bubu | she/her | 97' baby | Mexican born and raised baby! | ESP/ENG | Virgo
This blog primarily focuses on Bucky Barnes/Sebastian Stan, but you can also find me posting about Beyoncé, BTS, Marvel, DC, The Pitt and more. I rb what im currently reading + my own fics.
BTS biases: Yoongi, Taehyung. Wrecked by: Jungkook, Hobi
My blog contains 18+ NSFW content, minors and ageless blogs please do not interact. i am not responsible for your media consumption.
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bubu_barnes on AO3 | bubu_barnes on X (Twitter)
| fluff 💕 angst 🥀 smut ❤️🔥 |
The Truth Untold | Mel King x Frank Langdon. wc: +3k | AO3 🥀
Love Drought | Bucky Barnes x reader. wc: +2.4k | AO3 🥀❤️🔥
Escape call | Bucky Barnes x reader. Bookstore AU. wc:+9.4k | AO3 💕🥀❤️🔥
The Sparrow and the Soldier Series Masterlist | Avengers!Bucky Barnes x batsis!reader. Marvel x DC AU. Series Completed. wc: +132K | AO3 💕🥀❤️🔥
warnings: 18+ MDNI, eventual smut, fluffy!Bucky, power imbalance, sugar daddy / sugar baby dynamic, age gap (reader in mid-to-late twenties while Bucky’s in his early forties), mentioned illness/death of parents (minor characters), money troubles, i.e., debt, bills, etc., alcohol consumption, one instance of smoking cigarettes, no mentions of y/n
word count: 12.5k
part two - part three - masterlist
summary: The arrangement is simple enough: you give him friendship, he gives you a better life. But between the private dinners cozied up in a booth and the charity galas pressed to his side, it’s getting harder for you to hold up your end of the bargain when you’re starting to feel things for your sugar daddy that were not included in the contract…
sammy speaks: so the rumors are true, I am in fact bucky’s sugar baby and this is my autobiography, thank you for reading it!! could easily say this is my magnum opus, I don’t think I’ve put more time and effort into a piece of writing than I have this one. I hope everyone out there on the bucky x reader tag gets the chance to read it <3
Your shift is off to a very bad start.
The subway broke down — again — which means you had to sprint the last six blocks in your tiny skirt and sheer tights just to make it to work forty minutes late. Sweat pours down your back by the time you burst through the service door; the girls still lingering after the day shift give you wary looks while you lean against the wall, panting and brushing wet strands of hair from your face. You don’t care.
All you want is some water and to clean yourself up before heading out onto the floor, but your manager decides now is as good a time as any to give you a lecture on tardiness.
Your lungs are still struggling for air as you endure his power trip, your teeth grinding together over the fact that he hadn’t let you clock in before launching into his tirade. His ruddy face and the drool collecting at the corners of his mouth would’ve made for a comical sight if you weren’t already fuming over your situation. By the time he tires himself out, he’s eaten away at seven additional minutes you could’ve been paid for.
Safe to say, there’s a black cloud over your head when you finally emerge onto the floor. Cleaning yourself up had been futile — there was nothing you could do about your hair, and you’re putting a lot of faith in the ambiance to keep the sweat stains on your uniform indiscernible. And not only are you sticky with dried sweat, smelling of the cheap drug store body spray and year-old deodorant you borrowed, but blisters are beginning to form after your uncoordinated run in heels earlier. You have a feeling you’ll be cleaning dried blood from them at the end of the shift, and until then, every step will be torture.
That is until you see the floor map at the host stand, then you don’t even register the pain anymore. The hostess fidgets nervously beside you as you double and triple-check what you’re seeing.
At first glance, it looks like it always does. You have the same tables every night with the same people filling them like clockwork, because this place thrives on consistency and it’s common knowledge that regulars have the deepest pockets. Everything looks normal…except for one table. And once your eyes catch on it, it makes your heart seize.
Your Friday night 8:30 p.m. regulars is missing — the group of eighty-something year-old men that like to compare you to their granddaughters and fuss over your wellbeing and always tip like it’s their last day on earth are no longer in their usual back booth. No, the long-standing reservation under ‘S. Lee’ is off in another corner of the screen. In Melissa’s section. In her booth.
“This has to be a mistake,” you say out loud. The young girl playing hostess for the evening squeaks, curling in on herself.
“I’m sorry, he made me,” she whispers urgently, and you know she means your manager. “You were running late and he didn’t want them to wait, so he had me put them at Mel’s table next to the piano—“
You tune her out, a hand covering your eyes to block out every sensory input you could. The missing table of your best regulars feels like the death blow to your optimism, your hope, your last chance. With debt collectors clogging up your voicemail, you haven’t thought about anything but this shift for the last week. A lot was riding on it, and not just the tips or the wages — tonight was going to be the night you swallowed your pride and pitched your sob story to the table of Warren Buffet clones. It’s a gamble — one that risks your job if you don’t play your cards right — but after months of buttering them up with winks and pats and an endless amount of patience for repeatedly-told stories, you figured at least two out of the six might crack open their wallets for a charitable cause of a motherless young woman with crippling medical debt.
But now you would never know. The thought hurts a lot worse than the blisters.
It takes great effort to slap a smile on your face and act like you didn’t just miss the last lifeboat on the sinking ship, but every time you pass the empty booth, a cold chill runs down your spine. Deadlines, due dates, and late notices swirl in your brain while you take orders or fake laughter. Your mind has catalogued everything you think the repo men will take first when they come knocking next week. It’s a dark and winding internal spiral.
But just when you think it can’t get any worse, your black cloud becomes a roaring thunderstorm.
You know the hostess thought she was helping — you’ve been catching her apologetic looks from the corner of your eye throughout the shift. But when she creeps over to you cautiously, a small smile on her face, and says she found the perfect replacement reservation for you, you’re about ready to dump a pitcher of water over her head.
“Replacement” rings alarm bells in your head. “Replacement” means reservations outside of the regulars’ time slots. “Replacement” means snotty out-of-towners with connections or ignorant first-time club members. “Replacement” means trouble.
And trouble they are.
You assess your new group of gentleman from across the bar. There are seven of them in the secluded booth, all of them spread out and lounging comfortably like they’ve been patrons of your table for years. You don’t recognize any of them, and neither does the bartender, which confirms your biggest fears. You’re at risk of cracking a tooth.
But your manager appears out of nowhere, giving you the evil eye, so you have no choice but to relax your jaw and make your way over to the newcomers.
Your forced smile could power a small generator when you sidle up to the table.
“Welcome to The Alpine, gentlemen. How are we?”
Seven pairs of eyes snap to you, and you know what comes next: the head-to-toe look over and appreciative smiles that follow shortly after. The tall blonde in the middle has a particularly disarming curl to his lips that raises the hair on the back of your neck.
“Better, now that you’re here,” he quips, line of vision resting somewhere between your chin and your naval. The man beside him chuckles.
“Well, glad I could be of service,” you say brightly, eyelashes fluttering on command. Even if it kills you, you’ll flirt like hell with them if it means better tips. “What brings you in tonight?”
The blonde one speaks up again. “Our friend here just bought another nightclub,” he says, gesturing to a man to his right. “So we thought we’d celebrate him adding to his empire.”
Your smile never falters, but you feel your eye twitch.
“How exciting,” you manage to say.
It takes you much longer than necessary to get their drink orders. The blonde man — whose name you learned is Walker — doesn’t seem to know how to stop talking. Even if you shoved a dirty bar towel down his throat, you think he’d still be shooting off jokes. Probably about ball gags, after hearing the mouth on him.
As you walk away to put in their orders, you can just hear Walker’s nasty little comparison of a bouncy ball and your ass. Your eyes roll so hard they hurt.
When you return with their drinks, he once again zeroes in on your neckline.
“How long have you been working here, sweetie?” he asks your breasts, voice cutting through the others’ conversations. Your smile is blank and placid as you hand him his drink, ignoring the purposeful drag of his fingers over yours.
“Coming up on a year,” you reply. “Long enough to know when someone interesting walks in.”
You add a wink for good measure and he devours it. Sitting up straighter, Walker puffs out his chest.
“Interesting, huh?” he asks with a smirk that’s probably meant to seduce but instead summons vomit. “Sounds like I might be a new favorite of yours.”
Do not gag do not gag do not gag—
“Oh, I don’t do favorites. I just like my clientele to feel special.”
God, you might make yourself vomit—
“Good to know,” he drawls, “because I’ll be around a lot more soon. Barnes is getting me on the short-list next month, right, Barnes?”
Before whichever man named Barnes can reply, Walker continues. “So don’t go running off anywhere. Wouldn’t want you breaking my heart before I even get settled in.”
The cliche of it all has you actively fighting the urge to burst out laughing.
“And give up the chance to have you as a regular? Wouldn’t dream of it,” you soothe, smile cracking with your hidden mirth. The man at the end of the booth makes a noise somewhere between a snort and cough, but Walker beams like he won the lottery.
As the drinks flow, his audacity grows, which you find as shocking as it is endearing — which is to say, not at all. But you play along, because what other choice do you have? None when Walker’s giving all the signs that he’ll be footing the bill.
So you keep it up, the back and forth, the balance of flirty and dismissive responses; you can see the interest growing in Walker’s eyes as his sobriety shrinks. His friends are right there with him, and soon enough the energy of the table starts to shift in Walker’s direction.
“That vest really does wonders for you.”
“I like it when a girl shows a little skin.”
“That skirt looks like it was made for you.”
Your patience is wearing thin.
To their credit, a couple others at the table try to rein him in when they can, including the man of the hour, the club buyer, an attractive guy in his early forties called Sam. He makes pointed subject changes and laughs off the awkwardness when Walker makes a comment that lands just this side of perverted. Truthfully, you wouldn’t mind Walker running his mouth until you had grounds to have him removed, essentially destroying whatever chance he has at the “short-list,” or whatever the fuck that made up thing was. But you appreciate Sam’s efforts all the same.
And then there’s the other guy, the one on the end, who takes a more direct approach to shutting Walker up.
Walker’s in the middle of a slurred proposition for you to accompany him home after your shift when the man at the end of the booth lifts his head.
“Enough,” he says bluntly, suddenly; his voice is low and rough, direct. The tongue-in-cheek comment about sharing a bed immediately dies on Walker’s lips, his eyes flashing to his interruptor.
He doesn’t even bother looking at Walker, staring at his drink as he slowly spins it on the table, still his first one when the others are on their fourth or fifth. There’s a brief flash of something black and gold peeking from underneath the cuff of his suit jacket — a brilliant watch, clearly high-end and probably worth more than you’ll ever make in your life. A ring sits on his pinky, polished titanium. His charcoal suit fits his shoulders like every stitch and seam were custom made for his measurements — and maybe they were.
You see money in various forms all the time at this job, but occasionally you’ll stumble across real money. Big money. Stupid money. The kind that expresses itself quietly instead of boisterously like Mr. Short-List. It’s not always easy to spot, but you’ve learned how to over the last year, and when you do, it doesn’t fail to knock you on your ass every time.
One quick look and you know this man has real money. Your heart stutters in your chest, thoughts of your stack of unpaid bills wiping the smile clean off your face.
On the other side of the table, Sam disrupts the new silence by making a brave pivot to the stock market, something the rest of the group jumps on, even Walker. You’re attempting to swallow the lump in your throat, scrambling to grab empty glasses and old napkins, when you feel eyes on you.
It’s him, the man at the end of the booth.
His eyes are a startlingly bright blue that sends an electric shock down your spine. His face, looking like it was carved straight from Michelangelo’s private diary, stays neutral as you meet his gaze; you can see the years on him through scars and scruff and wrinkles around the eyes, but you wouldn’t guess him to be older than forty-five. His thick dark hair is swept back, threaded with silver near the temples that matches the silver around his chin.
He’s watching you like he’s waiting for something. Some sort of reaction maybe. His pink lips are parted like he’s about to ask a question. You have no idea what it could be.
Not giving yourself the chance to hesitate, the smile is back on your face with practiced ease. “Can I get you anything, sir?” you murmur quietly, trying to draw as little attention from the others as possible.
He blinks, breaking the undisclosed stare down between the two of you. “Just the check, please.”
“Of course. Can I get the name under the membership?”
“Barnes,” he says, holding out a black credit card for you to take. “James Barnes. Thank you.”
“Thank you, Mr. Barnes.”
His eyes find yours again and stare. You offer him one last smile before leaving.
Your fingers tap restlessly against the counter as you wait for the receipt to print. From across the room, you watch as the group at the booth begins to get up. Walker’s foot catches on the lip and he stumbles into his friend; Sam’s there immediately to usher them toward the door. You place the receipt in the black book and make your way back to the table, where James Barnes still sits, still staring at his drink.
Unfortunately, you have to pass Walker on your way over. With a sad excuse for a smile, you thank him for coming in tonight. He leans forward, into your personal space, reeking of liquor and leering at you.
“Left my number on the napkin if you miss me too much. We can pick up where we left off when you’re done with work.”
Clearly he thought he was bestowing a tremendous gift on you, from the way he winks and struts away. Your smile drops as soon as you turn back to the table, where you see James Barnes staring at you yet again.
Feeling caught, you offer him a sheepish look, a small upturn of your lips, and hand him the receipt.
“Thank you for coming in tonight, Mr. Barnes. We hope you come back soon.”
He hums, taking it from your hands; your fingers brush, and your brain has no choice but to acknowledge how different it feels from when Walker did it. He signs the receipt and offers it back to you before you have the chance to give him privacy, but when you grab it, he holds on to the other end, stopping you in your place.
“I’m sorry,” he says quietly, eyes boring into yours again, “for what you had to put up with tonight.”
You blink. “Oh, that’s — it’s not a problem at all, your friends seem like a, uh — fun time.”
A smile flits across his face, crooked and devastating. “Fun? So, you enjoy getting asked to go home with your customers?”
“I—“ your blush lights up your face. “He didn’t mean it, I’m sure—“
“He did.”
“It’s fine,” you rush to say. “I get it a lot, comes with the territory. Call it a work perk.”
His eyebrow lifts.
“A work perk,” he repeats. “Sure. Some places offer health insurance, but you get to be flirted with by married men.”
Fucking dick bag, you seethe internally, your mind conjuring up a scenario where you curb stomp Walker until his teeth fall out.
You try to smile but it feels like a grimace. “What can I say? I’m living the dream.”
He chuckles, finally releasing the bill. His eyes sweep across your face.
“Are you?”
You pause. “Am I what?”
“Living the dream.”
“Is anyone, really?” you say with a quirk of your lips.
“I don’t know,” he allows, tilting his head. ”Maybe not. But we keep pretending we are.” His gaze drifts around the room before settling back on you. “Were late nights and putting up with guys like Walker what you always pictured your life to look like?”
You chuckle, but there’s hesitation in it. Images of your verbally abusive manager and meager paystubs flash through your mind. But that’s the darker side of the club that customers aren’t supposed to know about. As a server, your job is to slap a pair of rose-colored glasses over their eyes and keep them there. Yet he’s asking to take them off. It feels taboo.
He’s looking at you like he can read your thoughts, but he waits for your answer like he has all the time in the world.
“Uh, no,” you say slowly. “Definitely not.”
You glance over your shoulder like you’re expecting your manager to be standing there, red-faced and spitting again.
“Good,” James murmurs, “I was starting to worry about your long-term goals.”
“I’m…I’m actually in school,” you admit before you can stop yourself. “Grad school. Masters in Business Analytics.”
His lips do something similar to a smile, but his eyes are serious as he leans your way. “Impressive. What are you hoping to do with this degree?”
You shrug, feeling the full weight of his undivided attention. It isn’t uncomfortable, but it’s heavy.
“Something with data. It kind of — I don’t know — speaks to me, I guess? I’m good with numbers. I can read an Excel sheet, which is half the battle. Interpreting data really isn’t that difficult when you dictate the right models and—“ You stop short and shake your head quickly. “I’m sorry. I’m boring you.”
His smile returns. “You’re not boring me.”
“I was rambling. You probably have better things to do than listen to me run my mouth about dictating data models,” you joke.
“On the contrary,” he murmurs, “I’d like to hear what you have to say about data models.”
You look to the floor as the blush blooms across your face. “It doesn’t make for very thrilling conversation.”
“We’re at The Alpine Club — I’m pretty sure data models make up ninety percent of the conversations around here. What’s one more?”
You laugh, bright and unexpected. “You got me there.”
He watches you for a moment, thoughtful.
“So,” he says, twirling his empty glass, “what kind of data are you hoping to manipulate around when you graduate?”
You blink as his question lands. It isn’t lost on you that he’s prolonging the conversation. Your weight shifts, you debate answering him; you have tables that haven’t been touched in minutes, you have side work that’s waiting for you in the back. Plus, your gut is screaming at you that this has gone a lot further than the average conversation between customer and server, especially when he’s already settled up. You should thank him for coming in and walk away.
“Manipulating data sounds corrupt,” you say with a small smile. The side work can wait. “It’s more like…making sense of it. Organizations collect all this information and half the time they don’t even know what to do with it. I like the idea of being the person who can look at a mess of numbers and data points and say okay, here’s the story.”
“Sounds like an art,” he says.
“Artists don’t use spreadsheets.”
“I think it still counts.”
Your hands tighten around the receipt book. “Not sure if I’ve ever heard someone call data analytics an art. Most people start disassociating when I mention Excel.”
“Most people are missing out.”
Your smile grows. “That sounds like a line.”
“It’s not,” he says easily, placing both hands on the table. “I’m genuinely interested.”
“In data?”
“In you.”
The words are a shock to your system. You feel heat climb into your cheeks again. Okay, that’s definitely a line.
That smile flickers on his face again, and he points toward his empty glass. “Actually, do you mind if I get one more from you? Please?”
You hesitate for a moment before nodding, turning for the bar again. When you return with his drink, he takes it from you with gentle fingers that brush yours.
“Do you think you’d be able to sit with me? Just for the drink?” he asks.
You freeze.
“If you’re busy, I understand,” he says quietly. “I don’t want to keep you from your work.”
Chewing your lip, you chance a look at your section. It’s died down considerably — closing time is near, but your last few tables have yet to pay. He watches you in that patient way of his.
“No, it’s — I’m not busy,” you mumble. You’re about to move to the other side of the booth when he slides over deftly, leaving room for you to sit next to him with a healthy amount of distance left between. Your hesitation is quick, but obvious, although he says nothing when you eventually take the spot beside him.
“Where do you go to school?” he asks, like there wasn’t a break in the conversation.
“O’Malley.”
His eyebrows lift a fraction. “That’s a great school.”
“Ha. Thank you. Yeah, my mom nearly had a heart attack when I got my acceptance letter. Big school, bigger price tag.” Your nose wrinkles. “I guess you could say that’s part of the reason I’m here.”
You’re not sure what made you bring up your mom — you haven’t weaved her into conversation in weeks. While your brows furrow in thought, James shifts in his seat, suddenly, like a twitch but more intentional. He lifts the drink to his lips.
“Part of the reason?” he repeats.
“It’s a long story.”
He looks at you, eyes bright but calm.
“I have time.”
You exhale softly, unable to hold the eye contact. “It — well, it’s not a very good story either.”
He doesn’t say anything, letting you consider in silence whether or not to share. You don’t tell your story very often — in fact, you’ve tried running from it multiple times. Hence the reason the debt collectors were after you. Tonight was going to be a rare occurrence if you had actually ended up telling your table of regulars your tearful tale.
Sitting beside him, you can’t deny the pull to James, nor the urge to tell him; you want to chalk it up to being prepared for another audience, but deep down, you know it’s something completely different.
With a sigh, you start.
“I had a lot saved up. A good chunk of it from my dad’s life insurance policy. Car accident when I was sixteen,” you add, when James’ tilts his head questioningly. “It was…sad, but we got through it. My mom and me. I got the money when I turned twenty-two, just in time to graduate college. I worked at a bar part-time and made some money there, so I decided to take a year off before grad school. Travel. See the world…”
James clears his throat. “Where did you go?”
“Europe. Mostly Italy. I love the food, the history, how the country’s broken up by states and each one has its own culture…” You trail off, biting down on a smile. “I think it’s my favorite place in the world.”
Next to you, James shifts again, but he’s got a soft smile on his face as he watches the liquid swirl in his glass.
“But then my mom got sick,” you continue, your voice lowering automatically. “Stage 4 colon cancer. I came home right away, brought her to every doctor in the city, but they all said the same thing: that there was nothing they could do.”
There’s a sound like a hushed rumble coming from James’ chest. He sets his drink down and meets your eyes.
“I’m sorry,” he says.
A stab of grief shoots through your heart at those two words. You’ve heard them a million times over in your life, eventually growing numb to them — especially when they came from strangers. But the way he’s looking at you, the simplicity in the way he said it, causes a reaction you haven’t had in months. You quickly blink away the burn behind your eyes.
“It’s…thank you.”
He nods once, a gesture of acknowledgment and to continue. You take a breath.
“She refused to give up. She was a badass, but I also think that was just her being a mom. She didn’t want to leave me on my own in the world. So we used up every cent we had flying across the country, meeting with the best doctors out there and trying treatment after treatment. We spent a stint at the Mayo in Rochester, and for a moment, things were starting to look up. But she took a sudden turn for the worse, so we came back here. We came home.”
You rest your chin in your palm, eyes following his finger as it taps against his glass. You can feel him watching you closely.
“I tried to make her as comfortable as I could. Took the rest of my savings and poured it into her care. She hated that I did that, but there was no point arguing. Not when we only had weeks left. She passed last spring.”
James’ free hand twitches in your direction. You pretend not to notice.
“After the funeral, I looked around and realized I had mountains of medical bills to pay, a mortgage suddenly in my name, and a future full of student loans.” You make a soft noise in the back of your throat, untitled in emotion. “Despite everything, my mom made me enroll in classes as soon as we got home — she wanted me to have something waiting for me on the other side of it all. I thought she was crazy at first because I couldn’t think about anything but her, but now that she’s gone, I’m glad she made me do it.”
The silence after you finish is surprisingly light. It doesn’t feel tense or heavy like it usually does, when your audience isn’t sure how to reconcile all of that grief in one person’s lifetime. James sits beside you easily, absorbing your story with careful consideration and space.
“For what it’s worth, I think your mom would be really proud of where you are today” he murmurs.
The corner of your mouth lifts.
“Don’t speak too soon. I sold the house, but it barely made a dent in the medical bills. Whoever invented interest can suck my dick.”
James coughs and takes a large sip of his drink.
“Truthfully, I’m — I’m drowning,” you laugh breathlessly. “I can’t study because I’m constantly worried about having enough money to keep the lights on, and then that makes me worry that I’ll get kicked out of the program and lose my chance at a job that pays enough to make these bills go away. So I got a job here in the meantime because — well, everything’s outrageously priced and that means you get outrageous tips, which is literally the only way to keep my head above water.”
Your voice has raised in volume, pitch and speed, but you plow on, too late to bottle it up now.
“I ran the numbers a hundred times, set them against average incomes of thousands of jobs in the city, calculated inflation and costs, and it came down to either this or stripping. Which I don’t have anything against! But I can’t move like that, I can barely do a push up — so tips would be beyond sad for me, if I get any, and then I’d be back to where I started. So between that and The Alpine, I thought why not save myself the embarrassment and—”
You cut yourself off with a wince. You did it again.
You shoot a furtive glance his way. He’s turned completely in his seat to face you, jaw tight and eyes unreadable. Like this, you get the full force of him, the piercing blue of his eyes, the sharp features of his face; it’s unnerving, but in a way that makes your skin tingle, like electricity’s dancing down your limbs. A brief look reveals a brush of chest hair peeking out from under his white button down, and your subconscious decides it would like to see the rest of it someday.
He appears to be considering something, mulling it over carefully in his head. He hasn’t looked away from you since you stopped talking, but you don’t find it creepy. Yet.
“Sounds like you have a lot on your plate,” James mutters.
“Yeah,” you say faintly, “sorry to unload all of that on you.”
He shakes his head quickly, throwing back the last of his drink in one large gulp. His lips press into a thin line. You’re kicking yourself mentally, thinking you’ve finally traumatized the poor guy with your unfiltered stream of consciousness, when he sets the glass down with a sharp klink.
“I could help,” he says quietly.
You blink. “Oh, you don’t — you don’t need to do that. I promise I wasn’t using my sob story to get you to kick me a bigger tip or anything—“
“Just listen, please.”
Your mouth shuts with a snap. The air hums with a level of anticipation that wasn’t there before. His eyes hold steadily onto yours.
“I’ll only say this once, and if it’s not for you, I won’t say another word about it ever again.” He tilts his head. “I believe two people can come together in an uncomplicated and beneficial way, like friends do, to help each other out. I’d like to make your life easier so you can focus on what actually matters to you. I’d be someone you can rely on, who values your time and wants to see you succeed…while also helping you with any roadblocks in your way. I could take some of the pressure off — financially — so that you can focus on your future instead of struggling to make things work today. And in return, I get your company. I’ve had a better time talking to you for the last twenty minutes than I’ve had with that group of guys for years. You’re sharp, you’re funny, you’re grounded…your time and your attention is all I would want.”
He lets that sit between you with a short pause. Meanwhile, the air has left your lungs.
“This requires trust. Discretion. Maturity. It’s not about rescuing anyone or buying affection. It’s more…intentional than that. Mutual.”
He pauses again, longer, as if he’s waiting for his words to sink in with you. They certainly have.
“Being my friend will never require you to be out of your comfort zone,” he continues softly. “It’s about making you comfortable. You’ll get support without strings, without owing anything, and without judgment. It’s not complicated, and it’s not about control. It’s about being a friend. I’d like to be your friend.”
Your mouth opens but nothing comes out. Not a whisper of a sound. The corners of his mouth twitch up as he searches your face — you suspect you’re not doing a very good job at concealing your emotions.
“You don’t need to give me an answer now,” James murmurs, leaning back against the booth; his voice has dipped into a lower octave, and the sound of it sends vibrations up your spine. “All I’m asking is that you consider it.”
You’re silent as you turn his words over in your mind, your heart thrumming beneath your chest.
“We don’t even know each other,” you whisper.
“I know,” he replies, “but I’d like to know you. This is a way for me to do that.”
You bite your lip. “If you’re saying all of this because of my mom, or — or ‘cause you feel bad—“
“No,” he says calmly, hand resting on the table near yours. “This isn’t because I feel bad.”
“Then why?” you ask.
“Because you’re beautiful, and I enjoy the sides of you that you’ve shown me tonight. And selfishly, I’d like to be your friend that makes things easier for you.”
Your gut swoops low. He called you beautiful. But there was an innocence behind it, like he was stating a fact rather than making a move. This settles over you like a warm blanket after a long day.
James watches you for another moment before reaching into his suit jacket and pulling out a card. He offers it to you.
“Take some time. Think it over. If you have questions, call me. If you never want to hear from me again, say the word and I’ll leave you alone. But if you’re interested in what this could be, let me know.”
You take the card without a word, absentmindedly pocketing it while you get to your feet. Your body has overridden your brain, moving you through the motions. James rises after you, and his frame towers over yours as you finally stand next to him. His bright eyes scan your face, assessing every detail. You swallow hard, his eyes track that as well.
“I hope to hear from you soon,” he murmurs, dipping his head down to your eye level. You nod breathlessly.
With a pointed look, he nudges the receipt book closer to you, where it had been abandoned on the table after he asked for another drink.
“It’s—it’s on me,” you say weakly. He raises his eyebrows, hands shoved into his pockets; you wave vaguely in front of you. “Don’t worry about it.”
“Thank you,” James says politely, and with a small dip of his chin, he turns away for the door. You watch as he crosses the room at a relaxed pace, dark hair bouncing gracefully, suit swishing perfectly. He doesn’t look back as the door is opened for him like a king and he exits the room.
You let out a breath you didn’t know you were holding. Holy shit.
Later that evening, when you stumble home with ruptured blisters, smelling of stale sweat and cleaning products, you collapse onto your couch and pull out the card.
James B. Barnes, Chairman of the Board
Barnes Group, Inc.
The last name should have given it away, but to be fair, you were blindsided by the smooth talking and how good he looked. Barnes Group, Inc. is a quiet but major asset management firm that dominates the Financial District. They hold their weight against the big ones despite being around for less than twenty years. They’re well-respected and popular, from what you’ve heard around The Alpine. Your instincts proved correct once again — he really does have real money.
Your mind whirls. How cliche is it for one of the wealthiest men in the city to offer an arrangement like this to a younger woman? Very — there’s no beating around that bush.
But the way he framed it had broken through your initial judgment, hitting you in a place that was dark and dusty and unused for ages. Friendship.
You couldn’t remember the last time you spoke to someone you could call a friend. All of them had slowly disappeared after you buried your mother, and for valid reasons; you made it impossible to keep in touch, dodging phone calls and ignoring texts like it was your job. But you’re still human — even if you push everyone away, that doesn’t mean you’re immune to loneliness. And with hardly any family left, that doesn’t leave you with many options for human companionship.
His words had shined a spotlight on that gaping hole in your life, intentional or not. Maybe he could see that on top of flirting with poverty, you’re lonely.
Maybe he’s lonely, too.
You rub your eyes viscously with your knuckles, willing the day to seep from your bones. Your cat, Lucky, hops onto the couch and curls up beside you.
You can’t believe it, but you think you need to consider this. While several true crime documentaries could show you the downfall of trusting the wrong person, you can’t help but take James’ words as they are. Perhaps that ity, bity, tiny sliver of hope you allow to live on inside you has taken charge of your decision making. It would explain your sudden deviation from enormous dislike for the rich.
You sigh, stroking Lucky’s back. “If this is real, I’d be an idiot not to,” you say to him, like you have no other choice. Lucky yawns his affirmation.
So you think on it. A lot. A lot a lot. Pretty much every minute of the next three days, you’re thinking about James. His words replay over and over in your head until it’s an automatic loop of noise.
I’d like to be your friend.
It’s distracting, thinking about him and his offer. Which means you’re distracted at work, you’re distracted on the subway, you’re distracted folding laundry. You even answer a debt collector by accident because your mind is in two places. You’ll never do that again.
…He could make sure you never do that again.
It comes to a head when you’re taking your break during your shift. The August night is hot and humid, the sky bragging of potential thunderstorms. The cigarette in your hand shakes as you inhale greedily.
The same two things circle your brain: how long would you let this go on for? And what would your mom think?
Both questions hold great weight, yet both are unanswerable to you — at least for now. Just when you start going down that road, your brain screeches to a halt in some sort of self-preservation tactic, distracting you by throwing mental memories of James’ soft smile, his quiet empathy, or — even worse — his chest hair.
It makes it a lot easier to pull out your phone than you think. The card is slightly crumpled from taking it out and holding it so often, but the numbers read clearly as you punch them in.
He’s offering you a way out of this mess you call your life. Just because he wants to. And all he asks is for you to smile and thank him for it over dinner every now and then. Either he’s dealing with a lot of guilt over having money, or he truly wants to see your life get easier because of him. Maybe it’s both. Either way, it’ll change your life.
For the better. Right?
The line rings three times before he answers. “James Barnes.”
“James,” you croak, exhaling a cloud of smoke. “It’s me. From The Alpine. Hi.”
Something shifts in the background, like he’s sitting up straighter or moving something around. It sounds like sheets against skin. “Hi,” he says back, neutral. You glance at the time on your phone.
“Shit,” you mutter, “I’m sorry. I didn’t even think about how late it is. I can call you back—?”
“No,” he cuts in. “Now’s fine. How are you?”
You chew on your lip. “I’m good. Busy, but…I’ve been— uh, I’ve been thinking.”
“Oh, yeah?” he murmurs, soft and loose like it’s a knee-jerk response. Your gut swoops low.
“About what you said,” you choke out. “About being…friends. I…I have some questions.”
“I have some answers.”
“I was wondering if we could meet. Soon. So I can ask you the questions. And learn a little more about…what this will be like.”
There’s a pause on the other end, not even a rustle of fabric or a brush of his breathing against the receiver to be heard. Then he clears his throat.
“How about tomorrow night? 8 o’clock at Pepper’s.”
“Yeah— uh, yes. That works,” you breathe. There’s a moment of silence where all you can hear is the pounding of your own heart.
“Would it be presumptive of me to bring a few documents? Unless you’d like to have a lawyer look over them—”
Your mouth goes dry. “No. That’s okay,” you say. “You can bring them.”
He makes a soft noise, something pleased. “I’m glad you called,” he says, voice low and warm. “I was starting to think I wouldn’t hear from you.”
The hand holding your cellphone spasms. “I’m sorry,” you whisper.
He shushes you quietly. “It’s okay. I’m glad you took your time. You seem like the type of person who wants to know exactly what she gets herself into. I admire that.”
You hum, because words are elusive as ever right now.
“Are you working?” he asks.
“Yes.”
“It’s almost midnight. Isn’t The Alpine closed by now?”
“Yeah, well…side work’s a bitch. I’ll probably be here until one.”
He grunts. “Let me send a car to get you home.”
“James, I—“
“Please. It’ll let me sleep tonight. Worrying about you walking around New York at one in the morning in the rain will do the opposite.”
Your foot taps restlessly. “Okay,” you breathe.
“Okay, doll.”
A flush runs through your body, from the crown of your head to the tip fo your toes. It leaves behind a wave of tingles that tickle your skin.
“Yeah, uh. I’ll let you— uh, I’ll let you get back to it then. I’ll see you tomorrow, James.”
“Tomorrow,” he vows. And the line goes dead.
You adjust the straps of your dress again, pulling them further back on your shoulders so that they frame your chest just right. It’s your favorite dress — or, more accurately, your only dress — and your one item of clothing that’s acceptable enough for the five star restaurant you’re meeting James at.
He’s sending another car — he texted you this time, brokering no argument over it, just a time and the driver’s name. You’d be put off if the ride last night hadn’t cut your usual hour-long hike home down to ten minutes and saved you from a torrential downpour. Private cars have their benefits, apparently.
The driver, Bob, picks you up at half past seven. He weaves in and out of traffic flawlessly, leaving you with very little time to fix your makeup and call on every shred of courage you have.
When he pulls up to the curb, he hops out of the car and opens the door for you, helping you to balance on your heels that don’t entirely cover the bandaids on the back of your ankles. You thank him for the ride as he ushers you into the restaurant.
James waits at the table tucked into a secluded corner at the back of the room, hair parted perfectly, scruff a little longer than before, and dressed in a suit of midnight black. His shirt is a shade lighter, the top three buttons undone and exposing even more chest hair than the last time. You take a deep breath as you approach.
He stands immediately when he spots you, eyes appraising you gently, like his favorite person in the world just showed up.
“Hello,” he says, coming around to hold out your chair for you.
“Hi,” you mumble, blushing as you sit. He holds eye contact as he resettles into his own seat, a small smile on his face.
“You look breathtaking,” he admits, a twinge in his voice that could pass for pained, like the way you look is so devastatingly beautiful, it hurts.
“Thank you. You look very nice, too.”
His smile grows. “I’m glad you could meet me tonight. I have to say I’ve been a bit restless since our talk last night.”
“Oh?” is your dumb response. Your pulse flutters as his smile grows crooked.
“I guess you could say I’m eager to hear your questions.”
“Oh, um…yes. I have a few…”
He gestures to the table. “Do your worst.”
You were prepared for this, but it still makes you feel light-headed as you pull out the small slip of paper from your purse. He watches you carefully as you unfold it, pieces of the ripped edges fluttering to the floor. Maybe you were expecting a bit of small talk, but what’s there to talk about when you hardly know each other? You can appreciate cutting to the chase, even if it makes your mouth dry.
“First, I…I just want to say thank you,” you begin quietly, shyly meeting his gaze. “For listening to me. And for not making it a big deal. It was the first time I’ve told that story that I didn’t feel like a tragedy after, and you made me feel that way.”
His shoulders seem to relax a little, his expression gentle. “You’re welcome.”
“That being said,” you continue shakily, unable to meet his eyes any longer. “I’m wondering what kind of help you want to give, and if there are things I can say no to.”
He nods, his face becoming serious. “Of course. I want to help, not intrude. If there are things you don’t want me to touch, then I won’t. You get the say in that.”
“So, if I say I don’t want any help with my student loans…”
“Then that’s that. I won’t push you about it either.”
You nod, fingering the edge of the paper nervously. The silence stretches.
“Would it be useful to give you a summary of what I will and won’t help with?” he asks, leaning back in his seat. You nod again, motioning for him to continue. He settles into his seat, clearing his throat. “To start, I won’t help with the circumstances of friends or relatives, unless they’re direct dependents of yours, which it doesn’t sound like you have anyway. This arrangement is for us, so it stays between us. And I won’t help with any legal troubles either. If you end up in jail, I won’t pay for bail, I won’t pay fines, and I won’t pay for legal counsel. If you’re charged with anything, this arrangement is void.”
His voice is level, almost monotonous, like he’s said this a few times. You gulp.
“But I will pay for everything else, if you’ll let me,” he remarks, growing softer. “You’ll get my card for the day-to-day things. Groceries, coffee, transit, take out. Anything you do when you’re not at work. I also want to pay for the things you couldn’t do before. Expect appointments booked for the spa, massages, hair, nails — whatever you decide. My assistant will help with that.”
“Okay,” you breathe, feeling just a little dizzy. God, when was the last time you got your nails done?
“I’ll also pay for your rent. Or, if you want to move, I’ll buy you a new place. Apartment. Condo. Brownstone. Up to you. I want you feeling comfortable and safe when you’re not with me.”
Your mouth falls open to protest. Buy a brownstone? For you? The girl he just met? You crumples the paper in a reflex reaction, but he holds up a hand before you can speak.
“You don’t have to, I’m just giving you the option. Remember, you’ll never have to go out of your comfort zone with me.”
He scans your face — you’re sure you’re a shade paler than before.
“Where do you live now?” he asks gently.
“Queens.” He smiles.
“Then I’d at least argue for you to use my driver.”
“Makes sense,” you murmur distractedly.
The server comes over then, placing a whiskey in front of James and asking what you’d like to drink. You order a white wine, cringing when he asks if you have a preferred bottle, but James answers for you, naming a brand you’ve never heard of, his eyes on you the entire time. The waiter returns a minute later with your glass, and you take a greedy sip as soon as it hits the table.
“I also like to give gifts,” James says, picking up where he left off. “That could mean jewelry, bags, cars, vacations—“ you choke on your wine, he politely ignores it. “Whatever I’m feeling that day.”
“Oh, is that all?” you say weakly. He chuckles, genuine and soft.
“It may change, depending on what I think you’d like. And what you tell me you like.”
“I’m picky,” you attempt to joke.
“I like a challenge.”
The air shifts subtly, you’d miss it if you weren’t paying attention. He crosses his legs effortlessly at the knee, looking every bit composed while you’re pinching yourself to keep from hyperventilating.
“Ideally, you’d quit your job,” he begins slowly. “Not for me, but because you won’t need to work anymore. You don’t have to if you don’t want to, but you’re in school, and it’s clear you love it. I want you to be comfortable enough to focus on that. Put your time into studying. Not dealing with men like Walker.”
You huff a soft laugh because you aren’t sure what else to say. Quitting your job hadn’t even crossed your mind through all of this, but now that the seed’s been planted, it takes root quickly, despite the voice in your head telling you not to let it.
James must be a mind reader, because he leans forward, making sure you meet his eyes.
“I’d like to spoil you, because I think you deserve it. Not because of what’s happened to you, but because of what you’ve done since it happened,” he says, voice pulling you in with the husky lilt to it. “I think you’ve earned the right to feel taken care of. It can be on your terms, of course, but trust me when I say there’s almost nothing I wouldn’t help with. Including the medical bills and the debt. Including the loans. But I will respect whatever you wish to keep separate from this.”
For a moment, you’re not sure what to say, but you end up on, “Thank you, James. I…I’ll think about it.”
He nods, businesslike. ”What other questions do you have?”
You blink, looking down at your list. “Well, you answered a couple of them, actually…um, I guess my next question is—“ You feel the heat rise to your cheeks. “When you say friendship, what does that…include, exactly?”
He leans back in his seat, taking a slow sip of his drink.
“I meant what I said about being friends,” he offers, “and I meant it in the traditional sense. This isn’t a “friends with benefits” situation. Holding hands, a light hug, or sitting close together are all reasonable to me. But touch isn’t required by you — you’re welcome to do whatever you’re comfortable with, and I won’t withhold anything from you if you aren’t comfortable with it. And I won’t touch you if you don’t want me to, but I will say I’m hoping to earn that right eventually.”
Something loosens in your chest, an unnamed tension releasing.
“I understand,” you say slowly. “I think those are reasonable, too.” His eyes flicker across your face for a moment. “I appreciate you clarifying that for me. It was on my mind a lot over the last few days.”
“That’s why we’re here,” he answers calmly. “Any more questions?”
“Yes, um. How does this…start?”
The smile returns to James’ face, sweet and relaxed. He waves two fingers in the air, and a server comes hurrying over with an official-looking envelope, setting it before him. James pulls out a small stack of documents and finds a pen in his suit jacket.
“It starts with a couple signatures. These are NDAs stating you won’t talk or publish anything about our time together, and the same goes for me. I’m held to the same principles you are. If I say a word about us to anyone without your permission, you have every right to sue me for all I’m worth. I hope it tells you how serious I am about this.”
It actually says a hell of a lot more than just how serious it is, but he’s already shuffling the papers aside, picking up the one on the bottom.
“This is an agreement on what I’m allowed to pay for. Like the rent — I’ll need to know where to pay to. There’s also a place for your bank account information, in the case of moving large sums of money. I’d like it wired safely and securely.”
You must show signs of panic, because he quickly tucks it away and says, “You don’t have to decide on anything today. You can add whatever you want to this as time goes on.”
Your breathing evens. He taps the pen against the stack of NDAs.
“Anything else?” he asks quietly. Your pinching grows stronger.
“Are you…friends…with anyone else right now? Or is it just me?”
His lips quirk like he was expecting this question. He leans forward, elbows on the table, and holds your gaze steadily.
“Just you. And I can promise that I won’t need any other friends as long as I have you.”
Oh.
“But you’ve…had other friends before. In the past.”
His eyes go blank for a moment. “Yes, I’ve had other friends before. A few.”
“They’re not still your friends, though?” you ask.
“No,” he answers. “There came a point when it was time for them to explore other…friendships. Start different lives. It always ended amicably.”
You hesitate. “So, if one day I decide I want to…stop being friends, that would be okay with you?”
“Of course. I’m here as long as you’ll have me. Or until we both decide it’s time.”
“Okay,” you whisper, meeting his gaze. There’s a roaring sound in your ears, like the ocean on a stormy night, but your hands are surprisingly steady as you reach out your hand toward him. “Okay. Can I borrow your pen?”
James smiles, the biggest smile you’ve seen from him yet. He offers you the pen and the first document, pointing out where to sign and initial. You do so quickly, conscious of your climbing blood pressure, but the adrenaline leaves a sweet aftertaste as you write your name with a flourish. Or maybe it’s him, beaming at you while you sign up for this new chapter of life with him.
Once the documents are signed, he proposes a toast. “To friendships,” he says. You clink your glass to his. “And, by the way, call me Bucky.”
“Bucky?” you ask, eyebrows raised.
“It’s what my friends call me.”
It starts immediately.
The next morning, you’re greeted with a jungle of flowers waiting outside your apartment door. Flowers of all shapes and colors, some tropical, some simple, and all of them make you smile. You’re placing the last of them on the counter when there’s a knock on your door — a dozen freshly-made croissants from the Parisian cafe in Midtown. Impossible to get into, impossible to order out from, yet here’s a box full of their best-selling pastries, still warm from the oven. You indulge in one too many, but it’s worth it.
Throughout the day, Bucky texts you. It’s something he mentioned off-handedly, probably meant to give you a choice, but he likes to talk during the day. A lot. He likes check ins, he likes updates; he wants to hear about anything and everything.
At first, it’s odd having someone to talk to so consistently again — the last person you spoke to like this was your mom.
But Bucky keeps it unforced, easing the conversation along with the right questions and dry comments that actually have you smiling at your phone. When you get to work that night, he wishes you a good shift. No mention of you quitting. You appreciate this so much that you have half a mind to quit anyway.
Not today, you tell yourself. You need to wait to see if Bucky actually puts his money where his mouth is first.
