Fluffy niceness, Bucky is a bit awkward but does his best
When you're feeling down, Bucky can tell, but your relationship is so new that he isn't always sure what to do to make you feel better, so he goes to Steve for some advice.
WC: 950
Masterlist
When you came into the Avengers tower with that frown on your face, Bucky immediately knew something was wrong. He rose from his place at the couch and came over to you.
"What's wrong?" he demanded.
You shook your head tiredly. "Nothing, I'm fine."
He raised his hands to cup your face and you turned into their warmth. "Are you sure?"
You nodded. "I'm sure. Just a long day."
"Been a lot of long days lately, sweetheart."
Shrugging, you broke out of his grasp. "Work is like that sometimes, I dunno."
You turned away from him and headed into the kitchen. He couldn't help but watch you.
Something about the way that you said it, or the way you looked away from him and couldn't meet his gaze made Bucky tense. He could tell you weren't telling the full truth, but what was he supposed to do, straight up accuse you of lying to his face?
You'd only been dating for about a month now, it didn't feel like you were quite at the stage where he could expect you to lay it all out for him one hundred percent of the time. But still, he'd hoped you would have trusted him enough at this point to feel comfortable telling him when you were struggling.
Then again, he hadn't gotten to the point where he had fully come clean about the ways he struggled either.
He let out a breath. "Do you want me to make you dinner?" he offered, joining you in the kitchen.
You shook your head. "No, that's okay. I'd like to tonight, if that's okay. It'll help me wind down."
He frowned, taken aback but tried to hide it. "Oh, okay. Yeah, no, that's fine."
Bucky waited a moment for you to change your mind, but when you started to pull out the pots and pans, he decided to let you have the space you wanted.
He found himself knocking on Steve's door a few moments later. Steve opened the door to see Bucky's furrowed brows and sighed. "What's the matter, Buck?"
"I don't know what to do. She had a bad day, but doesn't want me to do anything about it," Bucky said, walking past Steve into the room and sitting down on the bed with a huff. "She didn't even want me to make dinner, she wanted to do it. Alone."
Steve whistled. "Well, sometimes you just need space after a rough day."
Bucky nodded. "And I get that. But I feel so useless."
"Well, you could always get her something. If she doesn't want you to do something, a simple gesture would be good to show her you see and understand her."
Steve sat down next to Bucky, who looked over with a sigh. "Like what?"
He thought for a second then smiled at his friend. "I have something in mind."
-----
The next day, when you came home from work and walked into your room, you froze. Your room was never heavily decorated, so the burst of colour from the flowers on your desk stood out immediately. You slowly set your bag down and approached the vase.
The flower arrangement was vibrant and lively, your favourite colour. You reached out and gently stroked one of the soft petals. Sticking out of the vase was a small stick with a note attached. You pulled it out and read it:
To brighten up your day ~ Your Bucky
You giggled and bent down to smell the flowers. They were fragrant and beautiful.
"I, uh, thought it might be nice to spruce up the space," a voice said from behind you.
You turned to see Bucky awkwardly standing in the doorway, eyes locked on the flowers. "Hey," you greeted.
"Hey." He took a few steps over to you. "Do you, uh. You know, like them? If not, I can take them back. Well, maybe not back, but I can take them away. It was Steve's idea, he thought you'd like them. If not, I--"
You stopped him with your hands on his cheeks, pulling his face into yours for a kiss. He quickly melted into the kiss, his hands coming to rest on your waist. When you pulled away, you giggled at the deepening pink of his blush. "I love them," you said, glancing back at the bouquet. "What are they for?"
"You had a rough day yesterday, and I, just... didn't know what to do for you. You didn't need anything from me, but I still wanted to do something. I figured something like this could be a reminder that even if you have a bad day at work, there are beautiful things waiting for you at home." He looked down at you with those gorgeous blue eyes and you felt your cheeks growing warm.
You let out a little laugh. "I mean, yeah, my day wasn't great, but you didn't need to."
He shrugged. "I know. I wanted to."
"Well, they are beautiful. And whenever I see them, I'll think of my Bucky," you said, your lips stretching into a smile as you thought of his note.
A cough escaped Bucky's throat as he looked away. "Was that too much?" he asked, his eyes catching on the note that was now resting on the top of the desk.
You shook your head. "Not at all. I quite like the sound of it."
"Does that mean I get to call you mine too?" he asked. He tested it out a few times, letting your name linger on his tongue like a sweet he didn't want to finish eating.
You laughed, wrapping your arms around his body, tucking your head into his chest. "You are ridiculous."
Summary: When a mission gets compromised and you stop breathing beneath the ice, Bucky breaks every rule to bring you back with a love he can no longer hide.
Word Count: 1.9k
Warnings: near drowning; falling through ice; hypothermia; cpr/resuscitation; panic; angst (w happy ending); Bucky is desperate
Author’s Note: It’s been so long since I’ve written anything in Bucky’s pov. But I believe it fit so well here. I loved this emotional request, my dear, thank you so much for sending it in! I hope you enjoy ♡
WWC Masterlist | Masterlist
Bucky has learned not to trust silence. Or surfaces that look too calm.
And right now, he doesn’t trust any of this.
The ice expanse looms wide and perfidious, a frozen lake transformed into a combat zone. Its skin is veined with subtle cracks resembling stress lines beneath glass. Somewhere beneath it, dark water lurks and waits.
Snow scuds sideways across the ground as if it’s being chased. The world has shrunk to shades of white and steel-blue and the crunch of boots over something that pretends to be solid.
And Bucky doesn’t like this.
“Stay sharp,” Steve says into the comm, voice concentrated, shield strapped tight. “Thermals show movement north of the ridge.”
Sam hums, a grumble and a teasing lilt in his tone. “Because of course Hydra would pick the one place where falling equals instant death.”
Bucky hears you make an amused sound as you adjust your footing. And when you glance back at him over your shoulder, he pretends not to have watched your every step. Your breath fogs the air, your eyelashes already dusted white. And you still manage to look at him with a smirk. “Barnes, if I eat it out here, you’re carrying me back.”
Bucky snorts despite not feeling like it. “You wish.”
But his eyes don’t leave you.
They never really do. Not since somewhere between Sokovia and Siberia and all the moments in between and before. He tracks the way you move, careful but unafraid, the way your shoulders square when the wind shoves at you, the way you always walk just a fraction ahead as though you’re daring the world to keep up.
It terrifies him.
The ice groans underfoot. Deep and hollowed. Almost conversational. As if the ice is clearing its throat before opening its mouth.
“Hey—” Bucky starts, but it’s too late already.
Someone bursts from cover and slams into you hard from the side. The force is brutal. Momentum weaponized. You skid, boots screaming uselessly across the slick surface, arms not having the time to pinwheel and it will haunt him forever because your balance doesn’t stand a chance.
You crash downward.
Then the ice gives up.
It doesn’t just crack, it howls a low animal sound dragged up from the planet’s spine.
The surface caves inward, serrated and brutal, a jaw opening and only closing once you’re inside.
There’s no pause, no time, no heroic slow-motion — just a destructive crack and the sickening absence where you were.
“Y/n!” Your name is torn out of Bucky’s chest as though he’s spitting out his heart.
“Contact!” Natasha shouts. “We’ve got—”
Bucky is already running. Ice be damned. Mission be damned. He doesn’t ask permission, doesn’t check angles or cover or the mission parameters still ringing in his earpiece. Something in him detonates and his body answers.
“Barnes, hold position!” Sam barks. “Bucky—!”
No.
There is only the hole and the water and the unendurable absence of you where you were supposed to be.
The wind is a knife, the snow a white cloud, the gunfire distant and irrelevant.
He skids to his knees at the edge. It’s ugly, bleeding dark water, and as he peers down, he sees you beneath the surface. Your body is yanked sideways, out of reach, out of touch, out of sight, hair drifting around your face.
You’re not moving. You’re not fighting.
And something inside him shatters so sharply, so personally, it almost feels audible. His breaths are brittle gasps, short shards of air snapping off in his throat.
“Track her,” he growls to no one, slamming his metal palm flat against the ice. The arm vibrates, feeds him data he doesn’t deserve to have. Faint heat signatures. Motion. A ghost of you slipping farther away.
He sprints along the fractured line, boots slipping, heart hammering and trying to break free of his ribs to follow you into the depths of the water. The ice above you is thick again, deceptively solid, smooth as a lie.
Bucky doesn’t hesitate.
He drives his vibranium fist down.
The impact cracks the surface like lightning splitting the sky. Once. Twice. The third punch cracks the ice wide, water erupting upward and exploding in a freezing roar.
Cold vapor burns his lungs as he dives without thinking, without breathing, without anything but you burning bright and singular in his mind.
The water is a monster. It is agony. It wraps around his limbs and squeezes. It seizes him, pounces into every seam of his gear, steals the air from his chest in one ferocious gulp. It’s so cold it feels hot, like fire inverted, like pain sharpened into clarity. He clenches his teeth against the shock and forces his eyes open. Everything is blue-black danger, bubbles screaming past his face.
There.
You’re limp. Unresponsive. Hair floating around your face like a halo that doesn’t belong in a place like this. Your eyes are closed. Your body drifts away from him, obedient to the current, uncaring of the man breaking himself to reach you.
His blood flow seems to abandon his brain, leaving him light-headed, half-evacuated.
No, he thinks, viscerally. No. No. No.
He kicks hard, metal arm cleaving through the resistance. The world is trying to steal you piece by piece and he’s not going to let it.
So he fights, and he gets to you, and he grabs you around the ribs. The relief that hammers into him is savage and overwhelming, so intense it nearly costs him the strength to move.
He hauls you up and continues fighting. He fights the water, fights the pull, fights the rising scream in his chest as his lungs start to spasm. The ice above is a warped mirror.
He breaks the surface with a sound that’s half-sob, half-snarl, vision tunneling, arms wound tight around you.
Hands grab him and you immediately.
“Shit” Sam’s voice cracks. “Get her out— get her—”
Together, they help pull you onto the ice.
