression on his face, and I wonder for a moment if we speak the same language. “Please ?” I add tentatively. “Um, it seems like the winds were mocking me, making me run around like that after a stupid cloth,” I explain, conveniently forgetting to mention how dear said stupid cloth is to my heart.
This time, the foreigner’s mouth stretches into a gentle, full-blown smile that reaches his brown eyes, and I wonder for a moment what could be so funny.
When the young man before me starts speaking, he sounds strong and powerful, although not unkind. He has a very light accent I can not quite place. “The winds are mischievous, they love to play. They love to make people dance.”
I still, astounded. I was not prepared for that answer, and I do not know quite how to respond. In the end, I decide to let the conversation run its – hopefully short – course.
“Yes, um, I… guess they do ?” I whisper. “I am not sure I liked this dance very much though.”
“They’re nice enough, once you learn to know them,” he says, smiling brightly as if he did not just talk about the winds as if they were living and breathing. He’s mad. He’s mad, and my handkerchief is still in his hand.
The young man must sense my increasing discomfort, because he lowers his head. Once free from his dark gaze, I slowly exhale a breath I did not realise I was holding. The stranger absently traces the pink flowers embroidered on Grandmother’s handkerchief with his thumb.
“This is very fine and delicate work. The person who made it is very talented. Were you the one who embroidered this cloth ?” he asks.
“I– no, it is very old. It belonged to my grandmother, and to her own ancestors before that,” I finally admit.
“Then it must be very dear to you ?”
“It is,” I simply say.
“Then I’ll give it back. Here,” he says, extending his own arm, the cloth in his hand.
He has nice hands. They are not very big, and they are more calloused than mine, but he has long and slender fingers. His nails are clean and clipped short. He’s wearing several bracelets, some of them made out of colourful threads knotted together, and some thin circles of golden metal that glint in the late afternoon sunlight. None of my people wear jewellery, or any decorative adornments for that matter. Showcasing one’s beauty is to bask in vanity, and the Holy One does not like vanity.
I frown when I notice tiny markings on the arm he’s extended towards me. Scars ? No, not scars. It’s a tattoo. A tattoo made with white ink and barely visible on his skin despite his tan. Fascinated, I let my eyes run along the length of his arm. The patterns and symbols extend from the back of his hand to the crook of his neck, swirling and intertwining delicately around his wrist and his elbow. I stop staring when I hear the man clear his throat. I close my eyes and chastise myself. I can almost hear Mother and her stern voice at the back of my head. Ogling a man – an impure heretic – like that, you should be ashamed !
“Thank you,” I finally whisper, finding nothing else to say. Our arms are both extended, as if waiting for the other to cave in and get closer first. In the end, eager for this conversation to end, I sigh and take the handkerchief in his hand, my fingers brushing his for the shortest of moments.
Time seems to slow and speed up at the same time, and I feel slightly nauseous. I close my eyes, overwhelmed, as sound surrounds me, making my ears ring painfully. Why is the world so loud all of a sudden ? After the first few seconds, I get used to the noise and notice a voice in the chaos of sounds. Sometimes, it laughs, the laugh of a young girl, so clear and soft, and sometimes, it sings songs I have never heard before. Several other similar voices then join the first one in a chorus of melodies, and I think I can hear them speak to each other. Some are surprised and some are amused, and I hear them whispering faintly about someone they call “the foreigner”.
When I feel like my heart is beating at a normal pace again, I open my eyes to find myself in a place I have never seen before. Where am I ? Why am I here and how did I get there ? I do not know this place. Trees surround me, casting gentle shadows on the water I find myself standing in. Looking around, I see I am in a forest, although I have never ventured out of the village. I do not know how to swim, yet I am waist-deep in the water of a small lake, wet and shivering. I’m cold. The voices are gone now, barring one ; the chuckle of a man coming from behind me. I turn around and raise my head. After a few moments of blur, my eyes finally focus on the silhouette before me.
The heretic stands on a big rock on the shore, dry and dressed in the same tunic I saw earlier, albeit in a different colour. It is only long enough to reach the middle of his thighs, showing off long but muscled legs. He is barefoot, and he is still chuckling – is he laughing at me ?
I should feel outraged, and angry, that he is allowing himself to be so familiar with me – we have only met for the first time today after all – but somehow, the only feeling I can muster is mild annoyance. I give him a dark glare, and I find myself speaking his name with a scolding tone. I can not quite make out what name ; unable to control my lips or hear the words coming out of my own mouth. I feel like an actress in the middle of performing a play that already has a set ending. At the sound of his name, the man stops laughing and apologises. He looks around, glaring and I find myself doing the same. There is nobody but us here.
Then his gaze is back on me and I feel his eyes slowly slide down from my eyes, to my neck, to my chest, and I wonder for a moment what he is looking at. Then I check my reflection in the water.
I am dressed entirely in white, in my ceremonial clothes, wet from head to toe ; the weight of the water has pulled my kiva off from my shoulders, leaving them almost naked. My dress is drenched, and has become transparent under the effect of the water. My lower body is thankfully still under the water line, but my neck, chest and belly are fully visible. I gasp in shock, immediately crossing my arms over my chest so I feel less exposed ; so the man before me is not able to steal glances at my body more than he already has.
My reaction seems to wake him up from a trance, and both his cheeks and mine start turning red. At least he seems to feel ashamed of his staring, of making me uncomfortable. As he starts to open his mouth and apologise, I blink, and the moment I next open my eyes, I am back at the stall, in the middle of my village. The young man is still before me, but he has taken a few steps back, clutching his tattooed hand as if the contact has burned him. His mouth is open in shock, and though I can not see myself, I can guess he is mirroring my own expression.
I clutch my handkerchief in my hand. And then panic sets in.
“I- what just happened ? Was I dreaming wide awake ?” I ask, more to myself than to the stunned foreigner before me. What sort of spell has he bewitched me with ? Was this dream a trick from the evil spirits Mother is so scared of ?
The man raises his hands before himself, obviously trying to defuse the situation but it does nothing to reduce my anxiety. I take a few steps back.
“I– I must go now. There is still much to do,” I say, on the edge of panicking. My eyes can only stare at nothing, unfocused, as I try to register what happened in the dream, and how real everything felt.
“Listen, I didn't mean… I didn't mean to– to show you anything,” he stuttered. “Don't be scared, no please–”
But I’m already running past the passersby and away from him, my dress balled up in my arms and my handkerchief tightly grasped in my fist, as I try to hold back confused tears. My tiny world feels like it has collided with something much, much bigger. Something unknown. Something frightening.
The rest of the day passes by in a blur.
I see but I am not looking, I hear but I am not listening. I feel like I am wearing someone else's skin.
I keep moving, but it's just habits, as if my movements are controlled by some puppeteer.
Soon my family comes home. They change into their ceremonial clothes, and Mother does my hair again, pulling and twisting the tresses until they are shaped to her liking. My head is throbbing, but I do not feel the pain.
The sun is setting when I finally take my place in the line of maidens who are going to be subjected to the Prayer. I recite the oath that I have learned by heart under Mother’s supervision ; I do not stutter, and the words come out clean and well-spoken, but I feel empty. I am given a bag of provisions, that contains the only things I will be given to eat for the next seven sunrises.
As the crowd celebrates all around us, I feel the weight of someone’s gaze on me. I follow it to find the foreigner staring from a distance, unmoving as the rest of his people pack up their belongings as they prepare to leave. Tomorrow they will be long gone, and I will have forgotten all about what I saw earlier, too engrossed in prayer to care. However, today, my memories of the dream are still too fresh in my mind, and I find my lips softly mouthing the name I spoke in the lake. This time, although the crowd around me is loud and excited in celebration, I can clearly hear what is coming out of my mouth. “Jongdae,” I speak, looking at him. I have never heard of this name. From afar, his eyes seem to widen, but he does not move. We watch each other for a few more moments. He looks sad. I hope this time I am not mirroring his expression.
I am the last one to be led to the Sanctuary. It is near the entry of the village, as it was the first structure that was built here. The Prayer room that has been assigned to me is located in a corner of the building at the very end of a long hallway. I step in, and look around. The wooden walls of my room are thinner than I thought they would be. There is an altar, but no bed, as I am not expected to get much rest. Two giant eyes are painted on the wall, dark and foreboding. They, too, stare at me, intense and intimidating. The space is so small, no matter where I am, I feel seen. Vulnerable. A chill courses through my body when I hear the opening of the room being sealed shut with nails that will only be removed once the Prayer has ended.
First, I do not know what to do. I stand, as if paralysed, in the middle of the room for a long moment. Then I remember Mother, and I remember my oath. I must pray now. I lower the bag of provisions to the ground and kneel on the hard floor in front of the altar. Mother has told me what to say as the opening of a Prayer. We have recited it, again and again.
Forgive me, my Holy One, for my sins. I am here to confess and earn your forgiveness.
Yet, somehow, the words that come out of my mouth are different. More honest.
“Forgive me, my Holy One, for I am not quite sure what to say.” Then I start praying, whispering the words under my breath.
For a moment, I pray for my family. For Father's health, for Mother’s peace of mind, for Luan’s happy spirits to remain and for Adem’s soul to rest in peace.
Then I start praying for my village, and for my community. I pray for peace, for a good harvest and for a mild winter. Talking about winter makes me realise the night has fallen. I shiver and wrap my kiva tighter around me in hope of keeping some warmth.
When time comes to confess my sins, I think back to that moment in the forest ; of the evil spirits that possessed my mind and made me imagine this unholy scene of me almost bare in front of a man. I am ashamed, but I am not sure this vision was my own doing. Do I need to confess if it was not my fault ? In the end, I decide to keep my mouth shut about this event and instead to ask for forgiveness for untying my hair last night.
After that, I realise I have nothing more to say. I try to think, but nothing comes to my mind. As I search for something to pray about, I sit with my back against the wall opposite from the altar. Instead of looking at His eyes, I start looking at my hands. Grandmother’s handkerchief is tied around my wrist, the only touch of colour in my entirely white outfit, and I start thinking of the foreigner.
This dream was not my fault, I am sure of that. Otherwise, why would he have apologised ? The look in his eyes makes me think that he might have known what was going on. Does he know what I have imagined ? Or worse – has he seen the things that I have seen ?
And this place, what was it ? Where was it ? Never would I have dived into water without knowing how deep it was first. Did he push me ? Why would someone do that ?
The more I think about the events of the afternoon, the more I realise my fright is turning to curiosity. Mother said it is not right to be curious, that I must wait for our Holy One to provide the answers. Like a poison, it runs slowly through one’s veins and takes over the mind. It pushes people to do things they would not normally do. Then I realise something else : in this room where I am alone with the Holy One, Mother can not reach. What she does not know, can not upset her.
