unsolved (xviii)
Summary: Bucky doesn’t even believe in the paranormal. So who the hell thought it was a good idea to stick him in a series about everything haunted for the internet’s amusement? With his loose-canon of a teammate who has no concept of subtlety or shits left to give, to make things even worse.
Warnings: swearing, frustrated bucky, obnoxious reader, tension, ghosts, panicking, mentions of death, rituals,
A/N: i cant believe this is the last chapter im gonna throw up. thank you all for everything. i wrote this during a really terrible time in my life and all your comments and love have made this such a beautiful experience. i apologise for how long the whole thing took to finish-- but we finally got here and im so grateful to everyone who stuck along for the journey. thank you thank you thank you <3 im gonna miss these two idiots. i tried to make the finale as romcom as possible for you. hope u enjoy!!
Previous part || Series masterlist
The conference room is filled with tension so thick it had trouble finding jeans that fit.
Maya sits at the head of the table, spine straight, pen still. Face completely still and stony like she was judging whether to let you out on bail.
“Alright,” she says. “Go.”
You clasp your hands on the table. “We’ve sustained viewership through strong mid-season assets. Engagement peaked with episode seventeen. To close, we need a pivot. Something high-risk, high-resonance, with narrative permanence.”
Bucky sits beside you, arms crossed, jaw locked, eyebrow twitching.
Maya flicks her eyes toward him. “Consent forms signed?”
“Fully,” you say. “He understands the liabilities.”
Bucky grunts, “Sitting right here,” but no one acknowledges it. His thumb picks at the seam of his jeans, an old nervous habit.
You take his irritability as a sign to spew on, “Novelty is old. They want catharsis. But we can provide both. Controlled environment, one take. No reshoots.”
Maya narrows her eyes. “Walk me through the risk profile.”
“High,” you say evenly. “Personal exposure, unpredictable optics, and the possibility of emotional contagion. But containment is possible with careful framing.”
Bucky rests his forehead on his fingers, digging into his skin to smoothen out a migraine, “Don’ like bein’ described as a containment issue.”
He’d helped throw ideas around last week, had even agreed when you framed it as the way forward, but now that it’s written in your voice, in front of Maya, his shoulders are iron bars.
You ignore him. “The deliverable is clean, consumable, and irreversible. It will work.”
He shifts, arms uncrossing, then crossing again.
Maya steeples her fingers. “And what are we calling it?”
You slide the folder across the glass. Words stamped bold on the cover:
THE EXORCISM OF JAMES BUCHANAN BARNES.
Bucky exhales sharply, “S not an exorcism. I’m not possessed.”
She closes the folder, pushes it back to you.
Ignores him, as to keep with tradition.
“You have yourselves a finale.”
At finale, he looks at you again. Doesn’t even mean to.
Just a flicker, but long enough that it costs him. His stomach drops all over again.
Because this was always the plan, wasn’t it?
The series ends. You leave.
Curtain down.
You hit the supermarket at 10:43 p.m., a completely normal and recommended time to go there.
Automatic doors whoosh. You grab a basket. Bucky plucks it from your hand and swaps in a trolley, no explanation,
He steers. You dangle off the side like a pirate ship, half expecting him to complain but instead he silently shifts his weight without breaking stride, letting you hang along for the ride.
“Callsigns?” you say, purely to irritate.
“No,” he says, purely on instinct.
“Copy that, Negative.”
He exhales through his nose, but his hand tightens slightly on the trolley bar, like he’s hanging on harder than necessary. He has to remind himself not to get used to this. It won’t last past the finale.
Over the PA, a bored voice drones, “Cleanup on aisle seven.”
You show him your list. He scans it at record speed and sets off.
Salt first, because it is the starting step to any good ritual.
There are thirty types, all performing the same basic function.
Bucky reaches for a big blue box that says nothing except SALT, like reaching out for the most war-ration looking option is his instinct. You, of course, go for the small jar with an insufferable label reading out mineral content, origin story, childhood loves and the like.
He looks at your hand. You look at his. He puts both in the trolley.
“Candles,” he says from memory.
“You’re going to pick some unscented garbage,” you say, mournful.
“Probably,” he says.
“Strange choice, for someone who buys cinnamon body wash.”
He blinks once, slow. “I don’t buy cinnamon body wash.”
“Sure,” you say.
“I don’t. Steve brings home so many fucking baked things, all my clothes smell like cinnamon.”
You bite back a smile.
“Fine. I’ll look for the unscented ones.”
He raises an eyebrow. “You gave in quick.”
“It’s your farewell ritual,” you dismiss. “You get to pick what you want.”
The word ritual makes him shift a little, like the floor just tilted.
Still, he watches you try every wick, tilt, examine, estimate, burn, reject, and gives each one a onceover when you hand it to him.
You hold up a heart-shaped one with a wick where the thought should be.
“Absolutely not,” he says, before you finish raising your eyebrows.
“Statement piece?”
“My statement is, ‘no.’” He picks up a pack of plain church candles and checks the burn time like he’s buying a second-hand car. “These.”
You drop it into the cart.
He doesn’t remove it. You grin only when you turn away.
“What if we get her something she’d like?” you say. “Maybe it’ll be more effective.”
“They got any jellybean flavoured candles?” he mumbles.
“No, but we can get a bunch of them and melt them together.”
Bucky finally settles on something vaguely berry scented, but with glitter in it.
Matches. Chalk. You pick the cheap white stuff as a compromise even though you eye the neon ones very strongly.
You swing into the hardware aisle.
“Bell?” you ask.
“That wasn’t on the list.”
“It’d be cute. Maybe she’ll like the noise.”
Bucky gives you a look.
“Small,” you add. “Not obnoxious.”
He finds a plain brass bell the size of a thumb. Rings it once, soft. The air wraps itself around the sound.
“That one,” he says.
“Why did you say yes?” you ask.
“It’s not a big deal, it’s a bell.”
“No, not the bell,” you dismiss. “To this whole thing.”
He keeps his eyes on the shelf too long, thumb rubbing the ridge of the bell until the skin goes pale. The first time you pitched it, it had sounded purposeful. But standing here under fluorescent lights, holding a bell for Becca, it feels different. Like he’s handing pieces of her over to strangers who’ll eat it and scroll on.
