Summary: Your soulmate's name etched on your arm was the one thing that kept you alive, during your time under the hands of Dreykov and even after being recruited by the Avengers. But sometimes, you wish that the situation wasn't so difficult. Because the owner of the name marked on your arm was the same man was the same man you trained with in the Red Room.
warnings: angst, heavy with reader insert, requited unrequited love, you might be frustrated with the reader but so am i
the idea for this oneshot came from me rediscovering risk by gracie abrams and thinking about how it's a perfect song to use for a soulmate au
wc: 7.3k
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“You ever plan to show me the mark on your arm, mini-Widow?” Tony asks you.
He’s holding his glass of champagne in one hand, while playfully grabbing at your arm with his free one. You laugh it off, shoving his hand away from you and tutting at him.
“I can break your hand with a single move, Tony. Don’t even try.”
“Oh, come on! Nat’s seen it!”
As if on cue, Natasha sits beside you, mirroring the same look of amusement you had on your face. “That’s because I’ve known her longer.”
“And she’s seen me nake—”
“Spare me the details!” Tony interrupts you, hands frantically waving in front of your face. “I’ll figure it out. One way or another!”
“Sure, you will, Stark.”
“I’m a genius! Nothing ever gets past me. Now, excuse me ladies, I better stop Thor before he kills Clint with alcohol poisoning.”
From afar, you hear hoots and cheers right where Clint is trying to chug what you assume to be Asgardian mead in a flask. Tony, at first, tries to step in and tell Thor to quit enticing ‘Midguardians’ with a drink that could put the average person in the hospital with just five sips. You recognize the lightheartedness in his tone, but you know that he isn’t entirely far from the truth.
Not everyone was a God or had some freak serum running in their veins.
Just a few feet away from all the ruckuses stood Steve Rogers, Sam Wilson, and Bucky Barnes, laughing at some exchange between the three of them. Your eyes immediately gravitate to the brunette—your heart embarrassingly stuttering when you drink in just how good he looked despite wearing a simple outfit. Nothing out of the ordinary, just a dark blue shirt that hugged his biceps really well and jeans that wrapped around his thighs incredibly so.
When your eyes land on him, it’s difficult to stop admiring the features he donned on his body. The little scars scattered around the edges of his face, the wrinkle of his shirt telling you he had most likely grabbed from the bottom of his drawer, the stubble on his chin—which, you realized a few days ago he had kept at the same length ever since you complimented how good it looked on him.
He's annoyingly the most handsome man you’ve ever laid eyes on.
When you let yourself drink in how handsome he looked, you don’t realize his eyes were set on you until you met his stare. Eyes widening in surprise, but you’re quick enough to hide it and smile at him, nerves worsening when you think you see a hint of a smirk on his face. The plates on his metal arm shift as he grips tighter on the bottle of beer he’s nursing down, and you swear he’s doing it to taunt you.
“Does he know?” Natasha’s voice somehow rings louder than the chatter and music.
You turn to her, your smile faltering as you shake your head. You can’t bring yourself to look at her in the eyes, always interrogating and curious. Your hands fidget with the loose thread on your sleeves.
“You should tell him, pchelka.”
“I don’t think he’d like that.”
“Him or you?”
You don’t answer her question, partly because you know it’s rhetorical, and the other because should you give an answer, you’re ashamed of the fact that it was more for you than it was for him.
____
At 5 years old, you remember telling your parents about your dreams of marrying a prince. Granted, you’re pretty sure that almost every young girl at that age had some fantasy of marrying into a family of ranking and somehow magically inherit a whole kingdom. You remember how your mother would ask questions about how the prince looked, and your father acting as if you meeting a man in your dreams was the end of the world.
You remember laughter, being carried in the arms of your father while he told you that you weren’t allowed to marry any man until you were 30. That he only had 11 years left being the most important man in your life before your soulmate’s name would appear on your left arm.
You remember telling him he’ll always be important to you. And you remember how his smile dropped, looking at you with sadness etched across his face as he said, “I won’t be.”
You remember fresh dinners, warm sheets, and slow dances. You can still feel your mother’s fingers running through your hair as she soothed you to sleep, the raspiness of her voice after a tiring day but still trying to show you that she loved you.
She loved you.
She loved you.
At 13 years old, your parents sold you to Dreykov.
At 15 years old, you’re one of the most lethal Widows that the Red Room had raised.
Now, they’re memories you look back at with bitterness, with hate—as you deal with the life they left you with.
It’s what you think of while you’re staring at the cold soup served to you 15 minutes ago. It wasn’t by any means delicious—it was all vegetables and chicken thrown into a bland broth, that you’d think by now you would’ve gotten used to. But for the past 9 years you’ve been in this place you consider to be a prison, you feel as if you’ll never get to know anything beyond your training.
That’s nothing for else for you except for what the Red Room gave to you.
To become a killer. You are not a person, but a weapon.
The name written on your arm itches as you try to down the rest of your soup. It had started acting that way since the Red Room had welcomed HYDRA soldiers to train you all. And it had started to get worse when you were forced to train with the Winter Soldier. Since HYDRA had thought it best to put their asset to train with one of the Red Room’s best, and with Natasha gone, you were the next best thing they offered. Brutal, hard, and unrelenting—the Soldier didn’t even give you the chance to catch your breath no matter how exhausted you were.
But you couldn’t allow yourself to fail.
No.
You hated losing, but more than that, you hated the consequences that would come after.
It would start small: they gave you less rations of food, longer hours of training, and shorter hours of rest in a brightly lit room. Then the batons would come in, and so did the cuts and bruises on your knees from the two hours your ballet teacher spent beating them with the stick. Then it would be depriving you of a sustainable diet for a whole week—left only to feed off sweet potatoes and three cups of water. And then more, more, more, and worse.
You try your damned hardest to block, evade, kick, and get a hit in. But it’s obvious that from stamina alone, he was getting the upper hand. You were beyond exhausted, and you could already practically feel the ache of your bones when you wake up the next day.
And, just like it always was, your best just wasn’t enough.
That day ended with the Soldier fracturing your left arm—ironically, right where your mark was—and a tsk from your superior.
So, now you were stuck with bland soup and a lukewarm cup of water—your last of the day.
You think you hate the Soldier more for being the reason why you were almost beaten to death that day, than you did your parents for bringing you to the field in God-knows-where.
____
“So, let me get this right,” Rhodey spoke as the others sat around the couch. “You’ve already met your soulmate but didn’t do anything to let them know that they were?” he asks almost incredulously.
After all the visitors and guests of the party had left, Tony insisted that you all just hang-out before formally ending the party. Bonding is important for team dynamics, he had declared. Now, all of you had spent the past two hours and a half talking about anything and everything. Thor sharing his latest adventures with the Guardians, Clint affectionately complaining about Kate and Yelena ruining his sleep schedule, and a short-lived game of two-truths-one-lie that ended when you all realized Wanda had been reading your minds to figure out which was the lie. Cheating, but clever.
Now, after Tony had drunkenly announced to everyone that he had never seen your soulmate mark, and everyone eventually realizing that you had meticulously made an effort to never show the mark on your arm, the talk of the hour was you. You figured it was harmless to give them a few details here and there. When it first appeared, how it itched during a particularly rough training in the Red Room, how it was the only thing that tethered you to sanity.
Something that would eventually be yours after everything you had, had been taken away from you.
As long as they never figure out whose name it was etched on your skin.
“Never said that I’ve met him, Rhodey,” you answer.
“But you said that it itched! That’s what happens when you meet them!”
You shrugged. “Or maybe I was just itchy.”
“Bullshit!”
“Look, I don’t know why this is such a big deal for you all!” You confess. “I mean, some people don’t even end up with the soulmates given to them. This,” you point at the spot where your soulmate mark was, “is not an end-all-be-all. And my situation isn’t even half as bad as others.”
Sam Wilson, the cheeky little bastard, raised his hand. “I think it’s just interesting because the entire time you’ve been here, no one’s ever seen you in anything else but long sleeves and jackets. You’re obviously hiding something.”
“Or someone,” Tony chimes in.
“I’m just saying, it shouldn’t be a big deal,” you say.
Steve, who had been quiet for the most part of the conversation, speaks up. “If it’s not a big deal then why don’t you tell us?”
Tony nods and looks at you as if Steve had said something revolutionary to human knowledge. “Look, not even a little peek? Just show us the first letter and we’ll leave it alone!”
You know that their insistence in wanting to see your mark was all in good faith. You had never meant for it to be completely hidden; it was just a habit to wear longer sleeves and warm clothes after everything you had been through. It wasn’t even that you were consciously trying to hide it at first.
You just selfishly wanted to keep it to yourself because you were so used to having everything be taken away from you that you just want this for yourself.
No matter how unfair it was for your soulmate, you’ve already convinced yourself that he was better off not knowing who you were.
“You can all just use your imagination because I am going to bed,” you say as you rise from where you’re seated on the couch. Everyone groans and tells you to stay, but you laugh and wave them off, saying goodnight.
You’re about five steps away from the elevators when you hear footsteps follow after you. You turn your head around and almost trip when you see that it was Bucky. You furrow your brows when you realize he’s not with anyone else, which was usually the case. It was either Steve or Sam who always accompanied him.
You already dread the elevator ride up to your floor.
Not because you hate being in the same room as him, no. It’s one of the things you love most about being an Avenger—you’re almost always around him.
It’s just that you hate the feeling it gives you.
You give him a curt smile when he steps in the elevator to stand beside you. It’s quiet for the most part, just the faint whirring of the elevator rising and music being played being the only sounds that filled the small space. You’re facing your head to the wall on your left when Bucky clears his throat.
“You’re lucky, you know.” He says it so lowly that you think you’re imagining him talking to you. But he is, and he’s looking at you straight in the eyes already when you look at him.
God, you could drown in the shade of his eyes.
“What?”
Bucky shrugs, lips forming into a thin line. “You still have it.”
It takes you a moment to get what he’s saying, but you do. You still have the mark, you still have your soulmate’s name written on your skin, is what he means. You get it from how he brings out his metal hand from his pocket and turns his arm around. Staring at nothing but the plates of metal where soft skin would be.
Your heart breaks when you see the strained expression on his face. You allow the silence to speak for your empathy before you break it.
“I don’t show people because. . .because I figured it better for me to keep it to myself than be set up for disappointment again. I guess I’m doing it to protect them, too.”
Bucky mirrors the look in your eyes—grieving over something that you never had the chance to have. If anyone could understand your situation, it was him. Which was, arguably, the worst part of all of this.
When the elevator dings and the doors open, it was your cue to leave. You don’t want to spend another second in that space because you’re afraid that if he keeps looking at you like that, you’ll tell him who it was. You mutter a quick goodbye before dashing to your room.
When you’re in your room, you lean against the door and take a deep breath. You strip yourself of the clothing that felt increasingly constricting as Bucky’s face burned inside your head. You took to the shower, letting the water run down your body. Your eyes burning with the tears that threatened to fall.
It’s when you look down to your arm that they do.
Your lip trembles and your chest aches as your finger traces the lines.
James Buchanan Barnes.
____
A few days after the party, Fury comes to you all with a file in his hand—a mission, you’ve grown to learn. He gathers everyone up in a room to brief you all about what you would do. It was the usual, for the past six months you had been tracking the remaining HYDRA bases, some active and some abandoned.
Retrieve files, track down any clues that you could get, save civilians if need be—nothing extremely out of the ordinary.
Except for the fact that you knew the base as if it were your own home. Because, at one point, it was.
You see Natasha from the other side of the table, perusing the file as if it were the last thing she’d ever be able to read. From a few seats away, you hear Yelena cursing under her breath.
“I thought we destroyed it,” Yelena said. The fear in her voice makes your head spin.
At least, it doesn’t faze Fury. “You did. But only the Red Room Academy. Since Dreykov made a deal with HYDRA to train their Widows, it seems that they wanted to cover more ground. More bases, more Widows, so they lent this to the Red Room. Decided to make use of it.”
“But Dreykov’s dead,” Natasha says almost robotically. She’s looking at Fury with what you recognize to be a mix of resentment and skepticism. “Yelena and I killed him.”
“Never said you didn’t, Agent Romanoff. But this was a different base.” Fury turns to you and calls your name.
You realize that the entire time, since Fury had handed you the file, you had been quiet. Which wasn’t exactly unusual, you think you’re one of the people who usually kept to themselves. But it’s obvious that your lack of participation in the conversation wasn’t because of that.
“If I’m not mistaken this was your base?”
“Uh, yeah. Yeah. It was, it’s. . .”
You’re thankful for Steve and his captain instincts for stepping in. “So what are we going to do?”
“Well, as far as we know it isn’t active. Hasn’t been since Agent Romanoff and Agent Belova destroyed the Red Room Academy. They all fled somewhere, hidden but they’re still there. But that’s not what you’re being sent for. There are files in this base that holds information on other Widows. Widows that you’ve been looking for, Yelena.”
“I thought we got everyone out of there.”
“You did. But the others are out there. And we need their files, or else they’re just another Jane Doe case.”
“Why didn’t they bring the files with them when they left?”
You answer for Fury. “Because they know we’ll come back for them.”
“So, what, we’re walking into a trap?”
“I don’t think we are,” Natasha says. “The Red Room was smart enough to keep all the Widows’ information in a database. The goal here isn’t to make sure we’re the only ones who have those files.”
“We’re getting those files because we want to know who we’re searching for,” you say as you stand from your seat.
You don’t stay for when Fury’s telling who’s needed on the mission. You already know from the way Fury kept glancing at you as he spoke that you would sooner or later be on that jet. You at least save him from the task of having to show some type of regret that he was asking you to be on the mission.
You’re on your way to the weapons room when you feel your phone buzz in your pocket. You take it out to see it’s only Tony letting you know you need to be in the jet in 45 minutes.
As you place your usual weapons of choice in your suit, you hear the sliding door open. From the faint footsteps, you already know that it’s Yelena. Years of being told to tread on your feet lightly to not be heard. Years of being in that damned Red Room and the lessons you were taught never leaving your body no matter how hard you tried.
She’s beside you in a second, and you can tell that she’s trying to choose what words to say.
You’re about to tell her that the other Widows disappearing wasn’t her fault, but the both of you speak at the same time.
“It’s not your fault that they’re out there—”
“—Barnes is coming with us.”
Oh.
That you weren’t exactly expecting. But it makes sense, previous HYDRA soldier and Red Room trainer coming with you on the mission. You feel like an idiot for missing that.
The troubled countenance Yelena wore on her face was noticeable gone when you look at her. It makes you groan when you see her cheeky, teasing attitude back. You already know this is something she won’t let go for the entirety of the mission.
“You know, he looked pretty concerned while Fury was briefing us.” Her voice was playfully taunting.
“I’m sure. He trained us.”
“Don’t act coy, now, zolotse. He offered to be part of the mission.”
“What?”
Now, that you totally weren’t expecting to happen.
Yelena’s smirk grows. “Seems like your soulmate doesn’t need a mark to know it’s you.”
“Stop it, Yelena.” You say it lightly, but the weight behind your words is there.
Yelena’s playfulness cracks when she sees how you’re pained you look talking about it. “What are you so afraid of that it’s stopping you?”
You’re able to let only a sigh out before you spoke. Which, you were so hell-bent on never saying out loud. Because if you did, then it would be heard. And it would turn real. But you don’t think you can let yourself be the only one holding it back.
And this was Yelena, your sister and your family.
“Because I don’t want to let him live with the fact that his soulmate would always be tied to that part of him that he’s been trying so hard to make amends with. You know this, Yelena.”
“I do, but don’t you think it’s unfair to him that you’re making this decision.”
“I know it is. But I also know it’s gonna hurt him more knowing it’s me.”
“Did he tell you that?”
“Yelena, just—”
“I won’t leave this alone, zolotse. If only you can see beyond this guilt that you don’t even have to carry, then you’ll see that how he cares about you will trump over any possible outcome that you’ve sabotaged yourself with. You can’t stop him from finding out.”
“I know,” you say defeatedly.
Thankfully, Yelena leaves the conversation at that. She wraps her arms around your shoulders tightly, and you instinctively burrow your head in the crook of her neck. It reminds you of when she first found you. When she broke you free from the chemical subjugations and mind control, and for the first time in ten years you felt afraid. But she was there.
She always would be.
____
Despite Fury telling you that the base was inactive, you know enough not to trust that piece of information fully. It wasn’t often that he was wrong, but you’re familiar with how HYDRA and the Red Room worked that there would always be something to catch you off-guard.
And just like always, you were right.
But it wasn’t anything you couldn’t handle. Cleverly placed traps, some agents that you figured were stationed to watch over the base and the files of missing Widows stashed somewhere inside.
You just hated that wherever you went, Bucky would follow you too.
At first, you’re appreciative, he tells you to look out for a hit that would’ve compromised you if it weren’t for his warning. He even doesn’t hesitate to pick you up from when you fell after a particularly nasty kick to the chest.
But you realize that he hasn’t left your side since stepping foot out of the quinjet.
You gave it some doubt, thinking that perhaps he was ordered by Steve to watch over you in case any HYDRA agent tried to hurt you, or Sam’s older brother tendencies stepping in and telling his friend to make sure you’re home from this mission without a scratch on you. But he lets you take the lead, follows wherever you go, protects you, and even once asked if you were okay when you reached the training room.
The forced nod you give him is enough to keep him quiet for the rest of the time you search for the room where you’re sure they kept the files. You reach a familiar corridor, one where you recall new recruits—you laugh at the word, because really, the right word was victims—would be kept before their first day of training. Your hands reach for the doorknob, and you try your hardest to ignore the obvious thumps of your heart that reaches your eyes when you feel Bucky’s warm hand reach behind you.
The second the door opens, your raise the gun in your hands as you scan the room for any possible threat. Bucky does the same. When you clear the room and both deem is safe, you place your gun down and rush to the near-empty shelf in the corner of the room.
You reach for the stack of brown manila folders, covered in cobwebs and dust, place it on the metal table in the center of the room, and you feel your heart constricting when you see pictures of familiar faces on each of them. Their names are all-too familiar to you, some you would seek out in the middle of the night after a rough session, some you never got to see again after a mission.
Bucky is behind you while you’re looking at the folders, searching the other shelves for any similar ones. He sees a few, not as much as the one you found, but opens some of them anyway. He sees some faces he vaguely remembers, some students he used to train while under the control of HYDRA. He briefly wonders if they’ve made it out like him.
When he opens another folder, his breath gets stuck in his throat when he sees it’s yours. He’s about to tell you what he’s found, but finds that there’s no voice in him as he reads the rest of what’s written about you.
At first it’s details he already knows about you, eye color, hair color, name. But then it’s details about your parents, when you were first brought to the Red Room, your progress as a Widow, and your fighting techniques. Then he reads about your time training with the Winter Soldier, how despite your evident progress as a fighter, you would always lose him. He makes a mental note to store that information later and find a way to apologize to you.
Then his eyes reach the bottom of the page, and he swears he feels his heart drop to his stomach when he reads:
SOULMATE MARK: JAMES BUCHANAN BARNES.
His eyes are stuck on that line. Reading and reading it again as if magically the information written on the paper was wrong and he was imagining it. But it’s there, and it wasn’t changing.
Then he thinks about the multiple times he’s caught you staring, and him always shrugging it off as curiosity or shyness despite Sam’s insistence that no girl looks at anyone like that just because. And then he remembers how your right hand always scratches at your left arm when he’s around. And how every time he’s close to you or even gets the chance to talk to you, his heart feels just about ready to burst whenever you look at him.
There were the signs all along, signs that he never even realized he had been trying to ignore for the longest time because. . . well, he never thought that after everything he had done, he was worthy of finding his soulmate.
That, and because falling of that train that day had taken everything from him, his soulmate mark along with it.
“Bucky?” Your voice snaps him out of his trance. His hands close the folders as fast as he could, the sound of it closing shocking the both of you with his strength. You don’t let it bother you though, something he’s realized you’ve always done whenever he showed any sort of ability he got from the serum. Even when it was close to the same strength that the Winter Soldier had.
You give him a small smile, mistaking his tense demeanor from being bothered about the missing Widows, and not the fact that he knows. “We need to go.”
All you get from him is a small ‘okay’ and you’re on your way back to the quinjet. It doesn’t escape you that he’s quiet, which you wouldn’t mind any other day, but there’s a certain aura around him that makes you think that in those brief few minutes you two spent retrieving the files, he’s seen something he shouldn’t have.
————
It’s been weeks, and it’s killing you how Bucky hasn’t once showed himself to you or stayed long enough in the same room for you to greet him. You figure it’s what you wanted—makes it easier for you to hide the fact that you’re clearly affected by him. It also makes the fact that you’re hiding such a huge secret from him an easier task to do because you’re not feeling compelled to spill everything to him after seeing how bothered he looked during that flight back to the tower.
You’re trying not to let it get to you, you tell yourself that it’s okay. That’s it’s for the best that you stay out of his way.
But you miss him.
And it’s clear that you’re not the only one who sees it.
“Just go talk to him,” Sam says definitively. He’s been trying to get you to talk to Bucky for the past week, like it’s easy for you to do. Which you don’t exactly fault him for.
“Or maybe he’s ignoring me for a reason.”
“Which is why you should go talk to him if he does.”
You groan and lay your head in your hands. You’ve been battling with yourself for the last hour thinking if it would just be better to tell Sam the reason why you’re finding it so difficult.
“You’re into him, aren’t you?”
You’re looking at him as if he’d caught you doing something wrong. And it doesn’t help that your lack of an answer is taken as confirmation.
“You are! Aha! I knew it!”
“Oh my God, Sam, shut up! I never said anything!”
“You don’t have to, sugar. No words are needed when your eyes speak for themselves.”
“You’re annoyingly poetic when you can be.”
Sam laughs. “Look, all I’m saying is, maybe you’re not the only one who’s bothered about the distance.”
You want to dismiss the blush that’s warming your cheeks at the thought. Your leg is bouncing up and down while you’re weighing your decisions if it’s a good idea to tell Sam or not. Though you love Natasha and Yelena with your whole being and trust them with your life, it’s still difficult to keep the fact that Bucky Barnes, of all people, was the one person you were meant to end up with.
That the person you’d think about during those years in the Red Room, was the same man who trained with you until your body was screaming. But you learned to forgive him, learned to accept that it was a thing of the past. Because, despite how many times you were subjected to the consequences of losing to him, he was the one thing that kept you going.
Even just the mere thought of him was enough for you to forget the cruelty you were forced to live with your entire life.
You were invested even before you had met James—Bucky.
“He’s my soulmate,” you say lowly. Just quiet enough for Sam to hear, or not if he hadn’t been paying attention to you. But he caught it.
And he’s completely in shock when he processes it.
“Bucky is your soulmate?!”
“I just told you that, didn’t I?”
“Wait—but that. . . you met him while you were in the Red Room!”
“First time it itched was when they made us train together.”
“Does he know?”
“No.”
Sam is quiet for a few seconds. “Will you tell him?”
“I’ve thought about it. I mean . . . I can’t keep something this big hidden forever but . . . I always figured it was better to hide it. That way he’s saved from the fact that his soulmate is someone connected to his past.”
“You don’t know that.”
“And you don’t either, Sam. Because you weren’t there. You didn’t see how intense the Soldier could get. He didn’t hold back. And I know for a fact that some part of Bucky carries guilt over that. And—”
“—and if you tell him, he’ll blame himself for what happened.” Sam quickly gets your point and sighs. The complexity of the entire situation getting to him too.
“Exactly, Sam.”
“And you’re sure he doesn’t know?”
“Well. . .”
The question makes you think: does he? You’re almost sure that he doesn’t know, but after the mission, he had made it a point to not even cross paths with you. You tried to think of any other reason for it. Maybe you did something during that mission that turned him off. Maybe he was disappointed in you for not getting the other Widows when you were saved. Maybe he was tired of being nice with you. Maybe. Maybe. Maybe.
But you think really hard. Does he know? He wouldn’t be ignoring you so determinedly if he didn’t know. But did he?
“Talk to him.”
Natasha’s voice echoes from where she’s stood. She’s walking down the steps and to the couch where you’re seated with Sam. Her hand finds itself soothing your hair as she talks.
“It’s hurting the both of you, both this distance and your secret. Just talk to him.”
“It’s a big risk, Nat.”
“We’ve lived our whole lives in service for the people who never cared about us. This job asks a lot from us to risk everything the mere second we agreed to do it. What’s so different about this?”
You say the thing you’ve always been scared of admitting.
“Because if this ends up being the wrong thing, then it’ll just be another case of thinking I can have something for myself and end up disappointed.”
Nat’s quiet for a few moments, Sam too. You can tell by how they looked at each other that they don’t agree with you, that this couldn’t ever be the wrong thing. But they can’t fault you for thinking that way when it was all you ever knew.
“I think,” Sam says, pausing for a few seconds to collect his thoughts before continuing, “you can’t let this be the only thing for you. I understand you’re afraid, and I understand even more than I’ll never get just how difficult it’s been for you. But you shouldn’t deprive yourself of something that can be and will be good just because you’re afraid it’ll go wrong.”
“You shouldn’t hold yourself back from something good just because you’ve been so used to bad things.” Natasha continues for him.
You know they’re right, and it makes you even more frustrated because it’s true. You’ve been holding yourself back from a good thing because you’re so afraid it’ll be taken away again, that it’ll end up being a classic disappointment for you.
But somehow, despite your tumultuous life and the ceaseless warfare that you were somehow always faced with, Bucky was always there. Whether or not he was himself, or he was the Soldier—Bucky Barnes had been a constant in your life that you’re so sure he’s the one thing that, whatever evil force the world has in store, would never be able to be taken from you. And despite the fact that you’ve been trying your damned best to keep him at an arm’s length, he would always seem to gravitate towards you. Always wanting to talk to you, wishing to get to know you, trying to get a laugh out of you.
Despite, despite, despite it all—he was there.
You want to hit yourself being so stupid.
————
You don’t know where you got the sudden burst of confidence from—probably going so far as to claim you’ve actually deluded yourself into making this decision—but right now, you’re stood in the middle of Bucky’s room.
He seated on the foot of his bed, obviously bothered by something from the way he doesn’t even show any ounce of surprise that you knocked on his door. And he’s quiet which isn’t exactly far off from how he is usually, but it’s unsettling something in you.
“Um,” you muster out to try and lessen the awkwardness, “I haven’t seen you in a while.”
“Yeah.”
“Mhm.”
Another beat of silence.
You think that despite surviving the Red Room and fighting other supervillains that the job of being an Avenger came with, this was the most nervous you’ve ever been.
“I—uh—just wanted to see how you were doing.”
“I’m fine.”
“That’s . . . good.”
God, you hate that you’re so bad at this.
You can hack into the government’s database and get past the hundreds of security passes with just a breeze, you can fight off 50 armed men in fifteen minutes with just two knives, you know thirty years’ worth of classified S.H.I.E.L.D. information, you’ve defeated aliens, monsters, and a whole evil empire for Christ’s sake, but you can’t for the life of you keep up a conversation with James “Bucky” Barnes.
The absurdity of the situation makes you want to laugh.
And the tension makes you feel like it’ll kill you before an evil doctor does, you hastily say a goodbye and turn to leave his room.
But Bucky doesn’t let you. No, he doesn’t even give you the chance to get three steps in before he’s charging at the door and blocking your path.
If it were any other situation, you’d admire the way his chest is heaving and how the shirt tightens around his upper body.
“You’re not leaving.” He says it like it’s an order.
Which you don’t mind if it was. You think if he told you to jump from his window after this you would do it in a heartbeat.
“Why did you come here?”
“I. . . don’t know.”
“You do. I know you do or else you wouldn’t be here.”
You’re quiet again, but not because you’re at a loss for words. You’ve gone through this moment multiple times in your head ever since you realized that Bucky Barnes was the same man who fought with you when your soulmate mark itched. It’s because you’re so enamored by him—his face, his physique, his scent, him—that you can’t focus on anything else.
It’s childish.
But Bucky mistakes your silence as something else, and you see it in the way his face contorts when seconds pass and you haven’t said anything.
“Are you scared of me?”
This prompts you to speak, and to snap out of your stupor because you can ogle Bucky another time. “What? No! Why would you—”
“Then why haven’t you said anything about the fact that the mark on your arm has my name written on it?”
It’s something you expected already, him knowing. You knew at one point he would know about it, whether by your account or from something else. But it doesn’t make the realization any less shocking.
“Why didn’t you tell me about how I was the reason you were treated so badly and had to . . . to face harsh reprimanding because of me? Are you that afraid of me? Is that why you’ve always seemed so . . . far?”
Again, you expected this. You knew he would blame himself the second he discovered that you were once at the receiving end of the Winter Soldier’s sheer strength. And even worse that the pain your body had to deal with didn’t end at that.
But seeing how defeated Bucky looked, it broke your heart. Not even angry at the fact that you hid it from him, but more about the fact that he didn’t remember, that he couldn’t control it.
“No, no. That’s not it, Bucky,” you try to reason with him, “it’s really not anything you did. I just—I was selfish, okay? I didn’t think it was something you needed to know because I didn’t want you to beat yourself up for something that you had no control over. And . . . I never told you because I selfishly thought it was better to keep this from you because I’m afraid. Notofyouofcourse! I just . . .”
You take a deep breath in before you decide that it’s time to just let it out.
“God, for the longest time I’ve spent my entire life getting used to things not being mine or being taken away from me. My family, my life, my autonomy, my self—but your name was the one thing I had for myself. They couldn’t take you away from me, couldn’t even make me try to forget you if they tried. The thought of you, the thought of finally meeting you when I got out of that life was the one thing that kept me here. I knew I was already in it deep before I even met you. But then I did, and I realized that . . . if you knew about it, then you’d spend the rest of your life being reminded about that part of you you’ve worked so hard to make amends with. And I couldn’t do that to you. I don’t want to be a constant reminder of that pain in your life.”
The entire time you speak, Bucky doesn’t take his eyes off of you. He’s less angry at himself and more sympathetic now as you go on. He thinks about the fact that you had to keep this secret for so long because you weren’t afraid of him, but rather you were afraid of what it could mean for him. The entire time, you were doing it to look out for him.
And he hates that you made that decision for yourself. But he understands you. If he were in your position, he’s sure he would do the same.
There’s a part of him that wants to tell you that he’s angry at the fact that you kept something so big from him. He wants to shout at you for hiding the fact that he’s yours, when he’s spent so long thinking if the reason why you always seemed to keep distance from him was because you hated him for something he could’ve done. He wants to tell you that he’s frustrated at you, too.
But he can’t.
Because you just look so beautiful in front of him right now. You’re pouring your heart out, spilling a secret you’ve withheld for more than you whole life, and Bucky thinks that you’ve never looked more beautiful than this moment.
He loves the sound of your voice too much to drown it out with his own. Realizes that he loves how your hands try to look for something to anchor yourself to. Observes that you only stop talking to take a breath in, but never stopping to let him speak.
No matter how many times he’s opened his mouth, you don’t let him say a word.
Which he wouldn’t mind, but he’s held himself back from you for so long.
Long before you confessed this secret, long before he’d had this crush on you. It embarrasses him to accept the fact, but the second he set his eyes on you he’d already been hooked.
And it’s what drives him to decide not to wait for you to stop speaking when his hands grab the side of your head, brings it close to his, until you finally process how his hot breath hits your lips.
And he doesn’t wait any longer to kiss you.
He kisses you like it’s the one thing he was made to do—slowly, deliberately, and deeply. Like he had been a man starved (which, he probably was) from this affection. He kisses you like it comes as natural to him as breathing, like you’re the thing tethering him to reality before he falls deeper into the depths of how much he loves you.
He realizes he loves you, and he doesn’t shy away from showing it.
And the two of you allow yourself to drown in it.
You realize it had always been a futile effort to keep him away from you. The two of you were always meant to find your way back to each other. Like you were both made from the same star that burst eons ago, fated to find each other again like stardust made to meet and mold as one, to shine as if it had never burst and never left, and to burn. Again and again and again.
It's too soon to tell him you love him, but you think you’ll tell him after this.
warnings: heavy angst, vivid descriptions of torture & brainwashing, nightmares, ptsd, dissociation, mentions of violence and murder (non-graphic, canon-level), soulmate au, brief panic attacks, guilt, self-worth issues, but soft hurt/comfort and hopeful ending
summary: soulmates see the life of one another through dreams. what happens when your soulmate looks like he's from the 1940's and has experienced a hell you can't even begin to imagine?
authors note: soulmate au's will always have a huge piece of my heart and add the angst of sharing dreams with the winter soldier? i'm there. loved writing this one so much!!
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You have your first nightmare at eight years old.
It starts out ordinary, the way all the stories at school say soulmate dreams do. You open your eyes in the dark and you’re not in your bedroom anymore—you’re somewhere else, somewhere colder. You’re standing in a narrow alley that smells like smoke and rain, watching a boy with too-long hair tuck a smaller kid under his arm and laugh.
“C’mon, Stevie, we’re gonna be late,” he says, accent warm and rough, and your heart does something strange in your chest.
You don’t understand why you know his name. Why you know that if you could reach out and touch him, the skin of his hand would be rough from work and the softness behind his eyes would be just for you.
But you’re eight. You just know this is important. You just know this is yours.
You spend that first night trailing behind him like a shadow. Watching him steal bread from a windowsill and give all of it to Steve. Watching him charm a girl behind the soda counter and then turn around and share the free candy with the skinny kid at his side. Watching him sit on a tenement rooftop and lean back on his elbows, staring at a sky full of city light and smoke, somewhere in Brooklyn.
You wake up smiling. Head full of his laugh. Heart full of the way he tipped his head back and told a joke you can’t quite remember.``
The next night, you dream of him again.
And again. And again.
At school, kids whisper in corners, swapping stories about their own soulmate dreams. The girl who sees a boy in Seoul practicing violin on a rooftop. The boy who watches his soulmate paint murals across brick walls in São Paulo. They talk about first kisses in borrowed bodies, about the way it feels when their soulmate looks into a mirror and for one breath you see their face and yours overlap like a promise.
You stay quiet.
You don’t tell them that your soulmate is older than you. That instead of fumbling through middle school with you, he’s out there in the world, already grown. You don’t tell them that every night you lay your head down, you wake up in the 1940s—the clothes, the cars, the ration lines, the war posters peeling on brick.
You don’t tell them that your soulmate signs a piece of paper and becomes a soldier.
You don’t tell them how, the night he ships out, you wake up in his skin.
It happens without warning. You go to sleep in your own bed—a little bigger, a little more lonely than it was when you were eight—and your eyes open into blinding sunlight. You’re on a train platform. Your hand—his hand—is gripping a duffel bag so tight your knuckles ache. Steve is talking, voice breaking, telling you to write. To come back.
You feel your own throat burn when you hear yourself say, “Don’t do anything stupid ‘til I get back.”
“How can I?” Steve shoots back. “You’re taking all the stupid with you.”
You laugh. Except it’s not really a laugh. It’s something torn, something afraid.
You wake up with tears on your face. The world is dark and quiet and the clock on your nightstand says 3:07 am. You press your shaking hands over your mouth and feel the echoes of his goodbye like a bruise.
It takes you three days to stop crying.
You tell yourself this is what soulmate dreams are. Messy. Overwhelming. Beautiful.
You cling to that word—beautiful—for as long as you can.
It carries you through boot camp, through the taste of dirt and the ache of muscles that are not your own. It carries you through Europe, through the first time you watch a body fall because you pulled the trigger.
It lasts right up until the night everything changes.
The night you watch him fall off the train, it feels like your own heart shatters inside your chest.
You wake up screaming. Your own bedroom walls. Your own hands, empty and reaching. Your mother bursts through the door and gathers you up, still half asleep, asking if it was another nightmare, sweetheart?
You can’t breathe.
“He fell,” you choke, words tearing out of you. “He fell, he fell—”
“Who?” she asks gently, like she doesn’t already know. Parents grew up with soulmate dreams too. They know the helpless, distant look that comes with them. The way kids wake up with tears that aren’t quite theirs.
“My soulmate.”
Something in her face folds. She holds you tighter.
“Sometimes,” she says softly, “the timing’s just… the timing’s cruel, baby. It doesn’t mean your story’s over. It just means…”
She trails off, because there’s no good ending to that sentence.
You don’t dream for three days. You can’t decide if that’s mercy or punishment.
On the fourth night, you open your eyes into a cold so vicious you can’t feel your fingers.
Water crushes you from all sides. It burns your lungs. Your body—the one that’s not yours—is thrashing, pulling, dragging itself toward a pinprick of light above while the weight of metal on your arm drags you down.
The scream rips your throat raw. Bubbles burst from your lips and vanish into the icy dark.
You don’t make it to the surface.
When you wake, you taste blood and river silt in the back of your throat. Your bed is soaked with sweat. Your nails have left crescent moons in your palms.
You don’t sleep again until your body gives you no choice.
The next dream isn’t better.
White light. A ceiling blinded by it. A ring of faces leaning over you, mouths moving in a language you can’t quite understand but immediately hate.
A bite of cold against skin as someone presses a scalpel to flesh.
You scream awake again.
Your mother starts taking you to therapists after that.
Most kids, the brochures say, dream of exams and awkward dates and milestones. Your charts fill up with words like recurrent nightmares and secondary trauma and dissociation.
None of it changes the fact that every time you close your eyes, you are dragged back into that room.
Back into that chair.
You learn the cadence of commands in Russian before you ever learn where on a map to put Moscow. Nine unpronounceable words barked like gunfire. Each one a hammer blow. Each one chipping away at a man who used to laugh on rooftops and steal bread for his sick friend.
You watch them strip him down to bones and obedience.
You watch them shock him, carve him, freeze him.
You watch them put a metal arm where flesh used to be.
You watch until the line between what’s his and what’s yours starts to blur around the edges.
You startle when people touch your left arm. You flinch when someone says the word soldier too loudly. You hold your breath when you hear Russian in movies and your heart slams against your ribs like it’s trying to claw free.
You learn how to build walls between your nights and your days, between the girl who smiles and nods and does her homework and the girl who wakes up hoarse from screaming words in a language she shouldn’t know.
You get very good at pretending.
You stay very, very quiet.
Because the first time you tried to explain this to someone—really explain, not just, “I have bad soulmate dreams”—they looked at you like you’d made it up for attention. Like it was impossible that one man could hold that much darkness.
Impossible or not, he lives inside your skull.
And for some reason, you’re still helplessly in love with him.
Your soulmate never dreams of you.
That’s how it’s supposed to work—two lives, two vantage points. Two people growing together in parallel, building a mosaic of each other’s days until, one day, you meet. You’ve lived each other’s memories. You’ve hurt when they hurt and laughed when they laughed. You fit.
Except.
He has never once looked into a mirror and seen your face.
You know because you’ve checked. Every time he’s near a reflective surface, you hold your breath, waiting. Wondering what you’ll look like in that cheap barracks mirror. In the gleam of a Hydra scalpel. In the shine of a shield’s vibranium curve when Captain America bursts into a lab and says his name like a miracle.
You never see your own eyes looking back.
And later—much, much later, when the Soldier with the metal arm stands on a sidewalk in a world full of color television and smartphones and watches Steve drive away—there is a terrible emptiness where your presence should be.
You know he doesn’t dream at all. Not really. Just orders. Missions. A voice in his head telling him to comply.
You lie awake sometimes, staring at the ceiling. Wondering what it was like for him in the 1940s, before you were even born. Before your existence meant he was supposed to have something soft to fall into, a second life to land in when the world got hard.
Did he think his soulmate had died? Did he think he didn’t have one at all?
Did Hydra take that away from him, too?
The questions feel like weights on your chest.
You grow up. You go to college. You study psychology because of course you do. Professors call you insightful. They praise your understanding of trauma. They don’t know you learned it half-asleep on a concrete cell floor.
You watch news footage of Washington, D.C. tearing itself apart—carriers falling out of the sky, smoke boiling up between monuments. You watch a flash of metal and a familiar face with hair that’s now long and wild and eyes that are empty in a way you’ve never seen in your dreams.
You frighten your roommate when you fall to your knees in front of the television and sob like someone stabbed you.
She thinks you’re crying about the city.
You’re crying because your soulmate just dragged Steve Rogers out of a river and collapsed beside him on the mud, and for the first time since that train, you feel something fragile and human slip through the cracks of his programming.
“Who the hell is Bucky?” he says, and you press your face into your hands and whisper, It’s you. It’s you, it’s you, it’s you.
Later, when footage leaks of him in Bucharest, of governments calling him a terrorist, you shake so hard you spill coffee all over yourself. Your hands don’t stop trembling all day.
By the time word spreads—half rumors, half official—that the Winter Soldier is dead, you’ve gotten very good at breathing around a permanent ache.
He’s not dead, you think stubbornly, even as your therapist gently suggests a new medication.
Because you still dream.
The locations change. The walls switch from damp concrete to smooth wood. The windows open onto African sun instead of Siberian ice.
But he’s alive. You can feel it every night when you close your eyes. You make coffee in a kitchen that smells like earth and greenery and peace while a man with long hair and a beard leans in a doorway and tries to relearn how to be a person.
You’re there when people call him White Wolf as a joke. You’re there when he wakes up screaming and claws at his arm like he wants to rip it off.
You see every tremor, every step forward, every stumble back.
You keep your silence like a promise.
Because there is a tiny, terrified part of you that believes if you ever try to step into his real, waking world—if you look him in the eyes and he doesn’t know you—the last piece of you still holding on will break.
You meet him on a Tuesday.
It’s almost insultingly mundane.
New York sky, too bright. Air full of car horns and overheated asphalt. Your shoes pinching a little because you wore the nicer pair for the interview. The building in front of you is an angular tower of glass and metal that the world knows on sight.
Avengers Tower.
They’d asked you to come in for a consult. Trauma specialist, they said. We have people who need help and don’t trust easy, one of the recruiters had told you over the phone. Your résumé is… unique.
You laughed. If only he knew.
The security check is thorough. The elevator ride is nauseatingly smooth. Your own reflection in the mirrored walls looks small and out of place between the polished chrome and the sleek lighting.
You’re smoothing your hands down your blazer when the doors slide open.
And he’s standing there.
Just standing there, in the hallway, like a dream you didn’t mean to interrupt.
He’s wearing a Henley that clings to shoulders you’ve only ever seen under body armor. His hair is shorter than it was in Wakanda, pulled back into a low knot, a few strands falling loose around his face. The stubble on his jaw is a shade darker than you remember from last night, when he shaved in a small bathroom, the mirror fogging up with steam.
His eyes are the exact same blue they’ve always been.
For a second, you forget how to breathe.
He blinks, clearly not expecting the elevator to open on a stranger. He shifts his weight like he’s considering retreating.
You know every micro-expression in that face.
You know what he looks like when he’s bracing for pain.
You know what he looks like when he’s trying not to hope.
“Uh,” he says finally. “You lost?”
The sound of his voice in the same space as you is… wrong. It vibrates in your ribs like a plucked wire.
You swallow. Realize your fingers are trembling. Clench them into fists.
“I—um. No.” You hold up the visitor badge dangling from your neck. “Here for an interview. Trauma team.”
His eyes flick down. Your name flashes in black letters against your chest, next to the Stark Industries logo.
Something in his gaze sharpens. Not hostile. Just... wary.
You’ve seen that look from behind his eyes. It’s different being on the receiving end.
“Right,” he says slowly. “Right. They mentioned they were bringing in someone new.”
You should leave. You should step out of the elevator, shake his hand, introduce yourself like you don’t already know the shape of his scars, the cadence of his nightmares, the way he curls his fingers when he’s trying not to reach for someone.
Instead you stand there, staring, while your heartbeat hammers in your ears.
He frowns. “Are you okay?”
The question snaps you back like a rubber band.
“I’m fine,” you lie, because what else is there to say? Hey, I’ve watched every second of your life for as long as I can remember, you look good in daylight?
You force your feet to move. You step onto the floor. The elevator closes behind you with a soft whoosh.
You’re close enough now to see the tiny pale lines at the corner of his mouth. The faint shadow of where a scar used to be along his jaw, before Wakanda’s healers smoothed it away.
“Name’s Bucky,” he offers, almost awkwardly, like he’s still getting used to saying it out loud.
I know.
You bite the words down before they can escape.
You offer your own name instead, and he repeats it—your name—in that careful, rough voice, like he’s trying it on his tongue.
You feel the sound all the way through your bones.
You get the job.
Of course you do. You’re good at it. You’ve spent half your life studying trauma and the other half drowning in it. You know how to listen. You know how to sit with silence without flinching away.
You don’t get assigned to Bucky.
You think that’s probably for the best. At least at first.
He’s… there, though. In the halls. In the kitchen at 3 am when you’re both pretending you don’t have insomnia. In the training rooms, working a heavy bag until his chest heaves and sweat darkens his shirt.
You get used to feeling his eyes on you, quick flickers, like he’s cataloguing your presence. You get used to swallowing a dozen confessions every time he looks your way.
You do not get used to the way your whole body hums when he stands too close.
It takes exactly three weeks for everything to crack.
You’re in your office. It’s late. You should have gone home hours ago, but you’re dictating notes for a session and staring blankly at your laptop screen when there’s a knock on the door.
Your heart knows who it is before your eyes do.
“Come in,” you call, somehow sounding normal.
The door opens. Bucky steps in, hovering just inside the threshold like he’s not sure if he’s welcome.
He’s in sweats and a threadbare t-shirt, hair damp from a shower. There’s a tension in his shoulders that sets off every alarm in your body.
You stand up automatically. “Is everything okay?”
He huffs a breath that’s not quite a laugh. “Define ‘okay.’”
You gesture toward the chairs. He doesn’t move.
“I know I’m not on your schedule,” he says. “I’m not… your patient. Or whatever. I just…”
He trails off. His jaw tightens. His metal fingers flex against his thigh, the plates catching the light.
“It’s okay,” you say softly. “You can sit. Or not. You can pace if you need to. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to, Bucky.”
His eyes flick to yours. For a moment, something like trust flickers there.
He comes in. Closes the door.
And then he just stands there, breathing hard, like walking from the elevator to your office took more energy than a mission.
You wait.
“I’ve never had dreams,” he says abruptly.
You blink. Your grip tightens on the back of your chair.
He’s staring over your shoulder, somewhere past you, like if he looks at you this will be too much.
“Not the soulmate kind,” he clarifies. “Everybody else did. Back home. Before the war. They’d talk about seein’ their girl, or their guy, or just… faces. Names. Whole lives.”
You knew this. You’ve wondered about it your whole life. Hearing it in his voice feels like stepping off a ledge.
“I kept waitin’,” he continues, words rough. “Figured maybe it’d start late. Or maybe my soulmate was younger. Or maybe…” He swallows. “Maybe I just didn’t have one. Maybe they died. Maybe I did somethin’ wrong before I was even born.”
Your chest aches. “You didn’t,” you say, without thinking. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”
His gaze snaps to you.
There’s a sharpness there. A warning. A plea.
“You don’t know that,” he says quietly.
I do, you think. I’ve seen you my whole life.
He takes a shaky breath. “Then the war happened. And the train.” His voice stutters on the word. You know the memory he’s stuck on. The rush of air. The scream. The impact. “And then… nothin’. No dreams at all. Just… missions.”
He says the word like it tastes like ash.
“I thought that was it,” he says. “That whatever chance I had at… that kinda thing… it was gone.”
He laughs again, brittle. “Then I get out. Hydra’s gone. I’m in Wakanda, learnin’ how to be a person again. And I start hearin’ about people seein’ my life in their sleep. ‘The Winter Soldier is my soulmate,’” he quotes, in a mocking falsetto that makes something in your stomach twist. “Jokes. Memes. Kids on the internet makin’ content.”
His mouth curls in disgust.
“It’s not funny,” he grits. “There’s nothing—there’s nothin’ funny about any of it. And I know most of it’s bullshit. But I keep thinkin’… if there is somebody out there who had to watch all that—” His breath hitches. “Every time they shut me down. Every time they woke me up. Every time I—”
He cuts himself off. You know the word he’s swallowing.
“Kill,” you say softly.
His jaw clenches. He nods once.
“If there is someone,” he whispers, “if I do have a soulmate… and they saw all that… I don’t know if I want to meet them. I don’t know if I deserve to.”
Your own hands are shaking now.
He looks at you, really looks, and you realize there are tears standing in his eyes. He blinks them away violently, like he doesn’t have the right.
“I came here because…” He trails off. His shoulders slump. “Because I thought maybe talkin’ about it, with someone who knows how this stuff works, would help. Except I feel worse. Because all I can picture is some kid who grew up with my nightmares. Some—some sweet person who maybe just wanted to see their soulmate’s first day of school and instead got strapped into my life like a horror movie they couldn’t turn off.”
His voice breaks.
“And I don’t know how to live with that.”
The silence that follows is thick and heavy and humming with something electric.
You could lie.
You could say something clinical. You could talk about vicarious trauma. About how whoever they are, they’re probably fine now. That it wasn’t his fault.
You could stay safely behind your professional distance.
Instead, you take a breath that feels like stepping off another ledge.
“Bucky,” you begin, gently. “Look at me for a second?”
He hesitates, then does.
You step around your desk. You sit in the chair opposite him so you’re on the same level, knees almost touching.
Your heart is beating so loud you’re sure he can hear it.
“You’re right,” you say softly. “It’s not funny. At all. And if your soulmate… if they saw what you went through… I’m not going to pretend it didn’t hurt them. It did. It… it does.”
His face crumples, just a little.
“But,” you continue, before he can drown in guilt, “they’re not that kid anymore.”
He swallows. “How would you know?”
“Because,” you say, and your voice shakes, “I’m not a kid anymore.”
The words hang there between you.
For a second, he doesn’t understand.
You watch the moment he does.
His pupils blow wide. His lips part, but no sound comes out. His metal hand curls slowly, fingers digging into his own thigh.
“I—” His throat works. “What?”
You force yourself to hold his gaze.
“I’ve… always had dreams,” you say. “About you. Since I was eight. Brooklyn. Steve. The war. The train.” Your eyes sting. “The water. The lab. The chair. The missions. Wakanda. Here.”
You see his breath stutter. See his jaw go slack. See denial and hope crash together behind his eyes like two waves colliding.
“No,” he whispers. “No, that’s— you can’t—”
“You just told me you came here because you were worried,” you say, gently but firmly. “Because you couldn’t stop thinking about what it must have been like for your soulmate. For me.”
The word lands between you like a thrown knife.
He flinches.
“I thought about telling you earlier,” you admit, voice shaking. “When I first got here. When I saw you in the hallway, it almost knocked me over. Like… like the world finally lined up the way it was supposed to. But I didn’t know if you’d want that. If you’d want me. Knowing everything I know. So I… I waited.”
“And you—you saw…” His voice breaks.
“Yes,” you whisper. “I saw.”
“All of it?”
You close your eyes, just for a second, and it’s all there behind your eyelids. Blood and ice and metal and a scream cut off mid-breath.
“Enough,” you say. “More than enough.”
His face twists. He jerks to his feet like he can’t bear being still. He paces once, twice, then presses his metal hand against the wall like he needs the anchor.
“I’m sorry,” he says hoarsely. “I’m so— God, doll, I’m so fuckin’ sorry.”
The nickname slips out before he can stop it. It rips through you like a live wire.
“You didn’t do anything wrong,” you repeat, more fiercely this time.
He whirls on you. “I killed people.”
“You were tortured,” you shoot back. “You were brainwashed. They took your choices away. They took your— your dreams—”
He laughs, raw. “That too, huh?”
“And they tried to take your name,” you say. “Your face. Your heart. They tried to make you a weapon. But they didn’t win, Bucky. They didn’t.”
His eyes shine. “Then why do you wake up screamin’?”
The question knocks the breath out of you.
Because of course he’s thought it through. Of course he’s pictured it in more detail than you ever wanted him to.
You swallow. “Sometimes I do,” you admit. “Especially when I was younger. It was… a lot. To see that much pain and not be able to stop it. To watch someone you—” You break off, tongue thick.
“Someone you what?” he asks quietly.
You look up at him. At the man you’ve watched fall and break and get rebuilt over and over.
“Someone you love,” you say.
His breath hitches like you hit him.
“You don’t even know me,” he says, but it’s weak. Tattered.
You smile, shaky. “I know you better than anyone alive, James Buchanan Barnes.”
He flinches at the full name, but doesn’t correct you.
“I’ve seen you steal bread for a sick kid,” you say, voice gaining strength. “I’ve seen you dance in a Brooklyn club like you owned the whole damn room. I’ve watched you sign up to go to war and then get on that train even after you thought you lost your best friend because you couldn’t live with yourself if you didn’t try to stop what was happening.”
A tear slips down his cheek. He doesn’t wipe it away.
“I’ve watched you be hurt and broken and put back together more times than I can count,” you continue. “And every single time, there was this… this core of you that never went away. This stubborn, ridiculous goodness. This… this refusal to give up, even when giving up would have been easier.”
You take a breath. It comes out broken.
“Those dreams… they hurt. They still do, sometimes. But I never once wished for someone else.”
His face crumples.
“Not once?” he whispers.
“Not once,” you repeat.
He stands there, for a long moment, breathing like he just ran a marathon. Then, slowly, like he’s moving underwater, he comes back to the chair and sinks into it.
His metal hand is shaking.
You bite your lip. Then, very carefully, you reach out and lay your fingers on the back of his knuckles.
He goes absolutely still.
“You asked how to live with it,” you say softly. “With the fact that someone had to see what you went through.”
He swallows. Nods, just barely.
“You live with it by letting me choose,” you say. “By letting me tell you that I’m here on purpose. That I walked into this knowing exactly what you’ve carried, and I still… I still want to be the one who sits with you when the nightmares hit. I still want to be the one who makes you coffee in the morning and teases you about your bedhead and tells you when you’re being too hard on yourself.”
Your voice drops.
“If someone had to be in that room with you, I’m glad it was me.”
A sound tears out of him. Not quite a sob, not quite a laugh. Something in between and more broken than both.
“I don’t deserve you,” he chokes.
You squeeze his hand. “That’s not your call to make.”
He lets out a strangled noise that might be agreement. Might be surrender.
Very slowly, like he’s afraid you’ll vanish, he turns his hand under yours so your fingers fit between his, metal and flesh and skin. The plates are warm from his body heat. You can feel the faint whir of servos when he moves.
“You sure about this?” he asks, eyes searching yours. “Because once I start… I don’t know if I’ll be able to—”
“I’ve been sure since I watched you steal that bread,” you say, and a wet, disbelieving laugh escapes him.
“Okay,” he breathes. “Okay.”
You fall asleep beside him for the first time two weeks later.
It’s not planned. You’d met up in the common room after a late debrief, both too wired to sleep. One thing turned into another—movie, conversation, a shared blanket. At some point, his head tipped against the back of the couch and his breathing evened out.
You watched him for a long time. In your own bed, he’d always been half a world away. Here, his arm was draped along the back of the couch behind you, close enough to feel the heat radiating off him.
You dozed off listening to his heartbeat under your ear.
You wake up in your own bed.
Not the Tower couch. Not his room. Your room, where you fell asleep months ago with his whimpers echoing in your head.
Except the pillow smells like him and you’re warm all over, like someone tucked a blanket around your shoulders.
You blink blearily. Sit up.
And realize this is not your room.
It takes a second to piece together what you’re seeing. The walls are the wrong color. The window looks out over a city skyline instead of the tree outside your apartment. There are pictures on the dresser—Avengers in various stages of exhausted celebration. Sam grinning. Steve. Nat. A younger, thinner Tony.
Bucky, looking startled in every single one, like he can’t quite believe he’s allowed to be there.
You look down.
You’re in his bed.
He’s not beside you.
Your heart jackhammers in your chest. You swing your legs over the side, bare feet hitting cool floor—and then you freeze.
Because the light in the bathroom is on. And you can hear the shower.
Water. Steam. The faint silhouette of a man through frosted glass.
You back away instinctively, cheeks burning, and that’s when the wrongness hits you.
You don’t feel like a passenger.
You feel… solid.
You lift your hand. It’s your hand. Your skin, your faint scar on the knuckle.
But the air tastes like him. The room smells like him.
And something about the angle of your own vision is off, like you’re seeing yourself from a height you don’t have.
“Hey,” a familiar voice says behind you, slow and careful. “You okay?”
You spin.
Bucky is sitting up in the bed, hair mussed, eyes heavy with sleep. He’s shirtless. The sheets are pooled around his waist, baring the curve of his shoulder and the scars you could trace in the dark.
Except.
You look down again. Your hands. Your body.
You look back up.
“Holy shit,” you whisper.
He blinks. Then his eyes widen.
“Are you—” He scrubs a hand over his face. “Is this—god, please tell me this isn’t some fucked-up hallucination.”
“You’re… dreaming,” you say slowly. “About me.”
He stares at you.
Then he laughs, helpless and hoarse.
“I fell asleep on your couch,” he says. “I remember that much. You were… right there. Warm. Breathin’ against my chest.” His voice goes soft. “And then I… I opened my eyes and I was somewhere else. Here. But different. And I could feel things that weren’t mine. This…”
He gestures to you. To your body. To the way you’re standing in the center of his room, wearing his t-shirt, hair a mess from sleep.
“This is your place,” he says. “Or… a version of it. From before you moved in here.” His mouth quirks. “You sure have a lot of books, doll.”
You laugh, shocked and shaky. “You… saw my apartment?”
“Think I might still be seein’ it,” he replies. “Or I’m seein’ you seein’ me seein’ it. I don’t know, this soulmate physics stuff is above my pay grade.”
You step closer, slowly, like approaching a wild animal.
“You never dreamed before,” you say. “Not like this.”
He swallows. “Guess I finally caught up.”
You can see the moment it hits him, really hits him, what this means. His shoulders tremble. His eyes shine.
“For all those years, you… you watched my life,” he says. “And I never gave you anything back. Not a single night of peace. Not a single stupid moment of my day to balance out the bad.”
“It wasn’t your fault,” you begin, but he shakes his head, smiling through the tears.
“Maybe not,” he says. “But I still hated the idea of you bein’ alone in it. Of you carryin’ all that without ever gettin’ to hand me somethin’ to carry in return.”
He reaches out. His flesh hand hovers near your cheek, not quite touching.
“Let me have some of it now,” he whispers. “Let me see you. All of you. The good and the bad. Let me watch you cry over exams and spill coffee on yourself and dance in your kitchen when you think no one’s lookin’. Let me be the one who wakes up shakin’ because you had a rough day and I need to make it better.”
Your eyes burn.
“You don’t have to—”
“I want to,” he cuts in, fierce. “I’ve wanted to, since the day I realized you exist. Since the day I stepped into your office and saw how my nightmares had carved lines in your face.”
He steps closer. His hand finally lands on your cheek, calloused thumb brushing away a tear.
“Let me share it,” he says. “Please. I can’t go back and stop those men from hurtin’ me. I can’t take those images out of your head. But I can be there now. I can stand in front of whatever’s comin’ next.”
You sink into his touch.
“I don’t want you to keep punishin’ yourself for things you couldn’t control,” you whisper.
“Then don’t you do it either,” he says softly.
You let out a small, wet laugh. “Hypocrite,” you murmur.
“Yeah,” he says, smiling a little. “Guess I am.”
You look up at him. At the man who has haunted your nights and now, finally, stands in your days.
“Stay,” you say. “In my dreams. In yours. In the kitchen at 3 am. On the couch when we both pretend we’re really into whatever movie’s on.”
His smile deepens, eyes crinkling at the corners.
“Anywhere you’ll have me, doll,” he says. “I’m there.”
You step into his arms. He wraps himself around you like he’s been waiting his whole life to remember how.
You breathe him in. Warmth and soap and the faint metal tang that’s always hovered at the edge of your senses.
You tilt your head up.
He kisses you like you’re something holy.
It’s not like the secondhand kisses you watched him give girls in clubs. It’s not like the bruising, desperate collisions you felt through his body in Hydra missions. It’s slow. Reverent. His mouth soft against yours, his hand cupping the back of your head like he’s afraid you’ll disappear.
You kiss him back like you’ve been practicing in your sleep for years.
When you pull back, you’re both breathless.
“Think I’m gonna like this whole dream thing,” he murmurs, forehead resting against yours.
“Yeah?” you whisper.
“Yeah.” He huffs a quiet laugh. “Got a lot of time to make up for. A lot of nights to give back.”
You curl your fingers into the fabric of his shirt.
“I’ll be there,” you say. “Every time you close your eyes.”
He nods, like that’s a vow you just exchanged.
You wake up on the Tower couch with your head on his chest and his arms around you, holding on like the world might try to take you if he loosens his grip.
His shirt is damp where your tears have soaked through.
His eyelashes are wet, too.
“Morning,” he murmurs, eyes blinking open.
You smile up at him, throat tight.
“Morning,” you whisper. “Did you sleep okay?”
He looks at you like you hung the moon.
“I dreamed,” he says simply.
Your chest aches in the best way.
“Me too,” you say.
He kisses your forehead.
You think, for the first time in your life, that maybe nightmares can be outnumbered.
That maybe, together, you can rewrite the story.
Not by erasing what Hydra did. Not by pretending the chair and the lab and the missions never happened.
But by layering new images over the old ones. Shared breakfasts and late-night talks and soft touches and kisses that taste like hope. By letting him see you the way you’ve always seen him—flawed and hurting and still, somehow, unbelievably good.
By letting your dreams finally, truly, belong to both of you.
𝓐𝗨𝗧𝗛𝗢𝗥'𝗦 𝗡𝗢𝗧𝗘 babeeee this was deliciouuuus, oh I loved writing this, you are suuuuch a genius istg😚😚😚
You really did not want to go out with Rafe that evening.
Ever since the murder of Sheriff Peterkin, your boyfriend started spiraling.
You leaving was not an option, he made you understand that a long time ago, so you were stuck with him, whether it was out of fear for your life or for your loved ones.
You knew all too well what Rafe was capable of, and you did not want to push the wrong buttons.
You endured his mean words and his violent outbursts, but someone losing their life because of you was not something you could endure.
Rafe was already tense from home, after he waited for you to apply your drugstore concealer over the bruise on your jaw that he gave you. Then, he senses your uneasiness, so he scoffed at your antics and grabbed your wrist harsher than needed.
"Lighten the fuck up already", he growled at you, crushing your bones into his iron grip.
You pushed at his chest, but he did not bulge. "What is wrong with you?", you whined, and the voices inside of his head immediately reminded him of his sister.
That's what Sarah asked him after he shot Peterkin to protect his father, she never saw he was proactive, he was trying to do the right thing.
And nothing angered Rafe more than when you sounded or acted like Sarah. Those times were rare, but every little connection he made in his mind made him lose his cool completely.
Rafe tightened his grip impossibly more painful and shook you, your shoulder bouncing agonizingly against the car window. "Why do you always ruin our nights? Huh? Do you do you do this shit on purpose?", he asked, brows furrowed, his dirty blond locks kissing his forehead.
His tone was raising, and you tried to avoid his gaze, just like he tried to avoid Ward's gaze. Rafe's actions were a precise mirroring of Ward's.
"Look at me", he demanded, now releasing your hand, just for his fingers to find purpose in your locks.
"Act like a fuckin' good girlfriend. I do everything for you and, for some reason, you're still ungrateful as hell."
Later that evening, while you two were sitting at the counter, waiting for your drinks, Kelce and Topper approached Rafe. You weren't particularly fond of the two boys, so you glanced outside, and saw Sarah and Kie standing at the docks.
They smiled and waved, and you offered an infant smile back. Kie's smile faltered, and you swiftly turned your head back to Rafe, realizing your concealer started to wear off because of the heat. The pit in your stomach grew.
You loathed when people noticed marks on your skin.
Topper was telling Rafe about some new yacht he wanted to purchase and stumbled on his words as he glanced at your wrist. Your gaze fell onto your skin, and when you noticed the purplish and yellow fingerprints scattered across your arm, you quickly hid it in your lap.
Rafe's blue orbs fell on your hand, and a smirk tugged at his pink lips.
"Go on, Top", he muttered, as he took your hand and pulled it to his lap, his thumb dragging lazily across your knuckles. Your cheeks burned with embarassment, knowing for sure that Rafe's friends were aware of the treatment you were given.
After a couple of minutes, Rafe's bulge started growing harder under your touch. It was deplorable how your boyfriend thrived when he saw you suffer.
It also gave him an euphoric feeling knowing that, while everyone was glancing worriedly at you, he had you. All thes people never did anything, and you were simply and utterly...his.
Warnings: Reader is referred to as 'Chip' other than that this chapter is tame.
Song: You Can't Hurry Love (The Supremes)
You’ve liked Bucky Barnes for three years.
Alright, maybe that was over simplifying things…but you’ve had a major crush on Bucky Barnes for about three years.
It started when you transferred to a different college during your sophomore year, wanting change and more opportunities. You chose New York City as your destination, thinking it was better in comparison to your small college town of Moscow, Idaho. Your parents argued with you, claiming a city that big was too big for you, riddled with danger and was so far away. You tried calming their anxieties to the best of your abilities, but stated whether they approved or not–you were still transferring. So, that summer break saw you leaving the only place you called home, and scoring a decently sized one-bedroom house thirty-five minutes away from your school.
You could finally breathe.
The first day at your new college was embarrassing. You cursed at yourself since you hadn’t paid attention to the campus tour, and you were now late to your first lecture of the day. Everybody was cleared from the hallways, save for a few stragglers like yourself. You weren’t paying attention to your surroundings. You’d been looking down at the map you printed out when–all of a sudden–you were colliding into someone. You basically bonked your head into their chin, taking a step back in surprise, you looked up at them.
The first thing you noticed was his eyes, which were blinking at you in surprise. They were such a strikingly pretty blue colour–comparable to a cloudless sky on a nice day. You got a good look at his face next and…wow, this man was pretty: Clean-cut, neatly parted short brown hair, and broad-shouldered. He still looked a bit boyish, but he made it look charming. In your enamoured state, you failed to realise he was holding up your map.
“Sorry about that- you’d think I was blind,” he chuckled, which got you to snap out of your daze. Feeling heat crawl up your cheeks, you scolded yourself to get it together. Gently taking your crumpled map, you smoothed it out so it gave you something else to look at.
“Oh…no- no, it’s okay,” you managed to get out. Yeesh, you’d think this was the first human you were making contact with. You straightened yourself out and tried to get your hammering heart under control.
“Are you lost? I know this building is confusing to navigate. What room are you trying to find?” He asked, looking down at your printed map, then up at your face. At this point, you debated even going to class; you were pretty late at this point. But you couldn’t muster an excuse as quickly as you’d liked…and you really didn’t want to hold this guy up.
“Room 303,” you replied.
“Hey, that’s where I’m heading- history lecture with Mrs. Scott, right?” He asked, surprise in his tone. You nodded your head.
“Yeah, actually… What are the odds?” you mumbled. You were totally judging based on looks, but he did not look like someone who willingly took a history class. It looked like he lived and breathed sports with his athletic build and all. It was a nice surprise, maybe you two would become friends? You hoped so.
“Beats walking in by myself, come on.” He gave you a charming smile, gesturing at you to follow him. On the way to class, he introduced himself as James Barnes, but everyone called him Bucky. You quickly introduced yourself, and he nudged you softly with his elbow.
