I spent countless hours binge-reading Bucky Barnes fics here. I live for stories that leave my eyes swollen from crying and make my heart flutter, and this is my way of showing my deepest admiration for those works. This masterlist gathers the stories and authors whose writing captured my heart and made me fall in love with their craft.
1. HOMESICK FOR ARMS THAT NEVER HELD ME by @rintxt
2. RIGHT WHERE YOU LEFT ME (Part I) and (Part II) by @redemptive-truth
3. THE RING by @solaceinruin
4. ONE INCH DEEPER by @marvelstoriesepic
5. TRACES OF A LONELY WORLD (Part I) and (Part II) by @bcksbarnes
6. BORROWED TIME (Part I) and (Part II) by @orellazalonia
7. THE TIME WE COULDN'T HAVE by @sassandscribbles
8. BETRAYAL by @onlyforsebastianstan
9. PRESSURE POINTS by @crybabycabin
10. DROWNING OUT THE SORROW by @redd-blushing-roses
11. A LOVE LETTER TO STONE by @cheekybarnes
12. WHEN THE SUN HITS (IT MATTERS WHERE YOU ARE) by @rosesaints
13. LOATHE ISN'T STRONG ENOUGH by @honeysucklewatr
14. LIFE ON YOUR LINE (ongoing series) by @riamaple
15. YOU PROMISED ME FOREVER by @mannien
16. TAKE ME BACK TO THE NIGHT WE MET by @buckybabesonly
17. LITTLE DOVE by @barnesonly
18. RUIN THE FRIENDSHIP by @mcrdvcks
19. COME BACK TO ME by @peterparkive
20. UNSAID, UNNAMED by @neeeed-y
21. LOST IN THE WILD by @daddyjackfrost
22. YOU VEX ME by @blowingbarnes
23. ONLY SAFE WITH YOU by @daxisyzz
24. POLITICAL ANIMALS (Part I), (Part II), and (Part 3) by @n3ptoonz
25. BUCKY BOSSA NOVA by @houseofhyde
26. FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION (Series Masterlist) by @daydreamgoddess14
27. HOT N' READY by @spdrveil
28. ELEVATOR, BABY! by @aquaticmercy
29. 11PM SESSIONS by @whoispedro
30. BITTER SWEET CAFÉ by @kiba-uwuzuka
31. ARE YOU OUT TONIGHT? by @54nboo
32. STALKER by @buckysgirlll
33. DREAMS COME TRUE by @satlun
34. MATCH POINT (Part I) & (Part II) by @chipotleburritobowl
🔖: I’ll keep adding more to this list as I go (updated: 02/15)
Summary: Partners in the field, best friends everywhere else, and cowards about their feelings. It takes one bullet on Valentine's Day to rip the silence open.
Warnings/tags: gunshot injury, surgery mention, near death, angst, hurt comfort, steve/natasha/tony are alive, mission gone wrong, besties to lovers, only one use of doll, happy ending
Part Two
The tower kitchen is too bright for six in the morning. You squint as the winter sunlight spills through the floor-to-ceiling windows, pale and almost silver, washing over the marble countertops and catching on the stainless steel appliances. The city below is still stretching awake, traffic thin, steam rising in soft curls from street grates. Up here, everything feels suspended, like the world hasn't quite started yet.
Bucky's already there, quietly facing away from the entry, watching the coffee drip into the pot. The light cuts across his back, metal reflecting the morning's glow. He looks soft in the light, though his features are sharp.
You don't say anything when you step in. The tile is cool beneath your feet, and the hem of your sweater brushes your thighs as you cross the room. The smell of the coffee hangs thick in the air. He doesn't look at you right away, but his shoulders ease a fraction when he notices your presence. He seems to know when it's you.
"Can't sleep?" you ask quietly, reaching past him for the coffee pot.
He steps aside, making room for you. His arm brushes yours, warm and solid. "Somethin' like that," he murmurs.
You pour your coffee slowly. The light catches the thin line of steam rising between you. You hold the pot toward him, signalling your willingness to refill his mug. He stretches his arm out, fingers curled around the handle.
Across the kitchen table, Sam lowers his spoon with a pointed clink against the bowl. "It's too early for this," he mutters. "It's Valentine's Day, and I'm having to do a stupid mission instead of wining and dining my lady."
"Sounds like you're doing plenty of whining," You smirk over the rim of your mug.
Sam points his spoon at you in accusation, but he's smiling. The kitchen feels warmer for a second, lighter, like this is just another morning and not the start of something dangerous. Not the kind of day that gets circled on calendars and wrapped in red hearts and pink lips.
Valentine's Day.
You hadn't meant to think about it all last night. It's easier not to; easier to pretend it's just another square on the calendar, just another mission day, just another early morning with mediocre coffee and tired eyes. Except it feels strange this year, almost... off balance. Because if you could choose where to be tonight, it wouldn't be at a restaurant or on a date.
It would be exactly where you usually are anyway, shoulder to shoulder with Bucky, sharing takeout containers and quiet conversations about everything and nothing. Your knees bumping his when you laugh at something he says. It's comfortable. Easy. Almost dangerous in a way that has nothing to do with the missions you go on.
He's your best friend. That's the name you gave it. It's safe that way. The one that lets you keep him around without risking the relationship. But lately the word feels small. You wonder, not for the first time, when "best friend" turned into the person you look for in every room before anyone else. The person whose footsteps you can pick out from the hallway. The one you save the last sip, the last bite, the last story of the night for.
Your gaze drifts to him without meaning to. It always does. You notice he's pretending not to listen to Sam anymore, but he definitely is. His mouth is doing that barely there thing, not quite a smile, but a small curl in the corners. The morning light sits in his hair, softening his appearance, making him look less like a weapon and more like a man who belongs in the kitchen at sunrise. Your chest tightens quickly. If anyone asked, you'd say today didn't matter. But man, it certainly feels like it should.
His eyes lift like he feels it. They land on you with quiet precision. Caught in the act, you forget to look away right off. For half a second, it's just the two of you in the kitchen, city glowing behind him, dust motes turning lazy circles in the light.
There's something unfair about how gentle he looks this early. No armor, no tactical gear, just a dark Henley stretched across his shoulders and sleep clinging to the edges of him.
"What?" he asks softly.
The word is low, private, and meant only for you, despite the fact that Sam is still loudly excavating cereal nearby.
You blink. "What, what?"
"You're starin'," he says, and there's a faint hint of humor in it, tucked into the corners of his mouth. Not a tease or a challenge, just a simple observation offered carefully.
Heat creeps up your neck. "Am not."
He lifts one brow, but he doesn't argue. Somehow, that makes it worse. Your pulse does that annoying stutter; it only ever does around him. You take another sip of your coffee to buy yourself a second. It would be so easy to tell the truth. I like looking at you. I always have.
Instead, you shrug. "You look grumpy. I was just checkin' if the coffee offended you again."
That earns you a real reaction, a soft laugh. "It's terrible," he says. "Think it melted the spoon."
"It's stainless steel, Buck," you reply.
"Still offended."
Sam groans. "I'm surrounded by chaos. Romance is dead."
You laugh, but your attention slides right back to Bucky Barnes, pulled there like it always is. His shoulder brushes yours when he leaves over to grab the coffee pot. It's a small, unconscious lean that he never corrects. Comfort settles in again, familiar and dangerous. It's the kind that makes you forget the lines you're supposed to stay behind.
Somewhere down the hall, the alert chime sounds. It's not too loud from where you are, but it's enough to make you sigh. You hear Sam push his chair back as he stands to bring his bowl to the sink. Bucky's expression shifts. The day is starting whether you like it or not.
Bucky sets his mug in the sink next to the bowl, already shifting into motion. Mission mode never looks dramatic on him. A straightening spine, a quieter face. All focus and no fun.
"You comin'?" he asks.
You nod and set your mug down. Your fingers bump the ceramic, still warm from his hand. The heat lingers for a second against your skin, and you hate how aware you are of it.
The hallway outside the kitchen is cooler, the polished floor reflecting the morning light in long pale stripes. Your footsteps fall into rhythm beside his without effort. They usually do. You've walked like this a thousand times, close enough that your sleeves brush, far enough that no one would think anything of it. Most of them think something of it, though.
Your shoulder knocks his lightly when he slows to let a tech hurry past. His hand comes up automatically, hovering near your back, not fully touching you. You feel it anyway, like he's protecting you.
"You bring your good boots?" you ask quietly.
He glances down at them like he has to check. "I always do."
"Last time you wore the old ones and complained for six hours."
"I did not complain."
"You narrated your suffering?"
"That's different."
You smile. There it is again, that almost smile of his in response, small but real. People sometimes say relationships are built on big moments. But yours is built on this. Shared steps and low voices. Knowing exactly how someone takes their coffee and hovering hands without needing credit for the catch.
Up ahead, the briefing room doors slide open. Screens glow blue against the dim interior. The rest of the team is already filtering in, half-suited, half-caffeinated. The room smells of coffee, still steaming in the single-use cups. A wide holographic display rotates slowly above the central table, throwing blue light across tired faces as everyone settles into place. You take your usual seat without thinking, and like always, Bucky ends up in the chair beside you. Your legs meet briefly under the table, and you smile at him before turning your attention to the front of the room.
A satellite image sharpens overhead. Industrial buildings, rail lines, and a river cut through the edge of the property line.
"Alright, lovebirds and lonely hearts," Sam says, dropping into his chair and spinning it once before stopping with his boots hooked on the table edge. "Let's ruin the most romantic day of the year."
"I had a whole speech about work-life balance prepared, but then illegal weapons trafficking ruined the mood," Tony says.
A few groans answer him.
"We intercepted encrypted chatter late last night. A breakaway weapons cell set up temporary operations here, inside an abandoned freight distribution hub just outside the city. They're moving product, and we think it's for something bigger."
"Define product," you say.
"Portable guided munitions," Tony answers. "Shoulder launcher, smart tracking, not very romantic. The kind of stuff that turns crowded places into headlines."
Everyone sighs. Thermal scans layer over the model. Moving heat signatures. Parked trucks. Guard rotations plotted in neat predictive loops.
"Buyer?" Steve asks.
"Still in the wind," Tony replies. "Which means if this shipment rolls, we get to play find the missile later. I hate sequels."
"Got it. So we hit it before it moves." Sam says.
"Gold star," Tony points a finger at him. "Transfer closes before noon. After that, distribution branches and our neat little problem become a messy big one."
Routes appear in colored lines. Entry vectors, blind spots, and jammer zones pulse red. Security notes scroll beside the map: patrol density, signal interference, and interior barricades built from old shipping containers.
"Outer ring is armed and alert," Tony continues. "Inner flor is compartmentalized. They're expecting competition, just not you specifically, which I find insulting."
"Tragic," Bucky deadpans.
"My reservation's at seven," Sam mutters. "Non-refundable."
Tony doesn't look up. "You've generously donated to the restaurant industry."
Sam gestures between you and Bucky. "Meanwhile, these two have zero plans ever and look the most offended."
You keep your eyes on the map. It's safer there. Assignment tags blink across the layout. Advance element, east service corridor. Your name. Bucky Barnes.
Sam makes a soft drumroll on the table. "Predictable and adorable."
Tony points at Sam, "Ariel sweep. No flirting with the hostiles."
"No promises."
The plan builds in layers, contingencies stacking clean and fast. Timing is everything in missions like this. Speed matters more. Every minute of delay increases the odds that those launchers leave the building.
"Go suit up. If we're fast enough, nobody should miss their plans tonight."
Chairs slide back, and you hear the sound of boots down the hall as the mission gravity settles in. You stand at the same time Bucky does. Of course you do. Your sleeves brush as you turn toward the exit. You're not exactly sure when you started noticing every little touch, or look, or breath he takes.
The corridor outside the briefing room is quieter than the main floors, with the lights set low for the early hour. Your footsteps echo in sync, a steady rhythm that matches the pulse in your throat. Pre-mission silence feels stretched tight, every sense tuned sharper. People don't joke as much out here.
Your hand flexes at your side, already thinking through your kit, blade placement, reload time, angles of entry. But there's something else layered beneath today's readiness, something more distracting. Maybe it's the date. Maybe it's him. It's probably the two combined.
"You good?" he asks.
He doesn't look at you when he says it. Eyes forward, scanning corners like you're already midmission.
"Yeah..." you answer. "You?"
"Always."
It's automatic, the reply. You know better. He knows you know better.
A tech team rolls a cart across the intersecting hall, and Bucky reaches up to grab your elbow to pull you back. You just missed the cart. You could live inside these touches. You already do.
"Whoa," you gasp. "Thanks, Buck."
His mouth curves faintly, there and gone.
The armory door slides open with a hydraulic hiss. Inside, the air smells like oil, cold steel, and polymer. Overhead strip lights reflect off neatly organized racks, labeled drawers, and charging stations blink green. You head over to your station.
Gear up is its own language. No wasted motions. You lay everything out first, same order every time. Twin knives balanced with familiarity in your palms. Widow bite gauntlets, compact and dark, you snap them open and check the charge indicators. Micro line launcher, shock disks, compact smoke pellets. Each piece of gear gets a touch, a check, and a place on your frame.
Across from you, Bucky works in heavier shapes and darker lines. Field pistols broken down and reassembled with fluid precision. Magazine springs tested, slides racked. He lines up his knives last, more of them than anyone else carries, edges catching the light like thin mirrors. You watch his hands for half a second too long, and he notices.
He spins one blade once, testing the weight, then loops up at you without lifting his head. "You're doin' it again."
"Doin' what?"
"Starin' at me."
"I'm observing craftsmanship, James."
"It's a knife."
"It's your knife."
His eyebrows raise. You feel the warmth creep up your neck. You step closer before you even think about it.
"Hold still," you say.
He does. The leather's twisted near the buckle. You straighten it, fingers working close to his collarbone. You can feel his warmth through the fabric, steady and solid. Your knuckles brush the edge of a scar. His breathing shifts just slightly.
"All set," you murmur.
Your turn comes faster than expected. His flesh hand checks the seal on your gauntlet strap, firm and careful. He always double-checks your restraints and closures.
"Good," he says quietly.
For a second, you're standing close enough that if either of you leaned in, even a little, the line you've protected for so long would disappear.
Boots thud past the armory entrance, voices come and go, and suddenly reality sets in again. Weapons loaded, armor ready, hearts doing things they shouldn't be doing. You push those feelings aside and steady yourself before heading toward the Quinjet.
The ramp hums under your boots as you board. Inside, the cabin lights glow low amber, casting long shadows across harness straps and cargo netting. The familiar shape of the jet feels steadier than the morning has.
Sam drops into the seat across from you and starts strapping in, still talking like the silence might actually kill him. "I just want it noted," he starts, "that if anybody asks, I was ready to be romantic today.
From the cockpit doorway, Nat glances back while running a systems check on her wrist display. "You say that every year."
"I mean it every year."
"It's never true, though."
He presses a hand to his chest. "That hurts."
She doesn't even look up. "You'll live."
Bucky takes the seat beside you, knees almost touching yours in the narrow spacing. He locks his harness with one clean pull, then checks yours without comment. Tug, glance, satisfied nod. Every flight, without fail. Across the aisle, Steve adjusts his gloves with a quiet focus. His posture is straight, even at rest. He looks up and scans the cabin, doing his own head count. He always does.
"Wheels up in thirty seconds. Primary plan still holds." Steve says calmly.
A few nods. Tension is thick, though, it always is before a mission. You lean forward to recheck your gauntlet charge. Green reflections dance across your knuckles. Bucky watches the motion, cataloging it without meaning to. He wonders, not for the first time, how someone built for sharp edges learned to move so carefully. He's supposed to be reviewing entry angles. Instead, he's memorizing the way your mouth presses into a thin line when you concentrate.
The engines deepen in pitch. The cabin vibrates through the soles of his boots. Mission gravity settles in his chest, a familiar weight that he's grown accustomed to. Danger is simple when you're a deadly assassin. Feelings for your best friend aren't. He's risked everything in wars, in prisons, in the blank spaces where his past was taken from him. Yet saying one honest sentence to you feels more terrifying than any of that.
You glance over, catching him looking this time. You lift your eyebrows in a silent question. "You're quiet," you say over the engine.
"Thinkin'," he answers.
"Uh oh."
"Yeah," he says softly. "Uh oh."
The jet lifts. Natasha's voice comes over the cabin channel. "Check comms. Jammers might be active."
Sam groans. "Nothing says Valentine's Day like signal interference and ass-kicking."
Bucky flexes his metal fingers once, then rests his hands on his knees. He's completely gone for you and running out of reasons to pretend otherwise.
The jet settles into descent with a controlled shudder, engines throttling down to a low, predatory hum. The cabin lights shift to red. Outside the small side window, the warehouse district spreads in gray blocks and skeletal remains of buildings that once held life. Morning haze clings to the river. Mission air feels thick and sharp.
Bucky rolls his shoulders once and lets the soldier part of him take the wheel, but it doesn't push everything else out. It never really does when you're within arm's reach. Harnesses click open in staggered snaps. Across the cabin, Steve stands first.
"Final check. Comms are good, keep them clear. We stay quiet unless we need to."
"Copy," comes Nat over the internal channel, already mission-ready near the ramp.
Sam taps his earpiece. "If I whisper any quieter, I'm technically thinking."
"You should try that more often." You say.
Bucky doesn't smile, but he feels the shape of one trying to happen. His attention keeps splitting, half on approach vectors, half on you doing your premission ritual. Adjusting your gloves for the third time, a tell you don't know you have: anxious, nervous, whatever you want to call it.
You stand from your seat and close your eyes. You cross your left arm over your chest, your right hand grabbing that elbow to stretch. You take a deep breath. Then you do the same motion with the opposite arms. You drop your arms and drop your head back, taking another deep breath. You shake your hands out by your sides. Bucky watches you every time. Infactuated? Captivating?
He wants to tell you to be careful. He wants to tell you to stay behind him. He wants to say I'll protect you. Instead, he checks your shoulder seam for a snag that isn't there and pulls his hand back as if nothing happened.
"Another day, another mission." You whisper, smiling at Bucky.
"We'll do fine." He nods, seriously. Stoic soldier fronting.
"That's why I love ya, Buck." You laugh quietly.
The ramp lowers just enough to slip bodies through. Cold air rushes in, damp and metallic, carrying the smell of wet concrete and old fuel. The jet sets down behind a derelict storage structure two blocks from the target, shielded from line of sight. Boots hit the ground softly with silent nods to the rest of the group. Formations take place instantly.
Tony's voice threads through the comms, filtered and dry. "Nice and warm here in the Tower, folks. Satellite drift in ninety seconds. After that, you're under local for another ninety. That cycle repeats. Try not to do anything cinematic."
"No promises," Sam whispers.
You and Bucky peel off together toward the eastern approach, cutting between stacked cargo containers beaded with condensation. Your movement matches his without signals, without discussion. Years of shared missions turned into instinct. He knows your pace, your angles, and how much distance you like between you and a partner when you're hunting quietly. He knows the sounds you make when you're trying not to be scared.
You're making it now, that almost silent breath through your nose. It's controlled. But he knows it, hears it. He wants to reach for your hand again. The urge is sudden and overwhelming. But it's not smart.
"In position," Steve says into comms. "Status report."
Bucky keys his mic with a minimal press. "East corridor. No visual compromise."
"Copy," Steve says. "We're staged west. Sam, status."
"Nothing above so far."
You crouch at the service door access panel, pulling a slim tool from your belt. Your shoulder brushes Bucky's thigh as you work. He watches your hands instead of the perimeter for half a bear too long, but he trusts his training to cover the gap. He knows the curve of your focused face better than he knows his weapons at this point.
The lock clicks open under your tool with a tiny metallic sigh. You glance up at him, eyes bright.
"Ready?" you mouth.
He nods once. Steady on the outside, but falling straight through the inside.
The door opens, and you slip in first. Smooth and low, Bucky follows close enough to cover your blind side without crowding your movement. Inside, the air changes. Stale dust, cold iron, and old oil soaked into concrete. Light filters through high cracked windows in pale vertical strips, turning floating particles into drifting static. Somewhere deeper in the structure, machinery rattles from the wind. The door eases shut behind Bucky with barely a sound.
Bucky's senses narrow and sharpen. Angles, shadows, and distance to cover fill his mind. The world becomes lines and timing. And you. Always you at the center of his awareness like a fixed star.
"East corridor entry complete," you say quietly over comms, voice steady and low.
"Copy," Steve answers. "West team moving to outer ring."
"Roofline set," Sam adds. "Two patrols above you, catwalk level."
You hold up two fingers, then point left. Your wrist gadget shows a heat signature under the next doorway. Bucky nods once. He shifts and draws a knife.
The guard steps halfway through the doorway and never gets the chance to finish his next step. Your widow line snaps tight around his ankles and pulls him off balance while Bucky closes the distance. One hand over his mouth, one precise strike.
You look at Bucky, quickly checking on him. He gives you a nod before he turns to continue through the door. Every time you move like this, efficient and alive, something in his chest aches with pride he has no right to claim. You're not his to protect, but he does it anyway.
You advance deeper. The corridor opens onto a loading floor the size of a football field, stacked with crates, hung with chains, and suspended walkways. Voices carry in broken reflections off metal walls. Engines idle near the far bays. Transfer is active, and Tony was right on the mark.
"Visual on cargo," you report calmly. "Multiple crates, launcher-sized."
"Confirmed," Tony says. "Tags match."
A laugh drifts across the floor from a cluster of armed buyers near a truck. They think they're safe. It's almost comical. They're casual and relaxed. Just hoping for the next big payday.
Bucky watches you scan sightlines, mark routes, and count bodies. You watch him when you can, too. How his head drops slightly when he's zoning in on a target. How he flips his knife before sinking into a hostile. How he always seems to be looking at you when you want to look at him.
He loves you. You love him.
The thought lands fully formed this time in Bucky's head, in his chest, in his heart.
It should feel like a crisis. Instead, it feels like the missing piece that he hadn't realized he was missing.
"East side, hold," Steve says over comms. "West is almost in position."
"Copy," Bucky answers.
You both settle behind a stack of wrapped pallets. Close enough that your arms are pressed along his from shoulder to wrist. His breathing is steady, and you count it without meaning to. His metal fingers flex once against the knife handle.
"West side set," says Steve in your ear. "Eyes on three exterior doors and the north catwalk."
"Roofline ready," adds Sam. "I've got overwatch on two trucks and a bored guy picking his teeth."
"Focus," Nat sighs.
"I am focused. On his dental hygiene."
You shift beside Bucky, leaning just enough to sight past the pallet edge. He adjusts with you automatically, your shoulders aligned, fields of fire interlocked. It feels like dancing, if dancing involved knives and suppressed rounds.
"Buck, you're cleared to move to inner cover."
You move together from pallets to crates to forklifts. Each crossing is timed between patrol turns and engine noise. Your wrist gadget flicks once, twice, disabling a camera node with a soft spark that vanishes beneath the echoing machinery.
Bucky tracks threats, but he also tracks you. The way you signal without looking. The way you trust him to be exactly where you expect. And you do. Because he's Bucky, the same guy who has never let you down even one single time. Who you love. Trust is a heavier weight than armor.
A buyer group shifts near the central truck, weapons sling careless. One steps away to smoke. Nat's voice threads in, low and certain. "Isolated target, south stack. I've got him."
Three seconds later, the man is quietly horizontal and out of the story.
"Outer ring is thinning," she reports.
"Timing's good. Tony says over comms. "Thermals show crate loading starting now. You're inside their window."
You pause behind a vertical beam, back almost against his chest as you peek at the angle. He can feel you breathe through layers of gear. He could say it right now, he thinks wildly. After this, he promises himself. After this push, we're home. No more waiting for the perfect moment.
Across the floor, Steve and Nat shift positions among stacked cargo, drawing attention with their subtle, deliberate movement. Guards are redirected over towards them. Lines of sight change. Everyone's watching something and tracking someone, adjusting for obvious threats.
"Let's move in, fast."
The warehouse erupts into motion, controlled and surgical. Steve and Nat make noise, a rolling wave of impact and command presence that pulls attention hard. Shouted orders are heard over the hum of machinery as hostiles make their way over. Eyes turn away from your sector exactly as planned.
"Go," Bucky says, already moving.
You launch with him. There's no hesitation between you, no verbal count. You both break cover on the same breath, splitting angles like mirrored instinct. Your widow line snaps out and yanks a rifle sideways just as its owner tries to shoulder it. Bucky's already there, driving forward, disarming with a brutal twist. He drops the man flat. You pivot off Bucky's momentum, plant a boot on a crate edge, and vault. Midair, you loosen a shock disk that pops up against a second guard's vest in a crackle of blue. He folds with a strangled yelp. Bucky doesn't even need to look to confirm. He knows you hit your shots.
He covers your landing with two suppressed shots, tight grouping, and clean. Your knife flashes past his shoulder a split second later and buries into the strap of a third hostile's weapon, pinning it useless against a post. It's just you and him, years of watching each other move, learning rhythms, building a shared combat language no one ever formally taught.
"Cutting center," Bucky reports.
"Seen," Steve answers. "Keep pushing."
A forklift roars to life near the truck bay as a driver panics. You're already moving toward it. Bucky beats you there by half a stride and shoots the hydraulics. The machine slumps sideways with a groan, blocking the exit.
You grin at him, quick and bright. "Show off."
He almost says only for you. Instead, he tosses your thrown knife back to you without looking. You catch it by the handle. More proof of how locked in you are with each other. Gunfire cracks from the catwalks, misdirected toward Steve's pressure line. Sam's voice cuts in.
"Topside scrambling. I'm herding."
"Copy," says Nat. "Left ladder clear."
Bucky steps into your space to redirect your line of fire by half an inch, his metal arm bracing briefly against your ribs so you don't overexpose yourself beyond cover. The contact is firm, protective, and gone way too fast. His heart is pounding harder from that than from the shooting.
He's dimly aware that if anyone watched you two long enough, they'd see it. Not just the efficiency, but the care threaded through it. The constant adjustments to keep each other safe. You've never fought like this with anyone else.
The last guard in your immediate lane drops. For half a second, it feels like the center is yours. Noise shifts and targets are thinning out.
Nobody calls out the guard on the far mezzanine. Bucky starts to turn toward you to say your name. The rifle cracks. The sound is wrong. Not the scattered echo of crossfire, not the muffled thump of suppressed shots. This one is sharp and clean and close enough that Bucky feels it in his teeth.
He's already turning toward you when it happens. Your body jerks like someone yanked a wire through you. The motion is small, almost confused, and then momentum disappears. The knife slips from your fingers and clatters across the concrete in a lonely metallic spin. For half a heartbeat, his brain refuses to translate what he's seeing. He sees the red bloom on your suit, and the color leaves your face.
"Contact, mezzanine!" Sam barks over comms a fraction too late. "High right!"
Bucky is moving before the words finish. He fires twice at the man who may have just killed you. Pure instinct, driving the shooter back behind the railing. You hit the ground hard. Everything drops out of focus. Sound narrows to a high rushing ring. The warehouse becomes distant shapes and irrelevant motion.
Training says to secure the threat, maintain formation, and keep the objective in sight. Bucky drops to his knees beside you instead. Your eyes are open but unfocused, breathing unevenly. Blood is spreading fast through the seam of your suit at your side, darker than the shadows.
"No," he hears himself say, rough and immediate. "No, no, no."
"What's going on?" Steve says through comms.
"We're hit, it looks bad," Bucky responds, no longer mission-focused.
His gloves are already slick as he clamps pressure over the wound, hands shaking despite iron strength.
"Stay with me," he says to you, voice breaking loose from control. "Look at me."
You try to focus on him. The pain comes in waves but never stops. You summon all the strength you have left to reach for his face, trying to cup his cheek. He reaches out to help you bring his hand to his cheek. You move your thumb once before feeling like you're fading away.
This is the moment he's rehearsed in nightmares, always wordless, always too late. He doesn't want this to be the end.
"Med evac is almost here," Nat says. "I'm moving to them."
"Shooter confirmed dead. We got 'em all." Sam comms.
Bucky leans closer, forehead almost touching yours, the world reduced to your barely there breath and the heat leaving your skin under his hands.
"I was gonna tell you," he blurts, the words tearing out unfiltered. "I was gonna tell you after this, I swear."
He presses harder on the wound, but the blood doesn't stop coming. You try to speak, but the words can't come out. You form what you think are words for Bucky, but they come out as pained moans.
"You can't," he says, voice fraying. This is the man under the soldier stripped bare.
Steve walks up to Bucky, who's still learning over your body.
"C'mon, Buck, we gotta get her out of her."
Bucky looks up at Steve, two lone tears stream down either side of his face. Steve puts a hand on his shoulder and gives it a light squeeze.
Bucky whispers in your ear, hoping you can hear him, "I love you. Please stay."
You're on the med jet, strapped to a stabilization board, with med foam packed right against the wound. Your face has gone too pale under the smear of blood and antiseptic. It launches almost the moment your stretcher locks into place. Priority transport. Gone into the morning sky before the rest of the team even finishes loading out.
Bucky watches it disappear through the narrowing edge of the ramp, jaw locked so tightly it aches. He doesn't realize he's taken a step after it until Steve puts a steady hand on his shoulder.
"They'll get her there faster this way." He reminds Bucky quietly.
Bucky nods once. It's not really an agreement, but he knows he can't do anything about it.
There's no banter on their flight home. No post-mission ritual. Just engine thunder and the low vibration through the deck plates. The cabin lights stay dim.
Bucky sits away from everyone else, his eyes stuck on the floor between his boots. Elbows resting on his knees, hands hanging empty between them.
The other three sit near enough to talk quietly. Nat cleans blood off her gloves with slow strokes. Sam takes worried glances at Bucky every now and then, checking on him silently. His wings are folded neatly, and he removes some gear for an excuse to fidget with something.
Bucky keeps replaying the moment in his head. He can still hear the sound of the gun going off. He can hear the gasp you let out when the bullet entered your skin. He can see the color drain from your face and the glossy look of your eyes before they finally shut. He'll never forgive himself if that's the last time he sees you. The last time he feels your warm skin and listens to you tease him for being a show off. His brain is trying to solve it differently, like there's still time to intercept the bullet.
After a while, Sam clears his throat. "She's stubborn," he says. "That counts for something."
"It counts for a lot."
Bucky swallows hard. He hasn't been able to trust his voice. Steve unstraps and crosses the distance, movements balanced against the jet. He doesn't sit down, just braces a hand on the seat frame beside Bucky.
"You did everything right," Steve says.
Bucky lets out a shaky breath that almost turns into a broken laugh. "I didn't, she still got hit."
"That doesn't mean you failed."
"It does to me."
Steve studies him for a moment, not pushing him to say more. "You broke the shooter's line of sight in under a second. You stopped that second round. You kept her alive."
What happened, Bucky thinks, is that he almost lost her. And he should have been the one to take the bullet. His hands curl into fists. Metal fingers whisper against each other.
"I finally said it," he says quietly, like a confession.
Steve knows exactly what he means. "Yeah," he answers. "I heard you."
Heat crawls up the back of Bucky's neck despite the cold cabin air. "Wasn't how I planned it."
"Most real things aren't," Steve says. "But you can tell her again later. She's gonna get through this."
The engine pitch shifts as they change altitude. The sound fills the pause.
"It's Valentine's Day afterall," Steve adds after a moment. "Kind of a perfect day built for saying what matters."
Bucky looks up at him then, eyes red-edged and exhausted. "What if she dies?"
Steve's grip tightens briefly on the frame. "We cross that bridge if we have to. Until then, you make sure you tell her again when she wakes up."
The jet keeps cutting forward through the morning, carrying all of them home without the one person Bucky keeps checking for. No one speaks after that.
The tower feels too normal when they land. Glass catching sunlight now that it's early afternoon. The kind of day that shouldn't exist when someone's life is hanging in the balance a few floors below.
They move through intake and security on autopilot, putting their gear back where it belongs. Logging weapons and writing signatures. No one lingers or jokes. The absence of your footsteps is felt by everyone on the team.
Debrief happens quickly. The conference room screens glow with mission playback, drone angles, heat maps, and timestamps. Freeze frames of impact points and takedowns. Tony stands at the head of the table, scrolling through data with tight, economical gestures.
"Shipment was secured," he says. "Inventory intact enough that we have full trace. Buyers' network is sweating, so that's a win."
No one reacts. Tony reads the room quickly. He swipes to a Redwing camera playback. The moment of the shot pauses mid-frame, but he doesn't play it.
"Crossfire variables stacked wrong," Tony says. "Early rotation and elevation shadow. That's on their dice, not your skill."
Bucky doesn't answer. He hasn't even sat down.
Steve chimes in, "Status?"
Tony exhales sharply, and there it is, the himan crack in the armor. "Out of surgery. Bullet passed straight through. Missed the worst of the organs by a margin."
Bucky's fingers flex at his sides. "When can we see her?"
"Short version, not yet," Tony explains. "Long version, they'll page you when she is able to have visitors."
Tony looks straight at Bucky now. "She made it to the table alive because of you, Barnes."
Bucky gives a solid nod and turns to leave the room. He needs a hot shower, fresh clothes, and maybe a good cry if he can manage it.
---
The medical floor is too white, too bright, too controlled. Footsteps soften automatically on the polymer flooring. People speak in low tones, as if the volume itself were part of the treatment. Bucky waits through two checkpoints and one firm-handed nurse who makes him sit for exactly four minutes that feel like forty. He doesn't argue with her, although he wishes he could.
Finally, a door slides open down the corridor.
"Okay, Mr. Barnes. She's all yours."
He nods. The room is dimmer than the hallway. Monitors glow in gentle blues and greens. Lines run across one screen, and other machines breathe softly beside the bed. And there you are. Too still and too pale. Bandaging wrapped clean at your side, shoulder exposed above hospital fabric, skin marked with adhesive and sensor leads. Your hair looks wrong against the pillow, like it hasn't been brushed.
For a second, he can't even step forward. Battlefields never did this to him. Hydra never did this to him. You, quiet and hurt in here, almost drops him to his knees.
He moves to the bedside slowly. His metal hand hovers, then settles carefully around your fingers, mindful of the wires. You're warmer now, thank god.
"I'm here now," he whispers.
He studies your face as if he's relearning its map. The crease near your brow and the tiny scar near your chin. Of course, he knew they were there, but he had taken them for granted before.
"You picked one hell of a day to scare me," he murmurs. "I had a whole speech planned. You kinda ruined my timin'."
His thumb strokes once across your knuckles. "I meant it. I don't know if you heard me, but I meant it."
Time stretches in the recovery room until it no longer feels measurable. The monitors keep their steady rhythm. Your chest rises and falls quietly. Each inhale pulls his attention like a thread. Bucky sits forward in the chair, forearms braced on the mattress edge, still holding your hand. He doesn't even know what time it is, only that Sam has left to go have his "wine and dine" dinner date.
He keeps talking because silence feels like surrender.
"Remember that terrible takeout place you like so much?" he quietly smiles to himself. "I would do anything to eat their greasy food with you right now."
His thumb traces a slow line along your fingers.
"I was gonna grab that for us tonight. That was the big plan. Real smooth, right? Greasy food and probably a movie you'd pretend not to cry to." His voice tightens on the last word.
"Steve says timing's never right for the important stuff. Guess he's got a point. Still hate that he's right though."
Footsteps pass in the hallways. A cart rolls by. Life keeps moving outside this room, and it feels offensive. He bows his head a little, bringing his arm up as a makeshift pillow.
"I've jumped out of planes and fallen from trains," he sighs. "None of it comes as close as to how I feel right now."
Time moves by slowly and quickly all at once. It's eight o'clock now. Bucky only knows because a nurse came in to check on you. She wrote down the time on the whiteboard by the door. He's hungry, he's thirsty, and he'd rather die of starvation and dehydration than leave your side. He looks out the window in the room, wishing the two of you could be out in the city, laughing and hanging out. He wishes he could tell you how he feels and hear what you have to say.
There's a faint shift in your hand. So small that someone might miss it. He jerks upright, studying your face carefully. Another small movement. Bucky is frozen in place. Another tiny movement, your fingers trying to curl but not quite getting there yet. Your brows tighten like you're fighting up through deep water.
"Easy there," he whispers. "You're okay."
Your lashes flutter, stop, and flutter again. The monitor ticks a little faster.
"That's it," he encourages. "Come back to me."
Your eyes open a sliver, unfocused, light sensitive. Confusion takes over. Then discomfort. A low groan escapes your throat as you adjust. A throbbing ache at your side. You try to assemble the room piece by piece.
Bucky's the first thing that resolves clearly in your line of sight. Relief hits his face so openly it would scare him if he were capable of self-consciousness right now.
He lets out a breath, "Hey."
Your voice doesn't come out yet, but your lips part like you're trying. Your gaze drops, finds your bandaging, the wires, then climbs back to him with a question and a memory tangled together.
"Yeah," he says quietly. "You got hit. Thought you died."
Your fingers tighten weakly around his. Tears burn his eyes instantly, and he laughs under his breath. He tries not to let them fall, but he can't help it. A shaky breath comes out as he shakes his head.
"Told you not to get shot," he whispers. "You never listen."
Your throat works to get the words out. Your voice is barely there, scraped thin.
"...Gotta keep.. you on your toes."
He huffs a broken, grateful breath. Your gaze locked on his, hazy but sharpening by the second. The room comes to you in layers: sounds first, then light, then pain. But always him.
"I... love you, too." You manage to get out.
Emotion crowds his throat again, but this time he lets it stay.
"I wasn't supposed to say it like that," he continues, voice low and unguarded. "I had this whole night planned.
He glances down at your joined hands, then back up, blue eyes clear and terrified and certain all at once. "I meant it, though, every word."
You smile at him. Bits and pieces of the morning play in your head. You've never seen a man break down quite like Bucky had earlier. And honestly, you had been grateful you were able to hold his face one last time before the darkness took over.
"Thought I was a goner," You mumbled.
He nods, understanding exactly how you feel.
"You know, I've been in love with you for a while now," he says, simple and direct. "Didn't know if we should put a label on it. Was too nervous to ruin the relationship with my favorite person."
His thumb brushes your knuckles, but he keeps his eyes on you.
"Me too, Buck."
"I kept telling myself I had time," he goes on. "More missions, more mornings in the kitchen. More chances to say it at the right time, exactly how I wanted. But I wasn't sure I was allowed to want more."
Your eyes shine now, fully awake, completely present.
"The days leading up to Valentine's Day felt... complicated?" he admits. "Not because I didn't have someone, but because the someone I wanted was already with me, and I didn't know if we could be anything more."
Your fingers squeeze his with surprising strength.
He leans in a little, voice softer but steadier than it's been in hours. "I'm telling you right here, right now, I love you. As more than a mission partner, as more than a friend. I love everything about you."
Your eyes fill before he even finishes the last word. Not from pain, not from the meds, but from the way he's looking at you like the truth finally got tired of waiting and chose to come out. You study his face like you're confirming something you've known for a long time but never dared to name. The worry lines, the softness he only shows when he forgets to hide, and the way his grip never loosened.
"I thought..." you murmur. "I guess I thought it would be easier for me to pretend not to notice."
His brows pull together. "Notice what?"
"How it feels when you walk into the room."
He just looks at you, waiting for you to continue.
"I didn't say anything," you go on. "Because I didn't want to lose you. But honestly, best friends isn't enough for me."
Silence folds around you, warm and full instead of empty. His thumb is still moving over your hand, as if he can't stop touching you, as if touch is proof you're still really here.
"You sure this isn't the meds talkin'?"
You manage a faint, crooked smile. "If it were the meds, I'd have told you months ago."
And that does it. The last of his restraint gives way. He rises from the chair and leans in slow enough for you to stop him if you want. Close enough that you can feel his breath, warm and unsteady.
"My lips are so dry from this place," you whisper through a giggle.
"I don't care," he smiles.
The kiss is gentle, careful of tubes and soreness, and the fact that you're still healing. Soft, lingering, reverent. Not scared and rushed like a battlefield claim, not desperate to get the words out. This is more like a sweet beginning.
His warm hand cradles your jaw lightly. He kisses you as if he's been holding it back for years, and he plans to keep doing it for the rest of his life. When he pulls back, his forehead rests against yours, both of you breathing the same air.
"Happy Valentine's Day," he whispers.
"Took you long enough, James."
"You're worth the wait, doll."
———
Part Two
Thanks for reading<3 Just a reminder that my requests are open! I’d love to hear from you!
hii! can I request an angst bucky fic where he has a really bad nightmare from his hydra days and when the reader tries to wake him up he freaks out and chokes the reader with his metal arm, thinking he’s back at hydra and not realising it’s her, resulting in him hating his arm even more. after that, he keeps talking down on himself. and worries about the fact that he is capable of hurting the reader again. Ty xx
my head is full of poison
pairing: bucky barnes x reader
summary: request above
word count: 3.3k
content warnings: angst, fluff, mention of hydra, brainwashing, torture. zemo is here (sorry), bucky wants kids, vomiting, blood, graphic depictions of violence, bucky is self-sacrificing and insecure, not proofread
author's note: hello my love! thank you so much for the request, i hope you enjoy this! thank you also for being so patient with me<33 i've also updated my masterlist for new characters (esp the pitt & off campus! so take a look if you'd like to send some requests<33)
· · ────── ꒰ঌ·✦·໒꒱ ────── ·
You knew better than anyone that Bucky struggled with sleeping. It had taken you a little over the 6 month mark of your relationship for him to feel comfortable letting you sleep over.
You hadn’t mentioned the firmness of the mattress when you slept, as if it was barely used. Nor did you mention that you’d happened to feel him sneak out of the bed when he thought you were asleep to curl up on the floor next to the bed.
You didn’t probe then, only because you though it would do you no good. It was still considered the early days back then, Bucky courting you the only way he knew how—flowers, chocolates, walks in the park.
He was nothing like the man Steve described back in the army. He was awkward, shy, stumbling over his own words and an overall sweetheart. Nothing like the ladies’ man you’d heard about.
You suppose that came with the over 70 years of isolation and torture. It was entirely understandable that one would have trouble sleeping with all that he’d been forced to endure.
You’d only attempted to bring it up once with him before.
“Hey,” you started out nervously, running your hands up and down the contours of his back as he laid over you on the couch.
You’d been watching some new nature documentary, something Bucky had been looking forward to—you weren’t necessarily too invested into the topic, but you found is endlessly endearing how his eyes seemed to sparkle in wonder as the commentator continued to speak.
“Hm?” Bucky muffles into your collarbone, barely looking away from the screen but letting you know you had his attention.
“Do you—uh, do you like your bed?” you cringe inwardly as soon as the line exits your mouth. Seriously? Did he like the bed? God you sucked at this.
Bucky snorts softly, a smile upticking his lips slightly as he shrugs noncommittally, “It’s a lot better than the ones they had back in the day—softer than anything I’ve ever had. S’nice.”
You bite your tongue, hesitating when you ask quietly, “You—” you clench your jaw.
“I’m worried that you don’t sleep well.” You admit, shrinking into yourself when Bucky tenses in your arms, still staring straight ahead at the screen.
You watch as his face shuts down, his expression hardening. Yet he doesn’t leave your embrace, instead blowing out a sharp breath through his nose.
“No. I don’t.” he says gruffly. He doesn’t elaborate further.
When you open your mouth to speak again, to try and help—he squeezes you tighter this time, quietly asking you not to push any further.
So, you don’t, even though questions bounce around your head like thought bugs without a home, you relent. There are just some hills you can’t bring yourself to die on.
˖⋆࿐໋₊ ☆
Unfortunately for you, Bucky seemingly takes that conversation as a sign to stop hiding the fact that he won’t sleep with you.
Instead of crawling into bed with you to snuggle under the covers before you inevitably give into sleep first—his blanket and pillow is already laid out onto the floor when you shuffle into the bedroom.
You stare at it, unflinching. How are you supposed to fix this? Would he even accept your help?
You know the answer to that. If there was one thing Bucky Barnes hated more than anything else in the world—it was accepting help.
So, little by little you plan. Granted it’s not the most convoluted plan you could come up with, if anything it’s a little juvenile.
It stars with you purposefully sleeping on the side of the bed that he lays his blanket down on, so you can turn and see him at any chance.
It puzzles him slightly judging by the furrow in his brow the first couple of times you do it, but he gets used to it soon enough.
Then you start to leave your hand dangling off the side of the bed, sometimes you’ll wake up on your stomach in the middle of the night to the feeling of Bucky tracing small shapes onto your fingertips and palm.
It makes you smile sleepily and clutch his hand softly in your own, feigning sleep when you hear him whisper into the dark, asking if you’re awake.
It works for a while and you’ve almost made peace with the fact that maybe this will just be your new normal for a while, you could deal—it wasn’t really like you were the one getting the shorter end of the stick here.
Until the night you wake up due to your own nightmare.
You can barely remember it, maybe the sound of screaming and blood but it’s all a jumbled mess of yarn in your head that you’re unwilling to tangle at this moment.
You stumble out of bed, mindful that Bucky looks like he must be in the middle of his second hour of uninterrupted rest. It’s been long enough for you to know that he rarely gets more than that in one night, usually having them broken up by a multitude of his own nightmares.
You make yourself comfy on the couch, turning on something mindless that’s quiet enough so that you can barely even hear it because you also know that any louder will wake up your super soldier.
The fleece blanket is wrapped around you as you move to lay horizontally onto the couch, blinks growing slower as most of the adrenaline in your system seems to slowly filter out.
You’re startled though by the sound of shuffling before footsteps pad quickly over to your position, you rub your eyes slowly and blink up at the sight of the sleep ruffled brunette.
“Hey,” you murmur sleepily, snuggling further into the couch cushions with a hum as you smile up at him.
He stares down at you with a frown, “Come to bed.” He insists.
Your smile stretches your lips thinly, but you make no movement to leave your position, “I’m c’mfy here, go back to bed.” You retort with a sleepy snuffle.
Bucky’s frown grows more distressed when you dismiss him. He doesn’t want to go back to bed. He’s gotten so used to the feeling of you sleeping practically next to him that he refuses to go back to sleeping alone.
“It’s not good for your back.” Bucky mumbles, resisting the urge to pick up the bundled up version of you and take you back to the bed.
He can’t protect you if you sleep out here, there’s not enough space between the couch and coffee table for him to sleep on the floor and the distance between the bedroom and the living room gives an attacker too long of an opening to hurt you before Bucky could get to you.
You need to go to bed. Now.
“Says the guy who sleeps on the floor,” you mumble, a delirious giggle leaving your soft pillowy lips.
Bucky crosses his arm, that’s not fair. (It’s entirely fair).
You sigh, not hearing him move so you lift the corner of the blanket keeping you warm and shuffle further back into the frankly humongous couch.
“C’mere.” You order him, opening your arms for him to lay down. He looks perplexed.
“’s only for a couple of hours, the couch is harder than the mattress and I’m not getting up—you either come sleep with me or you go back to the room. You pick.”
Bucky wants to throw his hands up in a tantrum, to force you to go back to the bedroom and to not fight with him when he’s concerned for your safety, but you look so soft and so—so goddamn sweet that he can’t help himself
Let it be known that Bucky Barnes is a spoiled, rotten, selfish man.
He climbs onto the couch with you, exhaling as you wrap yourself around him, entangling his legs with yours and his arms cocooning your form.
It’s the best feeling in the world, feeling like he has the whole world in his hands.
˖⋆࿐໋₊ ☆
Sleep comes surprisingly easy, which should have been the first warning sign that something was wrong, sleep never came easy.
An ache eases in his chest at the feeling of having you in his arms, soft breaths puffing against his collar bone as the heaviness of sleep weighs on his eyelids.
He dreams of you, blissfully smiling in a warm lit home. The sun cascading through the kitchen windows and the happiest smile on your face.
You look…ethereal. Something he would never imagine himself finding or deserving of, in this lifetime of the next.
When his eyes focus, he notices something—or rather someone on your hip. A baby.
A baby that looks just like the two of you, an adorable head of dark hair with eyes that match your own, a cherubic smile on the tyke’s face that has Bucky’s heart bursting through his chest.
“You wanna say Hi to Papa?” you whisper enthusiastically to the baby, who claps his hands—a startled squeak of laughter leaving his small frame as you bounce him on your hip.
“Yeah? Say hi Papa!” you encourage him, and Bucky feels his legs moving before his mind catches up. With his arms outstretched he makes the small walk around the kitchen island to where the two of you stand.
“Pa!” Squeaks his son—his son his son his son. He has a baby—you—the two of you have a baby, a family like one he used to let himself dream about before the world decided he was undeserving of all peace and tranquillity.
“Hello—Hey Пусик” Bucky coos, hands shaking as you lift the baby into his arms. He’s so little, barely even encompassing Bucky’s forearm—so small, so precious. How can something so small be so important?
“He’s been fussy this whole morning, I think he just wanted his Papa.” You admonish the squirming baby in his arms with a faux annoyed expression. Bucky inhales sharply, staring down into the perfect irises of his child.
“You—you wanted me? P-papa?” he chokes out the word like it’s painful to exert. The baby gurgles in his arms, little hands slapping at his forearm as he wriggles in excitement—cooing nonsensically as drool slips from his little lips.
It’s simultaneously adoring and disgusting at the same time.
˖⋆࿐໋₊ ☆
He’s not sure how long he spends there in that moment, only that he’s aware that even forever would not be long enough.
It’s in the quiet moment that it comes for him, whilst he’s snuggled with you on the couch, watching as your little boy—Roman, you had mentioned—crawls around his playmat, stuffing various toys and objects into his mouth.
Желание (Longing)
He jerks with a startled gasp, his body tensing as the familiar words seemingly seeps into the memory.
“Bucky?” your distorted voice whispers to him, the memory fading around him as he twists and turns around the room in agony.
Ржавый (Rusted)
“No,” Bucky whispers horrified, turning to look at you and his baby but the both of you are nothing more than formless shapes.
His arms outstretch, trying to reach for you but you’re gone. No. No—no no no, please bring them back to me—give them back.
Memories flood through him, the cryo chamber, the testing, the amputation, the serum—it all comes flooding back.
Pain. Steve. Russia. Death. Blood. Murder.
I’mnotakillernaymore he chants to himself, rocking back and forth as he tries to ignore the trigger words being thrown at him.
Shuri fixed him, she promised—she wouldn’t lie to him. She told him he was free.
Девять (Nine) Добросердечный (Benign)
“Are you ready to comply soldier?” A leery voice grates his ears. Zemo.
He—how is he here? What—?
“You think you are free James, that are you are no longer under our control—but you are what you have always been, a soldier. You were born to follow orders—to carry out the orders of men more powerful than you can imagine—”
Bucky shakes his head, clenching his hands over his ears in a panic. He’s not a killer anymore—he’s been pardoned, they know he was under mind control.
“You think you can leave it behind you? Pretend you are a new man? You carry the lives of hundreds under your belt—you are a killer Barnes. The same way you will carry the life of your sweet—”
“Don’t you dare,” He snarls to the vision of Zemo. “I would never hurt her—”
“But can you promise that? Swear on her life that you would never hurt her?”
Bucky feels like crawling out of his skin, it’s all wrong—this, this is wrong—he wants to go back to his family, you in the sunlight. Your baby—his baby, he wants his son.
“I would never—” he chokes out.
“But you cannot promise.” Zemo echoes.
Bucky lurches forward, the growl tearing from his throat is animalistic and guttural as he wraps his metal arm around Zemo’s neck—who only grins devilishly.
“You. Are. A. Soldier.” Zemo whispers and Bucky’s vision grows dark.
“—ck, Buck—I can—” the strangled sound of your voice rips him out of his nightmare.
He’s transported back to his couch, leering above you with the same metal arm wrapped around your throat. He can feel your pulse under his grip, the thumpthumpthump of your heartbeat.
Your eyes are wide and teary, both of your hands wrapped around his hand around your throat, trying to pry him off. He snatches his arm away like you’ve burnt him—forcing himself away from you on shaky legs.
You cannot promise
He—he almost—Oh god.
“Buck,” your raspy voice makes him flinch, he did that. He’s the reason you sound like that. He could have crushed your windpipe if he applied even the slightest more pressure—he could’ve, he could’ve—oh.
He sees it so viscerally it scares him, the sight of you in a pool of blood, looking so similar to the countless unnamed people he’d murdered before. He can’t hide anymore—he will never not be a soldier.
Without another word, he bolts to the bathroom ignoring your calls of his name and the footsteps that follow him. He locks the door behind him before purging into the toilet, his vision turning blurry and his stomach cramping in on itself.
“Buck,” you call helplessly through the door. “Open the door,” you say, knocking softly as he hears the dull thump of your forehead against the wood.
Bucky can’t even look at you, let alone open the door. He doesn’t think he’s ever hated himself more.
“You need to leave.” He grunts out, loud enough for you to hear as he slumps down against the cabinets, pulling his legs to his chest.
“I’m not going anywhere until you open this door.”
It’s not the answer he wants to hear, yet funnily enough it’s the one he expected. He knows you’re not going to let this go, that you’re going to want to work this out like mature adults.
He can’t let you do that; he’s worried he’ll cave the second you look at him.
“I don’t want you here.” He insists despite the wobble in his voice. He presses his wrists into his arms, scrubbing the pinching tears that threaten to fall as he sniffs harshly.
“You don’t mean that,” you plead with him, your voice muffled by the wood but heartbroken all the same.
Bucky can still feel your pulse under his fingers, he is sick. Sick sick sick.
He hearts your heartbeat growing faster with anxiety as you continue to plead with him.
“Just—just come and talk to me okay? I’m not mad, I’m not scared of you. I know you didn’t mean it and you’d never hurt me—”
“Well, I did it anyways didn’t I?!” he bursts out, frustration escaping his grasp as he lashes out at you. He wants to take it back the minute he says it, he has no right to be upset with you—he’s not the one who woke up being strangled.
He doesn’t know how you still can even stand to be around him, anybody else would be running for the hills.
“I. don’t. care.” You retort. He hears as you take a seat on the floor outside of the bathroom, the small creak of the door echoing as you lay your back softly against it.
“I knew you were struggling; I knew what I was signing up for when I started dating you and I—alright, maybe I could have pushed more, asked more about how I could help but I just thought—” you sniff, breaking Bucky’s already tender heart.
“I thought it would be okay, that you’d come to me. And now—now it’s like you’d rather do anything else than talk to me and I—fuck!”
Your words taper off and in replace of them are body wracking sobs. You hate that you’re breaking down so obviously when Bucky is already struggling and some devilish part of you thinks that this looks like you’re trying to manipulate him.