“Get her flat!” Steve orders.
Bucky basically shoves away a shocked Natasha to get back to your side.
Fear is a hand over the mouth of reason, muffling logic until it goes hoarse.
You’re motionless. Skin pale, lips tinged blue, water streaming from you relentlessly. He drops beside you so hard, his knees protest, hand shaking as he brushes wet hair from your face.
His chest is a barricaded door rattling in its frame. Something is pounding from the inside, desperate to be let out.
“No, no, no,” he mutters, words rumbling rough and vulnerable. “Come on, please!”
He tilts your head back, checks your airway with hands that refuse to be steady. Nothing. No breath. No rise of your chest.
Horror makes his mind slip its leash and lets his body drag after it at full speed. Feral and wild.
He places his hands on your sternum without thinking. Locks his arms. Presses down.
“One—two—three—” His voice ducks and flinches before the words even land, but he keeps counting, compressions precise and desperate, pouring everything he has into each push. “Come on. Come on, sweetheart. Breathe. You’re— you’re too stubborn for this.”
Utter dread crawls along his spine and counts each vertebra like steps toward a cliff.
Sam hovers nearby, unusually quiet. Steve watches with his jaw clenched tight. Natasha has tears in her eyes. They’ve seen Bucky fight armies without flinching, but this is naked terror, laid bare in the way his shoulders shake, the way his eyes never leave your face.
He lets his tears fall, doesn’t care who sees, doesn’t care about anything except the terrifying stillness beneath his hands. His lungs don’t remember their choreography, each breath tripping over the one before and none of them recovering. Panic like he never felt before grinds its thumb into the soft place beneath his tongue, turning saliva to sand and making him choke on it.
“Don’t you dare,” Bucky pleads under his breath between counts. “Come back to me. Come on, Y/n. Wake up. Wake up!” His words arrive bent, corners crushed, syntax bruised.
He seals his mouth over yours, breathes life back into you, then returns to compressions, erratic, limitless, refusing the universe any other outcome. He will continue doing this until he dies.
Again. Again.
“Come back,” he almost shouts in a cry. “Please come back.”
Your body jerks.
A cough tears out of you, harsh and wet. Water spills from your mouth as you gasp, lungs seizing around air as if it’s brand new.
It’s the most beautiful sound he ever heard.
He lets out a broken sob and collapses forward, catching you as you lean instinctively into him, shivering hard.
“There you are,” he whispers shakily, pressing you to him. “You’re okay. It’s okay.”
Bucky wraps around you without thinking, arms locking tight, metal and flesh forming a cage against the cold. He feels your fingers fisting in his soaked suit, face pressed into the hollow of his throat.
Steve exhales slowly, something like relief loosening his posture. Natasha turns away, giving you privacy without comment, schooling her expression back to composed.
Sam shakes his head. “Told you,” he utters under his breath, subdued, lacking a little bit of that teasing tone he tried to push into his voice. “He’s got it bad.”
Bucky doesn’t care about the others.
He just tucks your head under his chin and keeps his arms firmly around you. Shielding you from the wind, from the world, from anything else that might dare to take you. His body won’t stop trembling. His heart is still racing and it seems it hasn’t got the message that you’re alive and well in his arms.
He peppers a kiss to your wet hair before he can stop himself, before he can remember how to be careful.
You cough against him, and he tightens further, presses you closer.
“Cold,” you whimper.
“I know,” he answers immediately, rocking you just slightly. “I’ve got you. I’ve got you.” He says it again and again. Hoping it might remind him.
The mission can burn.
The ice can crack.
The world can do its worst.
You’re breathing.
And he knows like a cold certainty growing in his chest that he will never get over this. He can outlast missions, cheat death a hundred times over, learn every trick for outrunning the past, and it still won’t matter. Because the image of you drifting away beneath the ice will follow him forever.
It’s a deeply etched mark he will carry wherever he goes. It will surface in the quiet seconds before sleep, in the hollow pauses between heartbeats, in the spaces where he should feel victorious but doesn’t. No distance will dull it. No success will bury it.
And he knows what it means. That scar is not just grief or fear or regret — it is love in its most brutal form. It survives terror and brands itself into bone and refuses to be erased. It hurts precisely because it matters so much.
And he’s done carrying it alone.
If the memory is permanent, then so is the truth it holds. He owes you that much. He owes himself that much.
So he will finally let the words rise, will finally have to tell you how he feels, because loving you has already changed him forever, and it’s time you know.
Summary: You take Bucky to a magical Christmas market you crafted from snow, lanterns, and a little bit of wonder.
Word Count: 1.5k
Warnings: mild references to Bucky’s trauma; fluff; use of magic
Author’s Note: It’s time for a little winter magic, my sweet beans!! Thank you so much for sending in this whimsical request, my dearest! I enjoyed this piece of fluff so much, and they both deserve this little corner of peace. I hope you enjoy! ♡
WWC Masterlist | Masterlist
The first snow of December arrives slowly at first, unsure of itself, then braver, bolder, tumbling toward the earth with heedless enthusiasm. It piles up before anyone can stop it.
You draw your coat tighter around your shoulders as you wait for him by the gate of the compound. The world glows faintly violet at the edges, the final hint of the enchantment you slipped under the sky to coax the snow into something gentler, something that wouldn’t sting his cheeks or snap at his bones.
You tell yourself that’s for the atmosphere.
You know it’s for him.
Footsteps crunch on the path, a familiar pattern. Weighty. Cadenced. Directed. And then he’s there, Bucky Barnes, hands shoved deep into the pockets of a jacket he insists is warm enough. Hair tucked behind his ears. Eyes — those stunning winter-lake eyes — lifting to meet yours.
He blinks. Just once. Slow. You feel the impact of it in your ribs.
“You ready?” he asks, voice low in that way that always feels like he’s talking only to you, even when the hallway is full.
You nod too quickly. “Are you?”
One corner of his mouth tugs up. “I’m not the one dragging you out past curfew on a covert holiday mission.” He doesn’t look at all annoyed about it.
“It’s not covert,” you protest, turning toward the path out of the compound. “It’s festive.”
“Mhm.” He falls into step beside you, brushing close, the warmth of him sneaking through your coat. “That’s what they all say before the gingerbread heist.”
You snort and give him a gentle nudge against his arm. It makes his shoulders loosen, and his mouth pull to one side — not quite a smirk, not quite not.
It makes your heart feel like it’s trying to climb higher in your chest.
You walk together through the long stretch of trees beyond the compound, the snow glittering in that not-entirely-natural way. Bucky doesn’t comment on it out loud, but you feel the way his attention skims over the shimmering flakes. He knows magic when he sees it.
He just never calls you out for it.
When the first lights come into view, he slows, breath catching just slightly. The path opens into a clearing that wasn’t a clearing yesterday, lit by lanterns floating at different heights, swarming like slow, thoughtful fireflies. Stalls bloom like bright wooden flowers, radiating ribbons of warm colors and swirling steam into the night. Everything is glowing, everything is responding to the pulse of your magic.
The scent of cinnamon and pine nudges in close and wraps itself around you, comforting as an embrace. People move between stalls with soft laughter and wonder on their breath.
Bucky stops completely. His boots crunch to a halt. “This wasn’t here last week.”
You smile, pretending innocence. “Maybe you just didn’t look hard enough.”
He turns to you, looks at you, and the air softens on instinct. “You did this.”
You lift a shoulder. “Mostly. The trees helped.”
He huffs out a breath that hovers between a laugh and a disbelieving scoff. “You know, when you said Christmas market, I was thinking hot chocolate and some wooden booths. Not—” He gestures helplessly at a cluster of enchanted snowflakes hovering in perfect formation above a family of giggling kids “—whatever this is.”
You bump your shoulder softly against his arm. “Is it too much?”
His eyes stay on the floating lanterns. “Not even close.” His voice is low and pensive.
You pretend your pulse isn’t trying to jump out through your throat. “Come on. There’s hot cider.”
He follows you through the stalls. You watch him watch everything, his wonder quiet but unmistakable — his eyes tracing the floating lanterns, his breath fogging in the air as he stops to study enchanted snow globes that swirl scenes from other winters, his fingers grazing the edge of a table where enchanted gingerbread men tap tiny feet to unheard music.
Children laugh nearby. A violinist plays a song that sounds older than the clearing itself.
Bucky’s shoulders — constantly held in that cautious, ready-for-impact way — drop an inch. Then another.
You didn’t mean for your heart to clench at the sight, but it does.
At a stall offering steaming mugs of spiced cider, you hand him one. His gloved fingers brush yours. Just a whisper, but it sends a small bloom of warmth through your palms like your magic is reacting before you can stop it.
He notices, and immediately, his eyes flick up to yours. “That you?”
You clear your throat. “Cold hands.”
He blows on the cider, hiding a smile.
You walk again, sipping. Snow keeps falling from above and collects on his hair and shoulders like the world can’t help touching him. He glances sideways at you, hesitant in a way that makes your stomach tilt.
“You do this for a lot of people?” he asks quietly.
You look up at him. “Do what?”
“Stuff like this. Making… places. Nights.” He motions around with the mug. “Magic for no reason.”
There is a reason. It is standing right in front of you.
“No,” you say honestly. “Not for a lot of people.”
He swallows. The sound is soft but somehow loud in the peace of snow and magic. “Then what’d I do to get the VIP pass?”
You let out a breath. “You showed up.”
His brows pull together, faint, confused. “That all it takes?”
“For me, yeah” You meet his gaze.
He looks away too quickly, and you know it means the moment hit deeper than he planned for. He sips his cider to cover it. His throat works. His jaw tightens, softens, tightens.
You lead him to a tiny stall selling ornaments. Each one handmade from glass and glimmering with tiny enchantments. Some glow like captured dawn, some hum like music boxes, some spiral with snow frozen mid-fall.
Bucky lingers at the edge. You pick one up. It is a small glass sphere with a slow swirl of silver mist inside.
