Summary: A pre-shift morning turns into a diagnostic game when Mel notices a scar she’s never seen before.
CW: I don’t think any, just…fluff? And fun? Mel being adorable? Maybe minor description of a past medical event.
WC: 1.9k
A/N: I couldn’t sleep last night and this popped into my head when I ran my fingers over my own scars, so this is extremely self-indulgent because I love Mel so much.
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You never say the Q-word in an emergency room.
Not out loud, not as a joke, not even in your mind. It’s not superstition, you’d argue to anyone who says otherwise, it’s cause-and-effect. You say it, the universe hears it, and suddenly every ambulance within a fifty-mile radius decides to throw a reunion in your bay.
Which is why you don’t say it now.
Even though it’s 6:45AM and the waiting room only has three people in it and the overnight board is miraculously short for once.
That’s not quiet, that’s the pre-morning slam.
You’re not clocked in yet. You’re fifteen minutes early because Pittsburgh traffic was weirdly cooperative this morning and you always leave your house half an hour before you need to in case there’s a hold up, so you usually wind up arriving early to everything and hover in a weird state of not-responsible-but-still-observing.
The Pitt hums in a sort of low power mode around you, but the night shift who’s finishing up are moving in slow motion, and you’re sure everybody has the same thought on their mind:
Don’t acknowledge it.
Your backpack is hung up in your locker and you’re headed towards the nurse’s station, drinks in hand, because you definitely saw her there. She always gets here early too, like you.
You were right.
Mel is exactly where she always is at this hour: sitting sideways in a chair at the nurse’s station, one foot hung on the rung, scrolling her phone absently because she isn’t allowed to clock in yet either. Gloria is a stickler for the Libby Zion law and will bite your head off if you put the hospital at risk.
You slide around the corner of the desk, careful of the contents in your hand.
You set the cardboard cup down directly in front of her.
Mel glances up from her phone and smiles warmly when she sees it’s you, and leans forward just enough to sniff at the cup. “Thanks,” she says, but then wrinkles her nose. “Though I don’t actually drink coffee. It doesn’t settle in my stomach.”
“I know,” you say calmly.
She squints at you suspiciously.
Casually, you reach into the front pocket of your scrubs and pull out a thick, purple, oversized straw still wrapped in plastic and slam it on the counter next to her drink, a self-satisfied smirk on your face.
Her eyes widen. “No way.”
“Way.”
She leans over the drink and inhales heavily again, more attentive to the smell of the steam curling underneath her nose as she takes it in. “Hot boba?” she asks. “You brought me hot boba?”
“Hot vanilla tea with crystal boba, and extra soak so the pearls stay soft.”
She presses a hand to her chest. “You remembered.”
“I am a professional, after all.”
She unwraps the straw and pierces the lid as you busy yourself taking a sip of your own coffee. With the first sip, her shoulders sag in what can only be described as pure happiness.
“That’s perfect,” she sighs.
The space between you two settles into a comfortable silence, the kind that’s grown over too many shared shifts and overlapping hours. You’re close. You’d both call yourself friends, even if it means you have to ignore the warm feeling that spreads through your body when you look up and catch her already looking at you. You’re the one who doesn’t drift off when she talks, even when the topic has nothing to do with medicine. You lean in to hear her, you answer follow-ups, you remember details from stories that she didn’t even think you were listening to. It’s earned you the unofficial ranking of “favorite nurse” in her books, and though you’d never say it out loud, the preference goes both ways.
“Please tell me today will be calm,” she says, breaking the silence.
“It won’t be,” you respond casually with another sip of your coffee.
“I know, but lie to me anyway.”
You clear your throat. “Today will be extremely calm. Nothing weird will happen, and nobody will come in with objects where objects should not be.”
That earns you a smile. “Thank you,” she says.
You stretch your arms overhead, working stiffness out of your shoulders from sleeping weird last night. Which causes your scrub top to ride up higher than usual.
Mel stops mid-sip.
It’s subtle, but noticeable: her eyesight has locked onto the exposed skin of your midriff.
“Is that a surgical scar?” she asks slowly.
You glance down, realizing she’s caught the little horizontal scar just above your belly button.
“Good catch, doctor.”