It isn’t long before he does.
Less than a week after you signed the papers, he asks you to join him for dinner on your night off. He makes the reservation early because he knows you have an exam in two days that you’re stressed over, leaving you with the rest of the evening to study. You’re grateful for his mindfulness, but equally grateful for the distraction he’s providing. He’s waiting outside the restaurant when Bob pulls up, offering his hand to help you out of the car.
“You look beautiful,” he states plainly, like only an idiot would argue with him. Your answering smile is wide and uninhibited.
Inside, the two of you are seated at a booth mostly concealed from the other diners. He sits beside you, much like he did that first night, close but with enough space for you to breathe easily. He asks you about your day, he encourages you to try something strange on the menu, he compliments you again and again and again.
Your whole body is flushed from the wine and his attention by the time the desert arrives. You’re licking chocolate syrup off the spoon, regaling a work story involving your meathead manager and another server.
“He just chooses to ignore anything that makes us seem human to him. No emotions allowed. No personal problems allowed. You show up for your shift, you do your job, and that’s it. Leave your life at the door, God help you if you don’t.”
You sigh, your spoon clattering loudly onto the plate. Bucky fidgets with his own spoon, eyes on the corner of your mouth. He shakes his head a little, like he thought better of something, then points to the corner of his own mouth, smiling. You blush, taking the hint, and wipe a dab of chocolate away from your skin. Bucky’s still smiling as he takes another sip of his drink.
“Might be because he lacks his own personal life,” he muses. “People are always going to project what hurts them.”
You consider this. “Now that you say it, I don’t think I’ve ever seen him take a day off.”
“That can do some fucked up things to a person.”
“Tell me about it,” you whine. “I haven’t taken a day off in months.”
His eyes slide lazily to you, glass held loosely in his hand. He smiles wryly, and you understand what he means before he says a word.
“I know, I know. I just…” You take a breath. “I need to know this is real first. Before I start cutting ties.”
He’s quiet for a moment. “Tomorrow’s the first of the month,” he says. “Have you thought more about allowing me to help with your rent?”
Your breath hitches.
“Yes,” you whisper. He hums, eyes sparkling with something bright and ambiguous.
“And what have you decided?”
“I think…it would be a show of good faith…if you helped me out.”
“Good faith,” he laughs. “Sweetheart, I’ll buy you the moon if it means you’ll believe me when I say I’ll take care of you.”
The next morning, you get the email at 9 a.m. — your rent has been paid, utilities as well. Your stomach had been in knots when you wrote down the information for him, but seeing the confirmation makes you feel like you’re floating.
It only takes you another week until you’re calling your manager and quitting. To celebrate, Bucky rents out the Met for the night, and you explore and observe and admire to your heart’s content as he stands quietly and steadily by your side. He knows an impressive amount about art, surprisingly, but then he starts making things up when a specific piece stumps him, and the rest of the unguided tour is spent inventing made-up artists and their tragic backstories. By the end of the night, you can’t resist anymore. You quickly lean in and wrap your arms around his waist.
It’s clear he’s shocked, that you’ve caught him off guard. But he recovers quickly, mirroring your grip and resting his cheek on top of your head. It’s strange, it’s new, but it’s…comforting.
Quitting your job means a lot more free time, but Bucky is adamant about you dedicating much of that time for school. So to keep a balance between time spent studying and time spent with him, Bucky proposes you come by his office between classes. Sometimes for lunch, sometimes to take a break, sometimes to set up camp on his leather couch, nose to your laptop screen as you research data sets and monitor the market while he quietly works at his desk.
It’s calming and oddly motivating — he’s the perfect person to work next to.
When you’re not studying, Bucky’s supplying you with appointments that fill up your calendar. You have a new contact saved in your phone — Inga, Bucky’s very Dutch, very cheerful assistant — because she calls you at least twice a day, arranging your schedule and finding time you didn’t know existed to fill.
A certain Thursday brings a yoga class from 7:45 to 9, then a massage from 10 to 11:30. After that is lunch with Bucky at his office (take out sushi from a place you’ve only ever dreamed of going to), followed up by a nail appointment from 2 to 3 and a virtual meeting from 3:30 to 4:30 with your old therapist that you had to abandon when money got tight.
Once you get past the catch up, your therapist says you seem a lot better than you were the last time you saw her. Crazy concept, to agree with a therapist, but you actually do.
You’re about a month into the arrangement when Bucky clears his throat at dinner, making you pause while twirling your pasta on your fork. You’ve slowly graduated to sitting closer, and his arm rests on the back of the booth behind you, its presence warm and obvious around your shoulders. You look up at him, waiting.
“I’ve got this thing tomorrow night,” he begins, voice a little on the gruff side. You’re shocked to realize he’s being shy, and poorly hiding it. “It’s a gala. The black tie kind. It’s for charity — Children’s, I think. If you’re up for it, I was wondering if you’d like to come with me.”
You smile slowly. “I’d love to. Just need something to wear.”
A stack of hundred dollar bills is on the table in seconds. Inga accompanies you the following morning to ten different stores, all designer, all with prices that make you feel faint, but she is quick to shoo you away from the price tags and push you to try on the dresses that make you sigh dreamily. Maybe that’s the reason Bucky wanted her with you.
You pick something bold, something you’d never see yourself in unless you had it on your body. It fits like a glove and reminds you that you’re a woman, not just a cog in the wheel of the working class. You only panic a little when you hand over the entire wad of cash Bucky gave you.
After that, you’re dropped off at the salon, where a facial and a blowout get you glowing like the sun. Bob picks you up and brings you to your apartment where your dress is waiting for you, courtesy of Inga. At 9 o’clock, Bucky’s waiting for you outside. The late September breeze ruffles his hair and swishes your dress as you come face-to-face.
He takes in every inch of you, from your painted toe nails to your shiny hair, and he sighs.
“You look…unbelievable.”
Later, when you’re buried deep into a crowd of people you don’t know, Bucky’s anchoring you to him with a hand on the small of your back, thumb brushing the skin there. He leans in, nose nudging your temple, and whispers, “I’m very lucky to have you here with me.”
Just like that, something inside of you breaks. Not in a sad way, but in a revolutionary way. Like a floodgate’s been cracked open, and what’s been locked inside is beginning to trickle out.
When he pulls back, your eyes linger on him. He flashes a movie star smile for the people that approach, but when he meets your gaze again, he gives you his crooked grin. Meant only for you. His warm hand pulls you closer into his side.
And that’s when it begins, right there at that gala. Your appreciation for Bucky has opened up into something larger, still undefinable, but growing in magnitude.
You find yourself sweating under the lights of the ballroom, not from the heat, but from the unknown shift. It shapes itself a little more when Bucky runs into a colleague and introduces you as his friend. He’s been doing it all night, but this time, it doesn’t feel right. It feels…off. Generalized. Misplaced.
Not that you’d ever tell him. Bucky was clear about your arrangement being a friendship — to question what he calls you would be to question where you stand, and you don’t want to make it seem like you can’t hold up your end of the bargain as his friend.
So you smile through it, focusing on the feel of his hand on your skin, and push it down. For now.
You’re a couple months into the arrangement when Bucky opens his home to you. It’s a penthouse suite hundreds of feet in the sky, offering breathtaking views of the city sprawled below. The apartment is big and modern, with plenty of low lighting and soft colors. You find out right away that he’s messy, which you think is more endearing than it is a nuisance, even if that means throwing sweatshirts and belts and books off the couch just to find a place to sit.
He apologizes constantly, but it never gets better each time you come over. You don’t mind.
With classes gearing up for finals, your time is more limited than before, leaving you with just a few windows of opportunity a week to be with each other. Most of these fall late at night, past 10 p.m., or early in the morning before he leaves for work.
So you start staying over.
It happens accidentally the first time. He picks you up and takes you back to his place for Chinese take out and binge watching trashy reality TV (of which he is a secret super fan), but you end up passing out minutes after he turns the show on.
The next morning, you wake in a soft bed, surrounded by oversized pillows and silk sheets. Bleary eyed, you stumble into the kitchen to find him dressed for work, sipping a coffee at the kitchen island and scrolling on his phone. He sets both of them down when he sees you, standing as you shuffle over.
“Morning,” he says, stretching out a hand to catch your sweatshirt clad waist.
This is par for the course these days — soft, grounding touches that don’t linger for too long, cuddles on the couch that don’t get too pretzel-like, barely-there kisses against the forehead when you say something that makes him smile a little too hard. All friendly, all innocent.
“Did I — did I crash?” you ask, suppressing a yawn. He chuckles, offering you his coffee.
“Didn’t even make it to the elimination. Steve R. went home.”
“Fuck, I liked him.”
“Me too.”
You look up at him, suddenly shy. “I’m sorry. Thanks for carrying me to bed.”
“Only threw out my back for it. No worries.”
You slap away his hand on your waist, but it’s teasing, playful. He withdraws, taking a seat again so you’re eye level with him. A look takes over his face, something caught between serious and hopeful.
“You know, that room can be yours, if you’d like.”
You pause mid sip of coffee. “What?”
“The room. It’s yours. For when you want to crash. Or just don’t want to go home.”
“Really.” It’s not a question.
“Really,” he repeats. “Don’t ever feel like you have to stay, I’ll take you home any time of night. But if you do want to stay, it’s there for you.”
“That’s…really sweet of you.”
He smiles a little. “Not too much?” You shake your head. “Good. ‘Cause I like knowing you’re close. Think I slept better. And I like waking up with you here.”
The feeling from the gala returns with renewed force. It almost drowns you, leaving you reeling in its tidal wave of emotion. It defines itself a little more as you picture sharing mornings with him, pouring travel mugs of coffee and shoving pieces of toast in his mouth as he races out the door.
But he’s watching you closely, expecting an answer, so you beat the feelings down until you’re numb. Sending him a smile over the mug, you say, “Okay.”
And that’s that.
The first time you sleep over intentionally, Bucky’s not in a great mood. Which is a rare occasion in and of itself. You know he’s only human, but you’ve barely seen him annoyed, let alone upset.
He makes an effort to hide it from you, greeting you with a soft kiss to the top of your head when you step out of the private elevator that opens to his floor. He all but forces you to relax on the couch while he cooks dinner, so you do, cracking open your textbook and stretching out lazily while he cooks. But even from the living room, you can feel the negative energy radiating from him.
He throws pans into the sink with a little too much force. He answers a call with a sharp bark of “what now?” He mutters to himself like a cranky old man.
His face is drawn and stony when he hands you a plate and joins you on the couch — pasta with red sauce, simple, and a family recipe, he claims. But the way he eats it, you’d think he hates it.
“Bucky,” you say after watching him stab his food with homicidal intent. He grunts. “Bucky,” you try again.
“What?” he snaps, sneering. Immediately, his eyes go round with guilt before you even have the chance to react. “Oh, God — I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean—“ He pinches the bridge of his nose, breathing deeply; when he opens his eyes again, his expression is calmer, more open. “Jesus. You didn’t deserve that. Forgive me.”
“Always,” you say like it’s second nature. “What’s going on?”
He sighs, setting down his plate. “Work,” he mutters, “is killing me. Someone fucked up a deal with a really, really important client. They aren’t happy, so I had to step in to clean up the mess. But now they’re playing hard to get, so all day I had to suck their dicks and call them pretty just to get a reply.”
You giggle. He tilts his head at you.
“You think that’s funny?”
“A little. But I can’t imagine anyone not getting on their knees for you immediately.”
Something flashes in Bucky’s eyes, something darker that doesn’t fit the conversation topic. It’s quick, brief, but you see it. He smiles before you can think twice about it.
“Not these guys. They like to test me. And I don’t like being tested.”
“I can tell,” you comment. “Want me to help?”
He side-eyes you. “How?”
“You can take all your anger out by…rubbing my feet?” Your smile is saccharine as you slide your legs into his lap. He laughs, one loud sound, but takes your left foot in his hands anyway.
“How sweet of you,” he coos. “How’d you know this is exactly what I needed?”
His mood improves for the most part, although his phone buzzes a few times and sets his jaw ticking. But whether it’s to keep him sane or to keep the easy vibe of the night going, he ignores it. Reality TV is watched, cookies are eaten (he has five), and you’re feeling satisfied for having turned his night around just as you start to yawn.
He notices it immediately.
“Alright, doll. You’re tired. I’m taking you home.”
“I might stay here tonight, if that’s okay with you.”
He freezes as he reaches for his keys. Slowly, his arm lowers, and there’s a slightly dazed look in his eye.
“Sure, yeah. Whatever you want,” he breathes.
He sets you up with a tooth brush and towels, an old shirt of his and boxers. While you’re brushing your teeth, you wander over to his bathroom and find him doing the same. You stand beside him, laughing through the toothpaste as he gets his all over his mouth and chin. Unintentionally, though he’ll deny it.
He walks you to your room like he’s dropping you off at the end of date. You try not to think too much about that.
“Sleep tight,” he says softly, leaning against the doorway, smiling at the too-big shirt and boxers. You smile back, sleepy and content.
“Goodnight, Bucky.”
He’s gone before you wake up the next morning, but the note on the counter thanks you for being there with him last night. It makes your heart flutter much too fast for having just started your day.
When you get back to your own apartment, your phone alerts you to a new email. The name on it makes your stomach sink: the debt collectors. They’ve been quiet for a while since you’ve been able to offer them bigger scraps of money, so what do they want now?
Thank you for your payment. Your bills have been reconciled and your current balance is at $0.00.
The room tilts. Your breathing stops. Hundreds of thousands of dollars of medical bills, gone overnight.
Bucky.
It was only a week ago that you had shyly asked to amend the document on what he could help pay for. You weren’t even sure that he looked at it yet.
Well, now you know he has. And in one fell swoop, he banned the debt collectors from ever bothering you again. Your mind can hardly wrap around it, can hardly wrap around Bucky, and his generosity, and his promises, and his follow through. All of it is a murky, muddy emotional mess inside of you. For the first time in months, you break down and cry.
Later that night, when the tears have finally dried and you’re sitting next to him at your favorite little Italian spot, you place a hand over his and just squeeze. You meant to say words, but they’ve disappeared on you.
But Bucky doesn’t need the words. He knows everything that you’re saying with the simple touch. He squeezes back, smile soft, posture relaxed as he nudges your shoulder with his.
The floodgate inside of you swings open wider.
sammy speaks again: wowowowowow ok that’s a wrap on part one. part two coming almost immediately! I tried to fit it all into one but tumblr doesn’t like 30k word posts I guess :/ don’t forget to let me know what you think, I appreciate all of you for making it this far 🤍
wedding-hater groomsman!bucky x planning-the-wedding bridesmaid!reader
⤷ summary: It was supposed to be simple: plan the wedding, survive the vendors, don’t strangle Bucky Barnes. But perfection cracks when an unexpected disaster hits, and in the quiet aftermath you discover the last thing you'd expect - that falling in love isn't exactly what friends do.
⤷ warnings/tags: modern AU (reader is a journalist, bucky is an architect, but that doesn't matter too much); friends to lovers; side natasha x steve (they're the ones getting married!); generally fluffy/ romcom; a bit of arguing; mild feng shui slander.
barely proofread and certainly not beta read, but that does not in any way diminish my love for vale! (i'm just tired haha)
bonus smut at the end 18+ MDNI: unprotected p in v, finishing inside, use of petnames: baby, darling (you know i had to)
⤷ word count: 19.1k (take chapter breaks whenever there's a divider!)
⤷ A/N: written for the delightful @bedriddenbarnes as part of my very first event, the dear my darling valentines day fic exchange! there's so many other wonderful fics being posted, so please check out the masterpost!!
dear my darling reader masterpost || more bucky from me
The light should’ve felt peaceful. Instead, your head is pounding like you’ve spent the night sleeping beneath a church bell, each slow pulse arriving a fraction too loud, a fraction too bright. Your mouth is dry.
Urgh.
You breathe in slowly – linen and lavender detergent, sun-warmed cotton, and something unfamiliar beneath it. Cedarwood, maybe. Or the faint metallic coolness that clung to skin after too many hours outside under string lights and damp evening air. You wrinkle your brow without opening your eyes, trying to sort memory from sensation.
The wedding.
God, the wedding.
Your head throbs again, sharper this time – a warning.
You crack open one eye. The ceiling greets you first: white, slightly textured, edged with crown molding that doesn’t quite match the wallpaper. The second thing you register is the wallpaper itself – pink and white florals, sprigs of something that might be hydrangeas (Steve’s mom’s taste, unmistakably).
And the third –
Eyes. Arctic blue, and alarmingly close.
Bucky Barnes is lying on the pillow beside you, facing you, already awake. His expression is quiet, unreadable in the soft morning light. Peaceful, except for the severe crease between his brows that suggests that he too, is questioning the reality of this moment.
For one suspended moment, neither of you move. His breath tickles the loose strands of hair at your forehead. Yours has stopped entirely. His gaze stays on your face, steady but unreadable, like he’s waiting for you to say something first – or bracing for you to. His breathing is slow, controlled. Yours is not.
You become acutely aware of the absurdity of it all at once: the childhood bedroom, the floral wallpaper, the faint ache behind your eyes, the man you’ve spent the past month circling now lying inches from your mouth like this is the most natural place in the world for him to be.
Both eyes snap open fully, blinking sleep away and panic into focus. The entire night before comes crashing back with nauseating clarity
The rain.
The ruined lake house.
The frantic salvaging.
Steve and Natasha’s incandescent smiles when it all somehow worked out.
The champagne you should not have accepted.
The second. Third. Fourth. Fifth. Nth glass you absolutely should not have accepted.
You – exhausted, delirious, running purely on adrenaline and relief – collapsing onto the nearest bed in Steve Rogers’ childhood home.
And somehow, inexplicably, Bucky ending up beside you.
He blinks, just once. The crease between his brows deepens, then smooths, like he’s made a decision you haven’t been briefed on.
You swallow. This is… a lot.
There’s too much context hastily skipped over, too many unanswered questions, entire conversations that need to happen. You really should say something – anything.
Instead, the both of you just lie there, staring at each other in the pale, barely-there light of early morning, and you have no idea – absolutely none whatsoever – how it started.
A month and a day earlier…
Saturday morning brunch is meant to be harmless.
At least, that’s what you assume when Natasha texts brunch? with no further explanation – which in your shared language means citrusy drinks with more alcohol than juice, Steve cheerfully announcing he’ll swing by to pick the two of you up, and maybe a passive-aggressive comment about how you never answer texts on time anymore since you made senior reporter.
The restaurant is bright in that deliberate, curated way – white tile, trailing plants, menus that list three kinds of toast and six kinds of alternative milks (for an upcharge, of course). Steve is already there when you arrive, standing to hug you like it’s been weeks instead of days. Natasha follows more smoothly, sunglasses still on despite being indoors, kiss to your cheek efficient and familiar.
You slide into your seat, shrugging off your jacket.
“So,” you say. “What’s the occasion?”
Steve grins. Natasha doesn’t answer.
You notice the table then – four place settings, evenly spaced. You pause, eyes flicking from the extra glass to the empty chair beside it.
“He said he’s coming from a morning meeting with new clients,” she continues, reaching for a menu. “So he might be a little late.”
You open your mouth to respond – but then Steve peers over your shoulder. “Oh, there he is.”
You turn just in time to see Bucky Barnes crossing the café floor, riding jacket slung over one shoulder, expression composed in the way of someone who isn’t that late anyways but will be apologizing anyway. He looks exactly as you remember him – tall, self-contained, like he sort of exists on a slightly different plane from everyone else.
He lifts a hand in greeting and slips into the empty seat beside you with quiet ease.
“Sorry,” he says by way of greeting. “Clients wanted to redo the entire second floor because their new feng shui master said the energies weren’t flowing properly. Whatever that means.”
“You’re fine,” Natasha replies. “We just got here.”
Then before you can interrogate Natasha on the true reason for why you both are here, the server arrives, menus appear, and the moment gets swept away in small talk. Drinks arrive and the table settles into that brief, expectant quiet that always precedes a big announcement.
Natasha and Steve exchange a look. It’s the look of two people who have already leapt and are now waiting for the ground to rise up and meet them.
Your stomach drops before your brain catches on.
“We wanted you guys to be the first to know,” Steve says. “We’re getting married.”
The sentence lands like a champagne cork popping somewhere inside your chest.
You blink once, because you’re reasonably sure you misheard – but Natasha is smiling in that precise, controlled way she does when she’s already braced for fallout, and Steve is beaming so openly it borders on reckless sincerity.
You make a noise. It is not a dignified one.
“What,” you say faintly, already halfway out of your chair.
“We’re getting married!” Natasha echoes, a million-watt grin on her face.
You scream.
There’s no other word for it. You scream, hands flying up, chair scraping back as you lunge across the table, nearly knocking over the water glasses in the process. She smells like citrus and coffee and something expensive and understated, and she laughs softly against your shoulder as you clutch her like she might vanish. “No. NO YOU ARE NOT DOING THIS TO ME RIGHT NOW!”
Natasha laughs as you throw yourself at her again, this time nearly climbing into her lap. “Show me,” you demand, pulling back just long enough to grab her hand, lifting it to the light, examining the ring from every conceivable angle. “Nat, this is – this is perfect. Steve, are you – are you seeing this? This is her. This ring is literally her.”
Steve looks unbearably pleased with himself. “I had a bit of help,” he admits bashfully.
“I’m screaming,” you announce, already doing so. You absolutely do not care that the table beside you has gone quiet. “I’m so happy I might pass out! How long have you been hiding this from me?”
“About twelve hours,” Natasha says dryly. “We decided you’d explode if we waited longer.”
She isn’t wrong.
You drop back into your chair, breathless, eyes shining, hands still trembling faintly with the aftershock of joy.
Across the table, Steve beams like he’s watching fireworks set off just for him. His ears are pink, his smile helplessly wide. He reaches for his coffee, then forgets to drink it.
Bucky, meanwhile, reacts the way he does to most emotionally significant announcements – by doing nothing at all.
He leans back in his chair, arms crossing loosely over his chest, gaze flicking once between Steve and Natasha as if he’s checking that this is, in fact, real. His expression is unreadable at first – then cracks just enough to reveal a fond resignation.
“Well,” he says eventually, nodding once. “Took you long enough.”
Steve laughs, delighted. “I knew you’d say that.”
Bucky reaches across the table and claps him on the shoulder, solid and affectionate. “Doesn’t mean I’m wrong.”
Natasha watches the exchange with a small, knowing smile. “You’re happy for us,” she says.
“I am,” Bucky replies immediately, without hesitation. “You’re good together. Always have been.”
You notice – how easily the words come out, how certain he sounds – and your heart squeezes a little.
Then he adds, dry as dust, “Still don’t know why you’d want a wedding.”
You blink. “How – how can you hate weddings? Weddings are –”
“Expensive,” Bucky supplies. “A waste of time. Full of speeches no one remembers and promises that half the room doesn’t believe in.”
You stare at him like he’s just announced he doesn’t believe in birthdays. Or seasons. Or the concept of marking time at all.
Natasha hums. “You’re projecting.”
“I’m being realistic.”
But then, he glances at Steve again, and his tone softens, “I’m happy for you,” he says. “Both of you. Really.”
Natasha nods once, satisfied. “Good. Because you’re the best man.”
Bucky freezes like she’s told him he’s being drafted. There’s that split-second tension, the recalibration. You, mid-sip of your mimosa, choke. Hah! Karma!
He looks from Natasha to Steve, then back again, as if hoping one of them will crack and admit this is a joke.
“I am what.”
Steve’s grin turns positively feral. “Yeah. Best man. Obviously.”
Bucky looks at all three of you in turn, trying to locate the hidden camera. “No,” he says slowly. “That’s not obvious. That’s a terrible idea. What part of I think weddings are useless did you not get?”
Natasha hands you a napkin. “And,” she continues, entirely unbothered, “she’s the maid of honour.”
Your head snaps up. “Me?”
“Of course you,” Natasha says. “Who else would I trust?”
Your whole body does a small, involuntary jolt, like someone pressed your internal panic-and-joy switch at the same time.
“Me?” you breathe. Then again, quieter, “Me.”
Natasha’s looking at you with that rare, unguarded sincerity she reserves for maybe three people on earth.
Your throat tightens. “I – yes. Of course. I’d be honoured.”
Bucky blinks once, slow, like he hadn’t expected quite that level of enthusiasm.
You’re just about to turn on Bucky for that face he’s making – something between disbelief and mild judgment – when the plates arrive, and for a brief, blissful moment, the promise of carbohydrates knocks every uncharitable thought clean out of your head.
This turns out to be a mistake, because the second you’re buttering sourdough with the single-minded joy of someone about to be fed, you’ve already forgotten to stay annoyed at him. Another thought slips in – soft at first, then niggling – that there’s a wedding to plan.
“So,” you say, glancing up, smile bright. “I know it’s early, but when were you thinking of actually having the wedding?”
“Oh,” Natasha says, not even looking up from her eggs. “Maybe August?”
You beam. “August,” you repeat dreamily. “That’s beautiful. Late summer weddings are so romantic – warm nights, golden hour photos, none of those terrible July storms –”
She nods. “Mm.”
“And that gives you loads of time to plan,” you continue, already halfway to bliss. “Plenty of runway.”
Natasha smiles. Then, lightly – certainly too lightly for the bombshell she’s dropping – adds, “August this year.”
The knife slips in your hand. The world stops. You laugh and it feels like it’s coming out all wrong. “Sorry – what?”
You turn instinctively toward the person nearest you, seeking grounding, confirmation, sanity. Your hand finds Bucky’s forearm without thinking.
He doesn’t pull away; he doesn’t reassure you either. He’s wearing a strange expression – half amused, half wary – like someone watching a beautifully engineered bridge begin to smoke.
“August,” Steve repeats serenely. “It’s kind of perfect, actually.”
You stare at him. “That’s,” you say slowly, “next month.”
“Yes,” Steve says, pleased. “Exactly.”
Then you laugh again, louder this time, shaking your head. “Okay, okay! But –” you inhale. “What’s the plan?”
“Well,” he says, folding his hands like this is the most reasonable thing in the world, “we were thinking simple.”
Your smile freezes.
Natasha nods. “Very simple.”
Your smile begins to strain. “Define simple.”
“Lunch,” Steve says. “At my parent’s place.”
“In the backyard,” Natasha adds. “Just family and close friends.”
The word lunch echoes in your skull like it’s been shouted down a hallway.
“A… lunch,” you echo faintly. Lunch is not a wedding word. Lunch is what happens when people have errands afterwards.
“Yes,” Natasha says calmly. “Low-key.”
You lean back into your chair.
Steve chimes in, “We don’t really need much, we just want to get married.”
There it is, that gentle, sincere, devastating honesty.
You stare at the two of them, these people you love more than most things in the world, and feel something inside you crack open like a dropped champagne flute.
“No,” you say.
Steve blinks. “No?”
“No,” you repeat, firmer now. “Absolutely not.”
Beside you, Bucky exhales through his nose, clearly amused – a reaction you’ll pointedly refuse to dignify in favour of the emergency at hand.
“Oh, come on,” Bucky says, “what’s wrong with lunch?”
You swivel toward him, eyes wide. “Everything. Everything is wrong with lunch.”
“People show up,” he says, shrugging. “They eat. They say congratulations. Nothing different from a big party.”
You gesture helplessly between him and the couple. “This is a wedding. You don’t just – eat and disperse.”
Natasha finally looks at you properly. “We’re not trying to make a production of it.” Steve nods in agreement. “Between school starting again and Nat going back into full ballet rehearsal season, this is kind of our window.”
“There isn’t another one,” she adds. “Fall is gone. Winter is Nutcracker. And then the company tours in Spring.”
Steve shrugs apologetically. “And once summer’s over, I’m back with the kids full-time. We don’t want to wait another year just to line up calendars.”
“It’s sensible,” Natasha adds. “Not romantic. Just… real life.”
“But –” you start, then stop, searching for something that doesn’t make you sound unhinged. “But you deserve more than real life.”
“We have each other,” Steve says gently.
“That’s not –” You turn again, desperate now, fingers digging into Bucky’s arm without a shred of dignity. “Tell them. This is insane, right?”
He stiffens slightly, clearly unprepared to be conscripted into this fight. “I really don’t see the problem,” he says honestly.
Your jaw drops. “It’s a milestone,” you insist. “It’s about marking the moment. About saying this matters enough that it stops time for a day.”
Bucky tilts his head. “Or,” he says, “they get married because they want to be married. The rest is optional.”
Natasha watches you both with interest. Steve’s head swivels between the two of you like he’s watching a tennis match.
“Behold,” you say dryly, gesturing at Bucky. “The patron saint of emotional rationing.”
He doesn’t miss a beat. “Better than being the apostle of overreaction.”
You release his arm with a huff. “You’re really telling me you’re fine with them getting married over sandwiches.”
“If they’re good sandwiches,” he says, unfazed. “Sure.”
You make a distressed, inhuman noise. Bucky studies you – really studies you – and for the first time since you met him, he seems to consider the possibility that something might be deeply wrong with you.
The table falls into a brief, careful quiet. It’s not uncomfortable, but it certainly is weighted. You slide your plate aside and, with the grim resolve of someone about to break an emergency story, pull out the battered journalist’s notebook you’re never actually without.
“Okay,” you say.
Three heads turn toward you.
“What if,” you say slowly, “I plan it.”
Natasha blinks. “You –”
“Everything,” you continue, gaining momentum. “The logistics, the vendors, the timeline. All of it. You don’t have to think about anything.”
When Steve starts to protest, you hold up a hand.
“No. Listen. You’re busy. I get that. You’ve both spent your lives showing up for other people.” You gesture between them. “Let us show up for you.”
Bucky watches you now, full attention, as if something in the room has shifted and he’s trying to locate the fault line.
“You two just –” you say, voice softer but no less certain, “you two just appear. Have a good time. Celebrate with us.”
Natasha studies you, eyes sharp, calculating. “You’d take this on?”
“Yes,” you say immediately. “Happily.”
Steve looks torn. “We don’t want to burden you.”
You laugh, quick and earnest. “You won’t. This is –” you falter, then recover. “This is important to me.”
A small, horrible beat passes in which you second-guess whether you’ve crossed a line.
Then Natasha exhales, long and thoughtful. “And you wouldn’t turn it into something enormous.”
You hesitate, just a tiny bit. “I wouldn’t turn it into something untrue,” you say. “I promise.”
That does it. Natasha reaches for your hand, squeezing once. “Okay.”
Steve smiles, relief washing over him. “Yeah. Okay.”
Your heart lifts – buoyant, determined, already sprinting ahead as you turn instinctively toward Bucky, eyes bright, dragging him into the moment without even thinking.
“And you,” you insist, “You’ll help.”
He stiffens. “I will not.”
“You’re the best man,” you say, steady, reasonable. “I’m the maid of honour. This is literally a two-person job, like it or not.”
His jaw flexes. “I don’t do weddings.”
“And I don’t do half-measures,” you shoot back. “So here we are.”
He opens his mouth, then closes it again – clearly deciding that arguing with you is both futile and dangerous to his peace of mind.
Natasha laughs. Steve shakes his head, amused. The conversation drifts on – dates, timelines, logistics – while you’re already sketching invisible plans in the air like a general surveying an impending campaign.
Bucky leans back in his chair, arms crossed, expression edged with a kind of begrudging vigilance, as if he now has to monitor whatever chaos you intend to unleash on his life. He doesn’t believe in weddings. And whatever this is – you, dragging him into a four-week matrimonial war zone – isn’t changing that.
It is, however, very clearly about to become his problem.
Three weeks and a day earlier…
“Remind me,” Bucky mutters, voice as flat as concrete, “why I’m here?”
You don’t answer immediately. You’re too busy absorbing the lake house foyer – the clean timber lines, the citrus-and-sunlight smell, the exact kind of curated serenity that makes your pulse rise with possibility.
Bucky stands beside you like he’s been forced at gunpoint to be here – jaw tight, arms crossed, weight shifted back on his heels.
“It’s indoor-outdoor, one of the top venues in the state, and seats exactly who we need it to,” you recite automatically, even though no one has accused you of anything yet. “And because I asked you to come.”
“I noticed,” he deadpans. “What I didn’t notice was any advance warning before being hauled into – whatever this is.”
You wave him off. “24 hours is plenty.”
“For you, maybe,” he replies flatly. “Some of us don’t move meetings unless something’s on fire.” He looks pointedly around the perfectly intact room.
You open your mouth – ready to fight him, justify yourself, maybe both – but another couple steps in behind you. They’re glossy, coordinated, wearing the sort of high-fashion monochrome palette that suggests they have a shared stylist and a joint credit card. The bride glances at you, then at Bucky, eyes flicking quickly over the height difference, the arm loop, the proximity.
Something in her expression sharpens. Territory has been staked, competition engaged.
Oh. So it’s going to be like that.
You are not losing this venue to someone wearing three different shades of black.
It is at this moment – this precise, irrational, adrenaline-laced moment – the venue coordinator appears. She is a woman in earth-toned linen who steps forward with her arms held out wide. “Welcome! You must be –”
“Engaged!” you blurt out.
Bucky chokes so hard it could be a medical issue.
You thump him on the back and keep smiling like nothing is wrong. “Yes,” you continue, “we’re so excited to be here.”
The woman’s smile widens, though she looks a little confused. Nevertheless, she clasps your hands in hers. “Thank you for coming in person and not sending a planner. I do prefer to walk the space with the couple themselves.” She tilts her head, studying the two of you like a composition. “I designed it that way,” she continues lightly, “otherwise the space gets confused. It needs to feel the energy of two people together.”
Bucky’s jaw flexes once – a man making peace with his own unbelievable life choices.
You do not give him time to regret it.
You keep smiling, turning just enough to close the distance between you as you decisively slide your fingers around the widest part of his biceps. It’s an action possessive to sell the lie, and strategic enough that he can’t object.
“Of course, we must accommodate the space,” you lie cleanly through your teeth.
Bucky’s gaze flicks to your hand.
Then to the woman.
Then back to your hand.
Something in his expression tightens – disbelief first, then resignation, then a faint, startled awareness of how close you suddenly are. His jaw works once, like he’s swallowing a protest.
The woman beams, satisfied. “Wonderful,” she says. “I can always tell when a couple’s right for the room.”
Bucky blinks.
“The room,” he mutters for your ears only, “is not the only thing being lied to.”
You squeeze his arm a little tighter – a warning, a threat, a plea for cooperation – and steer him forward.
“Just play along,” you hiss.
You move without thinking, guiding Bucky along with you. He leans down slightly, voice low and dangerous. “You did not tell me,” he says, “that I was going to be fake-engaged today.”
You smile up at him. “I didn’t think you’d come if I did.”
“I can still walk out.”
“You won’t,” you say sweetly. “You’d never leave me to lose to them.”
His mouth presses into a flat line. “That’s not a compliment.”
The coordinator sweeps ahead, her linen skirts whispering across the polished floor, gesturing for all four of you to follow her deeper into the venue. Her energy is serene, ceremonial, almost priestly – the kind of woman who would absolutely believe a building has preferences.
You move first, still linked to Bucky because you can’t risk breaking formation now. His arm stays rigid under your hand, but he doesn’t shake you off. Not when the monochrome couple is still behind you. Not when the coordinator keeps glancing back, clearly assessing which pair the space prefers.
As you’re led deeper into the space – past long communal tables, a dramatic staircase, an absurdly beautiful internal garden that was built to reflect the chaotic natural energies of the lake – you let yourself breathe for the first time all week.
It has been chaos – that particular, grinding breed of chaos born from too many deadlines stacked on too little sleep. A week of logistics and emails, of vendor spreadsheets multiplying like rabbits. You’ve been sleeping with your phone pressed to your chest, waking up to half-drafted ideas and missed calls. Coffee is drunk consistently, at ungodly hours.
And somewhere in the middle of all that, your harmless little notebook of ideas has evolved into something far more serious: a swollen D-ring binder thick enough to cause wrist strain, complete with a colour-coded contents page, subsection tabs, and – because you hate yourself – a newly minted annex.
Bucky has watched this escalation with increasing distaste. He flips a page, pauses, then squints at it. “Why is this laminated?”
“It’s the Emergency Contingencies Index.”
He looks up at you like he’s just witnessed a war crime. “…You laminated contingencies.”
“Obviously.”
He exhales through his nose – long, beleaguered, resigned to his fate. “Of course you did.”
You ignore the jibe and slide a printout across the table toward him. “Venue viewing. Tomorrow evening.” You tap the date and time with your pen, already mentally drafting an email you’ll have to send from the back of the cab to work. “Just promise me you’ll show up.”
He exhales slowly, like a man considering his options. He said nothing, and yet –
Here he is.
You catch him out of the corner of your eye now, consciously shortening his stride so he doesn’t power ahead of you, free hand shoved into his pockets, jaw set in concentration as he maintains the fragile illusion of engaged unity. It shouldn’t matter, but it does.
The foyer opens into a long, sunlit corridor. Windows stretch floor-to-ceiling, throwing bright bars of late-afternoon light across the hardwood.
Beyond her, a sweeping wall of French doors opens onto the lake, the view so startlingly still it looks curated. The afternoon light pours in, warm and liquid, pooling over the polished floors as though the entire venue has been waiting – patiently, expectantly – for someone to notice how perfect it could be.
The other couple gasps appreciatively.
You smile, unsurprised. You know this view; you’d studied it from three angles online, read two overly reverent blog posts about it, and cross-checked Google Earth. Still, seeing it in person, it’s better – warmer, more alive.
Bucky notices, of course he notices, but he doesn’t comment – he’s too busy maintaining his posture of a reluctant hostage – but the corner of his mouth tightens like he’s bracing for you to sprint ahead and start taking photos.
You nudge him anyway. “Try not to look like someone dragged you out of a bunker.”
His glance is slow, unimpressed. “Try not to lie about our relationship status in front of strangers.”
“Tit for tat,” you murmur.
The coordinator begins talking about the original timber, about the intentional asymmetry of the beams, about the way light “wakes the room gently.”
You are listening with rapt attention.
Bucky is… enduring.
Every now and then she asks a question – Do you prefer natural wood tones? Would you want drapery? Do you lean toward a circular ceremony layout or linear? – and you open your mouth each time, prepared to answer.
But Bucky answers first – not with enthusiasm, or vision, or any interest in weddings whatsoever – but with that dry, unfiltered architectural practicality of a man who absolutely cannot help applying professional standards even when he hates the situation he finds himself in.
“A circular layout will bottleneck the aisle, especially if it’s indoors,” he says, hands in his pockets. “You’ll lose at least a third of the sightlines.”
The coordinator brightens. “Exactly.”
The monochrome bride stiffens.
You blink at Bucky, startled. He catches the look, scowls faintly, and mutters, “It’s obvious.”
It isn’t, but you let him have his dignity.
You walk on through another set of doors, which opens wide into the main reception hall – soaring beams, vast windows framing the lake, the whole space glowing.
“This,” she says reverently, “is where most couples choose to place their focal installation.”
You know instantly what she means. The chandelier. You’d flagged it in your notes – a suspended floral-glass hybrid piece, deceptively delicate, impossibly heavy.
You open your mouth to ask about load-bearing specs, but –
He’s frowning at the ceiling, hands still in his pockets, the posture of someone who cannot stop being an architect even when he’s pretending to be an engaged man-captive.
“You’ve got a reinforced steel bracket hidden behind the main truss,” he continues, nodding toward a nearly invisible seam. “But if you’re planning anything heavier than a statement pendant, you’ll need secondary reinforcement. Otherwise the whole thing will torque.”
The coordinator’s eyes go very round.
The monochrome groom swallows, while his bride tightens her grip on her designer purse.
You stare at Bucky, stunned.
He glances sideways at you – and the look he gives you is defensive, almost irritated, the look of a man who realizes too late that he has just demonstrated interest.
“What?” he mutters. “You were gonna ask.”
He’s right, and that annoys you more than it should.
The coordinator beams. “Most people never notice that bracket. You have an extraordinary eye.”
Bucky grimaces, as if being praised for competence in a wedding venue is worse than being shot.
You step in smoothly. “He’s very detail-oriented.”
“He’s very particular,” the monochrome bride echoes, except in her tone, it’s an accusation.
Bucky lifts one brow at her – slow, unimpressed – and the bride looks away first.
The coordinator, oblivious or delighted, continues. “Of course, if you were envisioning a suspended installation – glass, florals, even a sculptural arc – we can accommodate it. The space responds beautifully to verticality.”
“We are considering something suspended,” you say before you can stop yourself.
Bucky shoots you a look that reads: You’re making up lies faster than I can track them.
You shoot him one back: Keep up.
He exhales through his nose. “If we do that, we’ll need that secondary bracket. And a counterweight system.”
The coordinator nods rapidly, already mentally rearranging her entire lighting rig. “Of course. That can be arranged.” Something shifts subtly. Her posture softens, and the way she nods is as if a check box has just been ticked.
The other groom glances back at you and Bucky, his earlier confidence visibly dented. You squeeze Bucky’s arm, unable to help the spark of satisfaction that flickers through you.
The moment the coordinator drifts out of both eyesight and earshot – no doubt to commune with the floorboards or interrogate the other couple’s aura – Bucky exhales like he’s been underwater.
“Okay,” he mutters, stepping back a fraction, putting space between your bodies the way a man pulls his hand away from a hot stove. “We’re done here. We saw the thing. You touched me. The room approved. Can we go?”
You stare at him. “We haven’t even reached the terrace. Or seen the lake.”
“We don’t need to see anything,” he says, already half-turned toward the exit. “You’ve clearly got this handled. The room is spiritually climaxing for you. I’m just taking up space.”
You blink at him. “Are you – mad?”
“No,” he says immediately, too quickly. “I’m not mad.”
He is mad. He is radiating annoyance in a very silent, very repressed, very Barnesian key.
You step in front of him before he can make a full escape.
“Bucky. What’s going on?”
“Nothing,” he says again, jaw tightening. “You lie through your teeth, drag me into a fake engagement, hold onto me like I’m part of the act, and suddenly we’re competing with –” he gestures vaguely toward the monochrome couple, “– those people. Nothing at all.”
You cross your arms. “I asked you to come. You came. That’s on you.”
His laugh is humourless. “You didn’t tell me I was signing up to be your emotional seeing-eye dog for a venue tour.”
You bristle. “I didn’t ask you to hold my hand.”
“You didn’t ask,” he shoots back, “but you sure as hell did it anyway.”
You open your mouth. Close it again in favour of studying him, as if the truth of this situation might be written across the rigidity of his shoulders, the hard line of his mouth, and the glint in his eyes that isn’t anger so much as it is something that he doesn’t want to name.
This is not about the hand, this is not about the lie. This is something deeper and he’s trying very hard – too hard – not to be affected by it.
“Okay,” you say slowly. “So what are you actually angry about?”
He looks away first, toward the lake shimmering through the hallway windows. The light catches on the water, fractured and restless – and for a moment, so is he.
“You keep acting like this wedding is an exam you’re going to be graded on,” he says quietly. “Like if you don’t get the perfect score, you’d have failed something.”
Your heart climbs straight into your throat. His accuracy is unfair.
“And you,” you say, more sharply than intended, “act like caring about something automatically makes it ridiculous.”
Unexpectedly, he flinches – a tiny, involuntary contraction, like you’ve brushed into a decades old bruise.
“It’s just a venue,” he says, and there’s no mockery in it now. Only something raw, frustrated, almost… unguarded. “A pretty one. But you’re acting like it’s going to make or break their marriage.”
His mouth twists. “Like the right backdrop magically carries the weight of everything else. And I don’t get it,” he exhales through his nose, gaze fixed somewhere past you. “Why this – all this – matters so damn much to you people.”
You people. It stings, but not in the way he thinks. Because underneath the snark, you finally see the real wound: he doesn’t understand ceremonies, symbols, anything beautiful for the sake of being beautiful – because he’s never let himself want any of it.
“Because it’s Nat and Steve,” you say, letting your voice soften to match his. “And I love them.”
He goes still at that.
You press on, because if you stop now you might not ever get it out. “I can’t fix their schedules,” you say. “I can’t tell them to stop adjusting their lives for everyone else. For rehearsals, for classes, for performances, for deadlines, for everyone who wants a piece of them.” You gesture around the sun-dappled riverbank. “This I can make good. This is their one wedding, and I refuse to let it be mediocre.”
