30 yrs old, She/Her. This is my sideblog where I indulge in my x reader fantasies so I'm not horny on main 😆, mainly Bob Reynolds and Bucky Barnes but some others too like Nero and Vergil/V from DMC, Rhett Abott, Tyler Galpin and some other Marvel characters too. Main blog is nekoemma95
Pairing: Siren! Bucky x Fem! Reader
A/N: I AM SO SORRY IT TOOK THIS LONG! But it's finally here, and for those who do read the a/n would yall be interested in a different series? I would be working on both, I had a chapter done already, just wanted to know if anyone would be interested. Mafia type, corny I know, but i got really into writing it.
W/C: 5.5k
Summary: After figuring out you're scared of the deep sea a storm hits and chaos breaks loose.
Warnings: Captivity, aggression, mentions of violence, hallucination (?) (more will be added as the story goes)
The excitement had died down a couple of hours afterwards. Everyone returned to their regular routine.
Well, not entirely, most kept on glancing to the tank in case he just so happened to float up again. Yes, everyone was excited, but him floating up? Wasn't data that could be documented for days on end. But it surely was exciting to see the creature actually show a bit of interest.
He had only surfaced for a short amount of time. Only 15 minutes before, he slowly drifted downwards again, in his regular spot.
Everything had returned to normal after he slowly drifted back. Obviously, you hadn't moved from your desk. You did log what you'd seen; everyone was going to anyway. Nothing eventful had happened much afterwards, the work day blended in as the other days.
Dr. Naomi passed your desk just as the others had started to shut down their stations for the evening. The wing had grown quieter as everyone wrapped up. The lights started to dim; they were on a cycle for the mermaid in the tank.
She paused beside you.
"Before you head out."
You looked up to the sound of her voice.
Naomi rested one hand lightly against the edge of your desk; her expression was thoughtful rather than the one she always wore. "I'd like you to accompany me for the feeding tonight."
You felt your stomach drop; the feeding wasn't the unusual part. Someone always had to haul up a cooler to the platform above the tank and dump the fish in. Naomi usually assigned the same people to the task.
It was never you.
That's what made it odd, you were hesitating long enough that she had begun to notice.
"It's routine." She said calmly, "I'd just like another set of eyes. Someone new."
Your gaze fell briefly towards the tank. From your desk, the water looked calm and still. He was nowhere in sight, not above, just at his usual spot at the bottom.
You swallowed, "Yeah, okay." You nodded, trying to sound optimistic. Naomi looked satisifed with your answer.
"Meet me in fifteen minutes, yeah?"
By the time the two of you reached the upper platform, the west wing was mostly empty. Only a few stayed; some lingered to chat, or were organizing their desks. The stairs to reach the top were somewhat hidden, the metal steps echoing as you both climbed up. And the loud clank the cooler made as you brought it up with you.
At the top, the platform turned into a narrow walkway that circled a part of the tank's rim. It was heavily monitored; the tank did not have a hatch to close it completely. There was concern that he would eventually jump out of it, but this place was packed tightly with sensors and locked doors that would keep him inside.
You set the cooler by the railing that was circled around the tank to prevent falls from staff. For a moment, neither of you spoke. She stepped forward first, resting her hands on the metal rail as she looked down into the water. You followed a second later, looking down into that deep, dark water. It really creeped you out, and you weren't the type to get scared of a little ocean water.
He could easily pull you into the water if he wanted to right now. You felt yourself gripping onto the rail tightly more than you should. It was faint, but you could see his shadow at the bottom. A shape darker than the rest of the water, not moving a muscle.
You gulped.
Naomi looked at you, gesturing towards the cooler.
"Go ahead."
You turned towards the cooler, fidgeting in your pocket for some gloves in your coat; you did not want your hands to smell like fish all night. You noticed your hands were a little shaky as you put on the gloves.
What were you so afraid of?
You lifted the lid of the cooler and grabbed a handful of fish before tossing them over the edge of the rail. They hit the water with a soft splash before disappearing almost immediately.
A mixture of different types of fish was tossed, vanishing into the dark abyss. Neither of you spoke as you tossed them in. Naomi kept a watchful eye on you and the tank as you did so, calculating. Anxious that something may happen, that could put two and two together, and why he only paid attention to you.
The shadow at the bottom of the tank never moved.
Naomi exhaled quietly through her nose.
"Hm."
It wasn't frustration, it was more like mild disappointment. You wondered what was going on in her head. You wondered if she believed your incident, which is why she brought you here. Did she suspect the siren to jump out and drag you in by the ankle? You slightly backed away from the railing just a bit, in case that hutch was true.
Naomi straightened from the railing and glanced at the cooler. "Hold on a moment." She said, "I'll go grab another batch from storage." Grabbing the handle of the cooler.
You looked over at her, "More?"
"Yup." She replied, "With the stunt he pulled today, if he's finally willing to swim up a bit higher, it's worth rewarding this behavior with more fish."
That sounded reasonable enough for you.
She started to drag the cooler with her as she walked towards the stairs.
"Just stay here, yeah? She said, "I'll be right back."
The metal steps echoed softly as she descended back downstairs. The sound faded as she reached the end of the stairs. Then she shut the door behind her.
It was a little too quiet for comfort now. It wasn't like it was completely quiet; the sounds of the tank's filtration filled the space. You kept your hands where they were, against the railing. Making sure to not lean in too much as you look down on the water.
The water was still.
You were just looking down at the water because there was nothing else to do here. You could scroll on your phone, but you didn't want to take the risk of it accidentally falling in the tank because of how sweaty your hands felt right now.
Naomi would come back any minute now; you hoped she wouldn't take long.
A faint ripple broke across the surface, the motion snapping you out of your thoughts as you frowned slightly.
It hadn't come from the fish you've thrown in; they were dead as hell.
The water shifted again, but it wasn't a violent shift. Just enough for small rings of movement across the tank.
You took a deep breath as your fingers tightened slightly around the metal rail. Not once did you think that at this age you would be scared of fucking water.
And then? Nothing happened.
The small rings you noticed smoothed out quickly, the surface settling back into stillness. You stayed where you were waiting, waiting for something, anything. Maybe being here alone with your thoughts was making you tweak out.
You exhale slowly, trying to loosen the tension in your shoulders.
You were fully expecting something out of a horror movie to happen. The siren jumping out with his sharp ass teeth and claws, dragging you into the tank and killing you right there.
You shook your head, "Keep it reasonable.." You mumbled to yourself, trying to think of something else.
But of course, your mind kept going back to the possible scenarios that filled your mind.
What if he did come up right now?
What's the possibility you've ticked him off more than the last time?
You were deep in your thoughts, completely unaware of your surroundings for that split moment.
A sharp metallic clang rang out behind you. You flinched hard, the sound tearing through the silence. The echo of footsteps followed afterwards.
It was just Naomi.
You knew that, but still your head snapped towards the noise. Your pulse was still a little too fast as she reached the top of the platform. Hauling the cooler filled with fish. She paused for a second, studying your movements, taking in the way your hands were still gripping the railing hard.
"...Did something happen?" She asked.
You shook your head a little bit too quickly.
"No, it was nothing. Just too quiet here." You let out an awkward laugh..
She gave you a look and nodded, setting the cooler beside you with a thud. "Okay, good."
Naomi stepped next to you, "Let's try that again, yeah?"
You nodded, stepping back just enough to give her space.
She put on some gloves, and opened the cooler. This time, it was more fillies to the brim, the smell was more noticeable than the last batch.
She didn't throw the fish immediately. Instead, she looked down into the tank for a moment, as if she was calculating on what the right call was next.
Waiting.
Then, without looking at you, she said, "Stand there for a second?” She pointed a little beyond the metal railing.
You looked at her, confused, but you did so anyway. Shuffling a bit towards where she pointed. “…Here?”
“Mm.” She nodded.
There was no explanation. No elaboration. Just a quiet instruction. You had to do what she said, right? She was the big boss in this whole project.
You stayed where you were, your hands wanting to grip the railing that wasn’t there behind you. One of your hands, the closest to it, reached out to it.
Oh my god, she’s going to push you in the tank. That’s all you were thinking, even if it was ridiculous. Logic has been out the door for a long time.
Naomi's gaze flicked between the water and your reflection in the surface. Not obvious enough to call attention to, but deliberate. But you still felt her gaze, calculating. Something brewing in that mind of hers, and it was kinda creeping you out.
Like she was lining something up.
Testing.
Was she hoping the Siren would come up and grab you? Gears started to turn in your head, 'What the hell did she gain by this?'
The seconds stretched, yet those seconds felt like an eternity. There was no movement anywhere in the water. No shift from below. No ripple breaking the surface. The shadow in the corner remained exactly where it always had been.
Still and unresponsive.
Naomi exhaled softly. Clearly frustrated with whatever she wanted to see.
"Alright," she said, more to herself than to you.
She reached into the cooler and began tossing the fish one by one. They hit the surface with soft, hollow splashes before disappearing beneath the water.
It wasn't like you were going to stand there and not help her with the fish. It was a big batch, and you wondered if the Siren would even eat all of this fish; obviously, their organs were different from those of the average human. How much could he actually handle?
The last fish slipped from her hand and vanished into the dark.
Naomi watched for another moment. When nothing happened, she straightened. "Guess earlier was situational," she said, brushing her hands together lightly. Her smile was back again as she turned to you, "We'll try again tomorrow, yeah? Hopefully, we can figure out what can bring him up again."
You didn't respond.
Naomi stepped back from the railing, grabbing the empty cooler.
"Let's head down."
When you reached the bottom level, the west wing had emptied out. Feeding the siren took more time than you would've thought. Or maybe that was your mind messing with you. You really needed to go see a doctor with the weird shit that has been happening to you. Every electronic was turned off.
Naomi paused near the exit, glancing toward the windows briefly. Beyond the glass, the sky had darkened, heavy clouds rolling in. Her eyes widened in surprise, "Oh, right! Storm's supposed to hit tonight," she said.
You nodded faintly. You'd heard. You weren't quite used to them just yet; you did more closely here for your line of work. But storms? And typically harsh ones at best? You don't think you get used to them for quite a bit.
She set the cooler in the corner; she'll properly store it the following day. "Do you have a ride? It's too windy right now to walk." Seems like she's very observant. You occasionally mentioned in passing conversation that you did walk from home to the facility. Seems like Nomi is an eavesdropper.
"Yeah," you said automatically, but then you hesitated.
You went quiet, "I can call an Uber." Naomi watched you for a second. Then she shook her head lightly.
"Don't worry about it," she said. "I'm heading that way anyway. I can give you a ride." You glanced back once, towards the tank; you didn't know why you did. You just felt a pair of eyes on you; it gave you goosebumps.
'Uhm- Okay," you said. Naomi smiled as she nodded.
"Good! Let's go." She grabbed you by the wrist as you dragged you out of the West Wing. Guess she really didn't set boundaries with people, or ask people to drag them by the wrist.
By the time you got home, the storm had already started. Droplets becoming heavier as minutes started to pass. The sky had been a little dull all day, but now it changed into a murky color, the clouds filled to the brim with water.
You threw your bag at your cozy couch, you didn’t bother turning any of the lights on yet. It wasn’t like you had a hard time seeing where you were going. You had one goal right now, wash away today’s stress. As you headed towards your bathroom.
You lived with no one.
That was obvious, you moved for this job leaving your life behind. You turned the shower on without thinking.
Hot water came quickly, steam already beginning to fog the mirror as you stepped out of your clothes and into the water. The heat from it immediately calming down your senses and nerves.
You exhaled. The tension in your shoulders eased faster than it should have. It always did, since this whole project landed on you, since the ringing in your ears that never really fell quiet. You leaned forward slightly, resting a hand against the tile as the water ran over the back of your neck, down your spine. The ringing was dull now, not fully gone but it wasn’t taking over your thoughts.
You stayed there longer than you meant to.
Minutes passing without notice, the outside world fading into the steady rhythm of the shower. Rain against the windows. Water against tile. The low hum of plumbing behind the walls.
Your home was your safe place, away from all the stress of your work. Away from the siren that haunted you, even if you spent most of your free time researching them. It was better than having your anxiety spike in the West Wing.
Eventually, you reached out blindly, turning the temperature down just slightly before stepping back.
You should get out….maybe just a couple more minutes.
You stood there in the gently spray of the shower head. Letting it run over your face, your eyes closed, grounding you.
Letting your mind drift back to that day. Two weeks into the project, desperate for some answers, or to even see him.
The tank. The way you walked to it, pressing your palm to the glass, how hopeful you were. And how terrified you felt yourself be when he came charging into the glass.
You opened your eyes.
That was enough thinking. You shut the water off, trying to push your mind into thinking of something else.
You felt refreshed after stepping out of the shower. Today’s events..were a lot, and whatever Naomi was doing up there? Was..fucking weird. You put on comfortable clothes as you stepped into your room.
A bit messy from things being shattered everywhere with your..research. You laid on your bed, pushing yourself up. Almost immediately you went to go on your phone. Search tabs filled the screen almost immediately.
Sirens biology.
Deep sea vocalization myths.
Marine predator behavioral patterns.
Nothing useful, it was just fiction for those niche groups. Nothing that could actually help you, nothing concrete.
Most of the tabs always circled back to the same ideas. Mythology, could it be myths though? The siren was very much real. You shook your head, not wanting to drive into mythology any deeper. Along with speculation what was addressed as a fact for sirens.
You groaned, knowing you wouldn’t find anything tonight once again. Then clicked on the familiar tab.
Some videos explaining sirens, you just watched. Knowing most of the material people would cram into videos for views.
Movement. Posture. The way the body displaced water. How they were deemed so beautiful, which they were. But male sirens were never mentioned, or rarely mentioned.
You leaned forward slightly, looking at your screen closely. Studying the fucking video like it might finally give you something real.
Outside? Out of the comfort of your home? Thunder roared across the sky. The screen buffered.
You frowned as you tapped the refresh button a couple of times, but it failed to load. Your wifi was shit right now, so you huffed, turning it off; your data would do for now. It was a bit slower, but you could get by it.
At the same time, the overhead light flickered.
Once, twice, and then?
Everything that used electricity in your space shut off completely. Darkness filled your home, the only light source being your phone, whose service barely worked. Silence poured into the space, not entirely, though.
The rain was still there. Way more noticeable now, louder now.
You sat there for a moment, staring at the blank screen, the screen shutting off your reflection faintly visible in it.
The ringing in your ears crept back in. You frowned before lying back into your bed, groaning in frustration.
You left your home a little later than usual.
Maybe because it was the morning after the storm. It wasn't like you'd overslept; it was quite the opposite.
The second you stepped into the facility, you knew something had happened here.
It looked like a hot mess.
Employees were walking like they had places to be, holding soggy papers in their arms. Maintenance workers were pushing carts with tools to mop up the muddy footprints left by everyone. A ceiling tile sat in a trash can. You see about 3 buckets collecting water from holes in the ceiling.
"What the hell?"
You said mostly to yourself; nobody answered you anyway. Mostly because everyone was busy complaining.
"The south wing's computers are fried."
"At least your wing didn't flood."
"The company that finances here is so fucking negligent. Why is it so bad????"
A woman carrying a semi-soggy box nearly bumps into you before mumbling an apology and continuing to walk down the hall. The storm hit the facility too hard, even though it should have been able to handle it. You started to walk down the hall, a routine you knew well, to get to the West Wing. The further you walked, the more the damage became visible. Some ceiling panels were wrapped, looking like they'd fall any second now.
You also saw a couple more buckets underneath another leak. Two researchers passed you, annoyed that their overnight research was wiped clean. The power was out here as well, and it seemed like there was no backup.
You continued to walk; someone farther down was arguing about a printer not being functional anymore. The West Wing was a good distance away; those employees who lingered in the hall were talking about what happened here, and their stories were getting more dramatic as you walked.
