18+ only
: ̗➛ MASTERLIST
Three Goblin Art
Not today Justin
occasionally subtle

Origami Around
wallacepolsom

oozey mess
Xuebing Du

if i look back, i am lost
Show & Tell

roma★

★
ojovivo

blake kathryn
Monterey Bay Aquarium
dirt enthusiast

Andulka
Sade Olutola
One Nice Bug Per Day
I'd rather be in outer space 🛸

@theartofmadeline

seen from Romania
seen from United States
seen from Spain

seen from Germany
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United Kingdom

seen from Croatia

seen from Malaysia

seen from Brazil
seen from Switzerland

seen from United States

seen from Malaysia

seen from Malaysia

seen from Israel

seen from Ukraine

seen from Germany

seen from Malaysia
seen from United States
seen from United Kingdom
@salem-s
18+ only
: ̗➛ MASTERLIST
BUCKY BARNES
SERIES
The Hands That Mend (18+) ─ winter solder!bucky x healer!reader, forced proximity, hurt/comfort, protective!bucky. contains angst, eventual fluff, graphic content and language, suggestive content.
ONE SHOTS
No Roster, Just You ─ friends-with-benefits!bucky x reader, she fell first but he fell harder, post-grad au. contains fluff, angst, suggestive content and language.
His and His Only… For 24 Hours (18+) — friends-to-lovers, fake dating, he fell first and he fell harder. contains fluff, angst, smut.
── more coming soon...
RAFE CAMERON
SERIES
Playing the Part Under the Sicilian Sun (18+) ─ fake dating, fwb, she fell first but he fell harder. contains fluff, angst, occasional smut (chapters marked).
Temporary Truce (18+) ─ roommate/best friend's brother, he fell first/he fell harder, enemies (loose term) to lovers. contains angst, fluff, suggestive content (chapters marked).
A Thousand Ways To Break A Laptop (18+) ─ nerd!rafe x flirty!reader, coworkers to friends to lovers, post-grad au. contains fluff, suggestive content, smut in marked chapters/blurbs.
── more coming soon...
ONE SHOTS
Stonepit Finals and Spring Chaos (18+) ─ childhood friends to lovers, miscommunication. contains fluff, angst, half smut.
Admit You Hate The Way You Want Me (18+) ─ college au, academic rivals, enemies to lovers. contains smut, fluff, slight angst.
Sunrises, Penalties, and Losing Sleep Over You ─ jock!rafe x nerd-ish!reader, college au. contains fluff.
Confessions Under Sheets that Smell of You ─ best friends to lovers, college au. contains fluff.
Do You Think of Me When You Hold Her The Same? ─ ex!friends with benefits, miscommunication. contains angst but happy ending.
Don't Worry, Baby. I'll Handle Him (18+) ─ jock!rafe x jock!reader, best friend's brother, college au, hockey!rafe. contains angst, fluff, graphic content.
Back to Friends (18+) ─ ex!rafe x ex!reader, miscommunication. contains angst, fluff, descriptions of smut.
Ever Since Rocky Dune (18+) — flirty!rafe x bitchy!reader, reconnection after four years, post-grad au. contains fluff, angst, suggestive content.
I’ve Always Loved You, Just Not Like This — bsf!rafe, best friends to lovers, she fell first but he fell harder. contains angst, fluff, hella miscommunication.
Go On, Teach Me (18+) — jock!rafe x nerd!reader, bf!rafe, college au. contains smut, fluff.
── more coming soon...
© 2025 salem-s please do not copy or replicate my work without permission. mdni
do you do weddings? as the bride bc holy moly,,,,
your ‘no roster just you’ Bucky fic is chefs kiss and you deserve all the love in the world
Genuinely loled because yes (louder than everyone else) I’m free next Saturday
Bbbbbuut all banter aside, thank you for the love and support, gonna try and (attempt to) write some more in the coming weeks that are hopefully up to par!!
Holy shit your bucky x reader fics are incredible, love your characterization of him
Omfffggg haiii thank you so much???? I truly love the idea of him being a himbo and also a yearner (mainly just writing him based on how I’d want to be treated since it ssssuuuuure ain’t happening irl that’s for sure).
Been stupid busy as of late but will try and write some more in the coming weeks because I already miss him — thanks again for the kind note!
"Playing the part under the Sicilian Sun" might be the best thing that had ever happened in this world. your writings are the best thing that i've ever encountered and i'm lucky enough to have the chance to enjoy it. im not jokinnngggg, I still think about your artworks daily and it has altered my brain chemistry.
your bucky's works also brought me back into a hyperfixation of him that I've left behind seven years ago. that is how influential your writings are and i would love you to know yourself how an amazing writer you are
This is genuinely so nice omfg I’m so grateful that you enjoyed ptputss and my baaaaaad for roping you back into your Bucky phase — the support and appreciation means EVERYTHING!!! Thank YOU for taking the time to leave such a kind note, it’s truly such a motivation to keep writing. PEACE AND LOVE ANON
Hai suuuuuuper quick — just wanted to say hi??? And thanks for 2000 followers???? HELLO???
The support and love I get is absolutely unfathomable and I apologize for being relatively radio silent apart from the random fic drops once in a blue moon. I appreciate yall and I seeeeee you. The comments and reblogs and all the interactions TRULY make my day, some of yall are sleeper stand up comedians.
I’ll try and do a 2k baller celebration at some point, been disgustingly busy it’s actually horrific. But just wanted to acknowledge YOU GUYS I’m so grateful for all of you. Peace and love <3
HIS AND HIS ONLY... FOR 24 HOURS (18+) — BUCKY BARNES ONE SHOT
SYNOPSIS The last person you would ever consider dating — much less touching with a ten foot pole — is Bucky Barnes. Yet somehow here you are: packing a bag to spend the night of the Fourth of July as his fake girlfriend, all to get his pestering family off his case. But admittedly you can’t help but lean into the bit. Just a tad. Especially when his ex-girlfriend makes it very clear she wants him back.
WORD COUNT 25k. dont. literally dont. im so sorry.
WARNINGS & NOTES contains fluff, angst, smmmut (oral sex- fem receiving, penetrative sex (p-in-v, unprotected oops do not take after them), sprinkles of orgasm denial and a whole lotta fondling). 18+ MDNI. slight friends-to-lovers trope? more so that reader can't stand him and he can't stop riling her up? so actually one-sided-friends-to-lovers, if you will. he fell first, but he fell harder buuuut she definitely is in some sort of internal denial. fake dating tropes will genuinely be the death of me, oops, also not edited.
You never would’ve stopped by Natasha and Steve’s apartment if you had known Bucky was going to be here. Again.
He always loiters whenever he’s bored — which is almost always — because he claims they have better snacks, a better couch, a better aura (whatever that means, you sometimes think he says shit like that just to hear the sound of his own voice). Whenever you stop by, Bucky’s either in the kitchen cooking with food that isn’t his, which is usually what Natasha makes him do since he hangs around so much, or sprawled out audaciously on their love seat couch watching a show you’ve never heard of, or interrupting their movie night by asking too many questions and guessing the ending in the first five minutes.
Granted, you interrupt them too, but that’s because you get invited along with Natasha’s other girlfriends. Bucky just shows up most of the time.
Sometimes you think he has a tracker embedded in your skin somewhere, because he’s always conveniently here whenever you are. Or he has some sort of sixth sense that he can predict when you’re stopping by, and beats you here first.
Your eyes instantly roll when he’s the first person you spot in an apartment that doesn't even belong to him, an autopilot gesture that he’s grown used to seeing. Bucky’s leaning against the kitchen island, phone to his ear and, uncharacteristically, looks agitated. Nervous. Especially as he picks anxiously at his nail beds.
Setting the container full of soup down on the counter (rest in peace to Natasha’s sinuses), you quirk a brow at his stature. Normally Bucky’s all talk, because the first course of action on his agenda whenever he sees you is some lewd comment, a disastrously stupid joke, or anything under the sun to annoy you. It’s almost like bothering you is his day job. Sometimes it's yanking the ends of your hair or throwing a dish towel at you.
Contrary to right now, because he looks like he'd rather be anywhere else right now.
But, of course, that doesn't stop him from giving you a once over, blue eyes raking up and down your body as he takes in your outfit, your pretty shoes up to what hairstyle you've gone with today. Shameless, really, he's not even trying to hide it. Morning, noon, and night he's thinking about getting some, because handling something serious over the phone doesn't mean that he's stopped being a prick. No, that's his default setting.
"Yeah, Ma, I hear ya," he says monotonously into the phone.
You snort. He's lamented before about getting stuck on the phone with his mother more times than you can count, knowing he's probably at a breaking point with his patience. He claims he loves the woman dearly, but sometimes she just doesn't let up about anything, especially about her precious baby boy.
His words, not yours, because precious is not the word you'd use to describe Bucky Barnes.
Faux pouting at him, you saunter into his space as he shoos you away, trying to listen to the half-nonsense his mother is spewing over the phone (but how can he? Especially when you look like this in that godforsaken top that trips him up every time you wear it) and half-trying not to verbally crash out with you. At least you're quiet, but the teasing look on your face and the way your teeth sink into your bottom lip forces him to look away.
When he shakes his head at you, annoyed, you jab a finger into his ribcage upon passing him. Hard.
"Stop it," he mouths low to you, not in the mood for playing.
You respond by doing it again.
"Ow," Bucky hisses as your name falls from his lips, this time audible. Then, his brows pinch as he sighs in irritation. "No, yeah, fine, that's just...uh..."
His mother says something on the other line that makes him freeze, his bright blue eyes slowly morphing from annoyance to indifference.
Bucky stares at you. He really stares at you, as if the gears are turning in his head about something you can't know to be good. And you just... stand there, your next move of attack on hold simply because you're frozen as he looks at you. No smirk. No lewd comment. No cocky expression. Just...Bucky. Thinking. Which is never a good sign, because he never takes the time to simply think of anything. He doesn't even think before he speaks half the time, let alone ponder anything outside of which girl he's going to make a move on at the bar.
Then, his expression turns into something you can't recognize, as if he has a bright idea, a revelation, an epiphany, because a slow grin etches on his pretty lips, showcasing dimples as he shifts his gaze between your eyes. You frown. Immediately. That's not good. Not at all.
All of a sudden, you're squeamish under his stare. Why is he looking at you like that? Smiling like he has something to prove? A grin that should come with a warning?
You tense when he says your name, loud and clear.
"Yeah," he continues slowly, eyes not leaving you. "My girlfriend."
If you eyes haven't popped out of the sockets before, they have now.
Instantly, you're lunging forward, reaching for the phone to end this godforsaken call. But the attempt to end the call is fruitless, because Bucky simply laughs into the ringer as if he has all the time in the world, low and easy and too nonchalant for your rising blood pressure. He defends against your grabby-hands easily, too strong for his own good, pawing your hands away as you frantically try and snatch his phone.
When you get close and your fingers brush the metal, he easily hums and puts the phone on speaker, proceeding to raise his arm as high as he can so that there's no way you're reaching it now with his freakishly tall stature. And, oh, he peers down at you so fucking smug that you want to slap it off. Immediately. Especially when he barely flinches when you shove at his chest, try and hit his armpit to get him to lower his arm (spoiler, he's not ticklish), as you hear his mother's chirpy tone on the other end.
"—nderful, James!" His mother beams through the speaker, unknowing to the way you're practically fighting her son right now. "Please tell me you're bringing her to the lake this weekend."
"N—!"
Bucky immediately covers your mouth with his palm, something that shouldn't have been as easy as he just did so. "She is, she can't stop talking about how excited she is."
When you lick his palm as an attempt to get his hand off, he barely flinches. Instead, he presses harder.
"I can't wait to meet her," she chirps happily. "This is good, James. Very good. It's time for you to show everyone what a respectable young man you are."
"Respectable?" You reiterate incredulously under his palm, but instead it comes out muffled as if you're underwater.
Bucky rolls his eyes, either at the respectable comment or the way you treat that as a joke, or at both. Regardless, you swear you see the tips of his ears burn pink, almost sheepish at his mother's words and how you're witness to it.
She doesn't hear you. Of course.
"When you get in," she adds nonchalantly, bubbling with excitement, "Pa can take you to that jeweler on the other side of the lake. You know the one? Where he got my engagement ring—"
"Okay!" Bucky interrupts hurriedly, wincing when you stomp on his foot. "Ow— Yeah, sure, Ma. Gotta skate, talk later, love you bye!"
Bucky barely lets his mother respond before he's hanging up the phone, tossing it carelessly on the granite counter before removing his hand from your mouth, which is definitely the wrong course of action, because the first thing you do is—
"What the fuck?"
"Okay," Bucky mediates immediately, throwing his hands up in surrender. "Before you freak—"
"I am freaking."
"Hear me out." His tone is calmer than you've ever heard him.
"Absolutely not."
"I didn't even pitch it to you."
"I actually couldn't give less of a fuck."
Bucky sighs your name, as if this whole ordeal that he started is one, big inconvenience.
But you're not letting him off the hook that easy. "Nope. Not doing it."
"You don't even know what it is." His hands flex at his sides.
"I didn't think I needed to?"
Cautiously, he takes a step towards you, eyes low with intent, as he says your name gently. When you don't back up, or when you don't stand down from this discussion, he takes it as a sign to take another step closer, until he's suddenly right in front of you, hands hovering over your biceps with an expression so serious it gives you whiplash, especially when he looks fucking exhausted. No witty comment on the back burner. No bribe that gets you to raise a brow and kick his groin. No nonsense that you're so used to from him.
Just Bucky. Raw. Unfiltered... Nervous?
"It's two days," he says eventually, voice calm even though you swear you can see his heart beating through his t-shirt. "Just one night, really. Forty-eight hours of pretending to like me in front of my family."
You hate how quiet his tone is. How understanding, like he's already preparing for you to say no, to head to his family function empty handed with empty promises so they can uphold their disappointed image of him, as if he's used to it. Another year of being single, another year of refusing to settle down, another year of reaffirming everything his family already thinks of him. Reckless. Unlovable. Difficult.
"Why should I?" You ask equally as quiet.
Bucky thinks for a second, eyes darting to your collarbone for one, two seconds before coming back up to meet yours.
"It could be fun."
"Are you kidding?"
"Easy," he muses, a smile ghosting his lips, but not that lopsided smirk that you absolutely can't stand, a genuine smile, as if he's amused. "I'm standing right here."
"Yeah," you snort. "A little too close, might I add."
This is when he grins, lopsided and easy (and too fucking handsome for you to even comprehend right now) as his palms have gently braced on your shoulders, one hot and the other cool, as if he knows he's overstepping boundaries and figured to get them all out of the way now while your guard is down, while you're allowing him to be this close. Last time he got this close to you — he went in for a hug on New Year's — you panicked and knocked him into the bar.
"Haven't pushed me away yet."
Immediately, your hands are bracing on his chest and shoving him away, ignoring the way your heart races at his low laugh and how you allowed him to even get that close to you without some heinous comment (also avoiding how you never noticed his hands on your shoulder, how natural they felt, and how much you hate your sudden complicity). It's one thing to let your guard down to a guy, but to a guy like Bucky Barnes? Consider yourself a dead woman the day that actually happens.
So, to combat the weird growing feeling bubbling in your gut, you put on a sneer and wear it like a badge of honor.
"How am I supposed to convince anyone I like you?"
Bucky cocks his head to the side, unfazed. "Uh, I dunno, by acting?"
Deadpan stare.
He laughs boyishly, throwing his hands up lazily. "What? Scared you can't handle it?"
Your brows skyrocket, patience wearing thin.
"You don't think I can't handle it?" You reiterate incredulously, offended. "Handle you?"
"No," Bucky says immediately, never sure of anything else in his life. "I know you can. That's why I said your name and no one else's."
The words settle in the air like a thick, suffocating fog, because you hate how certain he sounds, like what he just said isn't making your heart convulse inside your ribcage. Because you know that deep down, he really means that, no matter how much your brain wants you to think otherwise. It's not like you can't trust the guy, for fuck's sake he's been a part of your friend group for years (even though you avoid him as much as you want for reasons you don't want to get into right now), he's going to be Steve's Best Man next fall and Natasha treats him like a big, annoying older brother. They vouch for him. They love him, damn it.
Say what you want about him, but you know for a fact that Bucky Barnes isn't a liar, at least not a very good one. Sure, he's more annoying than a twelve year old school boy and has the emotional capacities of a brick wall, he's always said it as it is. No sugarcoating, no dancing around the subject, just straight forward and to the point. That's the difficult thing that you juggle in this very moment, that no matter how pissed off you are and more revolted by the fact that the Prince Prick of All Pricks is asking — no, begging — for your help, you know it's truthful.
You sigh. Long and deep and guttural.
He literally couldn't have said any other name? Not the girl you saw him chatting with two nights ago at the bar down the street? Not the pretty barista that always writes a heart on his cup and shoots you death glares whenever you go in? Not any other girl who looks him up and down on the street to give his mom the impression that he's tied down? Did it have to be you? The girl he can never have?
Suddenly, you remember a conversation you accidentally overheard between him and Steve a few months ago. It was right after Christmas, since that's when your friend group celebrates their own version of the holiday, more so as an excuse to get together and drink and hang out. You walked into Steve's bedroom, looking for him to help Nat with the furnace, only to discover the fire escape window open with Bucky and Steve's back to you, sharing a joint in the cold.
"You're not this monster they're making you out to be," Steve said sincerely. "You know that, right?"
It was a tone so low that you froze, knowing you weren't supposed to be hearing this, something so private that you clearly were interrupting. But part of you stayed in curiosity, because Bucky had been uncharacteristically quiet all night and dodging all opportunities to poke fun at your Christmas sweater, so you automatically knew something was wrong. Not that you ever had the heart to ask, because you knew there was no way he'd open up to someone like you, regardless if you actually cared.
And you never forgot Bucky's next words. "They'll never see me as anything worth caring about."
You had left before you could hear anything else, telling Natasha you couldn't find them.
But you sometimes think of that moment, how upset Bucky sounded, as if the opinions of his family — and even his extended family that he says he doesn't care about — really matter to him, make a mark on his soul, make him feel less of an obligation and more of a person who's wanted. Loved. Cared for. Not some mouthy fuck-boy who has nothing more to his name than a reputation. A bad one, at that.
So now, as you look at him, really look at him, you're reminded of the Bucky sitting broken on that fire escape, where all he wants is his family's approval. You can't say you blame him. But you can't let him off that easily.
"What do I get in return?" You say eventually.
Stunned, Bucky blinks at you once, twice stupidly, certainly not expecting that from you.
"If I do this for you," you add pointedly, steadily. "It's not for nothing."
He clears his throat almost immediately, desperately. "Anything you want."
You narrow your eyes at him, studying his expression as you ponder your course of action. Sure, you could make him do your laundry for a month. Or clean your apartment head to toe, yet how much of his cleaning skills are up to par? Where's the fun in that? The sense of desperation? Buy your meals for the next month? Hm, too expensive. Be your personal chauffeur? Bleh, the thought of spending confined time in a car with him, no thanks. Makeshift masseuse? Scratch that, he'd definitely be too into that.
Then you grin. It makes his brows skyrocket.
"I want Alpine."
Bucky rolls his eyes. "Okay, anything besides that."
"You just said whatever I wanted."
His lips twitch. "Sweet girl, that's my cat."
Oh, you hate the way your heart skips at the name. "So? And don't call me that."
"Gotta practice somehow."
"Haven't said yes yet," you snap pointedly.
Yet Bucky just beams. "Yet?"
You groan, feigning annoyance when your blood pressure is skyrocketing to regions so unknown, a primary care doctor would faint at the numbers. How he manages to do this every time you interact with him is beyond you, sending your bodily functions into panic mode as well as kickstarting migraines like a light switch as if he was put on this earth to do so. He knows what he's doing, he knows what buttons to push, how to prolong all of your interactions to get the most reactions out of you. He's relentless.
"Fine, deal's off," you say amidst his laughter, spinning heel and beelining for the door to refrain from actually throwing a pot or something at his head.
But, of course, he's not letting you go that easily.
"Wait!" Bucky pleads behind you, boyish laughter simmering down as he catches your wrist between his fingers, pads of the tips pressing against your raging pulse point as he spins you around to face him. "Just— Fuck— Wait a second."
God, he's so close, smiling so beautiful it makes you reel. No, you think immediately, not beautiful. Not at all. Not his hair threatening to fall over his eyes, those pretty ceruleans and those dimples on a smile that seems to be reserved just for you. It fucking sucks that he's handsome, as it would make this whole turning him down to save my dignity thing much easier than it is now, because you're fucking struggling.
Especially when his hand is warm and he smells intoxicating, like everything you're into trapped in a cologne bottle. You hate how you like him close, close enough to feel like you're the only person in the room (you are) and the only girl he will ever has eyes on (you aren't). It's horrible, feeling like you're wanted by a guy like him, knowing he probably said your name as a matter of convenience, since you walked right into the room as the topic came up. You guarantee if it was any other girl, he would've said her name.
Christ. You can't debate the semantics. You'll go fucking crazy if you do.
"Okay," he bargains slow, unknowing to your internal battle between self pity and self deprecation. "You can have Alpine for a month."
You quirk a brow.
He rolls his eyes. "Fine. Two. And unlimited visitation rights after."
For a second, you actually consider it. Because despite how much you can't stand him nor can stand to be in his apartment because that means he's there, you adore that cat. You love her like she's your own, and it's unfortunate she has such an annoying owner because you'd be over there much more than you already are simply to hang out with her.
The hardest part is that she loves you, too. You watch her when he's away and you take her out in your bag into the city (safely, of course). She lays on your chest and purrs like a motor about to takeoff and head to space. On the off chance he FaceTimes you about something irrelevant or if he's on with Steve and you're in the room, you make him put her on the phone. It's ridiculous, you know, but the fact that she's sweet on you and practically hates his other friends makes you feel special, like you've got a cosmic connection to a damned cat.
You sigh deeply.
"Three," you counter-argue.
"Done," he says easily. "See? Told you we could work it out."
You refrain from head-butting him. "You never said that."
He still hasn't let go of your wrist.
"Must've said it in my head." He shrugs and you roll your eyes. Prick.
And as if life couldn't get any worse, Natasha decides to emerge from her cocoon of a bedroom, sniffling with a red nose and sunken eyes looking like death reincarnated. A blanket is wrapped around her small frame, swallowing her whole, as Steve walks in behind her and nearly running into her back given the way she freezes in the doorway, staring at you and Bucky a little too close for comfort like you've grown three heads. Four. Five. Si—
"Did I...miss something?" She croaks, blinking blearily.
As you open your mouth to respond, Bucky beats you to it, throwing a lanky arm around your shoulders and pulling you taut to his body to which you immediately grimace. His grin is light, easy, so fucking smug and pleased with himself that you wish you could take it alllllll back, wishing you weren't a good friend who drops off soup for your sick friend in the first place.
"You didn't hear?" Bucky says amusedly. "We're dating."
You should've said no.
Christ, you should've laughed in his face for coming up with such a stupid idea. You should've shoved him as hard as humanly possible and slapped him upside the head for even bringing you into this mess. You should've packed and left town before he could drag you into his car and drive you all the way to the (admittedly stunning) lake house in the middle of nowhere.
Because here you are: tucked under his arm like it's your god-given right and forcing a smile so bright it almost hurts.
When the two of you pulled onto the street, you admittedly had no idea what to expect as you'd practically been thrust into this one-sided agreement. But the house sitting before you is no home, more like a mansion with beautiful stone and an exterior build that's something straight out of a magazine. Or an architect's wet dream. It's no doubt the biggest house you've ever seen, a three car garage with plenty of cars parked in the driveway which makes you think they'd need more than three garages, perhaps a dozen.
The front lawn is long and flat, outstretching a perfect green up until a short rock wall that separates the property from the water. Literally right on the water, as gentle waves lap up against the rock wall with a pontoon and speed boat adorning the long L-shaped dock. Right by the shore, there's a fire-pit along with about twelve chairs encompassing around it, along with a cabana next to the dock that looks like there's a bar inside.
Holy fuck. Holy trust fund. Holy Christ.
The words escape you. Truly. You know you're fucked when you had to pause mid-insult to Bucky as soon as you pulled up, too stunned to even speak.
But instead of flaunting or making your reaction the butt of a joke, Bucky simply shrugs, puts the car in park, and pats the back of your hand once, twice, before exiting the car.
Now you're here. Meeting his family whilst simultaneously trying not to catch flies in your mouth.
(And also really, really trying to ignore how good his cologne smells and how he's holding you in a way that makes you think he's enjoying this.)
Especially when his mother stands in front of said-mansion and beams at you, thoroughly pleased at the thought of her son having the capacities to settle down with someone who's remotely normal (loose term, the less she knows, the better). She doesn't even let you get a word in before she's rushing forward, the white wine in her glass sloshing precariously.
"James!" His mother scolds with a look of disbelief. "You didn't mention how beautiful she is!"
Bucky's hand squeezes your waist, whether he means to or not, but it makes you shudder all the same.
Shrugging the feeling off almost immediately, you stick your hand out and muster a smile that hopefully doesn't let her know how much you want to murder her son in sixteen different ways.
"You're too kind, Mrs. Barnes," you greet politely. "It's nice to meet you."
She takes your hand instantly, encasing it gingerly with a warmth that makes Bucky's fingers twitch against your waist. Her nails are filed and freshly manicured, skin smooth as if she just got back from the salon. Makes sense, given the almost perfect shimmer of her nail beds.
"Oh, please, Mrs. Barnes is his grandmother," she says with a playful scoff and a tone that makes it seem like she didn't like said-grandmother very much. "Call me Winnie. None of those formalities around me, honey. James has already told me so much about you, no need to be so proper."
You stifle a snort as you peer up at Bucky in faux-shock, noticing the tips of his ears burning red.
"Oh, did he?"
Winnie drops your hand as she laughs, and two things are obvious by the way her eyes crinkle and her smile widens: she loves her son and she loves her wine.
"Plenty," she muses, lunging forward to place a ginger kiss on Bucky's hot cheek. "Oh, don't give me that look. Everyone is just so excited that you’re becoming a young man."
He shakes off her welcoming gesture, squeezing your waist once more. You can practically feel the heat radiating off his cheeks, flushed with embarrassment that you of all people are hearing this right now. At this point, you think it's a coping mechanism for him.
"Dad didn't want to be a part of the welcoming committee?" He asks coolly, switching the subject as he looks beyond Winnie towards the house, waiting for a person who is probably never going to come greet them.
You shove that assumption way, way, way down.
Whether Winnie can see the nerves coming from her son, she doesn't comment on it, instead ignoring it altogether. "Don't start with that, James. He's grilling in the back with Mr. Townes."
Bucky snaps his gaze to his mother. "What?"
You brows furrow at the sudden tone shift.
His mother doesn't notice, instead moving towards the house. "Come inside, Izzy's making tequila sunrises."
If possible, Bucky stiffens even more. At this point, he could be as rigid as a board.
"Izzy's here?" He asks incredulously, almost...angry?
Not noticing her son's clear apprehension, Winnie nods and takes another hearty sip of her wine, still smiling bright as can be as she ushers the two of you inside. If the moment wasn't so full of tension, you'd take the time to admire the sunset. The smell of a cookout. The sound of the waves lapping against the rocks with the cadence of a lullaby.
"Yes, yes." Winnie interrupts your feel of the senses cheerfully. "She's here for the night to see the fireworks. The Townes are staying at the Clearwater's next door. Now come! Everyone wants to meet your girlfriend, honey.”
Before anyone can elaborate further or escalate the conversation, Winnie is turning tail and waving you two inside once again, this time sauntering back into the mansion as her shoes crunch under the soft gravel of the driveway, humming a common tune to herself and clearly giddy as can be. She’s unknowing to the chaos she just inadvertently caused, unknowing to the way her son practically seized up at the mere mention of someone. You assume it’s detrimental, given the iron grip on your waist and the way he hasn’t breathed in what feels like a minute.
The silence becomes palpable as you can practically see the steam coming out of his ears.
Swallowing thickly, you step away from him to grab your bag (in the process of doing so, his hand leaves your waist and you try to ignore how much you hate not having it there), slinging it over your shoulder as you ponder for a moment, eyeing his duffle. Feeling gracious for a second, you grab his as well and you slam the car door shut.
The sound seems to jolt him from his internal self-inflicted pity party, blinking his blue eyes once, twice, before shaking his head, taking his bag from your extended hand and tightening his grip around the straps and muttering something incoherent under his breath.
"We've been here for two minutes and you're already grumbling," you joke lightly as you try and clear the thick air. "Personally, I would've bet on five."
Bucky takes a long, deep breath. One from the soul. One that is obviously an attempt to avoid a crash-out mere minutes into the weekend. For a moment, you almost want to immediately apologize for the ill-timed comment as you feel your face get hot.
Fucking idiot, you think, who are you to comment on that?
But instead of snapping at you or defaulting to his asshole nature, he simply takes another deep breath.
"Izzy's my ex," he says eventually. Low and calm.
Your heart sinks. Great. Perfect. Another one of Bucky's past flings coming back to haunt you. Again. (Don't ask about the again. You had a pretty black and blue shiner to the cheekbone last Christmas when his winter situationship thought you two were seeing each other when you obviously weren't. You learned very quickly in that moment that these women do not play about Bucky Barnes. Not at all.)
"She's..." Bucky continues steadily, looking up the sky for a mere moment as he tries to find the words. "...territorial."
You roll your eyes. "Great. Am I gonna have to fight this one, too?"
Bucky's lips twitch barely. Just barely. But there. A crack in his horrible mood. It makes your pride swell slightly.
"Careful, baby." He draws out smoothly. "Startin' to sound a little jealous."
Aaaaaand your pride is extinguished. Gone with the wind. Dissipated into thin air. You're halfway to the house after the pet name, hating the way your heart thumps as you hear his jovial laughter behind you as he follows you in the house.
His hand doesn't leave you the entire time you're introduced to his family.
You have every single urge to shove him off, because it seems like the fucker is enjoying this. Enjoying the feel of your smooth skin under his hand, charting territories that have been off limits for the entire duration of your friendship (god, how long has it been now?) and taking full advantage of being able to cart you around and show you off to his family. That's what he wanted, isn't it? To practically flaunt you as living proof he's not what they make him out to be?
Bucky talks about you to his aunts, uncles, cousins, friends and neighbors like you've hung the stars yourself, showcasing your career accomplishments and hobbies that you didn't even know he knew.
When you pulled him aside after the third fun fact, he simply shrugged as he fixed your hair.
"Did my research," is all he says, before putting on that million dollar smirk and moving onto the next introduction.
And he does not leave your side. Not once. Not physically. At all.
Meeting his chirpy aunt with glimmering earrings and a bright red lip? Bucky's fingers are playing with the ends of your hair. Chatting up his second cousin about the nuances of implementing more solar energy? His thumb is rubbing circles on your shoulder. Being introduced to his father and the ring of grown man crowding around the grill as if they're all waiting for their turn to be grill-master? A palm is pressed firmly to the small of your back, grounding and steady almost as a coping mechanism himself because his father does not seem to have an ounce of the warmth his mother does.
Mr. Barnes is stern. Stoic. Giving Bucky a simply once over before politely introducing himself to you. Then returning to his conversation with the rest of the guys at the grill.
Bucky takes that as his cue to steer you away, and you pretend not to notice the way his fingers tremble against your back.
And now here you are: seeking refuge in the (giant) empty kitchen, where the leftover appetizers are sitting idly on the counter while the main course, burgers and hot dogs, are about to be served outside on the back patio. From here, you can hear the faint chatter and laughter, no doubt a rich sound, but from your little corner of solace, the sound acts as a buffer between the two of you and the stuffy atmosphere.
You and Bucky lean on counters opposite each other, sipping on tequila sunrises as you carefully study his body language. Closed off. Quiet. Already in his head. Sometimes you hate being empathetic, because why do you have the urge to cheer him up? To push the hair away from his eyes? To grab his hand and tell him that it'll be alright?
Frankly, you can’t even begin to understand the dynamic Bucky has with his father. He’s never spoken highly of the man, and you’ve only heard few rumblings about him in your years of friendship (if you can call it that) with the man standing in front of you. Yet you’re no idiot, you can assume it’s nothing pleasant or warm given the constant drive Bucky has to please him, whether he outright says it or not, because despite the anger and resentment he has towards his father, you can tell there’s a still a part of him that is a boy simply wanting his father’s approval, his father’s love, his father’s respect. You can’t necessarily blame him for that. You don’t understand it, perhaps you never will, but you still hate the insinuation that he doesn’t feel like he’s enough just because his father thinks so.
"Hey," you say quietly, nudging your foot against his ankle as he peers up at you with distant eyes. "How long you think your cousin's been cheating on that old jizzbag she married last year?"
Bucky's lips twitch just barely.
"Because she's been making fuck-me eyes towards that one guy," you add pointedly. "Quite obviously, might I add, that I'm starting to get a little turned on from it. Fuck, what's his name? I think he's the neighbor, uh..."
"Dan," Bucky responds quietly, but a small smile ghosts his lips. "And at least three months. Since spring break."
You gasp dramatically. "Scandalous. You think he knows?"
"The— Christ, what'd you call him? The old jizzbag?"
Nodding animatedly, Bucky chuckles gently and shakes his head at you, slowly starting to thaw from the slump he'd been in ever since the run in with his father and returning back to the person you know.
"No shot. Or he's pretending not to notice."
"Oh?" You hum curiously. "That adds a twist. I can already smell the headline: Billionaire fossil makes shocking discovery of his lifetime, his trophy wife half his age is getting devious back shots from the stud of a neighbor, doesn't reveal their secret so long as they set up a cuck chair for him in the corner. Got a nice ring to it, no?"
Bucky laughs boyishly, and god if the noise doesn't do something weird to your gut.
(Especially when his smile is so fucking pretty it almost hurts.)
He clutches his abdomen, nudging your ankle to mirror your action from before. "I think you missed your calling. TMZ would kill to have someone like you."
"Someone like me?" You challenge, feigning offense. "You mean someone so creative and talented and—"
"There you are!"
An unknown third voice interrupts you, both you and Bucky whipping your heads to the kitchen entrance to see... probably the most beautiful woman you've ever seen in your life standing there.
Her long blonde hair is braided neatly and folded over her shoulder, accompanied with a silk ribbon tying the pieces together. Bright green eyes blink between the two of you, along with a wide (almost forced) pearly smile as she takes in the scene before her. She's genuinely one of the most stunning people you've ever seen, and with the way her eyes keep lingering on him, your heart stills. Is that..? No, you don't think that's—
"Izzy," Bucky breathes out evenly, almost pained. "Hey."
Izzy steps into the room like she owns it.
"So this is where you've been hiding out? Can't really say I blame you. It's a snooze-fest out there." Suddenly she's right here. In your bubble, sliding next to the counter and bumping your shoulder as if she's been your pal all your life. God, she even smells good. "Seems like way more fun in here."
You hum casually, remembering Bucky's thoughtfully in-depth description of her. Territorial.
Yeah. Sure. You can be territorial, too. You can totally sink your talons into him, stake your claim, assert your dominance. It's not like you're a stranger to people trying to one-up you, you're practically a professional asshole. Hopefully you won't have to use any of that side of you. But. It's there. Even if it's dormant.
"If by fun you mean raiding the liquor cabinet, then sure," you muse.
Izzy chuckles sweetly at you, then lulling her head forward to eye Bucky up and down. "I like her."
"Didn't think I needed your approval," he shoots back jokingly, but half of you thinks he was partially being serious.
Slightly, just slightly, Izzy stiffens next to you. But it lingers for less than a second, because her pretty smile is back up as she brings her cocktail up to her glossy lips.
"Just being friendly, Jamie," she murmurs into her glass, taking a sip before ahhing graciously.
Bucky's brows pinch at the nickname.
Christ, you can feel his irritation from here. He should start calling you a modern day Superman given the way you've been cutting corners at the expense of his well-being (and his blood pressure).
"You're the mixologist of the night, right?" You converse casually, lifting your glass to your lips.
Izzy's gaze lingers on Bucky (or Jamie?) for one, two beats before turning to you, eyes drifting down to your cocktail and then back up to meet yours. Her expression holds no indication of a vendetta, so trying to stay in her good graces couldn't hurt. You hope. Especially when Bucky looks at you incredulously, almost trying to warn you with his eyes not to engage.
After a moment, she nods and flashes that sweet smile once again.
No wonder Bucky fell for her, Christ. She could sway battalions by simply asking nicely.
A faint buzzing gains everyone's attention, filling the gaping silence and nearly making Bucky jump three feet in the air.
"Shit," Bucky curses all of a sudden, digging his phone out of his pocket and wincing at the caller ID. "Uh, it's Sam. He's watching Alpine, probably scratched his eye out or something."
He pauses, gaze darting between you and Izzy with skepticism.
But you're an adult. At least you try to be.
So you nod towards the other room. "We're good. Let me know if his eye's still in tact."
His blue eyes settle on you, a wordless question. And you respond with yours, smiling gently and giving him all the reassurance he needs to leave you here. With his ex. Alone. The supposed territorial girl who broke up with him so detrimentally horrific last year he lost twenty pounds. No biggie. The call can't be too long anyway, right? Sam's probably calling to send a proof of life. Five minutes, tops.
Then, Bucky does something you never expect.
The fucker leans forward, places a chaste kiss on your cheek, and promptly leaves the room.
He just— Okay. Yeah. No, totally. He just kissed you. Literally no big deal. Actually, it can't be a big deal, because you're his girlfriend. Loving, doting, caring girlfriend. Sitting next to his ex-girlfriend, who's no doubt watching your reaction like a hawk, gaging your dynamic, your vibe, your...everything. That's an everyday act for people who are dating. It's actually pretty prude-ish for people who are together. Normally it's the lips. The forehead. The back of the hand. Below the belt—
Christ. Stop. Stop. Stop.
You still have a job to do. A role to play. You can't be hung up on the semantics. You can curse him out later, you pointedly decide. That'll make you feel better. For sure.
You lift your glass in a feeble attempt to regain half your brain back. "Nice work. I'll have to ask for some pointers."
"Trick is a pinch of lemon juice," she whispers playfully. "Not that you really care, anyway."
Any ounce of formalities dissipate into thin air, rising and dying in your throat. Your head snaps up, looking into her green eyes with utter confusion, partially at the sudden tonal shift but also at the fucking audacity. Once you realize that she's not joking around, your heart skips a beat at the anticipation of a confrontation.
You... heard her correct, right? You're not just making things up based on the preconceptions you already have of her, right? She didn't just completely flip a switch and confirm all the previous suspicions you had of her, right? Right?
"Pardon?" You ask calmly.
Izzy smiles again, but this time it's nothing nice. It's calculated. Cold.
"I know what you're doing," she says gently, but the tone carries the backbone. "Trying to be my friend when you're frankly the opposite."
Oh. No mistake here. Your intuition was correct. You weren't hearing things or making scary stories up to tell in the dark. She's being fucking serious, and she's looking at you like you're her next meal, her next target, a canary to a cat. The conversation she struck up wasn't to be friendly, it was to get Bucky's guard down, to let him feel comfortable enough to leave you two in a room together with the naive belief his ex has changed.
Doesn't seem like it, though.
But two can play this game. She wants Bucky back? Too fucking bad, bitch, you think bitterly. If you weren't selling the fuck out of the girlfriend role earlier to his family, you're about to seal the deal right here, right now, starting with her.
"I think the term you're searching for is common decency," you deadpan. "A general misconception, though, so don't feel too bad."
The blonde snorts at that. Fuck, even that's a pretty sound.
"You're witty, I'll give you that. Jamie always liked the mouthy ones," she purrs, practically bleeding green.
"You think that's you?"
Izzy swirls her drink around as if she has all the time in the world to do so, bumping your shoulder with the gesture with little to no regard for your personal space. You're three seconds away from shoving her off, as you've gotten your fair fucking share of being touched tonight.