A whole taxonomy of expressions moves across Bucky’s face – irritation, disbelief, something like reluctant comprehension, and then something else entirely, quick and unguarded, before he shutters it.
“And if all it takes is twenty minutes of us pretending…” you continue, voice steadying as you meet his eyes, “then yeah, I’m going to ask you to pretend like your life depends on it.”
He swallows – a small, tight movement, the only tell he gives away. You hold his gaze, refusing to look anywhere else.
“I’m not asking you to suddenly believe in weddings, Bucky,” you say quietly. “Just help me make one thing in their life perfect.”
His jaw works once, the fight leaving him in a slow, resigned exhale.
“…Fine,” he mutters, looking away as he rubs the back of his neck, “Just – don’t grab my arm like that again unless you warn me first.”
You smile, stepping past him toward the terrace where the coordinator has drifted off with the other couple. “No promises.”
*
The tour funnels you down a gentle slope, the house falling away behind you as the riverbank unfurls in front of it – a stretch of soft grass tapering toward the water, framed on one side by a broad, ancient oak. Its branches arc outward like the ribs of a cathedral, heavy with leaves that whisper in the breeze. You hadn’t noticed it from the house; from this angle, though, it dominates the horizon, dignified and steadfast, the kind of tree that seems older than the property deeds themselves.
The coordinator steps onto the very center of the lawn with the assured gait of someone taking her mark on a stage. This, you know instinctively, is where she believes vows ought to be spoken – the exact patch of earth where a couple should stand, framed by river light and the watchful canopy of the oak. She closes her eyes, lifts her chin slightly, and inhales through her nose like she’s tasting the air for nuance, for resonance, for meaning.
Sunlight spills around her like she arranged it.
“Well?” she asks. “What has the space said to you?”
You open your mouth, but Bucky beats you to it.
He straightens with the weary precision of a man reaching for a tool he resents knowing how to use. And, with all the cool detachment of someone reading a zoning violation aloud, he replies, “We’ll need to check with our feng shui master first. Just to confirm the alignment. Of the house. Of the day. Of us.”
You nearly swallow your own tongue as the coordinator woman’s eyes go wide. The monochrome couple freeze like meerkats spotting a predator.
“Your… master,” she breathes, reverent.
Bucky nods once, faux-solemn. “Yes. We never make major choices without him aligning the energies of the space.”
Something dangerously close to hysteria bubbles up – laughter, disbelief, the urge to grab him by the collar – and you shove it all down in favour of hissing under your breath, “Where the hell did you get that from?”
Without breaking eye contact with the woman, Bucky whispers back, “Someone said it to me last week.”
“Well.” Her spine straightens, chin lifting in pride. “You may assure your feng shui master that this house was built to honour all schools of thought. East, West, traditional, contemporary, celestial, terrestrial – every axis, every current, every flow – perfectly aligned.”
“Oh, I don’t doubt it,” Bucky murmurs, and the audacity of him nearly floors you.
The woman stands a little straighter, the way someone does when intellectually challenged and spiritually provoked. Her eyes sweep once more over the riverbank, the grass, the house behind you – a slow, assessing glide, like she’s listening to vibrations only she can hear.
She inhales deeply, with great purpose. When she opens her eyes again, something in her expression has shifted. “The space,” she says, solemn as a vow, “has begun to speak.”
A hush seems to fall – not real, but perceptual, the kind that comes from someone making a proclamation with enough confidence that your brain scrambles to keep up.
She lifts her hands, palms open to the sky. “It is… forming an opinion.”
Behind you, Bucky stiffens in the exact way a man does when he desperately wants to object but also desperately does not want to extend this interaction by another minute.
The woman turns, serene and certain.
The monochrome couple immediately arrange themselves into a picturesque tableau – her hand on his chest, his chin lowered like he’s posing for a photoshoot. They look like they rehearsed this in the car.
She lifts her palms. “Energy reveals itself through contrast. This space,” she announces, “always reveals the truth of a couple.”
Bucky mutters, “Spaces are unreactive,” under his breath.
You nudge his ribs with your elbow, a warning.
The coordinator opens her eyes and turns toward the monochrome couple first. She tilts her head, studying them with a tight, delicate frown – the kind people give wilted herbs at a farmer’s market.
“Mmm,” she says. “There is… tension in your current alignment.”
The monochrome bride stiffens. “Tension?”
“Yes,” the coordinator says gently, almost apologetically. “A little blocked. A little… forced.”
Beside you, Bucky murmurs, “Told you posing wouldn’t help,” and you jab him again, harder.
Then the coordinator turns to you and Bucky and her eyes widen. She steps closer, blinking once, twice, as if a spotlight has turned on specifically above the two of you.
“Oh,” she breathes. “This… this is interesting.”
Bucky straightens, like he’s bracing to be insulted. Instead, the coordinator smiles – slow and reverent – as if she’s seeing the first bloom of spring emerge from frozen ground.
“Your energy is very strong together,” she says.
You blink. Bucky blinks harder.
“Our what?” he splutters.
“Your connection,” she clarifies, waving her hands vaguely between your bodies. “There’s an undeniable resonance. A grounding. A clarity. The space likes you.”
You nearly choke. “We – we just walked in.”
“Yes,” she says simply. “And the space settled. Didn’t you feel it?”
You feel Bucky staring at you, silently begging you not to say yes, which is why you smile sweetly and answer, “Of course.”
The monochrome bride sputters. “We’ve been engaged for fourteen months!”
The coordinator turns sympathetically toward her. “Sometimes longevity dulls resonance.”
Bucky quietly coughs to hide a laugh – or dies, it’s hard to tell.
The monochrome groom steps forward, indignant. “We’re very aligned. We meditate together.”
“Even more worrying,” the coordinator murmurs.
You bite your lip to keep from laughing. Bucky fails entirely; a tiny, traitorous sound escapes him.
The bride narrows her eyes at you like you might drop dead from the strength of her displeasure.
You loop your arm a little tighter around Bucky’s, partly to sell the ruse… partly because the absurdity has short-circuited your ability to stand upright on your own.
The coordinator makes a gentle sweeping motion with her hand. “Let us test the resonance.”
Bucky whispers, panicked, “What the hell does that mean?”
“How would I know?!”
But the monochrome bride is already stepping forward like she’s ready to ascend the throne, so you tug Bucky along to keep up.
The coordinator stands between both couples, waving her arms like she’s invoking some ancient rite. “Take one step toward each other.”
You and Bucky share a look – half dread, half the feral refusal to lose when the competition is right there. You both step forward in perfect sync.
You mouth, I’m sorry. A muscle twitches in his cheek – not annoyance – something closer to careful exasperation. His answer is a barely perceptible tilt of his head that reads, I know. Don’t worry about it.
You stop toe to toe, breaths brushing.
Nothing mystical happens, nothing supernatural – just Bucky Barnes standing close enough that the world seems to tilt around the space you share. You refuse to look him in the eyes – God knows what you’d see there – so you stare determinedly at the bridge of his nose, willing your expression into neutrality as the warmth of him crowds out every thought you were trying to have.
He inhales, sharp and quiet, like he wasn’t expecting you to be this close either. He too, appears to be doing his level best to not look at you, but it’s an exercise in futility. His gaze skims your mouth first – a flicker, unintentional and devastating – before darting up to your eyes like he’s been caught thinking something he absolutely shouldn’t.
Your pulse slams; he swallows once, hard – small, involuntary shifts, now kept between the two of you like a secret.
The coordinator beams. “There. You see? Harmony.”
Bucky stares straight ahead, face rigid, ears just barely pink.
The monochrome couple step forward too – but the groom hesitates; the bride overcorrects; their hands collide awkwardly.
“Oh,” the coordinator says softly, pained. “Oh no.”
Bucky mutters, “Yikes,” under his breath, and you actually pinch his arm.
The coordinator claps once, decisive. “I believe I’ve seen enough.”
Everyone tenses.
She turns to you and Bucky. “The space responds to you,” she says with priestess-level certainty. “It welcomes you. It expands for you.”
You’re about to thank her when Bucky murmurs, “If the space is reacting to anything, it’s your dramatics,” but fortunately only you hear it.
Then the coordinator swivels toward the other couple. “You,” she announces solemnly, “must reduce your guest list.”
The bride gasps. “But we – my mother – ”
“The room,” the coordinator says gravely, “has decided.”
The groom looks genuinely shaken.
Bucky leans in, voice barely audible. “I can’t believe this is working.”
You whisper back, “It’s not working because of me. It’s working because of that chandelier lecture you gave.”
“That was structural integrity,” he hisses. “Not flirting.”
But he doesn’t let go of your arm.
And you don’t step away.
The woman turns back to you both, her expression warm and resolute. “Take your time,” she says, though she looks like she’d happily build a shrine in your honour to expedite the decision. “But tell your master he will find no faults here. None.”
“We will,” you promise.
She glides away, leaving you and Bucky standing in a halo of lake-light and competitive triumph.
Bucky exhales, long and tired. “This is exactly how people lose their minds.”
You guide him toward the exit anyway, fingers still hooked through his sleeve – not intimate, not quite polite, just necessary.
“Welcome,” you murmur unapologetically, “to wedding planning.”
Two weeks and a day earlier…
The week takes off at a dead sprint. Your phone vibrates itself into delirium, screen lighting up with vendors, reschedules, quotes, “circling back” emails, and three separate florists who apparently all forgot they’d already spoken to you twice.
Bucky, for all his sins, is enduring it. At every appointment he trails half a step behind you – a man hoping proximity alone won’t make him legally responsible for whatever decisions you’re about to make. Hands in pockets. Jaw tight. Eyes narrowed as though each vendor is a fresh test of his moral fortitude.
And yet…
He comes. Without complaint, without needing to be chased.
And – this is new – somewhere between the cake tasting and the linen warehouse, the edge of him softens. Barely. A thaw measured in millimeters. A grunt instead of a sigh. A single, grudging nod when you ask what he thinks.
A man not enjoying himself, exactly, but acclimating to the weather.
It’s not much, but for Bucky Barnes? It’s practically enthusiasm.
*
On Monday, you take him to the bakery.
That is to say: you enter the bakery; Bucky is tugged in behind you by the elbow like a particularly resentful ox being led to market. He drags his feet with the weary fatalism of a man heading into a tax audit rather than a pastel shop filled with butter and joy.
The shop itself is – there’s no other word for it – whimsical. Pastel walls, delicate bunting, sunlight slanting through the front windows as though the cakes have been personally blessed by the heavens. The air smells of warm vanilla and soft nostalgia, the kind that makes even cynics briefly believe in birthdays.
Bucky looks around as though the décor has personally wronged him.
The owner, whom you had coaxed into giving you the earliest slot of the morning through sheer force of will, gestures proudly to the tasting platter.
“We’ll begin with the Earl Grey sponge and lavender honey buttercream,” she announces, serene and certain.
Your eyes brighten.
Bucky’s narrow. “What happened to good ol’ chocolate?” he mutters, as though chocolate has been unjustly exiled from its ancestral lands.
You kick him beneath the table. Lightly. But not so lightly that it could be mistaken for affection.
“Eat,” you instruct.
He gives you the kind of look usually reserved for dire medical diagnoses, then reluctantly scoops the smallest, most suspicious sliver of cake onto his fork. He puts it into his mouth like a man testing whether the food is poisoned.
And then – you see it, the betrayal of expression he cannot stop. First surprise, then reluctant delight, followed almost immediately by the horrified awareness that he has enjoyed something he fully intended to hate.
“It’s fine,” he blurts, far too quickly.
You lean in, delighted. “You liked it.”
He scowls at the table, then at you, then at the baker – who is now beaming at him with the radiant satisfaction of a woman who has converted a lifelong skeptic.
It is not just fine.
It is objectively delicious.
And he hates – truly hates – that you saw the truth flicker across his traitorous face before he could stop it.
*
On Tuesday, Bucky takes one look at the flowers and immediately starts sneezing.
The florist winces in sympathy. “Allergies?”
“He’ll survive,” you say before Bucky can flee, even though he’s already retreating toward the far end of the worktable like a man hoping distance alone might save him.
The shop smells like cut stems and cold water – green and sharp and very alive – petals spilling across every surface in soft, painterly chaos.
The florist laughs kindly and gestures to a bucket of eucalyptus. “Don’t worry – these are hardy and allergen-friendly. They hold up in anything. Weddings, heatwaves, surprise drizzle…” He shrugs. “Outdoor ceremonies love a bit of weather drama, but flowers don’t – unless you pick the right ones.”
You perk up. “Is rain even a concern this time of year?”
“Not usually,” the florist says, selecting a spray of greenery and trimming it with quick, deft movements. “But you plan as if it might. Storms are shy until they aren’t.”
Bucky snorts. “Weather’s weather. Either it behaves or it doesn’t.”
You shoot him a look. “Some of us prefer contingency plans.”
He arches an eyebrow. “Some of us have noticed.”
You ignore him – mostly – as the florist flips to an empty page of his notepad.
“All right,” he says. “What’s the vision?”
You inhale to answer –
“Classic,” Bucky says before you can speak. “And nothing that sheds on cloth.”
Your head whips toward him. “Since when do you get a vote?”
“I don’t want to walk around looking like I’ve been rolled through pollen.”
“Oh my god,” you breathe. “This isn’t about you.”
But Bucky isn’t listening anymore. Somehow he’s gotten hold of a ranunculus – pale, full, elegant – turning it between his fingers with a strange, unexpected tenderness, like he’s examining the architecture of it rather than the bloom.
“Steve likes texture,” he says quietly. “And Nat wouldn’t want anything that droops. These won’t.”
Your heart skips a beat.
He pretends he hasn’t said anything meaningful, already shifting his attention to the eucalyptus as if the leaves are deeply compelling. The florist pretends not to notice, though his smile is unmistakably knowing.
Bucky clears his throat. “What?”
“Nothing,” you say.
(Not nothing. Not even close.)
*
On Wednesday, the décor warehouse tries to kill you.
It is cavernous and overwhelming, chandeliers dangling from the ceiling every two meters like glittering threats, and an entire aisle of linens that could double as medieval weaponry. Sequins glint, metallics glare, tulle menaces.
You are confronted with sequined tablecloths; Bucky is confronted with the very edge of his sanity.
“This,” he tells the décor consultant as he lifts one anyway, rubbing the cloth between his fingers with a frown so deeply judgmental it could be submitted for peer review, “is both a fire hazard and a crime.”
“It’s festive!” she chirps, a woman who has clearly never met Bucky Barnes before today.
“The weave is cheap,” you announce, already flipping to the corresponding tab in The Binder, which has now manifested in your hands like a grimoire. “It’ll pill and crease endlessly. And the reflective finish will give half the guest list a migraine before the night’s through. We need organic fibres. High drape. Low shine.”
Bucky’s head snaps toward you, narrowing his eyes at The Binder as if it is a sentient being he should probably file a restraining order against.
The consultant nods, chastened, and flips open a book of fabric samples. “Right. Understood. Organic fibres only.”
As she rifles through swatches, her gaze drifts upward – to you, then Bucky, then the two of you standing shoulder-to-shoulder, already leaning unconsciously toward the same bolt of ivory linen. Bucky has angled himself half a step in front of you in the quiet, instinctive way he does when something large or unwieldy is suspended overhead (in this case – chandeliers).
“You two work well together,” she says mildly. “That’s rare.”
Bucky stiffens, as if she’s accused him of tax fraud. You give her a serene smile. “We’re… efficient.”
The consultant brightens. “Wonderful! Now, what about centrepieces? I have a full catalogue –”
But you’re already unzipping The Binder. Its spine hits the table with a weighty thud, tabs fanning open like a legal case file.
The consultant startles. Bucky actually flinches.
“What is that,” he mutters, like you’ve revealed a cursed heirloom.
“My system,” you say, flipping to Décor – Appropriate Fabrics – Do Not Attempt. “I have a plan.”
“A plan,” Bucky repeats, staring at the colour-coded pages with something between awe and genuine concern for your psychological welfare. “That thing looks like it could beat me in a fight.”
You pat The Binder affectionately. “It could.”
The consultant beams, totally unaware that Bucky is staring at you like he’s just realised he may be assisting someone who is, clinically speaking, unhinged.
“Right,” she says brightly. “I’ll pull samples.”
Bucky looks at the chandeliers overhead. Then at you. Then at The Binder.
And for the first time all week, he whispers – almost reverently, “…I should’ve stayed in the car.”
*
It happens late on a Sunday, at a café that should have closed twenty minutes ago.
The whole week has been a blur of vendors and spreadsheets and Bucky’s increasingly elaborate attempts to pretend he’s not helping while very much helping. By Sunday evening, the two of you have collapsed into the only open seats you can find – a wobbly bistro table by the window, your laptop occupying most of the surface and Bucky occupying most of the silence.
You’re hunched over the screen, brow creased, staring down a ceremony timeline that stubbornly refuses to make structural sense. Bucky is across from you, sleeves pushed up, sketching something on a napkin with the grim focus of a man troubleshooting a structural fault in a bridge rather than a wedding.
You rub your eyes. “What are you doing?”
Without looking up, he mutters, “Fixing a bottleneck. Your aisle’s too narrow.”
“Why do you care?” you mutter just as carelessly, distracted by your task.
His pen stills, his shoulders shift, and slowly, reluctantly, he looks up.
For a moment, everything seems to hush – the espresso machine becomes distant, the street noise flattens, and the tired overhead lights soften around the edges.
Bucky taps the pen once against the napkin, like anchoring himself before he says something foolish. “Because you care,” he says. Then, quieter, as if the words escaped without permission, “and you shouldn’t have to do all of this alone.”
It lands inside you with alarming precision – a warmth, a weight, something perilously close to a beginning.
You can’t breathe for a second.
And he must feel it, because he looks away fast, jaw tightening, shoulders drawing in as if he’s trying to fold the moment back up and hide it inside himself again. Like he’s said something intimate by accident, and he regrets this sliver of honesty.
Around you, the world resumes: chairs scrape, someone calls out a drink order, the barista stacks cups with end-of-night urgency.
Bucky clears his throat. “Anyway,” he mutters, sliding the napkin toward you without meeting your eyes, “don’t make it weird.”
But it is.
It’s extremely, catastrophically weird.
The napkin is a clean little sketch of flow paths and corrected spacing, annotations in a tidy slant you didn’t know he had. A map of attention. Of care.
You fold it carefully before slipping it into your bag, feeling absurdly like you’re tucking away evidence of something neither of you is ready to name.
When you leave the café, the air smells faintly of rain – the kind that promises trouble but hasn’t yet arrived.
One week and one day earlier…
You do not sleep.
You perform the ceremonial gestures of sleep – lying down, closing your eyes, arranging your limbs in the socially approved configuration – but rest never actually arrives. Your mind conducts its own private military coup at 3:00 am, storming your bloodstream with insurgent thoughts: ‘Did the florist confirm final stem counts?’, ‘Did I remember to order table numbers?’, and ‘Would it work better if family speeches come before the entrées? Or after?’
You drift, jolt awake, repeat. Several times.
By morning, you’re running on nineteen minutes of sleep and pure vengeance. So, when the caterer calls you mid-zoom-interview at the press junket for Disaster Day to inform you they cannot, in fact, prepare the vegan entrée in a mini size, something in you goes very still.
You stare at your phone with the placid serenity of a war general who has already accepted casualties. “Can’t,” you say, voice crisp as a drawn blade, “is not a word in my vocabulary.”
Across the room, Bucky lifts an eyebrow over the rim of his laptop. He is technically working from home today – except “home” has quietly become your living room around 8:12 a.m. every morning. You’ve stopped asking why. He brings coffee. And pastries. And printouts for The Binder. And frankly, you no longer have the mental bandwidth to interrogate miracles.
“You shouldn’t threaten people before nine,” he says mildly.
“I haven’t threatened anyone.”
That is – generously – untrue. You have absolutely threatened everyone. Politely. With deadlines. And consequences. And lightly weaponised spreadsheets.
Bucky watches you pace while fielding the caterer’s excuses, your free hand slicing the air like you’re conducting an orchestra on fire. Something like amusement flickers across his face, but it softens quickly into concern – the subtle, steady kind he pretends isn’t happening.
And then, instead of retreating as any sensible person would before the detonation of a stressed maid-of-honour, he rises from the couch, crosses the room, and steps into your orbit.
He doesn’t grab your phone. He asks for it with one quiet, inexorable gesture of his hand.
“Give me that,” he murmurs. “Before the caterers fire us.”
“They are not going to fire us.”
“You’re vibrating.”
“I’m passionate.”
“You’re one ‘no’ from burning this whole city down.”
Before you can form a rebuttal, he slides your phone neatly out of your grip, taps the speaker off, and steps out onto the tiny balcony attached to your apartment. The door clicks shut behind him.
You watch him through the glass – leaning one forearm against the railing, phone at his ear, morning light catching on the metal lines of his arm. His hair curls slightly at the temples from the humidity, and he’s wearing that expression he saves for handling difficult subcontractors – patience wrapped in exhaustion, tied with a bow of menace.
He’s handsome in a way that feels entirely illegal before 9:00 am.
Three minutes later – just as you’ve abandoned your Zoom call in shame and are contemplating whether your cold muffin is a metaphor for your rapidly deteriorating sanity – the door opens again.
“All sorted,” he says, handing back your phone. “They’ll do it.”
“Really?”
“They just needed to be… encouraged.”
You narrow your eyes. “Encouraged how?”
He ignores you. Instead, he leans over your shoulder without warning, takes an enormous bite out of the muffin you were very clearly saving, grimaces, and declares, “These tasted better when they were fresh.”
“I hate you,” you lie.
He pats you on the head – like you’re a stressed-out Pomeranian instead of a full-grown adult on the brink of collapse – and sets the half-eaten muffin back on your plate.
“Be good,” he says absently, already grabbing his bag. “I’ve gotta be on the West Coast in…” He checks his watch. “Nine hours. Which is – too soon. Far too soon.”
“For the site walkthrough?” you ask.
“Yes,” he grumbles. “A walkthrough that could’ve easily been a Zoom meeting. But no. ‘In-person presence’ apparently matters when you’re paid obscene amounts of money to stare at blueprints and tell rich people their walls won’t collapse.”
He slings his jacket over his shoulder, pauses at your doorway, and glances back at you – at the chaos of your open laptop, the muffin carnage, the binder bristling with tabs like a hydra waiting to strike.
“You gonna be okay till I’m back?” he asks, voice low, deceptively casual.
You open your mouth to say yes. But your brain whispers table numbers and speech order and stem counts and seating charts and vegan mini entrées –
Bucky exhales, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I’ll bring more muffins tomorrow,” he says.
And then he’s gone.
Five days earlier…
By this time, you have achieved a certain notoriety amongst vendors. The florist replies to your emails instantly, the lighting techs refuse to take your calls unless you’ve sent a written agenda in advance, the décor rental company has assigned their most battle-hardened employee to answer your number specifically – the kind of woman who has seen things.
And that afternoon, you’re on the phone with her – Tiffany, destroyer of inventory lists – vibrating with equal parts impatience and righteous fear. “No, Tiffany, I don’t want these silver chairs,” you say, pacing your living room like a commander on the brink of mutiny. “I want the silver chairs in the original quote. No. No, don’t you dare. These are narrower. I can see it. Don’t gaslight me with measurements, Tiffany.”
Meanwhile, Bucky – freshly returned from LA and looking unfairly good for someone who spent six hours on a cramped plane – is crouched on the floor beside the coffee table, reorganising the seating chart with the laser focus of a man who has chosen physical labour over listening to you eviscerate a stranger.
He has rolled up his sleeves, exposing the long line of his forearms. He is using a ruler. A ruler.
The concentration is so intense it borders on devotional.
Your leg, jittering with fury at Tiffany’s incompetence, keeps brushing against his knee.
And Bucky… doesn’t move.
Not an inch.
He goes absolutely still, like someone attempting not to startle a wild animal – except it’s not fear pinning him there. It’s something tighter, quieter, more dangerous.
You don’t notice any of this. You’re too busy convincing Tiffany about the discomfort of narrower chairs.
However, Bucky notices you. He notices the way your hair is falling out of its clip. He notices the focus in your eyes, the heat in your voice, the absolute refusal to compromise. He notices that every time your knee brushes his, it sends a pulse of something electric straight through him. And that his ears are burning.
He shifts the seating cards again – unnecessarily, compulsively – because it’s either that or he betrays himself.
You end the call with a victorious, “Thank you, Tiffany,” in a tone that means anything but, and drop onto the couch with a sigh.
Only then do you look down and see Bucky still on the floor, still close enough that your knee bumps his elbow, still very much there.
“Did you fix it?” you ask, nodding toward the seating chart.
He doesn’t look up immediately. When he does, his voice is steady in a way his pulse absolutely isn’t.
“Yeah,” he says. “I’ve got you.”
Four days earlier…
You are Time Itself. No one moves unless you decree it.
“Load-in is at seven,” you announce to the empty air – or perhaps to the universe, which should know better by now than to test you.
“It says eight on the schedule,” Bucky replies without looking up from his laptop.
“It’s seven,” you say. “Now.”
He exhales the kind of sigh reserved for malfunctioning printers and divine punishment, but he adjusts the timeline anyway. He’s the only person who could argue with you – and the only one who genuinely doesn’t want to.
Then the DJ calls.
He tells you, very cheerfully and very incorrectly, that your preferred recessional song is “technically unavailable.”
You stop breathing.
“What do you MEAN unavailable?” you shout into the phone. “Music does not disappear! It doesn’t migrate! It’s not an endangered species!”
Somewhere beside you, Bucky goes very still, like a man anticipating shrapnel. He gently pries the phone from your hand, tells the DJ, “Sorry, she’s been like this all week,” and steps away to do damage control.
“You need to eat something,” he says when he returns.
“You need to stop babying me,” you shoot back.
“Funny,” he says mildly, handing you a granola bar. “Because you’re acting exactly like a child.”
You glare at him. Then, still glaring, you bite half the granola bar in a single, furious chomp.
He says nothing – just watches as you flip through The Binder, muttering about back-up music options, crumbs dusting your fingers.
And then he smirks, just this quiet, unbearably fond little curve of his mouth – like he has, against all odds, successfully tamed a dragon.
Or worse, like he likes being the one who can.
Three days earlier…
You return to the venue for a walkthrough, overseeing the preparations, with the air of a small, determined weather system. A storm cloud in sneakers, striding across the lawn.
The grass is crisp underfoot; the late afternoon light glances off every rented surface. Staff scatter at your approach like startled deer as you fire off instructions rapid-fire.
“Those chairs need to be straight!”
“That table is too close to the aisle – Natasha will murder someone!”
“No, no, the lanterns go in a gentle arc, not – is that a semicircle? I said gentle! Arc!”
You are relentless. A force of nature. A benevolent tyrant.
And behind you, Bucky moves like the calm shadow of that storm – not blocking it, not dampening it, simply… shaping its path. As you pass through the space, he drifts after you with that quiet, commanding competence vendors obey without hesitation.
You bark, “The draping is too low!” Bucky adds, evenly, “Raise it four inches,” and the fabric lifts to exactly the right height.
You snap, “Why is that easel crooked?” He doesn’t even check – just straightens it in passing.
You whirl and demand, “Did we lose the programs?” Without looking up from the seating chart he’s reviewing, he murmurs, “Left table,” and somehow also manages to hand them to you as you spin past.
Somewhere in the chaos, the vendors begin turning to him instead of you – but he never answers without meeting your eyes first, the quiet your call? passing between you with the ease of something well-practised.
It shifts the atmosphere around you.
Not dramatically, not all at once – but enough that you feel it: the way people start to move around the two of you rather than through you, the way instructions seem to settle more cleanly when he repeats them in that low, steady voice. It isn’t deference so much as an unspoken acknowledgement that whatever this operation is, you and Bucky are its centre of gravity. Like the two of you have become a team. A pair.
The hours blur. At some point the sun shifts, turning the river gold; at some point you realise he has been tracking your movements by sound alone; at some point everyone else started stepping back when the two of you approached together, as if clearing a path for a unit that operates on instinct, not instruction.
And then - he’s gone.
One moment Bucky is beside you, adjusting a lantern hook before you can work up the breath to scold it; the next, he’s simply… vanished. No warning, no explanation.
You freeze mid-step, wondering if perhaps the lanterns were the straw that broke the camel’s back. Maybe the arc was perfectly gentle after all. Maybe he’s halfway home by now, liberated from your tyranny, which is frankly more alarming.
Unfortunately, you don’t have time to worry about it. The rental company have just delivered the wrong chairs – again – and you’re rifling through The Binder for the order confirmation and delivery manifesto when you hear the tell-tale click of doors opening.
You don’t bother looking up. “Bucky, if that’s the caterer, tell them no, we do not want a cheese fountain. We already have a charcuterie table and this is enoughcheese as it is –“
“Not the caterer,” a voice cuts in, bright and very, very amused.
You freeze, snap your head to the door, and immediately want to scream. “Nat?”
She saunters in, sunglasses perched in her hair, dressed like she’s just come from robbing an art gallery. And behind her –
“Steve?”
He offers a sheepish little wave. “Hey.”
“What –” You spin around, scanning the unfinished chaos of the venue. The wrong chairs are still stacked in their delivery plastics, the table linens are half-unwrapped, and someone is vacuuming outside.
“What are you doing here?” you gasp. “We’re – this place is – not done.”
“Bucky called us,” Nat says casually, inspecting the archway of lanterns. “Said you were about to combust.”
You whirl around to glare at him. He’s loitering by the floral delivery, suddenly very interested in counting the number of petals on the hydrangeas.
Traitor.
Steve steps forward before you can explode. “Hey. We’re not here to stress you out. Just thought we’d – have a look. Say hi. Make sure you’re alright.”
“And point out any death traps,” Natasha adds helpfully.
“I –” you glance around the room as a bead of sweat slides down your spine. “I haven’t – okay, but the entryway’s a mess, and I haven’t confirmed if the florist finished –”
Steve claps Bucky on the back, murmurs something you don’t catch, and then turns to you with absolute sincerity.
“Just point out what’s left,” he says. “We’ll tell you if anything needs adjusting.”
You stare at him, hesitating.
There are a dozen things still bothering you – chair alignment, votive placement, aisle symmetry, the floral arch that’s slightly off-centre if you squint.
Natasha squeezes your hand. “Lead the way.”
So you do.
You walk them through the space, stomach clenched, waiting for them to flinch. Waiting for Natasha to raise an eyebrow. For Steve to say something painfully diplomatic like “Oh… interesting choice.” You start at the entryway, apologising for the seating chart station still being assembled. You usher them through the reception room hall, cringing at the wrong chairs. You pause by the catering tent, where someone’s left a crate of half-melted ice under the table.
But –
Steve is nodding. Nat is smiling. They’re chatting with the vendors like old friends. The florist’s assistant offers them tea. A tiny crack forms in the armour of your panic.
And then, you step outside, out onto the terrace.
The world opens.
The lawn rolls out before you, soft and immaculate, before dipping toward the lake – where the water is catching the last gold of the setting sun, shimmering in a way no Pinterest board ever adequately prepared you for. The breeze lifts warm against your face, and beneath it, a cooler ribbon of air slips past your ankle.
And there, at the centre of it all, stands the arch.
It rises from the grass as though it grew there overnight: a sweep of branches and late-summer blooms woven together so seamlessly it feels alive. Moss softens the base, wildflowers spill through the latticework, and the whole structure glows in the amber light like it has been waiting – patiently, inevitably – for Nat and Steve to stand beneath it.
The trees along the waterline rustle, not loudly, but with that faint, anticipatory shiver of leaves that hints at a change in the air. The whole place feels momentarily enchanted.
Natasha inhales softly. “This is breathtaking.”
Steve wraps an arm around her shoulders, his expression lighting up in a way that makes your throat sting. “It’s perfect,” he says.
Perfect.
Perfect.
You have not heard that word in two weeks – not directed at you, not directed at anything you’ve touched. The sound of it seems to land somewhere deep in your chest, loosening a knot you didn’t realise had become part of your anatomy.
You turn slightly, catching Bucky watching you.
Not Steve, not Natasha.
You.
For a moment his expression is unreadable – steady, assessing, something flickering just behind his eyes as if he’s cataloguing the exact second your shoulders begin to unlock. And when they do, when that infinitesimal shift in your posture betrays just how close to breaking you’ve been, something gentler settles across his features. Something warm. Something proud in a quiet, devastating way.
He doesn’t say a word.
But the silence feels like one: See? I told you. You did this. You can breathe now.
Natasha spins to face you, eyes bright. “Everything looks incredible. Truly.”
You swallow, the question slipping out before you can stop it. “Really?”
“Really,” Steve echoes. “We wouldn’t change a thing.”
The breath leaves you all at once – a long, trembling exhale you didn’t realise you’d been holding, as if your body had been bracing for criticism even now, even here. Your chest opens like someone finally snipped the last too-tight thread holding it together.
Maybe – just maybe – you haven’t been failing.
Maybe it’s all going to be okay.
Two days ago…
Bucky finds you by accident.
It’s late – late enough that the venue has finally exhaled. The last of the staff have gone, the caterer’s van taillights swallowed by the dark, the florist waving wearily before disappearing down the drive. Outside, a light drizzle patters on and off, the kind that can’t decide whether to commit to rain at all. The venue, which had buzzed like a disturbed hive all day, now settles into a deep, exhausted quiet.
He walks the grounds anyway.
The last staff car crunches over gravel as it pulls away; he stands under the overhang and watches its taillights disappear into the dark. He tells people go home, nods toward their umbrellas, makes sure no one is lingering in the drizzle out of politeness or fear you’ll summon them back.
Only when the final goodnight is called does he breathe out.
Inside, the place feels different. Dimmer. Reverent. The hallway sconces glow low, the air smelling faintly of wet cedar and the sweet scatter of greenery left behind. A final walkthrough, he tells himself. One last sweep before tomorrow.
He moves through the quiet halls checking what he knows: the service doors latched, terrace gate secured so the breeze won’t rattle it open, emergency exits clear. The air smells faintly of eucalyptus and wet earth drifting in from outside. Overhead, the timbers creak softly with the shifting weather.
He pauses beneath the hanging chandeliers – delicate strands of crystal beading suspended amongst shimmering lights. Dozens, maybe hundreds, trembling slightly whenever the drizzle swells and the wind nudges the eaves. He counts them again, and again, pretending it’s for safety, ignoring the truth humming beneath the surface:
Everything is done. Everything is perfect. Everything is so unmistakably yours.
He assumes you went home hours ago. He hopes you did. He hopes you’re asleep, or at least horizontal, phone finally out of your hands. He should be doing the same. He should stop orbiting the edges of this day and let tomorrow arrive on its own.
He’s halfway to convincing himself to go when he hears it – a soft, papery sound.
A rustle, quiet enough that he almost thinks he imagined it. He slows, frowns, and follows the sound into the reception hall, stopping short at the sight before him.
You’re sitting cross-legged on the polished wooden floor of the reception hall, right beneath the hanging lanterns. The lights are dimmed to a buttery glow; outside, the drizzle streaks silver against the windows. The room is nearly silent, save for the faint breath of the lake through the open vents and the soft, intermittent rain.
Around you lie small squares of colored paper – pinks, creams, golds – scattered like fallen petals. Your shoes are set neatly to the side, and your hair has slipped from whatever pinned it up earlier, trailing loose around your shoulders, a few strands catching light each time you bow your head to fold.
You’re folding each piece with slow, tender precision, hands steady despite the exhaustion etched into every line of you.
A small flock already waits beside you – dozens of cranes ready to be strung up.
Bucky stands there, frozen, something in his chest tightening.
You don’t see him at first. Then he clears his throat. “You planning on sleeping at any point today?”
You look up, startled, then soften when you realize it’s him. “Nope,” you say, far too chipper for someone clearly on the brink.
He huffs out a laugh as he approaches you. “Of course not.”
You lift a paper crane between two fingers, holding it up to the warm light. “There’s an old belief about these,” you say lightly, as if it’s an afterthought and not something that’s been sitting on your tongue all night. “In some traditions, a thousand cranes mean a wish. Or a promise. Health, longevity, good fortune… luck in new beginnings.”
Your eyes flick to the pile beside you – uneven wings, crooked beaks, all of them imperfect in a way only sincerity can be.
“The kids at Steve’s school made a bunch,” you explain softly. “But it wasn’t quite enough for the installation. So I’m… just adding a few more.” Your smile tilts. “Stacking the odds.”
“Not just a few more,” he says automatically.
“I know,” you say lightly, “but it’s for good reason.”
Bucky looks at the cranes again, not as decorations, not as something hung from wires and beams and carefully calculated weight limits. But as wishes. Hundreds of small, deliberate hopes, folded by all the people that love Steve and Natasha, one careful crease at a time, suspended above a room meant to hold a beginning.
Something tightens in his chest. He should leave. He should go home. He should not be drawn to the floor beside you like it’s gravity and he’s helpless against it.
He sits down anyway.
The wood is cool under him. our shoulder is close – closer than it has any right to be – and heat pools along the inside of his arm just from being near you.
You hand him a square of paper. Your fingers brush his. He pretends the touch doesn’t short-circuit something fundamental.
“So,” he says, staring at the paper like it might explode. “Instructions?”
You grin – tired, luminous, devastating. “I knew you’d ask.”
He pretends that doesn’t do something awful and permanent to him.
You lean in, showing him the first fold as your fingers settle over his without hesitation. A warm, electric pressure crawls up his wrist and into his ribs. He swallows. Focus. Fold. Don’t look at her.
“You’re overthinking it,” you say softly.
“I’m not you,” he mutters.
“If you say so.”
You show him how to crease the wing. Your thumb grazes the inside of his palm. His pulse kicks so violently he’s certain you must feel it.
You finish your crane before he finishes his. He pretends not to notice – or admire – the deft precision of your hands. The shape of them. The small, quiet strength of your wrists.
He’s doing a lot of pretending in this lake house.
“You know,” you say, setting another finished crane on the pile, “I think this is the first moment I’ve sat still in two weeks.”
He studies you. Really studies you.
The smudged eyeliner. The exhaustion tucked into the corners of your eyes. The way your shoulders sag only now that no one but him is here to see it.
“You did it,” he says quietly.
You blink. “Did what?”
“Everything.” His gaze sweeps over the decorated hall, the crane installation, the arch waiting outside for tomorrow. “You really built this whole damn wedding from the ground up.”
You laugh, soft and self-conscious. “With help.”
“With me,” he corrects. “And I didn’t even want to be involved at first.”
You smile. “You warmed up.”
“No,” he says before he can stop himself. “I just realized something.”
You turn your head. “Which is?”
This is the moment he feels something tip inside him, heavy and irreversible.
He should lie. He should joke. He should deflect until the truth loosens its grip.
Instead, he hears himself say, “I realized I like seeing you care.”
Your breath catches; it punches through him like a single, unguarded truth.
He looks down quickly, pretending to fix a crooked wing.
“You’re intense,” he says, voice softer than before, “and stubborn, and about half a step from terrifying when you want something done right.”
“Gee, thanks,” you murmur, already starting on another crane.
“But you care,” he continues, ignoring the way his pulse stumbles. “And watching you fight for this – fight for Nat and Steve – finally made me understand it. All of it.”
You stare at him. He stares at the crane in his hands.
“Bucky,” you say gently. “Look at me.”
He does. God help him, he does.
Your expression is open and warm, lit from within despite exhaustion. Something he wants to hold – gently, carefully, protectively – even though he shouldn’t want anything at all.
“I know you don’t care for weddings,” you say.
“I don’t,” he replies immediately.
You raise an eyebrow.
He sighs and tries again. “I just care about this one.”
He doesn’t mean the wedding, but he doesn’t clarify. He can’t.
The silence stretches – soft, thick, dangerous.
You place another crane gently on the pile. His chest aches.
He folds his next one wrong on purpose. Your hand comes up, brushing his to fix it and he nearly stops breathing.
“You’re getting better at this,” you tease.
“I have a good teacher.”
Your eyes flick up at that.
There’s a spark there, bright and undeniable. He has to look away, because if he holds your gaze any longer he’s going to say something he can’t take back.
You nudge his knee with yours – light, casual, intimate in a way that guts him. “Thanks for staying,” you say.
He swallows hard. “Yeah,” he murmurs. “It’s getting late.”
And that’s the truth. The whole, terrifying truth.
You smile again – soft, grateful, too much – as you place another piece of paper in his hands. And Bucky realizes with a clarity that terrifies him more than anything has – he’d fold a thousand of these damn things if it meant sitting beside you like this.
He folds the next one, and tries not to fall in love with the way you breathe beside him.
He fails spectacularly.
One day earlier…
Your blissful slumber’s interrupted by the knocking on your front door. Pounding down your front door, by the sound of things. You’re dragged violently out of sleep, heart slamming against your ribs before your brain can catch up.
You groan, roll over, and bury your face in the pillow.
It keeps going.
A fist. Hard, urgent, unreasonable.
“Open the door!”
You peel one eye open and squint at your phone – 7:25 am on the one morning you promised yourself you’d sleep in. The one morning everything was supposed to be done.
You stumble out of bed, wrap yourself in the nearest blanket, and shuffle to the door with murder in your bones.
You yank it open.
Bucky Barnes stands there, breathless. His hair’s damp and his jacket half-zipped. But his eyes are sharp and wild in a way that snaps you fully awake in half a second.
“What,” you croak, “is your damage?”
“You weren’t answering your phone,” he says immediately.
You blink. “I was asleep.”
“You can’t be.”
“I will,” you insist petulantly. “The ceremony’s not until –”
“The storm last night –” he swallows once, “– a tree came down.”
The words don’t make sense. They hover between you like a foreign language.
“What?”
“At the venue,” he says, softer now, already holding his phone out. “During the storm last night.”
Your stomach drops before you even look.
You take the phone. The oak is ancient. Massive. The kind of tree people build towns around. Its trunk is split down the middle like bone. One half still rooted, the other flung sideways across the terrace roof as though the sky itself hurled it there.
The terrace pergola is gone – not damaged, gone – crushed into splintered ribs beneath the weight of bark and branch. The glass along the upper windows has blown outward. One beam hangs at an angle that makes your stomach lurch. Leaves are everywhere – plastered wet and dark against shattered timber, caught in gutters, smeared across the pale stone like something dragged itself there.
“No,” you whisper. “No – no, no –”
“I’ll drive,” Bucky says gently.
The drive passes in a blur of grey sky and tightening panic. Your hands are clenched so tightly in your lap that your fingers ache.
When you pull into the venue, the damage is worse up close.
The tree dominates. It has erased the terrace – erased the clean, architectural line you loved. The roof sags under the weight of it, one support beam visibly bowed. Sawdust coats the stone in damp, sticky drifts. Someone’s already tried to tarp part of it – the plastic snaps angrily in the wind like it’s offended that such a measly attempt could even begin to fix the damage.
The smell of wet wood and earth fills the air.
You stop walking.
Just… stop.
“It’s gone,” you hear yourself say. Your voice sounds very far away. “It’s all gone.”
Bucky steps closer, careful. “Hey –”
You don’t hear him.
You see the terrace where guests were meant to gather for pre-dinner drinks. The roofline that gorgeously frames the lake. The space you checked and rechecked and trusted.
Your chest caves inward.
“No.” You shake your head once, then again, harder. “I checked the forecasts. I talked to the landscapers. I –”
Your voice fractures. “This tree is not supposed to fall!”
The venue owner stands nearby, wrapped in a shawl, staring at the fallen tree like she’s in mourning.
“The space cries,” she murmurs to no one in particular.
A worker approaches her, clipboard in hand. “Ma’am, I know it’s just the terrace, but we can’t allow anyone inside until the inspectors clear the entire premise. Forty-eight hours,” he says carefully. “Minimum. Possibly longer if structural damage extends into the main hall.”
Forty-eight hours.
You feel it then – the crack, the break, the thing you’ve been holding together finally giving way.
“It’s today,” you say, voice breaking. “The wedding is today.”
The owner looks at you, eyes wet. “I’m so sorry.”
You turn away blindly, stagger to a bench, and sit hard. Your breath comes in short, jagged pulls. Hot tears spill before you can stop them.
“I failed,” you choke. “I promised them – this was supposed to be perfect –”
Hands cup your face.
