18+

hi, im and emotinal wreck and use stories to escape reality

[unificsation]

to have and to hold ⋆⚭⋆

mob!bucky barnes x wife!reader, 8.8k

⋆.𐙚 ̊. a bwatober oneshot ⋆.𐙚 ̊.

the kinktober prompt: cockwarming · hickeys · lingerie (it's a hattrick!) as a one-year anniversary gift, you propose that you and your husband divorce. he decides to teach you a lesson: that the king of new york doesn’t give anything up, least of all his darling wife.

⚜️ WARNINGS/TAGS: SMUT 18+ MDNI, mafia!au, angst, porn with plot, childhood best friends to arranged marriage to lovers, repressed feelings, noncon mention (does not happen), allusions to age gap but no direct reference, dom!bucky (soft and mean), fingering, oral, unprotected piv, dirty talk, creampie, breeding kink

🔑 READER WARNINGS/TAGS: afab!reader, reader has hair (described to tumble down at one point) and is able-bodied

🔱 AUTHOR'S NOTE: it's not a fic by unificsation if uni doesn't crash out a little when writing it lol. this is my first bwa collab and i worked hard to live up to the talent in the room—i just hope it shows in the story! please be patient when you read this, i beg!

the jewelry aspect in this is inspired by @flockoff-featherface's rendition of mob!bucky in the previous collab! there are some bwa references here, too, though not of everyone because i couldn't fit it naturally and didn't have time to rework things 😭 please know that i love you all, ardently and equally!!

The mahogany door to the suite swings open. Even at night, New York shines beyond floor-to-ceiling penthouse windows, busy streets twinkling like rivers of stars. A switch turns on. Warmth floods the space with its velvet finishes and Canaletto walnut counters, the lights beamed through brushed bronze sconces on the walls.

Two figures slip inside. A laugh rings true—yours.

“I can’t believe you got them to make Mom’s tiramisu! Did you have to ask Dad for the recipe?”

Bucky smiles at your back, watches the tumble of your hair from that updo like he didn’t spend the whole night staring at you. Here in your shared home, he’s free to monopolize. No secret audience in the public eye, just twin flames on the top floor of one of the many buildings he owns.

“Your dad wouldn’t write it down. Said they’d steal it,” he taking off his suit jacket to drape it on an armchair, then drops metal cufflinks on a terrazzo tray. “The people at the Chateau were nice enough to follow his instructions through the phone.”

You giggle, mostly at the image—his father-in-law speaking into a brick phone with glasses all the way down his nose—but also a little bit from the wine.

It was vintage. Older than your husband, but certainly not smoother than he is. He was charming all throughout dinner. Got you blushing from compliments even before they poured you the burgundy Bordelaise.

You catch him rolling his sleeves up in your periphery.

And the Chateau was an excellent place. Great service, equally amazing food. The restaurant was efficient without sacrificing intimacy: tables spaced out and sleek, lights dimmed, carpeted floors dampening the sound of delicate cutlery. Bucky didn’t have to say much to get what he wanted, only needed to spare a glance for the maître d’s full attention.

But maybe that’s more because of who he is, though you don’t doubt the restaurant’s hospitality.

No business in their right mind would leave the king of New York wanting.

What you don’t know is that mob boss James Buchanan Barnes spent a good couple of hours worrying about where to take his wife to dinner.

But he made the right choice, like he always did. It charmed you inside and out: lush interiors, a decadent five-course meal with garnishes as pretty as garlands, powder rooms bigger than some people’s apartments. You passed each second marveling like you yourself weren’t accustomed to a life of luxury. Like you weren’t born in it.

And then there was your soft moan when you bit into the food. He didn’t know if he should be jealous or proud, but he can’t complain.

Not when you’re celebrating your first anniversary as a married couple.

“Can’t believe it’s been a year,” you sigh as limbs drag themselves towards the suede settee. He watches as silk ebbs and flows on your skin, soft dangerous ripples lit by hazy highlights from the floor lamp. The dress is one he hasn’t seen before. He’s a stupid man for not taking you out more often.

“Time flies when you’re having fun,” he sits next to you. You press a smile against his cheek, the peck chaste, thumb brushing against his ringed knuckles.

How you break him with the easiest of touches is beyond him.

The orange dim of the room reflects a look in your eyes that he hasn’t seen in a while. A trace of mischief. Or is it amusement? Either way, it reminds him of bygone eras spent with you: trampolines, tree-houses, and twenty questions. Back when you were young and stupid and free, a foxy daughter and the bloodhound of an old family.

“Bucky?”

“Yes, princess?”

“Close your eyes for me?” you smile. “I got you a gift.”

He shakes his head with an acquiescing chuckle. He’s never said no to you.

Blue eyes close.

“You’re beating me to it.”

“To what?”

“The presents.”

“Ladies first, as you like to say,” your reply is playful, and he hears movement. Shuffles all paper-like. “Anyway, I thought dinner was your gift.”

“Dinner’s not enough, doll.”

Then the couch sinks next to him and his skin holds your warmth even without touch. Something light falls on his lap.

“Open.”

Blue eyes land on an ivory folder sitting innocently across his thighs. Embossed at the front is an ornate B—his family insignia. The one you made yours, too.

His blank face meets a smile that can only mean excitement. You tilt your head to the piece of stationery, a small ‘go ahead’ that nudges his curiosity past the precipice. He flips the cover open.

Inside is a neat stack of papers. The black ink at the very top of the first page screams at him, all capital letters and antipathy:

REQUEST FOR DISSOLUTION OF MARRIAGE

Eyes snap to yours. You bite back a pleased grin.

“Happy anniversary, Bucky.”

The first time you left him so dumbfounded was on his fifteenth birthday.

Yes, Bucky Barnes was once fifteen. Not as tall or muscular. Lighter in both the color of his hair and the weight on his shoulders, compared to the man he is now.

But even a conqueror like him had a childhood: days when his biggest woes were bad weather or Becca’s unending boy problems that he somehow had to hear about.

On his fifteenth birthday, his biggest woe was you not attending the party.

It was a rather big thing. They prepared favors. Balloons, too—despite his insistence on not having them. Indulgent food for the children and an open bar for the chaperoning adults.

All of his family was there and so were his friends, but sweet little you somehow became the best of them despite having nearly nothing in common with him other than interest in each other’s company.

He was older, you were younger. He was a Yankees fan, you thought the baseball diamond was the prize for winning a game. He laughed when he told you that was what they called the field, and then you were laughing too.

It was the most delightful sound he’d ever heard.

Something clicked then, except ‘click’ was too inconsequential a word. Shifted, more like. Fatal like tectonic plates, fated like a story.

At that fifteenth birthday party, Matthew got too into catechism for Bucky to have a conversation with. It was also the year relations with the Starks got slightly tense due to suspected swipes at each other’s assets, which meant he and Tony barely met, let alone spoke. The Romanoffs and their eldest daughter Natasha were away for overseas business.

Sure, Bucky always had Steven Grant Rogers by his side. But you and Steve were the best in his books for entirely different reasons.

Even with Steve there, it hurt when you weren’t.

But it wasn’t your fault. You’d been sick all week, down with a nasty bug he wished were a real one instead of a mere turn of phrase—that way he could actually crush it for you.

That way he wouldn’t be sad because the girl he liked couldn’t make it to his special day.

When his mother asked what cake he wanted for the party, he said your favorite flavor instead of his.

What was the point of that if you weren’t here at all?

Then, just before he was supposed to blow the candles out, you showed up. Pretty dress, pretty hair, even prettier face. For a split second, he thought his wish was granted before he even got to make it. Year-on-year myth made material.

“I got all better for you,” you grinned. A little tired, sure, but happy to see him.

He hugged you as tight as the twinge in his chest. You giggled into his shoulder. The adults melted with a chorus of awwws—only made worse when you parted to kiss his cheek.

Just like that, his birthday was made.

You gave him a gift. The one in the wrapped box was great—but your presence is the better present.

Because that was everything he ever wanted: you next to him.

When he started carving order out of underground chaos with his own two hands, you made him understand why the work was necessary. He wanted to protect you. To keep you safe, even before he was old enough to receive his first Glock.

Before he became king.

He blew on your skinned knee when you fell off your bike. Pulled stray twigs out of your hair. Let you steal the heart of his family dog—then his in the process. The two of you grew taller, and still he took care of you: hid you from the guards while he snuck you out to play, then took the brunt of the scolding when you got found out.

For all his easy smiles, you’d always look at him like it was your fault. Doe-eyed. Guilty.

He’d pull you in, pat your head, say it’s okay. Keep the little thank you, Bucky you murmur into his chest like it was buried treasure.

And then college called.

The Barnes’ had history with Princeton, so that was where he went. But the distance from New York to Jersey had nothing against where your parents decided you’d go.

Europe. You told him about it while he was interning.

He said he was excited for you. He lied.

The night before your flight, you cried in his arms. Not the kind of cry that wrenched guts in its wails—the kind that was hushed. Compliant. You cried like he wouldn’t fly across the ocean every weekend just to see you. Like you were in the final stage of grief. Acceptance.

He held you through it. Stroked your hair. Said it’s okay. Promised to call.

What he didn’t do was tell the truth. Declare feelings. How he realized he’d only ever thought of you when he sat across a revolving door of women that fought to be near him. How he replaced the sound of their laugh with yours, only to be disappointed when the self-afflicted spell broke.

How he’d be so much happier be if you were the one he held at night.

Those thoughts festered over the years. Then they’re locked for at least a few more, because tomorrow, it’d take a seven-hour flight to touch your fingertips. Tomorrow, you’d be a name on his phone, a voice on the line, a specter in the corner of every room.

He wasn’t sure he’d keep the secret if he visited. So he didn’t.

Better for you to be a continent away loving him as a friend than shunning him as a foe.

Better for you to shun him as a foe than forget about him entirely.

Time passed. He changed. His feelings didn’t.

Then a few years later, you returned: smarter and stronger and more beautiful, standing just a little taller. Like you’d come into yourself while he wasn’t watching. But even then, you were still you. The girl with twigs in her hair, who now understands ‘three strikes and you’re out’ and batting orders, just with a degree and acquired confidence. Still laughed that same laugh when he picked you up at the airport.

Neither of you wanted to part from that first hug in years, just hands on each other’s backs. You buried your face in his wool. He memorized the smell of your hair.

Your families must’ve put two and two together after seeing that reunion. Or maybe they’ve noticed for a while, bode their time like the good criminals they are.

The arranged marriage didn’t feel like the punishment many of his cohort purported it to be. But then again, he had it good.

For one, he knew who he was marrying. Didn’t have to go through polished profiles and fake first dates. The Barnes family was prestigious enough to attract posers on the regular—they didn’t need any more. Your folk had things greater than reputation: connections, controlled resources, and you.

For two, he loves you.

He never said so out loud.

And he didn’t dare ask you how you feel, but you never said no to the deal, either, even when the two of you agreed how egocentrically strategic it was. Both your parents wanted a power consolidation. They used affection to get it. Yours.

He lingered with you by the balcony of his summer home where the decision was announced, sipping the night air. Come morning, it wouldn’t taste the same.

“Why didn’t you fight it?” he asked.

“Because it was you,” you answered.

He didn’t push. Not when it could capsize him into saying something he might regret.

“Not like I’d know what to do without you, anyway,” you smiled wryly, voice quiet above the breeze and cricketsong.

“I promise I’ll take care of you,” he murmured back. Eyes looked into yours.

You looked back, then rested your head on his shoulder.

“I know. You always do.”

That was how it happened. Like an avalanche: the late afternoon fittings, lilies, and diamond rings. He didn’t know there were so many types of papers he had to consider for the embossed invitations.

But amidst the flurry, it still didn’t feel like punishment. Never like punishment, but a reward. As if being born in blood and brutality didn’t stop some force of benevolence from acknowledging his patience and deciding he deserved mercy.

That mercy was you in a white dress. An angel before the altar. A kiss followed by church bells.

Matthew Murdock blessed the marriage—Father Matthew Murdock, pardon him. Bastard went from boxing prodigy to priest.

Bucky was ready then, that first night. Ready to spill his guts on the honeymoon suite floor, heart close to bursting with held-back hurt. All the things he felt throughout the years. Things you made him feel, dream, do in the dark. A matrimonial confession that would lead to either crushed ribs or open arms.

Hell or heaven. Nothing in between.

But then he saw you sit in bed with your pajamas—the one with tiny daisies on it—and you beckoned him, patting a spot on the king-sized bed.

Every sentence he scripted was lost in an exhale. What remained was a conviction so cold, it kept him quiet for a year.

He couldn’t lose you.

That night, you ended up cuddling like you were children again. Traded stories about what transpired during the grand reception.

“Your kiss was very convincing,” you smiled conspiratorially.

He didn’t tell you he meant it. The kiss. The vow. The till death do us part.

It’s been a year of that—wedded bliss that you treated like a sleepover.

Touches remained innocent. Gazes remained guileless. You told him his kiss was convincing, but he didn’t know yours would be, too. The soft brushes of lips against his in public dinners. The way your fingers tangled with his.

It was so easy to believe that you married not by circumstance, but for love.

But behind closed doors, it was like the two of you never grew up—or at least you acted that way. Talked about your long day and his dirty work. Fell asleep in innocuous hugs that settled his soul. Took turns being big spoon and little spoon on a whim.

He prefers being little spoon. That way, he feels your breath on his back, and you’re left oblivious to the malady in his sweatpants. Easier for him to escape to the ensuite and touch himself at the thought of you.

Specifically, the thought of you looking at him like a man and not your childhood best friend.

It was a barren purgatory, and he went through like it was all milk and honey.

But now you’ve gone and done it.

He stares at the printed text, slowly crawling back to the present. Your name under petitioner, his name under respondent. He swore to never say no to your wishes, but he never thought you’d wish for this.

Divorce.

The question slips out of him, reeling barely restrained.

“What the fuck is this?”

You tense.

His baritone dips the way it does on his worst days, only now it pulls you under with it. It’s enough to drain the smile on your face until you’re left with a blank look. A canvas for confusion. For turbulence.

Then horror floods the thrum of your veins, making blood run cold.

It reminds you of fear that follows a grave mistake: like the time you accidentally broke an heirloom vase, except the weight in your stomach is a hundred-fold now, and so is the mess on the floor.

You’re glued to your seat by the sensation, instinct to move replaced by ice.

“What do you mean?” you ask, hiding a tremble.

Blue eyes snap to yours. There’s no joking twinkle. No affectionate narrow of them—not when his jaw is as locked as a steel vault. Though you can’t read his expression, it definitely isn’t one you expected him to wear.

He should be happy. This should be what he wanted. But instead he stares at the folder like he’s wondering if this is a dream.

You might be watching a nightmare unfold.

Then he throws it across the room, sending papers and your heartbeat scattering.

“That was my question, princess,” he murmurs, a flash of a storm in his eyes. “Explain.”

Shadow looms over you while he rises to his feet. The movement tears the truth out of you, nervous eyes darting everywhere except his face.

“Well, since the merger’s stabilized, I thought…” you breathe, “I thought that we don’t have to keep this up anymore.”

“Keep what up?” He chases like a dagger: quick, incisive.

“The marriage,” your eyes finally meet his, hoping you’ll witness him see sense. Hoping for awareness to wash over him, that he’ll melt into a kind smile and say: right, I get it now, thank you for absolving us of this thing our parents put onto our shoulders.

That balm doesn’t arrive, and anxiety continues to burn. You stammer.

“Bucky, I’m saying you don’t have to sacrifice your happiness anymore—”

But he scoffs instead, grin devoid of humor. A hand runs through his hair.

“That’s what this marriage is to you then? A burden?”

The turnabout scathes more than his previous silence. Maybe because you never expected this outcome. It is also deeply unjust: why he’s pinning this on you is beyond any logic, especially knowing what he did.

Your eyebrows knot as you stand, a reflection of rising temper more than conscious choice.

“How could you ask me that when you’ve made it clear how much of a burden this is to you?”

“What the hell are you talking about? We just had a great time at dinner!”

You let out a laugh. It’s funny how he thinks you don’t know.

“I’m talking about you smelling like ten different perfumes every night for the past month, Bucky.”

He must think you’re sound asleep each time he slips under the sheets, but the truth you don’t want to admit is that your body stirs at his presence. Even half-conscious, you feel time tick by: one in the morning becomes two, and then three, which is when he comes home most nights.

There in the dark, you breathe him in, wanting comfort, only to find a bouquet of betrayal.

Jasmines and the sea. Camellias, cocoa, and citrus.

They spin like a carousel, switching, erasing his forest green scent only to replace it with the shade of jealousy—one you struggle to school into submission.

You have no right to that feeling. He was never yours to begin with.

And now you watch as his face falls. It fuels your step and the fire beneath your voice.

“I’m not stupid. I noticed. You don’t talk to me about your day anymore, we barely eat together, you come home smelling like women. A great time at dinner doesn’t exactly erase that.”

There’s a pang in your heart. You will it to pass.

“This marriage might have been arranged, and we might not really be husband and wife, but you sleeping around behind my back is still disgraceful. Not just for me. For the both of us.”

Bucky stares back. You speak before he can—he’ll ruin you otherwise, with or without words.

“You could’ve told me, Buck,” you soften. “You know I won’t blame you. You deserve company.”

Company. The kind he won’t look for in you because he’s your good friend—your very best, even.

Expecting him to want to sleep with you is wishful thinking. Expecting him to stay celibate is like muzzling a dog you don’t even own.

“Let’s not pretend this is what we wanted. What you wanted.” There’s nothing interesting about the rug, but you stare at it anyway.

Maybe its modern pattern will rewrite the ancient ones woven in your head. A tangle of old afflictions—expectations, comparisons, the value you brought to the table dictating the love you begged to receive.

A quiet voice prickles in the back of your mind. It tells you it’s not that he doesn’t want an arranged marriage; he just doesn’t want you.

Scheming parents made you a coincidental casualty that landed on his lap, and now you’ve become a problem he’d be better off without. So much that he’d rather distance himself from you than talk about it like you used to.

Even though you’d let him fuck other women if it meant he’d stay.

A greater woman would have cut ties and run. Next to her, you feel like a little girl with a broken sense of self-esteem.

Maybe this divorce is your attempt to prove something. Anything.

Your gaze is blank at the scattered papers on the floor. The only thing you’ve proven so far is your lack of conviction—running away at every shadow of something real.

How did it come to this?

“I just want us to be friends again,” you whisper.

Something crackles against your skin. The air turns into an emotional minefield. An invisible string tugs your gaze, pulling it back to his with the force of nature. The way he looks at you crushes your faith.

It looks like he’s falling apart, too.

You can tell through the clench of his jaws and fists. Through the flicker in his eyes. In the breath you barely remember to take above a tyrannical tension. Tightrope over bear traps.

“Yeah?” he rasps. “Well, I don’t want that.”

Pain and embarrassment punch you with monosyllabic words. He might as well change that last one to ‘you’.

I don’t want you.

But then he steps forward. You look up at him, trying to hold your ground. It doesn’t work. His steadiness knocks you back, feet moving away from him like repelling magnets.

“We can’t be friends anymore,” he says. Your back hits the wall.

“I don’t understand—”

His smile is mirthless.

“‘Course you don’t.”

Bucky stands tall in front of you, silhouette casting a shadow with no escape routes. The hand on your face is the final nail to an uncovered coffin—it holds the hinge of your jaw, the last rites of a relationship. Blue blade-like eyes cut your defenses and drive you into a corner.

His face hovers over yours.

At this distance, he’ll see the sadness past your irises, so you look away. His hand tilts you back to face him.

Then he speaks, soft, and whatever troubling thought you have shatters into a million shards—the second time tonight.

“You don’t know what it’s like to share a bed with the woman you love and not touch her.”

A thumb smooths over your cheekbone, as if to placate the shock. His gaze drops to your lips, then back up.

“And I’ve loved her since she practiced cursive with my name.”

Your missing breath fuels memories, your mind plays a reel. It shows what he’s talking about: a movie, with scenes that slipped between cracks of life lived and fractured.

You’re wearing your favorite skirt. The weather is so nice outside. There’s clumsy handwriting on ruled paper. He smiles when you show its loops and curls:

James Buchanan Barnes is my best friend

The words ‘best friend’ are now overshadowed by a single one with four letters.

Time stands still. Gravity swallows your feet into the ground.

He tips your chin up. A taunt.

You can’t run, the gesture says, now that I’ve said it.

And you can’t because he’s pressing up against you, trapping your body between cold wall and warm chest. As if mocking your speechlessness, his finger swipes at your bottom lip, parting them more.

“Sweet girl doesn’t understand what she does to me,” he hums, tracing the perfect edges of your lipstick, “doesn’t even know she gets me hard just by kissing me good morning and good night on my damn cheek. Why d’you think I wake up first and go to bed last, hm?”

Hot breath fans your ear. Hands move to his torso in a bid to steady yourself.

“I tried to be good, honey, I really did.”

Mouth brushes your jaw. Your head lolls to one side in response: are you running, or are you giving him room to take more of you?

“Tried to take my greed out elsewhere, except it didn’t work. They don’t have your body. Your voice. Your face,” he growls.

“They’re not you.”

He’s nipping at your ear, licking the shell as he murmurs.

“Couldn’t even fucking touch them.”

The confession sinks in the way ink does in water: slow, pulsating, before it grows and takes over.

He loves you.

“I thought you hated me,” you whisper.

He scoffs. “Hated you?”

The look on his face clogs your throat. Eyes dark, lips parted—no sign of focus brought by contempt, though you certainly are the object of his perturbation.

He’s lost. The crack in his voice brings the point home.

“How can I hate you when you’re all I ever wanted?”

“Buck—”

Whatever you wanted to say is cut off by a stern shove of your shoulder against ivory wall. The syllables melt into a single whimper.

“I’m your husband, sweetheart,” he breathes across your mouth. “And if you can’t understand that, I’ll drill it into your pretty little head.”

The first kiss he ever gives you is a devouring.

Lips slot. You gasp. For a second you think the Bucky you know is gone: the man who kneels to fix the strap of your high heels, the boy who held you through thunderstorms. There’s nothing gentle in the way he moves. He takes as if you’re his right, voracious like the jowls of a beast. Tongue and teeth further condemns you to his cause—to collapse your walls.

You crumble headfirst.

But he’s still James Buchanan Barnes, the only constant you’ve ever had in your life, so you hold on to him.

A ragged groan slips past when he feels your fingers in his hair. The touch lights up his nerve endings in a bright, loud yes, God, finally—satiated but already screaming for more. His hand slides to the back of your neck, the other gripping your waist: both of them strong like shackles in a cage.

“Fuck, I went beyond insane over you,” he mouths, “came so close to just taking you in our goddamn bed.”

The thought sends a chill down your spine. It’s not fear, it’s desire and thrill. You moan.

“You wouldn’t,” you pant, “you’d never.”

“Don’t be so sure,” exhales grow heavy as he paws at your flesh, saliva-slicked lips sucking at your neck. “I’m not a good man, honey. You’ve seen my ledger—our ledger.”

You have. It’s red, just like the lipstick he’s smudging right now as he crashes into you with another violent kiss. You clutch the front of his white shirt, crumpling it. He pulls away to survey the wreck he made.

He smiles at the sight.

“I know the first anniversary’s supposed to be paper, but divorce papers?” he hums. “You’re one hell of a gifter.”

“Bucky, I—”

“Sssh,” lips meet yours again. This time the kiss is languid, almost lazy. In his leisure you find vexation.

“Your turn for your present.”

After leading you to the bedroom, the first thing he gives you comes in an unwrapped box. Its contents are designed to wrap you instead. And they do wrap you: beautiful and bridal, deadly and dangerous in one set. White lace, ribbons, garters that lead to sheer tights—a thing like this should make bridesmaids giggle and say ‘he won’t be able to let go of you if you put this on!’

They’d be right.

Because Bucky is already ruining you.

“Bought this for our wedding last year,” he tugs the balconette bra down, letting your tits spill free like he didn’t make you wear it. “Never got the chance to see you in it.”

The warmth of his mouth captures a nipple. You whine when he delivers a mean suck, spine arching off the bed, a tentative coolness of air before you melt into the sheets again. They’re damp with sweat the moment he crowded you onto your shared bed.

“But we’re celebrating our anniversary tonight. The perfect occasion, yeah?”

Fingers hook at the gusset of your pretty underwear, pulling it aside to reveal slick folds. He touches you there and you stir at the coordinated pleasure that catches you unaware. He hums around your chest. The vibrations send sparks in your veins.

Squirming only sets off clinks of metal.

Bracelets of all kinds knock into each other: some charmed, some bangled. Long necklaces tangle with crystal body chains that flow down your skin like sparkling rivers. The weight of diamond drop earrings sink against the pillow.

The lingerie you’re wearing might be from last year, but these? The glimmering riches he took his time to put on you, save for the princess-cut rock on your ring finger? These are all new, their branded boxes forgotten on the floor.

His gift for a year of marriage.

A marriage you’re only consummating now.

“Look at you,” he moans, “so fucking pretty, you should be illegal.”

He lets go of your chest with a loud pop. Your breath shakes.

“Tell me,” he looks down at your pleasure-twisted face, “who helped you get those papers, baby?”

A finger prods at your slick hole, teasing. You surrender with a sob, except you don’t fight him at all.

“J-John.”

Your voice around another man’s name tips him over to villainy.

He adds another finger at your entrance, circling before pushing both of them deep into you.

You let out a cry, walls clenching around him—wet, tight, a vice he’s already devoted the rest of his life to. Love before first touch.

Manicured nails claw at his shoulders, but they soon relax as he waits. You pulse around his fingers while your lungs relearn how to breathe.

God, you’re soaked. Pliant. Warm.

“Yeah? ‘Cause Steve wouldn’t?”

That gets your attention. You blink up, eyes hazy.

“How’d you know…?”

He kisses your forehead, pulls his fingers out, and thrusts them back in.

“A-ah—”

“He asked if we were doing okay,” Bucky pants, watching your lashes flutter at the languid pace his hand sets. “Thought he was talking about me going out to the supper club again.”

His other hand pushes the hair out of your face while you pant, chasing each pump, crystals clinking above the wet sounds.

“Didn’t think he meant this.”

His thumb flicks your clit, punishment and reward in one touch. Tricks of an unfair trade. Your head thrashes.

“Bucky—!”

Your body rocks with his fingers, a byproduct of drawn-out desperation. It’s an awakening, a cryptic hunger yawning at the bottom of your gut. Now that he’s feeding that emptiness, it demands more.

“Walker must be so goddamn ecstatic his queen came to him for help.”

The crystals chains on your skin jingle alongside rolling hips. Bucky traces the sight with drunken abandon, dead set on destroying you first.

Call it payback for the many times he fisted himself at the thought of this, and call it occupational hazard how he’s already planning methodologies: fingers first, mouth second, cock third.

Then again, and again, and again… until you’re too spent to tell him to stop.

“You made him feel important, honey. Made him think we were gonna split,” he chides condescendingly. Fingers hit a spot in you that form stars at the edge of your vision. He watches you squirm. Transcribes every whimper in his brain.

“Gotta pay for that—c’mon, cum for me.”

Your lips part in a silent scream.

If it weren’t for his hand on your face, your cheek would be pressed against the pillow, but one broad grip has you looking straight at him as he pushes you over the edge.

The last thrust squelches as it sinks, lewd sound crystal clear in the empty room. He watches as you spasm like a live wire. Thighs twitch, eyes screw shut. Then his name on your mouth.

“There we go. Good girl. Good fucking girl.”

He doesn’t partake in the family’s merchandise, but this has to be what a drug high feels like.

Because he’s already addicted while your breath reconstructs itself. Already begging for another taste of you when he takes his fingers into his mouth, licking them clean.

“You know I see the way he looks at you?” Bucky murmurs, caressing your face with the same hand that broke you. “Swear he wants me dead just so he can have a chance with you.”

Two seconds pass before your ecstasy-addled brain catches up to the fact that your husband is still talking about John Walker. But any further thought is halted by the heat huffed on your neck.

“Let’s show him who you really belong to, yeah?”

It starts off slow with kisses on the column of your throat, almost kind compared to the rapture of release. His nose traces the slope that leads to your shoulder and he breathes, cataloging your scent: sweat and something floral that you wore to dinner. It pools in his stomach, makes him feral.

You’re prey on a pedestal.

He bares his tongue for the feast. Then teeth.

You sigh, feeling them drag oh so gently across skin. There’s no rush, but when he sinks down, it’s with intent. Purpose. Authority.

Muscles ripple over your lipstick and lace as he latches onto the side of your neck—you hold onto his arms even though there’s nowhere to fall with the mattress against your back. His warmth clings to you in return.

“Oh,” the airy sound slips out when he lets go. Flesh stings with stimulation. That spot will darken tomorrow.

Blue eyes map a path of ruin where he’ll bite next. A plan of attack to spell his name on your neck. The wedding ring isn’t enough of a claim, he reasons to himself.

Minutes later, you’re shaking beneath him wearing a new necklace of his making.

Pinks and reds dot collar to chest in what looks like a botched J-A-M-E-S. In a few hours, they’ll turn into a sunset purple. He marvels at the work of his mouth, stares down at you.

“Walker will learn his lesson. But now it’s time for yours.”

Wide eyes stare up at him.

“You see how the divorce is so uncalled for, honey? You don’t really want me to leave you, do you?”

You shake your head. It hurts, the thought of him leaving, even if it’s for his own good.

Hips pin yours. You feel the hard ridge under his slacks press against damp lace. Blood rushes south, makes you throb.

“Tell me you’re sorry,” he says, but he slips a thumb in your mouth. It presses on your tongue and forces your heartbeat into a stutter.

You say it anyway, stifled, vowels warped.

“I’m sorry.”

“Tell me you’re sorry for making me think of fucking other women instead of you.”

Tears blur your vision. You’re not sure why—maybe from the thought of wasted time, or from the image of him almot rutting into a warm body just to run away from yours. He said he didn’t—couldn’t—but your brain is an errant thing. The space between your ribs tighten.

He’s here to make it right. Are you that transparent? Because the finger in your mouth is still mean, but his other hand strokes your cheek in a manner so opposite you think it might have a mind on his own.

Bucky kisses your temple. Then cheek. Then ear, where his voice rumbles deep.

“C’mon, honey. Say it.”

“I’m sorry for—” drool escapes from the side of your open mouth, “for making you think of f-fucking other women…”

“Instead of?”

“…instead of me.”

“Good girl.”

He grinds down against you harder, the friction catching your clit just right. You keen.

The thumb dislodges, drawing a spit-slick line down your chin, then collarbone, then sternum. He toys with your nipple. The wet touch makes you jolt. Beneath shimmers and gem-studded strings, your skin is smeared with pigment from smudged lipstick.

“Tell me you’re sorry for not giving yourself to me sooner.”

A tear slides down your cheek. He kisses it away.

“I’m sorry for not giving myself to you sooner,” you hiccup.

He leans down to mouth at your nipple again. Spine curling like a big cat above you, hips rolling against yours.

“Now tell me you’ll let me do what I want to you,” he murmurs against you.

The new commandment shepherds silence—not in fear, also not quite submission. You linger at an open doorway while everything about him beckons you to enter, where all the pleasure he’s given you may multiply.

But once you go there, you can’t go back.

He sucks at your chest in a manner so selfish it breaks your reverie. Blue eyes snap to your face when he lets go.

Then he says those words: the exact same ones he said to you the night your fates were sealed.

“I promise I’ll take care of you.”

He rises, face above yours, breathing your air. “I know I was stupid. Stubborn. A damn coward.”

Then, after an inhale:

“I just didn’t want to lose you.”

It’s enough to make you lean up to kiss him, the antithesis of how he started.

Soft, almost solemn. He kisses back like he’s kissed you a thousand times before—and maybe he has in his dreams. It tastes like sticky succumbence, as sweet and as cloying as honey. The more it drips in your mouth, the more you hunger. Your fingers grip his arms, still clothed in that damn white shirt.

The way the both of you are dressed, you can almost pretend this is your wedding night.

He parts first.

“Give me words, sweet girl.”

With instructions so clear, how could you not?

“I’ll let you,” you whisper.

He watches. Waits. It takes every bit of you in your dizziness, but you finally continue.

“...do what you want to me.”

The breath that escapes him is ragged, wanting—like an animal desperate for nourishment. He wastes no time in diving between your legs. Spreads thighs with strong hands, pulling your panties over to one side. You gasp at his breath caressing the apex of your thighs.

“Good,” he rumbles, “gonna make you cum on my tongue.”

Your body becomes his to control. Greedy hands use garters as handles, tugging them to haul your legs over his shoulders as he eats. One of them moves to torment your chest, the other your clit.

He really is a rotten liar, because he makes you cum on his tongue twice. It’s motivated by self-justification: this is what he wanted for so long, surely he’s allowed to take more? He’s been so good, holding back all this time…

The first orgasm rips a loud moan out of you, thighs bracketing his head. He doesn’t stop after that. Eats you like it’s his pleasure. Your stomach twists with the beginnings of overstimulation until the curl of his tongue in your cunt pushes you past that precipice again.

The second time you crest is devastating. You sob under your breath while a strong arm presses both your legs to meet your chest, opening your core up for him like you’re a right and a privilege in one reality.

Seeing you folded in half like that—slick, clenching around nothing—is enough to sever him from sanity.

Or maybe he’s never sane to start with. Not when it comes to you.

“She looks so empty, sweetheart. Let’s fix that.”

A hand takes both of yours overhead, pinning them into pliancy. You’re too weak to even writhe.

Then he feeds his inches into your hole and you cry.

“Bucky—!”

The stretch of his cock is far from comprehensible. It’s excruciating, but each vein inspires addiction. Then there’s the heat, the intoxicating way he pulses inside of you as he pushes ever deeper, nudging places you didn’t know existed, claiming them for himself.

His blunt tip finally sinks all the way in and you feel him in your stomach. In your lungs, your throat.

“Christ, you’re unreal,” he pants against your ear, smokescreens in the form of saccharine things distracting from the dull pain.

“Think she might be made for me, honey. Tight fucking pussy swallowing my cock—”

You moan, walls unwittingly clutching him. He groans.

“Fuck, not gonna last if she’s grippin’ me like that.”

“Bucky,” you murmur.

“Yeah, princess?”

“‘s too much,” is all you can muster, gaze falling to the sight between your bodies. Blue eyes and blown-out pupils follow, and he grins. The grip he has on your wrists tightens.

“Yeah?” he pants in bliss, still buried in you, “This is what I think about every morning. Every night.”

Then he thrusts once, shallow at first. Two strangled voices echo in the room.

“Fuck—wasted my time dreaming of you... could’ve had this all along.”

Your hands don’t know what to do: fingers stretch and claw at air while his hand keeps you where he wants you. He splits you open, hips steadily sawing into yours. It leaves you at a loss, coherence deleted with each rock of him until only three words loop: ‘please’, ‘Bucky’, and ‘more’—because you’re a paradox like that.

A symphony worth waiting years for.

And because he can never deny you, he gives.

Makes you cum on his cock just like that, pounding mercilessly into your sensitive spots. Your hair forms a halo on the pillow while plump lips part, crying out his name again and again. He drives into you just the same, eyes never straying from your face, just to convince himself this isn’t a dream.

The way you clench around your cock tells him it isn’t. Dreams can never feel this good—he knows because he’s had plenty.

“Fuck,” he grunts, cock buried so far up in you that you almost cum again when he does.

You mewl at the hot spurts of him inside. For a second the fever breaks, satisfied with release, but as you’re flooded with his spend, the appetite rises. The ravening isn’t over. His eyes say as much.

A dark intention takes over him, affection corrupted by avarice. What other expressions will you show him? What secrets sounds can he steal from you?

How far can he make you fall?

Minutes melt into hours.

Here you are now, a picture of ruined grace draped across his lap. Lingerie ripped, chains and jewelry in knots, sparkling diamonds in the dark illuminating the blotches around your throat.

He keeps you sat on his cock for god knows how long already. Tears blur your vision, and the feeling in your chest is the same as your poor, plugged up cunt.

Full.

God, you’re stuffed with him—his cock, his cum. A mess in both body and mind, slick with his spend and yours sluicing down your ass and the sheets, overflowing. The drip of it is warm. So is his naked chest against yours.

There are thin pink lines on his skin—your nails dragged down there when he sinks you down onto his length, weak and wanting even after how many orgasms, you don’t know. You lost count. The same scratches must exist on his back from when he fucked you on yours.

Through all this, somehow your husband is still hard as he holds you in his lap. He lets you sob into his neck, big hands caging your hips.

The same hands that dusted dirt off your knee the first time you fell from your bike.

You’re compelled by the cardinal sins. Greed, lust, and gluttony order your hips to roll, to shift, to do anything just to feel something.

He coos, resting his forehead against yours.

“Sssh, you can’t,” and he’s right, because his fingers are bruising stillness into you. “You need to wait, sweetheart.”

You sound like you’re past pathetic. He really meant it when he said he’d drill it into your head: the pace, the pleasure, him.

“Bucky, please—”

“Made me wait all this time, think it’s only fair you should, too.”

Large hands adjust you on him. You gasp, feeling driblets of him escape your cunt before he sits you all the way down his cock again.

“Now, how ‘bout you tell me a story while you learn to be patient?” he breathes. “Something from when you were a kid. About us.”

You want to scream. How are you supposed to speak, let alone think? All you want is to rut into him again, to feel him throb, to drink the friction—

The corner of his lips twitch up.

“Maybe I’ll let you move if you do.”

Either your husband is a telepath, or you’re so wonderfully obvious.

Bucky sees your throat swallow, the gears turning in your mind. His blood sings, and maybe he’s the worst man alive for enjoying this a little too much: watching you work through a haze. His pretty girl, too drunk oncock to function.

One of his hands stroke your cheek, almost coaxing the words out of you, then he coos like he’s not the cause of your misery.

“You can do it, sweetheart. Tell me a story.”

It’s the softness in his voice that damns you.

“I—” you begin, unsure, lungs still clawing for air, “remember that time… after summer break?”

He resists the urge to tease: which summer break? You spent so many together.

“You came back and your voice c-changed.”

“Uh-huh,” he nods, teasing your nipple with a thumb. He remembers. You whimper, the sound pitiful, but you’re being so good for him, staying still even when one of his hands went astray.

“What about it, honey?”

“It was… I was so confused,” your voice hitches.

He doesn’t stop touching you.

“You looked the same, but—ah—you sounded like—”

His hand moves from your chest back to your ass. Fingers sink into the flesh, grip you closer to him, as if there was any room between your bodies in the first place.

“Like?”

Your head drops into the crook of his neck.

“Like a man,” you admit, muffled.

He breathes near your ear.

“Look at you now, finally treating me like one,” you can feel him grin, taking your earlobe between his teeth. “Letting me fuck you like one, ‘s that right?”

The nod you give him is slow, like you’re drugged. He lifts you up just enough to sink you down. A temporary relief that makes you mewl.

