Agent!Reader who was originally sent to spy on Task Force 141 as an intelligence agent, but what they didn’t tell you was that every single spy sent to 141 had been brutally murdered.
What they also didn’t tell you was that they sent you because they knew you wouldn’t return…
Easy disposal of one of their “weakest links,” right?
So they sent you on an impossible mission, deep undercover as a “new recruit” for the team.
What your superiors didn’t account for was you learning to love the task force…and them loving you back.
Yeah, you’re a little clueless sometimes, but they couldn’t help taking a liking to you. It didn’t take long for them to realize the kind of mission you’d been sent on.
Without you ever knowing, they cut off every way your old handlers could contact you.
They may have even staged something that could be mistaken for your death.
They could’ve tortured you. Killed you. Used you as an example for every other task force.
But they didn’t.
They liked having you around…for whatever reason.
Maybe it was because you made coffee for everyone every morning.
Maybe it was because, no matter how bad the day had been, you always made sure to tell everyone goodnight, even if no one was awake to say it back.
Or maybe it was because you always had something kind to say, and that sort of genuine, unbreakable optimism was something the task force didn’t realize they’d been missing.
Summary: Assumptions are made about the relationship you have with Natasha, so you took it upon yourself to make a statement :)
Your relationship with Natasha is built on years of trust, mutual respect, and an unspoken understanding that comes from living in the shadows of espionage. You met when she first joined SHIELD, and while she was still finding her footing within the organization, you were already established as a specialist sniper—someone who worked alone, took the impossible shots, and disappeared before anyone even knew you were there.
At first, your relationship was purely professional. You recognized each other as dangerous and highly capable, but there was always a quiet pull between you. Over time, through shared missions, late-night debriefs, and the rare moments of quiet in a world full of chaos, that pull became something more. It wasn’t dramatic or rushed—it was a slow burn, a natural evolution of two people who understood each other better than most and yearned to show one another a genuine love.
Now, after almost 3 years together, your bond is unshakable. While the Avengers see you around the compound, they don’t truly know the depth of what you and Natasha have. They assume your relationship is casual, just a convenience in a life full of uncertainty. But in reality, Natasha loves you fiercely, and you love her just as much. You’re her safe place, the person she trusts with the parts of herself she doesn’t show anyone else. When the world feels too heavy, she turns to you—not for protection, because she doesn’t need it, but for the rare comfort of knowing she’s not alone.
You don’t need grand gestures or constant declarations. Your love is in the quiet moments—the way she always finds her way to you after a mission, the way you instinctively reach for her hand under the table, the way she relaxes against you when no one is watching. To the outside world, you might just be another agent who occasionally lingers at the compound. But to Natasha, you’re home.
—————————-———
Wanda was the first to recognize the depth of your relationship.
It was early—early enough that most of the team was still asleep or barely functioning. The compound was quiet, save for the soft hum of the coffee machine in the kitchen. You stood by the counter, leaning against it, eyes still heavy with sleep as you waited for the coffee to finish brewing.
Natasha, still in her sleep shorts and one of your old SHIELD t-shirts, wandered in with a yawn, her hair slightly tousled from sleep. She didn’t say anything as she approached—you felt her presence before you saw her. Without hesitation, she walked straight into your space, wrapping her arms around your waist and burying her face into your chest.
"Mm. Too early," she mumbled against you.
You huffed a quiet laugh, your hand instinctively coming up to rub slow, soothing circles on her back. "You say that every morning, but you’re always up before me."
She hummed but didn’t respond, just tightening her grip around you as if she could steal some of your warmth. You didn’t mind. In fact, moments like this were your favorite—the ones where she let her guard down, where she wasn’t the Black Widow or an Avenger, just Natasha, just yours.
Neither of you noticed Wanda standing by the doorway, frozen mid-step. She had come in for coffee but stopped in her tracks at the sight of Natasha—fierce, guarded Natasha—melted completely against you.
Wanda had always assumed your relationship was casual. Everyone had. You weren’t around often, and Natasha never entertained deep conversations about her personal life. But standing there, watching the way she clung to you, the way your hand moved over her back with the kind of practiced ease that spoke of years of familiarity, Wanda realized they had all been wrong.
This wasn’t casual. This was love—deep, unwavering, and so achingly real.
She wasn’t sure how long she stood there, but eventually, Natasha stirred, tilting her head up to look at you. "Coffee ready?"
"Almost," you murmured, brushing a strand of hair out of her face. The gesture was so gentle, so natural, that Wanda almost felt like she was intruding.
Before Natasha could move away, you leaned down, pressing a slow, lingering kiss to her forehead. "Go sit. I’ll bring you a cup."
Natasha didn’t argue, just gave you a sleepy, content smile before releasing you and making her way to the kitchen table.
Wanda finally decided to make her presence known, clearing her throat as she stepped fully into the kitchen. "Morning," she greeted, a knowing smirk tugging at her lips as she grabbed a mug and you unpromptedly filled it for her greeting her with a kind smile and filling Nat’s next, starting another pot for anyone else who might want it.
Natasha, already seated, just raised an eyebrow. "What?"
Wanda glanced between the two of you, then just shook her head, her smirk widening. "Nothing. Just... you two are cute," she blew on her coffee.
Natasha rolled her eyes, but there was no real heat behind it. Meanwhile, you simply handed Natasha her coffee before grabbing your own along with d the morning crossword, completely unfazed.
Wanda took a sip of her drink, still smiling to herself. Maybe the rest of the team had been blind to it, but now she knew the truth—Natasha Romanoff was hopelessly, completely in love.
—————————-———
The next person was Steve. You had gone on another lengthy mission; it had kept you away for weeks longer than either of you liked. You had kept in touch when you could, brief calls and cryptic messages, but it wasn’t the same. And now, finally, you were back.
Steve wasn’t looking for either of you when he entered the common room. He had just been passing through, planning to grab something from the kitchen before heading to the gym. But as soon as he stepped in, he stopped in his tracks.
The lights were dim, the soft crackle of the old record player filling the space. An oldie—something slow, something familiar. And in the center of the room, barely swaying to the rhythm, was you and Natasha.
She was pressed against you, arms loosely wrapped around your shoulders, her fingers idly playing with the hairs at the back of your neck. Your hands rested on her waist, holding her close as if you needed to feel her warmth to believe this moment had finally come after weeks of waiting.
Neither of you spoke. There was no need. The way Natasha clung to you, the way you held her like she was the only thing in the world that mattered, it said everything.
Steve had never seen her like this. Sure, he had seen her care about people, had seen her protect and fight for those she loved. But this? This was different. This was Natasha Romanoff, the Black Widow, completely at peace. Safe. Home.
He felt like he was intruding on something sacred, so he took a quiet step back, turning to leave—only to nearly bump into Bucky.
“what’s with the face?” Bucky asked, raising an eyebrow at the look on Steve’s face.
Steve exhaled, shaking his head with a slight chuckle. “Nothing, just—” He glanced over his shoulder, then looked back at Bucky. “You and Sam better stop checking Nat out so much.”
Bucky scoffed. “What? We don’t—”
Steve gave him a knowing look.
Bucky shifted. “Alright, maybe Sam does. I just—y’know, appreciate a good—”
Steve cut him off. “Don’t.”
Bucky smirked. “Okay, but why the sudden warning?”
Steve shook his head again, that small smile still lingering. “Because they’re in love. Like, really in love.”
Bucky frowned. “I mean, yeah, I figured they were serious, but—”
“No,” Steve interrupted. “Not just serious. Not just together. In love.”
Bucky studied him for a second, something unreadable passing over his expression before he nodded. “Alright,” he said simply.
Steve gave him a final glance before clapping him on the shoulder and walking off, leaving Bucky standing there, a little quieter than usual.
Because if what Steve was saying was true, then it wasn’t just Natasha they had underestimated. It was you.
—————————-———
The true statement was made in the compound gym.
The gym was alive with movement—punching bags swinging, the clatter of weights, and the rhythmic sound of fists meeting training dummies. You had just finished some shooting drills when you decided to swing by, knowing exactly where Natasha would be.
Sure enough, there she was, moving like a force of nature. Every strike was precise, every kick sharp. She was a sight to behold—dangerous, powerful, and effortlessly graceful.
Apparently, you weren’t the only one who thought so.
You noticed Sam and Bucky standing off to the side, arms crossed, observing her with a little too much focus. Eyes tracked her every movement, and while you weren’t necessarily the jealous type, and were well aware how gorgeous Natasha is; people couldn't help but be enamoured by her, however weren’t about to let this slide.
You strolled up beside them, tilting your head. "Enjoying the view?"
Bucky, to his credit, immediately raised his hands in surrender. "Hey, don’t look at me. I was admiring the technique, alright?" He nodded toward Natasha. "She’s one of the best fighters I’ve ever seen."
You eyed him for a second before nodding, accepting the explanation. Bucky was a lot of things, but he wasn’t dumb enough to cross that line.
Sam, however—
"Look, I’m just saying," Sam started, his eyes still trailing Natasha as she wiped sweat off her forehead. "It’s not my fault she moves like that. That’s a distraction."
You raised an eyebrow. "Oh?"
Sam glanced at you, then seemed to realize way too late that he had just said that to the one person who could make him regret it. "Uh—"
"You know what?" You rolled your shoulders, tossing your towel aside. "I feel like I haven’t sparred in a while. What do you say, Wilson? A little one-on-one?"