She sighs dreamily as if the whole conversation is already beneath her. "You know, if you weren't with him, I feel like we could've been friends."
Your response is immediate. "I normally don't pick up hitchhikers."
The deadpan makes her laugh, a genuine laugh, as if she's pleased with the way she's grinding your gears, as if that was the goal all along, as if your words do nothing to pierce her thick skin.
"And Jamie normally doesn't go for..." Izzy pauses, taking a long moment to look you up and down in a way that instantly pisses you off. "...girls like you."
Your brow quirks.
"But I guess it looks like everyone's changing," she adds innocently, clinking your glass with hers in a way that isn't ceremonial in the slightest, pushing herself off the counter and slowly sauntering towards the exit.
Yet you don't falter. You don't let her get to you.
Instead, you send her a warm smile that she definitely doesn't deserve as you tip your glass politely towards her.
"Don't worry," you respond coolly. "You still have time."
Izzy's grin slips, giving you another detrimentally judge-mental once over before turning heel and slipping out of the kitchen without another word, blonde braid swiveling with the abrupt movement as the scent of her pretty perfume slowly wafts out of your sphere.
Once you know she's out of sight and out of mind, you let out a long, deep sigh before downing the rest of your drink.
Conveniently, that's when Bucky decides to return, unknowing to the previous altercation.
"Well, good news is that he has both eyes," he says casually, sliding back in the spot he occupied earlier. "Bad news is that he now has the scratches to prove—"
Bucky trails off immediately when he notices your expression, your body language, how you're just about ready to throw hands at the next person who sparks up a conversation with you, clutching onto the cocktail glass as if it had done something to personally offend you. All conveniently without Izzy in sight, and he's no idiot to put two and two together in an instant.
He bites cautiously. "You alright?"
You quirk a brow. "Peachy."
Bucky carefully plucks the glass out of your hands and sets it on the counter, his hands moving back to encase yours. His fingers are cool against your flaming skin, but admittedly it calms you down in more ways than one — not that you'd ever tell him that. Not even if the world depended on it. Even though he can probably tell from the way your shoulders instantly relax.
"You look like you're seconds from snapping my neck, which is normal for you. But..." He winces, already knowing. "What'd she say?"
"Enough," you say curtly, shaking your head. "She's about to have the worst fucking weekend of her life."
His head tilts in confusion, and you're still pretending not to notice that his hands are still holding yours.
"Christ," he murmurs after a moment, brows pinched in worry. "You're not gonna kill her, are you?"
Sighing, you roll your eyes. "No. But I'm gonna remind her that she's the one who left you. That's all."
God, you hate the way he instantly grins, squeezing your hands as if it's his right to do so in the first place and suddenly occupying the space right in front of you, showing little to no fear of the giant chance you shove him where he stands. He's so close, blue eyes shining with a sense of pride that makes you want to slap the smug expression right off his pretty face.
No. Nope. His normal face. His perfectly adequate and average looking face. Nothing more. Nothing less.
It isn't until he ducks down, faces inches from yours, where your fight or flight instincts both fail you, because you just fucking freeze. Stationary. Still as a board as he holds you here, knowing damn well this is a win for him given how you haven't kneed him in the balls yet. And he grins like he knows it, wears it like a badge of honor, and you're so fucking close, closer than you've ever been. Encompassed by his broad stature and the intoxicating scent of his cologne, with a faint lingering of tequila.
His voice is low, laced with a honey cadence that almost, almost, distracts you from what he actually says.
"You're pretty hot when you're jealous."
Aaaand that's when you shove him off. He doesn't even flinch, not when the base of his spine smacks against the island counter from the force, not from the scowl on your face, not from anything. Because he won.
Bucky rides that high all night.
Especially you two sit thigh to thigh and shoulder to shoulder on an outside patio couch, getting absolutely hounded by a round-up rodeo of tipsy aunts and cousins who have nothing better to do than to learn the nuances of your supposed love life over way-too-strong cocktails and insultingly bland pasta salad.
"She's phenomenal at taking care of people," Bucky beams through a bite of a burger, saying it too nonchalant to be considered casual. This is probably the seventh question they've asked him about keen characteristics of yours, and the one that makes you quirk your brow. "She's got, like, a magic touch or something. Healed Steve when he was sick with a 104 fever."
You snort into your second (third?) cocktail glass. Yeah, you put a cool rag on Steve's forehead when he was enduring the worst hangover of his life after New Year's last year, forced him to pull-trig when he kept pushing it off, made sure he drank water and had small doses of food throughout the day (that he could stomach, which wasn't much). Your friends started coming to you after that when they were facing hangovers worse than death. Not really the same as a fever, but you'll take it.
His aunts eat it up, though, awwing at the anecdote.
"Such a sweet girl," his aunt Margaret coos endearingly.
God, you wish the world would swallow you whole.
Especially when you feel the pad of Bucky's thumb swipe the corner of your mouth with such eased nonchalance that you don't have time to register it, nearly swatting his hand away and cursing his bloodline into next Tuesday, but you remember your audience, and remain still as a statue. Because if you can't use your spitting words or hands to shove him off, then... what else can you do besides sit here like an idiot and take it? And, oh, he knows how badly you want to smack that grin right off his face, and it only spurs him in further.
"Mhm," Bucky hums low, eyes lingering on your bottom lip for a second too long before flashing a charming grin back to his family. "My sweet girl," he repeats low, certain. "But such a messy eater."
The smile on your face probably looks more like a grimace.
But whether his aunt or anyone in this little meet-cute circle notices, no one lets on.
Instead, Aunt Margaret beams as she darts her gaze between the two of you, looking like she’s about to simultaneously combust or erupt in a fit of awws, which you don’t think you can take much more of. She holds onto a printed napkin from some chain department store as if it’s an emotional tether to her soul, manicured nails digging into the soft fabric.
“It’s so nice to see you like this with someone again, James,” she says earnestly. “It’s heartwarming to know she’s making you better.”
Her words make your stomach do a weird flip. They’re simple. Kind. Nothing out of the ordinary. But the kettlebell in your gut would defer otherwise, plagued with a phantom ache that you can quite pinpoint on what emotion you’re feeling. Prideful? Guilty? Fraudulent (if that’s a state of being?) or downright evil for making these people believe something that isn’t true.
He isn’t…being real. He’s being Bucky. Charming. Playful. Playing his strengths to woo a crowd and get them to believe one thing. He’s acting. Being a (fake) doting boyfriend, doing acts that will get the people to get off his back, to believe he’s capable of moving on and functioning like a normal adult. That’s all. Nothing more.
But why’d Margaret say again?
You wonder. What the fuck did Izzy do to him all that time ago to warrant such a sudden character flip? What did she do to his brain to make him the epitome of a womanizer, to make him never trust an emotional connection that crosses the line of friendship? What emotional damage did she do to make his own family lose interest in caring for him? To make them believe he’s this awful person who will never find love again? And if what she did to him was so detrimental to his once-jovial character, why the fuck was she invited here?
You know you’re here to prove that Bucky has the capabilities to move on. You know that. Truly. You’re here as his friend, as a favor, that’s all. There’s nothing more you need to do than what you’ve already been doing.
But just because he has a supposed “girlfriend” doesn’t make him any less of a person, and fuck these people for making him believe that’s the case.
All Bucky does is hum, smile faltering only slightly to which no one notices.
But you do.
Fuck. You notice.
And your heart just… breaks.
How do they not know what a wonderful person he is? How selfless he is? How he constantly puts everyone over himself, catering to the needs of his beloved friends and even strangers before even considering his own well being? How many times have you seen Bucky carry groceries for his elderly neighbor who doesn’t do well with stairs? How many seats has he given up for others on the subway and how many visits did he make when Sam was in the hospital for a week? How many times has he saved you the last (and best) bite of a meal he made you? How can they not know the person he is? How can they only his worth as having a partner?
Don’t say anything to make it worse, you repeat to yourself over and over and over.
“Yes, honey,” his cousin Gemma pipes up. “Having such a wonderful girl is so respectable. She makes you look great.”
Fuck. Don’t say anything. Not your place.
Margaret hums in agreement. “You’re on a good path now. We can already tell. Thanks to this one!”
She nods in your direction, a warm smile adorning her cheeks.
But it only breaks the dam.
God damn it.
“Actually,” you say before you can stop yourself, gentle yet firm. “If anyone should be getting praise, it’s Bucky.”
Bucky says your name softly, almost in warning to not even bother with it.
But you brush him off, because what? You’re not going to sit here and let these people have one misconception about him running amuck in the mud. They don’t even know him, know an ounce of the person he truly is. How can they even think he’s not remotely enough? Physically? Emotionally? As a fucking human being? As someone who’s more than a partner, a boyfriend, a prop?
You know you butt heads with him. You know he drives you up the wall with every opportunity he gets, and you know he knows it makes you crazy. But at the end of the day, he’s your friend. A good one, at that. Contrary to popular belief, he cares a lot and he loves deep and he’s one of the best people on the godforsaken planet to have in your corner. Even though he grinds your gears. Even though he relishes in your irritation. Even though he's chatty and bold and boisterous.
Before the aunts and cousins can protest and stammer to get back in your good graces, you continue.
"He's the one who made me better." Well, there's no stopping it now. "When we met, I was going through a rough patch. Not sleeping, eating, taking care of myself, the whole nine yards." Not partially a lie unless you count meeting him a week within the worst breakup of your life, then yeah. "Bucky's the one who brought me out of that hole. Even though I wanted to smack him upside the head most of the time." Meaning he distracted you from your sorrows with his natural wit and charm so detrimentally that your ex was a lingering forethought in a quick matter of time. Sure, let's go with that.
Bucky's hand somehow finds yours. Aunt Margaret chuckles nervously.
“I’m sure you weren’t implying that he’s less of a person when single,” you add pointedly. Then, “Right?”
The stammering is immediate.
“No!” Margaret defends quickly, eyes wide and panicked. “Of course not. James, that’s not what we meant at all. We just—“
“That’s good,” you interrupt sweetly, frankly not interested in the half-assed apologies but also not trying to get in a tousle with people who you don’t even know like that. “I just wanted to make sure.”
“Of course,” Gemma parrots her aunt, blinking with wide eyes to try and scramble. “We love you, James, we just want you to be happy.”
And Bucky?
His hand is encasing the back of yours, fingers wrapped tight over your knuckles.
"All good," he says smoothly, as if being belittled by his family is a normal instance he's used to at this point. "I'm happy. Very much so. She's protective, 's all."
Gemma takes a particularly large gulp of her drink. "Yes, we see that. You know, James, your cousins started a bonfire by the water, why don't you join them?"
You nearly snort. That's gotta be some polite suburban code for get this girl out of my face before she tries to humiliate me further. Or something like that. Frankly, you definitely could've given them more grief, but with the way everyones faces are burning a bright crimson leads you to think that your words were the beginning of someone standing up for Bucky. Part of you hates that you're probably the first to do so given the panicked response from your defense of him, the other part of you would do it all again in a heartbeat. Regardless of the secondhand embarrassment.
Yet instead of escalating and having more choice words for his so-called family, you smile sweetly, putting the little hiccup behind you as you upturn your palm in Bucky's grasp, lacing your fingers with his so gingerly that you see him whip his head towards yours in your peripheral. He's been the catalyst of touch all night, as you've kept your paws relatively to yourself for the duration of him showing you off. But now... You're reciprocating. Leaning into the bit. Fueling the fire. And with the way he squeezes your hand in return, it's a wordless promise. I got you.
"I could go for a s'more." Your tone is light, sweet. Like a flavored creamer. You turn to Bucky, whose bright blue eyes search yours incredulously. "You?"
He takes a beat. Registering your words.
Then, he nods. "Read my mind."
You're standing before you know it, Bucky in tow, as you toss your empty plate in the trash bag lying underneath the table. Grabbing your drink and throwing one more sweet smile to his bewildered family members, you give a once-over of the mini-crowd before you.
"It was nice meeting you all," is all you simply say, before turning heel and walking towards the water.
Bucky's hand is hot against yours, burning bright and prominent as yours stays cool. You have half a mind to pull away now that you've given some distance between you and the people you're supposed to be convincing, but he doesn't allow that as he falls into step with you, bumping your shoulder in Bucky-like-fashion and giving you a gentle squeeze, a form of a thank you he can't formulate into words. The act makes your heart thrum all the same, and there's this nagging voice in the back of your mind telling you how nice it is to feel his touch, to be in his vicinity without having to worry about the next time you're scheduled to push him away.
It's... achingly comfortable.
God, you shake that thought away. Immediately.
The two of you are halfway to the bonfire when he speaks up.
"You could've gone easy on 'em," Bucky muses low and playfully, avoiding the real reason for your intervention. "You nearly scared them out of their Tory Burch dresses."
You frown instantly. "...That was me going easy on them."
He laughs boyishly, swinging your conjoined hands back and forth, clearly relishing in the way you haven't pushed him off. For once, you don't really see the urge to shove him away just yet, and that revelation nearly stuns you, but it aches in familiarity, as if you could get used to it. Especially when you see a familiar blonde sitting in one of the bonfire chairs up ahead that makes your chest burn with a fire you didn't know ignited.
"Sweet girl," he says in warning. "If I didn't know any better, I'd say you were seconds from throttling a sixty year old woman. I think that's considered elder abuse."
"I'm just about ready to throttle everyone here."
His hand squeezes yours once, twice. You pretend to ignore the way your heart lurches at the gesture. "Being a knight in shining armor looks hot on you."
"And now I'm seconds away from throttling you."
"Yet you're still holding my hand." You don't have to look at him to know he's grinning. "Christ, you'd be sexy in steel."
"Bucky."
"Like my own personal Joan of Arc. Oh my god."
"Do you ever think before you speak?"
"Never with you, my sweet, sweet girl." His voice is saccharine, almost sounding genuine.
You eyes roll so far back the whites are showing.
But the next quip rises and dies in your throat as you approach the bonfire, an expensive stone pit with burning embers flying high in the air surrounded by all of his cousins and family friends in similar age, who all laugh at a previous anecdote that fills the air with a warm buzz. The sun setting behind the tree-line across the lake is almost picturesque, letting the real glow of the flames cast a shadow over everyone's face, including Izzy roasting a perfect golden marshmallow.
...Sitting next to the only vacant seat.
When you and Bucky emerge to the group, all heads pick up, including the blonde's, who hums innocently inviting with that killer of a smile. But you're not fooled by a second, nor will you ever forget the absolutely audacity she had towards you in the kitchen earlier.
"Hey guys," she says cooly, blowing off the small flame of her marshmallow as she looks you dead in the eye. "Sorry, maybe there's another chair in the garage?"
The group goes quiet for a moment, holding their breaths and waiting. It's no secret Izzy's been attempting to sink her talons into her ex-boyfriend all night, stealing glances across the yard and talking him up to his family behind his back to stay in their good graces. She probably wasn't expecting you to show up this weekend, someone who will definitely put up a fight, a threat, a challenge to her endgame to get her Jamie back once and for all. There's no doubt everyone sitting in this circle knows that, especially when they all look between you and her with the anticipation of something snarky.
But you shrug nonchalantly. "No biggie."
When you peer up at Bucky and nod towards the chair, he blinks at you once, twice, before getting the hint and sitting down without much prompting, manspreading deliciously wide and audacious in a way you'd normally scold him for — as you've done so many times in the past.
This time, however, you simply let him get comfortable before settling in his lap.
...And Bucky fucking freezes.
Thankfully, almost instantly one of his cousins, a shaggy-haired late-teen who definitely shouldn't be nursing a beer, kickstarts the previous conversation with little to no regard for the clear tension between you and the person sitting one chair away, and you nearly sigh in relief at the subject change and let yourself slowly lean back until your back his brushing his broad chest.
He's not breathing. You can feel that he's not breathing because his chest doesn't rise and fall against your body, still as a board as you settle in casually. On his lap. Perched pretty on his lap. Flush to his chest. While sitting on his lap. Practically a second skin to him. Was it mentioned that you're on his lap?
The hands that have been wandering uncharted territories on your body all night are conveniently stiff on the arms of the chair, not sure whether or not they're suppose to stay politely off or if they can heighten the experience all the more. You can practically hear him thinking behind you, and you don't even need to turn around to know that or read his facial expression.
It makes you stifle a grin.
"Someone's a little quiet." You start innocently, practically cheek to cheek with him as you both stare at the burning embers. "What happened to all that sweet talk?"
You hear and feel his breath falter, as if he's just remembered how to breathe.
Bucky lets out a small huff of air, half annoyed and half amused that you're finding his internal crisis entertaining. More importantly still computing the fact that you're sitting in his lap. Willingly. Practically brushing cheeks. No big deal. Not at all. Not in the slightest. Not something he's been dreaming about for what feels like years now. Totally chill. Platonic, one may say.
"You seemed eager," he manages to get out, trying to act normal. "Still denying your feelings for me?"
You scoff. Cute of him to think he's in control here. Two can play that game.
You shift your hips barely. Just barely. A minute sliver to the left.
His hands immediately grip your waist, stilling your movements, both of you inherently shocked at the bold moves on each side but not putting a stop to the escalation, either. It's...thrilling. Especially surrounded by other people, unknowing to your objectively monumental moment. Especially sitting two feet from his raging bitch of an ex-girlfriend, whose eyes have been glued to the two of you finagling the whole time.
There's an odd sense of pride — perhaps dormant cave-woman primal instincts beginning to thaw — that instantly make you lean into the bit in response to seeing Izzy staring at you in your peripheral. You're shifting your body to splay sideways in his lap, as if he's about to pick you up bridal style and march you back into the house, splaying a hand in his hair as one of his palms remains a little too low on the base of your spine and the other resting on your bare thigh, a little too high than what friends would normally do. However, that excuse is completely out the window now, so why not run with it?
And... You're on cloud nine. Even more so when you meet Izzy's envious green eyes, smiling so sweetly it'll make your tooth rot.
Bucky hums at the sensation of your fingers in his hair whether he means to or not. "Remind me why we don't do this often?"
"Uh, probably because I can't stand you," you say as if it's law.
"Debatable."
"Is it?"
"You tell me, sweet girl." Your faces are inches apart. Have his eyes always been this blue? "You're the one sitting pretty in my lap."
"For show," you add pointedly.
Bucky grins boyishly (it's so beautiful). "Nah, I think you're doing it for the love of the game."
"That's presumptuous."
"Is it?" He mirrors your question from earlier.
God, he's so close. "Mhm. I'm simply helping a friend."
Bucky pauses at your words, eyes darting between yours almost in disbelief. The silence only lasts a few seconds, but it's palpable all the same, as those seconds feel like eons as he stares hard and deep into your eyes, practically into your soul. His grin morphs into something smaller, softer, steering away from the jovial playfulness you're familiar with and leaning into something deeper, something more serious. It makes the hair stand up on the back of your neck.
"That's what we're calling this? Friends?" He muses low, dangerous, calculated.
Your brows pinch slightly.
"Because I don't think friends do this," Bucky continues in the same tone, and you almost miss the way his thumb slips under your shirt, tracing over the lower bones of your vertebrae in admiration, curiosity, need. "I don't think friends feel like this."
It takes you a moment to find your words, still trying to hold your ground. "And what kind of feeling is that?"
His lips twitch. "I think you know, sweet girl."
"Do I?"
"Mhm." His response is immediate. "You're smart. Think about it."
...You do.
You think about what it would be like to wake up in the morning next to him, hair tousled and pretty blues bleary with sleep, reaching for you through half-lidded eyes and pulling you taut to him to get an extra few minutes of peace and quiet, or pulling you close for entirely different reasons. Would he fuck you slow and deliberate or fast and rough? Would he roll you onto your side and sink in deep with his chest against your back? Or would he crawl under the covers and bury his head between your thighs until the sun truly rises?
You think about holding his hand in public, dragging him through crowds of farmer's markets or sitting next to him on the subway. Touching him at all possible times. Him touching you at all possible times. Hands together. A hand on your thigh, on the small of your back, on the back of your neck. Endless places. Constantly. Protective. Possessive.
You think about his words. You've grown accustomed to the normal vulgarities that spill from his pretty puffed lips, but what about his true feelings? Is right now — this very moment — a glimpse of that reality? A shroud of seriousness? Would he confess through the implications his actions or would he actually find the words? Would he tell you how much you mean to him or would he show you? Would the flirting cease or tenfold if you truly told him your thoughts and feelings? How would he react to your greatest fears and nightmares, with sweet nothings or a comforting hug? Would he talk you through having sex? Tell you how pretty you are and how well you're taking him?
"You're thinking about it."
Blinking, you snap out of your disassociation to discover him still staring intently, a smile tugging the ends of his lips no matter how hard he tries not to let it slip.
"I wasn't," you defend bitterly, a weak attempt at remaining indifferent.
He truly doesn't buy it. "You totally are. It'd be a nice life, no?"
"Bucky."
"You and me. Me and you. Cooking together. Going out. Christening every room—"
"You're insufferable."
His smile is infectious, voice saccharine. "Yet you're still thinking about it, aren't you?"
Your scowl is prominent, face flushing a temperature comparable to the pits of hell. "Nope."
"Oh, Natasha's gonna love this."
"If you even consider telling Natasha, I'll cut your eyes out."
"Hot."
"Bucky."
"What?" He asks incredulously. "You can't expect me to be chill about this."
You roll your eyes. "I can, and I am. So chill." Can he feel your heart beating?
Probably, given the way his grin hasn't faltered the entire exchange, clearly soaking this up like a greedy sponge. The pads of his fingertips dig into your flesh like a staked claim, a reckless promise that doesn't need words to fill the gaps of what he truly means, what he truly wants. It's obvious, painfully so, and you're starting to slip. You wonder if he knows, if he can see the way you're subtly inching closer, if he can feel the thrum of your heartbeat in anticipation, if he can skim past your dismissive words and look into your eyes to understand your true intentions.
Fuuuuuuuuuck. You're in deep. Shit. God fucking damn it. Has he always been this pretty or is he emitting some toxic scent that makes people's brains all fuzzy and discombobulated? It must be the latter. It has to be the latter. Because absolutely no fucking way you're falling for—
God, you can't even say it. Falling for—
"Bucky!"
The shaggy-haired cousin pipes up from across the bonfire, breaking you both from your little moment and popping the bubble of unrelieved tension and rising blood pressure. Your neck twists to meet the gaze of his cousin, unknowingly continuing without a shroud of concern for interrupting the fact that you almost just kissed Bucky Barnes. On the lips. Willingly. Without a gun to your head or not from a dare. Did you mention willingly?
"Remember that burly dude who stole my skateboard in middle school?" He prompts nasally. "And ya bet him to a halfpipe competition to get it back?"
Bucky's grip on your waist and thigh are iron. "Yeah, man."
"And then he said..." Shaggy trails off, looking up into the air momentarily as if that'll help him remember the rest of the anecdote. "Fuck, I don't remember. Can you tell the story? Jason's never heard it, apparently."
While Bucky — quite reluctantly — recounts the story for the crowd, you sit idly on his lap. Thinking about it. All of it.
And you're absolutely, irrevocably, without a doubt fucked.
When the embers start to die and the people gradually trudge back to the house, you realize how late it's gotten.
Fireworks went off ages ago, illuminating the sky in hues of yellow, orange, red, sprinkles of blue and white to celebrate the holiday. Though your mind is elsewhere the whole time, solely focused on the man beneath you as he pulls you a fraction closer at the light show, cheeks brushing as you try to ignore the rapid thumping of your heart, using the fireworks as an excuse not to turn an inch to look at him. When it’s all done and over, conversations resume around the fire, more s’mores are eaten, more drinks are opened.
The half moon rises high in the sky on a cloudless night, shimmering gently over the waves on the water and pushing and pulling the soft tide. The quiet chatter from the last few people around the fire echos across the lake, the idea of s'mores long forgotten as everyone now takes the remaining sips of their drinks, bids a farewell, and disappears into the house or walks down the street to their respective homes.
Once she realized you weren't moving from his lap, Izzy packed up camp a little while ago, loudly announcing her departure to earn a few polite goodbyes and weaving into the night. It feels like a breath of fresh air when she's no longer watching your every move, but when you also feel no inclination to move off his lap (despite having nothing to prove anymore), your heart settles like a kettlebell in your gut, knowing the reason is deeper than just simply being too lazy to get up and take your own seat.
Bucky's fingers have been tracing up and down your spine for the past twenty minutes, slow and deliberate while he casually converses with his cousin. You sit still as a statue, relishing in the sensation but also not wanting to make it seem like you're enjoying this. But he knows. Because he knows you would've shrugged his touch off if you didn't want it.
It isn't until you're the last two remaining where you rediscover your motor functions.
Carefully slipping off his lap and standing on wobbly legs, your eyes drift down to his sitting figure, still manspreading so godforsaken arrogant as he peers up at you, head cocked to the side and blue eyes twinkling with pride. It's almost criminal how good he looks like this, unguarded and domestic with his hair slightly mussed and his plain white tee sitting snugly across his chest and around his biceps. His demeanor drips in smugness, absolutely eating up the way you're shamelessly staring down at him, and for a moment you brace for one of his incessant flirt tactics or forward one liners.
But it never comes. The silence says everything he wants to tell you.
Bucky simply stares up at you. Calculated. Morphing into something deeper than just lust. Maybe admiration? As one would admire the tedious brushstrokes of an intricate painting. He's thinking intently, raking his eyes over the slope of your nose, the curve of your lips, the dips of your collarbone poking through your tank top, your bare thighs where his hand took solace just moments ago. The once over isn't intimidating or intense, it's comfortable, strangely enough. As if he's taking the permission of being able to to heart, running with the opportunity to do so to the girl who never let him get too close.
"If there's something you want," Bucky says quietly after a moment, low and deliberate, "just ask."
A bratty retort rises and dies in your throat, your default response to whenever he makes a move (or an insinuation to one?), and instead linger in the moment, letting his words hang in the air as an actual testament instead of a joke.
Because the tension between you is shifted, ever since you decided to slide into his lap like you owned him and ever since his hand slipped up your shirt to hold you like he had every right to do so. It's uncharted waters, something you've never experienced with him in all your years of friendship. Sure, you've hugged once or twice and hit him feebly more times than you can count, but this is different. You allowed it, you're still allowing it, and he's taking that opportunity and making the most of it while he can.
A particularly rogue, loud wave drifts you from your thoughts, pulling your attention towards the shore.
You consider it for a moment, turning your head to see if anyone's still outside, and then back to the water, and then finally down at his figure.
"I wanna swim."
Bucky's brows skyrocket, certainly not expecting that. "What?"
Tilting your head to the side in playfulness, your fingers skim the bottom hem of your tank. "You heard me."
His eyes lock onto the sliver of skin that's exposed when you mess with the fabric, mouth agape as if he has an excuse right at the tip of his tongue. As if on autopilot, Bucky sits up, arms reaching up to pull your tank top down to where you bunched it up (or simply to have his hands on you again).
But you swerve his grabby hands, bare feet dipping into the stone patio after kicking off your flip flops, walking backwards towards the dock while still maintaining eye contact with him, challenging him, daring him, keeping him on his toes. Especially when you see him swallow a particularly harsh breath when you push your tank top up and off your body, discarding it carelessly as you're left in your bra and fumbling with the belt of your shorts.
A grin widens on your lips. "Scared?"
Bucky scoffs, the taunt kickstarting his motor functions as he subconsciously stands, flicking off his shoes and shirt in the same motion. He closes the space you created in just a few audacious steps, his broad shoulders shielding the light of the dying fire so that his body backlights the flames, making him look like some sort of angel reincarnated. Well, that comparison also aids to the fact that his shirt is off, and it's definitely a heavenly sight. Objectively speaking.
"I think you're forgetting who you're talking to," he teases low, eyes glued to the way you shimmy out of your shorts.
Yeah, he's seen you in a bikini before plenty of times (each time more enjoyable for him than the last), but this is entirely different. He nearly groans at the sight in front of him, the concept of you standing out here in the open in your matching bra and underwear simply for the love of the game. And you can tell he's tattooing this visual in his brain, the first time ever seeing you in actual undergarments looking like sin.
"No, I remember," you challenge immediately. "Clear as day."
His shorts are pooled around his ankles in a matter of milliseconds, and now you're both here: standing in the middle of a dock in the dead of the night in your underwear, the only light now from the half moon cascading light across the lake. The fire's burned out, the lights in the house are off, only the moon and the lightning bugs flickering shed a glow on the moment. It's dark, but just light enough to see the silhouette of his face, the slope of his nose, the steady rise and fall of his bare chest mere inches away from you.
After a moment of simply standing and staring, you turn towards the open water, walking slowly towards the edge as you fumble with the back clasp of your bra, letting the material fall onto the dock along with pushing your underwear down over the curve of your ass, suppressing a shit eating grin knowing he's watching your every movement behind you, especially when you hear his breath hitch audibly.
You don't turn. You don't say anything. Instead you let your toes curl the edge of the dock for one, two, moments before jumping into the cool water.
The coldness engulfs you immediately, black water surrounding you everywhere. You feel the bottom of the lake briefly, but when you come up to surface you're treading on the waves, the water being just deep enough where you can't touch.
However, your fleeting moment of staying afloat doesn't last too long before you feel the catastrophic splash of him jumping in beside you, shaking his hair out like a dog as soon as he surfaces.
"Agh—"
You groan in annoyance, attempting to shove him away as your default response but he knows you too well, anticipating this move and grabbing your wrists before they can make contact with his chest. Then, his hands immediate find your bare waist under the water and tugs you taut to his just-as-bare body.
Your arms instinctively wrap around his shoulders as the waves lap up to your collarbone, shielding your body under the near-black water. But he can feel you all the same, skin to skin, chest to chest, especially when your legs hook around his waist and his fingers dig a little deeper in the soft skin of your flesh, anchoring himself to the moment, to the feel of your body, to the sensation he's been fantasizing about for what feels like forever. When your pubic bone meets his, you realize he's just as naked as you are.
"You're evil for that."
You feign innocence. "What? I love swimming. Sue a girl for wanting to get some laps in."
Bucky shakes his head, and despite the darkness you can make out the blues of his eyes, how they're focused on nothing but you, you, you.
"Sweet girl, this isn't about the swimming and you know that." His voice is low, deliberate, edging on playfulness and genuine pain.
Still, you lean into the bit, figuratively and literally. "Maybe. But where's the fun in that?"
His lips barely brush yours. "Fun? You think teasing me all night is fun?"
"I'd say so."
"Yeah. For you."
"What would you consider it?"
He grins. "Someone who's dodging her real feelings."
“Oh?”
“Yeah. One may say euro-stepping.”
"Sure," you murmur against his lips. "Because calling it that is much more appropriate."
Then you kiss him.
And the whole world stops spinning. Because you never knew, you never ever would fucking suspect that this is where your dignity goes to die, tangled up in Bucky Barnes' arms and making out with him like your life depends on it. You never knew how nice it could be, taut against his body and tasting the lingering tequila on his lips as he groans into your mouth as if it's been killing him to not know what you feel like for all this time spent as his friend. His pal. His weirdly annoying acquaintance that he can seemingly never get enough of.
Bucky kisses you like a man starved, oxygen escaping his lungs the longer he spends seeking solace in the way you taste, feel, smell. He makes a noise, a sigh of relief and pleasure perhaps, and the sound goes straight to your core as you wrap your legs a fraction tighter around his middle, sending the message loud and clear without actually having to say anything. And he notices. Obviously. Because his cock is hard and throbbing and the mere feel of his size makes you dizzy.
"Oh my god," Bucky mumbles against your lips, drunk off the feeling of you. "Knew you'd taste so sweet."
"Sweeter somewhere else," you say gently, coaxing him.
"Fuck," he curses immediately. "You can't— You can't just say that."
Your hands slide over his cool skin, a palm pressing on his erratic heartbeat and the other seeking solace in the column of his neck, feeling both pulse points and how the rhythm skyrockets at the sensation.
"I can't?"
"No." The response is sharp, pained, as if he's barely holding it together. "Because I'm losing my fucking mind here."
You lean down, brushing your cheek with his as your lips attach to his jaw, to the stubble on his neck, to the soft skin of his earlobe that makes him sigh so gutturally that it sends a shiver down your spine. His hands trail experimentally down over the globes of your ass, breath hitching with the anticipation you’ll shove him off, but you don’t. You fucking don’t. You hum pleasingly so he squeezes, pulling you closer, fingertips digging in your flesh and rocking your hips against his so subtly that you feel the length of his cock pressing against your front.
Now it’s your turn to curse.
“Fuck.” You shift your hips against his once more. “Of course you’d have a big dick.”
Bucky chuckles boyishly, seemingly pleased with your approval. Yet you feel his neck get hot with the compliment, a bit flustered at the sudden remark, and it makes you zoom out for a moment, because behind all the sweet talk and flirting and charming persona, he’s just a guy. Flustered with a bit of flirting back. Folding immediately after a bit of touching and soft words. Not only does it make a nice swell of pride in your chest, it makes your heart flutter. Knowing he’s just a man. (A man who has been practically celibate the past year when he realized this feeling towards you was going nowhere, but nonetheless just a man.)
“Makes up for being an asshole,” is all he’s able to get out.
You hum against his vocal cord, purposefully pressing your breasts further into his chest and skimming your palm over his heartbeat.
“You’re not an asshole,” you say genuinely, softly, too kind to be kidding. “Not actually.”
“Careful, baby,” he warns. “It’s starting to sound as if you like me or something.”
“I can totally swim away if you want me to—“
“Nope.” His hands are iron grip. “Not a chance. You’re stuck with me.”
You scoff. “I’m never being nice to you again.”
Bucky kisses your temple, a display of intimate affection that makes your heart thrum with all notes of lust aside. It’s delicate. Simple. Promising. Something you can definitely get used to.
“I can live with that,” he says simply, as if it’s certain as law.
That’s when you pull back to look at him. To truly look at him.
How pretty he looks in the moonlight, skin soft with water droplets cascading down his cheeks from his damp hair. How soft his gaze is as he stares right back at you, reaching a hand up to the crown of your head to wipe away your hair that’s fallen onto your face, tucking it gingerly behind your ear and letting his palm idly lay on your jaw, holding you there as if he has all the time in the world to do so. Deliberate. Meaningful. Purposeful.
It isn’t until a fish swims up against your leg, scaly and slimy and absolutely ruining the moment as you yelp, scrambling in his arms.
“Argh— What the fuck!”
Bucky laughs. Hard. Shoulders shaking and everything, hardly panicked in the slightest as you grimace, practically koala clinging to him and scanning the inky water for any more proof of aquatic life.
“Easy,” he muses gently, beginning to walk towards shore with you still in his arms. “All this big, bad talk and you’re scared of a fish.”
You scoff, cheek to cheek with him as you rest your chin on his shoulder, scanning the ripples of waves forming behind him (and totally not staring at his ass in the act of doing so). Your palms lie on his upper back, feeling the planes and muscles move as he trudges out of the water and not even feeling an ounce of shame about it.
“That wasn’t a fish,” you defend instantly, hating the way he’s still literally laughing at you. “That was… It was a three tailed shark, or something.”
Bucky’s footsteps gradually stop, leaving him in thigh-deep as your naked body is completely out in the open as you still cling to him, suddenly fucking freezing despite the warm air and frustrating that he’s not moving, instead standing audaciously still. In this moment you realize just how incredible naked you are — him, too — hanging onto him like a second skin as he holds you like a lifeline.
His words are slow and calculated. “A three tailed shark?”
You groan, annoyed he’s not moving. “Or something.”
“…Or something.”
His tone makes it sound like he’s on the verge of barking out laughter.
"Can we go inside and stop lingering in creature infested waters please?"
"Oh, god," Bucky says, feigning horror. "It must've bit and infected you with something. You're saying please."
"Bucky."
"It's worse than I thought."
"I'm going to kill you."
"Just like any other day."
When he (eventually) starts moving again, he sets you down gently on the small shore as you immediately give him a shove which earns a hearty laugh from him, stomping away from the beautiful sound to retrieve your scattered clothes on the dock and bonfire patio. The embers have gone out long ago, leaving the two of you coated in a comfortable darkness illuminated solely from the moonlight.
As you gather his clothing as well — even though you throw it at him as he continues to laugh right in your face — you noticed a dim light flicked on in the house on the first floor. If that isn't motivation to get dressed, then you don't know what is. So you slip your tank top and shorts back on despite your sopping wet figure, noticing Bucky following suit as you're already halfway to the house.
"Wait— fuck," Bucky curses, picking up a light job to fall into stride with you, audaciously bumping your shoulder now that he has the right to do so. "The three tailed fish almost got me, and you weren't there to save me."
Your eye roll kickstarts a migraine.
Shamelessly, he slides his hand in yours, interlacing your fingers. "I could've died," he says incredulously.
Truly you try to ignore how nice it feels to be holding his hand, how is palm encases yours and how his thumb glides over your smooth skin in admiration, such a simple gesture but...sweet in its own. Christ, get it together, you're not in middle school. Even though his incessant teasing makes your face feel hot and even though you try and hide your smile (impossible), you don't dream of pulling away like you normally would. You...let yourself have the moment, even if your dignity is the price.
"I think you're having way too much fun overanalyzing a moment of weakness," you mumble bitterly, walking up the porch stairs and avoiding his gaze.
He hums low. "Am I?"
"Clearly."
"Couldn't you argue I'm on cloud nine because I kissed a pretty girl instead?"
God, your face is burning. How do words come so easy for him? "Do you ever stop talking?"
"Never with you."
He squeezes your hand once, twice in a way that makes you think he probably doesn't even realize he's doing so. When you get to the door, Bucky's quicker than you, reaching his unoccupied hand up to quietly turn the knob and open the door with a gentle creak, gesturing you to enter first like the grandeur gentleman he is (debatable) and hot on your tail so he can close the door behind the two of you (probably making you go in first so he can take a sneak peak at your ass).
Once you're both inside, Bucky stands broad behind you, still gingerly holding your hand as the other one comes to lay refuge on your waist, guiding you towards the grand stairs just on the other side of the dimly lit kitchen. He's right at your back, feeling the rise and fall of his chest against your spine as he pushes you into the next room—
...To where you're not alone.
You freeze when you see a figure standing at the kitchen island, the spot where you stood with Bucky and Izzy a few mere hours ago where you learned her true character, and your heart drops when you realize it's Bucky's dad, nursing a half drank whiskey in his pajamas. He's peering at the two of you intently, and you realize they have the same bright blue eyes, as if you're looking at his carbon copy. You wonder if he's who Bucky sees every time he looks in the mirror.
Mr. Barnes stares at you and his son through tired eyes, almost as if he was expecting this to happen, a little midnight rendevous involving his prone-to-risky-behavior kid. This probably isn't the first time his father has caught him in a predicament like this, unfortunately, given the way Bucky absolutely stills behind you and how his grip becomes iron.