Firm. Warm. Steady.
“Hey,” Bucky says quietly. “Look at me.”
You shake your head.
“Please.”
You do, and you are met with an expression so fierce if startles you – protective, focused, utterly certain.
“I need you to breathe,” he says. “Because this isn’t over.”
You laugh, broken. “Bucky –”
Instead, he reaches into your tote – the one that has practically fused to your side over the past two weeks – and slides out The Binder. Your breath stutters. He holds it with the ease of someone who has done this before, who knows the weight, the tabs, the logic of your mind laid out in color-tabbed sections.
“I know you’ve got contingencies,” he says, flipping through pages with quick, efficient motions. “If it rains. If vendors can’t make it. If the power goes out.”
“Not – ” your voice cracks. “Not this.”
“No.” He closes The Binder gently. “Not trees falling.”
A beat.
A terrible, hollow beat where the question hangs between you: So what now?
You swipe at your cheeks. “We can’t fix the roof. We can’t move all the décor. We can’t – ” Your breath catches. “Bucky, we don’t have a – ”
“Venue?” he finishes, arching a brow.
You nod helplessly.
He looks at you for a long moment. Really looks. Then something in his expression shifts – subtle, almost imperceptible – like the first warm edge of dawn cresting over cold ground.
“Lucky for you,” he says quietly, “I’ve been spending a lot of time around someone who never accepts the first no.”
You blink. “Bucky – ”
“And,” he continues, the corner of his mouth lifting in a small, reluctant smile, “maybe some of that has rubbed off.”
You stare at him. “What are you saying?”
He exhales slowly, like he’s bracing for you to yell at him for the very thing that might save you.
“I’m saying,” he murmurs, “Steve’s parent’s backyard is flat. It’s big enough. The tent can be moved. The caterers can reroute. And the weather forecast gives us at least until tomorrow morning before the rain starts again.” A pause. “If we start now, we can make it work.”
The world tilts. Not disastrously – but like a compass snapping north after spinning for too long.
“Why?” you whisper.
He doesn’t dodge. Doesn’t joke. His voice is soft, steady, unbearably sincere. “Because you care,” he says simply. “And I’m not going to let this break you.”
Your chest caves open. Relief crashes in, messy and overwhelming.
You breathe in once, twice.
“Okay,” you whisper back. Then louder, steadier, “Okay.”
He squeezes your hands once, grounding you.“Come on,” he says, rising to his feet. “We’ve got seven hours to save a wedding.”
*
The moment Bucky says “Let’s save a wedding,” things get moving – not metaphorically; literally.
He’s already striding away, already dialling, already speaking in that clipped, purposeful tone you’ve only ever heard when he’s absolutely out of patience or absolutely determined. “Steve,” he says, pacing toward the parking lot. “Change of venue. Backyard. Yes, your backyard. No, I’m not joking. Trust me.”
You stumble after him, still half undone, still blinking tears off your face. “Bucky –”
“Nat’s going to love this,” he says to you, unfazed. “Call her. Tell her not to panic, and tell her she doesn’t have to lift a finger.”
He looks over his shoulder. “Can you do that?”
“Yes,” you say automatically, phone already in your hand.
She picks up on the first ring. “Backyard wedding?” she laughs, delighted. “Perfect. I’ll see you at Steve’s.”
Steve is already texting his parents. Someone’s uncle has folding tables and someone else has a generator “just in case.”
It snowballs fast. The miracle of a small wedding becomes apparent very quickly – every guest is a real person, reachable by phone, reachable within minutes.
You start calling, texting, forwarding maps.
Change of plans! Still today! Bring a chair if you can!
And they’re all very amused by this development.
People reply with laughing emojis, with on our way, with honestly this is very them, with do you need cutlery?
By the time you reach Steve’s family home, the backyard is already transforming.
Someone’s SUV is backed into the lawn with its boot open like a mobile command station. Extension cords snake across the grass. A white rental tent is being muscled upright by three determined guests and one very determined aunt.
The caterers pivot without complaint, food arriving in trays that suddenly feel perfectly suited to long tables and paper plates. The DJ shrugs. “I’ve done a Punjabi wedding on a moving bus. This is nothing.” Music starts, soft and warm and easy.
And Bucky –
He moves through the chaos like a man who has made peace long ago with the fact that the universe likes to test him. He directs traffic, helps carry tables, adjusts tent poles, and somehow gets everyone to listen to him without raising his voice once.
When you open your mouth to worry, he’s already answering.
When you start to spiral, he meets your eyes and says, “Handled.”
At some point he has The Binder. You don’t remember handing it to him. You’re not even sure you did. He simply has it now, tucked under his arm like holy scripture.
And then, when you’re midway through redirecting seating placements, walking away from the tent to take in the big picture view, you notice something shifting in the light, a shimmer of cream and gold.
You stop.
A line of delicate shapes sway gently from the tent’s ridge pole. You take two steps forward, then three.
They’re paper cranes – your paper cranes.
Every single last one that you folded and strung together last night, every last one that you had to leave in the reception hall when the world collapsed.
You stare up at them, breath suspended.
“Bucky,” you whisper. “How did – ? They were – They were in the reception hall.”
He doesn’t even stop tightening the rope he’s working on. “The reception hall wasn’t damaged,” he says. “Just the terrace. So I… grabbed them.”
You turn to him, struck speechless for a moment.
“You… went in?”
“The hall wasn’t damaged.”
“That isn’t the point!”
He shrugs once. “Doors are only locked if you don’t have the key.”
“You – this is – you could’ve gotten hurt!”
Bucky finally looks up at you, and he smiles. It’s a small one – crooked and almost shy. “I wasn’t leaving them behind.”
The cranes shift again in the breeze, glowing in the late-morning sun like tiny lanterns, catching glimmers of gold from the fairy lights someone is stringing between the trees. They shimmer faintly as the breeze lifts them, little beacons of luck and persistence swaying above the lawn. They look impossibly delicate – and yet here they are, surviving storms, travel, relocation.
You realise, as you take it all in, that the rest of the wedding is taking shape in much the same improbable fashion. Piece by piece, person by person.
Because when you turn, the lawn is filling with chairs – mismatched, ridiculous, perfect – carried in by guests who did not hesitate for a single breath. “Everyone bring a chair,” he’d said, and somehow… everyone did.
Kitchen chairs. Lawn chairs. Folding metal ones that look suspiciously like the ones from the high school Steve teaches at. A wicker bench someone absolutely took from their own porch.
It’s ridiculous, it’s perfect.
You finally dare to look at the time and, “It’s –” you begin, startled.
“Ten minutes to start,” Bucky says, checking his watch. “We’re on schedule.”
You gape at him. “How are we on schedule?”
He nods toward The Binder, lying open on a cooler like a general’s map. “The Binder,” he says with a shrug, “has all.”
And for the first time all day –
You laugh. Really, truly laugh. Because somehow, impossibly, disastrously – you’re going to pull this off.
Together.
*
The ceremony goes off without a hitch.
The tent stands steady despite the soft ground beneath it, canvas glowing warmly in the late afternoon light. Strings of bulbs flicker on as the sun dips lower, their reflections catching in the little puddles of water that have yet to evaporate. The grass is a little muddy in places, trampled by hurried footsteps and borrowed chairs. Nothing matches. Everything belongs.
And as the first notes play and everyone rises, you realize something with a clarity that makes your knees go weak:
The wedding didn’t survive despite the chaos.
It survived because of it.
You take your place near the front, hands folded, heart already too full.
Natasha walks in first, not down an aisle so much as across a stretch of grass cleared by people who love her. Her dress is simple and devastating, hair pinned back just enough to frame her face. She looks radiant, not because of the dress or the light or the day, but because she looks certain that this is where she’s meant to be.
Steve is already waiting.
He doesn’t try to hide it, the way his face changes when he sees her – like the world has finally resolved into something understandable. He forgets where to put his hands. Forgets that there are people watching. Forgets everything but her.
You feel tears sting immediately.
The officiant says a few words – nothing grand, nothing rehearsed beyond necessity. Something about finding home in another person. Something about choosing, every day, to stay.
And then, it’s time for vows.
Steve clears his throat, nervous in a way that feels almost boyish. “I don’t have a lot of fancy words,” he says, smiling at her like it’s a private joke, like the entire universe has narrowed down to just him and her. “But I promise to keep choosing you.”
Natasha’s bottom lip trembles. Steve swallows and continues.
“I’ve spent a long time thinking that doing the right thing meant standing alone,” he continues, voice steadying. “You taught me it doesn’t have to. Whatever comes next, I want to face it with you.”
You feel tears prick immediately, hot and unbidden.
Natasha takes his hands when it’s her turn, thumbs brushing over his knuckles, grounding him, grounding them both.
“I don’t make promises lightly,” she says. “But I promise you honesty – even when it’s hard. I promise to stand beside you, not behind you.”
Steve exhales, like he’s been holding his breath for years.
“I’ve spent a long time surviving,” she continues, voice softer now. “With you, I want to live. And I promise I’m not going anywhere.”
And that’s when something in your chest gives way entirely.
You swipe at your eyes and, in the motion, glance to your left – toward Steve’s side.
Bucky is watching you.
Not the ceremony. Not his best friend standing at the center of it all. You.
There’s no surprise in his expression when your eyes meet. Just something steady and unguarded, something that makes your breath catch. You smile at him – small, private, meant only for this moment.
He doesn’t smile back, not fully, but his shoulders ease, like he’s finally letting himself breathe. His gaze lingers before he looks forward again, jaw tight, eyes bright.
The officiant speaks again, voice barely registering over the rush in your ears.
“By the power vested in me –” The officiant barely has time to finish the words before Steve kisses Natasha like he’s been waiting his whole life to do it.
The backyard erupts – not in polite applause, but in cheers and laughter and the unmistakable sound of people witnessing something go right after so much nearly went wrong.
You look around – at the grass, worn and imperfect beneath polished shoes; at the mismatched chairs – kitchen chairs, folding chairs, one unmistakeable beach chair in the second row; at the tent, glowing softly against the darkening sky; at the faces – teary, smiling, wholly present.
Not a single dry eye.
And suddenly, with a clarity that feels almost sacred, you understand it.
This – this patched-together, last-minute, mud-on-the-hems miracle – this wedding is perfect.
You glance at Bucky again.
He’s watching the couple now, but there’s something thoughtful in his expression. Something changed. As if he’s seeing the whole thing differently – not as an event, not as a spectacle, but as a moment that matters simply because the people in it do.
He catches your eye once more.
This time, he does smile.
And in that small, quiet exchange – barely noticed by anyone else – you feel it settle into place.
Everything is exactly as it should be.
Presently…
This bed isn’t yours. This room isn’t yours. And beside you – facing you, chest rising and falling in a slow, even rhythm, is Bucky.
His eyes are closed, dark lashes resting against his cheek. There’s a smudge of sleep at the corner of his mouth, a softness to him you’re not used to seeing in daylight.
Your gaze drops – bare shoulder, collarbone, the fabric of his shirt rumpled from sleep. And then you feel it: his knee tucked lightly against yours beneath the covers, like neither of you moved much in the night. Like the space between you was never up for negotiation.
Your breath catches.
And in that moment, as the sun reaches across the bed and touches the curve of his jaw, you realize with slow, startling clarity –
You don’t want to move. You certainly don’t want to disturb this.
But then –
His blue eyes – soft with sleep, unfocused at the edges – blink open at the same moment. He inhales sharply, like waking into the shock of something impossible, like waking into you.
The two of you stare at each other.
The world holds its breath.
His hair is mussed, falling over his forehead. His mouth is soft, not yet disciplined into its usual guarded lines. One arm – his – rests over your waist like he reached for you in the night and never let go.
His voice, when it comes, is low. Rough.
“Hey.”
A beat.
A second.
A lifetime.
You swallow, suddenly acutely aware of how close your noses are. Of how his chest rises and falls against yours. Of how you ended up – both of you – pulled together into the same borrowed bed after the reception because there were no spare rooms left at Steve’s family house and “it’s fine, we’re adults, we can share.”
Except now you are awake and sharing feels like the smallest word in the universe.
Bucky’s eyes flick to your mouth. It is microscopic, the shift, but you feel it like a jolt of electricity down your spine. Your heart kicks painfully, traitorously, into your throat.
It feels like balanced-breath territory, the narrow space between what is safe and what is true.
Your throat works. “Hey.”
You can smell him – soap and clean cotton and something unmistakably him. Your heart starts to race.
“This…” you start, because the silence is suddenly too loud, too much, and you have the irrational urge to fill it. “This isn’t what friends do. Right?”
The words hang between you, trembling, dangerous and far too honest.
Bucky doesn’t move for a moment.
Then his gaze settles fully – wholly – on you, and everything inside him sharpens, awakens, and resolves.
“No,” he says quietly. “It’s not.”
Something in his voice makes your chest ache.
You shift, just a little. The mattress dips. His breath catches – not dramatically, but enough that you notice. Enough that it feels like a type of confession all on its own. His hand – warm, careful – slides from your waist to your hip. Not pulling. Just touching. Just holding you like the truth has finally found him.
“We should –” you start.
He doesn’t move away. Instead, he says your name once; just once, like it’s something precious.
“You think I do this –” he murmurs, eyes fierce, intimate, unbearably soft, “– with anyone else?”
You can’t speak.
He moves a fraction closer, the tiniest shift of the pillow, but it feels like the world tilting toward something inevitable and vast.
“I woke up,” he whispers, “and for a second I thought I was dreaming. Because you –” his voice hitches, “– you were looking at me like I was someone you wanted.”
You inhale sharply. “Bucky…”
“And if I’m reading this wrong,” he continues, tone still gentle, still unbearably composed for someone confessing like this, “then tell me. Tell me and I’ll –”
You don’t let him finish.
You lift your hand – shaking, barely steady – and cup his cheek.
His breath stops.
“I don’t exactly know when it started,” you say, voice barely above a whisper. “But I think I’ve been wanting you for a while.”
He closes his eyes once. Slowly. Like the world has finally righted itself.
And when he opens them again, he is not uncertain.
He is not hesitant.
He is not a man fighting himself anymore.
“You know I don’t believe in weddings – I still don’t,” he says softly. “I don’t believe in big gestures or perfect days. But, this, I believe in things like this.”
His hand lifts – stops, trembling on the edge of daring – before he leans in instead, touching his forehead to yours. The world narrows to warmth and breath and the barest graze of his nose against yours, close enough that all you can see, all you can feel, is him. Your skin sparks, electric, even without his hand on you.
“I believe in you,” he continues. “In the way you care. In the way you fight for people. In the way you stayed up all night folding a thousand paper cranes because you wanted something beautiful to exist in the world. In the way you planned this entire wedding like the universe would collapse if Nat and Steve had anything less than perfect – because for you, caring this much isn’t some kind of twisted vanity, it’s how you move through the world.”
Your eyes burn.
“And I love you and I want to be by your side,” he says simply. “Whether it’s in the chaos or the quiet. And I don’t want to pretend otherwise anymore.”
The room feels very still, very small, and very, very full.
You don’t trust your voice, so you do the only thing you can.
With your heart in your hands, you lean in and gently press your lips to his.
His breath shudders as your lips meet, like he’s been holding something back for a long time and finally lets go. His hand slides into your hair, cradling your head with reverence, not urgency.
The world narrows.
When he deepens the kiss – just slightly – it feels like a promise. When you kiss him back, it feels like an answer.
When you pull away, forehead resting against his, everything has changed.
He smiles then.
Not the guarded half-smile. Not the amused deflection.
A real one. Open. Unmistakable.
“Hi,” he murmurs.
You laugh softly, breathless, overwhelmed. “Hi.”
Outside, the house begins to stir to life with footsteps padding across the hallway, the low clatter of someone in the kitchen trying (and failing) to move quietly, a kettle starting its slow, rising hiss. Chairs scrape gently over the deck. Someone laughs, hushed and tender, the sound drifting through the floorboards like morning light.
Inside, wrapped in tangled sheets and the quiet aftermath of a perfectly imperfect wedding, you realize – with a certainty that feels almost sacred – that this is how it begins – not with spectacle – but with choice, with closeness.
And with love, finally spoken aloud.
When you wake up again, it is to heat.
More specifically – heat and weight and a slow, lazy grind at the small of your back that your sleep-fogged brain misidentifies as a dream right up until you breathe in and, oh, it’s Bucky.
The first time you woke up, it was barely dawn. Just light creeping around the edges of the curtains, your faces inches apart on the pillow, his voice rough as he admitted he didn’t want to be just your friend. A kiss that felt like a beginning. The dizzy, terrifying relief of hearing your own feelings echoed back at you.
Then he’d cupped your cheek, pressed his forehead to yours, and said, “We can talk more when it’s not stupid o’clock.”
You’d agreed. You were exhausted. Your eyes had burned. He’d pulled you in against his chest, arm heavy around your waist, and the two of you had drifted off again, warm and close and newly, precariously honest.
Now it’s later, and Bucky is still spooned around you in the narrow guest bed of Steve’s childhood home, one arm banded heavy around your waist, his chest pressed to your back. His breath ghosts over the nape of your neck in warm, even little puffs.
And his cock is hard, pressed right against your ass.
You go very still.
The arm around your waist tightens, drawing you closer like he’s chasing you in his sleep. His hips roll, just a fraction, like his body’s following a rhythm his brain hasn’t caught up to yet. The thick line of him drags against you through two layers of cotton, and a completely traitorous pulse of heat shoots through you.
“Bucky,” you whisper, not trusting your voice to go any louder.
He makes a low sound, half groan, half wordless complaint, nose nudging into your hair. “Mm. It’s too early.”
That seems to cut through the haze faster than any alarm. His body tenses behind you; his hips freeze. There’s a beat where you can feel him realize exactly where he is and what he’s doing.
“Shit,” he mutters, voice rough as gravel, dragging his face up from your neck. “Shit, darling, I –”
He starts to pull away and you instinctively reach back to grab his forearm.
“Wait,” you say.
He goes still again.
You could pretend you’re not already wet. You could pretend you’re not thinking about this every time he brushed past you in the venue kitchen this week, every time he stood too close at the lakehouse walkthrough, every time those stupid blue eyes lingered on your mouth a second too long.
You don’t.
“You’re not the only one,” you say quietly, rolling your hips back just enough that he can feel the way your body’s answering his. “If that makes you feel any better.”
Bucky lets out a shaky little breath right against your ear. “You’re gonna kill me,” he says, and there’s a muffled curse as his hand slides from your waist down over your hip, fingers digging in. He doesn’t move his hips. Yet. “You sure?”
You turn your head enough to see him, to catch his eyes, pupils already blown. “We already said this isn’t what friends do, right?”
“Pretty sure my friends don’t usually wake up tryin’ to fuck me,” he says hoarsely. His gaze drops to your mouth. “But I’m not complaining’.”
He kisses you before you can answer. It’s messy, morning-breath and sleep-warm, but his mouth is hot and eager and familiar in a way that makes your toes curl. His hand comes up to cup your jaw, thumb pressing under your chin, tilting your head where he wants you.
Behind you, his hips finally move. Slow, deliberate grind, the thick length of him dragging against you through the silky fabric of your dress. You gasp into his mouth; he swallows the sound with a low noise of his own.
“Been thinking about this for weeks,” he mutters against your lips. “You in that damn dress all day yesterday. Runnin’ around bossin’ everybody, climbing over me on those shitty folding chairs like it was nothing. You have any idea what you do to me?”
You push your ass back into him, just to feel how hard he is. “I think I’m getting an idea.”
“Tease,” he murmurs, and his hand presses low on your stomach through the dress, the heat of him burning through the thin fabric, fingers splaying like he’s steadying you for what comes next. “Can I?”
You nod, too quickly. “Yes. God, yes.”
He hums like that pleases him. His hand drifts lower, fingers skimming down, pushing the skirt of your dress up. He slides under it, into your panties, and finds you already slick and hot. His breath stutters. “Fuck, baby.”
He circles your clit once, light enough to make you whine, then slips his fingers lower, stroking through your wetness. “You this wet from just waking up next to me?” he asks, voice gone smug and filthy. “Or have you been dreaming about me?”
“Shut up,” you gasp, hips jerking. “You’re the one grinding on me in your sleep, Bucky.”
“Yeah, well,” he says, pushing two fingers into you, slow and deliberate, “if you start sleeping in my bed, there’s gonna be a lot worse than grinding.”
Your reply dissolves into a broken moan as he curls his fingers just right. He works you open with careful, steady thrusts, his palm rubbing your clit on every stroke. It’s obscene how fast he finds exactly how to touch you, like he’s been mapping out how this would go for weeks.
You reach back blindly and find him, wrap your hand around the thick length straining against his waistband. Even through the cotton, he’s solid, heavy, twitching under your fingers.
He swears, low and vicious. “You’re killing me,” he repeats, hips rocking forward into your hand. “Get these off.”
Between the two of you, your dress and panties end up somewhere at the foot of the bed. He groans when he sees you, bare and open in the afternoon light. His fingers slide back through your slick, spreading it, thumb drawing lazy circles over your clit.
“Prettiest thing I ever seen,” he says, almost to himself.
You push back, needy. “Bucky.”
“Yeah, I got you.” He shifts, fumbling one-handed with his own waistband until his cock is free, hot and leaking where it brushes the curve of your ass. He hisses through his teeth at the contact. “Fuck. You sure?”
You look over your shoulder, meet his eyes, and there’s no way he can mistake the answer. “Please.”
His expression crumples into something helpless and obscene. “Okay,” he says hoarsely. “Okay. I’ll take care of you.”
He lines up and pushes in, the blunt head nudging against your opening, then stretching you, slow, slow, until he’s buried thick and deep. You gasp, fingers clawing at the sheets, the stretch just shy of too much.
“Jesus,” he groans, forehead dropping between your shoulder blades. “You’re so fucking tight. Grippin’ me like you don’t ever wanna let me go.”
“You could move,” you manage, voice high and shaky. “That might help.”
He laughs, broken and breathless, and pulls back only to slam in again, setting a rhythm that has the old headboard tapping the wall in soft, insistent knocks. His hand finds yours on the mattress, lacing your fingers together, grounding you even as he fucks into you harder, his other hand still working your clit.
The slick sounds of him moving in you fill the little room, mixed with your gasps and his low curses. Every thrust hits that perfect spot; every drag of his thumb winds you tighter.
“Listen to you,” he pants, voice right against your ear now. “Making those little noises for me. You gonna come on my cock, sweetheart?”
Your answer is more of a strangled sob than a word. Heat coils tight in your belly, sharp and bright.
“Yeah,” he says, like he can feel you clenching. “There you go. Let go for me. Come on, baby. I’ve got you.”
It’s the way he says it – like a reverent promise – that tips you over. You shatter around him, muscles fluttering, vision going white at the edges. You hear yourself cry out, feel him groan into your shoulder as your body milks him.
“Fuck – just like that, just like that,” he grits, thrusts turning messy. A few more and he’s gone too, burying himself deep as he spills inside you, whole body trembling against your back.
For a long moment, the only sounds are your breathing and the soft tick of the old clock on the nightstand.
Eventually, Bucky shifts, carefully easing out of you, both of you hissing at the oversensitive drag. He collapses onto his back beside you, one arm flung over his eyes.
“This,” you say, staring at the ceiling, still trying to remember how lungs work, “is definitely not what friends do.”
He laughs, low and wrecked, turning his head to look at you. His hair’s a mess, cheeks flushed, eyes soft in a way that makes your chest hurt.
“Good,” he says, reaching over to tug you against his side, tucking you into the crook of his arm like it’s the most natural thing in the world. “’Cause I’ve never wanted to be just your friend.”
yap! i have a lot of feelings about weddings (i love weddings as a literary device as much as kevin kwan does LMAO) as you can tell... and i just got so juiced up with ideas i couldn't bring myself to cut anything so here we are! if you've read to the end, here is a kiss for you and i hope you enjoyed it and didn't find it too long! also im a wedding lover, my own wedding is going to be my superbowl. remember to check out the other event fics! there's so much care and love there!!
dear my darling reader masterpost || more bucky from me
My wife recites an entire movie in her sleep every single night.
Honestly, I have no damn clue what to do. My Google search history is concerning at this point.
About three weeks ago, my wife began mumbling in her sleep. It was pretty mindless babbling, and I'm a heavy sleeper, so rarely did it disturb me. I wasn't too worried about it and kind of brushed it off because our schedules are fairly hectic these days, and I figured it's some lingering stress or her mind is just very busy from juggling life in general.
Then, cut to a week and a half ago, I absolutely could not sleep. I had a horrible shift and my brain refused to let me relax. I scrolled through some articles on my phone while she slept (pretty damn soundly, might I add) and eventually we got tangled up. (She's very affectionate, and clingy when we're in bed.) And, as if right on queue, the mumbling started, except it quickly became fully coherent. I thought she was awake but she was out. No lights, nobody home. What really got me was the fact that I recognized what she was saying but couldn't place it at that time, until a discussion we had the next day (unprompted) regarding her sister's taste in movies.
I nearly blacked out upon the realization that my wife has been reciting the entire Elf movie while she's asleep. From start to finish. Every. Fucking. Line. Every. Fucking. Night.
Now, I know I may be coming across as frustrated at my wife, but I promise that isn't the case. I love her more than anything, and she's been my best friend for years (especially after my first marriage ended), I just cannot comprehend the fact that she's doing this.
It makes sense, in a way. Her sister is on the spectrum and really enjoys Elf (so much so that they'd watched it 164 times as of when my wife and I met. Well, met again, but that's a different story for a different sub, I guess.) and it's a weekly thing they do: dinner, movie, etc. Always Elf.
Now it's more about the fact that she's doing it and I know she's doing it, instead of it waking me up occasionally. Our fan and humidifier do a great job of stifling noise, so it's not that big of an issue, but I'm just trying to see if anyone might have any idea what I can do to help her with this?
Also, no, I have not told her she's doing this. She'd be mortified.
pairing: benjamin 'dex' poindexter x f!reader x adrian chase
warnings: 18+ MDNI, smut, cuckolding, allusions to dp, allusions to anal, whiny!adrian, i have never written for dex lol, it's been a long time since i wrote for adrian too, author is also off adhd meds and is finding it difficult to write . . .
a/n: hallo, to be so completely honest i've been off my adhd meds for like two months, not on my own volition, im with some new doctors and unforch they havent been the best with my prescriptions, and it's been super hard to get the want to write. this is only short, i just really adore this pair together and wanted to try something out, even if its ass.
masterlist || navigation
Time was a construct created merely for scheduals and meetings, it passes on and on so unfathomably quick, especially while sweat, spit and stickiness transfers between skin, between hot kisses and thrusts so deep your brain can no longer process information — only allowing the aching feel of your muscles being stretched, skin clawed and bitten, to pass through the synapses — only to be transported back into the moment when a soft whine sounds.
"Wh-wait, it's my turn," Adrian grumbled just from behind Dex, "it was my turn like five minutes ago!"
The man above you tutted a strong suck of his teeth, hanging his head against your perspiring collar with a sigh.
It makes you giggle how comical the scene really is. Naked as the day you were born, Dex as well, caging you with his body, his forearms on either side of your head, against the pillow, panting through kiss bitten and slick lips, hips slowing from their languid pushes into minute ruts, trying to keep a rhythm going, unable to obey the rules. The laughs have you squeezing around his cock, faltering his hips with a grunt.
"Quit it," the blond chastises in a whisper against your ear. Turning his head into the junction of your neck, he ups his volume through puffs, "jus'… five more minutes."
You can practically hear the furrow in Adrian's brow, the dramatic frown as he shuffles down his spot, unable to choose between sulking in the chair and sitting upright eagerly.
"Please!" He begs, the need tight in his chest making his voice snappier and higher, "I'm hurting! It hurts so much! You promised!"
His pleads hits you square in the heart, Adrian's usual tactics working full force once again. Moving yourself up by your elbows , one hand on the slick skin of Dex's shoulder, you take a glance at the poor boy behind him.
Frame broad and clammy, upright and slanted in a way that has him leaning towards the action. Hands clasped tight against the chair cushion between his legs, you can just make out the strain of his cock beneath his white briefs. God, and his face. His fluffy curls stick against his forehead, eyes pleading, brows taut, mouth scowled, despite the mellifluous sounds, like he'd been perminantly wronged.
To Dex's dismay, you coo.
"Oh, Ade," it comes out automatically, an instincive need to comfort and Dex's eyes immediately find the ceiling with a petulant huff. You move up a little more, holding yourself up by the palms of your hands, making the two of you groan with the new position.
"Angel—"
"Dex, c'mon," you cut him off, shuffling just a little more to card a hand through his hair. Through the strands at the back of his head, you create a fist, tugging just enough to ellicit a chesty sound. "He's been good, waiting so long…"
Opening his eyes slightly in retaliation, giving you a hard stare, you sigh.
"How about he gets behind me? You can stay right where you are, while Adrian," picking up your voice, you glance back at the aforementioned man, posture picking up with his name, "also gets to take me. And the two of you can learn to share."
Sighing again, Dex's hand finds the small of your back, caressing up and down before helping you up on his lap fully.
You beam, giggling again, causing him to groan at the pulsations.
"Thank you, Dex," you whisper, bumping your nose against his cheek affectionately, "and sorry."
"Don't mention it," he replies, mimicing the cadence of your voice before turning his head at Adrian. "C'mon, get behind her. I don't got all day."
⭐︎ warnings: nsfw, civil war canon compliant, smut, mentions of size difference, widows have a red room variant of a super soldier serum, sexual tension, enemies to lovers, sex pollen, touch starved, bucky is so down bad, dry humping, bucky is a virgin, virginity loss, premature ejaculation, multiple orgasms, body worshiping, arguments, banter, physical fights as foreplay
⭐︎ word count: 11.1k
⭐︎ a/n: first time writing for civil war bucky and a black widow/avenger reader, kinda nervous. this is also my first attempt writing sex pollen. i hope i make the founding fathers proud with this one. gif
synopsis:
While Bucky Barnes is on the run, Steve entrusts you to look after his old friend while the rest of the team tries to resolve the conflict with Tony Stark peacefully. As if babysitting a grumpy ex-Hydra soldier wasn't hard enough, an airborne toxin gets released—one designed to weaken a super soldier's resolve with the intention to trap them... and an unexpected side effect that skyrockets their libido.
Between the constant bickering and fighting for your life, you have to keep reminding yourself, "I refuse to be Bucky's first."
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There were a few things you could respect Steve Rogers for.
He always seemed to know what was best for the team, he had a good head on his shoulders, and he always tried to find a way to resolve conflict with the least amount of bloodshed possible. He was a respectable man—respectable enough for people like you to follow him into hell.
But there were also plenty of things you disliked about him.
Namely, once he had a plan, he stuck to it whether the people around him agreed or not. Unfortunately for you, his current plan involved you babysitting the world’s most wanted Hydra assassin.
And that was the Winter Soldier.
“What!” you barked in disbelief, throwing your hands in the air. “No! I am not watching him. I’m coming with you—”
Steve was already gearing up—wearing the suit he stole from the Smithsonian and strapping on his shield last.
“No,” he replied, sharp and firm. “Trust me, it’s better if you stay put. If I show up with Buck by my side, it’s not gonna look good.”
Steve motioned towards Bucky, who just stood there looking about as useful and clueless as a bag of bricks.
The kicked puppy look on his face almost made you feel bad for him. Almost. Because if it weren’t for him, and your own stubborn loyalty to Steve, nobody would be in this mess in the first place.
“Look, you’re going to talk to Stark, right? Nat’s with him. Let me come. I can talk to her while you work things out with Stark, and maybe we can figure out a better solution—”
“We shouldn’t even consider talking to Nat. She’s in deep with Tony and the Accords. And besides, I don’t trust—” Steve cut himself off, his lips pressing into a thin line as his eyes flickered between you and Bucky. “Never mind.”
You crossed your arms and narrowed your eyes. “Don’t trust what?”
The tension in the parking garage turned uncomfortable really fast.
No one dared speak or move—it felt like a bunch of kids walking in on Mom and Dad arguing and refusing to pick sides. Even though you already knew what he was going to say, you kept your eyes fixed on Steve with a silent threat for him to continue.
Steve sighed and stepped forward, mentally cursing himself for letting the words slip.
“You Widows—they’re known to be deceptive,” Steve explained as calmly and gently as he could, though it didn’t help.
“I just… can’t risk you talking to Natasha. It’s too dangerous.”
Offended wasn’t even the right word for it.
Everyone in this line of work—including you, especially you — knew about the Black Widows and their reputation. You were a group of young girls broken down and rebuilt into perfect chameleons. Widows were trained to whisper sweet nothings into a victim’s ear, only to hold a blade to their throat, slit it without remorse, and go about the rest of their day as if nothing had happened.
Steve wasn’t wrong, but the hypocrisy of his logic made you feel sour.
He didn’t trust your background, yet in the very same breath, he was willing to leave you entirely alone with Bucky—his best friend, and the only piece of his past he had left. If you were truly so deceptive, so inherently untrustworthy, what was stopping you from turning Bucky over to Stark the second Steve cleared this garage?
You wanted to cry. You had been loyal to Steve, standing by his side while the rest of the team split up and tore at each other’s throats—and this was how he repaid you? By humiliating you in front of everyone?
But you’d die before you let a single tear fall in front of Steve, or anyone else for that matter.
Swallowing the lump in your throat, you tightened your jaw until your teeth hurt and forced your gaze away.
“Fine.”
You were going to protect his precious best friend—not out of submission, but to shove his own prejudice right back down his throat. You would prove to him, definitively, that you could be trusted.
“I’ll watch over him,” you added, trying to keep cool. “I’ll keep my comms open, too—just in case you want to pop in and check if he’s still alive.”
Steve returned your sarcasm with a relieved exhale. “Thank you—”
“Don’t mention it,” you cut him off, waving a hand dismissively as you walked past Bucky—who was standing there looking like a child of divorce. You headed for your motorcycle.
“Are you coming, Barnes?”
Before joining you at the bike, Bucky walked over to Steve with a fond look in his eyes. They shared the same brotherly hug they'd been exchanging since they reunited. Steve mumbled something into his shoulder—probably reassurance that everything was going to be okay—before finally sending him off to you.
You rolled your eyes, slipping your helmet on to block them out.
As everyone else cleared out of the garage, Bucky walked over to your bike. You handed him a helmet, and he started strapping it on.
“Should I drive?” He asked.
You blinked at him, your face going blank despite him not being able to see it.
“I’m sorry?”
“I’ve been hiding in Bucharest for a while,” Bucky explained. “I know some discreet spots where they won’t find us.”
Even though neither of you could see the other’s expression, you couldn’t shake the feeling that Bucky was testing your competence—and on top of everything that had led to this moment, especially that little conversation with Steve, your patience was wearing dangerously thin.
“Barnes, I assure you that whatever spot you’re thinking of, a SWAT team is already sweeping it.” You revved the engine. “Get on.”
Bucky muffled a deep sigh inside his helmet. Based on his stiff posture, you thought he might argue, but he finally conceded, swinging his long leg over the back of the seat.
As you gripped the handlebars, you waited for him to hold on, but nothing happened.
Glancing at your side mirrors, you saw him awkwardly plant his hands at the edge of his seat, leaning back as far away from you as the space would allow.
“I’m gonna need you to hold on,” you ordered without looking back.
Bucky hesitated, not moving an inch.
Annoyed, you killed the revving engine for a second and glared at him over your shoulder. “Do you want to fall off?”
Bucky still didn’t budge. He kept his posture uncomfortably stiff, his eyes boring down at the empty space between his hips and the arch of your back.
“I’ll be fine right here.”
You couldn’t believe the gall of this guy. You had been tasked with something that was supposed to be so simple—tedious, sure, but easy enough—yet he was making your job twice as difficult. You glared at him through your visor, your voice strict even through the muffle of your headgear.
“Steve entrusted me to look after you. If he finds out on the evening news that his most wanted best friend fell off the back of my motorcycle and got captured by the government, then he’s never going to talk to me again. And everyone who is risking their lives for you did it all for nothing because you chose to be stubborn. Now, I am not going to repeat myself. Hold. On. To. Me.”
You couldn’t make out his expression, but slowly and reluctantly, he leaned forward and wrapped his thick arms around your waist.
“Tighter,” you commanded.
From the short time Bucky had known you, he already knew there was no point in arguing.
He let out a sigh into his helmet and wrapped his arms around you just a little tighter than before—but still kept his hold loose and, well… as respectful as he could manage.
“Bucky, I need you to hold me tighter,” you urged again.
It had already been a good five minutes since everyone left—and here you were, stuck with the man who, if caught, could risk your life and your position, all because he refused to hold onto you properly.
To you, this was nothing but a nuisance.
But for Bucky…
Bucky was holding onto every thread and reminder left from the forties of what it meant to be a respectful man. Especially since it had been so long since he’d not only been this close to a woman, but held one.
“Tighter!” you shrieked, patience finally snapping.
“Fuck, you know what? Fine!” he snapped back, adjusting his hips so that his chest was pressed up right against your back, wrapping his strong arms around you tightly enough to make you gasp.
“Is that tight enough for you?”
“Perfect,” you croaked sarcastically.
Without giving him another second to respond, you kicked the bike into gear and finally steered it out of the garage.
You were determined to keep your pride intact. His broad chest was pressed up against your back, trapping your body heat until your leather jacket felt burning hot against your skin. His metal arm was a hard band across your midsection, while his flesh arm gripped you still.
You were so small compared to him. He could easily take over—yet here he was, being your obedient puppy.
“Where are you taking me?” Bucky shouted over the rush of wind as the two of you whipped through the busy streets of Bucharest.
“To an amusement park,” you shouted back. “Don’t you want to ride a roller coaster?”
Bucky let out a tired sigh.
You managed to find sanctuary at an abandoned, overgrown rooftop greenhouse. Located on the very outskirts of Bucharest, it was far enough from the city center to avoid suspicion, but still close enough to keep your comms within range of Steve.
You paced the rooftop, feeling restless as your mind overworked with what Steve and the rest of the team could be doing right now.
Were they already fighting? Would Stark actually listen to reason and put all of this to rest?
Letting out a defeated sigh, you kicked a stray pebble, watching it skid across the concrete of the rooftop.
“This is ridiculous,” you mumbled to yourself. “Stuck on babysitting duty when I should be out there.”
Lifting your head, your eyes locked onto Bucky. He was standing dangerously close to the edge of the roof, peering down at the distant streets below.
“Hey!” you barked, pointing a finger at him like a mother scolding a child. “Step away from the edge! You’re going to fall.”
“I’m just keeping a lookout,” Bucky mumbled, his back still facing you as he refused to step away from the edge.
“You’re just making my job harder than it already is,” you argued, throwing your hands up in exasperation.
You pointed aggressively to the dusty wooden crate tucked against the brick wall.
“Just go sit over there or something.”
Bucky’s brow twitched the same time his patience snapped. He turned around to finally face you, his jaw clenched so tight his molars were crying for help.
“Would you stop talking to me like I’m a child?” he snapped, stepping away from the edge—not because you had ordered him to, but to match your hostile stance as he stalked toward you. “I’m sorry you got stuck with the shitty job of watching over me, but I can handle myself just fine, thanks.”
His defensive outburst made you raise a brow.
“Oh, really? You can handle yourself just fine?” you crossed your arms and scoffed. “Is that why the entire global government is hunting you down right now? Is that why Steve had to throw away his entire reputation just to keep you out of a cage? Because you’ve got it all handled?”
Bucky’s chest heaved, his fingers curling into tight fists at his sides.
The mention of Steve’s sacrifice definitely hit a nerve, you could see the guilt in his eyes.
A part of you wished you hadn’t said it at all, and you were just about ready swallow your pride and apologize, until…
“You’re from the Red Room,” he said, stepping closer. An involuntary shudder went down your spine. “You’ve done terrible things in the past—just as I have. You know exactly what it’s like to have someone like Steve bend over backwards for lowlifes like us.”
You didn’t realize just how close he was standing until his hot breath hit your face, only shortening your temper.
“We don’t ask for the help, yet they do it for us anyway,” Bucky’s voice graveled into a whisper. “Don’t talk down to me like you don’t know what it’s like. When in fact, you’re worse—”
You were already seeing red before he could even finish his sentence.
You quickly unsheathed a pocket knife from your belt and lunged at him, aiming straight for his throat just as a threat to silence him.
“You don’t know a damn thing about me!”
But Bucky was faster.
He brought his metal forearm up just in time to block the blade, making an ugly scraping sound. He twisted his wrist to disarm you, but your grip on the knife was tight. While one arm was held captive by his, you used your other to try and deliver a punch—which he also dodged.
You resorted to your legs, bucking them up to deliver hard kicks to his stomach. He grunted after each hit your leg managed to put out, but his hands moved quickly to grab the collar of your jacket and hurl you backwards to the nearest wall.
You cried out, face scrunching into a wince as your back slammed into hard brick.
The impact made you drop your knife. Bucky pressed his heavy body right against yours, aggressively tucking his legs between your thighs so you couldn’t use the space to swing your knees at him again.
“I can’t believe this is who Steve decided to trust me with,” he hissed in your face.
“Get off of me!” you yelled, squirming beneath his body.
“You drew your knife at me,” Bucky roared back. “Maybe Steve was right. All you Widows have a tendency to break your vows whenever things go even remotely south for you—”
You weren’t going to sit there and take his insults. Gritting your teeth with a brace, you pulled your head back and slammed your forehead directly into his face.
Bucky groaned out in pain, his grip on you loosening as he stumbled back with a hand to his face. Seizing the small window of opportunity, you shoved his chest away and dove towards the floor, reaching for the dropped pocket knife.
Before your fingers could even brush the hilt, his large hands grabbed you from behind and slammed you right back into the brick wall again.
You let out a breathless gasp as your face was forcefully squished up against the brick.
Bucky’s flesh hand came to the back of your head, pushing your skull firmly against the wall to keep your vision pinned away from him. At the same time, his metal hand gathered both your wrists behind your back, locking your two arms prone.
“Let go of me!”
You started to violently squirm and writhe, trying to buck your back against him—to tire him out, but Bucky moved his entire lower body to seal the space. His hips pressed tightly up against your bottom, his chest to your back, pinning you completely helpless as you were left trapped between him and the wall.
“No. I don’t care if you’re Steve’s friend, or if Steve respects you,” Bucky hissed, his breath right at your ear. “If I find my life in danger—after finally being free from Hydra, I’ll kill anyone who gets in my way. Even you.”
Bucky’s chest was heaving against your back.
He was angry.
He hated how much a woman like you could get under his skin with just a few sarcastic words and petty jabs.
One moment he was flustered just holding onto your waist during the bike ride, and now, he had you pinned up against the wall, your life completely in his hands.
You grit your teeth. “Dammit, Barnes—”
“—do you hear me? Hello? Anyone copy?”
You and Bucky froze. His eyes went wide as he leaned his head down toward the earpiece tucked just behind your earlobe where Steve’s voice was emitting. You glared at Bucky through the corner of your eye.
“Steve’s calling for me. I can’t answer it unless you let me go.”
“Status check. Code Blue-Alpha. Repeat, Code Blue-Alpha. Do you copy?”
Bucky was hesitant.
He didn’t want to let you go—afraid that you might actually threaten his life again the second he backed off.
Instead of releasing you, his metal hand kept the tight grip on both your wrists, while his flesh hand finally let your head free. Shifting his body closer, his finger reached around to press the button on your earpiece, activating the channel and allowing you to speak.
“Steve,” you breathed, catching your breath. “I’m here.”
“There you are!” Steve let out a relieved, staticky sigh through the comms. “How are things over there? Are you two alright?”
You and Bucky side eyed each other.
The situation was ridiculous—the two of you were still tangled in each other’s limbs, bodies pressed tight against one another, chests heaving in sync as the adrenaline from the fight slowly began to die down.
“We’re fine,” you lied. “Your boyfriend’s still alive.”
Bucky huffed a disbelieving laugh right against your ear. He didn’t say it out loud, but you could already hear his thoughts. This fucking woman.
Steve wasn’t laughing, however. His voice was serious.
“Listen to me carefully. We just got word that there are traps set up around the highest points of Bucharest. They’re wired to release an airborne toxin—specifically meant to target the biology of a super soldier.”
