Gold Star Shaped Pancakes
Paid Request: @saiyanprincessswanie:
Hi so this is what I was thinking. I was hoping for a Bucky/reader fic. Reader is 5’2, slim but curvy, hazel eyes, brown hair. Quite but can have attitude when she gets overwhelmed with new things. Reader has a similar past like Bucky. (Brainwashed & worked for hydra against will) Steve, Nat, and Bucky end up finding her at a dormant hydra base when they do a recon mission. (Reader was left in a cryostasis) They take her back to Avengers tower where they help her deprogram. Bucky seeing a lot of himself in her has been assigned to help her adjust to everyday life. He shows her his favorite places to eat, favorite places to hike & enjoy nature, Netflix and he teaches her how to slow dance to a favorite 40s big band music. Bucky will build trust with her and shows her something she never experienced in life, love. Mainly would like Falling in love & smut. Reader would be a virgin. Happy ending maybe engaged.
Character: Diana Reader is 5’2, slim but curvy, hazel eyes, brown hair. Quite but can have an attitude when she gets overwhelmed with new things.
Summary: Bucky may have found her but she helped him find himself
Pairing: Bucky Barns x OC
Notes: I also know nothing about guns so I googled guns and then ask my husband.
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There are choices in life that you make and there are choices in life that are made for you.
For Diana, there was a choice that was made for her, one that took all other choices from her.
She had just been a nobody before. An orphan who just held the qualities that they were looking for. A young girl who could blend into any room. Could disappear into a crowd. With sharp eyes and quick reflexes, she was everything that they were looking for.
Those days were nothing but a blur. Just a young girl who was become a woman. Following the orders of the adults who were forming her. Showing her things no one her age should learn. Slowly, so slowly that she didn’t even realize it. That they were taking her choices away.
Until one day there was nothing left.
Now here she is, a woman in a box. A doll. They pull her out when they need her and then put her away. Choices gone, nothing more than a toy for others. A toy of destruction.
It was in her wake. The small doll fading into a crowd leaving a million broken bodies after her. Politicians, businessmen, reporters, and just people who knew too much.
No one thought the grim reaper could be a pretty young woman. Until they were staring her in the face. The barrel of her gun looking down at them.
Even death doesn’t get to choose its victims.
Diana walked through the large weapons room looking over the millions of choices. Choices she didn’t need to make because there was only one for her.
A Remington 700, best in the business. Modified with everything to make it just what any assassin would need for a sniper mission. It was one of 6 But her’s had a small gold star on the butt of the gun. Because of the serum, she had a hard time remembering things so once when she was slightly lucid she had melted it on there. A star to guide her home.
Lovely, she picked up her piece looking it over, finger running over the star for a moment. Faded but etched in there forever. Melted into the iron like a tattoo. A bit of light in the fog of her brain.
Picking up her gun and a few other weapons she walked out of the room and down the hall. Another Hydra killer coming the opposite way. Long dark hair covering his face slightly, body hunched. Diana wouldn’t have even paid him any mind but he roughly bumped into her. Frowning she turned to him his gaze meeting his. Hazy blue meeting smokey hazel, taking everything in yet nothing at all.
Nodding he continued on her way, she had no time for anyone. She was on a mission.
He knew too much. A reporter who had uncovered information on some people who didn't want that information found out. Information that could lead to Hydra.
It was simple enough, scope out the man’s house then break up and kill him. Make it look like a robbery gone wrong.
Nothing she hadn’t done a million times before.
But that day, watching the man great his little daughter dressed in a pink dress with a gold star on her chest. Laugh with his wife over a roast dinner. Read his small child a bedtime story. Just living his life.
She wasn’t sure why she couldn’t. It was as if something inside her cracked slightly and she made a choice. She just wasn’t going to kill this one.
Bucky was sitting in the medical bay getting his arm fixed when one of the nurses came running in. “You need to hurry up,” she said pointing behind her, “They have a rogue they need this bay now.”
Nodding the doctor quickly added the final tweeks muttering something about not getting paid enough when a siren blared. Screaming could be heard and heavy footsteps and then yelling.
“Doctor we need more sedation!”
“She’s been trained, you need to grab her legs.”
Two more workers burst into the room quickly taking Bucky by the arms. Something he never liked “It’s time for you to go.” They said as they quickly pulled him out of the room. Turning for a moment he saw a young woman strapped to a gurney, thrashing about as they moved her quickly down the hall. Her hazel eyes flashing through her brown hair as she used every trick in the book to break loose.