"James," his father says eventually, low and rough around the edges with exhaustion. "It's one in the morning."
Although Bucky doesn't cower. "I'm aware. We were being quiet."
His father does a quick (and rather judge mental) once over of the two of you: hair dripping, bodies sopping wet, water staining through previously dried clothes and probably making a puddle the longer you stand stagnant in one place. You can imagine how this doesn't look great, especially for Bucky whose been trying to render the rebellious image his family has of him.
All of that hard work today is seemingly put down the drain, because you think that — at the end of the day — the only approval your supposed-boyfriend has been seeking is his father's...who doesn't look very happy in this given moment.
The up-curl of his father's lip is nothing nice. "You really thought it'd be a good idea to mess around in the water this late?"
Bucky narrows his eyes. "I'm not a kid."
"You're my kid," he corrects pointedly, not saving room for argument. "Acting like an idiot."
"Can we not— Can we not do this right now? In front of my girlfriend?"
A shiver runs down your spine, both at the incoming confrontation and the forbidden g-word.
But Mr. Barnes doesn't flinch at the attempt to diffuse the escalating situation.
"You're an adult acting like a child." His father's voice is quiet in volume, but laced with venom at the undertones. "So I'm going to speak to you like one."
Before Bucky can say anything else, you unexpectedly clear your throat.
"The swimming was my idea," you defend gently, trying to diffuse the growing tension with an ounce of the sweetness everyone seems to think you have. "Not his. Really. I practically forced him to."
Your name is said softly behind you, defeated and partially in warning to not get involved.
But you are. Oh, you fucking are getting involved. Because Bucky's been subconsciously throwing looks over his shoulder to see if his father was seeking him out for anything special, to see if he was needed for any task whether it be helping man the grill or even take out the trash, for fuck's sake. It's not your place to say you noticed, but you did, and your heart breaks for him, for the small shroud of hope he always holds for the mere possibility he'll be loved. Appreciated. Cared for in a way he yearns to be.
Besides, you're not scared of this man. Granted, you've been wanting to fight him for years given the way Bucky's shoulders always sag without meaning to whenever parents get brought up, but you've always had something personal set out for his father despite wanting to strangle Bucky half the time you've known him. But this is different. This is love, we're talking about. A basic human emotion. Something everyone should have, feel, give out. And his father just...doesn't.
His father's eyes set on you. "That's very chivalrous, honey, but James knows better—"
"I do too," you interrupt firmly, yet gentle enough to not escalate with volume. You need to get out of this kitchen. Stat. Not for your sake but for the man standing behind you, still as a statue. "Definitely irresponsible, but still. I'm sorry for bringing water into the house, where do you keep your towels so I can clean it up?"
"That's not—"
Bucky's father trails off, cutting his sentence in half as he sighs instead, peering at your innocent gaze and pondering for one, two beats before sighing again, ultimately deciding that this little dominance back and forth act is simply not worth the trouble. Nor the headache. Because there's no way you're not taking the blame and there's no way his father wants to pin the blame on anyone other than his son, the easy way out.
"No need for that," Mr. Barnes secedes eventually. "The two of you just... head to bed and we'll forget this happened in the morning."
You furrow your brows, a retort rising in your throat.
But Bucky squeezes your hand, leaning down so his lips ghost the shell of your ear.
"C'mon." His voice is merely a whisper. "Let's go."
Bidding a soft goodnight to his father, you allow Bucky to guide you out of the kitchen, still right behind you but without the same smile from earlier, the same pep in his step. Instead he's quiet — too quiet — as he trails your path up the stairs, down the hallway all the way to the left, and into his childhood bedroom where you brought your bags up to earlier today.
When he shuts the door behind you and flicks on the old Superman lamp he's had since he was a kid, you're engulfed in a gentle light, illuminating the old comic book collection gathering dust in the corner and the old super-hero posters hanging on the wall, edges creased from aging. Most of the recent decor he brought to his apartment, so everything in here are the scraps, the old testaments to his childhood that make your heart swell detrimentally.
"You wanna shower?"
Bucky's voice startles you as you shamelessly study his wall decor, turning your heel to discover him on the other side of the room plugging his phone in.
He can barely look you in the eye as he continues. "Room's on the other side of the house where everyone's sleeping. It won't wake anyone up, if that's what you're thinking."
You frown.
...No. That's not what you're thinking.
You're thinking about him pretending to be fine, pretending not to care about the emotional toll his father has on his life, pretending not to acknowledge the astronomical tonal shift from when you were in the lake to now, two opposite ends of the same stick, planets apart. You're thinking about how he always goes into panic mode whenever his father's around, and you assume it's him bracing for the anticipation of being insulted or belittled or completely ignored all together. You're thinking about the fact that no one's probably defended him in his life. Maybe besides his sister, but she's not here this weekend, so he would've had to muster it alone if you didn't show.
But you can easily tell he doesn't want to talk about it given the way he barely looks in your direction. He probably needs a moment, you think logically, so no big deal. You'll take a quick shower, maybe he'll go after you or he'll fall asleep. The activities from the lake can wait. Truly, they can, because you want him to be in the right headspace.
So you shower. Quickly. Not bothering with half of your normal routine, just a simple body and hair wash before stepping out, and you barely get a word in because he enters the bathroom right after you, following your actions. In the time he takes under the hot water, you slip into your pajamas and slide into his childhood bed, claiming a side you hope isn't his and staring at the ceiling. You count down the minutes until the water shuts off, wringing the thin blanket in your hands as some sort of pathetic coping mechanism to fuel your bubbling nerves.
Bucky emerges from the backroom in basketball shorts, his normal sleeping attire, as he maneuvers swiftly around the room to shut the lights off and eventually slide into the bed next to you.
Your fingers twitch in his direction, aching to hold him.
The silence between you is palpable, and you teeter between wanting to fill the gap or let it coarse you into a deep sleep. However that internal debacle doesn't last very long, because when he adjusts his position and his arm brushes yours, you take a long deep breath. Well, so much for trying to mind your own business.
"Hey." You nudge his arm with yours. "You asleep?"
"It's been thirty seconds since I've laid down."
"...So, no?"
Bucky chuckles softly in the darkness, and you count that as a win in your books. "No, sweet girl."
You hum contently, biting your lip as a million questions rise and die in your throat. How do you...broach it? Do you outright ask if he's alright? Simply reach over and hold him instead of opting for your words? Or do you make him use his words, talk through his bubbling feelings. That will most likely make him feel better (you'd hope) but then again, he most definitely does not want to do that, not with you, especially since he'll probably label is as a serial mood killer.
His voice startles you. "I can hear you thinking."
You blink stupidly.
"Sorry," you say immediately, unsure of why you're apologizing. "I just— I'm sorry. I wanna know if you're alright, but I feel like I know the answer, but I also didn't want to say anything to remind you— I don't even— Sorry. I don't know anymore."
Bucky doesn't say anything, and the silence is almost unbearable. Granted it's only a few seconds between your last breath and the long stretch of quiet elongating between you, but it feels like eons, days stretched into nights, weeks into months and months into years. Your panicked incessant rambling lingers like a cloud in the air, unforgiving and soft but so fucking obvious.
God, why isn't he saying anything?
You only make it worse. "That sucked. Hearing him speak to you like that. I hate that it's normal. It shouldn't be." Fucking christ, stop talking. "Even today with your aunts, I don't understand it. You didn't deserve that. You don't deserve that. That's not... That isn't how you speak to people you love." Shut the fuck up. "I just... I'm sorry. That's all. I'm here if you want to talk. Uhm. Yeah."
Bucky's still quiet for a moment.
Then, "Will you c'mere?"
At his words you blink once, twice, unsure you heard him right, but the longer it lingers in the air, the more certain you are of the request, swallowing the lump in your throat and cautiously shifting towards him, heart racing from your panicked little speech at the fear of crossing boundaries or making him feel like even more shit than he already probably does.
You place a light palm on his bare chest experimentally, and his hand immediately encases over your knuckles, fingers calloused and rough and cool from the water. Cautiously, you rest your cheek on his shoulder as he wraps an arm around your body to splay his hand on your spine, tugging you closer.
And you just... hug him.
Truthfully, you're not really sure why you do so, but you assume it's stemming from the kettlebell settled in your gut from the interaction with his father, how easy it was for him to speak down at his son as if it was any other day. God, it make your chest ache with something you're not necessarily ready to confront and understand, but that feeling lingers and spreads in your body like a wildfire, hot and burning and impossible to ignore.
The whole thing makes Bucky stiffen, not from the act of having you close but from the implication behind it, the way you're trying to comfort him instead of brush it off like everyone else does, caring for him in a way that feels foreign, performative, fake. He's not used to it, used to this, to the simplicity of your rambling words to the warmth of your arms, literally and figuratively.
You swallow thickly and it feels like sandpaper.
The sound makes Bucky snort, chest jerking underneath you. "I'm alright."
"Okay."
"I think you're more upset about it than I am."
You huff, half playful and half in disbelief that he's finding the energy to kid around. "Upset is an understatement. I think I'm ready to take on your whole family, Scott Pilgrim style."
Bucky's thumb smoothes over your knuckles delicately, as if he's skimming the topography of a map. "That fighting technique is for evil exes, sweet girl."
"Still applicable here," you murmur without thinking, flashes of a pretty blonde popping into mind.
All he does is hum teasingly, but it's gentler, as if his eyes are shut and sleep is beginning to overtake. Despite desperately wanting to continue the activities from the lake, you know it's not the time nor place for that kind of mood. And, genuinely, you're fine with that. Because you want that moment, whenever it may come, to be in good graces, to be in the right headspace.
It's quiet again for a while, the two of you basking in the now-comfortable silence as you hold each other as if life itself depends on it. The concept of being here, laid in his arms, seeking his warmth and touching him for longer than ten seconds would've seemed like a fever dream yesterday, but now that it's something that you've experienced, there's little to no possibility of ever returning to what it once was. Not when you know how nice it is to be held by him, touched by him, kissed by him.
You're inches from sleep when his baritone voice lulls you.
"Izzy and I were together when I was in my snowboarding accident."
His voice is all but a whisper, a hushed breath, but you hear him all the same, now wide awake with the anticipation of his anecdote. You've heard about his accident in high school, how his arm was the price of his life. Granted, you've never really asked him about it not knowing if it's a sensitive topic, but he's mentioned it a few times in the duration of your friendship casually. Snowboarding accident, months of trial testing bionic limbs, a whole nightmare for him. Sure, he's infinitely better now, but sometimes you notice the way he rolls out his shoulder where flesh meets metal, never quite comfortable in skin that isn't his.
You feel the cool metal against your back, calming you in more ways than you'd care to admit.
"At first, she was there for me as much as any seventeen year old could." Bucky's fingers trace over your vertebrae, perhaps as a coping mechanism. "Tied my shoes. Fixed my hair. Carried things for me. Drove me to appointments when my mom couldn't. Basic caretaker tasks like that."
Your stomach fills with dread imagining a seventeen year old Bucky faced with such an incomprehensible struggle, a life-changing alteration. Just a kid. Having to re-learn everything he already knew.
Then he pauses for a moment, finding the correct words.
"It got to the point where I was inconsolable. Treatment was rough, the bionic matches kept falling through. I think it got too hard for her because I was so negative all the time," he excuses quietly.
Your defense is immediate. "No shit you were negative, Bucky. You went through something incomprehensible."
"Easy, sweet girl." His voice is saccharine, light and playful at your irritation as if he's finding your rising blood pressure funny. "It was a long time ago. I'm over it. I'm telling you because I want you to know, not because I'm still bitter, okay?"
With a small sigh, you secede, digging your cheek further into his shoulder to prevent a pout. "M'kay."
Bucky hums. "Good girl," he murmurs with certainty.
(Your breath hitches. You disguise it as a yawn.)
He either ignores it and lets you suffer or doesn't notice. "But basically she just slowly pulled away. Stopped checking in, brushed me off at school like she was embarrassed by the whole thing. The amount of times I made Steve and Becca do my hair or get that one itch on my back was concerning. However, I did learn how to chop fruit one handed. Felt a bit like Soul Surfer."
"Bucky."
He chuckles boyishly. "Sorry. But true. It was right before prom when she left me officially when I got a bionic match for a new arm." His fingers wiggle against your spine, making you laugh into his warm skin. "I thought...you know... we'd be good. I was getting better, actually had a working limb," he continues, trailing off because you both know how the story ends.
You ask anyway. "What happened?"
"Her dress was navy," he says simply. "Didn't match with black."
Your filter leaves the room. Immediately.
"Are you fucking kidding me?"
Bucky just laughs. Hard. Honest. As if he was totally expecting the reaction.
"Nope," he says simply, still coming down from his laughter (that is normally such a beautiful noise but you're too busy seeing red to process anything other than how bad you want to fight her right now). "Took Becca as my date and had loads more fun, anyway."
The anecdote still does nothing to soothe your frustration. "How could she—? When you were— Did she even—? And then she has the audacity to try and get you back—"
"Easy." A playful warning.
"No. I'm fighting her in the morning."
He snorts as if this is the most entertaining bit of the day. "You're not fighting anyone. I'm okay, I'm over it." Then he pauses. "But I'm flattered you'd fight someone for me, baby."
The pet name makes your face flush, and instead of commenting on it (because he can probably feel your heat on his skin), all he does is hum with contentment, because you can deny it all you want, but he's right. You will go to bat for him, and you have multiple times in the past twenty four hours, despite how much you love to tell him you won't. It's almost a bit embarrassing how well he can read you, even in the dark, unknowing to the extent of which he knows you, how much he's been paying attention to your mannerisms, demeanor, behavior the last few years of knowing him.
You yawn gently despite your bubbling anger, squeezing him just a fraction tighter as a wordless gesture that you're here, you're not running, and you're in his corner no matter how much he riles you up, makes you want to punch a wall, or smack him upside the head. Preferably in that order.
Then his lips meet your hairline, pressing gently as a show of good faith as your eyes flutter shut, relishing pathetically in the moment.
"Sleep it off, Rocky," Bucky jokes low, voice rough with sleep and admiration. "You'll be back to sweet girl in the morning."
"Wait." You find yourself saying a little more desperate than you hoped. "We're not— Uh— Are we not— Like, you know..."
Bucky pauses, your babble of an incoherent sentence lingering in the air.
"Are we not..?" He asks in clarification, trailing off. “…what?”
But he’s connecting the dots anyway, trying to suppress a grin you can practically hear in the darkness and how deliciously it spreads on his lips. The rapid thumping of your heart is a dead giveaway as to what you’re referring to, and Bucky’s too smart to not know the nuance of your words, too in tune with your semantics and too fucking keen on you as a whole. It sometimes it feels like he knows your reactions and responses before you even know them yourself.
The pause between you is palpable, because he knows what you’re asking for. But he’s never made things easy for you — why would he? Especially when he has the opportunity to hear you use your words, plea for continuing the events from earlier, something he’s been dreaming about for far too long in such a pathetic way that it makes him practically oozing with smugness. He wants to hear you beg for him, to say please like the sweet girl you are, and then he’ll have you every single way you want him.
You groan irritably. “You’re really gonna make me say it?”
“Yup.” Prick.
“This should be considered a form of medieval torture.”
“What’s torture is every second you’re delaying the inevitable.”
You roll your eyes even though you know he can’t see it. “For you.”
The sigh that comes from his mouth is dreamy, almost mockingly as you build up the courage to give him what he wants. “Who knew I’d get cracked in my childhood bedroom.”
“Seriously? Can you not phrase it like that?”
His fingers skim the waistband of your sleep shorts, slow and deliberate and dangerously low on your back. The baritone hum emitting from his throat does nothing to settle the bubbling nerves in your stomach.
“Sorry,” he says, completely unapologetic. “Who knew that you’d get cracked in my childhood bedroom.”
“Bucky.”
He repeats your name back with a mirrored cadence.
You sigh, knowing that you might as well be talking directly to a brick wall.
But it isn’t until he shifts up onto his side, ducking down in the darkness to find the curve of your jaw with his lips. He places one, two chaste kisses on your soft skin, a plea of sorts, and then moves lower to the column of your neck, shamelessly inhaling the faint scent of shampoo as he sucks a sweet spot just below your jaw. When he groans quietly — yet loud to you all the same because he’s right there by your earlobe — your hands immediately seek solace on his broad shoulders, fingers dancing in the ends of his hair as some sort of coping mechanism.
“Tell me to stop,” Bucky mumbles against your pulse point, his hushed whisper sounding pained.
Your response is immediate. “Don’t.”
With one swift guidance, you’re suddenly on your back with your hair splayed against the pillow, and Bucky’s hovering over you, chest to chest, as his lips immediately connect with yours, full of hunger and admiration and straight disbelief that you’re both in this scenario right now. He slots himself between your open legs, barely — just barely — connecting his hips with yours. The faintest brush of his hard cock to your cunt makes you both intake a sharp breath, and it isn’t until you’re ignoring the steps to take it slow and hooking your legs around his waist, tugging him closer by digging your heels in the base of his spine so that you feel him. All of him. Up against you.
Bucky moans into your mouth at the contact, minimal but there and prominent.
It makes you feel dizzy. Buzzed off one drink. Floaty off one hit. Intoxicated and airy and light as if you’re not even on the planet. You kiss him back with fervor as you feel his hands push the hem of your sleep shirt up over your ribs, just stopping shy of the swell of your breasts.
You answer before he can put the request into words. “Off.”
Bucky obeys, but not without him grinning against your lips. “Bossy.”
“Oh, I’m sorry.” Your shirt is discarded somewhere carelessly in the darkness, leaving your chest bare. “Would you rather me be quiet and complicit?”
His hands waste no time fondling your breast, pushing and pulling the flesh and rolling the pad of his thumb over your pebbled nipple. The act is done in pure admiration, the need to explore and simply feel your body, to learn what makes your toes curl and eyes roll back.
“No,” he says immediately before ducking down to attach his mouth to your chest.
Sighing, your back arches into his mold, one hand fisting the ends of his hair and the other splayed on his broad back. The sensation of his mouth on one breast and the cool metal fingers fondling the other gives you a shock of pleasure that’s almost embarrassing to admit. It’s hot and cold, your body confused with the temperature it’s supposed to be feeling, but it sends a jolt of pleasure down your spine nonetheless.
You think you sigh his name. Maybe you moan it. At this point, you’ve lost control of your motor and speech functions.
Christ, it’s humiliating how wet you are. You can feel it in your sleep shorts, and perhaps you were dripping for him ever since his hand grabbed your ass to initiate this little rendezvous. Regardless of the semantics, he’s bound to discover the remnants of your pleasure sooner or later, probably in seconds given the way his hand slowly skims down your ribcage, over your stomach, eventually settling on the waistband of your sleep shorts and dipping his fingers inside to tug down.
This time, Bucky does ask. He takes. And within seconds, your shorts are added to the discarded pile of scattered clothing.
When his fingers meet the slick wetness between your slit, you sigh unabashedly loud from the mere teasing, not missing the way his breath hitches from where his mouth kisses your breast almost as if it’s stolen from him. Ragged and pained and you swear you feel his cock twitch in his shorts.
“Oh my god.” His fingers spread you open, feeling your obscene wetness. The act is nothing short of slow and deliberate, as if in disbelief. “All this for me, sweet girl?”
Your face flushes. “Bucky.”
Your attempt at a deadpan falls short, and it merely comes out as a breathy sigh that’s music to his ears.
He’s in heaven. He must be, given the dreamy sigh that falls from his lips. “Knew you liked me.”
“Shut up.”
Bucky laughs again at your attempt to stay tough, maneuvering down your torso with kisses peppered to your breasts, ribcage, stomach, hip bone, all the way to your inner thighs where he nestles in between your legs, hooking your thighs over his shoulders with one hand remaining on one of your breasts. He gives it a gentle squeeze, a reaffirmation, as you brush some hair out of his eyes that you can just make out in the moonlight poking through the sliver of the curtain.
“I think you should be a little nicer to the guy who’s about to eat you out.”
You scoff, ignoring the way you twitch when his hot breath fans over your cunt. “I think you should—“
You don’t finish. He doesn’t let you, prick, because his mouth attaches to your core to shut you up immediately.
And it works, because ho— holy fu— fuck—
Bucky hums greedily low into your cunt at the effectiveness of making you speechless, plunging his tongue that’s hot and needy as his nose nudges into your clit every time his jaw tightens. One hand squeezes your breast, rolling his thumb over your nipple, as the other splays on your hipbone to effectively keep your hips tethered to the bed. God, you’re trying to move against his face, writhing with pleasure that he’s too good at giving, and he’s only making it worse by keeping you still. Your thighs shake around his head at the attempts, back arched against the mattress as if it’s done something to personally offend you.
A minute passing feels like eons. He eats you out like a man starved, thoroughly pleased with the way you’re breathily moaning curses and his name as if they’re mantras spilling from your lips. It’s a beautiful sound, one he’s thought about more than once with his hand down his pants picturing it was your hand. Now it only makes his cock throb achingly, and his hips rutting into the mattress somewhat relieves the pressure in his groin.
He shifts his body, freeing a shoulder. When he adds his fingers to the mix after another minute of greedily letting his mouth do all the work, the pad of his thumb searches the darkness for that special sweet spot. Bucky misses once, twice, three times, but when a ragged moan escapes your lips at the fourth attempt, he doesn’t miss again. Instead, he presses harder circles, keeping the same rhythm that makes you squirm and whine and clutch his hair so tight it makes his eyes roll back into his head.
The coil builds in your lower tummy, sparking like a lit match and gradually getting brighter with a sense of euphoria that’s blinding, dismantling all your default settings and making you into a big pile of mush and moans. Your heels dig into his lower back and your thighs clamp against his head, and instead of pulling away or teasing you, it only spurs him on further, as if suffocating is part of his endgame.
“Bucky,” you babble clumsily. “Fuck— Right th— Fuck, I’m close—“
A low hum escapes his throat, vibrating your pleasure to tenfold as it comes crashing over embarrassingly fast, blinking away the blurry spots in your vision as you come hard on his mouth, writhing against his face as his tongue and fingers fuck you through it nice and firm, the sound wet and obscene and straight pornographic. You feel his lower body jerk forward particularly harsh, as he’s been rutting the mattress the whole time, groaning low into your cunt and it’s such a beautiful sound, a practical whine, sounding irrevocably wrecked just from eating you out.
Bucky Barnes. Whining into your cunt. Fucking you with his mouth so good you practically see stars. Definitely did not see that on your radar.
The aftershocks make your back arch off the mattress, thighs trembling achingly so against the sides of his head, especially when he dives into your cunt for more — after you’ve already come — and the overstimulation makes your thighs jerk closed on instinct. But the notion of tightening your hold around his head only makes Bucky pant into your core, out of breath but not detaching his mouth under any circumstance, as if he wants to die between your thighs as if he was put on this earth to do so.
You shake and babble something incoherent, mind fuzzy and still trying to come down from the intensity of the moment, whining as his tongue continues to lap up the remnants of your orgasm with all the time in the world. The concept of him going in for more, not wanting to stop tasting you, only spurs you on further.
It isn’t until his thumb finds your clit again to where you physically jerk, letting out a shameless moan from the overstimulation.
“I need you,” you murmur raggedly, sounding absolutely fucking wrecked. “C’mere.”
“Wanna give you another,” Bucky mumbles, resting his cheek on your inner thigh as he pants from the work, his fingers replacing his tongue as they plunge in and out of your cunt, curling into sweet spots you thought unimaginable.
You paw around clumsily in the darkness to reattach your fingers to his hair. “Wanna feel you.”
“Fuck,” he whines. Whines. “I need a— need a minute.”
“Please,” you plea into the darkness, throwing your dignity out the window given the sheer desperation in your voice. “I want your cock. Please, Bucky.”
His teeth gently bite down on your inner thigh, making you jerk at the sensation as he bites back a moan — literally.
“God, you’re killing me.” Bucky crawls up your body, needy and desperate and clumsy as his lips find the column of your neck. “Want you too, baby. I just— I need— I can’t—“
Your hand reaches down to cup his length, his achingly hard cock straining his shorts. Bucky physically jerks, practically trembling as you feel his cock literally twitch in your grasp. Especially when your fingers smooth down his length over his shirts, your thumb finding his tip and brushing over—
You gasp.
Brushing over the prominent wet spot.
The cool sensation against your thumb makes you both viscerally react, you intaking a sharp breath of disbelief and Bucky moaning into the hot skin of your neck, his hand iron gripping your waist and the other elbow holding up his body so he doesn’t entirely collapse on you, but given the way he’s melting from simply touching his dick over his clothes, you figure that might happen soon.
He came from eating you out. You hadn’t— You didn’t even need to touch him. And he’s still hard.
So you find yourself smiling. No, grinning.
“All this for me, sweet boy?” You murmur back at him, reiterating his words from earlier.
Bucky scoffs against your neck, burying his face in the crook of it as he sucks a sweet spot on your vocal point. But he doesn’t say anything. He can’t. Not when your hand feels like heaven and sin mixed together in the same breath. Unashamed of his clear want and desire and lust, letting you do whatever you want and placing proverbial knife in your hand and hoping you don’t stab him with it.
You let it happen for a minute. Maybe two, while you essentially jerk him off over the shorts as he assaults your neck. But you need more, clearly not done if the night will allow it. Especially when he sounds this hot, this wrecked as if you have his lifeline in the palm of your hand (in some ways, you do).
“Lie back,” you say gently in his ear, finally not panting after the intensity of your orgasm and speaking coherently.
Bucky hums teasingly, but obeys nonetheless, shifting off of you, sliding his shorts off and propping himself up against the headboard.
“You gonna take care of me, baby?” His gravely voice makes you bite your lip.
You clumsily scramble up to perch in his lap, his hands greedily on you before you can even settle in. It’s dark, no doubt, but you can just make out the outline of his cock standing straight against his stomach, hard and leaking and ready for you again. Gently, you reach down and take him in your hand, thumb brushing over the wet tip and slowly — achingly slow — jerk him off as you feel him tense beneath you, especially when you trace over a vein.
God, he’s big. You don’t need the light to know that.
Bucky’s hand grabs your wrist. “I don’t… I don’t have condoms here.”
You continue your movements. “‘M safe. It’s okay.”
You adjust your hips, lifting them on trembling thighs as you guide his dick through your wet folds, keeping him there as you coat him with the remnants of your previous orgasm.
The sensation makes you both moan pathetically. Bucky’s hands are squeezing the flesh of your ass as he shakily aids your movements, and one of your hands braces on his shoulder, the other smoothing over the lines of his abdomen in admiration. And you just…rub on him for a bit. Feeling his length. (Also to partially hear his breathy whines when his tip nearly enters your cunt with every shift of your hips.)
“You feel like a fucking dream,” Bucky sighs. “Taste like one. Smell like one.”
Instinctively, you lean forward and place a chaste kiss on his lips, one that he chases when you pull back, capturing you in another filthy kiss as your hand guides his cock towards your entrance. With the wet slick of both your arousals, his tip slips right in, and Bucky intakes a sharp breath at the sensation, his hands iron and immediately halting your movements.
“Shit,” he curses. “Shit. Give me a second.”
“Gonna come from just the tip?”
“Shit. Maybe.”
You laugh, and the vibration makes him swear again, nearly sounding pained. Bucky says your name low in warning, but you just pepper kisses on his cheek, jaw, neck, as he slowly — at his pace — lowers your body onto him until he’s buried to the hilt, and you’ve never felt so fucking full, stretched, fulfilled.
Adjusting your hips subtly to accommodate all of him, Bucky’s hand comes up to the crook of your jaw.
“Breathe,” he muses gently.
You let out a breath you didn’t realize you were holding, so caught up in the mere size of him and how he’s undoubtedly the biggest dick you’ve ever had, stretching you to regions unknown and places you never knew you had. But it’s delectable, delicious, and in this moment in your dazed mind you know that he’s ruined you for anyone else.
His fingers brush hair away from your face. “You okay?”
You nod against his hand. “Feel so full.”
“Do you want me to come immediately?”
His deadpan makes you shakily laugh, now somehow understanding the full effect you have on him, how the mere taste of you made him finish and how he’s still rock hard after doing so, eagerly waiting for me, wanting more, needing more.
“Wanna make you feel good,” you mumble incoherently, drunk with pleasure.
But he understands you all the same. “You are. Doing such a great job taking all of me.”
You roll your hips experimentally once, twice, and he doesn’t stop you. Instead, Bucky spurs you on.
“Good girl, that’s it,” he coaxes gently, tone dreamy. “Take what you need.”
So you do.
Well, you try to. Your trembling thighs don’t do much to help you in your movements, but Bucky’s hands planted firmly on the backs of your thighs (practically your ass) aide your bounces, rocking you sensually over his length to take all of him, nearly pull out, just to have you sitting back down on him again, buried to the hilt. Your clit rubs against his pubic bone, nudging every time you sink into him completely. The feel of it makes you whine every time, and he swallows them up when he kisses you, or praises you against your lips.
You’re a pathetic mess, writhing on his lap and taking what you need while you feel him thrust up into you to bury himself that much more. The sensation of his cock reaching spots in your cunt that you’ve never explored before only furthers your arousal, makes you whine into his mouth and dig your fingers into his shoulders to indent crescent moons on his delicate skin.
It isn’t until after a minute or two of his, one of his hands leaves your ass to meet your front, his thumb finding your clit and pressing firm circles on it, making your back arch and your movements jerk, messy, sloppy, lazy, so fucking hot that his hips snap up to meet your discombobulated thrusts. The combination of his cock so fucking deep plus his thumb plus the sound of his breathy moans synonymous to yours makes your head spin, your legs tremble, your heart thump rapidly.
“This what you needed, hm?” Bucky’s voice is absolutely wrecked, a low growl that kickstarts that familiar coil in your lower belly. “Someone to fuck you nice?”
“Wh—Who said you f—fuck me nice?” Your question is humiliatingly answered when his thumb pressed harder onto your clit, eliciting a ragged moan from your pretty lips. “No one s—said that.”
The sound only makes Bucky scoff, or what appears to be one. “Me giving you your second orgasm says otherwise.”
God, how can you read you like a book in the dark? How does he know your body already? Has he felt that way your movements are getting quicker, sloppier, desperate? How your breath is shallow and whiny and wrecked? How the coil building in your gut is already hotter, more blinding, agonizingly more detrimental than the last one? How it’s practically making you see stars already when it hasn’t even climaxed?
“You—You’re not.”
“Oh?” Bucky removes his fingers from your clit and stops thrusting up into you, suddenly still as a statue as a protest immediately rips out of your throat. “I’m not?”
Your desperate is downright humiliating, gasping from being on the brink of an earth shattering orgasm. “Bucky, why’d— Don’t stop— Please— I need—“
“Need what, sweet girl?” Oh, you can hear his fucking grin in the darkness, enjoying this, relishing in your cries as you desperately paw at his shoulders to get him to continue. “I told you to take it, so take it.”
Tears brim your waterline at the denial, god, your orgasm is right there, it’s aching, white hot and searing and almost there, so closed just reachable, but you need his hands, his cock thrusting up into you, his mouth, you can’t do it on your own, your thighs are jelly and you’re hands are shaking.
A ragged breath leaves your mouth and it doesn’t even sound like you, so wrecked. “F—Fuck, baby, I need it, I’m close—“
“Thought you said I wasn’t giving you one?”
Your frustrated groan makes him chuckle meanly.
But he’s not done, cock achingly hard and probably close behind you anyway, so he gives in. Just slightly. With one small, minute, step to be done before he continues anything.
“Just say you need me, sweet girl.” His voice is laced with honey cadence.
You secede. Immediately. Writhing as your orgasm edges you, inhabiting your entire motor and speech functions.
“I need you.” You feel a tear roll down your cheek, desperately trying to find release. “I’m yours.”
That makes Bucky intake a sharp breath, but your request is granted as he thrusts up into you almost without meaning to, thumb clumsily finding your clit again in the dark. And it makes you realize that he’s just as fucking close to finishing as you are, especially with his whimper at your words which is a sound so beautiful it snaps the coil in your lower stomach.
“Fuck—“ Bucky’s voice is desperate. “How are you—? When I—? Holy— Such a— a sweet fuck— fucking—“
You come. Hard. Blinding. It washes over you with a wrecked moan and desperate bounces on his achingly hard cock, as Bucky meets your movements from underneath, rutting and thrusting up into you to chase his own release that comes immediately after, filling you up with hot spurts that make the most obscene noise, his release trickling down your thighs with the combination of yours making a downright filthy mess of sex.
You face buries in the crook of his neck, and you feel him bear-wrap his arms around you to thrust up into you, riding out both of your highs with wrecked moans and a squelching sound straight out of a pornographic film.
Bucky’s movements gradually slow, chests bumping together as you both heave from the intensity of it all, working down to you simply sitting in his lap, still buried to the hilt as the remnants of your shared orgasm dribble down your thighs and onto his, and you make the mistake of twitching (completely out of your control) that shifts your hips, and you let out a soft moan of overstimulation as he softens in you, thighs trembling and hands shaking against his shoulders.
His hands butterfly splay on your spine, tracing soothingly up and down the vertebrae as you catch your breath and blink back your vision. The whole thing is achingly sweet, patient, kind as he waits for you to regain your senses, still buried deep in his neck as you breathe intermittently ragged, wrecked, fucked out.
“You okay?” His voice is gravelly.
You mumble something incoherent, a testament that you hear him but don’t quite have your speech functions back completely yet.
Bucky makes a noise that’s a mix between a laugh and a sigh. “You did so well for me.”
You hum, eyes fluttering shut and your lashes butterfly kiss his soft skin.
“Thank you.”
Did he just—
Steadily, you manage to lift your head, inches from his face. “Did you—“ Your voice is hoarse. “Did you just thank me?”
“Mhm,” he murmurs, completely unashamed. “Had to.”
“For sleeping with you?”
“No. For letting me sleep with you.”
You try to laugh but instead it comes out as a noise of disbelief, skepticism. Because… no. There’s no way he actually— he hasn’t been plotting on you, right? No, there’s genuinely no way. You’ve been friends. Just friends. You’ve never thought about him with his shirt off or what he’s like with other girls or if he’s ever fucked against the wall or in the back of a car—
“Why’re you so surprised?” Bucky says gently, interrupting your thoughts (for the better).
Now you’re sort of regaining your brain as your dizziness fades, the post orgasmic clarity hitting more than ever at the sincerity of his words. He’s being completely serious, and you know that because you feel his fingers drumming on your spine, a nervous tick of his that you’ve seen him do before on countless occasions. It calms him for some reason, as some sort of coping mechanism to stay rooted to the moment.
But you are surprised. You’ve been friends for years, never crossed a boundary further than that and instead used your vernacular as your way of bonding with him. He’s teased, you’ve swore, he’s riled you up, you’ve shoved him, but you’ve always stayed friends, stepping up when it mattered most despite your on and off banter. It’s not— You’ve never considered yourself an actual player on his roster, a forethought, an option as something more than friends to him, because it’s never crossed that line, and frankly you never assumed you were his type. At all.
All this thinking and you realize he’s waiting for an answer.
“Uh,” you say immediately, unsure of where to start. “Well, I don’t know. We’re friends.”
“I’m literally inside you right now.”
You shove gently at his shoulder with what little strength you have. “Idiot. Not counting right now.”
Bucky hums, biding you to continue.
Thank god it’s dark because your face flushes at the sudden flip to something serious, something real and vulnerable that makes your heart lurch in a weird and discomforting way.
“I just—“ You find yourself saying. “I’m not your type.”
“What?” He asks incredulously. “Who told you that?”
You tilt your head to the side, confused. “Uh, every girl I’ve ever seen you with ever?”
“Do you have any idea how long I’ve been waiting for you?”
You freeze. “Huh?”
His metal hand comes to cradle your face and it nearly makes you jolt from the sensation. “Why do you think I said your name on the phone, hm?”
Bucky leans forward and places a chaste kiss to your right cheek.
“Why do you think I crash girl’s night and come to your apartment unprompted?”
Your left cheek.
“How come I live to rile you up?”
Your lips. You find yourself chasing him when he pulls away.
His voice is saccharine, yet laced with a twang of disbelief that he actually had to be explaining this to you right now. The feeling of his lips makes you dizzy all over again, but also from the meaning behind his words. All this time… All those nights spent bickering and bantering and cursing his name in your sleep, he’s been… into you? Wanting you? Yet waiting patiently for you to eventually come to him?
Your heart is thumping, can he hear it?
“Uh—“ Your voice is coarse. “Wh— You’re into me?”
“Took you long enough.”
Your head is spinning. “Like, as of recent?”
Bucky snorts. “As of a year ago, more like.”
“You—“ You’re trying to wrap your head around this. “Okay. A year— Okay.”
“Take your time.”
“No, yeah.” You clear your throat. “Totally. Thanks.”
Bucky’s other hand soothingly rubs up and down your back. “Want me to make you a cup of tea while we wait?” His voice is teasing, yet full of admiration as if he’s finding the whole encounter perfectly comical.
“Funny,” you deadpan. “I think you’re wasting your potential by not pursuing stand up comedy.”
His lips find the corner of your mouth, pressing gingerly. “Such a sweet girl.” Another kiss. “Always looking out for my best interests,” he mumbles against your lips.
All this time, all this talk, all come to realize you’re still inside him.
It makes your heart flutter. “Uh—“ Suddenly you’re fumbling, losing that sliver of control that you barely had in the first place as you feel his cock inside you still. He peppers you with kisses, your lips, jaw, cheek, nose, an utter display of intimate affection that makes your chest constrict with something unfamiliar. It’s a phantom ache in your heart, longing for something you can’t quite pinpoint. You’ve never…been treated like this. So delicately and full of appreciation. Adored, even. Who knew that the person to do so would be Bucky Barnes.
Said-guy who is making you feel something unexplainable.
At your silence, he hums. “I know it’s a lot. I’m a lot. But I’m yours. Whenever you want me, I’ll be here.”
Your heart skips. “I think I…”
The words escape you.
Bucky presses a chaste kiss on the corner of your mouth. “You think what, sweet girl?”
“You’re really gonna make me say it?”
“Obviously.”
You groan, but there’s no backbone behind it, no real malice, no irritation that you normally have with his incessant wit. Instead it’s one of admiration, eased affection and something so unfamiliar it makes your heart flutter with uncertainty. But you’re here. With him. And somehow you’ve never felt more reassured.
“I think I’ve been yours,” you say with no shroud of dignity left. “Even though I want to kill you half the time.”
Bucky gingerly hums, so content as his nose nudges your jaw. “I’ll take it.”
It isn’t much later when he eases you up off his lap, slipping his arms around you to guide you towards the en suite bathroom. You mewl quietly from the loss of his stretch, ignoring the cool fluid burning between your thighs as you blink blearily at the light, no doubt looking like a hot wet disaster. You use the restroom and let him wash the sweat off your face, also cleaning up the mess between your thighs with a warm soapy rag. Yeah, he snorts at your wobbly legs as if you’re a baby fawn learning to walk, but holds you steady nonetheless and kisses the crown of your head all in the same breath. He coos and calls you baby when you swipe the hair away from his eyes, and dresses you in one of his overtly big t-shirts with something ridiculous on the front as he slips on a pair of boxers.
Bucky guides you back towards the bed after exiting the bathroom, laying you down gently so your back splays delicately on the mattress. He kisses you once, lingering a little longer than he should before pulling back, sliding in next to you and pulling you taut to his chest.