“So? Do you still want to be just friends?” he grits.

You shake your head, eyes blank and wet. That one thrust is enough to vaporize your vocabulary.

The tears at your lashes makes his cock twitch. He used to hate seeing you cry. Felt helpless with every cartoon band-aid he smooths over your skin. Reminded him of the time you had to fly halfway across the world for a fucking degree, the damp pillowcase you slept on, the way he couldn’t stop you from leaving.

Now? Crying is all he wants to make you do.

“What am I to you now, hm?”

Your breath breaks.

“H-husband,” you croak, “you’re my husband—”

“That’s right. Smart girl.”

As if to reward you, he bounces you on top of him again. You almost collapse onto his shoulder, a ragdoll to pleasure.

“Please, Bucky, I want—”

“Want what, baby? Wanna stop?”

You whimper, shaking your head again in the crook of his neck, arms around his back. He almost laughs, but the spasm of your cunt around his cock, full with his cum and yours, strangles the sound into a guttural groan.

“Tell me.”

“Want more,” you whine shamelessly. He gladly exploits it.

“Let’s see if you’ve learned your lesson first.” A hand grabs your face, forcing you to peel away from his body to look at him.

You stare back. He’s sweaty, eyes dark, lips swollen. You’re probably about thrice as wrecked.

“Who do you belong to?”

“Yours—I’m yours.”

“You’re my what? Finish that sentence.”

You nearly choke. “I’m your wife.”

“Attagirl. What else have you learned?” His tone is cruel. Cold. But you know better. Blue irises drown you with devotion in a single look. In them, you find your answer.

“You—ah—take care of me. Make me feel good.”

“There you go, sweet thing.” His lips latches onto yours, a thief to your breath as if you had any left to spare. “D’you want me to take care of you now? Wanna feel good on your husband’s cock again?”

“Yes. Please.”

You feel his cock twitch inside of you.

“Still want a divorce?”

“No—” your hips begin to sway, the hunger clawing at you, but his hands are steel restraints, fingers sinking into flesh.

“What do you want, then?”

“You,” you sob, “please, Bucky, want you—”

He watches your face contort, desperation and desire mingling into the most delicious expression he’s ever seen on you.

One day, he’ll take a picture.

“Y’know, I told you I love you earlier, but you never said it back,” a thumb holds your chin in place. “Think you can do that for me? Say it real sweet for your husband.”

Your chest cracks open with feeling. The night tumbles through you like a tidal wave, where everything comes crashing: his confession, the papers thrown on the ground, all the way to your mother’s tiramisu he got the restaurant to make for you.

Still, the wave builds. It sweeps up old memories to the forefront.t

The two of you on the balcony the night you got engaged. You crying in his arms hours before boarding a plane. A birthday party where the cake was your favorite flavor instead of his.

The surge summits at the memory of awkward pencil scratches.

James Buchanan Barnes is my best friend.

Every feeling known to you is suspended like they’re encased in floating water. The nostalgia of youth, unabated longing, dark desires, and a kinship brought about by fate—

—then gravity pulls them down, and they break.

So do you.

“I love you,” you rasp, voice hoarse with timeworn truth. “I love you so much, Bucky, I love you, I love you, I love you—”

He swallows your confession in a kiss, tongues tangled, fingers buried in hair. You grind down once.

He lets you.

So you do it again. And again.

“I love you too, baby, so fucking much,” he murmurs into your mouth. You move with the opposite of inhibition.

“My good girl. My best girl—”

He rips a scream out of you when he stills you again, only to thrust up. You’re already so close, it drives him out of his mind more than he already is.

“Gonna fill my wife up with my cum,” he grits, “make it take. Wanna see you round with me.”

The promise nearly ends you. He senses its impact, feels his own need grow.

“Yeah? You’re gonna leak for days when I’m done with you,” a growl as he mauls your neck more than he already has, “let ‘em see who you belong to.”

“Fuck—Bucky!”

“You’re mine, honey. All mine.”

He triggers your ruin like that. Smiles as he watches you shake in his lap, breathless while he relentlessly ruts into you even as spurts of viscous white oozes down your thigh. He uses his cock to push it back in.

A hint of humor tickles the back of his mind: that after all these years, it took a near-divorce to bring the two of you together.

“Remind me to burn those papers tomorrow,” he rasps against your mouth.

When he pushes you back onto the bed, he’s already making time in his schedule for a renewal of vows.

taglist: @saintserpentine @dolcesaints @sheneedsjesus @flockoff-featherface @houseofhyde @sunara-luna @metal-armed-muse @overwintering-soldier @fluorjscent @princesspinkbaby @pinksplace @buckyfmd @intothesoul @nash-dara @glowingtoenails @sergeantsebastian @superbassbuck @aamourzz @hiraethmae @madambearess @mrsnikstan @retrosabers @daisynotquake @miraclediviner

[dusterbishop]

to sit and watch you stare at your feet.

summary. || you're the avatar of anubis and the biggest secret you harbor is your relationship with jake lockley and the daughter you share. when the scarab falls into the hands of a cult, you delve into the fray and hope you can balance saving the world with protecting your secrets.

pairing. || moon knight system x f!reader (established relationship with jake, marc and steven join in later)

count. || 7.8k

notes. || posted on ao3 here. you guys leave the sweetest comments, thank you!! i love sharing the drama with y'all. if you would like to be part of a taglist, just throw me a mention! or you can follow. :)

taglist. || @cilliansfriend

part one. || part two. || part three. || part four.

You're still seething by the time you reach your sister's flat, taking the stairs up to her floor two at a time. The spectral jackal had dissipated half a block away from your destination and left you alone to properly sulk about Harrow's arrival in London. You and Marc had been careful in covering your tracks on your way back from Austria. You have no doubt about his ability to disappear in this city when he intends to considering how long it took for you to find him hiding here in London.

Then again, once you had discovered his weak spot to be Steven, it had been all too easy to unravel the tangled web of his aliases. Perhaps Harrow had realized the same: through Steven Grant and Eliana Lockley, maybe you and Marc would always be easy to pin down. Your daughter is the greatest part of your life as much as she’s your deadliest link. Even Harrow had known it when he mentioned her in a bid for your sympathy on the bus. When will he grow impatient of appeasing your sense of morality and choose a more intimate form of blackmail?

The thought needles you up until you reach your sister's front door and find it locked. You can hear a television droning on with the morning news, and your sister's laugh followed by an echo of your daughter’s a split second after. You close your eyes in silent gratitude. At least here and now, you beat Harrow to them.

You unlock the door with the spare key under the mat and make a note to remind your sister to move it. She left it there for your return, no doubt, but it still makes you uneasy knowing Harrow is loose in London and he knows your name. He wouldn’t be so easily fooled by a welcome mat and thin walls. He would not feel obligated to pity your family as innocent bystanders if it meant using them would get him the scarab.

"Mama!"

That excited shriek is your only warning before Eliana flings herself up into your arms. You barely made it a half-step into the entryway. You catch her, thankful for both your instincts (finely tuned by years of toddlerhood) and the hypersensitivity from your servitude to an ancient Egyptian deity that gives you speed and dexterity.

"Hello, habibti," you whisper, pressing a kiss to her temple. She burrows her face into the crook of your neck with a mumbled greeting, her wild curls tickling your cheek, and the tension from your encounter with Harrow dissipates into nothingness. You can smell lavender and honey in her hair from her bath last night, and the tinge of mint from her toothpaste when she gives a happy sigh.

“I missed you,” she tells you. It’s a tad grumpy, a complaint without heat now that you’re home safe and sound, but it tugs at your heartstrings all the same. She owns the softest spot of your Anubis-claimed heart for a reason.

“I am always with you,” you assure her. It’s not even a lie, but you rub a hand up and down her back to soothe her anyway. You trace your hand up along her spine to the back of her neck, underneath her unruly mop of dark curls, fingers alighting on the invisible mark forged there. Warmth fizzles at your touch like hearth fire, bright and comforting.

One day, you think, you might admit to her that you granted her this silent protection. When she’s older, more experienced and worldly, she might even appreciate it. You won’t tell her what it cost you, but at least she could comfort herself with the half-truth.

For now, though, you want her to stay just like this. Eliana melts into your embrace, and you indulge in her cuddliness just like when she was a baby. She’s not the squalling newborn you first took home from the hospital, but you can’t help but remember how it feels to cradle her to your chest and marvel at her very existence. She is the very best part of you and the best of Jake, merged into an independent being with boundless energy and wide-eyed amazement at daily life.

She is also five years old and full of boundless energy, so she finally starts to squirm in your arms until you let her drop down back on her feet.

“We had Weetabix for breakfast,” she announces, and you barely have time to shut the front door behind you before she’s yanking your hand to lead you to the kitchen. Your sister is at the sink, soaking the morning dishes in soapy water with her cellphone tucked against her ear, but she grins and offers you a quick wave before turning back to her conversation. Your heightened hearing can catch a few words from the other line, something about quarterly financing and market prices, so you tune it out. Your sister is older than you by four years and works as an investment advisor for a private company, and her life seems foreign in its… normalcy. She rents a nice flat in London, has an oversized fluffy black cat ironically named Luna, and she takes the Tube to her company’s office twice a week and works from home the other three days.

You, on the other hand, just fought cultists in Austria to recover an ancient Egyptian artifact disguised as a golden scarab that could lead to the end of the world. Your mother would have a heart attack if she ever found out.

“That sounds like a good breakfast,” you reply, and Eliana beams at you. You can see the carton of strawberries on the counter, nearly empty, and you grin. Your sister likes to spoil Eliana, but she can be a bottomless pit when it comes to fruit. “Did you have it with berries?”

“Yes,” she says, smugly. You don’t mention that you can see a smear of red juice at the corner of her lip, but it makes you laugh to yourself as she turns away. This morning ritual almost feels normal. Almost.

All you’re missing is the ability to look over your shoulder and find Jake there. To hear his shared laugh over your daughter’s berry obsession, or to watch him sit at the kitchen table scouring through the newspaper for any hint of local trouble that might need attention. He likes to present as the gruff, ruthless Fist of Khonshu, but you know he also likes to check in on the wellbeing of your local community. Plus, he likes to read the cartoons to Eliana.

It’s not quite your definition of normal, but it’s enough to be able to kick off your shoes and settle into a seat at the table, Eliana chattering excitedly about your sister’s cat and her neighbor’s dachshund. Your sister holds up the box of Weetabix in silent offer and frowns when you shake your head, but she’s too distracted by her phone call to properly fuss over your refusal.

It’s almost normal, except all you can think about is your missing knife and the fact that Harrow could be closing in on Marc at any moment.

You hope he can handle it until you are able to slip away again to help.

***

 There is no ambush from Ammit’s cult, though you check the news for any sign of trouble periodically during the day. Your sister retreated to her home office for work, so you and Eliana decided to cuddle on the couch and watch movies together. It’s a calm, unremarkable afternoon, and yet you’re fraught with tension, listening intently to the sounds of the neighbors around you. There’s the dachshund next door that yaps when their owner scolds them for chewing on their shoes, and the upstairs neighbor seems to be vacuuming for three hours straight with brief pauses for loud phone conversations, but there is no sign of trouble.

You can’t help but feel worse off because of it. Harrow is planning something, and he still has your knife. It’s effectively useless to him, as he doesn’t have the favor of Anubis to imbue it with power for ceremonies, but its absence feels like a gap in your armor. What could he expect to achieve with it? What if this is a ploy to lure you into a trap? What if he intends to break your vow of service to Anubis by depriving you of your tools needed to do so?

It bothers you. A lot.

You would go out searching for Marc, except Eliana falls asleep with her head pillowed in your lap. You spend the hour she naps watching the midday news coverage, combing your fingers through her curls in a half-hearted effort to untangle some of them, and the lack of city-wide carnage only makes you more restless. By the time she wakes up, you’re too wired to spend the rest of your day sprawled lazily on the couch.

It’s fortunate that your sister finishes her workday shortly afterwards, because you convince her that going out to dinner would help you feel less cooped up in her flat. She knows you too well to believe that pathetic whine of yours, but she merely rolls her eyes to make Eliana laugh before you head out to eat.

Dinner tastes like ash, as always, but you hardly notice. Your sister and Eliana can chat enough for the whole table, so you can listen with a well-timed nod or laugh while taking the time to encourage your daughter to eat her vegetables and keep an eye on the restaurant around you. There are other tables surrounding you, nearly all of them filled with people, but the atmosphere is spilling with light conversation and the clattering of utensils on plates. Calm.

No one is looking at you, but you can feel the faintest weight of a jackal’s muzzle pressing to your calf, insistent in its silent warning. Anubis had been scarcely present all day, merely a whisper in the back of your mind, but now his presence is a shrill whistle in the dark of night. It commands your attention. It pleads for your service.

Someone is dying.

“Can you watch her? I need to use the restroom.” You hardly wait for your sister’s answer before making a hasty retreat towards the back of the restaurant. There are less people seated here, but you don’t need to worry about an audience. As soon as you turn the corner to the employee’s only corridor, you summon your ceremonial armor with a whispering swish of displaced air. Anubis’s jackal form falls into step beside you instantly, paws silent against the linoleum floor. He leads you further down the corridor and out of a door left propped open for the kitchen staff.

The moment you step out of the restaurant and into the brisk night air, you can sense the floundering soul. You turn to the left and head further into the winding maze of alleys, careful to keep your face ducked low into the hem of your keffiyeh. There aren’t many people around, but the few people milling around unconsciously turn away and busy themselves with other things.

Your favorite aspect of serving as Anubis’s Avatar is his ability to make you seem unremarkable to random passerby, both as a jackal or dressed in your ceremonial armor. It makes completing your job far easier. Without having to dodge curious gazes or physically hide yourself from the public’s eye, you reach your destination quickly. It’s fortunate, because there isn’t much time left to travel between your worlds.

The soul calling for your arrival is an older man, his face darkened with salt-and-pepper scruff across his chin and jaw, dark bruising shadowed beneath his closed eyes. He’s slumped over on his side, his frayed coat pooled over his shoulders as a makeshift blanket. You think he might be one of the vagrants that wander London’s streets, now succumbing to the elements of his lifestyle, and you hurry over to crouch by his side. There is no reason to prolong his misery in this cold.

“It will be okay,” you tell him softly. He twitches at the sound of your voice, his breathing shallow and wheezing, but he doesn’t have the energy to answer. The furrow of his brow eases at the comforting warmth of your hand settling on his shoulder, and you offer him a quiet, “I am here.”

Then he dies. It’s a brief transition, quiet, as his muscles slacken and he lets out a final rattling breath. No one else is in the alley except for you, and the spectral jackal that lowers his muzzle to press his dark-tipped nose to the man’s temple. He had once given you the same comforting gesture when you had laid dying.

Without your knife, you cannot offer this man that same comfort. You grit your teeth against the surge of seething anger and helplessness, but there is not much you can do about it right now. You can only sit there, kneeling beside the man’s body, as the jackal beside you slowly dissolves into Duat-tinged sand, coalescing upwards into a towering being.

His presence consumes the alleyway, but you don’t make any attempt to move. You aren’t frightened of him. Like Khonshu, he is over twice your size, a lithe manlike figure with the distinct head and neck of a jackal with black fur. His eyes are the same sand-dust shade of the Duat, tinged with the indigo of its cloud-speckled sky. In this form, he is far from the docile, lap-sized jackal he portrays himself as.

Like this, he is the Egyptian God of Death and its Afterlife.

MY PRIESTESS, he says. His voice rumbles through the air with the same skin-tingling weight of a lightning arc, a litany of voices stacked all upon one another like a chorus, languages blending together in a blur of clashing dialects. Every word sounds as if a stadium of people are uttering it in perfect tandem, and you can hear every single voice with precision. Even though the maw of his jackal’s mouth never moves, you hear him with clarity, because he does not speak to you in this physical realm of being. It’s all in your head.

“Anubis,” you say tiredly. You still have your hand on the stranger’s shoulder as if you could remove his unweighted heart by touch alone. Soon, your gentle touch on his body will come back cold and tepid, merely a husk of its former self. You know the feeling well; dead things do not get to keep this intoxicating warmth.

YOU ARE MISSING YOUR CEREMONIAL BLADE.

The cacophony of his endlessly echoing voice sounds more concerned than scolding, and you grimace. Of course, Anubis knows why you haven’t enacted his will in serving this man his rightfully earned final rest. You have not denied him this service in many, many years, and there is no reason for you to do so now. Except for the fact that you physically cannot.

“Yes.”

WHY DO YOU NOT SEEK IT OUT?

“The man who has it is nearby,” you say. “But seeking him out will trouble more people. I am willing to wait for the better opportunity.”

Anubis does not speak for a long moment, studying you with his otherworldly gaze. His eyes could strip you apart down to your bare bones and marrow; there is no hiding from the god that owns the very fabric of your sandswept being. There is, however, something to be said about the way he defers to your plan with merely a dip of his head. He trusts you, and you don’t blame him for it. You have far more to lose by failing him than lying to him would be worth.

SERVE ME WELL, LOCKLEY.

The wind shudders with a discordant hiss of air, and Anubis’s figure breaks apart into minuscule grains of sand, his towering figment of being drifting off into nothingness. The body under your hand does not move, but you can sense the lonely emptiness of its vessel, now a husk without its life-vibrant heart. If you had your knife, it would have been your duty to sever his connection to his mortal form and guide him to the Duat’s weighted scales. Without you, Anubis cannot usher him there. He will wander without rest as long as he remains unjudged for his worthiness through the heavenly gates of Aaru.

At least until you get your knife back from that fucking cult.

You squeeze your eyes shut and mutter out a curse, then another. It doesn’t help ease the frustration or restlessness, but it does distract you long enough that you catch your breath and rise to your feet.

“I will be there to guide you,” you tell the stranger’s body. Maybe if you repeat it often enough, you can make it come true. “I will take you there. I swear it.”

He doesn’t respond physically, but you don’t have to look over your shoulder to know that his specter is clinging to your shoulders. People like you carry your dead, and he is merely another shadow you will cast with every step until you set him free.

“I swear it,” you repeat, and then there is nothing left for you to do except turn around and leave him there to be found by the neighbors.

***

Not every soul will be judged by the Scales of Justice, but there are people who dedicate their lives and faith to the Ennead, and Anubis depends on you to serve them in their final journey through the Duat. Except you can’t do that when you have a cult breathing down your neck, salivating for any chance they can get to reclaim the scarab.

Time is running out. You managed to finish dinner and head back to the flat with your sister and daughter without issue, but you can feel eyes on your back like a sniper’s pinprick aim. Harrow won’t be content to leave you walking around freely for much longer.

You have something he wants to use to decimate the human race.

He has something that you need to ensure your own survival.

Right now, you are walking a thin line between disaster and calamity, and it won’t be much longer until you slip off the precipice and plunge into chaos. Right now, you need help.

You still have just enough time, as the phone rings, to muse over Marc’s reaction. He will be rightfully furious with you; he may prefer to work alone, but that is only because he refuses to endanger the people he cares for. The only reason you accompanied him to take the scarab is because he could not physically stop you once you caught up with him. 

Ambushing Marc feels like a betrayal, but you have very few options. Besides, hadn’t he betrayed you first by fleeing Cairo without warning? You are his partner. Maybe not in the same way Layla is, but isn’t that for the best? You are the Avatar of Anubis, a loyal priestess to the dead, and he cannot possibly lose something he thinks he never truly had.

“Alo.”

You’ve missed how short and sweet she can sound over the phone. You know she doesn’t recognize the number of your recent burner phone, but that has never stopped her from picking up when someone calls. In Layla’s world, a missed phone call can mean a missed opportunity for a good job.

Not to mention that you know she’s been waiting for any news of Marc, just as you had been. The guilt of not calling her immediately once you found Steven in the gift shop sours in the back of your mouth like bile.

“Salaam, Layla.”

“Lockley?” Her voice shifts from the disaffected composure of a stranger answering an unknown number to instant concern. The guilt sticks firmly in your throat. “You burned your alias in Tunis and took Eliana with you. Are you alright?”

“Yes…” you hesitate a heartbeat too long. It’s too late to second guess your choice, so why are you so afraid to tell her? Are you that worried about scaring Marc again?

Or are you afraid that you will do something far worse, like convince him to stay here in London and settle back down?

“Lockley?”

“I found Marc,” you whisper. You’re glad you chose to retreat up onto the roof for this conversation. The lights of the city are speckled around you in the polluted dark of the night, but from up here, you have a clear view of the surrounding streets and adjacent rooftops. You’ll notice a cultist if they come close.

Or if a familiar shrouded figure cuts across the night sky, lit by the moon’s favor.

Layla makes a strangled sound. “Marc? He’s with you?”

“He’s in London.” Well, no turning back now. He’s going to be so pissed at you for this. Endangering your own wellbeing is one thing, but endangering his wife is another. “Layla, he doesn’t know I’m calling you, but you deserve to know.”

A tension-laden pause, then Layla spits out a curse. There’s a muffled bang on the other end of the line like she’s slamming a cabinet closed, and you grimace. There had been a moment when you swore never to interfere in their shared life, but that had been before Marc’s careful compartmentalization of his alters crumpled into dust. There had been a time where it had been Marc and Jake, shadowed sides of the same coin, with Steven peering out in brief glimpses out of your sight.

That opportunity is gone now. You refuse to lose any of them to the consequences of Marc’s sheer stubbornness. Even if that means inviting Layla into the fold for the preservation of the scarab.

“Layla, look, I—”

“What happened to him?” Layla demands. Another resounding bang on the other end of the line, and you realize you can hear the whirling clamor of traffic. She must have stepped out of whatever place she was staying at. You know she has rarely stayed overnight in her flat with Marc these past few months after his abrupt disappearance. If she isn’t searching for clues for his whereabouts, checking in with you periodically, she’s been working with her nose kept pressed to the grindstone. It’s another reason you refuse to keep her out of the way; you need her connections in the international network for artifacts.

“He moved here to keep a low profile,” you say, choosing every word carefully. It’s not a lie; Steven was a facet of himself that he wanted to keep hidden, so he intended to coast through daily life with little flair. At least until his midnight adventures as Moon Knight thrust him straight back into the line of fire.

“He’s acting British to throw them off, then,” Layla scoffs. Softer, like she turned her face from the phone, she mutters out, “Marc, you stubborn fucking idiot.”

He’s acting British. Your blood chills into ice. Marc can be callous and temperamental, but he isn’t very good at pretending to use disguises. He’s all or nothing.

So how would Layla know it’s him speaking and not the British alter he has been trying to keep under tight wraps these past years?

“What do you mean, Layla?”

“I just called him!” There’s the slam of a car door, then Layla speaks in rapid Arabic to someone before switching to French to keep your conversation private. Taxi driver, you assume, because she’s been prepared to take off the moment she had a lead for Marc’s location. “He actually picked up this time and then acted like he didn’t know who I was talking to. He sounded like he was being watched or something. Do you know who would be chasing him?”

Fear curdles in your gut. You stare down at the streets of London around the flat, scouring the shadows, but there is no sign of Harrow or his cultists. Not when they have other prey to tend to. Why would they bother to chase you out of your hiding hole when they know you lost your best asset and gave away the scarab? No reason to chase you when they have what you need to survive as an Avatar.

“We took a job together,” you manage to say. “They definitely followed us back here to London. One of them trailed me onto the bus earlier after Marc and I had already split up.”

“He’s in deep trouble then,” Layla grits out. “Are you still close? Can you check on him?”

Rationally, you know Marc is a skilled mercenary with the wits to know when he is being followed and how to properly outmaneuver his opponents. You also know Jake is imbued with the abilities of Moon Knight and protected by the favor of Anubis, and he will not let the system die without a long, bloody fight.

Above all else, however, you still remember the fear in Steven’s face as he stared at your blood-streaked cheek in Austria, blissfully inexperienced in the realm of godly servitude you are forever shackled to. If he answered the phone earlier, then he must still be close to the surface of the body’s consciousness.

If he’s piloting the body when Harrow tracks them down… then there is very little that Marc’s strategy or Jake’s favors can offer in helping him survive that encounter.

“I’m close,” you assure her. Half of it is a promise to her, and half of it is an unspoken promise to Steven, too. A comfort he cannot hear, but one you offer regardless. “I’ll make sure nothing happens to him.”

Layla gives you strict instructions to call her with news as soon as possible, gives a sincere thank you for the call, and hangs up with a curt reminder that she is only a flight away. You’re just as eager to get moving, teeming with all of your restless adrenaline from the encounter on the bus this morning and discovering the body during dinner. As much as your servitude as an Avatar complicates your life to the Duat and back, there is a marrow-deep satisfaction in being able to summon your ceremonial armor with a whisper of wind and sand, cloth wrapping over your figure and draping across your face between one breath and the next.

Your greatest purpose is protecting the dead, guiding their wayward souls from one transition to the next. It was ironic that Jake guarded the travelers of the night while you herded the travelers of the Duat, their souls already lost to the call of death, but you understood his fierce protectiveness of the people Khonshu deemed worthy of care.

More than anything, you understood the importance of protecting the people seeking safe passage in the dark. Just as much as you understood the cost of failure in that protection, when they were left with no other choice but to cross through to their afterlife. A lonely, frightening journey.

Which was why you refused to let Jake, Marc, or Steven experience it at all.

Two taps to the emblem on your chest, and then your body transitions from a figure of flesh to a scattering of sand. You summon the image of Steven’s confused face in your mind, sinking yourself into the memory of his furrowed brow and stuttering accent, and let yourself get lost to the whims of the late night’s wind. Dizzily, you drift through London’s sky only to coalesce perched on the roof of an ordinary building merely a minute later.

You steady your crouch on the roof by pressing your palms to the slanted tile, panting against the wave of nausea that swells up in your throat. The weakness is temporary as long as you get your ritual knife back soon. The longer you deny your purpose to Anubis, the sicker you will get. Just another reason to pull the trigger and track down Harrow as quickly as possible.

Below you, drifting through an open window, you can hear an accented voice mumbling to himself. The words are a dull murmur, just enough for you to sense confusion, but there is no whisper of death on the wind.

A sharp rap thuds the roof next to you, and you startle, tilting your head up, up, up to see Khonshu’s abyssal eyes staring back. He hits the roof with the heel of his staff again, and below, you can hear Steven’s frantic voice rising in response. He’s outright terrified.

You glare up at Khonshu. “Are you trying to give him a heart attack?”

He doesn’t bother to respond. Instead, the wind whips around the both of you in a brief surge of power, displacing your sand-forged shape, and when you blink back the disorientation you find yourself standing in a hallway. He transported the both of you to a spot inside the building; you’re crouched in front of a dirt-smudged window overlooking the London street below.

There’s a bright ding at your back, and when you stand up and turn to follow the sound, you find your husband standing in the elevator at the opposite end of the hall. He’s dressed nicely, even if his hair is hopelessly tousled as if he’s been running his hands through it, and the sight sparks a smoldering flame in the pit of your stomach.

You almost give your position away, prepared to surrender the facade of invisibility your armor gives you in this form, when you watch that painfully familiar face crumple in panicked fear. He turns to the elevator’s control panel, pressing frantically at the buttons and muttering desperately to himself.

Not Jake. Not even Marc. The disappointment is a sour tinge of bile in the back of your mouth. This facet of their body is still so foreign to you. Meeting Marc had been strange in the way that you noticed the tiniest details of differences between him and Jake, but his fierce stubbornness streak was the same mile-wide tread as Jake’s. Both of them could handle a fight; both of them, within context, relished in the adrenaline rush.

Steven does not face the unknown with the same bravado. He would not take well to watching you swirl into a physical being from what he presumes is an empty hallway. So you don’t move to expose your presence to him, and Steven does not recognize that you are there at all, his hunched shoulders slumping in relief as the doors slide shut.

HE IS INTERFERING WITH OUR BUSINESS.

You don’t have the energy to properly startle at Khonshu’s sudden reappearance, as much as he delights in it, so you offer him a helpless shrug.

“It’s not Steven’s fault. Scaring him won’t help with that.”

Khonshu rumbles out a laugh. HE WILL LEARN HIS PLACE, FLEA.

This time, when he disappears with a rush of wind, he doesn’t take you with him. You tap your chest and take the weight of tangibility with a deep sigh, yanking down the keffiyeh draped over your nose and scrubbing your hands over your face. At least Steven isn’t in danger from Harrow; he might find more trouble than he can chew with Khonshu, though, so you linger in the hallway, watching the elevator’s level drop by one floor before it stalls out with a stuttering of electricity. The building is quiet for a moment, then the lights kick back on with a whir of electricity.

The elevator switches floors again, climbing back up the top level, and you huff out another sigh. Layla had you convinced that Harrow would be here torturing Steven to get any information about the scarab, and instead you stumbled upon a plot devised by Khonshu to scare him into hiding in the back of Marc’s mind instead. Steven must have answered the phone call that convinced Layla it was actually Marc being tortured into acting ignorant about his identity.

So, how were you going to explain that to her when you called her back with an update? Better yet, how were you going to explain to Marc that she was on her way here?

The lights flicker overhead once more, just for a second, and you watch the elevator start to tick down one floor, then another, the doors sliding open to reveal that strange, familiar face.

Marc looks exhausted. His nice dress shirt is wrinkled and rumpled from Steven’s panic attack, shadows from the elevator’s overhead light casting his profile in stark turmoil. He must feel as miserable as he looks, too, because he merely waves you over to the elevator to join him. Wordlessly, he presses the button for the ground floor, and the two of you stand in silence, listening to the creaking whine of the cables and groaning of the overused deteriorated metal. In the elevator’s mirror, you watch his expression just so you don’t have to observe him face to face.

His mouth is set in that determined, moody grim line. There’s that downturn of his dark brows, hooded over his tired eyes. Above all else, though, you notice that he tamed Steven’s unruly curls into a more presentable style. It’s one of the only aspects of control he bothers to wrangle with.

You don’t mention the fact that Jake likes to wear a cabbie hat to distinguish himself from Marc’s presence, taking control in a way that could easily be shed without permanent remark. You don’t mention it, even as you watch Marc frown to himself, because it is one more secret wrecking havoc on his mind that is not yours to tell.

Marc doesn’t speak until you leave the elevator, cross through the cramped lobby, and escape out into the mostly deserted street. You follow him down the sidewalk, scanning for any sign of Harrow or his bloodthirsty cultists, but you two are mostly alone aside from a few distant pedestrians or the occasional passing car.

Well as alone as either of you can get without two Egyptian gods or Marc’s alters overhearing. You can’t see the shadow of Jake’s presence in Marc’s expression, but that doesn’t stop you from looking. It doesn’t stop you from hoping.

“Do I even want to know how you found out where he lives?”

You blink at the roughness of his voice, then the words sink in. You give Marc a long, thoughtful look. He lets you take him in, but he doesn’t do anything more than scrub a hand over his face tiredly once you look away. You won’t let him reprimand you for coming by the flat. Especially since Steven didn’t even notice you there.

“Blame the night wind,” you finally say. “I wouldn’t be surprised if Khonshu guided me here just to make me watch him torment Steven in his own flat with flickering lights and a faulty elevator.”

Marc winces. At least now he looks like the one feeling a little chastised. “He needs to stop looking before he gets hurt.”

“He needs help before he gets hurt,” you correct. “Ignoring his curiosity won’t deter him if he keeps running into Khonshu. Or if he runs into me again. He’ll have questions.”

“Then get out of here and go back to Tunis,” Marc snaps. You don’t deign to give that a proper response. He does not control you or your purpose as an Avatar, no matter how inconvenient he might consider your presence to be for his plan to keep Steven neatly tucked away in an impenetrable bubble.

Yet all the frustrated anger flees from his face a heartbeat later, his shoulders slumping in defeat. “I have enough to deal with right now.”

“So do I,” you admit.  He catches onto your despondence immediately and raises a brow. You would hate how easy it is for him to dismantle your defenses if you didn’t feel so much safer with him at your back. Having his help is easier to stomach than facing Harrow all alone. You just wish he felt the same about including you.

You tell him of the encounter with Harrow on the bus, his thievery of your knife, and then ending with the body in the alleyway. Marc listens, frowning, and you can see his shoulders shifting his weight in a bout of nervous energy with no outlet to indulge in.

“If Harrow is still hiding out in London,” you finish, “I need to find him and get my knife back. I can’t leave without it, Marc.”

“I’ll let you know about any leads,” he says. It’s reluctant, but he looks grimly committed to following through on his word nonetheless.

“Right,” you muse, faux thoughtful. “Like with the scarab?”

“Lockley…”

“I know you don’t like working together,” you interrupt. “I know it’s hard for you to worry about others when you think you can take the world on by yourself. I know that it kills you that you can’t just vanish into thin air without being missed by the people that care for you.”

“I’m not—”

“I know you, Marc. I just want you to know that I understand why you didn’t call. I just wish you would understand why it still upsets me anyway.”

Marc tenses his jaw, the muscle ticking in the curve of his neck, and looks away. As if any facet of this man could hide what he feels from you. You know every inch of his body like the back of your hand. You know his mind just as intimately. Maybe more, considering the favor that hums as an invisible branding in the crook between his shoulder blades.

“We’re a team,” you finish. It sounds hollow when it’s split between the two of you like this, but you refuse to let him believe otherwise. “If Harrow got to Steven, I would want to be there to help protect him. Same with Eliana.”

The mention of your daughter shatters the mulling look on his face like glass. This time, he gives you the long, searching look. It takes every inch of your fraying composure to hold onto your calm, but you manage.

“Why did you come to London with her?” Marc asks. “You didn’t come just to see your sister.”

That last part is not a question, but you know him well enough to see his silent desperation for an answer all the same. You already had this conversation outside of the museum on the first afternoon here, but this time your daughter is far out of hearing range and you don’t have an excuse to skirt around the subject.

“I came for my sister,” you admit. “I wanted Sophia to be with Eliana while I worked to find the scarab in case something happened. There’s not many people I trust her with if I never make it back.”

It’s too close to the truth. It rots inside your mouth and down through the chambers of your borrowed heart. It is far worse to have this conversation with a version of your husband that does not think of you more than anything but a persistent thorn in his side.

Marc looks away for a moment, pretending to think, but you don’t miss the twitch in his jaw. It’s a suppressed reaction you know all too well to be Jake’s. He’s close to the surface, then, and he is listening to every word you say.

Somehow, that feels even worse. You need to change the topic before you say something you can never take back. So you say the very first thing that comes to mind to distract him from that particular line of thinking.

“I talked to Layla.”

Fuck. So much for a topic that avoids something you can never take back. Too late to retreat now, though, and Marc whirls back to look at you as if you slapped him. His brows pull down in hurt, then his eyes light up in that torrent of fury you hate that you know so well. Poking at Marc is easy when you know his weakest parts, and Layla is the weakest spot of them all. Even more so than Steven, it seems, because at least Marc can stifle him with a little fear from adrenaline.

“What?” He demands. His voice echoes in the quest street around you. He takes a step closer, lowering his voice to a hush. “What the hell did you do that for?”

“She’s well-connected,” you say. You don’t have the feign the confidence that settles your racing pulse. You don’t regret calling her. Did Marc think he could avoid her forever? Maybe. “You can’t keep the scarab here in the city. She’s our best chance to let it disappear from the public entirely so Harrow can’t find it.”

Marc reels back to twist his fingers through his hair, spitting out a muttered string of curses you can’t quite catch, then points at you accusingly. “We do not involve innocent people in this work, Lockley. You’re putting her in danger by inviting her here.”

That hits the mark like the strike of a match to kindling. Your frustrated anger roars to life to greet him, and even when you know you will regret this outburst later, for now you revel in this chance to curse him out for being such a fucking self-sacrificing idiot.

“You lost the chance to cut her loose when you married her, Marc. Like it or not, she’s your equal in this life, and she can help us with the scarab.”

“Not if it could get her killed!”

“Not if you’re there to actually help protect her.”

“I can’t!” Marc shouts. Too late, you realize the two of you have gravitated closer together like orbiting stars, and he grips you by your upper arms tightly enough to make you stop breathing. He’s so warm, his touch scorching you through the fabric of your ceremonial armor. The blessing of Anubis he wears without his consent or knowledge sings to you through the contact alone. It’s a comfort that he does not want to give you. He’s too furious to soothe the panic that needles you. You’re not the one that should take his comfort in any form.

Yet you’re terribly lonely enough in this life to bask in it even as he shouts at you.

“I can’t,” he repeats, falling back into his shroud of bitter misery, but he’s still gripping you like you will turn to sand and fall straight through his fingers. “I won’t let her get hurt because she’s trying to help me serve Khonshu’s every whim. You could convince her it’s not worth coming here to help.”

“You have to stop running from it,” you say. Even uttering something like that makes you a blatant hypocrite, but he doesn’t know it. “Just talk to her, okay? She’s more angry that you are ignoring her. She thought you were dead.”

“Good,” Marc huffs out. It’s almost so quiet you second guess yourself, but when he finally releases you, he repeats, “It would be easier for her to move on.”

“No, it would not be,” you huff back, nearly amused. How often had you figured cutting ties would be as swift as cutting a lifeline? Death had once been a final frontier, the last destination of your every regret. Now it is nothing more than an illusion of choice. Your fate is tied to its place with no way out.

Marc must know that, especially after what happened in the wake of the shiva. He’s hellbent on severing all of his connections to other people, but he has done nothing but encourage you all to come and seek him out regardless.

Like it or not, he is stuck with you.

Like it or not, the same goes for Layla, too.

“Just… stay away from Steven for now,” he sighs. “The scarab is safe. We can figure out a plan after things settle down.”

“Things aren’t going to just settle down,” you say. You hold out your empty palms in emphasis. “He’s planning something, Marc. I can’t do my job without the knife he stole. I bet you’re going to have more trouble with Steven, too.”

“Just give it some time,” he repeats. He isn’t fit to argue the point with you, and he turns his back to head towards the flat. Likely, he plans to shuffle into the recesses of Steven’s mind until this day can be forgotten as nothing more than a bad dream.

“Stay safe,” you call to his retreating back, and you see his chin tip down in a silent acknowledgement before he turns the corner and vanishes from sight.

Despite yourself, you linger in the street for a moment longer to see if Marc chooses to double back, shrouded by the shadows of the distant streetlights. Anubis’s favor settles across your armor to mask your presence flawlessly, subtle enough that even a trio of boisterous college aged men don’t spare you a look as they wander straight by your hiding place and head towards another pub.

To the naked eye, you are nothing.

Under your skin, the call of death burns like wildfire. Someone is dying, and you can feel the discordant notes of your knife against flesh and bone, wielded in amateur violence. It is not a weapon used for war, and yet it is being spent towards a nefarious purpose, every turn of the blade scraping across your insides in an agonizing mirrored response.

Marc wants to give it time.

Harrow is sending you the signal as clear as day: you are running out of time, second by second, and he plans to use it to cripple you from the inside out.

