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24/ She/her/ Latina/ Fitness coach/

[redbloodedgurl]

I need help (professional too but we're not diving into that yet lol) I was reading a fic about jack x ICU nurse reader. She has a baby named Miracle that loves to scape to the ER to see Abbot, well first the fox in the wall in peds then she took a liking to Jack. OMG I was in the middle of that and life happened (stupid real life meddling in my fictional life delusions😑) so I lost it. I swear I haven't scrolled that much but now is gone 😭😭😭

[shoniebalognie]

Forever mine

Part 1, Part 2

Pervy!Robby x Nurse!reader

Summary: Robby wanted a lot in this life, but most of all he wanted you. A sweet young nurse who was more than half his age. And now that he has you in his clutch, he was going to make sure you would never leave

CW: 18+ MDNI, smut, fem!reader, pervy robby gets his own tag, unhealthy obsession, some dubcon elements, Oral (m/f), Unprotected PIV, hyperspermia!robby, manipulation, breeding kink, possessive robby, and some use of pussy pronouns, birth control manipulation

Note: this is a part two of a mini pervy robby fic series, it was too large to be posted in one so I split it up! I will link it above and at the end. Hope you enjoy thank you for reading!

The last three months of your life have been a whirlwind. And Robby was truly a saving grace for you, because you did not know what you would have done without him these last few months. It wasn’t because your other friends didn’t help, because they did. It just seemed like Robby had always known what you needed before you even did. 

It was a few days after the night you spent with Robby that the first thing in your life had gone downhill. The shift had ended and you were exhausted, it had been a long day of constant traumas and drunk combative patients. It was also a freezing cold January night where snow was predicted to come in. Getting into your car you were quick to grab your keys and shove them into the ignition. However, there was no rumble of the engine nor click of the key. Pulling it back out you say a little prayer before shoving it back in, but with no luck. 

Hopping out of the car you popped the hood to see if you could find anything, you weren’t sure why though because you knew absolutely nothing about cars. But this was your baby, you’ve had this car since before you became a nurse. Sure it was fairly old, but it normally ran well and it was paid off which saved a lot of money every month. Thankfully you weren’t left staring cluelessly into your engine for very long as a familiar voice called out to you. 

“Hey sweetheart you doing okay?” Robby was walking up to you as he noticed you standing outside in the cold. 

As he approached closer he slung his arms around you and brought you into a quick chaste kiss. Now you weren’t exactly sure what the two of you were, yeah you guys have had sex and before that he was doing sexual favors for you. But there was no label. Except Robby had been very public with his displays of affection, and while you absolutely melted in his presence you just couldn’t help but wonder what to call him in relation to you.

“Yeah I’m okay I guess but my car wont start and I don’t know what to do” Your voice came out as more of a pathetic whine than you meant for it to. 

“Did you have any lights on your dash before today?” He questions as he takes over your spot at the front of your engine. 

“No, well I mean I don't think so.” Robby locks his gaze on you as if to say you should have known better, “Look I get in I turn it on and I hope it gets me where I need to go. I'm not a mechanic, Michael. I pay someone to make sure it’s okay!” 

He let out a rumbling chuckle at your small display of anger, he knew you were just cold and annoyed with the inconvenience. Taking the keys from your hand and picking up your bags off the floor he hands them to you before speaking. 

“Alright I'm gonna take care of this,” giving you his own keys before pointing to where he was parked, “Go ahead and start mine f’me, warm it up and I'll call a tow truck and have yours sent to my mechanic okay?” 

With a reluctant nod you made your way over to his truck and did exactly what he said. As soon as he watched the door close and turn it on he dialed the towing company. 

“Yeah hey, I need a tow from the hospital. No it's broken down, no saving it go ahead and just have it sent to Bob’s. Yup the junkyard, perfect thank you” 

Robby hung up the phone before leaving the key in the visor for the towing company when they came. Walking to his car he’s greeted by the warmth of the cabin, telling you it was all handled and they’d call him tomorrow with an update. Thanking him profusely, he smiles and settles his hand onto your thigh like usual when he begins to back out. What you didn’t know was that he was so thankful you didn’t look under your car, otherwise you would’ve noticed the large puddle. The kind that came from someone unscrewing your oil cap and letting it all flow out. 

And the next day when you called Dukes Garage, the mechanic that Robby said he had it sent to they informed you that they never received the car. In a panic you called Robby immediately blubbering about how your car is lost and you didn’t know what to do. So after driving to your apartment he offered to call the towing company for you. You listened as he had a strongly worded conversation on the phone, but with no luck. 

Telling you that they misplaced the records and have no idea where it went. With blurry vision from crying you ended up sobbing harder as you clung to him, not noticing how he had been on a photo of a call screen the whole time and not on an actual call. That night he made sure that you were three orgasms deep into his bed promising that he would pick you up every day you had to work. And true to his word every shift you shared and even ones he had off, Robby was at your door every morning at 6:30 with an iced coffee. 

The rides many times ended with you offering to stay at his house overnight so that he wouldn’t have to waste gas and keep going out of his way to pick you up. Something he was more than happy to oblige, citing that his place was much safer for you anyway. Of course you knew he didn’t mean for it to be mean because he wasn’t exactly wrong. It wasn’t exactly the nicest place for a young single woman to live, but it was all you could really afford that was close enough to the hospital that you weren’t spending hours driving each day.

However, your living space is where your next problems came from. The landlord was a kind older man who did his best to accommodate you if you were a few days late or a few dollars short. Which is why you were so confused when you were met with an overdue notice on your door. When you called him asking what happened he said you hadn’t paid this month's rent, but you swore you had set the check in the box he had outside his own door on the first floor. 

You promised to make out another check but could only make a third of the rent at this moment since time had passed and other bills had already come out. He accepted the delay for that month, but when the next rent came he marked you down as overdue once more. This new letter had you realizing that you’ve ended up in a massive debt hole. There was absolutely no way that you could afford a month and a half’s rent plus interest in one single payment. As much as it hurt your landlord to do it, he ended up  sending you an eviction letter. So of course you call the one person you know will help. 

“M-mikey I don’t, I-i’m” your sobs were loud as he walked into the apartment after getting an SOS text, “he-e is ev-victing me” 

You were surrounded by tissues as you sobbed into his chest, he had brought boxes and tape per your request. 

“You can always stay at mine sweetheart” He mumbles into your hair, “You’re already over so often and it’s such a big house”

“B-but it's so-o nice I can't a-afford that” your sniffles and gasps were coming in slower as you thought about his words. 

“I wasn’t expecting you to pay any of the mortgage sweetheart” He lets out a small chuckle as if it was such a ridiculous thing to think about, “besides your presence is enough payment”

“But I-”

“Ah ah ah, no more of that. No more but’s, we are going to get all your essentials and anything important and get you moved into mine.”

You were immediately nodding before you could think too much about it. Not worrying about the fact that he suggested leaving all of your furniture and dishes. You didn’t even bat an eye when all you packed was clothes, pictures, and childhood keepsakes. As you carried the box of clothes down the stairs Robby took this time to log into your computer and look through your emails so that he can delete the one he sent weeks ago to your bank. It was a general email just letting them know to block any checks your landlord tried to cash on account of fraud. Once he was satisfied all evidence was erased he packed up the last of everything and left to meet you downstairs. 

Even though you and Robby were whatever you were, you expected to take one of the guest rooms. But that thought was quickly side stepped as he grabbed two boxes of your clothes and brought them to his closet in the master bedroom. And when he gave you his credit card and said to go have fun you argued with him for over an hour about it. Except you didn't have much of a choice since you couldn’t find your own card that you swore was left in your purse. So in the end with a reluctant thank you and a kiss before you left to meet with Trinity and Samira for a shopping spree. Robby once again capitalized on the time that you were away to take all the trash out since they were getting pretty full. That and so you wouldn’t see your card cut up and thrown in. 

Living with Robby had been a lot easier than you thought, he was so kind and the two of you took no time at all to develop a domestic routine. Robby at least three or more times a week woke you up with his mouth against your cunt, then afterwards the two of you would take a shower where it often led to more than just washing. In the mornings you took to making breakfast while Robby packed the lunches and made the coffee. He also made sure that he knew your vitamin and birth control routine, stating that it was important for him to be aware of your needs in case things fall through or you forgot. It was perfectly domestic. And everyone at the PTMC saw how much closer the two of you had become.

They had started to notice the difference in the two of you ever since your birthday, but back then they just thought you had a crush and couldn’t help but follow him around. However, it wasn’t long after that they began to notice how the dynamic became questionable at times. It had seemed that Robby was often using your eagerness in his favor (they were right) but at your insistence you had convinced everyone who asked that he was just being kind. And even now as you recount to others what has been going wrong and how ‘Mikey has just always sacrificed so much for me’ there were some that were still questioning his intentions. Most everyone gushed about how kind their attending truly was, but not Dana.

“So what's it like living with the old man?” Dana’s thick accent cuts through the silence of the break room. 

“Oh hey” you greet looking up from your phone, “It’s really good, I mean I still feel bad that he wont let me help with any of the bills but he insists it's no problem. 

“Is he treating you well?” Her questioning had you confused, as there was no reason for concern in your eyes.

“Of course he is, I mean I'm practically the one who begged him to help me. I’m honestly so grateful that he didn’t just tell me to fuck off” 

“Did you sleep with him?” Cassie's voice joins in from where she was leaning on the doorway listening in. 

Heat instantly blooms throughout your body, as you sit there under the gaze of two older women who you look to as mentors. 

“I-I well yeah,” your lips stretch into a small smile as you recall all the times you and Robby have been together, “B-but it wasn’t like payment for anything!” you add instantly once you recognize the look on their faces. 

“Honey he’s twice your age” it's not the first time Dana’s made this argument. 

“And he’s kind of your boss?” Cassie adds, 

“No, Dana’s my boss. I promise there is nothing that has happened that I didn’t initiate” you thought it was sweet how they cared, “Michael is a good guy, everything he’s done has been to help me. And honestly if anything I’m the one that's coerced him into liking me.” 

And of course that was the time that Robby had decided to walk by the room. He was passing the door that was behind you so while you didn’t see him, both Dana and Cassie had. Neither gave him more than a tight lipped smile, especially since he didn’t exactly have time to school his expression of smugness. And that sick part of him that didn’t want them to think better of him rose to the forefront, he wanted them to know that he trapped you into a hole you can't crawl out of. He wanted them to question his actions because they were correct. It wasn’t your idea, it was all his. And it was only going to get worse. 

One morning, you were finishing up with breakfast when Robby came back with the mail. He was flipping through it before you saw his face screw up in confusion. 

“Hey sweetheart I think this is for you,” He hands you a small envelope that has large red letters spelling IMPORTANT.

Robby came up behind you wrapping his arms around your mid-section as you opened the letter. Inside was a memo from your insurance saying that they were going to cancel the policy you held with them. You didn’t get past much other than the words cancel before you were panicking, stating that it’s how you got your birth control and your OBGYN and PCP is attached to the insurance. Tearing the letter up and throwing it in the trash, once again you had missed the part that said ‘per your request’. 

Robby knew you blindly trusted him, the evidence of that was all around him. How you never questioned what happened to your car, or why you were evicted. How you use his credit card since that request (that he canceled) for your new card had yet to be approved, and even to how you would all but beg him cum inside you almost every night. Robby knew there was only one more thing that he could do to make sure you’ll be tied to him forever. One thing that will have everyone thinking of him when they look at you. 

“Don’t even worry about it, I’ll get you added to mine under spouse/partner for now so that you can get your medications and keep your doctors since I have the same insurance you did through work.”  he held you tight as you cried into his chest.

“Are you sure? I don't want to get you into trouble or anything” small sniffles sounded from you as you gazed up at him with red rimmed eyes. 

“Of course, I can’t let my sweet girl go without insurance now can I?” 

That had pulled a teary smile from you, and a light giggle when he pinched your side. With less reluctance or arguments than you would usually put up, you had agreed. And Robby was true to his word. He added you to his insurance and made sure that your regular check-up’s were scheduled normally. But what he didn’t do was re-fill your birth control prescription. You wouldn’t need it, not while you’re with him. You didn’t have to worry about being abandoned once you were pregnant. He would never do that to you, not like his mother did to him. 

Robby knew you wanted kids. The two of you had divulged life thoughts many times at 2am while still tangled beneath the sheets with his cum dripping down your thigh. He also saw how you stared at every chubby little baby that came through those doors. You may have also mentioned that you wanted to wait a few years when you were more established within your job and life, but that was before you had him. 

So instead he filled up a prescription that looked exactly like your old one, however, it contained prenatals instead of your regular birth control. Robby knew it was wrong, he knew that he should give you more of a say in this, but when he thought about how good you would look swollen with his child and breasts full of milk all because of him. Every single doubt flew out of his head. 

These thoughts also had his libido increasing ten fold. You and Robby were already finding every moment to be tangled up together at home. But lately he was insatiable, pulling you into on-call rooms and supply closets at every opportunity . 

“Fucking take it, such a good girl f’me sweetheart”

He was currently balls deep inside of you while you were bent over holding onto a supply shelf for dear life. With one hand wrapped around your mouth and another rubbing tight circles on your clit, he fucked up into you as if he was on a misson. And he was, but you didn’t need to know that. 

“Letting me fuck you like this at work, such a desperate thing arent you” his tone was low and rough with effort. Since he had a hand over your mouth to cover the noises you made all you could do was nod. 

“Yeah I thought so, gonna fill you up sweetheart and you’re gonna keep it all in for me for the rest of the shift wont you” 

Another stiff nod is given in reply, but your focus left what he was saying as your legs locked up and eyes rolling in the back of your head as your orgasm crashed over you. And as always he followed right behind you, cumming for what felt like hours. Thick ropes of cum covered every inch of your walls, stuffing you so full that it never failed to leak out around him. 

Other times he had you taking lunch with him in his car, but eating food was the last thing on his mind. Pulling you onto his lap he never wasted any time pulling down your bottoms and pulling your underwear to the side before slipping in. Watching as you rode him for as long as you could before he knew your thighs began to burn and you were whining for him to take over. 

“P-please Mikey” tears sprang from the corners of your eyes as your legs were beginning to give out, making it harder to go back up after dropping down with zero grace. 

“Aww sweetheart, do you need me to take care of you?” His words were gentle but condescending.

“Y-yes, oh fuck, please”

And that's always when he would begin thrusting up into you while gripping your hips, dragging them down to meet his own. Always finishing inside you. Holding you against him as he keeps himself buried as deep as he can go, you feel his thumbs begin to caress the area of your lower stomach. With your head resting against his shoulder you lean back before capturing his lips with yours, his mustache always managing to tickle your nose. You were so in love with him.  

____________________________________

Both of you were off for the next four days. It was a wonderful occurrence every time that happened. So far the day had been filled with sex and relaxation. Laying together buck naked on the sofa you began to complain about how your bank had yet to send you the card. And as always Robby was there with a solution. 

“Why don’t you just join my bank account? That way I can just order another one of my cards and you don’t have to worry about it anymore” 

The nonchalance of how he proposed the joint accounts stunned you. But you couldn’t deny the appeal so of course you agreed as always. And that had him taking you once more over the arm of the sofa, fucking into you with the fervor of a man who didn’t just have you splayed out five minutes before. 

On your third day off you had just hopped out of your morning shower with the intention to start the recipe for making cherry chocolate cupcakes. However, when you had slipped on your underwear followed by Robby’s shirt you noticed how sensitive your groin and breasts felt. 

Which was highly unusual since your breasts had never truly been very sensitive to touch before. And you weren’t even close to your period so that wouldn’t make any sense for your pelvis to feel like this. Giving your breasts a testing massage you hissed at the sensation, it wasn’t necessarily painful, just different. 

Walking out into the living room you spot him in the kitchen getting all the ingredients out for you. 

“You okay?” Robby asks when he sees you walking towards him with a hand on your chest. 

“Yeah no I’m okay, just I don’t know” you shrugged it off.

You were a little embarrassed about it even though this is a man who’s seen your everything, not to mention he’s a doctor for goodness sake. So you shouldn’t be feeling so bashful about it. 

“It’s just, my boobs are really sore and sensitive. And my pelvis is too but I’m not close to my period so I’m not sure what's going on, just feeling weird” 

He already knew you weren’t close to your period, he had your cycle tracked to a T. What he did know was that you had been taking those prenatals for long enough to start feeling some effects of the increased hormones. Which do increase blood flow to these areas in preparation for and during pregnancy.

“Do you want me to check, see if anything’s wrong?” 

“L-like a pelvic?” Your eyes went wide at the thought of him doing such a thing on you in a very non clinical setting.

“Sweetheart I’ve had my tongue, fingers, and cock inside of you many times this is nothing” light chuckles accompanied his words. They also had you squeaking in surprise as he just said it so casually.

“Okay well when you say it like that, with absolutely zero decorum” you roll your eyes.

The two of you walk towards the bedroom where he helps you out of your bottoms before you lay back. Bending your knees up and spreading them wide giving him a good view of your absolutely soaking cunt. It was puffy and glistening, all normal signs of elevated hormones. Robby had to remind himself to calm down as he needed to get through this without blowing his load prematurely.

“Looks like we don’t need lube do we?” He jokes as he sees the tension in your face.

“Ha ha you’re so funny Michael, but what if there’s something wrong” you whine worried about him not taking this seriously. 

“There’s not sweetheart. I can pretty much guarantee it” 

His words soothing only part of your worry. When he gently inserts two fingers into you, overwhelming pleasure takes over your body. Clearly more sensitive than you thought, especially as his long fingers begin palpating around. As he pressed against your cervix he could feel how soft it was, indicating that your ovulation was close. Putting his other hand against your uterus from above he gives a little press as he remembers he has to ‘examine’ you for abnormalities. Trying his best to not lose himself in the feel of you. 

But the pressure had a moan slip from your lips. Your bottom one had begun to bleed from how hard you’ve been biting it. Noticing how you’ve been trying to hold back, Robby pushes down from above once more as he crooks his fingers hitting that soft spot at the top. Thighs pressing closed but they were stopped by his broad shoulders.

“Ah ah ah, open up sweetheart let me see how much you need this” he whispers as he leaves soft kisses against your inner knee and down your thigh. His fingers continued their movements slowly as if dragging this out for as long as he could. 

“Everything feels absolutely normal, but she’s so wet and desperate” he mumbles into your thigh as he sucks a mark where only he would be able to see.

Dropping down to his knees, he places his lips expertly on your clit. Robby knew your body inside and out, he knew exactly which buttons to push. With strong fingers expertly moving rhythmically and his mouth delivering perfectly alternating licks and sucks, you felt that familiar pressure strengthen deep in your lower stomach. Walls fluttering against his hand, and that damn beard adding to the friction against you had your toes curling throwing you head first into your first orgasm.

“Oh fuck, Mikey yes!” 

But he didn’t stop there he kept going, he wanted you babbling and tripping on your words as you usually were after at least your second one. Which is exactly what was about to happen, your already oversensitive cunt never stopped fluttering and with him abusing that damn spot thatonly he could hit sent you barreling into your second faster than you ever had. You also felt that rush of fluid that covered his beard making him groan deep as he licked you clean. 

“Taste so fucking good, you doing okay sweetheart?” Robby knew how you would answer, saw the way that soft dopamine filled smile stretched across your cheeks and your eyes drooped halfway closed. 

“Mmhmm s’good Mikey”

In your pleasure filled stupor you felt his hands pull you up so that your legs lay on the bed, his mouth capturing yours for a moment. Tasting yourself on his lips before he trailed marks down the column of your neck before coming to your breasts. 

“So fucking beautiful,” his mouth covered your left nipple before he suckled just slightly before popping off, “Can’t wait for them to be full sweetheart” 

The sharp sting of pleasure that shot through you at the feel of his mouth distracted you enough that you had no mind to pay attention to his words. Brain permanently short circuiting as he switches to the other one. He pulled back just enough to slide off his shirt and discard his pants fully before flipping you onto your stomach. With barely any strength you try to reach back and grab his cock, wanting it in your mouth before he fucked you. But he just gently guided it back to your side as he settled the soft curve of his stomach against your lower back. 

“Shh not tonight, gotta make sure none of it goes to waste so it takes” Robby croons in your ear

Sliding his tip through your folds collecting the arousal before he pushed in, his thick length felt like it was splitting you in half in this position. It also felt like it took him forever before his hips were flush with your ass. However, he didn’t allow you long to adjust before a deep punishing pace was established. Each thrust pushed the air out of your lungs, as low rumbling moans creeped out of your mouth. 

“S-so de-ep, s’to-o mu-uch” 

“But you’re doing so well sweetheart, taking me so far” each thrust hitting your cervix almost painfully, but the sensation had you whining with need, “You can do it, I gotta make sure your round and swollen with my kid” 

You didn’t know that this was him making you a promise, you had believed that they were just words since you were on birth control. But the thought of you having his children hit you harder than you thought it would. While you knew it was borderline impossible you couldn’t help but play along into the fantasy.

“Y-yes wa-ant you to f-fill me up”

“Yeah? Wanna make sure everyone knows you’re mine?” his bicep came up around your neck settling it into the crook of his elbow. “Make sure anyone who looks at you- shit - knows exactly who did this to you”

The sound of his skin hitting yours filled the room along with his deep growls and words.

“Fuck- all mine sweetheart”

“A-all yo-urs” 

As soon as those words left your lips his rhythm was abandoned. Deep, hard, and frantic were how his thrusts were coming now. And with a squeeze of his arm your head was buzzing at the restricted oxygen and the overwhelming sensation of Robby. All of which sent you over the edge once more, your cunt strangling his cock for a third time. Squeezing him so tight that it wasn’t long after that he was pressing as far as he could go. Balls flush against your ass as copious amounts of cum floods into you. Shallow thrusts and grinding hips had him working through his aftershocks that seemed to go on forever, it always did that was something that you’ve gotten used to with him. But in this specific position it felt more intense.

The overwhelming sensation of everything had your mind simultaneously racing while also being filled with nothing. Just pure bliss and warmth. And that was probably because Robby had yet to pull out, normally by this time he’s grabbing a cloth and cleaning the two of you up. Except this time he wasn’t. Instead he wrapped his arms around you and turned the two of you onto your sides. His softening cock still snug within your walls. 

And despite it being 9am and you waking up less than three hours ago your eyes began drifting closed. But not before you felt Robby’s hand caressing the lower part of your stomach, a motion he had been doing a lot lately. 

Robby knew you were pregnant before you did. And it wasn’t just because he knew you were almost a full month late, he could just tell. In the way he noticed your hips already beginning to change, in the way you subconsciously kept your hand on your stomach. He wanted to suggest you take a test, to make you see that you were his forever no matter what. But as usual he wanted you to come to him, wanted you to seek him out. 

It happened sooner rather than later. At the month mark of your missed period, you approached Robby with a vial of blood asking for labs. Specifically an CBC and HCG panel. And when he asked who it was for (he knew) you finally met his eyes and he saw your own red and filled with unshed tears along with your slightly swollen upper lip that always happens after you’ve been crying. 

“Sweetheart, is this your blood?” He lightly grasped your elbows while bending his knees slightly so he can keep your gaze.

“I swear I don't know what happened,” A loud sob and hiccup left your throat, “I mean I'm on birth control and I have been for a while I shouldn’t be”

Robby set the vial on a metal tray before he pulled you into an embrace. Kissing the crown of your head. 

“Well that's only truly effective 99% of the time,” He pulls back enough to tilt your face up to his, “Plus we haven’t exactly been careful”

His tenative smile brought one out on your own face. 

“I just don’t want to become a burden, you’ve already done so much for me and now I've been careless and I'm pregnant. Well possibly” resting your head back against his chest you can’t help but wonder how he isn’t so worried. 

“You’re not a burden, especially now. If you’re carrying my child, sweetheart there's nothing that could make me not want you”

“You want me?”  The small insecure tone from you had his eyes softening. 

“Of course baby, what do you think this past however long has been?” 

“I don’t know, I thought you were just being nice I mean I basically accosted you” 

Oh his sweet little nurse, thinking she's the one who's been pulling all the strings and having him under her thumb. Poor thing doesn’t know that she's been in his trap the whole time. He was going to take such good care of the two of you. 

He took your blood work down after assuring you that he would take care of everything. So when he pulled you aside with the results instead of the fear you expected to creep when he told you it was positive, it was genuine excitement especially when you saw how happy he was. You were no longer guessing where the two of you stood, he had told you he wanted you. And you couldn’t believe that after everything you’ve put him through he still wanted you. 

As your pregnancy went on everyone noticed how Robby became more public in his displays, he had always been quietly there beside you but now it was loud. A possessive hand would always find its way onto your body. And when you started to show, the man was feral. A hand was always at your stomach or your back, and many times he would overstep Dana and tell her that you were to only be placed on easy cases or triage. But his favorite part was when you came in wearing only your scrub bottoms and one of his sweatshirts that were starting to get tight around your middle. 

He loved watching how everyone looked to him after cooing against your stomach, or when patients asked who the father was. He loved the confused glances and secondary questioning when they saw that it was him, the man so much older than the sweet young nurse. And when the boys who thought they had a chance with you saw your current state, he basked in the way they would run off. 

Everyone was so excited about the new baby coming into the Pitt, Princess and Perlah along with Emma had already begun planning your baby shower. But it seemed as if Dana and Cassie just never fully trusted Robby, always asking if you were okay. It got to a point where they began asking more personal questions that you were clearly uncomfortable with figuring out how to answer. Not because they were prying and you didn’t like it, no, it was because they were asking about things you had never thought about. Such as what truly happened to your car, if your landlord ever responded, and why you were on Robby's insurance. He didn’t like it one bit.

So as you hit the seven month mark, Robby had a long conversation with you one night where you had all but passed out on the couch exhausted. He told you how the stress and schedule is hard on you and the baby and he would just be so sad to see anything happen to the two of you. You agreed not wanting to put you or your child in danger so you decided to go PRN after you came back from a long maternity leave. But as soon as your daughter was born he knew he had to convince you to stay home. Watching how you were with her made his heart swell. The softness in your care and the love that exuded from you had him convinced you can’t go back to work. 

It wasn’t an argument that needed a lot of convincing as you were sobbing your eyes out trying to put on scrubs for work. Your child had just turned three months old as your maternity leave ended and you were unsure that you could go back.

“Sweetheart, we have been more than fine with just my salary. We could have five more kids and still be just fine” His words were soft as he stood behind where you were standing by your child's bassinet. 

“You wouldn’t mind?” conflicting feelings ran through your mind.

You loved being a nurse, you truly did but you also loved your daughter more.

“I promise, I would love nothing more than for you to stay home and raise her and any others to be exactly like you” He paused making it seem as if he was collecting a heavy thought, “I want to give my children the life I never had. One where they want for nothing especially a mother, not like I did”

Your eyes watered at that sentiment, he had confided in you about how it really affected him when his mother abandoned him. Leaving him with his grandparents as if he was nothing worth loving. Something you told him wasn’t true countless times since he had confided in you. 

“Okay, but you’re the one letting Dana know” you turned around so that you could wrap your arms around his middle. 

He assured you that everything was taken care of. That you would never have to worry about anything else ever again. Robby's words had wrapped you in warmth and love, a feeling that spread throughout you as he played with the four carat engagement ring that sat on your finger. You always wondered how you ended up so lucky to have him, how lucky you were that he cared enough to stay through all of the situations that you dragged him through. And Robby was just glad that you were none the wiser, finally feeling as if he had everything he wanted in life. Especially when two weeks later you greeted him at the door with a positive pregnancy test and your baby girl wearing a t-shirt that said best big sister.

Previous part

[redbloodedgurl]

You know I’m always pride myself of being a BAMF, Independent and whatnot. I am, I love it. But this timeline sucks so I need a pervy!robby in my life. But exactly like him not a pervy old man like I know irl 😓 one time a client told me to marry him (he’s like 60 something) and he was going to give me everything I wanted if I gave him s3x. I thought about it. Sounded too good to be true….yeah it was. I went one time to his house and was a mess and he lived in the same room with his 20 year old son (a bit odd if you ask me) big house ngl, but full of trash like a frat house. So yeah I didn’t come back 😓😩 but I want a Jack or a Robby in my life I would even have kids (that honestly don’t want lol)

Anyways too much verbal vomit 🤭 I love this fic. Imma read it again rn hahaha and I’ll politely stalk you after 🙆🏻‍♀️

Thank you for sharing 💕

[xoxo--grace]

my man on willpower

"he's on his big journey to find a little zest of life, a new sense of purpose, but why?"

synopsis: it's the fourth of july, and robby is going on sabbatical tonight. you don't have a good feeling about it. well, you don't feel good in general. but jack doesn't seem to understand your worries, similar to how robby just deflects every time you bring it up.

rabbot x fem!attending!reader

playlist - spotify

also available on ao3!

cw: pre-established poly relationship, swearing, suicidal ideations, death, accurate medical jargon (to the best of my ability), crash outs, arguments, cryptic pregnancy.

status: completed!

chapter one - "please, please, please." you wake up with that gut feeling that you can't seem to shake. (4/22)

chapter two - "girls will cry and girls will lie." jack brings you a patient, and himself as a patient, and you can't help but confide in him. (4/26)

chapter three - "your sugar talkin' isn't workin' tonight." both you and robby are cracking under the pressure of the day. (4/27)

chapter four - "we love to mistake butterflies for cardiac arrest." these deaths hit you harder than most, mostly because you think it's on you. (5/4)

chapter five - "cry because it's over." you finally realize what's been plaguing you. (5/6)

chapter six - "your perfect timing couldn't be worse." you're grateful to have dana by your side. (5/10)

chapter seven - "baby, you put us in this situation." baby girl is here, but robby can't decide whether he wants to be. (5/10)

chapter eight - "guess overnight, your feelings have changed." robby makes his final decision. (5/11)

a/n: this is my own little au. based on the pitt season 2 but this fic goes over the course of the whole day, not just one chapter an hour. i also don't include a lot of the things that are in season 2 and dialogue changes.

taglist: closed!

@ellaneyt @barnes70stark @vicky066 @lacontroller1991 @xoxoloverb @slickfilled @the-kakawshi-bird @kamalymaly @shadowkl10 @maystyles @rufles2 @4ria790 @cartersway @aaltriaa @cassieslesboy @vaelyrians @ohh-to-be-rich-and-pretty @idontworkforshield @allenajade-ite @aloverofanything @kneelforloki @kathrinemelissa @fluxlux @staystrongsoa @momdancingtomcr @stardream14 @bethexo07 @beebeechaos @disappearintofanfiction @kitkatrina @amnatreal @longfulforlee @redhooduwu @malindacath @serenity-noble @navs-bhat @silovicbaird @year0fthedreamer @feralfurypanda @strawb3rry-lover @isasdreams @proudlyvastlake @emma8895eb @thehockeynerd30 @drinsyllia @bebitts @archxve @saviorcomplexrry @bigbootyh0e1 @honeysblogx @hazydespair @goldfishenthusiast67 @moonz33

[redbloodedgurl]

I know we still waiting for the epilogue but you have no idea how much I love cryptic pregnancy stories 😩😩

This is amazing. I’m so happy rn 🤭

Thank you so much for sharing. Impatiently waiting for the next chapter 💕💕

[peaky-void]

P3- The Shape Of Almost

Years later, PTMC still feels the same at night.

The brightness stings his eyes. Noise presses in from every direction. Even the cold settles where it hurts most.

The emergency department pulses around Doctor Jack Abbot in relentless waves of fluorescent light and exhaustion. Monitors shriek. Phones ring unanswered for half-seconds too long. Residents rush past carrying charts and trauma packs with the frantic speed of people still learning how to survive this place without letting it consume them.

Jack moves through it automatically now, older and quieter than he used to be, the sharp edges of who he was worn smooth by time and too many overnight shifts.

“Room twelve needs a consult,” a nurse calls while falling into step beside him. “Possible allergic reaction. Pediatric.”

Jack barely looks up from the chart in his hands. “How old?”

“Three, maybe four.”

He nods once, already understanding the look in the parent’s eyes before a word is spoken. Another frightened child clinging to the edge of panic. Another exhausted parent trying not to fall apart. Another long night that will blur into all the others before morning comes.

Then the nurse continues casually, “Mother says she has the same allergy, so she recognized the symptoms fast. Kid’s stable now.”

Jack pushes through the ER doors toward pediatrics without thinking much about it, exhaustion dragging heavily behind every step. His gloves snap against his wrists while he scans the intake notes clipped to the chart.

Female.

Age: 8 months.

Name: Penelope Langdon.

His eyes pause briefly.

Langdon.

Something about it scratches faintly at memory, but before he can place it, the curtain around the bed shifts open.

And the world stops.

She’s sitting in the hospital bed holding a tiny baby girl against her chest. For one impossible second, his brain refuses to process what he’s seeing.

Because it’s her.

Not memory.

Not grief twisting itself into hallucination.

Her.

Older now too. Softer somehow. More settled into herself in a way that physically hurts to look at. Her hair is pulled back messily, exhaustion visible beneath her eyes, one protective hand rubbing slow circles over the baby’s back while a tiny toddler sleeps curled beside her in the chair, small sneakers dangling crookedly off the edge.

And then he sees she’s pregnant, and Jack stops so abruptly the chart nearly slips from his hand as she looks up at the sound of his footsteps and their eyes lock across the room.

Everything inside him drops hard and fast through his chest as shock flashes across her face, raw and unmistakable, before something colder seals over it, not anger, not longing, but a careful, practiced distance, professional composure settling between them like a door closing softly and permanently shut.

“Dr. Abbot,” she says quietly, and hearing his surname in her voice after all these years cuts deeper than he expects, because once she used to say his name like it belonged to her, and now she looks at him like he’s just another doctor standing in the room.

Because suddenly every version of his life collides at once inside his head, the apartment, the proposal, the nursery, the screaming silence after she left and all he can see is what should have been sitting in front of him years ago.

Not Vivian.

Not borrowed fatherhood built on lies and grief.

This.

Her.

Their life.

His throat tightens painfully.

“What happened?” he finally manages.

“She got into peanut butter crackers at daycare,” she says softly, adjusting the baby higher against her shoulder. “Her breathing changed pretty fast.”

Jack nods automatically, doctor before anything else now, stepping closer to check the baby gently despite the violent shaking beginning somewhere deep in his ribs.

Penny.

The baby’s tiny fist curls instinctively around her mother’s sweater while sleepy tears cling to her flushed cheeks, small and fragile and completely unaware that she is finally stable, finally safe, finally loved.

Jack forces himself to focus.

“She’s okay,” he says quietly after listening to her lungs. “You caught it early.”

“I know the signs,” she replies.

Of course she does.

He remembers every allergy medication that once crowded their apartment cabinets, and the realization cuts through him so suddenly it steals the air from his lungs, because this could have been his life, a toddler asleep in the corner, a baby curled against her chest, another child on the way, a real family built from love and ordinary days instead of grief, guilt, and the ruins they never managed to survive.

Not something forced together from history and obligation. Real.

The little boy stirs suddenly in the chair beside them, rubbing sleepy fists into his eyes before lifting his head.

“Mama?” he mumbles.

And Fuck.

Jack feels the impact of that single word like physical injury.

Her entire face changes instantly. Softens.

She reaches for the toddler automatically, brushing messy hair away from his forehead with practiced tenderness. “Hey, Tanner,” she whispers gently. “You okay, my baby?”

Baby.

The boy nods sleepily before climbing directly into her side without hesitation, pressing his cheek against her arm while she somehow balances both children at once effortlessly.

Like she was always meant for this.

Jack has to look away briefly.

Because years ago someone at a fundraiser once said:

“She always wanted to be a mom.”

And Fuck.

She became one anyway, just not with him, and the thought settles in him like something final and irreversible, right as a voice suddenly cuts through the hallway outside.