Sam hesitated, looking between you and Bucky, who just took a step back, clearly enjoying the fact that he wasn’t involved.
"You sure you wanna do this?" Sam asked, crossing his arms. "I mean, no offense, but I’ve got wings, I’ve fought aliens—"
"You’re standing here watching my girlfriend train. I just want to see how you train too." you cut in, smirking.
The room went silent for half a beat before Bucky let out a low chuckle. "Oh, this is gonna be good."
Clint grinned, nudging Wanda. "Five bucks says Sam regrets this immediately."
Natasha, who had been too focused on training to notice the exchange earlier, finally turned toward the group, eyebrow raised. "What’s going on?"
Wanda smirked. "Your sniper just challenged Sam to a sparring match because he got caught staring at you."
Natasha let out a small laugh, tossing a towel over her shoulder as she walked closer. "Oh, I have to see this."
Sam exhaled, shaking his head. "Y’all are ridiculous. But fine. Let’s do this."
You stepped onto the mat, rolling your shoulders as Sam joined you. He gave a cocky smirk. "You sure you wanna do this? I am pretty fast, you know."
You just smirked back. "We’ll see."
Steve, ever the responsible one, clapped his hands. "Alright, keep it clean."
The second Steve gave the go-ahead, you moved—fast.
Sam barely had time to react before you were already in his space, effortlessly dodging his first strike. You didn’t just block—you controlled. Every punch he threw was sidestepped. Every kick, redirected. You weren’t just fighting Sam. You were toying with him.
The smirk on his face started fading as frustration crept in. "Damn," he muttered, throwing another punch. You caught his wrist, twisting him off-balance before sweeping his legs out from under him.
Sam hit the mat with a grunt.
From the sidelines, Bucky let out a whistle. "That looked like it hurt."
Clint was grinning beside Nat.
Wanda shook her head in amusement. "He walked right into that one."
Sam groaned but pushed himself back up. "Alright, alright—lucky shot."
You didn’t respond. You just motioned for him to try again.
This time, he put more effort into his attacks, but it didn’t make a difference. Every move he made, you were already three steps ahead. You parried, countered, redirected—all with ease.
After a few more humiliating takedowns, Sam finally dropped to the mat, breathing hard, lying flat on his back. "Damn. Alright. Message received."
You crouched down beside him, grinning. "Good. Maybe next time, you’ll keep your eyes to yourself playboy"
Sam exhaled, closing his eyes. "Noted."
You stood up, offering him a hand. He took it, groaning as he got to his feet. "You really don’t like people looking at her, huh?"
You shrugged, "I know she can handle herself, I just felt like making a statement today," you smiled stepping off the mat and walking to Nat
"Possessive looks good on you," Natasha said with her signature smirk
Without a second thought, you grabbed her by the waist and kissed her—really kissed her—right in front of everyone. It was slow, deep, and left no room for doubt. Natasha, normally composed, melted into you, gripping your bicep to steady herself.
When you pulled back, she was a little breathless, a rare blush dusting her cheeks.
You smirked. "See you at dinner, love."
And with that, you walked off, leaving Natasha still catching her breath.
Clint let out a low whistle. "Damn."
Wanda smirked. "That was a statement,” Natasha throwing a towel at her, mumbling out a whatever and heading to the lockers
Bucky clapped Sam on the shoulder. "So, you still gonna stare?"
Sam rolled his eyes taking a tired seat on the bench "I hate you all."
WARNINGS: psychological torture, captivity, mind manipulation, Hydra experimentation, injury, blood, confusion and disorientation, panic, grief, reality distortion, emotional whiplash, angst with a soft landing, desperate rescue, trauma aftermath, and one man who will burn the world to bring you back.
SUMMARY: You wake in a perfect life—white fences, morning coffee, and Bucky’s soft kisses—but something’s wrong. Whispers bleed through the walls, reflections don’t match, and the world feels too flawless to be real. When the illusion shatters, you’ll have to face the truth: Hydra built your heaven, and Bucky is fighting like hell to drag you home.
A/N: to my 🖤 anon, i am sososo sorry! this completely got put on the back burner even tho it has been done for like 2 weeks. i had so much fun with this one! the idea of being put in that "perfect world" and bucky having to fight to get you out? sign me up. inspired by this ask, this gave don't worry darling in the best way. enjoy!!
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The coffee is perfect.
It’s the kind of morning you’ve always said you’d earn someday: sunlight pooling over a calm, scrubbed countertop; a mug warmed between your hands; the distant hush of sprinklers catching light like confetti. There’s a ring on your finger that fits the way a promise should. There’s a dish towel slung over Bucky’s shoulder and a smear of flour on his jaw because he swore he could make pancakes without measuring and now he’s muttering “eyeballing is a skill” like a man defending his thesis.
He kisses your temple while the baby gurgles in the high chair, legs kicking, cheeks shining with applesauce. The house hums with quiet things—radio static slipping into a Motown chorus, the low click of the ceiling fan, the whisper of a morning that has no sharp edges. It’s ridiculous, how right it feels. The shirt on your back smells like dryer sheets. The tile is cool beneath your feet. Bucky’s laugh fizzles bright in your chest like soda, fizz up your throat, bubble at your lips.
“I could get used to this,” he says, and the way he says it—even, sure, soft—makes something warm expand behind your ribs like a sun rising just for you. He taps the ring with a knuckle. “Hope you’re not regretting it, Mrs. Barnes.”
You give him a look that means never and always and thank you and mine, all at once. “Regretting you?” You drag a finger through the flour on his jaw, an easy little ritual of affection. “Not possible.”
He grins like you’ve swallowed him whole. Later he’ll mow the lawn in sloppy loops and the neighbor will wave over the picket fence and you’ll catch yourself aching at the sight of the lines in his cheeks when he smiles at the baby, like he’s memorizing something he doesn’t ever want to forget. Later you’ll walk to the farmer’s market and buy peaches that drip down your wrist. Later you’ll curl into the couch and doze while the baby naps and he reads a paperback with the spine cracked down the middle.
Right now he pours you another cup. It tastes like caramel. It tastes like a small, safe life you didn’t know it was allowed to want.
You bring it to your mouth and, for half a second, the reflection on the surface isn’t your face.
A ripple, a misalignment—another woman staring up at you from the coffee: gaunt, wide-eyed, a smear of blood at her hairline. Your hand jerks. The cup wobbles. Bucky’s hand is already there, steadying, his palm warm, his brows pinched. “Hey,” he says, tone light but not careless. “Hey, careful. I’m trying to impress you with my barista skills.”
“Just hot,” you lie, and swallow fast, and the second you blink it’s your reflection again in the brown sheen—the off-center part in your hair, the soft line of your mouth, the curve of the ring when you lift your hand. Your heart thumps irregular, then smooths, like a record skipping and still finding its groove.
Weird, you think. Nothing else.
The rest of the day keeps its promises. You hear a lawnmower two houses over. You help the baby stack plastic rings and clap when she shrieks and knocks them over. The mail is addressed to you and him, as if it always has been. There’s an invitation to a block party. There’s a coupon for mulch. You study the return address like it matters, like your name has roots that go all the way back to a seed.
When you go to rinse a knife at the sink, you look up and the window’s glass shows you the yard: Bucky unspooling the hose, the baby’s sun hat pitched crooked where he’s pinned it on. There’s a sheen on the glass, a little film, as if the day is something you can peel and fold.
He looks up toward the window, right where you are, and mouths I love you, and then—just for a blink—the words stutter out of sync, his lips forming something like wake up instead.
You flinch. The knife clatters. Water splashes your shirt.
When he comes in with the baby and finds you staring at the sink, he tilts his head, all concern under its blanket of ease. “What’s wrong?”
You want to say it: nothing, everything, I’m hearing ghosts in the day you built for me. You scratch your nail against the curve of your ring and tell yourself you’re tired. You slept weird. You had a dream you can’t snag by the tail. You need a nap like the baby.
“Nothing,” you say. “I’m… I’m being weird.”
He kisses your forehead and makes you sit and drink water and brings the baby’s chubby foot to your lips to make you laugh. He smells like cut grass. He moves through the kitchen like he was born to reach for the sugar with his left hand and nudge the drawer shut with his hip. He calls you sweetheart like he’s been doing it for years. When you catch his profile in the microwave door, for a breath you see a metal glint where his temple should be. For a breath, you smell antiseptic and smoke.
This is heavenly, you think, out of nowhere, which is a ridiculous word for a room with applesauce fingerprints on the highchair tray. Maybe that’s how it works. Maybe heaven doesn’t look like a choir of light; maybe it looks like relief.
The whisper comes back while you’re folding laundry—wake up—and you freeze with one of Bucky’s shirts open on your knees. The voice isn’t angry. It isn’t even loud. It’s the sound you make when you’re coaxing a sleeping baby into letting go: gentle, rhythmic, come on, sweetheart, eyes on me.
You look up and the mirror across from the bed shows a small, bright bedroom, a pair of shoes kicked under the dresser, your own body perched on the edge of the mattress, your head tilted as if you’re listening to something no one else can hear. The mirror also shows, for a slice of a second, that same gaunt woman behind you, hand raised with a steadying urgency as if she could reach through. Her mouth shapes the words. Wake up.
The next moments slide wrong. You stand. The floor feels… padded. Like a stage dressed up as a floor. Like the sound of your feet is being softened by someone running the board.