Another slash of the knife, swift and fatal, and you stumble, knees weakened in nausea, to slam against the side of a building. The world rocks and tilts hazily. A wet muzzle presses to your thigh, insistent, but when you open your eyes nothing is there.

You are dying, and you are alone.

Marc wants to wait for things to settle down. He wants Layla out of the way of harm. He wants Steven to turn a blind eye and pretend he lives a normal life as a gift shop cashier. He assured you that he will stay attentive for any leads about Harrow’s location, but he hadn’t seemed so keen to go out hunting tonight.

“Okay, asshole, I hear you,” you grit out, tapping your emblem. Sand coalesces over your physical form, a sign that you should be intangible to the whim of bodily functions, but it does nothing to soothe the gut-wrenching sickness rotting inside every particle of your being.

You don’t have time for things to settle down. If Harrow wants this fight, then he will have it, all or nothing, even if you have to do it yourself.

[nickfowlerrr]

something good and true - part 4

series masterlist

pairing: mob boss!bucky barnes x reader

warnings: 18+ ONLY. smut. oral (f and m receiving). spitting. mention of spanking. unprotected sex. pet names (doll, sweetheart, baby). fluff.

words: 7.5k

notes: last part! thank you for reading this little series, i hope you’ve enjoyed it. please let me know your thoughts! as always, comments reblogs and feedback are more than welcome and so appreciated. 🩵

It’s been a few weeks now since you and Bucky first kissed; dinners, dates, and late night calls marking the passing of time.

Not much has changed in terms of your physical connection, but it seems like every time you see Bucky, you get closer and closer to doing more than just kissing.

The more comfortable you’ve gotten around him, the more comfortable he’s gotten at letting his hands wander you. All over you.

It was just the other night that Bucky came over to your place, actually going inside for the first time. He had picked you up from work, and when you asked if he wanted to come in for a minute, he readily agreed.

He looked a bit out of place as he sat on the couch in your living room, his expensive suit really standing out against the well loved furniture and cheap throw draped on the back of it. You suddenly felt a little self conscious at the lack of anything truly nice in your home… Bucky’s home was incredible, full of the nicest decor and furniture you’d seen outside of a magazine or movie. You wondered what he thought about the place. It was silly, you knew he wasn’t judging you, he hadn’t before. But still, a small part of you couldn’t help but compare the obvious differences between the two of you. That was, until he looked over at you standing still a bit away with a glass in hand for him and smiled that crooked smile of his.

“You gonna stand there all night, doll?”

You blinked and took a breath, letting out a titter as you walked over to him.

“Sorry, got distracted,” you admitted.

“Me and my good looks distracting you, sweetheart?” he teased as you sat next to him, taking the glass in his right hand and sliding his left arm to rest on the back of the couch, behind you.

“Just a bit,” you simpered, looking into his bright eyes as you let yourself get closer to him, all previous self consciousness gone. He placed his glass on the table next to him as he turned even further toward you.

“You distract me, too,” he spoke, his voice low, his timbre sending a warm thrill through you as he held your gaze. “I couldn’t stop thinking about you during my meeting tonight. Dangerous territory I’m getting lost in here,” his hand found its way to your thigh as he spoke, and you didn’t realize he was leaning into you until his left hand left the couch and came to hold your head, keeping you in place as he inched closer.

“Dangerous?”, you breathed, “that’s what everyone says about you.” His nose brushed against yours, your lips mere inches apart as you spoke.

“That scare you?” he drawled.

“No. Well…Not anymore. Not now that I know you,” you take a stuttering breath as your lips graze his, “I trust you.”

Something flashed in his eyes at your admission, a fondness, a bit of ease, maybe. And undeniably, awe.

It wasn’t a second later that he urged closer and his lips slotted against your own, sparks seeming to ignite under his touch. The way they always did. You kissed him back, just as softly, while letting him lead. You liked it that way.

He parted first, his words sending those warm fuzzies aglow in your chest and belly as he spoke.

“Good,” he met your eye, “You know you never have to be scared of me, right? You never had to be.”

Your breath stilled as you listened to him, your heart seized in your chest. Your soft lips were parted as you peered into his crystal blue eyes, wanting - needing him to continue.

He half smiled as he held your gaze in turn, a soft laugh leaving his lips, the warm, honey like sound causing you to lean into him without even noticing. “I didn't want to admit it then, but I was gone for you the moment I laid eyes on you, doll. I couldn’t even pinpoint what it was about you if I tried, I just saw you and…” he trailed off.

Your eyes were glued to him as you listened and studied him as intently as ever. The sincerity in his voice, in his gaze, in his touch as he gently brushed your cheek, it was undeniable.

You watched as something seemed to click and become clear in his head and his next words came out like it was the easiest, most obvious thing in the world.

“It was you.”

His voice was softer, but lower, too and it sent a shiver you couldn’t hide, but weren’t embarrassed of, through you.

Bucky leaned in again, pressing his lips once more to yours and kissing you so gently you could have melted right into him. Instead, though, you found yourself leaning back and back and back as he guided you down on the cushions, his body following yours. He pulled away for just a moment as he moved around, taking off his jacket before pulling your legs up so you were now lying on the couch beneath his strong body.

Again, you were momentarily distracted by the stark differences between you two. He was strong, burly, muscular - his biceps were well on display, tight against the sleeves of his shirt as he held himself above you, seemingly checking in with you to make sure what he was doing was okay before he carried on, whereas you were soft, and fleshy, and thick in places you’d always been a bit self conscious of.

Bucky had one hand cradling your head as he let his other wander the curves of your body. He was straddling you, keeping himself above you as he kissed you deeply. As if he could hear your thoughts, he said exactly what you needed to hear to get those pointless worries out of your head.

His hand felt down your waist to your hip where he held you, squeezing the soft flesh there in his big hand, the low groan that left him sending a thrill through you. “You’re so fuckin soft,” he said against your lips, voice thick with admiration and desire as you nearly whimpered into his kiss, one of your hands going to his hair as you held him to you.

As you kissed him back with growing heat, you felt his tongue pressing against the seam of your lips and readily let him in. His tongue slipped into your mouth and you really couldn’t help but moan at feeling.

You could feel yourself getting hotter and hotter, the slick between your legs growing as you tried hard to not writhe underneath him, pushing your thick thighs as close together as possible to try and quell the neediness he was stoking in you.

He broke the kiss and the darkened blue of his eyes danced with a want you were sure matched your own.

You managed to scoot yourself up some, hoping the way you squeezed your legs together wasn’t too obvious as you waited for his next move.

Him leaning back and climbing off the couch was not what you had anticipated, but it was indeed what happened, much to your disappointment.

You watched as he stood and ran a hand through his dark hair, pushing the fallen strands away from his face and only noticed the growing erection pressing against his pants when he moved to discreetly adjust himself.

You felt your face burn at the realization that you were doing to him exactly what he was doing to you. It was good to know you weren’t the only one feeling so worked up after just a little make out session. It normally took quite a bit more to get you feeling like that, but god with Bucky it seemed like all he had to do was look at you a certain way and you were flustered and tingling for him.

“I’m sorry, doll,” he apologized as he turned away to adjust himself before turning back to face you. “I shouldn’t have tried to start something I know I can’t finish.”

You were sure the confusion was clear on your face as you pushed yourself to fully sit up, sliding your legs off the couch to be seated once more.

He reached a hand out for you to grab and when you did, he pulled you up and straight to him, eliciting a gasp from you as he held you against him. You could feel the shape of his hard cock pressing against your soft belly as he did and it sent a whole new wave of arousal through you. God, you could’ve actually whimpered at the feeling.

His arms circled your waist and his hands settled perfectly on your ass as he looked at you.

“Because the first time I get you undressed and under me, I plan on keeping you there all night,” he said with a light squeeze of your bottom that had you pressing yourself further against him. And it was like your mouth was moving before you even registered your own words and could stop yourself…

“Hopefully not just under you all night,” you replied, your voice heavy and heady with want as your hands roamed his thick torso. You were staring into his beautifully darkened eyes as you continued in a sultry whisper you don’t think you’d ever heard from yourself before, “because I like to imagine you taking me from behind.”

You blinked up at him and the hunger in his eyes made your insides twist, and the low, throaty sound like a growl that escaped him at your confession had his hands squeezing you tighter against him and your pussy fluttering.

“Sweetheart, I’m gonna take you any way you’ll let me.”

“I’d let you take me any way you like,” you responded dutifully - and god, did you mean it.

You’ve never spoken so dirty to anyone you weren’t actively in bed with before but this was just coming out of you, you weren’t putting much of any thought or effort into your words, just saying what was coming so easily.

And it was all his doing.

He raised a hand to hold your face in his palm, his fingers spread across your soft skin as he did.

“Call me crazy but somehow I just knew you’d be my perfect fit,” he smirked, “all soft and sweet at a glance, but you got a dirty little mouth on you, don’t you doll?”

“I’d be happy to show you just how dirty if you’d like,” you teased, running a hand up and down his strong arm holding you, the other still on his chest.

God, had you actually just said that? You’d never once enjoyed giving head, but the thought of sinking down on your knees before Bucky and taking him in your mouth, feeling the heavy weight of his cock on your tongue, pleasing him, making him come undone, fuck, you felt yourself getting wet at the thought. What the hell had gotten into you!

You seemed to snap yourself straight and released a heavy breath, pushing just a bit away from him. “God, I’m sorry, I don’t know what I’m- ugh,” you sighed, growing a bit agitated at yourself and the desperate need for this man that won’t stop burning in you. “You should probably go, I’m liable to jump on you any second now.” He laughed a beautiful sound and you chanced a glance at him as you continued, “You’re kinda driving me crazy, here, Bucky,” you breathed a self-deprecating smile, “I’m not usually like this…”

“No, I like it. It’s nice to know you want me as much as I want you... And fuck, do I want you.”

You were so mesmerized by his heavy gaze you were a little surprised when his lips met yours once more. Your moan emboldened him further as he deepened the kiss, lips molding against one another before his phone ringing pulled him away.

He didn’t bother to check who it was calling, it seemed he already knew. “Come over tomorrow?”, he asked.

“I can’t,” you replied, not bothering to hide your disappointment. “I’m having family dinner with my parents. Day after?”

“I’ll pick you up,” he agreed with another kiss, one much lighter. “These fuckin’ late night meetings,” he groaned against your lips. “Gonna have to get these guys on a new schedule.”

You smiled into his soft kiss, “Okay, go,” you told him.

“‘M goin’,” he assured you with another kiss. Then another. And another. You could feel yourself getting lost in him again.

“Go,” you urged him to the door with a titter. “You’re gonna get Steve banging on my door again,” you laugh at the memory of a similar makeout session last week that had Bucky off schedule and his right hand man scowling at your door.

You got his discarded jacket, handed it to him, and then smoothed it out for him when he had put it on.

“Not worried about it,” he said, “they’d wait all night for five seconds of my time.”

His surety and confidence in that fact did something to you. And it served as a reminder; you weren’t dealing with just any guy here. You were with James Bucky Barnes. And you knew what he said was true because you knew you’d wait all night for him, too. Then your heart fluttered in your chest because you also knew that, despite the fact that he very well could, he’d never keep you waiting.

-

“Hi,” you murmured under his heated gaze as he took your hand. You tried to bite your cheek to keep your smile from taking over your face at his reaction. His eyes drank you in and you don’t think he even realized he did it as his hands settled on your hips almost instinctively while he held you in place for a moment, gaze roving up and down your dress clad figure. With anyone else you’d probably have feared you were doing a little too much for dinner at home, but not with Bucky. He was dressed as nicely as ever and for once you felt you looked like you belonged on his arm. Your hair looked great and your makeup was near flawless, and though he couldn’t see it just yet, the lingerie you were wearing underneath this dress accentuated your curves in the best way. This is probably the longest you’ve gone seeing someone without sleeping with them, and though you’re grateful that Bucky has been nothing if not a gentleman this entire time, not pressuring you to go further even once, you’re more than ready for all of the next steps now.

You could still feel the heavy weight of his gaze on you as you turned to face your front door and lock it, his hands still on your hips. Not that you disliked it. You didn’t spend the better half of the day getting ready to not get a reaction from him. And you were quite enjoying the one he was giving you.

As you turned back to him, it was less than a second before his lips were on yours. He was kissing you so sweetly but you could both feel the undercurrent of desire coursing beneath it.

“Beautiful as ever,” he said in a low whisper when he pulled away.

You smiled as you met his eye before he took your hand again, leading you to his car.

-

His hand was warm on your thigh and the entire drive all you could think about was him sliding his touch higher and higher… He didn’t, gentleman he was, but his soft squeezes every so often let you know he was thinking the same thoughts you were. You had to stifle a laugh and a grin at the heavy, throaty breath he released when you spread your legs a little further for his touch. He had instinctively inched his hand higher before stopping himself and squeezing your soft flesh a bit more harshly.

You were tempted to take his hand in yours and move it to where you both wanted it yourself, but he was already pulling into the winding driveway of his home when the vision flashed through your mind. You sighed to yourself, you could be patient. Neither of you had said it aloud, but you both knew tonight was going to be the night.

He helped you out of the car, your heels clacking softly on the ground as you followed him inside.

The lack of any noise and aroma coming from the kitchen piqued your curiosity as you passed and Bucky shortly after supplied you with an explanation.

“The chef will start dinner in an hour or so, but have you eaten, do you want anything?”

“No, I’m okay,” you reassured him.

He had stopped walking and turned to face you, both of you standing there in the quiet just gazing at one another for a long second until you took a step closer to him and continued.

“Bucky,” you hedged.

“Yes?”

You looked at him through your painted lashes. “There was one room you didn’t show me the last time I was here… I was wondering if I could see it now.”

He closed the short distance between you, pulling you against his burly body, his hands smoothing up your waist and rib cage, his thumbs stopping just under your breasts before sliding his touch back down to your hips. He clearly understood your meaning right away.

“Like I could ever say no to that face.”

You are caught completely off guard as he easily lifts you off your feet, a yelp escaping you at the sudden movement. Bucky just chuckled and though you can’t say you’ve ever been carried or even momentarily taken off your feet by a man before, you instinctively hold onto him as he walks you down the lone hallway he hadn’t taken you down before. You’re amazed at how effortless it seems to be for him, though by his beefy, muscular frame, you’re not sure why you’re so surprised. He probably benches your weight and then some.

Bucky walks you into the room and your eyes are all over the place as he sets you down to sit on the edge of his king bed.

The room is huge. Like, the entirety of the floor plan of your house, huge.

He practically has an entire living room in his bedroom and you sit in a stupor at the sight. You almost can’t believe this is actually real. There’s a fireplace at the end of the room, a television on the wall above it and a small couch across from it. An in wall bookcase is nestled in the corner by the window, a little nook there to sit and read.

A leather bound journal sits on the small table before the couch and the chair beside it, an errant pen that looks like it rolled away from its spot on the journal sits just next to it. There’s an ornate rug underneath the furniture atop the shiny wooden flooring, and an area rug beneath the bed too. As you sit on the bed, facing the door to the room that you just came in from, there’s another door to your left. It’s slightly a jar and you can see just from a glance that it’s the bathroom. You turn to look behind you and find another door you assume leads to the closet and another huge window that is covered by thick curtains. The room is warmly lit and the plush duvet under your fingers is insanely soft.

It’s not until you look at Bucky that you find him already staring at you. You smile sheepishly.

“This is really nice,” you compliment lamely.

“It is,” he agrees. But with the way he’s gazing at you perched comfortably on his bed, you get the feeling he’s referring to something else.

You feel your skin burn as your thoughts take off. He likes having you in his room. He likes having you on his bed. You wonder what he’s thinking about you doing on his bed… God, you are a long way from your teenage years, yet he’s got you here feeling like a high schooler all over again. Though really, you don’t think you’ve ever felt like this with anyone, at any point.

Your thought is quickly forgotten as Bucky now stands before you, you spread your legs without thinking as he settles between them, taking your face gently in his hands as he admires you.

He bends down to kiss you, your lashes fluttering shut at his touch.

He chuckles as you shimmy and lean back, the lapels of his jacket in your hands as you urge him down with you. You like the feeling of him on top of you. His heat radiates through the clothes and you feel more secure in this moment than you ever have before. There isn’t a single worry in your head, there isn’t anything at all except for you and Bucky.

You blindly move around and Bucky helps reposition you as he smiles against your lips until you finally feel your head laying on a pillow. You blink your eyes open as he pulls away and you watch as he moves down your body, hands trailing slowly until he reaches your shoes. He gently slips your heels off your feet and lets them fall on the other side of the bed. His warm palms slide up your calves, goosebumps raising in his wake as he feels the softness of your legs. Just when you think he’s about to raise your dress up your thighs, he is gone again, sitting back and removing his own shoes. You can’t help but smile at the sight as you sit up on your elbows to watch him. A thrilling anticipation shoots through you as he then slips off his jacket before turning back to face you.

You find yourself in a very familiar situation as he moves up your body, hovering over you. This time though, you have parted your legs for him and he slots himself between your plush thighs - your dress now barely covering your bottom as it’s rolled up.

It’s quiet and still for a moment as Bucky looks down at you like you’re a gift from God himself. His hands are teasingly slow as he wanders your curves, determined to commit every one to his memory lest you disappear right before him as suddenly as you appeared and took over his world.

His hand cradles your cheek and he allows his lips to brush yours, a devastating tingle spreading through you at the simple but intimate touching. You shudder a breath beneath him and then he’s kissing you again. His lips are fervent against your own, then he’s leading the delicate dancing of your tongues as you allow him to slip past your lips. You can feel him as he presses against you, his erection growing and stiff against your center. You moan as he mindlessly rolls his hips into yours and you decide you can’t take the waiting much longer.

You allow your hands to slip down your bodies until you reach the waistband of his pants, tugging at them before trying to fumble with the zip. He groans against you as you try to raise your hips up, searching for more of him.

He pulls away and breathes a husky breath, “You sure you wanna do this now?”

His darkened blue eyes are intent on yours as he waits for your answer, watching for any unspoken thought from you to be revealed in your heady gaze.

“I’m sure,” you say with zero hesitation, “...are you?”

His lips crash against yours hotly before he responds.

“Sweetheart, you have no fucking idea.”

He pulls away to get his pants off and rids himself of his shirt soon after while you work your way out of your dress.

He is left in tight gray boxers as you lay before him in only your deep purple lace lingerie.

You can see the way he breathes a little heavier as his eyes darken even more while he takes in your visage and form. “You’re a dream,” he says more to himself than to you as he tentatively reaches out to touch you; it’s different feeling you up over clothes, now he gets to really touch you, to feel your soft skin against his rough hands, the chills that overtake you under his touch…

He starts at your shoulders, fingers roaming under the straps of your bra, down to your chest. He lets his fingers drag over your breasts, playing with your pert nipples for just a second through the lace before he continues down. He then spreads his palms out as he smooths down your ribs, squeezing the curve of your waist, his thumbs rubbing circles on the top of your wide set hips before he slides down even more to hold them tight. His fingers find the waistband of your bottoms and he looks into your eyes just as he’s about to slide them down. It takes you a second to realize he’s waiting for your go ahead but when you do, you nod - your desire palpable as you watch him. The beginnings of a smirk pull at his lips as he slowly, purposefully slowly, drags the purple lace down your thick thighs, his lips ghosting the material as he kisses lightly all the way down your legs until he discards them with the rest of your clothes.

You’ve closed your thighs in his descent and as he moves to work his way back up, he urges you to spread them for him once again. It’s a soft push and then his hands are sliding up between your thighs while you let them fall open for him as he makes sure to feel every inch of your softness.

Your breath catches as he gets closer and closer to where you want him until his arms slide up under your thighs as he brings you to him. With one hand, he grabs a pillow beside you and instructs you to raise up for him as he places it under your hips, leaving you exactly where he wants you as you follow his words.

His warm palms slide up the sides of your thighs until he’s grabbing your soft hips and his fingers tickle your bottom.

You gasp when you feel his hot breath on your wet and wanting core and your eyes shut as he moves in even closer, his tongue reaching out to taste you. He licks, slow and firm, through your glistening folds, up your slit to your sensitive clit, circling the bud with the tip of his tongue, your muscles already tensing under his tendings.

He slips his tongue back down and does it again, spreading the mixture of your wetness and his saliva up and down your pussy. It’s fucking heaven.

He dives in deeper when you moan his name, tugging on his hair in your pleasure. His nose nuzzles your clit as he moves his face back and forth, eating you out like he’s starved. You whine when you feel him spit on your cunt, flattening his tongue and licking your sensitive lips firmly before he starts to suck on your clit. Your voice squeaks at the intense pleasure and your thighs threaten to shut around his head but he holds your soft, thick thighs open with his strong hands, moaning into your slick pussy when he begins to fuck you with his tongue. Your toes are curling as your hips try to follow his movements, but again, his strength keeps you in place, prolonging the pleasurable torture. You watch on as Bucky gets his fill of you, his face deep in concentration, like the only thing he cares about is tasting you and making you feel good. His only real objective getting you to come, making you come for him. And as his lips wrap around your clit once more and he pulls you closer to his face, one hand ghosting from your hip to the entrance of your pussy, he slips in one, then two thick digits into your cunt, curling them just right as he moves them gently but firmly in and out of you, working you open for him, scissoring them inside you, he gets exactly what he wants. With a gasp, a shudder, and a hundred moans of his name - a chant falling off your lips, you come hard on his fingers. Your walls tight on his digits as he moans and works to drink up your release, slipping out of you carefully before licking and sucking up your mess along your delicate cunt. Your legs slowly untense and you work to catch your breath as he moves to come back up your body.

“Fair warning,” he heeds darkly, “you’re gonna be sitting on my face later tonight.” You can’t stop the giggle that leaves you unbidden as he crawls up you. He licks his lips wolfishly like he’s still savoring the taste of you. “I’ve just found my newest vice.”

He kisses you slowly and you can taste yourself on his tongue as his hard cock nudges against you. “See how fucking good you taste?” He breathes against your lips. “Feel what you do to me?” He rolls his hips again. You look down with a breathy moan and see a wet spot on his briefs, a new wave of arousal taking over you at the sight. As much as you want to feel him inside of you for the first time, stretching you, filling you up, you can’t help the urge to first feel him in your mouth. You want to - no, you need to taste him, too.

He kisses you again as you lean up to him, rolling his hips against you more. You sit up and Bucky watches you with a furrowed brow, following your movements until you turn and urge him to swap places with you.

Once his head is on the pillow below him, he lets himself get comfortable with you between his legs. You lean to kiss him again, noses brushing against each other as it deepens. Soft murmurs escaping you as Bucky lets out a heavy breath, bordering on a moan as your hand trails down his strong torso and reaches his pelvis. You let your fingers skim along the band of his boxers and he hisses when you brush against his straining cock.

Carefully, you start to free him as you trail kisses from his neck, down his chest, his sternum, his stomach. He springs free as you get the boxers down his solid thighs, moving back some to get them off of him. Bucky is a little impatient it seems as he ends up kicking them the rest of the way off, his heady eyes set on you.

You smile at the look of barely restrained lust on his face while you move back toward him.

You set your gaze on his thick length, grasping him with your manicured hand as you lean in to lick from his base to his tip, swirling your tongue around his head and tasting the precum you find there. You can’t help the sultry moan that leaves you at the taste of him on your tongue.

You lave your tongue back down his shaft and up again, your tongue tickling his balls and you burn at the reaction you get out of him. You pump his length in your hand as he tries to maintain his breathing- all the while his blue eyes are glued to you and your every move.

You let the saliva in your mouth drip down onto his cock before you finally take the tip of him into your mouth, sucking him off as your hand continues to work his length and your other moves to fondle his balls. The curses and throaty groans coming from Bucky only spur you on as you work to take more of his heavy cock into your mouth. You’re bobbing your head up and down on him with about half his shaft past your lips and your hand still working the rest of him with a firm hold, your cheeks are hollow as you suck and spit leaks from your lips as you keep moving. You’re a sight to be seen, a debauched mess, really. But you just can’t care. You moan when you feel his hand come to hold you where you are before he guides your head down further to take even more of him. He’s at the back of your throat and you moan and sputter as your eyes water while you breathe through your nose and try to relax your throat, taking as much of him as you possibly can before he guides you back up for air. Your saliva clings to him and you spit again on his cock head, wrapping your hand around him and jerking him off as you catch your breath. When you move to take him in your mouth again, he stops you.

Your eyes flash to his and he answers your unspoken question, “You got me right on the fucking edge already, doll,” he breathes heavily, voice thick with hunger as he urges you back up to him. You gasp in surprise when he gets you where he wants you and flips you over so he’s on top once more, “but I need to be inside you.” He kisses you fervently, “I wanna feel you wrapped around me. Wanna feel you squeeze me. Wanna come inside your pretty pussy, and I wanna feel you come on my cock.”

You're a mess of whimpers and airy moans as he trails your body with kisses between his words. You almost don’t even notice him taking your bra off as you get lost in his touches.

You watch him then, as his big hands palm your breasts, squeezing them, leaning down to kiss your soft skin before his tongue licks your pert nipple, toying with the other as he swirls his tongue and sucks on your tit and relishes your moans before switching his attentions.

“Bucky,” your calling of his name is a desperate plea that falls on his ears as you wrap your leg around him. You can feel his heavy cock nudging you and god all you want is for him to finally press into you and fill you up.

He listens to your prayers and moves back up your body so you’re face to face before he kisses you again.

“Fuck, I’ve wanted you from the moment I saw you,” he confesses against your lips, holding himself above you with one arm as the other drags down between your bodies. He grips his cock and guides himself to your entrance, earning a gasp from you as his tip nudges you. “Think about you all the damn time.”

He pushes in just slightly and you can already feel him stretching you.

“Me too,” you admit as your arms come to hold him. “All the time.”

He cocks a crooked smile at that and leans down for another kiss, pushing further into you with the movement. You whimper into the kiss as his thick length opens you more to him. He lets his hand hold onto your soft, squeezable hip as he moves inside you, a heady breath escaping him as your tight walls constrict around his cock.

He moves slowly, pushing deep inside you and making sure you feel every inch of him before he slides back and repeats his motions. It’s a torturous heaven as you moan beneath him, grasping onto his sturdy frame while he takes you.

He rolls his hips into yours, his fingertips digging into your softness as he holds you.

“You’re so fucking perfect,” he husks as his hand slides over to your belly, feeling you there too. You feel the pressure of his heavy palm on you and you don’t know why the feeling along with his words have the effect they do, but you find yourself closer and closer to your end as he drags his length in and out of your tight walls, feeling you and fucking you like you’ve never experienced before.

You move a hand to snake between you, you're so close you just need a little more. But before you can reach your clit, Bucky’s hand stops you.

“No,” he pants, “I got you, baby.”

Your walls clench around him at his words and then you feel his finger on your clit, the perfect pressure, moving in perfect rhythm and he winds you higher.

“Oh, fuck,” you cry, your eyes stinging with tears, it feels so fucking good. “Bucky, please, oh my god, please please please”, you chant mindlessly.

“I got you, baby,” he repeats, “you wanna come for me? Huh?” his breathing is heavy and his voice is tight as he fucks you faster and deeper. “Come on my cock, let me feel you, sweetheart.”

You squeak and your voice peaks, your orgasm is near blinding as it hits you hard. Wave after euphoric wave while you feel yourself shake.

“Fuck yes,” Bucky nearly shouts, “squeeze my cock, just like that, baby, fuck.”

Your walls pulse around his thick length as you shudder and cry, muscles tensed as you ride out the high that seems never ending. Your nails are digging into his skin as you hold onto him and he doesn’t seem to mind one bit as he loses himself in the feeling of you. His hips rock against yours and then he’s pounding into you, hard and fast as he chases his orgasm, hitting you so deep you know you’ll be feeling him for days.

Just as you start to come down from your orgasm, Bucky’s hits him. His hand is on your hip again as he pumps into you slower now, long, deep strokes; your name in a mix of moans and praises and curses falling from his pretty lips.

You feel his cum filling you up and moan again as you feel it leak from you, your pussy still milking his cock slowly in the shudder of your afterglow. He gasps and pants as he presses his forehead to yours.

Your fingers find their way into his hair as you pull him down for a kiss, your lips melding with his as he comes down from his high, too. It’s slow and lazy and so sweet.

He carefully pulls out of you, the mess between your legs even more evident now.

“Fuck,” he mumbles to himself, sounding a little amazed at the sight. He kisses your forehead quickly before he gets off the bed. “Hold on,” he tells you.

You watch him slip into the bathroom and sigh into the mattress as you hear the tap come on. He’s back in a flash with a damp rag and your heart flutters as he eases your legs back open, carefully, dutifully, cleaning you up. He’s gone again and then back after another moment, clean himself.

He lays beside you with a contented breath and tugs you into him.

“Thank you,” you murmur with a smile as you let your head rest on his chest.

“You okay?” He asks, checking in as his hand soothes up and down your side.

You nod, tilting to meet his eye, “Better than.”

You move up a bit, no longer on his chest and he moves onto his side, too so you're face to face and chest to chest. He leans in for a kiss and it starts out slow and languid, but it builds as he pulls your thigh over his hip and allows himself to lie down again, causing you to be a top him as you smile and titter into the kiss.

He doesn’t seem to mind the weight of you as his hands wander your plush, pliable body, kissing you all the while.

“Doll,” he murmurs against your lips.

“Hm?” you respond into his kiss before parting to hear him.

His eyes seem to twinkle up at you as he stares into your very soul, his hands settling into their favorite spot on your hips as his thumbs rub your skin.

“You know I got you, right?” His voice is a low rumble that sends a warmth right through you and has your heart skipping a beat.

You nod lightly, “I know, Bucky… And it may not pack the same weight, but, for what it's worth… I got you, too.”

His lips twitch, his sea blue gaze never straying from you.

“Be mine.”

It’s not a question, more a suggestion that you can’t help but smile at.

You lean into him and press another soft kiss to his lips.

“I already am.”

His hand is on your head then as he keeps you to him, his lips slotting against yours as he kisses you deeply, if not a little sloppily. But you couldn’t care in the slightest as you return his affection with the same fervor, your hands on his face as you smile into his kisses.

-

Dinner is a rather intimate affair as Bucky has the meal brought to his bedroom door instead of the table.

Your ass is a bit sore, in the very best way, as you sit with him on the couch near the fireplace while you eat.

He wanted to know every little detail of what you’d imagined him doing to you before and when you told him your dirty thoughts that would keep you up at night and plague you during your days, he made it his mission to give you everything you’d desired and then some.

The way he took you from behind while you were on all fours, his big, rough hands on your hips, kneading and squeezing your supple softness and slapping your ass, breathing hard and heavy, growls of dirty words and praises like music to your ears as he pulled you back onto his cock, fucking you so perfectly… ah you needed to focus on the food - you could feel yourself getting wet again already.

You snuggled into him with a blanket wrapped around your body as he wore nothing still but a pair of shorts he’d pulled from his dresser when he went to speak to his staff about the change in dinner plans.

He’s staring again, you can feel it.

And god, what a feeling it is.

You look over to him as you take another bite from your bowl.

“What?” You ask with a demure smile after you swallow.

He smiles back, his tongue sticking out and wetting his lips before he responds, “Tell me again.”

You don’t hesitate, you think you like saying it as much as he likes to hear it.

“I’m yours, Bucky.”

His arm comes around your waist and pulls you closer as you let yourself lean into him. You can tell he has more to say, so you set down your bowl and give him your full attention, turning more into him.

“Your dad is a good man,” he says thoughtfully, “a good father.”

“Yeah, he is,” you agree, still waiting for him to say what he’s holding onto, and not really wanting to talk about your dad right now.

“I’m sure he’ll always want to protect you, and I respect that, I admire it. But you have me now. So, not that anything will, but should anything happen - anyone bothers you, so much as looks at you wrong, you tell me, I’ll take care of it. I’ll take care of you. And anything you could ever want or need, doll,” he tilts your chin more towards him as he stares into your eyes, “say the word and you’ve got it.”

You really don’t know what to say as you stare at him a little dumbfounded, stupefied. You know he means it, every word, and it makes your heart clench and your stomach swirl. You’ve got it because he’s got you, and you’ve never felt so cherished or so important to someone.

“Bucky, I… I-,”

“You don’t have to say anything, sweetheart,” he stops you, smiling softly, “I just needed to make sure you know.”

You smile back.

“Well, now that you mention, there actually is something I’d like…”

“Uh huh,” he prompts, a smirk on his lips as he eyes you curiously, the playful glint in your eyes giving away your intent.

You lean closer to him, your hands on his chest, fingers running along the hair there. “Would it be okay if I stayed the night?” Visions of his words from the other night running through your head. You’re more than happy to spend the rest of your night under him, in front of him, on top of him… then curious thoughts pop up about what it’d be like to wake up with him, his arms snug around you, his warmth keeping the early morning chill away…

You meet his eye and his brows furrow, a frown pulling on his lips now.

“Were you planning on leaving?” His offended response leaves you laughing before you get pulled in for a kiss.

You murmur against his lips, “Not for a second.”

series tags: @peaches1958 @homiesexual-or-homosexual @lunarnerdqueen @mrsnikstan

[empyreanwritings]

Mob!Stucky x Stark!Reader

Drabbles:

Your Little Secret

He Puts Them in Their Place

You Find Out You’re Pregnant

Pepper Knows First

Tony Finds Out

Don’t Freak Out

Gender Reveal

The Baby Shower

The Aftermath

You Help a Friend Out

Charity Gala Shenanigans

Everyone Is Panicking…Slightly

Sarah Grace Barnes-Rogers

Tony Holds Her

Date Night

Visiting Hours

A Little Extra Security

Headcanons:

Parenthood

Morning rituals

Fashion sense

[freakrenaissance]

Reblogging again! I love this drabble series!!

[magicaloneandmystery]

danger

pairing: mob!Bucky Barnes x female!reader

summary: this isn't how Bucky planned on telling you about his line of work.

warnings: kidnapping, some violence against the reader,

a/n: okay, starting to really get obsessed with mob!bucky. giggling and kicking my feet up in the air!!

this is another submission for @darkficsyouneveraskedfor's Mini Bingo Mafia AU event. the square being fulfilled is "Don't Know Your S/O is in the Mob"

part 2

read more mob!bucky fics here

Bucky left his warehouse with the thoughts of you swarming his mind. he wondered how tonight's date would go. you had been dating only for a couple of months, but Bucky knew you were special, possibly the one. his heart had never raced like it does with you, his skin coming alive everywhere you touched him, his body missing your presence, your smile and laughter.

before anything more could happen though, he knew he should tell you about his... lifestyle. the deeper his feelings developed, the more he realised how urgent it was to tell you the truth. he did not want to trap you. before you, Bucky was rarely considerate about his partners' feelings. but something in his heart instructed him to act more carefully.

dare he say, this was the only relationship Bucky Barnes actually wanted to last. for a long, long time.

the cool air rustled his hair while he mulled on his plans. he planned on taking you to a drive-in theatre that was showing some '40s talkies tonight. the two of you, alone in his car, your face illuminated by the lights of the screen, a blanket around you both, some milkshakes and burgers, his arms around you, your head on his shoulder.

perhaps. a quiet night out was a rarity for Bucky, but he wanted to give you whatever your heart desired. and more.

he wondered how he'll break the news about his business. you knew he was a businessman, a busy one. you knew he owned a couple of bars and clubs around the city, but you did not know that was merely the tip of the iceberg.

getting into his car, he brushed off the dirt from his suit lapels, ensuring no blood was splattered on his clothes. his men were cleaning up the mess he made inside.

the darkening sky was a reminder that it was almost time to pick you up. he turned the engine on, the low rumble calming his mind. next time, he decided, he'll take you out on his motorcycle.

while driving down the New York streets, the ringing of his phone pulled him out of his fantasies about you.

get it together, Barnes. he thought to himself, shaking out of his head. the caller ID displayed an unknown number, his mind racing at the possibilities on who could be on the other side.

"Barnes, I got your girl," the voice announced. Bucky's blood went cold, his mind scrambling to recognise the voice. it felt vaguely familiar, just out of the reach of Bucky's mind. "meet me at the warehouse by the Pier. lot 32. and bring the money you owed Rumlow before killing him. you have 30 minutes, my boys are dying to get their hands on her."

the pier. that was Rumlow's territory before Bucky wiped tthat syndicate a couple of years ago. as far as he knew, only a few smaller families were fumbling with the area.

who had taken control?

✿✿✿✿✿

you woke up slowly, eyelids heavy and a ringing in your ear making you wince. your shoulders ached, your hands tied behind your back, the rope digging into your wrists.

with a startle, your eyes flew open, trying to get free of your bondage. your wrists were tied together behind your back, your legs i. the same predicament with the legs of the chair you were sat on.

looking around, you saw a dark and dingy spacious hall, a few boxes and platforms scattered near the edges.

a warehouse, your mind whispered.

a group of men stood a few feet ahead of you, talking and laughing. when they noticed you were awake, a few cheers and whistles were heard.

"she's awake!" one of them mentioned.

"just in time, too," a calm voice replied from the side. your head turned, catching a glimpse of a man dressed in a black overcoat, hands clasped behind his back. "your boyfriend should be on his way."

boyfriend? Bucky? your mind tried to make sense of what was happening. your face scrunched in confusion, making the man let out a dry chuckle.

"I have a debt to collect from James, on behalf of my friend. if he does not pay in time, you'll help him. as his girl, that's your duty, ain't it?"

James... the man was definitely talking about Bucky.

"boss, the time is almost up," a man declared, eyes cast down to his watch.

"Barnes is not a punctual man," another lackey chimed in.

"good for us!" a third roared.

the boss, the guy beside you, shrugged. "well, what can you do. have at her, boys."

the men dragged you behind, chaining you up between two poles, suspending you a few inches above the ground, your legs and arms spread out. your vision blurred, both with fearful tears and the pain in your arms and upper body.

you tried to scream for help but before you could utter a coherent word, one of them gagged you with a dirty cloth.

they stood in front of you, eyeing you with varying degrees of excitement and darkness. their toothy grins and disfigured faces were enough to make your heart pound even faster than it aleady was, fearing for your life.

just some time back - you were not sure how long exactly - you were getting ready for your date with Bucky, deciding on an outfit - wait. Bucky. the man had used his name. how was he connected to all of this? you thought he was just another nightclub owner, but this... surely this was deeper than just club business?

before you could think further, pain bloomed from your stomach, all air escaping you in an instant.

one of them had punched you.

what the fuck have I gotten myself into?

a few more blows to your stomach, ribs, and jaw had a steady stream of tears flowing down your face and chin, wheezing and panting through your gag. quiet whimpers and the glee of the men around you were all that were heard in the room in between the blows that landed you.

suddenly, the screech of the warehouse doors took all attention from you. everyone turned around and you saw a smirk grace the face of the boss, who was standing in front of you. he turned back slowly, facing the group of men who rushed inside.

you saw Bucky, his clothes and hair messy - something you had never seen before. he was always neat and organised - and a gun in his hand.

a gun?!

his eyes found your figure, a grimace taking over his features for a second before it settled for an impassive mask.

