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Be Seeing You

Summary : Bucky Barnes broke Moscow Continental rules. Why the hell did he think it was a good idea to come to you?

Pairing : Excommunicado! Bucky Barnes x Continental Manager! reader (she/her) | John Wick AU

Warnings/tags : exes to lovers, forbidden romance, sex and sexual themes are described (not too graphic), blood/injury, gun violence, reader is Ruska Roma and considered John Wick a brother (he’s only mentioned), grief/mourning, angst, medical scenes, injury during intimacy, canon-typical violence. (Let me know if I missed anything!)

Word count : 11.8k

Note : I don’t believe you have to have watched John Wick to understand this, but of course there are spoilers for the franchise. I picture TFATWS Bucky in this, probably because Derek Kolstad wrote episode 4. I recommend listing to 505 by Arctic Monkeys to this. Enjoy!

The Madripoor Continental hotel rose above the skyline like a monument to civility beneath the High Table.

Your hotel was made of marble, dark glass, and brass fixtures polished to a mirror shine. You had orchids in century-old black ceramic vases. Fresh towels folded in perfect triangles. A concierge desk so serene it could’ve been mistaken for a chapel altar, if not for the fact that most of the people who approached it had killed someone in the last forty-eight hours.

No one raised their voice in your lobby, no one drew a weapon.

No one spilled blood on Continental grounds unless they wanted to be declared excommunicado, of course. Those were the rules. That’s what made you different from the animals.

The city glittered beneath the pale wash of dawn, all wet neon and mirrored towers, the streets still slick from the night’s rain. From the upper floors, the Lowtown alleys looked pretty if you didn't know what moved through them after dark. If you did not know how easily money changed hands there. How quickly a body disappeared. How many men in clean linen suits had started the night laughing over drinks and ended it folded neatly into car trunks.

It was six-fifteen in the morning. You were already dressed.

No one ever saw the manager of the Madripoor Continental looking hurried. Your hair was already pinned back, blazer pressed, and lipstick perfectly clean. You checked the mirror once and made sure there was nothing human enough in your expression to be mistaken for weakness.

You picked up the phone and dialed the 505 number. The line only clicked once.

“Good morning, Talia,” you said. “Prepare the staff for briefing, please.”

“Yes, ma’am,” she said.

Then you went downstairs.

The lobby was almost immaculate, perfumed with orchids, sandalwood, and gun oil. Your night staff had done well. There were no bloodstains in the grout. No broken glass beneath the lounge chairs. No bullet casings tucked beneath velvet curtains by some careless little amateur with more ego than discipline.

The bodies dumped in your back lot had been removed by sunrise. While a pain to your staff, it was technically outside your hotel, so it was fine.

Still, you noticed the imperfections. The marble near the centerpiece table was two days late for a polish. The vase nearest the wall had been shifted four inches to the left. Someone had been rushed. Not sloppy, but rushed.

You paused beside the vase.

The junior concierge at the desk froze.

“Have Housekeeping redo this section before nine,” you said, then looked at a trail of blood to the elevator. “And call a doctor for Mr. Keo. No one is bleeding to death in my hotel.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

You continued walking.

The morning briefing took place in the staff room below the main kitchens, behind a steel door disguised as a wine cellar wall. You took your seat at the head of the table and opened the leather folder in front of you. Inside were reports from the night before. Names, arrivals, departures, debts, a missing bellman who disappeared outside work hours, and one dead guest off property. Three requests for private dining from people who should not be in the same country, let alone the same hotel, all of which you planned to reject.

You read in silence.

Then, you saw an official notice:

James Buchanan Barnes killed his marker on Moscow Continental grounds. The High Table declares him excommunicado. Bounty: $17 million.

By the time you looked up, all you said was, “Be on high alert.”

You watched it pass from face to face as your staff adjusted themselves. They knew what this would entail: Security would double rotations, housekeeping would check vents, adjoining walls, hidden panels, laundry shafts, kitchens would inspect all incoming deliveries twice, valet would log every vehicle by chassis number, not just registration, and the front desk would let you know of every guest checking in, whether they were only staying for one night or three.

“Any guest arriving from Russia is to wait in the east reception room,” you continued. “No exceptions. No direct access to the elevators. No private stairwell keys. No unscheduled service calls above the twentieth floor.”

Your head of security, Talia, looked at her tablet. “And if they object?”

“They may object outside.”

You closed the folder.

“We have received confirmation of instability in Moscow,” you said. “Until the situation clarifies, assume everyone is a person of interest.”

You stood.

“Double the roof watch. Triple the canal-side cameras. No personal calls on shift. No staff exits alone. If a guest dies on the doorstep, remove them before breakfast service.” You glanced toward Disposal. “Properly this time.”

One of the men bowed his head.

You left them with that.

By eight, the hotel had fully awakened.

A woman in a pearl-grey suit checked in under a name that had belonged to a dead French countess. A pair of twins from Singapore requested separate rooms on separate floors and then tipped the bellman extra to tell each other nothing. A Brazilian with bandaged fingers asked whether the hotel still stocked Cachaça.

At ten, you denied a request for sanctuary from a man who was trying to escape his marker.

At eleven, you approved a private negotiation between two contract brokers and had the walls swept for explosives before allowing the tea service in.

At noon, you sent a handwritten apology to a guest whose sheets had bloodstains from the previous occupant.

At one, you had lunch in your office while reading a list of fresh bounties.

The office was quiet, high above the lobby, with dark wood shelves and a wall of glass overlooking the harbour. Ships moved slowly through the water beyond the city, their decks bright with sun, their cargo likely legal on paper and unforgivable in practice.

Your assistant placed a silver tray on the desk. “Anything else, ma’am?”

You turned a page. “Find out who booked the blue suite under the Cairo account.”

Your assistant made a note.

You took one bite of lunch, decided you hated it, and kept reading.

By mid-afternoon, a pianist had started playing Bach in the lounge.

After that, you spent an hour with Accounts reviewing coin movement through the lower vault. Madripoor attracted a particular kind of wealth: untraceable money. You approved three conversions, denied four, and marked one for investigation after noticing a pattern.

After that came Medical.

The doctor on rotation reported two treated stab wounds, one poisoning, and a guest who insisted the bullet in his shoulder was sentimental and should be returned to him after extraction.

“Was it?” you asked.

The doctor blinked. “Sentimental?”

“Clean.” You corrected.

“Yes.”

“Return it.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

By five, you had changed your shoes.

By six, you had fired a kitchen porter for accepting an illegal envelope from a guest.

You had him escorted out through the west entrance with one month’s severance, a black mark on his file, and the very clear understanding that if he ever crossed the threshold again, it would be as cargo.

By seven-thirty, a contract killer you recognised from your stay in the Jakarta Continental two months ago stepped through the front doors with three men behind him who looked as though they had followed him in for the sole purpose of finishing what they had started outside.

“Madam Manager,” one of them said.

You didn’t look at him first.

You stopped in front of the men behind him, eyes drifting over the tension in their shoulders, the hands hovering too close to their coats. “Are we in a disagreement, gentlemen?”

“We were,” one of them said.

“How lovely,” you said. “And may I remind you of the rules of the Continental before anyone makes a career-ending decision?” you said, voice still pleasant, “or would one of you prefer to be excommunicado before dinner?”