You watched Bucky’s eyes. His brows furrowed, concentrating on Steve’s voice as his grip on your wrists loosened slightly.
“They’re trying to smoke him out,” you reasoned. “What about the regular civilians? Will it affect them?”
“No. Just us. I’m already wearing a rebreather mask on my end,” Steve continued with a rasp. It sounded like he was running from something. “But Bucky doesn’t have one. You need to keep him inside and be extremely careful.”
There was a cold knot forming in the pit of your stomach.
Steve was thinking about Bucky, and Bucky was thinking about himself, but neither of them knew your full medical history—how could they?
During your time in the Red Room, they had pumped your veins full of a biochemical serum. It wasn’t the exact super soldier formula that created Captain America, but it was a heavily modified variation meant to enhance your physical abilities, speed up your healing, and maximize your strength.
It was what made you into a Widow. And right now, you had no idea if that same chemical footprint was enough to trigger the airborne toxin.
“Steve,” you swallowed hard, your voice shaking with worry. “How is Natasha doing? Is she with you?”
If Natasha was fine, then maybe you would be, too.
Behind you, Bucky must have sensed the sudden spike of panic in your posture. He took a step back and finally released his tight grip on your wrists—relinquishing his hold over your body.
He inhaled a deep breath to steady himself, but stopped midway, choking as if something had gotten stuck in his lungs. His chest hitched. He sniffed the air again, letting out a harsh, hacking cough in return.
“Fuck—” Bucky choked out, his hand flying to his throat.
You spun around, catching the way Bucky stumbled blindly against a wooden crate. Your heart started to race in a panic.
“Steve?” you called into the earpiece, your eyes scanning the rooftop for any signs of the trap he had just mentioned over comms. “Steve, do you copy?”
There was no answer.
The static on the other end had cut out completely. Steve had already ended the line to focus on his own escape—either that, or his comms had been jammed. You tapped the button behind your earlobe again desperately, but there was nothing.
“Steve! Respond!”
Bucky called your name from where he held himself against the crate—a sound that was broken, small, and almost whiny.
“Bucky!” you cried out, abandoning the comm line completely and focusing entirely on the man you were tasked to protect. “Are you okay?”
“Hot,” he winced, letting out a deep groan. “It feels... hot.”
You knelt by his side, the palm of your hand flying to his forehead to check his temperature. Your eyes widened at how warm he had suddenly become. He wasn’t nearly this hot when he had you pressed up against the wall just mere seconds ago.
“Fuck. Did the toxins get to you already? But how! We’re on the outskirts—”
Bucky lazily raised a finger just past your head. You whipped your head around, squinting past the sunlight that pierced the clouds.
There, you saw a hazy, almost pollen like fog beginning to drift from across the rooftop building far from you.
“Shit,” you cursed, wrapping your arm around his waist and positioning his heavy arm over your shoulders to help him up.
“Come on, we’ve gotta hide you somewhere. You’re too weak to run if you get caught.”
You tried lifting him up, but he was too heavy to carry just on your own. You groaned beneath him, using every bit of your strength to try and keep him steady.
While you struggled, Bucky’s breathing grew heavier. His eyes were half lidded and unfocused—he could barely keep them open.
“Stay with me, Bucky,” you murmured against him with a grunt, dragging your feet to get him inside the greenhouse.
It was a glass enclosure, but the walls were muddied with dirt and the plants were overgrown enough to provide decent cover. It wasn’t as indoors as you’d like, but it was the closest place you could take him with your current strength.
Bucky’s eyes fluttered down to you, letting out a heavy sigh.
“I think… I need to sit.”
Suddenly, he felt like he was suffocating in his own clothes. The breeze in Bucharest was cool, but his body felt like it was burning up from the inside. What was even worse was your touch—having your body pressed up against his made him react in ways he never thought he would.
Or at least, not anytime soon.
You stumbled over an overgrown branch, losing your balance and your grip on Bucky.
“Shit—I’m sorry,” you mumbled.
Bucky lay on the ground, adjusting his body so that he was flat on his back. His heart was beating rapidly in his chest, the organ trying to tear its way out. His vision and mind went hazy, and his flesh hand was clammy.
The tension was even worse whenever he looked at you. His pupils would dilate the second his eyes landed on your body, his breath getting stuck in his throat.
You knelt down, trying to get your hands under his arms to haul him back up, but Bucky flinched away with a sharp hiss.
“No,” he rasped. “Don’t… don’t touch me.”
You furrowed your brows. You had no idea what kind of side effects the airborne toxins had been released—Steve hadn’t specified. But right now, you couldn’t afford to stand around and ponder it. You groaned, trying to lift him up one more time, but your body suddenly felt even weaker than before.
Your knees buckled as a strange aroma began to drift into your nose. It was a musky, almost tangy smell filling the deep pockets of your lungs.
“W-what the hell…?”
Bucky’s chest rose and fell heavily from where he lay on the floor, his dark, half lidded eyes meeting yours. “Do you feel it, too?”
Meeting Bucky’s eyes in this state was the worst thing you could have possibly done.
Suddenly, the greenhouse felt smaller—a glass enclosure closing in on the two of you. Your body felt molten, and you wanted nothing more than to strip your clothes off.
Grunting, you began to pull down the zipper of your jacket, and Bucky inhaled sharply.
“Hey—what… what are you doing?”
“It’s hot,” you breathed, your head spinning. “Need to take my jacket off.”
The heat inside your own skin was hurting, but for Bucky, it was absolute torture.
The super soldier serum in his veins processed the toxin at an accelerated rate, making his flesh feel like it was working overtime. His blood was rushing—hot and heavy—pooling lower until he was completely and unapologetically hard under his pants.
He wanted to rip his own clothes off. He just hoped you wouldn’t notice the tent poking between his legs—or maybe a dark part of him did, and he wanted you to offer to take care of it.
Fuck. What was he thinking?
But it wasn’t like you were thinking straight, either. Abandoning your jacket, you were left in just a tank top that clung tightly to your chest, offering Bucky a full view of your tits. You knelt right back down beside him, your hands clumsily reaching for his shoulders to lift him up again.
This was going bad for Bucky.
Too close.
Too close. Too close. Too close.
Bucky caught your scent—a natural floral and feminine smell mixed with an underlying musk of sweat that made his head spin with an overwhelmingly dangerous amount of desire.
“Stop,” Bucky choked out, his voice dropping deep and dangerous.
His right hand shot out, wrapping tightly around your bare wrist, while his metal hand gripped your hip to keep you from leaning any closer.
“Don’t... don’t do this. Get away from me right now.”
“Bucky,” you panted. “I need you to get up for me.”
“I can’t,” he groaned, letting his head fall back against the floor. “I mean it. Move away… or I swear to God, I won’t be able to control myself—”
Your gaze drifted down his body, your eyes widening at the prominent bulge waiting for you between his large, strong legs.
It throbbed and twitched beneath his pants, growing harder and more unbearable by the second.
This position was too compromising—too vulnerable, and far too dangerous for you both.
Bucky had no strength to get up on his own, and you could feel your own body betraying you by the second. You would have to relieve this for him now, or it would be doom for you both.
“Goddammit,” you cursed, bracing yourself mentally.
You moved to cradle Bucky between your thighs, mounting his lap while he was pinned weak to the floor.
His eyelids flew open, and he used all the strength left in his body to lift his head and stare up at you, bewildered and off guard.
“What the hell are you doing—!”
“We need to take care of this,” you muttered, grinding your hips tight and firm against his, making him let out a groan.
“We need to fix your problem before they find us. They set up that trap not too far from this building. There’s a chance they’re already scouting it out. It’s only a matter of time—”
Bucky’s eyes were filled with hungry lust as he stared at the point where your hips were rubbing against his. He was so hard it fucking hurt. He didn’t dare touch you—because if his hands made contact with your waist, with that warm, smooth skin just beneath your tank top that was begging to be licked, he would probably embarrass himself and cum in his pants right then and there.
“Shit—wait. Hold on. I—fuck.”
You reached for his zipper, tugging it down, and the sudden movement made his hips buck up against yours.
“Now’s not the time to talk, Barnes,” you panted, the toxin blurring your thoughts. “We need to take care of this now, or we’ll be in deep trouble. And Steve’ll have my head—”
“Fuck, shit. Wait—! I’ve never…”
You were losing your patience. You stopped your hands, glaring down at him. “Never what, Barnes?”
His face burned an embarrassing shade of red. He refused to look at you, his eyes suddenly far more interested in the overgrown plants next to him than your face.
“I’ve never had… sex,” he admitted quietly, swallowing hard.
Oh.
Oh.
Bucky was a virgin?
“Oh my god,” you whispered.
You felt incredibly foolish straddling him with your hands still hovering over his open zipper.
You felt shameful—you felt like a harlot, throwing yourself onto him and thinking you could resolve this entire crisis just by getting him off with a few strokes. You felt dirty, humiliated, and deeply guilty.
“I’m so sorry,” you stammered, quickly scrambling off his lap.
Your legs felt like jelly—a testament to the toxin fully taking hold of your own system.
“Shit. I’m so sorry, Bucky. I didn’t know. I mean, that doesn’t excuse it, but—”
“No,” Bucky rasped, his hand catching your wrist before you could back away entirely.
His grip on you was so tight and dominant, it felt like a pickaxe slowly chipping away at your remaining resolve.
“Don’t go,” he broke out, his voice a desperate, tortured rasp. “Please. Keep going. It hurts. I need you to relieve it.”
If he had said that to reassure you, you felt anything but. In fact, you felt even guiltier because of how broken and desperate he sounded.
“Bucky, I can’t.”
His brows knitted together tightly, his face twisting unpleasantly—he was upset.
“Why the hell not?”
“Because—”
“Because what!” he barked back, rolling onto his side to give you his full attention. You tried really hard not to look at the outline of his hard cock pressing against his pants. “You threw yourself onto me. You promised Steve you’d take care of me—so you’re going to come back here and finish it.”
“Bucky, I’m not going to be your first!” you yelled out, and that finally stunned him into silence.
Your chest was heaving with a frustration you didn’t even know how to name.
With confusion and a flash of embarrassment taking over his gaze, his fingers finally loosened, releasing your wrist reluctantly.
“I’m sorry,” you said, much softer this time. “I’m sorry. Just… if you need a minute to take care of it yourself, I’ll be over there—” you pointed to the far end of the greenhouse “—I’ll keep watch.”
“And what about you?” he asked, his dark eyes trailing down your body in a way that did absolutely nothing to help your situation. “Don’t you need to take care of yourself, too? You feel it, don’t you? That… primal need.”
You pressed your lips tight and tore your gaze away, not trusting yourself to look at his pained, desperate expression. You couldn’t look at the way his body was open and inviting you back in, or the way his voice went so coarse when he said the word need.
“I’ll be fine.”
You were not fine. And Bucky certainly wasn’t, either.
You tried to keep your concentration focused outside the greenhouse, forcing your hazy eyes to stare through the glass panes to keep watch. But your gaze kept betraying you, drifting right back to the corner to watch Bucky where he sat propped up against a wooden crate, his legs spread wide.
His chest was still rising and falling heavily, his long hair damp with sweat and falling over his darkened eyes.
You had told him to take care of his business, but he hadn’t made a single move since you stepped away from him. Your own urges were becoming impossible to control, too. You found yourself squeezing your thighs tightly together, trying to find any form of friction, any relief from the ache that had been building up ever since the toxin first wafted into your lungs.
It didn’t help that you could feel Bucky’s eyes on you, watching you from behind, tracing your silhouette.
It felt telepathic—as if his silent gaze was speaking directly to your body, knowing you wanted exactly what he was desperately craving too.
No. You couldn’t go to him.
If you walked up to him right now, neither of you would have any control left, and you would both submit to the drug completely.
He was a virgin. You couldn’t take something so precious from him. He had already been through a lifetime of torture and lost autonomy. You wouldn’t be able to live with yourself if you took his first time over a stupid, weaponized toxin.
Sex was meant to be reserved for someone special—and you were far from it.
“Bucky,” you finally called out, still refusing to turn around and look at him. “Are you okay back there?”
“…No,” he muttered with a thick rasp. “Come here.”
You sucked in a breath.
Every instinct in your brain was telling you stay exactly where you were, but your body was entirely out of your control now.
Your feet dragged you across the dirty floor until you were standing over him again.
You dropped to your knees in front of him with a sigh. Trying to frame it as purely medical check, you lifted a hand and pressed your palm flat against his forehead to check his temperature once more.
He was still burning up, but the fever felt even worse.
Every hot breath he exhaled hit your exposed collarbones, and the way he was sitting—legs spread wide with you kneeling directly between them—made you feel like a mouse being lured into a trap.
Realizing just how dangerous this proximity was, you swallowed hard and began to pull your hand away. But Bucky didn’t let you. His fingers wrapped tightly around your wrist to hold you back. He let his heavy eyelids flutter shut and slowly leaned his head into your touch, rubbing his stubbled cheek right against your warm, open palm.
“Stay,” Bucky pleaded as he his metal hand came to hold your hip. “Stay here. I need you.”
A breathless groan rumbled warmly into your palm. You froze, your eyes locked onto him as you watched the lethal super soldier—the very man who had pinned you up against the wall just minutes ago—unravel helplessly right in front of you.
As he held you there, you felt an unbearable heat trickle between your legs.
Your cunt pulsed, and you squeezed your thighs tightly together to soothe the desperate ache spreading through your lower body.
The friction was a temporary fix, but the tight grind of your thighs only made you ache for more.
Bucky nuzzled his face deeper into your palm, inhaling your scent like a dying man catching a breath of fresh air.
Then, his parted lips pressed a soft, wet kiss against the center of your hand. And another one. Then another, right against the inner skin of your wrist.
“Bucky… what are you—”
“Please,” Bucky whispered against your skin, looking up at you through his dark, thick lashes.
His eyes were dilated, the blue completely washed out by a lust that made you burn from the inside out.
“I need you.”
“You… You don’t know what you’re saying,” you muttered, shaking your head in a desperate attempt to find your reason.
Bucky held your hand tighter, refusing to give you any chance to escape.
“Please, don’t go. Fuck—I need you so bad, it hurts,” he choked out. “This ache won’t go away until you help me take care of it.”
His eyes never left yours. Under normal circumstances, every confession leaving his lips should have left him feeling deeply ashamed or embarrassed. But right now, he didn’t care. His body was on fire, and your touch was only stroking each and every flame.
“I know I’m a virgin, but I don’t care—and you shouldn’t, either,” Bucky rasped.
His large hand covered yours, forcing your palm down his chest—slick and damp with sweat—until he guided your hand directly over the heavy erection waiting for you beneath his pants.
“I can make you feel so good. I can fix this for both of us. Please.” He begged.
You let out a shudder as his large hand swallowed yours, guiding your palm to slide up and down against the length of his cock. Even through the denim, you could feel him throb and harden rapidly beneath your touch, his breathing turning incredibly shallow and fast.
“It hurts so bad,” he groaned, his eyes unhinged by the toxin. “Doesn’t it hurt you, too?”
You looked down, biting your lip hard at the sight of Bucky’s thick bulge pressing directly against your fingers. He twitched beneath your touch.
There was nothing you wanted more than to finish the job you had started earlier—to finish unzipping his pants, sink right down onto him, and show him exactly what it felt like to be inside a woman for the very first time.
But you couldn’t.
Not like this.
“Bucky, I can’t—” you whispered so softly, it sounded like a whine. “I can’t be your first.”
Bucky trembled a sigh, his head falling back against the wooden crate. But he didn’t let go of your wrist. He began to subtly shift his weight, rocking his hips up in a tilt that forced his thick length to slide right against your captive palm.
“Why not?” he murmured, deep and gravelly. “You don’t think… you don’t think I’d do a good job?”
His question was so innocent, though the very thing he was doing wasn’t. He kept grinding his clothed cock into your hand—seeking pleasure from just your palm—and you felt yourself going insane.
“No, it’s not that,” you tried to pull your hand back, but he held you tight, using your trapped hand for his own pleasure. “Sex is supposed to be something that you save. And your virginity is something you give away to someone special. Not… not a casual teammate—not someone like me—”
Bucky interrupted you with a groan, his hips bucking up higher against your palm. All of your words went in one ear and out the other. The only thing he could process right now was how good your hand felt—and how much better it would feel if he sunk into something tight, wet, and warm.
Like your mouth… or your…
“I don’t care about any of that,” he choked out.
His hips rolled into your palm with a needy jerk.
“I need this. I need you. I’d be more than happy to give it to you. Fuck—I’ll give it to you so good. You’re the one I want. I need you—”
Bucky’s mouth dropped into an o shape, a sharp hiss of breath filling his lungs as his hips bucked uncontrollably. His eyes never left yours as he suddenly started spilling in his pants. A warm, thick liquid began to seep through his jeans, leaving your fingers sticky with his seed and musk.
You couldn’t believe it.
Bucky had just finished right in his pants.
“Bucky…”
His face was unreadable.
His head was tilted back against the crate, his eyes boring into yours through heavy lids and long lashes. He was breathing heavily, trying to catch his breath while letting his cum shamelessly pool in the tight space of his pants.
You figured he’d pull your hand away any second now—that finally releasing all that pent up frustration would make him feel well enough to move to a safer location.
You tried not to point it out to save him from the embarrassment. And most importantly, you tried not to give in to the intense sensation of his warm spunk right beneath your fingertips.
“You should be feeling better now, right? We should keep moving—”
With his grip on your wrist tightening, he hauled you forward until you collapsed back to the ground. Two strong arms wrapped completely around your body, caging you flush against his chest.
Your knees—already so weak—forced you to straddle his lap. Your hands flew to his broad shoulders for balance as you found yourself perched directly over his ruined pants.
“Hey—what are you—!”
Bucky nuzzled his face straight into the crook of your neck, his hot, erratic breaths turning into open mouthed kisses against your skin.
“More,” he begged, the deep vibration of his voice tickling you. “S’not enough. I need more.”
Your breath hitched when his hands started to roam over your body. His fingers tickled beneath the hem of your tank top, the metal fingers cooling your skin and making you gasp out loud from the sudden cold.
No.
I won’t let this happen.
I refuse to be Bucky’s first.
But despite your emotional turmoil, you couldn’t bring yourself to pull away. Not with the way his hands were roaming around your body, claiming every inch of you as his through touch alone. Not with the way he was looking at you, his mouth parted with desperation.
And especially not when he had just let himself spill in his jeans from nothing but your touch and closeness.
“I know you feel it too,” Bucky rasped against your neck. “I know you’re wet down there, begging to be touched. Begging to be filled. I can fix you, baby. Just let me take care of you, please.”
He pulled back slightly, looking up at you with wide puppy blue eyes that made your heart ache and your pussy clench.
“Can I kiss you?”
You searched his gaze, breathless. “You want to kiss me?”
His metal hand left your waist, slowly crawling up your spine until his fingers tangled firmly in the hair at the back of your head, keeping your eyes pinned to his. His pupils were completely blown out, his gaze demanding an answer right now.
You should have said no. You should have pushed his chest, reminded him of the drug, and scrambled away to safety.
He was a virgin, sure. But with the way he was looking at you while holding you tight—you felt like you were going to be ravaged.
But your resolve was already a fragile thing. And with the way he was looking at you, you knew you were in too deep. Your body was hurting—aching for him in the exact same ways he was aching for you. The only way you two could fix it was each other.
You pressed your lips hard against his, and Bucky let out a rough, needy sound into your mouth.
His grip tightened in your hair, pulling you deeper into the kiss.
The fever burned through your veins, and the way his tongue danced with yours only made the fire burn hotter. He was tasting you, broken whimpers tearing from his lips with every slick slide of his tongue. Saliva mixed together, leaving you both completely breathless, your lips and limbs tangled.
You rolled your hips back, grinding yourself deeper against Bucky’s pelvis.
His cock twitched inside his jeans, poking hard against you. You didn’t know how—but he felt even bigger and harder than he had before.
“I can’t take it anymore,” he panted against your mouth. “Fuck, I can’t—I need to feel you. Need to be inside you.”
His hands scrambled down to your waist, his fingers fumbling with the button of your pants. He popped it open with a rough tug—threatening to break the button itself—as his knuckles brushed against your hot skin.
Bucky groaned at the sight.
The lace of your panties was poking through the opening, damp with sweat and your scent. He inhaled deeply, and you wondered just how much his heightened senses were actually taking you in.
When he let out a satisfied sigh, you knew he could smell everything.
“Look at you,” he praised, his eyes tracing the curves of your body. “You’re so beautiful. It makes me want to ruin you.”
You chuckled—a sound that came out raspy and sultry without your intention, making Bucky’s cock twitch beneath you.
“Quite a bold statement for someone who’s never had sex before,” you teased, your hands trailing slowly down his chest.
Bucky’s jaw tightened. He accepted your challenge, gripping the waistband of your unzipped pants and yanking them down your thighs.
The moment your bare skin was exposed to the cool air, Bucky wasted no time traveling his eyes down the expanse of your legs. Catching his bottom lip between his teeth to keep from drooling like a madman, his gaze raked over the inner and outer curves of your thighs. His mouth went dry at the sight of the little wet spot that had collected near your clit.
His large hands slid up your thighs and behind you, squeezing your ass firmly in his rough palms.
“So fucking beautiful,” he growled, his thumb swiping over your clit, smearing your own juice all over the lace.
“Fuck—you’ve been dripping all this time. You need this just as bad as I do, and you’ve been holding back?”
You swallowed hard. “It’s not too late. We don’t have to—oh!”
You cried out once his fingers slipped past the hem of your panties. His fingers dipped between your folds, collecting your arousal with embarrassing wet noises as he tried to rub at your clit.
“No, Bucky… it’s right here—” You grabbed his forearm, guiding him to the right spot, and arched your back with a sharp cry when he started rubbing deep circles against the sensitive bud.
“Oh my god,” you gasped.
This was the pleasure you were looking for—but it wasn’t nearly enough.
There was an empty ache deep inside you that was begging to be filled. But you weren’t going to demand that of him just yet, in case he changed his mind.
A lazy, boyish smile tugged at his lips as he watched you come undone from his fingers.
“Yeah?” he huffed out a breath. “That feel good, baby?”
“Yes—don’t stop, please,” you cried helplessly.
His other hand lifted your tank top up and over your head, quickly unhooking your bra to fully reveal your tits. With a low grunt, he leaned forward, capturing one of your perky nipples into the wet warmth of his mouth.
You moaned loudly, your hand flying to the back of his head and giving his hair a hard, desperate tug. He liked that a lot, moaning against your skin in pleasure.
Bucky’s tongue swirled around your nipple, licking and sucking until you were arching off his lap at his mercy.
He was making a beautiful mess of you, switching between both buds and letting his mouth worship your body. His rough stubble tickled your chest while his fingers continued their clumsy work down below, sliding through your slick folds and rubbing messy circles right against your clit.
The wet, squelching sounds of his fingers moving against your soaking flesh filled the greenhouse—the filth of it only making you wetter and causing the toxin to course even harder.
He suddenly pulled his mouth away from your chest, a string of saliva connecting his lips to your skin, and finally looked up at you.
His lips and chin were slick and shining from giving your breasts such sloppy, adoring kisses.
“I need to be inside you,” he pleaded. “Please… I need to put it in. I need to stuff you so full of me, baby. Please, let me fuck you.”
Your eyes searched Bucky’s.
He looked like an even bigger mess than before. He looked and sounded utterly helpless, his chest rising and falling heavily, his face tight with an expression that made it look like he was physically hurting.
Even though he had just come in his pants moments ago, he needed so much more.
You knew that once you gave in to him completely, there would be no holding back for either of you. He would have to live with the fact that you would be his first.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Bucky slowly slipped his hand out of your panties, bringing his fingers up to his lips and licking the juices clean. “You’re scared, but I’m not. I know what I want, and what I want right now is you.”
Bucky gripped your waist, raising you off his lap and pinning you flat against the ground.
He slipped his large body directly between your legs, his strong thighs forcing yours wide open as he covered your frame with his.
Your hair was messy across the dirt floor, framing your face as you laid beneath him breathless. The toxin was taking over control of your body—every single nerve demanding to be touched by the man between your legs.
You felt like you were in heat, consumed by a fever that only Bucky could cure.
His eyes fell over your body, tracing your tits and stomach, his gaze locking onto the way your panties—already a soaked mess—looked like they were begging to be torn away by his teeth.
“I’m sorry,” he murmured, his hands making quick work of your underwear.
With a harsh tug and a sharp tearing sound, the fabric gave away.
“I’m so sorry for what I’m about to do to you.”
Your panties didn’t even make it past your knees before tearing clean off your thighs. You winced slightly.
It was dizzying to think about how you had found the strength to fight Bucky earlier, only to now be reduced to a breathless, aching mess over a piece of torn fabric.
Bucky leaned back on his heels, unbuckling his belt and shoving open his unzipped, stained denim jeans.
The moment he pulled his cock free, it sprang forward then back—the tip slapping against his abdomen.
He was thick, his cock fully engorged and begging to be wrapped in something tight and warm. Pre-cum glistened at the tip, trailing down his shaft and mixing with the creamy white essence from his earlier release.
His eyes were glued to your soaking center, legs spread wide and inviting. His jaw slacked as he lazily pumped himself at the shaft, prepping his cock for your warm embrace.
He claimed he was a virgin, but the way he was looking at you with such a hungry look in his eyes made you think otherwise.
“Bucky,” you breathed, heart racing. “Are you sure you want to do this? With… me?”
Bucky leaned over your body, using his metal elbow to prop himself up while he slapped the tip of his cock against your entrance.
You weren’t sure where he learned that from, but the dirty act left you clenching around nothing.
“The more you ask, the harder it is for me to stay in control,” he gritted through clenched teeth. “I’m just gonna have to stuff you full of my cock just to prove how much I want you.”
You craned your neck, watching Bucky rub his tip up and down your folds—smearing his pre-cum while coating his shaft in your own slick juice.
When he positioned himself right at your opening and poked gently, testing your stretch, your folds immediately parted for him. You were so wet and pliable from the toxin that you were sure he would slip right in without a fight, despite how big he was.
“Just… just enough to get rid of the side effects, okay?” you muttered, though it sounded like you were trying to convince yourself more than him.
Bucky either didn’t hear you, or maybe he did and he just chose to ignore it.
With a clench of his jaw, he slowly pushed his hips forward, his eyes glued to the spot where your cunt wrapped around the head of his cock.
The sensation was delicious. Your body was burning hot, tight, and dangerously wet. He had only sunk the tip in, but it was already the greatest thing he had ever felt in his life. His eyes rolled back as a deep groan tore in his chest.
“Ohhh…”
Despite the toxin making your body more accommodating, you were still tighter than either of you expected.
You were being stretched completely and fully as Bucky kept going, relentlessly sinking his cock all the way inside until his dark, hairy base pressed flush against your folds. He was so big, and a part of you was grateful that he had already come once before this—because right now, his entire body was shaking with an uncontrollable need.
“So goddamn tight,” he cursed, his face twisting that looked almost like pain. “I never… fuck, I never expected pussy to feel this good… Christ.”
He stilled inside you, letting your body adjust to his size. But in reality, he was the one who needed time to adjust to your tightness.
You paced your breathing. Being stretched full by him made you want to scream at him to hurry up and move, to fuck you right into the dirt floor of the greenhouse—but you couldn’t make that kind of demand of a virgin.
Since it was his first time, despite the unfortunate circumstances, you were going to guide him gently.
“Hold me here,” you murmured, taking his hands and guiding them back to your thighs. “Feel me. It’s soft, isn’t it?”
Bucky breathed hard, nodding as he held you.
“When you’re ready, just move your hips nice and slow. Take your time.”
His face fell into a tight scowl, as if displeased with that order.
Every single one of his base instincts was screaming at him to fuck you hard and fast—to claim every surface of your pussy with his cock.
“F—fine,” he reluctantly agreed, his voice strained. He gripped your thighs tightly, spreading you open as he began rocking his hips back and forth.
His eyes were glossy with desire, transfixed by the sight of his cock disappearing in and out of your body.
A thick, creamy white ring was forming around the base of his shaft, staining the unruly dark curls that sat at his pelvis.
Every time he pulled out, he made sure to sink back in even deeper, rolling his hips forward until the tip of his cock kissed your cervix.
Your eyes rolled back, your hands clutching his broad shoulders as he buried himself inside you.
“Fuck… just like that,” you moaned. “Keep going.”
“Does… does that feel good?” He swallowed hard, fingers digging deeper into your thigh.
You nodded fast. “So good—I don’t want you to stop. Please, don’t stop.”
Your breathless plea made him scowl , a frustrated snarl leaving his lips.
“This is torture.” He groaned.
You furrowed your brows, looking at his angry expression in concern. Torture? That wasn’t what sex was supposed to feel like. The last thing you wanted to do was hurt him.
“Bucky,” you said, pressing your hand against his sweating chest. “If this is hurting you, we need to stop right now. Pull out of me—”
You gasped as his metal hand circled tight around your wrist, prying it away from his chest and pinning it over your head. He slammed you back to the floor, his large body shadowing yours as his face hovered.
His dark eyes bored deeply into yours—and you felt like if you so much as looked away, he might take it as a threat.
“No, I can’t—I can’t do slow,” he growled. “The drug in my veins, it’s like it's yelling at me to take what I want. And what I want is to fuck you until you cry.”
Your breath left your lungs as Bucky slammed his hips forward, burying himself inside you.
He pulled out halfway before fucking right back in, a broken gasp leaving your lips as you arched your back against the floor from the pleasure. You hadn’t expected him to fuck you this hard—being a virgin and all—but you couldn’t complain.
You had been craving to be taken like this since the moment the drug first entered your system.
“Oh my god—!” You cried out, tears prickling at the corners of your eyes.
“Ah—fuck, you’re so tight,” Bucky cried out.
He buried his face into the crook of your neck, his breath scalding against your skin as he relentlessly pumped his hips in and out of you, using your vulnerable body like his own personal sex toy.
“It feels too good, fuck, baby. Everything feels too good—I can’t stop,” he moaned.
Your moans blended together into a dirty symphony.
The toxin was amplifying every single touch, his thick shaft stretching you out completely—turning your usually strong and poised body into mush with every thrust.
Your wet walls clenched down on him every time he threatened to pull out, as if sucking him right back in. Bucky was entirely lost, his mind short circuiting from the pleasure.
Every time he buried himself deep, your swollen pussy tightened around him like your body was trying to milk him dry. You whimpered with every single thrust he gave you, your teary eyes meeting his in a lustful haze as you wrapped your legs tight around his hips for support.
“Fuck—my god, don’t do that—” He sucked in a sharp breath. “You’re squeezing me so tight. God—if this is what sex feels like, I never want to stop.”
He tilted his head down, his sweaty strands of hair tickling your hot face as he stared back down at the exact point where his hips got lost with yours.
Every stroke of his cock inside your tight body came with a hot wave of pleasure, amplified by the toxin coursing through your blood.
The sensation was addicting.
Bucky had never felt a pleasure like this before. He’d jerked off a few times in his apartment just to quickly relieve some stress, but that was always by himself.
He was a curious boy back in the forties, but he had never been close to getting any action like this.
To him, this was like a dream come true.
But he needed to go deeper. These regular, sloppy thrusts weren’t enough. He needed to feel more.
With a snarl, he leaned back to grip the backs of your thighs and shoved your knees up towards your chest, folding you into a tight mating press.
Before you could adjust to the new position, he pressed his hips against yours to lock you in place and sank down even deeper than he had before.
Your eyes flew wide, nearly bulging from their sockets as a sharp gasp ripped from your throat. His cock was stretching you at an impossible angle, burying himself so deep you could’ve sworn you saw stars.
Because you were already so sensitive from the toxin, having him bottom out so hard against your cervix made your core shudder uncontrollably, causing your legs to shake. Your head fell back against the floor, your toes curling in the air as your vision went hazy.
“Oh my god!” you cried out in a mix of pain and pleasure. “It’s too much—I can’t… you’re gonna make me cum!”
You felt your walls start to hyperventilate around his length. You knew he felt it, too, because he immediately doubled his pace.
“I’m sorry,” he apologized, but it didn’t sound sincere. “Fuck—I’m so sorry. It just feels too good—fuck, I—”
His voice broke into a pained moan the moment your pussy tightened. You came hard around him without warning, your neck arching as a loud moan strained your vocal cords.
Bucky’s entire body tensed, his face twisting in a grimace from how your climax was squeezing him.
The feeling was exquisite, and fuck, he wasn’t going to last another second when he was buried this deep inside of you.
He knew your body was sensitive and overworked, but he couldn’t bring himself to stop moving. His balls had never felt this full, this heavy. He was close, so fucking close, and the more your pussy fluttered around his shaft, the more desperate he became to chase that same release.
“Shit. M’gonna cum,” he cursed, his hips stuttering as he hilted himself deep inside.
His cock twitched—he had never came inside a girl before, but he was determined to do so now.
He was going to make sure he filled you, to stuff your tight hole to the brim with his backed up super soldier seed.
“Gonna cum inside,” he warned, his metal hand sliding beneath your lower back and lifting your hips up to meet his thrusts. “I’m gonna cum inside—fuck, I hope that’s okay. I’m sorry. I can’t—I can’t control myself.”
You couldn’t muster a single coherent word. Only muffles and teary whimpers escaped you, but it didn’t matter what you said while Bucky was in this state. He had no intention of stopping.
His blue eyes were crazed, rolled back so far in his sockets you could see the white. He grit his teeth, meeting your hips with sloppy and wet thrusts. A litany of curses mumbled in broken strings under his breath, until finally…
“Oh my god—I’m cumming. Take it, baby. Take every single drop of me. Don’t let it go to waste. Please, I need this. I need this so fucking bad—”
With a firm grip on your thigh, he pinned you down and pushed his hips against yours.
His tip kissed your cervix, pulsing twice before his body gave way to your tightness. You were being filled by the thick, heavy pumping of his seed. You could feel his cock twitching relentlessly against your walls, determined to flood every inch of your pussy.
He buried his face in your neck, his chest heaving violently as he stuffed you so completely full that your lower belly felt heavy.
“I’m so sorry,” he pleaded brokenly.
Bucky trembled from head to toe, and despite his mumbled apologies, he kept your hips pinned securely so that not a single drop of his release could escape. He was spent, breathing in shaky and ragged gasps against your skin. He didn’t want to pull out yet, still savoring the feeling of your pulsing walls squeezing the very last drops from.
The two of you lay on the floor, tangled and sweaty in each other’s limbs. Once you finally caught your breath, your hands gently caressed his broad back, a comforting gesture that caught even you off guard.
“How… how are you feeling?” you finally mumbled.
Your body tensed as you braced yourself for an answer.
Now that the side effects of the toxin seemed to be wearing off, dread started trickling in.
You were terrified that everything you had just done with Bucky would be something he’d immediately regret. A part of you tried to tell yourself that you didn’t care—that he had despised you before this, and he would simply go back to hating you again.
But after being his first, there was an undeniable connection in the way you felt beneath him.
If he was already starting to feel regret... well, you weren’t sure how you would handle it. Guilt? Probably. The longer he stayed silent, the more the worry gnawed at you.
He eventually huffed a breath, but he didn’t pull away.
“If you’re wondering if I’m going to regret this,” Bucky began, his voice so raspy and tired that it sent a shiver down your spine. “The answer is no.”
You sucked in a breath, expecting a but to follow.
Bucky attempted to lift himself up slightly so he wasn’t crushing you, but he was still so sensitive that the movement made him wince sharply. He couldn’t bring himself to pull out yet, so he collapsed right back against you with a soft huff.
“I wish I could just stay like this,” he muttered, wrapping both arms around you while resting his head against your sweaty chest.
He looked so small and vulnerable in that moment, and it made your heart ache for him.
“Just holding you,” he whispered, hugging you tighter as his voice grew quieter. “Instead of constantly running, fearing for my life, or being taken away. I just want to stay like this. Holding a pretty girl.”
The tension was starting to become too much for you to handle. Your face burned, unsure of how to process the sudden compliment. Trying to break the tension, you huffed a soft laugh and continued to rub your hand up and down his broad back. He seemed to like your touch very much.
“I’m sorry you lost your virginity this way.” you tried to joke.
Bucky chuckled against your chest. “The man I was in the forties probably would’ve done a much better job.”
“Well, this wasn’t bad at all—I’ll tell you that much.”
The two of you lay there, chuckling softly in each other’s arms, until the loud, sudden static of your earpiece made you both jolt.
“Do you copy? Report in.”
You both froze, your hearts beating rapidly for an entirely different reason now.
Bucky cleared his throat as he reluctantly tried lifting himself up. The friction of his slick and semi-hard cock sliding out of you made you let out an involuntary whimper.
“Status update,” Steve pressed, his tone anxious. “Are you two safe, or are you compromised?”
Compromised, sure. But definitely not in the way Steve meant.
Suppressing a giggle, you tapped your earpiece with a bright smile, catching Bucky's eye.
“Glad to hear your comms didn’t break, Steve.”
A relieved sigh came from the other end. “Give me a status report. How are you two? How’s Bucky?”
You watched as Bucky began to pull his clothes back on, his face an embarrassing shade of red as he tried to compose himself. You chuckled softly.
“We’re fine.”
halfway through proofreading this i lowk realized this was slop. i thought i had a good idea and then lost the plot. if you actually liked this please consider leaving a like and hit that subscribe button *epic outro music*
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pairing: boyfriend!Bucky Barnes x girlfriend!Reader
summary: It starts as a harmless prank. It ends with Bucky Barnes having a full-blown existential crisis over the possibility of you having a Tinder account.
word count: <1.5 k
warnings: domestic fluff, established relationship, Bucky Barnes being dramatic (and dumb), kissing, light suggestive content.
a/n: pretty sure this counts as a crackfic, but it's based on this Tiktok prank where you tell your boyfriend you saw X person on Tinder. thank you to my girls @herejustforbuckybarnes & @buckysdecaflove for beta reading this! | dividers by @viviansturns
read on AO3
The rain had started a few minutes ago. You were sprawled across the couch, your legs were thrown over Bucky's lap, half-watching some old movie he'd put on while he mindlessly ran his hands up and down your calf.
This had become your routine after work for a few weeks now. You were acting like an old couple and you knew it, but you didn't mind… except today, you wanted to add some fun to the mix.
You'd been holding it since your lunch break, waiting for the precise moment when he was relaxed enough to be off-guard. You glanced down at your phone—still on the Home Screen, but he didn't know that— and cleared your throat.
"Babe."
"Mm?" He didn't look up from the TV.
"I think I just saw Sam on Tinder."
His fingers stilled completely against your skin. His head turned slowly, like a door hinge that needed oil. Then without warning, he burst out laughing.
"Sam?" He wheezed, clutching his stomach. "Oh, that actually tracks."
You blinked. That… wasn't the reaction you were expecting. "It does?"
"Sweetheart, it's Sam. He'd been waiting his entire life for an app that lets him judge people by a single photo and a witty one-liner." Bucky shook his head, grinning from ear to ear, fully delighted by the image. "I bet his profile picture is a picture of him with Redwing, shirtless at the beach, holding a fish he definitely didn't catch."
"He did have a fish," you said, scrambling to keep up. "And sunglasses."
"Of course he did." Bucky wiped at his eye, wheezing. "His bio probably says something like 'Former Air Force, current Captain America'. Or maybe just 'Looking for someone to do the talking at parties.' He's definitely got that smirk in his pictures, the one where he thinks he's being mysterious."
You were biting your cheek so hard it hurt. This was going off-script. "You're not… worried about him?"
"Worried?" Bucky scoffed, waving a hand, settling back into the couch with a smug grin. "Sam's a grown man. If he wants to swim in the shallow end of the internet, that's his business. I'm just saying—" He leaned back, hands behind his head, looking way too pleased with himself. "—the man's got the charisma of a used car salesman and the ego of a fighter pilot. He's probably out there collecting matches like Infinity Stones. I bet he swipes right on everyone to see what he catches."
He was having the time of his life, roasting his best friend, eyes bright with mischief, there was no shred of concern in sight.
"I bet he opens with some line about his wings," Bucky continued, warming to his subject. "'Hey baby, ever been with a guy who can literally sweep you off your feet?' Or maybe he just sends a picture of Redwing and says, 'He's trained, but I'm not'."
You lost it. A laugh escaped before you could stop it, and Bucky took it as encouragement, turning toward you with a boyish grin.
"And you know he's got his Spotify linked. It's probably all early 2000s R&B and one patriotic playlist he made ironically but listens to unironically."
He threw his head back and laughed, loud and open, completely unbothered and thoroughly entertained by the mental image of Sam Wilson navigating modern dating. And then, it was like a record scratch moment.
Bucky froze mid-sentence, his mouth still open on some joke about Sam's courting. His eyes narrowed, shifting from distant amusement at his best friend's expense to something much more immediate. He turned to you slowly.
"Wait," he said. You bit the inside of your cheek to keep from smiling. "Why are you on Tinder?"
Oh, there it was.
You looked up at him with your best innocent eyes. "What?"
"You're on Tinder," he said, pointing at you like he'd just discovered a new form of betrayal. "You're sitting there, on my couch. In our apartment, wearing my clothes… and you're swiping?"
"I'm not swiping right now."
"That's not the point, sweetheart!" He was gesturing wildly, all his earlier smugness evaporating into panic. "The point is you've got an account. You're out there, in a database where other men can see you."
"And women," you added helpfully. "It's very inclusive now, you know?"
Bucky looked like he might swallow his own tongue.
"Who else did you see?" he demanded, taking a step closer. "Did you match with anyone? Did you talk to anyone? Is that why you've been on your phone all week? Have you been— chatting?"
"Bucky—"
"I thought we were exclusive!" He was fully shouting now, but it was the most wounded shout you'd ever heard. "We live together! I always buy your favorite cereal!"
"I know, but—"
"What does your bio even say?" He lunged for your phone, and you had to scramble to keep it out of reach, which only made him more feral. "Let me see it! Did you mention me? Did you use a good picture? If you used that one from the beach I took I'm gonna lose my mind, you know the one, the one with the—"
"Bucky!" You were laughing now, couldn't help it, curling into the corner of the couch with your phone clutched to your chest. "Bucky, stop!"
"Why should I stop?" He shifted closer, bracing one arm on the back of the couch behind you, all his looming energy collapsing into pure, wounded-puppy devastation. "You're out here, marketing yourself to the entire—"
"It's a prank!"
He stopped dead.
The rain kept hitting the window, the movie was still playing on the TV. And Bucky stared at you, chest heaving, his t-shirt was askew. He looked like a man who had just run an emotional marathon.
"What?" he said, very carefully.
"I'm not on Tinder," you continued, fighting your smile. "I don't have an account, I just saw this Tiktok and wanted to see your reaction."
The silence that followed was thick. Bucky's expression cycled through approximately twelve different emotions—relief, betrayal, confusion, more betrayal, grudging admiration.
"You are the worst person I have ever met."
"I thought it would be funny."
"You thought—" He cut himself off, running both hands through his hair. "I was right there, about to text Sam about it. I had roasts prepared… and you were— you were pranking me."
"It was really funny, though."
Bucky looked at the ceiling like he was asking God for strength. Then he moved.
You shrieked as he grabbed you, hauling you off the couch and over his shoulder in one smooth move. The world tilted upside down—your hair falling toward the floor, his vibranium arm locked tight around the back of your thighs, his flesh hand swatting your behind with a satisfying smack that made you yelp.
"Bucky! Put me down!" You were pounding on his back, but you were laughing so hard you could barely breathe, kicking your legs uselessly as he straightened up.
"Nope." He started walking toward the bedroom, purposeful and unbothered by your squirming. "You wanna prank me? You wanna make me think you're out there swiping through the entire population of New York while you're wearing my clothes? Fine. But you're gonna make it up for me."
"I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" you gasped out, not sorry at all, giggling into the fabric of his t-shirt.
"No you're not, not yet at least," he muttered, but you could hear the grin in his voice. He bounced you once on his shoulder to adjust his grip, and you squealed, clutching at his waist.
"I will be good, I promise I will be good!" You said breathless with laughter.
"Will you?" He laughed, swatting you again just to hear you yelp. "You're not gonna keep running around, giving me heart attacks?"
He kicked the bedroom door shut behind him and dropped you into the mattress. You bounced, trying to scramble away, but he was already climbing over you, caging you with his arms. He tried looking furious but instead he looked absolutely smitten, with that boyish grin that made your heart jump.