“I’m sorry,” you blubber uselessly, trying to stop your tears as you scrub harshly at your face, irritating your skin.
“Don’t apologise.” His gruff voice comes from inside the bathroom. Sorrow tinges his every word, and you fight the urge to just completely break down the door behind you.
But you know Bucky locked it for a reason and you doubt violating his boundaries will get anywhere near where you need to be.
“I—I should have—”
“It’s not your fault.” He insists.
“Well, it isn’t yours either.” You say softly, laying a hand onto the door frame as if it’ll magically deteriorate the barrier between you two.
“Bullshit,” he voices, “I’m the one who almost—who almost crushed your windpipe. I don’t think it gets much more cut and drier than that.”
“You were having a nightmare.” You persist.
“You should be scared of me; you shouldn’t even want to be near me because of what I did” he sounds so sure of himself that it breaks your heart.
“You don’t get to decide that for me. I love you; I’m not leaving you just because you think you deserve to be alone and miserable for the rest of your life.”
Bucky pauses, the silence stretching between the two of you. “Maybe I should be.”
Your chest grows tight in agony, “Do you love me?” you whisper brokenly.
“What?” Bucky breathes out.
“Do. You. Love. Me?” you ask sharply, eyes never leaving the chipped paint of the door.
“…yes.” He admits, hesitant and resigned.
Your heart blooms softly with hope.
“Then we can work through this.”
“What?” Bucky asks, confused.
“If you love me then we can work through this. I’m not going to up and leave you unless you give me an actual reason to.”
Bucky scoffs, “The risk of me hurting you again isn’t enough of a reason.”
“Not if you’re willing to work on it with me. Meds, therapy, hell even going down to talk with Sam at the VA.” You say softly.
“I don’t care what it is, if you love me and you’re willing to work on it then you have nothing to worry about.”
Bucky speaks so softly that you have to strain yourself to hear, “And if it doesn’t work?”
You soften, “Then we exhaust every opportunity we have. You’re not broken Buck, you’ve gotta give yourself a chance.”
It’s silent for a couple of seconds before the sound of shuffling ensues, the lock clicking and the door opening has you scrambling to your feet.
Bucky looks like a mess, hair a tangled mess and red rimmed eyes. His lips wobble when he speaks, “I—I would like a hug, please?” he mumbles.
You all but throw yourself into his arms, tucking his head into the crook of your neck as he sobs.
Authors note: based on this request. Thank you, dear Anon, for this awesome request! I had so much fun writing this, so much that I got completely carried away🙈
Warnings: fluff, angst, SMUT 18+ I really went all in with this one 😅. Canon typical violence, mention of blood and wounds, Bucky’s taking quite a few knocks. Mention of male masturbation, oral (f receiving), p in v. Sunshine reader and Bucky being total Winter Grouch at the beginning, completely lost in his feelings and self-doubt. It's quite a ride and the cherry on the cake comes at the end 😅 Set in the after Thunderbolts timeline
Word Count: 17 K ( I know and I'm sorry 😓)
Summary: Bucky had fallen for you from the first sight, but kept his distance for months, telling himself it was safer that way, until the day Hydra took you, and the choice wasn’t his or yours anymore. Some deals are made knowing they’ll break you.
The jet landed with a metallic shudder, its hydraulics hissing as the ramp descended and exhaust curled into the cool evening air. You were already waiting, standing at the base of the landing pad with your med bag in one hand and a clipboard in the other.
Another completed mission, another set of bruises and egos to tend.
Yelena was the first off the jet, smirking despite the tear in her sleeve and the dried blood on her temple.
"It was just a tiny explosion," she was saying over her shoulder.
“Tiny?” Alexei grumbled behind her. “Then why did you have to use me as a shield?”
He stomped down the ramp with his usual flair, arms spread like a war hero returning from glorious battle, except he was covered in soot, and one of his boots was clearly cracked at the joint, barely clinging to his foot, threatening to give up with the next step. His suit was dusty, torn in at least three places, and he had a cut just above his brow that had left a streak of blood drying down his cheek.
Still, he was grinning.
“Ah! Little one!” he beamed when he spotted you, gesturing broadly. “I took the brunt of it! Protected the children!” He nodded backward toward the others. “You should have seen it! Fire everywhere, rubble falling, and me, holding up half the building!”
“You also tripped over your own foot and fell into a table,” Yelena added as she walked past, deadpan.
Alexei ignored her.
You smiled warmly as he approached, already reaching for a cloth to gently dab at the blood on his face.
“You’re lucky you’re made of bricks, Alexei,” you said softly, scanning him for more injuries. “Looks like you took more than a few hits.”
He puffed out his chest. “Yes, but look! Still standing. Still beautiful.”
You laughed under your breath, cleaning the cut with careful fingers. “Mostly beautiful. Though I think your nose might be crooked again.”
He gasped theatrically. “No! Not the nose! How will I charm the nurses now?”
“You’re in luck,” you said sweetly, patting his arm. “We’re immune to your charms but I still want you in the med bay, please. Let’s get that arm checked out and your ribs, too. You're favoring one side.”
He let out a dramatic sigh. “Anything for you, solnyshko.” His grin widened as he winked his eye at you. “You patch me up, I’ll tell you all about how I saved everyone. Twice.”
“Deal,” you said with a smile, stepping aside so he could follow the others down the hallway.
You shook your head, watching him lumber off, humming cheerfully, even bruised and dusty, Alexei was still a big child beneath all that bluster.
While Alexei disappeared down the hallway, already beginning his dramatized retelling to a passing tech, gesturing wildly with his good arm, you turned back toward the jet, just in time to see Ava stepping off the ramp with a quiet grunt, one arm wrapped tightly around her middle, the other clutching the railing like it might float away. She moved gingerly, each step measured, the pain clear in her posture, even if she was doing a great job of pretending otherwise.
Your eyes narrowed.
“Ava,” you called gently, jogging a few steps closer, “you’re limping.”
“I’m fine,” she said, her voice was calm, too calm, and she didn’t look at you directly.
“You always say that when you're not,” you replied, already lifting your comm to your mouth. “Medbay, I need a wheelchair to Hangar One. Now, please.”
“I don’t need…”
“You do,” you said firmly but kindly, cutting her off with a smile. “I can see your ankle from here, and I think it’s trying to leave your foot.”
She huffed out a short laugh, shaking her head. “You’re so dramatic.”
“Says the woman who just fell through a collapsing stairwell and landed like a superhero with a pulled ribcage and a twisted ankle. I heard the whole thing over comms, including the extremely creative swearing,” you smiled at her innocently.
That earned you a small smile in return.
The wheelchair arrived within a minute, pushed by a medtech who looked vaguely terrified of Ava. You gently coaxed her down into the seat, ignoring her muttered protests, as you squat beside her to check the swelling at her ankle.
“It’s already puffing up,” you murmured. “We’ll need x-rays, just to be safe.”
She sighed, clearly embarrassed. “I was trying to phase through the floor to break the fall.”
“And you phased into a fridge instead, didn’t you?”
“I... may have misjudged time and space a little bit.”
“Mm-hmm,” you said, fighting a smile as you gave her knee a gentle pat.
“Please don’t make a big deal out of it.”
“I would never,” you said sweetly, then added with mock seriousness, “but I will offer you a deal. No disappearing in radiology this time, okay?”
Ava blinked. “I was nervous last time. I didn’t mean to vanish.”
“You ghosted the technician mid-scan. She still talks about it.”
“That’s not my fault,” she muttered, cheeks pinking.
“Let’s just keep you visible until we get a diagnosis, yeah?” you said with a wink, tapping the edge of the wheelchair lightly.
Ava sighed again, but her mouth twitched like she was fighting a smile. “Fine. Only because it’s you.”
You smiled warmly in return.
As Ava disappeared down the hall, and not literally this time, you turned to find Yelena leaning against a supply crate like she’d been waiting for her moment.
“I didn’t get so much as a hello,” she said with mock offense, arms crossed, a faint smirk playing on her lips. “And I only got half blown up.”
You let out a soft laugh, walking over to her and gently brushing away a bit of ash clinging to her sleeve.
“I saw the blood on your temple. You sure you’re okay?” you asked, your voice already laced with quiet concern.
She shrugged. “Tiny cut. I’ve had worse hangovers.”
You gave her an approving once-over anyway, just to be sure. “Well, you still look good.”
Yelena grinned. “I know.”
Behind her, John Walker strode over, looking smug and sore in equal measure as he adjusted his shoulder strap with a wince, then paused beside the two of you.
“I don’t need patching up,” he said immediately, like it was a point of pride.
You raised a brow. “That’s why you’re walking like your spine was replaced with rusted springs?”
“I’m just sore. That wall came out of nowhere.”
Yelena snorted. “Walls do that, don’t they? Sneaky things.”
You offered him a friendly smile. “Glad to hear you’re unbreakable. Still, I’ve got an ice pack with your name on it, just in case that ‘soreness’ turns out to be something pulled.”
John chuckled and held up his hands. “No need, Nurse Sunshine, but thanks for the concern.”
Yelena’s smirk deepened. “How do you do this? Even the Boy Scout over here likes you.”
“I don’t like her,” John protested weakly, then glanced at you. “I mean, I do. You’re nice. Just… not like that.”
“I’m flattered either way,” you replied with an easy laugh, the warmth in your voice never faltering.
Yelena gave you a fond little nudge on her way past. “Don’t let the Winter Grouch give you trouble,” she murmured. “He’s bleeding and brooding. Prime Bucky mood.”
“Noted,” you whispered, drawing in a deep breath as you prepared to turn and face the inevitable but Yelena caught the subtle shift in your mood and paused.
She tilted her head, studying you with that sharp, perceptive gaze of hers. “Hey, you’re smiling,” she said, “but you’ve got that look.”
“What look?” you asked lightly, fiddling with the strap of your med bag.
“The one you get when someone’s been a jackass to you and you’re pretending it doesn’t bother you.”
Your smile wavered for just a second. “It’s nothing. I just… sometimes feel like I’m in the way. Like I’m being annoying. I know they’re all tired and hurt and don’t want someone hovering but I’m just simply here to help.”
Yelena frowned. “You are not a nuisance.”
You blinked.
“I mean it,” she added, stepping closer. “You walk into the room, and it actually feels lighter. We’d all be dead or grumpier without you and Bucky’s just... well, you know. Bucky. Don’t take him seriously.”
A soft laugh bubbled out of you. “Bukcy grumpier than he already is? That’s a terrifying thought.”
“Exactly, so do your thing, patch us up! Smile at us. Fuss over us. We need it, even when we pretend we don’t.”
You looked at her, clearly touched by the sincerity in her tone. “Thanks, Lena,” you murmured with a smile.
She gave you a quick, awkward shrug and started backing away. “Don’t get weird about it.”
“I won’t,” you teased, eyes shining. “I’ll just journal about it later.”
“Ugh,” she groaned, shaking her head as she walked off, leaving you alone in the almost empty hangar. Almost.
You knew he was still there, watching from just out of sight in the shadow, hoping that you might forget him and leave.
You didn’t need to look to know where he was – slightly to the left of the jet, behind one of the grounded transports, where the shadows ran deepest. You sighed, so this time it was the hide and seek tactic.
He had a whole repertoire of avoidance tactics by now. He’d beeline for the far exit the second the ramp dropped, trying to slip past you in the blur of disembarkment. He’d stride with a confident grimace on his face as if late for something important, trying to hide the limp in gait and muttering ‘I’m good’ without meeting your eyes, hoping you'd be too busy to stop him. Once, he barked at the mechanical crew about malfunctioning weapons so loudly it echoed through the entire hangar, like this could distract you from seeing his dislocated shoulder.
He’d timed more than a few disappearing acts to the exact moment you were wrapping gauze around someone else’s arm, his absence marked only by a faint smear of blood on the floor.
The thing was: none of those tactics had ever fully worked.
You almost always caught him, not because you were fast, but because you were constant. You didn’t chase; you simply watched, patient and unwavering, and somehow ended up beside him just when he thought he’d shaken you off. And every single time, it ended the same way: a grumpy exchange, his voice clipped and curt, your smile trying its best to stay steady… and then him following you to the med bay with all the warmth of a snowstorm.
And today was not going to be an exception.
You took a deep breath, adjusted your med bag on your shoulder, and started walking toward him, calm, unhurried, like this was the most natural thing in the world, because it was, because he was hurt, and even if he didn’t want kindness, he still needed care.
“I can see you, you know,” you said gently as you rounded the transport.
Bucky didn’t move, he stood with his back to you, one hand braced against the metal side of the jet, the other pressed to the steadily bleeding wound on his side, his dark hair was damp with sweat, a smear of grime streaked across his cheekbone – a man made of iron and exhaustion.
“I’m not in the mood for lectures,” he muttered.
You smiled softly, stepping closer. “Lucky for you, I don’t give them.”
“I’m fine,” he grunted trying to pass you by, but the dark smear of red spreading across his t-shirt just beneath his arm was hard to ignore and in addition to that he was walking a little too stiffly, jaw tight.
“No, you’re not.”
You quickened your pace and managed to step in front of him, blocking his path before he could make it to the elevator. You tilted your head up to meet his eyes, those sharp, tired eyes, and gestured toward the wet patch on his side.
“You’re bleeding,” you said, trying to keep your voice even.
“I’ve had worse, they all heal,” he muttered, barely meeting your gaze.
“That doesn’t make this one any less important.”
He exhaled like you were the most exhausting person alive. “Go patch up someone who actually needs it.”
You just gave him another warm smile, the one that always got under his skin, the one that said I’m not going anywhere, Barnes.
“Oh, I am,” you said. “You.”
He gave you a look that could freeze lava. “I said I’m fine.”
“Let me look,” you asked quietly. “Just look.”
He finally turned his head toward you, and for a moment, something flickered in his eyes, something raw, cornered, tired and angry.
“Why do you always do this?” he snapped. “Why can’t you just leave it?”
The words weren’t loud, but they hit harder than they should have, you swallowed, keeping your expression steady and your voice gentle.
“Because you’re bleeding, Bucky, because it’s my job, and because I care.”
He winced.
“Come to the medbay,” you said, nodding toward the corridor behind you. “Please, let me help.”
He stared at you like he didn’t understand why you were making such a fuss about it, but eventually, wordlessly, he started slowly moving in the right direction.
You walked in silence, a careful distance between your shoulder and his, not too close, never too close. He didn’t like that, or maybe he didn’t like you, and the thought of your arm accidentally brushing his was too much. You weren’t sure.
You used to tell yourself he was like this with everyone and to a certain point that was true, Bucky Barnes didn’t exactly ooze warmth with the rest of the team either, but somehow… somehow it felt different with you - colder and sharper.
At first, you thought it was just because you were new. People like him took time to open up, to let others into their world but time passed, it was six months now, and nothing had changed or maybe it had, maybe it had gotten worse.
You tried not to dwell on it, but your brain kept cataloging every moment he flinched away from your touch, every time he refused to look you in the eye when you smiled, every muttered “I didn’t ask you,” or clipped “Just don’t talk”, and you tried, you really, really tried to let it slide off your back, to tell yourself it wasn’t personal.
But it felt personal, because you didn’t just care about him as a medic, or even as a teammate. You liked him, even more than that.
There was something steady in him, something tired, yes, angry and closed-off and jagged, but steady and kind, in these brief, flickering moments that he seemed to hate himself for.
You saw that, you felt it, and you liked him, quietly, fiercely, which made the way he shut you out all the harder to swallow.
You wanted to believe he didn’t actually hate you, that it wasn’t your voice or your warmth that irritated him, but something else, some fear or scar you weren’t meant to understand. And yet, every time he pulled away or acted like you were unbearable, it left a bruise in a spot no bandage could reach.
You glanced over at him as you reached the hallway leading to the med bay. He was walking stiffly, blood still blooming through his shirt, jaw clenched like stone, as if he were headed for an interrogation room, not a place meant to help him heal.
He very obviously didn’t want to be here, not with you.
You swallowed hard against the familiar ache in your throat and forced on that small, professional smile, the one you’d worn too many times before.
Don’t take it personally… don’t make it anything… just do your job.
Because if he really did hate you for whatever inexplicable reason… you didn’t think you wanted to know.
The med bay was quiet, even Alexei’s booming voice was absent, which could only mean one thing: everyone else had already been checked, patched up, and cleared. This time, the injuries hadn’t been serious.
You set your bag down and pulled on a pair of gloves, while behind you, Bucky hovered just inside the doorway, tense as a loaded spring.
“You can take the cot,” you said softly, nodding to the padded bench where you treated most of the team.
He hesitated, as if the simple act of sitting felt like surrender but eventually, without another word, he crossed the room and lowered himself stiffly onto the edge.
You pulled out gauze, saline, antiseptic, scissors.
Bucky flinched slightly at the sound of the tray rattling into place, but his face stayed neutral and cold, just as usual.
“I’ll start with your arm,” you offered gently. “Then I’ll take a look at your side.”
“There’s nothing wrong with my side.”
You glanced up, his jaw was locked, lips pressed into a thin line and his vibranium fingers flexed against his thigh.
You kept your tone warm and steady. “You’re still bleeding, Bucky.”
“It’s not deep.”
“It’s bleeding through your shirt.”
“It’ll stop.”
You swallowed and carefully seated yourself in front of him to reach his arm, gently taking his flesh wrist to begin cleaning the cut that ran jaggedly along his forearm. You worked in silence for a few seconds, watching the way his muscles stayed coiled under your touch like he was resisting the urge to bolt. It was nothing new, he always did.
You spoke softly, eyes still on your work.
“I need to check the wound on your side.”
“You don’t.”
“I do.”
His voice sharpened. “Don’t push this.”
“I’m not pushing,” you said, meeting his eyes. “I just… I care if something’s wrong and it is.”
Something flickered in his expression – not quite anger, not quite fear, you couldn’t name it.
“Let me help you to pull it off,” you offered and reached for the hem of his T-shirt.
“I can handle it,” he muttered, already shifting, fingers hooking the edge of his tattered black T-shirt. “You’ll see it’s nothing.”
You leaned back slightly, watching as he tried to pull the shirt over his head, his breath hitched mid-motion, a soft sound of pain escaping before he could swallow it down, while the fabric stuck to his side where the blood had dried, tugging at the skin.
You stepped forward quickly. “Wait, don’t hurt yourself more. Let me…”
“No.”
His tone was harsh as he shoved your hand away, his arm still raised, shirt half-bunched around his ribs, every line of his body stiff and defensive.
You froze, a beat passed, then another.
“Bucky, I just want to help you,” you said, desperately trying to bite back tears that threatened to well up in the corners of your eyes.
He didn’t move, but didn’t say anything either, so you reached for the scissors on the tray, holding them up between you, giving him time to see and react if needed.
“I’ll be careful.”
Another silence.
Then, finally, a barely audible: “Fine.”
You moved close again, as you gently slid the cold edge of the scissors beneath the hem of his shirt. You felt, rather than saw, the way he tensed, the shallow rise and fall of his chest, the unsteady rhythm of his breathing.
The sound of the scissors snipping through fabric seemed too loud, too sharp. Bucky kept his eyes locked on the wall across, teeth grinding together to keep anything else from slipping out. You worked in silence, peeling the shredded, blood-soaked shirt from his body piece by piece, the fabric clinging to the wound at his side, warm and wet and sticking.
He hated this. Every second of it.
Hated the way the air touched his skin, hated the way he could feel your eyes taking him in, even if they were just scanning for damage, hated the way he sat there like a goddamn puzzle you had to piece back together again, like he couldn’t even take care of himself, couldn’t manage that on his own.
He would rather charge into enemy fire than sit here under your hands and let you see him, let you see all of it - the battered, bruised chest, the old lacerations across his ribs, the jagged web of scar tissue where his shoulder ended in steel.
It was disgusting, he knew it was, he saw it in the mirror when he dared to look, saw it in the way people hesitated when their eyes caught on the place where man became machine.
He waited for that from you, waited for the breath that hitched too long, for your fingers to still, for the quiet, involuntary reaction you didn’t mean to give because no matter how warm your smile was, no one wanted to look at this.
And God help him, he didn’t want you to.
He could’ve taken it from anyone else, from a stranger, a medic without a face or a voice but not you, not when he’d spent months trying to build walls between himself and the unbearable ache of wanting you that was driving him mad every single day.
Because if things were different – in another world, another life, he still dared to dream of from time to time – you wouldn’t be tending to him like this, you’d be touching him differently.
He’d feel your delicate fingers splayed across his stomach, slow and teasing, tracing lazy patterns over his skin just to hear him groan.
You’d climb onto his lap in soft cotton sleepwear, fingers curling into his hair, lips brushing his ear and he’d have your legs around his waist, your nails digging crescents into his shoulders as he rocked into you slow and deep, swallowing every whimper and every sigh from your perfect, plush lips.
And maybe, maybe there’d be mornings where you’d wake him with kisses against his jaw, sliding under the sheets to trail your mouth lower, lower, until he was gasping your name and fisting the sheets, your voice humming sweet praise against his skin as you ruined him with nothing but your mouth and that sunshine-soft devotion in your eyes.
In another life, he’d earn the sound of you falling apart underneath him and he’d memorize it, worship it. But in this life?
He was just a grumpy, half-broken supersoldier bleeding on your floor again, a silent burden with a history no one wanted and a body no one could love, something to fix and release, stitch and forget.
He flinched when your fingers brushed the raw edges of the gash on his side.
“Sorry,” you whispered.
He didn’t respond.
Couldn’t.
He hadn’t stood a chance.
Not from the very beginning, not from the first moment you stepped into the med bay, bright-eyed and steady-handed, soft-spoken but somehow commanding the whole damn room without raising your voice once.
Warmth rolled off of you like sunlight through glass, not the loud kind, not the fake, performative shit that cracked when it was tested. You were real, you were constant, you remembered names, remembered birthdays, brought people coffee the way they liked it without asking.
They’d started calling you “Sunshine” within a week, even Alexei, loud and blunt and impossible to embarrass, had switched to calling you solnyshko in his thick Russian accent, like it was second nature.
And Bucky?
He’d been gone for you the moment you touched him.
He remembered it too well. The first time he’d been sent to you: reluctant, annoyed, still bleeding from some rooftop mess in Prague with a shallow cut above his brow that wouldn't stop dripping into his eye. He expected antiseptic, cold metal tools, instructions barked without eye contact.
Instead, he got you.
Smiling up at him like he wasn’t some grim relic dropped into your workspace, you’d stepped close, murmured something about how the cut made him look very “stoic and tortured, like a brooding detective” and stood up on your tiptoes to reach him properly, steadying yourself with one palm on his chest, while pressing a patch to his brow.
Plaster, you’d joked, the strongest glue known to mankind, emotionally and medically.
Your breath had ghosted across his cheek, your fingers, so soft and casual, had brushed just under the line of his jaw and Bucky had gone hard so fast it made his stomach twist with panic. He’d stood there frozen, every muscle locked, fighting instinct with sheer will, horrified that you might glance down and notice the unmistakable bulge straining against his suddenly-too-tight pants.
And two hours later, drenched in sweat and halfway through beating a heavy bag to pulp in the training room, he still hadn’t shaken the feel of you off.
He tried, every day, tried to unsee you, to pretend that he didn’t care, to spook you away with ignorance, tried to forget the sound of your voice saying “you’re okay, I’ve got you” like it was true, like it could ever be true for him.
He tried to avoid being treated by you whenever he could. It was simply too much to bear, in some ways even worse than anything he’d endured in HYDRA’s basements. Having you so close, breathing against his skin, your touch light and careful… and not being able to touch you in return – it was torture of its own kind.
And now, with your fingers skimming the raw edges of his side, your face so close again, eyes filled with concern that couldn’t possibly be meant for him… he simply wanted to crawl out of his own skin.
Bucky shifted in his seat again, trying to breathe normally, trying to think, and the leather creaked beneath him, betraying every twitch of tension in his body.
You moved back to the tray beside him, picked up a syringe, and checked the vial like you always did.
“I’m going to give you a local,” you said softly. “Painkiller and a bit of anesthetic. Should take the edge off before I start stitching.”
“No.”
Your head lifted slightly, surprised by the sharpness of his tone but you didn’t flinch.
“Bucky…”
“I said no,” he snapped, eyes locked ahead, jaw grinding tight. “I don’t want anything in my system, not now, not ever. I can take it.”
You just nodded. “Alright,” you said. “Then I’ll be quick. Let me know if it’s too much.”
Too much.
It already was. Not the pain and not the gash.
You.
Your fingers were back on him a moment later, brushing near the edges of the wound, wiping away blood with sterile gauze. The contact was brief, barely pressure but it didn’t matter. It never did.
The moment your hand touched his skin, his body betrayed him.
Heat flushed beneath the surface, cruel and immediate, his breath caught in his throat and his cock throbbed helplessly in his tactical pants, already half-hard from the second you'd knelt in front of him to examine the wound earlier. Now it was worse, aching, twisting up beneath his belt, too present and impossible to ignore.
Fuck. No. Not again. Not here.
He shifted, subtly, or at least as subtle as he could manage with adrenaline roaring in his veins and you so close he could smell the hint of citrus from your tee on your lips.
You moved in closer to thread the needle, and his gaze dropped for a fraction of a second not by choice, but instinct, and there it was again: the way your lips parted slightly in focus, the way the curve of your jaw tilted just so, the shape of your fingers, the slope of your throat, the warmth radiating from you.
And all he could think, all he could fucking think right now, was what it would feel like to have you straddling his lap, your thighs tight around his waist, grinding down against the ache in his jeans while he held you steady by the hips. How would it feel to have your hands buried in his hair, tugging hard, needing him closer, needing more and him giving it to you, gladly, worshipfully, with a hunger he hadn’t let himself feel for anyone in years.
How he’d grab a fistful of your shirt, shove it up, bare your stomach and your breasts to his mouth and kiss his way down until you were shivering, hot and soft and completely at his mercy.
How you’d moan for him, sweet and desperate, head tipped back, your voice already wrecked from whispering his name like it was the only thing you could remember.
And when you’d finally start to sink down on him, taking him in inch by inch, deep and slow and ruinous, he’d hold your hips down and take his time, grinding slowly up into you until you were crying for him, clawing at his back, writhing under the need for him.
He wanted to hear you beg with voice cracking, breath stuttering, he wanted to see you come apart for him with tears in your lashes and his name spilling from your lips like prayer.
He’d mouth at your throat, your shoulder, sink his teeth into the delicate line of your collarbone just to hear how you’d whimper at the edge of pain, only to soothe it a second later with his tongue.
He wanted to know what kind of sounds you’d make for him, what kind of mess you’d become under his mouth, what it would be like to feel your smile against his skin while you writhed beneath him.
God, he’d give anything, anything just to know how you tasted.
He bit down hard on the inside of his cheek, trying to force his breathing even, trying to shut it all down.
There was no place for thoughts like that, not here, not now, not ever and not with you.
Not when he was a mess of scars and steel, and dark memories still keeping him awake at night, not when all you’d ever seen of him was what was broken.
He was a soldier, not a man, something salvaged and repurposed, not someone you would ever choose to touch unless it was necessary. Certainly not someone you’d ever moan for, arch for, someone you would want.
Bucky swallowed hard and tried to focus on the sting of the needle entering his skin, anything to keep the tension from turning visible.
Because if you noticed… if you so much as glanced down… if you knew that your fingers brushing his skin made his breath hitch not in pain, but in desperate, pulsing want.
If you knew that the way you leaned over him, the slope of your collarbone just inches from his mouth, had his thoughts unraveling into a mess of things he had no right to imagine.
If you knew that every time you smiled at him he wanted to drop to his knees and bury his face between your thighs and stay there until you forgot your own name.
If you knew even a small fraction of all that … he wasn’t sure he’d survive the humiliation.
The needle dragged through his skin, a sting, then a tug, again and again, your hands were steady as ever, moving with focus and care. You didn’t rush, you never did and he welcomed the pain, it was at least somewhat distracting.
At some point he must’ve shifted a little too sharply because you paused and looked up at him, brows knitting.
“You alright?” you asked softly. “Is it hurting too much?”
“I’m fine,” he said, too quickly, too sharp.
You kept your eyes on him, studying his face, and he swallowed hard, blinked once and looked away.
“I said I’m fine,” he rasped.
You returned to your work, lips pressed together, gaze dropping to the wound as you continued stitching in silence.
Bucky stayed still as stone, blood thundering through his veins, sweat prickling at the back of his neck, focused on the rhythm of your hands, the even glide of the needle, the way your fingertips ghosted over him as you wiped away the excess blood.
You were nearly done. Just one more stitch, just one more soft sweep of gauze to catch the last streak of blood, just one more whisper of your fingers along the edge of his ribs.
Bucky’s eyes flicked to you, just for a second, and out of a sudden it was simply too much. You were too close, eyes warm and full of that open-hearted care you gave everyone, but that somehow always wrecked him more than anything.
He could feel himself slipping, unraveling under your touch, under the heat of his own skin, under the pulse pounding between his legs and the ache twisting in his gut like punishment.
You moved slightly, reaching for the tape to dress the wound and your hip brushed his knee, barely, barely, but it felt like fire, and he snapped.
Before you could speak again, before you could even exhale, Bucky shot up from the cot like he’d been burned. The stool beneath you scraped across the floor as he moved, too fast, too rough, and his shoulder caught yours in a hard shove.
You stumbled back, shocked, almost tumbling from the stool.
“Bucky!”
He didn’t hear the rest, didn’t want to, he just bolted through the door and didn’t stop moving, didn’t dare to stop, because if he did, if he let even one more word sink in, he might’ve turned around and done something he couldn’t take back.
By the time he reached his quarters, his hands were shaking.
He slammed the door shut behind him with more force than necessary, rattling the frame, pressed his back to it and then just stood there, eyes squeezed shut, fists clenched at his sides, heart thundering against his ribs, blood rushing loud in his ears.
Everything was too much, no, you were too much and yet, all he wanted was to run back to you.
“Fuck,” he breathed, voice hoarse.
He was so hard, so painfully, furiously hard, his cock straining against the inside of his pants, the fabric already damp with precum, throbbing in time with his pulse like it was punishing him for letting you near him again..
It had never been this bad, it was unbearable.
He stumbled into his quarters and barely made it to the couch, fingers shaking as he fumbled with the zipper of his pants, nearly tearing it in the rush, as he slumped on it heavily, dragging his boxers down just enough to free himself, already slick, already leaking so hard it hurt.
His hand wrapped around himself, and he groaned, low, ragged, desperate, head falling back against the cushions. He squeezed tighter, trying to relieve the ache, but it only made the tension worse, the pressure coiling tighter in his gut.
He bit down on another desperate groan, and your name slipped past his lips before he could stop it.
"Fuck, Sunshine…"
Bucky hissed through his teeth, head tipped back, sweat beading at his temple, fisting his cock with rough, tight strokes, eyes clenched shut as image after image tore through his brain.
You on your knees between his thighs, looking up at him with that soft, open smile, your hands trailing up his legs, patient and warm. The sweet flutter of your lashes as you leaned in, the heat of your breath against the head of his cock, your lips wrapping around it, and the aching reverence in your eyes like you wanted him not because you were kind, not because you pitied him, but because you craved him.
You in his bed, flushed and gasping, sheets tangled around your waist as you rocked beneath him, saying his name in that same soft voice you used when stitching him up, only now it was broken by pleasure, by need. He’d have his hands on either side of your head, holding himself there, watching your eyes roll back and your face twist with each thrust, feeling you flutter around him, close, so fucking close.
You bent over the counter in his kitchen, your scrubs still on, pants pushed just low enough for him to take you, your hands braced against the tile, back arched, moaning like you belonged to him while he drove into you from behind, rough and deep, gripping your hips like they were the only thing keeping him sane.
He could practically hear the wet sound of his cock sliding in and out of you, your heart-shaped ass arching back into him, wiggling just right as his palm landed on one cheek with a sharp smack, your breathy curses spilling into the air, broken and desperate, the sweet, wrecked little “please” before his fingers slid between your thighs, rubbing slow, deliberate circles over your clit.
And then… you straddling him in the dark on the sofa, chest to chest, your arms around his neck, your mouth at his throat whispering, “You’re okay, I’ve got you.” Not because he needed saving, but because you meant it, because in this dream, you weren’t afraid of him, you held him tight, rode him slow, deep, grinding your hips down on him, needy moans, spilling over your lips as he came inside you, shaking and undone, filling you to the brim with his cum.
He jerked faster, harder, chasing it, chasing you, the dream of you, the one thing he would never have, not really, not the way he wanted.
Thick, hot ropes of cum painted his belly and hand, his grip still tight around his cock, milking out every last desperate pulse. His chest heaved with shallow, ragged breaths as he slumped back against the couch, utterly spent, his hand sticky and trembling, and looked down at the mess across his stomach. He scrubbed his metal hand over his face, dragging his fingers through his hair with a groan.
For the next few days, Bucky avoided you like his life depended on it. He disappeared before you entered a room, skipped mealtimes, changed his training hours, and if your footsteps echoed down a hallway, he took the nearest exit. It wasn’t subtle, and it certainly wasn’t kind, but it was the only way he knew to keep the need from consuming him every time he saw your face.
But he couldn’t avoid you forever, so when avoidance stopped being an option, whatever fragile balance had existed between you before suddenly to your surprise shattered into something far more painful.
Bucky had always been gruff, distant, unreadable, barbed around the edges. You could live with it, you had lived with it for months and never taken it personally. You kept telling yourself he was like that with everyone.
But now… it wasn’t just coldness anymore, it was something meaner, something much sharper.
Bucky wouldn’t even look at you when you walked into a room, wouldn’t speak unless he absolutely had to, and when he did, his words were clipped and flat, like they left a bitter taste in his mouth. The warmth you kept trying to offer, the soft smiles, the careful concern, were now met with eye rolls, snorts, and outright dismissal.
And you couldn’t understand why.
You played the conversations back in your head every night, quietly lying in bed long after the tower had gone still. Had you said something wrong? Had you touched a nerve you didn’t know existed? You weren’t pushy, you didn’t force your care on anyone, you just wanted to make sure he was okay, that he knew someone was looking out for him, even if he didn’t ask for it.
Especially because he didn’t ask for it.
And maybe that was the mistake.
But God, you couldn’t stop trying. Every small kindness was an attempt to bridge the gap, every careful word was another thread you cast across the distance he kept growing between you but it never landed.
Instead, it drove him further, every kindness seemed to piss him off more, like he couldn’t stand you caring, like your presence was some cruel trick he couldn’t figure out the punchline to.
Sometimes he glared at you like he wanted to shout, like he was choking on something he couldn’t say, and the only way to survive it was to shove you away as hard as he could.
And still… still, you stayed and kept wondering why on earth the man you had so stupidly fallen for was such a jackass towards you.
You’d never said it aloud, not to anyone, not even to yourself, but it was there, thick and painful in your chest every time he walked into the room, every time he stood too close, every time he looked at you like your love was a burden he hadn’t agreed to carry.
And that, more than anything, made your heart break in silence.
You tried to hide it, God, you tried, but lately, you were tired in a way you couldn’t patch not with excess of coffee and not with sleep, that had started to avoid you too. Your smiles wavered a little more often, your hands hesitated, and slowly you started to wonder if maybe he was right, maybe you were just hovering, just annoying, just… too much.
One morning, you’d brought fresh bandages down to the gym during training. You always did and everyone appreciated it.
Except him.
“We don’t need your charity,” Bucky had muttered as you knelt to check on Ava’s twisted wrist. “Don’t you have something better to do?”
Everyone had heard it.
John had cleared his throat loudly, muttering something like “Jesus, man” under his breath. Ava had looked away, clearly uncomfortable and Alexei had offered you a gentle, apologetic shrug before loudly demanding you to check his very serious (imaginary) injury instead.
Yelena had walked straight over and planted herself between you and Bucky, glaring up at him with a force only she could wield. “Say thank you,” she’d said flatly. “Now.”
But Bucky had just walked off, face like stone, jaw grinding as he pulled his sweatshirt over his head.
Later that day, you’d tried to bring him fresh ice packs after training, you hadn’t even said anything, just offered them quietly, gently, like you always did.
He hadn’t even looked up.
“Don’t hover,” he said, voice low and sharp. “I don’t need them.”
That one had cut deep.
You hadn’t answered, just turned and walked out, your chest hollow, the ice packs still clutched in your hand.
The others noticed, of course they did, and they did their best to soften it, to shield you where they could.
Ava stopped by the med bay more often, even when she didn’t need anything. John lingered longer during patch-ups, tossing you dumb jokes to make you smile, even Alexei, blunt and bumbling, started bringing you terrible coffee and terrible compliments in the mornings.
Nothing of it made the sting go away.
You kept doing your job, quietly, kindly, as if the person you’d fallen in love with wasn’t tearing you down piece by piece until the day he finally broke you.
It was during a briefing, the entire team gathered around the table, mid-discussion about the next mission. You were there to offer medical assessments, speak up when necessary. You always stood off to the side, out of the way.
Bucky had been tense from the start, pacing, arms crossed, clearly on edge, and then you’d made the mistake of speaking without being asked.
You had noticed that the structure they were infiltrating had weak points that might collapse under heavy stress and that the team should avoid the northwest stairwell if possible, because if that broke there would be no way medics could reach them.
You barely got the words out before his voice cut across the room like a whip.
“Oh, thank you, Sunshine,” Bucky said mockingly, turning toward you with a sneer. “I’m so glad we have a fucking ray of light here to tell us how to do our job. Maybe next time you can bring cookies to the field too. You know. For morale.”
The silence that followed was absolute.
No one breathed.
Your throat tightened, heat prickled behind your eyes, too fast, too sudden, you blinked quickly, trying to smile, trying to laugh it off, but your lip wobbled.
“Bucky…” John started, his tone edged in disbelief but it was too late.
You pressed a hand to your chest like it could hold the pieces of you in place, gave a soft, choked sound, and turned on your heel.
You left the room as fast as you could, but the tears were already falling before the door even hissed shut behind you.
Bucky just stood there with an annoyed expression on his face before turning around and leaving in fast strides.
Yelena stared at him in silence, then she moved, fast.
She caught up with him in the hallway as he stalked off, hands flexing at his sides like he didn’t know what to do with them.
“Hey,” she snapped, grabbing his arm and yanking him around. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”
“Back off, Yelena.”
Bucky yanked his arm free but didn’t move away, he didn’t answer either, didn’t even look at her.
She stepped in front of him, blocking his path. “No. No walking away from this. You’re gonna stand here and tell me what the hell you’re doing.”
“Leave it alone, Yelena,” he muttered.
“No.” Her voice was sharp, deadly. “You’re not just being a grump anymore, you’re hurting her and that deliberately. And for what?”
Bucky’s jaw flexed.
“She didn’t do anything to you,” she went on. “Nothing. She’s the only person in this whole tower who’s never asked for anything back, she’s gentle with you, she’s kind and you treat her like she’s poison. Why?”
He said nothing, just stared at a point past her head like he could will himself somewhere else.
Yelena jabbed a finger into his chest.
“She came in every day this week and smiled at you. She brought you clean wraps, asked how your stitches were healing, even after you walked by her like she’s an empty air.”
His jaw flexed, his shoulders tensed but still, he said nothing.
Yelena stepped closer.
“You’re not just being an asshole anymore. You’re being cruel, you made her cry in front of the entire team.”
“I didn’t mean…” he snapped, then caught himself.
She narrowed her eyes. “Didn’t mean to, what?”
He looked away.
“Bucky.”
Silence stretched and his hands flexed at his sides like he was holding something back with everything he had.
Finally, he spoke.
“Because I can’t stand it.”
Yelena blinked.
“Because she’s just so fucking nice and bright, and I’m…”
He stopped.
Yelena tilted her head. “You’re what?”
His lips twisted. “I’m this… broken, dark, unnecessary, unlovable something,” he ground out, eyes flashing. “And she’s just… Sunshine. All the damn time.”
Yelena said nothing.
“How can someone be so…” He stopped again, swallowing hard. “So stupidly sweet? So lovely just by breathing? It’s like she doesn’t even know what kind of world she’s in. Like she thinks if she’s kind enough, soft enough, people will stop bleeding.”
He laughed bitterly, shaking his head. “She’ll get herself killed trying to be loved by everybody.”
Yelena’s voice was low, cutting. “She doesn’t want to be loved by everybody.”
Bucky froze.
The air between them went still, almost fragile, waiting for one wrong word to shatter it into pieces too small to sweep up.
He didn’t speak.
Yelena stepped closer, her eyes narrowing, sharp with understanding now. “She wants you.”
He closed his eyes. Just for a moment.
“Bullshit.”
“No,” Yelena said, firm. “It’s not.”
He swallowed hard, jaw grinding like he could chew the words down before they ever reached his throat. “She’s just…” His voice cracked. “She’s kind. She’s like that with everyone.”
“She’s kind,” Yelena agreed, nodding. “But she’s not careless with it. She doesn’t give pieces of herself to just anyone.”
She paused, looking him dead in the eye.
“And you’re not just anyone, you matter to her. More than you think, more than she’d ever say out loud.”
Her voice softened, just slightly.
“She loves you, Bucky. Even if you’re too scared to see it.”
“Don’t.” He turned sharply, like he couldn’t bear the word.
Yelena didn’t flinch.
“Don’t you see it?” she pressed. “The way she looks at you? Like you’re something worth waiting for, like she’s hoping you’ll let her in? But every time she smiles at you, you just look away like it hurts.”
“Because it does,” Bucky snapped, finally meeting her eyes. “Because I don’t know how to take it, because she wants someone whole and I’m not. I’m not some sweet fucking project she can fix with soft hands and careful words.”
Yelena didn’t move.
“I’m not the good guy,” he hissed. “I’m not soft, or stable, or someone who deserves someone like her. I’m a weapon with a retirement plan. That’s all.”
“You’re not.”
He ignored her. “And she, God, she walks around here like a goddamn sunrise, like nothing’s touched her, like she still believes in something.”
“She believes in you.”
“Yeah. Well, then it’s her mistake.”
The words exploded out of him, echoing through the corridor.
He turned away again, dragging a hand through his hair, pacing like he could outrun the way his chest was tightening. Like he could shove the image of your tear-streaked and hurt face out of his mind if he just moved fast enough.
You folded your stuff with trembling hands, but it wasn’t the nerves.
This was heartbreak, settling into your chest like a quiet and cold frost.
You didn’t even know why you were folding things so neatly. It wasn’t like you owed this place a tidy exit but maybe it was instinct, or maybe you just needed to hold on to something you could control while everything else crumbled around you.
You blinked down at your bag where your hoodie sat on top, the soft one you liked to wear on chilly days, the one he had once glanced at for a second too long. You hated that you remembered that, that you still cared.
But God, you did. You cared too much.
You loved him and that was the worst part. You’d fallen so stupidly, quietly, deeply in love with a man who flinched every time you got close, who looked at your kindness like it burned him. who spoke to you like you were a wound he didn’t ask for.
You sniffed, angrily wiping your sleeve across your eyes.
Because damn it, love or not, you weren’t going to keep letting him crush you.
You weren’t someone’s emotional punching bag. You weren’t going to keep showing up every day with soft smiles and careful words just to be told you were too much, too sweet. too naive, too present.
If Bucky Barnes hated you that much, if your love, your existence was so unbearable to him, then fine – you wouldn’t force yourself into his life, and you certainly wouldn’t beg.
You zipped the bag shut, you were retreating, yes, but this wasn’t weakness, this was grace in the face of cruelty, a self-respect.
You paused by the door, glancing once, only once, around the space you’d come to think of as yours.
It was the place where you’d laughed with Yelena, where Alexei had once shown up with a massive toolbox and a mission, declaring your wobbly desk chair “an insult to your delicate spine” and then spent a whole afternoon fixing it.
He’d left behind a chair that somehow creaked louder than before, but you hadn’t said a word, especially not after he had patted your shoulder and told you in that booming, earnest voice, “You take care of all of us. Someone has to take care of you.”
It was ridiculous and so oddly touching, and had made you smile for hours that day.
And it was also the place where you had sat on your bed in the quiet, wondering how someone so closed-off could have eyes that held such storms.
No more wondering. You were done.
You stepped into the hallway with shoulders squared, holding your chin high, and you kept your eyes forward, even as your chest caved in around the ache.
You were leaving. You loved him, yes, but you loved yourself too, and that meant knowing when it was time to go.
You woke up with your head literally splitting.
That was the first thing you registered – pain, blooming and hot at the base of your skull. Every heartbeat sent a fresh wave of nausea through your gut, and your limbs felt heavy, wrong, disconnected.
The pain pulsed behind your eyes, throbbing down your neck and into your spine. It was a slow, creeping kind of pain, the kind that made it hard to tell where it ended and where your body began.
The floor beneath you seemed like a smooth metal, cold and way too perfect to be concrete, and the air smelled of dust and oil and something burnt.
There was something over your head, rough canvas brushing your lips, warm and stifling as you could feel your own breath bouncing back at you, too fast, too shallow.
A bag, there was a fucking bag over your head.
Your pulse spiked, dizzy, hot, and you forced yourself to take a slow breath, then another. Keep the panic down. Think.
Your last clear memory was… what? Packing. Leaving. Walking to the garage.
And then… nothing.
Your heart stuttered as faint footsteps echoed in the distance, muffled voices threading between them. Metal groaned, a door, maybe, and the voices grew closer, sharper.
Fear overrode pain as you tensed, every muscle coiling. Keys rattled. A lock turned.
You barely had time to brace before rough hands clamped around your upper arms. The startled cry that slipped from you was pure instinct, but it didn’t slow them.
“On your feet,” one of them barked.
You were hauled upward with no gentleness but your legs buckled immediately and for a moment, you thought you’d crash right back to the floor but a hand gripped under your arm, holding you up as you swayed, half-upright, your head lolling forward.
And then the hood was yanked off.
Your eyes burned at the sudden brightness, not blinding, but after the suffocating dark, it felt like staring into the sun. Shapes swam in your vision and it took a few seconds to focus, to blink back tears and pain.
Concrete walls. Exposed, rusted metal beams stretching into a high, very high, ceiling. Hanging lights flickering overhead. A warehouse. Old, industrial.
And men – three of them, from what you could see, all unfamiliar except for one – the new tower technician that loved chocolate cookies and always had a silly joke ready to throw your way.
But it wasn’t any of their faces that made your stomach twist, it was the cold, heavy pressure at your throat.
You tried to look down as much as your position allowed and saw it, or rather felt it – a thick metal collar around your neck, black and seamless, with a faint green flicker pulsing just beneath the surface.
You instinctively tried to jerk back, to fight, but your legs didn’t cooperate and the man holding you only tightened his grip, steadying you like you were some auction object that needed to stay upright for display.
“What is this?” Your voice came out hoarse, scraped raw by the bile clawing up your throat. “What… what the hell is this? What do you want from me?”
You were bait, that much was obvious, but for who? It didn’t make any sense. Who would be reckless enough, stupid enough, to walk into this? You had no rich, no powerful friends. You had nobody.
A commotion stirred at the far end of the space, too distant for you to see. Footsteps pounded and another man appeared, breathless.
“He’s here. He’s coming.”
You lifted your head as far as you could manage, straining against the weight in your limbs, as you watched figures emerge from the shadows. There were more men with guns and between them, moving at a controlled, deliberate pace, was someone who made your heart lurch violently in your chest.
You blinked, once, twice, as if your vision had blurred and needed clearing before you almost choked on your own breath.
Bucky?
What the hell was Bucky doing here? The one man on Earth who’d made it perfectly clear he’d rather chew glass than be in the same room with you. The guy who could turn the air in a hallway to ice just by glancing your way. And yet here he was, and your stupid heart still tried to sprint straight out of your chest like it hadn’t gotten the memo.
His hair was tousled and his shoulders taut, every line of him coiled in barely restrained fury. His eyes scanned the room, and the moment they landed on the cage you were standing in, he stopped.
Not the stop of surprise, not even shock, but the kind of stillness that comes when something deep inside snaps tight, when every nerve and every muscle strains against the need to act.
His eyes found you instantly, locking on like a sniper scope, and didn’t move. The air around him seemed to hum with the effort it took not to launch himself straight at the men flanking your cage. You’d never seen him look at you like that before, so fierce, unblinking, like nothing else in the room existed but you.
After a moment of hesitation he moved again, coming closer, so close that you could clearly see his slow and unblinking gaze sweeping over you, taking in every detail. It lingered at your throat, on the strange collar biting into your skin, at the faint bruise you felt pulsing along your temple, at your bare feet, the cage. Each detail seemed to hit him like another blow to the ribs, and his jaw clenched so hard you thought it might splinter.
You watched Bucky’s fists clenching at his sides, metal fingers flexing with quiet violence, his eyes never leaving you, not even for a second, and you could see it – the crackling rage just beneath his skin, the split-second decision he wanted to make, to rip through every one of them, collateral be damned.
“I wouldn’t, if I were you,” a man stepped forward from the shadows, his tone almost conversational, though the smug curl of his mouth made your stomach turn. “You can’t save her.”
Bucky’s stance shifted, subtle but unmistakable the barest lean forward, like he was calculating the distance between himself and the man’s throat.
The man’s smile widened. “See that collar?” He pointed lazily, as though he were pointing out a piece of artwork. “It’s wired. One signal from my friend up there,” he jerked his chin toward a figure on a metal catwalk above, hand resting on a small trigger device, “and her head comes off before you even make it to the bars.”
He rapped his knuckles against the cage. “And this? Vibranium. You could throw yourself at it all day, soldier, and it wouldn’t make a dent.”
Your skin went cold, but you couldn’t look away from Bucky. His jaw worked, his breath sharp through flared nostrils.
“So here’s how this goes,” the man continued, voice dropping into something slicker, deadlier. “You surrender, now, and maybe she walks out of here. She’s unimportant, just a leverage. Hydra only wants its asset back.”
The word asset made Bucky’s face flicker, just for a second, before his expression shuttered again.
Bucky didn’t move at first, his chest rose and fell slowly, his expression almost as if carved from stone, but you could see it, the hesitation, the desperate search for any way out that didn’t end with you hurt.
The man’s smirk widened, sensing it.
“So… what’s it gonna be, soldier?” he drawled. “Or maybe you’d rather take your time deciding? We can make it… educational for you.” His gaze slid to you, and his smile turned wicked. “Maybe let my men have a little fun with that sweet little thing before you come to your senses.”
The man standing at your side shifted, and before you could react, his hand clamped hard around your jaw, forcing your face toward him. His breath was hot and foul as he leered down at you.
“Get your hands off her,” Bucky’s voice was low, almost too quiet to hear, but it carried like a gunshot.
The man didn’t so much as glance at him, instead, he crushed his mouth to yours in a greedy, bruising kiss, his other hand shoving hard against your breast.
White-hot disgust and fury surged up your throat as you screamed into him, twisting in his grip, fighting to wrench free. His fingers dug harder into your cheeks, and unable to get free you just bit down as hard as you could.
The man yelped, jerking back with a curse, blood streaking his mouth, but your small victory lasted all of a heartbeat before a sharp crack split the air, his open palm connecting with your jaw. Your head snapped to the side, the world tilting, and a sharp buzz filled your ears as they rang.
Bucky moved before the sound had even finished echoing. It wasn’t a lunge, but the kind of forward step that made the men around him stiffen, guns rising a fraction higher. His hands fisted at his sides, the vibranium fingers flexing, as if remembering what it felt like to crush bone.
“Touch her again,” he said, voice low and steady, “and I will paint these walls with you.”
The leader’s smirk didn’t waver, but his eyes flickered just for a heartbeat toward the figure high above on the catwalk, the one with his thumb resting lazily on the trigger.
“Temper, temper,” the man drawled. “Make no mistake, Barnes, you’re not in a position to make threats. Every second you stall, she pays for it. You want her breathing? You want her in one piece? Then you get on your knees like the obedient little dog you are, and put your hands where we can see them.”
You caught it, that split-second flicker in Bucky’s eyes, the one that said he was about to do something catastrophically stupid.
This was insane. What the hell was he thinking? For all the ice between you, all the sharp words and cold shoulders, there was one thing you couldn’t deny: you still loved that man.
You loved him. God help you, you loved that grumpy, stubborn, impossible man, loved him so much that the thought of Hydra’s claws sinking back into him made bile burn the back of your throat.
You’d heard enough about what they’d done to him, seen enough of the shadows in his eyes, to know he’d never survive it again, not really. And if he got dragged back there because of you… you’d never forgive yourself.
Your pulse thundered in your ears. You wanted to scream at him to turn around, to not let these bastards use you to drag him under, to tell him you weren’t worth it, but your mouth had gone completely dry and felt as if it had never known how to speak, leaving the words stuck in your throat.
“Bucky, don’t…” you managed to sob, stepping forward, fingers curling desperately around the cold vibranium bars like they could hold back what you already knew was coming.
“Shh, Sunshine.” His voice was soft, steady, and the smile he gave you was something you’d never seen before, surely not from him, and never aimed at you. It was warm, reassuring, achingly tender, like a sliver of sunlight breaking through a storm. You hadn’t even known he could smile like that, let alone at you.
“It’s okay,” he murmured, low and certain. “Everything’s going to be okay. I promise.”
“Bucky, no…” you whimpered, the plea scraping raw in your throat, tears blurring your vision. “Don’t do this. Please. I’m not worth it.”
“Sunshine,” he said, quietly but with such certainty in his voice, like he was telling you the simplest, truest thing he’d ever known. “You’re the only thing in this whole damn world that’s worth it. Nothing else matters. Nothing ever has.”
He didn’t look away, not once, as he moved.
One knee hit the ground first, the dull thud of it echoing through the cavernous space, and for a fleeting, desperate second you thought he might stop there, that maybe he was feigning it, buying time before striking. That maybe you wouldn’t have to watch this but then the other knee lowered, slower, heavier, deliberate, as though every inch cost him something he’d never get back.
His shoulders stayed square, spine locked in stubborn defiance, even as the posture stripped him of the power he’d fought for years to reclaim. The sound of his breathing filled your ears, controlled, measured, but a little too sharp at the edges.
For one last heartbeat, his hands remained loose at his sides, before he lifted them, palms open, offering himself up to the men surrounding him.
Astonishment twisted with guilt in your chest, squeezing the air from your lungs. It wasn’t surrender. You felt it in your bones, it was a bargain, a trade – him for you. And God, it hurt.