You murmur something incoherent, completely bliss in the warmth of his arms and surrounded in his scent. Territorial. Possessive. Practically claimed by him. Not that you’re complaining. At all.
“Easy,” Bucky hums, tucking his chin at the crown of your head. “Sleep.”
“‘M not tired.” Your eyes are shut and your fingers twitch, moments from sleep.
His hands splay against your back under his shirt. “Sure.”
Your nose nudges his vocal cord. “I think you’re just keen to praying on my downfall,” you say laced with sleep.
“Try reciting the alphabet backwards and maybe I’ll believe you.”
“Shut up,” you mumble, words blending together in exhaustion. “You love me.”
A pause.
Then, quietly. “Yeah.” His voice is certain. “I probably do.”
You’re asleep moments after that, lulled by the deep baritone of his voice and the steady syncopated thumping of his heart. But also from the sincerity of his voice, anchoring you in ways you can’t explain nor want to try to understand. Sure, he’s a royal pain in your ass more than ninety percent of the time he’s in your presence. But he’s real. Genuine. Ready to be the man everyone thinks he isn’t.
And he’s solid, broad against you and holding you with the notion that you’ll float away if he lets go. The sound of your soft snores make him follow suite, calmed in more ways than he can ever imagine, finally able to breathe with a clarity he hasn’t felt in a really long time.
And when you leave the next morning, opting to leave the boating adventures behind the two of you and instead choosing to go home to his real family, his mother protests. His father says nothing. His cousins beg him to stay so they can wake board and drink in the sunshine. Sure he’s inclined to say yes solely to see you in a bathing suit, but he doesn’t have anything to prove anymore, not to these people.
Especially Izzy, when she inserts herself as part of the departing committee and giving you a hug that’s nothing genuine, solely for show in front of everyone else.
“You can’t leave!” She protests innocently, green eyes deceiving everyone as they surround the trunk of Bucky’s car as you throw your bags in the backseat. “Winnie and I wanted your opinion on the foyer decor.”
“Right, honey,” Winnie chimes in, grabbing your hand delicately as Bucky shuts the door, solidifying your decision to leave. “We’re going for a rustic ocean entourage. Silvers, navy, whites, darks. We’d love your input.”
"Well, I think navy and black go pretty well together," you say before you can stop yourself.
Bucky fails to suppress a snort. Izzy's head whips towards you, as the whole ordeal goes over Winnie’s head. Green eyes immediately narrow at you, her pretty tanned skin burning at the memory of her worst decision all those years ago, the whole reason she left him in the first place. But you hold your ground, sending her a sweet smile as you curl a hand over Bucky’s bicep, a wordless claim and reminder of what she lost. Who she lost.
And you leave just like that, with his family gathering dust in the rear view mirror as he drives away. With his hand settled on your bare thigh and the soft music gently caressing your ears, you realize he doesn’t look back. Only onward.
© salem-s please do not copy or replicate work unless given permission.
notes holy fucking god. this was too long. im unplugging for the unforseeable future. happy kinktober????? sort of????
03 — THE HANDS THAT MEND — BUCKY BARNES
SYNOPSIS Bucky hates being touch after all these years living as a human experiment, being poked and prodded and broken beyond repair. That is, until your hands are the ones that give him the opportunity to not live in constant pain, the hands that heal his scars and slowly mend his shattered mind back together. Despite your abrupt disappearance, you’re the only thing he never forgets. Years later — when he’s no longer the Winter Soldier and attempting to assimilate back into society — suddenly you’re there, and he refuses to let you go again. SERIES MASTERLIST
WORD COUNT 6.6k.
WARNINGS & NOTES fllllllluff and suggestive content, angst and trauma bonding (sorry bucky???? sorry reader???) graphic and violent language. 18+ MDNI. not entirely edited. also inaccurate marvel!lore language and probably inaccurate ancient egyptian history. hope you enjoy, last chap!
It's interesting to think that when you're actually passionate about the work and the outcome, it makes the job much more pleasant.
When you were locked in the dungeons of the Hydra compound, mostly every single project you worked on was against your will. You clearly didn't have much of a choice on the matter, especially when aiding the scientific research (definitely not conducted by professionals) and studying the outcomes. Admittedly, you purposefully took longer in that lab, planted poor results, stretched out the process of getting answers because you didn't want a place like that to have answers. The only aspect of that experience that you genuinely didn't mind was healing the prisoners, the warriors, the Asset, because — at the end of the day — they were puppets cemented to Hydra's strings, too.
But now, you actually feel like you're doing something good. Something progressive to help the betterment of the planet that will help a lot of people. It's what you've always wanted in life, to do as much as you can with the gift you were given, not because you feel like you have to or to right all the wrongs you've made, but because you know no one else can. Or if they can, they aren't.
Late nights in the lab aren't anxiety-induced anymore. You're not forced to finish a project until your knuckles crack and bleed or until your legs give out from exhaustion. Plus, the scientists are actual medical experts here, trying to do good, and that definitely makes the job worth the late nights and hard work.
"God, I'm spent," the analytics lead, Dany, groans groggily as she starts to tidy up her station. "This cell regeneration equation is gonna have to wait until tomorrow, unfortunately."
You glance at the time, just after three in the morning. You don't want to tell her that this feels normal to you, she'd probably look at you like you have three heads.
Instead, you mimic her tap-out.
"We can pick it back up in the morning," you assure gently. "Honestly, we got more done today than I thought we would."
Dany snorts, washing her hands. "Yeah, all thanks to you. If you hadn't thought to study your healing abilities under a microscopic level, I think I'd still be scratching my head."
"I think you're giving me too much credit."
"No," she argues playfully, drying her hands. "I don't think I'm giving you enough credit. Ever since you came here, we've been making progress as easy as, like, kids making Valentine's Day cards."
You cock your head to the side. "I don't think the kids consider that easy."
"Pish-posh," Dany waves off dismissively as you shake your head with a laugh. "You coming with?"
Glancing at your station, you grimace at the equipment sprawled out everywhere, along with the computer displaying a holographic video of the in-depth nuances of your abilities against a test subject (in this case, the injured street rat you found yesterday and coincidentally named Remy), replaying over and over again. The numbers on your screen are still not adding up, and you were honestly in a good groove of finishing up your last calculations and theories.
Besides, the thought of going to bed right now doesn't seem entirely plausible. Not only is your brain wired from all the work you've been cutting down on today, but the fear of having yet another nightmare lingers in the back of your mind like a thick fog, silent and cool but present. Frankly, you're sick of waking up clutching your throat and thinking someone's in the room with you, waiting to hurt you.
So, what's a little more time?
"In a bit," you say gently. "See you in the morning?"
She gives you a look.
It makes you chuckle. "Honest. Get out of here."
"If I find out you're here for more than ten more minutes, I'm going to kill you."
"Stark wouldn't share my time logs like that."
"Sure, if that helps you sleep at night." Then, gentler, "Not too long, okay?"
You nod with a soft smile, grateful for your friend's ability to be sour and then sweet. "Okay."
Dany bids a reluctant goodnight, before leaving the lab and shutting the door behind her with a soft whir, eventually leaving you in silence besides the white noise hum of the air purifier.
Ignoring the sinking feeling of loneliness, you idly finish up your work. Put final conclusions in and follow-ups for the morning crew, highlighting the strands of codes that don't necessary line up and need to be altered, putting a now-perfectly-healthy Remy back in his cage with a few pieces of food you grabbed for him earlier this afternoon, shutting down the systems after you saved all your work, tidying up your station and wiping down the counters (and all the other counters, not that you don't trust your co-workers but you can never be too sure, too clean, too safe), and — finally — double, triple checking everything is off and saved.
Leaving the lab and shutting off the lights, you sigh quietly into the cool air of the hallway.
There's something relatively peaceful about working late nights, especially in a place like the Avengers Compound. You can guarantee it's safe, that the people here are thoroughly background checked and trusted to be working for such a global entity. Granted, the compound is located in Upstate New York where it's mostly quiet and peaceful farmland anyway, but you feel astronomically safer in a place like this versus the dungeon of a bunker you sold your soul to all those years ago.
Besides, having room and board here is a plus.
Did you get special treatment based on your abilities and the contributions you're adding to their research? Sure, you can argue that. Were you immediately welcomed and accommodated since you are friends with a certain someone? Absolutely. Did that certain someone move out of his apartment in the city to live in the compound permanently? Despite your protests that he didn't need to uproot his life to be closer to you, yes.
Hell, Bucky even brought the cat.
...Who is currently perched on the communal kitchen counter, looking like she's up to no good.
You freeze in the doorway, heart turning to mush as you gaze upon the pretty cat, who stares at you curiously (probably on the hunt for someone to give her more food, as she's been tactically plotting for against all the compound residents) and meows quietly. She's a great companion, even though she scratches and hisses at others, she's always been sweet with you, maybe because you saved her from a hairball one time and she never forgot, or something like that.
Letting your bag and lab keys fall softly to the floor, you approach Alpine with a tired smile and outstretched hand, allowing her to sniff you before scratching that sweet spot under her chin.
"Hi, pretty," you whisper as she purrs immediately. "What're you doing out here? Hungry?"
"Don't fall for it." You hear behind you. "She already got treats tonight."
You smile without realizing.
The voice puts you at ease, turning your head to see Bucky curled up on the long couch, metal hand cradling a mug of honey tea. He's watching you intently, fondly, as if he's been waiting up for you (which you hope he hasn't, because the two of your sleep schedules barely add up to one person's normal amount). A black hoodie snugs his torso, as well as those ridiculous plaid pajama pants that Sam got him as a gag gift last winter, hair tousled as if he's been tossing and turning but ultimately gave up on getting any rest.
He looks...cozy. Comfy. Like he's right where he's supposed to be.
You let your gaze fall back on Alpine, not wanting to stare at him for too long. God knows you'll never stop. Especially when he looks like that. Domestic. Soft. Looking at you with such reserve that it makes your heart flip in an incriminating way.
"What're you two doing up so late, hm?" You ask, mainly pretending to ask the cat to settle the nerves bubbling in your gut.
Her owner, obviously, answers. "Could ask you the same thing."
"Science doesn't sleep."
"Is that what we're calling it?"
You ignore his half amused, half scolding tone.
"Was just finished up some things before the aid drop later this week," you say, scratching the top of her head as she nudges into your touch. "What's your excuse?"
Bucky takes a long sip of his tea, and whether it's genuine thirst or to delay telling you the inevitable, you can't tell, nor do you comment on it. The silence settles between the two of you in comfort, like most of the times you find yourself with him, soothed by the quiet of each other's presences. You wonder how long he's been sitting here awake, perhaps waiting for you, perhaps waiting for his brain to calm down. Either way, you wonder.
"She can't sleep without you," Bucky responds eventually.
And that's when you decide to look at him.
Your eyes meet, a brow quirked in confusion as he simply stares at you, letting his words soak through the distance between you and simply giving you the time to read, react, respond. There's no doubt his response is a front for something neither of you are ready to confront, at least not now, because something about the distant look in his eyes tell you everything you need to know about the course of his night.
The longer you think, the more you believe he was waiting up for you.
Because sometimes the nights get so bad that, one moment, you're suddenly waking up, gasping for air, the next you're standing in front of his bedroom door at an ungodly hour, silently begging for an eased comfort that only he can bring. And he lets you in every single time, lets you pick the side of the bed that's warm and waits until you fall asleep before he even thinks about shutting his eyes. Most of the time he keeps to himself, as his mere presence is enough for you to feel calmed again. But other times his fingers will lace around your wrist, feeling your pulse point, as if he needs the reassurance that you're okay, too.
Other nights it's vice versa. He'll awake like a sleeper agent, like he's back in the Hydra compound, solely focused on your REM-induced heartbeat to follow the sound, to visually confirm that you're alright, you're here, you're sleeping. Most of the time he'll sneak back to his room after, solely needing to see you to maintain the horrors in the back of his mind. Other times he will crawl in your bed, sleeping as far away as he can to not alarm you, but close enough to let the voices in his head quiet down. He always leaves before you wake up, but part of him has the idea that you always know when he stays the night. But you never say anything. Never bring it up. Because you both know you need it.
You notice the bags under his eyes, how he's fighting sleep. And your heart just...breaks.
"She can't?" You clarify gently.
Bucky hums in affirmation, dodging the implications entirely. Both of you know that's not true. You know he's not ready to talk about it, whatever it was tonight. Torture, death, anything synonymous to that. Anything to shake him up this bad, to get him to leave his bed altogether and seek solace in a communal area, perhaps hoping someone will drop through to give him company without him having to go and ask for it.
So, you play into it.
Rubbing Alpine's coat gingerly, you let your eyes drift from him to her, smiling fondly at the feline before scooping her into your arms as if it's muscle memory, humming at her sweet mewl.
"Don't want to make her wait, then."
You walk a few steps, not even bothering to grab your bags as you pause, flickering your eyes towards his figure sitting idly on the couch. He watches you silently, eyes almost pleading for you to nudge the question that he's too proud to ask, too guilt ridden to think he deserves your company, your comfort, your care. If you don't say anything, he'll never push.
"…But she gets fussy without you." Your smile is soft, unsuspecting, nothing too forward to scare him off. "Are you joining?"
Bucky's on his feet in an instant.
The honey tea is long forgotten on the coffee table, not even bothering to use a coaster (Tony will definitely have some choice words about that later) as he lets the steam simply turn cold, rounding the couch and eventually falling into step with you as you breeze through the kitchen and living room, down the hallway, and eventually in front of your cabin door.
Nudging your bedroom open, you set Alpine down gently before flicking on the light. She saunters into the space, as she's been here many times before, pawing at one of her catnip-infused toys she brought in here a long time ago and seemingly forgot about. Her toys are littered throughout the compound, yet no one has the heart to move them (nor the gall, because Alpine knows when people mess with her things. She's made that very clear according to the scratch marks up and down Steve's arm when he tried adjusting her cat-playscape so he could open the window).
You kick your shoes off by the door, slinging off your jacket and undressing as Bucky settles onto the bed on his preferred side (you dedicated that side to him a long time ago, by this point he just knows it's his) as he politely looks away, discarding his hoodie to leave him in a simple t-shirt and fidgeting with the fluff of the pillow as you slip on your pajamas and head into the ensuite bathroom. You brush your teeth, quickly wash your face, complete your night routine with sluggish movements.
When you emerge, Alpine's sitting upright on his sternum, purring as loud as can be as he pets her gently.
"You know she's the most spoiled cat on planet earth, right?" You tease as you lean against the doorway, wanting to linger for a moment before turning the light off. "You give her everything she wants."
Bucky lulls his head to the side, taking you in. "Hard to resist."
"What? Her cute face or the fact that she could claw your eyes out?"
"Bit of both."
You smile fondly at the sight for another moment, then you flicker off the lights, padding across the room to slip under the covers as the only sound echoing through the room is her loud purrs, content and happy to be getting attention, even if it was a decoy to ultimately end up with him in your bed at the end of the night. Not that you're complaining.
You seem to sleep better when you know he's here.
Though your mind runs awry at the implication, knowing he's inching away, radiating a warm no ordinary human being can, emitting long deep breaths as if this is the first time all day he's been able to relax, to let go of his demons and use the silence as a comfort rather than a curse. On nights like these, you always want to say fuck it and throw your morals out the window and cling to him like some sad, desperate koala, needing warmth and that extra protection. You want to know what it's like to feel his arms wrapped around you, bodies impossibly taut, as you guide the other to sleep simply by holding each other.
But, no, it never gets more touchy than the occasional hand holding, pulse holding, wrist holding, whatever you want to call it.
Of course, you're not trying to push any boundaries with him, you know how much he hates touch given the way he flinches when his closest friends brace a hand on his shoulder, when he has to go in for professional handshakes, when people touch his arm without asking and he visibly flinches. The last thing you want to do is overwhelm him, especially when he's done nothing but care for you in these months of you being at the compound. Your physicality is your specialty, so, yeah, it doesn't help when you want to help and heal a guy who can't stand the feel of anyone on the planet.
So, you opt for your words.
"Did you know," you start quietly, not even knowing if he's still awake, "cats were really respected in Ancient Egypt."
A beat of silence.
You retract that statement. "Well. Not, like, worshipped. That's a bit of a strong word. But associated them with deities as protectors. They were symbols of good luck and divinity, which is why wealthy families had them."
Alpine purrs loudly to fill the gaps of your incessant rambling.
Bucky doesn't say anything.
Clumsily, you continue.
You pick at the blanket, not really sure why you're whispering. "Also partially to, uh, get rid of the rodents and whatnot. The generic cat stuff."
Cursing at yourself in your head, you physically purse your lips to refrain from saying anything else. For fuck's sake, the man is trying to sleep, why can't you just let him rest? He just laid down, probably just shut his eyes, and then your voice interrupts that solace. Christ. He didn't come here to chat.
Then, after a few moments of silence, you can practically hear him grinning.
"Generic cat stuff?"
Your face flushes in the darkness. "Yup. That's what I said. Apparently."
Bucky chuckles softly, such a boyish sound that it makes your heart flutter.
"If I remember right," he says after a moment, coming down from his fond laughter, "they'd also get mummified and buried with their owners."
"Yeah," you muse happily, content with him going along with your late-night ramblings (not the first time this has happened). "To reconnect in the afterlife."
He hums in agreement, and in the darkness you can see the silhouette of his hand stroking Alpine's fur. The cat's been quite vocal with her purring, practically sounding like a motor at this point, and for the duration of the conversation she's been kneading the blanket, alternating between doing it on his chest or by your hand. She doesn't even know she's the catalyst for this little sleepover, content with the attention and warmth as everything else stays irrelevant to her.
It gets quiet again, and there's no more ancient facts in the back burner of your mind this time to break the ice. You both know the topic is inevitable, why he was sitting in the living room nursing a cup of tea in the first place, and part of you doesn't even want to ask, doesn't even want to remind him of whatever he saw in a dream or memory just hours before.
But... You want him to know that you see him. You care about his well-being. Even if he doesn't care about it himself.
"Are you okay?" You eventually murmur into the darkness, so quiet that you aren't even sure if he hears you.
After a long time of no response, you sigh gently, taking the hint that he's either not in the mood to talk or that he's simply asleep. Not that you can blame him, this is probably the only time he feels like he can rest, especially when his sunken eyes give away the lack of sleep he's been getting. Of course, he never talks about it with anyone — why would he? Shrinks piss him off more than anything on the planet and he hates pity. Plus, you know he prefers to keep his demons to himself, no matter how many times you've told him that you're here to listen.
But he does hear you.
"Just a bad dream," he says hoarsely.
Your brows pinch, even though he can't see it. Your fingers twitch in his direction, wanting to comfort him but also not wanting to overstep.
"Do you want to talk about it?"
He swallows thickly. "It's not really a bedtime story."
Frowning, you pick at the blanket to refrain from reaching out. "None of it is."
It goes quiet again, this time laced not with exhaustion but rather contemplation. You can practically hear him thinking, debating internally if he even wants to delve further and open his horrors to you in the darkness. Because — he's right — it's not a bedtime story. But everything he endured with Hydra and everything you experienced in that place has made you realize that you've both been exposed to nightmares of your own. You're no stranger to it.
But this is what you do, what you were made to do. Help. Heal. Make people forget about the horrors for a little while.
"You were in the ring," Bucky eventually whispers into the darkness.
All hints of sleep are gone, as you're now wide awake, blinking aimlessly while Alpine kneads the blanket right by your heart, the sound of her motors purrs being the only noise that fills the gap of silence between you.
Because you've heard rumblings of the ring.
It was the fight ring in the lower levels of the Hydra compound where the surgeons you worked with and other members would bet on prisoners in some fucked-up Fight Club-esque entourage. Many said it was created in order to weed out the weak, get rid of the old experiments that simply weren't working and build stamina and fight tactics for the new and improved ones. They'd usually take place after an influx of human experiments, to understand how specific serums worked on specific people. Everything — at least in that place — was one giant experiment.
People would die in those fights, and the winners would have to clean up the mess. It was a kill or be killed type of "activity" which is what the surgeons would refer it to as. You've heard them (more than once) bet on the Asset, how he's the crowned champion every time he steps in, how no one has even taken him down and how only few had gotten so much as a drop of blood from him. Granted, you've never seen the ring, nor would you have liked to, but you understand him all the same, understand the fear and guilt he's ridden with whenever he thinks about it.
"I was your opponent," Bucky continues, voice like sandpaper. "But it was him."
You know the implications. "It wasn't real."
He feels sick. "I hurt you."
"You didn't."
"I couldn't stop," he rasps.
Careful not to disturb Alpine, you manage to sit up slightly, leaning on an elbow as you peer at his silhouette in the darkness, just making out the slope of his nose and the shape of his body in the sliver of moonlight that pokes through the curtains. He lays impossibly still, scared to move and dream of something even more horrendous, scared to do anything further to hurt you or potentially do something to make you fear him. Not that you ever could, not in a million lifetimes.
He's too hard on himself, which is something you quickly learned after your reunion. Most of the nightmares to him aren't just dreams, they're memories, scattered in his brain and moving out of the shadows when he's feeling most like himself again, only to crumble back to square one when he's reminded of who he was, what he did, who he hurt. The painful part is that he doesn't shut them out, doesn't try to forget them, and instead braces them head-on with guilt unimaginable.
And you hate that he knows your secret. Because normally you wouldn't hesitate to lean over, press a palm to his heart, and heal the hurt away. Even if it's just temporary. Even if it doesn't make the memories fade. Just to allow him to sleep peacefully, without fear of being burdened with a past mistake. But now he won't let you, he refuses to let you heal him in any capacity, even if he's got a paper-cut. So, you need to improvise.
Slowly — and quite clumsily in the dark — your palm finds the cut of his jaw, your palm holding him there in place.
"Hey," you say gently, nudging his face to turn towards you even though he definitely can't see you, only making out your shape in the moonlight. "I'm right here."
Bucky takes a long deep breath, as if he's trying to believe it. "I know."
"You didn't hurt me. You never have."
"I...know..." he pauses, sounding absolutely wrecked. "It just— It felt real. It scared me."
Then, you do something you've never done before with him.
Cautiously, you maneuver your body closer to his, finding his arm and slipping underneath it to press yourself against his side. You feel him hold his breath, either in apprehension or shock, as you lower your head to bury in the crook his neck. He burns hot, radiating a warmth a space heater could dream of, as you slide an arm across his waist, practically koala clinging to him in a desperate attempt to get him to understand that you're here, you're safe, you're not going anywhere. And — most of all — you're not afraid of him.
You place a kiss on his vocal cord so gently that he nearly misses it, still caught up on the feeling of you so close to him.
"Tell me if I'm overstepping, please," you plead sincerely, nerves wracking you.
Experimentally, his arm that you slid under adjusts as the sheets rustling fills the silence between the two of you, and his palm finds your back and presses against your spine. Steady, firm, reciprocating the touch you've given him that he's been aching for for eons. Reaffirming that he has a choice in the matter, and that he's choosing to bring you closer, not push you away.
How many times has he dreamed of this? Every night he's slept next to you, how many times has he wished he could let his arms wrap around you? How many times has he wished to feel your heart beat against his? How many times has he dreamed to tell you that, yes, he doesn't like people touching him, but with you he can never get enough? With you, he'd never stop?
"You're not," he says after a moment, his fingers tracing up and down your vertebrae with such delicacy that you nuzzle a fraction closer. "Not at all."
God, you wonder if he can hear how hard your heart is beating.
"What you saw in that dream," you slowly murmur, "wasn't real."
"I know."
"Do you?"
"Yes," he answers immediately. "I feel you now."
Your brows pinch in agony.
...How many times has he laid here in this very bed teetering between if you were real or not sleeping next to him? All because he thought he couldn't reach over and hold you? How many nights has he suffered insomnia from with the mere apprehension? Is there something you should've done to make that more clear?
Bucky must sense your despair, because he continues. "It's your heart. The beat of it."
And you just...lay there in shock.
Of course.
It's all falling into place. Why he'll occasionally fall asleep with his fingers curled around your wrist whenever he's a little more shaken up than usual, needing your pulse point to find a sense of calm and reassurance. Why whenever he holds your jaw, there's always one part of his hand on your vocal cord. Why he immediately perks up from across the room whenever your heart skips at something, whether it be from the TV or a mission debrief or anything else that gets your pulse racing, even if you don't entirely notice. Why he found you on that aid mission through the dense forest, thinking no one could ever find you given the difficult path you'd taken.
He's in tune to you. Probably the only way he could connect with you all that time ago in that godforsaken bunker, when he couldn't feel you physically with his hands so he had to rely on his senses, his hearing, in order to focus on the beating of your heart. In order to bring himself solace, or as much peace as one can get in a place like that.
The air is knocked from your lungs. "You can... hear it?"
"Constantly," he says immediately.
Then a sense of dread fills your gut. That's not...That isn't the reason he can't sleep, right? By showing up on his doorstep and practically demanding his company almost every other night? You’re not the reason he can’t find peace and quiet, right? A kettlebell settles in your gut, sick to your stomach at the implication of his words, because all this time you’ve been selfish and interrupting his solace, and he’s just never had the heart to turn you away.
"I didn't—" You panic immediately. "I'm sorry. It's not, like, too loud, or something?"
"No," he responds quickly. "It's not a bad thing. At all. Sometimes, I think it's the only thing that calms me down."
You blink in the darkness, eyelashes fluttering against the hot skin of his neck. In your internal moment of panic, you barely recognize the way his hand pulls you a fraction closer, almost reaffirming his words without needing to say more, reassuring you that, no, he's not just saying this to make you feel better or not look like an idiot. He feels it. He craves it. He needs it.
Bucky breathes in and out deeply, and your hand rises and falls with the motion of his chest through the thin material of his t-shirt, as if getting that off his mental just released tons of tension from his soul. As if he'd been itching to tell you. To tell someone.
"Really?" You murmur into the darkness.
“Yeah,” Bucky reciprocates your mumble. “Really.”
And for once, you're stunned. Speechless. Recounting all the times he's lightly gripped your wrist in public when things got a little too loud, stared at you from a far during mission debriefs when he was reminded of his past and needed to calm down, muted the TV when you got up to do something and you left his peripheral for too long and he didn't know where you were. It's a tether. A coping mechanism. An anchor.
Then, he surprises you. By speaking. Revealing.
"Being in a place like that for so long," he continues softly, yet you hang onto every word. "You forget that there's...good in the world. The worst becomes the norm. No one is there to help. Not really, anyway."
Your heart aches. You think he can feel it.
Despite it, he keeps going.
"The only touch I knew was harm. Me hurting others. Others hurting me. Poking. Prodding. It's why I... it's still hard for me to understand that, sometimes." When you retreat your hand around his waist, fearing that you're definitely overstepping, his metal one catches your wrist gently, keeping you there, as if you letting go is detrimental. "Don't. Please. Yours is the only one I can tolerate."
Cautiously, his cool metal fingers loosen their grip, instead settling over your knuckles instinctively just over his ribcage, keeping you there but also not forcing you to. Not that you'd dream of pulling away now, not when he's asked so nicely and not when, apparently, your touch is the only thing that brings him back to earth.
"After years of hating it," Bucky says ardently, "you suddenly came along and changed that. In a day."
Your lashes flutter against his skin, blinking with fervor to avoid tears brimming your waterline.
"You were too kind for that place." His metal fingers gingerly squeeze the back of your hand, reaffirming his words. "If I had known what I was inadvertently doing to you every time you healed me—"
"Bucky—"
"Please," he rasps, interrupting your plea. "It would've been out of the question. It still is. But you... still did it."
You frown as if it's law. Now the tears start to brim.
"I never forgot that, forgot you. Even when I was him, I knew to trust you. You made me remember that not all touch is bad."
God, you're hugging him before you can even process it.
You're spilling hot, wet tears on the soft skin of his neck, but he doesn't seem to care in the slightest, reciprocating your embrace as you practically throw yourself onto him. His hands slide around your waist, keeping you taut to him, as you bury your face in the crook of his neck as you imagine Bucky all those years ago, scared, alone, waiting day in and day out for you to return so he can find an ounce of peace and quiet. The days in between must've stretched to eons, meanwhile you had no idea. No idea he was yearning for a way out, craving your presence in a way no one ever has before.
The thought of it all makes your heart lurch, how you would've pushed boundaries more to see him after each mission, or everyday, just to give him that sense of comfort he found with you. All that time you were a few rooms away, unknowing to his need to settle down, how it makes sense how he'd tune into your heartbeat in the wake of your absence, how that was probably the only way he could feel you without you actually being there.
"It's alright," Bucky says gently, almost amused at your heightened emotions, rubbing up and down your back as you pathetically cling to him, crying like you're the one who went through all that pain. "I'm okay."
You sniffle. "I never knew that you— If I had known— I would've—“
You can practically hear Bucky's smile in the dark.
"Easy." He places a feather-light kiss on your hairline.
"But I was right there," you argue shakily, definitely wrinkling his t-shirt with the way you're gripping it between your fingers. "I could've done more."
Bucky shushes you gently, nipping that right in the bud. "You've done more for me than you'll ever know."
The implications of that run awry in your head.
But he doesn't elaborate, because you already understand the meaning behind it. Partially. Plus the sensation of his hands practically holding you together, cradling you and soothing you from guilt you shouldn't even be feeling, are too precious to ignore. It's achingly comforting, a feeling you never thought you'd experience in this lifetime again. But he's here: firm and sincere in his grip, easing you from emotional pain he hates that you're feeling. The only friend you had in there. The only person you could trust, despite him being the scariest being in that building. The only window of solace you had before going back to the dungeons.
And you lay here now, warm with his sweet nothings murmured off his tongue like a mantra, reaffirming his well-being and making you feel the steadiness of his heartbeat to show you that he's alright. Bucky holds you here, a hand coming up to wipe your tears and chuckle endearingly at your great concern, despite his pain and suffering happening ages ago.
But how could you think you were part of the problem? That you should've done more? When all you did was remind him of the light, the good, the parts of life he didn't think he deserved to experience again? Hell, Bucky doesn't even know what he would've done without you. He doesn't even know if he'd be here without you, either dead in a ditch or still strapped to that godforsaken chair in that bunker.
When you kiss him, it's nothing romantic.
It's a promise. A salty promise, at that, because even though your tears have subsided and you finally come to terms that he's not upset with you in any way, shape or form, you lean into the contact, into your suspicions that maybe he doesn't have to just be your friend. He's never just been your friend, he's been your rock in your hardest moments, the person you dream about living a life with in all the cliches. He's more than that, he'll always be more than that, even when he wasn't entirely himself.
And Bucky kisses you back just as passionate.
His hand comes up to cradle your jaw, keeping you in place as you feel him in ways you've never felt him before. You've endured most of your senses with him: your touch healing the jagged scars and broken mind with hands that mend his pain, gazing upon his cerulean eyes that look at you with such softness that you believe it's only reserved for you, your scent that picks up on the way he smells like a forest right after it rains, crisp and refreshing, how you hear his soft chuckles and syncopated breaths. But one's always been missing, curious as to how he tastes.
It's better than you imagine. It's soft. Comforting. Home.
You practically sign into his mouth, all theories flying out the window as you taste him now, feel him now, love him now. It's nothing past this: lazily making out in the darkness at the simple notion of being entangled in such a territory you've never ventured into before, caught up in the feeling of each other that there's no need to escalate further. Perhaps later, but for now, it's a wordless promise to each other. You're both here. Irrevocably here for each other. Promising a life together you've both been aching for ever since you laid eyes on each other in that bunker all those years ago.
When you make out with him in the same spot for a few seconds, you just now realize how exhausted you are.
And Bucky notices. Immediately. Because he's placing one more chaste kiss on your lips, an affirmation that you're still here, you're not going anywhere, he has you in a way he's been craving to for years and years. Yet he doesn't remove his palm from your jaw, thumb gently pressed on your pulse point as he guides your head into the crook of his neck despite your quiet whines of protest.
"Sleep," he muses gently, biting his swollen lip to refrain from smiling (spoiler, it doesn't). "I'll be here in the morning, okay?"
You mumble something incoherent into the soft skin of his neck, something he doesn't quite pick up on, but something he understands to sound like a certain three words that makes his heart skip.
Whether you said it or not, Bucky repeats it back to you.
And you fall asleep like this, him feeling the thump, thump, thump of your heartbeat against his hand, lulled into a deep, comforted sleep with limbs entangled and hearts full. Bucky stays awake like this for a little longer, simply relishing in the feel of you and how you're here, you're real, you love him. Letting himself believe it, experience it, bask in it for a moment too long, selfishly. So many nights spent alone, wondering what you taste like, wondering if you ever felt the same, wondering if you loved him, too. Because, truth be told, ever since your cold hands braced his chest the first time you healed him, that's when he knew he loved you.
Bucky falls asleep soon after. And for once, he doesn't wake up thrashing, doesn't dream of his past mistakes, doesn't toss and turn riddled with guilt.
He rests peacefully, you tucked under his arm. Both where you're supposed to be.
© salem-s please do not copy or replicate work without permission. MDNI.
notes i actually am incapable of writing hurt/no comfort. so. comfort all the way. perhaps too much comfort. hope you enjoyed the mini-series!
02 — THE HANDS THAT MEND — BUCKY BARNES (18+)
SYNOPSIS Bucky hates being touch after all these years living as a human experiment, being poked and prodded and broken beyond repair. That is, until your hands are the ones that give him the opportunity to not live in constant pain, the hands that heal his scars and slowly mend his shattered mind back together. Despite your abrupt disappearance, you’re the only thing he never forgets. Years later — when he’s no longer the Winter Soldier and attempting to assimilate back into society — suddenly you’re there, and he refuses to let you go again. SERIES MASTERLIST
WORD COUNT 7.2k.
WARNINGS & NOTES graphic and violent language, graphic descriptions of wounds (blood and guts) and war. 18+ MDNI. again apologies bc this is a lot of descriptions. promise part 3 will have more dialogue. sorry bucky?? sorry reader?? also inaccurate marvel!lore language. hope you enjoy.
"Bucky?"
Your voice is lost amidst the ocean breeze, whispered in a hushed breath of disbelief as you stare at the man, standing broad and taller than you thought he was. Granted, you've only ever seen him in that chair, practically hunched forward in on himself as he sustained all of his constant injuries. His hair is shorter, showcasing his chiseled jaw and making him look more refreshed, younger. Overall, he looks healthy. Better. Physically and mentally.
Bucky says your name again, almost in a clarifying sigh to confirm that you're real, and he's taking a few long strides before he's right in front of you.
Now, you can definitely confirm it's him, it's those same eyes you sought comfort in. His hand is no longer calloused and dried with someone else's blood, rather clean and smooth as his fingers twitch in your direction, itching to touch you. His metal hand flexes at his side, almost deliberately keeping it away from you to bury the reminder of his past, to prevent you from seeing him as solely a weapon. It's only in this moment that you've never actually stood next to him, in front of him, behind him, just noticing how broad his shoulders are and how tall his stature is.
You blink stupidly at him, mouth agape and probably looking perplexed beyond belief. His brow is pinched, but his eyes say everything he can't.
When his hand comes up to hover just below your jaw, the ghost of his touch makes your heart leap.
You're sure he can hear it, how loud it's beating, practically thumping against your ribcage at the mere thought of the tides changing, that he's now having the choice to touch you after all these years of being denied that simple pleasantry. And when his palm finally does press down against your skin, not particularly hard but more so in an affirming way, you feel your pulse point beating under his touch, hot under his warm skin, simply confirming your existence, feeling you.
Bucky holds you there for one, two moments before letting out a sigh of relief, as if he needed to know, needed to physically feel the way your heart beats for him to believe this is real, you're standing in front of him, all the years he spent grieving you were wasted on an assumption. All the nights he spent teary-eyed thinking of what happened to you, hoping that — whatever it was — you were at peace and not in pain and suffering. All the nights he spoke your name in the cool air as if you were there, so that at least one person remembered you if you were truly gone.
"You're here," he whispers, barely heard over the sound of the lapping waves.
It's almost a mantra to himself, an affirmation. But you hear him all the same. When he lets out a particularly shaky breath, your fingers gently curl around the pulse point in his wrist that holds your neck in place, grounding him. For a moment, he almost looks surprised.
And you nod gently. "I am."
"And you're okay."
"Yes."
Bucky's lip quivers. "But you— And I—“
You blink away the tears that threaten to brim your waterline. "I know."
Before you know it, you throw your arms around his neck, hugging him tighter than you've ever held anything in your entire life.
Immediately he reciprocates, arms bear-wrapping around your torso and tugging you taut to his body, palms alternating between the small of your back and up your spine to the nape of your neck and the back of your head. He lets the pads of his fingertips run up the hills of your vertebrae and over the ridges of your muscles, feeling every dip and crevice of your body to affirm you're real, you're here, making up for so much lost time and feeling everything he never could when he was strapped to that godforsaken chair. Making up for all the times he's wondered how soft your skin actually was, how your heart would beat taut to his chest, how you'd hold him without restraints.
Bucky couldn't speak much then. But he can now. And he can't stop.
"I never thought I'd see you again," he murmurs in disbelief, his cheek against your temple. "I looked for you. Everyday. There...There was nothing. No records, no news, no database that had any traces of you."
You manage to shake your head against your equally tight grasps. "I'm sorry."
His chest heaves. "God, I thought you were dead."
When his hold tightens a fraction, your heart skips a beat. You realize his hands are trembling.
"I'm here—“
"I couldn't stop thinking about it," he continues frantic, the words just spilling out of his mouth now. "What they did to you. Where they dumped you. That I wasn't— That I couldn't do anything. I couldn't save you, I couldn't find anything—“
Your voice wavers. "Bucky-"
But he doesn't stop. He can't stop.
"All I could think about was you in the snow. Alone. And you— you don't like the cold," his voice wavers, as if he's on the breaking point of an emotion he isn't ready to confront. "I looked for you. Every mission they sent me on, I searched for you. Tried to listen to your heart, find any footsteps or anything that would lead to you. I didn't— There wasn't a body, I couldn't find you—“