In between the quiet of prayers, I hear people outside my room, one of which I recognise as the village chief. However, the voices are not coming from inside the Sanctuary ; this building is sacred and not a place for gossip. Instead, the voices come from beyond the wall that is directly to my right, which means they are standing outside the village. The chief is speaking to several people,but I can not make out what they are talking about, nor do I recognise any of the voices he is conversing with ; not until I hear a familiar voice, strong, powerful, and slightly accented, start thanking my leader.
“I would thank you a thousand times if I could, village chief. Our provisions were running low for the rest of our trip and it was urgent we exchanged some of our belongings for food and money. I know you do not welcome strangers often within the walls of your village, and for your generosity I will forever be grateful.”
Jongdae ? He must be leaving the village with his people now.
“You are very welcome,” my leader says, seemingly pleased by the compliments. “Had today been any other day, you would have been quite the sensation. I hope you got what you wanted, for as gracious as I am, I will not be able to let you in the village tomorrow,” he grumbles.
The young foreigner hardly waits a second before replying, probably louder than one should be during a private conversation.
“This is no problem, my community is already grateful for your help. We are going to stay a few more days in the small clearing we saw in the forest, only long enough to allow us to hunt and replenish our provisions.”
They exchange a few more words after that, but I am not focused on their conversation anymore. I simply stare at the painted eyes on the wall.
“What do you think ? What should I do now ?” I wonder out loud, my voice barely louder than a whisper.
Before the dream, I would have listened to Mother and stayed put. I would have prayed about anything and everything, I would have confessed my sins.
But I can not help but feel like something important occurred this afternoon. Who is this man, and who are these people ? Is he working with the evil spirits to plant seeds of doubt in the minds of innocent young women ? And if so, why did he apologise to me ? I have to know what happened, I have to know if he saw the same vision I did, and if so how was it possible ?
Today, my tiny world has collided with something bigger, much bigger than anything I could have ever envisioned. But this time, I am not frightened anymore. I will find this foreigner, and defend myself and my honour. I am in need of answers, and I know there is only one way to get them.
My apologies for the time I needed to sort out the results of the banner vote for Kyungsoo. January has been a bit crazy and I didn't find the time to take care of it.
As some of you might have noticed, the vote ended with an even score. Miri and I could have chosen the banner that we preferred, but we decided instead that I would make a new banner to mix the ones you voted for.
I hope you like it !
For this week, I prepared two banners for Kai. You can vote below on the one that you prefer.
Here we go, with almost a week of delay. These are the two options for Kyungsoo's member banner. It will appear on the @exo-agora blog in a member menu that will make it easier to navigate the blog.
I would like to warmly thank @wolveswithblackpearls for contributing a few pictures. I included one of them in one of the banners, and i already have a few ideas for the pictures of Lay you submitted, though his turn will come later.
I will let you guys decide which banner you like best ! You have one week to decide.
Which banner do you prefer ?
Option 1 : fun and bright colours !
Option 2 : calm and cream tones !
Voting ended onJan 22
NOTE | It won't be for right away but if you wish to add pictures so they may be featured in the banners, the next member I will be working on is our second-born of the year, Kai / Kim Jongin !
The number of votes is 10, with an equal number on each side. There are still 4 full days left, but don't hesitate to vote for your favourite banner if you haven't already... The truth is I have no plan in case of an even score 😂✨
i just feel so bad right now. didn't think a coworker could destroy the little self-confidence i have spent years building in the span of thirty minutes. that's so sad.
I am so much better at making moodboards than I am at making doodles ! Here is a small birthday moodboard for Kyungsoo, loosely inspired by the song “El Dorado” for the prompt “Favourite Lyrics”. Out of all of EXO's songs, it is probably that song's lyrics that I love the most : the notions of travel, sailing, community through adversity, proving one's worth, achieving success after effort, are all very inspiring to me.
LYRICS | 🌊
“Into that light spreading before us / Toward a future no one knows / One day far away /These steps will become a legend, the El Dorado / Even if one day / We're caught in a storm / If we're together, I'm not afraid.”
“For the ones / Who believed in me / I'll prove / That they were right.”
Here is a series of doodles made on my e-reader in celebration of Kyungsoo's birthday. To be featured on @exo-agora !
Out of all solos, Kyungsoo's mean the most to me. The quiet joy and the simplicity that they convey have accompanied me during hard times and happy moments alike.
NOTE | I have always felt guilty about my drawings. I can copy existing art quite accurately, but when comes the time to make my own, I feel lost. So focused I was on my skills, I almost forgot about the joy and the peace I used to feel when drawing. Sharing art can prove to be an extremely vulnerable thing. We wait for the improved skills, the right materials or the right moment, and then give up, feeling self-conscious. In the end, I think none of this matters. What is important is the smile someone will have on their face while looking at our creations, and it should start with us liking what we do.
Today is Kyungsoo's birthday, but I think in the end, these humble doodles are dedicated to you, reading this post. Know that I made these with all my heart and a smile on my face 🌻
WELCOME │Hello EXO-L and welcome to your agora! This place's goal is to encourage the creation of fanmade EXO creations through prompts and challenges, and it's run by admin H and admin M (more about us here).
RULES │You can submit all kinds of fanworks (writings, drawings, gif sets, video edits, moodboards, etc.) to us and we will review them and reblog if they are properly tagged. You will find the tagging requirements here.
PROMPTS │You will find at the following link a list of twelve prompts for the year 2026. You are free to interpret the prompts as you like, do as many (or as little) as you like, at the pace and in the order of your choice. The prompted creations for this year will not only be reblogged, but will also have their own link in the "2026 Prompts" category, so contact or tag us when you post one of your creations!
BIRTHDAY CHALLENGES │Each member deserves their own time to shine! You will find 9 prompts to use for that occasion here, and in the future we might add events leading up to all the specific dates.
Bucky study from Civil War
I've been on a bit of a Marvel high since Thunderbolts (which I absolutely loved) so I've been rewatching some of my favourite MCU movies.
(Sidenote: Sebastian Stan's likeness is really hard to get right for some reason wtf)
✮ synopsis: he's the Winter Soldier, and you're just you. but when your skin touches his, he becomes bucky barnes again.
(or: the soulmate fic where touch is everything and bucky barnes will fight his way back to you, one broken memory at a time.)
✮ pairing: ca:tws!bucky x soulmate!reader
✮ disclaimers: fem!reader, soulmates, violence/action sequences, graphic descriptions of torture/memory wiping, PTSD, panic attacks, dissociation, past torture, brainwashing, heavy angst, touch deprivation, references to past violence/assassinations, hurt/comfort, fluff, eventual happy ending, bucky is down horrendously bad
✮ warnings: (18+) MDNI, explicit sexual content, unprotected sex, p in v, oral (f receiving), overstimulation, multiple orgasms, soul bond sex (enhanced sensations), touch-starved bucky, possessive behavior, marking/bruising, praise kink, body worship, emotional sex, crying during sex (in a good way), size kink if you squint, bucky has a dirty filthy mouth
✮ word count: 14.3k
✮ a/n: re-uploading all my fics to this blog so i'm posting a ca:tws-era oldie but goodie (the last 4k of this is straight smut, so if that's not your cup of tea feel free to stop at the **)
bonus drabble
main masterlist
The library basement feels like a crypt tonight—all dead air and fluorescent buzz that makes your molars ache.
You've been down here so long your bones have started to match the temperature of the concrete, cold seeping through your jeans where you've been sitting cross-legged on the floor, surrounded by a semi-circle of photocopied articles that all essentially say the same nothing in different ways.
3:17 AM according to your phone, which you check compulsively every twenty minutes like maybe time will take pity and skip forward to your deadline. The security guard made his last round two hours ago—Gerald? Gary? Something with a G—his whistling fading up the stairwell along with any pretense that you're not completely alone down here.
Your neck cracks when you roll it, vertebrae protesting the last six hours of hunching over sources that shouldn't be this hard to parse. But your advisor had smiled that sharp little smile when assigning this topic, the one that says let's see if you're really cut out for this, and spite is a hell of a motivator.
Even if your eyes are burning. Even if the coffee tastes like battery acid. Even if your soul bond has been aching since midnight with that peculiar emptiness you've learned to ignore.
The lights flicker—building's older than sin, held together by asbestos and prayer—but the air changes with it. Shifts. Like all the oxygen just remembered it had somewhere else to be.
Your fingers still on the keyboard mid-sentence.
Don't be stupid. It's a basement. In a library. The scariest thing down here is your browser history.
But your body knows things your mind pretends it doesn't. Every hair follicle suddenly awake, skin prickling with the kind of ancient warning that kept humans from being eaten in the dark. Your heartbeat kicks up, stuttering from normal to concerned between one breath and the next.
You turn.
He stands at the edge of the stacks like violence in human form.
Black tactical gear eats the light, makes him look like someone cut a hole in reality and taught it how to hunt. The mask covering the lower half of his face should make him less human, but somehow it's worse—forces you to focus on the eyes that track your movement with the kind of empty precision that makes your hindbrain scream predator predator predator.
"Oh." The sound punches out of you, high and strangled.
He doesn't speak. Doesn't need to. Just moves toward you with the kind of lethal economy that makes you understand, suddenly and completely, why rabbits freeze when hawks circle overhead. No wasted motion. No hesitation. Just purpose distilled into muscle and intent.
Your body tries—God, it tries. Scrambling backward, papers scattering, laptop sliding off your thighs to crack against the floor in what feels like slow motion. Three months of work fracturing into digital garbage as you crab-walk backward, palms slipping on photocopies, knee catching on your backpack hard enough to send you sprawling.
He crosses the space between you like it's nothing.
Like you're nothing.
His hand finds your throat before you've even processed standing, leather and pressure sending you backward into the wall hard enough to knock the air from your lungs. Old brick catches your hair, pulls it, but that barely registers against the feeling of being pinned like an insect, specimen for examination before disposal.
Both your hands fly to his wrist, fingernails catching on tactical fabric that won't give, won't move, won't budge. He's not crushing your windpipe—not yet—but the promise is there in the careful placement of his thumb, the calculated pressure that says I could, if I wanted to.
"Please—" It comes out thin, reedy. Your right hand abandons his wrist to push against his chest, trying to create distance that doesn't exist, will never exist. "I don't know what you—I'm nobody, I'm just—"
His head tilts. Minute. Considering. The eyes stay empty, stay cold, but something flickers there—assessment, maybe. Calculation. How long it will take. How quiet you'll be.
Your left hand keeps clawing at his grip while your right slides up his chest, finds the edge of his tactical vest, pushes uselessly at a shoulder that might as well be carved from stone. But the movement makes you stretch, makes your hand slip higher, past the collar of his gear, past the edge of the mask, until—
Your fingertips brush his jaw.
Skin against skin.
The world breaks apart.
Heat races from that point of contact like lightning seeking ground, if lightning could rewrite your DNA as it traveled. Every nerve ending lights up at once, not with pain but with recognition so profound it feels like drowning in reverse. Like every cell in your body suddenly remembers how to breathe.