For a moment she paused, her eyes catching his. Wide and desperate. Awake and so alive. He sent shivers down his spine. Like seeing something that wakes you from a dream.
Like a static shock running through your fingers, a moment there and a moment gone. He didn’t dwell much on it after that.
Now 30 years later standing in that same base looking up at the cryo-chamber looking up at that same woman. Brown hair falling into her face as her head lulled forward slightly. Frozen like a toy in a box.
“Bucky?” Steve’s voice coming over the com, “What’s going on?” Steve had been worried about having his best friend join them taking down the very place that had experimented on him. But Bucky had insisted. Knowing that his intimate knowledge of the place could help them.
“Who is that?” Nat’s voice echoed behind him from the doorway. Buck gently placed his hand on the Cryo-Chamber, his eyes taking in the young woman within. Memories of that time were always hazy. He was never sure if they were a dream or reality.
But that screaming girl, she had been real. Wide wild eyes locking onto his Looking desperately about as if she was the only one who realized the hell they were all trapped in.
“She’s like me” Bucky whispered before smashing the glass of the chamber with one quick motion.
When Diana had been a child she had loved swimming. Hydra had let her use the pool for training and exercise but sometimes late at night when she couldn’t sleep she would just sneak into the pool and just lay in the water. Just floating there enveloped by the warm water without a care in the world.
That’s what it felt like to be in the Cryo chamber. Floating in warm water. The soft sound of the water lapping against the side, the soothing serenity of no one else around.
And being pulled out of it was like drowning.
Diana gasped as consciousness was rushed around her. Flooding her senses as the light of a medical lab filled her eyes. She screamed cool air hitting her lungs painfully as she instantly started fighting. Hands reaching for her with gentle words as she strained against the bindings.
Where was she? What was going on?
Bucky watched from the other side of galls wall of the lab while the Shield and Wakanda doctors tried to help the young woman they found come back from the coma she had been under. But more than that, they were trying to help wipe whatever damage Hydra had done to her brain.
Obviously, she wasn’t taking it well.
Bucky winced as he watched her thrash again, confused and scared. Reminding him so much of himself in those early days. Everything so disjointed and confusing. Unsure of what was reality and what was the truth.
Behind him, Bucky felt Steve walk up standing next to him. “I was already awake, you broke me from my spell, she has nothing to ground her,” Bucky said voicing his throughs to Steve. He felt for the woman in the lab. He knew what it was like.
“Then you are the only one who understands, maybe you can ground her,” Steve said patting Bucky’s shoulder.
Weeks went by and Diana was slowly regaining herself once more. The doctors had released her from their care and she was now free to explore the Avengers compound. Well at least able to explore certain parts of the compound.
Diana couldn’t remember the last time she had so much freedom. Or if she did it wasn’t in this messy brain of hers. Everything was a struggle really. Sometimes coming back quickly while other things, things any human should know, she just couldn’t understand.
Diana turned in surprise at the voice her body going into defense mode. Quickly kicking out toward the intruder of her daydream. Her ankle collided with a metal hand blocking the attack. Hazel eyes meeting blue ones as they both stood there for a moment unsure what to do.
Gently Bucky set her down before picking up the towel she had dropped handing it to her. “Couldn't sleep?” he asked gently as if talking to a wounded animal, one that could attack again at any moment.
“Apparently I have been doing that for 30 years.”
“I know the feeling.” Bucky rubbed the back of his neck chuckling lightly, “sometimes it feels like if I close my eyes for a moment I will never wake back up.”
“Or wake up back there.” it was more to herself than to him as if the very thought of going back to that place was worse than any coma she could ever be in.
Well, he supposed that was a good sign.
They both stood in silence for a few moments, lost in their own worlds. Then her stomach made a loud growling noise much to her embarrassment. It was a weakness she had not wanted to show at that moment.
“If you’re hungry…” Bucky muttered, “I know where Wanda hides the good snacks.”
“Good snacks?” she cocked her head to the side confused. Growing up in Hydra food at been what you needed. Diana hardly ever had anything besides the required calories. Even now, given the choices in the kitchen she normally just went for the basics or whatever the small Witch or her Android boyfriend offered her.
“Oh yeah, just don't tell her I told you,” he said winking like a mischievous young boy, she nodded gravely planning on taking his secret to her grave if she had too. At that moment even Hydra agents couldn’t have dragged it out of her.
The snacks turned out to be ice cream and cocoa pebbles with lots of whip cream.
Bucky showed her how to use the whipped cream can “Lick it don’t…” his voice was cut off as she took a huge bite choking slightly as the cold washed over her. “Put your tongue on the roof of your mouth,” he said trying to show her. “You have brain freeze.”