“Pretty name for a pretty girl,” he beamed with a wink. You felt heat bloom in your face, but you smiled.
You held onto that moment for what felt like forever, even if nothing came from it.
—
In your first year at this new college, you became friends with a girl named Natasha. She was quite mysterious in the beginning and cool; entirely too cool for you, you thought. You two met during one of the college’s baseball games, and you would dub this one the most humiliating event of your life. Which involved the school’s mascot…Chipper the chipmunk, and you, an unsuspecting bystander just wanting to watch the game (mostly for Bucky). Let’s just say that Chipmunk’s head was facing backwards, eyes knocked out from its fabric skull, and kids were crying. It’s how you got the nickname ‘Chip,’ a reminder of your embarrassment, but it led you to meeting Natasha, and she’s a great friend.
…Not to mention the added benefit that it put you in Bucky’s orbit, so you weren’t really complaining. Since Nat was friends with Steve, his best friend, who you were later introduced to. Even though you knew him already, since you guys always ended up being lab partners for some reason, you weren’t complaining–Steve was a great guy. He was the baseball team's best batter and honorary Captain.
Still, it wasn’t enough to get Bucky to talk to you. Sure, he’d acknowledge you whenever you were around, but other than your first encounter, he didn’t make an effort to strike up a conversation. Not that you were entitled to it, it just bummed you out. He was sociable with your other peers…maybe that was the issue? By comparison, you were still a nobody and painfully average. Often referred to as ‘Nat’s best friend,’ hell–sometimes people didn’t even direct questions meant for you, preferring to ask Natasha, even if you were right beside her. You guess you couldn’t really blame people. You were focused on your studies and hadn’t opted to join any sports or clubs. Contrary to popular belief, you weren’t inept at holding conversations…you just didn’t make any effort to actually strike them up. Mostly your fault, but being around a huge group of people was draining. You often felt tired when coming back from a lecture.
It didn’t help that you weren’t the only one to notice him. Everyone noticed Bucky, the star pitcher on the baseball team, the guy who took his grades seriously and was just overall pleasant and smiley. It’s no wonder people looked at him so favourably–being social and a flirt was his talent. So combine all that, and sadly, you often went under the radar, which didn’t help your case in getting Bucky’s attention.
Not that you were clamoring for his attention 24/7; that would be ridiculous–no, you opted to wait. Remembering what your mom said about good things coming to those who wait, and maybe that’s true. Because one day, during the last year of College, in the middle of the first semester…you got a text message from Bucky.
—
One lonely Wednesday night, you were using your chunky laptop to get some schoolwork done. You were on a small brain break and were scrolling through Bucky’s Facebook feed in hopes he posted something new (he did! It was a photo of him and his team, it seems like they’re getting a head start on practicing before baseball season is in full swing). Scrolling past the new one, you never got bored of viewing the ones you saw a few times already. It was fun looking back at some, having been at the event but not in the photo.
Steve, Nat and a few others at the bar.
Bucky and Steve on the first day of senior year.
Sam and Steve at a party.
Bucky, Steve and Natasha at a bar on trivia night (you’ve never been invited to that one actually…)
You scrolled through them all, mostly sticking to the relevant university ones. Sometimes staying on a photo that was just Bucky, and yearning that it was you next to him. Sometimes it got uncomfortable how much you felt towards him since he didn’t even know. He didn’t know the effect he had on you by just being there. It felt ridiculous at this point, holding onto that one interaction that happened three years ago.
Sometimes you wondered if Bucky was anything like the one you imagined in your head.
Exiting out of Facebook, you closed your laptop to get something to drink. Before you could stretch your legs though, you heard your phone buzz on the nightstand. It was probably a text message from Nat, asking how you’ve been lately. You two haven’t nearly hung out as much this month. You did miss her, but she’s been busy lately with a group project and some family drama. Picking up your phone, you slid out the small keyboard before pausing at the name that appeared.
That was definitely not Natasha…
> Hey it’s Bucky got your number from Steve
> Just wanted to ask if you had the notes from today’s lecture?
I do! I could give them to you tomorrow? <
> Sounds good
> We could meet up at Sarah’s cafe in the morning if that works?
Yeah that works! See you then <
Alright, don’t freak out, this was literally just you passing along some notes. You put your phone away and proceeded with your original task. Trying not to think too hard about it, this could have been anyone, and you still would have helped.
—
You got to Sarah's Cafe a little earlier, thinking you'd get some studying done before your first lecture of the day. When you entered, you heard the little bell above the door jingle. You soaked up the warmth that was offered, having battled the morning cold (winter was really making itself known). It was busy, but you saw a two-person table open and hoped you'd be able to snatch it before anyone else could. You walked into line and squinted at the menu above the counter. Staring at the cold brew option…you recalled from Nat that Bucky liked cold brew coffee after she introduced him to it.
“Before that it was only just straight black coffee,” she grimaced, like his old preference personally offended her. You remembered just shaking your head–laughing at her ridiculousness.
Finally walking up to the counter, the girl whose nametag ironically said Sarah greeted you with a smile. She asked what you were having, and you gave her your order (one London fog, please). You stepped off to the side towards the order window, glancing over at the clock—he wouldn’t be here for another hour and a half. Once your order was in your hands, you quickly made your way to the table you spotted. You placed your stuff down and sat on the wooden chair. The table was circular, so it didn’t offer much space, but it didn’t matter too much at the moment. You got to work, scribbling out some notes and highlighting whatever looked important. Time seemed to slip past you since you were startled out of your focused state when someone stood beside your table.
“Is this seat taken?” Spoke a familiar voice, looking up–you spotted Bucky, who was giving you his signature boyish grin. You felt your heart rate spike, but honestly, it felt like it was trying to escape your chest. Shaking your head no, he quickly made himself comfortable. Looks like he ordered a cold brew.
“Oh, here are the notes you missed- it’s a lot, like usual.” You gathered your other work and put it out of the way before handing him your notebook. You watched him unzip his bag and took a sneaky peek at what was inside, your eyes widened at how many books and papers this guy carried on his back. Bucky took out a notebook and pencil before getting started on copying your notes. Not wanting to stare (he has great handwriting), you turned your head towards the window.
Huh…you thought he’d take the notebook to copy for later.
“You’d think maybe Mr. Grant would lay off on all the unnecessary words, but no… Your notes are organized beautifully, by the way,” Bucky mumbled while writing a sentence down. It got you to chuckle. Mr. Grant was known to overexplain, whether he was talking or writing it down.
“Just be glad you missed yesterday…he was going off again about how cell phones are ruining the youth,” you grimaced. It had turned half the lecture into a conspiratorial warning about how phones were going to take over and ruin human connection. It didn’t help that he liked to pick someone from one of his classes to use as a sad example (So and so is so bright, and that phone of theirs is going to ruin that!)...Not much was done yesterday.
It got Bucky to laugh, which filled you with so much joy. His laugh was nice, smooth and carefree. You wished you could hear it more often–one day perhaps.
“Wow, who did he use as an example this time?” Bucky asked, shifting in his chair and leaning his face into his hand.
“...It was you this time around, weren’t even there to defend yourself,” you paused to let out a laugh. “Mr. Grant went off about how bright a student you were, but wasted so much on that phone of yours, not sure how though?”
“What? That's so unfair. I’m barely on my phone, man…the one time I get caught checking,” He said with faux-hurt in his tone. Though Bucky chuckled softly just thinking about it, and took no real offence. Even if it was true. He looked up from his notebook, seeing the smile on your face, and he honestly hadn't noticed how pretty you looked. Hell–he knows he hasn’t noticed you in general, outside of you being Natasha’s best friend. You didn’t necessarily catch his attention…as harsh as that was. You were more on the quiet side. But you were surprisingly easy to talk to.
“But yeah, those are technically only half of the notes. We’ll probably get the rest next Wednesday,” you explained. Finishing off the rest of your tea, you felt a little awkward now that the conversation was dying down…but you swore from the corner of your eye that he was looking at you, like really looking. It’s probably just my imagination, you thought, no way was Bucky looking at me.
“Oh, while I’m doing this, do you mind looking over my essay?” He started looking through his backpack, trying to find it in the chaos that was his bag. You nodded your head, thankful for the distraction.
“Yeah sure- did you want feedback or just someone to look for typos?”
“Just typos and to make sure I don’t sound stupid.” Bucky shrugged, he had Steve already give him feedback last week. Of course, he had to add it last minute, and it was due today.
“That’s impossible,” you murmured. He finally won at the game of hide and seek the paper was playing before handing it over to you. You took the seven-pager and started reading through. It was your task for the next half an hour before your alarm buzzed in your pocket. Warning you that it was time to get to class. Thankfully, you were almost done looking the essay over, but glancing at Bucky’s notebook- he was only halfway through the notes.
“You know what, you can just give me back the notes in class. I gotta bounce… and your essay was good! Doesn’t sound stupid at all,” you complimented, handing him his revised assignment. There wasn’t much to edit, but it was a joy to read even if it was something boring like political theory.
“Sure, I honestly thought you were lying about the notes- sadly, I was proven wrong,” He sighed.
“Rude, I never lie.”
“Never?” His eyes widened in mock surprise. Wow–you were on a role getting Bucky to react to you.
“Well… maybe sometimes when needed,” You mumbled, which Bucky let out a humorous snort at that. You both said your goodbyes before you left the cafe. Crossing the street towards the main campus building, you looked back towards the cafe window and spotted Bucky already watching you leave. He gave you a smile and a small wave, it made your face heat up as you waved back.
—
“Just the person I was looking for,” you heard someone say from your left side. You assumed they were talking to the girl sitting beside you at a different table–that was until your notebook was placed in front of you. That got you to glare at the intruder before your face involuntarily softened at the sight of Bucky.
“You throw a mean glare,” he teased. He took the seat that was empty beside you. Your normal table partner rushed off to pair up with her girlfriend. Mr. Grant had blessed you with a group project, and of course, you were left alone until some unfortunate soul with the same fate approached you to partner up. Not that you were a bad group assignment partner…but you noticed you were typically the very last choice. So Bucky sitting beside you raised some questions.
“Thanks, I see my notebook is still in pristine condition,” you joked.
“Of course, Why? Is someone going around saying I destroy pretty girls' property?”
“P-pretty?” You embarrassingly stuttered out. Clearing your throat to save face-you quickly changed the subject.
“Well, Bucky…what are you doing here?” It was a genuine question, normally you’d see him pair up with Sam or some girl he liked to call Dot. Or one of his Baseball buddies, but that was in rare cases when neither Sam nor Dot were available. Bucky gave an easy grin, not minding the subject change.
“Just partnering up like the professor told us to,” he explained like it was obvious. You pursed your lips, unsure, as you glanced around the room. Sam was here, and so was Dot…so him being here only meant one thing. You were quick to dash your hopes away. Maybe he was waiting for one of his other friends, and he’s decided to kill time by chatting you up?
Yeah, that has to be it.
“Oh well, I’m just surprised you didn’t pick your two favourites…Did Bob blackmail you or something?” You quipped with a chuckle, knowing Bob couldn’t really hurt a fly. Bucky raised one eyebrow and tilted his head.
“Bob?” He questioned, now it was his turn to be confused.
“Yeah, Bob…That’s the person you wanted to partner up with, right?” Great, now this was getting awkward. Bucky didn’t know whether to laugh or die inside; were you really this dense?
“Um- no… I’m not pairing up with Bob. I want to pair up with you, if you’ll have me,” he stated. Bucky huffed out a small laugh, shaking his head at the silliness of the situation. You, on the other hand, groaned internally, feeling like the world's biggest idiot. You pouted for a moment, covering your face with your hands, which got Bucky to laugh (and that made you feel a little better).
“I am so stupid…” You mumbled into your hands.
“Hey, at least you look cute doing it…not that I think you’re stupid,” he was quick to correct. Heat crept up your face for the second time before you told yourself to get it together. Bucky flirted with every girl whether he meant it or not. I’m not special, you reminded yourself.
“But to answer your question, yes we can work together. Besides, I’m pretty sure the pairing up period has ended.”
“Great! Now what do you think our project should be about?” Bucky got right down to work, which you really needed in order to recover.
Maybe the universe was finally aligning for you?
It felt like it; you don’t think you hung out with him as much as you did the past month. Sure, you hung around him because of Natasha and sometimes Steve, but now you were learning things about him that weren’t from second-hand sources. Sure–it was because of the group assignment, but you two always ended up talking about whatever during your small brain breaks. You now formally learned he had a sister, whose name was Rebecca or Becca, as he liked to call her. He was getting a degree in political science and was minoring in history. He jokingly bragged about his pitching skills out on the field. But you could tell Bucky had pride in his skills and his team (which was so sweet to witness).
He liked coffee over tea, saying: tea was just bitter mud water (which you argued could also apply to coffee, and he looked genuinely offended), his favourite fruit was plums, his favourite colour was blue, and that he and Steve were friends since elementary school.
“Wow, that long?”
“Yeah, me and Steve have been practically taking on the world together since we were six,” he said fondly with a proud smile on his face. It made your heart swell with affection and plaster a big smile on your face hearing that. Though you also felt a twinge of jealousy bubbling up, wishing you had something like that with him or anyone really.
Of course, it wasn’t just Bucky speaking. You also opened up–like how you originally came from Moscow, Idaho. That you were an only child, and your parents were overbearing and overprotective (His mom was somewhat like that also, Bucky sympathized). You told him about your major, your favourite colour, that you couldn’t drink coffee because it made your stomach hurt, and finally about your nickname, since he seemed to be curious about the origin of ‘Chip.’
“That was you?” He had a look of delighted surprise on his face. He had almost forgotten about that. You groaned and leaned back in your chair.
“Yeah, that was me,” you grumbled. You couldn’t stay embarrassed for too long; the face Bucky was making didn’t allow for that. Equal parts amused and delighted at finally meeting the girl who punched the school’s mascot so hard their eyes went flying (the person playing the mascot was okay, their mask took all the impact). He let out a chuckle, greedily wanting to know even more about you, which you delivered later on another small break. You sprinkled in that you loved finding weird blogs or websites if boredom hit. Also mentioning that you loved reading fantasy novels, which he perked up at.
“You ever read The Hobbit?” He asked.
“No…it’s been on my reading list though. Why, have you read it?” You just haven’t had the time, and you were busy knocking other books off your ever-growing list of things to read.
“Yeah, I have recently, and actually really liked it… you could borrow my copy if you want?” He offered, which you gave a meek nod to.
Later, you were kicking yourself mentally because what girl in her right mind would mention to her crush about her lame hobbies of surfing the web and reading fantasy? Most girls you know didn’t care much for the fantasy genre (ones you knew anyway), they were too busy looking pretty, going to parties, or chasing guys. Great, now he probably thought you were a loser and a bothersome loner. Bucky made himself too comfortable to talk to–you reasoned for the slip-up.
Much to your surprise though, a week after, when you two met up at your usual spot at Sarah’s cafe. Bucky was holding his copy of The Hobbit, and your eyes widened, seeing it was a first edition–which, to your knowledge, was rare. He beamed when he saw you and walked over, placing the book on the table. Seeing it up close, it had some general wear but was otherwise in pretty decent condition. You looked at him while he sat down, then back at the book.
“Uh…” was all you managed to get out of your mouth. There was no way he was letting you borrow this. But you guessed he was, since he slid the book over towards you.
“What’s with that face? Did you think I’d forget?” He asked, his eyes gleaming with triumph that he remembered (not that he ever forgot).
“Maybe a little? But you do realise you’re letting me borrow a first edition of The Hobbit, right? That's like handing me a crap ton of money.” You don’t think you could accept this–what if something accidentally happened, or if someone stole it from you? What if some big purple alien invaded only to snap his fingers to turn this specific copy to dust? You couldn’t afford to replace it, plus you’d feel like shit…and he definitely would hate you and probably never speak to you again-
“Hey relax, it’s my great grandfather’s from when he use to read it to his kids-”
“That’s not easing my concern! It’s an heirloom from your great grandfather?”
“Well, I mean- yeah, but it’s mine, and I want you to borrow it. Besides, I’m pretty sure he won’t mind. He hasn’t made his disapproval known by striking me down with lighting or haunting my apartment,” he joked, but there was sincerity in his words.
“Really? Striking you down with lighting…What is he, God?” You hesitantly and extremely carefully put the book inside your bag. If he was going to insist then you might as well, since he seemed to trust you. You were going to make good on that trust.
“Hey, it’s the first thing that came to mind…” After that died down, you two got to work on your project. Honing in on small details and making sure it looked pretty for the professor. Time slipped by you both as it approached closing time for the cafe. Taking a look outside, it was dark, with snow gently falling from the sky.
“Here, let me drive you home. I can’t have you walking alone in the dark,” Bucky offered once you two were outside. It was chilly, but the falling snow made the night look more whimsical. You nodded your head at his offer, getting into his car and taking off towards your house. The ride there was quiet–it wasn’t awkward though, just a comfortable silence. You watched the snow zoom past the car as Bucky turned onto your street. He parked in front of your house, quickly getting out of the car and opening your car door for you.
Such a gentleman.
You grabbed your bag from the backseat before exiting the vehicle, Bucky shut the door behind you. You were about to say your goodbyes before he stopped you.
“Oh, wait- before I forget, would you want to come with me to Barkers on Friday? The bar just down the street from Sarah’s cafe…they’re hosting a 40s-themed trivia night,” Bucky explained. He looked a little bashful inviting you. Though you don’t think you were faring much better, considering you felt like your heart was racing at a hundred miles a minute. Was this it? Was Bucky finally noticing you?
“-Steve and Natasha will also be there,” he added, which made your heart drop. Feeling a bit dejected, your hope went way down. You thought he was asking you out. How silly. The universe really liked dangling Bucky right in front of you without any hope of having him. Whatever! Any outing with Bucky was better than none. Besides, he invited you–no way were you going to say no.
“Sure! I’d love to,” you replied, hoping the disappointment didn’t show in your tone. Bucky smiled, eyes scrunched up and everything, excited that all his friends were hanging out in one place.
“Great! I’ll pick you up at around six.”
—
On your way back home, you decided to stop at some metaphysical shop that you spotted during your third week in New York, but never went inside. You weren’t one to believe in the power of crystals, but thought maybe you’d find something cool to gift Bucky. Despite your disappointment last night, you were doing better today. A small skip in your step that even Natasha teased about. Heading inside the store, you were immediately hit with the scent of incense (lavender if you had to guess). There was a girl around your age working the counter, doing what looked like closing duties. Well, better hurry this up then-
“Hey, just letting you know we’re closing soon,” the cashier spoke up. She didn’t seem too pissed about you entering fifteen minutes before closing.
“Um, do you guys have like… necklaces with the crystals attached?” You asked, wanting to get out of her hair as soon as possible.
“We sure do, they’re just over there.” She left her spot behind the counter to assist you. Leading you towards a big rotating pegboard displaying various necklaces. All were the same length with different gems. You started carding through them, knowing that gems had different meanings but not what the meanings were. As if sensing your confusion about what any of them meant, the cashier spoke up again.
“Are you getting this as a gift or just yourself?” She prompted.
“...Does the meaning of the crystal change if it’s a gift or not?”
“No, but if you’re getting it for someone else it might be a little hard figuring out what they need. Let’s say they’re a student, so you could probably go with clear quartz for mental clarity and focus…or are you getting this for a lover? Rose quartz would be a good option, it represents love and compassion- there are also some small informational pamphlets about the different rocks we sell,” she pointed to the table beside the display. You felt your face heat up a little at the exchange, not that she was mean–but this was well above your element.
You quickly thanked her before she went back to her post at the counter. You started looking through the different necklaces again, wondering if getting him a rose quartz would be too bold. Then your mind drifted to a conversation you both had where he mentioned he had a friend who was a self-proclaimed witch. What if he happened to ask this friend what the crystal meant and she told him?
“She probably loves you, rose quartz is the number one rock you get for someone you like,” she’d say, and Bucky would probably cringe and say ew.
No, you don’t think you could handle the embarrassment of being called out. You sighed and let the necklaces swing back in place. You turned to leave the store, but paused when you saw a shelf full of smaller items. One of these stood out, a triangular box with the words ‘One Wish Willow’ in bold red print. You walked over to the shelf and took one, deciding that maybe this would be a fun present (and you’d feel bad if you walked in here last minute and didn’t buy anything). You flipped it around, reading the words ‘Spark the middle and break in half.’ You smiled, thinking maybe this would be a good laugh if anything. Walking over to the counter, you placed your item down and started looking through your bag for your card.
“These are pretty popular,” the cashier remarked, ringing up your item. “We put them out recently and they’ve been selling out like crazy, I guess everyone wants a wish.”
“Oh, that’s weird, but this isn’t for me so…” the cashier looked at you with an incredulous look before tapping away at the card reader.
“Alright, but don’t come back complaining. Just telling you now–most people collect these things, and others do end up breaking them. But then nothing happens so they come here yelling around…” She started to drift off, clearly it was a sore spot for the store employee.
“Because it’s a scam?"
“Hey, no- we’re not scamming people,” she said defensively.
“No, no, I know- it’s clear this thing is a toy, it’s silly that people think it’d work,” you quickly cut in. Hoping not to offend her more, you bit the inside of your cheek to silence yourself. You got out your debit card and quickly got the transaction over with.
…
“Let’s hear it for Bucky!” You heard Steve yell once you three were outside the bar. It was a riveting 40s-themed trivia, your table was neck and neck with another table full of older people. In the end though Steve and Bucky managed to wipe the floor with them, no mercy was shown. Bucky laughed, nudging his friend’s shoulder.
“Hey, you helped immensely too, you punk, I can’t take all the credit!” Bucky attested, which was true. Paired together, both of them were a dream team. You watched the scene fondly as Bucky got Steve into a headlock and started ruffling up his hair. Natasha trailed beside you, smiling at the scene also.
“Pretty sure the reason they fought so hard was because the tab payment was on the line,” she whispered to you while you let out a laugh.
“Don’t you guys normally split the bill?” You asked.
“No, those jerks won’t let me pay…not that I’m complaining,” Nat chuckled. You saw Steve and Bucky rejoin you two, with Steve trying to tame the bird's nest that was his hair now.
“We should go somewhere else to continue the night more, doesn’t have to be another bar,” Steve suggested. Both Nat and Bucky agreed, wanting to see where the night led, but you were growing quite tired. Which made you feel lame, considering it was eleven o’clock on a Friday night; the night was still young, as some would say. But as you tried to stifle a yawn, Bucky noticed immediately.
“Getting tired?” He asked softly so the others wouldn’t hear. Both Steve and Natasha were currently debating on where to go.
“No, no, I’m fine-” a sneaky yawn caught you off which made him chuckle.
“Hey, it’s fine if you want to call it a night, I can take you home,” he offered. It made your stomach flutter with butterflies, he was always so nice.
“Oh no, I couldn’t ask that of you, didn’t you want to hang out with them more?”
“It’s fine, really,” he gave you a reassuring smile before gesturing to them.
“I’m going to take Chip home,” he said loud enough for the other two to hear. Natasha looked over at you and frowned, not one of her serious ones, just sad to see you leaving so soon.
“Awe, Chip, we barely see each other enough as is,” Nat lamented. You walked closer to her and gave her a hug, which she returned.
“I know, sorry…Hey, I’ll make it up to you soon, promise!” You patted her back before letting her go. You did feel a twinge of guilt, but damn today's classes were too exhausting. Natasha did seem to understand.
“Once you guys figure out where to go, call me!” Bucky called out as he started walking to his car with you in tow. You both got in and headed off to your place.
You and Bucky ended up having a conversation outside your house, both of you together in the warmth of his car. During said conversation, you felt a surge of random confidence in you to confess how you truly felt about him. It was weird; you didn’t even drink that much tonight. But watching him yap about how great the trivia questions were was something only your sophomore-year self could only dream of witnessing. The past month honestly felt like a dream, and you weren’t even sure what caused it.
“I’m just surprised all the questions were actually related to the forties. Some quizmasters tend to just half-ass it, which annoys the hell out of me…” Bucky grumbled.
“Bucky… uh, I have something to tell you.” There was a waver noticeable in your voice, which got him to straighten up. He turned his head to look at you, you now had his full attention. Great, maybe this was a bad idea… You swallowed thickly, looking around his general direction but never at him.
“Is something wrong?” He asked, concern lacing his tone.
“What? No- no, nothing like that, it’s just…” You trailed off. Oh god, just say it already! As you were trying to find the right words that didn’t make you sound like a silly teenager, Bucky's phone went off. You both glanced at the name that popped up on the screen.
‘Nat ♡’
You squinted your eyes at the familiar name as your mind began to race: Why did Bucky have a heart beside her name? Oh shit, were they together? Why didn’t Nat say anything? Bucky chuckled awkwardly, mumbling about how he forgot to change her name. He glanced at you, but couldn't understand why you were staring so intently. He thought about it a little- the shake in your voice, how you were looking at everything but him, the way it looked like you were trying to formulate words because you didn't want to sound stupid. The more he noticed your behaviour–the more he understood, and his eyes widened.
“Chip, do you like me?” He asked softly, carefully. He was nervous that he’d read the signs wrong, but he was pretty sure he was correct in his assumption. His phone at this point was long forgotten. You shot your head up to look at him, finally looking into his eyes.
“No, god no, sorry I- I should… go,” you spoke defensively, hurried even. You grabbed your bag and shoved open the car door. Hurriedly getting out of the car, it was too suffocating at this point, and Bucky’s stare made you feel like an idiot. You couldn't take back your words at this point, the moment was completely ruined. You were too dumb to think Bucky would ever like someone like you.
“Oh, uh, alright then, good-” he didn't get to finish his sentence before you shut the car door on him. “Night…” he said to himself. You didn't bother opening it again. You speed-walked to your front door and entered your house, watching him drive off from the peephole in your door. You placed your back to the door and slid down. Sitting and ruminating about what just happened.
God, you're so stupid…
Of course him and Nat have something going on…
No, he mentioned forgetting to change her name back… are they not in a relationship?
Doesn't matter, why did no one tell you?
Now he probably thinks you hate him or that you're a complete bitch…
You spiraled pretty badly for a moment, thinking you fucked up your relationship with Bucky in general. Hell, you wouldn't blame him for avoiding you at this point.
He did say ‘good’ after you said ‘no’ to liking him…
What did that mean? Does he only see you as a friend…
Shit…
You went to dig something out of your bag, and your hand brushed past what you thought was your phone. You grabbed it–revealing it was the One wish Willow. You stared at it, blinking in surprise when you remembered it was supposed to be for Bucky. Well, you couldn't give it to him now. You opened the box, pulling out what looked like a stick. An eerie jingle rang out once you did. Fuck it, you thought, thinking it wasn't going to come true anyway.
“I wish James Barnes loved me more than anyone in the fucking world,” you said before breaking the stick in half.
wc: 6,529
Chapter Two 𖹭 "Love me more" (coming soon)
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(Hearts on hearts (Passion) divider by @//cafekitsune
You woke up in the world of TWD, and you fought so hard to not change the plot of the show, to not get too close— afraid that you'll end up with more losses than not. However, the more time you spend with them, interact with them, laugh and smile with them.. You realize that you're slowly getting attached to every single one of them.
Still, you try not to socialize much, because you don't want to get hurt when a character dies. But.. People is real stubborn.
“You know, we still have 11 condoms—”
You stopped in your tracks by the door when you heard Glenn say those words. Maggie and Glenn snapped their heads up to look at your direction, their eyes wide in horror. They didn't hear anyone approaching the door, so when you pushed it open and stepped outside, the two of them simultaneously froze.
They stared at you, eyes wide and dilated. You have the same reaction, almost the same— if it weren't for you quickly schooling your expression and forcing it to be blank.
It was hard, but you managed.
“Nice guitar.” You commented, eyes flickering to the instrument in his hand. “Gotta make sure that you have good technique with the strings, right? I suggest practicing to make those 11 minutes of Maggie's life worth it.”
Maggie blinked, shock and embarrassment creeping to her face, but the snort that soon followed after she realized that you were joking was heartwarming.
“You did not.” Maggie giggled, making you shrug.
“Can’t be too sure.” You mumbled, your feet moving to get yourself off the porch and descend the stairs, your head shifting to your right shoulder to give them a heads-up. “I'll be going out for a search. If things get out of hand, just let me know and I'll give Shane a piece of my mind.”
The two of them watched as you slung the machete into the holster in your belt while you're jogging towards the tree line. There's no telling if you were joking, but Maggie decided to play it safe.
“Why would she give Shane a piece of her mind?” Maggie asked, turning to look at the asian man who looked quite pink in the face.
“Huh?” Glenn snapped out of his embarrassment and looked back at Maggie, eyes clouded with thoughts.
“Oh, I— it's.. It was ‘cause he's not acting himself right now.” Glenn answered, albeit shakily. “She’s just like that, you know? She gives someone a warning— just once, and if that person didn't follow through the warning.. She's not afraid to punch them. Hence, the piece of her mind. She tried that on Daryl once, and when Daryl didn't follow through her warning, he got sucker punched in the stomach.. It was back at the Quarry.”
A smile crept into Maggie's lips as she listened to Glenn's story, and upon seeing the delighted twinkle in her eyes made the asian man swallow.
God, did she look beautiful.
You could feel your nose twitching as you walked through trees, and you fought so hard to hold it in because you didn't want to alert any walker that could possibly be walking by, but it was extremely hard.
“Achoo— crap!” You sneezed, but not just any kind of sneeze. It's the kind of sneeze that those uncles and dads let out, the deep and boisterous one.
Sneezing that hard made your throat sore a little. You raised a hand to massage your throat as you continued hiking down the trail you're following. You could more or less tell that the trail you're following belongs to a squirrel. Squirrels are easy to catch if they're not startled, but your obnoxious sneeze probably scared them off already so following the trail is going to be useless.
You pushed through still, not wanting to be discouraged because of a single mistake. Sneezing is hard in the apocalypse, but it can’t be helped if you can't stop it. Sighing, you focused your attention back on the trail.
Walking down the path you're following through, you noticed that there's another trail.
“Is that.. A horse shoe?” You wandered aloud, staring closely on the tracks, then a quiet neigh along with a snort of a horse came from somewhere in the woods, indirectly confirming your suspicion.
The cries of the mammal are far, but you could hear its whines as it gets farther and farther.
You stopped in your tracks and slowly reached for your knife. You remembered, just a tad bit, that Daryl had that episode where he found the doll Sophia was carrying. He had gone down a cliff to get it and when he went back up to get back on the horse, something spooked the horse and caused it to drop Daryl.
You don't remember what spooked it, but you remembered how badly injured Daryl was.
Oh, shit, is it happening right now? You cursed in your mind, quickly rushing forward to follow the trail that was left behind by the horse. The tracks are faint, but you can still see them and it's leading you somewhere where you can hear water running.
Before you knew it, you ended up on a cliff.
“Oh my goodness.” You huffed out, your gaze flickering to the unconscious man below where a walker is reaching for his boots, the said walker getting down to his knees and starting chewing on the archer's shoes.
“Daryl! Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck!” You hissed under your breath repeatedly, scrambling to get down and letting yourself roll down the cliff.
Splash.
Your body crashed down into the water, splashing water around you. The sound caught the walker's attention, just in time to see Daryl gaining consciousness and stare at the retreating form of the walking corpse.
“W.. Wha?” He grumbled, eyes trying to focus on what was in front of him.
“Come here, you stupid corpse!” You growled quietly, hand tightening around your knife as you waited for it to get closer, and once it got close enough, you lunged forward and didn't waste a second to dig your blade into its skull to kill it.
The two of you crashed into the water, mainly you dropping on top of it for not getting your balance back in time.
You scrambled to get back on your feet, panting heavily. It's quite hard to pull your own weight while you're in the water. It feels like gravity is ten times worse when you're in it, but it doesn't matter now, you managed to get the walker off from Daryl.
Speaking of the archer, you spotted him getting back onto his ass with a pained scowl on his face.
You splashed your way towards him, forcing your legs to move through the running stream no matter how hard it was. When you finally got out of the water, you shook your arms slightly before walking over to him— just in time to see him hissing in pain.
“Hey.” You called, causing the archer to turn to look at you. “I'm sorry.”
Your apology caught him off guard, that much is evident at how his eyebrows creased further together while he scanned you from head to toe. You reached forward, eyes flickering to his punctured side. He watched you as you cautiously approached him, making him tense up in return.
“What the hell are ya apologizing for— son of a bitch!” Daryl screamed on the top of his lungs.
You pulled the arrow out of his side, hand curling around the bolt’s shaft. The unexpected pain caused him to double over and place a shaking hand onto the wound to hopefully ease the pain that erupted from the wound.
“What's yer problem, woman?!” He hissed, but his voice cracked so you didn't feel the need to hiss back.
“I apologized in advance, didn't I?” You retorted softly, crouching down to place the arrow beside him. “Anyway, based on the spot where you passed out, I'll guess that you dropped your crossbow somewhere near it.”
“Why don't ya just fuck off?!” Daryl growled, still reeling from the pain, but the tone of his voice didn't have much bite.
“I will.” You hummed and pushed yourself up, your eyes scanning the surroundings to look for the big stick he used in the show to cope a feel for his crossbow in the water. “Only after I bring you back to the farm, of course. Can't let you wander around all injured and pissy. Can’t have you die out here.”
Daryl could only scowl at your way, but once again, you ignored it and walked over to the deeper part of the water.
You didn't see the big stick he used, so you had to improvise and dive into the water. It was a good thing that you're not wearing Rick's sheriff jacket and left it on the laundry basket due to the grime stuck on it, because if you didn't, you don't know where else to leave it.
“Don't ya dare touch my stuff!” Daryl screamed out to you, making you simply wave him off as you braced yourself to dive.
If you remember correctly, the crossbow is around the middle, so you exhaled shakily and started poking under the water using your feet. You don't want to dive in blindly into the water, of course, that would be too stupid to do.
When you felt something hit your foot, you quickly dived down and clutched your fingers around it.
Watching from his spot, Daryl could only scowl. He doesn't know why you're going through all that trouble to help him. You've been doing just fine without offering a hand to him, so what changed? He stared at the spot where you lowered yourself, then when you rose back with your hand lifting the crossbow off the water, he teared his gaze immediately.
You trudged your way out of the river and picked up your weapons off the mud.
He could feel that same weird butterfly in his stomach when you started to stomp over to his way, your hips shaking a little— and he wasn't sure if you're doing it internationally or not, but it's starting to piss him off.
“Didn't ask for yer help.” He grumbled, snatching his crossbow off your hand.
“You're welcome.” You hummed, pushing your wet hair out of your face as you looked up the cliff, eyebrows furrowing when you took in the sight of how steep it was. “Anyway, how are we going to climb that thing? You're hurt, and I'm not strong enough to carry you.”
“Who said I need yer help?” Daryl grunted, ripping out the sleeves of his shirt and trying it around his ribs. “Don’t need nobody’s help.”
“Sure, you don't.” You mumbled and walked over to the foot of the cliff, your eyes glued to the squirrel that fell down just a minute ago. You gripped your knife tightly and focused on the critter as it struggled to get back up, only failing and rolling down once more.
Daryl watched subconsciously as you stalked past him, his eyes catching sight of what got your attention. He scoffed, but didn't say anything.
Five minutes later, you came back to his spot and dropped the dead squirrel into his lap, making him freeze and look up to you. Just then, another moaning walker wandered out of the tree line and spotted the two of you. It started making its way across the water and staggered on its own feet to get to you.
“I'll take care of it.” You told him, throwing a knife his way before turning away, “Eat that, then we go.”
“I don't need yer help—” Daryl hissed again, but you were already walking away from him to take care of the walker who was reaching its arms out to grab you. “That woman's full of crap. Thinkin’ that she can boss me around just ‘cause she decided I'm weak and all that..”
He hated the feeling of being assisted. He hated the feeling that he's with someone who's fully capable of herself, but still extended a helping hand. He had told Rick yesterday that he's better off alone than going with someone, because being with someone will just slow him down.
But you? Oh, you're doing whatever you want and leaving him with no air in his lungs.
You didn't even give him the chance to curse you out properly and just left him while he was busy talking shit about you. If you're not someone who will listen to his shits, then he already knows that you're going to be nothing, but trouble in the near future.
He doesn't want to work with someone who will bring trouble. He can’t be around someone who only thinks of herself and pisses him off. He can’t work with someone who would do shit even if he told them otherwise. He grumbled under his breath, shoving his hand to the knife and snatching it off the muddy ground.
However, all of his thoughts came flying out of his head when you dragged the walker's corpse over and dropped it by his feet. His eyes squinted subconsciously, confusion clear in his gaze.
You panted, placing your hands over your hips. “Do what you have to do once you're done eating.”
He stayed silent, his tongue feeling a little heavier than usual. He stared at the dead corpse and flickered his eyes at you, already finding you turning your back to him and looking around for who knows what.
Just.. Just how did you know that he was planning to use the walkers’ ears as a repellent to other walkers? How did you know what he was planning to do without him saying the words aloud? Do you have psychic powers? Did you have something up your sleeves that told you what he wanted to do?
Daryl could only look at you with an incredulous look on his face, but his hands didn't stop working the squirrel open.
“Hurry up, Dixon.” You grumbled out, facing him again to watch him dig his fingers inside the squirrel's open belly and scoop out its first available meat, before throwing that bloody piece inside his mouth.
Your nose scrunched up in slight disgust, but kept those thoughts to yourself and forced out quietly, “We still need to haul our asses up the cliff.”
“Don't need yer help—”
“Yeah, yeah, you don't need my help.” You huffed, cutting him off as you shot him a pointed look, “But who cares? Just hurry your ass up so we can leave this godforsaken river and be on our way.”
bucky and reader trying to get pregnant but for some reason they can’t, and both of them individually think it is their fault (without communicating this guilt or sadness to the other). eventually one day late in the evening maybe after another negative pregnancy test, reader feels like she is failing bucky so she quietly confesses that she thinks there is something wrong with her but then bucky’s heart breaks bcuz he thinks there is something wrong with HIM, and they just reassure each other and happy ending pls <3
The bathroom light is too bright for this hour of the evening, sharp and clinical in a way that makes everything feel worse than it already does. It reflects off the tile, off the mirror, off the small white stick sitting on the edge of the sink like it’s something important instead of something that keeps breaking your heart.
Negative.
Again.
You don’t pick it up this time. You don’t flip it over like maybe the answer will change if you look at it from a different angle. You just stare at it, arms wrapped tight around your middle, like if you hold yourself together hard enough you won’t come apart.
The apartment is quiet. Bucky is in the living room—you can hear the faint murmur of the TV through the wall—but he hasn’t come to check on you yet. He never hovers. He gives you space, always, like he’s afraid of crowding you when you’re already hurting.
You know why.
Because every time this happens, he looks at you like it’s his fault.
And every time, you let him.
Just like you let him believe you’re okay.
Your throat tightens, the pressure building until it feels like it might choke you, and you press the heel of your hand against your mouth to keep the sound in. You don’t want him to hear. You don’t want him to come in and see you like this—again, always again—because you’re so tired of the way his face falls, the way guilt settles into his shoulders like something heavy and permanent.
You hate that he carries it.
You hate that you do too.
You close your eyes for a second, breathing through it, counting in your head the way you’ve learned to do when things get overwhelming. One, two, three—
You’re fine.
You’re going to be fine.
You just need a minute.
But the minute stretches, and the silence presses in, and the thought that’s been living in the back of your mind for months now finally pushes its way forward, loud and impossible to ignore.
What if it’s you?
What if there’s something wrong with you?
The idea settles in your chest like a stone, heavy and cold, and suddenly everything makes too much sense. All the negative tests. All the waiting. All the quiet disappointment that never quite gets spoken out loud.
You swallow hard, blinking rapidly, and finally reach for the test just so you can shove it into the trash, like getting rid of it might make the feeling go away too.
It doesn’t.
Nothing does.
When you step out into the hallway, the light from the living room spills toward you, warm and soft in contrast to the harsh brightness you just left behind. Bucky is stretched out on the couch, one arm thrown over his head, the other resting on his stomach, the TV flickering across his face in shades of blue and gold.
He looks up the second he hears you.
“Hey,” he says quietly, voice careful in a way that makes your chest ache. His eyes flick over your face, searching, and you can see the moment he understands. His expression softens, something sad slipping in around the edges. “C’mere.”
You hesitate for half a second, because if you go to him, you’re not sure you’ll be able to keep it together.
But you go anyway.
You always do.
He shifts to make room for you, sitting up just enough to pull you into his side, his arm coming around your shoulders automatically, tucking you in close like you belong there. Like you’re something to be protected.
“Hey,” he murmurs again, softer this time, his hand coming up to cup the back of your head, pressing a kiss into your hair. “It’s okay.”
The words hit something fragile inside you, and before you can stop it, you let out a shaky breath that sounds a little too close to a sob.
It’s okay.
It’s not, though.
It hasn’t been for a while.
You press your face into his chest, breathing in the familiar scent of him, trying to ground yourself in it, but the thought won’t leave you alone now that it’s out in the open, circling and circling until it feels like it’s going to swallow you whole.
“Buck,” you whisper, your voice small against the fabric of his shirt.
His hold tightens immediately. “Yeah, doll?”
You don’t know how to say it.
You don’t know how to put something like this into words without breaking something between you, without confirming the fear that’s been eating at you for months now.
But you can’t keep it in anymore.
“I think…” Your voice catches, and you have to swallow hard before you can keep going. “I think there’s something wrong with me.”
The words hang in the air between you, fragile and terrible all at once.
For a second, everything goes very, very still.
And then Bucky’s hand freezes where it’s been rubbing slow circles against your arm.
“What?” he breathes.
You pull back just enough to look at him, and the expression on his face is enough to make your heart twist painfully in your chest. He looks…stricken. Like you’ve just said something that physically hurts him to hear.
“I just—” you start, your voice wavering despite your best efforts to keep it steady. “We’ve been trying for so long, and it’s just…nothing, and I keep thinking—maybe it’s me. Maybe I can’t—” You cut yourself off, your throat closing up around the rest of the sentence. “I feel like I’m failing you.”
The second the words leave your mouth, Bucky shakes his head hard, like he’s trying to physically reject them.
“No,” he says immediately, too fast, too sharp. “No, don’t—don’t say that.”
“But—”
“It’s not you,” he insists, his hands coming up to frame your face, forcing you to look at him. His eyes are wide, almost frantic. “Jesus, sweetheart, it’s not you.”
You blink at him, confused by the intensity in his voice. “Then what is it?”
His jaw tightens, something conflicted flashing across his expression before he looks away, like he can’t quite meet your eyes anymore.
“I thought…” he starts, then stops, dragging a hand through his hair in a frustrated motion. “I thought it was me.”
You stare at him.
“What?”
He lets out a humorless little huff, shaking his head. “All the stuff I went through. Hydra. The experiments. I figured they probably messed something up.” His voice drops, rough around the edges. “I thought I was the reason we can’t—”
“Bucky,” you breathe, your chest tightening painfully.
“I didn’t want to say anything,” he continues, the words coming faster now like he’s been holding them in for too long. “Didn’t want you to think I was…broken, or that I was the one keeping this from happening for us.”
Something in your chest cracks wide open.
All this time.
All this time, you’ve both been carrying the same fear, the same guilt, just in different directions.
And neither of you said anything.
“Oh my God,” you whisper, your hands coming up to cover his where they’re still holding your face. “Buck…”
His gaze finally meets yours again, and there’s so much vulnerability in it that it makes your heart ache.
“I’m sorry,” he says quietly. “I should’ve told you.”
“No,” you shake your head, tears slipping free despite your best efforts to hold them back. “No, I should’ve told you. I’ve been sitting there thinking I’m the problem, and you’ve been thinking the same thing, and we just…never talked about it.”
He exhales slowly, his forehead dropping forward until it rests against yours.
“Guess we’re both a little stubborn,” he murmurs.
You let out a watery laugh, the sound soft and shaky but real.
“Yeah,” you agree. “A little.”
For a moment, you just stay like that, breathing each other in, the weight of everything that’s been unspoken finally starting to lift, piece by piece.
“It’s not your fault,” you say softly, brushing your thumb over his cheek.
“It’s not yours either,” he replies just as gently.
The words settle into something warm and steady between you, replacing the cold uncertainty that’s been there for so long.
“We’ll figure it out,” he adds after a second, his voice firmer now, more certain. “Whatever it is. Together.”
Together.
The word wraps around you like something solid, something you can actually hold onto.
You nod, leaning in to press your lips to his, the kiss soft and lingering, full of something deeper than just comfort. It’s reassurance. It’s promise.
It’s hope.
When you pull back, he nudges his nose against yours, a faint smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.
“No more keeping this stuff from each other, okay?” he says.
“Okay,” you agree, your own smile coming a little easier now.
He presses one more kiss to your lips, then pulls you back into his arms, holding you close like he never plans to let you go.
And for the first time in a long while, the future doesn’t feel quite so heavy.
It was a casual afternoon when you, y/n Floren, daughter of marquess Floren learned of you betrothal to the Duke of Thisse, Damien Von Thisse.
"DAMIAN VON THISSE?" after your maid told you, you were so shocked. There wasn't much you knew about the duke except that he was handsome and smart.
Well.... this wasn't the worst option.
I mean, women in your era get married younger than you but you were blessed to be 19 and still have a good match. It's not everyday you’re engaged to a Duke of his standing, he was the crown princes cousin!!
Your thoughts were running wild for the rest of the day and seemed to have no end when your father finally got you out of your daze and told you,
"He's coming tomorrow to visit you and formally court you before the wedding"
oh. my. god.
Too much too soon?
it took hours before you could finally sleep that night
It was morning and your maids immediately began dressing you.
Unlike your usual light gowns, you were wearing a heavier one with coloring to represent your house.
You and your parents then eagerly waited for the Dukes carriage to arrive.
When the Duke arrived he was nothing short of handsome and dashing.
Wow… he was really handsome.
He was cordial and friendly… especially to you.
Throughout the whole day you kept feeling as if he was staring at you but everytime you looked he was chatting with your parents
odd… maybe your just imagining it?
You excused yourself to take a walk and for a split second you swore the Dukes face was displeased.
Shaking it off, you went to the back to walk around.
“Miss y/n!” it was the servant Malcom who you grew up with.
“Malcom how are you?”
“I’m great! how are you?”
“Good, would you like to join me on my walk?”
“Yes please miss y/n” Malcom replied, blushing.
You could swear you could see a slight shadow silhouette near the side of the horse stabl. Chalking it up to a squirrel, you let it go.
Damien Von Thisse was angry. He had wanted to see only you today but your stupid parents just didn’t know when to leave.
When you left the dinner table, he shortly left as well stating he needed to go to the bathroom.
When he finally saw you, he hid against a horse stable when someone approached you.
“That must be Malcom…” Damien did his research on you and found out there wa sa servant around your age that was working for your family.
When he saw him in person and viewed your interaction with Malcom, he realized Malcom may harbor some feelings for you.
“This just won’t do.”
The next couple of days Damien visited you and demanded your presence.
Because Damien was taking up all your time, you didn’t realize how Malcom was slowly disappearing from it until he was gone.
After the wedding ceremony, it got worse.
Damien would rarely let you go out, and if you did then it would have to be with him or with 5 trusted guards.
He would not let much visitors in, not even your parents.
One day, Damien left to go to a court matter.
Bored as you were, you decided to go clean his work room to be nice and help organize his things.
When you were cleaning up the papers on his desk, you came across a mail he had left on it.
It was already read, as there was a rip on the envelope, so it wouldn’t hurt to read it right?
Wrong.
【Dear Duke Thisse,
The malcom boys body was throrougjly disposed of as requested.
Sincerely,
jacob. 】
What?
The door creaked.
“Husband…”
He peaked at the paper in your hands, smirking.
“Hello wife”
“What did you do… to malcom?”
“He dared to covet my wife.”
“Just because of a little crush? HOW COULD YOU”
“y/n i did what i had to do. he had a crush on you and that was sin enough.”
“He was my friend!”
“Yet you didn’t notice his disappearance, so really, was he actually your friend?”
“what..?”
“If you really cared about him it wouldn’t have taken you that letter to realize that he was gone.”
“But..”
He walked towards you, embracing you.
“So what? I am your husband. And where would you go if we divorced anyways? you should know divorce is the most shameful thing in aristocracy. Check the other mail over there”
It was a letter stating that he bought all of your father’s possessions.
“Besides… even if you could divorce me there is no place for you to go.”
“what happened to my parents you sick bastard?”
“nothing. they get to enjoy their usual lives, so long as you stay my obedient wife.”
Summary: After bombing your European History exam, you seek comfort from your secret boyfriend, Professor James B. Barnes.
Pairing: Professor James Barnes x College Student!Reader
Word count: 2.5k
Warnings/tags: porn with absolutely no plot; secret relationship; age gap (bucky in his 40s, reader in her 20s); semi-public sex (office sex); student anxiety; student stress relief; kind of comfort sex?; oral sex (f receiving); fingering; praise kink/worship kink; one instance of pussy pronouns; use of petname (love & goddess); bucky is the gentlest lover; bucky loves being on his knees; no use of y/n; unbeta’d
Notes: so. we're all crazy about the new cartier photoshoot, right? right. i feel like every time a new Seb photoshoot comes out, some new inspiration for Professor Barnes comes to the light for me. here's the new hallucination somewhere in that universe.
Dim lights of the humanities building are practically vibrating as you walk through the hallway. There’s a chance it might just be the sheer volume of caffeine and panic coursing through your veins causing you to feel that way, too.
It’s half past six in the afternoon when you open the door to office 304, the one that has Professor James B. Barnes written on a small rectangle in golden letters. You don’t knock. Simply push the door open, slip inside and click it shut behind you, the sound definitely too loud in the quiet hallway now that most students have already gone home.
Inside, Professor Barnes, who has the reputation for being the toughest grader in the department and object of half the campus’ unrequited crushes, looks up from his desk, one brow arched, red pen hovering whatever he had been grading, silver-rimmed glasses perched on his nose and sleeves rolled up to his forearms.
You recognize it immediately, the slightly judgemental expression of someone who was not expecting to have his work interrupted with even as much as a knock; but the moment he notices the expression on your face, your hands still shaking with adrenaline, his own shifts from professional uptightness to something much softer. A soft look you’ve come to know, too, after the two of you began a secret relationship a little over four months ago.
“Sorry,” you say, already stumbling through words. “Sorry, I know I didn’t knock, I just—"
“Come in. Lock the door.” His voice drops, shifting from Professor Barnes to your James in the space of a few words.
You do just that. Then you stand there, backpack still hanging off one shoulder, hands twisting the strap.
“I’m freaking out about the European History exam,” you start. Professor Barnes shows no signs of being bothered by you immediately firing information his way.
“Sit down first.”
“I can’t sit down, James. I’ve been sitting for the past four hours, trying to—" You drop your bag onto the floor and start pacing the narrow strip of space between his bookshelf and the leather couch pushed against the wall. “I completely bombed it, okay? I know I did. Question three asked about the socioeconomic impacts of the Treaty of Tordesillas. I wrote about trade routes, James. Why did I write about trade routes? That wasn’t the prompt. And then I couldn’t remember some exact years, so I guessed, and I’m pretty sure I guessed about two decades off. If I fail this exam—”
“Please, sit—”
“—my GPA drops, and if my GPA drops, I lose my seminar slot for next semester, and then my entire track is ruined, and I'll end up living in a cardboard box—”
“Love.”
You stop, the way you always stop when he calls you that, like your mind still hasn’t quite learned to process that this man, older, more experienced, with a salt and pepper beard that makes your knees weak, would want to call you love.
James is leaning back in his chair now, arms crossed with muscles straining slightly against the shirt, and watching you with a particular patient expression, despite your serpentining conversation.
“The exam is done. You're spiralling," he tells you, and the second after he is getting up from his chair and stepping into your pacing path. A hand reaches for your wrist and makes you stop in front of him. “Breathe for me?”
“I’m not breathing, I can’t breathe, I have three more finals this week and I feel like my skull is gonna fracture from the pressure,” you whine, but are already leaning into his touch, seeking the warmth of him through your most stressful moments. He lets out a sympathetic sigh, fingers curling firmer around your wrist and pulls you fully to him before he presses a lingering kiss to the top of your head.
“There’s nothing you can do about it now.” And he’s not wrong. You open your mouth, close it, then sigh. Because there is nothing you can do about it now, and that’s somehow better, but also considerably worse. James tips your chin up with two fingers, ocean blue eyes meeting yours from behind his glasses.
“You have barely slept or eaten properly for the past week. I don’t like it. The way you chastise yourself whenever something goes wrong.” His thumb traces your jaw, and some of the tight coil in your chest loosens very much against your will. “Take a seat.”
“James, I don’t need to—"
“I’m not asking,” he says gently, which makes it incredibly more effective than if he had said it any other way, then nods towards the leather couch. “Sit. You’ve been white-knuckling it for days, give yourself ten minutes.”
You consider it. Not because you want to sit down, not because the exam is finally slipping away from your mind, but because James has shifted into that version of him he only ever lets out when he’s near you, with you, the one that breaks down all your defenses and leaves you bare, although not unsafe. You always feel safe with him.
Slowly, you agree and take a seat on the couch, back slumping against the cushions. Your body recognizes it as home almost immediately, letting the familiarity seep into your bones and making you relax.
James crouches down in front of you and rubs one hand over your right knee.
"Still thinking about it?" he asks.
"...A little."
You sink deeper into the worn leather of the couch, the tension in your shoulders only kind of melting under the weight of his gaze. James remains crouched between your knees for a long moment, large hands taking residence on your thighs, now, thumbs stroking soothing circles through the fabric of your jeans.
“You know I’ve always got you, right? Prettiest girl I’ve ever met. Smartest, too,” he murmurs, voice wrapped in velvet. That does it quickly, for you, and you know he knows it. He showers you in praise every time, because every time your body opens to him like a flower blooming in the sunlight.
Before you can overthink it, you simply nod. There’s a brief moment where you’re sure he whispers something like ‘let me take care of you’, and you do, you let him, the permission being the way your legs gently pry open right in front of him. A shaky exhale, head falling back against the couch. All the agreement he needs.
His long fingers travel upward and make easy work of the button of your pants before peeling them down your legs slowly. James pulls your boots off, then the pants along with them, and he leans forward, mouth pressing a kiss to your left knee. Upward, to the skin of your thigh, a bit to the side, to the inside of your leg. Three days' worth of stubble prickles against you as he moves, and you make a noise, something he sees quickly as desperation, and you know the complaint is futile. When has Professor Barnes ever given you anything quicker than the exact pace he wanted to?
“Relax,” he says against your thigh, then presses his lips to the skin again, an open-mouthed kiss before he bites down so gently you are barely even able to call it a bite. “Didn’t I just say I’ve got you?”
Large hands slide from your thighs to wrap firmly around the backs of your legs, fingers digging in with just enough pressure to tug you forward on the couch, sliding your ass closer to the edge so you’re perfectly positioned for him. That’s when you open your eyes again, just in time to watch him hook his fingers into the waistband of your panties and peel them down slowly, dragging the fabric along your thighs and off your ankles. And he does it all with his eyes on yours, two blue pits making you feel dizzy, but you still don’t look away. You couldn’t if you tried.
Cool air hits your now exposed pussy, making you shiver. James lets out a quiet hum of approval at the sight of you, already glistening with arousal.
“She’s always so beautiful,” a reverent whisper before his large hands wrap around your legs again and lift effortlessly to drape them over his broad shoulders, heels of your feet resting against his back. The new angle tilts your hips up towards his mouth, spreading you open for him completely, and before you can even catch your breath, or take a moment to push down the flush on your skin growing from the vulnerable way you are exposed to him, he leans in and drags his tongue through your folds in a filthy stripe from your entrance to your clit.
A breathy moan tears from your throat, echoing in the quiet office like a confession, and it unravels the last threads of your anxiety as pleasure rises in its place. Then James does it again, a little slower, savoring the taste of you, messy and unhurried, spit mixing with your arousal until your folds are slick and shining. On his knees in front of you, this brilliant man, esteemed professor, becomes nothing more than a servant doing worship at the altar of his Goddess. His broad shoulders carry your legs like an honor he would gladly take forever, and his eyes flutter shut as he presses closer.
He’s incredible at this; you’ve known it from the first time he fell to his knees, right here, in this office, always reading every twitch, every gasp, mouth moving with exquisite skill. Slow and indulgent at first, mostly for himself, drowning in the taste of your slick, before giving way to teasing flicks of the tip of his tongue around your swollen clit only to dip lower again, lapping messily at your entrance where your arousal flows for him.
Wetness coats his silver-streaked beard, glistening on his chin as he buries his face deeper between your thighs. The obscene sounds of his mouth feasting on your fill the room, wet slurping and sucking noises, a slick glide of his tongue, an occasional hungry groan into your cunt that sends sparks flying up your spine, all of it the actions of a man who could be on his knees for hours.
Your hands fly to his hair, gripping the dark strands as your thighs tremble around his head. “James…”
No words come out of his mouth then, none you can understand, anyway; instead, the response comes in the way he sucks your clit between his lips, wet suction making your hips jerk, before he releases it with a lewd pop. One hand claws at your thigh, keeping your legs right in their place, while two thick fingers slide into your welcoming heat, curling against the spongy spot inside you that makes stars explode behind your eyelids. James pumps them slowly, in time with the dance of his tongue over your clit.
Exam long forgotten, the world narrows to nothing but him, the way his blue eyes will sometimes flick up to watch you through fogged glasses, dark with lust and adoration. Only when he needs to take a moment to breathe, a quick one, enough to allow him to keep going for as long as you need him to, does he speak again.
“Goddess,” he whispers teasingly, slowing his fingers as if to get your attention. Your head tilts forward and you watch him through hooded eyes. “Will you cum for your most loyal subject?”
You huff in soft frustration, the sound breaking into another shaky moan as your body refuses to cooperate with your irritation. Because the edge is so close, molten in your belly, and here he is, being a wicked scholar and working you through comedic words.
“James, don’t… fuck, I’m so close, don’t play with me right now…” you manage, trying to reprimand him. But even as you say it, your cunt betrays you completely, clenching hard around his fingers, fluttering and squeezing with need and pulling them deeper as slick coats his hand.
Your favorite Professor gleams with amusement, lips curled into a devastating half-smirk, swollen and shiny. “You like it when I’m funny. You’ve told me before.”
You want to protest, but he curls his fingers again, strokes the perfect spot and dips his head again, sucking your swollen bud with perfect pressure, flicking the tip of his tongue rapidly in a rhythm that makes your vision spark white. For a second, he slips his fingers out and instead fucks you with his tongue, thrusting it inside you, before dragging it back up to torture your clit again while his fingers move back to their rightful place. His free hand grips your thigh harder, holding you open for him as you start to grind against his face, chasing the pleasure.
The combination is merciless. Frustration melts instantly into overwhelming pleasure, and another broken moan rips from your throat as your thighs tighten around his shoulders, heels digging into his back. Every stroke, every suck makes the coil in your belly tighten, pulling you deeper into a sea of sensation where exams and fears cannot reach. His beard scrapes deliciously against your sensitive skin with every movement of his head, and arousal drips down his chin onto the leather couch, but he only presses closer, as if he would gladly drown in you.
And just like that, your orgasm crashes over you like a tidal wave, sudden and blinding. You cry out sharply, back arching off the couch as pleasure tears through every nerve in your body. James moans against your pussy like a man receiving divine absolution, your walls pulsing and fluttering around his fingers, gushing against his mouth. And he drinks down every drop of you until your trembling begins to quiet down, slowly easing his movements before pressing a couple of tender, open-mouthed kisses to your oversensitive pussy and to your inner thighs.
Still, he keeps your legs draped over his shoulders a moment longer, gazing at you through glasses that look slightly uneven with the most loving expression you have ever seen on a man. Breathless and floating, you manage to meet his eyes, and you smile at the sight of your brilliant professor on his knees, face glistening with the evidence of your pleasure.
“You’re trouble,” you whisper, though the words carry no real heat in them. James is busy kissing down your legs, lips reaching softly to every inch of skin, but he smiles in the midst of it.
“Trouble?” he repeats, feigning offense. “My goddess calls me trouble after I’ve knelt here and offered proper tribute? How cruel.”
You let out a breathless laugh that turns into a soft gasp when he nips gently at the crease of your thigh.
“You do know I love you, right? Even when you’re being silly while going down on me.”
That makes him smile wider. “I reckon you love me especially when I’m being silly while going down on you.”
You woke up in the world of TWD, and you fought so hard to not change the plot of the show, to not get too close— afraid that you'll end up with more losses than not. However, the more time you spend with them, interact with them, laugh and smile with them.. You realize that you're slowly getting attached to every single one of them.
Still, you try not to socialize much, because you don't want to get hurt when a character dies. But.. Certain people is real stubborn.
Both you and Rick walked out of the house, with him holding you upside against him because you had just finished giving Carl your blood.
You feel light headed and nauseous, but you knew it had to be done.
“Carefully.” Rick grunted out, before bringing you over to the porch’s railing and had you lean your weight against it, with his hand staying on your upper back just in case, “Stay seated here. Don't want you running off somewhere, too.”
“It's not like I can walk on my own right now.” You grumbled, leaning your head into the pillar beside you. “I feel like shit. It's not a feeling you want to feel when looking for someone.”
“Fair point.” Rick chuckled dryly, placing his free hand on his hip as he looked out into the distance.
The air between you two grew silent, unspoken words lingering and hanging above your heads like a guillotine, but neither of you wanted to speak, so you let the silence hang comfortably.
Not a minute after the two of you walked out of the house, the front door creaked open.
Rick looked over, eyebrows furrowed, before looking away to admire the entirety of Hershel's farm. “This place is beautiful.”
“Been in my family 160 years.” Hershel huffed out, proud.
“I can't believe how serene it is.” Rick commented, turning to look at the doctor again. “How untouched. You're lucky.”
“We.. We weren't completely unscathed.” Hershel grumbled, keeping his eyes on the field in front of his house, a look of sadness crossing his gaze, “We lost friends, neighbors. The epidemic took my wife, my stepson.”
“I’m sorry.” The cop said, lowering his gaze.
“My daughters were spared.” Hershel added, casting a brief glance towards Rick. “I'm grateful to God for that. These people here, all we have left of each other. Just hoping we can ride it out in peace ‘till there's a cure.”
“Cure.” You echoed, voice low and quiet, as you snorted.
“What's so funny, girl?” The old man asked, his gaze flickering towards the back of your head.
There's no cure, Hershel. Everyone is infected. You thought, leaning all of your weight against the pillar beside you and ignoring him, just letting yourself become invisible as much as you could before Lori arrives.
It's her job to soothe Rick's pain, not yours. When you offered comfort towards the crying cop, Hershel mistook you as his wife. It made you uncomfortable— super uncomfortable. Rick is a married man and Lori is still alive. Being mistaken as someone's wife when that someone is married to a living person makes you feel sick to your stomach.
You have to set a clear boundary. You let out a sigh, and Rick took that as a cue to tell Hershel what happened back at the CDC.
“We were at the CDC.” The former sheriff started, his eyes looking out in the field once more. “It's gone now. Exploded. There is no cure.”
But of course, the old man is stubborn.
“I don't believe it.” Hershel chuckled, shaking his head in disbelief. “When AIDS came along, everyone panicked. One boy in town came down with it and some parents pulled their children from school, so they didn't have to sit in the same room.”
“This is a whole other thing, doc.” You grumbled, making both men look at you.
“That's what we always say..” Hershel rebutted to your words, causing you to let out a deep breath and shake your head in disappointment. “This one's different.”
“Well, this one is.” Rick insisted.
“Mankind has been fighting plagues from the start.” Hershel huffed, the stubbornness in his voice loud and clear. “We get our behinds kicked for a while, then we bounce back. It's nature correcting herself, restoring some balance.”
“I wish I could believe that.” The cop sighed, looking away from Hershel to glance at the field.
You could see Maggie and Lori from your spot, so you're sure that Rick and Hershel could see them, too. The sheriff deputy didn't waste any time to let go of your back and walked around the doctor to get down the porch steps, meeting his wife halfway.
“That's his wife.” You muttered, causing Herself to look at you. “They've been married since before shit hit the fan.”
Rick and Lori rushed inside the house, not bothering to give the doctor a look. Hershel didn't stop them, just letting them run towards their unconscious little boy. He knows he’s in no place to comment about your relationship with anyone. You’re a stranger.
“Huh.” The veterinarian mumbled, tearing his gaze away from the screen door. “I'm sorry for assuming.”
“No need.” You huffed, weakly waving him off with your left hand, “I suggest walking inside to check up on them. Rick looks like he will collapse any moment now, you know?”
“You look as bad as him.” Maggie commented, her gaze flickering towards you.
“Touche.” You chuckled, but the sound was forced.
The father and daughter could tell that it was a forced one, but they decided to not just comment on it. Maggie sent her father a nod before walking away with the horse she used to pick up Lori from the group.
“Come on.” Hershel spoke up and walked over to the door. “The little boy needs more blood.”
“Can't Rick do it for now?”
“Rick first, then you.” Hershel explained, opening the screen door and waiting for you. “We can't take too much blood from him and risk him collapsing. There's two of you, so we'll make do with you, too.”
You pursed your lips and didn't move for a second. You wanted to see if Herself is testing you,or kidding you. When you were watching the show, Rick did just fine donating blood to his son— albeit he looked like a ghost after every transfusion, but he still managed to do it just fine.
So, what's the difference now?
“(Last name).” Hershel called you once more, his tone sounding a little firm. “Come on.”
“Alright.” You grumbled, swinging your legs and planting your feet down onto the porch. “I was hoping that I'll get to let my heart pump more blood for me before it's my turn to give blood, but I guess not.”
Hershel didn't say anything to that and let you walk inside the house first. He made sure to see you walk inside the room where Carl was before he followed behind you. He walked inside the room, his eyes landing on his stethoscope and the blood pressure monitor on the bedside table.
You walked over to the vacant seat and settled yourself over it, your hand quickly finding purchase on your head.
Half an hour passed and Rick was done donating his blood to his son. Patricia walked over to the chair Rick was sitting on and pulled the needle out before turning to Carl to pull out the needle from his arm.
Rick stood up, legs wobbling.
“Slow, slow, slow.” Lori mumbled, holding out a hand to assist her husband back to his seat. “How many transfusions?”
“Two.” Rick answered, breathing ragged. “Only two.”
Lori paused for a second, then shook her head. “He wanted to do the same for you when you were in the hospital. I had to talk him out of it.”
You and Rick snorted at that, making Lori look at you.
“If you knew how much Carl was devastated when he couldn't do a transfusion for both you and his dad, you would have a hard time making him stop crying, too.” Lori huffed, the tone of her voice light-hearted, but you could tell that she was telling the truth.
You forced a smile on your face and nodded. Honestly, you can't remember much about what happened, about what happened to you for you to be shot, and how bad the wound was for you to be sent to the hospital.
When you woke up, you didn't feel any pain in your body. You haven't checked properly— especially back at the CDC, but you know for sure that you weren't shot. If you were, you would have been as disoriented as Rick when he first came around, but you weren't. You were far from disoriented.