For one long second, nobody moved.

Then, one by one, the men lowered their guns.

You smiled faintly. “Good choice.”

Only then did your gaze return to the man. It dropped to the dark stain spreading beneath his cuff.

“Though you are bleeding,” you said. “I hope that happened outside.”

His smile tightened. “Of course.”

By nine, you stood in the private observation room behind the bar and watched the hotel breathe.

Everything was functioning.

At ten-thirty, you made your final rounds.

The kitchens first. Then the lower corridors, where staff moved in pairs as instructed. Then the armoury, where every house weapon was sealed, catalogued, and monitored.

Near midnight, you returned to the lobby.

The concierge straightened. “All quiet, ma’am.”

You looked around and gave him a look.

He corrected himself immediately. “All contained, ma’am.”

“Better.”

You signed the night ledger at the front desk, approved two wake-up calls, denied a request for a helicopter before sunrise, and reminded Security that no guest was to be granted access to the roof without your direct authorization.

Then, finally, you took the private lift up.

The ascent was silent, your reflection staring back at you from the mirrored doors. The lift opened into the private corridor outside your quarters.

Unlike the rest of the hotel, this floor didn’t perform for strangers. It was quieter, darker, lined with old wood and soft lamps. Your staff never came here unless summoned. Your guests did not know the floor existed.

You unlocked your door and stepped inside.

The room was dark except for the thin silver spill of moonlight through the balcony windows. You closed the door behind you with a click.

For one moment, you simply stood there, listening to a slow breath that wasn’t yours.

You set your keys in the porcelain dish, removed your gloves finger by finger, and looked toward the shadows near the balcony.

“I know you’re in here, James.”

For a moment, the room did not answer you.

Madripoor glittered beyond the balcony glass, pink and blue and poisonous, reflected in the dark windows of your sitting room.

Then the shadow by the balcony shifted and Bucky fucking Barnes stepped into the moonlight.

He looked worse than you had expected.

You hated that that was what irritated you. Not the intrusion, not the breach of your private room. Not the fact that a damned man had somehow climbed into the manager’s quarters of the Madripoor Continental without triggering a single alarm.

Blood soaked into the left side of his shirt, dark and spreading, hidden badly beneath a torn grey jacket. There was more at his temple, drying in his hairline. His lower lip was split, and there was a tear on his sleeve near his metal arm. “Hi,” he said.

Your stare flattened. “What are you up to now?”

His mouth twitched into an almost-smile, and that annoyed you, too.

“You changed the locks,” he said, almost relieved that you did.

“You bypassed them.”

“Eventually.”

You walked across the room slowly, not because you were afraid of him, but because every step gave you time to decide which version of yourself would reach him first. The manager or the old you, who used to wake up next to him. The you who used to stand behind him in the kitchen while he made toast for breakfast. The you who used to climb on his lap after a long day as he peppered kisses on your collarbone, both metal and human hands cheekily sliding under your shirt.

Your train of thought halted when blood dripped from his sleeve. Your eyes followed it to the floor.

“Sorry,” he said, huffing the smallest laugh, then winced.

You stopped a few feet away from him, close enough to smell rain, gunpowder, and copper on his coat.

“Why are you here?” You asked.

He looked at you, but not in the way guests looked at you. Not the way assassins did, searching for weakness or leverage. Bucky looked at you as if he remembered the old version of you.

“Because I missed you,” he said simply.

Your heart did a stupid, treacherous little twist beneath your ribs, but you let none of it show.

“Try again,” you said, folding your arms.

He laughed like it hurt. His head tipped back against the wall for a second, eyes closing.

“You always do that,” he murmured.

“What? Make you tell the truth?”

“No,” His eyes opened again, still blue in the most inconvenient way. “Assume the worst in people.”

“Well,” you sighed, taking your blazer off and putting it on an armchair, “You are excommunicado as of twenty hours ago.”

Twenty hours as prey. Twenty hours with every door in the underworld shutting in his face. Twenty hours for news to spread through the old lines and black markets and coded ledgers. Twenty hours for men with debts and grudges and ambitious sons to begin sharpening their knives and counting their bullets.

And he had come here, to you.

“You shouldn’t have crossed my threshold,” you said.

“I know.”

“You shouldn’t have entered this hotel.”

“I know.”

“You shouldn’t be standing in my private quarters, bleeding on my floor after I spent the entire day warning my staff to watch for exactly this kind of stupidity.”

His mouth curved up again, faint and guilty. “Missed your voice too, sweets.”

“James.”

He froze then.

There it was, finally. A man who knew when a line had appeared.

You stepped closer. “I should turn you in.”

His face changed, but only slightly. Anyone else would have missed the tiny tightening around the eyes and small shift in his throat.

“You know what happens to this hotel if I don’t?” You continued.

His eyes held yours as he nodded. “Yes.”

“No, I don’t think you do.” Your voice was low now. “This is not sentiment. This is not a favour between old lovers. This is the Continental and I am Management now.”

“I know what it is,” he winced.

“You know the rules,” you scolded, “That’s not the same thing as knowing the cost.”

His eyes dropped for half a second.

You understood better than most what excommunicado really meant.

The closest thing you had ever had to a brother after being raised by the Ruska Roma together had spent the final years of his life beneath that sentence. He had killed more men than most people could name. He had survived what should have ended him a dozen times over.

But survival was not the same as escape.

In the end, like nearly everyone the Table marked excommunicado, he died.

Yes, John Wick died on his own terms, but he had died nonetheless.

Bucky knew that.

He had to know what it had done to you— the grief, the rage, the way it had hollowed you out when the only person you had ever truly considered family died. He had seen the aftermath, heard the rants.

In fact, that’s why you and him didn’t quite work out. Not because you stopped loving him, but because loving anyone after that felt like standing beside another grave before it had even been dug.

And now here he was, wearing the same sentence. Walking toward the same fate.

“If I shelter you,” you breathed in, “the High Table won’t send a polite letter. They won’t issue a warning and wait for my response. They’ll strip this hotel of consecration. They freeze every account tied to my name.”

He looked down and you thought, good.

Let him understand that this wasn’t just the two of you in a dark room pretending the rules could be kept outside.

“And it won’t stop with me. My staff will pay for it. The concierge who didn’t see you. The guard whose camera feed failed. The housekeeper who was supposed to be by the service door downstairs. The cook who sent up my dinner. Anyone who can be made into an example will be made into one.”

You could see it now, the part of him that understood collateral. That understood orders from the top. That understood exactly what institutions did when they wanted obedience restored.

“You think I’m protecting myself?” you asked. “I am protecting hundreds of people who live because I keep this place neutral. I am protecting a structure that prevents every animal in Madripoor from tearing one another apart in my lobby. I am protecting rules that only work because consequences are absolute.”

“I didn’t come to make you choose,” he said.

You laughed once. “You climbed into my bedroom excommunicado. What exactly did you think that was?”

His eyebrows furrowed. “I thought—”

He stopped when a helicopter passed over the harbour, its light briefly sliding across the balcony doors.

“I thought I could see you before I disappeared,” he said.

Oh.

Oh, Bucky.

For a second, all the frustration inside you dissipated.