“Langdon’s still here?”

Another nurse answers quickly, “Yeah, pediatric room three.”

Footsteps approach fast afterward.

Then Frank Langdon appears through the curtain.

Young for an ER attending-track resident.

Still wearing navy scrubs half untucked beneath a winter jacket he clearly threw on too quickly. But the second he sees her, his entire face changes. Relief crashes visibly through him.

“There you are,” Frank breathes.

And then he crosses the room without hesitation, drawn to her as if the rest of the hospital ceases to exist, no Jack, no sterile corridors, no weight of procedure, only her, and the children in her orbit like the center of something he was never meant to stand inside.

“You scared me,” he murmurs softly, crouching beside the bed first to kiss Penny’s forehead, then Tanner’s hair, then finally her temple with exhausted familiarity.

His hand settles instinctively against her pregnant stomach, steady and sure, as if he’s always known exactly where he belongs in this moment.

There’s nothing hesitant in him, no second-guessing, no careful restraint. Just a quiet, unwavering certainty that makes the gesture feel less like an action and more like a promise already kept. Protective in the simplest sense of the word. Certain in a way that doesn’t ask permission. Home, made visible in a single touch.

Jack feels something inside himself cave inward at the sight of it, quiet and absolute, like a structure giving way without sound. Because Frank doesn’t hesitate. Not once. Not around the children, not around her, not around the future growing right in front of him.

There’s no fear in him. No distance. No uncertainty disguised as caution.

Just love plain, unguarded, and fully lived, simple enough to be chosen out loud, and simple enough that Jack realizes too late it was never meant to be his to choose.

Frank finally notices Jack standing there.

“Oh—Dr. Abbot.” He straightens quickly, still keeping one hand on her knee unconsciously. “Sorry, I came down as soon as they paged me.”

Of course they paged him. Langdon.

Her husband.

Jack finally understands why the surname hit him like recognition. He’s worked beside Frank for almost two years.

He listened to him talk about his wife, about the life he built so casually it almost sounded like breathing, about kids who filled the house with noise and a son obsessed with dinosaurs, about a pregnant wife who woke him at three in the morning with cravings for citrus and laughter in her voice.

And Jack had smiled at all of it, nodded at all the right places, filed every detail away without ever letting them fully land, never connecting the pieces into something real enough to hurt, never realizing he was listening to the life that should have been his.

Because he never let himself imagine her attached to someone else’s life.

Frank glances toward his wife again immediately, that quiet check-in passing between them without effort, like it’s something they’ve done a thousand times without ever needing to explain it.

She meets his eyes and gives the smallest nod, the kind that says everything is steady without saying a word at all.

“You okay?” he asks anyway, more habit than doubt.

“I’m okay,” she answers softly, already knowing what he needs to hear.

“You sure?”

She doesn’t answer with words this time. Instead, her hand finds his for just a second fingers squeezing once, familiar and certain and a tiny smile touches her mouth, like the conversation was already finished before it even began.

And it destroys Jack completely because he remembers spending years trying to earn expressions that now come naturally to someone else.

“I’m sure,” she says gently.

Frank exhales in visible relief before reaching automatically for Tanner, lifting the sleepy toddler easily into his arms.

“Hey, buddy,” he murmurs. “You taking care of mama?”

Tanner nods seriously against his shoulder, small and trusting, and Jack realizes he can’t quite draw a full breath anymore.

Because suddenly all he can see is the life he never chose and the one he convinced himself was enough, the years spent forcing meaning out of something already hollow, playing at fatherhood inside a structure built from guilt and habit, trying to resurrect a dead marriage out of obligation and old memories while the woman who once loved him with her whole life slowly, quietly disappeared right in front of him.

And she warned him. Fucking hell, she warned him.

You already chose them. At the time he thought she was being unfair. Now he realizes she was simply right.

Frank leans down toward Penny next, smiling softly when the baby grabs his finger immediately.

“There’s my girl,” he whispers.

My girl.

The ease of it nearly crushes Jack under its weight, because this is what real fatherhood looks like when it isn’t being fought for or earned through pain, no desperation, no grief, no need to force history into meaning, just love given freely and returned without hesitation.

And standing there under the harsh fluorescent lights of PTMC, watching another man hold the family that should have been his, Jack finally understands the full, devastating scope of what he lost. Not just her. Not just the future he once imagined. But everything that could have been real if he had known how to choose it in time.

The children he never had. The home he never built. The version of himself that might have learned to trust love instead of fear instead of bracing for its loss before it even arrived.

He had all of it once, close enough to touch, close enough to choose, and he let it slip through his hands anyway, trading something real and living for something hollow that could never hold its shape.

Authors note

LOLOL AND THATS A WRAP BABIES. I luckily always write way more than needed so I could make a p3 easily. It was originally supposed to be Robby but I felt like it wasn't gonna work cos they're besties and I wanted it to be a shock to him that our girls happy and thriving without his weak ass. I did make this in a rush so please forgive me if I made some errors. I just wanted to get it done lmaoo. Also in this frank is sober!

[redbloodedgurl]

Fuck yeah!!! Thank you so much for this. I always read the same fics of reader forgiving everything "for love". And even when it hurt to see baby Jack suffering, he had it coming. So I'm happy happy with the ending ☺️

Thank you for sharing 💖

[annsfics]

♡ we're here now ♡

♡ pairing: jack abbot x fem!reader x michael robinavitch

♡ synopsis: broken & hopeless, you let go of the prospect of living. but like so many others who made a heartbreaking decision in a moment of absolute darkness, your mind changes. when jack tries to save you...will he succeed?

♡ content: angst, hurt/comfort, depression, suicidal ideation, suicide attempt, accidental injury with a scalpel

♡ a/n: based off this request, ty! | i also listened to the song 222 by Vyva Melinkolya ft. Ethel Cain on repeat while writing this & i think it's kinda fitting & makes the work impossibly sadder lol

The at times calamitous ambience of the ED served strictly to unmoor and unsettle you during your first few weeks between its off-white walls. The patients flowed in like a raging river—never-ending, and never a trickle. Instead, a gush. All at once until you were drowning beneath it. When you looked around, however, you took comfort in your fellow fish; you weren't alone, not as long as they swam against the current alongside you.

It'd felt like another world upon a strange planet, in truth. One with much beeping, serving as signals both good and bad as people with do-good hearts raced to save patients from the malicious claws that meant to drag them away from this plane of existence. And there was the awful bright overhead lighting which casted the unthinkable in an eerie glow. Necessary for visibility, but unpleasing to the eye. Some places stock their troffers with bulbs meant to mimic the sun instead, you hear.

That had sounded like a nice idea to you, but something unlikely for PTMC to ever implement. They don't seem to much care for the happiness of their employees.

The thrill of the catch—having an epiphany during an odd case, and grabbing hold of a diagnosis others were so far from discovering, made you feel invincible, and all the trials and tribulations thus well worth it in the end, however. You were saving lives. How many others can say the same about their occupation? Most otherwise work in trade or retail or from cushy corner offices. Which isn't to say that they're not all vital bees in the buzzing hive which is the world, but they're no Michael Robinavitch or Dana Evans or Jack Abbot.

Local rockstars to you they are. Or...were.

That began before long, too: burnout. Your days turning into a monotonous, psychologically draining cycle. No more do you walk out the Pitt's doors and it feels like you're coming back through them again, greeted not by smiles and welcoming sentiments, but by screaming, ungrateful patients who just keep dying.

Covid leveled your world and ripped the rose-colored glasses from your eyes that you once wore so happily. It ingrained such trauma within you that you didn't know where to put it.

There was no time for therapy.

Not that you probably would've gone had there been—making such an appointment was like accepting defeat; admitting that something had gone wrong with you.

That your brain was sick.

You power through the nightmares; the fleeting reminders of things you'd rather forget when a machine beeps a certain way, or an item of PPE flashes in your peripheral as a co-worker pulls it on. It'll move through you eventually, you tell yourself; work its way out of your system just like a virus or a nasty cold.

It won't last forever.

Or...you'd thought as much, anyway.

Lately, for the last few months, things have gotten exceptionally hard. You're both sleeping and not. When you get home, it's all you really want to do. As of late, you forgo dinner in favor of it. The scale in your bathroom reflects this change.

Runway models should really invest in giving healthcare a go for awhile instead of diet pills, you think. It'd work faster.

When you do rest, however, it's fitfully. You toss and turn, toss and turn. No more does your head hit the pillow and it seems like your alarm is screaming at you to get out of bed to get back to it.

You're withdrawn at work. Talking expends energy. Effort, even. Not that you want to conserve it. You just don't much like people anymore.

They've changed. At once they were so friendly. Human beings you liked talking to. Now, you'd rather drink bleach than carry on any sort of conversation at length. The same kind of goes for patients. You've thus been faltering in your bedside manner, and little handout review sheets reflect it. Something new enacted by those at the top of the hospital.

There's no thanks for the good you do, only chastisement for the bad. Bad, bad, bad. That's what you are.

You think maybe others can see it: this grotesque thing that's broken inside of you. You can't fix it. Not when you're not wholly sure what it is. Just...a part that can't be reached, you suppose. It's okay, though, if people don't want you around. You've never been terribly good with them, you think. Always saying the wrong thing, or making the moment needlessly awkward by inserting yourself where you clearly were never wanted.

It's better now—you pulling away. Retreating. Retracting.

They're happier, it seems, with you removed from their everyday.

The thoughts begin as mere daydreams in time, since you find yourself with little else to do in the quieter moments: pills, razors, rope, a speedometer climbing well past ninety. You toy with them like a Rubik's Cube—turning them this way and that, figuring which best suits you.

It becomes sort of exhilarating, really—knowing that there's such an incredibly easy way out of it all. And that it's always there, awaiting you. Like a friend. Something you can both lean and rely on.

You like that fact.

That peaceful feeling becomes...very hard to escape once it's implanted itself within your mind like a hard to pull root from a noxious weed. As in, impossible.

It haunts your steps in the hall, sits with you in the staff lounge, visits with you at home... It even comes with you to the toilet, it's so prevalent.

You could always take a bottle of pills from work. Ones that would just let you drift off to sleep. Peaceful and painless. No better option, in your opinion.

You tuck the thought away for possible later use.

You throw yourself fully into your work and turn on blinders to anything outside of it. You let yourself become a machine—merely doing as you are bid without quarrel. It seems to please people when you go along with them; are at their beck and call and always of agreement with their opinions and assumptions. It's strange how different social hierarchy becomes when you've set aside any personality of your own.

But you're not perfect. Sometimes your mind becomes fuzzy. You think maybe it's atrophying. And that equates to the occasional mistake.

Abbot dislikes when you give a patient double the dosage of a medication of what he instructed you to. It made them a little sick—some vomiting and a seizure—but they survived. Meanwhile, he'd pulled you aside and you stared while occasionally blinking as he told you why what you did was so dangerous.

Bad, bad, bad.

At one time, he'd liked you. Gave you extra attention and often let his hands rest on your shoulders or lower back. One time he caressed your cheek, which had made it warm pleasantly in response. Now that you're no longer his shining star, though—having burnt out so long ago—you think he'd rather you weren't around.

You should do something about that fact.

"We cannot afford mistakes like that, Y/N. Do you have any idea what that opens us up to?" He questions. Pressing one finger to the other, he supplies you an answer so you don't have to come up with one. You're glad for that.

You don't think you could if you tried.

"Lawsuits, a revocation of your medical license, an inquiry by the Medical Board..." He trails off after counting off so many digits.

You nod. "I understand, Doctor Abbot," the girl devoid of light and life says. "It won't happen again. I promise."

He gives a smile and a nod, pats you on the shoulder—a gesture which you flinch away from since you really dislike being touched lately for some reason—and tells you that that's exactly what he wants to hear before walking away from you.

You should just kill yourself.

It's what you think anytime you screw up now. Drop and break a glass at home? Suicide. Get berated by a superior at work? Suicide. Take too long to go after a light has turned green and a driver behind you honks their horn? Suicide.

Such a burden you've become. Maybe you've always been? You're not sure. You hope not, but if so, you wouldn't be surprised.

You start making preparations before your big, metaphorical trip.

Typing away on a computer, you drown out the hubbub of your surroundings—choosing to instead focus solely on the digital chart before you. When your eyes begin to grow a bit blurry, however, you glance up and idly watch as individuals in blue and black and grey scrubs come and go.

You pick Doctor Robby to observe for a bit.

You'd adored him at one time. For awhile, actually. You liked how tall he was, and his neatly trimmed beard. His Carhart pants and how he commanded authority while still being gentle in instruction. The timbre of his voice reverberating through your ear canal when he stood close as you tended patients sent chills up your spine. It was like finely ground coffee: dark, but nevertheless smooth and tempting.

When he started calling you by various pet names around the Pitt, you'd stupidly humored yourself by believing that perhaps he felt similarly—had a hidden crush, same as you. You'd become almost certain of it one night when he gave you a ride home because your car wouldn't turn over due to a corroded battery.

Your heart had rhythmically thumped away between your breasts as you watched his hands turn the steering wheel—half hoping he'd take you home with him like a stray.

He never did.

Now, he doesn't so much as give you a second glance.

Maybe it makes you a narcissist to have assumed there was a mutual attraction. Not everyone wants you. In fact, no one does. If only you'd figured it out sooner, you would've saved yourself so much trouble in chasing after those who only wanted to get far away from you.

You lower your head then turn to the left where Santos sits with a recorder, dictating her own patient's chart. You wait until there's a pause, then speak—take your first steps in making your plan a reality.

"Hey, Trinity?" You ask quietly.

Swiveling around in your direction from atop an office chair, she toys with her recorder. "Yeah?"

"Do you like records?"

Her brows furrow. "Yeeeah. Why?"

You shrug indifferently while typing a few more words. "I'm getting rid of my collection. I thought that maybe you'd like to have them."

Her brows raise in surprise. "I mean, how much are you asking?"

You shake your head while hitting the space bar. "No charge."

She scooches closer—sure that this is too good to be true. "Wait. Are you actually serious? I mean, vinyl is like stupid expensive right now. You wanna just give yours away? To me?"

You nod. "I don't listen to them anymore." Picking up your phone, you wave it haphazardly before tossing it down with a thud. "If I want to listen to music now, I just stream it."

You look at her over your shoulder. "They're just collecting dust. You can have them all. Do whatever you like with them. Keep them, sell them, gift them." You shrug. "Makes no difference to me."

She beams at the prospect of furthering her collection, and for entirely free, at that. "Yeah, hundred percent I want them."

You save the chart you've just completed. "They're in my trunk. I'll get them to you once our shift is through."

For the next two weeks, you continue on with offloading your life onto others. You give Samira your clothes in multiple garbage bags. Mel your books, McKay some decorative figures you kept on your bookshelves for her son, Javadi your jewelry and accessories, and the nurse's station your stationary in all its organized glory.

When Dana tries showing concern—asking as to why you're doing this, sarcastically asking if you're moving—you shrug it off and tell her it's just a bit of spring cleaning.

She frowns, knowing that it's the tail-end of summer.

Once your apartment is nearly devoid of any sign that you once lived in it, you cry from joy.

You're so close now. Just a few more loose ends, and you'll be ready to go.

Abbot is the first to go out of his way to speak to you. He deems it good—great, even—that you're in a better mood today. He's heard...troubling news. Spring cleaning, you'd called it to Dana. But sometimes people just choose to declutter their lives, right? Especially in this line of work, it's way too easy to let your living space become an absolute wreck because you can't be bothered to expend the energy to clean it up on a regular basis.

Makes it easier the less you've got to deal with. And when you practically live in scrubs... Well, who needs dress clothes, right?

Bumping his shoulder against yours, and sending your fingers flying across the keyboard you stand at, you begin backspacing to fix your typos.

He doesn't like those.

"You seem better today," he remarks. "That's good. Got some big plans after work or somethin'?" He asks curiously.

You smile with warmth. If you were the sun—which, here in the Pitt, at one time you were—he could stand within the light your rays provide for forever. "I do," you say quietly, with cheer.

He raises a brow and his lips tug into a smirk. "Oh yeah? What's that?"

You shrug. "It's a surprise."

He leans in close. "Not for me, is it?" He whispers.

You turn to him, and he nearly stumbles back. The tone of your voice and your general demeanor... They don't match the vacant look in your eyes whatsoever. They don't... They don't even look like they're yours.

"You're a good doctor, Jack," you say while gently resting a hand against his upper arm. "I don't think I've ever told you how grateful I am that I was given a chance to learn from you. PTMC is really lucky to have you here."

His brows furrow and the smile slips from his face. "Sweetheart, you're starting to freak me out here."

Couldn't even do that right, you think. Just further confirmation that you're indeed making the right choice. "I'm sorry," you say while stepping away. "It won't happen again. Have a nice evening, Dr. Abbot."

You give Mel an unexpected hug before she's due to head home for the day. She stumbles back, hesitates for a moment, then returns it with a feeble embrace. "Becca is really fortunate to have such a caring sister. It makes me happy you two have one another," you tell her with a squeeze.

She steps back while flushing and nervously adjusting her glasses. "Y-Yeah. Me too."

You part from her with a nod, and let her go on her way.

Later on, you catch Mohan at her locker and lean against your own. Yours, which can been completely cleaned out, minus your stethoscope. They'll open it eventually. You left a note to please give the item to someone who needs it. Or just...keep it in the inventory as an extra incase another's becomes faulty.

"I know Robby has been kind of hard on you lately," you say quietly.

She doesn't speak.

"But you have so much talent with patients. You take their feelings into consideration. A lot of providers let this job get the better of them and their care suffers for it." You gently grip her wrist. "Don't let him turn you into someone you're not."

Just as she turns to say something, you've gone.

Dennis has just slung his backpack over his shoulder when you jog to catch up to him by the ambulance bay's doors. "Hey," you say, settling a hand atop his shoulder.

He turns with a surprised look on his face.

"I wanted you to know that I think what you're doing for Amy and her baby is really...sweet. Commendable." You drop your hand and smile. "Are you happy?"

He grins and glances down to his shoes while nodding. "Yeah. I-I am. I think she is, too."

You turn your head to the right and watch as a truck pulls up outside. "Don't let her go, Dennis." You look back to him. "Family is important. Make sure you don't let this place become the only one you have."

He raises a brow and makes to step forward—to question what's going on—until you take a few steps back. "I gotta go, but you two drive safe. Okay?"

"I'll see ya tomorrow, kid," Dana calls from behind you.

Slowly turning round to face her, you look at Emma who's seated just to her side. "You've got a good teacher here," you say while nodding to the older blonde. "So you listen to her and soak up everything you can. Having Dana as your guide here in the Pitt is invaluable."

Emma nods with a toothy smile. "I will."

Your eyes flit back to Dana. "See you around," you whisper.

By the end of your shift, things feel different. For the first time in maybe years, you feel content. At peace. Could it mean that things are...worth a second try? You'd not even considered that such a thought would cross your mind.

But there it sits, like a gift waiting to be unwrapped.

Exiting through the sliding doors of the ambulance bay, you step out from beneath the overhead coverage that extends outward and stare up at the stars. You'd meant to be dancing amongst them tonight, but...plans can always change.

You look to the right, and find Robby strapping a bag to the rear luggage wrack of his motorcycle. Maybe... Maybe he can help? He'll know what to do, because you know this moment won't last. You have to reach out and ask for him to hold your hand through this while you've still got the mental fortitude at your disposal to do so.

Crossing your arms, you walk over to him. "Hey, Robby?"

Tightening a bungee cord into place, he raises a brow. "Hm?"

"Could I talk to you about something? It's—"

He sighs with irritation and runs a tired hand down his face. "I was really hoping to get going. Guess I didn't move fast enough." He turns to you with crossed arms as well, matching your stance. "Can this not wait until morning?"

Your eyes flit between his.

So much happens in that moment.

Your resolve shatters into irreparable shards which slice through any hope you'd had but a moment ago, and a confirmation is granted to you. Confirmation that you chose right all along.

What's meant to be will be.

And with the small orange bottle in your pocket, you'll make it so.

It's okay now.

You force a reassuring smile and shake your head. "Sure. It wasn't important. It doesn't matter." You take a step back. "I'm sorry for bothering you. Have a nice night. And—and drive safe, ok?"

He barely pays you any mind as he mounts his motorcycle and drives away.

Waiting for your Uber to arrive, you continue studying the stars. They just...look like they'd take such good care of you, y'know? Never would they let you fall or falter. They act as one.

But, so, too, are they already dead.

You suppose that's rather fitting.

"You need a ride?"

Glancing to your left, you find Frank watching you with a curious look on his face.

You shake your head. "No, thank you, I have an Uber coming."

He nods. "Car in the shop?"

You shrug and look away. You donated it to a local charity yesterday, actually. You'd been rather surprised to find out such things existed. They repurpose them for homeless youth and single mothers and the like. It'll go to someone in need.

That makes you happy.

Your phone dings that your driver is 5 minutes away.

Standing, you pad over to Frank. "I'm really proud of you for going to rehab, Langdon."

He tucks his phone away into his pocket. "Yeah, well, Robby didn't exactly give me another choice."

You chew your lip. "It was the right thing. For you...and your children." Meeting his eyes, you crook your head to the side. "They need their dad. Your sobriety is a big deal. You should be proud of it, too."

His brows furrow.

"This hospital needs you here. I'm glad you came back."

Tires crunch against asphalt, and a white SUV pulls up.

When you start toward it, Frank takes a small step forward. "Are—are you okay?"

After popping open the back passenger door, you look at him over your shoulder. "I am. I know what I have to do now."

He thinks to reach out for you. "I'll see you tomorrow, alright?"

You swing a leg inside. "Goodbye, Frank."

With that, you shut the door behind you.

An empty plastic bottle crinkles quietly between your shaking hands.

On the floor, a pill bottle lies on its side. It's contents currently dissolving in your stomach acid.

Looking around the nearly empty space you occupy, you tell yourself that you can't go back. There's nothing left. Even out in the hall sits yet another box of odds and ends you didn't know what else to do with. So you merely drew on the front of it 'FREE' with a smiley face and sat it next to your apartment door.

Someone will rifle through it and take what they like; give the things inside a second home.

Leaning back against the headboard behind you, you swallow thickly as hot tears practically singe your cheeks. The truth you don't want to admit now is that you're scared. You don't want to die like this: alone, and in what has now become a strange place.

What if no one comes in the next few days? You don't want them to find your body bloated and rotting; infested with flies and maggots that crawl inside your mouth and ears.

Fighting against how your head swims when you turn it, you reach for your phone. You grip it as hard as you can and jerk your unsteady limb back to you. Plopping the device onto the mattress you're seated upon, it takes four tries before you manage to punch in the correct pin code.

You dial 3 numbers, then wait.

Ring.

Ring.

Ring.

"911, what is your emergency?"

"Pleeease," you slur. "I changed my mind."

"—Female. Unconscious. Pulse is bradycardic and thready," the EMT informs Abbot and his team as he rounds the back of the van. "She told 911 about a half hour ago that she swallowed a bottle of Prozac."

Popping open the door, he turns back to Abbot and shoves the empty bottle into his hands. "She must've stole them, seeing as a man's name is on the bottle. We found it on the floor of her apartment. I figured you all would want it when you try to treat her."

Helping his partner get the gurney out of the van, the bottom wheels fall and clatter to the ground before locking into place.

"Oh my God," McKay exclaims before clamping both her hands over her mouth.

Having come back around to morning time, the rest of the day shift will soon be arriving.

Meanwhile, Abbot knows he can't leave now.

He'll work a 24 hour fucking shift if he has to.

When the other EMT exits the rig, he looks between the crowd of unmoving bodies. "You all know her or something?"

"She fucking works here," Toomarian replies before stumbling back.

Jack shakes his head, then begins firing on all cylinders as his body jumps into motion. "McKay, Shen, you two are with me. Henderson, get your ass inside and tell Handzo that I need a room cleared. We're going to intubate and then perform a gastric lavage."

He glances around. "I said now! Move your asses!" He shouts.

Standing outside, Robby watches as your body lifts off the hospital bed you've been transferred to. With numb, shaking fingers tangled painfully in his hair, he yanks tightly against the strands. Jack glances to the monitor, shakes his head, then commands McKay to try again.

"Please," he cries through clenched teeth. "Fuck," he curses. "It's all my fucking fault."

When he came in for his shift, your room was the first one he bothered peeking into, and it stopped him cold in his tracks before he barked at Whitaker to help him suit up so he could help.

A gesture which didn't last long when he backed into a tray of sterile instruments once inside, and thus sent them scattering across the floor. Panicking, he tried picking them up as a series of apologies spilled from his lips. Aimed toward you, Jack, or the team which was trying to save you, he's unsure. In the end, he sliced his hand open with a ten blade. As blood oozed from the wound, Jack shouted for him to get out. To have someone stitch him up while he otherwise kept his focus strictly on you.

"No, I-I have to s-stay. I can do it. We have to fucking save her, Jack."

Jack had leveled him with a glare. "I am going to do every goddamn thing I can to ensure that she doesn't slip away from us, but you have got to leave this room. You're breaking my concentration. It's already hard enough!"

Forcing her way inside, Dana shoved against his chest to guide him out of the room. Stumbling backward, Robby pointed at Jack. "You fucking bring her back. You bring her back to us or I'll never forgive you!"

Now, here he stands in the middle of a fast-moving ED with over a dozen stitches in a hand that's wrapped in gauze, praying to a God who stopped listening long ago to take him instead if it meant sparing you.

It's all his fault.

You had tried to talk to him. Had given living one last try. And he couldn't be bothered to spare five minutes.

The lump in his throat becomes too much to breathe or swallow over.

Robby starts choking on his own saliva.

His heart squeezes painfully in his chest and his knees buckle out from under him.

Falling to the floor, Dana runs to his side. "Hey, Rob, Robby, look at me. What's goin' on, big guy?"

He clutches at his chest. "MI," he pants.

"I need a gurney over here!"

A panic attack.

He'd hoped for worse, because then it would mean God had actually obliged his only request.

Sitting in a hospital bed with his head held hopelessly between his hands, he refuses to face the room that lies across the way. Peds.

So much horror its walls have bore witness to.

But also love and care.

Like the day of PittFest. Another moment which saw Robby at his lowest; collapsed in on himself like a dying star. You were the one who pulled him out of the darkness, though.

Caressing his face between careful hands, you swiped tears from his cheeks while telling him that you understood—had been where he sat so many times (why didn't he see it then?)—but still nevertheless needed him that day. That you both had essential work to do which you wanted him at your side for, and after is when he could break. In your arms, if that's what he required.

Did he kiss you then? Or was that an imagined dream he drew up in his muddled head?

Shoving off the bed he occupies with a huff, Robby does exactly that: gets to work. It's what you would want. And the only way he won't fall apart again. Because if he continues sitting there thinking up worst case scenarios, he'll never make it out of here alive.

The whole department has spent the day on-edge. Jack has assured them that the worst has passed, but until... Unless you woke up, you weren't totally out of the woods.

Practically everyone sticks around until well after their shifts are through—waiting with bated breath—to see if you'll open your eyes.

For what it's worth, piles of your things begin arriving in droves when people realize you hadn't just been cleaning out your apartment like you said.

You'd been preparing never to come back.

For the absolute worst of reasons.

They each take turns visiting with you. Apologizing. Or just telling stories.

Besides Robby and Abbot, Frank takes it the hardest. He was the last person you spoke to. He tells Jack over and over and over again that he should've stood in front of the fucking car if it meant making you stay. That he knew—he knew—in his gut what you had planned.

Mel has bumped into patients and coworkers alike so many times while passing by your room that 'sorry' has become her word of the day.

Dana stays quiet. She merely watches from beneath the board, awaiting the opening of your pretty eyes again.

Javadi quietly asks Jack when—not if—you wake up, he'll have you put on an involuntary psyche hold. He tells her that psyche will be called for a consult, but what happens from there will be out of his hands. All he knows is that he has to make sure this never happens again.

When his chin begins to wobble as he smooths hair from your brow is when she takes her leave.

When his shift nears 20 hours, Jack finally takes a seat at your bedside. Holding your limp hand between each of his, he presses it to his lips. "You have people waiting for you," he murmurs. "I am waiting for you. Robby is. Sweetheart," he cups your cheek and your head lulls to the side. "I love you."

He begins to cry. "Why the fuck I didn't say it sooner I—" He shakes his head. "I thought it'd be unprofessional. You were my subordinate." He lowers his head. "Goddamn coward." Lifting his head again, he kisses your fingertips. "I'm saying it now. I mean, how could I not fall for you?"

A knock sounds from the door.

Robby.

Pushing open the glass entrance, he steps inside. "Still nothing?" He asks quietly.

Jack shakes his head. "Not yet. But she'll wake up soon. She has to."

Seating himself on the side of your bed, Robby cups your cool cheek in his palm. "You came to me. You needed me and I wasn't there." He runs the pad of his thumb along the curve of your jaw. "But I am now. I will spend as much time as I have to fixing this; making it up to you."

Leaning down, he hesitates, then presses a soft kiss to your lips.

But that only works in the stories...

"Rest of my life if I have to."

Jack falls asleep slumped over in his chair—his head resting beside you and his fingers firmly intertwined between your own. Robby took up position at your side in bed. Holding you close to him with his hoody draped over your chest, he tucked you just beneath his chin before drifting off.

As long as your heart still beats, they've each something to hold onto.

Your awakening is sluggish; gradual. Pulling yourself from the primordial sludge which deigned to hold you meant fighting a battle you weren't sure you could win.

But when you stir quietly, and feel warm bodies on either side of you, accompanied by the sound of quiet snoring, you know you've come out the other side victorious.

"Welcome back," drawls a thickly accented, feminine voice from across the way. "Had a lot of people worried, kid."

The rumbling chest you're pressed against quiets, then shifts. Pressing your head back against the soft pillow beneath it, you stare up at Robby's tear-stricken face. He doesn't speak. He merely smiles before cupping your cheek in his palm and pressing his lips to yours.

You're far too exhausted to think on it.

You'd thought he didn't care. What else have you been wrong about as of late?

Your right hand suddenly released, Jack stands, then seats himself on your bedside. "We're going to take care of you. Alright? I promise."

Leaning down, he kisses you next.

Dana turns back to the nurse's station.

"You'll never be alone again," Robby whispers. "We weren't there for you then, but we're here now."

[redbloodedgurl]

I’m speechless but I’ll try to comment on this really quickly.

First of all thank you for writing this masterpiece and sharing it with us 💕

I think almost all of us have think about this at one or several points of our lives. I sure have. The world is crazy enough and sometimes unfair enough to think maybe will be better elsewhere.

I just wanna say that I see you and I’m happy you and me haven’t take that route. It’s hard I know. It sucks but we are worth it.

[alexandritte80]

Stomach Bug - Jack Abbot x fem!reader

Summary: Amidst an epidemic of stomach bugs, Yn believes she's being affected… She just didn't expect the bug to bring to light some secrets… And surprises.

Warnings: vomiting, stomach bug, cryptic pregnancy, YN has relationship problems, Jack is adorable, childbirth, surprise babies, bets… I think that's all.

The night shift had its own rhythms—a different breathing, a heart beating at a different frequency. It was a parallel universe, invisible to the "normal" people who slept while others bled, cried, or died.

Quieter than the day shift, yes. But the silence there weighed differently.

The fluorescent lights hummed in a deep, constant tone, like bees trapped inside the ceiling. The smell of antiseptic mixed with reheated coffee—so old that no one remembered who had made the first coffee of the night. The mugs piled up on the counter, silent witnesses to entire shifts.

It was in this world of shadows and distant sirens that Yn felt at home.

She arrived in Pittsburgh with a simple goal: three months. Just three months. To cover Robby's sabbatical, a favor between friends, and return to her usual night shift at the general hospital. Nothing more.

But Pittsburgh had other ideas.

The city embraced her with the stubbornness of someone who knows what they want. The hospital swallowed her up in the first few days, not as a visitor, but as someone who had always been there. She learned the technicians' names, the shortcuts in the hallways, the specific way the coffee machine on the third floor dispensed its black liquid.

"You seem to be fitting in," Robby said one night, while they were talking on the phone.

"I'm easy, Robby… You know that," he laughed, loud and clear.

But when Robby returned from his sabbatical, and she already had her bags open on the bed, the phone rang.

HR. The hospital wanted her. Head attending. Night shift. Permanent.

Yn looked at her bags. She looked at the window overlooking the hospital parking lot. She thought of Pittsburgh. She thought of home.

She unpacked her bags.

Jack showed up on the first day of his new contract.

He was at the nursing station, hunched over a chart, the monitor light illuminating his face with harsh angles. Tired eyes. Coffee in hand. The posture of someone who has seen everything a hospital can offer.

"New attendant?" he asked, without looking up.

"Yn."

"Jack."

The handshake was quick, professional. Neither of them knew, at that moment, that they were sealing something much bigger than a working partnership.

The romance wasn't planned.

Those things rarely are, on a night shift. You don't choose when your heart decides to beat out of rhythm. It happens. Like a cardiac arrest in the middle of the night. Like a patient arriving without identification. Like death that never warns before knocking on the door.

In their case, it happened after they lost the boy on the motorcycle.

Eighteen years old. New helmet, bought the day before. His mother arrived before the ambulance, running after the stretcher, her flip-flops clattering on the plastic floor. "He always wears a helmet," she repeated. "He promised."

Nothing helped. Nothing ever helps when the aorta ruptures.

Yn found Jack on the hospital roof.

She didn't go after him, not consciously at least. Her feet simply led her there, as if they knew something her mind hadn't yet processed. The roof door was ajar. The night air had that damp smell of rain that never came.

Jack leaned against the windowsill, looking at the city. The weariness on his face wasn't physical; it was deeper. It was the weariness of someone who carries the dead on their back, piles them up in some internal storage, pretends they don't weigh anything.

Yn didn't say anything.

She just moved closer. She leaned against him. Their shoulders almost touching.

The entire city stretched out before them: yellow lights, dark buildings, the river flowing like an open vein. The sun was still a while away, but there was already a timid light on the horizon, a reminder that the world kept turning even when theirs had stopped.

"You don't need to be here," he said finally.

"I know."

"You don't need to pretend you're okay."

"I'm not pretending."

He turned his face to look at her. She held his gaze. There, on the hospital roof, with the city watching in silence, something broke between them, or perhaps something formed.

It wasn't love. Not yet. It was recognition. It was "you too?" said without words.

It was that morning that she slept in Jack's bed for the first time.

For weeks, it was just that.

Casual, they said. Stress relief. Bodies that met in the dark and separated before the light. The hospital was full of stories like that, nobody paid attention.

But the body lies badly. And the heart lies worse.

They started exchanging glances in the middle of their shifts. A quick touch on the back as they passed each other in the hallway. A mug of coffee left on each other's desk with an invisible note that only they understood.

"No labels," Yn said one night, sitting on his bed, her clothes still wrinkled from her shift.

"Agreed," he replied, lying on his back, his eyes on the ceiling.

"Nobody can know."

"Nobody."

The problem is they were terrible at keeping secrets.

"Yn? Jack needs a hand in bed south-two."

Lena didn't take her eyes off the computer. Her voice was monotonous, professional, as if she were reporting the weather or reading a bulletin. But there was a glint in her eyes, small, restrained, dangerous.

Yn dropped the paperwork and went.

As soon as she passed through the curtains of bed south-two, Jack's arms enveloped her. He pulled her against his chest, his hand moving up to the nape of her neck, and stole a deep, lingering kiss, the kind that tasted like a challenge.

'Did you really need help?" she whispered against his mouth.

"I did."

"Liar."

That's how the bet appeared, and it spread through the hospital corridors like wildfire.

It started small, just the ER. Then the reception got involved. Then orthopedic surgery. Then general surgery. Then pediatrics, obstetrics, the lab, radiology. Even the parking lot security guard wanted to participate.