"Zemo," he gritted. "what the fuck is the meaning of all of this?"

"James," you could hear the smirk in his voice, a sinister sound. "just acquainting myself with the woman who has Mr. Barnes so enthralled."

"let her go," Bucky wasted no time, his eyes meeting yours for a split second. despite his collected expression and impassive voice, you saw the darkness behind his eyes, something you have never seen.

"not so fast. do you have what I asked for?"

one of the men who you think was named Steve threw a briefcase near Zemo's legs, the bag skidding to a stop near him.

"you wanna take over Rumlow's territory? fine with me. leave me out of it." Bucky stated.

what the fuck were they talking about?

and why was Bucky so cool in this situation?! where was the panic, shouldn't he be panicking in a situation like this?

"look, Barnes, I have no reason to make an enemy out of you. we both know we can benefit from becoming allies. I just wanted you to take me seriously."

"by kidnapping my girl?" he growled, his lips set in a straight line. "I won't repeat again. let. her. go."

"you heard him boys," Zemo looked at you over his shoulder. "it was nice to meet you."

yeah, I can't say the same.

Bucky took long, fast strides, batting away the arms of the men to untie you himself. when your body was free, it crashed into his body, his firm chest and arms engulfing you. you let out the gag, a sob leaving you.

"what the fuck?" was the only thing you could manage to speak

"I am so sorry, doll, I can explain," Bucky whispered, his arms massaging your shoulders. when he stood with you, your entire body screamed with pain, more sobs wracking your body.

"it hurts," you whimpered. "it hurts to even cry."

his jaw clenched, hands brushing over your skin gently. it brought you comfort, despite everything.

"let's take you to my house, baby. we'll have you looked over." he was slow and gentle, picking you up in his arms and cradling you by his chest.

it wasn't enough.

the slightest movement caused pain to sear through your nerves.

Bucky tried his best to soothe you, distract you. he continued massaging your shoulders in the car, one of his friends driving the car while you sat in Bucky's lap. he instructed the man in the driver seat - Sam, you found out - to drive slowly and carefully, avoiding any bumps or sharp turns.

"Bucky?" you whispered, fingers tried to smooth down his shirt, tried to soothe his heart. despite everything, your heart tugged at the concern in his eyes and the guilt in his voice.

"yeah, doll?" he refused to meet your gaze, eyes trailing down your t shirt, a few bruises peaking out from your collarbone. his Adam's apple bobbed with each look at the bruises that continued to darken under his gaze.

"I am so, so confused," you said, still trying to make sense of everything that transpired.

"I am so, so sorry, baby," he said, his gaze flicking to your face, but he still could not meet your eyes. "this is not how I planned on telling you, I was gonna tell you tonight, I swear, I should have known my enemies will try to hurt you, I should have been open from the start." he rambled.

"enemies?" you cut him off.

"doll..." he sighed, his gaze back to your bruises.

"Bucky, what's going on?"

he closed his eyes, letting his head fall back to the car seat. he took a few deep breaths before he slowly met your gaze again.

"I... I wasn't completely honest about you on our first date. about my business. my work," he stated. "I am involved in some, uh, illegal activities around the city, shit like drugs and contraband."

you gaped at him, spluttering and choking on your breath.

"I should have told you. I know. but you were just, y/n, you were so sweet. I was selfish. i wanted you to like me and I was scared you will leave the moment I came out with the truth."

"you lied to me because I was sweet?" you exclaimed. "what the fuck, Bucky?"

"I was going to tell you, baby! tonight!"

you did not know what it was, perhaps the way his hold clenched on your hands tighter, or the intensity in his eyes, or the scratchy crack of his voice, but you believed him.

"look, I know this was a lot. you have to believe me, I never wanted to hurt you, or for you to find out like this. and I," he gulped again, his eyes shifting around the car before settling back on you. "I understand if you want to... leave me. after tonight. I won't make this harder on you. but you have to understand, baby," he straightened up, cupping your face with his right hand, the left holding on to your waist, careful of your injuries. "I will protect you. from now on, I will have at least one of my man have his eyes on you, no matter what. even if you leave me, I won't leave you vulnerable, baby. and if you do decide to continue this relationship, if you remain my girl after tonight, I will burn down anyone who tries to lay their hands on you again. everybody in this city would know you are my girl, and you are not to be messed with."

his forehead touched your eyes, his eyes closing, breathing in your closeness. for all he knew, this could be the last time he would get to hold you like this.

you leaned into his palm on your cheek, taking in his words, his comfort and the danger ahead.

"can I... take some time to decide?"

you knew you should have left him right then. getting involved with the New York Underworld was not who you were.

"of course, baby," hope colored his voice, but he did not let himself get carried away. he cleared his throat. "let's get you cleaned up, yeah?"

~

part 2

okay I may have gotten a little carried away, this is longer than I am used to writing, but I hope you liked it! also, would anyone be interested in a part 2? 👀

do let me know what you thought of this :) likes, comments, and reblogs are appreciated <3

[crowsofdarkness]

Moment Of Weakness: Mob!Bucky Barnes[AU]

Reader is the assistant to New York's most feared mob boss, James Buchanan Barnes. He had the picture-perfect life: status in the mob, friends, and a beautiful wife. So why can't he keep his mind and eyes off of reader?

COMPLETE

*repost from my old blog*

ONE | TWO | THREE | FOUR | FIVE| SIX | SEVEN | EIGHT | NINE | TEN | ELEVEN | TWELVE | THIRTEEN | FOURTEEN | FIFTEEN | SIXTEEN | SEVENTEEN | EIGHTEEN | NINETEEN | TWENTY | TWENTY ONE | TWENTY TWO | TWENTY THREE | TWENTY FOUR | TWENTY FIVE | TWENTY SIX | TWENTY SEVEN | TWENTY EIGHT | TWENTY NINE | THIRTY | THIRTY ONE[END]

[outoftheseine]

- BUCKY BARNES FIC RECS 4 -

i’m so obsessed with catws!bucky you have no idea | note: please be aware of the authors’ warnings before reading. fics include canon tw’s like: violence, death, grief. torture and ptsd. some fics have 18+ content so minors please DNI.

part one | part two | part three | main masterlist | also check my latest list: matt murdock pt 2

SERIES - MULTI-CHAPTERS

the blade and the crown • knight!bucky barnes x queen!reader

↳ by @fandoms-writings (smut, angst, hurt/comfort, fluff, secret relationship)

avoidance | chaos | strangers | power • bucky barnes x reader

↳ by @ultralightpoe (angst, hurt/comfort, tw: ptsd)

illicit affairs • biker!bucky barnes x stark!reader

↳ by @auroralwriting (enemies to lovers, age gap, angst, gangs)

between a dream | part two | part three • tws!bucky barnes x reader

↳ by @bcksbarnes (angst, comfort, fluff)

before i could say it • bucky barnes x reader

↳ by @fawniswriting (angst, fluff, insecure!bucky)

lessons in lovemaking • bucky barnes x blackwidow!reader

↳ by @artficlly (smut, touch starved!bucky, fluff, angst, bickering, tw: trauma, sa)

foundations • bucky barnes x fem!reader

↳ by @vunblr (dad!bucky, fluff, a little angsty, smut)

not in that way • bucky barnes x fwb!gn!reader

↳ by @jaggedamethyst (smut, mutual pining, miscommunication, angst, fluff)

say don’t go • college!hockey!bucky barnes x reader

↳ by @the-winter-spider (angst, mean!bucky, pining, smut)

wake up | part two | part three • avenger!bucky barnes x avenger!reader

↳ by @marvelstoriesepic (very angsty)

the falcon, the winter soldier and static • bucky barnes x stark!reader

↳ by @theconstantsidekick

quiet down | stay quiet • roommate!bucky barnes x reader

↳ by @adrinktostopyourthirst (smut)

the soldier’s keeper • bucky barnes x doctor!reader | soldat (part of the universe)

by @pome-seed (angst, kidnapping)

ONE-SHOTS - BLURBS - HC’S

be(tter) in reality with me • bucky barnes x pregnant!fem!reader

↳ by @t-lostinworlds (angst, hurt/comfort, fluff)

dear lover • bucky barnes x fem!reader

↳ by @johnkrrasinski (very fluffy, slight angst)

my girl • domestic!bucky barnes x reader

↳ by @bucky-bucket-barnes (very fluffy)

the cure • bucky barnes x avenger!reader

↳ by @/bucky-bucket-barnes (very angsty, hurt/comfort, slowburn, fluff)

fast track • bucky barnes x fem!reader

↳ by @sidmakestuff (angst with happy ending, hurt/comfort, insecure!bucky, little explicit)

the rain is always gonna come if you’re standing with me • bucky barnes x reader

↳ by @bucky-bucky-bucky-bucky (angst, tw: harassment)

for as long as you need me • bucky barnes x reader

↳ by @whatthetumblfck (fluff, hurt/comfort)

worthy • bucky barnes x reader

↳ by @duuhrayliegh (fluff)

softened by time • bucky barnes x gn!reader

↳ by @heyitsme1040 (domestic fluff)

his girl • bucky barnes x enchanced!reader

↳ by @roguerogerss (fluff)

enemies • bucky barnes x reader

↳ by @ro-is-struggling (angst, hurt/comfort, enemies to friends, tw: trauma)

the same thing • bucky barnes x reader

↳ by @appocalipse (angst with happy ending)

rest had seemed the sweetest thing • bucky barnes x fem!reader

↳ by @violentdelightsandviolentends (sooo fluffy)

i know you • bucky barnes x reader

↳ by @oneofstarkskids (angst, fluff)

road trip • bucky barnes x fem!reader

↳ by @munsster (fluff, a little angst)

come find me • bucky barnes x reader

↳ by @bucky-bucky-bucky-bucky (angst, hurt/comfort)

mercy kill • bucky barnes x reader

↳ by @bucky-bucky-bucky-bucky (very angsty)

unspoken • bucky barnes x fem!reader

↳ by @maevedoodle (comfort, nightmares, fluff)

sweet like plums • cw!bucky barnes x fem!reader

↳ by @mandoalorian (smut)

summer breeze • bucky barnes x reader

↳ by @orithyia-eriphyle (very fluffy, hurt/comfort)

safe space • avenger!bucky barnes x avenger!reader

↳ by @helaintoloki (angst, hurt/comfort, fluff, tw: ptsd, trauma, torture)

echos • bucky barnes x reader

↳ by @brokenbarnes (very angsty but fluffy end, hurt/comfort)

trouble • bucky barnes x fem!reader /

↳ by @marvelwitchergilmore (enemies to lovers, fluff, fake dating)

a place to land • bucky barnes x reader

↳ by @cheekybarnes (angst, comfort, tw: sexual violence, ptsd)

lost for words • bucky barnes x reader

↳ by @daxisyzz (fluff)

his girls • bucky barnes x reader

↳ by @artficlly (very fluffy, secret dating)

lovesick • bucky barnes x maximoff!reader

↳ by @ang3ltine (fluff, little angsty, tw: torture)

sparing you • beefy!bucky barnes x avenger!fem!reader

↳ by @sergeantbarnessdoll (fluff, slight angst)

love bruises • bucky barnes x reader

↳ by @multiversediaries (very soft, fluffy, domestic!buck, a little smutty)

hole in the earth• bucky barnes x mutant!fem!reader

↳ by @em1i2a3 (smut, angst, age gap, hurt/comfort, tw: panic attacks)

only you, doll • bucky barnes x reader

↳ by @billionairebratenergy (fluff, kind of possessive!bucky)

home with you • roommate!bucky barnes x reader

↳ by @marvelstoriesepic (oh so fluffy, lots of pining)

creamy or crunchy • avenger!bucky barnes x avenger!reader

↳ by @marvelstoriesepic (so so so fluffy, protective!bucky)

mission mishap • avenger!bucky barnes x avenger!fem!reader

↳ by @mugglebornmarvelite (hurt/comfort, fluff)

bruised shadows • bucky barnes x fem!reader

↳ by @happy74827 (slight angst, hurt/comfort, grumpy x sunshine)

what you do to him • bucky barnes x fem!reader

↳ by @xxthelovelyopossumiixx (domestic, smut)

scars to your beautiful • bucky barnes x reader

↳ by @buckybarnesandmarvel (insecure!bucky, comfort)

blurred lines • bucky barnes x fem!reader

↳ by @ellemj (smut, angst, enemies to lovers, jealous,possessive!bucky, one bed trope)

[buckysleftbicep]

bent and bruised (3) 𐙚 b.b

pairing: new avengers!bucky barnes x fem!ex-hydra!reader

warnings: nsfw, 18+, minors dni, dub-con/non-con sex under HYDRA's captivity (flashback), unprotected sex, non-consensual experimentation (flashback), physical violence, sex in captivity, forced scientific experimentation, very heavy angst, longing, unresolved tension (tw: ptsd, some scenes of sexual violence)

summary: you were built by HYDRA to please the soldier—then left for dead. years later, bucky sees your face again. but no amount of time can erase the way you once whispered his name through tears. inspired by this request

word count: 5.5k

author's note: hi loves! i finally am done with chapter 3 and gosh, am i excited for you guys to read it 🥰! i am falling ill and i injured myself rock climbing today, i'll still do my best to write as much as i can! 💓 i hope you enjoy this chapter! love ya guys and please stay safe out there! 💌

series masterlist

The darkness felt alive, thick, almost viscous, like it was clinging to your skin, crawling into your lungs with every breath you took. 

It didn’t feel like fantasy, not even a nightmare. It felt like something stolen—something real.

A memory sealed deep beneath your skull, pried open when your defences were at their weakest.

You were cold. Naked, spine pressed to metal, breath rising in fast, fogged bursts. 

And he was there, his weight above you, surrounding you, moving inside you with a slow, trembling urgency that made your eyes sting. You couldn’t see his face, not fully. It was shadowed, blurred around the edges like someone had smudged your memory, but your body knew him. 

Every inch of him.

The stretch of him inside you wasn’t rushed or cruel. It was slow, deliberate, almost like he was afraid to let go. Like he was carving your shape into himself one thrust at a time, just in case this was the last.

His mouth hovered over your shoulder, breathing hard, jaw tense. You could hear it—the effort, the control. The need shaking just beneath his skin.

His hand chilled and sure, cupped the side of your jaw with gentle care, thumb brushing the edge of your lip. The other hand, trembling, held you steady at the hip.

He moved deep. Deep and slow and careful, like he was trying to stretch time thin around you. Each grind of his hips into yours was a silent plea: remember this, remember me.

Your hands clawed at him, not out of fear. But out of desperation. Your fingernails sank into the muscle of his back, dragging down warm, sweat-slick skin. And he welcomed it. Welcomed the pain, welcomed the proof that you were still here. That you wanted him.

“I can’t…” His voice was a rasp in the dark. “I can’t let them take you.”

“You won’t.” Your words were a whisper, wet with tears, barely audible over the wet slick of bodies moving. “Don’t think about them. Not now, just stay with me.”

He kissed you, messy, shaking, like it hurt him to let go even for breath. And you swore you tasted salt.

“You have to leave,” he said against your mouth, each word catching on a thrust. “If I don’t come back, you get out. I told you the route.”

You shook your head. “I’m not leaving you here.”

His breath hitched. You felt it, his entire body tightening, hips pressing harder, deeper, slower.

“Please,” he begged. “Don’t give them a reason to take you too.”

“I’m not afraid of you,” you whispered, lifting a shaking hand to his cheek. You could feel the heat of his breath there, the slight scratch of stubble, the single tear that slipped free and landed on your wrist.

He stilled, just for a second, his forehead came to rest against yours as he rocked into you again, slower this time, deeper, as if he wanted to live inside your body. 

As if this was the only place he’d ever been safe.

“Don’t forget me,” you whispered, barely holding back your sob.

He kissed you again. A sound tore from his chest.

“I won’t,” he said. “I don’t care what they do. I won’t forget you.”

You came first, it wasn’t loud. It wasn’t explosive. It was quiet and shattering, a raw, full-body tremble as he moved inside you, as his name fell from your lips in a cracked whisper. He followed with a low, pained moan, spilling into you with a final, stuttering thrust that felt like goodbye.

His arms wrapped around you like he could keep you there. Like if he held tight enough, the world wouldn’t come crashing down.

But it always did.

Before he could breathe your name again, before you could kiss him one more time, the dream split open.

A hand. Rough. Grabbing your wrist.

The warmth of his body vanished in an instant. The metal table beneath you went cold.

You didn’t struggle. Not yet. You were too stunned, too afraid that fighting would mean punishment for him. 

For both of you. You were yanked backward, your hands clawing toward him in instinct, but never reaching.

He reached for you. But you never quite touched.

You turned your head, mouth parted in a soundless cry, but even then—even in that final, searing moment—you couldn’t see his face. Something was blocking it, blurring it.

Like it had been taken from you on purpose.

Like they’d forced you to forget the man you once would’ve burned the world for.

The light above you was too harsh. Cold and artificial, buzzing faintly with that fluorescent whine that made your molars ache. 

For a long moment, you didn’t move. The air felt thick in your lungs, heavy and clinical, laced with antiseptic and faint copper. 

Your vision swam, your skull throbbed in pulses. A bandage tugged at your temples when you shifted, the gauze rough against your skin. And you were drenched in sweat.

The fabric of your medical gown stuck to your body in damp patches, clinging like a second skin. The sheets beneath you were twisted, tangled around your legs like you’d been fighting ghosts in your sleep. 

And maybe you had. Because even as the dream, no, the memory started to fade at the edges, the ache didn’t. The echo of him, his weight, his breath, his hands, lingered like bruises beneath your skin.

Your breathing stuttered.

Your thighs trembled slightly, just like they had in the dream. You blinked again, harder this time, trying to separate reality from the remnants of sleep.

But then you felt it. The pressure.

A weight.

Your right hand. It wasn’t free.

You turned your head, slowly, cautiously, as pain bloomed sharp and hot at the base of your skull and saw him.

Bucky was slouched in the chair beside you, body folded forward like gravity had been pulling him toward you the whole time. His vest was still streaked with ash and dried blood, flecks of dirt clinging to the grooves.

His shoulders were tense even in sleep, the faint tremor of exhaustion still clinging to his limbs. And his hair—dark and damp—hung forward over his face in a tangled curtain.

But his hand…

His hand was wrapped tightly around yours.

Like it was the only thing keeping him in this reality, like letting go would send him spiraling back into whatever hell he’d barely crawled out of.

You shifted beneath the sheets. The sound of the fabric must’ve been enough.

He jolted awake.

His head snapped up, eyes wild at first—blinking rapidly, trying to shake off whatever nightmare he’d fallen into—and then his gaze locked on you. Just you. Like the rest of the world didn’t matter.

“(Y/n)…?”

Your name sounded like a prayer in his mouth. Half-broken. Disbelieving. His voice cracked, catching on the syllables like they hurt coming out. He leaned forward, gripping your hand tighter without realizing it.

“You’re okay,” he whispered, voice hoarse. “god, you’re okay.”

You tried to sit up, instinct more than anything, but the world tilted sharply. Your head spun. Pain flared in your ribs.

“Hey—slow,” he murmured, his hand sliding behind your back without hesitation. Gentle, careful. He helped you up just enough to get your bearings. His touch was steady, familiar.

Too familiar.

You blinked up at him, and for one, heart-stopping moment, something stirred in your chest.

Recognition.

It wasn’t clear, it wasn’t clean, but it was there, a flicker of knowing, almost like your soul remembered something your mind couldn’t quite reach.

You stared at him—at the shadows beneath his eyes, the worry carved into the corners of his mouth. At the quiet desperation in the way he watched you, like he was afraid you’d vanish again.

“Where am I?” you asked, voice dry, barely more than a rasp.

He cleared his throat, gaze flickering down to your wrapped head, then back to your eyes. “The compound medbay. You were airlifted in after the explosion, you hit your head pretty hard, you, uh, you’ve been out for hours.”

You swallowed thickly. The memories were fractured at best—gunfire, smoke, heat. The sound of your own pulse thundering in your ears as something collapsed behind you.

Then nothing. Until the dream.

You nodded slowly. The silence stretched between you, heavy and uncertain.

So you did what you always did when things got too quiet.

You cracked a joke.

“Guess I’m not getting a bonus, huh?”

It came out weaker than you’d meant it to, but his lips twitched. Just slightly. A half-smile. It didn’t reach his eyes, but it was there.

“I could talk to HR,” he said softly, smile still on his face.

You let the silence return after that. Just long enough to find your breath again. To sit with the way your hand still rested in his, and how neither of you seemed in a hurry to let go.

You looked at him, really looked at him. And once again that strange flicker stirred in your gut. 

Like déjà vu with teeth, your chest ached, but not from the fall. not from the wound.

From absence. From the quiet kind of longing that made your skin itch with need.

You exhaled slowly. “Thanks,” you murmured.

His eyes dropped to your intertwined hands, then back to your face.

“I’m just glad you’re alright,” he said.

But he didn’t let go.

You let him hold you. Because deep down, something in you whispered, 

You’ve always let him.

The hours passed strangely.

The kind of sluggish, liminal time that only existed in sterile places like hospitals, where the world outside kept spinning and you stayed still. 

A nurse had come and gone, checking your vitals, scribbling notes on a clipboard, murmuring something about mild concussion symptoms and rest. 

None of it stuck, your head was too full. Not of pain, not of fear, but of sensation.

Like the memory hadn’t faded. Like it was sitting just beneath your skin, simmering.

Bucky had barely moved. He sat again at your side, no longer gripping your hand like a lifeline, but still near. Watchful. His gaze flicked to you every few minutes like he didn’t trust the machines to tell him whether you were breathing.

He’d changed out of his vest at some point. Worn joggers now, a black t-shirt that clung to him like a second skin, sleeves tight around his biceps. His hair was pushed back from his face now, slightly damp, as if he’d splashed cold water over himself just to stay conscious.

You didn’t say much. Neither did he.

Eventually, he stood. Moved to the far counter where a plastic jug and a few styrofoam cups were lined up. You watched the flex of his shoulder, the quiet way he moved—efficient, unthinking, like he was forcing his hands to be useful. Like if he stopped, even for a second, it would all catch up to him.

He came back and held the cup out toward you, waiting until you were steady enough to reach.

Your fingers brushed.

It was so small, a blink of contact, the backs of his knuckles against yours. 

The barest slide of skin.

And it hit you.

Like a crack of lightning across your spine.

Your breath caught—sharp and involuntary—as heat flooded your system. It wasn’t just a reaction. It wasn’t random, it was familiar.

You saw it—felt it—all at once.

The weight of his body between your thighs. His mouth hot and wet and relentless, tongue curling just right, the muscles in your abdomen tightening as your hips bucked into him. 

His hands gripping your thighs, spreading you wider. His hair gripped in your fist, the way he growled low in his throat when you tugged just a little too hard.

That voice—familiar and foreign all at once—rasped your name like a secret drawn between your thighs, aching with recognition you couldn’t explain.

You gasped aloud.

The cup slipped.

Water splashed across the sheets, cool against your thigh.

Bucky froze mid-step, half-turned to sit again, his eyes snapping to yours instantly. His brow furrowed, voice low and careful.

“You okay?”

Too fast—too sharp—you nodded.

“Yeah. Just dizzy.”

Your hand twitched.

He saw it, your fingers, still trembling.

You reached down to adjust the cup with a shaky grip, turning it upright, avoiding his gaze even as the weight of it pressed into your chest like a stone.

But he didn’t move, didn’t sit.

You weren’t sure what he saw in your face. But you felt what was in yours—confusion, panic, a quiet desperation to understand why your body remembered the shape of his tongue and the sound of his groan like it was etched into your DNA.

He stepped forward finally, slow and careful, retrieving the cup from your hand.

You didn’t stop him.

Didn’t speak.

The pulse between your legs hadn’t faded. Neither had the echo of that voice in your mind.

“Don’t forget me.”

He turned back to the counter, as if giving you space.

But he’d seen it.

The flicker in your eyes and the truth in your trembling hands.

The next day passed in pieces.

You weren’t cleared to leave the medbay yet, not with the swelling still lingering behind your eyes, not with your vitals climbing and dipping like a body trying to remember how to live. Time moved slow, blurred at the edges, but it didn’t stop the visits.

The first to arrive was Yelena.

You heard her before you saw her—the distinct thump of combat boots against linoleum, the door creaked open on a soft hinge, and there she was, dressed in her vest and scuffed jeans, holding a plastic cup of electric-green jello like it was some prize.

“Bob swears this shit will fix everything,” she said, plopping it down on the table beside your cot. “I don’t believe him, but you know, points for optimism.”

You managed a tired smile. “If I eat that, I’m pretty sure I’ll die for real.”

Yelena grinned. “Yeah, but then you’ll stop scaring the shit out of everyone.”

You were about to respond when she looked past you, brows lifting slightly, head tilting just enough to catch the shape of him where he stood near the window.

Bucky.

Leaning against the far wall, arms folded over his chest. Silent, watchful. The kind of still that looked practiced, but wasn’t neutral. 

Not around you.

Yelena’s gaze bounced between the two of you, her mouth twitching at the corners.

“You know he hasn’t left, right?” she said casually, tearing the plastic lid off the jello and handing you the spoon. “Not even for a piss break. Bob started taking bets about whether he’s just pissing in the corner when no one’s looking.”

You snorted weakly. “You’re disgusting.”

“And you’re blind,” she retorts playfully “Seriously, it’s like you’re his long-lost soulmate or something.”

You looked over at Bucky.

He was pretending not to listen, but the way his jaw twitched told you otherwise.

You sighed, shaking your head slightly. “I don’t think he even knows me.”

Yelena didn’t argue. She just shrugged, popping a piece of your jello into her mouth with a grimace.

“Doesn’t look that way to me.”

There was something unsettling about her tone. Not teasing anymore. Not really. Just, observant, sharp.

And she wasn’t the only one.

You noticed it later, when you were being wheeled through the corridor for a scan.

John stood near the breakroom, munching on chips like he didn’t have a care in the world, but his eyes tracked Bucky as he hovered at your side, never more than a step behind.

Ava was more subtle. She paused mid-sentence when she saw the way Bucky steadied your elbow as you slid back into bed. 

Her mouth pressed into a thin line. No comment.

No one said it out loud.

But they all knew.

And Val noticed too.

She found Bucky in the supply wing an hour later, sorting through gear he didn’t need. He was coiled tight, shoulders hunched, like he’d been bracing for the inevitable.

“You’ve been distracted,” Val said sharply, her heels clicking to a stop behind him. “You sat in that room like the world fucking ended.”

Bucky didn’t turn around, his knuckles were still bruised. A cut on his cheek hadn’t fully closed.

“She almost died,” he said, voice low. “I’m just watching out for her.”

Val crossed her arms. “Bullshit. That wasn’t concern, that was clearly something else.”

He was silent.

“I pulled her file.”

That made him pause. Not move. But pause.

Val’s eyes narrowed. “You knew her back when you were still with HYDRA, didn’t you?”

Still, he didn’t answer.

The silence was an answer in itself.

Val’s voice softened slightly. Not with sympathy, she didn’t traffic in that, but with a clinical sort of caution. Like she’d stumbled too close to something that still had fangs.

“She doesn’t remember you, James.”

He tensed.

“Don’t make it worse,” she said, voice low now.

You hadn’t meant to hear it.

You weren’t eavesdropping, not exactly.

But the door had been left partially ajar. You had wandered out of the medbay for a walk, trying to shake the strange hum beneath your skin. 

And now you stood there—just outside their view, barely breathing—as the words echoed like a gunshot in your skull.

“She doesn’t remember you, James.”

Something inside you cracked.

You stepped away before they could see you, the hallway narrowing around you, colder somehow than it had been before.

And still, despite the ache in your skull, the tremble in your fingers—you couldn’t help but remember the way his hand had stayed wrapped around yours. 

All night. All morning.

Like letting go might undo something neither of you knew how to name.

It always started the same.

Darkness and god, the cold, that silence between screams, the kind you could only hear inside a HYDRA cell.

He didn’t dream of it often, not fully. But sometimes, when he blinked too long, or sat too still, the memory crept back in, a loop stitched beneath his skin.

This time, it hit harder.

Because he’d seen you again. And this time, you didn’t remember him.

Bucky was outside the medbay, back against the corridor wall, jaw clenched, trying to get a handle on his breath. But inside, his mind was somewhere else. Somewhere deeper, somewhere they’d taken from him piece by piece.

It came back in fragments. 

You were beneath him.

Not now.

Then.

Laid out across the metal table they left in his cell because it was easier to clean. Your wrists bore the faint marks of the cuffs they usually kept you in. 

But they were gone now. Gone because he was inside you, moving slowly, carefully, desperately, like every second mattered.

“James…” you whispered. Not a question, a plea.

His name in your mouth broke him open.

He bent lower, breath trembling against your cheek, the rhythm of his hips slow and uneven, like it hurt to let himself feel this much.

And it did. It fucking did. But it was the only thing left that made him feel human.

“I’ve got you,” he rasped, metal hand sliding up your jaw. He cupped your face like you were something sacred, thumb brushing your temple. His flesh hand gripped your hip, anchoring himself to the warmth of you. “I’ve got you.”

You touched his face—shaking fingers against stubble and sweat.

Your voice was thick, near breaking. “They know.”

He nodded. A single, broken motion. 

HYDRA hadn’t said it aloud. But they didn’t need to, but the punishments had changed.

The monitoring increased. The “exercises” became more frequent, more violent, the moment emotion slipped through the cracks of control, they pounced.

“We can still lie,” you whispered, arms wrapping tight around his shoulders, like if you could just hold him close enough, none of it would matter. “We can act like we don’t—”

“I can’t lie about this anymore,” he choked. “I can’t watch them hurt you and pretend I feel nothing.”

“Then don’t,” you said, fingers slipping into his hair. “Then don’t, James. Just—stay. Just be here. With me.”

He kissed you—long, shaking, open-mouthed. Not possessive, not frenzied. Just full. Full of everything he never got to say. Of all the ways he’d memorised the slope of your throat and the shape of your breath.

When he came, it wasn’t with a groan, it was with a whimper. His entire body shuddered, forehead pressed to yours as he spilled inside you, whispering your name like a confession.

But the second he collapsed against your chest, it changed.

The door slammed open.

Bright lights. Boots. Orders barked in Russian.

“No—no, wait—” you started to sit up, but rough hands grabbed you.

Bucky’s arms were yanked from around you before he could blink. “Leave her alone!” he shouted, struggling against two guards who held him by the arms.

You were still bare, skin sticky with sweat and cum, legs trembling from aftershocks when they dragged you upright by the shoulders.

He fought harder.

One of the guards pulled a gun, pressed it to your temple and he stilled instantly.

The other looked at you, then laughed. “Told you they’d get fucking compromised.”

“Guess it’s chair time for the whore,” the first one muttered. “The freak’s next.”

“No—” Bucky’s voice cracked, panic splitting wide in his chest. “No, don’t—”

He lunged. Got one arm free. Reached for you.

You reached back.

Your fingertips brushed.

And then you were gone.

Bucky flinched so hard he nearly dropped the gear in his hands.

Back in the present, he braced his palms on the table, eyes squeezed shut, breath tearing in and out of his lungs.

They’d dragged you from him, taken you straight to the chair. Just like they always threatened, just like he always feared.

And the worst part?

HYDRA thought it worked.

They thought they’d erased you from him, wiped the memory clean, rinsed out every whisper of your softness with static and steel and blood.

But they missed something.

Because the first time he saw you again, the real you, alive and free and standing in that hallway with your eyes full of fire, something inside him lit up.

He didn’t just remember you. He felt you.

And every time you spoke to him now, every time you looked at him with that faint glimmer of recognition you couldn’t place, he felt it again.

The very thing HYDRA tried to kill.

The thing they called weakness.

The thing they were sure could never bloom in men like him.

Love.

The dreams didn’t stop.

If anything, they got worse.

Every night you fell asleep, your body betrayed you. Pulled you under like it wanted to remember. Like it had been waiting.

And every time, the darkness greeted you the same way—with the chill of metal under your spine and the scent of damp concrete. Skin against skin, heat blooming in places that made you wake up shaking.

You still couldn’t see his face. But your body knew him.

The dreams weren’t violent. Not in the traditional sense.

But they were unbearable all the same—soaked in desperation, soft moans that made your throat ache when you woke up with them on your lips. 

You’d feel him above you, inside you, every roll of his hips slow and aching, like he was trying to memorise the shape of you before someone took it away.

His voice, “I’ve got you.”

And then it would shift. The air would change. Cold fingers gripping your arms, dragging you backwards.

Always the fucking chair.

You’d wake drenched in sweat, chest heaving, thighs trembling, your own voice caught somewhere between a scream and a sob. 

Some nights, you could feel the phantom press of his body against yours for hours after. You’d flinch at your own reflection. You couldn’t explain it to anyone. 

Especially not him. Because Bucky had started looking at you like he knew.

Like he remembered something you didn’t. And you couldn’t take it anymore.

So one night—when the compound had gone quiet, long past midnight—you slipped out of your bunk, barefoot and sweating through your tank top, and padded your way down the empty corridors.

 Every flicker of light made your skin crawl, every camera made your stomach churn. 

But you kept walking until you reached it:

The archive room.

It was locked, of course, but you’d seen Ava punch in the code before and your fingers moved on instinct.

The light buzzed overhead as you stepped inside.

The room was colder than you expected, humming with the low static of electronics. Rows of drawers. Digital logs and hard backups. Most were encrypted. 

But the old paper files? They hadn’t been touched in years.

You found yours quickly.

The folder was thin. Too thin.

You pulled it out, sat at the dusty metal table, and opened it with hands that wouldn’t stop shaking.

It read like a blueprint. 

The first few pages were the usual medical entries, redacted fields, scans of your brain with parts blacked out entirely, notes in tight handwriting you didn’t recognise.

“obedience pattern successful.”

“tactile tolerance linked to subject B.”

“adjustment complete. subject remains compliant during post-coital monitoring.”

Your blood ran cold.

You flipped faster now, pages blurring—until you stopped on one that made your stomach drop:

SUBJECT: (REDACTED) STATUS: modified PURPOSE: designed for compatibility with subject B. Both neurological and physical responses show optimal pairing rates under induced stress. "Recommend continued dual-conditioning."

You weren’t just a prisoner. You were a match.

Not by accident but by design.

You were altered to match someone else’s frequency. Someone whose name had been blacked out. 

You pushed back from the table hard enough to make the chair screech.

Your hands were cold and your legs moved before your thoughts could catch up.

You found him alone in the gear bay.

It was 1:42 a.m and Bucky didn’t see you come in.

He was sitting on one of the crates, hunched forward, a disassembled rifle across his lap that didn’t need cleaning.

His hands moved out of habit, not necessity, almost like he needed something to do or he’d lose his mind entirely.

You didn’t clear your throat. Didn’t announce yourself.

“James,” you said softly.

He went still.

Not startled. Just… quiet.

He didn’t turn. “Yeah?”

You stepped forward. Just a little.

“Did you know me?”

A pause, then a breath that didn’t sound right.

“Why do you ask?” he said without looking up.

“Because I’ve been dreaming of a man I can’t see.” You swallowed hard.

His jaw twitched, you could see the tension in his spine, the way his fingers stilled against the rifle’s frame.

He didn’t speak right away.

“Please,” you breathe, the word trembling. “I just… I need to know.”

When he finally did, his voice was lower. Rough.

“I did know you,” he said. “Back then.”

You blinked.

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

He exhaled through his nose, slow and quiet.

“Because I didn’t know if you remembered. And I didn’t want to trigger something. Or… hurt you. Again.”

He set the rifle aside.

Your throat tightened. “What exactly did HYDRA do to me?”

He looked at you then.

Eyes shadowed, haunted.

But more than that—ashamed.

“You mean what they did to both of us.”

You didn’t speak. Just let the silence thrum between you. Let him fill it on his own.

Bucky’s hand curled into a fist on his thigh, his thoughts moving behind his eyes like storms.

“They took us,” he said slowly, voice thick. “People they thought would survive the process. Then they rewired us bit by bit. Broke us open and built us into something they could use.”

You didn’t move.

“They paired us.” His voice cracked slightly. “They said we were compatible. That we wouldn’t fight back, that if we were conditioned together, we would obey them together.”

“Did we… did we know each other?” you whispered. 

“Not exactly,” he said.

Your chest twisted, a cruel kind of ache, not quite grief and yet not quite rage.

You nodded once. Just to show you heard him.

But the silence that followed said everything else.

Because there were things he wasn’t saying. You could see it—flickering just behind his eyes.

He was holding something back. And still, even with all of it swirling inside you, all you wanted to do was reach out and touch him, just to feel if your body still remembered what your mind had forgotten.

But you didn’t.

The hallway was dark when you stepped out.

Not silent, nothing in the compound ever really was, but hushed, like even the walls had quieted to let the night breathe.

A low mechanical hum pulsed through the air from somewhere deep in the infrastructure, the soft whirl of vents sighing overhead. 

The lights had dimmed to their after-hours glow, casting the corridor in washed-out blue and gentle shadows. It was the kind of quiet that made you feel like the only person left in the world.

Most of the others had long since gone to bed. Earlier, you’d heard Ava’s laughter drifting up the stairwell, John’s heavy boots crossing the upper floor. But now, the compound had settled. 

The soft click of your door shutting behind you echoed. Bare feet touched cold tile, and your body gave a small involuntary shiver.

The cotton hem of your shirt brushed your thighs, the oversized sleeves half-swallowing your hands. You hadn’t bothered to grab socks, you hadn’t planned on going far.

You didn’t know why you’d gotten up, only that the stillness in your room had started to feel suffocating. The bed too empty and the quiet too damn loud. Something had been pressing against your chest all evening, some aching weight that wouldn’t name itself, but throbbed just beneath your ribs.

And that’s when you saw him.

He was sitting on the floor just outside your door.

His back was against the wall, legs folded in front of him—one drawn up, the other stretched out. His jaw shadowed with stubble, damp strands of hair curled behind his ear, like he’d showered but hadn’t cared to dry all the way. 

He looked tired. Not in the way people did after long days—but the kind of tired that burrowed in. 

He didn’t move when you opened the door, didn’t shift or scramble or explain.

He just looked up at you slowly.

No surprise, no embarrassment, just quiet recognition, like this was exactly where he was supposed to be.

You didn’t ask him why.

You simply stepped forward—and sat.

The floor was colder than you expected. Your knees drew up close to your chest, hands resting loosely over your shins. You sat beside him, not touching, not speaking, but close enough to feel the shape of him in the silence.

You both stared ahead for a while.

Not at anything. Just… forward. Breathing.

The silence between you wasn’t empty. It wasn’t awkward anymore, not sharp with hesitation the way it had been in the beginning. 

It felt full now. Comfortable. Heavy with everything that didn’t need to be said, and everything you were still afraid to ask.