You couldn't tell what was true anymore. You found yourself smiling at conversations you heard. By the time you reached the doors of the West Wing, your mind wandered.
You hadn't heard anything about this section of the facility; it wasn't strange. The whole wing was under an NDA, but still. You wondered what damage you were going to walk into right now.
You felt it as you stepped in; everything felt wrong when you stepped in.
The usual background noise that you've grown used to, the steady hum of equipment of the tank that would fill the room, was gone. Instead, it was replaced by movement too much of it. Panicked voices mixed with fast footsteps; you heard doors slamming and people arguing about what to do.
You hadn't even gotten to your desk when you said. "What the fuck??" No one answers you here, too, at least not at first.
You placed your things on your desk; it looked like the computers still worked here. The West Wing didn't look that...bad. A couple of buckets to collect leaking water, but there weren't any ceiling tiles in a trash can.
The last couple of co-workers you had were frantic, panicking, and not knowing what to do. This would've been easier if the rest of the team were still here.
You spotted Naomi in the middle; it was like seeing a completely different person. Finally seeing a crack in her persona. Naomi was usually so cheerful; of course, at times it looked and felt fake as hell. And right now?
She's barking orders to everyone surrounding her.
Her voice cut sharper than it should've. She was always so... friendly, very condescending. Everyone moved faster because of her tone, maybe even recklessly, not calmly. Naomi pushed through the small crowd of people, her steps heavy as she went to look at something else. When she spotted you, she changed her direction towards you.
Her eyes were studying you as she grumbled, "You're late."
"I- sorry, what's going on?" You asked.
She didn't answer immediately, instead shes in her head, trying to think if she had the time to sit and chat with you. In that small amount of time, you looked around the room to get a bigger picture without her saying. You felt your stomach tighten a little, the tank.
The familiar shadow that you're used to seeing and acknowleging everyday wasnt here.
"Naomi?" You try to get her out of her head. "What happened?" She blinked once before she exhaled, putting it straight to you. "Our specimen, the mermaid, isn't in his tank anymore." You fell silent.
"What?"
She shrugged, "Power went out at our facility, obviously. With such a harsh storm, it was bound to happen." She frowned, "Though I didn't realize how greedy our company actually is. There was only one backup battery for our wing. It failed after an hour; a couple of other departments had the same issue." She started to look like she was about to burst any second.
"...He escaped?" You said quietly, as if saying something wrong would throw her into a rage.
"Apparently yes." She nodded as she typed something on her tablet.
You hear your colleague shout, "East wing is clear from signs of our mermaid!" Naomi turns to the voice before looking back at you for a second.
"Rest assured, though, I'm just-" She cracks a small smile, probably fake; who knew? "Very stressed; he couldn't have gotten far with that tail of his."
Being stressed was a valid emotion in this setting. Her job, well everyones job on the line. The one assignment: research the mermaid, but with him being gone, there was no reason to fund this project. Naomi didn't bother to wait for you to respond, just went back to commanding orders.
You gulped. You had so many questions and concerns.
The tank is empty. And he's on the loose in the facility.
"Let's hope he doesn't jump on someone." You mumbled as you tried getting your thoughts together before joining everyone else.
A few hours passed, and there was no progress.
No one could focus on doing anything today. Every conversation obviously would circle back to the missing mermaid. It was like playing hide-and-seek, but the hider had been hiding since probably before morning.
Some colleagues did go look around the entirety of the facility. Any place that they were able to access- hell, even Naomi in places only some were authorized to go into.
You tried to work, looking to see if there was any footage of him leaving the tank. Every few minutes, someone would rush into the room to give an update on where he wasn't.
"Maintenance tunnels!"
There was nothing.
"Lower access corridors!"
Nothing again.
Everyone in the wing was on edge.
By lunchtime, a couple thought he had somehow escaped the facility. It wasn't like it was impossible, granted the power was out. Which, granted, motion sensors were trash in that situation. But he wouldn't know that.
Or he was probably dead in a corner of the facility somewhere. He was aquatic; he needed water to survive. If that was it? You could research his dead body at least.
You were trying to organize some documents that had to be reprinted after the storm got to them. Suddenly, you hear someone kick the door open.
Sean stumbles into the room, his face pale.
Like, actually fucking pale, like if dude had seen a ghost.
In one hand, that was gloved it was carrying a big clear bag of something. You took a look; fish scales? What the fuck?
"Sean? You okay?" Someone asked.
Sean proceeded to ignore them as he shouted. "Dr. Naomi!"
The room went silent, confused about what the shouting was about, as some turned. Naomi looked up from her tablet. "What?!" She sounded a bit annoyed. Sean sped-walked towards her, his eyes wide, the bag shaking in his hand.
"I found this-" He held it out to her.
Naomi grabs it as she takes a look inside. The bag was clear, obviously, but looking at it more closely? Her expression changes, not by much, but it was enough.
You stand up from your chair, and you didn't mean to blurt out, "What is it?" There was a deafening silence for a moment, but Sean did respond to you.
"It's skin."
The others turned to him, looking uncomfortable. Or if he's making a joke.
"What?"
Sean pointed to the bag, you did walk closer for a better look. Inside the bag? Were several pale, translucent fragments. Fish scales? Some were larger, some were barely any bigger than a fingernail clipping. They looked dry, brittle, like flakes?
Naomi decided to get a better feel for things, grabbing one of the flakes. Feeling the texture of it. "Doesn't feel right.." She mumbled. It looked strange.
Sean drags a hand down his face, blurting it out. "I think he dried out." The room erupts.
"What? You're saying that's what's left of him?!?"
"Nah man, you bugging!"
"Ew- ew ew!!"
"I mean- he wouldn't survive outside the tank!" Sean countered.
A knot formed in your stomach, and you felt like you were going to be sick. You wouldn't call it nasty, but that was supposedly mermaid remains.
Sean continued to speak, saying his theory. "Look- he was probably already stressed by the storm- then, then- everything failed here- he left the tank and spent hours outside the tank-"
"He's dead." Someone blurts out.
Those two words? Everyone seems to agree, even Naomi, who was still examining that flake in her fingers. This explanation was easy to latch onto; it was simple and understandable.
The mermaid escaped, and he wouldn't survive, and he kicked the bucket. Case fucking closed. But it wasn't the closing everyone wanted. Sean hadn't collected everything where he found the skin. The job right now was to collect the entirety of the supposed body.
And then figure out things from there. This project was going to come to an end; this assignment was just a short part of your career. But it just felt wrong- the skin? Felt wrong, but it wasn't like you were a mermaid expert.
Your knowledge of covering the entire internet wouldn't cover this.
Around you, the room had already begun to mourn the creature that gave them a headache every shift.
By late afternoon, the theory already became the fact. It became the official story. The mermaid is gone; the tank is no longer needed.
The rest of the skin was collected and sealed in containers to analyze further the next day. Everyone was just trying to get shit down now, still processing it.
The West Wing would eventually close again, whenever an analysis was done on the skin. People didn't want to talk about the mermaid anymore; if he was mentioned, he was called an 'Asset.'
Around that time, Naomi gathered everyone to announce an early dismissal today. Everyone was tired; there was no way everyone would be at peak productivity. You grabbed your bag as you walked out. Everyone just looked off, not really mourning that much, just tired and unsure of what was next after a project that never really came to a clean conclusion.
Naomi passes you near the entrance of the facility; her expression is tired. Probably has her hands full with what is the next step after this. "I thought you were going to be the solution to crack the code on the mermaid." She mumbled as she shrugged. "Oh well, it'll still be interesting to test its skin, right?" She gave a tired smile.
You blinked. You were the solution? Honestly, you probably were, but that didn't matter now. "Right- yeah, it will." Naomi nodded as she gave you a pat on the shoulder before leaving like the rest.
The streets are still fucking wet, obviously. The smell of rain is still there but faint. It feels too tame compared to what just went down in the west wing. What happened there? Felt like a novela, or it was from a different universe or something.
You didn't want to take the bus back home. You did take it earlier this morning, not wanting to deal with the puddles around. You walked to work, but right now? Ugh, you didn't wanna sit on a bus with your thoughts, nor wanted to accidentally step on puddles of water. This place did have those electric scooters scattered around; one would probably work. You found one near the corner where the start of town was. The facility was a bit distant from the actual town.
You pulled out your phone. Scan and pay. You were ready to ride this thing; you stepped on and pushed off. Not too fast nor too slow, the wind was light on your face. It was comforting somehow. You passed by stores, empty crosswalks. The silence was still there in your mind, but right now? It was easy to ignore.
You kept on riding faster than needed. But even so, you didn't want to be back home just yet; the feelings would just come crashing down on you again. You decided to take a different route back home. Taking the longer route on purpose.
The scooter hums under you, and you feel the light vibration on the handles as you continue. You avoid the puddles on the ground without even thinking.
Your grip loosens a bit as you turn down a side street. It had some older buildings, but not many stores here anymore. You weren't a local, but what you'd been told is just that: barely anyone comes here to shop. Slowly but surely, owners have been closing things up. It'll only be a matter of time before this street lies abandoned.
You slow a little, just to take a look at the architecture. That's when you see him; your brain only registered it as a shadow at first, till evenutally it did catch up; you swerved instantly.
"SHIT-" The scooter jerks as you try to stabilize, barely missing the guy. Barely having the time to think, you catch yourself before eating shit. Dropping your foot to come to a complete stop. You turned your head to the guy. He's standing in the middle of the street like he was there the whole time.
The guy had no urgency, no reaction to almost being hit by a fucking scooter. Just there, damp fabric clinging to his clothes, his hair went at the ends. The guy looked creepy; he was very still.
You're annoyed as you speak, "Are you insane?" Your voice sounded snappy, "You cannot stand in the middle of the fucking street-" You cut off, because right now you're taking a real good look at him.
The posture? It's very..off. Like someone trying to understand how to stand for the first time.
And then? The tied sleeve, the lack of an arm on his left side.
Okay...
Who else had a missing left arm?
Now thinking about it, the mermaid had long hair too. Okay, this has to be a coincidence.
Right.
"What the hell-" You said quietly.
He tilts his head slightly to the sound of your voice. He's listening and deciding what you are. Not like a human would. Though he didn't look lost, he looked like he had stopped there on purpose. Like he was waiting for something, or someone.
Мистер пипистер
Вообще я ничего не планировала по поводу мИрмай, чисто шарилась по хештегам в поисках тентакле-мужиков, а тут на те фанфики с моим крашем детства, да еще и вкусные
(⌒▽⌒)☆ @vunblr
Here is an information sheet for my sister @nekoemma95 , @mrsbarnesreynolds /her self insert in the Marvel/MCU universe
Name: Emily Landahl
Alias(es): Psylocke, Solace
Emily Landahl is a mutant empath and psionic defender who can sense, influence, and stabilize emotions, using purple psionic energy constructs primarily for protection. She is the softer, emotionally intelligent counterbalance to her older sister Rebecca’s more aggressive, toxic-powered fighting style.
She operates across the X-Men, Avengers, and Thunderbolts spheres, but always in a support and emotional anchor role rather than frontline destruction.
Powers/Abilities:
Emily is a mutant who can sense, influence, and regulate others’ emotions while generating psionic energy constructs, primarily used for defense, protection, and stabilizing chaotic situations.
Psionics: The power to use mental/psychic-based powers
Emotional Energy Manipulation- Manipulate emotional energy
Intuitive Empathy- intuitively sense energy from other people to the extent of absorbing it into their own body and feel the same intense emotions
Psychic Constructs;
Empathic Constructs- change emotions/empathic energy into different forms and objects of varying detail and permanence
Force-Field Generation- project fields of manipulated energy
Psionic Strike/Psionic Enhanced Strike- can use psychic energy to power a strike (punch, kick, headbutt, etc.).
Psionic Healing- heal others using psychic energy
Power Visuals
Emily’s abilities manifest as soft, glowing violet psionic energy; flowing, protective, and subtly shaped by butterfly-like motion that feels calm, controlled, and emotionally connected, not aggressive or chaotic.
Aura: Soft purple aura with faint wing-like ripples in motion only visible in certain lighting or high-focus moments. It moves gently, like air displaced by wings rather than actual shapes.
Core Visual Elements
Color: Shades of violet and lavender
Aura: Smooth, faintly glowing purple energy surrounding her body
Eyes: Glow violet when powers are active, intensity reflects effort, when she’s deeply focused, the glow softly pulses outward, almost like wings opening and closing
Energy Texture: Fluid, weightless, almost like light moving through water
Constructs
Translucent purple shields and barriers that are rounded, flowing shapes, never sharp or jagged, with subtle internal patterns resembling wing-like veins. They are designed for protection, restraint, and stabilization, not destruction.
Energy Behavior
It moves in gentle, curved motions, like drifting air currents. It reacts to her emotional state:
Calm: soft, steady glow
Focused: deeper, more defined violet
Overwhelmed: brighter, flickering energy
Subtle Butterfly Motif
It appears as brief, faint butterfly-shaped flickers during emotional peaks, wing-like ripples in her aura or constructs, and light movements that resemble fluttering.
Teen Years
Emily grew up bullied, similar to Rebecca. The first manifestation of powers accidentally amplified emotional chaos in her bullies, terrifying her. She was recruited into the X-Men by Storm and Nightcrawler, who had been sent by Professor Xavier to find her and offer to take her to the Xavier Institute.
X-Men Era
Emily developed a close bond with Storm, who guided her as a mother/sister figure of stability and strength. She also developed a close friendship with Nightcrawler, including a brief, innocent crush she later outgrew due to age difference. At first, she couldn’t control her empathic abilities, involuntarily feeling everyone's emotions at once. But, she trained under the guidance of the X-Men and eventually learned to control her abilities.
Avengers Ally
She stayed living at the mansion because she felt safest there, even when her sister left to go solo, but, like her, she ended up working with the original Avengers on more than one occasion. She also met Bucky Barnes during this time.
Thunderbolts Era
Eventually, with her sister, Rebecca, she was recruited into the Thunderbolts/New Avengers. She becomes romantic partners with either Bucky Barnes or Bob Reynolds.
Why Emily Joined the Thunderbolts
Simple: She wouldn’t let Rebecca go alone.
But also, she believes that even morally gray teams can save lives and that everyone deserves a chance at redemption.
winter soldier x reader / thunderbolts!bucky x reader
word count: 18.7k
you fell in love with the man who trained you in the red room. he helped you escape - and made you promise to never look back. years later, when an old friend asks for your help, you find yourself working with a group of anti-heroes. including him.
warnings/tags: 18+ only mdni, smut, ex widow reader, angst, heartbreak, thunderbolts timeline, pre-winter soldier movie timeline, mentions of blood, canon level violence, probably poorly translated russian, no use of y/n, reader is afab, oral, unprotected p in v, reader is implied to be shorter than bucky, reader's age isn't specified but she is an adult throughout the whole story, slow burn as fuck but happy ending i promise
thank you so much to @starsoverbrooklyn and @whereiweep for letting me yap about this for over a month and for reading over it for me. ily and appreciate you both so much.
i made a little playlist for this fic. you definitely don’t have to listen to it, but here it is if you want to give it a listen for the vibes ✨🖤
Circa 2013
“Согните локти. Я не хочу повторять это снова.”
You grit your teeth at his words. He only speaks to you in Russian when he means business - it's a force of habit for him, more than anything, but you can't help but feel the stinging pinch of disappointment anytime he speaks to you in the language.
His voice is always a tad colder. More mechanical. Like he's talking to one of the handlers. Like he's a little less himself.
Whoever that may be.
Bend your elbows. I don’t want to have to tell you again.
“My elbows are bent,” you say flatly. It’s a bold face lie - you know damn well you tend to hyper-extend your arms when they start to get tired during target practice. He reminds you of it often.
