・・❥ || mirabelle (mira / belle / abel), eighteen, she / her, easily entertained, professional overthinker, dangerously nerdy, will 100% rant about everything (you’ve been warned)
・・❥ || warning : 18+ zone! unhealthy amount of bucky barnes x reader content ahead + please read responsibly, babes
・・❥ || come talk to me, please? ask, ramble, blurb, requests, or scream about literally anything. absolutely yes. all caps yes. always yes. infinite yes. technically, everything is open until i inevitably drown in them (don't be shy)
・・❥ || wanna be tagged? just say the word and you're officially on the list
・・❥ || love y'all dearly — hi, hello, welcome to my humble abode of madness
・・❥ || M A S T E R L I S T
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#˚₊‧꒰ა ☆ ໒꒱ ‧₊˚ luv'soneshot — standalone fics for when inspiration hits out of nowhere ⚡
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#˚₊‧꒰ა ☆ ໒꒱ ‧₊˚ luv'showell — everything related to my howell!reader 🌙
❝ think of this blog as a sleepover! so much fun but with the perfect amount of drama. anyway... stay hot, stay hydrated, stay obsessed. mwahh! ❞
ꜱᴜᴍᴍᴀʀʏ › bucky barnes is used to getting any girl he sets his sights on. a smile, a wink, a smooth line, it’s never taken much effort. then he meets you.
ᴘᴀɪʀɪɴɢ › 40s!bucky x female reader
ᴄᴏɴᴛᴇɴᴛ ᴡᴀʀɴɪɴɢꜱ › 18+ MDNI strangers to friends to lovers, some fluff, flirty/playboy bucky turned loverboy, innocent reader, kinda uptown girl but not like rich or anything, smoker bucky, mentions of alcohol, brief angst, porn with SOME plot, but also plot what plot, lowk just porn with feelings, smut, p in v, virgin/inexperienced reader, lowk possessive bucky, minor corruption kink? fingering, oral sex ft munch bucky, dirty talking bucky barnes, pussy pronouns, missionary + bow, unprotected sex, creampie, soft aftercare, cigarettes after sex, not beta read we die like men.
ᴡᴏʀᴅ ᴄᴏᴜɴᴛ › 10.7k
ᴀᴜᴛʜᴏʀꜱ ɴᴏᴛᴇ › 40s bucky how i love you so. ps i did nawt want to proofread this so i skimmed it not even gonna lie... #sosorry like once im done writing something i want it OUT of my head asap i dont want to look at it anymore. anyways thank u for reading enjoy xx
The bell above Moretti’s Candy Shop jingles sharp and bright when Bucky shoulders his way inside, carrying the cold autumn air in with him.
“Trouble,” Mrs. Moretti sighs immediately from behind the counter.
Bucky grins, easy as breathing. “You say that like you ain’t happy to see me.”
“I’d be happier seein’ the ten cents you still owe me, Barnes.”
“That was one time.”
“It was three times.”
The shop smells like chocolate and sugar and roasted nuts warming beneath glass lamps. Outside, Brooklyn groans along in its usual rhythm, trolley bells, men hollering across sidewalks, kids sprinting through puddles but in here everything feels softened somehow. Golden. Like the world’s been wrapped in wax paper and tied shut with string.
Bucky leans against the counter, halfway through another smart remark when he notices you.
And just like that, the rest of the room disappears.
You’re standing near the chocolate display case with your gloves folded neatly in your hands, staring through the glass with such genuine wonder it almost knocks the grin off his face.
Not overwhelmed or indecisive, you seem almost enchanted.
Your eyes drift slowly over every row like each candy’s worth considering properly. Caramels. Peppermints. Chocolate turtles. Then your attention catches on the Whoppers display, and stays there.
He almost laughs when he follows your gaze to them.
Cute, he thinks immediately.
Girls usually notice him first. Usually there’s lipstick smiles and fluttering lashes before he’s even crossed the room. He knows what he looks like, knows how his grin lands, knows exactly how long to hold eye contact before women start leaning toward him without realizing it.
But you don’t notice him at all. You’re still staring at the candy like it might hold the secrets of the universe.
Something about that hooks into him immediately as he steps over.
“Those your favorite?”
You blink hard, startled from your thoughts, then turn toward him.
And there it is.
That little pause that every girl gives him, but this one seems different. Not because you recognize him as handsome or because you’re flustered, you just hadn’t realized anyone was speaking to you.
“Oh,” you say softly. “Yes.”
Your voice is gentler than he expected, careful around the edges.
Bucky pushes off the counter and steps closer. “Want a box?”
Your eyes widen instantly. “No, it’s quite alright, I couldn’t possibly.”
“C’mon, doll.” He flashes the smile that usually works without fail. “How could I deny such a sweet girl a sweet treat?”
He expects blushing, maybe a nervous laugh. Instead, you look genuinely conflicted over the idea of him spending money on you.
“Well that’s very kind,” you tell him honestly, “but you really don’t have to.”
Bucky stares at you for half a second, then another.
Well. That’s new.
“Mrs. Moretti,” he calls, unable to stop grinning now, “gimme a box of Whoppers before this sweetheart talks herself outta it.”
Mrs. Moretti snorts loudly but slides the candy across the counter anyway.
“And a cannoli,” Bucky adds quickly.
Your head turns toward him. “Oh, no, truly—”
“Too late.”
He pays before you can protest again, then holds the small paper bag out toward you with exaggerated politeness.
“You really got this for me?” you ask.
“Nah,” he deadpans. “Bought it for the guy behind you.”
You laugh and that sound lands somewhere directly under his ribs. Not loud or practiced. Just soft and surprised, like you hadn’t expected him to be funny.
Bucky suddenly wants to hear it again.
Outside, Brooklyn glows amber beneath the sun. Laundry lines sway overhead between brick buildings. Somewhere down the block, someone’s radio crackles out jazz muffled by static.
You take a careful bite of the cannoli as the two of you step onto the sidewalk, then immediately freeze as cream spills out the other side onto your glove.
“Oh goodness—sorry,” you murmur, horrified. “I made a mess.”
Bucky looks at you.
At the powdered sugar dusting your mouth, the cream threatening to drip onto your sleeve, the embarrassment blooming across your face over something so small.
His brain stops functioning.
“Don’t apologize,” he says immediately, a little too seriously for someone he just met ten minutes ago.
“I just—”
“It’s a cannoli,” he says, clearing his throat. “They’re uh, they're structurally unsound.”
That earns another laugh. And there it is again, that strange feeling settling low in his chest, not lust exactly but something softer than that.
You wipe at your glove carefully, still embarrassed. “I’m making quite the first impression, aren't I.”
“Oh, believe me,” Bucky mutters before he can stop himself, “you are.”
But you don’t seem to catch it. Instead, you just smile politely and continue walking beside him down the sidewalk like this is all perfectly ordinary. Like handsome men buy you candy and pastries every day.
Bucky decides almost immediately that he doesn’t want the conversation to end, so he keeps finding reasons for it not to. He points out the bakery on the corner because “their cheesecake could start a war.” He walks slower whenever you stop to admire storefronts. He offers you his arm when an old woman barrels past with a grocery cart and nearly clips your shoulder.
You take it without hesitation.
“Oh,” you say softly, looping your arm through his. “Thank you.”
Bucky glances down at your hand resting against his sleeve and his heartbeat stumbles oddly.
Usually this part’s easy. Usually flirting feels like muscle memory. Lean closer, smirk a little, call her doll in that lower voice that always works. But you accept every bit of it with such innocent sincerity that it keeps throwing him off balance.
“You always this sweet?” he asks after a while.
You nod thoughtfully. “I do like sugar, yes. But I don't get to eat to very often.”
Bucky chokes on air.
“…Jesus Christ.”
Your brows pull together. “What?”
“Nothin’, doll.”
Because clearly you think he means literal sweetness, and somehow that’s even worse, or better. He can’t tell anymore.
The afternoon stretches unexpectedly around the two of you. You wander through Brooklyn side streets while the sun lowers warm and lazy across the buildings. You stop outside record stores and flower stands and little grocers with apples stacked in wooden crates out front.
And all the while, Bucky keeps trying.
He leans too close while talking and you just look up at him attentively. He calls you doll every other sentence and you smile like you think it’s genuinely affectionate. He flashes smirks sharp enough to cut glass and you return them with polite warmth, entirely unaffected.
“You’re very nice, Mr. Barnes,” you tell him eventually.
Bucky nearly trips over the curb.
“Nice?”
“Well yes.” You glance at him earnestly. “Handsome too, but mostly nice.”
Handsome too. Mostly nice.
Bucky stares at you outright now. Your voice held no teasing lilt, no coyness, you said it like you’re discussing the weather and something inside him short-circuits completely.
Because by now he knows for a fact you have no idea what he’s doing.
“Doll,” he says slowly, “you know I’m layin’ it on thick, right?”
You blink.
“…Laying it on?”
Silence.
Then Bucky laughs so suddenly and loudly a passing couple turns to stare, not in a mocking sense but genuinely delighted. You look confused enough that it only makes him laugh harder.
“Oh, sweetheart,” he says, shaking his head, “you really don’t know I've been flirting you?”
“I assumed you were being friendly.”
“I am bein’ friendly.”
“That seems normal.”
“Normal?” He stares at you. “I bought you candy fifteen minutes after meetin’ you.”
“Well… yes.”
“And?”
“You seemed very determined about it.”
Bucky rubs a hand down his jaw, trying unsuccessfully to hide another grin.
This should annoy him. It should. But instead he feels strangely fascinated, like he’s spent his whole life learning one language only to discover you speak something entirely different.
“So no fella’s ever taken you out before?” he asks carefully.
“Not really.”
The answer comes without self-pity, just honesty and Bucky’s chest tightens unexpectedly.
“What d’you mean not really?”
You shrug lightly. “I suppose men don’t usually notice me that way.”
Bucky stops walking altogether, making you turn toward him curiously as he just looks at you in complete disbelief. At your soft mouth faintly lined with your lipstick, at your bright eyes, at the way strangers glance at you as they pass without you ever seeming aware of it.
“That oughta be illegal,” he mutters.
You laugh again, warm and startled and sweet enough to ruin him slowly.
Somewhere between the candy shop and the golden Brooklyn sidewalks and the way your hand still rests trustingly against his arm, Bucky realizes something unsettling, he stopped flirting for sport an hour ago. Now he’s doing it because he genuinely likes the way you smile when he speaks. Because he wants to keep hearing your laugh mingle with the evening traffic. Because watching you move through the world feels a little like standing near candlelight, soft and gentle and impossible not to lean toward.
And Bucky Barnes is not known for leaning toward things gently.
Which is how, sometime after you’ve finished your cannoli and the Whoppers box is tucked safely under your arm like it’s something fragile, you both turn a corner and run straight into trouble in the form of Steve Rogers and the rest of the Commandos.
They’re all there—loud, sprawling across the sidewalk like they own it.
“Barnes!” one of them calls immediately. “Where’ve you been?”
Then Steve sees you and something in his expression shifts instantly into knowing.
“Oh,” Steve says slowly. “Oh, that’s where.”
Bucky groans under his breath. “Don’t start.”
Another one of them whistles low. “Barnes buying candy for a girl? End times.”
Bucky, of course, straightens immediately, protective without thinking.
“Leave him alone,” you add gently, glancing between them. “He’s just being kind to me.”
The group goes quiet for half a beat, then someone mutters, “Kind?”
Steve’s mouth twitches like he’s trying very hard not to laugh. Bucky, meanwhile, stops breathing properly, because you said it so simply. Like there was no other explanation, like the idea that he might be doing anything else never even crossed your mind.
He looks at you then and it’s unfair how easy it is to forget everyone else exists when you’re standing that close.
The Commandos keep talking behind him as they walk by, but Bucky doesn’t hear a word of it anymore.
All he hears is the soft cadence of your voice still echoing in his head.
Just being kind to me.
That word lands heavier than anything else today. Kinder than flirtation, kinder than charm, kinder than every practiced thing he’s ever used to get someone to look at him twice. He realizes, with faint shock, that he wants to be that to you. Not some impressive or smooth flirt, just kind.
Eventually Steve clears his throat loudly from behind you. “You walkin’ her home, Barnes, or standin’ there makin’ heart eyes in the middle of the sidewalk?”
“I am absolutely not makin’ heart eyes,” Bucky says automatically.
You glance up at him and his words die immediately.
“…We’re walkin’,” he finishes weakly.
“Good,” Steve says, already grinning. “Try not to break anything on the way.”
Bucky flips him off without looking away from you.
You don’t seem to notice the tension at all. Just adjust your grip on the candy box and smile faintly like this is still just a normal afternoon walk, and somehow that makes everything worse.
The walk to your building takes longer than it should.
Bucky slows down without meaning to and you match him perfectly.
Brooklyn shifts around you in its usual evening rhythm, windows glowing warm, radios humming behind curtains, the smell of dinner drifting out of open doors but between the two of you everything feels strangely contained.
“I had a very nice time today,” you say eventually, glancing up at him.
Bucky swallows. “Yeah?”
“You’re very kind.”
That word again.
It hits him harder this time, right in the center of his chest. He looks away for half a second, jaw tightening slightly like he’s trying to figure out how to respond to something he’s never been called before in a way that mattered.
“Kind,” he repeats quietly, like he's testing whether he deserves it.
You stop in front of your apartment building steps as the streetlamp above flickers softly, casting gold light over your face. For a moment neither of you moves, then Bucky shifts, suddenly more uncertain than he’s been all day.
“Can I ask you somethin’?”
“Of course,” you answer immediately.
He hesitates, this is the part where he usually knows exactly what to say, instead, he feels seventeen different versions of himself arguing at once. He steps closer without thinking, seemingly too close, making your breath catch faintly.
He notices it immediately, the tiny shift in your posture, the nervousness flickering across your face. You’re not used to this part. The closeness, the intention that comes with it.
“Sorry,” he says softer, almost immediately stepping back half an inch like he’s correcting a mistake he didn’t want to make, “I uh—.”
You exhale quietly, watching as Bucky drags a hand through his hair, looking away for a second like he’s regrouping. Then, carefully he speaks up.
“Can I do this properly?”
You blink. “Properly?”
He looks back at you then, all teasing gone for a moment.
“Can I take you out tomorrow night?”
Your eyes widen slightly.
“…Like a date?”
“Yeah,” he says, a little quieter now. “Like a date.”
You look at him for a long moment, then your smile returns—small, but real.
“I think I’d like that very much.”
Something in Bucky’s chest loosens all at once, like a knot he didn’t know he was holding.
“Yeah?” he asks, almost stupidly.
You nod and that’s it, that’s all it takes. Bucky steps back, already grinning like he’s lost all sense of self-preservation.
“Tomorrow,” he says, pointing at you like he’s making a promise he fully intends to keep, “I’m pickin’ you up at seven.”
“I’ll be ready,” you reply softly.
He turns to leave, walking backwards for a second because he can’t quite make himself stop looking at you. Then he finally turns around properly after you give him a soft wave goodbye, and immediately starts grinning wider.
The Commandos are still waiting down the street when he finds them. Steve takes one look at his face and sighs.
“Oh no.”
Bucky doesn’t even try to hide it. He shoves his hands in his pockets, still smiling like an idiot.
“Fellas,” he says lightly, “I’m in serious trouble.”
Bucky doesn’t sleep much that night, at least not properly.
He lies on his back staring at the ceiling, replaying the day in fragments he can’t seem to organize into anything sensible. Your voice, your laugh. The way you looked at candy like it was something magical. And worse than all of it, powdered sugar on your mouth, cannoli cream on your lips and the way you’d apologized for it like it was a crime.
He turns onto his side, groans into his pillow, then sits up like the bed has personally betrayed him.
“Get it together,” he mutters to himself.
But the problem is… he is together.
That’s the issue. He just isn’t used to what it feels like when someone looks at him like he’s safe instead of interesting. So in the morning, Bucky Barnes does the only thing he can think to do, be a man of his word.
He decides to do it properly.
No shortcuts, no charm tricks, no easy grin and leaned-in confidence.
A real date.
Which is how Steve finds him hunched over a small, slightly chaotic pile of wildflowers behind a Brooklyn fence line.
“Are you pickin’ flowers now?” Steve asks flatly.
Bucky doesn’t look up. “Shut up.”
Steve leans against the fence post, arms crossed. “That for the girl?”
“Yes.”
“You know you could just buy ‘em like a normal person.”
“I don’t have money right now for fancy bouquets.”
“That’s not the point.”
Bucky finally straightens, holding the uneven bundle like it might fall apart if he breathes wrong. “It is to me.”
Steve studies him for a long moment, something softer flickering beneath the teasing.
Then he sighs. “You’re in trouble, pal.”
Bucky huffs. “Yeah. I said that already.”
But he doesn’t feel like running from it, not even a little.
By the time evening rolls around, he’s checked his reflection in every shop window he passes twice. He fixes his tie, adjusts his jacket, runs a hand through his hair, then immediately second-guesses it and smooths it back down again. The flowers are wrapped in paper he stole, respectfully stole, from a corner stand. They’re not perfect, a few stems are uneven, one bloom is slightly bent.
He hopes they’re enough.
Outside your building, Bucky pauses as he exhales once. Then knocks.
When the door opens, everything inside him stops. You’re standing there in soft light, hair pinned back neatly, expression shifting the moment you see him. And you light up like it’s involuntary.
Bucky forgets how to breathe for a second.
“Hi,” you say, smiling.
“Hi,” he manages back.
Then he lifts the flowers slightly, suddenly unsure of everything in the universe.
“Those are for me?” you ask, voice soft with surprise.
“Unless your neighbor’s awful pretty,” he says automatically.
You laugh, stepping forward immediately to take them.
“They’re beautiful,” you murmur, already burying your nose in them gently. “Oh… and they smell wonderful.”
Bucky watches you like he’s forgotten how to look anywhere else.
“I, uh,” he starts, then clears his throat. “Yeah. Picked ‘em myself.”
“Really?”
“Yeah.”
Your smile softens in a way that makes him feel strangely proud.
“I’ll find a jar,” you say quickly. “Wait just a moment.”
You disappear inside, flowers clutched carefully to your chest like they’re something priceless. Bucky stays standing there in the doorway slightly stunned. He hears movement inside, cabinet doors opening, water running, your quiet little hum as you arrange them.
He doesn’t realize he’s smiling until his cheeks start to hurt.
Before you leave, your sister appears briefly in the hallway. Older, sharper-eyed. The kind of woman who looks like she’s already decided what kind of trouble someone is before they speak.
Her gaze lands on Bucky immediately.
“Bucky Barnes?” she asks.
He straightens instinctively. “Yes, ma’am.”
She looks him over once then turns to you.
“Can I talk to you for a second?”
You hesitate. “Of course.”
She pulls you aside just enough that Bucky can’t hear everything, but not enough that he doesn’t feel it. Her voice is lower when she speaks.
“Be careful." She says.
You blink. “What?”
“Boys like him don't settle down. Sure he’s charming and handsome, but he's just a sweet talker.” Her mouth tightens. “He just wants a good time, so don’t go getting your hopes up.”
Bucky can’t hear the exact words, but he sees your expression shift slightly and something in his stomach turns uneasy.
When you return, you’re still smiling—but quieter now, careful in a way you weren’t before.
“Ready?” you ask him.
“Yeah,” he says, though his voice comes out softer than he means it to.
Dinner settles into something Bucky doesn’t recognize at first.
It’s quiet.
Not empty, but softened around the edges like the whole world has decided to behave itself for once. Soft jazz drifts from somewhere near the ceiling, curling through candlelight and clinking silverware. The room hums with conversation that never quite reaches your table.
And for the first time all day, Bucky Barnes isn’t scanning anything. His eyes aren't darting around the room looking for exits or other women, something quick to catch his attention.
Just you.
You, sitting across from him with your hands wrapped around a glass of water like it’s something grounding. You, talking in that gentle, thoughtful way of yours that keeps catching him off guard. He realizes halfway through your story about your aunt’s ridiculous attempt at baking bread that he hasn’t looked away once.
Not once. And maybe worse, he doesn’t want to.
You laugh at your own memory, shaking your head slightly. “It was practically a brick. We had to slice it with a knife meant for meat.”
Bucky smiles without thinking. “Sounds dangerous.”
“It was emotionally damaging.”
That makes him laugh for real.
And then you smile back at him, that small, bright, effortless smile and something in his chest shifts again. Because he likes this, not the performance of him, not the usual rhythm of charm and response and winning someone over. He likes this.
You talking, rambling softly when you get comfortable, pausing like you’re thinking too hard before continuing anyway. And every time you say his name, Bucky, like it’s just another word instead of something that usually comes wrapped in attention and expectation he feels it settle somewhere warm and unfamiliar.
Bucky Barnes, who usually knows exactly what he’s doing with people, finds himself doing something far more dangerous, imagining. Not in a loud way. In quiet flashes between bites of food and sips of coffee, a small bouquet of flowers on a table that isn’t a restaurant, you at a kitchen counter, hair slightly messy, laughing at something he said. A door opening at the end of a long day and you looking up like it matters that he came home.
He shifts slightly in his seat, almost like the thought physically disorients him.
Impossible things.
And yet they come anyway.
After dinner, the night pulls the two of you deeper into Brooklyn’s glow. Neon signs flicker awake, streetlamps paint everything gold and blue. Somewhere down the block, music spills out of a club like a living thing.
“You seen the new picture show over on Fulton?” Bucky asks as you walk.
You shake your head. “No.”
“Then you’re goin’.”
You glance up at him. “Is that an order?”
“Absolutely.”
You laugh softly, like you’re still not used to how easily he says things like that. The theater is older with slightly worn velvet seats, the faint smell of popcorn and wood polish, flickering light that makes everything feel softer than it should. Bucky buys the tickets without hesitation, you try to argue but he ignores you in the best way possible.
Inside, you sit close but not touching. Close enough that he’s aware of you constantly, that every small movement you make registers like it matters.
Halfway through the film, something changes on screen, the lights dim all soft and emotional, the kind of scene that doesn’t need words. He feels you go still beside him and when he glances over, your eyes are glossy in the dim light.
You’re trying to be subtle about it. You are not succeeding.
Bucky doesn’t say anything, just reaches into his pocket slowly and pulls out his handkerchief and without a word, gently offers it toward you.
You turn toward him and for a moment, neither of you moves. Then you take it carefully, fingers brushing his and in the dark, you smile at him softly. Like he did something important without realizing it. Bucky looks back at the screen, but he doesn’t see it anymore, he just feels the moment settle between you like something fragile and real. And he never wants it to end.
The picture ends on a cliffhanger that has the whole theater groaning as the lights flick back on. Outside, the city opens up again. Cool night air, bright lights reflecting off wet pavement. The distant echo of music from clubs and cafés and street corners all blending into one living rhythm.
You walk beside him slowly, a little quieter now that the night has come to its end.
Bucky notices.
He glances down at you. “You alright?”
You nod. “Yes. It was… very nice.”
“Yeah?”
You smile faintly. “You’re very kind.”
That word again.
Kind.
It lands differently now. He doesn’t know why, maybe it’s the way you say it like it still surprises you, like it still feels new. Bucky opens his mouth to respond, but you stop walking. You've tried to fight it all night, tried to push the words far back into your head. But everything feels like a double edged sword, and if you don't do something now, you'll both get cut.
“I just…” you start softly, then hesitate.
He turns toward you fully.
You look down at your hands. “You really don’t have to pretend with me.”
Bucky blinks. “Pretend?”
You glance up, nervous now. “I know boys like you don’t mean anything by this sort of thing.”
Silence. It drops so fast it almost feels physical.
Bucky stares at you and for the first time all day, his expression isn’t teasing or amused or carefully controlled. It’s hurt, deep, immediate and unmistakably hurt.
“Boys like me?” he repeats slowly.
You realize instantly something is wrong.
“I didn’t mean— I just meant—”
He gestures vaguely between the flowers, the dinner, the theater still glowing behind you both.
“You think I do this with every girl?”
Your mouth opens, then closes again. Because you don’t know, you just assumed, because your sister said he’s Bucky Barnes and people talk about him like they know him before he even speaks.
“Sweetheart,” he says quieter now, but sharper in a different way, “I picked those flowers myself.”
You freeze and he exhales through his nose, looking away for a second like he’s trying to steady something in himself.
“I ain’t ever done this before,” he admits. “Not like this.”
That hits harder than anything else tonight, you stare at him now, like you’re recalibrating something you thought you understood.
“But everyone says—” you start.
“Yeah. I know what everyone says.” Bucky cuts in immediately, voice low. "But I only do this unless I mean it."
The street hums around you both, cars pass by, music drifts on the wind, lights flicker in the distance. But between the two of you, everything feels suddenly suspended. The silence doesn’t leave right away, it just changes shape. It stretches between you and Bucky in the middle of the sidewalk, softened only by passing headlights and the distant laugh of strangers who don’t know they’re walking through something fragile.
Bucky doesn’t look away from you.
I don’t do this unless I mean it.
It should’ve sounded smooth and confident. Instead it just sounds… exposed. Because the truth of it sits heavier now that it’s out in the open. He watches your face carefully, like he’s waiting for you to decide something about him, and for the first time all day, he realizes that matters. Not casually, not in the way flirting usually matters, but in a way that sits deep under his ribs and doesn’t move.
Your expression is quiet, thoughtful in that way you get when you’re trying to understand something honestly. He swallows once, then looks away briefly like the night air might help him think straighter, but it doesn’t.
It only makes everything quieter.
“I don’t like that,” he says finally.
You blink. “What?”
He gestures vaguely, frustration threading through his voice now—not at you, but at something older.
“What they say. About me.”
You don’t interrupt, you just listen and that alone is enough to make his chest tighten. Bucky exhales slowly, because this is new for him too. Saying it, not laughing it off, not playing it into something charming.
“People think they’ve got me figured out,” he says. “Think I just—” he huffs a short laugh without humor, “—go around Brooklyn collecting girls like it’s nothin’.”
His jaw tightens slightly.
“And maybe I used to let ‘em think that.”
That lands differently in the air between you.
“But I’m tired of it,” he says quietly.
Bucky continues before he can talk himself out of it.
“Tired of it all blurring together,” he admits. “Tired of it not meaning anything.”
His eyes flick over your face again, more careful now, more intentional.
“And I think…” He hesitates, like the next part is the hardest thing he’s said all night. “I think I’m tired of not being taken seriously.”
That one settles heavier. You don’t speak yet. So he keeps going, because stopping now feels impossible.
“Maybe I don’t wanna be that guy anymore.” His voice drops slightly.
That guy. The one people assume things about, the one who never stays, the one who never gets understood correctly because no one bothers to look twice. The words hang there, raw and unpolished.
You shift slightly on your feet and when you finally speak, your voice is soft.
“What kind of guy do you want to be then?”
Bucky stills.
That question shouldn’t hit as hard as it does, but it does, the way you asked him like you really want to know, the way your eyes never leave his as he looks at you. The city lights catch your face in soft gold and shadow, painting the curve of your cheekbones, the faint red of your lips still slightly brighter from the theater lights, the way you stand there holding his honesty like it’s something you’re willing to carry for a moment without dropping it.
And something inside him clicks. Like a door deciding it’s been open long enough to let something new inside. Bucky takes a slow breath, then another and when he speaks again, his voice is quieter than before.
“The guy,” he says, nodding faintly toward you like the answer has been standing in front of him all night, “that gets to do this with you every night for the rest of my life.”
Silence falls again, but this one is different. It isn’t heavy or tense. It feels like something settling into place that neither of you fully understands yet, but neither of you wants to move away from.
Bucky doesn’t smile, not yet. He just watches you carefully, like he’s waiting to see if he’s gone too far. If he’s said too much, if the version of him he’s choosing now is one you can stand to look at. And for the first time since he met you in that candy shop, James Buchanan Barnes isn’t trying to win anything.
He’s just waiting.
For you.
"I think I'd like that."
Two months don’t feel like two months to Bucky Barnes.
They feel like a rhythm he accidentally fell into and never bothered climbing out of. Mornings start with the same thought: What time can I see her? Evenings end with the same realization: Not long enough. And everything in between just becomes space he has to get through.
He shows up at your apartment more often than he means to. Not in a dramatic way, just like he happened to be nearby. Which is a lie, he crosses half of Brooklyn for it.
“Bucky,” you’d say sometimes, opening the door already smiling, “you live nowhere near here.”
He’d shrug like it doesn’t matter. “Was in the neighborhood.”
“You were in the neighborhood three days in a row?”
“Brooklyn’s a big place, doll.”
You’d just laugh and let him in.
And that’s the problem. You always let him in.
Diners become routine. Milkshakes split between two straws that you pretend not to notice he always lets you have the first sip of. Walks that start with him offering his arm and end with your hand still resting there long after it’s necessary. Movie nights where you lean slightly closer each time you get nervous during a scene, and Bucky pretends he doesn’t notice how carefully you do it. Flowers every week. Sometimes wild. Sometimes bought if he could pinch it. Sometimes just picked from somewhere he absolutely shouldn’t have been picking flowers.
You always put them in a jar immediately. Always smile like they matter. And Bucky changes without noticing, he stops looking at other women entirely, not because he’s forcing himself not to.
Because he just… doesn’t see them the same way anymore. Not when you exist in his world now, softening all the edges.
Steve notices first, then the Commandos, then basically anyone who’s ever known him longer than five minutes.
“You’re smiling more,” Steve says once, watching him across a table.
“I always smile.”
“No,” Steve says, “you don’t.”
Bucky just shrugs. Because what’s he supposed to say? That he likes the way you say his name like it’s something you trust? That he’s started thinking about ridiculous things like whether you’d like a porch someday, or a kitchen with too much sunlight, or a life where he doesn’t leave as often as he does?
He doesn’t say any of it, but it’s there anyway.
Tonight, he’s early.
Which is stupid, because he’s always early now. He’s at the bar having a drink and smoke with the Commandos, but he’s not really with them.
He’s angled toward the door, elbow on the counter, sleeves already adjusted three times, hair smoothed back once, then twice, then abandoned entirely because it keeps falling anyway as Steve watches him with growing disbelief.
“You’re worse than a kid waiting for Christmas,” Steve mutters.
Bucky doesn’t look away from the door. “Shut up.”
“You’ve checked that door eight times in five minutes.”
“It might’ve changed since the last time I looked.”
“Bucky.”
“I’m busy.”
The door opens and he straightens instantly. Not you. His shoulders drop a fraction as he sits back down.
The teasing starts almost immediately.
“Two months huh?” one of them says, grinning. “This one’s got it bad.”
“Must be real good if Barnes is still around.”
“You finally settle down?”
Bucky rolls his eyes, but there’s a stupid softness to his mouth that gives him away immediately.
“Knock it off.”
The laughter builds.
“What’s the catch, Barnes?”
“C’mon, what are you gettin’ out of this?”
“Ain’t no way you’re behaving this long without somethin’ in return.”
Bucky exhales, finally turning fully toward them and for once, he doesn’t joke. Not even a little.
“Nothing’s happened between us yet.”
The table goes quiet. A beat. Then howling ensures.
“You’re kiddin’.”
“Celibate Bucky Barnes?”
“I never thought I’d live to see the day.”
Someone nearly chokes on their drink.
Bucky shrugs slightly, like it’s not a big deal, but his voice goes quieter when he adds on.
“I like her.”
That shuts them up for half a second longer.
“I don’t wanna mess it up,” he says, “by goin’ in headfirst.”
And just like that, the teasing explodes again.
“Look at him.”
“He’s gone.”
“Man’s fighting for his life.”
“You hear this? Barnes is soft.”
Bucky laughs under his breath despite himself, shaking his head.
“Yeah, yeah—laugh it up.”
And that’s when it happens, the door opens again, Bucky doesn’t look right away still half-laughing, still mid-protest, then he hears the sound of the room shifting slightly.
Someone going quiet and he turns. You’re standing just inside holding your bag, still in your coat and completely still. Not smiling, not walking toward him. Just listening. For a second, Bucky doesn’t understand then he sees it. Your expression. Something flickering there, uncertainty, confusion, something tightening at the edges of your face like you’ve just heard something you weren’t meant to.
His smile fades immediately.
“Hey,” he starts, already pushing his chair back.
But you don’t come closer. You take one step back instead, then another, quiet and careful.
“Doll—” Bucky stands fully now.
But you’re already turning to leave, the door swings open, and you’re gone. He’s out of the bar so fast it barely feels like a decision. Brooklyn air hits him like a slap, cold, sharp, and real and for a second he just stands there, scanning the sidewalk like the world might give you back if he looks hard enough.
“Doll?” he calls.
Nothing.
“Hi.”
He turns.
You’re a few steps down the sidewalk, hugging your coat tightly around yourself like you’re trying to hold yourself together with it. Streetlight catches your face in soft gold, but it doesn’t soften the expression there.
Not really.
Bucky’s chest tightens immediately.
He crosses the space between you in a few quick steps. “Hey—no, hey, listen to me,” he says, already shaking his head like he can undo whatever just happened inside by sheer force of will. “Don’t listen to those idiots in there. They don’t know when to shut up.”
Your gaze flickers up to him, then away again just as fast.
“It’s alright,” you say softly. “Really.”
But it isn’t alright, not in the way he knows you mean.
Because your arms are wrapped around yourself too tightly. Because your smile is there, but it doesn’t reach anything. Because you look like you’re already somewhere farther away than the sidewalk you’re standing on.
And Bucky notices everything, too much, sometimes.
“Hey,” he says again, quieter now. “You ready to go?”
A pause.
“…Yeah.”
That’s it.
No teasing, no warmth, no easy rhythm. Just agreement, and it scares him more than anything else tonight.
It's all wrong.
That’s the only way Bucky can think to describe it. Brooklyn is still alive around you, windows glowing, distant laughter, the low hum of traffic, but between you and him there’s a silence that feels heavy instead of soft. He walks slower than usual without realizing it. You don’t take his arm, but your hand finds his anyway just barely. Just fingers brushing, then settling.
Bucky holds it like it’s something fragile.
He keeps glancing at you, waiting for you to look back, you don’t. You’re staring down at your joined hands instead, like you’re trying to figure something out in them. And your thoughts, if he could hear them, would be too loud.
Maybe your sister was right.
Maybe this was always going somewhere you don’t belong.
Maybe he’s just being patient because eventually he’ll expect more.
And maybe you’re already disappointing him.
Bucky doesn’t say anything. Because something about your silence tells him words might break whatever thread is holding you upright right now. So he just walks you home, step by step, closer than usual and quieter than ever.
By the time your building comes into view, something in you has tightened so much it feels like it might snap.
You stop walking, Bucky stops immediately with you.
“Buck…” your voice is barely above the street noise.
“Yeah?” He turns toward you fully.
You swallow hard. “Maybe… we shouldn’t do this anymore.”
Everything stops. Bucky freezes completely, like the words physically catch him mid-step.
“What?” he says, but it’s not sharp, more confused than anything.
You look down, finally letting go of his hand so slowly, like it costs you something.
“I don’t think I’m good for you,” you say.
That lands harder than anything else tonight. Bucky stares at you like he’s trying to understand a language he thought he already knew.
“Sweetheart,” he says slowly, “where is this comin’ from?”
You shake your head slightly, still not meeting his eyes.
“You deserve someone who can make you happy,” you say. “Someone better.”
Bucky lets out a short breath like he can’t believe what he’s hearing.
“That’s not—no,” he says immediately, stepping half a step closer before stopping himself. “No, that’s not how this works.”
You finally look up at him and whatever he sees there makes his voice soften instantly. Because you look scared. Not of him but of yourself.
“You are the best thing that’s ever happened to me,” he says, like it should be obvious.
You blink, once, then again. And then it spills out of you before you can stop it.
“I can’t make you happy, Buck,” you say, voice cracking slightly. “I can’t give you what you want, I can’t—I can’t… make you feel good.”
Silence hits again, but this time, Bucky understands exactly where it came from. His expression changes all at once, his frustration disappears, his confusion sharpens into something quieter. Something knowing as the pieces fall into place.
The Commandos. The bar. The teasing.
“Oh,” he says softly. “Babydoll…”
The way he says it now is different.
“I want you,” he says gently. “I’m happy with you just like this. None of that matters to me anymore, okay?”
Your breath shakes slightly but you don’t look convinced. Instead, something inside you finally breaks open.
“Well it matters to me!” you burst out, voice suddenly raw. “I want to, I just—I don’t know how. And I'm scared you're going to leave just because I’ve never—”
You stop but it's too late. Bucky goes completely still and everything clicks into place so fast it almost hurts. Why you flinch sometimes when he gets too close. Why you always hesitate before a kiss even when you want them. Why you look like you’re bracing for something you think you’re supposed to be able to give.
Why you’re standing here right now looking ashamed of something you never should’ve had to explain.
“Hey,” he says quietly. “You’re okay.”
Your eyes are glossy now, but you’re still trying to hold it together. Bucky doesn’t move closer doesn’t rush you. Just stays right where he is so you don’t feel cornered.
“Your parents home?” he asks softly.
You blink, thrown slightly by the question.
“What? Oh… no. They went to my sister’s ballet recital. They won’t be back until later.”
Bucky nods once then gives you a small, warm smile and gently threads his fingers through yours.
“C’mon,” he says quietly, squeezing your hand just once, just enough to ground you. “Let’s go talk inside.”
Inside your apartment, everything feels quieter in a different way.
Not the heavy silence from outside but something softer, contained with warmth between you. You close the door behind Bucky like you’re sealing the world out, then immediately seem to remember yourself again, nervous energy flickering back in.