Rick and the others who knew you told you that you're a computer genius, but what really is your work?
You could hunt, you could handle a knife just fine, you could throw the said knife with lethal precision, you could see trails only a seasoned hunter could see, you could differentiate a trail from a human to an animal, and you could climb trees as if you were a monkey.
An office lady who's a computer genius couldn't have known how to do those things, right?
What was the (Full name) of this world doing? What was she doing before she settled in Rick's town? What was her goal approaching the main cast of the show?
You have so many unanswered questions, but all that is left is a deafening silence. You still have a few fragments in your mind, but the memories left on your brain aren't enough to actually give you the full backstory of the body you're inhabiting. You could only trust the snippets Rick, Lori, and Carl are telling you, but you don't know how many more of those snippets will come up in the near future.
Silently, you watched as the married couple walked out of the room, leaving you, Patricia, and Hershel.
You stood up from your chair and walked over to where Rick was previously sitting, then you dropped your whole weight into it, making the chair creak unceremoniously. Patrica didn't seem to mind at all, because she merely grabbed your arm and looked at your skin to see where she could stab the needle.
“Have you and Rick known each other for a long time?” Hershel asked, just in time for Patricia to push the needle into your skin.
You flinched and let out a groan, but you didn't pull away.
“Yeah, it seems so.. What about it?” You answered, your eyes squeezing shut as you bear with the stinging sensation of the needle left behind.
“Seems so?” The doctor prodded, pulling the stethoscope away from his ears.
“Can't remember much.” You grumbled, slowly cracking your eyes open when you felt Patricia pat your shoulder. “They said I was shot, but I really can't remember much. I just woke up in the hospital with Rick. That's it.”
“You were shot, but you can't remember?” Hershel repeated, turning his head to look at you. “Do you have any medical history that you remember about?”
You answered his question with a shake of your head.
You don't even know why you're entertaining the old man's inquiries. You haven't talked this much since you and Rick's group left the Quarry, but with Hershel, he made it feel like everything will be okay— that it's okay to let your guard down and be honest.
It's a weird feeling. It's the same feeling you get whenever you go to visit your grandfather and uncle.
Your grandfather.. He was a stoic, overzealous, pious man, but he's fair, he's just, and he's not always regarding every single thing in life from the Bible. He loves his family, and he's always there whenever his grandchildren need a helping hand about something. He's a man of a few words, but those few words always leave an impact on who it was directed at.
Your grandfather and Hershel, they're somehow the same. Stoic, but kind. Diplomatic, but would keep a job done.
Maybe that's why you feel safe and relaxed around Hershel. He looked kind of similar to your grandfather in a way— with his white hair and beard and all that shit.
You looked over to Hershel, finding him already staring at you, patiently waiting for your answer.
You huffed and shook your head, eyebrows furrowing. “Told you, didn't I? I can't remember much. I couldn't even remember why I was shot, or why I was in the hospital in the first place.”
“Perhaps you hit your head?” Hershel suggested, standing up from his seat. “Maybe you got shot and hit your head in the process. It's not uncommon to happen, but that could also be the case.”
“That's one hell of a hit then.” You muttered, shifting in your chair.
Description: (Yandere! Ancient Chinese Empress x Concubine! Reader) You are the newest addition to His Majesty the Emperor's vast and ever-growing harem. And despite your best efforts to avoid all the drama, the palace intrigue still finds a way into your life. (6.2K words)
Warnings: overall yandere themes, power imbalance, prolonged physical punishment (kneeling), reader gets bullied and physically abused (slapped), mentions of death (not reader), depictions of body, reader has it a little rough, but she gets her lick back lowkey
Your marriage was a purely transactional affair. You came from a humble family of scholars that currently had the Emperor's favor. Your status allowed you to marry intoImperial harem with a decent title, but it wasn't grand enough to make anyone really care.
You had stepped foot in the palace in your wedding robe, the grim look on your face hidden by your opaque red veil. Honestly, with the lack of dancing and overall celebration, your wedding procession felt more like a funeral.
You were dropped off rather unceremoniously into the palace, your new home. You peaked underneath your veil to catch a glimpse of the place you'd live in for the rest of your days. With its high walls and guards patrolling every corner, the place felt more like a prison than a palace. Still, you supposed there were worse fates than being married to the most powerful man in the country.
Your veil blocking your view, you were guided by hands with faces unknown. They were most definitely servants of the palace, your new assigned attendants. While some concubines were able to bring their childhood ladies in waiting with them, you were afforded no such luxury.
Up until recently, your family had been too poor to afford servants. Which meant you did all the menial chores and housework while your brother struggled to earn a few copper coins on the street. You wondered if you'd ever get used to having people serving you after a life of grueling work. You wondered if you'd ever become accustomed to the luxury of the palace after living in abject poverty. Probably not, but who were you to complain?
The palace attendants dutifully guided you to your new courtyard and room, sitting you down on your new bed with measured care. With the veil on you could only really see your feet, but you could still catch glimpses of the room.
The servants hadn't even bothered to decorate the place. You stared at the dark blue comforter. They hadn't even bothered to switch it to a red one despite knowing it was your wedding. You guessed they knew that the Emperor wouldn't bother seeing his new bride, and so they didn't bother with any of the usual formalities.
Still, customs were customs. So you sat there waiting patiently for the groom you've never once met. You sat for hours upon hours, watching the sun gradually set through the corners of your opaque veil. Finally, your maid, Li Hua, as you've recently learned, spoke up.
“It seems His Majesty is busy tonight. I think your ladyship would not be scolded for going to bed a little early,” Li Hua said politely. That's fine. You weren't arrogant enough to expect the Emperor's attention, let alone a fairytale wedding.
With an exasperated sigh, you tore off your own wedding veil. You were breaking an age-old tradition, but who cares? It's not like your groom was there to take it off for you. You were glad to finally take it off, you felt as if you could finally breathe. Now you could take in your new room and subsequently your new life in full.
As far as palace accommodations went, you shortly didn't draw the short end of the stick. You had your own room that was fairly sizable and fully furnished. Although other consorts and concubines might have complained about its simplicity, this was far more than you ever expected. All in all, you were satisfied. No, more than that, you were happy. It looked like a quaint little place to live quietly.
That night you went to bed early, knowing you had to get up before dawn the next day to greet the Empress. You dozed off dreaming of lower walls.
---
The next morning, you woke before the crack of dawn to greet the Empress. As a newly appointed Imperial Concubine in his Majesty's harem, you dared not shirk this responsibility. The last thing you wanted was to be branded as another arrogant mistress. Or to draw undue attention to yourself.
You spent the morning scrambling through your wardrobe for something elegant but plain. You were terrified of being underdressed but at the same time feared potentially insulting the Empress if you showed up in your finest.
Dressed in the least offensive clothing you could find, you went to Her Majesty's courtyard just after the sun settled in the sky. Her courtyard was filled to the brim with white chrysanthemums. An odd choice of flower for an Empress, but you supposed no one dared to comment on it.
While entering her Majesty's palace residence, you kept your eyes down. Your head was slightly bowed as you entered, your maid in tow. You took note of the other ladies of the palace seated in the room. It looks like her Majesty was having an early morning tea party.
Without looking up, you took a few steps closer to Her Majesty. Once you were but a few feet away from her, you bowed as elegantly as you could while sitting on your knees.
“This Imperial Consort greets Your Majesty the Empress,” you said, as if reciting lines from a play. You dare meet her gaze. Your knees ached against the hardwood floor as you waited on baited breath for Her Majesty to acknowledge you.
After what felt like eternity, the Empress finally deigned to spare your knees.
“No need for formalities. Please, rise.”
You were happy not to have to kneel for much longer, but you knew better than to let your guard down so soon. Slowly, you raised your head from its bow. As you were about to rise from your knees, you paused.
You had never seen the Empress before. Sure you've seen plenty of portraits of her. Now, finally face to face with Empress Yujing, you could say that none of them have done her any justice.
All of her portraits painted her as soft and matronly. In reality, that couldn't be farther from the truth. You could only compare her to a blade glimmering in candlelight before a strike. Or perhaps a long necked heron moments before snapping the neck of its prey.
Her long, dark hair was pinned elaborately in place, adorned by fine silver and pearl ornaments. Her robes were made of the finest silk, with careful silver embroidery. Her earrings alone could have bought your brother a brand new calligraphy set. You couldn't help but stare for a moment to take in such a rare beauty draped in decadence.
At the sight of staring, the Empress’ red painted lips pulled into a smile.
A sharp cleverness lingered in her pitch black eyes, one that made the hairs on the back of your neck stand. You realized she was watching you. Waiting.
You stood, straightening your back completely. Making sure your eyes were glued to the ground, you put on the most polite smile you could muster. Empress Yujing seemed like the discerning type, one you definitely did not want to offend.
“Most bring me a gift when they first come to pay their respects.” The Empress said with a slight lilt to her voice. Every word she spoke sounded as if she were reciting some forgotten poem. “I wonder, what have you brought, Little Concubine?”
You blanched. Your family was all but inconsequential until recently, so you weren't caught up on the proper etiquette. You had no idea that you had to bring a gift for Her Majesty. Her eyes leered at you expectantly as she hid her obvious smile behind the sleeves of her formal dress.
All eyes in the room were on you. You could hear some of the other concubines and consorts poorly hide their own chuckles and smirks. In Her Majesty's serving parlor, their judgment upon you was a tangible weight upon your shoulders.
Your mouth worked quicker than your mind could process.
“I did not bring a gift for your Majesty,” you confessed honestly. The onlooking consorts either feigned offense or outright laughed at your misfortune. None extended their sympathy to you. You hid your own emotions behind a wall of polite indifference. “If your Majesty will allow it, I have something else to offer you.”
By the grace of the heavens or by sheer boredom, Her Majesty nodded, granting you permission to continue.
You extended your hands out to her in thanks, as if worshipping a deity. You supposed you were, in a sense. If The Emperor was chosen by the heavens, why couldn't his wife be as well?
“Your Majesty,” you began. “ This Concubine was born to a family of scholars, but I do not have the same gift with words as my brother. This Concubine is of humble origins, so I have nothing worthy to give you.” You inhaled deeply, readying yourself for whatever was to come for your next words. “All I can offer is my most sincere loyalty to you.”
You bowed again, this time fully prostrating yourself. Your forehead touched the ground. A beat of silence passed.
A chill crept over your exposed neck. You wondered if a blade hung there, waiting to execute you. If the Empress would accept your humble gift or would plot your death where you stood. Knowing some of the rumors that surrounded her-- perhaps both.
“Loyalty?” The Empress said aloud, as if pondering the meaning of the word. You could hear the slight surprise in her voice. Perhaps no one has ever offered her such a thing before?
“Very well.” She said plainly. You could almost cry in relief. “I accept your gift.”
“Really?!” You raised your head a little too quickly, almost beaming. The smile on your face was genuine, but this was neither the time nor the place. You corrected yourself immediately, closing your lips. “This humble servant offers her most sincere gratitude to Your Majesty.”
Your Majesty seemed to smile back at you. Maybe you had misjudged her. Maybe she was more than the cold exterior she gave off.
A slow sip of a tea cup you hadn't even realized she'd been holding.
“Of course, someone loyal would kneel in a courtyard to demonstrate their devotion. Perhaps for hours?”
Her voice shattered any illusion of her kindness. Of course it would never be that easy.
“Yes,” Her Majesty said, clearly speaking to herself. “I think kneeling for three hours is an appropriate display of loyalty. Don't you, Mei-mei?”
Biting back a nasty expression as well as an even nastier comment, you extended another curt bow. While the Empress phrased it like a suggestion, you really didn't have a choice in the matter. If the Mother of the nation wished for it, you could only comply. You willed your expression into neutrality.
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
---
Three hours later and your knees were killing you. It was bad enough that almost every person who passed you- regardless of their rank- sneered at you. The only person who stood by you solemnly was your maid Li Hua. When she tried to kneel alongside you, you insisted she shouldn't suffer from your mistake. By the time your punishment had passed, the sun was already starting to set.
You stood, your legs shaking like a newborn doe. Your knees were probably bruised like hell, but you had lost all feelings in your leg by hour two. Li Hua helped you stand, letting you use her as support as your legs trembled uncontrollably.
It was a genuine struggle to get back to your room, but what a relief it was to collapse into your bed.
“I think the Empress hates me,” you quietly confessed to your maid.
“Don't say that!” Li Hua hurried to correct you. Her eyes darted around nervously. “Someone might overhear you!”
“Let them. I think Her Majesty has made her dislike of me known to everyone in the palace already.” You groaned, burying your face into your pillow.
That quiet, unremarkable life you imagined became more and more unattainable by the hour. You've only been here a day, and yet you've already suffered such embarrassment. How on Earth could you ever show your face in the palace now?
“I think Her Majesty and you have just started off on the wrong foot, My Lady. I'm sure you can win her over.” Li Hua started dutifully taking the decorative pins out of your hair, letting the tresses fall on your back. “I'm sure once Her Majesty gets to know you, her heart will warm to you just like mine did.”
“Thank you, Li Hua.” You gave her a small smile.
She was now gently combing your hair, careful not to pull on any knots or tangles. “Think nothing of it, My Lady. Just have hope. The Empress will come around eventually.”
“I hope so.” You let loose another groan, followed by a sigh. You turned off your stomach and onto your back, staring blankly up at the ceiling. “I'm not sure how much more of this I can take.”
“Keep trying, My Lady. Why don't you get some rest? I'll go do some chores.”
Completely exhausted, you nodded. Your eyes were already lulling to sleep. You thanked her weakly as you laid your head down to rest. Not a second later your eyes closed as you drifted off into sleep. This time, you dreamed of home and of a fine horse-hair ink brush meant for your brother.
---
The pain in your knees woke you up. Your eyes opened to the soft glow of the moonlight streaming through the window. You winced, throwing the covers off you. Li Hua must have tucked you in. Honestly, you weren't sure what you had done in a past life to have found such a genuine person in such an impersonal, cold place.
In the pale light of the moon you could see the ugly purple, red, and yellow bruising littering your legs. You weren’t sure if it hurt more than it looked or vice versa. Either way, you knew you weren't sleeping soundly tonight. Drifting in and out of consciousness, you waited for morning to come.
The Sun couldn't come soon enough. Naturally, Li Hua came to your chamber to attend to you. At the sight of her legs, though, she nearly fainted. She insisted you call the royal physician, a request you vehemently denied. As if any Imperial physicians would give you the time of day after her Majesty made her contempt for you so clear.
Confined to strict bed rest thanks to Li Hua, you spent the rest of your day idly reading. After a few hours of that, you were bored to tears. Thankfully, your boredom was cut short by a surprise visitor.
“My Lady,” Li Hua said with a bow. You gently flicked her brow in a teasing manner as punishment. You must have told her ten times already to forego all formalities in private.
She rubbed her forehead, sticking out her tongue at you before continuing. “Noble Consort Zhao Yanfei is here to visit you.”
At such news, you almost asked Li Hua to repeat herself. Imperial Consort Yanfei far outranked you. In fact the only person in the harem she didn't outrank was the Empress herself. Why on Earth would she dare to visit you? Especially after yesterday's turn of events?
“Let her in, Li Hua.” Regardless of your own personal astonishment, Imperial Consort Yanfei was also on the list of people you dared not offend. “And brew some tea, please.”
Not much later, you entered the receiving room. “This Imperial Concubine greets the Imperial Consort.” You moved to bow despite the pain in your knees.
“No need,” the Imperial Consort said. “Please, sit. I'm sure you're in enough pain as it is.”
You schooled your face into a passive expression, despite her biting remarks. Has Yangfei only come to proverbially rub salt in your wound?
Still, etiquette and status demanded you not to offend her. You sat at the table, and Li Hua came to place a steaming cup of tea in front of the both of you. You took the moment to steal a glance at Consort Yanfei.
She was beautiful in the traditional sense. Yanfei was all soft curves and features, paired with a voice smoother than satin. The spitting image of a wife and mother. You could easily see why His Majesty favored her. No wonder she had already given birth to a little prince and princess.
A pregnant pause filled the room as you waited for her to break the silence.
“Ah, Mei-mei? I can call you that, right?” Yangfei finally broke the awkward silence “I heard about what happened yesterday. I feel terrible about it and wanted to extend my sympathies to you.”
You took a long sip of your tea, hoping to hide your skepticism. While you might have been new here, you weren't naive. Nothing in this palace was ever that simple. If she truly felt that way, why hadn't she advocated for you?
“I promise I'm not just saying these things to you.” Consort Yanfei reached over the table to place her hands over hers. “You remind me so much of my younger sister. Whenever I look at you, I can't help but feel great affection for you.”
The Consort looked at her maid, who wordlessly sat down a jar on the table. “This is for you. It's a medicine made with ginseng. It'll help the swelling and reduce scarring.” Consort Yanfei smiled warmly at you. Something about the tenderness in her large, warm brown eyes made you yearn from your family.
“Thank you for your concern, Imperial Consort,” you said noncommittally. Last time you believed in the kindness of someone's heart, you ended up kneeling for three hours. You wouldn't make the same mistake again. So you let her speak as you took another long sip of your tea.
Zhao Yanfei squeezed your hands reassuringly. She gave care in the strange maternal way that was so unfamiliar to you. “Mei-mei, this might be too forward but… I'm sure you heard the rumors.” Yanfei leaned closer, lowering her voice as if sharing a secret. You assumed she was speaking the rumors going around that Empress Yujing was barren. “You seem smart, Mei-mei. Careful. I like that.”
Her voice was barely above a whisper. “Tell me, what do you think? Do you think the Emperor favors women who are warm and gentle? Or does he prefer those who are cold and indifferent? I wonder what kind of woman would be best at his side.”
Your eyes went wide. Although she didn't say it outright, you understood perfectly what she was implying. Consort Yanfei wanted to become the next Empress and she was asking you to pick sides.
You saw Yanfei in a new light. So she wasn't all motherly warmth after all. She had to be at least a little cold to come to you now. Any person who went through what you did would reasonably hate the Empress. You currently were at your most vulnerable. Nearly anybody with a semblance of intelligence would jump at the opportunity to make friends with a powerful ally, the only person with the means to actually be a threat to Her Majesty. Not you, though.
You pulled her hands away from her as if she were on fire. “Apologies, Imperial Consort. I fear this Concubine cannot afford your sisterhood. I am only interested in a quiet, simple life, unbothered by the world.” You stood with some difficulty, your maid coming to help you. You refused to involve yourself with palace intrigue.
“And someone as humble as I cannot accept such an expensive gift made with such precious medicine. Please use it on yourself, Imperial Consort Zhao.”
With some help from Li Hua, you managed a courteous bow. “Thank you for your kind visit. Li Hua, please see the Imperial Consort out. I'm afraid I'm not feeling well.”
Under the mask of Zhao Yanfei's kindness and care, you could see the rage that boiled just below the surface. She was clearly annoyed. Ostensibly because you, a lowly concubine, had the gall to deny her. She picked up the jar of medicine set on the table. “I see, Imperial Concubine. Farewell.”
She left without another word.
You let your shoulders sag as soon as the coast was clear. You sighed exasperatedly. It was only your second day here, how have you managed to make not one, but two powerful enemies already?
---
The next few days were relatively peaceful. You did in fact break your strict bed rest, unable to sit still for long without being bored to tears. Despite her insistence of otherwise, you and Li Hua took turns during various chores around your courtyard. Unfortunately, your moving around most definitely slowed the healing process, but it's not like you cared. It'll heal eventually.
About a week later, Li Hua rushed to you with a seemingly random invitation to the Empress’ palace. You obeyed, of course, but couldn't stop yourself from dragging your feet along the way. What was this summons even about? Did Her Majesty wish to bully you around even more?
This time you met her in her courtyard, surrounded by blooming white chrysanthemums.
You felt severe deja vu as you bowed to greet the Empress once again. “This Imperial Concubine extends her greetings to Her Majesty.”
“No need. Please, sit. Have some tea.” The Empress gestured to the padded wooden seat next to her.
You hid your disdainful expressionless behind your billowing sleeves. Your recent experience has shown you that people are only kind in the palace for two reasons. One: they want a favor. Two: they want to smile as they twist the knife in your back. But seeing as you had no right to refuse, you sat beside her.
A maid handed you a steaming cup of jasmine tea. Not wanting to be impolite, you idly sipped it.
“You must hate me.” Empress Yujing said suddenly. You almost spit out the tea you were drinking. How could her Majesty be so blunt?
Did your face give it away? That was not good. You really didn't want to be punished again. Panicked, you scrambled to think of a lie to placate her. “Your Majesty-” you started, only to be rudely cut off.
The Empress held up a delicate hand, stopping your words with just a gesture. “Your face says it plainly. You're a terrible liar.” Her Majesty only looked amused at the expression painted on her face. “Still, I find it puzzling. Why would a little concubine like yourself, who hates me, not join hands with Consort Yanfei?”
“How did you-?”
“I'm the Empress. Do you think I do not know what transpires in my own home?”
Ah, right. Empress Yujing probably had spies at every corner in the palace. No place was safe from her watchful eyes. You honestly felt stupid for even asking.
“Now, answer the question.” The Empress tapped a single painted nail against the fragile porcelain of her tea cup. You wondered if that clinking was a small sign of her impatience.
Not wanting to test her patience, any further, you answered without thinking. “Well, I swore my loyalty to you, did I not?”
Empress Yujing only smiled, and for the first time, the gesture didn't seem hollow. “Loyalty?” A light glimmered in her dark eyes in mild amusement. “What a funny word to use in this Imperial harem.”
You were getting tired of Her Majesty saying things you didn't quite understand, so your gaze wandered to the plate of pastries in front of her.
“Well, I suppose virtue must be rewarded. Tell me, what would you like? Some medicine for your knees? Jewelry? Gold? Take your pick.”
“Respectfully, Your Majesty, loyalty can't be bought.” Your eyes flickered back to the baked goods. “...But if I might be so bold, most people give treats to people they like.”
Her Majesty laughed out loud at that. Her laughter was more carefree than you imagined. Although you never imagined you'd ever hear her laughter in the first place, she seemed entirely too high strung. “Oh really? Very well. I bestow this plate of flower cakes upon you as a reward.”
She gestured to one of her ladies in waiting. Her maid handed you the plate of confectionaries before scurrying back off from whence she came.
“Thank you, Your Majesty.” you said. You stood up to bow rather clumsily thanks to your knee.
“You are dismissed.” The Empress turned her attention back to her tea, turning the cup carefully in her hands. You tried not to be offended at the fact she treated you only like you were some form of fleeting, discardable entertainment. Like she'd had her fill of you and was now tossing you aside.
You bit your tongue as Li Hua helped you leave her garden. You reminded yourself that she was Empress Yujing of the esteemed Wei clan, the wife of the emperor, and you were a simple concubine from a nearly no-name family. There was a line between you, one you would be sure never to cross.
Just as you were about to step foot out of the courtyard, the Empress called to you.
“Oh, and little concubine? Please come visit more often. I've heard that viewing flowers is best in pairs.”
Now that your back was turned and your face was out of sight, you could roll your eyes freely. Like you would ever be so bold as to just show up at the Empress’ palace uninvited.
---
For the next two days, you didn't hear a word from Her Majesty. On the third day, a maid from the Empress’ palace had dropped by and delivered some medicine for your knee. The maid had said that the Empress was giving this to you because she found the look of limping puppies unsightly.
You accepted the gift, not daring to give the Empress another excuse to punish you. Still against your best interest, you told the maid to deliver a message to her Majesty: if you'd known she held such a high standard for strays, you would’ve limped with more grace.
The maid came back with a letter, presumably from the Empress.
The letter contained only a short sentence written in dignified calligraphy:
“Limping, loyal dogs still visit their Master.”
The maid then gave instructions that Her Majesty insisted you frame her message on the wall and reflect on its meaning for the next three days. In other words, you were grounded.
It took everything in you not to disobey her orders, crumpled up her letter, and threw it in the trash. You knew if you did she would only think of another way to get under your skin. If you didn’t know any better, you would say that Empress was taking some sort of sick pleasure in tormenting you.
After your brief period in isolation, you were eager to be out of your room again. Little did you know, the Empress had already made plans for you. Under her strict orders, you were to visit her courtyard for tea every day.
Every bone in your body told you not to visit the Empress for any reason. Even merely mentioning her name seemed to invite trouble on your end. Going would undoubtedly spell another punishment, but refusing the Empress’ mandate, no matter how petty the order might seem, would be treason. So, with your tail tucked between your legs, you begrudgingly went to the Empress’ palace. Alone.
--
The Empress’ back was turned to you. She was currently tending to her garden. And in the golden light of the afternoon, you couldn’t help but admire her noble bearing. Begrudgingly you had to admit that she was achingly beautiful, even when doing the most mundane of tasks.
“Are you just going to stand there?” The Empress finally spoke. Her words interrupted the sound of scissors snipping away at the bush of flowers before her.
You snapped back into reality. For a moment, you had let yourself become so distracted by her good looks, you had forgotten basic etiquette. You bowed and greeted her as protocol demands.
The Empress waved her hand, acknowledging your greeting dismissively.
“Little Concubine,” she began. She cut off the head of a blooming chrysanthemum. Your heart broke a little at the sight of a flower cut down in its prime. “I have a gift for you.”
In an instant, she closed the distance between you. She was so close you could smell the incense she must burn in her room. The Empress tenderly tucked the white blossom in your hair.
She then withdrew as if nothing happened.
You blinked. Your hand absent-mindedly went to the flower now adorning your hair, as if to make sure it was really there.
“Consider it a token of my favor."
“I thought you hated me,” You blurted. You immediately bit your tongue, realizing your mistake.
“My little concubine, who could ever hate you?”
---
You left the Empress’ palace that day lost in a menagerie of thoughts. No matter how hard you tried, you just couldn't seem to understand her. Every time you thought you could predict her next move, she would do something completely off the wall. It was driving you insane.
Lost in the daze of your thoughts, you didn't realize someone was walking your way until you tripped. You fell plain on your rear end onto stone. That would certainly hurt tomorrow.
“How dare you bump into my Lady, the esteemed Imperial Consort?” A servant barked at you.
You scrambled to stand and offer your apologies as quickly as possible. A knee-jerk reaction. “Imperial Consort Yanfei, please ease your anger-”
Her maid quickly cut you off. “My Lady is pregnant! Could you bear the responsibility if she or her unborn child were harmed?”
You didn’t dare raise your head or so much as look at her. All you could do was repeat the same few apologies, like an actor going over his lines.
All the while, the maid kept barking at you endlessly. She didn't stop until her mistress stepped in.
“That's enough, Shu'er.” The Imperial Consort said, placing a comforting hand on her maid's shoulder. A neutral but amicable expression was painted on her face. “I am unharmed. And I am sure the Imperial Concubine meant nothing… by…it.”
Her words trailed off as she stared at you. It took you a moment to realize where she was staring. The white chrysanthemum in your hair.
The immediate shift in her expression was tangible. Her kind voice turned unfeeling. Suddenly, she placed a hand over her stomach. “Oh, my poor baby. “
Your blood ran cold. It became apparent to you that you were in deep, deep trouble. You fell to your knees preemptively, already knowing where this was heading.
You stopped all your apologies, knowing it would only fall on deaf ears now.
“Shu'er.” Her eyes, once an inviting brown, were now devoid of all life. “Strike the Imperial Concubine.”
Yangfei's maid struck you across the face. The blow was hard enough that her nails drew blood.
“Again.”
You braced yourself for the second strike, and somehow this one was worse than the first.
“Again.”
Even in your pain, you couldn’t entirely blame her for venting her frustration out on you. You had more or less said you would remain impartial. Yet here you are, wearing an obvious sign of her sworn enemy as an accessory.
“Keep going until I say stop.”
Your lip split a bit, a thin line of crimson running down your chin. Your face was starting to swell.
Yanfei curled her nose in disgust, placing a silk handkerchief over her nose. The other concubines would only stop to stare and whisper. All the servants passing by, minded their business. Nobody did anything to stop the Imperial Consort. Nor could they. She ranked far higher than you, and therefore had the right to discipline you as she pleased.
It was your mistake. You should have watched where you were going.
“Stop.” The Consort finally said. And the slapping ceased.
Yanfei took measured steps toward you. She knelt to where she was nearly eye-level with you. “Please don't blame me, Mei-mei, I was only protecting the imperial offspring. If I didn't punish you severely, you might have been charged with conspiracy and treason.”
You kept your scoff of disbelief to yourself. As if you would believe her honeyed words anymore.
“Oh, Mei-mei, you seem to have a weed in your hair. Let me remove it for you.” She plucked the white flower clean out of your hair, letting it fall to the ground. “Such a tacky thing isn't befitting of your status.”
And then she dug her heel into the blossom, smothering it into the stone ground. You didn’t think after such abject humiliation your heart could break any further, but it did.
“Forget it.”
And she strolled away casually, taking her entourage of maids with her, leaving you to lick your wounds.
---
Consort Yanfei's body was found the next morning. The entire palace was in mourning as her status demanded.
Dressed in simple cotton mourning clothes, all the women of the Imperial harem had to pay respects to the late Consort. You included.
Your face still battered and bruised, you wore a veil so as to not make the other palace ladies uncomfortable. Still it did nothing to stop the pitiful looks and hushed whispers that followed you. No one thought you’d have the guts to show your defeated face. But you had to come. You had to see Consort Yanfei with your own two eyes.
The open coffin stood amongst a sea of offerings, lit candles, and incense. You approached Consort Yanfei's body, head bowed. The official story had been that she had passed due to complications with her pregnancy.
A believable story, surely. Being pregnant and giving birth was risky and often lethal business. But one look at Consort Yanfei and you knew that it was all a lie.
It wasn't her body that gave the secret of her death away. She looked untouched, her hair and makeup meticulously done. No, not a hair on her head was disheveled or a thing out of place. Everything was pristine in her death as Consort Yanfei had been rumored to be in life.
The only thing that seemed off, that wasn’t quite as it seems was the chrysanthemum laid so delicately on her corpse. A single white flower placed right where her unborn child should be.
Warnings: this fic will include dark content such as brainwashing and suicidal ideation and possible untagged elements such as noncon. My warnings are not exhaustive, enter at your own risk.
If you are struggling, please seek help through a support line.
This is a dark!fic and explicit. 18+ only. Your media consumption is your own responsibility. Warnings have been given. DO NOT PROCEED if these matters upset you.
You voted, I wrote it. This is June 1st's fic!
Bucky Barnes + “You can’t even take care of yourself, so why not let me.”
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Do one kind thing for yourself today and take care.💖
The wind rips across your face. The noise of the river roars beneath you, dark tides slapping and churning beneath a sliver of moonlight. From here, it looks so far but could be right beneath your toes.
Far enough. Deep enough.
You shiver and grip the metal beneath you. Just one push and it all goes away. You sniff, head so full it hurts, and breathe out through your lips. You can taste the river water.
One push.
One.
You can do it.
For once in your life, do something. A simple fall, a short end. That's all that's ahead of you. There's nothing else left for you. There never was anything for you. You never did anything.
So do this and be done with it. You close your eyes. You feel the rivets in the metal. You roll your shoulders.
"Well then." You say and push off.
Before you can plunge through nothingness and into the depths, a snag jars you. You dangle from some unseen obstacle, whimpering at the wrench that has your spine and neck ringing. You flail like a cat and look up at the unexpected safe fall.
The man is hunched and shadowed like a gargoyle on a stone building. You kick your legs and grab his hand, prying at in bendable fingers with a sob. "What are you doing?"
He says nothing. With no effort at all, he hauls you back onto the metal. You kick and smack at his grip. He ignores you.
"Let me go!" You plead. "I just want to go."
Not a word. Not a look. You couldn't see it in the shadow of the bridge if there was.
"Let me go." You beg weakly as you grasp wrists.
He flicks away your struggles and grabs your throat. You gasp. He squeezes until you can't breathe. Maybe he can still give you that escape.
You let your hands fall away. He tightens his hold until your throat burns and your head pounds. He lets you go and you fall back limp on your back, one leg dangling over the edge. He clucks.
Your vision pulses and your ears ring. He moves around you. He brings your hands together then your feet. You shiver and try to pull them apart. You can't.
"Why?" You croak.
The silence stirs with the noise of the water and the groan of the metal under his weight. He moves over you, feeling your pockets and clothing. He stops, his hand on your shoulder. His voice grates through the night as something dry and coarse fills your mouth.
“You can’t even take care of yourself, so why not let me.”
💓
You sink into a haze. Shock, dread, resignation. You wonder if maybe you did make it to the water and this is some twisted after life…
What else could it be? No one knew. No one cared. You didn’t tell anyone what you meant to do. Didn’t even write it in your diary. You just made up your mind. You just wanted it over.
Your lashes flutter as your eyes zero in. It’s all too real to be the last flashes of your synapses clinging to consciousness. The room is dim but vivid. Shadows gather in the mortar between thick cinder bricks; the air is still and frigid, and the chair beneath you is hard and unforgiving.
Your finger twitches and the tendon in your wrist strains. Your arms are trapped, your ankles too. Metal binds you to the wooden frame of the chair, another around your neck and forehead.
You shift futilely. What sick fate is this? Is it irony? You were so ready to give it all up that someone else stole your life away?
A sudden crackle makes you flinch. A light radiates in your vision and static fills a square screen. You blink, unable to move your head against the metal binding. You gulp as the black and grey speckles ache in your vision.
The monochrome dots blip away and white lines run up a black screen, a low click each time they reach the top of the screen. They ripple, the waves growing more intense until a vision fills the frame.
The silhouette of a bride in her veil kissing her groom appears beneath the classical wedding overture. A sterile voice says a single word as the image lingers. “Longing.” The couple begin to dance, feed each other cake, and the husband carries his wife over the threshold.
“Tidy.” The voice says.
The scene changes. A jacket being hung. Bristles dragging on tile. A tub full of bubbles surrounded by candles. The camera pans in on the spinning laundry through the window of a machine, making your dizzy.
“One.”
A man’s face flashes; blue eyes, sharp jawline, dark hair.
“Dawn.”
The morning beams warmly through windows, illuminating another pair of silhouettes before the scene switches to a garden and a trickling birdbath. The stir of water tickles in your ears and sends a cool flow down your spine.
“Apron.”
Thick hands tie the strings of an apron against a checkered dress, slowly looping and winding the bow, laying out the tails perfectly.
“His.”
The man’s eyes blink and disappear.
“Obey.”
A belt is pulled from the loops of a pair of trousers and bent in the same large hand, slapping the palm with an echoing noise.
“Bed.”
Pillows drop onto a bed, blankets are dragged down to the end, petals flutter onto the floor at the base of the frame.
“Only.”
The man again, arms outstretched.
“Home.”
The vision of a house, unmoving, standing on the screen, bold, so still it must be a picture. It stays there as the audio cuts out. The silence scrapes in your ear until you squirm then all at once it evaporates.
A whisper slowly rises from the speakers; “home, home, home, home.” The voice gets louder and louder and louder; until your eyes water and your ear drums thrum. Then, silence again. And darkness.
You sit in the void, shaking. You close your eyes and shudder. Then hear the television flick on again.
“Longing.”
💓
She’s soft, pliant as he leads her into the light. She shies away and he coaxes her further. She leans on him. She doesn’t notice that his arm doesn’t belong to him.
He takes her into the large bathroom and sits her on the small bench with the drawers in the bottom. Her clothes are dingy with the stale remnants of the river’s mist. That day on the bridge only remains in the soiled fabric.
As he tries to pull away, she grabs onto him. Her lashes flick wide. Bucky knows that look. He used to see it in the mirror. That glassy distance. On her, it’s not so bad.
“Doll, I’m just gonna get you washed up.”
She stares at him and nods, her hands slipping down his forearm. The sensation is like cool rain on a hot day, or sunshine after a grey winter. He smiles. Her lips tremble then she does the same.
“Yes, honey.” She lowers her hands to her lap and stares ahead.
He begins. He cuts off her clothes. She does react. Not even as he pauses to admire those parts of her that make him salivate.
When he is done with that, he fills the large basin of the tub. He goes to her but thinks twice of getting her up just yet. He undresses then goes to her.
He brings her in the tub with him. He can take his time. He doesn’t have to hurry. He leans her against him and sighs. She’s stiff and squirmy. He runs his hands up her sides.
“Doll, relax. I got you.”
He feels her obey. She slackens against his chest and lets her head rest on his shoulder. He strokes her stomach.
“Good.” He praises as he draws little swirls on her skin.
This is all he wanted. To feel someone close. To have someone who can never go away. To not have to be afraid.
This is what he deserves. And what she needs. After all, she was all too willing to throw her life away. He saved it, he didn’t take it. He’s giving her a new life. A life with propose; him.
Summary: You never wanted to fight; you just wanted to disappear. Lously inspired by “how to disappear”- Lana Del Rey
WARNINGS: NONCON, DV, physical violence, emotional abuse, drug use, alcohol use, if any of this triggers you or isnt your thing, scroll away. This is fiction.
An: was in a sad lana girl mood lol…Lmk what u think
The gas station lights buzzed overhead like dying insects, casting everything in a sickly yellow glow. You sat on the curb outside the convenience store, knees pulled to your chest, the concrete cold through your thin dress. The hem had ridden up hours ago but you didn’t care. Your heels were kicked off beside you, one strap broken from when you’d stumbled out of the party. The night air smelled like gasoline, stale beer, and the faint sweetness of your own vanilla perfume clinging desperately to your skin.
You were drunk. The world felt soft and blurry around the edges, but your thoughts stayed painfully sharp. Your best friend’s voice still echoed in your head, the ugly things she’d said, the way her face had twisted when she told you to grow up. You had laughed in her face then, but now the laugh was gone and all that was left was the hollow ache in your chest.
Your phone screen glowed weakly in your lap. Uber still said twelve minutes. You refreshed it again. Still twelve. The little car icon hadn’t moved in forever.
You tipped your head back against the brick wall and closed your eyes. The spinning started immediately so you opened them again. A moth kept throwing itself at the fluorescent light above you, over and over, until it finally fell to the ground twitching.
Headlights swept across the lot. You didn’t look up at first. Just another stranger stopping for gas or cigarettes or whatever people did at 1:17 a.m.
But the truck stopped right in front of the pumps closest to you. The engine cut off. You felt the shift in the air before you even saw him.
Rafe Cameron stepped out.
He looked the same as always. Tall, broad, expensive hoodie hanging off his shoulders like it cost more than your rent. Hair messy from the wind, eyes already scanning the lot like he owned it. When his gaze landed on you, something flickered across his face.
He didn’t say anything at first. Just walked over to the pump and started filling up his truck, the numbers on the display clicking higher and higher. You could smell the gasoline mixing with his cologne. It felt familiar in the worst way.
After a minute he glanced over at you again. His voice came out low, rough around the edges like he’d been drinking too.
“What are you doing out here, baby?”
You laughed once. Soft. Bitter. The sound scraped your throat.
“Waiting for my Uber.”
He nodded slowly, like that made perfect sense. The pump clicked off. He didn’t move to put the nozzle back. Just stood there looking at you, eyes dragging over your bare legs, your smudged mascara, the way your dress clung to you from the humidity.
“You look fucked up,” he said. Not mean. Just honest.
“Yeah,” you whispered. You pulled your knees closer to your chest. “Rough night.”
He leaned against the truck, arms crossed. The vape in his hand glowed red as he took a slow hit. Smoke curled out between his lips and disappeared into the night.
“Fight with your friend again?”
You didn’t answer. Just shrugged. He always knew. Somehow, he always knew when you were like this, when the world felt too heavy, and you wanted someone to make it go away for a little while. Even if that someone was him.
Rafe took another hit. Exhaled slow.
“I can drive you,” he said. Simple. Like it was nothing. “Wherever you’re going. Save the money.”
You shook your head. The movement made the parking lot tilt.
“It’s fine. Uber’s coming in like… ten minutes.”
“Ten minutes,” he repeated. The corner of his mouth twitched. “You really wanna sit here alone for ten minutes looking like that?”
You didn’t answer. Your fingers found the hem of your dress and twisted it. The fabric was damp from the ground. You felt exposed. Seen.
He stepped closer. The glow from the station lights caught the sharp line of his jaw, the way his eyes stayed fixed on you.
“Come on,” he said softer. “Get in the truck. I’ll take you home. Or wherever. Doesn’t matter.”
You looked up at him. Really looked. He was offering more than a ride. He always did. Bottles of expensive vodka. Little orange pills that made everything fuzzy and sweet. Weed so strong it knocked you out for hours. Things that made you feel special. Wanted.
Your phone buzzed in your lap. Uber still said twelve minutes.
You bit your lip. Hard.
“Okay,” you whispered.
Rafe’s face didn’t change much, but you saw the small, satisfied shift in his eyes. He opened the passenger door for you. The truck smelled like him; leather, cologne, and weed. You climbed in slowly, careful not to flash him more than you already had. He closed the door behind you like he was sealing something.
When he got in on the driver’s side, the truck felt smaller. He started the engine, and the low rumble vibrated through the seat.
“Where to?” he asked, glancing over at you.
You shrugged. “Anywhere but here.”
He let out a short breath through his nose, almost a laugh but not quite. His hand squeezed your thigh once, fingers digging in just enough to remind you he was there.
“Anywhere, huh?” he said. “That’s dangerous. You know that, right?”
You didn’t answer. You just watched the road, the way the yellow lines disappeared under the truck. Rafe took another slow hit from his vape before he spoke again.
“I got some people at the house,” he continued. Casual. Like it was nothing. “Topper, Kelce, couple girls. Nothing crazy. Just drinking. Smoking. You should come.”
You turned your head slightly. The dashboard lights caught the sharp line of his jaw, the way his eyes stayed on the road but kept flicking back to you. You knew what hanging out meant with Rafe. Bottles on the counter. Lines cut neatly on the marble. Music loud enough to drown out the thoughts in your head.
You should have said no. You had work tomorrow. You had told yourself you were done chasing this feeling. But the thought of going home alone, sitting in your quiet room with nothing but your own thoughts and the memory of your best friend’s angry voice… it felt worse than anything.
So you didn’t say no.
Instead, you looked over at him and whispered, “Okay.”
Rafe’s mouth curved into that small, satisfied smirk he got when he knew he had you. His hand slid higher on your thigh, thumb brushing the hem of your dress.
“Yeah?” he said, voice dropping lower. “Good. Because I wasn’t really asking.”
The truck sped up just a little. You leaned your head back against the seat and closed your eyes. The spinning started again, so you opened them. Rafe’s hand stayed on your leg the whole time, heavy and warm, like an anchor.
After a few minutes, he spoke again, casual, like he was talking about the weather.
“You must have really had a shit night. That friend of yours always acts like she’s better than everybody?”
You nodded once. Your throat felt tight.
“Yeah. We got into it. She said some stuff.”
Rafe made a low sound in his throat.
“Fuck her. She doesn’t know shit about you. Not like I do.”
His fingers flexed on your thigh. Not painful. Just enough to make you feel it.
“You know you’re better off without her, right?” he continued. “All those Pogues do is drag you down. Make you think you need to be some sad little victim. You don’t need that. You got me.”
You stayed quiet. The words felt too heavy to argue with right now. Rafe took it as agreement.
The rest of the drive passed in a haze. You kept your eyes on the passing trees, the way the dark blurred into streaks of black and silver. Every so often, Rafe’s hand would drift higher, thumb slipping under the hem of your dress, brushing bare skin. You didn’t stop him. There was something comforting about the way he touched you.
When you pulled up to the Cameron house, the lights were already on. Music thumped low from inside. Rafe parked in the circular driveway and killed the engine. For a second, he just sat there, looking at you in the dark.
“You sure you’re good?” he asked. Softer this time.
You nodded. Your fingers found the back of your neck again, pulling gently at the strands there. The sting helped. It always did.
“Yeah,” you lied. “I’m good.”
He leaned over and kissed your temple. Slow. Lingering. His lips were warm against your skin.
“Alright. Let’s go inside.”
You followed him up the wide front steps. The door was already unlocked. Topper was sprawled on the big leather couch, laughing at something on his phone. Kelce was pouring drinks at the kitchen island. Two girls you didn’t recognize were sitting on the counter, legs swinging, eyes glassy and bright.
Rafe’s hand stayed on your lower back as he guided you in.
“Look who I found,” he said, voice loud enough to cut through the music. “She was sitting outside the gas station.”
Topper looked up and grinned. “No shit. Rough night?”
You forced a small smile. “Something like that.”
One of the girls handed you a red cup without asking. The liquid inside was dark and sweet. You took a long sip. It burned going down, but the burn felt good. Familiar. You chased it with another sip, then another. The alcohol mixed with whatever was already in your system and made the edges of the room soften just a little more.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The music pulsed low and heavy through the house, bass vibrating up through the floor and into your bones. Everything felt soft and distant now, like you were floating just above your own body. You were on Rafe’s lap on the big leather couch, your dress riding high on your thighs, his arm locked around your waist like a seatbelt. His chest rose and fell against your back, warm and steady. You could feel his heartbeat, fast and erratic from whatever he’d done earlier.
You didn’t remember how you got here exactly. One minute you were standing near the kitchen, the next Rafe had pulled you down onto him without asking, murmuring something about how you looked better close. You were too drunk to argue. The pill from earlier had melted the edges of everything into something warm and blurry. Your head felt heavy. Your thoughts moved slow, like swimming through thick honey.
Rafe’s hand rested high on your thigh, fingers slipping under the hem of your dress every so often. He wasn’t hiding it. Topper glanced over once and smirked but said nothing. One of the girls raised her eyebrows but looked away when Rafe stared at her. He kept feeding you drinks. Every time your cup got low he’d take it from your hand, refill it himself, and press it back to your lips like you were something he owned. “Drink,” he’d say quietly, almost sweet. You did. The liquor burned less each time. Everything burned less.
You were so drunk you barely registered the way his fingers kept moving higher, brushing bare skin. It felt far away. Like it was happening to someone else.
The brunette girl sitting on the arm of the couch tilted her head and looked at you with a lazy, half-drunk smile. “You always look kinda sad, even when you’re smiling. Resting sad girl face or something?”
You laughed it off, the sound weak and floaty. “Yeah… that’s just my face.”
The words barely left your mouth before you felt Rafe’s whole body go rigid behind you. His hand stopped moving on your thigh. The air around him changed, like the temperature dropped.
He didn’t say anything right away. Just sat there for a long second, breathing steady against your back. Then he stood up slowly, lifting you with him like you weighed nothing. His grip on your arm was firm but not rough. Not yet. He guided you toward the kitchen with a hand on your lower back, smiling at the group like everything was normal.
“Come on, baby,” he said casually. “Let’s get you another drink.”
The others went back to talking, but you could feel their eyes on you. Curious. Watching.
In the kitchen, Rafe pulled you around the island, still in full view of the living room. He kept one hand on your lower back, the other reaching for the small mirror on the counter. A thin white line was already cut neat across it. He didn’t look at you at first. Just stared down at the powder like he was thinking.
“You embarrassed me out there,” he said quietly. His voice was low, controlled, the way it got when he was really angry but didn’t want anyone else to know. “Laughing like that. Looking all sad in front of my friends. Acting like you don’t want to be here.”
You tried to focus on his face, but the room kept tilting. “I wasn’t… I didn’t mean-”
“Shh.” He pressed a finger to your lips. Gentle. Warning. “You’re gonna fix it. Right now. In front of everyone. Show them you’re happy to be here. Show them you’re here with me.”
He turned you toward the mirror. His hand stayed on the back of your neck, not pushing hard, just holding you there. Firm. Unyielding. You could feel the others watching from the couch. No one said anything. No one stopped him.
“I don’t… I can’t,” you whispered. Your voice sounded far away. “I’m already too fucked up.”
Rafe leaned in close, lips brushing your ear so only you could hear. His breath was hot against your skin.
“You can,” he said softly. “And you will. Because if you don’t, I’m gonna take you upstairs and remind you why you should have. And I won’t be nice about it.”
His fingers flexed on the back of your neck. Not painful. Not yet. Just enough to make you understand.
You leaned down. The burn hit sharp and chemical. Your head snapped back. The room spun harder. Rafe’s hand stayed on your neck the whole time, steady, like he was proud of you. Like he owned you.
“Good,” he murmured. “That’s my girl.”
He turned you around slowly, pulling you back against his chest. His arm wrapped around your waist again, tight. He kissed the side of your head in front of everyone, soft and sweet, as if nothing had happened.
“Smile,” he whispered against your hair. “Act like you’re happy.”
You forced your lips into a smile. It felt like plastic.
The group went back to talking like nothing had happened. But you could feel their eyes on you. Curious. Pitying. Amused.
Rafe kept you close the rest of the night. Every time you tried to pull away even a little, his fingers dug in harder. His hand stayed under your dress, higher now, touching you openly while he laughed with Topper like it was the most normal thing in the world.
You were so drunk you barely registered it.
But somewhere deep down, under all the haze and numbness, you felt it.
The slow, quiet humiliation.
The way he was marking you.
The way everyone saw it.
And no one did anything to stop it.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The music had been turned down low, nothing but a slow bass thumping through the walls now. topper sprawled on the couch scrolling his phone, Kelce mixing one last drink at the island, and the two girls whose names you kept forgetting laughing softly about something on their screens.
You were still leaning against Rafe near the front door, head heavy, legs unsteady. The silence felt louder than the music had. You looked up at him, voice slurred and tired.
“Can you take me home?” you asked. “Please. I’m really fucked up.”
Rafe nodded right away, an easy smile sliding into place for the others still lingering by the door. “Yeah, of course. Let’s get you home.”
Topper clapped him on the back as he left. “See you later, man. Take care of her.”
Rafe smiled that perfect Kook smile. “Always do.”
The second the door shut and they were gone, the smile disappeared.
His hand tightened on your lower back, fingers digging in hard enough to bruise. He didn’t move toward the truck. He just stood there in the quiet foyer, breathing through his nose, staring at the closed door like he was trying to decide something.
You shifted on your feet, the room tilting slightly. “… you said you’d take me home.”
He turned to you slowly. His eyes were dark, glassy from everything he’d done tonight. The polite mask was completely gone.
“You embarrassed me,” he said. Voice low. Flat. Dangerous. “In front of my friends. Sitting there looking all depressed like I dragged you there against your will. Laughing at that bitch’s joke like it was funny. Like you didn’t even want to be there with me.”
You blinked slowly, trying to catch up. The words felt far away. Your head was still spinning from the drinks and the pill. “I wasn’t… that’s just my face. I was tired. I didn’t mean to embarrass you.”
“Shut up.” His voice cut through yours, sharp and cold. “You think I didn’t see it? The way you were acting? Like some sad fucking charity case I picked up off the street. You made me look weak.”
You tried to step back, but his hand on your lower back kept you there. Your stomach twisted. The emptiness from earlier ached in a dull, hollow way. You felt sick. Scared. Confused. You didn’t understand why he was so angry. You had done everything he wanted. You had smiled. You had taken the line. You had let him touch you in front of everyone.
“I said I didn’t mean to,” you mumbled, voice thick with alcohol. “That’s just my face. Why the fuck do you care what one person said?”
Rafe’s jaw clenched so tight you could see the muscle jump. His hand slid from your lower back to your arm, gripping hard.
“Because you’re with me,” he said, voice dropping lower. “You’re supposed to act like you’re happy to be with me. Not like some miserable bitch who doesn’t want to be there.”
You tried to pull your arm away but he held tighter. The irritation was starting to burn through the haze. You were drunk. Really drunk. And the more he kept going, the more defensive you felt.
“You’re not my man,” you snapped, words slurring together. “I’m not about to argue with you about this. I said I didn’t mean to. Get out my face, Rafe. I’m calling an Uber.”
You reached for your phone in your bag, fingers clumsy. The room kept tilting. You just wanted to go home. You just wanted this night to be over.
Rafe’s eyes flashed. Something ugly and wounded crossed his face. He snatched the phone from your hand and threw it across the room. It hit the wall with a loud crack.
“You’re not calling shit,” he snarled. “You think you can talk to me like that? After I let you come here? After I gave you everything tonight? All that and now you’re acting like you can just leave?”
He grabbed your face hard, fingers digging into your jaw, forcing you to look at him. His eyes were wild, red-rimmed, furious.
“You don’t get to talk to me like that,” he hissed. “You don’t get to act sad in front of my friends and then act like you didn’t do anything wrong.”
You tried to pull away but he was stronger. “Rafe, stop-”
He slapped you.
Hard.
The sound cracked through the quiet house. Your head snapped to the side. Pain exploded across your cheek. You stumbled back, hand flying up to your face. Tears spilled down your cheeks instantly.
Before you could recover, he grabbed you again, slamming you against the wall. Your back hit hard. The air rushed out of your lungs. He was on you in seconds, body pinning you there, one hand gripping your wrists above your head.
“You made me look weak,” he snarled, face inches from yours. “You made me look like I can’t even keep my own girl happy. Like I’m forcing you to be here.”
He ripped your dress down the front. The fabric tore loudly. Cool air hit your skin. You gasped, trying to twist away, but he was too heavy.
“Rafe, please-”
“Shut up.” He shoved your dress up around your waist, yanking your underwear down roughly. “You don’t get to talk. You don’t get to pretend like you didn’t do anything wrong.”
He pushed into you hard, no warning, no gentleness. You cried out, the sound muffled against his shoulder. He fucked you rough and angry, hips slamming into yours, one hand still pinning your wrists, the other gripping your jaw so you had to look at him.
“You embarrassed me,” he panted, voice breaking between thrusts. “You always embarrass me. You think you’re better than me? You think you can sit there looking miserable and I won’t do anything about it?”
Tears streamed down your face. The pain mixed with the alcohol and the pill made everything feel distant and too sharp at the same time. You couldn’t think. Couldn’t breathe right. All you could do was take it.
He finished inside you with a low groan, hips stuttering. For a second, he stayed there, breathing hard against your neck. Then he collapsed against you, still inside you, arms wrapping around your body like he was afraid you’d disappear.
“You made me do that,” he whispered, voice cracking. Tears wet your shoulder. “You always make me like this. Why do you always make me like this?”
He held you tighter, crying softly into your neck while you stood there shaking, dress torn, body aching, the weight of him crushing you against the wall.
You didn’t move.
You couldn’t.
You just stared at the wall behind him, fingers twitching like they wanted to pull at your hair, while Rafe leaned against you and whispered the same thing over and over.
“You made me do that. You made me.”
And the house stayed quiet.
Like nothing had happened at all.
…………….
LIKE REBLOG AND COMMENT FOR MORE! YOUR SUPPORT KEEPS ME MOTIVATED TO WRITE!!
pairing: king!bucky barnes x commoner!reader, cinderella au
warnings: 18+ NSFW, smut, dilf bucky, age gap, burn marks (from fireplace), a man who yearns is a man who earns, smoking, alcohol, misogynistic comments, miscommunication, kinda angsty, jealousy, possessive behavior, virginity loss, sexual tension, banter, semi-public sex, power dynamic, breeding kink, size difference, pet names: "my dear" "sweetheart" "my love"
word count: 19.6k
masterlist || 𝓹𝓽.2
a/n: this is my contribution to the bwa fairytale collaboration! i know it's been a while, but i hope the word count for this fic makes up for it! this was the playlist i had on repeat while writing.
synopsis:
The Prince of Brooklynne is hosting a grand ball to find a future princess. But when you secretly slip away from your chores to attend, it isn't the Prince’s heart you capture—it’s his father’s, King Barnes.
You retracted your hands the instant the embers made burning contact with your fingertips. You swore quietly to yourself, pulling your hand to your chest and squeezing your eyes shut.
You had been burned countless times in this house. Burned while tending the fireplace, burned while cooking, and pricked by splinters from the worn wooden broom. Your life was a cycle of being on your hands and knees, scrubbing every inch of the floor until it was spotless for your step-monsters.
While you nursed your finger to ease the burning pain, your stepmother’s voice, Beatrice, rang from the room just over. She was shouting at the top of her lungs about another party invitation.
“An invitation sent from the palace!” she announced, waving the paper around. “Girls, come here!”
You stayed where you were. You knew better than to approach; when she said “girls,” she meant everyone in the house but you.
The sharp, obnoxious clack of your stepsisters’ heels echoed from the top of the staircase down to the marble floor of the foyer. Their voices were already rising obnoxiously, high enough, you thought, to shatter every piece of glassware in the house.
“An invitation from the palace?” one of your stepsisters, Agnes, squealed. “Prince Jamie is hosting a ball?”
Your other stepsister, Margaret, gasped so sharply she nearly choked on her own breath.
“Has the time finally come? Is Prince Jamie finally looking to wed?” Her eyes were wide with excitement as she looked between your stepmother and Agnes. “Is it true, Mother?”
You tilted your head, catching a glimpse of them huddled in a tight circle. Beatrice’s red lips tilted into a wide grin. “It is true, ladies. Your moment has finally arrived. The Prince is looking for a bride—”
“I want to read it!” Margaret exclaimed, lunging for the parchment that Beatrice held just out of reach.
“No, I want to read it! I’m the eldest, it’s only fair!” Agnes argued, reaching over her sister.
“Now, settle down, ladies,” Beatrice cooed, pulling the paper back to her chest and holding it primly. “Why exclude your sister from the fun?”
Beatrice’s gaze drifted past the living room archway, where the fireplace glowed and the furniture sat in pristine order. The warmth she had held for her own daughters vanished the moment her eyes landed on you.
“Stop sucking on your finger like a common infant and come here,” she commanded, her voice suddenly sharp and cold. “Read the letter to us.” She added, waving the parchment at you.
You stiffened, slowly lowering your hand. You had seen this coming. Every time an invitation arrived, you were forced to read it outloud. It wasn’t that they couldn't read; it was about rubbing salt into the wound.
These letters always went into agonizing detail about beauty, grace, and royal splendor—things meant to make any girl’s heart soar, and things you were never meant to have.
You were bound to this house, their maid for as long as they allowed you to live.
“Your father taught you well before he passed, didn’t he?” Beatrice asked, her eyes narrowed. It wasn't a sincere question; it was a reminder of what you had lost. “Read it clearly. I want to hear every single detail of the King’s requirements.”
You stood quickly, your legs wobbly from kneeling on the hard floor for so long. Wiping your hands on your soot-stained apron, you crossed the room. As you reached for the parchment, the coarse paper grazed your injury and agitated the burn on your fingertips, making you flinch slightly.
“Well?” Agnes prodded, leaning in so close you could smell her cloying floral perfume. “Don’t just stare at it!”
You cleared your throat, your voice sounding small and raspy against the high-ceiling room.
“By Royal Decree of His Majesty,” you began, trying to focus on the elegant calligraphy instead of the throbbing pain in your finger. “To the noble families and citizens of the kingdom, you are cordially invited to a Grand Masquerade Ball at the Palace, to be held on the final Saturday of the Harvest Moon.”
Margaret let out a squeal, but a look from Beatrice silenced her immediately.
“The festivities shall begin at sundown,” you continued, “It is the King’s wish that every eligible young woman in the province attend, for on this night, Prince Jamie shall choose the one who will stand by his side as the future Princess of Brooklynne.”
The room went deathly silent for a heartbeat before the sisters erupted. They squealed and hollered, clutching each other's hands and jumping in circles. But your eyes remained fixed on the final line, written in a large, aggressive script at the bottom.
You read it under your breath, quietly to yourself.
“… attendance is mandatory for all households…”
Agnes and Margaret were too busy celebrating to heed your words. “That means the entire province! Mother, we’ll have to stand out. We’ll need the finest silk and the most intricate masks!”
Beatrice ignored her daughters, her gaze fixed solely on you. She reached out and snatched the letter back, her sharp nails grazing your burned skin. You hissed a breath through your teeth, clutching your hand to your chest.
“Mandatory for noble households,” Beatrice corrected cruelly. “I’m sure the palace wouldn’t want the ballroom floor stained by the soot of a kitchen maid.”
“Mother, may we please go dress shopping now?” Margaret begged, clutching her mother’s arm and bouncing impatiently. “We must get the finest gowns before anyone else does! We have to absolutely stand out.” She turned to Agnes, her eyes gleaming. “Isn’t that right, sister?”
Agnes nodded quickly, her hair whipping. “Absolutely! We can’t risk looking like commoners. We need to be the center of attention the moment we step into that ballroom!”
“Very well,” Beatrice sighed. “We shall leave today. There is no time to waste if we are to secure the best seamstress in Brooklynne.”
The sisters shrieked happily, already rushing towards the door to grab their cloaks. But before Beatrice followed them, she paused. She turned back to look at you, her gaze cold and belittling, as if you were nothing more than a speck of dirt on her rug.
Her eyes grazed over the room, landing on a stray speck of ash near the baseboards.
“While we are gone, I expect the house to be spotless by the time we get home,” she demanded. “That means the floors waxed, the silver polished, and the laundry pressed. If I find so much as a single ember out of place in that fireplace when I return, you will find yourself sleeping in the stable tonight.”
When the doors finally slammed shut, leaving you alone in the silence of the massive house, that is exactly what you did.
While your step-family was out hunting for the finest silks, you spent the day bent over a scrub brush. You deep-cleaned their bedrooms, waxed the floors until your knees were bruised and aching, and scoured the silverware until it shined like a mirror.
As you swept the house from top to bottom, your mind kept wandering back to that final sentence in the invitation.
Attendance is mandatory for all households.
You had read countless invitations in your life, yet none of them had ever included those specific words—much less a direct command from the King himself. If the decree was absolute, what would happen if you, a member of this household, failed to attend?
Beatrice had married your father before he passed, and despite her cruelty, the law saw you as family. You were a member of the household, not a servant. You weren’t just a maid; you were a daughter of the house.
And if the King demanded every eligible woman be there… perhaps Beatrice’s ‘rules’ were no match for the King’s law?
No.
It was silly to indulge in such foolishness.
Beatrice would never let you leave this house unless you were hanging laundry, tending the gardens, hauling bags after their shopping sprees, or feeding the chickens.
But after spending the day scouring the house until it was immaculate, and considering the King’s explicit command, surely… she would let you attend. Even if it were just for one night. Right? You had been a good girl. You had done everything they asked of you.
With hesitant footsteps, you retreated to your basement chambers and dug deep into the shadows of your closet. Pushing past the clothes stained with soot and grime, you reached into the very back and pulled out a neatly wrapped box.
The moment you lifted the lid, the familiar aroma of dried lavender drifted up to meet you.
Nestled neatly inside was your mother’s gown, a dress she had tucked away and passed on to you for a momentous occasion that had yet to arrive.
You pulled it out, the fabric shimmering even in the dim light of the basement. It was beautiful and uniquely your mother’s. You remembered how your father had lavished her with the finest gowns when you were young, and you had always dreamed of finding someone who loved you enough to do the same.
Stripping away your rags, you stepped into the dress.
You expected it to be too loose or too tight, but as you pulled up the bodice and fumbled with the fastenings, you gasped. It fit almost perfectly like a glove, though you struggled to lace the back properly by yourself. Still, the silk hugged your waist and flowed over your hips as if the gown had been designed for your body alone.
Standing before the small, cracked mirror, you didn’t see a housemaid.
You saw a girl who rightfully belonged in this house—or even a palace, if only you knew how to do your hair.
You smiled softly at your reflection, your cheeks warming at the sight. For once in your life, you finally felt beautiful. And if the King insisted that every member of the household attend, then you were going.
You were actually going to the ball.
Suddenly, the front door swung open. Beatrice, Agnes, and Margaret burst inside, their heels clicking against the floor. Their obnoxious laughter echoed all the way down to the basement where you stood.
“Where is she?” Beatrice barked impatiently, already expecting you to greet them at the door—likely to bring their bags to their room.
You scrambled up the basement stairs, the long silk hem bunching in your hands as you moved. You rounded the corner into the foyer, nearly bumping into the wall, just as Beatrice was peeling off her leather gloves. Agnes and Margaret were already surrounded by a sea of colorful shopping bags, tossing aside the tissue paper like spoiled children.
“I’m here!” you called out, catching your breath.
The three of them froze.
The rustling of their shopping bags ceased instantly at the sight of you. Beatrice turned slowly, her eyes traveling from your face down to the shimmering hem of your mother’s gown, her expression cold and unreadable.
“What,” Beatrice hissed, her voice unsettlingly low, “are you wearing?”
You looked down at yourself. “It was my mother’s,” you said softly, stepping into the light of the chandelier. “I’ve finished every chore you set for me. The house is spotless. And since the King’s invitation said attendance is mandatory for every member of the household…” you stood as tall as you could, despite the way your hands trembled, “I’ve decided I’m coming with you.”
The house went silent as they stared back at you, wide-eyed.
For a moment, you half-expected them to agree—to accept your declaration and welcome you with open arms. But the moment the sisters erupted into laughter, you realized just how naive you had been.
“You? In that relic?” Agnes laughed. “You look like a ghost that’s been trapped in an attic for twenty years!”
Margaret scrunched up her nose. “And that smell—it smells like rotten fruit. Do you honestly think the Prince would want to dance with someone who reeks like that?”
You bit your lip. You would think that for girls who lathered themselves in expensive floral perfumes, they’d at least recognize the scent of dried lavender.
“Now, settle down, girls,” Beatrice intervened. “There is no need to insult your sister when she’s spent all this time trying to make herself look... pretty.”
She began to walk towards you, the slow clicking of her heels sounding like a death knell against the marble. A taunting smile played on her thin lips as she circled you.
“Turn around,” she commanded. “Let me get a good look at the bodice.”
You obeyed, your heart beating faster as you felt her cold presence behind you.
Because you had scrambled to get ready in such a rush, the delicate lace in the back was a tangled mess of knots and uneven loops. You had tried your best to tie the bodice alone, but it was clear you had failed.
“Poor thing,” Beatrice cooed, her breath cold against the nape of your neck. “You can’t even get the dress on right. You look quite pathetic, actually.” She looked over her shoulder at her daughters, her eyes glinting. “Girls, be saints and help your poor sister, would you?”
Agnes and Margaret shared a look, their lips curling into identical, malicious smirks. “Okay, Mother,” they sang in unison.
They stepped forward, and your naivety got the best of you once again. You actually thought they might reach for the laces to tighten them. But as their hands clamped onto your shoulders, you realized for the second time just how wrong you were—and how low they were willing to stoop to make your life miserable.
A sickening tear echoed through the foyer as Agnes’s fist tightened around your silk sleeve, yanking until the seam burst.
“This lace is far too old!” Margaret hissed. She grabbed the delicate ruffle at your neckline, tearing it away with a sharp, violent tug. “It’s doing you no favors!”
“Stop! Please!” you cried, spinning around to protect the last piece of your mother you had left, but they were like a pack of wolves, their hands biting at you to shred the silk.
Both sisters refused to stop until the shimmering silk was reduced to hanging ribbons. They pulled and yanked frantically, their faces flushed with the thrill of destroying the only beautiful thing you owned. The delicate lace your mother had saved for years was now scattered across the marble floor like dead leaves.
Only when there was nothing left to tear did the sisters finally grow bored. They stepped back, wearing smug grins as you collapsed onto your knees.
You didn’t bother trying to get back up, because you knew they’d only kick you back down.