"How long can Jack and Yn keep the secret?"

The jackpot was nearing three digits. Carol, from the third floor, led with the most optimistic bet: "Three months, and she'll ask for a transfer." Lupe, from reception, believed in the power of love: "Two years and a marriage proposal." Some radicals (mainly those who worked the night shift and saw the two exchanging glances every day) bet on "they'll never admit it, but they'll die together."

The problem, for the bettors, was that time passed. And passed. And passed.

One month. Six months. One year.

Two years.

And Jack and Yn continued there, exchanging hidden kisses, thinking no one saw, firmly convinced that they were the greatest masters of disguise the hospital had ever produced.

They were two lovestruck idiots.

And the whole hospital loved them for it.

They had just finished their shift.

The sun was already high, that aggressive nine o'clock sun that should be invigorating but only seemed like an accusation. The hospital parking lot was almost empty, only the cars of the stubborn ones who stayed past closing time remained.

Yn felt every bone in her body. Her legs were heavy, her back ached, that slight tremor in her hands from running for twelve hours. Jack walked beside her, his step dragging, his hair disheveled from running his fingers through it.

"Shower or breakfast?" he asked, his voice hoarse.

"Neither." She reached into her pants pocket, fumbling for her car keys. "I need to go home." He stopped walking.

"Your house?"

"My house."

"Why?" The surprise in his voice was genuine, almost offended.

"Because it's been over a week since I've been there, Jack." She finally found the key, raising it triumphantly. "And I need clothes that aren't the size of a six-foot-three man."

"If you'd agree to live with me…" He crossed his arms.

"Living together?" she stopped, her arms crossed now, her gaze fixed on him. "Do you really think that's a good idea?"

"Why wouldn't it be?"

The question hung between them, heavier than he probably intended. Yn felt her heart race, not from tiredness, but from something older. Fear. Not of Jack. Of what he represented.

"We don't do that…" she said, more quietly.

"Do what?"

"Change." He took a step forward. His shadow covered hers on the hot asphalt.

"We've already changed, Yn. We just pretend we haven't."

For a second, she almost gave in. Almost said "then yes." Almost dropped her bag and threw herself into his arms right there, in the middle of the parking lot, with the hospital cameras watching and God knows how many colleagues at the windows.

But she was who she was. And she had two years of secrets behind her.

Instead, she leaned in just close enough to leave a quick, almost chaste kiss on his lips.

"See you later, Abbot."

She got into the car before he could answer. In the rearview mirror, she saw Jack still standing in the same spot, his hands in his pockets, shaking his head with a small smile.

Yn had exactly twenty minutes at home.

Enough time to open the refrigerator, discover that the milk had expired a week ago, and take a sip of water straight from the tap. Enough time to take off her bra and groan with relief. Enough time to sit on the sofa, close her eyes and almost, almost, fall asleep.

The phone rang.

"Yn, It's me." Dana. The voice was different, higher-pitched, faster. "I need you."

"I just left," she replied almost whimperingly.

"Langdon caught the stomach bug. He just called. The shift is a mess, the red zone has three patients waiting for forty minutes, Robby is in trauma 2 with a cardiac arrest, and I'm…" she took a deep breath, "…I'm begging you, Yn. Pleading."

Yn closed her eyes.

She knew that tone. It was the tone of someone holding on to the limit. She had used it many times before.

"How much time do you need?"

"Until Shen arrives. Four hours. Maybe six."

Six hours. After twelve. Yn calculated the numbers in her head, added up the risks, weighed the exhaustion against the guilt. Guilt won. It always won.

"Twenty minutes to take a shower."

"You're an angel."

"An exhausted angel."

"An exhausted angel who's going to get a coffee from the best coffee shop... In the hosptal."

"I'm going."

The shower was quick, five minutes of almost cold water, just to wash away the sweat from her shift and the smell of death that still clung to her skin. She put on clean scrubs and grabbed her phone to text Jack.

"coming back. Langdon caught the virus."

The reply came in seconds:

"Good luck." "♥️"

She almost smiled. Almost.

The hospital was hell.

It wasn't a metaphor. Yn was sure that hell, if it existed, would be like this: stretchers crowding narrow corridors, patients writhing in plastic chairs, the sound of heart monitors mixing with groans and the high-pitched cry of a child somewhere no one could locate.

The air was thick not only with illness, but with despair. You could feel it in the metallic taste in her mouth, the dampness in her clothes, the way the nurses moved: too fast, as if they were running from something.

"Finally!"

Dana came to meet her. Her hair, which must have been neatly styled in the morning, was now tied in such a desperate bun that it seemed to be running away from her own head. The dark circles under her eyes were deep enough to plant potatoes.

"What do I have?" Yn asked, already heading towards the counter.

"Red zone: three patients have been waiting for forty minutes. Two with severe abdominal pain, one with Respiratory distress. Robby's in trauma 2 with a cardiac arrest since eight. Mel, Whitaker, and Santos have triage packed. Mohan and McKay are taking turns back here because one of them needs to vomit every twenty minutes."

"This bug is knocking everyone down."

"Everyone…" Dana confirmed. Her eyes gleamed for a second. - "I called Parker too. She hasn't answered yet." yn held her gaze.

"And Jack?"

"Jack too. " Dana smiled, that small, dangerous smile. "Why did you ask?"

"Because… It seems we're going to need help."

"Hmm."

"Dana".

"I didn't say anything."

Yn sighed and sprang into action.

The first two hours were a blur.

She attended to an elderly man with severe dehydration, his skin looked like parchment paper, his eyes sunken like wells. She started intravenous hydration, ordered tests, and still had time to hold his hand while he murmured the name of his wife, who had passed away ten years ago.

She rushed to a young woman with dyspnea. Her oxygen saturation was at 88% on room air, too low, too dangerous. She firmly placed the oxygen mask on the patient, ordered a blood gas analysis, and ignored the panicked look in her eyes.

"Everything will be alright," she lied. That's what she was told. That's what she needed to hear.

Meanwhile, she answered residents' questions, checked medications, wrote the necessary progress notes…

And in the midst of all this, the first sharp pain came.

It was low. In her abdomen. A small, almost delicate twinge, which she ignored with the same nonchalance with which she ignored hunger, thirst, and the urge to cry.

"It's hunger…" she told herself. She hadn't eaten since the previous night.

Three hours later, the twinge turned into cramps.

She was documenting a patient's progress when her hand involuntarily went to her stomach. A small, quick gesture, but Robby saw it.

He appeared beside her, taking off his glasses and rubbing his eyes with a weariness that transcended the physical.

"How many times have they thrown up on you today?" Yn asked, trying to divert her attention. "I bet I beat my record."

Robby laughed, a tired, slightly desperate laugh, the kind that escapes when you no longer have the strength to laugh for real.

"Three times," he replied. "And counting."

"Amateur."

He was about to answer, but she felt another pang, stronger now. Her face must have contorted, because Robby immediately changed his expression.

"Are you okay?"

"Yes," the answer came too quickly. "I think the virus is coming after me."

"yn…"

"Robby." She placed her hand on his arm, squeezing. "I'm fine. Go do your job. There's a patient screaming in corridor two."

He hesitated. The "big brother" mode (as she liked to call it) was about to kick in. But the scream in hallway two grew louder, more urgent, and he sighed.

"If it gets worse, let me know."

"I will."

He squeezed her shoulder and left.

She didn't.

The pain worsened.

Around noon, Yn could no longer stand without leaning on something: a table, a wall, the arm of an unsuspecting resident. She was at the nursing station, reviewing tests on her tablet, when the wave came.

It wasn't a stab. It wasn't a cramp.

It was a brick. A hot, giant brick being shoved through her insides by an invisible hand.

The tablet slipped from her fingers. It fell to the floor with a dry crack, the plastic shattering, the screen cracking into cobwebs. Dana looked up from the computer.

"Yn?"

"I…"

The word died in her throat. Yn doubled over, both hands pressing against her abdomen as if she could hold the pain with her fingers. Sweat beaded on her forehead. The world blurred, not black, but a wavy gray, like a television with no signal.

"Robby!" Dana shouted. The voice seemed to come from very far away.

"No need…" Yn tried to straighten up. She managed to get halfway between the fetal position and a normal person. "No need for Robby. I'll… I'll just sit for a minute."

"You're green, girl" Dana held her arm firmly, like a worried mother.

yn sat down.

The pain didn't let up. It got worse. It went from cramps to a continuous contraction, a tightness that rose from her lower abdomen to her diaphragm, as if someone had wrapped a steel cable around her insides and was pulling. Pulling. Pulling.

"Seriously…" she gasped, her face pale. "Don't worry. It must be my period… or the virus…" she forced a smile that came out more like a grimace. "If I know the universe well, it'll be both."

Dana smiled weakly. She accepted the answer. But she didn't let Yn get up for a few more minutes.

The following hours were a blur of pain.

Yn worked between the waves. A patient came, she attended to them. The chart arrived, she signed it. The pain came, she waited for it to pass. It passed. It returned stronger.

"Just a few more hours…" she repeated.

And at two, yn could no longer hide it.

She was leaving the isolation area when the pain hit her with such violence that her knees buckled. She leaned against the wall, her nails scratching the covering. She took a deep breath. Counted to ten. Then to twenty.

It didn't help.

She needed air. Air that didn't smell of vomit and antiseptic. Air that didn't carry the weight of twelve hours of misfortune.

With faltering steps, she went to the ambulance entrance doors. She pushed the door open with her shoulder. The outside air hit her face, humid, warm, but different. Free.

She leaned against the outside wall, her eyes closed, her forehead pressed against the cold concrete. The city was there, somewhere, living its normal life. People having lunch. Children playing. People who didn't know what it was like to see daylight through the windows of a hospital.

The next wave came without warning.

It was different from all the others. Stronger. Deeper. A giant hand squeezing her organs and twisting them.

Yn's throat released a sound that wasn't human—a groan that rose to a scream, a scream that split in two halfway through. Her legs gave way. The world tilted.

And then Jack's arms were around her.

"Honey? Hey. Hey, look at me."

He caught her before she fell, one arm behind her back, the other holding her face to force her to look at him. His eyes were wide, and Yn had never seen Jack scared. Tired, yes. Frustrated, yes. Never scared.

"What happened?"

"I don't know!" The words came out broken, wet. When had she started crying? "Jack… I'm scared."

"We'll take care of you." He was already moving, one arm sliding under her knees, the other behind her torso. "We'll take care of you now. I'll take care of you."

She rested her head on his shoulder. Her whole body trembled. Waves of pain came one after another now, without pause, without mercy.

"This…" she gasped. "This isn't a virus."

Jack quickened his pace.

He passed through the ambulance entrance doors with her in his arms.

The entire corridor stopped.

It wasn't an exaggeration. People simply… froze. A resident with an open chart. Even an outpatient, sitting in a wheelchair, turned his head to look.

Yn no longer cared about secrets.

She screamed.

It was a sound that tore through the silence of the hallway, a primal, raw scream that came from somewhere so deep she didn't even know existed. Her hands gripped Jack's neck with a force that must have hurt.

"Dana!" Jack shouted.

"Trauma two!" She was already running ahead of them, opening doors, pushing back curtains, preparing the stretcher. "Robby!" Dana shouted over her shoulder.

Jack placed Yn on the stretcher with a care that belied the urgency. The nurses were already surrounding her, attaching the oximeter to her finger, adjusting the heart monitor, preparing the IV access.

"Blood pressure 160 over 100. Pulse 135." Princess's voice was calm, professional. The mask of professionalism that everyone wore in situations like this.

"Can you tell me where it hurts?" Jack asked, bringing his face closer to hers. His hand found hers and squeezed.

"Stomach," she groaned. "The whole stomach. Since…" the pain interrupted her. Her body arched on the stretcher.

"She had a stomach ache before…" Dana informed. "Said she thought it was the virus."

"This morning she was fine…" Jack said, more to himself than to the others. His face was pale, paler than Yn's, almost.

Another wave. Stronger.

Yn screamed again, a wet, guttural sound that even made Santos pale. Her body forced itself upward, as if something inside her was pushing to get out. She strained. A lot.

Her eyes met Jack's.

"Something's happening," she whispered. "Jack, something very wrong is happening."

She let go of his hand. Slowly, with fingers trembling like leaves, she shoved her hands inside the scrubs pants.

What she touched was warm. Moist. Soft.

"No," she murmured. "No, no, no…"

Her fingers recognized the shape before her brain processed it. Small. Round. A head.

"What is it?" Jack asked. "Yn, what are you feeling?"

She looked up at him. There was no more panic in them. There was something worse.

"Jack," she said, her voice strangely calm. "There's a baby."

The whole room fell silent.

The monitors beeped. The air conditioner hummed. Somewhere in the distance, a phone rang.

But nobody moved.

"What?" Jack whispered.

"There's a baby coming out of me," Yn repeated, as if she herself were trying to believe it.

She looked at her own hands, still inside her pants, still touching that tiny head.

"I didn't know," she repeated. "How could I not know?"

No one answered.

"Robby," Jack said, without taking his eyes off Yn. "You're going to deliver the baby."

Jack's voice cut through the silence like a scalpel.

Robby blinked. Twice. Three times. The words entered through his ears, traveled the path to his brain.

The room exploded in motion.

Robby took command as if he had done it a thousand times (because he had). But never with Yn. Never with someone he considered family.

"Princess, prepare the neonatal emergency cart. Santos, oxygen for the mother. Dana, stay with me in the field." The orders came out quickly, precisely. "Jack…"

"I'm not leaving," he replied without even knowing if that's what Robby was going to say.

"I wasn't going to say that," Robby replied, putting on his gloves.

Jack was beside the stretcher, Yn's hand gripping his with a force that must have already left marks. Her face was red, wet with sweat and tears, her eyes glazed with pain.

Robby looked at the two of them. At their intertwined hands. At the way Jack leaned over her as if he could absorb the pain with his own body.

He sighed.

"I was going to tell you not to faint, Dad," he joked, sitting on the low stool and beginning his work.

The first contraction after the diagnosis came like a train.

Yn arched her back, her mouth open in a silent scream, her eyes wide. The monitor went off, heart rate soaring, blood pressure rising.

"Jack," she whispered when the wave passed. "Jack, I'm so sorry."

"Sorry for what?"

"For everything. For not knowing. For not realizing. For…" she paused, her lips trembling. "…for being afraid."

"We don't need to talk about that now."

"I want to live with you!"

Jack stopped.

The world stopped. Robby, who was positioned between her legs, looked up for a second. Dana pretended not to hear. Santos didn't pretend anything.

"What?" Jack asked, his voice faltering.

"I want to wake up with you every day." Yn gasped, her eyes filled with tears that weren't just from pain. "I want your clothes in my closet. I want your toothbrush next to mine. I want to argue about who left the toothpaste cap open. I want everything, Jack. I want everything. I just…" another contraction interrupted her. She screamed, a smaller sound now, more tired, but still heartbreaking.

"You don't need to talk about that now, darling." Jack said, taking a cloth that Dana offered him and wiping the sweat from her forehead. His hand trembled. "We'll deal with it later."

"No!" She grabbed his wrist, preventing him from pulling away, not from leaving. "If I don't say it now, I never will. You know me, Jack. I'll keep this inside until it turns to stone, and in five years you'll be packing your bags because I couldn't tell you I love you."

The silence that followed was deafening.

"I love you?" Jack repeated, his voice so low it was almost inaudible.

Yn closed her eyes. When she opened them, they were resolved.

"I love you. For a long time. From the ceiling, maybe. And that scares me, Jack. It scares me because I've never done this before. I've never let anyone stay. Never…" she sobbed, her body trembling. "I don't know how to be like this. I don't know how to be vulnerable. I don't know how to trust that someone will stay."

"I will stay."

"You don't know that," she cried.

"I know," he leaned his forehead against hers. "I know because I've stayed. I'm here." And I'm not leaving. I promise.

"And now?" she whispered, looking at the middle of her legs "Now there's a baby. A surprise baby… Doesn't that scare you?"

"It terrifies me." Jack laughed, a wet, trembling laugh. "But we're together. We'll do this together. Together, darling."

"Promise?"

"I promise."

"Did you know that cryptic pregnancy is much more common in women who are close to menopause?" Ogilvie said, observing the birth.

"FUCK YOU, OGILVIE!" she yelled in the middle of another contraction. Now her head was completely out of the mouth.

"Yn!" Jack interrupted, his face divided between despair and laughter. "Focus on breathing. Please."

She was about to answer, but the next contraction came differently this time. Lower. More pressing.

"Robby," she groaned. "Robby, I need to push."

Robby exchanged a look with Dana. His face changed, something settled there, something Yn knew well. It was the same look he used when a patient was worse than they seemed.

"What is it?" Jack asked, noticing the change before Yn did. "Robby, what's happening?"

Robby didn't answer immediately. His hands were between her legs, feeling around, assessing. The silence stretched on too long.

"Robby!" Jack insisted, his voice rising. "What's happening?!"

"My shoulder is stuck," Robby said finally. The calm in his voice was forced. "I need to turn."

"THEN TURN ALREADY!" Yn screamed. The scream was of pain, but also of fear. A new fear, different from anything she had ever felt. It wasn't fear for its own sake. It was fear for the tiny life she didn't even know existed until minutes ago.

"I need you to push on the next contraction," Robby instructed, his hands already positioned. "Hard. Harder than you think you can. Dana, prepare the neonatal aspirator. Princess, confirm if the pediatric team is already on their way."

"What if it doesn't work?" Jack asked.

Robby didn't answer.

"WHAT IF IT DOESN'T WORK, ROBBY?!" At that moment, Jack didn't remember that he knew what had to happen. At that moment, Jack wasn't Dr. Abbot. He was a father. A scared and desperate father.

There wasn't time to answer; the next contraction came, and Robby needed to help his best friends' child be born.

Yn pushed.

It wasn't a polite push, the kind you learn in childbirth class. It was a primal, animalistic push, coming from a place so deep she didn't even know existed. Her arms trembled, her face was purple, her teeth grinding.

"Again," Robby ordered. "Again, Y/N. More."

She pushed again. The scream that escaped wasn't human; it was the scream of someone being torn apart from the inside.

"You can do it," Jack whispered in her ear. His hand was bloody where she had gripped her. "You're the strongest person I know. You can do it."

"I CAN'T!"

"You can. You can." He kissed her head. "You can bring our baby into the world. You need to do this." She nodded, pushing even harder.

Another contraction.

Another push.

Another scream.

"It's coming out," Robby announced, his voice changing. "It's coming out, Yn. One more. Just one more."

"Jack…" she cried. "Jack, I'm sorry. I'm sorry for everything. For being afraid. For not knowing." "Because it took me so long to say it."

"There's nothing to apologize for."

"Yes, there is. I should have said it sooner. I should have…"

"Yn." Jack interrupted, his forehead against hers, his eyes as wet as hers. "I love you. Okay? I love you. I've loved you since that night on the roof, maybe even before, since the first day you walked into my shift and looked at me like you already knew me. I love you. And no matter what happens now, no matter if we never sleep again, no matter if this baby comes with both of our personalities, I'll be here. I'll stay. Just promise you'll stay too."

"I'll stay." she sobbed. "I swear I'll stay. I love you. I love you, Jack. I love you."

"PUSH, YN!" Robby yelled.

She pushed.

And the world split in two.

The crying came before the body.

A thin, angry cry, terribly alive. The most beautiful sound Yn had ever heard in her life.

"Is the baby okay?" Jack asked, even before seeing. "Is the baby okay, Robby? Say he's okay."

Robby didn't answer immediately. His hands worked quickly, wrapping the baby in a sterile drape, checking the airway, listening to the heart.

"Spontaneous breathing," he announced, and the whole room let out a collective sigh. "Heart rate one hundred and sixty. Muscle tone preserved. Adequate cry." "She's okay," he translated, smiling. "The baby is okay."

Yn collapsed onto the stretcher as if all the ropes holding her up had been cut. The cry then came not from pain, but from relief. From a fear so immense it couldn't fit in her chest and now leaked out through her eyes, her nose, her open mouth in a sob.

"She's okay," she repeated, as if she needed to believe it. She's okay.

Jack kissed her forehead. Her cheek. Her mouth. Every part he could reach.

"You were amazing." he murmured. " You are amazing. I love you."

"You already said that today."

"Get used to it."

Robby examined the baby with a meticulousness bordering on obsession.

"There was no prenatal care" he explained to no one in particular, while checking the newborn's reflexes. "We need to assess weight, length, signs of respiratory distress…"

"How many months is she?" Yn asked, her voice still trembling.

"Judging by the size, I'd say between thirty-six and thirty-eight weeks" Robby looked up at her. "Your daughter is a fighter, YN. She's been hiding in there for months and decided to show up today."

"She has her mother's personality… " Jack commented, a tired smile on his face. "She doesn't warn you when she's coming, she does everything her own way."

"And she's going to give you trouble" YN added.

"She already is."

Robby finished the exam. The baby had stopped crying and now looked at the world with clear, confused eyes, as if asking:

"Where did I end up?"

"She's healthy," Robby announced. "We need to monitor her for the next few hours, of course. But for now… everything's normal."

He approached Jack.

"Your daughter… Congratulations, Dad."

He looked down. At her tiny face. At her little hands clenched into fists. At her bald newborn head. At her lips already forming a grimace of discontent.

"Hi…" he whispered. "Hi, baby. I'm your dad. I know, I'm surprised too." Yn's crying, why was she crying again, when had it started? It caught Jack's attention.

"Do you want…?" he asked, not knowing if she would have the strength for it or not.

"Please," she replied.

He sat on the edge of the stretcher, his body pressed against hers, and transferred the baby with such care it seemed as if he were handling a bomb. Yn finally received her daughter in her arms, and the world stopped again.

"Hi," she said to the baby. "Hi, love. I'm sorry. I'm sorry for not knowing you were there. I'm sorry for not feeling you. I'm sorry for…"

The baby grumbled.

It wasn't a cry. It was a grumble, low, guttural, almost irritated. The sound of someone who had just been expelled from a warm and comfortable place and wasn't at all happy with the change.

Jack laughed. Yn laughed. Dana laughed. Even Robby, who was removing his gloves, let out a smile.

"She's already complaining," Jack said. "Definitely your daughter."

"Our daughter," Yn corrected. "Ours."

He looked at her. At her tired, sweaty, swollen, beautiful face. For the red eyes from crying so much. For the small, frightened, and amazed smile.

"Our daughter," he agreed.

"She's a beautiful stomach bug…" Yn joked, running her fingers over the baby's pink cheek.

Robby looked at Dana. Dana looked at Santos. Santos looked at Princess. Princess looked at the ceiling.

"I think," Robby said, pulling back the curtains around the stretcher, "they need a minute."

"Or five," Dana finished.

"Or ten," Santos added.

They left one by one, leaving Jack, Yn, and the baby in the center of that small, improvised universe.

Robby went straight to the break room; he needed a coffee after this.

After he left, the whole team was gathered in the security room, trying to figure out who had won the jackpot after all.

The list was still there.

Well, not the list. The original list had been replaced by a digital spreadsheet, which then became a shared spreadsheet, which then became an online form with categories and subcategories and a comments field that people used to write things like "they'll get married before committing" and "I bet she gets pregnant first."

Robby opened the spreadsheet on his phone. He scrolled to the end.

Payment pending: 947.00

He smiled.

"You won, didn't you?" she asked suspiciously.

"I bet they'd last more than two years and that we'd find out on a stressful day." Dana raised an eyebrow.

"You bet on that?"

"I know my friends."

[redbloodedgurl]

OMG!!! You have no idea how much do I love cryptic pregnancy fics 🥰🥰

They are sooooooo cute and a little crazy but again they work in the ED lol

The baby complaining about being born not 5min later? Hahaha I was like: I get it girl, I complain too

If in a future you find yourself revisiting them in their journey let me know 🥰

Thank you for sharing!! 💕 now I’m on my way to stalk your account 🤭

[metal-armed-muse]

SECOND CHANCES

congressman barnes x female med resident! reader

summary. one stolen night with congressman barnes leaves you with more than memories: a positive test and a man who's determined to prove he's worth a second chance.

word count. 19.5k warnings. age gap, accidental pregnancy, smut, MDNI, 18+, angst, bucky is an asshole for a second, pregnancy hormones, protected and unprotected pnv, pregnancy sex, oral (f receiving), no use of y/n. notes. reader is said to have a blocked lactation duct and one of the treatment options is manual suction. it’s a little embellished for plot.

READ ON AO3 (soon)

This is not your scene. The chandelier must have cost a fortune just to hang there and look pretty. You know this because you spent the better part of your first ten minutes staring up at it with your mouth slightly open, trying to calculate how many months of your salary it would take to even come close. You stopped at four years because it was getting depressing. Sarah had promised you open bar and good food. She had failed to mention that you’d feel like a fraud the entire time. “You look fine,” Sarah had said this evening, watching you smooth down the front of your dress in the mirror of her condo. You had gone back and forth for longer than you’d like to admit. The dress is nice. It’s the kind of nice where you’d wear it to a birthday dinner, maybe a date somewhere with cloth napkins. It is not, by any stretch, gala nice. The other women in this room are in floor-length gowns with jewellery that probably has names, and here you are in a midi dress off a sale rack. “You’re a guest of a congressman’s daughter,” She’d reminded you, fixing her own earring. “Nobody’s gonna care.” Nobody might care, but you sure do notice. There’s an ease to the way these people move around each other. There’s air kissing, the laughing at things that aren’t funny, the way they hold their champagne glasses by the stem like it’s second nature. You hold yours like you’re scared of dropping it, which you are, because you’re fairly certain the glasses alone are worth more than your monthly metro card. Still. Free champagne. That part, at least, Sarah had been right about. You’ve had two glasses and are working steadily on your third, which is making the whole scene considerably more bearable. The food is also ungodly good. You had swiped four of the little crab toast thingies off a passing tray and felt zero shame about it. You were coming off a forty-eight hour shift two days ago. You deserved the crab toasts. Sarah, for her part, has completely abandoned you. Her father is a congressman from Virginia and this is his world, so she knows everyone in a twenty foot radius of wherever she stands. It hadn’t taken long before she was absorbed into a circle of people you didn’t know.

She’d shot you an apologetic look over someone’s shoulder, and you’d waved her off.

You’re fine. You’re a grown adult. You can stand by the tall cocktail table near the windows and people-watch by yourself like a normal person.

The problem with people-watching, as it turns out, is that occasionally the people watch back.

He’s been drifting in your periphery for a few minutes now. You clocked him when he walked in, because he’s the kind of man you can’t not clock when he walks into a room.

Easy forties, maybe pushing further than that, with dark hair and the kind of jaw that belongs on something carved out of stone. He’s in a suit that fits him the way suits are supposed to fit, which is to say, perfectly. There’s a slight silver threading through the dark at his temples. His left arm is gloved, metal just barely visible at the cuff. You know who he is, vaguely. Congressman James Barnes. Before that, the Winter Soldier. You’ve seen him on the news twice and found him credible both times, which is not something you say lightly. Not that this is relevant. You’re just noting that he’s across the room. That’s it. Just noting.

What is relevant, however, is the man currently sidling up next to you, because the man currently sidling up next to you has had considerably more of the open bar than you have, and he smells like it. “Lovely evening,” he says, in the way that people say things when they are not actually talking about the evening. You give him the polite smile. The one that says I see you, and I’m too tired to be rude. “It is.” “You here with anyone?” “My friend,” you answer, with a pointed glance across the room in Sarah’s general direction. “She’s just over there.” He follows your gaze, disinterested, and then looks back at you. He introduces himself as something, and you honestly don’t catch it because your brain has already filed him under do not engage. He’s maybe mid-fifties, the kind of man who introduces himself at parties by his job title, and his eyes haven’t quite been at eye level this whole conversation. “What do you do?” “I’m in medicine,” you say, keeping it deliberately vague. In your experience, the vague answer is the one that ends conversations faster. It does not, in this case, end the conversation. In fact, it seems to invite more of it. His hand lands on the cocktail table next to yours, he leans in like you’d asked him to, and the smell gets considerably worse. “Beautiful and smart,” he says. “That’s dangerous.” Gag.

“Mm,” you say, which is not agreement, but which he takes as agreement. His shoulder shifts incrementally closer to yours, and your brain is already doing the math. How do you extract yourself from this without making a scene, because making a scene at a congressman’s fundraiser gala, at which you are a guest of a congressman’s daughter, feels inadvisable at best and catastrophic at worst. You can’t exactly do what you’d do at a regular bar, which would be to simply say not interested and walk away, because this is not a regular bar and these are not regular people and you’re suddenly very aware that the champagne glass you’re holding probably costs two hundred dollars. The man leans in further. “Can I get you a drink?” “I have one,” you say, lifting your glass, which is clearly almost empty, which he also clearly notices. “Let me get you another, then.” And that is when, for the second time tonight, you make eye contact with Congressman Barnes. He’s a little closer now, not by much though. He’s watching the scene with an expression that you can’t quite place. It’s not pity, exactly. Not amusement either. It’s more like someone who has correctly identified a problem and is turning over how to address it. You do the only thing that seems sane to you in this moment. You hold his gaze, and your expression says, if you speak even one word of fluent English right now I will owe you forever. He receives it. You can tell by the slight shift in his posture, the barely perceptible nod. Then he’s making his way over, like he’s just wandering and it happens to be in your direction. “Sorry,” he says, stopping at your side. Not to the drunk man. To you. Like he’s the one who’s late. “Got caught up.”

His voice is … nice. A lot different from TV. The drunk man recalibrates visibly. He looks at Congressman Barnes, recognises him the same way you did. There’s that small double-take of oh, him, and suddenly the lean is gone, the arm is pulled back, the proximity becomes appropriate. “Congressman,” the man says, in a completely different register than the one he’d been using on you. “Didn’t realize you two—” “Good to see you.” Congressman Barnes’ voice is perfectly pleasant, perfectly even. He extends his hand and the drunk man shakes it, quietly excuses himself to the bar, which is where he should have stayed to begin with. “Thank you,” you say, once he’s out of earshot. “I really didn’t want to make a thing of it.” “I could tell.” His eyes are blue. A shade darker than you’d expected, up close. “He giving you trouble for long?” “Long enough.” You take a sip of your champagne to have something to do with your hands. “I’m not really sure of the etiquette for telling a middle-aged man to leave you alone at a formal event.” “Usually just telling him works.” The corner of his mouth pulls up, barely. “But I get it.” He reaches past you for the appetizer that a passing server is offering, takes one of the small bruschetta thingies, and doesn’t immediately move away.

You notice that. He doesn’t immediately move away. “You’re Sarah’s friend,” he says. It’s not really a question. “Jackson’s daughter.” “Yeah.” You blink. “How’d you—” “He mentioned his daughter was bringing someone tonight.” A small lift of a shoulder. “I know Richard well. He’s a good man.” “He is,” you agree, which is true, having met Sarah’s father a grand total of three times. “She didn’t warn me that good meant—” you gesture vaguely at the chandelier, the room, the twelve-piece orchestra, “—all this.” His face looks like he found that funny, but he also looks like he doesn’t want to give you the satisfaction. “First time at one of these?” “That obvious?” “Little bit. He doesn’t say it unkindly. “You’ve been staring at the chandelier for the most part.” Your face does something embarrassing. “I was doing math.” “Math.” “About how long it would take me to afford it. On my salary.” You stop yourself, because that is possibly the most un-gala thing you could have said, and he is a congressman, and you are already wearing the wrong dress. “Which — never mind. I’m a resident. I don’t have the money for light fixtures.” He does laugh at that, quietly, more of an exhale than a real laugh, but it counts. “What kind of medicine?”

“Emergency.” You set your now-empty glass down on the nearest surface. “I’m in my third year.” “Long hours.” “Long doesn’t really cover it.” You glance sideways at him. Up, technically, because he has several inches on you and you’re in heels. “But I’m not going to complain at a gala. It seems rude.” “You can complain… I don’t care.” Something about the way he says it is disarming, and you weren’t expecting that. You’d expected… you’re not entirely sure what you’d expected. Polished, maybe. The kind of conversation that sounds like a conversation but is really just two people exchanging pleasantries until someone finds a more useful person to talk to. That’s what galas are, as far as you can tell. This doesn’t feel like that. “How long have you been doing this? The congressman thing.” “Six momths.” He picks up a glass from a passing tray. Water, not champagne. You notice that too. “Why?” “I saw a clip of you once. About pharmaceutical pricing.” You pause, aware that this is maybe strange to bring up. “You didn’t let him deflect.” He looks at you for a moment, and you can’t quite tell what he’s thinking. His face is not an easy read. “Most people don’t bring that up.”

“Most people here probably benefit from him deflecting.” Another one of those almost-laughs. You’re starting to like those unreasonably. “Fair.” He turns slightly toward you, weight shifting, and it’s the kind of body language that says I’m not going anywhere yet, which you are reading, as positive. Possibly incorrectly. “What made you go into emergency medicine?” “I like knowing the answer fast.” It is the honest version. “Other specialties… you wait for labs, wait for imaging, wait for rounds. Emergency, you have to think right now, decide right now. I like that. Also I’m bad at small talk, so at least in the ER nobody expects it from me.” “You’re not bad at it.” “I’ve been talking about chandeliers and my salary.” “I liked it,” he says, like that settles it, and the frankness of it catches you off guard enough that you don’t have an immediate response, which almost never happens to you. You tuck a strand of hair behind your ear. The orchestra has transitioned to something slightly livelier and a few couples have migrated toward the cleared floor at the center of the room. “Can I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

“How old are you?” The words come out before you can dress them up more politely, you wince slightly at the delivery. You’re three champagnes deep and apparently that’s what three champagnes does.

He doesn’t look thrown by it. If anything, he looks like he’s deciding how to answer, which is its own answer. “Forty-four or biologically a hundred and eight.”

You do the math without meaning to. The math is not small. “Right.”

“How old are you? Just so we’re both working with the same information.”

“Twenty-eight.”

He doesn’t look away from you. “So… age change anything for you?” His voice is quiet enough that it doesn’t carry anywhere.

Oh. We are going there straight. Okay. The warmth that works its way up your neck is something, that even the air conditioning can’t seem to help with. You look down at your empty glass and think about how Sarah is absolutely going to scream when you tell her about this tomorrow. “That’s—” you start. And then Sarah materializes at your elbow like she has a sixth sense for inconvenient timing, slightly flushed and smelling like champagne and grabbing your arm with both hands. “There you are! My dad wants to say hi, he knows you’re here—” She clocks Congressman Barnes. Her eyes go very wide and then very carefully neutral, which is the least neutral expression you’ve ever seen on a human face. “Congressman Barnes, hi, I’m so sorry to interrupt—” “You’re not,” he says easily, and he means it, you can tell, which is somehow worse than if he were being polite. He looks at you. “It was good talking to you.” “Yeah.” Your voice comes out smaller than you want it to. “It was.” He holds eye contact for exactly one beat longer. And then he nods, and turns, and Sarah is already dragging you in the opposite direction with her grip iron-tight on your wrist. “Oh my god,” she hisses, the second there’s enough ambient noise to cover it. “Oh my God—” “It was just talking.” “It was not just talking—” “Sarah—”

“He’s so hot,” she says, almost mournful. “He’s so hot and he was talking to only you for like twenty minutes and I need you to know that Bucky Barnes does not do that—” “Bucky,” you say, and your stomach does a small stupid thing. “His name is Bucky?” She stares at you. “Please tell me you got his number.”

You didn’t. You are, the longer you stand here being dragged toward Sarah’s father, increasingly annoyed about that.

You find him again by accident. That’s the part you’ll tell Sarah later. That it was an accident and she will not believe you, and she will be partially right not to.