“Okay,” you say quickly, brushing a hand over your sleeve. “Um—this is the living room. Obviously. And that’s the kitchen, and—”
Bucky just watches you, following your voice like it’s something grounding. You move a little faster now, pointing things out like you need the space filled with words so you don’t have to think too hard about anything else.
“This is my mother’s glass cabinet, don’t touch that one, she’ll know, and—oh.”
You stop because Bucky is already in the kitchen holding two small glasses, and the apple brandy bottle.
He glances over his shoulder innocently. “What?”
You blink. “Bucky.”
He raises a brow. “What?”
“That’s my mother’s.”
“I know.”
“You can’t just—”
“I can,” he says simply, already pouring.
You let out a sound of disbelief. “You are unbelievable.”
He slides one glass toward you. “Relax, doll. I’ll replace it.”
“That’s not the point.”
“It is tonight.”
You stare at him for a second longer, then sigh, like you’ve decided arguing with him is pointless.
“Fine,” you say. “But you’re explaining this to her if she notices.”
“Deal.”
You hesitate, then take the glass anyway. That alone makes something in his chest ease.
You lead him toward your bedroom after that, slower now, more uncertain at the edges. Not running anymore, just settling. The room is small. Warm and lived in. A book on your bedside table, a folded sweater on the chair, soft lamplight that makes everything feel like it belongs only to you.
Bucky doesn’t sit right away. He just leans against the dresser, watching as you set your glass down carefully like you’re still trying to figure out what this moment is supposed to be.
You take a sip, then another. Waiting until your chest grows warm.
“I'm sorry about earlier,” you say quietly.
Bucky’s expression softens immediately. “What?”
Your fingers tighten slightly around the glass.
“I’ve… never done any of this before.” You glance up at him, cheeks warm now. “I mean—anything like this. Dating. Being… like this with someone.”
Silence stretches gently. Then, more spills out, almost like you need to get it out before you lose courage.
“And you were my first kiss.”
Bucky goes still in a way that isn’t shock, it’s something gentler and more careful. You rush on quickly, as if afraid of what the truth might do in the open air.
“I just thought you should know. In case I’m—awkward. Or—”
“Hey,” he cuts in softly as he pushes off the dresser and steps closer, slow enough that you can stop him if you want to.
You don’t.
“Look at me,” he says gently.
You do and his expression is steady now. No teasing anywhere in it.
"You don't ever have to apologize to me. For anything."
“I like you a lot, Bucky,” you say suddenly, like it’s been sitting in you too long to hold back anymore.
Something in his face shifts immediately, a small smirk tugging at the corner of his lips.
“I like you too, babydoll,” he says quietly.
Your breath catches.
You swallow. “I can’t promise it’ll be any good but—”
Bucky doesn’t let you finish, he leans in and kisses you. It's not rushed or demanding, just soft and gentle. Like he’s waiting for you the entire time, making sure you’re still there with him, still okay, still choosing this. When he pulls back slightly, just enough to look at you, your eyes are wide.
“Don’t…” he whispers, “don’t say that.”
You pause, slightly stunned by the kiss. “Okay.”
A beat, then, softer:
“Can I kiss you again?”
You hesitate only a second then nod.
This time, when he kisses you, it’s a little less uncertain, still gentle and patient. But warmer now, like something between you is finally starting to trust the moment instead of question it. He doesn’t rush you, doesn’t push for anything more he just stays close enough that you can decide how much you want.
And eventually, you do loosen up slowly. Like your shoulders finally remember they don’t have to stay tight. You laugh a little under your breath at something he mumbles against your lips, and he smiles against you in response. When you pull back again slightly, breath uneven, he rests his forehead briefly against yours.
“That okay?” he asks softly.
You nod again, then your voice goes quieter.
“I don’t know what I’m doing.”
“I do,” he says gently.
You huff a soft laugh. “That’s not really comforting.”
“It should be,” he replies, a hint of warmth returning. “I’m real good at not rushin’ things.”
And he is, he stays exactly where you need him to, no pressure behind his precense. Eventually, you end up sitting on the edge of your bed together, close enough that your shoulders brush. Your glass is forgotten somewhere on the nightstand and Bucky’s hand finds yours again without thinking.
"I want to try…" you can't make the words out with a deep red blush crossing your face. "And I trust you."
"Good." Bucky hums, pressing a soft kiss to your cheek. "We'll go slow."
When you shift slightly closer, he lets you guide the space between you, like learning something new together instead of taking anything from you. When your nose brushes his, you tug lightly at your sleeve, suddenly self-conscious.
“I feel like I should be… more dressed for this,” you admit quietly. “I don’t even know what I’m supposed to be wearing.”
Bucky looks at you like the question itself doesn’t make sense then he shakes his head slightly.
“Doll,” he says softly, “you could be wearing a potato sack and it wouldn’t matter.”
You blink at him as he leans in just a little, brushing a gentle kiss to your knuckles.
“Just you,” he says quietly. “That’s all I need.”
You nod as he kisses you again. The kiss started slow, almost hesitant, but the moment Bucky’s hand cupped your jaw, tilting your head just so, it deepened into something more. You'd heard of desire in life, how it can warp the thoughts and actions of even the most resilient. But this, this burning ebb and flow deep within you was something else entirely. It had to be. It was as if a switch flipped inside you, your body felt magnetized to his, pushing closer and closer until there wasn't an inch of space between you.
His lips were warm, insistent, and when he pulled back just enough to murmur against your mouth. "Can I touch you?"
You could only nod as his fingers traced a slow path down your thigh, the fabric of your dress bunching under his palm as he slid higher, his thumb brushing bare skin. You shivered, arching into him, your hands clutching at his shirt yearning for more.
Bucky smirked, catching your wrist. "Go ahead," he murmurs, guiding your hand down his chest.
Your thumb slipped beneath his shirt, your breath hitching at the hard planes of muscle beneath your fingertips. He was lean but solid, every ridge of his abdomen making your pulse jump.
His lips were still on yours when his fingers returned, teasing the damp fabric of your panties again. “Already this wet for me?” he mutters, voice rough against your mouth. “God, I can feel how hot you are through these.”
You whimper, arching into his touch. “Please, just—”
“Just what, sweetheart?” His thumb presses harder, circling your clit through the silk. “Tell me what you want.”
You gasp, fingers tightening in his hair. “Touch me properly—God, Bucky—”
“That’s it,” he growls, hooking his fingers under the waistband, dragging them aside. The first slow stroke of his fingers through your slickness drew a choked moan from your throat.
“Fuck, you’re dripping.” He drags his fingers up, pressing them to your lips. “Taste.”
You sucked them into your mouth, eyes locked on his as you licked them clean, and the groan that ripped from his chest was filthy.
“You’re gonna kill me,” he mutters, sliding two fingers back inside you, curling them just right. “Love how tight you are, how you squeeze me.” His thumb circles you clit faster. “Gonna cum already? That quick?”
You couldn’t answer, nails biting into his shoulder as pleasure coiled tighter, sharper.
“That’s it,” he urges, voice dark with praise. “Cum on my fingers, let me feel it babydoll.”
Your hips jerk as you shatter, his name a broken moan on your lips. He didn’t stop, fingers still working you through it until you were gasping, oversensitive and trembling.
He didn’t let you catch your breath just yet, licking his fingers clean before hauling you to the edge of the bed. One leg hooked over his shoulder, his mouth hot and relentless between your thighs, tongue lapping at your oversensitive clit.
“One more,” he murmurs, lips brushing your thigh. “Bet you can take it.”
Bucky wraps an arm around you, splaying his wide hand across your stomach, sinking his tongue into the slit of your cunt, curling it before going back to flick your clit. He groans against you, muffled by your skin as his free hand comes up, the pads of his fingers pressing into you.
"So fucking good babydoll," he groans as he feels you rock against his lips and fingers. "Bein' such a good girl for me."
The pressure coils tight inside you, your chest rapidly rising as your words are reduced into nothing but messy mumbles of 'Bucky' and 'Please'. He doubles down on his efforts, closing his lips around your clit as he arches and scissors his fingers inside you, his eyes locked up on you as he watches you crest over your high. Back arching off the bed as your thighs clench on the sides of his head, trapping him right where he wants to be. He brings you down with a gentle kiss to your pulsing clit, easing his fingers out and licking them clean.
"That was so much better... than I ever thought," you pant, still trembling from the aftershocks of your orgasm. Bucky hums against your inner thigh, pressing slow, open-mouthed kisses along your skin. His tongue flicks lightly over your oversensitive clit, just enough to make your hips jerk.
"Mm, you thought about this?" His voice is low, rough with amusement. "My sweet girl thinking dirty thoughts? Thinking about what it’s like to be touched, licked, 'nd fucked?"
You whimper as he teases you again, the words alone sending another shudder through you. His fingers stroke slow circles on your thighs, gentle but possessive.
"Tell me," he murmurs. "Tell me what else you imagined."
You barely have time to answer before his mouth is on you again, licking and sucking just right, his fingers curling inside you with practiced ease. The pleasure builds too fast, too much at once and you're cumming all over again, rolling through you in deep, relentless waves.
When it finally eases, you’re boneless, breathless, but still aching for more. A deep and burning need simmering just under the surface of your skin. "Bucky," you plead, voice raw. "Please."
He kisses his way up your body, slow and deliberate, before finally pulling back just enough to strip off the rest of his clothes. The sight of him, all hard muscle and dark hunger makes your pulse jump.
"Condom?" he murmured, fingers tracing the soft curve of your stomach.
You still, then hum to yourself. "Oh. I don’t have any."
"Shit," he breathes, biting his lip. "Do you think your sister has any hidden, or maybe your—"
"We don’t…" Your voice drops, gentle now. "I mean, if you’re okay with it… we don’t have to."
He goes utterly still above you, his pulse hammering under your fingertips. "You sure, doll? Docs say I'm clean as a whistle," he murmurs, brushing a thumb over your cheek.
"But I don’t wanna rush you into anything."
Your thighs press together instinctively, already aching again, needing more. "I’m sure, Buck. I trust you." You hesitate, then whisper, "And you can… pull out. If you want to."
A slow grin spreads across his face at your shyness, even as the hunger in his eyes burns hotter. "Okay, babydoll."
He kisses you again, deep and slow, one hand cradling your jaw like you’re something precious while the other guides himself between your legs. There’s no rush, just the thick press of him stretching you open inch by inch, his lips never leaving yours until he’s fully sheathed inside.
"Good?" he rasps against your mouth.
You can only nod, nails digging into his shoulders as he starts moving in long, unhurried thrusts that make your back arch off the bed. He licks into your mouth as his hips roll into yours, one hand sliding down to rub tight circles on your clit until you’re gasping, teetering on the edge. Every stroke hitting something deep within you that you didn't even know existed. A quick addiction began inside of you, something you wanted to never end.
Obscene sounds filled the room, the air thick with something sweet and warm and needy. Your hands never left his back, digging half crescents into his skin as you pleaded for more.
Then he stops.
You whimper in protest, but he’s already shifting, pulling out just enough to drag you onto your side. One of your legs hooks over his shoulder as he leans back, changing the angle completely. The first thrust punches a moan from your throat, it's all so much deeper now, his grip tightening on your thigh as he fucks into you with slow, deliberate rolls of his hips.
"Fuck," he grits out. "You take me so damn good."
Your hips rise to meet his thrusts, desperate for more, and the way your body clenches around him nearly makes Bucky lose it. His rhythm falters, a groan ripping from his throat.
"Fuck—you get so tight when I fuck you like this." He leans back just enough to let his gaze drop between you, his cock glistening with your slick as he drives into you again. "Go on, baby, look at it. You see that? Not a virgin anymore. Now you're all mine—you and this sweet pussy."
You're drowning in pleasure, barely coherent, but one word claws its way out of your throat.
"Harder."
Bucky obliges immediately, his thrusts snapping into you, the slap of skin echoing in the room. His fingers dig into your hips hard enough to bruise, his breath coming in ragged bursts.
"Mm, wonder how I should give you your first load," he growls, voice thick with lust. "Should I pull out and paint that soft tummy? Or maybe these tits?"
He palms your breast roughly, thumb flicking over your nipple. "Maybe I should put you on your knees and cum all over your pretty face—"
"No!" You tighten your legs around him, pulling him deeper with a frantic whimper. "Please—"
He chuckles darkly, sinking into you fully with a satisfied groan. "What, you want it inside?"
His next thrust is punishing, forcing a broken moan from your lips. "Sweet little pussy’s never been fucked before, and now she wants to be filled too?" His hand slides down to grip your ass, tilting your hips just right. "Greedy little thing."
You can only nod helplessly, your body wound tight around him, clenching and begging as Bucky fucks you toward over edge all over again. Even after he spills inside you, Bucky can't stop, won't stop, his hips grinding slow and filthy, milking every last drop deep into your fluttering cunt. His hands slide under your knees, folding you nearly in half, pressing your thighs toward her chest until you're spread obscenely open.
"Fuck, still so tight," he growls, watching where you're joined—his cock still buried to the hilt, your pussy dripping around him. "Touch yourself. Wanna feel you come again while I'm still inside you."
Your fingers shake as you rub frantic circles over your clit, oversensitive and whimpering, but you don't stop, can't stop. Bucky groans at the way your walls ripple around him, his thrusts turning shallow and possessive, forcing his cum to seep even deeper.
"That's it," he rasps, biting the side of your leg. "Make a mess for me."
You practially sob as you cum again, tears rolling down the sides of your face, cream mixing with his spend, leaking down to your ass as your body is overcome with wave after wave of pleasure. Bucky curses when he feels it, hot pulses of you squeezing him and suddenly he's hard again, slamming into you with a snarl as another orgasm rips through him.
Your legs tremble in his grip. Neither of you can move anymore, just wrecked and sticky and full, but Bucky still rocks into you lazily, refusing to pull out just yet.
"Fuckin' perfect," he mutters against your lips as he gently sets your legs down, your mixed spend leaking from your thighs.
The room soon goes quiet in a soft, yet heavy way. You feel your chest loosen with something new, something warm and gooey.
The lamp is still on. It turns everything gentle around the edges—the rumpled sheets, the scattered clothes on the floor, the faint sheen of warmth still clinging to both of you like the night hasn’t fully let go yet.
Bucky moves first, carefully untangling himself from the sticky warmth of your bodies pressed together. He leans over the side of the bed, rummaging blindly until he finds his pants on the floor, tugging them closer with a quiet huff.
“You stay right there,” he murmurs without looking back at you.
You’re already curled slightly into the sheets, watching him with tired eyes that still look soft around the edges, calm in a way that feels new.
He finds his shirt and brings it over to you, then pauses, thinking.
“Water,” he says to himself like it’s a mission.
He disappears into the small kitchen. You hear cabinets open, the faint clink of a glass, water running. When he comes back, he’s got a glass in one hand and something folded in the other.
He sets the water beside you first.
“Here,” he says gently.
You take it without protest, sipping carefully. Then he unfolds the cloth—damp, warm from the sink.
You blink at him. “What’s that?”
“For you,” he says simply.
And then, softer, “Just… stay still a second.”
He cleans your skin with careful hands, unhurried, like it’s the most normal thing in the world for him to be this gentle after everything. Like there’s no rush anywhere. Like the whole night has slowed down just for this.
You watch him instead of the ceiling now, he notices.
“Stop lookin’ at me like that,” he mutters.
“Like what?”
“Like I’m doin’ something impressive.”
You smile faintly. “You are.”
That makes him pause for half a second, just long enough to look at you properly again. Then he shakes it off, like he doesn’t trust himself to sit in that feeling too long.
“Stay,” he says again, softer, and gets up.
This time he’s gone longer. When he comes back, there’s a cigarette tucked between his fingers and a lighter in his pocket. He pauses at the edge of the bed like he suddenly remembers something.
“…Can I smoke in here?” he asks, already sounding like he knows the answer.
You tilt your head slightly, thinking. “Probably not.”
He huffs a quiet laugh. “That a no?”
“A probably no.”
He nods like he respects that, then immediately does it anyway but not in a careless way. He walks to the window, opens it wide, letting in the cool night air. The city noise spills in—distant traffic, laughter somewhere far below.
He leans out slightly, lights the cigarette, and inhales once before exhaling into the open air. You watch him from the bed, curious despite yourself.
“That smells… strong,” you say.
Bucky glances over his shoulder. “Yeah. That’s the point.”
A pause, then you sit up a little. “Can I try?”
That makes him turn fully now.
“Doll,” he says slowly, like he’s deciding whether to be responsible or curious.
You just look at him expectantly.
He exhales through his nose. “Alright. But don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
He crosses back to the bed, hands it over carefully. You take it like it’s something delicate as he watches you.
“Just… small inhale,” he instructs gently. “Not like you’re drinkin’ air.”
You try and immediately cough. Bucky laughs softly, not teasing, just amused and leans in quickly, patting your back once.
“Easy,” he says. “Easy, sweetheart.”
You glare at him between coughs. “That’s awful.”
“Yeah,” he agrees easily. “It is.”
But you still try again, more carefully this time, and he guides you with quiet patience until you manage it without immediately dissolving into another fit of coughing.
“There you go,” he murmurs, almost proud.
You hand it back to him, shaking your head slightly. He takes another drag, then leans back against the windowsill while you curl into the sheets again, watching him instead of the ceiling now.
After a moment, you let out a small laugh to yourself.
Bucky notices immediately. “What?”
You shake your head, still smiling. “Nothing.”
“That’s never true.”
You glance up at him, amused. “I was just thinking… I’ve had brandy, cigarettes, and lost my virginity all in one night.”
Bucky freezes for half a second, then exhales a laugh, low and disbelieving.
“…Yeah?” he says. “Well. How d'ya feel?”
You nod, still smiling like you can’t quite believe it yourself. “I think I’ve been corrupted by Bucky Barnes.”
That gets him fully now, he turns toward you properly, cigarette forgotten for a moment in his hand.
“Oh yeah?” he asks, a little softer now. “What’s the verdict?”
You look at him for a long beat, not a hint of shyness glinted in your eyes.
“I wouldn’t trade it for anything.”
Bucky’s expression softens in a way that has nothing to do with charm and everything to do with something deeper settling into place.
He puts the cigarette out and tosses it out the window, crawling across the bed to you, and leans down just enough to catch your face in his hand.
“You’re trouble,” he murmurs, pressing a kiss to your lips.
You smile against him. “You were trouble first. I was sweet as can be."
summary: After the mission of returning the infinity stones goes wrong, the power stone leaves you with something you can’t get rid of. You survive the exposure, but now Bucky can only survive you in small doses.
word count: 5.2 k
warnings: angst, hurt/no comfort, implied smut, no happy ending (kind of open), graphic depictions of physical stress, mentions of blood and medical trauma, separation/implied breakup, self-destructive behavior. | english is not my first language so I'm sorry in advance for any mistypo/grammar mistake.
a/n: may I say thank you to the lovely anon who made this request based on Smallville Lara and Clark’s last kiss? Honestly I cried a lot while writing this 🥀 I hope you guys enjoy it and I’m sorry in advance for what you’re about to read.
read in AO3
The quantum tunnel spits you out on Morag in 2014, and the first thing you notice is how quiet it is. Dead quiet. Just wind and ruins and the distant sound of waves.
"We've got forty-five minutes before the window closes," you say, checking th GPS device on your wrist. "The temple's half a klick north."
Steve adjusts his shield. "Stay sharp, we don't know what we're walking into."
Bucky's already scanning the perimeter, rifle raised. "Looks abandoned."
"It is," you confirm. "Quill still unconscious down there. We're early."
The temple is exactly where it should be—a massive structure carved into the cliff face, a fascinating alien architecture. The power stone it's placed in its pedestal, sealed in the orb, pulsing with barely contained energy.
"Okay," Steve says. "Nice and easy. We secure the stone, get back to the platform and—"
The explosion cuts him off.
You're thrown sideways, slamming into one of the temple pillars. Your ears are ringing. Through the smoke, you see them: Sakaraans, maybe a dozen of them, firing indiscriminately. They must have followed you when they saw the quantum tunnel.
"Get the stone!" Steve shouts, shield already deflecting blaster fire.
Bucky's at your side, hauling you up. "You good?"
"Yeah, go—"
Another explosion, closer this time. The temple shudders and you watch in horror as the pedestal cracks, the orb rolls free splitting open on the ston floor.
The power stone tumbles out, raw, uncontained, pulsing with enough enrgy to level a planet.
Everything slows down.
Bucky's moving toward it—he's a super soldier, he might survive the exposure—but you're closer. You're already running. You can hear him screaming your name, but you're faster. Your hands close around the stone, and the universe explodes… at least for you.
Purple lightning crawls up your arms, through your veins, behind your eyes. It's not pain, it's way too big to be pain. It's everything, all at once. Every star being born and dying, every moment that ever was or ever will be, all of it flooding through you at once.
You can hear Bucky screaming but you can't let go. If you let go, the energy discharge will kill everyone. Will crack the planet open.
So you hold on.
Four seconds. Five. Six.
You slam the stone back into what's left of the pedestal and the world snaps back into focus. You're on your knees, your hands are still glowing, purple veins crawling under your skin like lightning scars. Bucky's hands are on your face, he's saying your name over and over, frantic.
"I'm okay," you manage. Your voice sounds wrong, distant. "I'm okay, I'm—"
You pass out in his arms.
You wake up three days later in the med bay. Bruce is there immediately, shining a light in your eyes, checking your vitals. "Welcome back, how do you feel?"
"Like I touched an infinity stone."
"Well, you're not dead, so, that's a good start." He's trying for levity, but you can see the concern in his eyes. "The glowing has mostly faded, you've still got some residual marks, but they should disappear completely in another few days."
You look down at your hands. The purple veins are still there, faint now, like a spiderweb under your skin.
"Where's Bucky?"
"He's been here the whole time, I finally convinced him to go shower about an hour ago." Bruce hesitates. "He was… he didn't handle seeing you like that very well."
You're about to respond, when the door crashes open and Bucky's thre, hair still wet, looking like he's been through hell.
"You're awake." He's across the room in three strides, hands hovering over you like he's afraid to touch. "You're okay, you're—"
"I'm okay," you assure him. "Buck, I'm fine."
He sits on the edge of the bed, and you can see his hands shaking. "You stopped breathing twice. Did Bruce tell you that? Your heart stopped once, I had to watch them—"
"But I'm here now." You catch his hand, lacing your fingers through his. "I'm right here."
He lifts your joined hands to his mouth, kissing your knuckles. "Don't ever do that again."
"No more infinity stones, I promise."
He manages a weak smile before leaning down to kiss you properly. You don't notice the way his hand tightens on yours or the way his breathing picks up.
Twenty minutes later, he's vomiting in the bathroom.
Bruce runs every test he can think of. Bucky insists it's just stress, just the comedown from the mission, but you all know better.
It happens again the next day. You're sitting together in the common room, your head on his shoulder, and after thirty minutes he has to excuse himself. You find him in the hallway, pale and shaking, leaning against the wall.
"This is connected to the stone," you say.
"We don't know that."
"Bucky—"
"We don't know that," he repeats, more firmly. "Could be a hundred things, could be—"
He doesn't get to finish. His knees buckle and you barely catch him.
Bruce's diagnosis is clinical and devastating: you're still emitting radiation from the power stone. Not enough to hurt a normal person, but enough that Bucky's enhanced metabolism reads it as a threat. The serum is trying to fight it, which is tearing him apart from the inside.
"It should fade," Bruce says, but he won't meet your eyes. "In theory."
"How long?" Bucky demands.
"I don't know. The levels are decreasing, but slowly. It could take weeks, maybe months." He pauses. "Maybe longer."
"So what do we do?"
Bruce looks between you both. "You stay apart, minimize exposure until radiation dissipates to safe levels."
The silence is deafining.
"How much exposure is safe?" You ask quietly.
"Based on today's readings?" Bruce checks his tablet. "Five minutes. Maybe ten if he's had time to recover."
Five minutes. You only get five minutes.
After a few weeks, the lab tests proof that you're safe for fifteen minutes.
You measure everything now.
Bucky sets a timer on his phone every time he enters your room. When it goes off, he leaves without arguments or exceptions.
Fifteen minutes isn't enough time for anything meaningful. It's enough for "how was your day" and "I miss you" and one kiss before the alarm sounds and he has to go.
You start writing things down. All the things you want to tell him, but don't have time for. You leave notes in his room, he leaves notes in yours.
Thought about you today when I saw a cat stuck in a tree. It reminded me of that mission in Prague. -B
Sam made a joke about your hair, I defended your honor. You're welcome. -You
I'm counting down the minutes until tomorrow, always counting. -B
By week four, your time increases to forty five minutes, and it fels like a miracle.
You can have a meal together now… well, most of one. You learn to eat fast, to tlk while chewing, to fit entire conversations into the space between bites.
"Bruce says the decline is steady," Bucky tells you over breakfast. "If it keeps dropping at this rate, we might have a few hours in another month."
"That's good," you say, but you're both thinking the same thing: What if it stops? What if this is as good as it gets?
The timer goes off and Bucky's only eaten half his food.
"I'll finish it tomorrow," he says, kissing your forehead on his way out.
His plate sits on your table for the rest of the day. You can't bring yourself to throw it away.
By the sixth week, you got two hours, and it feels like the cruelest gift.
It's enough time to watch a movie—if you start it the second he walks in and he leaves before the credits roll.
It's enough time to have sex—once, and only if you're efficient about it, and only if you're both okay with him leaving immediately after. You try it once, the alarm goes off while you're still catching your breath. He kisses you and walks out, and you lie there alone in the tangled sheets and cry.
When the eighth week comes, you notice the increase is slowing down. Bruce shows you the charts, the curve is flattening. The rate of decrease is dropping.
"What does that mean?" Bucky asks.
"It means we might be approaching a plateau," Bruce says carefully. "A baseline level that won't decrease further."
"But it's still going down," you argue. "It went up forty seven minutes this week."
"Forty-seven minutes in seven days. Last week it was an hour and twelve minutes. The week before that, ninety minutes." Bruce looks tired. "I'm not saying it's definitely plateaued, but we need to prepare for the possibility."
That night, Bucky comes to your room. You lie together in your narrow bed, fully clothed, his flesh arm wrapped around you.
"We have thirty more minutes," you whisper. "We should talk about something."
"I don't want to talk."
"Then what do you want?"
"This." His voice is rough. "Just this, just you."
You fall asleep like that. Wake up four hours later to Bucky convulsing beside you, blood streaming from his nose and ears.
"You could've died!" You're shouting, pacing, because if you stop moving you'll fall apart. "You could've— do you have any idea what it was like, waking up and seeing you like that?"
Bucky's sitting on the edge of the med bay bed, still pale but recovering. "I fell asleep, it was an accident."
"An accident? You stayed for four hours, Bucky! Four freaking hours! Your timer went off and you turned it off instead of leaving—"
"I didn't—"
"FRIDAY showed me the logs!" Your voice cracks. "You dismissed the alarm six times, six."
The silence stretches between you.
"I wanted more time," he says finly.
"You could've died."
"I wanted more time with you." He looks up, and his eyes are red. "Is that so fucking terrible? That I wanted to fall asleep next to you? That I wanted one night where I didn't have to watch the clock?"
"Yes!" The word tears out of you. "Yes, it's terrible, because you're killing yourself for a few extra hours—"
"Don't you get it? It's not about hours!" He's on his feet now. "It's about us. Us being together… that's the only thing keeping me—"
The nose bleed starts.
You've been here too long. Twenty minutes arguing, and he's already over the limit.
"I'm leaving," you whisper.
"We're not done—"
"I said I'm leaving!" You're crying now, shoving at his chest before walking out.
You sink to the floor of the next room and finish the fight alone, screaming at an empty room.
Bruce calls you both into the lab. You know it before he speaks, he has a terrible poker face.
"The levels have been stbale for two weeks," he says. "No decrease, no increase. I think… I think this is it."
"It could still drop," Bucky argues. "Could just be longer plateau before—"
"It could." Bruce agrees. "But it's been twelve weeks. The radiation signature should've decreased more by now if it was going to." He pulls up a graph. "I think we're looking at a permanent baseline, aproximately three hours of safe exposure per day."
Three hours for the rest of your life. Three fucking hours.
"There has to be something else," you say, but your voice sounds distant. "Another treatment, a way to extract it, something—"
"I've consulted with everyone I can think of. Shuri, Helen Cho, Strange… There's no precedent for this. Infinity stone exposure on this scale…." Bruce shakes his head. "I'm really sorry."
You're aware of Bucky's hand finding yours, holding it tight.
"Three hours," he says. "We can work with three hours."
You don't answer.
That night, you sit in your room and do the math.
Three hours a day is 1,095 hours a year. Divided by 24, that's 45.625 days. You get 45 days a year with him… the rest, you spend alone.
If you live by 80—optimistic, given your line of work— and Bucky lives to be 150 because of the serum, you'll get 58 years together: 2,668 days total out of 21,170.
12.6% of your life together. The other 87.4% alone.
You're still staring at the numbers when Bucky walks in.
"Three hours a day is 1,095 hours a year," he says, and his voice is so carefully controlled it hurts to hear. "That's 45 days, we get 45 days a year together. Some couples do long distance and see each other less than that. We could— we could make this work, right?"
He's standing in the doorway, hasn't crossed the threshold yet. Even now, he's trying to preserve your time.
"Buck—"
"I wake up at 5, come here until 8. Then lunch, 12 to 1. Dinner, 6 to 8. That's three hours, we just split it up throughout theday. It's structured but it's— it's something." He's talking faster now, desperate. "We could meal prep on Sundays so we don't waste time cooking. We could— I don't know, we could read books at the same time so we have something to talk about during—"
"Bucky, stop."
"No." He takes one step into the room, just one. "No, I won't stop. I've done the math every possible way and this— this is what we have, so we make it enough, we make it—"
"It's not a life."
The words land like a physical blow. You watch him flinch.
"It's our life." His voice cracks. "It is what he have, and people leave with worse. People— people do long distance, people have—"
"People don't get poisoned by the person they love."
"Don't—" The word comes out sharp, ragged. "Don't make this about—"
"What if it gets worse?" You're on your feet now, and you can see the exact moment the timer his head starts counting. He's been here for two minutes. You have 178 minutes left today. "What if the plateau is temporary? What if three hours become two, and then one—"
"Then we'll deal with it."
"What if it kills you?"
"Then it kills me!"
The shout echoes in the small room. Bucky's chest is heaving, his flesh hand clenched into a fist, and you can already see it— the slight tremor starting in his fingers, the way his pupils are dilating wrong.
Five minutes. He's been here for five minutes.
"Get out," you whisper.
"No."
"Bucky, please—"
"No." He crosses the room in three strides, and you can see what it costs him. There's already a slight drag to his left leg—the serum's propioception breaking down. "You don't get to decide this alone… you grabbed that stone to save the mission, to save Steve, to save the entire goddamn universe. You think I'm gonna let that sacrifice be for nothing? You think I'm gonna just walk away after—"
He stops and sways.
Seven minutes.
"Sit down." You grab his arm— his flesh arm, careful now— and try to guide him to the bed. His skin is already too warm. "Damn it, James, sit down before you—"
"No," he's shaking his head and the movement seems to cost him. "Not yet. I can't—I'm not ready yet."
"You're already past your limit—"
"I know." His voice drops. "God, I know. I can feel it. It's like fire in my blood, did you know that? It burns. Everything burns when I'm near you."
Your breath hitches. "You never told me—"
"Because I don't care." He cups your face with both hands, and the metal one is whirring wrong, plates shifting and clicking out of sync. "I don't care if it hurts. I don't care if it burns— the only thing I need is you."
His knees buckle. You catch him, barely, and you're both sinking to the floor. His back hits the edge of the bed and you're kneeling between his legs, holding him up.
"I need one more time," he breathes out. "I need to kiss you one more time without the fucking timer, without counting the seconds in my head, without wondering if this is the one that finally—"
He doesn't finish. Can't finish.
"This is cruel," you whisper as your hands frame his face, and you can feel the fever radiating off his skin. "This is so cruel, letting you stay when you—"
"Then be cruel." His eyes lock on yours, and even unfocused with pain, they're still looking at you with so much love it hurts. "Be cruel, let me have this, let me—"
"It's killing you—"
"You think leaving me won't?" His metal had comes up—jerky and malfunctioning— and catches your wrist. The grip is weak. How could it be? His metal arm is never weak. "You think walking away and leaving without you won't kill me just as dead? At least this way I got to…"
His nose starts bleeding.
It's been ten fucking minutes.
"Please, stop." You sob, reaching for something to stop the blood, but he catches your hand.
"No, please, just—" He's pulling you closer, even though every instinct you have is screaming to push him away, to save him. "Just stay, please. I know we're out of time, I know this is it, I know tomorrow you're gonna leave and never come back, so just— god, please just let me have this."
"How did you—"
"I know you." His thumb brushes your cheekbone. "I know that stubborn look in your face… you've already decided. You're planning on disappear and going somewhere I can't find you, because you think that way you'd be saving me. But baby, I'm not gonna survive without you, you understand that?"
He's crying now, and the tears are pink-tinged. There's blood on his tears. That's new.
"I can't lose you again," he chokes out. "I can't be the one left behind again. I can't wake up and find out the person I love the most is gone."
"Then you have to let me go." You're crying too, your forehead pressed against his. "You have to let me be the one that walks away, because I can live knowing you're out there, somewhere, safe and whole and alive. But I can't live watching this kill you. I can't, Bucky, I simply can't."
"One more time," he whispers against your mouth. "Let me have one more time where I'm not counting… where I can just pretend we have forever."
"We don't have forever…"
"I know. And I know I'm past it, I know I'm gonna pay for this, I don't care."
And he kisses you.
It's not gentle nor careful. It's desperate and drowning. His mouth is relentless against yours, like he's trying to memorize the taste, the feeling, the way you feel together. Your hands are on his hair, on his face, feeling the fever burning through him.
The kiss tastes like copper and salt. And somehow you feel it like the one last thing you'll ever have in your life.
His body is shaking violently now. You can feel every tremor, every muscle spasm. His metal arm is now hanging useless at his side, but his flesh hand is still cupped around the back of your neck, still holding you close as his strength fails.
You break the kiss against to breathe and he makes this desperate, broken sound that breaks your heart and chases your mouth. "Not yet, not yet, please—"
"Bucky, you're—"
"I know." He kisses you again, softer this time, gentler. "Just one more time."
Another kiss, this one starts to taste like blood. His hands are sliding down from your neck, he's losing motor control and his eyes are rolling back. You catch him as he slumps forward, his full weight collapsing into you.
"No, no, no…" You're holding him, lowering him down to the floor, cradling his head. "FRIDAY! Get Steve here! Get Bruce! Please someone—"
Bucky slurs something low, barely conscious. You look down at him with tears in your eyes. "Please, please, stay with me—"
But he's out.
You lay down, screaming until your throat hurts for what it feels like forever, even though it only has been two minutes.
You're still holding him when Steve and Sam crash through the door. Bruce arrives a bit later to the med bay. They try to pull him from your arms and you won't let go.
"How long?" Bruce asks quietly, already prepping an IV.
Your voice barely comes out and sounds distant. "Fifteen minutes, maybe more…"
Steve's face go white. "Jesus Christ."
"Get her out of here," Bruce orders and Sam pulls you away gently.
You watch from the doorway as they work in him. Watch as they load him onto a gurney and wheel him past you to medical.
His metal arm is hanging off the side of the gurney, completely loose. Blood is still trickling from his nose. But on his face, even unconscious, there's this ghost of a smile.
Like it was worth it.
You slide down the wall in the empty hallway and sob, praying in silence for him to be okay.
When Steve finds you an hour later, you're still there. Still staring at the same spot where they took him away.
"He's stable," Steve says quietly, sitting down beside you. "He's gonna be okay…"
You don't answer, looking down at your hands.
"Bruce says the exposure set him back weeks, maybe months. He will need time to recover before…" He trails off but you already know what he means.
Before you can see each other again.
"I'm leaving," you say. Your voice is flat, empty. "Tomorrow, somewhere he won't find me…"
"He'll look."
"I know." You finally look at Steve. "That is why I need you to stop him. You need to make him understand that this is— this is the only way I know how to save him."
Steve remains in silence for a long moment. Then: "He's not gonna forgive you for this."
You close your eyes, leaning your head on the wall. "…But at least he'll be alive."
The next morning, you're gone.
You leave a note on his bedside table in medical, anchored down by a small locket with your initials and a picture of you both inside. You took his dog tags in exchange. The paper is covered in your handwriting, and in some places the ink is smudged.
Bucky,
I'm writing this while you're still unconscious, and I'm trying not to look at you, because if I do, I won't be able to leave. So I'm staring at this paper instead, forcing my hand to move and trying to get all of it out before I lose my nerve.
By the time you read this, I'll be gone. And I need you to understand that this isn't me running away from you. This is me running forward the only future where you survive.
I love you. I love you so much it feels like it's burning me from the inside out. I love the way you still sleep on the left side of the bed just because I asked you once to do so because I felt more comfortable sleeping on the right. I love how you pretend you don't like when Sam calls you "Buckaroo" but I can see you trying not to smile. I love that you learned how to braid hair just so you could braid mine on the nights we actually had time together.
I love you for fighting so hard, for pushing your limits for wanting me badly enough to hurt yourself. But that's exactly why I can't stay.