It didn’t go away. It was still there, hiding beneath your ribs, because he had no right to come here like this. No right to drag a death sentence through your balcony doors. No right to stand in your private quarters bleeding on your floor.

But the words pulled back a version of you that hadn’t had the chance to resurface in years.

So now, as you looked at him, studying the blood spreading through his shirt, the rain in his hair, and all you could feel was fondness.

You exhaled and stepped closer.

He watched you come near, as if he knew one wrong move might make you remember the alarm under the side table. His eyes followed your hands first. Then your face. Then the floor between you, where a drop of blood had fallen dark against one of your rugs.

You could see that the wound was worse up close.

“Sit,” you said.

His brow twitched. “I’m okay.”

“You are bleeding through wool and onto eighteenth-century floors.”

He looked down, as if noticing the blood for the first time.

“Wouldn’t want to damage the floors,” he murmured.

“No,” you said, taking his arm. “You wouldn’t. They’re older than some dynasties and significantly less replaceable than your pride.”

He let you guide him to the sofa, and that alone told you enough.

Bucky doesn’t let people guide him unless he needs it. He lowered himself down, metal hand gripping the armrest, human one hovering uselessly near his side as if he could keep his blood inside by will alone.

You knelt in front of him before you had time to reconsider the intimacy of it.

“You keep saying that like it helps.”

“It used to.”

“No,” you said, pointing to the sofa. “It used to work because I liked you.”

The medical kit was hidden behind the locked lower panel side cabinet. Technically, it wasn’t in the official hotel kit. Technically, it didn't even appear on Continental inventory. This one belonged to you.

You set it on the table beside him and opened it.

“Can’t call the doctors,” you said. “So, unfortunately, all you have is me.”

“Unfortunately?” He chuckled.

When you looked up, his human hand had already lifted. He was reaching the way he used to when you were angry and he was trying to see whether the anger had a door in it.

His fingers brushed your cheek, as he cradled you there, feeling the warmth of your skin as if it was the last living hearth in the world.

You should’ve moved away. You didn’t.

His palm settled against your face, gentle despite the blood on him. It was such an absurdly tender touch for the situation that for once, you struggled to find your voice.

His thumb moved once near your cheekbone. “You’re all I ever wanted,” he whispered.

Your throat tightened.

You turned your face just enough that his hand slipped away. “Don’t say things like that when you’re actively bleeding.”

His mouth curved up, barely. “Fair.”

“It’s manipulative,” you said, though you knew it was an unfair assessment.

He shook his head. “Wasn’t trying to be.”

That was the problem. You knew.

You cut through the ruined fabric of his shirt with medical shears. The scissors slid through wet fabric, exposing the wound beneath: an ugly bullet tear along his side, deep enough to need work, bloody enough to explain the gray cast beneath his skin. Good news, though, it wasn’t immediately fatal.

You pressed gauze to it as he hissed through his teeth.

“Still okay?” you asked.

His eyes closed. “Less okay.”

“Wonderful,” you chimed through gritted teeth, “really has entered the room.”

His breath almost became a laugh, but the movement hurt him.

The closeness you felt now was unbearable in the most practical way. You had touched him before. Of course you had. But this was different.

This was not a safehouse with bad lighting. This was not the aftermath of a job. This was your hotel, which was supposed to refuse service to him.

And yet, your hands were still on him.

You cleaned the wound in silence for a while.

Bucky let you work. He didn’t fidget or argue. He didn’t even perform toughness beyond the occasional shallow breath and the faint clench of his teeth. He just sat there and trusted you.

When the bleeding slowed enough for stitches, you threaded the needle.

“So,” you said, because silence had become too dangerous. “Why did you kill the person who bears your marker?”

His eyes opened.

For a second, you thought he might deflect. He had always been good at that, in his own blunt way.

This time, he looked too tired to bother.

“He wanted me to kill a kid to get to an enemy.”

Bucky looked toward the balcony windows, his face reflected faintly in the dark glass. For a moment, with the city lights bleeding over his features, he looked like a ghost of himself as the needle went through skin.

“How old?”

“Twelve.”

Twelve.

You had heard worse things in your office before breakfast. You were not naive. Your world didn’t protect children simply because they were children. You once had a similar fate, being trafficked into this life.

Still.

Twelve.

You looked back down at the wound because his face would have made you feel too much.

You pulled the thread through. Bucky’s hand flexed against his thigh, metal fingers opening and closing once.

“He said if I wouldn’t honor the marker, they’d just kill me and get someone else to do it. Said maybe they’d take longer.”

Your eyes closed briefly.

Of course that was what had happened. Of course Bucky Barnes had stood in a place where rules were supposed to be sacred and refused to do a job he had to do. Of course he had decided, in that self-destructive way of his, that the life of a child weighed more than his own future.

Of course he had damned himself for it.

“Always so noble,” you said under your breath.

He looked at you. “Wasn’t noble.”

“No?”

“No.” His voice was rough. “I was angry.”

You glanced up at him, nodding once and continuing the stitch.

“That, I believe.”

His mouth twitched faintly.

Silence settled for a while after that, but it was far from empty. It was crowded with all the things neither of you had said yet. With old arguments, old grief, old rooms. Your back against his chest in the back of a car at four in the morning. His teeth biting the lobe of your ear. His hand around yours under a table.

You tied off one stitch and started another.

“You should have gone to New York,” you said finally. “Winston, maybe. Even The Bowery, if you’re desperate. They have… experience with the situation.”

Bucky gave a breath that might have read as amusement if he had more blood to spare.

“The Bowery King would kill me for half the bounty,” he said, “he never liked me.”

“Hmm, because you’re very likable, Buck,” you shrugged, sarcastic. “And Winston?”

This time, he took longer to answer. When he did, his voice was quieter. “Winston would tell me to come to you.”

Your hands froze again.

The bastard was probably right.

Winston, with his polished shoes, would have known exactly where to send a man like him. Not because it was safe. Not because it was wise. Because Winston understood human weakness better than most. He would know there was one door in Madripoor that might open for Bucky, even if the woman behind it hated herself for turning the lock.

You resumed stitching with more care than you wanted him to notice.

After the last one went in, you covered the wound with gauze and taped it down, smoothing the edges with your fingertips. Your hand lingered half a second too long at his side, resting over the bandage, feeling the warmth of him beneath it.

Bucky’s breath shifted.

Your eyes rose.

You realised now, that he had come here because he believed you might save him. Or because he believed you would kill him kindly. You were not sure which was more unbearable.

You pulled your hand away.

You gathered the ruined gauze and bloodied scissors, needing something to do with your hands before they betrayed you. At the sink, you peeled off your gloves and washed them beneath cold water. Spirals of red ribboned down porcelain, thinning and thinning until the drain swallowed it.

Behind you, the sofa creaked softly as he shifted.

“Are you gonna turn me in?” he asked.

For a moment, you didn’t answer.

You dried your hands slowly, folded the towel once, and set it down beside the sink. Then you stopped by the bar cart near the window. The bottle was already open from some night you had poured a glass and forgotten to drink it. Red wine, dark as his blood.

You took a glass from the shelf, watching the glass fill halfway and wondered, briefly, how many disasters in your life had begun with beautiful men bleeding in beautiful rooms.