You can sense his panic, his fear of the mere thought of you being dead, cold, alone, scared, especially with the way his breaths become shallower and his voice trembles as if he's barely holding it together. You manage to loosen his grip as you pull back, still encasing each other with a hold so tight it'll definitely wrinkle your clothes, but far back enough where he can see you, see the reassured gleam in your eye, see that you're here, you're fine, you're not going anywhere.
One of your hands rests over his erratic heartbeat, the other cradling his jaw with such delicacy that it makes his breath hitch. His blue eyes gloss with something you can't pinpoint, and perhaps something he doesn't understand yet, as he stares at you so intently almost as an ode to himself to believe you're not a figment of his imagination, that he's not still strapped to that chair stuck in a years long hallucination.
But your hand... Your hand feels so real.
"Bucky," you say quietly. "You have to go."
The words make him frown. When have you ever sounded like that? So despondent and upset.
"What?" He asks breathlessly, panicked. "Go where?"
Then, you sigh gutturally, almost pained.
The sound is distorted, distant, tone not matching what he’s used to. Your hand is colder now, ice against his cheek emulating something unfamiliar, and his heart rate quickens at the sudden departure from comfort. In a feeble attempt to ground himself, his fingers lace around your wrist, trying to feel your pulse point, trying to make sense of it all. But he can't find it. Why can't he find it?
"Hey, go where?" He repeats again, firmer but voice still laced with terror at the thought of you leaving again. "I just got here, I found you."
Your mouth opens, and the voice isn't yours. "You have to—"
"—go! C'mon, get up."
Gasping awake, his chest heaves with the mixture of emotions brewing in his gut, especially with the flooded relief of seeing you, fully coherent, in his dreams looking so fucking real, so beautiful, feeling your body and the heat radiating from it. He was so close, he could see the beauty marks on your face and the texture of your hair, smell the cinnamon spice you always exuded. Your eyes shimmered, they reflected the sunlight bouncing off the surface of the sea, peering at him with such intense emotion that it makes him nauseous. It was home, it was real.
Except it wasn't, because Bucky's still in bed, panting, confused, with a chest that's aching so terribly painful it's unlike anything he's ever felt.
And Steve is standing over him.
"Did you hear me?" His voice is frantic, a large palm encompassing Bucky's mangled shoulder for that much more emphasis. "The jet's outside."
Bucky doesn't even know which way is up right now, and the erratic beating of his heart — still shaken up from the vivid dream — does nothing to aide in his confusion. Half of him is expecting to look to his right, the unoccupied part of the bed, to see you sleeping there. But when he does, you're not. Why would you be? You only live in his head, apparently.
"What is—? How did you—?" He can't even formulate a coherent sentence.
Steve doesn't read into it. "There was artillery fire just outside Transia this morning. Hundreds dead, probably more. We've been called for aid."
The words sink into Bucky's skin like a brand, ugly and hot and searing as he's trying to focus on one thing at a time. The image of your face still burns deep in his memory, like a photograph that's been worn out yet you can still make out the features. His cheek tingles, where you held him, as if he was really feeling it, really feeling you.
Blearily, he looks around his room. Alpine sits at alert at the foot of the bed, blinking at him with her wide eyes as if Steve's intrusion is a huge inconvenience to her day. His sheets are tousled, as if he's been writhing in his sleep and restless with the image of you. His curtains are drawn completely shut with the tiny exception of a sliver of sunlight peaking through, illuminating his metal arm that shines bright, a burning reminder of everything he loathes.
Then, he peers up at Steve still standing over him, brows pinched in confusion at his friend's frantic wake-up.
"Buck?" Steve asks cautiously. "Are you alright?"
No, he thinks immediately.
"Yeah," he murmurs, distant, still thinking of you.
"You're shaking."
Bucky brushes it off. "It's fine."
"Buck—"
"It's fine," he snaps a bit harshly, firmly to get the point across.
Steve opens his mouth to retort something smart, but notices the sweat lining his friend's brow and the way his chest is coming down, settling down from a nightmare or a memory or something worse that neither of them are ready to confront right now. There are bigger things at hand, right now, and if it's really that important later on, maybe they can talk about it then (because Steve knows that it's something to do with you, no doubt about that, and you as a subject is harder to talk about with Bucky than anything else he endured in that bunker).
"Jet's still running," is all Steve says instead.
"Okay," Bucky says eventually, his mind finally calming down. "Give me five."
There hasn't been a day that's gone by where you don't think of him.
You think of his calloused palms, always stained crimson and dried with someone else's grief upon his cracked knuckles, but also of the fingers that stopped clenching in fists whenever you touched them and instead twitched against yours, itching for more. You see his beautiful blue eyes whenever you look upon the sea, sky, cerulean sea glass, thinking of how they looked less distant whenever you were present. You feel his presence in the calm, in the early mornings when the sun barely rises and worry about him when it gets too cold, even though he's probably millions of miles away. Or dead.
Sometimes you selfishly dream of another life with him. You've only ever known him with the quiet, the sorrowful aches of his bones, the disassociation he carried after each mission. So, you dream of him in light, in life, in peace. Sometimes you're both hovered over an old-fashioned stove, messing up a recipe, laughing over soft music and arguing the semantics of eye-balling measurements. Other times you're sharing wired headphones, a bud in one of your ears as you lay on the grass, staring up at funny shaped clouds while his hand fidgets with your rings. And there's the very rare occasion you dream of him speaking fully, freely, with a smile you can't quite get right because you've never seen it.
At your worst, he's been the beacon of hope on your mind.
When Hydra dumped you in the mountains with the intention that you'd freeze to death and stay buried beneath the growing snow, you kept the mentality that if Bucky can fight to survive within his own mind, then you can channel that strength, too.
And you did, you found a way out, a nearby war-torn village that you sought refuge in. They gave you food and housing as you healed the wounded and sick back to full health.
From then on, you've been a ghost.
Tucked away in the shadows and joining an underground organization that aids war-torn or impoverished towns, states, nations, traveling across borders when needed and doing whatever you can to save as many people as possible. Men. Women. Children. Animals, for fuck sake. The media doesn't even understand the nuances of your group — nor do you understand the nuances of the media — and so far the group has been able to successfully aid those who need it.
You don't even own a phone, for Christ's sake. There's no time for any of that. You only know your next destination when Cara — the unspoken leader of said group — gets intel of another location to travel to. How she gets it, where she gets it from, how she manages to spread word is beyond you. You're the medic. The others are builders, warriors, protectors. You have one job, and one job only. Find, heal, move onto the next. Even if your bones ache, Even if your muscles are seconds from giving out. Your pain is temporary. Theirs isn't.
So when you wake up to the sound of bombs being littered in the way-off distance, you're immediately on the move.
Jacket and vest are zipped and strapped. Shoes are slipped on. You don't need much, just your hands and your energy, which isn't an issue given how high your adrenaline is running, especially crammed in the back of a truck with all your other members who are meticulously planning guerilla tactics in case there's an active violent situation upon arrival. Cara's barking plans of attack if things go south, and a straightforward aid plan if you all arrive to a desolate place. Not that you don't need to listen, but all the soldier talk doesn't pertain much to you.
You only perk up when she says your name.
"You'll come in behind us," Cara debriefs firmly. "Once we scan the area and check for any potential threats, only then are you clear to enter the perimeter."
You nod, familiar with the game plan.
Cara continues with your acknowledgement. "Each crew member will carry these—" She gestures to a mini med-kit latched onto her utility belt, "—on their person to treat minor injuries. You tackle the fatalities, the severely wounded. If you're not around and we've got eyes on a civilian that needs medical attention, we'll use your channel on the walkie. Got it?"
Nodding again, you fidget with the rings on your hands as the walkie-talkie feels like lead against your belt.
No one notices, granted everyone has bigger things on their minds, but it makes you feel better all the same knowing they trust you to take on these responsibilities by yourself, especially when no one knows what they're walking into upon arrival. No matter how stressed you are. No matter how much you are mentally planning to be in constant pain for the next...however long.
And when you get there?
You don't think you even breathe.
It's go, go, go, approaching the first injured people you lay eyes on. It always takes a bit of convincing, because who is this stranger trying to touch the blood that's pooling out of me? But once they understand that you're here to help, they understand what you can do, dozens are flocking to you at a time. Bleeding. Bones broken. Limbs nearly hanging off. Pleading, holding kids to you, kids holding animals to you. You don't speak the language, nor do you try and understand any of it, but you take care of each and every person.
When the group's numbers dwindle down and you're on your last immediate patient, a girl no older than nine grasps your hand.
"Come," she says in her native language, accent thick yet you can understand all the same.
And she leads you into the rubble of crumbled buildings, landmarks, homes. You find more people in dire of help, ones who couldn't move. Legs that are detached from the main parts of the body. Blood seeping through places you never though imaginable. You touch, heal, wince, move onto the next.
Repeat. And repeat. And repeat.
Everyone you heal murmurs the same word to you, and you think it means thank you. Even though you don't understand it, you can feel their grateful tone, their pleased tones and astonished looks when they realize that suddenly they're no longer in pain, and it keeps you going. Pushes you forward. Gives you the strength to move onto the next.
The girl — who hasn't left your side the entire time — suddenly gasps with delight, pointing somewhere in the nearby distance. "Avenger!"
Puzzled, you do one last sweep of the area you're in to make sure you're not missing any of the wounded, before following her pointed finger and staring beyond the distance to see a futuristic hovercraft entering from beyond the clouds, whirring with a silence so eerie that it makes the hair on the back of your neck stand up. It doesn't sound like a regular plane or helicopter, made with such advanced technology that your mind can't wrap around the conceptions of it.
"They always come when it's over," Cara mutters as she emerges from the wreckage, suddenly bumping shoulders with you. "Figures. Wanna grab a rock for them to autograph?"
Her braid practically looks matted and she's covered in dirt, but alive. Unharmed. Clearly fine enough to be making jokes.
You shake your head dismissively as you both watch the hovercraft slowly descent. The girl lets go of your hand to join the other kids, who sprint so fast they kick up dirt in order to be the first ones to greet the global heroes. You watch them all go, letting out a long guttural sigh. Your bones and muscles ache, but no one has confirmed if there are any more alive, so there's no time to rest.
"At least they're helping," you respond, trying to find the silver lining.
The hovercraft whirs as it lands, rocking gently against the pressure. In awe like everyone else, you're almost entranced by the whole concept of the Avengers. You've only heard rumblings about them, as you've only encountered Captain America, Falcon, and Stark on humanitarian aides similar to this one. Granted, you've never spoken to any of them, nor do you even know their real aliases, simply admired from a far whenever they arrive at the scene to let them handle the publicity of it all.
Cara snorts.
"Yeah, helping their brand." She nudges your arm once more, then lower, "C'mon, they'll handle the politics and watch over the ones you healed. Let's find more survivors."
"Yeah," you murmur immediately, gaze lingering on the hovercraft door beginning to open, turning around before you can see which Avengers have decided to aide today. "Holler if you need me."
You disappear into the midst of the ruins, missing the way a familiar metal arm reflects the sunlight.
Bucky isn't one for attention.
Sure, maybe back in the day when he had a killer smile that'd make flowers bloom wherever he stepped and a charm so personable that he could woo a brick wall, but now he prefers to be out of the spotlight. After all, he's spent so long being painted in a negative light (much deserved, no doubt) that it never makes him want to step into the sun again to avoid the judgmental stares. Not only judgmental, but skeptic, as if people don't believe he's back to normal, healed, wiped clean of the Winter Soldier once and for all.
But the kids only know him as the White Wolf. As Bucky.
They never lived through the terror that came with the Winter Soldier, never had to be afraid of the big, red star on his silver arm, nor the dead eyes behind a scary black mask. They don't understand their parents' and grandparents' fear of him, their apprehension, and are reluctant to allow him to help in such a time of vulnerability. The kids pay no mind, all they see is a shiny metal arm associated with the Avengers, and they're all of a sudden clinging to his side.
One girl holds the metal fingers between her own, inspecting them so intently and with such care that he holds his breath, not wanting to scare her off.
Sam deals with the perimeter checks with a quick flap of his wings, securing the area to make sure no other threats are imminent. Steve's been trying to be as diplomatic as he can, doing his best with the translator that Stark graciously invented for him to make matters like this a bit easier. From the intel that the civilians provided, a humanitarian aide group got here right after the bombs dropped and did the best they could to help the injured and find survivors.
Where those said aides are, Bucky has no idea.
And he's thorough with his search (as thorough as he can be with a dozen kids clinging to his arm and asking for turns holding his hand), seeing shadows of the aides weaving through the ruins and helping more civilians off to the side. The strange thing he notices, though, is that despite how dirty and torn these people look from the attack, no one is severely wounded. Solely dried blood, aftermaths of a wound.
Bucky shakes the implication away.
This isn't the time to be thinking about you, he tells himself. These people need all his attention, focus, grit.
Sam eventually finds him with all the kids, wings enclosing back into his jetpack with a shit eating grin that he's trying so hard to suppress at the sight of grumpy, old Buck, solely in the company with a bunch of children.
"Havin' fun?" Sam drawls out teasingly.
It doesn't help that Bucky's in the middle of holding his metal arm out, three kids dangling trying to hold themselves up. Light work, for him. Something to keep them occupied, to drive their focus away from their homes destroyed. It's not much, but it's something, at least for now, at least while Sam and Steve take the brunt of the adult interactions. Besides, Bucky doesn't need to talk much with the kids, granted he doesn't understand them and they don't understand him, so he's perfectly fine with staying here.
"Immensely,' Bucky deadpans. Then, he gestures towards Steve talking with a burly woman. "How's that going?"
Sam follows his gesture, then hums. "They’re running numbers. Counting the dead and wounded and going over rehabilitation moves for the survivors.”
Eying the burly woman whose muscles are bulging through her jacket sleeves, Bucky narrows his eyes at her, calculated. “She a civilian?”
“Nah,” his friend reassures. “That's Cara. Runs the rogue aid group. We've run into them a couple times."
His metal arm whirs. The kids squeal. Bucky eyes the woman cautiously from a distance.
"Somethin' we need to worry about?"
"Nah," Sam reiterated casually, letting one of the kids fidget with Redwing hovering by his ankles. "They're good. They've been stationed out in these parts for a while with the anticipation of a strike. Super underground, though. Most governments have no idea they exist, we usually get most of the credit for their work."
Quizzically, Bucky raises a brow. "Why so secretive?"
All Sam does is shrug. "Beats me. They could be ex-convicts, for all we know. People trying to lay low from their home governments.”
“Isn’t that illegal?”
“I know you’re not the one talking about the lines of legality right now.”
Bucky rolls his eyes, but — to be fair — his friend has a point. A very good point. But it doesn’t make him like it any more, in fact there’s an unsettled kettlebell brewing in his gut. It doesn’t have anything to do with Cara, essentially, but rather the entire scheme of things. Why is he so on edge?
Sam either doesn’t pick up on it or he’s ignoring Bucky’s apprehension (as usual.)
“Besides, they’re here to help, no?”
“I suppose.” Still doesn’t feel great.
“Yeah, you suppose, alright,” Sam mocks teasingly, drawing it out. “It’s better for you, anyway, to skip out on all the formalities. She's the only person we know by name,” he continues. “She refuses to disclose any further information about her team to protect their identity. Can't say I blame her."
Bucky frowns still. “Doesn’t that just give more reason not to trust a rogue combat group?”
“And medics,” Sam adds pointedly. “Not everyone’s down to fight.”
All he can do is hum in response.
Checkmate, Sam takes it as a small victory as he shrugs again. "Whatever. All that matters is—"
Sam doesn't finish his sentence. Actually, more so he doesn't get to finish his sentence, because all of a sudden the hairs are sticking up on the back of Bucky's neck, and before he can open his mouth to verbalize his discomfort, a landmine sets off through the sea of snapped and cracked trees, far enough away to not hurt anyone in his vicinity but close enough to have definitely hurt someone.
The kids shriek, a young boy wrapping around Bucky's leg, as Cara and Steve snap to attention a little ways away. The Captain saunters over quickly, Cara right behind him as she fumbles with the walkie-talkie hooked to her tactical belt.
"Sam, scan for wounded," Steve orders immediately, and the Falcon wastes no time spreading his wings and flying over to the scene of the explosion. Then, he turns to her. "We have med kids on the jet. How many medics do you have to administer them?"
"Just one," Cara mutters, cursing as she fiddles with the device. Then, she unclips it and brings it close to her mouth—
And says your name.
"Tell me you're on scene," she says through the walkie, missing the way both Bucky and Steve impossibly stiffen at the mere mention of your name, solely focused on the situation at hand. "Two clicks north."
Then, through Steve's intercom comes Sam's voice. "Confirmed landmine. Few visibly injured, definitely could've been worse. One severely wounded."
Cara adds into the walkie, "Falcon's confirming landmine. There are wounded."
"On route." The voice is static on the other line, distant and distorted.
But yours.
"Watch your step," is all Cara says before switching off the walkie and clicking it back into her belt loop. Then, she turns her attention to the two of them. "My reinforcement's heading over, I'm going to her."
Then, just like that, she's turning heel faster than Bucky can blink, and she's running towards where the explosion took place, where the smoke rises into the sky and where the trees split in half. The kids that were once latched onto him run to their parents, huddled by the hovercraft as a sort of beacon of safety, and it's just the two of them left stunned in the wake of whatever just happened in the past five minutes.
Bucky doesn't think he's breathed in that time frame.
Steve bites first. "You don't think it's—"
"It is," Bucky confirms with a quivering voice, already knowing what he was going to say. "It's her name. Her voice."
"Okay," his friend responds cautiously, calculated. Then, "Let's go."
And Bucky's feet are moving before he can make up his mind.
Steve's right behind him, paced at a jog that feels every step is ten tons to the heart. His chest is heaving, not from the smoke inhalation or the dirt, but from your voice, how real it sounded, how hearing your name uttered without hesitation almost puts reality into motion. You only said two words, through a walkie talkie nonetheless, but it was yours, irrevocably.
Is this where you've been all this time? Hidden in the shadows and aiding those who need it the most? Putting your life on the line day in and day out without so much as a thought? No hesitation? Leading a team of aide's as the only medic? No wonder all these people don't have a scratch on their bodies despite the dried blood coating their arms, legs, foreheads. You healed them. You saved them.
And when he breaches through the trees cracked in half with wood splintered outwards, the clearing displays more ruins, not as much as the other area, but still blatant. He hears wailing, that of immense pain and terror on the other side of rubble. Cara is heading towards the noise, he can see that as much, as well as some other members of the team aiding the less wounded and those not needing immediate medical attention.
When Bucky steps into the clearing, his breath hitches.
The scene is a nightmare. A man is sprawled on his side, face etched in immeasurable pain as his intestines spill from his gut, a wound so detrimental and fatal that crimson bleeds onto the dirt faster than an oil spill. His hands are trembling as he tries to scoop up his insides and shove it back in his gut, frantic and panicked and sobbing with a sound so heartbreaking it makes Bucky flinch.
And you're kneeling beside him.
Your hair is pinned back, mussed from all the commotion, brows pinched in determination as you murmur sweet nothings to the man, encasing his knuckles with your palms to soothe him into trusting you. There are apparent bags under your eyes, but you're more alert than ever, focused on the task at hand, and barely flinching when you press your palms to where the man's intestines spill onto the dirt and emulate that faint glow he has missed like an old friend.
Bucky can't move. He can't fucking move.
He watches in awe — along with the other bystanders whose eyes widen at your abilities — as the intestines slowly ascend back into the man's body, his bloodied hands trembling as he looks down at his own body healing at your mercy. It's gory. Messy and bloody. But, Christ, if it isn't a miracle upon everyone's eyes. Slowly, the wound gets smaller and smaller and smaller until the fatal wound is nothing but a cut, and then a distant memory, as there's not even a scar left in the wake of your treatment.
But you flinch when your hands leave the man's body. You cover it quickly to mask it with a sheepish smile, one that doesn't reach your eyes, as two other men run over to help the recently healed man to his feet, murmuring thanks and praises to you through tears and sobs of utter disbelief.
You back away slowly, still wearing that smile that says everything is fine. But it's more to hide a grimace. No one notices.
Bucky does, though.
You still don’t see him, eyes glossed over with a flicker of panic as you say one, two, maybe three words to Cara before you're slipping away from the scene. Everyone's hyper-fixated on the man who's now a walking miracle, the rest of the aide team assisting with minor injuries that don't require your immediate attention. No one notices you leave, the way you slip through the trees like a ghost, clutching a hand to your side as you stagger away and out of sight.
His feet are moving before he can register it.
Past the civilians, past Steve and Sam and Cara staring at him with befuddlement, past all the chaos that's now behind him.
Because the only thing on his mind is you, how you're here, you're alive, you're slipping through the cracks, you're in pain and no one seems to care, all these people you've just helped without a single though and no one's coming after you.
Bucky's weaving through the staggered trees, eyes scanning every piece of the forest for you. But you vanished into thin air, it seems.
And then he does something he hasn't done in a long time.
He slows down. Takes a deep breath. And finds your heartbeat.
Erratic. Panicked. But there.
Through the trees ahead, there's a clearing out onto a cliff, showcasing the mountain ranges with a wide array for a breath of fresh air. Secluded. Private. And the more he tunes into the sound of your beat, the closer and louder it seems to get. Sifting through the dense forest, he can finally make out the makings of a clearing, the cliff he caught a glimpse of earlier. Now, he can make out the color of your hair through the trees, the back of your jacket, the way you're staggering towards the clearing and wavering on wobbly knees.
Bucky's running when you collapse.
He's skipping the formalities, the I can't believe you're alive, I thought you were dead, I've missed you more than you could ever imagine, and he's breaching through the trees into the clearing, running right up to your body curled up in on itself.
You heave, eyes brimming with tears that definitely weren't there earlier, breaths shallow and panicked as your hands fumble at your utility vest, pawing at the straps and trembling frantically as your other hand presses firm on your side, the same exact spot you healed on the man earlier, no doubt about it. Your face is pinched with something that makes him freeze.
Are you...in pain?
When you meet his eyes momentarily, you simply blink and suck in a particularly harsh breath, as if he's a hallucination and you're used to seeing a figment of him. You look wrecked, discombobulated, so frightened and frantic that it makes his heart lurch achingly. He's never seen you like this, not all those times you came in fighting sleep or bruised or unhappy where you were, you still looked okay. This is something entirely different, something he is forced to confront with a brave face even though he's fucking terrified.
"I can't— I can't get it off," you sob, panicked. "I need it off—“
Bucky swallows thickly, yet immediately kneeling in front of you. "Okay, I got you."
You still can't put it together that it's actually him, still thinking you're dreaming, even when his hands that undo the straps of your vest feel so real, so warm, like the calloused palms you healed all those ages ago almost consistently, turning broken fingers and bruises into his normal complexion. This has to be a dream? Right? His eyes were never this blue, were they? His hair was longer, for sure. His arm was a different shade of metal, you know that for a fact.
The vest is off in an instant. The pain in your side is excruciating, it feels like hot, molten lava spilling out of your gut onto the dirt, emulating the same injury you just healed. It's too much to bear, inhibiting your logic because you know it's not happening, you know your intestines are not spilling out right now, but it feels too real, that you need to be sure. You need to check.
God, it hurts so fucking bad.
You paw desperately at the zipper on your jacket, yanking it down and thrashing to get it off. It's thrown carelessly in the dirt as you feel his eyes on you, intently watching with his hands hovering just inches away from you, unsure if he should step in. You're left in a tank top, and he barely has time to admiring the smooth skin of your shoulders and arms when you're clumsily lifting up the side of your tank, thoroughly inspecting your side.
No wound. No guts spilling out.
Safe.
With trembling fingers, you skim over where it seers hot, wincing at the aftermath of it all. But now that you have visual confirmation that you're safe, you're fine, you're not actually physically hurt, your brain allows you to relax. At the same time, the pain that you're experiencing starts to dwindle as normal. Granted, that was a big and fatal wound you healed, you knew what you were signing up for when you put your hands on the man's intestines. You knew you'd be in pain for minutes, longer than that. You mentally planned for that.
But sometimes your mind plays tricks on you. Sometimes the pain is so excruciating that it makes you believe it's actually happening to your body.
And Bucky pieces it all together with a horrific revelation.
You feel everything.
All the times you healed him in that godforsaken room, mended his broken bones and closed his stab wounds and soothed the constant ache in his shoulder, you felt every part of it. Every fracture, cut, bruise was traveling from his body to yours, and every time you never winced or let on what you were experiencing, took it all with a smile too sweet for a place like that and kindness too sacred to let go of. All the times he deliberately was a fraction sloppier, slower, lagged on missions so he could be more hurt than usual, so he could see you.
But if he knew... Fucking hell. If he knew you felt every ounce of his pain, he would've never let you touch him in the first place.
You're curled in on yourself, breaths slowly evening out as the pain begins to subside. Still cradling your side, your eyes squeeze shut to somewhat ground yourself from the near-fatal simulation.
Bucky swallows the lump in his throat, feeling guilt unlike ever before.
"Do you..." He starts cautiously, not even knowing where he's going with it. "You feel it?"
You're still gripping with the slipping fact that, okay, maybe he isn't a figment of your imagination and Bucky — your Bucky — is actually kneeling next to you right now, squashing all your previous doubts that he was dead or worse. Although, you can't answer, and because you say nothing, that is your answer.
Bucky's hands are shaking. "Every time you heal someone, you feel their pain?"
But your eyes never leave the dirt in front of you, scared to confront him, especially with how his tone is laced with disbelief, almost with anger. This is why you don't tell anyone, why you sneak off to deal with the aftermaths of fatal injuries, why you never burden anyone else with the downside of your abilities, because the reaction is always worse than the actual concept itself, because no one expects you to be able to handle it.
"Hey," he says eventually, almost in warning yet still gentle. "Answer me."
"It's only temporary," you whisper meekly, voice hoarse from the sobs you were emitting earlier.
He wants to scream.
"That doesn't matter," Bucky responds immediately, firmer than you've ever heard him. "You're in pain."
"Not anymore."
"Yeah. But you were."
“Past tense.”
His throat feels like sandpaper. “And all those times…with me… I never would’ve— I should’ve—”
You dismiss that. Immediately.
“Bucky, I didn’t heal you because I had to,” you say pointedly, certain. “I wanted to.”
His voice breaks. “You felt everything—“
“And I’d do it again in a heartbeat.”
That's when you look up at him.
You study him, narrowing your eyes to firmly try and believe that he's real, he's here right now, after so much time spent grieving him. By his expression, you can't tell if he's frustrated, guilty, or relieved, because his brows are furrowed but his eyes gloss with concern, and his hands flex in your direction as if they're itching to touch you, hold you, comfort you, but don't know how.
He looks...good. Healthy. The long hair is replaced with something shorter, more clean cut, along with the light stubble across his jaw. A bit tired underneath his eyes but still as handsome as the day you met him. There's nothing more you want to do than to jump in his arms, let him hold you in a way you've been dreaming of after all these years of solitude.
Your side doesn't burn much anymore. The only thing you really feel is how your heart pounds as he stares right back at you.
"I thought you were dead," you eventually murmur gently. "Or worse."
Bucky's gaze softens. "You too."
"You're actually here?”
"I am."
"You're an Avenger?"
"A stand in."
You sit up a little straighter, no longer burdened with the ache in your stomach, slowly starting to feel normal again. Sure, your muscles feel like jelly and your bones are heavier than ever, but you're okay. And he's okay. And alive.
After an internal battle, Bucky experimentally lets his hand fall gently on your shoulder, a comforting gesture that you practically lean into. When you don't shake him off, he allows his hand to stay there, pad of his thumb brushing over the smooth skin of your shoulder. It's really the first time he's felt you, versus the other way around. This is only a small fraction of what he wants to do, how he wants to hold you, but refrains, knowing you’re on the come down of something he’s never experienced, nor something he can begin to understand.
His stare is piercing. "I never stopped looking for you. Even when I was...him." You both know who he's talking about. "I think he knew who you were, too, or at least the feeling of you. That’s why I… I didn't want to believe you were dead. I couldn't."
You suck in a small breath. "You're...you?"
"As me as I can get."
“When did you…” You trail off, trying to find the right words, how to phrase this in a way that doesn’t bring back the horrors he lived through.
But Bucky understands. He’s spent a lot of his time with you simply staring, learning your expressions and vernacular.
“Not long after you left. They couldn’t contain me as easily, not when I knew you were out there somewhere.”
Your lips part subtly in shock.
“One particular mission,” he continues, “I went rogue. Searched for months. Came up empty. Hid in the shadows. That’s when I saw Steve’s name in the paper, and part of me knew to find him based on a gut feeling alone. He got me on my feet, offered protection, helped me de-program…”
Bucky trails off, tone shallower, but you can understand its implications without him needing to explain further. You understand, and can’t imagine how difficult that must’ve been for him, especially when you’re familiar with the nuances of the science and technology the Hydra doctors implemented on human experiments. It must’ve taken years, practice, patience. Something no ordinary person would take the time to go through.
“I thought of you every single day,” he adds after a moment of gathering his thoughts. “When things got hard, I thought of you. How maybe things could’ve been different if they didn’t hurt us.”
“Did they come after you?” You ask worriedly.
“They tried.”
Your eyes flicker down to the metal hand poking out of his jacket, black and gold and sleek, much different than you remember. “Upgrade?”
Bucky follows your gaze, holding his metal hand out palm up to showcase the new arm. It glistens in the sunlight and whirs quietly. It’s more subtle, more him, less of a weapon and more of an aide. It suits him, for sure, especially when his wardrobe consists mainly of black.
“Better, right?”
You delicately trace the pad of your index finger over the palm, feeling the sleek metal. A shiver runs down his spine at the sensation, also as he takes in your entranced gaze with an amused look.
“I like it,” you say sincerely. And then after a moment, "How's your shoulder?"
Bucky's lips twitch, half ready to scold you and half nearly melting. God, he fucking missed you. “Been better.”
“Can I help?”
Suddenly, he’s shaking his head before he can stop it.
“No,” he says immediately.
You whip your head up, eyes leaving his hand and meeting his eye with the instant change in tone. You frown, tilting your head to the side with naive confusion.
“Wh—?”
"You're not healing anything anytime soon."
You frown. "But—“
"No," he says again, eyes flicking to the way you're still favoring your left side. Whatever smile was ghosting his lips is gone, now replaced with a serious expression as he gestures down to your ribcage. "Not after that."
"I can't just—“
"You can," Bucky interrupts again, as if he's not going to entertain the thought. "We have advanced medical kits that we can give your team. They're injections that heal almost anything."
You frown. “That’s not enough. Some wounds need more than that.”
His jaw ticks.
“This technology is more advanced than anything I’ve ever seen, and they’re continuously developing it. It’s not…you…” He sucks in a harsh breath. “Nothing will ever be you. You’re…a miracle. But it’s a substitute. A step towards not wearing yourself out.”
All you do is stare at him.
And Bucky continues. “And…this is me being selfish, but I want you to come back with me. Take a break. Let yourself heal. Maybe I can take you to the lab if you want to help with the medicine progressions. Plus the jet can take you wherever you’d like, whenever you’d like, you don’t have to stop doing this.”
His next words hit you like a ton of bricks.
“But I lost you once,” he says after a big breath, as if he’s been waiting to tell you this for a very long time. “I’m not losing you again.”
It settles in the air with a thick silence, practically choking you with such truth that your heart sinks down to your gut. No, sinks down to the earth’s core. His blue eyes flicker with certainty, with a sense of rawness that makes this so fucking real and terrifying. Yet — he’s on the same page. You can’t lose him again, not after you’ve found each other in a way Fate would dream about, and you come to the conclusion that you never want to be without his being again, without his touch, without him.
And, after one, two, three beats of staring at each other, you're practically crawling forward and throwing yourself onto him.
You clumsily wrap your arms around him, squeeeeeezing tight and burying your face in the crook of his neck. His arms are instantly around you, holding you taut against his body as you practically sign in relief that you've found each other after all this time, after you've spent years thinking he was dead or still getting tortured in a bunker somewhere. It's such a foreign concept to feel his hands, to feel his arms, to feel his erratic heartbeat against your chest, to witness him have free reign of his body.
God, you fucking missed him.
"It's okay," he murmurs into your hair after you let out a quiet sob you hadn't realized you'd been keeping in. "I'm here. I'm not letting you go."
And you cling to him harder, inhaling his scent and letting his shirt wrinkle between your calloused knuckles. Bucky holds you close, and all this pain and suffering you've been carrying just...washes away. Dissipates into thin air. Sinks into the earth to burn at the core. All these speculations of wondering what it's like to be in his arms get squashed in this very moment, because it's better than you could've imagined. He's warm. Comforting.
Home.
"C'mon," he says after a very long time after your cries have died down, pants stained with dirt and tears dried on your cheeks. His hands haven’t stopped rubbing your back, neck, head in a soothing gesture, haven’t let go and haven’t ceased caring. Nor does he want to ever again, because now he’s felt you, held you, cared for you, and he will easily do it for the rest of time if given the chance to do so. "There's a really annoying cat I want you to meet."
You'd be stupid to refuse.
© salem-s please do not copy or replicate work without given permission. mdni.
notes haiii????????? one more part????? hope you enjoyed
THE HANDS THAT MEND — BUCKY BARNES (18+)
MINI SERIES MASTERLIST
SYNOPSIS Bucky hates being touched after all these years living as a human experiment, being poked and prodded and broken beyond repair. That is, until your hands are the ones that give him the opportunity to not live in constant pain, the hands that heal his scars and slowly mend his shattered mind back together. Despite your abrupt disappearance, you’re the only thing he never forgets. Years later — when he’s no longer the Winter Soldier and attempting to assimilate back into society — suddenly you’re there, and he refuses to let you go again.
CHAPTERS 01 — 02 — 03 | WORD COUNT 23.8k
WARNINGS & NOTES ── This story is 18+ MDNI. Contains graphic and violent language, mentions of death and torture, especially in the first chapter. ── The pairing is winter soldier!bucky x healer!reader (as well as back-to-normal!bucky later on). No use of Y/N. ── Uh, hey? I knew I wanted this concept to be at least two parts, maybe three, hence it being a mini-series. Hope you enjoy, let's pretend all the lore I added is correct and accurate. Oh, also there's no such thing as infinity war and endgame in this because I said so. This takes place right around/before CATWS, and then jumps later on in life (pretending everyone we like is alive and well, please and thanks).
© salem-s 2025 please do not copy or replicate work unless given permission.
01 — THE HANDS THAT MEND — BUCKY BARNES (18+)
SYNOPSIS Bucky hates being touch after all these years living as a human experiment, being poked and prodded and broken beyond repair. That is, until your hands are the ones that give him the opportunity to not live in constant pain, the hands that heal his scars and slowly mend his shattered mind back together. Despite your abrupt disappearance, you’re the only thing he never forgets. Years later — when he’s no longer the Winter Soldier and attempting to assimilate back into society — suddenly you’re there, and he refuses to let you go again. SERIES MASTERLIST
WORD COUNT 10k. apologies because this is more description than dialogue, oops? there will be more talking later. trust.
WARNINGS & NOTES graphic and violent language, mentions of death and torture and wounds. 18+ MDNI. literally im so sorry bucky?? and reader??? also apologies because this is mostly descriptive, he doesn't talk much obviously, also probably inaccurate winter soldier lore below (tried my best?) and inaccurate russian probably. yell at me if im wrong. also this is an au where infinity and endgame never happened becaaaaaause i said so. channeling healer katara as reader. enjoy winter solder!bucky x healer!reader. not edited.
When Bucky fell, he was relieved to be found.
He'd spent a long time in the snow, freezing into a catatonic tomb with a dull ache on his left side that he only remembers fragments of. All he could see was white. Flashes of red. Pinches of the midnight colored boots that soon were buried under slopes of white. The pain wasn't there, not really, at least not physically. Sure, he could tell by the way his vision waved in and out and how there was a concerning amount of crimson bleeding into the powder-fresh snow that something was wrong.
But the pain was all in his head.
Because he'd never felt so alone lying there in the canyon, looking up at a sky that only blinded him and wishing, hoping, praying someone would come, Steve would come, hell, even the enemy would come just so he didn't have to die alone. It was too bright. Too blinding. No sense of comfort, no warmth. He always hated being alone, there was never a dull moment with siblings and friends always warming his house with a love he loathed not experiencing. And he knew that if he died like this: cold, scared, alone, his body would be buried underneath the snow and never to be seen again, never to be mourned, forgotten amidst the war.
Now, Bucky realizes that dying in the snow would've been mercy.
If only he knew what was in store for him, if only he had the capacities to laugh at his augmented hope when he realized someone had come for him, if only he could scream at himself to play dead, to be dead, to prevent all of this from happening. He hadn't realized that the enemy that found him was much bigger than what the world knew it as, especially when he was dragged through the white, a trail of red in his wake, into a bunker-like building, and out of the light that he suddenly missed like an old friend.
That was the last he'd seen of the snow for a long time.
And that was the last time he remembers feeling like himself.
From there on, it was tests. Experiments. Trials and errors. Some more poking and prodding. Some more analysis to test new features they'd injected into him. Only to get poked and prodded even longer. Electrocution. Shocked into complicity. Fights in rings to weed out the runts. Programming words that awoke another person inside of him, someone who took control of his motor functions while his consciousness, Bucky's consciousness, saw everything. Lived everything. Yet couldn't do anything about it.
Bucky learns very quickly to hate being touched.
Granted, there's nothing he can do about it. He should be used to it at this point as it's practically routine: get sent out on a covert operation, report back and list the failures of his mission, get poked and prodded and slapped and shocked only to have his memory wiped once more. Every time they do so, a small piece of Bucky dies every time, replaced with more of him. Yet each time he feels like a sliver of himself again, he's always being touched. Constantly. And the hands that do so never do any good. Only harm. Only hurt. He instantly associates touch with pain. Touch with terror. Touch with everything synonymous to bad.
Until you.
You come into the picture years later. Decades? He's lost track of how long he's actually been around. Every time he's sent out on a new mission, society looks a little more different than he remembers. More advanced. Free. A place he'd like to be a part of someday to learn all that's been invented, written, experienced. Yet he's the one contributing to the regression of global growth. He's only doing what he knows how to do: how to comply, how to harm, how to do everything that's expected of him so maybe he stops getting touched all the time. (Spoiler, he doesn't.)