Last night I watched you almost die in my arms just for some extra time with me. I felt your heartbeat falter under my hands, I saw the blood and I saw you smiling unconscious when they were taking you to the medbay. And that's how I know you're never going to stop. You'll never choose yourself over me. You'll push and push until there's nothing left, and I will have to watch you fade.
I can't do that, Buck. I can't let the person I love most in this world destroy himself for stolen moments and rationed hours. I can't live knowing that every kiss might be the one that finally kills you.
So I'm choosing for the both of us. I'm doing the thing you can't do.
I'm leaving. And I need you to let me go.
I know you're probably already planning how to find me. I know Steve is probably going to help you, and if they ever find me Sam is going to yell at me for breaking your heart, and you're going to pull every favor and every resource until you track me down.
Please don't. I'm begging you baby, please don't look for me.
I know it's not fair to ask, I know I don't have the right, but I'm asking anyway because I need you to live. I need you to have a full life without timers and blood and goodbye kisses that might be the last one.
You've spent so much time being a weapon, being used, being told you don't get to choose. So I'm giving you a choice now: you can spend the rest of your life chasing a ghost or you can let me be the one that got away. You can hold on the hurt or you can let it make you strong enough to move forward.
You probably already know which one I'm hoping you'll choose.
Be happy, James Buchanan Barnes. Be reckless and stupid and alive. Get a cat. Let Sam teach you how to use social media, let Steve drag you to those museums you always pretend to hate. Flirt with someone at a coffee shop, have a one night stand, fall in love again.
Live the life I can't give you.
I'm sorry I couldn't be strong enough to stay. I'm sorry for choosing this way. I'm sorry for every fight we won't have and every meal we don't share and every tomorrow we won't get.
But most of all I'm sorry that loving me turned into something that could kill you.
I'm serious, James, don't look for me. This is the only way I know how to save you.
Always yours, even from far away.
When Bucky wakes up, the first thing he see is the letter. The second thing he sees is that his dog tags are gone. The third thing he realizes is that you are gone too.
He reads the letter and the machine monitoring his heart rate starts screaming.
"No." He's already ripping off the IV from his arm, swaying his legs over the side of the bed. "No, no, no—"
Steve's hands land on his shoulders. "Buck, you need to calm down."
"Where is she?!"
The scream echoes through the medbay. Bucky shoves Steve back hard enough that he hits the wall.
"You need to lie back down," Bruce says, trying to use his calm voice. "Your system is still recovering, you can't—"
Bucky's on his feet now. The room spins but he doesn't care. He's moving toward the door and Steve's blocking it and Bucky can feel it rising in his chest—that cold, dark thing he's spent burying.
"Move."
"You're in no condition—"
"I said move!"
His metal fist goes through the wall next to Steve's head. Sam is there too now, both of them trying to corral him back towards the bed, but Bucky's fighting them… really fighting them. There's blood running down his arm from where he tore the IV out and he can feel his body failing, feel the weakness on his legs, but he doesn't care.
"She's gone!" He's shouting, or maybe sobbing, he can't tell anymore at this point. "She's gone, I have to find her, I have to—"
"Bucky, listen to me—" Steve tries.
"No!" Bucky slams his metal arm into a medical cart and sends it crashing across the room. "You don't understand, she thinks—the letter says—"
He can't get the words out, can't even breathe properly. His chest is too tight and the room is spinning. You're gone.
"We need to sedate him," Bruce intervenes.
"Don't you fucking dare!" Bucky spins toward him and Steve has to physically tackle him. They go down hard, Steve pinning him to the floor and Bucky's still fighting, thrashing, his metal arm whirring as he tries to throw Steve down.
"I'm sorry," Steve is saying and he means it, Bucky hears it in his voice. "I'm sorry, Bucky but you're gonna hurt yourself if we don't stop you."
"I don't care!" Bucky's voice cracks. "I don't care, let me go, let me find her—"
He feels the needle slide into his arm.
"No, please, I have to— she doesn't understand—I need to tell her." His vision is blurring, Steve's face above him, both of them looking wrecked. "Find her, please find her…"
The darkness takes him back.
When he wakes again, it's dark outside.
He's restrained now. Steve's asleep in the chair beside the bed, Sam is gone.
Bucky lies there for a long moment, staring at the ceiling, his body aches and his head pounds. Underneath it all, there's this hollow space where you used to be.
The letter is folded on the bedside table. They must've picked it up after… after whatever happened. He doesn't remember all of it, just the rage and the panic, the desperate need to move, to chase you and fix everything.
But he's not panicking now, he's thinking.
What if all of it wasn't permanent? What if there was a cure? Bruce said there was no precedent for infinity stone exposure like this. No treatment, no solution. But Bruce doesn't know everything. Bruce couldn't save Tony.
Bucky's mind was starting to work, clicking through possibilities: Carol Danvers got her powers when she was exposed to the space stone. Wanda's powers were the result of an experiment trial with the mind stone. Peter Quill was exposed to the power stone, along with his team, according to what Steve told him.
There were options. Leads. Possibilities.
And if none of them worked, he would find new ones. He'll search every corner of the universe if he has to. He'll make deals with gods and monsters and anyone else who might have answers.
The restraints are loose enough that he could break them. They're meant to slow him down, not stop him. But he doesn't move. He just lies there, breathing steadily, his mind cataloguing resources and contacts and next steps.
He reaches back for the letter and reads it one more time.
I'm serious, James, don't look for me. This is the only way I know how to save you.
He folds it carefully and picks up the locket you left there, a picture of the both of you staring back at him. He closes his hand around it and presses it against his chest.
"I'm going to solve this out," he murmurs quietly, low enough to prevent Steve from waking up. "And then I'm going to find you, and we're going to have forever. I promise."
warnings: 18+ NSFW, smut, friends with benefits, secret relationships, jealousy, blood and wounds, war, fluff, angst, light banter, mutual pining, slight chef!bob x reader moment, possessive sex, pussy pronouns, breeding kink
wordcount: 12.2k
a/n: based on this request. thank you sm for the suggestion because it helped me out of my slump. ohhh knight!bucky how i yearn for you
main masterlist
synopsis:
A maidservant’s only job is to tend to the princess's every whim. But despite the warnings of everyone around you, you can't help but fall for the one person you shouldn't, and that was the kingdom's trustiest knight and the princess’s sole protector—James Barnes.
Being the maidservant of a princess came with both its advantages and disadvantages.
You were constantly on your feet, up before the sun rose and down long after it set. Your body was in a permanent state of ache and strain from lifting heavy baskets of laundry up and down several flights of stairs, and your fingers were often raw from the needle poking through thick fabrics.
Princess Daphne always barked the wildest commands, keeping you and the other maidservants running around the palace to satisfy her every whim and desire.
It was hard, tedious work, but it gave you a roof over your head and a decent enough pay. And in this day and age, with the war against Sokovia, protection was the most important thing.
You could live in a beautiful home, but none of it mattered if Sokovian soldiers could barge past the kingdom gates at any moment with their weapons and horses at the ready.
With knights posted at every corner, the palace became your sanctuary.
There was one knight in particular who always seemed to linger near the maidservants’ chambers on the highest floor. A window sat right outside your room in the hallway, offering a clear view of the grounds where that same knight always stood on guard.
“James,” you greeted him with a sigh, still catching your breath from the long climb up the stairs.
He turned toward you, his usually tense, focused shoulders easing slightly at the sight of you.
A small, rare, and gentle smile tugged at the corners of his lips.
“You know—when it’s just me and you, you don’t have to call me James.”
A sheepish flush crept over your face as you approached him.
There was a true sense of family among the palace workers; the bond between the maidservants was like a sisterhood, and you were close with many of the chefs. Late at night, when the palace fell asleep, you and the other servants would gather at the kitchen tables to laugh and drink long past midnight.
The knights hardly ever got the time off or the leisure that you and the other maids enjoyed. But for Bucky, just seeing and talking to you was enough.
He stepped toward you, his heavy armor clinking with every movement. “Long day?”
“Mhm,” you mumbled tiredly.
Finally stripped away from the presence of royalty, you were free to speak as sluggishly and as improperly as you liked.
A soft exhale left Bucky’s nose. His right hand—flesh and human—came up to caress your cheek, while the other, metal and forged by the kingdom’s greatest blacksmith, cradled the other side of your face.
The touch was cold and made you shiver, but nonetheless, it was still Bucky.
Your Bucky.
“Sleepy girl,” he muttered, his thumb tracing your cheek as he stared down at you, strands of long, dark hair falling over his face. “You’ve been working so hard, haven’t you?”
A little whine left your mouth as you stepped closer into his space, letting yourself bask in his touch.
He chuckled softly, pulling you against his chest and pressing a gentle kiss to your temple.
“I should let you retreat to your bedchambers,” he spoke quietly. “But I don’t want to let you go. I haven’t seen you all day. Is that selfish of me?”
“Very selfish of you, James.”
“I told you not to call me that.”
You smiled, tilting your head back against his chest to look him in the eye. “Oh—I apologize, Bucky.” You teased.
Bucky grinned, his hand trailing down to your chin and lifting it, presenting your lips to him—the prize he’d been seeking all day.
“That’s my girl,” he mumbled.
Just as he leaned in to find the salvation he’d been starving for, the door to your bedchamber swung open. Your roommate, Yelena, poked her head out and scrunched her nose in disgust.
“Ew,” she dragged out childishly. “Is this what you knights usually do on your time off? Stick your tongue down an unassuming maidservant’s throat?”
Your face burned with embarrassment as Bucky pulled away, glaring daggers in Yelena’s direction.
He clicked his tongue. “Unassuming,” he repeated in a grumble.
He looked back down at you with a soft, disappointed sigh.
“I shall let you rest.” Using his gloved hand, he brought your fingers to his lips, pressing a gentle kiss to the back of your palm. “Goodnight, maiden.”
Bucky stepped aside as you retreated toward your bedchambers. Yelena held the door open with her body, arms folded tightly across her chest as she continued to glare him down.
“Yelena,” you hissed at her quietly as you slipped inside, “stop.”
After throwing one last look over her shoulder at Bucky, Yelena finally pulled the door closed. Inside, your roommates and fellow maidservants were already settled for the night, snug and comfortable on their cots.
Natasha was brushing out her hair, a knowing, teasing glint in her eyes. “Did you have fun with soldier boy out there?”
You gasped softly at her direct question. “N-Nat—!”
“You know, soldier boy didn’t even spare us a glance when we walked up the stairs,” Wanda added, swinging her feet over the edge of her bed as she stood up. “It’s as if the knight recognizes the sound of your footsteps by heart.”
All eyes were on you, and you wished the floor would simply open up and swallow you whole to save you from the relentless teasing.
“You ladies are unbelievable—”
“Am I the only one who doesn’t find this funny in the slightest?” Yelena barked, a disapproving look on her face. She glared harshly at Nat, then Wanda, and finally you. “If word gets out that a maidservant is having an affair with a knight—no, the Sergeant himself—we’re all ruined!”
You frowned, undoing the ties in your hair as you made your way to your side of the room.
“I wouldn’t call it an affair,” you explained. “We haven’t put a title on…” You swallowed hard, twisting the hair tie between your fingers, “…this arrangement.”
Yelena ran a hand down her face. “That’s even worse!”
“Yelena, calm down,” Natasha cut in, glancing at you from her bed. “But as harsh as she's being, she is right.”
You kept your head down, trying to appear fixated on the hair ties and pins scattered across your dresser. You knew they were right—that being in any kind of relationship with one of the kingdom’s knights was nothing but trouble.
Especially when the knight in question was Sergeant Barnes—the very man entrusted to watch over the princess.
“You are in love,” Wanda pointed out gently from across the room. “We can see that. But you have to believe us—we’re only looking out for you.” She approached you, setting a gentle hand on your shoulder. “Falling in love with a knight will bring nothing but heartache.”
Words were just words until they were spoken by the right person. Yelena and Natasha could doubt you and Bucky all they wanted—but it was Wanda’s voice that truly made the realization sting.
Because Wanda was a maidservant who had fallen for a knight, just like you.
His name was Vision, and he had been felled in a battle against Sokovian soldiers. While they were deep in their secret affair, they had been told the same things over and over.
“You could get us all in trouble.”
“You’re only thinking for yourself.”
But before word could ever get out about Wanda and Vis, he passed away, leaving Wanda to grieve in total isolation.
She couldn’t even attend his funeral, and her name couldn’t be left in his will.
It pained you because, despite the sanctuary and comfort of living in the palace, you still wanted more. You wanted to be with the man who stood just outside your bedchambers.
“I know,” you said quietly, looking up at the other girls and forcing a smile to show them you were okay—that this was okay. “And I understand. I won’t let it come between us.”
It was a promise you had made countless times, but you knew you would always run back to him.
You were kneeling on the floor, adjusting the hem of Princess Daphne’s dress as her blue eyes bored into the large window to her right rather than the full body mirror in front of her.
“Is it just me, or are the roses in the garden unkempt?”
There was no one else in the room, so this was her attempt at a conversation. Most of these ended with her complaining about some minor issue, leaving you to simply nod in agreement.
You glanced over your shoulder, taking in the roses. They didn’t look out of place—maybe a few weeds were overgrown nearby, but nothing unruly.
“The roses do look unkempt these days, Your Royal Highness,” you agreed anyway, bringing your attention back to the skirts.
She hummed. “The gardener has been fruitless lately, has he not?”
“I believe Mister Alexei has been feeling unwell, Your Royal Highness,” you explained politely.
Princess Daphne raised a brow, looking down at you as you fluffed her skirt. “Whatever for?”
You pressed your lips together, glancing up to meet the princess’s eyes. “His wife passed away, Your Royal Highness.”
“I see,” she sighed softly. “That’s a shame.”
You stayed quiet as you continued to fix her dress. You finally rose from the floor, letting out a soft groan as you pulled yourself up. You smiled, admiring your own handiwork on the princess’s back, but her mind seemed preoccupied with something else.
“All finished—”
“I would like for you to tend the gardens today.”
You blinked at the sudden request. “I… the gardens?”
“You fill the vases with the most precious and stunning flowers every morning,” she said with a guileless smile. “So, I am entrusting you to tend the gardens.”
You truly didn’t know what to say.
You had never been ordered to work the grounds before—sure, you might have plucked a stray weed or offered a hand to Alexei when the days in the palace were slow and long, but never like this. That was what a gardener was for.
But knowing Princess Daphne, she couldn’t tell the difference between someone arranging a bouquet and someone maintaining an entire estate.
And you were nothing but a maidservant. How could you refuse, anyway?
“I… yes,” you bowed your head. “It will be done, Your Royal Highness.”
“Wonderful!” Princess Daphne beamed, clasping her gloved hands together as she stepped off the pedestal without your assistance. “I expect the roses to be vibrant and lively once I return from my promenade!”
Once Princess Daphne left her bedroom, you stayed behind to tidy the mess she had left in her wake. When the room was back in order, you made your way down to the gardens.
Outside, the sun was baking the garden soil. Your nostrils were immediately hit with the scent of dirt and blooming jasmines.
You managed to find a pair of old, oversized gardening gloves—likely Alexei’s—in a shed, and after tucking your skirts as best you could, you dropped to your knees before the rosebushes. The work started easy, clearing away small weeds and tossing them into a pile.
But then, a thick rooted weed tucked right at the base of a vibrant red rose was giving you a run for your money.
You gripped it tight, bracing your feet against the stone path, but it wouldn’t budge.
“Come on,” you hissed under your breath, your face heating up from both the sun and the exertion.
With a frustrated huff, you desperately heaved, putting your entire body weight into it. The root finally snapped, but the sudden lack of resistance sent you flying backward. You tumbled through the air like a fool, losing your balance until you landed with a dull thud right in the middle of a freshly turned hydrangea bed.
The Queen’s favorite flower.
You sat there for a moment, stunned, with your legs sprawled out and dirt smeared all over your… toosh.
The heavy clinking of metal hit the stone pavement, stalking closer and closer. Bucky loomed over you, his long hair catching the light from behind as his heavy cape draped over his shoulders. He didn’t offer a hand immediately, wanting to take in the sight of you sprawled out and dirty.
He rested his gloved hand on the hilt of his sword, a slow, devastatingly handsome grin spreading across his smug face.
“Don’t tell me the princess has you working her gardens now.”
You looked around to see if anyone else was near, but it was just him.
“Bucky,” you greeted with a breathless smile. “Don’t tell me the princess has you clearing the garden perimeters.”
Bucky’s grin widened as he extended a hand. When you took it, he lifted you from the dirt with ease.
“If the princess believes there are any threats out here, you can start by eradicating these,” you said, lifting the weed in your hand for emphasis.
He chuckled softly, reaching out to brush away a bit of soil that had caught in your hair.
“No, actually,” he said. “The princess sent for me. She wants me to accompany her on her promenade through town.”
“Oh,” your smile faded slightly. “I see.”
Bucky nodded, standing tall in his armor. All you could think about was how, while the man you loved was out strolling and shopping with the princess, you would be here in the dirt, working far beyond your usual station.
He tilted his head, leaning down slightly to get a better look at your expression. “Is there something troubling you?”
I don’t want you to promenade with the princess, even if it is your job.
I want you to stay here with me instead.
“Nothing,” you lied, forcing a smile as you clutched the weed tighter in your gloved hand. “It’s a lovely day outside for a promenade—I’m sure it’ll be a good change of pace from guarding the palace all day.”
Bucky furrowed his brow, noting the way your shoulders slightly slumped and how your voice had grown quiet. He reached out and caught your hand with his gloved one, running his thumb gently over your knuckles.
“The promenade won’t last forever,” he promised, his eyes searching yours. “And once you’ve finished tucking the Princess into bed, I’ll be posted near the gazebo south of the palace.”
He stepped even closer until his tall frame shadowed yours, the cold metal of his chest piece brushing against your bodice.
“Meet me there,” he whispered, his thumb still tracing slow, gentle circles over your knuckles. “Behind the willow trees. No other knights patrol that far down, and the sound of the water will drown out... everything else.”
Drown out everything else.
You knew exactly what he meant. This wasn’t the first time you two had snuck away past your working hours just to find comfort in each other’s arms.
Bucky’s gaze dropped to your lips for a quick, hungry second before he pulled back just slightly to maintain appearances.
“Tonight, after the moon hits its peak,” he murmured, quiet and low. “Don’t make me wait for you, sweetheart.”
Your heart thumped faster in your chest. Now, the only thing left to do was count the hours until you were in Bucky’s arms again—a thought that made the day drag on far slower, despite the mountains of work piled up before you.
“Tonight,” you repeated with a genuine smile. “I shall be there.”
Bucky smiled softly, satisfied with your answer. “Good—”
“Sergeant Barnes!” the King shouted from across the garden, where he stood by the shade.
Bucky’s body went stiff as a board, his hand instantly dropping from yours as he snapped into a formal salute. You quickly stepped away, desperately brushing the loose soil from your skirts and keeping your head bowed low.
“Your Majesty,” Bucky’s voice lacked the warmth he shared with you just a moment ago.
He moved toward the King, leaving you behind without another glance.
The King didn’t even spare a look at the messy hydrangeas or at you—the dirt smudged maidservant trembling beside them. His eyes were fixed solely on his most trusted knight.
“Sergeant, the Princess is ready for her departure,” the King lectured with authority. “Why are you lingering in the gardens when your charge is waiting at the carriage?”
“My apologies, Sire,” Bucky replied, a mask of stoicism and professionalism taking over him. “I was merely ensuring the perimeter was secure before leaving the grounds. I am headed to the stables now.”
The King gave a curt, stiff nod, though he didn’t look pleased. “See that you are. In these times, the Princess’s safety is paramount. We cannot have our best men distracted by trivialities.”
The King’s gaze flickered momentarily toward you—a cold, passing look that made you feel like nothing more than a piece of garden furniture—before he turned back to Bucky.
“Move along, Sergeant.”
“At once, Your Majesty,” Bucky said.
He turned to leave, but for a split second, while the King’s attention was turned away, Bucky’s gaze broke rank.
Over his shoulder, he stole one last look at you. You were already back on your knees, picking at the weeds, and Bucky’s heart clenched. He wished he could spend his days right next to you.
In his eyes, you shouldn’t be the one picking the flowers, but rather the one receiving them.
But all he could do for now was tear his gaze away and head for the stables.
With the Princess gone and the garden task finally completed, you followed the distant yet familiar sounds of clinking copper and boisterous laughter down into the belly of the palace.
The kitchens were a different world entirely. As soon as you pushed through the heavy doors, the scent of roasting garlic, fresh rosemary, and baking bread enveloped you—a welcome relief, even after being stuck outdoors in the fresh air all morning.
At the center of the room, several maidservants were perched on the edge of the prep tables, their legs swinging as they broke fresh bread and shared it with the kitchen crew.
“Look what the cat dragged in!” Yelena called out, her mouth half full of loaf. She beckoned you over with a sticky hand. “You look like you’ve been rolling in the trenches.”
Natasha looked up from where she was leaning against the counter, a cup of cider in her hand. “And it looks like you didn’t have your knight in shining armor to save you this time.”
“That’s because the Princess is strolling through town today, which means Sergeant Barnes is busy looking after her,” John, one of the cooks, mentioned from across the kitchen, not looking up from his work.
Wanda motioned for you to take the empty seat next to her. “Hours have passed, and the Princess should be returning soon. Eat now, unless you want to wait until midnight.”
Your stomach grumbled as you stepped deeper into the kitchen to claim your spot.
“I’m starving,” you groaned tiredly, sinking into the seat. “What are you all feasting on?” You smiled, taking in the mountain of bread crumbs and various loaves scattered across the table.
Yelena nodded toward the back of the kitchen. “Bob has been locked away by the ovens all morning. He calls it focaccia—” she lifted a piece of the bread, “apparently, it’s all the rage in the southern kingdoms.”
You glanced over to see Bob carefully dimpling the surface of a fresh loaf with his fingers, drizzling it with a generous amount of olive oil and pressing sprigs of rosemary into the dough.
“He’s even made a special companion for it,” John called over his shoulder, “a savory onion and fig jam.”
Wanda slid a small wooden bowl and a thick, airy slice of the bread toward you. The loaf was golden brown and glistening, pockmarked with herbs that smelled divine. The jam was a deep, thick purple that smelled of caramelized sugar.
“Try it,” Wanda encouraged. “It’s much better than the dry biscuits we usually get. He even added a bit of honey to the jam to cut the salt.”
You tore off a piece, dipped it into the jam, and took a bite. It had a satisfying, golden crunch on the outside but remained soft and pillowy on the inside.
“Mmm!” You beamed, eyes widening as you reached for another piece. “Bob—this is delicious! If you’ve been cooking like this all this time, how haven’t I had a taste until now?”
“It’s because you spend most of your free time with Sergeant Barnes rather than us,” Yelena teased, rolling her eyes, which earned her a sharp nudge in the shoulder from Wanda.
Across the kitchen, Bob’s ears turned a shade of pink that you noticed even from your seat.
“Thank you,” he mumbled, keeping his focus fixed on the dough in front of him. “I’ve been trying something new… so I’m glad you like it.”
“Aw, look at that,” Yelena teased, turning her entire body to stare at the baker. “You’ve got Bob all flustered now.”
John snickered, glancing at Bob, whose face only burned a deeper shade of red.
“Careful with that one, Bob,” he warned, pointing his whisk at you. “Getting too close to her will only get the kingdom’s mightiest soldier’s blade pressed against your throat.”
The entire kitchen barked in laughter at John’s comment. You should have been embarrassed by their relentless teasing, but instead, you just felt bad for Bob. The poor man was stammering in the corner, desperately trying to dismiss the attention.
“Hey now,” you called out, focaccia crumbs still clinging to your lips. “Don’t tease the guy. He’s the only one keeping you all fed.”
Laughter still hung in the air, and for a few minutes—away from the pressure of your chores—you were all just a group of friends rather than a squadron of dirty servants.
The enjoyment continued until the melodic tolling of the courtyard bells rang out. In an instant, as if a switch had flipped inside everyone’s head, the boisterous noise died. Everyone scrambled to their feet to collect themselves.
“The promenade is over,” Natasha said, setting her cider down and wiping her hands on her apron. “Back upstairs, girls. Princess Daphne will be expecting us.”
“I didn’t even finish my loaf!” Yelena’s complaints were ignored by everyone else as they hurried toward the doors.
Wanda stood up, giving your arm a gentle squeeze. “The Princess will likely want a bath and a change of clothes immediately. Go on—I’ll change her sheets so they’re ready for her to lie down.”
You swallowed your barely chewed bite in one hard gulp. “Right. I’m going.”
On your way to greet the Princess, you collected a set of freshly pressed towels along with various soaps and aromatic oils for her bath.
You scrambled up several flights of stairs, lungs burning, hoping to reach her chambers before she did.
With your heart beating wildly in your eardrums, you rounded the corner and stopped short.
Princess Daphne was already lingering at the entrance of her bedroom, but she wasn’t alone.
Bucky was standing right beside her.
And against your better judgment, you pressed yourself into the shadows of the wall, gripping the wicker basket tight as you listened in.
“My knightly duties do not require me to escort you all the way to your chambers, Your Royal Highness,” Bucky said, his tone formal and polite.
Princess Daphne giggled, pressing a gloved hand to her mouth as she flushed beneath the knight’s gaze.
“Please, when it is just us, you must call me Daphne,” she sighed, her voice drifting into something dreamlike. “Just as I shall call you Bucky.”
You felt your heart drop.
As far as you knew, you were the only one who called him Bucky. It was a name he had reserved for the people closest to him. You knew he had served the palace long before you arrived, but the reminder of the closeness he shared with her was a sting that never failed to make your heart ache.
“Thank you for accompanying me on my stroll through town, Bucky,” Princess Daphne continued, as you winced from behind the corner.
“Of course,” Bucky nodded politely. “With the rising tensions against the Sokovians, it is my duty to put your safety above all else.”
“You always make the gloomy days brighter and the dangers feel so much smaller,” she smiled.
“I am glad to hear that, Your Royal Highness,” Bucky hummed, his gaze flickering to the door of her bedchambers. “Shall I take my leave, then?”
The Princess frowned, her expression turning pouty. “I told you to call me Daphne.” She looked around with a sigh. “And no need—it seems my maidservant has yet to arrive—”
Your feet moved before you could think, and you rounded the corner, acting as if you had just arrived and hadn’t been eavesdropping the entire time.
“I apologize for the wait, Your Royal Highness,” you said, bowing politely with the basket still in your hands. “I made sure the towels were freshly warmed for your arrival. I can prepare your bath right away, if you’re ready.”
Bucky turned toward you, his eyes widening slightly in surprise.
“Oh,” Princess Daphne was surprised, her hands folding primly at the front of her dress. “I would like that very much.”
You stood there for a moment with a polite, awkward smile, waiting for the Princess to grant you permission to enter, but she didn’t.
So instead, the three of you remained in a tense, silent standoff.
Bucky’s eyes were fixed on you. His posture was stiff, his gloved hands tightening at his sides as if he were fighting the urge to reach out.
Princess Daphne cleared her throat, glancing at Bucky. “You are dismissed, Sergeant Barnes.”
He didn’t reply immediately—not until the Princess called for him once more, her voice sharper this time. “Sergeant?”
“I… my apologies,” Bucky said, finally turning to face her. He bowed low. “Your Royal Highness.”
He glanced at you, offering nothing more than a short, professional nod. For someone of his rank, it wasn’t customary to acknowledge a maidservant, but as he walked past you, you felt the subtle, intentional graze of his glove against your skirt.
The ghost of his touch made the hair on your arms stand up.
“The bath, then?” Princess Daphne spoke up, snapping you back to attention.
“Yes—of course, Your Royal Highness,” you stammered, scrambling to recover your composure.
You pushed into her bedchambers and moved toward the bathing area, immediately drawing the steaming water.
The Princess followed close behind, peeling off her silk gloves. She didn’t wait for you to ask about her day, as she was already glowing with excitement to recount her afternoon.
“He truly is a marvel, isn’t he?” she sighed, watching the water swirl into the marble basin. “The way the villagers part for him—he has such a presence. Or perhaps it was simply because he was standing beside me. And yet, he was so attentive today. He held my parasol the entire time we crossed the market square without me even having to ask.”
You kept your back to her, focusing on the steam radiating off the tub as your jaw clenched at the image.
“He is a man very dedicated to his duties, My Lady,” you managed to say.
“It’s more than duty,” she countered, her voice drifting into a dreamy haze. “When we stopped by the fountain, he told me that my safety was the only thing on his mind.”
Steam continued to fill the room as the tub rose with nearly scorching water.
You knew, deep down, that Bucky only said those things because it was his job—just as your job was to nod and smile at every word the Princess spoke. But a selfish part of you was seething with jealousy at the thought of anyone else walking by his side.
“Do you think he finds me charming?”
Your eyes widened and the vial of bath oil slipped from your hand, splashing more of the aroma into the water than intended. You turned to look at her, the word “I—” dying on your lips.
“It’s so hard to tell with men like him,” she continued, unlacing her bodice with a sigh. “So stoic. So guarded. But I saw the way he looked at me today!”
There was so much you wanted to say, but the words withered at the sight of her.
Having served her for so long, she had grown comfortable being nearly bare in your presence. As she let her hair fall—the silky blonde locks you had pinned so carefully earlier—her slender, graceful frame made your heart ache.
She was so beautiful, and standing in the same room as someone as beautiful as Princess Daphne felt like a cruel insult to your own heart.
But that was okay, because you would see him tonight. Unlike Princess Daphne, you would see the real version of him—the version of Bucky who gave you nothing but his warmth and his heart.
So, until then, you simply bit your tongue and nodded with a hollow smile.
“It is impossible not to find you charming, Your Royal Highness.”
The night crept on, and while the other maidservants were long asleep, you slipped out of the bedchambers. With quiet, tiptoeing steps, you made your way down the stairs and snuck out the back of the palace toward the gazebo where you and Bucky had agreed to meet.
The night air was cold and breezy, the shawl around your shoulders fluttering in the wind as you treaded through the grass.
Bucky was right—no guards were posted on this side of the palace.
As you sat down, your eyes drifted to the left. Tucked away behind the trees and bushes stood the small cabin where the kitchen crew rested. The lights were out, meaning the cooks were likely all in bed.
While you waited, the only things keeping you company were the hooting of owls and the gentle chirping of crickets.
By now, it was well past midnight, and your earlier excitement was slowly fading into exhaustion.
You found yourself yawning every few seconds, your eyelids growing heavier with each passing minute.
Had Bucky been caught up in other duties?
Had he forgotten?
Or worse—was everything Princess Daphne said true?
Had he realized his heart belonged elsewhere?
An hour had passed, and your heart began to ache the longer you sat alone without a trace of him.
You knew you had to be up early for your morning duties, so with a tired sigh, you pushed yourself off the bench and pulled your shawl tight.
As you stepped down from the gazebo, the sound of crunching grass echoed in the distance. Your eyes snapped open, your heart leaping at the possibility of him finally appearing.
But as the figure stepped into the faint, warm light of the gazebo, your shoulders deflated.
“Bob?” you asked, your voice sounding more disappointed than you intended. “What are you doing out here?”
Bob blinked, looking just as confused as you were. “I stayed behind in the kitchen,” he said, hitching a thumb over his shoulder. “I wanted to perfect the focaccia.” He lifted the loaf, which was carefully wrapped in a white cloth.
He stepped closer into the light, his eyes trailing you up and down. He took note of your thin sleeping gown with nothing but a flimsy shawl to cover the rest of you. Your face warmed in embarrassment as you wrapped the shawl tighter around you, though it salvaged nothing.
“What are you doing out here?” Bob returned the question.
“I’m… um—waiting for someone,” you replied meekly.
Bob glanced around, the crickets filling in the already awkward and suffocating silence when he found no one else near.
“… For how long?”
“I haven’t been out here long,” you lied, only finding yourself more embarrassed being caught in this predicament. “I was just starting to head back, actually.”
Bob pressed his lips together as if he wanted to say something. He knew you weren’t telling the truth, and any worker within the palace could piece two and two together.
Instead of leaving you be, he stepped up into the gazebo to meet you and lifted the loaf in his hands, changing the subject for your comfort.
“I think this is the best loaf I’ve made,” he said, unwrapping the cloth and revealing the gold-crusted focaccia with herbs laced at the top. “Want to share it with me?”
You looked back toward the palace. You really should have gone back inside, knowing just how early you’d have to rise in a few hours to tend to the Princess.
But at the thought of returning to your cold, lonely cot with nothing but the empty promise Bucky left behind, the warmth of a friend didn’t sound bad at all.
“Just for a moment,” you whispered, and Bob smiled gently.
You sat back down on the wooden bench, and Bob settled beside you, careful to maintain a respectful distance. He carefully tore the focaccia in half, the crust crackling over the chirping of the crickets.
“Here,” he said softly, handing you the larger piece. “It’s still warm.”
You took the piece in your hands and bit into it—no jam this time, but the taste was even better than the one you had earlier that day in the kitchen.
It was delicious, and you didn’t even need to shower him with compliments. The satisfied look on your face told Bob everything he needed to know. He smiled, his expression warming as he bit into his own piece.
For a moment, you two just sat there in silence. The only sounds were the crunching of bread and the wind rustling the leaves in the trees. Bob didn’t push for answers or smother you with questions like the girls usually did back in your chambers.
You two just sat there, enjoying each other’s company under the stars.
“You’re an incredible cook, Bob,” you said, gazing up at the dark sky. “I wish people outside of the palace could taste this—it’s exquisite.”
Bob wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, his shoulders hunched modestly.
“I told myself that when the war is over, I want to open my own bakery one day.” He looked up at the sky with you. “It’s always been my dream.”
You glanced at Bob. He had such a faraway look in his eyes that your heart could only ache for him.
Sokovian soldiers had been sweeping through the streets, stripping people from their families and tearing down local businesses—wreaking havoc everywhere they went. For the lucky few handselected to work in the comfort of the palace, it was like a dream compared to the world outside.
But even though many workers had aspirations beyond these stone walls, they knew deep down that safety came before all else.
“Well, when you do open up your shop,” you said, nudging him in the shoulder with a reassuring smile, “I’ll be the first one in line.”
Bob smiled at you. “What about you? What do you want to do when the war is over? Will you stay here at the palace?”
“Does anyone actually want to stay at the palace?” you joked, and he chuckled softly.
“No. I want what any other woman would want. I want to get married, have my own family—” Your smile faded slightly at the thought. “Maybe a cottage somewhere deep in the forest, by a river. A place where my husband can go hunting while I stay home with the baby.”
But even if the war ended tomorrow, you knew that future was a ghost.
Even if everything went exactly as planned, the only person you could imagine sharing that life with was Bucky—and he was the Sergeant of the Howling Commandos. They were the elite, the knights specifically curated to guard and protect the royal family at all costs.
He could never leave his post, even if he wanted to.
Bob knew it, too. It was why he didn’t press you with more questions. He simply rested a hand on your shoulder, offering a silent sympathy.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered.
You forced a smile. “It’s okay.”
Another silence settled between you, the crickets filling the space before Bob sucked in a breath to continue.
“I know you hear this plenty of times,” he started gently, “but you deserve so much better than—”
“Hey!”
A rough voice shouted from across the yard, followed by the sound of heavy boots thumping frantically against the grass. Both of you snapped your heads up, and your breath hitched at the sight of Bucky.
He looked as though he hadn’t slept in days.
He looked angry, his entire body tense, and his left hand—the cold metal of his prosthetic—rested firmly over the hilt of his sword.
Bob scrambled to his feet, hands raised in surrender to show he meant no harm. You quickly stood up beside him.
“James—”
“What the hell are you doing past your post at this hour?” Bucky seethed. He didn’t even look at you—his icy glare was focused entirely on Bob and Bob only.
“I—I was just about to head to bed, sir,” Bob stammered, his hands still raised. “I was just finishing up some work in the kitchen and—”
“Bullshit,” Bucky spat, stepping into the faint light of the gazebo. “All I see is a mere cook who has forgotten his place—a foolish boy who thinks he’s entitled to roam the grounds after dark. You’re a cook, Reynolds. Your duty begins and ends at the stove.”
You winced at his cruelty. You knew Bucky could be rough—it was how he had earned his rank, but Bob didn’t deserve this.
“James, calm down—”
“You will not tell me to calm down, for you are interloping on palace grounds as well,” Bucky snapped, cutting you off so harshly that you flinched.
“I meant no disrespect, sir,” Bob whispered, his voice trembling.
“Then get out of my sight before I decide your presence here is a threat,” Bucky threatened, his hand tightening on the hilt of his sword. “Back to your hole, baker. Now.”
“Y-yes, sir!”
Bob scrambled down the steps of the gazebo, sparing one last, sympathetic glance over his shoulder before retreating toward the dark cabins. Bucky watched him with a tense jaw, his face twisted in disdain until Bob reached the door and shut it behind him.
The silence that followed was suffocating.
Bucky had never spoken to you like that.
Usually, your meetings were filled with the hushed, gentle tones he shared with no one else. But tonight, he spoke to you as if you were just another servant—and that hurt more than his shouting. Instead of running to him for a hug as you usually did, you stayed rooted to the floor of the gazebo, your body tense, unsure of what he would do next.
Bucky slowly turned back to you, his eyes piercing, cold, and completely unwelcoming.
He stepped fully into the gazebo, his gaze trailing down your thin nightgown before landing on the white cloth Bob had left behind on the bench. He picked it up slowly, examining it as if it were evidence of a crime.
“You broke bread with the boy?”
You didn’t dare to speak.
“Answer me,” Bucky commanded.
