Guy

Early 20s // (They/Any) // Spamming reblogs blog // 18+

[mangoguy]

AO3

!!!18+, MDNI!!!

Kyle "Gaz" garrick

50-Word Fic

Swimming Lessons

Spider-Man

John "Soap" MacTavish

Map out the question

Displacement 1 / 2

König

Writer!König x GN!Reader

+ + +

Dividers by @cafekitsune

Please don't repost, translate, or use my writing for AI. The same goes for my artwork!

[snowseasonss]

Broken Promise

alpha!natasha x f/omega!reader

After you ignore her rules to never go into a storm to save a filly, Natasha finds you and brings you back to the house. While you're both soaked and arguing, her angry scolding turns into her pulling your hair back and fucking you from behind against the door.

details: smut w/ some plot, farm!AU, ABO!AU (alpha!natasha/omega!reader), alpha females have dicks, top/dom!natasha, bottom/sub!reader, slight hurt/comfort, established relationship (mated, wives), oral (n & r recieving)/p in v/knotting, natasha smokes after ya'll fuck, r is a natasha's SAHW. (stay at home wife)

Three years on the farm had settled into something steady, something warm. Life moved quickly, but never too fast to notice the quiet happiness you shared. You loved her, there was no question about that. The way she reached for you at the end of every day, you knew she loved you just as deeply.

Evenings were your favorite. The work would be done, the air cooling as the sun dipped low, and she’d lean in to kiss you like it was a ritual, something as necessary as breathing. You tended the garden; she handled the crops and cattle. It was a rhythm that fit the two of you perfectly.

But today, like many others lately, a storm was rolling in.

You stood on the patio, watching the horizon darken as heavy clouds gathered, swallowing up the last of the sunlight. A quiet sigh left you. Something about the air felt off. Too still, too heavy.

The screen door creaked softly behind you. Natasha stepped out, her presence immediately grounding. She didn’t say anything at first, just closed the distance and pressed a gentle kiss to your lips. It lingered, warm and familiar.

“I’ll be back before the storm hits, alright?” she murmured, her voice soft against your mouth. When she pulled back, her eyes searched yours.

You smiled, but it didn’t quite reach your eyes. She noticed, your unease was louder to her than the distant rumble of thunder.

Her hand rose, brushing against your cheek, thumb tracing lightly as if to smooth away the worry. “I promise,” she said quietly. “I just need to pick up the shipment with him. He’s right down the street. It won’t take long. Just stay here, okay?”

You hesitated for only a moment before nodding. “Alright.”

Her expression softened, relief flickering across her face. She leaned in one last time, pressing a lingering kiss to your lips. Longer this time, like she was sealing the promise between you.

You stood there a moment longer, watching as she climbed into the truck. The engine turned over, loud against the growing hush of the storm. You raised a hand, giving a small wave as she pulled away, gravel crunching beneath the tires.

The truck grew smaller and smaller, swallowed by the winding road and the darkening sky, until it disappeared completely. Only then did you turn back inside, closing the door behind you. The house felt quieter without her. Still.

You drifted to the window, eyes fixed on the empty stretch of road where she’d vanished, the first low growl of thunder rolling in the distance.

The storm is arriving in full force now.

Wind thickening the air. It fills your lungs, heavy. You step back out onto the patio, scanning the distance once more, searching for her, for the glow of headlights cutting through the dark, but there’s nothing.

Your hand drifts to your arm, rubbing absently, a quiet, self-conscious habit. You move farther onto the patio, the boards creaking beneath your weight. Then, something. A flicker of motion at the edge of your vision, something that doesn’t belong.

Your gaze snaps toward it. A filly.

She stands there, impossibly, where she shouldn’t be. Somehow she’s made her way here. Far from the barn, far from the pasture where the rest of the horses are safely kept on your land.

God. She shouldn’t be here. She should be in the barn. Safe. Sheltered. The storm is only getting worse, the radio inside had made that clear enough, its warnings still echoing in your mind. This kind of storm can kill.

But you can’t leave her. You know Natasha wouldn’t, either.

You turn back inside, moving quickly now, grabbing a lead rope, one Natasha left hanging in the house who knows how long ago. Then you step out again, the wind tugging at your clothes, the light rain beginning to sting your skin.

A flicker of hesitation crosses your mind as you guide her toward the barn. By doing this, it does mean you are breaking one of the few rules Natasha has ever given you since you began courting. A rule meant to keep you safe.

Never go into a storm.

The words echo louder with every distant roll of thunder.

And yet, as much as you both care for this filly, you know the truth—losing you would wound Natasha far deeper than losing anything else. The thought tightens in your chest, stealing your breath as your pace quickens, your heartbeat falling into step with the growing storm.

Rain begins to fall, soft at first, almost gentle, before it steadily soaks through your clothes and darkens the filly’s coat. The air turns sharp and electric, the wind beginning to stir.

You press forward anyway, urging her on, your focus locked on the barn ahead. One step, then another. Driven by the hope that you can get her to shelter in time.

And that you’ll make it there, too.

The rain is relentless now, the storm in full force. Thick clouds blot out the sun, casting everything in a dim, restless gray. Wind cuts sharp through the air, whistling as it drives sheets of rain straight into Natasha’s face the moment she steps out of her truck.

She exhales sharply, already soaked at the edges, and hurries to unload a few things, carrying them inside. “Should’ve been faster,” she mutters under her breath, chastising herself as she shuts the door behind her. Still, she made it. Just as the storm broke.

Inside, the house feels too quiet.

She sets her keys down on the table with a soft clink, shrugging off the damp from her jacket. “Hey—” she calls, her voice low, familiar.

Nothing.

Her eyes lift, a faint crease forming between her brows. She stills for a moment, listening—really listening—but all she hears is the storm pressing against the walls, the wind rattling the windows.

“…Hey?” she tries again, a little louder this time.

Silence.

A flicker of unease tightens her chest.

She moves deeper into the house, quicker now, checking room after room. Each empty space sharpens the edge of her worry, her steps growing faster, heavier.

By the time it settles—by the time she knows—you’re not there.

Her expression hardens instantly, concern flashing into something sharper, more urgent. She turns on her heel and strides back to the door, shoving it open. The screen door slams violently behind her as she steps back into the storm, rain immediately swallowing her again.

You’re soaked through by the time you reach the barn, rain clinging to your skin, your clothes heavy and cold. Your hands slip against the wood as you wrestle the door open, breath unsteady, but you manage it. You guide the filly inside, the familiar scent of hay and earth wrapping around you like a fragile kind of relief.

“Easy… easy,” you murmur, your voice softer now, steadier despite the storm raging just beyond the walls.

You duck into the tack room, grabbing a couple of worn towels, and return to the filly. You work quickly but gently, drying her off as best you can, brushing water from her coat, your touch calming her until she settles. Once she’s back beside her mother, safer, warmer, you let out a breath you hadn’t realized you were holding.

You turn toward the door to leave, and that’s when it hits you.

Thunder cracks, loud enough to rattle the beams overhead. Rain hammers against the roof in relentless sheets, the wind howling through every gap and seam. You hesitate, one step from the door, your hand hovering near the handle. You could make it.

…Maybe.

Another crack of thunder splits the sky, closer this time.

“…Damn it,” you mutter, stepping back, the decision settling heavy in your chest. You pat your jeans on instinct—then freeze.

No phone. You left it in the house.

“Great,” you breathe, sharper this time, frustration curling tight. You shut the door firmly, turning back into the barn. Looks like you’re staying.

You drag over a bucket, flip it, and sit beside the filly, absently running your hand along her neck. The steady rhythm of your touch helps pass the time, even as your thoughts churn louder than the storm outside.

It’s only a couple of minutes later when the barn door creaks open.

You jerk upright, the sudden movement spooking the colt. “Hey—hey, sorry, girl,” you soothe quickly, giving her a gentle pat before turning toward the sound.

Your name cuts through the barn. You freeze—then recognize the voice.

“…Natasha?”

You step out of the stall just as wet footsteps echo across the barn floor. Then you see her, completely drenched, rain still dripping from her hair and clothes.

Relief hits you first. Fast. Strong. Then guilt follows close behind.

You swallow, stepping toward her. “Natasha… I—”

“What the hell were you thinking?” she cuts in, her voice tight, edged with something between anger and fear. She closes the distance quickly, eyes scanning you, searching. “Coming out in a storm like this? You could’ve gotten seriously hurt—are you hurt?”

“No—no, I’m fine, I—”

She’s already closer now, looking you over, hands almost reaching before stopping herself. Rainwater drips from her sleeves onto the floor.

“Natasha, please,” you start again, softer this time, urgency bleeding through. “Falin... the new filly.. got out somehow—she was—she was out in the open,” you finish, your voice softer now, the edge of urgency giving way to something quieter. “I couldn’t just leave her there.”

For a moment, Natasha doesn’t respond.

Her gaze follows your gesture, flicking past you to the stall. To the filly, now tucked safely beside her mother, both of them calm despite the storm’s fury outside. The tension in her shoulders shifts, just slightly, as she takes in the sight.

Her jaw tightens anyway again.

She exhales sharply through her nose, dragging a hand back through her rain-soaked hair. “So you decided to run straight into a storm—without even telling me,” she says, her voice lower now, but no less intense.

You flinch at that, the weight of her words settling in your chest.

“I didn’t have time,” you reply, quieter, but firm. “She could’ve been hurt. Or worse.”

Another crack of thunder rolls overhead, loud enough to make the barn creak. Neither of you flinches.

Natasha stares at you for a long second, something conflicted flickering behind her eyes—anger still there, but tangled tightly with relief. Fear. The kind she doesn’t say out loud.

“You don’t get to decide that your life is expendable,” she says finally, the words sharper now, cutting through the space between you. “You could've been hurt, or worse."

The weight of that lands heavier than the storm.

“I wasn’t trying to—” you start, but the words falter. Because there isn’t a clean defense for it. Not one she’ll accept.

Her expression softens—just a fraction—but it almost makes it worse.

“You could’ve called me and asked me what to do,” she continues. "Before putting both your lives at risk."

That lands.

“I didn’t think—” you admit, then shake your head, the words falling apart as you try again. “No… I did. I just thought I could make it there and back before it got bad.”

A beat stretches between you.

Outside, the storm keeps raging, wind and rain hammering against the barn like it’s trying to get in. Inside, everything feels suspended—quiet, heavy, the kind of silence that presses in on both of you as you sit near the hay bale, you shifting slightly beside her while she stares ahead, jaw tight but no longer speaking.

Time passes in fragments, measured only by distant thunder and the slow easing of the wind.

When the storm finally loosens its grip, Natasha doesn’t say much. She just rises first, then offers you a hand that lingers a moment longer than necessary before she leads you out.

The walk home is slow and careful. Mud sucks at your boots as you both make your way down the small hill, the sky still bruised and low above you. Her hand stays on you the whole time. Steady, guiding, as if she’s afraid you might disappear again if she lets go.

You think, maybe, she’s come down from it. That whatever storm was in her has passed with the weather.

You think wrong.

The moment the door shuts behind you, she’s there. Pushing you back against it, close enough that you feel the impact in your breath more than your body. There’s no hesitation in her this time, only something raw and immediate, all the restraint from before snapping loose at once.

Her hands find you, her presence crowding yours, and then she’s kissing you—hard, breathless, furious in a way that isn’t anger so much as everything she held back finally breaking through.

"A-alpha? mm.." you tried to protest, but she kisses you again. cutting you off.

The sound of the storm outside is nothing compared to Natasha’s pulse against your own. The adrenaline that had kept her moving through the rain has curdled into a dark hunger.

Her hands are cold from the rain, but her skin burns where it meets yours. She shoves your chest flat against the wood of the door, the impact jolting through your spine. Before you can even catch your breath to apologize again, she's tilting your head back in a way so her mouth is back on yours. Crushing, desperate, tasting of salt and rainwater.

"Don't," she growls against your lips, a low command that vibrates in your chest. "Don't you dare talk."

One hand entangles in your wet hair, fingers winding tight near the scalp and pulling your head back. The angle exposes the pale line of your throat, and she doesn't hesitate, burying her face in the curve of your neck. You whimper, your knees turning to water as your instincts flare in response to her actions.

She groans, a sound of pure, frustrated need, and her free hand drops to the waistband of your soaked jeans. There is no gentleness in the way she hooks her thumbs into the denim. She peels them down with a frantic efficiency, the wet fabric clinging to your skin until she forces them past your hips, letting them heavy-thud to the floor.

"You think I care about the horse?" she mutters, her voice thick and ragged as she grips your bare hips, her fingers bruising the skin as she hauls you backward. She creates a sharp arch in your spine, pulling your backside firmly against her own damp clothes, making you feel every inch of her hardening dick. "I care about this. About you..."

She doesn't wait. With a sharp tug on your hair to keep your head tilted back, she guides herself into you. You gasp into the empty air of the room.

It’s raw and unrefined. Natasha isn't the steady, quiet farmer right now; she’s the Alpha who almost lost her mate. Each thrust is heavy, driving you back against the door, the wood rattling with the rhythm of her desperation. She’s fucking into you with a possessive ferocity, her breath hot and ragged against your ear.

"You're mine," she pants, the words a vow and a threat all at once. "You stay where I put you. Do you hear me?"

Your hands dig into the door in front of you, fingers searching for purchase as she overwhelms you. The wood of the door is cold against your chest, but Natasha is a furnace at your back.

The rhythm is unrelenting. Each heavy drive sends a jolt through your frame, forcing a broken, rhythmic sound from your throat that is lost against the panels of the door. She isn’t being careful, her teeth graze the sensitive skin where her mark sits on your shoulder, a white-hot spark of pleasure-pain shatters your remaining focus. You can feel the tension in her thighs, the way her breath hitched every time you tried to push back against her.

"Look at me," she rasps, her hand moving from your hip to your chin, forcing your head around so she can see the blown-out haze in your eyes. "Tell me you're staying. Tell me."

You can barely get the words out, the friction and the depth of her taking you to the very edge. "Staying... Natasha, please—"

The plea is all she needs. With a low, guttural growl, she surges forward one last time, her body locking tight against yours. The sensation is overwhelming, a tidal wave that crashes over you, sending your head back against her shoulder as your own climax hits, violent and dragging. She follows you over the edge seconds later, her name for you dying into a ragged exhale against your neck.

She pulls back just enough to turn you around, her eyes dark and searching. Slowly, she sinks to the floor, leaning her back against the very door she just had you pinned to. She doesn't have to say a word; the way she looks at you, the silent command in her posture, tells you exactly what she needs.

You sink to your knees between her legs, the cool air hitting your damp skin. As you take her into your mouth, tasting the salt of the storm and the essence of both of you, she lets out a long, shaky breath, her fingers threading through your hair.

She watches you with an intensity that feels like a physical weight, her hand occasionally tightening when you hit the right depth. Her fingers still tugging your hair, pulling you in. Until she finds her release again, a sharp shudder wracking her frame as she marks you one more time.

"Clean," she murmurs, her voice returning to that low, farm-steady rumble. She guides you to finish, her touch turning softer, more grounded.

Before the chill of the entryway can settle in, she’s lifting you. She carries you through the quiet house like you weigh nothing. She lays you down, but instead of joining you immediately, she hovers over you, her tongue tracing the lines of your body, tasting the aftermath of the entryway. She works with a slow, agonizing patience now, licking and nipping at your thighs until your breath hitches into a sob, driving you toward a second, softer peak that leaves you shaking.

Only then does she move back over you. This time, there’s no frantic rush. It’s deep, slow, and deliberate. She watches your face as she slides home, her expression softening into something devastatingly tender. As the friction builds, her body begins to change, the base of her thickening, locking the two of you together.

Her knot anchors you to her, a physical manifestation of the bond you’ve shared for three years on this land. You wrap your legs around her waist, pulling her as close as humanly possible, drifting off into the hazy, warm afterglow of the tie.

Much later, after the shower has washed away the salt and the mud, the house is truly still.

The window is cracked just a sliver, letting in the smell of wet earth and night air. Natasha is sitting up against the headboard, her chest bare. You’re tucked firmly against her side, your head resting on the steady, slow beat of her heart.

She reaches for the nightstand, sparking a match. The flare of orange light illuminates the sharp line of her jaw before she settles back, the familiar, herbal scent of her hand-rolled tobacco drifting through the room. She takes a long drag, the smoke curling toward the ceiling, and then exhales, the last of the day's tension finally leaving her shoulders.

Her arm tightens around you, pulling you impossibly closer. She doesn't apologize for the roughness—you both know it was the only way she knew how to process the terror of the storm. She just kisses the top of your head, her hand resting heavy and protective over your hip.

“Thank you for saving her. I know you didn’t have bad intentions going into the storm like that… I only—”

“I know,” you say softly, looking up at her, your face scrunching slightly as a stray puff of smoke drifts between you. The moment earns the faintest quirk at the corner of her lips despite herself.

But it doesn’t last.

Her expression shifts again—softening, then steadying, like she’s choosing something she needs to say more than anything else. She closes the distance and kisses you, slower this time, less fire and more certainty.

When she pulls back just enough to speak, her voice is quiet against your mouth. She murmurs, “I love you, and I can’t imagine a world without you.”

You exhale, your forehead almost brushing hers again.

“I love you more,” you answer softly. “And I’ll never put myself in danger like that… so long as you will too.”

“I left way earlier and would’ve been back in time,” she starts, exhaling as she pulls back just slightly, “and I have my truck. If not for—”

“Yeah, yeah,” you cut in gently, a faint, tired amusement in your voice.

That earns you a look.

Not sharp this time—just familiar. A little exasperated, a little fond.

She huffs under her breath, shaking her head as if to let the argument go where it belongs. Her hand, still warm against you, loosens its grip but doesn’t let go completely.

“You’re impossible,” she mutters.

“You started it,” you reply.

A beat.

Then her mouth twitches again, that same reluctant softness breaking through the last of her frustration. She leans in, pressing a quieter kiss to your temple this time—slower, steadier, like she’s grounding herself more than anything.

note: eh I hate this bit I finished it so here's crumbs ig... Also I was informed by an amazing anon that a colt is a young male horse, so i went through and edited it out. if anyone catches where it still says colt instead of filly, please tell me.

[biglychee]

(Don't) Shoot Your Shot v2

$ log - a giddy, crushing bucky barnes spots you speaking with steve. he may or may not be jealous and gruelling from the sidelines! $ warn --sfw --fluff --jealous-glaring!bucky --steve-is-trying-to-be-a-good-friend --you-just-wanted-answers $ wc -w 1k $ cd masterlist $ vi dont-shoot-your-shot.txt (v1)

You find Steve in the gym, which in retrospect was a tactical error on your part. It just meant that you're both stuck there for the duration of this conversation and he's too polite to leave.

"I need to ask you something," you say, "and I need you to be honest with me."

Steve sets down his weights with careful energy; he already knows this is going to be a problem. "Okay," he says.

You tell him everything. The staring — eleven incidents, you specify, you have a document — the way it started at the coffee machine and then just never stopped, the elevator, the hallway, the stairs you've been taking specifically to avoid the elevator. Steve listens with his arms crossed and his face extremely neutral.

It’s either the face of someone who has no idea what you're talking about or the face of someone who has every idea and is managing it carefully. You can't tell which, so you keep going.

Then you get to the rifle.

Steve's expression doesn't change, exactly, but something behind his eyes does a very quick calculation. "He gave you his rifle," he says.

"Five minutes before a mission. Grip first. No explanation."

"And you took it."

"What was I supposed to do, Steve?"

"No, no — " he waves a hand, "that was the right call." He says decisively, as he is absolutely not going to elaborate on why. You let it go. You get to the shooting range.

"He asked me to go," you say, "and I went, and it was — actually fine, it was genuinely fine, I had a good time." You pause. "But he kept smiling."

"Smiling," Steve repeats.

"Every time he hit a target, which was every time. Just — " you make a vague gesture, " — this small, private smile, like he was really pleased with himself, and I couldn't tell if he was showing off or warning me or — " you stop. "Is this a competition thing? Did I accidentally start a competition?"

Steve opens his mouth, glances briefly over your shoulder, and closes it again. When he looks back at you his expression has been carefully reset to something warm and unhurried. It would’ve been more convincing if you hadn't just watched him do it in real time.

"It's not a competition thing," he says.

"Then what is the smile?"

Across the gym, Bucky has not moved in four minutes.

He'd come in for a workout, that had been the plan. The plan had been going fine until he'd seen you cross the floor toward Steve with the specific purposeful energy. Looks like you had something serious to say. So, now the plan is on hold indefinitely because you are talking to Steve, who’s listening with his head tilted and his full attention.

All the while, Bucky’s standing next to the punching bag he has not touched once with his arms crossed and an expression that Sam would later describe, generously, as a little intense.

He can’t exactly hear much from here, so he's not eavesdropping or anything. He just hasn't left yet. That's all.

He's simply still here, in this spot, not doing anything, watching Steve say something that makes you frown slightly and tilt your head. He’s feeling something in his chest that he doesn't have a clean name for but sits somewhere between that should be me you're talking to and Steve, you better not be saying anything.

Steve glances over at him, pensive. Bucky does not alter his expression. Steve looks away.

"Honestly," Steve says, with the measured tone of a man picking his words like he's crossing a frozen lake, "that's just— that's just how he looks sometimes. When he' — " another flicker over your shoulder, barely a second, just his eyes, and then back to you, and he looks for a moment like a man sending a very urgent telegram with his face, "— when he's comfortable. That's a comfortable expression for him."

"He looked like he was winning something."

"He— " Steve stops, exhales largely. "He was probably just having a good time."

"Steve."

"I genuinely believe that to be true," he says, and he does, technically, believe that to be true, which is why he's able to maintain eye contact while saying it.

He glances over your shoulder again, just for a fraction of a second, and whatever he sees there makes something in his jaw tighten. He looks back at you immediately. Smiles. It's a very good smile. He's been doing this a long time, you’re getting worried for Steve here.

"So the staring," you say. "Eleven incidents. That's just— comfort?"

"Bucky's had a— " Steve pauses, seems to reconsider the entire sentence, and rebuilds it from scratch. "He's still working on how he is around people. Around certain people especially." He nods slightly, just once, like he's making a point. You're not sure what the point is. "Sometimes that looks different than you'd expect."

"It looks like surveillance."

"It's not surveillance."

"How would you know?"

"Because I know him," Steve says, with a patience that is very slightly strained at the edges now, "and I'm telling you it's not surveillance." He glances over your shoulder for the third time and this time doesn't quite manage to get his expression back in order before he turns to you again. There it is — just for a second — something that looks almost like a man trying not to visibly panic.

You know that look. You've seen it on people right before they tell you something is directly behind you.

The gym feels very quiet all of a sudden.

"Steve," you say slowly.

"Mm," says Steve.

"He's right behind me, isn't he?"

Steve says nothing. His expression says everything. You do not turn around.

# fic inspo:

$ tag @twentytomidnight @i-gotta-go-so-much-bigger

$ vi dont-shoot-your-shot.txt (v1)

$ cd masterlist

[randomgirlduh]

drabble - "name a random woman..."

It starts as nothing.

That’s the problem.

You don’t even think about it when you say it, just tossing the question into the air like it doesn’t matter, like it won’t land anywhere important.

“Hey… name a woman. A random woman.”

Natasha doesn’t even look up from where she’s leaning against the counter, turning a knife in her hand with that quiet, practiced ease that makes everything she does look effortless.

“Anya.”

Immediate.

No hesitation, no pause, no thinking.

Just the answer.

And that’s what makes you look up.

“…who’s Anya?”

You’re still smiling when you ask, still expecting it to stay light, to stay part of the joke.

Natasha shrugs slightly, like it’s nothing, like it should be nothing.

“Just a name.”