You lifted the glass, turned back toward him, and finally met his eyes.

He looked pale on your sofa.

You took one sip, “I haven’t decided yet.”

—

You spent the next hour making sure he wasn’t dying anymore.

Every five minutes, you checked his temperature. His pulse and pupils. You checked his bandage and stitches. You made sure he was breathing, looking out for any sign of fever or shock.

“I’m fine,” he said.

“You were shot and are currently committing several violations of High Table rules by breathing on my sofa.”

His mouth twitched. “Oh yeah?”

“At least four.”

“Name them.”

“You brought business to two hotels now. You killed the person who holds your marker. You bypassed my security.” You pressed the thermometer under his tongue with more force than necessary. “And you are annoying me.”

His eyes warmed above it.

You hated that look. Yet, you’d missed it too.

The clean shirt you had given him hung open because you kept needing to inspect the bandage. That was your excuse, anyway. It was a good excuse. Practical and professional, but ruined by the fact that every time your fingers brushed his ribs, his breathing changed.

You knew him, so you knew the difference between pain and restraint. Knew the exact line of his veins when he wanted to touch you and was trying very hard to be respectful about it.

He was doing it now and that almost made you smile.

He knew you too well, too.

Every time you pressed the back of your hand to his forehead, his eyes softened. Every time you checked the dressing, his breath caught for reasons that were not entirely medical. Every time you scowled at him, he looked a little less like a doomed man and a little more like the one who used to make you forget the world you lived in.

It was unfair, really, that he could still sit there with a death sentence and make your chest ache with a half-smile.

You took the thermometer from his mouth and checked the reading.

“No fever.”

“See?” He said. “I’m not septic.”

“Not yet.”

“That’s comforting.”

“I’m not here to comfort you.”

“No?” His eyes flicked over your face. “Could’ve fooled me.”

You looked at him with half a scowl. He huffed a laugh, then winced.

Your hand shot to his shoulder, steadying him. “Don’t laugh.”

His skin was warm beneath your fingers. His metal hand rested on his thigh, but his human one was relaxed against the cushion, close enough to your hip that if he moved an inch, he would touch you.

You pulled your hand back and turned abruptly to the bar cart.

The bottle of red still sat open near the crystal glasses, and you poured yourself another glass.

“Can I have some?” Bucky tilted his head.

You turned with the glass halfway to your mouth. “You’re injured.”

“It was just a graze.”

“James.”

“What? This might be my last day alive,” he said, almost a huff, “just trying to enjoy the small things.”

You threw him a bottle of spring water. Mind you, it cost more than most beers. “Enjoy this.”

He caught it with his metal arm, not at all caught off guard. “Feels punitive.” Still, he twisted off the cap and drank half of it anyway.

“It is.”

He chuckled, and it almost reminded you of your Bucky as you remembered him to be, if you allowed yourself the indulgence. The man who used to steal bites off your plate and pretend he hadn’t. The man who knew where you hid spare knives. The man who once spent three hours bleeding in a Prague bathtub while you threatened to drown him if he passed out.

“You used to share,” he said.

“You used to knock.”

“I used to have a key.”

You took a sip of your wine again, and this time his eyes moved to your mouth. “You lost that privilege a long time ago.”

“I lost a lot of things.”

Oh, this is where we were going now?

Not Moscow or the bounty curling around his name like smoke under a locked door. No, he wanted to take you somewhere older.

You could feel it in the air, in the way your fingers tightened around the stem of your wine glass. Whatever had lived between you had never died properly. It hadn’t been buried or burned. It had simply been locked in a room you both stopped visiting.

And now he was bleeding on your sofa, holding the key in his teeth.

You set the glass down. “You didn’t lose me,” you said before you could stop yourself. “I left.”

Bucky looked at you, and the faintest flicker of pain moved behind his eyes.

“I…” He breathed out, eyes dropping for a second. “I’m sorry anyway.”

Your hands clenched, then opened, then clenched again, like your body could not decide whether it wanted to let go or hold on. “No,” you said. “You have nothing to be sorry for.”

“I am.”

“Don’t.”

You came closer before you could think better of it, before you could stay safely across the room. You sat on the coffee table in front of him, close enough that your knees almost touched his. Close enough to see the dampness at his hairline and the way exhaustion had hollowed him out and left only honesty behind.

“I’m sorry I let you push me away,” he said.

His voice was quiet, but it landed hard.

You looked away immediately, as if refusing his eyes could save you from him. “You didn’t let me do anything.”

“I did.” His hand moved over yours carefully.

You could have pulled away. You should have. Instead, you sat there with your heartbeat hammering beneath your ribs while his worn and calloused human fingers covered your own.

“I told myself you needed space,” he said. “I told myself if I loved you, I’d let you grieve however you had to.”

“You were right.”

“No.” The word was almost nothing but a breath and a break. “I was scared I’d make it worse,” he admitted. “You were grieving, and I knew what it looked like when someone kept reaching after you’d already gone under. So I stopped reaching.”

Your throat tightened so sharply it hurt. “James.”

His thumb moved once over your knuckles, so endearingly gentle. “But I should’ve tried harder.”

“No.”

“But I should’ve.” His voice cracked. “I should’ve knocked on every door you shut. I should’ve called until you screamed at me. I should’ve let you resent me for staying, because at least then you wouldn’t have been on your own.”

You choked on your own breath, and the wine had nothing to do with the flush on your cheeks.

“I’m sorry I let you be alone after John died,” he said finally.

Fuck.

Your face didn’t collapse. You didn’t sob, even when the room started blurring at the edges, and your lungs tightened like sorrow had reached up through the years and closed a fist around them.

“I made myself alone,” you said, but the words came out thin.

“And what did I do?” Bucky’s hand tightened over yours. “Fucking nothing.”

You hated him for saying it as he saw it. His eyes stayed on your face, tired and blue and unbearable.

“I’m sorry,” he said again.

“Stop.”

“I’m sorry for tonight.”

“Stop.”

“I’m sorry I’m making you choose between the High Table and me.”

“James.”

“I’m sorry I still want you to choose me.”

“Please—”

“I’m sorry I brought this to your door. I’m sorry—”

You moved before he could finish.

Before he could make a martyr of himself in your living room. Before he could say sorry one more time and carve it straight into your bones. Before those blue eyes could make you forgive him for bleeding, for leaving, for coming back, for still being the one person who knew exactly how to break you.

You took his face in both hands and kissed him.

For only one second, Bucky went completely still beneath you.

Then he kissed you back.

His mouth opened against yours with a broken sound, his hand lifting to your waist and stopping there, trembling, like even now he was afraid of wanting too much. You felt the heat of him under your palms, the scrape of stubble against your fingers, the split in his lip brushing yours when he tilted his head and deepened it.

It was supposed to be a simple gesture to stop him from talking. But then his tongue touched your lips, slow and desperate, and your whole body remembered who he was.

You pulled back abruptly. “Fuck— I can’t.”

Bucky followed you, his mouth chasing yours on instinct. He hadn’t meant to do it, and couldn’t stop himself in time. His eyes opened when you moved back, lips parted, breathing unsteady.

“No?” he asked, voice hoarse.

You swallowed hard. “You know we can’t.”

“Why?” The question came out raw.