“I waited for you,” you said instead, your voice trembling.
Bucky fell silent, the cloth in his hands lowering at your quiet admission. For a moment, it seemed as though he had been snapped out of his defensive daze, and you took the opportunity to continue.
“I waited for over an hour,” you said, wrapping the shawl tighter around your body defensively. “I have to rise in merely four hours—you know that. And yet...” Your voice started to shake, your face scrunching as you tried to will away tears. “You stood me up.”
Bucky parted his lips to speak, but you breezed right through him.
“Not only that—but you treated Bob with such blatant disrespect! He’s my friend, and he did nothing but keep me company and feed me!”
Bucky’s eyebrow twitched at that, his voice coming out pettier than he intended. “I didn’t realize that kid was of such importance to you.”
You blinked, your face scrunching at his words. “Don’t tell me,” you scoffed lightly in disbelief. “Are you jealous?”
He made a face. He could deny it all he wanted, but the way his jaw set told you the truth.
“I am many things,” he said stiffly. “But jealous? I am not.”
You crossed your arms over your chest, shaking your head. “Oh, I’m sure.”
“And even if I was,” Bucky stepped closer, invading your space until he was looking down at you. You made no effort to move, standing your ground despite the height difference. “Is that so wrong?”
Your brows furrowed. “Funny for you to say. I heard you had an excellent time being out with the Princess today.”
Bucky’s face became a mask of confusion. “What?”
“About how charming you were,” you said with bitterness. “She said you held her parasol and that you looked at her… differently.”
Bucky let out a dry, humorless rasp of a laugh, running his gloved right hand through his hair.
“Looking at her differently? That’s unbelievable,” he scoffed. “And you know it is my job to do as I am told.” He took another step, his shadow completely looming over you. “And charming, is it? What do you think? Am I charming?”
He was taunting you now, but you refused to let him distract you from the fact that he had stood you up.
“You’re ridiculous, James,” you spat. Your hands tightened on your shawl as you tried to push past him, but he grabbed your arm firmly enough to hold you in place.
“Wait—” he sighed, his shoulders finally easing as the defensive walls came down. “I’m sorry. It was never my intention to stand you up—I swear it.”
He squeezed your arm gently—a silent plea for you to hear him out.
“I was with the General,” he spoke, his voice getting quieter. “The meeting… it went on for hours. There were maps, ledgers, reports from the front. It’s Sokovia. The news is bad, and the King is panicked.”
He met your eyes, and you could finally see the raw regret and exhaustion behind them. “The Sokovian line is breaking through the southern pass. It’s getting worse, and the General is scrambled. He spent three hours arguing over troop placements and supply routes—I… I couldn’t just walk out.”
Bucky tugged on your arm gently, guiding you to face him. His left hand moved to your chin, his thumb stroking your cheek to keep your focus on him as he explained.
“I was supposed to leave tonight. Right after the meeting adjourned, I was ordered on a scouting mission to the front lines. I wouldn’t have even had time to find you to say goodbye.”
Bucky was leaving?
You sucked in a sharp breath, a wave of regret washing over you for being so quick with your accusations.
“But… you’re still here,” you whispered, your eyes searching his.
“I am,” he nodded, tilting his head down to stay in your line of sight. “Rogers and Wilson… they volunteered to take the mission in my stead. They’re out there right now, just so I could be here—with you.”
Bucky’s hands trailed from your face down to your arms, eventually finding your hands and cradling them in his larger palms. He brought your hands up to his face and leaned down, pressing soft, gentle kisses to your knuckles.
“There is never a moment where I’m not thinking of you, and God—the thought of you waiting for me this entire time… I can’t even fathom it,” his voice broke as he pressed another kiss to your skin, looking up at you through his lashes. “I swear to you—I would never leave you alone.”
He stood tall again, releasing one of your hands while his other crept up to tangle in the hair at the nape of your neck. He tilted your head back slightly, holding your gaze under the dim gazebo light.
“And as for that outburst earlier…” He exhaled, the sharp edges of his pride finally softening into embarrassment. “I’m sorry. I’ve been on edge, is all. I never meant to take it out on you, my dear.”
Bucky didn’t wait for verbal forgiveness—he took it from the silence and the way you gazed up at him, your eyes softening in the moonlight.
He leaned in, his breath warm against your chilled skin before his lips finally met yours. It was a soft, yet desperate press, a low groan escaping him at the feeling of your warmth against his own.
When he pulled back, it was only to pepper kisses across your forehead, his eyes closed tight as if he were memorizing every inch of you.
“You are a sight for sore eyes,” he murmured against your skin, his voice a gravelly, broken thing.
He kissed your temple, then the tip of your nose, his hands sliding from your hair down to the small of your back to pull you flush against his chest, you shivered from the cold armor. “A beautiful, beautiful sight.”
You sighed softly, your body unable to help but crave his touch—to crave him.
And all Bucky wanted to do was make love to you.
He stepped back, his eyes never leaving yours as he began to remove his armor pieces one by one. You moved to take your shawl off, setting it on the bench behind you as you reached for the straps of your dress.
“No,” Bucky cut you off coldly. “Keep it on. I want to tear through it myself.”
You swallowed hard, your face warming as you obeyed. You stood there, watching him as he watched you with hungry eyes. As he stripped away the layers of leather and steel, his breathing grew heavier. When he reached his belt, his fingers fumbled clumsily for a moment before he stepped back into your space.
He closed the distance again, his lips trailing down the line of your jaw to the sensitive skin of your neck. You let out a shaky breath, your head tilting back to give him better access as his mouth explored you.
“I’ve missed you,” he mumbled, the words muffled against your throat. He began to suckle gently, marking you between words. “God, I’ve missed you so much it hurts.”
“I’ve missed you so much too, Bucky,” you moaned softly. “So much.”
Bucky groaned against your skin, satisfied by your confession as his touches grew needier. His metal hand trembled slightly as it gripped your waist, pulling you so close there wasn’t any space left between you.
He whispered sweet nothings into the crook of your neck, each sentence making you writhe beneath him. “You smell so good.” “You’re so soft.” “So pretty.”
Bucky’s hands were everywhere all at once, a contrast of heat and cold as he explored the curves he had spent all day dreaming about. His flesh hand groped at your hip while his metal fingers seared through the thin fabric of your nightgown, mapping out the expanse of your lower back.
“I’m sorry,” he rasped against your ear. “I’m so sorry for keeping you waiting, my dear. I’m going to make it up to you. I promise.”
Your heart raced as his lips found yours again. His tongue pushed past, sweeping against yours as he kissed you hungrily.
Now stripped of his armor, Bucky pressed his hips forward, and you gasped softly at the feel of him—his cock, thick and hard, straining against his pants as it poked against your lower belly.
Your body already felt so empty without him. There was a building ache between your legs that only he could remedy.
“Bucky,” you sighed softly against his mouth. “I need you.”
“I know, my dear,” Bucky groaned, rolling his hips against your stomach once more, letting you feel just how hard he was for you. “You don’t know how badly I needed you today.”
His hands wandered down to grope your bottom through your dress, bunching the fabric in his fists as he lifted it up past the curve of your ass to squeeze you more.
“Missed your legs wrapped tight around me,” he breathed. “Missed you moaning my name.”
Bucky couldn’t wait any longer.
His strong arms wrapped tight around your body, picking you up and laying you gently on the floor of the gazebo. He spread your legs, nestling himself between them. With a rough hand, he found the hem of your skirt and lifted it past your thighs, exposing your undergarments. He impatiently found the waistband, tugging them down roughly past your legs to expose you to the cool night air and his hungry gaze.
“Fuck,” he muttered, his tongue darting out to wet his lips at the sight of your glistening cunt—already puffy and begging for him, and he hadn’t even put it in yet.
“She missed me, hasn’t she?” he hummed, staring at your pussy as he began palming himself over his pants. He felt pre-cum trickle at the tip, staining the front of his trousers. “Bet I can just slide in so easily. She wouldn’t even put up a fight.”
You watched, breathless, as Bucky pulled himself out of his pants. His cock sprang forth, so thick and so heavy, as pre-cum dripped from the tip and onto the floor.
“Christ,” you said, voicing your thoughts out loud.
Bucky grinned, his flesh hand gripping the shaft as he pumped himself slow and steady. “When was the last time we fucked, sweetheart?”
You swallowed hard, trying to mask your embarrassment at his vulgar words. “I… I don’t know. Nine… ten days ago?”
Bucky hummed. “Haven’t fucked you for a little over a week and you’re already seeking attention from other men, aren’t you?”
Your eyes widened at his words, and you couldn’t help a small, huffing laugh. He really was jealous—and that jealousy only seemed to spur him on, because his cock twitched in his hand as he stroked himself.
“Gotta claim you again,” he mumbled so quietly, it was like he was speaking to himself. “Gotta remind you who you belong to.”
With his metal hand bracing his weight over you, he rubbed his cock up and down your cunt, soaking himself in your juices. Your back arched off the floor, your hips wiggling for more of him, but Bucky only clicked his tongue.
“What an eager little thing,” he taunted.
“Bucky,” you whined, wiggling your hips until your entrance caught his tip. “Pl-please...”
Bucky groaned, squeezing his eyes shut as he felt your warm, wet opening catch around his sensitive tip.
He was so hard it was nearly painful. He had planned to take his time and savor this moment—but with the war in the back of his mind, he felt a desperate, driving need to fuck you as hard and as much as he could while he was still alive.
With a low growl, his hand found the back of your thigh, hiking it up and spreading you wide. With half of his tip already inside, he adjusted himself so he could sink even deeper.
“Goddamn,” he breathed, his muscles straining with the effort it took not to fuck you into the floor right then and there. “Just as I thought—so fucking wet… can just… slide right in.”
You hissed, your hands finding Bucky’s broad, bare back and clawing at the muscle as his thick cock stretched you out with each passing thrust. You could feel him throbbing deep inside you—searingly hot as your cunt welcomed him.
“Mine,” Bucky gritted through clenched teeth as you bottomed out against his pelvis, sheathing him completely.
To him, the feeling of your pussy was like a much needed, warm, tight hug after a long, stressful day.
“Ten days,” he breathed against your ear. “Ten fucking days—don’t think I’m gonna last long inside you, baby.”
“Don’t care,” you mumbled, wrapping your legs tight around his waist. “I just want to feel you, Bucky. Every inch of you.”
Bucky groaned, his flesh hand sliding up to your neck and applying pressure. He held your gaze, his eyes dark and blown out with lust, as he began rocking his hips back and forth. He moved slowly and sensually, forcing you to feel every swollen pulsing ridge and vein.
The sound of your pussy squelching around him filled the quiet gazebo. The mating press position made you feel utterly helpless—completely and devastingly stuffed.
“Oh my—Buck, too… too much.”
“Too much?” he repeated raspily, staring deep into your eyes as he continued to fuck you slow. “But sweetheart, this is me taking my time with you. You’ve taken harder.”
“I know,” you winced, your legs squeezing him tighter. “It’s just been… ten days—”
“Ten days and you’ve already gotten so tight for me again,” he murmured, his pace increasing. “Means you haven't been fucking anyone else.”
Your face burned as you stammered, “Of course not—”
The words that left your lips made Bucky’s heart soar and his cock pulse.
With a sharp exhale, he increased the pace. His thrusts slapped harder and deeper, making you bounce against the floor as you clung to him. The wet, vulgar sound of his skin hitting yours echoed under the gazebo roof, a testament to his hunger for you.
Bucky looked down at you, taking in the sight of your dress hiked up and ruined, your hair fanned out across the floor. You looked so beautifully destroyed, and something in him only wanted to ruin you more.
“Jesus,” he muttered, his blue eyes trailing down to where your bare hips tilted to meet him. He watched in awe as his cock disappeared in and out of you, his shaft slick.
“You look so good like this,” he rasped, his metal hand digging into your thigh to spread you even wider. “Sprawled out for me. Mine. Just mine.”
Bucky leaned in, his teeth grazing your exposed shoulder as his movements became sloppier and uneven.
“Seeing you like this always makes it so damn hard to leave,” he rasped against you, his balls growing heavier with each thrust. “Makes me want to do things to make sure you stay.”
You were a babbling mess beneath him, your voice reduced to broken sobs and incoherent pleas. You couldn’t even form words anymore, just soft, high pitched whimpers that only made Bucky’s grip on you tighten.
“I want to breed you,” Bucky confessed shamelessly. “Wanna give you a piece of me—so when I’m out there fighting, or when you’re away from me, you’ll still have me. I want to pump you so full that you’ll always be carrying a part of me.”
You body clenched at the implication of his words. He groaned at your tightness, gritting his teeth as he continued.
“Need to…” Bucky thrust deep, “pump you full…” He felt his balls growing tighter, felt himself getting closer. “Going to have to make you my girl for good.”
Your eyes rolled back as Bucky used your body for his pleasure. He was so much bigger than you, so much stronger, and all you could do was be the woman he needed as he fucked himself into you. You moaned, your body getting wetter and tighter as you felt yourself getting close.
The gazebo and the starlit sky above started to blur as tears prickled your eyes from the overwhelming sensation of being fucked.
“You like that?” Bucky breathed warmly against your skin. “You like the idea of being full of me? Of my own seed... dripping down your pretty legs?”
Your head was spinning as you nodded frantically.
“Yes!” you cried out. “Yes, Bucky—please! I’m yours… all yours—I want to be full of you!”
“Fuck,” Bucky moaned. With your hands still tight around his shoulders, he circled both his arms around your waist, lifting you from the ground and pulling you flush against his chest.
He repositioned you until you were straddling his lap, held aloft by his strength alone. Bucky’s arms wrapped tight around your body—the scent of sweat and sex mingling as he buried his face in the crook of your neck.
“Bounce on it, baby,” he muttered roughly. “Fuck—bounce on me ‘til I cum.”
Your fingers laced through his long, dark hair, giving it a tug as you fucked yourself down onto his cock.
Bucky groaned, his head pressing into your shoulder as his hands moved from your waist to your hips, his thumbs digging into your skin to help guide your rhythm. Every time you moved down, he met you with a hard thrust upward that sent sparks through your body.
“That’s it, sweetheart,” he rasped, his eyes fluttering shut as you began to quiver and squeeze around him. “Just like that.”
“Bucky… I’m—I’m going to—”
“I know, baby,” he rasped, holding you tighter against his chest. “I’ve got you. I’m not going anywhere.”
I’m not going anywhere.
“D-don’t go,” you whimpered against him, your body tightening as you clenched around his cock, letting yourself unravel all over him.
Bucky growled, low and deep in his throat, as his arms pinned you tight against his chest. With one last rough thrust deep into your cunt, he finally broke.
Thick spurts of cum surged from him as he began pumping you full. He slowly rocked his hips in gentle motions, letting his seed settle and mix inside the heat of your body.
“Good girl,” he praised with a gravelly rasp. “My sweet, precious girl.”
You let yourself melt into his touch as you two fought to catch your breaths.
Still perched on his lap, you felt him nuzzle his face into your chest, his hands roaming your back gently, mapping every inch of you as he came down from his high.
“So perfect,” he mumbled.
You looked down at him through your lashes, and the sight of him made your heart ache. You wanted to stay like this forever—with Bucky always by your side, holding you and making sweet love to you while he praised you with gentle words you wouldn’t want to hear from anyone else.
He told you he wasn’t going anywhere in the heat of the moment, but even you knew he could only mean so much.
“I don’t want you to go,” you said, your voice broken as you were reminded of his duties after tonight. “Please, just stay with me.”
Bucky let out a long, heavy sigh, his grip on you softening tenderly. He pulled back slightly to look at you, his thumb gently brushing away the sweaty strands of hair that clung to your face.
He didn’t pull out, he stayed joined to you, his cock still half hard and soft inside, wanting to keep that connection for as long as the world would allow.
“I know, sweetheart,” he whispered. “I know.”
He began to press soft kisses all over your face— your damp forehead, your cheeks, and your lips.
The reality was that after tonight, Bucky would have to be posted at the front lines along with his comrades, Steve and Sam. He would have to ready his blade, preparing for war at any given moment to lay his life down for a royal family instead of living on for the woman he loves.
But instead of letting that feeling take over, he gently pushed your hair back, looking deep into your eyes.
“Right now, let’s just enjoy the moment,” Bucky murmured gently, caressing your cheeks. “Me and you—we’re together now, and that’s all we can ask for, right?”
He spoke so soft, but you knew deep down he was feeling that hurt just as much as you were. You nodded, forcing a shaky smile despite the tears that threatened to escape.
“Right,” you whimpered.
“Don’t cry,” Bucky sighed softly, his thumb coming up to wipe the tear that spilled anyway, before leaning in to press another kiss to your lips. “I’m right here, baby. Right here.”
The sounds of crickets, soft breathing, and the gentle rustle of leaves filled the gazebo as you two held each other. His hands trailed down to your waist, his thumb rubbing gentle circles over the fabric of your crinkled nightgown.
“When the war is over,” you brought up carefully and quietly. “Do you think we’ll have a chance to be together?”
Bucky went still for a moment before a small, hopeful smile tugged at his lips—he didn’t have high hopes at all, but the smile you returned meant it was enough to reassure you.
“In a perfect world, where there is no war and no duties to bind us separately, I’ll always choose you.”
The sun that rose the next morning was the brightest it had ever been that month.
You found yourself in a happier mood, and everyone around you could tell.
“What’s she smiling about over there?” Wanda asked as she folded freshly washed white cloth.
“What do you think?” Natasha grinned, watching out of the corner of her eye as you hummed to yourself, handwashing towels.
“She’d usually be complaining about her back by now,” Yelena chimed in. “But she’s just singing to herself like some mentally deranged—”
“I can hear you all, you know,” you said over your shoulder without looking back. You pushed off your seat with a groan, stretching before you lifted the bucket of dirty water in your hands.
“I’m going to dump this outside,” you announced to the rest of the group. “Maybe bask in the sun for a bit—who knows. It’s a pretty day.”
“Okay, but don’t be long,” Natasha called out as she pushed the tower of folded clothes to the side to work on the next batch. “We have a lot to do today.”
“I won’t,” you reassured as you pushed the door open with your back, heading out of the cleaning chambers and into the warm sunlight.
As you dumped the water out onto the grass, birds chirped and the trees rustled gently in the spring breeze. Bucky was out there, somewhere, huddled in formation with the other knights as they scouted south of the kingdom.
After last night, Bucky had told you how he and the others had a mission that required them to be on their horses before sunrise. But later that night, he would meet you at the gazebo again.
He was the kingdom’s strongest soldier, and you knew he was more than capable of taking care of himself. But every time Bucky was out on a mission, you couldn’t help but pray for his safety.
You always hoped that he would return home without a scratch, falling back into your arms once again.
You gathered the empty, damp bucket and reached for the door, but you stopped short at the sound of horns blaring from the top of the guard posts.
Your head snapped up immediately at the unexpected sound.
Was this a drill?
The kingdom hadn’t made any announcements for a drill today—unless you had missed it?
As you raised your hand to shield your eyes, squinting past the sun, you saw the frantic movement of the soldiers at the top of the towers. The distant shouting was getting louder, and you watched in confusion as they began to ready their crossbows.
“Sokovian flags on the horizon!”
“Soldiers are pushing back from the southern bridge!”
“Alert the town! Citizens to the shelters! Get down!”
Your ears rang as everyone around you scattered in a frantic, panicked hurry. The horns continued to blare, crying out a symphony of war and ruin. Palace workers ran around, bumping into you as they retreated toward the safety of the cleaning rooms you had just stepped out of.
You knew you should run. You should follow them into the dark, stone safety of the cellars.
But the only thing you can think of was the southern bridge.
That was exactly where Bucky was stationed.
A hand clamped onto your arm, making you wince and snapping you out of your haze.
“Are you trying to get killed?” she hissed over the bustle of the crowd. Natasha yanked you backward, dragging you into the sanctuary of the cleaning chambers.
Inside, the room was unrecognizable. The neat stacks of folded white linens had been toppled and trampled underfoot. Buckets were overturned, soapy water slicking the floor as servants and workers scrambled toward the trapdoor leading to the deep cellars.
“Oh my god,” you breathed. “How—”
“They’re saying they’ve already made it inside,” Natasha yelled over the noise. “Sokovian spies were already within the kingdom just yesterday—soldiers are barging right into the palace as we speak.”
You felt your blood run cold.
Sokovian soldiers were already threatening to tear down the palace, and the kingdom’s strongest soldier wasn’t there to protect it.
“Where are the others? Yelena? Wanda? Bob—”
Natasha led you toward the trap door, cutting you off. “They’re already inside—”
The doors of the cleaning chamber shattered inward before she could even finish.
Sokovian soldiers stomped through, their armor dark and their weapons already leveled. “Clear the room!” one of them shouted, and before you knew it, the sharp crack of muskets and the whistle of crossbow bolts filled the air, splintering the wooden tables around you as the others screamed.
“Down!” Natasha screamed, shoving you to the floor as a projectile embedded itself in the wall where your head had been seconds before.
“To the back doors,” you hissed at her, pointing behind her. “Quick!”
She nodded, ducking behind you as you both scrambled for the exit. You burst out into the rear garden, the air already suffocating with smoke from gunshots and the sounds of people shouting over one another.
“The grapevines,” you shouted, pointing to the heavy wooden trellis that led to the outer wall. “We can climb over and reach the forest. The trees are thick enough to give us cover—”
Natasha didn’t let you finish before she grabbed your arm, already running in the direction you had pointed. “Let’s go, then!”
As you ran, a sharp crack sounded from your right. Natasha let out a choked gasp, her body crumpling as her leg buckled and blood blossomed through her skirt.
“Nat!”
You turned back, reaching out to grab her arm, but the world suddenly turned into a blinding flash of white.
A cannonball screamed through the air, striking the stone archway just above you. The impact was nearly enough to deafen you—a force strong enough to throw you backward.
You hit the ground hard, the air driven from your lungs.
Everything went silent, replaced by a high pitched ringing in your ears that drowned out the war. Dust and debris rained down, coating your tongue in grit and stinging your eyes. Through the haze of gray smoke and broken stone, you tried to move, but your limbs felt heavy.
You felt yourself deteriorating, the sounds fading in and out as your vision began to blur.
A concussion set in, your head aching and your body going numb while the world around you began to crumple and fall apart.
“Get the Princess to safety!” the kingdom’s soldiers shouted over the noise. “Go, Sergeant!”
Your head throbbed with an ache as you craned your neck, struggling to see the what was unraveling in front of you.
Through the thick dust, a familiar silhouette broke through the haze.
It was Bucky—his armor and silver blade flashing through the smoke. Following close behind him, a figure huddled low — the Princess, disguised under a dirty, oversized cowl to conceal her identity.
Ah, there he was.
Your heart thumped weakly in your chest as a strange, hollow peace settled over you.
Bucky was alive. Your Bucky.
He was alive, and he was protecting the princess.
You smiled faintly, and though your heart ached to reach for him, you knew it was futile. You couldn’t even feel your legs anymore, pinned beneath the heavy stone debris. The blood pooling around you was enough to tell you that the end was near.
But at the very least, in this moment as the war claimed you, you knew the person you loved was still standing.
And that was all that mattered.
In the chaos, amidst the smoke and the screaming, Bucky caught sight of you out of the corner of his eye.
His entire body froze. The soldier who never hesitated, the very man who served as the kingdom’s ultimate sword and shield, went completely still.
His blue eyes widened, locking onto your broken form, taking in the blood, the dust, and the way you struggled to even lift your head.
Any other soldier would have seen your body and deemed it a lost cause, a life not worth the delay. But for Bucky, every duty was forgotten as his feet began to move—away from the Princess, and toward you.
“Sergeant Barnes! What the hell are you doing? Get back in formation!”
“Barnes! Get over here! Protect the Princess!”
“The Princess is exposed! Cover!”
“Barnes!”
Several commanding voices roared after him, but Bucky didn’t look back. He didn’t care about the crown or the certain court martial that awaited him, or even the noose.
All he cared about was you.
Heavy footsteps thundered near your head, and for a moment, you feared it was a Sokovian guard coming to finish the job. They dropped to their knees beside you, and trembling hands cradled your neck to lift you up.
“No, no, no,” it was Bucky who rasped, his voice frantic as he wiped the dirt from your face. “Hey… hey, look at me. Open your eyes, sweetheart. It’s me—stay with me. Come on, stay with me.”
You tried to speak, but all that emerged was a soft, wet cough.
His thumb brushed the dust from your cheek, leaving streaks in its wake, while his blue eyes searched yours for any sign that you were still there.
“Bucky…” you whispered, the sound barely audible over the roar of the nearby fire.
“I’ve got you,” he choked out, leaning his forehead against yours. He ignored the shouting soldiers and the Sokovian arrows whistling overhead. “I’m right here. I’m not going anywhere—you have to stay. You have to stay awake for me.”
He began to pull at the debris with a desperate strength, refusing to let the world take the only thing he cared about.
“I can’t—I can’t move my legs,” you choked out, your body feeling useless as he tried to lift you.
He was finally able to pull you free and cradle you in his arms, lifting you bridal style as he ran. You didn’t know where he was going, nor did you care. All that mattered was being here, held by the person you loved most.
“Just stay awake, okay? Promise me you’ll stay awake.”
“Bucky—”
“We’ll get you somewhere safe—I swear it—”
“Bucky,” you tried again, your voice a soft, fragile thread.
As he ran, Bucky tilted his head down to glance at you, his eyes searching yours to make sure you were still there.
“I love you,” you whispered suddenly.
Bucky’s stride faltered for just a moment as a choked, broken sound escaped his throat.
For a second, the face of the stoic soldier crumbled, and his eyes grew glossy with tears that threatened to spill over. But he forced his jaw to tighten—forced himself to get back into that same resolve that kept him alive til now.
“No,” he rasped, his voice hardening from vulnerability to a command. “Don’t say that. Not yet. You don’t get to say goodbye.”
He pushed himself faster, his boots skidding over the blood slicked stone of the courtyard as he dodged the falling debris of the palace.
“You save that,” he muttered, his breath hitching as he ducked behind a crumbling stone pillar to avoid a spray of Sokovian arrows. “You save those words for when we’re back at the gazebo—you save them for when the sun is up and there isn’t a drop of blood on this grass. Do you hear me?”
He looked down at you again, anticipating a response—anything to show that you were still alive—but your breathing was growing labored in his grip.
“I’m not letting you go,” he promised. “You hold on to me, and don’t you dare close those eyes.”
Bucky continued to run, and the world around you was nothing but a darkened blur.
The sounds started to grow distant, and in this moment, even on the verge of death, at least you were held by Bucky once more.
Bucky kept his promise—and more.
Even in a world that wasn’t perfect, bound by duties that often kept you both far apart, in the end, he would always choose you.
thank you to the anon for that lovely request and for entrusting me to write it. if you've made it this far, as always thank you so much for taking the time to read my work. interactions are always appreciated, I love reading every bit of them!
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Set in The Assassin’s Assistant Universe (Assassin AU)
Summary: One of your team is MIA, one of them has taken out his hearing aids, and the office is attacked what could possibly go wrong? Or alternatively the office is attacked with Clint inside, and he somehow misses the whole thing.
Pairings/Characters: Slight fem!reader x assassin!Bucky, assassin!Clint, assassin!Loki, mentioned assassin!Natasha
WC: 2,425
TW: Swears, cannon level violence, no use of Y/N, mostly crack, little protective Bucky, more comic book aligned Clint with hearing aids.
A/N: Hey y'all, it's been a minute (or 5 years I guess) since I've written anything but got the bug to try and knock the rust off with another one shot from the Assassin's Assistant Universe. I'm still not sure if I'm happy with this but here you go.
Divider by: @firefly-graphics
It was early, probably like 11:30 or maybe noon, when Clint woke to the sound of you and Bucky arguing in his office.
“You don’t just get to come in here and cherry pick jobs Barnes there is a system!” you shouted.
“I sure as shit get to cherry pick my jobs, this is my agency.”
“And you hired me to organize it because you were incapable of doing so. I devised a system that you ALL agreed to, you don’t get to change the rules simply because you don’t want to do a job in the snow.”
“I don’t know how many times I have to tell you I’m taking the job in the Bahamas and you can send Loki to Sibera.”
“First, not Siberia, it's Northern Canada…”
“Tomato, tomato”
You let out a little growl before continuing “.... and Loki already left for the job in the Bahamas so sorry about your luck. You’re going.” Clint heard what sounded like you slapping a file into Bucky’s chest as you started walking back towards the lounge. When Bucky's door slammed immediately after Clint sighed, turned off his hearing aids and rolled towards the back of the couch.
You stomped through the lounge glancing briefly at Clint asleep on the couch. He swore up and down he had an apartment, or house, or some sort of dwelling with a bed but most days you found him crashed out in the lounge. You huffed when you saw him still agitated after your argument with Bucky,
“Clint! I literally bought you a murphy bed for your office, go sleep there.” You grumbled at him, kicking the corner of the couch to get his attention. Clint lifted his head briefly looking at you and pointed at his ears to tell you his hearing aids were off. You rolled your eyes, stomped your foot a little and pointed towards his office, communicating your desires wordlessly. He just waved you off, grabbed the blanket off the back of the couch and took his hearing aids out completely for good measure.
“UGHHHHH” you screamed quietly through clenched teeth. Tash had taken some ‘personal development time’ whatever that meant and had left you alone with these three idiots for two weeks. Her absence and lack of communication had you and Bucky both a little on edge. Clint wasn’t worried, she did this occasionally, and he knew she had about 75 different ways to get in touch if something was actually wrong.
But you and Bucky had been fighting like cats and dogs lately. If asked you both would say it was because you were tense about Natasha being incommunicado for so long, or that the other was impossible. Everyone else in the office knew you two just had too much unresolved sexual tension and were taking bets on how it was going to explode resolve. Tash had $150 on you caving first, Clint knew his little booger was fueled mostly on spite so he had $350 on Bucky caving first, and Loki was fairly confident you had an undiscovered murderous streak so he put $500 on you killing Bucky rather than inviting him into your bed.
Two hours later you were sitting in the lobby catching up on some paperwork, still grumbling under your breath about insufferable men when Loki came flying through the door slamming it behind him. He quickly locked it, pulled the rolling shade down over the window and pressed his back up against the door while reaching for the light switch, breathing heavily like he just ran several miles.
“Loki! What the fuck you’re supposed to be…” He cut you off, shushing you with a finger to his lips. With three large strides he was at your desk.
“Cameras, quickly.” he hissed under his breath. You froze for just a second before your brain kicked in and you pulled up the interior and exterior cameras you had insisted on installing shortly after starting. There were three large men in tactical gear slinking through the alley towards the back of the building.
“Who the fuck are they?” you whispered
“That would be the lovely man you dispatched me to take care of and his brothers I believe.”
“You missed?!” You hissed incredulously, briefly looking at him when he turned to give you a withering look.
“The plane didn’t get off the ground, the whole thing was a setup.” He hissed.
“Okay,” you said, your mind whirling, “what do we do?”
“Nothing,” he replied quickly. “I engaged some extra security measures on my way back. The only way they get in is if they hack down the exterior door with an axe.”
“Okay… okay. Yeah. That’s good because who brings an axe to an assasination attempt.” You chuckled weakly, mind still reeling a bit.
“Exactly.” Loki replied. You both turned back to the computer screen only to see the largest of the three assailants hand his gun to one of the others and start rigging explosives to the door.
“Uhhhh… Loki?” You squeaked out as you both watched the men set a few charges on the door and take a few steps back. “I think explosives beat axe.” you continued with a thin voice.
“Well this is inconvenient isn’t it.” Loki drawled, before pulling you down behind the desk and attempting to shield your body with his as the door exploded inwards.
Bucky was stomping around his office packing his bag to go to fucking Sibiera, well technically the Yukon, but same difference it was going to be cold and full of snow.
“Oh Loki, please take this job with the sun and the sand” Bucky said in a high whiny voice, intentionally mocking you. “Yeah don’t worry about Bucky he can fuck off to the snow like always.” he muttered as he continued to pull weapons and gear out of his hidden wall safe.
He stopped short when he heard what sounded like an explosion in the lobby. His only thought was you, out there completely unprotected. He quickly grabbed a rifle and a handgun out of the still open safe before hurtling towards you.
Dust and debris from the explosion was just starting to settle when he reached the lobby. He glanced around quickly assessing the situation. Just as he was about to call out for you the distinctive hiss and clink of a smoke bomb sounded to his right. Turning quickly he kicked the smoke bomb back towards the opening in the wall where the door should be.
He quickly took a couple of steps towards the desk and hissed your name. Like a meerkat you popped up from behind the desk quickly followed by Loki.
“I’m okay,” you said “We have a situation,” Loki said at the same time.
“I can see that” Bucky hissed as he jumped over the desk and crouched down behind it. He squeezed your hand quickly and gave you a once over as if to assure himself that you were telling the truth. All three of your heads swiveled towards the hole in the wall at the sounds of guns cocking. “You” he pointed, “get to tash’s office now and lock the door, stay low.” He said urgently as he handed a spare weapon to Loki.
You started crawling towards the back offices, “Quickly” Bucky shouted at you as bullets started flying over your head. If you weren’t so scared for your life you would’ve had some sassy retort you were sure of it. As soon as you got to the kitchen you stood up and sprinted towards Natasha’s office, locking the door behind you as instructed.
Clint woke again, based on the light in the room he figured it was probably close to 3 at this point, a much more respectable time to get up for the day. Plus he really had to pee. He caught the barest glimpse of you running by as he sat up. He shrugged to himself and headed towards the bathroom.
He patted down his pockets, looking for his phone, as he exited the bathroom. When the search of his pockets came up empty he headed back towards the lounge assuming it was on the couch somewhere. He wandered down the hallway so lost in his thoughts he totally missed you waving at him urgently through the window on Natasha’s door.
After trading gunfire for a bit the assailants grew impatient and threw aside their weapons in favor of hand to hand combat. They were fairly evenly matched for Bucky and Loki.
Trading punches and kicks, Bucky was finally able to get his hands around his opponent's neck and quickly snap it. As he was dropping the body he heard Loki cry out behind him followed by a thud, but before he could turn around he was violently thrown to the side as the other assailant cracked one of the lobby chairs across Bucky’s torso.
From where he fell Bucky was able to spin around quickly and kick out his assailant's knees. They both began scrambling for the gun that Loki had dropped a few feet away. Bucky’s fingers just brushed the grip of the gun as his attacker kneed him hard in the ribs right where the chair had just connected.
“Oof,’ he grunted as he continued to grapple for the gun despite all the air being knocked out of his lungs. Finally getting the upper hand Bucky swung the gun into his opponent’s temple knocking him unconscious.
Loki groaned as he regained consciousness, rolling over onto his back he glanced at Bucky taking stock of the two attachers. “There was a third. Where did he go?”
Getting back to the lounge Clint shoved his hearing aids in his pocket and shook out the blanket he was previously using on the couch still looking for his phone. Tossing it aside before grabbing the cute little throw pillows you had purchased and throwing those on the floor too.
“Where the hell did it go,” he started talking to himself. He pulled out all the couch cushions thinking it slipped between those. When he still couldn’t find it he started looking all around the lounge.
“Bingo,” he whispered, his whole body pressed to the floor looking under the couch. His phone was just barely visible under Catserole’s paws, she must have pulled it under the couch while he was sleeping. Clint felt the floor vibrate twice as if two heavy things had suddenly fallen to the ground, he looked around briefly but not seeing anything just shrugged and started trying to extricate his phone from under the sleeping cat.
He stretched as far under as his arm would go and his fingers were just brushing the edge of his phone. He grumbled and scooted infinitesimally closer to try and extend his reach.
You huff a breath as Clint walks by totally oblivious to your shouting and waving at him. Not a big deal, you think, he’ll totally notice what's going on when he gets back up front. Deciding you had nothing better to do you headed over to Nat’s bookshelf, slid aside the copy of ‘Worlds Deadliest Weapons’ and grabbed the romance novel you knew she kept stashed back there.
Just as you were settling into the couch a shadow fell over the window. You had only seconds to pull the book up in front of your face gritting your teeth as small shards of glass bit into your arms, luckily the book protected you from the worst of it. You leapt off the couch backing towards the door as the largest of the three masked men clambered through the window. Once inside he slowly started walking towards you spreading up the closer you got to the door.
Before you could reach the handle he was on you, grabbing your arm and roughly pulling you back towards the center of the office. “Not a chance bitch.”
You quickly twist your wrist and pull, easily breaking out of his hold. As soon as your hands were free you grabbed his wrist with one hand pulling him towards you, with your other hand you reached up behind his neck and pulled down while driving your knee up into his nose twice before letting go, just the way Nat had taught you.
His hands automatically came up to grab his face as he cried out in pain. You dashed around him heading for the door and skidding out into the hallway, you started running for the lobby as fast as you could with your now, slightly disoriented, attacker hot on your heels.
“Yes!” Clint shouts after finally extricating his phone from under the couch. He starts scrolling through his missed notifications as he heads towards the kitchen to make a pot of coffee. his eyes widening as he reads the missed text from Nat.
N: Company is coming, be ready. Send booger home.
You close your eyes and promise the universe to do more cardio if you survive this, and run right past Clint as you dash towards the lobby. Your eyes slam open at the sound of Bucky shouting your name.
“Down!” he yelled, setting his feet and raising the gun in his hand. Without thinking you dropped and slid into the lobby like you were sliding into home plate then crawling quickly to the far wall. Bucky fired three times in quick succession each one hitting the man chasing you, two in the chest, one in the head. He took a few automatic steps backwards from the force of the bullets before falling and going still.