The man who had spent months keeping you at arm’s length, who had made you believe you meant nothing to him, was putting his life in their hands for yours, and all you could do was stand there, caged and useless, as he gave himself away.
Two men stepped in close, one on each side, and grabbed his wrists, yanking them back hard enough to strain his shoulders. You saw the small flex of his biceps, the subtle shift in his posture, the instinct to fight still there, before he forced himself to go still.
The click of the first cuff was sharp, the second came with a twist of his arm, pulling the joint past its natural range. It must have hurt, and you saw it in the slight hitch of his breath, the subtle tightening in his jaw.
One of them gave the cuffs an extra jerk, forcing his arms higher, his shoulders arching uncomfortably, another man stepped in and shoved him forward a fraction, making him bow just enough to strip the last illusion of control from him.
He still didn’t look at them, his eyes stayed locked on you, steady, unflinching, that impossibly warm smile refusing to fade, as if he could will you into believing this was all right.
It wasn’t. God, it wasn’t. It was wrong in every way that mattered, a twisting, aching wrong that hollowed you out from the inside.
And it was all your fault, because you hadn’t been careful enough, because you weren’t strong enough. Yelena wouldn’t have been caught like this. Ava wouldn’t have. You knew it, and you hated yourself for it, you hated that you were the weak link he was about to destroy himself to save.
The first blow came almost before they’d even stepped back. You screamed, clutching the bards of your cage.
A heavy, gloved fist smashed across Bucky’s jaw, the crack of impact echoing in your ears. His head snapped to the side, a thin ribbon of blood trailing from the corner of his mouth.
The second strike slammed into his ribs, making his bound shoulders jerk, as he doubled slightly, the pull of the cuffs biting into his wrists, but he forced himself upright again, breath sharp through his nose.
"Welcome home, Soldat. Hope you’re enjoying the welcome party," one of them sneered, and a boot drove into Bucky’s side. His muscles jerked under the blow, every tendon straining as he fought to keep his balance.
The hits kept coming, fists to his face, elbows to his back, another kick to his ribs. They didn’t pause, didn’t give him a second to brace.
Then another kick drove into his side, harder than the rest, and his balance finally broke. He hit the floor on his shoulder, the breath punched out of him, as he sprawled on the cold concrete.
“Stop it!” you screamed, your hands clutching the vibranium bars with knuckles turning white. “Leave him alone! Cowards! He did what you wanted.”
“Not so tough now, huh, Soldier?” one of them sneered, kicking him in the back as he crumpled to the floor.
Bucky didn’t make a sound, he took the hits in silence with nothing more than a grunt when a fist connected with his jaw just right or the smallest, roughest exhale when his head was snapped back by an uppercut.
“Look at him,” a voice jeered over the sound of another strike. “All that muscle, all that metal, and still just a bitch on a leash.”
“Bet she’d scream louder for me than she ever would for him,” someone else laughed.
A kick landed in his back, forcing another breath out of him.
“Look at you,” one of them said, crouching down to grab a handful of his hair and wrench his head back, making him meet his eyes. “Kneeling like a good little dog for some wet hole. Don’t you worry, we’ll treat her right. We’ll put that pussy to good use, and you’ll get to watch. You’ll get to watch every second of how we’ll fuck all her holes.”
It all stopped as abruptly as it started.
“Enough!” the leader’s voice cut through the room, and the others stepped back instantly. “There’ll be time for more fun later. Get ready to move. We leave in ten.”
They filed out in a loose cluster, footsteps fading until the warehouse fell quiet again.
You dropped to your knees.
The tears came fast and hot, blurring your vision as you pressed your hands to the barrier between you. You didn’t care that your shoulders shook, or that your voice broke when you whispered his name.
“Bucky…”
He stirred. One eye was already swelling shut, blood trickled from the corner of his mouth, his chest lifting in uneven gasps.
Tears slipped down your cheeks. “You shouldn’t have come. You shouldn’t have surrendered. Why did you do that? You hate me.”
A beat of silence followed and you were already afraid he had passed out, but then finally his voice reached you, hoarse but clear.
“Hate you?” he murmured, his voice quiet but steady enough for you to catch every word. “Oh, Sunshine, I’m just a fucking idiot. The biggest damn idiot alive, and I can’t…” He broke off, jaw tightening.
“I need you to understand something before they… before anything happens,” he went on, each word slow, like dragging glass through his throat. “I don’t hate you, I never did and I never… I never meant to hurt you.”
Bucky inhaled deeply and continued, “Every time I was cold, every time I cut you down or walked out, it was just me trying to get some air, to keep myself from drowning in this thing I can’t shut off. You walk into a room and I forget how to breathe. You smile at me and it feels like the first warm day after years in the snow, and I … I just simply don’t know what to do with that.”
There was no hesitation in him, just that raw, stripped-bare honesty you’d never thought you’d hear from him, not in this lifetime.
His mouth twisted in something that wasn’t quite a smile. “I knew I didn’t have a chance with you,” he went on. “You’re everything I thought was gone from the world. You are so warm, so kind, too damn good. And me? I’m the thing they built in the dark to kill people like you. So I figured it’d be easier, if you just stayed away from me. For you and for me. That if I made you hate me, maybe it wouldn’t hurt so much, that maybe I could survive watching you give that smile to someone who deserved it.”
Your pulse thundered, your fingers tightening around the cold bars until they ached.
“But the truth is,” he went on, voice breaking in the middle, “I love you. I fucking love you, and I’ve never loved anybody like this before, and there’s nothing, absolutely nothing, I wouldn’t give, or do, or trade, to keep you safe. If they take me now, I’m fine with that, but if they lay a hand on you…” his breath shuddered and faded away.
“Oh my God, Bucky…” you sobbed, shaking your head, not believing any of this could be real.
“Listen to me,” he cut in. “Listen carefully! Whatever happens, stick to Ava. She’ll get you out. Promise me.”
“I… I don’t understand.” You covered your mouth with a trembling hand, choking back another sob.
“We just needed a clear view on where they were keeping you,” Bucky said, his tone almost mocking before it hardened. “And those cocky, self-sure idiots were so wrapped up in the idea of bagging the Winter Soldier, they didn’t bother to check me for anything else, just took my guns.” His lips twitched in a smirk, but it didn’t last, as in the next heartbeat, his expression turned deadly serious.
“Remember, no matter what happens, you follow Ava.” His voice was low, urgent, almost a growl. “Promise me.”
“Bucky…”
“Promise me,” he cut in, steel in his tone. “I need to hear it.”
“I… I promise,” you breathed. “But Bucky…”
His head dipped once in relief, “Good, and Sunshine … I’m sorry I hurt you,” he murmured. “I’m so damn sorry.”
You were crying openly now, hunched low against the bars, hands trembling, tears coming in hot streams that blurred the room into streaks of shadow and light. You tried to swallow it down, to find some semblance of control, but your breath hitched and broke in uneven bursts and your bottom lip trembled so violently it hurt with nose running and cheeks wet and blotchy, and you didn’t even care.
“Bucky, listen to me…” you managed, your voice cracking so badly it didn’t even sound like your own. But the rest of the words wouldn’t come, they just died in your mouth, swallowed by the chaos that suddenly ensued.
It started with a flicker in the corner of your eye, a shimmer in the air, and then she was there.
Ava.
Her form snapped into view inside the cage, crouched beside you, eyes sharp and scanning.
“Hey,” she breathed, quick and urgent. “Hold still.”
“Ava…?” you mouthed, still stunned.
“No time,” she muttered, already reaching for the collar at your throat, her fingers moving with brisk precision. “We’re getting you out of here.”
You barely heard the shouts that followed, the sound of boots pounding, of something crashing, open gunfire, grunts that sounded an awful lot like John, the deep roar of Alexei rising above it all like a battle cry and Yelena’s sharp commands slicing through the din.
They’d come for you. All of them.
But your eyes were on Ava, whose hands shimmered in and out of phase as she tried to disable the collar. She hissed when her fingertips sparked off the tech.
“Shit. This is custom made.”
“Can you…?”
“Yeah. Just…give me a second.”
You nodded, trying to stay still despite the chaos, you couldn’t see Bucky, you just knew he was somewhere just out of your line of sight, still cuffed on the floor where they'd left him.
Your heart pounded so hard it hurt.
With a sharp click and a sudden hiss of pressure, the collar snapped loose and you gasped as Ava pulled it off, tossing it behind her like a venomous thing as she instantly turned her attention to the lock of the cage. It gave in much more quickly and with satisfied huff she turned back to you.
“Come on,” she said. “We’ve gotta move.”
But you weren’t listening because from the corner of your vision just past the open door of the cage you saw something – the leader of the HYDRA men, positioned just beyond the falling debris and shadows with his gun raised and aimed at Bucky.
Bucky had managed to get back to his feet but his hands were still bound with the vibranium cuffs that refused to yield even to his strength no matter how much he struggled against them.
Yelena had spotted the gun too, you could see it in the way her shoulders coiled, but she was too far, her path blocked by the chaos.
Bucky saw him too and then… he just stopped struggling, his arms fell still, all resistance gone. Slowly, he lifted his gaze to meet the cold, smirking eyes of the man about to end him.
He looked… so calm, unimpressed, almost bored, with a smile on his lips, like he’d already made his peace with what was going to happen. It seemed he almost dared the man to pull the trigger.
“No!” you screamed, and your body moved before thought could stop it.
You shoved Ava aside and bolted through the door.
Your legs screamed in protest, but you didn’t stop, not for the fear, not for the ache, not for the warning shouts that followed you as you dove forward, the world slowing around you.
The gun fired.
But you were already there, just in front of Bucky.
The impact slammed into your side like a sledgehammer and you screamed as fire exploded through your ribs.
You hit the floor hard, hands pressed instinctively to your side, something warm and wet seeping through your fingers… blood… so much blood…
The warehouse tilted around you.
Somewhere far away, Alexei roared, a deep, thunderous sound, and the ground seemed to shake as he barreled forward. The gunman didn’t even have time to scream before Alexei’s fist smashed into his chest, sending him airborne into the wall with a sickening crack.
The body dropped. The gun skittered across the floor.
Yelena appeared in your periphery, face pale, hands shaking as she pressed down on your wound. “No, no, no… stay with me…!” and through the ringing in your ears, another sound cut through – raw, savage, and nothing like a human voice.
“NO!”
Bucky was there, fighting against his restraints like a man possessed until Ava freed him with a sharp snap of the cuffs. His arms were around you instantly, pulling you into him, holding you as if he could shield you from the damage already done.
You turned your head toward him, as you tried to give him a smile, but failed.
“Bucky…” Your voice was thin, trembling, each word tasting of copper. His eyes found yours – those beautiful, deep blue eyes, wild and glassy with terror.
“I love you,” you breathed, coughing red onto your lips. “I love you too. Always have…”
And then the world went black.
Bucky’s boots echoed hollowly against the linoleum floor, back and forth, back and forth.
Pacing. Always pacing.
His bruises were already fading. Supersoldier healing worked as perfectly as always, but he looked somehow worse now than when he had left the warehouse all covered in blood. Your blood.
He was pale, his jaw tight with tension, and his fingers kept threading through his hair, over and over again, like maybe if he yanked hard enough, he could wake himself from this nightmare.
He had asked.
Then begged.
Then threatened.
But they still wouldn’t let him in.
“She’s in surgery,” the nurse had said gently, hands folded like she knew exactly who he was and how little comfort her words offered. “They’ll update you when they can.”
He’d nearly broken the doorframe when they said "it’s a tough situation". His hands had clenched around the edge of the metal table and crushed it against the wall before anyone could stop him.
So now, they were keeping him outside, pacing like a caged animal.
Yelena came in quietly, holding a cup of coffee. She crossed the room with that cautious kind of grace, like approaching something volatile.
“Here,” she said simply, holding out the cup.
Bucky didn’t take it at first, just stared through her like he was still seeing the blood pooling beneath you on the warehouse floor. Then he blinked, hand jerking out to grab it. His fingers trembled around the paper cup.
He didn’t drink.
“Any news?” he rasped, voice barely there. “Yelena, I’m… I’m going mad. I need to see her.”
Yelena leaned against the wall, arms crossed, her expression was softer than usual, even sad.
“I know,” she said. “But maybe next time don’t throw a metal table at a wall when the doctor says it’s a ‘tough situation.’”
Bucky flinched.
“They’ll tell us when they know something. You need to be patient.”
“I am patient,” he growled, dragging both hands through his hair again, the cup completely forgotten and trembling in one hand. “I’ve been patient for months. I just wanted the best for her. Can you understand that?”
“I know you did,” she reassured him with a small nod.
“Why did she do it? God! Why? Why would she take a bullet for someone like me?”
“Because she loves you, you moron!”
“Dear God, you were right. She does, she really does. She said that when…” Bucky’s voice cracked as if that revelation was the most unbelievable, impossible thing in the world.
Yelena looked at him, long and steady, he turned away, jaw tight, teeth grinding.
A beat of silence passed before heavy boots entered the room.
Alexei.
“Any news?” he asked, voice gruff but careful.
Bucky didn’t answer.
“She’s strong,” Alexei said, easing into a chair that creaked under his weight. “They’ll fix her up. She’s tougher than you think.”
“She shouldn’t have had to be,” Bucky said, staring down at the cracks in the tile. “If I’d just…”
“Hey.” Alexei leaned forward. “You blame yourself, you’re gonna drown in it. She needs you here. Not spiraling.”
Bucky didn't look up, as his chest rose and fell in shallow, uneven breaths.
Another pair of footsteps entered.
John.
Even he looked subdued, uncertain, hands shoved into his pockets, eyes darting awkwardly around as if seeking for threat.
“Barnes,” he started, cautious. “Hey, I…I just wanted to say…”
Bucky looked up slowly, eyes sharp and wild, and bared his teeth.
“Don’t.”
John stopped mid-step, the snarl in Bucky’s voice was quiet but dangerous.
“Don’t say anything comforting. Don’t tell me it’s gonna be okay. Don’t act like you know a single damn thing about what this is.”
John blinked, opened his mouth and closed it.
Yelena lifted an eyebrow. “Yeah, probably not your moment, Cap Junior.”
Alexei huffed. “Let him snarl. He’s scared.”
“I’m not scared,” Bucky snapped, but it sounded hollow even to his own ears.
He sat down heavily, elbows on his knees, head in his hands, metal fingers digging into his scalp, human hand curled tightly around the forgotten, crushed and leaking coffee cup.
“I’m… fucking terrified.”
The room went still.
“I love her.”
It came out like a confession and a collapse all at once, the kind of truth that had been rotting in his chest for too long, finally clawing its way out.
“I love her,” Bucky said again, more desperate this time, as if he had to convince himself that saying it out loud might make it more real.
“I’ve loved her from the moment she smiled for the first time at me like I wasn’t something broken,” his voice crack.
“She’s the only sunshine I’ve ever had. The only good thing. The only thing that made all the noise go quiet.”
A bitter, humorless laugh tore from his chest.
“And I pushed her away. Treated her like shit because I thought if I kept her at arm’s length, I’d be safe.”
His voice faltered, the words catching. “And she… she loved me. She fucking loved me all along. Me…”
He looked up with a stunned, hollow expression on his face that told he still couldn’t believe it, that he still couldn’t wrap his mind around the fact that it was possible, that someone could really love him.
He swallowed hard, eyes glassy. “I… I don’t know how to live without her.”
The silence that followed was deafening, sharp and suffocating. Quiet glances darted between Yelena, Alexei, and John, each of them catching the other’s eye, then shaking their heads almost imperceptibly, as if daring anyone to speak, but knowing there were no words that could make it right, no comfort that wouldn’t sound like a lie.
The door swung open, the sound slicing through the silence like a gunshot and Bucky sprang to his feet so fast the chair behind him skidded with a screech and hit the wall.
The doctor, a young man in his forties with soft hands and weary eyes, froze in the doorway, eyes going wide like he’d just walked into a lion’s den.
“No,” Bucky said, already breathless, with uneven steps striding toward the doc.
“No… no… no… don’t tell me she’s…”
The doctor actually flinched.
Bucky surged forward, and Alexei instinctively stepped in front of him, holding out a hand like a shield.
“Easy,” he muttered. “Give him a second.”
Doc peeked nervously from behind Alexei’s shoulder, adjusting his glasses with fingers that visibly trembled. “She… she survived the operation.”
Bucky froze mid-step and the whole world seemed to stop with him.
“What?” His voice broke, low and hoarse, almost too afraid to believe it.
“She made it,” the doc said, gently now, peeking around Alexei to look at Bucky. “There was internal bleeding and a rib fracture, but the bullet missed her lung by a few millimeters. We stabilized her. She’s unconscious but…” He swallowed. “She’s stable.”
For a long second, no one moved.
Then Bucky staggered back and dropped into the chair like his legs had given out, eyes glassy, mouth open in silent shock as he covered his face with both hands, shoulders shaking, and… wept… no shame, no restrain… just two hot streams running down his cheeks.
Two months had passed since you were finally cleared from the med bay, and in that time Bucky had appointed himself your full-time caretaker, and by caretaker, you meant prison warden disguised as a Victorian nursemaid.
You weren’t allowed to lift a grocery bag, open a door, or even pour your own damn coffee. If your eyes flicked toward the top shelf for more than a second, he was already there, plucking whatever you wanted down like some grim-faced butler with shoulders that could block out the sun.
It didn’t matter if you were perfectly capable, Bucky read your needs straight from your lips and was halfway to fetching them before you’d even realized you wanted them.
At first, it was sweet, then it was… smothering, and by now you were starting to feel less like a recovering human being and more like a particularly delicate crystal vase he was convinced would shatter if left unsupervised.
And you were horny.
Suddenly, you had the hottest, most ridiculously built, dangerously attractive supersoldier boyfriend… who insisted on treating you like you might snap in half if he so much as breathed on you too hard. Which was, frankly, a torture, especially when you’d wake up to find him shirtless, hair mussed, sipping coffee like a damn Calvin Klein ad and not doing a single thing about the ache he’d put in you.
It came to a head on a lazy Saturday morning.
You woke to find him already out of bed, hair a glorious mess, standing at the kitchen counter in nothing but a pair of sweatpants slung low enough to make you forget your own name. He was stirring sugar into your coffee, because of course you weren’t allowed to make your own, humming under his breath like some brooding, muscle-bound guest star on Desperate Housewives, the kind who has every bored suburban wife on the block peeking over the hedge just to watch him move.
“Morning, Sunshine,” he murmured, setting the mug carefully in front of you as you came closer like you were a patient in an ICU. “Careful, it’s hot.”
That was it, that was the moment you decided you’d had enough.
You took a slow sip, eyes on him over the rim, letting your gaze linger on his chest, his shoulders, the trail of hair disappearing under those sweatpants and without warning, you reached out and hooked your fingers into the waistband, tugging him a step closer.
“Sunshine…” His voice went wary, but his body didn’t move away.
You tilted your head, giving him your sweetest smile. “I’m healed, remember?” Your hand smoothed over his abs, nails scratching lightly, just enough to feel the hitch in his breath. “And unless I’ve forgotten basic anatomy, I’m pretty sure this,” your palm slid lower, “isn’t a danger to my recovery.”
“Not the point,” he muttered, though his voice had gone rough, his pupils blown.
“Feels like the point to me,” you whispered. “You’ve spent two months treating me like glass, Barnes. But I’m not glass. I’m flesh and blood. And right now, I’m very, very warm flesh in need of…” you pressed your mouth to his ear, “…attention.”
He swallowed hard, his hands twitching at his sides like he was fighting himself. “You keep this up, Sunshine, and I’m not gonna be responsible for what happens next.”
You grinned, pulling back just enough to meet his eyes, your voice dropping to a purr.
“Good. I’m not asking you to be responsible, Bucky. I’m asking you to fuck me, and… I want you to do it right.'
You let the pause hang, then tilted your head, teeth catching your lower lip in mock innocence.
'I’d say you owe me that… seeing as I took a bullet for you.”
That was when the dam finally broke.
It happened fast. One second you were smirking up at him, the next his mouth was on yours, hard enough to steal the breath right out of you, and his vibranium hand slid up your thigh, fingers squeezing possessively, while the other gripped your jaw, keeping you exactly where he wanted you.
He kissed like a man starved, his tongue swept against yours, deep and claiming, swallowing every little gasp you made as his grip on your jaw tightened just enough to make your pulse race.
“Oh, I will fuck you,” he muttered against your lips, the word low and rough, before kissing you again, harder this time, his teeth grazing your lower lip until you whimpered.
That sound must have done something to him, because his hand on your thigh moved higher, hooking beneath your knee to drag your leg over his hip.
The kiss never broke, it only deepened, messy and consuming, until you could taste your own ragged breathing between his. When he finally pulled back, his lips red and eyes pure hunger, it was only far enough to drag his mouth along your jaw, down the column of your throat, where his teeth scraped lightly over your pulse point.
“Do you have any idea,” he rasped, lips ghosting over your skin, “how many times I’ve gotten myself off thinking about this? About you?” his voice roughened with every word he spoke. “For months, Sunshine… I’ve been picturing the way you’d sound… the way you’d taste… the way you’d feel, clenching around me.”
Shit, it was too damn hot to hear, the filthy image his unfiltered confession conjured in your head sending a shiver through your whole body, running so deep he felt it. His answering groan was pure, unrestrained want as his hand slid between you, cupping you through your thin pajama pants, his thumb stroking slow, deliberate circles over your throbbing clit.
“Believe me Sunshine, I will fuck you so good you will forget your own name. Gonna show you,” he murmured, nipping lightly at your neck, as he scooped you up like you weighed nothing, “exactly how much I’ve been wanting you.”
Your legs locked around his waist on instinct as he carried you back to the bedroom. You caught sight of the half-finished coffee cooling on the counter, the sun spilling through the blinds and then his shoulder slammed the door shut with a finality that made your stomach twist in anticipation.
The next thing you knew, you were flat on your back, his weight settling over you, all heat and muscle and weeks of coiled need. His fingers pushed your shirt up and over your head in one smooth, impatient motion, his eyes darkening at the sight of bare skin.
“Still sure you’re okay?” he asked, but it didn’t sound like hesitation this time, it sounded like a warning.
You hooked your fingers in his hair and pulled him down.
“Not glass,” you murmured, crushing your lips against his.
“Not glass,” he repeated with a low growl, and the look in Bucky’s eyes was anything but gentle now as his hands slid slowly down your sides, fingers hooking into the waistband of your pants, tugging them off in one smooth motion.
Before you could even gasp, he was kneeling between your thighs, pushing them wide, spreading you open for his gaze. His tongue darted over his lips like a starving man confronted with a long-denied feast.
The cool glide of his metal fingers traced through your slick folds, lingering just long enough to make you shiver before his thumb found your clit, teasing in quick, perfect circles. Your back arched off the mattress with a moan you couldn’t bite back. God, you were more than okay, you were trembling, aching, soaked for him, almost embarrassingly so, every nerve tuned to the first real touch you’d been craving for what felt like ages.
“Beautiful, so fucking beautiful,” he whisperred as his hands gripped your thighs, thumbs stroking once before he leaned in, his breath warm against you and then his mouth was on you.
The first stroke of his tongue made your hips jolt, a gasp tearing from your throat. He groaned in approval, the vibration shooting straight through you as he licked deeper, slower, savoring you like he’d been dying for the taste.
Bucky’s grip was firm, keeping you spread for him, every flick and swirl of his tongue deliberate, unhurried like he was going to wring every single sound out of you before he let you go.
“Sweet,” he murmured against you, his voice rough, “knew you’d be.”
When you tangled your fingers in his hair, tugging him closer, he growled low in his chest and sucked harder, making you cry out. He didn’t let up, working you with his mouth until your thighs trembled and your breath came in short, desperate gasps.
“God, Bucky…” you choked out, but he only hummed, sending another shiver through you, his tongue pressing exactly where you needed it.
Your fingers fisted in his hair, pulling, urging, but if you thought that would make him hurry, you were wrong. Bucky was thorough, controlled, and so damn focused it made your head spin.
He slid one hand up to your stomach, holding you down when your hips tried to lift off the bed, while the other gripped your thigh, his thumb digging into your skin just enough to remind you who was in control.
He latched onto your clit, sucking with a slow, devastating pull that made your back arch and your breath break. You whimpered his name, and the sound must’ve been exactly what he wanted, because he growled against you and the vibration made your toes curl.
“Bucky… oh, shit… yes… yes… oh God…” you mewled, hips jerking in an instinctive plea for more.
“Shhh, my sweet girl,” he murmured, his lips brushing your slick heat as the words ghosted over you. “Take it easy… let me take care of you.”
Before you could even process that, his tongue slid lower, teasing at your entrance before pushing inside, deep and relentless. Your thighs clamped around his head, but he didn’t seem to mind, if anything, his grip tightened, pinning you in place while he fucked you with his mouth.
You could feel him moan into you, like your taste alone was making him lose his mind and every slow drag of his tongue, every flick against that aching spot, built you higher, tighter, until the pressure in your stomach was unbearable.
“Come for me,” he ordered, voice ragged as he pulled back just enough to wrap his lips around your clit again. “C’mon, baby. I’ve been starving for this.”
Your vision blurred, heat flooded you and then you broke, the orgasm ripping through you so hard you cried out, your whole body shaking as he kept going, licking you through every aftershock like he had no intention of stopping.
Only when you had turned into a whimpering, moaning mess, trying to push at his head, to escape the devastating onslaught of his lips and tongue, did he finally relent and sat back on his heels, lips and chin glistening, eyes dark and hungry as he wiped the back of his hand across his mouth.
He didn’t give you time to catch your breath. Still on his knees between your legs, Bucky crawled up over you, the bed dipping under his weight until his chest pressed to yours. His mouth found yours instantly, hot and hungry, and you tasted yourself on his tongue, heady, intoxicating, intimate in a way that made your cheeks flush and your pulse race.
You whimpered against him, and he swallowed the sound greedily, one hand sliding up the side of your body to cup your breast, his thumb brushing over the hard peak until you arched into him. The other hand found your hip, holding you in place as his hips rolled, letting you feel every inch of the thick, hard length straining against his sweatpants.
“Feel that?” he murmured against your lips, voice a low growl. “Been like this for months… every time you walked into the room, every time you touched me, drove me fuckin’ insane. That time you patched the gash on my side…” his mouth curved in a breathless smirk, “…I bolted right after because if I’d stayed one more second, I would’ve come in my pants like some desperate fuckin’ teenager.”
He kissed you again, slower this time, savouring every drag of his lips against you, before his hand slipped back between your thighs. You gasped at his touch, as his metal finger parted your folds and slid inside you.
“Still so wet for me,” he said, almost in awe. “Still ready.”
Your hands fumbled for his sweatpants, urgency replacing every other thought.
He shoved his pants down just far enough for his cock to spring free – thick, flushed, and already dripping precum that smeared against your thigh.
Jesus, he was gorgeous. Heavy and perfectly shaped, a thick vein running along the underside, pulsing like it was just as desperate as you. You wrapped your hand around him, feeling the heat and weight, and his groan was deep enough to make your toes curl.
You tried to guide him to you, pressing the broad, leaking head to your entrance, but his hand closed over yours, firm and commanding.
“Not yet,” he rasped, eyes dark and locked on you.
He took over, sliding himself through your folds in long, unhurried strokes, the wet sound obscene in the quiet. Every pass rubbed your clit just enough to make you gasp, just enough to make you want to scream.
You bucked your hips, desperate for more.
“Please,” you hissed.
Bucky just smirked, finally pressing the thick head into you… only to pull back again. Then he did it again, and again, slow, shallow, infuriating.
“Look at you,” he murmured, dragging the tip against your swollen entrance before retreating. “So beautiful, so fucking needy you’d take it all without thinking. You want it that bad, Sunshine?”
“Yes…God, yes…”
But instead of giving in, he kept up the torturous rhythm, the head of his cock breaching you just enough to stretch, to burn, before he denied you again until you were shaking, nails digging into his ass, trying to drag him forward.
“Beg prettier,” he growled, pressing in one last shallow thrust that made your breath catch. “Then maybe I’ll give you what you’re so fucking desperate for.”
Your nails dug harder into his ass, your voice breaking as you pleaded, “Bucky… please, I need you. I need all of you. I’ll do anything, just… fuck me.”
Something in his eyes changed, the smirk fading, replaced by something darker, hungrier as his fingers tightened on your hips, the metal one biting just enough to make you gasp.
He slammed into you in one brutal, perfect thrust, burying himself to the hilt. The stretch made your mouth fall open in a soundless cry, your whole body clenching around him as your back arched.
You both moaned in unison. His was low and broken, yours high and desperate as he filled you completely, stretching you until the air caught in your throat. He stilled there, forehead pressed to yours, breathing you in, feeling the tight flutter of your walls around him.
“Fuuuck,” Bucky groaned, head dropping to your shoulder, his voice rough and wrecked. “You feel… unreal… better than I ever let myself imagine.”
The first thrusts were deep and heavy, slow enough to make your nails bite into his skin, forcing little gasps from your throat, but the longer he kept that pace, the rougher his breathing became until the restraint shattered, and he started to drive into you harder, faster, like every second apart had been fuel for this moment, and he was burning it all in you.
His hips snapped forward with a sharp, relentless rhythm that drove you into the mattress, and every sound he made, the low grunts, the hiss of his breath, the occasional broken moan, wound you tighter.
“You wanted it, Sunshine,” he rasped, fucking you like he meant to prove it. “So take it. Take every…”
a sharp thrust stole your air
“... fuckin’ ...”
another made you moan in pleasure as your nails clawed at his back
“... inch.”
You could barely answer him, your voice dissolving into needy, incoherent moans and pleas, and he was eating up every sound, fucking you harder, chasing both your pleasure and his like he’d been starving for this.
Your moans grew higher, sharper, as his thrusts turned downright punishing, the kind that had the headboard thudding in time with his hips as every inch of him was inside you, claiming, wrecking, ruining you in the best way possible.
“Common, Sunshine…,” he groaned, sweat dripping down his temple, his eyes dark and locked on yours. “let me hear you… let me hear you scream.”
And you were screaming now, or maybe moaning, you couldn’t tell, the sounds tumbled from you without control as he pistoned into you, each thrust harder, faster, his cock dragging over that perfect spot until you were a moaning, drooling, whimpering mess beneath him.
Your nails scored his back, leaving hot trails of sting in their wake, and he just growled at the pain, driving into you harder. You couldn’t even form words anymore, just desperate little sounds, your thighs trembling around him.
“Yeah… that’s it,” he panted, thumb finding your clit and circling it in hard, perfect strokes. “You gonna come for me? You gonna soak my cock like I know you want to?”
“B-Bucky…” you gasped, your entire body winding tight, the pressure coiling low in your belly ready to snap.
“Do it,” he hissed. “Come on, Sunshine. Let go, I want to feel it.”
You shattered, your vision went white and your mouth opened on a cry as the orgasm tore through you, pulsing around him, every nerve on fire. You felt him groan into your neck, hips slamming forward as if he could get impossibly deeper, his rhythm breaking into ragged thrusts.
“Fuck… fuck, I’m gonna…” he choked out, pulling you tight against him, and then he was gone, spilling hot and thick inside you with a deep, wrecked moan on of your name as he held himself there, buried to the hilt, shaking from the force of it.
For a long moment, the only sound was your combined breathing, ragged and uneven. His forehead rested against yours, his body still trembling with aftershocks, and when his eyes opened again, there was nothing but raw, unguarded affection in them.
He didn’t pull out right away, instead, he just kissed you, slowly, tenderly, savouring every drag of his lips against yours, until your heartbeat began to ease and your legs loosened from around him.
When he finally slipped free, you winced at the sensitivity and he immediately stilled, cupping your cheek with that careful, searching look like he was scanning you for damage.
“You okay?”
You almost laughed. “Bucky, I just came so hard I think I saw God and angels. I’m fine.”
He didn’t look convinced, in fact, he looked downright concerned as he disappeared into the bathroom and came back with a warm, damp cloth, kneeling between your thighs.
“Let me,” he murmured, and you knew better than to argue. He cleaned you gently, almost too gently, muttering under his breath about “making sure you’re comfortable” like the overprotective menace he was.
Then came the water, then the blanket adjustment, then him physically tucking you into bed like you were about to be read a bedtime story.
“Bucky, I’m not an invalid,” you grumbled, though you couldn’t stop the fond little smile pulling at your lips.
“Shut up,” he said, but there was no heat to it. “You’re my girl, and my job is to take care of you.”
You shook your head, exasperated, but when he slid in beside you and pulled you against his chest, his warmth wrapping around you like a second blanket, you simply wrapped your arms around his broad shoulders and snuggled closer. His hand traced lazy, grounding circles on your back as he nuzzled against your hair.
“You know you drive me crazy, right?” you murmured into his skin.
“Yeah,” he said, pressing a kiss to your hair. “Guess we’re even.”
You gave a little huff. “I’m serious. All this… fussing over me like I’m made of sugar. It’s ridiculous.”
He chuckled low in his chest. “You love it.”
“I do not,” you protested, even as your fingers curled into his bare side and your head tucked closer under his chin.
“Mm-hm.” He sounded unconvinced. “That little face you make when I pour your coffee for you? Or when I carry all the groceries in one trip? Sunshine, you practically glow. Don’t think I don’t notice.”
You tilted your head back just enough to glare at him. “I tolerate it because you’d pout if I didn’t.”
Bucky’s lips twitched into a grin. “Pout? I don’t pout.”
“You pouted when I tried to open my own soda last week.”
“That was different,” he said, tone all mock seriousness. “You could’ve hurt yourself.”
You laughed, unable to help it, and shook your head. “You’re impossible.”
“And you,” he murmured, pressing his mouth to yours in a slow, lazy kiss, “are mine.”
That shut you up, not because you agreed (you’d never give him the satisfaction out loud), but because the warmth in his voice went straight to your chest and melted every last bit of resistance.
You just sighed into the kiss, letting him win this one.
summary: You make Bucky regret ever suggesting that your arrangement is 'just sex' by flirting with other men. He makes you regret ever flirting with other men by giving you a bit of well-earned discipline.
warnings: 18+ mdni!!, smut with a sprinkling of plot, spanking, fingering, unprotected p in v, dumbification, creampie, condescending!bucky, bigdick!bucky, tummy bulge, general filth and debauchery, kinda dubcon but more like undernegotiated kink, no daddy kink but do not be fooled bc this whole thing reeks of daddy issues (see: title), jealousy, use of petnames (doll, sweetheart, baby etc.), implied age gap, bucky calls reader kid, no use of y/n, jealousy, cursing, mention of alcohol, slightest bit of angst if you squint hard, situationship to relationship pipeline
a/n: so. sat down in front of a blank google doc to write a 800-900 word drabble based on this ask. blacked out. snapped out of it and found myself with 7k words of pure filth and a pit of self-disgust in my stomach that i think will last my whole life. bon appetit.
please reblog / comment if u liked this. otherwise i die </3
Bucky knows this is all his fault.
He’s fully aware he’s the one that started this whole thing. When he first said those words to you - ‘no emotions, no exclusivity, just sex’ - he watched about twenty emotions roll over you in the space of a few seconds. First was offence, as if he had just shot you the nastiest insult you could have imagined. Next was something uncomfortably close to hurt. But eventually, he watched a sort of smugness begin to sprout over you - like you knew you would make him regret it.
And fuck, does he ever.
He’s sitting with Steve and Sam in the corner of one of Tony’s stupid team-building drinks, watching all sorts of SHIELD employees approach you. For some reason, it seems like every fucking field agent, engineer and tech analyst decided that tonight is the night to chance their arm with you.
He is furious at the fact that they think they have a shot, but there’s nothing he can do. He has no claim to stake. You dismiss most of them with a polite smile and a flippant comment, but every so often you lean just slightly too far forward, speak a little bit too softly, and it throws Bucky’s head for a spin. Hand grasping his whiskey tumbler just a bit too tight, he’s biding his time until he can discreetly pull you into his room or a supply closet or hell, even the bathroom, and prove why none of them are worth your time. It wouldn’t be the first time.
In his defence, the whole ‘no strings’ thing had mostly been for your benefit. He’s an old man with the emotional regulation abilities of a teenager. HYDRA had left him so thoroughly fucked up, he hadn’t been sure what parts of him were Bucky and what parts were the Winter Soldier. He hadn’t wanted to drag anyone into the mess of finding out and surgically removing the unwanted pieces.
But as spring bled into summer and eventually streamed steadily into autumn, he began to realise that maybe those unwanted pieces don’t need to be removed - you seem to like them just fine, in any case. You do more to dampen the noise in his head than any court-mandated therapy session, uncharacteristically sincere when he wakes up with terror wracking his mind and body. You remind him of who he is and the fact that he will never again be the Bucky of the past - but who is ever their past selves? And who would want to be? He is the old Bucky and the new Bucky and both are okay and worth living as. And if he fucks you with a little more intensity on those days where he feels more Winter Solider than Bucky Barnes, bends you over and makes you take it hard and fast - well, who is complaining? Not you.
He had regretted asking for this arrangement almost instantly. You are gracious; never mentioning the dates you go on, but he knows and you know, and he can just feel how smug you are about it. He almost wishes he could return the favour; show up to your trysts smelling like perfume and running out early with a vague excuse. But he’s old and disgruntled and, if he’s being honest, the idea of being so close to anyone except you makes his skin crawl, as if you’re the one exception to his whole touch aversion thing. Maybe you are.
He has only seen you out with a date once. He was passing by the window of a cosy, candlelit Italian restaurant on his way to the laundromat and caught sight of you. Your blood-red dress was dipping just low enough to hint at your cleavage. Your lips were the same crimson as your dress and you brought the rim of your glass up to meet them, shooting the asshole in front of you a flirty smirk. Lust and nausea were flooding Bucky’s stomach in equal measure. When your eyes caught sight of him, he watched surprise flicker there momentarily, before you smiled wickedly and turned back to your date, leaning in closer to rub salt in the wound.
He thinks you might be doing the same thing now, doling out your punishment to him in the most unkind way he can fathom. The way you’re tilting your head up towards the agent in front of you, eyes wide and enthralled, as if he had just said the most fascinating thing you had ever heard. He knows you’re faking it.
Sure, the guy was fairly good-looking - if you’re into that All-American, Steve Rogers kind of thing. But he knows you’re not. You like your men with rough edges - you like them like Bucky. He can see as much when he fucks you, whispering to you all dirty and mean, and your eyes roll back into your skull as if you’ve found nirvana. The boy in front of you wouldn’t know how to treat you like that, how to get you there.
And he can hear, even from this distance, that the guy is a bore. He’s rambling on about statistics - expounding entry level concepts to you, as if you’re not two full grades above him. And you’re just sitting there, listening and nodding earnestly like he’s not the exact sort of person you would make fun of when you’re alone with Bucky.
You’re in your tactical gear - not long returned from a mission, but always eager for a chance to socialise and cause mischief. His jaw twitches when you shift in your seat and he gets a better view of your breasts. He sees your hips shift, a sliver of soft skin peeking out between your vest and the waistband of your pants, and he can almost picture that you’re seated above him, with the way the leather of your suit clings to you like a second skin. The asshole talking to you - Brandon? Brian? - is clearly enjoying the view too, judging by the way his breath stutters mid-sentence. Bucky wonders if you’re doing this on purpose just to torture him.
“Get a fuckin’ grip, dude,” Sam mutters, reaching over to remove the tumbler from Bucky’s grasp. “Gonna break the damn thing.”
He wonders how long they had been watching him when he catches sight of Steve, expression caught somewhere between amusement and concern. “You okay, pal?”
Bucky just grunts in what is intended to be an affirmative, forcing his eyes away from you but still listening in to your conversation. Steve and Sam are watching him like they aren’t quite sure what to say, eyes darting between himself and you. They have been in this predicament enough to know that something is happening between the two of you, but had never discussed the specifics. Bucky figures they must just know that he has an interest in you that is bordering on unhealthy.
“Look,” Steve says in that pragmatically optimistic way of his. “I actually think it could be a good thing to… you know, get back out there. Why don’t you just talk to her?”
Bucky almost laughs at the suggestion that it’s shyness that is preventing him from talking to you right now. But the truth is so much worse, so he admits nothing. “Had enough whiskey,” he says instead. “Gonna get a beer.”
Steve and Sam sigh almost in tandem as Bucky hauls himself up and over to the bar. When he gets his beer, he doesn’t bother returning to his seat. Instead, he leans against the bar where he can observe you again without any intervention. It’s almost embarrassing how well you have him wrapped around your finger, but he can’t look away.
“Uh- not trying to freak you out or anything,” Brandon mutters conspiratorially, voice lowering. “But I think Barnes has been staring over here for a while. And he looks- well, he doesn’t look happy.”
You smile then, and it’s real - not the pitiful grins you had been granting him before. “Oh, really?” you ask, eyes flicking over and meeting Bucky’s for just a split-second. It strikes him like lightning, the way you look at him - eyebrows raised with mirth and devilment. He feels that he’s too old for the games you’re playing with him, while also wanting nothing more than to grab you by the hips and haul you out of the room caveman-style to have his wicked way with you.
“Don’t look, you’ll make it obvious,” your little pest urges you quickly and Bucky almost face-palms at his idiocy. He doesn’t really understand how this guy got certified as an agent without an awareness that super soldiers also had super hearing, but whatever. The training program is more Steve’s remit.
“Sorry,” you say with a smile that only Bucky knows is sarcastic. “Don’t think he saw me.”
“Are you guys…” he trails off, head turning around to glance at Bucky who meets his stare head-on. “Are you guys together or something? I wouldn’t really wanna piss him off…”
“Together? Oh god no,” you laugh and Bucky’s jaw twitches.
“Okay…” Brendan continues, taking another quick glance at Bucky, who knows his stare has only grown more stormy. “Well, does he maybe have a thing for you?”
“No way,” you protest, and he hates how much you seem to be enjoying this. “We’re not like that at all, Brennan. Bucky trained me. Pretty much taught me everything I know. He’s more like… a father figure, really.”
Bucky almost drops his beer. Something inside him stops, like all the clogs turning in his body have decided to break down. His brain is lagging as he tries to convince himself that he must have misheard you. Even his blood has paused its journey through his body. He can see Steve looking between the two of you from the corner of his eye, but he ignores his bewildered glances. He’ll do his best to explain this away later.
You can hardly contain your amusement. Bucky can tell that you’re fighting every instinct in your body to not look over at his reaction.
“Oh ok!” Brandon seems happy enough with that explanation, but you have lost interest. You quickly manage to get rid of him with the promise of a date the next day and turn back to Natasha, voice brimming with real interest in a stark contrast to your last conversation.
Bucky isn’t sure what to do with himself. He can see Steve deciding whether or not to approach him, so he gives you a look - one that you are very familiar with - and goes straight to his room, trying his best to ignore the bulge forming in his pants.
It takes you near enough to two hours to get to Bucky’s room. Exhaustion steamrolling through you in the aftermath of your mission and the team event, but not enough for you to turn down the silent offer made to you before he walked out. He is almost foaming at the mouth by the time you reach his door.
“You have some fuckin’ explaining to do,” he demands when he meets you at the door, dragging you in not-so-gently. You smirk up at him as you walk in, purposely casual and slow, as if you have all the time in the world.
“I don’t have to leave early just because you do. My world doesn’t revolve around you, you know.”
Bucky would usually tell you that it should, but he seems to bite it back today. He’s not talking about the fact it took you so long to get here, and you know that. “What the fuck was that, down there?”
“What? You’re the one who wanted no exclusivity, remember? Don’t tell me you’re jealous just because I’ve talked to a few boys.”
He is and you know it. You see the way he grits his teeth when someone else approaches you and a warm sort of satisfaction slithers up your spine every damn time. It’s the only thing that makes it worth letting them take you out on dates. The way he fucks you after, rough and demanding, like he’s proving that he’s better than whoever your date is (he is). Or the way he fucks you before you’re scheduled to run out, desperate and possessive, pushing into you hard and fast in a way that should be too much but isn’t because it’s him. Like he’s trying to convince you to stay.
And you never do. Because he made his stance perfectly clear and the last thing you are going to do is invest where he hasn’t.
Even if the dates you go on make you bored and sick. Even if the one person you had tried to sleep with since starting your arrangement with Bucky gave you a full-body ick, a shiver running through you like your body was rejecting him. (“Did you just cum?” he had asked you, smug and satisfied. You told him you had.)
But that’s not the point. You’re playing with Bucky now, trying to make him say it. To admit he is jealous. That he doesn’t want to see you with anyone else.
“You said I was a fuckin’ father figure, doll.”
Your smile just widens, a laugh bubbling forth. You hadn’t been expecting that. “Oh, that really got you, huh? You have a daddy kink, Barnes?”
Bucky just glares back. He doesn’t. He has told you before that the whole daddy thing has never appealed to him.
But you can see it now - you calling him a father figure, so flippantly and casually, did something to him. You can’t tell whether he wanted to bend you over then and there, prove to you and everyone else at the function that he is most definitely not a father figure to you. Or if he wanted to lean into it, maybe show you who is in charge. The irritation on his face is making you lean towards the latter.
“You’re a damn piece of work.” he grumbles, voice low and dangerous. “I’ve half a mind to take you over my knee and show you the discipline you obviously never got from your actual father figure.”
You freeze for just a beat. That’s new.
“You won’t,” you say, indignantly rolling your eyes even though you’re kind of faking your confidence.
“Wanna bet, kid?”
The air has changed slightly, an odd current running between the two of you. And you’re suddenly not so sure he’s bluffing. You feel slightly out of your depth. Like this whole thing had gotten away from you a bit. Like he was more serious about this than you were expecting.
Still, you press him. Because that’s who you are and what you do.
“Yeah, actually, I think I do, old man.”
There’s a tense silence - long and drawn out - where you start to doubt yourself. Maybe you should have backed down, because the way he’s looking at you now, stormy and dark, is making you nervous in a way you’re not used to with him.
And then his nostrils flare and he’s moving towards you, faster than lightning, faster than you are prepared for. He lifts you with annoying ease before you can even register what’s happening, fingers digging into your waist as evidence of a cracked restraint. You’re kicking your legs, a strained shout escaping as he catches you off your guard.
“Let me go!” you’re thrashing now, all spit-fire and outrage.
No,” he grunts, manhandling you with practiced ease. He settles you down over his lap. “You wanna act like a brat? I’ll show you what it means.”
You’re squirming when his hand comes up to yank the leather of your pants down to your thighs, almost tearing it in the process. You’re left in just a lace white thong, bearing your backside to him fully. You had worn it intentionally to see the tortured expression on his face that you enjoy so much. Now it just feels humiliating, bent over in front of him in his favourite panties - the picture of submission.
“Stop messing around, Bucky. Don’t be a dick.”
There is a second where neither of you speak. His fingers dance gently on the skin of your ass and you can’t see him but you can hear his breath catching over the strained silence that stretches between you.
Before it shatters into a million pieces.
Because Bucky’s flesh hand comes down - abrupt and hard - against the skin of your ass. The stinging sensation travels outwards from the area of impact, sizzling your skin and your nerves, and you realise you are absolutely and utterly in over your head.
“Okay!” you gasp. “Okay, Jesus Christ, Bucky, I’m sorry! I didn’t actually think you’d…” you trail off, face enveloping in a sudden and suffocating heat. “I’m sorry. You can let me go now.”
Another silence where you can feel him hesitating and then: “No.”
“No?” you splutter, words lost in your throat as if the position you’re in isn’t humiliating enough. “What do you mean no? I apologised.”
“I mean no. You asked for this doll, remember?”
He grabs your hair in a way that you suppose isn’t a million miles from gentle and twists your face to meet his. In what is an uncomfortable stretch for you, his eyes implore yours, silently assessing whether this is really okay.
Whatever he finds in your face steels his resolve because in the next second, he is pressing your face down further, ass arched higher and his palm is coming back down against your ass, knocking you forward. He clears his throat, mutters a curse under his breath that lets you know this is getting to him too.
“Asked for it when you flirted with that moron downstairs instead of coming to me.”
Another slap has dark stars flashing behind your eyes, the combination of pain and pleasure sparking through you to create something completely unchartered. Your skin is burning and it should be unpleasant - probably would be with anyone else.
Maybe it’s just the angle, you reason. Maybe it’s reverberating to your clit and that’s what making you rock forward with an embarrassing moan.
“Asked for it when you called me a father figure, like I don’t fuck you silly.” He spits the term ‘father figure’ like it’s something dirty, and the smack he delivers after it makes your mouth fall ajar and your cunt pulsate.
“Asked for it when you wore this fuckin’ thing,” he says, hooking a finger around the thin lace strap of your thong and letting it slingshot back with a dull nip, before you feel the stronger sting of his hand on your ass again. “Asked for it when you bet I wouldn’t do this. You remember that, don’t you, doll?”
“I-I-“ you can’t get the words out because now Bucky is pressing his fingertips lightly down your spine, carding through the soft indents there before tracing down, lower and lower. He follows the line of your thong, over places that make you clench and shudder, until his finger is pressing lightly over your core through the soaked fabric of your underwear.
“You-you-?” he mocks, black and mean, as he applies pressure there and watches you wiggle back to his touch.
When you don’t answer, his hand leaves your pussy and comes down hard with three successive smacks as punishment. You can feel his jean-clad cock pressing into your thighs, feel it jump at the little yell you release. He curses, whispered and dirty.
“I don’t know, Bucky,” you whine. “It hurts.”
“Too much?” he asks condescendingly, rubbing a hand over the curve of your ass where you can feel red-hot heat blossoming.
You shake your head, face warm with embarrassment and sheer desire and he brings his hand down again and you wonder if it’s possible for you to cum like this, with nothing but his hand against your ass in explosions of fire and something just shy of real pain.
You really should not be having this reaction to being taken over Bucky’s knee and spanked - you’re an adult, for fuck sake - but you think maybe you would enjoy anything he chooses to do to you. Your shame is just making you want it more.
He continues until it really starts to hurt in the most delicious way, the flat of his palm hitting against your skin, rotating between featherlight and rough. Every so often, his fingers nudge their way to the tops of your thighs and your clit, playing there for just a matter of seconds before returning to the fat of your ass.
When he stops, you’re delirious and dumb and you wonder if you’ve just discovered something new about yourself, or if Bucky just has a way of gnarling all your desires, turning them darker and moulding them to his own preferences until the only thing you can categorically say you enjoy in bed is him.
Your ass is so raw that when Bucky finally lifts you off his lap and places you on the bed, you feel a pleasurable little burn linger, but most of your concentration is on your neglected core. You can’t stop moving your hips, too desperate for friction, as he carefully removes your shoes and peels your pants the rest of the way down your legs. He makes light work of your top too and in just a matter of moments you are completely bared to him at the bottom of the bed. He stands above you, still fully clothed, his jeans stained with your desperation.
“Did so good for me. Took it so well,” he murmurs, grabbing your jaw and forcing your eyes to his for one brutal moment. You feel imprisoned by his blue eyes before he grants you a soft kiss - an act of mercy before he completely destroys you. “I think you enjoyed it a bit too much though. Not much of a punishment.”
You shake your head but both of you know that you’re lying. Bucky just smiles knowingly, glancing down obviously to where your pussy is dripping onto the bedsheets. Your face floods with humiliation.
When he kisses you this time, it’s a violent thing - tongue pushing against yours with a dominance usually reserved for those nights when you return to him after a date, your chin lightly grazed with beard burn from an unpleasant goodnight kiss. The feel of his lips on yours lets you know what kind of night you’re in for.
He’s leaning over you, thumb navigating its way to your clit like clockwork. You’re so ridiculously wet that it almost glides right off. He chuckles and mumbles something about how needy you are against your lips, but your body is buzzing and your ears aren’t working properly.
He circles your clit, using extra pressure as if it needs it. You’re humming and moaning, feeling like you might already be on the precipice after just a few seconds. When he slides just one finger into your heat, your mouth opens to release the most desperate sound you think you might have ever made right up against his lips. He smiles, nudges it in further.
“I don’t think I need to get you ready for me at all, do I, sweetheart? Pretty pussy is drooling already just from a bit of discipline.”
Something about the term ‘discipline’ - as if he’s an authority figure - makes the whole thing feel so horrifically dirty but you can hear the mortifying squelching between your thighs and you know he’s right. When he adds a second finger, you’re preparing for the humiliating reality that you’re about to cum just from Bucky’s punishment and less than a minute of fingering.
Except you don’t. Because Bucky curls his fingers into that spot that only he can hit, makes light explode behind your eyes, gets you so so close. You grind down on his fingers, body taught with the expectation of something mind-blowing. And then suddenly he’s gone as quickly as he was ever there and you’re pressing your hips down onto air, trying to find purchase where there is none.
“Bucky!” you gasp, voice coming out so embarrassingly breathless that you might be self-conscious if you thought about it too much. The sight of him humming around his fingers, still slick with the evidence of your arousal, is not helping. “I was just about to-”
“I know, I know,” Bucky murmurs, hand brushing through your hair, voice thick with false sympathy. He’s looking down at you as if you’re some child that fell off their bike - his condescension almost pisses you off, but mostly it turns you on. “You were so close, baby. Your voice goes all whiny when you’re almost there, did you know that? Always sound so needy. Makes me wanna fuck you harder.”
“Then why did you do that?” You’re vaguely aware of how petulant you sound but all conscious thought flew out the window the second you felt his palm on your ass.
Bucky doesn’t answer you. Instead, his hands reach down and begin to unbuckle his belt. Slowly. Meticulously. You’re transfixed, watching every movement. When you reach out a hand to help, he smacks it away, light but firm. He unbuckles and tugs his pants and underwear down far enough for his hard cock to spring out. Your thighs press together in a motion he doesn’t miss.
You feel small like this - completely bared and open to him. You are vulnerable and exposed and so helplessly turned on. But if you try to rush Bucky into touching you, he will only take ten times longer. So you lie as still as a rock, watch him undress slowly and fold away his clothing with precision, ignoring the very horny, very naked woman on his bed. But it is wildly clear that he is feeling some of what you are. His jaw is ticking and his nostrils flare at the smell of your arousal.
By the time he leans over you and kisses you again, you are both on fire. He wastes no time, pressing his cock up against your dripping hole and slamming in with one stroke.
It’s humiliating, really. The whole night is turning out to be just one humongous humiliation ritual.