She sets her drink aside and fully turns to face you in her chair. Her knees are angled towards you, phone down in her lap. You have her full attention.
“What’s that from?” she asks without thinking, leaning closer. Then, realizing what she’s done, she blinks at her own boldness. “Sorry – you don’t have to answer that! That was – yeah. None of my business, I swear I have boundaries.”
“It’s alright,” you chuckle. Then, an idea sparks. “But…maybe we could play a game with it?”
That peaks Mel’s interest, her head tilting and eyebrows lifting. “What kind of game?”
“Guess the procedure.”
Her whole face lights up. “How many guesses do I get?”
“One,” you say, pointing a finger at her casually. “But you can ask questions until you’re confident.”
Mel settles deeper into the chair, already looking at you like she’s starting rounds. You remain standing, she has to look up at you to study both your face and the evidence.
“Okay,” she says. “First question. Was the procedure laparoscopic rather than open?”
“Yes.”
“Thought so,” she says. “Multiple ports?”
You nod.
“How many total incisions?”
“Four.”
“Can I see them?”
You hesitate. You could show her, they’re not inappropriately high or low. But ultimately, you shake your head. “Nn-nn. Placement would give it away.”
Her mouth curves slyly and she looks pleased with herself. “Next question: scheduled or urgent?”
“Urgent.”
“ER admission first?”
“Yes.”
“More than once?”
You grin at that. “Twice.”
Her competitive sparkle softens as she studies your face instead of your abdomen now. “Different question,” she says gently.
“That doesn’t sound very diagnostic.”
“It is.” Her voice loses the exciting edge just a little, and she sounds like it’s less of a game and more real. “Were you in a lot of pain when you came in?”
The concern is unfiltered, the empathy pure Mel. It’s one of the reasons you like her.
“Yes,” you confirm. “A lot.”
“Scale-breaking,” she asks, “or just really bad?”
“Like can’t-breathe-through-it pain, both times.”
Mel exhales through her nose, the sound sympathetic. “I’m sorry, that sounds awful.”
“Not the time for the standard-of-care, doctor,” you tease, trying to garner her excitement back up. “You’re still trying to win.”
“I can multitask,” she says, the softness staying. “But next: did the surgery definitively treat something rather than just investigate?”
“It sure did.”
“Meaning intervention, not exploratory.”
“Correct.”
“Were you sedated?”
“Yes.”
“Intubated?”
“Yes.”
“So you were under general anesthesia, then,” she nods to herself, building the full picture. “Were your port sites spread upper-to-mid abdomen rather than low?”
“Yes.”
“Was something repaired or removed?”
She’s catching on.
“Removed,” you confirm.
Her gaze flicks up to your face again then back down to your abdomen where she now knows one of the scars sits under your scrub top. It’s like she’s mapping anatomy over you in real time.
“Did the procedure involve the digestive system?”
“It did.”
“Did the pathology involve obstruction rather than just inflammation?”
You grin at how specific she’s getting. “That’s a very good question.”
“I ask those sometimes.” One corner of her mouth lifts. “This is my job, after all.”
“You do,” you nod. “And yes, obstruction first.”
You can see it – her mental whiteboard filling in. Her posture changes as she sits more upright, her shoulders squaring and her eyes narrowing as she becomes less your friend and more your doctor, even though this is absolutely not a real case anymore.
“Duct involvement?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, that’s loud,” she murmurs more to herself than you, and you know what she’s referring to, and she’s right.
“Did the standard of care lean towards removal after diagnosis rather than repeated medical management?”
“Yes.”
Her smile turns triumphant – the same kind she gets right before calling something correctly on shift. “I have it.”
“You sound confident.”
“I am.” She leans back into the chair, her eyes locking on yours and they’re bright and playful. She draws it out just to be a little dramatic, then delivers: “Laparoscopic cholecystectomy.”
You clap once. “Nailed it.”
Her grin is wide. “Yes,” she breathes. “I knew it.”
“Follow-up question,” you add, taking another sip of your coffee.
Mel’s eyes narrow as she picks her own drink back up for a sip.
“For extra credit,” you shrug, and that pulls her back in. “Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why the cholecystectomy?”