The rest of the night was spent experimenting with different flavors and trying different snacks.
“Next time we should make pancakes.”
“Pancakes?” she sounded out the word trying to picture the food in her mind. Ice cream had been frozen cream. Were pan-cakes cakes that looked like pans? Or made in pans maybe?
“Wait you have never had Pancakes? What did you do before Hydra?” the question blurted out before Bucky could stop himself. A question he instantly regretted saying knowing how insensitive it was.
However, Diana didn’t seem fazed, “I was always at Hydra. There was an orphanage before but I was young and don’t remember it.” she said, “Why? what did you do before Hydra?”
Diana had always assumed all the other agents at Hydra were like her. Kids without homes. She had never thought about them having lives outside of the program. Living in a world that was beyond those walls.
Yet as Bucky explained the world he had grown up in it send her reeling. It sounded so magical. Fresh apple pie at the local bakery. Him and Steve running from the local bullies. Having turkey dinners with homemade biscuits at his mom’s house. Clean laundry hanging outside windows on lines.
It sounded so foreign she wasn’t even sure it was truly real.
But why would he lie to her?
“Steve’s mom used to make some of the best pancakes with a little cinnamon and sugar on top. It would melt into the butter making the top all sweet with a bit of a glaze.” Bucky's eyes glazed over slightly with a wistful look at the memory, “there is this place now far that does like every flavor you could ever imagine.”
“That does sound good” Diana nodded during his story she had been leaning forward on the counter eyes wide with excitement and wonder reminding Bucky of a child listening to stories about Santa Clause
“I’ll take you, maybe tomorrow morning? Today...” he paused already feeling guilty blowing her off for some reason. He didn’t need an explanation but for some reason, he felt like he had to let her know he wanted to be with her. “Today I promised Steve I would help him with something.”
He didn’t see her for the rest of the day and almost forgot about their pancake date until he opened his door about to go out for his early morning workout to find her sitting curled up across the hall from his flat waiting for him.
“You said to come in the morning?” her large hazel eyes looking up at him reminding him of a little child or the Collie dog that Sam had gotten a few months ago as a friend to go running with.
“How long have you been waiting?” Bucky asked realizing he had never given her a time. Shrugging she stood up.
“I can’t really sleep” turning she started down the hall as if that statement was all he needed. As if that answered his question.
It didn’t, but Bucky understood.
He understood what it was like to try to regain your sense of normalcy after everything that had happened. To learn how to behave and how to connect with people.
And even learn how to sleep.
Something he was still learning how to do if he was being honest.
Pancakes became their tradition after that which turned into going to explore the city around the pancake place. (Thanks to all the flyers for local events.) Diana LOVED the idea of people creating things and showing off their talents. The way she would light up at farmer’s markets listening to someone explain their artistic soaps or bombard a local artist with questions over their paintings made Bucky forget about her past.
Soon she was Diana, the girl who liked to go on hikes and be part of experiences but never really be the center of them. She was quiet and observant filled with thoughts that sometimes only he heard. She seemed to be so interested in the world and experiencing it with him,
This was the girl he saw when he saw Diana.
Sam’s voice echoed in his earpiece as Bucky ducked from an attack before pounding the guy into the ground. A group of terrorists had been karting a group of young abducted girls. These girls, some no older than 10, were to be sold to other organizations as ways to gain favor.
It was disgusting and Bucky got some sick pleasure from pounding them into the ground.
Nat had helped the girls leave the truck toward a jet that was waiting about a mile away. Sneaking them past the soldiers who were currently being distracted by a certain winged man and his Winter Soldier.
“Buck, 5 o'clock… and 7, oh and…”
“I see them!” Buck snapped flipping around firing off his gun taking out one before smashing his boot into the face of the other before burying two bullets into his head. He heard the footsteps of more men doing some bullets as they rang out. Turning he saw three coming toward him.
Looking around he tried to find a place to duck for cover.
All three fell to the ground. Bullet holes in their head clean through the center of their skulls.
“NICE shooting Rex!” Sam’s voice said and Bucky looked up from where the bullets came from to see a small figure lift a Remington 700. Diana’s gun. Even without the gun, Bucky would recognize that slender frame anywhere. Soft brown hair pulled by in a ponytail that was blowing in the wind.
“Who said she could come!?!” Buck barked getting up feeling a wave of anger rushed through him. This mission, the killing. Bucky felt like she had only been with them a few months, there was no way she was truly healed from what Hydra had made her do.