You looked at him, at the blood under the bandage and the exhaustion dragging him down. “Because you’re hurt,” you said.

“I know.”

“You’re bleeding.”

“Not as much now.”

“Bucky,” you sighed, though you didn’t often use his nickname. “You lost blood and came here thinking you were going to die.” Your voice tightened. “I’m not taking advantage of you because you’re terrified and half-conscious and saying things you might not say if you weren’t—”

“I’d say them.”

Bucky’s eyes held yours, clearer now.

You looked away as he leaned forward a little, then stopped when it pulled at his wound. His jaw twitched, but his eyes never left you.

“I know what I’m asking for,” he said.

“You don’t.”

“I do.”

“You’re not thinking clearly.”

“Sweetheart.” His voice broke on it. “I haven’t thought about anything clearly since I walked in here and saw you.”

That didn’t help. It made everything worse.

You dragged a hand over your mouth. “That’s exactly my point.”

“No.” Bucky shifted carefully, one hand braced near his wound, the other open on the cushion next to him. “I’m not asking because I’m hurt. I’m not asking because I’m scared.”

“You are scared.”

“Yeah.” He chuckled, but there was no humor in it. “I’m fucking terrified.”

You shook your head, but he kept going.

“But I wanted you before tonight,” he said. “I wanted you when you left. I wanted you every day I was stupid enough to stay gone. Fuck, sweets, trust me when I sat it isn’t the bullet talking.”

Your heartbeat hammered beneath your skin.

He looked down at your mouth again, and the hunger there was almost enough to make your knees weaken. Then he dragged his eyes back to your eyes with visible effort.

“If you don’t want this, say it,” he said. “Say you don’t want me, and I’ll stop asking.”

You said nothing, because that was the one lie you could not force out.

His voice only dropped lower. “Please.”

Your throat tightened. “James.”

“Please kiss me again.”

You closed your eyes.

The sound of him begging you should have felt like victory. Instead, it felt like standing on the edge of a cliff with a burning forest on the other side.

Fuck. Fuck!

You sighed, bridging the space between you slowly this time, his knees bracketed yours. His breath changed, but he didn’t touch you.

You lifted a hand to his jaw and his lashes dipped.

“Like this?” you whispered before kissing him softly.

You simply pressed your mouth to his. You were gentle enough to test the waters, slow enough to feel the shudder that went through him.

Bucky exhaled against your lips. “Mmhmm.”

You kissed him again, a little deeper, your thumb brushing over his cheekbone while his metal finally rose to your thighs. “Like this?”

His fingers tightened.

“Yeah,” he breathed. “Yeah, like that.”

You tilted his face and kissed him properly, mouth opening over his, tongue sliding against his lower lip.

Bucky made a low sound in his chest.

You pulled back half an inch. “Like that?”

His eyes opened, blown dark. “Fuck,” he rasped.

You kissed him again, harder this time, and felt his restraint fracture beneath your hands.

“Yeah,” he breathed against your mouth.

You nipped lightly at his lip, and his human hand flexed at your waist.

“Fuck…” he gasped, “yeah... like that.”

That was all it took.

The words left him rough and ruined, and then his hand was on your waist, tugging you forward before either of you could pretend restraint was still an option. You made one weak, useless attempt to resist, palm flattening against his shoulder as if you were going to push him back, as if your whole body had not leaned toward him the second he asked. “James—”

He pulled you into his lap anyway, kissed you through it.

Your little sound of protest dissolved against his mouth, because his hands were already firm at your hips, holding you there like he had spent years imagining this. Your knees landed on either side of his thighs, your skirt riding up, expensive fabric bunching around your hips.

You pulled back just enough to glare at him.

“You’re hurt.”

“I know.”

“Bucky—“

He only looked at you, mouth swollen, eyes dark, face pale with blood loss and want. “I’m gonna fucking die,” he sighed desperately.

You froze, processing

His grip on your hip tightened desperately

“Maybe not tonight. Maybe not tomorrow. But they’re coming.” His eyes fell to your mouth again like looking at your eyes hurt him. “I came here thinking I’d never touch you again. I came here ready to leave with one look at you if that was all you’d give me.”

Your throat closed.

He swallowed, and his hand slid higher along your spine, trembling once beneath your blouse.

“Don’t make me be good right now,” he whispered. “Not with you. Not tonight.”

“Bucky…”

His lips brushed yours. “Let me,” he breathed. “Let me, please.”

Fuck.

You kissed him again, and whatever restraint remained between you went under.

Bucky’s mouth opened against yours, and the kiss turned hot enough to feel almost violent. Your hands slid into his hair, tugging once, and he groaned so low you felt it through your chest. His fingers found the buttons of your blouse, rough at first, impatient, then suddenly slower when skin appeared beneath the cloth.

One button.

Then another.

The backs of his knuckles brushed newly exposed skin, and his breath changed. Reverent and greedy all at once, like he remembered what the swell of your breast felt like and what the heartbeat underneath sounded like.

His mouth left yours, dragging down your throat.

You tipped your head back before you could stop yourself.

“You still wear the same perfume,” he murmured against your skin. “I thought about it in Berlin once.” His mouth moved along the side of your neck. “Smelled it on someone in a hotel lobby and almost turned around like an idiot.”

Your eyes burned.

No.

No, he wasn’t allowed to make you cry. Not when his hand was on your skin. Not when you were straddling him. Not when every assassin in the world would be looking for him before sunrise.

You tugged his hair, forcing his face back up to yours. “Don’t make this sad.”

His smile was devastating. “Too late.”

His mouth found the bare skin above your lace bra, stubble scraping, teeth grazing just hard enough to make your hips jerk.

Bucky hissed and met you halfway.

“You are going to tear your stitches,” you sighed through gritted teeth.

“Then stitch me up again.”

“Jesus—”

He kissed the word out of your mouth.

You meant to stay in control, but then his hand slid beneath your skirt, palm against the outside of your thigh, and your body betrayed every sensible thought you had ever had. His fingers traced upward slowly, almost teasing, the touch teasing enough to be maddening.

You rolled your hips once without meaning to.

Bucky groaned into your mouth.

“Fuck,” he breathed, forehead dropping to yours. “Don’t do that unless you mean it.”

You stared at him, breath uneven.

He looked wrecked.

“If I’m gonna help you,” you whispered, “might as well make it worth it, huh?”

You could’ve sworn Bucky’s blue eyes sparkled at that.

“Atta girl,” he said as his fingers reached the edge of your underwear.

Even now, he looked up at you, waiting.

“Touch me,” you whispered.

His eyes darkened as he slid his fingers against you.

Your breath caught hard enough to hurt.

Bucky’s eyes dropped between you, then lifted back to your face. He had forgotten exactly how good it felt to have you falling apart over him.

“God,” he breathed against your mouth. “You’re so wet.”

“Proud of yourself, hm?”

As he hummed his response, you bit his lower lip.

He cursed, and this time, you deemed it to be too loud.

Your hand flew over his mouth to stop anymore from coming out.

You stared down at him, breathing hard, his eyes wild above your hand. “Are you insane?” you hissed. “If any of my staff hears you, we are both fucked.”

Beneath your palm, he smiled.

You leaned closer. “Not a sound.”