You let out a small laugh, sitting up straighter as your eyes narrow just a little.

“No, that was way too fast to be just a name.”

Now she looks at you, calm, unreadable, but attentive in that quiet way of hers.

“It was random.”

“It didn’t sound random.”

There’s something in your tone now, something sharper than before, and she notices. Of course she does.

Natasha straightens just slightly, her attention settling fully on you as she sets the knife aside.

“I remember a lot of names.”

“You don’t remember what I asked you to buy yesterday.”

There’s the smallest pause. Barely there, but enough for you to catch it.

“…that was different.”

You hum, unconvinced, already standing and closing the distance between you without really deciding to.

“Okay, so where is she from?”

“A mission.”

Too easy.

That answer comes too easily.

You tilt your head, studying her now like you’re trying to pull the truth out of her by force.

“What kind of mission?”

“It was a while ago.”

“That’s not helpful.”

“It’s enough.”

You stop right in front of her, arms crossing loosely, but your focus is sharp now, fixed entirely on her face.

“Natasha.”

She hums softly, like she’s indulging you.

“Mhm?”

“Why do you remember her name that fast?”

There it is again. That flicker. That fraction of a second where something passes through her expression before it smooths out again.

“I told you. It was random.”

You don’t believe her.

Not even a little.

“Okay,” you say, lifting your hand slightly, counting without breaking eye contact, “option one. Ex.”

“No.”

“Too fast.”

“Because it’s not true.”

You lift another finger.

“Agent.”

A pause.

“…yes.”

You blink, caught off guard by how easily she gives you that.

“She was an agent.”

“Oh my God, she’s real.”

There’s a slight tightening in her jaw now, not defensive, just aware.

“I didn’t say she wasn’t.”

You step a little closer, your curiosity now fully turning into something else, something you’re not naming yet.

“What kind of agent?”

“She tried to kill me.”

That stops you completely.

“…what?”

“Twice.”

You stare at her, trying to decide if she’s serious, and the worst part is… she is.

“That’s the woman you picked.”

“You said random.”

You let out a breath that turns into a disbelieving laugh, shaking your head as you look at her.

“So your brain went straight to someone who tried to kill you.”

“She was memorable.”

“Oh, I’m sure she was,” you murmur, but there’s an edge there now, something quieter and more pointed. “Do you think about her often?”

That’s when it shifts.

You see it happen.

Natasha’s posture changes just slightly, her attention sharpening, focusing in on you in a way that suddenly makes you feel like you’re the one being studied now.

“You’re jealous.”

You scoff immediately, even as your chest tightens just a little.

“I am asking questions.”

“Mhm.”

She pushes off the counter slowly, taking her time as she steps toward you, and you already know you’ve made a mistake.

Because now she’s interested.

And when Natasha is interested, she doesn’t let things go.

“You always do this?” she asks softly, stopping just close enough to make your breath hitch without meaning to.

“Do what?”

Her gaze drags over your face, slow, deliberate, like she’s reading every little reaction you’re trying to hide.

“Get like this.”

You frown slightly, defensive.

“I’m not getting like anything.”

Her hand lifts, fingers brushing lightly against your arm, barely there but enough to make your focus slip for a second.

“Possessive,” she murmurs.

Your stomach tightens.

“I am not—”

“You are,” she says quietly, almost amused, stepping just a fraction closer. “It’s subtle. But it’s there.”

You swallow, trying to keep your footing.

“I just think it’s weird you said her name that fast.”

“Of course you do.”

Her fingers trail from your arm to your waist, slow enough that you’re very aware of it, very aware of how easily she settles there, like it’s the most natural thing in the world.

“But that’s not all.”

You try to ignore the way your pulse picks up.

“It is.”

“It’s not.”

Her voice dips slightly, softer now, closer.

“You didn’t just ask who she was.”

You hold her gaze, even as it gets harder to.

“You started guessing. Ex, agent…” she pauses, just long enough to make you feel it, “lover.”

Your breath catches.

“I didn’t say that.”

“You thought it.”

You hesitate, and that’s enough.

Her thumb shifts lightly against your side, slow, absent, like she’s not even thinking about it, which somehow makes it worse.

“…did you like her?” you ask before you can stop yourself.

There’s a flicker of something in her eyes then, something warmer, something that almost looks like satisfaction.

“She tried to kill me.”

“That doesn’t answer my question.”

Her hand tightens just slightly at your waist, not enough to hold you there, just enough to remind you that she could.

“No,” she says, softer now, but there’s still that teasing edge underneath. “I didn’t like her.”

You exhale, some of the tension slipping out of you before you can hide it.

“Good.”

Her eyebrow lifts just a little.

“Good?”

You roll your eyes, trying to recover.

“You know what I mean.”

“Do I?”

Her voice drops just enough to make it unfair, her forehead almost brushing yours now.

“Because it sounded a little like you didn’t want me liking anyone else.”

Your cheeks warm.

“That’s not—”

Her thumb presses slightly more firmly against your side, grounding you, steadying you, keeping you right where you are.

“Not what?” she asks quietly.

You hesitate again, and she notices. Of course she notices.

“Say it.”

You glare at her, but there’s no real heat behind it anymore.

“I didn’t like it.”

There’s that soft, satisfied hum from her, like she’s been waiting for that.

“Better.”

For a moment, neither of you moves. The air between you feels different now, heavier, but not in a bad way.

Quieter.

“I just…” you start, softer now, your voice losing that defensive edge, “you could’ve just said me.”

And that’s what finally softens her.

Completely.

Her hand relaxes at your waist, her touch gentler now, more careful.

“You’re not random,” she says, and this time there’s no teasing in it, just something steady, something real.

You look at her, really look at her, and it hits harder than you expect.

“If you ask me to name someone that matters,” she continues, her voice low but certain, “it’s you.”

Your chest tightens.

You try to hold onto the bit, onto something lighter.

“…you still said Anya first.”

And there it is again, that small curve of her lips.

“Next time,” she murmurs, her thumb brushing lightly against your side again, softer now, “I’ll say you.”

You narrow your eyes at her, even if you’re already losing.

“There shouldn’t be a next time.”

She leans in just slightly, her voice dropping into something quieter, more certain.

“There will be.”

A small pause.

“You like it when I make you jealous.”

You let out a breath, shaking your head as you push lightly at her shoulder.

“I do not.”

She doesn’t move.

If anything, she looks more sure.

“Mhm.”

You try to step away, and this time she lets you, but her fingers linger just a second longer than they need to, like a reminder.

And that’s the worst part.

Because she’s right.

And now she knows it.

[biglychee]

Dear SHIELD Report Diary

$ log - bucky barnes has been filing debrief reports on your shared missions since day one. thorough ones. he thinks he’d been private; instead you've been receiving every single one! $ warn --sfw --fluff --cutie-jealous!bucky --bucky-has-a-crush $ wc -w 2.1k $ cd masterlist

The SHIELD debrief portal had a lot of options Bucky didn't care about.

CC, BCC, Priority flag. Read receipts, etc. He'd clicked through all of them once when Fury made the whole team migrate to the new system. He'd retained exactly what he needed: Subject line. Body. Attach file. Send.

BCC he'd figured out on his own. Blind carbon copy, so his copy. B for Bucky, obviously, the logic was airtight — you hit BCC, put your own address in, and you got a private duplicate that nobody else could see or trace. His personal record, similar to a filing cabinet that lived in his email.

What the portal's onboarding documentation would have explained, had he read it, was that BCC worked the other way. You put other addresses in BCC. Addresses you wanted to receive the email invisibly, without the main recipient knowing.

What the portal's backend had also done, automatically and without asking anyone, was flag your email address to receive copies of any SHIELD documentation in which your name appeared more than four times.

Bucky's reports averaged twelve.

He didn't know any of this. He hit send, opened his own BCC copy, read it over once with a quiet satisfaction of reviewing something he was privately proud of, and closed his laptop.

The first one arrived on a Tuesday.

You were in the common room with your phone, half-watching something on the TV and not really tracking it, when the notification came through. SHIELD internal. Debrief document, your name in the subject line, sender ID: AGT-J.B.BARNES-2245.

You read it once, then you read it again.

Asset demonstrated exceptional situational awareness during the extraction sequence. Threat neutralisation was efficient and tactically sound. Of additional note: asset's decision to reroute through the east corridor rather than the designated path resulted in the successful retrieval of secondary intelligence that would otherwise have been lost. This was not a lucky call. This was good instinct. Recommend continued field partnership.

This was not a lucky call. This was good instinct. You put your phone face-down on your knee, then picked it up to read it again.

Nobody had ever put that in writing before.

You were smiling before you'd fully registered. It was the kind you had to press your lips together to keep reasonable, and you looked up at the TV without seeing it and thought, huh.

Across the room, Bucky watched your face do something he didn't have a word for and felt a pull in his chest he chose not to examine.

You were on your phone a lot. He'd noticed. But, he wasn't keeping track or anything. So, he looked back at his coffee.

The second report went out three weeks later, after the Rotterdam job.

Bucky wrote it the same night, still in the post-mission quiet when everything felt slower and more honest. You'd been good in Rotterdam. Better than good. You'd held a position under pressure that most people would have abandoned and you'd done it without being asked.

You hadn't mentioned it in the debrief at all, just moved on like it was nothing, and it was very much not nothing.

He wrote the report, and he did so carefully. He added a line he took out, then put back in, then reworded three times:

Asset shows consistent pattern of underreporting her own contributions in verbal debrief settings. For accuracy of record, this document reflects observed field performance rather than asset's own account, which trends toward omission.

He looked at that for a while. Then he hit send, BCC'd himself, and closed the laptop.

You got it during breakfast.

Sam watched you pick up your phone mid-bite, watched your expression shift into something soft and private and a little delighted. He watched you put the phone screen-down with the careful precision of someone protecting something.

"Good news?" Sam said.

"Mm." You picked your fork back up. "Just — yeah. Good news."

Sam looked at you. He then looked across the kitchen at Bucky, who was reading the newspaper with the focus of totally not listening into the conversation.

Sam looked back at you, but he said nothing. He was mentally storing all these signs.

Bucky noticed you were doing it more.

The phone thing and the quiet smile. The way you'd look up from whatever you were reading with this expression like something had settled right in you. Then you'd put it away carefully, like you were folding something you wanted to keep.

He'd assumed it was texts. Someone's texts. Someone who made you look like that on a random Thursday morning over coffee, and he sat with that for approximately forty-five seconds before deciding he didn't want to think about it anymore.

He opened his laptop that evening and pulled up the debrief for the Lisbon job. Standard stuff, you know, like routine retrieval. 

Except you'd done this thing mid-mission where you'd talked down a civilian who was about to make everyone's life significantly harder, just calm and steady and completely unbothered. It had taken maybe ninety seconds and saved the whole operation two hours minimum. Nobody had commented on it. It was the kind of thing that disappeared into the noise.

He started typing.

He wrote the standard sections firstL objectives, timeline, outcome. Then he got to the additional notes field, which SHIELD technically used for anomalies and escalations, and which Bucky had been using for other things.

Asset's interpersonal management under pressure warrants specific notation. The civilian stabilisation in the market was executed without backup, without prior briefing, and without any apparent increase in the asset's stress response. It is the opinion of this agent that this represents a skill set that is both rare and consistently undervalued.

He was adding a final line — something about recommended commendation, which he'd never put in a report before, and which he also chose not to examine — when the chair next to him scraped back and Steve sat down.

Bucky tilted the laptop slightly away, reflex.

"Working late?" Steve said.

"Report."

"Which one?"

"Lisbon."

Steve glanced at the screen anyway, as he had no sense of boundaries that Bucky hadn't explicitly built a wall around. He read exactly enough to go very still in the way that meant he was trying not to have a reaction.

"That's very thorough," Steve said.

"I'm a thorough person."

"You recommended a commendation."

"They earned it."

Steve opened his mouth, and Bucky closed the laptop.

"The report," Bucky said, "is classified."

"It's an internal debrief document —"

"Goodnight, Steve."

Steve stood up. He walked out of the room at a completely normal pace.

Steve found Sam in the gym the next morning. He looked up from the bench press, while Steve held out his phone. Sam read the screenshot — received at 11:43pm, the text reading just you need to see this with no other context — and set the bar back in the rack.

They looked at each other.

"Do they know?" Sam said.

"They don’t know."

"Does he know?"

Steve's expression answered that. Sam picked the bar back up. "We're not telling either of them."

"Absolutely not."

"This is the most entertaining thing that's happened in six months."

"I know."

"Your best friend is writing this person love letters and filing them with SHIELD."

"I know, Sam."

You'd started saving them.

Not in a folder or anything organised. Just — you hadn't deleted them. You'd read the Lisbon one four times. On the fourth read you'd hit the consistently undervalued line and had to put your phone in your pocket and go do something with your hands for a while.

Someone on the team was writing these. Had to be. The mission details were too specific, the access too internal. Someone who'd been in Rotterdam, in Lisbon, on the extraction job in February.

You were running the list in your head while you made coffee, not really tracking the room, when you said out loud: "Do you think it could be an analyst? Like someone in the documentation department who just — sees the same names a lot and —"

"No," said Bucky, from the table.

You turned around. He was eating cereal and looking at his phone. He didn't look up.

"I mean, it's possible though, right?" you said. "They review everything. They'd have context."

"Analysts don't do field commendations. That's agent-level sign-off." He turned his phone over. "Whoever it is has been in the field with you."

You stared at him. Nonchalantly, he ate his cereal.

"That," you said slowly, "is actually really helpful, thank you."

"It's a logical deduction."

You turned back to the coffee maker. You were smiling again. You could feel it.

Behind you, Bucky looked at the back of your head with the expression of a man who had just realised he might have a problem.

The fourth report was the one that got away from him.

It was after the Geneva job, which had gone sideways in three different directions and then come back together.

It was entirely because of a call you'd made that Bucky was still thinking about four days later. It wasn't even a dramatic call. That was the thing. It was quiet and fast and so precisely right that he'd had trouble focusing for the rest of the op.

He sat down to write the report and he wrote the standard sections and then he got to additional notes and he just — kept going.

He wrote about the Geneva call. He wrote about Rotterdam again, because he'd been thinking about it. He wrote:

This agent has now worked alongside asset in eleven field operations. Pattern of observation across this period leads to the following assessment: asset is the kind of person who makes every operation better by being in it. This is the conclusion of eleven data points and one agent who has been paying attention.

Then, because Geneva had also produced something worth noting — genuinely, this part was professional — he added:

Of additional commendation: asset developed a partner communication system mid-mission, Geneva operation. Implemented in under thirty seconds, zero errors. Examples: "wrong floor" for abort, "you owe me coffee" for stand down. Effective. Recommend standard adoption. For the record, the coffee was never collected.

He read that back. He sent it before he could think about it differently. BCC: himself. B For Bucky. Private and safe.

You got it during movie night.

You felt your phone buzz, glanced at it, saw the sender ID, and made a decision in real time to read it right now that you would later question.

Asset is the kind of person who makes every operation better by being in it.

You made a very small sound that you hoped nobody heard. Sam definitely heard it.

This is the conclusion of eleven data points and one agent who has been paying attention.

You were smiling so hard your face hurt and you were staring at your phone like it had personally done something kind to you. You were going to need a moment, you were going to need just a —

You kept reading.

"Wrong floor" for abort. "You owe me coffee" for stand down.

You stopped smiling. You read that back.

Those were yours. The system you'd built in a Geneva stairwell in thirty seconds because you'd looked at Bucky and done the math on how the next hour was going to go.

You'd whispered the whole thing to him while checking the corridor and he'd said got it and that had been that. You hadn't written it down. You hadn't told debrief. Nor, had you mentioned it to anyone because it had felt like — it had just felt like a thing between the two of you.

For the record, the coffee was never collected.

He'd put that in a SHIELD report. You looked up.

Bucky was looking at the TV with his arms crossed, jaw slightly set. The specific stillness of someone who had decided in advance that they were going to look at the TV and they were going to keep looking  no matter what.

You looked at him for a long moment, realisation configuring in your head. He didn't look back. You looked down at your phone, then back up at Bucky.

Sam looked at Steve, who just looked at the ceiling, avoiding any stray gazes. Nobody said a word.

You locked your phone, very carefully, and put it face-down on your knee. On screen, something exploded.

The room stayed very quiet.

# fic inspo

$ tag @twentytomidnight @i-gotta-go-so-much-bigger

$ cd masterlist

[magicaloneandmystery]

hair

summary: bucky doesn't let anyone touch his hair. well... anyone except you. [written from the pov of Sam.]

warnings: fluff and more fluff. reader is described to have positive, sunny personality. NOT PROOFREAD.

"hey man, your hair is a little messy," Sam wasn't going to mess with Bucky's hair, he merely meant to correct it, but the way Bucky immediately halted his actions and gripped his wrists, Sam understood that Bucky Barnes was incredibly, incredibly protective of his hair.

that was when he realised never to touch it. or even think about touching it.

over the years, Sam has seen countless people try and tidy his unruly locks of hair, but Bucky has had the same reaction to all.

a swift grip on the wrist, a soft glare, and a small mutter of "don't touch my hair" was clockwork at this point.

so when you came along - you with your bright smiles and your cheerful nature - Sam often wondered why you put up with his grump of a friend.

don't get him wrong, he was incredibly happy to see him with you, blossoming out of his shell and all.

but it still puzzled him.

on a particularly slow morning, Sam had dropped in for a visit at the Barnes and (y/l/n) household. Alpine had greeted him like she always does - attention seeking attitude melting away into indifference once she got enough head scratches.

Bucky was still waking up from his sleep, moving around the kitchen with you in perfect sync, both of you preparing breakfast while Sam lounged on the island chair next to the kitchen.

he was busy on the phone, but when he looked up next, his jaw dropped and the phone fell from his grip to clatter on the counter.

there was Bucky Barnes, leaning next to you near the stove, as you brushed your hand in his hair and twisted it all around your fingers, letting him rest his head on your shoulders.

who the fuck is that, Sam wondered.

that can't be Bucky.

when Bucky, ever the skillful assassin, felt Sam's eyes on them, he turned to him with a questioning face.

"since when do you let people touch your hair?" San asked without missing a beat.

"I don't." he replied simply.

"but (y/n) was just now-"

"(y/n) is not people. she's different. special."

that shut Sam up. it was disgusting, really, how sweet Bucky was around you.

you cooed at him softly. "aww, thank you baby," and kissed him on his cheek.

"I need more coffee to deal with this disgusting cotton candy shit so early in the morning," Sam muttered under his breath.

thank you for reading! likes, reblogs, and comments are appreciated :)

I know the ending was quite abrupt but tbf I didn't have a very well planned out idea 😭 lmk what you think!

[brunchable]

I Suck At Valentine's Day

 ݈݇— pairings: Husband!Bucky Barnes x female!reader  ݈݇— themes: Porn with Plot(as always). Oral (M receiving), Manhandling, Pussy slaps, Standing doggie, Couch Sex, Cockworship, Spanking, Rough Sex, Dirty talk, creampie(use protection gdi), No use of y/n. Reader Portrayed as not into lingeries.  ݈݇— summary: You completely forgot that today was Valentine's Day. So after work, you did a little bit of last minute shopping for Bucky—and surprise, surprise who do you see in a lingerie store? Your husband. Funny thing is, you don't wear/like lingeries, so what is he doing there? Author's Note: Part of the Valentine's Specials.

You shove through the mall doors after a day that felt like it lasted three weeks, your feet screaming and your brain on fumes. February fourteenth. How? You swear it was New Year’s, like, yesterday. Now every store is blasting some sultry R&B remix and blasting pink hearts in your face like confetti cannons.

Victoria’s Secret is a war zone. Mannequins in scraps of lace that look like they were designed by someone who’s never met gravity. You pick up a pair of crotchless panties, hold them up, and immediately regret every life choice that led you here. A balconette bra that could launch your boobs into orbit? Pass. Fuzzy pink handcuffs swinging like they’re adorable? You snort so loud a teenager gives you side-eye.

Men are everywhere, clutching chocolates and roses like shields. They look stressed, but at least they have an exit strategy. Flowers wilt, chocolate gets eaten, obligation complete. You envy them with the heat of a thousand suns. You can’t exactly slap a KitKat on Bucky’s lap and shove daisies at him. Men—especially your particular german-shepherd-in-human-form husband—are not swayed by snacks and greenery.

No. If you’re the wife on Valentine’s Day, the unspoken contract is clear: sex. Wild, enthusiastic monkey sex. At least a couple of creative blowjobs.

You’re fine with sex. But the performance? The outfits? The toys? The pressure? Exhausting. Valentine’s cards make you gag. You’re practical. Low-key. Bucky’s the same—The Winter Soldier himself prefers burgers and bad action movies on the couch.

You’re about to bail and grab him an extra Big Mac on the way home when you spot him.

Bucky.

In the lingerie section.

He’s standing there in his dumb perfect jeans and that navy peacoat, looking like a lost Boy Scout who wandered into a burlesque show. Six-foot of pure American beef, staring at a rack of sheer teddies like they’re written in ancient Sanskrit. His hand reaches out to touch something gauzy and red, then snatches back like it’s about to bite him.

Your heart does an unwelcome tap dance. 

He’s… shopping. Here. He knows you hate this stuff. You know he’d rather brief SHIELD on alien invasions than discuss thongs.

So who’s the lucky recipient of Sergeant Lingerie?

No. Not Bucky. He’d sooner salute a Hydra agent than cheat. He’s old-fashioned to a fault—still says “gosh” when he’s flustered. Drama isn’t his thing. Neither is chaos. You two are the “quiet night in” couple.

But what the hell is he doing?

Your feet move before your brain catches up. You plow through a display of lingerie, nearly topple a pyramid of scented lotions, and plant yourself in front of him, hands on hips.

He startles like he’s been caught stealing. Then his face floods with relief so obvious it’s almost funny.

“Oh, thank God,” he breathes, opening one arm like you’re supposed to tuck right in.

You don’t.

“What are you doing here?” you ask, voice low and scary-polite.

He blinks those stupidly blue eyes. “What are you doing here?”

“I asked first, Barnes.”

He rubs his jaw and looks around—classic Bucky stalling tactic. “I… may have forgotten what day it was.”

You wait.

“I realized on the drive home. Stopped for flowers—gone. Chocolates—only the gross strawberry cream ones left. I panicked. Thought maybe they’d have a nice robe back here or… slippers or something cozy.” He gestures helplessly at a wall of garter belts. “I was wrong. Very wrong.”

You stare. The words sink in slowly.

He frowns, putting it together. “Wait. If this isn’t your thing—and you know it’s not mine—why are you here?”

And that’s when the tears hit. Out of nowhere. Sliding down your face like you’re a kid who dropped her ice cream. You hate crying. 

Bucky’s whole face collapses. “Hey—hey, baby, what’d I do?”

“Nothing,” you choke out, laughing wetly. “I thought you were buying this for someone else. Some girl who actually wants to role-play Valentine’s.”

He looks like you just kicked a puppy. His puppy. “I—what? No. Honey, the only person I want to see in—” he glances around, lowers his voice to a whisper “—any of this is you. And only if you wanted. Which you don’t. I just didn’t want to come home empty-handed like a complete loser.”

You swipe at your cheeks with your sleeve. “I was trying to buy you something because I forgot too. Thought if I didn’t show up in a teddy, I’d be the worst wife ever.”

He huffs a soft, disbelieving laugh. “We’re ridiculous.”

You swipe at your cheeks with your sleeve, sniffling like an idiot. “So, you’re not cheating on me? Or shopping for butt floss for some side chick?”

Bucky's frown is instant and fierce, the kind that could stop traffic. “Is that what you thought?”

“For a nanosecond,” you admit. “Maybe slightly longer. Like… a solid five-Mississippi.”