She snorts a little as she laughs, setting her drink back down on the desk. Then she shifts back into reasoning mode, her elbows on her knees, looking up at you like you’re a case file as she begins to reason out loud.
“Okay, urgent presentation. Severe pain. Obstruction. Removal favored over watchful waiting,” she recaps. “That usually means complication risk.”
You stay silent.
“Stone migration, maybe?” she continues, her eyes no longer focused on you. “A blockage?” she gestures towards your abdomen lightly. “If the wrong duct gets blocked…”
Her brow lifts.
“Pancreatic involvement,” she concludes.
“Go on.”
“If stones begin to obstruct the pancreatic duct or common channel then enzymes activate where they shouldn’t and it causes inflammation,” she says smoothly. Her own words dawn on her and she winces sharply. “Pain goes nuclear.”
You smile. “There it is!”
Her eyes widen. “Gallstone pancreatitis?”
Another sip. “You’ve got it!”
“That hurts like hell,” she says.
“It did.”
She picks her drink back up, taking a sip thoughtfully. “And it took two flares and ER visits to diagnose?”
“I was misdiagnosed the first time,” you shrug. “Wasn’t PTMC.”
“That’s what you get for going somewhere else,” a voice behind you chimes in, and you realize Trinity has been standing at a computer behind you for an unknown amount of time and is now privy to a small portion of your medical history. Not that your gallbladder removal is top secret information.
Down the hall, stretcher wheels rattle. Your moment of the q-word is ending.
Mel glances towards the sound then back at you, her victory glow turned warm as she smiles up at you.
“Best pre-shift consult I’ve had all week,” she says softly.
“Same,” you answer.
She bumps your knee with hers as she stands, casual enough to be an accident but purposeful enough to not be. “Next time,” she adds, “I pick the game.”
“You’re on,” you laugh as you bump her back. “I’ll bring boba again.”
Her smile this time is less showy and more private as she holds your gaze just a little too long before turning toward the clock-in terminal.
The ER is waking up – phones, footsteps, the noise level slowly rising around you as the privacy of your bubble pops. But the warmth lingers: vanilla tea, crystal pearls, and one perfectly diagnosed missing organ.
hiii !! i'd like to request a matcha with mocha drizzle and cold foam in honour of this adorable coffee celebration (congrats on 100 followers, well deserved !)
𝒄𝒐𝒗𝒆𝒓𝒆𝒅 𝒊𝒏 𝒚𝒐𝒖
a/n: thank you so much for the sweet request!! i really really struggled with this one and it ended up being SUPER long but i ended up loving it so i really hope you enjoy it :)) also gif creds to @reidgif !! your receipt is at the bottom love!
summary: you and spencer reid were never friends— just two stubborn agents who slowly grew into each other’s lives until the job forced one impossible choice.
content warnings: spencer reid x bau!reader, typical criminal minds violence and setups, blood, a lil kissinggggggg, uh kinda sad ending lol like. im sorry, lowkey the beginning is inspired by spencer in withdrawal being evil to emily in the early seasons lol
You and Spencer Reid are not friends.
That much had been clear since the first day you joined the team. You had greeted everyone with a smile and a wave. He had simply nodded at you and returned to work.
Easy enough to explain. Maybe he was just busy. Pre-occupied. Whatever.
You brushed it off.
But then you started to pipe up in meetings, show you actually had something to offer.
“Maybe the unsub had a bad relationship with a parent rather than a lover.” You’d remarked, bouncing your leg.
“That doesn’t make any sense.” Reid rebutted. “He’s clearly attacking romantic relationships.”
You felt your cheeks start to burn. “Maybe he’s attacking the idea of love, though. The example he had.”
“Actually—“
“Both are plausible.” Hotch cut in. “We can keep open minds for now.”
Reid set his jaw. You swallowed. Maybe you’d caught him on an off day. You tried not to take it personally.
Every day was an off day, it seemed.
He started to roll his eyes at you. Snarky responses to your ideas. Visibly annoyed when asked to observe a crime scene with you. Slowly but surely, you learned not to let it get under your skin. You even started to snap back at him a little.
“You don’t think before you act.” He’d remarked after a near brush with a person of interest. “It’s reckless.”
“At least I act.” You’d bit back.