He nodded once before his fingers moved again.

You almost hated him for how well he still knew you. For the pressure, the pace. Your hips rocked into his hand despite yourself, and Bucky’s eyes went half-lidded, like the sight alone was doing damage.

You kept your hand over his mouth until his breathing started to turn rough beneath it, until his lashes fluttered, until he kissed the center of your palm filthy

“Stop being smug,” you whispered.

His reply came muffled, but you knew exactly what it was.

No.

His hand worked you harder, and your forehead dropped to his. The pleasure built deep made worse by the danger of sleeping with a condemned man.

Bucky’s hips jerked up. You felt him hard beneath you, straining, and bit back your own sound.

You pulled your hand from his mouth only long enough to kiss him again, swallowing the next sound before it could leave him. His metal thumb rose to your lower lip when you broke apart, brushing there with an almost unbearable tenderness.

“I’ll tell you if it hurts too much,” he rasped.

“Will you?”

“No,” he admitted. “But I’ll try.”

You stared at him.

Then you laughed once, breathless and furious, reaching between you and unbuckled his belt.

Bucky’s head fell back against the sofa. The sound of the buckle hitting the couch seemed absurdly loud in the silence.

“Bed,” you whispered.

He opened his eyes, looked toward the bedroom, then back at you.

“Too far.”

“It’s right there.”

“Too far.”

You would have laughed if you had not wanted him so badly it hurt.

There was nothing elegant about the rest of it.

Your underwear was shoved aside rather than removed. His trousers were opened only enough. Your hands braced on his shoulders as you rose over him, both of you breathing too hard, as you sank down onto him.

Oh.

Bucky’s forehead dropped to your chest.

“Fuck,” he whispered. “Fuck, sweetheart.”

Your fingers dug into his shoulders as you felt the stretch. His hands gripped your hips, holding on while your body took him inch by inch and remembered every terrible, perfect thing about him.

Suddenly, he jerked beneath you, then hissed through his teeth, one hand flying near his side.

You froze. “No.”

“I’m okay.”

“No, Buck—”

“I’m okay,” he repeated, softer now. “Just…give me a second.”

You held still, chest rising and falling, forehead pressed to his hair. His arms slid around you, careful of the wound, and for one strange, unbearable moment, there was no movement at all.

His mouth brushed your sternum.

You looked down and saw red blooming faintly at the edge of the bandage.

“Fuck, you’re bleeding.”

“Little bit.”

“James.”

“Sweetheart.” His voice was gravel against your skin. “If I die tonight, it is not going to be because you rode me too hard on a sofa.”

You hated that you moved before you answered, testing with a slow roll of your hips.

Bucky’s eyes shut.

“Yes,” you whispered.

You moved up and down carefully at first, one hand pressed near his uninjured shoulder, the other buried in his hair. His hands guided your hips, metal cool and human hand hot, helping you find the rhythm that made your thighs tremble and his breath come apart.

The sofa creaked beneath you.

Below, the hotel stayed silent, but Bucky did not.

A groan slipped out of him. You had no choice but to clamp your hand over his mouth again.

His eyes snapped open.

“Do you want them to find their manager like this?” you whispered, breath ragged. “Skirt up, blouse open, fucking a man with a bounty on his head on her sofa?”

Bucky’s eyes rolled back for half a second as his hips jerked up, making you bite back your own moan.

His hand tightened on your hip in apology. You leaned down, keeping your palm over his mouth.

If getting caught didn’t mean death, if your staff coming through that door wouldn’t end in blood, you had the awful feeling his answer would have been yes. But even now, he would always put your safety first.

You picked up the pace.

His fingers found you again between your bodies, and the first touch nearly shattered your rhythm. Pleasure punched through you, and you had to bite your lip to keep from making a sound of your own.

Bucky watched you like he was dying already. Like the whole world could come through the door with guns and he would still be looking at your face.

Your hand slipped from his mouth to clutch at his hair when the pleasure reached too high. He seized the chance to kiss you, swallowing your gasp as you came apart over him.

“That’s it,” he breathed against your lips, barely audible. “I’ve got you.”

His own control fractured seconds later. His grip tightened and you had to kiss him hard to muffle the rough sound that left him when he came. His hips pressed up once, twice, then stopped beneath you, his forehead dropping to your shoulder.

You stayed in his lap, forehead against his, fingers still tangled in his hair.

Then you kissed along his face.

His cheek, his jawline, the cut near his temple.

“Don’t mistake this for mercy,” you said, breathless. You caught his chin, tilting him back to you. “If I were merciful,” you murmured, mouth brushing his skin, “I’d shoot you myself so you wouldn’t suffer under the hands of worse men.”

Bucky’s hands settled at your waist. “Then what is it?”

You kissed the corner of his mouth.

“Stupidity,” you said, though you didn’t mean it. “Clearly.”

For a moment, he only looked at you, far too knowing of your bluff.

He pulled you back down and kissed you again. “Keep saying it until you believe it, sweetheart.”

—

For a while, neither of you moved.

The room returned slowly, piece by piece, from the low gold of the lamps, the expensive ruin of clothes, the glass walls reflecting the city back at you in smears of neon pink and blue. Madripoor burned beyond the windows, while the Continental breathed beneath your feet like some great animal pretending it had not felt one of its own rules break.

Bucky stayed beneath you, forehead dropped against your shoulder, one hand loose at your waist, the other careful near his ribs. His breathing had begun to even out, though there was a tremor under it now. Adrenaline had started fading, and pain had started returning.

Then you caught sight of yourself in the dark window: Hair undone, top hanging open, your lipstick ruined. And there, just above the line of your collar, darkening against your skin…

A fucking mark. A stupid little love bite.

You went still.

Bucky lifted his head as if he had felt the change in your breathing. His eyes followed yours to the reflection, then to your throat, guilt flickering across his face immediately. “Let me explain.”

You turned your head slowly.

“I was aiming lower.”

Unbelievable.

A laugh slipped out of you before you could stop it. Quiet, disbelieving, frayed around the edges. It was the sort of laugh that came too close to tears.

You touched two fingers to the mark.

Management under the High Table, branded like a reckless girl in the back of a getaway car.

Your staff had eyes, and every assassin in the building had been trained to notice any slight difference in your appearance, and now Bucky Barnes had left this, visible on your skin.

You wanted to be furious. You were, a little.

Mostly, you were just surprised by how badly you didn’t mind.

Bucky watched your face like he expected the blow to come and would accept it. Instead, you climbed off him carefully, your body still unsteady, and the movement earned a sharp hiss from both of you. His hand went straight to his side.

You peeled the bandage off, chasing the damage of what you both have done.

Not torn. Thank fuck.

Pulled and irritated, yes. You saw a thin line of fresh blood where the stitches had strained, but nothing open enough to justify any kind of terror.

You cleaned the skin anyway.

Bucky’s hand hovered near yours once, then settled on the cushion instead.

The new bandage went on clean, and you had put a waterproof layer on this time. Your fingers smoothed the tape over his ribs, and he looked down with an expression that made you want to kiss him again and scream at him in equal measure.

You did neither.

You stood, gathering the gauze and gloves.

When you were done, you helped him stand.