Because after that first stroke, you’re completely gone. Your cunt clenches down in a way that makes him hiss, squeezing and convulsing, losing your mind. You’re not sure what you’re babbling while you try to milk him - possibly something along the lines of Yes, Bucky, please, right there. You just know that Bucky’s grip bruises your hips with a restraint that is fit to snap at any moment and your legs are spasming as you try to bear down on the cock he just fed you. He’s too surprised to even talk you through it the way he normally does. Instead, he just watches you, awe filtering through his bright eyes.
Your first thought when you come down is that Bucky is going to be absolutely insufferable about this. Your second thought is that you’re still ridiculously horny.
“God, baby,” he grits out, a taunt and a prayer all at once - like he can’t quite decide whether he wants to tease you about this or worship at your feet. He chooses the former. “I didn’t know you were this fucking desperate. Coming as soon as you get my cock in you. Like you were trained for it.”
In a way, you were, you think. But then Bucky is pulling out of you and slamming back in. The sensation is overwhelming - he is too big. It’s too much for your sensitive hole. Your cunt is still pulsing with aftershocks, the sensitivity verging on too much. But you’re still squeezing around him, unwilling to give yourself any reprieve. Not when it feels this good.
“Feel how she’s sucking me in, doll? You can’t stop, even after coming. Your tight little cunt was made for this.”
His eyes are trained solely on your wet heat and the way it’s taking him, a sort of adoration painting his face that almost seems out of place in the filthiness of his actions. His hands have a firm grasp on your hips for leverage while he fucks into you, hard and slow. Your eyes are rolling to the back of your head and you feel too braindead to respond. All you can do is watch him.
“Look at you. Can’t even talk. Let me empty that smart little head of yours. There’s only enough space in there to think about my cock.”
When he fucks you like this, you think you might be in love him. Best not to think too much on it. Not that you can think too much on anything, with his dick sliding in and out of you, filling up and stretching every inch of you.
“Feels so good, Bucky,” you whine. “Need you.”
“You need me?” His voice is patronising. It should piss you off, but it has you gushing. “Baby, you have me. I’m all up in your guts, right here.”
He looks to your stomach and you follow his gaze, watching the head of his cock press into the skin there, before disappearing and poking through again with every thrust. “Fuck, look at that,” Bucky groans, watching his own movements. “So perfect at taking me.”
“Yeah,” you whisper, hand absently reaching down to press on your stomach, feeling his movements there. Your breath is stuttering and you think maybe you’re choking on the pleasure he’s giving you. “Wanna be good for you.”
When Bucky feels you press down on the head of his cock through his stomach, his hips stutter and a loud, animalistic groan spills out. “So good for me. Such a good girl, letting me mark up your ass like that. Think you’d do anything for me, wouldn’t you baby? Let me fuck you past your limit?”
You’re lost to the pleasure. You just nod and he gives your clit a quick nudge in appreciation.
“I know you would. Know how bad you wanna make me proud.”
Oh.
Oh.
Your pussy jumps, face flooding with heat and Bucky is looking down at you like he’s figuring you out. The term ‘father figure’ comes rushing back into your consciousness and it takes everything in you not to go running for the hills in a panic at how much you liked those words on his lips.
“Jesus fuckin’ Christ,” he grumbles, pulling his cock out of you and manoeuvring you so you are kneeling up on the bed with your hands on the headboard. “Can’t look at your face when I say those things to you, baby. Gonna make me cum too soon.”
He’s sliding into you from behind then, both arms pressed to your hips to navigate you up and down on his cock, while he presses his face to yours. Every now and again, he lands a kiss to your gland that makes your pulse drop. His pace is steady and harsh and your tits bounce with every brutal thrust of his hips, your combined arousal dripping down to his heavy balls.
You’re chanting his name along with other obscenities that you can barely even register. You feel completely shameless, willing to do anything he wants just so he will shower you with more of that praise you have become so addicted to.
“You’re so easy,” Bucky taunts you again. “Bet if I touched your clit right now, you’d cum again.”
“Yeah,” you say, and you can’t help the way you sound as if you’re begging. “Please, Bucky.”
He tuts, and he grins against your cheek. “I don’t know. Do you deserve it? You talked to a lot of men today, sweetheart. Made them think they have a shot.”
There’s a stubborn part of you that, even in this cock-induced daze, wants to snap at him. To remind him that this was all his decision, not yours. Unfortunately, you’re thinking with all organs except your brain right now.
“M’yours,” you pant, fucking back onto him. You can feel the short, course public hairs graze your ass, which is still red raw. The pain only adds to the building feeling. “Don’t want them.”
“Yeah?”
“Fuck- yeah, please, Bucky.”
“That’s right, sweetheart,” he gasps, voice strained. “I’m gonna come inside you. Gonna fill you up so good that nobody could ever try to take you from me again.”
You can’t help the sharp moan that comes spilling from you. You can’t quite explain how much you want that; how much you want him to fuck his cum into you, as if it would somehow make you belong to him. His filthy words along with the grinding of his hips is almost too much for you to handle.
“Please, Bucky. Want it so bad.”
“Please, Bucky,” he mocks you with a cruel lilt that makes you squeeze around him. “That all you can say? You want my cum so bad you can’t even think?”
You just nod, a strange concoction of arousal and humiliation coursing through you.
“That’s okay, baby. Don’t have to talk. I’ll give it to you. You just have to take it like a- fuck- like a good girl.”
Finally, he moves his metal arm down. He presses his middle finger over your clit, featherlight, and it makes your legs shake and your cunt squeeze and you’re so close-
“Gonna flood you, baby. Have so much to give you. Gonna make you drip.”
And then you’re falling off the edge with a call of Bucky’s name, grinding back onto his stupidly big cock, nonsense falling from your lips. You’re almost embarrassed about the keening noises you’re making but the enormity of your orgasm is too extreme for it to matter. He follows you not a second later, and you feel him pulse inside you, shooting up ropes of sticky cum. He holds you tight as he groans, rocking his hips back and forth on yours with aggressive ardour that peters out into slow, languid thrusts as the feeling washes through you both.
Bucky was telling the truth. He’s still grinding shallowly into you while his spend is spilling out of you, dripping down his length, past his balls and onto the sheets. He fucks what he can back into you for a moment while you both come down, shaking and shuddering.
He’s babbling, pressing kisses to your neck. “So good. Took that cock so good for me. You’re all mine, aren’t you, sweet girl? My good girl.”
He pulls out of you gently and you feel his spend flood out of your thoroughly used hole. He allows you to slump back, lifting you back until you’re lying on the bed with his face in your neck. You can’t bring yourself to care about the wet patches you’re lying in. Not yet.
Both of your chests are heaving as you come down. Bucky is pressing intimate little kisses to your neck, a gentle hand stroking your stomach, and your chest tightens. You’re so close to mistaking this for something that it’s not. How he can dole out his affection like this while still maintaining that you two have ‘no strings attached’ is beyond you. As you slowly recuperate, your breathlessness is replaced with a gooey warmth, owing itself entirely to the man pressing gentle kisses and whispering sweet praises to you as if you’re his. And you’re uncomfortable with how much you want to be.
But you don’t let it upset you. Instead, you take your red ass and your dignity and you decide it’s time to get the hell out of dodge.
“Jesus, Barnes,” you chuckle softly, beginning to haul yourself up even though you’re still feeling shaky and limp. “Whatever I did to piss you off so much today, remind me to do it again.”
“You’re leaving?” he asks, sitting up with you immediately.
“Yeah,” you say, searching through the crumpled sheets for your underwear which has blended into the white of the bed. “Got an early morning tomorrow.”
“Why? You just got back from a mission.”
You give him a sideways glance. “Going for breakfast,” you say simply, as if you’re not both aware that it’s a date you have planned.
“You being serious right now, doll? You’re really gonna go on a date knowing I was inside you just a few hours before? With my cum still dripping out of you.”
You ignore the way heat pools in your stomach. Maybe it’s for the best that you and Bucky are not together - being this turned on all the time would be exhausting.
“Well, that’s what showers are for, dumbass,” you say, standing up and shimmying into your underwear.
You’re turning around to find your pants but his voice stops you. “Don’t go.”
You give him a smug little smirk, but truthfully, your heart is racing. “Why not?”
“I don’t want you to,” he spits and his eyebrows are furrowed - an attractive little line forming there. He looks so sulky and petulant, it almost makes you laugh, something affectionate tugging at your heart. But that answer isn’t good enough.
“Don’t worry, I don’t have high hopes for this guy,” you sigh, yanking on your pants. “I will probably be back here again in a day or two.”
“I don’t want you to come back in a day or two,” he grits out, standing up to tug on his underwear. “I don’t want you to go.”
He’s standing over you now in a way that might be intimidating if you didn’t know Bucky any better. His arms are crossed, great swells of muscles tensing and bulging while he looks down at you with stormy eyes. You like him like this - broody and grumpy and disgruntled. But the confusion it’s causing right now is overriding all of that.
“I can’t stay, Bucky. I would have to cancel-”
“Then cancel.”
You’re not sure what to say - shifting from one foot to the other in an uncomfortable staring contest. You’re not usually like this, but you feel a bit nervous, squirming under his gaze. You push it down.
“No.”
Bucky grits his teeth. “Why are you bothering with these fuckin’ dates? You think they can fuck you like me? Make you cum as hard as you just did?”
“Oh shut the fuck up,” you snap, irritation fighting through all nervousness. “It’s not all about sex, asshole.”
He stands up straighter. “And you think any of them would be the perfect man for you, doll? You think they’d be better for you than me?”
That was cruel. Fury is coursing through you, burning hot. “I don’t know, Bucky, maybe they would be. At least they wouldn’t say they just want sex and then throw their toys out of the pram when I talk to anyone else.”
The storm clears from his eyes for just a second but you don’t care to stick around to see what peeks through after. You’re fumbling with your bra, trying to get it on as fast as humanly possible. Why is it so much harder with shaky fingers?
“I don’t just want sex,” he says, so earnest and uncharacteristically timid that it almost makes you want to wrap him in your arms. Almost.
“Yeah, I know, Bucky,” you scoff and watch as surprise flickers over his expression. “I’m not stupid and you’re not subtle. But you made your bed when you asked for this. I’m not gonna stick around and wait for you to stop being too emotionally stunted for a relationship.”
“I’m not- hey, stop.”
You’re leaning down to tie up the laces of your shoes when he grabs your arms to stop you in your tracks. You glare up at him.
“I’m tryna talk to you. Can you just listen to me for a second? Stop trying to run out on me, Jesus fuckin’ Christ.” He puffs out a breath and silence falls over the two of you for a moment. You know you won’t be the one to break it - you just watch Bucky grapple with his words.
“It was never just sex,” he begins softly. “I just didn’t wanna fuck you up while I was figuring things out. But then things were… so good between us.” He looks to you with a hint of insecurity, as if checking to see whether or not you agree. “It made me think maybe I had nothing to be scared of. I regret ever saying it was just sex. And I can’t fuckin’ stand watching you leave.”
He closes his mouth tight, like he’s trying to stop a flow of excuses and appeals from bursting forth. He might even be holding his breath, leg twitching and bouncing nervously. You still won’t say anything, waiting for him to admit what you’ve known all along.
“I want you to be mine, doll. If you’ll have me.”
You roll your eyes, but you’re fighting off a laugh. “I’ll think about it.”
Bucky’s eye twitches comically. “You’ll think about it?”
“Yeah. I’ll compare notes after my date with Brennan, decide which one of you to pick.”
He glares, but his ears are pink. “You think you’re funny.”
“What’s funny?” you say and this time you can’t stop the smile from creeping onto your face. “Gotta assess my options.”
He groans, rubbing a hand over his face but he’s smiling too - a crooked, reluctant one with blissful happiness creeping out of the cracks. His hands move to your hips and you let them.
“Let me give you something else to add to your notes.”
how i felt after writing this:
tags: @dolcesaints @m0th3rcal @marina468
ask: @tough-tittay-4u (i hope this was ok! i changed a couple of things so i would find it easier to write but i hope it was somewhat how you pictured it!)
I’ve been deep in the trenches of fanfictions ever since I was 12. Life went on and almost a decade later of quitting reading fics, after watching Thunderbolts last year in theaters and saw a post on tiktok, then people recommending writers on comment section, here I am with probably a thousand fics read within nearly a year.
I'm truly grateful for all of the wonderful bucky fanfic writers on this platform as their fics saved me from a very dark place I was in and kept me alive until today.
In honour of my almost a year on tumblr, here are my favourite and re-read worthy fics (and I definitely re-read them more than once as they live rent free in my head lmao):
(warning: most of these are r18+. You are responsible of your own media consumption)
Uncle bucky by @iamthatonefangirl (I sent in anonymously before but she was the writer recommended in the comment section of that tiktok video I found talking about bucky in thunderbolts—basically who I will give credits for restarting my fanfic reading journey. Honestly, I have no other words, but trust me when I say all of her works are chef's kiss. Uncle bucky is just on my top fav)
Rewind by iamthatonefangirl
For the love of game by @pellucid-constellations (this is honestly the one that made me create tumblr acc as I was initially reading for more than a month without one lmao)
Undisclosed by pellucid-constellations
Letters through time by @buckysleftbicep
Wildflowers by @superbassbuck
Grade A pain in my ass by superbassbuck
Lessons in love by @mandoalorian
The Education of James Buchanan Barnes by @danysdaughter
HR can't save you by danysdaughter
Attrition by @crybabycabin
Babydoll by @metal-armed-muse
A fever he can't sweat out by @epiphanyrogers
O come ye all faithful by epiphanyrogers
You up? by @iwritefanfictionsnottragedies
Touch tank by @rosesaints
Oral History by @cursedheartsclub
No strings attached unless by @kryptoclark
To whom it may concern by cursedheartsclub
Nerdy Bucky series Bucky this, Bucky that by @imnotjustreadingg-volume-two (my fav of hers <3)
Invisible by @danitcx
I think I've seen this film before by @bucky-bucky-bucky-bucky
No roster, just you by @salem-s
The right questions by @juniebjonesin
Douced in sequins by @miraclediviner this is the first one I ever saw of talent manager bucky x pop star reader and i'm so hooked
Guilty as sin by @redemptive-truth
Don't you ever end up anything but mine by @flowersforbucky
My neighbor is a prnstar by @brunchable
Show & tell by @nonotwithoutu
Null & void by @smorgaswhored
Property of j.b.barnes by @witchywithwhiskey
AITA by nonotwithoutu
His and his only for 24 hours by salem-s
Yes, ma'am by @night-scare
Lessons in chemistry by @d1stalker
Best laid plans by nonotwithoutu
For your consideration by @daydreamgoddess14
Only you by danitcx
Illicit affairs by @carmenberzattosgf
Happy meal by @sins-write-tragedies
Cuffing season by @phoenix-in-writing
Jealous-capades by @boysoconfusing
You're no good for me by @sinner-as-saint i love all of her writtings istg. This one is my most fav as it lives rent free in my head. Wish I could have a Bucky sugardaddy too
I'll follow you until you love me by sinner-as-saint
The burden of love by danitcx
Silversprings by @thatfoxygrl
Clark Kent talking you through it by @laceyfaeryy
Lovegame by @maiamore
I'm gonna kill Jimmy by @kissmyglxck
Girl next door by maiamore
Like the real thing by maiamore
(you think) he doesn't like you back by @staseras
If you leave, i forget how to breathe by danitcx
Lessons in lovemaking by @artficlly
Honey girl by @violentdelightsandviolentends
Vanilla cookies by staseras
He is touched starved by staseras
Growing pains by @lunexiax
Only ever you by @blowingbarnes my all time fav! Reread this more than five times already because this is of of those that lives rent free in my head. Still waiting for part two
Stormbound by @tw1sters
Superdick by @mcumorningstar
Lay me down by @godmadeaterribleerror
FÍJATE FÍJATE EN TU SECRETARIA by @herejustforbuckybarnes one of my fav congressman! Bucky fics
how do you tell the love of your life that you're scared of dying when it's his bullet you took? How do you convince what was meant to be a lifetime of adoration when your clock is ticking?
a/n: not proofread. read at your own heartbreak.
The crimson was spreading fast.
The clouds were spreading so beautifully, and the sun was beginning to set on the horizon. The cold was masked by the fading blues that shrunk into purples and shades of pink—running across the winter night like something that you had only seen in paintings before. Dissipating into a resemblance of something you drew as a child, but could only recall shading in. Shapes and colours, colours and shapes.
It wasn't supposed to happen like this.
You weren't supposed to take a bullet for him.
The cool winter air brushed through your hair and into your torn clothes, as if to remind you that you couldn't escape this. That it was the inevitable outcome for everyone, and you were no exception. You were never afraid of it, but in this moment leaving was scary. There was so much left to say. How do you tell the love of your life that you're afraid of dying when you're in his arms?
The warmth of his palms on your cheek contrasted with the snow melting from the blood pooling around you. At this point, you weren't sure if you were hallucinating him or not, but you didn't care. Your fingers couldn't stop the bleeding as you pressed down hard, your voice hoarse from screaming. You'd lost all resemblance of trying to get help now, but Bucky didn't.
"Fuck, someone, please!" his fingers pressed into your torso, earning a pained groan of discomfort out of you, and you didn't know how to tell him you couldn't feel the pain anymore. His bloodied fingertips pressed against his earpiece, "Sam?! Do you copy?"
You could hear them over the comms, telling him they were too far out, warning Bucky that there was nothing they could do right now. He screamed something unintelligible through his earpiece, and you shut your eyes as the sound pierced your eardrums. Your earpiece was long gone by now, probably fallen and sunken into the depths of the snow.
You found beauty in the icy cold that you'd only found in one man who was hardened by the deafening nightmares that left him a shell of himself and the weight of the world on his shoulders. Shoulders that you loved so tenderly, even when he tried to hide the blood on his hands. Hands that were afraid of hurting you, and you had to teach them to learn to love again, coaxing him to touch you without fear until it became a habit.
You tried to speak, a terrible, rattling sound leaving your throat, but he shushed you quickly, "No, sweetheart, please, conserve your energy. God, why, why would you do that? Why would you save me?"
The bullet just barely missed your heart, but you knew it had punctured a lung; the raspy wheeze that left you upon every breath told you that you were losing time. All the things you shouldn't have said, all the things you did say—everything came flooding back. Everything about Bucky made you so proud of him. You wished you had more time to tell him that he deserved the love you were giving him, the one he was so reluctant to receive, even after two years of being together. You knew he wanted to build something outside of your shitshow of a job, something worth bringing life into.
'Something worthy of you,' is what he'd say.
He reassured you so much. You knew it couldn't be easy for him to come to terms with the things he had done enough that he could love you without them racing through his thoughts.
"Bucky," you tried again, the sound almost a whine.
"Please, don't do this." his voice broke, "don't talk like you're gonna say goodbye to me."
Trying to reassure him as your fingers weakly grazed the side of his face, "You have to let me speak."
"No, I don't. You are not giving up on me. Not now." He hauled you upright into his lap as he prepared to stand, "This is gonna hurt, baby, okay? I'm so sorry." When he stood, and you didn't make a sound of pain or discomfort this time, he frowned and leaned against the tree, "Do you feel that?"
You smiled faintly, skin pale and utterly cold as you shook your head to confirm his worst fears, "Baby, put me down."
If you could still feel your own body, you would feel how hard his fingers were digging into your sides, holding you close to him like you were about to disappear. You knew the inevitable was coming, and he was about to witness something you didn't wish for him to ever see, but you also knew he wouldn't leave you like this. So you settled for something less traumatic for him. Something more peaceful. Slowly, he lowered himself to the ground again, sliding with his back against the tree trunk until he softly sat with you curled in his arms. He had already taken off his jacket and wrapped it around you when he first found you. But the rescue team was more than an hour out, and you didn't have an hour to spare.
You barely had minutes.
"How long have you lost feeling for?" he started, still trying to figure out how to fix this, and you knew he couldn’t. You ignore his question and lean into his chest to hear the patter of his heartbeat, however frantic it may be.
"I love you, James," humming the ragged words as another death rattle ripped through you, "you showed me what it meant to be loved."
His hot tears spilt down his face and onto the top of your head as a whimper escaped him. He rests his chin on your hair, ignoring the tangles from dried blood and bark between your locks. You could barely mask the tremble that shook you deeply against him, whether from the cold or the blood loss, you weren't sure anymore. He held you tighter against him, enough to minimize the trembling and transfer more warmth to you.
"I love you too, baby," he didn't dare to say you were going to be alright. He knew that was unfair and cruel at this point, so he settled by saying, "I'm right here. I'm staying right here."
You smiled fondly up at him as he kissed your forehead, peppering them through his tears, your face wet and cold but you couldn't care less.
"You're gonna find happiness you know?"
"What?" he sniffled.
"You're gonna find someone or something else that gives you that reason," you sighed heavily, as slumber began to tug at you, "that—that makes you wanna wake up in the morning."
"Not without you, I don't want it without you."
"Barnes," you laughed, despite it all, forcing your eyes open, "you are literally the most interesting person I have ever met. Not to mention the hottest."
He couldn't help the stifled laugh that escaped him, reaching down to push hair from your face again, "Don't make me laugh. Not right now. Just please stop using your strength."
"I have to," gasping harshly, as the blood filled your lungs, "I have to tell you everything."
His lip quivered. He knew you were on borrowed time. All the things he had done in his lifetime were enough to steal the rug from under him before it was even laid out, and he knew that. Everything about your relationship was perfect in a way that he couldn't believe. So he pushed, and he pushed, but you never let him get too far—he couldn't let himself get away from you without breaking down either. He nods to let you go on, fighting the tears that stole his breath.
"I need to thank you. For having the courage to let me love you," you spoke between sputters, blood drooling down your chin, but you block his hand from wiping it, "I need you to know it was worth it. You were worth it."
His eyes shone red with tears that hadn't already reached you, threatening to spill over and let the reality take over what he was fighting so hard to not be true. You soldier on,
"You made everything worth it, my love. For loving you was the ending I would do all over again," eyes fluttering shut with all the effort in the world to try and keep them open, for him.
He shakes you gently, "I can't live without you."
"Yes, you can, James. You have to live," voice faltering out as you felt yourself fade into the blissful slumber, “I always prayed you’d outlive me.”
He sobbed and clutched you tighter. Silence stretched out as the softness of the winter snow carried no sound to mask his misery. He was hunched over his girl, the one he was meant to marry, and she was gonna take the death penalty for something that should've never happened. Praying was never his forte, but in this moment, Bucky was praying for you to live, even if he knew it would never work out. Because help was still fifty eight minutes out, and you were already slipping away. Your fingers go limp and slip from the wound as you slouch further in his arms.
"Talk to me," you rasped, "don't be silent, please."
His heart panged but he began to speak again.
"On our first date, I couldn't decide what to wear. Did I ever tell you that? That I tore through my apartment as though everything I own isn't dark and leather?"
You smiled as you caressed his hand against your face, "You wore that stupid leather jacket with the sleeve still on like I didn't know what was beneath it."
"Yeah. I settled on something that seemed most like me," he sniffs, biting his lip, "you let me kiss you that night. I walked you home, and you grabbed me by the collar when I hesitated."
"'Cause you think too much, babe, you could have me anyway you wanted, b-but you're always in your head," you said too fast, the air pushed out of your lungs and caused you to cough and sputter blood again.
He knew what this was; he knew what was coming, so he chose to honour your wishes and bite down his tears as you lost all feeling in your limbs. He continued speaking so you wouldn't have to.
"I love you for all the things you are and all the things you taught me to relearn. I wouldn't have the strength to do any of this shit if you didn't talk me into it. You gave me purpose again and pulled me out of a hole I buried myself in from self-loathing," he smiles softly, "I don't know how to do this without you. You are my peace, sweetheart. How the hell do I live without that?"
You stared up at the sky, "no," watching the clouds turn to a soft blue as the night rolled in, "you're your own peace. You did that, not me. I just stayed long enough to watch you figure it out."
He leans forward to capture your lips like he knew you wanted. As the contact is made, you melt into the last sensation you're sure you'll feel, every ounce of him racing through your skin like a love that could never be lost.
"Baby," he whispered against your lips, and you gasped a sharp breath.
You rasped, pulling him closer with all your might, but he knew you couldn't do it, so you let your eyes talk. Staring into the blue hues around his iris that drowned you in the only way you would wish you could die within. The delicious beauty he possessed, you savoured like your last meal. You were thankful, oh so very thankful that you could see his face and you could love him this much. Your ears rang, but the world was softened around you in a way that drowned out everything else. Your heart was full, and you needed him to know it, but words were failing you now, and only one could capture the thoughts that swirled you to your end.
Bloodied lips parted and quivered enough to let the words slip out, "Tuqburni James."
Coherent thoughts had drifted like a rose petal in a distant field far away from this icy death you'd succumb to.
"What does that mean my love?" he pulls away just enough to look at you, but you couldn't speak.
The face of contentment had taken over you, and your speech had sifted into something that would never be heard again. He speaks indistinctly, questioning you again, tears slipping from his beautiful face and dripping down his chin, but your vision was blurred, and a comforting stillness took form.
"Please baby, tell me, what does it mean?" he choked on his tears and cried his last desperate attempt as he clutched you impossibly close.
Lips pale and face drained of life, and your smile faded from a fond remembrance to something that he wished he'd never live long enough to see.
tuqburni — "you bury me" (arabic)
term of endearment meant to tell the other person that you love them so deeply that you couldn’t imagine living without them. that you hope to die before them, because you couldn’t bare life if they’re gone.
i’m sad and i’m sick. don’t hate me too much for this.
req for dex w reader who almost dies (protective dex!!!😽)
Protective Dex
Pairing: Benjamin "Dex" Poindexter x GN!reader
Content: angst, kidnapping, violence (blood), death (not reader or Dex)
a/n: I got my wisdom teeth out earlier today, so this probably has a lot of mistakes and continuity errors. I watched Untamed on Netflix today, and OH MY GOD, Wilson Bethel is so good in it!! His character was so Dex coded, lol. Also, I saw Superman twice and I might start writing for those characters. Anyway, I feel like I kind of disappeared, but writers block is insane, y'all. Enjoy :P
Masterlist
━ ◎ ━
When you two started dating, Dex had promised you that he would never let his job in the FBI put you in harm's way. And you had believed him.
He hadn’t given you any reason not to. Every night of the two years you’d been together, he was content knowing that you went to bed safe every night. You were always so understanding and kind to him; it was the least he could do for you.
But, like everything else in his life that he touched, he fucked it up.
Dex remembered the morning that his face was printed on the front page of the New York Bulletin. His back had been turned from you while you sat at the table, going through your mail. He had been making breakfast for the two of you.
His idyllic morning was shattered when he turned around to ask you something about your eggs. His words had caught in his throat when he saw your expression.
“Dex,” your voice had wavered, but only slightly. It had been enough to chill him to the core, though.
He dropped everything and rushed towards you, already thinking the worst. The thought of you being distressed shakes him to his core, and the only thing on his mind is fixing it.
He could feel the spiral coming on when he looked down at the table and saw his own face staring up at him, heralding the investigation against him. His identity as a federal agent hadn’t been as easy to access before, but his picture and name were being printed in a publication that almost every New Yorker had access to. Dex can feel a spiral coming on, but then your hand comes up and pulls him down to his knees beside you, threading your hands through his hair and pressing his head into your chest.
Your voice was shaky, but your words were sturdy: “We’re gonna be alright.”
His heart shattered.
━ ◎ ━
After that day, not much had changed between the two of you. He had been so sure that you would leave him after he had broken his promise. But every day, he woke up next to you, and every day, he was just a little bit more thankful.
That was the thing about you. You didn’t let him spiral. If there were even a sign of him sinking, you’d keep his head above water. You had even said ‘we.’ With you, he didn’t feel like the world was ending. You wouldn’t let it.
“Whatever the world sends at us, we’ll get through it,” you had said.
On the days that he felt like he was drowning, you’d pull him close and let him drown in you, instead.
So the sight of the barrel of a gun pressed to the side of your head felt like being plunged into an ice bath.
You hadn’t texted him when you got home from work, which was his first red flag. The two of you had made plans to get dinner, and you had been the one to suggest it in the first place. He understood you had a busy work schedule, maybe even busier than his, but if you had to cancel, you would have let him know. He had waited, not wanting you to see him freak out about something so minor. But hours had passed, and you hadn’t even left a voicemail.
Dex had gone through all of Dr. Mercer’s tapes and found himself sitting beside his bed with his head in his hair, trying to soothe himself the way you so often did.
That’s when his phone buzzed. An unknown number. An address.
Dex is out of his apartment in record time, not even bothering to right the overturned chair at his kitchen table. The door to the safe in his closet swung freely, empty.
The drive over to the location was a blur. The only thing on his mind was you. He wouldn’t entertain the idea of you being dead, but his mind kept turning towards the worst-case scenario.
The address led him to an abandoned warehouse. Most of the windows were boarded up, and the ones that weren’t were busted or too cloudy to see through. But he knew. He knew you were in there, terrified of the people who must have taken you. He pushed himself through one of the decrepit doors and started methodically sweeping the location. Dex almost gave up hope, but there was one last room for him to check, tucked away at the top of the stairs that led to what must have once been administrative offices.
From the other side of the door, he could hear muffled speaking and what he knew to be your own crying and begging. He took a deep breath and tried to stop the twitching of his fingers on the trigger of his gun.
Dex had been part of many raids during his time working for the FBI. Every raid had been a routine part of his job. Kick the door in, clear the area, secure the target, repeat. But none had ever involved you. For the first time in his life, Dex was worried about what would be waiting for him on the other side of the door.
He kicked the door open, and the sight that greeted him bordered on grotesque. You were in one piece, and your legs and hands were bound with zip ties, but in one piece nonetheless. Dex saw a trickle of blood on the side of your head, but he made eye contact with your watery, scared eyes, and he was mildly comforted by the rapid, panicked breaths he could see you taking behind the gag in your mouth. But that is his only comfort. Around you, three ski-mask-clad figures lurked, not realizing Dex’s presence yet.
Without a thought, almost like a programmed response, Dex let two bullets exit the chamber, and unceremoniously killed two of your kidnappers. The last one, saved only by his fast reflexes, pulled a gun out from his belt and pressed it to your head.
“Drop the gun, man,” he said, “I’m not messing around here.”
Dex didn’t dignify the man with a response. Instead, his eyes moved down to you again. His eyes were always on you. You shook your head, urging him to listen to the masked man. Tears slid down your face, and your lip wobbled. Dex didn’t drop the gun. The masked man pushed his gun against your temple even harder.
Slowly, Dex lowered his gun and placed it on the ground. “Alright, I’ll listen.”
The masked man smirked, “Do you remember us? Do you remember what you did to us?”
Dex took a deep breath, his hands twitching at his sides as the masked man knocked the muzzle of his gun against your head again. You closed your eyes and tried to stifle your already muffled whimpers. Dex still doesn’t answer.
“Come on! The raid?” The masked man scoffs, “You ruined our lives.”
Internally, Dex rolled his eyes. They threatened his reason for living over him doing his job. He couldn’t even remember the raid this guy is talking about. Anger had flashed through his mind—the entitlement of some people.
“I’ve ruined a lot of people’s lives,” Dex sighed.
The masked man didn’t have the hindsight to tell Dex to keep his hands up and visible. It wasn’t his fault, really, how could he have accounted for his precise aim? Inperceptibly, Dex brushed his fingers against the knife he had swiped from his safe.
The masked man laughed sardonically, “Now’s not the time to make jokes. I’m not joking, I’ll kill them,” he jabbed the gun into the side of your head to punctuate the word ‘kill.’
You squeezed your eyes shut tighter, as if you could block out the situation and be anywhere else. Dex wasn’t ignorant of the way your body trembled in fear. Something in him snapped. He had to end this right here, right now.
Whatever electrical pulse that moved from the brain to the tip of his fingers was no match for the speed at which Dex pulled the knife free, aimed it, and threw it at the masked man. The masked man didn’t even have time to react before the blade stuck out of his forehead. He fell backwards with a thud, the gun once pressed to your head clattering to the ground.
Finally, with your eyes still shut, you sobbed freely. Dex surged forward, undid your gag first, and then worked hastily on the zip ties that kept you in the chair. Once he finished, he grabbed onto your shoulders and checked you for any injuries. His eyes were wild with worry.
Dex pulled you down to the floor, propped up on his knees. He held you close to his chest, certain that you could feel his pulse hammering against your own. He turned his head to kiss your temple near where your kidnappers must have struck you as he soothed his hands up and down your back.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” he repeated as tears pricked the corners of his eyes.
Your hands, no longer limp with shock, reached up to thread your fingers through his hair. Slowly, you ran your hand under his jaw and guided him to look at you, your breath still rapid and shaky.
Summary: Bucky Barnes has learned to live with certainty. With assumptions that feel safer than hope. Loving you is something he does quietly, carefully, from the edges of your life - convinced that your heart already belongs to someone else.
Wordcount: 6k
Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Female Reader (no use of Y/N)
Warnings: angst, no happy ending, miscommunication, death, gunshot injury, emotional pain and trauma, unrequited love, just this is sad okay?
A/N: I think you can all thank @buckytakethewheel for this one, since it was her request. Also, we can all aknowledge that I can't do drabbles. And yet, I tried, believe me I tried... Also (bis), I'm never listening to that song ever again. Nope. Thank you Marta, you ruined it for me. I'm gonna go cry in that corner if you're looking for me.
Comment here if you want to be added to a taglist.
Masterlist
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Bucky believed in simple equations. Not because the world stayed simple, but because his mind needed something clean to hold when everything else slipped.
You loved Steve.
He did not learn that from a confession, or a stolen kiss caught in a doorway. He learned it the way he learned most things now: from fragments, from half-seen gestures, from the shape people made around each other when they thought no one watched. A hand on an elbow as you stepped down from the quinjet. A smile that arrived too fast when Steve’s voice carried across the training room. The way you said his name like it belonged to you.
Bucky stood at the edge of those moments and let them arrange themselves into certainty. It felt safer than hoping. It felt like a rule, and rules kept him from breaking things.
He told himself it did not hurt.
It hurt anyway.
He watched you the way someone watched winter roll in: knowing it would come, knowing it would stay, pretending the cold surprised him each time it seeped through the seams. You moved through the compound with a kind of quiet intent that made the corridors seem less sterile. You made jokes that fell flat against the concrete and then you smiled anyway. You treated the staff like they mattered. You listened when people spoke, even when what they said did not deserve your attention. You did the small human things, the ones Bucky still mistrusted himself to do without ruining.
He did not tell you any of that. He did not tell anyone any of that. He kept it close and wordless, like a blade.
On paper, it made sense. Steve had always drawn people in. Steve had always been something to believe in, something to follow. There was a steadiness to him that survived wars and time and loss. He carried the kind of hope that made other people feel braver just by standing near it. If you wanted a future, if you wanted warmth, if you wanted someone who did not have to wrestle his own hands into obedience each morning - Steve was the obvious choice.
Bucky did not begrudge him that.
He told himself he did not.
He watched the two of you after briefings sometimes, when everyone spilled out of the room and into the hall like a released breath. Steve moved toward you without thinking, always angling his body to block you from the press of others, always making space. You leaned in close when you spoke to him. You touched his shoulder once - an absentminded tap, a grounding gesture - and Bucky felt the phantom of something splinter in his chest.
He stayed out of the way. He learned to be excellent at staying out of the way.
That was, he told himself, what love was supposed to look like from someone like him.
He loved you in the margins. In the seconds before dawn when the compound still slept and the cafeteria smelled of clean metal and burnt coffee. In the way he washed his hands longer than necessary after missions, because he knew you noticed when he did not. In the way he checked the secure doors twice when you went out, because he could not stop his mind from mapping danger onto every street you walked.
He loved you without permission. He loved you without expectations. He loved you like an oath he had never been asked to swear.
In the mornings when sleep refused him, he ran. He ran until his lungs burned and his legs shook, until the rhythm of impact turned his thoughts into something duller. Sometimes you ran too, earlier than most of the others, your ponytail or loose hair snapping against your collar, your breath visible in the cold air outside the training wing.
You never made a show of noticing him. You simply matched his pace when your route crossed his, as if it had always been the plan. Some mornings, you did not speak at all. You ran beside him in companionable silence, your footsteps a second heartbeat to his own.
Bucky told himself it meant nothing. He told himself you did this for everyone. You were kind. You were the sort of person who eased up next to someone alone and made their solitude less sharp without ever naming it.
Still, his chest tightened each time you appeared.
Once, you slowed as you neared the end of the track, your shoulders rising and falling with controlled breaths. You tilted your head toward him as if you meant to say something. Your eyes lingered on his face for a moment too long.
Bucky’s mouth went dry.
Then you smiled - soft, private, like a secret you did not mind sharing - and said, “You’re up early.”
It was nothing. It was less than nothing. It was the kind of phrase people threw at each other every day. Yet his body reacted like it had been touched.
He answered with the only thing he trusted: distance.
“Couldn’t sleep,” he said, and his voice sounded rough, like a door dragged open.
You nodded, like you understood. Like you knew the shape of sleeplessness and had decided it did not make him strange. You wiped sweat from your temple with the back of your wrist and said, “If you ever want company, I’m around.”
Company, you said. Not comfort. Not help. Not anything that implied he was broken.
Bucky stared at the track beneath his shoes and forced his lungs to work. He wanted to say yes. He wanted to say, I always want you around. He wanted to say, please don’t stop showing up. Instead he gave you a brief nod and something like a smile that probably looked more like a grimace.
You did not seem discouraged. You simply fell into step beside him as you walked back toward the entrance, close enough that the warmth of you reached the edge of his senses.
That afternoon, he heard Steve laughing in the common room, and he saw you leaning against the arm of the couch with your knee tucked up, watching Steve like the world made sense when he talked. Bucky kept walking. He did not slow.
He learned to measure his own affection by what he withheld.
It was not only Steve. It was everything Steve represented. Normal. Safe. Whole.
Bucky carried the opposite of whole inside him. He carried winters that never ended, rooms without windows, voices in languages he wished he did not understand. Some days, he woke up with his hand around the handle of a knife he did not remember picking up. Some days, he looked in the mirror and saw a man shaped like a stranger.
When he stood near you, he felt his edges soften in ways that terrified him. He felt capable of wanting. Wanting meant risk. Wanting meant reaching. Reaching meant breaking.
He had already broken too much.
So he watched. He listened. He put his feelings into action because action felt less dangerous than words.
He started leaving an extra protein bar in your locker after training days when you pushed yourself too hard and forgot to eat. He did it anonymously. He told himself you would assume it came from anyone. He fixed the buckle on your tactical vest when it jammed, his fingers quick and careful, never lingering. He offered you the last clean towel once when the laundry system malfunctioned and half the team complained.
You took it with a grateful look that made his throat tight.
“Thanks,” you said, and your fingers brushed his metal wrist by accident. You did not flinch. You did not recoil. You simply squeezed, once, as if his arm were no different than anyone else’s.
He could not breathe for a moment.
Then you walked away, and he stood there with the imprint of your touch like a burn.
At the next briefing, the conference room filled with familiar tension. Monitors flickered with satellite images, heat signatures, red circles marking points of entry. Natasha spoke with crisp efficiency. Sam leaned against the table with the easy vigilance of someone who never truly relaxed. Steve stood at the head of the room, hands braced on the edge, eyes scanning the team.
You arrived a minute late, cheeks flushed from jogging down the corridor. You slipped into the chair beside Steve without thinking. You leaned in to whisper something, and Steve angled his body toward you in answer, his posture natural, intimate.
Bucky’s jaw tightened.
He kept his face blank. He kept his hands still.
Steve’s eyes met his across the table. There was no accusation in them, no pity, no anything Bucky could point to and name. Only that steady, impossible understanding Steve always carried - like he saw the world and chose hope anyway.
Bucky hated that understanding most of all.
The briefing moved on. Objectives, extraction routes, contingencies. Bucky listened, because he had to. His mind catalogued angles and distances and the likely smell of smoke. But part of him tracked you the way it always did, the way it had started doing without his permission: the twitch of your fingers when you got impatient, the way you tapped your pen against the folder, the tiny crease between your brows when you concentrated.
Steve said something about the plan needing adjustment. You shook your head, too quick, too sure.
“We can do it,” you said. “I can do it.”
The confidence in your voice struck Bucky like a physical force. It was not arrogance. It was conviction. You looked at Steve when you said it, and Steve nodded, the faintest smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.
“Alright,” Steve said. “I trust you.”
Bucky’s stomach turned. He told himself it was professional. He told himself it was about the mission. He told himself he cared because he always cared when teammates put themselves at risk.
He did not tell himself the rest.
Afterward, as people filed out, you lingered at the doorway with Steve. You laughed at something he said, your shoulders loosening. He reached up, a reflexive gesture, and brushed a stray strand of hair back from your face.
Bucky froze.
It was brief. It might have been nothing more than a habit - Steve always had been gentle, always had used touch like reassurance. But the gesture landed in Bucky’s chest with the finality of a closed door.
You looked up at Steve, and the expression on your face softened into something that made Bucky’s pulse stumble. You said something Bucky did not hear, because the blood rushed too loud in his ears. Steve answered, still smiling.
Bucky turned away before anyone could notice his staring.
In the hallway, he moved with purpose, his boots quiet against the polished floor. He did not allow himself to look back. Looking back was dangerous. Looking back was how you ended up reaching for things you could not have.
He told himself again. You loved Steve.
And because he believed it, he behaved as if it were a fact carved into stone.
That evening, he found himself in the training room long after the others left. The fluorescent lights buzzed faintly overhead. The air smelled of sweat and rubber mats and the metallic tang of weapons cleaned and put away. He wrapped his hands in tape with methodical care, even though he did not need to. The ritual calmed him. The repetition steadied him.
He hit the heavy bag until his knuckles throbbed and his shoulders burned, until the anger he refused to name turned into fatigue.
When the door opened, he did not turn. He heard your footsteps - lighter than Steve’s, quicker than Sam’s. He knew you by the sound now, and that knowledge made him feel both ridiculous and exposed.
“You’re going to tear your hands up,” you said.
He kept his eyes on the bag. He forced his breathing even. “I’m fine.”
You came closer. He felt you before he saw you, the presence of you filling the empty space behind him. “You always say that.”
He swallowed. He stopped hitting the bag, because if he kept moving, he might say something that would ruin everything.
He turned slowly.
You stood a few feet away, arms crossed loosely over your chest, brows drawn together in concern. Not the professional kind you offered in the field. Something more personal. Something that made his nerves tighten.
“Is something wrong?” you asked.
The question was simple. Too simple. If he answered honestly, he would not stop. He would spill everything he had kept locked away. He would tell you how your laugh echoed in his head long after you left the room. He would tell you he counted the minutes until he saw you again, and then pretended he did not. He would tell you that he thought of you when the nightmares came, because thinking of you made the rooms in his mind less dark.
He did not have the right. Not when you belonged to someone else. Not when you had Steve’s gentle hand brushing hair from your face as if it had always been allowed.
Bucky’s throat tightened until speaking felt like forcing words through ice.
“I’m just… tired,” he said, and the lie tasted like metal.
You stepped closer, slow, cautious, as if you approached something skittish. “You don’t have to do this alone,” you said quietly. “You know that, right?”
He almost laughed. The sound got stuck in his chest and turned sharp.
Do this alone, you said. As if loneliness were a choice. As if solitude were not the only safe thing he had left.
He looked at your eyes and saw sincerity there, pure and unguarded. It made him want things he could not allow himself to want.
He forced his gaze away, down to your hands. They were empty. No ring. Nothing obvious. And still his mind filled in the gaps anyway, built the story he needed to stay in his place.
He nodded once. “Yeah.”
You hesitated, like you wanted to say more. Like you had walked into this room with something heavy held behind your teeth. Bucky waited, heart hammering, fear and hope twisting together until he could not tell them apart.
You opened your mouth.
The intercom crackled overhead, the sudden harsh sound shattering the fragile moment. “Team Alpha to the operations room,” a voice announced. “Team Alpha, report immediately.”
You flinched, just slightly, and Bucky saw the reflex in you - the way your attention snapped toward duty, toward your team’s name. You exhaled, frustration flickering across your face.
“I should go,” you said.
Of course you should.
Bucky nodded again, too stiff. “Yeah.”
You lingered one more second, as if you waited for him to stop you. He did not. He could not. He watched you turn toward the door, your shoulders squared, your steps purposeful.
At the threshold, you paused. You looked back at him.
For a heartbeat, your expression softened into something almost… almost…
Then you blinked, and it vanished behind that familiar steady composure. “Don’t stay up all night,” you said, trying for lightness and failing just a little.
Bucky’s chest hurt.
“I won’t,” he lied.
You left. The door clicked shut behind you, and the training room felt colder.
Bucky stood there in the artificial light, tape hanging loose from his hands, the heavy bag swaying faintly in front of him. He stared at the spot where you had been as if staring could bring you back.
He told himself he had done the right thing. He told himself he had protected you - from him, from what he was, from the disaster of wanting.
Outside the training room, the compound continued as usual. Somewhere, Steve’s footsteps moved toward the operations room, steady and sure. Somewhere, you moved too, because you always moved toward the places you were needed.
Bucky stayed where he was. He listened to the hum of the lights and the distant echo of voices. He let the quiet settle over him like snow.
He did not notice, not yet, that you had almost said his name like a confession.
The days between the briefing and the mission passed with a strange, fragile calm.
Bucky noticed everything, the way he always did when he pretended not to. The way you lingered after conversations, as if you were waiting for something to settle. The way your eyes followed him more often than before, thoughtful, searching. The way you seemed distracted during training, missing cues you never missed.
He told himself it was nerves. He told himself missions did that to people.
The morning of deployment arrived wrapped in steel-grey light. The quinjet waited on the landing pad, engines humming low and impatient, the sound vibrating through Bucky’s boots and into his bones. The air smelled like fuel and cold metal, sharp and familiar.
Steve and Sam were already there, running through last-minute checks. Sam’s voice carried easily, joking about something Bucky didn’t catch. Steve smiled, that calm, steady smile he always wore before missions, like reassurance made flesh.
Bucky adjusted the strap of his rifle and headed toward the ramp.
“Bucky.”
Your voice stopped him.
Not loud. Not urgent. Just his name, spoken the way you spoke it when you meant it.
He turned despite himself.
You stood a few steps behind him, helmet tucked under your arm, fingers curled a little too tightly around its edge. Your posture was straight, mission-ready, but your eyes betrayed you. There was something in them he had not seen before - or maybe something he had seen and refused to name.
“Can I talk to you?” you asked.
His first instinct was to say yes. His second was to run.
He glanced past you, toward the quinjet, toward Steve and Sam waiting inside. Steve looked up briefly, checking on them, then went back to the console without comment. The casual trust of it twisted something in Bucky’s chest.
Now, he thought. Of course it would be now.
He nodded once. “We don’t have much time.”
You stepped closer, lowering your voice, as if the open air itself might listen. “It won’t take long. I just… there’s something I need to tell you.”
There it was. The weight behind your words. The careful way you chose them. The tension in your shoulders.
Bucky’s stomach dropped.
He had rehearsed this moment without realizing it. He had played it out in his head on sleepless nights, always ending the same way: you apologizing, explaining, choosing someone else with kindness that hurt worse than cruelty.
Steve, his mind supplied automatically.
He did not blame you. He had never blamed you. But he could not stand to hear it spoken aloud, could not stand to watch it become real in sound instead of assumption.
He cut in before you could continue.
“It’s okay,” he said quickly, too quickly. “You don’t have to.”
You frowned, confusion flickering across your face. “I don’t-”
“I know,” he added, softer now, forcing calm into his voice like a hand pressed to a wound. “You don’t owe me anything.”
Your mouth parted slightly. You took another step closer, close enough that he could see the faint shadows beneath your eyes, the crease between your brows. “Bucky, I’m not… this isn’t about owing you.”
He looked away.
If he met your eyes for too long, he would lose whatever fragile resolve he had left.
“I get it,” he said. “Really. You don’t have to explain.”
There was a pause. A heavy one.
“Get what?” you asked.
He swallowed. His jaw tightened.
“Steve,” he said quietly, the name feeling heavier than it should have. “You and him. I know.”
Silence fell between you, sharp and absolute.
For a heartbeat, the world seemed to hold its breath. The engines hummed. Somewhere inside the quinjet, Sam laughed again, unaware. The wind tugged at the edge of your jacket.
You stared at him.
Bucky forced himself to keep going, because stopping now would mean listening.
“You don’t need to tell me,” he said. “I figured it out. A while ago.”
Your fingers loosened around the helmet. Then tightened again.
“That’s… that’s not-” You stopped, shook your head slightly, like you were trying to realign your thoughts. “Bucky, you’re wrong.”
He let out a breath that sounded almost like a laugh. “You don’t have to spare my feelings.”
“I’m not trying to spare-” You broke off again, frustration bleeding into your voice now. “Why would you think that?”
Because it made sense. Because it fit. Because believing anything else was too dangerous.
He shrugged, a small, helpless motion. “It’s obvious.”
Your expression shifted, something like hurt flashing across your face before you masked it. “It’s not,” you said firmly. “You’ve misunderstood.”
He shook his head once, decisive, ending it before it could unravel further. “You don’t have to do this.”
“Do what?” you demanded softly.
Explain yourself to a man who had already decided he was not part of the equation.
He met your gaze then, just for a second. Long enough to see the emotion there, raw and unguarded. Long enough for doubt to flicker at the edges of his certainty.
He crushed it.
“We’re about to deploy,” he said. “This isn’t the time.”
Your shoulders sagged, just slightly. The fight seemed to drain out of you, replaced by something quieter. Something that hurt to look at.
“I wanted you to know,” you said, your voice lower now. “Before.”
Before what, he wondered distantly. Before you made it official. Before you said it out loud to everyone else.
“I know,” he said again, gentler this time. “It’s okay.”
It wasn’t. But he needed it to be.
You searched his face, like you were trying to find a crack, a place to slip the truth through. He gave you nothing. He stood still, solid, closed.
Finally, you nodded.
“Okay,” you said, the word carrying far more weight than it should have. You lifted your helmet, sliding it on with practiced ease, your expression settling into something professional and unreadable. “Then… okay.”
You turned toward the quinjet without another word.
Bucky watched you go, the familiar ache spreading through his chest like cold.
He told himself he had spared you an awkward confession. He told himself he had done the mature thing, the respectful thing. He told himself that love, real love, sometimes meant stepping aside before anyone had to bleed.
As he followed you up the ramp and into the quinjet, the doors closing behind him with a heavy finality, he did not see the way your hands trembled slightly as you buckled in.
He only knew this: whatever you had wanted to say, it was no longer his to hear.
The operation should have been routine.
It should have been a clean in-and-out: one abandoned facility, a handful of armed men too confident in old security systems, a hard drive extracted from a locked room, and then the familiar rush of leaving before anyone had time to understand they had been stripped bare.
Bucky told himself, as the quinjet cut through clouds, that routine was a lie. There was no such thing. Not anymore. Not with his hands, his history, his luck.
Still, the first hour went the way it always went when Steve led. Orders came quiet and clear. Sam moved like wind through tight spaces, the edge of his wings catching light in brief flashes. Steve’s shield struck with a clean, definitive sound, a punctuation mark that ended arguments.
And you…
You did what you always did. You were where you were needed before anyone asked. You covered angles without making a show of it. You kept pace with them, not trying to prove anything, not asking for praise. You fought like someone who had already decided the cost was worth it.
Bucky watched you too often.
He called it situational awareness. He called it team cohesion. He called it anything but what it was: the instinct to keep you alive that had grown into something feral and absolute.
He did not look at Steve when he thought it. He did not let his mind touch the memory of you on the landing pad, helmet in your hands, words caught behind your teeth.
He buried it under mission parameters and the crisp snap of comms.
They hit the perimeter just after sunset. The facility sat low against the landscape, concrete and steel half-swallowed by scrub and shadow. It had been decommissioned years ago, but it still carried the scent of purpose - old electricity, oil, dust that tasted like metal.
Bucky moved through the breach behind Steve. The hallway swallowed sound, forcing them into a careful kind of silence. Their boots barely scuffed the floor. Their breaths came slow and controlled.
“You got right,” Steve murmured, voice barely a ripple in the comm.
“Copy,” Sam replied.
Bucky shifted his rifle, feeling the weight settle familiar in his hands. “I’ll take rear.”
You did not argue. You never did, not about things like that. You simply nodded and fell into position without being told, close enough that Bucky caught the faintest warmth of you through tactical fabric and cold air.
It unsettled him every time. It steadied him too.
They cleared the first wing quickly. Two guards, distracted and bored, went down without a shout. Sam’s wings folded tight as he slipped through a maintenance corridor. Steve moved like certainty made human, shield raised, eyes scanning.
You stayed near Bucky more than you stayed near Steve.
He told himself it was practical. He told himself it was because Bucky covered blind spots better.
He did not tell himself anything else.
They reached the server room at the facility’s core. The door was reinforced, the lock older than modern scanners but stubborn in its own way. Bucky knelt to override it, fingers moving with quick, precise certainty. His metal hand did not tremble. His flesh one did, faintly, and he hated that you might notice.
“Almost,” he muttered.
“You’re doing great,” you said softly, as if you understood exactly what it cost him to say anything aloud.
The words hit him harder than any bullet ever had.
He looked up despite himself.
Your eyes met his through the dim light, and there was no teasing there, no casual friendliness. There was something open. Something steady. Something that made his breath stutter.
Then the lock clicked.
Bucky stood too quickly, as if he could shake off whatever had just happened in his chest. He pushed the door open and let the cold air of the server room swallow the moment whole.
Inside, the machines hummed. Blue lights blinked in rhythmic patterns, indifferent to human panic. Sam pulled the drive. Steve kept watch. Bucky took the left corner, muzzle trained on the doorway.
You stood between them and the corridor, a barrier of will more than muscle. Bucky saw the tension in your shoulders. The readiness. He saw the slight turn of your head, always listening.
He wondered what you had wanted to say on the landing pad.
He wondered what you would have said if he had not cut you off.
He wondered if he had already ruined something without knowing it.
Then Sam’s voice crackled in the comm. “Got it. We’re green.”
Steve nodded once, that small gesture that always meant now.
They moved out.
The return route should have been faster. It should have been easier. The guards had been cleared. The path had been mapped. All that remained was leaving.
They made it to the central hallway when the facility groaned.
Not the sound of machinery, not the hum of a failing system. A groan like something old and angry shifting in its bones.
Sam’s head tilted. “You hear that?”
Before anyone answered, the lights flickered.
And then the facility erupted into motion.