He stares for a beat, then that smile breaks across his face. The one that reminds you why you married this big, earnest dork in the first place.

“C’mere,” he says softly, opening his arm again.

This time you dive into the only safe place in the universe. Your face smooshes into that hideous plaid scarf he wears every winter—the one you’ve tried to assassinate multiple times. Donation bin, trash compactor, “accidentally” left on a subway seat. It always resurrects itself and slithers back around his neck like some immortal flannel demon.

“I’m actually touched by that,” he murmurs into your hair.

“By what?” you mumble, voice muffled by wool.

“The fact that you thought I might be cheating. Means you still care enough to be jealous.”

“You know I care, dumbass,” you say, giving his ribs a playful punch that probably feels like a kitten tap to him.

“Oh, I know, airhead,” he shoots back, voice fond. “It’s just nice to see irrefutable proof.”

You pull back just enough to grin up at him, something wicked sparking in your chest. “Speaking of which… I just thought of something.”

His eyebrows lift, curious and trusting. “Yeah?”

“I suck at Valentine’s Day.”

He chuckles, low and warm. “I know, honey.”

“No.” You step closer, dropping your voice to a conspiratorial whisper that still probably carries to the poor sales associate folding thongs nearby. “I actually meant I suck on Valentine’s Day.”

You hollow your cheeks dramatically and poke your tongue against the inside of one, driving it in his thick head.

Bucky’s eyes go comically wide. His face flames red from collar to hairline in record time. He glances left, right, over both shoulders like he’s checking for Hydra agents, then cups both big hands around your face like he’s trying to shield you from the entire store. Or maybe shield the store from you.

“Sweetheart,” he hisses, voice strangled and about an octave higher than usual. “There are children in the mall.”

You laugh into his palms, the sound muffled and downright devilish. “Relax, Bucky. Nobody saw.”

“I saw,” he mutters, voice still pitched high with embarrassment, but his thumbs are tracing soft circles on your cheeks now, helpless and fond.

He glances around one more time—full 360-degree super-soldier sweep, like he’s clearing a room—then leans in close, his breath warm against your ear. His voice drops to this low, rough growl that you only ever hear behind closed doors.

“If you keep talking like that,” he whispers, “and I’m gonna drag you into the nearest dressing room, bend you over, and make sure you forget how your legs work for the rest of Valentine’s Day.”

Your brain blue-screens.

James Barnes just said that. In public. Filthy and possessive and hot enough to melt the lace right off the nearby racks.

You pull back just enough to stare at him, mouth actually hanging open. “James Buchanan Barnes,” you hiss, half-shocked, half-turned on. “Who are you and what have you done with my Boy Scout?”

His ears are still scarlet, but there’s a smug little glint in those blue eyes now. “You started it.”

You swallow hard, suddenly very aware that you’re in a store full of strangers and your husband just flipped the script in the best-worst way possible. “Well then,” you manage, voice a little breathless, “let’s get the hell out of here before you get us arrested for public indecency.”

He exhales a shaky laugh, grabs your hand and practically power-walks you both toward the exit—past the thongs, past the fuzzy handcuffs, past the poor sales associate who’s definitely pretending not to notice the two of you speed-walking like you’re fleeing a crime scene.

× × × ×

The second the side door clicks shut behind you, the dam breaks.

You don’t even make it past the entryway. One moment you’re both stumbling through the garage door into the living room, coats half-shed, laughter breathless and edged with hunger; the next, you’ve got him backed against the wall, your hands already working his belt with single-minded determination.

“Baby—wait, slow down,” Bucky rasps, but the protest is weak, undermined by the way his hips tilt toward you instinctively.

“Shut up,” you breathe, the words half-laugh, half-growl as you tug the leather free and yank his zipper down. His cock springs into your waiting palm—thick, warm, only half-hard from the frantic drive home and the cold February air. It rests heavy against your fingers, velvet over steel, and you wrap your hand around him possessively.

“There’s my favorite soldier,” you murmur, giving him a pulling stroke that makes his breath catch.

He exhales a shaky laugh, cheeks still flushed from the mall, from your teasing, from everything. “I was… really hard a minute ago.”

The self-conscious note in his voice tugs at your heart. As if you’d ever mistake the way his body responds to the cold, to nerves, to anything but complete, desperate want for you.

You meet his eyes, letting him see the truth in yours. “I know exactly how hard you get for me, Barnes. And I know exactly how to fix this.”

Then you sink to your knees, the hardwood cool against your skin, and take him into your mouth.

The first slow, luxurious pull around his crown has him groaning low, head falling back against the wall with a soft thud. You feel the immediate twitch, the rush of blood as he thickens on your tongue—hot, heavy and perfect. You swirl around the sensitive head, tracing that spot just beneath the ridge that always makes his thighs tense, and he hardens fully in seconds, filling your mouth until your lips stretch deliciously around him.

God, he’s beautiful like this. You pull back just enough to admire him, saliva glistening along his length, then sink down again, taking him deeper, letting him feel the wet heat of your throat. When you hum in appreciation, the vibration draws a ragged curse from him that sounds almost startled coming from The Winter Soldier’s mouth.

You glance up through your lashes. His jaw is clenched, eyes dark and hooded, fixed on you with that intense focus that always makes you feel like the only woman in the world. If you had spinach in your teeth right now, he wouldn’t notice. He’s too far gone, lost in the sight of you on your knees for him.

“Mmm,” you hum again, pulling off with a soft, wet pop before licking a slow stripe up the underside. “Such a gorgeous cock, Bucky. So thick… tastes like it’s been missing my mouth all day.”

His hips jerk involuntarily, a low, broken moan tearing free as you circle the head with your tongue, teasing that sweet spot again and again until his hand threads gently into your hair.

“God, yes—just like that,” he rasps, eyes locked on you, dark and feral. “Take me deeper. I love watching you suck that dick, you look so fucking perfect with your lips stretched around me.”

You take him deeper, your tongue working in perfect sync as you suck. Years together have mapped every inch of him onto your memory—the exact pressure he craves, the rhythm that makes his breath stutter, the way he unravels when you hit just the right spots. It’s power, pure and intoxicating, knowing you hold him in the palm of your hand.

“That’s it, baby,” you whisper, lips brushing the slick crown as you run your tongue messily over it, coating him in wet heat. You dip the tip into his slit, flicking and thrusting playfully, and the whimper he lets out was high and needy, sending a thrill straight to your core. You do it again, and again, fucking that tiny opening with your tongue until his thighs tremble.

Where did you even learn this? Doesn’t matter. All that matters is the way he’s falling apart for you.

Time to bring out the big guns.

You shrug off your coat in one fluid motion, letting it pool on the floor. Then you yank up your sweater, tugging your breasts free from the practical cotton bra—nothing sexy about it, but the way they spill out perched perfectly on the underwire… you know exactly what it does to him. His eyes drop immediately, darkening with raw hunger as he watches them with every movement.

He loves this; the visual, the tease, the way it pushes him right to the edge.

“You want to come for me, baby?” you purr, wrapping your hand around his slick length and stroking faster, hard enough to make your breasts bounce enticingly. “I want it all. Every drop. Give me that big load, Bucky. . . I’m starving for it.”

He’s beyond words now, just incoherent, guttural sounds that might as well be pleas. His chest heaves, abs clenching under his shirt, and you can feel him swelling impossibly thicker in your grip.

You take the head back into your mouth, sucking hard while your hand tightly pumps him in a relentless rhythm. Suck, stroke, swirl, squeeze. Drool slips from the corners of your lips, it’s messy but in this moment, you feel like a goddess. Possessed by pure, filthy desire, every ridiculous worry from earlier erased by the power of making him lose control.

“Come for me, baby,” you mumble around him, words garbled but intent crystal clear. “That’s it… give me everything. I want to drain you dry. Come down my throat, Bucky…”

You feel it building, the tension coiling tighter in his thighs, his abs, the way his hips start thrusting instinctively, chasing the heat of your mouth. He looks down at you, eyes glazed with helpless wonder, like he can’t quite process the sight of his cock sliding between your lips, slick and shining, disappearing again and again into your eager throat. His expression is pure surrender—brows drawn, lips parted, utterly lost to the pleasure you’re wringing from him.

A low moan escapes him, then another, building until he slaps a hand over his mouth to muffle the sounds. It doesn’t help. The groans break through anyway—rough, desperate, cracking like a teenager’s voice all over again, muffled snuffles and grunts that make your core clench with triumph.

And then he breaks.

One powerful thrust forward, burying himself deep as his entire body goes rigid. His cock surges against your tongue, thick pulses of heat flooding your mouth in hot, endless waves. You swallow greedily, instinctively, milking him through every spasm—sucking harder, softer, perfectly timed to drag out the ecstasy until he’s trembling, oversensitive and overwhelmed.

Pulse after pulse, you take everything he gives, drawing it out until his hips stutter and still. His hand falls from his mouth, fingers threading shakily into your hair as he gasps for air, chest heaving. His cock throbs faintly with his racing heartbeat, spent and twitching in the aftermath.

You pull off slowly, licking him clean with one last teasing swirl that makes him shudder.

You rise slowly, legs a little unsteady, lips swollen and slick as you lick the last trace of him from the corner of your mouth. Bucky’s eyes are still dark, glazed with the aftershocks, but the moment you’re on your feet, something shifts. The gentle soldier is still there, but hunger sharpens his gaze.

He doesn’t give you time to catch your breath. His hands frame your face, thumbs brushing your cheeks with surprising tenderness before he crashes his mouth to yours. The kiss is deep and claiming—tasting himself on your tongue and groaning into you like he can’t get enough. When he pulls back, his voice is low, rough velvet.

“Turn around, honey. Get on the couch and bend over.”

The command sends heat pooling between your thighs. You barely manage a nod before he spins you with firm hands on your hips, guiding you toward the couch with that effortless strength. Your skirt is still bunched from earlier frantic touches; he doesn’t bother with finesse. The zipper rasps down, fabric shoved roughly over your hips until it pools at your feet. You step out of it without thinking, heart racing as the cool air kisses your exposed skin.

He strips off the rest of his clothes impatiently; shirt yanked over his head, jeans kicked aside until he’s gloriously bare behind you. His palms slide up your back, pressing gently but inexorably until you’re bent over the arm of the couch, forearms braced against the cushions, ass presented to him like an offering.

“Good girl,” he murmurs, voice dripping with approval that makes you shiver. He steps in close, the thick length of him already hardening again—nudging against your thigh. “Look at you… so wet and ready after sucking me dry. You loved swallowing every drop, didn’t you?”

“You know I did.” You whimper, pushing back against him instinctively.

His hand cups you possessively, fingers sliding through your slick folds. He spits into his palm, then brings it down in a series of light, teasing slaps against your pussy. Each one lands with a sharp, stinging pleasure that makes you gasp, your hips jerking forward.

“Fuck, listen to that,” he growls, doing it again, harder this time, “This pretty little pussy is dripping for me. Begging to be filled.”

Another slap, then two fingers plunge inside you without warning, curling deep and stroking that spot that makes stars burst behind your eyelids. His free hand grips your hip, holding you steady as he works you open—slow twisting thrusts that have you moaning into the cushions.

“You’re going to take your husband just like this,” he says, voice dark and commanding, leaning over you until his chest brushes your back, lips at your ear. “Got it?”

You can only nod, breathless, body arching into his touch.

He withdraws his fingers slowly, leaving you aching and empty for only a heartbeat before his palms glide over the curve of your ass, tracing your hips with reverent possession. His grip tightens and you feel the blunt heat of his cock nudge against your drenched entrance.

“That’s it,” he snarls, voice shredded and barely holding on. “You're dripping for me…”

With one long, luscious stroke, he sinks into you deep, stretching you open until you’re gasping, head thrown back in a broken moan. Your body yields to him, parting greedily, clenching around his thickness as he claims you completely. The sensation is overwhelming—his hips flush against your ass, the heavy weight of him pinning you, owning you.

“Fuck yes,” you moan, grinding back desperately, forcing him deeper into your soaked heat. “Bucky… I need you to ruin me senseless tonight. Please.”

“Are you sure?” He groans, the sound vibrating through you as he bottoms out, your soaked walls clamping down hard around his thick length in greedy answer. “Shit—alright, you asked for it.”

Then he pulls back slowly, torturously, your walls protesting with a desperate clutch, only for him to drive forward again, harder, igniting sparks behind your eyes. His hands dig into your hips, holding you steady as he sets a steady rhythm—deep, forceful thrusts that slap skin against skin, his powerful thighs flexing with every snap of his hips.

“Fuck, look at you,” he rasps, head tipped back in ecstasy, eyes squeezed shut as pleasure consumes him. “Taking that dick—moaning like a good girl. You love this, huh? Love getting fucked like this—bent over, filled with your husband’s cock.”

“Yes—oh God, yes,” you cry out, voice breaking with each punishing stroke. “Don’t stop…”

His rhythm turns feral, thick cock scraping every swollen, needy ridge inside your dripping cunt until your thighs shake and your whole body quakes. His hands knead your ass possessively, spreading you wider for his invasion, the raw dominance making you clench harder around him.

Then he slows—just enough to tease—and leans over you, chest blanketing your back. His thumb brushes your lips, gentle at first.

“Open that pretty fucking mouth, baby,” he murmurs, voice dark silk. “Suck it like it’s my cock.”

You do, tongue lashing his thumb like a desperate little cockslut, pulling it deep into your wet mouth and sucking hard, cheeks hollowing as you swirl and moan around it, drool already slipping down your chin. The intimacy undoes you: his cock buried deep, thrusting in time with the way you worship his finger.

“There’s my filthy fucking girl,” he growls low, lips brushing the shell of your ear, breath scorching your skin. “Suck it just like that… picture my thick cock choking your throat again while I rail this sloppy, perfect pussy raw.”

“Yes…” you whimper around his thumb, nodding frantically, hips grinding back to meet his thrusts. “Fuck me.”

He growls, hips snapping harder, the couch groaning and shifting under the relentless pounding. “You ready to take my load, baby? Ready to be bred and owned?”

You gasp, releasing his thumb to beg. “Yes.”

He stills suddenly—buried to the hilt, throbbing inside you—and you feel the tremor that runs through his entire body. 

“Fuck—I need to be deeper,” he rasps, voice wrecked and dripping gravel. 

Before you can answer, he pulls out in one slick glide that leaves you gasping at the sudden emptiness. His urgent hands are on you instantly spinning you, lifting and rearranging you. He guides you to the wide, padded arm of the couch, pressing between your shoulder blades until you drape forward over it. Your hips perch right on the edge, ass tilted high, thighs spread wide, completely open and exposed to him.

Bucky steps in close behind you, one big hand splayed across the small of your back, the other gripping the base of his cock as he lines himself up again. You feel the blunt, slick head nudge your entrance, sliding through your soaked folds before he drives forward in a single thrust.

He sinks deeper than before, the thick head of his cock bumping your cervix on the first stroke, a sharp, electric pressure that steals your breath and turns it into a broken cry. 

Your walls flutter helplessly around him, stretched wide, every ridge and vein dragging against sensitive spots you didn’t know existed.

“Holy—fuck,” he groans, voice cracking.

Your needy cries echoes off the walls, and that sound seems to snap whatever thin thread of restraint he had left.

Bucky’s hips slam forward savagely in a cock-splitting rhythm. The angle gives you no escape, every stroke punches the air from your lungs, turns your moans into desperate, broken sobs that you can’t hold back. Skin slaps against skin, the couch creaking under the onslaught like it might give out.

“Fuck—fuck,” he snarls through clenched teeth, voice ragged. His metal hand grips your hip, holding you exactly where he wants you while his flesh hand comes down on your ass in a sharp, stinging crack.

The sting explodes across your skin like fire, and you growl low, feral—“Ugh, what the fuck, James.”—hips jerking back even as your cunt clamps down tighter around his throbbing cock, greedy and shameless. “Give me more.”

The spank is pure overwhelmed aggression, the kind that rips out of him because wanting you this bad fucking hurts.

“That’s it,” he moans, voice ragged and breathless, slamming his palm down again—the sharp crack rings out loud as your ass ripples and jiggles hard under the brutal smack. “This perfect fucking ass—shit, look at it bouncing while you take it.”

Another spank, then another, alternating cheeks, each one jolts you forward, forces you to take him deeper, and he fucks you through it like he can’t stop or won’t stop. Pace turning feral, hips pistoning, cock dragging against every sensitive spot inside you until your vision blurs.

He leans over you, chest heaving against your back, lips brushing your ear as his hand cracks down again—sharp enough to make you yelp and arch.

“You’re fucking perfect, you know that right? Can’t—Christ—can’t hold back with you like this.”

He spreads your stinging cheeks wider, watches himself disappear into you over and over. Your whole body is trembling now, pleasure coiling impossibly tight, you’re dripping down your thighs, pushing back to meet every brutal thrust, completely lost in him.

Bucky’s breath hitches his rhythm faltering for a split second, hips grinding deep as he tries to hold on, you feel it in the way his cock swells impossibly thicker inside you, pulsing against your walls. His whole body starts to shake as he fights the edge, hips stuttering like he’s about to fucking shatter.

A broken whimper spills from his throat—high, helpless, nothing like the growls from before. Another follows, softer, needier, as he folds forward, chest pressing flush to your sweat-slick back, arms caging you in like he’s surrendering completely. His face buries in the crook of your neck, lips brushing your skin as the sounds tear out of him.

“F-fuck, baby—I’m close—”

He’s unraveling, the fierce soldier reduced to this: bent over you, shaking, he fucks you through the last fraying threads of his control.

One final, bruising thrust buries him to the hilt, and he breaks.

A long, shuddering moan tears from his chest as he comes–hot, thick pulses flooding deep inside you, coating your walls, marking you from the inside out. His hips jerk helplessly with every spurt, grinding instinctively to get deeper, as if he could pour his entire soul into you. 

“I’m yours–I’m yours…fuck, I’m yours,” he gasps against your skin, voice wrecked and trembling, the words slurring together as wave after wave crashes through him.

Your own orgasm slams into you at the sound of it. His complete, beautiful surrender; walls clenching hard around him, milking every last drop as you moan his name into the cushions. He stays folded over you, breathing hard, lips pressing soft kisses along your shoulder between the fading whimpers, like he’s coming back to himself one shaky breath at a time.

Then, out of nowhere, a low, breathless chuckle rumbles against your skin, soft at first, then building into full, helpless laughter that shakes his chest against your back. It’s that ridiculous, uncontrollable post-orgasm giggle, the kind that hits when everything feels too good, too intense, and your body just short-circuits into joy.

“Oh my God,” he gasps between laughs, voice hoarse and wrecked, forehead dropping to your shoulder as his whole frame vibrates with it. “Holy shit, baby.”

You feel the laughter bubbling up in you too, even as aftershocks still ripple through your thighs. “What are you laughing at?” you manage, voice muffled into the cushion, a grin already tugging at your swollen lips.

He lifts his head just enough to press another kiss to your neck, but the chuckles keep coming, warm and boyish and utterly disarming. 

“I don’t know,” he admits, breathless. “Just—fuck. That was…” Another laugh breaks free, and he has to brace a hand on the couch to steady himself. “Are you okay? I kinda lost my mind there for a minute.”

You nod, turning your head to catch his eye, finding his face flushed and glowing, those blue eyes bright with affection and lingering haze. “I'm fine,” you whisper, reaching back to thread your fingers through his hair. “You’re kinda heavy though?”

He exhales a shaky laugh again, shifting his weight carefully as he starts to pull out, both of you hissing at the sensitivity. 

“Give me a minute,” he murmurs, voice soft and fond as he eases away and collapses onto the couch beside you, tugging you into his arms. His legs are actually trembling—you can feel it when he pulls you half on top of him, one thigh slung over his.

“My legs are shaking. I think you broke me.”

You bury your face in his chest, laughing quietly now too, the sound muffled against warm skin and the faint scent of sweat and him. 

“Good,” you mumble, pressing a kiss over his heart. “Means I did my job.”

He wraps both arms around you tight, metal and flesh. His laughter fades into a contented hum, fingers tracing lazy patterns along your spine, over the warm, tender skin of your ass where his handprints still linger.

You shift on top of him, tilting your face up to meet his eyes—soft and hazy, that post-sex glow making him look younger, lighter, like the weight of the world has finally slipped off his shoulders for a little while. He smiles down at you, small and devastatingly sweet, then leans in to peck your lips once, twice.

“I love you,” he murmurs against your mouth, voice low and rough in the best way. His flesh hand cups your cheek, thumb stroking gently, like he’s memorizing the feel of you all over again.

You melt into it, kissing him back lazily, your own “I love you” muffled between you.

He pulls back just enough to rest his forehead against yours, a breathless little chuckle escaping him again. 

“So…” he says, voice dropping into that playful drawl you adore, “should we just order takeout? Because I’m starving, and the only thing I’m capable of cooking right now is toast. Maybe.”

You laugh softly, nuzzling into his neck. “Extra Big Macs?”

He grins, pressing one more kiss to your temple, “Sounds good, order it now so when we finish showering. . .we have food.”

While you grabbed your phone and did the order, Bucky watched you with that fond, sleepy smile, his metal arm curled loosely around your waist, thumb brushing idle circles on your hip.

Order placed, you toss the phone aside and sink back into him, both of you quiet for a moment, just breathing together in the warm afterglow. 

Eventually he shifts, pressing a kiss to your forehead. “Come on. Shower time. I’ve got… evidence all over both of us.”

You groan dramatically but let him pull you up. The second you’re on your feet, though, your legs wobble like a newborn foal, without warning, he scoops you up bridal-style, effortless as always, your naked body cradled against his chest. You yelp, arms looping around his neck in reflex.

“Woah!”

He starts walking toward the bathroom, voice low and teasing, eyes glinting with mischief. 

“What? I’m just helping my wife who can’t walk straight. Though…” He leans in, lips brushing your ear, voice dropping to that rough growl that still makes your stomach flip. “If you keep making those little noises, I might prove I’ve still got another round in me. Right here against the hallway wall.”

tags: @shezataurus13 @padfooteyes @ssweeterthanher @nonyabusinesswhatmynameis @lila-cat

@yes-ilovetowrite @yoruse @bripenguin-blog @mariamorales1998 @23727sierravista

@sof-has-hyperfixations @squishyfruitloop @manebabe @astrofluke @rapturtle

@buckyslove1917 @winteriscummming @waywardsai @shamelessysunday @adventures-of-impala

@jai200700 @nikkitabarnes @missvelvetsstuff @serendippindots @ghoul-rider

@xneetx1 @caitlinvd @simpxmarvel @kmc1989 @fluidlystrangerealm

@swimmingnightcolor @uhlillie @daisynotquake @daydreamin1220 @fandoml0vers

@starsrfun @fuzzyphantomsoul @buckysbabygorl @classyinfernomartyr @greatenthusiasttidalwave

@bartonsparrow25 @rose1414 @wanda-widow @winchesterslullaby @mathcat345

@fracturedscoutabomination @basicallynotbreathing @herejustforbuckybarnes @jeonmochi99-blog @spring-soldier

[sillymii]

"Obsession"

Or 'The death of James Bucky Barnes'

A Bucky Barnes x f!Reader mini series [based on the movie Obsession(2026)]

You’ve had a crush on Bucky Barnes since sophomore year of college, but to him, you were just Natasha’s best friend. He didn’t think much of you, until one night he texted you for the lecture notes he’d missed. You tried not getting your hopes up, but it seemed the universe was finally giving you what you wanted.

…That was until you fumbled so hard it left both of you awkward, and ending the night on a sour note rather than romance. In your self loathing you made a wish: “I wish James Barnes loved me more than anyone in the fucking world.”