You just stayed there on the cold floor, fingers trembling as you clutched the tattered scraps of the skirt to your chest, trying to shield the small bits of fabric that still smelled of lavender. The tears finally broke, blurring your vision as you sobbed into the ruins of your only treasure.
Beatrice stood over you, adjusting her pristine shawl. She looked down at your heaving shoulders with cold, clinical detachment. She wouldn’t even give you the pleasure looking a bit guilty; there was only the grim pleasure of a lesson well taught.
“I hope this will make you think twice before asking to attend the ball,” she said. “Or any ball, for that matter. We did you a favor by taking you in after your father passed. Do not mistake a few yards of silk for a change in your station.”
She turned to her daughters, her voice light as if she hadn't just destroyed a young girl’s heart.
“Come, girls. Let’s go try on your new accessories.”
As the three of them began trekking up the stairs, their laughter echoing in the foyer, Beatrice looked back down at you one last time.
“And don’t forget to clean up this mess.”
It was the day before the Grand Masquerade Ball, and Bucky found himself strolling through a narrow cobblestone alley, far from the gilded gates and suffocating comfort of the palace. He didn’t look like a King today. He had traded his heavy ceremonial robes for simple cotton clothes and a cloak to shield his face.
Through a small window, he watched as an elderly woman— his late mother’s dearest friend—threaded a needle with trembling hands.
As he pushed the front door open, a bell jingled overhead. The seamstress didn’t even need to look up to know it was him.
“You shouldn’t be here, Bucky,” Martha sighed, pushing up her circular glasses. “The Royal Guard will have a collective heart attack if they find you’ve slipped away from your duties again.”
“They worry too much,” Bucky replied, his voice a low, tired rasp as he lowered his cloak.
He leaned forward, resting an elbow on her worktable.
“The palace is suffocating, Martha. Everyone there is wearing a mask long before the ball even begins. I needed to see someone who would give me a breath of fresh air.”
“Ah, Bucky. Always the charmer,” Martha chuckled. “You and Rogers haven’t changed one bit. I bet Prince Jamie is starting to grow up just as you have.”
“My son,” Bucky groaned, dragging a tired hand over his face. He looked every bit the weary father and not the formidable King of Brooklynne.
“He is moving far too fast to find a wife,” he complained. “My father always pushed me to wed as soon as I could—it was all about the line of succession and political alliances. Jamie should be lucky I’m giving him some slack, but instead, he’s rushing headfirst into it as if he owes the kingdom a debt.”
Martha smiled softly, her needle never stopping through the fine silk. “He’s just trying to make you proud, Bucky. He sees the way you carry the responsibilities of this kingdom alone, and he thinks having a Princess by his side is how he proves he’s ready to help you.”
Bucky scoffed. “The kid has no idea that the wrong partner is only going to be a burden. Half the women coming tomorrow wouldn’t know a plow from a pincushion. They want the crown, not the duty.”
He rubbed the tense lines between his brows, already agitated by the thought.
“I made sure to state in the decree that attendance is mandatory for all households. I’m hoping to find someone who hasn’t spent her whole life rehearsing to wed my son. But I fear Lady Beatrice and her ilk have already decided the outcome. They’ve been flooding the palace with letters.”
Martha opened her mouth to speak, your father’s name on the tip of her tongue, but she was interrupted by the soft chime of the door.
You stepped inside, your silhouette framed by the sun poking through the open windows and doors. You looked utterly spent, your shoulders tense as your arm tiredly held up a heavy wicker basket filled with various produce.
“I’m so sorry I’m late, Martha,” you said, breathless. “The mistress had extra chores for me today. I’m here for the gowns for Lady Beatrice and her daughters.”
Bucky quickly turned away, his shoulders stiffening at the dreadful and familiar name. He forced his fingers busy, brushing through the fabric swatches pinned to the wall to keep himself discreet.
“It’s no problem at all, dear,” Martha smiled warmly. “They’re in the back. Let me get them wrapped up for you.”
She gave Bucky a small wary glance before turning away, pulling the heavy curtains aside to retreat into the back of the shop.
With Martha gone, an awkward silence took over the shop, aside for the bustle of the street outside. Your eyes subtly drifted towards the only man in the store.
It wasn’t often you saw a man at a seamstress shop. He was a bit older, perhaps he was a butler picking up clothes for a household, or a father stopping by to commission a dress for his daughter?
Bucky’s gaze caught yours as he peeked from the corner of his eye, and you immediately looked away, your face flushing with embarrassment.
Not wanting to be caught staring again at the stranger, you began to roam the small space, your fingers hovering just over the vibrant dresses on display.
You admired them quietly, your eyes lingering on a soft, almost sky blue fabric that reminded you of your mother’s dress—the one you had lost only nights before. A small, wistful sigh escaped your lips.
To anyone else, these were just clothes. But to you, they represented a world you were no longer allowed to inhabit.
Bucky watched you, his heart tugging with sympathy at the way you looked at the dress. He cleared his throat, the sound feeling loud in the cramped room.
“Are you picking up a dress for yourself?” he asked carefully, his gaze still fixed on the fabrics in front of him. “For the ball tomorrow night, I presume?”
You jumped slightly, nearly knocking over a mannequin as you whipped around to face him.
“Oh—no, sir. I’m just picking up the dresses for my step-sisters,” you said, forcing an awkward smile. “They’ll be the ones attending the ball. Not I.”
Bucky raised a brow, turning his body slightly to look at you. “But the decree said attendance is mandatory for all households,” he explained. “Does that not apply to you?”
You let out a small, breathless laugh that held no joy.
“The Royal Barnes family is a busy lot, sir. I doubt the King or the Prince will notice if one woman from one house is missing. Besides, he likely meant the families... not the help.”
Bucky lifted his head slightly, amused. He paused, waiting to see if you would recognize the face on the coins in your pocket, or the man from the portraits in the village square. But your expression didn’t change; you simply looked tired.
“The help?” he repeated, his brow furrowing as he leaned back against the table. “But you said they were your stepsisters, did you not? That makes you family, regardless of the chores they set for you.”
You adjusted the heavy wicker basket to your other hip, raising a brow. You didn’t know who this man was, but his insistence on “family” was a luxury you couldn’t afford—and his assumptions about you only made him come across as hopelessly ignorant.
“I’m not sure how things are handled in your home, sir,” you said, a bit sassier than you’d like. “But not every household in Brooklynne can afford a fleet of servants. Sometimes, it is up to one of us to make sure the fires are lit and the floors are scrubbed. And that person just happens to be me.”
Bucky blinked, genuinely taken back.
Usually, people spoke to him in hushed, respectful tones or with forced flattery. He wasn’t used to being corrected, let alone by a girl with a smudge of charcoal on her nose and rags for clothes. A low, rich laugh resonated in his chest—a sound that felt far too sophisticated for a simple stranger in a cramped tailor shop.
“Fair point,” he conceded, his lips curving into a genuine smile. “I suppose I deserved that. It was a foolish question. I apologize.”
As he tilted his head back to let out a soft chuckle, you caught a glimpse of his strikingly handsome features.
There was something hauntingly familiar about him—but with his slightly messy hair, tired eyes, and simple clothes, you couldn't quite place where you had seen him before. All you knew was that he was undeniably attractive, and that was more than enough to make your heart skip a beat.
You relaxed your shoulders and smiled back at him.
“Kind of,” you teased, which only made his smile grow wider. “But you’re forgiven.”
The shop fell quiet again. You expected him to return back to his fabrics or even leave the store, but he remained rooted to the spot, his gaze still on you.
Feeling a bit self-conscious under his stare, you turned back to the display, trying to keep your hands busy. You ran your fingers down the skirt of the sky blue gown, tracing the fine embroidery.
“That’s a beautiful dress,” Bucky said suddenly. “You should try it on.”
You glanced at him, brows raised in surprise. You couldn’t tell if he was poking fun at you or if he was being serious. You let out a short, airy laugh, shaking your head.
“You’re very funny, sir,” you chuckled respectfully, taking a step away from the mannequin and back to the counter, setting your basket down. “I don’t think a girl like me would do a gown like that any justice. Besides, I have a schedule to keep.”
You expected him to join in on the joke, but when your eyes found his again, his expression was completely serious. His eyes were blue, quiet, and intense, and it only making the tense air in the shop thicken.
Just then, the heavy curtains parted and Martha finally stepped out, balancing the three voluminous garment bags for your sisters. Before you could even reach for them, Bucky spoke up, his voice suddenly carrying an authority that hadn’t been there before.
“Martha,” Bucky said, gesturing toward the sky blue gown you had been admiring. “She would like to try this dress on.”
You blinked, stunned. “I’m sorry?”
“Oh. Let me correct myself,” Bucky cleared his throat. “I want her to try this dress on.”
Martha paused, looking between Bucky’s stern expression and your panicked one. Then, a slow smile spread across her weathered features. She set the garment bags down on the counter and began to round the desk.
“Is that so?” Martha hummed, her eyes twinkling as she looked at you. “Well, who am I to argue with a gentleman’s request? Especially one with such good taste.”
“Martha, please,” you whispered, catching her arm as your face heated up. “The mistress will be expecting me. I have to get back!”
“The mistress can wait ten minutes for her vanity,” Martha countered, already reaching for the dress and lifting it from the display. She turned to you, her expression softening almost motherly-like. “Let’s see you in the light for once, dear. No more rags and dull dresses that are too big for you. Just for one moment.”
“Martha, I couldn’t possibly—”
Before you could even finish the sentence, she seized your wrist. The elderly woman’s grip was surprisingly strong as she began dragging you towards the changing rooms in the back. She even hoisted the heavy silk gown over one arm as if it weighed nothing at all.
You found yourself stumbling along behind her, barely able to steady your footing as she steered you away from the shop floor and towards the back of the shop to the changing rooms.
As you were being hauled away, you managed to look back over your shoulder, shooting a sharp glare at the stranger who had started this whole ordeal.
Bucky didn’t look even remotely guilty. He leaned back against the wall, crossing his ankles and folding his arms over his chest. As Martha dragged you toward the back, he simply let out a soft snicker, his eyes filled with mischief as he gave you a small, teasing wave until you disappeared behind the heavy velvet curtains.
Once inside, Martha wasted no time. She stripped you of your potato sack of a dress and began guiding you into the silk.
“Stop wiggling, child,” she commanded softly. “You’ll look so beautiful in this, darling. I assure you.”
“That’s not my worry,” you muttered, your shoulders stiff. “The dress is gorgeous, and I know I’ll fall in love with it the second it’s on. It just hurts knowing I have no money to buy it—and no occasion to wear it to. This is all pointless, Martha.”
Martha didn’t answer; she simply helped your arms through the puffy, delicate sleeves.
She didn’t even need to finish tying the laces for you to get the full picture—the gown was absolutely breathtaking. You shuddered as she laced the back carefully, the bodice molding to your frame as if the dress was woven specifically for your body.
That heart clenching realization, that you had neither the coin nor the freedom to ever truly own this, only returned tenfold.
“Seriously,” you sighed, a sad, bittersweet smile tugging at the corners of your lips as you looked at your reflection. “What was that man thinking?”
Martha chuckled softly as she tucked a loose strand of hair behind your ear. She leaned in close, studying your eyes through the mirror’s reflection.
“I think,” Martha whispered, “that man was thinking that a beautiful dress is just fabric until it’s worn by the most beautiful girl in the kingdom.”
The compliment made your heart flutter, though you quickly tried to brush it off with a roll of your eyes. “He’s a stranger, Martha. He’s probably just bored and looking for a way to pass the time while his own clothes are being mended.”
Martha just smiled, shaking her head as she bent down to adjust the hem of the gown. As you stared at yourself in the mirror, your mind wandered back to the familiarity of the man in the other room. You recognized him—surely—though you couldn’t quite pin down where from, and the mystery was eating at you.
“Speaking of that man… how do you know him?” you asked suddenly.
Martha lifted her head to give you a knowing, secretive smile, and your face immediately flushed. You realized how hopeless you had sounded asking that.
“I-I mean,” you stammered, “I’ve just never seen him walking the streets before, is all. I was curious.”
Martha gave the hem of the dress one last fluff and stood up with a small groan.
“How I know him?” Martha repeated, letting out a soft hum as if trying to buy herself time to come up with an explanation. “Oh, he’s an old family friend. A very long standing connection, you could say. He’s a good man—extraordinarily hardworking. A father, too. He carries the burdens of his entire household on those broad shoulders of his.”
A father?
Your shoulders deflated just a little, the magic of the blue silk losing a bit of its luster. Of course he was a father. A man that handsome, that observant, and that commanding was bound to have a wife and a brood of children waiting for him in some cozy cottage. It explained the tired eyes and tense shoulders you had noticed earlier.
You looked down at the faint burn marks on your hands, suddenly feeling foolish for the way your heart had been racing.
“Oh. Well... his children and wife are lucky to have such a dedicated provider.”
Martha noticed the sudden change in your posture immediately. A small, reassuring smile spread across her face as she leaned in closer.
“He is quite dedicated. Though, he’s doing it all on his own these days. He’s a widower, you see. Quite single. And I imagine he’s been very lonely in that very big, and very empty house of his.”
Your head snapped towards her, breaking eye contact with the reflection to look at her face-on. Your cheeks burned hot in a matter of seconds.
“Martha!” you hissed, embarrassed by how easily she had read you.
There was a soft knock against a wall, and you went silent the instant you realized Bucky was standing just outside the curtains.
“Martha, I’ll be leaving soon,” his voice came in, closer than you expected. “But I’d like to see that dress on the maiden before I—”
Before you even had time to react, Martha reached for the velvet and swept it aside swiftly. She stepped out of the way, leaving you completely exposed to Bucky’s view.
You immediately straightened your spine, your heart beating faster in your chest as you were barely mentally prepared to face yourself in the mirror, let alone reveal yourself to him.
Bucky felt like the air had been physically knocked out of his lungs once he saw you. He didn’t move an inch, nor even blink. And for a long moment, he didn’t even breathe.
He was the King of Brooklynne—a man who gave speeches to thousands and commanded armies—yet, staring at you, his words failed him. You stood there with a faint smudge of charcoal on your nose and messy strands of hair framing your face, and he was defenseless.
He had seen a thousand women in fine gowns, but he had never truly seen a fine woman in a gown.
Your hands came up to bunch the shimmering blue fabric of the skirt, lifting it just an inch off the floorboards. You looked everywhere but at him—the spools of thread, Martha’s shoes—before finally forcing your eyes back to his.
“Well?” you whispered, the word barely catching in your throat. “Is it as you expected, sir?”
Bucky finally blinked, snapping out of his trance. He cleared his throat and rubbed the back of his neck, his face flushing a deep, sudden red.
“It’s, uh...” he started, his voice cracking slightly before he forced it deeper. “It’s very... blue.”
You tilted your head, a little confused. You had gone through the effort of putting this dress on at his demand, and all he had was to point out the color?
“Blue?” you frowned.
“Yes. Blue,” he repeated, nodding far too many times. He seemed to realize how pathetic that sounded and tried again, gesturing vaguely with his hands.
“And it’s... it fits. The parts of the dress,” he motioned toward the bodice, “they fit your... body well. I mean—you look... not like a maid at all. Which is... good. Very good.”
You and Martha just blinked at him.
Bucky looked as though he wanted the ground to swallow him whole right up until a soft giggle bubbled up in your chest, escaping before you could stop it.
The sight of this large, commanding man, who looked so tired and overworked, being reduced to a stammering mess over the color of a dress was almost ridiculous. Yet, seeing him like this only made you fonder.
“I’m glad you approve of the color, sir,” you teased with a bright smile. “I can only imagine the insults you’d say if the dress had been green.”
Bucky’s ears turned an even more embarrassing shade of crimson. He looked at Martha, who was shamelessly enjoying his suffering with a snicker, and then back at you. He looked completely out of his depth, his usual stoic composure deserted him entirely.
“Right. Yes. Well,” he muttered, taking a step back until he nearly hit the wall. “I must get going. I have... uh, matters to attend to.”
He turned to Martha, his voice suddenly regaining that same authority he had used when he insisted you try the gown on. “Martha, wrap this up for her. Make sure it’s packed carefully.”
“I’m sorry—what?” your eyes went wide, and you let out a disbelieving laugh. “Sir, you can’t possibly—”
The words—the protests that you couldn’t afford it, that your stepmother would never allow it—were immediately cut off the moment Bucky stepped closer. He caught your hand in his and brought it to his lips, pressing a soft kiss against your knuckles. Your breath shuddered in your chest. It had been a long time since a gentleman had greeted you with such grace, not since your father had passed.
“I…” you tried to break the tense silence, but your voice failed you as Bucky’s face pulled away from your hand and something else caught his attention.
Carefully, he turned your palm upward, his thumb tracing the old burn marks that tainted your skin with a gentle touch that made your heart beat even faster.
With his head still bowed, his eyes slowly drifted up to meet yours. You felt goosebumps trail over your skin as he stared at you so intently. He parted his lips as if to speak, but he hesitated, and no words came out.
What happened?
How’d you get these burn marks?
You figured he’d ask, but he didn’t.
Instead, his grip tightened ever so slightly, a silent acknowledgment of a pain he seemed to recognize all too well. He finally broke his gaze, turning his head to Martha without letting go of your hand just yet.
“On my dime, Martha,” he stated. His tone was final, leaving no room for argument. “Everything. The gown, the alterations, the shoes. All of it.”
“Sir, please, I can’t accept—”
Bucky stepped back, his eyes searching yours one last time. This time, there was no more stuttering, no more awkward talk about the color of the fabric. There was only the confidence of a man who was used to being obeyed.
“I’ll see you at the ball tomorrow night,” he said. It wasn’t an invitation; it was a vow.
Before you could find the words to tell him you couldn’t even go, he turned on his heel. He moved quickly, pulling his cloak over his head as he pushed through the shop door and into the busy street.
The bell rang out, leaving you standing in the center of the shop in a gown worth more than your life, blinking as you watched him disappear around the corner through the shop windows.
Martha let out a long, theatrical sigh behind you. “Well,” she spoke, her voice gleeful. “What a charming man, isn’t he?”
She walked over, her boots thumping softly on the hardwood as she began to inspect the stitching of your bodice one last time.
“I take it he’s rather fond of you,” she teased, her voice a little playful. “A man doesn’t pay for royal silk and French lace on a whim, dear.”
“Enough with your foolishness, Martha,” you shook your head, trying to keep calm despite your frantic heart beating.
You looked down at your hands—at the skin he had just graced with his lips and the scars he had traced with such tenderness you’ve never felt before.
“He’s only doing it because he pities me. He saw a girl in rags and felt a momentary lapse of charity.”
You smoothed the silk over your hips, the fabric cool and.. almost mocking beneath your scarred fingers. “Besides... a man like that? A man with that kind of presence, that kind of look? He belongs in the stories you tell children. A woman like me can only dream of someone like him.”
Martha stopped her work and stood tall, placing her hands on your shoulders. She looked at you through the mirror, her eyes bright with wisdom that felt older than the shop itself.
“A dream is a wish your heart makes, my girl,” she whispered, her voice warm and melodic. “And if you wish hard enough, the universe has a funny way of making sure your heart gets exactly what it wants.”
You looked at your reflection, feeling like a stranger in blue silk, and let out a tired sigh.
“I’ve been dreaming for a long time now, Martha.” You forced yourself to look away from the mirror. “They don’t come true.”
It was the night of the ball, and the house was unnervingly silent only after the whirlwind of your sisters’ screaming and your stepmother’s frantic demands had finally vanished behind the rattle of a carriage.
They were currently dancing on polished marble floors, while you were on your knees, the scent of lye and old wood filling your lungs. When you had arrived home from the shop yesterday, it was a miracle you managed to sneak the dress into your closet without Beatrice and her gremlins noticing. They had been so preoccupied with their own vanity that they mistook your large garment bag for a pile of clean, pressed laundry.
With the dress hidden away and quietly taunting you in its small corner of the house, the memory of the man’s voice kept echoing in your mind, drowning out the scraping of your scrubbing brush.
“I’ll see you at the ball tomorrow night.”
You thought about his hands—how large they were compared to yours, yet how carefully he had handled you.
He hadn’t looked at your burns with disgust.
He had looked at them with pain and deep sympathy.
It was a look you didn’t get often—not from your family, and certainly not from strangers.
You tried to imagine him in that crowded ballroom; a widowed father standing awkwardly by the refreshments, looking out of place in a room full of preened lords. You imagined him fumbling over his words while trying to flatter the high born ladies, just as he had fumbled with you.
You couldn’t help but let out a soft snicker at the thought.
You looked down at your current state—dull dress, a darkly stained apron, hair tied back with a piece of frayed twine.
The beautiful gown was sitting just a few feet away, a masterpiece bought on his coin, haunting you.
If you went, you risked everything.
If you stayed, you would spend the rest of your life wondering if he had actually waited for you near the entrance, looking for a girl who never showed up. You would spend the rest of your life wondering if you would ever see him again.
As the clock on the mantle ticked, it was like something clicked inside of you as well.
You dropped the brush into the bucket with a splash. You knew you couldn’t stay. Even if it was only for an hour—even if you had to run back before the clock struck twelve and return to this life of ash and dirt—you had to know why a man like that looked at you as if you were something special.
You scrambled to the basement, your breath hitching as you hauled the dress from its hiding place.
You removed your dress with urgency, but the second you stepped into the blue silk, realization hit you hard.
You didn’t know why you had expected the gown to fit as perfectly as it had in the shop. And without help, the luxury felt like a mockery.
This wasn’t a fairy tale—it was a logistical nightmare. You couldn’t reach the laces in the back, and the more you tugged, the more the bodice sat lopsided and gaping against your skin. You tried to pin your hair up, but the strands were limp and dull, escaping the pins and falling into your eyes.
“No, no, no!” you whispered, hot tears of frustration pricking your eyes.
You looked like exactly what you were. A servant girl playing dress-up.
Grabbing a heavy, hooded travel cloak, you threw it over your half fastened gown, cinching the hood tight to hide your disastrous hair and face. You burst out the back door and ran. You ran until your lungs burned and your feet ached, through the dark alleys and over the cobblestones until you reached Martha’s shop.
The ‘open’ sign was being flipped just as you reached the glass. Martha was reaching for the lamp, her coat already draped over her shoulders as she was preparing to leave.
“Martha!” you cried in a panic, slamming your palm against the door. “Martha, please!”
The older woman froze, her eyes widening as she recognized you through the glass. She fumbled with the locks and pulled you inside, the bells on the door jangling frantically.
“Child, what in heaven’s name—”
You threw back your cloak, revealing the tangled laces and the disheveled dress underneath. “I can’t do it! I… I can’t get the laces right. My hair is a mess, and I look like a fool. Please, Martha. You said the heart gets what it wants, but my hands can’t even help make it happen!”
“Hush now,” Martha reassured. “We have no time for tears. Stand on the pedestal. Feet apart, shoulders back.”
The minute you stood on the pedestal, her hands wasted no time as her fingers flew over the laces, tightening the bodice until it sat perfectly against your waist. She did you hair into a neat, sophisticated style that was a far difference from how it was before. Then, with a damp cloth, she wiped away the tears from your cheeks and applied subtle touches of makeup that highlighted your best features, making your eyes shimmer in the warm overhead light.
She knelt before you, taking your tired, aching feet and slipping them into heels so clear and pristine that it looks like it could be made out of glass.
Finally, Martha reached into a velvet-lined drawer and pulled out a pair of pristine, elbow-length white gloves. She took your hands gently, smoothing the cool fabric over your fingers and up your arms. She paused for a moment as she tucked the silk over your palms, ensuring the scars were completely hidden from view.
“There,” she breathed, patting your hands. “Can’t have these burn marks showing off at the royal palace now, can we?”
You stared at your reflection, breathless. The girl in the mirror didn’t look like she had spent the morning scrubbing a hearth or weeping in a basement.
She looked like she belonged in a palace.
“Martha, I… thank you—”
“Oh! Before I forget…” Martha took a step back and hurried to the rear of the shop, rummaging through a hidden chest. You waited until she finally stepped back out holding a mask.
She had several masks displayed throughout the store, but you had never seen this one. It was ethereal, made with such delicate detail that it looked like it was made to go hand-in-hand with your dress.
Martha held the mask up to the light, its delicate silver filigree shimmering like frost against the dim shop interior.
“It’s a masquerade ball, isn’t it?” Martha asked knowingly, stepping forward to carefully tie the silk ribbons behind your head.
When the knot was secure, she stepped back to look at you, her eyes softening. “My darling,” she sighed wistfully. “You look beautiful.”
A lump formed in your throat, and you parted your lips to speak, ready to drown her in a sea of gratitude. But before a single word could escape, the clock above the dresser ticked—a sharp, metallic strike that made Martha’s head snapped toward the sound instantly.
“The late-arrival carriages are passing through the square right now,” she informed you, already ushering you toward the door with a sudden burst of energy. “If you miss them, you’ll be walking three miles in glass slippers, and I didn’t spend my after hours getting you dressed up just for you to ruin the hem in the mud.”
“Martha, I truly don’t know how to—”
“Don’t thank me, sweetheart,” Martha interrupted, her voice softening as she gave your gloved hand a final, affectionate squeeze.
She looked at you not as a seamstress looking at a client, but with the pride of someone watching a long held wish finally take flight.
“Just go. Enjoy yourself—that’s the best way you can thank me,” she smiled with a wink. “And don’t you dare come back until you’ve danced at least once.”
Bucky stood on the dais, his back straight and his expression stern, though his mind was miles away from the gilded splendor of the ballroom.
He felt more restless than he usually did at these gala affairs. With one hand tightened around a wine glass, his eyes tracked his son, Prince Jamie, who was doing his best to look interested while cornered by a pair of sisters in the center of the dance floor.
Jamie was a good kid, and it usually wasn’t difficult for the average woman to capture his attention, yet Bucky could see the way his son’s jaw clenched as the two women flitted their fans and chirped in high, piercing voices.
Agnes and Margaret. Bucky remembered them from previous balls and the overwhelming mountain of letters they had mailed to the palace—all of which hadn’t bothered reading.
He knew it was his duty, not only as the King but as Jamie’s father, to see his son settled with a rightful match—especially one that offered political advantages. But tonight, his focus was fractured. His eyes began to wander, scanning the sea of masks and trying to look past the peacock feathers and velvet. Every time a flash of sky-blue caught his eye, his heart thudded in anticipation, only to sink when he realized the shade was wrong or the stature wasn’t quite right.
As the night wore on, Bucky’s impatience grew thinner and thinner.
“I’ll see you at the ball tomorrow night.”
Had he not been clear enough?
Now, he felt like a fool.
Why would you come? He had seen your hands—hands that clearly told the story of the life you lived and the hardships you endured. He knew the barriers that stood between a girl like you and a palace gate.
And beyond that, there was the gap in your years.
You were younger.
Much younger.
Bucky swallowed hard, before bringing the cup to his lips. He drained his glass in multiple long gulps. The wine was cold, yet it did nothing to douse the heat building in his skin.
He was a King, a widower who had long ago accepted that his heart—and his body—had gone cold. He was old, or… at least he felt it in the marrow of his bones. He had assumed the days of blood rushing desire were behind him.
But tonight, his body was making a liar out of him.
His mind kept looping back to the age gap. He shouldn’t be feeling this restless, yearning ache for a girl who was likely half his age. It was improper, and it was dangerous.
But as he watched the dancers, he wasn’t thinking about trade levies or Jamie’s future. He was thinking about the way your small hand had disappeared inside his. He was thinking about the way he caught a glimpse of you through the velvet curtain in the changing room, his eyes lingering on your bare shoulders and the curve down your lower back as you got fitted into the gown.
He shifted, the heavy fabric of his royal trousers suddenly feeling restrictive.
A self-deprecating laugh rumbled in his chest. He was a king, a father—and here he was, standing on a dais with a goddamn hard on because of a girl who smelled like smoke and looked like a dream.
“King Barnes?”
Bucky turned to the attendant.
“Sir Rogers and Sir Wilson are in the back gardens, Your Majesty,” he stammered, bowing low. “They sent word that they are... well, they’re waiting for a smoke with you. They said the night air might do you some good.”
Bucky let out a slow, heavy breath. His friends knew him all too well—they had probably caught the way he was gripping his glass and the way he was staring at the door like a starving man.
“Tell them I’ll be there shortly,” Bucky rasped, a little frustrated.
He took one last look at the grand staircase for good measure, several people walking in with fancy gowns and suits—yet none of them were you.
“She isn’t coming”, he told himself. “She has more sense than you do, James.”
He stepped off the platform, his boots clicking sharply against the polished marble as he turned his back on the ballroom. Several guests attempted to intercept him, their mouths opening to offer empty flatteries, but he gave them nothing more than a dismissive nod as he pushed past.
He needed that smoke. He needed Steve and Sam to humble him—to laugh at him for being an old fool pining after a girl who likely saw him as nothing more than a kindly stranger who had bought her an expensive dress.
He made his way through the arched side exit, the orchestra fading into the background as he stepped into the cool, floral scented air of the royal gardens. He spotted them near the center—two broad and tall silhouettes casting long shadows over the stone water fountain.
“About time,” Sam called out, sensing Bucky’s approach without even turning around. “We thought we were going to have to come up there and drag you off that throne ourselves.”
“Find your lucky girl yet, Buck?” Steve asked, finally turning to face his old friend. He held out a cherry-wood smoking pipe, the embers already glowing.
He gave Steve a sharp, side-eye look that would intimidate most people, but it just made Steve laugh.
“No,” Bucky grunted roughly, his voice dropping into a low gravel. “I haven’t found the ‘lucky girl.’” He took a slow, deep inhale from the pipe, letting a thick gust of smoke roll from his lips into the cool night air. “I just need Jamie to hurry up and pick a girl out of the crowd so we can get this ball over with.”
“The boy turns eighteen and the first thing he does is look for a woman to settle his crown,” Sam barked a laugh, leaning back against the stone fountain. “He’s a player—just like his father was at that age.”
Bucky rolled his eyes, the embers in his pipe glowing bright as he took another breath. “I was not. I wasn’t that restless—”
“You’re right,” Steve laughed. “You were worse. You just had the benefit of not being a King yet.”
While the three men shared a rare moment of peace, obscured by the shadows and the scent of pipe tobacco, the last carriage of the night finally pulled up to the palace gates.
It was silent and unassuming, no one would’ve cared for whoever was inside, yet it held the only person Bucky had truly been waiting for.
You stepped out of the carriage and approached the looming marble staircase. The palace was huge, making your heart beating anxiously in your chest like a trapped bird. You almost wanted to retreat back into the carriage and hurl all over your pristine heels, but you just sucked in a deep breath and kept pushing forward.
You gathered the shimmering hem of your sky blue gown, lifting the silk to keep from tripping on staircase.
The moment you crossed the entrance, the cavernous ballroom seemed to expand, the soaring ceilings and gold leafed pillars making the space feel even more bigger than it had from the outside. You stood at the very precipice of the grand staircase, your gloved hand tightening on the silk of your skirts.
As you stood there, the frantic gossip and the laughter of the debutantes slowly died into a collective whisper. One pair of eyes landed on you, then two, then several, until the entire sea of masks was turned upward, captivated by the girl in sky blue.
At the center of the dance floor, Prince Jamie froze.
You were beautiful.
Your gown looked rich, the fabric shimmering with the kind of quality that suggested a woman of high standing and ancient lineage.
You looked exactly like the kind of woman his father would expect him to marry—and exactly like the woman Jamie had been waiting for all night.
He had been trapped between Agnes and Margaret, half-listening to their desperate chirping, but the moment you appeared, it was like a new sense of determination flooded through him. He didn’t wait for a polite opening; he didn’t even offer the sisters a parting nod—a dismissive streak he had clearly inherited from his father.
“Excuse me,” Jamie murmured, his voice clipped as he stepped back, cutting them off mid-sentence.
The further you descended, the more the air suffocated you with the scent of expensive cologne and heavy perfume. Before your foot could even touch the ballroom floor, the path was blocked.
A flock of men swarmed the base of the staircase like vultures circling a prize. They were a blur of colorful sashes and different colored masks, their voices rising over the orchestra as they tried to catch your attention.
“A dance, my lady? I am the Earl of Hydra—”
“Pray, allow me the honor of the first waltz!”
“Ignore them, fair vision, look this way—”
You clutched the railings. You felt like an imposter, a trapped bird in borrowed feathers, as the crowd pressed in and closed off your exits.
You scanned the room frantically through the narrow slits of your mask, searching for a single familiar face—the kind man from the shop who had bought you this dress and insisted you come. But all you saw was a sea of strangers draped in silk and greed.
“Gentlemen,” a sharp, authoritative voice interrupted. “I believe you are crowding the lady.”
Your ears immediately perked at the sound of the voice. It was familiar, a resonance of the man from the shop—yet it wasn't quite the same as it was more youthful.
The men stiffened and turned, their expressions falling behind their masks as they realized the Prince of Brooklynne had arrived. They dipped their heads in respectful bows, scrambling to step aside to clear a path for him.
Jamie stepped into the center of the circle, the only man in the entire party not wearing a mask.
Your heart skipped a beat as you looked at him. There was something hauntingly familiar about his face—the same jaw, the same carved chin, and those stern cold blue eyes. But he lacked the weary, aged shadows beneath them.
“I believe the vultures have had enough of your time,” Jamie extended his gloved hand with a charming smile. “I am Prince Jamie. And while the tradition of this ball is for me to find a match, I find myself suddenly uninterested in anyone else in this room. May I have the honor of this dance?”
Every noble, every servant, and every debutante held their breath.
But you already felt as though you were suffocating.
You looked down at his hand, then out at the sea of faces. “A dance… with me?”
As you spoke, your eyes drifted to the edge of the ballroom.
There, standing near a marble pillar, were Agnes and Margaret. Their faces were twisted into masks of pure, venomous hatred, their glares so sharp they felt like they could pierce right through your silver mask and uncover the truth themselves.
Behind them, your stepmother stood like a looming shadow, her eyes narrowed like she could kill you alone with her glare.
The candles, the orchestra getting louder, the different wafting smells of perfume and cologne, hundreds of eyes watching your every breath—it all became too much.
You weren’t a princess.
You were an interloper in a silver mask who didn’t even know how to dance.
One wrong move, one misplaced step, and the dream of finding the man from the shop would be crushed like a bug beneath a royal boot.
“I… I cannot,” you whispered.
Jamie’s brow furrowed in genuine shock, his hand still suspended in the air. “My lady?”
“I am sorry, Your Highness. I need air,” you gasped out, barely audible.
Without waiting for the Prince’s word, you immediately turned on your heel and bolted to the first exit that wasn’t already blocked by people. Behind you, the silence of the room snapped into already gossiping whispers.
Jamie stood frozen, his pride wounded. He watched the shimmer of your skirt disappear into the darkness of the garden, but before he could take a step to follow you, the lady vultures were already making their move.
“Your Highness, she was clearly unwell!” a woman cried as she fluttered her fan. “Perhaps a dance with someone more... stable would clear your mind?”
You hurried deep into the greenery, the hem of your gown whispering against the gravel until you reached a thicket of towering hedges and blooming jasmine. As you leaned against a cold stone pillar to catch your breath, you heard deep, masculine laughter drifting through the leaves from a distance.
Your heart leaped. You knew that laugh.
It was the same sound of the man you had met in the shop.
Quietly, you crept through the shadows, peering through the dense leaves of a large plant.
Three men were standing by a stone fountain, the glowing cherries of their pipes lighting the darkness. Two were tall and broad, but it was the man with his back to you who caught your attention. When he turned to laugh at something the blonde man said, the moonlight hit his face, and your heart nearly melted.
It was him.
The man you had risked everything to see just once more.
Who also happened to be the King of Brooklynne.
He looked far different than he had in the shop; his hair was slicked back neatly and he was draped in heavy royal regalia that shimmered under the moon. But the face was the same one you had memorized. You took a small, hesitant step forward, your hand reaching out to part the branches, ready to call to him—to tell him that you were here, that you had come for him.
But as the conversation continued, the words that left their lips made you freeze.
“You’re brooding over nothing, Buck,” Steve said with a smirk. “You’re the King. You could bed any woman you’d want in that room, or ten of them. You’re rich enough to cover the tracks and powerful enough that no one would dare whisper a word.”
Sam barked a laugh, blowing a cloud of smoke into the air. “He’s right. One snap of your fingers and you’ve got a new ‘favorite’ for the week. Why settle for pining?”
You waited for Bucky to rebuke them. You waited for the ‘good man’ and ‘hardworking father’ to say he wasn’t looking for that.
Instead, a slow, dark grin spread across his face—a look of cold, royal entitlement you hadn’t seen at all in the shop.
“It would certainly break the boredom of this godforsaken castle,” Bucky—no, the King—replied. “There’s a certain thrill in taking what you want, isn’t there? The perks of the crown are the only thing keeping me sane these days.”
Steve let out a low whistle, pointing his pipe toward Bucky. “Ah. There he is. I was worried for a moment that fatherhood made you soft, but I see the old wolf is still in there.”
Bucky chuckled, a sound that lacked any of the warmth you had felt in the small tailor shop.
“Soft? Hardly,” Bucky scoffed so exaggerated, it seemed forced. “I’ve spent half my life fighting for this kingdom. If I decide to take a girl as a ‘prize’ for a night or two to pass the time, I think I’ve earned that much. Besides,” he added, a little lower, “most of the women in there would consider it the greatest honor of their lives to be used by their King, regardless of how quickly I forget their names the next morning.”
You felt like you were going to collapse.
The man you had met—the one who stuttered over his words trying to compliment you and kissed your hand with such gentleness—felt like a ghost. This man in front of you was a stranger, a cold-hearted ruler who likely saw you as a nameless ‘prize’ to be discarded at the shop.
Was that why he wanted to buy you this dress?
Was that why he insisted you come tonight?
The realization made your head hurt. You knew it was too good to be true. You felt the bile rise in your throat, and you instinctively moved to flee.
You took a frantic step backwards, but in your haste, you didn’t see the heavy iron watering can sitting at the base of the hedge. Your heel caught the edge of it with a loud, metallic clang that echoed through the quiet garden.
The laughter died, and Sam perked his head up.
“Who’s there?”
Bucky straightened up slowly, his gaze narrowing to the exact spot to the greenery you were hiding behind. The orange glow of his pipe illuminated the sharp, dangerous lines of his face.
There was no point in hiding. They already knew you were there. You forced your legs to move, stepping out from behind the heavy jasmine vines.
“I apologize,” you said, your voice brittle and trembling. “I… I must have gotten lost. Excuse me, Your Majesty.”
You bowed your head, refusing to meet his eyes, and hiked up the heavy silk of your skirts—the very fabric he had paid for, which now felt like a brand of humiliation against your skin. You turned to retreat towards the palace, desperate to vanish into the overwhelming crowd—so long as you get away from him.
Bucky stood frozen, the pipe nearly slipping from his fingers. The moonlight caught the shimmer of that familiar sky blue fabric, and the realization punched the air out of his lungs.
It was you.
You were the girl he had been waiting for all night, the one who had occupied his every thought since the moment he laid eyes on you in the shop. Even behind the silver mask, you were the most beautiful woman he had seen this evening. He saw the way your shoulders shook and the way you wouldn’t even glance at him, and a sickening dread made his heart cold.
You had heard it all.
Every arrogant, cold-hearted word he had spat out just to impress his friends.
Steve, completely oblivious to the internal collapse Bucky was experiencing, let out a dry chuckle and nudged Bucky’s shoulder.
“See? What’d I say, Buck? You’re the King. You’re powerful enough to cover the tracks of any little wanderer. She won’t say a word.”
Bucky didn’t laugh this time. He couldn’t even look at Steve. His face dropped from a mask of royal arrogance to one of unadulterated panic as he realized he had just destroyed the only real thing he felt in years.
“Excuse me, gentlemen,” Bucky rasped, his voice tight.
He broke into a stride, his heavy boots thundering against the gravel as he chased after you before you could reach the safety of the ballroom.
“Wait!” he called out, his voice no longer commanding, but a desperate plea. “Please—wait!”
You didn’t look back. The blood rushing in your ears drowned out his voice. As you passed the archway back into the ballroom, the sudden blast of orchestral music and chatter filled your ears immediately.
Behind you, Bucky skidded to a halt right before the doors. He watched as you re-entered the lion’s den, and for a split second, he nearly followed you in like a madman. But then he saw dozens of eyes—the eyes of his court and his people—turning toward the doors.
As much as he wanted to chase after you, he was the King.
He couldn’t chase a woman through his own ballroom without causing a massive scene.
“Dammit,” Bucky gritted his teeth, forcing himself to stand straight and compose his features.
His eyes never left yours. He forced himself to remain calm, but the minute he saw a familiar figure weave through the crowd toward you, he felt his face burn with a sudden, hot anger.
His own son approached you before the other lords could, his youthful face lighting up in visible relief.
Bucky stood near the entrance, paralyzed. He couldn’t believe it. He felt betrayed by his own flesh and blood as he watched Jamie close the distance between you.
“I fear the night air had stolen you away forever,” Jamie said softly, bowing low before you.
Jamie—who you know now was Bucky’s son—seemed far kinder than the version of the man you had just overheard in the dark. The resemblance was striking and understandable now, but the warmth in Jamie’s voice made your heart ache for what you thought you had found in the shop.
“Please,” Jamie continued. “One dance? Titles aside, I’m the most competent when it comes to dancing in this room,” he joked, flashing a charming smile that highlighted his blue eyes.
You hesitated, the silver mask hiding your weary expression as you fought to keep your composure. You looked over your shoulder, and you could feel the King’s gaze glaring daggers down your back, almost making you second guess.
But as the nasty words he had exclaimed in the yard just a few seconds ago echoed in your mind, your heartache turned into a cold, sharp resolve.
You decided right then to spite him.
To him, you were just a ‘prize,’ but you wouldn’t be his.
Following Martha’s wish for you to have at least one good dance of this night, you turned your back on the King. With a steady breath to settle your racing heart, you finally placed your hand in the Prince’s.
Jamie’s gloved fingers curled yours gently as a triumphant smile spread across his young face. As he led you to the center of the gilded floor, you didn’t dare to look back—especially because you didn’t need to. You could feel Bucky’s eyes following you. It was heavy, but you were determined to ignore it as you used his son as your shield.
“I don’t know how to dance,” you admitted softly to the Prince.
“Don’t know how to dance?” Jamie blinked at you, slightly taken aback, before letting out a disbelieving chuckle. “A Lady who doesn’t know how to dance?”
You expected him to mock you, but instead, he gave you an encouraging smile and adjusted his stance, placing a steady hand on your waist and lifting your other to proper height.
“Then it’s a good thing you’re with me,” he reassured kindly. “Just follow my lead and keep your eyes on mine.”
As the violins grew louder, Jamie moved gracefully, his hand firm on your waist as he began the first slow rotation of the waltz. You stumbled almost immediately, your heel landing right on top of his polished leather boot.
“I—I’m so sorry,” you gasped, your face flushing in embarrassment beneath the silver mask.
“Don’t be. My boots have survived worse than a lady’s dance. Besides,” he leaned in, voice playful, “it gives me a reason to hold you a little tighter so you don’t fall.”
You couldn’t help but chuckle at how romantically corny he was. His words were smooth and charming—a miracle, considering he was the heir to the man you had just witnessed in the garden. As you finally caught the rhythm, a small, genuine smile spread across your lips. After the disaster in the garden, you had expected your night to be ruined, but this dance was almost enough to make up for it.
Then suddenly, the crowd near the edge of the floor parted like a wound opening up.
Bucky didn’t wait for the song to end. He marched onto the floor, his heavy royal mantle trailing behind him like a dark cloud. His presence alone was so suffocatingly dominant that the couples dancing around you slowed to a halt, watching him cautiously.
Bucky stepped directly into your path, forcing Jamie to stop mid-turn.
“Son,” Bucky greeted coldly. Then his eyes turned to you, cold and sharp. “My Lady.”
He extended a hand towards you—not as an invitation, but a demand. “The music is just beginning to peak. Shall I take over?”
Jamie’s brow furrowed, his hand tightening slightly on your waist. “Father? We are in the middle of a waltz. It’s highly irregular to cut in on the first dance.”
Bucky looked back at his son, his jaw clenched hard. The ‘good man’ from the shop deserted him entirely, he was acting like a man who knew exactly how to use his power to get what he wanted.
“Tradition is a suggestion, Jamie,” Bucky said, stepping closer until he crowded your space. “But a command from your King is not. Step aside.”
Jamie swallowed hard, and you felt yourself go stiff between the two most powerful men in the kingdom.
“I suppose I cannot argue with the King,” Jamie murmured, a little defiant sass seeping through his polite tone.
Reluctantly, he took your hand one last time and bowed his head low, his eyes never leaving yours as he pressed a slow, lingering kiss to the back of your gloved hand. It was the same hand Bucky had kissed at the shop just yesterday—and a gesture Bucky knew all too well.
It was the kind of goodbye a man gives a woman he fully intends to find again.
Bucky’s brow twitched violently. It took everything in his power to keep from snarling while the entire court watched. The sight of his own son’s lips touching your glove—the very silk he had held in his hands and bought with his own coin—was almost more than his composure could bear.
“That will be all, Jamie,” Bucky snapped.
Jamie ignored his father as he took a step back from you, eyes still never leaving yours. “My Lady,” he bid goodbye with a final, pained smile, before turning to disappear into the sea of masks.
The space Jamie left was immediately filled by Bucky’s suffocating presence. He didn’t wait for your permission as he stepped into the gap, his large hand slid firmly onto your waist—exactly where his son’s had been—except he pulled you so tight against his chest that the surrounding guests began to murmur.
He didn’t just want to dance.
He wanted to reclaim what he felt was his.
As Bucky slowly began moving you along to the music, your eyes trailed over his shoulder, where Jamie retreated into the crowd.
Bucky sensed it. His grip on your waist tightened, his body tensing as he realized your mind was still with his son.
“You look at me when I’m holding you,” he commanded, low and possessive. “Not him.”
You stayed quiet as you looked up at him through the slits of your mask. His gaze on you was almost cold and authoritative—the kind of look most people would be scared to meet, let alone break. But you looked down anyway, your eyes finding his chest as you forced yourself to follow his lead.
Bucky’s grip on you didn’t waver, but his voice softened just slightly.
“You look beautiful in this gown,” he murmured, his eyes still on your face despite you not looking at him.
You said nothing, and he continued on anyway.
“In the shop… you looked beautiful,” he admitted, his thumb gently grazing the back of your bodice, subtly playing with the laces. “But now you’re even more stunning. Absolutely breathtaking.”
He waited for a blush or a shy smile like the one you had given him just yesterday. Instead, he was met with a wall of silence. You kept your chin tucked, your eyes anchored firmly to the silver crest on his chest, as if you were constantly reminding yourself of his rank.
Bucky let out a deep sigh. He tilted his head down, trying to force his way into your line of sight, an act of vulnerability a King would never normally show.
“About what I said in the garden…” he started, guilty. “I was… my friends, they—”
“I heard nothing, Your Majesty.” You interrupted.
Bucky’s jaw clenched. He knew that as the King, he held the power to silence anyone in the entire kingdom of Brooklynne… yet, the one person he was desperate to hear from was treating him like a brick wall.
“I was playing a part,” he whispered with a desperation he’d never shown a soul in this palace. “Sir Rogers and Sir Wilson... they’ve known me since I was a boy. They expect a cold-hearted King. I said those things because—”
He choked on the words, his pride warring with his heart.
“Because I didn’t want them to know how much a girl from a tailor shop had actually shaken me.” He looked around warily, his eyes darting to the side to ensure the surrounding couples were caught up in their own movements and not eavesdropping on the King’s unraveling.
“Please, Your Majesty,” you said, and you couldn’t help but let out a sharp laugh that passed for a scoff. “I’m sure a maid you happened to come across in a dusty tailor shop is hardly a ‘prize’, as you call it.”
“You aren’t a prize,” he rasped, his hand tightening almost painfully around yours. “I shouldn’t have said it. I was a fool, trying to play the part of the man they think I am.”
“Oh, don’t be so modest, Your Majesty,” you countered sarcastically. You tilted your head, catching his pained gaze with a cold, mocking look of your own.
“I’m sure there are many other, more eligible, ‘prized’ women in this room who would consider it the greatest honor of their lives to be used and then forgotten by their King.”
The final note of the waltz hung in the air before fading into the polite applause of the court. You didn’t wait for the silence to settle or for Bucky to utter another word. You retracted your hand and gathered your skirts to drop into a shallow, perfectly stiff curtsy.
“Thank you for the dance, Your Majesty,” you said, though your voice held no warmth and even less appreciation.
You turned on your heel and began to weave through the crowd. You had gotten exactly what Martha wanted—one good memory, or at least a story to tell. You had danced with a Prince, and you had danced with a King.
That should be more than enough.
But as you neared the exit, all you felt was a deep, aching stupidity. You had risked everything and snuck out in a dress that felt like a lie, all for a man who had treated your heart like a parlor trick for his friends.
You were over the music, over the masks, and most of all, you were over him.
The grand staircase you had entered from was now a wall of people. Nobles stood in clusters, laughing and sipping wine, completely blocking your path to the main doors.
Panic flared in your chest. You couldn’t stand to be in this room for another second.
Searching for a way out, you spotted a narrow side corridor draped in heavy velvet curtains. It was dim and seemingly abandoned. You slipped through the fabric, your silk skirts rustling against the stone floor as you hurried away from the noise.
The air here was cooler, smelling of old paper and beeswax. You didn’t hear the click of boots on the marble behind you. You didn’t see the shadow that detached itself from the ballroom doorway, moving with a predatory grace of a hunter.
You only focused on the door at the end of the hall, desperate for the night air and escape.
Just as your hand reached for the brass handle, a heavy weight hit the door beside your head, pinning it shut. A gloved hand clamped hard around your wrist, jerking you backwards until you hit a broad chest.
“Did your King say you were dismissed?” Bucky growled, his voice a low, dangerous vibration against your ear.
“Y-your Majesty—?”
With a swift, forceful movement, he kicked open the door to a private study, hauled you inside, and slammed it shut. The click of the lock turning felt like the final snap of a mousetrap. Bucky leaned his back against the heavy oak door, his chest heaving as he watched you through the dim light.
“You’re not going anywhere.”
“Please move,” you snapped, no longer caring about pleasantries or protocol.
You tried to shove past him, but it was like trying to move a mountain. He didn’t budge, simply adjusting his weight to block the handle.
“I am not letting you walk out of here thinking those things.”
“Oh, so now the King is concerned with my thoughts?” you let out a harsh, mocking laugh and spun away, pacing the small room like a caged animal.
You tried for the window, but he was there in three long strides, his arm extending to block your path before you could even touch the latch.
“Stop trying to run away.”
You turned on him, your eyes blazing behind your mask.
“Was this just another one of your cruel royal games, Your Majesty? You buy a poor maid a gown, make her beautiful for a night, and then...” you choked on the words, your gloved hands balling into fists at your sides. “And then what? You get to boast to your friends about how easily you can sweep any woman off her feet? How lucky a commoner should feel to be bedded by the King?”
“It wasn’t a game,” Bucky rasped, reaching out to catch your shoulders, but you slapped his hand away.
“Your Majesty, if I were you, I’d quit wasting my time with a common peasant,” you spat, “and go find someone in the ballroom more suitable to bed—”
“I said those things because I was terrified!” he finally roared, the sound echoing off the wood paneled walls.
His chest heaved in frustration. He ran a hand through his hair, tugging at the strands until they fell messily over his forehead, obscuring the cold gaze of a King.
“I am the King. I am supposed to be calculated. I am supposed to be cold,” he confessed, his voice growing agitated. “And then I met you. Suddenly, I’m stumbling over a simple compliment. I’m staring at the doors, waiting for you to arrive, hoping—praying—that you’d actually show up.”
Bucky took a heavy step forward, the floorboards creaking under his shoes.
“You’ve been on my mind from the moment I laid eyes on you at the shop,” he murmured, humming so low that it made your skin prickle. “Every hour since then… until now.”
His hand reached out, slow and careful as he hooked his fingers under the edge of your silver mask, lifting it gently. As the silk and lace came away, he set it down on the mahogany table without ever breaking eye contact.
“I wanted you to try this dress on because I knew it would look beautiful on you,” he whispered, his eyes dark, hungry, and appreciating as they traveled from your face down to the curve of your throat.
Bucky let his hand trail down to your sleeve, his knuckles grazing the tender skin of your inner arm. The contact was light, yet possessive. His gaze followed the path of his hand, appreciating you from head to toe, admiring the way the silk hugged your body.
“And now,” he stepped even closer, his shadow completely swallowing you as he leaned down until his lips were inches from yours. “The only thing I can think of is how you would look with this dress off.”
Bucky pulled his gloves off, tossing them aside as his hands slid from your arm to your face. His large, warm palms cupped your jaw.
His thumb traced the line of your lower lip, tugging it down just enough to reveal the plump, wet flesh beneath. He leaned in until the tips of your noses brushed, his lips hovering a mere breath away from yours.
“Did you have fun dancing with my son?” he murmured, his voice a low vibration.
“Forgive me, Your Majesty,” your brows furrowed in confusion. “But I don’t see how this has anything to do—”
“Enough,” he interrupted. He gave your jaw a light, commanding squeeze. “You know this has to do with everything.”
You swallowed hard, nodding instinctively before you could even find your voice.
“Did you like the way he held you?” he pressed, his breath ghosting over your lips as he tilted your head back further, exposing the vulnerable line of your throat to his hungry gaze.
“Did you enjoy the way he looked at you? Because I hated every second of it. I hated that his hands were where mine should have been. I hated that you smiled for him when all you’ve given me tonight is the cold shoulder.”
His gaze dropped from your eyes to your shoulders. His hands left your jaw, tracing a slow, burning path down the sensitive skin of your throat until his fingers hooked into the delicate elastic of your puffy sleeves.
With a slow tug, he slipped them off your shoulders. The silk bunched at your elbows, leaving your shoulders bare and vulnerable under the warm glow of the candlelight.
“Tell me you’ve been thinking of me too, my dear,” he rasped, almost pleaful.
He stepped even closer, his body pressing nearly pressing against yours, pinning you between the heavy desk and his own body. One of his hands slid around your lower back, pulling you upward until your chest brushed against his.
“That’s why you came here tonight,” he whispered, his breath hot against your lips. “You wanted to find me. You wanted to show off the dress I bought you... isn’t that right?”
You looked up at him, your breath hitching as the heat from his body seemed to seep through the silk of your bodice. Being this close to him—without the mask, without the safety of the ballroom crowd—was overwhelming.
“I…” you sucked in a breath, “I came because I wanted to see the kind man I met at the shop yesterday. Not a heartless King.”
“How can you call me heartless,” he frowned, almost taunting, “when my heart only beats for you, my dear? It hasn’t known a moment of peace since I walked into that shop.”
Bucky’s hands began to wander more boldly. One hand stayed firm at your lower back, while the other slid up from your waist, his thumb grazing the undersides of your breasts through the thin silk of your gown. You let out a soft, broken whimper, your knees feeling weak as the friction of his thumb sent jolts of heat through your entire body.
“You’re so reactive, sweetheart. So innocent in the way you look at me,” he murmured, his hips tight against yours until you could feel the hard, undeniable bulge that pressed against his pants. “It makes me wonder.”
His thumb returning to your chin to tilt your face up, forcing you to meet his burning stare.
“Tell your King the truth,” he warned. “Has anyone ever laid a hand on you? Has a man ever touched you so… intimately in your life?”
You swallowed hard, the lump in your throat feeling like a stone as you struggled to find your voice.
“I’ve never been touched, Your Majesty,” you admitted softly. You lowered your gaze, unable to maintain the intensity of his stare. “Still pure.”
Bucky’s grip on your waist tightened, his fingers digging slightly into the silk of your dress as if he were already marking his territory.
“Like a flower,” he breathed, his voice sounding both awestruck and dangerous.
He leaned down, his nose dragging slowly along the curve of your jawline until he reached the sensitive skin just below your ear. He inhaled deeply, taking in your scent as if it were the only thing keeping him alive.
“A perfect, white lily,” he murmured against you, lips grazing your skin.
“And to think,” he rasped, his hand sliding up from your back to tangle in the hair at the nape of your neck, tilting your head back to force you to look at him. “That I am the first man to see you like this. The first to hold you so… closely like this.”
His gaze dropped to your mouth, his thumb dragging across your bottom lip again, more forcefully this time.
“It makes me want to keep you locked away in this room,” he confessed. “So that no other man, not even my own son, ever gets the chance to breathe the same air as you again.”
Before you could take another breath, Bucky leaned down and captured your lips with a hunger that was long overdue. For a King usually so poised, the kiss was a collision—hot, messy, and desperate.
Caught off guard, you met him with everything you had, but your movements were frantic and uncoordinated. Your hands clutched at his shoulders, fingers digging into the expensive fabric of his coat as you tried to keep up with his relentless pace, your kisses coming out sloppy and breathless.
Bucky let out a low, vibrating chuckle against your lips and gently pulled back. He didn’t go far, as his forehead was still resting against yours.
“So young and inexperienced,” he grinned, his thumb swiping a stray drop saliva from the corner of your mouth. He didn't sound disappointed; he sounded enthralled.
“But it’s okay, sweetheart. I’ll take care of you. I always take care of my people.”
Your body felt so hot, the dress suddenly felt suffocating. The way he said my people made it clear—you weren’t just any person anymore; you were his.
He took a slow step back, creating a sliver of space that felt freezing after exchanging body heat. His hands went to his waist, his fingers eager as he unbuckled his heavy leather belt. The entire time, his eyes were glued to you—his jaw slightly hung as he was breathing heavy in anticipation for whats to come.
He tossed the belt onto the nearby chair, his expression darkening.
“Now,” he rasped. “I want you to step out of that gown. Slowly. Let me see what I missed out on by being stuck on the other side of that dressing room.”
You reached slowly for the fastenings at your side, but you didn’t pull them just yet. You tilted your head, playing into the innocent maiden he thought you were.
“And tell me,” you whispered, voice low and sultry, “is this a request... or an order from my King?”
Bucky’s eyes flickered darkly with amusement. He liked the bite in your tone; he liked that even now, even after the cold shoulders and witty responses, there was still a part of you that wanted him. His hand moving down to firmly palm the heavy length of himself through his pants, his knuckles teasing his own fabric as he began to stroke himself with a slow pressure.
“Everything I say from this moment on,” he groaned, his gaze dropping to the curve of your chest, “is an official order from your King. And I suggest you obey it with haste.”
You swallowed hard, holding his burning stare as you reached for the hidden laces. With a soft tug, the structure of the bodice gave way. Despite his command, you moved slowly, letting the heavy, expensive silk slide down your body inch by agonizing inch.
The gown pooled around your ankles in a cloud of white and silver, leaving you standing before him in nothing but your thin, sheer chemise and stockings.
Bucky could see everything just shy under the white sheer slip. He let out a groan, hand moving faster now as his thumb traced the ridge of his length through his pants as his eyes raked over every newly exposed inch of you.
“All of it, my dear,” he commanded gently. “But keep the stockings on.”
Your fingers trembled against your thighs as you reached for the hem. Slowly, you gathered the sheer fabric and pulled it up over your head, the cloth grazing your skin one last time before you tossed it onto the growing pile of discarded clothes.
You stood there, flushed and completely exposed, save for the white lace topped stockings that clung to your legs.
“Like this, Your Majesty?” you whispered, small and breathless.
Bucky couldn’t wait another second. He let out another low groan, stepping into your space quickly as his hands made desperate contact with your waist. He tilted his head down and slammed his lips against yours once more, sliding his tongue that tasted of wine and pure need against your own.
You muffled and moaned against his lips, head spinning with equal desire. When he finally pulled away, his eyes were dark and blown out with lust. He reached down and grabbed your hand, his large palm covering yours as he guided it towards the center of his heat.
He pressed your palm firmly over the hard, throbbing length of him, trapping your hand against the rough fabric of his pants. With a shudder, he began to move your hand in a slow, rhythmic motion, palming himself using your smaller hand as a buffer.
“Yes,” he gasped, letting out a sharp hiss of pleasure as his head fell back. “Just like that. Feel what you’ve done to me. Feel how much your King wants you.”
Every twitch and pulse of him that you felt underneath your palm only made your heart beat faster.
“You…” you breathed, your eyes wide as you looked from his face down to where your hands were joined. “You’re… big.”
Tentatively, you gave him a small and light squeeze against his trousers, making him gasp.
It was true that as King, he could have had any woman in the kingdom at his beck and call, but the truth was much bleaker; he had been starved of a genuine touch for years. Despite his body’s natural withdrawals, he hadn’t bothered to seek out a woman just to ease his pleasure.
He didn’t want a body; he wanted a soul.
He wanted you.
Bucky’s hands were under your arms immediately. Using little strength, he hoisted you up, making you let out a sharp, startled squeal. He turned and pressed you onto the massive mahogany desk in the center of the room. He swept aside a stack of royal documents and a heavy inkwell with one forceful arm, the items clattering to the floor haphazardly.
You let out a sharp gasp as he laid you flat, the cool wood a shock against your bare back. Your legs dangled over the edge, and your hair spilled messily across the dark surface.
Bucky didn’t spare you a second to adjust. He stepped between your thighs, looming over you, his eyes dark with a hunger that needed to be sated.
His hands left your body and reached to zip down his pants, finally freeing himself.
Your breath hitched, a sharp gasp escaping your lips as you saw him fully for the first time. The sight of him—thick, pulsing, and bobbing with his need for you—made your head spin.
“Your Majesty…” you stammered, your eyes wide as you instinctively tried to press further back into the wood of the desk. “I never… I don’t know how— I’ve never done this.”
Bucky kept his eyes glued on you. His hand wrapped around his length, stroking himself agonizingly slow as he took you in. His gaze drifted down to where your thighs were parted, landing on the glistening, bare slit.
“It’s okay, my dear. Just relax,” he reassured deeply. He leaned over you, his free hand reaching down to find your wet folds. “I told you, didn’t I? A King takes care of his people…”
He began to rub the tip against your entrance, the slick friction making you cry out softly. At the same time, his thumb found your clit, circling it with an experienced pressure that sent tingling waves through your lower belly.
“I’ll take care of you,” he whispered against your lips, his forehead resting against yours as he watched your eyes flutter shut. “I’ll take goood care of you. Just let me in, sweetheart.”
Bucky retracted his thumb, his hand finding your waist to hold you tight while his other hand guided himself against your entrance, testing you with a slow push past your walls.
The sensation was already overwhelming—a relentless invasion of just the head of him that felt like it was already claiming every part of you. You were so incredibly tight, your body unaccustomed to such a feeling, and you let out a sharp, choked cry, your back arching off the cool mahogany of the desk.
“Your Majesty... it's... too big,” you gasped, your voice breaking as he pushed in further, forcing your body to accommodate him. “You’re stretching me already—! Please—”
Bucky gritted through clenched teeth, his body trembling.
It was taking everything in him not to lose his restraint and slam into you, breaking you open right then and there.
“I know it hurts,” he groaned, his voice vibrating deep in his chest. “But don’t worry... we’ll make it fit. Just breathe for me, my dear. Just breathe.”
You mewled, your hands frantically finding his broad shoulders for support, your fingers clutching his royal jacket. There was something deeply arousing about the contrast—the King, fully dressed in his regalia from head-to-toe, looking down at you while you were reduced to nothing but a pair of flimsy lace stockings and your own skin as he deflowered you.
He was much older, and the social chasm between you was so deep you could drown in it—a King and a commoner, a master and a maid.
But that’s what made this feel even dirtier, even better.
The fact that he was staining his royal reputation just to claim your innocence on the very desk where he signed his laws.
Bucky rocked his hips even deeper, feeling your walls clench and flutter, trying to accommodate him. You whimpered, fingers digging into his shoulders as a dark, prideful smirk tugged at the corners of his lips.
He leaned down, his lips brushing against the shell of your ear so his hot breath could coat your skin.
“You’re losing your virginity to a King, my dear,” he murmured, sheer arrogance in his voice. “Isn’t that such an honor?”
Bracing his weight on his forearms, he groaned lonely and gave you one final thrust.
“Oh my god—!” you whined.
He sheathed himself fully inside you, his heavy cock pressing against your womb. You let out a long, broken moan that could shake the high ceilings of the study, your toes curling in your stockings as the world seemed to tilt around you.
The stretch was absolute. It was unfamiliar. It was a heavy, throbbing fullness that made your head fall back against the wood of the desk.
Bucky froze, buried to the hilt, his eyes squeezed shut as his cock savored the tight, clenching heat of your innocence. His chest heaved against your breasts, the medals on his jacket feeling cold against your hot chest.
“You’re a maid…” he murmured, his thumb tracing your lower lip possessively as he watched your chest heave. “So you know how to take care of a home. You understand the responsibilities of keeping a house and a family afloat.”
You blinked up at him, your vision slightly blurred. Your brows furrowed slightly in confusion, your body still shaking as his heavy, thick length kept you completely plugged.
As you looked at him, his eyes told you everything. It wasn’t just lust, but the deep, yearning of a man who had everything except the one thing he actually wanted. The one thing he actually needed.
“Y-your Majesty?”
“I’m a King who has spent too long without a Queen to steady him,” he gritted out. His gaze drifted over your flushed face and the way your hair was fanned out across the table, a beautiful mess on his orderly desk.
“A man who needs someone soft to come home to,” he rasped, his hand sliding from your lip to cup your jaw, his thumb pressing firmly into your cheek. “Someone who understands the value of service... and the sacred duty of taking care of her husband.”
You swallowed hard, heart beating anxiously fast. “… Husband?”
Bucky rocked his hips forward in a painfully slow, agonizingly deep roll. He was buried to the very root, the girth of him making you wince and whimper. He pumped out deep thrusts, his breathing growing heavier as he fucked you slow against the desk.
“My son’s been lonely in this castle, you know?” he grunted, the suggestion sending a shiver down your spine. “The halls are too quiet. Maybe you can give him a sister… or a brother to protect.”
As those dark, possessive thoughts took over him, the slow rolls of his hips turned urgent and frantic. He reached down and caught your leg, his large hand firm behind your knee as he hiked it high over his broad shoulder. The new angle allowed him to sink to his very limit, his heavy cock bottoming out against your cervix so deeply it made your head toss back, your fingers scrambling desperately to grip the edge of the desk for balance.
Your entire body shook the moment he pressed his face against your inner thigh. The roughness of his salt and pepper beard tickled your sensitive skin as he trailed wet, worshipful kisses along your leg.
“That’d be so wonderful, my dear,” he rumbled against your skin. “Seeing you bred with royalty… carrying the Barnes bloodline.”
Every word was punctuated by a heavy, wet thrust of his hips as he drove into you.
Your mind was spinning with these depraved ideas. You couldn’t form a single coherent sentence as your body was being ruined by the King of Brooklynne.
“I can see it already,” he panted, his eyes snapping back to yours, dark and unfocused with desire. “You, heavy with my child, walking through these gardens… knowing that you’re the most precious thing in this entire kingdom. That you belong to me, and me alone.”
Bucky’s hand tightened on your thigh, his fingers digging into your skin as he used his thumb to circle your clit in a fast, circular motion. He was thrusting deeper and harder now, his rough movements making the heavy desk creak and groan beneath you.