“Come and get a closer look and see for yourself,” you taunt him.
He says nothing. After a second of loaded silence, the sound of his combat boots against the floor echoes through the room as he takes deliberately slow steps toward you. He probably thinks he's intimidating you - and judging by the way your breath catches in your throat as he closes in on you, it’s a safe assumption.
You maintain your position when he comes to a stop just inches behind you. Your index finger hovers above the trigger as you try to ignore the way your heart races as he looms over you from behind.
It isn't a reaction born from fear. It’s excitement. So often you try to draw him in closer, though it’s rare that he actually indulges in your scheming.
He stands close enough that you can feel the warmth of his breath on the back of your neck. You blink rapidly, as if it will somehow make the goosebumps that have suddenly appeared on your skin dissipate.
He raises his metal hand to your arm from his position behind you, placing his fingers against the bend of your elbow and applying just enough pressure so that you relax the position of your arm. Then, using his flesh hand, repeats the action on your opposite arm.
“Now,” he breathes in perfectly clear English, “if you’re finished trying to get my attention, shoot the target.”
You blink. Once, then twice, and then squeeze the trigger. Only after a perfect succession of hits, do you remember to breathe.
“See,” he muses, his voice softening the slightest bit. “You've got great aim, when you aren’t being childish.”
You whip around, turning to face him. Your chest brushes against his, but he doesn’t move an inch. Steel blue eyes bore into yours, unblinking. His jaw is set in a hard line, but you don’t miss the way his Adam’s apple bobs at the sudden close proximity.
It's moments like this that you’d do anything to know his name. You’ve wondered what it could be a thousand times. Henry? William? Daniel?
None of those names seem to suit him. But you know better than to ask. Every time you do, you’re met with a blank expression and loaded silence.
“Am I being childish?” You challenge. “Or do I just find all of these extra lessons a little…unnecessary? I don’t see anyone else getting this level of one-on-one attention. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you might be growing fond of me, Soldat.”
His expression remains stoic. Your eyes begin to sting, but you refuse to be the first to blink.
“If these extra lessons help to keep you alive, then they are not unnecessary to me.”
He suddenly steps back, distancing himself from you a mere second before the double doors on the other side of the room come flying open and two Hydra agents barge inside. They bark commands at him in thick Russian accents, effectively breaking any tension that had been brewing between you. Still, his gaze remains on you.
“Любить — недостаточно сильное слово.”
With his back turned to the guards, he says the words low enough so that only you hear them. He then turns and follows the agents out of the room, leaving you alone to wonder if you’d heard him correctly.
Fond is not a strong enough word.
☆☆☆☆☆☆
A fortnight passes before you see him again.
Each night, you fall asleep replaying the last words he said to you on an endless loop. With every day that passes, you’re more and more convinced that you had hallucinated his confession.
It's rare that you go this long without seeing him. Your sessions together had become something of a routine, and you find yourself wandering aimlessly in your limited amount of free time each day, just hoping to run into him around the bleak and depressing facility that you're forced to call home.
You just need a few minutes with him - just long enough to confirm that you aren’t going crazy. That he really did say those words to you before seemingly vanishing like smoke.
You find yourself longing to get him alone. Really alone. Not in the way that you’re alone when he’s making you fight him in hand to hand combat or shoot at the same target for the twentieth time and someone could walk in at any moment. Completely and utterly alone - away from here, away from Hydra, away from the Red Room.
Maybe then he’d open up and at least tell you his name.
But it’s just a fantasy. Merely something for you to maladaptive daydream about in order to get through the day when he's nowhere to be found. The likelihood of ever seeing him outside of these walls is slim to none, but that doesn’t stop you from fantasizing about it far more often than you care to admit.
It's three in the morning and you’re staring up at your ceiling in the pitch black when you hear a sudden commotion of slamming doors and loud, angry voices. You sit up, holding your breath as you listen. There’s only so much that you can make out from down the hallway, behind the closed door of your room, but it’s enough to make your heart thud in your chest.
The soldier. The asset. Soldat. All spat in the same tone of disgust.
You get out of bed, tip-toeing across the room to press an ear against your door in hopes of hearing his voice. You just want confirmation that he’s okay - that he’s alive.
All that you’re able to hear is the voice of the guards, one indistinguishable from the next. Within a minute, the voices dissipate and the night is silent once more.
Your thoughts begin to spiral and your stomach churns with nausea. There’s no use in even trying to sleep now. There’s no way your brain will allow you to relax enough to fall asleep until you know that he’s alright.
You’ve lived in this facility for years. You know it like the back of your hand - even sections that are supposed to be off limits. You’ve never been to his quarters, but you know your way around well enough to get there. You don’t have any intention of actually approaching him; the last thing you want is to do anything that could cause the guards to refer to him with so much venom in their voices again.
Just to hear the shuffling of his covers or low snores from behind his door would be enough to ease your worrying until you see him again.
The compound is eerily silent at night. You don’t bother putting on shoes, as you’re able to walk more quietly without the shuffling of your slippers. The metal flooring of the hallway feels like ice against your feet, making you wish you had at least thrown a hoodie or cardigan over your camisole.
Without any windows or lights on, navigating your way through the endless maze of hallways is borderline impossible. You have to rely on touch more than sight, keeping your hands extended in front of you to feel for anything you might run into. Eventually, you make your way to the basement, where you’re relieved to see that the long hallway is illuminated by dimly lit sconces, each placed a few yards apart.
From the opposite end of the hallway, you hear what you believe to be running water - a faucet or shower. You follow the sound until you come to a closed door with faint yellow light spilling from the crack at the floor. You freeze, waiting to hear some kind of movement or see some kind of shadow appear on the sliver of light.
“I know you’re out there. You aren’t nearly as quiet as you think you are.”
You exhale through your nose at the sound of his voice, releasing the breath you didn't realize you’d been holding in. His voice is as serious as ever, and there’s an unusually strained edge to it, but he’s alive, so you can’t help but feel relieved.
“How’d you know it’s me?” You murmur back.
He’s silent for a few moments. You start to worry that you’re bothering him when the door opens up, startling you - for more reasons than one.
“I can smell you. I recognized your scent.”
Your eyes go wide as your mouth hangs open in shock and horror. He pulls you into the bathroom and closes the door before the first question can leave your lips.
The left side of his face is marred by a reddish-purple bruise that covers his eye and extends down to his cheekbone. His bottom lip is just as swollen, with a split down the middle. There’s dried blood concentrated around his nose, indicating injury there as well.
Only after taking in the jarring discoloration across his face do you realize that he isn't wearing a shirt. Your gaze trails to the raised, jagged scar tissue where the flesh of his shoulder meets the metal that is his left arm. You aren't sure how he lost the limb - you’ve never asked - but the scarring tells you it was brutal and violent.
“Who did this to you?” You whisper, not trusting your voice. The same feeling of nausea that came over you when you’d overheard the guards talking about him washes over you once more.
He swallows thickly, his jaw tensing as he grits his teeth. He doesn’t answer before he turns away from you to look at himself in the bathroom mirror. Deep down, you already know the answer.
“Part of my latest assignment didn’t go as intended. It’s my own fault.”
You can tell by his tone of voice that not only does he blame himself, but that he thinks he’s deserving of the punishment. You don’t care what the assignment was, or how it went wrong - you refuse to believe that he could deserve such cruelty.
You don’t know his story. For all you know, maybe he chose this life. But if he’s anything like you - and every fiber of your being is screaming that he is - then you know that he had as little choice as you did when you were thrust into this world of malevolence.
No matter his history and how he found himself to be in the position that he’s in, it hurts you to see him in this state. If you could, you’d take it all away - the scars, the pain, the weight of all of his responsibilities.
You slowly walk towards him, coming to a stop when you’re standing directly behind him. With one hand, you grab the damp washcloth that he’d been using to clean himself up with off of the vanity.
“Turn around,” you instruct him softly. You aren’t sure why you’re surprised when he obeys without hesitation - his entire life is taking orders from others. It stings a little; just how quickly he turns to face you, because you know it isn’t purely out of trust. It’s out of habit of doing what he’s told.
You keep your eyes locked on him as you tentatively raise the cloth to his face. You gauge his reaction to make sure he isn’t going to move away or tell you to stop. When he doesn't flinch, or even blink, you delicately sweep the wet rag along his bottom lip, letting the dried blood melt away.
“You’ve been sending me mixed signals, you know,” you hum, breaking the heavy silence looming over you. “A confession like that followed by two weeks of silence really fucks with a girl’s head.”
He waits until you finish cleaning his lip to speak. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”
His answer stings. You don’t know which would hurt worse - your brain playing a cruel joke on you and making up the entire scenario, or it really happening and him regretting it.
“Did you mean it?”
“Yes.” He pauses. You wait with bated breath. “I did mean it. But I still shouldn’t have said it.”
The goosebumps on your skin, originally caused by the chilly night air, are now from his words. His stare. His close proximity to you. You can’t help but wonder when the last time that someone, anyone, stood so close to him without the intention of inflicting pain was.
You’ve been this close to him before. Closer, even. But always for the intents of training. Never quite like this. Never in a way that you can study every individual freckle, wrinkle, and scar on his skin.
Even as bloodied and bruised as he is, you've never seen anyone even a fraction as beautiful as him. You believe there’s a real possibility that he’s an angel; outcast from heaven and damned to hell. Here.
They’re likely the same place. The only possible difference between the two is that here has him.
When you finally finish ridding his skin of all of the dried blood, you reluctantly start to drop your hand from his face, but he stops you. He grabs your hand in his flesh one, keeping it near his cheek. With his metal hand, he takes the bloodied rag from you and tosses it somewhere behind you.
His skin feels like fire against your own and blood pounds in your ears as he slowly brings your hand to his mouth. He presses his lips to the top of your knuckles, all the while never taking his eyes off of yours.
“You shouldn’t be here,” he murmurs as he lowers your hand away from his lips. The words snap you back to harsh reality. You pull your hand out of his grasp, stepping back to put a few inches of space between the two of you.
“Right,” you whisper, not trusting your voice to speak at a normal volume. You clear your throat and reach for the doorknob. “I’m sorry. I’ll go—"
“That’s not what I mean,” he interrupts, stepping forward. You freeze. “I’m not referring to this bathroom. You shouldn’t be in the Red Room. You should be far away from here.”
Without thinking, you close what little distance is left between you. Your hands settle on either side of his waist, his muscles taut under your palms. He tilts his head down, resting his forehead against yours.
“I could say the same about you,” you hum. His fingers trail up the sides of your arms; the warmth of his skin on one and the chill of metal on the other. When he reaches the top of your shoulders, he cups the sides of your face in his hands. “Something tells me you shouldn’t be here, either.”
He shakes his head, his eyes cinched shut. His swollen, pink lips form something akin to a grimace. “No,” he whispers. “No. The things I’ve done… this is where I should be.”
“I don’t believe that.”
Before he can try to convince you otherwise, you lift yourself by the tips of your toes to press your lips to his.
You can count on one hand the number of times that your lips have touched someone else’s. This kind of life doesn’t allow much time for simple pleasures - bubble baths, watching a morning sunrise while drinking coffee, long drives with your favorite music blaring.
Kissing.
Despite your inexperience, you’ve been kissed enough to know how it feels. At least, you thought you did. Now, you’re not so sure. Because this - this feels entirely different. The way he kisses you as if you're the air he needs to breathe and holds you like a fragile lifeline is brand new to you.
Even though you had wiped the blood off of him, he still tastes faintly of iron from the cut on his bottom lip. He’s hesitant at first - like he knows he shouldn’t be doing this yet physically can’t hold himself back. But your tongue sweeps along the swell of his bottom lip and he loses all restraint.
His hands - hands that you have seen snap bones like twigs and pull countless triggers - now tremble as they caress your face. His flesh hand trails down to the side of your neck and he tilts your head back, deepening the kiss and slipping his tongue past your lips. His movements are slow and intentional, like he’s trying to memorize your mouth before the moment can shatter around you.
You release an involuntary whimper into his mouth and something within him snaps. He drops his hands to the curve of your ass and hoists you up around his midsection. The sudden movement startles you and you gasp, but the noise is swallowed by him. He spins around, plopping you against the cold marble countertop.
You secure your legs around him, keeping him flush against you. Your fingers dart to the long locks of his brunet hair when the sudden, loud pounding of a fist against the bathroom door rings like a gunshot through the night.
“Soldat,” a deep, monotone voice calls from the other side. You recognize it from when you’d heard the commotion in the hallway not long ago. “You are needed upstairs for a mission report.”
You both go completely still, too terrified to even breathe. You hadn’t locked the door. If the guard so much as cracks the door open, the two of you would be exposed. He holds a singular metal digit up to his lips, indicating for you to stay silent.
“I’m almost finished cleaning up,” he barks back, his voice robotic and void of emotion. “I will be there soon.”
“Hurry up,” the guard snaps. “Or you’ll have even more to clean up.”
By some miracle, his footsteps begin to retreat down the hallway. You exhale in relief, your heart beating wildly in your chest.
“I should have heard him,” he mutters lowly, shaking his head. He steps back, leaving you sitting on the edge of the counter. You fight against the automatic urge to pull him back to you. “I was distracted.”
“We both were,” you breathe. “I didn’t hear him either. We just…have to be careful.”
He looks down at the floor with a furrowed brow.
“I can’t be careful enough when it comes to you. This can’t happen again. Not here.”
He steps forward, grabbing your face in his hands. You think - hope - he might kiss you again, but he doesn’t. He just looks down at you, a storm of different emotions in his blue eyes. He ghosts his flesh thumb across your cheekbone as if you’re made of glass.
“I’m going to get you out of this place. Even if they kill me for it.”
He drops his hold on you and backs away. You shake your head, opening your mouth to tell him to stop being ridiculous, but he turns the doorknob and slips through the opening before you can get a word out. It clicks shut by the time you hop down from the countertop. You stand in stunned silence, your brain reeling as you try to make sense of everything that happened in the last five minutes.
You try to calm down before risking the journey back to your sleeping quarters but with each deep breath in, you think of how his lips felt on yours and with every long exhale, his words echo through your mind.
Fond is not a strong enough word.
I did mean it. But I still shouldn’t have said it. You shouldn’t be here. I can’t be careful enough when it comes to you.
I’m going to get you out of this place. Even if they kill me for it.
You lose track of how long you stay in the bathroom. Though it’s small, it feels infinitely bigger, and colder, without him in it.
When you finally sneak back to your room, the digital alarm clock on your nightstand reads 4:28 am. There’s no use in trying to go back to sleep now, as you and the other widows are expected to be awake and ready to begin your morning routines in only an hour. Still, you lay down, not quite ready to face the day.
When your head hits the pillow, you hear a faint crinkling noise close to your ear. You reach beside you, turning on your lamp. You lift the pillow, revealing a white piece of paper folded into a perfect square.
Before you unfold it, you have a gut feeling who it is from. Or maybe it's just irrational hope.
You don’t recognize the handwriting. The first few words are messy - childlike. Nearly illegible. The last words, however, are a little bit easier to read. As if whoever wrote the message hadn’t written anything in a while and had to remember how to hold a pen.
Friday night. 2100 hours. South watchtower. Keep your distance until then. Tell no one. Destroy this after reading.
Friday night - that’s a whole five days away.
He’s plotting something. And you can only hope that it involves both of you getting out of here alive.
☆☆☆☆☆☆
The following days feel like a slow dissent into madness.
You don’t see or hear a word from him. Each day, upon returning to your room after nonstop training, you check under your pillow in hopes of finding another note, only to be met with disappointment. You long for more information - what exactly is going to happen on Friday night? How long will it take the handlers to realize that you’re missing? The tracking device located just under the skin of your left thigh will surely alert them of your desertion. What is his plan? Has he thought of everything that could go disastrously wrong?