His entire body locks. The hand at your throat spasms, loosens, and you hear him make a sound—sharp, bitten off, like someone just slid a knife between his ribs. Those empty eyes blow wide, pupils expanding until there's barely any gray left, and his chest heaves against your palm like he's just broken the surface after being underwater too long.
He rips the mask off with his free hand. Tears it away like it's burning him, revealing a face that makes your chest cavity feel too small. Sharp jaw, soft mouth, stubble that catches the shit fluorescent lighting and turns it into shadow. Beautiful in the way broken things can be beautiful, in the way that makes you want to cut yourself on the edges.
The leather glove at your throat disappears—he tears it off with his teeth, movements gone jerky and desperate where they were smooth before. Then his bare hand is cupping your face, thumb brushing your cheekbone with the kind of reverence reserved for holy things, impossible things, things that might disappear if you breathe wrong.
He pulls you forward, or maybe he falls into you—either way, your foreheads meet in the space between one heartbeat and the next. His breath fans across your face, ragged and hot, and you can feel him shaking. This man who moved like death incarnate thirty seconds ago is shaking.
"Oh," he breathes, and his voice—Christ, his voice is nothing like you imagined during those empty nights when the bond ached worst. Rough like he hasn't used it in years. Soft like he's afraid it'll break something. Accent pulling at the vowels in ways that make your chest hurt. "Oh, no. No, not—not like this."
You can't move. Can't think. Can't process anything beyond the electricity still racing through your veins, the place where his thumb traces your cheekbone like he's trying to memorize the architecture of your face through touch alone. Your hands are caught between you, one still fisted in his tactical vest, the other pressed flat against his chest where you can feel his heart hammering out a rhythm that matches yours.
He pulls back just enough to look at you, and the devastation in his eyes makes your throat close for reasons that have nothing to do with violence. Gray like winter mornings, like grief, like the moment before the sky breaks open.
"I'm sorry," he whispers, wrecked. His thumb catches the tear you didn't realize was sliding down your cheek, and the tenderness of it makes you want to scream. "I'm so fucking sorry, I didn't—I couldn't—"
"Who are you?" Your voice comes out destroyed, barely recognizable. The soul bond hums between you like a live wire, like coming home to a place that's on fire, and you don't know whether to run toward it or away.
His jaw works, muscles tightening and releasing like he's fighting something immense. When he speaks again, it's careful. Measured. Like each word costs him something irreplaceable.
"Someone who's going to disappear." His forehead presses against yours again, harder this time, desperate. Both hands frame your face now, holding you like something precious, something he's about to lose. "Someone who needs you to run. Now. Before—"
A sound echoes down the stairwell. Footsteps. Multiple sets.
The change in him is instant and terrible. The softness vanishes like it was never there, replaced by the same lethal efficiency that brought him here, but now there's something else in his eyes. Something that looks like anguish.
"Forgive me," he says, and before you can ask for what, his thumb finds a spot behind your jaw.
The world tilts. Your legs go liquid. But he catches you—of course he catches you—lowers you to the ground like you're made of spun glass while your vision tunnels to nothing.
The last thing you feel is his mouth pressed to your forehead, words whispered against your skin in a language you don't recognize but somehow understand.
I'll find you again.
I promise.
I'm sorry.
When security finds you four hours later, you have bruises on your throat that look like purple-black fingerprints, a concussion that makes the world swim, and no memory the EMTs will accept of how you ended up unconscious in a locked basement.
But you remember.
You remember the way his hands shook when he held your face. You remember the devastation in winter-gray eyes. You remember the electricity of recognition, the soul bond snapping into place only to be severed, leaving you with a phantom ache that feels like dying in slow motion.
There's a leather glove clutched in your fist that no one can pry from your fingers.
You tell them you don't remember where it came from.
You lie.
The world had always been divided into two types of people: those who'd found their match and those still waiting.
You'd grown up watching the found ones move through life with that particular brand of settled confidence, like they'd discovered some fundamental truth the rest of you were still stumbling toward.
Your mother used to tell the story at dinner parties, after her second glass of wine made her sentimental. How she'd been twenty-three, working at a bank in downtown Brooklyn, when a man came in to dispute an overdraft fee. Their hands touched when she passed back his paperwork. The bond snapped into place like a rubber band that had been stretched across decades, just waiting to contract.
She'd knocked over her coffee. He'd forgotten his own name for thirty seconds. They'd been married six months later.
"You just know," she'd say, fingers intertwined with your father's across the table. "It's like every cell in your body suddenly remembers what it was made for."
You'd wanted to believe her. Spent your eighteenth birthday waiting for that recognition to hit, for your body to suddenly make sense in a way it never had before.
But days turned to weeks turned to months, and all you felt was the same low-grade emptiness everyone without a bond carried—that constant, quiet ache of incompleteness.
By twenty-one, you'd stopped looking for it in every accidental touch.
By twenty-three, you'd convinced yourself you were one of the statistical anomalies. No bond. No match. Just you and your dissertation and a future that looked exactly like your present, only with better coffee and maybe tenure if you played your cards right.
The bruises have faded to sick yellow-green by the time you make it back to campus. Two weeks of medical leave that you spent staring at your apartment ceiling, trying to make sense of something that refuses to be made sensible. The official report sits in your email, cc'd to your advisor and the department head and probably half the university's legal team: Student found unconscious in library basement. Possible assault. No cameras functioning. Investigation ongoing.
You don't correct them. Don't mention the glove hidden in your nightstand drawer. Don't explain that the bruises on your throat match the exact span of fingers that had held your face like you were something holy, something worth breaking for.
Your body remembers even when your mind tries to forget. The soul bond, severed as quickly as it formed, has left you feeling like someone hollowed out your chest cavity with a melon baller. It's worse than before—before was just absence. This is active loss. This is knowing exactly what you're missing.
The dreams start the first night home from the hospital.
Not nightmares—that would be easier. These are soft things that leave you gasping awake at 3 AM with tears on your face and your hand pressed to your cheek where he'd touched you. Dreams where those gray eyes find yours across impossible distances. Where his hands shake as they frame your face. Where he whispers apologies in languages you don't speak but somehow understand.
Sometimes you dream of snow. Of cold so profound it burns. Of a voice saying his name—names?—until there's nothing left but the mission.
Sometimes you dream of falling. Of a train that screams through mountain passes. Of reaching for something—someone—who's always just beyond your fingertips.
But mostly you dream of that moment. The mask coming off. The devastating gentleness of his forehead against yours. The way he breathed you in like his lungs hadn't recognized oxygen until then, like you were the first real thing he'd touched in decades.
You become an expert in lying about the nightmares. "Trauma response," you tell the university-mandated therapist. "Yes, I'm processing. No, I don't remember details. Yes, I feel safe on campus."
Lies. All lies.
You remember everything. The weight of him. The contrast between violence and tenderness that shouldn't have existed in the same person. The way the soul bond had sung between you for those impossible seconds—not the gentle hum your mother described, but something desperate and raw, like two halves of something broken trying to fuse back together.
The research starts three weeks after the incident. You tell yourself it's academic curiosity. Tell yourself you're not the first person to lose a soulmate before really finding them. There are support groups. Statistics. An entire subset of psychology dedicated to severed bonds and what they do to the human psyche.
Increased rates of depression. Anxiety. Insomnia. Some subjects report physical pain at the site of initial contact. Others experience what researchers call "phantom bond syndrome"—the persistent sensation of a connection that no longer exists.
You check every box. Feel him in every room you enter, just a second too late. Wake up with your hand pressed to your face, trying to hold onto the ghost of leather and gunpowder and something metallic you couldn't place then but can't stop tasting now.
The databases give you nothing. Facial recognition software turns up empty. You sketch what you remember of his face—strong jaw, soft mouth, eyes like winter—but it feels like trying to draw music, like something essential gets lost in translation.
"Maybe he was military," Katrina suggests over coffee that tastes like disappointment. She's trying to help, your best friend since undergrad, but she looks at you with the kind of careful concern reserved for people about to break. "Special ops or something. That would explain the tactical gear."
You don't tell her about the way he moved. Don't mention that special ops soldiers don't usually have metal arms—you'd felt it when he caught you, the strange whir of plates adjusting beneath the fabric. Don't explain that whatever he was, military doesn't quite cover it.
December bleeds into January. You submit your dissertation proposal late, blame the incident, receive an extension wrapped in sympathetic looks. The bruises are long gone but you wear scarves anyway, can't stand the feeling of air against your throat where his thumb had pressed.
Your google search history becomes a testament to obsession:
But late at night, when the world sleeps and you're alone with the ache that lives between your ribs, you pull out the glove. Run your fingers over worn leather that's been softened by use and something else—care, maybe. The kind of attention that comes from having nothing else to focus on.
It smells like winter. Like violence. Like the ghost of cologne that might have been nice once, before it mixed with gunpowder and fear and whatever else clings to people who move through the world like weapons.
You press it to your face and breathe deep, eyes closed, trying to summon those impossible seconds when he'd looked at you like you were salvation and damnation all at once. When his voice had broken on an apology for something you didn't understand. When he'd promised to find you again in words you shouldn't have been able to translate but did.
The bond throbs. Phantom pain for a phantom connection.
You fold the glove carefully. Place it back in the drawer. Go to bed knowing you'll dream of gray eyes and the kind of gentleness that only comes from people who've forgotten they deserve it.
Tomorrow you'll get up. Go to class. Pretend your chest doesn't feel like someone excavated it with rusty tools. Pretend you don't scan every face on campus, looking for winter eyes and a jaw that could cut glass.
But tonight, you let yourself remember. Let yourself feel the echo of his forehead against yours, the desperate press of his mouth to your skin, the way he'd held you like you were worth breaking the world for.
I'll find you again.
You touch your throat, the memory of leather and promise.
I'm waiting.
The asset doesn't fight anymore.
Hasn't for years. Learned the hard way that resistance only makes it worse—more voltage, longer sessions, deeper cuts into whatever remains of the person he might have been.
Better to go limp. Better to let them position him like a doll, open his mouth for the rubber guard, wait for the electricity to wash it all away.
The asset craves it sometimes. The blankness. The nothing. Easier than carrying the weight of what his hands have done.
But Bucky Barnes fights.
Screams himself raw before they get the guard between his teeth. Thrashes against the restraints hard enough to bend the metal table, to make the technicians step back with wide eyes because the asset never does this, hasn't done this in fifteen years, not since they perfected the chair's calibration.
"Hold him!" Pierce's voice cuts through the chaos, sharp with irritation. "Get those restraints tightened before—"
Bucky's metal arm tears through the leather strap like tissue paper. Swings wild, catches a handler across the jaw with a crack that sends him spinning into medical equipment. Two more rush forward and he fights them with everything he has, everything he'd forgotten he could be.
Soft hands on his face. Bright eyes wide with recognition. The soul bond singing between them like coming home—
"No!" The word tears out of him, accent thick with desperation. Russian, English, something older—he doesn't know anymore, doesn't care. "Please—please, I can't—"
A needle finds his neck. Sedative, fast-acting, enough to drop an elephant. His knees buckle but he keeps fighting, keeps reaching for—what? The memory's already going slippery, falling through his fingers like water.