“You okay?” Bucky asked, worriedly eyeing you as you slowly slid over so your back was against the wall.
You nodded, eyes closed resting your head against the wall. You cracked one eye open and turned towards Bucky who was slowly tying up the unconscious attacker. “Hey Buck?”
“Yeah?
“I’m going to send Clint to Siberia, okay?”
He chuckled lightly as he made his way over to you. “Sounds good Doll.”
In the kitchen Clint quickly shoved his hearing aids back in and ran out toward the lobby yelling.
“Hey guys, we’ve got company coming…” His eyes widened as slid into the destroyed vestibule.
“Thanks Clint,” Bucky groaned, clutching at his side to keep his almost assuredly broken ribs steady, as he slowly sank down against the wall next to you. “We’ve got it covered” he said, reaching over and tucking you into his uninjured side placing a light kiss on the crown of your head as you relaxed against him.
𝗉𝖺𝗂𝗋𝗂𝗇𝗀 : Hockey Player!Bucky Barnes x Figure Skater!Reader
𝗌𝗎𝗆𝗆𝖺𝗋𝗒 : A figure skater prodigy and a cocky hockey star have loathed each other since childhood, their rivalry becoming hometown legend. A decade later, they’re both famous in their own right—her becoming every ice skater's darling, him as hockey’s golden boy. When his reputation takes a hit, his PR team ropes her into a “perfect pair” publicity stunt. Forced back onto the same rink, they must fake romance in public while privately waging the same fiery rivalry… until the lines between hate and something else start to blur.
𝗐𝗈𝗋𝖽 𝖼𝗈𝗎𝗇𝗍 : 4k+
༘⋆ ❅ ･:*:｡ ❆ SERIES MASTERLIST
༘⋆ ❅ ･:*:｡ ❆ PREVIOUS CHAPTER
It has been exactly five months, fifteen days, eleven hours, twenty-five minutes, and forty seconds.
Yes, that’s the official count.
No, I’m not the one who counted.
Barnes did.
That’s how long we’ve been together. Ever since that ridiculously dramatic, rain-soaked confession straight out of a cliché romance scene.
But damn... if that wasn’t the best thing that’s ever happened to me, I honestly don’t know what is.
Because somehow, out of everyone in the world, he became both the worst and the best thing that’s ever existed in my memories. He’s the sharpest ache and the softest place. The chaos and the comfort. The reason my heart races and the reason it finally knows how to slow down.
My worst memories and my best ones all seem to have his fingerprints on them, tangled together in a way that shouldn’t make sense.
Life has felt… different since then. Lighter. I finally stopped bracing for impact and let myself feel things as they come. I don’t flinch at the future the way I used to, don’t overthink every possible way it could fall apart. Mostly because Bucky doesn’t let me, though. He loves me so loudly, so constantly, it leaves no room for doubt.
He makes it so easy.
He gives me everything. His time, his attention, a care that makes my brain freezes. What do you mean people can just… love like this? There are no hidden terms nor conditions. It's just him, showing up, over and over again as if it’s the easiest thing in the world.
And I try.
Holy shit, everyone knows how I try to give him everything right back.
But let’s be honest, I’m losing badly. He goes above and beyond in ways I could ever replicate. With him, loving me is never something he has to stop and consider, never something he hesitates over. It’s just… who he is.
It should be overwhelming. It probably would be, with anyone else. But with Beast over here? He’s never too much. Even when my brain freezes for a second—trying to process how someone can care this much—I don’t want him to stop. Not even a little. If anything, I want to hold onto everything tighter.
The Avengers have turned into something I didn’t know I needed. Somewhere I finally belonged. Ever since we told them we’re actually together (officially, as in no more acting for the media anymore), everything shifted in the best way.
It’s louder now, warmer. Teasing comes easier. Smiles linger longer. I guess it was always like this, but this time I’m letting it be real. And somehow, I ended up with a whole family out of it.
Nat, obviously, is part of that. She fits right in the second I brought her around, like she was built into the blueprint from the beginning. But seriously, if she and Steve don’t get their act together soon and deal with whatever ridiculously obvious tension they’ve got going on, I might actually lose my mind.
It’s painful to watch at this point.
Pep and Tony... they're a whole different story. They've kind of slipped into this role of ours, some kind of unofficial guardians. When we told them we wanted to keep this—us—lowkey, they didn’t push. A casual shrug and a “yeah, okay” was enough. Which honestly felt suspicious coming from them. Come on, after everything we had to pull just to protect Beast’s reputation? Them agreeing like it was nothing felt way too easy.
But that’s kind of what the Avengers is, right?
I love this team. My family. They take things that should be messy, complicated, fragile... and somehow make it feel safe and warm. I love them most when Bucky and I start our fake arguments and they immediately take my side. (HAHAHAHAHA—)
And more than anything… for letting us just be.
Beast and I had barely managed to say we were dating before Mama and Ma Barnes were already tearing up, hands flying to their mouths. I swear, this was their exact reaction when they watched that long-awaited final scene of a love story from a show they'd followed for years finally unfold right in front of them.
Mama kept nodding through her tears, sobbing, “I knew it, I knew it,” while Ma Barnes fumbled for tissues, laughing at the same time as she called us ridiculous for taking this long.
Apparently, they had been waiting on this since we were kids.
Turns out, to literally everyone except us, this was inevitable. Turns out, it was never a question of if. It was when.
It took years, detours, almosts, and too many moments where we didn’t say what we meant. But somehow, we still found our way back to this. Back to each other.
We became we.
Now, every time Bucky shows up to take me out on a date, he barely gets a foot through the door before our mothers tossed in little warnings like “Don’t stay out too late,” paired with those far too knowing smiles.
And it gets to us.
Every.
Single.
Time.
Bucky would roll his eyes, trying to play it cool, but the tips of his ears would always give him away, going red anyway. I’d nudge his arm, muttering something under my breath just to keep from laughing, while behind us they’d coo like we were teenagers heading out on our first date.
“Do you remember, oh my God, do you remember when he used to pull her pigtails?” Ma Barnes sobbed.
Bucky groaned under his breath. “Ma…”
“And you—” Mama pointed at me through her tears, “you used to kick him in the shin!"
“In my defense,” I shot back, folding my arms, “he started it.”
“I was eight!” Bucky protested, shooting me a look, even as a smile tugged at his mouth. “And you kicked hard.”
“You cried!”
“You cried too!”
“Because you pulled my hair!”
“Oh, you loved the attention—”
“—Oh my God, you’re unbelievable—”
“And then!” Ma Barnes cut in, clutching her chest. “They’d run to each other’s houses just to get the other one in trouble.”
“And then sit there glaring while we scolded them,” Mama added.
“And then ten minutes later—” Ma Barnes softened, voice turning fond, “—they’d be sitting side by side, sharing snacks like nothing happened... Look at them. All grown up… going on dates…”
Mama let out a teary laugh. “He brought her flowers, as well. Oh, he’s serious serious.”
“Mama,” I groaned, my face burning.
But she was already turning to Bucky again, her expression sharpened into something stern, even as her eyes still glimmered, “You take care of my girl, you hear me?”
Bucky straightened, “Always, ma’am.”
And it sounded so sincere. It wasn’t just a promise for tonight, or tomorrow, but something that stretched further than that... all the way into forever.
Mrs. Alvarez has always been our biggest believer. Way before anything real ever happened between us. Even when we were apart, she stood by us in her own way. The second anyone tried to say something—about Bucky, about me, about the messy, complicated history tangled between us two—she shut it down without hesitation.
“Ellos van a encontrar la manera. They’ll figure it out,” she’d say, sounding very sure. “They always find their way back.”
And… she wasn’t wrong. When we finally told her, there was this brief, almost suspicious pause (two seconds, maybe) before she clapped her hands together, completely satisfied.
“Took you long enough.”
And then she was pulling us into a hug before we could even process it.
After that, every time we walked in together into her bakery, her whole face lit up like we’d just made her day.
If we stood too far apart, she noticed.
If we weren’t touching, she definitely noticed.
“Why are you all the way over there?” she’d call out, loudly. Without a care who else was around, even if the place was packed with customers. “You’re together now! Act like it."
She believed in us long before we ever let ourselves believe it too.
Yeah… so, life’s been kind of ridiculous lately.
In a good way, though! Really good.
I think it's mostly because he’s in it. Because I stopped keeping him at a distance. I finally let myself have all of this completely.
Still, it's funny. For ten whole years, I really thought I had it all figured out. I had everything I used to dream about. The world at my feet, crowds screaming my name, the kind of fame I swore I wanted my entire fucking life. I kept telling myself it was enough. That I was enough on my own.
But… it wasn’t.
There was always this quiet emptiness underneath it all. No matter how big everything got, it never quite reached the parts of me that actually mattered.
During those years, every time I closed my eyes, I wasn’t in some fancy city or on some famous ice rink. I was back at Whitecap Rink. I was out of breath, laughing, trying not to wipe out while Steve and Bucky chased me across the ice because I was their personal target. Youngest, shortest, only girl… they didn’t really need another excuse. They just wanted me there.
Back then, I couldn’t wait to leave it all behind.
Now, I can’t even remember why I wanted to be alone so badly.
Because this is it.
I found what my heart had been quietly aching for all this time.
"Hey, Ace?"
Oh, shit.
Pep’s voice finds me before anything else does, cutting clean through the haze in my head.
"Three minutes and you're up," she reminds.
I blink and eerything rushes in at once. There's the soft hum of the arena, familiar scrape of blades carving into ice, and murmur of a crowd that feels familiar. Sounds I know how to belong to.
My fingers tighten around the edge of the boards.
Three minutes.
Right.
I nod, a second too late, but Pep doesn’t call me out on it. She simply squeezes my shoulder the way she always does when she knows I’m drifting.
“Breathe, okay?” she comforts, quieter this time.
I do.
Shit. Okay. It’s starting. IT'SFUCKINGSTARTING—
“Ladies and gentlemen… prepare yourselves for the moment you’ve been waiting for.”
The words ripple through, stirring the crowd into a restless swell. Whispers, shifting bodies, anticipation tightening like a drawn wire.
“Taking the ice tonight… the one they call the darling of ice…”
It’s the same line, every time. Same tone with the same build-up. Yet, it never gets old.
It’s mine. The name people lean in to hear. One everyone’s known since I was a kid, when it was just a nickname thrown around as a joke.
Now it’s stuck. It’s grown into something I carry with me.
Pride settles in my chest.
I earned this moment.
“Ace.”
Just my name, dropped clean into the hush.
And the arena immediately explodes.
Sound crashes over me, but my body is already moving before my mind can catch up. One push, then another. My blade meets the ice perfectly, a familiar whisper.
I glide forward, stepping into the light, and it engulfs me all at once.
The arena stretches wide and endless as if you're stepping into the sky.
For a heartbeat, everything slows.
Where are they?
I look around until I can see them.
Up in the VVIP seats, exactly where I told them to be. Clear as day. Hands are waving wildly, someone already on their feet, some cries before I’ve even begun, the rest shouts my name.
Everyone is here.
Tony’s the easiest to spot. He's already halfway out of his seat, yelling along Sam. Clint’s slouched back but clapping anyway, that crooked grin giving him away. Thor’s applause, on the other hand, is… well, it’s Thor. He's probably loud enough to register on some kind of seismic scale.
Steve stands tall, the proud look on his face hits harder than all the noise combined. This is the moment. Something he’s been waiting for just as long as I have… all the way back to when we were still learning what it meant to step onto the ice.
Peter’s practically climbing over the railing, waving both arms as if I might somehow miss him if he doesn’t. Bruce tries to hold him back as he smiles. Vision stands composed beside his girlfriend, Wanda.
Nat, the only one who kept me from falling apart for ten whole years, is here too. She holds out at first, arms crossed, a familiar smirk playing on her lips because she refuse to give me the satisfaction. But it doesn’t last. She finally shakes her head… and gives in, clapping just as loud as everyone else. My forever girl.
Ma Barnes has handkerchief pressed to her face while Mrs. Alvarez stands beside her. Her fingers laced so tightly they’ve gone pale, lips moving in a quiet prayer. And Mama… Mama is a mess. She’s laughing and crying all at once, one hand clutching her chest, the other waving wildly just to make sure I know she’s right there, every second of it.
They show the exact same expressions they did when I first began proving to the world that I truly belonged on the ice.
I smile at them before my eyes settle on him.
My Bucky.
He’s not loud like Tony, isn't on his feet like Steve, isn't trying to be seen like Peter. He simply leans forward, elbows braced on his knees, gaze fixed entirely on me.
Just like that, everything else falls away.
The world has been turned down to silence.
It’s only us now, locked in that quiet moment as his lips curve into the faintest smile. Not a smirk that he always uses for appearances.
Then, his lips form something that makes my heart seize.
The words don’t make a sound.
But they hit harder than anything that ever could.
"I love you."
And that’s... that's the one that steadies me the most.
I love you too, I say in my mind.
Finally, the tightness in my chest eases, because home isn’t some distant place I have to chase anymore.
It's right here with me.
It lives in the Avengers who never stop showing up for me. In Nat, who’s always there to hold me together when I start to come apart. In Ma Barnes, who has never once doubted me. In Mrs. Alvarez, whose quiet comfort comes wrapped in warm, sweet bakes. In Ma, whose love never wavers and never even falters.
And in Bucky… completely, wholly, undeniably.
I’m not alone out here.
When the music starts, I move.
At first, it’s just instinct, muscle memory. Years of practice carved deep into bone and tendon. My body knows before my mind catches up.
Everything is practiced.
But when I look up, even for just a second, there they are.
Leaning forward like they don’t want to miss a single second. Clapping too early, cheering too loud, loving me without holding back. Believing in me in a way that almost aches.
And something in me gives.
My moves stop being controlled in that rigid, practiced way. I push harder into the ice just to feel the speed build. I close my eyes to feel the air rush against my skin as I take off into a jump. It's not in the program, but I want to do it.
When I land it perfectly, I don’t pull back right away. I let it carry me as the momentum stretch out a little longer than it should.
It’s a little reckless... yet I'm finally breathing.
There are stars in my eyes. I can feel them. Every spin opens wider, every step hits sharper, every movement bigger than anything I practiced.
It’s not perfect and messy but it's real.
I’m not skating as the version of me that thrives on attention. I’m skating as the version of me that meets whatever comes straight on, without fear.
This… this is what I left behind all those years ago.
The final notes rise, and I pour everything I have left into them. One last jump, one last spin, one last moment to say all the things I’ve never been able to put into words.
I let the cheers of crowds wash over me, soaking in every second. When I lift my gaze, I make sure they’re all still there.
Yep, every single one of them.
All of them except...
My stomach drops.
Bucky is not there.
I blink, scanning the crowd again, slower this time. Maybe if I just look hard enough, I’ll find him tucked somewhere between the faces and flashing lights. Maybe I missed him. Maybe he shifted spots. Maybe he stepped back for a second.
No.
He's still not there.
And it’s stupid, it's so stupid because the entire arena is still shaking with applause. My name ripples through the air, loud and endless, people on their feet just for me. All of it meant for me.
But something in my chest dips anyway.
I swallow it down, press a smile into place, and bow like I’m supposed to. I wave, turn, play the part I’ve practiced just as much as the routine itself.
Where is he?
By the time I step off the ice, everything blurs into noise and motion. The barrier is crowded, people leaning over it, reaching, calling my name like they’ve known me forever.
“Ace! That was incredible!”
“You were flying out there!”
“Best performance of the night!”
Their voices tumble over each other, bright and warm and so close I can almost hold onto them. Hands stretch toward me, eyes shining, smiles wide. Of course, I do my best to meet them halfway. It’s the least I can do to give something back.
At the same time, flowers start coming. First one is a bouquet, then another, then another... until they’re being placed into my hands faster than I can keep track. Someone passes one to me carefully, another tosses theirs gently, and suddenly my arms are full, overflowing with petals and ribbons and soft, sweet scents. Blue melt into whites, whites into pale pinks, everything blending together in a blur of color.
I laugh, a little breathless, shifting the weight in my arms as I try not to drop anything. I murmur thank yous, nodding, smiling at every face that comes close enough, because I mean it. I really do.
This moment, all of it, matters.
But my eyes won’t stay still.
They keep drifting past the crowd, over shoulders, through the noise, searching.
For him.
And he’s not there.
It shouldn’t feel this big. It shouldn’t press so heavily against my chest when everything else is so bright, so loud, so full of life. Yet, it does.
Where is he? Did he leave? No… he wouldn’t just—
My thoughts start to tangle, one pulling into the next, spiraling before I can stop them.
Once I reach the end of the hallway, I slow to a stop.
"Beast?" I mutter out.
Bucky leans against the wall as if he’s been waiting for me all along. It almost feels unfair, the way he let me search for him out there in a room full of people.
Right.
I know why he's here. Because this... this feels right. This is where we are meant to be. Not out there where the media could tear this apart, not somewhere meant for other people’s eyes. Just here, where everything is easy, familiar… soft in a way the world never lets us be.
When I glance down, curious about what he’s holding, a soft, disbelieving laugh slips out before I can stop it.
In his hands—a bouquet. Maybe more than one, gathered together.
He notices me looking before he looks away, ears turning red.
“There’s—” he clears his throat under his breath, “This isn’t just mine. It’s… everyone else’s too. From the ones who couldn’t put them in your hands themselves.”
My chest gives all at once, flooded with something warm and steady that has nowhere to go. It rises and rises until it fills every inch of me, until I don’t quite know how to hold it all.
God, this exact sight pulls me back to a simple conversation we had at the start of all this.
Back when all of this was supposed to be fake.
“Relax, Beauty. You’ll still get your standing ovations. Just… with me holding your flowers at the end.” he said.
And I scoffed, rolling my eyes like I always do when it comes to him, “I don’t need you to hold shit! I can hold it myself.”
I meant it then. I still do.
But now… now I have both.
The standing ovations and him.
"Oh, Bucky." My lips tremble around his name.
Before I can even think, my feet are already moving.
I run.
My feet carry me swiftly down the hallway, clutching the bouquets to my chest as they threaten to slip from my arms. My breath stutters, uneven, my pulse surging all over again. Now, it’s not from the performance, not from the crowd, not from the adrenaline still humming in my veins.
It’s him.
It’s always been him.
He barely has a second to register what’s happening before I collide into him, the impact knocking the air from my lungs in a breathless laugh.
I’m a goddamn mess. I laugh and gasp and I feel overwhelmed in a way I can’t even begin to control. Still, it doesn’t matter, because his arms are already around me.
All of a sudden, everything lifts.
"H-Hey! YOU GODDAMN BEAST- Put me the FUCK down!"
Of course, he doesn't listen. Instead, he hoists me up higher, spinning me effortlessly, and the world tilts on its axis.
The hallway dissolves into streaks of light and color, blurring past in a dizzying rush. Okay, fine. Even though I told him to put me down few seconds ago, I find myself not caring anymore.
I can’t stop smiling, can’t stop laughing, the sound spilling out of me, bright and uncontrollable, because this... This feels right.
“Hey, Beauty—”
I don’t let him finish.
I don’t want words.
My hands instantly find his face and I pull him down to me, closing the distance without a second thought.
I kiss him.
Everything about it is too real. Every word I swallowed and every feeling I buried all those years ago crashes back now, spilling out of me with nowhere left to hide.
His hand tightens at my waist as I stumble into him, grounding me when my world is still spinning. The motion slows, but he doesn’t even want to let go. Not until the air between us grows too thin and we’re both forced to remember how to breathe.
I roll my eyes like I always do since it's easier than admitting what’s clawing its way up my chest, anyway. Still, my hands betray me. They clutch at his jacket, fingers curling into the fabric as if if I don’t hold on, I might lose something I just found.
I tug him closer.
“I was looking for you, you peasant."
It comes out softer than I mean it to.
“I know, princess.” he smirks.
Just like that, the line between us blurs. The teasing slips away for a heartbeat, leaving just enough quiet for us to sit in something real.
“I wanted to see you after,” he admits, though a bit shy (something Bucky Barnes rarely do), “Not from up there.”
That’s it.
That’s the moment everything inside me gives.
My chest tightens so suddenly it almost hurts. I think my heart doesn’t know how to hold all of this at once. I let out a shaky laugh, blinking too fast because the tears are already there. Gosh, they are threatening and so fucking stubborn.
It makes me hate him a little for doing this to me.
For meaning this much.
“I loathe you,” I whisper.
He hums, amused. “Oh yeah?"
"Yeah."
"Liar."
I let out a soft laugh, shaking my head. “And what makes you so sure, hm?”
His answer comes as easy as breathing, “Because you ran to me.”
And the worst part is... he’s right.
I did.
I always would.
Again and again, in every lifetime, in every version of this world... I would find him and I would choose him and I would run to him.
My grip on him tightens out of certainty. For the first time, I’m not hiding behind jokes or glances or almosts from him.
Not anymore.
“I love you, Bucky. My goddamn Beast.”
The words leave me as if they have been waiting forever, even as everything inside me trembles.
For a second, the world stills.
And then… he kisses me.
Once, soft and testing.
Twice, he's making sure I’m still there.
Then it deepens, blurring into one after another, until counting them doesn’t matter anymore.
"I love you too, Beauty."
His forehead rests against mine when we pull back, both of us smiling in that helpless, stupid way you only do when something finally clicks into place.
When something right settles deep in your chest.
This... This is the ending that matters.
Gosh, it's almost laughable how long it took to get here. How many missed chances and how many words swallowed before they ever saw the light. Yet, somehow, the two of us made it anyway.
In this final moment, the past finally loosens its grip and the future stops feeling so uncertain.
A/N : THIS IS IT. THE END. AND I’M... yeah, I’m actually about to cry. My very first Tumblr series… has come to an end. I don’t even know how to process it yet. Writing Hockey!Bucky x Figure Skater!Reader has been such a huge part of me for so long that it feels weird. I’m putting down something I’m not ready to let go of... It all went by way too fast, and somehow not fast at all at the same time. But… I’m genuinely, overwhelmingly satisfied with how it turned out. I love this story so much. I love this duo so much. And I love you guys for sticking around! For waiting months (MONTHS 😭) for updates, for caring about these two as much as I do, even if the ending feels like it came too soon. This might be the end of the series… but it doesn’t have to be the end of them. If you ever want more of Hockey!Bucky and our favorite skater, just say the word. Send a request, scream in my inbox, I’ll be right there writing them again. This story might be over… but I’m really, really not ready to say goodbye. 💔
𝗉𝖺𝗂𝗋𝗂𝗇𝗀 : Hockey Player!Bucky Barnes x Figure Skater!Reader
𝗌𝗎𝗆𝗆𝖺𝗋𝗒 : A figure skater prodigy and a cocky hockey star have loathed each other since childhood, their rivalry becoming hometown legend. A decade later, they’re both famous in their own right—her becoming every ice skater's darling, him as hockey’s golden boy. When his reputation takes a hit, his PR team ropes her into a “perfect pair” publicity stunt. Forced back onto the same rink, they must fake romance in public while privately waging the same fiery rivalry… until the lines between hate and something else start to blur.
𝗐𝗈𝗋𝖽 𝖼𝗈𝗎𝗇𝗍 : 14k+
༘⋆ ❅ ･:*:｡ ❆ SERIES MASTERLIST
༘⋆ ❅ ･:*:｡ ❆ PREVIOUS CHAPTER
Beast : text me when you get back to your place, alright?
[10:30 P.M.]
Beast : come home, angel
[11:25 P.M.]
Beast : can't sleep without you
[01:04 A.M.]
Beast : alpine won't stop looking at the door
Beast : (attached image)
Beast : she's waiting for you
[02:16 A.M.]
I hadn't sent anything after that and it's been hours.
Maybe she's just busy. That make sense.
I stare at the screen longer than I should've, thumb hovering my phone.
Maybe she just hadn't seen it yet. Maybe she had seen it and chose not to answer. We fought. Of course she wouldn't reply right away.
She deserves space.
I know that.
I want to give her that.
I toss my phone aside before picking it back up a minute later.
Still nothing.
“Give her space,” I mutter under my breath as I close my eyes.
There’s another game tonight. There’s always another game. Another excuse, another obligation, another thing to drown in so I don’t have to sit with the mess I’ve made.
But it doesn’t work.
It never does.
The rink is too bright, too loud, too sharp around the edges, and I can’t think straight.
Not without her.
Not when everything in me keeps reaching for something that isn’t there.
The first period passes in fragments, glimpses instead of memories; The scrape of blades on ice, the crack of a stick, someone shouting my name. Muscle memory carries me through drills and through shifts. But my head is somewhere else entirely. Every time I try to focus, it slips.
It always comes back to her.
She is everywhere. She has taken over my thoughts completely.
I see her curled up in my hoodie, sleeves swallowing her hands. I see her half-asleep on my couch, breathing slow and steady, like for once she feels safe. I hear her, louder than anyone else, cheering without holding back. I see her name lighting up my phone, sending whatever the hell crosses her mind and I would always read every single word because everything she says matter to me more than it should.
And now… nothing. She’s not here. She’s not here and I don’t know what she’s doing. Maybe she’s not wrapped up in one of my hoodies anymore. Maybe she’s in her own room, staring at the ceiling instead of getting the rest she needs. Maybe she hasn’t touched her phone at all or maybe she has.
Maybe she’s not thinking about me at all.
My jaw tightens at that thought, but I force myself to let it pass. I have to.
She’s at her place. I know that much.
She’s safe. She’s fine. She’s exactly where she’s supposed to be.
But it still doesn’t feel right.
Because somewhere along the way, without me even realizing it, home stopped being a place. It became her. Her laugh echoing through my apartment, her presence filling the empty spaces I didn't even realize were empty until she walked into them.
With her, everything felt alive.
And now it’s gone quiet again.
It’s strange, because her home—her actual home—is still there. The same place I used to pass by every morning just to catch a glimpse of her doing anything, everything, nothing. Still, it doesn't feel like hers anymore.
Some part of me keeps insisting it’s here.
Her home is with me and my home is with hers.
Or maybe I just want it to be.
I want to be the place she returns to without hesitation. I want to be something steady for her, the one thing that doesn’t fall apart the moment things get hard. I want to be the one she chooses, the one she needs.
I want to be her home.
By the second period, I’m strung so tight I might snap clean in half.
Everything in me is buzzing.
There’s too much energy, but nowhere to put it.
My grip on the stick is too tight, causing my knuckles going white against the tape. I take one penalty that’s fair, hooking and lazy and completely my fault. The second is soft, barely there, but it still sends me to the box. When I glance at the bench, Steve’s already watching me, maybe deciding whether to yell or just drag me off the ice himself.
He’s given me the talks over and over several days ago. None of it sticks, though. This isn’t something drills or extra laps fix. I still can’t talk to her. I’ve tried so many times, but she won’t let me. Every time I get close, she slips away like smoke.
I even tried going through Romanoff. Thought maybe she’d help, say something for me. But no! She’s suddenly gone. Funny thing is, when Steve looks for her? She’s right there, exactly where she’s supposed to be. But for me? Nothing. It's either she's busy or gone or vanished or evaporated into thin air, pick one. Unbelievable. She’s playing favorites!
Third shift in, I try to force my head where it's supposed to be. Back into the rhythm that’s been wired into me my whole life.
But of course, someone ruins it. An elbow catch me just enough to knock me off my path.
“Careful, Romeo,” he mutters smugly as he skates past, “Wouldn’t wanna mess up that pretty face. Heard your girl likes it.”
My girl?
Everything in me goes still.
Then it ignites.
“What did you just say?”
He glances back, barely taking me seriously. “Relax. Just saying. You’ve got a type, right? Pretty, polished...” A smirk tugs at his mouth. “Doesn’t mean there’s anything real underneath, though.”
I don’t even remember making any decision.
My gloves are off before I’ve even fully turned. My stick hits the ice with a hollow crack, forgotten, and then I’m on him. My fist connects with his jaw.
Once.
Twice.
Again.
I stop counting after that.
He stumbles, grabs my jersey, tries to steady himself, but I don’t let up. I can’t. Everything’s already spilling over—every unanswered text, every missed call, every second of not knowing where she is, if she’s okay, if she even thinks about me anymore—it all crashes out at once.
I see red.
Not metaphorically.
Red.
Literally.
Red across my knuckles as skin splits open under the force of the hits. Red bleeding into the edges of my vision, pulsing with every heartbeat. Red flashing sharp and furious from the referee’s raised arm as the whistle shrieks through the air.
I don’t fucking care.
We go down hard, bodies slamming into the ice, but I barely feel any of it. The cold doesn’t register, the impact doesn’t matter. The only thing that matters is the next solid hit because it's the only way to get whatever’s clawing inside me out.
My fist comes down.
Then again.
And again.
Until he manages to shove me off, scrambling for space.
“Enough! That’s enough!”
It's never enough.
“Barnes, stop!”
I can't.
“Do you hear me?!”
I don’t.
“Five for fighting,” the ref snaps. “You’re done.”
Fine.
I don't care.
I don't care about the guy still down, folded in on himself like something broken.
I don't care about the way I don’t even spare him a second glance.
I don't care about turning my back on what I did.
I don’t care about the boos crashing down from the crowd.
I don’t care about the way the bench stares.
I just skate.
Ignore all of it. Whatever I did, it's already there.
My hand throbs with every push forward. The tape is dark, soaked through, sticky where it clings to my skin. My knuckles are split open, raw and pulsing, blood slipping through the seams like it’s got somewhere better to be.
I flex my fingers once.
But when the pain spikes, I can't even feel it. No matter how much it hurts, it’s nothing compared to the pain of losing her.
Fuck. What the hell am I doing?
The question comes late as it echoes in the hollow space in my chest. It follows me to the box, settles in when I sit, lingers even after the door slams shut behind me.
Why am I doing this? She wouldn’t like this. Of course she wouldn’t... would she?
My jaw tightens, head tipping back against the cold glass behind me. My breath fogs faintly in front of my face.
I don’t know. God, I don’t know. Maybe I don’t know her as well as I think I do.
For no clear reason, the thought turns sour in my chest, twisting into something ugly. It feels wrong—completely wrong—to have ever let it cross my mind.
No. No, that’s not it. I know her. I do.
I know exactly what she’d do if she were here right now.
She’d be pissed. She’d march right down here without a second thought, eyes sharp with determination, not giving a damn who’s watching,and crack me upside the head hard enough to ring. But when there's no one else but us and our familiar circle, she’d laugh.
God, she’d laugh.
Bright and wild, her eyes lit up like this is all just some kind of show she got front-row seats to. She’d bump her shoulder into mine, that crooked grin already forming to hype me up. She'd feed the fire instead of putting it out.
“Do it again,” she’d say jokingly.
I drag a hand down my face, smearing sweat and something darker across my skin.
Time slips past without me even noticing, or maybe it isn’t moving at all. Honestly, it’s hard to tell when you’re too caught up in your own head.
By the time I get out, the game’s already done. I don’t remember the final buzzer. Hell, I don’t remember anything after the fight.
When I shove the door open, the locker room is dead quiet. Pretty damn weird, if you ask me. Usually there’s noise. Music blasting, guys chirping at each other, gear hitting the floor, someone cracking a half-decent joke just to break the tension. But now? It's just the low hum of the vents and the sharp scrape of my skates against the tile.
It feels... wrong.
This team’s never like this.
I start peeling the tape off my hand, and it sticks, stubborn and soaked through. When it finally gives, it pulls at torn skin, fresh blood welling up like it’s been waiting for the chance.
My hand’s fucked. Shit. If she were here, she’d already be on me about it, fixing it up before I could even complain.
There it is. I miss her, yet again.
Unfortunately, the awkward silence doesn't get to sit for long before it's cut clean by none other than Coach Nicky Fury.
He’s standing by the whiteboard with his arms crossed, expression carved in stone. He doesn’t need to say a word to take control of the room. It happens the second he goes still, even if I’d rather choke than admit it.
He lets the silence stretch just long enough to settle over everyone before his eyes snap to mine.
“Sit,” he hiss as he points to the bench in front of him, “Now.”
Sorry, Coach.
I don’t move.
I stay right where I am, blood slipping through my fingers and hitting the floor in slow, steady drops as my chest heaves.
“Fine.” he steps forward, closing the distance, “You really want to throw away a season because you’re off your game? You planning to take yourself completely out of the lineup?”
“I’m fine.”
It comes out on instinct, automatic and empty.
I don’t buy it. No one in this room does.
He lets out a short, humorless snort, shaking his head in dissapointment. “You’re not even trying to sell it anymore,” he mutters. “Think I didn’t see you out there tonight? You were playing like someone handed you a fucking death wish.”
“I’m fine.” I repeat, clinging to it like if I say it enough, it might actually become true and he’ll finally shut up.
“You’ve got one of the best contracts on this team, Barnes." Wow, the universe clearly has it out for me right now, huh? Coach just keeps talking. “You’ve got the ice time, the responsibility, the leadership expectations, and a goddamn Stanley Cup window opening right in front of you.”
He steps in even closer, leaving no space to look away.
“Yet you’re out there playing like you’d rather get benched than pass the puck.” His gaze locks onto mine, “So I’ll ask you once. What the hell is going on?”
My jaw tightens until it aches.
I don’t answer, because I can’t, because the second I open my mouth there’s no telling what spills out. Maybe it will be anger or excuses or something worse... her name.
Another beat of silence passes, before Clint (what an asshole), mutters under his breath, “Guess we all know who wears the pants in his relationship.”
Can he just shut his mouth for once? Out of every possible moment he could’ve picked to say something, he really chose this one?
“Say that again,” I snap.
I’m already lunging forward, ready to swing and knock the life out of someone all over again.
Unfortunately, I don’t get far when something solid slams into my chest. Steve’s forearm hits hard and locks me back, forcing me off course before I can get anywhere near Clint.
“Not happening,” he growls low, holding me there, “Don’t make it worse, jerk."
Clint says something else, maybe an apology, maybe not. I don’t care, I’m not listening.
Now, all my attention locks onto my dearly beloved, creepy-as-hell Coach. He hasn’t taken his eyes off me for a second, not once. His gaze tracks everything about me right now. The tension in my shoulders, the way my fists stay clenched like I’m still seconds away from going again, the way my whole body snapped the moment that comment got a little too close to her.
“Hm.”
It’s a quiet, knowing sound of hum from him, but it’s anything but small.
Because in that single breath, I know he’s already put all the puzzle pieces together; from the first crack to her absence to the mess I’ve turned into because of it.
I swear, in another life, he’d be terrifying in a dark suit. He'd be the kind of man who pulls secrets out of people for a living and works in a secretive intelligence organizations.
Coach’s glare cuts through me first, then sweeps across the rest of the team before he drags a rough hand down his face. I bet he’s completely drained dealing with all this shit.
“I told you back in pre-season,” he reminds, “If she helps you settle, then lock it in. Don’t play games with it.” His eyes flick down to my hand, to the blood seeping through the tape, then back up again, heavier this time, “But if you care about her—and don’t bother denying it, I know you do, Barnes—then you better get your head on straight.”
How does this man always know exactly what to say?
He points at me, his frown caught somewhere between concern and pity, “This isn’t just bad for you, you hear me? It’s bad for her. And it’s bad for the team. I’m not here to babysit you, but I’m not about to watch you run yourself into the ground either, Barnes.”
He looks at me for a second longer as if he’s weighing something he doesn’t want to say. The words slips out anyway, almost to himself, “Christ… if you’re this bad, I hope she’s alright.”
And just like that, he’s gone. The clipboard smacks against the bench as the crack hangs in the air longer than it should.
For a long moment, my lungs refuse to work right, like breathing itself is something I have to relearn.
I try anyway.
In.
Out.
In.
Out—
Yeah. No. It’s not working.
One by one, the others file out, until it’s just me. I'm all alone with my own thoughts. Then, unexpectedly, Steve’s hand lands on my shoulder, dragging me out of my head.
“You done?” he asks, worried.
I tried to shake my head, “No.”
“Well, get there,” he sighs, “Because if Ace knew you were out there throwing punches with your shooting hand, she’d come down here and finish the job herself.”
Yeah. I know. Part of me wishes she would.
He starts to walk off, then hesitates, glancing back at me.
“I’ve already given you every piece of advice I’ve got,” he frowns, “You don’t wanna take it? Fine. That's on you. But from here on out… you’re on your own, Buck.”
Ouch.
I don’t think I can answer to that. There’s nothing left in me that isn’t already worn thin or cracking at the edges.
I miss her.
The image of her face during the fight... The way she looked at me wasn't anger. Hell, I could’ve handled angry. But hurt and disappointment. It was as if I’d made her feel like she was just another piece of the image.
I want her back.
No. No... That's not what I mean.
I don’t just want her back. I want all of her.
The fire in her eyes when she’s about to say something reckless, the chaos she drags in her wake, the late nights, the arguments that were never really about winning or losing, the quiet moments she thinks no one notices—when she softens, when she breathes, when she lets the world fall away for just a second.
And I want her to choose me again because she wants to. I want her to look at me like I’m not something she has to walk away from. To reach for me without hesitation, without fear, without that distance she puts between us like it’s the only thing keeping her safe.
I need her.
She is the space everything else keeps failing to fill. She is the noise and the silence, the wreckage and the calm after it. She is every version of something real I’ve ever held onto.
And I was stupid to let it slip.
Right now and forever, I’d take her in any form she’d give me. The anger, the laughter, the indifference. Anything, as long as it means she’s still there. As long as it means I haven’t completely lost the only person who ever made me feel like I was more than just something broken trying to pass for whole.