And the question that lingers in the forefront of your mind - what you desire an answer to more than anything else - wherever you’re going, will he be going with you?
The mere possibility of the answer being no is enough to make you sick to your stomach.
You’ve barely eaten in days. You have no appetite - not that the food served in the mess hall is ever truly appetizing, but you feel the desire to eat even less than usual. On top of that, you’ve been so distracted that you’re covered in tender bruises from having your ass handed to you during sparring sessions. You haven’t been able to focus on anything the entire week, and others are starting to notice your mental absence.
“Where have you been the last few days?” A feminine, Russian accent startles you in the hallway as you walk back to your quarters on Thursday evening. You turn to see a fellow widow - a short, pretty blonde named Yelena whose room borders yours - looking at you with arched brows. “Your body is here but your mind has been miles away.”
You look away, scared that if you stare into her hazel eyes for a second too long, she’ll see right through you.
“I’m here,” you shrug. “I just haven’t felt the best this week. It’s uh - migraines.” The lie comes naturally to you, though you don’t know if she believes it.
“If you say so,” she snorts. “Must be pretty bad if you’re letting Sasha beat you in hand to hand.”
Luckily, she doesn’t press the subject any further.
Behind the closed door of your room, you retrieve the handwritten note from where you had tucked it between your bed frame and your mattress. He had instructed you to destroy it after reading it, but you couldn’t bring yourself to do so.
Maybe you’re sentimental - or perhaps just pathetic - but it’s the only thing you have of him. A singular piece of paper with his messy handwriting. Physical evidence that you aren’t going entirely crazy. You’ve reread the words more times than you care to admit over the last few days, as if they could possibly say something different than the first fifty something times you looked at the paper.
But they don’t change. The words remain the same, in the same black ink that has started to smudge from tracing the letters with the tip of your finger as if they are written in Braille.
Friday night. 2100 hours. South watchtower.
And finally, after the longest five days of your entire life, Friday arrives.
The day drags on and the nervous pit in your stomach cannot be quelled. You go through the motions as if it’s any other day - archery, aerobics, weight lifting, a five mile run - your typical Friday routine, all while trying to keep your composure at the thought of tonight.
An internal battle wages inside you as nine o’clock draws near. There’s fear, of course. Anxiety and uncertainty and apprehension. But beneath all of that, there’s anticipation. Eagerness. Excitement, even. Simply at the prospect of seeing him again.
There’s a small part of you that almost changes your mind. Not because you wish to stay here, but out of fear for what may happen to him if you’re caught. You wouldn’t be able to live with yourself if he were punished because he tried to help you.
It would be smart to rip the piece of paper into a thousand tiny shreds and flush them down a toilet and then go the fuck to sleep.
But then, you picture him waiting for you at the base of the watchtower, and the choice becomes clear.
To say that you packed lightly would be an understatement. The last thing you want is for someone to notice you carrying a duffel bag and a backpack out of the facility and ask where you're going, so to avoid drawing attention to yourself, you bring only what you can fit on your person. Your widow bites, a few knives, and two small pistols all concealed by a thick, dark purple bathrobe. It’s both windy and rainy tonight, with temperatures falling into the low forties, so you need something to keep you warm, but a large parka would surely raise suspicion if you were caught.
A bathrobe, however, is perfect for your escape plan. You can’t exactly walk out the front door unless you want a guard to demand information about where you’re going, and this place has practically no windows. A facility like this is designed to keep things in, not let them out - so the ventilation system it is.
And the communal bathroom on your level just so happens to have a nice, spacious vent just waiting for you to crawl into.
Widows are required to be in their private quarters no later than half past eight o’clock, so it times out perfectly with when you need to leave to make it to the south watchtower by nine o’clock. You have exactly thirty minutes to disappear. If you’re careful, you’ll be long gone by the time someone inevitably notices that you’re missing the next morning.
Right off the bat, you get lucky. The hallway outside of your bedroom is deserted, with no guard on patrol. If there had been, you would’ve just made some excuse about needing to use the bathroom, but you’re relieved that you don’t run into anyone on your way there.
With all of the other widows already in their beds, you find that the bathroom is empty, too. With the help of a shower chair that one of the girls has been using due to a leg injury, you’re able to reach just high enough to unscrew the vent cover from the wall.
You’re still standing on the chair when you pause for a brief moment before crawling inside the vent. You lean down, double checking that the note he’d left under your pillow is, in fact, tucked inside your sock.
You couldn’t bring yourself to throw it away. You couldn’t bring yourself to leave it behind. A voice in the back of your head kept nagging you to keep it. Once you’ve reassured yourself that the small piece of paper is safely tucked away, you spring into action.
You know you’re leaving behind a scene that paints a very clear picture of precisely what you’ve done - a chair directly beneath the open vent could mean only one thing. The first person who walks into the bathroom will know exactly what happened here.
Once you’ve hoisted yourself through the opening, you can’t bring yourself to care. All you can think about is slithering through the vents as quietly and quickly as you possibly can.
There’s one advantage to having lived in this facility for over a decade - you know the ins and outs of this place like the back of your hand. All you have to do is stay quiet, not have a claustrophobia induced panic attack, and follow the tunnels to freedom - to the man waiting for you in the woods.
Or whatever else might await you at the end.
The air inside the shaft is stagnant yet cold. It smells of metallic rust, almost blood-like. Even the smallest of movements produces a faint echo through the tunnels and all you can do is hope that anyone who hears will chalk the noises up to ghosts.
You freeze every time the metal groans beneath the weight of your body. You breathe in, then out. Count to three, and then cautiously start to move again when you feel confident enough that no one heard you.
The tunnels seemingly get tighter and tighter the farther you crawl. Right, then left, then right, and left again through the never ending maze of metal.
When your muscles start to burn and the shaft starts to feel suffocatingly hot, you picture his face and it gives you the motivation you need to keep going.
There’s no going back now. Not even if you wanted to.
After what feels like hours, when your bones are screaming at you to rest and your skin is covered in a thick layer of sweat beneath your bathrobe and clothing, you breathe a sigh of relief when the slope of a downward facing duct comes into view.
If your calculations are correct, you'll be out of this building in a matter of seconds.
You propel your body forward, mentally and physically bracing yourself for gravity to take hold as you slip down a chute. The smooth fabric of your bathrobe helps you to slide down the incline with ease before you come tumbling out of the vent entirely, plopping onto the cold, wet earth.
You give yourself all of five seconds to both recover from the drop and assess your surroundings, making sure that no one else happens to be lurking around this remote part of the facility at this hour before you begin sprinting in the direction of the woods behind the building.
You glance down at your watch when you cross the threshold of the forest - 8:54 pm.
The south watchtower is roughly half a mile into the woods. Under different circumstances, you'd be able to run half a mile in a few minutes with ease.
But right now? With only the illumination of a waning gibbous moon to guide you through the dense woods while a steady mist of freezing rain gradually soaks through the layers of your clothing? You’ll be lucky to find your way to the watchtower at all.
Still, you force one foot in front of the other, refusing to slow down. You don't want to be even a minute late for fear that he'll think you changed your mind or that something happened on your way there.
For the first minute or so of your trek, the rain and wind feel like a balm to your skin after being trapped in the oven-like vents - but it doesn’t take long for your clothing to become drenched, causing your body to shiver and teeth to chatter despite the fact that you’re running as fast as you can.
You’re thankful he chose the south watchtower. You’re more familiar with it than the other towers that surround the facility, and you know the route well enough. Still, that doesn’t change the fact that you don’t have night vision, and you stumble over a large tree root, twisting your right ankle. You curse under your breath but force yourself to keep going, knowing that you’re so close to reaching him.
The tower comes into view, and your heart drops when you don’t see him right away. You slow from a sprint to a jog, looking around the clearing that surrounds the tower when you hear the crackling of twigs and leaves from behind you.
Before you can even lay eyes on him, your wet, shivering frame is enveloped by strong arms from behind you. A metal hand covers your mouth, but you don’t scream. Instead, you relax for the first time in days, practically melting against him.
He breathes your name close to your ear. You turn in his grasp, nuzzling your face against his chest. You inhale his scent - a scent you’d recognize anywhere. It isn’t that of a fancy cologne or strongly scented soap. It’s natural - masculine and musky and uniquely him.
“You came,” he whispers. It isn’t a question, though there is a lilt of surprise in his voice. He grabs you by the shoulders and delicately pushes you back enough to run his eyes up and down your frame. “Are you okay?”
You nod. “I twisted my ankle, but I’m okay.”
His hands move from your shoulders to cup the sides of your face. Even in the limited amount of moonlight, you can see the tension in his jawline seem to melt away. His expression softens for a brief moment before he’s back to business.
“Did anyone see you leave?”
“No.” You shake your head. “No, I don’t think so. I crawled through an air duct in the bathroom and escaped through an exit in the back of the building.”
“Smart girl,” he praises, your face still clutched in his hands. “We still need to hurry. I don't know how much time we have.”
“What’s the plan?” You ask. Not that it really matters - you think you’d do just about anything he asks of you right now. You’d follow him anywhere, as long as it is far the fuck away from here.
He jerks his head in the direction of the watchtower a few yards away. He guides you to the entrance at the base of the structure, keeping his metal hand on your lower back. Once you’re inside, he closes and locks the door behind you. The only source of light in the room is produced by an antique oil lamp. On a concrete bench, there’s a first aid kit that’s already been opened beside an array of medical supplies.
He doesn’t need to say anything for you to piece together what is about to happen. The small, discreet tracking device located in the flesh of your thigh seemingly pulses at the realization. He notices you staring at the equipment and pauses.
“I have to remove your tracker before we can go any farther. We're still on Hydra grounds, so it likely hasn’t set off an alert yet. But as soon as we go any farther south…”
“I understand,” you murmur. “I trust you. Take it out.”
He nods, motioning for you to take your place on the bench. First, you shed the drenched bathrobe. Then, you shimmy your pants down to your knees, giving him access to the location of the tracker placed mid-thigh.
You shiver when the skin of the back of your thighs comes in contact with the cold concrete bench. He lowers himself to the ground in front of you, looking up at you in the dim, flickering light of the lamp. The sight makes your breath catch in your throat. The way he looks at you - like you aren’t an assassin, a soldier, a killer, but rather someone worth saving - it makes your heart nearly combust in your chest.
“I’ll try to be quick,” he murmurs. He places his flesh hand just above your knee. His skin is warm and soft, and you find comfort in it. With his other hand, he reaches for an isopropyl alcohol pad to sterilize where he will make the incision. You hiss when he swipes the cold alcohol across your bare skin.
“I’m sorry,” he breathes, a grimace forming on his face. “It’ll be over soon.” You know he doesn’t want to cause you any discomfort, but it has to be done. He retrieves a small scalpel and looks at you for your consent.
“On the count of three?”
You nod, biting down on the inside of your cheek.
“One. Two…”
He doesn’t say three.
Your eyes snap shut and your teeth dig into the meat of your cheek so hard that you taste blood. Somehow, you manage to stay silent. You keep your eyes closed until you feel the tracker ease through the opening he had cut. You glance down, seeing vibrant red leak down the side of your thigh. He places the tracker on the bench beside you - visual confirmation of your newfound freedom.
The small device might weigh less than an ounce, but you suddenly feel a hundred pounds lighter.
He grabs a large gauze pad and presses it to the wound, applying pressure to help slow the bleeding. “Are you okay?” He asks, voice tense.
“Never been better.” You force a small smile to give him reassurance. Despite the circumstances, there’s a level of truth to your words. “What about you?”
“I’ll be better once I get you away from here.”
You watch in heavy silence as he works to bandage the incision on your thigh. He’s gentle - more gentle than anyone has ever been with you, you think.
Widows are usually stuck tending to their own injuries, but in more severe cases, you'd be sent to the pitiful excuse of an infirmary within the Hydra facility. Doctors - who most likely weren’t even legitimate doctors - would do the bare minimum to keep you from dying without caring if they’re too rough or lack bedside manner.
But not him. No, he touches you like the last thing he wants is to cause you the slightest discomfort. He touches you like you’re precious to him.
Maybe it’s the fact that you haven’t had a decent night of sleep in nearly a week, or maybe it’s the fact that you’re experiencing an adrenaline crash and aren’t thinking clearly, but you can’t help the way your eyes keep flickering to his lips. It’s not the time, and definitely not the place to be having such thoughts, but you think them, anyway - he’s inhumanly beautiful.
“I can rebandage it when we get somewhere safer,” he says when the dressing is secure against your skin. “We need to go. How’s your ankle? Can you walk?”
He stands, pulling you up from the bench in the process. You instantly yank your pajama pants back up around your hips.
Truthfully, you had forgotten all about twisting your ankle while running through the woods. But now, with the sudden pressure of your weight on it again, the pain returns in a dull but persistent throb.
“It hurts a little, but I’ll be okay—”
Before you can finish your sentence, he’s scooping you into his arms. You squeal in surprise as his metal arm swipes your legs out from beneath you. He lifts you with ease, metal arm hooked beneath your knees and flesh arm supporting your back.
You’re sure you could walk. Maybe even run, if you really needed to. But you aren’t about to order him to put you down. Not when the warmth from his arms and chest feels like heaven against the cold night air. Your soaking wet bathrobe still lays discarded on the bench, so you can use all of the warmth you can possibly get.
“This works, too,” you snort. Without thinking, you brush a lock of his hair away from his face, tucking it behind his ear for him. He looks down at you, his gaze flickering between your eyes and your lips for a brief moment before he lifts you up just high enough to press his mouth against your forehead. Your eyes flutter shut, savoring the sensation of his lips against your skin. You’ve craved to feel this again ever since you first kissed him in the bathroom five days ago.
“Let’s get you out of here,” he murmurs.
You nod, pursing your lips. Your heart sinks a bit at his choice of words.
I’ll be better once I get you away from here. Let’s get you out of here.
You. Not us. You.
He says it like a promise, but you can’t help but feel like it’s going to lead to a goodbye.
☆☆☆☆☆☆
You end up being thankful that he took it upon himself to carry you for the duration of the trek through the woods - a half hour walk through thick, dense trees that would have taken twice as long had you attempted to make the journey on your bum ankle.
The rain had come to a stop, but clouds then covered the moon, making it near pitch black. Somehow, his steps never faltered. Despite the darkness, and all of the tree roots and low hanging branches that he had to constantly dodge, he somehow got the two of you out of the woods and to the safety of a getaway car in an impressive amount of time. Both his vision and sense of direction are so impeccable that you suspect he has supernatural senses.
He drives for hours - always going a steady twenty miles an hour over the speed limit. At some point during the night, you fall asleep in the passenger seat. You don’t mean to, but after days of constant anxiety and subsequently very little sleep, plus the adrenaline crash after your escape from the facility, your eyes close of their own accord.
The first thing that you hear when you wake up is the sound of tires crunching over gravel. You open your eyes, noting that it’s still dark outside. The digital clock on the dashboard of the old Buick reads 2:52 am. You have no idea where you’re at, but a small house comes into the view of the headlights.
“What is this place?” You ask, voice raspy from sleep and dehydration.
“It’s an old safe house,” he grunts. He pulls into the driveway and parks the car. “It’s been inactive for years. We’ll be okay here for the night,” he assures you.
Inactive is putting it lightly. The place looks like it is on the verge of caving in on itself. From the creaky wooden boards of the front porch steps to the cobwebs that decorate the bannisters and windows, it’s obvious that you’re the first people here in a very long time. Still, despite the place being run down, you much prefer it to the place you’re running from.
At first glance, the inside looks surprisingly tidy compared to what you could see of the exterior. Then, you notice a large pack of disposable water bottles and some non-perishable goods on the kitchen countertop - canned soup, instant oatmeal, ramen.