You go to the mirror and touch it and your finger comes away smudged with powder you don’t remember wearing. There’s a hairline crack at the bottom left corner. You crouch to see it and hear Bucky in the hallway humming to the baby. It’s the tune of something you can’t place and then can: not a lullaby, not a radio hit. A rhythm you know by heart like your own pulse. A rhythm that makes your throat go dry.
You’ve heard it in basements. You’ve heard it stitched into the hum of generators. You’ve heard it on missions where Hydra made the air taste like electricity. You watch your face go white in the glass.
The next morning, everything tries harder.
He serves the pancakes in a neat stack, every circle perfect. The baby claps. The neighbors knock with a welcome basket. There’s a breeze that sneaks a curl loose at your neck and Bucky hooks it behind your ear with a thumb as if he’s memorizing touch the way other men memorize lock combinations. “You okay?” he asks, without asking. You don’t realize you’ve been scanning corners, peering at seams, waiting for the set to show its scaffolding until he makes you meet his eyes. “You keep looking at the ceiling like it owes you money.”
You want to say: It’s too perfect. Don’t you feel it? The corners are rounded off. The light’s in the same place every time I turn my head. The baby never cries for more than thirteen seconds. The radio never mentions the news. Your left shoulder never twinges. You never wake up gasping. No one calls us. No one needs us. No one bleeds.
Instead you say, because it breaks out of you before you can leash it, “When did we get married?”
It’s not a challenge. It’s a test. You’re ready for June in a backyard and vows at sunset and Natasha’s laugh in the back row.
Bucky sets the spatula down and smiles like he’s letting you win at something on purpose. “Last spring. You wore white; I wore a tie. Steve cried.”
“Where?”
His eyes flick, just once, like a system accessing shelves. “At the courthouse.”
“And after?”
“After,” he says, a little slower, and his fingers drum once on the counter, “we danced in the kitchen. I burned the lasagna; you said it was charming.”
There’s a snap of static at the base of your skull. You can feel the answer bending to meet your question, like metal under heat. You glance at the baby and she studies you with a solemn gravity that makes your chest ache. It isn’t fair, the way the world will use the things you want most against you.
“Okay,” you say carefully, and pick up the spatula and press it to your palm. It’s warm. It’s heavy. Real is not the same as true.
The day turns itself like a body looking for the coolest part of the pillow. You take a walk. You pass identical roses in identical beds. You wave at the same women with the same ponytails pushing the same strollers. There’s a hum you can’t un-hear now: just below the birdsong and the squeak of stroller wheels and the chatter of your neighbors, a low, persistent current, like a transformer three doors down, like a machine trying not to trip a breaker.
When you get home, Bucky is at the table with a pile of mail. You pick up an envelope and peel it open and inside is a letter from your mother telling you how proud she is, how she couldn’t be happier to see you settled, safe, sweet, finally. The signature is hers and isn’t. There’s a wrong loop in the y. She always dots her i’s like nails. You turn the paper over. The back is blank, almost too blank, the kind of matte that refuses fingerprints.
That night you dream that the ceiling fan stops mid-rotation and the silence it leaves is a hole you can see through. You wake with your heart burning. Bucky rolls toward you and tucks you into his neck like he’s been practicing since the first day. “Nightmare?” he says, already a whisper, already a balm. “It’s okay. I’ve got you.”
But halfway through the words, the voice tilts. Not his. Not his exactly. Yours? No. A braid of familiar timbres: Sam’s urgency when the comms fail; Steve in a corridor yelling your name; Natasha cussing as she reloads; the buckling sound of your own breath when the world squeezes.
Wake up.
You sit up too fast. The room doubles. You clutch at your ring out of reflex and your fingers close around cool, smooth metal. For a flashing, awful half-second, you expect to feel a serrated edge. A cuff. A restraint disguised as sentiment.
“Sweetheart?” Bucky’s voice and the moonlight and the baby’s soft whuff through the monitor all in the same breath. His hand on your back. His weight shifting to support you. “What do you need?”
“Tell me about the market,” you blurt, because it’s the one thing you can’t shake, juice sticky on your wrist and heat breathing off the pavement. “What did we buy last week?”
“Peaches,” he says instantly, like he’s throwing you a rope. “Flowers. The guy with the accordion played—”
“What color were the flowers?”
Something in his face stiffens. He smooths it before it can make a sound. “Yellow,” he says. His mouth makes the shape like he’s written it on cue cards. “They were yellow.”
“We bought white.”
He blinks. “We—” The word glitches in his throat.
“There weren’t any yellow left,” you hear yourself say, and your voice is not your voice, it’s the voice of the woman in the mirror, it’s the voice of the comms, it’s the voice of a building when the foundation shifts. The space between the two of you fills with a pressure like weather. “We bought white because we said they’d look nice in that vase—” You point at the credenza automatically and there it is, a neat glass cylinder with stems fuzzed into abstract green by the water, blossoms luminous as moons. You don’t remember placing them there. You don’t remember changing the water. “We joked our whole house is an ad for toothpaste; we said the white would match the—”
“Okay,” he says, and there’s a fraction of a second where his eyes go large and old, and then he is the softness again, the balm, the safe. He cups your face. He’s very careful. “Hey. It was a different week, babe. I mixed it up.”
“Why are you calling me babe?” You’ve been sweetheart, honey, love, and it should be such a small thing, such a silly little snag, but something behind your ear screams.
His throat works. “Because I—because I always—”
“No,” you say, flat and shaking. “You never do.”
The baby whimpers, a soft, tentative sound. It feels staged. It feels merciful. It feels like someone dimming the lights so you don’t see what’s behind the set.
“What is this?” Your voice scrapes raw. “Bucky, what did you do?”
He flinches like you hit him. It’s not pretend. That wince belongs to a man who has spent years learning to keep his face open even when his heart is a locked room in a burning house. “I—I didn’t—”
“How did we get here?” you demand. “How did we get this house? Who signed the mortgage? Where are the papers? Where are our wedding photos? Where’s—”
The front door opens.
Neither of you moved.
You hear footsteps you know too well. Boots, heavy. You smell cold air, wet metal, a tang like ozone. The baby monitor squeals and then cuts out. You feel something in the walls groan with effort.
“I can’t do this,” you say, and you don’t know whether you’re talking to him or to the house or to the thing that is wearing the shape of your life. “I can’t—”
“Sweetheart,” Bucky pleads, but the word frays, the letters getting caught in an invisible grate. His hands are on your shoulders and you’re cold where he’s touching you, as if something in you is already stepping out of your skin.
You stand. The room tilts. The mirror on the dresser shows the bed and the ring and the white flowers and a smear of darkness in the doorway. You reach for the ring and yank. It doesn’t come off. Your breath shards. Panic flings sparks behind your eyes.
The door opens wider. A man you don’t know is framed there—a stranger and not. His face is… wrong. Not Hydra, not your past, not your nightmares. A composite, a thing made of things you fear, a mask that uses your own memory as glue. He smiles and your mouth fills with the taste of pennies.
“Time’s up,” he says, but the mouth that moves is not his. You hear it in your bones. You hear it under the floorboards. You hear it from the deep, stubborn place in you that never learned how to die. Wake up.
You force your ring over your knuckle. It cuts. The skin breaks. The sting is shocking. The first wild color in a black-and-white film. For a dizzy moment you expect nothing, because you expect nothing in a world that never bleeds.
Pain blooms.
The house inhales.
“Don’t—” Bucky says, strangled, and for a fractured heartbeat you think he’s warning you, begging you to stay, holding you here like a hand at your ankle. Then you see the tears in his eyes that the simulation can’t grind out of him fast enough, the naked panic the mask can’t facsimile in time. “Please,” he says, not the word the world wants him to say, not stay, not safe—please, to something else, to you somewhere else, to whoever is still listening. “Come back to me.”
“Who are you?” you ask him, and you mean it like a blade. “And what did you do to me?”
The sound that splits his face open isn’t anger. It’s heartbreak. He steps back like you shot him. “I’ve been trying,” he says, and it comes out like a confession, like a prayer. “I’ve been—god, baby—I’ve been talking to you for hours—days—just—just come back—”
The stranger in the doorway lunges. The house folds the edges of him to make him fit whatever you need him to be most—cop, priest, doctor, handler—and he is all of them and none. He grabs your wrist. His hand is iron. The ring cuts deeper. The blood isn’t real and it is. The world jitters like a bad movie file. “No,” he says. “No, no, no—”
Wake up, the voice says, and you know it now, you know the true voice, not the mask of it, the core: Bucky, in a different room in a different life, jaw locked, hands shaking, saying your name like he built a house out of it and the wind knocked the roof off.
You wrench free and run.
Halls telescoping. Stairs extruding. Doors appearing, blank, then named: laundry, pantry, office. Your bare feet slap and slip as if the floor is deciding whether to be tile or concrete. You choose the one door that’s never been there before—basement. Of course. Of course the set has a basement. You yank it open and there’s—what is that smell—wet copper, burned dust, the clotted tang of machines that have been doing something ugly for a very long time.
You go down. The stairs count themselves like a nursery rhyme. Twelve, eleven, ten—
At the bottom: a room that does not belong to your house. It’s harshly lit. It’s white, then not white, then raw, then blinking, then a flicker resolves and there it is, unvarnished: steel chair, restraints splayed like dead hands, a crown of needles haloing the headrest. The air vibrates with held current. There’s a hum that sits in your teeth and vibrates bone.