Tags: 18+, Dub con (there isn't anything overtly sexual), Self-harm, Obsessive behaviour, Possessive behaviour, Bucky really isn’t himself in this, reader is given the nickname Chip, College AU, Late 2000s, light spoilers for the movie Obsession (I took scenes from the movie but it isn't a 1:1 recreation).

Chapter One 𖹭 "One Wish Willow"

Chapter Two 𖹭 "Love me more"

Chapter Three 𖹭 "Forever"

Extras: Mood board  //  Playlist!!! // Read on AO3

(Hearts on hearts (Passion) dividers by @//cafekitsune

[holylulusworld]

Love Letters

Title: Love Letters

Summary: Your letter kept him alive.

Pairing: 40s!Bucky Barnes x Girlfriend!Reader

Warnings: angst, going to war, mentions of imprisonment/torture, not canon compliant, fluff

A/N: Story written for @buck-star’s “Valentine’s Day Special.”

My fluffy prompt was: love letter

A piece of paper, neatly folded and safely tucked in his pocket. His lifeline. The only thing keeping him sane was well-protected.

The moment Bucky told you they’d draft him, your whole world came crashing down. You didn’t show him how scared you were to lose the love of your life. He was about to go to war and fight for his life every day and you didn't want to be a burden to Bucky.

You kissed him goodbye and gave him a love letter, promising to write to him every day. And you did. You kept your word, sending letter after letter, always hoping he would come back safe and sound.

Bucky barely had the time to reply, but he tried. Five love letters reached you until the letters stopped.

It was around the time Hydra captured Bucky that he almost lost hope. He was held in a dark cell, his days filled with torture and experiments.

One night, he remembered one of your letters was still in the pocket of his pants. Bucky clutched it to his chest, tears filling his eyes when your familiar scent hit him. He let his mind drift toward you. Your smile and the way you hugged him.

“I’m going to hang on, Y/N,” he murmured. It didn’t matter any longer that he could barely keep himself upright, or that hunger was taking a toll on his body. Bucky kept on going for you.

“What do we have here?” One of his captors laughed when he discovered the letter in Bucky’s hand. He was barely conscious after hours of torture, but his hand wouldn’t let go of your love letter. “A letter from your nice little girl waiting at home? Too bad she won’t see you again.”

The man mocked him, but Bucky wouldn’t let go. The letter was his most prized possession. If he lost it, he’d lose hope altogether.

“Do whatever you want; you’ll not get it,” he said through gritted teeth. “I won’t hand it over.”

Bucky kept his word. They kicked and punched him, but Bucky held onto the letter for dear life. It was covered in filth, sweat, and blood, yet Bucky cherished it more than anything else in his life.

Bucky held onto the last ray of light, your memory, and the letter you gave to him. Weeks passed, and then months, but the letter remained in his hands.

Six months later, chaos erupted in the middle of the night. His captors sounded scared when they yelled, “Run, Captain America is here!!”

He heard gunshots and people shouting before the door to his prison slammed open. Bucky didn’t have to see the man unlocking his cell. He knew him by heart.

“Stevie?” Bucky laughed through tears. “You look bigger.”

He was coming home. Your Bucky was coming home.

Waiting at the train station, you shifted from one foot to the other. Your heart was beating out of your chest when you watched Steve step out of the train.

“BUCKY!” You dropped your bag and the flowers in your hand to run toward Bucky and wrap him in a hug. He was still injured, but he wrapped his arms tightly around you.

“Doll, I’m back to keep my promise.” He looked like hell, but his eyes were still the same. “I know it’s not much, but I found this.”

He got a toy ring out of his pocket, showing it to you before putting it on your finger. “Bucky! You found one! You remembered.”

“I promised to marry you when we were kids, remember?” He said, looking at the cheap toy on your finger, the one matching the one he gave you when you were only five years old. “I’ll buy you a nice one when I’m better.”

“I love this one,” you sniffled. “I don’t care about the ring, only you.”

“Y/N, don’t cry.” Bucky cupped your face with one hand. His other hand was trembling when getting the letter he protected with his life out of his pocket. “You saved me…your letter saved me…”

[navybrat817]

Last Call

Pairing: Soft!Dark Bucky Barnes x Female Reader

Summary: Bucky helps you out of the bar after a few drinks.

Word Count: 300

Playlist Prompt: Joy To The World - Three Dog Night / “I never understood a single word he said”

Warnings: Soft!Dark tone and vibes, tipsy reader, possible drugging, possible dubcon/noncon, Bucky Barnes (he's a warning, okay?).

A/N: Day 1 of the June Jukebox Scribbles Challenge by @societynsoelsscribbles . ❤️ Not beta read and written on my phone, so any and all mistakes are my own. Bucky edit by the amazing @nixakimbo. Divider by the talented @saradika-graphics. Please follow @navybrat817-sideblog for new fics and notifications as I no longer do taglists. Comments, reblogs, feedback are loved and appreciated!

You giggled as you walked out of the bar, the cool night air hitting your exposed skin and the loud conversations behind you fading once the door shut. Well, stumbled out was the more accurate description. You knew you shouldn’t have worn heels. At least you didn’t fall on your face with how tingly your legs felt. 

Though you had Bucky to thank for keeping you upright.

Did you really drink that much?

It was supposed to be a couple of drinks with the crew to unwind. A fun night. Bucky made sure you had a seat right next to him and never took his eyes off you. He even brought your last drink over for you. Your favorite.

How did he know?

“Jeremiah was a bullfrog. Was a good friend of mine. I never understood a single word he said…” You giggled again, leaning on the bulky super soldier for support as he helped you walk. “I haven’t heard that song in ages, and now it’s gonna be stuck in my head.”

“I think I was on ice when that song came out,” he tried to joke, giving you a lopsided smile. It looked a little sinister under the harsh street lamp. “But we can listen to music when we get back to my place.”

Your eyes lit up, even with how blurry your vision was getting. “Really?” you asked before your brows furrowed. “Wait… your place?”

You didn’t recall saying you’d go to his place. 

His grip tightened as he pulled you closer. “Yeah, my place,” he replied, bringing his mouth to your ear. “You can even sleep over.”

You shivered but not from the chill in the air. “Oh, I wouldn’t… want to impose.”

“You’re not,” he promised, smirking to himself. “I’m gonna take care of you.”

I would've gone willingly! Love and thanks for reading. ❤️

Masterlist ⚓Bucky Barnes Masterlist ⚓ Ko-Fi

[phoenix-in-writing]

Wheel of Wonder

40's Bucky Barnes x Reader

♪ Prompt | Right Place, Wrong Time - Dr. John | “But I'm having such a good time” ♪ Summary | Somehow, your new boyfriend sweet talked you onto The Wonder Wheel at Coney Island despite you being afraid of heights. ♪ Warnings + Tags | Pure fluff, reader is scared of heights, but Bucky's here so it's fine ^.^ ♪ Phoenix Chirps | So...back in the day, I had a 40s Bucky series, and this is based on a scene that had yet to see the light of day. And actually...writing this made me yearn to pick it back up again. ♪ Word Count | 299

⏮ Prev | Masterlist ⏯ Event Masterlist | Next ⏭

Coney Island was abuzz with the beginning of the summer crowds. Scents of cotton candy, roasted nuts, and the very faint smell of sea salt air beckoned like an old friend.

Stepping off of the train platform, hand in hand with Bucky Barnes, was new, however. A relationship that still kind of felt like a trial. Like you weren't sure how you got so lucky to be the girl on his arm, when he definitely could have had his pick of anyone in Brooklyn.

Your first test came in the form of The Wonder Wheel. Poor, scared of heights you, somehow fond yourself enclosed in a small metal carriage, swinging wildly, and trying to act nonchalant. To prove that you could match his adrenaline junkie personality.

"Bucky, I want to get off this crazy thing." Your voice shook, having had enough when the carriage was nearly cresting the peak of the wheel.

"Oh, but I'm having such a good time," Bucky grinned, pulling you in closer as the metal creaked wildly. "Thought we'd go around again if the line wasn't too long."

"I'd be having a better time if the wheel wasn't attempting to throw me into the Atlantic," you gritted, teeth clenched so hard you thought you may need a trip to the dentist.

He huffed a laugh, wrapping his arms around you. "Don't be silly. Atlantic is all the way over there. If anything, it's trying to fling you into the arcade."

The ride tilted again, nearly sending you tumbling forward if you hadn't had an iron grip on his jacket. "That's not calming me down like you think it is."

"You're okay sugar," he reassured, softer this time, pressing a kiss to your temple. "As long as I'm around, I won't let anything happen to you."

Everything Taglist: @overwintering-soldier @stanmarvelous @wint3rbarnes @barnes-babydoll @defn0tonyourleft @herejustforbuckybarnes @stesha02 @sheriff-bodecker @wherewinterblooms @miraclediviner @tw1sters @bucksbby @daddysbitchybaby @metal-armed-muse @avgdestitute @imtoooldforthis82 @daydreamgoddess14 @hailmary-yramliah @nachtigall127 @heavenchana @ornateglass @steelandvibranium @stkmaprang @yourmomoclockit @misswhiddless @mariamorales1998 @mistressmkay @ladymiseryy @my-drvidess @alli0-0 @buckyscaptain @larissareidbarnes @castielscaplan @juniebjonesin @angelryex

If you'd like to be added to the taglist comment here ᝰ.ᐟ

[jamesbbcrnes]

HAUNTING PAST

PAIRING: tfatws!bucky barnes x female reader WORD COUNT: 298 WARNINGS: nightmare, slight angst, brief mentions of hydra and the winter soldier, no use of y/n, established relationship. SONG PROMPT: right place, wrong time by dr. john LYRICS: “head is in a bad place, wonder what it’s good for.” NOTE: not too much about to say about this one other than i forgot to write it yesterday 😭

event masterlist | day three | day five | main masterlist

The bed shifts as Bucky bolts upright. 

Cold sweat clings to him, the echoes of past gunshots still ringing in his ears and old codewords making his skin crawl with a dreadful anticipation of something that isn't coming.

But still, Bucky waits.

He waits for that switch to click, for himself to be shoved back, locked away, and for the Winter Soldier to take his place.

He waits for the chilling, clinical sound of a voice that isn't his own to leave his lips, acknowledging the shift, ready to comply.

It never comes, and it never will again.

"Buck?"

Your sleepy voice draws him back, an anchor to reality he desperately needed before he spiralled further.

"Sorry." Bucky rasps, his heart starting to slow, his breathing beginning to even out st the sound of your voice.

Hydra's gone, he recites it in his head like a mantra.

You can tell he's had a nightmare by the rigid tension in his shoulders, so you rest your hand against his spine. A grounding, tender touch.

"You're okay." You murmur.

Bucky nods stiffly, pressing the heels of his hands against his eyes for a moment before letting them drop into his lap.

"My head's just. . ." His jaw ticks, watching the metal plates of his arm shift as his hand clenches, "It's still in a bad place. . . sometimes I wonder what it's good for."

"Lay back down."

He shifts onto his side, facing you. You lean in, pressing a soft kiss to his cheek which makes his eyes flutter.

"Healing isn't linear," You remind him, "Take every day as it comes."

"What if I never heal?"

You smile softly, "You've already started."

"Thanks to you." He mumbles, curling his hand around yours.

"No, Bucky," You whisper, "You did that on your own."

🏷️: @metal-armed-muse @juniebjonesin @kileyking @nightfirecomit @chocolatemilkshakex @spring-soldier @spideyskywalker @phoenix-in-writing @buckytakethewheel + to be added to the tag list? comment on this post or send in an ask!

[tw1sters]

Darling Mine

Your deep-rooted feelings for Bucky Barnes — beautiful and untouchable — were never meant to surface. However, when he kindly invites you to spend Valentine's Day with him, you also don't expect yourself to hope for more.

▸ PAIRING: 40s!Bucky Barnes x F!Reader ▸ WARNINGS: NSFW 18+, penetration without protection (pull out method), breeding kink, doll as pet name, bucky calls her a slut in a sexy way once (1), oral (m!receiving), fingering (f!receiving), finger sucking, pussyjob, bucky is possessive and jealous (my guilty pleasure), reader manipulates bucky's jealousy to convince him to fuck her (help), virgin!bucky who talks like a porn star ▸ WORD COUNT: 13.4K ▸ A/N: thank you @salty-tang for organizing this wonderful fic exchange! so excited to share this with my match @winnichu173 <3 i hope you enjoy this story! based very loosely on the prompt: "making fun of Valentine’s Day but still celebrating it anyways." excuse the smut (i was going through a freak filth phase) and historical inaccuracies (pretending this is before the war fully happened and people can date whoever they want in the open)!!! if you enjoyed this, please like / reblog / comment, i appreciate every single one heheh <33

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When you first met Bucky Barnes, the first thought that crossed your mind was: why the hell is Steve hanging out with a fella like this? Steve Rogers is the blonde, all-American true believer with a big heart and a greater sense of responsibility to match. Even as the little guy, he’s always protecting everyone else, the people that deserved it, even when he wound up with a battered face in a back alley dumpster. 

Bucky, on the other hand, is smooth lines and charming smiles. Based on their childhood pictures, he had grown out of his awkward, gangly teenager self into a man made of muscle formed in the hours spent working in construction on the buildings downtown. He is broad and tall and terribly handsome. All of the neighborhood ladies — even those some boroughs over — love him. 

Including you. 

You are no more than a fool when it comes to Bucky Barnes. The man could captivate the pants off anyone he met. He’s sweetly polite with the mothers, humbly self-deprecating with the fathers, delightfully hilarious with the children, and devilishly tempting to the ladies. 

It’s easy to fall in love with a man like him. 

He knows all the right things to say, even when you know he doesn’t mean them. 

Bucky’s always been a bit of a player. You don’t judge him for it — of course not. Everyone knows how gorgeous the man is, how deliciously addicting his words are. But you also knew Bucky better than most.

Steve is a good judge of character and Bucky has been his friend longer than most people have known what New York tastes like in this decade. If Steve is still friends with him, then that is a testament to his character. The man is confident with a sharp tongue. He keeps Steve on his toes — both in the way he constantly challenges him, but also holding him up, especially when Steve chooses to pick fights with people much, much bigger than him. He defends the little guys as much as Steve does. 

You quickly learn that he is a great friend to anyone he deems one. He walks you home at night after a late movie with the two of them. When he swings by your place as you’re bringing home bags full of groceries, he swiftly takes over, arms around the paper bags as he asks you about your day. It’s an act that comes so naturally, a kindness as easy as breathing.  

But that’s Bucky for you — irresistible and untouchable.

You don’t stand a chance with him. You’ve seen the girls he goes on dates with, the pretty ones. Even the wealthy girls can’t help but swoon over him when he knows exactly how to play their hearts. 

Bucky flirts with you too, romantic little quips that have you ducking your head and Steve scolding him for embarrassing you. He just laughs it off, tells Steve that he likes seeing you shy around him like that.

You figure it’s all a game to him. See how many girls he can woo in a day and you don’t think you can count the number on one hand. Ladies walking down the street are mesmerized by a simple nod of his head in their direction. 

So with Valentine’s Day right around the corner, you realize you’ve doomed yourself to another February spent alone. Another year of pining over Bucky means another year of you eschewing every other man in sight. You hope your mother has stocked up on sweets at home because that’s all you’ll be eating once the day arrives. Alone.

Steve has already decided to spend the day with his mother, treating her to a lovely mother-son day that they haven’t had since he was a teenager. Your parents had plans and so did most of your friends, because they hadn’t been busy chasing after a man they could never get. Not like you. 

“What’re you doin’ for Valentine’s Day?”

The question catches you off guard. It’s one of the rare occasions that Steve isn’t around when Bucky drops by for an impromptu visit. You’re busy mixing together a batch of muffins for your mother’s church fundraiser when you look up to find Bucky peering into the mixture curiously.

You almost think you dreamt up the question until Bucky looks up at you expectantly with those beautiful baby blues.

Opening your mouth, you’re ready to tell him absolutely nothing only to realize that it may be an embarrassing answer to have no plans for a day dedicated to romance. Bucky is probably fully aware of your life in singledom and he himself probably has a date — or two — lined up. You try not to be too disappointed.

Instead, you put on an air of indifference. “Nothing. It’s a silly day. Why would you only have one day to celebrate love? Love should be celebrated all the time. I don’t really believe in a frivolous holiday like that.”

The words sound painfully phony even to your ears. You keep your eyes glued on your batter as you finally set the bowl down. When your eyes finally lift, you find Bucky looking contemplatively at your counter. There’s a pinch between his brows that you have the strong urge to smooth out with the gentle press of your thumb. Your fingers twitch, so you grab hold of your ladle instead. 

“Why?” You clear your throat. “Have any fun plans? A date perhaps?” Or two, you think bitterly.

Bucky smiles at you, but it looks more frail than usual. Feigned joy plagued with concern. You’re about to ask him when he shakes his head. “No, you’re right. That whole day is a joke anyway.” 

For some reason, your heart sinks with his words. A part of you was hoping Bucky would deny your cynicism, that there would be a deeper meaning beneath his question, asking you if you had a plan for that specific day. A part of you was hoping Bucky would ask you to be his Valentine; however, that’s a silly, naive thought. Bucky could ask anyone else, why would he ask you?

“If you’re not doing anythin’ anyway, want to spend the day together? Stevie’s busy with his mom.”

You nearly drop the batter as you pour it into the mold. “Oh, uhm, are you sure? I figured you’d have someone special you would want to spend it with.”

Bucky’s lips quirk up in the corners, like he’s in on a joke you’re not part of. “No plans right now. I’d like to spend it with you if you don’t mind.”

Comfortable silence settles between you as you contemplate his offer for a moment. It doesn’t really make sense to you, why he would want to spend arguably the most romantic time of year with you — someone whose friendship was thrust upon him by association with Steve. But you decide to be brave for once. When else would you get Bucky Barnes all to yourself?

As worried as you are about who he is, you’re also touched that you’re the first person he thought of after Steve to spend time with him.

“I’m interested,” you nod and his face brightens, “what do you have in mind?”

The six o’clock call time should be outlawed. Bucky tells you that he’ll swing by to pick you up and whisk you away into the city. This means that you’ve been up for two hours trying to get yourself ready as best as you can. With him asking you so close to d-day and your closet looking less and less enticing, you simply have to pick out your Sunday best.

In this case, it’s a little pinstriped pale pink dress that your mother has handwashed over and over again, evidenced in the loose threads that have begun to show and the material worn from the stress of chemicals. You quietly nick a belt from your mother’s closet while she’s fast asleep and slip it around your waist for a bit of flair. After wrestling with your face and your hair for a bit, using tools and makeup you aren’t too familiar with, you finally feel you look decently presentable.

Well, as presentable as you can be at this hour.

You had told your mother the previous day that Bucky would be taking you out. She had teased you relentlessly for it but also worried over how early he plans to take you.

“It’s Bucky, Mom. We’ll be fine.”

“That’s the part I’m worried about,” she gave you a look.

She has met Bucky before. In fact, he has helped her with chores around the house countless times. Being the handyman that he is, your mother puts his free and capable labor to work, particularly when things need fixing in your leaky, creaky home.

“I’ll be fine, promise,” you smile, kissing her quickly on the cheek.

She only sighs. Mothers always know and she is more than aware of your ridiculous crush on Bucky. She doesn’t discourage it but you can see the worry and sympathy in her gaze whenever she sees the two of you together.

Steve is none the wiser. That man is too busy being patriotic, keeping track of the news and the war to pay attention to such trivial things like romance. Plus, Bucky is a renowned romancer, so it’s nothing out of the ordinary.

But now, you’re left looking in your mirror in the dim lighting of your bedroom. You don’t look so bad, a far cry from your usual drab attire that blends in with the rest of the city. For once — or for the first time in a while, you feel… pretty.

Bucky doesn’t ring. Instead, when you peek outside at approximately 5:57 to check if he is there, he’s already standing by your door, fidgeting almost anxiously. You watch him for a bit through the peephole, observing as he rocks on the balls of his feet, as he looks up to the ceiling and mutters silent words to himself, as he bites his bottom lip with a glance at the door.

You finally put him out of his misery and swivel the door open. He’s even more gorgeous in full form. With a casual collared shirt and slacks that stretch down his long legs, Bucky looks positively scrumptious. Not to mention, he’s even done his hair a bit, giving it that effortless coif.

“Morning,” you say, a little breathless.

“G’mornin’,” he murmurs, eyes tracking over the length of you. He appraises you so openly. Shamelessly. His lips twist and your heart drops. It must show on your expression because Bucky instantly softens. “You look beautiful. Too beautiful, in fact. Might have to bat off other men today.”

Heat crawls up your neck at his words as you duck your head. “Don’t be silly. That won’t happen.”

“You have no idea,” Bucky mutters.

“No idea about what?”

With a sigh, he simply shakes his head. “Nothing. Shall we?”

He guides you to the subway that takes you all the way to the Brooklyn side of the Brooklyn Bridge. The normally bustling stretch of the bridge is quiet with the sun barely peeking over the horizon. Bucky guides you along the path quietly, the two of you strolling in comfortable silence with the occasional vehicle on the lower road cruising through or the whisper of the wind in your ear.

The two of you pause in the middle to watch as the sun rises, the purplish pink sky melting into hues of orange and yellow. Bucky pops open his bag and pulls out a sketchbook, flipping it open as his pencil begins to scrape over the page. You stand next to him, shoulder to shoulder as you look out into the open waters.

Occasionally, you’d peek to the side to get a glimpse of his drawing, finding him layering lines of lead into a recreation of the bridge and the skyline.

“I didn’t know you drew,” you say quietly, as if speaking any louder would disturb the peace.

Bucky pinks but you can’t tell if it’s the sunrise coloring his cheeks. “I dabble,” he clears his throat.

“Well, you’re very good. Steve does too, have you seen his work?”

A laugh rises from his chest as he flips the book closed. “I taught him how to draw. We started off scribbling on each other’s notebooks growing up until I started sketching a little more seriously. Then I had to teach him because he needed at least one skill to impress the ladies.”

“He drew my portrait for my last birthday,” you smile, thinking to the picture you have pinned up above your desk. It was such a simple gift but one you treasure dearly. Sweet to think that Bucky had something to do with it, even if indirectly.

When you turn to look at Bucky, his mouth is curled into a small, sour frown.

“What?” You ask as Bucky purses his lips. “Why are you making that face?”

“You and Steve,” he starts then trails off, seeming to ponder his next words, “you’re both really close, huh?”

You raise an eyebrow at him in confusion. “We were friends first. We met through Steve, remember?”

“I remember,” he says a little too quickly.

“Is that— I don’t know, a problem? If you’re worried about Steve, I won’t do anything to hurt him. I know he tends to be too trusting.”

Bucky’s irritation thaws into an expression that has his blue eyes catching the sunlight, sparkling like the ocean before the two of you. “I’m not worried about Steve.” He shakes his head. “Forget about it. Come on.”

The two of you make small talk as you complete the walk up the bridge. Bucky leads you past the state’s legal courts, up through Chinatown, winding through small and large streets. Wherever you’re going, he seems to be taking many detours, opting for the long way there.

You don’t mind. It’s more time spent by his side as he tucks in close to you to fight the bristling wind and the crowds. There are occasions in which people bump into you and Bucky keeps a steady arm around your waist. When he lets his grasp fall away, the sense of loss is immediate.

Bucky keeps the conversation flowing without the need for any liquid courage. Sometimes you forget how easy it is to talk to him. While Steve can be overly focused on geopolitics and serious topics, Bucky shares anecdotes from his life, silly stories that have you giggling and snorting. He seems to take pride in making you laugh, lips stretching just an inch wider every time you have to pause to take a breath after a particularly funny story.

The more you laugh, the more animated he becomes. His hands fly around in exaggeration, painting the story in big, bold strokes that threaten to wipe out anyone in his path.