He could do it on his own, but only barely. One hand was braced on the back of the sofa, shoulders rigid until the worst of the dizziness passed. You stayed close enough that if his knees went, you could catch him.

You guided him into the shower.

Under the spray, with the glass fogging around you and water swirling toward the drain, practicality went out the window. He stood on his own, one hand against the tile, head bowed slightly beneath the water. You washed blood from his temple and rinsed dried sweat from his neck. You cleaned a scratch near his chin with your thumb while he watched you through wet lashes, saying nothing.

He looked different like this. It was as if he had been stripped of the dirty coat, the guns, the blood-soaked wool, he became painfully human.

You washed the night from him as best you could, careful around the bandage, careful with the places pain had made sensitive. He let you.

By the time you got him to bed, the lights had dimmed.

You gave him water, antibiotics, painkillers, and tucked him in underneath fresh linen. He took everything without protest, which frightened you more than his blood had. Bucky argumentative meant Bucky alive. Bucky silent meant exhaustion had finally dragged him under.

He looked wrong in your bed.

You changed into a robe with your back turned to him, tying the belt tightly at your waist. In the mirror, the mark on your throat had deepened.

You touched it once, then you switched off the lamps and slid into bed beside him.

You curled into him slowly at first, then all at once, tucking yourself against the uninjured side of his chest. His arm came down around you. Your hand settled over his heart, feeling the beat beneath your palm like you needed proof.

His body curled around yours as much as the wound allowed, protective even half-conscious, and you let yourself sink into him. You listened to the rhythm of his heart. You counted each breath until the panic in your chest began to loosen.

“You need rest,” you murmured. “You have to get up early.”

His arm tightened faintly around you. “Got a plan for me, huh?”

You stared into the dark and tried to choose your next words carefully.

“I can’t change your fate.” The words hurt as they left your lips. “But I can get you a head start.”

He didn’t answer for a long time. His hand only moved once over your back, as if to say, thank you.

For choosing me.

For sacrificing the rules.

For putting yourself in the line of fire for me.

Eventually, his breathing deepened. Sleep took him reluctantly, one guarded inch at a time.

—

Bucky woke at four forty-six in the morning, and for a second he was at peace.

He felt your head tucked near his shoulder, your hand resting over his chest like you had fallen asleep making sure his heart kept going. Madripoor glowed through the half-drawn curtains in thin ribbons of neon, feverish gold leaking across the ceiling.

Then his side pulled tight with pain, and the world came back.

Right. The whole world was hunting him. The whole world but you.

Bucky lay still and looked at you.

You hadn’t slept well; he knew that even before you opened your eyes. There was a faint tension in your brow and the corner of your mouth, like some part of you had remained awake even while your body had finally surrendered.

He should have regretted coming here more. He put you in danger.

But grief and love made selfish creatures of people, and there was a terrible part of him that looked at the mark and felt comfort. Proof, maybe, that even if only for a few hours, he had been here.

He moved carefully, every shift measured around the wound at his side, and lifted his hand to your cheek.

You stirred, but didn’t wake completely.

He kissed you, but it was barely a kiss. It was more of his mouth against yours in the dark, careful enough to be mistaken for a dream.

Your eyes opened, finding his in the blue dark, unfocused at first.

“James,” you whispered, voice rough with sleep.

He closed his eyes for half a second. “I’m here.”

The ghost of a smile almost reached you. It pulled at the edge of your mouth and disappeared before it could become anything tangible. Then your hand slid to his side, practical even half-awake, fingers finding the edge of the bandage beneath the sheets. You checked him by touch first, then by sight, shifting up on one elbow and pulling the cover down just enough to inspect the gauze.

Bucky watched your face instead of the wound.

You released a breath when you saw that it hadn't bled through.

“You need antibiotics,” you murmured.

“I took them last night.”

“And you will take them again,” You insisted, eyes lifting to his.

Even in bed, even with your hair loose and half asleep, you could give him a stern look that made him shut his mouth.

You reached for the bedside table, shook two pills into your palm, and poured water from the carafe.You handed the glass to him, and he swallowed the pills under your watchful stare. Only then did you press the back of your hand to his forehead.

No fever. Good.

You sat beside him in the dim room with your hand still near his heart, and for a few minutes neither of you said anything at all, thinking about what you had while he slept. Thank god he had stayed asleep throughout all of it.

Out there were maps you hadn’t yet shown him. The cameras you had already disabled. The passage hidden in the back rooms of the hotel.

And then, sometime in the night, his bounty had risen to twenty million dollars.

Twenty million wasn’t just money. Everyone would wake up and see the number and become hungry. Dockworkers, concierges, brokers, doctors, tailors, priests, beggars, old friends, old enemies would suddenly remember how much a life could be worth if you stopped thinking of it as a person.

Then your eyes flicked to the phone on the bedside table. Bucky was looking at it. He saw the notification.

“You know.”

He didn’t pretend not to understand. “Yeah.”

You looked down at your hand where it rested against him. Your fingers curled slightly, catching in the fabric of the sheet.

“Twenty million,” you said.

He nodded.

“That kind of money makes people inventive,” you continued, and though your voice stayed quiet, something beneath it trembled. “It makes stupid men brave. It makes loyal men practical. It makes neutral men suddenly remember they have debts to settle.”

“I know.”

You shook your head. “You keep saying that.”

“I don’t know what else I’m supposed to say.”

For a moment, you looked at him like you wanted to slap him. Not because he deserved it, though maybe he did. Because frustration was easier than being afraid, and you had always preferred weapons you knew how to hold.

“You could say you’ll come back,” you whispered, words leaving you before you could stop them.

Bucky saw the regret dawn on your face. You shut down so quickly it was almost violent. “I…,” you started. “Forget I said that.”

“I want to,” he said, making himself small.

You looked away. “Then say it.”

For one selfish second, he almost did.

He almost gave you the lie. He almost told you he would survive the bounty, survive the High Table, survive every knife and bullet and hungry bastard between Madripoor and whatever country came next.

But twenty million dollars was in the way.

And you deserved more than a pretty lie from a doomed man.

“I can’t,” he said.

Your face didn’t break, but he could see a thin fracture beneath the surface. He hated himself for being the reason why.

“I hate you for being honest,” you said, but your voice was smaller now. Bucky reached for your hand. He only offered, and after a second you let him take it. “I want the lie.”

His throat burned. “I know.”

“I would know it was a lie, James, and I would still want it.”

He lifted your hand and pressed his mouth to your knuckles. He felt the tremor you tried to hide.

“I want there to be a version of this where I walk out and make it,” he said. “But I’m hurt. I’m tired. I have no protection, no doctor, no sanctioned routes, no allies who can admit to knowing me. The last thing I want is for them to find out you helped me.”

Your hand pulled free from his only so you could cup his face. “Don’t talk like you're already dead.”

He leaned into your touch before he could stop himself. It was humiliating, how badly he needed it.

“I’m trying not to,” he said.

“Try harder.”

He almost smiled. You kissed his cheek once before climbing out of bed.

After that, the room became a swirl.

You got dressed first, with black trousers to hide the grip marks forming on your thighs, white blouse with a high collar, and a matching blazer.The mark on your throat disappeared beneath the fabric. Your hair went up and your lipstick went on. Piece by piece, you put on a mask that the High Table had given you, and Bucky watched it happen with an ache in his chest he had no name for.