He picks up some thyme and holds it up under the light.
“Because you asked,” he says simply, examining it.
“That can’t be the standard. I ask you for nonsense three times a day.”
He looks at you in the harsh light of the grocery store. His eyes skip past you too quickly, like they’re not allowed to linger.
“You could’ve said no.
“I tried that for a year,” he says. “Didn’t take.”
You give him a look. “Yeah, but not for this. I’m genuinely surprised you said yes.”
He keeps the trolley rolling another foot, stops, steadies his hands on the bar. He could tell you the truth– that it had sounded safe when it was only theory, that he hadn’t thought about the aftermath until the word finale was stamped in ink.
“She would’ve done it,” he says, “She’d have heard me out, called me an idiot, and then lit a candle herself.”
“She sounds persistent.”
“Yeah. Turns out I tend to gravitate towards idiots like that in my life,” he glances at you.
“Hey now,” Your throat has a line in it. “I’m not an idiot. I’m a moron. There’s a difference.”
He hums, putting the thyme back.
You keep moving another half-step before you look back.
He’s looking at the shelves, not you, expression doing that closed-lid thing it does when he’s choosing not to say what he’s thinking.
“What?” you say, softer than you meant.
He avoids your gaze when he says, “She’d have liked you.”
“Oh.” You swallow back a stone.
“She liked people who made rooms work.”
“High praise,” you say, and it doesn’t sound like a joke at all.
Bucky pockets a sprig of rosemary without thinking, then pretends he didn’t. You pretend you didn’t see.
In cleaning products, there’s a bottle called Sunshine Water.
“Does it do anything?”
“Makes the room think kindly of you.”
You dont know how useful it will be, but it goes in the cart.
You drag him to the snack aisle.
“Do we need offerings?” you ask, “She liked strawberries, right?”
“That was Steve,” he says, automatically. Then he hears himself. “But yeah. Becca liked strawberry jam on toast. When we had it.”
You pick up a jar of jam without comment and put it next to the bell.
You reach for chips in a colour best described as radioactive.
He blocks you with the trolley, staring at your hand. “Not in the perimeter,” he says.
“Say ‘perimeter’ again,” you say, climbing onto the trolley’s lower bar. “Make it sexy.”
“You’re worse when you’re tired.”
“You’re worse when I’m awake,” you reply.
He tilts his head. “There’ll be crumbs.”
“Foresight. You are unreasonably good at this.”
“I am aggressively medium at everything,” he says.
You replace the chips with pretzels. He slides across a bag of roasted nuts. You add obscene marshmallows shaped like snowmen.
“We’re not four,” he says.
“Speak for yourself,” you say, dropping a second bag in. “You can have some if you’re good.”
He pushes the trolley on, the ghost of a smile at the corner of his mouth, which is unfair because he wins every argument by simply owning that mouth.
He lets you win more than he should, because he’s already on his way to acknowledging the fact that won’t get to lose to you anymore.
The trolley rolls. You stick your arms out.
“Feet down.”
“Why,” you sing, and then the trolley hits a tile seam and you wobble. His hand snaps to your hip, steady and unshowy. You feel it in three separate organs.
You step off like nothing happened. He keeps walking like nothing happened. You both fail to breathe for six paces.
You find the sour gummies. Put one bag in. He watches you do it. You put another bag in. He lifts one out and replaces it with a smaller bag.
You scowl. He doesn’t bother hiding the second smile.
“Something warm for after,” you remember, at the end of the aisle. “Brandy? Whiskey? Tequila, but then we’d have to invite Nat.”
A bottle of whiskey levitates towards you from god knows where.
He doesn’t budge, “Hot chocolate.”
“You’re unbelievable.”
“Hot chocolate,” he repeats, and steers you toward the aisle.
“Fine,” you grumble, coming to a stop in front of the shelf. “Hot chocolate it is.”
“You’ll like it better.”
“You’ll miss the whiskey when we’re stuck with hot chocolate at the end of the night.”
“I’ll take that risk.” He leans in from your left to take it, one hand braced on the trolley’s bar.
You’re about to make a joke about ‘taking that whisk’ when he leans in and presses his mouth to your temple, brief and unthinking. The sort of kiss you give a person you’ve been brave around for a very long time.
You go quite still.
He doesn’t realise, for the span of a heartbeat, what he’s done. You feel the moment he does: the fractional withdrawal, the impulse to apologise or throw it away.
He goes perfectly still, too, like the way not to startle a wild thing. He doesn’t even look like he knows which of you is the wild thing.
Bucky pushes the trolley ahead again because his hands remember how to do things when his brain has temporarily left the building.
The trolley fills with sensible things and not. Somewhere by the end of Household Miscellaneous he peels off and returns with a cheap wooden frame. He doesn’t meet your eye. You don’t ask. He slides it under the salt and the rosemary, and leaves it face down.
Tea. He chooses mango, which you learn is what he likes the most now, and chamomile because it’s the most consistent.
An older woman stares at Bucky like he’s a memory she can’t place.
“You’re that man,” she says, delighted.
“Unfortunately,” he replies, polite.
“You make the videos,” she tells her trolley, and wanders on, satisfied.
“Famous,” you whisper to him. “Can’t take you anywhere.”
He doesn’t smile. He is smiling.
You cut through the pet aisle for Alpine because you are weak. Bucky grabs heavy litter.
“Are we forgetting anything?” you ask, doing the ritual pre-till scan. “Chalk, tape, salt, candles, bell, nails, thread, rosemary, jam, tea, cups, cloths, frame, butcher paper, soap, painkillers, pretzels.”
He taps the chain. That’s his answer.
At the tills, a teenager drops your items in front of the scanner.
“Party?” she asks, flat.
“Work,” Bucky says.
“Sorry,” she says.
When she lifts the bell, she rings it.
You pay because the least you can do is fund his farewell ritual.
Bucky pockets the receipt because he will not let you pay for 15 candles alone. He is a gentleman.
The marshmallows though, you are on your own.