Without much thought, you press the ornament into his hand.
“For your tree,” you announce lightly.
“I don’t have a tree.”
“Then you’ll have to get one.”
His thumb brushes the glass. He doesn’t seem to know what to do with it exactly, but he also doesn’t put it back.
You try not to smile too brightly.
The snow glitters underfoot as you keep walking, responding to your presence with faint glimmers of gold. You see Bucky look down at it. Observing. Admiring.
“Does all of this happen consciously? Do you control all of this?” he asks, genuinely curious, genuinely captivated.
“Some of it,” you respond quietly. Softly. “But it mostly reacts to emotion. I guess I’m happy.”
He goes quiet. Quiet in that Bucky way. The one that isn’t avoidance, just carefulness. As if your words are something he needs to hold gently.
You wander deeper into the market until the trees thin into a small clearing where the snow falls in spirals, choreographed by a charm you cast earlier. It folds around the two of you like a slow, celestial curtain.
Bucky steps forward and stops, tipping his head back to watch the pattern. The world around you keeps moving. Lanterns floating, people laughing, snow sighing gently from the sky. But you and Bucky stand still.
His breath fogs the air. He steps closer. Not touching you, but close enough that you feel the pull of him.
“You wanted to show me this?” he asks, breathlessly, amazed. “Why?”
Because you wanted to see wonder unwrap itself in his expression. Because you love the way he softens when he thinks no one notices. Because he deserves warmth — gentle, patient warmth.
But you say, lightly, playfully, “Because Christmas markets are more fun when they’re a little magical.”
He stares a second longer, then shakes his head, but not in disapproval, more like he’s trying to hide the way it affects him. “You’re something else.”
You breathe him in — clove and cold air and something sturdy underneath. “Do you like it?”
He looks at you in the snowlight. Not just looks. He searches. He studies. He admires. “Yeah. I do.”
His voice is different now. Lower, unguarded, almost tender. And you suddenly realize you’ve brought him here for this exact moment. Not magic, not lights, but space. Space for him to feel something safely.
He takes a single step closer still. Just enough that his arm brushes yours. Your breath catches. His metal arm flexes at his side. A restless ache you can practically feel seeping out of him.
Snow spirals around him, catching in the strands of his hair. His eyes hold yours a second too long — two seconds, three — and there’s something there. Something warming. Something hopeful.
His gaze traces your face with a kind of awe that lands on your sternum like a snowflake. He leans in — slowly, offering you every chance to stop him — and presses a warm, careful kiss to your temple.
It is gentle. It is hesitant. It is full of everything he hasn’t said yet.
Boom! A wild Bucky dropped into your inbox! He dares you to share a little something with “You’re an absolute menace. But you’re my menace.”
(You can delete it if you don’t want to write it. I know you don’t take requests but if you want to do a small something!)
Hello lovely!! ❤︎
I know it’s been a while since you sent me this, and I am truly sorry. But I can’t sleep and I needed to refocus my brain on something small, so I took the chance and wrote a little for you.
Dare Me to Live
Pairing: Avenger!Bucky x Avenger!Reader
Summary: Somehow, you worm your way into Bucky’s controlled world with your chaos, your laughter, and your love for living. And he stays. Every time.
Word Count: 1.4k
Warnings: mentions of Bucky’s past and his traumas; mild violence and injury; fluff and banter; you might notice I was tired
Masterlist
You didn’t mean to fall for Bucky Barnes. Honestly, who would? He’s as warm as a locked freezer, as inviting as a thundercloud. Stoic, sullen, always staring at walls and staring at people and making both equally uncomfortable.
But then he’d go and do something like bandage your hand with that silent care, or offer you the last donut without a word, or lean his head against yours when the nightmares came back like hurricanes. And it ruined you.
You, with your sharp tongue and wandering eyes, your tendency to climb where you shouldn’t and poke things labeled do not touch. You make messes. You laugh too loud. You dare Bucky Barnes to live, and it drives him crazy.
But he keeps showing up.
Always.
“You have a death wish,” he tells you, one night after a mission goes sideways and you come back with a limp and a grin.
“No,” you say, blowing a bubble with your gum. It pops like punctuation. “I have a life wish. You should try it sometime.”
He glares at you from across the med bay, his arms folded like barricades across his chest. “You think this is funny?”
You cock your head. “No. But your jaw does this thing when you’re mad - like right now - it twitches. It’s cute.”
He stares at you, and you probably should be afraid, because he can be fucking terrifying with that stare sometimes. But this is you, and it is him, and it is you with him and him with you and so you just grin.
“You’re impossible.”
“Yet here you are.”
He exhales sharply and walks away.
But he comes back twenty minutes later with a heating pad and a chocolate bar and a t-shirt that still smells like him.
You learn Bucky in pieces.
He doesn’t give himself all at once. He trickles into your life - bit by bit, drop by deliberate drop - until you look up and he’s everywhere. His gloves on your counter. His books on your shelves. His silence in your noise. His grief buried under your laughter.
Sometimes he touches you without realizing it - fingers grazing yours when you pass a mug, hand at your lower back when you’re walking through a crowd. Little things. Half-ghosted things. But your skin remembers every one.
And sometimes, on serene nights, he’ll talk.
About the war. The Winter Soldier. The cold.
He tells you how Hydra kept him in pieces. How he still doesn’t know where all the pieces went.
He tells you that your laugh terrifies him more than any mission.
“Why?” you ask once, arms around your legs, chin resting on your knees, voice soft as snowfall.
“Because it makes me want things,” he says, and his hands are on you. Always on you.
And you don’t ask what. You already know.
He kisses you on a Tuesday.
There’s a storm outside and you’ve stolen his Henley again and he’s trying to teach you how to clean a weapon and you keep deliberately getting it wrong just to see him scowl. You think maybe it’s the rain. Or the smell of you in his shirt. Or the way you lean a little too close and your knee brushes his.
But really, it’s the fact that you’re you, and he’s him, and he doesn’t know how to stop wanting you.
He kisses you like he’s drowning in it. Like you’re the first thing that’s ever made sense.
And when he pulls back, lips swollen and eyes wrecked, you whisper, “Took you long enough.”
He breathes against your cheek, voice unsteady. “You’re gonna be the end of me.”
You smile.
“Worth it.”
The world keeps turning.
You go on missions. You argue. You laugh. You get caught sneaking contraband Pop-Tarts into briefings. You almost die - twice - and Bucky yells at you both times as if it will make you immortal.
He watches you sleep sometimes.
Thinks you don’t notice. But you do.
You pretend not to, because there’s something sacred in it. The way he memorizes your face. The way his metal hand brushes your shoulder like he’s still learning how to use it without breaking anything, you.
You feel him tracing your spine with loving fingers. One. Two. Three.
You feel safe with him.
Like maybe, even in this fractured world, there’s a place where you can be wild and soft and loved all at once.
And when you let yourself enjoy the little things, standing barefoot on a rooftop, soaking wet from the rain, and laughing like you’re immortal - he finds you there.
Fingers splayed on the rusted edge of the fire escape, your hair stuck to your cheeks, your grin peeling open like lightning, too bright for this dull-gray world.
You don’t even hear him climb up behind you. He’s just there, suddenly, with those silent soldier steps that always make your heart falter.
“Jesus,” he mutters, breath fogging as he approaches. “You’re an absolute menace.”
You glance over your shoulder, smile wicked like moonlight. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
He says nothing for a moment. Just looks at you. As though he can’t quite believe you are a part of his life. As though he’s wondering if you’re going to vanish when he blinks. Then, softer, like the thunder’s echo across empty buildings, “but you’re my menace.”
And it hits you, that he’s never called you that before.
Mine.
As though the word slipped from his lips without asking permission. As though maybe it means something more than either of you is ready for.
The rain is a baptism.
It falls hard and fast and holy, painting the rooftop in silver streaks. You tilt your face to the sky like it’s a secret you’ve been aching to hear, arms spread wide as if daring the heavens to take you.
Your hair is soaked. Your clothes cling to your skin. You’re laughing with your whole body, wild and unrepentant, the way only someone who has touched death and lived to mock it can.
Bucky stands a few feet away, still watching.
Watching you like you’re something written in the margins of a life he was never meant to have. You see it in his eyes - the struggle, the war between instinct and desire. He doesn't know how to want something without fearing it’ll vanish. But there you are.
Still here.
Still choosing the sky.
“You’re going to get sick,” he says, voice low but you hear the worry. Always the worry.
“And you’re going to grow moss standing there like that,” you toss back, spinning once, arms wide. “Come on, Barnes. Live a little.”
He exhales like it hurts.
You take a step toward him.
“Dance with me,” you say.
It’s not a question. It’s a challenge dressed like a dare, dressed like a promise. And God - he’s never been good at resisting you.
Bucky hesitates.
Then he steps into the storm.
You see the exact moment it happens. The surrender.
The rain hits him like an old memory, sharp and soft and soaked in something unspeakably human. His shirt darkens, plasters to his chest. His hair flattens against his forehead. He blinks up at the sky as though he doesn’t remember how to do this - how to be this version of himself.
You reach for his hands.
And he lets you.
Flesh and metal, calloused and careful - you tug him forward, and he follows, slow at first, stiff like rusted hinges. But then you twirl under his arm, giddy and reckless, and something in him cracks wide open.
He laughs.
Actually laughs.
It’s low and hoarse and disbelieving, like it clawed out from some locked box inside him.
And then - he’s dancing.
You and him and the rain and this rooftop that doesn’t know how lucky it is to hold this moment. There’s no rhythm. No music. Only laughter - breathless and reckless - footsteps slipping through puddles, and two bodies moving around each other in the downpour.
You slip. He catches you. Arms around your waist. Pulling you in.
He spins you. You kiss his jaw on instinct.
You look at him like he’s the storm, and he looks at you like you’re the eye of it - quiet and untouchable.
“You’re insane,” he murmurs against your temple.
You smile. “You’re catching up.”
He pulls you closer.