"Just so we're clear," he said low, pressing a kiss to your jaw. "That phone is mine now. Consider it confiscated by the century-old boyfriend whom you just tried to give a heart attack. And you're gonna make it up to me, starting now."
You were still giggling as he leaned down, but the kiss shut you up pretty quick, his fingers threading through your hair. When he pulled back, his eyes were dark, but the corner of his mouth was twitching.
"No more doing pranks on me, okay? You can't go around giving me prank-induced arrhythmia for views."
You laughed, while your fingers traced the line of his spine. "I won't, I promise."
All my stories are R18. I write smut, and I may touch sensitive topics or topics that are not intended to be read by minors.
YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR YOUR OWN CONTENT CONSUMPTIONS.
Masterlist
Pairing: Winter Soldier x F!Reader / Bucky Barnes x F!Reader
Warning/Tags: Major Angst, Light Domestic Fluff, Canon Type of Violence, HYDRA implied torture, Guns, Winter Soldier Killing Spree, Reader is kidnapped, Bucky goes Winter Soldier mode, use of drugs mentioned, Canon Divergence, Non Canon Compliant, a lot of names related to the comics or the MCU, but might be used incorrectly, If I'm missing any tags, I'll add them later.
Word count: ~13.2k (Well, things happened.)
Summary: Bucky, as the Winter Soldier, set you both free from HYDRA after you took care of him and tried to make his pain more bearable. And after spending some time living a normal life, you get kidnapped, and he brings his Winter Soldier mode back just to take you back.
Author's Note: This came from this request. First of all, thank you for trusting me to do this. This was quite an experience! I did plan this to be this long, and I'm sorry it took so long, but... between my life going on and that I wanted this to be perfect, I took certain liberties towards the end. I'm not sure what possessed me. Anywho, this was betaread by my lovely @herejustforbuckybarnes and partially betaread by my @kileyking. Thank you so so much for bearing with me on this one! This is certainly the project where I poured most of my heart. I just loved it so so so much!! Hope you all like it!
*Also, all the things in russian where translated and I know -0 of russian... so... sorry bout that
Being the best student did not seem like the worst case scenario when you were younger. Your parents always told you to be the best in whatever you did, and that’s how you ended up in the clutches of HYDRA intelligence.
You were in your first year as a full-time worker when you got kidnapped by them. They were a ghost story—something some scientists joked about. Nothing too serious. Everything seemed like a horror story straight out of Hollywood.
And there you were, after five years of being there, you were now Karpov’s assistant—and with that, you were also the scientist behind many of the decisions taken on the Winter Soldier Project. It was never your decision; you were kidnapped after a tiring shift at the lab. HYDRA had been watching you for several months, as a matter of fact, for years. Since you excelled at school, they noticed you, but they left you to develop your potential, helping you become one of the best in your field.
You were always under threat. Your family was constantly on watch—they were kind of merciful. They let you talk to them weekly. You had lied to them, telling them you were on a very secret project that needed all your attention and was out of the States. Not a complete lie if you overthought it. They didn’t really do it out of the heart; they did it because they needed a low-profile situation, and having someone of your profile being missing was not a low-profile thing. They knew your parents got the resources to start a search for you, and they weren’t risking anything.
You hated every part of it. From the mystery behind, the not-even dubious but illegal and unethical things you were part of—the inhuman things you did to people who just wanted to serve their country, and now were used as lab rats.
The Winter Soldier Project was not new. It had been active since World War II—elite people choose carefully. Every one of them was studied, where found and picked. From the first in their clutches to the last recluded. If you could have called recluded to the kidnapping reclusive. They were enhanced with a Super Soldier Zerum that Dr. Arnim Zola replicated, thanks to Johann Schmidt. You learned all about it through conversations people around you held, not because you really wanted to know about it.
People around you always talked about the Prisoner #56898, HYDRA’s fist—their best soldier for decades. The man who was held in a cryostasis.
You knew how it worked. You had helped improve the cryogenic stasis that preserved the bodies of all the subjects involved in the project. But you never really knew him until he was activated again. You were handed his folder and read what you needed to know about him to understand what you were handling.
“James Buchanan Barnes. Prisoner #56898.”
“State: Active.”
He was not seen as a person anymore. None of the soldiers cryoginized were seen as such—but as weapons, assets, not more than living weapons.
You were in charge of “patching” them up. If you could even call it that. You just cleaned up their wounds or bloodstains and sent them back to be preserved.
You analyzed their metrics, saved up on an inner system their body counts, what mission they went through, and how to enhance them for the next mission, and reviewed the way their bodies reacted to different injuries and levels of pain.
You hated it even more.
You hated to stare at people who were clearly suffering, and you just had to analyze how their heart rate raced or how long it took for their bodies to heal from an almost fatal cut, a bullet gone through. And it was worse when Alexander Pierce—a man who you knew for being a very respectable politician—started to be more active. They started to use more The Project Winter Soldier—and with it, they brought back James Buchanan Barnes—The Winter Soldier.
“You need to review his stats. He’s been inactive for a long time, and the last mission was almost lethal.” You walked behind Karpov and Pierce, just nodding and typing on the device you got to keep a record of all your assets, as they called them.
“James Buchanan Barnes. Chronological age, 30. Perfect shape and state. Dr. Zemo’s enhancing. Healing with a time rate of twenty-four to forty-eight hours if not deep enough.” You started reciting the information the device threw at you.
“Great. You gotta record now how much pain the asset handles before breaking down—he hasn’t been wiped out, he might be relentless and erratic, you would be checked up on from afar.”
You knew they were lying. You saw other scientists being told the same, and they were torn apart in a split second before anyone could notice—and you always kept in mind that the probability of you dying because of one of the assets was bigger than being killed by these men in front of you.
You were in a makeshift office—more like a cell—typing on a computer while they talked about the most important mission he would face. He was assigned to kill every kind of person Pierce saw as an enemy, and the only man able to do that was James Buchanan Barnes.
He had just killed a congressman who was stuck up his nose a bit more than what they liked, and he was so well secured that the asset got injured almost fatally. He was tied on a stretcher with a bulky machine surrounding him.
When you were finally in front of him. Your heart clattered in your chest. He had his face completely swollen—but he looked young, maybe in his thirties, when he was first held captive. You learned he was born in 1917, and he was captured during World War II. He was the first man ever enhanced with the first Super Soldier serum that Zola had recreated back in time. He had been active and preserved since then—brainwashed, mind wiped every mission, or every time he got cryoginized.
He was grunting in pain, squirming, restrained under the belts around his body. You took your voice recorder and pressed the button.
“Asset Number five, six, eight, nine, eight.” You were about to say his name—you knew it was useless. You checked the computer connected to the machine. “Asset presents high pain resistance. No pain-killers, no medicine, nor vials in its system.”
You were hiding your teary eyes. His grunting was louder than your thoughts—you could see his cuts bleeding, and his swollen face. He growled like an animal—the belts around him barely restrained his movements, but were enough not to set him free. He never even asked for help. He had probably learned it did nothing.
You spent the next thirty minutes recording on your devices—typing, speaking, analyzing him. And, finally—and sadly—he finally broke down. He shut down, and his head tilted forward. Sweat and blood mixed, running down his face, droplets falling to the floor.
You had seen that kind of reaction before; his voice had surrendered from the pain.
A speaker was turned on, “Good job, doctor. Now, patch it up and send it to the cell.”
“No cryo?” You asked out loud.
“Not yet.” The connection was turned off.
You knew the protocol. They were gone by the moment you saved up your updates. The last person there had already left, and now it was your turn to clean him up. You walked slowly.
“Mr. Barnes, I’m gonna clean you up.”
You barely knew their names, but when you did, you tried to use them. It was useless—they were wiped out almost immediately, so telling them their names didn’t serve any purpose.
He didn’t respond.
You found the cleaning kit and started to clean up his face—even in the swollen state, his beautiful features could be appreciated. The rag came with a crimson, clear liquid. He finally snapped awake and stared at you. Blue bloody eyes locked on you.
“Mr. Barnes, I’m not here to hurt you. I’m just gonna clean you up and send you to your cell.”
Still no response.
After some minutes, you finished your task. He was all cleaned up and ready. “Ready.” You shout.
No answer on the intercom.
They really thought you weren’t going to survive this. They weren’t even there waiting to see it.
You walked to the second floor, where you knew it would be more likely to find a guard.
The asset was already passed out. There was no threat to be careful of.
You knocked on the door for almost five minutes when hurried steps could be heard on the other side of the door.
Rumlow opened the door.
“What a surprise,” Pierce said, smiling with a hint of pride. “Go to your cell, doctor. You did well.”
You nodded and walked away from their sight. After almost five years there, you had some sort of privileges and were able to walk without a watchman by your side.
They didn’t tell you, but after that, you were designated as his personal handler—and that made it worse for you. You couldn’t handle his groanings, the way he didn’t even talk to you when you tried to comfort him. Like he didn’t know what it meant.
Because, for what you had learned at that point, he didn’t know what it was to be comforted. You learned that he was a sergeant back in time, one who excelled at everything—and that’s why they chose him. It was not deliberate. He was a target from the beginning.
And, because of that—he was now basically a hundred-year-old weapon disguised as a human. By the third time you were taken to him to patch him up, your bosses started to become reckless—letting you alone with him, not paying attention to what you did or how you cleaned him up. Why would they need to do that? You had been nothing but complaining to them.
The first time you did something against the rules was small.
You took some painkillers from the infirmary and snuck them into the chamber where they kept him.
You knew you could get killed, and he could be reprimented even worse.
You were patching him up, blocking the view from the window where you knew they should be. They weren’t there, and you knew it. They were never there. But you still wanted to be careful.
“Open up, sergeant.” You mumbled and made him open his mouth. He complied and swallowed what you put in his mouth. “It’s a very strong painkiller. It’s gonna help you.”
He grunted. You took it as a thank you.
After that, it became a habit for you to bring pills or whatever thing you could to ease his pain. You couldn’t do any more without raising suspicion.
You had a routine—arriving at the chamber, preparing what you needed, starting recording, and when you were about to clean him up, you put the pills on his mouth.
But you noticed something.
He was starting to groan and grunt less. Every session, it seemed like it was less painful for him, but that put him into more distress. The more resistant, the more danger he was put into.
In the last session, you noticed he was even more hurt—his cuts and bruises were deeper and getting worse. So you did the math—if your records showed he was resisting more, he would be taken into worst scenarios.
He was being used back-to-back. No resting between missions, no wipeouts, no preps. Just healing him as much as you could and easing his pain.
So, in the last session, you risked it all. You finished your recording and analysis and started your routine. You had brought a vial from the infirmary—this was the strongest thing you knew of. And those injuries were in great need of care.
“Sergeant,” you mumbled, leaning closer. You took out the vial from the waistband of your sweatpants, which you were forced to use, “This is gonna hurt as hell. You gotta pay attention. Blink twice if you understand.”
He blinked twice slowly.
“Thank you.” You put the vial out and looked at him, “If this hurts, please make all the noise you need. Don’t silence it. Please. It’s gonna help as soon as the burning feeling fades away.”
You knew he hated vials and syringes; you had seen how he reacted when someone approached him with one of them. How violent he became as soon as they pinched his skin.
You injected it into his arm as fast as you could, and as soon as you noticed the liquid traveling and burning his veins, he let a groan out and tried to fight back the pain.
“They're putting you in more pain because my metrics showed that you're getting stronger and that you can handle more pain. So I need you to stop doing whatever it is you're doing so you don't show pain on the machine.”
“Ty. Ty—to, chto pomogayet mne.” "You. You are what helps me."
It was the first time he ever spoke back to you. It had been months of you talking, mumbling, ordering, explaining—and he had never spoken back to you. You were taken aback but really tried not to scare him.
“I wish I spoke Russian, sergeant. I’m not that intelligent.” You tried to joke, a twitching smile left your lips unconsciously, but you didn’t see any kind of reaction from him.
But before you could say something, he started to grunt again—the machine behind you was beeping loudly. You didn’t want to, but you smiled.
The man behind all that brainwashing was still fighting.
You stepped back and started recording the spike on his metrics.
That helped for the next missions—he was put in less dangerous missions—not because they cared about him, but because they needed to keep him in his best shape. But, despite him being less in danger, something in the air made you know something was coming. Everyone was being more reckless than you were used to.
After that last time, you refused to refer to him as Asset. You hated it. At least for you, and to keep some sort of humanity on him, mentally, you started to call him James. It was best for your heartache—even when you worked for them, you were not like them. They were not weapons for you, and you wanted to make that difference at least in your heart.
James was sent to more missions than you could keep track of—they didn’t even ask you to keep track of them anymore.
You were waiting for your monthly meeting with Karpov and Pierce when you noticed the door of his office was open. You leaned to eavesdrop.
“… That’s gonna be its last mission—He’s gonna eliminate Fury, then we’re putting it in cryo, and after that we’re gonna forget about it. We don’t need that liability after killing Fury.”
“He’s getting weaker—the last metrics had shown his pain resistance is less and less with each passing mission.”
Your blood ran cold through your veins. Sometimes you would forget they don’t see him—them as humans, they were just that… assets. No more.
You stood still again on your chair as you waited for any of them to come for you. You knew even if you were breaking inside, they couldn’t know you were helping their best asset, their best fits—they couldn’t know you saw him as a human being after all.
The meeting was as common as the hundreds you’d had over time, but for the first time, you noticed they seemed erratic—they were even anxious about something happening. But between the Insight Project and the many missions James had been through, you could understand they could be relentless.
You were in your lab, and there were no new projects to work on, which was not completely out of the routine. From time to time, they needed to test the multiple projects you had worked on, and they needed time before approving them or sending them back.
Rollins stepped in, “Asset needs a clear-up. It’s going on a mission.”
“What happened?”
“He’s erratic. Pierce needs a clear-out before continuing.”
He stood still on the threshold of the lab. You knew what it meant. They had never asked you to do a clear-up before a mission—this could only mean one thing. You were not prepared. This could be the last time you could ever see him, and it made a pain grow in your chest, and it also meant you were not going to be as alone as you were used to when you worked with him.
You walked through the cold hallways of the building, and you arrived at the chamber—he was restrained on his usual stretcher; for the first time, you saw him completely connected to the machine. He was about to be wiped out, and they wanted to be sure it was not going to have any repercussions.
He looked down—he had been so long without his brain being washed out that he started to develop a hint of humanity, but even there, he knew it would be a death sentence to try to engage with you in this situation—if you could even call engaging the russian answer he gave you some weeks ago, and the nods or shakes of his head.
You were in front of him with your device—typing on, checking spikes, heart rate changes, lab test results, everything you were hired to check up on him.
“I’m so sorry.” You mumbled, it was almost inaudible, and he twitched a finger in response. You leaned closer to review some wire connections behind the machine, and with that move, he was able to touch your leg with his finger. It was fast, barely a move, but it made you almost break down.
“Hang tight, Sergeant Barnes.” You mumbled before coming back into your initial position, “Inspection completed. Asset in perfect condition and ready to comply.”
“You can leave the chamber, doctor.” You nodded and gave him a last look.
His gaze was fixed to the front, but he gave you a fast flicker in his eyes that was almost like a silent farewell.
You were putting the papers away with his new records when the rest of the team of scientists and lab techs walked in. Pierce was in front of them.
You were hurried to leave when you heard the last part of the conversation.
“But I knew him…” He mumbled for the first time in English—and your heart clattered once again in your chest. That broken voice shattered your heart into pieces.
“Prep ‘em.”
It was the only thing you heard before you walked out. Then, the machine being turned on, and his growls of pain. You wanted to step in, to ask for mercy, but you knew these people didn’t have a single bone of humanity—you would be dead before you could even reach Pierce's peripheral vision.
That night, you couldn’t sleep—your chest ached, your mind couldn’t stop repeating his finger barely touching the fabric of your sweatpants. All the work done had gone down the drain—he was now gone. Even with your vision clouded, you knew that your kind gestures towards him were not stronger than the machine that washed up his mind.
Days later, the building was tense—it had been like that since James left for the mission. The last thing you knew was that Sitwell was down. James had killed him after betraying HYDRA.
Two days after, you were sitting in your lab pretending you worked on something—until you heard it. Rumlow was talking to his intercom while he walked into your lab.
“You need to seize the asset.” He informed you.
You jumped on your spot. You were internally celebrating he was still alive—hadn’t he accomplished his mission? You walked behind Rumlow and three other men.
He was there, but his mind was not there anymore. The man you had helped to reach out for his humanity again was not there anymore. It was now gone.
You walked in and stood in front of him.
You could see it, you were not crazy, you could see that resemblance of humanity you had been seeding on him for the last few months. It was there. You really wanted to believe it was there.
“Asset Number five, six, eight, nine, eight.” The voice recorder was in your hand, and you left it on the silver table next to the machine.
You noticed he was silent—he hadn’t been injured on the mission. Maybe a successful mission?
The machine analyzing his vitals kept going while you reviewed every movement he made. The machine gave you back some papers—everything normal—but his heart rate. His heart rate spiked from time to time.
“I need to run a few more tests,” You shouted to be heard on the other side of the wall.
“Go ahead, doctor.” A voice you didn’t care to recognize responded.
You ran the machine again—you wanted to prove something, maybe to you, maybe for you.
First test—you stood still on the side of the computer. Out of his main point of view. His heart rate lecture came back normal.
Second test—you started the machine and walked to stand in front of him. Your tablet on your arm to disguise as if you were reviewing his movements and saving up information.
The heart rate spiked as soon as he locked eyes with you.
He was there. Something was there, and this was the only confirmation you needed. You walked towards him and leaned on him to fix some wires that were plugged into some curved pads around his body. “Welcome back, Sergeant Barnes.” You mumbled. His finger twitched on your side, giving you a faint touch.
Walking back to the machine, you responded. “Asset’s inspection done.”
“You can now leave, doctor.” You nodded and gave him a light and fast look.
You were walking through the hallway when you heard Rumlow talking to Rollins.
“Now it’s supposed to find Rogers and Romanoff now—that’s why they are inspecting it.”
He did kill the said Fury. Why was he kept alive just to kill Steve Rogers and Natasha Romanoff?
This was probably the last time you would see him alive, and you didn’t even realize it.
Radio silence for at least two more days. People had stopped working—everyone was hanging around trying to find ways to escape since most of the leaders were nowhere to be seen. You had no faith. You knew someone new would eventually come and take back the leadership—and then, if you didn’t get killed by the new leaders, you would be asked to do horrid things again.
You had been awake for the last twenty-four hours. You didn’t know what was worse. To be awake waiting for something, or to sleep knowing you could never wake up. Then, you heard a commotion on the other side of the building. It was loud, and it seemed to be getting closer.
“Soldat.” You heard someone yelling. You stood up—had the other prisoner gone free and were on a killing spree?
You hid on a corner—curled up, waiting for something to happen, and then you saw him. James was there. Injured, face swollen, shattered gear suit, he seemed… tired for the first time you had seen him. He ripped open the grid and walked towards you.
You shut your eyes, trying not to look at him when he eventually killed you. You didn’t understand why, but you were sure the man you had been taking care of was not there anymore. But instead, you felt how he pulled you by your wrist.
“Begat'.” “Run.”
He pulled you until you were out of the cell. He gave you a mobkey for a car.
“North wing. No look back. I’ll find you.” He ordered you. You nodded and started running.
You didn’t know this place—where to find anything, what to do—nothing at all. But you knew you needed to escape as fast as you could.
There was not a single soul who was not running; everyone was trying to find their way out, and you did the same. When you were finally on the north wing, you saw the window he had probably broken to get in. You ran towards it and found a door that was almost in pieces.
A car was waiting for you. You didn’t understand why, but you trusted him enough to know the car couldn’t be a kind of tramp or being watched.
You turned the engine on and drove as fast as you could—the place was a disaster, glasses all over the place, somehow smoke and fire was sorrounding the building, screams and people running filled all your senses—but you never stopped until you finally left HYDRA’s land, literally the middle of nowhere was the only thing your eyes could catch—and on the other side of the road, you saw dozens of trucks with “SHIELD” logos on them.
You felt it close. You knew HYDRA had infiltrated SHIELD, and you weren’t there to find out if those trucks were friends or foes.
A sudden shake in the car made you lose control—your door opened, and James was looking down from the car roof. He tilted his head. You tried to move without leaving the car wheel unattended. Before you noticed it, he was already sitting and steadying the car.
“What did you do?!” You asked, looking back—the place was completely on fire.
“Rest.” He mumbled, gaze fixed on the road. “I’ll wake you up.”
“Sleep?” You sounded astonished.
“Yes. Long trip. Sleep.”
“You’re bleeding. I need to check your injuries.”
“Later.”
You sighed and curled up in your seat. The tiredness of twenty-four hours with no sleep was catching up to you, and you fell asleep immediately.
The adrenaline of the moment hadn’t washed over him—he still needed to take you out of the US before anyone found you had survived the fire. His mind was focused on only one thing—protecting you. You were the only person in seventy years who had shown him a glimpse of mercy, and he needed to give you back the life they had probably taken from you.
Hours later, finally, the hunger and pain woke you up. Your eyes adjusted to the bare light that came through a taped window, and you noticed you were in a safe house—more like a warehouse. James was nowhere to be seen, but you knew he wouldn’t have gone through all this mess just to toss you in whatever place he could have found.
You were trying to stand up, but your body had finally lost the battle. You lied down waiting for him.
Some minutes later, you heard him coming, his heavy boots echoing through the whole building.
“Take this.” He handed you some canned food. He stood there looking at you while you sat painfully on the mattress that you were lying on.
“James, can you sit down?” You looked up at him. He frowned at you. “Just sit, you don’t have to wait for any order. Just sit next to me.”
He knelt in front of you, his hands resting on his lap. His face was still swollen, and some cuts were covered with dried blood. You took some of the food and handed him the can.
“Take some too.” He didn’t move immediately. “Am I gonna have to be repeating myself very often, right?”
He grunted and took the can from your hand. You looked around and saw a black duffel bag. You crawled to it and found a kit aid there. You crawled back, dragging the duffel bag through the floor. He was still kneeling, eating slowly, looking at you, trying to decipher what you were doing. You took out some alcohol and rags to dampen them.
You knelt too in front of him, and you leaned over him, “Can I?”
He furrowed his eyebrows.
“I’m gonna clean you up. Can I do it?”
“Yes.”
“Thank you,” You started cleaning him up, working on his face with the rags; he didn’t even flinch at the burning feeling of the alcohol sanitizing his injuries. “Great.”
He left the empty can on the floor.
“What’s next now, James?”
“Why James?” He finally questioned you.
“That’s your name.” You knitted your brows in the middle, “James Buchanan Barnes. Sergeant in World War II.”
“Bucky.” He mumbled back.
“Huh?”
“A man that I saw in the last mission. He kept calling me Bucky.” He tried to remember the whole situation. His mind still tricked him into forgetting things after a while. “I think he knew me… He told me that exact name there.”
“Do you want me to call you like that?” He nodded. You said your name, and he nodded once again. “Bucky would be, then.”
A sepulcral silent filled the space.
“What’s next, Bucky?”
“Take you home.” He admitted.
“No!” You stood still, “Please don’t… My parents… they must be in danger, and they will be even more if I reach out to them…”
He didn’t answer.
“Let me go with you… I don’t care where you go. If you let me, I’ll follow you.”
“Why?” He hoarsed.
“You came back for me, didn’t you?” He nodded, “Well… you must trust me as much as I trust you. That means we should keep each other company. Now, what’s next?”
For the first time, you noticed he didn’t know what to say—his facial expression gave him away.
“What do you know about yourself?”
His eyes showed real fear.
“Not much.”
You remembered that Rumlow had mentioned Rogers—you were sure they meant Steve Rogers.
“The name Rogers rings a bell with you?”
“No.”
“I’m sure finding out about him would give us more information than we think. How much can we stay in the States?”
“We have to leave tomorrow.”
“Enough…” You pursed your lips, “Can you find some cover-ups for both of us?”
He nodded. You were getting tired of his three-word sentences and physical answers, but you also knew these were his first freely spoken words. He tilted his head to the duffel bag—there you found some clothing for males and females.
“How far are we from the Smithsonian?”
“ETA of twenty by car.” He answered immediately—like something was ignited in him.
“And do we have a car?” Another nod. “Let’s get ready, and we can leave this place as soon as we find some more answers.”
You stood up and took the clothes out of the bag. “Where can I get changed?” He tilted his head as if he didn’t understand the answer.
You sighed and closed your eyes. This was going to be the biggest learning curve you were about to face. “Stay here and change, I’m gonna find some spot to change too.”
You were walking with him by your side. He was wearing a black shirt, a flannel, and a denim jacket over it—you had almost the same outfit, he looked almost uncomfortable dressed as a civilian, but it was the only way to not take the spotlight with his metal arm.
“Bucky,” You mumbled, “I’m gonna take your hand, is that alright?” You looked up at him.
“Why?”
“PDA makes people uncomfortable.”
“PDA?”
“Public Display Affection.”
He furrowed, but offered his hand. He trusted you; he was sure you would survive even more than him in a more normal environment. You took his hand, and finally, that finger you had only felt through clothed skin was now tangled with yours. His very calloused hands felt warm—really warm at your touch. You closed your eyes before him just for a second. The warmth of his hand helped you to remind yourself you were now… almost safe. Or at least freed from HYDRA—and he was not being used as a human weapon anymore.
“Where are we going?” He looked down, and for the first time, you could see his blue eyes being enlightened by the sunlight. They were ocean blue. Deep. You could get lost in them even when they didn’t show too much.
“To find out who you are.”
You were now in front of the National Air and Space Museum. You pulled him by his hand and walked directly to Captain America’s exhibition.
You finally found what you needed—his exhibit. A photo of a younger him stared back at you, too. You looked at him, and he looked perplexed. You were mesmerized at the sight—he was full of life in that photo. Guessing by the years, he was at most twenty-seven. He still believed in a country that had never forgotten about him, that had declared him a hero even when he was outside, controlled by HYDRA. But looking at him, now, next to you. You realized you weren’t even sure if he had looked at himself in all these years—or if he could be able to even recognize himself after all.
“Is that me?” He looked at you.
“A younger you, but yes.”
“A fallen comrade. James Buchanan ‘Bucky’ Barnes.”
You could hear through the speakers: Barnes is the only Howling Commando to give his life in service of his country.
“Something here now rings a bell?” You asked again.
“Barely.”
“We would get to it eventually.” You looked closer at the exhibit.
“1917 - 1944”
“You’re ninety-seven years old.” You murmured.
“What year is it?”
“Two thousand fourteen.” You said, as if it hurt your throat. You hated to display all this information this fast to him. Yes, he had been put out of cryo all these years—but why would someone care to inform a weapon what year it was, or how long he had been frozen?
He sighed. “We are done.”
Walking away from that exhibit, you followed him, trying to match his pace, “Did you remember something?”
He swallowed, “No.”
He was not ready to admit that, since he snapped at the helicarrier, some blurred memories had come back into him—they felt too real to just avoid them, and standing up in front of what seemed his past. Even less, when you were there by his side—when you trusted him to be the person who would keep you alive and safe, when he had taken you out from HYDRA’s facilities. He didn’t have the chance to break down when you depended on him at this moment.
“Now what?” You hurried your steps.
“Leaving for Alaska.”
That was the last thing he told you until you arrived at the warehouse. You had to understand from time to time that he was getting accustomed to being free. To speak even if he was not spoken to or ordered to speak. You were looking through the window while Bucky drove back to the warehouse. When you arrived, the warehouse felt like a strange kind of home between you two.
“Sleep a bit. I’ll wake you up when we need to leave.” You furrowed.
“I don’t wanna sleep, I’m fine.”
“Sleep.” He hoarsed.
“Fine. I’ll sleep.”
You lay down and curled up on the mattress, and the tiredness of days and days fighting for your life finally caught up. During the night, Bucky didn’t sleep at all; his instincts kept him awake, checking that no one had found your traces or that you were sleeping well. He didn’t even sit to rest. And by the first ray of light, he took you in his arms and placed you in the seat. You didn’t even realize you had been moved until your ears were covered with a headset and you were buckled up in the copilot seat. Multiple questions came to your mind, but you knew who he was. He had been the biggest weapon HYDRA had had for decades—he knew all the resources, even the ones that weren’t easily reachable.
“Where are we going?” You mumbled, scratching your eyes carefully.
“Bucharest.” You bit your lip when he answered.
“How the hell are we gonna get there just in this thing?” You looked at him. “Not that I doubt your capacities…”
“We are going to Anchorage, Vladivostok, Moscow, Sochi, and then Bucharest.” He mumbled. “Train, car, sail…”
“Oh.”
Anchorage was the easiest part; a ship took you from there to Vladivostok. You stayed there for a week between safe houses, Bucky not trusting any place he had learned in his active years with HYDRA, and making you rest enough to be ready if you had to run away. He had prepared himself, and you really wanted to ask when he planned this… He even had a safe house there waiting for you in the middle—a place that wouldn’t set off any alarms as soon as you arrived. This was somehow better than the ones you saw in Canada and the States.
“Have to fix something before departure.” He said as soon as you sat in the bed you found.
“Oh… Can’t I… go with you?”
“Sleep. I’ll be back before you even wake up.”
“Bucky, I don’t need that much sleep. How much do you think they let me sleep back there?”
He stared blankly at you.
“Just come back, please.” He nodded and stepped away.
You weren’t even sure why you were following his lead, but you were both the only ones who had shown some humanity back in HYDRA, and maybe both of you were holding onto a string of fate built by traces of mercy, and maybe you could even help him to find answers he needed. At least, you knew who you were before all of this, but the only thing he had had was a name on a museum and some very old and grainy photos.
Hours later, he came back with a new duffel bag. You wanted to know where he was getting all his resources, but you also knew you were not going to have an honest answer even if you asked for it. He opened it in front of you, and some new clothes and a fake ID with your name on it appeared—passports, fake documents that could help you to get wherever he was taking you.
“Thank you, Bucky.” He slightly knitted his eyebrows in the middle. “Can I ask where you get all of this?”
He shook his head. “Best not.”
The train to Moscow was kind of relaxing. He had placed you in a window seat, and he chose one far from you. Security matters, he said. And when you arrived in Moscow, he picked you up thirty minutes away from the train station. It had been almost two weeks after he set you free from HYDRA, and now he was taking you God knew where just to make sure you were going to be safe.
“Another safe house?” You asked when you got into the car. He nodded. “Have you had any memory back?”
“No.” Dryly, he answered.
“When we get to Romania, I’ll find a way for you to communicate with your parents.” He answered without looking at you.
You had surrendered to the idea that they would believe you had died, but the fact was that no one knew you were at HYDRA’s facilities. They had taken care of it in such a way that made everyone believe you had just gotten tired of social media—and now you had been MIA for almost two or three weeks.
“Would it be a good idea?” He didn’t answer.
The house in Moscow was, in fact, a house. A small one, but it had a stove and a real bed.
“We will be here for some days until I find what I need. Two more stops and we will arrive at our destiny.”
“Why that many stops?”
“I needed to be sure no one had followed us.”
“Bucky, can I ask you for something?” He nodded, “Real food. I can even cook… I just… I’m tired of canned food.”
He furrowed. You realized you were asking for something he probably hadn’t even had. You looked over the window and saw a small store just a block away.
“Look. Do you see it? I can buy some food to cook for us.” He gripped your wrist.
“No.” His grip was strong, and you whimpered at the feeling.
“Bucky, you’re hurting me.” You cried out, and he snatched his hand from you as if your skin had burned him. “I don’t have to go on my own. We can go together, I just want real food.”
He moved carefully and found a statch of bills buried in his duffel bag.
And that’s how a play-pretend started. It didn’t last long, but you were happy to have a small, almost normal interaction with him. Something you both could feel like something warm and real.
You could even notice how he was walking more lightly. Like all the weight he carried on his shoulders was getting lighter by the day. Like he was starting to trust you and not just the person who had tried her best not to abuse him, as everyone he knew did.
But Moscow only lasted a week after taking a second train. This time, he sat just behind you and just made you walk for some minutes before meeting him to leave for yet another safe house.
‘Dobro pozhalovat' v Sichi' 'Welcome to Sochi.'
Sochi was small and beautiful. It made you kind of homesick, but it was only a connection to the Black Sea. You needed to ship to Romania, and he was there just to find a connection to take you there as fast as possible. He didn’t even take you to a safe house. The truck he had there was big enough for you to sleep in the back for a night before leaving for the Greater Sochi Area. A costline where he met a man who was bribed to take you directly to Bucharest.
And after what seemed an eternity. You arrived at Bucharest.
The day you arrived at Bucharest, you learned the place you were heading to was Rahova, a small neighborhood located in the southwest part of the city. The man Bucky had hired explained everything to him in Romanian, but you caught some of his words when broken English slipped through their conversation.
When you arrived at a very old and neglected building that could have been a very beautiful hotel back in time. Bucky walked through the reception area and went upstairs. You followed him silently. You knew he was getting tired; you could see it in his eyes. You had seen him months prior, and you could see the exhaustion in his eyes, finally catching him up.
He carried two duffel bags and a backpack that he had never taken off him. When you finally arrived at a very dusty and old room, he tossed the bags on his side and sighed.
“Are we finally done escaping?” You looked up at him while you locked the door. He finally nodded.
You couldn’t believe it—and the first thing you did was to hug him. Your arms enclosing his neck, tears dampening your cheeks, sobbing uncontrollably. His arms were on his side, confused, giving him away on the fact that he didn’t know how to react.
“I owe you my life, and I’ll spend the rest of it helping you to find who you are. We are going to recover every piece of it, and you will learn who you are.” You were sobbing, and out of instinct, he enclosed your body with a strong grip.
And for the next months, that’s what you did, you kept your word and found everything you could to make him feel like he was someone. He now owned the name “Bucky”. He learned that he was friends with Steve Rogers back in time. Not just a friendly camaraderie, but a strong connection they shared since the last of their days as they knew them. You helped him to learn more about his family. He had three siblings; he was the oldest of them, and he had lost his father when he was young. You explained to him what you learned about his story and how he had been enhanced.
He learned things about himself day by day. He loved plums, and loved music from the forties—he loved to see you dancing through the small room, and loved the way you gave him space when you were falling asleep, just to end up curling up and cuddling him up when you were past asleep. He loved the perfume you had chosen for him, and the clothes you helped him to wear once he felt more comfortable being seen in public.
He learned he loved the way you greeted every person you stumbled upon in the hallways or on the street. The way you made him become part of society and make him realize he was now a citizen, and he would do his best to make you feel proud, even when you told him day by day how proud you were of how far he had gone after everything he went through.
He became someone people trusted, and with the abilities he had learned through the years, he became the man the neighbors would look to when they needed a helping hand. He came in handy when something needed to be fixed, and he loved to think his hands were now used for something kind.
The truth untold was that he fought every day. He fought never to bring the Soldier back. Every time he saw you talking with a neighbor your age, or an older man gave you a small gift to help you two, he fought something darker, something that felt stronger than him from time to time. He felt that way every time he thought he could lose you, every time you felt sad, and someone was rude to you. But he understood that doing so would do nothing but hurt you.
Life was getting easier by his side, and you appreciated every waking moment with him.
He started sleeping while he cuddled you. His arms tugged you into his chest like he knew you were going to disappear if he didn’t hold you tight enough. Because life had shown him the worst side of everything, and he wanted to make sure he was going to keep it at all costs.
Money was not tight. He had a good amount of money—you never asked where it came from, but you knew it would eventually run out, so he started making some side gigs while you helped take care of the children in the community. And starting from scratch in a completely new continent where you barely understood half a word they were saying, and Bucky tried, he really tried teaching you the essentials, to make it easy for you to deal with it.
One day, you were cooking when a knock on the door took you out of the act.
“Could you help me?” His voice came strangled. You ran to the door, and when he opened it, he had some appliances that almost covered his whole body piled up on his arms.
“What’s that, Bucky?” You chuckled, trying to take the blender from the top. He shook his head and walked in, putting it on the floor.
“I was working on Mrs. Marinescu’s kitchen when the couple next door came. They told me they were leaving and they saw us checking on the appliances on the talcioc.” A very thick accent could be heard. He was a native English speaker, but after so many years mixing Russian with Romanian and English, he tended to feel more comfortable speaking Russian or Romanian—and his English came broken from time to time.
“Oh my god!” You got excited and hung onto his neck, hugging him, your legs were hanging, and you were giggling, “This is so great, Bucky! Now we can use the money we’ve been saving to paint the room!”
He scoffed a laugh, and it filled up your ears in a soft way. He put you down, and you tiptoed to cup his face.
“Bucky…” He looked down, confused. “Can I do something, and you promise you’re gonna trust me?”
He nodded. You pulled him closer, your thumbs circled his rough cheeks. Your lips found each other halfway. He was petrified, like he didn’t know what to do, and clumsily moved—your hands fell to his ribs, and his hands clutched on his sides, you didn’t notice, but he had closed his eyes, finally letting himself feel completely safe. He grunted in response when you stepped back slightly.
“That was fine?” You mumbled, pulling away and giving him some space.
“Fine. It was fine.” Smiling, you were about to pull away, but he gripped your wrist. “Can you do it again?”
You smiled, and now he was the one holding your waist, but he stood still. You tiptoed once again and kissed his lips softly. You felt the way his fingers dug slightly into your soft skin, and the proximity made you feel his chest heaving rapidly. Your hands rested on his ribs; his skin felt hard through his clothes, but it was comforting to have him so close for the first time.
The last few months, he had gone from not being able to even say more than a two-word sentence to even being able to hold your hand in the street when he needed some reassurance. But old habits die hard, and he never let you go on your own to any place. He was always by your side. He was the only one going outside to earn money, and that’s how you ended up taking care of your neighbor’s children. He felt safer knowing you were there at what you both called home.
And now he felt so comfortable and safe to kiss you—to show you his most sensitive and private side. His movements were clumsy and slow; he just let you make the moves, playing with his lips, making him lose himself in the touch. You didn’t even think he was going to react, but he was there, physically asking for more. When you pulled back, he looked at you. There was no comeback. You were now his sole purpose to be alive. You had been that for months now, but the way your lips had enchanted him.
“Thank you,” He answered, still looking down at you.
“Don’t thank me for this… Just… Do it every time you need it or want it…” You stroked his hair carefully.
“Are you sure?” You smiled and nodded.
He leaned over you, and once again, his lips found yours. He was sure he had found nirvana in the way you kissed him. The way you took care of him in ways he didn’t know he could be helpless—the way you showed him the human side he thought he had lost and was never going to see ever again.
Time flew, and your connection grew stronger. With that, the way he treated you got even more protective. He didn’t trust anyone. Every time you tried to leave the apartment just to breathe, he was there, giving you enough space to not be all over you, but to keep an eye on you. He was just not willing to lose the only thing that kept him sane among all the things that kept him awake at night.
But he also had kept his word through the months; he let you talk to your family every once in a while. Always on burner phones, never more than a couple of minutes, and after that first kiss. One night, after a difficult call full of cries, he even held you tight for the first time while you cried for hours. You were sitting next to him, and his hands covered your whole. You missed them with your whole life, but you knew that going back to the United States or even keeping more frequent communication could mean a death sentence for you.
“I’m so sorry…” He mumbled, stroking your hair while you tried to ease yourself. “I’m gonna find a way. You’ll see them. I promise.”
“No!” You placed your hands on his chest, “No, if it means risking everything we had fought for.”
“But you want to see them.”
“And I also want us both to be happy. You’re barely getting to know yourself now. You get along well with the neighbors. We have this small place we now call home… We have each other… and as much as I miss my family, I’m not gonna risk everything we’ve built.”
“But you love them…”
That sole sentence broke your heart. You had shown him that even after all the dark you both had endured, you still had so much love to spread, and you were willing to teach him how to love and trust again.
“And I love you…” You confessed, looking at him. “And you are the only reason we are here now. That means more than anything else.”
“You… love me.” He repeated, trying to wrap his mind around your words.
“Yes, Bucky. I love you.”
“Why?” He was genuinely curious.
“Love doesn’t really have an explanation, you know?”
You could notice the way his mind raced through all the ways he should answer, and you cupped his cheeks again.
“I’m not asking you to answer anything; I just stated a fact. I love you, you can love me or not, tell me or not, that’s yours to find out.”
“Can I kiss you?” He asked, trying to find an answer in your eyes.
“I’ve already told you that you don’t have to ask.” You scoffed a laugh and leaned to kiss him.
“You always ask.” He said between kisses.
“You deserve it.”
His hands found your waist as you kept your hands on his chest—heavy breathing was all you could hear while the air grew thicker in the room. Since the first kiss, he had grown more confident in the way he touched you. Never touching bare skin, never going further than your waist, always being careful not to bruise or grip harder than he should.
And you were careful, too. You never initiated a kiss without asking first, even when he had stated he didn’t care if you did it.
His breathing was becoming erratic, as his hands found softer spots in your waist, he cradled you in his arms, trying to pull you closer without being too eager in his moves. Your hands found his neck, your fingers tracing paths around the scars that time didn’t heal properly. Teeth clicking, mouths going on and off, trying to catch some air between the messy kiss going on. When you finally came back to your senses, you stopped yourself before you took things further.
“Bucky… I think… We should stop.” You said with a hitched breathing.
He tried to mumble something, “Did I do something wrong?”
“No! You would never… I just… I think it’s not the right thing to do.”
“I thought you wanted to…” You shook tenderly. “It’s fine. We can…”
“Bucky, stop—We can wait as much as we both need.” You stroked his cheek, and he closed his eyes, losing himself in the feeling.
“What’s that?” Scarlotti spoke as he took out some dusty folders. Decker looked down at the open folder.
“These are old records from the facility that James Barnes intervened in.”
They were checking the papers, trying to find something of relevance. The exploration was nothing but a last chance to try to bring HYDRA back in one way or another. While they looked through the papers, a photo caught Scarlotti’s attention.
“Who’s that?” He read your name out loud.
“Oh, a scientist who worked for Pierce in that facility. One of the good ones. Went to waste, the government didn’t even know she was there. Karpov did a great job and made her contact her family to not raise suspicion.”
Scarlotti talked through his intercom. Orlov in the operative offices answered immediately. “Orlov here.”
“I’m gonna send you a photo. Give me all you have ‘bout her.”
He snapped the photo and sent it. Some seconds later, Orlov started reading information from his computer.
“She was one of the good ones. She took care of the Asset number five, six, eight, nine, eight. She was at the facilities when it went down…”
“Yes, yes. I know that. What else?”
“She was not officially there, but she was declared Missing in Action by our intelligence.”
“Not Killed In Action?” Orlov chimed in.
“No. Missing In Action.” He repeated, annoyed. “Her body was never found.”
“And you said she was the one who took care of Barnes?” Orlov hummed. Decker started to connect the ideas.
“I think we might have found something.” Dereck smiled mischievously.
It was not even a different day. At least, Bucky didn’t feel it in his bones. He was finally losing tension, letting you be on your own for more than an hour. Not taking you wherever he was going if he knew he could take more than an hour. You were at home, cooking dinner, a recipe Mrs. Marinescu had shared with you during your last visit. He knew you were safe there. He had researched the whole neighborhood just to be sure no one had found you two at any of your stops. He made sure you were safe. And even then, SHIELD’s intelligence, infiltrated by HYDRA, had found you as soon as they spotted your name in their files.
They concluded that Bucky had come back for you, and with weeks of research, they found a trace that led them to your last spot before Bucharest. And with some HYDRA treatment, they found your now-called home. They kept an eye on you for some more weeks. They studied when Bucky let you on your own, how many times a day you were alone, and for how long. They knew it was going to be difficult to take you from Bucky’s arms, but you were the only way to be able to put hands on him once again.
It was out of nowhere. Someone knocked on your door, and thinking it was one of your neighbors, you opened without even looking through the peephole. Something Bucky had scolded you plenty of times.
“I’m sure that’s how you ended up in HYDRA.” He joked once. He didn’t mean it. But you laughed fully on your belly when you heard him, and he furrowed.
You fought. You did everything you could to not be taken by them. You knew who they were; you didn’t even have to know their faces to know why they were there. But one of them pinched you with a strong sedating.