The next night doesn’t begin with thunder or rain or anything out of the million movies you watched in preparation.
It begins the way you promised it would: tidy, steady, everything in its place.
Chalk circle down. Salt seam straight as a ruler. Iron nails at the four quarters, heads pointing in like compass points. Bell in the middle. Candles, unscented and assorted, set in a triangle and then left alone because it’s his call.
You’ve wiped the table with Sunshine Water. Windows are closed, music off, phones away.
You run your eyes over the list one last time, a habit more than a need.
He stands just outside the circle, sleeves shoved to the elbow. His hands flex against his thighs, and he’s staring directly at the floor.
“You good?” you ask, voice low
He nods once. “Let’s do it.”
You’re about to strike the first match when something stops you. A flicker in your chest, an impulse that’s been nagging for weeks.
“Hold on.”
Bucky’s brows knit, match still in his hand. He pinches out the flame before it can catch, gaze snapping to you like you’ve just called the whole thing off.
He can’t say he doesn’t feel a bit relieved.
You dig into your pocket to find a small little bag. You’ve been carrying it around for three weeks. It’s been the wrong time every time since.
You fish out it out and leave it out on his outstretched palm.
“For you,” you say.
He looks at the pouch and then at you, as if you’ve just placed a live wire on the bar and asked him to keep still.
He opens it. A thin chain. A simple charm, ugly in a way that suggests it’s here to work, not to be photographed.
His breath leaves on a sound that’s closer to a laugh but not. “What is this?”
“From the charm lady at Paracon,” you explain softly. “She was a little intense, but she knew her stuff. Before you complain, yeah, I know there are stronger ways to do protection. But this one fits over your big head, so.”
He exhales.
“May I?” you ask.
He nods, dipping his head without theatre. You step in close, your fingers skim the side of his throat, warm skin over steady pulse, as you work the clasp. For a heartbeat too long you leave it there, knuckles brushing his collarbone, before the chain falls into place.
The clasp clicks; the charm settles against his sternum like punctuation finally arriving at the end of a sentence.
He breathes once, and the chain lifts with it. Neither of you step back. The silence is suddenly thick, reverent, fragile in a way you don’t want to break.
“Alright,” he says, very quietly.
He straightens. You step back.
“Alright,” you echo, forcing yourself to move on
He stands inside the circle, sleeves pushed to the elbow, the thin chain you gave him sitting square against his sternum.
He’s barefoot. It looks right.
“Alright,” you repeat, softer now. “We start small. We stop if you want to stop.”
He nods, eyes fixed on the bell in the center. He hasn’t looked at you in a full thirty seconds, like if he meets your gaze the whole fragile thing will collapse.
“Last chance to regret this,” you offer, because tradition is tradition.
His mouth tugs at one corner, though it doesn’t quite make it into a smile.
The silence stretches after that, heavier than before. The house is too quiet. His bare toes flex against the chalk line, a restless tell.
The matchbox is warm in his hand, but he doesn’t strike it yet.
You watch him, patient.
He finally drags in a breath. The match flares, sudden, spilling gold light over his face. The shadows carve him older.
The air thickens. He shifts his stance, shoulders pulling tight, and the thought comes sharp and unwelcome: God, what is he doing?
He doesn’t say it out loud, instead watching as you light the candles, one and then the other. The kitchen looks immediately different, more menacing.
You wet your fingers with the Sunshine Water and flick it over the circle, a soft hiss as drops hit warm wax.
“For those who love us and wish us well,” you read from the paper, steady. “For those who kept watch when we weren’t watching. You’re welcome here. You’re safe here. You can rest when you’re ready.”
The temperature eases down a notch.
You glance at him. “Say her name?”
He swallows, then says it carefully, “Rebecca Barnes. Peanut. Bec if you’re in a hurry.”
“Bec,” you repeat, respectful. “We’re not sending you away. We’re making you a door and asking you to choose. If you’re here, you’re welcome. If you’re tired, we’ll make it easy. If you want him to stop guessing, say so.”
Bucky’s hand rests on the bell. His knuckles are white against the brass, but he doesn’t ring it yet. His chest rises, falls.
When he finally speaks, it’s unsteady but certain.
“Hey, Becks. If you’re here… sit where you like. And then-- he glances at you, something wry and unbearably fond flickering across his face “--we’ll talk.”
The room exhales. Pressure shifts. The candles stand straighter, flames drawn tall and thin.
“Becca,” you add, lighter now, almost teasing. “I brought your brother to a sensible circle with sensible candles. I know you’d have opinions.”
The rosemary smokes without flame. A curl of grey, faint as breath. The fine hair at Bucky’s temple lifts, stirred by a current you can’t see.
The planchette twitches. A little scratch of wood against wood. It scoots sideways, stops, and then does a slow, deliberate circle that’s more flourish than necessary. Show-off.
You inhale. “I think she’s here.”
He doesn’t look surprised, just stricken.
“Hi, kid,” he says, voice thinned to almost nothing.
The bell answers for him. One clear tap against the rim, like a polite child at a service counter. Bucky’s mouth shifts, a recognition more than a smile.
“Alright,” he murmurs. “Come on then.”
At first it’s almost imperceptible. The rosemary sprig slides an inch, then two, as if pulled by a string.
The box of matches tilts, rights itself, then edges toward him with a stubborn little scrape. A cool draft skims your forearms.
You hold your breath and wait.
Bucky’s eyes flick toward the far corner without turning his head.
His voice changes, lighter, scolding out of habit. “Don’t even think about the kettle.”
The kettle, obedient for years, clicks on.
“Becca,” he warns, the tone all older brother.
It clicks off again.
Something weightless taps his shoulder. Nothing visible, but you catch the subtle shift as he angles his body, unconsciously making space for someone smaller.
Then it’s no longer subtle. A marshmallow arcs across the room with balletic spite, smacking his collarbone and leaving a sugar bloom on his shirt.
He blinks at the offending puff, then at the bag it came from, hand half-lifted in a useless “that’s enough” gesture that convinces precisely no one.
Two more marshmallows follow in quick succession.