Someone. There was someone. Wasn't there?
"Interesting." Pierce circles him as four handlers wrestle him into the chair, voice clinical. "What happened on the mission? You terminated the target, but something affected you. The timeline's off by forty-three minutes."
Bucky's jaw works around the guard they're shoving between his teeth. Can't tell them. Won't tell them. But what is he protecting? The feeling's there—urgent, desperate, worth dying for—but the shape of it keeps shifting.
A face. Soft mouth parted in shock. The way she'd—
The electricity hits before he can finish the thought.
White-hot agony races through every nerve ending, bows his back against the restraints they've doubled, tripled. The scream locks in his throat, comes out as a sound that doesn't belong to anything human. But underneath the pain, worse than the pain, is the feeling of something essential being carved out of him.
Don't take her, some part of him begs. Take everything else, but not her, not this—
But the machine doesn't care about please. Doesn't care that he's crying—when did he start crying? The asset doesn't cry. The asset doesn't feel. But Bucky Barnes is sobbing, choking on the rubber guard as memories start to fracture and fade.
Her hand against his jaw. The world breaking open. Recognition so profound it rewrote thirty years of programming in seconds—
Another pulse. Stronger. Pierce has turned the dial past safety parameters, past sanity, past anything they've done before.
"Sir," one of the technicians ventures, nervous. "The readings—"
"Continue."
Forehead to forehead. Breathing her in. The apology scraping his throat raw because he'd never wanted to meet her like this, never wanted her to know him as a weapon first and a man second—
Gone. It's gone. He reaches for it, desperate, but there's only white noise where her face should be. Only the echo of something precious he'd held for minutes—hours?—seconds?—he doesn't know anymore.
The machine winds down. Silence except for his ragged breathing, the drip of something (blood? tears?) hitting the concrete floor.
"Asset."
He doesn't respond. Can't. There's something wrong with his chest, like someone reached in and scooped out everything that mattered.
"Asset."
Training kicks in where consciousness fails. His head lifts, eyes focusing with effort on the man in the suit. Pierce. Handler. The one who holds the leash.
"Ready to comply." The words come out broken. Mechanical. But correct.
"Mission report."
"Target eliminated. No witnesses." A pause. Something scratches at the back of his mind, urgent, important. But when he reaches for it there's nothing but static. "Extraction successful."
Pierce studies him, pale eyes narrowed. "And the deviation? You were off-schedule."
The asset blinks. Searches the white noise of his mind for an answer that makes sense. "Unexpected resistance. Handled."
"I see." Pierce doesn't look convinced, but he waves to the technicians. "Run a full cognitive recalibration. I want him stable before the next deployment."
They unstrap him eventually. He doesn't fight. Doesn't do anything but stare at his metal hand, trying to understand why it feels wrong. Why everything feels wrong. There's an ache in his chest that wasn't there before—or was it always there? He can't remember. Can't remember anything but the mission, the chair, the readiness to comply.
But that night, locked in cryo-prep, he dreams.
Fragments. Glimpses. A basement that smells like old paper and fear. Someone pressed against a wall, hands pushing at his chest. The feeling of skin against skin and the world exploding into color he didn't know existed.
He wakes with her ghost on his lips—no name, no face, just the shape of an apology in a language he's not supposed to know.
The asset reports for cryo on schedule. Lies still as they prep the chamber, ice already forming in the tubes that will freeze him until the next time he's needed. But as consciousness fades, as the cold takes him under, one thought persists:
Someone. There was someone. And I've lost them.
The machine hisses. Frost spreads across the glass.
The asset sleeps.
Bucky Barnes screams.
The Starbucks on 42nd doesn't have soul bonds on the menu, but they do have overpriced lattes and witnesses, which is why you're here instead of home, staring at your bedroom ceiling and trying to parse nightmares from memories.
Six months.
Six months of the glove under your pillow losing his scent. Six months of your advisor asking pointed questions about your "lack of focus" and your therapist prescribing sleeping pills that don't work because how do you medicate a severed soul bond?
How do you explain that you're mourning someone you knew for less than five minutes?
You're arguing with yourself about the merits of a fourth shot of espresso when the world explodes.
Glass shatters inward, the windows becoming a thousand diamonds catching afternoon light. Your coffee hits the floor—there goes eight dollars you don't have—as your body moves on instinct, dropping behind the counter with five other people who smell like fear and pumpkin spice.
Screaming. So much screaming. Cars screeching outside, the percussion of something that might be gunfire but sounds too wrong, too close, too real for a Tuesday afternoon in Manhattan.
You peek around the espresso machine and your heart forgets how to beat.
He's standing in the middle of the street like death dressed for winter. Same tactical gear, same casual violence, same way of moving that makes everyone else look like they're traveling through molasses. The mask covers the lower half of his face again, but you'd know those eyes anywhere. Have been seeing them every night for six months, after all.
A cop raises his weapon. The soldier—your soulmate, your ghost, your nightly torment—disarms him with an economy of motion that's almost beautiful. The crack of breaking fingers carries even through the shattered windows.
Get up, your brain screams. Run. Move. Do something that isn't standing here like a deer watching headlights come to claim it.
But your body has other plans. Your treacherous, soul-bonded body that recognizes his even across thirty feet of chaos and broken glass. You're moving before conscious thought catches up, stumbling through the destroyed storefront on legs that feel like they belong to someone else.
This is stupid. Monumentally stupid. The kind of stupid that gets psychology PhD candidates killed in broad daylight. But your hand is already reaching, already grasping, because maybe—
Your fingers close around his wrist.
The barest slip of skin where his sleeve has ridden up, your thumb finding his pulse like it was made for nothing else. The connection slams through you—heat and recognition and yes, finally, yes—
The gun clatters to the asphalt.
His whole body goes rigid, that same terrible stillness from before. You watch his pupils dilate, watch six months of careful nothing shatter in his eyes as a stranger crashes back into existence.
He moves so fast you don't process it. One second you're standing there, thumb on his pulse, the next you're spinning, back slamming into his chest as his metal arm locks across your body. The gun—when did he pick it up?—presses cold against your temple.
You stop breathing.
Around you, cops and civilians alike freeze. Weapons lower incrementally because now there's a hostage situation, now there's a girl who was stupid enough to touch the Winter Soldier and—
"Name." His voice in your ear, so quiet you almost miss it under the sirens. That sound that had haunted your dreams, rougher now, desperate. "Your name. Please."
Your lips barely move, sound threading between heartbeats. You tell him, soft as a whisper.
The gun doesn't waver. To everyone watching, he's perfectly still, a predator considering prey. But his metal thumb moves against your bare arm where your shirt has ridden up. Gentle. Deliberate. Tracing letters maybe, or just feeling, and you wonder if he can—if there are sensors in the metal that let him—
"My name is James Buchanan Barnes." Each word careful, precious, pressed into the space below your ear like a secret. Like a gift. "Bucky. My name is Bucky. I won't remember, so I need you to—you have to remember for me."
James Buchanan Barnes.
It tickles something in your memory. A history class, maybe. Something about World War II, about Captain America, about—
"What have they done to you?" The words slip out, horrified, because the pieces are trying to fit together but the picture they're making can't be right, can't be possible—
"Find me." Urgent now. His realness, his hereness makes your chest ache with completion even as your mind screams danger. "When I—after they—find me. Please. I can't—"
His voice cracks.
The gun leaves your temple.
The crack of the shot makes you flinch, but it's the cop to your left who goes down, clutching his knee, screaming. Bucky shoves you—not hard, but enough to send you stumbling into the crowd as he moves the opposite direction, using the chaos as cover.
You hit the ground hard, knees cracking against asphalt, palms scraped raw. Around you, people scatter like startled birds. Someone's hands on your shoulders, pulling you back, asking if you're hurt, if you need medical attention.
You can't answer. Can't do anything but stare at the place where he'd stood, where he'd held you, where he'd given you his name like it was the only thing he had left to give.
Your arm throbs where his metal thumb had traced patterns. When you look down, you can see the faint red marks—not bruises, just pressure. Just proof.
"Miss? Miss, we need to get you checked out—"
"I'm fine." You're not. You're the opposite of fine. You're shattering in slow motion, held together by adrenaline and the phantom feeling of his chest against your back. "I'm—he didn't hurt me."
The EMT looks skeptical. "He held a gun to your head."
"He didn't hurt me," you repeat, and you're not sure who you're trying to convince.
They take you anyway. St. Luke's emergency room, where you spend four hours being poked and prodded and questioned by people who look at you like you might break or explode. The FBI shows up eventually, two agents in bad suits who ask the same questions fifteen different ways.
"Did he say anything to you?"
My name is James Buchanan Barnes.
"No."
"Are you sure? Even something small could help."
Find me.
"He didn't say anything."
They don't believe you. You can see it in the way they exchange glances, the way their pens hover over notepads. But what are you supposed to tell them? That the most wanted man in America is your soulmate? That he gave you his name like a prayer? That even now, hours later, you can still feel the phantom press of metal against your skin?
They release you near midnight with a card and instructions to call if you remember anything. You take a cab home because the subway feels too exposed, too dangerous, like maybe he'll be there in the shadows between stops.
Your apartment is exactly as you left it. Laptop open on the counter, half a cup of cold coffee growing something ambitious by the sink. Normal. Safe.
Empty.
You sink onto your bed, still fully dressed, and pull out your phone. Your search history is already damning, but what's one more nail in the coffin?
James Buchanan Barnes
The results make your stomach drop.
Born 1917. Best friend of Steve Rogers, Captain America. Sergeant in the 107th Infantry Regiment. Fell from a train in the Alps in 1945. Presumed dead.
Except he's not dead. He's not dead because you touched him today, felt his pulse under your thumb, heard him breathing in your ear as he held you like something breakable and precious all at once.
You dig deeper. Past the official records, past the Wikipedia entries, into the conspiracy forums and leaked documents that only half-load on your shitty wifi.
The Winter Soldier.
HYDRA.
Seventy years of ghost stories.
An assassin who appears and disappears like smoke, leaving bodies in his wake.
Your soulmate is a century-old brainwashed assassin. Your soulmate is Bucky Barnes, who died in 1945. Who didn't die. Who was turned into something else, something violent and beautiful and dangerous.
Who fights back to consciousness every time you touch him only to be dragged under again.
What have they done to you?
You close your laptop. Lie back on your bed, fully clothed, and stare at the water stain on your ceiling that looks like a rabbit if you squint. Your arm still throbs where he touched you. Traced letters, maybe, or just—
You bolt upright.
Grab a pen, try to recreate the pattern from memory on your other arm. It takes three tries before the movements feel right, before the shapes resolve into something recognizable.
Numbers.
He'd traced numbers on your skin. Coordinates.
Find me, he'd said.
Your hands shake as you type them into your phone. A location upstate, middle of nowhere, the kind of place where no one would look twice at an abandoned building or hear the screams from underground.