You look at the chair and all the oxygen in your body quits.
The stranger pounds down the stairs behind you and his boots find metal when they should find carpet; the world can’t keep up. He snarls. He’s losing definition. His face is glitching, a stack of transparencies slipping. The ring on your finger blazes like a brand. You know, you think suddenly, exactly how to break this.
You sit in the chair.
“No,” the stranger roars, and now it is Hydra’s voice, and your handler’s, and every man who ever made your body a map for knives. “No, you don’t get to—”
You slam your hand down on the armrest. The metal is cold enough to hurt. You feel the echo of restraints that are not there and are very much there somewhere else. You tighten your fingers. “Run it,” you say, and your voice is steady because you invented steady, you practiced it until your throat was feathered with it. “Run the program.”
The machine hears you the way a trained dog hears its handler. The world goes bright and then black and then your skull is full of bees and then someone is shouting your name, your name, your name. It could be your own mouth. It could be the man you love. It could be the sky.
What it is: the sound of the door opening in the room where your real body is.
What you feel: hands on your shoulders, real weight, something warm pressed to your palm that isn’t a mug, it’s flesh, it’s the heat of another person’s plea. All at once the fake basement and the fake chair and the fake ring and the fake baby explode outward like a soap bubble in a high wind, and the afterimage burns onto your retinas, the way a camera flash leaves you blind.
You open your eyes.
The world is too loud. The light is wrong. A ceiling you’ve never seen. The smell of alcohol. Monitors throwing numbers in frantic green. Your throat is cotton. Your skin is packed with glass.
You jerk, because your first instinct is always to fight. You rip something from your arm. An alarm screams. Hands catch you. A voice breaks itself trying to be gentle. “Hey—hey—hey—shh, shh, sweetheart, stop, you’re okay, you’re safe—”
Bucky’s face.
Too close and too far. Eyes red-rimmed. Stubble he didn’t bother shaving. Hair shoved back like he’s done it a hundred times tonight. He’s shaking. He’s mouthing something over and over, your name, baby, please, I’ve got you. His hand is locked around your wrist like you’re the last anchor he had left.
You heave for breath and every breath hurts, like re-entering the atmosphere. Your chest is a wrecking ball. Your head is full of fog and glass and pins. You try to sit up. You try to recoil. You try to check your left palm for a ring that doesn’t exist and hurts like it does. The machine that isn’t here anymore sings in phantom behind your ear.
“You—” your voice breaks on the edges of your own teeth—“you put me there.”
The way his face goes soft with devastation is obscene. He shakes his head hard. “No, no, no—sweetheart, no—don’t—look at me—look at me—”
“You put me there,” you rasp, because in the world you just left his mouth made “wake up” and it sounded like a threat. Because the ring cut and the baby cried and the door opened. Because the things you want most are the easiest knives to hold against you. “You said—” Your brain can’t find the thread. Your whole body feels like a badly tuned radio. “You said wake up.”
“I’ve been saying it for hours,” he chokes out, one hand on your cheek like he could hold your skull together. “Days. They—they had you in a pod. We found the lab—we tore it apart—baby, I swear, I swear to you—”
Something in the room shifts. You hear familiar voices at the edges, blurred, strained. “Clear the doorway—c’mon, give them space—” “Vitals stabilizing—” “She’s back with us—” “Buck, ease up, she’s—she needs air—”
He doesn’t ease up. He can’t. He keeps saying your name like he learned it wrong and he’s going to keep practicing until the sound fits his mouth again. You gulp him in, starving, certain, furious, drowning. Your mind is trying to reconcile two realities like two plates of the earth grinding. It’s brutal. It’s slow. It’s not neat.
“Where—” you manage, every word teeth—“where’s—”
He knows. His face breaks. You think, wildly, that he looks like a man who accomplished something and lost something in the same breath. “There wasn’t—” His voice is a thread that keeps catching on metal. He swallows. “It wasn’t real, honey.”
It’s worse than being cut. It’s worse than anything the machine did. The grief that hits you is oceanic and humiliating, because logic should cauterize it and it doesn’t. You ache for a baby who never existed and does, in the pound-for-pound way of longing. You ache for a white kitchen with a vase of white flowers. You ache for a neighbor’s wave, for a block party, for a world where your best worry is mulch.
You press your fist to your mouth and feel the phantom ring burn. Bucky flinches like you struck him. “I’m sorry,” he says hoarsely, which is the stupidest thing he could say and the only thing, because he didn’t do it, and he’s sorry anyway, and he will be sorry for both of you until the end of everything. “I’m so—I’m so goddamn sorry.”
You should tell him it’s not his fault. You should tell him you know, deep in the place that the machine couldn’t mine out of you, that he would burn the world to its studs to pull you out—which he did. You should take the hand he’s holding out like a drowning man offers a life ring to the person who went under first.
Instead you say, low, ugly, “Don’t call me babe.”
His mouth twitches. Even this is relief. Even this is an anchor. “Yeah,” he whispers, a laugh cut to the bone. “Okay. Okay, sweetheart. I won’t.”
The room unmutes. Sam is a blur in the doorway, jaw set, eyes wet. Natasha is a line of steel and mercy. Steve stands with his hands half-lifted like he’s ready to catch anything, even the air. The monitors settle. Your breath finds you again. The adrenaline recedes like a tide and leaves you shivering and mean and human.
Bucky tucks a blanket around you with exquisite care. He moves like the floor could be booby-trapped. He moves like the chair could leap out of the corner. He moves like your body is a lit fuse. “You don’t have to forgive me,” he says, and his voice is steady now, the steadiness he saves for moments like this, the steadiness he learned the hard way, the steadiness he made for you like a house. “Not tonight. Not tomorrow. I just need you to know I didn’t do it, and I never would, and I will spend the rest of my life making sure nobody can again.”
You close your eyes because looking at him hurts. You see white daisies blurring through your lids. You see the baby’s sun hat. You see a door you opened because you could. Your throat thickens. “She had your eyes,” you whisper, and you hate yourself for saying it because it’s cruel and it’s true and it doesn’t matter and it matters.
He makes a sound that is not a word. He presses his forehead to the back of your hand like he’s at a church built out of what you’ve survived. “We can—” he starts, and stops, and resets like a man choosing his one true thing. “We will make our own life,” he says fiercely, a vow clipped of every frill. “It won’t be a machine’s idea of perfect. It’ll be messy and loud and real. If you want it with me. If you don’t—if you need time—if you need me across the room—I’ll go across the world. Just—don’t leave me in the place where I can’t help you.”
It’s not a plea. It’s the plainest thing he knows how to offer. He holds your gaze like a rope. He doesn’t flinch when you jerk your hand away; he doesn’t lunge when you let your fingers drift back and find his. He threads them with a careful pressure, like someone learning a new language.
The door to the room closes. The world gets smaller. It gets bearable by inches.
“Tell me something only you know,” you say, because you want a bridge and you can’t build it yourself yet. “Right now.”
He doesn’t reach for the easy ones. He doesn’t say the Brooklyn thing or the plums thing or the way you take your coffee. He licks his lips, and for a moment he is that boy with his hair slicked back, the one with a grin big enough to be its own city, and he says, soft and mortally sure, “You hate yellow flowers. You bought white and told me to lie and say they were yellow so you’d have a reason to be angry later, because being sad is too quiet for you.”
The breath you take shudders its way down. It sticks and then it doesn’t.
He squeezes your fingers. A tear slips clean from his jaw to the sheet. “Also,” he says, voice cracking, “if you ever want to call me a villain again, I’ll hold your hand while you do it.”
This is not heaven. It doesn’t pretend to be. The light is bad. Your head is ringing. You are stitched back into a world that hurts and heals haphazardly, not on a plot, not by a wire pulled from behind a wall. You’re not ready to let go of the life you just lost—might never be, not entirely. The ache will be something you live with, a ghost kid giggling in the hallway at the corner of your life.
You look at him. Your villain. Your rescue. Your liar, your truth. You’re going to need days. Weeks. You’re going to need to see a ring and not flinch, hold a mug and not search it for another woman’s eyes. You’re going to need to hear wake up and not think of a man in a doorway or a machine under your skin.
“Okay,” you say, voice wrecked. You don’t know whether you mean the flowers or the future. You don’t know whether you mean forgive or fight. You let him have your hand anyway. You let yourself have his.
He breathes like he hasn’t in hours, days. “Okay,” he echoes, and for the first time since you opened your eyes, the word doesn’t scrape.
The house in your head will keep standing for a while. Sometimes you’ll think you hear sprinklers. Sometimes you’ll taste peaches. Sometimes you’ll wake in the night and swear there’s a baby crying down the hall. Maybe someday there will be. Maybe someday you’ll buy white flowers because you like how they look in the vase and yellow ones because he does. Maybe you’ll plant something and it’ll take.
For now, Bucky folds his big, shaking hand over yours like it’s shelter. For now, you lie there and let the machines be machines, not gods. For now, you stay, and breathe, and bleed a little, and choose the mess.
He leans close—not a kiss, not yet, just his breath at your cheek, a quiet you can live inside—and he whispers, the right way this time, the way only your bones can hear:
“Stay with me. You’re here.”
----
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Summary: Aaron Hotchner x BAU!Reader -> You and Hotch have always been enemies, so what happens when a line is crossed?