“Yeah,” he breathes. “But if this is what madness feels like-”
His lips find yours in the rain.
“-then I’ll go willingly.”
“She was chaos and beauty intertwined. A tornado of roses from divine.”
Pairing: Avenger!Bucky x Former Widow!Avenger!Reader
Summary: After a mission dredges up ghosts of old wounds, Bucky and you find each other in the quiet.
Word Count: 1.3k
Warnings: PTSD and trauma references; implied violence from past missions; implied past abuse; Hydra; themes of healing and recovery
Author’s Note: Thank you for this peaceful request, my dear!! It has me so satisfied that I can end this celebration event with a fic that focuses on healing and growth together!! I hope you enjoy ♡
2k Drabble Challenge Masterlist | Masterlist
The rain falls like forgiveness. It paints the windows of the quinjet with streaks of silver.
You sit cross-legged with your back against the wall of the empty debriefing room, knees pulled to your chest, damp sleeves rolled halfway up your forearms.
The blood has been washed off. The mission is over. But it’s still under your nails. Still in your teeth. Still sitting like rust in the corners of your mind.
You exhale. Long and slow and thorough. As though you are trying to empty yourself out before it leaks on its own.
The floor is cold beneath you. But you stay seated.
The fluorescent lights make a droning sound overhead and it reminds you of the rooms beneath cities, the ones without windows or names.
The door hisses open.
But you don’t look up.
His footsteps are soft, almost weightless. He’s learned how not to be noticed by accident. You have too. You wonder if he was trying not to disturb you, or if it’s just muscle memory.
I thought you might be here. It’s something he would have said on any other mission. He would have asked if you’re okay and he’d want you to talk to him if the answer was no.
But this wasn’t just any other mission. It was Hydra. So he doesn’t say anything. Because this is not just a thing discussed only with words.
And you’re grateful for the silence.
You hear the faintest shift of leather as he sits beside you, not touching, not crowding. Just close enough that your shadows might brush if the light hit just right.
There are oceans between your ribs. Some days, you drown in them. Some days, he pulls you out.
Bucky mirrors your posture on instinct, knees bent, arms draped loosely over them. His hair is still damp from the rain. There is a cut healing along his jaw, already closed over thanks to the serum but still red.
You can taste the weight in the room. The quiet grows but you don’t put in effort to shoo it away. Bucky and you have always shared this kind of understanding. It doesn’t need to be said out loud. Unspoken things are lingering in the air, but they don’t press, they don’t gasp for air.
Because you’ve bleed together. Killed together. Not because you wanted to, but because you had to. Because you were trained to. Because the ghosts in your bones still wear Hydra uniforms.
You tilt your head, just enough to glance at him. He’s staring at the wall ahead as though it might say something if he looks long enough. His vibranium hand flexes once, then stills. You wonder if it’s twitching from leftover adrenaline, or if it’s a ghost, too.
But he’s not the ghost of the Winter Soldier. Not the Red Room’s shadow. He’s the man who remembers your real name even when you forget how it sounds in your own voice. The man who’s learning how to live. The man you learned to trust with your quiet, everyday hopes.
You turn your head away again.
And you sit there together, the old scent of gunpowder and metal and blood memory folded between your bodies. The past is still there, crawling around under your ribs, but it’s quieter now. Less sharp. You’ve sanded down the edges together, little by little, like two broken blades trying to make peace with their shapes.
For a long time, there’s nothing but breath and distance shrinking between your arms.
Your fingers ache. But they aren’t shaking anymore.
Bucky’s knee brushes yours when he adjusts. You glance over. He’s staring straight ahead, jaw slack, eyes tracking something not there.
Your shoulder brushes his. He doesn’t flinch. You don’t move away.
And you’re not sure how long you sit there, shoulder to shoulder.
The quinjet is flying steadily, and the lights dim slowly to a soft gold, stretching long shadows on the steel floor.
Your body feels as though it’s been rung out and hung to dry, nerves vibrating under skin but too tired to flinch anymore. In the air lingers a faint trace of smoke and ozone and antiseptic.
Bucky shifts beside you.
Not much. Just enough that you sense him turn his head to watch you. You don’t look back, but your fingers twitch in your lap.
“You eat yet?” His voice is worn, rough and gravel, but so quiet, it feels intimate.
You shake your head.
He nods slowly, as though he expected it. As though he’s been keeping track even when you haven’t.
“Clint found a stash of those spicy noodles you like.” he comments. “He’s hoarding them, probably. But I could steal one.”
You huff something that could almost be a laugh. Your mouth is dry.
You glance at him now, and he’s already looking away. Not in avoidance. Just giving you space. Letting you come back in your own time.
“I’m not really hungry,” you answer quietly, but there is gratitude in the warmth of your voice.
“Doesn’t matter,” he says gently. “You still need to eat.”
You don’t argue, because you know he’s right. Because this - this version of care, quiet and practical and patient - is how he loves people now. Maybe how he always did, under all the static.
He shifts again, reaching into the inside pocket of his jacket. Pulls out a small water bottle still halfway full and offers it to you without a word.
You take it. Your fingers brush. His hand is warm.
You take a slow sip. It’s a relief to your sore throat.
You hand it back and let your head fall against the wall behind you. “Thanks.”
Bucky doesn’t answer, just exhales a long breath. You used to think his stillness meant detachment. Now you know it’s the only way he knows how to be soft.
He doesn’t speak again for a while, and neither do you.
Eventually, you let your head tilt against his shoulder, resting your cheek against the fabric of his jacket. He doesn’t move. Just takes a contented breath and leans, ever so slightly, into you.
His voice is quieter when he speaks again.
“You’re okay?” he asks lowly.
Just that.
Not Are you okay?
Not What’s wrong?
Not Talk to me.
You’re. Okay. As if it’s something that could be true. As if he wants it to be true. As if it might help you believe it, too.
You nod. Not too fast. Not lying.
“Yeah,” you speak against his shoulder, your breath meeting his skin. “I will be.”
His head carefully comes down onto yours, and he lets his hand inch closer, lets his knee bump lightly against yours.
And very slowly, without looking at you, he shifts his hand. The flesh one.
His pinky finger brushes yours.
Not by accident. Not quite.
You glance down. His hand rests on the floor between you, knuckles soft, fingertips still. But his pinky is there. Reaching.
You don’t hesitate. You let yours find his, curl just enough to hook.
It’s a small thing. Ridiculous, maybe. Childlike. Delicate.
But it means something.
It means I see you.
It means I’m here.
It means We don’t have to explain ourselves tonight.
You stare down at the two fingers linked between you - his calloused and warm, yours still scraped from the fight - and you feel something ease in your chest. Not vanish. But shift.
And you sit like that, both of you worn thin and bruised quiet, staring out at the lowly flickering lights on the far wall, letting the silence between you settle into something like peace.
Summary: Bucky carries the sound of your voice through his darkest missions and you are hiding your feelings in fear of breaking what little you have. But silence begins to break when his latest mission leaves you tending to his wounds.
Word Count: 1.9k
Warnings: graphic injury care; mentions of blood; pain; implied PTSD; self-doubt; mild descriptions of past violence; feels; pining; switch of povs throughout because I felt like it
Author’s Note: Thank you, my dear, for sending me this sweet request! I would love for you to find comfort in it. I hope you enjoy ♡
2k Drabble challenge Masterlist | Masterlist
There are nights when the silence gets too loud.
When the pressure of his own breath feels foreign in his lungs.
When the quiet is a scream he cannot mute.
The world goes still in those moments. Still and sharp and cruel.
And yet, he closes his eyes, and you are there.
You, with your voice made of spring mornings and porcelain rain. You, humming a melody so soft it might have been a mistake, a ghost, a secret you never meant for him to hear.
But he did.
And he remembers.
And he won’t ever forget.
He remembers how it caught him off guard like light pouring under a door he didn’t realize was cracked open.
You were in the kitchen. You thought you were alone. You didn’t hear the sound of the front door creaking open or the soft press of his boots on hardwood.
You let a song slip past your lips as if it belonged somewhere safe, not out loud in the world like this. It wasn’t even a full song - just a hum, broken and mended again with every breath.
He stood in the hallway, listening, afraid to breathe.
And it stayed with him.
It stays when the blood on his hands feels too fresh. When the screaming won’t stop even when the battlefield has gone quiet. When he’s curled up on a too-small cot on some foreign floor, the weight on his chest trying to take him under.
He remembers your voice.
He plays it back in his mind like a lullaby no one wrote down. It softens his rage. It stitches the fraying ends of his sanity back together. It makes him think of home. Of you.
And he knows what it means. Knows he’s falling.
Head over heels. Heart-first.
****
The house is still.
The clock ticks.
You’re not sure what woke you.
Then, the floorboards creak.
The bathroom light spills a warm, broken line across the hall.
You hear it before you see him. The sharp hiss. Low. Pain blooming through clenched teeth.
And then he steps out of the bathroom.
Your breath catches like a bird startled in your chest.
He doesn’t notice you standing in the doorway of your bedroom. His hand is pressed against his side, a smear of something dark and awful bleeding through the fabric of his shirt. His face is contorted.
“Bucky?” you let out, hardly louder than the breath it rides on.
His head lifts. Eyes meet yours. They’re tired, bruised with too many sleepless nights and haunted things. But he softens the moment he sees you. He always does.
You move without thinking. Barefoot, breathless, reaching for the first aid kit under the sink.
Bucky lets out a sigh. “Doll-”
“Sit down,” you interrupt, the words a wound on your tongue and he sits without further protest.
You kneel before him. Hands trembling. Careful. So careful.
Because this is him. This is Bucky. And even though he is bleeding, even though he is stitched together by broken memories and frayed nerves, you are terrified of hurting him more.
The silence between you is thick. Intimate.
He watches you, eyes flicking between your fingers and your face. And you’re trying so hard to be gentle, to focus on the wound on his side, not the way his breath hitches every time your fingers brush too close to his skin.
And then it happens.
You hum.
You don’t mean to. You don’t even realize at first.
