Non-Sequential [Ch. 22]
Pairing: Pre-Serum Steve Rogers/Steve Rogers x Reader
One night, Steve Rogers met a beautiful dame named Y/N. He hadn’t intended on letting her get away. But fate had other ideas. Y/N appeared and disappeared in his life so hauntingly that Steve started to wonder if she was an angel meant to watch over him.
Word Count: 2,600
Chapter 21
Y/N was still crying when she got back. Or at least she assumed she had returned to her present. But there was never really knowing until she got her bearings. Except she wasn’t just crying. She was sobbing. Her entire body shook with emotion as the tears fell and fell and fell.
She couldn’t even figure out where she was because her vision was so blurry with the tears that wouldn’t stop. It took her a few minutes to get ahold of herself. She forced a few deep breaths to try and calm down.
It was dark and the grass was cool beneath her feet. She looked up at the moon as she rubbed snot from her nose with the back of her hand.
There was only one place in the world where the moon looked that bright.
So, she was back in Wakanda. That was good at least.
What else could she recognize?
Y/N turned around in a circle, taking in her surroundings. Then she squinted and realized she knew exactly what was in the distance.
Her feet started forward without any command from her mind.
Next think Y/N knew, she was standing in front of Bucky’s hut.
Her fist was shaking as she knocked on the wood door. The raps were sporadic and different volumes. She heard shuffling immediately from the other side.
“Y/N?” Bucky gasped as he opened the door.
“B-Bucky,” she thought she whispered it, but it came out as a whimper.
Despite her being as naked as the day she was born, Bucky was only staring in horror as Y/N’s bloodshot eyes began crying again.
“You’re OK,” she whimpered. But it was clear she was trying to convince herself.
Seeing her cry threw Bucky into action. It was literally painful for him to see. He pulled her to his chest. And for the first time since losing his prosthetic, he wished he had two arms so he could hold her closer, tighter, keep her safer.
Her sobbing continued and Bucky just held on until she could catch her breath and settle down. Eventually it quieted down and slowed.
He pulled away ever so slightly, only so he could actually look at her face.
Bucky had been so terrified by her sobbing that he hadn’t noticed her split lip.
He gripped her chin softly. But the look in his eyes was stern and dark. “What happened? Who did this to you?”
The questions only drew a new layer of tears across Y/N’s eyes.
His eyes then searched for other obvious injuries. It wasn’t degrading for her naked body, for he was like a doctor looking across his patient. He let out a breath when she didn’t seem to be injured elsewhere.
“Come on,” Bucky sighed, realizing she didn’t need to be interrogated right now. “I’ll get you some clothes and make you some tea.”
Y/N seemed to snap out of it then, finally realizing that she had just swarmed Bucky’s home sobbing and fully naked.
Her cheeks blushed in humiliation. “I-I’m so sorry.” Then she stepped away and moved her arms to try and give herself some decency.
“You got nothing to be sorry for, kid.” Bucky only looked at her eyes as he replied. Her nudity didn’t make him bashful like it once made Steve.
He walked past her to shut the door and Y/N quickly scurried to find the nearest blanket to wrap herself in.
In just a few minutes, Bucky gave her some of his more American-styled clothes to Y/N: a matching black pair of sweatpants and hoodie. Shuri had insisted on giving him some to make him feel more at home.
Y/N was sitting in one of the chairs at Bucky’s dinner table, hands wrapped tightly around a hot mug of tea as if it was a lifeline.
Bucky had been silently watching her for awhile now, unsure of how to begin the conversation. He was worried and, quite frankly, a little scared. Scared something happened to her, scared it was something he did that he couldn’t remember. But if that were true, why had she run into his arms so desperately?
“Do you…” Y/N’s voice cracked and she stopped immediately. She took a deep breath and then sipped some tea, ignoring the burn from it being too hot. “Do you remember falling from the train?”
Bucky gave her a dark smirk. “Kind of hard to forget. Wish I could.”
But Y/N shook her head. “No, not falling. After you fell. Do you remember when you finally…hit the ground?” There wasn’t an easier way to describe it.
Bucky’s brow furrowed and his eyes stared into the distance.
From his expression alone, Y/N realized that he didn’t remember.
“No. I don’t–I don’t think I do. There’s been flashes before. Snow. Being dragged through it. But…No, I don’t remember.” He almost sounded disappointed in himself.