Disclaimer: Enemies to lovers, FwB kinda but it quickly becomes more, slight mention of smut so mdni. Reader was a defence attorney before BAU, elevator kiss, almost kiss, secret relationship, mention of a rough case, little fluff, little yearning, Haley and Jack don't exist.
It had been a long day, week and hell, even a long month.
So, when you entered the empty elevator as you left work and watched the doors slide shut, finally putting a slightly more permanent barrier between yourself and a conversation you refused to have, you took a deep breath.
But it didn’t last long because barely a second before the doors closed together, a hand pushed them open.
“What are you–”
“We need to talk,” Hotch told you as he stepped inside and purposely closed the doors behind him.
“Hotchner, nothing-”
He shook his head. “Something happened. We both know that.”
“Nothing happened,” you forced, practically through gritted teeth. “Nothing could have happened, nothing should have happened.”
“But something almost did.”
You sighed. “It was nothing more than a moment. A fluke of a moment.”
“A fluke of a…” He seemed out of breath, but you refused to look at him.
However, as you kept your eyes trained on the doors in front of you, feeling Hotchner’s stare burn a hole in your profile, the elevator suddenly shook to a stop.
“What the hell?” Then you spotted Hotchner’s hand.
He stopped the elevator.
“What the hell are you doing?”
“Making you talk to me. We have to talk.”
Finally, you turned to face him. “About what, Aaron?! There is nothing to say or to talk about. What happened earlier wasn’t anything even worthy of a footnote in the paper of our lives.”
“Do you really believe that?”
You nodded despite the truth. “Yes.”
“No, you don’t.”
Something you’d known about SSA Aaron Hotchner since you first met him, two years before you left your job as a Defense Attorney and started at the BAU under his authority. You knew he had a tendency to still find confidence in moments where he was wrong.
Even if he wasn’t wrong in this moment, he didn’t need to know the truth.
“Yes, I do,” you pressed.
“You really can’t admit it?”
You grumbled. “What do you want me to say, Aaron? That I wanted you to kiss me? That…despite all the fighting and the yelling, I still wanted you to step closer to me? That I wanted to know–”
You stopped yourself before you revealed anything more. Hotchner lowered his voice as he took a gentle step towards you.
“Wanted to know what?”
You stayed quiet.
“Wanted to know what, Y/n?”
You tried to keep yourself calm. “I’m not going to say. You know I’m not going to say.”
He did. He’d known you long enough to know at least that. So he didn’t press you on it further. But he did say what he’d been dying to say for the last month. If you weren’t going to, somebody had to.
“I wanted to kiss you,” he said. “I’ve barely been able to think about anything else other than how badly I wanted to kiss you at that moment. And it has been driving me insane. You drive me insane.”
“Tell me something I don’t know.”
Hotch chuckled. “Aren’t you tired of this cat and dog game? We’ve been at this for what? Seven years?”
“Feels like more.”
But he was right. If you were being technical, it was almost eight. You had started out as a Defence Attorney and, despite only being opposite Aaron Hotchner a couple of times, it had been enough to establish a relationship between both of you.
A relationship that let people know you drove each other completely insane and were not to be left alone in a room together, if that room was to remain intact.
Hotch nodded. “You can keep lying to yourself, but you and I both know something changed that night in my office.”
You were quiet for a long time and he could see it in your eyes; you were judging whether or not to lower your protective shield.
The last week alone was enough to tell you not to lower it…
Compared to your constant fighting and bickering with Hotch, the last three weeks had been silent. It had been unnerving. You were both so used to fighting each other, the idea of what could have almost happened in his office, along with suddenly being nice to each other was making your stomach churn.
So, you had tried to get it back on track.
It started with the silent bickering; you had placed the creamer right beside his black coffee when you were all in the meeting room, you’d move his jacket from the seat he’d assigned himself.
He must have caught on because your pen pot started moving around the office and any coffee he brought you was sweet, but never just sweet enough. You’d catch his smirk he tried to hide when you, trying to hide your annoyance, shook a couple of sugar packets and poured them in.
Everything was getting back to normal.
Until an officer that hadn’t stopped flirting with you loudly apologised when you kindly rejected his number at the end of the case.
“You and the Boss, huh?” The officer had asked with a smile. “No worries, I’m cool. Sorry, Agent Hotchner.”
The others who stood around you both, looking between yourself and Hotch for reactions.
“Excuse me?”
“You two are…dating…right? I mean, you could practically cut the tension with a knife. And the staring…”
Everyone on the team went silent, trying to subtly catch yours and Hotch’s reaction. But you just chuckled.
You had chuckled. “No, no. We’re not– he’s my boss.”
Never in your life had you openly admitted Hotch was your boss. You’d once told Derek when he asked, “If I ever admit he is my boss, get me checked for a head injury.”
The ride back on the plane was tense — between you and Hotchner at least. You couldn’t sit near one another. Every once in a while you could feel his eyes on you, but when you’d look, he was staring out of the window.
In the elevator, you took a breath. “Nothing can happen.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
“You didn’t ask anything.”
“You still know the question, though.”
You kept your gaze locked on Hotch’s. “Like I said, it was fluke. We were both tired and stressed. We both wanted a release and–”
“Both thought of the same thing?”
Your eyes flicked from his eyes to his lips. Only briefly, but Hotch caught the look anyway. It was the same look you’d given him when there had been barely two inches of room between yourself, him and his office door.
That was definitely when something changed.
Dropping your bag by your feet, you reached up and pulled Aaron closer to you, finally kissing him.
He kissed you back instantaneously.
If he was being true to himself, he would admit that he’d thought about kissing you a lot earlier than just a month ago inside of his office when both of you had managed to pluck an argument out of nowhere.
Just as you felt the cold metal of the elevator wall against the small of your back, a buzzer rang. “Is everything okay in there?”
Someone from security. There weren’t any cameras inside, thankfully. Or else yourself and Hotch would be called in by HR.
Stopping the kiss, Hotch took in your profile. Slightly dishevelled hair from where his fingers had run through it during the kiss, plump lips and hungry eyes. He probably looked similar, if not worse.
“Yeah!” Your voice shook for a moment. “Yes.” You sounded more clear. “Just…pressed the wrong button.”
“Alrighty!”
Reaching over, but keeping his eyes on you, Hotch pressed the emergency stop button back in. Within seconds, the elevator lit up and started moving again.
But he took his time setting you back down on your feet and stepping away from you.
You fixed your hair and touched your lips for a moment, meanwhile, he fixed his tie and ran a hand through his hair.
By the time the doors opened up, you cleared your throat and simply said; “Goodnight.”
Considering the case had lasted a full week, the team was due a few days off. Which, including you, meant they were excited to lie in.
So, when Hotch woke up to the constant knocking on his apartment door, it was safe to say he was surprised.
“Are you alone?” You asked him as he opened the door.
“Yes.”
Without a second thought, you stepped closer to him and kissed him again. He pulled one arm around your waist and lifted you inside as he closed the door with his other.
You felt the cool wood of the door behind your back as Hotch positioned you in front of him.
“You’re an asshole,” you told him in between the kisses.
“Oh, yeah?”
“Yeah.” You nodded, feeling his lips leave yours and tail across your jaw. “You tell me you want to talk and then you kiss me like that? And then you don’t say anything?”
“Technically,” Hotch stopped kissing you and looked at you. “You kissed me.”
“You still didn’t say anything.”
“I didn’t want to spook you,” he admitted. “I had to stop an elevator just to get you to talk to me.”
“Some good that did you.”
Hotch nodded, “It did.”
You look at him, mostly confused but still a little curious.
“It got you to talk to me, didn’t it?” He asked. “And got you to kiss me.”
“As if you weren’t already vying for that.”
Hotch shrugged. “Maybe. But I’m not the one knocking on the door at 6:28 in the morning.”
You rolled your eyes, pulling him back in to kiss you. “Oh, shut up.”
Kissing him, almost desperately, you let him lift you against the door. You’d been awake most of the night, wondering what to do.
The only thing you knew for certain was that you couldn’t wait until you got back to work to see him.
A few hours later, in a mess of tangled sheets and strewn pillows, you walked from Aaron’s bedroom to his bathroom and started running a hot shower. But, just as you stepped under the hot water and let it wash away the sweat and piece of heat still left inside of you, you felt an arm wrap around your middle from behind.
His tall frame slotted against yours from behind as one of his hands trailed up your stomach, over the curve of your breast and gently up your throat to turn your chin towards him; his kiss practically devoured you.
Eventually, he set you against the cold tile of his bathroom wall, letting your legs rest on his shoulders whilst the spray of the shower ran down his back.
Never in your life had you thought you would have seen Aaron Hotchner on his knees for you. Let alone that setting being in a shower whilst he made you cum with his tongue.
But, despite the break in tension, complications would still follow. You both knew that. Despite being professionally trained in similar backgrounds, Hotch had been at the BAU longer and he was older. Had a few more years experience than you did. He was your boss; the one you reported to.
Which didn’t help when yourself and Hotch continued your secret relationship past more than just the random hook up after work, or a quick make-out session in Hotch’s office.
Like other things in life between yourself and Hotch, it took a fight to get you both to admit what you were feeling.
Though this fight wasn’t in anger.
It was in…fear and worry.
A case had landed yourself and Emily in a risky situation which meant being checked over by medics. But, where you would usually sit with someone on the flight back, you sat on your own.