He catches the look on your face. “I dropped all of that off a few days ago,” he says. “There’s some toiletries and dry clothes for you in the bedroom, too.” He jerks his head in the direction of the hallway, an indication for you to follow him.
Prior to a few hours ago, you had no idea what to expect tonight. But the careful consideration and thoughtfulness of it all surpasses your every expectation. In addition to a pile of neatly folded clothing - sweatpants, t-shirts, a hoodie, etc - there’s a toothbrush and toothpaste, a bar of soap, shampoo, and even a bottle of lotion.
You don’t know how he did it. You don’t know when he found the time, or the means. But for you, he did.
You sniffle, fighting against the sudden, undeniable burning sensation in your eyes. You do not want to cry. “You did all of this for me?” Your voice is barely a whisper.
He shifts uncomfortably, looking down at the floor. “I tried to be as thorough as I could on such short notice.” His gaze flickers back to you. “There’s one more thing.”
He turns, walking in the direction of the bedroom’s small closet. He opens the door, revealing the closet to be empty except for a pile of extra blankets on the floor. He shifts them around, reaching for something that is blocked by his frame. When he turns back around, you see that he is holding a backpack. He must have placed it in the closet when he dropped the non-perishable goods and clothes off earlier this week. Before you can question what the bag holds, he unzips the main compartment and reaches inside.
“This should be everything you need to start a new life.” You recognize the first item as soon as he hands it to you - a dark blue rectangle with the word PASSPORT engraved across the top. You open it, revealing a brand new passport and ID. There’s a picture of your face and a name you don’t recognize. Your new name.
Your hands tremble around the items. He opens the bag further, revealing the majority of the compartment to be filled with cash.
“Holy shit,” you breathe. He really thought of…everything. “Where did you get this? All of this?” You ask, gesturing between the cash in the bag and the documents in your hand.
He smirks, taking the passport back from you and tucking into an interior pocket of the backpack. “That’s not for you to worry about. I have my ways.”
“Clearly,” you mumble. It’s a lot to take in, and you feel overwhelmed by it all, but there’s one thing that has become abundantly clear - you won’t be leaving this safe house together.
One passport. One ID. One getaway bag. This is all for you.
A heavy silence falls over the room. You could hear a pin drop.
“You’re going back. Aren’t you?” You murmur.
His lips are set in a harsh line. His face gives nothing away, but after a thick beat of silence, he nods in confirmation. “Yes. I’m going back.”
You could pry. Part of you wants to. You want to beg him to tell you why - why he stays with them when he’s obviously so different from them. But if his mind is made up, then this could very well be your one and only night together. You aren’t about to tarnish it.
How are you supposed to ask someone for more when they’ve already risked everything for you?
You step towards him, stopping when your chest is no less than an inch away from his. You look up at the most beautiful pair of blue eyes you’ve ever seen. “Will you at least tell me your name so I can properly thank you?”
He grimaces, shaking his head. “I don’t know my name,” he admits, voice low. “I only know what they call me. Soldier. Asset. If I have any other name, I don’t remember what it is. But I promise, if I did know my name…I would have told you long ago.”
You part your mouth to speak, but no words come out. For some reason, you hadn’t considered the possibility that he may not know his name. Let alone the possibility that he may not have one.
“I’ll leave you to shower. You need to rest,” he says gently as he starts to move past you, towards the bedroom door. You grab his flesh hand in yours and he freezes. You know what you’re about to say is a risk, but considering that he’ll likely be gone come daylight either way, you decide to take it.
“Would you join me?”
There’s a flash of something in his eyes. Surprise, lust - maybe a hint of restraint. “Are you sure you want that?”
“Yes,” you hum, squeezing his hand. “I’m sure.”
That’s all he needs to hear. He nods, almost imperceptibly, and begins guiding you towards the bathroom.
The water pressure is abysmal at best, and the temperature’s barely lukewarm, but none of that matters as soon as he steps into the tub after you. At first, he stands an awkward distance away from you, his hands flexing at his sides like he isn’t quite sure what to do with them. He stands closest to the rusted shower head, the uneven stream spraying the back of his neck.
“You can touch me,” you say softly.
He gulps. He steps closer to you, backing you against the cool shower tiles. His flesh hand rises, brushing against the side of your cheek as his metal hand settles on your hip.
He’s barely touched you yet, and you already can’t stand the thought of never getting to experience it again when the night is over. But you can’t bring yourself to stop. Not when he’s standing bare before you, looking at you like he’s trying to memorize every minute detail.
When he kisses you, he’s hesitant at first. Slow and cautious, like he’s waiting for you to change your mind. But you place your hands on his hips, pulling him flush against you, and that restraint slips away. The metal hand resting on your hip trails upwards, ghosting the skin of your stomach until he reaches your breast. He kneads it with a low groan into your mouth.
You lose track of time beneath the stream of water. He kisses you until you’re breathless, only pulling away to move his lips to the pulse point of your throat. He nips at the skin before trailing hot kisses down your neck, past your collarbones and to the peaks of your breasts.
Your own hands begin to wander. You snake one between your bodies, pausing just before you reach the prominent erection that juts against your belly.
“Is this okay?” You ask, the tips of your fingers trailing along his length as you wait for consent to go a step further.
“Yes,” he grunts next to your ear. “Yes, please.”
You wrap a firm hand around him. You’re both fully drenched from the shower by this point, the water acting as a gentle lubricant as you stroke him in your grasp. You start slow, and he exhales a sharp breath as his forehead drops to your shoulder.
It’s clear to you that it’s been a long time since he’s been touched like this. You can tell by the way he shudders against you; almost trembling. Like it’s all brand new to him.
Fingers from your free hand thread through the damp locks of his hair. You guide his mouth back to yours, kissing him deeply as you increase the pace at which you massage him in your hand. He whimpers into your mouth, and a second later you feel him twitch against your palm. He finishes with a deep groan as warm ropes paint the skin of your belly.
His forehead rests against yours for a moment as he comes down from his climax. He takes a few uneven breaths, and then sinks to his knees on the shower floor. You glance down to find him looking up at you as he gently spreads your thighs apart. You nod your head - maybe a bit too enthusiastically - giving him permission to continue.
He starts by kissing the skin of your inner thighs - alternating between each leg until he reaches the apex of your thighs. He’s careful at first, testing what makes you gasp, what makes you dig your nails into the meat of his shoulders. But it doesn’t take long before he finds a rhythm.
Your legs quickly turn to jelly. He reads you like an open book, supporting you from his position beneath you. You think to yourself that you’d do anything to know his name right now, just so you could moan it. Instead, you settle for oh, god - fuck - god, yes while you tug on locks of his hair.
At the sound of your praises, he grows more confident in his ministrations. His lips suck the swollen bud at the apex of your folds and your eyes snap shut as you throw your head back. He eases a singular, metal digit between your legs, teasing your entrance with the tip to coat it in your slick. When he slips it between your walls - slowly to allow you to adjust to the stretch - you feel a hot coil begin to tighten in your lower belly. The sensation isn’t completely new to you, though it’s the first time you’ve experienced it at the hands of another person.
The pressure of his thick, metal finger inside you and his lips around your clit is enough to send you tumbling over the edge. Your thighs squeeze his head and he moans against you as you ride his face through the high of your orgasm. When you go still, he slowly rises from the floor and you all but collapse against him. You stand there for a few long moments, in the now cold stream of water that trickles down from the showerhead. Your head rests against his chest and his arms wrap around your midsection, cradling you against him.
He reaches for the towel hanging over the shower’s curtain rod and then wraps it around you before shutting the water off and seamlessly lifting you into his arms. Neither of you say a word as he steps out of the shower and carries you back to the bedroom.
He pulls the comforter back and then places you on the bed before crawling in beside you. You’re both still damp, but you’re far too exhausted to care. Your escape through the Hydra facility’s ventilation system and subsequent run through the woods feels like a lifetime ago, and every part of your body is screaming for you to go to sleep. The only thing stopping you from closing your eyes is that you know when you open them again, he won’t be beside you anymore.
So you force your eyes to stay open for a little longer. Just so you can try to memorize the way his heartbeat sounds when your cheek rests against his chest.
“I need you to promise me something,” he whispers into the dark. He grabs one of your hands in his and brings it to his lips, where he places a soft kiss against your knuckles.
Your breath catches. Before the words can leave his lips, you already know what he is going to say. Words that you’ve been dreading all night.
“You can’t look for me,” he continues when you don’t say anything. His voice is strained, like the words hurt him to say as much as they do for you to hear. “Not ever. You can do whatever you want with your life after tonight, but you can’t look for me.”
You’re silent. You don’t trust your voice to speak. You knew it was coming, but it still stings to hear. You pull your hand out of his grasp and place it on his chin. You look up at him, though you can only see a faint outline of his profile in the darkness.
“I know,” you whisper. You tilt your head enough to press your lips to his one more time. It’s brief, but you hope it conveys so much of what you can’t find the words to say. “Thank you,” you add when you pull away. “For saving my life. For everything.”
He doesn’t say anything - just kisses your forehead, and pulls the comforter tighter around the two of you. The heavenly combination of his body heat and the feeling of his fingers dancing along your ribcage begins to lull you to sleep despite your best efforts to stay awake and hold onto this moment for as long as possible.
“I’ll find you one day. One day, when it’s safe, I’ll find you.”
When morning comes, you don’t know if you dreamed his promise, or if he really had said those words while you drifted to sleep.
All you know is that the space beside you is cold.
☆☆☆☆☆☆
3 years later. Circa 2016.
“I’m missing a small green piece. Did you steal a small green piece, Maple?”
You glance at the brown cat lying on the windowsill. She seemingly side-eyes you as if to say you’re interrupting my nap, human.
You’re not convinced that she’s innocent, though. The cat, who had shown up on your doorstep almost a year ago and made herself right at home, has a knack for knocking over your Lego sets. It wouldn’t surprise you at all if she was responsible for the missing piece.
She can’t be blamed, you suppose. It’s your own fault for leaving the partially assembled Minecraft village in hundreds of pieces across your coffee table. You should have finished it weeks ago, but you’ve done very little other than work and sleep lately.
Work, sleep, work. Drink too much coffee, pick up extra shifts just so you don’t have to be home alone with your thoughts and are so exhausted when you do get home that you have no issue falling asleep quickly, and then repeat it all.
Maple meows, though it sounds more like an annoyed huff.
“You’re right,” you sigh. “I do need to get a life.”
Your ringtone begins blaring, startling you. You glance down at where your cell phone sits on the coffee table in front of you. One of your coworkers, Hannah, is calling you. You debate on letting it go to voicemail - Hannah likes to yap and you aren’t really in the mood for a phone call right now - but part of you hopes she’s calling to ask if you want to pick up her evening shift at the coffee shop the two of you work at, so you answer.
It’s not like you have any other plans tonight.
“Hey,” you greet her. “What’s—”
“Oh my god,” she exclaims before you can get the rest of the sentence out. “Remember a few months ago when I said that a super hot guy was watching you at work but then he just disappeared before you could see him?”
There’s an instant pit in your stomach. You open your mouth to reply, but no words come out. Instead, the memory from a few months ago replays in your mind.
“There’s an insanely hot guy that keeps checking you out by the door,” Hannah giggles as she walks up behind you. You’re in the middle of making an iced macchiato, so you don’t bother to glance at whatever mystery hot guy she’s talking about.
“I highly doubt he’s looking at me,” you snort.
“Oh, he definitely is,” she insists. “If he wasn’t so good looking it would almost be creepy, actually.”
Curiosity gets the best of you. You put the lid on the drink and casually glance over your shoulder, towards the coffee shop’s entrance. You see a small group of teenage girls at a table near the door, and a few college students scattered about the lounge on their laptops. There’s no lone, attractive man to be found.
Hannah follows your gaze. “Huh,” she shrugs. “Guess he left. What a shame.”
You shake your head at her. “What did he look like, anyway?”
“Shoulder length, dark hair. Vibrant blue eyes. Six feet tall, maybe. Give or take an inch. He had on a leather jacket, even though it’s like a million degrees outside today. And he was wearing one glove? Kind of odd, but in a hot way—”
You lose your grip on the freshly made drink and it falls to the floor, coffee and ice both going everywhere - all over yours and Hannah’s shoes.
It feels as if the room is spinning around you. It’s been three years. It can’t be him.
“Shit,” you whisper, eyes darting around the room as if he’s going to magically reappear. “Shit. I’m sorry, Hannah. I’ll clean this up, just give me a moment—”
You practically run towards the direction of the front door, completely ignoring Hannah’s startled stare. You throw the coffee shop door open, exiting the building. You’re downtown, and it’s rush hour. You see dozens of cars and even more people hurrying to get where they need to be, but your eyes search for one person in particular.
You swear that you can hear blood pumping in your ears. You’ve only been outside for a few seconds and you’re already sweating - and you don’t think it has anything to do with today’s high temperature.
He’s nowhere to be seen. You’d recognize him in an instant. No matter how much time has passed since the last time you saw him - he’d stand out in any crowd.
You should have known better than to look. If he wanted you to see him, you would have - but he didn’t. And now he’s a ghost once more.
You have no doubt it was him. Vibrant blue eyes and shoulder length, dark hair. One singular glove. You don’t know why he decided to show up today, after three years of radio silence, but it had to be him —
Hannah’s voice pulls you out of the memory and back to reality.
“Hello? Are you there? Earth to—”
“Uh,” you interject, trying to remember how to string words together. “Uh - yeah. I remember.”
“I swear to God, he’s on the news right now.”
“What?” Your voice rises several octaves, startling Maple from her sleep. You put Hannah on speakerphone. “Are you - are you sure it’s him?”
“Positive. Turn on your TV right now.”
You glance around your small living room, searching for the TV remote and thanking your lucky stars that you didn’t cancel your cable package like you had thought about doing.
“What channel?” You ask when you retrieve the remote from in between two couch cushions.
“Uhm - 3. 5. 9. Literally any of them, probably.”
Your jaw drops the second that you get to a major news station. For the first time in three years, you see his face.
The footage is grainy - obviously from a security camera. But it’s him - unmistakable. His hair is a bit longer and his chest and shoulders are a bit bulkier than the last time you saw him, but you recognize him in an instant. Even with the piss poor video quality, you can see the shining silver of his left hand.
The headline across the bottom of the screen reads: JAMES BUCHANAN BARNES, HYDRA’S WINTER SOLDIER, WANTED FOR TIES TO VIENNA BOMBING.
You’re vaguely aware that Hannah’s voice is coming from the speaker next to your ear, but you aren’t paying attention to a word she’s saying. There’s a high-pitched, intense ringing in your ears that makes it impossible for you to focus on what the news reporter is saying. You only manage to get bits and pieces as you attempt to control your breathing.
“James “Bucky” Barnes, former United States Army Sergeant and childhood friend of Captain America, has been identified as the prime suspect in the bombing that took the life of King T’Chaka and twelve others…”
“… conducting a manhunt all over southeastern Europe…”
“Barnes, also known as the Winter Soldier, has known ties to Hydra that span over half a century…”
You press the end call button on your phone’s screen without even thinking about it, cutting Hannah off in the middle of a sentence. Maple, seemingly noticing the change in your mood, jumps down from her position on the windowsill and trots over to where you sit on the couch.
James. James Buchanan Barnes. Bucky, the reporter had called him. Bucky Barnes. After all this time, you know his name. You thought that finally knowing his name would feel a lot different. You expected to feel relief - maybe even a sense of satisfaction. But right now, all you feel is fear and bewilderment.
Key words echo in your mind: childhood friend of Captain America. Army Sergeant. Hydra. Over half a century. Winter Soldier.