A tea light scrapes sideways. The bell chimes once, sharp and impatient. Your pen rolls off the table, clattering to the floor and skittering to your foot like it’s joining in.
You bend, pick it up, and set it carefully back inside the circle.
“Hi,” you say, as gently as you know how. “Nice to finally meet you. I’m your brother’s friend.”
The room’s cold edge softens a fraction.
Bucky’s fringe lifts, tugged by invisible fingers. He huffs, automatic. “We’ve talked about this. Do not pull my hair. Don’t wanna bald faster than I already am.”
The air tugs again, sharper, downright cheeky. He twitches, fighting a smile.
“Becca,” he whines, already this close to laughing. The sound makes him younger by years.
Something rattles near the sink.
“No crockery,” Bucky deadpans, without even looking.
A coaster slides across the island with neat precision and taps the back of his hand. He blinks, then taps it back with two fingers– a rhythm so simple it means nothing to you, but from the look on his face, you know it means a lot more to him.
“Alright, Peanut,” he says, voice caught between authority and affection. “Ground rules apply.”
You can’t help it: a smile breaks across your face at how different the whole evening was shaping up to be. After all, in the end, it was just a little sister doing what little sisters do best– annoying the hell out of her brother, even from the other side.
“Okay,” you say, biting your grin back because his mouth, traitor that it is, keeps trying to go soft. “This is going well.”
“Don’t encourage her,” he warns, deadpan, but his eyes betray him. They’re bright in a way you’ve never seen before.
A small gust swirls the salt line, playful as a finger through sand. The bell tips to one side, rights itself again, smug about it.
You unfold the makeshift board, the same one from the first night he swore she’d come through. You set it between the candles and the bell, balancing the shot glass over the center. Light as breath.
Bucky slides his fingers onto the wood. For a second, his hand hovers. You can see it in his shoulders: the pull to step back, to shut the door before it opens too wide.
But he doesn’t. He anchors the planchette with two fingers.
The planchette drifts. It bumps his knuckle. You watch his mouth find something like the shape of a laugh and then give up, because laughing is less accurate than what’s happening.
“Throw your best shot if you’ve got it,” he says.
A pretzel flicks him in the ear from a ridiculous angle. The bell chimes once, sharp and pleased, like a kid clapping for herself.
His hoodie string tugs on its own and flicks him in the chin.
He scoffs, long-suffering but helplessly fond. “That’s very mature.”
The letters drag him toward J. He stills, the planchette trembling under his fingers. Then, with quiet certainty, it slides to A.
You keep your eyes on the board, not on him. You make yourself into furniture, because this isn’t yours.
M.
His breath leaves him. The tiny, private world you’ve been trying to build around him all year, suddenly older than both of you, suddenly full, not empty.
“Hey,” he says, softer than you’ve ever heard his voice. “I need to say some things. Sit still, would ya?”
The planchette stills. The flame nearest his wrist lifts tall and straight, like it’s listening.
He reaches under the island. You’d seen him tuck the envelope there earlier. Now he draws it out with hands that aren’t quite steady and sets it by the nearest candle, right on the seam of the circle.
“For you,” he says, to the table, to the air, to the three inches of space he hopes are occupied. “Read it when you’re bored of throwing things.”
The envelope lifts an inch, two.
The air holds itself taut, like the whole room is holding its breath with you.
His throat bobs. His eyes stay fixed on the paper.
“I’ve been… living the wrong way round.” The words are slow, deliberate. “Kept thinking if I ignored it long enough, it’d go away. But it didn’t. That’s not how it works.”
His jaw tightens, but the words keep coming. “I’m sorry I left you with all the difficult bits. And I’m sorry I wasn’t there to tell you I thought you were the best of us.” His voice dips rough, steadying itself against the edges. “I couldn’t have had your back, even though I really fuckin’ wish I did. I know that too. I still wish I had.”
The envelope tilts in the air like someone weighing it. The candle gutters once, recovers.
The planchette shivers, then pulls steady, letter by letter.
M. I. S. S. U.
It lingers there, like it’s catching its breath, deciding whether to say more.
Then, with sudden certainty, it slides quick across the board: J. A. M.
Bucky goes still. His jaw locks; his fingers slide off the planchette and fall heavy to his thigh. For once he doesn’t bother to hide the wreckage on his face.
“Yeah,” he says, raw and unadorned. “Me too, Peanut.”
Something invisible flicks his hair again, softer this time.
The bell chimes once, quiet as a nod.
The planchette drifts toward the edge of the board. Pauses, toeing the grain like a foot hovering at a doorway. Then it settles on the word you’d written months ago in uneven pen: goodbye.
Bucky’s chest rises once, long and deliberate.
“Alright,” he says, steadying himself on the word. “We’re good.”
You clear your throat, practical because someone has to be. “Rules still stand. You can swing back if you want to tell him to knock it off, but you don’t have to keep carrying him. He’s heavier than he looks.”
The candle nearest the envelope gutters, then steadies again.
Bucky leans back, but his eyes stay locked on the envelope. It’s as if he’s trying to read through the paper, through the wax seal, through time itself to all the words he put inside and the thousand he didn’t.
His knuckles tap gently against the table, the same rhythm he’d used on the coaster.
A habit she’d recognise from breakfast tables eons ago.
“Go on,” he says to the air, to the weight of it. “I’ll see you when I see you.”
And just like that, the atmosphere shifts. The cold edge leaves, replaced by a warmth, the sort of warm that belongs to mugs and chairs.
The planchette sits where you left it.
You ring the bell once, and the sound feels final, like a line drawn under a paragraph.
“Close?” you ask.
“Close,” he agrees.
You sweep the salt inward, not out.
“Do we have to… say anything to finish it?” he asks. His voice is worn but clean, stripped of everything except what’s necessary.
You glance at the planchette. It sits still, waiting. “We could say thank you,” you offer.
He nods once, eyes lowered to the circle at his feet. “Thanks for everything, Bec. I got it from here on.”
The words land with a quiet thud.
You step forward, brush the chain at his throat with two fingers and then step out of the circle.
He rises after a long beat. There’s a brightness to him that isn’t relief so much as rightness, the kind that makes your chest ache.