It wasn’t until Hotch knocked on your apartment door a few hours after landing that he found out why.
“You were quiet on the way home,” he said. “I wanted to make sure you were okay.”
“I’m fine.”
“Now, I know that’s a lie.”
Hotch watched you for a moment as you moved around your kitchen, pulling out different bowls and ingredients.
Lemon bars.
You only ever made them when you needed to relax and reset your nervous system. Someone had told you once that citrus foods helped do that, along with a sweet treat. So, lemon bars it was.
“Y/n, what-”
“I wanted you!” You didn’t mean to yell it. Leaning against your kitchen counter with your back to him, you tried to breathe.
You’d been on the edge of tears since you got onto the plane.
“I wanted you.” You repeated. “I always sit with someone after a case has…been too much. It helps me feel safe. Less alone. But after these last couple months, I realised I just…wanted you. But I can’t. Because you’re my boss. Because we work together.”
You heard him walk over to you, calmly. But you still couldn’t face him.
“I told you nothing could happen,” you said. “Because I couldn’t get…attached. This was just meant to be casual, Aaron. We weren’t- I wasn’t meant to develop feelings for you.”
For a moment, you could have swore you heard a smile in his voice. “You have feelings for me?”
You were on the verge of tears again, overwhelmed with the knowledge that the feelings you had for Aaron Hotchner – your once sworn enemy – shouldn’t exist.
But they did.
“I shouldn’t. But I do.”
“Honey…”
The nickname had slipped a few times in the last couple of weeks when you and Aaron were alone. It wasn’t helping you trying to stop your feelings.
“Don’t. Don’t call me that. It doesn’t…”
“Y/n,” he said your name before reaching out for you and turning you to face him. “Honey, please look at me.”
Looking up, Aaron gently wiped the overwhelming-tears away from your cheeks.
Then he admitted, “I have feelings for you, too.”
“W…what?”
“I have feelings for you, too.” Aaron repeated. “I have done for…well, a long time. And next time you need someone, and if that someone is me, please come and find me.”
“I can’t, Aaron.”
“Yes, you can. Maybe not on the plane, but if you want me to sit next to you, just say so. If you want some space, just tell me.” Hotch told you. “Just…don’t go quiet.”
You nodded before being pulled into a tight hug. And, as you cried, Aaron simply held you, pressing kisses into the top of your head.
As things settled down, he sat in the kitchen with you as you still went through the process of making Lemon Bars. And you both talked.
About the case. About the aftermath. About how it would work between both of you.
It wasn’t long before the rest of the complications started to iron themselves out, even after you both submitted your forms to HR.
Then there was just one ‘complication’ left.
Tell the team.
But, since HR knew, that was a complication you decided to leave up to fate to iron out.
Hi there! First, I just want to say I love your blog and your writing! You are seriously so talented! I have a request for Bucky that I would be cute! (I don't think you've written anything similar but if so, I'm sorry for sending in a duplicate).
I saw a writing prompt thing on Pinterest and the prompt was "I can walk." The guy then looks at her and sasy "I thought you were dead. I need to f*ckin hold you."
And I immediately thought of Bucky! I kind of pictured you getting hurt on a mission or something like that and Bucky just being super touchy and wanting to hold you after because he was scared that he had lost you.
I'll let you fill in the rest with your amazing creativity!
Almost Lost You » Bucky Barnes/Winter Soldier
Pairings: Thunderbolts!Bucky Barnes x Agent!Female Reader
Summary: You get shot during a mission and all Bucky wants to do is hold you.
Warnings: Fluff, language, coworkers to lovers (is that a thing?), blood, kissing, pet names
A/N: Thank you for the request, nonnie🩵 I immediately thought of Thunderbolts when I seen this🥰
Written on my phone. My apologies for any mistakes.
Header made by @buck-star
GIF IS NOT MINE! Gif credit goes to the creator.
It’s no secret that Bucky has feelings for you. He has had feelings on you for a while. Most of the time you two get partnered up for missions, but sometimes it calls for individual work. Like this one.
Bucky was stopping a truck from hitting someone with his vibranium arm. You were chasing and shooting at the targets you were assigned to do. The rest of the team was doing their parts as well.
You were chasing one of the targets you were assigned to take down. You jumped on him to knock him to the ground, in which he did. He made a groaning noise as he fell to the ground. He grabbed his knife to try to stab you, but you smacked it out of his hand before you could.
“You need some back up, Y/N?” Bucky asks you through his ear piece.
“No, I’m good, Bucky.” You replied.
As soon as you said that, the guy you were trying to take down pulled out a gun. Before you could smack it out of his hand, he shot you in the side. You cried out in pain as he pushed you off of him and ran away. You managed to Army crawl your way off to the side and lean against a wall. You held your hand over where you were shot, feeling blood trickling down your side.
Bucky looked over at where you were supposed to be, but didn’t see you. He walked around to look for you. He found you leaning against a wall with your eyes closed. His eyes widened and his heart dropped to the pit of his stomach. He ran over to you to check on you.
“Please be alive.” Bucky whispers to himself.
He put his fingers against your neck to feel for your pulse. He felt relieved when he felt it.
“What are you doing?” You asked, opening your eyes to see Bucky crouched down in front of you.
“I was just checking on you. You look injured.” Bucky says. “Are you ok?” He asks.
You knew he’d figure out one way or another to see if you’re injured or not. You lifted your shirt, showing him where you got shot. Bucky’s eyes went wide when he seen it. He put his hand over it and applied pressure. You yelped in pain.
“I know it hurts, but you’re going to be ok.” He says softly.
All you could do is nod. You tried to stand up, but the pain got the best of you.
“Let me help you.” Bucky says.
Bucky lifted you to your feet and then went to pick you up, but you stopped him by putting your hand on his chest to stop him.
“I can walk.” You say.
“I thought you were dead. I need to fucking hold you.” He says.
You were in too much pain to argue with him so you just nodded. Bucky picked you up bridal style and went to get you help. Luckily for you, there was an ambulance not too far from where you two were.
“What happened?” Yelena asks when she seen Bucky walk past her with you in his arms.
“Some asshole shot her.” Bucky tells her.
The paramedics saw Bucky carrying you and got a stretcher out of the aid car, rolling it over to you. Bucky gently laid you on it and explained what happened to you to the paramedics. You grabbed Bucky’s arm and looked up at him.
“Please stay with me.” You said in almost a whisper.
“I’m not going anywhere, doll.” Bucky says softly, gently caressing your cheek.
The paramedics took you to the hospital and Bucky stayed with you the whole time, except when he was told to go to the waiting room. Bucky sat in the waiting room with his nerves through the roof. He was bouncing one of his legs, trying to keep his nerves in control. All he wants to do is be with you.
“Bucky.” He hears Yelena’s voice.
Bucky looks up to see Yelena, Alexi, John, and Ava walking towards him.
“How is she?” Ava asks.
“They said the bullet didn’t hit anything major and they took her to surgery just to make sure.” Bucky tells them.
“She’ll be out before you know it.” Alexi says, trying to stay positive.
Bucky smiles softly and nods. That’s when the doctor walked in the waiting room. He practically jumped up from his seat.
“Y/N is out of surgery and she’ll be fine. She needs to take it easy for a while. You can see her now if you want.” The doctor says.
Bucky let out a breath he didn’t even know he was holding. He’s even more relieved to know that you’re fine.
“We’ll be out here if either of you need anything.” Yelena says.
Bucky smiles and went to your hospital room. You were just waking up when he walked in the room. You turned your head towards the door, smiling when you saw him.
“You stayed.” You say.
“I told you I wasn’t going anywhere.” Bucky says with a smile.
Bucky sat down in the chair next to the hospital bed. He gently picked up your hand and kissed it, making you blush.
“You really know how to make a girl blush, James.” You say with a soft giggle.
“That’s part of my charm, doll face.” He says with a smile.
You giggled again, but then winced in pain.
“Be careful, doll. Don’t want you to hurt yourself.” He says.
You smiled at him.
“Did you really think I was dead?” You asked.
“Yes and it scared me. One of my worst fears is losing you.” He says.
“One of your worst fears is losing me?” You asked, making sure you heard him right.
“Yes and it’s only because I’m in love with you.” He admits.
Your eyebrows rose in surprise. You have always knew that Bucky had a crush on you from the way he acts around you, but at the same time, you weren’t sure. His love confession confirmed it for you.
“You’re in love with me?” You asked in almost a whisper.
“I have been since I met you.” Bucky says.
You smiled at him and lifted your hand to caress his cheek, rubbing your thumb against his beard.
“Wanna know something?” You asked.
Bucky nods.
“I’m in love with you too.” You confessed. “That’s why I always played hard to get every time you flirt with me.” You say.
Bucky smiles widely. He leaned over and kissed you passionately. Your hand continued to caress his cheek. He then pulled away and leaned his forehead against yours, looking deep in your eyes.
“Was that kiss your way of asking me to be your doll?” You asked in a whisper.
“Only if you want to be. I don’t want to pressure you in any way.” He says.
“I would love to be your doll.” You say softly.
Bucky smiles and kisses you again. The kiss was short lived when the team walked in the room.
“I didn’t know hospitals provided this kind of treatment.” Yelena jokes, making you and Bucky laugh.
You and Bucky pulled away from each other. You looked at the team and smiled at them.
“How are you feeling?” Ava asks.