Red emergency lights stuttered on. Sirens began to wail, harsh and sudden, tearing at the air. Doors slammed shut in sequence, locking down corridors like teeth snapping closed.
Bucky swore under his breath, shoulders tensing.
“Plan B,” Steve said, already moving. His voice stayed calm, but Bucky knew what lay beneath it: the instant calculation, the readiness to improvise.
“They tripped a silent alarm,” Sam muttered. “But it’s old. It’s… weird.”
“It’s bait,” Bucky said, and he hated how certain he sounded.
The corridor ahead coughed out smoke.
Not from fire. From canisters. Dense, choking, turning the air into a grey wall. Through it, shapes moved - shadows with rifles, silhouettes that knew the building better than anyone had briefed them on.
Hydra.
The word did not need to be spoken for it to become a weight in Bucky’s gut.
His hand tightened on his weapon. His pulse surged, old instincts rising like a tide he had never truly drained.
Steve’s shield snapped up as the first volley came. Metal rang. Bullets sparked. Sam lunged forward, wings flaring, knocking one shooter down hard enough to rattle bones.
Bucky fired into the haze, aiming by sound and memory, by the pattern of movement he could feel more than see.
You moved with him.
You stayed on his flank. You watched his blind side. Your presence anchored him in a way he could not afford to need.
“On your left,” you warned sharply.
He pivoted, fired, saw a man crumple.
“Good,” Steve’s voice came through, tight. “Keep moving.”
They pushed forward in a tight formation, cutting through smoke and sirens and the sudden, ugly familiarity of Hydra tactics. Bucky tasted copper and old fear. He forced his mind to stay on the present: on Steve’s posture, on Sam’s quick aerial sweeps, on your breathing beside him.
You did not sound afraid.
That terrified him more than fear would have.
They reached an access door that should have led to the exterior. Steve slammed into it shoulder-first.
Locked.
Sam cursed. “Alternate route’s-”
A blast went off behind them, close enough that the shockwave punched the air from Bucky’s lungs. The floor trembled under their boots. Dust rained from the ceiling like dry snow.
Steve’s eyes flashed. “Vent shaft. Now.”
They ran.
They moved fast, faster than any normal human could manage, but the building seemed determined to fight them. More smoke. More gunfire. A corridor collapsed ahead, forcing them to cut through a storage room stacked with old crates.
Bucky ripped one open with his metal hand, searching for an exit.
“Here!” you shouted.
A maintenance hatch. Narrow, but usable. You dropped to your knees and yanked it open, the metal screeching against its frame.
Steve went first, shield angled. Sam folded his wings, forcing them tight. Bucky followed, rifle slung, hands gripping the ladder as they climbed into the shaft.
You climbed last.
Bucky heard your breath behind him, steady, unbroken.
Above, the hatch at the far end cracked open into the night.
Cold air rushed in like mercy.
Steve shoved it wide and climbed out, hauling Sam after him. Bucky followed, bracing his hands on the edge and pulling himself up into the open.
For a second, the world went quiet.
The sirens were muffled beneath the earth. The night air smelled clean compared to smoke and metal. Stars hung faintly above, indifferent.
They had made it.
Sam exhaled hard. “Tell me we’re done.”
Steve’s shoulders loosened a fraction. “We’re done.”
Bucky turned back instinctively.
You were halfway out of the hatch, hands gripping the edge. Your face was smudged with soot. Your eyes were bright. You looked up at him as if you had been searching for him specifically in the chaos, as if he was the thing that meant safe.
Bucky’s chest tightened.
He reached down without thinking and took your forearm, pulling you up the last distance.
Your fingers closed around his wrist.
Not his hand. His wrist. Metal and all.
You did not hesitate.
You stood, close, too close, and for one irrational heartbeat, Bucky thought: Say it. Say something. Anything. Before-
A single shot cracked the night.
It came from behind them, from a dark angle near the facility’s outer service road. A lone figure, half-hidden, rifle raised with the kind of patience Hydra trained into its men.
Bucky saw it too late.
The bullet hit you.
Not in the chest. Not clean. It slammed into your abdomen with a dull, sickening impact, and your body jerked.
Your grip on Bucky’s wrist tightened, reflexive, desperate.
Then your knees buckled.
Bucky caught you.
He caught you the way he had never let himself imagine catching you, arms snapping around you, pulling you against his chest as your weight collapsed into him. For a second, he did not understand what had happened. His mind rejected it. The world narrowed down to the feel of you in his arms, sudden and wrong.
Blood warmed his hands.
His hands.
His flesh hand pressed against your side and came away slick. His metal one curled behind your back, supporting you as you slumped, head falling forward against his shoulder.
“No,” he breathed, and the word barely existed.
Steve’s shield flew, a dark blur slicing through the night. There was a distant grunt, a body hitting ground, the threat ended in an instant.
It did not matter.
Bucky dropped to his knees, pulling you with him so you did not hit the ground hard. He cradled you as if he could keep you intact by force alone.
“Hey,” you rasped, voice thin. “Hey… Bucky…”
Hearing his name from your mouth like that - weak, strained - shattered something inside him.
He fumbled for the comm. His fingers shook. “Med evac,” he snapped, voice breaking. “Now. We need-”
Sam was already moving, barking coordinates. Steve knelt beside you, hands hovering like he was afraid to touch and make it worse.
Bucky’s mind screamed for action. Pressure. Tourniquet. Bandage. Anything.
But it was the abdomen. The wound was deep. The blood kept coming, warm and unstoppable, soaking through your suit.
Bucky pressed his hand harder, as if he could hold the life inside you by sheer stubbornness. “Stay with me,” he ordered, and the command sounded wrong, sounded like something he had no right to say.
Your eyes fluttered, trying to focus. You swallowed, grimacing, and your fingers found his jacket, clutching as if he was the only solid thing left in the world.
“Bucky,” you said again, and there was urgency in it. Not fear. Not pain. Something else.
He leaned closer, because he could not not. “I’m here,” he said, voice rough, wrecked. “I’m right here.”
Your breath hitched. Your hand slid up, trembling, and for a moment your fingers brushed his cheek, a featherlight touch that made his entire body go still.
“You’re-” you whispered. “You’re going to hate me.”
His throat closed. “Don’t,” he tried to say, but it came out fractured.
You shook your head weakly, and the motion made you wince. “I tried,” you breathed. “Before we left. I tried to tell you.”
Bucky’s mind flashed back to the landing pad. Your helmet in your hands. Your voice saying there’s something I need to tell you.
And his own voice cutting you off.
I know.
“I’m sorry,” he said, because he did not know what else to offer you. He did not know how to fix anything. His hands, his hands were always too late.
Your eyes filled, not with tears that fell, but with that glassy sheen that terrified him. “Don’t be,” you whispered. “Just… listen. Please.”
He nodded, frantic. “Okay. Okay, I’m listening.”
You drew a breath that trembled all the way through you. Your fingers tightened at his collar, pulling him closer with what little strength you had left.
“I love you,” you said.
The words hit him like a clean, impossible blow.
Bucky froze.
Your gaze held his, steady even now, even with death creeping in behind your eyes. “Not Steve,” you whispered, the name like an afterthought, like a misunderstanding you had never understood. “Never Steve. It was always you.”
Bucky’s mouth opened.
Nothing came out.
His heart thundered against his ribs, too loud, too frantic. His mind scrambled to form words, any words, but they tangled in panic and disbelief and the unbearable, crushing weight of time.
You kept going, as if you knew he could not speak, as if you had expected his silence all along.
“I thought…” Your breath caught. “I thought you didn’t want to hear it. I thought you were pushing me away because you couldn’t… because you weren’t ready.”
He shook his head hard, too hard. “No,” he tried, and the sound was raw. “No, I-”
He couldn’t. He couldn’t get it out. The words lodged behind old fear, behind the instinct to swallow everything that mattered.
Your hand slipped from his cheek, falling back to his chest. Your fingers pressed there, as if you wanted to feel his heartbeat.
It was too fast.
Too alive.
You smiled, small and broken, and somehow still tender. “It’s okay,” you whispered, and the echo of his own earlier lie stabbed him. “I just… I needed you to know.”
Bucky’s vision blurred. He tightened his arms around you, as if he could hold you to the earth. “Stay,” he begged now, the command gone, replaced by something helpless. “Please. Please stay.”
Your eyes softened. “I’m tired,” you breathed, voice barely audible.
“No,” he said again, and this time it was a refusal, a protest against the universe itself. “No, no, no-”
Steve’s hand landed gently on Bucky’s shoulder, grounding him, steadying him. “The evac’s coming,” Steve said, voice low, strained. “Hold on.”
Bucky could not look at Steve. He could not look away from you.
Your breath came shallow. Your fingers, still against his chest, trembled, then stilled.
Bucky leaned down until his forehead pressed to yours. He tried to pour his love into the contact, tried to force the truth into existence through skin and warmth.
Say it, his mind screamed. Say it now.
His lips parted.
Nothing.
It was as if the words did not belong to him. As if they were a language he had once known and lost in a winter he could never escape.
You blinked slowly. Your gaze drifted, then fought its way back to his face. “Bucky,” you whispered again, softer this time, almost not there.
“I’m here,” he choked. “I’m-”
You exhaled. A long, thin breath that sounded like relief. Like surrender. Like letting go of something heavy you had carried for too long.
Your eyes stayed on his for a heartbeat longer.
Then they unfocused.
Your hand slid down from his chest, fingers loosening, falling limp in the space between them.
Bucky felt it.
The exact moment life left you.
His arms tightened reflexively, crushing you to him as if he could pull you back by force. “No,” he whispered, and the word was so small it barely existed. “No, no-”
He rocked once, barely, like a man trying to soothe a nightmare into ending.
Sam’s boots hit the gravel nearby. The whir of rotors grew louder, chopping the air. Voices shouted. Hands reached for you.
Bucky did not let go.
He stared at your face, at the quiet peace that had settled there, at the softness still lingering in your mouth as if you had died mid-smile. He waited for your chest to rise again.
It didn’t.
Somewhere deep inside him, something went cold and still.
My love is winter, he thought, not as poetry, not as metaphor, but as a simple truth that turned everything into ice.
My love is lost.
And he stayed on his knees in the gravel and night, holding you like a promise he had never learned how to speak, while the world kept moving around him as if it had not just ended.
**read touch and go here**
✮ synopsis: steve rogers has spent two years keeping you at arm’s length. but when a mission goes wrong and his skin meets yours, suddenly every wall he’s built starts crumbling.
(or: the soulmate fic where touch is the one thing captain america can’t fight.)
✮ pairing: steve rogers x soulmate!reader
✮ warnings: gunshot wound, severe blood loss, near-death experience, touch starvation/deprivation, PTSD, panic attacks, grief, hospitalization, steve's crippling self-destructive tendencies, some bone-deep yearning, angst with HEA, explicit sexual content
✮ word count: 17.2k (ur girl doesn't know how to shut up)
✮ a/n: this was supposed to be a drabble. like. idk. (I think I might like it more than 'touch and go' WHO SAID THAT)
series masterlist
bonus drabble 1
bonus drabble 2
The first time you see Steve Rogers cry, you're not supposed to be there.
The SHIELD medical bay at 2:47 AM is meant to be empty—just you, a dislocated shoulder from a mission gone sideways in Prague, and the ice pack you're too stubborn to ask someone else to help you position. But there he is, Captain America himself, hunched forward in the uncomfortable plastic chair beside bed seven with his face in his hands, shoulders shaking in that particular way that says everything hurts and I'm trying to be quiet about it.
You freeze in the doorway, good arm holding your bad arm, heart suddenly hammering against your ribs like it's trying to break free. The fluorescent lights hum overhead, too bright, making everything look sharp-edged and surreal. Your mouth goes dry. There's a metallic taste on your tongue—adrenaline, maybe, or just the copper-tang of exhaustion that's been following you since your transport touched down six hours ago.
He's still in his tactical gear—dirt-streaked and blood-spattered from wherever he's been. You'd heard whispers in the hallways. A Hydra facility. The Winter Soldier, recovered. Captain Rogers, who never fails, who never breaks, bringing his best friend home after seventy years. You'd seen him from a distance when they'd brought Barnes in, shield on his back like it weighed a thousand pounds, and thought what you always think: beautiful and untouchable as a monument.
Now, though. Now he's just a man in a room that smells like antiseptic and grief, crying over—
The bed. There's someone in the bed.
Barnes. James Barnes. The Winter Soldier. Bucky. Whatever name he's wearing today. This is your first time seeing him up close, seeing him as something other than a ghost story whispered in SHIELD corridors. He looks smaller than the legends suggest, more human than weapon.
He's unconscious, or close to it, hooked to machines that beep in rhythms that must mean something to someone who isn't you. But what catches your attention—what makes your stomach twist and drop like you've missed a step going downstairs—is the woman curled against his side.
You don't know her, have never seen her before, but you know what she is. It's in the way she fits against him, like two pieces of something broken made whole. The way even unconscious, his body angles toward hers, his metal arm—and God, that's the arm that's killed presidents—draped protectively across her waist. The way her hand rests over his heart, monitoring his breathing even in sleep.
His soulmate. The Winter Soldier has a soulmate.
And Steve Rogers is crying over them.
Your shoulder throbs, sending white-hot spikes down your arm, and you bite the inside of your cheek hard enough to taste blood. You should leave. This is private, sacred, none of your business. But when you try to shift backward, your shoulder screams—a sharp, electric agony that races down your spine and makes your vision go spotty at the edges. The small sound that escapes your throat—half-gasp, half-whimper—cuts through the quiet like a gunshot.
Steve's head snaps up.
His eyes are red-rimmed, devastated, the blue of them turned dark and stormy with an emotion so raw it feels like looking directly at an exposed nerve. There are tear tracks on his cheeks, catching the harsh fluorescent light, and his lips are parted like he's forgotten how to breathe properly. For a second, neither of you moves. You're caught in the doorway like a deer in headlights, your pulse thundering in your ears, and he's frozen mid-grief, and the moment stretches taut as wire between you.
The air feels charged, like the moment before lightning strikes. Your skin prickles with it, every hair on your arms standing at attention.
Then his face closes off. All that naked emotion disappears behind the Captain America mask, so fast you'd think you imagined it if your heart wasn't still trying to claw its way out of your chest from the impact of seeing it.
"You need help?" His voice comes out rough, scraped raw, gravel and exhaustion and something else threaded through it. He clears his throat, stands, and suddenly the room feels smaller, the walls pressing in. He's always so much—six feet of genetically enhanced perfection that makes your body confused about whether it wants to fight or flee or something else entirely that you refuse to examine.
"I—" Your voice catches, sticks in your throat like you've swallowed glass. You force yourself to look at your shoulder instead of his face, but that means looking at the way his hands flex at his sides, the way his weight shifts like he's fighting the urge to move toward you. "Dislocated. From Prague. I can manage."
"You can't." Matter-of-fact, not unkind, but there's something underneath it—a tension that makes your stomach flip. He crosses the room in three strides, and you have that thought again—monument—but monuments don't usually smell like gunpowder and sweat and something cedar-sharp that makes your hindbrain light up with interest you absolutely cannot afford.
He stops just short of you, close enough that you can feel the heat radiating off him, close enough that you have to tilt your head back to meet his eyes. The movement makes your shoulder scream, and you can't quite suppress the way your breath hitches.
"Really, I'm—"
"Stubborn?" There's something almost like amusement flickering across his face, just a twitch at the corner of his mouth, but it makes your chest go tight and warm. "I know. You once tried to extract yourself from a building collapse with three broken ribs and a concussion."
You blink, stomach doing something complicated and uncomfortable. He knows that? He noticed that? Your skin feels too tight, like your body's trying to contain something that won't fit.
"Sit." He gestures to one of the beds, and when you don't move immediately—frozen by the way he's looking at you, intent and focused like you're a problem he needs to solve—his head tilts slightly. "That's an order, agent."
"You're not my CO," you point out, but you're already moving, because arguing with Steve Rogers while your shoulder feels like it's full of ground glass and your body is betraying you with all these inconvenient reactions seems like a losing proposition.
He follows, and you're hyperaware of him in that way you always are—the space he takes up, the way air seems to bend around him, the way your skin prickles with awareness even though he hasn't touched you. When you sit on the bed's edge, the paper crinkles beneath you, too loud in the quiet. He stands in front of you, and you have to focus on the SHIELD logo on his chest because looking at his face feels dangerous right now, like staring directly into the sun.
"This is going to hurt," he says, and his voice is lower now, closer. You can feel it rumble through the space between you.
"I know." Your good hand is gripping the edge of the bed so hard your knuckles have gone white. Your heart is doing something irregular and concerning in your chest.
"I mean it's going to—"
"Captain Rogers." You finally look up at him, find him watching you with an expression you can't parse—something intense and careful and guarded all at once. The fluorescent light catches in his hair, turns it more gold than blonde. There's a smudge of dirt on his jaw. "I've been in the field for six years. I know what a shoulder reduction feels like."
Something shifts in his jaw, that little muscle tick you've catalogued along with a hundred other Steve Rogers tells. Your breathing has gone shallow, and you don't know if it's from the pain or the way he's looking at you—like you're something he needs to be careful with.
Finally, he reaches for your arm.
He's wearing tactical gloves.
Of course he is. Steve Rogers always wears gloves on missions, black leather that make his already large hands look even more capable. You've never thought about it before—lots of agents wear gloves. Protection, grip, a hundred practical reasons.
But now, with him this close, with his hands carefully bracketing your injured arm, you notice the deliberateness of it. The way the leather covers every inch of skin from fingertip to wrist. The way he's careful, even now, not to let any exposed skin above the glove brush against you. There's a gap, barely an inch, where his sleeve has ridden up, revealing a strip of pale skin. You stare at it, pulse jumping in your throat for reasons you don't understand.
"On three," he says, and his voice is closer now, quieter. You can feel the heat of him, the solid presence that makes your good hand want to reach out and—
Your fingers twitch on the bed. The paper crinkles.
"One."
He adjusts his grip, and even through the leather, even through your tactical shirt, your nerve endings light up like a circuit board. Your breath catches, stops, starts again too fast.
"Two."
You're watching his face because you have to look somewhere, and that's when you see it—a flicker of something that looks like resignation. Like loss. Like he's steeling himself for something that's going to hurt. The tendons in his neck are taut, and there's a bead of sweat trailing down from his temple despite the cool air.
"Three."
The world whites out. Pain floods your system, sharp and immediate, and your vision goes sparkly at the edges. Your good hand flies up instinctively, searching for something to anchor you, and finds—
His vest. Your fingers curl into the tactical fabric, knuckles brushing against the solid wall of his chest beneath. You're falling forward, or maybe he's moving closer, and suddenly your forehead is almost touching his chest, and his hands have shifted to your shoulders—careful, still gloved, but holding you steady.
"Breathe," he says, and maybe it's the pain, but his voice sounds different. Softer. Rougher. His thumb moves in a small circle against your shoulder, probably meant to be soothing, but it sends electricity racing down your spine. "You're okay. Just breathe."
You realize you're making small, hurt sounds into his vest, and his body has curved around you slightly, protective, blocking you from the rest of the room. Your working hand has somehow fisted completely in his tactical vest, and you can feel the rise and fall of his breathing, too controlled to be natural. His heart beats against your knuckles, faster than you'd expect for someone with enhanced everything.
"I'm good," you manage, though your voice comes out embarrassingly breathy, wrecked. "I'm—thank you."
You pull back, look up, and freeze.
He's so close. Close enough that you can see the flecks of green in his blue eyes, the way his pupils have dilated slightly. Close enough to count individual eyelashes, to see the faint scar on his lower lip. Close enough that when his lips part slightly, you feel his exhale ghost across your face.
His eyes drop to where your hand grips his vest, and there's something almost stricken in his expression. His throat works as he swallows, and you track the movement helplessly.
Then his gaze snaps to your face, and for a second—just a second—his eyes drop to your mouth.
The air between you goes electric.
His hand on your shoulder tightens infinitesimally, leather creaking, and you're suddenly aware that your bodies are still curved toward each other, that if you just leaned forward an inch—
He jerks back. Takes three full steps back, actually, like he needs the distance. Like proximity to you is somehow dangerous. His breathing is slightly uneven, and there's a flush high on his cheeks that wasn't there before.
"You should get that x-rayed," he says, and his voice is too loud in the quiet room, just slightly unsteady. He's Captain America again, professional and distant, but his hands are clenched at his sides and he won't quite meet your eyes. "And ice. Twenty minutes on, twenty off."
"I know the drill." Your voice sounds strange to your own ears, throaty and affected. Your good hand is still raised slightly, fingers tingling from where they'd gripped his vest.
He nods, sharp and efficient. Turns to go back to his vigil beside Barnes's bed. But something makes you speak, words tumbling out before your brain can catch up with your mouth.
"He's lucky."
Steve stops. His shoulders go rigid, the line of his spine straightening like someone's put electricity through it.
"Barnes," you clarify, though you shouldn't. Your tongue feels thick in your mouth, clumsy. "To have someone who—to have her. His soulmate. They're both lucky."
When he turns to look at you, there's something hollow in his eyes, something that makes your chest ache with recognition you don't want to examine. The muscle in his jaw is working again, and his gloved hands clench and unclench at his sides.
"Yeah," he says quietly, and the word comes out like it's been dragged over broken glass. "Lucky."
He says it like the word tastes like ash, like something burned and bitter on his tongue.
"Steve—" You don't know what you're going to say, don't know why his name feels like something precious in your mouth, why your body is still leaning toward him like a plant toward sunlight.
"You should rest." He cuts you off, gentle but firm, and there's something almost desperate in the way he's not looking at you. "That shoulder needs—"
An alarm goes off. Not the gentle chime of a normal medical alert, but the sharp, angry wail that means something's wrong. Steve's already moving, heading for Barnes's bed where machines are screaming and the woman—his soulmate—is sitting up, hands pressed to her temples, saying "Something's wrong, something's—"
Barnes jackknifes upright with a sound that isn't quite human, metal arm swinging blindly, and his soulmate catches his hand without flinching. The moment their skin connects, some of the wildness bleeds out of his eyes.
"Bucky." Her voice is steady despite the chaos. "You're in medical. You're safe. I'm here."
You should leave. This is definitely not for you to witness. But you're frozen, watching how Barnes's entire being reorganizes itself around her touch, how his breathing slows to match hers, how the machines gradually stop their shrieking as his vitals stabilize. The way she runs her fingers through his hair, and he melts into it, face pressing into her palm like he's trying to absorb her through skin contact alone.
And you watch Steve watch them, standing two feet away but somehow miles distant, his gloved hands clenched so tight at his sides that the leather creaks.
You've never wanted a soulmate. The odds are astronomical, the chance of finding them slim to none, and you've seen what happens to people who lose them—the hollow-eyed grief that never quite fades. Better to never have one than to lose them. Better to be whole on your own than broken in half of a pair.
But watching Barnes fold into his soulmate's arms like coming home, watching her hold him together with nothing but touch and presence and fierce, protective love—
Your chest aches with want so sharp it steals your breath. Your skin feels too tight, too hot, like your body is trying to tell you something your mind won't acknowledge.
When you look at Steve, he's already looking at you. For just a second, you see your own longing reflected in his eyes, the same hollow ache of watching others have what you'll never possess. His gaze drops to your hand—the one that had gripped his vest—and something flickers across his face, too fast to read.
Then he looks away, jaw tight, and the moment breaks, and you're just an injured agent who needs to stop projecting feelings onto a superior officer who barely knows you exist.
"Get some rest," he says without looking at you, voice carefully controlled. "That's an order."
This time, you don't argue. You leave him to his vigil, to his grief, to whatever it is that makes Captain America cry in hospital chairs over other people's happy endings.
Your shoulder throbs in time with your heartbeat as you walk away, and you tell yourself that's the only reason your chest hurts. That's the only reason your skin feels like it's burning where he almost touched you. That's the only reason you can still feel the ghost of his vest under your fingers, the phantom heat of him curved around you.
You're very good at lying to yourself at 3 AM.
But your traitorous body remembers the way he'd jerked back from you, the way his eyes had gone wide with something that looked like fear when he'd realized how close you were.
Whatever Steve Rogers is afraid of, you're starting to think it might be you.
The next time you see him is three days later, and your body knows he's in the room before your brain catches up.
You're bent over a terminal in the east wing surveillance room, trying to make sense of intel that feels like it's been encrypted in ancient Sumerian, when every hair on the back of your neck stands at attention. Your spine straightens involuntarily, muscles tensing like an animal sensing a predator—or worse, like iron filings responding to a magnet.
"Agent."
Just that. Just your title in his Captain America voice, all professional distance and careful neutrality. But your treacherous body reacts like he's whispered something filthy in your ear—pulse jumping, skin flushing hot, stomach doing that uncomfortable flip that's becoming alarmingly familiar.
You don't turn around. Can't. Not when you know what you look like right now—haven't slept in thirty-six hours, hair in a messy bun that's listing severely to the left, yesterday's coffee staining your SHIELD-issued crewneck. Not when you can feel him taking up all the oxygen in the room just by existing in it.
"Captain Rogers." You're proud of how steady your voice comes out, even as your fingers have gone white-knuckled on the edge of the desk. "Something I can help you with?"
Silence. Long enough that you almost turn, almost give in to the gravitational pull of him. Then: footsteps. Measured, deliberate. He's moving closer, and your body tracks his approach like sonar, every nerve ending pinging with proximity alerts.
He stops just outside your peripheral vision—close enough that you can smell him (soap, leather, that cedar-sharp scent that makes your hindbrain whimper), far enough that there's no chance of accidental contact. You notice he does that a lot. Maintains exact distances like he's calculated the precise minimum safe zone between bodies.
"The Brussels intel." A pause. You hear him shift, leather jacket creaking. "Fury wants us to run point together."
Your hands still on the keyboard.
Us.
Together.
Run point.
"Us," you repeat, carefully neutral, still not turning around because if you look at him right now your face will do something stupid. Something that reveals how your stomach just dropped through the floor at the prospect of working closely with him. Of being in proximity to Steve Rogers for an extended period when just standing in the same room makes you feel like you're about to vibrate out of your skin.
"Is that a problem?"
There's something in his voice—a challenge maybe, or a test. Like he's waiting for you to admit what you both know: that whatever this thick, electric tension between you is, it's becoming harder to ignore.
"No, sir." You turn then, because not looking is starting to feel more obvious than looking, and immediately regret it.
He's in civilian clothes—dark jeans that shouldn't be legal on someone with his thighs, a navy shirt that clings to his chest in ways that make your mouth go dry. The leather jacket that does things to his shoulders that ought to be classified. But it's his face that kills you—that careful, composed expression that doesn't quite hide the way his eyes darken when they meet yours, the way his jaw ticks when you unconsciously wet your lips.
"Good." He steps closer—just half a step, but your body reacts like he's pressed you against the wall. Your breathing goes shallow, chest rising and falling too fast, and his eyes track the movement before snapping back to your face. "Briefing's at 0800."
"I'll be there."
He should leave. The conversation's over, message delivered. But he doesn't move. Just stands there, looking at you with an expression you can't read, and the air between you feels like it's getting thicker, harder to breathe. Your skin prickles with heat despite the aggressive air conditioning, and you can feel your pulse in your throat, your wrists, between your legs—
"Your shoulder." The words come out rough, like he's had to drag them from somewhere deep. "How is it?"
"Fine." Your voice sounds breathy, affected. You clear your throat, try again. "Good. It's good. Thanks to you."
Something flickers across his face at that—almost pained, like you've said something that hurts. His hand comes up, and for a heart-stopping second you think he's going to touch you. Your whole body goes still, waiting, wanting, every cell screaming yes, finally, please—
But he just runs it through his hair, a gesture that's so uncharacteristically unguarded it makes your chest ache.
"Steve—"
"I should go." He cuts you off, already stepping back, and the loss of proximity feels like someone's turned off the sun. "Early morning."
He's halfway to the door when you speak, words tumbling out without permission.
"Why do you do that?"
He stops. Doesn't turn. "Do what?"
"Pull back." Your heart is hammering so hard you're sure he can hear it with his enhanced everything. "You get close, and then you just—" You make a frustrated gesture he can't see. "It's like you're afraid of me."
His shoulders tense, and when he turns to look at you, there's something raw in his eyes for just a second before he shutters it away.
"I'm not afraid of you."
"Then what—"
"I'm afraid of what I want from you."
The words hang in the air between you like a grenade with the pin pulled. Your breath catches, stops entirely. Your body goes hot and cold at once, skin too tight, like you're having an allergic reaction to honesty.
He looks as surprised as you feel, like the admission escaped without his permission. His hands clench at his sides—you notice he's not wearing gloves, and for some reason that feels significant. Dangerous. His fingers are long, elegant despite their strength, and you have the sudden, visceral thought of what they'd feel like on your skin.
"Captain—"
"Steve." His voice is rough, wrecked. "Just... when it's just us, call me Steve."
Your throat feels like you've swallowed glass. "Steve."
He makes a sound—small, strangled—and takes a step toward you before catching himself. The muscle in his jaw is working overtime, and his hands—Jesus, his hands are actually trembling.
"This isn't—" He stops. Tries again. "I can't—"
"Can't what?" You stand, and your legs feel like water but you need to be closer to him, need to understand what's happening in the space between his words. "Steve, what—"
"0800," he says, and it sounds like surrender. "Don't be late."
He's gone before you can respond, leaving you alone in a room that feels too cold without him in it. Your skin feels raw, oversensitized, like you've been flayed open and exposed to the elements. You sink back into your chair, legs finally giving out, and press your palms against your burning cheeks.
I'm afraid of what I want from you.
Your body is still humming, vibrating at some frequency that feels like it's going to shake you apart. You can still smell him in the air—leather and soap and something unmistakably Steve that makes your hindbrain want to follow him down the hall, pin him against a wall, and find out exactly what he wants from you.
But you don't. You sit in your chair, stare at intel you can't process, and try to convince yourself that whatever's happening between you and Steve Rogers is just chemistry. Just proximity and adrenaline and two people spending too much time dancing around each other in small spaces.
You're getting better at lying to yourself.
But your body remembers the way his eyes had gone dark when he watched you breathe. The way his hands had trembled. The way he'd said your name like it was being torn out of him.
0800 can't come fast enough.
The briefing room is too small.
That's your first thought when you walk in at 0755, coffee clutched like a lifeline, to find Steve already there. He's studying a holographic map of Brussels, one hand braced on the table, the other holding a tablet. The morning light from the floor-to-ceiling windows turns his hair gold and throws his profile into sharp relief, and your step falters in the doorway because he looks like something out of a Renaissance painting—all strong lines and perfect angles and terrible beauty.
He doesn't look up, but his shoulders tense slightly. He knows you're there.
"Morning," you manage, proud when your voice doesn't crack.
"Agent." Back to titles, then. Back to distance. But when he glances up, his eyes catch yours and hold for a beat too long, and you see him swallow.
You take your seat—across from him, with the whole width of the table between you like a demilitarized zone. But it's not enough. The room's too small, the air too thin. You can see the rise and fall of his chest, the way his thumb taps against the tablet in a rhythm that matches your elevated pulse.
"The target's a bioweapon," he says without preamble, swiping something on his tablet that makes the hologram shift and expand. "Hydra remnants, we think. They're moving it through Brussels tomorrow night."
You force yourself to focus on the intel, not on the way his hands move when he talks, precise and economical. Not on the fact that his sleeves are rolled up, revealing forearms that make your mouth water—all corded muscle and prominent veins and a dusting of hair that catches the light.
"Extraction point?"
"Here." He rounds the table to point at a specific building, and suddenly he's beside you, close enough that you can feel the heat radiating off him. Close enough that when you breathe in, you get a lungful of his scent that makes your head spin. "Warehouse district. Minimal civilian presence after dark."
You turn your head to look at the map, but that's a mistake because now his face is inches from yours. You can see the barely-there freckles across his nose, the way his lips part slightly when he breathes. His eyes drop to your mouth for a fraction of a second before he jerks back, stepping away so fast you feel the displacement of air.
"We'll go in quiet," he says, voice rougher than before. His hand comes up to rub the back of his neck, a gesture you're starting to recognize as his tell for when he's affected. "Two-person infiltration. Quick and clean."
"Just the two of us?" The words come out more breathless than you intended.
He nods, still not looking at you. "Fury wants it kept small. Discreet."
Discreet. Right. You can be discreet. You can be professional. You can absolutely handle being alone with Steve Rogers on a mission without doing something stupid like wondering what his hands would feel like in your hair, or how his voice would sound saying your actual name in the dark, or—
"Questions?"
You realize you've been staring at him, and your face goes hot. "No. No questions."
"Good." He's already moving toward the door, eager to escape, but he pauses at the threshold. When he looks back, there's something almost vulnerable in his expression. "We leave at 1400. Quinjet bay three."
"I'll be there."
He nods, starts to go, then stops again. His hand tightens on the doorframe, knuckles going white.
"You should wear tactical gear," he says without turning around. "Full coverage. It's going to be cold."
There's something about the way he says it—careful, deliberate—that makes you think he's not really talking about the temperature. But before you can respond, he's gone, leaving you alone in a room that still smells like him.
You spend the rest of the morning trying to focus on mission prep, but your mind keeps circling back to the way he'd looked at your mouth. The way he'd jerked back like you'd burned him. The way he'd specified full coverage like he was trying to minimize the chance of—what? Of skin contact? Of touching?
By 1400, you're wound so tight you feel like you might snap. The tactical gear feels heavy, constrictive, like it's pressing all your sensitivity inward. Every brush of fabric against skin feels amplified, every movement hyperaware.
You find him in the quinjet, running preflight checks with the kind of focus that suggests he's trying very hard not to think about something. He's in his Captain America suit—the deep blue that somehow makes his shoulders look even broader, red and white accents catching the cabin lights. No skin visible except his face and that thin strip at his neck where the cowl doesn't quite meet the collar, every inch of him covered like armor against something more than physical threats.
"Ready?" He doesn't look at you when he asks.
"Always."
The flight to Brussels takes six hours. Six hours of sitting across from each other in a quinjet that suddenly feels impossibly small. Six hours of trying not to stare at the way his hands move over the controls, sure and competent. Six hours of him studiously avoiding your gaze while the tension ratchets higher with every passing minute.
Halfway through, you shift in your seat, and your knee brushes his under the table. It's barely contact—layers of fabric between you—but you both freeze. His hands still on the tablet he's holding. Your breath catches in your throat. For a moment, neither of you moves, like you're both waiting to see what the other will do.
He pulls his leg back.
You curl your hands into fists and stare out the window at clouds that look soft enough to touch, trying to ignore the way your knee burns where it brushed his, trying to ignore the way he's breathing just a little too carefully across from you.
"You should get some rest," he says finally, voice neutral. "It's going to be a long night."
You don't tell him there's no way you could sleep, not when every cell in your body is hyperaware of his presence. Not when you can feel the weight of his carefully maintained distance like a physical thing.
Instead, you close your eyes and pretend, counting your breaths, trying to ignore the way your body hums with proximity to him. Trying to ignore the fact that in a few hours, you'll be alone with him in the dark, dependent on each other in the way that missions make necessary.
Trying to ignore the way your skin already aches for something you've never had.
When you fake-wake an hour later, he's watching you.
The look on his face—unguarded, soft, almost pained—makes your chest tight. But the second he realizes you're awake, his expression shutters, locks down, becomes Captain America again.
"Descending in twenty," he says, all business.
You nod, start checking your gear, and pretend you didn't see the way he was looking at you like you're something he wants but can't have. Pretend your heart isn't racing from that single, stolen moment of his true face.
Twenty minutes to Brussels.
Twenty minutes until you're alone with him in the dark.
Twenty minutes until whatever this is either snaps or shatters.
Your hands shake as you load your weapons, and you tell yourself it's just pre-mission adrenaline.
You're getting worse at lying to yourself.
The warehouse district in Brussels looks like every other warehouse district you've ever infiltrated—all concrete and shadows and too many places for things to go wrong. Your breath mists in the December air, visible for half a second before disappearing, and you're hyperaware of Steve beside you, the way his body heat seems to radiate even from three feet away.
Three feet. Always three feet.
You've been in position for forty minutes, watching the target building through night vision, and the tension between you has ratcheted so high you can practically taste it—metallic, electric, like the air before lightning strikes.
"Two guards, northwest corner," you murmur into comms, watching them through your scope. Your finger rests against the trigger guard, steady despite the way your whole body feels attuned to Steve's presence. "Rotation in approximately ninety seconds."
"Copy." His voice in your ear makes your stomach flip, low and authoritative. Through your peripheral vision, you catch him adjusting his shield, the movement precise, controlled. Everything about him is controlled. Has been since you touched down three hours ago. Maybe since before that. Maybe since that moment in the briefing room when he'd told you to wear full tactical gear like he was trying to armor you against something more than bullets.
The silence stretches, fills with things unsaid. Your skin prickles beneath the kevlar, every nerve ending hyperalert. Not from danger—not yet—but from proximity to him that feels more intimate than touch. You can hear him breathe, steady and measured. Can smell that cedar-sharp scent that cuts through the industrial stink of the district. Can feel the weight of his attention even when he's not looking at you.
"You know," you say quietly, because the silence is becoming unbearable, "for a stealth mission, you're thinking very loudly."
A pause. Then: "I'm not thinking anything."
"Liar." The word slips out before you can stop it, soft and knowing, and you feel him go still beside you.
"Agent—"
"You said when it's just us, I could—" You swallow, throat suddenly dry. "We're alone, Steve. You can use my name."
Another pause, longer this time. When he speaks, his voice is rougher. "The guards are moving."
He's right. You track them through your scope, watching them disappear around the corner, and try to ignore the way your name apparently burns in his throat, the way he can't seem to say it even when you've given him permission.
"Window's open," you confirm. "Ninety seconds, like clockwork."
"Let's move."
You're up and moving before the words finish forming, bodies falling into perfect synchronization. He goes high, you go low, covering angles with the kind of wordless communication that feels like dancing, like inevitability. Your breath syncs with his as you cross the open ground, and you tell yourself it's just tactical breathing, just professional compatibility.
You're getting worse at lying to yourself.
The side entrance is exactly where intel said it would be. Steve makes quick work of the lock while you cover him, and the domestic intimacy of it—you protecting his back while he works—makes something twist in your chest.
"Got it." The lock clicks open, and he pulls the door wide, weapon raised.
You follow him into darkness.
The warehouse is a maze of shipping containers and scaffolding, all deep shadows and blind corners. Your night vision paints everything in shades of green, turning Steve into something otherworldly as he moves ahead of you, all lethal grace and coiled power. You've seen him fight before, but there's something different about moving with him like this, just the two of you in the dark. Something that makes your body hyperaware of every gesture, every signal.
He holds up a fist—stop. You freeze instantly, trusting him implicitly. He tilts his head, listening to something you can't hear, and you watch the line of his throat, the way his pulse beats steady and strong beneath the skin.
Then you hear it too—footsteps, multiple sets, coming from the east corridor.
Steve looks back at you, and even through the night vision, you can see something pass across his face. He points to himself, then forward. Points to you, then to a stack of crates that would provide cover.
You shake your head. You're not letting him go alone.
His jaw ticks—that tell you've catalogued along with all his others. But there's no time to argue. The footsteps are getting closer.
You move together, silent as shadows, until the first hostile rounds the corner.
Steve takes him down in one fluid motion, shield connecting with a dull thud that the man doesn't get up from. But there are more—so many more—and suddenly the warehouse explodes into chaos.
"Contact!" you shout into comms that suddenly fill with static, jamming signals flooding the frequency. "Multiple hostiles—"
A muzzle flash in your peripheral. You pivot, fire twice, watch the figure drop. Steve's shield sings through the air, ricocheting off three targets in quick succession before returning to his hand. You move back to back without thinking, covering each other's blind spots, and the contact—even through layers of tactical gear—makes your skin burn.
"We need to move!" Steve shouts over the gunfire. "The bioweapon—"
"I know!" You drop two more hostiles, reload with practiced efficiency. "Northwest stairs, we can—"
The explosion knocks you sideways.
Your shoulder hits concrete hard, night vision flickering, ears ringing. Through the smoke, you see Steve fighting like something out of legend—shield and fists and absolutely ruthless efficiency. But there are too many. They keep coming, and you're separated now, a wall of hostiles between you.
"Steve!" You fight toward him, muscle memory and desperation driving you forward.
"Get to the weapon!" His voice cuts through the chaos. "I'll hold them—"
"Like hell!"
But more fighters flood in, and you're forced back, forced to watch him disappear behind a wall of bodies. Your chest goes tight with something that's not quite panic but close—the thought of losing sight of him, of something happening while you're not there to cover his six.
You fight harder, brutal and efficient, trying to close the distance. Your body moves on autopilot while your mind tracks him through glimpses—the flash of his shield, the sound of his voice calling out positions.
Then you hear it. His sharp intake of breath, pained.
"Steve?"
"I'm fine." But his voice is strained, and you catch sight of him favoring his left side, blood dark on his tactical suit. "The weapon—"
"Fuck the weapon." You slam a new magazine home, determination crystallizing into something sharp and desperate. "I'm coming to you."
"No!" The authority in his voice stops you short. "That's an order—get the bioweapon. I'll meet you at extraction."
Every instinct screams against leaving him, but he's right. The mission. Always the mission.
You run.
The stairs are clear—too clear. Your instincts scream trap, but there's no time. You take them three at a time, hip protesting from the earlier fall, listening to the sounds of fighting below. Steve's still engaged, still fighting, and you track his progress through the warehouse by sound alone.
The lab is exactly where intel indicated—third floor, northeast corner. Also exactly as unguarded as you'd feared.
Trap. Definitely a trap.
But the bioweapon is there, contained in a small metal briefcase that seems too innocuous for something that could kill thousands. You grab it, already turning back toward the stairs when you hear Steve's voice crackle through the static.
Not "Agent." Your name, sharp and desperate, and the sound of it makes your blood freeze. "Get out. Now. They're—"
The static cuts him off.
"Steve? Steve!"
Nothing.
You're already running, taking the stairs so fast you nearly fall, the briefcase clutched tight against your chest. The warehouse has gone quiet—too quiet. No more gunfire. No more fighting.
Just silence.
You round the corner into the main warehouse floor and see him.
He's surrounded, on his knees, blood running from a cut above his eye. Six hostiles have weapons trained on him, and his shield is nowhere to be seen. But what makes your blood turn to ice is the seventh figure—a man in tactical gear holding something that looks like—
"No!" The word tears from your throat as you recognize the device. Sonic disruptor, strong enough to disorient even a super soldier.
The man's finger depresses the trigger.
Steve convulses, hands going to his ears, and the sound he makes—
You're moving before conscious thought catches up, pure instinct driving you forward. The briefcase clatters to the ground as you raise your weapon, laying down cover fire that sends three hostiles scrambling. But you're exposed now, in the open, no cover between you and—
The first shot catches you in the vest.
The impact slams you backward, driving all the air from your lungs in a whoosh that whites out your vision. Your body armor holds—SHIELD makes good gear—but the force spins you sideways, and before you can recover, before you can breathe—
The second shot finds the gap.
Right where your vest meets your hip, that vulnerable slice of space where mobility trumps protection. The bullet tears through tactical fabric and skin and muscle like tissue paper, and the pain—
The pain is exquisite.
White-hot agony blooms from your hip, spreading like wildfire through your nervous system until every cell is screaming. You hear yourself make a sound—sharp, breathless, more surprise than scream—and then your legs are failing, and you're falling, and the concrete rises up to meet you like an old friend.
Your name rips from Steve's throat like something being torn from his chest cavity.
Through blurring vision, you see him move.
The sonic disruptor doesn't matter. The six weapons trained on him don't matter. He erupts from his knees with a sound that's barely human, pure rage and desperation, and bodies go flying. He fights like something mythical, like something out of the stories they tell about Captain America, except there's nothing heroic about this.
This is brutality. Devastation.
Your hands shake as they try to find the wound, fingers slipping on something warm and wet that's spreading way too fast. The pain is enormous, eating at the edges of your consciousness, white-hot and pulsing with each heartbeat. Your tactical pants are already soaked, the fabric clinging to your skin, and when you lift your hand it's painted crimson in the warehouse's emergency lighting.
That's... that's too much blood. Way too much.
Your body starts to shake—shock, probably, or blood loss, or just the simple animal recognition that you're badly hurt. Your teeth start chattering, and you can't make them stop, jaw clenched so tight you taste blood from where you've bitten your tongue.
"No, no, no, no—"
Steve crashes to his knees beside you so hard the concrete cracks. His hands—his bare hands, when did he lose his gloves?—hover over you for a fraction of a second before pressing against the wound. The pressure makes you scream, body trying to curl away from the pain, but he holds you down, holds you still.
"Hey, hey, look at me." His voice cracks completely, nothing like Captain America's steady authority. This is just Steve, terrified and desperate. "Look at me. Stay with me."
You try to focus on his face, but it keeps fracturing, splitting into doubles and triples before reforming. Your eyes won't track right, keep sliding away like they're too heavy. His face is covered in blood—from the cut above his eye, from other wounds you can't catalog—and there's something wild in his expression, something that makes your chest tight for reasons that have nothing to do with the bullet.
"Steve—" Your voice comes out wrong, too wet, copper flooding your mouth. When you cough, something warm splatters across your lips.
"Don't talk, don't—just stay still. I've got you." He's pressing so hard against the wound that new pain blooms, sharp and bright, making your vision white out at the edges. But his hands—his hands are shaking where they press against you, and that seems wrong somehow. Steve Rogers's hands don't shake. "Med evac's coming. Two minutes. Just two minutes, you have to—"
His voice breaks completely, and you realize he's crying. Captain America is crying over you, tears cutting clean tracks through the blood and dirt on his face.
"'S okay," you slur, though it's not, though nothing is okay. Your tongue feels thick, clumsy. "'M okay."
"You're not okay." It comes out harsh, angry, but his hands on your wound are so careful, desperately trying to hold you together. "There's so much blood. Why is there so much—"
That's when you see it. His bare hands are pressed against your wound, skin to skin where your tactical gear has been torn away, and you wait for something—for warmth, for electricity, for whatever cosmic sign is supposed to indicate a soul bond. But there's just the cold creeping up your limbs and Steve's devastated face above you.
"Please," he's saying, over and over, like a prayer or a plea. "Please, just hold on. Just—"
He reaches for your face with one blood-slicked hand, maybe to check your pupils, maybe to keep you conscious, and that's when it happens.
His palm cups your cheek, and the world explodes.
Not with pain this time, but with something else entirely. Something that races through your dying body like lightning finding ground, like coming home, like every cell suddenly remembering what they're made for. The bond slams into place with the force of a freight train, decades of waiting condensed into a single moment of contact that rewrites everything you thought you knew about existence.
The warmth that floods through you has nothing to do with healing and everything to do with recognition. With rightness. With the soul bond that's singing in your bones, drowning out even the pain, making everything else fade to background noise. You can feel him—not just his hand on your face but him, his emotions crashing into yours like a tidal wave. Fear and longing and desperate denial and—
He rips his hand away like you've burned him.
"No." The word comes out strangled, broken. He's staring at his hand like it's betrayed him, then at your face with something that looks like pure horror. "No, not—not like this. Not now—"
The loss of his touch hits worse than the bullet did. Your body convulses, a sob ripping from your throat that you can't control, can't stop. The bond—new and raw and screaming—feels like someone's reached into your chest and started pulling things out. Every nerve ending is firing wrong, confused, desperate for the contact that just got ripped away.
"Steve." Your voice breaks on his name, barely human. The world is going fuzzy at the edges but this—this burning absence where his hand was—this is crystalline. "Steve, please—you're—we're—"
"Don't." He's pressing against the wound with just fabric between you now, using torn pieces of his uniform to maintain pressure without skin contact. His whole body is shaking, violent tremors that make his hands unsteady. "This can't—I can't—"
"Please." The word comes out slurred, desperate, all your walls crumbling with your blood pressure. Your body moves without permission, trying to arch toward him, and the movement sends agony through your hip but you don't care, can't care, not when every cell is screaming for him. "Need—need you t'touch me. Please. Hurts—hurts so much without—"
A whimper escapes, high and broken, and you're crying now—real tears mixing with blood from where you've bitten through your lip trying not to beg.
"I can't." He's sobbing openly, pressing harder against the wound as your blood soaks through the fabric barriers he's maintaining. His face is wrecked, destroyed, tears cutting tracks through dirt and blood. "I can't do this to you. I can't—everyone I touch—everyone I—"
"'M dying." It's matter-of-fact, clear even through the growing fog. Your body knows it, feels it in the way everything's going cold and distant.
Your hand lifts, trembling so hard it's more spasm than movement, reaching for his face. He catches your wrist with fabric-covered fingers, holding you back, and the sound you make—wounded, animal, barely human—seems to physically hurt him.
"You're not dying." Fierce, desperate, a lie that cracks in his throat. "You're not. Med evac's thirty seconds out. You're going to be fine, you're going to—"
"Hurts." The word is pure anguish. Not just the wound but the rejection, the bond screaming, tearing, dying in your chest. Your body's shutting down but somehow the ache of his denial cuts deeper. "Steve, please—am I—did I do something wrong? Am I not—not what you wanted—?"
"No." The word rips from him with enough force to echo off the warehouse walls. He's shaking so hard the fabric between you vibrates with it. "No, you're perfect. You're everything. You're—Christ, you're everything I never let myself want. That's why I can't—"
"Don' understand." Your vision is tunneling fast now, darkness eating the edges. Your body won't stop shaking, violent tremors that make your teeth chatter. "'S supposed to—soulmates supposed to—to help. To make it better. Why won't you—why won't you just—"
Another sob tears from your chest, weaker this time. Your reaching hand falls, fingers still twitching toward him.
"Because I'll destroy you." Raw, bleeding, the words torn from somewhere deep and wounded. "Because everyone I've ever—because I'm not meant for this. For you. You deserve someone who—someone whole. Someone who isn't—"
"Jus' wanted—" Your voice is fading, each word a monumental effort. Your body feels like it's floating and sinking at once. "Jus' wanted to know what it felt like. To be yours. Steve—'m so cold—”
Your eyes are sliding shut, but you force them open one more time, finding his face. He looks shattered. Broken. Like watching you die is killing him too.
"'M sorry," you whisper, and you don't know what you're apologizing for. For dying? For being his soulmate? For not being enough to make him want to hold you? "Sorry I'm not—not worth—"
"Stop." His voice breaks completely. "You're worth everything. You're worth—"
But you're already going under, the last sensation being the phantom burn of where his palm touched your cheek for those thirty-seven seconds. The bond screams and screams and screams, and then—
The med evac arrives in a thunder of sound and motion, but you can't process it anymore. Hands are moving you, lifting you, but all you can focus on is Steve's face, the way he's looking at you like you're taking his soul with you.
"I'm sorry," he's saying, over and over, his voice following you into the darkness. "I'm so fucking sorry. You deserve better. You deserve everything."
The last thing you see is him standing there, your blood painting his bare hands red, looking like a man who's just given up the one thing he wanted most in the world.
The last thing you feel is the phantom burn where his palm touched your cheek, the bond screaming for a connection that's been severed, your body trying to reach for something that's already gone.
The last thing you think, with the last conscious part of your mind, is that you would have been good to him. You would have been so good to him, if he'd let you.
But maybe that's why he pulled away.
Maybe he knows something you don't—that good things don't last, that soulmates are just another pretty lie the universe tells to make the dying easier.
Your hand falls limp, still reaching for him, and the darkness takes you under.
The medbay ceiling has exactly 247 tiles. You know because you've counted them approximately forty-three times since waking up, which was—what? Two weeks ago? Three? Time moves differently when your body is trying to rebuild itself from the inside out and your soul is trying to tear itself apart looking for someone who won't come.
The gunshot wound is healing. Slowly, methodically, with the kind of grinding precision that modern medicine excels at. They'd had to do surgery twice—once to stop the bleeding, once to repair the mess the bullet made of your intestines. The scar will be ugly, they tell you with professional sympathy, as if that's what you're worried about. As if the external scarring could possibly compare to whatever the fuck is happening inside your chest where the bond lives.
Or dies. You're not really sure which anymore.
Your nights follow a pattern now, predictable as clockwork. At 10 PM, the ward goes quiet, lights dimming to that particular hospital twilight that never quite achieves darkness. At 11:47 PM—always 11:47, like he's calculated the exact time the night nurse finishes rounds—you hear it.
Footsteps in the hallway. Careful, measured, but with that particular weight that only belongs to him. Your body recognizes them before your mind does, skin prickling with awareness, the bond flaring to life like struck kindling.
The first night, you'd opened your eyes.
He'd frozen in the doorway, silhouetted by hallway fluorescents, and for thirteen seconds (you counted), you just stared at each other. His face was—God, his face was something you'd never seen before. Raw. Destroyed. Like someone had reached inside him and rearranged everything until it no longer fit right.
"I—" he'd started.
You'd waited, heart hammering so hard the monitors had started alarming, bringing nurses running.
By the time they'd cleared out, satisfied you weren't dying, he was gone.
Now you know better. You keep your eyes closed, breathing deep and even, and let him have whatever this is. Whatever he needs.
He sits in the chair by the window—always the same chair, the one that creaks slightly when he shifts his weight. For the first ten minutes, he just sits there, breathing. You match your inhales to his, careful to keep them sleep-slow even though your heart is racing, even though every cell in your body is screaming to reach for him.
Sometimes he talks.
"They're releasing you tomorrow," he says tonight, voice barely above a whisper. "Fury told me. Said you're healing well. That you'll be able to—that you'll be fine."
Fine. The word sits between you like a lie neither of you believes.
"I know you're awake."
Your breath doesn't catch. You've gotten very good at this game.
"I know you're awake," he repeats, softer. "Your heartbeat changes when I'm here. Just a little, but—" A pause. The chair creaks. "I memorized it. Before. The sound of your heartbeat. Didn't mean to, it just—happened. Enhanced hearing and all."
You want to open your eyes so badly it's physical pain, but you don't. Can't. Because if you do, he'll leave, and even this—this careful distance, this monitored proximity—is better than nothing.
"I'm being reassigned."
Now your breath does catch, just slightly. You hear him shift forward.
"Fury thinks it's best. For both of us. Different divisions, different missions. Clean break." His voice cracks on 'clean' like the word itself is cutting him. "It's better this way. You can—you can find someone else. Someone who isn't—"
Broken, you want to finish. Scared. Frozen in a past that no longer exists.
But you keep your eyes closed, keep your breathing even, keep pretending that your chest isn't caving in with every word.