The sound of his moans mingling with your breathless mewls, and the echoes of his scandalous promises still ringing in your head, finally broke the last of you.
Your vision blurred as your body reached its limit, your sensitive, well-fucked walls fluttering and clenching tightly around his shaft, already milking him.
“Your Majesty… I—” you gasped, turning your head away as embarrassment and shame washed through you. “I… it’s too overwhelming. I’m going to—”
“No,” he grunted roughly in disapproval.
He moved forward, his weight pinning you more firmly as he hiked your leg even higher, folding you back until you felt completely open to him. He reached out with his free hand, his fingers catching your chin and forcing your face back toward his.
“Don’t you dare hide from me,” he commanded, practically snarling. “Look at me. Look at your King while you take this. I want to see you come apart for me.”
As you completely lost control of your own, you let out a shattered, high-pitched cry. And in return, he let out a low, gravelly chuckle that was more a growl of satisfaction than a laugh. “Christ. You’re wet, my dear.”
Bucky watched as your face flushed with warmth and your eyes rolled back. Your body arched so sharply off the table that your spine barely touched the wood, your entire being coming undone all over him.
You were so incredibly tight, your walls fluttering and pulsing in a desperate grip that milked him, demanding his own release.
The feeling was the final blow to his crumbling restraint. Bucky’s smirk vanished, replaced a grimace of pained ecstasy as he reached his limit.
“Yesss,” he hissed through gritted teeth, his hands moving eagerly at your thighs. “That’s it. I’m close, sweetheart. You’re going to take every drop, do you hear me? I expect—hah—nothing less from my girl.”
With a final, deep thrust that made the desk groan one last time, he buried his cock completely inside and stayed there.
“God—take it,” he rasped, his voice breaking. “I’m going to pump you full.”
His body went rigid, his head snapping back as a roar of ecstacy tore straight from his throat. You felt the hot, heavy pulses of him filling you—the throbbing of his release pumping deep inside your womb. You let out a breathless gasp, feeling him claim you from the inside out, marking you with the Barnes bloodline just as he had promised.
Bucky remained draped over you for a long moment, his forehead resting against yours as you both fought to bring air back into your lungs. The study that once smelt like wood, paper, and ink was now heavy with the smell of sex and sweat.
Slowly, he shifted his weight to his forearms, looking down at you with a gaze that had softened from hunger into gentleness. His thumb reached out, gently caressing your warm cheek, tracing the line of your jaw before moving up to brush sweat dampened strands of hair away from your eyes.
“Beautiful,” he graveled with appreciation. “Absolutely beautiful.”
Slowly and carefully, he finally pulled out.
You let out a small, shaky exhale at the sudden absence of him. He stood between your thighs for a moment, his eyes lingering on the sight of you absolutely ruined on his desk before he turned to compose himself, zipping his trousers back up that seemed to signal the return of the King.
You mentally prepared yourself for a curt dismissal, expecting him to revert to the cold, distant man you had encountered in the garden.
But instead, he reached for your discarded dress, lifting the fine fabric from the floor gently.
He stepped close, sliding his large hands under your arms to help you sit up on the edge of the desk. The scene felt like a distorted, intimate mirror of the dressing room at the shop yesterday; only now, there was no Martha, no sooted clothes, and no rush.
Bucky dressed you slowly, as if he were handling a piece of priceless porcelain. He guided your arms through the puffy sleeves, his fingers grazing your skin with feather light touches that made you shiver for entirely different reasons.
When he turned you around to begin the long row of tiny buttons down your back, he leaned in, his lips ghosting over your shoulder before pressing a series of soft, delicate kisses against your skin.
“My God,” he said quietly, turning you around slowly as his hands rested firmly on your waist. “Stunning.”
His eyes bored into yours deeply, soft and vulnerable. “I want you here. I want you in this palace, by my side. I think... I think I’ve fallen for you, my love.”
Your eyes softened, your breath hitching in your chest.
A King falling for you was the very thing a little girl’s dreams were made of. After the way he had just made love to you—marking you with vows and promises to keep you safe—there was nothing you wanted more than to say yes.
But just as your lips parted to speak, a sharp, rhythmic knock echoed through the heavy oak doors.
“Your Majesty?” a muffled voice called from the hallway. “The delegates are requesting your presence. The midnight toast is approaching.”
You gasped, your heart leaping into your throat as you instinctively tried to pull away, looking for a place to hide. But Bucky didn’t flinch. He kept his grip on your waist, his expression remarkably calm.
“Relax,” he soothed, sensing your panic. “They know better than to enter without my word. They are my people. They are loyal to me, not the gossip of the court.”
He leaned down, pressing a warm kiss to the top of your head. “Stay here. Compose yourself. I’ll be right back to come get you, I promise.”
With one last possessive squeeze of your hand, he straightened his jacket, his face masking back to royal indifference, and retreated into the hallway.
You sat on the edge of the desk, the silence of the study feeling unnervingly tense now that his warmth was gone. You waited and waited, replaying the way he had looked at you—not as a maid, but as his future.
As the seconds ticked by, the grandeur of the room began to feel like a cage. When the ornate grandfather clock in the corner began its slow, sonorous chime for midnight, you were suddenly hit with restless anxiety.
You couldn’t just sit here and wait any longer.
Trembling, you picked up your mask from the desk and slid it back over your face, the silk cold against your flushed, warm skin. You stepped out of the study, your footsteps ghosting over the marble floors as you followed the distant, echoing sound of orchestral music and hundreds voices.
You peeked your head past the curtains to look at the ballroom, where Bucky had disappeared to, and it was like the King was a sun at the center of a glittering solar system.
Bucky was surrounded—generals in stiff uniforms, foreign princesses in diamonds that were nearly blinding, and advisors whispering in his ear. He looked untouchable. He looked like a man who commanded armies and decided the fates of nations.
You looked down at your hands—hands that spent every day red and raw from lye and scrubbing—and then back at the women dancing below in silks that cost a year of your life.
It wasn’t just a distance of wealth.
It was an impossibility of worlds.
He belonged to history.
You belonged in a basement.
As you stood there, watching him at a distance, a soft cough sounded just behind your shoulder. You jumped, spinning around to find one of the high ranking attendants—the one who had knocked on the study door earlier—watching you with a face as unreadable as stone.
“Miss,” he said, low and professional. “The toast ceremony is beginning. Would you care to join?”
You hesitated, your gaze flickering one last time to the ballroom floor. You looked for Bucky, but he was almost entirely obscured now, buried under a sea of medals, silk sashes, and the rich laughter of noblewomen.
The attendant followed your gaze, then looked back at you. His expression changed subtly, like hollow kindness in his eyes—the kind of look one gave to a guest who had overstayed their welcome.
“Or,” he added, a little quieter, “shall I fetch you a carriage in discretion? The side gate is clear this time of night.”
Discretion?
You looked over your shoulder at the attendant, your eyes widening as the realization of his offer sank below the depths of your already fragile heart.
He offered you a quiet exit as if he had done this a dozen times before for a dozen other girls who had been found in that study, breathless and glowing with the false hope of a King’s favor.
To him, you weren’t the future Queen Bucky had just promised you would be.
You were a mess to be tidied up before the morning sun hit the marble. You were a secret that needed to be swept away.
You realized then that while Bucky might have meant those words while his pulse was racing against yours, the world outside that study had no room for a maid with red, raw hands and a borrowed dress. You were just another body to fill his bed, another face to distract him from the crushing responsibilities of the crown until the next pretty thing caught his eye.
How could you have been so foolish?
“A carriage,” you whispered, your voice sounding small and fragile in the vast, echoing hallway. “Please. In discretion.”
“Of course, Miss. Follow me.”
Down in the ballroom, Bucky stood at the very center of the dais, raising his glass.
“To my son, Jamie,” he announced, voice forcefully bright with a smile that was sore. “May you find a woman who doesn’t just wear a crown, but one who truly understands the importance of a family.”
He held his glass steady, but his eyes kept flicking to the velvet curtains that hid the hallway to his study.
“May you find someone who knows the grace of a Princess, yet possesses the heart to steady you as a Prince when the world grows too loud. Look for the soul who has the strength to turn a cold, stone castle into a home, and a man into a husband.”
A roar of cheers erupted from the crowd, the guests raising their glasses in unison.
The moment the toast was finished, he didn’t linger for the pleasantries. He turned on his heel, his heart already racing back to the quiet sanctuary of his study where you were—or should’ve—been waiting for him.
He was stopped three times. First, by a General demanding orders for the spring campaign; Bucky dismissed him with a curt, icy nod. Then, by a Duchess who tried to lace her arm through his; he stepped away so sharply it was an insult to the poor woman. Finally, by his own prime minister, whom he practically pushed aside.
“Not now,” Bucky growled, his long strides eating up the hallway.
He had only one thing in mind—and that was to get to you.
Bucky reached the heavy oak doors of his study, his breath hitching in anticipation. He had a vision of you still flushed and waiting, perhaps curled up in his chair trying on his royal cloak.
A soft smile already formed on his lips by the time he pushed open the doors.
“I’m sorry for keeping you waiting, my dear. I’m—”
The word died in his throat and his smile faded.
The room was silent.
The fire in the hearth had burned down to glowing embers, casting long, lonely shadows across the desk where you once laid. Papers were still scattered about, and the scent of you still lingered in the air like a taunt, but the space between the chairs was empty.
Bucky’s heart didn’t just sink. It felt as though it had been physically torn from his chest.
He rushed to the window, searching the dark courtyard, but he saw nothing.
“No,” he whispered, his voice cracking. “No, no, no!”
He spun away from the window, his movements jagged and violent. “Goddamnit!” He roared.
His boot connected with a cluster of ink bottles that already fell on the floor during your lovemaking, shattering and staining the expensive rug in deep, mocking blacks. He didn’t care. He began to pace like a feral caged animal, stomping over the very papers he had been working on earlier, his heavy footfalls ground the royal decrees into the floorboards.
He shoved his hand through his hair, pulling at the strands until his scalp stung.
“How?” he hissed to the empty room, his chest heaving. “How could she just go?”
He thought of the way you had looked at him on that desk just a moment ago—the vulnerability, the way you had clenched around him as if you never wanted to let go.
Did you not believe a word he said?
The thought was like poison. No. You couldn’t have not believe him. He remembered the look of shame that had crossed your face when you tried to turn away from him. He remembered the way you had trembled when he called you his girl.
Did you still think he was that kind of man?
Did you still think that he was that cold-hearted rake you overheard in the garden? That it was all just a game to him?
Bucky’s gaze fell to the floor, his eyes catching a white shape near the leg of the desk. He reached down, his fingers trembling as he retrieved the familiar glove.
He brought it to his face, inhaling deeply. His eyes fluttered shut as your scent—that intoxicating mix of rosewater, soap, and the warmth of your skin— filled his senses.
It was the glove for your right hand. The very glove that hid the burn marks on your palm, the marks he had kissed with such gentleness at the shop just yesterday. The marks that proved you were a woman of hard work and sacrifice, everything he admired and everything he wanted to protect.
By the time he opened his eyes, the vulnerability and sadness had been completely replaced by a cold resolve. His fingers curled tightly around the delicate glove, crushing it against his palm as if he were already reclaiming the skin it once covered.
He was going to find you.
He would tear the city apart stone by stone, he would burn down every basement and scour every shop until he found you. He didn’t care for your hesitation or your social standing.
Bucky had marked you as his on that desk.
And the King was going to do whatever it took to bring his property home.
Bucky pushed out of the study, his heavy royal cloak back on and billowing behind him. He didn’t get far before he spotted the same attendant from earlier. The man stopped, bowing low, but Bucky didn’t offer him the grace of a greeting. He stepped directly into the man’s personal space, his towering frame looming over him.
He held the glove up between them, snarling.
“Find her,” Bucky seethed. "I don’t care who you have to threaten or what doors you have to break down. Find what is mine and bring her back to me. Now."
19.6K WORDS I AM SO SORRY SHE'S SO LONG but if you've gotten this far, thank you so much for taking the time to read my work and i hope you enjoyed it 😭♥️
again, i've made a playlist for this fic that i listened to nonstop while writing. if you'd like to listen, here's the link!
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I Think I’ve Seen This Film Before | Bucky Barnes x Reader
I am back to writing after moving cities, starting a new job, going through a death in the family, and breaking up with my ex! Please enjoy the angst.
Word count: 20.4k
Warnings: anxiety, talk of cheating, vomit
The persistent buzzing was wearing on your last nerve.
“Buck!” you called, “your phone is ringing- again!”
Bucky’s phone sat on the opposite side of the kitchen island, vibrating into oblivion, just as it had been for the past few minutes. Part of you wanted to answer the damn thing and put a stop to whatever telemarketer spam was plaguing your boyfriend’s phone. And if it weren’t for the cookie dough covering your hands, maybe you would’ve.
And so, you called to him again.
“I think it’s probably pretty important!” You let out a sigh, “Cause they won’t stop fucking calling.”
Bucky chuckled from down the hall. Damn his enhanced senses. Not even words mumbled under your breath could escape his hearing.
“Just let it go to voicemail,” he hollered, content to ignore his ringing phone.
Bucky never had much affection for his phone. He felt it was more of a bother than an advancement. That it didn’t fit comfortably into his life. He never wanted to be this accessible. This available to other people. Until he met you.
Overnight, his opinion changed. Texting, he decided, was his favorite thing about the modern world. No longer did he have to wait for a response to the love letters he drafted. No longer did he have to hang around the mailbox hoping for an envelope stained with your lipstick. He could simply fire off an adoring text, and your replies were almost instantaneous.
But it was uncommon for his phone to blow up like this when the two of you were together. When you were apart, it buzzed every few minutes with your responses to his loving messages. But when the two of you were both home, nestled in the apartment you shared, Bucky abandoned his phone. In his eyes, everything and everyone else could wait.
He often ditched the thing upon returning home, leaving it on the counter or the coffee table. He didn’t squirrel it away into his pocket or keep it on his bedside table. No, he disconnected from it completely. Happily. He only ever wanted to be present with you. To be completely free from distraction when you were around.
But whoever was calling didn’t get the memo. They called once, twice, five times in a row.
You’d called out to Bucky every time, letting him know that a very persistent individual was eager to get ahold of him. But he didn’t seem to care. He was too busy folding and putting away your laundry in the bedroom. Too content in this perfect picture of domestic bliss.
“I’m sure it’s nothing,” he said as he finally swept through the kitchen, empty laundry basket in hand. “I’ll worry about it tomorrow.”
“It seems like something,” you told him. “What if it’s Sam or Joaquin? What if something’s wrong?”
Bucky thought it over for a moment. His distaste for his phone was strong, but his concern for his friends was infinitely more powerful. And while he didn’t want to be the kind of boyfriend who spent all of his time occupied by his screen, he opted to give the missed calls a glance. Just in case.
A familiar number- a number he hadn’t seen in ages- was splashed across his notifications. It wasn’t saved in his contacts anymore, but he’d recognize it anywhere. Before he had a chance to wonder why it was plaguing him, his phone began vibrating once again. That same number, one he saw as an ancient relic of a past life, illuminated his screen for a sixth time.
He stared at his buzzing phone. He didn’t want to answer. Had no interest in speaking to this person. But just as he tried to place his phone back on the counter, something gnawed at him. Nagged at him. Told him there had to be a good reason for these calls.
He eyed you for a short moment and answered the call.
“Um… hello?”
There was no way this was Sam or Torres, that much you knew. But who else would call Bucky six times in a row? Who else would bother him on a Saturday? Whose call would he answer while at home with you? Nat was more of a texter, and Yelena had broken her phone in an “incident” only a few days prior. You found yourself at a loss for answers.
“Yeah, I know,” Bucky said into the phone, almost irritated. “Did you need something, or-”
He listened for a long time, throwing in the occasional “yeah” or “okay”. Whoever was on the other end, he didn’t seem thrilled to be speaking to them. But he was hearing them out. Giving them a chance. He even reached for a piece of scratch paper and a pen and jotted down a few notes here and there. You and your cookie dough sat in suspense.
“Um, alright. I’m going to…” His eyes found yours, “Let me think it over and I’ll get back to you.”
And just like that, the mysterious call was over.
Bucky slipped his phone into his pocket. It wasn’t like him.
“Well?” you stared at him, expectant. “Who was that?”
Bucky let out a sigh. His head fell an inch or two. He smoothed the crease between his brows with the pad of his thumb. He stayed this way for a long, quiet moment. Until finally, he, asked:
“Do you remember me telling you about Tara?”
Tara. Tara.
“Yeah.”
How could you forget?
He’d told you about his ex-girlfriend Tara a few times. She’d been a fellow special agent with SWORD; that’s how they met. The way Bucky described it, their breakup was amicable and quiet, no dramatics. He said it was for the better. That they simply grew apart.
Sam told a different story.
After nearly three years together, Tara left. She got a job offer on the other side of the world. She didn’t know how long she’d be gone, didn’t know if she’d ever come back. And while Bucky wanted to stay in Brooklyn, wanted to stay in the only real home he’d ever known, he promised her he’d follow. That he’d go with her, if that’s what she wanted.
But she didn’t ask him to tag along.
Instead, she ended things. She boarded a jet and began an entirely new life, a life that didn’t include Bucky.
And it destroyed him.
He wanted, more than anything, for her to be happy. Wanted her to pursue the opportunity. But her departure ate through him like acid. It hollowed him out, turning him into a shell of himself. He had loved her so much. So deeply. So endlessly. They talked about the future they’d share. About getting married. He’d considered their relationship a sure thing. A guarantee.
And then she was gone.
Sam helped him pick up the pieces. But it took time. A long time. Sam said he barely recognized his friend at times; he was more of a husk than a person.
An intense feeling of unease settled into your stomach. Why had Tara called? Was she finally back in town? Did she want a second chance with Bucky? Would he leave you for her? Were you just his placeholder until she returned?
“Well, she’s back in the city,” Bucky told you.
Your heart dropped. A pang of anxiety struck you like lightning, but you refused to show it.
“Oh yeah?” you asked casually. Maybe too casually.
“Yeah. And she wants my help.”
It took you off guard.
“With what?”
Bucky sat down on one of the barstools that lived under the kitchen island. He scratched at his stubble. “Her new organization thinks they found another underground sect of Hydra.”
“Oh.” You stomach twisted. “Shit.”
Bucky nodded. “They want me to come work with them for a while. Help them handle it. Cause I’m,” he let out a small, cynical laugh, “Cause I’m the expert, or whatever.”
A small part of you, the selfish part, was relieved. Tara had called about a work matter, nothing more. There was nothing romantic to it. But a much larger part of you fell stricken with worry.
Anytime something Hydra related came up in Bucky’s work, it knocked him off kilter. His nightmares returned. His anxiety worsened. It pushed him to the precipice, forcing him to cling to his newfound peace by his fingernails. It killed you to see him that way. Killed you to know that he was hurting.
But he refused to back down when it came to Hydra. Refused to shy away from the harsh reality that Hydra was still lurking. Still skulking in the shadows. And no matter how it affected him, he was dedicated to toppling every last Hydra holdout. For the good of the world. For himself.
“So, what do you think?” He stared at you expectantly.
You stared right back.
“Um, what do I think?”
You weren’t quite sure what he was asking. Or why. This decision was entirely up to him. It was his mental health on the line. His trauma being unearthed all over again. But you offered him your opinion regardless.
“Well, I think it’s… it’s going to be hard on you,” you said. “Every time you deal with Hydra, it has consequences. But I know you want to take them down- rightfully so.” You shrugged, “So you should do whatever feels right to you. If it gets to be too much, you can always take a step back. And I’ll be here for you the whole time. So-”
Bucky’s smile put a stop to your words.
You couldn’t help but laugh a little, “What?”
“I meant, what do you think about me working with Tara?” He asked. “Don’t get me wrong, your answer was great- perfect, actually. And I definitely needed to hear that,” he smiled at you again, totally smitten. “But I need to know if you’re comfortable with this. And be honest with me, okay? Because if this makes you feel weird, I won’t do it.”
“Oh, um…” you shrugged.
The truth was complicated. And though you would rather Bucky not work with the previous love of his life, what option did you have? How could you possibly ask him not to take this job? He felt a responsibility to eliminate Hydra, to tear them apart the way they did him. And you weren’t going to get in his way.
In the grand scheme of things, Bucky working with his ex didn’t matter. If partnering up with Tara meant cutting off yet another head of the snake, it was more than justified.
You swallowed to your immature, childish, petty feelings about the situation, and put on a smile.
“I mean, it’s a work thing. It’s not like she called you up and asked you to marry her,” you forced a laugh. “We’re all mature adults here. If you want to do it, then you should. I know how much it means to you that Hydra is wiped off the map. And I’m not going to stop you just because the two of you used to be-”
The words ‘in love’ got stuck in your throat.
“Used to be together,” you said. “Plus, I trust you. I’m not worried about you straying.”
You were, in fact, very worried about him straying. About him spending time with Tara. About him remembering just how much he loved her. About dormant feelings suddenly awakening. In a previous life, she was ‘the one’ for him. The love of his life. And you feared that she’d returned to reclaim her title.
But before the dread could set in, he rose from his seat and made the way around the counter. He wrapped his arms around your waist and settled his chin in the crook of your neck.
You feared he’d notice your thundering pulse. Your unsteady breathing.
“You definitely don’t have to worry about me straying,” he said, his breath fanning your skin. “Thank you for always being so understanding. I love you.”
You leaned back against him, eliminating what tiny space remained between your bodies. And for a split second, you felt at ease.
But the voice in the back of your head, the one that you’d wrongfully silenced in the past, told you this was a mistake. That this was the beginning of the end. It told you that you’d seen this film before and that the ending would by agonizing. It screamed at you, warning you that you were, once again, repeating a well-known pattern.
But you muzzled it, just like you had before.
Because, while the situation did have a haunting air of familiarity to it, Bucky was different. He was loving. He was trustworthy.
Wasn’t he?
Yes. Of course.
You chastised yourself for even wondering. For doubting. It wasn’t fair to saddle Bucky with the weight of your failed relationships. To be suspicious of him when he gave you no reason.
You wriggled until he loosened his grip, allowing you to turn around.
“And I love you,” you let your lips melt against his. “So, when do you start?”
It wasn’t so bad at first.
His days started early, much earlier than yours. He slipped out the door and into the dark morning before you woke each day, leaving you in an empty bed. Waking without him next to you, with his side of the bed empty and cold, stung.
Gone were the early morning chats over coffee. Gone were the shared showers before work. But you didn’t allow yourself too much time to mourn these lost moments with Bucky. They would return one day, you knew they would. Once his work with Tara’s organization was over, things would return to normal. You just had to be patient.
And while your shared morning routine was a temporarily put on hold, your usual evening schedule was alive and well.
The two of you cooked and ate dinner together every night, just as you always did. You shared a glass or two of wine. Did the dishes. And when the kitchen was clean, you’d curl up against Bucky’s side for a little tv time.
There was one notable difference, however. One noticeable change to your evenings, to your home as a whole.
Bucky’s phone never left his side. He always had it with him, either tucked into his pocket or cradled safely in his hand. It sat on his nightstand at bedtime, only inches away. It buzzed with emails, texts. And he refused to let them go unanswered, even for a few minutes.
Surely, he wasn’t doing it because he wanted to. Right? It was all business, all professional. It had to be. He was the expert, the authority on Hydra. He had to be reachable, that was all.
But his newfound habit didn’t pair well with his borderline constant comments about Tara.
“Tara said the funniest thing today.”
“Tara had a great idea.”
“Do you like this coffee? Tara introduced me to it.”
Tara.
Her name pinballed around inside your head, buzzing like a swarm of angry bees. It was loud, almost deafening. A deep, animal instinct screamed at you, warning you: something wasn’t right. He talked about her far too often and far too highly for this to be an innocent professional relationship. Surely, there was something amiss. Something going on between them behind closed doors.
There had, at one time, been so much love there. Was it really possible that that love died out?
The suspicions piled higher and higher as the days passed. Every time Bucky reached for his phone, a knot twisted in your stomach. Surely, Tara was sending him flirtatious texts. She had to be. You found yourself dying to dig through his phone. To investigate each and every message she sent. But you restrained yourself, never daring to break the trust you and Bucky had so carefully built.
After a short while, you found yourself hating Tara. Cursing her. Raging against her inside your own head. The stories you came up with, the horrible pictures you painted- they twisted her into a villain. An evil siren sent to sink her claws into the love of your life and steal him away.
It almost frightened you how easy it was for you to hate her. To hate someone you didn’t know.
And she hadn’t even done anything wrong.
But you couldn’t help it; you were jealous. Jealous of all the time she spent with Bucky. Jealous of how often he spoke with her. Jealous that, even when he was at home, she was still on his mind.
And you hated the feeling. Hated the immature thoughts that stirred inside your head. But no matter how hard you tried, you couldn’t overcome the weight of the green-eyed monster on your back.
Two weeks into Bucky’s new gig, you stood at the kitchen counter, waiting for him. He was late. On a normal night, he returned home between six and six-thirty, but the clock neared seven and there was no sign of him. He didn’t answer your calls, didn’t respond to your texts. It wasn’t like him.
You started on dinner without him, though you couldn’t remember the last time you cooked a meal alone. The two of you always worked together, evenly sharing the labor of making dinner. It was part of your routine, one of your shared patterns. And ever since your morning routine was snatched out from under you, you grew to cherish the time spent making dinner with Bucky.
Suddenly, you felt startlingly alone.
You woke up alone. Got ready for work alone. Returned home to an empty apartment. And with Bucky otherwise occupied, you made dinner alone, too.
As eight o’clock rolled around, you once again fiddled with the tin foil covering the meal you’d so carefully prepared. After doing your best to keep it warm on the stove, a distinctive burning smell forced you to pull it from the burner. You supposed lukewarm and covered in foil was better than charred into oblivion.
As you tore another piece of foil from the roll and wrapped it tightly around the dish, your phone buzzed, and Bucky’s picture lit up your screen. All at once, you found your tight muscles relaxing.
A deep, calming sigh left your chest. Some silent, subconscious part of you had feared that something happened to him. That Hydra silenced him once and for all. That he couldn’t answer your calls because he was lying dead somewhere. It was a reality too horrible to even acknowledge. And so, you’d pushed it to the darkest corner of your mind and opted focused on dinner. But that didn’t stop your hands from shaking.
The tremors calmed a bit as you answered his call.
“Buck?”
“Hey, sweetheart,” he sounded out of breath. Hurried. “I’m sorry I didn’t answer- I’m so sorry I’m late. I got pulled into a last-minute meeting and it ran long.”
“That’s okay, it happens,” you told him. “Dinner’s ready. Will you be home soon?”
“Twenty minutes, I promise,” he told you. “Did you eat already?”
The question almost offended you. “Of course not, baby. I’ve been waiting for you.”
He let out a disappointed sigh, “Doll, you didn’t have to-”
“I wanted to. I’d much rather eat with you, even if it means waiting a while.”
He was quiet for a moment; you could almost see the sad smile spreading across his face. “You’re too good to me- you’re the best. I’ll be home soon, okay?”
And he was.
The two of you ate your room temperature dinner together and discussed your respective workdays. Bucky, of course, namedropped Tara more times than you could count. And by all accounts, she was incredible. It made you wonder when Bucky would realize that you couldn’t compare. That you couldn’t compete with her. On paper, she was his perfect match. She was his other half. Tara was whip smart and worldly. Hilarious. Gutsy. And absolutely deadly.
How could you compete against someone like that?
Sleep evaded you each night as you as you compared yourself to his lost love, to the one that got away. Over and over again, you listed your attributes against Tara’s, examining how you might stack up to her. You played out every possible scenario in your head. Not one of them ended with Bucky choosing you. And you couldn’t blame him.
His weekends were soon consumed by work. No longer did he spend his Saturdays and Sundays with you, browsing the farmers market and enjoying brunch. No longer did the two of you have movie marathons or bake fresh cookies. Instead, he spent his weekends at headquarters or locked in your home office. The two of you didn’t go on dates or spend time with friends. No, Bucky spent all of his time with Tara.
A month later, Bucky studied you over another late dinner.
“Are you feeling alright?” he asked.
He put down his fork and pressed the back of his hand to your forehead, your cheeks, searching for a fever.
“Um, yeah. I think so…” you eyed the hand pressed against your cheek. “Why?”
“Are you sure? You seem tired, baby.” He looked at you closely, examining the most minute details of your face. His gaze dropped to your plate, and he frowned at your virtually untouched meal. “Are you not hungry? Maybe you’re getting sick.”
A small sigh pushed through your lips.
It wasn’t at all what you needed to hear. Ever since Bucky started working with Tara, you feared he’d fall back under the spell of her otherworldly beauty, of her wit and charm, and leave you in the dust. The thought kept you up, driving you slowly insane each night. And knowing that you looked tried, that Bucky thought you looked sickly, drove another pang of anxiety into your chest.
“I just haven’t been sleeping well lately,” you told him. “It’s been- work has been really crazy.”
It was such an easy lie. You reached for it two days prior when Bucky asked why you’d bitten all the skin off your bottom lip. And it came in handy three days before that, when he asked why your nails were bitten down to the quick, why your cuticles were raw and bloodied.
“Oh, that’s right. Of course. I’m sorry, sweetheart.” He removed his hand from your cheek and placed it instead on your forearm. “Do you know when things will go back to normal?”
You simply shook your head.
And that was the last night you ate dinner together.
The following night, you found yourself back in the kitchen, cooking dinner alone once again. You’d never realized just how much you hated cooking until you had to do it by yourself. With Bucky around, you looked forward to making dinner every night. Looked forward to dancing in the kitchen and watching him chop vegetables with his expert knife skills. But without him, it became your most dreaded chore.
You glanced longingly at the clock and found a renewed sense of hope. It was nearly eight, which meant Bucky would be barreling through the front door and wrapping you in his arms in no time. You poured two glasses of wine and placed them on the table, allowing yourself a smile. He would be home soon.
At least, that’s what you thought.
Around nine-forty, your phone buzzed. Bucky’s name appeared in block letters across your screen. And before you could even say hello, he was speaking.
“Baby, hey. I don’t- I’m so sorry. I’m leaving right now, okay? I promise. I’m on my way.”
It took everything in you to keep your disappointment from seeping into your words. This wasn’t his fault- you knew it wasn’t. And it wasn’t fair of you to be upset with him. To make him feel worse. But you missed him. Desperately.
Never before had any of Bucky’s meetings lasted this long or run this late. You knew in your gut there was something going on. Something secretive and sinister. Something that would rip you to shreds.
The manufactured casual tone you adopted didn’t sound convincing to you, but you hoped he’d buy it. “It’s- don’t worry about it, Buck. Okay? It’s fine.”
“No, it’s not, doll. I didn’t- I was gonna be home normal time. But I couldn’t step away from this briefing.” His words came out in a flurry, “I’m so sorry, I should have at least called. This is- it’s not okay. I feel awful.”
“Don’t feel awful, baby. It happens.” You wondered if this ‘briefing’ included everyone from the team. Or if Bucky and Tara had been the only ones in attendance. “Um, dinner is in the fridge, okay? I made-”
“Please tell me you ate without me,” he nearly begged.
“Oh, um. Yeah. Yes. I did- I ate already.”
With crossed fingers, you hoped Bucky would believe your lie.
With Bucky MIA, you hadn’t even considered eating. Nothing sounded remotely appetizing. In fact, your stomach had tied itself into a thousand intricate, painful knots. The nausea crept in soon after, and the idea of eating dinner flew entirely out the window.
But it was easier to lie, to tell him you’d eaten. It would save him a little guilt. And if you could convince him that you’d already had your share, he wouldn’t ask about your lack of appetite.
But you adopted your best happy-go-lucky tone and pretended that you weren’t losing your mind.
“Sorry, Buck, I wasn’t planning on eating without you, but it got pretty late and-”
“No, no. I’m glad you ate. I’m sure you were starving,” he said. “I’ll be home soon, okay? I can’t wait to see you.”
He rushed through the front door twenty minutes later, apologies falling from his lips one after another. He scooped you into his arms and dotted kisses all over your face between “I’m sorrys”. And you assured him that all was well. But you had to wonder if his affections were genuine. If his apologies applied only to his late arrival, or if he’d committed some other transgression he’d yet to confess.
But you sat at the table with him anyway as he reheated the dinner you’d made by yourself. You listened to him tell you all about Tara’s brilliant work in the briefing. And you wondered how much longer you’d get to keep him.
Dinner became non-existent for you, as did most other meals. You did your best to stomach small, infrequent snacks here and there. But the anxiety of Bucky’s possible infidelity made it almost impossible to keep food down.
You still cooked, though. Regardless of the intense nausea, the biting stomach pains, you still managed to put together decent meals for him. You’d tuck the food neatly into Tupperware and stack it in the fridge, knowing damn well he’d never be home in time to eat it warm.
It was as if, after his first excessively late arrival, a seal had been broken. Never again did he return home at a reasonable time. He came through the door ever-later as the days dragged on. Nine-fifty. Ten-thirteen. Ten-thirty-five. Eleven. You did your best to stay awake, at least. To be there to greet him when he got home. But as his homecomings grew later and later, you found yourself dozing off before he’d even texted to let you know he was on his way home.
Some nights, he didn’t come home at all. You’d wake in the morning to find his side of the bed untouched. His boots missing from the front hall. On those mornings, it became obvious just how disconnected you were. On those mornings, you realized that the two of you were just ships passing in the nights. On those mornings, you wretched in the shower before work.
Every obvious warning sign was there. Every red flag. Every neon fucking sign pointed to the fact that Bucky was having an affair. And it threatened to eat you alive.
You’d never been so miserable. So heartbroken. Pain radiated through your chest and pulsed through your veins. Every cell in your body throbbed with agony. You wanted someone to put you out of your misery. To wipe you from the face of the earth and save you from Bucky’s confession and eventual departure. But no such mercy came.
Part of you wished you’d spoken up. Wished that you’d told Bucky not to take the job.
If you’d just voiced your concerns, maybe he never would’ve strayed. Maybe things would still be normal. And god, did you miss normalcy. You missed the patterns. The routines. The “boring” domestic life you once shared with Bucky. You missed talking to him. Spending time with him. Being close with him. The distance between you seemed to grow every single day. And you feared you’d never bridge that gap.
But you didn’t have to.
Bucky returned home one Sunday night in unusually high spirits. He found you in the bathroom, getting ready for bed, and lifted you into his strong arms.
“Baby…” He buried his face in your neck and smiled against your skin. “I’m so excited for next weekend.”
You were so lost in his touch that the words didn’t register for a quite a while. It had been so long since he was this affectionate, this close. Tears threatened to pool in the corner of your eyes as you relished in the sensation of his arms knitted around your back. His breath on your skin. And for a moment, you allowed yourself to consider the possibility that things might be okay.
Suddenly, you realized what he’d said.
“Next weekend?” You pulled away just a hair, allowing yourself a glimpse at his face. “What’s next weekend?”
“’What’s next weekend?’” He let an exaggerated, over-dramatic gasp fill his lungs, “I can’t believe you forgot! We’re going to the cabin, sweetheart! Next weekend, remember? It’s the weekend of the nineteenth! Keep up, doll.” He shot you a wink.
The cabin?
Sure, the two of you had planned to escape upstate to your aunt’s cozy little cabin. But that was agreed upon months ago. Long before this job. Long before Tara. You’d assumed that with Bucky’s long hours and lack of weekends, that that plan was defunct. But apparently, you were wrong.
“Wait, we’re still going?” you asked, incredulous.
“Of course,” Bucky said. “I told them I can’t work next weekend, no ifs, ands, or buts.” He snaked his hands from your spine to your sides and allowed them to slowly inch up your body. When they finally cupped your face, he pressed his lips to yours in a long, deep kiss full of longing. “I’m long overdue for some interrupted him with my best girl.”
Your heart fluttered.
“I know I’ve been really busy. And tired. And distracted. And- I’ve been a fucking absentee boyfriend,” he sighed. The self-hatred in his voice was almost palpable. “I didn’t think this job would be so… intense. I’ve barely been home. And I know this whole thing has gotta be tough on you.”
Tears sprang forth once again. You did your best to blink them away, but they persisted, and a few rolled down your cheeks against your will.
You sighed, “I just miss you.” The words had a fractured quality about them.
“Oh, sweetheart…” The heartbreak in his voice forced more tears to your surface. He pulled you into his body, wrapping you in the tightest hug he could safely manage. “I miss you too. So much. I promise nexxt weekend is going to be just for us. And when I’m done with this job, we’ll go away together for a long time, okay? No phones,” he pressed a kiss to the top of your head. “No distractions,” he left a second kiss to your nose. “Just you and me,” he leaned down and dropped a third and final kiss against your lips.
It was a simple promise, nothing extravagant. But it was exactly what you’d been dying to hear. You’d been so convinced that Bucky would end things any day now, so sure that your time with him would soon be over. But hearing him make promises for your shared future helped ease the agony you’d been shouldering. And just like that, the storm clouds in your soul parted, revealing your first taste of sunshine in weeks.
Bucky was still yours. And he still wanted you to be his.
In the days leading up to your weekend away, you found yourself floating through life. Everything seemed easier, brighter, warmer. The constant nausea let up and the anxiety quieted. You ate a real meal for the first time in an indeterminable number of weeks. Sure, Bucky was still glued to his phone at home and staying late at the office. But you could see a light at the end of the tunnel.
After the absolute misery you’d experienced, hope felt so foreign. So other. But you welcomed it with open arms.
All you had to do was survive until Friday. Bucky talked his team into granting him an early departure from the office, allowing the two of you to escape the city by noon. You’d drive upstate with the windows down, blaring some top 40’s hits from decades past. And together, you’d settle in for some much-needed reconnection.
On Thursday night, Bucky returned home around ten. And regardless of his long day, he was more exultant than ever. He practically vibrated with excitement as he shoveled his dinner into his mouth and rushed to the bedroom to finish packing. It was the most energetic you’d seen him in quite some time.
“Okay, I double and triple checked my bag,” he told you. “I’m ready.”
“I’ve been packed since Tuesday,” you bragged. “And I got us…” you rifled through your duffle and unearthed a knotted grocery bag. “S’mores supplies.”
Bucky was floored. “You fucking think of everything!”
When the two of you settled in for bed that night, it almost felt like the good old days. Like the days before your doubts and suspicions and private agony. Before Bucky’s obsession with his phone. Before his late nights and his stories about Tara.
You slept like a rock that night, taking comfort in the fact the next day, you’d have Bucky all to yourself for an entire weekend.
He woke early the next morning, as he always did, and did his best not to disturb you. But you were too excited to sleep any longer. As he slowly and carefully rose from the bed, your eyes flew open.
“Happy cabin day,” you whispered into the dark.
Bucky’s startled gasp sent you into a fit of laughter.
“You scared the hell out of- were you just laying there in the dark waiting for me to wake up?”
“Yeah, kinda.”
“Well… happy cabin day, you creep,” he laughed, still catching his breath. “Leaving at noon sharp?”
“Noon sharp,” you said back.
He dressed for his half day of work and allowed you to accompany him to the front door.
“I’ll be back in a few hours,” he left a kiss against your forehead, “And we’re out the door right at twelve.”
“Right at twelve,” you nodded. “See you soon, Buck.”
But you didn’t.
Eleven rolled around without any sign of Bucky. Eleven-thirty and eleven-forty passed. And as the clock closed in on twelve, you wondered why you’d gotten your hopes up. Why you allowed yourself to get invested in this trip. Why you believed that things would actually work out.
But still, you held out hope. You sat perched on the arm of the couch. Waiting. Your duffel and Bucky’s sat at your feet. Waiting.
Your texts went unanswered. Your calls went straight to voicemail.
‘Maybe he’s just running a bit late,’ you thought. ‘Maybe he’ll be home by twelve-thirty. Or one.’
But he wasn’t.
Nor was he home by two. Or three.
The familiar nausea crept back in. The anxiety returned.
At four, you tossed your packed duffel into your closet and stripped out of your roadtrip clothes. You donned a pair of sweatpants and an old t-shirt and sank into the couch under the weight of your disappointment. All the hope, all the optimism you’d felt in this last week evaporated. And in their place settled a pointed shame.
You couldn’t believe you’d been so stupid, so naïve. You should’ve known better. Should’ve managed your expectations. This was your own fault, really. If you’d been smart enough to read between the lines, you wouldn’t be so heartbroken.
Around five, your stomach gave a hollow, gurgling growl. You’d been too excited to eat that morning as you rushed around completing last minute tasks before leaving for your weekend away. And after the realization that Bucky had gone back on his word, you were too sullen to even think about food, made nauseous by your anxiety.
But the nausea subsided for a moment, leaving an unbridled hunger in its wake. For a long moment, you considered putting together a simple dinner. There were groceries in the fridge, and you certainly had plenty of time to cook and eat, seeing as Bucky sabotaged your plans. But you didn’t have it in you.
Every night that you cooked dinner alone required a herculean effort. You had to push yourself, had to give yourself a rallying speech. And every night, it worked. Every night, you somehow found it in you to drag yourself to the kitchen and assemble a decent meal- albeit, a meal you wouldn’t eat. But with your hopes for a romantic weekend away dashed, the pep-talk didn’t work. Encouragement didn’t work. Nothing on the planet could force you to make even the simplest dinner. The kitchen seemed too far; you couldn’t fathom walking all the way to the cupboard for a snack.
But your bedroom? That was close by. That was doable.
With a pitiful groan, you heaved yourself up off the couch and lugged your body into the next room. You fetched your duffle out of the closet and fished your hand around inside until you unearthed the bag of s’mores supplies. With your bounty tucked under your arm, you made the journey back into the living room and settled onto the couch once again.
A few marshmallows and a graham cracker or two would have to suffice; it was all you could manage.
At six, your phone rang. Without even looking at the screen, you knew it was Bucky. Knew he’d be guilty and repentant and upset. Knew he’d promise to make it up to you. Knew he had a perfectly good reason for blowing off your trip.
The petty part of you wondered if he’d simply had trouble tearing himself from Tara’s side.
On the final ring, you answered his call.
And you were right, he was guilty. And repentant. And upset.
“Baby, I’m- you have no idea how sorry I am. I wanted to call sooner, we were just- I was so busy. We’re working on a new lead and-” he huffed, “It’s not an excuse, I know it’s not an excuse. I made you a promise and I’m so sorry I let you down again.”
A few tears welled in your eyes, your nose burned.
“It’s fine,” you said. “Happens.”
“I’m on my way home right now, I’ll be there as quickly as I can and as soon as I get there, we’ll leave for the cabin. We can-”
“We’re gonna hit too much traffic,” you told him, your voice flat. “That was one of the reasons we decided to leave at noon. We didn’t want to get stuck, remember?”
“Right. Well…” He went quiet for a moment as he searched for the right thing to say- for anything to say. “T wanted me to extend her apologies.”
‘T’? He was giving her nicknames now?
“She didn’t mean to keep me so long,” he said.
Your pitiful dinner churned in your stomach, fighting desperately to crawl back up your esophagus.
Tara. Kept him. It seemed to you that Bucky was somehow reading your mind and acting on your greatest fears.
“Hey, have you eaten yet?” He asked, filling the silence, “I can pick up something for dinner, anything you want.”
The marshmallows and graham crackers looked at you with pity.
“That’s okay, I already- I’m not hungry,” you sighed. You didn’t mean to sound so dejected, but you didn’t have the energy to hide it. “I’ll just see you when you get home.”
You hung up and let your phone slide in between the couch cushions. Never before had you felt so much like an island.
Bucky tore through the door twenty minutes later, his face shiny with sweat. You knew he’d desperately rushed home, hoping it would somehow fix the situation or at least mitigate some of your disappointment. It didn’t.
“Sweetheart…” he flew to the couch and sat by your side, “I am so, so sorry. I- I didn’t mean to be late.”
He eyed you for a moment, waiting for you to speak. But you didn’t. You remained still, leaning back against the couch cushions. There were no tears, no rageful words. You were quiet. Resigned.
He averted his gaze, too guilty to even look at you.
“I didn’t want to stay,” he swore. “But T needed me. She practically begged me.”
T needed him. Not the team. Tara.
It should’ve upset you, but it didn’t. You were past the point of being upset.
“Six hours late is…” You shook your head. “How does that even happen?”
Bucky ran a hand down the side of his face, “I don’t know. I’m the authority on this stuff and Tara said it was really important, so I- it doesn’t matter. I told her I needed to leave at noon, and I didn’t. I fucked up, not her.”
You nodded. You didn’t want to fight with him. And even if you did, you were too tired.
“I hope you know I’m not actively trying to make you miserable. I don’t want to be gone all the time.” He ran a hand through his hair, “I hate this. I hate that we never get to do anything together, and I hate that I can never spend any real time with you, and I hate that you look so…” He fell silent for a long moment as he drank you in.
His close observance made you want to shrink away. You knew he was taking inventory of your hollow, heartbroken stare. Your tired eyes. These days, you barely recognized yourself in the mirror. The face looking back at you wasn’t yours- it couldn’t be. It was too empty. Too deflated. More like a fragile husk than a person.
“I… I don’t remember the last time I saw you really smile,” the realization swept over him as he spoke. “Or… heard you laugh,” a deep crease formed between his brows. “I miss it. I miss you.”
You nodded, feeling suddenly guilty. The cynical, sour part of your brain had gotten to you, convincing you that Bucky was relishing in your destruction. That he was taking joy in draining you, gutting you.
But as you watched the tears gather slowly in his eyes, you realized just how wrong you’d been.
“I didn’t think it would be like this,” he swore. “I knew I’d be busy, but I…” He shook his head, “I didn’t know I’d be leaving you alone all the time. And breaking promises. And it’s-” With the back of his left hand, he all too aggressively swiped a rogue tear from his cheek; you were certain the sharp bite of the metal stung as it dug into his skin. “Hurting you like this is- it’s my biggest regret. And that includes everything I did for Hydra. I promised you we’d always be on the same team, and I’m…”
He pulled his phone out of his pocket; your chest tightened. Was he really pausing to check a text from Tara? Now?
“I’m calling the Tara,” he said, “I’m quitting.”
You unearthed yourself from the couch cushions, yanked upright by Bucky’s words. “What?”
“I can’t do it anymore. If I keep working on this, I’m gonna lose you,” he said, his voice wavering, desperate. “And I can’t risk that.”
Suddenly, a distinct and pointed feeling of guilt engulfed you. Here Bucky was, prepared to abandon his efforts to topple Hydra- for you. He was willing to allow that hideous, evil organization to rise again- for you. He was ready to default on the promise he made to himself- for you.
How could you have doubted him? How could you have been so suspicious? He’d done nothing wrong, aside from coming home late. But that wasn’t an indictment of his character or an accurate depiction of who he was as a partner. He was kind. He was trustworthy. He was loving.
His fingers flew over his screen, dialing Tara’s number; you didn’t love that he had it memorized. But before he could finish, you rested a hand atop his, stopping him.
He stared at you, “What are you-”
“I can’t let you quit.”
“But-”
“If you don’t see this through, you’ll regret it. It’ll eat away at you for the rest of your life.”
He tried to protest, to prove you wrong, but you silenced him.
“I know you, Buck. I know how you feel about Hydra. And even though I’m… yeah, I’m miserable right now, but it’s fine. It’s short-term. I’ll survive.” You outstretched your free hand and settled it on his forearm. “You need to do this for you. If you quit, you’ll hate yourself. And if, heaven forbid, Hydra makes some big resurgence, you’ll always blame yourself. You’ll always wonder if you could’ve stopped it, here and now.”
He considered your words for a long, quiet moment; you watched a war rage beneath his surface. You knew you were right. Knew that you’d read his mind. Knew that if he sat idly by and allowed Hydra to claw its way back to power, it would kill him. People would get hurt; people would die. And it would be his fault, at least partially. But he couldn’t help the desperate longing in his gaze, the fraught ache as he stared at you.
You could practically see him being torn in two by the nearly impossible choice.
“You’re…” he gave a small shake of his head, “You’re right. But this whole situation is- it’s eating you alive. You just said that you’re miserable. I can’t-” He looked down at his phone once again, “I can’t let you to be miserable. I can’t do that to you.”
You shrugged, hoping to assuage some of his guilt. “So, it’s not ideal.” The laughed you tacked onto the end didn’t convince him; it didn’t even convince you.
A long silence filled the room. A deep frown settled Bucky’s into Bucky’s mouth as he hemmed and hawed over his options. You knew he’d choose to stay on. Hoped he’d quit. Feared he’d tell you he was leaving you for Tara.
Finally, he spoke.
“I can’t… I can’t walk away from the job,” he sighed, “It goes against everything in me.”
You gave him a polite nod; his decision wasn’t a surprise.
“But that doesn’t mean that I’m okay with- with the way that things have been going for us,” he said. “I’ve been so preoccupied that I haven’t really been- what does my therapist call it?” He thought it over for a moment. “I haven’t been ‘emotionally present’. I haven’t been physically present much, either.”
You shrugged, “You’ve been under a lot of stress. I understand-”
“Yeah, but you’ve been in this by yourself,” he huffed, angry at himself. “And it’s not fair. I turned this into something one-sided.”
Alarm bells blared in your head at the word “one-sided”. What the hell did he mean by that? Was this him telling you that your feelings were no longer requited? Was he apologizing for hurting you, only so he could tell you he was leaving you?
“I’m gonna tell Tara I have to scale back my hours, or something.”
The alarms quieted a few decibels.
“If there’s anything I can do to make this whole thing easier on you, all you have to do is tell me. I’ll do it. Whatever it is.” He bit down on the inside of his cheek, “Cause I can’t keep doing this to you. I can’t keep apologizing and hoping that it’ll fix all the late nights and broken promises.” He shrugged, “But even though I know it won’t fix anything… I’m sorry. I mean it.”
Another long stretch of quiet occurred as you looked him over. His shoulders were hunched in defeat, devastation. His jaw was tense, his brow furrowed. He held one of your hands in his warm palm, and rested his metallic hand on top, as though cradling something delicate. Something precious. He looked genuinely miserable. Genuinely despondent. And your heart ached for him.
He was a good person. He took this job to protect the world, to protect you. Who were you to crucify him for coming home late a few times? Who were you to be suspicious of his intentions when all he wanted was to mend things with you? It wasn’t fair to accuse him of infidelity. To assume that he was stepping out on you behind your back. Your insecurity, you decided, was not his fault nor his problem.
And so, you vowed to stop jumping to conclusions. To stop assuming the worst of him. To stop writing fiction about what was going on between Bucky and ‘T’.
However, you did want to ask him one question.
“I really appreciate the apology- the apologies,” you corrected yourself. “And I know you’re not doing anything malicious. You’re just trying to do your best.”
He nodded.
“You’re not in an easy position here. I want a lot from you; your job wants a lot from you. You’re being stretched really thin right now. And I know you’re stressed out about how this is affecting me.”
Bucky nodded again, more emphatically this time.
“There is- there’s one thing you could do that might make things easier on me,” you told him.
Bucky scooted a bit closer, “anything.”
“And I need you to be one hundred percent honest with me.”
“Cross my heart.”
You hesitated, second-guessing your question. But if you were to stay sane for the remainder of this job, you needed a straight answer. There wasn’t a mature, adult way to ask. Each way you phrased it sounded pettier and more childish than the last.
And so, you simply dropped the question in his lap.
“Is there anything going on between you and Tara? Romantically or-” you winced, “Sexually?”
He stared at you, his eyes wide, his mouth slightly agape.
Was he simply surprised to hear such a preposterous question? Or was he shocked that you figured out about his torrid affair?
“What?” he finally said. “Between Tara and- no!” He shook his head, an incredulous look on his face. “I would never do that.”
The weight that had been sitting on your chest ever since Tara’s first phone call suddenly felt lighter. It didn’t vanish completely, but it lessened. You’d been aching to hear those words come out of his mouth. And now that they finally had.
“I’m not that kind of guy, sweetheart. I don’t do that sort of thing,” he swore. “Did you think that I was-”
You forced a laugh and shrugged. “No, no. Of course not. I didn’t actually think you’d-” the word got stuck in your throat. You had to force it out, “-cheat on me,” you lied. “But with the long hours and the late nights and all the texts and phone calls you guys share…”
“It is not like that, I promise,” he said, denying the accusation with his entire being. “Tara is great, and yeah, we spend a lot of time together. But I love you. You are the only person for me.”
He went on. And on. And on. For a solid two minutes, at least. He vowed that he wasn’t sleeping with Tara, swearing on every holy book in existence that he didn’t have feelings for her. He promised that he was in love with you, that he wanted you, that you were the love of his life. Only you.
And it should’ve made you feel better. But as Bucky continued his unrelenting, gushing promises about his love for you, he unknowingly planted more seeds of doubt. He strong denouncements and fierce denial of any romantic or sexual wrongdoing brought one phrase to mind:
“Thou dost protest too much.”
You knew then, without a doubt, that you were losing your mind.
But you couldn’t stop the vicious cycle; the ghosts of relationships past refused to allow it. And so, over the course of the next few minutes, you found yourself endlessly oscillating between ‘he’s laying it on thick to hide the fact that he’s cheating and ‘he loves me so much, it’s so awful of me to think he’s hiding something.’
You thanked the universe that mind reading was not amongst Bucky’s enhanced abilities. If he’d been able to hear all of your thoughts, if he knew how quickly your pendulum swung from one end of the spectrum to the next, he’d think you were crazy.
“All this to say,” he paused, and locked eyes with you in a moment of deep, genuine connection. “I love you. And only you. I don’t want anyone else.”
And though a sliver of suspicion remained, you accepted his words at face value.
“I love you too, Buck.”
He pulled you in for slow, long kiss. The two of you melted together, desperately affixing your bodies together in an attempt to make up for lost time.
“What do you think?” Bucky said when the two of you finally parted, “You still want to go up to the cabin tomorrow?”
You had no reason not to. You gave Bucky the affirmative and a wide smile stretched across his face. The previous night’s excitement returned and together, you made a plan for the following morning.
But when the following morning came, you woke to an empty bed. Again.
When your alarm went off at seven, you bolted upright. Today was the day that things between you and Bucky were finally going to get back on track. But when you turned to his side of the bed, he was nowhere to be found. His pillow was cold.
“Buck?” you called, your voice bouncing off the walls of the deserted apartment. “Are you here?”
No answer.
“Of fucking course.”
With a deeply disappointed sigh, you flopped back down and decided to sleep until noon. How could he do this to you- again? How could he ditch you? How could he promise to be more present, only to turn around and disappear? A tornado of anger swirled inside your chest, interrupted only by tidal waves of hurt. Of grief.
But just as the first tear slid its way down your cheek, the front door opened.
Cautious, quiet footsteps crept through the living room, down the short hallway, and into the bedroom. Bucky’s head slowly peeked around the corner. And once he realized you were awake, he rushed to your bedside with his hands concealed behind his back.
“Good morning, sweet- hey, are you okay?” Concern eclipsed his smile as he eyed the rogue tears clinging to your lashes. “Are you crying?”
You wiped your eyes with your t-shirt and gave a shake of your head, “No, I’m- I just had a really strange dream. It was a sad one.”
Bucky frowned, “I’m sorry, baby. Do you think that a bacon, egg, cheese, and hashbrown breakfast sandwich on an onion bagel would help?”
Your eyes widened, “You went to The Hot Bagel?”
Bucky nodded. From behind his back, he revealed the brown paper bag printed with your favorite bagel shop’s logo.
“Oh my god, this is- how long was the line?” In one swift motion you stole the bag from Bucky’s grasp and tore into it, revealing a miracle wrapped in tinfoil.
“It wasn’t long at all. There were only two people in front of me,” Bucky said, his smile proud.
“Buck…” you narrowed your eyes at him.
His face dropped. He feared that he’d ordered incorrectly. That he’d taken the wrong bag from the counter. “What?”
“If there were only two people in front of you, what time did you get there?”
“Doesn’t matter,” he gave a small shrug.
“But it’s one of the busiest shops in the city and-”
“And I know it’s your favorite. So, I went.” He said it so matter of factly, as though it were a no brainer. “I would’ve been back a little earlier, but the onion bagels weren’t quite ready when I got there. I almost got you an everything instead, but…”
Your expression grew incredulous. He let out a belly laugh.
“But I knew you’d give me that exact look. So, I waited a little longer.”
Together, the two of you inhaled what you deemed the best breakfast sandwich in New York. And once you’d tucked the s’mores supplies back into your bag and gotten ready for the drive, Bucky led you by the hand down to the car.
The drive was exactly what you’d imagined. Windows down. Clear skies. Invigorating music. Bucky danced with you to today’s hits. Eighties ballads. Forties crooners. He provided backup vocals and took the occasional solo. This was how it was supposed to be. This was what your relationship had always been: warm, safe, comfortable.
There was no room here for doubt or suspicion or distrust.
As the cabin rolled into view, you made a conscious decision to remove any inkling of wariness from your mind. Bucky was yours. And you were his. And that was that.
Like a perfect gentleman, he unloaded the car and carried the bags up the porch steps. The cabin sat tucked in amongst a swath of trees that shielded it from the main road. Its interior was decorated with thought, with care, with love. It welcomed you in and instantly, you felt right at home. Rounding out the space was a small yard, complete with a hammock and fire pit.
It seemed that the weekend might be saved after all, until you glanced into Bucky’s bag.
As he was unpacking his toiletries and getting his clothes sorted, the shiny silver corner of his laptop caught your eye. It was tucked under a pair of sweatpants, but you knew in your bones that it was his computer. Upon further inspection, you discovered a hotspot hiding amongst his clothes, as well.
So much for the ‘uninterrupted weekend’ he’d sold you.
But instead of assuming the worst, instead of spiraling, you reasoned with yourself. He’d packed his bag prior to your heart to heart. Prior to your admission of being miserable. Prior to his promise to scale back his hours. It was perfectly logical to think that he’d simply forgotten to remove his computer and his hotspot from his bag. That he had no intention of using them this weekend. That he only packed them in case of an emergency.
And maybe- just maybe- he didn’t intend to work during your getaway.
But work he did, anyway.
Bucky found you lounging in the hammock, protected from the sun by the shadow of a large, old tree.
“Where have you been?” you asked, looking up from your book. “You said you were right behind me.”
He had said it would only take a few minutes for him to “send one last email” before he could “completely unplug.” But that was forty-five minutes ago.
“I know, I’m sorry. One email turned into a phone call, and that turned into a zoom,” he said, exasperated. “But I’m here now. Does that hammock have room enough for two?”
Some childish and petty part of you wanted to call him on his shit. It wanted to throw the words “uninterrupted weekend” back at him and watch as he ate them.
But he looked so tired. Everything about him screamed ‘rundown’. This was the longest you’d ever seen his stubble. His hair was longer, too- longer than he liked it. There was a defeated air about the slope of his shoulders. And every breath seemed more like a sigh. He didn’t get to go out for long runs in the park anymore; this was probably the most time he’d spent in the sun in weeks.
The loving, devoted, compassionate part of you won out against your immature instinct, and you allowed him to share your hammock. He climbed in with a warm smile stretched across his face and tucked his body into your side. It was the perfect way to spend an afternoon- save for his near-constant texting. But you figured that a preoccupied Bucky was better than no Bucky at all.
He never even cracked the book he brought along for the trip. He, instead, allowed it to rest at his side while he responded to Tara’s messages. Every once and a while, you caught a glimpse of his screen, and everything appeared to be on the up and up. There were no emojis. No flirtations. No double entendres. Just business.
And though you wished he’d knock it off and be present with you, you let it to slide. He was just trying to make everyone happy. Trying to stretch himself thinner than thin. And he was clearly miserable, himself; you thought it best not to add insult to injury.
And the weekend was still lovely regardless. It was the most time you’d spent together since he started with Tara’s organization, and you swore you could feel yourself coming back to life. The two of you ate and danced and made s’mores and fell asleep under the stars. And even though it was a truncated version of the trip you’d hoped for, you wouldn’t have traded it for anything.
Things were looking up.
Another respite from Bucky’s hellish schedule came a few weeks after your cabin jaunt. Just as the sense of renewal granted by the getaway started to wear off, Bucky came home from work one Friday night with a nearly cartoonish grin on his face.
He bounded through the front door and threw himself at you, sweeping you into his arms. It was unexpected, almost strange; he never came home with his energy intact like this. But you welcomed it; you missed seeing him this way.
“I have good news,” he said. “Do you wanna guess what it is?”
“Hmm…” you thought it over for a moment, “Are you-”
He didn’t allow you to properly formulate a guess; he was far too excited.
“I’ll give you a hint: guess who has the whole weekend off?” he asked, spinning you around as though on a dance floor.
Your jaw dropped. “Really?”
“Really.”
It was like music to your ears. Like your birthday and New Year’s Eve and Valentine’s Day rolled into one. You could’ve sworn that confetti fell from the ceiling. That fireworks exploded outside your window. It wasn’t just good news. It was great news. The best news you’d ever received.
“We’ve hit a wall with this lead we’re working on,” he told you. “There’s some information we need in order to move forward, but not even our access team has been able to get to it. It’s not in any of the systems they’ve looked through.”
You gave him a strange look, “What’s an access team?”
He rolled his eyes and laughed a little, “They’re hackers. But they told me to stop calling them ‘hackers’ cause apparently that sounds ‘cheesy’.”
You shrugged, “‘Hackers’ kinda does make it sound like you’re in a bad spy movie.”
“They hack! It’s the name that makes the most sense!” he laughed. “Anyway, they think it’s probably being stored on a drive somewhere off-network, that way no one can hac- I mean, access it. And our entire strategy hinges on that information. So, there’s not much we can do right now.”
It struck you that maybe you were supposed to be sensitive to this plight. To the frustrations of his job. Maybe deep down, he was disappointed that Hydra’s fall would have to be delayed. But he didn’t seem all that bummed about it. If anything, he seemed unburdened.
“They called things off for the weekend so everyone can recharge,” he told you. “I think they’re hoping that a free weekend will help people come back with fresh eyes and clear minds.”
“Yeah, it’s almost like allowing your employees to rest helps them be better problem solvers,” you quipped.
“Who could’ve seen that coming?” he laughed. The sound hit you deep in your chest; you realized just how much you missed that laugh. It vibrated against his lips as he pressed them to yours.
The possibilities of how the two of you might spend this rare, free weekend- farmer’s markets, museums, drinking and dancing- evaporated from your mind as he kissed you. And suddenly, they were replaced by hungrier, more salacious options.
But for the time being, you quieted them. This was Bucky’s weekend, his free time.
He never had the time to do what he wanted to do anymore. Ever since he started this job, his time no longer belonged to him. This job owned every day, every minute; he was lucky enough to get a few hours on loan so he could sleep.
“Well, whatever you wanna do this weekend, I’m in,” you told him when you finally parted. “You get to pick since you never have free time anymore.”
He fell silent for a long moment, thinking.
“Anything you want!” you promised him. “We can go on a bike ride or roam around in that fancy bookstore in SoHo or-”
“If it’s alright, I’d rather not.”
“You’d rather not what, Buck?”
He sighed, “Would you mind if we didn’t do… anything? I don’t want you to be bored all weekend, but I just…”
He let out a long sigh and looked around the room. As his gaze swept through the space, you watched him take in the subtle changes here and there: a new throw pillow on the couch, a different set of coasters on the coffee table, a new lamp to replace the one he’d accidentally broken.
This was the apartment you’d hunted for together. The apartment he’d called his “safest place”. His “favorite place”. And yet, he’d barely spent any time within its walls in recent days. He was more like a guest here. A stranger. A foreign transplant.
His eyes filled with the same desperate longing you’d seen before the cabin trip. “I just want to be home, you know? But if you want to go and-”
“I’m not going anywhere,” you told him. “If you want to stay home all weekend, we’ll stay home.”
He eyed you warily, “Are you sure?”
“I’m sure,” you promised. “I’ll never say no to weekend at home with you.”
A satisfied smile spread across his face.
You weren’t quite sure if he was excited to spend the weekend at home with you, or if he was simply thrilled to lounge on the couch for a few days. Either way, you were happy to have him all to yourself. Happy to keep him out of the clutches of others for a few days.
“Maybe we could get some snacks and have a movie marathon? There are a ton of classics I’ve never seen,” he said. “Jaws, Jurassic Park, Alien. What do you think?”
You quirked a brow at him, “I think it’s criminal that you’ve never seen Jurassic Park.”
“I know,” he groaned. “That’s why I’m trying to rectify it! What do you think?”
You, of course, agreed to his proposal. The two of you made a list of movies and a list of snacks, and you couldn’t resist the excitement building in your chest. This weekend was going to be the mulligan. The do-over. After your cabin weekend was cut short, after it was tarnished by Bucky’s constant correspondence with Tara, the two of you needed a second chance at an uninterrupted weekend. And the opportunity had finally arrived.
The next day, Bucky settled in next to you on the couch. He draped a blanket over your lap, pulled you securely into his side, and pressed play on Jaws. Jurassic Park followed shortly after, and he raved about it as the two of you made and ate lunch. A slew of movies spanning multiple genres left Bucky in awe. It was a strange experience, watching Alien after West Side Story, but you didn’t care. Bucky was home, and that’s all that mattered.
And much to your surprise, he hadn’t mentioned Tara once. Hadn’t texted her. Hadn’t paused the movie to read one of her emails. And for the first time in a long time, things inside your apartment felt less crowded.
But a nagging thought needled at you. What if he was simply being more covert about corresponding with Tara now? What if he had gotten better at covering things up?
No. You wouldn’t allow yourself to think that way anymore.
With a deep breath, you nestled yourself deeper into Bucky’s embrace and vowed to simply enjoy the weekend. You didn’t know when- or if- you’d get another one like this any time soon. And you damn sure weren’t going to waste it by concocting wild speculations.
Once the sun finally set behind the skyscrapers, Bucky pressed play on your last movie of the night: When Harry Met Sally. But just as Harry and Sally bumped into each other in a bookstore, there was a knock at your front door.
Bucky looked at you. You looked at him.
“Were you expecting someone?” he asked.
You shook your head.
“Hmm,” Bucky rose from the couch, “Maybe it’s a neighbor.”
He strode toward the front door and pressed his face against its surface, peering through the peephole. You could’ve sworn you heard a quiet gasp fill his lungs.
“Who is it, Buck?”
He didn’t answer. He removed the chain on the door with a slow intensity. Inched the deadbolt open at a glacial pace. His movements were painstaking, deliberate. Almost sluggish. Whoever it was, Bucky didn’t seem too pleased to see them.
When he finally turned the knob, he pulled the door open only a few inches. A sliver, really. He leaned his head out into the hall and spoke quietly with the mystery visitor.
It was odd, his behavior. He had no reason to be secretive or cagey when speaking to a neighbor. He had no reason to hide his conversation from you. To shield you from this surprise guest.
As quietly as you could, you rose from the couch a crept closer to the door, hoping to catch a word or two.
“Yeah, and I thought I told you never to come to my apartment,” Bucky said, his words hurried.
Something about it made your stomach turn. Why would he feel the need to give someone such a specific stipulation, unless he had something to hide?
And then a woman’s voice filled the air.