You should leave it alone. Should forget his name, forget the numbers, forget the feeling of being whole for thirty seconds in the middle of chaos. Should be smart and safe and boring and alive.
Instead, you screenshot the location. Book a rental car for tomorrow. Pack a bag with things that might matter—the glove, pepper spray that won't do shit against a super soldier but makes you feel better, a first aid kit you probably won't get the chance to use.
Find me.
You're going to. God help you, you're going to find James Buchanan Barnes.
Even if it kills you.
(It probably will.)
(You're going anyway.)
The HYDRA facility squats in the pre-dawn darkness like something that crawled out of the Cold War and forgot to die. You're crammed in the back of a tactical van between enough weaponry to level a city block and Captain America's guilt, which somehow takes up more space.
Forty-eight hours. That's all it took from wine-drunk-email-to-vague-Avengers-PR-listing to this—body armor that doesn't fit right, your heart hammering against ceramic plates, and the ghost of coordinates still throbbing on your arm where he'd traced them.
"Two minutes to insertion." Natasha's voice crackles through comms you're not supposed to have. But Steve had insisted, jaw set in that way that apparently nobody argues with. Not even Fury.
Steve Rogers had shown up at your door with Natasha Romanoff and Nick Fury, your roommate had screamed in her towel, and you'd told them everything. About the library. About the way Bucky's entire being had shifted when you touched him, like watching someone break the surface after drowning.
About how he'd held you in that Starbucks, whispered his name against your ear like a secret, like salvation, like the only thing he had left that was his.
Steve had gone very, very still. Then: "We're finding him. We're bringing him home."
Now he's sitting across from you, shield balanced against his knee, and you can see why people follow him into impossible situations. It's not the shoulders or the jaw or the way he fills out tactical gear like he was born to it. It's the way he looks at you—not through you, not around you, but at you. Like you matter. Like your connection to his best friend makes you worth protecting.
"Remember," he says quietly, pitched below the engine noise. "The moment we find him, the moment you make contact—"
"I know." Your fingers won't stop moving, tracing and retracing the numbers Bucky left on your skin. "Skin contact. Bring him back." Don't let go."
What you don't say: What if it doesn't work this time? What if they've wiped him too many times? What if whatever's left isn't enough to—
The van stops.
Everything happens too fast after that. Doors flying open, bodies moving with practiced precision, you stumbling to keep up as Steve's hand on your elbow guides you through pre-dawn shadows toward a concrete mouth that looks like it's waiting to swallow you whole.
The facility is worse inside. All industrial fluorescents and that particular kind of silence that sounds like screaming if you listen too hard. Your soul bond, quiet for months, starts to ache with proximity—a deep, bone-level recognition that makes your teeth chatter.
"Southwest clear." Someone else, call sign you didn't catch.
"Movement in the lower levels." Another voice. "Looks like they're mobilizing—"
A sound cuts through the chatter. Not quite human. Not quite animal. Something between a scream and static that makes your hindbrain light up with warnings to run.
Steve's already moving. "That's him."
You follow because what else can you do? Down stairs that smell like rust and terror, through corridors that branch like diseased arteries. The ache in your chest intensifies with each level down, soul bond pulling taut as piano wire.
Then—
The room opens before you like a wound. Medical equipment that belongs in museums next to things that belong in nightmares. And in the center, strapped to a chair that looks more like an electric chair than anything medical—
"Bucky." Steve's voice breaks on it.
He's shirtless, sweat-slick and shaking, with enough electricity running through him to light up half of Brooklyn. His hair hangs limp around his face, and even from here you can see the way his muscles lock and release in waves as current pulses through the chair. Fresh burn marks lattice across his chest where the nodes attach, and there's blood—so much blood—dripping from where he's fought against the restraints.
There are bodies on the floor. Technicians, by their white coats. The blood is fresh enough to still be spreading.
"Stay back." Natasha has her weapon trained on him, all business. "He's still the Winter—"
Bucky's head snaps up.
His eyes find yours across twenty feet of blood and machinery.
Time stops.
Those aren't the empty eyes from the library. Aren't the desperate clarity from the coffee shop. These are something else entirely—feral and frightened and so fucking broken under all that damage. He looks like something that's been torn apart and reassembled wrong, like an animal that's been in a cage so long it's forgotten what sky looks like.
You're moving before conscious thought catches up. Dodging Steve's reaching hand, slipping past Natasha's outstretched arm. Your feet slip in blood—whose blood? His? Theirs?—but you don't stop. Can't stop. The soul bond is screaming, every cell in your body reaching for its other half.
"Don't—" Someone shouts. Might be Steve. Might be God himself. Doesn't matter.
Because Bucky's watching you approach with the kind of stillness that precedes violence. His metal arm—and this close you can see how it's grafted to flesh, red and raw and infected at the edges—flexes against the restraints. The leather creaks. His chest heaves with each breath, and there's a wild look in his eyes like he can't decide if you're real or another torture.
You collapse on the arm of the chair. His breathing is ragged, chest heaving, and this close you can see old scars layered on new ones, a roadmap of decades of damage. Seventy years of this. Seventy years of being unmade and remade into something sharp and wrong.
Your hand reaches up, slow as you'd approach a wounded animal.
He flinches.
Actually flinches, this assassin who's probably felt every kind of pain there is. A sound escapes him—small, wounded, barely human. But when your fingertips brush his cheek—skin to skin, that electric recognition—his whole body convulses.
"Oh," you breathe, and it's inadequate, it's nothing, it's everything. Because the bond slots into place like coming home if home was a person who'd been carved hollow and filled with ghosts.
His eyes clear incrementally. Pupil contraction, focus sharpening, and then—
The noise that tears out of him is inhuman. Seventy years of grief and rage and desperate loneliness condensed into a single sound that makes your bones ache. His metal hand shatters the restraint like tissue paper, then the flesh one, and before you can process the movement he's dragging you up, up, into his lap, crushing you against his chest with desperate strength.
"You," he's saying, over and over, voice wrecked beyond recognition. "You, you, you—real, you're real, you're—"
His hands are everywhere at once. Metal fingers tangling in your hair, flesh hand splayed across your back hard enough to bruise, holding you like you might dissolve if he loosens his grip for even a second. He buries his face in the curve of your neck and the sob that escapes him is pure agony, seventy years of touch starvation hitting him all at once.
You can feel him shaking—no, not shaking, convulsing, like his body doesn't know how to process gentle touch anymore. Doesn't know what to do with softness after decades of nothing but pain.
"I'm here," you whisper against his temple, your own tears falling freely. "I'm real. I found you. I've got you."
His response is to hold you tighter, tight enough that breathing becomes difficult, but you don't care. Can't care when he's falling apart in your arms like this. The metal hand fists in your tactical vest and you hear fabric tear, but he doesn't seem to notice. He's pressing his face harder into your throat, breathing you in like you're air and he's been suffocating for seventy years.
"Thought I dreamed you." The words come out destroyed, muffled against your skin. "They said—they said I made you up. That the pain was making me see things. But you smell real. You feel—" His flesh hand slides up to cup the back of your head, holding you in place. "Please be real. Please, please be real."
"I'm real." You press your lips to his temple, just a brief touch of comfort. "James Buchanan Barnes, you're real and I'm real and I found you."
His breath hitches at his full name, and suddenly he's pulling back just enough to look at you. This close, you can see everything—the burst blood vessels in his eyes, the way his pupils can't quite focus, the decades of accumulated scars. He looks ancient. He looks young. He looks absolutely shattered.
"Don't know who that is anymore." Raw honesty, delivered while his thumbs trace your cheekbones with desperate reverence. "Don't know who I am when I'm not killing. When they're not—" He breaks off, jaw working. "I've been empty for so long. So fucking long. And then you touched me and I remembered what it felt like to be human and they took it away—"
"They can't take it away again." You frame his face with your hands, forcing him to meet your eyes. "We're leaving. Right now. Together."
"You don't understand." He's crying openly now, no shame in it, just pure emotional overflow. "Seventy years. Seventy fucking years of this chair, this room, these walls. They put me in the dark and take me out to kill and put me back and I can't—when they say the words, I disappear. Everything disappears."
"Then we don't let them say the words."
"I've killed so many people." He presses his forehead to yours hard enough to hurt, but the contact seems to calm something in him. "Children. Civilians. Good people. Bad people. So many I lost count. The things they made me do—the things I did—"
"I don't care."
"You should." His metal hand comes up to wrap around your throat, gentle but present. "This hand has strangled innocent people. These fingers have pulled triggers that ended lives. I'm not—I'm not good. I'm not worth—"
"Stop." You turn your head to press your lips to his metal palm, and the sound he makes is pure agony. "You're worth everything. You're my soulmate. You're—"
He makes a broken noise and crushes you against him again, like he's trying to crawl inside your skin. His whole body trembles with the effort of holding you close enough, like no amount of contact will ever be sufficient after seventy years of nothing.
"They're gonna wipe me again." Matter-of-fact. Resigned. "Soon as they realize what happened here. They always do. And I'll forget you again. Forget this. And next time—" His voice breaks. "Next time they'll make sure I can't touch you. They'll find ways to hurt you through me. They'll make me—"
"No." Your hands tighten on his face. "No, they won't. We're leaving. Steve's here. Natasha. We're getting you out."
"Stevie?" For the first time, his eyes flicker past you, landing on his best friend. The confusion there is heartbreaking. "But you're—you're supposed to be—"
"Hey, Buck." Steve's voice is thick with emotion. "It's me. It's really me. We're taking you home."
But Bucky's already looking back at you, like he can't bear to look away for more than seconds. His flesh hand hasn't stopped moving—tracing your face, your neck, tangling in your hair like he's trying to memorize you through touch alone.
"I don't want to forget again." It comes out small, broken. "Please. I can't do it again. Can't lose you again. It'll kill me. It'll—"
"You won't forget." You shift in his lap, wrap your arms around his neck, and he makes a sound like you've given him salvation. "I won't let them take you. I won't let them hurt you anymore. I promise."
"We need to move." Natasha's voice, soft but urgent. "Security response in two minutes."
Steve's at your side instantly, but when he reaches for Bucky, the soldier flinches back violently, metal arm coming up in defense. The only thing that keeps him from lashing out is your hand on his chest, your voice in his ear.
"It's okay. It's Steve. He's safe. He's here to help."
"Can you walk?" Steve asks, careful to keep his distance.
Bucky nods against your shoulder, but when you try to move off his lap, his arms lock around you with desperate strength.
"No." Panicked. "No, please. Need to—need to touch—"
"I'm not going anywhere." You run your fingers through his hair, and he leans into it like a cat. "We're walking out of here together. But you have to let me stand up."
It takes visible effort for him to loosen his grip. When you stand, he follows immediately, swaying slightly. He towers over you even hunched with exhaustion, and when his hand finds yours, it's with the grip of a drowning man finding driftwood.