"Wait, Steve."
It comes out before I can swallow it back.
It’s enough to make him freeze in his track, though.
Shit. Now what?
"She's not answering me." I mutter out, voice rough, barely above a whisper.
Steve looks at me for a long second, before he finally says gently, “So?"
“So?” I echo, a frown pulling tight across my face. “She left. She’s not answering me. And you—” I jab a hand vaguely in his direction, “—you know something I don’t. I know you do. I’m pissed, Steve. I’m worried sick. She’s got me twisting myself up out here, losing my mind, and all you do is… stand there.”
I don’t realize I’m moving until I’m right in front of him, each word pushing me closer, voice climbing whether I mean it to or not.
“You’re both our friend, but right now? You’re not helping me at all. Can’t you just…” My breath catches, the fight draining out of it. “Help me see her?”
That does it. Silence falls like a weight between us. My chest tightens. I glance down at the floor, too frustrated to meet his eyes, too frustrated to even breathe normally.
“She packed her things,” I whisper, and the memory slams into me with a cruel, piercing edge. I remember opening our apartment door that last time, the hollow quiet swallowing me whole before I even stepped inside. Every trace of her was gone. All that remained were a few scattered clothes she hadn’t even bothered to pack, reminders that she had been here, and now... she wasn’t.
“I came home and it was… empty.” I add, swallowing hard, “And… she didn’t leave a note of a simple goodbye.” My hand goes through my hair, tugging at it without thought. “How can she do that? How can she just vanish as if I’d be okay? I’m not.”
The apartment feels enormous now. It’s empty and cold like a cage pressing against my ribs, suffocating me in the absence of her presence.
“And the worst part?” I shake my head, staring somewhere past him. “I can’t even hate her for it. I can’t blame her. She’s… she’s perfect in the worst way. She doesn’t even know how leaving like this shatters me.” I exhale, a shuddering breath I didn’t realize I’d been holding. “I just… I wish she’d left something, anything. Some kind of proof that I still matter to her. That I’m still hers, even a little.”
When I finally look up, all I see is Steve staring at me like I’ve just said something I shouldn’t have said out loud at all.
“You’re an idiot, you know that?” He shuts his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose.
The fuck?
“She has a competition in another state,” he frowns, “You remember that, right?”
My brain stutters.
What competition?
“She… she has a competition?”
The words come out cracked, barely holding together. Disbelief hits hard as I stare at him with wide eyes, heart hammering against my ribs.
What?
Steve lets out a slow breath, leaning against the doorway with his arms crossed, watching me come apart piece by piece. “Yeah. She told everyone. Told you, too. A couple days before you two fought.”
I go still.
The words land late and when they do, they wrap tight, squeezing the air out of me. My stomach twists, my hands clench so tight my nails dig into my palms. There’s a flicker of memory—her voice, something about travel, schedules, a tournament—and I’d let it slide.
Did I… actually forget? Could I have really just let this slip past me?
Her packing her stuff means she wasn’t avoiding me, right? That means she was just preparing for the competition… But did I even notice? Did I even pay attention?
I was so wrapped up in my own stupid anger, my frustration, my… whatever I was feeling that day. Did I even hear her when she mentioned it? Or did I just tune it out? Did I let something so important disappear into nothing because I was too busy being upset?
I’m an idiot.
A fucking idiot.
How could I be so blind? So selfish? How could I let my stupid pride, my stupid temper, my stupid everything… cloud my head so much that I didn’t see her? That I didn’t see what she was doing, what she needed?
She was planning, preparing, doing something big and important and I didn’t see it. I didn’t see her. Did I even deserve to be in her life if I can’t even pay attention when it matters?
God, I’m so stupid.
“I…” My words falter, swallowed by the bitter taste of shame. “…I forgot. I forgot her.”
How do you forget something like that?
“You didn’t forget her, Buck.” Steve tilts his head, “You just… let the fight get in your head. It happens.”
But that doesn’t make it better. She didn’t need more weight on her shoulders. She needed room to breathe, to focus, maybe even someone steady beside her. And instead, I gave her noise. I let my temper flare, let my stress cloud my mind, and she bore the weight anyway. All I did was pour more chaos into her path when she didn’t need it.
What the hell was I thinking?
My hands drop to my side, useless, “…I failed her.”
“Come on, man.” Steve’s hand lands firm on my shoulder, grounding me. “Don’t say that. You didn’t fail her, okay?”
“She… she didn’t answer me because I stressed her ou—”
“Buck. Stop. She didn’t answer because she’s focused. You know how she gets. When she’s under pressure, when something important is coming up, she… she just shuts herself off from everything else. That’s her way of handling it.”
I blink, heart hammering, and try to breathe past the panic curling in my chest. “I… I didn’t think about that. I just… I thought—”
“Thought what?” Steve interrupts, the corners of his mouth twitching, “That she was ignoring you on purpose? That she was upset at you? That she’d make you twist yourself into knots worrying over nothing?” He shakes his head. “You idiot. You know her better than that.”
Do I?
He squeezes my shoulder again. “I get it. You care. But caring doesn’t mean spiraling. She’s out there doing what she needs to do. The best thing you can do is wait for her until she’s home.”
Home.
I know he doesn't mean home as in her house.
He means until she comes back to me.
Her home.
I let out a breath I didn’t realize I’d been holding, shoulders loosening just a fraction.
I should have remembered. I should have… Fuck. The panic doesn’t disappear, but it dulls, sinking into something heavier.
“I can’t believe I forgot,” I shake my head, “Of all times. The one moment she needed everything clear, perfect… and I messed it up because I couldn’t get out of my own head.”
“What’s done is done, Buck. No point tearing yourself apart over it.” He nudges my shoulder lightly. “Stop overthinking it. You’ll see her soon. She’s fine. I’d bet on it. She’s just not answering your hundred panicked texts.”
A weak huff of breath leaves me.
He’s right.
Steve gives my shoulder one last, firm squeeze before nodding toward my phone. “Look. Check for something about her. Updates, schedule, whatever. It might calm you, or at least give you a clue.”
My hands fumble for my phone, thumbs shaking as I swipe through the notifications. Nothing. No messages, no missed calls, no signs of her at all. My chest tightens, a cold weight settling over me. Panic starts to creep in, gnawing at the edges of my thoughts. Where is she? Is she okay? Did she leave because of me?
Then, there’s a flicker in the corner of my screen. It seems like a breaking news clip from a local sports channel, broadcasting live from some rink out of state.
My breath stutters as I tap it open.
There she is.
For a second, everything else falls away.
She moves like she always does. Every step deliberate, every turn clean, cutting across the ice because she owns it. There’s a kind of fire in it, something controlled but fierce, wrapped in that same effortless grace I’ve watched a hundred times before… only now it’s magnified through the lens of distance and regret.
The crowd is loud—I can see it in the blur of movement behind her, hear it faintly through the tiny speaker—but it barely registers.
I’m not hearing any of it.
I see her.
“God… she’s… beautiful,” I whisper in awe.
She’s okay. She’s more than okay.
Relief tangles with the sharper edge of longing in my chest. But beneath it all, a pang of desperation blooms. I’m not there. I should be there. I should be standing at the edge of that rink, close enough for her to see me, loud enough for her to hear me, making sure she knows she’s not doing this alone.
Every leap she takes, every sharp turn, every flawless edge she carves across the ice. It’s all her. And I’m here, miles away, a spectator to her genius, weighed down by my own guilt. I realize, with a sudden, sinking clarity, that this isn’t just about the fight we had. It isn’t even about her leaving me in silence. It’s about being present in her world, being there when she’s at her best, when every move she makes lights up the ice and everyone watching, including me. And I’ve missed it. I’ve let my frustration, my fear, my stupid pride, pull me out of the very moment she needed me to be there.
I swallow, a lump tightening in my throat, my chest aching with longing that borders on desperation.
“I need to fix this, Steve.” I whisper, my voice raw, ragged at the edges.
She’s not just someone I love. She’s everything I’ve ever admired. Everything that’s ever made me want to be better, to stand taller, to protect something that shines the way she does. And I can’t—won’t—be the reason she ever feels alone. Not even for a heartbeat.
I lift my gaze, locking onto Steve’s. Every ounce of need, every raw edge of desperation, is laid bare in my eyes. “I need to see her. Now. I have to find her. I need… I need to be there.”
Steve doesn’t say anything at first. His gaze weighs my truth, my need, the sincerity bleeding from every word.
Finally, he nods. Barely there, but enough. Enough to tell me he believes me. Enough to let me try.
“She’s already come back today,” Steve says quietly, almost as if the words themselves might break something fragile in the air.
Instantly, my heart lurching with pure, aching longing.
“Text her again,” he adds as his eyes soften. “Ask her to meet you.”
I can barely get air into my lungs, heart hammering so hard I swear the whole room could hear it. Adrenaline and something like hope collide inside me, making my hands shake as my thumb hovers the screen for a second too long.
Then I force myself to move.
I need to see you. Please. Meet me at the lake.
The lake. Our lake. That hidden corner of the world that’s always been ours, where laughter has echoed against the water, where arguments dissolved into silence, and where we’ve spilled secrets we’d never tell anyone else. Before that. My chest tightens, butterflies twisting into knots as every feeling floods me at once: relief, hope, guilt, longing.
It’s too much. It’s everything.
I push forward anyway.
Every step I take toward the exit feels like it carries my heart along with it, each beat screaming her name over and over, each breath begging for the chance to make this right.
I just need one chance.
One chance to make this right.
I curl into the very edge of my bed as my phone teeters on my knees. One wrong move away from clattering to the floor, but I don’t bother fixing it. I didn’t think missing someone could feel like this. Every text from Nat, every voice note from Mama, even the small check-ins from Mrs. Alvarez and Ma Barnes—they’re like thin threads keeping me from drifting too far. A reminder that someone sees me, even if he isn’t here.
“Sooo, how’s the competition—”
“I miss him, Nat.”
The words come out before I can stop them.
Everything in the competition clicks into place flawlessly. I did great, I know I did. I hit every move and nailed every landing. The cameras caught the perfect smile, telling the world I’m alive doing all of this and that I love it. And sure, a fragment of me does. But it feels hollow, ashes in my chest. I’m there, but I’m not. My body moves on autopilot, every turn and jumps a rehearsed echo of myself. There’s nothing behind it anymore.
Because he’s not there. He’s not even watching or cheering or pulling me into his arms when it’s over.
“God, not this again.” Nat mutters, “You’ve been moping all day, you know that? Actually, scratch that. You’ve been moping since yesterday. No, wait… since you left him.”
I press my lips together, staring down at my phone.
“I swear, if I had a coin for every time you said ‘I miss him,’ I could buy myself a really nice dinner.” she keeps going, not letting me interrupt.
“Nat…” I bite down on my lip, letting out a slow breath that doesn’t really help. “I… I just miss him, Nat. It’s… stupid.”
“Not stupid,” she says, softer now, a quiet laugh slipping through. “Anyone who doesn’t miss you back is probably dead inside.”
God, I miss him in ways I didn’t even know were possible, like a part of me has gone quiet and the only sound left is the ache of him. This feels worse than when I left the city ten years ago and that was a whole lifetime of goodbye. How is that even possible? It’s only been a few days.
Am I getting soft?
Of course you are! Stupid, stupid, stupid! It’s because you care about him and it hurts to know he’s hurting because of you.
“Everything feels off without him here,” I shrug, though my shoulders ache with more than the gesture can show. “Even the dumb little things. The way I make my morning coffee with him, the stupid habits I don’t even notice until he’s not around to laugh at them…”
“You mean the things he probably thinks are adorable,” Nat says, almost disgusted.
“Exactly.” I force a small smile, but it doesn’t reach my eyes.
My chest is weighed down by something I can’t push away, a dull, constant pressure filled with a longing that refuses to fade.
I know where it comes from.
I did this. Every bit of it. I shut him out. I held back. I let the words sit unspoken, let the moments pass untouched, let hesitation decide for me when I should have reached for him instead.
Why can’t I let him in? Why can’t I apologize? I want him. God, I want him. But everything I do feels tangled up in this… performance. An act for the media. Even if what I feel is real, how can I trust it when all I’ve done is hurt him?
Nat sighs, “Okay… I’m done listening to you sit there, wallowing, pretending everything’s fine.”
“Wha—?”
“I don’t have the patience for it anymore. Not because I don’t care, but because you do care. You care too much, and it’s obvious.”
I swallow hard.
“You can’t hide behind excuses anymore,” she continues, her words gaining weight with every syllable. “You can’t keep telling yourself it’s ‘all for the media,’ or that you’re too messy, too… whatever, to let someone in. Newsflash! Everyone’s messy. Everyone’s afraid. But you? You built this wall, and now you’re scared it’s going to come down. Well… guess what? It’s falling whether you like it or not.”
Ouch.
“You need to get serious,” she hisses, “Look at what you want. Look at what you’ve been running from! Stop punishing yourself for wanting him.”
I bite my lip, eyes prickling. She’s not yelling, but every word vibrates with that fierce truth that I’ve been avoiding for weeks. She’s pointing straight at all the things I’ve been dodging, the truths I haven’t let myself say out loud.
“It's not that easy, Nat. Just… ‘be serious’ and suddenly I’m supposed to fix everything? You don’t get it. You don’t know what it’s like to feel like you’re the one breaking everything, every time you open your mouth or try to get close. I… I can’t just… just do it!”
“Oh, please.” she scoffs, “You think I’ve never felt that way? That I’ve never screwed up or hurt someone I care about? You think that gives you a free pass to mope and hide like a coward?”
“I’m trying to protect him!"
“Protect him? Or protect yourself from having to be vulnerable? Because from where I’m standing, it looks like you’re doing everything you can to keep yourself safe while he’s stuck there wondering if you even care at all.”
That one lands. I flinch, but I force myself to never let my voice falter.
“I can’t just… lay everything out there and risk being wrong, Nat.” I shake my head, “It hurts to mess things up again. It's hard to—”
“He has messed things up too, Ace.” Nat cuts in, frustration bleeding through her words now. “He has stumbled and hurt and wondered if he’s enough. He’s human, just like you."
"I know that ."
"But you keep pretending he’s not! Pretending you’re the only one with flaws. That’s the problem.”
My chest tightens so suddenly it steals the air from my lungs. For a moment, I can’t even respond. Every syllable she spits out claws at me, forcing me to see myself in ways I’ve been avoiding.
God, I can’t believe I’ve let it get this far and for what? For being childish, selfish, stubborn. Every time I snap at him, push him away, hold back… it’s all me. I told myself it was protection. That I was keeping him safe, keeping myself from breaking. But it’s not that… I’m scared. It’s fear. Plain and ugly and impossible to hide from now. Fear of being hurt, fear of being wrong, fear of being too much for someone to stay.
“I...” My voice comes out quieter now, thinner. “Nat, I didn’t want to ruin it.”
But I already have... Haven’t I?
I squeeze my eyes shut, wishing—aching—for a way to undo it all. I wish I could erase the stupid fights, the cold shoulders, the nights I let my own pride get in the way of him. I wish I could disappear just so he doesn’t have to deal with this… this mess of me, of all the fear and stubbornness I carry.
But I can’t.
There’s no undoing any of this.
“I’m not here to coddle you. You know that I never do that shit.” she sighs, “I’m here to tell you the truth. You need to step up, Ace. I mean it. You need to stop hiding behind excuses that are only hurting both of you. Stop pretending this is someone else’s fault. I’m trying to get you to realize… you can’t keep doing this or one day, you’re going to wake up, and it’ll be gone. And you’ll regret it. Big time.”
Fuck it. I want to yell back again, to fight her words again, to push against the truth she’s throwing at me again, but every line she drops pins me in place.
Because she is right.
I feel so… small now. So stupid. Why do I do this? Why do I make it harder for the person I care about most, the one person I should trust the most?
“I… I don’t know if I can—” I choke out, the lump in my throat making it feel impossible to breathe.
“Yes, you can,” Nat interrupts, firm as steel. “You’ve been strong your whole life. You’re not letting anyone in? Fine. But maybe it’s time to try. You owe him that much. You owe yourself that much. Or don’t… and just sit there and rot. Your choice.”
Her words reverberate in the empty spaces inside me. She’s right. I can’t keep spinning in this endless loop of guilt and fear. I have to face him. I have to.
“Apologize if you have to.” Nat murmurs, “Be honest. And for god’s sake… don’t let him walk through that door wondering if you care. Everyone knows damn well you do and it’s time you acted like it.”
God, I’m so selfish.
So childish.
I want a chance to make it right. I want him to see me. Not this mess of mistakes, not these walls I’ve built, not the version of me I hide behind. I want to be brave enough to stop running away from what matters.
All at once, my phone vibrates, snapping me out of the spiral I’ve been sinking into. I scramble for it, nearly dropping it in the process, my pulse already climbing before I even see the screen.
It’s him!
For a second, everything in me just… stops. Breath, thoughts, all of it, suspended on that one name. I’ve seen messages from him before, more than I want to admit, but this… this feels different.
I open it.
I need to see you. Please. Meet me at the lake.
The words sit there, unmoving, but they hit hard enough to make my chest tighten.
The lake? Of all places, it has to be the lake? The words burn on the screen, and for a second I can’t process. Why there? Why now?
And then the anger comes, fast and biting, cutting through everything else.
How dare he.
Out of every place he could have chosen, he picks that one?! The place where everything fell apart?! The place I’ve spent ten years avoiding, ten years running from, because stepping foot there meant facing every mistake I made, every word I swallowed, every moment I ruined?!
My grip tightens around my phone. I want to throw it across the room. I want to call him and demand an explanation, ask him how he could be so careless, how he could drag me back there like it’s nothing.
Does he not understand what that place did to me?
I’m still not over it. I’m still carrying the guilt, every second of every day. I’ve spent days tearing myself apart over what happened there, over what I did to him—and now he’s asking me to go back, just like that, as if it’s simple?
Fine.
If he thinks he can drag me back to that lake, fine.
I’ll go there.
The first thing Bucky said when he cut the engine was, “If we get caught, I’m blaming you.”
The car had no business making it this far. It rattled every time he pushed it past a certain speed, the whole frame shuddering like it was seconds away from giving up entirely. Cold air leaked in through the edges of the windows no matter how tight they were rolled up, settling into the car until it felt barely warmer than outside.
We were still just kids at the moment. Kids with too much time and nowhere we actually needed to be. The world outside kept moving—people working, worrying, chasing things that felt miles away from us—but in here, it was just the two of us and the beautiful view stretching out.
Our skates were tossed in the back, laces tangled, blades clinking every time the car hit a bump, and the lake was waiting like it always did.
Frozen, quiet, ours.
“You’re the one who stole the car,” I reminded him, nudging the door open with my shoulder. The cold hit immediately, sharp enough to sting my cheeks and slip down my collar. “I didn’t force you.”
“You didn’t have to,” he muttered, but there was no real bite to it.
He climbed out after me anyway.
“Ma Barnes is gonna kill you, you know that?” I said, snorting a little as I pulled my coat tighter around myself.
“She won’t know,” he shot back, easy as anything.
I turned to look at him, eyebrows lifting. “James Bucky Barnes, you literally took her car.”
“She lets me use it,” he corrected.
“You didn’t ask.”
“That’s a detail.”
“Dude, what the fuck?”
He simply grinned, a little wider this time, eyes flicking to me for a second too long before drifting back toward the lake. “You’re an accomplice now. Too late to back out.”
I rolled your eyes, but the corner of my mouth gave me away anyway.
This… This was normal. Stupid, reckless, freezing cold… but normal in the way things had always been with us.
The city had disappeared miles back, swallowed up by long, empty stretches of road and rows of trees dusted in pale winter light. Snow clung to the branches in uneven patches, and the sky hung low in that soft gray-blue way it only did this time of year.
It was quiet.
The lake stretched out ahead of us, its surface locked beneath a dull sheet of frosted ice that looked almost solid enough to trust, almost. The trees circled it, bare and thin, their branches brittle against the washed-out sky. Winter stripped everything down. No birds, no insects, nothing.
We had been coming here for years.
Back when it was just bikes and scraped knees, when summer meant diving into the water without thinking and fall meant daring each other to go in anyway. When time felt like something you had too much of.
Now it was different.
Now it was late-night drives in borrowed cars, and conversations that kept brushing up against the future without ever quite landing on it. College applications, leaving, everything waiting just a few months ahead like a line neither of you really wanted to cross.
“God, it’s colder than I thought,” Bucky muttered, shoving his hands deeper into his jacket pockets. His breath comes out in soft clouds, fading into the gray air.
“You say that every time,” I shot back, already heading for the trunk.
I pop it open, and everything we threw in earlier was still there—leftovers from lunch, a blanket, and that paper bag Mrs. Alvarez practically forced into our hands. Even now, I could smell the bread, warm and sweet even through the cold air.
“She packed enough to feed, like… six people,” Bucky cringed, leaning over my shoulder to look inside.
“That’s because she thinks you don’t eat,” I glanced at him. “Which is insane, by the way.”
“I eat.”
“Yeah. Garbage.”
“Now, listen here, you shit.”
I chuckled, grabbing the bag and nudging the trunk shut with my hip. The slam echoes out across the frozen lake, bouncing once before everything goes quiet again.
For a bit, it was… easy.
We spread the blanket out near the edge—not too close, but close enough that you can hear the ice shifting underneath. It made these low, weird creaking sounds.
Bucky kept sneaking looks at it as if he was trying not to but couldn’t help himself. It was all over his face anyway, a worry expression he never really bothered to hide.
I noticed, of course.
“So,” I said, nudging him a little, tearing off a piece of bread and holding it out to him, “you got your whole life planned out yet? Or are you still going with the ‘steal a car and see what happens’ thing?”
He let out a short laugh and took it. “Love that you think so highly of me, Beauty. And yeah, that’s the plan. Grand theft auto. Real promising future.”
“You’d panic the second a siren went off.”
“I would not.”
“You absolutely would.”
He shook his head, but there was this small smile pulling at his mouth. It faded after a second, though, replaced by something quieter.
“I don’t know,” he admitted, staring down at the bread in his hands. “Probably just… leave. Find something. Anything.”
“Anywhere in mind?”
He shrugged. “Anywhere that’s not… there.”
I didn’t press him on it.
I didn’t need to.
I get it.
The city did that to you sometimes. It got too loud, too close. It’s always right behind you, waiting for you to screw up so it can close in. And it was because we had experienced it. There was this one night that still sits weird in my chest if I think about it too long. Fluorescent lights buzzing, the supermarket basically empty except for some bored cashier and a security guard who kept disappearing down the aisles.
It was stupid, really. Just snacks, stuff we didn’t even need. He dared me first. I dared him back.
And then it turned into that thing where neither of us wanted to back down. I still remember the way his sleeve brushed mine when we slipped stuff into our jackets, trying not to laugh, trying not to look at each other because that would’ve made it worse.
It felt like a game… until it didn’t.
There was a siren and a guard yelling each of our names.
That was when we ran, his hand grabbed mine. Out the sliding doors, shoes slamming against pavement, breath tearing out of our lungs. We didn’t stop until we were halfway down some side street, bent over, laughing like idiots because we got away.
But our Mas soon found out. And after that, it was like the whole city knew. Whispers, looks, people talking. The worst part was it didn’t go away. It stuck. Followed you around for years, clinging to you like you did something way worse and embarrassing than just being a dumb kid for one night.
Out here, though… it was not like that.
“How about you, Beauty?”
I took a second before answering, dragging my fingers over the cold ground beside me. “I think I want something bigger. Not just… getting out of here. I want—” I paused, frowning a little, “—something that actually matters.”
Bucky glanced at me, eyebrows lifting slightly. “You already matter.”
“That’s not what I mean.”
“I know,” he mumbled.
I rolled my eyes, but it’s half-hearted, more habit than anything. Then I let out a quiet sigh and leaned back on my hands, staring up at the dull sky. “I don’t wanna end up stuck, you know? Doing something that feels like nothing.”
“Yeah,” he hums, nudging a loose bit of gravel with his shoe. “I get that.”
“Do you?” I tilted my head, looking at him properly now. “Because you’ve got hockey.”
He shrugged a little. “So?”
“Don’t ‘so’ me! Remember that night you basically broke into my house?”
“I knocked.”
“You pounded! Mama thought someone was dying.” I groaned dramatically. “Then you shoved your phone in my face. There was that article about you. About how scouts were already watching you, how your name kept popping up everywhere.”
He looked away, rubbing the back of his neck. “It wasn’t like that.”
“It was like that,” I insisted, smirking. “You couldn’t even stand still, you were so—what, excited? Freaked out? Both. I bet after this winter, those people already watching everything you do.”
“You make it sound like I’m under surveillance or something.”
“You kinda are,” I shrugged, “At least when it comes to hockey.”
He snorted, teasing, “Great. No pressure, then.”
I shook my head, a small smile slipping in before it faded, “I’m serious, Beast. That scholarship thing… You really think they’re not paying attention right now?”
“I know they are.”
“Then you know you can’t screw it up. Not this year. Not when you’re this close from going out of here.”
“I don’t wanna think about it like that all the time, Beauty.” His shoulders dropped just a bit.
“Yeah, well… I do. Because I’m not about to be the reason you do something stupid.” I jokingly scolded him.
“You’re not, though!”
“You don’t know that, Beast. We do dumb stuff all the time.”
A faint smile pulled at his mouth. “That’s kind of our thing.”
“Exactly,” I frowned, “And I’m saying maybe… not this time, okay?”
He studied me for a second, something quieter settling in his expression. “You really think you’d ruin it for me?”
I hesitated, then shrugged a little. “I think I don’t wanna risk it.”
He glanced back out at the lake, sighing.
“Hey,” he mumbles, "Beauty?"
I turned, caught in those stupid blue eyes, and for a second it did that annoying thing to my chest. Great.
“What?”
“You’re not that powerful.”
I sneered, “Oookaayyyy... Thanks?"
“I’m serious,” he insisted, “If I mess it up, that’s on me. Not you.”
I didn’t answer right away, just kept my eyes fixed ahead. Maybe if I didn’t look at him, I wouldn’t have to believe what he said.
“…Still,” I mumble.
“Yeah… Still.” he hummed, “How about you? You’ve got skating. That’s your thing.”
“Yeah, but it’s not the same.”
“How is it not the same?”
“Because…” I stalled, dragging the word out while I tried to piece it together. “Because figure skating isn’t… I don’t know. It’s not as… solid.”
“Solid?” he repeated, brows pulling in.
“I don’t have scouts waiting around for me after every routine,” I shrugged, “No one’s lining up with scholarships or whatever.”
Bucky frowned. “What does that even mean?”
“It means,” I gesture vaguely between us, like the answer’s floating somewhere in the cold air, “you’ve got teams, scouts, actual people watching your games. There’s, like… a path. It’s obvious.”
“And you don’t?” he shot back right away.
I let out a short breath, something between a laugh and a sigh. “Nope."
“You literally compete all the time! Like, every other weekend.”
“Local stuff, Beast.” I corrected, nudging a pebble with my shoe. “And even if I move up, it’s still… Everything’s up to judges. One bad fall, one off day, one person deciding they hate your routine—”
“So?”
“It’s not just that, Beast.”
“Then what?”
I hesitated, arms folding tighter across my chest. “It’s… here,” I glanced around with disdain in my voice, “I’m stuck here.”
Bucky’s frown deepened.
“Nobody’s looking here,” I continued, “If you don’t get out—like, actually out, bigger cities, abroad, somewhere people care—then it doesn’t matter how good you are. If I stay… then none of it’s guaranteed. It just… stays small.”
Bucky looked at me like I just said something stupid, then shook his head, a quick, almost annoyed motion.
“Nothing’s guaranteed.”
“Hockey kind of is for you.”
“No, seriously.” He leaned forward, elbows digging into his knees, “You think just because I can skate fast and slam people into the boards that I’ve got my whole life lined up or something?”
“Um, yeah? You’re literally being scouted,” I pointed out.
“That's true...” His eyes dropped to the ground. “But if I blow out my knee tomorrow? That’s it. Done.” He snapped his fingers. “No hockey. No ‘future.’ Nothing."
The word landed heavier than I expected.
I didn’t have a response right away.
This whole thing—our thing—it was weird. He’s hockey. I’m figure skating. Same ice, totally different worlds. And somehow people still act like they overlap, like we’re some kind of story they’ve already written. Either you make it big, become some golden headline, or you crash and burn in front of everyone. No middle ground. And it definitely doesn’t help that people here already think we’re dating. As if that’s not the most annoying rumor in existence.
Because it was not just me anymore when I skate. It was him, too. People watched me and saw him. They watched him and somehow saw me. Like we were connected, like if one of us screwed up, it dragged the other down with it. Like our futures are… linked or something. Like our success only works if we’re side by side.
It was so messed up.
Quiet settled between us for a while. A couple of throwaway things here and there, like “can you pass that?” or “did you finish your homework?” but nothing that sticks. Nothing like what we were just talking about.
The wind shifted, sharper this time, slipping through my sleeves and down my spine. I tugged them over my hands, tucking my fingers in, and glanced out at the lake again.
It’s… perfect.
Flat, glassy, barely a mark on it. The kind of smooth that almost doesn’t look real, really.
Then, an idea sparked before I could stop it.
“Hey, Buck?” I called out, a little grin already sneaking in, “You wanna skate?”
“On that?” He jerked his chin toward the lake. “No, thanks.”
“Why not?”
“Because I like being alive??"
I rolled my eyes, pushing myself back on my hands. “Oh my god, it’s fine.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I do.”
“You absolutely do not.”
I grinned wider, squinting at him, “Awww! You’re just scared!”
He huffed immediately. “I’m not scared!"
“Then prove it.”
“Nice try.”
I tilted my head, studying him, while he was already shaking his head, already digging his heels in.
So I went for the one thing I know he won’t ignore.
“I dare you.”
And there it was.
Three words that always meant things were about to get out of hand.
Bucky went completely still, for a while.
Slowly, he turned his head toward me, narrowing his eyes. “You’re kidding.”
“Nope.”
“You’re serious.”
“Completely.” I lifted my eyebrows at him, like well?
He glared at me for a second longer, then looked back at the lake. The ice answers with a faint crack somewhere out there, quiet but sharp enough to make the air feel thinner.
“Yeah, that...” he pointed at it vaguely. “That does not sound safe.”
“It’s thick enough, Beast.” I sat up straighter, crossing my arms. “I didn’t realize you were this—”
“Don’t say it.”
“—cowardly.”
Instantly, he let out a sharp breath, dragging a hand down his face, muttering something I definitely wasn’t supposed to hear. I really thought he’s gonna bail, though. I expected him to brush it off, call me insane, drag us back to the car like the responsible one for once.
Instead, he stood.
“Fine.”
Seriously? Wait, is he fucking serious?
“If I die, I’m haunting you, by the way.” he added, already shrugging off his jacket.
“You’re not gonna die.”
“You sound real sure for someone who’s staying on land.”
I grinned, rocking back on my heels. “Hey, I didn’t get dared.”
He grumbled but didn't fight it. Typical. Instead, he turned back to the lake, stepping closer, boots crunching over that thin, powdery snow. It got quieter the closer he got, even the wind’s holding its breath.
“Beast—” I called out.
He glanced back. “What?”
“Don’t fall.”
He snorted, “Great advice. Really helpful. I feel safer already.”
I bit back another smile, watching as he reached the edge. It confused me how he just stood there, staring down at the frozen surface. Then, he stepped onto the ice. He exhaled, a visible puff of relief, testing his weight carefully before shifting forward.
The ice let out a low groan, but it didn’t crack.
Thank goodness.
“See?” I called. “You’re fine!”
“Don’t jinx it!” he snapped back, arms slightly out for balance.
He took another step.
Then another.
At first it was kind of pathetic. His boots sliding just enough to make him swear under his breath, shoulders tensing every time the ice makes a sound. But after a few seconds, he started getting the hang of it, moving farther out, gaining a little confidence with each step.
And I was just standing there, watching him, something in my chest pulling tight in a way I don’t feel like dealing with right now.
“Look at you,” I teased. “Almost graceful.”
“Shut up.”
But he was smiling now. Really smiling…
It hit me harder than it should, really.
This was the whole point why we were here. It was about this one second, this one look on his face that I haven’t seen in… I don’t even know how long. Months, maybe. Ever since everything started piling up on him. He hasn’t been like this. Even when he laughs, it’s been different. Quieter. Shorter. Like there’s always something else in the back of his mind dragging him back down. But right now, he was just some idiot standing on a frozen lake, trying not to wipe out.
And he was smiling like none of that exists. Like he’s not thinking about what comes after winter. Not thinking about leaving, or staying, or screwing it all up. Not thinking about anything except not falling through the ice and proving me wrong.
And yeah, maybe this was stupid. It didn’t fix anything. I knew that. But if it gives him this, even for a few minutes? If it lets him forget, just for a second? Then it was worth it.
Out of nowhere, Bucky pushed off harder, his skates carrying him farther than they should have. I couldn’t explain it, but my heart started pounding—too fast, too loud—like some part of me already knew something was about to go wrong.
“Okay,” he called, laughing under his breath. “Okay, maybe this isn’t—”
Crack.
A sharp crack cut him off.
Everything stops.
“Bucky.” I whispered, the word coming out quieter than I mean it to.
Another crack.
Louder.
“Don’t move,” I added quickly.
And from then on, everything went wrong.
I blinked and he was gone, slipping, crashing hard against the ice hard enough it echoed.
“Bucky, stay—stay with me, okay? Just—just stay—”
I blinked and my throat tore open with his name, over and over, louder, louder, like I could drag him back with sound alone.
“Don’t— Don’t do this. Don’t—don’t you dare—”
I blinked and my hands were shaking so badly I could barely dial, calling anyone, everyone, begging for help I couldn’t give.
“Talk to me. Say something! Anything, I don’t care, just—just talk to me! Bucky?!"
I blinked and the world flooded in; sirens screaming, strangers crowding, boots pounding against the ice, voices overlapping until none of it makes sense.
“I can’t—I can’t do this without you, okay? So you don’t get to— you don’t get to just—just leave, you hear me?!”
I blinked and people were staring at me as if this was my fault.
“Someone help! Please—please, somebody help—!”
I blinked and I was in a hospital room that smells too clean, too cold, staring at my best friend lying still beneath white sheets, machines breathing for him, keeping time where he couldn’t.
“Help him! Please, just—just help him, I don’t know what to do— I don’t know—”
He didn’t move.
“Please. Please, please, please—”
He didn’t wake up.
And no matter how many times I blink after that, nothing changed.
Everything turned blue. Not just the sky or the lake, but everything. It bled together until there was no edge, no line, no sense of where anything begins or ends. The world flattened into this cold, endless blur, and I couldn’t breathe because I couldn’t see in a way that makes sense.
It was like I blinked and lost the shape of everything.
I saw blue on him too.
He was not supposed to be that color. Blue was never meant to belong to him like this—only in his eyes, only when they were open and alive and looking at me. Not like this. Not spread across his lips, his skin, turning him into something cold and unfamiliar.
He should be anything but this.
He should be warmth. Sunlight spilling through winter, the kind that made you forget the cold exists at all. He should be heat, flushed cheeks, breath that fogged the air because he was laughing too hard. He should be comfortable, steady, alive in a way that filled the space around him.
Not blue.
Never blue.
And the worst part is his eyes were closed, like they’ve taken the only place that color ever belonged with them. It left the rest of him wrong, all wrong, painted in something that was never meant to touch him in the first place.
The moment felt endless. It kept going, stretched too thin, raw and endless, bleeding into itself.
I didn’t remember when I collapsed, only that suddenly I was folded into Steve, clinging to him like he was the only solid thing left. My hands twisted into his jacket so hard they ache, knuckles stiff, fingers numb, but I couldn’t let go. If I did, I thought I might disappear with everything else.
My face was buried in his shoulder, and I was crying so hard it didn’t even feel like breathing anymore. It was broken sounds; Ragged, choking, pulled out of me whether I wanted them or not.
“He was so blue,” I keep saying, over and over, the words falling apart in my mouth. “Steve, he was so blue—he was cold, he was so cold—”
My voice cracked until it didn't even sound like mine. I was shaking, my whole body coming apart in his arms, and he kept trying to steady me, one hand on the back of my head, the other gripping my shoulder, holding me together when I couldn’t do it myself.
“I told him not to move, but it's my fault. Because I-I t-told him to. E-Even when he didn't want to do it. But he did it anyway. B-Because of me!” I gasped, dragging in air that won’t stay, that never fills my lungs. “I said it, I—I should’ve—I should’ve done something, I should’ve—”
But the words collapse before they mean anything. Because there was nothing. Nothing I did that mattered. Nothing I could reach back and change.
“It’s my fault,” I choked, and it just kept spilling out over and over again, “It’s my fault, it’s my fault, it’s my fault—”
It's my fault.
Steve was saying something—telling me to stop, telling me it isn’t true—but his voice felt far away. I couldn’t hear him over the memory crashing in too loud, the sharp crack of ice, the way he vanished, the way everything unraveled all at once.
“I was so scared,” I whispered, but it barely existed, the words breaking apart as soon as they left me. “I was so scared, Steve. I thought—”
I couldn’t finish it. I couldn’t say it out loud.
Because all I could see was that awful color that didn’t belong anywhere but his eyes. Not his lips. Not his skin. He wasn’t supposed to look like that. He was supposed to be warm. Alive. Laughing.
