The Only Exception (Part 10)
Summary: AU. Reader is given the task of running a popular love advice internet show when her coworker is fired. Her cynical attitude toward love makes her offer some harsh advice, and more than a few hearts are caught in the aftermath. Will hers be one of them?
Pairing: Bucky Barnes x reader
Word Count: 1,937 (End!)
Warnings: language, fluff, it’s an innocent lil epilogue
A/N: Sorry I get so cheesy in this space. Thank you to the people who encouraged me along the way, most of you total strangers who didn’t need to stop and take time out to do so, but did it anyway because you’re good people. Thanks to the other writers who sympathized with and cheered for me, I adore you. This is dedicated to you empathetic, beautiful people.
Part - 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 - 8 - 9 - 10
Six months later…
The lobby of the Red Wing Community Center was tremendously crowded, and for that you were grateful. You’d only caught a glimpse as you walked past, but it was more than enough to make tonight’s dedication ceremony that much more exciting.
As you walked back to your office, you thought about all you’d gone through to get to this point. So much had happened in your life, and you felt like a completely different person now, for the better. You were leading your own group and one-on-one sessions now, and you really felt like you were finally getting a chance to make use of all that training and empathy you’d accumulated over the years.
Maria had been given a psych evaluation that yielded some interesting (read: alarming) results, so she was now in a treatment facility designed for criminals. It was better to have her there than roaming free to hurt others, and rotting in prison without working out her issues would have been useless.
You hoped she would someday feel sorry for the harm she caused to everyone.
It turned out that Leah’s unemployment stint led her to a new job with the New York Yankees organization. Rumor had it that she was also sleeping with one of the top stars of the moment.
May Parker’s employment was terminated when Tony Stark dissolved September Media. You hadn’t heard a peep about her since.
Scott Lang was now no longer reporting on engineering feats, he was designing them himself under Stark Industries.
Bucky’s surrogate mother found solace in becoming the head cook at the new kitchen for the less fortunate members of the community center, which was part of tonight’s dedication ceremony.
Bruce Banner became a top investigator at his station. His research skills helped save many lives since this promotion, and Brooklyn had never felt safer.
Steve and Natasha were still a thing, and you knew from a little birdie that Steve was looking for a bigger place for the two of them to move into together. It wasn’t easy keeping that a secret from your best friend, but you were getting pretty good at no longer spoiling things for other people.
You smiled to yourself as you flipped the light switch, illuminating your renovated office.
The two of them were cute, sure, but you knew someone even more adorable. You walked over to the wall behind your desk, where a calendar was hanging next to your trauma certifications and degrees.
The featured image for May was a woman you hadn’t met yet, but she looked damn good standing in her firefighter uniform and holding a big brown puppy. The New York fire stations all did charity calendars benefiting Brooklyn non-profits. Steve and Bucky’s station was going to make a calendar to benefit the community center, but you convinced them not to after your grand idea came into play.
Instead, they did a charity calendar for the local animal shelter, and it sold so fast they had to order more prints. Every single firefighter there posed with animals that were up for adoption, and you absolutely adored it. You had a copy for work, and one in almost every room of your new apartment (except the bathroom, because that would be really weird).
You flipped the calendar to Steve’s Mr. July picture, complete with a bunch of golden retriever puppies all dressed in red, white, and blue ribbons. Natasha had almost passed out when she saw it.
That wasn’t even the best part. No, your favorite was Mr. October. When you got to that page, you grinned at the photo of Bucky in nothing but his pants, suspenders, and fireman’s hat, holding a tiny orange kitten in his muscular right arm, and a tiny black kitten in his left. They were posed around pumpkins for a Halloween theme.
You couldn’t wait for October.
“Could you please stop ogling me? It’s embarrassing.”
You let go of the calendar page and turned to see Bucky standing in the doorway, shaking his head at you.
“I just really love kittens and Halloween,” you joked, moving around your desk to stand in front of him. “I can’t help it that you’re in the picture, too.”
“Funny.” Bucky reached for you, grabbing you by the hips to pull you closer to him. He leaned over and brushed his nose with yours, then placed a sweet kiss on your lips. “Hi.”
“Hi,” you murmured, wrapping your arms around his neck. “How was your shift?”
He shrugged. “Nothing too dangerous.”
“Good. This city had better keep my hot fireman safe.”
Bucky was your biggest source of comfort and strength in the months following Maria’s arrest. He never pushed you, never expected anything out of you, but instead was simply there for you when you needed someone. He helped build your confidence back up.
Along the way, you found yourself genuinely falling for him. It was more than the bar date had been; that was just banter and flirting, you knew that now. No, this was blossoming more every day into something incredible.
This time around, you and Bucky had a partnership.
“You see the crowd out there?”
You nodded. “Sam is beside himself. There’s so much attention on the center now, he’s going to have to hire another assistant.”
“Maybe an intern? Steve knows this kid from Queens who seems really caring, like he wants to help people.”