It’s the song you always sing when your hands are shaking. The one that anchors you. That soothes your panic.
You hum when you’re tired. When you’re scared. When the world is too big and you need to make it small again.
Now, with your knees digging into the floor of your shared bathroom, your fingers hovering above his broken skin, the song blooming from your mouth just like that.
Bucky’s eyes widen.
The sound leaving you is soft. Unthinking. Like breath. Like muscle memory.
He almost doesn’t recognize it. It’s softer than the first time, a little cracked, as if you’re somewhere else in your head. But it’s the same song. Your song. His song.
And it hits him in a place he didn’t know was still tender.
Something swells in his throat. Something he can’t swallow.
He watches you.
Watches the tremble in your fingers. Watches the worry carving tiny canyons into your brow. Watches your eyes snap up to meet his for a heartbeat too long.
Watches the moment you realize you’re humming - and how your lips clamp shut so fast it’s like you burned yourself.
The silence that follows is devastating.
You can’t look at him. Inhale sharply.
You pretend to focus on the gauze, the antiseptic. You pretend your hands aren’t shaking harder now.
But you feel him watching you. Feel his gaze like gravity turned personal. Like the earth has decided to spin around you now.
“Don’t stop.”
The words are soft. Thrown like pebbles into a still lake.
You glance up. Briefly. As if looking too long might actually burn you.
“I didn’t mean to-” you start, but hell, he interrupts you by existing. By being there, chest rising and falling, eyes locked onto you with something so gentle it makes your throat close.
“I didn’t think I’d ever hear that again,” he murmurs.
“What?” you breathe, blinking up at him.
“You making that sound. Singing that song.”
He shifts, winces, but doesn’t flinch away.
“When I was gone- when it got bad- I kept it in my head. Like a- like a compass. I would just sit there and think about it. About you. About how you sounded that day in the kitchen. Always hoped to hear it again, one day.”
You forget to breathe.
He isn’t looking at you as if you’re about to fall apart. He’s looking at you as if you’re real. As if you just stepped out of a dream he was terrified to wake up from.
“You were humming,” he goes on, voice rough, not quite in the moment. “Didn’t know I was home. You had your back to me and you were making dinner. Chopping something. I stood there for minutes. Just listening. And it stayed with me.”
His voice falters, and he exhales a shuddering breath. “I’ve killed people with my bare hands. Forgotten their faces by morning. But I remember that. That sound. You.”
You want to speak, but your mouth won’t shape the words.
So instead you stare at your hands. Still stained with Bucky’s blood. Still trembling. You press gauze into his side and try not to fall apart.
But it’s happening anyway.
You drop the antiseptic. Your chest hiccups with the threat of something too big to hold in. You squeeze your eyes shut hoping that will stop it from escaping, but no.
And then he sees the wetness pooling in your eyes. The tears clinging to your lashes.
You turn your face slightly as if that will hide them. As if he hasn’t been trained to spot weakness in the dark.
But this isn’t weakness.
This is you, breaking open in front of him.
And he can’t bear it.
“Hey,” he says gently. Too gently. It always astounds him how soft his voice can get with you.
He reaches for you. Cups your cheek with a blood-streaked hand. Not even thinking about the mess. Not even caring. He will wash it off of you later. His thumb brushes under your eye, collects the tear before it falls.
“What’s wrong, doll? Talk to me.”
His voice is quiet. Inviting. He doesn’t want to push. He waits, even if it hurts.
You shake your head first. Just a little. Not because nothing’s wrong. But because you don’t know how to say it. You don’t know how to hand him something this fragile without watching it shatter.
“I-” The word catches. You blink fast. Press your palm over his where it’s still warm on your cheek. “I just-” Your breath hiccups. “I get scared. When you leave.”
His face changes. It’s subtle, but you see it. See the guilt pull at the corners of his mouth. The pain behind his eyes that has nothing to do with the wound on his side.
“And I know you don’t- I mean, you don’t have to tell me anything, and I know I’m just- just your roommate, and I’m probably being stupid, but-”
You look away.
Bucky is silent. He seems to hold his breath. His brows are pulled together. His gaze is too intense for you to hold.
“I care so much it makes me feel sick sometimes,” you whisper. As if it’s a sin. It’s not. You could scream about your love for him. But telling him is something different. “And I know you don’t need that, or want that, or-”
“Hey.”
It’s just one word. But it stops you cold.
He tilts your chin back to him with gentle hands. And his eyes look at you as if you’ve hung the stars without meaning to.
“Don’t say that, sweetheart. Don’t say all those terrible things, you hear me?” he starts, voice deep. “Can’t have you thinking I don’t need that. That I don’t need you. 'Cause- god, that’s just not true. And I’m so sorry I made you doubt. I’m so sorry, darling.” It sounds as if he means it. For every mission. Every wound. Every second he’s made you wait in silence and worry for his life.
You lean into him without meaning to.
And Bucky lets you breathe there, pressed into the space between his collarbone and curve of his shoulder. His pulse is steady. Or maybe it’s not. Maybe it’s hammering just like yours.
But he doesn’t let go. Just breathes you in as if maybe it will help his rips stop aching.
****
When he’s cleaned and bandaged and stripped of his armor for the night, you bring him one of his shirts since his was ruined.
He smells like himself again and that makes it easier to breathe.
You crawl into his bed beside him. No words. Just warmth. Just gravity.
He folds himself into the space beside you, his fingers finding yours. Slow and a little hesitant at first but turning certain. Home. His metal hand traces the lines on your palm.
“Sing to me? Please?” he whispers into the dark, into your hair. His voice is low, rough, but not uncertain.
Your chest flutters.
With a nod, you rest your head against his heart and let the melody rise from the hollow of your chest.
It’s shaky at first. But then you feel his hands on your back. Tracing circles. Pulling you closer.
And the song grows stronger. Your voice grows stronger, floating through the stillness.
He listens with his eyes closed, heart open.
You sing for the boy who forgot how to feel safe.
You sing for yourself, the girl who learned how to love in silence.
And in between the verses, the quiet says everything you will speak out loud sooner or later.
“What’s wrong, Buck? You look upset.”
“Well, I just got back from a rather interesting meeting with some of the smartest idiots on the planet.”
“Oh?”
“You played the poster boy too well, Stevie. Apparently the team thinks you’re some kind of heterosexual virgin.”
Summary: You use Bucky’s only weakness to your advantage until it bites you in the ass.
Word Count: 7.2k
Warnings: feigning injuries; a sprained ankle; bruises; hiding injuries; combat fighting training; sparring sessions; mutual pining; Bucky being a doting sweetheart; Bucky being smug; Bucky being worried
Author’s Notes: This idea has been sitting in my drafts as a rough outline for months lol and I finally got the inspiration to make something out of it. I hope you will enjoy this! ♡
Masterlist
You love sparring with Bucky.
Maybe because you love the man.
But there is so much more to that, honestly.
You have basically sparred with anyone out of the team.
Steve is methodical. Always a teacher, always Captain. He calls out corrections in a way he does orders, his patience long-practiced. His strikes are accurate, economical, as if he calculates the exact amount of force necessary to bring you down and delivers it precisely, nothing wasted. But you always know he is holding back. He does not say it but you feel it in the way he controls every movement, never quite giving you the full weight of his strength. You learn from him, but there is always a ceiling to what he will allow you to take from the fight.
Natasha is sharp. She doesn’t coach you, doesn’t slow down, doesn’t hold back. She fights you like she fights anyone. You feel the sting of a bruise blooming before you even realize she struck you. And yet, when you get a hit in, when you shift fast enough to slip past her guard, her smirk is quicksilver - pleased, challenging, like she has just discovered something worth sinking her teeth into.
Wanda fights like she plays. Some days, she keeps her powers at bay, working only with what her body allows, light on her feet, swaying rather than striking. But she is not used to this. Not using her powers in a fight. So most of the time, she teases, powers tugging at your wrist mid-swing, a flicker of scarlett at the edge of your vision before she is suddenly behind you.
Sam is solid. He fights with his whole body, never wasting energy on anything that doesn’t serve his goal. He takes up space, keeps you on the defenses, his moves seamless. But he is generous too, throwing you a verbal lifeline mid-fight - “too slow, come on,” - challenging you in encouraging you. And when you get him down, he grins, bright and wide, like he wants you to win.
Clint fights like someone who doesn’t need to win, just needs to keep moving. He is slippery, dodging rather than blocking, grinning rather than growling. He makes a game of it, laughing at your frustration, forcing you to loosen up, to adapt, to try something unorthodox. He doesn’t spar to overpower. He spars to frustrate, to outlast, to make you think three steps ahead.
But Bucky.
Bucky watches you. Always. Even when he isn’t facing you directly, even when he’s standing in the shadows at the edge of the gym, you have his attention. It is something you have learned to steady yourself beneath. Because it never really seems to waver.
He is mindful. Of your form. Of your tells. Of how far he can push you. He does not go easy on you. Despite the obvious differences in height and weight and him being a super soldier. But he fights you like an opponent worth fighting. He fights you like himself. Precise. Controlled. Thoughtful. When he corrects you, it is not instruction, just a simple adjustment with the brush of his metal fingers nudging your wrist into a better angle, a small nod when you adapt.
And when you take him down - when you surprise him, when you shift your weight at the last moment and send him to the mat - there is that laugh breaking out. He is not stunned at the way you overpowered him. Not disbelieving. He merely laughs. A short burst of warmth, rare and genuine, something boyish in the way it escapes.
You live for that laugh.
Because Bucky knows your competence. He does not gift you victories because he knows you don’t need them in the first place. He expects you to win. He knows you can. And will. He does not say it outright, but you learned to read the subtle body language in the years of knowing him - the glimmer of something pleased in his eyes, the upturn at the corner of his mouth.
And when he helps you up - fingers gently curling around your wrist to pull you to your feet - he lingers just a little too long.
So yes, you love sparring with Bucky.
Basically, on the first day as an Avenger it was drilled into you that knowing your enemy is everything - know what you are up against, who you are fighting, how they move, what makes them weak.