After a long stretch of stillness, you heard him exhale softly beside you. A sigh, but not a frustrated one. A releasing one, almost like he’d been waiting for you to speak first.

And eventually, you did.

“It’s funny,” you whispered. “You make me feel safe, and I don’t know why.”

Your voice barely carried, but he heard it. 

He didn’t answer. Not with words.

But his head turned slightly, just enough to shift the air between you. Just enough to let you feel the full weight of his attention settle gently on your profile.

You stared straight ahead.

“It’s like I remember you,” you said, your throat tightening around the words.

He still didn’t speak.

But he shifted. Just barely.

You felt the subtle movement first—then saw it. His right hand, which had been resting palm-down on the floor, curled slowly into his lap. His fingers flexed once, then stilled. 

Your own hand was resting beside you, limp and open, your knuckles brushing against the edge of your sweatshirt.

Then, slowly, so slowly it made your breath catch, he reached.

His hand drifted toward yours.

Not fast, not accidental, but deliberate.

You watched, frozen, as his fingers hovered for a breath—just a breath—before his calloused ones slid beneath your palm.

And then he threaded them between yours.

A single, quiet interlocking.

No squeeze. No pressure.

Just presence.

It was the gentlest kind of intimacy, just his fingers laced with yours, as though your hands had always been meant to fit like that.

And maybe they had.

You didn’t say anything. You didn’t have to.

Because the moment he touched you like that—quietly, openly, with no expectation and no fear—something deep in your chest stopped shaking.

And for the first time in days, your breath came easier.

You didn’t look at him.

But you let your thumb press the faintest pressure against his. And still, he didn’t speak.

But his hand stayed in yours. Warm and steady.

As though letting go was not an option.

a/n: i hope you enjoyed this chapter, if you did, please leave a comment or reblog! i appreciate your support <3333 💌

taglist: @poisntree @moth-maam56 @ravenswritingroom @heymydearheart @secretdiaryofzai @whitelaxe @ficmeiguess @its-in-the-woods @chronicallybubbly @stell404 @overwintering-soldier @emilyswortwellen @vampirehimejoshi @chimmysoftpaws @herejustforbuckybarnes @s0urw00lf @cheeseman @onlyforyuto @hibiscy

[crybabycabin]

touch and go | b.b.

✮ synopsis: he's the winter soldier, and you're just you. but when your skin touches his, he becomes bucky barnes again.

(or: the soulmate fic where touch is everything and bucky barnes will fight his way back to you, one broken memory at a time.)

✮ pairing: ca:tws!bucky x soulmate!reader

✮ disclaimers: fem!reader, soulmates, violence/action sequences, graphic descriptions of torture/memory wiping, PTSD, panic attacks, dissociation, past torture, brainwashing, heavy angst, touch deprivation, references to past violence/assassinations, hurt/comfort, fluff, eventual happy ending, bucky is down horrendously bad

✮ warnings: (18+) MDNI, explicit sexual content, unprotected sex, p in v, oral (f receiving), overstimulation, multiple orgasms, soul bond sex (enhanced sensations), touch-starved bucky, possessive behavior, marking/bruising, praise kink, body worship, emotional sex, crying during sex (in a good way), size kink if you squint, bucky has a dirty filthy mouth

✮ word count: 14.3k

✮ a/n: re-uploading all my fics to this blog so i'm posting a ca:tws-era oldie but goodie (the last 4k of this is straight smut, so if that's not your cup of tea feel free to stop at the **)

bonus drabble 1 bonus drabble 2 series masterlist

The library basement feels like a crypt tonight—all dead air and fluorescent buzz that makes your molars ache.

You've been down here so long your bones have started to match the temperature of the concrete, cold seeping through your jeans where you've been sitting cross-legged on the floor, surrounded by a semi-circle of photocopied articles that all essentially say the same nothing in different ways.

3:17 AM according to your phone, which you check compulsively every twenty minutes like maybe time will take pity and skip forward to your deadline. The security guard made his last round two hours ago—Gerald? Gary? Something with a G—his whistling fading up the stairwell along with any pretense that you're not completely alone down here.

Your neck cracks when you roll it, vertebrae protesting the last six hours of hunching over sources that shouldn't be this hard to parse. But your advisor had smiled that sharp little smile when assigning this topic, the one that says let's see if you're really cut out for this, and spite is a hell of a motivator.

Even if your eyes are burning. Even if the coffee tastes like battery acid. Even if your soul bond has been aching since midnight with that peculiar emptiness you've learned to ignore.

The lights flicker—building's older than sin, held together by asbestos and prayer—but the air changes with it. Shifts. Like all the oxygen just remembered it had somewhere else to be.

Your fingers still on the keyboard mid-sentence.

Don't be stupid. It's a basement. In a library. The scariest thing down here is your browser history.

But your body knows things your mind pretends it doesn't. Every hair follicle suddenly awake, skin prickling with the kind of ancient warning that kept humans from being eaten in the dark. Your heartbeat kicks up, stuttering from normal to concerned between one breath and the next.

You turn.

He stands at the edge of the stacks like violence in human form.

Black tactical gear eats the light, makes him look like someone cut a hole in reality and taught it how to hunt. The mask covering the lower half of his face should make him less human, but somehow it's worse—forces you to focus on the eyes that track your movement with the kind of empty precision that makes your hindbrain scream predator predator predator.

"Oh." The sound punches out of you, high and strangled.

He doesn't speak. Doesn't need to. Just moves toward you with the kind of lethal economy that makes you understand, suddenly and completely, why rabbits freeze when hawks circle overhead. No wasted motion. No hesitation. Just purpose distilled into muscle and intent.

Your body tries—God, it tries. Scrambling backward, papers scattering, laptop sliding off your thighs to crack against the floor in what feels like slow motion. Three months of work fracturing into digital garbage as you crab-walk backward, palms slipping on photocopies, knee catching on your backpack hard enough to send you sprawling.

He crosses the space between you like it's nothing.

Like you're nothing.

His hand finds your throat before you've even processed standing, leather and pressure sending you backward into the wall hard enough to knock the air from your lungs. Old brick catches your hair, pulls it, but that barely registers against the feeling of being pinned like an insect, specimen for examination before disposal.

Both your hands fly to his wrist, fingernails catching on tactical fabric that won't give, won't move, won't budge. He's not crushing your windpipe—not yet—but the promise is there in the careful placement of his thumb, the calculated pressure that says I could, if I wanted to.

"Please—" It comes out thin, reedy. Your right hand abandons his wrist to push against his chest, trying to create distance that doesn't exist, will never exist. "I don't know what you—I'm nobody, I'm just—"

His head tilts. Minute. Considering. The eyes stay empty, stay cold, but something flickers there—assessment, maybe. Calculation. How long it will take. How quiet you'll be.

Your left hand keeps clawing at his grip while your right slides up his chest, finds the edge of his tactical vest, pushes uselessly at a shoulder that might as well be carved from stone. But the movement makes you stretch, makes your hand slip higher, past the collar of his gear, past the edge of the mask, until—

Your fingertips brush his jaw.

Skin against skin.

The world breaks apart.

Heat races from that point of contact like lightning seeking ground, if lightning could rewrite your DNA as it traveled. Every nerve ending lights up at once, not with pain but with recognition so profound it feels like drowning in reverse. Like every cell in your body suddenly remembers how to breathe.

His entire body locks. The hand at your throat spasms, loosens, and you hear him make a sound—sharp, bitten off, like someone just slid a knife between his ribs. Those empty eyes blow wide, pupils expanding until there's barely any gray left, and his chest heaves against your palm like he's just broken the surface after being underwater too long.

He rips the mask off with his free hand. Tears it away like it's burning him, revealing a face that makes your chest cavity feel too small. Sharp jaw, soft mouth, stubble that catches the shit fluorescent lighting and turns it into shadow. Beautiful in the way broken things can be beautiful, in the way that makes you want to cut yourself on the edges.

The leather glove at your throat disappears—he tears it off with his teeth, movements gone jerky and desperate where they were smooth before. Then his bare hand is cupping your face, thumb brushing your cheekbone with the kind of reverence reserved for holy things, impossible things, things that might disappear if you breathe wrong.

He pulls you forward, or maybe he falls into you—either way, your foreheads meet in the space between one heartbeat and the next. His breath fans across your face, ragged and hot, and you can feel him shaking. This man who moved like death incarnate thirty seconds ago is shaking.

"Oh," he breathes, and his voice—Christ, his voice is nothing like you imagined during those empty nights when the bond ached worst. Rough like he hasn't used it in years. Soft like he's afraid it'll break something. Accent pulling at the vowels in ways that make your chest hurt. "Oh, no. No, not—not like this."

You can't move. Can't think. Can't process anything beyond the electricity still racing through your veins, the place where his thumb traces your cheekbone like he's trying to memorize the architecture of your face through touch alone. Your hands are caught between you, one still fisted in his tactical vest, the other pressed flat against his chest where you can feel his heart hammering out a rhythm that matches yours.

He pulls back just enough to look at you, and the devastation in his eyes makes your throat close for reasons that have nothing to do with violence. Gray like winter mornings, like grief, like the moment before the sky breaks open.

"I'm sorry," he whispers, wrecked. His thumb catches the tear you didn't realize was sliding down your cheek, and the tenderness of it makes you want to scream. "I'm so fucking sorry, I didn't—I couldn't—"

"Who are you?" Your voice comes out destroyed, barely recognizable. The soul bond hums between you like a live wire, like coming home to a place that's on fire, and you don't know whether to run toward it or away.

His jaw works, muscles tightening and releasing like he's fighting something immense. When he speaks again, it's careful. Measured. Like each word costs him something irreplaceable.

"Someone who's going to disappear." His forehead presses against yours again, harder this time, desperate. Both hands frame your face now, holding you like something precious, something he's about to lose. "Someone who needs you to run. Now. Before—"

A sound echoes down the stairwell. Footsteps. Multiple sets.

The change in him is instant and terrible. The softness vanishes like it was never there, replaced by the same lethal efficiency that brought him here, but now there's something else in his eyes. Something that looks like anguish.

"Forgive me," he says, and before you can ask for what, his thumb finds a spot behind your jaw.

The world tilts. Your legs go liquid. But he catches you—of course he catches you—lowers you to the ground like you're made of spun glass while your vision tunnels to nothing.

The last thing you feel is his mouth pressed to your forehead, words whispered against your skin in a language you don't recognize but somehow understand.

I'll find you again.

I promise.

I'm sorry.

When security finds you four hours later, you have bruises on your throat that look like purple-black fingerprints, a concussion that makes the world swim, and no memory the EMTs will accept of how you ended up unconscious in a locked basement.

But you remember.

You remember the way his hands shook when he held your face. You remember the devastation in winter-gray eyes. You remember the electricity of recognition, the soul bond snapping into place only to be severed, leaving you with a phantom ache that feels like dying in slow motion.

There's a leather glove clutched in your fist that no one can pry from your fingers.

You tell them you don't remember where it came from.

You lie.

The world had always been divided into two types of people: those who'd found their match and those still waiting.

You'd grown up watching the found ones move through life with that particular brand of settled confidence, like they'd discovered some fundamental truth the rest of you were still stumbling toward.

Your mother used to tell the story at dinner parties, after her second glass of wine made her sentimental. How she'd been twenty-three, working at a bank in downtown Brooklyn, when a man came in to dispute an overdraft fee. Their hands touched when she passed back his paperwork. The bond snapped into place like a rubber band that had been stretched across decades, just waiting to contract.

She'd knocked over her coffee. He'd forgotten his own name for thirty seconds. They'd been married six months later.

"You just know," she'd say, fingers intertwined with your father's across the table. "It's like every cell in your body suddenly remembers what it was made for."

You'd wanted to believe her. Spent your eighteenth birthday waiting for that recognition to hit, for your body to suddenly make sense in a way it never had before.

But days turned to weeks turned to months, and all you felt was the same low-grade emptiness everyone without a bond carried—that constant, quiet ache of incompleteness.

By twenty-one, you'd stopped looking for it in every accidental touch.

By twenty-three, you'd convinced yourself you were one of the statistical anomalies. No bond. No match. Just you and your dissertation and a future that looked exactly like your present, only with better coffee and maybe tenure if you played your cards right.

The bruises have faded to sick yellow-green by the time you make it back to campus. Two weeks of medical leave that you spent staring at your apartment ceiling, trying to make sense of something that refuses to be made sensible. The official report sits in your email, cc'd to your advisor and the department head and probably half the university's legal team: Student found unconscious in library basement. Possible assault. No cameras functioning. Investigation ongoing.

You don't correct them. Don't mention the glove hidden in your nightstand drawer. Don't explain that the bruises on your throat match the exact span of fingers that had held your face like you were something holy, something worth breaking for.

Your body remembers even when your mind tries to forget. The soul bond, severed as quickly as it formed, has left you feeling like someone hollowed out your chest cavity with a melon baller. It's worse than before—before was just absence. This is active loss. This is knowing exactly what you're missing.

The dreams start the first night home from the hospital.

Not nightmares—that would be easier. These are soft things that leave you gasping awake at 3 AM with tears on your face and your hand pressed to your cheek where he'd touched you. Dreams where those gray eyes find yours across impossible distances. Where his hands shake as they frame your face. Where he whispers apologies in languages you don't speak but somehow understand.

Sometimes you dream of snow. Of cold so profound it burns. Of a voice saying his name—names?—until there's nothing left but the mission.

Sometimes you dream of falling. Of a train that screams through mountain passes. Of reaching for something—someone—who's always just beyond your fingertips.

But mostly you dream of that moment. The mask coming off. The devastating gentleness of his forehead against yours. The way he breathed you in like his lungs hadn't recognized oxygen until then, like you were the first real thing he'd touched in decades.

You become an expert in lying about the nightmares. "Trauma response," you tell the university-mandated therapist. "Yes, I'm processing. No, I don't remember details. Yes, I feel safe on campus."

Lies. All lies.

You remember everything. The weight of him. The contrast between violence and tenderness that shouldn't have existed in the same person. The way the soul bond had sung between you for those impossible seconds—not the gentle hum your mother described, but something desperate and raw, like two halves of something broken trying to fuse back together.

The research starts three weeks after the incident. You tell yourself it's academic curiosity. Tell yourself you're not the first person to lose a soulmate before really finding them. There are support groups. Statistics. An entire subset of psychology dedicated to severed bonds and what they do to the human psyche.

Increased rates of depression. Anxiety. Insomnia. Some subjects report physical pain at the site of initial contact. Others experience what researchers call "phantom bond syndrome"—the persistent sensation of a connection that no longer exists.

You check every box. Feel him in every room you enter, just a second too late. Wake up with your hand pressed to your face, trying to hold onto the ghost of leather and gunpowder and something metallic you couldn't place then but can't stop tasting now.

The databases give you nothing. Facial recognition software turns up empty. You sketch what you remember of his face—strong jaw, soft mouth, eyes like winter—but it feels like trying to draw music, like something essential gets lost in translation.

"Maybe he was military," Katrina suggests over coffee that tastes like disappointment. She's trying to help, your best friend since undergrad, but she looks at you with the kind of careful concern reserved for people about to break. "Special ops or something. That would explain the tactical gear."

You don't tell her about the way he moved. Don't mention that special ops soldiers don't usually have metal arms—you'd felt it when he caught you, the strange whir of plates adjusting beneath the fabric. Don't explain that whatever he was, military doesn't quite cover it.

December bleeds into January. You submit your dissertation proposal late, blame the incident, receive an extension wrapped in sympathetic looks. The bruises are long gone but you wear scarves anyway, can't stand the feeling of air against your throat where his thumb had pressed.

Your google search history becomes a testament to obsession:

“severed soul bonds recovery time?” “can soul bonds reconnect?” “military tactical gear supplier identification” “metal prosthetic arm advanced” “soul bond physical pain management”

Nothing. Always nothing.

But late at night, when the world sleeps and you're alone with the ache that lives between your ribs, you pull out the glove. Run your fingers over worn leather that's been softened by use and something else—care, maybe. The kind of attention that comes from having nothing else to focus on.

It smells like winter. Like violence. Like the ghost of cologne that might have been nice once, before it mixed with gunpowder and fear and whatever else clings to people who move through the world like weapons.

You press it to your face and breathe deep, eyes closed, trying to summon those impossible seconds when he'd looked at you like you were salvation and damnation all at once. When his voice had broken on an apology for something you didn't understand. When he'd promised to find you again in words you shouldn't have been able to translate but did.

The bond throbs. Phantom pain for a phantom connection.

You fold the glove carefully. Place it back in the drawer. Go to bed knowing you'll dream of gray eyes and the kind of gentleness that only comes from people who've forgotten they deserve it.

Tomorrow you'll get up. Go to class. Pretend your chest doesn't feel like someone excavated it with rusty tools. Pretend you don't scan every face on campus, looking for winter eyes and a jaw that could cut glass.

But tonight, you let yourself remember. Let yourself feel the echo of his forehead against yours, the desperate press of his mouth to your skin, the way he'd held you like you were worth breaking the world for.

I'll find you again.

You touch your throat, the memory of leather and promise.

I'm waiting.

The asset doesn't fight anymore.

Hasn't for years. Learned the hard way that resistance only makes it worse—more voltage, longer sessions, deeper cuts into whatever remains of the person he might have been.

Better to go limp. Better to let them position him like a doll, open his mouth for the rubber guard, wait for the electricity to wash it all away.

The asset craves it sometimes. The blankness. The nothing. Easier than carrying the weight of what his hands have done.

But Bucky Barnes fights.

Screams himself raw before they get the guard between his teeth. Thrashes against the restraints hard enough to bend the metal table, to make the technicians step back with wide eyes because the asset never does this, hasn't done this in fifteen years, not since they perfected the chair's calibration.

"Hold him!" Pierce's voice cuts through the chaos, sharp with irritation. "Get those restraints tightened before—"

Bucky's metal arm tears through the leather strap like tissue paper. Swings wild, catches a handler across the jaw with a crack that sends him spinning into medical equipment. Two more rush forward and he fights them with everything he has, everything he'd forgotten he could be.

Soft hands on his face. Bright eyes wide with recognition. The soul bond singing between them like coming home—

"No!" The word tears out of him, accent thick with desperation. Russian, English, something older—he doesn't know anymore, doesn't care. "Please—please, I can't—"

A needle finds his neck. Sedative, fast-acting, enough to drop an elephant. His knees buckle but he keeps fighting, keeps reaching for—what? The memory's already going slippery, falling through his fingers like water.

Someone. There was someone. Wasn't there?

"Interesting." Pierce circles him as four handlers wrestle him into the chair, voice clinical. "What happened on the mission? You terminated the target, but something affected you. The timeline's off by forty-three minutes."

Bucky's jaw works around the guard they're shoving between his teeth. Can't tell them. Won't tell them. But what is he protecting? The feeling's there—urgent, desperate, worth dying for—but the shape of it keeps shifting.

A face. Soft mouth parted in shock. The way she'd—

The electricity hits before he can finish the thought.

White-hot agony races through every nerve ending, bows his back against the restraints they've doubled, tripled. The scream locks in his throat, comes out as a sound that doesn't belong to anything human. But underneath the pain, worse than the pain, is the feeling of something essential being carved out of him.

Don't take her, some part of him begs. Take everything else, but not her, not this—

But the machine doesn't care about please. Doesn't care that he's crying—when did he start crying? The asset doesn't cry. The asset doesn't feel. But Bucky Barnes is sobbing, choking on the rubber guard as memories start to fracture and fade.

Her hand against his jaw. The world breaking open. Recognition so profound it rewrote thirty years of programming in seconds—

Another pulse. Stronger. Pierce has turned the dial past safety parameters, past sanity, past anything they've done before.

"Sir," one of the technicians ventures, nervous. "The readings—"

"Continue."

Forehead to forehead. Breathing her in. The apology scraping his throat raw because he'd never wanted to meet her like this, never wanted her to know him as a weapon first and a man second—

Gone. It's gone. He reaches for it, desperate, but there's only white noise where her face should be. Only the echo of something precious he'd held for minutes—hours?—seconds?—he doesn't know anymore.

The machine winds down. Silence except for his ragged breathing, the drip of something (blood? tears?) hitting the concrete floor.

"Asset."

He doesn't respond. Can't. There's something wrong with his chest, like someone reached in and scooped out everything that mattered.

"Asset."

Training kicks in where consciousness fails. His head lifts, eyes focusing with effort on the man in the suit. Pierce. Handler. The one who holds the leash.

"Ready to comply." The words come out broken. Mechanical. But correct.

"Mission report."

"Target eliminated. No witnesses." A pause. Something scratches at the back of his mind, urgent, important. But when he reaches for it there's nothing but static. "Extraction successful."

Pierce studies him, pale eyes narrowed. "And the deviation? You were off-schedule."

The asset blinks. Searches the white noise of his mind for an answer that makes sense. "Unexpected resistance. Handled."

"I see." Pierce doesn't look convinced, but he waves to the technicians. "Run a full cognitive recalibration. I want him stable before the next deployment."

They unstrap him eventually. He doesn't fight. Doesn't do anything but stare at his metal hand, trying to understand why it feels wrong. Why everything feels wrong. There's an ache in his chest that wasn't there before—or was it always there? He can't remember. Can't remember anything but the mission, the chair, the readiness to comply.

But that night, locked in cryo-prep, he dreams.

Fragments. Glimpses. A basement that smells like old paper and fear. Someone pressed against a wall, hands pushing at his chest. The feeling of skin against skin and the world exploding into color he didn't know existed.

He wakes with her ghost on his lips—no name, no face, just the shape of an apology in a language he's not supposed to know.

The asset reports for cryo on schedule. Lies still as they prep the chamber, ice already forming in the tubes that will freeze him until the next time he's needed. But as consciousness fades, as the cold takes him under, one thought persists:

Someone. There was someone. And I've lost them.

The machine hisses. Frost spreads across the glass.

The asset sleeps.

Bucky Barnes screams.

The Starbucks on 42nd doesn't have soul bonds on the menu, but they do have overpriced lattes and witnesses, which is why you're here instead of home, staring at your bedroom ceiling and trying to parse nightmares from memories.

Six months.

Six months of the glove under your pillow losing his scent. Six months of your advisor asking pointed questions about your "lack of focus" and your therapist prescribing sleeping pills that don't work because how do you medicate a severed soul bond?

How do you explain that you're mourning someone you knew for less than five minutes?

You're arguing with yourself about the merits of a fourth shot of espresso when the world explodes.

Glass shatters inward, the windows becoming a thousand diamonds catching afternoon light. Your coffee hits the floor—there goes eight dollars you don't have—as your body moves on instinct, dropping behind the counter with five other people who smell like fear and pumpkin spice.

Screaming. So much screaming. Cars screeching outside, the percussion of something that might be gunfire but sounds too wrong, too close, too real for a Tuesday afternoon in Manhattan.

You peek around the espresso machine and your heart forgets how to beat.

He's standing in the middle of the street like death dressed for winter. Same tactical gear, same casual violence, same way of moving that makes everyone else look like they're traveling through molasses. The mask covers the lower half of his face again, but you'd know those eyes anywhere. Have been seeing them every night for six months, after all.

A cop raises his weapon. The soldier—your soulmate, your ghost, your nightly torment—disarms him with an economy of motion that's almost beautiful. The crack of breaking fingers carries even through the shattered windows.

Get up, your brain screams. Run. Move. Do something that isn't standing here like a deer watching headlights come to claim it.

But your body has other plans. Your treacherous, soul-bonded body that recognizes his even across thirty feet of chaos and broken glass. You're moving before conscious thought catches up, stumbling through the destroyed storefront on legs that feel like they belong to someone else.

This is stupid. Monumentally stupid. The kind of stupid that gets psychology PhD candidates killed in broad daylight. But your hand is already reaching, already grasping, because maybe—

Your fingers close around his wrist.

The barest slip of skin where his sleeve has ridden up, your thumb finding his pulse like it was made for nothing else. The connection slams through you—heat and recognition and yes, finally, yes—

The gun clatters to the asphalt.

His whole body goes rigid, that same terrible stillness from before. You watch his pupils dilate, watch six months of careful nothing shatter in his eyes as a stranger crashes back into existence.

He moves so fast you don't process it. One second you're standing there, thumb on his pulse, the next you're spinning, back slamming into his chest as his metal arm locks across your body. The gun—when did he pick it up?—presses cold against your temple.

You stop breathing.

Around you, cops and civilians alike freeze. Weapons lower incrementally because now there's a hostage situation, now there's a girl who was stupid enough to touch the Winter Soldier and—

"Name." His voice in your ear, so quiet you almost miss it under the sirens. That sound that had haunted your dreams, rougher now, desperate. "Your name. Please."

Your lips barely move, sound threading between heartbeats. You tell him, soft as a whisper.

The gun doesn't waver. To everyone watching, he's perfectly still, a predator considering prey. But his metal thumb moves against your bare arm where your shirt has ridden up. Gentle. Deliberate. Tracing letters maybe, or just feeling, and you wonder if he can—if there are sensors in the metal that let him—

"My name is James Buchanan Barnes." Each word careful, precious, pressed into the space below your ear like a secret. Like a gift. "Bucky. My name is Bucky. I won't remember, so I need you to—you have to remember for me."

James Buchanan Barnes.

It tickles something in your memory. A history class, maybe. Something about World War II, about Captain America, about—

"What have they done to you?" The words slip out, horrified, because the pieces are trying to fit together but the picture they're making can't be right, can't be possible—

"Find me." Urgent now. His realness, his hereness makes your chest ache with completion even as your mind screams danger. "When I—after they—find me. Please. I can't—"

His voice cracks.

The gun leaves your temple.

The crack of the shot makes you flinch, but it's the cop to your left who goes down, clutching his knee, screaming. Bucky shoves you—not hard, but enough to send you stumbling into the crowd as he moves the opposite direction, using the chaos as cover.

You hit the ground hard, knees cracking against asphalt, palms scraped raw. Around you, people scatter like startled birds. Someone's hands on your shoulders, pulling you back, asking if you're hurt, if you need medical attention.

You can't answer. Can't do anything but stare at the place where he'd stood, where he'd held you, where he'd given you his name like it was the only thing he had left to give.

Your arm throbs where his metal thumb had traced patterns. When you look down, you can see the faint red marks—not bruises, just pressure. Just proof.

"Miss? Miss, we need to get you checked out—"

"I'm fine." You're not. You're the opposite of fine. You're shattering in slow motion, held together by adrenaline and the phantom feeling of his chest against your back. "I'm—he didn't hurt me."

The EMT looks skeptical. "He held a gun to your head."

"He didn't hurt me," you repeat, and you're not sure who you're trying to convince.

They take you anyway. St. Luke's emergency room, where you spend four hours being poked and prodded and questioned by people who look at you like you might break or explode. The FBI shows up eventually, two agents in bad suits who ask the same questions fifteen different ways.

"Did he say anything to you?"

My name is James Buchanan Barnes.

"No."

"Are you sure? Even something small could help."

Find me.

"He didn't say anything."

They don't believe you. You can see it in the way they exchange glances, the way their pens hover over notepads. But what are you supposed to tell them? That the most wanted man in America is your soulmate? That he gave you his name like a prayer? That even now, hours later, you can still feel the phantom press of metal against your skin?

They release you near midnight with a card and instructions to call if you remember anything. You take a cab home because the subway feels too exposed, too dangerous, like maybe he'll be there in the shadows between stops.

Your apartment is exactly as you left it. Laptop open on the counter, half a cup of cold coffee growing something ambitious by the sink. Normal. Safe.

Empty.

You sink onto your bed, still fully dressed, and pull out your phone. Your search history is already damning, but what's one more nail in the coffin?

James Buchanan Barnes

The results make your stomach drop.

Born 1917. Best friend of Steve Rogers, Captain America. Sergeant in the 107th Infantry Regiment. Fell from a train in the Alps in 1945. Presumed dead.

Except he's not dead. He's not dead because you touched him today, felt his pulse under your thumb, heard him breathing in your ear as he held you like something breakable and precious all at once.

You dig deeper. Past the official records, past the Wikipedia entries, into the conspiracy forums and leaked documents that only half-load on your shitty wifi.

The Winter Soldier.

HYDRA.

Seventy years of ghost stories.

An assassin who appears and disappears like smoke, leaving bodies in his wake.

Your soulmate is a century-old brainwashed assassin. Your soulmate is Bucky Barnes, who died in 1945. Who didn't die. Who was turned into something else, something violent and beautiful and dangerous.

Who fights back to consciousness every time you touch him only to be dragged under again.

What have they done to you?

You close your laptop. Lie back on your bed, fully clothed, and stare at the water stain on your ceiling that looks like a rabbit if you squint. Your arm still throbs where he touched you. Traced letters, maybe, or just—

You bolt upright.

Grab a pen, try to recreate the pattern from memory on your other arm. It takes three tries before the movements feel right, before the shapes resolve into something recognizable.

Numbers.

He'd traced numbers on your skin. Coordinates.

Find me, he'd said.

Your hands shake as you type them into your phone. A location upstate, middle of nowhere, the kind of place where no one would look twice at an abandoned building or hear the screams from underground.

You should leave it alone. Should forget his name, forget the numbers, forget the feeling of being whole for thirty seconds in the middle of chaos. Should be smart and safe and boring and alive.

Instead, you screenshot the location. Book a rental car for tomorrow. Pack a bag with things that might matter—the glove, pepper spray that won't do shit against a super soldier but makes you feel better, a first aid kit you probably won't get the chance to use.

Find me.

You're going to. God help you, you're going to find James Buchanan Barnes.

Even if it kills you.

(It probably will.)

(You're going anyway.)

The HYDRA facility squats in the pre-dawn darkness like something that crawled out of the Cold War and forgot to die. You're crammed in the back of a tactical van between enough weaponry to level a city block and Captain America's guilt, which somehow takes up more space.

Forty-eight hours. That's all it took from wine-drunk-email-to-vague-Avengers-PR-listing to this—body armor that doesn't fit right, your heart hammering against ceramic plates, and the ghost of coordinates still throbbing on your arm where he'd traced them.

"Two minutes to insertion." Natasha's voice crackles through comms you're not supposed to have. But Steve had insisted, jaw set in that way that apparently nobody argues with. Not even Fury.

Steve Rogers had shown up at your door with Natasha Romanoff and Nick Fury, your roommate had screamed in her towel, and you'd told them everything. About the library. About the way Bucky's entire being had shifted when you touched him, like watching someone break the surface after drowning.

About how he'd held you in that Starbucks, whispered his name against your ear like a secret, like salvation, like the only thing he had left that was his.

Steve had gone very, very still. Then: "We're finding him. We're bringing him home."

Now he's sitting across from you, shield balanced against his knee, and you can see why people follow him into impossible situations. It's not the shoulders or the jaw or the way he fills out tactical gear like he was born to it. It's the way he looks at you—not through you, not around you, but at you. Like you matter. Like your connection to his best friend makes you worth protecting.

"Remember," he says quietly, pitched below the engine noise. "The moment we find him, the moment you make contact—"

"I know." Your fingers won't stop moving, tracing and retracing the numbers Bucky left on your skin. "Skin contact. Bring him back." Don't let go."

What you don't say: What if it doesn't work this time? What if they've wiped him too many times? What if whatever's left isn't enough to—

The van stops.

Everything happens too fast after that. Doors flying open, bodies moving with practiced precision, you stumbling to keep up as Steve's hand on your elbow guides you through pre-dawn shadows toward a concrete mouth that looks like it's waiting to swallow you whole.

The facility is worse inside. All industrial fluorescents and that particular kind of silence that sounds like screaming if you listen too hard. Your soul bond, quiet for months, starts to ache with proximity—a deep, bone-level recognition that makes your teeth chatter.

"Northeast corridor clear." Natasha's voice, clinical.

"Southwest clear." Someone else, call sign you didn't catch.

"Movement in the lower levels." Another voice. "Looks like they're mobilizing—"

A sound cuts through the chatter. Not quite human. Not quite animal. Something between a scream and static that makes your hindbrain light up with warnings to run.

Steve's already moving. "That's him."

You follow because what else can you do? Down stairs that smell like rust and terror, through corridors that branch like diseased arteries. The ache in your chest intensifies with each level down, soul bond pulling taut as piano wire.

Then—

The room opens before you like a wound. Medical equipment that belongs in museums next to things that belong in nightmares. And in the center, strapped to a chair that looks more like an electric chair than anything medical—

"Bucky." Steve's voice breaks on it.

He's shirtless, sweat-slick and shaking, with enough electricity running through him to light up half of Brooklyn. His hair hangs limp around his face, and even from here you can see the way his muscles lock and release in waves as current pulses through the chair. Fresh burn marks lattice across his chest where the nodes attach, and there's blood—so much blood—dripping from where he's fought against the restraints.

There are bodies on the floor. Technicians, by their white coats. The blood is fresh enough to still be spreading.

"Stay back." Natasha has her weapon trained on him, all business. "He's still the Winter—"

Bucky's head snaps up.

His eyes find yours across twenty feet of blood and machinery.

Time stops.

Those aren't the empty eyes from the library. Aren't the desperate clarity from the coffee shop. These are something else entirely—feral and frightened and so fucking broken under all that damage. He looks like something that's been torn apart and reassembled wrong, like an animal that's been in a cage so long it's forgotten what sky looks like.

You're moving before conscious thought catches up. Dodging Steve's reaching hand, slipping past Natasha's outstretched arm. Your feet slip in blood—whose blood? His? Theirs?—but you don't stop. Can't stop. The soul bond is screaming, every cell in your body reaching for its other half.

"Don't—" Someone shouts. Might be Steve. Might be God himself. Doesn't matter.

Because Bucky's watching you approach with the kind of stillness that precedes violence. His metal arm—and this close you can see how it's grafted to flesh, red and raw and infected at the edges—flexes against the restraints. The leather creaks. His chest heaves with each breath, and there's a wild look in his eyes like he can't decide if you're real or another torture.

You collapse on the arm of the chair. His breathing is ragged, chest heaving, and this close you can see old scars layered on new ones, a roadmap of decades of damage. Seventy years of this. Seventy years of being unmade and remade into something sharp and wrong.

Your hand reaches up, slow as you'd approach a wounded animal.

He flinches.

Actually flinches, this assassin who's probably felt every kind of pain there is. A sound escapes him—small, wounded, barely human. But when your fingertips brush his cheek—skin to skin, that electric recognition—his whole body convulses.

"Oh," you breathe, and it's inadequate, it's nothing, it's everything. Because the bond slots into place like coming home if home was a person who'd been carved hollow and filled with ghosts.

His eyes clear incrementally. Pupil contraction, focus sharpening, and then—

The noise that tears out of him is inhuman. Seventy years of grief and rage and desperate loneliness condensed into a single sound that makes your bones ache. His metal hand shatters the restraint like tissue paper, then the flesh one, and before you can process the movement he's dragging you up, up, into his lap, crushing you against his chest with desperate strength.

"You," he's saying, over and over, voice wrecked beyond recognition. "You, you, you—real, you're real, you're—"

His hands are everywhere at once. Metal fingers tangling in your hair, flesh hand splayed across your back hard enough to bruise, holding you like you might dissolve if he loosens his grip for even a second. He buries his face in the curve of your neck and the sob that escapes him is pure agony, seventy years of touch starvation hitting him all at once.

You can feel him shaking—no, not shaking, convulsing, like his body doesn't know how to process gentle touch anymore. Doesn't know what to do with softness after decades of nothing but pain.

"I'm here," you whisper against his temple, your own tears falling freely. "I'm real. I found you. I've got you."

His response is to hold you tighter, tight enough that breathing becomes difficult, but you don't care. Can't care when he's falling apart in your arms like this. The metal hand fists in your tactical vest and you hear fabric tear, but he doesn't seem to notice. He's pressing his face harder into your throat, breathing you in like you're air and he's been suffocating for seventy years.

"Thought I dreamed you." The words come out destroyed, muffled against your skin. "They said—they said I made you up. That the pain was making me see things. But you smell real. You feel—" His flesh hand slides up to cup the back of your head, holding you in place. "Please be real. Please, please be real."

"I'm real." You press your lips to his temple, just a brief touch of comfort. "James Buchanan Barnes, you're real and I'm real and I found you."

His breath hitches at his full name, and suddenly he's pulling back just enough to look at you. This close, you can see everything—the burst blood vessels in his eyes, the way his pupils can't quite focus, the decades of accumulated scars. He looks ancient. He looks young. He looks absolutely shattered.

"Don't know who that is anymore." Raw honesty, delivered while his thumbs trace your cheekbones with desperate reverence. "Don't know who I am when I'm not killing. When they're not—" He breaks off, jaw working. "I've been empty for so long. So fucking long. And then you touched me and I remembered what it felt like to be human and they took it away—"

"They can't take it away again." You frame his face with your hands, forcing him to meet your eyes. "We're leaving. Right now. Together."

"You don't understand." He's crying openly now, no shame in it, just pure emotional overflow. "Seventy years. Seventy fucking years of this chair, this room, these walls. They put me in the dark and take me out to kill and put me back and I can't—when they say the words, I disappear. Everything disappears."

"Then we don't let them say the words."

"I've killed so many people." He presses his forehead to yours hard enough to hurt, but the contact seems to calm something in him. "Children. Civilians. Good people. Bad people. So many I lost count. The things they made me do—the things I did—"

"I don't care."

"You should." His metal hand comes up to wrap around your throat, gentle but present. "This hand has strangled innocent people. These fingers have pulled triggers that ended lives. I'm not—I'm not good. I'm not worth—"

"Stop." You turn your head to press your lips to his metal palm, and the sound he makes is pure agony. "You're worth everything. You're my soulmate. You're—"

He makes a broken noise and crushes you against him again, like he's trying to crawl inside your skin. His whole body trembles with the effort of holding you close enough, like no amount of contact will ever be sufficient after seventy years of nothing.

"They're gonna wipe me again." Matter-of-fact. Resigned. "Soon as they realize what happened here. They always do. And I'll forget you again. Forget this. And next time—" His voice breaks. "Next time they'll make sure I can't touch you. They'll find ways to hurt you through me. They'll make me—"

"No." Your hands tighten on his face. "No, they won't. We're leaving. Steve's here. Natasha. We're getting you out."

"Stevie?" For the first time, his eyes flicker past you, landing on his best friend. The confusion there is heartbreaking. "But you're—you're supposed to be—"

"Hey, Buck." Steve's voice is thick with emotion. "It's me. It's really me. We're taking you home."

But Bucky's already looking back at you, like he can't bear to look away for more than seconds. His flesh hand hasn't stopped moving—tracing your face, your neck, tangling in your hair like he's trying to memorize you through touch alone.

"I don't want to forget again." It comes out small, broken. "Please. I can't do it again. Can't lose you again. It'll kill me. It'll—"

"You won't forget." You shift in his lap, wrap your arms around his neck, and he makes a sound like you've given him salvation. "I won't let them take you. I won't let them hurt you anymore. I promise."