Not any woman’s voice.
Tara’s.
“I know, but I need you, Buck.”
A flash of heat scorched your insides. And before you knew what was happening, you’d wrenched the door all the way open.
Tara stood before you in a floor length maroon gown dripping with intricate beading. She towered over you, her perfect body elongated by elegant heels. Her auburn hair was twisted and tucked into a fabulous updo. Diamonds dangled from her ears and encircled her slender neck. And deep red lipstick accentuated her perfect pout.
You thought it possible that she’d stepped out of a magazine or off of a runway.
And suddenly, you wondered what the fuck Bucky was doing with you. What he saw in you. How he could be with you when she existed.
A violent pain tore through your abdomen, nearly stealing your breath. It seemed that something sharp and jagged was ripping through your insides, shredding your guts into confetti. But you forced yourself to remain composed. To appear unbothered.
Bucky shifted his gaze to you and then back to Tara. He looked nervous, as though you’d caught him red-handed.
“Sweetheart, this is Tara,” he gestured to the devastatingly beautiful supermodel standing in the hall. “Tara, this is-”
“It’s nice to meet you,” she said in a rush, her attention barely drifting from Bucky’s face. “But we really don’t have time for pleasantries right now, Buck. This is an emergency.”
“I don’t think I can tonight,” Bucky told her. “I have plans, we’re watching-”
“I know how to get the drive, I know where it is.” Tara shrugged, “Okay, I’m pretty sure I know where it is.”
Bucky didn’t answer, he simply quirked a brow at her, allowing her to continue.
“There’s a huge gala tonight at Thomas Weller’s house,” she said.
Bucky perked up.
“Weller’s house…” he said, thinking it over. “He lives in the-”
“The prohibition era mansion with the hidden room that acted as a speakeasy. Yeah,” Tara nodded, her eyes a bit wild. She seemed truly exhilarated by the circumstances. “He’s the only one Hydra would trust to keep the drive secure, and tonight’s the only chance for us to find it,” she said. “He has to be hiding it in that secret room- I feel it.”
“But we can’t be sure…”
“Barnes, I’m sure.”
Bucky thought on it for a long, quiet moment. “Are you willing to stake Magdalini’s on it?”
Tara’s face lit up as her head fell back in a laugh. A loose auburn curl bounced at the nape of her neck. Her perfectly polished nails brushed against her chest as she caught her breath. You were certain she was the princess from every fairytale you’d read as a child.
“Yes!” she finally said when she composed herself. “I am willing to bet you a doz- TWO dozen cookies from Magdalini’s.”
Bucky took this very seriously. A knowing look eclipsed his face, and he granted Tara an understanding nod. You, on the other hand, were left in the cold. You weren’t sure what had just happened between them, but they knew something you didn’t. They shared something you were not a part of. Whether these cookies were an inside joke or some kind of metric, you weren’t sure. But they were important.
You waited for an explanation, for one of them to afford you an invite to the joke. But no such offer came.
“Do you still have your tux from the SWORD anniversary party? The one where we knocked over the ice sculpture?” Tara asked.
A small smile flickered across Bucky’s face. He cut his glance toward you, dropped his smile, and nodded at Tara.
“Then get dressed,” she told him. “The party starts in twenty minutes and it’s basically across town.”
“Okay, yeah, just-” Bucky began to make a sweeping gesture of invitation but cut it short when his eyes met yours. “Um, I’ll be out in a minute,” he told her, before shutting the door and leaving her in the hall.
With the door shut, the two of you shared a long, loaded look.
“I’m sorry…” he finally said. “I know we were gonna watch movies and-”
“It’s fine, Bu-” you stopped yourself, not wanting to use the same nickname as Tara. “Babe.”
He sighed, “I keep disappointing you.”
You shrugged, “It is what it is. This is part of your job.”
You meant it. You knew he wasn’t doing this on purpose. Knew he wasn’t trying to hurt you. It wasn’t fair to blame him. It wasn’t even fair to blame Tara, though you wanted to. She, too, was just doing her job. Just trying to stop Hydra. And who were you to stop those efforts?
But you couldn’t help the frustration that ground your teeth together. The disappointment. The irritation. It all pooled together into a sinister, inky cocktail that coated your insides. It seemed that, at every turn, Bucky chose Tara. You knew it was childish to feel that way. Knew it was petty and stupid and immature. But you couldn’t stop it.
And Tara’s piercing beauty didn’t help. Her perfect cheekbones and flawless skin made you want to double over. Made you question if you were even the same species.
Bucky dressed in his tuxedo quietly, eyeing you every now and again. You sat on the edge of the bed, waiting to assist with his tie, if need be. Another heavy, endless silence wedged itself between the two of you. The kind of silence that precedes disaster.
“So, what’s the deal with Magda… Madgolee-”
“Magdalini’s?”
“Yeah.”
“It’s this bakery out in New Hampshire,” he told you. “Tara and I were in Concord doing recon for this job, and we kind of randomly stumbled upon the place.”
You waited for something more, but nothing came.
“But what do cookies have to do with you going to this party?” you asked.
“Well, when Tara and I were togeth- when we worked together,” he overcorrected. “If one of us had a feeling about something but no proof, we’d bet the other a dozen cookies from Magdalini’s.” He gave a quiet laugh, “Since it’s all the way in New Hampshire and always sells out before noon, it’s a pain in the ass to get those damn cookies. You have to trek out to Concord early in the morning and wait in a long line and it’s- it’s a whole thing.” He shrugged, “So her telling me that she’d bet two dozen of those cookies on this party tonight means she’s sure. Cause if she’s not, she’s gotta drag her ass all the way out there.”
Bucky smiled as he buttoned his shirt, clearly awash in the memories of that bakery. And the woman he shared it with. And suddenly, you hated those damn cookies.
You hated the inside jokes and shared memories Bucky had with Tara. Hated that he was leaving you. Again. To be with her. Again. Hated that you were so goddamn jealous.
“Just um… let me know if you need help with your tie,” you muttered before fleeing the scene.
You found solace in the quiet, empty living room, and leaned against the back of the couch. Over and over again, you forced yourself to take deep, calming breaths. This wasn’t Bucky’s fault, you told yourself. He had a job to do; and as unfortunate as it was, this was part of it. When the dust cleared, things would go back to normal. Tara would disappear once again and your relationship with Bucky would be returned to its former glory. That was the silver lining, the light at the end of the tunnel. Your heartrate slowed, your frustration evaporated, and you discovered a newfound hope.
Until there was another soft knock at the door.
Just as you turned to face the sound, the door opened just a sliver.
“Hi,” Tara leaned her head in, an apologetic smile on her beautiful face. “Do you mind if I wait inside? Your neighbors are staring,” she chuckled.
Of course, your neighbors were staring; a runway model was loitering in their hallway.
And though you didn’t want her in the space you shared with Bucky, what choice did you have?
You gestured for her to enter, “Sure.”
She stood just inside the door, her elegant ensemble completely out of place in your home. She tucked her designer clutch under her arm and gave your apartment a once over.
“It’s so cozy in here,” she said without a drop of condescension. “I love that painting. Where did you get it?” She gestured to the framed canvas hanging on the opposite wall.
“Oh that’s- I painted it,” you told her, suddenly sheepish.
Not only was she smart and beautiful and skilled- she was nice, too?
“You um, you look really nice,” you told her. “I like your dress.”
It was painfully awkward. You were certain Tara could feel the envy radiating from your every pore. But you had to make an effort. Had to make nice. She was Bucky’s coworker; and regardless of the punishing schedule she’d set for him, she hadn’t technically done anything wrong. That you knew of.
But the way she lit up when Bucky walked out in his tux made you wonder.
Maybe it was unfair, you thought, to condemn her for her reaction- anyone with sight would react the exact same way. Bucky was always attractive but seeing him all dressed up made your knees weak. The custom-fitted tux hugged him in all the right places and accentuated his physique. It took every ounce of your strength not to pounce on him right then and there.
“Is this okay?” he asked, looking down at his ensemble. “I had a little trouble with the tie.”
“I can help with-” “Oh, here, let me-”
Both you and Tara took a step in his direction, arms outstretched, prepared to assist him. Simultaneously, you snapped your head in the other’s direction and locked eyes. Tara flashed you a smile that you categorized as ‘almost apologetic’ and with a sweeping gesture, conceded.
The tension in the room settled atop the three of you, forcing everyone’s eyes down.
After a deep breath and a shake of your head, you took your rightful place in front of Bucky. With nimble fingers, you adjusted the fabric of his tie until it was perfect. He shot you a look, silently apologizing for the incident.
You wanted to brush the whole thing off. To pretend that it didn’t bother you. But it did.
Sure, Tara was nice. But why would she feel entitled to get so up close and personal with Bucky this way? And why would she feel comfortable doing so in front of you? In your home? She was his ex, his coworker. It made no sense for her to be the one to fix his tie, especially when you were right there. Of course, it was just a bow tie; Tara hadn’t volunteered to French kiss him or anything of the sort. But the way she jumped at the chance to enter his personal bubble rubbed you the wrong way.
Maybe, you feared, Bucky allowed her to get close to him at work. Maybe the two of them spent time cozied up in her office when they were supposed to be attending meetings. Maybe she’d gotten so used to being intimate with him that this kind of task had become second nature to her. And maybe she’d been so overwhelmed by the sight of her lover in his tuxedo that she’d forgotten she had an audience.
Maybe he wasn’t staying at work all night, laboring over this job until the early morning hours. Maybe he was sleeping at her apartment, in her bed.
The possibility trapped your lungs in a vice, cutting off your air supply. Bile rose in the back of your throat; it took everything in you to force it down. By some miracle, you remained composed, and adjusted Bucky’s tie.
“There,” you said , “All done.”
Just as Bucky tried to express his gratitude, he stumbled to the side. Tara had yanked him by the hand and began hauling him toward the door. Bucky stumbled behind her for a few paces before locking eyes with you. He slipped his hand from her grasp and doubled back to place a kiss on your cheek.
“I’m really sorry about this,” he said. “I-”
“I won’t have him home too late!” Tara called from the door with a laugh. “Thanks for sharing him with me!”
Before you had the chance to blink, Bucky and Tara disappeared out the door and down the hall.
‘Sharing’ him? Another vicious bout of pain ripped through you. And without an audience, you were free so succumb. You doubled over, allowing the agony to take hold of you. The sharp, searing pain sliced its way from your gut to your throat, flaying you wide open. Only when it quieted to an angry throb were you able to stand upright and hobble to the couch.
After an hour or so, you forced yourself to stop thinking about them. About Bucky and Tara together. About the things that might be transpiring on the other side of town. It wasn’t healthy, wasn’t productive. The pain in your abdomen had finally dulled and you knew that if you continued to ruminate, it would return with a vengeance.
And so, you wiped your tears and dragged your body off the couch. You took a long shower, did your skincare, and slipped into your most comfortable pajamas. All you had to do was delude yourself into believing that Bucky was out with Sam or working with Yelena. It was the perfect fix, albeit temporary.
After your shower you climbed into bed and dove into your favorite silly sitcom. The canned laughter and over the top storylines helped distract you, helped lift your shattered spirits. With one tap of your remote you skipped half a season- expertly avoiding a storyline about the main character cheating on his girlfriend- and resumed your rewatch in a happier spot.
Still, you picked and bit at what was left of your nails. Eyed the clock every few minutes. Checked your phone more than you would’ve liked. You couldn’t help it.
Just before eleven o’clock, you heard the front door open.
“Buck?” you called, hoping it was only him.
“Yeah…” he said. He sounded different. “It’s me.”
His keys clinked against the wall as he hung them on the hook by the door, and you knew he’d be in the bedroom soon. Knew he’d have his tail between his legs. Knew you were in for a long night of discussions and apologies. You turned off the tv and waited, expecting his slumped shoulders to lean against the doorframe any second.
But he never appeared.
Something- instinct, intuition- nudged you out of bed.
Something was wrong.
You cautiously made your way out of the bedroom and into the living room as the pit in your stomach doubled- tripled- in size.
You found Bucky still standing by the front door, motionless. His eyes were downcast; his hands were shoved into his pockets. The bowtie you’d so meticulously fixed for him was draped loosely around his neck. The first few buttons of his shirt were open.
“Hey…” you called.
He barely looked up, and only for a split second. “Hi.”
The distance between you seemed much vaster than it was. He seemed to be miles away, adrift somewhere far and unfamiliar. No one moved, no one spoke. The tension in the air grew heavier by the second, nearly crushing you.
And after a while, you couldn’t take the strained silence.
“Um, how’d it go?” you asked. “Is everything okay?”
Finally, Bucky dragged his gaze from the floor. The misery in his eyes sent a pang of anxiety ripping through your chest.
“Something h-” he gave a small shake of his head, cleared his throat. “Something happened. Between me and Tara.”
His words knocked you off balance. Your nails dug into the couch as you fought to remain upright. The unforgiving pain in your abdomen exploded once again. And a tidal wave of nausea swallowed you whole.
“It was part of our cover, it wasn’t- there wasn’t anything romantic about it,” he swore. The words tumbled out of his mouth in a panicked rush. “We weren’t supposed to be in Weller’s office- a security guard was coming and if they knew we’d taken the drive, Weller would’ve had us killed. So, Tara k-” he choked on the word. “She kissed me. She made it look like we were a couple who’d gotten, I don’t know, carried away or something. Like we were just looking for a private room to…” He didn’t finish his sentence.
Suddenly, his eyes grew wide.
“But we didn’t- we didn’t do that!” he said, almost frantic. “It was just the kissing, nothing else. I swear.”
Finaly, he unrooted his feet and made his way toward you; he stopped just a foot from where you stood.
“I’m so sorry, sweetheart. I’m so- I didn’t know that was gonna happen,” he said. “I had no idea. She just did it without telling me. I didn’t want to- I didn’t want her to do that.”
His words settled into your body, creating fractures and fissures as they went.
A storm of sympathy rained down on you as you stared at him. He was in utter agony, that was no secret. His hands shook, his face was flushed, his eyes brimmed with tears. He hadn’t wanted that kiss. Hadn’t known about it or expected it. And he was suffering. The love of your life was suffering.
But the ghost of relationships past returned, screaming at you over and over. Gloating.
“I told you so!”
“I told you so!”
“I told you so!”
This was exactly what you’d feared. What you’d dreaded. And regardless of the circumstances, your old wounds were ripped open once again. The flashbacks hit you like a truck; the familiar words tore you to pieces. There was no surviving this; no making it out alive. It seemed that you would bleed out, that you’d be lifeless and cold in a matter of moments.
But the first tear dripped down Bucky’s face, and brought you back to reality.
It took all your might, all your strength, but you forced your impending collapse and demise to wait. Everything would have to wait.
“I’m s- I’m sorry that happened to you,” you said.
His brow furrowed, “What?”
You breathed through the throbbing, unrelenting ache in your chest, and repeated yourself.
“I’m sorry that happened to you, Buck,” you said, matter-of-factly. “She shouldn’t have ki- she shouldn’t have done that. You didn’t want it. Didn’t consent to it. It’s not okay.”
He stared at you, wide eyed. Another tear spilled onto his cheek, but he didn’t seem to notice; he was far too shocked.
“Sweetheart, I don’t care about that- I’m fine,” he shrugged. “I’m worried about you. About hurting you.” He dug his teeth into the inside of his cheek, “About what this might- what it might do to us.”
The words came out quieter, weaker than you’d hoped. “Wasn’t your fault.”
“Baby-”
“I’m sorry, can you-” you cleared your throat, “Can you just give me one second?” You gave him a strained smile and turned slowly back to the bedroom. Bucky faltered awkwardly in the living room as you fled.
You turned too sharply around the corner into your bedroom, knocking the point of your shoulder into the wall. But you barely noticed; it didn’t hurt. It should’ve; you’d run into this corner enough times to know that it should kill. But it didn’t. You barely even noticed it. Some tiny portion of your brain registered the hit and catalogued it for the future, for when you’d discover the bruise and wonder about its origin.
On unsteady feet, you flew into the en suite bathroom and shut the door behind you. You didn’t mean to slam it, but the panic creeping into your bones stole your sense of decorum. It turned you into a jittery, unstable version of yourself. The sound of the door banging into its frame made you jump.
With the lock twisted into place, you leaned against the nearest wall and promptly fell apart.
The was the breakdown of the century, the monster you’d been fighting off with sword and shield. But fighting was useless. It came at you like a natural disaster. Unstoppable. Uncontrollable. Life-threatening. It was your own personal category 5 hurricane. Your uncontained wildfire. Your San Andreas fault.
The tears soaked your shirt in mere moments. Your breathing was ragged, labored. A burning sensation clawed at your throat, your chest, as your lungs begged for oxygen. The weakness in your knees forced you to slide down the wall, searching for the stability of the floor.
But even as you fell to pieces, you forced yourself to stay quiet. To do your damnedest to keep Bucky from hearing. Because no matter what happened at that party, he was still the great love of your life. And you didn’t want to upset him.
But it was too late.
“Baby…” Bucky called from the bedroom, his voice jagged with worry. “Baby, I’m so sorry. Please, can we talk?”
The handle of the bathroom door jiggled as he tried it, but found it locked. He sighed.
His metal knuckles knocked gently against the wood, “Sweetheart, please… open the door.”
You didn’t answer.
“Baby, I’m-” he choked on the panic. “I’m sorry. There’s nothing- there’s nothing going on with me and T-” he didn’t say her name. “I swear to god, I swear on my life. I swear on Steve’s. It’s not like that.”
The logical part of your brain knew he was telling the truth. Nothing about James Buchanan Barnes said ‘cheater’. He was a loyal, decent person who would rather die than hurt you. Never over the course of your relationship had you ever caught him so much as looking at another woman.
But the tortured, traumatized part of your brain was too busy falling down a rabbit hole of flashbacks to listen to reason. All at once, it grew to be too much.
Once again, bile crawled its way up the back of your throat. And though you tried to resist, you didn’t have any fight left in you. Your mouth flooded with saliva, and you threw yourself to the floor in front of the toilet. Pain rocketed through your knees as your crashed against the cold tile.
And finally, after months of staving off the nausea, you let it win. You allowed yourself to be sick. To be weak.
All of the fear and worry and pain exited your body in an almost violent fashion. It had been building up for so long, slowly taking over every cell. And now, it had forced you to the ground. Forced you to your knees. Forced you to lean over the toilet and retch, over and over again.
“Sweetheart?” Bucky called, distressed. There was a heightened sense of alarm in his voice. A pleading desperation. “Are you okay? Can I get you anything?”
Answering wasn’t an option, as you were otherwise occupied.
“I’m gonna get you some water, okay? But I’ll be right back.”
‘See?’ you thought, ‘He does care.’
The thought only brought on another wave of sickness.
The force with which your body lurched forward would most likely leave you sore the next day, but you didn’t care. You didn’t care about anything other than bringing air into your lungs.
Bucky’s voice entered your consciousness every minute or so as he checked on you; he sounded like he might be sick himself. But you weren’t able to ask.
Finally, it was over. The contents of your stomach were long gone, and you’d expelled only bile for the past few minutes. But after a spell of dry heaving, the forceful retching came to an end. You allowed yourself to slump against the nearest wall with relief. A sharp burn ripped through your throat and nose. Your hands shook. Tears clung to your cheeks and lashes. But it was over.
Your head fell into your hands, and you forced yourself to take a few deep, even breaths, though they did little to calm you. Images of Bucky and Tara still pummeled you from every angle. You wondered if you’d find her red lipstick smudged up and down his neck.
In all honesty, you didn’t mean to say it out loud. You didn’t mean for Bucky to hear you. But you’d lost control of yourself long ago, and the words slipped out before you had the chance to stop them.
“I can’t do this again.”
The fire scorching down your throat banished the haunting visions of Bucky and his lost love and dragged you back to reality.
No part of you wanted to face him after the dramatic show you’d put on. After he’d kissed another woman. After everything that could’ve gone wrong did. The anticipation conjured a dark, swirling pit to open in your stomach. Would he end things tonight, after witnessing your instability? Or would he wait till the morning? Would he immediately fly into Tara’s arms? Or would he wait a few days out of respect?
The nausea returned, but you didn’t have anything left to expel. You dragged a few greedy breaths into your lungs and forced yourself to face the facts: the longer you waited- the longer you hid- the worse it would be. And so, you pulled yourself up off the floor and rinsed your mouth in the bathroom sink.
Bucky hovered closely to the bathroom door. He was so close, in fact, that he left you almost no room to exit.
“Are you doing alright, sweetheart?” His eyes were red; his cheeks were stained with tear tracks. “I brought you a glass of water if you’re interested.”
He reached for you tentatively, his hand shaking ever so slightly.
There was a time when you never would’ve avoided his touch. Never would’ve imagined pulling away from his hand. But you did. Maybe you didn’t mean to, maybe it was a reflex. But you did it. You yanked your body out of his path and tucked your arms into your chest, as though protecting yourself from some great danger.
More than anything, you wanted to flee the room, the apartment- maybe the state. But you knew there was no point in running. Instead, you took a few long strides across the room, putting some distance between you and Bucky. It felt safer here. More comfortable.
The look on Bucky’s face nearly made you sick again.
“Sorry,” you said, flames scorching down your throat. “I-”
“No, hey- it’s okay, I get it.” He forced the saddest smile you’d ever seen. “Um, I’ll just- I’ll put this on your nightstand.” He set the glass of water down behind him and turned back to you with anguish carved into his face.
“Baby…” he sighed. “I’m so-”
“You don’t have to apologize again,” you told him . “It’s-”
A wave of dizziness crested over you, sending the world around you into chaos. Black, shiny spots shimmered on the edges of your vision. Desperately, you grabbed onto the corner of the nearby armchair in an attempt to steady yourself. Your nails dug into the upholstery as you breathed through your tremulous grip on the world.
Bucky took a small, cautious step in your direction. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m-” You listed to the side once again. “I’m gonna pass out.”
Bucky’s eyes widened, “What?”
And then you were falling. Falling forward. Black clouds obscured your vision, your ears started ringing. A gust of air fanned your face as you quickly folded toward the floor. A pair of strong arms locked around you suddenly. One encircled your waist; the other, your chest. And then you were out.
Everything was still black and cloudy; the sounds came back first.
The words were fuzzy at first, lacking any real, definable structure. But you could tell it was Bucky saying them. Could tell by his tone, his gentle voice, that he was reassuring you. The garbled, shapeless words grew slowly clearer until you finally made them out.
“I got you,” he said. “You’re okay, baby. I got you.”
A cool sensation glided across your cheek; it sent goosebumps crawling over your skin. It felt so familiar. Why did it feel so familiar? The cold, metal drifted across your skin again, and you recognized Bucky’s vibranium hand.
“You’re alright, I’m here,” he told you. “I’m right here.”
Finally, you rediscovered the ability to open your eyes. It was harder than you remembered, more taxing. But you did it. And Bucky’s face was the first thing you saw- his beautiful, anxious face. He sat next to you on the bed, leaning over you with unparalleled worry.
“Hey,” his brow creased with concern. “How are you feeling?”
It took a moment for you to formulate the words, but eventually, you managed an “I’m fine.”
And technically speaking, you were. You weren’t dizzy or nauseous anymore. You hadn’t been injured when you blacked out- Bucky didn’t allow that to happen. So, physically speaking, ‘fine’ was accurate.
But the embarrassment burned your face; you were certain that your skin must be scorching to the touch. It was all just so dramatic. So over the top. The sobbing, the vomiting, the fainting… It was like something out of a soap opera.
“Are you sure?” he asked. His voice was still thin, still brittle with concern.
You gave a cautious nod, “Yeah. I swear.”
He relaxed the tiniest amount. But if you knew anything about him, you knew he’d remain hypervigilant for the rest of the night, just in case. Hell, he’d probably remain hypervigilant for at least a week, ready to save you if need be.
“Thanks for catching me, Buck.”
“Yeah- of course,” a small smile crept across his face. “Always, baby.”
He ghosted his thumb over your cheek again, “Is this- has this ever happened before?” he asked, “Or is it something new?”
He worried more than anyone you’d ever known. And always about you. You kicked yourself for thinking he would ever stray. For thinking that he didn’t care.
“It hasn’t happened in a long time, but I used to pass out a lot when I was younger. Whenever I was really-” You cut your sentence off at the knees.
He eyed you, “Whenever you were really what?”
There was no sense in saying it. Bucky already felt guilty enough, adding to his shame wasn’t going to help.
“When you were what?” he asked again, more insistent this time. Anxiety practically dripped from his words.
You sighed. “Whenever I was really upset. Or extremely stressed.”
Bucky matched your sigh with one of his own. His was heavier, weighed down by his responsibility for your episode. He gently stroked your face once more, but pulled away before his thumb could sweep the entire length of your cheek bone. He tucked his hands safety at his sides.
“Sorry,” he said. It was almost imperceptible.
“No, I’m-” you began to try and sit upright.
“Okay, hey, let’s just take it slow, alright? I don’t think you should get up yet.”
But you were determined to sit up. If you continued to lie there, Bucky would continue to dote on you. To wring his hands. And it would only increase the evening’s embarrassing dramatics.
Much to Bucky’s dismay, you didn’t listen to his cautionary words. You pushed yourself up to a seated position without difficulty and rested your back against the headboard.
In a flash, Bucky was on his feet. He stood right against the bed, his hands anxiously hovering over you, poised to save you at a moment’s notice. If you began listing toward the edge of the bed, he’d catch you. Again.
But no such incident occurred. You were perfectly steady, perfectly safe. You accepted the glass of water he offered you for the second time and drained it in a matter of seconds.
“Do you want some more?” he asked, already heading for the kitchen, “I’ll go get-”
“No, no, I’m okay,” you said. “I want you to stay here- I wanna talk to you.”
Bucky halted in the doorway, frozen. Dread bloomed in his eyes. He lost his grip on the glass in his hand and barely reacted quickly enough to stop it from shattering.
“Oh. Okay. Yeah…” he said; his words has a wounded quality about them.
He took a few slow steps toward the bed but stayed at a cautious distance. His shoulders tensed, his jaw tightened. He sucked in a sharp breath and coiled his metal hand into a tight fist. He seemed to be waiting for something, expecting something.
But after waiting only a few short moments, he spoke again.
“You don’t- you don’t actually have to say it, if that’s okay. I don’t think I could handle hearing the words,” a broken smile flashed across his face for a split second. “But I understand. I won’t beg you reconsider- I get it. And I’m sorry, for what it’s worth- if it’s worth anything.”
“What?”
He placed the empty glass on your nightstand and headed for the closet.
“I’m just gonna grab a few things. Some clothes and stuff. And then I’ll-” he sighed, “And then I’ll get out of your hair.”
You shook your head, “What are you talking about, Buck? I just said I wanted us to talk-”
“I know, sweetheart.” Something in his words sounded like begging. Like pleading for mercy. “And I know I need to let you say your piece, but I don’t know if I can h-handle it. At least not right now. And I know that’s selfish of me. And I’m sorry. But I’m-”
He was practically falling apart at the seams. Parts of him seemed to be peeling away, stripping him down to his most raw, vulnerable self. His hands shook. His voice wavered. His breathing came in shallow, erratic bursts. His body was determined to self-destruct before you could deliver the final, deadly blow.
You jumped out of bed on unsteady feet, your arms outstretched toward him. If you could reach his side and anchor him to the earth quickly enough, maybe you could stave off the panic attack that loomed on his horizon.
He, of course, protested. He tried to say something, something cautioning you against getting up in such a hurry. Against running across the room. But his voice barely carried any weight.
“Hey, it’s okay. We’re okay.” Your hands cradled his face, “Breathe, baby. I don’t want you to leave. I want you here.”
He squeezed his eyes shut. His hands found your waist. And he dragged deep, even breaths into his lungs. He was so focused, so concentrated on staying above water that you weren’t sure he heard your whispered reassurances. But you voiced them anyway. Just in case he could hear you. In case your words helped him somehow.
It was a long time before he came back to you. But you waited patiently for him. As you always did.
When he finally opened his eyes, he looked you over slowly, drinking you in as though seeing you for the first time. The panic had dissipated from his expression, leaving tentative relief in its wake. It seemed that he was just grateful you were still there. Grateful that you hadn’t cut your losses and left him in the dust.
Finally, he spoke. It was a genuine question. No levity. No humor.
“You still love me?”
It crushed you.
“Of course- of course, I do, Buck.” Your hands slipped from his cheeks, down his chest, and wound around his back. He pulled you tighter, crushing you against his body.
“Even after-”
“Yes,” you said against his chest.
“I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry. About tonight- about all of it.” He smoothed his hand up and down your back in an endless loop. “I know this hasn’t been easy on you. I know I hurt you. And it’s just so- I’m done working with her. I promise.”
This conversation felt a bit too familiar. Hadn’t this happened before? Hadn’t he already offered to quit? And hadn’t you stopped him? It seemed that you were trapped in a timeloop of sorts, forced to endlessly relive this version of reality. You were about to, once again, stop him from quitting, but he spoke before you had the chance.
“I know what you’re gonna say, but I can’t do this anymore. I can feel-” he cleared his throat, forcing the emotion down. “I can feel you slipping away. And I can’t keep putting what we have at risk-”
“Buck,” you sighed, “I trust you. Tonight wasn’t your fault. And if you need to keep working with-”
“No.”
And that was it on the subject. He wasn’t open to any arguments or rebuttals.
“I’m not losing you over this,” he insisted. “I know you want to be supportive, but nothing is worth losing you.”
It was quiet- inaudible, really. But you mustered up a “thank you” that only someone with enhanced senses could’ve heard.
The relief brought tears to your eyes. Never before had anyone actually chosen you like this. Never before had anyone dropped everything for you because they wanted to. It was a new feeling for you, and you wondered how you’d survived this long without it.
But the relief only lasted so long.
“What about Hydra? If they’re getting stronger, if they’re coming back, shouldn’t you-”
Bucky shook his head, “The team can take care of it without me. I’ve given them everything I can; they know everything I know. And they have the drive now.” He shrugged, “They don’t need me anymore.”
The two of you remained locked in a tight embrace. A comfortable silence settled around your bodies. And for the first time in months, the suspicious voice in your head was quiet. There were no doubts, no fears. Only comfort. Finally, comfort.
“I’m sorry I reacted like that.” You unearthed your face from Bucky’s chest and did your best to look up at him. “The crying and the vomiting and the passing out, it’s…” you rolled your eyes and let out a huff, “it was a lot.”
He tightened his grip around you.
“No, don’t be sorry. I’ve been- I’ve kind of been torturing you for months. I put you in such a… I put you in a terrible position- the worst position. And I wasn’t even there for you. I kept hurting you and leaving you and- and then tonight with the…” he shook his head. “I can’t imagine what that felt like for you.”
“But I-” You struggled against his inhuman strength until he begrudgingly loosened his grip and allowed you enough room to really look at him- though he refused to let go completely. “I made this all about me,” you said, disgusted. “She-” you had to force yourself to say the words; they tasted like vinegar. “She kissed you against your will. I know what that’s like, it’s not fun. And I made it about me- it was selfish.”
“Sweetheart-”
“What happened tonight wasn’t your fault.” Your words were steadfast. Unflinching. “I should’ve been there for you. I should’ve been supportive. I should’ve-”
He took your face in his hands, “It’s all okay, sweetheart. I’m okay.”
“I’m sorry.” The words came out so defeated, so bathed in shame. “And I’m sorry I ever thought- I’m sorry I ever even considered that you might cheat. I know you’re not the type- of course, you’re not the type.”
“It’s okay. The late nights and the phone calls and all the-”
“It’s not just that,” you sighed, “I mean, that stuff was definitely part of it. But this whole thing just felt so…”
For a split second, you allowed your eyes to close. The memories of betrayal and infidelity clawed at you, hissing and snarling as they tore open a pit in your stomach. You gave a slight shake of your head and opened your eyes, willing the past to dissipate.
“It felt so familiar- too familiar. Like I’ve been here before.”
Bucky’s eyes widened a bit as he put the pieces together. He didn’t know much about your past relationships, just as you intended. He knew only that your exes hadn’t treated you all that well. You never went into great detail about how or why things ended, and Bucky didn’t pry. But a knowing look bloomed across his face as he allowed your words to settle over him.
“You’ve been cheated on,” he said.
You nodded, “Three times.”
A sharp gasp filled Bucky’s lungs; disgust twisted his features into a horrified mask. “Three times?”
Again, you nodded.
“In a row. We were- I was really serious about each of them. We lived together. Talked about building a future together. And then… yeah.”
Bucky was too shocked to move, to blink.
And suddenly, his disturbed stare was too much. His hands were too big and warm against your skin. His grasp was too tight. You freed yourself from his embrace and put some distance between his body and yours. The air around him was just so heavy, so hot. A similar heat scorched your cheeks as the embarrassment of your admission caught up to you; you dragged deep breaths of cool, crisp air into your lungs.
Bucky stayed right where you left him; you weren’t sure if it was out of respect or utter shock.
“Is that…” He paused, probably wondering if he should even ask. You nodded, assuring him that it was okay. “That’s why I heard you say, ‘I can’t do this again’?”
A fresh wave of heat struck your cheeks, and you gave a reluctant nod.
“Yeah.” You rolled your eyes, “I didn’t mean to be so dramatic about it.”
“You weren’t-”
“My instincts have just been screaming at me for months, you know? And I’ve been trying really hard not to listen to them and then tonight happened and- and it was like a chorus of thousands of people screaming ‘I told you so!’” You gave a shake of your head, “It was like all the old wounds were ripped open and I was bleeding out again and it was no one’s fault but mine for not learning from my past mistakes.”
Bucky nodded.
“But it’s- I mean, obviously, this situation is different, cause you didn’t actually do anything wrong. It was just, I don’t know, muscle memory.”
“Makes sense. You’ve been through a lot. Three times is…” He stared at you with heartbreak in his eyes. “Being cheated on isn’t your fault, sweetheart. You said ‘past mistakes’ like you’re to blame, but you’re not. You know that, right?”
Your shrug was cold, detached.
Bucky took a step toward you, “Baby, it’s-”
“I didn’t even tell you the best part,” you said. A cynical smile spread across your face, “Those guys all cheated on me with an ex.”
Bucky’s jaw dropped. “What?”
“Yeah,” you leaned against the nearest wall, crossing your arms over your chest. Suddenly, you felt too exposed. “I know how it sounds, but it’s true. It was- it’s why I was losing my mind the whole time you and Tara were working together. I’m not this possessive, jealous person. I just- I thought the pattern was starting again.”
Bucky made a beeline toward you. He cautiously extended a hand in your direction and rested it against your cheek with a feather-light touch. There was something in his eyes, something sad and compassionate and concerned. The most genuine, heartfelt pity.
“Baby, I’m so sorry.” He wrapped his arms gently around you, “I’m so sorry. No one should have to go through that. And I never would’ve taken this job- I never would’ve worked with her. I had no idea.”
“It’s not your fault. I didn’t want you to know.”
Bucky released you from his arms and took a step back, meeting your eyeline. “Why not?”
For a few seconds, you allowed your head to dip. Your eyes closed. Your jaw tensed. Speaking to Bucky openly and honestly wasn’t hard. He was the last person to judge or mock; he always listened with and open mind and open heart. But some things were hard to admit, even to him. He deserved the truth, though. Didn’t he? He deserved to know why you felt this way. Why you’d grown nervous at the first mention of Tara all those months ago.
“Because it’s embarrassing. Because I feel like…” you raised your head but deftly avoided eye contact. “I feel like I have this weird, very specific curse, or something. Like there’s something about me that pushes people back into the arms of their ex. Like something about being with me is so…” disgust colored your voice, “so awful that- that it kind of gives people a wakeup call, or something. And it helps them realize that the person they left behind is way, way better than anything I could ever offer them.”
He gave you the saddest smile you’d ever seen, “Sweetheart, that’s not true-”
“Maybe if it had only happened once. Or even twice. But what’s that thing they say, ‘once is random, twice is a coincidence, three times is a pattern’?” The half-hearted shrug you threw his way was almost too pathetic. “When this kind of things happens to you three times- in a row- it makes you wonder if you’re the problem.”
A heavy silence filled the room. Bucky was still, his eyes trained on you. You fidgeted under his gaze, picking at the last remnants of one of your nails. The voice inside your head wailed. It wondered why Bucky wasn’t refuting your argument. Why he was completely silent. It feared that he agreed with you. That he’d taken your words to heart and finally seen the light, finally realized that there really was something wrong with you. That Tara was the better choice. That he was to be number four.
The urge to slap yourself across the face surged through you. There you were, doubting him once again. Projecting your problems onto him. Suspecting him of things he had never done- would never do. It took all of your strength, but you wrangled those skeptical, distrusting thoughts and shoved them into a dark corner of your mind.
“But um, I know that this is my issue, not yours,” you said. “It’s something I need to work on. Cause it’s not fair of me to- I shouldn’t have put all of my shit on you. I know you’d never-”
“I would never,” Bucky insisted. He closed the space between you and cradled your face gently in his big hands. “I would never do that to you. You’re the only person I will ever want.”
You gave a slight nod. There was something shameful in your words. “I know- I know that. But the logical part of my brain was, I don’t know, hijacked. Or something. All I could think about was…” you sighed, “All I could think about was when you how going to tell me. I wondered if you’d sit me down and say it to my face- or if you’d tell me at all. I thought maybe I’d come home from work one day and all your stuff would be gone.”
His hands left your face. But before you could mourn their absence, his arms were wrapped securely, protectively around your waist. It seemed as though he was trying to save you from the pain of your past, to shield you from the ghosts. It was the same protection you offered him when the nightmares came calling, when the weight of his Hydra days grew too heavy to carry alone.
He let out a contented sigh as your arms wound around his neck and pulled you closer until you were certain that your body and his would meld into one. His heart beat against your chest, his breath ghosted across your skin. And for a long moment, you forgot the fear and agony that had plagued you these last few months. For a long moment, it was perfect.
“I’m not going anywhere,” he promised, “Ever.”
“I know,” your arms tightened around his neck. “I’m sorry for being so suspicious. And so upset. It’s not that I don’t trust you, I-”
Just then, he pulled away, just enough that his eyes could meet yours.
“I know you trust me. But you had plenty reason to be upset. And suspicious.” He brushed a kiss against your forehead, “You’ve been through a lot. It’s not your fault- your instincts were trying to protect you.”
“But-”
“No. No ‘buts’. Okay?” He was steadfast, almost stern. “You thought you recognized a pattern from your past, and you were scared. But you were just doing your best with the information you had. And that’s enough. You reacted in a way that makes sense, given the context. You don’t have to apologize or browbeat yourself for it. Okay?”
He eyed you for a long while until you gave him an unenthusiastic ‘okay’.
“And you aren’t cursed, by the way,” he asserted. “There is nothing wrong with you. There is nothing about you that is going to send me running back to Tara or any of my other exes. You are…” His intense expression softened, melting into the purest form of adoration. “Everything to me. I could never want anyone more than I want you. Everything that I’ve been through- I would do it again. All of it. Because it led me to you-”
A quiet laugh left your chest.
“I’m dead serious,” he said, his expression grave. “I’d go back and do all of it again- I wouldn’t change a single thing. If it brought me to you, I’d do it in heartbeat.”
There was no more humor in your expression, no more laughter bubbling on your surface, because he meant it. He really would repeat every heinous, awful thing that had ever happened to him- just to get back to you. Without a word, your tucked yourself against Bucky’s chest once again, and allowed his arms to crush you into his body.
He was the good, trustworthy, loving man you always knew him to be. He was gracious. Understanding. Compassionate. Better than you ever dreamed. Better than you thought you deserved. He wasn’t a rerun of your past. No, he was a fresh, blank page. A clean slate. A brand-new story. For the first time, you didn’t have to worry about soul-crushing plot twists. You didn’t have to fear that the story might end prematurely, or that the next page might bring heartbreak.
Your story and his were inextricably wound together, and that’s how they’d remain.
Summary: Falling for a mysterious man has been exhilarating, until you discover his biggest secret and realize you’ve been loving the most dangerous man in the city. But can you run from a monster in his own home when his eyes and ears are everywhere?
Word Count: 22.8k
Warnings: 18+ (mdni); smut (oral f receiving—but just in the beginning so you could skip it if you want); lots and lots of panic/anxiety/paranoia (reader); moral shock; huge misunderstanding; fear of being trapped; secrecy in a relationship; discovery of hidden identity; unequal power dynamics (implicit); manipulation (perceived); weapons (guns); Bucky might be a little possessive, but we love it; references to violence and criminal activity; Bucky is soft only for you; Bucky is down bad
Author’s Note: Oh my gosh, my first fic of the year, I’m so proud!! Mob Bucky has had me in a chokehold y’all and I’m so happy I finally get to share this. It took me what feels like an eternity. There is a second part to this coming up shortly. I fully planned on packing all of it into a oneshot but it’s gotten way out of hand and I don’t think tumblr would even let me get it out in one go. I also didn’t want to cut anything down because I already spent so much time trying to get everything the way I wanted it, and removing parts would’ve sent me right back into editing hell, so here we are. The second part is already in progress and should be up in a few days once I finish it properly. I hope you enjoy! ♡
Masterlist | part two
You surely are about to taste your own blood on your tongue any second now if you keep biting your lip so hard. But all you do is tighten your grip on those messy, dark hair your fingers are knotted into, and you can’t fight the reflex to shift your hips away an inch so that the embarrassing sob that is growing in your throat won’t make it out.
Though you should have known that that would make him stop. His mouth pauses against your clit, and you squeeze your eyes shut.
His hands remain firmly at your thighs, thumbs soothing those slow and drowsy circles against your skin. But his eyes lift to yours, the usual bright blue of them gone dark and concentrated in the dimness of his bedroom. His gaze is fierce enough to make your breath hitch, but melted into its depths is that softness you know is there just for you.
With his gaze still on yours, he begins to kiss a languid path up your stomach, pausing just beneath your ribs and letting his eyes flutter when worshiping your breasts with his skilled tongue. Your mind and soul are soaring up to his high ceilings.
Your teeth are imprinted upon your bottom lip, and you hope you can continue keeping your breathing as even as possible, though you’re not managing all that well.
His hands move slowly across the skin of your hips, pinning you to the mattress. He doesn’t use all his strength but enough for you to feel stuck in his hold.
He crawls further up your body with that deliberate drag that leaves you shivering and panting. He hovers over you and his bare chest brushes your heaving breasts.
His face is now inches from yours, his stubble grazing your cheek, smelling like vanilla and something like cardamom, and you breathe it in automatically. His pupils are blown as they sear into yours.
“Stop that,” he orders, though his voice is a warm whisper. He reaches up, his thumb catching your bottom lip and tugging it out from between your teeth. He soothes the imprint. “Don't you hide those pretty sounds from me.”
“Bucky, the guards,” you breathe out, your voice trembling, still weak from the way he used his tongue on you. Your face burns. The room feels enormous again, full of listening walls. “Your people. They will hear. They will think—”
Something flits across his expression. It seems to be something proud, even possessive. You could say it looks dangerous, but being the person that you are, and considering the sweet albeit intense person that he is, it turns you the hell on and makes you sigh.
“I don't care what they think. I want them to know.” He leans down, his lips hovering over yours, his breath hot and smelling of you. “I want every man on my payroll to hear the way you sound when I’m the only thing on your mind. I want them to hear who I’m answering to tonight. And every other night from now on.”
With a stunned shake of your head, you stare up at him, a huff of embarrassment trying to bubble up and fall out of your mouth but it fails because his mouth is on yours, kissing you aggressively before he dives back down, not waiting for you to argue. You’re entirely overwhelmed, but damn, not in a bad way at all.
His hands lock you into place, and the way he’s eating you out has you flying straight to heaven with a one-way ticket. He’s being greedy. He’s using his tongue with a blunt, feverish sort of worship that makes your head hit his pillow with a thud.
He’s a businessman, that’s what he told you. But as his mouth works over you with all that bottled-up intensity he carries around all day, you feel the latent power he usually keeps veiled behind a tie. He’s a man who takes what he wants, and right now, what he wants is to hear you break, and you might actually, because god is he good, so incredibly good, you could definitely get used to it. Maybe you already are, but who’s to blame you for it.
The first real moan tears out of you, and you cringe internally at how loud and breathy it sounds, the way it vibrates in the cavernous room, landing in the farthest corners of the high ceilings.
Bucky grunts against you, and it sounds so purely satisfied, it even seems to rumble within your own body. You gasp, trying to suppress another moan, and he only presses harder, licking and sucking and slurping, and it makes you feel like you’re the only meal on his plate.
His thumbs dent the soft give of your hips to make sure you’re pinned the way he wants you, the way he has the best access to all of you. It’s dizzying, it makes your gut lurch in the best possible way, and you feel like a queen and a ruin all at once. He’s gentle, yeah, but it seems to be the gentle kind you would use on a porcelain heirloom right before testing its breaking point.
Your hands don’t know what to do with themselves. Gripping the sheets or pillows, touching yourself—it all doesn’t feel like enough, so you go back to sliding your fingers into his hair and basically watch them disappear in it. You feel powerful and helpless, and oh god you should really keep those noises down or you won’t be able to look at his people anymore.
He is a mountain of a man, intimidating in ways you don’t understand yet, full of secrets; and yet here he is, kneeling for you and eating you out as if that’s all he’s been waiting for his whole life.
Damn, you’re a lucky girl.
He is drinking you in, his mouth molding to you with a suction that feels like he’s trying to draw your very soul to the surface.
It feels as though each individual bristle of his stubble is caressing your inner thigh, and it's abrasive and burning but also so damn good. It makes the gliding heat of his tongue feel so soft and vivid, and it pulls the tension right out of your bones.
He tracks you through his lashes, and you’re careful not to meet his eyes or that dark gaze of his would surely make you come already. But he doesn’t stop documenting you and the way you react to him. He thrives on it, so very much that it doesn’t seem to embarrass him in the slightest.
Then he dives past your entrance, his tongue finding that soft, sharp intake of your breath. And your spine bows upward out of pure blinding pleasure. The sound that leaves you is startled, too loud for your liking and so you try to clamp your hand over your lips.
He catches your wrist.
He’s not harsh with it, but he brings your hand down to the mattress and pins it there decisively. His fingers lace through yours.
“What’d I say,” he warns, voice low, husky.
You swallow, your eyes are fluttering. “Bucky—”
“Make the noise,” he whispers as he kisses along your inner thigh, eyes on you. “All of it.”
His free hand slowly wanders upward and it almost feels possessive how he ascends your heated skin. You glimpse that little hint of something feral, something prehistoric in the trail of his eyes. You’ve seen it before, and as always, it pulls you under completely. His ferocity isn’t some thrashing kind of wild, honestly, he seems perfectly comfortable with his position, as though he’s already done the math but there’s no clear solution and he just has to keep calculating. Has to keep going.
He lunges back and buries his face in your heat, his tongue flat and broad, applying a rhythmic pressure that whites out your vision and has you moaning without thought. It’s thorough and hungry, his mouth drawing you in eagerly, and it feels like he’s trying to pull the very center of you into his throat.
“Bucky—,” you gasp, your fingers tightly clamping around his, knuckles white.
He growls, and it rattles his entire chest, it vibrates against your sensitive skin. He uses his teeth—just a graze, a tiny, sharp nip that sends a scalding current straight to your core. Your hips jerk reflexively, his hands are pinning you open, and you are forced to take every unsparing lap of his tongue.
He shifts his weight, his nose dragging through your wetness as he focuses his attention on the very top of your nub. He works his tongue in a cadence so constant it sends the pressure straight to the back of your skull until the room dissolves behind your eyelids. It feels almost like a breaking point, but hell, you would throw yourself out of those high windows if he were to stop now.
He’s fast and skilled and you’re made to take it.
“Open up,” he commands against your skin, his voice muffled and wet although you couldn’t possible open up more for him.
There is no more warning before he fills you with two fingers, sliding them deep inside you and stretching you while his thumb maintains that dizzying pressure, and the friction burns a hole through your focus. The two sensations fight for room in your head, effectively demolishing whatever was left of your pride and it makes you let out the highest moan. You’re straining upward, seeking the release he’s dangling just out of reach.
He looks up at you, his face flushed, his breathing ragged against your thigh. A stray, damp shimmer glistens on the curve of his lower lip, and he licks it clean. You watch mesmerized and utterly overdrawn. His gaze is stripped of any pretense, it’s dark and appeased and entirely fixed on the way your face is breaking.
"That's it," he coos, watching your chest heave. "Scream for me, sweetheart. I'm not stopping until you do."
He dives back in, his tongue swirling deep inside you before curling back to hook against your clit, and suddenly there is no perspective on anything anymore, and the floors are walls and the walls are floors, and—
And then his phone begins vibrating against the mahogany nightstand. It’s a sharp and intrusive sound and it’s stripping the air of its heat.
Bucky doesn’t seem to care, though. He doesn’t so much as glance over at it. His gaze stays welded to yours, his pupils taking up the beautiful blue. His thumb continues trailing your heat, collecting your slick, and he turns to watch in amazement, as he licks a long stripe up your center, making you choke on your spit.
The vibration of his phone still ringing grates against the wood, loud enough to feel like a physical itch.
Bucky is a man who has built an empire on timing, yet he seems perfectly content to let the world outside the bedroom door spontaneously combust.
The phone dies.
He keeps sucking, you keep moaning.
Then, it begins again, more insistent this time. His phone is pulsing. It seems urgent.
You feel his jaw tighten against you. Feel the shift you’ve come to recognize but never quite know what to do with. The air around him thickens by a single degree. The temperature of him changes, not in heat but in authority. Somewhere beyond these walls, the world is knocking its head against his patience.
“Bucky,” you breathe, the word leaning on the dryness in your throat. Your chest is still heaving, your skin flushed a beautiful pink. You softly pull at his hair to make him look at you, a weak gesture that feels like trying to move a mountain. “You should get that.”
His eyes meet yours. There are galaxies in them and something darker orbiting behind them. He leans in and presses a slow, devastating kiss to the inside of your thigh, all calm and relaxed while the phone continues vibrating angrily.
“It can wait,” he decides, voice an octave lower and threaded with promise as he trails a line of punishingly soft kisses along your skin.
Another buzz, the sound now an impatient thrum that seems to vibrate the very legs of the bed. It feels like a summons, a reminder of the business that pays for the guards and the maids and the high ceilings.
He exhales through his nose and lets out a rumble of annoyance. His thumb strokes a calming line along your hip, as if reassuring you that his irritation belongs elsewhere. He looks like some wild animal being interrupted mid-meal.
“Bucky—,” you start, carefully, your hand sliding to cup his face, feeling the heat of his skin, but he clicks his tongue to interrupt you.
“My girl deserves to get off first,” he hums, not letting his lips off your skin, his stubble a deliberate, intoxicating scrape against your thigh.
And when his tongue drives home, flat and strong against that hyper-sensitized knot of nerves, it doesn’t take long for that jolting pleasure to cloud your vision and bleach the dark corners of his bedroom into a searing, blinding white.
Your spine arches and snaps and leaves you suspended between the silk sheets and the cold air, held down only by his weight.
The embarrassing sob you were trying to hide earlier finally tears free, but it isn’t a sob anymore. It’s a melodic wail that echoes off the shadows-drenched ceiling. It climbs high and rings out with a clarity that makes the idea of guards and business feel like a fever dream from another life.
Your body is trying to crush his fingers in a desperate pulse that feels like a heart beating where it shouldn't.
And Bucky drinks it all in. He keeps his head down, jaw locked against you, refusing to let the moment end. That rough graze of his stubble is brutal but it keeps you somewhat in the room. He is taking the time with the mess he made, leaning into the way you are trembling, his mouth ensuring that every last bit of your control is gone.
By the time your vision starts to clear at the edges, and the room starts to solidify back into reality, you feel hollowed out, as if he’d reached inside and pulled the very soul of you to the surface. You slump into the mattress, your limbs too heavy to even twitch, your lungs burning with the effort of remembering how to breathe.
When you begin to squirm in his hold, Bucky finally pulls back, his expression bluntly victorious. He is breathing hard, his lips stained, his eyes trained on the way your ribs are still hitching with those dying tremors. His hand tightens at your hip.
Then he rises over you in one fast movement, bracing himself above you with his weight carefully balanced. You don’t need any more physical proof that he wants you, considering how hard and ready you can feel him against your leg, with his control barely in check; and it makes your lungs seize up.
Wordlessly, he leans down to pull you into a slow kiss that goes so deep, your thoughts evaporate and your fingers tangle in his hair. He groans against your lips, breathing your name. You feel him twitch against you as he lets his hand slide back between your bodies—when the door rattles with a knock.
Bucky stills with his forehead on yours, eyes still closed, jaw a block of ice. “Boss?” a slightly hesitant voice comes through the door.
His nose presses into the crook of your neck. For a long second, he just breathes you in, a deep, possessive inhalation as if he is trying to pull in all of your scent to survive the coming interruption.
With a low curse that is more a growl than a word, he rolls onto his side and promptly pulls you with him, tucking you into his chest. His body angles slightly toward the door, building an instinctive shield. His arms remain draped over you, his left hand splayed protectively across your back.
“What,” he calls, voice suddenly stripped of warmth. There is a pause on the other side.
“Sorry, boss,” The voice is male. Sounding even more hesitant now. And definitely embarrassed. “But, uh— it’s important. You are needed.”
You want to let out a heavy sigh. But you’ve seen this coming, really.
Bucky closes his eyes briefly and there is something pinched around them. He’s not usually a short-tempered man, at least not with you, but right now he looks ready to snap at the door.
“I’m busy,” he replies flatly, and you believe his voice is only calm for your sake.
Another pause. The poor man outside is probably staring at the door waiting for it to shoot him.
“It’s Sam,” he explains carefully, seemingly afraid to say too much.
You know Sam. Or, you have heard Bucky mention Sam. Sam, the colleague. The one your boyfriend refers to with a mix of irritation and reluctant brotherhood. A pain in the ass, he told you with a half-smile. But loyal. Does good work. One of the few men he trusts to argue with him and live. You had laughed at the way he said it so seriously. He hadn't really laughed with you, but he kissed you stupid afterwards and so you no longer thought of it.
Bucky gives a long exhale.
“Give me five.”
“Yes, sir.”
Hurried footsteps retreat down the corridor.
And Bucky doesn’t make a single attempt to leave your side. He just peppers your neck with tiny kisses.
You try to turn to his face. “Bucky, you should go.”
His eyes meet yours, and the stoicism buckles immediately. Back is the softness.
“You come first,” he hums, and his thumb brushes your cheek. There is something apologetic in the gesture, though he hasn’t done anything wrong.
You smile faintly and let a slow pout form on your lips. “I don’t want to hold you back from work.”
“You’re not,” he reassures you softly, leaning down to kiss you with a lack of the urgency he should probably be feeling right now.
But then he’s shifting away, sitting up on the edge of the bed, and the loss of his heat is a stinging chill. The chandelier light spills over his naked back, over the breadth of his shoulders. Your eyes glide down the tiny pink scars on his left shoulder with a sinking feeling in your stomach—those scars are another mystery he hasn’t let you into yet. But all you want to do is kiss them and hope to make it better, even if just a little.
You watch the way he runs a hand through his hair, reassembling himself piece by piece. By the time he stands, he has edges. He always seems different when he’s no longer touching you.
He pulls on a pair of dark trousers and doesn’t bother with a shirt. The phone is in his hand now. He checks the screen, jaw grinding briefly before he glances back at you. And the hardness that stepped into his eyes softens again, dissolving the moment they meet your face. It’s almost ridiculous, how quickly it happens. Like watching a knife remember it was once a piece of silver meant for candlelight.
You’re still half-sunk into the bed, hair falling around your shoulders, limbs loose, and sheets wound around your naked body. Around you, it smells of cedar, expensive soap, and Bucky himself, which is somehow warmer than both.
“Stay here,” he says gently. “I’ll handle it.”
Handle it.
The words mean spreadsheets and contracts in your mind. Annoying colleagues. Late- night negotiations.
He walks back to his bed to press a tender kiss to your forehead.
You push yourself up slightly on your elbows, the blanket sliding down your side. And you definitely see the way his gaze drifts for an appreciative and unashamed moment before it returns to your eyes. There is a small smile tugging at his mouth, and it’s the one you always get to see when you’re the only audience.
“Make yourself at home while I’m gone, yeah?” he whispers, nodding toward the massive wardrobe along the far wall, keeping his attention on you. “If you get cold, grab a shirt of mine. Top shelf on the left.”
You smile at him, nodding softly.
His eyes move over you slowly, and there is something warmly adoring in them that makes your chest tighten in a strange, bright way. He reaches out to brush his fingers along your jaw. The touch is thorough, absentmindedly tender, soothing out something only he can see.
“I’m sorry, sweetheart,” he adds, voice rougher now. Reluctant. “Didn’t plan on having to step out. Told Sam he better handle his own ass today. Should’ve known better, though.”
“You’re the boss, Bucky,” you ease lightly. “I assume dramatic interruptions are part of the brand.”
His mouth curves.
“Unfortunately.”
He kisses your forehead once more, lingering long enough to make your lashes flutter.
“I’ll make it up to you,” he murmurs sweetly. “Soon as I’m done with this.” His thumb traces your cheek. “I’m coming right back. Gonna give you my full attention.” His eyes darken slightly, voice dipping just enough to send a warm shiver through you. “Cuddle you properly. Maybe take things a little further.”
Your stomach does a small, excited flip. “Maybe?”you tease, leaning into his touch.
He presses his smirk against yours. “Definitely.”
With that, he pulls back and straightens, that sovereign steel slipping back over him piece by piece. It’s almost visible, the way he steps into whatever role the rest of his world knows him for. The man who answers phones about Sam and things that sound suspiciously more complicated than spreadsheets.
At the door, he glances back once more. Same softness, just for you. “Lock it behind me, doll.”
The door opens. His phone lifts to his ear.
His voice changes instantly as he steps into the hallway.
“Get Wilson on the line,” he demands, tone clipped. “Now.” And then the door shuts.
You’re left in the echo of him and his scent in the sheets, his warmth still imprinted on your skin.
You don’t get up immediately to lock the door. He can get just a little too protective sometimes, so you don’t deem it necessary to lock the door when he’s just out taking a call. And you’re sure his guards would be in much worse trouble if they were to enter and see you nakedly spread out in his bed.
So you flop back into the mattress—that certainly was expensive too, due to the way it feels—and stare at the ceiling for a moment.
Then you laugh, incredulously. A quiet little wheeze of disbelief escaping into the big room.
Because really. What on earth.
You roll onto your side, pulling the blanket with you, and glance around the bedroom again like maybe you hallucinated the last two hours. Or the last two months.
The place is obscene.
And not in a tacky-rich, or gold-fountain rich kind of way. This is the quiet kind of wealth. Everything is polished wood and deep colors and furniture that probably has a historical backstory longer than your résumé.
There’s a fireplace bigger than your entire first apartment. A chandelier that looks like it was handcrafted by depressed angels.
And somewhere downstairs, there are actual maids.
Maids.
And guards.
Actual human beings whose job description probably includes phrases like protect the property and stand menacingly near large gates.
Meanwhile, you used to eat instant noodles on a couch that leaned slightly to the left like it had given up on life.
And somehow—how the fuck—you have ended up in the bed of a man who owns more suits than you own pairs of socks. A man who is tall and broad and so absurdly handsome, who steps into those razor-sharp tailored suits as though they were invented solely for him. Who wears that self-confident authority in his voice that makes the people around him straighten without realizing why.
And yet, he was on his knees for you just moments ago.
The thought sends heat creeping up your neck again. But in a giddy way.
You bury your face briefly into the pillow with a muffled groan. Because honestly, how did you pull that.
A man like Bucky should logically be dating a diplomat. Or a CEO. Or some terrifyingly poised woman who drinks champagne for breakfast and owns fifteen languages.
Instead, he found you.
You.
Who once tripped over a grocery store display and apologized to the oranges. And yet he looks at you like you hung the moon with questionable hardware.
You grin into the pillow.
Also—objectively speaking—the man is incredible in bed. Like, it’s crazy.
Biting your lip and staring up at the ceiling, you wonder if the chandelier is as baffled by your luck as you are. It’s like winning the lottery without buying a ticket, and you’re silently pleading with the laws of probability to stay bent in your favor just a little while longer; at least until he realizes you’re a mere mortal and not the goddess he’s treating you as.
It’s weird that a man like him noticed you. Weird that he’s so sharp with the world but so gentle with you. Weird that he lives in this fortress of wealth and power and still tells you to steal his shirts if you’re getting cold.
Your eyes drift toward the wardrobe.
Top shelf on the left, he said.
You imagine one of his massive shirts swallowing you as a whole, and snort softly.
Yeah.
You definitely pulled a mob-boss-looking, suit-wearing, ridiculously attentive gentleman who apparently worships the ground you lie naked on.
Weird. Very weird. But you’re not complaining. You’re just mentally haggling with the universe, offering to never ask for another favor again if it just promises not to reclaim its prize or realize he’s a solid ten and you’re way out of his league.
He told you he runs a company.
You imagine glass walls and long tables and men in suits who nod too quickly while he stands in front of them all in his suit, looking all delicious and hot. You imagine paperwork, meetings, a name etched into metal on an office door. He never corrects you. He only smiles in that small way of his—enigmatic, a little asymmetrical, a little careful, as if the smile is something he built from spare parts and polished until it gleamed.
You’ve been dating for a short time. And considering the mystery he surrounds himself with, you guess it’s going to take a while until you truly get to know him. Until he truly starts telling you how his day has been and what he has been up to—and what taking a call means in his business.
But he kisses as though he’s been starving in a snowstorm. As though warmth is an endangered species and your mouth is the last sanctuary. His hands are large and soothing, and they never wander without purpose. He touches and handles you like the first blossom of a century-plant, something that has spent a hundred years preparing to bloom for a single day. And he looks at you as if you are that miracle. As if you are the only soft thing in a life built of stone.
And so, you tell yourself, you can wait for him to be ready to talk.
You don’t know what he does after midnight. You only know he sometimes steps onto the balcony to take calls. His voice changes there. It drops. He doesn’t smooth over his words and instead lets the corners stay pointy. You just never catch his words. The only thing you can do is admire the way the city lights flicker behind him like they’re afraid of him. Or in awe.
And when he comes back inside, he presses his forehead to yours as if he’s returning from war.
Contemplating, you lie there for a moment longer, staring at the ceiling. Then you sit up.
It’s not cold, the room is perfectly climate-controlled in that rich-people way where seasons are merely decorative suggestions outside the window; but you suddenly want one of his shirts.
Not for warmth, but for him, for the smell of him, for the proof that this is all actually happening and you are actually here with him somewhere out there in this huge mansion, waiting to get his mouth back on you. For the possibility that his detergent—whatever luxury forest-scented nonsense it probably is—might trick your brain into thinking he’s still right there.
You glance toward the wardrobe.
It’s enormous, who would have guessed. Cathedral enormous. Dark wood doors that probably cost more than your childhood bedroom set. It suggests that Bucky owns multiple versions of the same devastatingly expensive suit.
You slide out of bed and pad across the carpet, which is so soft it feels apologetic for touching your feet. Putting on your underwear for comfort, you make your way over to his wardrobe. The doors open without making a single sound.
You step inside and it feels like even the air is filtered for perfection. It’s a humbling difference to your own apartment, where the dresser functions less like furniture and more like a high-stakes game of Tetris, with your favorite sweaters perpetually losing the battle against a jammed bottom drawer, and where finding a matching pair of socks requires the luck of a seasoned treasure hunter.
There are rows of shirts, jackets, trousers. Everything spaced just enough apart to breathe. Everything immaculate. A faint scent of sandalwood and something clean and expensive drifts forward to greet you.
You tilt your head up.
The shirt shelf is ambitious.
You stand on your toes but you don’t reach anything. You reach higher, basically for nothing. Your fingers waggle uselessly in the air, far away from touching anything.
You sigh.
Because obviously, the man built like a six-foot-something war monument thinks a shelf near the ceiling is perfectly reasonable.
You walk out of the wardrobe and glance back toward the bed. Then toward the chair near the window.
His jacket is draped there. It looks like it belongs at the head of a mahogany table, brokering peace or declaring war with a single sharp lapel. And in between there’s the shirt he’s tossed aside as soon as you both entered his room, with an untidiness that feels like a glitch in his otherwise perfect Matrix.
It’s the shirt he didn’t bother to put back on when leaving you here. You grin.
Well.
That works too. Perfectly, even.
You wander over, the carpet not letting any sound free. The chair sits near the tall windows, moonlight cascading across the floor in long silver rectangles. It looks graceful somehow. His jacket catches the light along its seams, and you shiver at the thought of how elegant and powerful it makes him look.
You reach for it, intending to lift it aside and claim the bunched shirt.
But the moment you grab the jacket, something feels off. It’s heavy. Not normal-jacket heavy. Weighted. You frown faintly, adjusting your grip. You pick it up fully, wanting to fold it neatly, when something slips out of it.
There’s a short, dense thud against the floor. It makes you freeze.
The object lands on the dark carpet inches from your toe; a short, metallic punctuation mark in the silence. It drinks in the chandelier’s glow and spits it back out with a cold, silver arrogance. It ignites an unmistakable shimmer that makes the air in the room feel ten degrees colder.
Your brain takes a second to translate the shape.
It’s a gun.
You stare at it.
The word sits adamantly on the floor of your mind and turns the room into a crime scene before anything has even happened. It’s a sharp fracture in the timeline—there is the version of you from five seconds ago, and the version of you staring at a hunk of lethal metal.
This thing is real. Very real. Not movie-real. Not plastic-prop-real. More like heavy-metal-object-that-could-alter-the-entire-direction-of-a Tuesday-real.
Your knees grow weak and you crouch down so very slowly. Who knows, maybe sudden movements can already trigger it. You’ve never seen a real gun. You never expected you would, not like this, at least. This feels pretty surreal.
The jacket still hangs half off the chair behind you. The shirt you wanted is crumpled innocently beneath it, but you’re not grabbing it.
Your attention remains on the gun. You don’t touch it.
It’s not like your heart is racing noticeably, but there is a new tightness in your chest and it’s making you feel as though your thoughts all have quietly stood up at once.
Because. Right. Of course.
You know Bucky runs a company.
You know he’s wealthy enough to own a mansion that probably requires a map and a tour guide.
You know he has guards. Actual guards. You knew all that.
But with this gun sitting there on the carpet, it feels like looking through a new lens that snaps the blurry facts you know of this man into a slightly different focus.
If it’s frightening, you’re not sure, but it’s definitely clarifying.
You sit back on your heels for a moment, staring at it. He carried this in his jacket pocket. Casually. Just around. Like a wallet. Or keys.
Your mind tries to rewind through the past weeks. The way he watches exits. The midnight phone calls. The men who seem oddly respectful around him. The commanding note in his voice when he tells someone to do something.
You bite your lip, a hectic internal editor trying to bridge the gap between the little you know about the man and the metal you’ve found. You tell yourself not to panic, because panicking won’t give you any answers. And there’s no need to panic, because he’s just a man with power, a man who’s a boss and bosses tend to have people who don’t like them.