You are good at this. At observing. You know how to study people, how to pick out patterns, how to find the smallest crack in an otherwise impenetrable wall and press until it splits wide open.
Still, Bucky Barnes is not an easy person to read.
But perhaps it was just a little too much fun figuring out what exactly his weaknesses are.
He doesn’t have many. His body is conditioned for war, his mind sharpened, his instincts too honed to give much away. If he has vulnerabilities, they are subtle. Nearly imperceptible to anyone who isn’t looking closely enough.
But you have been looking closely. For the better part of a year.
And then, about five months ago, something clicked.
Bucky Barnes does have a weakness.
A glaring one, in fact.
One so obvious you nearly laughed out loud when you finally pieced it together.
It’s you.
You are his weakness.
Bucky is a creature of routines.
The kind that keep him grounded in a world that still feels like shifting sand beneath his feet. And somehow, you have become part of them.
You don’t remember when it started, exactly. But you know that when you stumble into the kitchen in the morning, still half-asleep, Bucky is already there. Always. Sometimes with coffee already poured for you, sometimes just sitting at the counter like he’s lost, waiting like he’s been expecting something. You.
You tested it, once. You woke up later than usual, wanting to see if he still lingered. And sure enough, when you finally stepped into the kitchen, he was there, nursing a long-gone cup of coffee that was somehow still halfway filled, gaze fixed on the entryway even before you entered. Like he hadn’t been planning on leaving until he saw you. It’s when he loosened his grip on the poor mug. Flexing his fingers, as if he was close to shattering it.
Bucky is not a fan of crowded spaces.
He likes corners, walls at his back, exits in view. He keeps a respectable distance from most people, moving on silent feet, always aware of what’s around him.
Except when it comes to you.
You began to notice that in the common room. How he lets you sit closer than he does with anyone else, how he doesn’t shift away when his knee bumps his. How, when you walk side by side, he moves to make space for you without thinking. How he stops standing near the door when you are in a room, like some unconscious part of him doesn’t feel the need to watch his six when you are there.
And then there are the small things.
The way his arm comes up instinctively when you reach past him for something, like he is preparing to steady you or get it down for you if it is something you can’t reach. The way he steps in front of you if something startled him, body moving before anything else.
Little things. Automatic things.
And the most endearing part is, that he genuinely does not seem like he knows he is doing all that.
Bucky is strategic on missions.
He follows the plan without a hitch, keeps his cool and executes flawlessly.
Until you are in danger.
Then he gets frantic. He even tends to snap at Steve. He gets tighter, sharper, more lethal. It seems like instinct.
Just last month, you got cut along your thigh that you managed to patch up before the mission was even completely over. But Bucky was stoic and brooding. Frown on his face the whole time. He saw the blood, saw the way you had a limp in your step and something utterly cold settled in his eyes.
Sam later mentioned to you with a weird wiggle of his eyebrow that the man whose knife slashed you never had the chance to land another hit on anyone.
You started testing him in small ways. Seeing if he moves when you move. If he adjusts his strategy to keep you in his line of sight. If he listens to your voice above all others in a debriefing, even when Steve is talking.
And he does. Every time.
Bucky got mad at Clint once because he ate the last donut that was meant for you. Clint was genuinely terrified. He even went out to get you new ones.
Bucky picks up stuff from the common room he knows belong to you and takes it to your room.
Just yesterday, there was a book on your nightstand. One you had mentioned offhand in conversation weeks ago, something you said you wanted to read someday. And you know for a fact that Bucky got dragged into the city by Sam and Steve the day before.
After years as an Avenger, you learn to fool people.
You know how to smile when you need to, how to shake things off, how to deal with missions gone wrong or people unsaved.
But you can’t fool Bucky.
He just knows when something is off. He notices the way your voice shifts, the way your shoulders carry tension differently. You don’t have to say anything. He just knows.
And he never pushes. He lingers. He makes himself available. He sits beside you in silence when you don’t feel like talking. He glares at everyone who wants something unnecessary from you in times like those.
And then he would just go, come on, let’s go do something.
It is basically just watching a movie or cooking a dinner or baking cookies, but everything is more fun with him, and soon enough your smile touches your eyes again.
Bucky does not share.
He does not share his food. He does not share his belongings.
But he does with you.
When you are out and freezing, he shrugs off his jacket and tosses it over your shoulders without a word.
He lets you take fries off his plate and lets you drink from his cup, much to Sam’s surprise and disgruntlement.
Bucky does not talk about his nightmares.
Not to anyone.
But on certain nights, when sleep refuses to hold him and his mind is drowning in things long past but never gone, he finds you.
You were in the common room when it first started. Months ago. Nursing a mug of tea, when he wandered in, looking lost and exhausted.
With a single glance at him, you nodded to the couch, shifting over to make space, and he came sitting down without a word.
He let you talk. He even seemed to relish it. Intertwining his hands at his front and laying his head back against the backside of the couch, closing his eyes and listening to your mocked aggravation at the fact that Sam left a half-eaten sandwich on the counter again.
He stayed until the sun crept in through the windows, slight snoring making you smile.
It happened again. And then again.
After a while, you started recognizing the signs when his nightmares are getting worse again. The way he drifts into whatever room you are in and stays locked in his own when you are gone on a mission or out with the girls. How he leans against the doorway for a second longer than necessary before stepping inside, like he is debating whether he has the right to be there.
Sometimes, he’d pretend he’s just passing through. He would linger in the kitchen, hands wrapped around a cup of coffee he doesn’t drink while you are having your conversation with Wanda and Natasha.
One night, he even came to your room. Knocking and standing there with his hands fidgeting at his sides, eyes shamefully lowered, looking so much like a puppy in search of some love.
He didn’t pretend. He didn’t offer excuses. He just stood there and you saw it in his eyes.
You took him in your arms and then you took him in.
First, he sat down on the floor beside your bed, back against the wall, knees drawn up like he was trying to take up as little space as possible. He didn’t say anything for a long time. You just sat beside him on the ground, laying your head on his shoulder.
Eventually, his breathing evened out, head falling onto yours.
He would fall asleep like that. Until you managed to get him to lie down in your bed beside you. He usually sleeps like a baby when he’s with you.
You are not stupid. Neither are you naive. You have always been good at reading people, at knowing them, at watching them, and deciphering the things they do not say.
And you know what this might mean.
You certainly know what it means to you.
The way your pulse picks up when Bucky walks into a room so casually because you are there. The way your stomach flutters when his gaze lingers on you. The way your chest gets so unbearably full when he does all those smallest things for you.
But you think you also might know what it means to him. He seeks you out for everything, on instinct or not. Smiling seems to come so easily to him when he is with you. You are the only person he lets into his personal space - the only person he doesn’t startle away from when it comes to accidentally touching.
But Bucky Barnes is not a man who allows himself to want things easily.
So, you will not force yourself upon him. You will not push. You will not demand. You will not take what he does not freely offer.
Because you understand that he does not fear pain, or war, or perhaps even death.
But he fears something real, something good, something that cannot be fought off with fists or buried beneath old ghosts.
Because he does not think it is something he deserves yet.
But you are willing to wait. Until he is ready. Until he is sure. Until he knows that this is what he wants.
And if he never is, if he never comes to you with certainty in his hands, if he never crosses the space between you - then you will wait anyway.
Because for him, you would wait forever.
****
“Alright, sweetheart. Let’s see what you’ve got.”
There’s a smug grin on his face as he’s circling you.
And you know why it is there.
Because you are currently three losses deep into a losing streak against Bucky. And that just won’t do. You need a win.
You move first, closing the distance fast, testing his defenses. He blocks. A quick jab - he dodges. A feint - he doesn’t bite.
He knows your patterns, how you move, how you think. But you know him, too.
You go low, aiming for his legs, but he anticipates and shifts out of reach. “Getting predictable there, doll,” he drawls, smirking.
Yeah, you’re gonna wipe that off.
Rolling your eyes, you adjust. A punch goes up that isn’t meant to land, just to see how he reacts. He blocks high, but his balance shifts and there is a brief opening. A second and you are too late.
You strike fast, sweeping low again, and this time, you actually catch him. Not enough to take him down, but a start.
Bucky huffs, rolling his neck. “Not good enough, but better,” he teases, smirk still in place.
“Oh, fuck off,” you laugh, lunging again.
He meets you halfway, and for a moment, it’s just movement - sharp and fast and fluid, but you keep your balance. You duck, weave, block.
You land a hit, but it barely fazes him. He grabs your wrist, twisting - flipping you, but you are prepared, rolling and springing back up.
“That all you got?”
“Come find out.”
He laughs brightly before going in for attack. You block his strike, twisting out of reach.
It’s definitely not all you got.
He is not expecting you to cheat.
Not that you call it cheating anyway.
You decide that it’s time to take advantage of that weakness of his.
After all, it has worked before. And it will work again.
Bucky feints left. You dodge, pivot, but let your foot catch just so against the mat to send you off balance. The stumble isn’t exaggerated - it doesn’t need to be. You land on your side, letting out a sharp breath as if this is not exactly what you were expecting, and grab your ankle, wincing.
Bucky stops immediately. Just like always. It’s the first time you feign your ankle getting hurt but he reacts all the same.
His shift is instant. His whole body tenses. Taking a step toward you with his brows furrowed tightly, he scans you like he’s already running through every possible way to help you. Carrying you to the medical wing, for example.
“Shit, doll. You okay?” His voice is softer now. Concerned. So genuinely worried, you might actually feel bad.
He crouches without hesitation, without a thought, eyes so intensely fixed on you. And that smug grin is as predicted wiped cleanly off his face.
“Lemme see-”
He reaches out to you but that is when you strike.
You twist up, leg sweeping out and knocking his feet from under him. His surprised noise is so satisfying as he goes down, flat on his back, sprawled across the mat.
Silence.
“You have got to be kidding me,” Bucky groans loudly.