“Other than the little bit of pain, I’m fine.” You say.
As the team was visiting you, they noticed how touchy Bucky was being with you. They couldn’t tell if it was from almost losing you or having a crush on you. Maybe it’s a mix of both.
“Are you two a thing now?” John asks.
“Yes.” Bucky answers immediately.
Everyone smiled and congratulated you two on finally making it official. They visited a little bit longer before leaving so you and Bucky can be alone together.
“You’re so beautiful.” Bucky almost whispers.
“Even in a hospital gown?” You asked with a small giggle.
“It adds more to your beauty.” He says with a smile.
You smiled at him and gazed deeply in his eyes.
“I’m never letting you go.” He whispers.
You scooted over in the hospital bed, wanting Bucky to lay down next to you and cuddle you. You winced in pain when you moved.
“Cuddle me.” You murmured.
Bucky smiles and lays down next to you, wrapping his arms around you, being careful to not accidentally bump your wound.
“You’re coming home with me when you get released from here.” Bucky says.
“I would love that.” You whispered, smiling at him.
Bucky pecks your lips softly a few times and looks deep in your eyes.
“I don’t want to experience almost losing you again.” He says softly, his voice cracking.
“You won’t. I promise I’ll be more careful and ask for back up next time.” You promised.
“I love you so much, babydoll.” He whispers, kissing you sweetly and softly.
“I love you too, baby.” You say, smiling up at him.
Leon Kennedy with a partner/lover/spouse, who suffers from seasonal allergies.
I have terrible allergies during the Spring season and I have to take allergy medicine to suppress them. Well, depends if there’s a rainy day that washes the damn pollen away.
Imagine his partner needing to wear a mask (like those KN95/KF94 Masks) during work/missions (I’m leaning more towards them working along side with Leon). They would sneeze at random: during debriefings, writing reports, even on lunch breaks when they meet up with Kennedy. He feels sorry for them and “discreetly” passes them a tissue.
They’ll try to refuse to be assigned on missions during Allergy Season since they see it as a disadvantage if one sneeze compromises a mission, things will end badly. The government being the government, they assigned them anyway. They would have to pack extra medicine and get a traveling packet of tissues.
He would remind them to take their medication.
“Did you take your medicine?”
“…Uh…”
“Take it.” As he gives them the pill and some iced water. They thanked him.
You can also imagine if a horde of infected are near by and the two are hiding from them. Unfortunately, a sneeze was about to come out and Leon has to quickly cover their nose and mouth.
It hurts holding down a sneeze as it felt like your lungs and throat were about to combust while your eardrums may pop.
Overall, Leon would have to be prepared for Spring every year as the season is cruelest enemy to his other half.
A/N: Written for the June Jukebox Scribbles. Prompt: Bad Habits - Ed Sheeran / “I got nothin' left to lose, or use, or do”
Warnings: Alcoholism. Please let me know if I missed any!
Word Count: 221
Leon gently shakes the bottle, eager to get that last drop he knows is still in there. What little of his brain is still functioning knows he's gotta make every dollar last so he's not letting any of his precious liquor go to waste.
And so you find the legendary Agent Kennedy tonguing a bottle with enough skill that it makes you rub your thighs together.
"Agent Kennedy?" Your voice pierces through the mental fog of Leon's drunken state.
"Who wants to know?" he slurs.
You introduce yourself making sure to slow your normal speech patterns. The man seems too drunk for normal conversation so he probably needs a gentler approach than your usual clientele.
"I represent someone who specifically requested you for their security detail."
"Tell Redfield I'm not doing it," he grunts.
"It's not Chris Redfield," you state.
"Then tell Wesker to fuck off. I know I got nothin' left to lose, or use, or do but I'm still not helping him."
Leaning in closer than you would like, you brave the stench of alcohol to whisper in his ear, "Ada needs your help."
Leon freezes as if her name was a pass code to all of the locks in his brain.
"Give me a day to get this crap outta my system and I'll be ready to go."
SUMMARY: After last night's terrifying real sensations, Leon decides to come clean to Chris. Chris takes it upon himself to reach out to...who else? You.
PAIRING: Leon Kennedy x F!Reader
WORD COUNT: 3.1k
WARNINGS: None. Slight conversation of blood draws, science things.
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Chris ran a hand through his hair. Hunnigan had done more than she needed to and laid out the details of Leon's last mission—at least a few weeks back—and everything looked normal.
But that still didn't quell Chris's concern.
"This is…" Chris blew air from his mouth, "…a lot."
Leon had been involved in a routine recon off a tip of an Umbrella facility in the area. Doing his due diligence, he went as assigned. Hostiles were in play, a shootout ensued, but Leon had returned in one piece.
So, what was he missing?
“What’s this?” Chris asked, eyes scanning over biomarkers on a page. Leon’s blood draw was normal as usual, and the lab assistants noted as such, but he guessed that in the chaos of their work, something was missed. “What is this noting about flagged profile biomarkers?”
Hunnigan scanned the document closer, her voice steady but concerned. “Hold on a second, I didn’t see this one in the reports. Leon usually has normal blood draws to make sure of no infection, but that’s…new.”
“New?”
The document clearly explained that they tested for every known pathogen, yet they didn’t note anything of any organic infection or otherwise.
"Why wasn't this addressed?" Chris's tone sharpened.
Hunnigan shrugged, uncharacteristically, "Cut them some slack, there's more than a dozen agents in this office."
"Let's get Leon in for a blood draw," Chris said, eyes still glued to the test results. "Let's see what this biomarker is."
Leon had rutted his hips with reckless abandon, the dream woven into him like a second skin.
The tension in his muscles, sweat that slicked his skin as he moved with you, the pleasure that built was unbearable and consuming until…
Leon let out a sharp breath, shaking his head as if he could physically cast out the memory. Last night had left something in his mind that hadn't been there before—an awareness, almost.
He launched himself from his bed, different than every other time when he'd rather have run back to bed. His routine, while still monotonous, was a welcome change. But still he stood at the mirror, staring at the reflection of himself…still hearing your voice. Still seeing you. He closed his eyes, hoping the darkness behind his eyes in the daylight would remove you from his vision.
Leon opened his eyes and stared at himself again. His reflection didn’t look like a man who had just woken from a dream. It looked like a man who had lost something real.
He exhaled sharply and pushed away from the sink. His hand brushed the gun at his waist—a tangible weight in a world he could trust no longer. His skin still burned where phantom hands had roamed.
The office still looked the same, and somehow that gave him some relief. Even seeing Chris…Chris at his office door? Again?
Well, he could count that as a relief too.
"Here to lecture me again, Doc?" Leon asked, sarcasm dripping in his tone. This time, Chris didn't respond with his usual remark back.
His eyes held a determination—the same as if he were on a mission. Leon knows the look well.
"We need to talk. Now."
Leon sighed, moving further into his office and hanging up his jacket. "Then talk."
Chris was hot on his heels—an urgency, maybe even a slight rage to him that wasn't present before. He slammed the door shut, making the blinds rattle a bit at the force.
"Spoke to Hunnigan," Chris announced, "she mentioned you've been acting like…this for a week. Are you gonna really tell me what's going on now or what?"
He couldn't keep pushing people away. Chris was certainly right on that front. So then, why did he feel so embarrassed to reveal the dreams to him? That's all they were. Dreams. Unfortunate but true.
Last night, while intoxicating, rattled Leon more than he'd have liked.
A human mind cannot replicate those sensations that seared across his skin, at least not like that.
"Fine." Leon shook his head as he placed his head in his palms, "I've been…having dreams."
"Dreams? Of what?"
He wanted to brace himself for what he had to tell Chris.
Leon sipped his coffee. Strong, dark—just how he liked it. The scent hit his nose, warm and sharp. At least that hadn't changed.
He stated your name.
"Her?" Chris asked, incredulous.
"I'm not repeating myself, Chris." Leon ran a hand down his face, the urge to curl under his desk and disappear more appealing by the second.
Chris looked like the idea of what he'd said was still processing—still computing in that big dumb brain of his.
"Well? Anything insightful to say, Chris?" Leon tried to hide the impatient tone in his voice, was Chris trying to leave him in suspense now?
"You've been having dreams….about her?" Chris asked as if still trying to understand. Quite frankly, the more he verbalized it, the more Leon wanted to punch him square in the face. What was so hard to grasp about that?
Chris had always been the dependable one, the man with the answers, with the courage to speak his mind. Leon had always admired him for it—envied it, even. But now, even Chris seemed to not have any and he wasn't sure if that made him more concerned for his mental state or not.
Leon responded, a little frustration in his tone, "I know it sounds crazy, but they feel so real," his words tumbled out before he could stop them. "I dream of…of us. Of a life together after everything—after Raccoon City. A life where we were happy. I still can see it all. The rings. The wedding. Her laugh. She called me her husband. And the worst part? It felt like reality. But then I'd wake up…and she was never there. And it hurts, Chris. It hurts like nothing I've ever felt."
Chris took in his words quietly, his gaze set squarely on Leon, the weight of what he'd said out loud sinking in.
Leon ran a hand through his hair, "I'm just so damn tired of it," he muttered. "There's so much of it that I know isn't real, but I just don't know how to get out of my head."
"And when did this all start, exactly?" Chris questioned, no judgment in his tone.