He lifts the envelope carefully, reverently, and tucks it into his hoodie pocket the same way he’d tucked the chain under his shirt earlier, like something belongs to him after all.
“Hot chocolate?” you remind him, though you both know you don’t need to.
“Thought you’d forgotten,” he says, though you both know you didn’t.
You hold out a hand.
He takes it, and for a second his hand trembles.
You keep your own steady, and say nothing about it.
“Thank you,” he says finally,
“Don’t thank me. I just read the instructions,” you reply gently. “You were good. You didn’t make a speech at the air.”
A breath escapes him that’s almost a laugh. “She’d have laughed at me.”
You’re wiping a streak of salt from your sleeve when he opens his mouth again. Hesitates. Closes it. Then tries once more, quieter this time, stripped bare.
“You think she read it?” he asks finally, without the usual armour.
You look at him, at the tired brightness in his eyes.
“I think she knew most of it already,” you say softly. “But yes.”
He nods, jaw working once, and lets it rest there.
You head toward the hall together. His fingers brush yours, then take hold properly. You let him.
Behind you, the planchette gives one last lazy nudge. Just leaving a fingerprint on clean glass. Proof she passed by, and that for a moment, she stayed.
Maya doesn’t bother with hello. She drops two paper cups on the glass table and taps the lid of one.
“Decaf for you,” she tells you. “Because you shake when you’re excited.”
Then she sits, opens her notebook to a page already half-destroyed by post-its, and exhales through her nose in the long-suffering way she usually does.
Eventually, she does that flat-palmed tap on the glass table that means you’re already behind.
“Walk me through outcomes,” she says.
You slide the laptop round so she can see the frame you opened on. Bucky can feel the meeting air con move past his wrist as he fiddles with his fingers.
“Closed loop on the season’s narrative debt,” you say, steady. “We promised an answer; we delivered one.”
Maya’s eyebrow does a half-centimetre. “Brand-safe, then. Good. Where did you land on disclaimers?”
“We open with context card,” you reply. “No ‘don’t try this at home,’ just ‘this is personal; viewer discretion is adviced.’ Legal won’t have hives.”
Bucky watches her, feeling that familiar prickle that means he’d like to be anywhere else, preferably on fire.
Personal, he thinks. That’s one word for it.
But he keeps it quiet. He’d agreed. He’d sat in those early meetings, nodded along, even thrown in his own ideas. But sitting here now, watching his sister’s memory shrink down into bullet points and timelines, he feels it clawing wrong in his chest.
“Lift?” Maya asks.
“the subreddit’s already building the timeline. PR can seed three exclusives,” you say.
Maya taps two knuckles twice. “Cadence.”
“T-3 trailer, T-1 micro, 8 p.m. Sunday drop, no live chat, stills Tuesday, then radio silence.”
“Good.” She clicks her pen. “Risks.”
“Derail into grief tourism if we let the wrong pull-quote out,” you say. “Counter is to let the work speak. Keep Bucky off live streams for seventy-two hours so he doesn’t ‘I’m fine’ himself into a hole.”
“I am literally here,” Bucky says, because someone has to.
“Which is why I plan,” Maya says, not unkindly. “Okay. What’s your trailer moment?”
You scrub forward: the pencilled letters, the planchette nudging. A line of text appears across the board: MISS U JAM.
Maya watches it through once, eyes not once leaving the screen.
“That,” she says, soft once and then brisk again, “is your finale.”
He hates the word. He’s been hating it for weeks.
She stands. No hugging. Just the nod you get when a skyscraper goes up on time.
“We’ll carry the press,” she adds, already ticking off the exit steps. “You keep your phones off. We’ll send the line for ‘what happens after this’ and you will stick to it. I don’t need either of you improvising on live television.”
You both nod. She tucks the pen into her notebook, closes it without looking, then looks at you because you still haven’t moved.
“I would say it was a pleasure working with the both of you…” she trails off.
You give her a big grin and she shakes her head.
“Fine,” she says, making her way out the door. “Mastering by Friday. Credit lock by noon. If either of you changes a comma after that, I will come to your homes and strangle you.”
At the last split second, a smile upturns the corner of her mouth as she pauses by the door.
“For the record,” she says, quieter, “you did right by her. It’s… good work.”
Bucky and you glance at each other.
“I like you both more when you’re not talking,” she adds, before leaving
The door clicks behind her. .
You’re still standing there, that wry smile in place, professional and terrible.
Bucky stares at you, at the edges of your mouth that don’t quite match your eyes, at the way you hold your shoulders like you’re already halfway turned to leave.
And it hits him – that’s the look you wear when you’re bracing to slip out of a room without anyone stopping you.
It makes his chest feel scraped raw.
Then you hold out your hand.
Bucky stares at it too long. His pulse thuds in his ears. It looks obscene and beautiful at once: a handshake at the end of a job, a curtain call, an exit.
Something in his chest pulls tight, because he knows what it means.
He takes it anyway,
“Well, partner, we made the numbers, you got your closure,” you drawl. “It appears our work here is done.”
The smile on your face doesn’t change, but he swears your eyes shutter. Just a flicker, like you’ve already filed this away as finished.
Bucky’s stomach gives that slow, awful roll, “Now what.”
“I don’t know,” you say, light, professional. “I’ll see you soon, I guess.”
What the fuck.
It doesn’t make a sound in the room. It’s just the way his fingers don’t close around anything. They just hover, useless.
“Catch you later?” he tries to ask. It does not come out steadily at all.
“Maybe,” you hum. “Don’t mope if you can’t find me.”
He searches your face for any crack, for hesitation, for anything that says that he’ll find you here the next morning. But all he finds is that same wry professionalism, practiced enough to be convincing.
It lands cleanly in his chest and then wrong, like a picture frame he can’t get level. He keeps moving anyway.
Silence drops in.
Alright, he tells himself, eyes on the varnished seam of the floor. If this is where it’s ending, he’ll let go. That’s the deal, isn’t it?
He tries to make his mouth remember a joke. It doesn’t.
“You wish,” he says.
That’s what you do when they look like they’re halfway out the door already.
You grin, before cleanly escaping the room.