Because when you excused yourself from the conversation with Sarah’s father after approximately nine minutes, you were not not looking for Congressman Barnes. You were getting another drink. Those are two different things that happened to involve the same direction.

The bar is less crowded, so there’s an actual open stretch of marble counter to stand at. You order a club soda because your limit is three champagnes and you reached it. You’re stirring it with the little cocktail straw and staring at the ice like it did something to you when someone stops next to you. Not just anyone. You know before you look, from the proximity, from the particular way the air in the vicinity shifts. “Club soda,” Bucky says, nodding at your glass. “Smart.” “I’m a doctor… In theory.” “In theory?” “I mean residency.” You glance up at him. He’s looking straight ahead at the bar, not at you, and yet every part of you is acutely aware of him. “I know my limits.” “Three glasses?” He sounds like he already knows. “How’d you— Were you watching me?” He doesn’t answer immediately. He signals the bartender for something and then he turns his head to look at you. The look on his face is the least congressman-like look you’ve seen from him all evening. It’s quieter than that. More direct. “Yeah… I was.”

The bartender sets his glass down. You notice that it’s water again.

But Bucky doesn’t reach for it yet. He’s still looking at you. You have been through four years of medical school and almost three years of residency, which means you have stood in front of attendings who looked at you like you were a problem they needed to solve, and you did not flinch. You are flinching a little now. Just a little. “You didn’t come find me,” you try to keep your voice even. “You were with Richard.” “For like eight minutes.” Something moves across his face. Not quite a smile but in the neighborhood. “Were you counting?” “I’m not answering that.” He reaches for his water, finally, and takes a drink. You watch his jaw because you’re only human. There’s a scar that runs just beneath his jaw. You have the reflexive urge to ask how he got it, which is the emergency medicine in you, and also probably something else. “I thought about asking for your number,” he says, and he says it the same way he says everything, like he just decided to set the thing down in front of you and see what you do with it. “What stopped you?” He considers you for a moment. “Didn’t want to do it in front of Sarah. Felt like a thing that shouldn’t have an audience.” “That’s—” you press your lips together. “That’s actually reasonable.” “I have my moments.” The orchestra finishes something and starts something else, slower, and the lights in the ballroom dim imperceptibly.

You should go back. Sarah is probably wondering where you are. You have a club soda to finish and heels that are beginning to make their unhappiness known and a 6 AM shift on Wednesday that is always at the back of your mind. His hand finds the bar just next to yours. The same way the drunk man’s hand had, earlier. Except nothing about it feels the same. Not even close. “I have a suite upstairs… I stay here when I’m in the city for these.” A pause. “I’m not— that’s not—” “I know what you’re saying.” He looks at you. “Yeah?” “Yeah.” His pinky finger moves. Just barely. Just enough to press against the side of your hand, the lightest possible contact, and you feel it everywhere. “Tell me if I’m reading this wrong.”

You look down at where his hand is next to yours. You look back up at him. And then you do the most impulsive thing you have done since you signed a lease on an apartment you couldn’t afford because it had good light. “You’re not reading it wrong.” He walks slightly behind you toward the elevator, which is not nothing. It is discrete, and you appreciate that without saying so. His hand presses briefly to the small of your back as you reach the elevator, guiding you left. Even through the fabric of your dress, the warmth of his palm is enough to make your brain go briefly offline. The elevator ride is quiet. It’s the kind of quiet that’s loud. He’s not looking at you. He’s looking at the floor numbers. You’re doing the same. The back of his hand grazes yours and neither of you moves away, and by the sixth floor you have resigned yourself to the fact that you are going to be completely useless. The suite is significant. Of course. You take approximately two seconds to register that the entryway alone is bigger than your apartment’s living room before you stop looking at the suite. He closes the door. Turns around. And the way he looks at you when it’s just the two of you, without a ballroom background, is different. There’s nothing measured about his eyes right now. “Hi,” you say stupidly, because your brain has officially handed in its notice. “Hi.” And then he’s crossing the room and his hands are on your face and he’s kissing you. It is hungry in a way that makes your knees register a complaint.

Both of your hands come up to grip the lapels of his jacket just to have somewhere to put them. He pulls back just enough to breathe. His thumbs are at your jaw. “Okay?” he asks.

“Very,” you manage. He kisses you again, slower this time but no less certain, and his hands slide from your jaw to your waist. He walks you backward until your shoulders meet the wall. You make a soft sound against his mouth that you are immediately embarrassed by. “Don’t,” he says against your lips. “Don’t what?” “Do that thing where you get embarrassed.” He pulls back to look at you, properly. “Don’t.” You open your mouth and close it. He’s still in the full suit — jacket, tie, the whole shebang — and you are suddenly very, very aware of that.

His hands find the zipper at the back of your dress. Watching your face the whole time like he’s making absolutely sure. The zipper gives and you feel the fabric loosen across your back, cool air reaching your skin. “Arms up,” he says. You raise your arms and he lifts the dress over your head, and sets it on the chair behind him like it matters, like he’s thinking about the fact that it’s the only dress you brought. Something about that short, practical gesture does more to you than it should. And then he takes you in. It’s for a long moment. His eyes move over you and there’s not a single thing performative about how he looks at you. It’s not the look of someone who is trying to make you feel good, it’s the look of someone who genuinely cannot help himself. You are standing in front of a congressman in a four-hundred-dollar-a-night suite in a bralette from Target and underwear that does not match it, and you are acutely aware of this fact. “These don’t match.” Your face goes hot. “I wasn’t exactly planning this.” “No?” “I was planning on eating canapes and going home by ten.” Your voice comes out more defensive than you intend. “So no, I didn’t— I didn’t put on a matching set, I just—” “Hey.” He says it gently, and his hand comes up to tip your chin. “I’m not complaining.” “You literally just pointed it out—” “Because it’s cute.” His thumb traces your jaw. “Because you’re standing there looking like you can’t decide whether to be embarrassed or annoyed, and it’s—” something moves through his expression, “—it’s really cute is all. And I’m flattered” You stare at him. “You’re a congressman.” “I’m aware.” “You give floor speeches.” “Also aware.” “You can’t just… say things are cute.” “Sure I can.” He’s guiding you back toward the bed, and the backs of your knees hit the mattress and you sit down. He doesn’t follow you down. He just stands there, looks at you, still fully dressed, tie still knotted, and goes to his knees. Oh.

Oh. His hands slide up your calves, and he watches you watch him. You’re gripping the duvet with both hands because he hasn’t even done anything yet and you already feel like the floor dropped out. “You don’t have to—” you start. He looks up at you, and his eyes are very, very dark. “I want to.” His fingers find the waistband of your underwear and pulls them down your legs with an efficiency that should not be as attractive as it is. Then his hands are on your inner thighs, pushing them apart. He looks at you one more time like he’s checking in, which he clearly is.

“Good?” “Please,” you say, which answers nothing and everything. He lowers his head. The first press of his mouth to your cunt makes you bite down on your lip hard enough that you taste something. He takes his time with it. There’s nothing hurried here, nothing obligatory, he moves against you like he has absolutely nowhere else to be and no interest in being there anyway. His tongue finds the bundle of nerves at your center and stays there, slow and devastating, and you have to press the back of your hand to your mouth to keep the sound in. “Don’t,” he says, again, pulling back just enough. His breath is warm against you and it’s its own kind of torture. “I want to hear you.” “There are other rooms on this floor—” “Thick walls,” he says, and then he’s back at it. You stop thinking about the other rooms. He’s good at this in the way that makes you forget your own name temporarily. His hands are on your hips, keeping you from squirming away when it gets to be too much, which it does, quickly, because he has apparently decided to be completely merciless about this.

You have your fingers in his hair now. His perfectly styled hair, which you’re currently ruining, but do not care. And you are saying his name at a volume that would embarrass you under any other circumstances. “James—” you breathe, and then, when he does that specific thing with his tongue, laving at your entrance, “—God, Bucky, please—” He makes a sound against you that you feel everywhere. His fingers find the slick of you, and he looks up at you from where he is, which should be illegal, the visual of this is going to live in your brain for years. “This okay?” he murmurs.

“Yes, please, yes—”

He sinks two fingers into you slowly, and your head drops back. He works them against your walls while his mouth moves on your clit and you grip his hair tighter and he doesn’t tell you to let go.

The tension builds fast. Faster than you’d like, because you’d like this to never stop. When it breaks it breaks completely, your whole body pulls tight and then releases, the sound you make is completely beyond your control. He works you through it. Every last second of it. His fingers slow but don’t stop, his mouth gentles but stays, until you’re twitching away from the sensitivity and pressing weakly at his shoulder, and only then does he pull back. He stands, and he looks… composed, almost, except for the flush at the collar of his very nice shirt, the slick in his beard and the way his hair is thoroughly destroyed.

He’s still in the full suit. The tie is still knotted. You are lying on his hotel bed having just come completely apart and he looks like he’s about to chair a subcommittee meeting. “That’s unfair,” you say to the ceiling.

“What is?”

“You.” You lift your head to look at him. “The suit. All of that.” Chuckling, he reaches up and loosens the tie, pulls it over his head, starts on the buttons of his shirt. You push yourself up to sitting, because if he’s going to do that, you are watching.

He shrugs out of the shirt and underneath is a white undershirt, and underneath the undershirt — well. You were not unprepared for the shoulders. You were unprepared for everything else. “Hi,” you say again. He should be tired of hearing it. He isn’t. He almost smiles. He reaches into the inside pocket of his jacket, and comes up with his wallet, and from his wallet— “You just… carry that?” you ask. “I was hoping,” he says.

Something about the admission makes your chest do a complicated thing. You reach for him as he comes down onto the bed, pulling him in. He braces his forearm by your head and kisses you and you can taste yourself on his mouth, which makes the complicated thing in your chest considerably worse.

“Tell me if anything’s—”

“I will… I trust you.”

He pulls back to look at you at that. Just for a second. Something moves through his eyes that you don’t quite have a word for.

“Okay.”

He takes his time. He works you back up with his hands first, until you’re arching into him and your nails are at his back and the patience of it is making you slightly insane, and when he finally rolls the condom on and shifts over you and pushes in—

The noise you make is entirely involuntary. Because he’s big. No, that would be an understatement.

“Still with me?” Right by your ear.

“More than with you,” you get out, and he exhales a short laugh into your neck and then starts to move, and you stop being capable of full sentences.

He’s thorough about it in a way that makes your brain melt clean out of your head. He learned what makes you gasp and then does that thing again. His hand slides under your ass and tilts your hips and hits something that makes you dig your nails in hard enough that he hisses.

“Right there,” you say, uselessly, since he clearly already knows.

“Yeah?”

“Don’t stop—”

He doesn’t stop. He does exactly that, again, and you’re gripping his shoulders with both hands and talking without fully knowing what you’re saying.

He’s got his face pressed to your temple and his breathing is not steady anymore, which is information you file away with tremendous satisfaction.

“You feel—” he starts, and stops, like he doesn’t finish that sentence with people often.

“Tell me.”

He pulls back to look at your face. His hips don’t slow. “Perfect,” he says, like it’s a simple fact.

Your whole body clenches around him at that and he groans. His rhythm shifts. Deeper, more insistent, and you have completely stopped worrying about the other rooms on this floor.

His thumb finds your clit and you cry out. He watches your face while he does it, and there is something about being looked at like that, while he’s inside you, while he’s taking you completely apart for the second time—

You come with your face buried in his neck and his name on your lips and his hand pressed flat to your lower back like he’s trying to keep you together while he undoes you.

He follows not long after with a groan against your temple, his whole body tensing.

Then he’s still, and the room is just the sound of both of you breathing.

He doesn’t move immediately. He stays where he is, most of his weight on his forearm, his other hand moving to push your hair away from your face. It’s a gentle thing, automatic, like he did it without thinking. Like it was just the natural next thing to do.

You stare up at the very expensive ceiling of the very expensive suite.

“I came here for canapes,” you say.

He laughs. A real one this tim. Not the almost-laugh from downstairs, an actual laugh, and it does something devastating to his face. “How’d that work out?”

“Better than expected.”

He presses his lips to your temple, and it’s soft. It lingers for a second, and when he pulls back he’s looking at you with that look again. The one you don’t have a word for yet.

He gets up to deal with the condom, comes back with a glass of water that he sets on the nightstand next to you, and gets back into bed like he does this, like this is just a thing he does, take someone apart completely and then bring them water after.

He’s pulled on his undershirt and his briefs and he looks unfairly good in both, and you’re in nothing, and neither of you seems to have a problem with this.

“Bucky.”

“Mm.”

“What actually made you come over? Downstairs. Earlier.” You turn your head to look at him. “Before that drunken guy. You were watching me before that.”

He’s quiet for a moment. He’s on his back, looking at the ceiling, and his jaw shifts slightly the way it does when he’s thinking.

“You were looking at the chandelier,” he says. “Everyone in that room was pretending they belonged there. You were just standing there, looking up, in the wrong dress. I liked that.”

You look at him for a long moment. “I got it on a sale,” you say.

“I like that too.”

You press your face into the pillow so he can’t see you smiling, and he doesn’t say anything about it, which is possibly the most considerate thing anyone has ever done for you.

Light is the first thing you register. It’s not the thin, grey light that seeps through your blackout curtain at home. This is different, the kind that comes from curtains that cost more than they should and don’t quite meet in the middle.

For a moment you don’t know where you are, which is a feeling you’re familiar with from overnight call, that brief horrible second of complete disorientation before your brain catches up.

Then it catches up.

The sheets are softer than yours. The room is too quiet. And the other side of the bed, when you reach for it without opening your eyes—

Empty.

You open your eyes anyway. On the off chance. The suite looks the same as it had last night except for the light, and the way the silence in it has a different quality now. A full kind of silence. The kind where someone has recently left.

His jacket is gone from the chair. Your dress is still on it, folded carefully over the back. So carefully, actually, that it takes you a second to really process the image. He’d folded your dress before he left. Which means he’d been here, moving around the room, and you’d slept through it.

The glass of water he’d set on the nightstand is still there, half full or half empty or whatever. You stare at it for longer than you need to.

You didn’t expect anything. That’s not entirely true; you’re a grown adult and you know the difference between what you expected and what you’d maybe hoped, and those two things are not the same thing, and it’s fine, it was one night, it was always going to be one night, you knew that going in.

Still. You look around the room. Almost wanting to find something. A note on hotel stationery, his business card under the water glass, anything.

Some small proof that it happened to him too, that you didn’t imagine the careful way he pushed your hair back.

Nothing.

You check the bathroom. The bathroom is pristine and smells faintly like whatever he’d used from the amenity shelf, and there is no note on the mirror, no nothing.

Of course there isn’t. He’s a congressman. He has a schedule. He was probably on a 7 AM call somewhere, probably has a driver waiting downstairs, probably has twelve things on his agenda and last night was just one of them. Item six, maybe, between a donor dinner and a briefing.

You sit back on the bed. You pick up the glass of water and drink the rest of it.

Fine.

You find your underwear, the mismatched ones, and even now that makes your cheeks do something. And then your dress, and your heels, and you check your phone.

Three texts from Sarah that escalate in punctuation, one from your roommate asking if you’re alive. Nothing from a number you don’t recognize.

Obviously.

The elevator ride down is considerably less charged than the one going up. The lobby is already busy, morning check-outs and businessmen with rolling luggage, and you walk through it in last night’s dress and last night’s heels with your chin up, because you are an emergency medicine resident and you have walked into much worse rooms than this.

The glass of water, though. He’d gotten up and gotten you a glass of water and now he was just… gone. Without a word.

That part stings a little. You’d be lying if you said otherwise.

Seventeen days later, you are standing in your kitchen at six in the morning counting backwards on your fingers, and the number you keep landing on is not the number you want.

Your period is late. Not a little late. Late enough that you’ve noticed, which takes something, because your cycle has always run regular, every twenty-eight days, reliable enough that you’ve never had to think about it.

You think about it now. You’ve been thinking about it for four days with increasing focus, telling yourself it was stress, it was the hours, it was the back-to-back overnight shifts that had wrecked your sleep, because that’s what happens to residents, your hormones get strange when your cortisol stays high, it happens.

Except.

Except that two weeks before your missed period, which would put it at about a week after the gala, you’d had spotting. You had noted it the way you noted things and filed it under irregular and moved on, because you’d had a fourteen-hour shift and the last thing you wanted to do was think about your own body on top of everything else. You’d thought mid-cycle spotting, stress, nothing.

And the fatigue. God, the fatigue had been something else, but again you’re a third year resident. Fatigue is the baseline. Fatigue is just Tuesday.

Except implantation spotting typically occurs six to twelve days after fertilization. Except you are standing in your kitchen doing obstetric math at six in the morning, and the number you keep landing on is seventeen days post-ovulation, which is—

That’s too late for it to be stress.

You know this. You know this the way you know things you don’t want to know yet, the way you knew a patient’s CT wasn’t going to be clean before the radiologist called. You just know.

You get to the hospital forty minutes early, which is easy enough to explain away to anyone who asks. You’re always early, everyone knows you’re always early.

You take a detour to the ground floor pharmacy. You stand in the family planning aisle for probably thirty seconds longer than a person who is confident about what they’re grabbing would stand there.

You take one off the shelf and tuck it under your arm, and take the stairs up to the third floor resident bathroom, which has a lock that works and more importantly, privacy.

The instructions are not complicated. You’re a doctor. You know what two lines mean.

You sit on the edge of the closed toilet lid you look at the water stain on the ceiling tile for the full three minutes.

There’s a crack in it that branches from the fixture in a way that looks like the course of the facial nerve in the middle ear. You have stared at this ceiling before during bad shifts, during the kind of nights where someone didn’t make it and you had to go somewhere quiet for six minutes, and it has never felt quite like this.

You turn the test over.

Two lines.

Both of them dark. Two unambiguous, immediate, definitive lines.

You sit with that for a long moment. The tile. The test.

You’re pregnant.

You are twenty-eight years old and you are a resident and you had a one-night stand with a congressman whose number you do not have and you are pregnant.

You turn the test face-down again. Pick it up. Put it in a cover at the bottom of your bag under your stethoscope, which feels insane but you’re not leaving it in the trash where someone could see it.

You look at yourself in the mirror. Your face looks the same as it always does. That’s somehow the strangest part.

You unlock the bathroom door. You have a shift to get to.

But one thing you’re sure about is that, you want this baby. Be it a maternal impulse, or whatever it is you don’t have a name for it yet. You want this baby. You need this baby.

Two days of carrying it around inside you like a stone in your chest, and by the third morning you’ve made the decision, or the decision makes you.

Either way, you’re sitting on your bathroom floor at midnight with your back against the tub and the thing is settled.

He needs to know. Whatever happens after that is not something you can fully think about yet, but the part where he doesn’t know is no longer something you can live inside of.

The problem is getting to him.

You try the obvious thing first. His official website has a contact form. For constituents, it says, and you are technically not his constituent, but you fill it out anyway and it autoresponds within thirty seconds with something about being committed to responding within five to seven business days, and you close the laptop.

Five to seven business days.

His office number is listed publicly and you call it the next day on your lunch break. It rings three times before someone picks up.

“Congressman Barnes’ office, how can I help you?”

“Hi.” You try to keep your voice level. “I’m — I’m trying to reach Congressman Barnes. It’s a personal matter.”

There’s a small pause on the other end. “The Congressman has a full schedule. Can I take your name and a callback number? Please describe the nature of your inquiry.”

Right. The nature of your inquiry. “It’s — it’s a private matter. I’d really need to speak with him directly.”

“Ma’am, any personal correspondence for the Congressman goes through his office. If you can describe—”

“I know him personally.” You are aware of how this sounds. You are aware that people who call congressional offices claiming to know the congressman personally are, in fact, not people who know the congressman personally. “I’m not a — I’m not a constituent with a complaint. I’m a personal acquaintance and it’s urgent.”

“I understand,” the woman says, in the tone of someone who does not entirely believe you. “I can pass your information along and someone will follow up.”

Someone. Not him.

“Okay.” You give her your name and your number. You know with complete certainty that you will not hear back.

You dissociate for a minute after you hang up, and then you text Sarah.

You : Hey. Random question. Completely unrelated to anything. How hard would it be for you to get Barnes’ personal number from your dad

Three minutes of silence, which for Sarah is practically geological time.

Sarah: why

You: Sarah please.

Sarah: whyyyy

You: I'll explain later. Is it possible?

Sarah: my dad would notice if i asked. but his phone’s usually just sitting on the counter when he’s in the shower soooo. give me 12 hours and a good reason

You: I promise I'll explain everything.

Sarah: oh this is GOOD. this is so good. okayy

You put your phone in your coat pocket and go back inside.

Sarah texts at eleven seventeen the following night, which means Richard Jackson apparently showers late, and the text is just a phone number and then:

Sarah: okay i need the full story. not a summary. the FULL story. what did you DO??????

You look at the number for a long time.

You: Thank you. I’ll explain everything soon I promise.

Sarah: are you okay??

You think about the test at the bottom of your bag. The ceiling tile with the crack in it. The empty side of the bed with the sheets still warm from him.

You: Yeah. I'm okay. Thank you Sarah.

You add the number to your phone. You just stare at the digits, and your chest is doing the complicated thing again, and you have no idea what you’re going to say when he picks up.

If he picks up.

The first time, it rings five times and goes to voicemail.

His voicemail. His actual voice, which you were not prepared for. You hang up before the beep because you don’t know what you’d say and you can’t practice it out loud yet. The words exist inside your head in a specific order that you’ve rearranged a hundred times since eleven seventeen last night, and none of the arrangements feel right.

You set your phone face-down on your kitchen table. You make coffee you don’t drink. You sit there for twenty minutes and then you pick your phone back up.

It rings three times. You are working out, specifically, how to begin. Not hi, too casual. Not hello, Congressman, too formal and possibly insane. Maybe just his name, just Bucky, like you have any right to—

“Hello.”

Just that. One word. And your heart does something it has absolutely no business doing.

“Hi. This is— It’s — we met at the fundraiser, I mean the gala. About three weeks ago. Sarah Jackson’s friend.” A pause, because you can’t tell if any of this is registering. “The one in the wrong dress.”

“I know who you are.”

Something in his voice. Something that is not nothing. You press your free hand flat to the kitchen table just to have something solid.

“Okay. Good. Hi.”

“Hi.” And there it is, threaded through the single syllable — a smile. The same almost-smile from downstairs at the bar. “It’s good to hear from you.”

You close your eyes for a second. You had not let yourself think about whether it would be good or awkward or somewhere cold in between, because thinking about it felt like jinxing it.

“I need to—” The arrangements in your head are all wrong again. “Is there any chance we could meet? In person. I have something I need to tell you, and I’d rather not do it over the phone.”

“Is everything alright?”

“Yeah.” The word comes out before you can think about whether it’s true. “I just — it’s better in person. I think.”

“I can do tomorrow. I am free tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow works.” Your voice is admirably steady, and you are giving yourself full credit for that. “Wherever’s easiest for you.”

“There’s a place on 54th. Briar something — Briar & Co. You know it?”

“I’ll find it.”

“Two o’clock?”

“Two o’clock,” you confirm. And then neither of you say anything for a second, and you don’t know who should end this.

“It’s good to hear from you,” he says again. Quieter this time, like maybe he’s saying it more to himself than to you.

You don’t know what to say to that. “Right. See you tomorrow.”

You hang up.

You sit back down at your kitchen table, look at your untouched coffee going cold. You breathe in and out very carefully for a minute, and you do not let yourself think about what it meant that he said it twice.

You’re not going to do that. You’re going to be a reasonable adult who goes to work and eats lunch and sleeps normal amounts, and tomorrow you are going to sit across from Bucky Barnes in a coffee shop and say the thing that needs to be said.

That is the plan.

You’re three minutes late. When you push through the glass door and scan the room you find him immediately, because he’s not a man that takes effort to find.

He’s already there. Of course he’s already there, he’s probably never been late to a thing in his life.

He looks like something out of a campaign ad, which is annoying, because you are in your off-duty jeans and the overcoat you’ve had since forever.

He’s at a corner table, which is a thing you file away and he’s got a coffee in front of him already.

He looks up before you reach him. Like he sensed it.

You pull out the chair across from him, sit down and unwrap your scarf. The whole time he’s watching you with an expression you cannot read, which is the same as before, which should not feel as familiar as it does.

“Finally,” he says.

You blink. “Am I late? I thought I was only — what time is it?”

“You’re not late.” The corner of his mouth pulls into a smile. “I’ve just been— Never mind.”

He said finally like he was waiting for you. But he wasn’t waiting long. Does that mean he meant that you finally called? But how would you call if he didn’t leave a number?

No. Nope. You’re not going there.

You look down at the menu you don’t need and tell yourself firmly that it doesn’t mean anything, that he is a politician and politicians are good at making people feel like the only person in the room, it is literally a professional skill.

You’ve rehearsed this. You’ve rehearsed it on the subway here, in the shower last night. You had a version that started with some context, that built up gradually, that eased both of you into it. That version is somewhere on the sidewalk because you don’t have access to it right now.

“I have to tell you something.”

He sets his cup down. “Okay.”

“It’s—” You press your hands flat to your thighs under the table. “It’s not a small thing.”

“Okay.” The steadiness of it is almost its own problem.

Just say it. Say the thing. Spit it out.

You have said hard things before. You have sat across from people and told them their person wasn’t coming home, you have held those conversations together with nothing but your hands and your voice, you can say six words to one man in a coffee shop on 54th Street.

“I’m pregnant.” The words land flat on the table between you. “It’s yours. It’s from — from the gala. That night.”

Silence. Absolute deafening silence.

Not the kind that means he’s gathering himself to respond, or the kind that means he missed it. You can tell from his face that he didn’t miss it. It’s a longer silence. The kind you have to sit with no idea what’s on the other side.

You watch his face. You had run through versions of this moment in your head. There’s shock, the obvious thing, or anger, or some careful measured political blankness.

But it isn’t quite any of those. His jaw is tight and his eyes are on you and he is… not here, quite. He’s somewhere slightly behind his eyes, somewhere you don’t have access to.

“Bucky,” you say, because the silence is going somewhere you don’t like.

He comes back. Just slightly. His hand around his coffee cup tightens and releases.

“Are you sure it’s mine?”

You hear the words. You take a second to make sure you heard them correctly.

“I wore a condom,” he says, and his voice has changed. It’s careful, like he’s walking on ice. “I just — I want to be sure that we’re—”

“Yes.” The word comes out sharp, which you didn’t mean, or maybe you did. “Yes, it’s yours. I’m sure.” You make yourself hold his gaze. “I haven’t slept with anyone else.”

Something shifts in his expression. You can’t tell if it’s belief or the beginning of it or something else entirely.

“We can do a paternity test,” you say, and your voice is admirably level and you hate that you have to say this, you hate that you’re sitting here offering this like it’s a reasonable next step. “If you want confirmation. That’s — that’s available to you. I understand.”

Then you both speak at the same time.

“I didn’t come here asking for anything,” you say.

“What do you want?” he asks.

If only you’d spoken a moment sooner.

Four words. They’re not unkind, exactly. But they land cold, because of what they assume, maybe, or because of what they don’t. What do you want.

As if the only reason you’d be here is because you want something from him specifically, as if this is a transaction he’s being presented with rather than a fact of his life, as if you’d spent three weeks carrying this alone and called his number and rearranged the words a hundred different ways just to want something.

You feel it move through your chest before you can stop it.

“Nothing… I don’t want anything.”

You can clearly see his face change. “That’s not what I—”

“I have to go.” You reach for your scarf. Your hands are steady and you’re glad for it. “I shouldn’t have — I thought you should know. That was the only reason. I’m sorry for wasting your time.”

“That’s not—hey—” He’s half out of his seat. “That’s not what I meant—”

“It’s fine.” You stand. You loop your scarf once around your neck and your body is doing the automatic things while your brain is somewhere else entirely, somewhere a little removed and glassy. “I’ll be in touch about next steps. Whatever you want to do. If you want the test, just—” You stop yourself before you finish the sentence because your voice is doing something you don’t want it to do. “I’ll be in touch.”

And then you’re walking. Through the small tables, out through the glass door that lets in a rush of cold air that you are grateful for because it hits your face and gives you something to feel that isn’t this.

The sidewalk is busy, you merge into it and walk because walking is something you can do. You’re not going anywhere in particular. You’re just walking.

“Hey.” His voice is behind you. Close. “Just — stop.”

You don’t stop immediately. You take two more steps, which is honest.

“Please.” His hand closes around your arm, just above your elbow. There’s barely any pressure in his grip, but you stop because ‘please’ is not a word he uses easily, you’ve already gathered that, and the way he said it is not a politician’s please.

He’s standing there without his coat. He left it inside, apparently, didn’t stop to grab it. He looks like a person, suddenly. Not a congressman anymore.

“That came out wrong.”

“It’s fine.” It’s something you have said twice now, which is increasingly not true.

“It’s not.” He runs a hand through his hair. The same dark hair you’d pulled at in a hotel suite three weeks ago, but you cannot think about that right now. “I panicked. I said something stupid and it came out wrong and I— I’m sorry.”

“You asked me what I want,” you keep your voice low. “Like I was — like this was something I came to negotiate.”

“I —”

“I’ve been sitting with this for two weeks by myself.” You hadn’t meant to say that part, hadn’t meant to let him know, but there it is. “Two weeks of figuring out how to even find your number, two weeks of—” You stop. You are not going to do this on 54th Street, you are absolutely not. “I’m not asking you for anything. I just thought you deserved to know.”

He’s looking at you with an expression that you can’t name and have never seen on him before. Something stripped of the careful management, the controlled stillness.

“You’re right. I’m sorry.”

The wind picks up and he doesn’t even flinch at it, no coat, and you look at him and you are… tired. You are so, so tired, and you don’t have the energy to hold onto any of this out here on the street.

“I have to get back. I have a shift.”

“Can we— Can we try this again? Somewhere. When you’re ready.” He holds your gaze. “I’d like to do that right. If you’ll let me.”

You look at him for a long moment. The sweater. The cold. The line of his jaw that you’d had your hand against on a different night in a different context. The fact that the two things are the same person is almost too much to hold at once.

“I’ll think about it.”

It is not a yes. It is not quite a no. He seems to understand this, because he doesn’t push.

You turn and don’t look back. You get half a block when your phone buzzes in your pocket.

Bucky: I’m sorry. I mean it.

The phone is an inconvenience right now. It’s him.

You stare at it for two full rings.

Then you pick up, because you are apparently a person who does that.

“Hey.” The same voice that said I’m sorry on a windy sidewalk six hours ago, except now it’s evening and you’ve been on your feet since noon and you have considerably less patience available than you did then.

“I’m in the middle of a shift,” you say, instead of hello.

“I know, I just— Have you eaten?”

You open your mouth. Close it. Look up at the ceiling for a moment, which is a habit you’re developing, apparently. Ceilings when you need a second to not say the first thing that comes to mind. “Bucky.”

“It’s a simple question.”

“It is not a simple question, it is a—” You lower your voice because a nurse just walked past and you do not need this. “Can you just not, please? I’m working.”

“Have you eaten?” he repeats, like he didn’t hear the second half of what you said, or heard it and decided it wasn’t load-bearing.

“I had lunch.”

“It’s 8 PM, I’m not asking about lunch—”

“I’m a resident. Having lunch is a privilege.” You hear an ambulance. “Gotta go.”

“I’ll —”

You don’t let him finish.

At eleven thirty, one of the nurses at the front desk — Maya — stops you in the hallway with an expression that is doing something specific.

“There’s a guy at the front desk.”

“…Okay.”

“He brought food.” She pauses. “A lot of food.”

You look at her. She looks back at you with the energy of someone who has decided this is the best thing that has happened on this shift and possibly this month. “He’s very—” She searches for the word.

“Maya.”

“He’s asking for you specifically.”

You close your eyes for exactly one second. Then you go to the front desk.

There’s a paper bag on the desk in front of Bucky and he’s talking to the security guard with the easy manner of a man who talks to people for a living.

When he sees you coming, his expression shifts into something that is not quite relief but is in the direction of it.

“You didn’t have to do this,” you say, before he can say anything.

“I—”

You don’t let him finish. “I’m working.”

“I’m not staying.” He nods at the bag. “It’s just food. You said you hadn’t eaten.”

You look at the bag. You look at him. Maya, behind you, is doing an absolutely terrible job of pretending to type something. “You didn’t have to drive here.” You keep your voice quiet enough that it stays between the two of you. “I’m fine. I can take care of myself.”

“That’s not why I’m here.”

“Then why are you here?”

His jaw does the tight-release thing. “Because after you left I felt like an ass… and I need you to know that I’m sorry. Not over a text. In person.” He pushes the bag slightly toward you. “And because you said you hadn’t eaten.”

You stare at the bag. Thai food, from the smell of it, something with lemongrass. Your stomach, which has been ignoring you all evening, suddenly has opinions.

“This doesn’t fix what you said.”

“I’m not trying to fix it. I’m trying to—” He stops himself, and you can see him editing, which is strange to watch on a man who normally seems to say the exact amount he means to. “I’m showing you I’m sorry. That’s all.”

The energy to process this is something you don’t possess now. You pick up the bag. It’s heavier than it looked. “Thank you.” It comes out stiff and you don’t have the bandwidth to soften it. “You should go home.”

“Right.”

“I mean it. You don’t have to — this isn’t something you have to do. Standing in hospital lobbies with Thai food isn’t gonna be your thing, okay? We’re not— that’s not what this is.”

He’s quiet for a second. “Okay.”

“Okay.”

“Get some food in you.”

“I was going to,” you say, which is not strictly true, and he seems to know it. But he doesn’t say so, which you are choosing to be grateful for.

He nods once, and walks back toward the entrance. You watch him go for exactly two seconds before you make yourself turn around and go back to work.

Maya spins her chair to face you the moment you’re within range. You point at her before she can speak.

“Don’t.”

“I wasn’t—”

“Maya.”

“He’s so—”

“I will give you a terrible evaluation.”

She turns back to her computer, failing entirely to hide her smile, and you take the bag to the break room and eat the whole thing. It’s very good, which you resent.

Six hours later, at ten past two, you come out of the hospital into the cold. Your brain is running on fumes, and the black car in the far corner of the parking lot does not immediately register.

Then the door opens.

“You have got to be kidding me,” you say, to no one in particular. To the night. To whatever version of your life this is.

He gets out slowly, like he hasn’t spent six hours in a parking lot. He’s in the same coat and he looks it. A little, around the eyes.

“Bucky.” Your voice comes out flatter than you intend.

“I—”

There’s a pattern developing here, the way you don’t let him finish talking. “You’ve been here this whole time.”

“I fell asleep for a bit.”

“In your car. In the hospital parking lot. Why?”

He stops a few feet from you. His face looks tired in a way it hadn’t the other night, something honest about it. “I wanted to make sure you got home okay.”

“I do that everyday… I’ve been doing that everyday for almost three years.”

“Right.”

“Then why—” You stop. You’re too tired for this. The cold is getting into your coat and your feet hurt and you are twenty-eight years old and you do not have the reserves for whatever this is. “Go home, Bucky. Please. Get some actual sleep.”

“Let me drive you.”

“I have my car.”

“You’ve been on your feet for—”

“I have my car.” You hitch your bag up on your shoulder. “Thank you for the food. I mean that. But you can’t just— sit outside my hospital all night, that’s not— you can’t do that.”

He’s looking at you with that expression again. The unreadable one that isn’t quite unreadable anymore, or maybe you’re just too tired to not see it. “I handled it badly yesterday… or today — I don’t know — I said something that I would take back if I could.”

“I know. You said that.”

“I’m saying it again.”

“Bucky—”

“I need you to understand that I’m not— I’m not the guy who says something like that and means it. What I said, the way it sounded. I need you to know that’s not— that isn’t who I am.”