Not…
My voice gave out completely, collapsing into another wave of sobs that tore through my chest.
“I thought he was gone.”
I cried until my throat felt raw, until my eyes sting and blur and everything hurts, until there’s nothing left inside me but that same hollow, aching terror.
I did this.
I was the reason.
I was to blame.
I took everything from him.
Wow.
Of course it’s raining.
What the fuck.
This rain feels scripted, almost mocking. I bet if this happens in a movie, she would’ve pointed at the screen with a scoff and a laugh—“This is so stupid. No one’s life actually looks like this.”
And yet, here I am. Living it.
I slow to a stop, just at the edge of it, shoes barely touching the soaked ground. For a second, I almost turn back. She wouldn’t want this. She wouldn’t want something this predictable, this painfully on-the-nose. Not her. Never her.
But then I see her.
Here, by the lake.
The rain hits her, relentless, drenching her hair, her clothes, clinging to her like she’s part of the storm itself. But the worst part is she doesn’t react to any of it. She’s just… there. Staring out at the water.
My chest tightens.
She has to be freezing.
I need to hold her.
And that’s all it takes.
Every thought about clichés, about what she would or wouldn’t want, disappears like it never mattered in the first place. Because she’s there, alone, standing in the middle of something that feels too heavy for one person to carry.
So I run.
Straight into the rain, into the cold, into whatever this moment is.
For her.
Anything I would do only to reach her and to stand beside her.
Rain slams into everything in thick, punishing sheets. It soaks through my hoodie in seconds, seeping into my skin. My T-shirt clings, cold and suffocating, every step sending water splashing up my legs. The pavement gleams under the flickering lamppost, warped reflections of the lake stretching out beside me, completely fucking irrelevant.
I don’t feel anything. I don’t feel the cold nor the rain. All I hear is the sound of my shoes hitting the ground. The blood is roaring in my ears. My heart pounds so hard it feels like it’s trying to tear its way out of your chest, screaming at myself to fucking move faster.
Because she’s walking away again.
This time, I can’t… I won’t let her.
Not with her shoulders caving in on themselves, like she’s folding under something too heavy to carry. Not with her arms wrapped tight around her own body, holding herself together by nothing but stubborn, shaking will. Not with that slight tremor in her chin she’s trying so damn hard to hide. I know she’s pretending if she just keeps walking, she won’t fall apart. I know she’s thinking if she doesn’t look back, it won’t hurt as much.
She’s killing me right now.
I catch up to her halfway.
“Beauty—”
My voice cracks in the middle, but she doesn’t stop.
“Ace.”
This time, my hand finds her shoulder.
She spins around and shows me all of her. Rain clings to her lashes, sliding down in uneven trails, fire burning in her eyes.Her cheeks are flushed, soaked, strands of dark hair stuck to her skin, curling against her throat. I have to stop myself from reaching out, from brushing it away, from touching her at all.
Because I want to do more than that.
Way more.
She stares at me in anger, “What are you doing?”
“I love you.”
There.
I said it.
It’s out before I can cage it, before I can turn it into something easier to survive. It tears out of me like it’s been clawing at my ribs for weeks, raw and reckless and irreversible.
Her lips part.
And everything else… stops.
The rain still falls, I know it does—I can feel it soaking through my clothes, dripping from my hair—but it fades into nothing. The lake, the wind, the whole entire fucking world itself is gone. All of it swallowed by the look on her face.
“Don’t…” she chokes, her voice splintering. “Don’t say it yet.”
She’s scared.
That’s when I realize she’s not mad because I followed her. She’s scared because she doesn’t think she’s ready to feel this, to accept the love I want to give her wholeheartedly.
She tries to pull away, like distance might make it less true. Maybe if she can just get out of reach, she won’t have to feel it pressing in on her chest.
But I will never let her go, ever. My fingers tighten around her wrist, enough to keep her here, with me, inside this moment she’s so desperate to escape.
I step closer.
My heart is somewhere in my throat, beating so hard it almost hurts as it tries to force the words back out again to make sure she heard them right.
“Don’t run away, Beauty,” I rasp, my voice rough, unsteady in a way I can’t hide. “You don’t get to run from this.”
The rain is coming down harder now, soaking through everything, dripping from her lashes, sliding down the curve of her cheek. Her lip trembles, and she looks away so fast it’s like she can’t bear to let me see her fall apart.
But I already do.
“You don’t get to pretend I don’t mean something to you,” I push, each word landing with everything I’ve got. “Not when you know you mean—”
My voice breaks, just for a second.
“—you mean fucking everything to me.”
Her breath stutters. She blinks hard, again and again. She’s trying to force the tears back, trying to hold herself together with sheer will.
But, God… she’s slipping.
And I can see it.
And it wrecks me all over again.
“I love you,” I say again, softer this time, but no less certain, my fingers slipping under her chin and lifting it just enough so she can’t hide from me. Her eyes are wrecked with the color red, glossy. God, I wish it wasn’t me. I wish her tears didn’t have anything to do with my voice, my words, the way I exist in her life. That when her eyes filled, it wasn’t because of something I did or didn’t do.
Because she deserves everything but this. She deserves laughter that spills out of her uncontrollably, the kind that makes her eyes shine instead of burn. She deserves warmth, light, something gentle enough to hold her without breaking her apart.
And I keep thinking—if I could just reach in and take it back, every second that ever hurt her, every moment that made her crumble—I would. I’d trade it all just to see her smile again.
I don’t want to be the reason she cries.
I want to be the reason she forgets how to.
“I loved you yesterday. I loved you the first day we met. I’ve been loving you in every moment in between. I’ve loved you since you ruined my life in the best fucking way possible. Fuck. I’m going to keep loving you, Beauty, whether you stay or not.”
“Buck—”
“And don’t—don’t stand there and decide you don’t get to hear it.”
Her breath stutters out of her and her hands twist in the front of my soaked hoodie, gripping so tight the fabric pulls like she needs something solid to hold onto before she collapses completely. Rain drips from her lashes, or maybe those are tears—I can’t tell anymore.
I bring my hands up to her face, careful this time—afraid of pressing too hard, of giving her any reason to pull away. My thumbs brush along her cheekbones, memorizing her face all over again. I’m grounding myself in the feel of her, making sure she’s still here.
“I’ve told you a hundred times,” I murmur, my forehead almost touching hers now, “In a million different ways. Over and over. In everything. In every stupid joke, every late-night call, every time I stayed when it would’ve been easier to walk away. You just didn’t want to hear it like this.”
She squeezes her eyes shut, turning her face away.
“You can’t say things like that,” she chokes, the words breaking apart in her mouth. “Not—not to this version of me.”
A hollow, disbelieving breath leaves me, “You think I care about versions? Oh, baby... You think I’d just let you go? Again? That I’ll just stand there and watch you tear yourself out of me like it’s nothing?”
She goes still in my hands as the truth slips through the cracks she’s been trying so hard to hold together, bleeding through every crack she’s pretending doesn’t exist.
“You should,” she snaps. “You should let me go.”
Liar.
She’s a goddamn beautiful liar.
“Tell me, Buck. Why did you tell me to come here?” The words rip out of her, “Huh? What, so you can blame me for everything? Is that it? You want to push me into that lake and call it even? You want me to feel it too? The cold? The way it takes everything from you in seconds?” Her laugh turns rough as she continues, “Why here? Out of every place in the world, why would you bring me back here? When you know this is where everything started falling apart. When you know this place—this stupid place...”
Her eyes flick toward the lake, just for a second, before returning her gaze to meet mine.
“When you know—” her voice breaks, but she forces it louder, harsher, “—this is the place I lost you. And you still thought this was a good fucking idea?!"
A step closer.
She falters for half a second, breath hitching, then the rage comes back twice as hard, spilling over everything else.
“Say something, Bucky!” she yells, voice cracking apart. “Say anything that makes this make sense, because right now it just feels like you dragged me back here to watch me break all over again!”
My hands slip from her face to her shoulders, anchoring her there.
“I brought you here because I made peace with it a long time ago, Beauty,” I say, softer than I mean to, but steadier than I feel. “This place doesn’t haunt me at all. It never did. Not the way you think.”
Rain beads along her lashes, trembling there, clinging the way she is.
“When I came back here, years ago… I thought it would hurt. I thought all I’d see was the accident. But, no. I didn’t see the fall. I didn’t hear the crack. I didn’t feel the cold.” My grip tightens, just a little. “You know what I saw? All I saw was us. You.”
I swallow, hard.
This is the truth.
“Us sitting on the edge of the dock with our feet in the water. Us laughing so loud people stared. Us crying over stupid shit that felt like the end of the world back then. Us stealing Mrs. Alvarez’s bread and swearing we’d pay her back someday, even though we never did.” A broken huff escapes me. “You laughing with your mouth full, me telling you to slow down while doing the exact same thing. Us pretending to do homework and getting absolutely nothing done. Running when we weren’t supposed to. Staying when we should’ve left. Us just… being us.”
Her chin lifts, stubborn even now, even with her eyes glassy and her mouth unsteady.
“Beast—”
“So say it,” I argue, “Say I should let you go like you actually mean it, Beauty.”
She doesn’t.
Of course she doesn’t.
Because she can’t.
Whatever this is between us has never been small, has never been something she can just put down and walk away from. It’s stitched too deep, buried too far under skin and bone and everything that makes us who we are.
I see it all over her. There’s war tearing through her. Her fists curl like she’s bracing for impact, her lips tremble like they’re trying to form words she doesn’t have the strength to say. Fight. Fear. Want. All of it tangled together until she looks like she might shatter under the weight of it.
So I don’t let her be the one to shatter first.
“This... Whatever this is between us?” My voice drops, stripped down to something too honest to hide. “It’s fucking everything. You hear me? It’s everything to me. You know that. I know that.”
I lean closer, not letting her look away.
“And I want you. Fuck it, I want you so bad it actually scares me, baby." My throat tightens, but I don’t stop. Never want to stop. “I don’t just want the easy parts of you. Not just the version everyone falls for. Not just the one who lights up a room without trying, or the one who’s always ten steps ahead, or the one who makes everything feel lighter just by being there.”
Her breathing goes shallow, and I let my fingers thread into her wet hair, making sure she can see me clearly as I lean in closer.
“I want the parts you hide,” I whisper. “The quiet, aching ones. The ones you pretend don’t exist."
"Stop-"
"I want the you that feels too much and then shuts it all down like it doesn’t hurt."
"Buck, I swear to fucking-"
"I want the you who drags me through IKEA for hours and the you who dares me into the dumbest shit imaginable just to see if I’ll do it. I want the you who laughs like nothing can touch you, even when it can. Even when it does.”
A soft sound breaks out of her—half-laugh, half-sob—and it shatters something in me.
“I want the you who gets overwhelmed,” I keep going, “The one who panics when it all gets too big. The one who runs when she’s scared, but still comes back. Every time. You always come back.” My voice cracks on that, but I don’t stop. “Because you’re stronger than you think you are.”
I press my forehead to hers for a second, breathing her in like it’s the only thing keeping me steady.
“And I hate—” I swallow hard. “I hate that you think you have to carry all of it alone. That you think you deserve the weight of it. You don’t. You never did.”
She’s falling apart in my hands, and I hold her there, trying to be steady for her.
“You don’t have to do this alone, baby.” I whisper.
Her eyes search mine like she’s desperate to believe it, like it might save her or ruin her. I don’t know which.
“I want all of you,” I say, and now I’m gone, there’s no holding anything back. I let her see every single part of me. They already belong to her anyway. “Every piece. Every messy, complicated, impossible piece of you. Because every version of you… every single one, skates? It already lives here.” I thump my fist over my chest. “With me.”
The rain comes down hard enough to sting, soaking straight through her, through me—settling deep into the places in my chest that never healed right. The places she once swore she’d protect.
And still… here I am. Fighting for it anyway.
She shakes her head, a broken sound slipping out of her, caught somewhere between a laugh and a sob.
“You always have to win, don’t you?”
A hollow laugh drags out of me before my jaw tightens until it aches. My whole body practically vibrates with restraint as my eyes drag slowly over her face.
“Not this time. This isn’t a game to me. It’s not a bet around a pool table, it’s not a joke in front of our friends. This is you and me. It’s us, baby.”
“Buck…” Her voice splinters. “You absolute idiot. I hate you.”
I step closer anyway.
Close enough to feel her warmth fighting against the cold. My hand comes up, fingers sliding along her jaw, my thumb pressing against the frantic beat of her pulse. A proof she’s still here. A proof that she’s still mine to lose.
“Nah,” I say, “You don’t.”
My eyes search hers, desperate, raw.
I beg her to stop running, to stop lying, to just let it be true for once. To tell me this hasn’t all been something I imagined. That she wants this us as badly as I do.
“I don’t know how to do this,” she says, so quiet I almost miss it under the rain. “I don’t know how to be loved by someone like you. I don’t know how to stand here and let you see me like this.”
Her voice falters, fractures.
“I don’t think I can forgive myself… not here. Not after what happened.” She swallows hard, her eyes searching mine, “But I want to try.”
She wants to try?
That wrecks me.
Completely.
My breath breaks on the way out. Something inside me finally gives after holding for too long—years, maybe. It’s as if I’ve been standing on the edge of losing her forever and she just… stepped back toward me.
She chose me.
She chose us.
Holy shit, I have been waiting!
For this. For her. For those exact words… my whole damn life.
It happens so fast it almost feels like a mistake, something the universe will snatch back if we breathe wrong.
She steps into me, fingers twisting into the collar of my soaked hoodie, dragging me down until there’s no space left to hide, forcing my eyes to meet hers.
“If I do this, Buck—if I jump, if I fall, if I give you all of me… even the pieces I hide—you better fucking catch me.”
My hands move on instinct, framing her face, palms burning against her wet skin. “Try and fucking stop me, baby.”
And then she does. She pulls me down, pressing herself to me, crushing her lips to mine.
God, she tastes like home.
She’s someone I’ve been chasing without knowing it.
I kiss her back just as hard, just as desperate. Everything we’ve been swallowing crash into each other all at once. Our mouths collide, breaths stutter and tangle, hands clutch like letting go would mean losing something we’ll never get back.
The rain pelts us, cold and merciless, but I don’t feel any of it. My hands thread through her hair, memorizing every inch, every curve, every tremble. She tastes oh so sweet. A broken sound escapes her into my mouth, and it hits me straight in the chest, knocks the air out of me. Her fingers clutch me, pulling me impossibly closer, and I tilt my head, opening myself, letting her take me, needing her to.
Take it. Take all of me.
I’ve always wanted her like this.
Our tongues meet, sliding together, and I’m trying to memorize her shape as if I could never let it go.
I need more. Always more. More, more, more. Give me fucking more, Beauty.
Please.
If this is a dream… let me die here, right here, satisfied and complete.
When she finally pulls back just enough, our foreheads still pressed together, we’re both gasping, soaked to the skin. My thumbs find her jaw, tracing it. My eyes burn into hers.
“Tell me… tell me you don’t regret any of it,” I rasp.
Her fingers clutch the collar of my hoodie, refusing to let go. She shakes her head, wet hair plastered to her face.
“I don’t,” she breathes.
That alone almost ruin me.
“Good,” I murmur, the words a promise I can barely keep from shaking.
“I love you.”
The words tumble out of her mouth, breathless and trembling, swallowed instantly by the rain, yet I hear them louder than anything in the world.
What?
My chest tightens. My heart stutters.
That’s it.
That’s the one thing I’ve been chasing every day of my life.
That’s everything I have ever wanted.
Three words. Eight letters.
And suddenly everything makes sense again.
I freeze, holding her hips. My voice is nothing but gravel and wet air and the weight of all the years I’ve wanted her.
“Fuck…” I whisper, almost inaudible over the thunder. “Say it again, baby? Please?”
I need it. Not because I didn’t hear her. It’s because once isn’t enough. It will never be enough.
And then she does. Her hands cup my face, shaking, soaked, trembling. And the way she looks at me… it’s like she’s pouring every piece of her into me.
“I love you, James Bucky Barnes.” she repeats, “All of you.”
I swear… heaven is nothing compared to this.
My eyes shut on instinct. I’m desperate to burn this moment into my goddamn soul.
Oh, how I wish I can trap this exact second so I can never let it go. Oh, how I try to carve every sound of her voice, every tremble in it, every piece of her that chose me into myself.
When I open them, it hurts. All of this is never too much. It’s real and fucking everything.
I crash my mouth against hers, messy, urgent, desperate.
“I love you, too, Beauty,” I rasp against her mouth, “I love you so fucking much.”
Her breath stutters, hot and broken against my skin, tears slipping down her cheeks as if even they can’t contain what she feels. And then she’s kissing me again, frantic and trembling.
She doesn’t need to say it again. I feel it. Everywhere.
I lift her without thinking. I’d carry her forever if she let me. And she laughs into the kiss. It’s the happiest sound I’ve ever heard in my life.
“I’m all yours, skates,” I murmur against her lips, softer now, but no less certain. “Always was.”
Her smile breaks through and I kiss it, again and again.
Standing there in the pouring rain, heart wide open and completely hers, I know one thing for certain.
I’d burn everything I am to the ground before I ever let her go.
I’m finally hers.
After all the years of aching, of wanting her… I’m never letting her go.
𝗈𝗏𝖾𝗋𝖺𝗅𝗅 : 1940s setting, childhood friends to enemies to lovers, slow fucking burn, bucky is a known shameless flirt, reader matches his energy back, flirt x flirt, mutual pining, maybe angst, maybe fluff, maybe smut, reader is a genius, steve rogers as the third wheel, no use of y/n, reader lastname is howell, nicknames
𝖺/𝗇 : i honestly have no idea what i’m doing here... but hear me out. the whole 1940s setting is just the starting point. it's not exactly the main focus, because i don’t really know much about that era anyway- i just needed a way to build the backstory??? the real idea is that the reader is bucky’s childhood best friend, but she has her own storyline going on and somehow, her story stretches way beyond that timeline… all the way to the thunderbolts and even more. but it's not exactly a full series, because I have no idea how to turn it into one big structured plot??? honestly, i'm not even sure this makes sense anymore, but... yeah... that's the concept. enjoy!
𓂃🪶
Soon...
Even they couldn’t remember how it started.
They’d been side by side for as long as either of them could recall. Long before Steve Rogers ever entered the picture, long before war had a name or a weight.
From the start, they didn't make sense on paper.
He came from a cramped, low-rent apartment where the walls were too thin and winters lingered too long. She was raised in a house built on old money, older names, and generations power.
He learned how to make do.
She was taught how to maintain.
He got loud when life pushed him.
She learned how to stay composed when it did.
They shouldn’t have met, shouldn’t have fit, shouldn’t even have worked.
And yet, somehow, they did.
It defied any reason. But from the moment they met, something just... clicked. They understood each other in a way that didn’t need words. Where they came from, what they had, what they lacked, it all blurred into nothing when it came to them.
Even as years bled into decades, as the world shifted around them, as they went through things neither of them could quite face or put into words, as people drifted in and out of their lives... that moment where they’d be apart for too long never really came.
Because no matter how far they were pulled, how badly they broke, how much time tried to wear them down, they always found their way back.
To each other.
Again, and again, and again.
"Go home."
"No."
"You will get in trouble, Barnes."
"So will you, Howell."
"I'm used to it."
“Then I’ll get used to it too.”
"So, you're not leaving me?"
"So I'm not leaving you."
"...So he's not leaving me."
Oh my god… I can’t believe it... How many months has it been?
Writer’s block is actually insane. Life’s been so hectic, and after a really awful heartbreak… I finally snapped out of it. Guess I needed something that painful to get the words flowing again, huh? Ouch.
Life’s been a lot lately. But anyway... HIII!! OMG, it’s been sooo long!! I’ve missed you guys so much :(
ALSO… I’M PLANNING A NEW FIC!!! It’s not a full series (sadly), but this idea actually pulled me out of my writing slump, so I really hope you guys will enjoy it. It’s more like a collection of oneshots set in the same universe? I don’t even know how to explain it properly yet… but I’m genuinely so excited about this one and I can’t wait to share more with you all.
And don’t worry.... the Hockey!Bucky x Figure Skater!Reader fic is still ongoing, lol! I’m not abandoning it, I promise. That story is still very much will be updated. I’ve missed it (and you guys) way too much to ever let it go...
summary | a velvet-cloaked vampire is haunting a historical sokovian castle… and somehow, you're the one who always ends up in its arms screaming.
tags | Scooby-Doo AU but make it Marvel, FLUFF college-aged mystery solvers, haunted castles & fake vampires, rope traps and poorly executed tackles, excessive eye-rolling (mostly nat and sam), brawling that looks more like interpretive dance
a/n | start of october. so let's get this scooby doo shit on, since so many of you loved my idea. also fun fact about me: this'll be the first october I'm actually experiencing autumn. literally for all my life october has been spring for me lmao. also I've had this in my notes app for a whileeeee now 😬
likes comments and reblogs are much appreciated ✨✨
ᴍᴀsᴛᴇʀʟɪsᴛ
divider by @saradika-graphics and @uzmacchiato
You truly never understood how it always ended up this way.
The second Steve said “Let’s split up, gang,” the universe seemed to roll its eyes and deal the same hand every time.
Bucky and Sam would argue like their very lives depended on it—because, honestly, they kind of… did? They swore up and down that they were cursed, always the ones who ended up stumbling face-first into the bad guy. Which wasn’t exactly wrong.
Still, no matter how much they whined, they always ended up together. It was almost impressive in its inevitability—like watching two moths fly straight into the same bug zapper, night after night.
Nat never looked for clues, please, that was beneath her. She preferred the direct approach: marching down dark hallways, ready to beat the living crap out of the culprit hiding in the walls.
And Steve, bless his all-American optimism, would trot along after her, still insisting that the answer was to build a trap out of rope, duct tape, and “teamwork.”
Which, of course, left you. You and Alpine. The brains and the beauty. Not that you minded—you preferred it, really. Someone had to be the functional one while the others were busy running around like headless chickens. Alpine was sharper than half the group anyway. Together, you two always found the actual evidence while everyone else was busy embarrassing themselves.
Take last month’s debacle: The Gargoyle of Hell’s Kitchen. The terrifying stone demon leaping across rooftops? Please. You’d figured out in about ten minutes it was Wilson Fisk—“philanthropist” (what a generous word for him) with more cologne than conscience—trying to spook tenants out of their buildings so he could swoop in and gentrify the block.
Or two weeks ago, the so-called Pale Wraith of the Smithsonian. Honestly, the theatrics. A glowing figure haunting the museum halls after dark? You almost applauded the drama—until you caught Ebony Maw, the museum manager, hiding expensive stolen artifacts in crates out back. Not even original.
Really, the list went on. And you could’ve named plenty more if you’d cared to. At this point, you didn’t have enough fingers to count all the grown adults who thought throwing on a rubber mask was an intelligent business plan.
So here you were. In freakin’ Sokovia—though honestly, Transylvania 2.0 was a better fit—investigating some wannabe vampire scaring tourists out of one of the country’s most famous castles.
You sighed, tugging your coat tighter. Big, historic, dramatic-ass castle, and yet no heating. Figures. If they’d invested in radiators instead of gargoyles, maybe you wouldn’t be able to see your own breath fogging the air.
“C’mon, Ally girl,” you muttered, watching Alpine trot ahead, fur pristine and tail high like she owned the place. She didn’t even flinch at the cold. Of course she didn’t. Cats never suffered like people did. Meanwhile, you had so many layers on you’d basically become a walking laundry pile, and still your nipples felt like they could cut glass.
Your boots clacked against the stone floor, echoing in a way that made you wince. A centuries-old fortress and apparently no one had heard of rugs. Typical. Everything smelled of damp stone and extinguished torches, like a bad reenactment of Dracula if Dracula had an HVAC problem.
Alpine paused, ears twitching, and looked back at you with that smug, judgmental stare only cats could pull off. You arched a brow right back. “Don’t give me that look. Yes, you’re fearless and mysterious and blah blah blah. Congratulations. Some of us rely on body heat, sweetheart.”
The archive room was colder than the hall, somehow. Rows of filing cabinets stretched out like metal tombstones, papers stacked carelessly on desks that hadn’t seen daylight in decades. You tugged your gloves tighter and wrinkled your nose. Damp stone, old ink, mildew—delightful.
Alpine hopped neatly onto a cabinet, tail flicking as she pawed at a half-open drawer. “Good girl,” you murmured, rifling through a folder stamped in Cyrillic. A ledger, some receipts, nothing that screamed bloodthirsty vampire, unless you counted bad bookkeeping as a crime.
“Honestly,” you sighed, pushing a strand of hair out of your face, “if our ‘vampire’ is hiding evidence in here, he has the aesthetic range of a filing clerk. Spooky castle, dripping candles, and then—paperwork? How tacky.”
Alpine answered with a throaty little mrrp, batting a stack of yellowed papers to the floor. A photograph slipped out, sliding under your boot. You bent, plucked it up, squinting at the blurred image of castle corridors.
Something about the angle made your lip curl. “Of course. Surveillance. Because nothing says immortal bloodsucker like twenty-dollar security cameras.”
You were so busy rolling your eyes that you didn’t notice the figure shifting in the far corner. A patch of black that seemed a little too thick, like the shadows had pooled wrong. The faintest scrape echoed against stone—a boot dragging.
And then… the eyes. Two pinpricks of red in the dark, glowing faintly, watching you.
Alpine froze mid-tail-flick. Her ears flattened, body going still in that unnerving way cats did when they knew before you did. She hissed low, eyes locked on the corner.
You glanced up, annoyed. “What, another mouse—?”
The hiss sharpened, louder now. Alpine’s back arched. Your own stomach dipped. The corner was darker than it should’ve been, and when you squinted—yes. Eyes. Staring back.
Red. And unblinking.
You backed up a step before you realized you were doing it. Alpine’s hiss rattled off the cabinets like a warning siren, her fur standing straight, tail puffed wide.
The shadow moved. Slowly. Like it had all the time in the world.
And then it spoke. A voice so low you felt it in your bones first, thick with an accent that made every word crawl down your spine.
“Sokovia does not forgive trespassers, little dove. In this land… beauty is always the first to vanish.”
The figure took one heavy step forward, boot scraping against the stone. Another. The glow of those red eyes sharpened as the dim light finally caught the sweep of a cloak—dark velvet, jagged edges that dragged the floor.
You froze, every nerve in your body buzzing. It wasn’t the first time you’d faced something like this, but it didn’t matter. In the beginning, it always felt real. The teeth glinting white, the cloak, the damn echo of his footsteps.
You swallowed, adjusting your coat with an irritated little flick, because if you were about to be eaten by a vampire, you’d at least die looking put-together. “Velvet in this century? That’s brave. And not in a good way.”
The vampire didn’t stop. His grin widened, sharp as the fangs flashing under the torchlight.
Alpine yowled, claws scraping against metal as she bolted across the cabinets. Your heart jumped into your throat—
—and then his shadow was on you.
Meanwhile, somewhere on the other side of the castle…
Down one drafty corridor, Bucky and Sam had wedged themselves into what had to be the smallest broom closet in Eastern Europe. It wasn’t even wide enough for a mop bucket, let alone two grown men.
Sam’s elbow was jammed so hard into Bucky’s ribs he was convinced it had left a permanent dent, while Bucky’s knee was grinding into Sam’s thigh like some kind of medieval torture device.
Dust clung to the air, cobwebs tickling at the back of their throats. Every shallow breath stirred it up again, making Sam want to sneeze and choke at the same time.
“This was your idea,” Bucky muttered finally, words muffled against the sleeve he’d yanked over his face.
“My idea?” Sam hissed, keeping his voice low but sharp. “You’re the one who freaked out when the suit of armor creaked.”
“It looked suspicious!”
“It was a statue, Buck. A statue.”
They glared at each other through the dark, breaths clouding up in the stale air.
Sam shifted an inch, trying to ease his shoulder free, but the entire closet let out a protesting groan, wood cracking loud enough to echo down the hallway. Both men froze.
“…Congratulations,” Bucky whispered tightly. “We’re gonna die because you couldn’t keep still.”
Sam shifted again, elbow digging deeper. “Move your bony ass over.”
“There is no over,” Bucky snapped, “We’re in a broom closet, Sam, not a penthouse suite.”
“Then stop breathing so damn loud. Sound carries in castles, you know.”
Bucky glared at him through the dark. “For cryin’ out loud, you want me to just—stop breathing?”
“Yes! Hold it in! Do us both a favor—”
A sudden clang echoed down the hall, sharp enough to slice through their hissed argument. Both men froze. The silence stretched—then came a sound that punched through Bucky’s chest like a bullet.
A scream.
High, sharp, carrying through the stone corridors.
Your scream.
Bucky jolted like someone had jammed live wires into his spine. He nearly took the whole door off its hinges in his scramble to get out, shoulder slamming into wood until it cracked. Sam yelped as he was shoved aside, barely catching his balance before Bucky burst free like a cannonball.
“Jesus—Buck!”
But Bucky wasn’t listening. He was already barreling down the hallway, boots hammering against the stone, your name ripping from his throat like a war cry. He didn’t care about shadows, didn’t care about whatever monster had you. He was running like it was the damn Olympics and the only gold medal that mattered was finding you.
Sam stumbled out behind him, coughing on dust, and groaned. “Oh, hell no. I did not sign up to chase Dracula.”
Bucky tore through the castle halls like a man possessed. He didn’t think, didn’t breathe, didn’t even register the way Sam shouted after him. All he knew was that sound—your scream—still echoing in his head.
He barreled around a corner, boots skidding on the stone, and slammed shoulder-first into the heavy door. It banged open so hard it rattled the frame.
And there you were.
You were half-backed against a desk, shoving at the cloaked figure looming over you. Fangs bared, cloak sweeping—the whole nightmare.
Alpine was a streak of white fury, clinging to the man’s cape, tiny claws scrabbling against velvet as she hissed like a teakettle. But she was too light; one sharp shake had her tumbling to the ground, skidding across papers.
“Get your filthy undead hands off her!” Bucky yelled.
The vampire turned, red eyes glinting in the torchlight, grip tightening on your arm. He didn’t get the chance to sneer.
Bucky didn’t even think. One second he was screaming at the top of his lungs, the next he was colliding full-body with the cloaked figure. They hit the floor in a spectacular crash—papers exploding into the air, a whole cabinet toppling sideways with a squeal of rusty metal.
From there it was just… confusing.
Bucky wasn’t fighting so much as flailing, fists flying in every direction, legs kicking like he was swimming through air. The vampire snarled, cloak whipping around them like a stage curtain caught in a fan. They rolled across the stone floor, knocking into desks, scattering centuries of paperwork like confetti at a parade.
You pressed yourself against the wall, while Alpine darted back to your side as you tried to keep a straight face. He was giving it his all, sure, but it looked more like a bar brawl in slow motion.
“Bucky!” you called over the commotion. He grunted, swinging blindly and nearly punching the floor. “It might help if you actually opened your eyes!”
“I am!” he shouted back.
“You’re not! You’re windmilling!”
“I’m improvising!”
The vampire gave a muffled grunt as Bucky’s elbow caught him in the jaw by sheer dumb luck. They rolled again, crashing into another cabinet—drawers popping open like startled teeth. Folders rained down on them both.
The fight was already ridiculous enough. Bucky flailing like a man possessed, papers floating down around them like snow. But then—
“Buck! I got your back!”
Sam came barreling through the doorway like he’d been waiting his whole life for this cue. He didn’t hesitate, didn’t even think. Just dove straight into the mess, tackling both of them at once.
Now it was three bodies rolling across the archive floor.
Sam shouting, Bucky cursing, the “vampire” grunting as he somehow managed to keep his grip on both of them. Desks screeched across the stone. A chair toppled over with a crash. Somewhere in the pile, Sam yelped, “Watch your knee, man!”
“Get off me!” Bucky barked, trying to shove him aside while still throwing wild punches.
“I’m helping!”
“You’re crushing me!”
“I said I’m helping!”
From where you stood, pressed safely against the wall, it looked less like a heroic rescue and more like a poorly choreographed wrestling match. The vampire—cape torn, fangs gleaming, still holding strong—had these two grown-ass boys locked in like it was a fair fight.
You blinked. Your face said it all—unimpressed, judgmental, and already calculating how many nails you were going to break pulling them out of this. Alpine mirrored you perfectly, narrowed eyes and a low, unimpressed mrrrp under her breath.
“Unbelievable,” you muttered, arms crossed. “Two college athletes versus Party City Dracula, and it’s an even match. Honestly, boys.”
That was when Steve and Nat burst in.
Steve was clutching one of his prized rope traps—the kind you were pretty sure he kept hidden in the back of the Mystery Machine like emergency supplies. His expression was caught somewhere between determination and panic as he took in the scene.
“Jeez…” he muttered. “I just don’t know if I can throw it without hitting Buck and Sam…”
He hovered there, net in hand, shifting from one foot to the other like a man facing the hardest moral dilemma of his life.
You rolled your eyes so hard it almost hurt. “Oh, for Christ’s sake—just throw it on all three of ’em, Steve.” You waved a hand lazily at the pile of limbs. “They’ll survive.”
Both Bucky and Sam’s heads shot up mid-scuffle, voices overlapping,
“What?!”
Their distraction gave the “vampire” a solid chance to shove them both back, cape whipping dramatically as he scrambled upright.
Nat sighed, long and tired, like she’d been forced to babysit the entire planet. She snatched the net straight from Steve’s hands without even looking at him.
And in one clean, efficient motion, she hurled it over the whole mess.
The rope spread wide, dropping neatly over all three boys and their caped opponent. They went down together in a spectacular crash, groaning and cursing as they flailed against the net.
“See how easy that was,” Nat muttered dryly, dusting off her hands.
The fight finally stuttered to a halt, all tangled limbs and heavy breathing beneath the rope net. For a second, the only sound was the rustle of fabric and the vampire’s labored grunts.
Then three sets of eyes turned upward in perfect unison, narrowing at the sight of you, Nat, and Steve standing free and untouched.
Sam looked like a man betrayed, his expression somewhere between a teacher watching his students set fire to the lab and a guy realizing his burger order got swapped at the drive-thru. “You couldn’t have waited,” he said flatly, shoulders straining as he tried to sit up under the net, “until maybe after we got out of the way?”
Bucky shoved damp hair out of his eyes, his scowl sharp enough to cut glass. “Seriously. We just needed five more seconds. Ten, tops.” His voice was hoarse from shouting, and his chest heaved like he’d just run suicides in gym class.
Nat crossed her arms, utterly unbothered. “You were losing.”
Steve cleared his throat, still clutching the corner of the rope like he might somehow salvage his trap plan. “Aw, heck, fellas, it’s not so bad—”
You leaned against the wall, Alpine warm in your arms now, both of you wearing the same unimpressed expression. The pile under the net wriggled uselessly, a tangle of groans, sighs, and muffled curses. You shifted Alpine into the crook of one arm and pushed off the wall, heels clicking against the stone as you strolled toward the chaos.
“Alright, gang,” you said, smoothing your coat, “time to figure out who this vampire really is.”
The “creature of the night” hissed through his fangs, struggling weakly against the rope. You crouched just enough to reach him, fingers hooking the edge of the mask. The fabric was hot under your touch, damp with sweat.
With one sharp tug, it came free.
A pale, familiar face blinked up at you, hair plastered to his forehead, glare intact even through the humiliation.
“Helmut Zemo?” the gang echoed in unison, voices bouncing off the archive walls.
You arched a brow. “Well, well. Not exactly Dracula material.”
Steve leaned closer, frowning like he’d just been asked to solve a riddle without the answer key. “But… I don’t get it. Why haunt this castle? He owns it.”
You sighed, straightening, Alpine’s tail flicking in tandem with your own exasperation. “Correction, Steve, he owns part of it. The boring part. Walls, beams, roofs that leak when it rains. None of the valuables. None of the historical treasures inside.”
Sam squinted, still half-wedged under Bucky. “So, what, he scared off tourists to… what, play house?”
“Not quite,” you said, enjoying the way every eye was fixed on you. “Keeping tourists and locals out meant he had free rein to strip the place from the inside out.”
Nat gave a single nod. “Makes sense.”
“Jeez, that sure is underhanded…” Steve said, shaking his head, still looking baffled. Then knelt to untangle the mess of limbs under the net, muttering “great job, guys” even as Bucky swore and Sam groaned about bruised ribs. Nat stood nearby with her arms crossed, keeping Zemo pinned with the sharp edge of her stare.
Freed of the mask, Zemo straightened his posture despite the rope digging into his shoulders. He almost looked proud, like getting caught was just another step in his carefully drafted script.
“You people are insufferable,” he sighed, accent curling around each word like smoke. “But… resourceful. I’ll give you that.”
Sam sat up, rubbing at his thigh. “Man, just tell us what the hell you thought you were doing.”
Zemo’s smirk sharpened. “Simple. Tourists bring noise. Crowds bring eyes. But fear? Fear empties a room faster than fire. While everyone kept their distance from the ‘haunted’ castle, I walked freely through its veins, taking what was worth taking. Gold, manuscripts, jewels. Centuries of Sokovian history now tucked away in places far more lucrative.”
Steve frowned… again, disappointed in the way only Steve could be. “That’s downright unpatriotic.”
“Patriotism doesn’t pay,” Zemo returned smoothly.
You planted your hands on your hips, after setting Alpine down as she curled around your ankles like punctuation. “Alright, fine. But what I don’t understand is why you were trying to kidnap me.”