"We need to move." Natasha's voice, soft but urgent. "Security response in two minutes."

Steve's at your side instantly, but when he reaches for Bucky, the soldier flinches back violently, metal arm coming up in defense. The only thing that keeps him from lashing out is your hand on his chest, your voice in his ear.

"It's okay. It's Steve. He's safe. He's here to help."

"Can you walk?" Steve asks, careful to keep his distance.

Bucky nods against your shoulder, but when you try to move off his lap, his arms lock around you with desperate strength.

"No." Panicked. "No, please. Need to—need to touch—"

"I'm not going anywhere." You run your fingers through his hair, and he leans into it like a cat. "We're walking out of here together. But you have to let me stand up."

It takes visible effort for him to loosen his grip. When you stand, he follows immediately, swaying slightly. He towers over you even hunched with exhaustion, and when his hand finds yours, it's with the grip of a drowning man finding driftwood.

You start moving as a unit, but Bucky can't stop touching you. His free hand keeps finding your face, your hair, your shoulder, like he needs constant confirmation you're real. At one point he stops entirely, pulls you back against his chest, and just breathes you in for several seconds while Steve and Natasha stand guard.

"Left," he says suddenly as you reach a junction, pulling you down a side corridor. "Service tunnel. I've—I've tried before. Three times. No. Four? They always—" His free hand comes up to his head, pressing against his temple.

"Hey." You squeeze his hand. "Doesn't matter. Which way?"

The service tunnel is narrow and dark. Bucky pulls you through it like muscle memory, but halfway through he stops, pressing you against the wall. His hands frame your face in the darkness.

"What if this isn't real?" Desperate. "What if I'm still in the chair? What if this is just another way they're breaking me?"

You reach up to cradle his face in return, thumbs brushing over his cheekbones. "Does this feel like a dream?"

"No." He breathes the word against your mouth. "No, it feels—it feels like waking up."

The exit spills you out into pre-dawn forest. The quinjet looms out of the darkness, and for the first time in seventy years, Bucky Barnes runs toward freedom instead of away from it.

But even on the jet, even safe, he can't stop holding you. He pulls you into his lap on the bench seats, ignoring the medical team, ignoring everyone, and just holds on. His face stays buried in your neck during takeoff, his arms locked around you like prison bars in reverse—keeping the world out instead of keeping him in.

"You're free," you whisper, over and over, like a prayer. "You're free. You're safe. You're mine."

"Yours," he agrees, and finally, finally, his death grip loosens just enough for you to breathe. "Yours. Always yours. Even when I couldn't remember. Even in the dark. Somehow I was always yours."

The sun breaks the horizon as you fly toward home, and for the first time in seventy years, Bucky Barnes believes he might actually make it there.

The first time Bucky Barnes calls you at 3 AM, your body knows it's him before your mind catches up.

The phone vibrates against your nightstand, and your hand's already reaching, heart already racing—not with fear but with recognition. That soul-deep pull that's been your compass for three months now.

"Bucky?" Your voice comes out sleep-rough, concerned.

Just breathing on the other end. Ragged, like he's been running. Or fighting. The sound makes your chest tight.

"Can't—" His voice cracks like splintered wood. "Can't remember if the blood on my hands is from yesterday or a decade ago."

You're already moving, sheets tangling around your legs as you hunt for clothes in the dark. "Where are you?"

"Steve's. The Tower. I'm—" A shaky exhale that you feel in your own lungs. "I'm safe. Everyone's safe. Just needed—"

"Me." Not a question. The bond thrums with his distress, a phantom ache under your ribs. "I'm coming."

"You don't have to—"

"I'm coming."

Twenty minutes later, Happy's pulling up to the Tower's private entrance. You're wearing the first things your hands found—pajama shorts with snowflakes on them that you stole from your roommate, one of Bucky's hoodies that still smells like him (cedar and gunpowder and something indefinably him).

The elevator ride feels eternal. Your skin prickles with proximity, the bond pulling taut as you rise through the floors. By the time JARVIS deposits you on the residential level, your hands are shaking with the need to touch him, to soothe whatever's tearing him apart.

You find him on the couch, knees drawn up to his chest like he's trying to make himself smaller. His metal hand is clenched so tight you can hear the recalibration whirs, flesh hand buried in his hair. Steve hovers nearby, hands opening and closing like he wants to help but doesn't know how.

"Buck," you breathe.

His head snaps up, and oh—his eyes are winter-wild, pupils blown with panic, caught in some liminal space between then and now. You watch him catalog you in pieces: face, voice, the way you're already moving toward him like gravity's reversed its pull.

You don't speak. Don't need to. Just fold yourself onto the couch beside him, close enough that the line of your body presses against his from shoulder to hip. His flesh hand finds yours immediately, desperate, fingers lacing between yours like maybe if he holds tight enough he won't drift away.

The effect is immediate—a full-body shudder, his breathing starting to sync with yours. The bond hums, warm honey spreading through your veins. Steve makes a sound—relief wrapped in something more complicated—and quietly retreats.

"Sorry," Bucky murmurs after a moment. His thumb finds your pulse point, traces it like he's counting heartbeats. "Shouldn't have woken you."

"Yes, you should have." No reproach, just fact. "That's what this is."

He turns to look at you then, really look, and you watch him surface by degrees. His metal hand comes up without conscious thought, fingertips ghosting along your jaw with impossible gentleness. The cool metal makes you shiver, but you lean into it, letting him map the reality of you.

"There you are," he whispers.

Something fractures inside you. He pulls you in—careful, always so careful with you—until your foreheads touch. His breathing ghosts across your lips, and you stay suspended in that space, sharing air and warmth and the indescribable thing that ties soul to soul.

It becomes your new normal.

The calls come at all hours. Sometimes Steve's the one calling, voice carefully controlled: "Can you come? He's asking for you." Sometimes it's Natasha, brusque but not unkind: "Barnes needs you." Once, memorably, it's Tony: "Your touch-starved assassin is having a moment. Also, he may have broken my espresso machine."

You always go.

The team adapts to your presence like you're a new piece of furniture—necessary, functional, occasionally in the way. You learn to read Bucky's tells from across a room: the way his eyes go distant when memory bleeds through, the micro-flinches when sound becomes too much, the careful way he holds himself when he's fragmenting.

But more than that, you learn the language his body speaks when it's seeking yours.

He's always careful at first, tentative as a feral cat learning to accept kindness. A brush of fingers, testing. The barest press of his palm to yours. But once that first contact is made, something in him unravels.

He touches you like he's mapping a new world.

It starts innocuous enough—fingers tangled together during movie nights, his thumb painting absent patterns on your wrist. His hand finds the small of your back when you walk, not possessive but anchoring, like he needs proof you're real. He pulls you between his knees when he's sitting, arms banding around your waist, chin notching over your shoulder while you chat with Sam about nothing important.

But as weeks become months, the touches grow bolder. Hungrier.

"Does it bother you?" he asks one afternoon.

He's had a brutal therapy session—three hours of guided recall that left him shaking and grey-faced. You'd spent the past hour with his head in your lap, your fingers carding through his hair while he pieced himself back together. His flesh hand has found its way under your shirt, palm spread wide over your ribs, and his metal fingers trace delicate patterns on the inside of your wrist.

"Does what bother me?"

"This." He gestures vaguely at the negative space between you that stopped existing weeks ago. "How much I need—" He stops. Swallows. Tries again. "How I can't stop touching you."

The question deserves honesty, so you give it consideration. Think about how your life has restructured itself around these points of contact. How you've started wearing layers just so there's always fabric to push aside, skin to find. How your body anticipates his touch now, turns toward him without conscious thought.

"No," you say finally. "It doesn't bother me."

He studies your face with those searching eyes, looking for the polite lie. You let him look, keeping your expression open.

"I've been thinking," you continue, adjusting so you can see him better. His hand immediately shifts, fingers splaying wider across your ribs like he needs more contact to make up for the movement. "About touch. About deprivation."

A muscle in his jaw ticks.

"Seventy years," you say softly. "Seventy years where touch meant pain. Programming. Violence. Where hands on you meant—"

"Stop." Rough. His hand presses harder against your ribs, feeling your heartbeat.

"—so is it any wonder you're hungry for something else? Something good?"

His exhale shudders out of him. "The doctors say it's codependence."

"The doctors haven't had their souls systematically unmade and remade." You cover his flesh hand with yours, pressing it more firmly against your skin. "You're not codependent, Bucky. You're human. You're healing. And if touch helps—"

"It's not just that it helps." The words come out jagged, confessional. "I want—" His metal hand comes up, traces the line of your throat with one careful finger. "I want to touch you all the time. Want to know the texture of every inch of your skin. Want to map you like territory, like—" He cuts himself off, jaw clenching.

Heat pools low in your stomach, but you keep your voice steady. "Like what?"

"Like you're mine." Barely audible. His eyes won't meet yours. "Like I have any right to—"

"You do." You turn into him more fully, catch his face between your palms. His eyes flutter closed, and he leans into the touch like a man starved. "You have every right. We're soulmates, Bucky. That means something."

"What if I never get better?" Raw, honest. "What if I always need this? Need you?"

"Then you'll always have me."

His eyes snap open, winter-blue and desperate. "You can't promise that."

"Watch me."

The trial is excruciating. You watch from designated seating as Bucky sits statue-still, hair pulled back severe, wearing a suit that makes him look like someone else entirely. They read names, show photographs, detail missions that exist in his memory like shattered glass—some pieces clear, others reflecting nothing but blood.

The days he testifies, he comes to you after.

Never speaks about it. Just shows up at your door looking hollowed out, and you let him in without questions. He wraps himself around you like you're the only solid thing in a tilting world, face buried in the curve of your neck, breathing you in like oxygen.

These are the times his hands grow bold.

Not inappropriate—never that. But searching. He maps you like a cartographer charting new territory. Palms skimming your sides, memorizing the curve of waist to hip. Fingers tracing the ladder of your ribs through thin fabric. Metal thumb finding the hollow of your throat where your pulse flutters hummingbird-quick.

"I need—" he'll say against your skin, words muffled and desperate.

"I know," you always answer. "Take what you need."

So he does. His flesh hand slips under your shirt, finds the warm plane of your stomach, spreads wide like he's trying to absorb your steadiness through osmosis. His metal fingers trace patterns on whatever skin he can find—the inside of your wrist, the nape of your neck, the sensitive spot behind your ear that makes you shiver.

Sometimes you'll find his hand at your sternum, metal fingers splayed over your heartbeat like he's using it to calibrate his own. Sometimes he'll trace the boundary where clothing meets skin, fingertips ghosting under hems and necklines but never pushing further, just needing to know there's softness underneath, that not everything in the world has sharp edges.

"Is this okay?" he asks every time, even as his touch grows more familiar, more certain.

"Yes," you answer every time, even as your skin heats and your breath catches and you want—

You want.

"So are you two fucking yet?"

You choke on your coffee, hot liquid searing your throat. Across the kitchen, Bucky's shoulders go rigid where he's making eggs with the kind of focus usually reserved for defusing explosives.

"Tony," Steve says, warning clear in his voice.

"What? It's a legitimate question. All that touching, the eye-fucking across every room, the way Barnes goes feral if anyone else so much as—"

"We're not." Your face burns. "That's not—we haven't—"

Tony's eyebrows achieve escape velocity. "You're telling me you've been playing the world's most intense game of grabass for three months and haven't—"

"Stark." Bucky's voice is winter-quiet, dangerous in the way that makes smart people reevaluate their life choices.

But Tony's never been accused of survival instincts. "I'm just saying, that level of sexual tension could power—"

The plate in Bucky's metal hand shatters.

Silence rings out, broken only by the drip of egg yolk hitting tile.

"I'll just." Tony backs toward the door, hands raised. "Workshop. Important things. Very important things."

He's gone before anyone can blink, leaving you, Bucky, and Steve in a kitchen that suddenly feels airless. Bucky stares at the ceramic shards in his hand like they've personally betrayed him.

"Buck—" Steve starts.

"I need air."

He's out the door before you can process the movement, leaving you with cooling eggs and Tony's words hanging in the air like smoke.

Steve sighs, the sound of a man who's aged a century in the last minute. "He's an idiot. Tony, I mean. Though Buck's also—" He stops. Runs a hand through his hair. "This is none of my business."

"But?"

"But." Steve fixes you with those earnest eyes that probably ended wars. "He thinks he's protecting you. From himself. From what he's done. He doesn't think he deserves—" A gesture encompasses you, the kitchen, the entire situation.

"That's not his decision to make."

"No," Steve agrees. "But when has that ever stopped him?"

You find Bucky on the roof because of course that's where he goes. He's sitting on the edge, legs dangling over nothing, and your heart does something complicated in your chest.

"Most people have their existential crises at ground level," you say, settling beside him carefully.

His mouth twitches—not quite a smile, but close. "Most people haven't fallen off a train."

"Fair point."

The city spreads below like a circuit board, all light and movement and life. Without looking, his hand finds yours, fingers interlacing with the ease of long practice. The bond settles, that constant thrum of rightness that comes with skin meeting skin.

"Tony's not wrong," he says eventually.

You wait, let him find the words in his own time.

"I think about it." His voice is carefully controlled, but you can feel the tremor in his hand. "Touching you. Not just—not just to ground myself. Not for the bond. I think about touching you because I want to. Because you're—"

He stops. His throat works, and when he speaks again, his voice is rougher. "Because you're beautiful. And kind. And you laugh at my terrible jokes even when they're not funny. You come when I call at 3 AM. You let me put my hands on you even though these same hands have—"

"Bucky—"

"I dream about it." The confession comes out raw. "Dream about kissing you. About how you'd taste. How you'd feel. Wake up with your name in my mouth and my hands reaching for you, and it's not about the bond, it's about—" He turns to look at you then, eyes dark with something that makes your breath catch. "It's about how much I want you. How much I want things I have no right to want."

"What if," you say, voice steadier than your pulse, "I want those same things?"

His breathing stutters. "You don't. You can't."

"Don't tell me what I want." You turn toward him fully, free hand coming up to his jaw. He leans into it helplessly, eyes falling closed. "I know exactly what I want. Who I want."

"I'm held together with duct tape and trauma," he says, but his resolve is crumbling. You can see it in the way he presses harder into your palm. "I can't take you on normal dates. Can't promise I won't have panic attacks. Can't even sleep through the night without—"

"I don't want normal." Your thumb traces his cheekbone, feels him shudder. "I want you. Every piece, every edge, every nightmare and bad day. I want the man who hums old songs when he thinks no one's listening. Who makes terrible eggs but keeps trying. Who touches me like I'm something precious and looks at me like I'm a miracle."

"You are," he breathes. "You're—"

You kiss him.

Or maybe he kisses you.

Maybe you meet in the middle, drawn together by forces older than choice.

The first press of lips is tentative, a question asked and answered in the same breath. His flesh hand comes up to cradle your face, and the tenderness of it makes your chest ache. But then you make a sound—small, needy—and something in him breaks.

Or maybe something in him finally fixes itself.

His metal arm bands around your waist, pulls you against him with desperate strength. The kiss deepens, and oh, you understand now why people write symphonies and wage wars. Because Bucky Barnes kisses like he's drowning and you're air, like he's been starving for seventy years and you're sustenance, like maybe the universe knew exactly what it was doing when it tied your souls together.

He kisses you like he's trying to crawl inside your skin.

His tongue traces the seam of your lips and you open for him without thought, and the sound he makes—broken, grateful—sends heat racing down your spine. He tastes like coffee and something indefinably him, and you chase that taste deeper, hands fisting in his shirt.

He doesn't surface for air. Doesn't pause. Just tilts his head to find a better angle and kisses you deeper, harder, like he's trying to memorize the shape of your mouth, the texture of your sighs. His metal hand spans your lower back, pulling you impossibly closer, while his flesh hand maps your face, thumb stroking your cheek even as his mouth devastates you.

You're half in his lap now, twisted awkwardly on the ledge, and you don't care. Can't care about anything beyond the heat of his mouth, the way he groans when you nip at his lower lip, the way his hands shake where they hold you.

"Wanted this," he gasps against your mouth, not pulling back enough to actually stop kissing you. "Wanted you. Before I even knew you. So long, so fucking long—"

You answer by sliding your hands into his hair, nails scraping his scalp, and he shudders against you, kiss going a little sloppy and desperate. He's not cold, not controlled, not careful. He's burning, pressing against you like he wants to fuse at the molecular level, like the soul bond isn't enough and never could be.

When you finally break apart—only because oxygen is apparently necessary—you're both wrecked. His lips are swollen, eyes dark and dazed. You probably look the same. His forehead drops to yours, and you can feel him trembling against you, all that careful control finally, beautifully shattered.

"Okay?" His voice is destroyed, rough like he's been screaming.

"So far past okay," you manage. "Though your timing—we're on a roof, Barnes."

He laughs, the sound surprised out of him, and presses kisses to your cheeks, your jaw, the corner of your mouth like he can't quite stop now that he's started. "Sorry. I'll plan better next time."

"Next time?" You're going for teasing but it comes out breathless, hopeful.

His eyes find yours, and the intensity there steals any words you might have had. "Every time. Any time. All the time, if you'll—if you want—"

You press your mouth to his again, swallowing whatever self-deprecating thing he was about to say. He makes a noise of pure relief and hauls you closer, and you think maybe Tony Stark has exactly one good point in his entire existence.

Not that you'll ever tell him.

** The science had been clinical, sterile words on a page that you'd skimmed in college while nursing a hangover and trying to make sense of your Behavioral Psych reading.

Enhanced neural connectivity. Synchronized endorphin response. Heightened sensory feedback between bonded pairs.

Academic language that utterly failed to capture this—Bucky's mouth hot and slick and desperate against your throat while his hands relearn territory they've been mapping under cotton and denim for months, each touch sending electricity racing down your spine like lightning seeking ground.

"Fucking finally," he growls against your pulse point, and you feel the words more than hear them, vibrating through skin into bone, into the very marrow of you. His metal hand spans your ribs, each individual plate recalibrating against your skin with tiny whirs and clicks, like even the machinery of him is trying to get closer.

"You know what it's been like? Having you close enough to smell, to taste in the air, but not—Christ, the way you tremble each time I touch you, like you're starving for it—"

You try to form words but he's already peeling your shirt away with hands that shake despite their practiced efficiency, and the first full press of his bare chest to yours—scarred skin against soft, furnace heat against cool air—whites out anything resembling higher thought.

The soul bond doesn't just sing—it screams, every nerve ending recognizing its other half and lighting up like a constellation, like a neural map catching fire.

"Oh," you gasp, and it's inadequate, it's nothing, but Bucky goes rigid above you like you've shot electricity straight through his spine.

"Yeah," he agrees, voice absolutely wrecked. His forehead drops to your shoulder, dog tags dragging cold metal across your overheated chest as he pants against your skin, each exhale making you shiver. "Yeah, that's—fuck, is it always gonna feel like this? Like touching a live wire, just—"

"More," you manage, arching into him until there's no space left between your bodies, and you feel his control splinter like ice under pressure.

His mouth finds yours again, hungry and graceless, all that careful restraint from months of chaste touches finally, blessedly gone. His tongue slides against yours and you taste coffee and something metallic—blood maybe, from where he's been biting his lip. When you nip at his bottom lip he makes a sound like something wounded, something primal, hips rolling into yours with zero finesse, just pure need, his cock hard and insistent through too many layers of fabric.

"Sensitive," he warns against your mouth, but it comes out more like a plea, like he's begging you to understand. "Everything's dialed up to eleven, I can—I can hear your blood moving in your veins. Can feel every place you're warm and wet and—fuck—" His whole body shudders when you rake your nails down his back.

Your fingers find the scarred terrain of his back and he actually whimpers, muscles rolling under your touch like water, like something liquid and desperate. That's when the second revelation hits: whatever you're feeling, he's feeling it magnified. Seventy years of sensory deprivation plus enhanced everything plus a soul bond that's been stretched taut for months—

"Gonna lose my mind," he mutters, mouthing at your jaw, your throat, anywhere he can reach, leaving wet trails that cool in the air and make you shiver. His stubble scrapes against sensitive skin and you gasp, hips bucking up involuntarily. "Already lost it. Lost it the second you touched me in that library. Do you know? Do you have any fucking idea what it's like, having someone reach inside your skull and turn all the lights on? Like going from black and white to color, like—Jesus—"

His flesh hand fumbles with your pants, clumsy with urgency, while his metal hand grips your hip hard enough to leave marks—and god, you hope it does, hope you wear his fingerprints for days. The button pops free and he makes a victorious sound that might be funny if you weren't so desperate, if you weren't already so wet you can feel it soaking through your underwear.

His hand slides lower, fingers slipping beneath elastic, and when he finds you soaked and swollen, the noise that punches out of him is pure animal—a growl that starts in his chest and rumbles through both your bodies where they're pressed together.

"Christ." His fingers slip through wetness, exploratory and reverent, and you can feel the tremor in his hand. "This is—this is for me? You get like this just from—" He circles your clit with his thumb and you cry out, hips jerking. "Fuck, you're dripping. Can feel your pulse in your cunt, baby. So swollen, so ready—"

"From you," you gasp, grinding down against his hand as he slides two fingers inside without warning. The stretch makes you moan, makes your walls clench around him immediately. "Always from you. Only from you."

Something fractures in his expression—something raw and possessive and desperately vulnerable all at once. He hooks his fingers, finding that spot that makes your vision white out, and watches your face like he's cataloging miracles, like he's mapping the geography of your pleasure. "Say that again."

"Only you." It comes out breathless, edged with desperation as he finds a rhythm that has your thighs shaking, has wet sounds filling the air between you. "Only ever you, Bucky, please—"

"No." His thumb finds your clit and circles with devastating precision, pressure just the right side of too much. "Not yet. Not when I've been imagining this for—do you know how many times I've jerked off in the shower thinking about this? About how you'd sound when you're desperate? How you'd taste?" He adds a third finger, stretching you wider, and grins dark and feral when you sob. "Bet you thought about it too. Bet you touched yourself thinking about me, didn't you? Tell me."

"Yes," you admit, face burning, and his pupils blow even wider.

He drops to his knees between your thighs suddenly, metal hand holding you open like something precious, like an offering. The first swipe of his tongue has you jackknifing off the bed, but he just pins you down with his metal arm across your hips and does it again, slower, a long drag from entrance to clit that has you seeing stars.

"Fuckin' knew it," he groans against you, and the vibration of his voice makes you clench around nothing. "Knew you'd taste like heaven. Like mine. Knew you'd shake for me just like this." He spreads you wider with his fingers, looking at you with dark eyes. "So pretty. So perfect." He spits on your cunt, watching it mix with your wetness, and the filthy intimacy of it makes you moan. "Gonna ruin you for anyone else. Gonna make it so you can't come without thinking of my mouth, my fingers, my cock."

His words dissolve into action, mouth working you over with single-minded focus. He eats you out like he's starving, like he's dying, all lips and tongue and just the edge of teeth. The soul bond makes it devastating—you don't just feel the physical sensation, you feel his hunger, his satisfaction at finally being allowed to give pleasure instead of pain. His metal fingers dig into your thigh hard enough to bruise and you hope they do, hope you wear his marks for days, hope everyone who sees them knows exactly who put them there.

"Close," you warn, though he probably knows—can probably taste it in the way your cunt's clenching, feel it in the bond that's gone molten between you. Your thighs are shaking, muscles pulled so tight they hurt, and there's a sound filling the room that you distantly realize is you, making noises you've never made before.

He pulls back just enough to speak, lips glossy with your wetness, chin soaked, eyes wild. "Yeah? You gonna come on my tongue? Gonna let me taste it?" He slides three fingers in, curling with devastating intent, and your back arches off the bed. "Come on, sweetheart. Give it up. Let me have it, don't be greedy."

You shatter with a sound that might be his name, might be pure noise. The orgasm rolls through you in waves, each crest higher than the last, and he works you through it mercilessly, not letting up even when you try to squirm away from oversensitivity. Through the bond you feel his echoing pleasure—not physical, not yet, but something bone-deep and satisfied and proud.

"Atta girl," he murmurs against your inner thigh, pressing kisses to sweat-slick skin while his fingers still move lazily inside you, drawing out aftershocks. "So fucking beautiful. Look at you, all fucked out and soft and mine. Could do this for hours. Will do this for hours. Keep you here, coming apart on my hands, my mouth, until you're so sensitive you cry, until you forget there was ever a time we weren't—"

"Bucky." You tug at his hair, need making your voice rough despite the orgasm still sparking through your nerves. "Get up here. Need you inside me. Need—"

He's moving before you finish, shucking his pants with graceless efficiency. The first glimpse of his cock—thick and long and leaking steadily—makes your mouth water and your cunt clench with fresh want. When you reach for him he catches your wrist, gentle but firm.

"Next time," he promises, reading your intent with unnerving accuracy. His voice is strained, like he's hanging on by a thread. "Let you taste me next time. Let you choke on it, fuck that pretty mouth until you're drooling, until—" He cuts himself off with visible effort, chest heaving. "But right now I need—if I don't get inside you in the next ten seconds I'm gonna fucking die—"

"So do it." You spread your legs wider, shameless, showing him how wet and open you are, how ready. "Come on, sergeant. Follow through."

His control snaps audibly. He's on you between one breath and the next, pinning you down with his weight, cock nudging at your entrance. The head catches on your rim and you both groan, but he stops there, trembling with effort, forehead pressed to yours.

"Look at me." It's not a request—it's a command, rough and desperate. You force your eyes open, meet his gaze—winter blue swallowed by black, raw and vulnerable and fierce. "Need to see you when I—need to know you're here, that you're real, that this is—"

"Real," you confirm, wrapping your legs around his waist, heels digging into his ass to urge him forward. "I'm real. You're real. This is—oh fuck—"

He pushes inside in one long, devastating slide, and the world reconstitutes itself around this moment. Around the stretch and burn and perfect fullness of him, around the broken sound he makes against your throat—half sob, half growl—around the soul bond lighting up like a supernova, like every nerve ending suddenly discovering what it was made for.

"Fuck." His metal hand grips the headboard hard enough to crack wood, splinters raining down. "Fuck, you're—tight. So fucking tight. Hot. Perfect. Can feel—God fucking damn, I can feel everything. Can feel how good it is for you, can feel how your cunt's trying to pull me deeper—" He shifts his hips and hits something devastating inside you, makes you clench around him involuntarily. He laughs, breathless. "Yeah, right there. That's it, isn't it, baby? Right fucking there."

He moves experimentally, just a slow roll of hips, and you both moan at the drag of him inside you, at how your bodies fit together like they were made for this, only this. The angle is perfect—he's reading your body's responses in real-time, adjusting until every thrust has you climbing higher, until you're making noises that would embarrass you if you could think.

"Not gonna last," he warns, rhythm already getting ragged, desperate. Sweat drips from his forehead onto your chest, mixing with the sheen already there. "Not this time. Too much, too long waiting, too—the way you feel—" His flesh hand finds your throat, rests there warm and possessive, thumb pressing just enough to make your pulse flutter. "Like velvet. Like coming home. Like I could fuck you forever and it would never be enough—"

"Don't care." You pull his head down, bite at his jaw hard enough to leave marks just to feel him shudder, to watch his control fracture further. "Just want you. Just need—"

"Tell me." His grip on your throat tightens fractionally, not enough to restrict breathing but enough to make you aware, to make you feel it. "Tell me what you need. Want to give you everything. Want to be so good for you, sweetheart. Want to make up for every night you went to bed empty when you should've been—"

"Full of you," you finish, and his hips stutter, lose rhythm entirely for a moment.

"Yeah?" His thumb presses against your pulse, feeling how fast your heart's racing. "That what you need? Need me to fill you up? Keep you full and fucked out and dripping with my come? Make sure everyone knows you're mine, that I'm the only one who gets to—"

"Yes." You're beyond shame, beyond anything but the building pressure where he's driving into you harder now, each thrust shoving you up the bed. The wet sounds of your bodies meeting fill the room, obscene and perfect. "Yes, Bucky, please—"

"Say my name again." He's fucking you harder now, chasing his release with single-minded intensity. The bed frame creaks ominously with each thrust. "Want to hear it when you come. Want to feel it when you—fuck, you're clenching around me, baby. You close? You gonna come on my cock? Gonna be good for me?"

You nod frantically, words lost to the slide of him inside you, the relentless pressure against that perfect spot, the way his pubic bone grinds against your clit with each thrust. His metal fingers find your clit, cold against overheated flesh, and the contrast makes you scream.

"That's it," he growls, working your clit in tight circles while maintaining that punishing rhythm. "Come for me. Come on my cock like a good girl. Let me feel it, let me—fuck, there it is, I can feel it starting, you're getting so tight—"

You come with his name on your lips, back arching off the bed so hard you think you might snap in half. The orgasm slams through you like a freight train, like dying and being reborn, every muscle locking up as pleasure whites out your vision. The bond makes it circular—your pleasure slamming into him and reflecting back, amplified, until you're both shaking with it, until you can't tell where you end and he begins.

"Oh fuck—" His rhythm breaks entirely, becomes something desperate and animal. "Fuck, I'm gonna—gonna fill you up, gonna—"

"Inside." You dig your nails into his shoulders hard enough to draw blood, hold him deep even as oversensitivity makes you want to squirm away. "Want to feel it. Want all of it."

He comes with a sound that's half your name, half prayer, half roar, hips grinding deep as he spills inside you. You feel it all—not just the physical sensation of his cock pulsing, filling you with warmth, but the emotional avalanche through the bond. Relief and want and mine mine mine and something that feels dangerously close to devotion, to worship, to complete and utter belonging.

He fucks you through it, shallow little thrusts like he can't help himself, like his body won't stop even though he's already given you everything. Each movement makes more come leak out around his cock, makes wet sounds that have you hiding your face in his shoulder, embarrassed and aroused in equal measure.

The aftershocks last forever, little sparks of shared pleasure that have you both gasping, twitching, clutching at each other like lifelines. When he finally stills, he doesn't pull out, just shifts enough that his weight isn't crushing you, keeping you plugged full of him.

"Stay," he mumbles into your neck, words slurred like he's drunk. "Just—stay exactly like this. Please. Need to—need to keep you full. Need to know you're here, that this is real, that I get to—"

"Not going anywhere." You card your fingers through his sweat-damp hair, feel him shiver at the gentle touch after all that intensity. "Never going anywhere. You're stuck with me, Barnes."

His arms tighten around you, and you can feel his smile against your skin, feel the way his cock twitches inside you with renewed interest. "Good. Because now that I know what this feels like, what you feel like—" He rocks his hips experimentally, and you both groan as you feel his come shift inside you, feel how wet and open you are. "We're not leaving this bed for a week. Gonna fuck you in every position I've imagined. Gonna map every inch of your body with my mouth. Gonna find out exactly how many times I can make you come before you beg me to stop—"

"What about—"

He kisses you quiet, slow and thorough and filthy, tongue fucking into your mouth in a pale imitation of what his cock just did. When he pulls back, his eyes are dark with promise and his cock is fully hard inside you again, enhanced recovery time making itself known.

"Nothing else matters," he says simply, starting to move again, slow and deep and devastating. You're so sensitive it borders on too much, but the soul bond floods you with his pleasure, his desperate need, and suddenly you're right there with him again. "Just this. Just us. Just how many times I can make you come before sunrise. How full I can keep you. How loud I can make you scream."

You clench around him involuntarily and his eyes flutter closed, hips stuttering.

"Gonna kill me," he mutters, picking up speed, the wet sounds even more obscene now with his come easing the way. "Seventy years of nothing and now—" A particularly deep thrust has you seeing stars. "Now I've got a soulmate who looks at me like I'm worth something, who touches me like I'm not a weapon, who lets me use her however I need—"

"Who loves you," you interrupt, watching his face crumble and rebuild itself, watching him fight back what looks suspiciously like tears.

"Yeah?" Barely a whisper, so vulnerable it makes your chest ache.

"Yeah." You pull him down for another kiss, pouring everything you can't say into the contact, letting him feel it through the bond. "So much. So long. Even before I knew you, I think I loved you. Think I was waiting for you."

He makes a broken sound and starts fucking you in earnest, like a man possessed, like he's trying to climb inside you and never leave. "Say it again."

"I love you."

"Again." Harder now, each thrust shoving you up the bed.

"I love you, Bucky Barnes."

He fucks you like a promise, like a prayer, like maybe if he does it right the universe will let him keep this. You come apart under him again and again, until time becomes meaningless, until the only reality is where you're joined, where the soul bond burns brightest, where his come leaks out of you with each thrust only to be fucked back in, marking you inside and out as his.

When exhaustion finally claims you both, he's still inside you, still hard, wrapped around you like armor and apology all at once. You're going to be sore tomorrow—hell, you're sore now—but you wouldn't move for anything.

The last thing you feel before sleep takes you is his lips against your temple, his voice rough with wonder and satisfaction:

"Love you too, sweetheart. More than I've got words for. More than I probably should. Gonna spend the rest of my life showing you, if you'll let me. Gonna take such good care of you. My girl. My soulmate. Mine."

"Yours," you mumble, already drifting, clenching around him one last time just to feel him shudder.

His arms tighten, and you feel his smile against your skin, feel the way his cock twitches inside you with interest despite everything.

"Forever," he promises.

"Forever."

Outside, Brooklyn wakes to another morning, unaware that two souls have finally, fully, found their way home.

check out the series masterlist♡

[wintermischief]

Bucky Barnes x Reader Series/Multi Parts Recs 1

last updated: july 11th, 2023

18+, writing may contain mature content. Mostly Bucky Barnes x F! and GN!Reader. Please show support to these amazing writers!!

❗️ PLEASE MESSAGE ME IF YOU’D LIKE ME TO REMOVE YOUR FIC OR IF I MADE A MISTAKE❗️

COMPLETED

Recruit @invisibleanonymousmonsters

Fury gives Bucky a simple mission that’s also guaranteed to be impossible. But Bucky refuses to give up. (Bucky Barnes x Enhanced!Reader)

Meetings At Midnight @teamcap4bucky

You have been a driving force behind Bucky’s recovery from Hydra. He finally realizes that everything he needs is right in front of him. (Bucky Barnes x Avenger!Reader)

Caught In The Fire @dreamwritesimagines

In a city ruled by gangsters, nothing is ever simple. (Mob!Bucky x Reader)

Guiding Light @wkemeup

It was supposed to be a simple mission. Get the intel and go home. Until everything goes wrong and you’re taken captive by Hydra. While you struggle to stay alive and hold your sanity, Bucky begins to lose himself to a darkness and gives into the soldier because he doesn’t know how to breathe without you. Not until he brings you home. If he even can. (Bucky Barnes x Avenger!Reader)

I Remember All Of Them @tuiccim

After Hawkeye’s retirement, you are assigned to the Avengers as the new sharpshooter. You form a special friendship with Bucky but when friends turn to lovers Bucky suddenly turns cold. Were you just another conquest of Bucky Barnes’ or was something deeper at play? (Bucky Barnes x Avenger!Reader)

The Coupon Book @tuiccim

Sex Coupons for Sergeant Bucky Barnes to be redeemed anytime, anywhere. (Boyfriend!Bucky x Reader)

Two Sides Of The Same Coin @anonymityisfunwriter

One pessimist, one optimist, both equally traumatized and haunted, both trying to atone for things out of their control. (Grumpy!Bucky x Sunshine!Enhanced!Reader)

Snow @delaber

Tired of your constant bickering, Sam sends you and Bucky on a mission alone. When the worst possible outcome happens and you’re forced to spend several days together in a small cabin, you finally get to see a different, more pleasurable side to the man whose flesh you’ve always had a thorn in. (Bucky Barnes x Avenger!Reader)

Yes, Sir @bucky-barnes-diaries

Bucky discovers a newfound kink. (Possessive!Boyfriend!Bucky x Sub!Reader)

Bucky And The Bed @that-damn-girl

You and Bucky are stranded in the middle of a snowy nowhere when there is an 'electronic blackout' during your mission. With no back ups or any way to contact your team, you take refuge from the worsening weather in the only cabin you find in miles. Not to mention, with no power, Bucky's become your personal heater and there's only one bed. (Bucky Barnes x Avenger!Reader)

I Want To Hold Your Hand @thismustbefakeme

Set after TFATWS. You are part of the newly appointed Captain America's growing team. You have had a crush on Bucky and vice versa. When you finally admit your feelings...shenanigans ensue.