You start moving as a unit, but Bucky can't stop touching you. His free hand keeps finding your face, your hair, your shoulder, like he needs constant confirmation you're real. At one point he stops entirely, pulls you back against his chest, and just breathes you in for several seconds while Steve and Natasha stand guard.
"Left," he says suddenly as you reach a junction, pulling you down a side corridor. "Service tunnel. I've—I've tried before. Three times. No. Four? They always—" His free hand comes up to his head, pressing against his temple.
"Hey." You squeeze his hand. "Doesn't matter. Which way?"
The service tunnel is narrow and dark. Bucky pulls you through it like muscle memory, but halfway through he stops, pressing you against the wall. His hands frame your face in the darkness.
"What if this isn't real?" Desperate. "What if I'm still in the chair? What if this is just another way they're breaking me?"
You reach up to cradle his face in return, thumbs brushing over his cheekbones. "Does this feel like a dream?"
"No." He breathes the word against your mouth. "No, it feels—it feels like waking up."
The exit spills you out into pre-dawn forest. The quinjet looms out of the darkness, and for the first time in seventy years, Bucky Barnes runs toward freedom instead of away from it.
But even on the jet, even safe, he can't stop holding you. He pulls you into his lap on the bench seats, ignoring the medical team, ignoring everyone, and just holds on. His face stays buried in your neck during takeoff, his arms locked around you like prison bars in reverse—keeping the world out instead of keeping him in.
"You're free," you whisper, over and over, like a prayer. "You're free. You're safe. You're mine."
"Yours," he agrees, and finally, finally, his death grip loosens just enough for you to breathe. "Yours. Always yours. Even when I couldn't remember. Even in the dark. Somehow I was always yours."
The sun breaks the horizon as you fly toward home, and for the first time in seventy years, Bucky Barnes believes he might actually make it there.
The first time Bucky Barnes calls you at 3 AM, your body knows it's him before your mind catches up.
The phone vibrates against your nightstand, and your hand's already reaching, heart already racing—not with fear but with recognition. That soul-deep pull that's been your compass for three months now.
"Bucky?" Your voice comes out sleep-rough, concerned.
Just breathing on the other end. Ragged, like he's been running. Or fighting. The sound makes your chest tight.
"Can't—" His voice cracks like splintered wood. "Can't remember if the blood on my hands is from yesterday or a decade ago."
You're already moving, sheets tangling around your legs as you hunt for clothes in the dark. "Where are you?"
"Steve's. The Tower. I'm—" A shaky exhale that you feel in your own lungs. "I'm safe. Everyone's safe. Just needed—"
"Me." Not a question. The bond thrums with his distress, a phantom ache under your ribs. "I'm coming."
"You don't have to—"
"I'm coming."
Twenty minutes later, Happy's pulling up to the Tower's private entrance. You're wearing the first things your hands found—pajama shorts with snowflakes on them that you stole from your roommate, one of Bucky's hoodies that still smells like him (cedar and gunpowder and something indefinably him).
The elevator ride feels eternal. Your skin prickles with proximity, the bond pulling taut as you rise through the floors. By the time JARVIS deposits you on the residential level, your hands are shaking with the need to touch him, to soothe whatever's tearing him apart.
You find him on the couch, knees drawn up to his chest like he's trying to make himself smaller. His metal hand is clenched so tight you can hear the recalibration whirs, flesh hand buried in his hair. Steve hovers nearby, hands opening and closing like he wants to help but doesn't know how.
"Buck," you breathe.
His head snaps up, and oh—his eyes are winter-wild, pupils blown with panic, caught in some liminal space between then and now. You watch him catalog you in pieces: face, voice, the way you're already moving toward him like gravity's reversed its pull.
You don't speak. Don't need to. Just fold yourself onto the couch beside him, close enough that the line of your body presses against his from shoulder to hip. His flesh hand finds yours immediately, desperate, fingers lacing between yours like maybe if he holds tight enough he won't drift away.
The effect is immediate—a full-body shudder, his breathing starting to sync with yours. The bond hums, warm honey spreading through your veins. Steve makes a sound—relief wrapped in something more complicated—and quietly retreats.
"Sorry," Bucky murmurs after a moment. His thumb finds your pulse point, traces it like he's counting heartbeats. "Shouldn't have woken you."
"Yes, you should have." No reproach, just fact. "That's what this is."
He turns to look at you then, really look, and you watch him surface by degrees. His metal hand comes up without conscious thought, fingertips ghosting along your jaw with impossible gentleness. The cool metal makes you shiver, but you lean into it, letting him map the reality of you.
"There you are," he whispers.
Something fractures inside you. He pulls you in—careful, always so careful with you—until your foreheads touch. His breathing ghosts across your lips, and you stay suspended in that space, sharing air and warmth and the indescribable thing that ties soul to soul.
It becomes your new normal.
The calls come at all hours. Sometimes Steve's the one calling, voice carefully controlled: "Can you come? He's asking for you." Sometimes it's Natasha, brusque but not unkind: "Barnes needs you." Once, memorably, it's Tony: "Your touch-starved assassin is having a moment. Also, he may have broken my espresso machine."
You always go.
The team adapts to your presence like you're a new piece of furniture—necessary, functional, occasionally in the way. You learn to read Bucky's tells from across a room: the way his eyes go distant when memory bleeds through, the micro-flinches when sound becomes too much, the careful way he holds himself when he's fragmenting.
But more than that, you learn the language his body speaks when it's seeking yours.
He's always careful at first, tentative as a feral cat learning to accept kindness. A brush of fingers, testing. The barest press of his palm to yours. But once that first contact is made, something in him unravels.
He touches you like he's mapping a new world.
It starts innocuous enough—fingers tangled together during movie nights, his thumb painting absent patterns on your wrist. His hand finds the small of your back when you walk, not possessive but anchoring, like he needs proof you're real. He pulls you between his knees when he's sitting, arms banding around your waist, chin notching over your shoulder while you chat with Sam about nothing important.
But as weeks become months, the touches grow bolder. Hungrier.
"Does it bother you?" he asks one afternoon.
He's had a brutal therapy session—three hours of guided recall that left him shaking and grey-faced. You'd spent the past hour with his head in your lap, your fingers carding through his hair while he pieced himself back together. His flesh hand has found its way under your shirt, palm spread wide over your ribs, and his metal fingers trace delicate patterns on the inside of your wrist.
"Does what bother me?"
"This." He gestures vaguely at the negative space between you that stopped existing weeks ago. "How much I need—" He stops. Swallows. Tries again. "How I can't stop touching you."
The question deserves honesty, so you give it consideration. Think about how your life has restructured itself around these points of contact. How you've started wearing layers just so there's always fabric to push aside, skin to find. How your body anticipates his touch now, turns toward him without conscious thought.
"No," you say finally. "It doesn't bother me."
He studies your face with those searching eyes, looking for the polite lie. You let him look, keeping your expression open.
"I've been thinking," you continue, adjusting so you can see him better. His hand immediately shifts, fingers splaying wider across your ribs like he needs more contact to make up for the movement. "About touch. About deprivation."
A muscle in his jaw ticks.
"Seventy years," you say softly. "Seventy years where touch meant pain. Programming. Violence. Where hands on you meant—"
"Stop." Rough. His hand presses harder against your ribs, feeling your heartbeat.
"—so is it any wonder you're hungry for something else? Something good?"
His exhale shudders out of him. "The doctors say it's codependence."
"The doctors haven't had their souls systematically unmade and remade." You cover his flesh hand with yours, pressing it more firmly against your skin. "You're not codependent, Bucky. You're human. You're healing. And if touch helps—"
"It's not just that it helps." The words come out jagged, confessional. "I want—" His metal hand comes up, traces the line of your throat with one careful finger. "I want to touch you all the time. Want to know the texture of every inch of your skin. Want to map you like territory, like—" He cuts himself off, jaw clenching.
Heat pools low in your stomach, but you keep your voice steady. "Like what?"
"Like you're mine." Barely audible. His eyes won't meet yours. "Like I have any right to—"
"You do." You turn into him more fully, catch his face between your palms. His eyes flutter closed, and he leans into the touch like a man starved. "You have every right. We're soulmates, Bucky. That means something."
"What if I never get better?" Raw, honest. "What if I always need this? Need you?"
"Then you'll always have me."
His eyes snap open, winter-blue and desperate. "You can't promise that."
"Watch me."
The trial is excruciating. You watch from designated seating as Bucky sits statue-still, hair pulled back severe, wearing a suit that makes him look like someone else entirely. They read names, show photographs, detail missions that exist in his memory like shattered glass—some pieces clear, others reflecting nothing but blood.
The days he testifies, he comes to you after.
Never speaks about it. Just shows up at your door looking hollowed out, and you let him in without questions. He wraps himself around you like you're the only solid thing in a tilting world, face buried in the curve of your neck, breathing you in like oxygen.
These are the times his hands grow bold.
Not inappropriate—never that. But searching. He maps you like a cartographer charting new territory. Palms skimming your sides, memorizing the curve of waist to hip. Fingers tracing the ladder of your ribs through thin fabric. Metal thumb finding the hollow of your throat where your pulse flutters hummingbird-quick.
"I need—" he'll say against your skin, words muffled and desperate.
"I know," you always answer. "Take what you need."
So he does. His flesh hand slips under your shirt, finds the warm plane of your stomach, spreads wide like he's trying to absorb your steadiness through osmosis. His metal fingers trace patterns on whatever skin he can find—the inside of your wrist, the nape of your neck, the sensitive spot behind your ear that makes you shiver.
Sometimes you'll find his hand at your sternum, metal fingers splayed over your heartbeat like he's using it to calibrate his own. Sometimes he'll trace the boundary where clothing meets skin, fingertips ghosting under hems and necklines but never pushing further, just needing to know there's softness underneath, that not everything in the world has sharp edges.
"Is this okay?" he asks every time, even as his touch grows more familiar, more certain.
"Yes," you answer every time, even as your skin heats and your breath catches and you want—
You want.
"So are you two fucking yet?"
You choke on your coffee, hot liquid searing your throat. Across the kitchen, Bucky's shoulders go rigid where he's making eggs with the kind of focus usually reserved for defusing explosives.
"Tony," Steve says, warning clear in his voice.
"What? It's a legitimate question. All that touching, the eye-fucking across every room, the way Barnes goes feral if anyone else so much as—"
"We're not." Your face burns. "That's not—we haven't—"
Tony's eyebrows achieve escape velocity. "You're telling me you've been playing the world's most intense game of grabass for three months and haven't—"
"Stark." Bucky's voice is winter-quiet, dangerous in the way that makes smart people reevaluate their life choices.
But Tony's never been accused of survival instincts. "I'm just saying, that level of sexual tension could power—"
The plate in Bucky's metal hand shatters.
Silence rings out, broken only by the drip of egg yolk hitting tile.
"I'll just." Tony backs toward the door, hands raised. "Workshop. Important things. Very important things."