He raised his eyebrows at you before turning away, leaving you standing there, burning. You could practically feel the steam coming out of your ears.
Again, the rest of the team told you not to take it personally. He was going through a rough time. He was resistant to change.
Blah, blah, blah.
You became accustomed to his little remarks. To tolerating each other. It was work; it was bearable.
Then you spent three nights in Vermont on a case. You all essentially slept at the precinct while you worked.
Stumped on a particular detail that you just couldn’t connect to the profile, you looked around for help. No one nearby but a few straggling police officers.
And Reid.
You wrestled back and forth for a moment before finally deciding you needed the help more than you needed your pride.
“Hey.” You started, stepping up beside him.
He barely glanced up at you. “What’s up?”
You fought the urge to roll your eyes. “Look, I know it’s late, and believe me that I’d rather ask anyone else, but can you help me out here?”
He sighed, setting down his own paperwork before turning to you.
His insight was… surprisingly helpful, if delivered with a little bit of attitude. When it finally clicked into place, you nodded, finding yourself grateful.
“Oh, great. Thanks, Reid.” You started gathering your stuff to go back to where you were.
“Uh, actually, you can, um—“ He interjected, his face softer than before. “You can sit here. Just… in case you have anymore questions.”
Stunned, all you let out was a little “okay” before sliding into the chair across from him.
You worked like that for hours, occasionally asking each other for input. You weren’t best friends by any means, but it at least wasn’t hostile.
The next morning, he silently placed a coffee in front of you on his way back from the break room, walking away before you could react.
Progress.
It happened slowly like that. Like it was creeping up on you.
Small gestures. Coffee on the desk. A little more respect in meetings. Sitting by each other on the jet.
On one really bad case, you barely missed the unsub.
You ran into the house, shoes pounding on the hardwood, just in time to find the door swinging and the most recent victim bleeding out on the ground.
“Hey, hey, I’m right here,” you panted, dropping to your knees and gathering her in your arms. She was already going limp. “Stay awake, come on.”
Morgan and the others pursued the unsub. You stayed there, holding the woman until the life left her eyes.
Against your better judgement, you felt tears welling up in your eyes. You lowered her gently back to the ground.
Anger boiled inside of you as you stood and stepped past Spencer, who had watched your exchange. You burst through the door outside, leaning against the wall and wiping at your eyes.
“There wasn’t anything you could’ve done.” His voice came from beside you.
You buried your head in your hands. “We could’ve got here faster.” You sniffed. “How many people have to die before we stop this guy?”
Your jacket was soaked in her blood. You ripped it off, throwing it on the ground with a frustrated huff. Your shoulders heaved, the sun warming them.
Wordlessly, Spencer shrugged out of his coat and wrapped it around you.
You looked up at him, caught slightly off guard.
You swallowed, slowing your breathing. “Thanks.”
He nodded.
That was the first time you distinctly remembered the lines blurring.
The next time was when he invited you to a foreign film festival and spent the night whispering the translations to you, his breath warm against the side of your face.
The time after that was when you ended up at his apartment after a late night at the office. You picked up ice cream on the way back and stopped to laugh and talk about what member of the team would break first on a deserted island.
“It would absolutely be Hotch.” You laughed, wiping ice cream off the corner of your mouth.
“No way.” He grinned. “It would have to be Garcia. What would she do without technology?”
“She might be too busy with her ‘Chocolate Thunder,’” you wiggled your eyebrows.
He laughed through a disgusted expression, setting his ice cream down. He was still smiling in that quiet way he did when he was trying not to let it show.
It got kind of quiet after that, just the both of you sitting on his couch in comfortable silence. Seeing him semi-relaxed in his own home was encouraging. He looked… softer.
You realized you were staring and looked down in your own lap.
Maybe it was the late hour. Maybe it was the quiet of his apartment. Maybe it was the fact that you’d spent months slowly learning how to exist around each other without snapping.
But something felt… different tonight.
You shifted a little, turning toward him more fully on the couch.
“You know,” you said lightly, “when I first joined the team I thought you hated me.”
Spencer’s eyebrows pulled together.
“I didn’t hate you.”
“You rolled your eyes at me constantly.”
“You were wrong a lot.”
You let out a short laugh.