“Bucky Barnes, you did not say that to your high school teacher.”

He holds his hand to his chest. “Scout’s honor.”

“You’ve never been a Boy Scout in your life,” you tease.

“You don’t know that.”

Rolling your eyes, you let a small smile dance on your lips. “I know you.”

“Do you really?”

“‘Course I do,” you challenge right back.

“Tell me about me then.”

That catches you off guard. Your steps falter briefly before you right yourself, exuding an air of feigned confidence. “What do you want to know?”

“My favorite color.”

“Red. You’re going to say something cheesy like it’s the color of a girl’s heart, but it’s really because your mom’s favorite flowers are roses.”

It’s Bucky’s turn to trip over the sidewalk, catching himself before he can fully face-plant. He whips around to face you, eyes wide. “How do you know that?”

“We talked about it once. You said some cheesy line about the color red and Steve corrected you, said it was because of your mom.”

“Steve,” he grunts under his breath.

“Aw, don’t be upset with him,” you coo, “I think it’s very sweet.”

“I’m not sweet. I’m tough,” Bucky slaps on a smug look on his face, puffing out his chest and straightening his shoulders as he walks.

A laugh bubbles up your throat. “You’re sweet through and through, Bucky Barnes. No matter how much you deny it.”

“Alright, since you know me so well, what’s my middle name?”

“That’s too easy! Buchanan.”

“My first?”

“James.”

“Yes?”

You give him a look. He gives you a charming smile, which you’ll never admit has your heart skipping a beat.

“You’re ridiculous.”

“I just like hearin’ you say my name.”

“Again, ridiculous,” you roll your eyes but turn away to hide the shameful glee that warms your cheeks.

“If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you have a crush on me.”

You definitely almost trip and destroy your face on the pavement when Bucky catches you before you can do so, hand whipping out to catch you by the waist, the other on your hand to steady you.

“Careful there,” he whispers, soft in your ear.

You don’t realize how close he is until you look up to thank him and find him only inches away from your face. Bucky’s blue eyes appear a little darker up close, the cerulean swallowed up by his dark pupils as his gaze assesses you with genuine concern.

“Thanks,” you cough shyly.

“Now, about that crush on me.”

Quick to snap out of it, you immediately protest, “As if!”

A look flickers across his eyes. “Why? You got a crush on Stevie instead?”

“What?” You sputter, “What makes you say that?”

That doesn’t seem to be the right answer because Bucky’s lips curl downwards again into a displeased pout. “Whatever,” he grumbles, “come on.”

By the time you realize how far the two of you have traveled, you find yourself at a park. A great white arch stands tall in the distance but Bucky intertwines your fingers to tug you towards the open fields. It’s a surprisingly warm day in February and you suddenly feel tall crisp grass tickling your ankles. 

Before you can ask Bucky what the two of you are doing there, he’s pulling out a plaid sheet from his bag and spreading it onto the ground. He gestures for you to sit before the wind can whisk it away. So you kneel onto the cloth and sit with your legs tucked to the side.

Bucky joins you shortly after, pulling out more things from his bag.

“Thought you’d be hungry since it’s lunchtime,” he says. “Mom packed us sandwiches, hope that’s okay.”

You look mildly surprised. “That’s very thoughtful of her. It’s more than okay.”

He splits the two sandwiches in half so you can get a taste of each — egg salad and the other is one with slices of cold cuts and cheese. The two of you nibble on the food silently, enjoying the cool winter-spring breeze weaving through the city.

With it being a nicer day and Valentine’s Day, there are more than a handful of people out and about. Couples speckle the lawn, nuzzling into each other and feeding each other bites like a scene straight out of the big screen. 

Looking at Bucky scarfing down his own sandwich across from you, you can’t help but wonder if that’s how the two of you appear to everyone else. Two more strangers in the crowd. On a date. On Valentine’s Day.

It’s terribly wishful thinking, one created under false pretenses, and you chide yourself internally for surrendering yourself to such far-fetched dreams.

“Penny for your thoughts?”

He couldn’t pay you a thousand dollars to confess. 

“It wouldn’t be worth your money. I was just thinking it’s such a lovely day and I’m glad you invited me out.” The lie comes out smooth, but it’s worth it to see the way he lights up. 

His lips curl into a wide grin as he scooches closer to you. “Yeah? You havin’ a good time, doll?”

Doll? Your eyebrow raises in question but he doesn’t elaborate. 

“Yes, Bucky, I’m having a good time.”

“Good. I aim to please.”

The question that’s been nagging at you since he first asked you continues to tug on your thoughts, begging to be freed. So you let it out.

“Why’d you invite me out today, Bucky?”

“I can’t ask you to hang out with me? I’m hurt.”

You give him a knowing look. “Come on, it’s Valentine’s Day. You’d be the type to have a date, I doubt nobody’s asked you.”

“I am on a date!”

“Bucky,” you whine, and he only chuckles.

“Doll, I think you’re overthinking this.”

Your heart sinks. There’s one answer that rests in the forefront of your mind, one that plagues you with visceral guilt.

“If you feel bad that I was going to spend it alone, I can assure you that you didn’t have to.”

A cloud forms in Bucky’s eyes as his brows pinch lightly. “You think I asked you to spend time with me out of pity?” 

You only manage a shrug. It’s the only logical explanation.

“Is it so hard to believe that I want to spend today with you? Of all days,” he says quietly. 

It’s the most thoughtful you’ve seen Bucky. You’re seeing many sides of him today; your greed consumes you and you can’t help but want more now that you’ve had a taste. 

“I just think your time could’ve been better spent elsewhere,” you pause, “or with someone else.”

“Let me make it clear to you then,” he begins, voice gravely earnest, “I asked you out today because I wanted to spend time with you. Yes, today specifically and yes, with you specifically. It’s not out of pity, I would never even consider that. I’m more selfish than you think.”

His smile is wry when you look up to face him. 

“Would you have preferred someone else ask you to spend time together today?”

Would you? The answer comes easy.

“No,” you murmur, “I’m glad it was you.” 

“Good,” he nods, “can’t believe you’d think that low of me.”

“I felt terrible!” 

“Well, you don’t have to. I’m here because I want to be, alright?”

“Alright.”

“Now, we never really finished our conversation from earlier. You got a crush on anyone?”

Yes, you. It’s always been you. You’re once again at a loss for words; instead of answering, you say, “Oh. Uhm, why are you asking?”

“Curious,” he murmurs but the weight of his gaze seems to betray the forced airiness of his voice. 

You swallow, smoothing out your skirt to avoid his gaze. “What about you?”

“I do.”

That has you jerking back, staring at him with wide eyes. “Oh.” 

Before you can ask who it is, Bucky continues. “I have an idea,” he says with a wicked little twinkle in his eye. You stare at him once again with deep concern. “How about this — we write a letter to them. A simple letter. You can write whatever you want. The only rule is that you have to be honest.”

“Honest?”

He hums in confirmation. “Honest. Whether it’s your feelings or the weather today, you simply have to be truthful. Once you’re done, we just… never send it.”

Your brows kiss in the middle. “What’s the point of doing that?” 

“Dunno. Might be nice to put those feelings to paper. Like a manifestation method.”

For a second, you just stare at him, waiting for him to yell gotcha. But that moment doesn’t come so you do the only thing you always do with Bucky — you give in to him. 

“Alright, fine.” 

Bucky’s smile could light up a town. He grabs his book from his bag and rips out a page, handing it over to you along with a pen. The two of you sit in silence for a while. 

You think about all the words you could say to Bucky. All the things you wish he knew. 

Your hands rough and calloused from the work that wears you down, but toughens you to protect those dearest to you. Bruised knuckles and split skin as evidence of your love.

Your heart that is larger than the world ever taught it to be. Vast enough to shelter those you love, weathering the tumultuous storms until you reach calmer seas. 

Your eyes are the blue of summer skies, the kind that stretch endlessly. The blue of the rivers that kiss the edges of this island, whispering of a world far larger than our own. 

These are all the words you can never say out loud. It’ll be a betrayal of your feelings, ones you wish to keep buried to save your dignity. 

Because Bucky Barnes is a good man, but he is a good man who doesn’t love you the same way you do him. He simply has a heart that was built for love and he doles out that affection generously to those around him. You are another planet — no, perhaps a star — in his orbit. Tiny, insignificant, and incomparable to the rest. 

But you made a promise that you would be honest so you pour your feelings that have simmered and festered in your mind for months. Feelings you never allowed yourself to feel, a denial that persisted strong. Until today. Until Bucky allowed you some room to hope. 

You don’t know how long you sit there, your handwriting growing smaller and smaller as you fill the page with combinations of the alphabet that string together what you think are coherent thoughts. 

You remind yourself that it doesn’t matter if it’s coherent because Bucky will never see this. Like he said, it’s a manifestation. A silent confession to the wind. 

The only thing that gives you comfort is that — it’s perfectly okay that he will never know how you feel because there are enough people out there who will surely love him enough for you. 

When you finally dot that last period on the paper, your fingers aching from its warpath across the page, you look up to find Bucky sneaking glances at you. His hand glides across his book in long strokes.

Strokes that do not look like a letter.

“What are you—”

He cuts you off, “Don’t worry about it.”

Your eyes narrow into slits as you slowly say his name. Bucky only offers a cheeky grin. You lean towards him to get a glimpse but he’s quick to pull the paper back.

“Not doing anything nefarious, doll.”

“Then show me.”

“Nu-uh, it’s mine.”

Huffing, you purse your lips. “Don’t be childish. Come on. Let me see.”

“I’ll show you if you show me your letter.”

A gasp rises from your throat, warmth creeping up your neck. “Bucky Barnes, that is not fair. You said I wouldn’t have to show anyone.”

“Yeah, but it’s me. You trust me, don’t you? I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.”

“Bucky,” you whine, “you’re not even writing a letter.”

“I finished my letter. Now I’m doin’ other things.”

“You’re being mean on purpose.”

His smile tips up higher. “Well, it’s the only way I can get more than two words out of you.”

“What’s that supposed to—”

Before you can finish your question, you’re interrupted by a shrill Hey, Bucky! The two of you whip towards the source of the sound. 

Sheryl Jones. 

Sheryl Jones who lives in the nicer part of town where the houses are tall and the fences are white. Sheryl Jones who is the talk of the town as the most eligible bachelorette with the heftiest pockets. Sheryl Jones who has been obsessed with Bucky for as long as you can remember. 

The two of you certainly don’t run in the same social circles, you don’t even think she knows you exist, but you’ve heard of her. If not from whispers around town, then it’s from Bucky who constantly tells Steve how Sheryl’s been showering him with gifts.

The same Sheryl Jones who is now scuttling towards the two of you with two of her friends hot on her heels. 

Sheryl who looks like she came straight out of a magazine with her pristine, bold-colored dress. Flowers are stitched to the length of a fabric that looks more expensive than your entire closet. The clack of her wedges clear against the path before she approaches the two of you seated on the grass. 

“Fancy seeing you here,” Sheryl smiles, saccharine sweet. 

“Hey, Sheryl,” Bucky says, flipping his book closed and redirecting that smile towards her instead. 

“You’re not on a date, are you?” She asks, a mockery posed as an innocent question. She doesn’t even spare you a glance. 

You feel yourself shrink again, a built-in response to make yourself smaller and hopefully fade into the background. Unlike Steve, you’re not one to square up when posed with a challenge. You instead make yourself invisible, hoping the threat would disappear. 

Bucky’s eyes flick over to you for a moment, looking almost conflicted before he says tightly, “No, nothin’ like that.”

If it wasn’t confirmation before, it sure is now. 

This is Bucky being a good friend to you. Yes, he wants to be here — but as a friend. You were the one who twisted it all up in your head into something you thought you could have. 

Sheryl’s eyes light up even more as she lifts the bag in her hand. The neat cursive of that new, fancy patisserie down the street printed on the front. “Great! I wanted to give you these chocolates. We sampled some in-store and I picked out my favorites for you.” 

Bucky rises to his feet to accept the gift. “Thank you, Sheryl. That’s very thoughtful of you.” 

“How about you and me get some ice cream? It’s a nice day for it. I know the perfect place.”

If your heart had sunk to your stomach before, it plummets to the ground now. That fearful despair claws at your chest, poking holes in your lungs until you feel as though you can’t breathe. 

You need to go. 

Bucky’s gaze flies to you, as if he’s asking for your permission. Of course, he’d want to spend the day with Sheryl instead. Maybe he was waiting for her to ask. 

Quickly, you fold your letter into a small square before tucking it into your purse. Bucky watches the movement with a frown. You scramble to your feet before plastering on a smile that feels too frail on your lips. 

“You should go, Buck. I should probably head home. It’s been a long day, hasn’t it? Don’t worry, I can find my way back. Thanks for today,” you blurt out. Your eyes are on him but you don’t see him. Not really. Your mind is already far away, tracking down a path on how you could get back to the safety of your home.

The home where you plan to eat all of the sweets your mom has tucked away. Alone. 

“Wait, hold on. No, we’re—”

You’re already moving off the field and onto the sidewalk again, your worn loafers taking you as fast as you can go away from that humiliating situation. You’re a big girl. You can handle rejection. Bucky’s a friend. A good friend. 

Blood is rushing in your ears as you brush past other pedestrians. The faster you get to the subway, the faster you can breathe. As long as you can feel Bucky’s eyes on you, you don’t think—

A hold on your hand. 

Your footsteps halt almost immediately, you nearly toppling over again but a hand steadies you. You look up to find Bucky staring at you with the deepest befuddled sulk on his face. “What— what happened? Where are you going? I still have a few things planned.”

“Oh,” you sheepishly glance past his shoulder to see Sheryl glaring at you before she whirls around and stomps away. 

You realize that don’t actually make it very far. The blanket is crumpled up in Bucky’s arms, bag haphazardly closed in his rush to catch you. 

“I just thought— you and Sheryl,” you mutter. “You don’t have to spend the rest of the day with me, Buck. I’m sure ice cream with her would be fun too. I can find my own way home.”

“There’s nothing going on between me and Sheryl,” Bucky says, sounding almost frustrated, “I promise. Nothing at all, doll. I’m all yours today.”

“It’s Valentine’s Day,” you say with your best attempt not to wince, “you probably want to spend it with, I don’t know, whoever your crush is. Or someone like Sheryl. You don’t have to keep me company all day.”

Bucky licks his lips as he looks up at the sky, a strangely pleading look in his eyes like he’s turning to some higher power for an answer. “Let’s just—” he stops himself with a sigh, “Come on. How about you and me get some ice cream?”

You’re still a little doubtful but Bucky’s already tugging you down the street.

That’s when you realize — he never let go of your hand. 

Down the street, past the shops selling tricks and trinkets, you find a little sweets shop. It’s beautifully decorated with bright blue walls, white countertops holding all sorts of equipment, and red barstools that look like ripe cherries. 

Your eyes roam around the place, you haven’t been to one in a while, your wallet scarcely allows you to treat yourself to such trivial niceties. It’s something you simply cannot afford with your meagre salary as a secretary in a small family office. 

Bucky squeezes your hand. “What do you want, doll? Tell me. Anythin’ you want.” 

“Anything?” You tease, “Playing a dangerous game, Bucky Barnes.”

His eyes soften as the two of you slide onto the stools. The shop isn’t too terribly crowded, so you manage to get seated almost immediately. “How about a banana split?”

You nod eagerly. 

“One banana split, good sir,” Bucky tells the waiter who looks far too tired to be working a joyous day like today. 

The waiter rattles off the price and Bucky begins to count the change in his pocket, paling when he seemingly realizes he doesn’t have enough. His hands busy themselves with digging around his bag for a miracle. 

You instead turn back to the waiter with a polite smile. “Actually, I’m still full from lunch. I don’t think I can finish an entire banana split. Can we just get a scoop of vanilla?” 

Thankfully, the waiter doesn’t seem to give it a second thought before he shares your new total. Bucky’s shoulders slump as he picks up a nickel to give to the waiter. He smiles at you gratefully. 

“Next time,” Bucky promises.

“I make a mean banana split so next time, you can come over and we can share one.” An unidentifiable emotion crosses his eyes and you mistake it for displeasure. Maybe he doesn’t want to just share it with you. “And Steve!” You throw out in panic, “We can make it at home and eat it all together.” 

The brightness of his baby blues appears to dim slightly. “Right, yeah. With Steve too.” 

You don’t have a moment to think about it too much before Bucky entertains you with stories. Stories from work. Stories from his past. Stories about Steve. You find yourself laughing as you spoon the sugar that melts on your tongue. You don’t miss how Bucky takes smaller bites to encourage you to eat more of it. 

Always so thoughtful. 

Your heart is on high when Bucky guides you to the train. Your fingers itch with the urge to hold his hand again, but you don’t think that would be very appropriate. 

This isn’t a date, after all.

As the train crosses over the bridge, the two of you get a view of the sunset over the water. The river ripples with glimmers of copper and gold. The light casts a warm glow across Bucky’s face as he regards you with the sort of gentleness that could so easily break. 

Bucky asks you more questions on the long ride home, forcing you to speak about yourself more than you have the entire period of time you’ve known him.

“I’m talking too much,” you let slip in embarrassment.

“No, you’re not. I like hearin’ you talk, especially about yourself.”

“That just makes me seem narcissistic,” you laugh. 

Bucky hums with a shake of his head. “No, that makes me curious. Don’t know much about you, doll.”

“There’s not much to know.”

“Proved to me today that that is incredibly untrue.” 

The streets are dark and deserted on your walk home. Cast iron lamps dot the street and bathe the pavement with enough light as your quiet footsteps echo down the street.

“I hope you had a good day today?”

“It was a good day,” you agree with a smile. 

By the time you walk up to your front porch, your heart is itching to say more. The words are practically hanging off the tip of your tongue. The words that could jeopardize this entire friendship. 

You want to tell him that you love him. Tell him that you want him more than anything. Tell him that you want him to stay. 

But you don’t. 

You don’t have the courage to say these words out loud, not so clearly in front of him. Instead, you swallow them down and let them settle somewhere you cannot reach. 

Bucky, with his hands buried in his pockets, searches your eyes for a moment. He’s quiet, a slight, serious pinch to his lips as he looks at you. 

He shovels through his bag again before he pulls out a couple of folded pages, taking your hand and pressing them into it. 

“Happy Valentine’s Day, doll.”

Then he is taking a step back, and more steps back, until he is slowly walking down the stairs of your porch and onto the sidewalk.

Your hand still tingles where he touched you. You’re numb, brain buzzing with the kind of white noise that goes nowhere. Your trembling hands slowly unfurl the pages in your hand. The first sight that greets you is… you.

It’s you. Bucky had drawn you. It’s you but you’re… beautiful — beautiful in a way that you never really saw yourself. Beautiful in the way that only someone who adores you would see you. The sketch is simple but leaves you breathless all the same. He captured the slope of your nose, the curve of your lips, the twinkle in your eye. This is proof that Bucky sees you. He really sees you. 

The second page contains words. Words that he said he would never send, but he has now hand-delivered to you. Your eyes skip over the paper, greedily taking in each word as if your heart depends on them. You swallow each one, digesting it with great care before your brain can catch up.

And then you’re moving, wind catching in your dress as you rush down the sidewalk. Your skirt billows in the air, swirling behind you as you search for him in the night. His name leaves your lips in countless, breathless pleas. 

Bucky stops and turns right on time to catch you in his arms before you can propel too far forward. “What—”

“You have terribly long legs,” you wheeze out, finding your footing with Bucky’s arms still around you, his frown directed towards you. “I— I didn’t think— I never thought—”

“Deep breaths, doll,” Bucky chuckles low. “I’m here. Not goin’ anywhere.”

“I had… a fantastic time with you today. I just— I was embarrassed to not have plans but I’m glad because that gave me you and you gave me today and today was… amazing.” 

Light flickers across his face as his lips quirk up into a pleased grin. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” you beam and, for the first time in your life, you tell yourself to be brave. Brave in a way you haven’t been before. Brave in a way that only Bucky can make you. “And I love you too.”

The smile wipes off his face in an instant. For a moment, you worry you read his letter wrong. You worry that your mind conjured up words you wanted to see. A hallucination from a drug that you never consumed. For a moment, you wonder if you’ve absolutely, completely humiliated yourself and shattered what little exists between you and Bucky. 

It’s evident in the way you stiffen, your body slowly extracting away from him. Bucky catches you, taking your hand and clasping it against his chest. Even through the layers of clothes, you can feel the firm rhythm beneath your fingertips. An erratic thudding against his ribcage. 

“No, hold on,” he chokes out, “I need you to say it again. Maybe slap me while you’re at it too. Just to make sure I’m not dreaming.”

A giggle bubbles up your throat as you look at him. “You’re being mean now. You’re really going to make me say it again?”

“Say it again. Please, doll. Beggin’ you here.”

“You’re such a pain,” you smile and find more of your courage to lean forward and press your lips against him. You swallow his surprised gasp, feel him wrangle his arms around you to hold you close to him. His arms around your waist as you wrap your own around his neck to tug him towards you. “Love you, Buck.”

Then you’re airborne. His hands on you as he picks you up and twirls you around, laughter spilling from his lips like music to your ears. “You’re not lyin’ to me, are you? This isn’t some kind of prank. Because it’s February, not April, you know.”

“Buck!”

“Best day of my life,” Bucky grins as he sets you back down, kissing you again and again and again until you’re laughing against his lips. 

“That’s a bit of an exaggeration.” You poke him in the chest.

Bucky doesn’t cease his kisses, peppering them across your cheeks, your forehead, your jaw, before dangerously venturing south down your neck. A sinful moan slithers past your lips as he does so. His fingers tighten on your waist. 

With your swollen lips, you peer up at Bucky with a request in your gaze.

“My parents are going to be out late. They have dinner and a show and then dancing. Nobody’s home. If, you know, you wanted to come over…”

It’s the last chance for you to be a bit more dauntless, a bit more reckless. It’s the last dose of courage that you manage to muster up as Bucky holds you close. 

His eyes gloss over with the kind of desire that has your stomach flipping. They drop to your lips again, to the soft, moist spot on your neck, before rising back to meet yours. 

“Doll, I— I wanna treat you right. Take you out on a proper date before we—” he stops his words there, flushing beet red beneath the warm lamps. “I wanna do this right. Do right by you.”

“You already took me on a date, Buck,” you whisper, “let’s be real. Today was one.” You pry his hands from your waist and use them to tug his dazed state down the street back to your house. He’s stumbling after you, looking all sorts of flustered. 

It’s satisfying to see Bucky so affected by you. You always thought he was this smooth and suave man, untouchable to the everyday person. Seeing him like this, pink and shy, trailing after you like an eager pup with those awed blue eyes, you realize that maybe you’re not the everyday person to him. 

You’re you and he’s the sweet loverboy who simply loves you. 

“Don’t get shy on me now, we don’t have time for that,” you tease as you unlock your front door.

His hands land on your hips again as he turns you around to press you up against the surface. His mouth slants over yours, a groan vibrating off his chest. “Don’t worry, I won’t take that long.”

He drinks in your bright laughter as you quickly spin to open and spill through the door. 

With his hand in yours, you guide him up the steps of your quiet house. Your room sits on the far end of the hall and you momentarily panic, wondering if you’ve cleaned. This is the last thing you expected to do from your outing. 

However, before you can think too hard about it, you push open the door. 

Bucky’s gaze flits around the room, absorbing every inch of it with his lips quirked in a small smile. The photos that hang on your wall, ones of your family, ones of you and friends, ones of you and Steve and Bucky. The childish pink sheets that your mom purchased so long ago but you never cared to change. 

Now, you’re starting to think you probably could’ve put in some effort into your room. You just never expected to bring a boy here. 

“Cute,” Bucky murmurs. “It’s very… you.”

“How so?”