Ease My Mind @buckyskorpion

Bucky Barnes is your best friend and, of course, you’re in love with him. But apparently Bucky is just fine with your platonic relationship - you’re going to have to do something about that. (Bucky Barnes x Enhanced!Avenger!Reader, friends to lovers)

Honey And The Bee @chrevastan

One sleepless night brings you to the large communal kitchen at the Avengers Compound. Fully furnished and equipped but barely used, you decide to give the room a little culinary love. Little did you know, your new hobby would bring you some special moments with your friends and opportunities to get to know the newest addition to your team—Bucky Barnes. (Bucky Barnes x Chef!Baker!Avenger!Reader, enemies to lovers)

10 Signs An Introvert Likes You @andyl394

Bucky wasn’t the type of guy to show his feelings and neither were you the one to notice subtle things, until you come across this video; A guidance that may help you discover rather The Winter Soldier likes you or not. (Bestfriend!Bucky x Reader, friends to lovers)

Shifter @floatingpetals

Bucky wasn’t sure what to make of the newest recruit. What he thought was the new team pet was really a shifter in disguise. He learns she’s not afraid of much, whether it’s himself, or walking around all natural. Having the unique ability to change into several different kinds of animals makes her a bit more in tune to her animal instincts as well. Things are hardly ever dull anymore with her around. (Bucky Barnes x Enhanced!Reader)

The Barnes’ AU @agentofkrypton

Bucky Barnes has settled down, living in a beautiful home in New Orleans with his wife, a former Avenger. These are the different stories of how they navigate being superheroes, spouses, and parents. (Bucky Barnes x Enhanced!Reader)

Bucky And His Little Fairy @kinanabinks

The adventures of Bucky and his little Fairy. (Mob!Bucky x Bestfriend!Reader)

Pride And Privacy @adrinktostopyourthirst

Bucky works on himself as he gets used to a roommate. Turns out, she has a much better room than him and he crossed the line. (Bucky Barnes x Roommate!Reader)

Fragments @subwaysurf45

You always had a soft spot for innocent people who were viewed as monsters, must have been something in your blood. Nothing changed when you were assigned as the new handler for the Winter Soldier, he had just killed his previous one and you happened to be there at the right time to fill in. But what happens when you meet him years later? (Bucky Barnes x Therapist!Reader)

Stuck Wit U @slyyywriting

You and Bucky don’t get along. Your fights have become too destructive so Tony and Steve decide that enough is enough. (Bucky Barnes x Enhanced!Pyrokinetic!Reader)

Through His Eyes @sebbytrash

Bucky arrives at the compound to start afresh but you and him have a somewhat colorful past, colorful being that you met him once before as The Winter Soldier and it did not go well. New beginnings, yeah? If you can learn to forgive. (Bucky Barnes x Avenger!Reader)

The Assassins @cherrypickertheory

On one of their missions to destroy HYDRA bases, Bucky Barnes finds someone who shares a similar past to him. Getting her to overcome her time as a HYDRA is one thing, falling for her is another. (Bucky Barnes x Mutant!Reader)

As Time Goes By @caffeineforbucky

The Two Of Us @bucky-bucket-barnes

You and Bucky go to investigate the phenomenon happening in Westview, New Jersey. While attempting to understand the issue, you yourselves are sucked into Wanda's world of pretend. Now, you believe yourselves to be the happily married Mr. and Mrs. Barnes; in real life, you are most definitely not a happy pair. It is up to you and Bucky to piece together what's happening while dealing with one another inside the hex. (Bucky Barnes x Enhanced!Avenger!Reader)

Pansies, Pain And Other Things About Bucky | Part 2 @bucky-bucket-barnes

You and Bucky are begrudgingly paired on a mission together. This is less than ideal considering neither of you are too keen on the other tagging along. All goes as normal until a surprise attack severely hurts both of you. Feeling incredibly guilty, Bucky helps you tend to your wounds. He has trouble admitting it, but he wants to make sure you’re safe. (Bucky Barnes x Enhanced!Reader)

If Only I Had A Heart | Part 2 @buckybarnesowl

Team Cap is back at the compound after being pardoned. Bucky is suffering from the shoddy work HYDRA did with his prosthetic. Tony brings you in to fix it—and maybe help him find his heart in the process. (Bucky Barnes x Engineer!Reader)

Season Of The Witch @msmarvelwrites

Your witchy abilities get you in quite a bit of trouble from time to time…but this time you don’t mind so much. (Bucky Barnes x Witch!Reader)

Hope Of It All @bethdutten

After saving Steve and breaking from Hydra, Bucky remembers you from the helicarrier. He doesn’t know where else to go. (Bucky Barnes x Avenger!Reader)

Accidentally In Love @creativebeang

After Bucky Barnes gets injured during a mission, you end up moving in with the avengers where your life changes forever. (Bucky Barnes x Agent!Reader)

The Road Goes Ever On And On @rocketrhap3000

Life as a single mother of a three year old certainly has its struggles. But when a sweet stranger makes his way into you and your little boy’s life, a one of a kind connection sparks. (Bucky Barnes x Mother!Reader)

Metal Arms And Short Skirts @buckyarchives

Waltzing in as the new head of the Avenger's medical division, impressing everyone, and...scaring Bucky with your incredibly short skirts. While Bucky's having a hard time looking at his arm as anything other than a deadly weapon, and you're more than happy to help him. (Bucky Barnes x Engineer!Doctor!Reader)

When I Want | PDA 1 | PDA 2 | PDA 3 | PDA 4 @notyetneedcoffee

In which you and Bucky reveal your relationship and drive everyone crazy.

Save Me @espinosaurusrexex

Bucky Barnes has never had it easy, which ultimately turned him into a caveman-like introvert with no desire to see the positive side of life. But what happens when the clumsily charming art student, Y/N, stumble to his rescue, determined to show Bucky how truly wonderful the world is? (College!Bucky x Reader)

Everything’s Better In Westview @espinosaurusrexex

You and Bucky sneak into Westview to have the perfect life. Away from late Steve and Tony, Vision and Natasha, they let themselves be consumed by suburban magic. To their surprise, however, some of these people aren’t so dead in the town. And there are some other weird things happening that make them question their sanity. But that’s okay, right? ‘Cause everything’s better in Westview. (Bucky Barnes x Avenger!Reader)

Fight For me @littleseasiren

After years in an abusive relationship, you finally get out. When the Avengers decide to raise awareness for your Battered Women's Home, you bump into Bucky Barnes, the hottest, most complicated man you've ever met. He thinks you're too good for him, but when your abusive ex reappears, Bucky knows he has to keep you safe - by any means necessary.

Swallow @all1e23

Swallows choose a mate for life, and will only nest with that bird and no other; they travel long distances apart only to find their way to back to each other, again and again. Bucky knew the second he met you.

Accidents Happen @avengerofyourheart

You are accident prone, come from a sheltered background, and have been with the Avengers almost a year when Steve finds Bucky and brings him to the Avengers Tower. Bucky takes an interest in your quirkiness.

I’ll Love You Forever @buckyswintersoldiermask

Your time with Bucky in Wakanda.

Another World @sinner-as-saint

In a futuristic world, you and your team rescue and care for stranded and hurt otherworldly beings; who are held captive and kept on Earth against their wills. Then one day, while on a rescue mission, you come across a human-like extraterrestrial being; in a cryogenic chamber, with a missing arm.

For The Love Of The Game @pellucid-constellations

Bucky Barnes was a menace. NYU’s top baseball player, he was used to girls falling at his feet and could smooth talk his way out of just about anything. You hated him. He couldn’t figure out why. So when the novelty of weekend parties and quick hookups finally wore off—and his feelings for you began to grow—he made it his mission to fix it. 

The Help @buckitybarnes

In which Stark thinks Bucky needs an assistant of some sort. However, Bucky thinks you’re unqualified. It looks like you’ve got your work cut out for you.

So This Is Love @ofstarsandvibranium

Your friend and roommate, Bucky, is a bit of an annoying fuckboy. He sleeps around as well as tries to be as annoying to you as possible. But here’s the thing: you don’t mind any of it.

Your Hands Have Made Some Good Mistakes @thenhewaswrongaboutme

Bucky has to spend six months locked up with a stranger.

Selfless Love @redgillan

A journey toward recovery and the story of a broken man falling in love with a woman.

Blush @noturgoffgf

You had a bet every day to make Bucky blush. You were doing so well until he started to fight back.

Finding Memories @justkending

Waking up with little to no memory of your past, and being saved by a group of individuals who call themselves heroes, sends a long time captive for a whirlwind trying to find some form of grounding in this world you quickly learn runs on chaos. But you’re not the only one trying to figure out your forgotten backstory. (Bucky Barnes x Enhanced!Reader)

ON GOING

Roar And Giggle @holylulusworld

He’s just the worst. Right? (Biker!Bucky x BookstoreOwner!Reader)

A Week To Fall In Love @creativebeang

A mission, feuds, an underground network, life in the suburbs and Bucky. What could go wrong, right? Wrong. (Bucky Barnes x Agent!Reader)

Little Bird @scrumptious-delusion

The adventures of Bucky and you, the sunshine agent assigned to work with him. (Grumpy!Bucky x Sunshine!Agent!Reader)

You’re Mine, Sunshine @theeleggymeggy

Bucky gets picked by a very rich and respected man to be his daughter's personal bodyguard. The Father warns him that it won't be an easy job, that she is a brat and difficult to deal with. But what happens when Bucky meets you and you're the complete opposite? (Grumpy!Bodyguard!Bucky x Sunshine!Reader)

[magical-reid]

Unknown Past (part 4 + epilogue)

Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Fem!Barnes!Reader (No use of Y/N, reader is referred as Mrs./Dr. Barnes)

Setting: Modern MCU timeline, Avengers Tower.

Perspective: Third Person Limited (Reader’s perspective).

Word Count: 1.5 K

This is a multi-part story inspired by my fic "Remembering James".

Life at Avengers Tower didn’t slow down, but for you, it felt like the world had shifted.

Bucky Barnes wasn’t just a teammate or a stranger with familiar eyes. He was your past, your husband, and the missing piece you’d spent years trying to find without even realizing it.

And now that you knew, things weren’t easier.

The memories came slowly, fragments of a life you could barely comprehend. They weren’t all good—there was the war, the fear, and the moment you’d said goodbye to him, not knowing if you’d ever see him again. But there was also warmth. Laughter. His arms around you in the dim light of a makeshift barracks, promising that no matter what happened, you’d find each other again.

You hadn’t believed him then. But he’d kept his promise.

─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ───

The Gala

The invitation had been Tony’s idea, though “invitation” might have been too polite a word.

“Mandatory attendance,” he’d announced during the morning briefing, waving an expensive-looking envelope. “Black tie. No exceptions.”

The idea of attending a Stark gala didn’t exactly thrill you, but Natasha had insisted, pulling you into her room to “help” you find a dress. By the time she was done, you barely recognized yourself.

The sleek black gown hugged your figure, the high slit revealing just enough leg to make you feel daring. Natasha had swept your hair into an elegant updo, leaving a few loose strands to frame your face.

“You look incredible,” she said, smirking as she handed you your dog tags. “Keep these on.”

You hesitated but eventually slipped them around your neck. They settled against your chest, their familiar weight grounding you.

When you entered the gala, the room fell away.

It wasn’t the glittering chandeliers or the sea of finely dressed guests that caught your attention—it was Bucky, leaning against the bar in a dark suit that fit him like a second skin.

He wasn’t just looking at you. He was staring.

Natasha nudged him as she sidled up beside him. “Careful,” she teased. “You’ll scare her off if you keep looking at her like that.”

“She’s wearing them,” he murmured, his voice thick with emotion.

“Dog tags?” Natasha asked, her sharp eyes narrowing. “Thought so. What’s the story there, Barnes?”

“Long one,” he said softly.

Natasha smirked. “You should tell her.”

You caught his eye, and this time, you didn’t look away. Slowly, you made your way across the room, your dress swaying with every step.

When you reached him, you tilted your head, a small smile playing at your lips. “Care to dance?”

He hesitated for only a moment before nodding. “Always.”

─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ───

The Dance

The music was slow, the kind that drew couples closer together. Bucky’s hand settled on your waist, his touch tentative at first, as if he thought you might vanish.

You placed your hand on his shoulder, your fingers brushing against the fabric of his suit. It was strange, dancing with him like this—strange, but familiar.

For a while, neither of you spoke. You simply moved together, swaying in time with the music.

“I remember,” you whispered finally, breaking the silence.

His breath hitched, and his steps faltered. “You… do?”

You nodded, your hand slipping from his shoulder to rest against his chest. “Not everything. But enough.”

He stared at you, his blue eyes searching your face. “What do you remember?”

You smiled faintly, your thumb brushing against the fabric of his shirt. “I remember the field hospital. The wedding. The way you always called me Doll.”

His hand tightened on your waist, and you could see the shine of unshed tears in his eyes. “I thought I’d lost you,” he murmured.

“You didn’t,” you said softly. “You found me.”

─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ───

The Morning After

The sunlight streaming through the windows was warm, a stark contrast to the cool morning air. You pulled Bucky’s shirt tighter around you as you padded into the kitchen, drawn by the smell of freshly brewed coffee.

Natasha was already there, sitting at the counter with a mug in hand. Her sharp eyes zeroed in on the wedding band now gleaming on your finger, and her smirk widened.

“Well,” she drawled, “looks like the happy couple had a good night.”

Before you could respond, Sam walked in, stopping dead in his tracks when he saw you. His gaze flicked between your rumpled appearance and the dog tags hanging openly around your neck.

“Oh, this is golden,” he said, bursting into laughter.

Steve followed close behind, coughing awkwardly into his hand. “Morning,” he said, carefully avoiding eye contact.

Bucky appeared a moment later, his hair a mess and a sheepish look on his face. He froze when he saw the room full of amused faces, then groaned, burying his face in his hands.

“Stop,” he muttered.

Natasha raised an eyebrow. “What? We’re happy for you.”

Bucky peeked out between his fingers, his cheeks flushed. “You’re enjoying this way too much.”

“Absolutely,” Natasha said without missing a beat.

You couldn’t help but laugh, leaning into Bucky’s side. He wrapped an arm around you instinctively, his fingers brushing against the dog tags that still hung from your neck.

For the first time in decades, everything felt right.

And this time, he wasn’t letting go.

─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ───

Epilogue:

The cabin wasn’t exactly quiet, but it was peaceful.

Birdsong filtered through the open windows, mingling with the soft rustle of leaves in the breeze. You could hear Sam and Steve arguing over something in the distance—probably who was worse at chopping wood—and Natasha’s low laughter as she egged them on.

Inside, the fire crackled warmly in the hearth, filling the room with a comforting glow.

You leaned against the kitchen counter, cradling a mug of tea in your hands as you watched Bucky fuss with an old, battered photo album on the dining table. He was quiet, his expression soft as he carefully turned the pages.

“Found it,” he said finally, holding the album up with a triumphant grin.

You walked over, setting your mug down as you slid into the chair beside him. He flipped the album open to a faded black-and-white photograph, the edges worn with time.

It was the two of you, standing arm-in-arm outside a church somewhere in Brooklyn. Your dress was simple but elegant, and Bucky was in his military uniform, his smile wide and a little crooked.

“God,” you whispered, your fingers brushing the page. “I forgot how young we were.”

Bucky chuckled, the sound low and warm. “We were kids,” he said, shaking his head. “Didn’t have a clue what we were doing.”

You leaned into him, your shoulder brushing his. “But we did it anyway.”

He turned to look at you, his eyes filled with something deep and unshakable. “We’ll get it right this time,” he said softly.

You nodded, a small smile tugging at your lips. “Yeah. We will.”

─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ───

The Grave

Later that afternoon, the two of you walked down the winding path through the woods, your hands intertwined.

The small cemetery came into view as you rounded the bend, its weathered headstones standing sentinel in the clearing.

Bucky led you to a particular grave near the edge, where the shade of an old oak tree offered shelter. The headstone was simple, but the name engraved on it made your chest tighten:

[Your Full Name]

1920 – 1943

You knelt down, your fingers grazing the stone as you tried to reconcile the name with the person you were now.

“They told me you’d died,” Bucky said quietly, his voice thick with emotion. “When I saw it all over the papers—‘Nurse Killed in Field Hospital Bombing.’ I thought—” He broke off, shaking his head. “I didn’t think there was any chance you survived.”

“I guess Hydra had other plans,” you murmured bitterly.

He crouched beside you, his metal hand brushing your shoulder. “I’m sorry,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper. “For everything you went through. For all the years we lost.”

You turned to him, your hand covering his. “It wasn’t your fault,” you said firmly. “And we’ve got time now. That’s what matters.”

He nodded, his jaw tight as he looked back at the grave. “You’re not her anymore,” he said after a moment. “Not exactly. But you’re still my wife.”

Your throat tightened, but you smiled through it. “And you’re still my James.”

─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ───

The Future

As the sun dipped lower in the sky, painting the horizon in shades of gold and crimson, the two of you made your way back to the cabin.

The others were gathered on the porch, laughing and teasing as Sam triumphantly held up a perfectly split log. Steve rolled his eyes, but there was a smile tugging at his lips. Natasha sat on the steps, polishing one of her knives as she watched them with a faint smirk.

Bucky’s hand tightened around yours as you approached.

“You ready?” he asked softly.

You looked up at him, taking in the way the setting sun turned his hair to bronze and cast warm shadows across his face. There was still pain there, still scars from all you’d been through, but there was also hope.

“I’m ready,” you said, your voice steady.

Because this time, you weren’t just surviving. You were living.

Together.

[neverinadream]

i see you (fl)

summary: leftovers send you to ptmc, where you become frank's patient for the night

pairing: frank langdon x fem!reader // earl kerrigan (male!oc) x fem!reader

word count: 2.9k+

warnings: minors dni, slow burn - very big on the slow burn, domestic abuse (please do not read if this is a theme that is triggering for you), blood, parental death, one mention of the reader wishing for earl's death, it's a little rushed but its more of a quick filler chapter for future parts to come,

part one / part three

a/n: yeah, it took me way too long to write more of this, and truthfully i got distracted by abbot. as already stated, this is just a little filler chapter for future parts, might make it a mini series if it's wanted. it's not the best work i've done. feedback is always grateful!!!

A month passes by, but nothing really changes for you.

Most days, you go to and from work, welcomed home either by Earl's unsavoury attempts to initiate sex, or his demands for dinner and a fresh beer. When you are at work, you tend to your patients, silently celebrate the wins, and mourn your losses.

Trips down to the Pitt were less frequent. Frank had respected your wishes, but you would be lying if there wasn't a part of you that missed it. Most of the time, the patients came in with problems and ailments that weren't your speciality of care. A fork skewered through the centre of someone's hand, because they were eating with someone who wasn't in the mood to share. An object accidentally lodged up in a place it shouldn't be, because they accidentally slipped in the shower, or just sat on it. The best ones were the ones that couldn't be explained, phenomena that puzzled even the smartest of doctors and nurses.

You also missed the stories Frank would tell you about his boys, the adventures - they were always referred to as adventures to make them seem more interesting when Frank spoke about them - he’d been dragged on. The boys were sweethearts and there was no doubt that Frank was a great dad.

It was refreshing to see a dad who put in the effort when you were raised by a man who had to be reminded that he was in fact one.

Tonight’s welcome home was no different to last night's.

Earl sat in front of the TV, already shouting and slurring his words, as NFL players ran up and down the screen, a blur of oranges, greens, blues and whites filling the space. He reaches for the brown bottle on the coffee table, his meaty fingers knocking over one of the many empty ones that litter the table. He curses under his breath, before taking a large gulp of the cheap alcohol you knew he would've purchased on his way home.

You dreaded to think about the amount of money Earl wasted every month on booze alone.

There was no “hello” when Earl heard the front door open and close. He didn't look away from the game, or make an effort to get off the sofa. And you were grateful for it.

Quietly, you take off your shoes and hang your coat up, your bag joining it on the same peg. Next to it was Earl's work coat, smelling of dirt and cement. On the floor, his work boots were discarded messily, with one tipped onto its side, splattered with dried mud and dust. You kneel and straighten them, not wanting Earl to find an excuse to accuse you of not keeping the house clean and tidy.

“I'm home,” you announce yourself quietly, popping your head into the living room. You're met with a hissing sound, Earl's big, grubby hand shooing you away. “Sorry,” you quickly apologise, before going to the kitchen.

You open the fridge, sighing at its lack of variety for you to choose from. Hell would freeze over before Earl would go out of his way to willingly buy groceries, so it would have to be your priority on your next day off.

You grab the left over slice of chicken pot pie, a few depressing looking carrots, and knock the door close with your hip. From the freezer, you grab a half empty bag of frozen peas. It was no different to what Earl had the night before, but if he was drunk enough, he wouldn't notice.

You empty some of the peas into a small saucepan, covering them with water, before skinning and chopping the carrots, adding them to the same pan and putting them on to boil.

Earl's hand grabs the doorframe, holding himself up as he finally peels himself off the sofa. Heavy footsteps stumble your way, the smell of beer already meeting your nose; it entices the caesar salad you had for lunch to make an appearance, but you ignore the churning of your stomach and continue with dinner.

“You haven't showered yet?” Earl recalls away from you with a look of disgust, the warmth of his breath on the back of your neck enough to revolt you.

“I'm sorry,” you apologise again. It wasn't like Earl smelt any better than you did after twelve hours at the hospital, but you knew it was best not to say that out loud. “I thought it would be best to get dinner done first,” you say, making an excuse for yourself.

“What is it?”

“I-It's leftover chicken pot pie,” you stutter, checking to see if the pie slice had warmed up enough in the microwave.

“Leftovers?” The hairs on your skin stand on end from the shift in his tone. “Am I only good enough for leftovers now?” He shuffles closer. “Huh? Well?”

“No-”

“Then why am I eating leftovers?” He cuts you off.

Hesitantly, you glance over your shoulder. “I haven't had time to go grocery shopping yet. I’m sorry, Earl.” His mouth twists into a scowl and you flitch just at the sight of it. Nothing good ever came after he scowled like that. “I-I promise I'll pick some up tomorrow,” you rush out, trying to appease him. “I'll even try to see if I can leave early, so I won't be late home.”

“And what about today? Huh?!” Earl asks, getting louder. He stares down at the plate of leftover pie. “I have been working my ass off all day long! In this god awful fuckin’ heat, with my shitty boss breathing down my neck, all because I showed up to work late, which wasn't even my fuckin’ fault-!”

“I know, Earl.”

“-And you're gonna feed me this crap?!”

“It's chicken pot pie. It’s your favourite.”

Your reply is quick, but too quick for Earl's liking. “You better watch how you speak to me,” he warns, one finger pointing accusingly at you.

You lower your eyes to the floor, focusing on his old socks; there was a small hole on his left heel, and you were surprised he hadn't found a way to blame you for that yet.

He seizes the hot plate in his hand, shoving it in front of your face. “You want me to eat this? Would you eat this?”

“I don't like it,” you whisper, not looking up out of fear he'll think you're looking at him in the wrong way.

“I didn't ask if you like it or not!” He shouts, spit hitting your cheek. You recall away, flinching at the boom of his voice, but he grabs your wrist with his free hand, squeezing hard as he yanks your forward. It hurts but you don't make a sound. The pie was now under your nose, the warm edge of the plate pressed into your cheek “Would you be happy to eat this crap after working as hard as I do?!”

You shake your head. It's the only answer you know he wants to hear.

“I'm not eating this shit.”

He drops the plate, ensuring that he doesn't have to. It hits the ground, cracking into pieces. The pie comes apart on impact, with its innards becoming a mushy, messy concoction of creamy chicken, small pieces of vegetables, and fragments of the plate.

He turns and grabs a fresh beer from the fridge, popping the cap off with a grunt. He takes a sip, belching. “Pull that shit again and I'll make you eat it off the floor,” Earl threatens, and you know not to take his threats lightly. “Clean this shit up.”

“What about your dinner?” You ask quietly, your voice just above a whisper.

“I'll have to order a pizza,” he mumbles, “at least I can trust them not to get it wrong.”

You wait and listen, holding your breath, waiting for the familiar creaking of the worn-out leather dipping under Earl's weight before you let the silent tears fall. They wet your cheeks and you taste their saltiness on your top lip. This was no one's fault but your own, you tell yourself. You should've stopped by Dennie's Diner and picked up some of that apple pie Earl really liked. Maybe then he wouldn't have been so angry about eating leftovers. It definitely would've made up for being late, had you gone.

That's what you would do tomorrow, you make a mental note. That should make up for tonight’s mistake.

“Shit,” you curse under your breath, something sharp silencing through your palm. You were too lost in your thoughts to realise you had knelt down to begin cleaning Earl's mess.

Blood drips through your clenched hand as Earl shouts nonsense at the TV. There was no use in calling out to him. He wouldn't care. He would tell you to grow up, to stop being a baby, and then proceed to drunkenly slur his way through a story that paints him in a better light.

Unclenching your hand, you wince at the deep slash across your palm. A tear drops onto your hand and mixes with your blood, something about it making the queasiness return, and you quickly look away.

Grabbing the dishcloth, you tie it around your hand, securing it tightly, before going back to cleaning up the smashed plate and pie. This time you would be more careful picking out the broken pieces.

Coughing, groans, cries of pain, and the occasional complaint about waiting times, was the soundtrack of the hospital’s ED waiting room. People took up chairs, stood with their noses in their phones, or stood, slumped against walls. Most come in with something trivial like a tickly cough they just can't seem to shake and waste their day, and sometimes their night, just waiting to be seen.

You stand in line behind a tall man, with broad shoulders that nearly obscure your view of the front of the line. He's got his arm wrapped up with a strip of material, blotched with blood. It looked like someone had ripped their shirt to make the MacGyver-like bandage, which would probably explain his shirtless friend next to him. They both laugh loudly over something on a phone, and you roll your eyes, already guessing it was something stupid and immature that had landed him here tonight.

You turn away as he gives his details to the receptionist, and half-smile at a young girl waiting with her mom, an iPad sitting on her lap, and her thumb stuck in her mouth. She smiles around her thumb, before going back to whatever cartoon was playing on the screen.

“Name?” Carla, the night shift receptionist, asks, as you reach the front of the cue. You give your name and her eyes pan up from the computer confused. “Sweetie, what are you doing here?”

“Had an accident at home,” you reply, the dishcloth around your hand now thoroughly bled through.

Her mouth twists into a frown. “We better get that looked at straight away,” she says, nodding for you to come through. “Langdon will see you.”

“Langdon?” Your feet don't budge. “Why's Frank working the night shift?”

Carla shrugs. “Pulling a double, from what I've heard.”

Frank appears in the corner of your eyes, dressed in his usual scrubs, the edge of a navy t-shirt peaking out from behind the collar. His hair is slightly askew at the front, like he had been running his fingers through it all day. He's holding his stethoscope with both hands, a half-smile/half-frown plastered on his face. “Ready?” He just asks, and you nod, keeping quiet as you follow him through into one of the cubicles.

“How did this happen then?” Frank asks, pulling on a pair of gloves. His touch is gentle, untying the knot and removing the bloodied cloth. The bleeding had stopped but you still wince and recall back as he inspects the area.

“Cut myself cleaning up a broken plate,” you tell him, keeping your eyes lowered to your lap. “Wasn't paying enough attention.”

He looks up at you. “A broken plate?”

“It was my fault.”

“You don't have to lie to me, Y/N-”

“I'm not lying,” you cut him off, your eyes meeting him as you lift them away from your lap. “It was my fault.”

He opens his mouth and then closes it, trying to find the right words to say. But there's nothing to say to you that he hasn't already said. The offer was still there, even if he knew you weren't ready to accept the help. Unable to find them, he goes quiet and turns his attention back to your hand. A few strands of hair fall forwards over his eyes as he faces his head down, becoming a barrier he could take subtle glances at you through.

Your heart was too kind to be wasted on a man as cruel as Earl. He blinks the thought away.

Frank removes his dirty gloves a few minutes later. “Good news, I don't think you’ll need surgery. It should heal without it. Have you taken anything for the pain?”

You shake your head. “But I'm fine, I don't need it.”

“You sure?”

“Why are you pulling a double?” You ask instead of answering him. “Carla mentioned you were."

“Eh, “ Frank hesitates, hands hovering in the air, momentarily stopped as he wraps your hand, “Ellis needed someone to cover her shift.”

If you remembered correctly, Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays were Frank's days with the boys. “It's Thursday.”

For a brief moment, there's a flash of warmth across Frank's face, and he shows you a smile. “The extra hours will do me some good,” he says, turning your hand over, inspecting the bandage and admiring his work. “Tanner's birthday's coming up.”

He rolls the stool back, swiping his card as he straightens up in front of the computer, and you turn your attention to the posters on the walls. How would you rate your pain from 1 to 10? Reminders to fill out a patient care satisfaction questionnaire. How and where to get flu shots and how to stay up to date with them. All the usual stuff.

“Is, uh, is Earl waiting for you? I didn't see you with anyone in the waiting room,” Frank says, flicking his eyes your way. He watches the way you chew your bottom and how your brows furrowed as you slowly opened and closed your hand. He knew the signs of pain when he lived with them himself. “Are you sure you don't want any pain relief?”

“No,” you shake your head, “and Earl isn't waiting for me.” The cute cartoon bunny on a poster about vaccinations loses your attention as you pan your eyes across to Frank. “He doesn't know I'm here.”

If you were lucky, he would already be passed out, drooling and stinking of beer on the living room couch.

You tell yourself it's too cruel to wish for it, but some days, when the beatings are at their worst, on the nights you find yourself curled into a ball on the bathroom floor, one hand over your mouth to hold back the sobs, you wanted him to drink himself to such a state that when he eventually did pass out, he didn't wake up.

“He doesn't know you're here?” His jaw ticks. “Why not? I think if you were my girlfriend, I'd like to know if you were in the hospital.” The words flow off his lips like water, too slippery to be stopped. “I mean,” he clears his throat, his cheeks turning a crimson shade of red, "If my girlfriend was in the hospital, I would like to know.”

Half-shrugging, you cross your ankles. “It was just easier if he didn't come. He doesn't like hospitals.”

“More like it would be easier for you to lie for both of you,” Frank mumbles beneath his breath. He pins you with a look. “Go on, tell me again that this was your fault.”

You fire him a glare. “Earl didn't cut me.”

“But I bet my next paycheck he was the one who broke it.”

“Are we done here, Doctor Langdon?” Not Frank. Not Frankie. And certainly not just Langdon. “You have a waiting room full of people and I would like to get home.”

“Just…Just answer me one question,” he props his hands on hips, ready to accept defeat, once again, “why won't you leave him?”

“Because he would never let me.”

“That's not up to him, Y/N,” Frank replies, a little in disbelief that someone as smart as yourself would fall for such nonsense. “That's not his decision to make.”

You adjust the strap of your bag and fix the end of your top. There was a spot of blood on the hem and you rub your thumb against it.

“Then you've never met Earl,” you scoff a few seconds later.

Put him in front of a judge and he could probably sweet talk them into letting him go a free man. Earl was violent and cruel after a few beers, but when he was sober, he was cold and manipulative. He would never miss a chance to guilt trip you with the reminder that he was the one who took you in when your mama died and your dad took himself to a grave with a bottle of whiskey.

His words kept you on a tight lease and the beatings kept you quiet and submissive.

“I really hope I don't,” Frank whispers, watching you leave.

tagging: @livinginastory @gruffle1 @hadesnumber1daughter @ay0nha

[neverinadream]

i see you (fl)

summary: when langdon's suspicions are found to be true, he tries in his own way to make you see that you deserve better. but it doesn't mean he's successful.

pairing: frank langdon x fem!reader / earl kerrigan (male!oc) x fem!reader

word count: 3k+

warnings: domestic abuse (only verbal abuse is shown but physical abuse is discussed) so please take this as your warning before deciding to read this, angst, doctor!reader, divorced!frank, mentions of blood, vomit and stitches, alcohol, patient loss, not edited...

a/n: and today i'm bad at summaries. thank you to the wonderful person who requested this, i'm not sure if this is any good though, i tried my best to keep it to how we discussed. thank you to everyone who interacted with my first langdon fic, truly means a lot. and thank you for 4,000 followers!! i am opened to writing a second part to this if anyone wants it, but anyway enjoy!!

If asked, most people would probably say their favourite day of the week was Friday. For some, it's the end of their work week. For most, it's the start of a weekend and an opportunity to relax. But if you were asked, Tuesday was your favourite day of the week.

On Tuesdays, Earl spent his evenings drinking and playing poker with friends. It meant he wasn't waiting for you at home. There were no empty beer bottles for you to clean away. No show about fishing on the TV, or Earl shouting as his favourite football team loses. You hate it the most when you come home to the shouting. He wasn't demanding a kiss every other minute, getting pushy when you refused or said you were too tired. A kiss would make his bad day go away, would always be his excuse, with 'don't you want me to be happy?' thrown on the end to make you feel guilty. No nausea-inducing smell of rank beer and cheap cologne didn't come when it was time for bed. Instead, Earl would come in and pass out on the couch, for which you would be blamed in the morning.

Tonight, you were taking extra advantage of the situation, the bench beneath your thighs cold through your jeans, as you joined a few of the Pitt nurses and doctors for a drink. Donnie passes you a can and you return his smile, taking it from him. After this, you would go home, eat something that you wanted, take a long soak in the bath, and fall practically asleep.

“So, you do this most nights?” You quizz them, eyes darting between Donnie, Jesse and Robby, who all sat across from you.

“Sometimes,” Jesse mumbles over the lip of his can.

“Tonight especially,” Robby adds. You had heard the Pitt had admitted a particularly hard case earlier in the afternoon. The patient didn't make it, hitting everyone hard.

"And you're more than welcome to join us," Perlah extends the permanent invite, reaching into the cool box.

You nod and stay silent. She was being kind, and you didn't want to throw it back in her face by lying. Earl wouldn't let you.

“Finally finished saying goodnight to the kids then?” Mateo says to a new arrival and you look to your left to find Frank approaching, one hand keeping his backpack on his shoulder. “They have you wrapped around their finger,” he jokes, handing him a can.

“Don't I know it,” Frank agrees, before his eyes flicker to you. He gives you a half-smile and you tip your can in his direction. It was your way of showing him a white flag for today's mishap.

As smaller conversations form, Frank shrugs off his backpack, tucking it between his feet, sitting himself down next to you. He pulls back the tap and takes a sip, eyebrows drawing together as he inspects the can. It was a little fruity. Definitely Donnie's turn to pick up the beer.

“Hey, so about earlier-”

It all happens so suddenly. Whitaker falling in the hall, no familiar yellow of a wet floor sign to warn him about the puddle vomit that had been recently cleaned up. He lands painfully on his back with a harsh groan, drawing the attention of nurses, doctors and patients alike. His coffee cup shatters on impact, the sound of it breaking causing you to flinch, shoulders drawn together as you brace yourself for what usually came after Earl had thrown a glass, or smashed his plate to the ground.

“Huckleberry down!” Trinity cheers in the distance, her voice muffled as blood pumps in your ears.

Taking a deep breath, you familiarise yourself with your surroundings. Sterile white walls. Beeping machines. The bustle of doctors and nurses moving around you. No Earl. No shouting. No blame game. No balled up fist or open palm coming for you. You were safe.

“Dr Y/L/N?”

You jerk back at Frank's hand on your shoulder, eyes flicking to the ground, hiding your pain as he catches a new bruise, and missing the flash of confusion in his as he slowly draws his hand back.

“We'll have you bloods, uh, we'll have them sent off for some tests,” Frank picks up from where you abruptly stopped. He glances again in your direction, clocking the way you were fixing your sleeves, making sure they were pulled down over your wrists. “Hopefully then we'll know what's been troubling you, Mr Dutton.”

“How long is that going to take?” The patient, Mr Dutton, a thirty either year old workaholic, with a family medical history unfortunately dotted with heart failure, asks. He had his nose stuck in his phone, not bothering to look up at either you or Frank.

“You should make yourself comfortable,” you reply, your shoulders finally relaxing. “Maybe contact your boss-”

“I am the boss,” he snaps, agitated.

Your fingers flex and curl into your hand, nails digging into the soft flesh of your palm. “I apologise,” you mumble, sweeping your eyes over Mr Dutton and down to the ground.

“We'll be back to check on you later,” Frank tells him, stepping away from the patient.

You follow behind, taking slow steps, watching a cleaner sweep up the broken pieces of Whitaker’s broken cup. That had been you two nights ago, cleaning up the jagged shards of another broken beer bottle. Earl blaming you for another team loss and asking why you just couldn't get it right anymore.

Frank quickly turns, his hand gentle on your elbow leading you into a corner of the hall. One of the nurses catches it and points it out to another, but Dana shoos them off before more could be said.

“Hey,” he looks you in the eyes, concern morphing his features, “are you okay?”

You look down at the spot where his hand meets your arm. It had been awhile since someone had touched you out of kindness, you had almost forgotten what it felt like.

“I'm fine.”

“You sure?” His hand lingers for a second and then drops. “You seemed a little rattled back there.”

“Just got surprised, that's all,” you lie. These days, it was much easier to lie. "Frank, I'm fine." You try your best to play it off with a laugh, but its nothing more than a short puff of air. "Seriously."

He studies your face, looking for a way in. That one subtle hint of a lie. Trepidation sinks in his gut because there's nothing. He's met with a blank slate. No emotion. None of that hopeful light in your eyes he remembered from when you both met. He'd seen that same look in the eyes of patients who would swear that they had walked into a door or just tripped down the stairs. That their partners love them.

“But you'd tell me if there was something wrong?” Your fingers playing with the ends of your sleeve catch his eyes. Long sleeves were a constant part of your wardrobe, even when it was an ungodly degree outside. “You wear them to hide the bruises, right?” The question slips out under his breath, and he's thinking back to a few weeks ago when he was introducing you to Dr King, the bruises on your wrist exposed by your risen sleeve as you shook her hand. “The ones Earl probably gives you?”

“I don't know what you're talking about.” Your jaw ticks. “Just let me know when Mr Dutton's results come back.”

“Listen-” You flinch as he reaches to grab your arm and he quickly backs off, a guilt washing over him. “-if Earl is-”

“Earl,” you take a breath, “Earl would never lift a finger against me, okay? He loves me.”

“And how many times have we heard someone say that?”

You lift a hand, silencing him. “Just let me know when Mr Dutton's results are back.”

You turn and walk away, Frank watching until you round a corner and leave his sight. His mouth was too big for his own sake, he thinks, groaning as he scratches one hand through his hair.

“What was that about, kid?” Dana asks. She had been watching them both from the nurses' station, coffee cup paused in front of her lips, trying to read their bodies.

Frank sighs, shaking his head. “Just a disagreement about a patient,” he lies, putting the pad back on the rack.

Dana frowns, instinctively passing him the half-empty can of Red Bull. “That's not like you two.” You were a good pair to find working together in the Pitt. You put up with Frank's smart mouth more than most would.

He shrugs. “Say, have you ever met Earl?” He knew prying into your life behind your back was wrong, but he needed to know if anyone else had picked up on his suspicions.

“Unfortunately.” He leans forward, propping himself up on the station with his elbows, his silence inviting her to elaborate. “He came in a few months ago-”

“A real gentleman that one,” Princess interjects, turning her head to them. Perlah nods, agreeing with her.

He nods to the nurse. “What happened?”

“Go on, Dana,” Princess says, “tell him.”

“Well aren't you a breath of fresh air on this dismal day,” Dana greets you as you make your way towards the nurses’ station. “You good, kid?”

You nod, showing her a partial smile.

There wasn't much happening upstairs. Your usual patients were having a good day. Even Mr Morgan was smiling, which was a rare occurrence these days. He was a sweet man turned bitter by the loneliness of losing his wife three years ago. The youngest patient on the ward had her seventh birthday, so the doctors and nurses had been treated to cake. And with the absence of Langdon in the Pitt, you weren't being paged for consults.

“There's still time.” She stepped out from behind the station, one arm hugging around your shoulders. “So, what do you need?”

“McKay paged me about a patient with a head injury.”

“A head injury?” Dana was just as surprised as you were. “Maybe she thinks there's something else going on with the patient?”

You shrug. “Maybe.”

“She's in 15. Come, I'll walk with you.” She gives your shoulder a soft squeeze. “Say, are you free next Saturday?”

“For you? I can be.”

“Ah! Good,” she smiles, pulling you in tighter. “A bunch of us are gonna get together around noon, having a little picnic, you know, just enjoy the little free time we have off. Bring your boyfriend; it'll be nice to finally put a face to the name.”

Your smile doesn't reach your eyes as you nod your head at Dina's request. “I'll try.”

She left after that, leaving you to pull back the curtain to reveal Dr McKay, one of the med students you knew as Whitaker, and- Your gut sinks.

“Earl?”

“Finally!” He jerks back as Whitaker tries to remove the dressing from his head. “Watch it, kid!”

“I, uh, I need to take a look to see if you'll need stitches,” Whitaker stumbles through his words, made uneasy by the scowl etched on Earl's face. “It'll only take a few seconds.”

“Earl, what are you doing here?” You step wearily to the end of the bed, Earl's muddy work boots already leaving a stain on the white sheets.

“I've come for a spa day! What does it look like, woman?” You flinch as he spits the words at you, rolling his eyes. “For a doctor, you ask some pretty stupid questions.” His steely eyes flick to Whitaker. “Well? Are you gonna check it or not?”