“Tell him to talk to Sam.” You reached up and brushed his hair back. “I guess we should be going, they’re going to be expecting us.”
“You,” Bucky corrected, his blue eyes bright as a proud smile formed on his face. “They’re expecting you, Doll. Not me. You’re the one who brought this all together.”
“I had help. I couldn’t have done any of this without Sam and Mr. Stark.”
“And his money, don’t forget.”
“That too.”
After Tony Stark offered to find you a new place to live (and you now lived in a top-floor, elevator-accessible apartment in Williamsburg, a much nicer part of your beloved Brooklyn), he wanted to know what else he could do to make things right.
There was only one thing you could think of. Money wouldn’t change what happened to you. Money couldn’t take away the pain Maria caused.
It could, however, improve the lives of a shit load of New Yorkers who needed the help.
Sam’s center ran almost entirely off of funding from generous donors. You knew he had a wish list of additional programs he wanted to start, as well as other helpful improvements to the center itself. One of them was the soup kitchen. Expanded group rooms, temporary housing for domestic violence victims, a new gym and rehabilitation center for injured vets and first responders, and on-call support staff were a few of those things.
Now, thanks to Tony’s generosity, they were becoming a reality, and you couldn’t be happier for Sam.
“Y/N? You look lost in thought aga-“
You interrupted Bucky by brushing your lips across his again, having spent far too long talking and thinking instead of kissing. It was hard to find time for yourselves lately, with all the extra work you had to do for the center, and all the crazy shifts Bucky was on.
Bucky seemed to agree with this new direction. He pressed closer to you as he deepened the kiss, his fingers digging into your hips just a little. The two of you were so lost in each other that you didn’t hear Sam until he cleared his throat in exaggeration.
You and Bucky pulled apart, sheepishly turning to look at him.
“They’re about ready, if you two are done playing tonsil hockey,” Sam said. “Y/N, I want you to be at the front and center, if you would.”
“Nah, Sam. This is your dream. This is your hard work. You deserve it.” You smiled at your friend, mentor, and boss. “Helping people is the only thing I ever wanted, and you gave me a chance to do it. Anything else I do for you is just me trying to return the favor.”
Sam shook his head. “You’re something else, Y/N.” He turned, motioning for you to follow.
Bucky took your hand in his as the two of you walked behind Sam to the main lobby, where a crowd of supporters, neighbors, and press were gathered to watch Sam and Tony Stark cut the ribbon on the expanded facility. You found a spot off to the side so you could get some good pictures on your phone.
“He’s right, you know,” Bucky murmured in your ear.
“Hmm?” You stood on your tiptoes to try to see if Tony was there yet, and bit back a grin when you saw him shake hands with Sam.
Bucky continued talking. “Although, you aren’t just something else to me. You’re everything. I love you so much.”
You turned to look at him with wide eyes, feeling a little speechless.
Bucky’s eyes were sparkling as he lifted a hand to cup your cheek gently. “You don’t have to say it back. I’m not just saying it to say it, either. I’ve been thinking about it for a couple months now, but you’ve been so busy with these amazing projects…anyways, I just wanted you to know that I love you.”
He dropped his hand from your face and shoved both hands into his pockets, turning to face the front where Sam and Tony were ready to cut the ribbon.
He was so casual about it, you wondered for a moment if you imagined it all.
Did he just…?
You heard Sam’s voice as he thanked everyone for coming, and then thanked Tony for his generosity. It all became white noise as you focused on the man beside you.
This wasn’t some blundered attempt at making up. This wasn’t a cover-up for a mistake. It wasn’t a last-ditch effort to not lose you.
He really did mean it.
From where you started with Bucky and where you were now, it seemed like there was a whole lifetime in between. There were moments of happiness and sadness, tragedy and triumph…moments you’d love to forget, and moments you’d cherish forever.
That was the point of anything, wasn’t it? To live life to the fullest? To take the good with the bad, and find someone to walk beside you along the way?
Not one human is flawless; everyone has both a good side and bad side. Everyone makes mistakes. It’s how you use those mistakes, how you learn from them, that shape you into a better person.
You’d been reading about other people’s romances your whole life, while slowly developing that now-infamous cynical attitude toward all of it. Deep down, though, your heart had always longed for a love life worthy of a Jane Austen novel. Hell, for a while there, you were even willing to settle for a little Sophie Kinsella-type romance. But what you really ended up with was more like that bastard Nicholas Sparks, with his flair for melodrama and deep connections.
You pulled Bucky’s hand out of his pocket and gripped it tightly in your own, causing him to look at you in surprise.
The two of you locked eyes as if you were the only two in the room. It was straight out of Pride and Prejudice movie or something, when Elizabeth stares at Darcy while they’re dancing. Only you weren’t dancing, and this wasn’t a romance from classic literature.
This was real.
There was a brief pause before you finally found the courage to let the words slip.
“I love you, too.”
Part - 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 - 8 - 9 - 10
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