Bucky’s left staring.
Steve throws a party.
Bucky doesn’t clock the reason until the third time someone tells him. Everyone’s wrapped their seasons. A wrap party.
Sam’s on music and abusing the privilege. Clint’s wearing a hat that might actually be radioactive. Wanda asks where his “other half” is, and Bucky mutters “Busy,” like a placeholder.
You’re not here.
He excuses himself to the kitchen, pretending to eat something that may or may not be food.
Really, he’s just trying to get his hands to stop twitching. He checks his phone. Again. No messages.
Your thread glows back at him. His thumb hovers over the call button. He presses.
One ring. Two. Five. Voicemail.
By the time he looks up, Steve’s closing in, grinning, a tin under one arm.
“Congratulations,” Steve says. “I brought nonsense.”
“Always wanted nonsense,” Bucky answers, voice steadier than he feels. “What is it this time?”
“War cake,” Steve says proudly, lifting the towel. “Eggless, milkless, butterless. I had to boil the raisins.”
Bucky eyes the tin. “So it’s… cake with the cake left out.”
“Exactly,” Steve says, uncovering it with a flourish. The room fills with cinnamon and cloves. “Go on.”
Bucky breaks off a piece.
He chews. He swallows.
Then he gives a small, traitorous nod.
“Not terrible,” he admits.
Steve’s grin could power a block. He carves himself a wedge.
The cake is dense, sweet, oddly good.
“So,” Steve says around a mouthful, “end of the season. You did it.”
“Mm.”
Steve studies him. “You alright?”
“Fine.” Too fast.
Bucky picks at the edge of the tea towel. He’s thinking about the way your hand felt in his palm in that glass room.
The words you used, and the way you said it.
I’ll see you soon.
Anodyne. Disposable. The kind of phrase that doesn’t mean anything when you’re already half-turned to leave.
He hasn’t checked if you’re gone yet. He can’t. He just knows he hasn’t seen you since you walked out that door.
“What’s going on?” Steve asks.
So Bucky relents, because he’s become strangely sentimental over the last few months.
Steve leans a hip against the counter. “Soon as in…?”
“That’s the question,” Bucky says. “I don’t know.”
“Ask,” Steve says, like it’s easy. .
“That’s not–” He stops, huffs. “Ain’t this what you're supposed to do? Let someone go, if they want to.”
Steve turns the tin lid over in his hands, considers the shine. “Sometimes. Or you say what you mean and let them decide with all the information. Advice from the world’s leading authority on waiting too late to say things you want to.”
Bucky’s mouth pulls. “There’s nothin’ to say.””
“Keep tellin’ yourself that,” Steve says. “Maybe you’ll talk yourself into believing it like with everything else.”
That gets him, unexpected.
A short, unwilling laugh leaves Bucky’s chest before he can lock it down. He shakes his head.
“I’m trying to be—” he gropes for a word, settles on the smallest one. “Good.”
“You are,” Steve says, no hesitation. “Now stop hiding behind it.”
Bucky shifts, uncomfortable.
“You don’t want to risk hearing no,” Steve goes on, calm as ever. “You spent a century doin’ what you were told, and now that you can choose, you keep pretending you can’t. You’re being a little bitch.”
Bucky exhales hard through his nose.
Steve softens a hair, but only a hair. “You’re not some accident, Buck. You don’t just ‘happen’ to people. You get to say what you want.”
Bucky mutters, “What do you want me to say? ‘Stay?’ I’ve made it pretty fuckin’ obvious.”
Steve levels him with a look. “‘I want you to stay. If you don’t, I’ll survive. But I want you to stay.’ Not complicated. Try English instead of martyr.”
.Bucky huffs a broken laugh. “You rehearse this?”
“I’ve known you since you were two feet tall,” Steve says. “I got a whole notebook.”
Bucky stares at the door. The door stares back.
“It’ll be fine,” Steve says.
Bucky nods, sharp. Turns. Hesitates. Turns back.
“Go.”
He goes.
He goes.
The corridor is the same length it’s always been, but it feels colder tonight.
The corridor stretches the same length it always has, but tonight it feels endless.
Cooler too, like the air itself is keeping him out.
Every radiator that bangs, every scuff on the skirting– he knows them all by heart, but they feel like they’re counting him down. His boots make no sound at all, and that makes it worse.
He stops outside your door.
For a long second, he does what he’s always done: listens.
Waits for the shuffle of feet, the hitch of breath, any sign you’re still on the other side.
Nothing.
Just stillness so complete it makes his pulse roar in his ears.
His stomach knots.
He breathes once. Knocks.
Nothing.
He knocks again, softer, as though gentleness will change the answer.
Still nothing.
Alright. That’s it.
You’re gone. You slipped away clean, like you promised you would.
He’s too late. He’s fucked it.
His chest feels like it’s folding in on itself.
He waits anyway, stupidly, one more beat, just in case the universe feels generous.
The universe stays silent.
He turns, already rehearsing the fight he’ll pick with Steve for shoving him into this, already bracing himself for the hollow that’s about to open under his ribs.
But his feet don’t move.
He stands there frozen, the quiet pressing down on him, and then curses sharp and loud.
Before he can talk himself out of it, his hand is on the handle.
He shoves it down and pushes the door open.
The room is bare.
Bare in the same way it’s always been. No photos. No decoration. No fingerprints left behind. It looks less like a bedroom than a stage set.
His stomach hollows out. His throat tastes of metal.
For one awful second, he thinks he’s staring at a crime scene: already emptied, already abandoned.
Then he sees it.
The lamp catches on the small wooden house sitting on the dresser.
His heart kicks hard against his ribs before his brain catches up. The house. The one he made you.
For a flicker of a moment, hope scrapes through him, but it sours fast.
If you were gone, you’d have taken it. Wouldn’t you? Or maybe you left it behind because it didn’t matter.
He crosses the room anyway. His hand finds it before he can stop himself. Thumb along the roofline, forefinger against the porch rail he’d sanded too thin. He can smell cedar if he tries hard enough. He remembers the stupid satisfaction of pressing it into your hand.
The silence in the room is too final. Too still.