It's a mission gone sour, one that leaves him practically incapable of healing at a fast pace. Bucky handles the pain well, with a badge of stoicism because if he even hints at being in a sliver of discomfort, he'll be touched. Poked. Prodded. Experimented on. And today, especially today, he doesn't want that.
When they throw him in the chair for his mission debrief, Bucky makes the mistake of wincing.
And immediately they're checking to evaluate his injuries. They're bad, given the grimace on Pierce's face and the look of astonishment and horror from Zola, and the way the faux-surgeons' hands shake as they attempt to clean the wounds as best as they can. Yet they're not gentile, they never are, pressing hard on his scars that have reopened and doing everything in their power to make this as uncomfortable for him as possible. Normally, Pierce would throw him in his holding cell and let the serum heal over time, but something about his urgency to speed up the process makes Bucky think that's he's needed for another immediate mission, the Asset is needed. They need their Winter Soldier prepped and dressed and ready for complicity. As soon as possible. Now. And Pierce isn't someone who likes waiting, especially when there are means to speed up the process.
Pierce waves off the surgeons with a subtle flick of his wrist, a simple action yet one that makes them all freeze immediately, holding their breaths for the next course of instruction. They look to him in anticipation, almost fearfully, as Bucky silently hopes the order is to simply let him bleed out and die as himself (the small, minuscule fraction that is still him).
"Get the girl," is all he says before giving Bucky's wounds one last up-and-down, and leaving the room.
Bucky barely has the time — nor mental capacity — to comprehend Pierce's request as he watches everyone scramble to leave the room, momentarily leaving him alone in this cold, dark, bunker, strapped to a chair and bleeding out onto the concrete floors. He prays to bleed out faster so he doesn't have to find out what's coming next, to slowly go to rest like he's been dreaming of doing for a very long time. Every second that he's in the chair, he dreams of the snow, and how he wished he could've stayed there, especially with the anticipation of whatever's about to happen.
But instead of a machine, or more needles, or some sort of new torture device that comes out every week, it's just...you.
You're holding nothing, instead fidgeting with the rings on your fingers and cautiously stalking across the lab, eyes never leaving his. They hold edge. Nerves. But also a sense of softness that makes him put his guard up immediately, because while it's a relief on one hand, his mind thinks it's a trick, something to give him false hope just to have it ripped away. He's had that happen one too many times. He's stopped trusting everyone in this building, even the ones he thought were nice. Bucky learns very quickly that no one is nice in this building.
When you continuously get closer, his heart is racing, especially at how you're suddenly standing right beside him, looking down at his injuries. The frown is permanent on your face, but instead of disappointment or resentment, it's etched with concern — something no one has ever felt for him in a very long time — as you sit in the stool next to his chair. Bucky gets a whiff of a scent he remembers. Cinnamon? Apples? An aura of his mother's signature cookies flashes in his mind, but they're gone in an instant.
"Hi," you greet gently, and your voice reminds him of honey he used to take in his tea. "They really did a number on you, huh?"
Bucky blinks at you.
You don't take offense at his silence. "There's no need to worry, I'll make it go away," you continue idly.
When your hands raise as if they're about to press down on his wounds, you pause before you can make contact, eyes flickering up to his bright blue ones.
"Is it okay if I touch you?" You ask softly.
The question settles in the air like a thick fog, lingering and suffocating yet refreshing with a comforting coolness. A sense of ease. But he freezes, panic flickering in chest at the notion of being asked something, as the concept of having a choice is entirely foreign to him and has been for years. And the way you asked so casually, as if he could just give you a simple response, as if he's allowed to.
It feels wrong. Bucky can't answer — literally and figuratively — because the words die in his throat and the fear outweighs the curiosity of answering, because he doesn't want to get in trouble. He doesn't want to be hurt again later for answering without permission, as he's learned very quickly that gets him in a heap of trouble. The panic that floods his chest makes him drown, pulls him into a riptide and further and further away from shore. Is this a test? Is the doctor going to burst through those doors if he responds? Goes against orders?
"Soldat." A voice rings harshly through the static intercom, making you jump at the sudden noise. "You've been asked a question."
There's sandpaper in his throat, but he has to get something out, anything out, to refrain from breaking the rules or stepping out of line. The words feel wrong on his tongue, rough around the edges and so unlike him that he wonders if it's actually him speaking, or the other guy. It has happened before. There's no doubt it'll happen again.
"Yes," he answers robotically, complying.
Your frown is immediate. Etched with frustration.
But Bucky mirrors your frown when it's not directed at him. It's because of them.
"They said they wouldn't interrupt," you mumble quietly, almost sheepish. "I'm really sorry if that scared you. I told them that they can't just—"
You let out a long sigh, a guttural one, as you seem to compose yourself and cut off whatever words will indefinitely get you in trouble, especially when you know they're listening in quite intently. Instead, you let your eyes wander down to his plethora of injuries and let your hands hover over them, ghosting over his skin as he seizes up, mind running through all the possibilities of what's about to happen, of what kind of pain he's going to be in.
"That doesn't matter," you say quickly. "What matters is making you feel better, okay?"
In fear of being yelled at again, Bucky manages the faintest of nods.
It's barely there, but you see it. You understand. And you press your palms down against his chest.
Bucky squeezes his eyes shut, muscles tensed up with the anticipation of the impending dread, as it always happens when Pierce brings in new reinforcements like this.
But it never comes. Your hands never electrocute or taze or harm. Nothing shrieks or alarms him of any new pain or anything to be concerned about. Instead it feels...warm? Lighter? Like a weight is continuously being lifted off the parts of his body that seem to always ache the most, like a leech is getting pulled off and he's getting his blood back, like one big, giant fucking relief.
After a moment, he manages to open his eyes in confusion. First he peers down at his chest to see where your bodies connect, where your palms are against his bloodied wounds. Then he sees the magic, where the jagged cuts slowly close themselves up, where the purple and blue inky spots morph into his normal complexion, where there's a very, very faint glow at your fingertips that emulates a kind of warmth he can't describe. He's in awe. He's a little befuddled. He's suddenly feeling... okay?
His confusion must be apparent, because in his peripheral, he sees your lips twitch. When Bucky lifts his gaze, he's met with you blinking at him with a soft smile, almost as if it's reserved for him. Bucky can't remember the last time he's seen someone smile at him.
"I'm sorry if my hands are cold," is all you say.
Bucky frowns.
How could you apologize for something like that when this is the first time in decades he's not feeling any sort of capacity of pain? The constant thrumming in the back of his mind quiets down, the ache in his left shoulder ceases — a pain that's lasted the entire duration of being here, a reminder of his new home and something he's gotten quite used to — and the bruising and bleeding and stabbing pains all...just...disappear. It's refreshing. New. A reminder of what it used to feel like all that time ago before he fell off the train, before he joined the 107th, before he understood what real pain was.
After a moment, you speak.
"It's weird, isn't it?" You hum when you notice his apparent confusion.
But your tone isn't mocking or offended, rather intrigued by his wordless reaction. Not that he'd really speak to you anyway, partly because he has no idea what he could even say to you to make the conversation meaningful, but also to avoid getting in trouble. He isn't even sure if you're allowed to be speaking to him this casually.
When he doesn't respond again, you continue with no problem. "You should be back to normal after a few minutes, your body probably won't understand why it isn't in pain anymore so don't be alarmed if you're super confused. That'll go away in a bit, but I'm all done."
Bucky hasn't realized you finished until you're standing up. When's the last time he felt like this? Normal as it gets? At ease? A flicker of panic burns in his chest at the thought of you leaving, and then he feels a sense of guilt for wanting you to stay longer than you should — why would you want to stick around someone like him? How could he wish for you to do so, knowing everything that he's done? All the people he's hurt? If you're in a place like this, then you know the secrets of the Winter Soldier.
He speaks before he can stop himself. "Done?"
Your brows skyrocket, surprised to hear his voice. Rough like sandpaper as if it hasn't been used in ages. Bucky doesn't even recognize the voice as his own, especially when it's laced with desperation and a hint of fear at the notion of you leaving. Whether you pick up on the nuances of it, you don't comment on it.
Instead, you smile gently again. "Yes, all done. You're no longer in pain, so they'll want me back upstairs."
I'm always in pain, he thinks immediately.
Bucky doesn't have time to figure out a response before the cement door you came out of flies open, and Zola is standing there impatiently, gaze darting between you and him with a sense of skepticism that only makes his heart race. You visibly stiffen, spine straight, and he comes to the conclusion that you're conditioned with the same fear of following the rules as he is. He wonders what they've done to you, hopefully nothing worse than what he's gotten.
"Upstairs," is all the Doctor says.
Your feet move instantly, but as you slowly get further and further away from Bucky, you make the effort of throwing one last glance over your shoulder, a soft one, an expression etched with a sense of gentleness that he's never been on the receiving end of for a very long time.
For a moment, he forgets where he is. Who he is. What he's expected to do next. For a moment, all he thinks about is you. How the circumstances should be different. How bad he feels for you now that you've had to take care of a guy like him.
When he sleeps days later after another tough mission, your face is the last image on his mind. It's the only thing that calms him down.
You haven't been here long. But you've heard all about the Asset.
The war machine. The puppet on invisible strings who will comply with any order given to him, regardless of the morality. The soldier who will kill to the ends of the earth so much without blinking. Flinching. Understanding what he's really doing in the grand scheme of things. People around here talk about him in hushed whispers, because they think he'll hear them through the walls and slit their throats in their sleep. They call him It. Or solely him. Never his name.
Not that he even remembers his actual name anymore, one of the surgeons joked one late night in the medical lab, almost mocking the soldier for having his memory continuously wiped. He's not even a person. Just an asset.
So when you get called to deal with the Winter Soldier, you have no idea what to expect.
A burly man with scars littered across his body. Cold, dead eyes and hands calloused with dry blood. Muscles that could squeeze your throat and cut off your air supply in two seconds flat. A bloodthirsty snarl that says everything he can't, how he wants to hurt everything in his path, how he hates being touched and lashes out on all the doctors that attempt to examine him, how they have to sedate him most of the time to dress his wounds after an incident happened where he kicked a surgeon across the room for having scissors too close to his neck to cut his hair.
But when you get there, all you see is a man. Alone. Scared.
And his eyes aren't cold. They're distant. Blue-grey hues laced with worry and confusion. They're beautiful like a storm, nothing at all what you pictured. When you heal him, your heart breaks that he prepares to be hit, hurt, shocked, probably conditioned so deeply that touch is bad at all capacities. But never with you, which is what he learns quickly, which is what you want him to understand immediately. You're here to help. Always are.
It becomes somewhat of a routine to get pulled from the lab to take care of the Asset.
Sometimes you think the soldier gets extremely hurt on missions purposefully to get fully healed instantly, instead of having to wait for his genetics and the serum to do it itself. The more he understands you aren't here to hurt him, suddenly you're seeing him almost every other day. Each time seems to be worse than the last, as if he's addicted to the pain. It's awful, genuinely, to see him like this, but the only redeeming part is that he seems to visibly relax whenever you enter the room, despite how he's bleeding out onto the floor and strapped into that godforsaken chair like he's a lab rat. You think he's your only friend.
And you talk to him every time.
"I'm not a big fan of the cold," you chirp away one day, one hand pressed to his knuckle and the other on his right bicep. "One day, I want to live right on the water, where the sun never goes away. Maybe I'll have a cat, or something, you know? To keep the rodents away, and all."
All he does is watch you. Like he always does. No words, maybe one or two if he's allowed.
You never push him to say anything. You do all the talking for him. "Sometimes being here, I forget white isn't the only color in nature. Well, white and, like, charcoal grey for the mountains."
There's a sense of longing in your voice, like a verbal phantom ache that you're not outright expressing, but he can feel it in your tone all the same. It's melancholic, but also in your usual lighthearted tone to not give the impression that you hate this place. Because, let's face it, everyone hates this place. You more than most. You're not strong enough to escape and abilities not used up enough to be granted permission to leave.
"I think my favorite color is green," you murmur sheepishly. "The kind of green that shines through the leaves of a tree when the sun hits them just right."
For a moment, you freeze, eyes blinking with a distant gaze as you look beyond him, dreaming of a place far from here. Your hands cease healing as you stare off into space, and he frowns at your sudden mental departure. He wants to ask if you're okay (even though he gathers that you're not). He wants to ask what other kinds of green you like. He wants to know everything about you, because the more you speak, the more time he spends forgetting where he is.
However, your daydream goes as quickly as it came, as you seem to snap back to reality.
You blink once, twice, then send him an apologetic smile as you brace your hands back on his wounds, this time on his shoulder connected with the bionic arm. Because the longer you linger on the world outside of this place, the quicker the tears will spring to your waterline, dreaming of somewhere far from here, because anywhere other than here is considered paradise. You miss the ocean. And the forest. Even the busy streets of the city.
"Sorry." The smile doesn't quite reach your eyes. "I didn't mean to stop."
With delicacy, your fingertips trace the scar where the metal arm meets his shoulder, a series of jagged cuts and scars where they sawed off his arm to replace it with their technology, careless in their endeavors as they left him with the marks to remind him of who he is now. You can't imagine how much this must've hurt. They probably didn't sedate him at the time. He probably felt everything.
You shake away the thought. "I'm feeling a lot of pain in this area. Can I soothe it?"
All he does is stare at you, brow pinched in confusion. Your heart breaks.
"This couldn't have been done by a medical professional," you say low, careful so they don't hear you. "Every time I heal you, this area is always a pin-point, even if you didn't directly hurt it during a mission. It's...a constant. Never treated properly."
Now both hands trace the jagged lines on his shoulder, ugly and blotchy scars. Some look like scratch marks from his own doing, clawing at the machinery to get it off his body. He was clearly unsuccessful in detaching it, instead left with the marks littering his otherwise pretty porcelain skin complexion. But it's true what you tell him, because every time you see him and heal him, this area calls to you in the back of your mind, almost a cry for help, even if he's bleeding out onto the concrete with a life threatening injury. The left shoulder always hurts the most.
"I can't make it go away forever," you add for clarification. "But just for now. For a little while."
"Ved'ma," a harsh voice rings through the static speaker. "Enough speaking. Fix the Asset." (Witch)
A moment of silence stretches between the two of you, bracing for more words over the intercom to get in more trouble. But they never come. And when you realize that they're not going to yell at you again, you let out a quiet sigh, frowning at the ache in your heart and the fact that you're not allowed the basic human decency to speak to him like a person.
"I hate when they call me that," you wince sadly. "It isn't my name."
"What is?" He asks so hoarsely it barely comes out.
But you hear him all the same. And when you tell him, he nods once, understanding.
The two of you don't speak for the rest of your healing session, but you do dull the ache in his shoulder even if he can't ask you to do so, dress the rest of his wounds, and let your hands linger on the back of his knuckles for a moment too long, your version of a goodbye. His steel eyes bore into yours the whole time, never straying, and he doesn't say anything else. At least not verbally. His eyes soften, his version of a thank you, and don't leave you until you're out of sight.
You swear that, as you leave, you hear your name softly spoken against his lips, a hushed whisper almost said in prayer.
And months later — when you learn his name — you repeat it in your head like a mantra.
Today's been particularly difficult, as the Doctor's been working you to the point of exhaustion where you can't really see straight. Your responses are lagged, slurred with sleep, eyes burning as if you haven't blinked all day (you probably haven't). It's been one job after the next, relentless healing and reporting back on what specific parts of the body are in pain, what needs improvements technologically so that the surgeons can do their work, on and on and on again. You think it's been days since you've slept, it's hard to keep count. Especially when the quarters you've been confined to don't have any windows or clocks.
Apparently, you take too long to answer one of Zola's questions. All he does is nod towards his bodyguard, and you're getting a super-soldier-serum powered backhand to the face.
You stay alert from that point on. The throbbing in your cheekbone is a reminder of what happens when you slack off. Even if your hands are trembling with every new recruit you heal back to life, even if your heart breaks when they beg for mercy, beg you to kill them instead. Your left side aches, burns, something mangled under the skin that feels like an itch you can't scratch. Sure, you'll heal on your own, but that takes time that feels stretched to eons. And sometimes, you feel like you deserve to feel all of this pain.
Because you feel all of it.
Every cut. Every stab wound. Every concussion, contusion, break, fracture. Even if it's for seconds, minutes if it's a fatal wound, you feel it all. The spot you heal on someone else burns like a brand against your skin in that very same area, pinching for a few moments before returning back to normal. It's the price you pay for the gift of helping others, but you take it quietly and don't complain. Granted, there are more things to complain about in a place like this, that your little pain problem feels like child's play. You never told the Doctor, because if he knew, he'd probably force you to heal the dead. And then what? You die for seconds? Minutes? A life for a life? Not a bridge you're trying to cross.
So you never wince after a healing session. Never allow others to know your secret. Because in a place like this, secrets are hard to keep. You'd like to have one shroud of dignity left.
After your back to back to back experiments with the Doctor, your bones are heavy, left with a phantom ache of all the pain you've endured all day over the course of seconds, maybe mere minutes, muscles strained and mind running on autopilot. All you dream of is your bed — if you can call it that, a cot is more like it — and at least a few hours of rest, to be able to recharge and feel a little bit more like yourself again. It's hard to forget who you are, who you really are, in a place like this for so long. You can't remember the last time you looked in a mirror.
"Ved'ma," Zola hisses from the other side of the room. "The Asset needs attention."
You blink blearily.
"Immediately," he adds pointedly.
When his bodyguard takes a step towards you in warning, you don't wait around to get manhandled again. Your feet scurry out of the room before your mind can process what you're doing, and back into the familiar concrete cell where it feels like the only space you can actually breathe in, knowing he's there. Their Asset. Their war machine. Their puppet. But to you, he's all you have in here.
You enter the room a little abruptly, staggering balance and blinking thoroughly to stay awake. Although your heart is racing, and it's keeping you up. Especially with the adrenaline of running through corridors to get here, and especially with the way the soldier is staring at you with such a piercing gaze that it makes your stomach flip, but not with fear or discomfort, but something else you can't pin point. Concern, maybe?
His brows are pinched immediately, blue-grey eyes fixated on the left side of your face. You can't imagine it looks pretty: splotchy purple marks and a puffy eye, swollen and bruised and practically growing a heartbeat out of it. A sight for sore eyes, you can conjecture. And given the way his gaze narrows on it, on your wound, it's the first time you've felt squeamish under his stare, which is ironic because all he does is stare.
"Looks worse than it feels," you joke quietly, attempting to send him a reassuring smile, but you're sure it instead comes across as a grimace. "Ow. Okay. Wrong face to make."
He solely looks at you.
Then, after a moment, he speaks. "Who?"
You blink stupidly at him, half stunned he's speaking and half panicked that you're going to get in trouble for ratting Zola's guard out.
"Uh, would you believe I ran into a door?"
No. Clearly he doesn't believe that given the tick of his jaw, how his gaze keeps examining the purple welt on your face.
You see in your bottom peripheral that his fingers flex under where his wrists are caged into the chair, almost a tension release, or him gearing up to do something that will guaranteed get him in trouble, perhaps hurt even more than he already gets. A rise of guilt floods your chest, because the last thing you want is for him to get into muddy water for you. As if he already doesn't have enough to deal with.
"It's fine," you say quickly, trying to mediate. "It was my fault, anyway. I wasn't listening. Counting sheep in my head, or whatever. I wasn't doing what I was told."
"Who?" He repeats, firmer this time.
You swallow thickly, words dying in your throat. There's no way he's dropping this, and granted this is the most he's probably ever spoken to you in a long time, so you know it must be serious when he breaks protocol to ask instead of be asked. Especially when his gaze never falters, never breaks. Because he seems to let his guard down with you, but right now, he's breaking through the cracks, letting slivers of worry etch onto his features and have his feelings let on more than he's saying. More than he can say.
The last thing you want to do is upset him.
So, you relent with a sigh. "Zola's guard. But you have to understand, I was the one out of line—"
"I'll handle it," is all he says, voice hoarse from all the time he's spent not speaking to suddenly breaking out sentences.
Your lip quivers. "I don't want you to get in trouble."
All he does is shake his head, as if he's not even considering that as a possibility. He's firm with the gesture, wordless yet saying all the things he can't. And you understand, which is the insane part, is that you've gotten relatively good at reading his expressions and small movements that indicate his feelings, that speak for him. You see him, you understand him, you feel him, whether you want to admit it or not.
Your heart thumps. You need to change the subject. Immediately.
Avoiding his gaze and examining his body up and down, it's more of the usual wounds. Cuts. Bruises. A rib looking suspiciously out of place. A jagged line on his forehead down to his temple. The blood has dried by now, it's not the worst you've seen on him, but it's the only thing that's consistent about him. How he's always hurt. Always bleeding or bruised or battered. The sight in front of you isn't uncommon, even if you hate seeing him like this every single time you come in here. If he can manage all of that on a day to day basis, you can handle a black eye for a few hours.
"You, on the other hand, definitely were busy," you muse gently, both knowing he was off doing god knows what attached to Hydra's puppet strings. "Let's get that rib back in place, yeah?"
So you get to work, healing his ribcage that makes yours ache, closing up the cuts that feel like small pinches, morphing the bruises back to his original complexion that feel like a kettlebell pressing in each spot on your body. But you never wince, never let him catch on. Because this is about him, his pain, making him feel better. The pain you take from him will pass quickly, quietly, without a problem. In minutes, you'll forget it was even there.
"I haven't seen you in a while," you say after a long time. "I was worried about you."
Of course, he says nothing, eyes darting from your hands lingering on his tied down wrists and back up to your face, almost calculating your movements.
You can't meet his gaze, instead staring down at your conjoined hands and how the pads of your fingertips brush gently over his calloused knuckles, almost in a feeble attempt to soothe your racing heart. Why are you getting choked up? Is it the mere thought of the closest person you have to a friend going missing? Leaving forever? Because, then what? You're stuck here still with people who scare you, and the only one who never made you feel terrified was arguably the most terrifying person in this building, perhaps the whole world.
"I think you're my only friend," you whisper so quietly that you don't think he even hears you.
But he does.
"I think my name is Bucky."
Your body seizes up at the sudden spoken sentence from the super soldier, the most he's ever said in your time spent together. His voice is harsh, jagged in more ways than one, as if the discovery kills him and as if the words are ripped from his throat, spoken in a hurried way as if he'll forget if he doesn't tell you immediately. You were about to continue, about to finish the session with him in pristine condition, not knowing he was sitting on that piece of information the whole time. Maybe if your face hadn't been emulating that of a pod of grapes, he would've said something sooner, but frankly that doesn't matter now, because his words startle you, make you freeze in place, hands frozen in midair as they were just on their way to cradle his jaw and close up the cut.
This is the first time you're seeing him in about two months, the last time you spoke was when you told him your name. By the way there are permanent indents on his temples, you unfortunately think he's been in this chair with the memory wiping device strapped to his head longer than he's been out on missions. You know it's your fault, telling him such a personal anecdote like that. You didn't think it would get him in trouble, if anything it would've just been you. But that's not the way things roll around here.
His blue eyes meet yours, laced with desperation. "I don't want to forget it again."
No matter what, you never think you'll get used to hearing his voice.
Your hands shake as you press a palm experimentally to his cheek, feeling the stubble that's grown there and the subtle tick in his jaw. For a moment, you wait patiently to see if he's going to say anything else, surprise him further, but his lips purse as his eyes dart between yours, sighing quietly through his nose as if he's been holding his breath waiting to tell you, to tell someone, to ensure someone had this knowledge in case he's wiped again.
"I'll remember for you," you respond simply, earnestly.
And for the first time in the duration of your sessions, you're speechless.
When you cradle his face with such delicacy that he hasn't felt in years, he lets his eyes flutter shut, finally feeling able to relax, even if it's temporary. Granted his arms are strapped down to the chair, but if he had free reign, the first thing he'd do is place a hand on your neck, thumb to your pulse point to actually make sure you're real, and not a figment of imagination, a cursed test that Hydra created in his brain to give him a false sense of hope in a wretched place.
"Bucky," you reiterate quietly after a while, almost testing it on your tongue. "It's nice to meet you."
His heart thrums. He really likes the way it sounds coming from you.
When he lets his eyes open after your hands leave his body, he discovers that you're already looking at him so intently that he forgets everything around him, forgets all the horrors within these concrete walls, forgets this place is a prison and this is his life now. And yours, too. But he'd rather stay here forever if it meant the potential chance of seeing you.
You stare at him for a moment, analyzing him. The name suits him, you pointedly decide. It doesn't have to make sense, not right now, but the way it rolled off his tongue and felt safe in yours, you make a vow to never forget it for his sake. You'll say it every night before you sleep, hoping to dream of him, maybe the two of you in your own little paradise in a quaint beach-side cottage, where the sun always shines and there's never a snowflake in sight. Maybe you have a cat or two. Maybe you speak throughout the night, or sleep side by side. Maybe you go for a swim or sit under a tree in the shade.
The fantasies are the only remedies that lull you to sleep.
Bucky teeters between considering his enhanced hearing as a blessing and a curse.
It's a blessing when he can hear you without even seeing you. He catches fragments of your voice behind the concrete door before and after your sessions with him. If he really focuses, he can fixate on the sound of your heartbeat, which is sometimes the only sensation that helps him relax in a place like this. When his mind is too loud, he shuts his eyes and thinks of you, tries to pinpoint where you are in the compound and focus on your voice, heartbeat, footsteps. Anything pertaining to you.
But it's a curse when he hears two guards speaking behind said-concrete doors a few days after he told you his alleged name.
"Doc's pissed," the first voice gossips, as if this whole thing is a game to them. "It's not everyday you find someone who can heal anything instantly, especially when It's needed for two missions in a row."
"So, that's it?" The other one asks irritatedly. "He's gonna go back on that fucking witch hunt to get someone else? How long did it take him to find someone like her?"
The first guard snorts. "Decades. But he said she's gotta go."
A shiver runs down Bucky's spine. Go?
"Why?"
"It was saying her name in Its sleep," he laughs. "Doc said it's too personal now. Something about fucking with Asset's priorities. If It gets attached, then the whole operation goes into jeopardy."
Now he's wide awake, blinking in the darkness as panic rises like bile in his throat.
You're leaving him? Getting booted to the curb because of his fuck-up? Where are they going to take you? What will they do with you? Will they throw you out the front door and leave you to the cold all by yourself? You hate the cold, he remembers. You wouldn't last a day in the snow-cap mountains, not when you dream of a place so far from here. Will they kill you in the crevices of the mountains? Let your body be buried by the snow? Die in a place you hate?
"Yeesh." The other guard whistles low. "That's dramatic."
"Yeah, well, Doc isn't taking any chances," the first guard points out. "They're gettin' rid of her later tonight, I think. While it's sleeping."
Bucky tugs at the restraints on his arms so hard they indent on his skin, a permanent mark. One of these times they're bound to break, right? No, because no matter how hard he does so, he's never freed. His chest heaves, struggling against the confinements. He needs to find you, warn you. Tell you to get out of here before they can hurt you, that is, if they haven't already.
That thought makes him tug harsh against the restraints, and he sucks in a harsh breath when he hears a screw loose.
He doesn't think twice about the repercussions of escaping confinement when his metal arm breaks free, the titanium creaking as he catches the scrap before it can clatter to the floor and alert all the guards. It's late, no one's checking the security feed at this time, as it's normally the only time they allow him to sleep — which he always takes advantage of — but not now. Not when he knows you're about to get hurt.
Moving like floating dust in the darkness, Bucky maneuvers across the room quieter than a mouse, metal hand hovering over the concrete door latch as he takes a moment to close his eyes and focus. Can he still hear your heartbeat? Are you still here? Are you alive? Please be alive.
You are. He hears the heightened pace of your heartbeat, somewhere within these walls. It sounds scared, accelerated, but alive.
Bucky doesn't hesitate to swing the door open, taking out the two guards who inadvertently told him of the Doctor's plans without even knowing. He catches their bodies before they can loudly hit the floor, gently lowering them to not alert anyone else who may be lingering in the area. Waiting one, two beats, he waits for the coast to be clear and quiet before he's moving again, maneuvering through the maze of corridors solely based off the direction of where your heartbeat is.
When it gets quieter, he turns around until he gets louder, like a moth drawn to a flame. He's never been in this part of the building before, not even knowing what to expect or who he'll see, but he stealthily takes out anyone in his path and turns back to his main focus: finding you, getting you out of here, holding you if he has time to do so.
"Soldat!" Pierce’s voice.
The sound echos, throwing off Bucky's focus on trying to find you. He falters for one, two moments before shaking away the sudden chaos of voices that chorus, alerting the rest of the compound that the Asset has escaped. But what no one realizes that he's not trying to escape. He knows he's never leaving this place. He's making sure you get to.
Alarms ring out. Pierce is barking orders. The Doctor's screaming, Zola's panicked tone causing a shiver to run down Bucky's spine. But he doesn't address it, doesn't freeze or falter anymore, because he could care less what happens to him. This isn't about him. This is about you. Finding you. Making sure you get out. You have to, because if you don't he has no idea what he'll do. What else will he have to live for if he knows you're hurt?
Soldiers attempt to get in his way, Bucky takes them down easily. Your heartbeat still rings through in his ears, but it's starting to get masked by something louder, larger, heavier. A constant thrum, white noise. An engine? A plane? It makes his panic skyrocket, knowing what that means. They're taking you somewhere, maybe they'll throw you out of the plane at 20,000 feet, or drop you amidst the mountains to fend for yourself, to die alone in the snow and be buried by nature. No outcome is good for you, he realizes quickly. Not unless he gets to you first.
And Bucky doesn't.
By the time he reaches the runway, you're too far away, hands tied behind your back and getting shoved into a small get-away plane. Even from here, all this distance away, he can make out the ugly bruise still rotting on your pretty face, and something in him pinches worse than any pain he's ever felt.
No, this isn't a stab wound or broken bone, this is his heart, his soul, parts of his body he never thought would feel again. They've been turned to steel for so long, for decades, and you were the only thing that melted away that cold exterior, that made him realize there's more to life outside concrete walls and pain for pleasure. There's love, and kindness, and genuine care that you embody, even when he doesn't deserve a fraction of it. But now that he's felt it, now that he's learned to love the sense of touch when it comes from a place of care, he panics at the thought of being without it, without you.
Bucky shouts your name, he thinks, a mix between terror and a plea to get you to know that he's here! Right here! He's here to save you, get you out of here safely, but he's not. Because he's too far. Too out of reach. Too late. You don't hear him over the plane's engine, or the sound of the door shutting behind you.
That's the last time Bucky sees you.
And when the plane zips past him, taking off, a group of soldiers already have him pinned to the ground, injecting him with a sedative that'll put him out for days. Your name reiterates over and over on his lips, each time more loopy than the last, but the phonetics are there, almost said in prayer like a mantra he has to remember.
In the corner of his eye, face pressed harshly into the concrete, he watches the plane get smaller and smaller, until it disappears into the white sky and behind the mountains you hate, never to be seen again.
Years later, and Bucky still dreams of you.
He's been away from Hydra for a long time, trying to assimilate into society as a functioning member, but it proves difficult when he feels as though something is missing every time he wakes up alone. Sure, Steve and Sam are there as moral support and keep him company whenever they can, inviting him out to dinners and house parties with family and friends to get him feeling somewhat normal again. Sometimes it works, and he forgets all about his past and even finds himself laughing and smiling during the good times.
But when it gets too quiet, too dark, he's reminded of that time spent in the chair, reminded of a time when the only light in his life was you. Your hands. Your words. Your unbridled kindness.
Besides your absence, things are going alright.
Living alone proved too lonely for him at first, so Bucky immediately took in the stray cat that always meowed at his window in the morning. A scrappy little thing, white fur tainted with dirt. He spent a long time cleaning her coat, fattening her up, making her the only company he can tolerate for extended amounts of time. He names her Alpine, coat as white as snow, but also to associate the winter, the cold, the snow, with something good. Something pure. Something pleasant so that whenever he sees the same shade of white that ghosted over those mountains, it's not all associated with pain.
All the words that he's able to speak now, he tells Alpine, imagining you're in the room, too. Saying everything he couldn't at the time. Reiterating his grocery list or recounting the items at the store that were the same shade of green as the leaves when the sun pokes through them. Describing the dog with a ridiculous sweater that you would probably swoon over, how it slobbered all over him and how he couldn't seem to care less, not when he thought you would've enjoyed it. Attempting to make cinnamon cookies with honey tea, using ingredients as a way to emulate scents that reminded him of you. Walking to the beach a few miles away whenever he needs to clear his mind, going for the sake of you and how you used to talk about loving the water. He does it as an honor, almost, to partake in the experiences of life that you can't anymore.
He thinks of you day and night, seeing things in society that you spoke of and understanding its beauty for himself. He wishes you were here to see it, experience it, get to know him for who he is now, not who he was before. Because that wasn't him, not really, anyway.
A casual nudge to his metal arm snaps him out of his daydream.
"That girl at the counter was cute," Sam interrupts suggestively.
Him, Steve, and Sam are all at the corner breakfast spot, their weekly tradition of getting an early morning coffee. The tradition was purely based on pity, mainly on Steve and Sam's end, in order to get Bucky out of the house for a guaranteed amount of time so he can't wallow in self-destruction. Sometimes Natasha will join and keep the three of them in check. Now it's become a thing, and Bucky doesn't necessarily mind it as much anymore now that it's easier to leave his apartment and spend a few hours out and about.
All he does is shrug, sipping his black coffee.
Sam doesn't let it slide. "C'mon, you gonna ask for her number, or what? I can do it for you, it's no big deal. I can ask if she has a friend or two."
"I'm all set," Steve pipes in pointedly. "I'm married, remember?"
"Man," Sam sighs gutturally, "I wasn't talking about you. You think I'm trying to get killed by your redhead? Please. I'm saying: two for myself, the girl at the counter for Buck. It's foolproof."
Shaking his head lightly, Bucky manages an amused smile. "I'm good, thanks. But you seem confident enough, why don't you?" He deflects, taking another sip.
Instead, Steve shrugs. "Couldn't hurt, you know."
"I'm good," Bucky reiterates.
"You're deflecting."
"Not sure the girl at the counter wants to sign up for a man with emotional baggage and trauma the size of a small country."
"How chivalrous of you," Sam deadpans.
All Bucky does is take another sip.
They both know about you. They aided in Bucky's search to find you, coming up short every time. It's like you disappeared off the face of the earth, and you probably have given the way Hydra likes to dispose of things they no longer need. He hates dwelling on it, hates speculating what really happened to you, because the thought of you being alone, cold, and scared makes his heart ache with a pain worse than anything he's ever felt in his life. He likes to think that, if you died, it was quick, painless, and peaceful. He hopes you were laid under big, beautiful trees with the sun shining through, birds chirping to soothe the ache of all the pain you must've felt, but also in the sense that you weren't entirely alone. Not really, anyway.
No one brings you up. Technically, Bucky made them swear not to, but still no one mentions you by name, but everyone knows that's why he won't go up and ask for her number, why he won't channel that charm he once flaunted around like a badge of honor, why he won't try and move on and live some sort of normalcy when it comes to romance.
Because he can't, not when you occupy his thoughts day in and day out.
Truth be told, he still can't fathom anyone touching him. With Sam and Steve it's different, slightly, because he can tolerate it solely for a few seconds before he gets antsy. He misses the comfort of your hands, misses the solace he'd feel when you healed him, misses the way he never had to flinch with you.
"All I'm saying," Sam continues cautiously, "is that it could be good for you."
Bucky considers it for a moment. Oh, how he'd love to be able to open his heart up again, to feel that sense of ease with someone as he did with you, as he still does whenever he thinks about you. But it gets shot down so fast when he realizes how much he'd have to open up when meeting someone new, and that thought absolutely scares the shit out of him. Not only that, but there isn't another you out there, and sometimes, he feels like you were the only one who ever understood him without even trying.
"I'm alright," he responds firmly, marking this as the end of the discussion. "Honest."
Sam doesn't press further, simply taking the loss with a shrug and sigh as he moves onto the next unrelated topic, swerving away from the tension filled concept that is you. Steve chimes into whatever is being talked about now, and Bucky will add his two cents occasionally so that his friends don't worry about him more than they already do, but they know you're on his mind, it's obvious. But they don't pry anymore, knowing Bucky isn't one to really talk about his feelings, or talk much at all. With you, he never had to talk, but you still knew what he was trying to say, anyway.
Truthfully, he's grateful for friends who care about his wellbeing, he really does. But his heart is already broken enough knowing you're gone, and the thought of moving on from you makes his chest feel funny. He refuses to let go, to forget, especially when you were the only source of good in his life at that time. A beacon of hope. A break. A breath of fresh air. Someone he loves without even questioning it, without entirely understanding what it means.
Later that week, Bucky rises with the sun shining through the sliver of his curtains.
Alpine is curled up on his shoulder, purring away the constant ache where his jagged scars meet the metal. She doesn't stir, instead snuggling further as if to tell him it's too early to be starting the day. Part of him agrees with her, but decides to get out of bed anyway, seizing the day and the sunshine. Bucky likes to soak in the sun whenever he can, a small ode to you seeing as you can't do so.
He takes a long walk down by the shore, settling into the atmosphere of the light breeze and rippling waves gently lapping against the sand. It's peaceful, a soothing white noise that puts him at ease as he stares off onto the horizon, seeing where the sky meets the ends of the sea.