“Sweet,” he smiles, settling his hands on your waist again to pull you forward towards him. Bucky leans down to kiss you again, slower this time. His lips move languidly against yours as your hands find purchase on his shoulders. “Taste so good, doll.”

“It’s the ice cream,” you grin.

“Just you,” he replies between kisses. 

He cautiously walks you back against the bed, gently easing you to sit before laying you down along the length of it. He presses you back into the mattress, propping himself up by his forearms as he looks at you with a gaze so tender you could melt. “You’re so beautiful,” he murmurs, trailing his warm lips along your jaw, firm as he kisses each spot on your skin like he’s tracing a path with his mouth. 

He runs his mouth along the column of your tongue, tongue scraping to taset that sweetness of your smooth skin as his teeth temporarily tattoo blooming prints in a trail. His hand cups the back of your neck to tilt your head up to face him. His lips find yours again, soft and steady, as he exhalest moans that match yours. 

“Bucky,” you hum quietly. 

Hesitation clouds his gaze for a moment. 

“Ever been with anyone before?”

You look embarrassed for a second, shifting your gaze away. “Once.” It’s not that you’re ashamed of your inexperience; you just wish you had more to reference to make sure this is as good for Bucky as it will undoubtedly be for you.

Regardless of what he does, you’re almost a hundred percent certain that you’ll be happy — as long as it’s with him. 

“Who?” Bucky grits out. 

The sternness of his voice has you stiffening in surprise. “I-It was just someone from the neighborhood. Summer last year.” 

His jaw clenches, a tick as his hand slides to cup your chin, turning you back to him. “Don’t let him near me, doll. Never want to imagine you with anyone else.”

“You’re one to talk,” you pout right back, “how about you?” 

Bucky’s gaze flickers away for a second before returning to you. A worried tinge to his expression. 

There’s no way— it can’t be. Bucky of all people? 

“Don’t look at me like that,” Bucky flushes. 

“You haven’t— I mean, you’re you.”

He cocks an eyebrow. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I just mean, you could have your pick, Bucky. With anyone. I’m just… surprised, I suppose.”

Bucky sighs, leaning his forehead down against yours again. His breath ghosts your skin. “I couldn’t think of anyone else once I met you. Couldn’t even look at anyone else.”

“That’s just silly,” you mutter. 

“Why’s that silly?”

You’ve known Bucky for a couple of years now, starting after high school when Steve first introduced you the summer after graduation, all three of you growing up together into full-fleshed, working adults who barely have time for the better things in life. In that time, you could picture Bucky going on dates, meeting one gal after another who catches his fancy. 

But the two of you have never been more than friends, and even then, the term is a bit of a stretch. While you’re comfortable with Steve, Bucky’s charm has always intimidated you. You don’t how to interact with someone who’s so calm, so confident. You’re a bundle of nervous, jittery energy while Bucky always engages you with such cool charisma. 

“I don’t know, I just— you’ve been out on dates. I assumed you would have… at some point.”

“Didn’t care about those dates, doll. Only went along with it to help a couple of friends. I never thought about those girls.”

“I see how everyone looks at you, you know.”

“Well, I only see you.”

Your heart flutters in your chest, butterflies ripple in your stomach like the first flight of spring. 

“We’ve known each other a while.”

Bucky confirms, “I know.”

“So how long have you— I mean, why haven’t you said anything?”

His eyes trace your face again. 

“You were always so quiet with me. Not like how you are with Stevie. I thought you didn’t like me that much.”

You blink at him, a mix of confusion and astonishment. “I like you, Bucky. Of course, I do.”

“You barely say anything to me most of the time. Even when I come over, you’re always so shy. Like you’re scared of me. When I asked you to go out today, I wanted to throw it out there — it’s the first time Steve’s been busy on this day. I didn’t think you’d agree to come.”

“I wasn’t… scared of you. You’re just out of my league.”

His brows furrow in a deep frown that mars his beautiful face. “Why would you say that?”

“You’re just cool and sweet and you have all the ladies clamoring to be with you. I didn’t think you’d see me in that way, not when you have so many others.”

“No one else. There’s been no one else for me.” 

Your heart slams against your ribs, your lips morphing into a surprised smile. “I should’ve said something too.”

“Glad you came after me today,” Bucky smiles, a little weak. “I was worried you’d tell me — or Stevie — that you never wanted to see me again. Tell me to take a hike.”

You laugh. “That would be crazy.”

“I thought you’d tell me that you’ve had a crush on Stevie all this time.” 

“Me? A crush on Steve?” Bucky nods almost shyly. “He’s just a good friend.”

“He’s a great guy.”

“A great guy more in love with justice and his country than anything else. No, I couldn’t ever see Steve in that light. You, on the other hand…”

Bucky’s lips twitch as he leans forward, kissing your cheek. “What about me?” He whispers.

“You’re everything.”

“God, you’re perfect,” Bucky professes earnestly. “Be patient with me, doll. I’ll learn how to take real good care of you. Promise you I’ll make you feel good.”

You don’t doubt him. 

You can feel the fragile touch of his fingertips on your skin, quivering slightly as a sign of his nerves. For once, with confirmation of his affection, you feel bolder. Stronger. You take his hands and pry them off you. He looks at you with a combination of confusion and wary. He looks as if he’s about to ask you if he’s done something wrong. 

Before he can question you, you nudge him back gently onto his back. Sapphire eyes staring up at you in awed surprise. It’s your turn to duck your head and kiss him firmly on the lips, leaving him dazed and distracted as you slowly work off his shirt buttons one at a time, revealing more of his chest to you. 

His very chiseled chest. 

He’s unbelievable. 

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” you whine. “How are you built like this?”

Bucky flushes, red to his beautiful pecs. “It’s because of work.”

“You’re gorgeous,” you utter with admiration dripping in every syllable. 

“Nothing compared to you.”

“Do you practice these lines with anyone else or do they come naturally?” You tease, finger tracing the lines of his chest and down to his abs. You feel him tighten, shadows deepening as his stomach clenches. 

“I mean every word when it comes to you, doll.”

With a bashful smile, you begin to venture south. Your lips press against his skin, warm and wet as you sketch the shape of him with your tongue. 

“Shit,” Bucky jerks nervously, “sorry. I’ve never— um, I haven’t done this.” 

“Ever or in a while?” The anxious shift of his gaze is answer enough. “Hey, it’s just me, Buck.”

“I know,” he flinches, “I want it to be good for you. You don’t have to do this.”

Your teeth sink into your bottom lip as you look at him coyly. “Trust me, this is as good for you as it is for me.”

“How—” His words fizzle out as you press your lips against his navel, lowering until you reach that sharp angle that disappears beneath his pants. 

Your fingers are far from stable as they pop open his pants, reaching for the waistband to draw them down. From this angle, with his hooded eyes staring at you, the sight of his sculpted body before you, you can’t help but lick your lips in anticipation. Your mouth is practically salivating, begging to be put on him. 

You tug his briefs down too, leaving him with only his shirt splayed open. He’s beautiful. While you’ve been with another before this, he doesn’t even come close to Bucky. His length stands tall and proud, the head flushed a desperate red as it twitches with need.

The power is almost intoxicating. Knowing how vulnerable Bucky is beneath your fingertips. The tables have turned and now you’re the one who has Bucky glowing bright red. 

You’re on your knees, fully dressed still, as you position yourself before him. Your hand reaches out to grasp him, a gasp immediately ripping out of his chest as he slams his head back against the pillow.

Your thumb brushes over the tip. He jerks again, legs jumping. “So sensitive,” you murmur. 

“Doll, you’re killin’ me,” he pants, sealing the seam of his lips in a firm, determined line. 

“I haven’t done anything yet.”

“That’s the worst part,” he gripes tightly. 

You lean forward with a giggle, the puffs of air from your lips touching his cock leaking with moisture. Bucky’s eyes squeeze shut as you begin slow strokes with your hand, your eyes drinking in how he twists and fruitlessly forces himself to stay still on the bed. 

When you bend even closer, your lips finally close in around the head. You taste a hint of him on your tongue as Bucky heaves a deep breath again. You’ve overheard conversations from other girls before, what makes this a good experience for men. You’re putting your knowledge to the test now. 

Your tongue circles the head as your fingers keep a firm grip around the base. With your other hand, you flatten it against his hip bone to steady him against your mattress. As you begin to dip your head down, taking more of his length into your mouth, he begins to writhe against you.

The weight of his cock is grounding on your tongue, you find yourself laving at his length, trying to find all of the spots that have him releasing those delicious little moans. You drag your tongue along the underside of his cock and earn a guttural groan. You suckle on the tip over and over until he’s arching slightly off the bed in search of more. Your hand moves in tandem with your mouth as you stroke what you cannot swallow, and Bucky slides his hand into your hair. 

Then you feel him yank you back, releasing him with a pop. 

Bucky grips his cock, squeezing it as his face is tinted the same color as those cherry-red stools. He gasps as the vein in his neck pulses. “Shit. Doll, you’re too good— I can’t last like this.” 

“You can cum in my mouth.”

His eyes roll to the back of his head before he lets out another pained groan. “Keep sayin’ things like that and I might cum all over your sheets before you touch me again.” 

You bite back your smile. “Let me take care of you a bit longer.”

“Doll, I need you to feel good too. Need you to finish with me.” 

“I feel good when you feel good,” you say honestly. 

Just seeing Bucky like this — coming apart, undone by your touch — is enough to satisfy that eager little devil inside you. The one that pushes you to relentlessly tease him until he’s whining and spilling those pearls from his cock. 

Bucky shakes his head and pries your hands off him before he flips you over again. His eyes have darkened with hunger, pupils wide as they wolf down your surprise. He holds your hands up above your head as he kisses you again, deep and ravenous. His tongue licks inside your mouth when you gasp, tangling against yours and drawing out those pretty, breathless moans that cling to the back of his mind. 

He’s going to hear you for days. He wants to taste you for days.

As one hand cups your cheek, the other slides down to undo your belt, casting it aside, before moving behind your back to draw down the zipper. It’s delectable how he doesn’t seem so timid anymore, confident in his actions. He mouths down your neck, catching your skin between his teeth with a firmer grip. You whimper as you feel each sting, his attempt to map out constellations that will linger for all to marvel. 

“I’ve been waiting to do this all day.”

“To have your way with me?” You raise an eyebrow. 

“To kiss you,” Bucky grins, “couldn’t stop thinkin’ about it. I wanted to do it when I first saw you in this dress this morning. I wanted to do it when the sun rose upon your face. I wanted to do it when you were giggling at the park. Desperately wanted to do it when I left you on your porch earlier.” 

“You should’ve been bolder, Bucky Barnes.”

His eyes glaze over with a molten look that melts you. “I love the way you say my name.” 

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Hearin’ you say it over and over today, I wanted to kiss you until you can’t think of anythin’ else but me.”

You smile up at him, mellow and soft. “I already think of nothing else but you.”

Bucky shakes his head, looking over you like he can’t believe you’re real. Like he can’t believe he gets to have this. Gets to have you. His lips are back on you as he traces down your neck, as he slips the thick fabric of your dress down to your legs before he pushes it away. Then he’s leaning back, his eyes roaming over you, trailing over the shape of you like he’s committing it to memory.

“I want to draw you someday,” Bucky purrs, “just like this. Open. Vulnerable. For me.”

A shiver snakes up your spine at the thought. Your legs squeezing together. 

“Going to have this picture tucked away with me at all times. Keep you in my wallet. You with your beautiful tits, and these curves,” he mumbles as his hand reaches up to your face again, his thumb dragging along your plump bottom lip. “Whenever I want to jerk off, I’ll have this to remind me of you. A picture of you for me to ruin.”

Your eyes slide shut as a moan crawls its way up your throat. The thought of Bucky at home or at work, his strong hand wrapped around his cock, stroking himself to the sketch of you with your tits out, legs wide open, until he splatters cum that stains the pages and destroys his hard work, has you wet between your legs. 

Then you just have to do it for him all over again. Another pose, another position. Bent over, spread open, or maybe even just your face for him to paint — in more ways than one. 

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” Bucky grins wide, “My perfect, dirty girl.” His other hand slides down between your legs and holds you there, feeling the dampness and humidity of the flimsy fabric. “So wet for me already.” 

“Bucky, please.” 

“I haven’t done anything yet,” he echoes your words mischievously. 

“You’re mean.” You stick your bottom lip out at him. 

He chuckles. “I can see the appeal, why you liked seein’ me feel good. All I can think about is how I can make you feel the same way. How do you want me, doll? Tell me what you like.”

“I-I don’t know. I’ve only done this once before.”

“I can teach you what you’ll like. We’ll learn together. I’ll know for next time how to make you squirm, make you cry, make you moan my name.” 

His fingers begin to rub slow circles over your panties. The pressure has your hips lifting to meet his touch. Bucky’s eyes are fixated on you, glued to the way your expression morphs from incredulity to pleasure to pain. He doesn’t even blink, making sure that he catches every change in your emotion, collecting all of the things that make you tick. 

When his fingers finally slip beneath the fabric and feel the sticky mess between your legs, your hands fly to catch his wrist. 

“You’re leakin’, doll. So messy between these pretty legs. This all for me?”

You’re in utter disbelief at how quickly Bucky has flipped the situation on its head. You can’t believe that Bucky’s never done this before, not with how skillful his fingers are in delivering a divine sort of punishment — or reward. His fingers push between your slick folds, gathering your juices until they glide all the way in. There’s barely any resistance with how wet you are, but his fingers are thick and you can still feel the stretch as he curls them inside you with a cocky grin. 

“So sweet for me. I love seeing you like this, doll. I want your scent on my fingers, want to be able smell you when I’m at work. None of those guys will ever know how beautiful you are like this, wrecked and open for me. I’ll think about how fuckin’ wet you are for me. Drippin’ for me.”

“Bucky, oh god, please. It feels so good.”

“Good girl,” he murmurs, “that’s it. Who’s making you feel good, hm? Who’s got you squirming and leakin’ all over my fingers?”

“You, only you.”

He scissors his fingers open inside you, stroking your walls with a friction that sparks another wave of heat through you. It’s like your brain has melted completely, smoothed out until only one thought remains in your mind. Bucky and his talented hands and his delicious lips. 

With your eyes closed, you miss how Bucky leans forward to capture one of your pebbled nipples into his mouth. The heat engulfs your sensitive bud as his tongue swirls around it, wet and hot. “Taste so good,” Bucky mumbles, his deep timbre resonating through your chest to your core. “Perfect fuckin’ tits on my perfect fuckin’ girl.” 

“Your girl?” You gasp as he nips you gently. 

“You think I’ll share you with anyone else after today?” Bucky laughs, but amusement is the last thing you hear in his voice. “You’re mine. I’ll fight any guy who tries anything with you. Even Stevie, doll.”

Your pussy clenches around his fingers, squeezing his digits at that promise of possession. You hate to admit how much you enjoy the thought of it. How much Bucky wants you, how much he loves you. How selfish he is with you. 

“You’re mine,” Bucky repeats in a growl as he burrows his fingers deeper inside you, drawing out a whimper from your lips. 

“I’m yours,” you nod breathlessly. 

“Good girl,” he hums, pleased. “I want you to cum around my fingers, doll. I want to feel you squeeze me.”

To that, you shake your head as you try to pull him out of you. Bucky’s much stronger though, his biceps flexing as he fights to keep his fingers buried inside. “I want you. Want your cock. Want you inside me.” 

He pales for a second. “Doll, I didn’t bring— I mean, I don’t have… a condom.”

“S’okay,” you moan drunkenly, inebriated from the addicting sound of his voice, the feeling of his fingers, the high of the day. “You can just pull out.”

“Doll.”

“Bucky, please.” 

His eyes betray the war in his mind. You can see the conflict behind those irises, the need to consume you battling against his strong sense of responsibility. His cock and his heart driving his mind in two different directions. 

With him partially preoccupied, you manage to get his fingers out before you’re lifting it to your lips. You run his wet fingers along your lips, his eyes snagging on the sight of the streak. Then you open your mouth and take his fingers onto your tongue. 

If possible, Bucky’s eyes darken even further, the ring of blue swallowed by the desire that devours him. 

You taste yourself and something uniquely him on his fingers. Your eyes stay on him, watching how a lustful fog rolls across his gaze at the sight of you sucking on his fingers. Your tongue slips and slides between his fingers, over his knuckles until they’re clean. 

Then you drag him down to meet your lips, your tongue sliding over his. 

You drink his moans and let them settle deep in your gut. “Fuck, look at you. I can taste you,” Bucky groans. 

“Mmm, will you please fuck me, Bucky? Pretty please,” you bat your eyes at him, a tantalizing look that has his Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat. 

“You’re going to kill me,” he groans. “S’not safe, doll.”

He is surprisingly resilient, more stubborn than you thought. You should’ve known better than to think you could get Bucky to cave in to your whims with your sexual wiles. What you need is to use his own weakness, his Kryptonite, against him. 

With a sigh, you release your hold on him. “Alright, fine.”

“I’ll still take care of you. Make sure you finish.”

You glance at the door with lips pressed together. “You think Stevie’s done with his mom?”

Bucky freezes. Limbs going stock still as his jaw drops open. “What— you never call him Stevie.”

“Well, maybe I’ll start. Maybe Stevie will give me what I want.”

Bucky growls, baring his teeth as he pins you down on the bed again, wrists above your head. “You tryin’ to piss me off, doll?”

“I’m trying to get fucked, Buck.”

“Then you ask me. You don’t fuckin’ ask — hell, you don’t even think about Steve.”

“I’ve been asking!”

“Such a brat,” Bucky shakes his head, realizing now what you’ve done. His eyes sparkle with that knowing look. “I’m goin’ to pull out. As much as I’d love to knock you up, get you full of my babies, I want to do right by you — and now is not the time.”

You bite the corner of your lip again at the thought of Bucky breeding you. It wouldn’t be so bad. 

“Don’t even think about it,” he mutters, “you devious little minx. If I knew you were this manipulative, I would’ve come prepared.”

A sweet smile up at him, you tilt your head in mock innocence. “You think I wouldn’t slice right through that determination of yours?”

Bucky inhales deeply, breathing out through his nose. “I’m gonna make you pay for this. Just you wait.” He uses his knee to nudge your legs open and you do so easily, knees falling apart automatically to grant him access. 

Sliding off the bed, Bucky drags you to the edge of the mattress and uses one hand to keep you restrained. His palms are large enough to hold them together, grip tight enough for the burn to warm your belly and your pussy squeezing. There’s a damp spot in your panties that has Bucky swallowing thickly before he hooks his fingers on the hem and pulls your underwear down and off you.

He brings the small piece to his nose, breathing in your scent as a grunt makes its way up his throat. Then he’s shoving it into his back pocket. “Mine now.”

Before you can protest the loss of your favorite underwear, he positions his cock at your entrance, testing the head along your lips and letting you leak onto his length. He presses his cock against you, your folds molding around him as he grinds his hips into you. Moans tumble from his lips as he soaks in the feeling of you wet and warm around him. The friction is enough to have you whining — pleasure sinking into your bones while your body begs for more. 

The intensity of this intimacy has you wriggling against him. It’s not enough, yet too much, all at once. His tip brushes over your clit, rubbing that delicate spot over again until you’re mewling into your sheets. 

“God, you feel like a dream, doll. So fuckin’ wet for me. Have you thought about my cock before?”

“Mhmm,” you hum absentmindedly.

“Touched yourself to me?” 

“Mhmm,” you admit again.

Bucky hisses as the thick head of his cock catches onto your gaping cunt. You’re practically begging for him to fuck you at this point, pussy opening up every time his cock comes close. You’re dripping all over him like honey. He tugs it out again with a groan. “Yeah, tell me what you think about.”

His name spills from your lips in protest. You scoot lower in the hopes of getting another feel of his cock inside you. 

“Tell me,” he says as he stills his hips. 

“I-I don’t know. I just think about you and your cock. I imagine myself on my knees as you push your cock into my mouth, as you fuck my throat and tell me to take it like a good girl.”

“Jesus.” Bucky’s hips jerk against you, giving you that mind-numbing traction you so desperately crave. 

Eager now that you’ve seen what your words can do to him, you keep going. “I think about you thrusting into my mouth until my throat is raw. Think about you moaning my name and spilling down my throat. I think about you forcing my jaw open to prove to you that I swallowed every single drop.” 

“Fuck, doll. You’re a goddamn dream come true.” Bucky begins to rut against you again. Sweat beads his forehead, not from the exertion of his effort, but from the force of his self-restraint. “Tell me more. Keep talkin’.”

The words flow from your lips so easily. Eagerly. “I think about you fucking me. I think about you making me spread my legs, you making me put my fingers between them to keep my pussy open for you.” A curse falls from his mouth. “I think about you sliding your cock inside me, stretching me out as you tell me how good my cunt feels around you. How my pussy belongs to you.”

His chuckle is deep and devilish as he finally sheathes himself inside you. His cock dragging against your insides as a choked gasp falls from your lips. He’s bigger than you thought, your juices barely easing the ache as he stretches you open. 

“Like that?” He breathes, “Your cunt feels like heaven. Feels like where I’ve always belonged.” 

“Just like that,” you swallow as he slides himself all the way out only to bury himself back in again to the base. 

The movement is unhurried, prolonging the burn as he enters you again. “Pussy was fuckin’ made for me. This cunt is mine, doll. Nobody else is gonna even think about touching you. I’m gonna have you smellin’ like me, imprint myself on you. Gonna leave you with so many hickeys, all the housewives down this fuckin’ block are gonna blush every time they see you. Gonna make sure my fingers bruise your fuckin’ wrists so the men can see that you’re mine. Cuffed to me with my own handprints.”

“Bucky, oh god, please,” you arch off the bed, struggling against his grasp. 

He only laughs, low and dark. “Try all you want, you’re not goin’ anywhere.” He rolls his hips slowly at first, torturing you in methods that are criminal to mankind. His cock fills you up before leaving you gaping, empty, clenching around air again. He pushes back in with emphasis, his length reaching the deepest parts of you until you’re left gasping. 

True to his word, only his name forms on your tongue. Only his name leaves your lips again and again in breathless moans, in wretched whines. 

“Never knew I could feel like this. All those nights, been using my own hand while thinkin’ of you, thinkin’ about your sweet pussy wrapped around my cock, and I could’ve had you.”

“You thought of me?”

“Every night.” His answer is swift and honest. “Every time you wore those pretty little dresses, I’d fuck my fist that night thinkin’ about what it would be like to bend you over a counter somewhere, flippin’ your skirt up, and buryin’ myself in this pretty pussy.” 

“Hnnng, Buck, please. Need you.”

Bucky picks up the pace of his thrusts, jerking his hips harder against you until his balls are slapping against your cunt. The slick sounds of his cock inside you, the smacking of skin against skin bouncing off the four walls of the room. Bucky inhales deeply, smelling the musky scent of sex that wafts through the room. The rousing scent of your desire leaking between your legs, the smell of sweat as he drills into you with a persistence that steals the air from your lungs. 

“Always imagined you needy for me like this. Didn’t matter that I never fucked anyone before. I knew I’d have you, doll. I wasn’t ever going to let anyone else touch you,” he bites out then bitterly adds, “again.” 

“Yours, Buck. I’m yours.”

Bucky grits his teeth as he sinks himself into you again, his hand moving from your hips to your clit as he digs his thumb into the mess of stimulated nerves. You whine and clamp your legs around him, drawing him in closer. 

“That’s my good girl. Do you wanna cum on my cock? Wanna soak my fat cock with your pussy, doll?”

You nod, drool practically dribbling from your lips as your mind fizzles into nothing but Bucky, Bucky, Bucky. 

“I wanna hear you say it.” 

“Yes, Buck. Please.”

“What do you want?”