He went back in his mind. Mission after mission—all routine, none too different from one another. Except one. It came back to him in detail. Umbrella lab, he thought was abandoned, only to find out…surprise, it's not. A shootout ensued within their lab, but he didn't remember getting any substances on him, not even a speck of blood. Sure, bullets flew, and there was some ricochet. Just another day in the office, right?
"A few weeks ago? Honestly, my brain has been so fucking scrambled, even that guess could be wrong," he explained. A weight lifted the more he told Chris, one he hadn't felt in weeks, once the ache of this need, this longing had taken root.
"I'll cut right to the chase," Chris said. "Hunnigan showed me some of your blood draws, especially the one after that mission."
Chris tossed papers onto his desk. Upon further inspection, Leon noted the lab results. He never really bothered to look at them before; he was always cautious—always careful for infection, he could thank Raccoon and Spain for that.
His eyes scanned over the analysis rather than the blood markers, which weren't exactly within his expertise to decipher.
Almost all of them said the same thing: All labs CLEAR. No infection, nothing to worry about. Except, of course, this one.
Flagged biomarkers of unknown origin. The text was so minuscule, clinical in nature, but the lab assistants didn't seem to make anything of it.
His eyes skirted across the page over and over. Why wasn't this brought to his attention? The hairs on his skin raised just knowing that he had been even potentially infected with…something.
"The lab assistants are already getting a thorough questioning as we speak," Chris answered a question that Leon didn't verbalize.
His head shook as his mind took in the information, "What do you need from me?"
"Well, for starters, another blood draw. And for another, the location of the lab."
Would he get you involved, too? Leon tried not to let a shudder run through him at the utter embarrassment of even broaching this with the real you. How would Chris even mention that?
Seems that Leon is losing what's left of his mind; he's having pathetic dreams about you. Yeah, you'd probably laugh him off the face of the earth.
The crushed blue velvet carpets dug into your heels with each step. You'd learned just about every threading, stitch, and fabric of these hallowed halls.
The White House. Somehow, you never expected your career trajectory would end up with you here.
Though only from the perspective of following behind a college student. Security detail, if you wanted to be specific.
So, not too thrilling. She was too focused on cute boys on campus, studies, and therapy…lots of therapy.
In fact, you were only here when Ashley was. And even that had become scarce. Spain had fundamentally changed her routine. Somewhat. She was still a college kid, above all else.
This gig beat the alternative.
You'd been through literal death-defying missions, getting by through the skin of your teeth with your body parts intact. Now all you had to do was make sure Baby Eagle got to midterms on time and damn campus parking.
So, yeah, you'd take shit for brains rent a cops on campus rather than the usual ibuprofen and ice packs on your knuckles. Something was missing, though. Throwing yourself into work made it easy to not figure out what exactly that was, but as time went on, every night spent holed up in your cushy apartment, watching trashy reality TV to numb your brain, it started to get pretty obvious.
You hadn't thought of him for years, not that you had time to think of anything really. Eat, sleep, work, repeat had been the name of the game. Keeping your head down was probably for the best anyway.
But that wasn't to say you hadn't heard of him in a while. It turned out he was the one who saved Ashley, after all. At first, you had no idea that Condor One was the one and only Leon Scott Kennedy. Despite how much Ashley spoke so highly of the one who saved her. You never did catch his name, considering you were more focused on keeping Baby Eagle…well, alive.
It was the one time you actually listened to the girl that the details started to line up in your head.
He had blonde hair.
He had blue eyes.
An unending sense of duty and compassion.
Movie star handsome.
Enough to make any girl swoon, especially Ashley.
All pretty much spot on for the man you once knew. Upon learning that fact of your relationship in passing from one of the other Secret Service agents, Ashl—Baby Eagle kept you close—god, you really needed to get that formality correct in your head.
She wanted to know more about her savior, and you wanted to know more about Leon's adventures in your absence in his life post-Raccoon City. Fair trade-off, you'd reckon.
From that point, Baby Eagle asked you about Leon before Spain. You could really only speak to the day you both met—surely one of the worst days of both your lives. An unbreakable bond had been forged after all you'd been through, despite your current circumstances. Ashley told you how Leon—all by himself—saved her from a cult in Spain. Dredging up the memories alongside the new stories she told you…you started to remember why you liked him so much. Still liked him, actually.
Which led back to now as you sat in the darkness of your apartment, television flickering as you watched girls fight on television for entertainment. Really riveting stuff.
The something missing had a name.
The something missing had a feeling.
You could name them both now. Being amongst the world, amongst people, it was glaringly obvious.
You missed Leon.
And you were…lonely.
And no, not in the sad, pathetic way. Okay, that was a lie. It was sad and pathetic. You had a semblance of control in your life, at least that's what those agents who recruited you had you believing, but that was not the case.
You remembered the times you tried to reach out in the year after Raccoon, how easily they'd intercepted your channels of communication. Even with all the stubbornness in the world, they knew every trick in the book. You didn't stand a chance, but now those motherfuc—stupid pricks were gone, so what really was holding you back?
Maybe it was the crushing fear that Leon no longer felt the same way you did. Or maybe he'd moved on to someone else. Your heart probably couldn't take on new heartbreak now; you'd already lost so much. Your old life, your friends, and memories that still resided within the remnants of a place you once called home.
So, you held back and hoped one day the burst of courage would hit you. That or Leon would magically appear on your doorstep.
That hope would stay buried under rock and rubble made from your anxieties, much like the city you'd left behind in 1998. Rather than continuing to dwell on the past, you did what you did best…shut your brain off for the night.
As you were about to shut off the TV and start your nightly routine of trying to start your skincare routine, only to fail miserably, a hard knock pounded against your door.
You checked the digital clock hung up on the wall next to the door. 9:50 pm. Who could be visiting you this late? Friends in this line of work knew better. Your neighbors never got this bold in the evening.
You shuffled around for more appropriate attire, yanking on an old RPD hoodie—technically a replica—and fixed up your hair, patting it down from where you'd run your hand through it more than a dozen times.
The knocks came again.
"Alright, I'm coming!" You shouted, undoing the locks on the door.
You readied yourself to shoo whoever it was away, but all the words died in your throat at the person who stood before you.
How long had it been? Were you dreaming?
"Chris?"
He wore a meek smile, shoulders hunched in as if he could ever actually make himself less imposing. Guess your memories surrounding RC and choice in attire were more of an omen than pure happenstance.
"I'll cut right to the chase, I need your help."
"If it's anything other than the President's daughter, can't say I'm much of an expert." A beat. "That is, unless you're trying to get the hottest celebrity gossip straight from Ashley Graham's mouth to my ear."
Chris laughed then, "Not exactly what I was in the neighborhood for. It's a matter of government affairs."
You stepped back, allowing Chris to step inside your apartment without a word.
Cutting off the television, you follow Chris's lead as he sits down on your couch.
"Oh, how impolite of me, did you want something to drink or eat?" You gestured back toward the kitchen, all the high-end appliances and digital displays had a healthy coating of dust on them. Not that you didn't cook, but your job doesn't exactly allow you to be Ina Garten.
Chris waved a hand dismissively. "No, thank you, though. How have you been?"
This was awkward. In a way it had never been like that for you before, at least when it came to Chris. You had worked together. At one point, you lived in the same neighborhood, yet now, you two were like strangers.
With a small, sheepish smile, you respond with a simple, "Pretty good. Can't complain."
Chris nodded at your response.
"So, uh, you mentioned needing my help?"
"Oh, yeah, right. As I mentioned earlier, this is a government matter. But I may be overstating the situation. It's more self-contained rather than agency-wide," he explained, eyes set squarely on you. "I wouldn't have come to you if I didn't think you were important to this."
The way in which he spoke was starting to scare you a bit; your heart was beating harder against your chest than it was a moment ago.
"Chris, out with it. Is it something serious?"
His head hung low for a moment. "It's Leon."
Now, that had sent a chill down your spine. Was he okay? What was going on with Leon? Chris could tend to lean into the dramatics, probably why he used to be such a good storyteller on the STARS team. It also royally pissed you off. Sometimes you preferred direct, straight-to-the-point communication.
You let out an exasperated sigh. "Chris, make the damn point, please. Is he dead? Injured? What?"
"He's fine, he's just been going through something regarding his last mission, and I'm not quite sure how to broach it with you. I think it needs to come directly from him. I need you to meet with him, not just from a personal standpoint, but from a professional standpoint."
You tried to take in just what exactly Chris had asked of you. You tried not to sound like you were teasing, but the tone slipped through your words anyway. "Like a pep talk? Doesn't he have you for that?"
"No, not that. Look, I'm still trying to grasp it myself, but he needs a reality check, alright?"
"What does this have to do with his last mission?"
"Still working on that, but it's….something mental? How soon can you come up to the DSO office?"
Honestly, you were left more confused and had more questions than answers. Of all the people you could think of to have a mental breakdown, Leon wasn't exactly at the top of your list. He'd always been pretty sharp, not much phasing him, especially giant reptiles, the walking dead, and only recently added a Spanish cult. So what could have shaken him this badly that your one-time colleague was reaching out to you for help? There was no question in your mind on that front, at least. Helping him was a no-brainer.
You ran a hand down your face. Reshuffling your busy schedule mentally and letting out a puff of air from your mouth, you replied, "Does tomorrow afternoon work?"
Chris went over the details of how to get to Leon's office. You just hoped he was going to be okay with seeing you face-to-face after god knows how many years you'd been apart.