You are kneeling beside him, grinning, chest heaving. “Kinda needed that win, Barnes. No bad feelings, yeah?”
Bucky just stares at the ceiling for a long moment, one hand scrubbing down his face. He exhales sharply, muttering something under his breath, something that sounds suspiciously like every goddam time.
The last time you used your little trick on him, you had sold a jab against your side, staggering back and exhaling sharply as if he hit some sensitive point. He froze instantly, eyes wide. And you spun him into a flawless takedown.
The time before that it was your shoulder. All you needed was a slight grimace in fake pain and his whole demeanor changed in an instant. His hands went up slightly, a step in your direction and that was your opening to duck under his arm, and bring him down with a precise twist.
Yeah, alright, people might believe that that technique is a little mean and it certainly wouldn’t help you at all in the open field, but Clint did tell you to try something unorthodox.
You stretch, still smirking, and tilt your head at him. “You know, you’d think after falling for this multiple times, you’d have learned by now.”
Bucky’s head rolls to the side and he glares at you. Not in anger, not even close. Just that specific kind of exasperation that you have come to learn is something only you get to see from him.
He huffs. “Should’ve known you’d pull this shit again.”
“Should have. And here I thought I am predictable.”
He gives you a flat, unimpressed look.
“Can’t believe I was worried.”
“Aww, you were?” you say sarcastically, lightly. Almost in a sly sing-song voice, because is is always worried. That’s the whole point of this.
Another hand drags down his face, but there is a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.
****
You exhale deeply, rolling your shoulders, as you make your way down to the gym.
Your muscles are stiff. Everything aches in that dull, stubborn way that promises it will get worse before it gets better.
The bruises that paint your ribs throb with your pulse. You remember the sharp, biting crack when you hit the ground.
It was a mission for Steve, Nat, and you, though you definitely could have used some backup.
You feel terrible.
And you hadn’t told Bucky any of that when you came home yesterday, sometime late.
Instead, you sent him a quick I’m fine. Training tomorrow? and buried yourself in sleep before he could pry. You know how he gets, after all. How his worry manifests, his eyes linger and his mouth tightens when you brush him off. You did not have the energy for it last night. And you don’t have it now. He does not have to know what hits you have taken due to your own recklessness. You already got a lecture from Cap. Don’t need it from his best friend.
So you show up. Because, if you don’t, he will know something is wrong.
Bucky is already waiting for you, standing loose and ready on the mat. His eyes snap up the moment you enter, scanning you the way he always does. Checking.
You ignore his gaze.
“Ready to get your ass kicked?” you say, tossing your water bottle onto the bench, forcing something light into your voice.
He smirks, arms crossed. “That what’s gonna happen?”
You step onto the mat, careful not to wince, careful to keep your breath even despite the sharpness pulling at your ribs. “Don’t sound so doubtful, Barnes. I’ll let you eat the mat.”
He snorts, tilting his head. “I sure like to see you try.”
He raises his hands, shifting into a stance, watching you closely. Too closely. There is something probing in his gaze today.
“How’d the mission go? Steve mentioned you guys ran into some-”
You don’t give him time to finish - time to think.
You move, fast, hoping to catch him off guard.
He sidesteps, but you strike again.
And immediately regret it.
Your ribs scream. Punishing. Your breath stutters, but you grit your teeth and keep going, keep pushing forward and attacking because if you pause, he will most definitely notice.
It goes on for perhaps a minute and you think you might actually be able to bite away the pain your whole body is consumed with, but then you stumble.
It’s a half-second of hesitation, a misstep that normally wouldn’t happen. But it causes you to trip away a few steps. Sharp pain courses through your ribs and a hand instinctively shoots up to your side. A hiss slips past your lips. Loud enough for him to hear.
But instead of reacting the way he always does - immediately stopping, immediately reaching - he just huffs amused, shaking his head.
“Bad time for trying that trick again, sweetheart. Shoulda known better.” There is that smugness in his tone.
His voice is light, teasing. His eyes are sharp, watching.
You grit your teeth, saying nothing.
He thinks you’re faking.
Which - fine. You have done this a few times. But now, with every movement grinding against the ache in your ribs, you wish he would just stop you.
Because it’s getting harder to hide.
It’s getting harder to see.
Bucky seems confused for a second when you don’t react to him at all, but doesn’t have time to act on it as you are going in for the next hit.
And Bucky dodges you too easily like he doesn’t even need to try. You swing again, slower than you should be, weaker than you should be - and he sidesteps, frowning.
“Tryin’ a new strategy?” he asks, but his voice is careful. His eyes are assessing.
You don’t answer. You can’t. You just go again, ignoring the way your body protests, ignoring the way you are moving wrong like you are just a second behind yourself. You hope maybe muscle memory will carry you through.
It doesn’t seem like it.
Bucky stopped throwing punches himself, only staying in defense mode and he won’t stop fucking looking at you.
And then you pivot too fast - twist wrong.
White-hot pain flares through your side so fiercely, it rips the breath from your lungs. A harsh, unsteady sound falls out. You can’t catch it. You stagger, grip tightening into fists, trying to push through.
But Bucky’s expression now definitely shifted. Amusement gone. Smugness gone. His face is hard.
You ignore that and try to go in for the next hit, but Bucky steps in fast, too fast for you to counter in your state, hooking an arm around you, pressing your back against his chest. He doesn’t throw you - he could, easily, he would - but he just halts your movement, stopping you clean in your tracks.
The pain spikes again and you gasp sharply. Your knees nearly buckle and Bucky’s grip on you tightens.
His hands are firm around you. Steady. But his breathing is not. It’s fast, strained, the muscles in his arms locking as he keeps you upright.
“What the hell happened?” His voice is so low, so serious. There is an edge to it, teetering on loosing control.
“It’s not a big deal,” you grit out.
“Bullshit.” Now he sounds harsh.
But his fingers still press so gently into your side, checking you out.
You whimper, flinching.
And Bucky freezes.
“Shit.” He shifts his grip, an arm around your waist, moving you to face him and still trying to support you without making it worse. His heartbeat is fast. You can feel it. Even in his hands on you.
He grabs the hem of your shirt and lifts it enough to see your torso. A breath hitches. It’s not yours.
The bruises are bad. Worse than they were yesterday. Dark and sprawling across your ribs, blooming in ugly purples and reds. You feel the shift in him, the way his whole body goes still.
You watch his tense features in discomfort. His eyes are turbulent, filled with a wildness stemming from something dark that writhes beneath his skin and causes his hands to shake against you. A tremor passes his jaw.
He curses under his breath.
“You didn’t tell me.” His voice drags low.
“I didn’t think it was that bad.”
He lets out a deep and rumbling sigh. Trying to compose himself. “It is bad, Y/n! How come you thought it’s a good idea to train like this, huh?”
He meets your eyes. There is a sternness in his expression. His eyes are heavy.
“I didn’t want you to worry.”
Bucky lets out a humorless breath. Closes his eyes for a moment until he takes a breath in again.
“I was already worried, doll. I always am. You know that, no?” he speaks solemnly. “You think not telling me makes this better?”
You open your mouth, then close it.
He shakes his head, exhaling profoundly through his nose. His grip tightens, but not enough to hurt you. He holds you carefully.
You take in a deep breath. “I- I don’t know. I guess I just didn’t wanna talk about it. I’m sorry, Bucky.”
His jaw is clenched and he bites his bottom lip, staring at the bruises littering your skin for a moment with eyes so dark they make you shiver.
“How did that happen? Who did this?”
You scoff half-heartedly. “Got a little messy. Pretty sure that guy’s not doing that well either.” You aim to get even the tiniest bits of amusement out of him but he might have gotten even more grim.
His touch is slow, a careful sweep of his finger across your skin, studying you for reactions.
He opens his mouth. Something on his tongue he wants to get out, but he hesitates. He swallows. Waits a few seconds. His voice is a rasp. “Don’t do that again.”
“Getting hurt on missions is kind of a normal occurrence, Buck. Not much I can do about that-”
“No, I mean-” he interrupts, voice quieter. “Don’t hide it again. Not from me. I- Just please.”
There is something in his tone that makes you stare for a while longer.
Then, you nod. Just once. But you mean it.
****
It took weeks for you to properly heal.
But finally, earlier today, you got the clearance of Dr. Cho - and Bucky, because he somehow told himself he has a say in that kind of thing - to step onto the mat again and resume training.
There is still a phantom pain in your ribs but it’s locked somewhere in the back of your mind.
But Bucky still would not stop fucking looking at you.
And it never is in a casual way. Bucky always watches you like he is waiting for something. Like his body is ready to move before his mind even has to tell it to. Like he is memorizing you, making sure nothing slips past him.
He is currently standing in front of you on the mat, rolling his shoulders, the stretch of muscle under his shirt shifting with the movement. The tension in his frame hasn’t faded, no matter how much you’ve reassured him. His fingers flex, then curl into loose fists.
Then his eyes find yours.
“Alright,” he says, voice low and edged with something firm, something not up for debate. “Don’t ever pull that shit on me again. You’re good enough as it is. No need for all that, yeah?” There is something heavy in his tone. “I'll even let you win this time if you need it so badly, doll,” he adds with a hint of humor that his voice lacked earlier, bouncing right back into your easy friendship.
You huff out a laugh and stretch your arms over your head, feeling the pull of muscles that have gone a little too long without use. “Trust me Bucky, I’ve learned my lesson.” Your voice is rather light, but it carries an edge as well.
Bucky’s jaw ticks.
There is something like guilt crossing his eyes for a second. Gone as fast as it came but you catch it. His lips are pressed together tightly and he seems to hold back an uncomfortable cough.
You’ve talked about this already. Plenty, in the weeks of your recovery. You told him you wouldn’t have believed him either after the many times you feigned injury during matches. That if anything, it was your own stubbornness that got you hurt and not him.
He only agreed with the stubborn part but he stopped bringing it up.
Still, you see he hasn’t let it go.