Before you could even scream for help, you dozed off.
“Target secured.” One of them spoke through his intercom. “Heading to the base.”
Bucky came back one hour later than he thought. One neighbor had asked him to rearrange some furniture, and that earned him some freshly baked sweets. When he saw the door torn down, he didn’t even have to come in. His world was crumbling down as he saw the mess inside the small room. The stove was almost catching fire, and he saw a used vial on the floor. His jaw kept ticking as he assessed the disaster.
He didn’t even think twice. He knew who had done this. And he was not willing to leave you more than necessary in their clutches, but he needed to be careful. They wanted the Winter Soldier back. Oh, and if he was willing to bring him back only to bring you back home safe and sound.
First, he prepared everything. He placed all his neighbors in different places. Even if it cost him all the money he had saved to buy a house for you two. He was not going to put anyone else in danger. It was just two families left at that building—that’s why he had chosen it. It worked; the fewer people involved, the fewer would get hurt if something happened. The rest of the neighborhood could act as if they had never met them, and they would be fine.
In the meantime, you had been chained up in a cell. When you finally woke up, a man in a suit stood in front of you. He said your name with a thick russian accent.
“Doctor, it’s so good to meet you. I’m so sorry for the harsh start. My intention was never to hurt you. I hope you understand that you’re a means to an end. And, of course, our goal is not a scientist who fell in love with a monster.” He chuckled. “So intelligent to end up emotionally imprisoned to a monster of the Winter Soldier’s caliber.”
You were looking around. You knew well this was not the cell you had been kept in years prior. This was somewhere else.
“We expect your pet—My apologies—Your loving partner to arrive more or less in a week or two. If he hasn’t lost his sparkle, he will eventually find us. Unless you’re not that important for him to come back.” He gripped your chin. His eyes were fixed on yours. But, looking at you. It’s hard to believe he’s not coming back.”
You didn’t even respond. You remembered the conversation you had with Bucky.
“You need to pay attention,” Bucky sat you down the first time he got nervous to the point of almost making you two leave the city. It had been just a week after the first kiss. “I don’t want to leave this place either. But if we want to stay, you need to understand something. They are actively or passively searching for me. Therefore, they could find me.”
“Bucky… they won’t. We are too far from there.”
“Yes, they will. And you’re now the most important part of my life.” He sighed and kissed your knuckles, “Therefore, they’ll come for you. So you need to pay attention to my instructions.”
He was dead serious, and that took you by surprise. Anxiety crawled up through your body. He noticed and cupped your chin carefully.
“I’m gonna explain what you've got to do. They will want to tear you down. They are not gonna hurt you. They need you by their side. They need me, but they need that big brain of yours.”
“And what if they hurt me?” He sighed.
“Then, I’m gonna have to kill them all.” He sighed and tilted his head, “But they won’t. You’re the only way they've got to find me… and you better be damn sure I’ll find you and bring you back to our home.”
“And what am I gonna do in the meantime?” Your voice came strangled.
“Nothing. Keep your mouth shut. Don’t tease them. They will try to pick fights with you, they will try to find the rage in you to give them an excuse and hurt you.” He stroked your hair. “Don’t give them a reason to hurt you, and don’t make me kill them for that.”
“How are you so sure that they will come for me?”
“Because I don’t have anything else that I care more about than you.” He leaned and kissed you.
You did as you were told. You never even acknowledge him.
“How rude of me? I never introduced myself. My name’s Daniel Whitehall. This fuckers know me like Kraken. An idiotic name they gave me. I’m not that different from the soldat.”
“Maybe the Asset never told you about me. He was busy killing people and slandering men to even know who gave him orders.” You swallowed. You had forgotten how much it hurt you to hear he was referred to as an asset.
He smiled as soon as he saw the way your throat bobbed with the swallowing movement.
He left the cell, and you hugged your legs when everyone left you alone there. You knew he was coming. You knew he would never leave you there, but if you had taken months to arrive from New York to Bucharest, how long would it take him to come back and find you?
But he found his way back to his armory. It was an old facility HYDRA had abandoned so many years ago. But he knew how to find it. Crossing the borders without you and with a goal in mind was even easier. In less than a week, he was back in the United States. He let himself be seen in places HYDRA had based decades ago. That would give you some faith for his arrival.
That week was a hell—even when they kept you fed and didn’t even raise a finger at you. But knowing they could snap at you at any moment was the actual hell in life. Whitehall never came back; usually, other people came to see you. Never the same men, but they brought you food, water, or took you to a shower regularly.
Almost a week later, Whitehall finally made an appearance.
“Look… I thought the soldat was rusty now. But it seems that you ignite something in him.”
He placed a device in front of you, and the screen showed a grainy surveillance snapshot of him. Black gear suit, long hair covering his sides. He was driving a black armored truck that you had never seen before. Even here, you drove a truck that could blend with the rest. But this one? This one was exactly what he would never use if he really wanted to not be seen. He was giving you a message. He was coming, and we were nearer than they thought, and you just had to wait for him.
You didn’t even flinch. You didn’t let yourself react; you couldn’t give yourself away that easily. But if you knew the monster they had created. This was not going to be cute.
You never really saw him in action, but you had heard the gossip, the ghost stories that revolved around him, you knew he was bloodthirsty, and he had no mercy—stories said he had killed John F. Kennedy back in time—you never really asked. Everything he had done as the Winter Soldier was way past you. You didn’t care; that was not him under your eyes. And the man you were about to see was not the man you loved. It was the man they wanted to see.
Your ankles were already bruised by the chain that restrained you since you had arrived, you could see how your skin was turning pale by the passing days, and you had even forgotten how Bucky smelled, that aroma he left in your skin every time he hugged you. That aroma he left that day before leaving to buy groceries.
It was a mixture of soap and a bergamot and clove scent that Ms. Marinescu had given to you as a gift for him when she was told you were starting from scratch.
“You two seem too protective of each other.” She smiled as she handed you a cup of tea.
“Yeah. We’ve been through a lot together. We kind of only have each other in the world.”
“Well, that’s how it’s supposed to be. Eugen and I saw the worst of Romania when we were young, and we started from scratch, too.” She smiled, and you responded with a hurt smile. “Just tell me something.”
“Whatever.” You looked up at her.
“You’re not just a pair of civilians, right?” You smiled, pursing your lips.
“I can see it from miles away. My Eugen was a soldier too. He also escaped to be with me.”
You sighed, “It’s a little bit more difficult than that.”
“Well, he seems too fond of you… If I come correct, he’s loyal to you. You seem to be everything he has.”
“And he’s everything I have.” You admitted, more to yourself than her.
“Keep it like that, and you’ll have the world on your feet sooner than later.”
Where was that promised world now? Where was the happy ending you were promised? Now you were here, sitting, chained, waiting for a man you didn’t even know, it would be the same man you had loved the last few months. He was angry, maybe mad crazy, they had done exactly what he said they would do, and he was doing exactly what he told you—he promised you he would do if that were the case.
Infiltrating the base was not difficult. The snipers were expecting a loud entrance. A Winter Soldier-type entrance. Loud, angry. But he knew better. And he was not willing to risk any chance of retrieving you and tore down every trace of you in paper and systems.
They were killed even before they could turn around—the suppressors did the job, and he had gathered enough armory to kill a hundred men, and he was still saving his best gun for the man who had ordered your kidnapping.
Daniel Whitehall was so full of himself that he never thought Bucky would find everything he needed to achieve his goal. He saw The Winter Soldier as just a weapon—but he had been trained to be more than that. He was well-trained in espionage, and many intelligence agencies had been compromised by him since the sixties, but Whitehall failed to learn more about him.
He started from the lowest in the chain—poor souls that thought they were untouchable. Men who believed that he was just a ghost story. He killed each one of them—then he compromised the security to come into the building. There, elite guards didn’t even wait for him. He was really trying to be as stealthy as possible, but he knew that trespassing into the building would set some alarms off and would inform Whitehall he was there.
He walked to the offices. He knew these people were not even informed that you were there. They probably didn’t even know your name—but at this point, everyone was a liability under his eyes. And being as merciful as he could be—he killed them before they even knew he was there. He was not there to save anyone but you.
A killing spree had begun, and it was nowhere to be done.
And like an old memory coming back to your mind. You heard it again, but this time, a hundred times worse. Men screaming muffled by a suppressed gun, there were no pleadings like the last time. He never even gave them a chance. He didn’t care about saving lives. He wanted every living soul in that place dead before they could even touch you.
A muffled whimper was heard through the hallway that led to your cell—a guard guided him to your cell. It was the last living soul on that floor before Whitehall’s chambers.
When the guard finally opened your cell, Bucky aimed at him, and without a hint of hesitation, he shot him in his temple.
“Out.” One-word sentences once again. He took the vest from the last guard and handed it to you. “By my side.”
You nodded, and he walked directly to the stairs—you were one step behind; he was always vigilant of his surroundings. Finally, he reached out to the last floor. He didn’t even hesitate, didn’t even bat an eye at you as he was killing those men. One by one. Not even thinking it twice. When there was not even a single soul there, he took you by the wrist and made you walk to the main doors.
He kicked the door open, and a bullet flew by your side. He then pushed you to the wall, and before you could even stumble against the door, he aimed and shot at Whitehall’s hand. A howl left his throat.
He took you again by the wrist and made you walk towards him. It was not any kind of torture towards you, even when you felt it was.
He walked towards the man, and before him, he sketched a wicked smile. Bucky—or maybe the Winter Soldier—shot him mercilessly. He then made you walk fast—assessing every floor again, making sure no one had stayed alive.
He walked to find a truck and took you out of the place.
You were in shock, everything seemed like a feverish dream—you were sure they had drugged you, and you were now delirious. In the middle of the desert, the same truck you saw in the CCTV days before was waiting for you. He took you by your wrist, and he sat you in the trunk. “Stay put and don’t even say a word.”
You nodded, the truck seemed to fly—you were lying down in the trunk, the vest hurt, but you knew that if he didn’t ask you to take it off, he would have done it on his own. There were some armory boxes there; you were curling up next to them to make yourself smaller. You knew you were safe with him, but you were afraid of what his next step was.
Some hours later, he finally stopped, opened the door, and over one shoulder he placed you, the other hand held the boxes that sat next to you during the drive.
He tossed you in a second car and drove all the way to a new place.
“We’re not leaving this country until I’m sure all HYDRA is down. I’ve done my research, you’ll be staying with the only people I trust enough until I finish what I just started.” He talked from his seat, you were still in the trunk—still confused about what was going on.
“I thought you didn’t trust anyone.”
“I didn’t.” He admitted. “But I need to keep you safe as I finish this. You’re not coming with me, and I’m certainly not leaving you alone anymore.”
Two hours later, he parked in front of a Tower you had seen plenty of times but never really batted an eye at it.
The Stark’s Tower.
“I’m so sorry.” He said before injecting something in your skin, you were already dozing off when you heard him mumbling. “I love you.”
He set off some alarms by shooting as he left the place.
Natasha Romanoff was the one who found you. You were drugged and sitting at the main entrance of the building. A quick face recognition threw at her and Tony your information. Off the radar for years. There was a folder under you. A Folder with words in Russian.
It was all she needed to know what was going on.
“Call Rogers,” Natasha ordered.
“Cap? Why?” Tony cocked an eyebrow, and Natasha closed the folder.
“She was the doctor in charge of The Winter Soldier Project.”
When you woke up, you were hooked to machines that read your vitals. Two guards with “S.W.O.R.D” vests stood in the doorway, and next to you—Steve Rogers himself, crossed arms, eyes fixed on a book. It was the most logical thing you could think of. No, Bucky didn’t trust anyone, but seeing Steve there, you knew he most likely had remembered him back in the Smithsonian.
“Nice to meet you, Captain.” You husked. He looked at his side and smiled.
He said your name and smiled. “Nice to meet you, doctor.”
“Where am I?”
“Right now? At the Metro-General. But you’re currently a guest at Stark’s.”
“At Stark’s? How?” You furrowed.
“Someone took you here, and you were heavily drugged and dehydrated when you arrived. We needed to take care of you.”
“Where’s that someone?”
“I was hoping you knew.” He tilted his head.
“He told me he was going to finish what he had started.”
“He killed everyone in a HYDRA base. Care to tell me why?”
“They took me, and he rescued me from there. The last thing I know it’s he hugged me, and then everything went blank.”
“He drugged you, most likely for you not to chase him.”
“Fair.” You mumbled.
“Rest. We will talk later. You need to rest, and we need to find him.”
Nights were rough after that. Steve asked you to stay fully at the Tower. Bucky seemed to be on a killing spree towards all the HYDRA’s facilities he might have known. And even when he had just done it, by the time the Avengers arrived at the place, he was not there anymore.
You kept walking like a wandering soul. You needed to know that Bucky was going to snap out of the trance he had gotten into. He had been silent for weeks, and you were going crazy. There were only two options in your head—he was either lost in the trance or he had been killed. There was no other single reason you could think of for him not coming back. Tony started to grow worried about you. At first, he thought Bucky would come back some days after his last attack, but when he did not. He called Steve. What were the next steps after this? If you had been targeted twice by HYDRA, you needed some kind of protection, and Bucky being out as the Winter Soldier was not something everyone could be sure of how it was going to end.
You were already falling asleep when you heard it. A thud sound on your floor next to your window.
A black figure stood still there.
“Did you compromise Tony’s surveillance?” You mumbled, still half asleep.
“I killed thousands of men, I compromised at least a dozen of intelligences, I almost tore down an emporium just for you.” He stood hidden in the shadows.
“Why didn’t you come as soon as you finished?”
“I needed to cool down. I was becoming someone I didn’t want you to see.”
“You drugged me, Bucky.”
“You weren’t going to stay here if I had asked you, were you?”
You sighed.
“You did great there. You were so intelligent.” He walked towards you.
“And what’s next?” You asked while sitting on your bed.
“Your extraction.” He offered his hand.
“Can I at least tell Steve we are leaving?” You stood up, “He doesn’t deserve to stay worried.”
“I’ll take care of it.” He sighed as soon as he saw your worried face, he took something out of his pocket and placed it on your bed. “This will tell him all he needs to know.”
You finally closed the distance between you two, and his hands found your wrist. Your chest could explode as soon as he touched you. His lips found yours, and your hands grasped his neck.
“Bucky,” you mumbled between kisses. He hummed in response. “I love you, too.”
He scoffed and shook. “My countdown skills are getting rusty.”
“No, you just were too hurried to say it before you left.” You giggled. “Now let’s leave before Jarvis notices someone else’s here.”
It didn’t take Steve by surprise that you weren’t there for breakfast. Tony had informed him before that you were hidden most of the time in your bed, but when you didn’t appear for your daily check-up, that was what worried him. When he knocked on your door, no one answered. He opened the door, afraid of what he could find.
You were nowhere to be found, and in your bed, Bucky’s dog tags that were displayed at the Smithsonian. He knew if he made one call or two, he would know they were missing from the exhibit.
At the end, he knew this was not a comeback. He knew the Towe and the Avengers were just a safe place for you until he found something safe for you two and until he eradicated most of the only danger you two had faced throughout your lives.
Your palms flatten against his chest. The tactical vest is rough under your fingers, warmed by his body heat. You're not sure if you're pushing him away or pulling him closer. Neither is he. That's the thing about this—neither of you knows what it is, or what it means.
That uncertainty terrifies you more than the Madame ever did.
Pairings: Red Room!Winter Soldier x Black Widow!Reader
Warnings: Minors DNI; Explicit Sexual Content (penetrative, no protection used!) Dubcon/Noncon (can be read either way, but it's slightly more dubcon-y than noncon-y), Power Imbalance, Canon-Typical Violence, Psychological Conditioning, Brainwashing, Memory Loss, (basically) Porn With Plot
Additional Tags: No Y/N, Pre-Civil War & Post-Civil War AU, Dark Romance-ish, Angst with Happy Ending(?), Kind Of A Cliffhanger Ending TBH, Tragic(?) Romance
Author's Note: missed my winter soldier and i needed to write something cathartic. tbh this one might get a sequel in the future. it's just such a rich set-up,,, you'll see what i mean. i'll be posting this to ao3 later when i feel up to writing a summary for it lmao
All Fics Tag List: @herejustforbuckybarnes
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His Best Work (4.7k)
Three hours.
You've been on the mat for three hours and your body stopped sending pain signals forty minutes ago. That's not a good sign. You know this the way you know everything now—clinically, distantly, filed under information that may be relevant to survival.
The Asset circles you.
He moves like something that learned human motion from a textbook, and then improved on it. There's no wasted energy. No tells. You've been watching him for six months and you still can't read his patterns, still can't find the seams in his technique that would let you slip through.
That's the point. That's why Madame assigned him to you, specifically.
His best work, she called you once. You don't know if she meant it as a compliment or not.
Blood drips from your split lip onto the mat. You don't wipe it. Wiping it would be a tell—would signal that you're aware of the injury, that it's affecting you. The Asset would see it. The instructors on the observation deck would note it. Neither outcome serves you.
"Again," he orders.
His voice is flat. Not cruel, but certainly not kind. Just... operational. Like the word is a function being executed rather than a command being given.
You reset your stance. Your left foot forward, weight distributed, hands up and waiting. Your left shoulder is screaming—you landed on it wrong twenty minutes ago and something shifted that shouldn't have—but you keep your guard even.
He comes at you without warning.
The first strike you block. The second. The third clips your ribs and you feel something crack, a small wet sound inside your chest that you file away for later. The fourth you redirect, using his momentum to spin out of range, buying yourself half a second of breathing room.
He doesn't let you have it.
His metal hand catches your wrist and twists, and suddenly you're airborne, the ceiling spinning past, and then the mat slams into your back hard enough to empty your lungs.
You don't stay down. Staying down is death. Staying down is for the other girls, the ones who washed out, the ones who went to the infirmary and never came back. You roll, get your feet under you, come up swinging.
He blocks it. Of course he does.
"Sloppy," he says bluntly. "You're favouring your left side."
You don't answer. Answering would be an admission. Instead you adjust your stance, redistribute your weight to compensate for the shoulder, and wait for him to come again.
He does.
The next exchange lasts eleven seconds. You count them in your head—one of the few things that's still yours, the counting, the quiet catalog of data that runs underneath everything else. Eleven seconds of blocking and redirecting and trying to find an opening that doesn't exist.
He puts you on the mat again. This time your vision whites out for three seconds when you hit.
"Get up."
And you get up.
The observation deck is dark, but you can feel them all watching. Two instructors, maybe three. They're evaluating. They're always evaluating. Every session with the Asset is a test, and the passing grade is your survival.
You've been passing for six months. Some nights you're not sure if that makes you lucky, or cursed.
The Asset resets to neutral. Feet shoulder-width apart, hands loose at his sides, face utterly blank. The arm gleams under the fluorescent lights—the only part of him that looks like what he actually is.
"Your breathing is irregular. Control it."
You control it. Four counts in, four counts out. The cracked rib protests but you don't let it show on your face.
He watches you. Those eyes—pale, empty, like someone scooped out whatever used to live behind them and left only the machinery—track across your stance, your hands, your center of gravity. Reading you the way you can't read him.
"Better."
It's not praise. Praise doesn't exist here. It's an assessment. A data point. You've moved from inadequate to acceptable and that's all the acknowledgment of it you're going to get.
He comes at you again.
This time you last fourteen seconds before you hit the mat.
Which is progress.
The session ends at precisely 04:15, on the dot.
You're still standing. Barely. Your left shoulder is definitely dislocated now, and the cracked rib has company—two more, maybe three, you'll know for certain when the adrenaline wears off and the pain comes back online. Blood is drying on your chin, your lip swelling where it had split, after he'd punched you square in the face.
At least he hadn't broken your nose. That was something.
The Asset stands three feet away, watching you. He's not even breathing hard. "Report to medical," he orders. "You have four hours before the next session."
You nod. Speaking would require energy you don't have.
He turns to go. The instructors are already filing out of the observation deck, their clipboards full of notes you'll never see. Another session logged. Another night survived.
You should move. You should get to medical, get the shoulder reset, get taped up before the next round. That's the protocol. That's what a good Widow does.
But the Asset pauses at the door.
He doesn't turn around. Doesn't look at you. Just... stops. For three seconds—you count them—he stands there, metal hand on the frame, and something in the line of his shoulders shifts. Not much. Anyone else would miss it.
You don't miss it.
Then he's gone, and you're alone on the training floor with your blood on the mat and four hours until you have to do this again.
You start walking toward medical.
The hallway is empty—always empty at this hour, the other Widows in their bunks, the instructors gone to wherever instructors go when they're not watching you bleed. You're halfway to the infirmary when you hear the footsteps behind you.
You don't turn around. You don't have to, because you know exactly who it is who's following.
His hand closes around your arm—the good one, not the dislocated shoulder, which is a small mercy—and he pulls you sideways into the nearby equipment room. The door clicks shut, and the lock snicks into place.
There's no cameras in here. You know this because he'd made you map the blind spots in the facility your second week here, filing them away under potentially useful. You never thought about why until he first shoved you against the wall in one of them and you understood exactly what kind of useful he meant.
It's strange. He doesn't do this with the other Widows. Just you. Just you and him in locked rooms and abandoned corridors, as if you'd both made some unspoken agreement about the things that happen in the dark.
The Asset doesn't say anything. He never does, not during this. His hands are already on you—metal fingers curling around your hip, flesh hand fisting in your hair, tilting your head back until you're looking at the ceiling instead of him.
He smells like gun oil and sweat and something colder underneath, something that isn't quite human.
You should fight. You're trained to fight. Every instinct Madame drilled into you says resist, redirect, escape.
But you don't move.
One breath. Two. Your body makes the decision before your mind catches up, because his mouth is on your throat. Not gently—nothing about him is gentle—but not entirely brutal either. His teeth scrape over your pulse point, then his tongue drags salt and copper from your skin, following the line of dried blood from your split lip down to your jaw. He's tasting you. Cataloging you the same way he catalogs your weaknesses on the training floor.
Your palms flatten against his chest. The tactical vest is rough under your fingers, warmed by his body heat. You're not sure if you're pushing him away or pulling him closer. Neither is he. That's the thing about this—neither of you knows what it is, or what it means.
That uncertainty terrifies you more than the Madame ever did.
He spins you around. Your cheek hits the cold concrete wall and you hiss at the pressure on your split lip, but his hand is already between your shoulder blades, pinning you there, and his other hand—the metal one—is working the fastenings of your training suit.
"My shoulder," you warn flatly. It's the only protest you're going to make.
He pauses, and it lasts only a fraction of a second. Then his grip shifts, avoiding the dislocated joint, and he yanks the suit down to your waist.
The air is freezing against your bare skin. Goosebumps rise in its wake, nipples hardening from cold and something else, something your body knows even when your mind refuses to name it. You're shaking—not from the session anymore, not from exhaustion. From this. From him. From not knowing if this is something you want or something that's been programmed into you the same way combat sequences are programmed into him.
His metal hand traces the line of your spine. The plates are cold, inhumanly smooth, and you arch into it despite yourself, despite everything. The seam between two plates presses, just barely, against a bruise he left last week—a sharp reminder of what he is, what you're doing, and why you shouldn't want it.
And yet, here you are.
When he kicks your feet apart, you let him. Those metal fingers of his slide between your thighs, beneath the waistband of your underwear and find your cunt already soaked—slick and swollen, your body betraying you the way it always does with him. You don't know if it's fear or arousal or some fucked-up combination of both that the Red Room bred into you both.
You don't know if this is just the result of animal instinct or if there's something more to it.
You do know that he doesn't ask first before touching you—he never does.
The Asset starts with one finger first, circling your entrance patiently, as if he has all the time in the world. He waits, letting you feel the threat before he delivers on it. Then he pushes inside—two fingers, knuckle-deep—and your forehead hits the wall, a choked sound dying in your throat.
"Quiet," he growls. It's the first word he's spoken since this started.
You bite your already-split lip to keep the sound in. The taste of copper floods your mouth as the flesh rips anew. He doesn't care. His fingers are moving—rough, efficient, the same way he does everything—and you clench around them helplessly, body responding even when your mind is still trying to catch up.
He adds a third finger, and you gasp.
His flesh hand comes up to cover your mouth, immediately, and it squeezes tight in a silent warning across your face. Be quiet or we get caught. You know the calculus. You've done it before. Whatever this is, it will cease to exist if anyone sees you.
You nod against his palm and he takes his hand away. In the same motion, his metal fingers withdraw, despite the way your hips buck to keep them inside you. Wordlessly, he pushes those slick fingers past your lips and into your mouth, making you gag slightly.
"Clean."
The order is utterly degrading. But you've been trained to obey such orders without question, and so you do—tasting a heady mix of your own blood and essence and the metallic tang of his fingers. As you work, he yanks your suit and underwear both down and over your hips, baring your ass to the cool air.
You hear his zipper. The rustle of fabric. Then the head of his cock pressing against you, thick and blunt, and you brace your palms against the wall because you know what's coming.
He doesn't ease in. The Asset doesn't know how to ease into anything, you think.
The first inch burns. His metal fingers are still in your mouth and you bite down on them, but he doesn't stop. He pushes forward—slow, relentless, inevitable—and your body screams at the stretch but you take it. Inch by inch.
When he finally bottoms out, he stops. His hips flush against your ass, his cock so deep you swear you can feel him in your throat. His thumb strokes against your jawline in a gesture that's almost tender, even as your teeth dig into his artificial fingers hard enough to leave marks.
Two seconds. He gives you exactly two seconds to adjust.
Then he starts to move.
It's not kind. It's not cruel. It's necessary, somehow—that's the only word you can think of for it. Like both of you need this the way you need water or air, like the programming left a gap in both your heads, and this is the only thing that can possibly fill it.
His hips snap ruthlessly against your ass—the slap of skin on skin, the creak of his tactical gear, the slick sound of him fucking into you filling the little equipment room—and you bite down harder on his hand to keep from making noise. Your cracked ribs scream. Your dislocated shoulder screams. Everything screams except your mouth, which stays perfectly silent.
He fucks you like he fights you—relentless, mechanical, and utterly focused. Your fingers scrabble against concrete, nails scraping yet finding no purchase. That coil in your belly winds tighter and you hate it, hate how easily he can take you apart. Hate that your body responds to him even when your mind is screaming that this is wrong, so wrong, you shouldn't be doing this, neither of you should be doing this.
But you don't want him to stop. That's the worst part. You want him to break you open and leave you empty and do it again tomorrow night. You want this to be yours, even if nothing else is. You want him to be yours.
You push back against him—not to escape, to take him deeper. You control the angle now, grinding down on him, and he stalls for half a second—surprised, maybe, or just processing the new information—before his grip on your hip tightens and he meets you thrust for thrust.
You try to whisper please around his fingers but the words are garbled nonsense. You don't know what you're asking for, anyway. More? Less? Something in the between? Does it even matter? He'll give it to you, whether you beg for it or not.
And, predictably, he doesn't answer. But he knows. That's why he reaches around youand finds your clit with his fingers—pressing exactly where you need it, ruthless, unrelenting—and you come. Hard.
Your vision goes white. Your cunt clamps down on him hard, spasming, your legs shaking so hard that you would've collapsed if he wasn't pinning you to the wall. A sound tears out of you—louder than before—and he withdraws his metal fingers so his hand can clamp over your mouth again, swallowing it, muffling it, and he doesn't stop. Doesn't slow. He fucks you through it while you shake apart against the concrete.
When you come down from the orgasm—if you come down at all—he's still moving. Faster and rougher this time, chasing his own release. So you let him use you. You're loose. Pliant. The aftershocks are still rolling through you, your cunt still fluttering, oversensitive and aching and his.
He comes with a low grunt that sounds like it's been torn from his throat. The sound is almost feral, nothing like the controlled efficiency of his fighting or the flat assessment of his training. For a moment, his entire body goes rigid against yours—the metal arm spasming, the flesh hand gripping the wall so hard, you actually hear the concrete crack under his fingers. Then he shudders, a full-body tremor that runs through him and into you, and he pumps his load deep inside you, claiming you in a way that has nothing to do with the Red Room or Dreykov or any of the programming that brought either of you here.
For a long moment, neither of you moves. You're both just breathing and suspended in the aftermath. His forehead is pressed to your back now, his weight still pinning you to the wall, and you can feel his heartbeat hammering against your spine even through his tactical vest. It's the most alive you've ever felt him, the most human, and the thought terrifies you almost as much as the way your body is still responding to his, still clenching around him inside you.
Then, he pulls out. At once you feel his come dripping down your thighs and you know you should clean up, should get to medical, should pretend this never happened the way you always pretend.
But he's still behind you, still trapping you against him. His forehead has moved to rest against the back of your neck, his stubble scraping your skin, and his breath hot and damp against your spine. You feel him shaking—barely, minutely, the kind of tremor no one else would notice—but you're trained to notice such things.
"Don't..." he starts, then stops. You wait, but he doesn't finish the sentence. You don't know if he was going to say don't move or don't go or don't tell anyone, and you'll spend the next twenty-three years wondering that.
For exactly seven seconds he stays there. Not moving. Not pulling away. Just... present. His breath syncs with yours. You memorize the rhythm.
You want to turn around. You want to see his face. You want to know if he looks as broken as you feel, if this breaks him open the way it breaks you. You want to see what he almost said.
You don't move.
Then he steps back.
You hear him fixing his clothes. The rustle of fabric, the zip of his tactical gear. You don't turn around. You're not sure what you'd see if you did.
"Medical," he finally says, in the same flat voice as before. Like nothing happened.
You manage to nod. You pull your suit back up, ignoring the ache between your legs, the throb of your shoulder, and the taste of blood still fresh in your mouth. You swipe at your mouth with the back of your hand, trying to wipe away the evidence.
When you turn around, he's already gone.
The door is unlocked. The hallway is empty. Four hours until the next session.
You start walking toward medical again.
This time, you make it.
The mark is late. If you had enough free will to care, you'd be annoyed by this. But you don't.
Your tactical watch reads 17:42 when you check it—it's 2016, the wind biting at any exposed skin. Budapest, rooftop overlooking the Danube, the river dark below and the Parliament lights reflecting like broken glass on the water.
You've been in position for forty-three minutes. The wind cutting through your tactical gear. The temperature dropping rapidly, as soon as the sun sets. These are facts. You catalog them the way you catalog everything—distantly, clinically, filed under mission parameters.
Facts are all that your world contains, ever since your training had been complete and your mind subjugated. Ever since, you've been a puppet, dancing to the tune of your handlers. Living separate to your own body, watching from the outside.
And yet, it's still you.
Anya's voice crackles in your ear, and that familiar, cold tone of hers snaps you back to focus. "Status," she demands.
"In position," you reply.
"Target approaching from the east. ETA two minutes."
You adjust your scope accordingly. Your sight lines are clear. The exit routes are mappe and the contingencies planned. You're efficient. You've always been efficient.
My best work, General Dreykov had once called you, a proud glint in his beady eyes. That praise was like a drug to you, a high like no other that you chased after every successful mission—
—there's movement in your peripheral vision. It's coming from the wrong direction. Not the target. Someone else.
You pivot, weapon coming up, and that's when you see him.
He's on the adjacent rooftop. Thirty meters out and watching you, the same way you're now watching him.
Your training catalogs the threat automatically. Male, approximately 1.8 meters, heavy build, tactical gear, metal left arm. The way he moves—controlled, purposeful, combat-trained—triggers something in your memory that your programming immediately suppresses.
You don't know him.
No. You do know him.
That contradiction doesn't compute. You push it aside and sight in on his centre mass.
He doesn't take cover. Doesn't draw a weapon. Just stands there, watching you with an expression you can't read.
"Interference," you report to your fellow Widow. "Neutralizing."
But Anya doesn't respond and you don't have the time to wonder why that is.
The man on the other rooftop moves before you can squeeze the trigger. Not toward you—toward the fire escape, dropping down to street level with the kind of efficiency that makes your muscle memory scream with recognition you're not allowed to have.
He's coming for you.
You abandon the mark, dropping your rifle and running. Training dictates threat prioritization; unknown combatant in close proximity supersedes all. You move to intercept, dropping through the access hatch into the stairwell.
He's already inside the building.
You know this because you can hear him. Footsteps—measured, deliberate, not trying to hide. Like he wants you to know where he is.
You clear the third-floor landing and he's there, standing in the corridor, hands visible and non-threatening.
Withdrawing your sidearm, you put three rounds centre mass.
He moves. Fast—too fast for someone his size—and the shots go wide. Concrete dust explodes from the wall behind him, and despite the pistol holstered at his hip, he doesn't return fire.
"Stop!" He yells instead. You don't stop. You never stop. You close the distance, planning to disable him permanently, but he's faster than you expect. His metal hand sweeps out and knocks the pistol from your grip before you can fire again. The weapon clatters across the concrete floor, out of reach.
Disarmed. But your training adapts, always adapts. You engage hand-to-hand without hesitation.
He blocks your first strike with his right hand—precise, controlled. Your second he meets with the metal arm, the impact vibrating up your bones in a way that's terrifyingly familiar. Your third strike he redirects, using your momentum to spin you out of range, and the movement is so familiar your body completes the counter before your brain catches up. The same counter he taught you on the training mat in 1993.
You've fought this man before.
No. That's impossible. Your handler would have briefed you. Your files would show it.
And he's not attacking you, not really, not in the way he should. He's defending—blocking, redirecting, burning down your energy—and the whole time he's talking. "You don't have to do this," he says.
Incorrect. You do have to. That's what you are. What you're for.
You go for his throat. He catches your wrist—flesh hand, not metal—and the grip is controlled, not brutal. You twist, break his hold, drive your knee toward his solar plexus. He absorbs it with a grunt.
"I know you're in there," he continues. "Deep down. Let me help."
You don't know what that means. Of course you're in there, in your mind, caged by unseen bars. You drive your elbow toward his face. He blocks it with his metal arm and the impact vibrates up your bones and suddenly you're on a training mat, bleeding from a split lip, and—
—no. You shove the fragment away. Focus. Mission. Eliminate the threat.
But he's not fighting like a threat. He's fighting like someone trying not to hurt you, and that doesn't make sense, nothing makes sense. Your conditioning is screaming at you to disengage but your body won't stop fighting.
Your next strike falters. He doesn't capitalize on it. He just stands there, bleeding from somewhere—you must have landed a hit, you don't remember—and looking at you like you're a person instead of a weapon.
"I'm not going to fight you."
He sounds so resigned to this fact.
You hit him anyway. He takes it. Doesn't block or redirect. Just lets your fist connect with his jaw and he rocks back on his heels, the impact jarring his entire frame. Blood drips from the corner of his mouth—your blood, actually, from when your knuckles split against his teeth.
You're breathing hard. He's breathing harder, like he's been running. He's bleeding from somewhere—his temple, maybe, or his ribs where you landed a solid knee strike. Neither of you is winning. Neither of you is trying to win in the traditional sense.
He reaches into his vest slowly, deliberately, giving you time to react. His eyes never leave yours.
You tense. Gun. Knife. Weapon. Your hand drifts toward the knife at your ankle, the backup blade they always make you carry.
But his movements are too slow for a weapon draw. Too careful. He pulls out a small vial, no bigger than his thumb, and holds it up between you. The liquid inside catches the fluorescent light of the stairwell.
It's red.
"I'm sorry," he says, and his voice cracks on the word. Then he crushes the vial in his metal hand, and a crimson veil descends.
For a moment, nothing happens. The red dust hangs suspended in the air between you, glittering in the fluorescent light like deadly confetti. You tense to retreat, to escape, but his hand shoots out—his red-flecked metal fingers wrapping around your upper arm—and he yanks you forward into the cloud fully.
You try to hold your breath, try to fight, but his other hand comes up to hold the back of your neck, squeezing hard enough that it panics you into inhaling. The dust floods your lungs—sharp, burning as it goes down—and you struggle against him, but it's too late. He's stronger than you, and he's not letting go.
Then, it hits you—
—like waking up. No, like remembering you were asleep. No, like drowning and surfacing and the air is too bright, too sharp, too real—
—the Red Room the training floor the Asset his hands his mouth the cold the counting the thing without a name—
—Madame's voice Dreykov's conditioning the handlers the marks the missions the blood that wasn't yours the blood that was—
—his name your name the names you swallowed the words you never said the four seconds with his forehead against your neck and you thought please but you never said please stay—
—1993 to now every locked door every mission every kill and none of it was you it was the thing they made you and oh God oh God oh—
—he releases you and your knees hit the ground, hard.
The world is too loud. Your body is shaking. There's blood in your mouth but it's old blood, twenty-three-year-old blood, and you can taste the iron and the split lip and the way he never kissed you on the mouth because that would have meant something.
Someone is crying. You don't know if it's you or not, but it must be, because the tears are hot on your cheeks.
Then there's hands on your shoulders—you flinch away from the touch, your training screaming threat threat threat—but they don't tighten and they don't hurt. The hands just steady you, hold you together while you shake apart. Slowly, so slowly, you're adjusted until your head is pillowed by a metal arm and your back is pressed against a warm, solid chest.
Your vision is swimming. You can't see him, can't see anything but the red dust and the fluorescent lights overhead and the way every memory you thought you'd buried is clawing its way back to the surface.
"I've got you. You're safe. I've got you." It's like a mantra, whispered in your ear, over and over as you're rocked, slowly. "I looked for you. I looked for you everywhere."
His lips brush your temple, a feather-light kiss that you barely feel. Your senses are completely overblown right now, and every sound, every touch, every smell is amplified a hundredfold as the red dust burns the poison out of your mind.
"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."
Finally, your eyes focus. He's so close, his face inches from your own. The Asset, you recall dimly. It's the Asset who is holding you now.
What if... writing the “wrong” thing is what leads you back to yourself?
In our newest guest contributor's blog post, Blackbird writes about burnout, creative pressure, first-time fanfic, and the unexpected side quests that can help us rediscover the joy in creating things.
"It's important to find the part of you that's fueled by nothing more than pure self-indulgence, and to give that part of you the space to exist.
Whatever form that takes."
Have a read over on the blog!
- the Ellipsus Team xo
Look at the Sky, Its the Color of Love
Biker!Bucky x Rich!Reader
Petal's love notes:
Bucky owns a garage shop so its also Mechanic!Bucky in a way. He calls her bunny and is absolutely smitten with her right from the start ( ˶˘ ³˘)♡ you turn him soft.
You can pry the bad boy x good girl trope out of my tightly clenched fists I am never getting over this.
Summary: Oakley and Rivercreek are two sides of the same town that never got along. You, a rich socialite with a family name powerful enough to move mountains catch the eye of a certain biker boy from downtown.
Word count: 11.1k
Warnings:
18+ mdni / fluff / angst, so much / sad bucky is a yearner / love confessions / smut (oral, no protection, p in v) / no use of y/n / reader is referred to as bunny /
Wrote this while listening to Kiss of Life by Sade so you might want to check that out for the vibes. Also, it's my first time writing for this fandom so please feel free to give feedback! Let's be friends ૮꒰ ˶• ༝ •˶꒱ა ♡
Bucky Barnes hates a lot of things.
But not Sundays. Definitely not Sundays.
It's the only time he ever gets to see you, after all. You show up with flustered cheeks every single time. Your hair is in a neat bun, pushed back with a pearl headband that your mother insists you must wear to look at least decent.
You wear a white, chaste dress that falls just below your knees which makes you look pure, angelic, even. Bucky isn't exaggerating when he says that you could be the virgin mother herself, but he doesn't believe in god. He doesn't follow any religion.
Which is why it's so strange to him, and his friends Sam and Steve as to why he insists on smoking just across the street of the old cathedral the uptown folk go to every Sunday.
'Just wanna see what the pretentious are up to, have a good laugh at what rich people gimmick they have this week.' He reasons out to them lamely. 'No other reason.'
Definitely not because he wants to catch a glimpse of you once a week, fidgeting outside the old cathedral as your parents parade you around the other rich families that tend to show off their wealth through generosity.
Somehow, singing praise and donating to the offertory has become a symbol of wealth among the rich folk of Oakley- the upper end of town where you're from. Where folk up there look down on the... more indigent people in Rivercreek, where he's from.
When the cathedral doors open, his eyes find you.
They always find you.
You're running a delicate hand through your hair, getting reprimanded by your mother because 'how dare you have a strand of hair out of place.'
Families are greeting each other, he hears someone complain about how much of a hassle it is that their chauffeur had no other choice but to park a little further down the street just to avoid other cars from parking too near their new Chevy.
He wants to roll his eyes at that, but that would mean taking them off you for a second. He doesn't want to.
The Oakley folk continue to rush out in their white and pristine clothing after singing praises loudly as a form of performative philanthropy, which makes him and his friends stand out in their all black clothing, leaning against the seat of their rested bikes.
"Here they come- My god, do they look like a herd of sheep" Sam comments which earns a chuckle from Steve.
A few heads turn at them wearing horrified expressions with a mix of disgust for using the Lord's name in vain, but they couldn't care less.
"Buck, you listening? That was a good one!" Sam nudges his shoulder.
He manages to let out a small smile in response, but keeps his eyes trained on you.
"Yeah, knocked the breath out of me" he tells him, but he's not talking about the joke.
· · ─ ·✶· ─ · ·
It's a Tuesday and he works grumpily hunched over a car of some rich Oakley folk who had no choice but to have his car done at the nearest auto shop that happened to be his.
'Not a scratch on it, young man.' The older man tries to intimidate him.
'You know the consequences if it comes back with with even a tiny dent.'
Bucky huffs at the memory of the conversation. Oakley folk can fuck off, they're all prejudiced. stuck-up pigs who only look down on--
Well, maybe not you.
He's seen you at charity events before, the orphanage located between both sides of town.
While all the other Oakley folk show up to flaunt their big donations, you actually take it upon yourself to interact with the kids and get to know them. They all adore you, but definitely not as much as he does.
He decides to indulge himself in the image of you in his head to put him in a better mood, when suddenly he hears gentle footsteps enter his garage.
"Hello?" A timid voice makes him shoot his head up from the hood of the car.
It's you.
You're standing in his garage, wearing a simple, yet expensive looking dress that probably costs more than his rent for the entire month-
You're standing in his garage
and you're speaking to him.
He opens his mouth once, before closing it again. He knows he probably looks like an idiot right now, gaping at you with wide eyes and saying absolutely nothing, but he can't help himself.
In all his time he spent watching you from afar, he'd already accepted that you were out of his league. He'd be happy with you just sparing a glance at him, but now you were actually here, speaking to him! In Rivercreek of all places-
Realization dawns on him.
You're in Rivercreek.
The bad side of town where the dingy people over here who hate pretentious Oakley kids wouldn't hesitate to take advantage of innocent looking things like you.
Suddenly, a frown dawns on his face.
"Why are you here?" is the first thing he says to you.
You look taken aback by his sudden question, and he winces at how creepy he must sound
"Excuse me?" despite your startle at his words (and his audacity), your voice still sounds like honey in his ears.
"No- I mean..." Bucky panics before recollecting himself with a deep breath.
"You're... Not from this side of town, are you?" Safe. That answer makes him seem like less of a stalker now, doesn't it?
You let out a sigh.
"Is it that obvious?" Your expression is one of disappointment and helplessness, triggering a protective nature from Bucky.
"I needed help and... It's getting dark out and I think I'm lost" he listens to you shyly and frantically explain your situation to him while fiddling with the lace hem of your dress.
"I'm cold, and scared- and your shop was the only one with a light open a-and..."
"Hey, relax. I'll help you." Bucky hopes his words of reassurance will stop your rambling. He can almost see the anxiety bubbling in your chest.
"How'd you end up all the way up here? Oakley is on the other side of town."
At that, he sees your eyes widen at him in disbelief. Surely you would've known if you were in-
"Is this Rivercreek?!" Your small voice squeaks in surprise.
Bucky can't help but blink in disbelief.
"This... This isn't exactly the kind of establishment that would be at Oakley." He speaks to her gently, scared that a little volume in his voice would scare her off like a frightened little bunny.
"O-oh god, my parents are going to kill me..." the words are spoken out of you in a breath that sounded more for yourself than him, but he hears you loud and clear.
"Hey, hey, don't worry I'll..." Bucky attempts to cut off your anxiety that has definitely reached the surface by now
"I'll bring you back to Oakley. The border isn't too far from here, okay?"