Whitaker swallows, nodding his head, before jumping in to peel back the bloodied piece of dressing.

“Earl had a fall at work,” McKay informs you, taking her eyes off Whitaker to look at you. She subtly raises her left eyebrow and quickly glances at Earl like she was trying to ask if you were okay. You nod and walk to Earl’s side. “What's the decision, Whitaker? Will Earl need stitches?”

“Yes.” A low groan of pain pierces Earl's lips and Whitaker offers up a sympathetic smile. “I’m sorry, Mr-”

“Earl!” He grits out between clenched teeth. “Mr Kerrigan was my father and I sure as shit ain't him.”

You briefly close your eyes and silently pray that he wouldn't break into a well rehearsed speech about how he was ten times the better man than his father was. Usually performed when he was too drunk to see over the end of his nose. You swallow a sigh of relief when it doesn't come.

“Why weren't you wearing your hat?” You ask, touching his wrist, hoping to offer some comfort, but he just rips it away.

“Do I come here and tell you how to do your job?”

“No,” you whisper your apology, “I'm sorry, Earl.” Never baby. Never sweetheart. Just Earl. He didn't want any of that ‘sappy shit.’ “I'm sorry.”

McKay clears her throat, her hands folding in front of herself. “It won't take long for Whitaker to apply the stitches.” Earl hisses painfully through his teeth. “But you will need to stay for a little longer for observations. Just so we can make sure that there isn't anything else wrong with you.”

“They're just doing their jobs,” you mumble, trying to defuse the tension in his shoulders. His jaw ticks and the scowl remained, but the annoyance in his eyes dropped. “Thank you,” you look at both McKay and Whitaker, and they return small half-smiles.

“Let me know if you need anything else.” McKay squeezes your hand. “Anything.”

You squeeze her hand back and nod, a chill settling in your bones as you look at Earl.

“Don't look at me like that!” He snaps after McKay draws the curtain shut. “I ain't dying! The Legend of Earl lives on to see another day!”

“And McKay told you all of this?”

Dana nods her head. “You going somewhere with this?” She raises her concern.

“I don't know.”

He turns his head down, pausing to think. It was one thing to have his own suspicions, but it was another thing for him to spread them. If you were a patient who had come into the hospital, he'd feel obligated to report his suspicions, so why not with a friend?

“You don't think something could be happening between them?”

Dana frowns. “Like what?” She crosses her arms over her chest, one hand tucked under her armpit, the other curled around her bicep. “What are you trying to say, kid?”

Frank gives her a look. “You know exactly what I'm trying to say,” he says, lowering his voice. This only needed to be between him and her. He wasn't blind to how much gossip the nurses could spread. “McKay's never been wrong when she catches a ‘vibe,’ a few weeks ago, I saw bruises on her wrists, and just now, I haven't seen someone flinch like the way she flinched at Whitaker’s cup breaking.” His face softens, a sadness filling his eyes. “It's like she was waiting for something else to happen.”

“This is a serious allegation.”

“So, what should I do?”

“Nothing.” Dana shakes her head as he tries to talk. “Look, I see that you're coming from a good place, but stuff like this is sensitive, okay? You've got to be sensible about it. You can't just barge in, all guns ablaze, you know?” She touches his arm, giving him a comforting squeeze. “When the time comes, she's gonna need some friends she can turn to, and you want to be one of those friends, right?”

Frank sighs. “Of course. But she deserves better than that.”

Dana nods, again. “I know, kid.”

“Don't apologise,” you interrupt, meeting wide eyes as you look to your side. He had half expected you to put up another fight, but you were too tired tonight. “Walk me down to the end of the street?”

“Sure.” He nods, grabbing his backpack strap and looping it over his shoulder. “We’re gonna head off,” he announces, unfolding from the bench, all eyes on you as you do the same. Robby nods and tips his drink at both of you, and the others all say their goodbyes, falling back into their conversations as you both walk away.

You tip your head back and gaze up at the stars as you walk quietly in peace at Frank's side. “The stars are beautiful tonight. They make me think of my mama.” Glancing down at your feet, your mouth twists. “Sorry, I don't know why I told you that.”

Frank frowns. “Don't be sorry,” he gives you a soft nudge with his elbow, “carry on; tell me about her.”

“Uh, well, whenever daddy was in one of his moods, she’d take me outside and we would look up at the stars.” A soft smile etches across your lips remembering the good that often mingled with the bad when you thought about home. “She liked to play this game where we would guess the names of the stars. They were so silly.”

“That one,” he points up, picking the brightest star he could see, “what would she call it?”

Stopping, you look up and think. “The…Unhappy Trident. It's unhappy because Poseidon didn't pick it.”

Frank chuckles. “Sad, but I like it.”

Your eyes fall back down to your feet. Mama would be so disappointed if she could see you now. Tied to a man no better than daddy. Forgetting all about your promise to her, that you would find someone who would make you truly happy, and not just happy enough, like daddy had done for her.

“Why are you with him?” The million dollar question.

“He wasn't always like this.”

“Yes, I'm sure he was a real charmer,” he mumbles, rolling his eyes.

“Tell me again why you're divorced?” You wince. “I'm sorry,” you apologise, “that wasn't fair.”

“No, you're right,” he nods, fixing his backpack, “in the end, I wasn't a great husband to Abby, but I would've never hurt her the way Earl hurts you. You deserve better than him.”

His voice is soft and coated in warmth, something in it appealing to you, but you push it down.

You laugh, the sound short, snappy, almost self-deprecating. “I don’t think anyone would want me.”

He tilts his head, looking you in your sad eyes. “I can think of someone.” He sighs as you drag your eyes away; you never looked at him for more than a few seconds, always darting thrm somewhere else. “We are here to help you-”

“Who is ‘we’?” Your eyes snap back up, cutting him off. “Who have you been talking to?”

“Just Dana.”

“Just Dana?”

His face falls apologetically. “I haven't told her anything, not really, but I'm not the only one who knows what he's doing to you, okay? I have a couch you can crash on until you find somewhere better. Dana has a spare room. There's help there if you would just accept it."

“I don't need your help, or Dana's, or anyone else's,” you say, a lump the size of Pittsburgh had lodged itself inside your throat. “I can deal with Earl on my own.”

“And how's that working out for you, huh? He doesn't love you. You're just his punching bag, Y/N!”

You recall, taken aback by the bluntness of his voice. Never had you been on the receiving end of it and it stung worse than you could've imagined.

“I didn't mean for it to sound like that,” he tries to apologise.

“No, I think you meant for it to sound exactly like that,” you disagree. “I think we should just keep our relationship strictly professional, from now on.”

“No, wait-!”

“Goodnight, Dr Langdon!”

He turns to grab you but you're too far out of his reach, storming down the street.

“Well done,” he mumbles, tipping his head back, the breeze light on his face, “you really fucked that up. Again.”

tagging: @livinginastory

[mercvry-glow]

ミ★ 𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐲'𝐬 𝐦𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭★彡

𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐩𝐢𝐭𝐭:

ミ★ jack abbot

busy bee - you and your son take a visit to the ptmc due to a little bee sting 🐝

where we fit - park day with the abbot family (part two of busy bee)

love me hard love me soft - jack abbott is softer than most people think

all that glitters - jack's spoiled wifey flaunts her phat diamond ring

all that gleams (18+) - everyone seems to be hitting on you tonight, and your husband doesn't seem to appreciate all of the attention you're getting (part two of all that glitters)

you, me, and the empty space between us - in which jack finally sees you

break in the system - your son comes in with a tbi and you can't help him

get your sparkle on - jack's wife is a cheer coach who takes a little tumble and he becomes the #1 cheer husband!

stop making this hurt - you're hurt at pitt fest and jack couldn't do anything to help you

hey lover - you know most of the ed doesn't like you, but that doesn't matter because jack does

it's never over - after a fight with jack you go clubbing and the worst thing imaginable happens

stubborn love - you take your son to pitt fest and deal with the consequences of that

staying is harder than leaving - you'll never understand what brings you back to jack abbot, all you know is that you want to stay

ミ★ michael "robby" robinavitch

stay with me - you experience a traumatic birth with your husband by your side

a girls guide to shopping - after fighting with a teen over a pair of panties and losing, you fight with robby in the er

ミ★ frank langdon

best of wives - frank loves his wife, but does robby love his little sister more?

friendly competition - you and your husband compete for best doctor in the langdon household

𝐚𝐧𝐢𝐦𝐚𝐥 𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐝𝐨𝐦:

ミ★ andrew "pope" cody

back again - pope makes an unexpected appearance at your house after 3 years in jail

in the cool blue - (based off of season 2x6) you're in the house when javi breaks in looking to kill smurf

want and need (18+) - you’re tired of pope staring at you, still thinking you’re a kid

mercvry-glow 2025

[witchbitchlovesdilfs]

Fic Recs (my absolute favorites)

Give the authors some love!

Jack Abbot

*america's sweetheart by @abbotjack

*dr daddy by @aquaholicsanonymousworld

*gimme more by @punkgeekcryptid

*the good girl confessions series by @jacksabbots

*gym crush by @bitters-n-sweets

*hints by @somanyideassolittletime

*mad about you by @lauraneedstochill

*rusty by @stellamarielu

*smut by @docrobinavitch

*the night after by @bitters-n-sweets

*was it ever fake? by @bitters-n-sweets

Michael Robinavitch

*anklet drabble by @robbyology

*I'm okay by @randompiecesofwriting

*michael robinavitch x spicy polaroids on your wedding day by @science-hoes

Frank Langdon

*like a stone by @stethosc0pe

Pope Cody

*cold comfort for change by @erwinsvow

*just friends by @thatcorporategirlie

*show me by @flofaiiry

*smut by @gooutsidenerd

Bucky Barnes

*hungry like a wolf by @witchywithwhiskey

*if we talked by @pellucid-constellations

*you, unblurred by @buckyseternaldoll

Frank Castle

*just once by @eupheme

Daryl Dixon

*under the weather (or literally anything) by @b1eedthefreak

[passionwillow]

Your camera roll while dating Frank Langdon 🩷

[lemonpeppermintstickshift]

white lie - f. langdon x fem!reader

summary: you and frank have always been on opposing sides, but one day when a patient becomes too handsy with you, frank lets out a little white lie to save you.

warnings: SMUT (minors dni, 18+ only), not very explicit smut but smut nonetheless, plot with a sprinkle of porn towards the end (still, minors fuck off), patient grabs your arm, cursing, stereotypical pitt gore, no use of y/n, asshole idiots in love, frank has no kids, angst if you squint?, bad medical terminology/logic but let's be real you're not here for that.

author's note: i lied she's here early! this took seven years off of my life but i hope you enjoy :,) my attempt at something with a bit more plot

wc: 6k

The Pittsburg Trauma Medical Center was known to be many things. A teaching facility, a life saving establishment, and an incredibly fucking noisy place. 

It wasn’t unusual to have patients screaming bloody murder, to have the constant beep of machines and dilators ring in your ears, to overhear a pure teaching moment between an attending and a resident. 

However, a unique factor that all doctors in the Pitt could count on contributing to the decibel level were the arguments between you and one Frank Langdon. It was normal, expected even, for the two of you to be at each other's throats. It seemed like you were always disagreeing on something—a diagnosis, bedside table manners, even down to what kind of coffee should be kept in the staff lounge.

(“We’re not getting dunkin donuts coffee,” you scoff.

“Why the hell not?” Langdon shoots back.

“You two have to be fucking joking.”)

On this particular shift, Frank and you stand on opposite sides of a patient bed, throwing harsh glances like they’re daggers. The middle aged woman below you is bleeding profusely in her throat due to a neglected respiratory tract infection, causing multiple issues with her oxygen levels. She’s practically drowning in her own blood. Your first instinct was to do an intubation, but before you could even begin to ask for the tube, Frank immediately shut you down.

“There’s too much blood, we wouldn’t be able to see anything through the camera. Have you ever done an intubation blind?” He interrogates, his gaze cold and sterile. “I’m vetoing it. We’ll have to do a cricothyrotomy instead.”

“I can do it,” you argue back. “A cricothyrotomy is a last resort, you haven’t even tried intubation yet—”

“We don’t have time to play it safe, last resort or not we should be doing the cricothyrotomy.”

You feel the familiar, fire hot frustration bubble in your chest. It isn’t unusual for Frank to fight against you, and it isn’t unusual for you to want to kill him for it.

The two of you go back and forth like this until Robby approaches the room, finally free from his GSW in Trauma 1. His aging face drops as soon as he realizes the scene before him. Annoyance slowly creeps into his expression, sinking into the lines by his eyes as his mouth presses into a thin line, gritting his teeth before speaking. 

“That’s enough.” His voice booms out, causing the both of you to pause mid argument. “You two are wasting time. Make a concise decision. Dr. Langdon?”

“Intubation is too risky.” Frank begins, trying to appeal to his mentor and somewhat friend. “A cricothyrotomy may be a little bold but at least it’ll work.” 

“And you?” Robby turns to face you. “You believe you can perform the intubation?”

“I know I can, Dr. Robby.”

You see Robby consider both ideas for a brief second, tossing them around and considering the weight of his decision. It’s not just choosing a life saving operation, but choosing a favorite. He—and all the student doctors and nurses for that matter—know whoever loses this war will be enraged, silently fuming for the rest of their shift.

“Get the tube. We’re performing this intubation.”

As soon as the words hit your ears, your stomach somersaults. You try to control the muscles in your face as your lips twitch into a smile. There’s a voice in the back of your head that wants to jump up and down and point to Langdon, screaming I won, I won, I won! You know it's unprofessional, but it's rare when you get to win against him, especially when it comes to Robby. 

You can feel Langdon’s anger radiating off of him as he moves out of the way, watching you and Robby prepare for the procedure. You try your best to hide your joy, but you’re sure you fail.

//

After a successful intubation with the help of Robby, you find yourself aimlessly wandering back towards the ED’s TV screen, bumping into Whitaker. The two of you make small talk as your eyes scan for something interesting to busy your hands with. Whitaker reads out a few promising symptoms, but his words fall away into nothing as you scan the room, your eyes landing on Langdon as he walks out of the staff lounge. 

He stares back at you, something dark swirling in the ocean blue of his irises. 

You bite the inside of your cheek. You know he’s fuming, probably imagining all the ways he wishes you would die a slow and painful death so that you’d never interfere with him again. You’ve been on the losing end of this battle before, and you remember just how much you wanted to strangle him when Robby chose his side.

Your stomach flutters slightly as you narrow your eyes, rolling them and trying to focus back on Whitaker. You don’t care if Frank sees. You mutter something along the lines of approval when Whitaker finally chooses your next case, not quite mentally there as you still feel the heat of Frank’s gaze.

It wasn’t always like this between you and Langdon. In the very beginning, you remember bits of indifference, some semblance of mutual respect. You don’t remember what changed exactly, but one day you two went from innocent coworkers to enemies. 

After the change, you remember him being snippy with you, always avoiding taking you on a case, begrudgingly teaching things to you and fighting you on every diagnosis you made. You just weren’t sure why. 

You didn’t bother to search for an answer. You decided you would simply return the energy that was given to you. If Frank wanted to be a dick, you had no problem meeting him halfway. 

You give him no more thought as you trail behind Whitaker. 

//

Hours later, somewhere around 3 PM, you feel a wave of drowsiness begin to hit you. Despite all your best efforts to go to bed on time, to drink caffeine in the morning and maintain unwavering energy levels, you always seem to struggle in the early afternoon. You know if you slow down, you’ll never pick back up again, so you down the rest of your energy drink and flip through the list of patients waiting to be seen. 

Your eyes land on the chart of an older gentleman: Isaiah Vander, 52, complained of lower abdomen pain. 

Based on past experience, you know abdomen pain has the ability to go south very quickly. You decide to charge forth, hoping for the best but preparing for the worst as you lead him back to an open bed. 

“Please, have a seat Mr. Vander,” you smile. Gloria’s been on everyone's ass about bedside hospitality, so you try to attempt to be a bit brighter than usual.

Mr. Vander, a balding and slightly overweight man plops down in front of you. He’s dressed in jeans, wearing some sort of athletic t-shirt with a pair of cheap sunglasses resting on his head. He returns your smile with a large toothy grin, showing off his coffee stained teeth. 

After a short but concise introduction, you begin your assessment. “So, when did the pain in your abdomen start?”

“Last night, a little after dinner.”

“And what did you eat?” You ask casually. 

“So curious!” He laughs in response. “I had two big macs, a large mountain dew and some french fries, I think. I work late a lot, so I had to grab something quick last night. Do you cook?”

You smile politely. “When I can. Now, do you take any medication?” Your mind prepares to cross off a few different diagnoses depending on his answer.

“Would love to have you cook for me sometime.” He responds, ignoring your question. His boisterous laugh rings out into the hall. His warm breath that smells of cigarettes fans your face. Gross. 

You frown, trying not to assume the worst. You know sometimes patients get a little chatty when they’re comfortable, so you try and steer the conversation back to his condition.

“My cooking may give you worse abdomen pain if you can believe it. And, sorry, just to confirm, no medicine?”

“Only viagra.” He smirks. 

Your breakfast bubbles in your gut. You’re taken aback. You forgot what the shock of a situation like this feels like. You recover quickly though, ignoring his comments by giving him a tight lipped smile.

“Is the pain more throbbing, or like a pricking sensation? And any nausea, vomiting?”

“Throbbing, definitely throbbing. Ever since the wife left me I’ve been eating alone a lot, hence the junk food. So maybe that's where the throbbing pain comes from. Maybe it wouldn’t happen if I ate with someone else. If you get what I mean.” He licks his lips lustfully.

You clear your throat, trying your best not to lose your shit. You’ve dealt with flirty patients before, but he seems… grimey. Clearly this guy isn’t dying of a ruptured intestine, he’s just some asshole with a tummy ache. 

“So, again. Nausea? Vomiting?” There's an edge to your voice as you grit out the question through your teeth. Despite your annoyance, you continue to interrogate him—there’s a part of you that’s fearful that if you left now, he would end up dying of a cause you could have prevented—growing more frustrated as the minutes pass. 

Trying to converse with him feels like torture. The conversation is painstaking slow, and for every question you ask, Mr. Vander responds in a suggestive manner, talking about his lonely late nights while simultaneously giving you no information that could help you treat him. 

It comes to a boiling point when you ask him when his last bowel movement was. He laughs and ignores you, stating that it's ‘no business for a lovely lady such as yourself.’ It takes everything in you not to roll your eyes. You mentally decide you’ll probably have to hand this case over to someone else. 

“Well,” you start, beginning to stand up. “Thank you for answering some of my questions, another doctor’ll be in shortly to—”

“You’re not staying sweetie?” 

You choke a sarcastic laugh. “It's Doctor. And no, I have another patient I need to check up on.” Not that its any of your fucking business. “Like I said, someone will be in soon to—”

Before you can finish your statement, you feel his calloused hand wrap around your forearm. It’s warm and sticky, and your eyes widen at the contact before you jerk yourself back. You’re about to yell at the man before you when out of nowhere the half shut curtain opens, revealing Langdon.

His heavy footsteps echo on the linoleum floors. His chest is puffed out, his muscular arms crossed over one another as he clenches his jaw. He looks angry. You can only assume it's because of you.  

“Dr. Langdon—” You choke out. You weren’t sure where he was supposed to be, but you’re pretty sure it's not here with you. You want to explain that this isn’t what it looks like. You have everything under control. You would hate for Langdon to hold this against you, to see you weak. 

“And who do we have here?” He says, taking a look at the chart beside you. “Hello Mr. Vander, sorry to hear about your stomach pain. I’m here to help, I’ll be taking over this case.”

You feel your face become hot. Suddenly, you’re worried Langdon thinks you're incapable of handling this. 

“Excuse me, but why can’t she stay?” Mr. Vander responds, motioning towards you. 

Frank replies without missing a beat. “She’s a very coveted doctor. Her presence was requested by an attending, so she’ll need to assist them instead.”

You hear Mr. Vander suck his teeth, sitting up slightly. “C’mon man, I was just starting to get somewhere. Can you leave? Can’t she just finish me up?”

You wince. You can't explain it, but a feeling of dread runs through your veins at the thought of this guy flirting with you in front of Langdon. 

“No, I won’t leave.”

You watch as Mr. Vander rolls his eyes and averts his attention to you. “Well, since you’re leaving, I’ll get to the point. You should get dinner with me.”

“Wow—um.” You choke. “That’s entirely unprofessional.”

“Unprofessional,” Frank starts with a smile, “And I’m pretty sure her boyfriend wouldn’t like that very much.”

“Boyfriend?” You and Mr. Vander question at the same time. Your eyes are wide with confusion. The last time you checked, you were single. 

“Boyfriend, you have a boyfriend?” He sputters.

You’re positive you don't, but the way Langdon is looking at you makes you feel otherwise. Before you can gather your thoughts to respond, Frank is sliding his hands onto your waist, giving them a squeeze. 

“Yep, she does. And as I said, I wouldn’t be very pleased if you took my girl out on a date.”

It’s so quiet in the room you can hear the conversation in the hall outside. Your mind feels a million miles behind. Mr. Vander is so focused on Langdon that he misses the way your jaw drops. 

“I’m sorry man, didn’t realize she was taken.” He apologizes, looking like a child who was just scolded for staying up too late. Shame blooms in his chest, while something much more sinister grows in yours.

Frank takes a seat beside him, motioning for him to lift his shirt. “No worries. Do you mind if I take a look at your abdomen to assess the area?”

As Langdon begins to work on Mr. Vander, the voice in your head is screaming at you to leave, to take the out that Frank has so clearly given you, but you can't bring yourself to stop staring at him.  You watch as he begins to pat his hand on Mr. Vander’s belly, pressing particularly forcefully, watching as the patient groans in pain.

“Whoops.”

He turns back to look at you. “Dr. Robby wants you.”

You try and decipher the look on his face, but gone is the charming Frank Langdon, and only his colder alter ego remains. 

You nod wordlessly, leaving the room. You don't allow yourself to catch your breath until you round the corner. It feels as though the world around you is blurred, blood rushing to your ears and face as embarrassment and something else creeps up your neck. 

Langdon has never touched you before, let alone put his hands on your waist, squeezing them. 

Many inappropriate things cross your mind. You force yourself to shake it off, looking for Robby. When you find him minutes later, he’s deep in conversation with Collins. You hate to interrupt, but you thought he needed you.

“Did you ask for me?” You say as you approach the pair.

“Me? No, why? Did something happen?” He asks with concern.

“No… Langdon said—Nevermind. Must’ve been a mistake.”

You smile weakly before walking away awkwardly, beelining for the nearest bathroom. You shut yourself inside the single stall, locking the door behind you before you begin to pace around the room, the soft sound of your sneakers scuffing the tile echoing off the walls. 

You’re mainly confused. Why was Langdon lying to save your ass? Did he think you couldn’t handle the patient? How did he manage to step in at the perfect time?

Why did his touch make your brain short circuit?

You brace yourself on the sink. You feel pathetic, and you’re sure you look it. Your eyes catch your reflection in the mirror—you look disheveled. Your face feels warm as you bite your lower lip. Get a fucking grip. 

When you feel like you've recovered as much as possible, you silently slip out of the bathroom. You're not quite sure what to do with yourself now. You really don't want to go back and check on Mr. Vander, and at this point, Frank has probably diagnosed him with constipation and recommended him some miralax. 

But, because you can't help yourself, you walk in the direction you came from, trying to see if Frank is still there. You’re not sure what you’re going to say, but you feel like you should say something. Right?

You realize you’re right as you round the corner, Mr. Vander is nowhere to be seen.

Langdon spots you immediately, and you feel every emotion at once brewing in your chest as he begins to stride towards you. Before you can even begin to pick your fight, he catches you off guard with sincerity. 

“Are you okay?”

Your breath hitches. You force yourself to recover. “What the fuck was that?”

“I was saving your ass. You’re welcome, by the way. You clearly needed some backup in there.”

“I was fine,” you retaliate. 

“He grabbed you, that’s not okay.” 

“I could’ve handled it. I was about to rip him a new one before you interrupted.” You toss your hands in the air. For a moment, Langdon looks at you like there's nothing more to discuss, like he finds no other issues with your previous interaction. 

“And the boyfriend thing?” You whisper, afraid of who might hear.

“Figured he wouldn’t back off until he knew you were taken. Guys are gross like that.”

“And my boyfriend had to obviously be… you.” You raise your eyebrows.

He doesn't reply to this. Instead, he rolls his eyes like you’re the crazy one, beginning to walk away. His face reads like he no longer cares, like it was a miniscule thing to say, like his big hands sliding over your hips is a casual morning activity.

“We’re not done here,” you hiss, trailing after him.

His long legs carry him faster than you can keep up. “Having a boyfriend would do you good, I think. Maybe it would mean you’d finally get laid. It’d also probably help the giant stick up your ass.” He hums.

“Oh, fuck off,” You say, gracing him with your middle finger. You want to slap him. You want to grab him by the collar and shake him. How can such a brilliant doctor be such an asshole? He looks at you with his eyebrows raised as if to say, anything else?

You scoff. 

He gives you a smile in return, looking deep into your eyes before continuing on his journey to the other side of the ED. 

//

In an attempt to clear your mind, you kill time outside with Dana on her smoke break. The two of you chat aimlessly about life, laughing amongst yourself about a few wild cases that have crossed her path today. You’re still talking and gossiping about Gloria when Samira runs up to you, asking to speak to you in private. 

At first, you’re worried that maybe Robby ripped her a new one, or that she had a particularly difficult case while you were running around, but the smile that tugs at the ends of her lips gives her away. You’re relieved it's nothing bad. 

“What?” You chuckle. She’s gripping your arm so tight you think you’ll lose circulation. 

“You’re dating Dr. Langdon?” She grins.

Your heart stops. 

“What?” You stutter, “Where did you hear that?”

“Holy shit, I always knew something was there!” Her eyes are wide with joy as she practically screams. She hops up and down with enthusiasm. 

You feel yourself growing flustered. How are you supposed to explain this? No—funny story actually—the man who I’ve wanted to climb like a tree just saved me from a creepy patient and lied about being my boyfriend, sorry for the confusion. 

You squeeze your eyes shut, trying to find the right way to let Samira down slowly. You want to kill this rumor before it reaches anyone else, god forbid an attending. The words are on the tip of your tongue when Dana’s voice rings out into the ED.

“We’ve got a stroke case coming in, 5 minutes tops!” 

“Oh fuck,” you mumble, turning to look at her. When you turn back around, Samira’s already taken off like a shot, killing any attempt to set the record straight.

You bite your cheek in frustration. You just hope Samira won’t tell anyone.

//

Hours later, after unfortunately getting projectile vomited on by a pregnant teen, you find yourself standing in front of a familiar machine, muttering to yourself as you try to get a new pair of scrubs. 

“How the fuck am I supposed to return them when you haven’t given me a new pair to change into?” You mumble. 

You’re so immersed in your own troubles that you don’t hear Whitaker and Santos approach you from behind.

“How long have you been dating Dr. Langdon?” Santos starts, shoving you in the shoulder with her palm.

“Holy fuck!” You wince. You turn around sharply and come face to face with the pair. They look at you with stars in their eyes. “We actually aren—”

“But I thought you hated each other!” Whitaker gasps. 

“Well,” you huff, “It—”

“Holy shit… you guys have been in love and fooling us this whole time? That's insane.” Santos mumbles.

“Woah, woah, woa—”

“Congratulations, good on you guys for trying to keep it private.” They both nod simultaneously, giving you their stamp of approval. 

You’re just about to slap the two of them senseless when something else catches their attention, and they run off. 

“Jesus Christ,” you say, rubbing your palms in your eyes. You feel the pressure of a headache nestle its way between your eyes. “What the hell is going on with people today?”

//

Your final straw occurs towards the end of your shift. 

You aimlessly crack your bones and stretch your legs after finally leaving Trauma 1. You had spent the last hour resuscitating a 12 year old after they had a seizure, practically jumping up and down with Mel when the child’s heart rate came back up on the monitor. 

You breathe heavily. You still feel the weight of the little girl’s mother as she collapsed in your arms, sobbing as she mumbled thank yous and god bless yous into your fresh scrubs. It feels good, but it's still difficult.

You glance at the clock, grateful your shift is nearing the end. You’re not sure how much more of this you can take. You’ve somehow managed to avoid Langdon all day, miraculously being on opposite sides of the ED at any given time. But despite the distance, you can still feel something in the Pitt has shifted—something between the two of you has changed.

You don't have much time to ponder the odd feeling in your chest before Heather jogs towards you, her hand landing on your shoulder.

“You were great in there,” she says with a soft smile.

“Thank you,” you reply sheepishly. You’ll never get used to the praise, but you’re appreciative of it nonetheless. “I couldn’t have done it without Mel.”

“The two of you are killers, I’m super proud.” She beams. 

You feel appreciative of Heather’s leadership and kindness, she’s always been someone you know you can count on to be on your side, so it makes it all the more difficult to believe the words that begin to come out of her mouth.

“Also… I always knew he liked you.”

“What?” 

“Langdon! That's why he’s so harsh on you.” She laughs. “It makes sense that the two of you are dating, you're so alike. Robby guessed that something was gonna happen with you two. We even started a betting pool. How long have you been keeping this a secret?” 

Her words ring out into the air like bells, each one sending a wave of pain in your head. Your mouth feels dry, your throat feels tight. Your tongue seemingly swells in your mouth, rendering you speechless. 

Before Heather can notice you choking on your own emotions, Kiara walks up to the both of you, a clipboard in her hand and a determined look on her face. 

“Hey,” she approaches the two of you, distracting Heather from your conversation. 

You give her a small smile, hoping you don't look as nearly out of it as you seem. 

“Good to see you both, and congrats on the save. I just heard.” She says to you, giving you an encouraging smile. You thank her before she turns back to Heather, your mind drifting off as the two discuss a patient down the hall. Eventually, they say their goodbyes to you, walking away to discuss information more confidentially. 

You’ve never been so relieved and frustrated at the same time. 

You feel dizzy. All your mind knows how to do at this moment is flop back and forth between being mad and confused. 

You haven’t been able to tell anyone about what really happened today, and you haven’t been able to be honest with yourself about what it all means. Because, truly, why has this thrown you for a loop the way it has?

You head for the staff lounge, praying it's empty. When you enter the room and see it vacant, you shut the door behind you with the full force of your frustration, watching as the drying coffee mugs rattle on the counter. 

You take out your anger and confusion on a plastic water bottle in the fridge, twisting off the cap with such force it almost breaks the plastic. So many thoughts swim in your head as you down half the bottle in one sip. 

You can't seem to straighten it all out. Suddenly, the stunt Langdon pulled this morning seems so tame compared to everyone else’s reactions. 

I always knew he liked you. That's why he’s so harsh on you.

You guys have been in love and fooling us this whole time?

I always knew something was there!

You drop your head on the table, hearing a dull thud.

“What the actual fuck is happening?” you mutter to no one. You’re furious that a tiny rumour has managed to wiggle its way under your skin. You hate how easily it angers you, how easily it frustrates you, how easily the idea of it being truthful sends shivers down your spine. 

“I hate him, I hate him, I hate him.” You remind yourself. You try and think of all the times he’s embarrassed you in front of your superiors, of all the times he's publicly called you out and humiliated you. You remind yourself of his cruelty, of his harsh words and even harsher hands. 

Your mind wanders to his piercing blue eyes and his dark brown hair that falls in front of them. The way they looked at you when he practically ran into the room this morning, taking your breath away.

You try not to focus on it any longer. I’m almost done, you remind yourself. I just need to get through this shift. 

//

You’re not sure how you make it, but somehow your shift ends. 

You’re on autopilot as you pack up, making sure you have your badge, your phone, your bag and everything else that comes with it, including your headphones for the walk home, along with your thoughts on the back burner that you plan to continuously overthink and never get over. 

You try to feel relieved that you’re leaving, to be thankful for escaping the rumours that float around like smoke. But when you find yourself finally walking out of the Pitt, saying your goodbyes to the remaining staff and giving your hellos to the first night shift workers, you don't get very far.

When you reach the brisk outside air, your feet feel cemented to the ground. You’re not sure what holds you back, but you can't bring yourself to start your music, to take the familiar route back to your place. It’s chilly out, and you watch your breath come out in puffs. It dissipates into the air, fading to nothing. You’re just about to chide yourself for being so foolish when a familiar voice rings out into the night.

“I thought you’d be home by now.”

You don’t have to turn around to know it’s Langdon.

“Yeah,” you breathe out. “Me too.”

Your eyes try to focus on the Pittsburgh streets in front of you. You attempt to control the way your body tenses as Frank approaches to stand at your side, but you find it increasingly more difficult to command your body in his presence. 

“Had a hell of a day,” you continue. You’re not quite sure why you’re trying to talk to him right now. It’s odd speaking so calmly with Frank, normally you two would be yelling. 

“So I’ve heard. Apparently, our wedding is in September.”

“Ah. Good to know. I’ll try to make it.”

You’re caught off guard when, unexpectedly, Langdon laughs. You dont think you’ve ever heard such a warm, rich sound before. 

“I heard the betting pool was really big. Bigger than the ambulance one.” He says casually.

You snort. You were brand new when you joined that bet. You remember Frank had chewed you out so loudly in front of Gloria you thought you were gonna cry, so instead of breaking down in the bathroom you bet 50 bucks on ‘drug addict, crash, not in our vicinity.’ 

When you glance up at Frank, you realize how much time has passed since then. You’re both older, more advanced in the medical field, different. The two of you have battled demons no one knows about. 

“Heather said we made a good couple.” 

“I’m not surprised,” He replies. “Robby came up to me to tell me not to fuck it up, so clearly we have a lot hinging on this fake relationship.” 

You laugh at the thought. A beat of silence passes between you two, and for a moment, you're worried this peace may never happen again.

“You were the one who started this mess.” You say, trying to keep the conversation going. Where you want it to lead, you’re unsure.

“I know. And I’m… I’m sorry. Really.”

Frank turns to look at you. You see an unfamiliar emotion swirl in his irises: regret. He’s never apologized to you before, not even when Robby demanded it. You know he must be serious.

“No, I’m sorry.” You confess. “You were doing me a favor and all I did was yell at you.”

“I guess we’re both assholes.”

You toss him a soft smile. It’s weird, talking with him like this, but not unwelcome. You think this is the longest you two have ever spoken without raising your voices.

“I just… It’s so hard to be near you sometimes. You act like working with me is the worst thing in the world.” You say, looking up at him. Your brows crease in such a way that your face floods with sadness, like you’re just finally admitting to yourself that maybe this dynamic isn’t truthful to how you really feel.

“It’s not. I swear it isn’t. You’re a brilliant doctor.” He breathes out. He runs his fingers through his hair, squeezing his eyes shut before continuing. “I just can’t fucking concentrate around you.”

You feel your heartbeat pick up.

“And I’m sorry about the boyfriend thing. I just sort of… I don’t know. That patient was just so fucking handsy and—”

“You saw him grab me?” 

“Yeah. Yeah I, I couldn’t see straight. And I know you can handle yourself, I just really wanted to hand his ass back to him. And, fuck—I’ve really been a dick today—I’m sorry about the whole getting laid thing.”

You laugh out loud, bringing your hand to cover your mouth. “No… No, you were right. I’ve had a stick up my ass all day. All year, actually.”

Langdon laughs with you, and you can see some of his hesitation leave his body as he turns towards you. The two of you chuckle over the absurdity of all. 

“So I distract you? That’s why you’re an absolute dick to me?” You say, feeling brave. You see the way his face flushes and his jaw tightens before he answers. You swallow the lump in your throat, trying to convince yourself this is still friendly territory.

“Listen, I never said it was logical. Nor did I say it was a good excuse. But it’s true.”

You let the words sit between you two as you turn over your response. You’re not sure how blunt you want to be, but the actions of today have pushed you to a place you’ve never ventured before. “I feel like I’ve been going crazy, Frank. All day, all anyone’s told me is how much you like me, how good we look together, how we’ve secretly been in love all these years—”

“Are they wrong?”

“That’s what I’m asking you!” You groan. “I don’t know. Because, really, you’re a pain in my ass. You make me so mad sometimes I want to kill you. And yet, I practically fucking short circuited today when you said you were my boyfriend. So why’s that?”

“And you’re asking me?”

“Don’t you always have the answer to everything?”

You watch as his icy blue eyes scan your face, trailing down the bridge of your nose, the slope of your cheeks, the peak of your soft lips. 

“I got jealous today.” He states plainly.

“Because of Mr. Vander?”

“No. Well, yes, but also today I realized I’m actually not sure if you have a boyfriend. And then I got jealous in case he did exist... Does he?”

“He doesn’t.”

“Okay then.”

The air stills between you.

“Are you still jealous?”

“Yes.”

“And what do you suppose we do to make you feel better?”

//

For a brief moment as you and Frank stop kissing each other to gasp for air, fingers fumbling at the strings of your respective pants before flying back to each other's bodies, you wonder if you’ll regret this decision to end your war.

The two of you stumble into your apartment a few blocks away from the Pitt, lips entangled with one another as you struggle to lock the door behind you.

Frank, being the newfound gentleman he is after your confession session, decided to walk you home for ‘safety reasons.’ Of course, this resulted in you inviting him up, which has landed you exactly where you are now, in your bedroom peeling off your scrubs. 

When you two are fully undressed, your hands fly to his brown locs as he hoists you up on his hips. His strong arms hold you tightly against him before he lays you down on your bed, laughing into your mouth.

“Something funny?” You ask, eyes trailing down his abdomen. 

“Just thinking…I’m basically a genius.”

“How so?” You say, dragging him back to kiss you. His tongue swirls around yours playfully, momentarily losing himself in you before he pulls away, panting slightly. 

“I said earlier today that having a boyfriend would get you laid. And I was right.”

“Hmm… Is that what you are?” You whisper, your voice low and sultry. Frank’s pupils are blown out as they look at you, eyes ravishing your body as you lay bare below him. 

“I want to be, if you’ll let me.”

“I’ll consider it,” you promise. You laugh slightly, but the warm feeling in your chest at the sight of Frank in your bed tells you you’ll never let him go.

For the rest of the night, You and Frank are a tangle of limbs and lips, hands clinging on to each other as he brings you to the edge of atmosphere and back again. He watches the stars in your eyes when his mouth licks at your core, when his dick brushes against the sensitive spot in your walls, when he whispers his dirty praise in your ear from behind. 

You two fall into a comfortable rhythm, working together in sync like you were meant to hold each other. You watch each other with care as your bodies work in tandem, as you aim to please one another. Your name on his lips as he paws at your chest, the softest kisses on your neck as his hips rock into yours. Somewhere in between the clapping of flesh lies the quiet conversations and heartfelt confessions. 

When you two eventually run out of steam, blissfully fucked out and sprawled on the bed in comfortable silence, all you can do to convey your affection is to softly graze his lips with yours, running your fingers through his hair as you fall asleep in his arms. 

//

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