“I wanna cum on your cock,” you moan, stomach tightening with a desperation that squeezes your chest. 

“You gonna let me cum in you?”

You don’t even have to think twice before you nod. “Yes, yes. Whatever you want.”

“Fuck, doll, you’re such a desperate little slut. You don’t even care if I knock you up, do you? You want my babies, doll? Wanna be pregnant, tits full of milk, and carrying my kids?”

“Yeah, yeah, please. Anything.”

Bucky groans as his movements stutter, knees weakening with your words. Chest heavy with the weight of your desperation, how easily you give in to him. Bucky leans forward to kiss you again, pressing your legs back as he fucks into you, your own hips tilting back like he’s preparing you to take his cum. 

“Good girl, gonna breed you so good, doll.” 

“Please,” you pant. “Please, Bucky.”

“So sweet for me. Beggin’ me like this,” Bucky grunts.

You can feel your pleasure cresting, climbing and climbing until there’s no oxygen left in your lungs. Your legs tighten around him, pussy clamping around his cock. 

All you need is his permission.

“Bucky, please— please let me cum.”

“Cum for me, doll. Cum around my cock.”

And you’re nothing if not obedient. Your orgasm crashes over you in rolling tides, a gasp wrenching from your lips as your fingers dig into your palm. Bucky’s grip secures firmly around your wrists as he watches you come apart underneath him. Your hair now a mess, light streaks of mascara on your cheeks. 

Stunning. 

Bucky growls at the delicious sight of you absolutely wrecked, pumping in and out faster to chase his own climax. When he feels it coming, he quickly pulls himself out of you, chest rising and falling as he paints white across your stomach, your chest. The streaks are an abstract work of art that he registers vaguely through his hazy eyes. 

His hips are still jerking as he spurts the last of his cum across your body. He huffs with a satisfied sort of exhaustion as he looks down at the work he’s created. He releases his hold around your wrists as he ducks his head to kiss you again. 

Slow and sweet. 

“Beautiful,” he murmurs. “I don’t know how you’re real, but I’m not about to start questioning God for bringing you into my life.” 

Your embarrassment with his words is swift, warmth creeping up your cheeks. “You’re too sweet with me.” 

“Deserve all of it, doll. Love you. Never said it out loud.”

You giggle against his lips. “Love you too, Buck.”

“Let’s get you cleaned up before—”

The sound of the front door creaking open has both of you stunned. Bucky scrambles off you, searching around for his pants as he buttons up his shirt again. You reach for the napkins on your bedside table and wipe yourself down. 

You hear your parents’ footsteps ascend the stairs. They always, always check on you before they go to sleep.

On cue, just as you’re holding your dress up to cover your body, you hear the knock on your door. “Honey?” Your mom’s voice calls out from the other side.

Your eyes fly to the clock, indicating that it’s much too late for you to be awake anyway. So you bring your finger to your lips to tell Bucky to be quiet. He doesn’t move. He doesn’t even breathe. 

“Guess she’s asleep already.” You hear your mom say before their footsteps recede down the hall again. 

You finally let out a deep sigh of relief, letting the dress pool on the floor again. “That would’ve been bad.”

“You’re tellin’ me,” Bucky flinches. “This is not how I want to face your mother for the first time as your boyfriend.”

You perk up, lips tugging into a smile. “Boyfriend?”

Bucky’s mouth quirks up in amusement. “Yeah, doll. Boyfriend. I didn’t make that clear enough?” 

“You never asked, Bucky Barnes,” you challenge.

“Feisty,” he grins, hands snapping out to grab you and draw you close. He presses a kiss against your temple. “You’re right. Will you be my girlfriend?”

“Yes,” you brighten. 

Bucky holds you at arm’s length, admiring the sight of you still deliciously naked and sticky. “Should’ve drawn you with my cum all over you earlier,” he murmurs, finger tracing down your stomach where your skin is still damp. 

“Bucky,” you protest shyly. 

“Can I see you tomorrow?”

Your eyes widen in surprise, to which Bucky grins. “Oh, yes. Of course.”

“Good. Let me take you out again. Properly this time. A real date.”

You smile, “You already did, Buck.”

“Mmm, don’t think so. I think tomorrow will be our official first date.”

“You cumming on me doesn’t count?” 

Bucky groans, leaning forward to press your foreheads together. “I wanted to be a gentleman with you,” he grouses, more so to himself.

“Well, you did pull out,” you tease.

“Cute,” he laughs. “I’m serious, doll. About this. About you. Need you to know that.”

“I know.”

His lips twitch again into a smile as he kisses you, light and sweet. “Good. Now, I’m going to climb out the window like a teenager sneaking out of your parents’ home.” 

Laughter rises from your chest again. “Be careful.”

“Always.” 

After kissing you senselessly for a few more minutes — he really is far too easy to distract, Bucky swings over the ledge and hops onto the tree outside. He blows you one last kiss before jogging down the street, glancing back long enough to flash you another smile. 

Maybe — just maybe — you won’t have to spend Valentine’s Day alone ever again. 

bucky is kissing (taglist): @superbassbuck @earthsmightiestbenders @houseofhyde @its-in-the-woods @flockoff-featherface @winterdecember18 @chateaubarnes @54nboo @barnes-babydoll @phoenix-in-writing @tofuonfaiya @avengersfan25 @miraclediviner @averyhotchner @hailmary-yramliah @catclaw1 @heldbybarnes @blowingbarnes @stanmarvelous @pinksplace @lunexiax @54nboo @it-is-rebel-owl-ma-dudes @esunarint @nikkitabarnes @captain-shannon-becker @lunaryoongie @sergeantsebastian @alli0-0 @amoremarveloustime @avgdestitute @natskisses @sarah1barnes @parker-barnes-af @sarah1barnes @onecojg @iamthatonefangirl @wildflowersandvibranium @stegosaurussims @angelryex @evelynstanmarvel

+ add yourself to my taglists!

[wxntertoast]

Bucky Barnes who learned to play the guitar back in the days before he was even drafted. It was a bad attempt at impressing girls.

But when he meets you, he decides to try again. He picks up the wooden instrument, propping it up on his leg, and despite decades of practice lost, muscle memory kicks in, and he plays the most beautiful song you'd ever heard.

At last, his silly attempt at making a good impression had succeeded.

[pellucid-constellations]

Pairing: College!Bucky x Reader

Word count: 710

Warnings: ummm pining bucky, friends to pining, frat!bucky

a/n: Hi! I haven't been able to write for some time, so I'm having a drabble spree over the next week or so, writing based on prompts from this list. If you send me a category, I'll pick a prompt!!

This fic was based on this prompt in the Forbidden Love category: "You're the one person I promised myself I would never cross that line with."

____________________________________________

It was sudden, like the split decision to take an exit off the freeway and change your dinner plans. Bucky felt his life shift—just a fraction. Enough to be noticeable, but not enough to throw him off his axis. Maybe it had always been there, maybe it hadn't. But, either way, things felt different. He felt different, sitting in the horridly lit Denny's at two in the morning, his university-branded crewneck dipping off your shoulder as you inhaled a plate of fries.

"God, these are terrible," you moaned, drenching another floppy stick in ranch. "Why did we come here?"

"You begged me to," Bucky threw back, shifting in the booth uncomfortably.

"Tell me no next time."

"That hasn't gone over well, historically."

You snorted and then turned back to your fries.

You had always been a constant in Bucky's life—first in middle school, then high school, and now entering your last year in college. Inseparable was a common term used to describe your relationship, but there was something that separated you, and it had been a more... recent development.

Bucky had joined a frat. A very popular frat. You had not liked the frat, but you put up with it. But then Bucky started sleeping with women, and you put up with that far less, because Bucky started sleeping with... a lot of women. So, it was fair. You kept your distance, made your own friends, and you made time to see each other when you could.

Bucky coveted those times, even if he wouldn't admit to it. Even if each quick dinner, each passing coffee in the dining hall, began to feel like he was falling off a cliff. A very sudden, very steep cliff.

The women were not a distraction at first. He was supposed to have sex with women. That's what guys like him did in college. But, recently, for the past few weeks, they were a distraction. A distraction from you. He couldn't stop thinking about you, and that wasn't the plan.

"Why are you staring off into space like a freak?" you laughed, tossing a fry at his face. It smacked between his eyes.

"I'm not," he argued. "What, a guy can't think anymore? That illegal?"

You puffed out a laugh. "What could you possibly be thinking about?" You shoved the plate away and rested your face in your hands. "The next girl you'll waste the time of? Maybe you're worried that you left one in your bed and now she's going through your underwear drawer."

"Ha. Ha," Bucky mocked. "No, smart ass. I was thinking about what to get you for your birthday, but now, since I'm not allowed to think, I think I'll just forget."

"Not my birthday!" you gasped, hands coming down on the table. "You said you were going to take me to Disneyland."

"I was kidding about that. You actually want to go to Disneyland?"

"Not anymore. Not after you've dangled it in front of my nose like this."

Bucky let out another sarcastic laugh, sliding out of the booth after tossing a few bills on the table. He shrugged his jacket on and held out an expectant hand that you stared at dubiously before taking with a roll of your eyes.

"Yeah, yeah," Bucky droned. "Let's get out of here before your hysterics get us kicked out."

He helped you into your own jacket, lingered with his nose by your temple and greedily took time he wasn't allowed, and then pushed a rough kiss to the side of your head because that was a normal thing to do. He was being normal. His feelings were normal.

You tugged him into the parking lot and blabbed on about Disneyland and terrible fries and looked at him like you always did, and he looked at you like you were holding his entire life in your hands. You didn't seem to notice the difference.

Bucky kept it to himself and pretended he wasn't crossing a line.

A line he swore to himself in that moment—as you flipped on the cabin light in his car and rifled through his glovebox looking for a pack of gum you were adamant you lost in there a month ago—he would never cross with you. He couldn't.

[navybrat817]

Come Home

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Female Reader

Summary: Bucky wants you to come home.

Word Count: 300

Playlist Prompt: Right Place, Wrong Time - Dr. John / “But I'm having such a good time”

Warnings: Implied arranged marriage, tension, possible soft!dark vibes if you squint, pet names (sweetheart, angel), drinking, Bucky Barnes (he's a warning, okay?).

A/N: Day 4 of the June Jukebox Scribbles Challenge by @societynsoelsscribbles . ❤️ Not beta read and written on my phone, so any and all mistakes are my own. Divider by the talented @saradika-graphics. Please follow @navybrat817-sideblog for new fics and notifications as I no longer do taglists. Comments, reblogs, feedback are loved and appreciated!

You sipped your drink, watching your friends from your table as they danced. A faint smile touched your lips. They were having fun. So were you.

But then the air shifted.

“Hey, sweetheart.”

The low timbre wrapped in affection sounded stronger than the bass of the music.

You didn’t turn your head when Bucky Barnes took a seat, his thigh pressed against yours. You felt his eyes on you anyway, watchful and warmer than how he looked at everyone else. Some days you forgot that he was a dangerous man with power, reach, and a reputation.

My fiancé.

“Hey, yourself,” you replied, hoping your voice didn’t betray the emotions swirling inside you.

“It’s time to come home,” he said.

Home.

“But I’m having such a good time,” you teased, finishing your drink in one gulp.

He snatched the glass from your hand and forced you to meet his gaze. Your breath caught. He was always handsome, but the trimmed beard was really doing it for you. And he was staring at you like he was a heartbeat away from spreading you out on the table and taking you right there.

He had waited long enough.

“It’s midnight,” he said, his breath brushing your lips. “Time’s up.”

You swallowed. One year. You asked for one year of freedom before you had to marry him, and he shockingly obliged. 

But you should’ve realized he’d know right where to find you tonight.

He never stopped watching you.

His expression softened. “Angel, come home with me.”

Your stomach flipped. “So it’s ‘angel’ now?”

“Well, I know you behaved during your year without me, so that’s pretty angelic,” he answered with a hint of possession. “But we can talk more about that at home.”

Talk. Plan the wedding. Become Mrs. Barnes.

Your fate was sealed.

This could be fun to expand on. Love and thanks for reading. ❤️

Masterlist ⚓Bucky Barnes Masterlist ⚓ Ko-Fi

[knowledgeableknitter]

Can't Do Casual with You

A one-shot. A lot of angst, a little comfort.

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x you (gn!)

Word Count: 7.8k

Summary: You've loved him quietly, patiently, and faithfully. But when he makes you an offer you cannot accept, you need to distance yourself to protect your heart. Will he figure out his feelings in time or be too late?

Trigger Warnings: FwB offer; lots of angst; he grovels!!

Author’s Note: I wanted this to hurt, but I’m afraid it falls short. I don’t know, but I can't keep looking at it. (Also, I was exceedingly kind and did not, in fact, make this a two-parter and leave you with a cliffhanger. You’re welcome.)

After-Market Edit: Y'all need to TELL ME if I forget to add a "Read More"!!! I'm so sorry I missed it for like the first 12 hours. 😭 I know that's so annoying to have to scroll and scroll to get past it. I'm having an off week. (No, literally, I was taking this week "off", but finished this fic earlier than I expected so I threw it up. Turns out I'm really bad at taking time off... 😅)

Masterlist

The Ask

You noticed the way he stirred his coffee, always counter-clockwise, in three slow, deliberate loops, before tapping the spoon once against the rim of the mug. It was a small, mundane ritual that should have faded into the background of everyday life, but somehow, it became a part of your mornings too, quietly mirrored, as if syncing your rhythm to his could tether you to him.

You hadn’t even realized when you started doing it yourself, three soft swirls, a single tap, and then setting the spoon down gently beside the cup. It wasn’t conscious at first, just a silent mimicry, an unspoken yearning to belong in his space in whatever way you could.

After missions, your eyes found him without thinking. You watched his jaw and knew its language by now, the way the muscle beneath his cheekbone clenched before he spoke. A flicker of tension was a subtle warning. You’d learned to read it, telling you more than words ever could: whether things had gone wrong, whether someone got hurt, or whether something in the field had dredged up a memory he’d never speak aloud. You quietly ached for him in those moments. 

But there were softer things, too, fragments of gentleness he rarely showed the world. You saw it when he crouched to pet a stray cat near the compound gate, his metal fingers brushing behind its ears with an almost reverent tenderness. Or when he leaned in when you laughed, as if your laughter was gravity and he couldn’t resist being pulled in.

You told yourself not to read into it. You tried, at least.

But you felt every brush of his hand when you passed in the hallway, every joke that only the two of you would find funny, every movie night that ended with you curled into the corner of the couch, too tired, or maybe too content, to move.

There was a rhythm to your movements and his. He'd sit close enough that your thighs touched, and never once did he shift away. He passed you the popcorn without asking. He’d already be there, waiting, when you wandered into the common room at night, remote in hand, eyes flicking up like your arrival had settled something in him. He never said stay, but you always did.

And most nights, that felt like enough. Or you convinced yourself it did.

But sometimes he walked beside you after a long day, his shoulder brushing yours as if drawn by instinct. Or he said your name, low and soft, like it was something precious in his mouth.

You would laugh, and smile, and you play it light.

But truth lived inside you like a bruise you couldn’t help but press. And in the quiet of your room you replayed every glance, every shared silence, every breath that passed between you.

You told yourself you shouldn't feel this way. That he didn’t want that, didn’t want you, not in the way you wanted him.

But wanting didn’t stop just because it was one-sided.

You longed for him in a way that didn't fit neatly into words. It lived in your body, in the softness of your curves and it slipped beneath your skin and made a home there, humming low like a secret only you knew how to carry.

You wanted more, but you swallowed it like guilt and held it down like something shameful.

And still, you stayed.

Because proximity to him, his voice, his presence, his soul, felt like oxygen. Because being even a small part of his world, even just in the shadows of what could have been, felt better than being without him at all.

You told yourself you could live with this.

But some nights, the truth whispered louder than your lies.

*****

It was so late the tower felt abandoned. Even the hum of the electricity in the walls seemed muted.

You were both still in your mission gear. The sleeves of your top were smudged with ash, your boots leaving faint, muddy prints on the pale tile of the kitchen floor. The scent of smoke clung to your skin, settling into your hair and the soft fabric that clung to the curve of your waist. You hadn’t had the energy to shower. Neither had he.

You sat across from each other at the kitchen island, elbows propped, mugs of tea slowly growing cold between your hands. His jacket hung open, and his shirt beneath was creased, marked by the weight of the vest he’d worn. His hair, damp with sweat, had fallen from its tie. Strands curled at the ends, brushing his jaw.

He looked so human in this light, and a little too beautiful. 

He said something dry and half-heartedly funny about the mission: a play on words about how the extraction plan hadn’t gone to plan. You laughed, too tired not to. 

He gave you the soft, crooked version of his smile that he only gave in the quietest moments. But then it faded, and you felt a shift in him before you saw it.

His gaze drifted, from your mouth, to your shoulder, to the hand you rested against your mug. It wasn’t predatory, or even overtly suggestive, but it lasted beat too long, and in that moment, something changed in the air between you, like the wind had shifted.

“Hey,” he said, his voice pitched lower and softer.

You looked up, and your chest tightened like your body was trying to warn you.

His tone was too neutral; you’d only ever heard it when he was defusing a threat he wasn’t sure he’d win against.

“You know…” He hesitated, tapping a rhythm with his thumb against the ceramic. “I was thinking… if you ever wanted to, I don’t know—blow off steam sometime. I’m around.”

You blinked.

He continued, careful and measured.

“No pressure. No strings. Just… comfort. We know each other. We’re… comfortable with one another, right?”

Comfort. Comfortable. 

The words felt wrong in your gut. They were too casual, and for a moment, you didn’t understand what he was offering. And then, all at once, you did.

He said it too easily, like it was nothing. Like it was simple. Like it just made sense.

And you could see why it would did make sense to him. Because you were never more than comfortable. 

Your fingers tightened around your mug, just so you could hold on to something tangible when every thread inside of you had been cut loose and you were drifting.

You couldn’t breathe.

You felt your body still and cold, the shock sinking into your bones before your mind could catch up. 

He was still watching you, waiting and carefully composed, as if he thought he was being kind. Like this was a gift, something thoughtful. An offer of intimacy dressed up as generosity. And maybe, to him, it was.

Your mouth went dry. Your throat burned.

You nodded, small and mechanical, not in agreement, but in acknowledgment of his words. You didn’t trust your voice not to break. You felt the moment shift around you, irreversibly.

When you looked up again, your expression was smooth. You’d practiced calm, and you could wear it now like a mask.

“I’ll… think about it,” you said.

His shoulders eased just slightly, as if he’d been bracing for something harsher than that. He nodded back once, simple and unfazed, and leaned away, his gaze drifting to a corner of the room, the matter settled.

He didn’t press. He thought that was enough.

The least thing seemed to be enough for him. 

You stood slowly, legs a little too stiff, heart a little too loud. The chair scraped gently against the tile, but he didn’t look over. You made some excuse, mumbled something about needing rest, or a shower. You weren’t entirely sure, and you didn’t hear if he replied.

You walked away, your body moving on autopilot. Down the hall, past the training room, around the corner to the elevator. The button lit up beneath your touch, but you didn’t feel it.

And when the doors closed, sealing you into that quiet, metal box, you let your breath tremble out of you. The tears didn’t fall yet, but they hovered, burning the backs of your eyes.

Now you knew there would never be more.

He didn’t see you, not in the way you’d secretly hoped and dared to let yourself believe. To him, you were soft curves and steady hands. Familiar and trusted, but not cherished. 

He wasn’t offering a beginning, he was offering an end before anything ever had the chance to start.

You leaned your back against the cold wall of the elevator, arms folded tight around your middle like you could hold yourself together through sheer force of will.

Because the truth was unbearable.

You had loved him in all the ways he would never notice. And in return, he had offered you his body, nothing more.

And God help you, a part of you wanted to say yes.

Not because it would’ve made it easier, but because it would’ve meant being close to him, maybe even for long enough to pretend he was really yours.

But you knew it would hollow you out.

So you closed your eyes and let the silence settle over you, and you stood there, waiting for the elevator to carry you anywhere else. 

Anywhere that didn’t contain him.

*****

You didn’t sleep that night.

The offer echoed through you long after he’d gone to bed, replaying itself over and over until it stopped feeling like words and started feeling like a wound. You lay on your side in the dark hush of your room, the moonlight catching faintly on your skin, and tried to breathe around the ache pressing against your ribs.

No strings. Just comfort.

The phrase itself seemed harmless, almost gentle. But you knew what it meant.

It would mean touching him.

It would mean him touching you.

You closed your eyes, and your mind, traitorous and tender, painted the scene for you in vivid, aching detail. You imagined the warmth of his body pressed against yours, his breath heavy and human against your neck, his hands tracing the lines and curves of you like they were something he’d always known, always wanted. You imagined him saying your name so tenderly, imagined that he’d see all of you and want you still.

You let yourself hover there for a moment, suspended in that fantasy, where your body wasn’t an afterthought and your softness was something desired. Where your curves weren’t tolerated, but revered. Where his touch wasn’t born of loneliness, but of need.

But the warmth in the dream turned cold too quickly.

Because you knew how it would end.

He would leave. Maybe not immediately, but quietly, gently, and with that careful distance he’d mastered. No mess, no fight, just a soft closing of a door you’d never see reopen.

And you’d be left behind, stripped bare, trying to gather pieces of yourself from the floor.

You knew the shape of this kind of heartbreak. It wasn’t sharp and sudden, it was slow, patient, and all-consuming. It would bleed you dry in small, invisible ways.

You knew, because you could already feel it happening.

You pressed the heel of your hand to your chest, trying to breathe through the ache that wouldn’t fade.

You had given him your laughter, your patience, and your silence. You had given him loyalty and warmth and a quiet love. You had been steady and kind and constant. You had offered him your gentleness in a world that had rarely been gentle to him.

Your reward was an opportunity of physical pleasure. You had no doubt you’d enjoy it, no doubt he would make it good for you. 

But if you said yes, if you took what little he offered, you’d be agreeing to live in fragments. You would be held only when it was convenient. 

You’d spend your nights pretending that the warmth of his skin was enough, even as your heart cracked under the weight of what it wasn’t.

Because being wanted wasn’t being loved.

He’d move on eventually. To someone lighter, easier, or simpler. Someone who wouldn’t hand him her heart before he asked for it. And you wouldn’t be able to get angry when he did, because you’d agreed to the terms. Even though it would break you.

You sat up in bed, wrapping your arms around your knees, your forehead resting against them. The tears finally came, hot and quiet. They slipped down your cheek and disappeared into the fabric of your shirt. 

Your chest felt hollow. He had reached in and carved out the part of you that still believed this could ever be more. Your throat was raw from swallowing sobs that refused to stay buried.

You’d spent so long convincing yourself that just being near him was enough, that his company, his smiles, the sound of your name on his breath could sustain you. That you could survive on scraps if it meant staying close.

But this wouldn’t be survival, this would be surrender.

This would be letting him take the pieces of you he wanted and leaving the rest behind. This would be letting yourself become a convenience to him, a body without a soul attached.

You’d felt that before. 

You hadn’t always believed you could be loved.

Growing up, you learned early how to be useful instead. You knew how to earn your keep with silence, with steadiness, with not asking for more. The belief that wanting something tender was selfish, even shameful had followed you into adulthood.

And no one had ever chosen you before, not romantically, not openly. You had always been the safe friend, the reliable one, the comfort, never the spark. Never the first pick.

But with Bucky, you reserved hope like a flame. 

He had looked at you once, in the kitchen, just after a mission, bruised and exhausted, and said simply, “You make it easier to breathe.”

You’d clung to that moment because it had felt like a glimpse of being put first, like maybe you weren’t invisible to him the way you always had been to everyone else.

But you were wrong. 