"I watched Bucky with his soulmate," he continues, and you've never heard him sound like this. Lost. "Watched how easy it was for them. How she touched him and suddenly he was whole again, was himself again. How the bond just—fixed things. Made sense of them."
The chair creaks again. Closer now. You can feel the heat of him, smell that cedar-sharp scent that makes your body ache with want.
"I thought—" He stops. Starts again. "I thought if I didn't have a soulmate, I could pretend I didn't belong here. Could keep one foot in the past, you know? Keep waiting to go home to a time that doesn't exist anymore. But then you—"
Silence. Long enough that you almost open your eyes, almost give up the pretense.
"You make me want to stay," he whispers, and it sounds like a confession. Like something torn from him against his will. "You make me want to belong here. In this century. In this life. And that fucking terrifies me."
Your eyes burn behind closed lids. Your throat aches with words you can't say.
"So I'm leaving. Because you deserve someone who isn't terrified of wanting you. Someone who can touch you without feeling like the universe is ending. Someone who—" His voice breaks completely. "Someone who didn't let you bleed out rather than accept a bond."
You hear him stand, the chair scraping slightly against linoleum. Feel him hesitate, that particular stillness that means he's fighting himself.
Then warmth. Just for a second. The ghost of fingers near your hand where it rests on the blanket, not quite touching but close enough that you can feel the heat of his skin, the way the air shifts between you.
"I'm sorry," he breathes. "I'm so fucking sorry."
Then he's gone, and you finally let yourself cry—silent, body-shaking sobs that you muffle in the pillow so the night nurse won't come. The bond aches like a severed limb, phantom pain for something you had for exactly thirty-seven seconds in a warehouse in Brussels.
Tomorrow, they release you.
Tomorrow, you go back to a life where Steve Rogers is just someone you pass in hallways, someone who looks through you like you're a ghost, someone who touched your face once while you were dying and then decided you weren't worth the risk.
Tonight, though. Tonight you lie in a hospital bed and count ceiling tiles and pretend you don't know that he stands outside your door for another twenty-three minutes before he finally makes himself leave.
Your apartment feels like a crime scene you're returning to.
Everything is exactly as you left it three weeks ago—coffee mug still in the sink, laptop still open on the counter, the ghost of your normal life preserved in amber. Except you're different now. Hollowed out and reconstructed wrong, like someone took you apart and lost a few crucial pieces in the reassembly.
The first night is the worst.
You'd thought the hospital was bad, with its antiseptic smell and endless fluorescent twilight. But at least there, you could pretend Steve might appear. Could lie to yourself that the footsteps in the hallway might be his.
Here, in your own space, there's no such illusion.
The bond aches constantly. Not the sharp, immediate pain of the first few days, but a bone-deep throb that makes everything feel wrong. Food tastes like ash. Sleep comes in fragments, always interrupted by dreams of warehouse floors and the phantom warmth of a palm against your cheek. Your skin feels too tight, like your body is rejecting itself in the absence of touch it's only had once.
You try to go back to work after a week.
Fury takes one look at you—hollow eyes, hands that won't stop shaking, the way you flinch when anyone gets too close—and sends you home.
"Medical leave," he says, not unkindly. "Take the time you need."
You want to tell him that time won't fix this. That you could take a year, a decade, and you'd still be searching every room for a ghost who won't appear. But you just nod, gather your things, and pretend you don't see the pity in his eye.
The second week is when the anger arrives.
It starts small—irritation at the barista who makes your coffee wrong, frustration with the TV remote that won't work properly. But it builds, feeds on itself, until you're standing in your kitchen at 2 AM, hurling the mug Steve never saw you drink from against the wall, watching it shatter into pieces that still somehow hold more cohesion than you do.
How dare he.
How fucking dare he.
To touch you, to activate a bond you didn't even know existed, and then rip himself away like you're something toxic. To visit you every night but never when you're awake to actually see him. To make decisions about your life, your future, your soul without even asking what you want.
You track his missions through the internal SHIELD networks you're not supposed to have access to anymore. London. Moscow. Cairo. Always moving, always running, like distance could somehow break what's already broken. Your clearance hasn't been revoked yet—an oversight, probably—so you read his reports, clinical and detached descriptions of operations that tell you nothing about whether he's eating. Whether he's sleeping. Whether his soul feels as flayed as yours.
Probably not. He chose this, after all.
The third week is when you see him.
You're not prepared. How could you be? You're just buying groceries, standing in the cereal aisle like a normal person pretending to care about fiber content, when you feel it—that familiar prickle of awareness, the bond flaring to life like muscle memory.
You turn, and there he is at the end of the aisle. Frozen, like he's been caught. He looks—
He looks like shit.
Hollow eyes, sharp cheekbones like he hasn't been eating, a carefulness to his movements that speaks of bone-deep exhaustion. His hands are shoved in his pockets, probably to stop himself from reaching for you. Or maybe just to hide how they're shaking.
For a moment, you both just stand there, two people separated by twenty feet of fluorescent lighting and an unbridgeable chasm of his making.
You watch his mouth form your name. Not quite speaking it, just shaping it, like even that much is more than he's allowed himself.
Your body moves without permission, taking one step toward him, and he takes a step back.
Right.
The message is clear. Crystal fucking clear.
You turn around, leave your half-full cart in the middle of the aisle, and walk out of the store with as much dignity as you can muster. Make it all the way to your car before the shaking starts, before you have to grip the steering wheel just to keep yourself anchored.
Twenty feet.
He couldn't even stand to be within twenty feet of you.
That night, you draft seven different resignation letters. Because fuck this. Fuck playing this game where you pretend you're okay, where you pretend that seeing him doesn't make you want to scream or cry or claw your own skin off just to escape the constant ache of the bond.
You don't send any of them.
But you keep them, just in case.
Week four is when Natasha shows up at your door.
"You look like hell," she says without preamble, pushing past you into your apartment.
"Thanks. Great pep talk. You can go now."
She ignores you, taking in the disaster you've let your living space become—dishes piled in the sink, curtains drawn against the afternoon sun, the general apocalyptic ambiance of someone who's given up.
"He's not doing any better, you know."
You laugh, bitter and sharp. "Good."
"He sits outside your building sometimes." She says it casually, like it's nothing, like it doesn't make your heart stutter and race. "At night. When he thinks no one will notice. Just sits in his car and stares up at your window like a fucking Victorian ghost."
"He made his choice."
"He made a stupid choice," she corrects. "Because he's a stupid, self-sacrificing idiot who thinks he's protecting you."
"From what?" The words explode out of you, months of frustration and hurt finally finding voice. "From having a soulmate? From being loved? From fucking touching another human being?"
"From him." Her voice goes soft, which is somehow worse than when she's being cutting. "From what he thinks he is. What he thinks he'll do to you."
"That's not his choice to make."
"No," she agrees. "It's not."
She leaves after that, but not before placing a small piece of paper on your counter. An address. A time. Tomorrow, 3 PM.
"He won't be there," she says. "But you should go anyway."
You stare at the paper for a long time after she's gone, memorizing numbers you'll probably never use.
But when tomorrow comes, you go anyway.
Because maybe you're just as much of a self-sacrificing idiot as he is.
Or maybe you're just tired of being angry.
Maybe you're just tired, period.
The address leads to a small gym in Brooklyn, the kind that smells like old leather and determination. You expect it to be empty—Natasha said he wouldn't be there—but there's someone in the ring.
Barnes.
He's working the heavy bag with mechanical precision, each punch measured and brutal. The sound echoes in the empty space—thud, thud, thud—rhythmic as a heartbeat. He doesn't look up when you enter, but his shoulders tense slightly, that particular stillness of someone who's hyperaware of their surroundings but pretending not to be.
Your stomach does something complicated. You've seen him around the Tower these past couple months since Steve brought him in, but always at a distance. Always with her—his soulmate, the one who somehow reached through seven decades of programming to find the man underneath. The one who touches him like it's breathing, casual and constant and necessary.
"Natasha send you?" His voice is flat, careful.
"Yeah."
He stops punching, turns to face you. Takes you in with those winter-gray eyes that see too much, catalog too much. There's still something unfinished about him, like he's a sketch someone's only halfway through shading. Two months of freedom haven't quite erased seventy years of being someone else's weapon.
"You look like shit," he says, which isn't what you expected.
"Thanks. Everyone keeps telling me that."
His mouth twitches—not quite a smile, but close. "Steve looks worse, if it helps."
"It does, actually."
This time he does almost smile, just a flash before his face settles back into its usual brooding. He unwraps his hands slowly, methodically, like he's buying time to figure out what to say. The motion is practiced, automatic—muscle memory that belongs to James Barnes, not the Winter Soldier. You wonder how many things like that he's had to relearn. How many small, human gestures he's had to excavate from under decades of conditioning.
"This is..." He stops. Runs a hand through his hair, leaving it sticking up at odd angles. The gesture is so remarkably normal it makes your chest tight. "I don't usually do this. The talking thing. That's more—" A pause, like he's trying to remember who handles these things now, in this new life where he has friends instead of handlers. "That's not really my thing."
"Then why—"
"Because Steve's an idiot," he says bluntly. "And someone needs to explain why he's being an idiot, and apparently that someone is me." He tosses you a pair of wraps. "You know how to use these?"
"I'm on medical leave."
"Not asking you to fight. Just asking if you know how to wrap your hands. Gives you something to do while I..." He makes a vague gesture that somehow encompasses the awkwardness of the entire situation.
You do know how to wrap your hands. The familiar ritual of it—loop around the wrist, between the fingers, across the knuckles—gives your body something to focus on besides the constant ache under your ribs where the bond lives. He watches you do it, noting the slight tremor in your fingers that hasn't gone away since Brussels.
"He ever tell you about Peggy?" Barnes asks suddenly, like ripping off a bandaid.
You pause, stomach twisting into something complicated. "No."
"Course not." He leans against the ropes, and for a moment looks older than whatever age he's supposed to be. "From what I remember—and my memory's not exactly..." He taps his temple with his metal finger, the soft whir of recalibrating plates filling the silence. "But from what I remember, and what I've been able to piece together since, he loved her. Real love, not just wartime desperation. Had her picture in his compass, carried it everywhere. Used to moon over her like she hung the goddamn stars."
Your chest tightens, ribs suddenly too small for your lungs. You focus on wrapping your hands, but the fabric keeps slipping because your palms have gone sweaty.
"But he knew they weren’t soulmates."
"Yeah. And it didn't matter to him. He chose her anyway." Barnes's jaw ticks, and you can see him working through memories that might be his or might be stories he's been told—the confusion of it flickers across his face. "I was already gone when he went into the ice. But from what I've learned, when he woke up, she'd lived a whole life without him. Found her actual soulmate. Got married. Had kids. The whole American dream he thought he was fighting for."
The words land like stones in your chest, each one heavier than the last.
Steve chose Peggy. Chose her without destiny, without the universe's intervention, without biological imperatives. Just looked at her and decided she was worth defying fate for.
And you?
You're just what the universe assigned him. The consolation prize. The participation trophy for surviving into a century he never wanted to see.
Your hands still on the wraps. "That's not—she couldn't have known he'd survive—"
"Doesn't matter. Logic doesn't factor into it." His metal hand flexes, a nervous tic you've noticed before. "I think—and look, this is just my theory, thrown together from bits and pieces—but I think Steve maybe saw it as proof. That the universe was right all along. That choosing her was just him being stubborn, going against what was meant to be."
The words settle heavy in your stomach like you've swallowed cement. "So when he found out I was his soulmate..."
"Proof he's supposed to be here. In this century he's never felt like he belongs in." Barnes's voice goes quiet, almost careful. You can see him choosing his words, this man who's spent two months relearning how to have opinions. "Look, I've only been... back... for a couple months. I'm still figuring out who Steve is now versus who he was then. Half my memories of him are probably more fantasy than fact at this point. But from what I can see, if he accepts you, then he has to accept that this is where he's meant to be. That this is home."
"And he doesn't want that."
"He wants it so much it terrifies him."
Barnes moves to the speed bag, starts a rhythm that's almost meditative. His metal arm moves differently than the flesh one—more precise, less natural, like he's still learning to inhabit it.
"When they brought me in, when I was still more Winter Soldier than anything else, my soulmate—she didn't give me a choice." The rhythm falters for a moment. "Just kept showing up. Kept touching me even when I tried to—" He stops. Restarts. The sound fills the gym like a heartbeat. "Even when I was dangerous. Even when I couldn't remember her name five minutes after she said it."
You know this story, or pieces of it. Everyone at SHIELD does. But the way he tells it—halting, like he's still surprised by it—makes it feel different. Raw. Like he still can't quite believe someone chose to love him through the worst of it.
"I could have killed her. Almost did, more than once those first few weeks. But she kept coming back." The speed bag stills. His hands drop to his sides, and for a moment he looks lost, like he's forgotten what to do with them when they're not fighting. "I didn't get to push her away. Didn't get to decide I was too broken or too dangerous. She made that choice for both of us."
"And it worked out."
"Yeah." His voice does something strange here—goes soft in a way you didn't think it could. Like even after decades of violence, there's still something in him capable of gentleness. "Yeah, it did. But Steve—Steve's got this idea that he's protecting you. From disappointment. From loss. From him."
"That's not his choice to make."
"No. It's not." Barnes looks at you directly, and there's something almost sympathetic in his expression. "But he's gonna make it anyway unless someone stops him. And I'm too fucked up myself to be giving relationship advice, but—"
The gym door opens, cutting him off, and Barnes's entire demeanor changes instantly. It's like watching winter thaw in fast-forward—his shoulders drop, his face loses that careful blankness, even his breathing seems to ease. You turn to see a young woman entering, all bright eyes and gentle energy that seems to fill the space with warmth.
"Hey," she says, and Barnes is already moving toward her like she's got her own gravitational pull, like his body just naturally orbits hers. "You ready to go?"
"Yeah, doll. Just—" He gestures vaguely at you, and she turns that warm attention your way.
"Oh! You must be the one Nat mentioned." She extends her hand, and her smile is so genuine it makes your chest hurt. There's something knowing in her eyes, something that says she understands what it's like to love someone who thinks they're unlovable. "I've heard about you."
"Hopefully not all bad."
"Never." She squeezes your hand gently before releasing it. "How are you holding up?"
The question is so earnest, so carefully kind, that you almost start crying right there in the gym. Your throat goes tight, eyes burning with tears you refuse to shed.
"I'm—" You stop, unable to lie to this person who radiates the kind of empathy that makes dishonesty impossible. "Managing."
She nods like she understands, and somehow you think she does. Then she turns back to Barnes, and it's like watching a completely different person emerge. He leans into her space without seeming to realize it, his hand finding the small of her back with the kind of casual intimacy that speaks of constant touch, constant contact. The metal hand, you notice. The one that's caused so much damage. She doesn't flinch from it.
"You eat today?" she asks him quietly, reaching up to brush his hair back from his face. The gesture is so tender it makes your chest ache.
"Yeah, sweetheart." His voice is impossibly soft, private.
"What did you eat?"
A pause. His mouth quirks slightly—a ghost of whoever James Barnes was before the war, before the fall, before everything. "You."
She smacks his chest. "That doesn't count as food, James."
"Seemed pretty filling to me."
"Oh my god." She turns to you, cheeks pink but biting back a smile. "Six decades as an international assassin and he thinks he's a comedian now."
"I'm hilarious," Barnes says, completely deadpan, but his hand is rubbing small circles on her back, and the look she gives him—fond and exasperated and completely besotted—makes something crack in your chest.
Because this is what choosing looks like. This is what wanting looks like when it's not forced by biology or destiny or the universe's sick sense of humor.
Steve chose Peggy like this. Without destiny. Without force. Just looked at her and knew she was worth everything.
And you? You're just the assignment. The universe's way of telling him he can't go home. The anchor keeping him in a century he never asked for.
Your hands curl into fists inside the wraps, nails digging into your palms hard enough to hurt.
"We're gonna grab dinner," Barnes's soulmate says to you, still tucked against his side like she belongs there. "Real food," she adds with a pointed look at him. "You should come."
"I—no, thank you. I should—" You gesture vaguely at nothing, at the door, at escape.
"Think about what I said," Barnes interjects, not unkindly. His eyes are serious, understanding in a way that makes you want to run. "And..." He pauses, seems to wrestle with something. "Steve's an idiot. But he's an idiot who's been looking at you like you hung the moon since before Brussels. That's not the bond. That's just him."
They leave together, her hand in his, talking quietly about dinner plans and everyday things. You watch them go, Barnes letting her guide him toward something as simple as a meal, and the comparison burns in your throat like acid.
He never pushed her away. Even when he was dangerous, even when he was broken, even when he couldn't remember her name. He let her choose him.
But Steve? Steve took one look at the bond between you and ran.
Because with Peggy, he had a choice. He chose to love her.
With you, he doesn't. You're just what he's stuck with.
Your phone buzzes. A text from an unknown number.
He has a mission briefing tomorrow at 0900. Conference room C. Just saying.
You delete the text, but the information burns in your brain.
Maybe it's time to stop letting Steve Rogers make all the choices.
Even if you're just the consolation prize.
Even if you'll never be Peggy Carter.
Maybe especially then.
Conference Room C is empty.
You stand in the doorway like an idiot, staring at the polished table and empty chairs, at the blank whiteboard that mocks you with its pristine surface. The digital clock on the wall reads 09:07. You've been lurking in the hallway since 08:45, watching people filter in and out of different rooms, none of them Steve.
Of course.
Of course Natasha's intel was wrong, or maybe it was right and he changed locations when he realized you might—
Fuck this.
Fuck all of this.
The anger that's been simmering for weeks boils over, hot and sudden.
You're done.
Done waiting, done hoping, done letting Steve Rogers dictate the terms of your existence with his absence. Your hands shake as you turn to leave, the bond aching with fresh disappointment, and you're so focused on not crying that you don't hear the footsteps until—
A hand wraps around your elbow.
Even through the fabric of your shirt, you know it's him. Your body recognizes his touch like a key in a lock, every nerve ending suddenly alive, suddenly screaming. You're yanked sideways—not roughly, but with desperate efficiency—into a supply closet that smells like printer toner and industrial cleaner.
The door clicks shut, and you're plunged into darkness cut only by the thin strip of light under the door.
Your eyes adjust slowly, and when they do—
Jesus Christ.
Steve looks destroyed.
No, destroyed doesn't cover it.
He looks like someone reached inside him and hollowed him out with a rusted spoon. His uniform is torn—actually torn, with what looks suspiciously like blood staining the blue fabric black. There's a cut on his cheekbone that's already healing, but slowly, like even his enhanced body is too exhausted to properly function. His hair is matted with ash and something darker. His eyes are wild, pupils blown wide in the darkness, and he's breathing like he can't get enough air, like his lungs have forgotten how to work properly.
"Steve?" Your voice comes out tentative, barely a whisper.
He makes a sound—broken, animal, completely unintelligible. His hand is still on your elbow, grip tight enough that it should hurt but doesn't, and you can feel him trembling. Not just his hand. All of him. Vibrating with something that looks like shock but feels like barely contained devastation.
For a moment, you just stare at each other in the dim light. His chest heaves with each breath, and you can smell the mission on him—gunpowder and smoke and something else, something that makes your stomach turn. Death. He smells like death.
"Steve, what—"
He breaks.
With a deep, shuddering breath that sounds like it's being torn from the very center of him, Steve pulls you against him. It's not gentle. It's desperate, consuming, like a drowning man finding solid ground. One hand tangles in your hair, fingers twisting in the strands hard enough to make your scalp sing with that perfect edge of pain-pleasure. The other arm bands around your waist, and then—
His hand slides up under your shirt, fingers splaying wide against the bare skin of your back, and you both gasp.
The bond roars to life.
It's not the gentle warmth you'd imagined soulbonds to feel like. It's a flood, a tidal wave, every point of contact sending liquid heat through your veins like you're mainlining pure sensation. Your knees buckle, but he's got you, holding you up with desperate strength as he buries his face in the crook of your shoulder.
The noise he makes then—God, you'll hear it forever. Half sob, half relief, muffled against your neck as he breathes you in like you're the only thing keeping him tethered to earth. His body curves around yours, too tall, too broad, trying to eliminate every millimeter of space between you.
"Had to—" His voice is wrecked, barely recognizable, words pressed hot against your throat. "Had to find you. Couldn't—fuck, I couldn't breathe—"
His hand on your back moves restlessly, seeking more skin, and when his fingertips brush the edge of your bra, you shiver so hard he groans. The sound vibrates through your chest where you're pressed together, and you can feel his control fracturing, feel the way his hands shake with the effort of not taking more.
But he does take more.
His hand in your hair tightens, tilts your head back to expose your throat, and his mouth presses to your pulse point—not kissing, just resting there, feeling your heartbeat against his lips. The hand under your shirt spreads wider, slides higher, until his thumb brushes your ribs and you make a sound you've never made before.
"The mission," he says against your skin, and you feel more than hear it. "There was—Christ, there was this couple. Shopping for groceries when the building came down."
His whole body shudders, and he presses closer, pins you against the door with his weight like he needs the contact to stay upright. You can feel every line of him through the torn uniform—the hard planes of his chest, the way his stomach muscles clench with each ragged breath, the thick press of his thighs against yours.
"She died instantly." The words come out broken, wet. "But he—he lived long enough to feel the bond break. Have you ever—" His voice cracks. "I've never heard anyone scream like that. Like his soul was being ripped out through his chest."
"Steve—"
"All I could think about was you." His confession comes with another full-body shudder, and suddenly his mouth is moving against your throat, not kissing but talking, like he needs the contact to get the words out. "What it would feel like if—if I lost you before I ever—"
He pulls back just enough to look at you, and his eyes are wet, devastated, completely without walls. "I can't lose you. I can't. I'll die. I'll actually fucking die."
"You won't lose me," you breathe, but he's already shaking his head, already pulling you impossibly closer.
"You don't understand." His hand slides from your hair to cup your jaw, thumb brushing across your cheekbone with reverent desperation. "The bond—it's not—for normal people it's intense, but for me—" He makes a sound like he's in physical pain. "The serum amplifies everything. Every sensation, every emotion, every—"
He cuts himself off by pressing his forehead to yours, and you can feel him trembling with the effort of holding back.
"Steve."
"I need—" His hand at your back shifts, slides around to span your ribs, thumb brushing the underside of your breast through your bra, and you both freeze. The touch is electric, sends sparks racing down your spine, pooling low in your belly. "Fuck, I need to touch you. Need to—please. Please, just let me—"
"Yeah." The word comes out embarrassingly breathy, but you don't care because his hands are already moving, already taking.
He spins you suddenly, presses your back against the door, and then his hands are everywhere. One slides up to cradle your throat—not squeezing, just holding, feeling your pulse flutter against his palm. The other pushes your shirt up, fingertips tracing your ribs like he's memorizing you through touch alone.
"So soft," he murmurs, and it sounds like prayer. "How are you so fucking soft?"
His thumb finds the hollow of your throat, presses gently, and your head falls back against the door. He makes a sound like you've killed him, and then his mouth is on your neck, open and hot and desperate. Still not kissing exactly—more like tasting, like he needs to experience you with every sense.
Your hands come up to clutch at his shoulders, and he crowds closer, presses you harder against the door. His thigh slides between yours, and the pressure makes you gasp, makes your hips cant forward involuntarily.
"That's it," he breathes against your throat. "Let me feel you. Let me—"
His hand at your throat slides down, palms the curve of your breast through your bra, and the sound you make is embarrassing and needy and you don't care because he echoes it, his hips pressing forward to pin you completely.
"Been dying," he confesses against your collarbone, words muffled by skin and want. "Every day, dying by inches. Watching you walk past, smelling your shampoo in the hallways, hearing your laugh and knowing I couldn't—"
"You could have." Your hands find his hair, tangle in the sweat-damp strands, and he groans. "This whole time, you could have—"
"No." He pulls back to look at you, and his pupils are blown so wide there's barely any blue left. "Would've destroyed you. Consumed you. The bond, the way I need you—it's not normal. It's not healthy."
"I don't care."
"You should." But even as he says it, his hand is sliding up your ribs again, fingertips tracing patterns that make you shiver. "You should be terrified of how much I want you. How much I need to—"
He cuts himself off, jaw clenching, but his body betrays him. His hips press forward, and you can feel him hard against your hip, can feel the way he's shaking with want.
"Show me," you breathe, and he makes a sound like you've shot him.
"You don't know what you're asking."
"Then show me."
His control snaps like a rubber band stretched past its limit.
His mouth finds yours with the kind of desperation that makes your knees buckle, and it's nothing like you imagined during those long, empty nights. Nothing soft or careful or sweet. This is drowning. This is Steve Rogers trying to climb inside your skin through your mouth, one hand fisted in your hair to angle your head exactly how he needs it, the other pressed flat between your shoulder blades like he's trying to fuse your chest to his.
His tongue slides against yours, hot and demanding, and you taste copper—blood from where he's bitten his lip raw—mixed with something that's just fundamentally him. Something that makes your brain short-circuit, makes you grab at his shoulders just to stay upright. The bond roars to life under your skin, weeks of rejection suddenly reversed, and the whimper that escapes you would be embarrassing if you could think past the electricity racing through your veins.
"Fuck," he breathes against your mouth, not really pulling back, just speaking the word into you like he needs you to swallow it. His teeth catch your bottom lip, tug just hard enough to make you gasp, and he uses the opportunity to lick deeper into your mouth, thorough and filthy and completely at odds with Captain America's public persona.
Your back hits the door harder as he presses closer, and you can feel how affected he is—the way his chest heaves against yours, the tremor in his hands, the hard length of him pressed against your hip. It's overwhelming and not enough, too much and not nearly—
"Perfect," he growls, breaking away just long enough to trail his mouth down your jaw, teeth scraping in a way that's definitely going to leave marks. "You're so fucking perfect. Do you have any idea—" His hand slides under your shirt, fingertips tracing your ribs like he's mapping you for memory, "—what you do to me? How many meetings I've had to leave because you walked by and I could smell you?"
"Steve." Your voice comes out wrecked, barely recognizable. Your hands are in his hair now, tugging probably too hard, but he groans like you've given him a gift.
"I know, sweetheart. I know." His mouth finds your pulse point and sucks, and your vision whites out for a second. "I've got you. Let me—just let me—"
His hands shift with purpose now, one sliding down to grip your hip hard enough to bruise, the other pushing your shirt up, up, until cool air hits your stomach. And then—Jesus Christ—he's dropping to his knees with a fluidity that shouldn't be possible for someone his size, pressing his mouth to the skin above your waistband like communion.
You look down and nearly combust. Captain America—Steve—on his knees in a supply closet, eyes closed like he's praying, pressing open-mouthed kisses to your stomach that are somehow both worshipful and obscene. His tongue traces the line where your pants sit low on your hips, and your hands fly to his shoulders because your legs have forgotten how to work.
"Should've been doing this for months," he murmurs against your hipbone, and you feel the words more than hear them, vibrating through skin and muscle and straight to your core. "Should've been worshipping you. Should've—" His voice cracks, and suddenly his arms are banded around your waist, his forehead pressed to your stomach like he's hiding. "That man today, when his bond broke—the sound he made—"
"Steve." You card your fingers through his hair, gentle this time, trying to soothe whatever demon is riding him. He shudders against you, full-body, and presses closer.
"I can't lose you." The words come out muffled by your skin, but the desperation in them is crystal clear. "I can't. I won't survive it."
"You won't lose me."
It's probably a lie. You're both in a dangerous line of work. People die. Bonds break. But right now, with him on his knees looking like you're the answer to every prayer he's never let himself voice, you'd promise him anything.
"Promise." His hands tighten on your waist, and when he looks up at you, his eyes are wild, desperate, nothing like the composed soldier the world knows. "Promise me."
"I promise."
He surges up and kisses you again, different this time. Still desperate but searching, like he's trying to memorize you—the shape of your mouth, the sound you make when his tongue slides against yours, the way you shake when his thumb brushes the underside of your breast through your bra. It's overwhelming in a different way, intensity without hurry, and you're dizzy with it, drunk on the sensation of being wanted this badly by someone who's spent months pretending you don't exist.
When he finally pulls back, you're both wrecked. His lips are swollen, slick, and his pupils are blown so wide there's barely any blue left. You probably look worse—you can feel your hair sticking to your face with sweat, your mouth tender and used.
"I'm sorry," he whispers, thumbs stroking your cheekbones with a gentleness that makes your chest ache. "For Brussels. For after. For being such a fucking coward."
"I know." You do. It doesn't fix anything, not yet, but you know.
"I'll make it up to you." His thumb traces your lower lip, and you can't help the way your tongue darts out to taste it, salt and skin and Steve. His breath hitches. "However long it takes."
"You can start now." It comes out more breathless than the sultry suggestion you were aiming for, but something about your desperation makes his eyes go dark again.
He laughs, rough and ruined, and presses one more kiss to your mouth—this one soft, almost chaste, if not for the way his hand tightens possessively in your hair.
"Tonight," he says, and it sounds like a prayer. "Let me—let me shower, change, become human again. And then dinner. Real dinner. Where I pick you up and we go somewhere and I don't run when the bond makes me feel everything."
"And if you run?" You're trying for threatening but it comes out vulnerable, scared. Because he's run before. He's so good at running.
His hand slides to your throat, not squeezing, just holding, thumb pressed to where your pulse hammers against your skin. "You have my full permission to hunt me down and make my life hell."
"I will." And you mean it. You're done being the one left behind, the one reaching for someone who's already gone.
"I'm counting on it."
He steps back, and the loss of contact hits like cold water. Your skin feels too tight, too sensitive, nerve endings firing confused signals—where is he, why isn't he touching us, bring him back. You can see him feeling it too, the way his hands clench and unclench at his sides, the way his body sways toward you like you've got your own gravitational pull.
"Tonight. Eight o'clock."
"Steve?"
"Yeah?"
"Next time you have a bad mission, come find me. Don't wait. Don't hide. Just—come find me."
Something in his expression cracks open, vulnerable and raw and so un-Captain America it makes your heart skip. "Yeah?"
"Yeah."
He kisses you one more time—quick, fierce, a brand, a promise—and then he's gone, leaving you slumped against the door on legs that feel like jello. Your mouth is swollen, your skin still burning everywhere he touched, and you're pretty sure you've soaked through your underwear, but the bond...
For the first time in months, the bond doesn't ache.
It purrs.
It fucking purrs.
Tonight. Eight o'clock.
You're going to need a very long shower. And possibly a new pair of pants.
And maybe—just maybe—you're going to get what the universe has been trying to give you all along.
Even if you're not Peggy Carter. Even if you're just the consolation prize.
Right now, with the taste of him still on your tongue and bruises already forming on your hips in the shape of his fingers, you can't bring yourself to care.
"Tell me about Peggy," you say, and it comes out embarrassingly breathy because Steve's just shifted his hips in a way that makes stars explode behind your eyelids.
"Fuck." His hands tighten on your hips, fingers digging into soft flesh with bruising intensity. The pressure sends heat pooling low in your belly, makes your inner muscles flutter around him. "Can we... not?"
It's not the most unreasonable request in the world. He's inside you, after all, thick and perfect and stretching you in ways that make coherent thought impossible. You're straddling him on the couch, and he's maneuvering you exactly how he wants—one hand gripping your hip hard enough to leave fingerprints, the other splayed possessively across your lower back, controlling your rhythm with casual strength that makes you dizzy. Like you weigh nothing. Like you're his to position and please and wreck completely.
"Bucky says—"
A growl rumbles through his chest at the name, vibrating through your body where you're joined. His hand slides from your back to your throat in one fluid motion. Just resting there, feeling your pulse race beneath his palm. A reminder. A warning.
"Another man's name?" His voice is dark, edged with something primal that makes your stomach flip. "While I'm inside you?"
You gasp as he lifts you slightly, changes the angle, and your thighs shake with the effort of holding yourself up. "S-says she's the reason you stopped believing in soulmates."
Steve goes still. Not completely—he's still buried deep, still hard, still breathing like he's barely holding onto control—but his hands stop their restless movement, and his eyes snap to yours with something like exasperation mixed with disbelief.
"Are we really doing this?" His thumb presses against your pulse point, and you feel your heartbeat stutter. "You want to talk about someone else while I'm trying to fuck you through this couch?"
"I just—oh god—" Your train of thought derails as he rolls his hips up, deliberate and punishing, hitting that spot that makes your vision white out.
"What you need," he says, voice dropping to that Captain-giving-orders tone that should not work in this context but absolutely does, "is to stop overthinking and let me take care of you."
One hand slides up your spine to tangle in your hair, tugging just hard enough to make your neck arch, exposing your throat to his mouth. The other grips your hip, holding you still as he rolls his hips again, controlled and devastating.
"She wasn't my soulmate." The words are pressed hot against your throat between open-mouthed kisses that feel more like claims. "Loved her, yes. A long time ago. Thought I'd marry her if I survived the war. But she wasn't mine."
His teeth graze your collarbone, and your whole body shudders, nerve endings singing. The bond between you pulses with each heartbeat, amplifying every sensation until you can't tell if the pleasure is yours or his or some perfect fusion of both.
"Not the way you are." His hand in your hair tightens, forces you to meet his eyes. They're blown dark, barely any blue remaining. "Not even close to the way you are."
"But—"
"Sweetheart." He stops moving entirely, and you make a sound of protest that would mortify you if you could think past the need coiling tight in your belly. "Listen very carefully, because I'm only saying this once."
His hand leaves your throat to frame your face, thumb stroking across your cheekbone with gentleness that contrasts sharply with the possessive grip in your hair.
"She chose someone else. Her actual soulmate. And yeah, it messed me up. Made me think the universe was laughing at me." His hips flex slightly, involuntarily, and you both gasp. "But you know what I realized?"
"What?" The word comes out wrecked, barely audible.
"The universe wasn't wrong. I was." He releases your hair only to grip the back of your neck, holding you steady as he starts to move again, slow and deep and deliberate and exquisite. "I wasn't meant for that time. If she'd been my soulmate, I'd have stayed in the forties. Lived a quiet life. Had the house and the kids and the picket fence."
"That sounds—"
"Like everything I thought I wanted," he agrees, punctuating the words with a particularly deep thrust that has you seeing stars. "Until I woke up here. Until you walked into that briefing room two years ago, looking so goddamn competent and untouchable, and my body knew you were mine before my brain could catch up."
Your nails dig into his shoulders as he picks up the pace, and you feel his pleasure spike through the bond, mixing with yours until you can't separate them.
"I fought belonging here for so long," he continues, voice getting rougher, more breathless. "But you—Christ, you make me want to stay. Make me grateful the ice gave me you instead of her."
"Steve—"
"That’s it, sweetheart. No more names but mine," he commands, and then he's kissing you, deep and claiming and filthy. His tongue slides against yours, and you taste desperation and possession and something that feels dangerously close to devotion. When he pulls back, you're both panting. "And I want to keep hearing it. Preferably screamed."
You nod, words beyond you, and something dark and satisfied flashes across his face.
"Good girl."
The praise shoots straight through you, makes your cunt clench around him. He groans, forehead dropping to your shoulder, and his control finally, blessedly shatters.
He fucks up into you with purpose now, each thrust deliberate and devastating. His hands are everywhere—gripping your hips, sliding up your ribs, palming your breasts with possessive familiarity. Every touch feels magnified, the soul bond amplifying sensation until you're drowning in it. You can feel his pleasure mixing with yours, feeding back on itself in an endless loop that has you both gasping, clutching at each other like you might dissolve without the anchor of skin on skin.
"This is what I think about," he confesses against your throat, words punctuated by the snap of his hips. "Not the past. Not her. You. Always you. How you feel around me, how you taste, the sounds you make when you're close."
Your nails rake down his back hard enough to leave marks, and he hisses, the pain-pleasure bleeding through the bond making you both groan.
"The serum," he pants, rhythm getting erratic. "Fuck, the goddamn serum makes everything more intense. Every touch, every—I can feel you everywhere. In my blood, in my bones. Under my skin where I couldn't get you out even if I wanted to."
"Don't want you to," you manage, chasing your release, that coil in your belly wound so tight you might shatter.
"Never." It's a vow pressed into your skin with teeth and tongue. "Never letting you go. Mine. My soulmate, my—fuck, I'm close—"
His hand slides between your bodies, thumb finding your clit with unerring accuracy, and you're gone. The orgasm crashes over you like a tidal wave, pleasure so intense it borders on transcendent. You do scream his name, just like he wanted, and he follows you over, your name on his lips like a prayer, his hands holding you against him like you might evaporate if he loosens his grip.
You collapse against his chest, both of you panting, sweat-slick and trembling. The bond hums between you, satisfied and warm, and for the first time in months, you feel whole.
"So," you say once you can form words again, unable to help yourself, "just to be clear—"
He flips you suddenly, pressing your back into the couch cushions, and the predatory look in his eyes makes your breath catch. He's still hard, still inside you, and when he rolls his hips experimentally, you both groan.
"You want clarity?" His voice is dark, promising. He hitches your leg higher around his waist, slides deeper, and your head falls back. "Let me be very, very clear."
He pulls almost all the way out, then slides back in with devastating slowness, making you feel every inch.
"You are the only person I think about," he says, setting a rhythm that's slow and deep and intentional. "The only person I want. The only person who's ever made me grateful to be exactly where I am, when I am."
His hand slides up your thigh, grips behind your knee to open you wider, and the new angle has you gasping, clutching at his shoulders.
"The past is the past," he continues, voice steady despite the way his control is visibly fraying, tendons standing out in his neck. "And I plan to spend my future making up for lost time. Starting now."
"Steve—"
"That's it," he praises when you say his name, and rewards you with a particularly deep thrust that has your back arching off the couch. "Just like that. Let me show you exactly how not hung up on the past I am."
And he does.
Thoroughly.
By the time he's finally satisfied you understand, you've forgotten not just her name, but your own. The only thing that exists is him, the bond between you singing with contentment, and the absolute certainty that the universe knew exactly what it was doing.
Even if it took Steve Rogers seven decades to appreciate the gift.
Summary: You and Bucky broke up. But you were still the love of his life.
Warnings: Violence. Blood, death. angst.
Word Count: 667
Divider by @cafekitsune
It wasn’t supposed to be you. He had his back turned. He never does that. He knows better than that. He didn’t hear the crunch of boots in the snow. Or the slice of a blade moving in the air. Not until it was too late.
Bucky turned around just as the blade plunged through your stomach. You grunted at the force and your eyes shot open in pain. Just as quickly as the blade was pulled out of you, the Hydra soldier in front of you was down on the ground. Two gunshots through his forehead. None of that mattered as you fell to the ground, clutching at your abdomen.
Bucky fell to his knees immediately next to you. He stripped himself of his tactical vest and took his top layer off to press against the wound in your stomach. It was too big and you were losing too much blood too fast. Way too fast. You stared at Bucky with wide eyes. Hands quickly covered in your blood, Bucky looked back at you.
“Why would you do that sweet girl? Why?” he asked desperately, quietly.
Along the way, the team had taken care of the rest of the Hydra soldiers. The final base was secured, and when they came together for a quick celebration, they were immediately halted. They stood a few feet away giving the two of you space. None of them were strangers to battle. They knew what was happening.
“What is wrong with you?! Get over here and help her! Stark! Do something!” Bucky shouts, looking at them over his shoulder. Steve takes a step forward, but stops when Natasha grabs his hand. She shakes her head softly and Steve can’t stop the tears that burn his eyes.
You give Bucky’s hand a squeeze which makes him look at you. With a shakiness, you did your bed to smile at him.
“Hey you,” you say, with a crack in your voice. “Need you to look at me Buck,” you add, and he quickly shakes his head. He goes back to applying pressure to your wound which makes you groan.
“Uh uh. Not today y/n. You are not gonna die on me. Not like this. Gonna get you on the jet and Banner can fix this. Banner!” Bucky screams this time but tears run down his face. Using whatever you have left you lift your hand to cup Bucky’s face. The blood stains his skin, but he rubs it in your palm anyway. “You can’t leave me y/n. I need you,” he pleads, desperate.
Deep blue eyes shake with the weight of tears and guilt. The cold has tinged his cheeks a shade of pink. You smile once again,
“Not your fault Buck. I love you. Always gonna be my Buck,” you grit out. Everything hurt. You didn’t know how you knew, but you could tell you were running out of time. Tremors begin to rack your back and you gently squeezed Bucky’s cheek.
“No, no, no. I need you to stay y/n. Need you to stay with me, baby. Please don’t go,” Bucky pleads, but this time not at you. Whatever god could be listening, he pleaded for them. Begged them not to take the love of his life. You two were supposed to have forever together. He knows you would’ve figured things out.
“I love you,” was the last thing you managed. Your eyes left Bucky’s to look at the sky one more time. A sky that began to release snow from the heavens. It was a beautiful scene. The way your weak breaths created small puffs of air in front of your eyes. The scarlet color of your blood that stained the pure white snow. With one last weak squeeze, you were gone. Your shaking stopped. One last puff of air.
The scream that pierced the silence shook the bones of everyone around. The sound would haunt the team forever.
English isn't my first language so please, don't be too rude or I'll cry.
Note This is angst. I mean, there might be just a tiny bit of fluff in here but it's mostly angst and sadness around and yeah, that. if you know the song, you might know what this is about. There is a mention about death, so yeah, be aware.
The autumn of 1936 was the kind of season that made Brooklyn feel like a promise.
Bucky Barnes was nineteen years old, which meant he was old enough to know better and young enough to ignore it entirely. He had a steady job at the docks, a reputation that followed him down every street in Bay Ridge, and a circle of friends who would've followed him into a fire if he'd asked.
But the only person he wanted to follow anywhere was you.
You, who lived three blocks over and had been his partner-in-crime since he was seven years old and you'd punched Lance Baizen in the nose for calling Bucky a tiny crying baby. You, who showed up at his fire escape at all hours with a stolen pie or a new record or just the weight of whatever was sitting heavy on your chest that day. You, who laughed with your whole body, who knew how to hold a cigarette like a film star, who looked at Bucky like he was something worth looking at.
He'd been in love with you for three years.
He hadn't told a soul.
Not Steve, who would've looked at him with those too-sharp eyes and said something maddeningly perceptive like "So tell her, then." Not his sisters, who would've squealed and plotted and made it into a production because they loved you that much. Not even you, when you'd fallen asleep on his shoulder during a double feature at the cheap cinema theater, your breath warm against his neck and your fingers loosely curled around his sleeve.
He should have kissed you then.
He remembered everything about that night. The scratch of the wool seats. The flicker of the projector. The way your eyelashes cast tiny shadows on your cheeks. He'd sat there, frozen, heart pounding so loud he was sure the whole theater could hear it, and he'd thought, This is it. This is the moment.
And then the film had ended, and you'd woken up, and you'd stretched and smiled at him like nothing had happened, and he'd smiled back like nothing had happened, and nothing had happened.
Nothing ever happened.
Because you were his best friend. Because you were the person he couldn't imagine living without. Because if he kissed you and you didn't want it, if he told you and you didn't feel the same, he wouldn't just lose a potential girlfriend. He'd lose you.
And Bucky Barnes had lost enough in his short life to know that some things weren't worth the risk.
So he didn't kiss you.
He took you to Coney Island instead a couple of times, watched you shriek on the Cyclone, won you a stuffed bear you named after his two named, that sat on your dresser for years. He walked you home in the rain, held his jacket over both your heads, let you steal sips from his flask. He tucked a strand of hair behind your ear once, slow and careful, and you'd looked at him with something unreadable in your eyes.
“You're staring, Barnes,” you'd said, but your voice was soft.
“You're worth staring at,” he'd replied, and that was true too.
But it wasn't an invitation. It wasn't a confession. It was just another almost, another nearly, another moment that slipped through his fingers like smoke.
The winter of 1941 was cold enough to freeze the East River solid, or so the old men on the corner claimed. Bucky didn't know about that, but he knew his apartment was drafty, his mother was worried about rationing, and every time he looked at you these days, his chest ached like a bruise.
You were twenty-two now. He was twenty-four. You'd both grown up, in all the ways that mattered and some that didn't. You'd gotten a job at the telephone exchange. You'd dated a few boys— nice ones, mostly, the kind your mother and his mother would approve of— but none of them had stuck. You still showed up at his fire escape. You still fell asleep on his shoulder. You still looked at him like he was the only person in the room.
And Bucky still hadn't kissed you.
“You're an idiot,” Steve said one night, hunched over his sketchbook in Bucky's kitchen. The radio was playing something soft and sad. The window was fogged with steam from the kettle.
“I'm protecting our friendship,” Bucky said, which was the lie he told himself most often.
“You're just protecting yourself. You know you're being a coward.”
“Watch it, Rogers. I can easily throw you out the window.”
Steve didn't look up from his drawing. “You've been in love with her since we were almost sixteen. She's been in love with you since she was twelve. Everyone knows this except the two of you, and at this point, I'm starting to think it's intentional.”
Bucky's heart stuttered. “She's not—she doesn't "love" me, Steve, you're being an idiot.”
“She looks at you like you hung the moon, Buck. She remembers everything you've ever told her. She made you a birthday cake last year from scratch, and you know she can't cook to save her life. She burned her hand on the oven and didn't even mention it because she wanted you to have a nice birthday.” Steve finally looked up, and his expression was softened by something that might have been pity. “What are you so afraid of?”
Losing her, Bucky thought. I'm afraid of losing her, and I'm afraid of living without her, and I'm afraid that if I say it out loud, it'll become real, and then I'll have to actually do something about it, and I don't know if I'm brave enough for that.
“Nothing,” he said. “I'm not afraid of anything.”
Steve snorted. “Liar.”
You came over the next night. It was Friday, which meant you'd bring Chinese food from the place on 4th Avenue and Bucky would complain about the price and you'd eat it anyway, sitting cross-legged on his floor with the cartons spread out between you like offerings.
You looked tired. There were shadows under your eyes, and your usual bright energy was dimmed to something softer, something quieter.
“Bad day?” he asked, handing you a pair of chopsticks.
You shrugged, picking at your noodles. “Just long. Mrs. Feldman called nine times to complain about her bill. I think she's lonely. Her husband died last spring, you know.”
“Yeah,” Bucky said quietly. “I remember.”
There was a pause. The radiator clanked. Somewhere outside, a car backfired.
“Bucky,” you said, and your voice was strange. Fragile in a way he'd never heard before.
“Yeah?”
You looked at him. Really looked. Your eyes felt like the sky just before a storm, and right now, they were full of something he couldn't name.
“Have you ever wondered...” you started, then stopped. Shook your head. “Never mind.”
“What?”
“Nothing. It's stupid.”
“Since when do you get to decide what's stupid? Nothing you say it's stupid. Ever.” He set down his chopsticks, turning to face you fully. “Tell me.”
You bit your lip. It was a nervous habit you'd had since childhood, and Bucky had always found it devastating. “Have you ever wondered what it would be like,” you said slowly, “if things were different?”
“Different how?”
“I don't know.” You laughed, but it came out wrong. Hollow. “If we weren't us. If you weren't my best friend and I wasn't yours. If we were just two people who met somewhere, anywhere else. Would it be easier, do you think? To say the things we don't say?”
Bucky's heart was a fist in his chest, pounding against his ribs like it was trying to escape.
“What things?” he asked, and his voice came out rougher than he intended.
You stared at him for a long moment. The air between you felt electric, charged with something that had been building for years, decades, a lifetime.
Then the moment passed.
You looked away, reaching for your carton again. “Nothing,” you said, and your smile was back in place, bright and false. “Forget I said anything. This sesame chicken is getting cold.”
Bucky wanted to reach across the space between you. He wanted to take your face in his hands and make you look at him again. He wanted to kiss you, finally, after all these years of wanting, and find out what it would feel like to stop pretending.
But you were eating your noodles, and the moment was gone, and he was a coward.
So he didn't.
-
The war came like a thief in the night, stealing everything that mattered before anyone had a chance to say goodbye.
Bucky enlisted because it was the right thing to do, because Steve had already tried and been rejected, because the news from Europe got worse every day and he couldn't sit still in Brooklyn while the world burned. He told himself it was patriotism. He told himself it was duty.
But when he knocked on your door that last night, in his brand-new uniform with his duffel bag slung over his shoulder, he knew the truth.
He was running.
Not from the war but from you. From the weight of everything he'd never said. From the unbearable pressure of wanting and wanting and never taking. He thought distance would make it easier. He thought if he couldn't see you, couldn't smell your perfume on his jacket, couldn't hear your laugh echoing through his apartment, maybe the ache would fade.
He was wrong, of course. But he wouldn't figure that out for another eighty years.
“Don't go,” you said, and you were crying. You never cried. You'd punched Lance Baizen. You'd held Bucky's hair back when he'd gotten sick off cheap whiskey at sixteen. You'd stared down your father when he'd called you a disappointment and hadn't flinched.
But you were crying now, tears tracking down your cheeks, and Bucky wanted to die.
“I have to,” he said, and his voice cracked. “You know I have to.”
“I know.” You wiped your face with the back of your hand. “I know, I just —” You stepped forward, grabbed the front of his uniform, and pulled. “Come back. Promise me you'll come back.”
“I'll come back,” he said, because it was the only thing he could say. “I always come back,”
“Don't you dare die over there, James Barnes. Don't you dare.”
“I won't, honey.” He gave you that infamous smile that was reserved for his special woman. You.
“You better not.” You were crying harder now, and he pulled you into his arms, held you so tight he could feel your heartbeat against his chest. You smelled like rain and coffee and something else, something that was just you, and Bucky closed his eyes and tried to memorize it.
Say it, he thought. Tell her now. Before it's too late.
But you were crying, and he was leaving, and it felt cruel somehow, selfish, to burden you with his feelings when you were already hurting. When you might not feel the same. When it might ruin everything.
So he didn't.
“I love you,” he said instead, and it was true — it was absolutely, devastatingly true — but it wasn't the whole truth. It wasn't the I'm in love with you that sat in his chest like a second heart.
“I love you too,” you said, because you always said it, because you'd been saying it since you were children, because it was safe and familiar and meant everything and nothing all at once.
Bucky kissed your forehead. Your hair. The corner of your mouth, almost, nearly, not quite.
Then he let you go, and he walked away, and he didn't look back.
He would regret that for the rest of his life.
The next four years were a blur of mud and blood and men screaming. Bucky lost pieces of himself in the snow of the Ardennes, in the rubble of Naples, in the face of a boy from Ohio who died with his eyes open, asking for his mother.
He wrote you letters. Dozens of them. Hundreds. He told you about the constellations he could see from the front lines, about the terrible food, about the Italian family who'd taken him in for a night and fed him real pasta. He told you about Steve, about the serum, about the impossible things he'd seen.
He never told you he loved you.
Not the way he meant it.
He wrote the words a hundred times, scratched them out, started over.
"Honey, I've been thinking...", "Honey, there's something I should have said...", "Honey, I promise that when I get home—"
He never finished the sentence.
Because what if he didn't get home? What if the letter was the last thing you ever heard from him, and it was full of words that would only make it hurt worse? What if he survived and came back and nothing had changed, and he'd put all that weight on your shoulders for nothing?
So he signed every letter the same way.
Yours, Bucky.
And if you read something else into it, if you held the paper a little longer than necessary, if you pressed it to your chest like a promise — well. That was between you and the silence.
-
He fell from the train in early 1945.
He didn't die — not really — but he might as well have.
Everything that made him James Buchanan Barnes — the boy who won you a stuffed bear, the man who walked you home in the rain, the fool who never kissed you when he had the chance — was stripped away, piece by piece, until there was nothing left but the Soldier.
Hydra did not want his memories. Hydra did not want his heart. Hydra wanted a weapon, and a weapon cannot love, cannot regret, cannot sit awake at night wondering what might have been.
So they took it all.
He forgot your name. He forgot your face. He forgot the sound of your laugh, the curve of your smile, the way you looked at him like he was the only person in the room.
He forgot that he'd ever been loved at all.
In Brooklyn, you waited.
For weeks. For months. For years.
You went to his funeral. There was no body, just a flag and a photograph and his family’s tears. You stood at the back of the church, dry-eyed, because you'd done all your crying in private, and you refused to let anyone see you fall apart.
Steve was gone too couple weeks later. They'd told you about the plane, about the ice, about the heroic sacrifice of Captain America. You'd sat in stunned silence for a very long time, trying to comprehend a world without both of them in it.
They were ghosts now. Both of them. And you were alone.
Not completely. You had Bucky's sisters, who held you like a sister themselves. You had your own family, your mother's worried phone calls, your father's gruff attempts at comfort. But the two people who had known you best — who had seen you at your worst and loved you anyway — were gone.
You didn't date for three years. You couldn't. Every man who looked at you reminded you of what you'd lost. Every hand that reached for yours felt wrong.
Then you met David.
David was a veteran too — he'd served in the Pacific, come home with a limp and a quiet sadness that matched your own. He wasn't handsome in the way Bucky had been. He didn't make your heart race. He didn't look at you like you hung the moon. But he loved you. He was kind. He was steady. He made you laugh, sometimes, and he never asked about the photograph you kept in your nightstand — the one of you and Bucky at Coney Island, his arm around your shoulders, both of you young and beautiful and so unbearably full of hope.
He didn't ask, and you didn't tell.
You married him in 1951. It was a small ceremony, just family and a few friends. You wore a white dress and carried peonies and smiled for the camera. You loved him — not the way you'd loved Bucky, not the consuming, devastating, world-ending way — but you loved him. Enough. In a different way. In a way that was safe. David wasn’t the love of your life.
In a way that didn't destroy you when you realized it wasn't enough.
You had three children. Charles, named for no one in particular, just because you liked the sound of it. Joseph, after David's father. And then, when you were thirty-seven and sure you were done, a surprise — a little girl with dark hair and bright blue eyes who looked nothing like you and everything like the ghost you'd never stopped carrying.
You named her Jane. It was the closest you could come to saying his name out loud without breaking.
David never asked why.
The decades passed.
You watched your children grow up, get married, have children of their own. You held your first grandchild in 1978, a squalling boy with his father's nose and his mother's temper, and you loved him with the fierce, protective love that only grandparents understand.
You lost David in 1985. Heart attack. Sudden. He was gone before the ambulance arrived.
You cried at his funeral, but your grief was different from what you'd felt in 1945. It was quieter. More resigned. You'd had almost thirty-seven years with him. You'd built a life. You'd done the best you could.
And still, sometimes, late at night, when the house was quiet and the moon was full, you thought about a fire escape and a rainstorm and a boy who kissed your forehead like it meant something.