He's gone before anyone can blink, leaving you, Bucky, and Steve in a kitchen that suddenly feels airless. Bucky stares at the ceramic shards in his hand like they've personally betrayed him.
"Buck—" Steve starts.
"I need air."
He's out the door before you can process the movement, leaving you with cooling eggs and Tony's words hanging in the air like smoke.
Steve sighs, the sound of a man who's aged a century in the last minute. "He's an idiot. Tony, I mean. Though Buck's also—" He stops. Runs a hand through his hair. "This is none of my business."
"But?"
"But." Steve fixes you with those earnest eyes that probably ended wars. "He thinks he's protecting you. From himself. From what he's done. He doesn't think he deserves—" A gesture encompasses you, the kitchen, the entire situation.
"That's not his decision to make."
"No," Steve agrees. "But when has that ever stopped him?"
You find Bucky on the roof because of course that's where he goes. He's sitting on the edge, legs dangling over nothing, and your heart does something complicated in your chest.
"Most people have their existential crises at ground level," you say, settling beside him carefully.
His mouth twitches—not quite a smile, but close. "Most people haven't fallen off a train."
"Fair point."
The city spreads below like a circuit board, all light and movement and life. Without looking, his hand finds yours, fingers interlacing with the ease of long practice. The bond settles, that constant thrum of rightness that comes with skin meeting skin.
"Tony's not wrong," he says eventually.
You wait, let him find the words in his own time.
"I think about it." His voice is carefully controlled, but you can feel the tremor in his hand. "Touching you. Not just—not just to ground myself. Not for the bond. I think about touching you because I want to. Because you're—"
He stops. His throat works, and when he speaks again, his voice is rougher. "Because you're beautiful. And kind. And you laugh at my terrible jokes even when they're not funny. You come when I call at 3 AM. You let me put my hands on you even though these same hands have—"
"Bucky—"
"I dream about it." The confession comes out raw. "Dream about kissing you. About how you'd taste. How you'd feel. Wake up with your name in my mouth and my hands reaching for you, and it's not about the bond, it's about—" He turns to look at you then, eyes dark with something that makes your breath catch. "It's about how much I want you. How much I want things I have no right to want."
"What if," you say, voice steadier than your pulse, "I want those same things?"
His breathing stutters. "You don't. You can't."
"Don't tell me what I want." You turn toward him fully, free hand coming up to his jaw. He leans into it helplessly, eyes falling closed. "I know exactly what I want. Who I want."
"I'm held together with duct tape and trauma," he says, but his resolve is crumbling. You can see it in the way he presses harder into your palm. "I can't take you on normal dates. Can't promise I won't have panic attacks. Can't even sleep through the night without—"
"I don't want normal." Your thumb traces his cheekbone, feels him shudder. "I want you. Every piece, every edge, every nightmare and bad day. I want the man who hums old songs when he thinks no one's listening. Who makes terrible eggs but keeps trying. Who touches me like I'm something precious and looks at me like I'm a miracle."
"You are," he breathes. "You're—"
You kiss him.
Or maybe he kisses you.
Maybe you meet in the middle, drawn together by forces older than choice.
The first press of lips is tentative, a question asked and answered in the same breath. His flesh hand comes up to cradle your face, and the tenderness of it makes your chest ache. But then you make a sound—small, needy—and something in him breaks.
Or maybe something in him finally fixes itself.
His metal arm bands around your waist, pulls you against him with desperate strength. The kiss deepens, and oh, you understand now why people write symphonies and wage wars. Because Bucky Barnes kisses like he's drowning and you're air, like he's been starving for seventy years and you're sustenance, like maybe the universe knew exactly what it was doing when it tied your souls together.
He kisses you like he's trying to crawl inside your skin.
His tongue traces the seam of your lips and you open for him without thought, and the sound he makes—broken, grateful—sends heat racing down your spine. He tastes like coffee and something indefinably him, and you chase that taste deeper, hands fisting in his shirt.
He doesn't surface for air. Doesn't pause. Just tilts his head to find a better angle and kisses you deeper, harder, like he's trying to memorize the shape of your mouth, the texture of your sighs. His metal hand spans your lower back, pulling you impossibly closer, while his flesh hand maps your face, thumb stroking your cheek even as his mouth devastates you.
You're half in his lap now, twisted awkwardly on the ledge, and you don't care. Can't care about anything beyond the heat of his mouth, the way he groans when you nip at his lower lip, the way his hands shake where they hold you.
"Wanted this," he gasps against your mouth, not pulling back enough to actually stop kissing you. "Wanted you. Before I even knew you. So long, so fucking long—"
You answer by sliding your hands into his hair, nails scraping his scalp, and he shudders against you, kiss going a little sloppy and desperate. He's not cold, not controlled, not careful. He's burning, pressing against you like he wants to fuse at the molecular level, like the soul bond isn't enough and never could be.
When you finally break apart—only because oxygen is apparently necessary—you're both wrecked. His lips are swollen, eyes dark and dazed. You probably look the same. His forehead drops to yours, and you can feel him trembling against you, all that careful control finally, beautifully shattered.
"Okay?" His voice is destroyed, rough like he's been screaming.
"So far past okay," you manage. "Though your timing—we're on a roof, Barnes."
He laughs, the sound surprised out of him, and presses kisses to your cheeks, your jaw, the corner of your mouth like he can't quite stop now that he's started. "Sorry. I'll plan better next time."
"Next time?" You're going for teasing but it comes out breathless, hopeful.
His eyes find yours, and the intensity there steals any words you might have had. "Every time. Any time. All the time, if you'll—if you want—"
You press your mouth to his again, swallowing whatever self-deprecating thing he was about to say. He makes a noise of pure relief and hauls you closer, and you think maybe Tony Stark has exactly one good point in his entire existence.
Not that you'll ever tell him.
**
The science had been clinical, sterile words on a page that you'd skimmed in college while nursing a hangover and trying to make sense of your Behavioral Psych reading.
Academic language that utterly failed to capture this—Bucky's mouth hot and slick and desperate against your throat while his hands relearn territory they've been mapping under cotton and denim for months, each touch sending electricity racing down your spine like lightning seeking ground.
"Fucking finally," he growls against your pulse point, and you feel the words more than hear them, vibrating through skin into bone, into the very marrow of you. His metal hand spans your ribs, each individual plate recalibrating against your skin with tiny whirs and clicks, like even the machinery of him is trying to get closer.
"You know what it's been like? Having you close enough to smell, to taste in the air, but not—Christ, the way you tremble each time I touch you, like you're starving for it—"
You try to form words but he's already peeling your shirt away with hands that shake despite their practiced efficiency, and the first full press of his bare chest to yours—scarred skin against soft, furnace heat against cool air—whites out anything resembling higher thought.
The soul bond doesn't just sing—it screams, every nerve ending recognizing its other half and lighting up like a constellation, like a neural map catching fire.
"Oh," you gasp, and it's inadequate, it's nothing, but Bucky goes rigid above you like you've shot electricity straight through his spine.
"Yeah," he agrees, voice absolutely wrecked. His forehead drops to your shoulder, dog tags dragging cold metal across your overheated chest as he pants against your skin, each exhale making you shiver. "Yeah, that's—fuck, is it always gonna feel like this? Like touching a live wire, just—"
"More," you manage, arching into him until there's no space left between your bodies, and you feel his control splinter like ice under pressure.
His mouth finds yours again, hungry and graceless, all that careful restraint from months of chaste touches finally, blessedly gone. His tongue slides against yours and you taste coffee and something metallic—blood maybe, from where he's been biting his lip. When you nip at his bottom lip he makes a sound like something wounded, something primal, hips rolling into yours with zero finesse, just pure need, his cock hard and insistent through too many layers of fabric.
"Sensitive," he warns against your mouth, but it comes out more like a plea, like he's begging you to understand. "Everything's dialed up to eleven, I can—I can hear your blood moving in your veins. Can feel every place you're warm and wet and—fuck—" His whole body shudders when you rake your nails down his back.
Your fingers find the scarred terrain of his back and he actually whimpers, muscles rolling under your touch like water, like something liquid and desperate. That's when the second revelation hits: whatever you're feeling, he's feeling it magnified. Seventy years of sensory deprivation plus enhanced everything plus a soul bond that's been stretched taut for months—
"Gonna lose my mind," he mutters, mouthing at your jaw, your throat, anywhere he can reach, leaving wet trails that cool in the air and make you shiver. His stubble scrapes against sensitive skin and you gasp, hips bucking up involuntarily. "Already lost it. Lost it the second you touched me in that library. Do you know? Do you have any fucking idea what it's like, having someone reach inside your skull and turn all the lights on? Like going from black and white to color, like—Jesus—"
His flesh hand fumbles with your pants, clumsy with urgency, while his metal hand grips your hip hard enough to leave marks—and god, you hope it does, hope you wear his fingerprints for days. The button pops free and he makes a victorious sound that might be funny if you weren't so desperate, if you weren't already so wet you can feel it soaking through your underwear.
His hand slides lower, fingers slipping beneath elastic, and when he finds you soaked and swollen, the noise that punches out of him is pure animal—a growl that starts in his chest and rumbles through both your bodies where they're pressed together.
"Christ." His fingers slip through wetness, exploratory and reverent, and you can feel the tremor in his hand. "This is—this is for me? You get like this just from—" He circles your clit with his thumb and you cry out, hips jerking. "Fuck, you're dripping. Can feel your pulse in your cunt, baby. So swollen, so ready—"
"From you," you gasp, grinding down against his hand as he slides two fingers inside without warning. The stretch makes you moan, makes your walls clench around him immediately. "Always from you. Only from you."
Something fractures in his expression—something raw and possessive and desperately vulnerable all at once. He hooks his fingers, finding that spot that makes your vision white out, and watches your face like he's cataloging miracles, like he's mapping the geography of your pleasure. "Say that again."
"Only you." It comes out breathless, edged with desperation as he finds a rhythm that has your thighs shaking, has wet sounds filling the air between you. "Only ever you, Bucky, please—"
"No." His thumb finds your clit and circles with devastating precision, pressure just the right side of too much. "Not yet. Not when I've been imagining this for—do you know how many times I've jerked off in the shower thinking about this? About how you'd sound when you're desperate? How you'd taste?" He adds a third finger, stretching you wider, and grins dark and feral when you sob. "Bet you thought about it too. Bet you touched yourself thinking about me, didn't you? Tell me."
"Yes," you admit, face burning, and his pupils blow even wider.
He drops to his knees between your thighs suddenly, metal hand holding you open like something precious, like an offering. The first swipe of his tongue has you jackknifing off the bed, but he just pins you down with his metal arm across your hips and does it again, slower, a long drag from entrance to clit that has you seeing stars.
"Fuckin' knew it," he groans against you, and the vibration of his voice makes you clench around nothing. "Knew you'd taste like heaven. Like mine. Knew you'd shake for me just like this." He spreads you wider with his fingers, looking at you with dark eyes. "So pretty. So perfect." He spits on your cunt, watching it mix with your wetness, and the filthy intimacy of it makes you moan. "Gonna ruin you for anyone else. Gonna make it so you can't come without thinking of my mouth, my fingers, my cock."