That’s no reason to use a gun on anyone, but it’s probably just a formality. A piece of insurance stored away like a fire extinguisher you hope to never use. Maybe it’s not meant for violence at all, just for peace of mind.
He’s protective. You’ve seen and felt it. Just last week, he was absolutely livid, after one of his guards stepped out of line with one of his maids, who’s this sweet old woman who had been with his family since his father’s time. He was in such a blind tailspin over it, and your soothing touch was the only thing that was able to pull him back to earth.
He would build a wall around everyone he cares about just to keep the wind from blowing too hard. Perhaps this gun is just part of that wall, a safety he keeps close so he never has to feel helpless. It doesn't have to mean he’s dangerous. It just means he’s prepared. It’s a precaution, a tool, a just in case that will likely collect dust until the end of time.
You try to settle the thought, but it feels like trying to pin a map against your chest in a storm; the harder you flatten your palms against the paper, the more wind tunnels through the gaps, ballooning the center and snatching the corners from your grip. If you manage to squash one section still, the air pockets behind the rest, turning the whole thing into a thrashing thing that fights to fold itself back up or fly away entirely. No matter what you do, no matter how much you lean into it, the wind will always be a second faster. The wind will always have the upper hand, hollowing out the space between your hands and the whole truth you are trying to read.
You just have to believe that the man who touches his girl so carefully is the same man who would only ever use that steel to keep the world at bay.
Your gaze lingers on it.
You don’t know much about guns. Your knowledge is mostly assembled from movies, news articles, and the vague understanding that they belong firmly in the category of things you should probably treat with respect. And it definitely belongs to a world you’ve never really stepped into before.
But apparently, Bucky lives there.
You glance toward the door he disappeared through. This is the guy who permitted you to steal his clothes, who pressed a kiss to your forehead with the softest lips. When he looks at you, it’s with that specific focus, that startled sort of wonder that always makes you feel so over-exposed, but also exponentially adored.
Your chest softens despite yourself. Still.
You eye the gun again, and one thing has become very clear in the last thirty seconds. You might be dating a man you know less about than you thought.
And that realization sits in the room with you now, waiting for you to act on it.
But you don’t know how. You simply keep staring. The chandelier light kisses its metal edges until they gleam faintly, indifferent to the fact that your brain is currently eroding into a new shape.
You swallow, and even that sounds strange in the imposing space, like it wandered too far from home.
Leaving this thing on the floor feels wrong.
And if Bucky comes back and sees it there... You don’t know why, but the thought makes your stomach tighten.
So you reach down, only now seeing that your hands are slightly wavering. Your fingers close around the grip, and the first thing you notice is the weight. It’s heavier than it looks, solid in a way that makes your palm immediately aware that this object was designed with very serious intentions.
You lift it slowly. Nothing happens, obviously. The world doesn’t explode. The chandelier doesn’t shatter. The mansion continues breathing its wealthy breath around you.
But holding it still feels like stepping one inch deeper into a room you didn’t know existed.
You turn it slightly, meaning only to orient it so you can slide it neatly back into the inside pocket of his jacket, but you spot an engraving, small letters carved into the dark handle.
JBB
Your brow furrows. You stare at them for a moment, tracing the edges with your eyes.
The metal around the letters looks softened. Not scratched exactly, but worn in the way objects get when they’ve lived in someone’s hand for a long time. Like a favorite pen. Or a well-loved watch.
If guns can look old, this one does. It’s not antique-old, but familiar-old.
You tilt your head. JBB. You try to assemble a name around the letters. The only name you know for the man currently pacing somewhere in this mansion making serious phone calls is Bucky.
Just Bucky.
You don’t know his last name, you realize suddenly, and you don’t like that.
You know his favorite whiskey. You know the exact shape of the scar on his shoulder. You know the way he presses his nose into your hair when he tries to calm himself down.
But his last name leaves a blank space in your mind. You glance down at the gun again.
JBB.
Maybe it belongs to someone else. Someone with a J. Jake? James? John? Jacob?
Maybe it’s a family thing. Maybe it belonged to his father. Maybe it’s one of those rich-man- heirloom objects that get passed down through generations alongside cufflinks and complicated legacies.
You exhale quietly.
That explanation sounds reasonable enough that you decide to borrow it for the moment.
Very carefully, and with explicit intent, you slide the gun back into the inside pocket of his jacket. The fabric settles around it like it knows exactly where it’s needed.
You smooth the lapel automatically.
There.
No evidence.
Your fingers linger on the jacket for a second longer than you want.
It still smells like him. Clean soap. Dried tobacco. Something stronger beneath it that you can’t put a name to but always recognize immediately as Bucky.
You step back, and suddenly the room feels different. Not threatening, but it does feel larger still.
Because now your brain is busy counting the things you don’t know.
You don’t know his last name.
You don’t really know what his company does.
You don’t know why men knock on his bedroom door looking nervous.
You don’t know why he carries a gun like it’s just another accessory.
You rub your arms lightly, because now there is a faint prickle of awareness crawling along your thoughts and it is spreading throughout your body.
You’ve been dating for six weeks. Is this long enough to demand answers? To justify interrogations? Gosh, you’re not sure. You’re not sure about a lot of things right now, really. You’ve been floating through the beginning part—the sweet, dizzy, honeymoon fog where the only facts that matter are the ones you feel.
But now there’s a small string of sunlight sliding through the fog. A string of curiosity. You turn back toward the bed where your clothes lie in a small, careless pile.
Maybe you’re overthinking this.
Maybe.
Still.
You pull your shirt over your head, the fabric rustling softly in the quiet room. Your jeans follow, and then your fingers reach automatically for the necklace resting on the nightstand.
The pearls catch the light when you lift them. Bucky gave it to you two weeks ago.
It’s delicate. Real pearls, because he just can. Everything about him seems to come with an expensive quality attached.
You remember the way he looked when he gave it to you. Almost shy, which was deeply unfair considering how the man is built.
Saw it and thought of you, he’d said. Think about you all the time, he’d added.
Which had melted approximately seventy percent of your internal structure. You fasten the necklace and touch it lightly now.
Gentleman.
Ridiculously good in bed.
Mysterious.
Possibly carrying engraved guns.
You sigh.
You feel a little guilty. Because what you’re about to do is technically snooping. And snooping is not great. Your mother would absolutely deliver a lecture about boundaries if she could see you right now.
You glance around the massive room again. The desk by the window. The bookshelves. The curated neatness of everything.
You bite your lip. You’re not looking for secrets. You’re just looking for context. A clue. A name.
Something that tells you who Bucky is when he isn’t kissing your forehead and telling you to raid his closet.
Your feet move before your conscience can finish filing complaints.
Your steps make no sound as you move across the carpet, wandering deeper into the room and scanning the shelves and surfaces with a caution that can’t suppress your intrigue.
You don’t need all the answers. Just one or two. So you start with the obvious places.
Drawers.
It feels less intrusive somehow; opening something that was clearly meant to be opened. You move slowly, like a guest in a museum after hours, careful fingers, quiet breath, a mild sense that the walls might be watching.
The first drawer slides out with a wooden noise and even that sounds rich. Inside, there are watches. Several of them, lined neatly in velvet compartments. Dark metal, silver, leather straps. You don’t know brands, but you know enough to guess that each one probably costs more than your car.
You close the drawer.
The next one holds cufflinks. Rows of them. Small polished things that look important and serious and entirely uninterested in your investigation.
And it only goes on this way. You open drawer after drawer, and there is nothing strange. Nothing suspicious. Just the belongings of a very wealthy man who liked things neat.
Your shoulders loosen a little. Maybe you overreacted. Maybe the gun is just a rich man's security thing. The guards downstairs carry them too, probably. It doesn’t automatically mean anything bad.
You open another drawer.
Paperwork. Boring looking things. A passport tucked neatly inside a leather sleeve. You hesitate for half a second before closing it again.
That one definitely feels like crossing a line.
You step away from the wardrobe and wander toward the nightstand instead.
The wood gleams darkly under the chandelier.
You pull open the top drawer.
More ordinary things. Wallets. Sunglasses. A small tray of rings.
Further back in the drawer, you find a small stack of Polaroids. You fish them out, because you recognize the first picture. It’s a picture of Bucky and you from a few weeks ago. You had found an old Polaroid camera and wanted to try it out, practically levering him into the frame while he grumbled about how he wasn’t photogenic which was total bullshit in your eyes. But he isn’t even looking at the camera in the photo. He is looking at you with a fond little half-smile.
Looking at a few others, you realize they are of you. All of them. One is a shot of your back as you walk toward a sunset, another is a blurred profile of you sleeping on his shoulder.
There is a warmth prickling at the back of your neck and you feel something slacken inside your stomach as you slowly lower the photos back where they were.
Nothing about all of this screams crime lord. Your nerves ease another notch.
You almost laugh at yourself. Your brain likes to get dramatic. Bucky is archiving your relationship, he is sweet and protective and tender and just—
As you are about to pull your hand out, your fingers brush against something cold and metallic near the back of the drawer.
You pause.
It’s partially hidden beneath a folded black cloth. Just the faint glint of a chain catching the light.
Curiosity taps gently on your shoulder.
You slide the cloth aside and notice the silver chain. It’s thin and tangled loosely like it’s been dropped there without much thought.
You hook your finger under it and lift. Something heavier at the end slips free. Two small metal plates fall against each other with a quiet clink.
Dog tags.
You blink.
That’s not strange, exactly. Lots of people keep sentimental things. Maybe Bucky served in the military. That would even make him hotter, to be real. But it does feel a little hurtful that he didn’t share this information with you.
You turn the tags over idly, expecting to see a name you don’t recognize. However, though, you do recognize the name that’s neatly spelled out on the metal plate. And it has the air in your lungs turn to stone, refusing to move a single inch.
James Buchanan Barnes.
Your stomach drops in such a harsh way, there is no ending to the fall. Your internal organs are unmoored and everything about you feels dizzy and weightless. It’s like stepping down a staircase that isn’t there. You’re still gripping the metal, but the connection between your brain and your hands has been cut, and now your fingers feel distant and wooden, filled with a needling sensation you know comes right before they start to shake.
And they do shake.
A thin tremor at first, then worse, until the tags begin to chatter against each other. Each sharp nick of the steel feels so biting and loud, broadcasting the exact moment you are losing it.
Your mind flips through memory like rifling a deck of cards too fast.
News headlines.
Conversations overheard in cafés.
Podcasts about organized crime.
New York’s most notorious mob boss.
The man whose name floats through the city like a ghost story told after midnight. James Buchanan Barnes.
JBB.
Heat rushes up the back of your neck while the rest of you goes ice-cold. It feels like standing in two climates at once—your skin clammy, your spine rigid, a cold sweat blooming between your shoulder blades.
Every breath you pull in is labored and metallic, coating your lungs in a film of disbelief that makes your chest ache. You can almost hear the gears of your reality grinding to a convulsive, screeching halt, stripping the teeth right off the life you thought you were living.
Your pulse is a furious SOS tapped out against the underside of your throat; a muddled, thrumming reminder that you are standing in the epicenter of a storm you didn't even know was brewing. You feel thin, translucent, like a sketch of a person that someone could erase with a single, hard look.
Your fingers tighten around the dog tags. No.
No no no.
Your brain scrambles to reject it. Because that’s outrageous.
That man—the one people call dangerous in all kinds of languages, the one whose operations stretch across half the city, the one who apparently runs things so carefully that no one has ever managed to pin a crime on him—
That man is a myth.
A shadow.
A name in newspapers. No photos. No confirmed identity.
Just whispers.
James Buchanan Barnes.
JBB
You stare at the letters again. You recall the way his initials were engraved in the gun.
Your mind scrambles for explanations—wrong tags, coincidence, someone else with the same name—but every attempt at reason breaks apart in your hands.
Bucky. James. Bucky. James.
James Bucky Barnes.
Your eyes drift slowly across the room.
The suits.
The mansion.
The guards.
The midnight phone calls.
The seriousness.
The gun.
Your hands are shaking tremendously. JBB.
James.
Buchanan.
Barnes.
Your mind repeats it over and over again. The math is suddenly very simple.
He kissed your forehead fifteen minutes ago. He told you to steal his shirt if you get cold. He gifted you present after present because he simply could. He spoke your name as if he had ingrained it on his tongue.
He is the most dangerous man in the city.
Something uncomfortably glaring and stinging climbs up the back of your neck, and it’s making you feel watched by a predator you once mistook for a protector.
You’ve heard the stories. Everyone has. Illegal shipments. Rival gangs disappearing overnight. Entire businesses quietly changing ownership after one meeting with Barnes.
And yet there is no evidence. Never evidence. Just the name. James Buchanan Barnes. The general public doesn’t know what he looks like. There are no confirmed photographs. Just rumors.
But you know exactly what he looks like. You know the way his hair falls into his eyes when he’s tired. You know the scars on his body, know his reactions to your lips on them. You know the exact sound he makes when you laugh unexpectedly.
You are standing in the bedroom of the most notorious mob boss in New York. Wearing the pearl necklace he gave you.
Sleeping in his bed.
Dating him.
For fucks sake, he’s been inside you. You came on the most wanted dick in this city.
The walls of his seemingly huge room, so pristine and elegant, now seem to turn from a sanctuary into a beautifully curated cage.
You have been falling for the most dangerous man in the entire city and until two minutes ago, you had absolutely no idea.
Your hand moves to put the dog tags back in their place, but it’s like you’ve switched to autopilot. Your fingers operate with a sense of detachment while your mind is still a mile behind, screaming.
You lower the chain back into the velvet-lined dark with a tremble you can’t shake. You should crush it in your fist, should throw it at the ground and stomp around on it, should spit on it for what this man did—to the world, to you—but all you can do is handle it with a carefulness that is usually reserved for unexploded ordnance.
The metal hits the bottom with a tiny clink. The sound is so small, yet it feels like a heavy iron gate slamming shut between who you were five minutes ago and who you are now.
You slide the drawer shut, the wood-on-wood glide sounding like a long, slow exhale of a secret that’s finally been caught. You do it with agonizing slowness, as if by moving quietly enough, you can trick the universe into rewinding the last sixty seconds, or rather the last months so you could have avoided stumbling into his strong but deceiving arms.
And immediately, your brain begins doing what brains do best when frightened—it rewrites the past with fresh ink.
Everything changes. Everything. You look around the bedroom again. But it’s not the same room anymore. It’s not a beautiful space where you spent evenings laughing and tangled in sheets with a man who handled you like he was scared to hurt you.
Now it’s a room belonging to James Buchanan Barnes. Mob boss. Ruler of the underworld. The man people whisper about like saying his name too loudly might summon him like the devil.
Your stomach is curled into a hard stone, your fingers still numb. And suddenly every memory of the last few weeks starts recoding itself.
You remember the first gift he gave you. Not the pearls. The flowers. Three dozen white lilies delivered to your apartment door a day after your first date.
You’d laughed at the absurdity of it, calling him to tell him that this is too much, way too much, but he had smirked over the phone, so soft and unabashed, only replying that you deserve it, that you deserve way more than that.
At the time it felt romantic. But now your mind shears the memory, leaving the colors bled and the angles wrong. You turn all the memories of him over in the light until the shadows fall differently, until they take on shapes that start to build a picture.
Maybe it wasn’t romance. Maybe it was a strategy. Because that’s what men like him do, right? They buy people. They build golden cages out of small, glittering gestures.
You rub your arms slowly.
Another memory surfaces. The restaurant. The one with the insane skyline view where the waiters treated him like visiting royalty.
You’d joked about it. Do you secretly own this place?
He’d smiled that slow, mysterious smile of his and simply offered you more wine. He had looked so pleased.
Tension coils behind your ribs, but your mind keeps going.
The necklace. The pearls. One month together and he gives you something that probably cost more than your entire wardrobe.
You had protested. He’d looked almost offended. He pouted at you. He looked so adorably soft, so hopeful you would take this gift from him, that you thought it to be sweet.
Maybe a little over-the-top.
But that was just Bucky, is what you thought. A little intense. A little larger than life.
However, now the thought hatches, its spindly legs prickling against your focus.
He wasn’t spoiling you, he was buying you. Buying your affection. Buying your trust. Buying your silence.
Heat floods your face. Shame webs across your heart in a dark lace of regret. You feel so embarrassed. It spreads across your whole chest and even stains the air around you.
Because you fell for it. You idiot fell for it.
Hook, line, and embarrassingly enthusiastic sinker.
You believed the soft way he looked at you. The way his voice dropped when he said your name. The way he kissed you like he had been wandering the desert and you were the first water he’d seen in years.
You believed the way he listened to you ramble about dumb things like your coworkers, your favorite movies, the stupid podcast you liked.
You believed the way he touched you. Gentle and devoted, and it all seemed so loving.
Your throat is tight, turned into parchment, the soft tissue shrinking and hardening until it feels ready to crack. Because all that might have been a performance. A simple performance to fool you.
Of course, he would know how to act. Of course, he would know how to charm someone. Men like that survive on manipulation.
But you don’t understand why it’s you. Why you of all people? You’re not wealthy. Not powerful. Not connected.
Which somehow makes it all the more humiliating because maybe that’s exactly why. You imagine the possibilities, and each one feels worse than the last.
Maybe he needed someone clean. Someone with no ties to his world. Someone who could unknowingly hold something for him. Transport something. Sign something. Test something.
Maybe you were never a girlfriend, but a tool. A pawn. A convenient, smiling civilian. Someone harmless enough that no one would suspect anything.
Your hand flies to your mouth to stifle a sound that hasn’t even formed, but you cannot lock out your mind, and a keener thought pushes through.
What if he didn’t need you for anything practical at all? What if you were just entertainment?
A normal girl to play house with for a few weeks. A soft distraction between grating business meetings and dangerous deals.
Your eyes and cheeks burn at the thought that somewhere behind those soft eyes and tender hands, he might have been laughing at how easily you melted. How quickly you trusted him.
You feel sick. Your stomach heaves in a frantic attempt to purge the very air you breathe. It drags liquid heat up from your gut to your searing cheeks.
Your gaze drifts to the chair by the window. His jacket still hangs there. Inside it, the gun rests quietly.
Your stomach flips again.
Because suddenly it feels impossible that the man who carried that gun tonight was the same man who tucked the blanket around you earlier, who swiped his tongue against your pussy this deliciously and stopped you from hiding your reactions.
It was simply a power play, and god, are you a stupid girl.
You hear his voice in your head again. Stay here. Lock the door.
A shiver runs down your spine. Because now the words sound different. There is none of that protective and caring cadence. All you hear is a command. Containment. Showing you he is the one with the power, he is the one dealing the cards.
Oh, god. What have you gotten yourself into. This is definitely the worst thing yet.
You know you have to get the hell out of here. High-tail it. Let your panic lend wings to your feet to carry you the fuck out of the devil’s quarters.
You absolutely cannot still be in this room when he comes back. Pretending you didn’t notice the gun was one thing. Pretending you didn’t discover who he actually is, is another thing entirely.
The lie would be too large. It would sit between you like a loaded weapon much deeper and more fatal than that damned gun.
Your pulse is a vibrating scream inside your throat, your chest, your whole body, because what happens when he sees that you know?
What does a man like James Buchanan Barnes do with loose ends?
Fear and dread pin your lungs against your ribs and make the hairs on your arms stand up.
You don’t want to find out. You grab your phone from the nightstand with shaking hands. Inside your mind, your thoughts are colliding and yelling at one another, memories reshaping themselves into something darker.
He was so worshipful. So attentive. So careful with you.
And it hurts. It hurts so fucking bad.
He really is the best actor you’ve ever met.
You glance once more around the room. The bed. The wardrobe. The luxury of everything.
Then you head for the door. Because whatever this was, whatever he was, you need to be gone before James Buchanan Barnes comes back.
There is that low, now seemingly threatening rattle vibrating through the wood of the door. Somewhere down the long dark of the hallway, a mess of voices spills out—too muffled to catch the words, just a low drone. Then there’s the sound of footsteps on the marble, over and over, like a pendulum, until it gets softened by the rugs.
It’s eerie how this place just functions. No clanking, no friction. Just the invisible, midnight grinding of a house that knows exactly how to keep itself running while everyone else is dead to the world.
Bucky's house.
No—your mind corrects strictly.
James Buchanan Barnes’s house.
You inhale slowly, steadying yourself, and turn the handle.
The door gives a tiny, smug click, and you step out slowly, looking around to see nobody.
Ahead, the hallway just stretches out forever, all that dark, expensive wood shimmering under these wall lamps that just stare at you, glowing like something waiting for its turn to speak.
It’s wide enough that you expect a massive echo, but the carpet is so thick it just eats your footsteps. It’s unsettling. The whole place feels like it’s sucked in its gut, just holding its breath, waiting to see if you’ll decide to jump through the floor-to-ceiling windows to your right in your desperation to leave this place.
The door closes behind you, and even though it doesn’t really make a sound, you flinch so hard, your little jump through the window plan might be accidental.
Your heart begins to pound harder now that you’ve left the safety—no, the illusion—of the bedroom.
Because this house feels much larger and colder out here. Maybe you should have taken the gun with you. But you don’t know how to use such a thing, because you’re a normal person, and normal people don’t carry those things around like an innocent handbag.
You take a few unsure steps and it feels like you’ve stepped backstage at a theater and suddenly realized the play you were enjoying might actually be a crime scene.
You know the way to the front door.
He walked you through the mansion when you first visited, his hand resting lightly at the small of your back, guiding you through endless rooms and hallways with an easy familiarity that felt charming at the time.
But you know better and realize he was just showing you the cage. But at least you were paying attention. Every turn, every hallway he bragged about is burned into your head. That charming tour just became the only map out of here.
Two hallways down. Past the staircase. Through the long gallery with the ample paintings.
Then the front entrance.
Simple.
Except for the fact that his mansion is apparently populated by a small army.
Maids. Guards. Staff who move through the house like quiet satellites orbiting the gravity of one man.
These were all signs you simply overlooked because he’s handsome. You bite the inside of your cheek out of frustration with yourself. How can one person be so fucking blind.
You start walking.
Your footsteps are soft, but your heartbeat is anything but.
A maid appears at the far end of the corridor just as you round the corner, and everything inside you locks up.
She pauses when she sees you, instantly throwing you a smile that genuinely looks pleasant. She recognizes you. You don’t recognize her. Your stomach turns and turns until it is knotted too tight to even be able to move.
“Miss,” she starts politely. “Aren’t you feeling well?”
You force a smile that you hope doesn’t look like it’s made entirely of nerves and the urge to run down this hall, disappearing out of sight.
“Hi,” you say, keeping your voice light, a little apologetic. “Sorry— I just... I think I need some fresh air. I have a bit of a headache.”
The lie comes out smoother than you expected. Maybe panic is a good acting coach.
The maid’s expression softens immediately. She even looks a little too concerned for you for whatever reason.
“Of course,” she says sweetly, and you actually feel bad for lying to her. Does she know who she’s working for? Does she know who you are supposed to be for the man who is her boss? Maybe you could ask her. Maybe she would shoot you for it, who knows. Maybe everyone in this godforsaken building owns a gun, ready to use it. “Would you like me to call the boss—”
“No,” you interrupt quickly, then soften the urgency with a small laugh. “No, it’s fine. He’s busy with work, right? I don’t want to bother him.”
You hate how natural the sentence sounds. How easily you can say work when you now know that word hides a thousand darker things.
The maid nods, but she does seem a little hesitant. “Of course.” Thankfully, she leaves it at that.
With the wish for you to feel better soon, and an awkward thank you from your side, you continue walking.
One corridor.
Then another.
Your mind keeps racing ahead of your body, building plans like emergency scaffolding.
It all suddenly looks so terrifyingly menacing. Especially in the dark. It feels so much like a trap. The lights are down and the shadows feel like they’re actually reaching for you. There’s this dreadful, suffocating weight pressing out from the walls, like the house itself is holding a grudge. Your skin is crawling, and the air feels too thick to actually get into your lungs. It’s stale, as though it’s been sitting in a basement for a hundred years, and now the building has finally stopped pretending to be a home and turned into a giant cave with only dead ends so you will never have a way out and will end up as a rotting corpse in some forgotten corner.
The dark walls feel like they are crowding your shoulders. Those deep red carpets are laid out just a little too perfectly, too insistent on keeping you in the center of the floor. Walking down those corridors feels like being threaded through a needle.
And it’s not that the place is ever actually quiet, it’s just that every sound here is on a leash. There is the clink of glass coming from somewhere deep in the gut of the mansion. The dry, dusty thud of footsteps on rugs that are probably more worth than your life in the eyes of the mob boss. Voices that stay low and thick, never quite hitting the walls. It’s too disciplined. It’s a silence that’s been trained to keep its mouth shut.
He probably won’t notice you slinking out of his home. However, what he will definitely notice, is that you will never see him again, or answer his texts or calls. So that will be a problem.
The man owns a gun, and whatever else he can kill people with. So you can’t go home, is what you think as you descend the wide staircase. When you get out of here, you can’t flee to your apartment.
Because he knows where you live. He picked you up there. Dropped you off there. Walked you to your door like the perfect gentleman.
You almost laugh at the bitter irony.
The most dangerous man in the city knows your address. He played the perfect gentleman just to find out where and how you live.
Which means going home would be like walking back into a trap you’ve just barely escaped.
But you know just who is badass enough to help you out of this situation. Natasha.
Natasha lives across town. Natasha answers calls at ungodly hours. Natasha once helped you move apartments at two in the morning with nothing but her wry commentary and a borrowed truck.
You could stay with her. For a few days, weeks, maybe even longer. You know she won’t mind. She’s just that kind of friend.
You could figure things out from there.
Your hand tightens slightly around your phone as you reach the bottom of the stairs.
You’ll text her once you’re outside.
Not before.
Because paranoia is part of your bloodstream now, and who knows who might glance at your screen, who might casually mention later that they saw you messaging someone.
So you keep walking until the entrance hall opens before you like the lobby of a five-star hotel. It’s extensive, with vast floors and tall ceilings and capacious doors at the far end like the exit to another world, a world you want so desperately to be a part of again.
You wipe your clammy hands on your thighs and try to mentally prepare yourself for this last step.
You cross the obsidian floor toward the doors with what you hope resembles casual determination.
Not too fast. Fast looks guilty. Not too slow. Slow looks hesitant.
You aim for something in between—the walk of a woman with a mild headache and absolutely no catastrophic revelations fluttering around inside her skull.
God, everything about the place seems so much darker now. The darkness even slinks upward into the walls, which are paneled in matte-finished ebony that drinks the light before it can reach the corners. There is no glow, not the one you imagined when you first walked in here, hand in hand with a man you thought you could fall so deeply for and would be safe with. But everything now feels iterative and cold and to feel safe means to leave and never return.
The guards notice you immediately.
Two of them stand beside the colossal front doors, tall shapes in dark suits, shoulders squared in that particular way men stand when their job description includes the possibility of violence. They’ve always been polite to you before. Quietly respectful. The way staff are supposed to be with someone important to the man who owns the house. You only now know the direction this importance takes.
They both straighten slightly when you approach.
“Ma’am,” the left one says with a deep voice that gives nothing away.
You offer another careful smile, layering it with just enough exhaustion to make your earlier excuse believable.
“I’m heading out,” you say, keeping your tone breezy, like this is the most normal thing in the world to do in the middle of the night after spending hours in their boss’s bed. “I have a headache, and don’t want to interrupt Bucky while he’s working.”
Your voice nearly stumbles over the name.
Bucky.
The harmless version.
The one that belongs to the man who kissed you like you mattered. Not the one attached to James Buchanan Barnes.
The guard on the left side of the door glances at the other one. It’s subtle, but you see it. A quick trade of communication.
Then he looks back at you.
“Boss aware you’re leaving, ma’am?”
The way he uses the word boss makes bile rise up your throat. You are actually getting a headache.
You force yourself to keep smiling.
“Oh, he’s busy,” you say lightly, waving a hand as if this entire situation is mildly inconvenient but otherwise harmless. “I would feel bad for bothering him while he’s working. And I could use some fresh air and a little rest. So I thought I would just head home.”
Neither guard moves. The doors remain closed.
You swallow tightly, and it feels like there’s a stone coming down your throat along with it, which makes your limbs feel heavier.
“I will call him,” the second guard offers, already reaching toward the small device clipped at his belt.
“No,” you blurt too quickly.
Both men look at you again, and your pulse tumbles when you feel a subtle shift sliding into place, into the invisible perimeter around this house, the machinery of control that keeps things exactly where James Buchanan Barnes wants them.
Your throat feels dry. Your voice tries to find a hiding place inside the hallway of your throat. You pull yourself together as best you can. “That’s really not necessary,” you add, softer this time, trying to patch over the crack you just made in your own story. “It’s just a headache. I don’t want him to be distracted by that. You can just let him know I left once he is done.”
The first guard studies you more closely now. He doesn’t seem suspicious exactly, but he does seem cautious.
And suddenly the hallway behind you feels very long. Too long. Because if they call him, and he walks in here while you’re standing at the door trying to escape his mansion—
Your thoughts spiral into vile possibilities faster than you can control them.
What does a mob boss do to a girl like you when he realizes she has discovered his identity? Certainly no good things.
Your heart pounds so loudly, it’s a single roar all around your skull. You feel hot, so hot, you could burst into flames.
The second guard lifts the radio slightly, eyes on you. “Sir—”
“Baby?”
The voice comes from behind you and it sounds so soft. Confused.
Your insides startle into a panic so bright, you turn blind for a second.
Your entire body freezes up.
Baby.
A freezing shiver breaks loose at the base of your skull and slides all the way down to your heels.
Baby.
The word traces the line of your back, making every hair stand up.
Baby.
You know you have to react in other ways than fear to your so-called boyfriend, so you turn around slowly, trying to unpin your strained expression.
He’s standing halfway across the hall.
Except, now he looks like a stranger.
While he was gone and taking that business phone call, he had changed into one of his perfectly tailored suits. The charcoal wool is stiff and sits snugly, and it would have ignited a heated flutter in your lower belly just an hour earlier, but now it just makes him look malevolent. He looks terrifying in his elegance. So symmetrical, your lungs are wheezing out of sheer fright.
The sweat on your skin, once warm from him, has now turned into a layer of ice. You look at him and think that no, this man doesn’t love you. All you have been to him is a soft room he stepped into to wash off the smell of whatever he does in that suit.
The business he talked about isn’t spreadsheets and meetings. It’s the way the two guards behind you have gone absolutely still, like dogs waiting for a whistle.
He looks dangerous. You have never associated Bucky with direct danger, only with protecting you from danger. But this is not a boyfriend’s posture, it’s a king’s. Even that softly confused frown he is giving you doesn’t make him seem less threatening. It’s just the look of a man who owns everything he sees and knows what to do with it.
Bucky.
Except now your brain whispers the other name.
James.
Every inch of that expensive tailoring screams that he could have you erased before his morning coffee, and he wouldn’t even get a crease in his trousers.
While you were falling in love, he was just managing a distraction.
Your heart is breaking all over again.
“What are you doing down here?” His voice sounds the same as always, and yet it doesn’t.
The guards immediately straighten although he is talking to you, though you wish he wouldn’t.
“Sir,” one of them starts, but Bucky lifts a hand slightly without even looking at them, silencing whatever explanation they were about to offer.
His eyes are on you. Only you. Concern tightens his face almost immediately.
There is a cold needle threading through your nerves. You feel like a deer that has been eating out of a hunter’s hand, only just now noticing the rifle leaning against the tree.
“I—” Your voice nearly betrays you, cracking halfway through the first syllable. Act. You have to act. You drag in a breath and force your shoulders to loosen, shoving your face into something resembling mild embarrassment rather than existential terror. “I wasn’t feeling well,” you lie, carefully smoothing your tone. “I didn’t want to interrupt you. It seemed pretty important.” You look toward the door, turning your body slightly with it in a gesture of longing. “So I planned on just heading home.”
His brows only pull further together, his expression turning deeper, and it doesn’t make this better at all. “You’re the only important thing, sweetheart. You know that.” His voice is low, but how does he manage to make it sound this gentle? Even soft.
Oh god, he’s coming closer. Of course, he’s coming closer, he’s your boyfriend, pretending to be your boyfriend, pretending to be worried, because his girl allegedly has a headache and wants to leave when he promised earlier to continue pleasing her in bed and asked her to stay and lock the door behind him because he doesn’t expect her to leave in the middle of the night.
But that doesn’t make it any easier for you to handle, doesn’t make your body react less in the horrifying way that this scary man is moving toward you, and he doesn’t know you know what kind of scary he is.
You feel your body fight against itself. You want to swirl around, run, bolt, fly through the door outside into the night, never to be seen again. Or at least not by him and his people. But you can’t. You have to stay, you have to remain planted to the floor. Even taking one step back would be a fatal mistake.
And suddenly he’s right there with all his tallness and built, and he still looks warm, but so much more intimidating.
You feel your insides shrink into themselves, your heart slipping into a corner somewhere deep.
The sheer scale of him in that suit makes your stomach drop. He is not a man, he is an entire system of brutality hidden behind a charming smile and gold cufflinks.
You shiver at the fact that your boyfriend could end a life with a nod of his head, and then come home and press his face into your neck as if his hands were clean.
“You’re not feeling well?” His voice drops into a frequency that is meant to be gentle and soothing, but for you, it just sounds like the rumble of an engine. The furrow in his brow grows shadows on his forehead. His eyes shift between yours so fast and piercing, with such a concentrated focus, scanning for the source of your pain as if he could kill it for you.
His hand comes up instinctively, the same way it always does when he’s worried about you, or when he’s not. It’s just normal for him to touch you. But watching his hand move toward you this time makes your back stiffen and a ring of alarm sounds out in your skull, shrill and poignant.
His fingers brush your cheek.
Your skin crawls of its own accord, and you flinch. You force your reaction to be small, but you can’t suppress it entirely. Your brain blanks, and your heart strikes high.
His hand stills, and so does your heart as it feels like.
Bucky notices everything. You guess it comes in handy with being the most wanted crime boss in the city.
His eyes sharpen slightly, and his concern turns more piercing. He looks at his hand still hovering awkwardly, then at you. His eyes are distraught, hinting at something deeper that just broke in two. And he looks so deeply puzzled.
“Hey,” he lets out, and it sounds a little raspy. You scramble.
“I’m sorry,” you breathe quickly, forcing a small laugh that sounds thin even to your own ears. “I’m just a little dizzy, I think.”
He studies you for a long moment.
The guards are silent now and you feel them watching from behind your back.
The house feels too quiet, too attentive, too alert.
James’ hand lowers slowly, though his gaze doesn’t leave your face.
“You’re pale,” he acknowledges, his voice grainy. He sounds like he is holding his breath.
You shrug weakly. “Yeah, well. Not my best look.”
He’s not smiling, and you start sweating. How did you never notice just how scary this man looks.
He’s thinking. You can see it. Pieces moving behind that stormy gaze. Your heart hammers harder.
Please don’t see it.
Please don’t see that you know.
He exhales slowly, then reaches for your hand, and he doesn’t do it possessively, nor roughly, just tenderly closing his fingers around yours.
“Come with me,” he says quietly, and it could sound like a plea if he weren’t the man that he is.
Your skin is a furnace. You might explode. You force a shaky breath, praying he doesn’t hear the way your heart is trying to kick its way out of your ribs.
“Bucky, I really just—”
“I know,” he cuts in softly, but there is something thick and hunted in the way he talks. “Just a minute.”
He looms over you with his whole presence and those intensely fevered eyes and he sucks the oxygen clean out of your lungs.
He nods toward the hallway behind him.
“My office is right there. We’ll sit down for a second, make sure you’re okay. And if you think I’d let you go home alone with a headache you can think again, doll.”
Doll.
God, you really have been stupid. Doll.
This is not a sweet endearment. This is literal. You are a thing made of porcelain that he is scared of dropping—or since a man like him isn’t scared of anything—you’re a thing he realized he can break.
Your pulse spikes.
Office.
Private.
Closed door.
Every alarm bell in your body begins ringing at once.
In his office, the rules of the outside world—the rules where you are safe—don’t apply. It’s where the blood gets mopped up.
But the guards are watching. The exit is behind them.
They aren’t moving a muscle and stand there like gargoyles, guarding your only hope for escape.
And Bucky—James—is standing right in front of you, his thumb brushing lightly across your knuckles.
“You’re shaking,” he murmurs, concern weaving through his quiet tone.
Well, you’re shaking because you can feel the callouses on his hands, the strength in his grip that suggests he could snap your wrist without his expression changing. He knows you are vibrating with nerves, but he has misdiagnosed the fever.
You force yourself to breathe. To smile. To pretend. Just like he has all these weeks. Just like he does now.
“Just the headache,” you whisper, and it’s tasting like bile.
He studies you for another long second, and for a moment you think he might see the truth. You think the mask is going to be ripped away right here in the hallway.
Then he squeezes your hand gently. “Come on, sweetheart.”
He turns you away from the door that would bring you to safety, moving his hand to the small of your back, and it is the gentlest thing in the world. But that somehow makes it so harrowing, because there is nothing rough in the gesture, nothing that could be called force by anyone watching, nothing but warmth and assurance, leading you into the heart of his house with the grace of a protector, and yet your whole body reads it like a sentence being handed down.
You are now thoroughly trapped, you realize while swallowing down the rising tide of bile. It feels like a master painter adding the final, darkening stroke to a portrait you can no longer step out of.
But there is nothing you can do. You let him steer you away from the door because what else are you supposed to do? Rip away, run, scream? That seems impossible in a house that breathes his name through every vent and doorway. A house where even the air seems employed by him.
The mansion appears to lengthen as you walk through it, as if corridors are being pulled like taffy just to spite you, just to show you how laughably far the front door already is, how absurd it was to think you could simply walk out with a polite excuse and a swallowed scream in your throat, hoping nobody heard it rattling behind your teeth, pretending you were still a girl who had a choice in where she slept tonight.
You try to pay attention. You try to mark the route the way people do in movies when they’re kidnapped or hunted or trying not to fall off the edge of the earth—left at the long console with the black granite top, right at the staggering painting in the gilded frame, straight past the alcove with the antique lamp and the white flowers that smell expensive and funereal at once.
But panic is a vandal and it is paralyzing and it comes in and smashes every useful thought with a chair.
Your heart is beating too hard, your blood too loud, your mind too busy manufacturing horrors to do something practical like remember turns. Foyer, hall, archway, staircase, another hall. No—was it staircase first? Was the office past the library, or past that room with the dark green walls?
Oh god, this is horrible. You're really starting to feel lost and this might be a catastrophic blow to your faith.
You try to pin each detail to the inside of your skull, but they slide off slick as fish, and every second spent trying to memorize the geography of this place only makes you more conscious of the fact that you are being walked farther and farther from the only exit you knew.
Why would he take you this far? The question lets sweat collect at the base of your neck. Why not the room just off the main hall? Why not one of the closer offices? Why not let you leave if you are only dizzy, only pale, only under the weather the way you claimed?
Does he suspect something? Has he already seen it, the wrongness in your face, the recoil you were too slow to hide, the way your voice came out laced too tight? And worse than that, more awful than suspicion because it drips with intention—was there always going to be a moment like this? Had he always been walking you here in one way or another, from the first date, from the first gift, from the first time he looked at you as if you were worth the chase?
Maybe this is what men like him do. Maybe he had a plan long before you ever had a clue. Maybe there has never been a single unarranged second between you, and you were just too lovesick and dazzled to notice the rails under your feet.
His hand stays at your back the entire time, broad and warm, but it makes you want to shove him away from you. When you hesitate, the pressure spikes just enough to remind you which way the door isn't. He is leading you forward and it would have felt gentle, but it doesn’t. No longer.
His thumb-strokes across your back don’t feel comforting at all and more like he is smoothing out a wrinkle in his own sleeve or the way he might polish a piece of silver he has decided to keep.
You suppress a chilling shiver he surely would have felt.
When you glance at him, because some abhorrent part of you still does, still wants to; you find concern in his face and it nearly brings you to the floor. You can’t glimpse any coldness, no strategic thinking whatsoever. At least not the kind you expected to see. His eyes aren’t narrowed and sharpened with discovery, there is no clipped impatience, no telltale crack in the mask.
He looks at you the way he has always looked at you when something seemed off, with his little frown and that determination, as if your problems are things he would like to drag outside and beat to death with his bare hands.
His gaze moves over your face with the same intimate concentration that once made your stomach warm for all the right reasons. It does not help. It makes everything worse.
Because if this is performance, then he is monstrous at it. If this is an act, he’s lived in the skin of it for a lifetime.
A lie shouldn’t feel this solid, shouldn’t have a thumb that knows exactly where your tension hides.
If he is acting, then he deserves a stage and an audience and perhaps a crown.
You can barely stand it, this collision between what you know and what he appears to be. A man can’t look at you like that and still be the most feared name in the city. Except apparently he can. Apparently, men can be two things at once. Apparently, the universe is vulgar enough to make both true.
You pass a maid coming the other way—a small, neat woman in a crisp uniform. She is carrying folded lines in her arms, and Bucky acknowledges her with nothing more than a curt nod, and she responds with a warm little smile aimed at you and the faintest dip of her head—something halfway between greeting and curtsey, so practiced it is almost invisible, but not invisible enough, not to you, not now.
It makes your breath hitch, how he doesn’t swell with importance, or doesn’t put on a show of his control.
He’s so comfortable in his power that he doesn't even need to show it off; he just steers you onward, knowing nobody will do a single thing to stop him.
And your stomach lurches so suddenly it feels as if your bones have missed a step. Because there it is. There, in one small exchange, is the whole persona of him. He is not loud or cartoony with his power, he just has it. It’s real. It doesn’t need to announce itself because everyone in its radius already knows where to bend.
The maid’s smile is kind, almost affectionate, and that somehow shames you more, because it suggests this has been obvious to everyone but you.
They all know what he is. The guards know. The staff knows. The men at the gate, the drivers, the strangers in tailored suits who always nod to him with instant stillness in their spines—they all know.
And you, meanwhile, had been floating around this house in your pretty little ignorance, accepting tea on silver trays, accepting jewelry in velvet boxes, accepting his mouth and his hands and his delicious attention as if you had simply stumbled into the arms of an intense, rich man with old-fashioned manners and a dangerous face completely by accident.
You would like to face palm yourself, but this is a bad moment.
Natasha will definitely do it for you once you get out of here and manage to escape to her apartment.
You had looked at the signs and called them charm. You had looked at vigilance and called it romance. You had looked at fear arranged into etiquette and thought that wow, he really runs this company proficiently.
The embarrassment of it blooms hot under your skin, nearly as painful as the fear. You have been blind. Worse—willingly blind. Blind not by accident but by appetite, by wanting. Love, or whatever this early ferocious thing is, has wrapped a hand-woven scarf around your eyes and led you smiling into a cathedral built from warning signs and decorated with red flags.
And the humiliating part, the part that makes you feel like you could peel yourself out of your own skin from sheer mortification, is that you had even congratulated yourself for being so unbothered by his world.
Look at you, cool girl extraordinaire, dating the beautiful, mysterious executive in his deluxe mansion, pretending not to notice the guards and the driver and the way everyone waited half a beat too long for his approval before moving.
You had thought you were being mature. Sophisticated. Unruffled. Meanwhile, you were essentially a decorative houseplant with a pulse, sitting in the sun of his attention and calling it insight. It would almost be funny if it weren’t your life currently doing a slow and terrible cartwheel off a cliff.
How could you have ever believed that a guy like him would be interested in that naive, silly girl that you are.
Honestly, if you survive this ordeal, you will end up in some corner of your small, meager apartment, bawling your eyes out, and keep living that unlucky life of yours.
He glances at you again as you walk on that burgundy red carpet deeper into the hole that is another hallway, and his hand presses a little more firmly between your shoulder blades. It’s protective rather than possessive to anyone looking in from the outside, but the gesture sends another flare of panic through you anyway.
You wonder if he can feel the fear on you, if it comes off your skin. You wonder if men like him are trained by experience to smell a lie the way dogs smell storms. You wonder whether he is leading you to comfort or containment. Every room you pass seems too opulent to be real with those chandeliers like frozen explosions, rugs plush enough to kill the sound of literally anything, the dark wood twinkling creepily under low gold light, paintings in heavy frames, looming over everything, looking down their painted noses at anyone not born into the frame.
The place no longer looks luxurious so much as fortified. You see the thickness of doors now. The depth of corridors. The strategic sightlines. The subtle placement of people. This house is not merely beautiful. It is defensible. It is a kingdom in disguise.
And you had been letting yourself be loved in it. You stupid girl had let him come way, way too close to you.
But it’s what makes every step hurt more than it should. Because despite everything, despite the gun and the initials and the name on the tags and the avalanche of terror crushing common sense into powder, there is still some small perfidious corner of you that keeps stumbling over the memory of how gentle he was, how attentive, how he watched your face as if your feelings were weather and he meant to learn every season.
You hate that part of yourself right now, and that it even exists in the first place after everything you found out about the man and what knowing him entails.
You want cleaner fear, simpler fear, fear without ache in it. But your fear is contaminated by affection. By memory. By the wrenching possibility that whatever else he is, whatever blood has dried invisibly on his hands, the softness he’s shown you may have been real. And if that is real, then the rest is not easier to understand. It is harder. Infinitely harder. It means the monster did not wear a mask. It means the monster kissed your forehead and tucked blankets around your legs and remembered how you take your coffee. But your brain can’t follow all of that.
Another turn. Another corridor. Another room you cannot catalogue fast enough.
You try again to memorize the path, because panic may be a vandal but desperation is stubborn.
The wall here is paneled more deeply. There is a bronze wolf on a pedestal. A narrow window at the end of the hall. A runner rug patterned in deep red, almost the color of old cherries, almost the color of dried blood if your mind is in the mood to be cruel, which it surely is.
Your thoughts keep darting ahead of you and slam themselves against every worst-case future they can find. If he knows you know, what does that mean? If he does not know you know, what then? Which is safer? Is there a safer version of this at all?
You imagine phones taken gently from your hand. Doors locked with apologetic clicks. Promises made in that low warm voice while your life narrows to the width of his will.
The terrible thing is that none of your imaginings need to be loud to be horrifying. A man like him does not need spectacles. He has infrastructure.
By the time he slows in front of a set of double doors farther inside the mansion than you have ever been allowed, or invited, to go; your nerves are so frayed they feel almost luminous, every sound oppressive, every movement enlarged.
He looks down at you, his face still threaded with worry, and sweeps his hand from your back to your elbow in a gesture so careful it would be beautiful in any other universe. In this one it only makes your chest tighten until breathing feels like work. He leans slightly closer, and his voice drops, intimate as a hand at your throat, though there is nothing harsh in it.
“What’re you thinking about, baby,” he asks quietly, searching your face.
Well, you’re thinking about the front door.
It’s where you left your mind.
Or maybe it was lost in his room already. Maybe it stayed with the gun on his carpet.
And the other, the more rational part of your mind, the one that told you this couldn’t have been true anyway, because you are you and he is him, lingers in every news story you ever half listened to.
You are inside the tormenting, glittering realization that you have not just fallen for a dangerous man, but for the dangerous man, and that all the softness you took as sanctuary may have only been the most exquisite blindfold ever tied.
“Nothing, Bucky,” you reply weakly, trying to ease, but your voice is shaking just that tiny bit, and judging by the uncomfortable twist of his mouth, he caught it.
You’re too lost in your stupidity that you’re hardly present when he opens his wooden office door and ushers you inside, again with the most tender movements.
The office is warmer than the hall, quieter too, and it makes goosebumps rise on your arms and the hairs stand tall at the back of your neck because this room is built to keep any sound inside and secrets fat and sleeping in the walls. Everywhere you look there is dark wood and low amber light and books lined up in stern, handsome rows as if knowledge itself has been drafted into his service.
You feel the world shrink from cathedral to chamber, from public performance to something confined, more dangerous, more indiscreet, because now there are no guards, no maids, no witnesses to help keep either of you inside your assigned role.
There is only him, only you, only that soft snick of the door as he shuts it behind him; and that small, tidy sound feels like it’s happening inside your own chest. You watch his hand leave the brass knob, and the logic in your head just gives up. There’s only a hysterical, messy scramble of thoughts, all of them howling at once and all of them useless.
He turns back to you immediately, all his attention gathering around you with that familiar chilling completeness, and before you can decide whether to stand very still or bolt like a startled animal with nowhere sensible to run, he is guiding you toward the couch near the fireplace with one hand steady at your waist and the other brushing over your arm, then your back again. He’s never forcing or gripping hard, but he’s just not letting go of you and it makes you want to jump against the wall in hopes it’ll crack and you’ll land on the other side because his touch is making you more and more nervous.
He treats you as if he thinks you might faint at any second.
It is infuriating, that gentleness. It feels like a kind of torture that’s impossible to fight because your skin has a longer memory than your head. Your body still knows him first as safety. It still recognizes the heat of his palm and the strength of him, the way he moves as though you’re the center of the room.
And now every instinct is splitting at the seams. All you want to do is run, you want him away from you, you want to be far gone from all of this, you want to scream and scream some more, but the other half of you is remembering how carefully he tucked a blanket over your legs last week when you fell asleep during a movie or the way he has checked you for bruises after literally making love to you with that distressed frown upon his face, scared he’s been too rough with you.
The collision makes you dizzy enough that, absurdly, he may not be wrong. You might actually faint. Just from the sheer vertigo of finding out that the man who kissed you so devotedly has a name the whole city says with a tremble in their voices.
“Sit down for me,” he coaxes, and his voice is low, soft, carrying none of the steel you used to hear when he dealt with his men, and that contrast nearly makes your skin crawl.
You lower yourself onto the couch because your knees are not reliable enough to argue with him. The room seems to have acquired a faint sway, because the blood in your veins feels thin and feverish, and he stays right there, close enough that his thigh nearly brushes yours before he drops into a crouch in front of you.
The sight of this dangerous man folding all that height and breadth down to your level, gaze lifted to your face with plain concern would have melted you an hour ago.
But all it does now is frighten you some more. It feels too intimate, too earnest, too much like care, and care from a man like him is no simple thing. It is not a ribbon. It is a chain in softer clothing.
You swallow hard and that alone almost makes you flinch.
His eyes move over you with increasing worry, taking inventory in little silent increments. Your face is pale, you feel the damp shine of stress at your temples, you can’t keep your fingers still in your lap, and you can’t quite tame the uneven hitch in your breath.
He reaches up and lays the back of his hand against your forehead, then your cheek, his brows knitting tighter, and his mouth presses into a serious line. “You’re sweating,” he murmurs, more to himself than to you, as if he would like to issue orders to your body until it starts behaving properly.
His thumb grazes the curve of your jaw, feather-light, and you have to stop yourself from jerking away too sharply. You have to refrain yourself from slapping his hand away.
He notices even the version of restraint. You guessed, he does. A man like him has to. A man like him would. But it does worsen your situation.
A chill spreads along the base of your neck.
His eyes sharpen, not with suspicion exactly, but with apprehension deepening into something more searching, more troubled. “Talk to me, baby,” he pleads, softer still. “Did something happen? Did I do something?”
You stare at him.
For a moment the question does not make sense, your mind too busy running in circles with sirens in its hair, but you notice the shadow in his face, the hunch, the way his gaze jumps to your mouth, your throat, your posture curled too tight, and it seems bizarre because he honestly looks as though he might dread he pushed you too far, touched you too much, misread your body, took a liberty you weren’t ready for.
The absurdity of that nearly splits your head open because earlier when he—god, when he had his criminal tongue on your pussy—he acted so attentive, he seemed genuinely careful and devastatingly patient, and yet now, knowing what you know, even that lightness now hardens into a new breed of atrocity.
Because if this is him being careful, if this is him holding himself in check, then what does rough look like in a man built the way he is, in a man whose name can make grown men go quiet? What shape does cruelty take when it belongs to someone with this much power and this little need to raise his voice?
“No,” you answer too fast, the word skidding out of you. “No, you didn’t— nothing like that.”
Well, he did do something. A lot, really. Things that would put him in a cell never to be let out.
But he didn’t do anything to you yet. Yet. He might, if you don’t get your shit together.
His shoulders loosen by a fraction, but not enough. Not nearly enough. He still looks wound up. He still looks a little perturbed.
“Are you sure?” he asks, and there is something sincere in his voice, it is disorienting. “Because, honey, you can tell me if I was too much. If I missed something. If I—” He stops, swallows, and the hand at your cheek gentles further, as if he is trying to make himself seem safer. Funny. “I need to know. Need to know if there was ever a moment when you didn’t feel good.”
Something is dipping in the air around you, and everything feels distorted. Your head is hazy and a complete maze, because how is he even doing it this well?
You pull back then, small at first, because having his hands on you for longer will surely drive you insane. You don’t shove him off, or smack his hand away, you simply move out of his palms enough to break the line of his touch, but even that has him looking at you more closely.
You gather your hands together in your lap so he won’t see them tremble and shake your head with a smile that feels stapled on, brittle and thin, and one wrong breath away from snapping in half. “I’m okay,” you say, aiming for sheepish, for embarrassed, for normal. “I just need some sleep, I think. That’s all. It’s probably stupid. I’m probably just a little exhausted and overreacting.”
He doesn’t buy it.
You can tell immediately, and you hate that you can tell, but you notice how his whole face changes in that subtle way his face does when he has decided something is amiss and he is not going to stop until he gets to the bottom of it.
He shifts closer, forearms braced loosely on his thighs, his attention absolute. “Then sleep here,” he deadpans. As if this is simply the answer to all the problems in the world. “You don’t need to go anywhere tonight. 'Specially when you’re not feeling well.”
Your stomach contracts into a hard, cold knot, and it feels like there’s a displacement in your chest. It’s the sensation of a staircase ending one step too soon and you didn’t notice so now you’re hitting air instead of floor with a heart-shaking jolt. It is jarring. It is petrifying, because it means you’re not getting out of here that easily. You might not be getting out of here at all if he continues to look at you like that.
Sleep here.
Stay here.
In his house. In his reach. In the center of the web.
Your pulse stutters so hard it hurts.
“I should go home,” you try, and even to your own ears it sounds small, unconvincing, more instinct than argument.
His frown deepens, utterly baffled by your insistence in the face of what he clearly sees as a solvable problem. “Why?” he asks quietly, and his voice sound a tad hoarse. “If you feel bad, why would I let you leave?”
Your lungs can’t seem to catch any air although it’s all around you.
Why would I let you
He didn’t say why would you leave, no he said why would I let you.
Good god, you really have been a stupid girl. The signs were all in front of you, weren’t they? They were literally speaking to you.
He’s talking in a tender tone, making his voice all soft and gentle, even soothing and so concerned, but that’s just the outside. You never paid attention to what lay underneath, hidden deep inside, because the outside was pretty and alluring enough. And maybe you are imagining it now, the gravelly implications in his tone, maybe your body’s just trying to see and hear things that aren’t there, but perhaps it truly has been there all the time and you were too wrapped in him to notice it.
You stand up quickly.
And you shouldn’t have done that because he will think what the hell you’re doing now, but your body decided and now your body is doing it.
The room sways, your vision going soft at the edges for one humiliating second, and his hands are on you—one at your elbow, one at your waist, and there is no shaking them off.
You flinch despite yourself and he stills as if you have struck him. You know he doesn’t understand your reactions, how could he.
“Hey,” he coos, his voice lowering even further, and there is definitely something thick in his voice. “Easy.”
“I’m fine,” you insist, too breathless, too papery, trying to peel his hands off you without making it look like peeling, which is impossible, because every move feels too fast or too urgent, every instinct either too frightened or too telling. “Really, Bucky, I’m just tired. I’m probably being ridiculous.”
His gaze searches yours with such intensity it feels almost physical. “You’re trying to get away from me.”
The words are quiet, and although there is no anger in them, no threat at all, it has your mouth go dry.
“No,” you answer, and it is not a good lie. “No, Bucky. Of course not. My head’s just really hurting.”
Something in him clicks into a higher gear—not a lack of trust or anything like that, but a kind of piercing, automated focus. Something in his eyes snaps into high definition. All that soft, vague concern is gone, replaced by an attention so bright and infiltrating it feels like being pinned to a board under a microscope.
Carefully, he makes you sit back down on the couch and lands right beside you. You feel the heat of him pressing into your side, though he does give you a bit of space.
His hand comes to your upper arm, stroking once, and you hate your own pulse for noticing how familiar it feels despite it having lost its appeal. “Look at me,” he presses, and it almost sounds like an order. His voice seems serious enough to make you shiver in fear.
You look at him because you have to and refusing would be louder than screaming.
His eyes are so damn blue in this weirdly dim light, clear and intent and lined with such deep worry. He’s definitely denser, his concern losing its fluff, but not its patience. There still is no trace of coldness, no roughness, nothing that is overly intimidating despite the man he is.
Just that same irksome softness, that same look like your distress is something he wants to fix with both hands, with all of himself if necessary.
It rattles you more than if he had come in hard and sharp and monstrous. A monster would be easier. A monster would let your fear stand up straight. But this man looking at you like your pain pains him is a labyrinth with no clean exits.
And it feels foreboding. It has you more on edge. It’s the way the woods go quiet right before something heavy steps out of the brush; a sudden, absolute alignment of intent.
Maybe he knows you know and now he’s waiting for the right moment to pounce. You do your best to keep your fright behind your eyes.
“You can sleep here tonight,” he offers again, gentler now, and it seems as though he believes repetition might soothe you into agreement. “I’ll stay with you. Or I won’t, if you want space. I’ll get you water, food, whatever you need. But I’m not sending you home like this.”
Not sending.
Again that wordless, soft-toned authority.
Again that sense that his care and his control are fused so tightly together they share a bloodstream.
You are running out of room inside your own face. Running out of expressions that can pass for normal. Running out of ways to keep the panic from drawing its blade.
So you do the only thing you can think of, the stupidest thing, the most desperate thing—you lean in and kiss him.
It’s short and small and only meant to reassure, to smooth over, to redirect. Your lips meet his and every cell in your body revolts.
And it’s not at all because he kisses badly, god no. Even startled, even worried, he receives you with immediate tenderness, one hand lifting to cradle your jaw, his mouth warm and careful and heartbreakingly familiar but also so, so foreign, a cold shiver seizes your back.
It is what makes nausea roll through you so suddenly you nearly choke on it. Because this is James Buchanan Barnes.
This is the name on the dog tags, the name on the news, the name people lower their voices around as if it might hear them and turn its head.
This is the most feared man in the city and his mouth is still the same mouth that kissed the corner of your smile with one of his own.
Your stomach turns so sharply you have to concentrate not to pull away in disgust too soon, not to betray yourself with the wrong kind of urgency.
You kiss him once, twice, tasting dread under the memory of want, and every instinct in you screams that you are pressing your lips to a loaded weapon and pretending it is a rose.
When you ease back, you make yourself smile.
It feels gargantuan, the effort of it.
“I’m okay,” you whisper, like that explains anything, like that proves you are only tired and not terrified, only overwhelmed and not trying to survive. “I promise. I can go home like this.”
His thumb brushes under your eye so lightly, and you run your tongue over your lip, trying to get that uncomfortable tingling to go away.
But he still looks unconvinced.
More than unconvinced, actually. Plagued. As if the kiss reassured him of your affection but not your state, and now that mismatch is bothering him in ways he can’t make sense of.
His gaze lingers on your face, then your mouth, then your hands clenched too tightly in your lap. He takes one of them and turns it gently palm-up, his fingers closing around yours. You can feel how much bigger his hand is. You can feel how easily it encloses.
And all at once the room feels narrow as a throat, the walls leaning in, the lamplight too gold, the air too warm, and you are sitting inches from a man who could ruin your life before breakfast and is looking at you like the only thing he wants in this world is to make you feel safe.
“What’s going on, doll?” His voice could even be pleading, just a little bit. It’s definitely croaky. “I— I get the feeling—”
“I told you, Bucky. It’s just a headache.” He sighs to that, but all you can think about is how completely his hand closes over the bones of your own. How easy it would be for those fingers to tighten from comfort into command, from tenderness into something unarguable.
His other palm is at your arm, and your body does this awful arithmetic without your permission, subtracting your strength from his and arriving, every single time, at the same answer—none.
There is none. Not enough. Not nearly enough.
You notice things you never let yourself notice before because before they were part of romance, of safety, of the warm relief of being cared for by someone larger and more grounded than you.
Now those same details come back rearranged into something atrocious. The width of his shoulders. The thickness of his thighs where they bracket the edge of the couch. The controlled way he moves, never wasted, never sloppy, suggesting he has long ago become intimate with force and no longer needs to flaunt it.
Even the gentleness feels frightening because it is so deliberate. You can feel, in every cautious touch, that he is handling you lightly not because he must, but because he chooses to. And choice is a nightmarish thing when done by a man like him. Choice means there are other versions of him. Choice means there are rooms in him you have never seen. Choice means the tenderness is not the whole house, only one lit window.
You sit very still because being still feels safer than moving, and panic has made your limbs feel both too heavy and too ready to misfire. While he studies your face with that immensely worried crease between his brows, your thoughts keep slipping sideways into grotesque little visions of what would happen if he decided to stop being soft.
Not even dramatic visions. That would almost be easier. Nothing so loud as being thrown or shouted at. Your fear is smarter than that now. It imagines quieter things. A wrist caught before you can pull away. A door closed with no visible hurry. Your name said in that low voice while every route out of the room gently, politely disappears.
You hate yourself for thinking it, hate the way your pulse kicks harder with each new image, hate most of all that his touch remains careful through all of it, remains incessantly kind, so that your fear begins to feel almost counterfeit in the face of what he is actually doing, and then the next thought corrects you suddenly—no, not counterfeit. Instinct. Instinct finally dragging itself awake after weeks of sleeping with its face turned to his chest.
He must notice something fresh pass through you, some new tremor or tightening, because his jaw flexes and then he reaches into his pocket for his phone.
He is glancing at the screen and some shutter drops behind his eyes. It doesn’t slam, it just falls shut, as simple as that. Just sliding into place as neatly as a blade returning to its sheath.
He lifts the phone, says a name you don’t catch because your ears are too loud with your heartbeat, and when the person on the other end answers, his voice changes so completely that a chill runs over your skin.
“Bring cold towels to my office. And painkillers. Water too.” That is all.
Simple words. Ordinary words.
But the voice that carries them is stripped clean of softness, and that is what makes your blood curdle. There is no gentle edge worn smooth for your benefit. It is a voice pared down to function, to expectation, to command. Not loud, not theatrical, not cruel in any obvious way, it is just cold the way a simple black stone is cold. Cold the way a locked gate is cold.
There is no room in it for hesitation, no room in it for mishearing, no suggestion that obedience is a favor rather than the natural order of things. Whoever is on the other end responds immediately, and he ends the call without another word, already moving to set the phone aside, already turning back toward you, and your whole body has gone thin with dread because all you can think, stupidly, helplessly, is this is how he speaks when he is not pretending to be gentle.
And if this is his ordinary command voice, then what would he sound like if he knew? If he looked at you and saw recognition staring back, saw the name James Buchanan Barnes fully formed in your eyes, saw that you had found the gun and the initials and the tags and had welded them all together into the truth? Would his voice sharpen? Flatten further?
Would he say your name with that same smooth authority and turn it into a thing that could pin you in place?
The thought is a beaded sweat of ice trailing down the ladder of your back.
You try not to react. You fail a little. He sees the shiver, he sees, because he is James Buchanan Barnes for goodness sake, and immediately his focus softens again as he leans a fraction closer, anguish returning to his face as if the colder version of him never existed at all.
The door catches your eye over his shoulder.
It is simply there. Closed, but not locked, at least not that you can see. Dark wood, brass handle, a square of possibility in a room rapidly losing oxygen.
And once you look at it, you cannot stop.
Your gaze keeps darting back like something hooked. You begin to map the distance with desperate measurements.
If you stood up now—no, not stood, launched—if you shoved him hard enough to buy yourself one puzzled second, maybe two, could you make it? Out the office, into the hall, left or right—God, which one had you come from?—and then what? Down one corridor, past another, through that impassable warren of pragmatic but pristine floors and expensive silence and armed loyalty, praying that your body would remember what your mind failed to memorize?
You picture it anyway. You can’t help it. You picture yourself bolting, slipping on gleaming floors, turning wrong and wrong again, heart exploding in your throat while the mansion multiplies around you like a bad dream, each hallway birthing three more, each staircase leading not to freedom but to another floor full of his money and his people and his reach.
Still, the image won’t leave you. It grows instead, takes on velocity. You imagine the first breath of motion, the clean scary choice of it. The couch under you unweighting. The door handle cold in your palm. The sudden crash of everything becoming honest.
You don’t have a lot of choices here. So maybe fate would take pity on you. Maybe panic would become a compass. Maybe your body would remember a route your mind cannot hold. Maybe the front hall would be merciful and simply appear in front of you, all that dark wood and those massive doors and the guards too startled to stop you before you ripped yourself out into the night. It is preposterous. It is probably impossible. It becomes, nevertheless, the brightest thought in the room. Bright enough to burn.
You are too poised on the edge of movement now, too taut, every nerve drawn tight as wire.
“Baby,” Bucky starts, a little alarmed, and he shifts closer again, one hand lifting instinctively, probably to touch your face, your shoulder, your wrist, some place he thinks he can soothe.
But the sight of that hand coming toward you almost does it. Almost tips you over from imagining escape into choosing it. You can feel your muscles gathering without permission, your body preparing itself in secret, a rabbit under the hawk’s shadow. Run, run, run. For one crazed second you are already halfway gone in your mind—up off the couch, around the table, through the door, don’t think, just move, just run, run, run—
And then his fingers brush your arm, so lightly, so soft, but it breaks something inside you because you want his sweet touch, you want him to hold you, to soothe you, to love you, but you don’t want it to be James Buchanan Barnes, you want it to be Bucky, but he’s no longer Bucky, he won’t ever be anymore, and so you simply react.
You jerk, shoving his hand away before you can stop yourself, not enough to really hurt, but enough that the gesture hangs in the air between you like a shattered glass note.
Your breath is now gone entirely.
There are a few beats where simply nothing happens.
Then his hand drops back.
You stare at him, your own hand hovering stupidly in midair as if all you have to do is snip your finger to turn back the time.
And Bucky—James—just looks at you. For a small moment, he simply looks startled, like a deer in the headlights of your rejection. He looks so tremendously confused, his face totally unglued, but then his eyes shift gears, shift into alarm, shift into a concern so much deeper than before. It seems as if your recoil has unhinged him. As if it has frightened him for an entirely different reason than the one clawing its way through your chest. As if it has confirmed something he’s only lived in a nightmare before.
His features warp into something resembling desperation, his mouth hanging open, his eyes wide and asking, and it is nauseating to watch—the way he’s already cobbling together a version of reality where he isn’t the monster you’re trying to run from.
He is misinterpreting your panic and it makes you sick.
He isn't thinking She knows what I am. His mind is sprinting in the exact opposite direction to protect itself.
He thinks the headache is actually a migraine that has you reacting strangely, or it’s a panic attack, or some hidden trauma he didn’t know about, and he is already frantically building a scenario where he gets to fix it. His mouth stays slightly open, his breath hitching as if he’s about to choke on his own breath. He looks around the empty office with this desperate, wild squint, his eyes darting to the corners of the room as if he expects to find a physical monster standing there—something he can actually put a bullet in to make you stop shaking.