He got dressed slower than you. The clothes you had left for him were dark, plain, and unmemorable.

By 5:38, there was no evidence the night had happened.

The blood was gone from the sofa. The ruined towels had vanished. The wine glass had been removed. His old clothes were no longer in sight. Every surface looked untouched, nothing had given anyone a reason to suspect treason.

When Bucky was finished getting ready, he saw maps covering the surface: service corridors, laundry shafts, maintenance passages, camera blind spots, staff rotations, dock surveillance. You had turned the whole city upside down and found him the least fatal route through it.

“At 6:13, the private lift camera enters a maintenance loop for four minutes,” you said.

Bucky looked at the route you weren't pointing to. “You want me to take the lift?”

“No. I want anyone auditing the system later to think someone did.” Your finger moved across the map with brisk precision. “The loop is bait. You will take the passage behind the wardrobe three levels down. Left at the old laundry shaft. Don’t use the first service door. Kitchen staff will be moving through until six-thirty, and I cannot guarantee discretion.”

He listened, memorizing every word, though part of him wanted to stop you.

“The second door opens into dry storage,” you continued. “Camera blackout begins at 6:21 and lasts seven minutes, but assume you have four. If you’re not through by 6:25, retreat into the laundry shaft and wait for the next staff turnover. Don’t improvise unless someone has already seen your face.”

“And that?” he pointed, jumping ahead while cataloging everything.

“Dock Seven.” You slid another page toward him. “It has the least surveillance after 6:40. Not none. The west crane camera will be down for maintenance from 6:38. The warehouse camera facing Pier C turns east from 6:43 to 6:51. That is the best window you’re going to get.”

You pushed a passport across the table. “You’re Daniel Grant, Canadian. He’s boring, and keep him boring.”

He looked down at the unfamiliar face close enough to his own to pass if no one looked twice.

“After the dock?” he asked.

Your eyebrows furrowed, only slightly.

“After the dock, I can’t help you.”

There it was, the truth, the limit to your power. After the dock, there were no more cameras you could blind. No more corridors under your control. No more staff you could redirect. After the dock, he became a number again.

You picked up the black phone. “This gives you one call. Burn it after. It won't reach me directly. It will pass through three of my staff first. If you use it, say only what matters.”

“I’m not dragging you further into this.”

“You already have.”

The words weren’t meant to be cruel, but it sounded like it. His throat tightened. “I’m sorry.”

“No.” Your eyes sharpened. “Don’t apologize for needing me and then deny me the right to decide what I do with that.”

He stared at you, looking down. “I’m not worth your life.”

Fuck off, Barnes, you wanted to say. But instead, “Don’t say that to me.”

“It’s true.”

You looked down at the maps for a moment. When you spoke again, your voice had changed. “When John died, Winston wanted to tell me what he was worth. What his name meant. What his death meant. The High Table, the contracts, the bodies, the legend. Everyone had a number, a title, a story.” Your hand curled against the edge of the table. “It was all useless. He was my brother— that was the only measure that mattered.” You looked up at him then, eyes sunken in a way that terrified him. “So don’t stand in my room and tell me what you are worth as if love has ever cared about market value.”

For one second, he almost said it.

The room was already evidence of it. Maybe naming it would make it less likely to disappear. But if he said it now, with the passage waiting and every sniper on his head, he would be leaving it behind like a body for you to bury.

You saw him swallow it.

“Coward,” you whispered.

Not like an insult, but rather heartbreak.

Bucky nodded once. “Yeah.”

You reached into the inside pocket of your blazer and took out a small leather ledger. You set it on the table.

“I’m going to settle every marker and debt I have.”

What?

“You’ll make yourself vulnerable,” he furrowed his eyebrows.

“I know.” Your voice was steady because you forced it to be. “I’ll close what I can. Pay what I owe. Call in what I’m owed. I’ll prepare a letter nominating Talia for hotel management. I will make myself as free as I can be.”

He forced himself to turn to you, to figure out what was running in that pretty little head of yours. “For what?”

“For the possibility that this is not the last time I see you.”

Oh.

You stepped closer.

“If there is a way, if you find it, if you can come back as something other than a dead man walking, then come back to me.” You swallowed, but your voice held. “And I will go with you.”

He looked at you and saw what the future could be.

You, far from Madripoor. You, far from gold coins and ledgers written in blood. You, in his kitchen with morning light on your face. You, scowling over bad coffee he made. You, looking at him across a room as if he had finally made it home. You, getting out and living the life your brother once had before the world took that away from him.

It was so beautiful he almost hated you for giving it to him.

But his status sat between you and that future.

He could feel the hunters already moving, the calls already being made. The underworld waking up to his name and doing the arithmetic. Most people didn't survive numbers like that for long.

He couldn’t promise anything.

He wanted to. God fucking knows, he wanted to. He wanted to take your face in his hands and swear he would come back if he had to crawl through half the world with broken bones. He wanted to tell you to pack a bag, to wait for him, to believe that he would survive the week.

But you were offering him your life. He wouldn’t repay that with false hope.

“Okay,” he said.

That was what finally undid you.

You stepped into him and pressed both hands flat against his chest, gripping the fabric of his shirt as if you could hold him in the room by force.

“You are not dead while I am touching you,” you said. “You are not dead until I am forced to hear otherwise, and even then I may refuse to believe it out of spite.”

A broken laugh dragged out of him.

“So go,” you whispered. “Go be difficult to kill. Go make every greedy little bastard who looks at that twenty million regret getting out of bed.”

His forehead lowered to yours.

His hand rose to your cheek, and you leaned into it before he had even touched you.

He kissed you.

Softly at first, then harder, because the alternative felt too much like goodbye. Your hands fisted in his shirt.

When you pulled back, your mouth still brushed his.

“I love—”

Your hand covered his mouth. Your eyes were shining now, broken and beautiful in the most unbearable way.

“Not now,” you whispered.

His breath warmed as he nodded, pressing a kiss into your palm.

Then he nodded.

You opened the panel behind the wardrobe yourself.

Cold air breathed out of the hidden passage, smelling like damp stone, old water, and dust disturbed for the first time in years. The darkness beyond it was narrow and void, a vein running through the Continental. Somewhere below, staff would move through corridors you had already arranged for him to avoid. The entire hotel, for a handful of minutes, would turn its eyes away because you had asked it to.

You handed him the bag.

For one final moment, he looked at you and your ledger still open on the table behind you. Your whole life was already beginning to come apart because he had come to you bleeding and you had loved him too much to turn him in.

He wanted to promise something, anything, so badly.

But chances were, he was going to fucking die.

So he only looked at you, and you understood.

“Be seeing you,” you said.

From anyone else, it would have been a threat, a warning, a death sentence tied to a century-old tradition.

From you, it sounded like the smallest sliver of hope.

Bucky held your eyes for one more second, then nodded once before stepping into the passage.

The panel slid shut without a sound, leaving you alone in the spotless room, pretending nothing ever happened.

You walked up to your desk, picked up the phone, and dialed 505.

The line clicked.

“Good morning, Talia,” you said normally, because you were fine. You had to be. “Prepare the staff for briefing, please.”

—end.