His words dissolve into action, mouth working you over with single-minded focus. He eats you out like he's starving, like he's dying, all lips and tongue and just the edge of teeth. The soul bond makes it devastating—you don't just feel the physical sensation, you feel his hunger, his satisfaction at finally being allowed to give pleasure instead of pain. His metal fingers dig into your thigh hard enough to bruise and you hope they do, hope you wear his marks for days, hope everyone who sees them knows exactly who put them there.
"Close," you warn, though he probably knows—can probably taste it in the way your cunt's clenching, feel it in the bond that's gone molten between you. Your thighs are shaking, muscles pulled so tight they hurt, and there's a sound filling the room that you distantly realize is you, making noises you've never made before.
He pulls back just enough to speak, lips glossy with your wetness, chin soaked, eyes wild. "Yeah? You gonna come on my tongue? Gonna let me taste it?" He slides three fingers in, curling with devastating intent, and your back arches off the bed. "Come on, sweetheart. Give it up. Let me have it, don't be greedy."
You shatter with a sound that might be his name, might be pure noise. The orgasm rolls through you in waves, each crest higher than the last, and he works you through it mercilessly, not letting up even when you try to squirm away from oversensitivity. Through the bond you feel his echoing pleasure—not physical, not yet, but something bone-deep and satisfied and proud.
"Atta girl," he murmurs against your inner thigh, pressing kisses to sweat-slick skin while his fingers still move lazily inside you, drawing out aftershocks. "So fucking beautiful. Look at you, all fucked out and soft and mine. Could do this for hours. Will do this for hours. Keep you here, coming apart on my hands, my mouth, until you're so sensitive you cry, until you forget there was ever a time we weren't—"
"Bucky." You tug at his hair, need making your voice rough despite the orgasm still sparking through your nerves. "Get up here. Need you inside me. Need—"
He's moving before you finish, shucking his pants with graceless efficiency. The first glimpse of his cock—thick and long and leaking steadily—makes your mouth water and your cunt clench with fresh want. When you reach for him he catches your wrist, gentle but firm.
"Next time," he promises, reading your intent with unnerving accuracy. His voice is strained, like he's hanging on by a thread. "Let you taste me next time. Let you choke on it, fuck that pretty mouth until you're drooling, until—" He cuts himself off with visible effort, chest heaving. "But right now I need—if I don't get inside you in the next ten seconds I'm gonna fucking die—"
"So do it." You spread your legs wider, shameless, showing him how wet and open you are, how ready. "Come on, sergeant. Follow through."
His control snaps audibly. He's on you between one breath and the next, pinning you down with his weight, cock nudging at your entrance. The head catches on your rim and you both groan, but he stops there, trembling with effort, forehead pressed to yours.
"Look at me." It's not a request—it's a command, rough and desperate. You force your eyes open, meet his gaze—winter blue swallowed by black, raw and vulnerable and fierce. "Need to see you when I—need to know you're here, that you're real, that this is—"
"Real," you confirm, wrapping your legs around his waist, heels digging into his ass to urge him forward. "I'm real. You're real. This is—oh fuck—"
He pushes inside in one long, devastating slide, and the world reconstitutes itself around this moment. Around the stretch and burn and perfect fullness of him, around the broken sound he makes against your throat—half sob, half growl—around the soul bond lighting up like a supernova, like every nerve ending suddenly discovering what it was made for.
"Fuck." His metal hand grips the headboard hard enough to crack wood, splinters raining down. "Fuck, you're—tight. So fucking tight. Hot. Perfect. Can feel—God fucking damn, I can feel everything. Can feel how good it is for you, can feel how your cunt's trying to pull me deeper—" He shifts his hips and hits something devastating inside you, makes you clench around him involuntarily.
He laughs, breathless. "Yeah, right there. That's it, isn't it, baby? Right fucking there."
He moves experimentally, just a slow roll of hips, and you both moan at the drag of him inside you, at how your bodies fit together like they were made for this, only this. The angle is perfect—he's reading your body's responses in real-time, adjusting until every thrust has you climbing higher, until you're making noises that would embarrass you if you could think.
"Not gonna last," he warns, rhythm already getting ragged, desperate. Sweat drips from his forehead onto your chest, mixing with the sheen already there. "Not this time. Too much, too long waiting, too—the way you feel—" His flesh hand finds your throat, rests there warm and possessive, thumb pressing just enough to make your pulse flutter. "Like velvet. Like coming home. Like I could fuck you forever and it would never be enough—"
"Don't care." You pull his head down, bite at his jaw hard enough to leave marks just to feel him shudder, to watch his control fracture further. "Just want you. Just need—"
"Tell me." His grip on your throat tightens fractionally, not enough to restrict breathing but enough to make you aware, to make you feel it. "Tell me what you need. Want to give you everything. Want to be so good for you, sweetheart. Want to make up for every night you went to bed empty when you should've been—"
"Full of you," you finish, and his hips stutter, lose rhythm entirely for a moment.
"Yeah?" His thumb presses against your pulse, feeling how fast your heart's racing. "That what you need? Need me to fill you up? Keep you full and fucked out and dripping with my come? Make sure everyone knows you're mine, that I'm the only one who gets to—"
"Yes." You're beyond shame, beyond anything but the building pressure where he's driving into you harder now, each thrust shoving you up the bed. The wet sounds of your bodies meeting fill the room, obscene and perfect. "Yes, Bucky, please—"
"Say my name again." He's fucking you harder now, chasing his release with single-minded intensity. The bed frame creaks ominously with each thrust. "Want to hear it when you come. Want to feel it when you—fuck, you're clenching around me, baby. You close? You gonna come on my cock? Gonna be good for me?"
You nod frantically, words lost to the slide of him inside you, the relentless pressure against that perfect spot, the way his pubic bone grinds against your clit with each thrust. His metal fingers find your clit, cold against overheated flesh, and the contrast makes you scream.
"That's it," he growls, working your clit in tight circles while maintaining that punishing rhythm. "Come for me. Come on my cock like a good girl. Let me feel it, let me—fuck, there it is, I can feel it starting, you're getting so tight—"
You come with his name on your lips, back arching off the bed so hard you think you might snap in half. The orgasm slams through you like a freight train, like dying and being reborn, every muscle locking up as pleasure whites out your vision. The bond makes it circular—your pleasure slamming into him and reflecting back, amplified, until you're both shaking with it, until you can't tell where you end and he begins.
"Oh fuck—" His rhythm breaks entirely, becomes something desperate and animal. "Fuck, I'm gonna—gonna fill you up, gonna—"
"Inside." You dig your nails into his shoulders hard enough to draw blood, hold him deep even as oversensitivity makes you want to squirm away. "Want to feel it. Want all of it."
He comes with a sound that's half your name, half prayer, half roar, hips grinding deep as he spills inside you. You feel it all—not just the physical sensation of his cock pulsing, filling you with warmth, but the emotional avalanche through the bond. Relief and want and mine mine mine and something that feels dangerously close to devotion, to worship, to complete and utter belonging.
He fucks you through it, shallow little thrusts like he can't help himself, like his body won't stop even though he's already given you everything. Each movement makes more come leak out around his cock, makes wet sounds that have you hiding your face in his shoulder, embarrassed and aroused in equal measure.
The aftershocks last forever, little sparks of shared pleasure that have you both gasping, twitching, clutching at each other like lifelines. When he finally stills, he doesn't pull out, just shifts enough that his weight isn't crushing you, keeping you plugged full of him.
"Stay," he mumbles into your neck, words slurred like he's drunk. "Just—stay exactly like this. Please. Need to—need to keep you full. Need to know you're here, that this is real, that I get to—"
"Not going anywhere." You card your fingers through his sweat-damp hair, feel him shiver at the gentle touch after all that intensity. "Never going anywhere. You're stuck with me, Barnes."
His arms tighten around you, and you can feel his smile against your skin, feel the way his cock twitches inside you with renewed interest. "Good. Because now that I know what this feels like, what you feel like—" He rocks his hips experimentally, and you both groan as you feel his come shift inside you, feel how wet and open you are. "We're not leaving this bed for a week. Gonna fuck you in every position I've imagined. Gonna map every inch of your body with my mouth. Gonna find out exactly how many times I can make you come before you beg me to stop—"
"What about—"
He kisses you quiet, slow and thorough and filthy, tongue fucking into your mouth in a pale imitation of what his cock just did. When he pulls back, his eyes are dark with promise and his cock is fully hard inside you again, enhanced recovery time making itself known.
"Nothing else matters," he says simply, starting to move again, slow and deep and devastating. You're so sensitive it borders on too much, but the soul bond floods you with his pleasure, his desperate need, and suddenly you're right there with him again. "Just this. Just us. Just how many times I can make you come before sunrise. How full I can keep you. How loud I can make you scream."
You clench around him involuntarily and his eyes flutter closed, hips stuttering.
"Gonna kill me," he mutters, picking up speed, the wet sounds even more obscene now with his come easing the way. "Seventy years of nothing and now—" A particularly deep thrust has you seeing stars. "Now I've got a soulmate who looks at me like I'm worth something, who touches me like I'm not a weapon, who lets me use her however I need—"
"Who loves you," you interrupt, watching his face crumble and rebuild itself, watching him fight back what looks suspiciously like tears.
"Yeah?" Barely a whisper, so vulnerable it makes your chest ache.
"Yeah." You pull him down for another kiss, pouring everything you can't say into the contact, letting him feel it through the bond. "So much. So long. Even before I knew you, I think I loved you. Think I was waiting for you."
He makes a broken sound and starts fucking you in earnest, like a man possessed, like he's trying to climb inside you and never leave. "Say it again."
"I love you."
"Again." Harder now, each thrust shoving you up the bed.
"I love you, Bucky Barnes."
He fucks you like a promise, like a prayer, like maybe if he does it right the universe will let him keep this. You come apart under him again and again, until time becomes meaningless, until the only reality is where you're joined, where the soul bond burns brightest, where his come leaks out of you with each thrust only to be fucked back in, marking you inside and out as his.
When exhaustion finally claims you both, he's still inside you, still hard, wrapped around you like armor and apology all at once. You're going to be sore tomorrow—hell, you're sore now—but you wouldn't move for anything.
The last thing you feel before sleep takes you is his lips against your temple, his voice rough with wonder and satisfaction:
"Love you too, sweetheart. More than I've got words for. More than I probably should. Gonna spend the rest of my life showing you, if you'll let me. Gonna take such good care of you. My girl. My soulmate. Mine."
"Yours," you mumble, already drifting, clenching around him one last time just to feel him shudder.
His arms tighten, and you feel his smile against your skin, feel the way his cock twitches inside you with interest despite everything.
"Forever," he promises.
"Forever."
Outside, Brooklyn wakes to another morning, unaware that two souls have finally, fully, found their way home.