“I did, I knew we could use her eagle eyes,” Sam said as he landed a few feet between Bucky and Diana surveying the carnage, it was time for them to go. “And it looks like my instincts were right, she did just save your sorry ass”
“She’s not ready for this! After what Hydra did.”
“Excuse me!” Diana said as she walked toward them, her lucky gun slung over her shoulder, the noonday sun catching on the small gold star melted onto the butt. “But I’m capable of deciding if I’m ready for a mission or not.”
“They did it to you too.” she clapped back “I’m not a delicate flower you need to protect.”
“If anything she’s protecting you delicate flower.” Sam laughed not really reading the room. Bucky was so ready to punch that smug smile off his face it took all his self-control not too.
“Coming back onto the field so soon isn’t the best for your progress.”
“So you can put your life and mental health in danger but I can’t?”
“What else could it be? I was under the same program as you! Just not as long. So if anything I’m less messed up than you.” She was on her tiptoes trying to gain as much height as she could, trying to prove she didn’t need him to baby her.
Bucky’s hand clenched into a fist, his body tensing up as he towered over her. For a moment Diana through he was going to hit her but instead he stormed off. Leaving her and Sam standing there.
“Well, shit” Sam muttered. “Maybe...”
“Maybe I can make my own choices” Diana snapped not letting him finish that sentence before turning and stalking off too. Unfortunately, it was the same direction as Bucky. But she made sure to keep her distance from him and ride across the plane from him not making eye contact at all.
The tension was so thick you could cut it with a knife making everyone else uncomfortable.
Hours later Diana was still angry as she sat in her bedroom cleaning her gun. Grumbling to herself about how dare he. Of all people. Shouldn’t he know her choices were important to her? And this mission. Helping those girls. They were all like her. Homeless children caught up in something bigger than themselves.
Her thoughts were cut off by the sound of knocking on the door. Letting out a growl Diana flung the door open expecting anyone but who was standing there.
His dark hair hanging limply framing his face, large blue eyes looking up at her. Hands fumbling in front of him reminding her of an injured dog or even those children they helped today. For a moment Diana felt bad for him.
Letting out a growl she slammed the door in his face.
“Diana please…” his voice whispered from the other side and she could hear the soft thud of his head on the door. “Please let me in.”
“Why?” Diana leaned her back against the door closing her eyes trying to calm her breath. Arms folded tightly across her chest.
“Because I want to say I’m sorry.”
“Can’t I… see your face?”
She could hear him take a shaky breath, could feel it in her core. Deep inside her shattering the walls she had built around herself. Anger that had bubbled up forming a cage around her. Held up by the feeling of being unwanted and betrayal.
“Diana I… I shouldn’t have said that stuff about you. You are more than capable to help.” he paused taking another breath, “Clearly you showed that today… but I was just… I was mad because I can’t lose you.”
His words soft, dipping low almost so soft that she could have missed them. But she heard them. Let them wash over her like water cleaning the wounds of a million cuts. Growing up being nothing but a replaceable tool. Being nothing more than a weapon.
Someone couldn’t lose her.
“You make me a better person. All these mornings, days, every moment I get to spend with you. It’s like in those moments I start to feel like the old man I once was. Before...” his voice trailed off again lost it the memories of what he once was. Who he once was. “Before I was this.”
Diana flung open the door. Because Bucky had been leaning on the door and the sudden lack of a solid object made him stumble slightly forward. Eyes wide with surprise as he looked down at her, his large body looming over hers.
“You make me better too.” Diana said, “you make me feel like maybe… maybe I can be someone new. Someone other than just a tool. Just a weapon.”
“You are” Bucky whispered running his fingers through her hair his thumb tracing delicate lines over her temple.
“But,” she looked away for a moment only to have Bucky recapture her gaze bending down, his blue eyes finding her hazel ones. “I will always be there to protect you. Because I can’t lose you either.”
Leaning forward Bucky’s breath fanned over her face so close she could almost taste him on her lips. “Deal” he whispered before closing that small gap between them capturing her lips in his.
He tasted sweet like chocolate syrup. Smooth and silky she got lost in his taste as he pulled her closer to her. His hands clamping around her curvy waist. Their bodies intertwining as if they would never let go.
Diana wrapped her arms around his neck fingers tangling themselves in his thick brown locks never wanting to let go. He was strong and warm, he felt safe as he enveloped her body with his own.
Diana had never had a home before but if she did she knew this is what it must feel like.
Diana had never had a choice before but today she knew she chose him.
And she would choose him over and over again.
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