You look at him for a long moment. The parking lot is quiet. A couple of birds somewhere. A car turning out onto the street.

“I know.” Because you do, or you think you do, or you’d like to. “I just need you to give me some room to figure out—” You gesture vaguely between you. “All of this. Okay? I can’t think straight when you’re standing in my parking lot.”

Something moves through his expression at that. He looks down at the ground and then back at you, and the corner of his mouth shifts. “Okay. I’ll go.”

“Thank you.”

He holds eye contact a beat. “Drive safe.”

“You too,” you say, which is automatic, which is ridiculous, and you turn before your face can do anything about it.

You think about him walking to his car in an empty parking lot, and you think about him falling asleep in there, and you don’t do anything with that. You file it somewhere.

You go home. You sleep for nine hours straight. It’s the best you’ve slept in three weeks.

He calls two days later.

You’re off shift, sitting on your couch with an unopened anatomy refresher on the cushion next to you because you’d told yourself you were going to be productive and had instead been staring at nowhere in particular.

You pick up on the second ring. “Hi.” His voice is the same, which isn’t entirely a good thing to your composure.

“Hi.”

“How are you feeling?”

“Fine. Tired, but that’s— that’s normal.”

“Oh?”

“The fatigue is normal first trimester. The nausea I’ve been managing, mostly… I’m not telling you this to update you, I’m just— you asked.”

“I’m glad you told me.” His voice is quiet. Careful in a way that doesn’t feel like walking on ice anymore, more like he’s choosing things with intention. “I want to know how you’re doing.”

When you don’t say anything, he continues. “I want to come to your appointment.”

You close your eyes. “Bucky.”

“Hear me out—”

“You don’t have to do that.”

“I — I want to.”

“You said that in the parking lot too, about the food, and I told you—”

“This is different. This is— this matters. I want to be there. I know I gave you every reason to tell me to stay out of it. What I said at the coffee shop— I know. But I’m asking you to let me— I’m asking… please”

For some reason, you think about the hotel room. The folded dress. The empty bed. The water glass. You think about a parking lot at two past midnight and a man who fell asleep in his car because he wanted to make sure you got home safe.

“It’s at my hospital… next Tuesday. Eleven.”

“Eleven,” he repeats.

“And if you say anything—” You hadn’t meant to go there, but you’re going there. “If you say anything like what you said on that day, I will walk out. And that’ll be it. I mean that.”

“That’s fair.” Without hesitation. Like he expected it and meant to agree to it.

“I’m serious, Bucky.”

“I know you are. I know.”

You nod, even though he can’t see it. “Okay. Tuesday.”

“Okay… Thank you.”

You don’t say you’re welcome. You don’t say anything for a second.

“Get some sleep,” he says. It’s like the water glass. The automatic thing, the thing that comes out before he decides whether to say it.

“You too.” This time it doesn’t feel ridiculous.

You hang up and open the textbook on whim. You read four pages before you fall asleep on the couch with the lamp still on.

He’s standing at your door at ten thirty with peonies.

Actual peonies, fat and pale pink, the kind that look like someone made a decision.

You open the door in your coat already because you’d been about to leave, keys in hand, and the two of you look at each other for a second in the doorway.

“How do you know where I live?”

“Sarah.”

Of course. You make a mental note to have a word with Sarah, except Sarah will laugh at you and you both know it.

You look at the flowers and then at him and he has the decency to look slightly uncertain, which is the most uncertain you’ve seen him look, and it does something small and involuntary to your chest.

“You didn’t have to—”

He just holds them out, without saying anything.

You take them because leaving them in his hands would be strange. They smell like something expensive and vaguely like outside, and you stand there for a second not knowing what to do with them.

You turn back into the apartment and find a glass in the cabinet and fill it with water, which is not a vase but it will have to do.

Setting them on the counter, you look at them. White and pink against your very normal kitchen, and something about the image makes you feel things you don’t have the time or inclination to examine.

The waiting room at the OB practice is warm and aggressively neutral, the kind of beige that has been carefully selected to be soothing. It achieves the opposite.

You sign in at the front. Bucky sits beside you, and he doesn’t make small talk, which you’re grateful for. He’s looking at something on his phone with the focused stillness of a person who is trying to be unobtrusive, and you watch the fish tank in the corner for lack of anything else to do with your eyes.

Your name gets called and you both stand. There’s a second, while walking towards the exam room, where you’re very aware of him behind you and you don’t know what to do about that.

The room is what it always is. Exam table with the paper that crinkles, the blood pressure cuff on the wall, the small screen angled toward the bed. You hop up on the table without being asked.

The nurse takes your vitals and says the doctor will be in shortly. Then it’s just the two of you in the room.

Bucky takes the chair in the corner.

“You can sit closer,” you say, because the chair in the corner feels like he’s been sent there. “You don’t have to be all the way over there.”

He moves the chair, just enough, and sits back down.

“How are you feeling?” he asks. Same question as the phone call, except in person it is different.

“Okay. A little nauseous this morning but it passed.” You look at your hands. “I have to go back on in the afternoon so I’m hoping the appointment doesn’t run long.”

“I can have you back by one.”

“You don’t have to—”

“I want to.” Right. That’s his line.

You don’t argue with it this time.

Dr. Reyes comes in five minutes later and doesn’t react to Bucky’s presence in any visible way, which you appreciate, because you’d anticipated some version of aren’t you. Congressman Barnes or Winter Soldier.

You did not want to deal with that today.

She’s warm and efficient in the way of someone who has done this enough times, and she goes through the questions with you and you answer them like the doctor you are. Last menstrual period, no significant history. Bucky stays quiet in his chair and you don’t look at him.

Then Dr. Reyes reaches for the gel.

“This’ll be cold,” she says, and you nod. She picks up the transducer and you are doing the thing you planned to do. Stay clinical.

Except your resident-brain has never been on this end of a transabdominal ultrasound before and it turns out those are two different things.

The screen fills with the grey static of it. Dr. Reyes adjusts the angle, and—

There.

The flicker. Fast and insistent, one hundred and fifty beats per minute or close to it, the cardiac activity clear enough on the doppler even before she turns the sound on, but then she does turn the sound on.

It’s the sound that gets you.

You’ve heard fetal heart tones a hundred times. A thousand times. You’ve stood in rooms while other women heard this for the first time and you’ve read the chart and noted the rate and moved on, because it was clinical, because it was data.

Except right now your body is doing something entirely outside of your control, something warm moving through your chest without asking permission, and you press your lips together and breathe.

“Strong heartbeat,” Dr. Reyes says, with the particular quiet of someone who knows what this moment is. “Right around a hundred and fifty-four. Looking good.”

You nod. Your throat is doing something it shouldn’t.

From the chair beside you, you hear Bucky exhale. Like he’d been holding something and set it down.

You turn your head and look at him.

He’s looking at the screen, not at you, and his jaw is tight and his hands are braced against his knee. His expression is… soft. You know because it’s the same on your own face.

“Can I—” His voice comes out different than you’ve heard it. Rougher. He clears his throat. “Can I get a copy of that? The image.”

Dr. Reyes glances between you, and you nod. “Of course,” she says.

He looks at you then. Quick, like he’s checking whether that was okay. When you nod, he immediately turns back to the screen.

Dr. Reyes does the measurements. Everything is how it should be, and she gives you the due date. Mid-July. Which you’d already calculated, but hearing it out loud is its own thing.

She goes through the first trimester expectations with you and you listen to all of it with the clinical half of your brain taking notes while the other half is somewhere else, somewhere watching the flicker on the screen and not knowing quite what to do with itself.

When she hands you the printout of the image, you put it in your bag. She hands one to Bucky too, without being asked again, and he takes it with both hands and looks at it for a second before sliding it into his inside coat pocket. Like it’s something he doesn’t want to bend.

He drives you back. You sit in the passenger seat and watch the city go by.

Neither of you speaks for a while, which is fine. Which is easy, actually, and you resent that a little.

You’d like to be uncomfortable. Discomfort is useful.

“Thank you. For letting me be there.” He’s the one to break the silence.

“You asked,” you say. Which is true, but not the full answer, and you both know it.

He doesn’t push.

In front of your building, he puts it in park. “Do you need anything? For the apartment, or groceries, or I could pick stuff up—”

“I’m okay.” You’re already half out of the seat.

“Prenatal vitamins, or—”

“Bucky.” You pause with one foot on the curb. “I have prenatal vitamins. I ordered them the morning after I tested. I’m a doctor. I know what I need.”

He has a hand on the steering wheel and he’s looking at you, and there’s something in his face that isn’t quite hurt and isn’t quite frustration. More like a person who wants to do something and doesn’t know how.

“I know you do.”

“I’m not—” There’s a version of this that comes out wrong, and you navigate around it. “I’m not keeping you out of it. That’s not what this is. I just— I don’t need you to manage things. Okay?” You look at him. “I’ll call you when there’s something to call you about.”

He’s quiet for a second. “Okay.”

“The heartbeat. That was… yeah. It was good.” You don’t know why you said that, only you didn’t want that to be the last thing you told him.

You’re already inside your place by the time you hear his car pull away.

The peonies are still in the glass on your counter when you get back in, and you stand there looking at them.

You are a person who has her prenatal vitamins already ordered and her charting caught up and her shifts covered, and you are also a person who left a one-night stand’s flowers in a water glass because they were too nice to throw out.

You said no three times.

The first time was on the phone, two days after the appointment, when he called with what he’d clearly prepared as a reasonable proposition. He delivered in the tone of someone who has won arguments in rooms full of people who didn’t want to lose.

His apartment was twelve minutes from your hospital by cab. Your commute was forty, on a good day. The first trimester fatigue was going to get worse before it got better. He had a spare bedroom. It was just practical.

The second time was a week after that, in person, when he’d swung by your hospital on his way from somewhere official to somewhere else official. He’d shown up in your break room with a coffee you hadn’t asked for and had the conversation again.

He laid it out like he was briefing someone. The proximity to your hospital, the fact that his building had a doorman and a parking garage and an elevator, the fact that your building had none of those things and three flights of stairs that were already becoming a thing you noticed at the end of a long shift.

The third time was on a Tuesday when you’d gotten home at midnight and stood at the bottom of your stairs for longer than you’d like to admit before making yourself go up them.

You’d texted Sarah about it not entirely meaning to, and Sarah had apparently mentioned it to her father, and her father had apparently mentioned it to Bucky. Your phone had rung at twelve fifteen.

How does news travel so fast?

The fourth time you said no it was because you’d run out of actual reasons and had to fall back on principle, which he received with the patience of someone who understood the difference and was content to wait.

That patience, somehow, was the thing that wore you down. Not the logic of it.

He’d just set the option on the table and waited with his hands in his pockets while you turned it over and found fewer and fewer things wrong with it.

That time you’d said, “Fine. A month. We’ll see how it goes.”

His apartment is on the fourteenth floor of a building that has a lobby with actual plants in it and a doorman named Gerald who learned your name on the second day and now says ‘good morning’ like he means it.

The spare bedroom has a window that faces east, which you hadn’t expected to care about. But find that you do, when the morning light comes in early and clean.

The first few days felt like moving around a furniture arrangement that hadn’t fully settled. Two people with established routines in one space, both of you figuring out the other.

You learned that he woke up early, always, and that the coffee was made before you came out of your room.

You learned that he watched the news in the living room in the evenings with the sound low and that he didn’t talk during it. Which suited you fine because you had charts to finish.

You learned that he stocked the fridge with things you’d mentioned offhand once, twice, in passing.

The ginger tea appeared on the third day, on the shelf above your coffee mug. You hadn’t said you needed it. But you’d been slightly more nauseous every morning and apparently he’d noticed, because there it was, three boxes of it, like it had always been there.

You’re fourteen weeks now. Which means you’d started to show in the way that is noticeable if you know what you’re looking for, the small firm curve of it below your navel that your regular clothes are beginning to politely argue with.

Looking down at it in the mirror still does something to you that you don’t have a clean word for.

Bucky doesn’t comment on it. That might be the thing you appreciate most.

What he does is quietly rearrange things. The stuff on the highest shelves moved down without discussion. A non-slip mat appeared in the shower.

He started being in the kitchen when you came home late, putting something together, and there was always enough for two.

You’d tried to protest the first time and he’d handed you a bowl of whatever it was and said ‘sit down, eat’, and something about the directness of it had short-circuited your objection.

The dynamic between you had shifted in a way that was hard to articulate. He made you laugh twice last week, genuinely. Once about something on the news and once about something Gerald had said in the lobby. You’d felt the laugh leave your body and thought afterward, with some surprise, that you hadn’t been performing it.

You still felt the thing from the coffee shop, underneath. You didn’t think you’d stop feeling that for a while. It is something that won’t stop hurting when you think of it often, and you think of it often.

Tuesday morning, you’re off until noon.

Off, for a resident, means you slept until eight instead of five and only have emails to deal with instead of a full shift, but still.

You come out of your room in your robe and your thick socks, hair in the kind of chaos that only nine hours of actual sleep can produce, and you’re running through the schedule of the day in your head when you turn the corner into the kitchen and stop.

Bucky is at the stove.

In a towel.

Just a towel. White, knotted at his hip, his hair still damp against the back of his neck. He clearly just stepped out of the shower and he’s got the skillet on and he’s doing something with eggs, fully concentrated on it.

You should say something. You should announce yourself, the way a normal person would, and give you both a second to reorient.

You don’t.

You’ve seen him in suits, you’ve seen him in the sweater from the coffee shop, you’ve seen him in the dark of a hotel room. But this is different in a way that your body is entirely on board with and your brain is slightly behind on.

He’s solid, broad across the back and tapered down, and the towel sits low on his hips and the morning light in the kitchen is doing things you’d like it to stop doing.

His left arm, the metal one, catches the light differently than his right, the lines of it tracing the shape of a shoulder, a forearm, fingers curled around the handle of the pan.

You’ve always been a normal amount of attracted to him. You’ve been telling yourself that it was circumstantial. Hormones, proximity, those things. And that it would settle down, because that was the sensible thing for it to do.

It is not settling down.

You press your lips together and look at the ceiling briefly and remind yourself that you are a grown adult in her first trimester who is going to behave appropriately. The first trimester is notoriously unkind when it comes to this, your body does not always know what’s good for it.

“Morning,” you say.

He turns around. To his credit, he doesn’t look particularly thrown. A little caught, maybe, but he rolls with it. “Hey. Sorry… I was running late, I figured I’d just start breakfast before I—” He gestures vaguely at himself with the spatula, which you choose not to find charming. “Didn’t hear you get up.”

“It’s fine,” you say, and you get yourself to the coffee maker and give yourself something to do with your hands. “What time is it?”

“Eight-forty.” He turns back to the eggs. “I would’ve had it ready before you got up usually. Woke up late.”

“You know you don’t have to make me breakfast every single day.”

He shifts the pan off the heat. “I was making eggs anyway. Seemed wasteful not to.”

You look at his back. His very… whatever. You pour your coffee. “Are you going to put clothes on?”

“Yeah, I— are the eggs okay first or should I—”

“The eggs are fine,” you say, which possibly comes out with slightly more feeling than the eggs require, and you turn and look very deliberately at your mug.

He dishes the eggs onto two plates, sets yours on the counter in front of you with a piece of toast that has appeared from somewhere.

Then he takes himself and his towel situation to his room.

You sit at the kitchen counter and stare at your eggs and feel extremely normal about everything.

Hormones. First trimester. Completely explicable.

You eat your eggs. They’re good. They’re always good, which is its own kind of inconvenience.

He comes back in grey sweatpants and a t-shirt with his damp hair and sits across the counter from you with his own plate.

The thing about Bucky Barnes in grey sweatpants is that it is somehow worse than the towel because you cannot blame it on anything. You cannot say you were caught off guard.

He is just sitting there in normal clothes eating scrambled eggs and looking at his phone. This is just your morning now. This is what your mornings are.

“You have the afternoon appointment Friday?” he asks, not looking up from his phone.

“Two o’clock.”

He nods. Puts his phone down. Picks up his coffee. “I can drive you.”

“I can get there.”

“I want to be there.”

You consider pointing out that he says that a lot. You decide not to. “Okay.”

The scrubs have been sitting in the bottom of your bag for three weeks. The dark navy set, the ones you’d bought in your first year when you finally had enough shifts under your belt to feel like they were earned.

You’d packed them when you left your apartment and told yourself it was practical, that you’d need them before the end of your residency, that they’d still fit by then.

Today is the final week. Last stretch before your exams, before whatever comes after, and you’d woken up this morning with the particular weight of an ending sitting on your chest. The bittersweet kind, the kind that doesn’t fully resolve into either sad or glad and just sits there asking you to feel both.

You’d thought about your locker at the hospital, the mug you kept in the break room, the nurses who knew your name and your coffee order and the specific way you liked your charts organized. You’d thought about who you’d been when you started, which felt like another person’s life viewed through glass.

The scrubs had seemed right. Nostalgic. The way you might put on an old sweater, or drive past your childhood home. Just to remember what it felt like.

That was the theory.

In practice, you’re standing in front your mirror at eight in the morning and the scrub top is bunched at your midsection, stuck there, going neither up nor down.

Your stomach has done what stomachs do at nineteen weeks. It is present, unmistakably, the firm round curve of it that you’d spent weeks watching appear like something surfacing through water.

The scrub top, which had been fitted-ish even before, has no interest in accommodating it. The fabric is straining across your chest in a way that would be funny in a different context, because your chest has also done what chests do, which is become something you are still getting used to seeing in mirrors.

The whole picture is that the scrub is basically a crop top, currently. The bottom six inches of your stomach are exposed. It will not go down.

You already know. You knew the moment you got it over your arms.

Still. Something cracks anyway.

It’s not rational. You’re a doctor, you understand what’s happening to your body better than most people get to. You’d read the weekly summaries without sentimentality. You’d taken your vitamins and gone to your appointments and been, all things considered, fairly functional about the whole thing.

But there’s something about the scrubs specifically that you hadn’t accounted for. Three years of who you were, and they don’t fit. You cannot explain why that particular fact is the one that finds the crack, except that it does. And your eyes are burning before you’ve fully registered that they’re going to.

You pull at the hem once more anyway. Just to try. It doesn’t move.

“Hey—” Bucky, in the hallway, knocking twice before he pushes the door slightly open. He does that, announces himself before the door, which you’d noticed in the first week and filed away as a thing you appreciated without saying so. “Breakfast is—” He stops.

You’re not crying. You’re at the stage just before, the one where your face is doing something you can’t control and your eyes are bright and your throat has that specific tightness. And you’re wearing a scrub top bunched up to your ribcage with your stomach completely exposed and your bra visible and your hands still fisted in the fabric.

He comes into your room properly, and stands behind you. You look at him in the mirror. He looks at you.

“The scrubs don’t fit.” Your voice comes out steadier than you expected.

“Yeah,” he says. Like he’s agreeing with whatever the real sentence is underneath the one you said.

“I know they weren’t going to.” You let go of the hem. “I don’t know why I thought—” You press your lips together. The burning behind your eyes is doing what it wants to regardless, and you look up at the ceiling briefly and breathe.

“It’s the last week,” you say, after a second.

Bucky doesn’t say anything right away. Your eyes meet in the mirror and there’s nothing in his face that looks like he doesn’t understand.

“I know.”

The simplicity of it helps more than anything elaborate would have. You breathe again and feel the tightness in your throat ease a fraction.

His hands find the hem of the scrub top, and he looks at your face in the mirror first. When you give the smallest nod, he eases it up and over and off.

You stand there in your bra and maternity leggings.

In the mirror, his eyes make a trip south that he doesn’t intend you to catch. Quick and involuntary and immediately corrected, back to your face. But you caught it. The fraction of a second where they landed, where they stayed, before he pulled them back up.

You don’t say anything.

You’d spent weeks rearranging your sense of your own body, cataloguing the changes the way you would with a patient.

Maintaining the clinical distance had always been your competence.

But clinical distance has a way of not applying when someone’s eyes do what his just did.

This is not the hungry look from a hotel room. This is the helpless half-second kind. The involuntary kind. The honest kind, the kind a person can’t manufacture.

The fact that it was involuntary is the part that does something.

“Breakfast is probably cold,” you say, because you have to say something and the other things aren’t available yet.

“I can reheat it.”

“You don’t have to—”

“I’ll reheat it.”

You look at yourself in the mirror. You don’t look like yourself in the way you’ve always expected to look like yourself.

And you can’t tell yet whether that’s loss or just change, whether there’s even a meaningful difference between those two things.

“Bucky…. Thank you.” For the way he’d come in and just stood there and let the thing be what it was without trying to fix it or reframe it or promise you it would be fine.

The anatomy scan is at twenty weeks, which you know from the part of your brain that has been doing obstetric math since the positive test.

It is the one where they can tell you. If you want to know. If you ask.

You hadn’t decided, going in.

Bucky hadn’t asked whether you were going to find out, which you’d appreciated. He’d just shown up, same as always, jacket and the particular stillness that he brought into medical spaces with him.

The scan takes twenty minutes. You lie on your back with the transducer moving over your stomach while Dr. Reyes takes her measurements and narrates in the calm voice she has.

Bucky sits in the chair and watches the screen.

The anatomy is normal. All of it—the cardiac chambers, the spine, the cerebellum, the face. You listen to Dr. Reyes confirm each structure and your brain files it the way it always does, methodical.

Underneath the methodology there is something that is not methodology. something that has been building since the first scan, something that you have been calling various things and none of them have been entirely right.

“Do you want to know the sex?” Dr. Reyes asks.

You look at the ceiling. Then you look at Bucky.

He looks back at you. His expression says it’s up to you, the same way it said that about the apartment, about the appointments, about all of it.

He’d been very careful, the whole time, not to lean on decisions that were yours to make. You’d noticed. You’d been noticing for months.

“Yeah.”

Dr. Reyes smiles, and moves the transducer.

A girl.

You hadn’t had a preference, or you’d told yourself you hadn’t, but when she said it you understood something, like—oh. Oh, of course. Of course it’s her.

You don’t cry in the office. You make it to the elevator.

Its the sudden, quick kind. Two breaths worth, your hand pressed to your mouth, and then it passes.

You’re left standing in an elevator with your eyes bright, and Bucky is beside you looking at your face with the expression that isn’t unreadable anymore.

“Sorry,” you say, which is stupid, crying is a completely normal response to—

“Don’t.” He puts his arm around your shoulder and you let him.

By the time you’re in the lobby you’re fine, or close enough.

“A girl,” you say out loud, just to hear it.

“A girl.” Something in his voice makes you look at his face, and what’s there stops you. He’s looking straight ahead, jaw working slightly, and he looks like a man who has just understood the full size of something and is very quietly being changed by it.

His arm comes down from your shoulder but his hand finds yours briefly, just for a moment.

The first kick happens on a Thursday evening at twenty-three weeks.

You’re on the couch. You’ve been on the couch for an hour, which has become a thing you do now. Come home and decompose horizontally for a while before you can face anything requiring vertical effort.

Bucky is somewhere in his officr and you’re watching something on the television that you’re not fully watching.

It’s not what you’d expected. It isn’t a kick exactly, it’s more like something — someone really — turning over. A rolling flutter from the inside, unmistakable once it happens, unmistakable in the way that means you’d know it anywhere forever.

You go completely still.

It happens again. Clearer this time. More definite.

“Bucky.” You don’t mean to say it at volume. It just comes out.

Following footsteps, you see him. He reads your face immediately and crouches beside the couch without asking ‘what’s wrong’, because whatever your face is doing right now clearly isn’t wrong.

“She’s moving.”

His eyes go to your hands on your stomach. “Now?”

“Just now. She—” It happens again, and your face does something you’re completely not in control of. “There.”

He looks up at you and then at your stomach and then at you again. “Can I?”

“Yeah.” You take his hand and put it where yours is, your palm over the back of his.

For a moment nothing happens, and you think maybe it’s stopped, and then—

His face.

You’ve catalogued Bucky’s expressions for months. You know the almost-smile and the real one and the careful one and the behind-the-eyes one, but this is none of them.

This is something you haven’t seen before and can’t name, something stripped entirely of everything else, just… pure. Open in a way his face almost never is. His eyes are bright and he is looking at your stomach like it is the most astonishing thing he has ever encountered.

“That’s her.” His voice is not steady.

“That’s her.”

He doesn’t move his hand. You don’t move yours. The kick comes again. The two of you stay like that on the couch, with his hand under yours, her making herself known between you.

There are things between you still. Not resolved, the coffee shop, his words you seem to can’t get past.

But right now it’s quiet.

“She’s strong,” he eventually says. A little undone. Trying not to show it and not quite succeeding, which you love. Which you note, quietly, that you love.

He looks up at you and something passes between you that doesn’t need words, something that would have been impossible five months ago.

His thumb moves slightly on your stomach, a small unconscious thing, a hello from the outside. You let your head fall back against the cushion and close your eyes and feel her move again.

Today you notice that your left breast is tender in a specific way. Your colostrum has been leaking for the better part of five days.

Now there’s this localised tenderness. You press two fingers against it, and find the spot immediately.

Blocked duct. Clean and obvious. You’d diagnosed it in approximately four seconds.

The knowing doesn’t make it hurt less.

You get in the shower and let the hot water run directly on it, and you work at the tissue the way you know. Gentle, firm strokes toward the nipple, drained before it blocks further.

It helps a little. Enough to get dressed and eat breakfast and tell yourself it would resolve on its own by afternoon, which it might, which blocked ducts sometimes do when caught early.

By afternoon it hasn’t resolved.

By evening it’s worse.

Bucky makes dinner and breakfast and lunch. It’s something he took it upon himself, and no matter what you did, he insisted he wanted to. You decided that was the least he could do, since you’re already growing a whole human.

You’re on the couch when he brings you your plate, but don’t really eat it, which he notices. Because Bucky notices things. That is one of the more inconvenient facts about living with him.

“You’re not eating.” An observation.

“I’m eating.” You take a bite to demonstrate.

He sits down on his end of the couch, his own plate, and looks at you in the way he looks at things when he’s decided something. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong. I’m fine.”

“You’ve been holding your left side since you sat down.”

You look at him. You hadn’t realized you were doing that. Your hand is braced just below your ribs on the left, the pressure of it a reflex you hadn’t consciously authorized. You move it to your lap.

“I’m fine.”

“Okay.” He eats a bite of his dinner. “What’s wrong?”

The repetition startles a short laugh out of you. “Bucky.”

“I’ve got time.”

You look at your plate. The thing about the past several months is that you’d stopped performing fine quite so much. You still did it sometimes. Habit, mostly.

But the effort of maintaining it in the face of someone who was going to sit there and wait it out had started to feel like more work than just saying the thing.

“Blocked duct.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means one of the milk ducts is… blocked”

“You’re… producing?”

“Yeah, for like five days. It’s normal. Don’t worry.”

“Normal? You’re in pain.”

“The milk part is normal. The blocked part is not normal even after delivery.”

“So, what do we do? What’s the treatment?”

Of course. Of course that’s the immediate question. You set your fork down. “Warm compress, massage, expression. In that order.”

“Have you tried all of that?”

“Yes.”

“And?”

“And it’s… helping. Some. Not fully resolved.”

He’s quiet for a second, and you can hear him thinking, which is a thing you’ve learned to recognize. “Do you want me to— I could help with the massage. If that’s— if it would help.”

Something happens to your body that you are immediately and completely dismissive of. You are thirty-eight weeks pregnant and you are sitting on a couch across from the man who is the father of your child and who is also just a person asking a practical question.

Your body’s response to that question is frankly embarrassing and entirely the fault of the third trimester hormonal profile.

“I’m fine,” you say, for the third time, which even you can tell is getting less convincing.

“You said that.” He puts his plate on the coffee table. “What else is there?”

“What do you mean?”

“For the duct. If massage doesn’t work, what else is there?”

Your face does something you are not responsible for. You think about how to answer this question, which should be simple, which is a medical question with a factual answer, and yet.

“Suction.”

“A pump?” He’s already standing with his not even half finished place. “I’ll go buy one—”

“It’s not the pump.” The words come out before you’ve decided to say them. You look at him.

He looks back at you.

“Tell me what it is.” His voice is even.

You hold his gaze for a second. There are thirty-eight weeks of something between the two of you, not all of it clean, most of it good, and you are in pain that has a solution that you are not asking for.

“Manual suction would be equally effective than the pump. It’s also direct. You don’t have to— I don’t need you to do anything. It’ll resolve.”

He’s very still. “Will it?”

“Probably.”

“Probably,” he echoes.

“Yes.”

He’s looking at you with the expression that isn’t unreadable anymore, hasn’t been for a while, the one that means he’s made a decision and is waiting to see if you’ll come to the same one. “You’re in pain.”

“I’m fine.”

“You’ve said that four times and eaten approximately one bite of dinner.” His voice is quiet and not unkind and leaves absolutely no room. “You’re in pain, and there’s something that would help, and you’re sitting there not asking for it. So I’m asking. Do you want me to help?”

“It’s not— This isn’t—”

“I know what it is and what it isn’t. I’m asking if you want me to help.”

The honesty of the question, the way he’s asking plainly if you want him to, does something to the knot of your refusal, loosens it.

“Okay.”

The bedroom lamp is on low, which you’re grateful for. You’re sitting against the headboard in just your tank top because bra is compression and compression makes the pain worse.

Bucky is sitting beside you. You’ve walked him through it in the voice you use for medical explanations. Impersonal, methodical, this is the direction of drainage, this much is the pressure we’re aiming for. He’d listened the way he listens to everything, completely, without interrupting.

“Tell me if I’m doing it wrong.”

“You’re not.” You’d watched his hands and the technique was right, working from the periphery inward the way you’d told him.

The heat of it was immediate, the specific relief of pressure moving in the right direction, and you let your head fall back against the headboard and breathe through it.

It hurts. It hurts in the way that relief sometimes hurts, the way that unkinking something that’s been kinked for too long. You press your lips together and exhale.

“Still okay?” he asks.

“Yes.” Your voice is not entirely steady. “Keep going.”

The blocked duct is stubborn in the way they get when they’ve been compressing for a day. The massage alone was never going to be enough, you’d known that, you’d known it since Wednesday morning and done it anyway because asking was harder.

But his hands are warmer than yours, the pressure more sustained, and the way his fingers glide over your swollen skin sends an unexpected shiver through you, the warmth pooling not just in relief but in a deeper, aching need between your thighs.

When his mouth closes over the nipple, the sensation is overwhelming at first.

The sound you make is entirely involuntary and you press your hand to your own mouth immediately.

His hand stills on your ribs. He doesn’t stop. The suction is careful and rhythmic and nothing about the way he’s doing this is anything other than what it is.

Yet your body does not seem to fully understand the assignment. The wet heat of his mouth envelops you, his tongue pressing softly against the sensitive peak as he draws gently, each pull sending a spark of unwelcome arousal straight to your core, making you clench involuntarily around nothing.

You tell yourself you’re not turned on by him relieving your pain. You’re wrong.

Just for a fleeting moment, you wonder, if it's affecting him too. If the intimate act of tasting you, feeling your body respond under his lips, is stirring something in him the way it's unraveling you.

With continued suction, the colostrum releases slowly, the hard cord of tissue beginning to soften under his hand. You feel the pressure shifting, the acute point of pain diffusing.

And your eyes fill without your permission, the specific relief of it after a day of something that just quietly hurt and hurt and hurt.

“There.” Your voice breaks on it, just slightly.

He pulls back. Looks at your face. And then without discussion he puts his arm around you and pulls you into his side carefully. His hand finds the top of your bump in the way he does sometimes without thinking and you let him.

“You’re okay,” he says into your hair. “I’ve got you. You’re okay.”

You breathe. The ache is fading and you are okay.

But the lingering warmth of his mouth on your skin, the ghost of his breath against your nipple, has left you throbbing with need.

There’s this heat in you that has nothing to do with pain or hurt or blocked ducts. And everything to do with him and his proximity. You don’t think you can blame it on your hormones anymore.

You’re focused on not doing anything more. Because you don’t know how he feels. Just because he’d offered to help doesn’t mean he’s into this. Into you.

“Why didn’t you call me?”

You don’t know what he is talking about.

You lift your head a little. “What?”

His hand moves slightly on your back, a small motion, like he’s deciding how to continue. “The morning after the gala.” He’s not looking at you directly. “I had an early call. I had to be out by 5.30. I didn’t want to wake you.”

That morning comes rushing back like it was yesterday. The empty side. The folded dress on the chair. The glass of water.

“I left my number on the hotel notepad, by the lamp. I thought— I thought you’d call.”

“What—”

“Left side of the lamp. I figured maybe you didn’t want to. And then weeks went by and I thought—” He doesn’t finish that sentence. He doesn’t have to. “And then you called. And I picked up and heard your voice and I thought, okay. Okay, she called.”

If only you’d looked properly.

You close your eyes. Your brain does the math. How close you’d been to something, how much the last eight months might have looked different… if only you’d looked properly.

“And then the coffee shop. I said something— I said something I would take back ten times over if I could. The look on your face.” He finally glances down at you, and his expression is the honest one, the one stripped of the management. “I’d been thinking about you for weeks, and then there you were, telling me something that big, and I panicked and I said the worst possible thing, and I’ve been—”

“Bucky…”

“I’ve been trying to show you that I’m not that… Since then. That — that isn’t who I am.”

“I know.” You mean it fully. “I know.”

His hand hasn’t stopped moving on your back and you’ve gone completely loose against his side.

You turn your face slightly into his shoulder. He smells like the same thing he always smells like.

Something clean, something his.

You look up. He’s looking down. At you.

”I looked, I searched… I — I am so sorry, Bucky.”

He shakes his head, “you have nothing to be sorry about.” His voice is a whisper, gently wiping something off your face, only then do you realise you’d been crying.

Later if you thought about it, you could not have said who moved first. Maybe it was you, maybe it was just the proximity and the angle and months and months of near misses.

But his mouth is on yours and it is nothing like the hotel room. Nothing at all like that.

That had been hunger and dark and mutual want in its simplest form, and this is something else, something that has been earned in increments. When you kiss him back you feel the whole weight of it.

His hand comes up to your jaw, the right one, and he kisses you the way he does things when he means them. Slow. Sure. Like he is not going anywhere and wants you to know it. This time there’s no tears.

When you pull back, his thumb is on your cheek and your foreheads are together and you’re both breathing.

“Hi,” you say, which is what you always seem to say when he takes you off guard.

Something changes in his expression. Soft and a little helpless and very, very him. “Hi.”

You kiss him again, slower, and his hand slides from your jaw to your neck, and when you shift against him you feel him go still.

“I don’t want to—” He pulls back enough to look at you, and his face is flushed, and he’s trying to be responsible about something and finding it difficult. His eyes go briefly, helplessly, to your stomach, and then back to your face. “I don’t want to hurt her.”

You look at him. Something warm and fond moves through you, which is perhaps not the most practical emotion for this particular moment, but there it is.

“Sex is not contraindicated,” you say.

His brow furrows slightly. “How do you—”

“Bucky.”

“I just—”

“It’s actively encouraged in the two weeks before the due date.” You hold his gaze. “Prostaglandins in semen help with cervical ripening. And orgasm stimulates uterine contractility, which—”

“Okay.”

“—can help initiate labour at term, which is why—”

“Okay.” He’s slightly flushed. “I get it.”

“Do you? Because I can explain the mechanism—”

“How do you know that?” He asks with the expression of a man who has already realized the answer.

You cock your eyebrow.

“Right. You’re a doctor.” He looks like he’s genuinely embarrassed, with the kind of blush you have never seen on him before in eight months of looking at his face. “Sorry.”

You press your lips together so you don’t smile too much, because this is not the moment for I told you so, except that it is a little. “It’s okay.”

“I just—I didn’t want to—”

“I know.” You put your hand on his jaw, the same way you’d put it on his jaw in a hotel room eight months ago in a completely different life. “I know. She’s safe. I’m safe. Okay?”