Granted, he doesn't really know why he's here, because he feels like he owes it to you to experience the parts of life you missed the most. You talked about the beach a lot, how much you loved it, how much it calmed you down. He comes here when he can and thinks of you. Sometimes he'll speak aloud to himself under his breath, a ghost of a murmur, as if you're standing right next to him. A phantom presence he can never really shake, not that he ever wants to, because sometimes the mere thought of you puts him at ease, even if you're not actually here.
Although, it feels like you are.
Especially right now, when his ears pick up on a sound that makes his heart skip, a familiar noise.
Laughter emerge to his left, and for a second, he doesn't think much of it. He stuffs his hand on his pocket to shield the metal, grateful for the long sleeve he's wearing. He gets less questions, recognized less often, especially with his hair now short to represent a new him, or whatever bullshit Natasha convinced him off when he finally granted her permission to cut his hair. Now, he's relatively incognito. Of sorts. The arm definitely gives him away more often than not.
The sound gets louder, and something urges him to look.
And when he does, the air is ripped from Bucky's lungs.
It's you.
At least he thinks it's you, happier than ever, petting a dog that doesn't belong to you as you chat with the owner holding the leash, unknowing to the revelation of his presence. You ruffle the fur, grinning at the canine and ignoring the sandy paws on your clothes, as if you could actually care less about the dirt. Your hair is different, more fresh and you-like. Your smile is brighter, eyes less tired, more free. You look beautiful. And certainly not dead.
When Bucky's ears finally stop ringing, he decides to do something he hasn't done in a very long time. He focuses on your heartbeat, the deciding factor that will truly tell that it's you, here in the flesh, in his presence after years of trying to find you.
And when he hears it, the familiar syncopated rhythm that brought him comfort in his darkest times without you even knowing, his knees nearly buckle.
Because it can't be true. It can't. All this time he's spent looking for you across oceans and over borders have been fruitless, a ghost of a name and gone without a trace. You practically didn't exist, not in any legal record, anyway. But now here you are, miles away from him in a spot he always came to in hopes of seeing you. It's fucking impossible, he has to be dreaming. Maybe he's still squared away in that four concrete-walled room, chained down and daydreaming so intensely that none of this is real.
The dog and owner eventually walk away, leaving you alone. You don't see him, not yet, watching the canine skip away with a fondness in your eyes that he recognizes, because that's sometimes how you'd look at him. That's how he images you'd look at Alpine, or any other dog you pass on the street, or anything remotely resembling innocence and purity.
Before he can stop himself, he speaks.
Bucky says your name cautiously, and there's the painful reminder of the last time he said it aloud, when he screamed at the top of his lungs yet still masked by the plane engine, how disgusted he was with that bruise on your face. You hadn't heard him then, not turning around as you were pushed up the ramp and sealed behind the doors, never to be seen again and forgotten to the world like snow building atop a peak.
But you hear him now.
You turn around quizzically. When your eyes land on him, you blink once, twice, sucking in a particularly harsh breath as you take in his stature, his shorter hair, the same color of his eyes, the metal hand that pokes out through his sleeve that he'd taken out of his pocket. But he looks taller, less shrunken in on himself, more affirmed and comfortable in his skin. He looks handsome.
"Bucky?"
© salem-s please do not copy or replicate work unless given permission. mdni.
notes sorrrrrrry for the cliff hanger? my bad? sorry bucky i didn't mean to completely make you suffer in this, oops. hope you enjoyed? part 2 coming soon.
i just watch this on tiktok and all i can say is this is IT nerd rafe when she give him some sexy dance or do something that make him blush 😮💨 aarghhh i love them so much
https://www.tiktok.com/@uncoordinated_tiktoker/video/7541639671453977870?is_from_webapp=1&sender_device=pc
OOOOHHHHHHMYGOD. Yup. Absolutely. Nerd!Rafe would legit go into cardiac arrest.
His pupils dilate and his face is so red. From the camera POV, you can see your figure moving in the reflection of his glasses, and he nearly breaks his phone after because he keeps watching it. But he doesn’t keep watching it to look at his reaction, but rather to squint and lean in real close to the phone to watch you dance over and over and over again, even if you can barely make out the movement. He doesn’t care. His app literally crashes because he watches it so often, even if you’re not with him at that given moment.
MDNI 18+ below!
Later that night, all cameras put away with total privacy, you recreate it for him. You put on a nice lingerie set — conveniently in his favorite color — and make him sit at the foot of the bed, and all he can do is watch in awe, same as before. His hands ghost over your hips when you straddle his lap, so fucking stunned that he can’t even move or speak, all he is capable of doing is breathing (barely) and watching and being painfully hard.
You’re a fucking tease. One moment you’re straddling his lap and just gently pressing yourself down to feel his hard cock through his sweatpants, only to stand back up in a you can watch but not touch sort of medieval form of torture. You’ll do it again, but this time sitting reverse cowgirl on his lap, and that’s when he absolutely loses it.
When you try to stand again, his motor functions suddenly decide to work again and his arms are bear wrapping around you, nearly throwing you back onto the bed and pressing his lips to yours before you can make a comment. It’s messy. Clumsy. Dominant. And you’re losing your mind as you watch him, with your back pressed against the mattress as you watch him slowly kiss down your body, making up for all the time he spent absolutely frozen, entranced with your body, your movements, just you.
Rafe eats you out like a man starved. His glasses fog up and his hands palm your breast through the lingerie nearly the whole time. The music that you put on earlier as a part of your little stunt still plays, echoing gently through the bedroom that almost adds more to the mood. When you finish, you pull him up to sit against the headboard so you can ride him into oblivion. Cowgirl. Reverse cowgirl. One, two, three rounds, fucking like rabbits, bitches in heat. A lot of it is his hands moving your ass up and down since your thighs have been shaking ever since you started grinding on him from the beginning.
After those multiple rounds, you’re both spent. Rafe cleans you up, you turn off the music, you end up in each other’s arms despite constantly touching each other for the past — how long? — hour? He helps you out of the lingerie and you steal the shirt he’d been wearing all day, slipping into the bed as if you hadn’t been going at it for so long that the box spring threatens to snap. He holds you close, traces shapes on your spine under the shirt, and replays the image of you dancing in his head over and over and over again until it lulls him to sleep.
Now, whenever Rafe hears the song you originally danced to in the video, it’s like a sleep agent awakes in him, and he’s brought back to the vision of you: moving pretty, looking like sin, and giving him some of the best orgasms he’s ever had in his life. Safe to say if he hears it in public, he’s either booking it home, playing off his semi, or finding you.
Not that you’ll ever complain about that.
sorry this might be random but are you into superman? i can’t help but think that you could write some of the best superman/clark fics on this app if you wanted to! anyways i’ve been enjoying your rafe and bucky fics so much, thank you for your writing 🫶🏼
This is actually SO FUNNY you said this because I literally just saw Superman last night not even kidding… and after seeing Mr Corenswet… I just MIGHT have to….
No all jokes aside, I’ve definitely thought about it (especially within the last 24 hours) I don’t know a ton about the DC universe but would definitely be open to writing for him for sure. Thanks for your support!!! <3
NO ROSTER, JUST YOU — BUCKY BARNES ONE SHOT
SYNOPSIS you've been friends-with-benefits with bucky barnes for what feels like forever. it's fine. great, even. but when you slowly notice he's open to being with other people, you pull away before he has the chance to let you down easy. besides, you're too busy to waste your time thinking about him, ego too high to let him beat you to breaking it off. yet suddenly, when you take your foot off the gas, he notices. astronomically so.
WORD COUNT 10.2k......uhhh sure?? my bad?
WARNINGS & NOTES fluff, suggestive content and sexual language, no actual smut (would be open to adding maaaybe). self deprecating behavior? first time posting some bucky barnes, surprise? fwb!bucky is very important to me, he's such an idiot. post grad au, everyone’s alive. enjoy???? 18+ mdni.
You've met all kinds of people in your life.
Some are incredibly down to earth, others so shallow the water barely grazes your ankles. A few so detrimentally chatty that you thought their tongue would light on fire as one would light a match, and others so painfully quiet that getting something as simple as their name is comparable to pulling teeth. Once in a blue moon, there's the cocky frat Wall-Street wannabe attempting to pick you up at the bar not suited for such painful small talk, or the girl who drunkenly approaches you in the bathroom complimenting your lip combo and insulting your outfit in the same breath.
But there's no one quite like Bucky Barnes.
On the outside, he's undeniably handsome in a way that turns heads, with a chiseled jaw and bright ceruleans and a smile that could bloom wilted flowers. Not only that, but the deep baritone of his voice simply compliments his looks, laced with a honey cadence that makes you weak in the knees, even if he's saying the most vulgar shit to ever grace planet earth. Dimples indent deep whenever he smiles, creases the corners of his mouth and around his eyes when he laughs, almost another pretty sound.
Yet on the inside — past all the handsome and picturesque physique — there's a sense of rawness to him you've yet to crack.
You've seen glimpses of it, of him, taking in the way he can go from joking in a sense of self deprecation to contemplating the foundation of the universe within a five minute span. He's smarter than he lets on, and way more interesting than simply a pretty face and nearly picture perfect body. One time, he let it slip how obsessed he is with The Hobbit, and you've never been able to see him in the same light since, knowing underneath all those muscles and incessant fuck-boy flirtatious tactics there's a dormant nerd.
It...also doesn't help that he says the most gut-wrenching things in bed as if you were ever his to begin with.
Sometimes you forget you aren't his. Especially when he praises how pretty you look with his cock in your mouth or how you're taking him so well from the back, side, top, any angle possible. It only gets worse after you both finish (yes, he makes you finish. It's impossible to stop sleeping with him) and you're tangled together under his sheets that seem to now smell of you, one of his hands tracing shapes on your vertebrae and the other tangled in your hair, talking about things you wouldn't even confess to a journal. Not the dirty shit. The real shit. The I'm borderline having an existential crisis and simply need to talk out my hopes and dreams and fears and nightmares without anything getting fixes shit. The I just learned about the Fourth Turning and need someone to contemplate the universe with shit. The shit that normal friends with benefits don't engage in.
The whole friends with benefits ordeal happened merely by accident. All your friends had coupled-up by the end of the night, leaving you and Bucky to twiddle your thumbs and keep up your playful banter as long as you could to avoid the obvious seventh wheeling (eight?). Yet, one thing led to another (i.e. a guy approaching you and asking you to dance, and when you realize just how fucking awful he was, you simply sunk your talons into Bucky's bicep and said you had a boyfriend. Not that Bucky minded. At all. Because he almost missed your words because of how hyper-fixated he was on how nice it felt to touch you. For you to touch him? Semantics.). Regardless, you kept up the little act within your foreplay, and somehow found yourself tumbling into his bed.
Over, and over, and over.
And for a while, you thought he liked you, too. You also assumed he got the same kind of butterflies you did whenever you were in the same room. You figured you weren't just any hookup, especially when you've spent more time knowing the inner workings of his brain than you have his body. It almost seemed correct to assume you were friends, at that, who respected each other, who respected the deal you both had.
That is — until you see him getting a little too close with a strawberry blonde you've never seen before in the middle of a packed bar as if he doesn't give less of a fuck about your 'supposed' connection.
But it's actually fine. It is. It has to be.
Because you're not his, you remind yourself over and over, mumbled from chapped lips like a prayer and reiterated in your hurting mind like a mantra, something you're forcing yourself to believe. You down your drink, all hopes of getting laid tonight flying out the window, ignoring the sorrowful looks from Steve, Natasha and Sam, because they know you'll do nothing. Say nothing. And instead close yourself off to shield the last ounce of dignity you have left.
"You wanna leave?" Natasha asks you after another ten minutes of turning your back to Bucky and his new fling, almost forcefully manifesting the saying whatever is behind you is beneath you type bullshit.
But you shake your head, sending her a smile that doesn't quite reach your eyes and doing your best to remain indifferent, because if you don't, it literally will kill you. Besides, he's never actually expressed an interest in being with you and you've never brought it up as a possible next step. So who are you to get upset?
You blink away the image of him and someone else out of your mind.
"Nah. I'll get another drink, though."
And that's what you do... You move on. Or at least go through the motions of doing so. Your friends stay stagnant for one, two beats before shrugging at your nonchalance, knowing they're not getting any sort of intel on your feelings tonight even though they can already tell how you feel. Washed up. Replaceable. Not special in the slightest.
Especially when the thought of being with another guy physically makes you sick.
Because you're too burnt out to be doing this will they won't they shit with him anymore. You hang out. You fuck. You pillow-talk like your lives depend on it. You go about the next day hanging out with all your friends and dismissing the fact you know everything about him, down to the name of his childhood pet to his greatest regret. The two of you converse in front of your friends as normal, civil people do, ignoring the fact you let him hit it raw a mere twelve hours ago. You think you love him, you'd be stupid not to, and that's the part that makes your heart ache more than anything.
You smell his cologne before you feel his presence.
"Hey."
Suddenly, the culprit is brushing your shoulder as he nudges towards the bar, murmuring a quiet, personal greeting to you before addressing the group.
"Christ. That was brutal. Did I miss anything good?"
You stiffen — only slightly, barely noticeable — as he stands arm-to-arm with you, pressing your lips shut as Steve, ever the savior, clears his throat to mediate the tension of the moment. Whether Bucky's aware of the clear apprehension of his friends towards him in this given moment, he doesn't seem to notice, too focused on being back with his group and how your perfume smells like absolute heaven, how nice it is to have you brushing your arm with his.
"No, Buck," Steve answers smoothly, bringing his beer up to his lips. "Unless you count the fact that Sam ate shit on the dancefloor twenty minutes ago and ruined his jeans."
"They're Levi's!" Sam's voice comes from above the music.
And suddenly you're all back in the same rhythm. Joking, laughing, reminiscing over anecdotes that happened ages ago and sharing drinks and shots as if you're back in college again. You nearly lose the image of Bucky with the girl from before, solely focused on how beautiful it is to be out with your friends on such a nice night, all together and happy and enjoying yourselves.
It’s light. Easy. Fun. In fact, it’s so fun that you nearly miss that Bucky’s hand has been pressed against the small of your back for the betterment of a half hour. Light yet firm. Casual but possessive. Cool despite the fire burning in your chest.
You subtly shake it off when you leave briefly to grab another drink, and when you settle back in your spot with a considerable amount of distance between you and him (i.e. not touching arms anymore, practically continents away), he doesn’t put his hand back, instead keeping it polite at his side for the rest of the night, almost as if he noticed his handsy nature and reeled it in.
That is, when Sam is ranting on and on about some nim-wit coworker in his department, you feel a gentle nudge on your arm.
You look up to the left to see Bucky already staring at you. Intent. Soft. Something else behind his eyes that you can't seem to recognize, and you're not really sure that you want to.
"You wanna get out of here soon?" Bucky asks softly, a tone just reserved for you.
And as much as you want to say yes to that, as much as your body wants you to say yes to that, your mind betrays you. It replays the image of him and the strawberry blonde, and it seems to solely remember his face, blue eyes blown black with lust and that half smirk he has when he's trying to pull, when he's flirting. It remembers his hands on her shoulder, polite yet implying something further, and even if you never saw them kissing, it still fucking hurts.
So you protect your peace.
"I'm actually gonna stay for a while."
You don't miss the way his brows shoot up in surprise, as you've never really turned down his wanna get out of here one-liners before, not that they're even a flirting method. But you stand your ground, sending him an easy smile before turning back to the group, tuning back into Sam's story and even laughing along when it's needed. In the corner of your eye, you see Bucky shrug at your casual brush off, probably thinking nothing of it and assuming you'll be in his bed tomorrow night instead.
Whatever. Water under the bridge, right?
Especially when you give him the same side-hug you give all your friends when you all catch your separate cabs back to your respective homes, not giving him an ounce of special attention he's used to. Especially when you dodge his second attempt to bring you back home with him, blaming your lack of sleep and busy upcoming day. Bucky doesn't argue and lets you leave, but not without a five second are you actually being serious stare as all of your friends have already left.
"You're actually going home?" He asks incredulously as he watches you hail a cab, ego half bruised and half aching with something he isn't ready to confront. "What about last night?"
Your eyes don't leave the road.
"What about it?"
Bucky blinks stupidly at your profile, confused why you aren't looking at him.
"You said you'd come over again tonight."
"Didn't think I'd be this tired."
“We can just go to sleep.”
You pause, heart aching. Stop making this difficult, you think bitterly. Of course you want to be with him. Stay with him. Allow yourself to fully indulge in your feelings for him. But not when he’s had his hands on another merely hours ago, not when it’s all you can see burned fresh in your mind, embers still catching. You know the outcome. You know if you spend the night, you’ll initiate something your heart desires and mind despises. You know yourself too well.
“Bucky,” you sigh, half amused, half exasperated. “You and I both know that’s not gonna happen.”
A beat.
You change the subject before he can protest. "I'll see you this weekend for Steve's movie night, yeah?"
That's when you turn and flash him a warm smile, one that says everything is fine, nothing's unusual. You ignore his pinched brow and head tilt, probably more confused than ever. But he doesn't linger on it, instead blinking and nodding slowly, as if he wants to argue with it but knows better than to confront whatever weird fluttering his heart is doing the more he looks at you.
"Yeah," he says eventually. "Alright."
Finally, a car approaches the curb and you nearly sigh out of relief, not bothering to try and save yourself further as you move to leave. You opt for a polite wave, get in your cab, and force yourself to not turn around and watch him get smaller and smaller as he stands dumbfounded on the curb.
So, in a feeble attempt to be dignified, you simply pull back.
Not loudly, or explicitly, or anything synonymous to drama. It's quiet, calculated, nonchalant. On nights he texts you at an ungodly hour, you're pretending you slept through the fuck-sesh window. When your friend group gets together, you're sticking with Nat and conversing with him when it's convenient. When he shows up to Sam's birthday celebration with the intention of spending the night with you after, you disappear with Wanda before the final goodbyes and smoke a joint for a little too long on the fire escape.
If he wants to treat your connection as something casual, as something he does with the other girls he may bring into his bed, then you want no part of it.
You work later hours. You pick up hobbies to distract yourself from the incessant buzzing of your phone on the kitchen island. You cling to Natasha and Wanda and lean on your support systems. Does part of you miss him? Oh, absolutely. All the time. He’s been your friend longer than most. He’s helped you through your worst and lifted you up at your best. You’ve been platonic. You’ve been lovers. You’ve been strangers. You’ll always love him, regardless of the emotional toll this situationship is taking on your heart, because he was your friend first. A good one, at that.
But you're smarter than this, smarter than letting yourself get strung along by a man who won't put you first, a guy who will make you say you’re his when he’s buried to the hilt inside you, only to spin around and go on a coffee date with a girl from work the next morning, a guy who seems to be dangling the possibility of a relationship on a fish hook right in front of your face, even if he doesn’t realize he’s doing it or not, a guy who is — undoubtedly — the best lay of your sexual career.
(Though you’d rather die than admit that to anyone).
The next time you see him, it's for another one of Tony's charity benefits.
Turns out that when his father left his multi-billion dollar company and said go nuts, Tony didn't take that as a joke. A fairly large portion of the funds go towards these charity events. Another big chunk to his progressive research. Parts to mainly force all of his friends to look nice and be in one place for the night, promising an open bar and free range of the liquor cabinet on the outdoor rooftop patio, to which you and none of your friends can resist in the slightest. Besides, it's a nice excuse to put on a pretty dress and stand in the corner with Natasha and Wanda and viscerally judge everyone's outfits and guess which trophy wives are cheating on their old, wrinkled creeps of husbands.
Tonight you opted for simple, not necessarily in the mood for an over the top get-up. The dress is floor length, hugging your body in the places that make you feel confident while giving you space to breathe all the same, with an open back that dips low, exposing everything down to the base of your spine.
Not that it matters, anyway, because you've been standing with your back against the outdoor concrete walls nursing a now-luke-warm champagne flute, studying the partygoers and trying your best not to bleed green as you watch all your friends break off with their partners, dancing intimately and smiling and looking so disgustingly (and endearingly) in love that you have half a mind to chug the rest of your drink. You politely declined a handsome man's earlier request to share a dance, mind stuck somewhere else. Particularly on someone else.
And — perfect timing — because suddenly, he's leaning his back against the wall next to you.
"Oh my god," he mutters irritably, bumping your shoulder. "That girl from the copy desk would not stop talking."
You ignore the way your heart lurches. "The one who laughs like a dj board or the one who always has lipstick on her teeth?"
He hums amusingly. "No, the other other one. The blonde who's all legs."
Riiiiight. There's no way he's not going to have women approach him all night looking this dangerous, like straight out of a model's fantasy. Or have him approach women. You don't want to think about the semantics of it all.
"Oh," you murmur.
"Yeah," he responds, missing the way your voice gets quiet. "She was explaining her astronaut calendar to me, or something. Honestly, she lost me after she starting talking about dinosaurs."
Bucky sighs like he's had a long day at work, plucking the champagne flute out of your hands like second nature and downing the drink in one go, missing the way your brows furrow and the gears turn in your brain at his last sentence. You sneak a side eye to him, really trying to ignore how beautiful he looks: tie a bit loosened, cheeks flushed, still ridiculously handsome in the all-black suit, not noticing your confusion in the slightest.
"...What are you saying to me right now?"
"Sweet girl, your guess is as good as mine."
"Do you mean...astrology chart?"
"Sure?"
"And Sagittarius?"
"Is that the one with the really long neck? You know, the herbivore?"
You blink at him. "Bucky, that's a star sign. She was telling you about zodiacs."
All he does is stare back at you, a smirk tugging the ends of his lips to mask his confusion. It's clear he's had a flute or two or three, because suddenly his eyes soften as he takes in your appearance: a near-scowl on your face as you hide the best feature of your dress — the open back — scanning the crowd like it's done something to personally offend you. You look like an angry, beautiful fairy. He's decided you've never looked more ethereal in his life.
Suddenly his smirk grows into a grin.
You ignore how it makes your heart lurch. "You do know what zodiacs are, right?"
"Yeah, sure," he says distractedly. Then, "You look beautiful tonight."
You suck in a harsh breath, caught off guard immediately.
All the responses you had in your head suddenly dissipate, evaporate into thin air as you come up blank in how to react, what to say, how to feel. On one hand, your chest constricts at the casual intimacy of it, how he's looking you up and down not lustfully, but in admiration, like you're a portrait in a museum he's been waiting in line all day to catch a glimpse at. On the other hand, you assume that's his opening liner to all the women he's conversed with tonight.
The expression on your face must not be what he was expecting, because his grin slowly morphs into a softer one, brows furrowing in confusion. That's never not worked on you before, as you'll usually quip something playful back at him or compliment him too or try and suppress a smile to appear indifferent. But now you just...don't give him anything besides something that resembles hurt. And, oh, he notices. It kills him.
"What?" He asks quietly, nervously smiling. "Should I have bought you a drink first?"
You attempt to laugh at the joke, but it comes out as a short exhale, not even sure what kind of response you're trying to give him.
"Or..." Bucky trails off, softer. "...asked you to dance?"
Your knees nearly buckle.
"I'm not—" You swallow thickly. "I don't really dance."
He shrugs, not seeing the problem. "Me neither."
"I'd step on your feet."
"I wouldn't mind."
"My stiletto could puncture your toe."
"Is it made of steel?"
"It could be. You never know with shoe manufacturers, these days."
"Sweet girl." A warning.
You suck in another particularly harsh breath, not sure on why he's so adamant on the matter at all. Doesn't he have at least five other girls he could've asked in the time span he's spent trying to get you to say yes? What about the astrology blonde? She'd definitely keep him company, and not only that, she'd keep him entertained, that's for sure.
Because you know if you dance with him now, you'll never get over him, never get over how good it feels to be touched by him, held by him. You need to stay dignified. Stay true to your wordless promise. Keep your distance, protect your heart.
You're about to let him down easy. "Bucky—"
But fate decides to enter the scene like a modern day Superman. And she looks killer with bright red hair and a low cut dress that's comparable to sin.
Natasha pokes her head onto the rooftop, swaying only slightly given all the drinks her and Steve have been pounding all night. When her eyes land on you, they brighten along with a beautiful grin that immediately gives away her elatedness to see you, pointing at you so staggered that the champagne nearly flies out of her flute.
"There you are," she hisses quietly, pearly whites on display. "C'mon, the timeshare guy's wife is about to fuck the bar back. Are you coming or not?"
Your eyes dart between her and Bucky, who is solely amusingly looking at you and waiting for you to make your decision. Yet something catches your eye just over his shoulder: a sliver of beach blonde hair staring at his back, wringing her fingers together as she patiently waits for her time slot with Bucky to open back up. You recognize her from the copy desk, and especially recognize her from Bucky's story from earlier as you can faintly make out a Libra necklace from all the way over here.
So you sheepishly smile up at him. "Raincheck?"
It doesn't look like he wants to take a raincheck. Not in the slightest. But, nonetheless, he nods and smiles gently back at you, a look seemingly reserved for you. He ignores Natasha's incessant prompting for you to hurry up, not taking his eyes off of you while you walk past him and slip back into the ballroom. Bucky's eyes slide down the slope of your exposed back, watching you weave in and out of the crowd with Natasha firmly holding your hand, wishing it was him holding you instead.
He doesn't see you for the rest of the night.
And, later, after your little adventure with Natasha, you poke your head back to peer out onto the rooftop, seeing a very familiar broad backed brunette talking to an overly annunciated blonde.
You don't stay much longer after that.
It isn't until now, three weeks into your internal giving your heart space entourage, when you see a text pop up.
You're sitting comfortably on your couch, half an edible deep with your laptop open idly on the side with today's crossword and a mindless reality show playing softly on the TV. A nearly full glass of wine is perched pretty on the coffee table, as well as a bowl of popcorn you never touched. Wanda left a half hour ago to spend the night at Viz's down a few blocks. Now, left to your own devices, you figure you'll take advantage of the night of solace after three weeks of working late and burying yourself in papers and projects in a feeble attempt to silence the way your heart is screaming for love.
Like an idiot, you check your phone.
Bucky: Sweetheart, when can I come see you?
The words sit like a rock in your gut, and suddenly being crossed off a gummy and a few glasses of wine doesn't seem very fun anymore.
Because the whole point of detaching yourself from the friends with benefits was to get him off your radar. It was to simply keep the friends title and drop the with benefits bit, since it's not like you don't want him in your life anymore, because you'll always want him in your life. But just not in a context where he constantly strings you along emotionally. That's all. Nothing more to it. You need to remind yourself he only wants sex, he only wants your mouth, he only wants your hands, he only wants the parts of you that serve as a convenience to get him off. It has to be.
Your thumbs move before you can stop them.
You: Hey, B. Not tonight.
Staring at your response, a kettlebell settles in your gut, absolutely wrecked and also relieved and also sick to your stomach knowing what you're typing next.
Almost immediately, you follow up.
You: Been meaning to text you for a while. I've got a lot going on and don't have the time anymore to be messing around. So. You can take me off the roster.
Send. Oof. Put the phone on silent, turn it face down on the couch, and pretend it didn't carry an astronomical amount of emotional turmoil that's borderline making you go into cardiac arrest. Take a sip (chug) of wine. Grab a handful of popcorn and ignore your shaking hands. Attempt to mindlessly finish the crossword you started and tune one ear into the soap operatic drama displaying on the television. Refrain from checking your phone with all the strength you can muster. Because it’s not a big deal. At all.
Right?
You fall asleep like this: curled up on the couch, clutching a throw pillow as if it’ll float away if you let go, the mindless tv playing low in the background mixed with the soft sounds of your even breathing. Tears never came, why would they? You know what you’re doing, you’ve known for weeks what the end game was, and you finally cut the string, no longer a puppet to the show of love. It’s agonizing. It’s freeing. It’s lonely.
In the midst of your sleep, you miss the string of notifications that immediately follow your message.
Bucky: Wait what 1 Missed Call From: Bucky Bucky: Roster? Bucky: Sweetheart 2 Missed Calls From: Bucky Bucky: You can't say shit like that and then put your phone on do not disturb. 3 Missed Calls From: Bucky Bucky: If this is what you want, then that's fine. Can we at least talk about it?
When you wake the next morning, you don't reply.
You're actually having the worst day to grace the planet.
The subway was late — what else is new — and by the time you got to work, your heels already started burning blisters into your feet. Your coffee order was wrong, still drinkable, but wrong, and it simply wasn't worth it to jump back into the ten minute line for a minor change. The projects you've been working on need to essentially be redone since another department you've been partnered with decided to send you a new list of completely different numbers than what you've been working with. You were originally supposed to go home at six. It's nearly eleven.
It's just been long. Mentally. Physically. You can't even bring yourself to emotionally bring up the past few weeks of ignoring Bucky. It's all too much, and all you can do at this point is attempt to turn your brain off as much as you can so you can actually sleep tonight. You hope the late night walk home will give you a sense of fresh air and clarity. It doesn't do much, but it helps you unwind slightly.
But of course things can't be good for too long.
Because when you get back to your apartment, Bucky's leaning patiently against your door.
You freeze in the hallway, and the sound of your heels skidding to a stop makes him look up, eyes burdened with something raw and upsetting that it makes your heart flutter. He stands a little straighter, perhaps trying to mask the fact that he's been waiting here for hours without complaints, simply holding onto the mere fact that he has to talk to you, get a gauge on your feelings, because you've been practically radio silent. And it's killing him.
The two of you stare at each other for a few beats, almost surprised to see each other. He, surprised to see you still in your work clothes and heels, and you, surprised to even be seeing him at all. You never thought he'd actually come here and confront you in person, yet you can't necessarily blame him as you've been dodging his messages and treating him as if nothing's wrong in social gatherings.
"Hey," you say eventually, drawing it out in skepticism.
"Hi," he breathes out quietly, voice light. "Are you— Were you working?"
You take a cautious two steps forward, fishing through your bag to find your keys. "Yeah, been stupid busy lately."
When you move to unlock the door, he steps to the side to let you do so, and it takes everything in you to focus on the task at hand yet it's proving increasingly difficult when his cologne gives you a sense of nostalgia you didn't even know you missed. It's like grieving an ex you never had. You were never his. He was never yours. Get a grip.
"I've noticed," he says after a minute.
The door creaks open gently, and you pause for a moment, internally deciding if you want to let him in or not. Part of you knows what will happen if you let him in, physically and mentally, and the thought of rehashing it right here, right now, almost makes you sick to your stomach. You're too tired, too burnt out to even think about what to eat for dinner, too exhausted in every single way possible.
Bucky notices your apprehension immediately. "You alright?"
Well. That's a loaded question if you've ever heard one. How much time does he have?
You decide to play it safe.
"Just exhausted. Is there— Did you need something?"
Bucky's mouth opens and closes, especially when you peer up at him and he notices just how fucking tired you are. All the words he's been dying to say rise and dissipate in his throat, nearly shocked from your appearance. He wants to say something, to say anything, to help you get ready for bed and tuck you in and let you fall asleep in his arms.
But he can't. Not when he can tell some of your exhaustion is from him.
"I— Uh, I just wanted to talk," he murmurs sheepishly. "But it can wait."
You frown, not expecting that. "You sure?"
Then he smiles. It doesn't quite reach his eyes, but he smiles nonetheless. Soft. Reserved for you. Understanding.
"Yes, sweetheart," he reassures gently, nodding towards your apartment. "Get some rest. We'll talk later, okay?"
You ignore the way your heart lurches at the pet name, how selfish he is to say it as if he ever had the right, how wanted it makes you feel. Like you’re his. Claimed. Taken. Yearned for. It’s awful. It’s beautiful. You want to throw up and also feel his arms bear wrapped around you. You want him to call you that forever yet never again. Not if you aren’t his.
"Okay." You find yourself murmuring sleepily. "Goodnight, Bucky."
The last thing you hear is a soft hum behind you when you step into your apartment, send him a tired, apologetic smile, and shut the door. The only image in your head when you're going to bed later that night is how pretty he looked standing in that hallway.
"Have you always been this prone to self sabotaging or am I blind?'
"Natasha, I'm seconds away from flying all the way to San Diego just to kick your ass."
"I'd like to see you try."
You roll your eyes as you prop your phone between your ear and your shoulder, thinly slicing eggplant to meal prep for the work week ahead. Do you want to forget all about being a responsible adult and simply rot on the couch until it's time to go to bed? Absolutely. Have you been slacking on being a real adult lately? Also absolutely. Between work and doing your best to stay busy nearly all the time, you're forgetting to take care of yourself. So, exhibit A: making actual meals for the week instead of relying on foods primarily stuffed with GMOs.
Natasha and Steve are on their annual west coast voyage, but your best friend always finds time to carve you into her schedule. Granted, they're in their siesta hours at the moment, as you can hear Steve gently snoring in the background as she yaps to you, not even caring about her boyfriend finding any peace and quiet to sleep.
You don't mind the company in the slightest, even if it is virtual.
"Seriously, though," she adds after a moment of laughter, tone dropping with an edge of seriousness. "You really should talk to him at some point instead of avoiding him like the plague."
Huffing, you slice an eggplant particularly aggressively.
"Yeah, I'm okay."
"You know I'm all for hating on men."
"Of course."
"But—“
"Natasha—“
"This is Bucky we're talking about," Natasha says almost incredulously, as if him as a person is an excuse in itself. "Yeah, he's one of the biggest idiots I know, and I know a lot of them, but he's not a bad guy. You and I both know he cares about you more than the rest of us, whether you want to accept that or not."
Another harsh slice. Channeling your frustration out on a poor eggplant who did nothing to you.
Sighing clear into the microphone, you relent. "I don't even know where I would start besides standing there like an idiot."
"You could be sitting."
"What would I even say to him?" You say, exasperated and ignoring her smart-ass-itry.
"Maybe, 'hey, sorry for ghosting you for the past month but I am experiencing an influx of emotional volatility at the moment and can't process my feelings for you.' Something along those lines."
"Really?"
She snorts. "The truth would be a good start, no?"
You pause, chopping movements halting as you stare off into space, pondering the simple concept of talking to him. Blabbing your incoherent feelings to him. Letting him in with the possibility of being shut out. You'd think that would be the reasonable course of action as a responsible adult, but you never said you were one. Part of you wants this to fizzle out as quietly as possible, to let your feelings subside like the tide and strictly go back to being friends without any of the weirdness. However, you know that can't slide, not with a guy like Bucky who has no concept of letting bygones be bygones.
Granted, you haven't really been playing fair by dodging every single one of his attempts to clear the air, opting for the safe excuse of being too tired or working or anything synonymous to that. And he's been respectful enough, even though you can tell he's been itching to push you into a conversation. He keeps a distance. Approaches when it's right, not forced, only to be shut down all the same. You know it isn't fair. At all. But your heart can't handle that right now.
"Later," you say simply.
Natasha sighs over the phone, but drops the topic for now.
“I’ll be asking again later," she grumbles. "Anyway, do you remember that old Cape sweatshirt you bitched and moaned about losing like three months ago? Viz said he found it in his closet with Wanda's stuff."
You hum cheerily. "No shit? I thought Yelena accidentally donated it?"
She snorts at the mention of her sister. "Apparently not."
"That'll give me an excuse to leave the apartment."
"Oh, actually you don't have to," Steve pipes up in the background, suddenly awake and alert and interjecting so casually it shocks you. "I asked Bucky to drop that off to you tonight. You're home, right?"
You stop slicing immediately.
"What?"
"Yeah, I texted him like thirty minutes ago," he adds nonchalantly. "He should've been there by now."
Your veins turn to ice. "I thought you were fucking asleep?"
"Why would I be asleep?"
"I heard you snoring."
"Oh," Natasha hums. "That's just his deviated septum."
Steve mimics the noise, instigating further by almost sounding like he had no idea. "Oh, yeah, that explains it."
The knife clatters to the cutting board as you sigh gutturally deep, the sound coming deep from your soul as your irritation skyrockets to amounts unknown. Your friends fully know what they were doing, and you can't even pride them on the setup since they got you right where they want you. You can picture them right now: sitting snug in their hotel bed, suppressing shit eating grins and probably quietly celebrating their successful mission of trapping your situationship back at your apartment. Fool proof.
As if things couldn't get worse, three soft knocks rasp against your apartment door, sending your blood pressure to numbers a doctor would faint at.
“Wonder who that is,” Steve ponders innocently.
You shake your head, knowing you're not getting out of this one.
"You guys fucking suck," is all you meekly respond with.
Natasha snorts. “I hope you shaved your—“
You hang up immediately.
Sighing, you throw your phone face down on the counter and forget all about the boiling food you have on the stove, thoughts instead filling with the man on the other side of the door, who no doubt wants to continue the conversation he tried to start last week.
That was until you practically slammed the door in his face and continued to ghost him into oblivion.
Your feet move before your mind can process it, shifting your body towards the door. A sweaty palm hovers over the knob, almost shaking with the anticipation of seeing his pretty blues up close again, of being in the vicinity where you can smell his cologne and resist the urge to pull the loose threads of his sweaters since he always forgets to. Who knows — maybe he’ll just hand you the piece of clothing and leave. Respect your space. Space that you aren’t even sure you want anymore.
Because truth be told: you fucking miss him. More than you’d like to admit.
You miss his hands that often held your trembling ones. You miss the way his laugh reverberates a room. You miss the way he was so eager to please and made you feel so fucking good every. Single. Time. Like you were the only person on earth worth paying attention to. Like you hung the stars yourself. Like he loved you.
Suddenly, you’re whipping the door open (frankly to avoid hanging onto that last thought that will — no doubt — make you spiral if you dwindle on it).
And there he is.
Bucky Barnes stands tall, shifting his weight between feet and cradling the sweatshirt as if it’ll shatter into a million pieces. His hair is lightly askew, hoodie a bit mussed, as if he’d thrown it on in a rush, yet he looks handsome all the same. His bright blue eyes lock on you immediately, almost surprised at the speed at which you opened the door. But they soften immediately at the sight of you, nearly relieved that you’re giving him some sort of time of the day.
And your heart races. Instantly. Muscles frozen in place as you stare right back at him, ignoring the sizzling from the stove and trying to swallow the giant lump in your throat. No words come. Absolutely nothing. The only thing that you can coherently conclude is how handsome he looks like this: casual, soft, domestic. It’s not fair.
“Hey,” he greets gently. “Delivery for the prettiest girl on the planet?”
“She’s on sabbatical,” you deadpan.
Bucky’s lips twitch as he rolls his eyes playfully. “Steve told you I was dropping by?”
Only forty seconds ago, you think bitterly.
Instead, you nod. “Yeah, he might’ve mentioned it.”
Bucky hums amusingly. “Hope my delivery skills are up to par.”
“Debatable,” you respond pointedly.
Bucky stares at you quietly for a beat. Two. Three. Studying your expression and taking in all your pretty while he still has the chance.