There’s still so much that’s unknown - so many questions that you don’t know if you’ll ever have answers to. But you do know this much - James Bucky Barnes, childhood best friend of Steve Rogers, wouldn’t work for Hydra of his own volition. You don’t know exactly how he found himself to be their pawn, but there’s no doubt in your mind that there’s more to this story than meets the eye.
The man who saved you - James or Bucky - wouldn’t do what they are accusing him of. Not if he had a choice.
☆☆☆☆☆☆
2 years later. May 2018.
You wish you could say that you kept your promise.
For three years, you did exactly what he’d asked of you. You took the fake passport and ID, the ten thousand dollars in cash, and started a new life. You got your own apartment, a normal job that you didn’t completely hate - even a cat. You kept yourself off of Hydra’s radar. You laid low and didn’t search for him. You were doing good, all things considered.
Then you saw him on the fucking news.
All it took was learning his name for you to pack a few bags into the old Buick that he’d left for you. The next morning, you dropped Maple off at Hannah’s - your friend and former coworker who just so happens to love cats and was more than willing to look after Maple on a temporary or permanent basis - and got on a plane to Romania.
Of course, by the time you got to Romania, he was long gone.
From there, you flew to Germany, where news reports showed him fighting beside Steve Rogers, Sam Wilson, Wanda Maximoff, Clint Barton, and someone named Scott Lang against Tony Stark, James Rhodes, Natasha Romanoff, the soon to be king of Wakanda, a robot, and some guy in a spider costume at the Berlin airport.
At the time, you had very little information to go off of, but from what you were able to gather, Bucky had been framed for the bombing in Vienna. Team Cap, as the news reports had referred to the group, had aided in his and Steve’s successful escape from the airport.
After that? Your guess was as good as all of the government officials looking for them. They have been fugitives ever since - Bucky, Steve, Sam, and even Natasha, who had apparently played both sides.
That was two years ago. Since then, you’ve been chasing dead ends all over the world. You don’t even know if he’s alive, but you have to believe that he is.
Currently, you’re in the breathtaking town of Interlaken, Switzerland. The lead you’d been following had turned out to be a bust - no surprise - but Switzerland is otherworldly and peaceful, so you decided to stay for a few days. At least until you catch wind of another supposed Winter Soldier sighting.
You’re finishing up brunch at a small cafe that overlooks the Interlaken countryside. Soft sunlight, a stone patio, and the smell of fresh bread that wafts from the kitchen. You could get used to this. Maybe one day, you’ll come back. When you’ve found him, or he’s found you.
You’re about to signal to a server that you’d like a refill on your coffee when an ear-splitting scream sounds from inside the restaurant. You and all of the other guests on the patio freeze, looking around.
Then, another scream. This time, a young child sitting at a table a few feet behind you.
“Mommy? Mommy, where did you go?”
The child’s mother is nowhere to be seen. Where she sat only a few moments prior is a thick dusting of what appears to be… Soot? Ash?
A tray falls to the ground and glass shatters, tearing your attention away from the panicked child. You glance at a server just in time to see him seemingly turn to dust in front of your very eyes.
Chaos breaks out. Guests are shouting in terror as several others vanish into thin air. You stand up, unsure of what to do. You begin to walk towards the crying little girl a few feet away from you, when you’re overcome with intense dizziness. Your vision goes fuzzy, and your skin feels like pins and needles.
You look down at your hands. The screaming in the background seems to fade.
Not yet, you think. Please, not yet. I need more time. I haven’t found him yet.
Your fingertips crumble before you - carried away by the light spring breeze. The tingling sensation spreads up your arms and you can do nothing but watch yourself disappear.
It’s true what they say. When you’re dying, your life flashes before your eyes.
You think of how he looked in the glow of the oil-lamp in the watchtower. You think of his promises - to get you out of the Hydra facility, and to one day find you. One that he fulfilled, and one that he’ll now never have the chance to. You think of his lips on yours and how safe you felt in his arms the one night you shared together.
Your last thought is that you hope wherever you go when you leave here, it’s the same place as him.
☆☆☆☆☆☆
Post blip. Circa 2024.
Ever since you and the other fifty percent of the population that had turned to dust were brought back to life, you’ve been thinking a lot about the butterfly effect.
The idea that if someone misses their train on the way to work, they could avoid a horrible accident. Or that something as small as holding a door open for someone could cause them to pay it forward, then leading to a cascade of simple acts of kindness that could change the course of history.
If your babysitter hadn’t taken you to the community pool that hot July day, you may have never been kidnapped by Red Room operatives.
If you hadn’t been kidnapped by Red Room operatives, you never would have been forced to live in the facility where you eventually met him.
And if you hadn’t met him, your eyes wouldn’t still be scanning every crowd, over a decade later, in hopes of randomly seeing him.
You stopped your search for him. When you were brought back, you had no reason to continue scouring the earth.
Why would you? You no longer have to wonder where he is and if he’s okay. For months following the sudden return of millions of people, you could simply turn on the news or open any social media app. Answers that you’d spent years searching for were suddenly right in front of your eyes.
No, he did not have a choice when it came to working for Hydra. Yes, like Steve Rogers, he was injected with super soldier serum, but unlike Steve, it was against his will. And, fun fact: he is old enough to be your great grandfather.
You also learn that he underwent intensive deprogramming in Wakanda to remove trigger words Hydra had implanted in his mind. No wonder your two-year search for him had gone nowhere.
And yes, he’d received a full pardon for everything he did while under their control. He’s officially a free man. Free from Hydra, and free to do whatever he pleases with his life.
Still, he does not come for you. For several months following the announcement of his pardon, you hold out hope that he’ll show up when you least expect it. But after a while, that hope begins to fade.
You aren’t angry with him. How could you be? He’s the entire reason that you’re free. It’s unfair to hold him to a promise he made over a decade ago, when he was under mind control. The news articles tend to throw around words like brainwashed and memory loss when talking about him - for all you know, he doesn’t even remember who you are.
So, you go through the motions of moving on. Like so many other people, you rebuild your life from the ground up. You relocate to New York and get a small apartment just outside of the city, start going to therapy once a week, explore some new hobbies, and make a few friends. You even run into an old friend - for lack of a better word.
By run into you mean she shows up unannounced at your job on a random Thursday.
It’s a slow, rainy morning at the small bookstore that you work at. You’re in the back, sorting through a new shipment of books, when you hear the front door chime.
“Welcome!” You yell out from the back office. It’s a small store, so you’re sure they’re able to hear you. “I’ll be out in just a moment.”
“Take your time,” a feminine voice calls back. You freeze. You recognize that voice - a distinct Russian accent that you’re able to put a face to right away, even after all these years. “I’ll just entertain myself with this…dark romance smut novel until you come out.”
You almost don’t believe your ears. What could she be doing here, after all this time? How did she find you? You don’t even have the same name as the last time you saw her, thanks to Bucky giving you a new identity.
If your training in the Red Room taught you anything, it’s to question everything and trust no one. You don’t think she’d hurt you. The two of you always got along, and you liked her more than a lot of the other widows. But until you know exactly why she’s here, you aren’t taking any chances. Your bag is just a few feet away from you, and inside it, a small pistol. Quickly and quietly, you tuck it into the waistband of your pants, at the small of your back.
When you exit the back room, she’s turned away from you. Still, you recognize the short stature and blonde hair right away.
“What brings you here, Yelena?”
She snorts, placing the book back on the table before turning around. “I wasn’t sure if you’d remember me.”
You stand there, eyes narrowed, trying to gauge what version of her you’re about to get. You know just how ruthless she can be, but you also know that underneath the person that the Red Room turned her into, there’s good.
She studies you with a faint smirk. But it doesn’t reach her eyes. She looks…tired. Not just physically, though the dark circles under her hazel eyes do indicate that she needs a good night’s sleep.
“You look good,” she chirps. “Different. Domestic.” She waves a hand in a slow circle, gesturing at your outfit. “What are you now? A librarian?”
“Bookstore manager,” you correct softly. “It’s peaceful.”
She hums, amused. “Must be nice.”
You tilt your head, still trying to get a read on her. “Is there something I can help you with, Yelena?”
The pause is brief but loaded. Her expression flattens. “I was sent,” she says finally. “My boss wants to talk to you. She’s looking for more people with…backgrounds similar to ours.”
You already know where this is going. “Valentina.”
Yelena raises a brow, unable to hide her surprise. “You’ve heard of her?”
You nod. “People talk. They don’t say anything nice, but they talk.”
“She has resources. Protection. Mission stability.”
Yelena recites the benefits as if she’s reading a script. But there’s a quiet sort of resentment in her voice. Like she doesn’t fully buy it herself. “And I’m sure it pays better than…this.” She gestures vaguely towards the bookshelves around you.
“Why me?”
“She says you have skills. And a brain. She’s impressed that you were able to escape the Red Room without getting yourself killed.”
You snort. “Too bad I’m retired.”
“No one ever really retires,” she says, shrugging. “We both know that.”
“Speak for yourself.”
You pause, watching her more closely. There’s something off in the way she shifts her weight, the slight shake in her hands. It’s subtle, but not invisible. And when she turns slightly, you catch a faint whiff of something sharp and metallic beneath her perfume. Vodka, maybe.
“Are you okay?” you ask gently.
She gives a soft laugh, one that sounds more bitter than amused. “You’re asking me that?”
You don’t push. Instead, you fold your arms and say, “Tell Valentina thanks, but no thanks.”
Yelena blinks. “Just like that?”
“I was given a second chance. Someone risked a lot to help me get it, and I don’t think they would appreciate me throwing it away by working for someone like Valentina.”
Yelena’s eyes flicker. She studies you for a long moment, something softening around the edges of her mouth. “So it’s true, then.”
You raise a brow. “What’s true?”
She tilts her head. “The Winter Soldier. Bucky Barnes. Was it really him who helped you escape?”
Your breath catches slightly. You’ve never admitted it out loud to anyone, but you suppose there’s no point in denying it now that both Hydra and the Red Room have been taken down.
“He did,” you say softly. “He got me out.”
Yelena doesn’t speak for a while. When she finally does, it’s almost a whisper.
“Good.”
You both stand there for a long, awkward moment. You can’t help but see a small part of yourself when you look at her. It could have so easily been you in her shoes - working for someone like Valentina, contract kills and shadow operations - if it hadn’t been for him.
You turn to the register beside you and grab a pen and a piece of receipt paper. You scribble your phone number and then hold it out to her in offering.
“If you ever want to get coffee,” you shrug. “Or if you ever need anything…reach out.”
Yelena takes it, eyes flicking down to the number. She folds the piece of paper without comment and slips it into her pocket. Then she gives you one last look - something unreadable in her expression - and heads toward the door.
The bell above the entrance jingles as she exits, and the sound echoes in the silence she leaves behind.
☆☆☆☆☆☆
Present Day.
Funny enough, it’s one of the rare days that he hasn’t even crossed your mind when your phone rings and an unknown number pops up on the screen.
You can’t describe it, but there’s a sinking feeling in your stomach before you even answer. Call it a sixth sense that you somehow knew it wasn’t just another spam call. Normally, you wouldn’t even bother answering a number that isn’t already saved to your contacts, but you hesitate when you start to press decline.
Instead, you swipe to answer. “Hello?”
The first thing you hear is a shaky exhale, followed by your name. Then, background noise. A lot of it. Multiple voices - male and female. You manage to catch a few key words here and there.
New York. Valentina. Bob..?
“Yelena?” You ask in disbelief. It’s been three years since you gave her your phone number and this is the first you’ve heard from her. “What’s going on?”
You’re in your apartment, catching up on some chores that you’ve been procrastinating all week. You’re in the middle of unloading your dishwasher, but you pause as soon as you realize it’s her.
“Are you still in New York?” She asks, forgoing all pleasantries.
“Uh - yes,” you answer, growing more confused and concerned by the second.
“We need help,” she says. “I don’t have time to explain everything, so you’re just going to have to trust me. I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important.”
“Who is we? And what kind of help, exactly?”
She has to give you a little more information than that. How are you supposed to know what to bring? Do you need firearms? Combat knives? Batons? Smoke bombs? Lockpick? All things that you haven’t had use for in years yet still keep on hand, just in case.
Your thoughts spiral as you wait for her to respond. Someone begins speaking in the background.
“Who are you talking to?” You hear a masculine voice yell. Your heart lurches - you recognize that voice.
As if you could ever truly forget it. As if you don’t hear it in your dreams still to this day.
“Yelena, whose voice is that?” You ask, already knowing the answer. You just want her to say it - to give you confirmation that you aren’t imagining things. That you aren’t crazy.
Yelena doesn’t answer your question or his. You can’t help but wonder if he heard your voice, too. He always had exceptional hearing.
“Meet us at the old Avenger’s Tower,” she says instead. “Get there as quickly as you can.”
“Yelena—”
“Please. Just hurry.”
The call ends, and your heart feels as if it is going to beat right out of your chest. You stare at the phone, debating on calling her back and demanding to know exactly what the hell is going on before you potentially uproot the peaceful life that you’ve worked so hard to create.
But you don’t. Instead, you run to your bedroom and start throwing whatever you can find into a duffel bag. A few handguns and ammo, knives and gas pellets. From your closet, you retrieve a tactical suit that you haven’t worn in years and pray that it still fits.
The truth is, you don’t need to call her back. Though you’re freaked out by the panic in her voice and would love a heads up for what you’re walking into, it doesn’t really make a difference.
No matter what it is, you’re going. If there’s something big enough for Yelena to call you and beg for help, you’re going to do whatever you can.
Especially if he’s there.
The thought of seeing him again, after so many years, terrifies you far more than whatever it is they could need help with. But not nearly as much as letting the chance of seeing him again slip through your fingers.
☆☆☆☆☆☆
Your apartment is only a forty-five minute drive from Midtown Manhattan. An hour, if there’s heavy traffic.
Today, you make it there in thirty minutes. The now twenty-five year old Buick that Bucky had left you in the driveway of the safe house over a decade ago may have over 300,000 miles on it, but you can count on her to get you where you need to go.
You could have bought a new car a long time ago. You have decent credit, job stability, and enough money in savings for a downpayment. You’re just oddly attached to the old thing.
It’s been with you since the very first day of your new life, and it’s one of the only tangible reminders you have of him. That, and the handwritten note he left under your pillow the week you escaped.
You tell yourself that you’re just sentimental, but if the car had come into your possession any other way, you would have junked it years ago.
When the old Avenger’s Tower comes into view, the questions in your head begin to multiply.
“What the fuck have you gotten me into, Yelena?”
Someone has driven a van directly through the building. Where there was once a front entrance, there is now a jagged, gaping hole. From the street, you can still see the van inside.
You park in the first available spot you can find and run one final check: widow bites, two small pistols, a collapsible baton, and several combat knives tucked into your thigh holsters. Despite the fact that it’s been over a decade since you’ve carried more than a single handgun, this doesn’t feel as strange as you expected it to - not yet, anyway. You may feel differently if you end up having to put the weapons to use.
You walk straight into the building through the cratered wall. You look around, not seeing Yelena or Bucky or anyone else that you think would be with them. There’s random men cleaning up debris from whatever the fuck must have happened before you arrived, but none of them pay any attention to you.
Your phone vibrates from your back pocket. The number Yelena called you from earlier is displayed across the screen with a message that simply says: Top floor.
Inside the elevator, you press the button to take you to the very top of the building and then lean back against the wall. Your heart pounds at the possibility of what awaits you at the top floor. Sure, you’re nervous at the prospect of walking into a hostile situation.
But more than that, it’s him. Bucky.
You don’t know what you’ll say to him - or if you’ll even say anything at all. Will he even acknowledge you? What if he doesn’t recognize you? Or worse: what if he does recognize you, and doesn’t care that you’re there?
The elevator ride feels eternal.