This is different from the hotel room in every way that matters.

“You’re beautiful.” He says it simply, like it’s the truth.

“I’m enormous.”

“Yeah.” He says it like those are the same sentence. Like enormous is included in beautiful, like the distinction doesn’t exist.

You pull his shirt over his head and he lets you, and then his hands find your tank top and he eases it off fully. His eyes move over you the way they’d moved that day in the mirror, except now there is nothing to look away from, and he doesn’t.

“Tell me what feels good. Tell me what doesn’t.”

“You’re going to make me talk the whole time?”

“I’m going to make you talk when I need to know something.” His mouth moves to your jaw, your throat, and his voice is warm against your skin. “Which will be often.”

Your hands find his hair and you hold on.

His hands learn it the way you’d watch him learn anything else. With attention, nothing half-done.

He finds your hip, your thigh, and his fingers trail up the inside of it with the unhurried patience of a man who is not going anywhere. When they reach the apex of your thighs and slip between your folds, finding you slick and swollen, he exhales slowly against your neck.

“Jesus.”

“I told you it was—”

“Not the physiology… Just— you.” His fingers part you gently, circling your clit with soft strokes, and your grip on his hair tightens. “This.”

You stop talking.

His fingers are gentle in a way that is its own undoing. He’s learning, finding the places that make your breath change and staying there, pressing and rubbing with just enough pressure to send heat pooling low in your belly.

You’re on your side, which is where he’d guided you with the easy practicality of someone who’d done their research and wasn’t going to make a thing of it.

His chest is warm against your back and his hand is over your hip and everything about the angle lets his fingers delve deeper, one sliding inside you while his thumb works your clit.

He keeps going until your thighs are shaking and you’re saying his name with your face pressed to the pillow and when his fingers slow, you make an undignified sound

“Don’t stop—”

“I’m not stopping,” he says into your shoulder. “Just changing.”

He shifts, settling behind you, and you feel the warm blunt pressure of his cock at your entrance, the head nudging against your wetness.

He pauses there. His hand is on your hip, his mouth is at your temple. “Okay?”

“Yes… Please.”

He pushes in slowly. All the way slow, inch by inch, stretching you, giving you time to feel every ridge and vein as he fills you completely. You exhale through it and he stays still when he’s fully seated, buried to the hilt. You feel his chest chest rising and falling against your back. “Okay?” he asks again.

“More than okay,” you manage, which makes him exhale a short, warm laugh against your neck.

He moves. The kind of pace that builds rather than rushes, his cock sliding out almost to the tip before thrusting back in. His hand on your hip holds you in place, and you feel every movement everywhere, the particular fullness of him inside you, pressing against that sensitive spot with each stroke, the particular closeness of his body wrapped around yours.

His hand slides from your hip to your stomach and just rests there and something about that, the fact that he thought to do that, his palm warm and open on the curve of your belly while his cock moves inside you, does something to you that is beyond physical.

“Bucky.” It’s not a request for anything, just his name in your mouth, just needing to say it.

“I’m here.” His arm tightens around you. “I’ve got you.”

His other hand finds your clit again, fingers slick with your arousal, rubbing in tight, slow circles that match the rhythm of his hips. You feel the tension building in slow long waves, nothing like the urgent snap of the hotel room, this is the accumulative kind, the kind that climbs and climbs, your walls clenching around him with each thrusts.

His mouth is at your ear and he’s saying your name, just your name.

When you come, you come with his name on your lips and his arms around you and his hand on your belly.

It moves through you like something warm breaking loose from somewhere it had been held for a long time, your body pulsing around his cock, drawing him deeper. You feel it in your chest as much as anywhere else.

His hips stutter and slow and he presses his face into your neck and follows you, spills inside you. His arm fully wraps around you, and then everything is still.

You lie there with his heartbeat at your back, fast still and slowing.

This time there’s no condom to dispose. But he does move, and comes back with a washcloth and a glass of water. A glass of water, again.

His hands are soft and his touch gentle when he cleans you, wiping away the mix of your release and his from between your thighs.

After a while, after he’s made you drink half a glass of water, and you’re settled into him, his hand moves on your stomach. “Hey,” he says. To her. Like a hello.

You press your hand over his.

Something moves under your palms and you realise it’s a hello back from the inside.

my masterlist !

extras. if this flops, i’ll cry. also why was this so long lmao 😭

permanent taglist. @devililithh @buckyfmd @sheriff-bodecker @honeysucklewatr @demiebarnes @solivagant-reverie @kqtholins @amoremarveloustime @colettebarnes @barnes-babydoll @miraclediviner @of-sanguine-eyes @biaswreckedbybuckybarnes @manly-man-whore @indigo123789 @wasa-bby @biggestfangirl @herejustforbuckybarnes @buckysbunnny @highhopes1008 @castielscaplan @ornateglass @grumpysunnybarnes @luvyoupxmimi @slutdier @yes-ilovetowrite @cautiouscas17 @astridphantom @delusionalwomsn @cinnamon-girl-writes @wherewinterblooms @stifflyspeedyquirk @sassandscribbles @marvelouslyme96 @stesha02 @floatingvalhallasea @goobers-mcgee @t1redphoenix @vickynguyennn @bluellamacheesecake-blog @serenityrjd @pitabread79 @galaxygoddess30 @biggestfangirl @chenoadouble-o7 @phoenix-in-writing @ceoofdisappointment @ladymiseryy @wherewinterblooms @avgdestitute @lunexiax @akthoughtss + to get added to the taglist!

[redbloodedgurl]

Oooh my. Give me Bucky and one night stand turning pregnancy and I’m in!!!! This was amazing. Thank you so much for sharing 🥰

Ngl I was going to kill him at the cafe but he redeemed himself and then the phone number thing?? Perfect lol

If you have inspiration someday, sooner or later, I would love to know more about them. They’re so cute 🥺🥺

[kittyminion]

SHOTGUN

husband!bucky barnes x wife!f!reader

SUMMARY: a marriage born out of premarital sex with a man you thought you loved, has since spun into something barely worth holding onto ten years later. if it wasn't for your son, you and bucky wouldn't be living under the same roof, but somehow, you find your way back to each other WARNINGS: smut 18+, fluff, angst, shotgun marriage, father!bucky, laswyer!bucky, poc reader, reader has curly/coily hair, infedility, kid named jaxson, language, heavy plot, surburbia aes., fake(ish) marriage au, fake filler characters, au, baby, sweetheart, housewife!reader, reader plays violin, arguing, domestic life, talks of pregnancy/breeding kink

WORD COUNT: 7.7k

The dining room was full tonight, dim overhead lights shining—the fixture you'd chosen over Bucky's ugly chandelier design with sixteen thousand bulbs. The scent of food filled the room—mac n' cheese, rotisserie chicken, pie, and anything else the Smiths and Garcias brought.

The Smiths were on your right side, house a blend of modernistic taste and a perfect lawn that Bucky complained about when he was angry with the world. They had two daughters, Aria and Maya, Maya being in high school while Aria was ten and in fourth grade, like Jaxson. Maya skipped out on dinner to hang with friends.

Every Friday, after dropping Jaxson off for school, you and Mrs. Madison Smith carpooled to yoga. It was a heavy bout of sweat and embarrassment, especially at the beginning, when neither of you were able to pull off the intricate moves the instructor taught.

Mr. Isaac Smith worked for Bucky at the firm as a criminal defense lawyer, and he was good at his job, but only because he was an excellent liar, and for months now, he'd been cheating on Madison with his assistant.

Some nights, Madison knocked on the back door and cried to you about how much her marriage was failing, and she wished she were like you and Bucky—perfect, loving, fear of divorce not even a consideration in mind.

The Garcias were on the left. Mr. Thomas Garcia didn't keep up with the yard as well, and the HOA violations piled up beneath his mailbox to show as much. He was a quiet man—a vigilant one, much more importantly, which meant he was the first person to notice the tension between Bucky and you, but he kept his mouth shut because it was none of his business—rightfully so.

Mrs. Katy Garcia was the complete opposite of her husband, loud, obnoxious, sometimes, but she was a kleptomaniac who stole something each time she entered your house. She thought you didn't notice—you did, you weren't stupid—but Bucky told you to ignore her, because the things she stole could be easily replaced.

He was careless that way.

Either way, you only relied on her for food because, despite her sticky fingers, she was an amazing cook, and to make up for her guilt, she gave you amazing dishes almost every week.

Bucky squeezed your hand, drawing your attention back to Jaxson, who stood in the foyer, cheeks red with slight embarrassment as he raised the violin to his chin.

You wanted to smack Bucky away and spit at him not to touch you, but the Smiths and Garcias were there, and you couldn't afford for them to find out you hated your husband as much as you hated disappointing your child.

That would only end in nasty embarrassment, because you'd built a perfect life with Bucky, and it couldn't fall because of—

"Mom! Are you watching?" Jaxson called from the foyer, eyes wide with honeyed joy, and you smiled at him, almost startled to see so much of Bucky Barnes in his face. He had those same icy blue eyes, but your rich skin and curly hair.

You were happy he was more of you than Bucky, but it was still hard to ignore Bucky's contributions.

Shifting your and Bucky's combined hands beneath the table, you stomped down on his foot, and he gave you a sweet smile, but in his eyes, hot hatred stared at you.

As soon as the silky sound of Jaxson's violin pierced the air, your rigid body relaxed, and you smiled at your son like he was the most beautiful thing in the world—he was, he'd come from your body, and he forwent all of Bucky's negative traits.

"That sounded beautiful, Jaxson!" Madison called, clapping politely once he finished his score. You could feel pride in your chest when Isaac glanced at you, grinning, but quite falsely, because his children were simple.

Not that it was a bad thing, but you knew he'd given up on his children as soon as he started sleeping around and lying about it. "How long have you been playing?" Isaac questioned, taking a sip of his wine, and Jaxson placed his violin in its case with attentive carefulness, "since I was...hm, I think five?"

Jaxson sat back down, blushing, and Aria slipped him another piece of pie she'd snuck past her mother. "Mom was teaching me at first." Everyone glanced at you, including Bucky, who lifted his eyes to the ceiling, clearing his throat.

"I didn't know you played! Why haven't you shown us?" Katy questioned, pushing her empty plate away, and you shrugged, attempting to respond, but before you could, Bucky leaned over and pressed a tender kiss to your temple.

Ice filled your veins, and you felt the urge to flinch away, but you just glanced at him.

"Baby, why don't you play? I'm sure they'd love it." You wanted to pinch the hell out of Bucky's thigh, but Jaxson was watching, hopefully, because he hadn't heard his mother play since he started his lessons five years ago.

"I don't have my violin." You excused, fingers tapping against the table tersely. But Bucky raised his eyebrows, "Jaxson, why don't you go get your mother's violin?"

As Jaxson hopped up enthusiastically, you felt your fingers ache, already anticipating the feeling of skin against string. You'd never lost your touch with the violin, but after not playing for so long, were you about to embarrass yourself?

That's what Bucky wanted—for you to refuse, give up, and look like a feckless fool in front of your friends. Ever since things went sour, he'd found subtle ways to ruin you—mentioning things he knew damn well you were allergic to to Kate so she could make it.

And then you couldn't refuse, it'd be too rude to refuse, so now, every few weeks, she'd gift shrimp scampi to you, and you'd sadly have to throw it away.

"Come on, we'd love to hear you play." Madison urged, smiling like an angel on Earth because that's exactly what she was, sweet and perfect. You loved her, she was your best friend, but the punishment for being so sweet and perfect was a loveless marriage, infedility, and children who pretended not to notice the arguing.

Glancing down at Bucky as you stood, he ran his hand over your waist, smirking.

Your husband had always been cute, handsome, and everything in between. With those sterling blue eyes, and lips so soft and pink that they could be mistaken for plush pillows. He'd been growing his hair the past few months, so it brushed his neck, and he looked stupid when he tried to tie it into a man-bun that he definitely pulled off.

He'd always been touchy, grabby, and cuddly, and when the two of you drifted apart, you could physically see the hurt in his eyes in the beginning. The two of you were like magnets, forever drawn, but recently, you'd formed into a paper ball with no ounce of pull towards him.

That's why he resented you so much, because you were the one to fall out of love first. He'd given his all to you for ten years, and now, you pretended like he was the most vile person in the world. Now, he was only returning the favor.

Your heels clinked against the wooden floors as you moved to the foyer, hearing Jaxson's pounding feet as he ran from the music room, back to the dining room. He held your violin, sitting in its dusting case, covered in stickers from when you played in high school.

You'd been the lead violinist back then, and you couldn't deny your raw talent for it. You loved it, feeling the music hit your ears, or the crescendo rise, and the vibrato as your fingers moved.

Making music was a passion for a very long time, but now, passion was your son, intricate lunches, carpooling, programs, school events, and it used to be Bucky, but now, he was just a stranger living in your house.

"Thank you, love." You muttered, and Jaxson nodded with those big blue eyes, smiling at his father when Bucky gave him a large thumbs up, reaching over to fistbump.

"Mama's gonna sound so good, isn't she?" Bucky muttered, voice underlying with negativity, but Jaxson didn't catch it—too young to even consider the fact that his parents could be bad people.

Your heart was pounding heavily in your chest as you unclasped the case, wrapping your hand around the violin's neck to pick it up. You grabbed the bow like it was a second skin, stepping from foot to foot to get comfortable, but eventually you sighed heavily and threw the heels off your feet.

"How long have you been playing, Mrs. Barnes?" Aria asked, watching you with light in her eyes—mainly because she was impressionable, and perhaps if you played well tonight, she'd want to play too.

"Twenty years. But it's never too late for you to start, Aria." Madison gave you a grateful nod, but you saw Isaac grab her wrist and shake his head. Maybe it was the heaps of money that went into being a violinst, or maybe, he cared little for what his wife and children desired.

When Madison's face shifted from angel-like to complete poison, you looked away, raising the violin to your chin, already knowing what you wanted to play.

Bucky caught your eye, but he wasn't looking at you; rather, he was glazed over in thought, fingers picking at his beard, a growing frown on his lips.

But as soon as your bow struck the strings, he snapped into reality once more. You held his gaze through the first few notes, fingers vibrating against the strings into a strong vibrato, body moving with the music, because you felt it streaming through your blood and muscles.

Kate's eyes filled with sad tears at the tenderness of your music; her husband, glancing from you to Bucky, perceptive, or rather nosy. Isaac didn't like you, and you could especially see it in the way he glared at you loosely, but he could never express his feelings because he worked for your husband—the husband who 'loved' you endlessly.

Jaxson was your biggest fan. He gripped the arms of his chair, knudging Aria so she'd pay attention more attentively.

With one final string over your bow, your score ended, and the room was silent. Not because of your music—yes, it was that beautiful—but because of the tears welling in your eyes.

As much as you loved your son, his birth ended the future with violin you could've had. You were petty and hurt, but your son was your greatest joy, so the blame shifted to Bucky, the very man who'd put the seed in your belly ten years ago.

Bucky stood, only to save face, because his wife was crying. He moved to you, hands landing on your arms, and you inhaled deeply, placing your violin aside as you moved from the room.

Jaxson wanted to follow, but Bucky told him to stay.

"What's the matter with you?" Bucky whispered, on your heels as you pushed into the kitchen, leaning against the sink and staring down at the barnhouse-style basin Bucky argued for over your double-basin.

"You want to know what's the fucking matter? You are the problem!" You pushed your hand into his chest, shoving him back, but Bucky didn't feed into your play at strength, so he grabbed your wrist and tugged you close.

"You need to suck this up. I don't have time for Isaac to run around telling people at the firm that my wife cried like a little fucking baby. I need you to say something—anything! Make an excuse, maybe the music touched you, I don't really care."

Snatching your wrist from his grip, you swiped your fingers beneath your eyes, breathing slowly to calm yourself. Bucky watched silently, arms loose by his sides, and a look on his face that said he wasn't falling for your emotional bullshit.

"This is your fault—" you suddenly spat, but Bucky chuckled, "of course it is, everything's my fault. My fault because Jaxson was born, my fault that your mother disowned you, my fault that you stopped playing."

At the mention of your mother, you froze, a nasty cry ripping through your chest. "My mother disowned me because you got me pregnant and ruined my life!" You shouted, voice heavy with grief, and Bucky shushed you, glancing back at the dining room, which was across the way.

Bucky ran a hand down his face, "You're so—"

"I'm so what? Stupid, disgusting, disappointing?"

"No! Hypocritical. I didn't make the decision to have sex on my own. Last I remember, you lied there in that bed just as I did." You could remember that night like it happened yesterday, and it was amazing, but you would've never done it if it ended with a stupid marriage and the loss of your family.

Bucky enclosed you against the sink, arms on either side of you, leaning close just to see you slink away. Your back dug into the edge of the counter, and you sneered at him. "Go out there, be strong for you son."

"This isn't about my son, and you're disgusting for bringing him up—"

"I don't give a fuck! You think this is all fun and games, and it's not. This is my reputation. While you sit in this pretty little house cooking and cleaning, I'm making the money and paying the bills. So stop complaining all of the damn time."

You've never had a problem siphoning money from Bucky. He gave you a quarter of his check each month, and it was enough for you to pay for groceries and whatnot, but also, you sold clothes for an extra source of income that he couldn't hold over you.

When your face broke with despair at his words, Bucky attempted to reach for your waist and apologize, but you pushed him away from you, muttering insults.

Once you returned to the dining room, you were smiling, pretending like nothing had ever happened. "Sorry about that. I haven't played in a while."

۶ৎ

You and Bucky had only started sleeping with other people one year ago. It was an agreement between the two of you, made in the bedroom when Bucky wanted to have sex with you, but you couldn't bear to even look at him for longer than a minute.

He was hurt, disgusted, and everything in between, but you needed a distraction, needed someone who paid attention to you for things outside of marriage and motherhood.

Neither of you ever brought it home, simply because of Jaxson, but sometimes, there was a thought in your mind—guilt, really—because you didn't want Bucky to see another man occupying your time. You'd been together for so long that it was second-nature to only be with each other.

And thankfully, Bucky didn't rub his flings in your face, because he felt the same.

Tonight was different, though. You'd gone out with one of your casual relationships, meant to distract you from last week's fiasco. But as soon as you pushed through the garage door, Bucky was sitting at the kitchen bar, a glass of liquor in his hand and olives, because he was weird enough to snack on them.

"Where've you been?" He muttered, and you said nothing at first, slipping out of your heels, and stretching your neck. Your body was exhausted, not only from mind-blowing sex, but the stress Bucky had been giving you the entire week.

"You're just gonna ignore me?" He spat, following you up the stairs, voice lowered because Jaxson had a tendency to stay up later than he should've.

You and Bucky had hidden the tension well, only arguing out of sight, never acting tensely in front of Jaxson, and you hoped all the careful considerations had worked. You wanted Jaxson to feel like things were normal, because as far as he knew, they were.

He loved his father, loved his mother, and thought they loved each other, too.

"It's midnight, Bucky, so yes, I want to ignore you." Bucky followed you into the bedroom—or rather, your bedroom. It was the master, still containing Bucky's clothes and belongings because each morning, he snuck back inside so Jaxson wouldn't suspect his occupation in the guest bedroom.

"Jaxson was asking for you. And what were you doing—probably getting fucked." He spat the words out like they genuinely hurt, but you waved him off, sitting at your vanity in the bathroom.

"Put a fucking shirt on." You muttered, glancing at his bare torso, ripped with rigid muscles and abs because Bucky liked to take his anger out by pushing his body to unimaginable limits. He worked out four times a week, and wanted you to fill his dinners with protein and fiber.

Your source of fitness was yoga, but it didn't take away your widened hips, stretch marks, and anything else childbirth had given you. Bucky had never shamed you for your body after Jaxson, and that was the one thing you could count on.

He was still attracted to you, and you were his first love. You saw it in the way he watched you undress, eyes glued to the myriad of lovebites on your throat.

"This is my fucking house—"

"—and I pay all the bills—shut the fuck up for once, James. I don't want to hear about how much you support this house. Can you, for once, appreciate all that I do for you, despite everything that's happened?"

As you stood in your panties and bra, you listed the favors out on your fingers, "I make you homemade granola bars. I make you protein shakes and protein-rich meals so those muscles don't slop off your fucking body. I wash your sheets and your laundry, because you can't fold for shit. I clean your bathroom, I vacuum your car, I take your car to the carwash every month. I make sure to buy those stupid olives you like and the fucking cookies you can't let go of—fat ass."

You muttered the last part, rolling your eyes.

Bucky watched you silently still, and he sat at your vanity, shrugging, "you know I appreciate all of that—"

"No, I don't. You don't say thank you."

Bucky scoffed, "you don't say thank you—" you pointed at the door, "get out. Go back to your shitty guestroom and leave me to masturbate at the thought of the guy that just fucked me."

Your jab stung him right in the heart, and his face skewed up at you, and he pushed himself up, face red with anger, "you're a fucking bitch, you know that?"

"I know. That's why I said it."

۶ৎ

"Can you take him to rehearsals?" You questioned, fixing Jaxson's lunch. The boy himself sat at the breakfast table, lazily spooning cereal into his mouth, despite his waning eyes.

Bucky gave you a hum, grabbing leftovers from the fridge and shoving them into his bag. "Four to six, right, bud?" When Jaxson didn't answer, leaning against his arm, dead-asleep, Bucky chuckled, pushing to the table and rapping his knuckles against it.

"Come on, Jaxson, Mama's gonna take you to school soon, and you can't how up with drool dripping down your face." Jaxson grumbled complaints, but leaned into his father as he hugged him.

"But I'm tired!"

"You're the one who stayed up playing video games. Actions have consequences."

You watched the entire interaction unregretful that Bucky was the one you had a child with. Despite all his flaws, you couldn't deny how excellent he was with his son.

But Bucky caught you watching, and the smile slipped from his face as he grabbed Jaxson's backpack, helping him put it on. "Go get in the car. Mama's already started it up, so it's nice and warm for you."

Jaxson dragged himself outside like Bucky asked, and you zipped up his lunch, "I didn't masturbate, by the way." Bucky scoffed, "I don't care."

"Yes, you do. You care every time someone lays a finger on me. Think I don't know you emailed the guy, asking him to leave me alone?" In spite of the confident exterior Bucky tried to keep up, you could see the flush creeping up his neck. The straight slope of his nose—the one he gave to your son—wriggled, and he glared at the granite countertop—the cut you chose—fists clenched against the edge.

"It doesn't matter. You wanted to sleep with other people, so I agreed."

Rolling your eyes, you flipped off the lights, "don't act like you don't sleep with other people, James." When he stayed quiet, leaving the house, you paused at the door, racking your brain for what that silence meant.

۶ৎ

Nights like these were the best, but also the worst. The nights when Jaxson dragged the two of you to the living room for movie night. Every Friday it occurred, because Jaxson liked to spend time with his parents, which you loved, but Jaxson was very specific.

He wanted his parents to cuddle up on the couch, while he wrapped himself in a huge blanket and spread out on the other end. Some days, you and Bucky tried to make excuses to not sit with each other, but Jaxson always insisted.

"Dad, remember when you said Mama's always cold, so you have to keep her warm?"

Jaxson stared at the two of you with those big, innocent eyes, and you nodded, "yes, I am always cold." Sitting on the couch, you avoided Bucky's gaze as he sat beside you, the side of his body brushing yours while he spread his arm across the back of the couch.

"We're watching Rio." Jaxson announced searching for the movie, and neither of you objected—only because you could feel the rigidity in Bucky's body, just at the feel of your skin against his. Sometimes, he chose to touch you, really a reminder that he used to have you, and technically, you ruined things.

That was the simple blame.

The complex blame included the fact that you and Bucky wanted different things, and because of that, you drifted apart—seas apart. He wanted to work in the firm, build it into something bigger and better, but you wanted another kid.

Jaxson was lonely, and his friends could only do so much.

Bucky only wanted one kid, and you never knew kids would bring such a rift between the two of you.

His refusal pushed you away, and your constant insistence that another child would be good pushed him away, until love was gone, and resentment replaced the sentiment.

"Stop glaring at the TV." Bucky whispered, and you scoffed at him, tugging more of the cover your way. Bucky ignored your childish antics, allowing the cover to unfurl from his body.

"I'm just thinking about how stupid you are."

"Yeah, and how stupid am I?"

"You seriously didn't want another? Jaxson's so... him—he's perfect, but he's lonely."

Bucky shook his head at your words, brows threaded with irritation, "why do you keep bringing up old shit? I didn't want another kid because I didn't want to start over. That's a whole other pregnancy, with your nasty cravings, moaning, and swollen feet. That's another bout of horniness, another session of you angry at me for simple shit."

He continued, "that's more freezers full of breast milk and closets full of baby clothes. That's more of your overbearing carefullness."

A melancholic bus hit you straight in the chest, and you hummed, "so you didn't want to have another child with me."

Bucky didn't say anything for a second, then he stared at you, shocked, "I didn't say that at all! I just don't want another kid, can it just be that simple?"

"No, it can't."

"Then why don't you go have a baby with your bitch boy? I'm sure he'd gladly deal with your pregnancy temper." The slight humor in his voice blinded the deliberate jealousy, but you rolled your eyes.

"Why do you keep holding him against me, Bucky. You agreed to sleep with other people, I only brought it to your attention, and I made it known that I wouldn't go through with it if you hated the idea."

"Oh, please, you want to know how it feels to watch your wife increasingly become disgusted with you? To watch her not want to touch you? It hurt when you brought that up because I finally realized you had given up."

Glancing at Bucky, you were surprised to see tears glistening in his eyes. He'd cried plenty in the beginning of the fall from grace, but never recently.

You thought he was done with you, but no, you were wrong.

"Fine. I'll stop seeing him then."

Bucky laughed humorlessly, "just that easy? Tell you my stupid sob-y feelings, and you pity me?"

"No. Despite how nasty things are with us, I still want you...content. For Jaxson. If he sees his father like this, then we might as well divorce right then and there."

That wasn't the whole truth, though. Really, it was because this was the most Bucky you'd seen Bucky recently, with his fierce feelings. You could've mistaken it for lingering love, but instead, you formed it into his unrelenting possessiveness.

"You're ridiculous." He said, smirking.

"I'm right, and you know it."

۶ৎ

Jaxson was at a sleepover for the entire weekend, so that left a cold house, with petty feelings. The house was big enough to put space between you and Bucky, but that didn't change the fact that he lingered.

You were prepping for Sunday dinner—infamously known as pot roast with potatoes, mac n' cheese, and a dessert Jaxson picked from the grocery store. You had your apron on, hair pulled up into a scarf, and chilly air breezed in from the window because Bucky cranked the heat up to all hell.

Saying nothing as he entered, Bucky pulled open the fridge, searching for a snack because you'd started cooking early and didn't make breakfast. He'd been cooped up in his office majority of the morning, working on cases.

"You didn't make breakfast." He called, sitting at the bar, eating a boiled egg like a man starved for thirty days. You didn't reply at first, too busy pouring endless amounts of seasoning onto the cut of beef, gripping the edge of the dutch oven as you pushed to your toes, massaging the meat.

"You didn't ask." Bucky scoffed at your words, standing and approaching your side. His hair was stringy and wet from a shower, strands lingering near his eyes as he leaned over you, stomach grumbling at the thought of Sunday dinner.

"I'm fucking starving! Not to mention I had to wake up early to take Jaxson to the sleepover. What sleepover starts at eight in the morning?" You raised your hands like you'd just finished surgery, moving to the sink, legs bare save for the little shorts you had on to combat the warmth in the house.

"What do you want to eat then, James? I can't promise pancakes or omelets or any intricate bullshit right now. I can pour cereal into a bowl since you can't do it yourself?" You gave him a sarcastic smile, head tilted, and Bucky rolled his eyes, taking your advice and grabbing a bowl.

"What woman likes to see her husband starve?" He muttered, sitting at the table, and you rolled your eyes, "should I even consider you my husband anymore? I'd consider you more of a roommate."

You moved to the island, beginning to slice potatoes and carrots, while Bucky stared at you with indignation, "the marriage license says otherwise."

"That's a piece of fucking paper. You want to know what holds marriages together: love." You glanced up at him to match his gaze. That was a mistake, though, because as you pushed the knife down, your finger was in the way.

You flinched heavily, spitting out a curse as hot white pain flashed through your finger. Blood dripped over the cutting board, and within a second, Bucky had jumped up with a concerned expression on his face.

"What happened?" He grabbed your hand, ignoring the blood, and he pulled you over to the sink. "I cut myself, Bucky." You said, obviously, wincing as the water splayed over your cut.

Bucky was close, closer than you usually allowed, his hip pressed into yours, arm against yours, and hand wrapped around your wrist to guide your hand beneath the water. "Do I need to take you to the hospital?"

Sweat beaded on his face, and as you mumbled a groan of pain, his chest rose with a stressed sigh.

"No, it's not hospital-worthy, Buck. Just grab the kit from beneath the sink and give me a bandaid." Bucky was good in stressful situations, as long as his wife and son weren't the ones hurting.

During Jaxson's birth, he leaned over you, covered in sweat, eyebrows furrowed as worry flowed through his eyes. Your mother was there that day, but all Bucky could focus on was his wife, in excruciating pain, and the fact that he couldn't do much to help.

Once the bandaid was wrapped around your finger, Bucky began to clean your bloody mess while you sat down because he told you to take a break. "You're always hurting your damn self." He muttered, standing in front of the sink and rinsing the cutting board.

"That's a lie! I haven't hurt myself—" Bucky pointed at the bruise on your leg, when you'd attempted to move furniture in the living room, but banged your leg against wood.

"I can cut a fucking vegetable, so how about you ask for help?" He muttered, turning off the faucet and slipping into the seat beside you. "I didn't think you wanted to help." You said honestly, leaning your arm against the counter, staring at the space above his shoulder.

Bucky scoffed, "you think me a cruel man, and I'm not. If I were cruel—like Isaac, for example—I would've up and left this house a long time ago. But, despite how...ugly things are, I still care about you."

He reached over and lifted your chin, meeting your eyes. "You're my wife."

You shook your head, hand landing on his wrist, but you didn't pull away. "I'm sorry. For a lot of things. I blame you for everything, when it's always half me, too." Your eyes watered, and Bucky's hand landed on the back of your neck, warm and grounding.

"Sweetheart, don't cry. You know I can't handle you crying." Bucky leaned close, hugging you tightly, hands on your waist. His fingers tucked into the waistband of your pants innocently, and you sniffed into his chest, "Bucky—"

The doorbell rang. Bucky stood up to grab the door, while you stayed in the kitchen, wondering who it was.

It felt like things were changing with Bucky. And for the better. As much as you told yourself you hated him, being in the same house, intertwined so intricately together, didn't change much. He was still your husband, your first love, and the person who cared the most for you, despite everything.

"Who the hell are you?" You heard Bucky say from the foyer, and you stood, confused as you met Bucky.

When you saw Maverick standing there, the very many who'd fucked your socks off a few nights ago, you froze, knowing that this wouldn't end well. Maverick saw you peeking though, and he called your name, "she left her bag the other night."

Bucky glanced back at you, jaw clenched tight, fire in his eyes, then he spun back around and snatched the bag, "you're the guy fucking my wife?"

That's when recognition flashed through Maverick's eyes. You'd told him a little about the nature of your relationship with your husband, but the two of them had never met, unless you count the email Bucky sent.

"Bucky—" you attempted to say, but Bucky ignored you, tossing the bag aside and meeting Maverick chest to chest. Sweet Maverick—poor Maverick, glanced at you, chuckling nervously, "hey, man, I don't know what she told you, but I thought it was understood—"

Bucky shoved him in the chest, and you cursed, pulling the door open further as you grabbed Bucky's arm.

"There's no understanding!" That was a lie, and Bucky knew it.

"James, I told you I would end it with him, but you can't—" Bucky snatched his arm from your grip, reeling back and punching Maverick directly in the jaw.

Maverick's face flew, spit and blood landing on the concrete of your porch as he wobbled and fell, body thudding. You shouted for Bucky to stop, shoving him aside to meet Maverick on the floor.

"Maverick, are you alright?" You gripped his cheeks, smacking them softly, but he was passed out, a bruise blooming on his jaw.

You glanced back at Bucky, panic on your features, "Bucky, you knocked him out," you cried, but Bucky scowled at you, "you're a fucking liar, you know that? You said you would end it, but now he's showing up at my fucking house?"

"Bucky, stop, you need to call someone, he could've hit his head on the concrete." Seeing you cry now did nothing to Bucky, and he waved you off, spinning around and entering the house.

Maverick's groaning caught your attention, and you let out a relieved sigh, helping him sit up, "God, I'm so sorry, Maverick. He's—"

"—your husband, I get it. But, you told me this was okay!" Watching Maverick glare at you with heavy blame was overwhelming, and he pushed away from you as he stood, "don't call me again, and you better hope your fucking husband doesn't get a letter in the mail."

۶ৎ

Because of your son, you weren't allowed to take breaks to break down. Five days a week, you dropped him off and picked him up from school. Fridays were yoga, the first Wednesday of every month were PTA meetings, and much more.

But if you thought Bucky hated you before, now he despised you. He rarely spoke to you, and he didn't rely on you for anything anymore. He left early in the mornings and didn't come home until late.

Bucky didn't spare you glances or passing words, nor those little touches he used to make you cringe. Nothing.

And Jaxson was starting to notice.

"Dad, are you mad at Mom?" He suddenly said at dinner, face pulled into a frown, and Bucky froze, fork pausing midair, then he chuckled, "what—I'm not mad at Mom." The fact that he couldn't even look at you wasn't lost on Jaxson.

"What makes you think he's mad at me, love?" You questioned, lips folding into a smile to comfort your son, but Jaxson stared down at his plate, "I hear you cry now. After you shower." Your heart dropped, and you glanced at Bucky, but he was watching you tensely.

Jaxson continued, "you don't make Dad breakfast anymore, you don't blend his shakes, you don't drive his car to the carwash. And Dad, you don't smile at Mama when she's not looking anymore." As Jaxson's eyes filled with tears, your heart shattered, and you pushed up quickly, approaching Jaxson.

Bucky did the same, kneeling beside his son's chair. "What can we do to make it better, bud? Anything." Jaxson wiped his tears, little hands shaking, but he inhaled deeply, "sleep in your bed again. You think I don't know, but I hear you going to the guest room every night. Just...be normal again."

You glanced at Bucky, hand running over Jaxson's head as you pressed a kiss to his temple, "you know we'd do anything for you, right, Jaxson? Your father and I are just...struggling right now." Bucky glared at you for telling the truth, but you continued.

"You know when you play a game for so long that you get disinterested in it? That's sort of how we are right now. We still...love each other, but it's gonna take us a while to get back to each other again."

Jaxson watched your face, looking for signs of deception, then he nodded. "Like Mr. and Mrs. Smith?" You were shocked at your sons perception, but you nodded, "sort of."

"Dad, do you still love Mom?" Jaxson asked, squeezing Bucky's hand, and your husband nodded almost immediately, "of course, I love your mother. She's the best thing that has ever happened to me, besides you, of course."

"Then you can go back to your room, then right?" Bucky nodded, pinching Jaxson's cheeks, "I will, tonight. You can tuck Mama and I in and even check to make sure we stay there if you want."

Jaxson smiled brightly, pushing his chair back up and beginning to eat his food once more.

You knew Bucky hated the idea; you could see it in his eyes, but he loved his son more.

So after dinner and showers, Jaxson dragged you and Bucky to the master bedroom. He grabbed Bucky's hand first, pulling him to his side, and pulling the covers back. "You sleep on this side—you always have."

Then Jaxson returned to you, pulling you to your side. "Mama sleeps closer to the bathroom, because she gets up a lot at night." You laughed at your son, pulling the covers up, but Jaxson shook his head.