He carries too much guilt as it is. You don’t want him to carry more. So, you definitely won’t question his weakness during fights again. It was kind of funny, though, at least you’ll hold onto that.
You roll out your shoulders, shaking off the stiffness, then take your stance. “C’mon Barnes. You gonna fight me or just stand there looking pretty?”
His mouth twitches, a ghost of a smirk, maybe even a ghost of pink at the tip of his ears, but his eyes stay sharp.
He steps in, closing the space, moving with the same impossible control he always does.
You block his first strike, but it shakes through you. The force of it reminds you just how much power he’s holding back.
His eyes snap to your face. He doesn’t stop watching.
Studying.
Testing how you move, how much strain you can handle.
You feel yourself get into it again. The movement, the impact, the swiftness. The gym is filled with the sounds of breaths and footwork against the mat.
Bucky tests you, pushes you.
And you give as good as you get.
Your body remembers even if it’s been weeks. Your muscles adjust, wake up in a way they haven’t in too long. You move on instinct, dodging, striking, thinking, even pulling a move that you copied from Nat. One that Bucky didn’t see coming.
And it honestly looks pretty good for you, until your foot catches.
It’s nothing at first, a simple shift in weight, an uneven pivot that causes your balance to tip slightly off center. But a dizziness suddenly overcomes you and it’s too late to catch you. Your ankle twists, your knees buckle and the floor comes rushing up to you.
You hit the mat hard, landing awkwardly on your side, the jolt of pain snapping through your ankle up your whole leg, sharp enough for you to wince.
Shit.
You suck in a breath, already dreading what this looks like, what Bucky must be thinking. The timing couldn’t be worse. After everything - after the fights weeks ago, after the conversations, after the promise you just made to never feign getting hurt again - what else would he think?
But before you can lift your head, before you can force out some half-hearted quip, Bucky is already there.
Not hesitating. Not wary.
Rushing. Fast and frantic.
He’s at your side, crouching so fast his knees nearly hit the mat.
And you find yourself blinking at him stunned.
You expected him to pause. To hesitate. Maybe even get angry - to assume, even for a second, that you are feigning again, that you had just promised him not to pull that anymore but here you are.
But there is none of that.
Only the same panic from every other time you’ve dropped yourself to the ground on purpose. But this time it is real. There just was no way for him to know that. He still reacts the same.
“Where does it hurt, doll? Talk to me.”
His voice is calm, but his face is tight. His brows are drawn together, tension lining his mouth. The breaths he lets out are just a little too measured.
You blink at him, still baffled at the way with how fast he was there, how fast his reaction was.
“Just my leg,” you say, exhaling slowly. “It’s nothing. I just got dizzy and fell.”
That makes him frown, deeper than before. His hand moves so gently as he lifts the fabric of your training pants to get a look, taking your calve into his other hand. The touch sends a pulse of pain through you but you manage not to let it show on your face. You’ve had worse. You’re an Avenger, after all.
But Bucky’s jaw clenches so tightly at the sight of the swollen bone and the deepening flush of color on your ankle as if it is serious.
“Might have sprained it,” he mutters gruffly, and the displeasure in his voice is so clear.
“Think I’ll live, Buck,” you quip lightly and shift, trying to stand up but his hand doesn’t let up on your leg and he presses just lightly against your shoulders to make you sit back down.
“You still feelin’ dizzy?” he asks, basically ignoring what you said, voice dipping lower. His gaze locks onto yours. Intense.
You shake your head, trying to show him how casual this whole thing is but his eyes won’t stop searching you and it makes your stomach churn.
“I’m fine, Buck.”
His eyes don’t move. He doesn’t let go.
“Why did you even believe me?” You voice it light, but there is something cautious underlining it, you can’t shake. “Could’ve faked again.”
Bucky rakes a hand through his hair with a long breath. He averts his eyes.
“Saw you go down,” he says with a shrug that seems just a little too exaggeratedly indifferent. “S’ enough for my head to go straight to hell.”
That’s certainly not something you expected him to say and you are stunned once again. But you can’t help the way your belly does some delightful flips.
“And you promised me you wouldn’t,” he adds, shoulders straightening, like he is trying to shift your attention from the words he said before. From the admission he made.
“I’m really not going to do it again,” you promise again. But you won’t forget his words.
“I know, sweetheart,” he says sweetly, certainly, but the tension of your current situation lingers.
His touch on you is so damn careful, checking and rechecking, making you tell him what and how something hurts and you almost laugh out loud at his fussing.
“Buck, it’s not like I broke it,” you point out, a laugh in your voice. “I can still-”
“You’re not gonna walk around on that.”
You lift your brow at him, at his tone, an amused smile on your face but he just stares back. Without the smiling part.
Then he sighs, scrubbing a hand over his face before standing to his full height, adjusting his stance before crouching slightly again.
“Alright, come on.”
You blink but his hands already settle, one beneath your legs, the other bracing your back, and you barely have time to react before he is lifting you, arms locking as he pulls you against his chest with an ease you could only dream of.
“Bucky-”
“Not a word,” he warns with a grunt.
You sigh, letting your head fall back against his shoulder. “You’re ridiculous.”
“Don’t care.”
****
A sprained ankle takes anywhere from two to six weeks to heal properly, depending on the severity. You’ve had a few sprained ankles in your career already, so you would know.
But yours sits on the longer end of that spectrum and it frustrates you to no end because what the fuck. You were just done healing and now you got to do it all again.
The first week, Bucky barely lets you breathe without hovering close. He is always there, catching you if you wobble because you are too damn stubborn and rather hop around the compound than use a clutch. Because that would make it too easy, wouldn’t it?
The second week you get snappish. Tony makes sure to leave the room when you enter, Sam gets defensive, Natasha just smirks what frustrates you even more, Vision is a fucking robot only answering in a robotic voice way that drives you up the wall when he gives you a list of stores around New York that sell kettle fries but you only wanted to know where they are in the compounds kitchen. And Bucky endures every tiny bit of it, only that he is entirely unmoved by your attitude. At one point you just taped your ankle and tried to go down to the gym but Bucky stopped you before you could reach the elevator. He already stood there, brow quirked, arms crossed, unimpressed but amused.
By the third week, he sat next to you during team training, watching, studying. You criticized movements, talked about strategies, and laughed at Sam when Nat made him faceplant onto the mat.
Then the fourth week rolled in and you could finally put weight on your foot without wincing. For you, that meant you were good to go train again. But not for Bucky. So that meant another week of waiting.
But now you are back on the mat. Fucking again.
And you promise yourself, you will not fall this time. Not on purpose, not by accident.
Bucky stands across from you, arms loose at his sides, weight balanced, watching as you roll your shoulders and move through your warm-up.
“Got any last words before I kick your ass, Barnes?”
His mouth twitches. That half-smirk, something smug but fond, something that flies through his blue eyes like a spark.
“I dunno, sweetheart. Wouldn’t wanna land you on the sidelines again.”
You scoff, rolling your eyes.
“Bite me, Barnes.”
The moment you move, he matches it.
His reflexes are quicker than yours - always have been, always will be - but your advantage is that you know that. You know him. His patterns, the way he shifts his weight, the way his left shoulder always tenses a fraction of a second before he throws a punch. You don’t need to match his strength to win. You just need to read him.
The first strike comes low, an attempt to test your footing, but you pivot fast, avoiding the sweep of his leg with a practiced step-back. You counter with a jab - not meant to hit, just to distract - but he reads it immediately, catches your wrist, yanks you forward.
You twist, using the momentum, your free hand shooting up - Bucky dodges, barely, but you are already adjusting, using your own imbalance to push into him.
His hands are always steady, whether he’s attacking or defending. He uses his strength not to hurt you, but to push you, to remind you that you can take it.
And you do.
Blow for blow, counter for counter.
You refrain from looking at his face because he looks distractingly hot with his hair falling into his eyes and all, whipping around with his movements.
The moment his weight shifts forward, you are already countering. Stepping out of reach just as his arm sweeps for your waist. Your breath comes sharp as you turn and aim a well-placed jab that he sidesteps.
Bucky’s eyes gleam. Thrilled.
“Not bad,” he calls, already throwing another feint.
“Not trying to be”, you fire back, ducking, moving with him like it’s a dance. Like your bodies know this better than your minds do.
You push - he counters. You feint - he laughs, quick and breathy. You strike - he blocks.
Fuck, you missed this.
But then, he shifts.
And something changes.
It’s in his stance. The way he adjusts - not a mistake, but a decision. And in the half-second, before you react, before you catch on, you realize you don’t know what he is planning.
Your body is moving, a reaction before thought, but he is quicker - and you only feel him wind his arm around your waist, spin you around, and crash his lips against yours.
You stagger, letting out a surprised grunt against his mouth, caught completely fucking blindsided, because - what?
His mouth is firm, demanding - and it sears straight through your skin, your ribs, right into your bones, into your pulse, because Bucky Barnes is kissing you.
It’s not soft.
Not hesitant.
Not careful.
It’s everything it shouldn’t be in the middle of a fight.
It’s so unexpected that you don’t even notice the moment your back hits the mat. Don’t notice the way he takes you down like it’s nothing, like it’s unpredictable, because you weren’t ready.
You didn’t see it coming.
By the time you blink, by the time your brain catches up, he is already above you. Hovering.
His weight is balanced, both arms braced on either side of your head, and he is looking at you like he just won the fucking lottery.
Smirking. So damn smug.
Because Bucky finally found out your weakness. And he used it to his advantage.
Because what else could it be than him?
“You cheated,” you breathe out. Where has all the air gone?
“You kinda started it, sweetheart.” Bucky grins so wide, so proud, so happy. He pants above you. His eyes are shining.
And then he ducks down again.
He kisses you once more.
Slower, this time. Deeper. With something that lingers, something that presses into you as his hand slides along your jaw, something that feels like it has been waiting far too long for this exact moment.
And you don’t fight it.
Because it seems, you no longer have to wait for Bucky Barnes.
“You’ll know… not just in the way they look at you, but in how they’re not looking anywhere else.”