“Fuck,” he mutters, dragging both hands over his face.
He paces once, twice. The window glares back at him, blank and black.
A book hits the floor behind him.
He turns.
Alpine is perched on the middle shelf, tail coiled neat around her paws. Her yellow eyes pin him in place, unblinking.
Before he can open his mouth, she lifts one paw and bats a book off the shelf. It lands spine-first with a crack.
“What,” Bucky snaps, frayed nerves showing.
She blinks once, then sets her paw on the next book. A deliberate pause. Then she shoves.
The thud echoes louder in the quiet room.
“Cut it out,” he barks. His chest is still tight from the silence in the hall. “Not in the mood.”
Alpine ignores him completely. Her paw slides to a third book. Push. Crash.
Bucky steps forward, half a mind to catch the next one, but her paw is already on the fourth.
“Alpine.” His voice cracks on it. “Enough.”
The fourth book hits the floor. She shifts her paw to the fifth.
And then finally, horribly it strikes him.
His stomach flips.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” he mutters, dragging a hand down his face.
Her paw presses meaningfully against the sixth book.
“Jesus Christ, stop, I know what you’re saying,” he bites, louder now, panic bleeding through. “And you can literally talk.”
She does not move the paw.
The book drops anyway.
Alpine hops down, tail high, regal as ever. She passes him without a glance, smug in every step.
“I’m communicating in a medium you understand,” she radiates, “violence.”
Bucky exhales hard, raking a hand through his hair. “You’re so fucking annoying.”
She flicks her tail toward the door, already done with him.
And then it sinks in fully.
His pulse spikes all over again.
His legs are already moving before the thought finishes forming.
Bucky, god bless him, arrives like a Category 5 weather event.
He slams the door with his shoulder, breath gone, hair a mess, eyes wild enough that the security camera would phone a friend. You blink at him over the spine.
You blink up from the carpeted corner, with an open book and a packet of high-res scans by your feet.
“You good?” you ask, cautious, as if he might start speaking in tongues.
“You’re still here,” he gets out,
“I only just got here.” You glance at the clock. “Like, it’s been twenty minutes, man.”
He presses off the door and crosses to you on long, purposeful strides that are at odds with the way his chest is still working. He drops into his usual place beside you, shoulder to shoulder, boots in the same scuffed rectangle of carpet he’s worn in all year.
“Are you leaving?” he demands, low.
“I was going to get a snack later, but that’s the extent of my grand plan.” You close the book over a finger. “What do you look like that for?”
“Like what?” He drags a sleeve over his mouth, trying to corral his breath.
“Well… unhinged.” You tip your head, taking him in.
He scrubs a hand over the back of his neck. “Thought I missed you.”
“Missed me? Missed me wh– hold on.” You tip your head. “Did you think I was skipping town?”
He gestures vaguely at the ceiling, the floor, the entire concept of objects. “Yeah?”
“Oh.” You blink. “Well, I’m not.”
It’s physical, the way the tightness leaves him.
He closes his eyes for a second. “Fine. Okay. Good.”
You snort. “And what, this was you bursting in to give me fifteen reasons to stay?”
“Fifteen is stretching it.”
“And then what? You kiss me?” you say, airy, testing.
He looks at you, steady now. “And what if I did? Would that be such a big problem?”
You hold his gaze a beat longer than is safe. “Well… no. I suppose not.”
He rolls his eyes at the ceiling.
“Never beating the ‘you have feelings for me’ allegations, Barnes.”
“Yeah,” he says, slow, like you’re being dense on purpose. “Because I do. You know this.”
“God, there goes my leverage.” You sigh, theatrical. “How am I supposed to annoy you with that if you just admit it?”
“You’ll find a way.”
He says it like a fact and sits back. And ridiculously, stupidly, it feels like someone’s taken a weight off his chest and put it on the table where the light can see it. The room changes shape around it.
A quiet beat stretches.
“Me too, you know,” you say, almost casual.
“Figured.”
“I mean I have feelings for me, too.”
He has to bite the inside of his cheek. “Who else would you be talking about.”
You fiddle with the receipt you’ve used as a bookmark.
The air between you thins. His shoulder is warm against yours.
“Anything else you want to confess while you’re here?” you ask, half-light, half-daring.
He doesn’t answer right away. His throat works. His fingers flex against his knee, like he’s trying to bleed the nerves out of them.
“Yeah,” he says finally, voice lower than before. “Actually… I don’t want to publish the video.”
Your head tips.
He keeps going, quick now, like if he stops he won’t start again.
“I know I said I was fine, but I’m not. I don’t want it out there. I don’t want–” his breath snags, sharp, “--I just don’t want it.”
Silence, except for the sound of the printers breathing in the corner.
You nod once, like you were waiting for this exact moment. “I know.”
His eyes snap to yours.
“I already pulled it,” you say, calm. “Turned my phone off before Maya could reach through it and stab me after everything we spent on promo.”
He blinks, startled. It takes him a beat too long to process.
“It’s between you and Becca.” You give him a small, steady smile. “No one else needs to see it.”
He finds it in himself to give a small nod.
“Anything else?” you ask, tone joking.
“You can’t leave.”
Your eyebrows shoot up. “Oh?”
“It’s not a good idea.”
“Compelling argument.”
He grimaces at himself. “That was a terrible sentence. Forget that. Look– in the clock tower, you asked how I knew. I knew you weren’t paying attention to the details. I know that because even then, months ago, you’d been here long enough for me to notice. That you’d probably missed something, because you always said details were a waste of time.”
Something flickers in your face.
He turns until you’re angled knee-to-knee, thighs almost brushing. His hand braces on the carpet close enough that your knuckles nearly touch. The proximity is ridiculous for a guy who, a year ago, spoke to you exclusively in grunts and prolonged glares.
“You’ve already laid down roots,” he says, shoulders loosening in defeat. “So go wherever you want. Do whatever you want. But all I’m sayin’ is I’d like it if you came home at the end of the day.”
He looks away on purpose, like he can fake not caring for ten seconds. You watch him not succeed.
“What,” he barks, without heat, when he feels you smiling.