"The two of you used to cuddle all the time." Jaxson waited patiently for the two of you to understand.

"He wants us to cuddle." Bucky muttered, grabbing you gently. You placed your head on his chest, legs tangled with his, and Bucky's heart was pumping rapidly in his chest. He wrapped his arm around your waist, glancing at Jaxson, who nodded.

"Good night!"

Jaxson flipped off the light and pulled the door closed, leaving you and Bucky in a dark, uncomfortable room. But neither of you pulled away. His hand was fisting your shirt, fist against your bare skin, and he let out a breath.

"I should've never punched that asshole."

"No, you shouldn't have. He hates me now, thinks I'm lying and cheating on my husband." Your hand caressed Bucky's chest absentmindedly, "how do you hide your flings so well? I've never heard a call or text—nothing."

Bucky licked his lips, blushing, "I don't have any flings, sweetheart." You paused, pushing up to your elbow, "you don't sleep with anyone?" Hurt for Bucky hit you hard, and you slapped him in the chest, "why would you let me fuck other people if you weren't either?"

Bucky sat up too, turning on the lamp, head resting against the headboard. "It's what you wanted." He stared heavily at the wall across from the bed, leg lifted to support his arm.

"Bucky, I cheated on you." You spat, staring at him with wide eyes, and Bucky scoffed, "I told you could!"

That wasn't even the main reason you hurt for Bucky, but rather because you enjoyed every moment you'd had with Maverick.

And Bucky saw it all over your face. He grabbed your hand and intertwined your fingers with his, "I can't continue to hold it against you, baby. I said we could see other people, and just because I didn't participate doesn't mean you're in the wrong. I still love you. Never stopped. But when I saw how much you hated being around me, I decided to act the same way to spare my feelings."

Bucky wiped the tears from your cheeks, "like you said, we both hold fifty percent of the blame."

You nodded, head against his shoulder, "this isn't just for Jaxson anymore, this is for us too. Despite how good sex with Maverick was, I always thought of you. Imagined you."

Bucky smirked, arm wrapping around your shoulder, "you're such a harlot." Rolling your eyes, you kissed Bucky, "no, I'm married." Bucky welcomed your kiss wholeheartedly, nose pressing against yours, hands squeezing you like you were the very thing he needed to survive.

"It'll take time." Bucky whispered against your lips, "to get back to normal." You nodded in agreement, running your fingers through his hair, "take as long as you need."

His tongue mixed with yours, eyelashes brushing your cheeks, but all you could feel was overwhelming calmness. You belonged with Bucky, and to finally be able to get back to normalcy felt great.

۶ৎ

"Fuck, fuck, fuck!" Bucky shouted, pushing into the kitchen after work. Jaxson was at a friend's house, and you were grateful for it.

"What's the matter?" You asked, eyebrows furrowed. Bucky threw his briefcase, then shrugged off his suit jacket and threw it aside roughly. He ran a rough hand down his face, red with anger.

"Want to know what Isaac did today?" You paused, nodding, "something stupid, I assume?" Bucky slid into a barstool, eyes tracking your figure as you wiped down the counters.

"He got drunk and fucked his assistant in his office. Despite how much I hate that man, he was a good lawyer, and I had to fire him." You wondered how Madison was taking the news and what it meant for her children.

"You can't let things like this stress you out, Buck." You called, glancing back at him from the sink, but he shrugged, hands fisting his hair as he groaned.

"I need a distraction. It's going to take me weeks to find a replacement, and even then, I don't even think there's anyone as good as him around here."

You approached, drying your hands and sitting beside him, "what do you have in mind?" Your little barely-there lounge clothes caught Bucky's attention, and he spun towards you, grabbing your hands, "Jaxson's at his friend's house, right?"

You nodded, "yeah, why?" You gasped when Bucky groped your breasts, flicking your nipples with such determination that pleasure immediately filled your belly. You and Bucky hadn't had sex in almost two years, and since Jaxson was always home, that gave you little time to fuck around.

Recently, it'd been meetings in the bathroom, simple make-out sessions that did nothing but strengthen Bucky's hard-on and your horniness. He held you at night, fingers pushing towards your clit, but before anything happened, sleep would take both of you.

"I haven't had sex with you in a while, sweetheart, and jacking off for two years can only do so much. Now's the best time—right here in the kitchen." Bucky pushed to his feet and grabbed you by the waist, lifting you onto the counter.

Your hands plastered on his shoulders, and you smirked, "you're already hard, aren't you?" You glanced down at his crotch, and as you suspected, his pants were bulging and twitching. Bucky kissed you, hands squeezing your thighs, chin pressed between the valley of your breasts.

Slowly, you slipped the straps of your shirt down, and Bucky tugged it from your body, watching your tits jiggle as you pulled your arms down. "You're so beautiful." He muttered, lips wrapping around your nipple. His other hand groped and squeezed, massaging you and reveling in the sounds of your breathy moans.

Both his arms wrapped around your torso, and he tugged you closer, glancing up at you with big eyes, "first the kitchen, then the living room, and finally the shower. Sound good?"

You laughed when he didn't wait for an answer, pushing you down on the counter and lifting your legs. You stared at the ceiling as air flowed against your cunt, thankful you'd gone without panties.

Bucky moaned at the sight of you, hands gripping your silky thighs, "you want another baby?" He muttered, and you paused, lifting onto your elbows, "do you want another baby?"

"I do. If it means starting over with you. All those things I said were out of fear. The baby stage is hard, and I wasn't confident in becoming a father to a second child." Bucky pressed a languid kiss to your cunt, and you moaned, hands running through his hair.

"Then yes, I want another baby, Buck." Bucky pressed your knees to your chest, tongue flicking against your clit. His hair tickled your thighs, but your eyes fluttered closed as you moaned. "You know how fertile I am." He muttered, "you'll be pregnant within a few weeks."

Your body shuddered with pleasure at his words, and your toes curled, feeling the beginning of an orgasm coat your abdomen.

"I can't wait to see your belly grow. I can't wait for you to use me whenever you'd like. I'll fuck you whenever you'd like. I'll buy all the baby clothes and organize the freezer for the milk."

Tears slipped out of your eyes, not only from the pleasure, but from the joy that was Bucky.

He pushed a finger into you, curling it effervescently. Then, his mouth latched onto your thigh, sucking and licking up your essence. "Does that feel good?" He questioned, spreading your thighs to get a look at your face, but he didn't need an answer after seeing your expression.

"Fuck, keep going—and don't be lazy, Bucky, go faster!" Bucky didn't complain at your bossiness as he fucked you with his fingers, but he listened as he was supposed to, entering another finger and squeezing the plush skin at your hip.

"You're close." He said matter-of-factly, chin covered in your arousal, but Bucky tugged you to the edge of the counter and squeezed your breasts, fucking you with such speed that you could do nothing more than gasp.

When you came, he gave you a smile, pushing his pants down and ripping off his shirt. "You're so beautiful." You pushed yourself up, hopping off the counter and leaning against it, ass wiggling against Bucky's dick.

But he grabbed your hand, spinning you around, "nope, I want to see your face." You rolled your eyes playfully, locking your arms around his neck as he lifted you. Both of you watched Bucky rub his tip against your clit, already spreading his precum around your cunt.

He thrust in slowly, kissing away the pain, then, when he was fully inside, he thrusted, pressing kisses to your chest. "I want you to suck me off in the living room, yeah?"

You shivered at his words, "as long as you say please."

"Please, suck me off." You nodded, kissing his jaw, feeling each time he twitched inside of you. Pressing closer, though, your moans erupted near his ear, and Bucky lived for it, gripping your hips, fucking you with every ounce of his being.

"I think I want two more babies," Bucky called, and you scoffed, though it blended into a moan.

"You just want sex."

Bucky chuckled, "so what? You're my wife."

[redbloodedgurl]

You know…this is so refreshing (not the toxic marriage lol) the plot. It’s usually him being the cheater the one that the second you say “let’s sleep with other people” doesn’t think it twice and starts parading ho ho hoes

I cried a little because yeah, they are toxic but it was frustration and misunderstandings. I know they have a lot to work with but their future looks promising 🧞‍♂️

Thank you so much for sharing 🥰

[wildflowersandvibranium]

Muscle Memory {Series Masterlist}

Pairing:Restaurant Owner!Bucky Barnes x Cardio Surgeon!Reader

Series Summary: In a town that never forgets , she thought she could hide the bruises behind a perfect smile and life. But someone from her past sees too much—and remembers everything.

Content/Warnings: Listed on each part!

dividers by: @/cursed-carmine

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Epilogue

[redbloodedgurl]

I wanted to thank you so much for writing this so respectfully and sweet. You know growing up I was one of those people who said that women that stayed in abusive relationships were dumb... and then without me knowing how or why I was in one myself. I was there 6 years. I was young, naive and I wanted to feel loved so desperately that I latched to the first bastard that showed me a little love. Everyone noticed, my parents stopped supporting me financially, my friends told me that it wasn't normal what he did. But I didn't listen, I was in love 😔 you don't notice the years go by. My case was worst because he always told me, when he had me pinned to the. Wall that nobody would believe me because he knew where or how long to hit me or choked me to never leave a noticeable trace. I went once to file a case against him, the last year we were together and the lawyer told me it was my fault because if I already kicked him out of the house, why did I let him in again? That suing him would take time and a lot of paperwork it was the best if I divorced him and let it go like it didn't happen.

Sadly, I didn't have a Bucky but. It was like a weight was lifted from my shoulders when I finally found the courage to leave, he told all mt friends that I followed him to work just to spy him, he painted me as this crazy obsessed person.

I've never had a relationship after that I'm still afraid of a lot of things but getting better.

Sorry for the verbal vomit, but thank you so much for sharing , I cried the whole time ngl, but I loved every chapter and moment......except the part of the "no one special girl", come on!! Hahaha I almost lost it there but kept reading and figured it out like a mature adult hahahaah

You're amazing 🥰

PS. I read this after reading Lacy and I don't know what was worst for my shattered heart lol so I read Little Lady after because I love that fic 💞

[one-time-i-dreamt]

Remember this viral post? Wanda and Jamal and her husband Lonnie are the most wholesome people, this story brought tears to my eyes originally and I am crying once more learning from Jamal's social media that Lonnie has sadly passed away.

Rest in Peace, Lonnie :(

[one-time-i-dreamt]

[one-time-i-dreamt]

[one-time-i-dreamt]

[one-time-i-dreamt]

Whenever I lose faith in humanity, I remember these four lovely folks and feel a little better 🥺

[one-time-i-dreamt]

[one-time-i-dreamt]

[one-time-i-dreamt]

[vaspider]

Due to Wanda's dx and cancer treatment, she's too tired to host this year, so Jamal is hosting for the first time. 💗

[what-the-cap-dude]

You want Steve Rogers to stay in the past with Peggy? That bad huh? Fine then.

But let him lie awake at night staring at the ceiling, wondering what Hydra is doing to Bucky right now, a pit forming in his gut because he knows just how powerless he is to stop it.

Let Howard Stark invite him over to hold baby Tony for the first time. Let him hold that peaceful little bundle, and let him count down the days. Every breath, milestone, birthday, until that baby inevitably sacrifices himself.

Let him have some days where he can't even look his own wife and children in the face. Where he feels like a bird smashing around in his cage, wanting to claw out of his own skin because that itch to fight is still there. Primal. The kid from Brooklyn he took out back and killed is haunting him as a ghost and won't lay to rest.

Let him be a firefighter, his only relief. He needs to throw himself straight into the flames, he's gasping for air but its the only time since he came back he can truly breathe because he actually feels like himself again. Not someone's husband or father, but Steve Rogers. Fighter for the little guy.

Let it never be enough.

[redbloodedgurl]

Ooh hell yeah!! that's what he deserves 👏

[wildflowersandvibranium]

Little Lady [One-Shot]

Pairing: Dad!Bucky Barnes x Mom!Reader

Summary: A quiet afternoon turns chaotic when Bucky tries to fix the kitchen sink with help from his daughter , only for a hilarious miscommunication through the window with his wife to turn into something unexpectedly tender.

Word count: 1.6K+

Content: nothing but fluff , slight but cute miscommunication , mentions of pregnancy , kissing / flirting (you and bucky)

“Okay , Bug , go ahead and hand me the wrench. The little silver one , please.”

Rebecca squinted her blue eyes , her little tongue poking out in concentration as she dug through the open red toolbox beside her tiny feet. 

She wore her purple tutu over jeans—because she liked to be both princess fancy and ready for any emergencies; hint the jeans —and a green t-shirt with a smiling cartoon flower on it. Her wild curls were tucked under a sparkly headband with a crooked plastic tiara hot glued right on top.

“This one , Daddy?” She held up a tool she thought was right.

“Nope , that’s the pliers. Try again.” He peeked from under the sink.

She gave an exaggerated huff , rummaging through the box dramatically. Bucky chuckled from where he lay half-under the kitchen sink , the lower half of his torso sticking out like a mechanic rolled under a car on his back. 

His t-shirt was slightly damp now , his hands and arms slick with water , and his face was already dotted with smudges from the gunk hiding under the pipes. This job had not gone the way he planned.

“You okay down there?” Ladybug , as they affectionately called their daughter asked , squatting beside him  , peering upside down into his face.

The nickname was thought of when her mom was nine months pregnant with her and as she was outside watering her roses a small ladybug landed on the skin where her round belly poked out from under one of Bucky's flannels. And after that the name just stuck.

“Living the dream , sweetheart ,” Bucky deadpanned sarcastically. “Covered in sink crud and existential dread.”

“What’s ‘ex-etn-sescial….” She carried on stumbling over the hard to say word.

Bucky laughed , shaking his head. “Something Daddy gets when he thinks he can fix stuff in one hour. Gimme the wrench and I’ll explain it later.”

She passed the right one this time , smiling proudly when he gave her an approving nod.

“You know,” she began , watching him tighten the bolt , “Mommy’s outside with the flowers. You’re missing it.”

“I know ,” he groaned , making a loud thunk sound come from where he was working. “She escaped before the chaos began.”

Lady Bug tilted her head at him , chewing on her bottom lip. “When you were gone today at the store , I asked Mommy if you were a superhero or  a plumber.”

Bucky turned his head , raising an eyebrow at her. “What’d she say?”

“She said you were the only man she trusted to fix her sink and her heart.”

Bucky blinked , momentarily stunned at such deep words coming from such a tiny girl. “She said that?”

Lady Bug nodded , too young to understand how much that had just melted her dad and cracked his heart wide open. “And then she made the blush face. Like this—” She pulled her cheeks in together and fluttered her lashes dramatically mocking her mom.

“Oh my God ,” Bucky groaned , grinning like a lovestruck idiot. “Okay , Lady Bug , go get Daddy a towel before I start flooding the kitchen.”

“Aye aye , Daddy!” She scurried off down the hall , pink socks skidding on the wooden hardwood floor.

Bucky exhaled and began to wiggle out from under the cabinet , but the second he sat upright—crack—he slammed the top of his head directly into the underside of the sink.

“Shit—!”

He winced and pressed a palm to his head , eyes watering looking around making sure his daughter wasn't nearby to hear the curse he let slip. Through the pain , he noticed the kitchen faucet was finally cooperating—no longer leaking like a waterfall. But now he needed a towel more than ever. His shirt was  sopping wet , his head stung , and water was beginning to drip down into the baseboards from the leftover condensation.

Lady Bug hadn’t come back yet.

He glanced toward the window above the sink and saw you out in the yard , kneeling in the garden bed , arms buried in soil as you coaxed life from the dirt and earth. You wore a loose fitting tank top and Bucky’s old sweatpants , your hair up in a messy twist , and the sun kissed your skin in a way that made his mouth go dry. Then he saw your daughter outside with you. Spinning around chasing a butterfly. 

“Traitor” he whispered to himself letting out a breathy laugh.

You glanced up from the flower bed wiping sweat from your forehead and smiled when you saw him through the kitchen window.

Bucky raised his hand and mimed : washing his hands , scrubbing at the air, then held up two fingers , mouthing, “Two towels.”

You tilted your head at his gestures.

Then… waved.

He blinked. “No, no—” He repeated the gestures: fake-scrubbing , then a two-finger peace sign. Two towels.

You giggled and waved again , this time holding up a peace sign of your own.

He shook his head , smirking despite himself , then mouthed slowly, “TWO TOWELS.”

You pressed a hand to your heart. Then pointed at him and mouthed back, “I love you too.”

He stared through the glass in disbelief. “No—baby—” he said aloud , laughing now. “What is your mom doing?”

“Who’s doing what?” Lady Bug had returned from outside , holding two hand towels in triumph she grabbed from her way back inside. “I got light pink and yellow. The best colors.”

Bucky took the towels with a grateful sigh and pointed toward the window. “Your mom thinks I’m doing some kind of weird love confession out here throwing up peace signs.”

Lady Bug climbed up on the little stool beside the counter with the help from her dad and and peered out. “Aw she’s doing the heart hands!”

Sure enough , you were making a heart shape with your fingers , your grin wide as a summer sky sending air kisses to your two loves inside.

Bucky laughed , wiping his arms and shirt down with the towels trying to get dry. “She thinks I was doing a peace sign and mouthing ‘I love you.’ I mean , she’s not wrong…” He dragged out his words.

Lady Bug turned and looked up at him with wide eyes. “Wait , were you not telling Mommy you love her?”

“I mean , I always am , in general,” Bucky said , wringing out the towel, “but this time I just really needed her to throw me some dry cloth.”

Lady Bug stared at him very seriously. “You know what this means?”

“What?”

“You gotta go kiss her after this. Otherwise she’ll think you’re ignoring her love heart hands”

Bucky smirked. “Her, what now?”

“She did a love heart with her hands.” She got serious hands on her little hips staring at her father.

Bucky gave a mock salute. “Yes , ma’am. Operation Love Mommy is acknowledged.”

By the time he dried off fully , put the tools and box away , and triple-checked that the sink no longer sounded like it was coughing up a lung , Lady Bug had migrated outside to join you again—running barefoot through the grass and singing some made-up theme song.

Bucky stood in the doorway for a moment , arms crossed , just watching the two of you.

You looked up from your rows of lavender when you heard the screen door creak open with a squeal.

“Well hello there ,  handyman,” you teased, brushing your hands on your- his pants..

He wandered out , damp towel slung over his shoulder. “You’re lucky you’re cute.”

“That I am , very very lucky ,” you grinned , standing popping ut your hip with a tease. 

He walked up and wrapped an arm around your wais t, pulling you in to him. “You know I wasn’t peace-signing a love message earlier , right?” 

“I figured that , eventually,” you smirked, “but the way your face was all serious? I thought you were trying to tell me , like, ‘Peace , woman. I’m dying under the sink but I love you.’”

Bucky burst out laughing and nuzzled his face in your neck to high the toothy smile he had plastered on his face. Leaving a few kisses there before pulling back.

“Did you at least get the towels?”

“Yes I did , your tiny sidekick saved the day.”

Lady Bug came skipping up just then at her mention , holding a slightly bent flower in each hand. “Mommy! Daddy! I made a bouquet for you!”

You knelt down to her height , smiling. “It’s beautiful , bug.”

“Mommy! Did you see I fixed the sink? It's all happy and not leaky anymore!” She squeaked giving a cheeky grin to her dad.

Bucky reached over , picked her up effortlessly , and cradled her upside down as she squealed in delight.

“Alright , bug,” he said , spinning her gently, “tell the truth. Who fixed the sink?”

“I supervised! That’s more important!”

You clapped slowly , mock-serious. “She’s not wrong.”

Bucky set her down as she ran off again in the filed and he leaned in close , lips brushing your ear.

“You really said that? About me fixing the sink and your heart?”

You blushed immediately. “That little lady talks too much.”

“She talks just enough,” he murmured , brushing dirt from your jaw. 

You turned to him , voice soft now. “I mean it,  you know. You’ve fixed and healed things in me I didn’t know were broken or bruised.”

He held your gaze for a long moment , blue eyes tender. “Same here , honey.”

Lady Bug appeared between you both , holding up her new bouquet of manly grass this time.

“Kiss Mommy!” she squealed looking up at you two like you hung the stars. 

You laughed , and Bucky didn’t hesitate.

He leaned in and kissed you sweet and slow—dirt-smudged , towel-draped , and barefoot on the lawn with your daughter cheering like she won the biggest prize at the fair.

When he finally  , reluctantly pulled back , you smiled up at him holding up two fingers and whispered, “Two kisses” He laughed again immediately cupping your face , kissing you again.

-end

Comments , Reblogs , Likes and Requests are always loved!

(although if you liked this fic please consider reblogging so it can reach a wider audience)

They let me know that you are enjoying what I'm publishing and gives me motivation to write more and more! :33

[redbloodedgurl]

Bucky

Ladybug

Reader

Perfect family!!! 💕🤣

[sosa2imagines]

Bucky Baby!

Warning- Fluff, boobs appreciation, little smut and Bucky Barnes!

You wake up to silence.

Which, in itself, should have been the first red flag.

No weight crushing your chest. No warm stubble against your neck. No muscled arm lazily thrown over your waist like a weighted blanket. No soft morning grumbles from your grumpy husband, who hated waking up before ten unless someone was bleeding or you were naked.

Your brows furrow as you blink away sleep, reaching out with a hand to the side of the bed where Bucky usually was.

Cold sheets.

Empty space.

You sit up quickly, heart skipping a beat as your assassin instincts fire to life. “Bucky?” you call out, voice still hoarse from sleep.

There was no reply.

Then you notice it.

His clothes, on the floor.

Not just his pants and shirt, but everything. Socks. Boxers. Even his dog tags tangled. All of it thrown in a haphazard pile near the foot of the bed.

And in the center of that chaos, your jaw drops.

A baby. A literal baby.

Chubby, soft, and probably not more than a year old, sitting perfectly upright in the middle of the mess. Very much naked. With a shock of dark brown hair curling slightly at the ends. Ice-blue eyes glaring up at you with a level of intensity no baby should be capable of.

And then you see it.

The tiniest vibranium arm you’ve ever seen, sleek, black with delicate gold plating, fitted just perfectly on his tiny little shoulder.

“No…” you whisper, hand flying to your mouth. “No no no…it can’t be!”

The baby narrows his eyes at you.

Scowl.

You blink.

Death glare.

Your eyes widen.

Pout.

“Oh my god, it can be!!!”

You scramble out of bed and kneel in front of him slowly, like approaching a dangerous predator. He doesn’t move. Just gives you a look that practically screams it’s about time.

Then, he sticks his tongue out at you.

You burst out laughing, “Oh my god, Bucky. Is that really you?”

The baby raises both tiny arms, one flesh, one metal and gives you the most dramatic sigh a baby could possibly produce.

You pick him up gently, cradling his warm little body to your chest. His pout deepens as he tries to look unimpressed, but the way he nuzzles into your neck kind of gives him away.

“You got hit by magic yesterday, didn’t you?” you murmur, pressing a kiss to his ridiculously soft hair.

He nods once. Very seriously. Like he’s confirming a mission report.

“Well…” you sigh, chuckling into his baby ear, “at least you’re still you, Bubba.”

You feel the tiniest of giggling, giggles vibrate against your collarbone.

Your ruthless, hundred-year-old assassin husband just giggled.

Still snuggling him close, you whisper, “God help whoever’s responsible for this.”

Because James Buchanan Barnes, Winter Soldier turned cuddle monster, might be tiny right now, but he’s still the deadliest baby alive.

You rifle through your drawers with a snort and zero guilt.

He’s glaring at you from the bed, arms folded, baby chest puffed out, lips pursed in silent judgment, as he sits on the oversized pillow you fluffed up for him. His metal arm keeps twitching like he’s seriously considering launching a tiny knife at you. Which, frankly, wouldn’t even be surprising.

You dangle the crop top in front of him.

It’s pink. With glittery letters that say “Spicy Like Sriracha!” across the front.

Bucky scowls deeper.

“Yes, I could dress you in something neutral, but where’s the fun in that?” you grin, leaning down to grab him. “Besides, your death glares look extra adorable in pink.”

You’re sure he growled. You’re also sure it came out like a sneeze.

You wrestle him into it with difficulty. The tiny vibranium arm proves problematic, but eventually, after a few near bites (he really tried to chomp you), you manage to get the shirt on.

It barely covers his chubby thighs.

He looks furious.

And like the cutest damn thing you’ve ever seen.

“Aww, you look spicy…” you tease, booping his nose. “Bet you still think you’re scary.”

He opens his mouth, but all that comes out is a frustrated “Baaa!”

You scoop him into your arms again, holding him up like Simba, studying his face.

“How are you still so expressive?” you ask, mock squinting at him. “Like…is your brain actually intact in there? Do you…”

SLAP!

Tiny hand, right across your cheek.

You freeze.

He stares at you, unbothered, smug even. The slap wasn’t hard, but the audacity.

“Well damn…” you mutter, blinking. “Guess that answers everything.”

Cradling him in your arms, now cradled like royalty, because you’re not risking another slap, you bolt out of the room, yelling,

“FRIDAY! Call everyone to the common room. Emergency!”

“Understood, Mrs. Barnes. Alerting the team now.”

By the time you get there, Tony, Natasha, Sam, Steve, Clint, and Bruce are either half-dressed or bleary-eyed. Some in pajamas.

All staring at you as you barge in, breathless, holding a pink crop-top-wearing baby with a vibranium arm who looks ready to declare war.

“Oh my god!” Tony says, blinking. “You cloned Barnes but made him way cuter.”

“This is Barnes!” you cry, holding him up again.

Natasha’s eyes narrow. “No way.”

“Magic!” you snap. “He got hit yesterday! He woke up like this! He’s still him in the head too, he slapped me!”

“Ha!” Sam bursts out laughing. “Finally! I can breathe easy without metal fingers aiming for my throat.”

“I heard that!” you hiss, patting Bucky’s head. “He’s still mentally an assassin, just tiny.”

Steve, poor sweet Steve, walks closer with a soft gasp. “Buck?”

And before anyone can stop him, WHACK!

Baby Bucky slaps Steve. Hard.

Steve goes down like a plank.

The room falls silent.

Sam wheezes.

Natasha snorts.

Tony covers his face. “Okay, I’m not going near him.”

Bruce clears his throat. “There are only two people who might be able to undo this. Strange and Loki.”

“And?”

“They’re both off-world. Should be back in a few days.”

You groan, adjusting the baby in your arms as he snuggles smugly into your chest.

“Great. Fine. Everyone breathe! Clint!” you bark, turning sharply.

“Y-Yeah?”

“I need baby food. List is on the fridge, bring baby version of it. Stick to organic. He’s picky.”

Clint salutes and vanishes.

“Tony, Nat, you’re on baby clothes and gear. Diapers, pacifiers, a crib, stroller…everything.”

Tony mutters something about never being paid enough for this, while Natasha just nods and heads out with a hint of a smirk.

“And Sam?”

“Yeah?”

“Revive Steve. You’re in charge of his fainting ass.”

You pivot on your heel and storm back toward your room, cradling Bucky close, muttering under your breath.

“I swear to god, Bubba, if you poop on me, I will drop you in the sink.”

The only answer you get?

A tiny giggle.

You were sitting on the couch with Bucky nestled in your lap when he gives you the most pitiful look in history. His little brows furrow, and he pats his chubby tummy with both hands. Then again. And again. He even throws in a dramatic sigh for emphasis.

“Alright, alright, I get it…” you say, standing up. “You’re hungry. You could’ve asked, you know. Oh wait…you can’t.”

You carry him into the kitchen and settle him into a hastily rigged booster seat with towels, because Tony hasn’t delivered the high chair yet. He grunts, crossing his arms like a disrespected king, watching you suspiciously as you mash up bananas and pour warm milk into a cup.

“Fancy dinner for the Winter Small-dier,” you tease, scooping a little banana onto a spoon. “Say ‘ahh,’ Bubba.”

He glares, but opens his mouth.

You feed him, and for a moment, it’s peaceful. He chews thoughtfully. His little vibranium fingers drum against the tray like he’s plotting someone’s death.

But then, you lean forward to wipe banana off his cheek.

And that’s when it happens.

His hand pats your boob, just a soft little press.

You freeze.

He looks up at you with the cheekiest, most unrepentant smile you’ve ever seen on a baby’s face. It's not a curious baby-touch. It’s deliberate.

“James Buchanan Barnes!”

His smile gets wider.

“You behave.”

He giggles.

“Oh, don’t even try to pretend you're innocent. I know that smirk. I married that smirk.”

He has the audacity to wink, more like blink his eyes.

“I am not above putting you in the glittery tutu!” you warn.

That wipes the grin off, he resumes chewing like nothing happened.

Thankfully, the door opens just in time to break the tension. Tony and Natasha wheel in enough baby gear to start a daycare. Crib, car seat, wipes, diapers, a high chair, pacifiers, clothes, and a mountain of toys.

“God, I forgot how much babies need,” Natasha mutters.

Tony raises a brow. “You forgot? I invented tech that needs less assembly than this crap.”

“Thanks, guys…” you say sincerely, placing a now banana-streaked Bucky on your hip.

“You sure you’re okay with all this?” Nat asks, gesturing to the pink sippy cup now rolling across the floor.

“Yeah,” you say, adjusting Bucky. “We’re fine. Just about to give him a bath.”

Tony snorts. “Good luck with that. I’d rather wrestle a raccoon in heat.”

You smirk, oh naive you, “Please. How hard can it be?”

Ten minutes later, you deeply regret asking that question.

“BUCKY, STOP SPLASHING!”

Water soaks your hair, you’re kneeling beside the tub in shorts and a tank top, soaked to the bone. Bucky’s in the tiny inflatable baby tub, naked and wild-eyed, flailing his arms like he’s doing synchronized swimming.

The bathwater is now 70% water, 30% bubbles, and 100% chaos.

He kicks. Squeals. Giggles. Tosses the rubber duck like a grenade. Then, when you lean in with the loofah…Splash!

A tidal wave hits your face.

“BUCKY BARNES!”

He beams at you. Toothless. Proud. His little vibranium arm clinks against the side of the tub as he raises both arms in victory.

You stare at him, drenched, foam dripping from your chin.

“You’re lucky you’re cute.”

He blows a raspberry.

You dry him off eventually, after nearly drowning and wrap him up in a hooded towel with tiny bear ears. He glares at the ears. You kiss his nose anyway.

“There…” you murmur, walking him back to your room. “Clean, fed, mildly demon-possessed, but you’re still mine.”

He snuggles into your neck, surprisingly calm after the bath, clutching a pacifier in one hand and your boob in the other.

“Tomorrow…” you whisper, laying him gently on the soft new mattress, “we find Strange. And we get you back to normal.”

He pats your boob again.

You stare at him.

He smiles.

You sigh.

“Okay how about something else?”

You’re finally towel-drying your hair when there’s a knock at your door, followed by a cautious, deep voice.

“Doll? Can I come in?”

You crack the door open and see Steve, now fully conscious, if not a little wide-eyed, standing there with a sheepish expression.

“Hey, Cap…” you smirk. “Feeling better after getting wrecked by a one-year-old?”

He flushes. “I wasn’t expecting him to slap me that hard.”

You open the door wider and gesture inside. Bucky is now on the floor in a green onesie that says “Born to Kill Naptime!” in bold red letters, gnawing on a rubber toy like it personally insulted him.

Steve walks in slowly, crouching near the tiny menace. “Hey, Buck…”

Bucky stares at him with that signature Barnes scowl, vibrating with toddler judgment.

“Okay…” you interrupt, grabbing your robe. “I haven’t showered since before the banana incident, so you’re on babysitting duty. Fifteen minutes. Just keep him alive and don’t let him assassinate anyone.”

Steve blinks. “You trust me with him?”

“You’re the only one who can dodge his tantrum punches. Maybe.” You toss him a diaper bag. “Good luck.”

You vanish into the bathroom, humming as the warm water hits your skin. Ten minutes of uninterrupted peace. Pure heaven.

Meanwhile, Steve squats down again. “Hey, buddy. Want to…read a book?”

Bucky picks up ‘The Very Hungry Caterpillar’.

Steve smiles. “Yeah! That one’s great!”

Then Bucky throws it like a shuriken. it slices past Steve’s ear.

Steve jumps. “Okay… no reading!”

Next, Bucky crawls toward the shelf. Steve chases after him, slow and careful, like he’s approaching a wild animal. But the moment Steve reaches out, Bucky disappears.

He turns. “What the…Bucky?”

From the top of the dresser, baby Bucky stares down triumphantly, somehow having scaled it like a tiny metal-armed mountain goat.

“What the hell!!!”

Bucky launches into a pillow pile. Laughs like a gremlin. Then crawls at Steve with breakneck speed.

Over the next ten minutes,

He dismantles a pacifier like it was a bomb, launches a baby bottle into Steve’s eye and hides behind the curtain and farts loudly, then giggles.

He even manages to activate FRIDAY by babbling, “fuh-die…” which causes half the lights in the room to dim.

By the time you step out, now clean, comfy in soft shorts and one of Bucky’s oversized T-shirts, you find Steve on the floor, holding the vibrating baby monitor like it’s a ticking grenade, while Bucky dances in the background to the Mission Impossible theme Tony accidentally synced to the smart speakers.

You blink, “So far so good?”

Steve just stares at you, barely surviving and shocked.

You smile sweetly, “Thanks for the help, Cap. You’ve earned a medal in toddler warfare.”

You scoop Bucky up again. He instantly nuzzles into your chest, acting sweet and innocent.

For half a second, then his hand moves.

Pat.

Right on the boob.

You stare down at him.

“James. Buchanan. Barnes.”

He grins shamelessly.

Steve chokes on air. “Did he just…?!”

“Yes. Again.” you sigh, bouncing him a little. “He has no shame and apparently, no survival instinct.”

Bucky giggles. Loudly. Proudly.

You shake your head. “I swear, when you’re back to normal, you’re gonna pay for every single one of these boob slaps.”

He just coos happily.

Later on, you’re in the kitchen blending together carrots, peas, and just enough applesauce to trick your tiny assassin into liking it when you hear Sam’s voice drift through the hall.

“I got this, he’s a baby. How hard can it be?”

You snort, poor Sam and his confidence.

Steve, standing off to the side with his arms folded and a bandage on his cheek from his previous babysitting session, just mutters, “Godspeed.”

You peek from behind the counter as Sam swoops in, all confidence and swagger, picking Bucky up under the arms.

“There he is! Who’s a little tough guy, huh?” Sam grins.

Bucky just stares at him.

That unreadable, blank assassin stare. Unblinking.

“Man, you can’t scare me with that look. I fought beside you, remember?” Sam boops Bucky on the nose. “You’re all bark, no bite now.”

Bucky raises an eyebrow.

Steve sighs and slowly walks backward out of the room.

And exactly five minutes later…

“NO, BUCKY…NOT THE WINGS!”

Sam runs by in a blur, Bucky somehow strapped to his back with a curtain sash, gleefully yanking on Redwing’s wing casing. The tiny drone sputters wildly in the air.

Tony walks into the room, mid-sip of his scotch. “What's all the screaming ab—HOLY CRAP!”

Bucky chucks a toy wrench with stunning accuracy. It hits one of Tony’s bot-assistants in the arm, and the mechanical limb clatters to the ground.

“He broke the arm!” Tony shouts, staring in horror. “That’s vibranium! That robot’s stronger than Rhodey!”

“AND HE’S BITING MY SHOULDER!” Sam shrieks, spinning like a top. “WHY IS HE PURRING?!”

Tony drops his drink. “Oh my god. He’s a gremlin.”

“No. He’s a tiny Winter Soldier with no filter and nothing to lose!” Sam stumbles past you, panic in his eyes. “TAKE HIM BACK. I’M TOO PRETTY TO DIE.”

You calmly turn off the blender.