Y/N just nodded slowly, avoided his gaze, and took another sip of tea.
“Y/N,” his voice so gentle and worried that she had no choice but to respond to it by looking up at him. “Are you OK?”
Her eyes flickered back down to the bottom of her mug. “I just killed someone.”
Bucky’s breathing stopped.
“When I traveled…I was with you, Bucky. Right after you hit the ground. Your blood…it was everywhere. Hydra got there right after I did. I tried to – I don’t know what the fuck I was thinking. But I tried to stop them from taking you. I took your gun and I…I shot one of them.”
It all happened so fast. One second Y/N was crying and shaking again, and then next Bucky had her in his lap. Her face buried in his neck as he rubbed her back and gave her words of comfort.
“I’m sorry, Y/N. I’m so damn sorry,” he kept muttering that to her.
It took her a bit to realize that the way he was saying it made it clear that he was taking full responsibility for what happened to her. Because Bucky knew she killed someone trying to protect him. She got a split lip defending him from his inevitable captors.
“Then I showed up back here, not far from your hut. I just needed to know that you were OK. My mind – I don’t know – it was convinced you were still hurt. Still a prisoner.”
“I’m fine, Y/N.” He pulled her face back to look at him. “I’m alright. OK?”
She nodded, wiping her tears away.
“I’m just worried about you,” Bucky muttered.
“Can I stay here tonight?” She whispered after a few moments. “I just don’t want to go back to that empty room at the palace, all alone.”
“Of course.” But the truth was that Bucky had already decided she wasn’t getting out of his sight until he was convinced she wasn’t going to have another breakdown.
“How about I make you something to eat?” He offered.
Y/N shook her head. “I’m not hungry. And I’m pretty sure I’ll throw up if I try to eat anything.”
Bucky accepted that, being all too familiar with the feeling.
The small and cozy hut filled with silence.
“Can we just…can we do something normal?” Y/N finally asked. “Maybe watch a movie or something?”
He sighed and gave her a soft smirk. “Of course.”
They moved from the dinner table to the small little alcove that could be considered Bucky’s living room. He sat down first and was surprised when Y/N immediately curled up next to him, resting her head on his chest and draping her right arm across his torso.
“What should we watch?” He asked her, trying to slow the beating of his heart. It wasn’t all that hard. He’d been trained to do such things long ago.
“Whatever you want,” she murmured tiredly. It really didn’t matter. She could already feel the exhaustion from time traveling starting to consume her. Once her mind could finally process that Bucky was fine, that he wasn’t still bleeding out in that dreadful snow, her body allowed itself to rest.
Bucky put on It Happened One Night. 30 minutes in, he was just about to tell Y/N how he and Steve used to watch the movie whenever it was in the drive-in theater on the outskirts of Brooklyn. But when he looked down, he found Y/N already fast a sleep against him.
It felt good, her body pressed up against him – so warm and yet so vulnerable. She trusted Bucky, felt safe in his grasp. It was the first time since before the war that Bucky felt like he could protect someone instead of hurt them.
But then the guilt found its way in. She shouldn’t be with him like this. No, she should be in Steve’s arms. She belonged to him, not Bucky. Yes, she was a person, not a thing. But Steve belonged to her just as much as she belonged to him. So, where did that leave Bucky?
Bucky let himself sit like that for the rest of the movie. Maybe it wasn’t as inappropriate as he thought. Or maybe he was just being utterly selfish.
When the end credits started rolling, Bucky realized he couldn’t carry Y/N’s sleeping form to his bed. Not with only one arm. That was the thing about being around Y/N. Bucky realized that his prosthetic could’ve been used for more than just harm.
“Y/N,” he whispered to her softly, trying to rouse her from her sleep without completely startling her.
“Hmm?” She mumbled back without opening her eyes.
“You don’t want to sleep on this couch. Let’s get you to bed.”
“Mhmm.”
Bucky couldn’t help but chuckle. “OK. Come on, kid.”
She stood up like a zombie, rubbing the sleep from her eyes and letting Bucky guide her to the bed on the other side of the hut.
Y/N crawled into the bed without hesitation and it seemed like she had fallen right back to sleep. Bucky pulled up the covers around her shoulders and switched the lamp off.
But when she heard Bucky’s steps start retreating, her eyes opened.
“Where are you going to sleep?” She mumbled sleepily.
“On the couch.”