He realizes how he's unconsciously stepped closer to you when he feels your warmth of your presence radiating from your spot in the middle of his garage.
"I'm Bucky."
"Bucky" you repeat his name and its suddenly his favorite sound in the world. You tell him your name, before scrunching your nose at the cold air blows and enters the premises of his garage.
He can't help but let out a soft laugh at that. You're just so fucking cute, like a little
"Bunny."
He says it without thinking, but that seems to happen a lot around you.
"What?" Eyes blink up at him in wonder.
"You. You're like a little bunny. All timid and shy."
"Oh." He sees a smidge of a blush on your cheeks which makes his heart rate pick up. You're killing him without even trying and you don't even know it.
Before another moment can pass, Bucky stands up straighter and grabs his leather jacket from where it was tossed on his work desk.
"Come on, bunny. Lets get you back to where you belong. I'll walk ya back to the Oakley border"
"T-thanks, but I was just hoping to get some directions" You shyly let out. "I really don't want to take up more of your time. You seem... Busy" Your eyes trail towards the expensive Mustang the client from your side of town left in his shop.
You're right about that. He is busy.
"Nah. 'M not that busy, bunny" he shrugs and gives you a reassuring smile.
He laughs internally at your little pout and at how you tell him your name again.
"Will you stop calling me that ridiculous name?"
The tone you give him is one of both annoyance and embarrassment, but the little crinkle in between your brows and the scrunch on your nose is the cherry on top. It makes you truly live up to the nickname he's given you.
Bucky shakes his head, still with that gentle smile he never knew his face could make until his conversation with you, and drapes his leather jacket over your shoulders.
"Come on, it'll only get darker and colder from here. Let's get you home." he completely ignores your request to call you by your name and with motions you to follow him.
The walk to Oakley is a decent few minutes, and you manage to make it to the border just before it went completely dark out. The sky is a perfect shade of dark blue, pink, and yellow, making the atmosphere look much sweeter and whimsical.
The pastel colors washed your frame with a soft golden glow, and at that moment Bucky decides that you are the soft light that starts every morning with a gentle warmth. Its ironic how he can feel both comfort and nervousness in your presence.
To his surprise, you both flow into enjoyable conversation where you learn more about each other. You tell him that you've never really been anywhere else but here, limited to where your family chauffeur is allowed to take you.
You were supposed to meet him right at the border of Oakley after visiting the orphanage you volunteer at, but got lost when you decided to take a detour, a short walk to clear your head.
"Makes sense, the orphanage is right at the border of Oakley and Rivercreek. No wonder you ended up at my shop, bunny." Bucky replies.
He tells you that he's been taking care of the shop ever since his pop died, and that he's been running it with his two best friends Steve and Sam. He tells you that he's passionate about bikes, that he and his friends have always lived for the sense of freedom and the rush it provides.
"You're the guys that are always smoking behind the church, then. Am I right?" You ask him with a knowing smile.
"Y-you noticed?" He wants to kick himself for stammering. It looks so uncool.
"I'm not blind, silly" You giggle and hug the leather jacket closer to yourself just as a cold rush of wind hits you both. He has to resist the urge to pull you close to protect you from it.
"My mother thinks you're trouble."
"'M already starting on a bad note with your parents, huh bunny?"
That earns him a loud giggle and a playful slap on his shoulder.
Once your chauffeur spots you from the end of the road, he quickly gets back inside the car to start it and make his way to you. Bucky can almost feel his distress at almost losing the daughter of an affluent family.
Bucky hears you let out a sigh once you see the headlights of your car flash. The sound of the engine starting acting like a countdown timer indicating the end of your time together.
But he can't let it end here. He's been pining after you for so long, admiring from afar and tomorrow he's going to have to... go back to doing that? He just got you.
You take off his leather jacket from your shoulders and that sends him into a panic to act fast.
"Thank you again for walking me back--"
"When can I see you again?"
are the words that rush out of his mouth with slight panic lacing his tone just as you're thanking him. He wants to slap himself in the face for being so forward with you, but the arrival of the car slowly approaching you makes him panic.
"I- What?" You're blushing now, trying to process his sudden words.
Bucky takes a deep breath before repeating more confidently this time.
"I... I wanna see you again, bunny. Will you let me see you again?"
Suddenly, he feels too aware of himself. Covered in all black clothing from head to toe, his intimidating and sharp features contrasting too loudly with your soft ones. There's no way you see yourself with someone like him, its a mismatch from chaos itself.
He prepares himself for rejection, a gentle letdown because he knows your heart is too kind to give him a straight up no. But when he meets your eyes he sees the cute little crinkle on your nose and a shy smile.
"Okay."
· · ─ ·✶· ─ · ·
That's how Bucky ends up sleepless that night, with your number on his phone and a pattern of typing and deleting his message to you.
God... He thinks. This is pathetic.
He's acting like some lovesick school boy with his first crush, and not a Rivercreek biker with a series of misconducts under his belt. If only his friends could see him now.
If only they knew that all it takes is a cute girl with a smile that reminds him of sunshine, and crinkles her nose when she gets irritated to make him go soft.
When was the right time to send a text, anyway? He never cared this much when he's talk to girls before.
Sam had told him once, to wait it out a bit before texting a girl. Don't look too available. He had told him. Girls like a little mystery. Keeps them on their toes.
But does Bucky want you on your toes with him? Did he want you to wait?
It almost felt rude to not message you right away, because after all, he thought you deserved the best.
And the best meant giving you his full attention, his full interest and effort even if it meant making a fool of himself according to Sam's dating guideline.
Hey bunny, you get home okay?
It's Bucky :)
I know its you, Bucky. You're the only one that calls me that ridiculous name.
Yes, I'm home. Thank you again for helping me. :)
He reads your messages in your sweet voice, making his heart stutter. He truly is acting like a school boy right now.
Great to hear that, bunny. Get some rest and don't come wandering out this area alone next time, okay?
Why not? I have my own personal chaperone out of Rivercreek now, right?
I'm kidding. Goodnight, Bucky :)
He doesn't sleep that night. Instead, he loses himself in the memory of you in sunset.
· ─ ·✶· ─ · ·
For the next week, you and Bucky exchange messages which allow you to get to know him better.
'What on earth has you smiling like that?' Your mother had caught you once, grinning down at your screen.
'Oh, its nothing its just...' One of the biker boys that you absolutely despise, and would kill me for even speaking to. 'Just a funny video my friend sent.' You tell her.
Your mother huffs at your reply, displeased with your answer as she stirs the dark liquid in the regal teacup in front of her. It makes your drink- coffee that is too many shades lighter than hers due to milk and cream, and a mug with little flowers on it, look much too immature.
"I'd rather have you spend your time more productive than looking at... memes" She laces her words with a tone of disapproval that you're too used to by now.
"Be ready tonight. We have that charity gala today and the press will be taking photos."
Obediently, you get up and leave your flowery mug at the breakfast table before she stops you.
"Oh, and do wear something nice. You're not just looking good for press, but suitors as well. Alright?"
Although her tone was much kinder with that sentence, it causes your heart to thump louder in your chest and your face to flush red.
Her obsession with finding you a match has increased tenfold as soon as you came of age, and you find it absolutely ridiculous. This isn't the 1940's anymore! Mothers no longer need to chaperone their daughters when it comes to dating!
But like the obedient daughter you are, you redirect your anger into subtle balled up fists and let your mouth speak the words your heart begs you not to.
"Yes, mother."
She sends you off with a nod and turns her attention back to her too-black coffee.
You arrive at the charity gala and are met with fellow Oakley families, and of course, the press. The event is marketed as an auction for artworks, wherein the money is promised to go out to the needy but you know better.
Its definitely a power grabbing scheme of wealth dynamics. 'Eat the Rich' you think to yourself. These resources can definitely be used more efficiently if they actually wanted to help the needy.
The event is definitely upscale- the grand ballroom is nothing short of extraordinary with high ceilings, dramatic lighting, and big glass doors overlooking a huge garden. It's beautiful, but you feel out of place.
Earlier that morning, you had texted Bucky your obligations for the night and to expect slow replies.
Which is why the latest notification on your phone comes as a surprise to you.
Fancy getting away for a bit, bunny?
What?
I thought bunnies prefer being outdoors
Don't tell me...
you reply back to him with shaky hands before looking around nervously. Another ping from your phone snaps you back into focus
Come out to the garden, bun :)
Your eyes quickly shoot up from your phone to the glass doors that are almost as high as the ceiling allows it to be. There's no way he actually... came here? Is there? Another message knocks you out of overthinking and confirms your skepticism.
The chandeliers look a bit much, don't you think?
Sure enough, when you look up you're met with the tackiest chandelier displays that exhibit grandeur over style and charm. Much like the people in this room.
You let out a sigh and try to calm the butterflies in your stomach. They won't notice you step out. It will only be a moment! You can always excuse yourself for needing some air.
Once you step outside, your eyes trail over the garden landscape. There is nothing but greenery and a high wall separating the event from the rest of the world. How on earth did he get in--
"Psst. Bunny."
His whisper comes from behind one of the garden statues that shield his presence perfectly from the event happening inside.
Slowly, you tiptoe your way to where he is before a pair of hands grab your waist, spinning you around.
A quiet gasp leaves your lips at the sudden motion, but the rest of your breath quickly gets stuck in your throat once you find yourself caught between the stone and Bucky, who still has one hand on your waist and the other pressing an index finger to his lips, demanding silence.
He's close, so close that you can hear your heartbeat in your ears.
"Sorry," he says quietly "saw one of the guards nearby. But we're in the clear now." He gives you a mischievous smile and steps back to give you more space.
"It's alright." You say shyly.
"But... Bucky, how did you..." You trail off and look over at the walls that stand tall over the both of you. Bucky follows your gaze and smirks knowingly at what you want to know.
"Well, it wasn't an easy climb but-"
"You climbed that!?" You cut him off to whisper yell at him.
"But" A hand comes back to your waist as he repeats himself "I told you I wanted to see you again, remember?"
Heat floods your cheeks at his admission. And despite the dark sky with light only coming from the event behind the glass doors and the moonlight illuminating him in the quiet darkness of the atmosphere, you pick up a dust of blush on his cheeks.
"I... didn't think you'd want to see me now." You tell him honestly. "I thought you'd want to take me to... coffee, or something" the softness in your voice is the most gentle sound to reach his ears.
"I can take you for coffee" He chuckles.
"I can definitely take you out for coffee, bunny."
The way he's looking at you feels like a deep, velvet blue with a quiet warmth. His eyes convey a multitude of emotions that you can't quite decipher, but they're there. There's a sparkle in them.
"How do you get them to do that?" You ask.
He can't help but let out another chuckle at your unpredictability.
"Do what, bun?"
"To shine like that."
Bucky is take aback for a moment before smiling.
"Honestly? By looking at you."
· ─ ·✶· ─ · ·
The coffee date happens on the next Sunday. He picks you up after Sunday Mass behind the cathedral and you show up in your usual white, knee-length dress. You know that its a date. He told you it would be.
'When are you free next, bunny?' He had asked you that night at the garden.
'Hmm?' You ask him in a dazed state, too caught up in your feelings at how wanted and seen you feel by him.
'So I can take you out on that coffee date. You're okay with it being a date, right?'
That's how you've found yourself behind the cathedral with the excuse to your mother being tutoring sessions with a friend after Sunday Mass. She had nodded approvingly at you for prioritizing your studies, and you had felt a rush at how you've rebelled against your mothers wishes for the first time in your life.
Bucky pushes himself from against the wall and greets you with an arm over your shoulder "Ready, bunny?"
One coffee date turns into two, and then three. He brings you to places around Rivercreek and the novelty of the area to you makes every date feel like an adventure.
'You can't come here on your own, alright?' He reminds you every time. 'I'm being serious, bunny. The people here aren't always good. I won't always be there to protect ya if you come alone.'
You want to giggle at him for his protectiveness, reassure him that you doubt anything like that will happen because 'you have him anyway.'
He pinches your cheek gently at your stubbornness, but can't deny how your bratty side makes his heart beat a little faster. He enjoys bringing out the bold side in you, aware that its something you push down most of the time due to your strict parents.
Eventually, you end up meeting Steve and Sam in the shop during one of your dates.
"So this is her, Buck? The girl thats been stealing you away lately?" Sam teases him, earning him a playful shove by Bucky while Steve gives you a polite smile.
"We've heard a lot about you..." Steve starts respectfully. "Bunny" the playful glint in his eye is hard to miss, which causes you to blush in embarrassment.
Bucky groans at the teasing from his two best friends, but the rest of the day is spent enjoyably.
You learn more about his childhood, the trouble he got into in his younger years, and feel a sense of fraternity between the three of them that makes you jealous.
You tell them that you wish you had friends as close as he does, but a lot of your childhood was spent in tutoring lessons and more family events to maintain your family's status and appearances at Oakley.
· ─ ·✶· ─ · ·
After Bucky brings you home that day, he's met with Steve and Sam still at the shop. Both of them have knowing grins on their faces which makes Bucky roll his eyes.
"No" he tells them immediately which earns groans from both his friends.
"Come on, don't be like that. Its been ages since you've started dating again." Sam approaches him with a silly grin.
"We're just curious, man." Steve starts. "That, and... Well..." the rest of his sentence trails off awkwardly.
"That, and we want to know got you dating an Oakley girl" Sam finishes bluntly. "You hate those folk."
Bucky pretends not to give them his full attention by fixing his toolbox.
"I told you already, she ain't like them." He sighs. "She's different from them. She... she's more than the Oakley stereotypes"
The way he defended you earns him more teasing from his friends, but after meeting you today? They can't help but agree.
"You got a good one, Buck. You're happier and that's all that matters" Steve tells him genuinely.
"But you know how Oakley ad Rivercreek don't mix well. This won't all be smooth waters for the both of you."
The reminder stings, but Bucky knew what he was getting into as soon as it started. He appreciates his friend's words, but he would have liked to live in the illusion of being worry-free and happy with you for a little while longer.
"I know, Stevie." His hands fiddle with one of the loose threads on his jacket nervously as he thinks about all that could go wrong with dating you.
There will be a lot of naysay, people who will shake their head at the sight of you two together, your parents disapproving of him, and the fact that he may not be able to keep up with the lifestyle you're used to.
He wonders, do you think of this too?
"But she's worth it. I know she is."
Steve claps him on the back at that "Good luck, Buck."
· ─ ·✶· ─ · ·
Its a few months into dating when Bucky takes you to one of his favorite spots around town.
'Place is special,' he told you when you asked where you were going.
'No one else knows about it, not even Stevie.'
'I bet you say that to all the girls' you had tease him cutely.
He looks back at you with a playful glint in his eye. 'Just you, bunny.'
The spot he leads you to is a lake covered by the green haze of trees. Sun rays glinting brightly in the clear waters. He lays out a yellow blanket over the dew blades of grass that look to be sparkling in the sunlight.
"It's beautiful, Bucky... I feel like I'm in a fairytale" your fingers brush a dandelion next to you as you lay down, letting the flower heads escape the stem and float around you.
"That's how you make me feel all the time, bun." Bucky lays next to you on the blanket, your shoulders touching as you both watch the drift of clouds overhead.
"Oh stop it, you." You giggle at his words.
Bucky rolls himself up on his stomach so that he's facing you. Your faces inches from each other now.
"I'm serious, bunny... The time I've been spending with you?" He presses a quick kiss on your forehead, "They've been the happiest I've ever been."
Your face is hot, and he's so, so close.
"Bucky..." you say his name shyly. His kiss on your forehead makes you blush, and while he's feathered light kisses there and on your cheek before, he hasn't kissed you properly yet in his promise to take things slow for you.
"I love you, bunny."
Bucky tells you confidently, as if its the most sure thing he's ever had to admit.
"Ever since I first laid eyes on you in that cathedral, I think I've already loved you." He admits further which causes your breath to hitch, and your whole body to freeze as you process his confession.
"I can take care of you just as good as any Oakley boy can. I'll prove it to ya, I'll be the best damn guy for ya."
The promises he speaks are spoken in hushed tones, but you hear every word. Bucky keeps his closeness to your body on that blanket. Your shock causes you to unable to form a reply, but Bucky doesn't seem to mind.
Instead, he brings his hand up to brush the stray hairs away from your face before cupping it gently in his palm.
"Will you let me, bunny? Will you let me take care of you?"
"I love you." You tell him breathlessly, "I love you too, Bucky Barnes."
His grin is wide and his eyes sparkle brighter than they ever had before. 'Honestly? By looking at you' are the words you recall him telling you when you had asked him how they get them to do that.
Your reciprocation of love is all the answer he needs to bring his face down to yours to capture your lips in a kiss. The movement is slow and gentle. He kisses you as if you're fragile, delicate. As if holding you too tightly or kissing you too hard will break you.
"I'll be so good to ya," He murmurs against your lips "I love you, I love you bunny. You understand that, right? Better than any Oakley boy ever will. I promise"
Bucky continues to tell you because he thinks no amount of words, no matter how many times he says it, will equate to the feelings he's carrying right now.
Your heart aches at his admission, because deep down you both know how your different backgrounds could cause problems down the line.
"Bucky, you know I don't care about the Oakley and Rivercreek stuff." You hope your reassurance reaches his worries.
"I know, bunny." He pulls away to get a good look at you. You can finally name the emotion his eyes have been communicating to you at that moment: love, longing.
"Let's just be happy right now, yeah?"
You're brought home that day before the sun goes down.
He drops you off at your porch, kissing you goodbye very quickly just in case your parents are peeking. He waits for the door to close before retreating back to the car he picked you up in.
The door shuts and you lean against it for a moment, allowing your heart to take a break from the love Bucky had showed it all day. You're smiling to yourself when-
"Out late today, aren't we?" Your mother's voice cuts through the warm air you've created for yourself with an icy cold tone. She stands on top of the staircase, looking down at your figure by the door.
"Who is he? The one who brought you home in that... junk" She glares harshly at Bucky's retreating figure heading towards his car.
"Mother, t-that's... That's Bucky. He's, um..." You stammer nervously, frantically trying to flatten your wrinkled dress and unkept hair.
"Are you sleeping with him?" Her voice cuts through once again and her steps down the stairway sound menacing as she makes her way over to you.
"What?! Mother!" The redness from your cheeks comes from both embarrassment and anger.
"Is he from Rivercreek?" She asks you.
You're unable to form a reply. You knew it was just a matter of time before your relationship with Bucky got caught, and you've made sure to rehearse the answer in your head multiple times when the moment presented itself, but right now your voice feels like its stuck in your throat.
Apparently that is all the confirmation your mother needed as she sighs disappointedly.
"I've known you to let this family down numerous times, but to be associated with a Rivercreek boy?" Her voice raises an octave.
"This is a new level of low, even for you."
"Mother, please. It's not like that-"
As usual, she refuses to listen.
"Have you no shame for your family name? People from down there are using you for one thing-!"
"No, you're wrong. He's nothing like that..." Your voice is weak at your attempt to fight back against her, but you try anyway. Bucky would have wanted you to try and speak up for yourself.
"He's after you for status! Money!-"
"Mother I love him!"
The space between the both of you turns quiet. Your chest is heaving from anger, and the shock you feel from answering back at your mother for the first time.
"Stupid girl, what do you know about love?" She says coldly before sending you to your room.
"You can't see him again, do you understand? If we find out you've been going behind our backs, he's done."
You lay in bed rethinking the words she spoke. You're aware of how powerful your family is. One wave of a finger can have Bucky in a problematic position, his business gone or even removed from town entirely.
The sentimentality Bucky has for his place in Rivercreek is no stranger to you, either. You hardly think that a relationship with you is worth losing everything he's built.
· ─ ·✶· ─ · ·
The next few days has Bucky spiraling. He asks himself if he's done anything wrong, if he said something to upset you or if his confession at the lake came off too strong.
But the tenderness in his heart? The way his brain replays your voice telling him you love him at every waking hour? It makes him believe that he's done everything right.
He reads through the messages he sent you, all filled with worry yet left unanswered.
Bunny, are you okay?
Please tell me if I did something wrong.
Can I see you tonight? I'm worried, bun.
I love you. Please let me know if you're alright.
He showed up at your house once, in the dead of the night, waiting underneath your window.
The light in your room reassures him that you're alright. You're still there physically, but he's yet to feel an ounce of your attention.
Bunny, I'm outside. Just look out for a bit to let me know you're fine, yeah?
You don't.
Bucky waits for the next Sunday to arrive in hopes of getting hold of you, even just for a few minutes. He hates to corner you like this, but he's desperate. You'd understand him showing up like this, won't you?
The way he leans into his parked bike at the steps of the cathedral you frequent takes him back to the days where he used to pine after you, watching you longingly from afar.
He was nothing to you back then.
He shakes his head at the thought. Bucky refuses to go back to being nothing with you, not after you told each other you loved each other, not after he finally felt what it was like to be yours.
Like clockwork, the huge wooden doors open once Sunday worship ends and the Oakley folk flock out the cathedral like sheep. And again, like clockwork, his eyes immediately find you.
Black leather pushes its way through the flock of white clothing towards you. He ignores the grunts of disapproval as someone from Rivercreek infiltrates their sacred space.
The crowd parts for him like he's plagued with nothing but ill intentions, unbeknownst to them all he carries is a heart yearning for you.
You stand picture perfect right outside the doors, too busy fiddling with the strap of your bag to notice the commotion he's caused at the entrance.
The sight of you in full view takes his breath away and almost makes him forget the reason why he's taken stepped inside a church in the first place.
The way you finally look up at him with wide eyes snaps him back to reality.
"Bucky-" You start but are cut off by his hand pulling you into a closed space. A confession room, he realizes once you've made your way inside.
"Wanna tell me what this is all about, bunny?" He asks, staring at you with a hard, fixed gaze. His voice is harsh and it almost makes him feel guilty for using a tone with you that's anything less than gentle, but the affect of being ignored by you for the last few days has him feeling on edge.
"Bucky... You can't be here. You need to leave-" you whisper, words falling into a murmur.
"You're telling me to leave you alone now?" Bucky is anything but discreet in his response, which makes you flinch and panic at volume of his voice. At this moment, he's too desperate to understand the situation to care about who could hear.
"After what happened at the lake... After telling me that you love me" He breathes in deeply. "You're telling me to just... Leave you alone?"
"Shh!" You shush him quietly. "Please, Bucky. You can't let them catch you with me... They- They found out" You admit to him with a heartbroken expression.
It makes sense to him now, why you've been ignoring him. He knew this was going to happen eventually. Steve had warned him, and he's been aware of the... backlash that was sure to follow as soon as he started taking you out.
"Forget about me, Bucky. It's not worth it. They'll ruin you if we keep this up." Your hushed voice turns into a small sob as you speak the words that break his heart.
"I can't do that." He speaks softly and bring you closer to press a kiss on your tearful cheeks.
"I can't do that, baby. You know I can't. I love you."
"You don't understand! The lengths they'll go to keep you away from me... You'll lose everything because of me, Bucky!" Your voice is desperate now.
"Then I'll have you" he says quickly in response. "I'll have you and that's everything I'll ever need."
He doesn't expect you to push him away at those words, angrier and a little more desperate now to get through to him.
From outside the confession room, you hear your mother's voice outside calling for you. The both of you jump at the sound of her voice.
"Bucky, enough!" You whisper yell at him "Don't... Don't try anymore, okay? This isn't worth it."
If he thought his heart was breaking earlier, it's definitely wrecked now.
"What are you saying, bunny?"
"I'm saying... that if you ever did love me you'd stop."
The problem with Bucky Barnes is that he was a devoted lover. If you told him to pick the highest peach from a tree, he'd climb it immediately without question. If you told him you wanted pearls, he'd fish out the whole ocean for the best one.
If you told Bucky Barnes to let you go, he'd do it even if it killed him.
· ─ ·✶· ─ · ·
"Buck, come on. You've been like this for weeks." Steve comments as Bucky mopes in front of his garage stool, a beer in one hand and his bike keys with the charm you gave him on the other.
It's a little bunny keychain, a fluffy white one holding a pink heart.
'It's for good luck when you're out riding' you had told him cutely.
The dainty charm stands out against his intimidating features when he brings them out his pocket. It earns him odd looks from his friends and passers-by but he never paid them any mind.
He imagines the bunny as a piece of you he carries when he rides, which makes him more careful and aware on the road in his determination to keep you safe.
Bucky can't help but let out a sad chuckle at the memory when he fiddles with the bunny that looks too much like you.
"Give me a break, Stevie." he finally answers his friend. "Should've listened to you. You knew this was going to end badly" the defeat in his voice is new to Steve, making him wince at his friend's sadness.
"Hey, don't say that, Buck." Steve attempts to make him feel better. "Oakley and Rivercreek relationships are just... complicated, you know? You guys tried your best."
Although Steve was trying to comfort him, his words did nothing but dig Bucky into a deeper hole of despair.
He hadn't tried hard enough. He thought to himself. But your desperate expression when you told him to leave you alone holds him back from chasing after you.
Its silent for a moment, with only the faint hum of the television that hangs overhead serving as white noise.
Bucky is about to close shop for the day, too tired to have this conversation with his friend who means well, when the next segment of the local news channel starts playing which stops him in his tracks.
Oakley Association's 50th Anniversary Gala: Families within Oakley commemorate their golden year by raising millions of dollars for charity! Led by association head...
The camera cuts to a close up shot of you and your family at the same ballroom with the garden he snuck in to see you all those months ago.
Its the typical event you see Oakley families attend, but he knows that look of yours.
Your eyes are lacking the life they usually have, the sunlight you radiate is dull and bleak. You look as if you haven't had a good sleep in days. you look like you need him.
"Bun..." He mutters to himself when he sees you.
"You're going over there, aren't you Buck?" Steve asks.
Bucky responds by bringing out his keys- the bunny charm smiling up at him cutely, and sending Steve a look from over his shoulder
"You'll lock up for me, Stevie?"
· ─ ·✶· ─ · ·
Oakley's charity gala is yet another event that you are too familiar with.
The pastel yellow dress your mother had picked out for you is a disparity to the gloom clouding your chest. The pearls decorating your neck feel like chains grounding you to your role of a show dog for your family name.
"Smile" your mother reprimands you when she sees the sulk on your face.
"Many are watching. Your father paid a good amount of money for the headlines to feature us tonight." She reminds you.
"Wasn't it supposed to be for charity?" Your tone carries venom in them as you answer back once again. You've been doing that a lot lately. Bucky would have been proud of you.
Bucky.
Your heart shatters at the thought of him. The pain in your chest is a cruel reminder of how you had ripped his heart out in that confession room when you told him to leave you alone.
He was the only one to actually see you as more than your family name. The way he understands you down to the smallest of details is something that no one else can replicate.
Your mother shoots you one of her cold glares when you answer her back. She is tired of disciplining you with lectures about respect and adherence, and has taken a new method of punishment.
Suitors.
For the entirety of the night, you are being introduced to the most eligible bachelors of Oakley. Without a doubt a way for your mother to remind you of the other fish in the sea, but you only want one.
The smile you wear is polite, and you speak in a courteous manner, not having it in you to act unmannerly to strangers that don't deserve unkindness. Some of the men are very aggressive in their advances, aware that the dating pool in Oakley is very limited.
By the end of the night, you're exhausted. Your feet hurt, the dress is suffocating, and there are way too many people. All these factors pile up to overwhelm you, causing your eyes to embarrassingly water in the middle of the ballroom.
"Pull yourself together, child." Your mother says through clenched teeth.
"Do not embarrass us right now."
Eventually, you can't take it. You exit the huge ballroom doors quickly and make it out the garden. Its the same place where Bucky met you in that first time. The memory of seeing him behind one of the garden statues is enough for the dam to break.
You let out a small sob. Your chest tightening at the release of tension following the events of the night.
"Bunny?"
Bucky's voice cuts through the silence of the night air. You can still hear the faint, muffled sounds coming from the ballroom behind you, but Bucky's voice is clear in your ears.
"What... Bucky?"
"Over here, bunny. I was just about to text ya."
He stands next to one of the rosebushes, slightly hidden by the shadows that the moonlight illuminated over the landscape.
His hair is disheveled as if he's been running his hands through it multiple times. The sparkle in his eyes have dulled, but are still there when he looks at you.
Once he gets a proper look at you, his face falls into a frown.
"Who made you cry, bun?"
His immediate concern makes your heart ache. Even after telling him away, his first instinct is to check on you.
You can't take it anymore. You cry out before running down the steps of the platform towards him, throwing yourself in his arms.
"I'm here." He says after he catches your fall. Of course he does.
"I'm here, bunny. I'll protect you." He whispers into your hair.
"It's too much." You say through tears, muffled because of how you're burying your face in his chest.
"I can't take it anymore. All this bullshit they're making me do."
Bucky's arm tightens around your waist, the other hand strokes the back of your head in comfort. You stay in his arms for a moment, remembering how safe you feel when you're with him.
He lets you cry it out while whispering words of comfort 'I've got you, bun. Won't let them hurt you. I'm here.' He repeats just as many times as you need him to.
You calm down eventually, lifting your head to meet his gaze properly.
"How did you know?" is all you ask. He doesn't need any further explanation to answer.
"Saw the press release on the TV. They showed you and I couldn't... I couldn't just leave you there, not when you looked so... unhappy." His hand reaches up to cup your face, thumb lightly tracing your jaw.
"You came for me." You look up at him with so much love in your eyes that you feel his breath hitch.
"You needed me." He replies with a gentle voice, as if its the most obvious explanation.
The look he has reciprocates your own, making you sniffle back tears. That action makes you scrunch up your nose in the way he loves.
A fond smile appears on his face as he watches that little scrunch in between your brows form.
"Bunny..." He says softly. "My bunny."
Bucky kisses you. The first kiss since your declaration of love at the lake. It's still just as soft and sweet as you remember, but there is a new push of longing etched onto it.
You kiss him back with the same amount, showing just how much you've missed him.
"Want me to get ya out of here?" He speaks against your lips.
"What? Bucky-"
"I'm not letting you stay in there any longer, bunny."
He's right. You don't think you can physically or emotionally take the misery of being surrounded by pretentious rich folk, much less your preposterous mother and her impossible expectations.
"Just say the word and we're gone, bunny." Bucky's voice snaps you out of your thoughts.
"I... Yes." You breathe in deeply. "Yes, please, I want to get out of here." You repeat more confidently.
Bucky grins, gives you a reassuring squeeze on your waist before taking your hand in his and leading you further into the garden.
You follow him wordlessly before looking up at the high wall that divides the ballroom's garden from the rest of the world.
"Bucky, I don't think I can-"
"I'm not gonna let you scale a wall, bun." Bucky cuts you off with a slightly amused tone. "Wouldn't dream of it. Too dangerous for ya."
Instead, he leads you to the side of the building that passes just outside the event venue.
"We're using the main entrance?" Your steps falter once you realize where he's leading you.
"They won't notice. Everyone is too busy and drunk inside." He tells you. "You trust me, baby?"
"Yes." You say almost immediately. "Of course."
The smile Bucky flashes at your words is enough to make you forget all your worry. "Then let's go."
Just as he says, you make it out of the gala and into the bike he's parked a few paces away.
"I know you don't like the bike, but I didn't think I'd be stealing you away tonight." Bucky says sheepishly. "We can walk-"
"No, let's take the bike tonight."
Reluctantly, you get on the bike with Bucky's assistance while he chuckles at your attempt at putting on a brave face for him.
"Relax, bunny. I'll drive slowly." He reassures you. You believe him.
The ride back to his place isn't as bad as you expected. You enter through the garage where he parks his bike and are greeted with the satisfying and familiar smell of earth and wood.
The polaroid that you took together is still pinned on one of his boards, next to the car blueprints and documents that he needs for the job.
"Never took it off. Couldn't bring myself to." He says without looking up at from his bike as he secures the lock on its handlebars.
"Always felt like it was never really the end, you know? Of us."
You hum in agreement and continue looking at the polaroid. It was taken a few months back on one of the first dates he took you on.
'Whatcha got there, bun?' He had asked you while you were fishing out something from your bag.
'Brought something for us, took it right out of father's study.' In your hand is a polaroid camera. The expensive kind Bucky has only seen on store shelves.
He lets out a low whistle at the costly item.
'Ya taking things from your parents now, bunny? Am I rubbing off on you the wrong way?' He jokes.
The idea of his sweet innocent bunny doing rebellious things amuses him. To him, she's the type that would frown upon jaywalking.
'Oh, hush you. I'm just borrowing it.' You slap his arm playfully. 'Come on now, say cheese.'
You bring the camera up and snap the photo just as Bucky lands a sweet kiss to your cheek.
The moment lays frozen in time on his pegboard.
As you continue to reminisce, you feel Bucky's warm figure creep up behind you. Strong arms encircle your waist pulling you so close that you feel his breath at the back of your neck. He lands a kiss on your nape, making you shiver.
"Missed ya." He whispers. "Was going crazy without ya."
Instinctively, you lean into his touch, pressing your back closer to his chest as he continues trailing kisses down your neck.
"M-missed you too." Your breathing gets heavier as his lips tickle your skin in all the sensitive spots.
"Bucky..." You warn shyly as he starts getting handsy with you- pulling you closer and kissing down your neck with more vigor than before.
"I can stop," he pauses, lips tickling your skin, "but I can also make you feel good, bunny. Do you want me to make you feel good?"
The offer is tempting, and you want so desperately to just let yourself feel the man that you've missed so dearly.
However, your lack of experience in comparison to Bucky holds you back. Sure, you've kissed boys before, but you've never done... that. Your strict parents have always been a crutch in allowing you to experience anything more intimate than kissing.
"I don't know... I-I've never- I don't know how, Bucky." You stutter shamefully at your cluelessness.
"That's alright, bunny. I know." Bucky presses one last deep kiss on the column of your neck. "You just let me show you, yeah? Are you okay with that?"
You nod your head shyly.
"Words, bun." He pushes
"Yes. I-I'm okay with that." you tell him.
At your confirmation, Bucky spins you around to face him.
"If we're going to do this, I'll make sure to do everything right." His words have that seriousness to them as he looks at you with that familiar glint of a sparkle in his eyes.
"Come upstairs with me."
· ─ ·✶· ─ · ·
When you get upstairs, Bucky pulls you in almost immediately into a kiss and pushes you against the door to close it. You gasp into his mouth at the sudden movement, making him breathe out a chuckle against your lips.
"Sorry," he says cheekily "Just... missed you so damn much. Got excited."
You giggle at his eagerness and kiss him back just as hard.
"Take me then, Bucky. I'm all yours."
He lets out a low growl at that, fingers bringing up the hem of your yellow dress from the gala.
"Yeah? Never stopped being mine, right? Even when we were apart?" His question feels more like a statement, but you love how possessive he is with you.
"Yours" you repeat.
His hands slide your dress up to your waist before pulling you closer to him. You can feel how hard he is through his pants when he presses against you.
Before you could let out a moan at the slight friction, Bucky pulls you into a rougher kiss before spinning you around from the door frame to fall on his bed.
You lay there sprawled out- hair a mess, yellow dress wrinkled and bunched up to your thighs, but Bucky thinks its the most ethereal sight he's ever seen.
"Beautiful," he whispers as he pulls away to take in the sight of you "I'll take good care of you bun."
"You already do." You sigh lovingly as his hands find the zipper at the back of your dress.
The fabric covering you is removed so slowly and carefully, as if Bucky is afraid to accidentally break you if you're not handled as anything less than fragile.
You hear his breath hitch in your throat as you lay under him, almost completely bare if it weren't for the white lace panties that you still have on.
"God, bunny. You're gonna kill me."
He kisses you again sensually, hands roaming more freely than they've ever gone before- from your waist, up the curve of the sides of your stomach, until they land gently on your breasts.
His hand gropes at the flesh while the other hand pins you in place by the hip. You moan at the feeling of his tender touch which makes him trail his mouth to your ear.
"That feel good?" He whispers.
Shyly, you nod at him.
"I'm gonna touch you more now, alright? You tell me to stop and we stop. Got that?"
"Don't stop." Your words reach him in a breathless whisper, urging him to continue on.
His lips trail downwards, kissing down your collarbone to the curve of your breast. Hand continuing to massage and play with the other. You feel his lips lick up at the bud, the new and wet feeling making you moan.
"F-fuck, Bucky." It's almost embarrassing how you're already a mess under him when he's barely even started.
"That's alright, bunny. Let it out- let me know I'm making you feel good." The words of reassurance are spoken to you as if he can read what you're thinking. He gives one last lick on your nipple before attaching his lips to the other side to give it the same treatment.
The hand that was on your hips travels further down to the hem of your lace panties. You gasp at his touch but don't make an effort to tell him to stop.
"Bet you're wet already," he says smugly. "You're already so responsive to my mouth on your tits."
Bucky chuckles when he sees your eyes widen and face flush at his lewd words. He hates to admit, but your innocence and lack of experience is turning him on.
His hands dip down, still on top of the fabric and not taking it off you just yet. When his fingers meet your center, you both let out a rough exhale at the wetness that has pooled there.
"No ones ever touched you here, right bunny?"
He makes his thumb glide up and down your entrance, covered by the thin lace which creates a delicious friction on your clit. You shake your head unable to form any words except for the soft moans escaping you.
He chuckles again at your desperate state.
"What a pure fucking pussy..." He sighs, obviously turned on. "All for me to ruin." The pressure he puts against your core increases, making you whine for him louder.
"B-Bucky-!" You're so, so wet that you can hear your juices squelching against your panties as he continues thumbing at the entrance of your pussy. Every brush of his thumb drags the lace down on your clit which makes you gasp out.
"That's it, baby... You like that? Haven't even started and you're already this wet... Fuck." His eyes darken as he watches you dampen both his fingers and your panties.
You want to tell him to stop teasing you, to take them off and touch you properly- but its as if he's turned on by the thin barrier blocking him off from your sweetness.
He moves his body down to be in level with your core. Before you can comprehend what's happening, you feel his tongue lap up at your pussy in one long and hard stroke against the fabric.
"A-ah!" The sound that leaves you is in between a cry and a moan. "Bucky, please!"
"Please what, bunny?" He teases by eating you out through the fabric of your underwear. The material is so thin that you can feel his hot tongue moving against you almost completely, but its still not enough.
"T-take them off... Please." You sob from the pleasure.
"Yeah?" He sucks your clit hard, earning a louder cry from you. "You want me to eat your needy cunt, bunny? Want me to taste you proper?" He makes you feel the warmth of his mouth on your clit as he sucks and licks.
"Yes!" You moan loudly. "Yes, oh god, please!"
Bucky is enchanted by the sight. His sweet and innocent girl making a mess for him on his bed, on his tongue. He can't deny you any longer.
"There's no god here, bunny." He rips the ruined lace from your legs. "Just me."
Finally, he dives down to lick you from top to bottom. Completely catching the wetness at your entrance and bringing it to your clit before sucking it into his mouth.
"Ohh fuck," you cry out, lost in pleasure that you become unaware of the lewd moans you're making.
A finger joins his mouth in pleasuring you, rockin git back and forth until he hits the spot that makes you see stars.
"R-right there! Yes-fuck!"
"Yeah? Right there, bunny? Right fucking there?" He continues his work on your clit with his mouth, while finger-fucking you to the edge.
You can feel yourself about to come. The coil in your stomach tightens and the warmth in your core bracing itself for what's about to happen. He feels you tighten around his fingers, and your hips squirm to get away from the onslaught he has on your pussy.
"Gonna cum, bunny?" He mutters against your pussy, making the vibrations push you closer to the edge.
"T-too much, Bucky-! C-can't...!"
"Just feel, bun." He says against your clit in between lapping up against it. He presses his arm on top of your stomach to keep you from squirming.
"Feel it, bunny. Let go for me. Cum on my tongue."
Heat washes over your whole body. You do exactly as you're told and cum on his tongue generously, which he licks at with a moan. For a moment, you lose all sense of presence and can only focus on the pleasure washing over you.
"So fucking good..." He says while drinking you up. "Did so good for me, baby."
Once you've calmed down, Bucky brings himself back up to kiss your forehead. "You okay?"
When you nod your head, Bucky breathes a sigh of relief.
"Lost you for a second there, thought you were going to pass out."
You let out a weak giggle.
"Still want more of you, though..." You bring your hands up to Bucky's shirt to pull it off his head, and moan at the sight of his chiseled body.
He kisses you as he takes off his pants as well, leaving him in just his boxers.
"We don't have to-" he tries to say.
"I want to, please."
Bucky nods at your reassurance, laying you down and propping a pillow underneath your hips. 'It'll feel better with the pillow there' he had told you.
Once he's set you laid out properly on the bed, he props himself on his elbows hovering above you.
"I'll be gentle." He says genuinely, eyes locked on yours lovingly.
"I know, I trust you." You reply back to his sincerity with your own.
He takes a moment to position himself outside your entrance, rubbing the head of his cock outside to lube himself with your juices. Slowly, you feel him press the tip inside you.
There's a sudden stretch that you feel, making you gasp at the foreign sensation.
"Still okay?" He pauses to ask.
"Keep going, Bucky..."
Encouraged by your words, he continues pushing in slowly, slowly, until he's fully sheathed inside you. It stings and the pressure it places on your lower half is stinging.
But when you look up, Bucky's face is contorted in pleasure. The tightness of your walls, the way you feel so warm, and wet, and soft makes him feel like he's in heaven.
"Fuckkk- bunny," Bucky groans and rests his head on your shoulder as your warmth encompasses him. He struggles not to move and you can see how it pains him to stay still in order for you to adjust.
"J-just, tell me if- if you can't- fuck" his words come out in gasps and heavy breaths. He can barely form a coherent sentence.
"You can move, Buck." you tell him with a shaky breath.
"Sure, bun?"
After giving him a look of certainty, with a nod he thrusts in shallowly. Any big movements can wait till later, his main priority now is to make sure you don't get hurt.
"Shit, bunny. You're so tight." He groans lowly as his thrusts get deeper. "You feel so fucking good, baby."
After a few particular thrusts, you start feeling sparks of pleasure overriding the pain.
"Mmm, Bucky..." You moan softly.
"Yeah? That good, bun? You like how I'm fucking you?" He asks you, panting as he begins to pick up the pace.
His thrusts get more confident now that you're showing signs of pleasure. The length of his cock still stretches you out and stings, but you love how good he's filling you up.
"O-oh!" You arch your back at a certain spot that he finds. Its the same one he was hitting with his fingers earlier, but deeper. The pillow underneath your hips tilts your body at a position that makes him hit you deeper.
Bucky continues to drill that spot, hitting it with every thrust until you find yourself at the edge again. You can feel him twitch inside you, signaling that he's close.
"I'm not gonna last, bunny." He tells you in a low voice. "I need ya to finish again for me."
His thumb finds your clit again. Its a soft touch, but its enough to bring you closer. You can feel how wet you are as it spreads to your thighs, and Bucky can feel it coat all over his dick.
"I-I'm..." you trail off, mind going blank as he continues to chase both your highs.
"That's it, let go. Cum with me, bunny" he urges you.
You cum with a high pitched moan, clutching onto him as you let yourself go for the second time that night.
"Fuckkkk, bun." he groans as he follows after you, filling you up to the hilt and milking himself completely until he's emptied his load into you.
The bed dips as he crashes next to you, completely spent and with a satisfied, tired smile on his face.
"That was..." You trail off.
"Yeah." He agrees. "I love you, you know that?"
"I do, Bucky. I love you, too." turning to face him, you get a good view of of your favorite shade of blue encompassing the sparkle that rests in his pupils.
For a moment you both forget the troubles that wait for you outside the safety of his home.
"Bunny... I'll fight for us, you know that?" He breaks the comfortable silence between the both of you. "I won't let them take you away from me again."
"Bucky..." you trail off.
"I promised you I'd take care of you, didn't I?" The words spoken between are soft and gentle, a tone he only seems to carry with you, yet carry so much weight. "I'll prove it to them, to everyone, that I can be enough for you."
"Bucky, you don't need to prove anything to anyone." You tell him sincerely. "I love you, and maybe that's all that matters."
For now, at least, you both settle into each other's embrace without any worries.
For now, love is all that matters. You'll worry about the hardships that face you in the morning.
For now, you're safe in Bucky's arms.
Bubu Barnes @herejustforbuckybarnes - Tumblr Blog | Tumgag