And then, like magic, Bucky flings himself from Sam’s back and angelically lands in your arms. More like you took him.

He coos.

He nuzzles.

He blinks up at you like an innocent cherub that couldn’t possibly throw a screwdriver at high velocity or short-circuit Tony’s latest AI.

“Aw,” you croon. “Look at you, acting all sweet.”

Sam stumbles into the wall behind you, wild-eyed and panting. “He’s a demon. He’s an adorable, pink-cheeked hell spawn. Don’t be fooled.”

Bucky gazes up at you, soft, perfect, angelic.

Then he pats.

Right on the boob.

You freeze, “Seriously?!”

Steve groans from the doorway. “Again?”

Tony covers his mouth. “He’s got a pattern.”

You hold Bucky up in front of your face. He’s grinning so wide his dimples might split his cheeks.

“James Buchanan Barnes…” you say slowly. “You will regret this when you’re normal.”

He blows you a kiss, which is a raspberry.

You narrow your eyes. “I’m buying nipple armor. This is war!”

Sam lies on the floor, moaning, “He called me ‘bird bitch’ with his eyes. I felt it.”

You pat Bucky’s back and sigh. “Alright, time for baby lunch and then nap time. And no more boob slapping.”

Pat.

You scream into a burp cloth.

It’s late, the compound is quiet, too quiet after a day filled with baby tantrums, flying diapers, and Sam screaming “CODE RED!” over the comms. But now, it’s just you and your baby assassin curled up in your bed under a mountain of soft blankets.

Bucky lets out a little sigh as you pull him closer, his warm little body wriggling against yours. His vibranium arm rests cool against your stomach while his human one finds its favorite place.

Your boob.

You don’t even fight it anymore. It’s not perverted. It’s comfort. At least that’s what you tell yourself.

He snuggles deeper into your chest like it’s home and in a way, it is.

“I swear,” you whisper into his fluff of dark hair, “you’re boob-holic!”

Bucky doesn’t answer, he just gives your boob a soft pat. As if confirming, “Yes, still there. Safe.”

You sigh.

“He used to hold my waist like this,” you murmur to no one. “Used to bury his face in my neck after missions. Now he buries it in my boobs.”

Days pass, everyone took turns watching him.

Clint tried and got shot with a pacifier launched by Bucky.

Sam refused to re-enter the room after Bucky climbed onto the kitchen counter and threw pudding at him like a war general.

Bruce babysat once. Once.

But Natasha?

Oh, he behaved for Natasha. Sat quietly on her lap like a perfect little soldier while she played his tiny fingers and called him “Boss Baby.”

“I think he’s scare of her…” you muttered once.

Tony nodded solemnly. “Same.”

Still, every night Bucky curled into you. Grabbed his boob. Slept like a dream. And you? You missed him.

Not this chubby, feral, clingy little man-child who throws applesauce like a grenade and tries to fight the mirror.

No, you missed your husband.

The smirking, dominant, deliciously frustrating man who could make your knees weak just by saying “Doll” in that voice.

You missed his hands. His lips. His…

Pat.

You blink down.

“Seriously?” you whisper as Bucky gives your left boob a thoughtful pat.

Then, pat pat, goes the right one, like he’s evaluating them.

“Okay, you’re getting too comfortable with this.”

Another pat pat pat.

“Alright, that’s it.” You swing out of bed, Bucky still in your arms, cradled like a smug little king.

You storm into the hall, where Steve is nursing a juice box (the stress has aged him twenty years in three days).

“Steve!”

He looks up, wary. “Uh-oh.”

“Where the hell are Strange and Loki?”

He blinks. “I…I don’t know. Still on a mission. Last I heard they were in another realm?”

“Tell them to hurry the hell up.” You hold up Bucky like a furry weapon of mass boob destruction. “I miss my man. I miss my sex life. And if this mini perv touches my boob one more time, I’m gonna lose it.”

Bucky giggles. Pats your boob again.

Steve turns pale. “Okay. Yeah. Got it. I’ll page them. Right now. I mean call them!”

You spin on your heel and head back to your room.

Bucky’s still snickering.

“You think you’re clever…” you mutter, plopping onto the bed again.

He snuggles in and grabs a boob.

You sigh, “You win…”

You were gone for two minutes.

TWO.

You’d just gone to grab his bottle from the warmer. You’d hidden all the sharp utensils ahead of time, no forks, no knives, not even a butter spreader in sight.

But you forgot the spoons.

And Bucky found them.

You walked back in and froze.

There he was, baby Bucky Barnes, standing triumphantly on the kitchen counter, dual-wielding tiny silver spoons like they were combat daggers. His eyes narrowed in pure assassin focus. The glint in his baby blues screamed Winter Soldier mode activated.

“BUCKY!” you gasped, dropping the bottle.

He screamed, a fierce little battle cry, and launched one of the spoons at Sam, who’d just walked in with his coffee.

Direct hit, coffee everywhere. And Sam flailed, “WHAT THE HELL…”

You lunged, snatching Bucky off the counter just as he reared back with spoon number two.

He wiggled in your arms, trying to line up a shot, until your hand wrapped around his chubby middle and you brought him face to face with you.

“Absolutely not!” you said sternly.

He pouted.

You glared.

Pat.

On the boob.

You sighed. “That’s not going to save you every time.”

But he grinned, resting his head on your chest like he hadn’t just committed a war crime.

Later that day, the team was lounging in the common room, watching you feed Bucky with practiced ease, spoonful of mashed apples here, soft little coos there. Bucky was perched on your hip like a prince being hand-fed grapes.

“How come he behaves only with her?” Sam grumbled, arms crossed and still damp from his coffee disaster.

Tony didn’t even look up from his tablet. “It’s the boob pats.”

You glared.

“I’m just saying,” Tony added, raising a hand defensively, “if I had a boob-shaped pillow strapped to me 24/7, I’d behave too.”

“I’ll break your jaw and call Pepper!” you replied sweetly.

Natasha, watching from the armchair, just smiled faintly and said, “He behaves because she’s the only person in the world he trusts more than himself.”

There was a rare hush, even Bucky paused mid-spoonful. You blinked, heart fluttering. “Aw, Nat…”

Then Bucky launched applesauce at Sam again.

Balance restored.

A few days later, you were in the hallway, helping Bucky sip water from a small cup, when you felt it, the distinct tingle of portal magic humming through the compound.

You looked up.

Right there, across the corridor, the air shimmered and swirled into a swirling golden disk. Your breath caught.

“Bucky…” you whispered, eyes wide, “they’re here.”

Two figures stepped through, robes, arrogance, and magic crackling off them in waves.

Doctor Stephen Strange.

And Loki Laufeyson.

“We came as soon as we…”

SMACK.

A tiny cup of water flew with surgical precision, nailing Strange square in the face.

Loki didn’t even have time to blink before a baby spoon followed, catching him in the chest like a blunt projectile of war.

“What the…”

You held Bucky tighter.

He smirked.

“Sorry!!!” you called over their stunned silence, “he’s been waiting.”

Strange wiped water off his nose and stared at the tiny assassin in your arms.

Loki narrowed his eyes. “You mean to tell me this creature is the feared Winter Soldier?”

Bucky gave him the deadliest baby glare ever recorded.

And then patted your boob.

Strange blinked. “Well. Let’s get to work.”

You had one arm around Bucky and the other cradling his little baby foot as Strange and Loki stood in the center of the living room, rolling their eyes and muttering Latin or was it Norse? incantations over glowing relics and swirling energies.

The rest of the team had gathered like it was movie night.

Natasha leaned against the wall, arms crossed, cool and unreadable.

Sam had popcorn.

Tony was recording.

Steve, bless him, looked like he was holding a prayer circle in his head.

Bruce sat on the floor scribbling notes like this was science. It wasn't.

And you?

You were in the center of the chaos, cross-legged on the rug with one very smug, very tiny Bucky Barnes perched in your lap like royalty.

“Don’t move!” Strange warned, his fingers crackling with golden threads of spell energy.

“Can he behave for five minutes?” Loki grumbled, adjusting his leather sleeves with flair.

You felt a small pat on your chest.

You didn’t even have to look down.

“James Buchanan Barnes…” you said, voice low.

Pat pat.

You narrowed your eyes. “You’re about to be an adult again. Do not test me.”

He looked up at you, full of cheeky baby glee, and patted your boob with both hands.

The team groaned in unison.

“Okay, just change him now!” Sam said, “I can’t watch this horndog-infant thing anymore.”

The spell begins, Strange’s voice deepened, echoing with arcane weight, while Loki joined in with fluid, melodic power.

A wind swept the room from nowhere, curling around you and Bucky in spirals of energy. His baby hairs lifted. His tiny body started to glow faintly, surrounded by flickers of golden magic laced with green.

You felt it before you saw it, Bucky going still, his chubby hands holding tighter onto you. His breath hitched, a flicker of uncertainty behind his clear blue eyes.

You brought him close, pressed your lips to his temple.

“I’m right here, bubba…” you whispered.

Flash.

The magic surged and suddenly,

Flashback after flashback,

Bucky on a rooftop in Madripoor, bleeding but laughing after saving your ass.

Bucky carrying you bridal style after your last mission, whispering how proud he was.

Bucky under soft sheets, nuzzled between your thighs, telling you how much he loves you.

The wedding. That kiss. The tears. The forever.

And then a brilliant burst of light exploded from the circle, throwing your head back.

You blinked through the afterglow and gasped.

He was there.

Full-sized Bucky.

Fully adult.

Fully naked.

And still very much in your lap.

You made a choking noise and immediately yanked the throw blanket from the couch, throwing it over his lap and wrapping it around his hips, shielding him from everyone’s view.

The room fell into stunned silence.

Bucky blinked, then looked up at you, his smirk slow, familiar, and deeply satisfied.

He raised one arm, his flesh one, just to mess with them and gave your boob one last pat.

“Worth it.” he rasped.

The entire team groaned.

Steve straight up walked into a wall.

Natasha smirked. “Welcome back, pervert.”

Sam was howling with laughter.

Tony ended the recording, “We are never deleting this.”

You buried your face into Bucky’s shoulder, torn between hysterics and the sudden urge to ravish him.

He tilted his head, whispering, “Hey, Doll... you think we can get everyone to leave in the next five minutes?”

You grinned. “If I tell them you’re going for round two of the boob pats, they’ll vanish in three.”

You couldn’t stop smiling.

Even as you helped Bucky tuck the blanket tighter around his waist, even as Sam whooped and Tony made very inappropriate jokes about “rebooting” Bucky, your entire body was humming with pure relief.

He was back.

Your Bucky. Your husband. Your partner. Your best friend.

You turned to Loki and Strange, eyes glassy, “Thank you. Thank you, thank you…thank you.”

Loki smirked, brushing imaginary lint off his sleeve. “Your assassin-child hybrid was...unsettling.”

Strange grunted. “Tell him if he slaps me again, I’ll turn him into a potted plant next time.”

You grinned and tugged Bucky by the hand.

“Come on, Doll,” he teased with that familiar, devastating smirk. “Don’t want to thank them again?”

“I want to climb you like a damn tree!” you hissed through your smile.

He choked on a laugh and followed you eagerly.

Once inside your shared bedroom, the door slammed behind you.

The second it clicked shut, you turned and pounced.

You jumped on Bucky, as he caught you mid-air like instinct, blanket falling off as you wrapped your legs around his waist. He stumbled back against the door, breath catching.

“Easy, Tiger…” he murmured, voice low and smoky. “Didn’t think you missed me that much.”

“I had to wipe your baby ass, Barnes,” you growled, dragging your lips over his jaw. “You owe me so much sex.”

He laughed, full and deep and so utterly him. His hands gripped your thighs, his metal fingers spreading wide. “Doll, I’ve had nothing but time to think about this.”

You stared into his eyes, the blue darker now, simmering.

“I missed you…” you whispered. “Like crazy.”

His expression softened. “I know. I saw you... I remember all of it. You taking care of me. Sleeping with me. Defending me. Feeding me…”

His voice dropped lower.

“Letting me touch your tits like a king.”

You smacked his chest, “You were a menace...”

He grinned, then caught your face in his hands, pulling you in for a kiss that nearly unmade you.

Slow at first, reverent, grateful, then desperate and hungry.

You clung to him, kissing like you could drink each other, like you’d been starved. He carried you to the bed, laying you down, crawling over you like the predator you’d missed so damn much.

His mouth found your neck, his hands greedy, possessive.

“You wore my shirts. You bathed me. You held me against your boobs every night.”

“You liked that…” you panted as he kissed down your throat.

“I lived for that!” he growled, pushing the hem of your top higher. “But this…this is what I’ve been dying for.”

You reached for him, pulling him down, gasping as your bodies finally aligned, no barriers, no blankets, no baby giggles.

Just you and Bucky.

You whispered his name again and again as clothes disappeared, breaths shortened, and the only sound in the room was love rediscovered in every touch, every moan, every grind.

It was slow.

It was hot.

It was everything you’d been aching for.

And in the afterglow, when you were tangled together in the sheets, legs knotted, lips swollen, he buried his face in your neck and murmured, “Next time I get hit by magic, just kill me.”

You laughed, breathless. “Not a chance, bubba. You’re mine.”

Taglist- @blackhawkfanatic @ordelixx @sapphirebarnes @ilovetaquitosmmmm

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@peaches1958 @sebbymybaby21

[redbloodedgurl]

I mean is Bucky could we expected less than being a tiny menace?? Of course not!!!! 🤣

[orellazalonia]

Comfort and Chaos

Summary: After a nightmare, Bucky finds comfort in you curled up as a tiger cub in his lap, bringing you along to therapy where your purring calms him better than words ever could. Later, your shift into a red panda leads to a chaotic pasta heist, a sudsy bath, and a lot of cuddles in a fluffy towel. (Bucky Barnes x shapeshifter!reader)

Word Count: 1.8k+

A/N: This is based off this request and this request. Happy reading!

Main Masterlist | Shapeshifting Shenanigans Masterlist

The night had been still, the kind of stillness that only came after days of chaos. There was the quiet hum of the compound’s HVAC system and the gentle flicker of security lights in the hallway. You’d shifted into your tiger cub form hours ago, mostly out of instinct. Bucky had been off earlier that evening; tense in his shoulders, withdrawn, and his voice a little too flat when he said he was fine.

He hadn’t asked for company.

But you’d padded silently into his room anyway, tail swaying low behind you, and curled yourself into a tight little ball at the floor near the end of his bed. Close enough to be near him, but far enough not to intrude. Your fur still held the warmth of your human self, and you had to fight the urge to purr just from being near him, your safe person.

It was past 2 a.m. when you heard the first shift. A rustle of sheets, sudden and jarring. Then a quiet, strangled sound, not quite a cry but not quite a breath.

Bucky thrashed.

You sprang up, ears alert, and tail flicking sharply. You could see him silhouetted, him clawing at the blanket tangled around his legs. His face was twisted in pain, and the dog tags around his neck clinked softly as he jolted upright with a sharp gasp.

Chest heaving and sweat dripping from his brow.

You moved before thinking.

With soft, silent paws, you climbed up the bed and approached him slowly, careful not to startle him. He didn’t see you at first. He had his head in his hands, breathing like he couldn’t catch it, the tremble in his arms betraying how bad this one had been.

You pressed your nose gently to his elbow.

He flinched. Then looked down.

“…Hey,” He whispered hoarsely. His voice cracked. His eyes were glassy, distant, still not fully there. “You’re here.”

You bumped your head softly against his ribs and climbed into his lap gently and slowly, giving him time. He didn’t stop you. His flesh hand came up first, hesitant then the metal one followed, a quiet shudder rolling through him as he let himself touch you.

“God, you’re warm,” He mumbled as he lied back down. He closed his eyes and pulled the blanket around both of you, “You’re real…”

You didn’t purr right away. You just stayed, still and grounded, your body a steady pressure against his chest.

You felt him melt, just a little, shoulders losing their tension beneath the weight of his own exhaustion as his hand moved to stroke down your back over and over again. Like he was afraid to stop, he’d slip back into that dream, that memory, that place he didn’t talk about.

“…You don’t even know what you do for me,” He whispered, voice rough.

But you did. You always did.

You curled into his side and his arms wrapped securely around your warm little form. He didn't need words anymore. Just you. Quiet, fuzzy, soft, and present.

The next morning, you didn't even question it when he took you to his therapy session.

You were nestled in Bucky’s hoodie, your tiger cub body tucked snugly inside the oversized fabric like a living furnace. The ride to the office was… quiet. He didn’t say much, just occasionally scratched behind your ears at stoplights, murmuring things like “You’re too soft for your own good” or “Better not shed on the seat.”

You could tell the nightmares had drained him. His jaw was tense, and he kept flexing his hand on the steering wheel like he was resisting the urge to just turn around and go home. But he didn’t, because you were there.

When you arrived, he zipped his hoodie a little higher, carefully cradled your bottom like you were some furry, sacred burrito, and strode into the office like this was completely normal.

The receptionist blinked. “Uh… Sergeant Barnes?”

“She’s my emotional support tiger,” He explained flatly. “It’s a new thing.”

The woman stared for a long moment then decided, wisely, not to comment.

You poked your fuzzy face out from the hoodie, gave your best “don’t-question-it” look, and let your tail flick lazily behind you as he walked into the session room.

Dr. Raynor was waiting, as always. Notebook in her lap and ready to pick him apart with her usual no-nonsense attitude.

Except her gaze immediately dropped to your head poking out from Bucky’s hoodie.

“…That a tiger cub?”

“Yup.” He plopped down on the couch with a grunt. “She’s going through something.”

“I can see that.”

“Helped me sleep last night, stayed curled on my chest like a little heater.” He rubbed a thumb over your head absently. “Didn’t wake up alone this time.”

Raynor’s expression shifted, just slightly. She didn’t write anything yet.

“Is she stuck like that?”

“She shifts back when she’s ready,” Bucky mumbled, then added, “But I kinda hope she doesn’t, just for today.”

That surprised you, you peeked up at him. He met your gaze and gave a lopsided, tired smile.

Dr. Raynor cleared her throat. “Fine,” She said, flipping a page. “Let’s begin then.”

The next 45 minutes passed with Bucky stretched out, shoulders slowly easing, and your cub body purring lightly on his lap by now. He spoke more than usual. Not everything, not even half; but more.

He’d pet your back when the words got hard. Twirl a little tuft of your fur between his fingers when he needed to think. You stayed right there, heavy and steady, like a breathing, striped weighted blanket with attitude.

By the time the session ended, he was slouched into the cushions, one hand still resting on your side.

Dr. Raynor stood.

“She can come back,” She said. “Maybe she’s the trick.”

“She’s better than a prescription,” Bucky muttered.

By the time you returned from Bucky’s therapy session, you’d had a nice nap, purring contentedly the whole ride back to the compound. He carried you like you were some rare treasure, one hand under your fuzzy tiger cub belly, the other resting protectively over your back.

It would’ve been peaceful. Should have stayed peaceful.

But your nap had left you full of energy. By the time Bucky set you down on the couch and stepped into the hallway to grab a blanket, the moment he turned around–

You were gone.

Not completely. Just… smaller, rounder, and fluffier.

When he stepped back in, he found an empty couch, a few tufts of tiger cub fur, and a flash of rust-colored fluff waddling at alarming speed toward the kitchen.

“…Oh no,” Bucky muttered. “No no no–don’t you dare–”

Too late.

You’d shifted into a red panda, tiny paws pattering against the tile floor, fluffy tail trailing like a feather duster behind you as you launched yourself up onto the kitchen counter with surprising grace.

Sam, who had just opened the fridge, screamed like he’d seen a ghost.

“WHAT THE–?!”

“Red panda,” Steve said calmly, not looking up from his phone. “That’s her now.”

“That’s her?!” Sam pointed wildly as you dove face-first into a bowl of leftover pasta, paws scrabbling to pull it closer like a raccoon at a buffet. “Where’s Bucky?! Why is no one stopping her?!”

At that exact moment, Bucky skidded into the kitchen.

You met eyes with him from your perch on the counter, pasta sauce smudged across your cheeks and noodles dangling from your mouth.

“…You know you’re gonna need a bath, right?” He muttered, sighing.

You huffed defiantly and stuffed another mouthful of pasta in your face.

Steve chuckled under his breath. “At least she’s not climbing the curtains this time.”

“Yet,” Sam grumbled, watching you with narrowed eyes as you attempted to drag the whole bowl toward the toaster.

When Bucky reached for you, you bolted, scampering across the counter and leaping onto the top of the fridge. Your tail poofed up dramatically as you flattened yourself, eyes wide and shining with mischief.

“Don’t you dare,” Bucky warned. “Do not jump on Clint.”

You did. You launched yourself like a torpedo off the fridge and landed squarely on Clint’s shoulders just as he walked by. He let out a confused “Wha–” and dropped his coffee mug. It shattered. You chirped happily.

Chaos.

Pure, adorable, fluffy chaos.

And somehow, through all the yelling, startled Avengers, and Clint trying to pull your tiny red panda form off his back, Bucky managed to pry you off and chase after you.

It wasn’t long until you were caught.

He cornered you behind the couch with a trail of marinara paw prints giving you away. You froze mid-crawl, tail twitching, and ears flat.

He crossed his arms. “You wanna come quietly?”

You squeaked, trying to dart under the couch.

He plucked you up by the scruff before you got far, cradling your wriggling, pasta-stained form in one arm as he sighed. “You are lucky you're cute.”

You chirped.

The bathroom was prepped with the sink full of warm water, a fluffy towel waiting nearby, and a small, animal-safe bottle of shampoo someone (probably Natasha) had bought just in case.

Bucky set you on the counter. “Alright. In we go.”

You immediately scrambled backward, red panda paws flailing for grip on the tile. He blocked your escape with one hand and hoisted you gently into the sink. You let out a deep offended trill as your fur hit the warm water.

“Oh don’t start with me,” He muttered, holding you steady while you kicked dramatically. “You rolled in pasta, you literal disaster. This is your fault.”

You glared at him.

He grinned, sleeves already rolled up as he began rinsing your tail. “I hope you remember this when you’re human again.”

You sulked, paws folded over the edge of the sink, eyes narrowed into the most judgmental little glare imaginable.

Then he soaped up your ears.

You made a sound of pure betrayal and slumped.

“Yeah,” Bucky murmured with mock sympathy, rubbing suds into your shoulders. “It’s tough being adorable and reckless.”

By the time he finished rinsing and wrapped you up in a towel like a little burrito, you were quiet, calm, and damp The weight of the towel plus his arms settled something in you. Your head lolled against his chest, blinking slowly.

“You’re a menace,” He murmured, kissing your towel-wrapped forehead. “But you’re my menace.”

He carried you out like that. Clint tried to protest something from the couch as you passed (probably about his sweater being covered in paw prints), but Bucky waved him off.

“You’re not stealing her,” Bucky called back. “She’s in time-out.”

You chirped weakly in agreement, already half-asleep.

And honestly? If mischief and bath time always ended with being swaddled like a burrito and held against Bucky’s chest, maybe the chaos was worth it.

Taglist: @yasmin12312 @herejustforbuckybarnes @eeveedream @wingstoyourdreams @figtreesandmoonlight @happygalaxymilkshake @hits-different-cause-its-you

[redbloodedgurl]

Reader is so cute and chaotic!!! I can’t, my heart melts every time 💕

[orellazalonia]

Positively Ferocious, Maybe

Summary: You’re trying to show off by shifting into a tiger… but end up as a baby tiger instead. (Bucky Barnes x shapeshifter!reader)

Word Count: 400+

A/N: This is what you call getting a spoonful of content and no more LOL. Happy reading!

Main Masterlist | Shapeshifting Shenanigans Masterlist

You were sitting cross-legged on the grass at a park not too far from the Avengers compound. You had a few half-eaten crackers in your hand and a very patient Bucky beside you with his legs stretched out, looking at you like you were the most entertaining thing in the world.

“I bet I could be a tiger,” You said casually, squinting up at the clouds.

Bucky raised a brow. “A whole tiger?”

“Mhm,” You smirked. “Big, strong, and terrifying. Bet no one would mess with me then.”

He chuckled low under his breath. “No one really messes with you now.”

“Yeah, but like… more dramatic.” You took a deep breath, focused hard, and felt your body start to shift. Fur bristling over your arms, ears stretching, and vision sharpening.

You felt powerful. You felt feral. You felt—

Oddly… short?

The grass was taller than you expected. You looked down to find your paws were fuzzy. Your nose was stubby and your tail was… short.

Your growl came out as a squeaky mrowrrr.

Bucky choked on his own laugh. “You’re– you’re a baby tiger.”

Your tiger eyes narrowed, you gave him a warning yip and pounced… or tried to.

Your little cub legs flopped awkwardly in the air and you landed on your side with a soft fwump. The only thing bruised was your pride.

Bucky lost it.

“Oh my god, look at your face!” He bent over, wheezing. “You’re like a furious stuffed animal!”

You hissed at him in the fiercest baby growl you could manage.

He grinned. “Oh no. The fearsome predator wants to bite my shoelaces.”

You tackled his boot with all the dignity of a fluff ball. He gently lifted you by the scruff and held you up like a kitten, eye to eye. You dangled there, glaring.

“This is the best thing that’s ever happened to me,” He whispered.

You huffed and looked away dramatically, pouting.

He eventually set you back down, but not before taking a million pictures on his phone.

And for the next week, every time someone walked past him in the compound, they got shown a photo with:

“Look at my baby tiger. She thinks she’s so scary.”

You vowed to take revenge the moment you figured out how to turn into a full-grown one.

(…But for now, you stayed nestled in his hoodie, tiny paws tucked in and purring despite yourself, betrayed by your own fluff.)

Taglist: @yasmin12312 @herejustforbuckybarnes @eeveedream @wingstoyourdreams @figtreesandmoonlight @happygalaxymilkshake

[redbloodedgurl]

[rocketrhap3000]

Roads go ever ever on, Under cloud and under star. Yet feet that wandering have gone Turn at last to home afar.

- J.R.R. Tolkien

series summary: Life as a single mother of a three year old certainly has its struggles. But when a sweet stranger makes his way into you and your little boy’s life, a one of a kind connection sparks. 

each part has its own warnings:

♡ indicates fluff ☾ indicates smut ☆ indicates angst

main story

♡ part i - 4.2k

♡☆ part ii - 7.1k

♡☆ part iii - 6.5k

♡☆ part iv - 7.8k

♡ what’s a bucky? - 2.6k

♡☆ part v - 9.1k

♡☆ part vi - 7.9k

♡ part vii - 7.4k

♡☆☾ part viii - 7.6k

♡☆☾ part ix - 9.8k

♡☆ part x - 7.8k

series moodboard

into their future…

♡ the new addition - 1.8k

 ♡☆ it’ll take some time - 4.9k

[redbloodedgurl]

I’m not a Natasha fan. But she was barely there, so I tolerate her for reader’s sake hahaha

My favorite phrase of the whole series is when Jasper says: my pack pack!! Ugh, I melt, he’s so cute 🥺 I don’t even like children but fictional children are really cute lol

Thank you for sharing 💕

[heldbybarnes]

Meant for More

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x reader, Child OC (Micah, Maya, Maverick)

Warnings: infertility and pregnancy loss (mentioned), foster care system, child abandonment (referenced), emotional trauma

----------

You’d always imagined your house full.

Laughter bouncing off the walls, bare feet slapping across hardwood, toys tucked into corners despite your best efforts to tidy. You’d imagined sticky fingers tugging at your sleeves, sleepy heads on your shoulder, the soft hum of lullabies you hadn’t sung yet. You and Bucky had talked about it early on—before rings, before vows, before the ache of hope turned heavy in your chest.

“We’ll have a whole crew,” he’d said once, his voice low and warm. “Six, maybe. Or ten if you’re game.”

You’d laughed, curled into his chest, dizzy on the dream of it.

But dreams, as you came to learn, don’t always listen to biology.

Months turned into years. Years into test results, appointments, losses, moments that broke you in invisible ways. You’d both held it together as best you could—until Bucky came home one afternoon and found you sitting on the bathroom floor, another single line staring up from the test, hands shaking as you muttered, “I can’t keep doing this.”

He’d sunk to his knees, wrapped his arms around you, and whispered, “Then we won’t.”

It was that simple, in the end.

You stopped trying. Stopped charting days and holding your breath each month. The grief didn’t disappear, but it settled into a quieter ache, like a song you only hear in the quiet.

And then one night, Bucky turned to you on the couch, voice hesitant. “Have you ever thought about fostering?”

You blinked. “Foster care?”

He nodded. “I met a kid at the VA today. His grandpa’s one of ours. Said he’s been in and out of homes for the past year. Just… made me wonder if maybe… maybe our full house doesn’t have to look how we thought.”

You stared at him for a long moment.

And then you nodded.

The paperwork alone felt like its own mountain.

Background checks. Home inspections. Training modules. Questions that cut deeper than you expected.

Why do you want to foster?

What losses have you experienced?

How do you handle trauma?

You and Bucky filled each one out together at the kitchen table, side by side. Some answers came easily. Others made you cry. You learned more about each other in those weeks than you had in years.

The social worker, a kind woman named April, visited three times before you were finally approved.

“I’ll be honest,” she said during the last visit, smiling as she glanced around your tidy living room, “you two are going to get calls fast.”

She wasn’t wrong.

Three weeks later, your phone rang.

“Hi,” April said, voice unusually gentle. “I know you haven’t had a placement yet, but we’ve got a five-year-old boy who was just removed tonight. No immediate family. He’s quiet, not speaking much. We’re looking for an emergency placement while we assess.”

You said yes before she could finish the sentence.

He arrived just after 1 a.m., bundled in an oversized hoodie, clutching a paper grocery bag of belongings.

April gave you a tired smile as she guided him into the foyer.

“This is Micah,” she said softly. “Micah, this is Bucky and Y/N. They’re going to take care of you for a little while, okay?”

He didn’t speak. Didn’t look up. Just stood there like he was trying not to exist.

You knelt down slowly.

“Hi, sweetheart,” you said. “You can call me whatever you want. Do you want some water? Or we can show you your room.”

He didn’t answer. But when Bucky took the grocery bag from his hand, Micah followed without a word.

He chose to sleep on top of the covers, shoes still on.

You and Bucky stood in the hallway long after April left, staring at the closed bedroom door.

“We’ll just take it one hour at a time,” Bucky said.

You nodded. “One hour.”

The first few days were quiet.

Micah didn’t speak. He barely ate. He flinched when you reached for a spoon too quickly. He watched Bucky like he expected him to explode.

But he didn’t explode. Bucky smiled, even when Micah wouldn’t meet his eyes. He sat with him while cartoons played, read bedtime stories to an empty response, built towers of blocks and waited for tiny hands to join.

It took a week before Micah said a word.

You were making breakfast—pancakes, his favorite according to the sparse case notes—when a voice behind you mumbled, “Blueberries.”

You turned, stunned. “Blueberries?”

He pointed toward the bowl on the counter.

You nearly cried giving them to him.

That night, Bucky whispered in bed, “You saw him smile today.”

You nodded against his chest. “You made him laugh.”

“I didn’t think it’d feel like this,” he murmured. “Like... I was made for it.”

You swallowed the lump in your throat. “Me neither.”

Micah stayed.

First a week, then a month. Then three.

The court delayed hearings. No relatives came forward. You started hanging his drawings on the fridge, buying little sneakers with Velcro straps, cutting crusts off sandwiches without thinking twice.

The first time he called you Mama, you dropped a glass of water.

He froze, eyes wide like he’d done something wrong.

But you crossed the room and kissed his head and whispered, “You can call me that any time.”

He whispered it again before bedtime. Just to test the sound.

And when Bucky kissed him goodnight, Micah said, “Night, Daddy.”

Three days later, April called again.

“We have a sibling set. A girl, ten, and her baby brother. He’s seven months. They were found abandoned at a motel. Would you be willing to do respite for the weekend? Just until Monday?”

You looked at Bucky. He nodded without hesitation.

The baby came with formula and diapers. The girl, Maya, came with fire.

“I don’t need a mommy,” she snapped when you offered her a blanket. “We won’t be here long anyway.”

“That’s okay,” you said softly. “But you can still have the blanket.”

She took it. Didn’t say thank you. But you found it tucked under her arm the next morning.

The baby, Maverick, had a cold. You spent two nights pacing the hallway, bouncing him on your hip while Bucky hummed lullabies he barely remembered from the 40s. Maya pretended not to care—but when you caught her watching from the stairs, her face was unreadable.

On Monday, they didn’t leave.

More delays. More red tape.

And somehow, just like that… you had three.

It was chaos, most days.

Someone was always crying or sneezing or coloring on a surface they shouldn’t be. The dishwasher ran twice a day. Bucky learned how to braid Maya’s hair. You learned to function on four hours of sleep. You had sticky notes taped to the fridge, reminders on your phone, and a drawer full of “just in case” lollipops.

You also had more laughter than you’d heard in years.

Micah started sleeping through the night.

Maverick said his first word: “Buck.”

Maya stopped flinching when you hugged her.

And when you found her quietly helping Micah tie his shoes one morning, you stepped into the hallway and cried.

“This is what it was always supposed to be,” Bucky whispered as he wrapped his arms around you. “Isn’t it?”

You didn’t answer right away. Just rested your head against his shoulder and let yourself believe it might be true.

One night, months later, Bucky came home late from the store. You were sitting on the couch, Maverick curled on your chest, Micah playing with blocks, Maya scribbling in a journal.

Bucky paused in the doorway, groceries in hand.

“What?” you asked, smiling.

He shook his head, eyes soft. “Just… this. All of it.”

He dropped the bags and knelt beside the couch, brushing Maverick’s hair back.

“I used to think I was broken,” he said quietly. “Used to think people like me don’t get things like this. But look at us. Look at you. You’re the best thing that ever happened to me. And now… we get to be that for them.”

You ran your fingers through his hair, tears catching in your throat.

“They’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me too,” you said.

You didn’t talk about what you’d lost—not as often. Some griefs, you learned, weren’t meant to be fixed. But they could be softened.

He kissed your knuckles. “You still think about it?”

You nodded. “Sometimes. But less now. Not because I don’t love what we have. Just… because part of me still mourns what never was.”

Bucky rested his forehead against yours. “Maybe what never was led us to what is.”

You smiled. “You always know what to say.”

He grinned. “You trained me well.”

A year passed.

Micah turned six. Maya danced at her first recital. Maverick took his first steps into your waiting arms.

You still got calls sometimes. Emergency placements. Weekend respite. Some stayed a night, others a month. You had a drawer full of tiny toothbrushes and blankets and stuffed animals, always ready.

People said things—about how patient you were, how kind.

You just smiled and said, “They’re easy to love.”

And when you tucked them in at night, kissed their foreheads and whispered, “You’re safe now,” you meant it.

You never stopped meaning it.

One evening, Bucky came home with a new photo frame.

“Too many pictures for the fridge,” he said, setting it on the mantle.

You slid a photo into it—one of all five of you from the fall festival, grinning with cotton candy and messy faces.

Bucky stood beside you, arm around your waist.

“You know,” he said softly, “I used to think family was something that happened. Like a birthright.”

“And now?”

“Now I think it’s something you build. Something you choose. Over and over.”

You rested your head against him. “We chose right.”

He kissed the top of your head. “Yeah. We did.”

You may never carry a child inside your body. That ache would never fully disappear.

But what you did carry was love.

A house full of it.

Tiny hands and sleepy giggles. Tearful tantrums and whispered goodnights. First words and new trust and second chances.

You carried the weight of becoming someone’s soft place to land.

And that—after everything—was enough.

No. It was more than enough.

It was everything.

[redbloodedgurl]

🥺

This is so close to home. I don’t particularly like children (rn, I’m still don’t feel ready) and I can’t have them naturally. And I’ve been thinking about foster care so much. They are angels 😇

Thank you for sharing 💕