Zemo’s gaze flicked to you, lingering too long. He tilted his head, the corners of his mouth curling. “Because you were getting too close to the truth, little dove. And—” he shrugged lightly, like it was the most obvious thing in the world, “—because what sane man wouldn’t want to capture the pretty girl in his castle?”
You scoffed, sharp and quick, though the warmth flickered across your cheeks before you could stop it. “Flattery’s not going to save you.”
Before Zemo could retort, there was a blur of movement. Bucky was suddenly at your side, brushing dust from his jacket, jaw clenched so tight it looked like it might crack. His glare at Zemo could’ve chipped stone.
“For cryin’ out loud,” he muttered, sliding himself between you and the ropes. “You don’t talk to her. You don’t look at her. Got it?”
Zemo’s smirk only widened, like he’d found a new kind of amusement in the jealousy simmering in Bucky’s shoulders.
“And, of course…” he drawled, eyes flicking to you with that same infuriating glint, “I would have gotten away with it… if not for you meddling children. And your—” his lip twitched, almost a sneer, “—obnoxiously perceptive feline.”
Alpine flicked her tail at that, unimpressed.
Sam let out a dry laugh that sounded more like an exhausted cough. “Yeah, yeah, real original. Heard that one before.” He waved a hand vaguely, still nursing his ribs like he’d just been tackled by a linebacker.
Nat exhaled through her nose, eyes narrowing as she muttered, “Children? We’re twenty-two.” The way she said it made it clear she was two seconds away from kicking him unconscious.
Two Sokovian officers finally showed up, uniforms stiff and expressions caught somewhere between weary and annoyed. They didn’t even flinch at the sight of Zemo tangled in rope—just hauled him up by the elbows like they’d done this dance before.
Zemo still managed to look smug, cloak dragging in the dust as they pulled him toward the door. “Enjoy your little victory,” he said smoothly, chin lifted. “But castles have long memories. And so do I.”
Sam huffed, folding his arms. “Man, does everyone have to be dramatic? Just say you’re broke and go.”
Nat rolled her eyes, muttering, “Idiot,” though you weren’t sure if she meant him or Sam.
Steve, meanwhile, looked genuinely troubled, scratching at the back of his neck. “Still feels wrong, calling us children…”
“Because we’re not,” Nat shot back flatly. “We’re adults.”
“You barely pay rent on time,” Sam said, cutting her a side-eye.
Bucky snorted, leaning against the desk. “You’ve been living on my couch for two weeks.”
“That’s called community,” Sam fired back.
The officers finally dragged Zemo out of sight, his cape catching on the doorframe before disappearing down the hall. The moment the echo of boots faded, Bucky shoved his hands in his pockets and leaned back against the desk like he hadn’t just face-planted into a filing cabinet ten minutes ago.
He adjusted his jacket, shoulders back, trying on that cool, untouchable look. “Well,” he said, jerking his chin toward the door, “guess it’s a good thing I was here to take him down.”
Sam let out a noise somewhere between a laugh and a groan. “You? Man, you were barely holding him off! He had you in a headlock while I was saving your sorry ass.”
Bucky shot him a glare, like someone had just insulted his mother. “Didn’t see you taking initiative, Wilson.”
“Because I’m not an idiot.”
You tilted your head, ignoring the sniping, and allowed the tiniest smile. You could’ve pointed out the truth—that it was Nat throwing the net and sheer dumb luck that did most of the work. But where was the fun in that?
Instead, you crossed the space with an easy sway, eyes on Bucky’s. “My hero,” you said sweetly, letting the words drip like honey.
His chin lifted a little higher. “Damn right.”
“Strong,” you went on, voice airy, “brave.”
He smirked, though his foot tapped like he was waiting for the encore. “Keep goin’.”
“Selfless. Dashing.” You balanced on your toes, closing the last inch, and pressed a soft kiss to his cheek.
He froze, then exhaled like he’d been holding his breath the whole time. A huff escaped him as he tried to play it cool, his mouth curving into what he thought was a crooked grin—though the pink at the tips of his ears gave him away. “Eh,” he scoffed lightly, “just doin’ my job, sweetheart.”
Sam rolled his eyes so hard you swore you heard it. “Unbelievable. I bust my ass, and this jackass is out here getting kisses like candy.”
And you? You just smiled, enjoying the flush crawling up Bucky’s neck as you adjusted your coat and strutted past him like you hadn’t just fed his ego raw meat.
also decided to tag everyone who gave me so much love for my original idea 😁:
Hiya! Any plans to continue the style series?? I havent been able to stop thinking about it for months and I feel like the new album has so many songs that would work for them - especially eldest daughter given where the last chapter ended. Don’t wanna push u into anything but I’d love to see where the story goes :)
-❤️🔥
YES YES YES!! 100 TIMES YES!! OF COURSE I’M CONTINUING THE SERIES??? Hello??? Do you think I’m capable of just abandoning it?? I am WAY too emotionally attached with this story to ever let it go. It literally lives rent free in my brain every single day.
And trust me, you are not the only one who’s been thinking about it. I’ve been thinking about it constantly too. All these weeks, even when I wasn’t able to write, it was still on my mind. I kept trying to find time and space to sit down, open the document, and get back into those scenes again... but life has been chaotic and I just couldn’t force it in the middle of everything. It honestly frustrated me so much because I want to keep going so badly.
AND did you say new album??? ONG??? Tell me EVERYTHING!! Which songs?? Which tracks do you think fit??? I’m literally ready to sit down for hours and listen to you break down every single song and how it matches their story. I LOVE hearing that kind of analysis.
Please feed my brain.
And it’s okay, pookie, you’re not being pushy at all ;) You’re just excited and that actually motivates me. It makes me WANT to write even more.
So thank you for asking, seriously.
I’m still here, the series is still here, so please be here with us until I finally get my ass to update </3
I just read the entire hockey player x figure skater and chapter ten literally KILLED me😭 i love this fic sm but girl you cannot leave me like thisss 😭😭 the pain! hoping we get the next part soon??
Hiiii!! LOOOLLL!!! I swear I will NOT leave you. I honestly missed this so much myself, and I’m genuinely excited to be back again. I can’t wait to sit down, write more, and pour everything into the story the way I used to 😈
Also, I literally cannot WAIT for you to read the next chapter!! I’ve been keeping it in for so long that it feels like my brain is ready to explode from holding all the emotions in. Aurrghghghgjdfgjd, it’s definitely an emotional roller-coaster kind of chapter.
I promise, it’s coming. The next chapter will be out around this week.
Hey, I don't mean to bother you or anything by asking, but I just wanted to know if you're okay since I haven't seen any updates in the last few weeks. I hope everything is alright 🤍
Hii!! Oh my gosh, thank you so much for worrying about me, seriously 😭 It actually makes my heart feel so full knowing someone noticed my absence and cared enough to ask... damn.
I’m really sorry for disappearing and not being around for WEEKS. I genuinely didn’t mean to vanish like that. I kept telling myself that I would stay consistent, keep updating every day, keep showing up here... but then life happened, and everything just kind of piled up at once. There were so many things going on in real life that I had to deal with, and before I realized it, time just flew.
It still feels unreal that I was gone for that long. It felt like only a few days, but suddenly it was weeks???? and I feel a little guilty for it, because I didn’t intend to leave anyone hanging or make it seem like I didn’t care anymore.
But now, the fact that I’m here replying again means that everything is settling down a bit!! Yipeee!! I finally have time again, and I’m back, present, and ready to be active like before.
I’m honestly excited to return and get into the flow again.
I missed this energy SO MUCH.
So YEAYYAYYAYA!! I’m here now!
And I plan on continuing again, staying active, being consistent, and actually showing up like I promised myself in the beginning. I’m back with my whole heart.
Love you so, so much. Thank you for being patient with me! 💖🌟
Warnings: 18+ only. Dehumanization. Description of non-human genitalia. -For now-
Summary: She brings home a cynical hybrid no one wanted: a missing limb, a brutal past, and zero interest in making things easy. He didn't ask to be rescued, doesn't want her pity or her stubborn refusal to back down. What begins as an act of conscience becomes a tense dance of boundaries, old instincts, and... unexpected connection.
Word Count: 6.3k.
Previous Chapter - Masterlist
When she finally pulled up in front of the building, she turned to look at him. He was still sitting in the same rigid posture, staring out the windshield.
"Do you want to see the shop first," she asked, "or go straight upstairs?"
He turned his head toward her just slightly, and for a split second, there it was again, that flash of surprise. Like he hadn't expected to be asked.
Then he gave a short nod.
They got out, and she led him to the front door, unlocking it and pushing it open. A small bell chimed overhead as they stepped inside.
The shop was modest but warm. Shelves lined against the walls, displaying an array of ceramic pieces: planters in soft pastels, bowls with hand-painted patterns, decorative vases, plates, and figurines. Plants sat on various surfaces, trailing vines spilling over the edges of shelves, adding life to the space.
He stepped inside slowly, assessing the room. Taking it in. He didn't say anything, just walked a few steps forward, and then his gaze landed on a small figurine of a dog glazed in bright turquoise, sitting on a middle shelf.
He stared at it for a long moment.
"Did you make that?" His voice was still rough, but almost careful.
She followed his gaze and nodded. "Yeah. Everything in here, actually." She hesitated, then added quickly, "I mean, most of it uses molds. It's not all hand-sculpted or anything. But I glaze and finish everything myself."
She wasn't sure why she felt the need to clarify that. Maybe she didn't want him to think she was showing off.
"You can pick it up if you want," she offered.
He didn't move. Just kept looking at it, with an unreadable expression. Then, after a moment, he turned away and continued scanning the rest of the shop.
She let out a quiet breath and gestured toward the back. "The workshop's through here. That's where I make everything."
She led him through a doorway past the counter and into the larger space beyond.
The kiln was against the far wall, a heavy thing that radiated faint heat even when it wasn't running. Two pottery wheels were set up near the center of the room, smoothed from years of use. There were shelves lining the walls, holding tools -wire cutters, ribs, sponges, trimming knives- and rows of glazes in labeled jars. Bags of clay were stacked in one corner, and lastly, there was a long worktable that dominated the opposite side, covered in half-finished pieces and dust.
He stepped inside, sweeping his gaze over the space. This time, there was something different in the way he looked, less detached, more focused. His eyes lingered on the kiln, then the wheels, then the tools arranged neatly on the shelves.
She watched him, trying to gauge what he was thinking, but his expression gave nothing away.
After a moment, he finally spoke. "Is this the place I'm supposed to guard?"
She blinked, caught off guard. "What?"
He turned his head slightly toward her, his tone flat. "The shop. The workshop. Is this what I'm here to protect?"
It took her a second to understand. Then she did.
He'd always been a tool. A weapon. Security for a lab, a fighter in a ring. Of course he'd assume that's why she brought him here. That she needed him for something.
Her chest tightened. "No," she said quietly. "That's not- no. You're not here to guard anything."
He didn't respond. Just kept looking at her, waiting for clarification.
She hesitated, then added, "But if you want, I could teach you. How to work with clay, I mean. It's not hard once you get the hang of it."
His gaze went back to the pottery wheel, then to her. "Do I have to?"
The question was blunt. Not hostile or defiant, but just a need to know the parameters.
"No," she said firmly. "You don't have to do anything you don't want to do."
He stared at her for another beat, like he was deciding whether or not to believe that. Then he turned away, his attention drifting back to the shelves.
He didn't say anything else.
She cleared her throat softly. "Come on. Let's go upstairs."
There was a door at the back of the workshop, next to the kiln, that led to a narrow staircase. She opened it and gestured for him to follow. The stairs were old, and the wood creaked under their weight as they went up.
At the top, another door opened into the apartment.
The space was larger than she'd made it sound, spanning the full length and width of the workshop below. The entryway opened into a living room with high ceilings, exposed brick along one wall, and wide windows that let in soft afternoon light. A couch and armchair sat near a low coffee table, and a bookshelf crammed with novels and ceramics magazines leaned against the far wall. The kitchen was visible through an open archway, roomy enough for a proper table and chairs. A hallway stretched toward the back, leading to what he assumed were the bedrooms and bathroom.
She opened her mouth to start the tour, then hesitated. He'd barely spoken since they left the facility. Every time she tried to explain or offer him something, the silence that followed was deafening. Maybe having her around and talking to him constantly wasn't helping.
She turned to him. "Do you want to just... look around on your own? Get a sense of the place?"
His ears twitched, just once, a subtle movement that she almost missed. He looked at her, and for a moment, she thought he might refuse. Then he gave a short nod.
"Okay," she said, exhaling quietly. "Take your time. I'll be in the kitchen if you need anything."
He didn't answer. Just stood there for a beat, his tail hanging low and still behind him, then started moving slowly down the hallway, with careful and deliberate steps.
She watched him disappear around the corner, then turned around and headed toward the kitchen. She didn't actually need to do anything in there. But it gave her something to focus on that wasn't the heavy, uncomfortable silences or the strange weight of having him in her space.
She filled the kettle and put it on the stove, then leaned against the counter, crossing her arms and staring at nothing in particular. Her mind kept circling back to the same thought: What now?
She'd gotten him out. That was the goal. But she hadn't really thought past that part. Hadn't planned what came next. How do you help someone who doesn't want help? Who doesn't even seem to believe it's possible?
The kettle began to whistle softly, and she turned off the burner, pouring the water into a mug even though she wasn't sure she wanted tea. It just felt like something to do.
From somewhere deeper in the apartment, she heard the faint sound of a door opening. Then closing. Then another. His footsteps were nearly silent, but she could track his movement through the space by the soft creak of floorboards.
She gripped the mug tighter and waited.
----
A few minutes later, he reappeared in the doorway of the kitchen, wearing the same unreadable expression as before. His ears were angled slightly forward now, attentive.
She straightened, setting her mug down on the counter. "Find everything okay?"
He gave a short nod.
She gestured toward the living room. "Come sit for a second. I want to ask you something."
He followed her into the other room, and she sat in the armchair near the window. She expected him to take the couch, but instead, he lowered himself to the floor near the coffee table, with his back straight and his hand resting on his knee. His tail curled loosely around his hip.
She opened her mouth to say something -you can sit on the couch, you don't have to sit on the floor- but stopped herself. Picking that battle right now didn't feel worth it.
Instead, she leaned forward slightly, resting her elbows on her knees. "I realized... I never actually asked your name."
She felt ridiculous saying it now, after everything. After the paperwork, after bringing him here. But she'd been so focused on getting him out that she hadn't thought to ask something so basic.
He just looked at her, his expression flat. "What do you want to call me?"
She exhaled slowly, resisting the urge to rub her face. Of course. Of course that's what he'd say.
"That's not what I'm asking," she said carefully. "I'm asking what your name is. What do you go by?"
He shrugged, small and dismissive.
She tried again. "What's your name now? What do people call you?"
Another shrug. His tail flicked once against the floor, then stilled.
She bit the inside of her cheek, thinking. Then she rephrased. "Did you ever have a name -at any point- that you'd like to keep?"
He didn't answer right away. Just looked down and scratched absently at the stump of his left arm. It was a slow, distracted motion, like he wasn't fully aware he was doing it.
Finally, he murmured, "Bucky."
It was so quiet she almost didn't catch it.
"Bucky," she repeated softly, testing the sound.
He didn't look up. Just kept his gaze somewhere past her, with his ears tilting slightly back now.
She nodded to herself. "Okay. Bucky it is."
----
He didn't say anything for a long moment after that. Then, as if deciding the next step on his own terms, he lifted his head.
"Since I have a name now," he said, his voice low and rough, "I need to know you. I know your name, but that is not what matters to me."
She blinked, caught off guard. "Know me?"
"Yes." He said it simply, almost bluntly, like it should have been obvious. "I need to recognize you. Your scent. Everything."
Her pulse spiked. She opened her mouth, half expecting him to ask for a piece of her clothing, something she could hand over, but the words stuck in her throat. It made sense, didn't it? He had canine DNA, lupine traits. Recognition by scent was instinctive for him.
"Okay," she said carefully, forcing her voice to stay calm. "What do you need me to do?"
For a heartbeat, she thought he might ask her to extend her hand, let him sniff her wrist like a dog greeting someone new. But instead, he rose from the floor in one smooth, deliberate motion.
Before she could react, he leaned over her.
His hand pressed down on the armrest beside her, muscles flexing as his weight shifted forward. Suddenly, he was bracketing her in, with his body filling the space above hers. The air changed, denser, hotter. He leaned in closer and pressed his nose to the hollow of her throat.
She froze.
His breath was warm and damp against her skin. She could smell him too, faint antiseptic soap, metal, and beneath that, something rawer. The scent of an animal that knew its own strength.
He inhaled deeply, slow and measured, dragging the tip of his nose just slightly as his head tilted, mapping her scent. His ears flicked forward, then back again, calibrating. His tail twitched once behind him, betraying his concentration.
His claws -black, curved, clean but brutal- pressed lightly into the fabric of the armrest. Not threatening. Just there. A reminder.
It was intimate. Assertive. Deliberate.
He was testing her, pushing boundaries, claiming space she hadn’t offered. Marking her, not with touch, but with presence, his weight, the closeness of his breath, the quiet animal certainty that he could do it.
Her heart hammered in her chest, but she didn’t move. Didn’t pull back. Some instinct told her that flinching now would be the wrong move, that he was waiting to see how she’d respond.
So she stayed still and let him finish.
After what felt like an eternity but was probably only seconds, he pulled back. Not far, just enough to meet her eyes. His expression was unreadable, but something in his gaze had changed: sharper, aware… and satisfied.
“Got it,” he said quietly.
Then he straightened, stepped back, and returned to his spot on the floor as if nothing had happened.
She exhaled shakily, gripping the edges of the armrest where his claws had been moments before. Her pulse thundered in her ears. Heat crawled up her neck, then settled somewhere low in her stomach. She refused to let it show. Refused to give him the satisfaction of knowing he’d rattled her.
Thank God she was already sitting down.
“Right,” she said, clearing her throat, reaching for some semblance of control. A reminder that this was her house, that he’d just arrived, and that she was the one who made the decisions here. “I, uh- bought you some clothes. If you want to take a proper bath and get out of that jumpsuit.”
His entire body went rigid.
The change was immediate. His shoulders tensed, his ears flattened back against his head, and his tail went still. He didn't say anything for a beat, and his jaw worked slightly like he was biting back a response.
"They already hosed me down," he said finally, his tone detached. "Should last a few days."
She blinked. "Hosed you down?"
The words felt wrong in her mouth. Strange. Too casual for what it implied.
He looked at her, with that same flat expression. "Yes. And they were very thorough."
Her stomach dropped.
"Wait," she said slowly, feeling stupid for even having to ask. "You mean they used... an actual hose?"
His gaze didn't waver. "Yes."
The single word hung in the air between them, heavy and blunt.
She stared at him, as her mind struggled to process it. They'd sprayed him down like- like an animal. Like livestock. No privacy, no dignity. Just cold water and efficiency.
Her throat felt tight. "That's not-" She stopped herself, shaking her head. "A bath. I mean a real bath. Hot water, soap, privacy. You can take your time. No one's going to rush you or-" She gestured vaguely.
He didn't respond right away. Just kept watching her with that same flat, unreadable expression, his tail still motionless behind him.
She paused, thinking. "You saw the bathroom when you were exploring, right? There's a tub, and it has a shower if you'd prefer that."
His brow furrowed slightly, and something changed in his expression, just for a second. A flicker of confusion, maybe recognition.
And then she got it.
Oh.
He'd seen the shower. He just hadn't known what it was for.
She stood up, brushing her hands against her jeans. "Come on. I'll show you how it works. You can use it whenever you want."
He didn't move.
She looked down at him, waiting. "Bucky."
Still nothing. He just sat there, staring up at her with that same unreadable expression, his jaw set.
"What?" she asked, her patience fraying slightly. "You don't want to know how to use the bath?"
His ears tilted back just a fraction, and when he spoke, his tone was flat, almost challenging. "Didn't say I needed a lesson."
Her jaw clenched.
For a moment, she almost let it go. Almost backed down. But something in the way he was looking at her -testing her, again- made her back straighten.
"You can protest all you want," she said, in a firmer tone now, sharper. "But in this house, people bathe regularly. They don't walk around smelling like ass."
The silence that followed was thick.
His eyes narrowed slightly, and for a beat, she thought he might push back. Tell her to go to hell. Tell her he didn't take orders.
But then, something changed.
His ears flicked forward, just once. His tail gave a single, lazy twitch. And there was something in his expression now, buried under all that flatness. Something that almost looked like... amusement.
He felt it. That pull. The authority in her voice, the command she hadn't meant to put there but had anyway. And instead of resisting it-
He liked it.
Not that he'd ever admit it out loud.
Slowly, deliberately, he rose to his feet. Didn't say a word. Just stood there, waiting.
She exhaled, feeling her heartbeat still a little too fast, and gestured toward the hallway. "Follow me."
He did.
----
The bathroom was down the hall, past the bedrooms. She pushed the door open and stepped inside, flicking on the lights. It was a decent-sized space, tile floor, a sink with a mirror above it, a toilet in the corner, and along the far wall, and tub with a shower, its curtain pulled to one side.
She moved toward the tub, gesturing for him to come closer. He followed, stopping just inside the doorway, scanning the room with that same careful, assessing gaze.
"Okay," she said, kneeling beside the tub and pointing to the fixtures. "This is the hot water." She turned the left knob. "And this is cold." She turned the right one.
Water burst from the faucet with a sudden, loud rush.
She heard it immediately, a sharp inhale, quick and involuntary. His breath caught, just for a second, before he composed himself.
She glanced up. His expression hadn't changed, but his shoulders were tense, his ears pinned back slightly. He was staring at the water like it had appeared out of nowhere.
"Sorry," she said quietly, adjusting the knobs to slow the flow. "Should've warned you it comes out fast."
He didn't respond. Just kept watching the water pour into the tub, his jaw clenched.
She let it run for a moment, and the steam began to rise as the hot water mixed in, then twisted both knobs to shut it off. "You can fill it as much as you want. Adjust the temperature however you like, more hot, more cold, whatever feels good." She stood, brushing her hands on her jeans. "The shower works the same way, but you pull this knob up to switch the water from the faucet to the showerhead."
She demonstrated, pulling the diverter, and water sprayed down from above. She quickly shut it off again.
"So," she said, turning to face him. "What do you think?"
He was silent for a beat, with his gaze still fixed on the tub. Then, finally, he shrugged.
"Not bad."
It was the most noncommittal response he could've given. Like he was determined not to show any reaction at all. Like admitting it was useful -or worse, that he appreciated it- would cost him something.
She bit back a smile. "Right. Not bad." She moved toward the door, pausing in the threshold. "I'll leave the clothes I bought on your bed. Take your time."
She started to step out, then-
"Where will you sit?"
She froze mid-step, turning back to look at him. "What?"
He was looking around the bathroom, from the toilet to the edge of the tub, then back to her. His expression was genuinely uncertain, not challenging, just... curious.
"When I bathe," he said simply. "Where are you going to be?"
It took her a second to understand what he was really asking. He expected her to stay. To supervise, or-
Oh god. He thought she was going to wash him.
Heat flooded her face. "I'm not- you don't need me here for that," she said quickly, stumbling over the words. "You can do it yourself. By yourself. I'll just... I'll be downstairs."
She saw it then, the exact moment he registered her discomfort. The way her face had gone warm, and the nervous edge in her voice. His eyes sharpened slightly, and something changed in his expression.
His head tilted. When he spoke again, his tone was slower. Deliberate.
"You sure?" He took a step closer -too close- and she had to tilt her head back to keep eye contact. "Mistresses are supposed to bathe their pets, aren’t they?" His voice was low, almost a murmur. "Isn’t that how it works?"
Her pulse spiked. "Don't call me that," she said promptly. "And you know perfectly well you're not a pet."
His lips twitched, not quite a smile, but close. His ears were forward now, fully alert, and his tail swayed once behind him in a slow, lazy arc.
"Keep telling yourself that," he murmured.
Then, just as quickly as he'd invaded her space, he stepped back. Gave her room to breathe again.
But the look in his eyes -sharp, knowing, satisfied- made it clear he'd gotten exactly what he wanted.
She swallowed hard, closing her hands into fists at her sides. "You can handle a bath on your own," she said firmly, forcing her voice steady. "I'll be downstairs if you need anything."
She turned and walked out before he could say anything else.
Her heart was still pounding when she reached the stairs.
----
The thing was easier said than done.
Bucky stood in front of the shower, staring at the two knobs like they were some kind of puzzle. She'd explained it -hot on the left, cold on the right- but getting them to cooperate was another story. He turned the left one too far, and scalding water burst out. He hissed, jerking his hand back, then adjusted. Too cold. Then too hot again.
Finally, after a few more attempts, he found something that didn't make him want to flinch away.
Hot water.
He let it run over his fingers for a moment, just... feeling it. Warm. Not the biting cold from a hose in a concrete yard. Actually hot. The kind of heat that traveled into the skin and loosened muscles that had been tense for too long.
He hadn't known this existed. Not for people like him, anyway.
He pulled his hand back and started stripping off the jumpsuit. It felt strange, doing it on his own. No one barking orders, no hands shoving him into position, no cold spray hitting him before he was ready. Just him. Alone. In a room with a door that he could lock if he wanted to.
He didn't lock it.
The jumpsuit hit the floor, and he stepped under the spray.
The sound that left him was involuntary, a low, rough groan that he didn't bother to stifle. The water hit his shoulders, his back, running down over muscles that had spent too many months cramped on cold concrete. It hurt, but in the way that stretching a stiff joint would hurt. The kind of pain that meant something was finally loosening.
He stood there for a long moment, with eyes closed, just letting the water work on his body.
Then he opened them and looked down.
Scars. Everywhere. Some old, some newer. Raised lines across his ribs where claws had torn into him during fights. A puckered mark on his thigh from something he didn't want to remember. And his arm-
His jaw clenched.
The stump of his left shoulder was a mess of scar tissue, uneven and angry even after all this time. He moved what remained of the limb, felt the phantom ache of fingers that weren't there anymore.
All his life.
It had taken all his life to find out that hot water existed for bathing. Something that full humans probably took for granted. Something so basic, so mundane, that no one even thought twice about it.
He exhaled slowly, letting his head drop forward under the spray.
At least now he knew.
He lifted his head after a moment, wiping water from his face with his hand, and looked around the shower. There had to be something, some kind of soap or cleanser. At the facility, they'd used a chemical solution that burned like hell and smelled worse. In the underground, there'd been nothing at all. Just water when he was lucky, and sometimes not even that.
His eyes landed on a small bar in the corner of the tub. Pale, rectangular, smooth-edged.
He picked it up carefully, brought it close to his nose, and inhaled.
Flowers.
Soft. Sweet. Unmistakably feminine.
He froze. That scent, it was hers. The same one he'd cataloged when he'd pressed his face to her throat earlier. Faint on her skin, but concentrated here in this little block.
He turned it over in his hand, considering.
Then, after a beat, he started rubbing it against his chest, working up a lather with his palm. This thing didn't burn. Didn't sting or leave his skin feeling raw. It actually felt... nice. Smooth. Left his skin softer under his fingers.
But the smell.
He wrinkled his nose, lifting his arm to sniff at his shoulder.
Flowers. All over him now. That delicate, unmistakably female scent clinging to his skin, coating him in something that felt wrong. Too soft. Too gentle. It stripped away any edge he might've had, any authority.
His ears flattened back slightly in annoyance.
But what was the alternative? Walk around smelling like...
...like ass.
Her words echoed in his head, and despite himself, his mouth twitched.
A low, rough sound escaped him, half exhale, half laugh. He shook his head under the spray, scrubbing the soap across his ribs.
Fine. Flowers it was.
At least it was better than the chemical burn they'd used before. And a hell of a lot better than nothing.
He ran the soap through his hair, scrubbing at his scalp to get rid of whatever chemical residue they'd left behind. There was a small basket next to the soap dish, bottles with labels he didn't bother reading. Probably for hair. But the last thing he wanted was to layer more scents on top of the flowers already on his skin. Especially not more feminine ones.
He rinsed, shut off the water, and stepped out.
The towel was where she'd said it would be, folded neatly in the cabinet under the sink. He dried off quickly and methodically then hung it on a rack. He wasn't sure if that was the right thing to do, but it seemed better than leaving it on the floor.
He walked out of the bathroom naked, water still dripping from the ends of his hair. The hallway was cooler against his freshly scrubbed skin. His head was still half in the shower, his thoughts dulled and slow, focused only on finding the room she’d said she’d left the clothes in.
Then movement.
She was there.
Just a few steps away, standing in the narrow corridor with something in her hand -her phone charger maybe- and the instant their eyes met, both froze.
He didn’t think to cover himself. He simply stood there, dripping water onto the floor, chest rising and falling, pupils shrinking against the light. Her eyes went wide as she parted her lips, and he could watch in real time as her brain short-circuited.
She didn't turn away. Didn't cover her face or scream or bolt like he might've expected. Instead, her gaze dropped -just for a second- from his face to his chest. Then lower. And lower.
Her eyes flicked back up. Then down again. Then up.
Down.
Oh God.
It wasn't just that he was naked. It was that- she didn’t think-
Between his legs, impossible to ignore, was something that definitely wasn't entirely human. His other DNA influence was unmistakable: thick, long, with a tapered shape toward the tip, darkening toward the base. And at that base… a knot.
Her brain just shut down completely.
He tilted his head, watching her watch him. A faint twitch in his ears, tail low, still dripping.
"Why-" Her voice cracked, and she had to clear her throat before trying again. "Why are you naked?"
He blinked, glancing down at himself, then back at her. His ears twitched again.
"I bathed," he said slowly, like it should've been obvious.
"That's- yes, I can see that," she said, pressing a hand to her face, trying desperately to focus on his collarbone. Just his collarbone. Nothing lower. "But you could've-" she gestured vaguely toward the towel hanging in the bathroom doorway "-used that!"
He glanced over his shoulder, then back at her, frowning slightly as if genuinely puzzled. "It's wet."
Her hand dropped from her face. "That's- that's what towels do. You dry yourself and then they're wet. That's-" She was babbling now "You wrap it around your waist, or-"
She made the mistake of gesturing toward his hips, and her eyes followed the motion for half a second before snapping back up.
His expression didn't change. Still flat. But there was something in his eyes now, something sharp and aware that told her he knew exactly what he was doing to her now.
"Didn't know that," he said evenly.
"Well, now you do," she shot back, her voice strangled.
His tail twitched. Once. Slow and lazy.
The heat in her face was unbearable now. She forced herself to meet his eyes -only his eyes- and not let her gaze wander anywhere else. Not to the droplets of water still dripping down his chest. Not to the hard lines of his abdomen. And definitely not lower than that.
"The clothes," she managed. "They're on your bed. In your room. Please go put them on."
He didn't move. Just stood there, watching her squirm, tilting his head like he was cataloging every change in her breathing, every flutter of her pulse.
Then, finally, he nodded.
"If that's what you want."
He turned and walked down the hall toward his room, tail swaying behind him, water trailing in his wake.
She stood frozen in place until she heard the door close.
----
Five minutes later, he emerged from the room wearing dark gray sweatpants and a black henley that fit reasonably well across his shoulders. His feet were bare, he'd found socks and sneakers, but the idea of constricting his feet in something tight and inflexible made his skin crawl. He'd spent enough time restrained.
His hair was still damp, hanging loose and tangled past his shoulders, and his beard remained wild and unkempt. He padded quietly down the hallway, following the faint sounds of movement ahead of him.
She was in the kitchen, standing near a cabinet like she'd been in the middle of looking for something but had forgotten what. When she heard his footsteps, she turned around.
Too quickly.
Her eyes met his for half a second before dropping.
She caught herself, snapping her gaze back up so fast it might've given her whiplash.
"Hey," she said, her tone a little less frazzled than it had been in the hallway. "I figured you'd be hungry. I don't know the last time you ate, so..."
She opened the fridge and pulled out a large container. When she popped the lid off, the smell hit him immediately.
Meat.
His nostrils flared involuntarily, and every muscle in his body went tense. Roasted. Seasoned. Rich and savory and real. Not the tasteless kibble they'd shoved at him in the facility. Not the processed paste in tubes underground. Actual, honest-to-god cooked meat.
He had to dig his claws hard on his palm to keep from lunging forward.
She put the container on the counter, her brow furrowing slightly as she looked between him and the food. "Is this okay? I mean- I made it last night for you, it's roast, but I don't know if you eat it cooked or..." She trailed off, seeming to realize how stupid that sounded. "Sorry, that's a dumb question. I just- it's seasoned. I didn't think about that. Is that okay?"
He swallowed hard, his gaze locked on the container. "It's fine."
"Do you want me to heat it up?"
"No." The word came out harsher than he meant it to. He forced himself to take a breath. "No. It's fine like that."
She nodded slowly, then slid the container toward him across the counter.
He stared at it for a beat. Then, instead of reaching for it where he stood, he dropped down onto the floor near the table, sitting cross-legged, and reached up to grab the container, pulling it into his lap.
He didn't wait. Just dug his hand into the container and pulled out a chunk of meat, bringing it to his mouth.
The taste hit him like a gut punch.
Salt. Fat and juice and flavor. Not something engineered to keep him functional. Not something measured out in servings to meet nutritional minimums. Food. Prepared food. The kind made for people.
He tore into it, chewing quickly, barely pausing before grabbing another piece. Then another. His hand was slick with grease, but he didn't care. He couldn't remember the last time he'd eaten something that tasted like this. Couldn't remember if he ever had.
She stood a few feet away, her arms wrapped loosely around herself, just watching. Not commenting. Just... letting him eat.
He didn't look up until the container was half-empty.
When he finally did, she was still standing there, watching him with an expression he couldn't quite read.
"Is it good?" she asked quietly.
He nodded. Just once. Didn't trust himself to speak.
Because something was happening inside him that he didn't know how to handle. A tightness in his chest, a burning behind his eyes that felt dangerously close to something he couldn't name. He didn't cry. Didn't think he ever had. Wasn't even sure if he could. But right now, sitting on this floor with grease on his fingers and the taste of real meat in his mouth, something in him wanted to break.
He shoved another piece in his mouth. Focused on chewing. On swallowing. On the next bite.
She shifted slightly, dropping her gaze to his left side, to the empty sleeve of the henley hanging loose, dragging dangerously close to the container every time he leaned forward.
"Hold on," she murmured, more to herself than to him.
She turned and rummaged through a drawer near the sink, pulling out a safety pin. Then she walked toward him, crouching down without thinking.
He froze.
His hand, still holding a piece of meat, stilled halfway to his mouth. His entire body went rigid. His ears pinned back flat against his head, and his eyes tracked her movement with sharp, hyper-focused intensity. Every instinct in him screamed threat, someone coming close while he was eating, reaching toward him, toward his food.
She must've seen it, because she stopped immediately, her hand suspended midair.
"Sorry," she said quickly "I just- your sleeve. The empty one. It's going to drag through the food. I wanted to roll it up and pin it so it stays out of the way."
He didn't move. Didn't relax. Just stared at her, his jaw tight, his breathing shallow.
She stayed exactly where she was, not advancing, but not retreating. "I'm not going to take your food," she said quietly. "I promise. I just want to fix your sleeve. That's all."
A beat passed. Then another.
Slowly -slowly- he shifted his left shoulder slightly toward her. Permission. Or as close to it as he could manage.
She exhaled softly and moved in, careful and deliberate. She gathered the empty fabric, rolling it up and folding it neatly, then secured it with the pin so it wouldn't hang loose. Her fingers brushed against the stump once -light and impersonal- but he felt it like a brand.
"There," she said, pulling back and standing up again. "Better?"
He looked down at his shoulder, then back at the container in his lap.
"Yeah," he said roughly.
She nodded and stepped back, giving him space again.
He went back to eating.
She moved back to the counter and pulled out a pan, setting it on the stove. Bread, butter, cheese, she assembled a grilled cheese sandwich for herself. The smell filled the kitchen, warm and simple.
When it was done, she plated it and sat down at the table, a few feet away from where he was still on the floor.
They ate in silence.
Every so often, he glanced up at her. Watched her eat her sandwich. It was... modest. Plain. Nowhere near as substantial as what she'd given him. He didn't know what to make of that.
When he finally scraped the last piece of meat from the container, he set it aside and brought his hand to his mouth, licking the grease and seasoning from his fingers one by one.
He felt her gaze on him.
"Once you're done with that," she said, her tone carefully neutral, "can you rinse your hand in the sink, please?"
He stopped mid-lick and looked at her. Didn't move. Just stared.
She sighed. "Don't give me that look. It's so you're not leaving grease all over the place."
He kept staring. Then, slowly, deliberately, he huffed through his nose -a sharp, almost mocking sound- and turned his attention back to his hand, licking between his fingers with exaggerated focus.
Her jaw clenched. "Fine. Then next time, I'll give you food that doesn't make a mess."
That got his attention.
His ears flicked forward, and his gaze snapped back to her. He knew exactly what she meant. Bland. Dry. Something that didn't require hands at all. The tasteless shit they'd fed him at the facility. Nutritional paste. Kibble.
He held her stare for another beat, weighing his options.
Then, slowly, he pushed himself up off the floor and walked to the sink.
He turned on the faucet -hot water, because he could now- and rinsed his hand under the spray, scrubbing away the grease. When he was done, he shook the water off and looked back at her.
She was watching him with a faint, almost imperceptible smile at the corner of her mouth.
"Thank you," she said simply.
He didn't respond. Just turned away and walked out of the kitchen, his tail flicking once behind him, irritated.
