okay, okay, okay. Here we go. Imagine a REALLYYY stoic reader. Her and Bucky are married, but she never really shows affection. Then, one day, she accidentally leaves one of her notebooks lying around the compound. John reads it, and, well.. it’s poetry. Fucking poetry. The cover is worn, and it dates back to the days where Bucky lived in Romania. It’s beautiful, all about love and there’s a shitload of complicated metaphors- and get this! They’re all addressed to Bucky. From reader. Everyone reads it and they kinda tease about it, but it’s a little mean. After about a week of the teasing, even though reader hasn’t said anything (she refuses to be “too sensitive” and Bucky is like: “you’re never sensitive about anything. Let yourself have this.”) John makes a joke that goes too far, and Bucky tells them all off. Then they apologize and all is well.
(please use you/your for reader if that’s okay!!!)
oof.. this is such a long ramble. Sorry for making you endure all of my random thoughts.
ugh because bucky is so ready to throw down for you in this type of situation.
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The thing about living at the compound is that privacy is a luxury.
You’d learned that early—your marriage to Bucky was yours, but it existed in a place where people knew everyone’s business. You didn’t mind. You weren’t the kind of person who spilled emotions all over the floor anyway. Stoicism had been your armor long before you’d ever worn a suit for missions. You loved Bucky, but your love was quiet. Subtle. A hand on his thigh under the table. A blanket tossed over him when he fell asleep on the couch. You weren’t cold—you were measured.
And you liked it that way.
Until the notebook.
It was old, the cover worn soft at the edges, the spine creased in three places from years of folding back on itself. You’d had it since Romania—back when Bucky still kept the curtains drawn in daylight, when silence was safer than conversation. You’d written in it in the early mornings, or when he’d been away, or in the quiet hum of the city at night. It was filled with scraps of thought, fragments of dreams, and—if anyone cared to look—poems. All of them about him.
Some were obvious. Others buried him in metaphors—sea glass and storms, the weight of winter, the steady pulse of something that survived it all. They weren’t meant for anyone else’s eyes.
So of course, John Walker found it.
You didn’t even realize you’d left it on the coffee table until you came back from the kitchen and saw him holding it, thumb idly fanning the pages.
“What’s this?” he asked, a grin already forming.
Your stomach tightened. “Give it back.”
“Oh-ho,” he said, ignoring you, his eyes scanning a page. “‘His hands are the anchors that drag me into the deep, and I go willingly.’” He let out a low whistle. “Damn, Barnes, you inspire the classics.”
The sound of Bucky’s chair scraping back was sharp. “Put it down, Walker.”
John didn’t. By then, Bob was leaning over the back of the couch, trying to get a look. Yelena raised a brow from across the room. Someone—probably Bob—said, “No way. These are yours? Stoic-as-a-gravestone you?”
You grabbed the notebook and shoved it under your arm, muttering, “It’s nothing.”
But the damage was done.
For the next week, it became… a thing.
It wasn’t malicious at first. Teasing comments over breakfast—Bob reciting lines in an over-the-top dramatic voice, Yelena asking if Bucky had “read today’s sonnet yet.” Ava smirking and saying she didn’t know you were “the candlelit romance type.”
You brushed it off. You weren’t going to give them the satisfaction of acting embarrassed. Still, each time they brought it up, something in your chest tightened just a little more.
Bucky, though, he watched you. Quietly. Like he could feel the way it was starting to press on you.
One night, you were curled up in bed, scrolling aimlessly through your phone while he brushed his teeth. He came out, towel over his shoulder, and leaned against the doorframe.
“You’re never sensitive about anything,” he said.
You looked up. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means,” he said, coming over and sitting on the edge of the bed, “you’ve been letting them take shots all week and you haven’t said a word. But you can. You can be sensitive about this. It’s… it’s not nothing, doll. You put your heart on those pages.”
You shrugged, eyes dropping back to your phone. “It’s just teasing.”
“Teasing’s only fine if you’re laughing too.” His hand found yours, thumb brushing over your knuckles. “Don’t let them make you feel stupid for loving me the way you do. Especially not when it’s that beautiful.”
Your throat felt tight, so you didn’t answer.
The next morning, it happened.
Everyone was in the kitchen—Bob at the stove, Nat with her coffee, Ava slicing fruit. You were pouring tea when John walked in, grinning like he’d been saving something up all night.
“Hey, Barnes,” he called. “Tell me—do her eyes really ‘burn brighter than the Warsaw sunrise,’ or was that just artistic license?”
A ripple of laughter went around the room.
Bucky froze mid-step. “What did you just say?”
John smirked. “Just appreciating the literary genius in our midst—”
“That’s enough.” His voice cut through the air, low and sharp.
The room went quiet.
Bucky took a step closer to John, his jaw tight. “You think you’re being funny, but you’re not. You’re taking something she made—something private—and you’re turning it into a joke because you don’t know what to do with something real.”
John’s smile faltered.
“She doesn’t go around making fun of the way you care about people,” Bucky went on, voice steady but with an edge that made even Yelena glance away. “You don’t get to mock her for the way she loves me. You want to tease someone, tease me. But you leave her out of it.”
No one moved.
Finally, John muttered, “Alright. I didn’t mean—”
“Didn’t mean to what? Humiliate her? Because that’s what you’ve been doing all week.”
There was a beat of silence. Then Bob cleared his throat and said quietly, “Yeah. We took it too far.”
Yelena's voice was softer. “Sorry, Y/N. We didn’t think about it like that.”
You just nodded, not trusting yourself to say anything without cracking something open you’d spent years keeping sealed.
Bucky slipped his hand into yours under the table, squeezing gently.
The apologies kept coming—Ava, Bob, even John with a muttered “sorry” that at least sounded sincere. The rest of the day was quieter. No more sonnet recitations, no sly comments.
Later that night, Bucky found you on the balcony, the city spread out below in gold and silver lights.
“They won’t bring it up again,” he said.
“I know.”
“You okay?”
You looked at him then, at the man you’d written a hundred poems for and never told. “I wasn’t embarrassed about the poetry,” you admitted. “I was embarrassed they found out I could feel that much and never say it.”
His expression softened. “You say it every day, doll. Maybe not with words, but I hear it.”
You let out a quiet laugh. “Still… maybe I should’ve hidden that notebook better.”
“I’m glad you didn’t.” He leaned in, pressing his forehead to yours. “Because now they know just how lucky I am.”
You huffed, but your fingers curled into the front of his shirt, holding him there.
Alan Rickman and Rima Horton attend the UK Premiere of "The Invisible Woman" at the ODEON Kensington on January 27, 2014 in London, England. (Photo by Dave M. Benett/WireImage)
All credits to the photographer and Getty Images. Shared for archival and appreciation purposes.