It makes you squirm.
You hand your arm out, palm upturned in anticipation.
“Uh, the sweatsh—“
Suddenly, the smell of fresh burning fills your nostrils, and you whip your head towards the culprit — your kitchen — and forget all about the man standing in front of you, cursing loudly under your breath and dashing to the stove. The batch of three eggplant slices you’d been frying are indefinitely inedible, charred to black and wasted. So much for trying to be a responsible, independent, slightly put together adult.
You wave your arm above the stove, moving the pan off the burner and shut everything off as you see Bucky in your peripheral cautiously enter your apartment, shutting the door gently behind him with the sweatshirt still sitting idly in his hands.
“Motherfucker,” you hiss with annoyance, sighing through your nose, suddenly overwhelmed with his presence lingering in your kitchen. “Uh, you can leave it on the barstool. I’ll rate you five stars, or whatever.”
When you don’t hear an immediate response, you pause your movements of waving the light smoke out of your face, dropping your arm at your side to glance at him. Bucky simply stands, watching you intently. Half amused. Half with a look in his eye that makes your heart flutter uncomfortably. A look you don’t want to begin to decipher, only knowing it’ll hurt your soul in the long run.
Blue eyes bore into yours. As if he’s not interested in looking at anyone else ever again.
“Are you gonna—“
“You look pretty.”
The words die in your throat, actually more like violently sucked out of you at the sincerity of his tone, as you open and close your mouth, agape like a fish. You blink stupidly, hating the way your heartbeat is utterly erratic just from a simple sentence. And whether he means it or not, it makes you a fucking mess of emotions anyway. Regardless if he’s just saying it to be back in your good graces, or if it’s true.
You can’t dwell on the semantics.
All you can do is shut your eyes and sigh quietly. “Bucky…”
“Sweetheart, when are we gonna talk about this?”
You dare to peek your eyes open, taking in his intent expression, almost desperate, as he darts his gaze between your eyes. Flustered, you shift weight between feet, feeling your face flush and palms immediately grow warm. Half of you wants to say forget it and jump into his arms, forget all about your hurt and push it down and pray it goes away. The other half stands dignified.
“There’s nothing to talk about,” you defend meekly.
“I would completely beg to differ.”
Your eyes drift down, locking on his hands as you can’t even bring yourself to look at him in his pretty blues. “We were sleeping together. Now we’re not. Not sure what you want me to say.”
Bucky snorts devoid of humor. “How about an explanation, to start?”
“I’m too busy.”
“I’ll make time for you.”
“That’s not the point.”
“How?”
You sigh and pinch the bridge of your nose. “Bucky—“
But he doesn’t let you get far. “I’m serious. I’ll work around your schedule,” he says casually, as if it’s the easiest solution in the world.
“That’s inconvenient,” you defend weakly.
“That’s called problem solving,” he corrects pointedly.
You nearly scream in frustration, because you knew you’d have some sort of pushback with this, especially with the world’s most stubborn man to ever grace the earth. When he’s set on something — or in this case, someone — it’s nearly impossible for him to back down, to concede into neutral territory and go with the flow. It’s not that he doesn’t see it, in fact he’s fully aware of his ability to argue with a brick wall if it looked at him funny. He uses it to his advantage, like right now.
The other part of you wants to scream in terms of the emotional intensity of it all. Why does he care so much? Why is he blindly opting to carve a chunk of his time and effort out of his day solely for you? When all it’s ever been between you two was casual intimacy? Why is he offering the choice as if it’s the simplest solution, as if it isn’t the most inconvenient option.
Bucky notices your silence immediately, and decides to fill it. “There’s no way I’m gonna just stop seeing you, sweetheart.”
“Don’t—“ You say before you can stop yourself, aching. “Don’t say that.”
“Say what? That I care about you?”
God, he’s not fucking getting it.
You shake your head, exasperated.
“No, the whole sweetheart, baby, sweet girl bullshit,” you sigh tiredly, not even caring about holding back anymore. “I’m not your sweetheart, I’m not your sweet girl, I’m not yours, Bucky. Never have been.”
His jaw slacks.
Despite the way your skin feels like it’s on fire and that your heart is beating so erratically it’d make a cardiologist faint.
“And it’s—it’s fine,” you pointedly admit. “Really. But it’s confusing, and it drives me fucking crazy, and I need space. That’s all.”
Silence engulfs the room.
Bucky simply just…stares at you. Half in awe and half something you can’t pinpoint, as if the gears are turning in his head and he’s understanding your frustration, the reason for your distance, your coldness towards him. It wasn’t out of dislike or disinterest. No. It’s the opposite. You care too much. Feel too much. Felt that you needed to separate to shield your heart, protect your peace, put yourself first.
It’s almost as if the expression happens in slow motion. Because his look of shock and confusion morphs into understanding, almost relief. A noticeable tension releases from his shoulders as he puts two and two together, gaze softening so disgustingly endearing that you swallow thickly. There’s the truth. Floating in the air. Coming to bite you in the ass, as you presume he’s figuring out an easy way to let you down gently.
God, why is he looking at you like that?
“When you texted me,” he starts slowly, calculated. “I had no fucking idea what you were talking about.”
You blink at him.
He continues. “That was the first time I’d heard about a supposed roster. Didn’t even know I had one. Didn’t know that was the impression you had of me.”
A wave of guilt washes over you. “Bucky—“
“Sweet girl—“ He interrupts softly, almost in a gentle warning to let him finish. “I don’t know where you got that from, but there was never anything like that. No one else I was even thinking about.”
The confession makes your blood run cold.
“But— But that girl from the bar,” you defend meekly. “Or the blonde from Tony's party. The girl who’s all legs, remember? You’ve been seeing other people, and, again, that’s fine—“
He grimaces at the mentions of both women, the blonde he really wasn't listening to in the slightest and the redhead from that night at the bar, the night you started distancing yourself from him. He remembers it perfectly: how you leaned away from his touch, dodged his invitations, looked at him like he was everybody else, like he wasn’t special anymore.
Now it makes sense. Total sense. You saw him practically cuddled up — well, if you were any closer, you’d see his clear apprehension and gentle rejections — with a random girl as if it was just another average night. And then cozied up with the blonde at Tony’s gala (not really by his choice). No one to be tied down to. As if you weren’t the only thing on his mind for the entirety of each confrontation. The way you subtly swerved him both nights made his stomach twist so uncomfortably that he felt sick for days after, not understanding your sudden cold — luke warm? — shoulder.
But now he sees it, he sees you. And it gives him all the confirmation he needs to speak carefully. Tread lightly. Let it all out.
“The night at the bar, that was Mariah.” Then, after a moment, adds, “Um, Madison? Something like that. One of my sister’s friends who always got a little too close, you know?”
Heart thumping, you nod slowly. Cautiously. Not trying to appear as though the mere thought of him talking with other girls makes your chest do this weird thing where all you can see is green. Jealousy. Possession over a man you aren’t even with. Pathetic. Trying to appear indifferent because you should be indifferent.
He continues. “She kept talking and talking, it was brutal. Couldn’t get out of it. After a second attempt to ask me out, I just… I don’t know.”
Your chest aches. “You what?”
“Pointed at you,” Bucky says. “Told her you were my girlfriend.”
If your eyes widened any more, they’d bulge out of the sockets.
Because what? He didn’t just— He just said— He couldn’t have possibly meant—? No, he just got tired of her asking. That’s it. That has to be it. There’s no way he casually said that without ever being promoted to, it was simply just a ruse to get this girl to back off, that’s all. No further implications. No secret manifesting techniques. Only a way out. An escape.
“She backed off, and all. So did the blonde, I told her the same thing,” Bucky continues casually, as if he didn’t just short circuit your brain with a simple sentence. “The first time I said it, back at the bar, I came back to the group as soon as I could. But I couldn’t stop thinking about it.”
You dare to bite. “About which part?”
His blue eyes have never been more focused on you. “When I said that to her, it felt… right.”
“Right?”
“Yeah.” Bucky nods, almost a little too quickly. “Real. Forgot it wasn’t true until you went to get another drink.”
“Oh,” is all you can murmur.
“Then I couldn’t stop thinking about if… you know… if we were actually together,” he ponders aloud, spilling his guts with every word. “How nice it’d be to have danced with you. I didn’t realize how much I wanted it to be real until I thought of the possibility.”
The expression on your face must be comedic gold.
“Oh,” you repeat quietly.
“Yeah,” Bucky muses low. “Oh.”
You blink stupidly at him, mouth agape as you take in his words, his confession, especially how sincere he sounds recounting the night. It makes sense: how overtly touchy he was with you right up until you rejected his first attempt to bring you home, and how his hands kept to himself for the rest of the night, how uncharacteristically quiet he was standing broad next to you. You didn’t think about it, about what his interaction with that girl actually could’ve been, and rather jumped to conclusions on what you expected.
In the midst of your self deprecating inner dialogue, you don’t notice Bucky slowly walking towards you, getting closer and closer with each cautious step. When you don’t jerk back or create more space between you, he allows himself to step into your vicinity, now merely a foot away as the sweatshirt he’d need cradling is now forgotten behind him, folded idly on the barstool.
And now — once his cologne has invaded your scent as his pretty blues are suddenly way closer than you remember — you realize just how much distance he squashed in a matter of a few mere steps.
You peer at him, frozen as a statue and confused as an idiot as one of his palms experimentally ghosts over your jaw. When you don’t pull away, he presses it gently against your smooth cheek, burning under his cool skin, and you can’t deny how nice it is to finally feel him again, and you especially can’t deny how pretty he looks like this: lopsided smile and gaze so soft it’d resemble the touch of a warm fire.
“Breathe,” he guides gently.
You let out a breath you didn’t realize you were holding. And suddenly it’s alllllll coming out.
“Sorry,” you say immediately, almost panicked. “I just— Phew, okay. You have to know what it looked like. Really. But I shouldn’t have cared because we aren’t together, we never were, and I’m not that kind of person to, like, monitor who you sleep with— You know I’m not like that—“
Bucky’s grin grows.
“I never wanted to make you think I was trying to sink my claws into you, or some bullshit, I don’t know,” you continue your incoherent rambling, missing the way he’s already made up his mind. “I figured you wanted to explore options? Or something like that? So I gave you space. I needed space to… You know... To get…”
When you trail off, Bucky cocks his head to the side, inviting the gentle confrontation.
“To get what, sweet girl?” He coos gingerly, pressing the pad of his thumb near the swell of your bottom lip.
You blink stupidly at him, wide eyed and embarrassed at your incessant rambling. But when he looks at you like this: soft, intent, as if nothing else in the world is even worth glancing at, you let your guard down slightly. For fuck’s sake, he just poured his heart out to you earlier, you know how he feels, where he stands, what’s the reason of holding back? What’s the harm in keeping your feelings to yourself? Especially now when you’ve practically exposed yourself, anyway.
Your mouth moves before your brain can comprehend it.
“To get over you.”
His brows raise, half surprised and half condescending. “You wanted to get over me?”
Swallowing thickly, you nod. “I thought you had a roster.”
“No roster,” he responds immediately. “Just you.”
“Well, I thought you didn’t like me like that.”
“Sweetheart, I love you.”
Your jaw slacks in his hold, and now his palm presses a bit harder, grounding, firmer, all to confirm his feelings, to get you to understand, to feel him. His hands are cool, calm, composed, whereas your skin is on fire, heart thumping a million beats per minute with a shock value so high that your ears might be ringing. They must be. Because you couldn’t have heard him correctly, right? Because he just— he said that he— he lo… he loves—
“Breathe,” he reminds you again, an endearing smile ghosting his pretty lips.
For the second time, you’re letting out a breath you hadn’t realized you’d been keeping in, staring into those pretty blues as they crystalize into yours. His palm holds your jaw in place, secure, as if he has all the time in the world to do so, to be here with you, regardless of all rhyme and reason. The touch is warm, familiar, something you missed a lot more than you'd like to admit, and you can't help but lean into the content, pressing your jaw and cheek further into his hold.
To think he was off sharing an ounce of this bravado with others is almost comical, because Bucky can't recall ever feeling this gravitates towards anyone. You're the first person he thinks of when he wakes up and the last thing he sees before he goes to sleep. After you spend the night, he hopes you'll take one of his hoodies to bring home so that when you give it back to him, it has your scent. When he arrives at any function, you're the first person he's searching for the immediate second he walks through the door.
Because, sure, the two of you have always been friends. Friendly. Comfortable. But the first time you slept together and created your little agreement, Bucky already knew — from that moment forward — that there was absolutely no way he wouldn't fall for you. Fuck, the first night you fell asleep in his arms, he already knew he was in deep, simply because the mere sounds of your syncopated breaths brought him a sense of comfort no one else has ever been able to provide. And that was only the first night. His infatuation for you only augmented after that.
Meanwhile, your brain is slowly starting to work again.
"That's— When did— Are you sure?"
Bucky laughs boyishly, head tipping back and clearly amused with your shock as you stand befuddled. If you weren't so fucking blindsided right now, you'd take the time to appreciate the way the corners of his mouth crease and how his eyes seem to gleam at the mere sight of your slightly panicked demeanor, because how dare he have the audacity to look this handsome right now, especially when he's practically laughing at your self depreciation.
"Because I'm a lot," you continue pointedly, so serious contrary to his jovial nature. "You know that. It's not— Do you know what you're actually signing up for? Genuinely?"
"I've been signed up," he says casually, still coming down from his laughter. When he notices your perplexed expression, he cocks his head to the side. "What? Sweet girl, you must've known."
"How could I possibly have known?"
"I came immediately when we had sex for the first time."
"Well, I thought you were just...excited."
"Tried sleeping with another girl a week later to try and get over you, and said your name when I finished."
"Semantics."
"I measured your ring finger one night while you were sleeping."
The next retort dies in your throat as you quirk a brow at him, and given the way his eyes immediately widen and mouth agapes that he absolutely did not mean to say that. His pretty blues blink at you for one, two beats. You resist the urge to push the hair out of his eyes.
"For science," he adds quickly.
You suppress a grin. "I don't remember you ever having a PhD."
You don't let him respond before you move without thinking, gripping the collar of his hoodie and tugging him taut to you, stealing his breath with a kiss so sudden that he mmrphs low into your mouth, half in surprise and half in need.
His hand cradles your jaw, feeling the movements of your mouth beneath his palm and kissing you back with just as much fervor, if not more. His unoccupied hand takes its rightful place on your waist, pads of his fingertips indenting deep into your skin almost as a wordless claim, a confirmation that this is real, this is happening, you're here in his arms after what feels like forever. You make a noise you didn't even know you had in you — a mix between a sigh and a whine and something else entirely unholy — and Bucky swallows it immediately.
Your hands brace on his chest, palm over his erratic heartbeat and the other trailing down his abdomen, ghosting the waistband of his jeans, an act all too familiar to you. And to him, because he gets the hint immediately.
When he pulls away a fraction, resting his forehead against yours as his chest heaves, you let your heart speak.
"You really love me?"
Bucky responds immediately. "More than anything."
He's so close, so pretty like this. A bit dazed, soft, eyes set only on you and nothing else. Smile lines by the corners of his mouth, his thumb swiping over your bottom lip almost in admiration, his eyes darting at all parts of your face as if he's studying you intently, remembering your features and taking note of how they look in this lighting. As if he wants to remember how you look in every possible way. Just for his own sake, to picture you in his mind when you're not physically with him.
And your heart just...aches.
But in the best way possible, knowing all your worrying and self doubt was for nothing. In the time you spent wondering if you were his, he was already dead-set on being yours. Irrevocably. Occupying so much space in his mind that there wasn't much space for anything else. He loves you. He loves your smile, your laugh, the way you hold him at night and listen to his dreams and nightmares all in same breath, the way you've made him feel important, like he deserves to be happy, like he's a good person. There's no one else on this planet he can say has made him feel like this, already missing you before you've even left and already wondering when he's going to see you next.
"Sweet girl, let me show you, hm?" Bucky asks gently, a tone reserved just for you.
You're hardly one to refuse that request.
© salem-s please do not copy or replicate work without permission. mdni.
notes sooooo hey? first bucky fic? sorry for the hard launch. hope you enjoyed!
your writing healed my brain. fuck i’ve been reading through nearly everything for hours. so good. oh my god. you’re amazing. just dropping in to give my appreciation, genuinely. love you and the way you write my man. fuck.
BRO????!! Thank you??? You wanna be in my will?? Manage my finances?? Such a nice message genuinely, love and appreciate the support so much <3 trying my best to write your man in a way that gives ya butterflies. GODSPEED!
Hi just wanted to say thank you for all of your Rafe fics they’re wonderful I had such a great time reading them
Haiiii thank you SM spidey !!! Slowly but surely trying to write more. Love and appreciate the support from you and everyone <3
OOOOHHHH I JUST KNOW NERD RAFE AND READER FREAAAAAKYYYY AS HELL
They abbbbbbsolutely are freaks. Pathetic and desperate for each other. Insert incoherent and mess of a word babble below because I’m bored. Mix between freaky and actually pretty wholesome headcanons for my favorite pairing.
18+ mdni. Pairing: nerd!rafe x flirty!reader from A THOUSAND WAYS TO BREAK A LAPTOP.
When Rafe takes you out on an official date for the first time, he’s a nervous wreck because he’s still so fucking stunned that you — the prettiest and coolest and most fun person ever — are into him. It takes him a long time to understand that, no, it isn’t a prank and that you’re actually obsessed with him. He takes you to a nice dinner by the water, and when he picks you up at his apartment, he’s stumbles over his words for a good ten minutes at the sight of you in a dress hugging all the right places. Your hand splays on his thigh for the majority of the meal, squeezing whenever you laugh and pretending not to notice the wild blush on his cheeks. He pays (of course?) and incessantly declines your offer to split the bill, and it’s genuinely the most assertive you’ve ever seen him. It’s hot. And when he brings you back to your apartment (not even expecting anything to happen after), you’re lacing your fingers together and bringing him upstairs without a second thought, asking a simple “Is this okay?” to him as you turn the key in your door, to which he nods vigorously.
You never thought you’d end up with a guy like him, someone who is so eager to please. When Rafe goes down on you for the first time, it nearly kills you. He’s so attentive, continuing his rhythm when you make a noise a pleasure, not letting his hands go unoccupied at any given moment. Even though his face is flushed and his heart is racing, he asks questions. “Is this okay?” and “Where do you need me, baby?” and everything synonymous to that which makes your feelings towards him skyrocket. With direction — which you have no problem giving him — his tongue and fingers are hitting all the spots that make you writhe, moan, send a prayer. And he moans just as loud into your cunt, something bubbling in your core when you look down to see his hips stuttering against the mattress, glasses fogged and eyes nearly rolled back in his own pleasure. But he doesn’t even go down on you just to get you off and rest. Rafe goes down on you like his life depends on it, taking every single piece of advice you give through breathy moans and running with it, and after your first orgasm he’s already continuing to give you your second. Sometimes third. He’s finishing in his boxers more than once, and you can tell when he does because he groans low into your cunt and sucks particularly harsher. Once Rafe understands how nice it is to bury his face between your thighs, he’s doing it as often as he can (not that you’re complaining).
The first time you see Rafe in a suit (for something as simple as a friend’s wedding or a company dinner), you drag him by the belt to the nearest bathroom and give him head twice. Back to back. His glasses slip down the bridge of his nose and he loosens his tie because he’s breathing so heavy. He’s a stupid, whining mess and doesn’t realize understand why you’re so worked up over the sight of him. When you’re on your knees, you’re slipping a hand to pull your own underwear down without him knowing, tucking the lace in his front pants pocket. After he finishes, you finish immediately after him, as you’ve been fucking your hand for the duration of the bathroom-sesh. You bring your cum coated fingers up to his mouth, and he wastes no time taking them, licking and sucking up every last drop of you coating your fingers and hand. Later in the night when he digs for his wallet, instead his fingers are met with your panties, and he turns unmistakably red and can’t even get a sentence out, especially when you’re looking at him from across the room with an innocent smile. You and him probably go back into the bathroom after that.
After you start staying the night a few times a week, you get into the habit of slightly stirring awake when he gets up for his (mostly) daily run. It’s barely sunrise when you feel the bed dip as gently and quietly as it possibly can, blearily blinking your eyes open to shamelessly watch him change into his basketball shorts and slip on his running sneakers. Whether you’re asleep or not, he’s placing a chaste kiss on your forehead every time before he leaves. Sometimes you’re asleep and he’ll loom over you for a few moments, watching the steady rise and fall of your chest and how your face is so content. Other times you’ll be awake, pawing at his leg to get him back into bed and — sometimes — you’re successful, getting a quick, lazy fuck before the sun pokes through the curtains, usually with him spooning you from behind and fucking you deep and sensual. If you’re not successful in that given moment, you’ll wait for him to return all sweaty and breathless and you’re pouncing on him like your life depends on it, sucking him off before his morning shower or simply stripping your pajamas the moment before he enters the bedroom. He’s needy and pent up, finishing relatively quickly and instantly burying his head between your thighs or letting you dry hump his thigh. And very rarely, you’ll wake up to the sound of the shower running and will waste no time getting up to join him. Either he’ll pick you up and fuck you slow as a nice good morning against the tile wall, or you’re innocently bending over, bracing your hands on the wall and reassuring him that, yes, you want him to hit it from the back.
(The first time you perch pretty for him on your hands and knees, Rafe doesn’t react for a solid ten seconds. He simply stares at you, flushed cheeks and mouth agape and cock painfully straining his boxers. He’s never done doggy before, and the way you nonchalantly set yourself up for him made his brain viscerally stop functioning. He asks you multiple times if it’s okay, if you’re sure, to which you hum gleefully. Experimentally, his hands fondle the globes of your ass and trace his palms lightly from the base of your spine and up to your neck, letting his cock move through your slick folds before he even considers putting it in. His hands grip your hips dangerously secure, aiding his movements as he starts fucking you slow, cautious, trying to ignore how hot you fucking look with your hair splayed on the pillow and your back arched like a cat, seeming to arch even more when he pushes himself in. However, when you slam your hips back to take more of him and wordlessly reassure that you’re okay with him going a little faster, a little harder, a little needier, his restraint snaps, hitting regions unknown and snaking a hand around your body to rub circles on your clit. The sound is obscene. The sight is obscene, the way your ass jiggles from his thrusts and how your hands grip the sheets. When you finish, hot and needy, he’s nearly right behind you, finishing all over your back, decorating your spine. When it’s all over, he’s cleaning you up and holding you impossibly close after, murmuring a thank you that you trusted him to let him handle you like that. It’s foreign for sure, that sense of control that he never really takes, but there’s a small part of him that prides himself on the fact that he can make you feel safe enough to submit to him.)
Movie nights with Sarah and John B and their other friends serve as a challenge. You and Rafe cuddle in the corner of the L couch, looking seemingly innocent and adorable on the outside, but underneath the blanket, your hand is palming his cock achingly slow for the duration of the film. He’ll finish more than once, coating his underwear and nearly convulsing when you continue. Sometimes he’ll impulsively grip your thighs like he wants to touch you or drag you onto his lap or do anything, but you read his mind when you lightly grab his wrist under the blanket, bringing his hands slow and steady against your heat. He makes an audible moan with a cough when he feels how fucking wet you are through your underwear. It makes him hard in an instant, and he’s forgetting about the movie he wasn’t really paying attention to anyway (not that he could, all he can focus on is the feeling of your hands roaming his body) as he fingers you slow, quiet enough to not alert anyone else. When you come, you nuzzle into his neck — a seemingly innocent act to others as you simply look like you’re tired — but gently biting his vocal cord at the sensation. When no one’s looking, Rafe brings his fingers to his mouth and tastes you. And when the movie’s over, he’s uncharacteristically kicking everyone out, you sitting smug on the couch, Sarah adding a “Wrap it up!” as part of her departure.
Then there’s the drunk/high sex. The drunk sex is fun and fiery, messy make outs and fumbling belts and laughter against lips. It’s sloppy and heated and lively and unabashedly pathetic. You’re too careless to worry about the noise you’re making, and he’s too unguarded to realize he’s making noise. It’s desperate and hurried and messy but it’s yours. It’s fun. But then there’s the high sex, feeling the lazy effects from a gummy from the dispensary a few blocks down with bodies moving slow, unhurried, but just as needy. Sometimes you’ll ride him achingly slow, other times you’ll sit on his cock in reverse cowgirl and continue binge watching the show you started together. He’ll pepper kisses on your spine and rub your clit as if he has all the time in the world. When you move in the slightest, his cock twitches inside you and his hips sometimes involuntarily buck.
Road head. It drives him fucking crazy. Whenever he’s behind the wheel and his watch glistens just right in the sunlight, you’re leaning over the middle console and sucking the soul out of him. The first time you did it he nearly crashed the car, and ended up pulling over on a random side road so he could tip his head back and fist your hair, whining pathetically. He doesn’t last very long, as road head had been a fantasy to him for the longest time and never thought people actually did it. Well. You did. You do. And every now and then when he’s driving, you’ll place a manicured hand on his thigh and simply watch him writhe, knowing what could be coming. Sometimes you’ll keep it there to tease, other times you’ll inch your fingers up, up, up, but not touching him yet. It isn’t until he says please when you’re moving to unbuckle his belt and slip his cock out, telling him how good he is to say his pleases and thank yous. Sometimes he’s finishing before the light can turn green. Not that you’re complaining.
Every so often you’ll have quickies at work. In a storage closet on the IT floor that no one ever uses. In the bathroom on a floor where everyone works remote from home anyway. Sometimes you’ll even venture into the dungeons of the IT department and find Rafe at his desk of solitude, working quietly hunched over his work and not even noticing you come in. It isn’t until you’re clearing your throat to where his head shoots up, eyes blown wide and glasses slipping, but immediately smiles so sweetly when he sees that it’s you. You slip into his lap and “help” him with his work, grinding over his cock that you feel harden in an instant. Most of the time it’s over the clothes, just a bit of rubbing and teasing and elongated fore play for later. Other times you’re desperate, pulling his cock out and sitting on it under your skirt as he bucks his hips up from underneath. On occasion, you’ll smooth over the fabric of his pants at his thighs and slip under the desk, sucking him off quietly. One time his co-worker came in while you were doing so, and it took nearly everything in him to play it coy. His flushed cheeks and stuttering voice are somewhat normal, so his coworker pays no mind to it, not knowing the reason for his fluster is your pretty lips wrapped around him.
You and Rafe rarely argue. Rarely. The only time you do is at the sake of your safety, as in you’ll walk home alone late at night after a graveyard shift and not tell him. Or you call a cab with a stranger rather than calling him for a ride. Or you’ll carry bags up to his apartment without him knowing. Truthfully, you don’t really see the issue with it. And Rafe rarely gets mad or upset over anything, but when it comes to you? He’d drop anything for you, and doesn’t understand why you don’t get that, why you don’t actually ask for help. He wants to provide, he doesn’t want you lifting a finger, he wants you to be safe. Yet he never raises his voice, and for you that almost makes it worse, because despite the volume never exceeding a certain level, you hate the pit in your stomach that forms whenever you feel like you’ve disappointed him. You can’t help it— you’ve always been hyper independent despite how needy you are for him, but that’s a different kind of needy than asking for things. You don’t think you’ll ever get used to it, someone wanting to take care of you. The two of you make up after having a civil conversation, especially when tears brim your waterline, frustrated at yourself for not being able to accept his aid, and even though he’s upset, he could never actually be angry with you, and (partially) understands your reasoning. He holds you closer on those nights, afraid to let go.
When Rafe hyperfixates on a new interest of his, you have to refrain with every muscle in your body to not jump his bones. This week he’s infatuated with the nuances of how albedo determines the earth’s solar energy. Or something like that. It’s hard to actually pay attention to what he’s saying when he looks so fucking hot like this: eyes wide and bright with excitement, glasses pushed all the way up his nose, voice basically suppressed by the giant grin on his face as he explains it to you. He’ll be talking, rambling on about the concept as you hum sweetly, kiss the spot on his neck that always makes him stutter, smooth over his cheekbones with the pad of your thumb, twirl the ends of his hair as you perch pretty on his lap. You take in his flushed cheeks, still rambling despite your blatant arousal for him, reassuring him to keep talking when he gets embarrassed for yapping for so long. Then, when you slip his half hard cock out and sink down on his length, you still urge him to keep going, to keep explaining the concept, to keep teaching you while you ride him slow, sensual, as if you have all the time in the world. You ask questions nonchalantly — as if you’re not riding him into oblivion — and prompt him to actually keep using his brain even though he stutters out his responses. Eventually he gets there. And when he finishes and you follow, you say that you’re “looking forward to next week’s lesson” mainly as a joke, yet Rafe takes the comment seriously, and comes up with a new topic/hyperfixation to tell you about every week. And you ride him every time.
Despite your high sex drive and his need to catch up on years lost sexually, there are nights where you don’t do anything besides exist together. Sometimes after long days of work, you’ll shower together lazily, washing each other’s backs and he’ll lean down so you can shampoo his hair, massaging his scalp nice and slow. He’ll reciprocate, dry you off with a towel when you get out, and help with your nighttime skin and hair routine. Then you’ll lay together, tangled in sheets that have both of your scents marked, and watch a show or simply talk about everything and nothing. You trace and hills and ridges of his chest as if you’re admiring the topography of a lap. He smoothes your hairline with the pad of his thumb and runs his fingertips up and down your spine. Other times you’ll bring a blanket to a local park and lay on your backs, sharing wired headphones as you point at weird shaped clouds and shuffle the collaborative playlist you both add your favorite songs to. Sometimes he’ll bring a book and read it aloud to you. Or vice versa.
When you’re upset, you shut down. You don’t voice it or go around announcing it. You simply…go radio silent. Hole yourself away. Wait for the feelings to subside and move on as if nothing happened. It’s how you’ve always operated, and the first time you do so, Rafe nearly goes into cardiac arrest. After not hearing from you for an entire weekend, his blood pressure skyrockets. He ends up dropping by late Sunday night unannounced with a bouquet of flowers and your favorite food, assuming he’s done something wrong to warrant your silence. When you answer the door in your pajamas, looking a little more tired than usual, you’re confused to see your boyfriend so panicked and concerned and scared all in the same expression. After some thorough explaining, you reiterate that it has nothing to do with him. At all. You just had a bad week at work or had personal issues going on and needed to disassociate from life for a good 48 hours. No biggie. Rafe has never been more appalled at this kind of coping mechanism, and made you pinky promise and swear on your beloved stuffed animal’s life that whenever you get like this, you tell him and let him take care of you. He hates the thought of you dealing with everything alone, and even if you don’t want him to speak or move or do anything, he’d be happy to sit in your presence in silent to make sure you don’t go through it by yourself. Despite the difficulty of doing so, you let him in. You let him take care of you.
And vice versa. A few months into dating, his father makes a surprise visit to the city. Mainly to only see Sarah, but felt that making a visit to his son was something he was obligated to do to save face, rather than something his father wanted to do. You happen to be there when Ward arrives, practically hidden in the bedroom as you’d been folding laundry when you heard voices. Loud voices. As soon as you hear a stern voice talking down at Rafe, your Rafe, about how he’s made nothing of himself and still has nothing accomplished in life, you’re nearly ripping the hinges of the door off as you discover the culprit: his father. Ward stops his scolding immediately when he sees you, and barely gets a fake smile or greeting in before you’re going in on him. Saying how unacceptable that language is. How well accomplished and hardworking his son really is. How he has no right to storm in here after not checking in on his son for months. Frankly, Ward is stunned anyone would even consider talking to him like this, and Rafe is just as frozen as his father, both blinking stupidly at you as you viscerally berate the man who Rafe thought was untouchable. He’s never seen you so angry, so upset, so honest. After Ward leaves momentarily after, you’re immediately turning to Rafe — still frozen in place — and asking if he’s okay. He doesn’t even realize tears are brimming his waterline before you’re brushing the strays away with your thumbs as you cradle his jaw with both hands. Then, you hug him. Tight. Close. Secure. A wordless promise that you’re here for him, that he’s nothing his father thinks he is, that he’s a better man than Ward will ever be. And when it’s coming from you? Rafe can actually believe it to be the truth.
The first time you ever witness Rafe raise his voice, you fucking freeze, not knowing he had that side of him simply sitting on the back burner. You’re instantly turned on, obviously, forgetting the whole reason for his anger. It’s not directed at you — never at you — and instead at the guy who decided to get a little too handsy at the bar you practically dragged Rafe to. You slipped away (leaving him good hands with your friends after incessantly insisting that he didn’t need to come with you) to grab another drink, and some guy in a ridiculous coral colored polo simply hit on you like his life depended on it. You shrug him off once. Twice. Thrice. Until you’re feeling a hand curl around your wrist that definitely isn’t Rafe’s, and you try yanking away immediately. From across the room, Rafe’s heart has never dropped quicker in his life when he sees this guy’s hands on you, and immediately weaves through the crowd, practically storming up to the guy and physically inserting himself between you and the creep. All the shyness and politeness you know he encompasses is gone, instead replaced with a colder and almost terrifying persona. His voice never shakes. Never breaks. Stays loud and stern and on the verge of being utterly pissed off. You remember the words like a mantra, remembering the cadence of his threat and how fucking hot he sounds defending you, protecting you, shielding you, hissing low:
“You ever lay a hand on her again and I’ll make sure that’s the last time you have hands.” Holy fucking shit.
You drag him away from the creep, away from the confrontation, simply too fucking aroused and too fucking turned on by the permanent pinch in his brow and the way his knuckles haven’t unclenched in minutes. Rafe’s muttering to himself, pissed on your behalf, eyes in a cloud of frustration and too busy being angry to notice you bring him into the bar bathroom, wiping down the counter nonchalantly with a paper towel as he continues muttering, hopping up, and yanking his body taut to yours by your legs wrapping around his waist. Once you do so, the force of the action snaps him out of his trance, blinking once, twice down at you, and before he can ask what is happening, you’re tugging the collar of his shirt and pulling him in for a brushing kiss. Unbuckling his belt immediately after. Hiking your skirt up and pushing your panties to the side. Rafe gets the idea, obviously, right away, but not without a head tilt of confusion, to which you respond: “Gotta reward my knight in shining armor, hm?” He fucks you like this: needy, perched on a bar bathroom counter with your legs wrapped around his waist, taking every thrust, everything he gives you. You finish devastatingly early, pent up. When he’s about to finish, you’re suddenly pushing him away, hopping off the counter on wobbly legs and soon dropping to your knees, sucking every single last drop of his impending orgasm as if you were put on this earth to do so. He moans. Loud. Unashamed. Fisting your hair and eyes rolling back at the sounds of your gags. When you stand, slightly disoriented and chest heaving, Rafe’s fixing your shirt and your hair with glasses askew and chest heaving as well. After a moment of fixing each other up, he murmurs, “I’m coming out with you every single night, now.” Not that you’re complaining.
The only thing sexually you are apprehensive about doing is sitting on his face, honestly afraid of hurting him. A little ways into your relationship, Rafe’s confused as to why you haven’t brought up the position yet, figuring it’s something you would be into but not wanting to ask and seem like he’s pushing you. It isn’t until one night — arguably the least sexy you’ve ever felt — as you’re laying with him on the couch, freshly showered and bare faced and only wearing his t shirt and boxers, that he brings it up shyly, asking if you want to try it. This time you’re feeling shy, feeling your face flush and only staring at the tv as you shrug, simply stating that you don’t want to hurt him. Rafe’s quiet for a few moments, calculating his response, the air almost feeling tense. As if he’s offended. And he is. Partially.
Because he responds, “Baby, you could suffocate me and I’d die a happy man.”
So here you end up: riding his face on the couch with the movie long forgotten. At first you were afraid to rest all your weight on his jaw, that is until he’s gripping your thighs and practically pulling you down to fully sit. And he moans low into your cunt. Groaning shamelessly as you timidly shift your hips, fondling your ass to physically move you himself. Harder. Faster. Shamelessly fucking his face at the pace he’s setting. And who are you to complain? Especially when he takes charge? Something he doesn’t do often, yet you crave all the same. It’s incredibly hot, and little by little you let your fears of hurting him wash away and lean into the moment, lean into your pleasure. When you finish on his tongue, coating his chin with your orgasm, Rafe’s finishing in his boxers at the mere sensation of getting you off. Any opportunity there is to eat you out, whether you’re laying pretty on your back or sitting on his face, he’s taking it and wearing it like a badge of honor.
On slow and glum days, you like wasting away an afternoon in his or your bed. Rafe’s extra clingy on these days (not that you mind in the slightest), and simply wants to be with you. Doesn’t matter if you’re talking to one another or watching something or reading. He’s there, sometimes head buried underneath your shirt and laying on your chest, or a hand simply holding a breast as he reads casually or scrolls his phone. He’ll play with your hair. Scratch your back. Lotion your arms and legs. Do your self care skin routine with you. Whatever you’re doing, he’s there with you. Sometimes he’ll go down on you for the entire afternoon. It’s absurd. He simply shuffles under the covers and slips your shorts down, loving the mixture of sounds of the rain pattering against the window and your short, breathy moans. He’ll either finish in his boxers or sit up and slip off your shirt, finishing on your tits (obviously with your approval, as you kept telling him to do so so he can stop ruining every single pair of boxers he owns). While he gets up to grab a towel to clean you off, you’re scooping some of his cum and tasting him, humming low and making sure he sees you doing so.
Long blurb short, nerd!rafe is absolutely, utterly, irrevocably obsessed with you. In constant disbelief that he’s with you. And you love to remind him how much you like him, how much you crave him, how much you care about him. Pathetic and desperate and absolutely love stricken (although they both aren’t ready to outwardly say that. Yet.).
© salem-s please do not copy or replicate work without given permission.
notes absolutely obsessed with this pairing. verrrrry open to keep writing for them.
18+ mdni.
A THOUSAND WAYS TO BREAK A LAPTOP — RAFE CAMERON
SERIES MASTERLIST
⋆˙⟡ SYNOPSIS Your computer isn't working. again. However, instead of sending the overly-chatty technician that you nearly despise, IT sends their newest recruit: a tall, quiet, yet endearingly charming Rafe Cameron who cannot seem to meet your eye. Now? You’re discovering all the creative ways to keep your computer continuously broken, and scheming all the ways to get in his pants.
⊹ ࣪ ˖ CHAPTERS & BLURBS ── 01 — 02* — and more... ── (Frrreaky and also) Wholesome Relationship Headcanons* | Giving Him a Dance | more coming soon...
₊˚⊹ WARNINGS & NOTES ── 18+ on chapters marked*. Do not interact if less than. ── I figured I'd make this a (relative) series since I plan on writing more of them. There isn't a cohesive or set plotline really, just putting all my ducks in a row since I plan on writing multiple full chapters of this pairing: nerd!rafe x flirty!reader. ── These are Rafe Cameron x female!reader chapters and blurbs. No use of Y/N anywhere.
© 2025 salem-s please do not copy or replicate work unless given permission. mdni.