You thought about all the words you'd never said.
You told yourself it didn't matter. You told yourself you'd made the right choice. You told yourself that if you'd said something, if you'd been brave, you might have had a few years — a few months — a few days — before the war took him anyway.
You told yourself a lot of things.
Some of them were even true.
-
In 1994, your granddaughter, Sarah, found the letters.
She was seventeen, curious, going through the boxes in your attic. You'd forgotten they were there — the letters Bucky had sent from overseas, tied with a ribbon, yellowed with age.
“Grandma,” Sarah said, coming downstairs with the box in her hands. “Who's Bucky?”
Your heart stopped.
For a moment — just a moment — you were twenty-five again, sitting on your bed with a letter in your hands, tracing the shape of his handwriting like it might bring him back.
“Nobody,” you said. “He was just a friend.”
Sarah looked at you with her mother’s eyes —his eyes— and you saw in her face the same sharp intuition that had always made you uncomfortable.
“You're lying,” she said. Not meanly. Just matter-of-fact. “You get this look when you lie. Grandpa used to say it was your tell.”
You laughed despite yourself. “Your grandpa said too much.”
“He also said you never loved him the way you loved someone else.” Sarah sat down on the couch, the box in her lap. “I always thought he was being dramatic. But now I'm wondering.”
You were quiet for a long time.
“He was from the neighborhood,” you said finally. “Bucky. We grew up together. He went to war. He didn't come back.”
“And you loved him.”
It wasn't a question.
“Yes,” you said, and the word came out like a confession, like a relief, like the first breath after drowning. “I loved him. I loved him, and I never told him, and by the time I was brave enough, it was too late.”
Sarah was quiet for a moment. Then she opened the box, pulled out the first letter, and began to read aloud.
Honey, I saw the most beautiful sunset tonight. It made me think of you. Not because it was beautiful, nothing could ever reach your beauty, but because it was the kind of thing you'd want to see. You always did love the sky.
You closed your eyes and listened to your granddaughter read the words of a dead man, and you let yourself remember.
-
You died in 1999, just as the world was getting ready for a new century.
Lung cancer. You'd smoked for forty years, and you'd known the risks, and you hadn't cared. Some things were worth the cost.
Your children were there — Charles, Joseph, Jane — and your grandchildren, and even a few great-grandchildren, the youngest just a baby, born three weeks before you went into the hospital.
They gathered around your bed, holding your hands, telling you they loved you. And you believed them. You'd done something right, after all. You'd built something that would last.
But just before the end, when the room was quiet and your breathing was shallow, you whispered a name.
Not David's. Not your children's.
Bucky's.
“I should have kissed you,” you said, to no one, to everyone, to the ghost you'd carried for fifty-four years. “I should have kissed you anyway.”
And then you were gone.
-
You were buried in Green-Wood Cemetery, Section 12, under a tree that your husband had planted the year you bought the plot. The inscription on your headstone, chosen by your children, read
Beloved mother, grandmother, and friend. She loved deeply, and she was deeply loved. Always in our hearts.
-
In 2017, Bucky Barnes came home.
Not to Brooklyn — not at first. He went to Wakanda first, to heal, to learn to be a person again. The process was slow and painful, full of setbacks and nightmares and days when he couldn't get out of bed.
But eventually, slowly, he started to remember.
He remembered his mother's voice. His little sisters' annoying pranks. His father's lessons. He remembered Steve's laugh. He remembered the smell of rain on hot pavement, the taste of cheap beer, the feeling of a fire escape under his hands.
He remembered you.
Your face came back to him in fragments — your smile, your eyes, the way you'd looked at him the night before he left for the war. He remembered the letters he'd written, the words he'd never said, the kiss he'd never given.
And he remembered that you were gone.
Steve told him when he was stable enough to hear it. They were sitting on the porch of Bucky's hut, watching the sun set over the Wakandan hills, and Steve's voice was very quiet.
“She died in '99,” Steve said. “Cancer. She was seventy-nine.”
Bucky stared at the horizon. His metal hand was clenched in his lap. His flesh hand was shaking.
“Did she —” He stopped. Swallowed. “Did she have a good life?”
Steve hesitated. Then he pulled a photograph from his pocket — one he'd found in the archives of the Smithsonian, of all places, donated by a woman named Jane who'd written a note explaining who the people in the picture were.
It was you. Older, grey-haired, laughing at something off-camera. You were standing on a porch, surrounded by children — three of them, grown, with children of their own. A baby was in your arms. Your eyes were bright.
“Yeah,” Steve said. “She had a good life. She got married. Had kids. Grandkids. She was happy.”
Bucky took the photograph. His thumb traced the curve of your smile.
“Good,” he said, and his voice cracked. “That's good. I'm glad, she deserved nothing less than pure happiness.”
He was lying. He was glad — he was — but there was a part of him, a selfish, ugly part, that wished you'd waited. Wished you'd pined. Wished you'd been as broken as he was.
He hated that part of himself.
“She wrote you a letter,” Steve said. “At the end. Her granddaughter found it in her things and sent it to the Smithsonian, along with your letters. Someone there tracked me down after I came out of the ice. Jane said she still don't know why she wrote it, maybe just to finally let go all those feelings, even if she thought you were dead.”
Bucky's head snapped up and Steve handed it to him — old paper, soft with age, your handwriting shaky but recognizable.
Bucky unfolded it with trembling hands.
Dear Bucky,
I hope you remember.
I hope you remember the fire escape, and the rain, and the night we fell asleep in the movie theater. I hope you remember the stuffed bear and the terrible Chinese food and the way you used to walk me home even when it was three blocks and I told you I didn't need an escort. I hope you remember that I loved you.
Not the way I said it, all those years. Not the easy way, the safe way, the friendship way.
I loved you the other way. The big way. The forever way.
And I never told you.
I had a hundred chances. A thousand. Every time you looked at me, I thought: this is it. This is the moment. And every time, I let it pass. I was scared. I was so scared of losing you that I lost you anyway, not all at once, but a little bit every day, until there was nothing left but the ghost of what we could have been.
I should have kissed you, Bucky.
I should have kissed you when we were seventeen and you fell asleep when you were supposed to help me study . I should have kissed you when we were twenty-one and you walked me home in the rain. I should have kissed you the night before you left for the war, when you held me so tight I couldn't breathe, and you looked at me like you were trying to memorize my face.
I should have kissed you anyway.
I know it wasn't an invitation. I know it wasn't convenient. I know there were a million reasons not to, and only one reason to try. But that one reason — you — should have been enough.
I'm dying now. That's the truth of it. I'm old, and I'm tired, and I've spent fifty-four years wishing I'd been brave and I’ve been knowing since I got the news that there's never enough time.
Find someone. Love them. Tell them.
And if you can't — if you're still the same stubborn idiot I fell in love with — then just know this.
Yours (always, always yours),
Honey
P.S. I got married. His name was David. He was a good man, and I loved him, but not the way I loved you. I don't think I was capable of loving anyone that way after you left. My children are beautiful, and my grandchildren are brilliant, and my life was full. But there was always a you-shaped hole in it. I just learned to live around it.
-
Bucky read the letter three times.
Then he folded it carefully, the way he'd been trained to fold maps and orders and things that mattered, and pressed it to his chest.
“She had kids,” he said. It wasn't a question.
“Yeah,” Steve said. “Three. Her oldest, Charles, is in her sixties now. He lives in New Jersey. Her son Joseph passed away a few years back — heart problems — but his kids are still around. And her youngest, Jane — she's in her early sixties. Lives in Brooklyn, actually. Not far from where we grew up.”
Bucky's breath caught. “Brooklyn?”
“She's been trying to get in touch with you,” Steve admitted. “Through the Smithsonian. Through me. She wants to meet you.”
“Why?”
Steve shrugged. “She said her mother talked about you. Not often, but enough. She said she's got questions. And she said—” He paused. “She said you might want to meet them all, maybe.”
Bucky looked down at the photograph again — at you, older and happy and surrounded by the family you'd built. Then he looked at the letter, at the postscript, at the words you-shaped hole.
“When?” he asked.
“She's free Saturday,” Steve said. “I can give her your number.”
Bucky nodded slowly. He tucked the letter into his jacket pocket, next to his heart, and stared out at the Wakandan sunset.
“Yeah,” he said. “Okay. Saturday.”
---
Saturday came faster than he expected.
Bucky had spent the intervening days in a strange state of suspension — not quite anxious, not quite calm, just waiting. He'd read your letter so many times he'd memorized it. He'd looked at the photograph until the details were seared into his brain, in the way you held that baby, the laugh lines around your eyes, the strand of grey hair that had fallen across your forehead.
He wondered if you'd thought about him at the end. If you'd regretted it. If you'd wished, just once, that he'd been braver.
He'd certainly wished it. A hundred times. A thousand.
The coffee shop was in Park Slope, a place Jane had chosen because it was quiet and private and had a back room where they wouldn't be disturbed. Bucky arrived early, ordered a coffee he didn't drink, and sat in the corner with his hands flat on the table so they wouldn't shake.
The door opened at 2:03 pm exactly.
A woman walked in — early sixties, grey-streaked dark hair, bright blue eyes, sharp features that reminded him of someone. She was wearing a simple dress and sensible shoes, and she was holding a photograph album under her arm.
“Mr. Barnes?” she said, and her voice was firm and kind, very much like yours.
“Just Bucky,” he said. “Please.”
She sat down across from him. For a moment, neither of them spoke. Then she set the album on the table and opened it to the first page.
“That's my mother,” she said, pointing to a photograph — a wedding picture, you in a white dress, a man he didn't recognize beside you. “She was thirty-one there. Three years after she gave up waiting.”
Bucky stared at the photograph. You looked beautiful, of course — you always had — but there was something in your eyes that made his chest ache. A sadness, maybe. A resignation.
“She loved him,” Rebecca said, and her voice was soft. “My father. She really did. But it wasn't — it wasn't the same.”
Bucky nodded. He couldn't speak.
“She kept your letters,” Rebecca continued, turning the page. “All of them. Even after she got married. Even after she moved out of Brooklyn. She kept them in a box in her attic, tied with a ribbon, and she never let anyone touch them.”
She turned another page. More photographs — you holding a baby, you at a birthday party, you at the beach with three small children.
“Charles,” Jane said, pointing to the oldest. “Joseph. And me.” She touched the smallest child, a girl with dark hair and bright eyes. “I'm named after someone, you know. Not from a movie star or something like that. Someone else.”
Bucky's throat tightened. “Jane,” he said. “Don’t want to overthink but perhaps your mother thought about James? about me?”
“Yes,” Rebecca said. “She told me. When I was fifteen, I asked her why she chose it. She said it was because she wanted to name me after someone brave.” Jane’s eyes glistened. “She said you were always there trying to protect everyone in the neighborhood from the bullies and all. And your sister, Rebecca, is my godmother. Mom used to say how much Becca used to tease you two all the time.”
Bucky closed his eyes. He remembered those moments— sitting on the fire escape, sharing a cigarette, talking about nothing and everything. Becca passing by and making some kissing sounds just to annoy you two and him saying she’s always a pain in the ass.
“She loved you,” Rebecca said quietly. “My whole life, I knew she loved someone. Not my father — not the way she loved him. There was always this — this absence. This ghost. She never talked about it, not really, but we all knew. And when I found the letters, when I read them —”
She stopped. Swallowed.
“I'm glad you're alive,” she said. “She would have been, too. She would have been so glad.”
Bucky opened his eyes. He looked at Jane— at her face, at the small echoes of you he could see in her features, even though he still don’t get why she reminds him of himself somehow— and felt something crack open inside him.
“Can I —” he started, then stopped. Cleared his throat. “Can I see more?”
Rebecca smiled. It was your smile, the one you'd given him a thousand times, and Bucky had to look away.
“I brought everything,” she said. “There's a lot.”
---
They spent three hours in that coffee shop.
Jane showed him photograph after photograph — your wedding, your children's births, your grandchildren's graduations. She told him stories: about the time you'd chased a raccoon out of the kitchen with a broom, about the way you'd taught her to make pie crust, about the summer you'd taken all three kids to the beach and lost Joseph in the waves for a terrifying ten minutes before you found him building a sandcastle with a stranger.
“She never stopped,” Rebecca said. “Even when she was tired. Even when she was sad. She just kept going.”
Bucky thought about the girl he'd known — the one who'd punched Lance Baizen, who'd cried on his shoulder and laughed in his face and looked at him like he was something special. He could see her in all of it. The same stubbornness. The same warmth. The same refusal to give up.
“Did she ever —” He hesitated. “Did she ever talk about me? Specifically?”
Jane was quiet for a moment. Then she nodded.
“When she was dying,” she said. “At the very end. She was in the hospital, and we were all there, and she was drifting in and out. And at one point, she opened her eyes and looked right at me while I was holding her hand and she said, 'Tell him I should have kissed him.'”
Bucky's breath left him in a rush.
“I didn't know who she was talking about,” Jane continued. “Not then. I thought maybe it was my father. But later, after she died, my Sarah told me about the letters. And I realized.”
She reached across the table and covered Bucky's hand with her own. Her fingers were warm, solid, real.
“She should have,” Jane said. “And so should you. You both should have.”
Bucky looked down at her hand — at the resemblance to yours, at the life that had continued without him — and felt tears prick his eyes.
“I know,” he said. “I know.”
-
He met Charles the next weekend.
He was older than Jane, sixty-four, with grey hair and a kind face and a sharp tongue that made him think of you. He didn't cry when she saw him, which honestly didn’t him. Instead, he just looked at him for a long moment, “You're shorter than I expected.” He said and Bucky laughed. It was the first genuine laugh he'd had in weeks.
“She said you'd say that,” he said. “In one of her letters. She said you always told people they were shorter than you expected, even when they weren't.”
Charles’ expression softened. “She told you about me?”
“She told me everything,” Bucky said, and it was true — not in the letters, not explicitly, but in the way you'd written about your children, the pride and love and exhaustion and joy. He'd read between the lines. He'd always been good at that with you.
“She was a good mom,” Charles said, sitting down across from him. “Not perfect. She had her sad days, her quiet days. But she was good. She loved us.”
“I know she did.”
“She also loved you.” Charles’ voice was matter-of-fact. “I figured that out when I was about twelve. She had this photograph of the two of you at Coney Island, and sometimes I'd catch her looking at it when she thought no one was watching. She'd get this look on her face — like she was seeing something we couldn't see.”
Bucky swallowed hard. “I had that same look,” he admitted. “When I thought about her. For years. Even after —” He gestured vaguely at his metal arm, at everything he'd become. “Even when I couldn't remember her name, I remembered the feeling. That missing. That ache.”
Charles studied him for a long moment. Then she nodded, satisfied.
“Good,” she said. “She deserved to be missed.”
Joseph's children came to see him too.
His son, Marcus, was forty-two, a high school history teacher with a dry sense of humor and his father's kind eyes. He brought his daughter, Elena, who was seventeen and surly and looked at Bucky like he was a museum exhibit.
“You're really him,” Elena said. “The Winter Soldier.”
“That's not something I'm proud of,” Bucky said quietly.
Elena shrugged. “My dad says you were brainwashed. That it wasn't your fault.”
“It wasn't,” Marcus said firmly. “And it's not something we're going to talk about right now, Elena.”
They sat in a park in Brooklyn, on a bench overlooking a playground. Children were screaming, laughing, running in circles. Bucky watched them with a strange ache in his chest — at all the things he'd never have, at all the moments he'd missed.
“She talked about you,” Marcus said. “My grandmother. Not often, but sometimes. On certain days — your birthday, mostly. The anniversary of when you —” He stopped, cleared his throat. “She'd get quiet. Distant. My grandfather used to say she was visiting someone in her head.”
“Did that bother him?” Bucky asked. “Your grandfather.”
Marcus considered the question. “I think so,” he said finally. “But he loved her anyway. He understood, I think, that some loves don't go away just because someone dies. They just — change. Become something else.”
Bucky nodded slowly. He thought about you and David, about the life you'd built together, about the way you'd made room for him even after he was gone.
“Your grandmother was extraordinary,” he said. “She deserved more than I gave her.”
“She gave herself plenty,” Marcus said. “She had a good life. A full one. Don't diminish that by wishing it had been different.”
Bucky looked at him — at this man he'd never known, this descendant of a life he could have had — and felt something shift inside him.
“You're right,” he said. “I know you're right.”
“Of course I'm right,” Marcus said, and grinned. “I'm a history teacher. It's my job to be right.”
They talked for a long time and then it was Elena who broke him.
Not on purpose. She was just — there. Sitting on the bench next to her father, scrolling through her phone, occasionally glancing up at Bucky with that teenage mix of boredom and curiosity.
And then she looked up at exactly the wrong moment — the sun caught her face, and she tilted her head, and she smiled at something Marcus said, and Bucky's heart stopped.
Because she looked exactly like you.
Not just similar. Not just reminiscent. Exactly.
The same dark hair, the same bright eyes, the same curve of her lips when she smiled. She was fourteen — the same age you'd been when he'd first realized he was in love with you — and the resemblance was so uncanny, so devastating, that Bucky couldn't breathe.
“Are you okay?” Elena asked, frowning. “You look like you've seen a ghost.”
“I have,” Bucky said, and his voice came out strangled.
Marcus looked between them, understanding dawning on his face. “She looks like Grandma, doesn't she?”
Bucky nodded. He couldn't speak.
Elena looked confused. “Do I really look like her? I mean, people say that sometimes, but I never really —”
“You look exactly like her,” Bucky said. “When she was fourteen. I remember —” He stopped. Swallowed. “I remember her standing in the rain, holding my jacket over her head, laughing at something I said. She looked just like you.”
Elena was quiet for a moment. Then she reached into her bag and pulled out a photograph — one she'd brought with her, maybe, or one she'd been carrying for years.
“That's her,” she said, handing it to him. “That's her around that age.”
Bucky took the photograph with shaking hands.
It was you. Young and beautiful and so full of life it hurt to look at. You were standing on a fire escape — his fire escape — in a sundress, your hair blowing across your face, your smile wide and real and his.
He remembered this day. The summer of 1934. You'd come over unexpectedly, and he'd been in a mood, and you'd made him laugh somehow — he couldn't remember how — and you'd said, “Take a picture, Barnes. This is the best I'm ever going to look.”
He'd laughed and told you that was ridiculous. You'd always be beautiful.
He'd been right.
“She kept this,” he said, his voice barely a whisper. “She kept this for sixty years.”
“She kept everything,” Elena said. “We have boxes of it. Letters, photographs, ticket stubs. My mom says she was a hoarder, but I think she just — she couldn't let go. Of any of it.”
Bucky looked at the photograph again — at your smile, at your eyes, at the ghost of the girl he'd loved and lost and never stopped loving.
“She couldn't let go of me,” he said. “And I couldn't let go of her. And now —” He looked up at Elena, at the impossible echo of your face in hers. “Now it's too late.”
Elena reached out and touched his hand. Her fingers were warm, light, nothing like yours — but the gesture was the same. The comfort. The solidarity.
“It's not too late,” she said. “She's gone, yeah. But you're not. And we're not. You have us now, if you want us.”
Bucky stared at her. At the girl who looked like a ghost, who sounded like an angel, who was offering him something he'd never expected to have.
A family.
“I'd like that,” he said. “I'd like that very much.”
-
He went to Green-Wood Cemetery the next day.
Section 12. The tree. The headstone, weathered by almost twenty years of rain and snow.
He stood in front of it for a long time, just looking. Your name. Your dates. The inscription your children had chosen: Beloved mother, grandmother, and friend. She loved deeply, and she was deeply loved.
Then he walked around to the back of the stone and saw the words Sarah had added — the ones he hadn't known about until Marcus mentioned them in passing.
She should have kissed him anyway.
Bucky Barnes fell to his knees in the grass and wept.
He stayed there all day. He brought flowers, your favorite flowers and a stuffed bear that was looking so much like the ones he used to win for you at Coney Island. He set them against your headstone and sat with his back against the tree and talked.
About the war. About Hydra. About the things he'd done, the things that had been done to him. About the years he'd spent as a ghost, a weapon, a shadow.
About you.
“I met your granddaughter,” he said. “Elena. She looks just like you. It's uncanny. It's —” He laughed, a broken sound. “It's a little cruel, if I'm being honest. But also beautiful. She's beautiful. Like you were.”
He paused, looking up at the sky. The sun was setting, painting the clouds in shades of orange and pink and gold.
“She told me I'm not too late,” he continued. “She said I have them now — your family. And I think — I think I'd like that. If you're okay with it. If David is okay with it. If it wouldn't be — I don't know — weird.”
He pressed his palm flat against the grass, against the earth that covered you.
“I loved you,” he said. “I love you, and I was scared, and I'm sorry. I'm so sorry I didn't —”
He stopped. Swallowed.
“I should have kissed you,” he said. “I should have kissed you anyway.”
The wind blew through the trees. Somewhere, a bird sang.
Bucky closed his eyes and let himself imagine it — the other world, the other timeline, the one where he'd been brave. He saw himself leaning across the couch at the cheap cinema theater, kissing you before the film ended. He saw himself on the fire escape, pulling you close, finally, finally saying the words he'd been holding back for years.
He saw a life — a wedding, a house, children. He saw himself growing old with you, watching the lines appear on your face, holding your hand in a hospital room as you both took your last breaths.
It was beautiful.
It was unbearable.
It wasn't real.
But maybe — maybe it didn't have to be. Maybe the love was real. Maybe the regret was real. Maybe the family he'd found — your children, your grandchildren, your great-grandchildren — was real too.
Maybe that was enough.
He opened his eyes. The sun had set. The stars were coming out.
“Yours,” he whispered to the headstone. “Always, always only yours.”
And somewhere — in the wind, in the stars, in the space between what was and what could have been — he swore he felt you smile.
-
He came back the next day. And the day after that. And the day after that.
He came to holidays at Charles’ house, where he sat in the corner and watched your family laugh and fight and love each other. He came to Sunday dinners at Jane's, where he learned to make your pie crust recipe and burned it three times before he got it right. He came to Elena's high school graduation, where he sat in the back and cried when she walked across the stage, because she looked so much like you it hurt.
He became part of the family — not replacing anyone, not filling the hole you'd left, but adding something new. A strange, broken, impossible addition who loved you still, after all these years.
Sarah's youngest, a boy named James asked him once why he'd never married.
“I did,” Bucky said. “In another life. But in this one, I was too late.”
James, who was fifteen and wise beyond his years, nodded thoughtfully.
“That's sad,” he said.
“Yeah,” Bucky agreed. “It is.”
“But you're here now,” James said. “That counts for something, right?”
Bucky looked at the boy — at the echo of you in his eyes, at the future stretching out before him — and smiled.
✮ synopsis: bucky's gotten good at keeping his distance from his harmless, sunshine-y neighbor. but when you get taken because of him—because someone figured out you're his weak spot—he realizes how spectacularly that plan backfired. turns out the winter soldier's soft spot is a lot more dangerous than he thought.
✮ pairing: post-thunderbolts!bucky x fem!reader
✮ disclaimers: violence, kidnapping, blood and injury, torture (not graphic), angst with a happy ending, emotional hurt/comfort, established feelings but complicated relationship, second person POV, fem!reader, miscommunication, intense yearning, emotionally constipated!bucky, past trauma, mild language, fighting sequences
✮ word count: 10.6k
✮ a/n: first fic on this blog and it's basically just 10k words of soft bucky yearning xoxo
main masterlist
The first time Bucky Barnes sees you, you're trying to shove a couch through a doorway that's at least six inches too narrow, and losing spectacularly.
He's coming home from another pointless congressional hearing—the kind where everyone talks in circles about defense budgets while carefully not mentioning the alien invasion from three months ago—when he spots you in the hallway. You're wedged between the arm of what looks like a vintage velvet monstrosity and the doorframe of 4B, hair escaping from whatever you'd tried to contain it with, muttering a stream of increasingly creative profanity.
"Fucking—come on—you absolute bastard of a—"
The couch shifts. You yelp. Bucky's halfway down the hall before he realizes he's moving.
"Need a hand?"
You twist around, and something in his chest does this stupid, inconvenient flip. Your face is flushed, one cheek smudged with what might be dust or maybe yesterday's mascara, and you're looking at him like—well. Like he's not Bucky Barnes. Like he's just some guy in the hallway who might know how geometry works.
"Oh thank god," you breathe, and the relief in it makes his mouth twitch. "I've been battling this thing for twenty minutes. I think it's winning."
He assesses the situation with the same tactical precision he'd use for a Bulgarian arms deal, if arms deals came upholstered in emerald green and smelled faintly of vanilla perfume mixed with fresh sweat. The angle's all wrong. You've been trying to force it through horizontally when it needs to go vertical, then rotate.
"Here." He steps closer, and you shift to make room, your shoulder brushing his chest in a way that absolutely doesn't make his pulse stutter. "If we flip it—"
"Oh, you're strong," you say, like an observation about the weather, as he essentially deadlifts one end of your couch. The metal arm whirs faintly. You don't flinch. "That's convenient."
Convenient. Right. He maneuvers the couch through the doorway in three efficient moves, trying not to notice how you smell like coffee and something floral, how you hover just inside his peripheral vision like you're trying not to crowd him but can't quite stay away.
"There." He sets it down in what's clearly the only spot it could go in your tiny living room. The space is chaos—boxes everywhere, art leaning against walls, books stacked in precarious towers. "You just moving in?"
"Yeah, from—" You wave a hand vaguely eastward. "Nicer neighborhood. Turns out freelance graphic design doesn't pay for Manhattan rent. Who knew?" The self-deprecation comes with a grin that transforms your whole face, and Bucky has to look away, focus on the box labeled 'KITCHEN SHIT' in aggressive Sharpie. "I'm—well, you probably don't care what my name is."
He does, actually. Cares in a way that makes his teeth ache.
"Bucky," he offers, even though you clearly already know. "4C."
"The grumpy congressman." Your grin goes wider, teasing. "I've seen you on C-SPAN. You look like you're being held at gunpoint during those hearings."
"Feel like it too," he mutters, and the laugh you give him hits like a shot of whiskey—warm and slightly dizzying.
"Well, Congressman Barnes of apartment 4C, you've just saved my Saturday. Can I pay you in beer? I've got—" You dig through a box, emerge triumphant with two bottles. "Hipster IPA or hipster IPA?"
He should say no. Should maintain boundaries. Should remember what happened the last time he let someone get close—the scar on his ribs from Belgrade still aches when it rains.
Instead, he finds himself accepting a bottle, listening to you chatter about the neighbor who warned you about the rats (definitely real) and the ghost (probably not real but who knows), watching how you gesture with your whole body when you talk, like you're too much for your own skin.
It's dangerous, how easy you are to be around. How you look at him like he's just Bucky, not the former Asset, not the killer, not the congressman who can't pass a single fucking bill. Just a guy who helped with your couch.
He stays too long. Drinks two beers. Helps you unpack exactly three boxes before some long-dormant self-preservation instinct kicks in and he makes excuses about constituent emails.
"Thanks again," you say at the door, and there's something in your eyes—curiosity, maybe. Interest. "For the couch. And the company."
"No problem."
He's halfway to his own door when you call out: "Hey, Barnes?"
He turns. You're leaning against your doorframe, backlit by the disaster zone of your apartment, smiling that smile that makes his chest tight.
"I make really good coffee. You know. If congressional hearings ever drive you to caffeine dependency."
It's an offer. An opening. Everything in him screams to close it, lock it down, maintain operational security. Instead, his traitorous mouth says, "I'll keep that in mind."
He's so fucked.
The thing is, Bucky's gotten good at keeping people at arm's length. Seventy years of being a weapon teaches him that distance equals safety—for them, not him.
When you're already dead, what's a little more damage?
So he shouldn't notice when you start leaving your apartment at 7:23 every morning, shouldering a bag that's always slipping off your shoulder. Shouldn't time his own exits to avoid those encounters, then feel like an asshole when he succeeds. Definitely shouldn't lie awake listening through the thin walls as you sing along to whatever pop music you play while cooking, off-key and enthusiastic.
But here's the other thing: you make it really fucking hard to maintain distance.
You leave cookies outside his door with notes that say things like "for emergency constituent-induced rage" and "survival fuel for C-SPAN." You knock when you know he's home, ask to borrow sugar or vodka or a screwdriver, then stay to chat like his apartment isn't just bare walls and a couch Sam made him buy. You touch—casual, constant. A hand on his arm when you laugh, fingers brushing when you hand him things, like physical contact isn't something that makes his brain static out.
"You're a really good listener," you tell him one evening, three weeks into whatever this is. You're sitting on his floor, back against his couch, because you'd knocked asking for wine and then somehow ended up staying. Your knee presses against his thigh. He's catastrophically aware of every point of contact. "Like, actually good. Not just waiting for your turn to talk."
"Not much of a talker," he says, which is true and also easier than explaining that he's memorizing everything—how you twist your rings when you're nervous, the way your voice drops when you're saying something real, how you look in his space like you belong there.
"Bullshit." You bump his shoulder. He doesn't flinch anymore, which is either progress or a sign he's completely fucked. "You're just selective. Quality over quantity."
You say things like that—observations that feel like being seen, really seen, not just looked at. It's terrifying. It's addictive. It's going to get you killed.
Because here's the thing Bucky knows down to his bones: everything he touches turns to ash. Everyone he cares about becomes a target. And you—with your sunshine laugh and your disaster apartment and your way of looking at him like he's worth something—you're exactly the kind of light that attracts the worst kind of dark.
He should stay away.
He doesn't.
"So," Sam says, watching Bucky check his phone for the third time during their coffee meeting. "Who is she?"
"What?" Bucky pockets the phone. You'd texted asking if he knew how to fix a leaky faucet. He knows seventeen ways to kill a man with a faucet. Fixing one can't be that different. "Nobody. Work thing."
"Uh-huh." Sam's doing that face, the one that means he's about to be insufferably perceptive. "That's why you just smiled at your phone. Over a work thing. You. Smiled."
"I smile."
"No, you do this thing with your mouth that's like a smile's evil twin. This was an actual smile. So. Who is she?"
Bucky takes a long drink of coffee, considering how much lying is worth the effort. "Neighbor."
"Neighbor." Sam leans back, grinning. "Cute neighbor?"
The memory of you last night, paint in your hair and gesturing wildly about your latest client, flashes unbidden. His silence is apparently answer enough.
"Buck. Man. This is good. You need—"
"I need to not get people killed," Bucky cuts him off. "I need to remember that anyone who gets close to me ends up hurt. I need—"
"You need a life," Sam interrupts right back. "You need to stop punishing yourself for shit that wasn't your fault. You need to let yourself have something good."
Bucky's jaw works. The phone buzzes again. He doesn't check it.
"She doesn't know what she's getting into," he says finally. "She's—" Bright. Warm. Good. "She's not part of this world."
"So keep her out of it." Sam makes it sound simple. Like there's a way to compartmentalize, to have you without putting you at risk. "Be her neighbor. Be normal. Be happy, for once in your goddamn life."
Normal. Right. Because nothing says normal like a centenarian ex-assassin with more kills than most armies and a metal arm that could crush a skull like an egg.
But then he thinks about your smile when he fixed your garbage disposal last week. How you'd said "my hero" in this teasing, fond way that made him want impossible things. How you treat him like he's just Bucky, not a weapon someone else aimed.
"I don't know how," he admits, quieter than he meant to.
Sam's expression softens. "Nobody does, man. You just try anyway."
The faucet thing turns into a whole production.
You answer the door in tiny pajama shorts and an oversized t-shirt that says "FEMINIST KILLJOY" in glitter letters, and Bucky's brain shorts out for a solid three seconds. Your hair's piled on top of your head in what might generously be called a bun, and there's toothpaste at the corner of your mouth, and he wants to—
"Oh good, you're here," you say, grabbing his arm and pulling him inside. Your fingers are warm through his henley. "It's making this noise like a dying whale. I tried YouTube tutorials but I think I made it worse."
The kitchen is a disaster. Tools scattered everywhere, water pooling on the floor, YouTube still playing on your laptop ("—sure to turn off the water main first—"). You've clearly been at this for a while.
"Did you turn off the water?" he asks, already knowing the answer from the growing puddle.
"I turned off a valve," you say defensively. "Several valves. None of them seemed to be the right valve."
He finds himself fighting a smile as he locates the actual shut-off. You hover behind him as he works, close enough that he can feel your breath on his neck, keeping up a running commentary that's part apology, part stand-up routine.
"—and then the wrench slipped and I maybe screamed a little bit, and Mrs. Nguyen next door started banging on the wall, and I had to yell that I wasn't being murdered, just defeating by plumbing—"
"Hand me the—" He turns to ask for the wrench at the same moment you lean forward to see what he's doing. Your faces end up inches apart. Time does that thing where it forgets how to work properly.
Your eyes are very wide. There's a water droplet on your cheek. Bucky's hand twitches with the urge to wipe it away.
"Wrench," he manages, voice rougher than intended.
"Right. Wrench. That's a—" You scramble backward, nearly slip on the wet floor. He catches your elbow automatically, steadying you, and your skin is so warm under his fingers it feels like a brand. "Thanks. I'm not usually this much of a disaster. Actually, that's a lie. I'm exactly this much of a disaster, you've just caught me on a particularly disastrous day."
He fixes the faucet in under ten minutes. You insist on making coffee as payment, which turns into leftover pizza, which turns into three hours on your couch watching some reality show about people making elaborate cakes. You provide running commentary that's funnier than the show itself, and Bucky finds himself actually laughing—not the dry chuckle he's perfected for public appearances, but real laughter that comes from somewhere deep in his chest.
"See?" you say during a commercial break, grinning at him. "I told you this show was addictive. Next week they're making a life-size dragon cake that actually breathes fire."
"Next week?" The words slip out before he can stop them, too revealing.
Your grin softens into something else, something that makes his chest tight. "Well, yeah. You can't miss fire-breathing dragon cake. That's un-American."
It becomes a thing. Thursday nights, your couch, increasingly ridiculous cooking shows. You always have too much dinner ("I'm terrible at portions, shut up"), he always fixes something that's broken ("it's not broken, it's just temperamental"), and somewhere between cake disasters and your laughter, Bucky forgets to maintain distance.
"Your boyfriend's here," Mrs. Nguyen announces loudly when Bucky knocks on your door a month later, because apparently the entire floor has decided they're invested in whatever this is.
"He's not my—" Your voice cuts off as you open the door. You're wearing a dress, which is new. Red, which is newer. Lipstick, which is going to kill him. "Hi."
"Hi." His brain's stuck on the curve of your shoulder, the way the fabric clings. "Going out?"
"Wedding. Old college friend." You're fidgeting with your earring, a sure tell that you're nervous. "I hate weddings. All that optimism and overpriced chicken."
"So don't go."
"Can't. I already RSVP'd, and I'm a good friend even if I'm a wedding-hating gremlin." You pause, still fiddling with the earring. "Unless..."
He knows what's coming by the way you're biting your lip. "No."
"You don't even know what I was going to ask!"
"You were going to ask me to go with you."
"...okay, so you did know." You lean against the doorframe, giving him a look that's probably supposed to be convincing but mostly just highlights how your eyes catch the hallway light. "Come on. You're a congressman. You must love overpriced chicken and small talk."
"I really don't."
"There's an open bar."
"Still no."
"I'll owe you one. One big favor. Anything."
That makes him pause, but not for the reason you think. The idea of you owing him anything makes his skin itch. You already give too much—your time, your laughter, your casual touches that rewire his brain. But the idea of watching you navigate a wedding alone, of other people getting to see you in that dress...
"Fine," he hears himself say. "But I'm not dancing."
The smile you give him could power Brooklyn for a week.
He's absolutely, catastrophically unprepared for how you look in candlelight.
The wedding venue is one of those rustic-chic places that thinks exposed beams equal personality. You're at table eight, which puts you safely in "college friends but not close enough for the wedding party" territory. You've been providing whispered commentary all through the ceremony ("five bucks says she wrote her vows the night before"), your shoulder pressed against his in a way that makes paying attention to anything else physically impossible.
"See that bridesmaid?" You nod toward a blonde who's definitely already three champagnes deep. "That's Amber. We were roommates sophomore year. She once tried to seduce our RA by leaving Post-it poetry on his door."
"Did it work?"
"Depends on your definition of 'work.' She did get his attention. Also a conduct violation." You're playing with the stem of your wine glass, fingers tracing patterns. "Thanks for this, by the way. I know wearing a suit and making small talk isn't exactly your idea of fun."
He could tell you that wearing a suit is nothing compared to tac gear, that small talk is easier than Senate hearings. Could mention that the way you keep unconsciously leaning into him makes any discomfort worth it. Instead: "It's fine."
"Such enthusiasm." But you're smiling, soft and maybe a little fond. "Dance with me?"
"I said no dancing."
"You said that before you had champagne. And before they played—" You tilt your head, listening. "Oh my god, is this Bon Jovi? We have to dance to Bon Jovi. It's the law."
"That's not a law."
"It's a law of wedding physics. Come on, Barnes. One dance. I promise not to step on your feet much."
The thing is, he can't say no to you. It's becoming a problem. You want him to fix your sink? Done. Need someone to hold your laptop while you Skype your mother? He's there. Want him to dance to "Livin' on a Prayer" at some stranger's wedding? Apparently, that's happening too.
You're a terrible dancer. Genuinely awful. You have no sense of rhythm, keep trying to lead, and you're laughing too hard to even pretend otherwise. It's perfect. He spins you out just to watch your dress flare, pulls you back too close, and for a moment—your hand in his, your face tilted up, surrounded by fairy lights and other people's happiness—he forgets why this is a bad idea.
"See?" you say, slightly breathless. "Dancing's not so bad."
His hand is on your waist. He can feel your pulse through the thin fabric. "No. Not so bad."
Someone bumps into you from behind, pushing you fully against his chest. Your hands come up to steady yourself, one landing over his heart, and he knows you can feel how it stumbles. Your smile falters, shifts into something else. Something that looks dangerously like realization.
"Bucky—"
"They're cutting the cake," he says, stepping back. The loss of contact feels like losing a limb. "Should probably watch. For your show."
You blink, then recover. "Right. Yeah. Cake."
But you're quiet for the rest of the reception, and he catches you looking at him with this expression he can't decode. Like you're working through a complex equation and not liking the answer.
He drives home. You spend the ride fiddling with your phone, uncharacteristically silent. When he pulls up to the building, you don't immediately get out.
"I'm sorry if I—" you start.
"Don't." It comes out harsher than intended. He tries again, softer: "You didn't do anything wrong."
"Feels like I did." You're still not looking at him. "I forget sometimes, that you're—that we're—"
"Friends," he supplies, even though the word tastes like ash. "We're friends."
"Right." You finally meet his eyes, and there's something careful in your expression now. Guarded. "Friends."
You're out of the car before he can figure out what to say to fix this. He watches you disappear into the building first, red dress like a wound in the grey evening, and knows he's fucked everything up without quite understanding how.
You pull back after that.
It's subtle—you still smile when you see him in the hall, still text him memes at inappropriate hours. But you stop knocking on his door for impromptu dinners. Stop touching him casually. When he offers to fix your eternally-dripping showerhead, you say you'll call the super instead.
"You're moping," Sam tells him two weeks later, during one of their mandatory "make sure Bucky's not spiraling" brunch dates.
"I don't mope."
"You're the Black Widow of moping. The Michael Jordan of emotional constipation." Sam pauses. "That neighbor you mentioned?"
Bucky's silence is damning.
"What'd you do?"
"Why do you assume I did something?"
"Because you always do something. You get close to someone, panic, and pull some self-sabotaging bullshit." Sam's voice gentles. "Talk to me, man."
Bucky stares at his coffee like it holds answers. "She wanted to dance."
"...okay?"
"At a wedding. And I—we danced. And it was..." He doesn't have words for what it was. How you felt in his arms, how the world narrowed down to just the two of you, how for a moment he forgot he was dangerous. "And then I shut it down."
"Why?"
"Because." He sets the mug down too hard, coffee sloshing. "Because she's sunshine, Sam. She's late-night cooking shows and glitter pens and leaving snacks for the delivery guy. She has no idea what I've done, what I'm capable of—"
"Did you ever think maybe she does know and doesn't care?"
"Then she's naïve."
"Or maybe she just sees you better than you see yourself." Sam leans forward. "Buck, you can't protect people by pushing them away. That's not how it works."
"It's worked so far."
"Has it? Because from where I'm sitting, you're miserable, she's probably confused as hell, and nobody's actually safer."
Bucky wants to argue, but then his phone buzzes. Your name pops up: my smoke alarm is having an existential crisis. is it supposed to beep in morse code?
He's already standing before he realizes it.
"Go," Sam says, shaking his head but smiling. "Fix her smoke alarm. Talk to her like a human being. Maybe try not to fuck it up this time."
Your door is already cracked when he gets there, smoke rolling out in lazy waves.
"I'm not on fire!" you call before he can knock. "Well, the oven mitt was, but I handled it."
He finds you on a chair, ineffectively fanning the smoke detector with a dish towel. You're wearing those little pajama shorts again and his brain still isn't prepared for the sight.
"How does an oven mitt catch fire?" He reaches up, disables the alarm with practiced ease.
"Well, when you forget it's on your hand and rest it on the stove burner..." You shrink a little at his look. "I was distracted."
"By what?"
You don't answer, just hop down from the chair. This close, he can see the flour in your hair, the way you're worrying your bottom lip. "Thanks. Sorry for texting, I know it's late—"
"Why are you apologizing?"
"Because—" You make a frustrated gesture. "Because I'm trying to give you space. Because you clearly regretted the wedding thing and I'm trying not to be that neighbor who develops inconvenient feelings—"
"Feelings?" His brain snags on the word like cloth on a nail.
You go very still. "Shit. I mean. Not feelings. Just. You know. Neighbor...ly concern. Very platonic. Super appropriate."
"You're a terrible liar."
"Yeah, well, you're terrible at—" You stop, visibly collecting yourself. When you speak again, your voice is carefully level: "I like you, okay? More than I should. And I know that's not what you want, and I'm trying really hard to be okay with that, but you standing in my kitchen looking all concerned while I'm having a feelings crisis is really not helping."
The words hit him like a physical blow. You like him. More than you should.
"You don't know me," he says, defaulting to the easiest argument.
"Bullshit." There's heat in your voice now. "I know you reorganize my bookshelf when you think I'm not looking because the chaos bothers you. I know you bring me coffee on Tuesdays because you noticed I have early meetings. I know you have nightmares—yeah, the walls are thin—and I know you pace afterwards like you're trying to walk off whatever you dreamed about."
Each observation feels like being flayed open.
"I know you're careful," you continue, softer now. "I know you think you're dangerous. And I know you've probably got reasons for that. But Bucky? I also know you'd never hurt me. Ever."
"You can't know that."
"Why? Because you're what, too damaged? Too dangerous?" You step closer and he should step back but he's frozen. "You carry my groceries. You fixed my faucet. You danced with me at a wedding even though you hate dancing. Really dangerous stuff there, Barnes."
"You don't understand—"
"Then explain it to me." Your chin juts out, stubborn. "Give me one good reason why we can't—"
He kisses you.
It's the wrong thing to do. Selfish. Stupid. But you're standing there in your flour-dusted pajamas, looking at him like he's worth fighting for, and his self-control just...snaps.
The sound you make—soft, surprised, maybe relieved—shorts out every rational thought in his head. Your hands come up to frame his face, fingertips cool against his burning skin, and then you're kissing him back like you've been waiting for this, like you've been drowning too.
You taste like smoke and whatever you were baking, sweet with an edge of burn, and he's dizzy with it. His hands find your waist, fingers spreading wide against the soft cotton of your shirt, and he pulls you in until there's no space between you, until he can feel your heartbeat hammering against his chest. You're so warm, so alive, radiating heat like a small sun, and he wants to map every degree of it with his mouth, his hands, his—
Reality crashes back like ice water.
He jerks away, but his hands won't let go of your waist, like his body's in revolt against his better judgment. You're both breathing like you've run miles—harsh, ragged pulls of air that fill the space between you. Your lips are swollen, kiss-bruised, and he did that, he marked you, and the savage satisfaction of it wars with the knowledge that he's just made everything infinitely worse.
Your eyes are huge, pupils blown wide, and you're looking at him like he's just rearranged your entire understanding of the universe. One hand is still on his face, thumb pressed to the corner of his mouth like you're trying to hold the kiss there, keep it from escaping.
"That's why," he says roughly. "Because I want—because you make me want things I can't have."
"Says who?" Your eyes are very bright. "Who decided what you can have?"
He doesn't have an answer for that. Doesn't know how to explain the mathematics of survival, how everyone he's ever cared about becomes a liability, a target, a grave.
"I should go," he manages.
"Or," you say, "you could stay."
The offer hangs between you like a lit fuse. He can see the future unspool in both directions: leave now, go back to safe distances and polite nods in the hallway, watch you eventually move on with someone who doesn't come with a body count. Or stay, and risk you realizing what a mistake you're making. Stay, and selfishly take whatever you're willing to give for however long you're willing to give it.
You're still looking at him, patient and terrified and hopeful all at once.
He leaves.
The word echoes in his head all the way back to his apartment. Coward. Coward. Coward. But it's the right thing to do. The safe thing. You'll hurt for a while, maybe hate him a little, but you'll be alive to do it.
He doesn't sleep. Just sits on his couch, staring at the wall that separates your apartments, listening to the muffled sounds of you cleaning up. The shower runs at 2 AM. He knows you cry in the shower when you think no one can hear—learned that three weeks into being neighbors, when your freelance client stiffed you on a big project. He'd wanted to break the fucker's legs then.
Now he wants to break his own.
You're a better person than he'll ever be, which is why you still smile at him in the hallway.
It's careful now, contained. The kind of smile you'd give any neighbor, not the one that used to light up your whole face when you saw him. You don't knock anymore. Don't text about your smoke alarm or your leaky faucet or the rat you're convinced lives in the walls. You just...exist, parallel to him, in a way that makes his chest feel like it's full of broken glass.
"Fixed it myself," you say one morning when he catches you wrestling with a new deadbolt installation. Your drill slips, gouging the doorframe. "YouTube University, you know?"
He could fix it in under a minute. Could show you how to align the strike plate properly, how to test the throw. Instead: "Good for you."
Your smile flickers. "Yeah. Good for me."
Mrs. Nguyen gives him dirty looks now. The whole floor does, really. Like they know he's the reason you don't laugh as loud anymore, why your music's quieter, why you started getting grocery delivery instead of making three trips up the stairs, arms overloaded, dropping things and cursing cheerfully.
It's fine. It's working. You're safe.
He tells himself that every night when he hears you through the walls, moving around your apartment like a ghost of the person who used to dance while cooking.
Three weeks post-kiss, Valentina calls them in for a mission that's barely legal on a good day.
"Weapons shipment," she says, sliding photos across the conference table with her usual theatrical flair. "Enhanced tech, off-market, very much not supposed to exist. The kind of toys that make governments nervous."
"So we're stealing them," Walker states, not asks.
"Recovering," Val corrects with a smile sharp enough to cut. "For the safety of the American people, of course."
Yelena snorts. Alexei's already studying the compound layout like there'll be a test. Bob's doing that thing where he shrinks into himself, trying to become invisible. Bucky catalogs exits, counts guards in the surveillance photos, and tries not to think about how you looked last night, hauling groceries with your hair falling in your eyes.
The mission goes sideways in minute three.
"Intel was wrong," Ava's voice crackles through comms, too calm for the situation. "Triple the guards. And—"
The explosion cuts her off. Then another. The "barely defended warehouse" is a fucking fortress, crawling with military-grade security who definitely got the "shoot to kill" memo.
"Fall back," Bucky orders, but Alexei's already charged ahead, yelling something about Soviet glory. Walker's trying to flank, Bob's panicking, and somewhere in the chaos, Yelena starts laughing like this is the best thing that's happened all week.
It takes two hours to fight their way out. By the end, Bucky's left arm is sparking, his ears are ringing, and he's pretty sure at least three ribs are cracked. Yelena's favoring her right leg, Walker's bleeding from somewhere he won't admit, and Bob—Bob's dissociating so hard Bucky has to physically guide him to the extraction point.
"Well," Val says over comms, observing from her safe distance, "that was bracing."
Bucky doesn't trust himself to respond.
They limp back to New York in sullen silence. No debrief—Val's already spinning the disaster into something palatable for the brass. Bucky goes straight home, ignoring Sam's calls, ignoring everything except the need to get somewhere quiet before he starts breaking things.
His hands are still shaking when he reaches his floor. Adrenaline crash, probably. Or the delayed realization that they'd all nearly died for some bureaucrat's idea of asset recovery. Or—
Your door is open.
Not open-open. Cracked, like it didn't latch properly. Like someone left in a hurry. Or—
The deadbolt is broken.
The one you installed yourself three weeks ago. The one he'd watched you struggle with, pride keeping you from asking for help.
Bucky goes utterly still.
His body moves before his brain catches up. He's through your doorway, cataloging details with mechanical precision: lamp knocked over, books scattered, coffee table shoved sideways. Signs of a struggle. Signs of—
Blood.
Not much. Just droplets on the hardwood, leading toward the kitchen. But enough. Enough to make his vision tunnel, his chest compress until breathing becomes theoretical.
"Sweetheart?" The pet name slips out, raw. No answer. He clears each room like he's back in Hydra facilities, except his hands won't stop shaking because this is your space, your things, your—
Your phone is on the kitchen floor, screen cracked. There's a handprint on the wall—bloody, smeared. Too small to be anyone's but yours.
Something inside him breaks. Clean, sharp, like a bone snapping. The careful distance he's maintained, the walls he's built, the conviction that keeping you at arm's length would keep you safe—all of it crumbles in the face of your empty apartment and that small, bloody handprint.
He's already moving, phone out, calling in favors he's been hoarding. Because someone took you. Someone came into your home—the home he was supposed to be protecting by staying away—and took you. And they're going to learn exactly why the Winter Soldier's name still makes people flinch.
His phone rings. Unknown number.
"Barnes." He doesn't recognize his own voice.
"Ah, the infamous Winter Soldier." The voice is male, amused, completely at ease. "I was hoping we could talk."
"Where is she?"
"Safe. For now. Though that really depends on you, doesn't it?"
Ice spreads through his veins, familiar as an old friend. This is what he was trying to prevent. This exact scenario. You, hurt because of him. You, taken because someone figured out—
"What do you want?"
"You've been playing house, Barnes. Getting soft. Forgetting what you are." A pause, calculated. "I'm going to remind you. And your little neighbor? She's going to help."
The line goes dead.
Bucky stands in your ruined apartment, surrounded by the evidence of his failure, and feels something fundamental shift. Not break—he's been broken before. This is worse. This is the cold clarity that comes after, when there's nothing left to lose.
Someone made a mistake today. They touched you. They made you bleed.
He's going to paint the city red for it.
"Buck, slow down—"
"No." He's already moving, gathering gear with brutal efficiency. The weapons he's not supposed to have. The tech that's definitely illegal. Every favor, every resource, every skill Hydra beat into him over seventy years.
Sam's on speaker, trying to be the voice of reason. "You can't just go in guns blazing—"
"Watch me."
"This is exactly what they want. You, isolated, operating without backup—"
"They have her, Sam." The words come out raw, flayed. "They took her because of me. Because I was stupid enough to think distance would keep her safe."
Silence on the other end. Then: "What do you need?"
That's why Sam Wilson is Captain America. No more arguments, no more trying to talk him down. Just immediate, unwavering support.
"Intel. Cameras in my building, surrounding blocks. Last twelve hours." He straps a knife to his thigh, then another. "And get me backup."
"I can rally your team. Get Walker, Yelena—"
"No." The word comes out sharp. Another knife. Extra magazines. "The Thunderbolts are compromised. That clusterfuck of a mission proved it."
"Buck—"
"They're not ready for this. Half of them can barely work together without Val pulling the strings." He's checking his tactical vest, muscle memory taking over. "This isn't a government op. This is personal."
"So what, you're going in alone?"
Is he? Bucky stops, considers his options. The Thunderbolts are a mess on a good day—Walker's still trying to prove something, Bob's hanging on by a thread, and Alexei treats everything like a performance. They're not who he needs for this.
"They touched her," he says simply.
"I know, man. I know. But—"
"Get me what intel you can. I'll handle the rest."
"Buck, come on. At least let me—"
"They have her, Sam." His voice cracks, just slightly. "Every second we waste talking, they could be—"
"Okay. Okay. Intel coming your way. But Barnes? Don't do anything stupid."
"Too late for that."
Bucky stops in your doorway, looks back at your apartment. There's a photo on your bookshelf—you and him at the building's July 4th party. Mrs. Nguyen had insisted on taking it. You're laughing at something, leaning into him, and he's looking at you like—
Like you're everything he never thought he'd get to have.
"I'm coming for you," he tells the empty room. A promise. A threat. A prayer to whoever might be listening.
Then he disappears into the night, and the Winter Soldier goes hunting.
The trail goes cold in six hours.
Whoever took you, they're not amateurs playing at being dangerous. They're ghosts—professionals who know exactly how to disappear in a city of eight million people. Every camera angle's been scrubbed. Every witness suddenly develops amnesia. Even the blood in your apartment leads nowhere; cleaned of DNA markers by something that makes Bucky's teeth ache with familiarity.
"Talk to me, Buck." Sam's voice through the earpiece, carefully level. "Where are you?"
Bucky stands on a rooftop in Queens, staring at another dead end. Another empty warehouse that should have had something, anything. "Nowhere."
"That's not an answer."
"It's the only one I've got." His metal hand clenches, servos whining. Below, the city keeps moving, oblivious to the fact that you're somewhere in it, hurt, taken because of him. "They're good, Sam. Too good."
"We'll find her."
We. Like this isn't Bucky's fault. Like his past isn't bleeding into your present, staining everything he tried so hard to keep clean.
He drops from the rooftop, lands hard enough to crack pavement. A passing couple startles, hurries away. Good. He doesn't feel particularly human right now anyway.
Hour twelve. Yelena finds him in your apartment, sitting on your couch like a grieving statue.
"This is pathetic," she says, stepping over the crime scene tape he'd ignored. "Even for you."
"Get out."
"No." She perches on your coffee table, uncharacteristically serious. "You think sitting here feeling sorry for yourself will find her? You think guilt helps?"