You glanced toward your phone, dark on the nightstand. You didn’t need to text him. You knew he wasn’t waiting. He probably thought you’d come to him when you were ready, that you’d knock on his door in the middle of the night, shy but willing, maybe even grateful.

He probably thought it was a generosity.

And maybe it would have been, to someone who didn’t love him.

But you did love him. You loved him with a devotion that asked for nothing and gave everything. You loved him with a faithfulness that deserved to be returned, not used up.

And for the first time, you let yourself see that truth.

You deserved more than to be a resting place for someone else’s loneliness.

You deserved the same love you had been giving: an unconditional love that reached for you in the light and stayed through the dark. A love that didn’t need to be earned, or bargained for, or reduced to simple comfort.

You drew in a trembling breath, your chest aching with both grief and clarity.

You loved him, yes. Maybe you always would. But you couldn’t give him pieces of yourself just to stay close.

You wanted to be loved whole. Not just because he was lonely and you were soft and willing. But because you were you.

You wiped your cheeks with both hands and whispered to the dark, barely loud enough for the words to exist, “I can’t survive pretending I mean less to him than he means to me.”

And somehow, saying it out loud didn’t destroy you.

It saved what was left.

*****

It took you a few days to find your voice again. The words lived inside you, coiled and patient, but you hadn’t spoken them because once they existed in the open air, they couldn’t be unsaid. And there was still a part of you that wasn’t ready to feel the weight of them yet.

Late evening pressed soft and heavy against the compound walls, seeping through the windows. Almost everyone had retreated to their own corners of the building, and silence settled in. There were no meetings, no training, and you had no more excuses.

You found Bucky in the common room. He was sprawled across the couch, a half-read book resting in his lap, fingers idly brushing the edge of a page he hadn’t turned in a while. The low lamplight made his features look softer, tired but with a rare peace.

When you stepped into the room, he looked up, and expectation flickered in his eyes.

That lack of tension, lack of uncertainty broke something small and fragile inside you.

He thought you were here to say yes. And of all the things you felt in this moment, you foolishly hated disappointing him. 

There was a subtle shift in his body, his spine straightened, his legs uncrossed slightly, and he leaned forward a bit. His gaze dipped, catching on your mouth before returning to your eyes, relaxed in a way that tried to hide how closely he was watching you.

You saw it all.

You’d always seen him, read him more easily than the books he left half-finished around the common room.

And you saw the quiet confidence in his posture, the quiet assumption that you’d chosen him. Not in love, but in convenience. You would make it easy. You would accept what he could give.

You hated how much you wished that could have been enough for you.

But it wasn’t. It never would be, not without breaking something vital in you.

You crossed the room slowly, every step heavier than the last, and sat beside him on the couch, close, but not touching. Your hands folded in your lap to keep them steady. You didn’t trust them otherwise.

“I thought about your offer,” you said, voice soft and carefully measured.

His eyes flicked to yours again. He nodded slowly, as though he'd been expecting this, waiting for it.

You took in a shallow breath. Any deeper, and you knew it would rattle in your chest.

“And I need to be honest with you.”

He leaned in, barely, giving you his full attention. He gave off a quiet anticipation, like he was sure this would end with you in his bed. He thought you were searching for the right words to agree, maybe set a few conditions.

You couldn’t look at his face, so you looked at his hands.

Those hands, so steady, so careful, hands you’d watched assemble and disassemble rifles at speed and throw knives with precision. Hands, cold and warm in tandem, that you’d imagined against your skin. But now you looked at them as though you’d never let yourself look again.

“I can’t do casual with you,” you said, each word slow and deliberate. “I wish I could. I wish I could separate it all. But the truth is, I’d only end up loving you more. And I don’t think I’d come back from that.”

The silence that followed was all-encompassing.

Your eyes flicked up in time to see the subtle flinch and shift of his posture. Not away from you entirely, but back, like your truth had knocked the wind out of him and he didn’t know how to brace for it.

His mouth parted just slightly, then closed again, but he didn’t speak.

His eyes scanned your face, searching for another version of this moment. Maybe one where you took it back, or where this wasn’t the truth, just nerves or second thoughts or hesitation. He was looking for something he could counter with a look or a soft word.

You gave him a small, tired smile. It hurt to make it, but you gave it anyway, because you still loved him. That hadn’t changed.

“I know my heart too well to lie to myself,” you said, your voice barely above a whisper. “And I love you too much to pretend that being just comfort is something I could survive.”

You watched his jaw tense, but he offered you no words.

And somehow, you weren’t surprised.

You stood slowly, your body suddenly so heavy, like your bones were made of the densest metal. You hesitated only once in the doorway, something in you needing to look back.

He was still there, still staring at you, still stunned in that quiet, unreadable way of his.

“I deserve love,” you said quietly, your voice steady despite your heart tearing open. “The kind I was willing to give you.”

For half a heartbeat, you thought he might say something. His mouth opened, a sharp breath catching in his throat like the beginning of a word, maybe even your name, but it never came.

His hand twitched, like he might reach for you, and your chest went still waiting for it, waiting for anything.

But then his gaze dropped, and the moment passed.

Whatever he almost said lived and died in that breath.

After a moment, almost too soft to carry across the room to him, you let him go, “I hope you find what you’re looking for.”

It hurt how much you meant it.

Because even as your chest ached and your throat burned and your vision blurred, you still wanted him to be happy. Even when that happiness would grow in someone else’s hands. Even though you'd have to watch him become the version of himself you’d only ever seen glimpses of, but for someone not you.

You still hoped he found it, because he deserved that love.

You only meant to let him see that you weren’t angry, that you hadn’t denied him out of cruelty. But you may have revealed too much, shown him how much you were breaking. 

You held his gaze for a moment longer, then said, quiet, wistful, and aching, “Goodbye, Bucky.”

You turned, swallowing around the lump in your throat. You hadn’t cried in front of him, had sworn you wouldn’t. But as you escaped down the hall one tear slipped free. One silent fracture you could no longer hold back.

And you knew, with a dull certainty that settled in your heart, that he wouldn’t come after you. He never had before. 

*****

The Aftermath

He sat there long after you left.

The door was still open a crack, letting in a thin sliver of hallway light. He could have moved, stood up, shut it, followed you, done something, but he didn’t. He just stared at that sliver of light like it might shift, like you might change your mind and step back through it.

He hated that he was hoping for that.

His hands felt wrong. The flesh one stayed curled too tightly on his knee, the metal one twitching uselessly against the couch cushions. His shoulders were drawn up with tension he hadn’t noticed until now, and his chest was folding inward slowly.

He didn’t know what he’d expected. Maybe a soft laugh, a shy nod. Maybe, in the wild, foolish part of him he rarely listened to, you’d touch his hand and say yes.

But not this. 

Your voice had been gentle, so careful it almost didn’t hurt. 

“I can’t do casual with you. I wish I could. But I’d only end up loving you more.”

He didn’t know how to process that. Because looking back, it all made sense. He had been blind to every time you laughed at his jokes, every time your eyes found his like you shared some secret.

He leaned forward, elbows braced on his knees, hands twisted together. The air still smelled like you, a trace of something soft and warm and familiar. It clung to the cushions, to his clothes, to the hollows of his lungs.

And it hit him like a punch: you’d been sitting right there, within his reach. You hadn’t sounded angry or bitter, but your voice held a weary knowing, like you'd already made peace with the fact that he wouldn't fight for you. 

And you’d been right. He hadn’t stood up. He hadn’t said a word. He let you go. He pressed the heel of his palm to his eyes until he saw red and black.

“How did I misread this?” he muttered under his breath, the words half-exhaled. 

That was the worst of it, because physically you did want him as much as he wanted you. He could hear it in your voice, see it in your eyes, and that made this unbearable. You hadn’t walked away because you didn’t care, you’d walked away because you cared too much. 

They're better off, he told himself. I’m not built for that kind of thing. Not anymore.

But the words felt like someone else’s lie, not his own.

He got to his feet eventually, pacing the length of the room, like motion might distract him from the weight sitting squarely on his chest. His hand dragged through his hair until it came loose from its tie, falling around his face.

He told himself not to think about the way you’d looked at him, right before you said goodbye. Not to linger on the softness in your eyes, like you were already grieving the part of him that wouldn’t open.

But the memory circled back anyway, again and again until it hollowed him out.

So over the next few days, he made himself scarce.

He started taking his meals earlier or later than the rest. He trained at odd hours, waiting until the gym was empty, lights dimmed and the silence so thick he could hear his own pulse.

He made himself scarce in your world.

When he passed you in the hallway (and it happened more than he’d expected) he nodded once, polite and neutral, careful not to linger or meet your eyes for too long.

He told himself he was giving you space. That it was what you wanted. That it was the right thing to do.

But when he caught the faintest trace of your perfume in the corridor, or heard you laughing from another room, warm and open and free, something twisted in his gut, sharp and cruel.

You were slipping away from him, and the worst part was that he was the one who had cut the line.

You handed him something real, something fragile and true, and he’d turned away, like if he didn’t name it or feel it, then he wouldn’t lose it. 

That was always the game. Keep everything locked down: don’t reach, don’t ask, don’t want.

But this time it wasn’t working.

He could shut it down all he liked, slam the doors, deadbolt his chest, but still, the memory of you kept bleeding through the cracks.

That last, soft line you left him with rang in his ears: “I hope you find what you’re looking for.”

You wanted that for him, even if it broke you. Even if it meant watching him find it in someone else.

And maybe he could find someone easier to lie to, who didn’t see right through him. But no one else would have your unique blend of softness and strength, patience and bravery. No one else would smile like you, smell like you, or look at him like you did.

So he straightened his spine the way soldiers do when their ribs are cracked, but there’s still a war left to fight, and he told himself, firmly, repeatedly, and uselessly, that this was for the best.

That if he didn’t let himself feel it, maybe it wouldn’t hurt so damn much.

*****

Sleep didn’t come easily anymore.

Not that it ever had, but now it wasn’t just the past clawing through his nights, it was you.

He lay on his back, still as stone, staring at the ceiling like he might find absolution up there. All it offered was the same silence he’d handed you.

That night, his sweatshirt had been waiting for him, hanging freshly laundered on his doorknob.

There was no note or explanation, but he knew it was from you. You were the only one he’d ever lent anything to. 

One night after a mission, when your hands were shaking and your words had dried up behind your teeth. You hadn’t asked for anything, but he saw the way your shoulders curled in, like you were trying to disappear. So he’d tugged the sweatshirt over his own head, and handed it to you. You put it on with such reverence, and he remembered how you smiled up at him.

He hadn’t known what to do with that smile so he pretended it was nothing more than a simple gesture. 

And he had let himself pretend that as long as you still had it, still wore it, there was some part of him you were choosing to carry.

But now it was back in his hands, because you didn’t want anything from him anymore. You had returned it like you were unbinding a thread he hadn’t realized was holding him together.

It wasn’t just a sweatshirt anymore. It was something that had touched your skin, something that had, even for a little while, lived in the hollow spaces between the two of you.

His thoughts circled like vultures: your voice, your eyes, the unbearable softness in your goodbye, it all played on repeat until it made something in him ache in a place he thought he’d numbed long ago.

You didn’t accuse him, didn’t ask him to explain himself, didn’t even call him a coward, though you’d have been right to.

You just walked away.

You were protecting yourself from him, from what he hadn’t even realized he was asking of you, and that gutted him.

He sat up and dropped his feet to the floor, elbows braced to his knees, hands curled into fists so tight the bones in his knuckles ached and metal ground against metal. There was a knot lodged behind his sternum, thick and immovable. His mouth tasted like regret, metallic and dry.

He heard your words again, soft and steady, still echoing like a ghost in his chest.

“I love you too much to pretend that being just comfort is something I could survive.”

Survive, you’d said, like loving him was a wound you wouldn’t walk away from.

And what had he offered you in return for that love?

No strings. Just comfort. Not commitment, not promise, just his body. He offered a place to pass through when you wanted a home. His throat ached. He tried to swallow around it and failed. He didn’t deserve the grace you’d given him.

You’d loved him. Maybe quietly, maybe carefully, but you had.

And he’d reduced you to convenience, a physical release. A way to take the edge off without the risk of being known. He’d made you small in his fear, when you’d been so much more to him. 

He hadn’t even seen what you were offering him until it was hanging left behind on a doorknob.

He gripped fistfuls of his hair, the motion rough and punishing. He didn’t try to push the memories away this time.

You waiting up for him after missions, curled on the couch, always half-asleep but never gone until you saw he was back. You never asked for details. You just looked at him, relieved to simply see him.

You laughed when he didn’t expect it, when he mumbled something dry or dark or absurd, and you’d throw your head back, eyes crinkling, like he’d given you something worth keeping.

You touched him like he was breakable: a hand on his shoulder in passing, a brush of your fingers against his wrist when you handed him a mug. All small things, barely there, but they’d made warmth spark in his chest. He’d ignored it every time.

You made him feel human and he’d offered you nothing real. The weight of that truth settled across his ribs like stone.

He didn’t even have the energy to lie to himself anymore, didn’t try to rationalize it or reframe it or tell himself you were asking for too much.

He knew you weren’t. You were only asking for what you deserved. And you deserved to be chosen, not just needed, or tolerated, or touched in the night and ignored in the day.

He hadn’t chosen you, he’d chosen fear. He’d chosen distance and control, because loving you would have meant surrendering something he wasn’t sure he knew how to let go of.

He hadn’t said no to love, he hadn’t even seen it. It had been offered to him in hands that had only ever reached for him gently, and he had been blind to it.

He leaned back, head thudding softly against the cool wall behind his bed. He exhaled hard, eyes closing.

You’d seen something good and worth loving in him. And he’d looked at that gift and spat on it; not out of cruelty, but because he didn’t know how to accept it without breaking it.

And now your hands were gone and his were empty.

He thought the silence would be better than the weight of loving someone he might lose, thought it was safer to keep you at a distance than to risk falling short.

But he’d been so damn wrong. 

The silence now wasn’t safety, it was grief.

You had offered him something so whole, something he didn’t think he deserved but now wanted more than he’d ever let himself admit.

And he hadn’t just turned it down, he’d made you feel like a placeholder and that made him sick.

He dropped his face into his hands, dragging them down slowly, like maybe he could scrub the truth out of his skin.

But it was in him now. You were in him, and it was too late.

Because when it came down to it, he hadn’t been strong enough to choose you.

And now he had to live with the echo of the love you tried to give him, that he’d thrown away like it was too heavy to carry.

*****

Bucky noticed in a thousand small devastating ways how you’d stopped waiting for him.

You didn’t linger anymore, not at doorframes, not beside the couch, not near the coffee pot like you used to, pretending to fix something or check your phone just to buy yourself a few more seconds near him. The silences between you used to hum with possibility. Now they didn’t hum at all.

You were still kind, still polite, still as warm with him as with everyone else. But the quiet intimacy that used to thread itself through your every glance, every softened smile, every half-whispered offer of “need anything?,” that was all gone.

You didn’t wait up after missions anymore. You didn’t ask if he wanted tea. You didn’t follow the sound of his voice with your eyes.

And he felt the absence of all those little things like internal injuries, unseen but slowly bleeding him out.

It wasn’t until he saw you laughing across the room with John that the ache sharpened into something undeniable.

You looked beautiful. You always had, but it was different now.

You wore something bolder that day, something that hugged your body in ways he wasn’t used to seeing, not because you’d never been beautiful before, but because now you weren’t hiding yourself. There was something deliberate in the way you held yourself, more confident, more alive. 

He sat in the far corner of the room, posture perfect, jaw still, expression schooled into neutrality. But inside, he was nothing but a raw wound, watching you lean into conversation, your fingers brushing John’s arm, laughing with abandon. 

He had no right to feel the way he did. And it wasn’t jealousy, though the resemblance was there.

It was despair.

Because you weren’t his. You never had been, but he lost you anyway.

And then, for just a second, you glanced over your shoulder and met his eyes.

It was fast and involuntary, a habit you hadn’t quite broken. Your gaze still sought him, but this time, it wasn’t with hope. It wasn’t with yearning. It was with a quiet, distant sadness.

You looked at him like someone who had loved him. And now you were someone who used to.

And still, your eyes didn’t blame him, just ached from mourning something you had no choice but to let go of.

You looked away and Bucky’s stomach turned.

He clenched his jaw, dug his fingers into the armrests, anything to stay grounded, to keep from getting up and crossing the room right then and there. No one noticed how hard he had to work just to sit still. No one saw how close he was to unraveling.

Because you’d been hurting, and he hadn’t stopped it. You’d been loving him, and he hadn’t seen it.

And worse, when you gave him your heart, not recklessly, but with the courage real love requires, he’d turned away. He hadn’t just missed the moment, he’d refused it entirely.

And now your smile didn’t curve toward him, your softness didn’t settle around him like a balm, and your kindness no longer reached for him first.

He had gutted something good and soft and pure.

And you had never once asked him to be someone he wasn’t. You had never asked for more than honesty, never asked to be anything more than held like you mattered.

You had loved him without condition. And when he asked you to accept less than that in return, you had been brave enough to refuse.

And now he understood that if you had been brave enough not only to love him, but brave enough to walk away when he failed to meet you where you stood, then he had to be brave enough to change.

Because what you gave him, every look, every small laugh, every moment of quiet presence, was a love that chose him every day.

And he hadn’t chosen you.

He had chosen emotional armor, because he still looked like a man who didn’t deserve peace.

But that was cowardice and you deserved more than a coward.

You deserved someone who would stand beside you and reach back when you reached out. 

You were still hurting. He could see it in the way your smile didn’t stretch the way it used to, in the slight stiffness to your shoulders, in the sadness that hadn’t yet left your eyes.

He had done that to you.

He pressed a hand over his chest to feel the pain there. He didn’t know when the ache inside him had changed from guilt to something deeper, pulling at him, but it was there now, undeniably.

He loved you.

And he wanted to be the one who loved you well.

Not just someone who needed you or took comfort in your touch when it suited him.

He wanted to be the man who earned your laughter, your trust, and your time. The man who stood beside you with his hands open, ready to accept what you had to offer, and offer himself in return.

The man who chose you, finally, fully, and without excuses.

The idea of reaching for you terrified him. He didn’t know if you’d reach back or if your heart had moved too far beyond him now.

But the idea of losing you entirely, that was unbearable.

So he sat in the fear, the regret, and the love. He let it in, let himself feel it all, without running or pretending this time.

You had given him something precious. You had believed in something better within him.

And he wanted to become it, for you.

You made him want to be worthy.

And maybe, if he was lucky, it wasn’t too late to try.

*****

He paced for a long time before he left his room.

Each pass across the floor felt heavier than the last, like his body was trying to convince him that silence was still safer than truth.

But he couldn’t live in that silence anymore, not after everything he’d realized and decided.

Flowers sat on his desk. He’d bought them on impulse that morning, after seeing them in the same sidewalk stand you always slowed near. Soft blooms in the color you gravitated to, as if your hands could already imagine holding them.

He picked them up, put them back down. His hands shook with the regret of wanting something he thought he’d already lost.

He’d practiced what to say more times than he cared to admit, but each attempt sounded stiff, too clean, like he was performing grief instead of living inside it.

He looked at himself in the mirror. His jaw was tight, his eyes shadowed. He looked like a man preparing for war. Only this time, the fight wasn’t to survive, it was to earn the chance to love.

He grabbed the flowers, then paused.

The note was tucked under the corner of his keyboard, half-hidden, folded down to a softened square. Don’t forget to eat, okay? You’ll feel like hell if you don’t. I left your favorite in the fridge.

It was a simple domestic thing, a care most people overlooked.

He’d kept it without thinking, unfolding it again and again, fingertips finding the crease in the paper.

Now he knew why he couldn’t bring himself to throw it away.

It had been a mark of your love, shown without spectacle or demand. And now it made him brave. 

You were curled on the couch in the common room, staring into space. Your posture betraying a tired that wouldn’t be fixed with sleep; it lived in the bones, in the heart.

He saw the way you tensed the second he stepped inside.

When your eyes fell to the flowers in his hand your face flickered, brief and bitter, a wound you didn’t bother hiding. You turned away, eyes closing as if bracing yourself for the worst.

As if he’d brought them for someone else.

As if you couldn’t survive being hurt by him so much, so soon.

He hated himself for that. Hated that you were expecting pain where you’d once looked toward him in hope.

He took a slow step forward, then another.

“I know I should’ve come to you sooner,” he said, voice rough and low. You didn’t respond, just stared at the flowers with a wariness he’d never seen from you before.

“I brought these for you,” he added, holding them out like they weighed more than they should. “And—” He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out the note, holding it up gently. “I wanted to show you this.”

Your brow furrowed slightly as you recognized the paper from weeks ago, eyes narrowing in faint confusion.

“I never threw it out,” he said. “Didn’t even know why I kept it at the time. But… now I do.”

You took both, slowly, like they might disappear if you moved too fast.

He let out a breath, shaky and uneven. His heart was pounding harder than it had in any firefight.

“I think I knew from the moment I saw this note that… you loved me. And I couldn’t handle that weight—being loved like that. 

“And so I offered you comfort, because I figured it was better than the nothing I felt I could give,” The words came out quieter than he meant them to, but they were the heaviest he’d ever spoken. 

“But all I did was make you feel disposable—like you were nothing more than a warm body to me,” he said, slowly, shame curling at the edges of his voice. “And you’ve never been that. You’ve never been anything less than everything.”

He paused, to let you see the honesty of it in his expression.

“I thought I was protecting us, by keeping things… emotionless. Simple. But—” he looked away, for a moment, but forced himself to meet your eyes again, “I was only ever protecting myself.

“You told me you’d only end up loving me more. And I didn’t say anything. I just sat there.”

He swallowed around the lump in his throat, trying to get the words out.

“But the thing is… I think I already did. Love you… that is. I just didn’t know how to name it. I didn’t know how to let myself have something that good—something that didn’t come with pain.”

The silence between you stretched, but it didn’t feel to him like rejection, it felt like you were listening.

“You were right to reject me. You gave me a hundred chances in the quiet moments, and I missed every single one. 

“And I’m so sorry that it took me losing you to finally admit that I love you.”

His throat worked around the weight of it, around the truth he should’ve said long ago.

“I had something rarer than gold—and I let it slip through my fingers. And if I’m too late, I’ll respect that.” His voice cracked and broke, still he took a quiet step forward and continued. 

“But I need you to know that I see it now. You deserve someone who chooses you. Not just someone who needs you. And if there's even the smallest part of you that hasn't stopped… I’d like the opportunity to be that. If it’s not too late, I want to try to be that.”

You said nothing for a moment, but your expression cracked in the way only honest emotion does.

Your hands trembled slightly as you looked down at the note in your lap, your thumb brushing the softened edge.

Then you looked up.

“There were days I thought you’d never come,” you said, voice quiet but steady. “And there were days I almost convinced myself I didn’t want you to.”

He nodded slowly; he deserved that.

You swallowed hard. “But I loved you. I did. I still do. And the only thing I ever wanted was for you to choose… me.”

Bucky knelt at your feet, still not touching, still giving you space.

“I see everything I was too scared to face before,” he said, his voice roughened by something close to awe. “And if you’ll let me, I’ll make sure you know that. Every day.”

Your eyes shimmered, your fingers curled tighter around the note, and your smile, small, tentative, allowed hope to bloom in him.

“I’d like that,” you said softly, the words trembling just slightly. “But I’m not sure I believe you yet.”

He nodded in quiet understanding, with no protest or quick promise.

“Then I’ll show you,” he said. “As long as it takes.”

The corner of your mouth lifted, not a smile, but something that might become one.

He didn’t reach for you, but he stood there, hands at his sides, letting you see him unguarded for once.

And you both let the silence sit between you, more heavy than it used to be, more real.

It wasn’t a clean beginning. But it was an honest one.

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