“Alright,” he lets out, and his voice is completely broken, a rough, dry scrape that sounds like it is tearing his throat.
He doesn’t lunge for you or do something big. Instead, he actually hitches his weight backward, trying to make himself smaller, which is harrowing because he is still twice your size and wearing a suit that could be sprinkled with blood in under an hour. His hands stay out in front of him, palms up, fingers twitching with this jittery, helpless energy. He is looking at you with this forlorn begging in his widened eyes, practically pleading with them for you to blame it on the lights, or the noise, or anything else in the world—because the alternative is that he is the thing making you look at him like he’s an executioner.
You might be running out of time to pretend.
“I’m sorry, Bucky, I— I’m so sorry, I don’t—” You don’t even know what explanation you are going to give him now, only that you are suddenly full of the clumsy need to fill the room with words before the room fills with something worse, and so your mouth opens on instinct, on panic, on the miserable little scraps of sanity still fluttering inside you. You hear yourself stammer out some thin, transparent nonsense about feeling strange, about maybe being overwhelmed, about maybe needing air, maybe needing to go home, maybe nothing, because every excuse sounds flimsy the second it leaves you, and every sentence makes your spirit mulch and dissolve into a gray slurry that won’t hold a shape.
And Bucky is still so close and still so beautiful and still so racked with his brows pinched into a severe, pained knot. His eyes are full of shadows, and this is all so bad.
His softness somehow makes all of this worse, not better, because if he were cruel already, if he were cold already, if he gave you even one clean villain’s grin, one sharp look, one thread of honest menace, maybe your fear would have somewhere proper to sit.
But he only examines your features as though it truly physically aches him to see you like this, as though your panic has reached inside him and laid a dirty hand around his heart.
“Don’t apologize, sweetheart,” he starts, and he says it so quietly, with so much care, still, but also with a mounting unease that is just about to reach its peak. “I just wanna know what’s going on. Talk to me, baby. Please. I—” he breaks off with a sigh, his jaw grinding. “If something’s wrong, if something’s going on, then I gotta know.”
You swallow hard in hopes that anything might help soothe the sting behind your eyes. You don’t believe him, not fully anymore, but some humiliating, hopelessly romantic part of you still recognizes the cadence of the man who kissed your forehead this morning, the man who tucked a strand of hair behind your ear with the most tender hands, the man who remembered how you take your tea and which side you prefer to sleep on and the fact that you hate when socks twist inside your shoes.
It is unimaginable, it is desolating how tenderness can survive in the same body as terror, how your heart can continue making a fool of itself even while your mind is setting the whole house on fire.
“Bucky, really, I’m just...” Your voice hitches, the words sticking like thistles in your throat. You look down at his hands and they are so huge and capable, currently flexing with an empty urge to hold you. You know those hands have held weapons. You know they’ve ended lives and carried blood. But right now they are trembling because you won’t let them touch you.
You can feel yourself growing sharper and shakier by the second, every nerve in you pulled too tight, every breath arriving shallow and unhelpful, and still he keeps speaking to you in that quiet and gentle tone, asking whether it was something earlier, whether he pushed too far, whether he missed something, where exactly it hurts. You can’t tell him it’s your heart and not your head that is currently in shambles.
The concern in him seems real. That is the terrible part. It seems real enough to bruise. You shake your head too quickly. You try to smile and feel it crack before it even fully forms. You say you are just tired. You say you do not know. You say you are fine with the kind of desperate brightness you would use when standing on the edge of a roof insisting you are only admiring the view.
His gaze drops to the space you are slowly clearing between you, and his expression hardens. Gears are grinding behind his eyes and suddenly he looks like the man in the hallway, filled with command and so fucking terrifying, your pulse spikes to unhealthy numbers. He doesn’t look at you, he turns his head to look in the direction of the closed door, his posture squared.
“Did someone say something to you?” He asks, his tone dropping into a low, scraping register that makes the hairs on your arms stand up. “In the hall? Before I came out?”
You blink at him in disbelief. Does he think someone threatened you? Does he think one of his own men, or some interloper in his kingdom, stepped out of line with you? The fact that that would cause such an intense reaction in him makes you want to be catapulted straight out of here because this is genuinely just getting all too much. He seems about ready to tear his own house down to find the monster that scared you, completely unaware that he is the one wearing the monster’s skin.
You are about to open your mouth to improvise your way to freedom, when there is a brisk knock on the oak door and it makes your entire body jerk.
Bucky turns toward the noise, but not before you catch the brief, hot flare of irritation that darkens his features. He rises with all his coiled grace and contained force, and for half a second you just stare at his back, seeing even that differently now. He really is a tall man. He is immense. Broad. Space seems to make room for him as he steps to the door. God, what the hell did you walk yourself into. The only thought that gives you a tiny bit of ease is that there surely have to be other girls out there who would have fallen for it all, looking at him.
He cracks the door open. A man stands in the corridor holding a tray balanced with a folded stack of damp, cold towels, a bottle of water, and a blister pack of painkillers. And it’s weird how this would have struck you as absurdly thoughtful just hours before but now it feels sinister. It is purely ominous. It is comfort orchestrated by absolute authority; a display of care that only exists because of total, unquestioning submission.
Bucky, or James, or the most wanted mob boss of all time; thanks him, quickly, absently, not unkind but distracted, his thoughts still hooked to you so visibly that even the man at the door registers the tension.
And that man glances inside just enough to catch sight of you on the couch, sitting there sweating, pale, rigid as a hunted thing.
A manic urge strikes you to scream for help. You want to yell at this stranger to run, to call the precinct, or to simply throw you over his shoulder and get you the hell out of this building. But the impulse dies in your throat. It would be entirely useless. Every single person under this roof operates on his frequency. This man wouldn't take a single order from you even if it would be more of a plea than anything else. All of these people in this damn building listen to his every word. He wouldn’t do a thing to help you.
And before you can even let go of the fantasy, the man immediately drops his eyes again and leaves, because everyone in this house seems trained in the art of not seeing too much.
But you see too much now. That is the problem. That is the irreversible thing.
Because while Bucky’s back is turned, while he takes the tray and shuts the door with his shoulder and crosses toward the sideboard, your gaze begins to snag on the office around you with new eyes, and suddenly nothing is only furniture anymore.
Nothing is only decoration. All the wood in here is dark and expensive, perhaps even that is getting paid to stay silent, and there are details you would once have filed away as masculine and stylish.
But now everything is imposing. Everything reads as evidence.
Like that locked cabinet that is too reinforced to hold unimportant paperwork. There is a map pinned behind glass with inked markings that look less like commerce and more like a tactical grid. A stack of files sits bound with a suspicious kind of neatness. Then there is a heavy antique letter opener glinting on the desk like a civilized version of a threat.
Even the art on the walls seems changed, the frames too severe, the subjects too stern, everything in here curated by a man who does not simply possess things but controls them. He dictates outcomes. He governs people. His office is a single spider web woven from all this darkened wood and his suits, and you are the only thing inside it that is still vibrating, sending signals straight to the center where he stands, and it is making your skin grow cold in patches.
He is opening the water bottle for you.
That tiny, stupid gesture nearly does it—the torturous way he makes this all so normal and so intimate when he says, “Here, baby,” without turning yet, as if this is still salvageable, as if you are merely unwell and he is merely worried and the world has not already split clean down the middle.
Something primitive detonates inside you, and perhaps if it were a conscious thought or a decision or just some other thing in a civilized sense, maybe you wouldn’t do what you are doing, but your body is revolting before your mind can dress the fear in language, and you’re up.
Oh god, you’re up.
You’re off the couch, you’re on your feet, and now there’s no going back, now there’s no sitting down because now you sprang up and now you will run. You will run because the suddenness of your own movement has chosen the path for you.
Without looking back, without another word, your feet move you to the door and they move so fast, the room is moving with you, your vision is filled with streaks. Your hand fumbles blindly before finding the door handle, wrenching it open, and then you are sprinting.
“You love me, you say. You love me, you say. You love me, you say. Then why are you shaking?”
- Richard Siken
A/n: I know this is basically one single scene and I truly don’t know how I managed to make it this long. I always add unnecessary details and emotional spirals wherever possible but I worry that I sit in the emotions for too long sometimes.
So please feel free to let me know if the emotional introspection and all those feelings got to be a little too much at any point because I know I tend to ramble and take a while getting to the point in my writing and it’s getting a little frustrating. Hearing what you guys think would be really helpful 🫶🏻
And if you enjoy my writing and would like to support me, please feel free to consider my ko-fi
summary: You’re an FBI agent sent undercover to get close to the most dangerous mob boss in the city. But the deeper you go, the harder it gets to remember which side you’re really on.
word count: 12k
WARNINGS: 18+ explicit content, MDNI— disclaimer: contains dark themes. read at your own discretion! for all the tags/warnings, please check series masterlist since it may contain spoilers.
Chapter Nine — “Home” | Previous | Next
The house was still. Quiet in that fragile way it sometimes is after a storm. Sunlight filtered in through the curtains, pale and soft, catching on the edges of furniture and highlighting the mess you’d left behind—an abandoned mug, a dish towel crumpled on the counter, Becca’s rabbit lying facedown on the floor where she must’ve dropped it when you carried her back to bed.
You sat at the kitchen table, fingers wrapped around a lukewarm cup of tea you didn’t remember making. The silence wasn’t peaceful—it was thick. Unresolved. Your ears almost rang from it, as if the echo of the last night’s fight still lived somewhere in the walls.
You hadn’t slept.
You’d spent the night replaying every word. Every raised voice. Every time his eyes met yours and it felt like you’d been gutted all over again. Every time you’d almost said something and swallowed it back. The moment Becca interrupted—thank god, honestly—and the way James had left to his room after you tucked her in again, barely meeting your gaze as he murmured a goodnight.
Now your head ached from the weight of everything unsaid. From the way your chest still throbbed with that horrible mix of shame and love and anger. You didn’t know what you were supposed to feel. All you knew was that something inside you had cracked deeper than it had in years—and no amount of pretending was going to patch it up.
Not after what he had told you.
You stared into your mug, eyes unfocused, hands gone cold.
Going back to the States.
The words played in your mind like a loop, James’ voice still raw in your ears, the way he’d said it—sharp and exhausted and desperate. Like it was the only thing left he could offer.
Maybe he was right.
You hated the thought. God, you hated it. Because if he was right, then all this—years of scraping your life back together, of carving out a home here, of doing your best with what you had—maybe none of it was enough. Maybe you weren’t enough.
But wasn’t Becca what mattered the most?
You looked over your shoulder instinctively, toward the hallway where her bedroom was. You could picture her still curled under her blanket, the one with stars on it, her little fists balled near her face, her stuffed rabbit cradled against her chest. Safe. Loved.
But was that enough?
James had said she deserved more.
A childhood that didn’t feel like exile. A father who wasn’t just a distant, half-familiar visitor every couple of weeks. A life with roots, with support, with people who could help you carry the weight.
And the truth was—no matter how much it hurt to admit—you were tired.
Tired of holding it all by yourself. Tired of pretending like you didn’t wish someone would hold you for once. You hadn’t moved here to punish yourself, but it had started to feel that way. Somewhere between fighting for James and fighting to be a mother, you’d stopped asking what you needed.
Maybe it was time to swallow your pride.
To stop seeing compromise as defeat. To stop needing to be right so badly it cost you everything else.
Becca deserved more than your stubbornness. More than the silence between her parents. Maybe—just maybe—she deserved a chance to grow up where she could look at her father and not just see a stranger walking through the door every few weekends.
And maybe, you thought, blinking hard against the sting in your eyes—
Maybe you deserved another start too.
The soft creak of the floorboards made you look up.
James stood in the doorway, still hazy from sleep, hair messy, shirt wrinkled. His eyes found you, then flicked quickly to the countertop, to the mug in your hands, to anything that wasn’t too direct. His voice, when it finally came, was rough and low.
“Morning.”
You swallowed. “Morning,” you answered quietly, rising from your chair almost automatically.
You moved to the kettle, reaching for another mug—his mug, the one he always used when he was here, still in the same cupboard spot it had been for years. You tried not to think too hard about what that meant. Habit or hope—you weren’t sure anymore.
The silence settled like dust. Heavy. Still. You poured the hot water and turned slightly, not quite looking at him.
“Coffee?” you asked, voice just above a whisper.
He nodded, rubbing a hand down his face. “Yeah. Thanks.”
You both stood there, the quiet stretching out like a thread you didn’t dare pull. You handed him the mug, and your fingers brushed for a second—just a second—but it was enough to remember everything from the night before. The shouting. The cracks in both your voices. The entire fucking truth.
You sat back down slowly, fingers curling around your own mug as you stared into it, watching the surface tremble from the faint tremor in your hand.
The silence dragged for a few moments longer. After a moment, quietly—barely above the hum of the kettle still cooling—you spoke.
“I’ll talk with Mike.”
James looked up, brows knitting. “What?”
You finally met his gaze, steady this time despite the tightness in your throat. “I’ll talk with him. About going back.”
His mouth opened slightly like he wanted to question it—but you cut him off before he could speak.
“For Becca,” you added, voice firmer now. “If there’s even a chance that it’ll be better for her… then I’ll do it.”
He blinked, clearly surprised. You watched his expression shift, the tension in his jaw flickering into something unreadable. He looked like he didn’t know whether to argue or thank you.
“I don’t know if I can convince him,” you murmured after a moment, eyes dropping to your hands. “So I can’t promise anything. But I’ll try.”
The words sat between you like something fragile. You weren’t sure why it felt like a truce. Maybe because for once, you weren’t fighting. Maybe because it wasn’t about the two of you anymore.
James watched you for a beat, his face unreadable in the soft morning light. Then, finally, he spoke.
“Thank you,” he said.
———
A few days passed—slow and heavy and tangled in everything unsaid.
It was always like this when James visited. Intense. Strange. Familiar in ways that hurt.
He’d thrown himself into time with Rebecca like he always did, and she soaked it up like sunlight. They went to the park, made pancakes, watched movies on the floor like they used to—like things were easy. And maybe, for her, they still were. Maybe that was the only thing that mattered.
You stood back a lot, observing. Half grateful, half aching. He was so good with her. Effortless. Natural. Like he’d never left.
But you hadn’t forgotten what he said that night. About trust. About moving on.
About how he still loved you but couldn’t forgive you.
And he hadn’t brought it up again. Neither had you.
Instead, the days crawled by in a blur of small things—cups of coffee in tense silence, brushing past each other in the hallway, folding laundry while he read to Becca on the couch. You caught him watching you once, expression unreadable, and he looked away before you could say something.
But through it all, you kept thinking about what he said. About going back. About Becca’s roots. About giving her something solid.
And you knew you had to talk to Mike.
You just… couldn’t yet.
Not because you weren’t willing. Not because you hadn’t made up your mind.
But because the idea of asking Mike—to even suggest going back to the States, even just for a short visit—felt heavier than it should. You weren’t planning on moving back overnight. You didn’t even know if that would ever be possible. But a visit… a few weeks, maybe. Let Becca see where you came from. Let her feel close to something that’s part of her.
Still, you doubted it.
Not your decision—him.
You doubted Mike would say yes. You doubted he’d trust the idea or you. And even if he wanted to help, maybe he wouldn’t be able to. Maybe getting you back there—even temporarily—was more complicated than either of you realized.
And that scared you.
Because if he said no… if he couldn’t manage it… if it all fell through… what would you even tell James?
So you waited until James came back to the States. You told yourself you were preparing. But really, you were stalling—afraid of what might happen if you tried.
Or worse… what wouldn’t.
It took you another full day. Another restless night of turning over everything James said. Another quiet dinner with Becca where she asked when Daddy would come back again. Another moment of sitting in the dark with your thoughts spinning so loud you couldn’t even hear yourself breathe.
And then—finally—you called Mike.
You didn’t script it. You didn’t even know how to begin. But when his voice came through the line, casually gruff as ever with a, “Hey, you alive?”—you almost hung up.
Almost.
Instead, you inhaled and said, “Hey… I need to ask you something. And I know it’s a lot. I know it’s… maybe impossible. But I need you to listen.”
There was a pause. “Okay…”
You told him. Not everything—God, not everything—but enough.
That you wanted to go back. Just for a short visit. That you thought it might be good for Becca to spend some time in the States, to see what life with her dad could feel like. That maybe things could shift if—
“Are you kidding me?” His voice was sharp, stunned, already laced with frustration.
“You want to go back?” he repeated, as if he hadn’t heard right. “After everything I’ve done to keep you out of that mess? You want to just go waltzing in for a little vacation?”
“No—Mike—please.” You swallowed down the panic, your voice cracking. “Please. I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important.”
He didn’t answer right away.
So you pressed on. “I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t for Becca.”
Silence.
“I know how it sounds. But she deserves to know him, not just wait around for visits when he can manage to fly across the ocean. She deserves to feel like she’s not being raised on scraps. Please. Just… help me figure out how.”
You waited.
And waited.
The line buzzed faintly between you, static and tension twisting together.
And then finally, Mike sighed—long, slow, and exhausted. “I need a drink,” he muttered.
You let out the smallest breath of relief. Not a yes. But not a no.
“Take one,” you said softly. “I’ll wait.”
He didn’t laugh. You weren’t sure if you expected him to.
There was a rustle on the other end—movement, a sigh, maybe the clink of glass. Then quiet again. Until—
“You know what you’re asking me, right?” he said, more measured now. “You’re asking me to undo every firewall I’ve set up. Every contact I’ve burned to keep you safe, off the grid. And for what? A week-long visit with the man who shattered your fucking life?”
You closed your eyes. “He’s still her father.”
“And I was the one who picked up the pieces when he told you to leave.”
You flinched. It wasn’t fair—but it wasn’t wrong either.
“I’m not asking to move back. Not now. I just…” You paced, one hand pressed to your forehead. “I want Becca to have something real. Some idea of what it could be like to be around him more, not just look at pictures and wait for scheduled holidays. I need to see if this is even something that could work before I offer it to her like it’s an actual choice.”
“You think a week’s going to answer that?” he asked, skeptical.
“I think… I have to try.”
Mike sighed again, longer this time. “And if I say no?”
You were quiet.
“I don’t know. Maybe I’ll ask James for help,” you said eventually. “But I’m asking you because I trust you. I’m not doing this behind your back, Mike. I’m trying to do it right.”
That struck something. You heard it in the silence that followed.
After a long beat, he said, “I’ll try.”
You smiled to yourself at that.
“And I’m not promising anything until I see if it’s even possible. Flights, papers, logistics—hell, even you getting through a border checkpoint is a risk.”
“I know,” you said again, quieter. “But if anyone can make it happen… it’s you.”
That made him snort, bitterly amused. “Flattery? Now?”
You cracked the tiniest smile. “Desperation.”
He was quiet again. Then he sighed. “Alright. Give me a couple of days. I’ll call you.”
You nodded, even though he couldn’t see it. “Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me yet,” he muttered. “You might not like what I find.”
You swallowed. “I’ll take my chances.”
And when the call ended, your hands were still shaking.
———
It’s been two days.
It was late afternoon. Becca was running around the park in circles, her giggles ringing out as she chased butterflies with her stuffed rabbit tucked firmly under one arm.
You sat on a bench, arms wrapped around yourself despite the warmth. You hadn’t told her anything yet—how could you, when you didn’t know if it would even be possible? You didn’t want to put another maybe into her world. She’d had enough of those.
Your phone buzzed in your pocket.
Mike.
Your stomach turned instantly.
You hesitated, watching Becca a moment longer, grounding yourself in her small, delighted movements—before swiping to answer.
“Hey,” you said, trying to keep your voice light. “Tell me you have good news.”
There was a pause.
“Well,” Mike said. “That depends on how you define good.”
Your heart dropped, but you didn’t let it show in your voice. “Tell me everything.”
“I pulled every favor I had left in that hemisphere,” he said, voice clipped. “Got a temporary route lined up. It’s not official, it’s not pretty, and it won’t last more than a week before the door closes again. But it’s something.”
You stopped walking. “You’re serious?”
“I wouldn’t be calling if I wasn’t.”
A long exhale passed your lips. You felt dizzy.
“But you’re gonna need to move fast,” he added. “I’ve arranged a soft clearance window for next Friday—eight days from now. You’ll have to be back before the following weekend. No extensions. No risks.”
“Mike…”
“I know.”
“You’re a goddamn miracle.”
“I’m a stressed-out criminal, who’s gonna need a bottle of whiskey and a new identity if this blows up in my face,” he muttered. But even then, you heard the faint smile in his voice. “You sure about this?”
You glanced at Becca, at the way she twirled and pointed and smiled like the world hadn’t broken her heart yet.
“I’m sure.”
“Then pack light,” he said. “I’ll text you instructions later.”
And with that, he hung up.
You stayed frozen for a moment, phone still in your hand.
Becca ran up to you, breathless and bright-eyed, cheeks flushed from the sun.
“Look, Mommy!” she beamed, opening her tiny fist to show a crushed daisy. “I picked this for you.”
You lowered to her level, heart so full and aching you could barely breathe.
“Thank you, baby,” you whispered, pulling her into your arms.
You held her close, her warmth pressed against your chest, and whispered into her hair.
“We’re going on a little adventure soon.”
———
Next couple of days passed in a blur.
You didn’t tell Becca right away. Not out of fear, not really. But because once you said it out loud, it would all become real—and you still needed a little more time to steady yourself. To believe this wasn’t a joke.
But once you started preparing, it all came fast.
You dug out the old duffel bag from the back of your closet. It still smelled faintly like dust and long roads, and it felt heavier than it should’ve when you unzipped it.
You packed light. Like Mike told you to. Just the essentials. Clothes for the week, documents. A small emergency kit of Becca’s meds and snacks in case something went wrong. One of her dresses with the pink flowers she loved.
Becca watched you silently from the hallway at first. Quiet and curious.
Until finally, she asked, “Are we going somewhere?”
You sat on the floor, looking up at her. “Just for a little bit,” you said gently. “A short trip. But it’s a special one.”
Her eyes lit up, suspiciously fast. “Is Daddy gonna be there?”
You hesitated.
“Yeah,” you said softly. “Are you happy?”
She nodded, rabbit clutched tight to her chest. “He said he would take me to the zoo next time he sees me.”
You smiled faintly, throat tight. “Then maybe he will.”
That night, after Becca went to sleep with her bunny under her arm and her shoes placed neatly by the door—just in case you left early in the morning—you sat alone on the couch, staring at the boarding instructions Mike sent.
Your heart thudded unevenly. Part excitement. Part panic.
You were doing this.
Not for James. Not even really for yourself.
But for her.
Again, you were stepping into the unknown not to run away this time—but to try. Even if it meant getting hurt again.
You took a deep breath, reached for your phone, and typed.
You | 9:27PM
Hey. Just wanted to let you know… we’ll be flying in this Friday. Just for a week. Mike pulled the strings.
You stared at the message a second longer, then hit send.
Your phone buzzed almost instantly.
James | 9:27PM
Really? Is it safe, though? Do you need any help?
You stared at the screen for a long beat.
God, it hit something in you. That immediate concern. The disbelief edged with something softer. Something that said he hadn’t actually expected you to go through with it—but now that you had, he wanted to make sure you were okay.
You could picture him reading the message, standing in his kitchen or maybe still at work, thumb hesitating before pressing send, because he didn’t want to push. But he still wanted to know.
Your fingers hovered over the screen before typing back.
You | 9:28PM
You don’t have to worry. Mike made arrangements. I’ll be careful.
You paused, then added…
You | 9:28PM
We’ll be alright. He’s gonna take care of us. Just wanted you to know.
Another pause. And then…
You | 9:29PM
She’s been asking about you. A lot.
You didn’t expect a reply right away. But after a few minutes, it came.
James | 9:32PM
Tell her I miss her, yeah? And that I’ll see her soon.
And then, one more.
James | 9:33PM
And… thank you. For doing this.
You read that last line twice. Then you locked your phone, leaned back into the couch, and exhaled.
The decision was made. The bags were packed.
Now all that was left was to go.
———
The airport was loud in that sterile, disorienting way that always made your head spin—too many bodies moving at once, too much noise bouncing off the high ceilings, the dull ache of jet lag sitting like a weight behind your eyes.
Becca was half-asleep in your arms, her head resting on your shoulder, clutching her stuffed rabbit like it was her only anchor in the chaos. Her hair smelled like airplane air and apples from the juice box she barely finished hours ago.
You stepped through the sliding doors into arrivals—and there he was.
Mike.
Same tired eyes, worn black hoodie, unreadable expression. He looked older. Maybe because of the beard or maybe because of everything you’d dragged him through this week. You hadn’t seen him in months.
He spotted you and gave a small wave, then quickly came forward to take your carry-on.
“You look like hell,” he muttered as a greeting, but his voice was quiet. Careful.
You let out a soft, tired laugh. “Good to see you too.”
He looked at Becca, sleeping in your arms, and his expression softened a little.
“She did okay?” he asked.
You nodded. “Better than I expected. But… yeah. She’s tired.”
Mike didn’t say much after that. He just led you both to the car, helped get your bag in the trunk, and opened the backseat for you to slide in with Becca still curled up against you.
Only once the car was moving—only once the silence between you stretched into something too long—did he finally speak again.
“You sure this is what you want?” he asked, eyes on the road.
“I’m sure I have to try.”
He didn’t nod. He didn’t argue either.
“…It’s not permanent,” you added after a beat, almost like a shield. “Just a visit. I need to see if this even makes sense. If it’s something that could work.”
Mike’s grip on the wheel tightened for a second. You saw it from the corner of your eye.
“You know it’s not just up to you,” he muttered.
“I know,” you said quietly. “But I couldn’t not try, Mike. For her.”
That silenced him again.
You glanced down at your daughter, tucked safely into your side.
And somewhere beneath the exhaustion and uncertainty and nerves… you felt relieved.
The ride was mostly quiet after that. Becca stirred once or twice, but stayed curled into your side, her hand still wrapped tightly around the rabbit’s ear. The city moved around you outside the window—familiar and not. You hadn’t been back in so long that it almost felt imagined, like walking back into a dream you’d sworn off years ago.
Mike pulled into a narrow side street eventually, the buildings getting more residential, more faded. He slowed near a dull brick complex with cracked steps and a rusted fence, tucked away between a laundromat and a shuttered grocery store.
“This is it,” he muttered, putting the car in park. “Second floor. Back corner. No one will bother you here.”
You looked up at the building. It didn’t look like much—definitely not the kind of place you imagined bringing your daughter to—but it was safe. Discreet. Temporary.
He shifted in his seat and glanced back at you before you opened the door.
“Head low, please,” he said, quiet but stern. “And don’t you do anything stupid.”
You blinked at him. “Like what?”
He gave you a look. “Like contacting him before I say it’s clear. Like forgetting what this man is involved in.”
You swallowed and nodded, reaching for the door handle. “I won’t.”
He didn’t soften. He just held your gaze for a second longer, then stepped out and went around to get your bag from the trunk.
You gathered Becca in your arms again—she whined sleepily but didn’t wake up—and followed him inside. The stairs creaked with every step, the hallway smelled like dust and old paint, and the door to the apartment stuck before it finally opened with a loud groan.
It was small. Two rooms. A mattress on the floor. A folded blanket on the couch. A kettle on the stove. Clean, but bare.
“It’s not much,” Mike muttered, setting your bag down near the wall. “But no one knows it’s under your name. Or mine.”
You nodded, adjusting Becca’s weight on your hip. “Thank you.”
He looked at you for a moment longer—longer than necessary. Like he wanted to say something. Like maybe he still didn’t believe you were really here.
But instead, he just nodded.
“I’ll check in tomorrow,” he said.
———
The next day dragged like wet paint on cold walls.
You sat by the window for hours, barely blinking, barely moving, just… waiting. Waiting for Mike. For a knock. For a sign. For anything. You hadn’t even let Becca open the curtains out of your own paranoid. The apartment felt like a box—airtight, silent, stale. The only sounds were the ticking of the cheap plastic clock on the wall and Becca’s increasingly dramatic sighs as she flopped from the mattress to the couch to the floor.
“Is he coming soon?” she asked for the third time that hour, her voice whiny as she clutched her rabbit by the ear again.
“He said he would,” you murmured, glancing at the door again.
“But you said that last time,” she groaned, rolling onto her back and staring at the ceiling like it had betrayed her. “This place is boring. There’s not even any TV.”
You couldn’t blame her. The apartment was nearly empty aside from a few things Mike had stocked for your stay. No toys. No books. Just a couple of blankets, dry cereal, and whatever was in Becca’s backpack. You’d tried distracting her with drawing on paper napkins and telling her stories from memory, but she’d quickly grown tired of both.
Becca crawled across the mattress and laid her head on your lap dramatically.
“I miss our home,” she whispered. “And the backyard. And the neighbors’ cat.”
You brushed her hair back gently, fingers lingering in her tangled curls.
“I know, baby,” you said. “Just a little longer, okay?”
She pouted. “Are we gonna see Daddy now?”
Your heart squeezed. You didn’t know how to answer. Not yet. Maybe. Hopefully. You leaned down and kissed the top of her head. “We’ll see.”
Another hour passed.
And then—finally—three quick knocks on the door.
You stood up so fast Becca nearly tumbled off your lap. You told her to stay where she was and crossed the room, heart in your throat as you peeked through the peephole.
Mike.
You opened the door just a crack.
“Is it safe?” you asked immediately.
Mike gave a quick nod, scanning the hallway behind you out of habit before stepping inside. His eyes swept over the apartment, then to Becca curled up in there.
“Yeah,” he said. “For now.”
He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a phone—cheap, matte black, already powered on.
“Here,” he said, holding it out. “Use this. Only this.”
You blinked at it, confused. “What—?”
“Don’t use your number,” he cut in. “Don’t use anything tied to your name, your past SIM, nothing. If you’re gonna contact Barnes—do it from this. No exceptions.”
You swallowed thickly, staring at the burner in your palm like it weighed more than it should. The screen was blank, clean. New. It didn’t have a single trace of you on it.
Mike’s voice lowered, firm. “I’m not just being paranoid. There’s been eyes on him for years now. You wanted to play it safe—so play it safe.”
You gave a small nod. “Okay… okay. I got it.”
He looked at you a beat longer, then let out a quiet breath. “Good.”
Behind you, Becca sat up slowly, her little face curious but wary, holding her rabbit tight as she whispered, “Hi, uncle Mike.”
Mike softened for a second. “Hi, Becca.”
Then he glanced back at you, jaw tight. “That would be it then. Please, stay safe…”
You nodded, heart hammering beneath your ribs, and watched him leave, the door clicking shut behind him. The silence that followed felt strange—thick with anticipation, with nerves. But mostly, it felt like a new beginning.
You turned back to Becca slowly, kneeling by her side.
“Well…” you whispered, brushing a strand of hair from her face. “We can finally call Daddy and see him.”
She lit up immediately, eyes wide with excitement. “Really?”
You smiled, even though your throat was tight. “Really.”
———
After you talked to James he had sent the address with a simple text.
James | 3:11PM
See you soon. Tell Beccy I can’t wait.
And now you were here.
You stood in front of the gate, Becca’s small hand clutching yours tightly. The air smelled like pine and pavement still hot from the sun. The house—or villa, really—was just beyond the sleek, modern gate, nestled in a quiet stretch of land just outside the city. Stone and glass, muted beige tones, and ivy climbing up one side. There was even a goddamn fountain in front.
You swallowed hard. This wasn’t the apartment you remembered. This wasn’t the city life he used to complain about hating but never left. This was new. Clean. Detached. Rich.
“Wow,” Becca whispered, eyes wide as she tilted her head back to look up at the house. Her bunny’s ear was dragging in the dirt, but she didn’t care. “Is this… Daddy’s house?”
You nodded slowly, tightening your grip on her hand. “Yeah, baby. This is where he lives now.”
You didn’t know how you felt. Like something had shifted beneath your feet and hadn’t settled yet. You hadn’t even rung the doorbell yet, and already your heart was racing like a warning.
The gate clicked, unlocked.
The front door opened.
And there he was—stepping out in a dark t-shirt and jeans, hair slightly messy like he’d been running his hands through it too much. He looked tired. He looked handsome. He looked like everything that still hurt.
Becca let go of your hand and ran forward.
“Daddy!”
He caught her mid-run, lifting her into his arms with a soft, choked laugh. “Hi, baby girl,” he said, holding her close. “Missed you so much.”
You stayed by the gate for a second longer, your heart somehow both splintering and softening all at once.
Then, finally, you made yourself walk toward them. James looked over Becca’s shoulder and met your eyes.
His expression softened.
“God,” he said, shifting her a little in his arms, “thank you so much for doing this.”
You gave a short shrug, arms crossed over your chest even though it wasn’t cold. “I don’t even know if it’s safe being near you with her,” you said honestly, voice low. “It’s probably the most stupid thing I’ve done in a while.”
His jaw tensed, but he nodded like he expected that reaction. “It is safe,” he said firmly. “A hundred percent. I’ve taken care of everything. No one knows. No one’s watching. And I wouldn’t have asked you to come here in the first place if I wasn’t sure.”
You looked at him hard for a moment, searching for a crack, for a hesitation.
There wasn’t one.
“I wouldn’t risk her,” he added, gentler now. “You know I wouldn’t.”
“I know…” you murmured, eyes flicking down to Becca, who had her cheek pressed sleepily against his shoulder now, her rabbit squished between them.
James gave a soft sigh, then shifted his stance. “Come on. Let’s go inside.”
You followed him up the steps, glancing around at the place as he unlocked the door. The house was massive—tucked away behind gates and trees, all sleek lines and quiet wealth. It looked like something out of a magazine.
“Fancy,” you muttered under your breath as you stepped into the cool, pristine entryway.
James chuckled, just a little. “Well… business has been going great recently.”
You huffed, not quite a laugh, but close.
You stepped further inside, your shoes soft against the hardwood floors, the scent of something clean and woodsy lingering in the air.
“It kinda feels good to be back in America,” you said quietly, almost to yourself. “Even if it’s just for a while.”
James closed the door behind you, locking it with a soft click. He didn’t answer at first. Just stood there, watching you take it in.
“I’m glad you came,” he said. “Really.”
You managed a weak smile, your fingers absently brushing the strap of your bag as your eyes lingered on the two of them.
Becca still hadn’t let go of James.
If anything, she clung tighter now—her little arms around his neck, her face nestled close to his, as if to make sure he wouldn’t disappear again. And god, she was talking so much—rattling off every little thing she’d wanted to tell him over the phone but couldn’t.
“Daddy, I saw a bird on our way here and it looked like the one from the book, remember?—and oh, I brought Bunny, look, she came too! Do you think Bunny missed you? She did, I think she did—”
James chuckled, a sound so soft and foreign in all the tension that had filled the past weeks it almost made your chest ache.
He shifted her slightly, holding her with one arm while gently brushing her hair back with the other. “I missed Bunny too,” he said seriously, humoring her. “And you. So much, sweetheart.”
Becca beamed at that, proud and giddy. She rested her head on his shoulder, still babbling about everything and nothing.
You watched quietly, the sight equal parts comfort and ache—like watching something beautiful you weren’t sure you had a place in anymore. But still, your heart tugged.
Maybe this really was worth it. Even if it was only for a week.
———
Some hours later, the sun was starting to dip low behind the trees outside his window, casting long golden shadows across the floor of the living room. The house was quiet now—peaceful in a way that made the day feel heavier, fuller.
Becca had finally dozed off, curled up on the big couch under a light blanket, her rabbit tucked securely beneath her arm. She hadn’t stopped talking the entire afternoon—her excitement bubbling over like she didn’t want to waste a second of her time here. But now, her energy had finally given out.
You sat down on the couch, just watching her. There was something about seeing her like that, small and soft in a space that wasn’t yours, yet didn’t feel entirely foreign either… it did something strange to your chest.
Behind you, in the kitchen, James was quietly cleaning up. He’d made dinner. Offered, actually. You’d sat at his table and tried to eat even though your nerves were all over the place. It was awkward, yes—but not tense the way it had been before. There was something easier about it. Calmer. Like you both were too tired to keep up the weight of old fights, at least for today.
“You want tea or anything?” he asked now, his voice low, careful not to wake her.
You turned a little, arms crossed, unsure. “Tea’s good.” A pause. “If it’s no trouble.”
He shook his head, already reaching for the kettle.
You sat at the edge of the couch, your eyes drifting to Becca again. “She was so happy,” you said softly. “It’s like she didn’t even know where to start.”
James glanced over his shoulder. “Yeah… I noticed.”
There was a beat of silence.
Then, almost under his breath, “Thank you again.“
You didn’t answer right away. You just… stayed quiet, watching the soft rise and fall of Becca’s chest, her little hand fisted around the rabbit’s ear.
The silence hung for a moment longer, thick and hushed. Then James’s voice came from behind you—low, careful.
“I’m sorry. For our last fight.”
You turned your head toward him, brows lifting slightly. Disbelief flickered across your face before you could hide it.
He met your gaze, exhaling slowly. “I should have apologized earlier but… Maybe you’re right. Maybe I am a coward.”
Your gaze softened before you could stop it.
“I didn’t mean that,” you said quietly. “You’re not a coward, James. I was angry. That wasn’t fair.”
He shook his head. “You weren’t wrong.”
Your voice was a little steadier now. “Still. I shouldn’t have said it. I… I was lashing out.”
James sat down on the arm of the couch, rubbing his hands together like he needed to do something with them. “We both were. And Becca—” his voice cracked slightly “—she shouldn’t have seen that.”
“No,” you agreed, chest tightening. “She really shouldn’t have.”
You both looked over at her then—so small, so peaceful now. You felt the weight of it all settle heavy in the quiet between you.
James shifted on the couch, voice low. “You know… it’s my birthday next week and…”
Of course you knew.
How could you not know?
Even though you never gave a fuck about birthdays—not before Becca—his was etched somewhere inside you, whether you wanted it to be or not.
You looked up at him slowly, and he was already glancing at you, hesitant.
“Well I… There’s gonna be a birthday party,” he said. “Here. I mean… Nothing big, just… my sister and… a few friends…”
You raised a brow, lips twitching. “That doesn’t sound like you,” you said, letting out a soft, disbelieving laugh. “I thought you liked the quiet.”
He let out a short breath of a chuckle and looked down for a moment, fingers rubbing at the seam of his jeans. “I do… It’s just… Sharon insisted.”
Right. Sharon.
He glanced at you again. “But I’d like you to come. With Becca. She could… get to know my family and… all…”
Your mouth opened slightly, then closed. The request sounded simple. Harmless, even. But it wasn’t.
Still, something in his voice gave you pause. The way he said my family, like he was hoping maybe… just maybe… you’d still fit in that frame.
“She could meet my sister,” he added, quieter now. “My niece’ll be there too. She’s just a little older than Becca. They might get along.”
You studied his face, the quiet tension around his eyes, the barely-hidden nerves.
“James, I…” you started, then trailed off, rubbing your palm over your thigh. “I’m not sure if this is a good idea.” You huffed, half-laughing at how stupid it sounded even saying it out loud. “I mean—don’t they all take me as some traitor?”
Your voice had a slight edge now, defensive before he even said a word.
He looked up sharply, eyebrows furrowed. “No. That’s not—”
You shook your head. “Come on. Your sister? Sharon? Your friends? You think they don’t take me as one? I lied to you and then ran off while being pregnant with your kid.”
“You didn’t run off,” he said firmly. “You left. Because I told you to.”
“James, please—” you snapped, then caught yourself. Becca was still sleeping right next to you. You softened your voice. “They only know what they were told.”
James exhaled slowly, his gaze dropping for a second. “And they know the truth,” he said. “Yes, you betrayed me. But they know how things are.”
Your stomach twisted. That word—betrayed—still landed like a dull blade, even now.
He looked at you again, more gently this time. “They know I wasn’t perfect as well.” A beat passed, and then, more quietly, “They know I wasn’t there for you when I should’ve been.”
You swallowed. “That still doesn’t mean they want me at your party.”
“I do.”
You blinked at him. The quiet weight of those two words made your chest ache.
“I want Becca there,” he said, “and I want you there. You’re her mother. You’re part of this. Whether anyone likes it or not.”
A long silence stretched between you.
Your fingers idly smoothed over the edge of the cushion, needing something to do, something to ground you. James was still looking at you, quiet and steady. Not pushing. Just… waiting.
“I don’t know if I belong in that part of your life,” you finally said, barely above a whisper.
His brows pulled together. “You do.”
You let out a soft laugh—dry and tired. “Do I? Because sometimes it really feels like I’m just this… memory you don’t know what to do with.”
James leaned forward slightly, elbows on his knees, voice low. “You’re not a memory.”
You didn’t answer right away. Becca shifted a little in her sleep, her tiny fingers curling tighter around the rabbit’s ear. You glanced down at her. “It’s not just about me,” you murmured. “I’m used to people not wanting me around, but I’m not dragging her into that.”
“You’re not dragging her anywhere,” he said. “And nobody’s going to make her feel unwanted.”
You looked at him again.
“I want her to know she’s part of something,” James added. “That she has people. That she’s mine, and I’m hers. And that… you and I, even if we’re not—” He stopped, jaw tightening a little. “Even if we’re not what we used to be, we still made something good.”
Your chest ached.
You whispered, “I’ll think about it.”
James nodded slowly. “That’s all I’m asking.”
———
It had been three days.
Three days of the three of you trying to soak up every minute—like time was something you could store up if you tried hard enough.
James barely let go of Becca, carrying her when she got tired of walking, lifting her up to point at buildings and birds and traffic lights like it was all magic. You showed her the city—not the one you’d once run from, but the one she could remember now with joy in her steps. The park with the street musicians. The zoo with the butterfly room that made her gasp and press her nose against the glass. The rooftop café where you sat all three together, sharing a warm pastry, Becca perched on James’s lap, powdered sugar on her chin.
She laughed. God, she laughed so much.
And you did too, sometimes.
Not the bitter, tired sound you’d gotten used to—but real laughter. Like maybe for once, the world had nothing sharp to offer.
And now… it was his birthday.
You stood in the little bathroom of your temporary apartment, hands shaking just enough to make brushing Becca’s hair a slower process than usual. The cheap plastic comb snagged in a knot, and she winced.
“Sorry,” you whispered, gently easing the tangle out. “Almost done, baby.”
She nodded, her rabbit tucked under one arm, her legs swinging off the closed toilet seat where she sat like a princess being readied for a ball. You’d found a soft, pale yellow dress for her at a shop down the street—the kind with little puffed sleeves and a satin bow at the back. It made her glow. She looked almost like the sun itself.
Your own dress was folded carefully on the bed in the next room—simple, soft fabric, clean lines, something that made you feel like yourself and not a ghost haunting someone else’s life.
Still, your heart was pounding. Your palms kept going clammy. You couldn’t stop glancing at your reflection in the mirror above the sink—fixing a strand of hair, smoothing your face like it might hide the nerves crawling under your skin.
You had never met his family or friends.
You hadn’t seen any of his people.
And tonight… you’d walk into that house as the mother of his child…who once broke his heart.
Fucking great.
Why did you agree?
You swallowed hard, fingers stilling in Becca’s hair. She looked up at you through the mirror.
“Mama?” she asked softly. “Are you okay?”
You met her eyes, your lips pressing into a trembling smile. “Yeah,” you murmured. “I’m just… a little nervous.”
“Why?”
You crouched down, eye level with her now, tucking a curl behind her ear. “Because tonight’s important,” you said. “And because I want it to go… really well.”
She blinked, then reached out and patted your cheek with her tiny hand, completely serious. “It will,” she said.
You melted. Just like that.
Your shoulders dropped, tension unwinding in a breath you didn’t know you’d been holding. A watery smile tugged at your lips as you leaned in and kissed her forehead, resting your hand gently over her tiny one on your cheek.
“I love you, Beccy,” you whispered, voice catching just a little.
She beamed. That scrunched-nose kind of smile that could undo the hardest days.
“I love you too, Mama,” she said with conviction, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “You’re the best.”
You let out a soft, teary laugh. “No, baby… I’m really not.”
“Yes, you are,” she said, swinging her feet again. “You buy me dresses. And you let me eat strawberries for dinner sometimes.”
You grinned. “Ah, so that’s the bar.”
“Mhm,” she hummed.
———
You arrived a little late.
Fashionably, maybe, though that had never been your style. Really, you’d just stood frozen after you left the cab for a few minutes longer than necessary, heart racing like a warning bell.
Becca’s tiny hand was wrapped in yours the whole time—and you hadn’t even realized how tight your grip had become until she let out a quiet—
“Ow… Mama, auch.”
Your eyes snapped down. “Shit—sorry, honey.” You crouched quickly, rubbing the spot you’d squeezed too tight and brushing her knuckles with a kiss. “I didn’t mean to. I’m just a little nervous, okay?”
She nodded, unfazed, already distracted by the lights strung up around the house. “It’s okay. It looks pretty.”
You tried to smile. “Yeah. It does.”
The front door opened before you even reached it. James. In a soft linen shirt, sleeves rolled, collar relaxed—but his shoulders still squared like he’d been pacing. And his eyes… they went soft the second they landed on you both.
“Hey,” he said quietly, stepping forward. “You made it.”
You nodded. “Of course.”
He leaned down to Becca, and she squealed a quiet “Hi, Daddy!” before throwing her arms around his legs.
James scooped her up effortlessly, pressing a kiss to her temple, and then looked to you again. “Come on. We’re outside—in the garden.”
You followed him through the house, the click of your shoes feeling too loud on the floor, your throat dry. You could hear voices ahead—easy, mingling laughter, music drifting on the warm air. You could already feel the stares even though no one had seen you yet. You weren’t ready.
God, you weren’t ready.
You stepped outside and the light changed—golden and dappled under the canopy of trees, paper lanterns swaying above a long wooden table, half-filled glasses and shared plates and soft music spilling from somewhere discreet.
And James reached for your wrist, just lightly. Not to stop you. Just to anchor you.
“You okay?” he murmured.
You swallowed hard.
No. But you nodded anyway.
Almost instantly, someone noticed you.
A woman—tall, radiant, warm-eyed—was crossing the garden with a look of unmistakable recognition, glass of wine in one hand and the other already outstretched in your direction. She was beautiful in that effortless way—a little bossy, a little overfamiliar, but all heart.
James’ sister.
You didn’t have time to brace before she reached you.
“Oh my god,” she gasped, eyes flicking between you and the little girl in James’ arms. “This is her, isn’t it? This is the little Becca? Named after me?”
She didn’t wait for a response before she stepped forward with a grin, gently ruffling Becca’s curls. “Well, aren’t you the most perfect thing I’ve ever seen.”
Becca blinked up at her, rabbit still in hand. “…You have the same name as me?”
“I do,” Rebecca said proudly. “Well, I had it first, but I’m very happy to share.”
Becca giggled, just a little, and your shoulders finally dropped half an inch.
“She’s even cuter than the pictures,” Rebecca added, turning to you now—eyes sharp, but not unkind. “And you. You must be absolutely terrified right now.”
You blinked. “What?”
“Meeting the everyone. All the judging eyes. The awkward small talk. Don’t worry. I’m the worst of the bunch—and I already like you.”
You didn’t know whether to laugh or cry from relief. You managed a shaky, grateful smile instead.
“Thanks,” you murmured. “Really.”
James was still holding Becca, watching quietly—a faint grin tugging at his mouth.
Oh, he was enjoying it.
His sister clapped her hands. “Alright, party mode activated.”
Then she glanced at your daughter again, eyes sparkling. “Hey, listen. My daughter’s upstairs playing with her mountain of toys and getting glitter in places it absolutely shouldn’t be. I bet she’d love a new friend—what do you say, Becca? Want to come play for a bit?”
Beccy looked up at you, her expression shifting from uncertainty to growing interest.
Rebecca softened. “Only if it’s okay with your mom. I’ll keep an eye on them.”
You hesitated, your fingers tightening ever so slightly around the strap of your bag. You weren’t sure what exactly you were afraid of—maybe that you’d lose her in this unfamiliar house, or maybe just the idea of letting her out of reach. But then you felt James watching you.
He put Becca down and your eyes met his. And for a second, the noise of the party faded behind you.
He didn’t say anything. Just nodded, like a quiet promise saying it’s okay.
You exhaled slowly and looked back at Becca, brushing a thumb across her temple. “Yeah… fine. But only if you want to, okay?”
Becca gave a tiny, eager nod.
Rebecca grinned wide and reached for her hand. “Come on, kid. I’ve got juice boxes and chaos upstairs.”
You crouched a little, whispering in Becca’s ear as she clutched her rabbit. “Be good, Beccy. I’ll be right here.”
She nodded again and then let her aunt lead her away, small feet padding up the steps.
And just like that—you were standing in a garden party, alone.
You stood there, stiff, trying to ground yourself in the warm air and the distant hum of laughter. But the minute Becca disappeared up the stairs, it was like your body forgot how to function.
This was stupid.
You shouldn’t have come. Not here, not to this house, not to this party. You were surrounded by his world, and even though no one was looking at you funny—yet—you felt the weight of it on your skin, like it could peel you open.
The cutlery clinking, the soft jazz in the background, the smell of grilled meat and champagne—none of it matched the twist in your gut.
You were about to take a quiet step back—find a corner and sit until the room stopped spinning—when you heard his voice again.
“It’s okay.”
You turned your head. James stood beside you, not too close, but close enough that you could hear the calm in his voice. See the way his hand hovered like he almost wanted to reach for yours but didn’t.
“Come on,” he said gently. “There’s some people I want you to meet.”
You blinked. “James—”
“I promise. It’s gonna be fine.”
And before you could come up with an excuse, he was already walking you through the garden.
Two men stood near the drink table, laughing about something. One of them—blond hair, broad-shouldered, blue eyes. The other, with a disarming grin and sharp gaze that almost cut through you.
James motioned toward them. “Guys, this is—”
“Oh, I know who she is,” Sam interrupted with a surprised smile.
Steve looked over with an unreadable expression, but when his eyes landed on you, they softened… just a bit.
You tried to smile, but it faltered before it reached your eyes. “Hi.”
As they chatted, friendly and casual, you felt the walls close in. You weren’t just standing here with James’s friends—you were standing in a room full of people who had to know what you did.
They probably whispered about you behind closed doors. Judged you silently in their own way. You could almost hear the unspoken questions:
Can she be trusted?
Will she hurt James again?
Is she spying on us right now?
You swallowed hard. The laughter around you felt distant and hollow, like a soundtrack to a scene you didn’t belong in.
How could you face them? How could you face anyone when you were carrying so much guilt, so much shame? When every glance felt like it pierced through your carefully built walls?
James’s voice broke through the storm inside your head, but you hardly heard it.
Because all you could feel was the heavy weight of the past—how everyone here must see you as the woman who betrayed the man you still loved.
James continues talking beside you—something light, probably teasing—but you just nodded along, gaze unfocused. It all felt like static. Laughter. Music. The occasional cheer from the kids playing upstairs that you could hear through the open window. Voices that blurred together.
And then—
A hand on James’s arm.
You blinked back into yourself.
A woman you’d never seen before was suddenly by his side. Tall, blonde, stunning in a way that made you feel like you’d been punched in the gut. Her dress clung to her like it was made for her alone. She didn’t look at you right away. She just leaned in and kissed James on the cheek like she’d done it a thousand times before.
You didn’t mean to grimace—but it happened. Reflex. It was subtle, but sharp. Your jaw clenched, stomach flipping, a cold rush settling beneath your ribs.
So that was her.
Sharon.
Of course it was. You just… never thought you’d see the moment play out in front of you. Never thought it would hit this hard.
Then her eyes flicked to you. She didn’t smile.
“Hi,” she said, curt and tight. Her gaze dipped quickly to your dress, then back to your face. “You must be… her.”
Her.
You gave a small nod, trying to find your footing, your voice. “Yeah. I’m—”
“I know who you are,” she cut in, already glancing away. Not cruel. Just… uninterested. Awkward. Cold.
An empty silence followed. You weren’t sure if you were meant to say something else, or if she was. But she didn’t make an effort. Didn’t try to break the tension.
Eventually, Sharon looked back to James. “I’m gonna check on the drinks,” she muttered, already stepping away before either of you could respond.
You stood still, the weight of it all settling again. The air sharp around you. Like you’d stepped into a life that kept going without you—and maybe never wanted you back.
Your stomach turned, the air suddenly too warm, too tight against your skin.
It wasn’t about Sharon. Not really. Or maybe it was. Maybe it was all about her—about watching her kiss James’s cheek like she belonged there. About the way she said you must be her like your name was too much to acknowledge. Like you were a chapter better left unread.
You stared past the garden lights, past the gentle hum of chatter and music, and all you could hear was your own breath. Quick. Shallow. Your thoughts spiraled fast—too fast to hold onto just one.
Of course they all hate you. Of course they think you don’t belong here. You don’t. You lied. You left. And now you’re back—like you get to want anything. Like you get to hope.
“Hey,” James said, voice low as he stepped beside you. You hadn’t noticed him watching you. “She’s… not usually like that.”
You let out a bitter laugh before you could stop it. It caught in your throat like smoke.
“Sure she isn’t,” you murmured, eyes still fixed on nothing. “Just a coincidence she’s rude tonight.”
He winced. You could feel the tension ripple off him—like he wanted to fix it but didn’t know where to begin.
You didn’t continue.
You could—God, you wanted to. Part of you was itching to snap, to demand clarity, to say something just cutting enough to sting but not enough to start a war.
But the other part? The tired part? The one who held herself together with fraying thread in his garden? That part knew exactly how it would end. A fight. An echo of every old argument—the ones that had left you shaking and hollow.
So instead, you just nodded, your jaw tight, and shifted your eyes back toward the crowd.
Except you couldn’t help it. Your gaze drifted, almost on instinct. Muscle memory from another life. And there she was—Sharon.
You watched her the way you used to watch high-value targets.
She wasn’t mingling like the others. Not laughing, not sipping a drink, not even standing anywhere close to James. She was… focused. Brows slightly drawn, posture alert but not tense. You followed her line of sight but she wasn’t looking at you. Not anymore. Her eyes flicked to the side—toward the house maybe. Or someone.
Still, she was distant. Not just with you, but everyone. It wasn’t just discomfort—it was like she was only half there. Preoccupied.
You forced yourself to look away before it became obvious. Before someone noticed.
You told yourself it was nothing. Just awkwardness. Just the presence of an ex in a place where no one expected you.
But something itched beneath your skin. You told yourself it was harmless. A habit. Like breathing. But the truth was, it was deeper than that—burned into your brain from years of survival and secrecy. Once, it kept you alive. Now it was just… instinct. Muscle memory that work in FBI imprinted on you.
Your detective brain switched on before you could stop it.
The way Sharon kept scanning the area—it wasn’t casual. It was practiced. Her eyes swept the crowd like she was searching for someone. Not in a friendly “Where’s my friend?” kind of way either. This was tactical. Quietly thorough. Efficient. A pattern. She checked the back entrance, the patio door, the hallway leading inside.
You glanced at her hands.
Phone in one, fingers moving quickly over the screen. Her expression didn’t change. Whatever she was typing, it was short, decisive. Not a social message. Not small talk. This was something else.
She sent it. Waited. Glanced around again.
God. You hated this. You hated how it all came back so easily. How you could still read body language like a briefing photo. How you were already forming theories—subconscious little spirals that made your chest feel tight.
You dug your nails into your palm, grounding yourself.
This isn’t a mission. This isn’t a case. You are just at a party. A birthday party. For your daughter’s father.
But you still couldn’t stop watching her.
You inhaled slowly, trying to shake it off.
It is probably just jealousy. That’s all it is.
You repeated it like a mantra.
You saw her kiss James. You were emotional. On edge. You didn’t belong here and you knew it, so your mind was looking for reasons to confirm it.
But it didn’t help.
It didn’t help that your gut wouldn’t shut up.
You clenched your jaw and turned your gaze away. Tried to focus on the faint sound of kids laughing somewhere upstairs. Tried to remind yourself that Becca was safe, that this was just a normal party, that people like Sharon had no reason to be doing anything sketchy at James’ birthday.
She was probably uncomfortable because you were here. That made sense. You were the ex. The one who ran. The one with all the secrets.
And maybe—maybe she was texting someone about you. Complaining. Warning someone. Something petty.
Not everything is a threat. Not everyone is hiding something. Not everyone is you.
You didn’t feel easy. Or light. Or anything remotely comfortable.
Honestly, you would’ve given anything to just go home.
Curl up in bed, wrap your arms around your daughter, and pretend you were somewhere far away. Somewhere the past couldn’t follow you. Somewhere James didn’t look at you the way he did—soft, careful, like he still didn’t know what to do with you.
The party moved like a slow tide around you—people mingling under strings of golden lights, soft jazz floating from the speakers tucked in the corners of the garden. You stood with James near the far edge of the lawn, close to the ivy-covered fence, just far enough from the crowd that no one was listening in. Your drink had long gone warm in your hand.
You glanced around again. Sharon was gone now, probably inside somewhere. People kept giving you looks—curious, polite, none of them exactly hostile. But it didn’t matter. You felt like every pair of eyes was dissecting you. Wondering what you were doing there.
James must have noticed your silence, because he leaned in, nudging you gently with his shoulder. “You okay?”
You opened your mouth. Didn’t answer. Just nodded once, too tight.
Then—
Crack.
It sounded like fireworks at first. Or maybe someone dropping something heavy. Barely anyone reacted. Some people laughed, raised glasses.
You blinked. James turned his head slightly.
Another crack. Louder. Sharper.
Pop. Pop. Pop.
Screams.
Suddenly the music cut. A woman shrieked, plates crashed to the ground, and people scattered like frightened birds.
Gunshots.
Real ones.
“Down—get down!” someone shouted.
James grabbed your arm hard enough to bruise, dragging you behind a stone planter as the air exploded with panic.
“Becca.” you gasped, voice already hoarse with fear.
James looked to the house—but it felt miles away now. The garden was too open. Too exposed. And the shooters weren’t waiting. Bullets tore through the air—one splintered the wooden trellis just a few feet away, making you both duck lower.
He cursed under his breath, eyes darting toward the house, then to the patio where Steve and Sam had just shoved a couple of guests through the door.
“Steve!” James yelled. “Secure the house! Get the kids!”
Steve looked back just long enough to nod and disappear inside, already yelling orders.
James turned to you. “We can’t make a run for it right now. We’d be exposed. Just—stay low, stay with me—”
But your chest was tightening. All you could think about was Becca upstairs.
Becca, with some little girl you didn’t know.
Becca, in a house that suddenly felt too far away.
Your breath caught. The air felt thinner now—sharper, like it sliced your lungs instead of filling them.
Where is Sharon?
She’d been standing just a few feet from the patio minutes ago. You’d seen her then—narrow-eyed, checking her phone, barely even pretending to make small talk. You’d watched her look around like she was waiting for someone to show up.
And now?
Gone.
Just gone.
Your brain started spinning without permission. All those instincts you tried to leave behind—every pattern recognition, every quiet training cue buried under years of denial—flooded to the surface.
Something was off. This wasn’t random. It wasn’t messy. Whoever came in… they weren’t just shooting blindly. They knew the house. The layout. Where people would be standing. The way the gunfire curved around the garden like it was designed to herd people—not just scare them.
No one could plan this without inside information.
You felt it in your chest, a cold certainty.
It was her.
It had to be her.
James was crouched beside you, eyes scanning the perimeter, hyper-alert. His hand brushed your back without even realizing it—protective, grounding. But you didn’t dare grab his arm. Didn’t dare say what your gut screamed at you, because—
Because Becca was inside.
Because all that mattered was getting her out.
Alive.
The crack of gunfire didn’t stop. It echoed sharp and vicious through the garden, like it was bouncing off the very air. James had already moved—fast and precise, firing from cover, eyes narrowed in complete focus.
You stayed low behind the stone planter, heart hammering against your ribs, every instinct in you screaming to do something. But James had told you to stay put. Stay down.
You couldn’t.
Not like this.
There was too much blood already. Some people—maybe guests, maybe some of James’ people—lying motionless on the grass, some screaming in pain, others too quiet. Your stomach twisted.
And then you saw it.
Just a few feet away—one of the attackers down, slumped awkwardly near a tree. Their body still, twisted. A handgun glinted beside their open palm.
Your breath caught. You didn’t think. You moved.
Hands shaking, you slid out from behind the planter just enough to crawl across the grass, staying low, barely breathing. You kept your eyes on the body, the gun—ignoring the way the earth was stained red, ignoring the warm slickness that clung to your hands as you reached out.
Your fingers wrapped around the weapon.
You pulled back quickly, retreating to the planter just as another round of shots cracked through the air. You hugged the gun to your chest for a moment, your pulse thundering in your ears, trying to breathe.
You weren’t the same person you used to be.
You hadn’t held a gun in years. Not since you stopped working with the Feds.
But right now…
You didn’t have a choice.
So you didn’t hesitate. Gun in hand, you slipped out from behind the planter again, eyes sharp, heart hammering not just with fear but with adrenaline—the familiar rush that always came with danger.
James was just a few feet away, firing with brutal efficiency. He didn’t say a word when he saw you moving toward the attackers. No warning, no protest. He knew. He knew you could handle yourself, that you were still capable.
You’re both fighting for the same thing.
The house. Becca. Her safety.
You crouched behind a low wall, sighting down the gun carefully, steadying your breath like you’d been trained. Your fingers moved with practiced precision—shoot, reload, shoot again. Shots rang out sharp and echoed, but you barely registered the noise beyond the tunnel vision of protecting what mattered.
James moved with you, a silent partner in the chaos—always just a step away, covering your flank, eyes flicking constantly to the house where Becca was hidden.
You didn’t say much. Words didn’t fit here.
You were two soldiers in a warzone, fighting back the dark that had come for your family.
And you were ready to do whatever it took.
Sam’s voice crackled through the chaos—somewhere near the house— sharp and clear. “Support’s en route. Hold tight.”
You felt the weight of those words settle over you like a shield. Reinforcements. More of James’s people—stronger, faster, better prepared—were coming.
The tide was turning.
James’s eyes met yours briefly, a flicker of relief there despite the grime and sweat on his face. You gave a tight nod, still focused but grateful.
You ducked behind cover again as more figures appeared on the perimeter, moving in synchronized, tactical precision.
The attackers, realizing the odds were shifting, started to falter—some trying to retreat, others desperately pushing forward but losing ground.
Your gun went off again, then another. The sound was relentless but less terrifying now.
The firefight began to wane. The chaos thinned like fog lifting at dawn.
You kept your breath steady, eyes scanning the area.
One by one, the attackers fell back or went down, their numbers dwindling to nearly nothing.
James moved beside you, his expression tense but resolute. “There’s only a couple left,” he muttered, loading his weapon.
You nodded, heart still pounding but steadying. You exhaled slowly, every muscle still tight from the fight, but alive.
One of James’ men finally called out, voice loud and steady. “It’s clear.”
Carefully, you rose to your feet, the weight of adrenaline fading, replaced by raw exhaustion.
James was instantly at your side, his hands searching you for any sign of injury. “Are you hurt?”
You shook your head, fear still in your eyes. “I’m fine.”
His eyes were intense, almost frantic now, and without hesitation he turned to Sam, voice trembling, eyes almost glassy.
“Becca… is she okay? Did they get into the house?”
Sam’s expression was calm but firm. “They’re safe. Your sister, her kid, and Becca—they’re all safe inside with Steve.”
James let out a breath he’d been holding, relief washing over his face in waves. You both stood there for a moment, the world quiet except for your pounding hearts.
The world seemed to freeze for a heartbeat.
You glanced around, heart hammering in your chest—the blood-slick ground, the shattered remnants of what had been a peaceful night now turned into chaos and death.
And then you saw it.
One of the attackers, barely conscious but still clinging to life, lay sprawled on the ground not far from you.
In their trembling hand was a gun, aimed directly at James.
Panic ripped through you. Without thinking, you lunged toward James, moving faster than you knew you could, instinctively shielding him.
Your breath caught in your throat.
Crack.
The world narrowed down to the sound of that single gunshot—sharp, unforgiving, like a thunderclap ripping through the chaos.
The impact hit you first—a searing, burning pain blossoming through your rib, fierce and immediate. Your breath hitched, a strangled gasp tearing from your throat as you crumpled forward, body collapsing onto James, fighting to keep him safe.
Sam’s shot rang out, precise and final, cutting through the chaos like a sharp blade. The last threat was silenced, the attacker finally still.
Everything else faded into a blur—the red-hot agony, the pounding in your chest, the taste of iron at the back of your throat.
Your mind screamed but your body stayed rooted, trembling as you clung to him.
James’ voice—raw, frantic—cut through the haze. “No! No, no, no—”
You felt his hands on you, warm as you once remembered them, shaking you gently, like you were the most fragile thing in the world.
“I’ve got you. I’ve got you. Please—“
But all you could think was how much you loved him.
How much you’d give to keep him safe.
Your world had shattered—but the one thing you knew with terrifying clarity was that you would never let him fall.
James dropped to his knees with you, eyes wide with horror, his whole body trembling. His hands were gentle but frantic as they moved to cradle you, as if holding you close could somehow protect you from the searing pain.
“Stay with me, please,” he whispered, voice cracking. “Please, my love…”
His breath hitched as he searched your face, desperate for any sign, any flicker of hope.
Without hesitation, he gathered you into his arms, lifting you as if you were the most precious thing in the world—because you were. His hands trembled, urgency flooding his movements. “We need to get you help. Now. Just—Please, stay with me.”
His hands shook, fingers trembling “Stay with me,” he repeated, voice breaking. “Please, stay with me.”
You tried to answer, to tell him it would be okay, to say you loved him one last time—but the pain pressed down on your chest like a weight too heavy to bear. Your breath caught and faltered, the words choking in your throat, slipping away before they could reach his ears.
“Please—Please, you can’t—“ he cried out.
“It’s her—” you managed to let out, your voice barely a whisper.
“What?” James asked, confused through the haze of his emotions. His eyes were full of both ache and sorrow.
Your own eyes fluttered, a tear tracing a slow, silent path down your cheek. Your body felt numb, weak, disconnected from your mind. The darkness was coming fast now, pulling at you with cold hands.
You could feel life slipping away, like sand through trembling fingers, and with it, every chance, every hope you’d ever held onto.
There was a coldness creeping in from the edges of your vision, a soft pulling that whispered this was the end—the last breath, the final goodbye. But your mind refused to accept it, clinging to fragments of warmth: Becca’s bright smile, the sound of her laughter, James’s voice calling your name.
You thought about all the things left unsaid—the apologies, the hopes, the dreams you never got to chase. How unfair it was, that you would never get to watch your daughter grow up fully, or hold James without the weight of pain between you.
And yet, beneath the fear, there was something fierce—a quiet resolve not to vanish without love, without meaning.
Your fingers touched his shirt, the faintest touch, and your lips parted as if to say something. “I— love you—“ you tried to whisper, voice barely audible, but the words were your last gift—a fragile promise carried on a breath.
As the darkness closed in, you surrendered to the fading light, carried by the love of the man who had always held your heart—the love of your life—and the memories of all you fought for.
Chapter Ten (Finale)… 💸
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