"I said—"
"I know what guilt looks like, Barnes." Her voice cuts, precise as the knives she carries. "I know what it is, failing someone you—" She pauses, searching for the English word. "Care about. But this?" She gestures at him, at the apartment, at the bloody handprint he can't stop staring at. "This is just... как это... self-pity? No, worse. Useless."
The laugh that tears out of him is ugly. "Thanks for the pep talk."
"Someone needs to knock sense into your thick skull." She leans forward. "Whoever has her, they want you like this. Emotional. Sloppy. Making mistakes."
"I know that."
"Then stop giving them what they want."
Easier said than done when every surface in this apartment carries your ghost. The mug on the counter with your lipstick stain. The book splayed open on the side table, marking your place. The sweater thrown over the chair—his sweater, actually, stolen three weeks ago when you'd claimed your apartment was freezing.
"Keep it," he'd said, trying not to notice how it made something primal in him satisfied, seeing you wrapped in his clothes.
"Just until I fix my radiator," you'd promised, but you'd worn it three more times that week, and he'd never asked for it back.
"Barnes." Yelena snaps her fingers in his face. "Сфокусируйся. Focus."
"I am focused."
"You're spiraling." She pulls out her phone, shows him surveillance footage he's already memorized. "Look again. Really look. Use your brain, not your bleeding heart."
He wants to tell her he's looked at nothing else for twelve hours. Instead, he watches you leave your apartment at 6:47 PM, mail in hand. Watches you come back at 6:53. The timestamp jumps—7:31 to 8:15, forty-four minutes missing. By 8:15, your door's ajar and you're gone.
"Professional crew doesn't need forty-four minutes for grab," Yelena says, her English getting rougher as she thinks. "So why take so long? What were they doing?"
Bucky's phone buzzes. Unknown number.
His blood turns to ice, then flame.
"You're going to want to watch this alone," the familiar voice says. "Though I'm sure your friend is lovely. Hi, Yelena."
She stiffens. Bucky's already moving, putting distance between them, some instinct screaming danger.
"Just me," he says. "Let her go."
"See, that's your problem, Barnes. Still trying to protect everyone. Still thinking you can control who gets hurt." A pause. "Check your messages."
The video file is already there. His hand shakes as he opens it.
You're in a concrete room—could be anywhere, everywhere, the kind of place that exists in every city's bones. Sitting in a metal chair, wrists zip-tied but not apparently hurt beyond the cut on your temple still sluggishly bleeding. You're still wearing his sweater.
"Say hello, sweetheart." The voice comes from behind the camera.
You look up, and the defiance in your eyes makes his chest seize. "Go fuck yourself."
The slap comes fast, snaps your head sideways. Bucky's phone creaks in his grip.
"Language." The camera shifts, focuses on your face. "Try again."
You spit blood, manage a smile that's all teeth. "Hi, Bucky. Nice weather we're having."
Another slap. Harder. Your lip splits.
"I told you he made you weak." The voice continues conversationally as you work your jaw, testing damage. "The Winter Soldier, reduced to playing house with some nobody. It's embarrassing, really."
"You talk a lot for someone hiding behind a camera," you mutter.
This time it's a fist. Your head rocks back, and when you look up again, your nose is bleeding. But you're still glaring, still unbroken, and Bucky loves you so fiercely in that moment it feels like drowning.
"Here's what's going to happen," the voice continues. "Every hour Barnes doesn't come alone to the address we'll send, things get worse for you. And before you get any ideas—" The camera pans to show three other men, armed, professional. "—we've planned for contingencies."
Back to you. Blood drips onto his sweater. You notice the camera returning, look directly into it. "Don't you fucking dare," you say, and despite everything—split lip, bloody nose, zip-tied to a chair—you mean it. "You hear me, Barnes? Don't you—"
The video cuts.
Bucky stands very still in your empty apartment, phone in pieces at his feet.
"That bad?" Yelena asks.
He can't speak. Can barely breathe around the rage threatening to tear him apart from the inside. Somewhere in the city, you're bleeding because of him. Hurt because he was selfish enough to let you close, stupid enough to think distance would be enough.
Another text. An address in Red Hook. Come alone or we start cutting.
"Is trap," Yelena says, dropping articles like she does when she's focused. "Obviously trap."
"I know."
"You can't just walk in there like idiot."
"I know."
"So what's plan?"
He looks at her, and whatever she sees in his face makes her step back. "I give them what they want."
"Barnes—"
"They want the Winter Soldier?" His voice sounds wrong, mechanical, like something dredged up from permafrost. "They've got him."
The address leads to a warehouse because of course it does. These people, whoever they are, lack imagination. Bucky counts heat signatures through thermal imaging—six outside, unknown inside. Doable, if he's what he used to be. If he's willing to be what he used to be.
"Don't you fucking dare."
Your voice echoes, but it's drowned out by older programming. By muscle memory that never quite faded, no matter how many therapy sessions or good days or shared dinners with someone who looked at him like he was worth saving.
"In position," Sam's voice, because fuck going alone. Fuck giving them what they want. "West entrance."
"Rooftop," from Yelena.
"Back door," Walker, surprisingly. "For the record, I think this is stupid."
"Noted," Bucky says, and walks through the front door.
The space is exactly what he expected. Concrete floors, exposed beams, the kind of place that swallows sound. They're waiting for him—five men in tactical gear, no identifying marks. Professional contractors, not ideologues. Which makes this personal.
"Dramatic entrance. I respect that." The voice from the phone materializes into a man in his forties, military bearing, forgettable face. He's standing next to a metal table laid out with tools that make Bucky's scars ache. "Though you were supposed to come alone."
"Yeah, well." Bucky spreads his hands, easy target. "I've never been good at following orders. Ask anyone."
"Funny." The man circles him, predator studying prey. "That's not what your files say. 'Perfect compliance.' That was the phrase, wasn't it?"
Old wounds, precisely targeted. These people have done their homework.
"Where is she?"
"Close. Alive. For now." The man stops in front of him. "You know, I studied you. The Winter Soldier. Hydra's perfect weapon. And then you just... stopped. Became this." He gestures dismissively. "James Barnes, failing congressman. Playing superhero. Pretending you're not what we made you."
"We?"
The man smiles. "Not Hydra, if that's what you're thinking. Hydra was sloppy. Cult-like. No vision beyond control." He pulls out a tablet, shows Bucky a logo—a chimera, three-headed. "Cerberus. We're more... refined. We deal in weapons, not world domination. And you, Barnes? You're a weapon pretending to be human."
"Cool speech." Bucky's cataloging angles, distances, how fast he'd have to move. "Must've practiced in the mirror."
The man's smile tightens. "Bring her out."
Two more men emerge from a side room, dragging you between them. You're conscious but barely, feet stumbling, head lolling. They drop you on the concrete, and you don't get up.
Everything in Bucky goes very, very quiet.
"So here's the deal," Cerberus continues. "You're going to work for us. Exclusive contract. Your particular skills in exchange for her life."
"No." Your voice, cracked but clear. You push yourself up on shaking arms, meet Bucky's eyes across the warehouse. "No deals. No trades."
"Sweetheart—"
"Don't you 'sweetheart' me." You manage to get to your knees, swaying. Blood's dried on your face, but your eyes are blazing. "You think I don't know what they're asking? You think I'd let you—" You have to stop, catch your breath. "I'd rather die than be the reason you become that again."
"How touching," Cerberus says. "But not your call." He nods to one of his men, who pulls out a knife. "Barnes? Your answer?"
The knife moves toward you.
The world explodes.
Flash-bangs through windows, smoke grenades, the distinctive whine of repulsor beams. Cerberus shouts orders, but it's too late—the Avengers don't do subtle when one of their own is threatened.
Bucky moves. Not the measured approach of a soldier, but the brutal efficiency of a weapon. The man with the knife goes down first, arm snapping under metal fingers. The second barely has time to scream. He's not thinking, just reacting, just removing threats between him and you.
Someone shoots him. Barely feels it. Someone else tries hand-to-hand, which is adorable. He puts them through a wall.
"Barnes!" Sam's voice, sharp. "Shield up!"
He spins, catches the thrown shield, uses it to deflect a spray of bullets meant for you. You're trying to crawl to cover, leaving bloody handprints on the concrete, and the sight shorts out whatever restraint he had left.
When the smoke clears, Cerberus is the only one left standing. Backed against the wall, gun trained on you because of course it is. These people are predictable to the last.
"Come any closer and—"
Yelena drops from the ceiling, lands on him like gravity given form. The gun goes flying. Cerberus goes down choking on his own blood, Yelena's knife finding the gap in his armor like it was designed for it.
"Predictable," she says, wiping the blade clean. "I told you they were predictable."
But Bucky's already moving, dropping to his knees beside you. You're conscious, breathing, alive. That's all that matters. Everything else—the mission, the cleanup, the questions—fades to white noise.
"Hey," he says, hands hovering over you, afraid to touch. Afraid to hurt. "I've got you."
"Took you long enough," you manage, then promptly pass out in his arms.
He catches you, holds you against his chest, and something in him breaks. Or maybe it finally, finally mends. Either way, he's done pretending distance keeps anyone safe. Done acting like he deserves to make choices about your safety without you.
"Med team's three minutes out," Sam says quietly.
Three minutes. He can hold you for three minutes. Can keep you safe for three minutes.
After that? After that, everything changes.
But for now, in the blood and smoke and aftermath, Bucky Barnes holds the person he was stupid enough to fall in love with and makes a promise:
Never again.
Never fucking again.
The medical bay at the Tower is too bright, too sterile, too full of people who keep looking at Bucky like he might snap. Maybe he will. He's been sitting in the same chair for four hours, watching machines monitor your breathing, and every beep feels like an accusation.
"You need to get that looked at," Sam says, nodding at the blood seeping through Bucky's shirt. Gunshot wound, probably. He honestly can't remember.
"I'm fine."
"You're bleeding on their fancy floors."
"I'm fine."
Sam exchanges a look with Yelena, who's been uncharacteristically quiet since they arrived. She's cleaned the blood off her hands but keeps flexing them, like she can still feel it.
"At least change your shirt," she says finally. "You look like extra from horror movie."
He doesn't move. Can't move. Because what if you wake up while he's gone? What if you open your eyes and he's not there, again, like he wasn't there when they took you?
"Barnes." Dr. Cho's voice cuts through his spiral. "She's stable. Three broken ribs, concussion, various contusions, but nothing life-threatening. She's lucky."
Lucky. The word tastes like copper in his mouth. Lucky is winning the lottery, not surviving a kidnapping because you had the misfortune of living next to him.
"When will she wake up?"
"Soon. The sedatives should wear off within the hour." She pauses, studying him with that look medical professionals get when they're about to say something pointed. "You, however, need treatment. You're actively bleeding on my floor."
"Sam already made that joke."
"It wasn't a joke." But she moves on, knowing a lost cause when she sees one. "I'll send a nurse with supplies. Try not to die before she wakes up. The paperwork would be tedious."
She leaves. Sam leaves. Even Yelena eventually wanders off, muttering something about vodka and terrible life choices. And then it's just Bucky and you and the steady beep of machines he'd tear apart if they stopped working.
Your hand is smaller than his. He knows this—has known it since the first time you grabbed his wrist to drag him to see some neighbor's new puppy—but it feels more pronounced now. More fragile. Your knuckles are split from fighting back, and there's still blood under your nails. His blood? Theirs? He doesn't know, and the not knowing makes him want to put his fist through the wall.
"You're spiraling again."
Your voice is hoarse, barely above a whisper, but it might as well be a gunshot for how hard it hits. His head snaps up to find you watching him, eyes half-open but alert.
"You're awake."
"Mmm. Kind of wish I wasn't." You try to sit up, wince, immediately abort that mission. "Fuck. Did anyone get the number of the truck that hit me?"
"Don't—" He's hovering, hands fluttering uselessly, afraid to touch you. "You shouldn't move. Dr. Cho said—"
"Dr. Cho can kiss my ass," you mutter, but you stop trying to sit up. Your eyes track over him, cataloging damage. "You're bleeding."
"It's nothing."
"It's literally dripping on the floor, Barnes."
"It's fine."
You stare at each other. Four hours of practiced speeches evaporate in the face of your actual consciousness, leaving him with nothing but the memory of your blood on concrete and the sound you made when they hit you.
"So," you say finally, voice carefully neutral. "Cerberus. That was fun."
"Don't."
"Don't what? Make jokes about my kidnapping? Process trauma through humor? Acknowledge that you're sitting there bleeding because you decided to Rambo your way through—"
"You could have died." It comes out louder than intended, raw. "You almost died because of me."
Something shifts in your expression. "Bucky—"
"No." He's standing now, needing distance, needing space between him and the way you're looking at him. "You don't get to—to act like this is fine. Like this is some funny story you'll tell at parties. They took you because of me. They hurt you because of me."
"They took me because they're assholes who thought they could use me as leverage." You're struggling to sit up again, ignoring whatever pain it causes. "That's on them, not you."
"You're only leverage because I was selfish enough to—" He stops, runs his hand through his hair. "I knew better. I knew what would happen if I let someone close, and I did it anyway."
"Let me get this straight." Your voice is gaining strength, and with it, heat. "You think you 'let' me get close? Like I didn't have any say in it? Like I didn't practically force-feed you cookies until you acknowledged my existence?"
"That's not—"
"And what, you think keeping me at arm's length would've magically made me safer? News flash, Barnes: I live in that building because it's what I can afford. That makes me a target for regular criminals on a good day. At least with you around, I had someone who actually gave a shit if I made it home."
"Don't." The word cracks. "Don't act like I was protecting you. I'm the reason you were bleeding. I'm the reason they—"
"You're the reason I'm alive!" You swing your legs over the side of the bed, bare feet hitting the floor with determination that makes his chest tight. "You think they took me because they wanted leverage? They took me because they were cleaning house. Because they knew you'd gotten soft, gotten close to someone, and that made you unpredictable."
You stand, sway, catch yourself on the bed rail. He moves forward instinctively, and you hold up a hand.
"No. You don't get to touch me right now. Not when you're about to do something stupid and noble and self-sacrificing." You take a step, then another, closing the distance between you despite your own warning. "They were going to kill me either way, Barnes. Whether you came for me or not. The only difference is that you did come, and now I'm alive to be really fucking pissed at you."
"You don't understand—"
"I understand perfectly." You're close enough now that he can see the bruises forming on your throat, the way you're holding your ribs, the tears you're refusing to shed. "You think you're poison. You think everyone you touch gets hurt. You think the best thing you can do is be alone forever because that's what you deserve."
"Stop."
"No. Because here's the thing, James Buchanan Barnes—you don't get to make that choice for me." Your voice breaks, just a little. "You don't get to decide I'm better off without you. You don't get to kiss me in my kitchen and then run away like a coward. And you sure as hell don't get to sit there bleeding and act like it's some kind of penance."
The medical bay feels too small suddenly, like all the air's been sucked out. You're looking at him with eyes that see too much, that refuse to let him hide behind the careful walls he's rebuilt in the last three weeks.
"They hurt you," he says, quieter now. Lost.
"Yeah. They did." You reach up, slowly, telegraphing the movement. Your hand cups his face, thumb brushing over the bruise on his cheekbone. "And it wasn't your fault."
"How can you say that?"
"Because blaming you for what they did is like blaming a bank for getting robbed." Your other hand comes up, framing his face, forcing him to meet your eyes. "You're not responsible for other people's evil, Bucky. You're only responsible for what you do about it."
"I should have protected you better."
"You literally threw yourself between me and automatic gunfire."
"I should have never let them take you in the first place."
"Oh, so you're psychic now? Can predict the future?" Your laugh is watery. "Add that to the resume. Congressman, ex-assassin, part-time fortune teller."
"This isn't funny."
"It's a little funny." But your smile fades, replaced by something fiercer. "You want to know what's not funny? Spending three weeks watching you shut me out. Sitting in that chair, knowing you were hurting, and not being able to do anything because you decided I was better off without you."
"You are—"
"Finish that sentence and I swear to god, Barnes, concussion or not, I will punch you in your stupid, self-loathing face."
He almost smiles. Almost. "You could barely stand five seconds ago."
"Adrenaline's a hell of a drug." But you're swaying again, and this time when he reaches for you, you don't stop him. His arms come around you carefully, mindful of injuries, and you lean into him like you've been waiting for permission. "I'm so fucking mad at you."
"I know."
"Like, incandescently furious."
"I know."
"You don't get to leave again." It comes out muffled against his chest, but he hears the steel underneath. "I don't care if the entire population of supervillains decides I'm their new favorite target. You don't get to leave."
His arms tighten fractionally. "Sweetheart—"
"No." You pull back enough to glare at him, and even bruised and exhausted, you're the most beautiful thing he's ever seen. "No 'sweetheart.' No soft voice and sad eyes. You're either in this with me or you're out, but you don't get to half-ass it anymore. You don't get to knock on my door at 2 AM because you had a nightmare and then pretend we're just neighbors. You don't get to dance with me at weddings and then act like it meant nothing. You don't get to—"
He kisses you.
There's no grace in it—just collision, pure physics as his mouth finds yours with the same brutal efficiency he'd use to take down a target. Except this isn't violence, it's something worse. It's capitulation. It's three weeks of want compressed into the space between one heartbeat and the next.
The noise that escapes you—half gasp, half sob—unlocks something feral in his chest. Then your teeth catch his lower lip, sharp and unforgiving, and his vision whites out entirely. You kiss like you fight: dirty, determined, taking no prisoners. Your tongue slides against his and his knees actually buckle, what the fuck, he's faced down alien armies without flinching but you're going to be what finally kills him.
His hands fly to your face, metal and flesh cradling your jaw like you're something precious even as he devours your mouth like you're anything but. You're pressed so tight against him he can feel every hitch in your breathing, every shudder that runs through you when he angles his head and deepens the kiss into something filthier, something that has you making these broken little sounds that he wants to bottle and keep.
The medical bed hits the back of your thighs—when did he walk you backward?—and you use the leverage to pull him down, down, until he's curved over you like a question mark, like gravity itself has reorganized around the heat of your mouth.
When you finally break apart, it's only because biology demands it. You're both wrecked—breathing like you've run marathons, lips swollen and spit-slick, staring at each other like you're not quite sure what just happened.
Your pupils are blown so wide he can barely see the color of your irises. There's a flush spreading down your throat, disappearing beneath the hospital gown, and he has to physically stop himself from following it with his mouth. His hands are trembling where they frame your face, thumbs pressed to your cheekbones like he's checking you're real.
"That's not an answer," you manage, but your voice is thoroughly fucked, and your hands are still twisted in his vest like you'll shoot him if he tries to move away.
"Yes, it is."
"No, it's really not. It's a deflection. A really nice deflection, but—"
"I'm in." The words feel like jumping off a cliff. Like defusing a bomb. Like coming home. "I'm in. Whatever that means, whatever that looks like. I'm in."
You study him for a long moment, and he tries not to fidget under the scrutiny. Finally: "You're going to therapy."
"I'm already in therapy."
"You're going to actually talk in therapy instead of just staring at the wall and hoping Dr. Raynor gets bored."
"...fine."
"And you're going to let me have a say in my own safety. No more unilateral decisions about what's 'best' for me."
"Okay."
"And you're going to teach me self-defense. Real self-defense, not just how to throw a punch."
"Deal."
"And—" You sway again, this time more dramatically. "Oh. Okay. Maybe sitting down now."
He guides you back to the bed, hands steady even if nothing else is. You let him fuss, let him adjust pillows and pull up blankets, and he tries not to think about how easily you fit into his hands. How right this feels, even with blood on his shirt and bruises on your skin.
"For the record," you say as he settles back into the chair beside your bed, "I'm still mad."
"I know."
"Like, really mad. There's going to be yelling. Possibly throwing things."
"I can take it."
"And groveling. Lots of groveling. I'm talking flowers, chocolates, the works."
"Noted."
You reach for his hand, lace your fingers through his. "And you're going to tell me you love me."
He freezes. You squeeze his hand.
"Because I know you do. I've known since you reorganized my bookshelf by genre and then pretended you didn't. And I love you too, you absolute disaster of a man, but I need to hear you say it. When I'm not concussed and you're not bleeding. When we're both safe and no one's trying to kill us and we can actually have a real conversation about what this means."
His throat feels tight. "I can do that."
"Good." You close your eyes, exhaustion finally winning. "Now get your gunshot wound treated before you bleed out on my watch. I'm not explaining that to Sam."
"It's not that bad."
"Bucky."
"Fine."
But he doesn't move. Not yet. Instead, he sits there holding your hand, memorizing the way your fingers fit between his, the steady rise and fall of your chest, the fact that you're alive and here and somehow, impossibly, still want him around.
The sun's coming up by the time a nurse finally corners him, threatening sedation if he doesn't let her treat the gunshot wound. You're properly asleep by then, fingers still tangled with his, and he lets the nurse work around your grip rather than let go.
"She's tough," the nurse comments, applying what are probably too many bandages.
"Yeah."
"And stubborn."
"Definitely."
"Good." She pats his shoulder, maternal despite being half his age. "You're going to need it."
He doesn't ask what she means. Doesn't need to. Because you're right—he's a disaster. A work in progress on his best days, a barely controlled catastrophe on his worst. But you looked at all that and decided he was worth fighting for anyway.
The least he can do is try to prove you right.
When you wake up again, he's there. When Dr. Cho kicks him out so you can rest, he goes to therapy and actually talks. When Sam asks if you're together now, he says yes without qualifying it.
And when you're finally released, when you're back in your apartment with its new locks and its carefully cleaned floors, when you knock on his door at midnight because the nightmares found you too—he opens it. No hesitation. No distance.
"Hey, neighbor," you say, and the smile you give him is worth every risk, every fear, every moment of doubt.
"Hey yourself."
You step inside, and he closes the door behind you, and for the first time in longer than he can remember, Bucky Barnes stops running from the possibility of happiness.
summary: When you are laced with a deadly pathogen, the team finds themselves working endlessly to find a cure. Only it might not be enough.
pairing: bucky barnes x reader
word count: 6.7k
warnings: canon level violence, illness symptoms (fever, cough, vomiting), angst on top of angst with a happy ending, bucky goes through many emotions
a/n: hi hello it has been a hot minute since I have been active im so sorry :( i had a lot of personal issues to deal with but now im hoping to be a little bit more active and post more stories :)
You could feel the heavy rumble of the jet as it landed on the muddy grounds. An overcast covered the sky and emitted a soft grey through the thick glass of the display of the jet, the light pitter of rain tapped against the window.
Bucky’s gentle touch stole your gaze from the window to the super soldier, his fingers wrapped around the Kevlar vest and he began to tighten the straps around your shoulders, pulling them into place.
“Do I really have to wear this? Steve said that the building is supposed to be empty,” you said, trailing a finger along the front of your vest, over the stitched ‘Barnes’ that sat over the thick fabric.
“Yes, honey,” Bucky chuckled, tightening the straps over your back. “Just cause Steve says it’s empty doesn’t mean it is. I can’t risk anything happening to you, therefore you get to wear my vest.” He winked at you and tightened the last strap across your abdomen. “Gotta keep my girl safe, now don’t I?”
You smiled sheepishly and nodded, continued to watch him strap a few guns and knives to his body. Exhaling a tense sigh, you ran your sweaty palms down the side of your tactical uniform, Bucky noticed. “It’s gonna be okay, I’m not gonna let anything happen to you.”
“I know,” you whispered, grabbing his hand. “I’m not exactly equipped for these types of missions, I’m just a little nervous.”
Bucky’s eyes softened when he heard the small crack in your voice, his hands encased around yours and he tenderly pressed a kiss to the back of your palm. “I’m gonna be right by your side the entire time.”
You bobbed your head, taking in a deep breath as Bucky gently slid a gun into the holster on your thigh. “But just in case.”
The two of you had been assigned to track down a lone mercenary in the middle of western Canada. The stormy weather had made it difficult for the jet sensors to get a read on the building that sat in a nearly empty forest.
A mercenary hacker under the name Roman Donovan had been on Tony Stark’s radar for quite some time, after noticing the many sudden security pop ups, indicating that Donovan had smothered his way into Tony’s tech. Both Steve and Tony had been working relentlessly to find a position on him, until a sudden location popped up.
You had your doubts, whether you were the best candidate for this mission, but Steve had reassured you with your technical and computer knowledge that you were the perfect fit. A squeeze to your hand reminded you that Bucky would be with you every step of the way.
With a nod from you, Bucky placed the small comm device into your ear, tapping it a few times so he could hear the breaths that left your lips. He slipped one into his ear as well, tapping it a few times until he could catch the chatter of the two agents in the cockpit of the jet.
“Prescott and Logan, stand by. We’ll radio you in case we need backup,” Bucky announced, pressing the button that opened up the ramp of the jet. He turned to you with a soft, comforting smile. “It’s just a simple extraction of files,” he reminded with a gentle hand to your back. “Ready?”
A final nod of your head, you looked at him. Ready.”
---
The building had been vacant this far, Bucky had led the both of you to the control room where you rapidly typed on the main computer. Bucky stood by the door, sending cautious glances over his shoulder every few seconds to survey the dark hallway.
“I’m almost done,” you called out to him, fingers dancing across the keyboard, desperately pushing into the numbers and letters faster. “It had more firewalls than I expected.”
Bucky glanced over in your direction, a frown taking over his features. “Is that a bad thing?”
“Not necessarily. Just means this guy wants to keep people like me out of his stuff,” you mumbled. Bucky chuckled under his breath.
A few more clicks to the keyboard, you powered off the system and the flash drive ejected out of the main computer. Stepping back, you watched the monitors as the files slowly disappeared from folders and main screen savers, until all the screens went dark.
“I think I got it,” you muttered, eyes wide as they focused on the screens. The flash drive began to flicker a blue color, indicating that the files had transferred successfully without a trace of Stark technology.
The loud slamming of a door alerted Bucky, as he raised his rifle up, pointing towards the sudden sound. You pocketed the flash drive and raised your head at the sudden sound, eyes filled with confusion as they flickered over to Bucky’s alarmed blue ones.
“Get behind me,” You quickly made your way over to him and his hand immediately darted out to grab your wrist. Though you could feel the tension riding off his body in waves, his hold on your arm was gentle. “Stay low.”
You nodded and grasped the back of Bucky’s tactical vest, fisting the thick fabric. With a cautious foot forwards, Bucky stepped out into the hallway, taking slow, steady steps into the dimly lit corridor.
Your hands made their way from the fabric of his shirt to his vibranium hand, and you gripped as tightly as you could, in a way to ground you. He couldn’t feel the tight pressure, but he could feel the weight of your hand in his.
The two of you stealthily made your way through sets of hallways and stairwells, inching closer and closer to the doorway, until the loud slamming of boots against the tile floors halted you in your stance. Fear corrupted every fiber of your body, you couldn’t take your eyes off the panicked look in Bucky’s blue ones.
You felt Bucky push you away behind him, before a sudden force knocked him to the ground, grunts passed through his lips.
“Y/n, run!”
Not looking back, you trusted Bucky enough to know that he would make it out unscathed, with only a few scrapes and bruises. You, however, were not a field trained agent, with little combat knowledge. You bolted the other direction, on the way to warn the two agents standing by in the jet.
“I need backup! Logan, Prescott, to the northeast side of the building, now!”
It wasn’t until you felt the pull of your vest and the weight of someone did you register your head slam against the ground, rather harshly. A strangled cry left your lips when you felt a needle puncture your skin, just at the conjunction between your shoulder and neck.
His hand pressed down on your neck harshly, cutting off your air supply, but you were frozen in fear - he head injected something into your skin. You did not find the strength to fight back.
Fear paralyzed every fiber of your body.
Grunts and strangled screams were heard, you didn’t know if it came from you, but suddenly the weight was lifted off you, though you registered nothing of it. A few greedy breaths of fresh air. The pulsing of your heartbeat rang out in your ear, chiming and pudding against your skull. You laid frozen.
“Y/n is down, I have Donovan apprehended. I need backup, please!” Bucky spoke into the comms a moment later as he threw the hacker on his stomach and pinned his wrists behind his back. He was tempted to sap his wrist, but he held back.
“Roman Donovan, you are a hard son of a bitch to find,” Bucky growled in his ear, reaching into his vest to pull out a pair of wrist restraints, tightening them to Donovan’s wrist. The man yelled in pain and discomfort.
Bucky glanced over to you, eyes softening when he took in your fragile form on the concrete. You just laid there, almost lifeless, but once Bucky saw the rise and fall of your chest, only a little relief came to him. It quickly rushed away when blue eyes focused on the empty syringe near your foot.
“There’s a lot more pain coming your way. What did you inject her with?” Bucky yelled viciously, grabbing Donovan roughly by the hair. But the man simply let out a dark chuckle, eyes narrowing on you. The way weak coughs passed through your lips, the way you burrowed deeper into yourself.
“I know your weak spots, James Barnes.” was all he said.
The hurried footsteps of Prescott and Logan reached his ears and Bucky abruptly stood up and watched the two agents haul the mercenary to his feet and slam him against the wall, patting him, finding a gun strapped to his back and a small grenade.
“Secure him to the panel near the bay doors. Bastard can fly out for all I care.”
Bucky wasted no time in making his way over to you. A gentle hand soothed comforting circles up and down your arm, gently coaxing you and Bucky gently lifted you up in his arms and leant you against the wall, concerned as your head lolled back.
“Baby, are you okay?” His panicked gaze flickered from the bleeding gash on your temple, to the light bruising around your neck, the small dot of blood at the conjunction between your neck and shoulder. He sighed, bringing a hand to rest on your cheek. “Y/n, answer me baby, what hurts?”
Your eyes were clenched shut and you brought a shaky hand to rest over Bucky’s, and you lifted your gaze to meet his worried blue ones. “I’m okay… I think.”
“You think?” Bucky asked, running a hand over your hair.
“I-I don’t know, I feel fuzzy,” you mumbled, leaning your head back against the wall.
Taking slow, deep breaths, you felt Bucky rub slow, soothing circles up and down your thigh. There was a buzzing sensation circling throughout your temples, down to your cheeks, along our jaw until it spread through the rest of your body.
“Deep breaths in and out, baby,” Bucky whispered soothingly, leaning down to kiss your knee.
But then, in a moment or two, you felt it suddenly disperse. As if the wave of numbness rid itself out of your body. You allowed Bucky to help you to your feet, brushing his hands over the front of the vest before making sure you had no further injuries.
“We’ll check you over at the compound,” Bucky said as he wrapped an arm around your waist and led you down the hall, following the two agents in suit. “Let’s get out of here.”
---
Bucky watched helplessly as he and Steve watched as Dr. Cho and her team scanned over your body. He couldn’t imagine how confused and scared you were, hands gripping the sheets. Your first field mission had been a complete disaster. Bruce walked in, the used syringe in an examination tube.
“What do you think he injected her with?” Bucky asked after a couple of minutes of silence.
“It’s weird,” Bruce began, handing the folder over to Bucky.
“I pushed it through a scanner, to see if I could find any sort of answer to what this is. All tests come back negative for a virus or disease. Has she had any of her symptoms progress on the way home?”
Bucky shook his head, “No, she’s just been… frozen, paralyzed almost. He has injected her with something; I saw the blood on her neck and it seemed like he had tried to… kill her or something.”
“You think he would?”
“Why else would he press his fucking hand over her throat?”
“That, I am not sure. So unless she starts to show signs of some sort of sickness, I unfortunately have no answers. I’ll check in with Tony, see if he has any answers. I’ll keep you guys updated.”
“Thanks, Bruce.” Bucky sighed, watching as the doctor left. He opened the file, reading over the diagnosis levels. “I still don’t get it.”
Steve hummed, taking the file out of his hand.
“The only thing he said to me was ‘I know your weak spots’ and then called me out by name. But I have never come into contact with this guy, not even as the Winter Soldier. The dude is early twenties and lived with his grandma in east Maryland up until two years ago, living in some studio in Princeton up in Jersey. How the hell did he end up in Canada?”
“That doesn’t track at all. Unless he has dug up on all of us. He probably just wanted to get you by surprise.” Steve said. “Real name is Benjamin Croot. 24 years old.”
“Sergeant Barnes,” Dr. Cho’s voice broke through on the intercom. “She is asking for you.”
Bucky moved faster than he could process. He rushed through the doors and you turned your head at the sound of his boots.
“Is she okay? She’s not hurt or anything?” Worried questions spewed out, his hands came to grip yours as tight without hurting you. He brushed his hand over your warm, sweaty forehead. “She’s warm.”
Dr. Cho nodded. “My team ran all the tests imaginable for this certain… situation. And everything came back negative, which worries me. If what Y/n described is true, then he must have injected her with something that is lethal or close to being lethal.
“She said to have felt numb, fuzzy almost. Those are usually the signs of a virus or even… a pathogen starts to form. But what I don’t get is that I could not find a single trace of.. well anything really.”
“Dr. Banner doesn’t have an answer either, though he’s checking in with Stark as we speak.” Bucky said, pressing a kiss to your forehead. “What should we do? Keep her here?”
The woman sighed, pieces of her hair falling from the neat bun. “Honestly, I’m not sure. Part of me wants to keep her in the medical wing, just in case, but her stats are all normal, though her temperature is abnormally high.”
“How high?”
She flipped open the chart. You hadn’t really been present in the time either of them were talking. You were just so tired. Physically and mentally.
“The last time I took it, her temperature was sitting at about 100.5, which isn’t that bad, but it’s not great either. So, I would advise to just rest for the night, and when she wakes up we will run a couple more tests, see if anything has changed.”
Bucky nodded, squeezing your hand as the doctor excused herself.
“Whatcha thinkin’, sweetheart?” Bucky sat on the edge of the cot, brushing hair away from your eyes.
“Tired.” He could tell your energy was scarce.
“Let’s go to bed then, hm.”
His movements started before you even had the chance to reply. As gently as he could, he slid his arms around your waist and shoulders and helped you up to your feet. The two of you made your way from the medical bay to the residential wing, to yours and Bucky’s shared room.
“Don’t you have the interrogation to do?” you mumbled, watching his features contort when he pressed his thumb against the scanner and led you into the room. In your fuzzy mind, you barely registered Bucky’s touch as he gently peeled your uniform off and slid your pajamas on.
“I’ll do it tomorrow. Besides it’s late, sweetheart and I think I speak for the both of us when I say it’s been a long day,” He gently eased you onto the bed, gently covering your form with a blanket.
A shiver racked through you and Bucky watched with a concerned look as you tightened the blanket around your shoulders. He flicked off the lights and crawled into bed next to and wrapped an arm around your waist.
“Sleep, sweetheart. I’ve got you.” You faintly nodded and relaxed into his hold, feeling his hands run smoothly up and down your arms. The faint glow of the television set and the low volume did nothing to tear you from your due slumber, though you faintly felt the coolness of Bucky’s appendage running over your hair before you slipped into a dreamless sleep.
---
Sweat coated every part of your body as you woke up with a sharp gasp of air.
Pounding temples, you peeled your eyes open and sat up; the faint glow of the TV caught your eye. The movie Bucky played had finished and had been playing in an endless loop.
The clock on your nightstand read 2:07am, you reached for the cup of water and took slow sips, barely and faintly registering the sounds of Bucky’s light snores.
You felt the nausea before anything else. It ran from your stomach up to your chest and you clamped a hand over your mouth, threw off the covers and made a beeline for the bathroom.
That was until a wave of dizziness hit you and your knees buckled. Vision tunneling, you would have fallen to the floor if it weren’t for the strong pair of arms that wrapped around your waist before you could touch the carpet. I’ve got you, a tired voice murmured, but your hazy mind didn’t hear the quiet mutter.
The warmth of Bucky’s chest touched your heated back as he sped to the bathroom, flicked on the light and watched helplessly as you crashed to your knees and emptied what was in your stomach into the toilet.
Bucky kneeled behind you and grasped your hair in one hand and rubbed soothing circles along your back. He felt you slacken in his arms, head resting back against his shoulder and when he pressed his palm flat against your forehead, he almost hissed at the radiating heat.
“You’re burnin’ up, sweetheart,” His wide blue eyes darted to your half-lidded ones, cerulean darting over your sweaty, clammy skin.
“I don’t feel good.” you croaked.
It hit him in one, big wave as he took over your tattered form. The confusion, the fatigue, to your spiked fever, Something wasn’t right, considering the fact that you rarely felt under the weather.
Those are usually the signs of a virus or even… a pathogen starts to form. Cho’s voice rang in his voice
Weakly, you flushed the toilet and leaned back into Bucky. Shivers racked through your body and Bucky peeled your shirt off your shoulder to see a dark blooming bruise where Donovan had injected the needle.
“FRIDAY, wake Steve and Dr. Cho. Tell them to meet me in the medical wing,” Bucky called for the AI and slipped his hand under your back and knees and lifted you up against his chest.
You jolted slightly, dizziness clouding your mind as Bucky stood up. You were limp in his arms, like jell-o.
The cool air of the hallway felt like a slap in the face, you pressed your cheek into the warmth of Bucky. A low whine passed through your lips and Bucky ran his thumb just below the back of your knee.
“Buck,” Steve called, eyes widening as they fell on your shivering form. “What happened?”
But Bucky didn’t stop his movements, he spared a glance to Steve and kept heading towards the direction of the medical bay. Steve followed Bucky’s fast pace, quickly matching his speed.
“Her temperature is too high,” Bucky said, glancing over at his friend. “When we checked into the medbay, Cho noticed that her temperature was a little higher than normal, but when she got up a couple minutes ago, she was burning hot.”
A slick sheet of sweat coated your forehead, Steve noticed, and how small tremors racked through your body every so often. His eyes fell to the darkening bruise on your shoulder, Bucky caught his eye.
“I think she was laced with something.”
Your fingers grazed the fabric of his shirt and Bucky looked down, continuing his trek to the medical wing with Steve hot on his tail. You could feel the rapid thumping of Bucky’s heartbeat as you weakly bunched his shirt in your fist.
“Laced? Laced with what?” Steve questioned as he rounded the corner, eyes locking onto Cho’s at the end of the hall.
Bucky looked down at you, clammy skin, eyes barely open, though you kept a strong grip on his shirt. “I don’t know.”
Everything was hazy the moment Bucky set you down on the hospital bed. Though sweat coated nearly every inch of your body, shivers racked through your body relentlessly. It was sweltering and freezing simultaneously.
Nurses rushed around you, obstructing Bucky’s view from you, one of them placed a cannula just under your nose, an IV into your arm. The thought of more needles sinking into your skin made you sick.
The last time someone used a needle on you, he was malicious as he jammed the needle into neck harshly. The memory brought nothing but fear to you.
You were hot. Uncomfortable. The pain in your head was nearly unbearable.
“Bucky,” you called out, only it came out more of a whimper. “W-where’s Bucky?”
Metal clamped gently on your hand, the other hand coming to smoothly brush your sweaty hair back. “I’m here baby, I’m right here.”
“It… it hurts,” Bucky watched as another nurse attempted to put another needle through your skin, he noticed the subtle shaking of your head, the whimpers.
“Is that really necessary?” he asked with a sharp glare, it melted away when he looked over at you. “What is it, baby? What hurts?”
“My head.”
Worried eyes wandered over to Cho’s as she placed a reassuring hand on his shoulder. “Sergeant Barnes, I understand you want to offer her comfort, but I can assure she is in good hands with my team.”
Bucky nodded, leaning down to press a kiss to your cheek. His finger trailed over your forehead gently, and when he saw Steve and Sam in his peripherals, he sighed to himself. “I’ll check up on you later, sweet girl. I have something to take care of.”
You nodded drowsily, the dizziness taking control.
Bucky reluctantly moved away from your bedside to his two closest friends, solemn looks on their faces. Sam kept his eyes on you, watching as the nurses took your temperature.
“How is she?” he asked. Bucky kept his eye on you the entire time, watching your tired eyes start to close.
“It’s not looking good,” Bucky sighed. “Her temperature is extremely high, nausea, light-headed and dizziness. Whatever this bastard did to her, he has to deal with me now.”
“He’s downstairs, whenever you’re ready.” Steve said, his eyes laying on your frail body. “It is 2 in the morning and one of my teammates is lying on a hospital bed with a fever of over 100 degrees and a migraine that’s probably killing her. Let’s get this over with.”
---
Roman Donovan sat in a cold, bright room, hands cuffed to the tables with two SHIELD agents armed standing at the entrance. A smug smirk sat on his face as he fidgeted with his fingers. His head perked up at the sound of the door opening.
“Well, if it isn’t the mighty Winter Soldier, what a traitor you are to your own country, huh? I mean, working for the people who you literally fought against-” Sam walked behind him and gripped his shoulders tightly, fingers digging into his muscles.
“I am only gonna say this once, so you better fucking listen to me. What did you do to her?”
Donovan chuckled, “I don’t know what you’re talking about, old man.”
Bucky shook his head, vibranium fist clenched.
“You know, Roman, this guy isn’t too fond of repeating himself. Especially to arrogant assholes like you.”
“What did you do to her, Donovan?” Bucky was strangely calm.. “You know the woman you attacked earlier, the one whose throat you almost crushed after you injected her with drugs? She’s got three degrees in chemistry, computer engineering and computer science, so I get why you, a man of your personality, would go after someone who is not strong enough to put up a fight against you.”
Steve looked on through the window, phone pinging. He pulled it out, the text from Natasha sent dread through himself.
Temperature over 105, tests coming back positive for some type of influenza. Cho is really worried. Not looking too good for her.
“Shit.”
He went on and walked into the room, leaning over to where Sam stood.
“So aggressive, James. And for what reason?”
Sam chuckled, crossing his arms. “If you think this is aggressive, you’re in for a ride.”
“I’m gonna ask one more time, and if I don’t get an answer, that means you’re straight up out of luck.” Bucky leaned forward, black and gold vibranium reached for the chain of his restraints and pulled him down, causing Donovan to hit his head. “What did you inject her with?”
The man tilted his head, blood dripping down his cheek. “What makes you think I injected her with anything?” he cockily sneered. “I thought all the Avengers were required to be knowledgeable in the field, cause let me tell you, Sergeant, that little girlfriend of yours is such an easy target.”
Steve nudged Sam, leaning his phone towards his eyeline, showing the text message. Sam felt a pang of worry settle deep in his stomach, sharing a worried glance with him.
There wasn’t much time left for you.
Steve stepped forward, pulling Bucky aside to show him the text message.
Blue eyes raked over the words he had been dreading the most. "Not looking too good for her.”
“Well Donovan, I want my answer.”
The man smirked. “Yeah? Or what?”
Bucky’s left hand reached out and grabbed a fistful of Donovan’s hair and slammed his head against the metal desk one time only, though it was enough to break the man’s nose. Screams of pain resounded in the small but soundproof room.
“No one’s gonna hear you, Donovan! Those guys with the big ass guns? They’re not gonna help you either. Not when one of their own is about to die in this building. And so help me, Benjamin,” Bucky sneered into his ear, the man’s eyes wide with fear, “if she dies under your hand, there is nothing on the green earth that is going to stop me from tearing you apart. I’m gonna ask one more time, what did you inject her with?”
“A deadly pathogen! It’s a pathogen that kills its hosts within 24 hours of it being administered.”
Bucky’s eyes glanced at the clock. 2:58 AM. It was a late night mission, the jet had landed in Canada at 7:45 PM. Meaning you had to have been injected with it at 8:00 or so. Meaning six hours had already passed, he had eighteen hours left. You had eighteen hours left.
“Did you know adults that experience fevers that go over 105 degrees can run into complications causing serious implications of brain damage,” Sam blurted out. “means you’re in the dog house if we lose her. And ain’t a single one of us is gonna stop that mean.”
“Is there an antidote for it?”
Donovan nodded. Bucky slammed a pen and a notepad down on the table, causing the man to jump in fear. “I suggest you better start writing it down. Now you get to deal with Tony Stark and Bruce Banner. Better start writing.”
Eighteen hours would go by quickly.
---
“Sergeant, it’s not looking good for her,” Dr. Cho said, voice breaking slightly. “This virus that she’s fighting, it’s too strong.”
Bucky looked through the window, heart shattering as his blue eyes fell on the breathing mask they covered your mouth with, the tubes that kept you hydrated. You looked so… lifeless. Natasha sat by your side, her hand gripping your wrist, though you were so out of it, eyes barely open.
“He injected her with some sort of influenza. He knows the antidote, but he has less than eighteen hours.”
She noticed the worried look in his eyes.
“She was constantly asking for you. Even in a state of being delirious, she was still calling for you. Natasha was able to calm her down.”
The soldier gulped. “Is… is she going to die?”
For a moment, Dr. Cho couldn’t answer. She didn’t know the probability of the antidote being made on time.
“James, I cannot answer that. But what I can say is that I will do everything in my power to keep her alive. She’s a fighter.” With that, she excused herself. Bucky stood still for a moment before pushing the door open.
The sounds of your heart monitor and the sounds of oxygen traveling through the tubes filled the room. Natasha’s emerald eyes met Bucky’s, a small smile presented on her face.
“Any updates yet?” she asked, but it fell on deaf ears as Bucky kneeled at your bedside, grasping your limp hand tightly in his.
The amount of pain that swirled in his mind was almost too unbearable. Your eyes met his, though you couldn’t move, couldn’t speak. Tears welled in your eyes as they rushed down your cheeks.
“It’s okay, my love. I am right here.” His voice was above a whisper and pressed a kiss to your palm. “Tony and Bruce are gonna find a cure for you, honey. I promise. It’ll all be okay.” He felt you weakly try to grasp his hand back, but the action alone made you more tired.
“I love you so much, baby. Words can’t comprehend my love for you. I want you to know that,” Tears welled in his own eyes, his hands reached up to cradle your cheek. You leaned into him. “I love you.”
Your skin was so warm under his touch. His eyes read over the stats on the open chart, seeing your temperature rise every hour.
“She was injected with some sort of influenza. Tony and Bruce are working right now.”
“Did you find anything else?”
Bucky kissed your hand, gently guiding your head back on the pillows. “Son of a bitch has the antidote. Had to break his nose just to get him to spill it out.”
Natasha placed her hand on his shoulder. “I will stay with her and I’ll alert you guys if anything changes. Just try to hurry.”
Bucky nodded and leaned down, hugging your frail, weakened body and pressed a kiss against your chapped lips. “I love you, Y/n. I’m gonna fix this.”
He did not spare Natasha a glance as he stormed out of the medical wing, boots stomping with every step he took. Long strides took him to the end of the hall, where the elevator was.
“FRIDAY, where is Stark and Banner?”
“Both are in Mr. Stark’s lab. Shall I notify them that you are coming?”
“Tell them I have a stop to make first.” Bucky slammed the button to the interrogation level. “ I’m coming with the antidote.”
---
Donovan jumped in his seat when the doors opened, revealing the shadow of Bucky’s figure. A knife sat in his hand. The prisoner visibly shivered.
“You know what I’m here for, Donovan.”
“Come on, man! It hasn’t even been-”
The knife that was once held in Bucky’s hand was now lodged into metal table, an inch away from Donovan’s finger.
“You’re fucking crazy!”
“What happened to the tough guy act, huh? You wanted to act all big and bad up in Canada. Why the sudden change of heart?” Bucky taunted him, walking closer to the pad of paper that had been scribbled on, step by step, three pages, front and back. “Remember, you’re targeting my weak spot.”
He seemed ashamed, guilty almost. But it wasn’t because your life was in jeopardy. It was because he was caught, with no one left to save him.
“You know, you’re already facing five counts of criminal charges of unauthorized access into government systems, you wanna add a murder charge to that? Assault with intent to cause bodily harm? That sounds like fifty years to me, that is with just the unauthorized access charges.” Bucky sat down across from him. “And if this,” he held up the paper, “isn’t true or it doesn’t cure her, you’re facing a very serious murder charge of a federal agent.”
“You’re nothing but a coward, Benjamin Croot. Tough guy act falls the minute you’re faced against someone who overpowers you. You’re gonna rot in that prison for the rest of your life.”
---
It was morning.
The sun had risen fully.
10:47 AM
Tony and Bruce had been hard at work, trying to figure out the antidote. It was nearing the afternoon, and they had been at it since nearly four in the morning. But neither were giving up. Not when your life was on a timer.
Bucky had dropped off the paper before going back up to the medical bay, spending his time with you. He hadn’t slept since he first woke up, his groggy eyes immediately landing on you staggering to the bathroom.
He laid in the small bed with you, balancing himself on the edge, giving you all the space. He had laid a damp rag over your forehead, in hope to cool you down a little. Tremors racked through your body suddenly, Bucky jolted.
You laid still for a moment, eyes clenched shut, brows furrowed. An unpleasant gurgling sound came from you, body jerking slightly. Bucky’s eyes widened and he pressed the call button repeatedly before running to your side. You weren’t awake, you were warmer than before, heartbeat rapid as the monitor started to go crazy, alarms blasting. Dr. Cho and a couple nurses suddenly bursted into the room, eyes wide
“What’s wrong? What’s happening to her?” Bucky cried out, helplessly watching as they pushed you on the side.
“She’s choking. Her lungs are filling up with fluids, and if we don't drain it, she will lose her.” Bucky’s eyes filled with horror. “Sergeant Barnes, I know you’re concerned for her health and safety, but I need my full attention if I’m gonna save her. Please.”
Bucky wordlessly nodded, his eyes fixated on your body, your face.
Eyes closed.
Pale skin.
Lifeless, almost.
The monitor flatlined. Bucky was pushed out of the room. Sheets pulled around your bed as voices screamed and yelled, though it was all distorted.
“Bucky?” He turned to Sam, tears spilled over his cheeks.
“She’s…” A cry got caught in his throat. “she’s flatlining.”
Chocolate eyes widened.
“I need to find Tony and Bruce.”
Sam loved you like a sister. The two of you had always been close, ever since you joined the team. And when Sam laid eyes on you, defibrillator pads pressed on the exposed skin of your chest, head laid back, a knife twisted into his heart.
Neither men didn’t move a muscle until the flatline changed to a faint beeping.
---
“Please tell me you’re somewhat close to putting an antidote together.” Bucky and Sam pushed through the doors. Tony looked up, “How is she?”
“She’s running out of time, she flatlined for a minute,” Bucky rambled out. “Please, Tony. What do you have so far?”
“It’s almost done, I think. We followed every single one of the steps, used past remedies that have helped even Thor himself from a virus. But if this guys even altered one of these steps-”
“He’ll have to face me then.” Bucky finished. “Is it ready?” Tony nodded, though he had a look of hesitancy. “What is it?”
Tony looked over at Bruce, having just placed the antidote in the freezer. “It needs to maintain a temperature of -50 degrees. Meaning…”
“You need to bring her down here, or else it won’t work. I have all the medical supplies she’ll need down here. I just need you to transport her.”
“I’ll do it.” Bucky said, not that anyone else would have even offered. “Have every single thing ready by the time I step foot in here.”
“I’ll inform Cho.”
Both scientists nodded, scrambling to ready the emergency medical cot. Sam followed Bucky as they raced through the stairwell, racing up the stairs, though adrenaline gave Bucky all the energy in the world it seemed.
Once he reached the room, Sam sprinted to ready the elevators, to get you to the lab as quickly as possible. Dr. Cho had removed all the tubes and wires off of you, only an oxygen mask with a tank attached.
“Come on, baby,” Bucky strapped the oxygen tank to his back and slid his arms underneath your knees and shoulders, and ever so gently he lifted you up, grey hospital gown drenched in sweat. Your head lolled back, arms and legs completely limp. “I got you, baby, I’ve got you.”
With you laid against his chest, he moved swiftly, his pace faster than normal and it wasn’t long until he was in the elevator with you, nearly unconscious in his arms. Bucky looked down at you and rested his forehead against your sweaty hair, though it did not bother him in the slightest.
Your brows furrowed for a moment, followed by a whimper. “We’re getting there, love. We’re almost there.”
The doors opened and Bucky made a beeline for the lab doors, immediately going to the corner of the room where they had the cot set up. As gently as he could, he cradled the back of your head as he placed you down on the mat, softly placing the tank on the ground.
“Okay, now Tony.” Bruce unbuttoned the gown at the shoulder, revealing where you were attacked. Bucky held the side of your face, caressing your cheek.
He had placed a part of his armor on the hand piece as he took it out of the freezer, glancing at the space from the freezer to you, and in two big strides he held the needle just above the darkening bruise and quickly administered it into your skin. He pressed the button and a fluid was shot into your shoulder.
Your body shuddered for a moment, there was no sudden movement from you.
It was the longest minute of Bucky’s life, his eyes filling up with tears. The sudden rise and fall of your chest kept getting stronger with every breath you sucked in. The bruise surrounding your shoulder slowly vanished, your natural skin color coming back.
When your eyes peeled open, Bucky nearly sobbed in relief, crashing on his knees as he gripped your arms.
“Y/n, baby, can you hear me?” he pleaded desperately.
“B-Bucky,” your voice was raspy and raw.
“Oh my god, you’re okay. You’re okay, you’re okay, you’re okay,” he muttered over and over like a mantra, cradling the back of your head as he peppered your forehead and cheeks with kisses. You were still a little warm, not as life threatening as it was beforehand.
“W-where am I?” you tiredly asked, eyes roaming around the lab. “What happened?”
Bucky gently took the oxygen mask off, replacing it with a nasal tube. “You were poisoned, honey.” Flashes of you flatlining not even two hours ago flooded his mind, but he shook them away. You were well and alive, breathing with a steady pulse. “You were really sick for a while,
but Tony and Bruce here made a cure for you.”
You nodded, still a bit drowsy from the near death experience. “What about… him?”
Though your voice was barely above a whisper, Bucky heard you clearly. “He’s already taken care of. If I had it my way, the bastard would spend the rest of his life on Raft for all I care.”
Tony chuckled, coming over to pat your hair and a quick kiss to your head. “Leave that to me, kiddo. This kid doesn’t know what’s coming to him. Get some rest, hon.”
Bruce, Tony and Sam all bidded you a goodbye, leaving the two of you alone.
Bucky cradled your face in his hands, pressing a soft kiss against your lips. “I love you, sweet girl.”
“I love you, too, Bucky.” You sounded downright exhausted. But you could finally rest. “This is why I stay behind the computers.”
Bucky chuckled and laid against the pillows, pulling you to lay on his chest. “Valid.” Your laugh was a tired one, Bucky could tell. “C’mon baby, let’s nap together.”
You had no obligations on that, closing your eyes as you held onto Bucky’s arm, lulling to sleep.
Finally, Bucky could rest knowing that you were at ease and finally able to rest without being in pain. His eyes drifted shut and you both finally succumbed to a well deserved rest.