You take a few, steady breaths as the elevator passes the last few floors before coming to a stop. The last thing you want is to appear as if you’re on the verge of a panic attack the second that he sees you.
The elevator dings, and the doors slide open.
He’s the first person that you see. Standing on the other side of the room, directly across from you, is the man you fell in love with without so much as knowing his name.
His hair is a little shorter, and his frame a bit stockier, but he has the same blue eyes and serious expression that you fell in love with so long ago.
His jaw tightens, and he swallows thickly. He doesn’t say anything, but there’s recognition in his eyes. He doesn’t appear surprised - he must have pieced together that it was you on the phone with Yelena.
You wonder if he’s putting as much effort into keeping his composure as you are.
All eyes are on you as you step out of the elevator. You force yourself to look away from him. On one side of the room is the woman you recognize to be Valentina - standing next to her is a man you’ve never seen. He wears an ostentatious, gold costume that matches his hair. He fidgets with his hands and quickly looks down when your gaze flickers to him - obviously uncomfortable.
Standing directly across from Valentina and the blond man is Yelena and several others. The only one you recognize is John Walker. You’ve never met him, but you vividly remember his brief, failed stint as Captain America several years ago. In addition to Yelena and John, there’s a paunchy, bearded man in a red costume and a tall, dark-haired woman in some kind of high-tech tactical suit.
They all look like shit. Like they’ve already had their asses handed to them on a silver platter.
“Well, well, look who finally decided to show up,” Valentina drawls in a voice laced with fake cheer. “Everyone else managed to get here on time.” She gestures towards the group of people standing across from her - each of who are glaring at her.
Except for Bucky. He’s looking at you. Though his expression is stoic, you catch the way his throat bobs and his fingers subtly flex at his sides - like he’s holding himself back from saying or doing something.
“Sorry,” you deadpan as you come to stand beside Yelena. “I had to parallel park.”
“And she has a sense of humor,” Valentina retorts. “You know, you’re one of the only people to ever say no to me. Why was it you turned me down, again?” She puts a finger on her chin in mock contemplation and takes a step towards you. From the corner of your eye, you see Bucky inch forward as well, his flesh hand hovering over the gun on his hip.
“Something about someone helping you get a second chance?” She asks rhetorically. “I wonder who that could’ve been.”
You know she’s just trying to get a reaction from you, so you purse your lips, hold eye contact, and don’t respond.
“That’s enough, Valentina,” Bucky speaks up for the first time. Your heart skips a beat at the sound of his voice. You don’t let yourself look at him. “Leave her alone. It’s not her fault that she has been dragged into this.”
Valentina doesn’t take her eyes off of you. “He’s still protective. Isn’t that cute?”
“Can someone tell me why I’m here?” You can’t help the way your voice shoots up several octaves. “I wasn’t exactly given the run down.” You shoot a glare at Yelena, who looks at you apologetically.
“Lucky for you, you got here just in time,” Valentina quips as she turns away from you, back to the fidgety blond man standing beside her. “I was just telling your friends here - it is my great honor to introduce to you, The Sentry.”
“Hey, guys,” the man in the gold says. His voice is timid, though it sounds as if he’s greeting old friends.
“You see, the press is on their way here now,” Valentina continues. “And they’re going to witness the awesome power of Sentry as he takes down this ruthless group of rogue agents—”
Rogue agents? Ruthless?
“Sentry, your first mission is to take out these criminals.”
“I don’t wanna hurt you guys. Why don’t you just…turn yourselves in?”
Your brows furrow together. You find it hard to believe that he could hurt anyone with how soft-spoken and hesitant he seems.
Walker steps forward, speaking up for the first time since you entered the room. “You don’t wanna do this, Bobby.”
Bobby? Something clicks in your head at the sound of the name. Bob - you remember hearing someone in the background of your and Yelena’s phone call mention the name. We have to help Bob, they’d said.
As you’re piecing together that this Sentry guy is the Bob they are trying to help, there’s a sudden change in his demeanor. His eyes seemingly darken as his once meek expression turns serious.
“You can call me The Sentry,” he asserts, looking Walker dead in the eye.
“Please, don’t do this. You do not need to listen to her,” Yelena pleads with him.
“Robert, they don’t think you’re good enough,” Valentina interrupts.
“That’s not true. Remember? You can trust me. I know you.”
Bob - Bobby - Robert - Sentry - whatever the guy’s name is - shakes his head. “I don’t think that you do.”
“ENOUGH TALKING,” the tall, hairy man in the bright red suit suddenly booms, capturing everyone’s attention. “No one messes with the West Chesapeake Valley Thunderbolts!”
At this moment, you’re every bit as confused as Valentina appears to be.
“Thunderbolts?” You echo.
The room erupts before you can process what’s about to happen.
The man in the red suit charges first, letting out a guttural war cry as he hurls himself at Sentry. With one fluid motion, Sentry lifts a single hand and sends him flying across the room with a force that cracks the wall on impact.
Walker charges next, shield raised. The tall, dark-haired woman, whose name you quickly learn is Ava due to Yelena yelling it after her, disappears in a blur of glitching pixels before reappearing behind Sentry in an attempt to destabilize him from the inside.
Yelena flanks to the right, pistols in each hand. She fires, but Sentry easily sends the bullets flying in the opposite direction - straight towards you. Bucky sprints towards you at the same time as Walker, who raises his shield to deflect the bullets.
You reach for your baton, but as you do, Bucky grabs your wrist in his flesh hand.
“Stay close to me,” he murmurs, eyes locked on yours. You nod, not trusting your voice to speak. Even with all of the violence and chaos happening right in front of you, all you can think about in that moment is the feeling of his hand holding yours.
Yelena’s scream as Sentry sends her flying across the room brings you back to reality.
The two of you fall back into rhythm like it’s muscle memory. Your bodies move in tandem as you cover each other. It’s almost too easy to pretend this isn’t the first time you’ve fought together in over a decade. Your movements are a little rusty from so many years of doing your best to avoid scenarios like this, but he easily picks up your slack.
From the corner of your eye, you see Ava cry out as she’s forcibly de-phased, slamming into the ground. Walker hits a column and groans. Yelena lands in a crouch, panting.
“Get down!” Bucky yells, a mere second before throwing himself in front of you.
A blast of Sentry’s energy hits him square in the chest, and he flies backward, taking you with him. Your back slams against the floor, head spinning. When you push yourself up, Bucky is already struggling to his feet.
Sentry closes in on the both of you.
He grabs Bucky’s metal arm mid-swing, and everything slows.
“Don’t—” you start, pushing yourself up, stumbling toward them.
But you’re far too powerless to stop him. With terrifying ease, Sentry rips Bucky’s vibranium arm clean off. Sentry winds the metal appendage back as if it weighs nothing and then swings it forward, slapping Bucky across the face.
“No!” You yell as you fall to your knees beside him. Your scream is swallowed by the sound of the others regrouping, but you barely hear them. All you can see is him.
Your hands cradle his face. He’s out cold.
Around you, the others seem to accept that there’s no way any of you can beat him. The only way out is to run.
Yelena shouts for everyone to move, to get to the elevator. Ava is suddenly beside you, picking up Bucky’s arm before running in the direction of the elevator.
“Walker! Alexei!” Yelena shouts. “Get Bucky!”
The two men appear beside you, hauling an unconscious Bucky into their arms. All of you run after Yelena and Ava, who are already in the elevator. You enter the cramped space a mere second before the doors shut.
Behind the closed doors of the elevator, Bucky is still held up by Walker and Alexei. Everyone around you pants, trying to recover from the absolute disaster of a fight, but your only focus is the man in front of you.
“Hey, hey,” you coo, gently tapping him on the face in an attempt to wake him up. You don’t care that your hands are shaking. You just need him to open his eyes. “Come on, Bucky. Look at me…”
There’s a visible bruise forming across his cheekbone from the impact of the heavy vibranium. His eyes flutter open and shut repeatedly, like he’s hanging onto the sound of your voice in an attempt to find his way back to reality.
There’s a beat of uncertain silence, and then he lets out a groan. His eyelids twitch, and then slowly open. Dazed blue eyes find yours.
“Am I concussed,” he grunts, “or are you actually here right now?”
You’re unable to stop the laugh that slips out of you. It’s half relief, half disbelief. “I’m actually here. Though I wouldn’t completely rule a concussion out yet.”
Ava clears her throat from behind you. You glance over your shoulder to see her holding Bucky’s metal arm out to him. “I take it you two know each other, then?”
You step back as he accepts the appendage, popping it back into place on the left side of his body. You nod, not meeting her stare. “Yeah. Something like that.”
You feel his gaze on you, but he says nothing. An awkward silence settles over the elevator.
When the elevator doors slide open, no time is wasted in getting out of the building. You’re vaguely aware that Yelena, Ava, Alexei and Walker immediately start arguing with each other about what steps to take next, but you aren’t paying attention to a word they say.
The relief you’d felt when you realized that he’s okay just moments before is quickly replaced with uncertainty.
You’re here, he’s here, and you’re both okay. But what now? Where do you go from here? You spent so long wondering if you’d ever see him again, but didn’t even consider what you’d say to him if that day ever came.
Now that it’s finally here, you’re at a loss for words. Factor in the adrenaline crash that you can feel coming on…
Your lungs feel too tight. The sounds around you blur into static. Raised voices, car horns, the distant wail of sirens - none of it registers. Your vision narrows, and suddenly the space feels way too small and loud. It’s all too much.
You turn and walk. You don’t know where you’re going, just that you need to get away. Just until you can breathe again.
You duck around the corner of the building, stepping into the cool shadow of an alleyway. You lean back against the wall, eyes fluttering shut as you try to steady your breathing.
Your pulse is racing. Your palms are damp. You press a shaking hand to your chest and attempt to count down from ten.
“Hey.”
You open your eyes at the sound of his soft voice. He’s standing at the mouth of the alley, a few feet away.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to…” you trail off, unable to finish the sentence. “I just need a minute.”
“I know.”
He takes a few steps towards you, tentative and slow, like he doesn’t want to scare you off. You cross your arms over your chest. Not because you’re cold, but because you’re trying to hold yourself together.
Every part of you wants to close the remaining distance between you and throw yourself into his arms. To forget everything going on around you and melt into him in the middle of this stinky alleyway. But you fear that if you do, you’ll crumble - and there’s still so much on the line right now that’s bigger than just you and him.
Still, it’s hard to hold your tongue when the chance to say all of the words that you’ve waited years to say to him is right in front of you.
“You never came back for me. Why?”
Your voice breaks on the last word. He flinches, his gaze dropping for the first time since stepping into the alley.
“I wanted to,” he says. “I wanted to every day.”
You wait for him to continue.
“When I came back, after I was pardoned, I did come for you. But I saw how…stable and peaceful your life is. I couldn’t bring myself to disrupt that. That’s all I ever wanted for you.”
There’s a lump in your throat that you force yourself to swallow down.
“All I wanted for me was you.”
There’s a flash of something in his eyes - guilt, maybe regret - at your confession. Hearing the words come from your mouth seems to snap something inside him. He steps forward, closing the remaining distance between you. His hands cup your cheeks, tilting your head to look up at him. The lump in your throat suddenly feels suffocating, and your eyes begin to burn with the threat of unshed tears.
“I thought of you every day,” he whispers. The look in his eyes lets you know that he’s telling the truth. “Every single day. Staying away from you is one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do. But I did it because I love you enough to want more for you than…this.”
He doesn’t elaborate on exactly what he means by this. Maybe he means the potential danger that looms over you right at this moment. Maybe he just means him. You’re not sure - you can’t think clearly because he just said that he fucking loves you.
The moment comes to an abrupt end when panicked screams echo from around the block. You recognize Walker’s voice barking a command at someone. You both look towards the commotion, and then back to each other.
“I should’ve come back,” he says quietly, shaking his head. “And when this is all over - whatever the hell this is - I will.”
You blink, stunned by the certainty in his voice. “Are you sure?”
He nods, grazing his flesh thumb along your cheekbone.
“If you’ll still let me.”
Without thinking, you press your lips to his.
It feels like being transported back in time. You’re no longer standing in a Manhattan alleyway in the midst of impending doom. With your eyes closed, and his lips against yours, you’re kissing him for the first time in a Hydra facility bathroom. You’re kissing him in the bathroom of a safe house. You’re kissing every version of him - soldier, ghost, Bucky - more sure than ever that you want all of him.
It ends all too soon. When you pull away, he rests his forehead against yours.
“When this is over, I’ll be waiting.”
☆☆☆☆☆☆
If someone had told you just forty-eight hours ago that you’d get a call from Yelena asking for help, that you’d be reunited with Bucky, that all of New York would be turned to shadows and everyone would be forced to relive their greatest traumas in interconnected shame rooms, and that you’d be announced as a member of the New Avengers on live television, you would have wondered if you had accidentally consumed a really potent edible.
Everything happened so quickly. Your whole life changed in what felt like the blink of an eye.
You had all been offered rooms at the old Avenger’s Tower - or the Watchtower, as Valentina has apparently renamed it. But you have a place of your own - with a lease that isn’t up until the end of the year. And a job that you actually really like. And plants that have to be watered.
Therefore, you’re back at your apartment outside of the city. At least for the time being.
Yelena didn’t look surprised when she found out that you weren’t staying.
The dust had barely settled from the aftermath of The Void. You were still in your tactical suit, attempting to wrap your head around the fact that Valentina had announced to the entire world that you’re all Avengers now. You were on your way out of the Watchtower when Yelena caught up to you in the hallway.
“Leaving already?” She’d asked. There was no judgment in her voice, only genuine curiosity.
You shrugged. “This whole…superhero thing wasn’t exactly on my vision board. I just need some time to process it all.”
Her expression softened. “What about Bucky?”
You smirked, exhaling a laugh through your nose. “Bucky knows where to find me.”
You hadn’t meant it to sound harsh. You leaving - it isn’t about pushing him away. It isn’t about making him work for it.
It’s simply about believing that he’d meant what he said. That he really would come for you.
But until then - you have books to read. Laundry to do. Shows to watch. A pothos plant that desperately needs to be repotted. A calm life full of little things that you wouldn’t have if it weren’t for him.
And for the first time in a really long time, you have hope.
☆☆☆☆☆☆
Three hours.
That’s how long it takes for you to hear the revving of a motorcycle’s engine outside of your first floor apartment after you get back to your place.
You’ve barely had time to scarf down two day old leftovers and wash all of the sweat, blood, and grime off of your skin when you hear it.
None of your neighbors ride motorcycles. And the headlights are shining directly into your living room through the cracks of the window’s blinds.
It could be anyone. But you know that it isn’t just anyone.
You’re opening the door before he even has a chance to knock.
His hair is still damp from a shower. He smiles at you in a way that you’ve never seen him smile before. It reaches his eyes and brings out the laugh lines around them.
“That was quick,” you hum.
“No.” He shakes his head in disagreement, but his smile doesn’t falter. “It wasn’t. That took me entirely too long. I should’ve been here years ago.”
Without another word, he steps inside and closes the door behind him.
The warm glow of a lamp in your living room is the only source of light, but it’s enough to see the dilation of his pupils as he takes in your appearance. Freshly showered, bare faced, and nothing but a loose t-shirt draped over your frame.
“Well,” you breathe. “You’re here now. What are you gonna do?”
He stares at you for a moment. Like he’s scared you might vanish if he blinks. Then, his hands are on your waist and yours are in his hair. You pull his mouth down to yours and he lifts you, your legs wrapping around his waist.
Without so much as breaking the kiss, he carries you through your apartment as if he’s done so a hundred times before. He places you on the edge of your kitchen counter, his hands splaying across your thighs.
“You look exactly the same,” he murmurs against the skin of your throat, in between planting kisses by the shell of your ear and your jaw. “Still as beautiful as ever.”