“You know,” you say quietly, “I wasn’t actually planning to move out.”
That rocks him. He looks up fast. “No?”
“No.” Your mouth tugs. “Sorry I stole your big moment.”
“I’ll find a way to forgive you.” He clears his throat.
“You could still give me twenty-five reasons you want me to stay.”
“No.”
“Twenty, and we’ll call it eve—”
He leans in and kisses you.
It knocks the air straight out of your ribs. His mouth catches yours in a soft, sure press, and you tilt into it without thinking, a sound caught low in your throat. He’s careful for exactly one heartbeat. And then you’re moving, answering, tugging him in by the front of his hoodie, knees knocking clumsily on the carpet.
The corner of his mouth catches your smile. You laugh once against his mouth, stupid, breathless, and he chases it like he’s been starved for it. You taste like mint, the electric edge of adrenaline. The warmth of him presses in until there’s no room left for air.
“Didn’t miss this time,” you murmur, an echo from a different doorway, a different nearly.
“Thank god,” he huffs, helpless.
He kisses you again, quick but just as sure. The whole world reduced to four square feet of carpet.
“Just so we’re clear,” you say into his mouth, “this is terrible for my eloping-with-a-ghost-bride agenda.”
He kisses you for that, too, because one, it’s so incredibly stupid, and two, now that he’s started he doesn’t seem to see the point of stopping. his one is slower, longer, his lips sliding against yours, your palm pressed to the back of his neck, holding him there.
One of your knees bumps the leg of the table; the printers choose that moment to cough a sheet into the tray. Neither of you looks.
Time turns elastic until you finally peel apart, shaky with adrenaline, the kind of silence that only feels possible after a storm.
“Okay,” he says eventually, voice wrecked, eyes too bright. “So what are you doing here, then? You’re missing Steve’s raisin vinegar cake.”
You tip your head, lips still parted, and tug a white sheet from the stack beside you. It glides across the carpet until it rests at his boot.
“I was researching,” you say. “You kinda need to do that if you want to pitch another season.”
His brow furrows, until he sees the title.
Renewal Agreement: The Graveyard Shift Season Two
The grin that blooms across his face isn’t careful at all. Hoodie tugged crooked from your fists, hair mussed from your hands, he looks nothing like careful anyway.
“But that’s secondary.” You push the paper aside for the moment. “I believe we were discussing twenty five reasons you want me to stay.”
He gives you a look that could undo a saint. “No.”
“No? Twenty and we’ll call it even–”
He kisses you again, deeper, slower.
It seems to do the trick.
here’s my ko-fi if you’d like to support my writing!
THANK U TO EVERYONE WHO BOUGHT ME A KO-FI FOR THIS SILLY FIC. IT'S STILL INCONCEIVABLE TO ME THAT YOU LIKED THIS ENOUGH TO PAY ME REAL MONEY FOR IT.
The road is two lanes, sky washed colder.
You turn off where the stone wall dips, tyres crunching over gravel.
The cemetery is small enough to miss if you weren’t looking. It isn’t grand, just sloped grass, old maples that creak in the wind, and a scatter of names.
You climb out first. Bucky follows, hands jammed deep into his jacket. The gate complains once and then lets you through.
He doesn’t need a map. He finds her on the second row like he always does, by the crooked birch, left of the angel with a wing the groundskeeper keeps meaning to mend. You suspect he could walk here blind and still find the right patch of ground.
The letters are clean. Someone’s been here before you or maybe the weather’s been kind. Still, he brushes his thumb along the top edge of the stone, the old soldier’s ritual of removing what isn’t needed.
You take the box from under your arm and set it on the granite. The berries inside are dark and cold, still beaded from the chill of the car. He loosens the lid and slides it halfway off, like he’s making space for company.
“Hey, Peanut,” he says.
His voice roughens at the edges. He clears his throat, lowers himself into a crouch. His metal hand presses into the grass; the other steadies the box.
“Thought we’d stop by,” he adds, thumb worrying a cardboard seam. “Been a while.”
The wind lifts, flicks the string handle, lets it drop.
“We got you strawberries,” you tell her, because you’ve learned he likes it when you speak, too. “And we brought extra so you don’t have to share.”
That cracks a smile out of him. The kind that fades almost before it’s there.
The box lid taps once against the stone like an answer. Or the breeze. Neither of you are keeping score.
From his pocket, Bucky pulls a paper napkin, folded neat. He slides it under the box so the chill won’t bite into the granite. Little courtesies, carried from one life to another.
He lingers there a second longer, palm flat to the stone, before straightening and stepping back, making room for you.
You pat the lid once. “We’ll bring more next time.”
For a while, the two of you just stand there side by side, the grass bending at your boots, the trees shifting overhead.
When you head back to the gate, he stops halfway and looks over his shoulder. The box sits neat against the grey. The napkin has decided to stay.
On the walk back, the wind picks up enough to make you tuck into his side. He opens the passenger door for you without show,
“You good?” you ask, because it’s a question that never hurts to ask twice.
“Yeah.” He nods. Not the lie. You can tell the difference now.
On the road again, the heater finally starts warming his hands. The silence is soft, not heavy.
“Think she’ll mind if we’re late?” you ask.
“I think she knows by now we’re always going to be late,” he says, signalling.
“Last time she said she’d stop giving us the lemon glaze ones.”
“Just make your eyes at her. She’s got a soft spot for you.”
“You saying I make eyes? They work on you?”
He side-eyes you. “Not once.”
You grin at the windscreen. “Liar.”
He reaches across the console without looking, squeezes your knee once. The kind of touch that settles everything.
The miles start stitching again. Trees. A petrol station. A field with exactly one horse.
You rest your head against the glass and catch your reflection, soft-edged in the dark.
“We’re stealing two boxes this time,” you say. “No arguing.”
“It’s not stealing if she’s keeping them for you.”
“I just said no arguing.”
He huffs, but the corner of his mouth twitches.
Ahead, the road leans toward a town that smells like butter and old sugar, and a woman who will pretend she didn’t keep your favourite aside.
You roll the window down two fingers and let the cold air cut sharp and clean, stitching the day into memory.