“If I’m not allowed to sleep on the couch, neither are you.” She told him rather firmly for having just been asleep.
Bucky’s hesitation was obvious.
“Please? I’ll keep my hands to myself, I promise.” She tried to tease.
He cleared his throat. “I didn’t realize that’s what I had to worry about.” “Then what are you worried about?” She challenged.
“Y/N, Steve – I…”
“It’s just sleep, Bucky.”
But was that really just all it was?
Y/N didn’t have the courage to confess that she didn’t want to let Bucky out of her sight just yet.
Bucky didn’t have any more self-control. Slowly he slipped under the covers on the opposite side of the bed, trying to stay as far away from her as possible.
Y/N rolled on her side to face him. Her eyes went from studying his face, down his neck, and across his shoulder, until they landed on the stump where his left arm once was. It was covered by the short sleeve of a t-shirt now, but Y/N still stared at it.
“Does it ever hurt still?” Y/N whispered.
Bucky thought about lying in attempt to ease her worry. But something about the intimacy that was being shared between them stopped him.
“Sometimes,” he admitted.
“Why won’t you let Shuri make you a new arm?”
Y/N had wondered about it for quite some time, but never felt like it was appropriate to ask him.
“Didn’t think I deserved it.” Then he took a deep breath. “But mostly…I thought I was less dangerous without it.”
Y/N’s face squeezed in sadness from what he said.
“Shuri promises those words our out of my head. We’ve tested it about a hundred times – mostly just to prove it to me. But sometimes I still feel like I can turn back into…him…at any moment.”
To both of their surprise, Y/N reached across the bed and cupped Bucky’s cheek.
“You escaped them, Bucky. Don’t let them keep having control over your life, even after you’re free.”
He barely nodded. “I will if you promise to do the same.”
Y/N held her breath.
Maybe that’s why there was something between her and Bucky that seemed to be impossible to find between her and Steve. The two of them both survived. After being beaten and tortured and manipulated by Hydra, they both survived. Steve had seen a lot in his lifetime, but he had never been broken to a point of preferring death over life.
“I promise,” Y/N hardly even whispered.
———————————————
Y/N woke up surprised to find an empty bed. But Bucky wasn’t hard to find, sitting in the kitchen on the other side of the hut. His eyes were glazed over, staring into the distance. His mind was racing through thoughts and images Y/N could not see but could sense their presence.
There was a mug of coffee steaming in front of him.
Y/N wondered how many cups he’d already had while she still slept.
“You’re up early…” Y/N practically croaked from using her voice for the first time after sleeping.
Bucky blinked and returned to the present, eyes shooting over to her still laying in his bed.
“Didn’t sleep much,” he answered with an embarrassed smirk and shrug.
She squinted at him. “Is ‘didn’t sleep much’ code for you didn’t sleep at all?”
Bucky just cleared his throat, not wanting to start the morning off by lying to her.
Y/N let it slide.
In truth, Bucky had watched over her all night. He was scared she’d travel again in her sleep or that she’d sneak back to the palace while he slept. Meanwhile, he ransacked his own brain trying to remember the moments after he fell from that train. He gave himself a migraine from the strain of it all.
Y/N tiptoed over to the table and Bucky immediately shot up to make her a cup of coffee as well.
“Thank you,” she muttered as she took it from his grasp.
His eyes stared at the her split lip. It somehow looked worse as it started its healing process. “Maybe I could teach you some self-defense, kid.”
She blinked at him.
“Has Steve ever shown you?” He asked.
She blinked again. “Only a little bit. Nat too.”
He nodded. Then he watched her take a sip of coffee.
“I…” he took a deep breath. “I think I remember you being there.”
Y/N froze.
“My mind’s a mess. I guess…I guess when I did get flashes of you, I was convinced I was imagining it. I thought I was dying. I mean, I was dying. So, I figured my mind showed me what I would want to see in my final moments.”
“Bucky, I–”
But Y/N was interrupted by a cellphone ringing. She jumped at the sound.
Bucky did not. Without saying anything, he got up and grabbed a cellphone, a model that Y/N hadn’t seen in probably over a decade.
“That’ll be Steve,” he told her, without any emotion, as he plopped the phone in front of her.
Y/N shared a moment with Bucky before quickly picking it up before it could stop ringing and walked outside as she answered it.
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Chapter 23
Thank you for your patience. I don’t know what’s gotten into me, but it’s never been this hard to keep me writing a series.