You grin. “Well, I was blipped for five years, so that helped a little bit. You look pretty good, too, you know. Not a day over seventy-five.”
He laughs, pulling back to look at you. His expression turns more serious as he brushes a slow circle on your inner thigh with the cool vibranium of his thumb.
“We don’t have to rush this,” he says in a low voice. “We have time now. All the time.”
Your hands slide beneath his shirt, fingertips ghosting over taut muscles and warm skin.
“I know,” you whisper. “But we aren’t rushing. I’ve wanted this for over a decade. Wanted you for over a decade.”
His mouth is back on yours in an instant. It’s hungry, but still careful. He presses closer and you can feel him - hard against your core, even through the thick material of his jeans. You roll your hips against his and he groans into your mouth at the friction.
“You have no idea,” he groans when he pulls his mouth away from yours, “how many times I’ve thought about this since I last saw you.”
“Oh, yeah?” You smile against his mouth. “What took you so long?”
“Don’t,” he warns softly, dragging his metal hand up your spine. “Don’t start with me. I’ll take you right here.”
Your breath catches, arousal blooming low in your stomach. His tone is teasing but there’s promise in his words.
“I wouldn’t stop you.”
He chuckles lowly. “Tempting. But I’m doing this right.”
Then he’s lifting you again, carrying you in the direction of your bedroom.
Clothes are lost piece by piece, hands continuously touching and roaming. When his eyes drag over your bare body, he breathes your name. Your real name - not the name on the fake passport and ID he’d given you so long ago that most people know you by these days.
Your name. And goddamn, does it feel good to hear him say it.
Then his mouth is on you - slow at first, savoring you, tongue moving with agonizing precision. You gasp, your hands flying to grip the back of his head.
“God, baby,” he mutters in between strokes of his tongue. “You are so fucking sweet.”
“Bucky,” you groan, loving that you know what to call him this time around. By the way he moans into you, you think that he seems to like it, too. “Fuck, Bucky.” Your hips twitch and he splays both hands across your belly, pinning you in place.
“Easy,” he murmurs against you. “I’ve got you.”
You cry out when he slides one thick finger inside, curling it just right, then adding a second without warning. The combination of his mouth and fingers is almost too much. You clutch at his hair, grounding yourself in the sound of his low groans and the warmth of his tongue.
He keeps going, steady and sure, working you until your thighs are shaking and his name is tumbling from your lips again and again. You come with a shudder, gripping him hard and gasping through the wave that crashes over you.
He stays there for a moment, letting you ride it out, before finally pulling away, his mouth shiny and blue eyes full of desire.
“Come here,” you say breathlessly, taking no time to recover before pulling him up to you. You pull his face down to yours, crushing your lips against his once more, reveling in the flavor of yourself on his tongue. He snakes a hand between your bodies, stroking his length in his flesh hand before teasing your entrance with the tip.
“Bucky,” you whine at this teasing. “Please. Waited long enough.”
“I know, sweetheart,” he coos as he eases inside you. You gasp at the stretch, sinking yourself onto his length. “I’m gonna take care of you.”
And he does. Hands roam your body as if trying to memorize every individual dip and curve and every kiss says I missed you, I missed you so much, I’m here and I’m not going anywhere.
“So perfect,” he grunts beside your ear. “I love you. Loved you for as long as I can remember—”
His confession is enough to cause the hot coil in the pit of your stomach to snap. You come with a cry of his name, your nails digging into the flesh of his back as he continues to rock into you. He follows shortly after with a low, broken moan into the crook of your neck.
For a while, neither of you move. You lie together in the afterglow, sweat slicked bodies still pressed together as you both come back down to earth.
“Bucky?” You murmur after a moment, still breathless. He pulls back far enough to look down at you.
“I love you, too. For as long as I’ve known you. I never stopped loving you.”
He smiles at your words, his expression open and unguarded in a way that’s brand new to you. He presses a soft kiss to your forehead, then your cheek, then your lips.
You curl into him as he pulls the blanket over you both. His arm wraps around your waist like he never wants to let go of you again.
You don’t know what tomorrow will bring. You haven’t decided if you’ll take Valentina’s offer seriously, if the New Avengers are actually a thing, or what any of it means going forward.
Only one thing matters to you right now, and he’s laying beside you, holding you close.
You’re both home.
if you read all 18.7k words of this, thank you. as always, comments and reblogs are very appreciated 🫶🏻💖
The sea spray breeze kisses your face as the sun shines during golden hour. You clink your champagne glass with Bucky's, enjoying the taste of the finer things in life. You two haven't let yourselves indulge in each other properly with months of work and missions getting in the way. So this feels beyond something you've earned, more like something your souls desperately needed.
The food in front of you looks divine, fancier than anything you or Bucky could've ever cooked. But you're not necessarily focusing on that right now, not when you have the love of your life next to you looking at you like he'd much rather dive into you than dinner.
"This is nice," you comment, your voice but a whisper as you lean into his side, your head on his shoulder as you watch the golden rays of the sun cascade over the dining area. Bucky wraps his arm around your waist, pulling you in closer and pressing a gentle kiss to the top of your head. "More than nice, sweetheart. It's perfect."
You, him, and nothing but a whole week of spending time together? Yeah, that is perfect.
This was so fun to make my lovely! 🩷 Going on vacation with this man would be a dream!! Thank you for sending this in for my sleepover @nekoemma95 !! ♡♡♡
Information on my sister @nekoemma95 @mrsbarnesreynolds 's self inserts
Name: Emily
Occupation: medic, formerly nurse
Raccoon City Incident
Emily worked at a regional hospital just outside Raccoon City’s official limits. Close enough to receive evacuees. Far enough to be told: “You are not in danger.” That turned out to be a lie.
The Evacuees
Before quarantine was officially announced, ambulances started bringing in people from:
Highway pileups outside the city
Suburban neighborhoods on the outskirts
Law enforcement staging areas
The injuries didn’t make sense.
She saw:
Bite wounds with no animal pattern
Patients with sky-high fevers
Skin discoloration
Sudden violent behavior
Victims restrained for “staff safety”
She noticed something else.
None of the paperwork mentioned a pathogen. Just: “Chemical contamination.” “Industrial exposure.” “Unknown environmental toxin.”
She knew it was wrong.
The First Reanimation
This is the moment that changes her.
A patient—male, mid-thirties, multiple bite wounds—goes into cardiac arrest. She calls time of death. The room clears. She stays behind to close his eyes.
Minutes later—
He gasps. Not a reflex. A breath. His eyes open. Milky. Unfocused. He lunges. Security tackles him. He bites one of them.
The incident is reported as: “Neurological death spasm.” Emily doesn’t argue out loud. But she writes the truth in her private notebook.
Staff Transfers
Within days:
A doctor who questioned infection protocols is “reassigned.”
A nurse who talked about the reanimation vanishes from the schedule.
Military vehicles appear outside the hospital.
New administrators arrive.
They don’t wear hospital badges. They wear corporate ones. Umbrella’s name isn’t spoken. But it’s there.
The NDA
Emily is called into a private office. Two men in suits. One hospital director who won’t meet her eyes.
She’s handed:
A non-disclosure agreement.
A federal compliance form.
A warning disguised as career advice. “This is a matter of national security.” “Discussing patient anomalies is a prosecutable offense.” “Sign, and we’ll consider this closed.”
She signs. Her hands shake. But she memorizes everything.
Watching the Quarantine
She’s on shift when the quarantine is announced. Televisions show military barricades. Then the broadcasts go silent. Then— She watches the nuclear sterilization live. The flash on screen. The plume rising. Her patients from the city were still in those beds hours before. No one will ever claim them. No one will list them as victims.
How This Shapes Emily
Deeply distrustful of institutions
Hyper-aware of cover-ups
Quietly furious
Still compassionate—but hardened
She doesn’t talk about the reanimation.
But she dreams about it.
She keeps copies of:
Intake forms
Lab irregularities
Transfer logs
Because she knows someday someone will need proof.
The Sister Dynamic
When Rebecca starts investigating Umbrella Corporation later, Emily doesn’t argue.
She doesn’t call her reckless.
She says: “They told us to stop asking questions too.”
They weren’t survivors of the same battlefield. But they were survivors of the same lie. Rebecca fights publicly. Emily carries the medical truth quietly. Together? They’re dangerous.
Psychological Differences Between Them
Rebecca:
Angry.
Investigative.
Wants justice.
Obsessed with proof.
Emily:
Haunted by faces of patients that she couldn’t save.
More quiet.
More withdrawn.
Afraid of what they’re up against.
Rebecca wants to fight the machine. Her sister fears the machine will crush them.
Post-Raccoon
She:
Works in humanitarian bioterror response
Secretly feeds Rebecca medical data
Quietly advises federal investigations
Eventually, she meets Leon S. Kennedy and immediately recognize the same haunted look she’s seen in mirrors. She is cautious of him at first. But when she realizes he carries the same weight? She softens.
About: Cats have a great judge of character, and Bucky soon realizes that when he keeps finding Alpine going to your room.
Pairings: Bucky Barnes x Fem!Thunderbolts!Reader
Warnings: Pre-established relationship, pure fluff, Alpine being Alpine, cat dad!Bucky, no use of y/n, and not edited
Word Count: 1.3K
Masterlist
Author's Note: First Bucky fic :)) Also, recently I've seen a lot of normalized cat hate. So this is for all my fellow cat lovers.
Divider: @/cursed-carmine
Bucky has a slight frown on his face as he watches the coffee steadily drip into the coffee pot. He has grown used to the feeling of Alpine sleeping next to his head on her own pillow these past few months. But recently she's been slipping away in the middle of the night, and Bucky has no idea where she goes.
"Why the long face?" Bucky looks over his shoulder and sees Yelena standing on the other side of the counter. It appears she's just woken up; her hair is all sticky up at odd angles. "Don't tell me, it's Alpine, again?"
"Why do you have to say it in that tone of voice?"
"Bucky," Yelena sighs, "she's a cat. Cats like to wander around at night. Get zoomies."
"Yeah, but she's always in her spot when I wake up." Ever since Bucky adopted Alpine, she's claimed the pillow on the right side of the bed as hers. They have their own nightly routine that Bucky has grown used to. But these past few weeks, Alpline has learned to open Bucky's door and has been escaping.
At first, Bucky thought she was just exploring the Watchtower. It's a huge building with lots of perfect hiding places for a small cat. After a week of waking up to an empty pillow, Bucky gives in and starts to check the security cameras. He wants to know what his girl has been up to in the wee hours of the night.
Even though Alpine is a cat, Bucky feels like he's breaking her trust by tracking her on the security cameras, but he's a worried dad. His eyes are glued to the screen, and he starts to switch around to the different cameras around the living quarters. He didn't think it would be this difficult to spot a cat on a security camera, and then he finally spots her. It's footage from last night.
He scoots closer as he watches her slightly pixelated body wander around the corridors before she heads to the kitchen. Where she proceeds to climb on the counters and even hops up on the stove. She manages to open a few cupboards, but when she sees there's no food on the shelves, she moves on. She then knocks over some condiment bottles before jumping down.
Bucky thinks she'll wander to the common space, but instead she heads down a different hallway. There are only two people who live in that hallway: you and John Walker. Why would Alpine be wandering over there? John is a self-proclaimed dog person and hasn't shown any interest in Alpine, though they've had this silent beef ever since Alpine started sitting in John's spot at the kitchen counter.
Bucky leans in a little closer, and then he sees it. Alpine pawing at a door a few down from John's.
Your room.
A second later, the door cracks open and Alpine slips in before it shuts. Bucky's brows furrow as he leans back in his seat and then rewinds it to watch that moment again. Alpine was going into your room, but why?
---
The last few days, Buckys has been watching your every move, and you're aware. You're not sure why he's so interested in you all of a sudden. You and Bucky aren't necessarily close, but you still look up to him.
You can feel his eyes burning a hole into the back of your head, and you've had it with his constant staring.
You're about to call him out on his staring when he speaks first. "Didn't you say you hate cats?"
Your eyes widen in alarm as you turn to face him. "Sorry?"
His eyes narrow slightly, trying to see if he can catch you in a lie. "You heard me."
"Random much?"
"Just tryin' to make some small talk."
You give a slight snort. "You hate small talk. Get to the point, Bucky."
He leans back a bit and crosses his arms. "So?"
You level his stare with one of your own. "I said I was slightly allergic. Again, this is so random."
"Allergic enough that you can't be around them?" he presses.
You sigh. "Obviously not. I mean Alpine lives here."
Your tone doesn't give anything away, and neither does your face. But Bucky isn't going to admit he's been watching security footage and seen that Alpine has been to your room three times this week.
"How are you sleeping?" He changes direction, and you just stare at him like he's grown a third head.
You set your coffee mug down. "What's this really about?"
"Nothing."
Seeing as Bucky is dancing around the question, he really wants to ask you, but you don't see the point in continuing this conversation.
"Well, this has been interesting, but Ava is waiting for me."
With that, you leave Bucky in the kitchen. As you're leaving, you pass by Alpine without acknowledging her. Bucky notices, though. What's even more interesting is that Alpine proceeds to follow you out of the kitchen, causing Bucky to frown.
It's a few days later, and Bucky once again wakes up without Alpine. This time, Bucky confronts you.
He's tracked you down and found you in Mel's office. Her door is wide open, so he doesn't think he's interrupting anything when he hears you two laughing. He marches in, startling both you and Mel. You were in the middle of showing her something on your phone.
Bucky's eyes zero in on you. "I know about you and Alpine."
Mel's eyes widen as she looks between you and Bucky. She sees a slightly amused look on your face.
"What's this about, Bucky?"
He points a finger at you. "You lied about your cat allergy."
You roll your eyes. "Why on earth would I lie about that?"
Alpine," he stresses, "I know she's been going to your room almost every night."
Your amused expression drops in an instant. "You spying on me now?"
"When it involves my child, yes." He sounds so serious, you almost laugh.
"And so what if she's been to my room?"
"Ha! So you admit it."
Mel looks a little lost. "Sorry, what's this about?"
"Alpine has been sneaking out of my room almost every night."
"Okay?" Mel still doesn't see the issue.
Bucky sighs. "And she has been going into her room." He points at you.
"And you're upset?" Mel asks.
"Yes-no... maybe. I just wanna know why Alpine keeps going to your room," Buckys sighs, expression softening, but then he's suddenly giving you an accusing look. "Unless you're sneaking her treats? You know Alpine has a sensitive stomach. You can't be over feed-"
"I'm not, Bucky." You shrug. "She just likes to hang out in there."
Bucky blinks, waiting for you to say more, but you don't. "That's it?"
"Yeah, we hang out. Have girl time."
"Hang out? Have girl time?" Bucky repeats.
"Sorry, I didn't think you'd get so worked up over your cat visiting other people on the team."
"Yeah, but she doesn't visit anyone else," Bucky says.
"How-oh... right, you've been watching the security cameras.
Bucky looks a bit sheepish. "Sorry, I was just worried about her.
"Aw," Mel quietly says.
"I'll stop letting her in my room."
Bucky thinks for a moment before asking. "Why did you start? Thought you were allergic."
"I am," you insist, "oddly enough, I'm not allergic to Alpine. The first time she was pawing at my door, I did turn her away, but she started yowling, and I didn't want her to wake John up."
Bucky nods at your words. "Okay."
"Okay? That's it?"
Buck gives a small smile. "Yeah, it's clear Alpine likes you and trusts you enough."
Bucky does have a point. Alpine can be a little standoffish at times, but that just means she needs more time to get comfortable with everyone. She's not a fan of Alexei trying to get her to trust him. While she does like Yelena's bribery with treats, she still keeps her distance most of the time. But for some reason, she likes you and has chosen you to be her second person.