“Wow. Thanks.”
He rubbed the back of his neck, suddenly looking a little sheepish.
“I just—” he paused, searching for the words. “You came in very confident. And you challenged the profile a lot.”
“That’s… the job.”
“I know that now,” he admitted.
You studied him, a small smile tugging at your mouth.
“So you were intimidated.”
“I was not intimidated.”
“Mm,” you hummed skeptically.
Spencer looked at you then, really looked at you, and something about the way you were smiling made his breath hitch just slightly.
“You’re very stubborn,” he said quietly.
“So are you.”
Neither of you moved for a moment.
The air between you shifted in a way that was suddenly very noticeable.
You hadn’t realized how close you’d drifted toward each other on the couch.
Your knee was pressed lightly against his.
Spencer’s gaze flicked down to your mouth before he could stop himself.
You noticed.
Your smile softened a little.
“Spencer,” you murmured.
“Yeah?”
But he didn’t look away.
You tilted your head slightly, studying his face like you were trying to solve a puzzle.
“What?” he asked, suddenly self-conscious.
You hesitated.
Then you reached out and wiped a small smear of melted ice cream from the corner of his mouth with your thumb.
Spencer froze.
The touch was brief. Barely anything.
But suddenly neither of you seemed to remember how to breathe.
It’s impossible to say who moved first. Maybe it was both of you at once.
All you knew was suddenly his mouth was on yours and he was warm and there and holding your face in his hands like you were something precious. His glasses bumped your nose as his lips moved against yours.
When you broke apart, your whole face was burning. You blinked, trying to clear your head as he caught his breath.
“I—“ he pulled back, his hands dropping. “I’m sorry, I don’t— I didn’t—“
“It’s okay,” you cut him off. His eyes lifted to meet yours.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
And suddenly he was reaching up to pull you in again.
His couch became a frequent spot for the both of you. Your knees became accustomed to the feel of the cushions underneath them as you pressed into him, giggling against his mouth. An indentation in the shape of you started to form from movie nights and heated discussions and takeout.
You started to take over his apartment in little ways, with a toothbrush from the dollar store, an “emergency” set of pajamas, your favorite vinyl records.
When you accidentally slept over on a weeknight and showed up to work in a sweater that looked suspiciously like one of Spencer’s, no one said anything about it.
Though you may have gotten a couple of knowing glances.
You grew into each other’s lives like ivy, slow and creeping and completely overtaking. Between burnt toast mornings and late nights on cases, there were days where you didn’t know where he ended and you began.
And then came Woodburn.
It was supposed to be quiet. Routine. A lead on a property the unsub might have been using. Small farmhouse at the edge of town. The local police had already cleared the exterior.
You and Spencer moved through the house slowly, guns drawn, boots creaking softly against the old wood floors.
“Clear,” you murmured, checking the living room.
Spencer glanced toward the hallway. “There’s a basement.”
He pushed open the door at the end of the hall, revealing a narrow staircase descending into darkness.
The smell hit you halfway down.
Gas.
Your stomach tightened. “Do you smell that?” you whispered.
“Yes,” Spencer said immediately, voice low.
At the bottom of the stairs was a small concrete room lit by a single flickering bulb. In the middle of it, a woman sat tied to a chair.
Her head lifted weakly when she saw you. “Help…”
You rushed forward without thinking.
“Hey, hey, it’s okay,” you said quickly, kneeling in front of her and reaching for the rope around her wrists. “FBI, you’re safe now.”
Behind you, Spencer moved toward the wall.
“Wait,” he said suddenly.
You paused. “What?”
He crouched near a cluster of pipes and a portable propane tank tipped on its side.
A small device sat beside it.
Your heart dropped.
“Spence?”
“It’s a trigger,” he said, voice tight. “Probably rigged to ignite the gas.”
The woman whimpered.
You started cutting the rope anyway. “We don’t have time to leave her.”
“I know,” Spencer said quickly. “Just— be careful.”
The rope finally gave way under your knife, the woman slumping forward into your arms.
“Okay,” you murmured. “Okay, I’ve got you.”
A beat of silence.
Click.
Spencer’s head snapped toward the device.
The spark was tiny, but in a room filled with gas, it was enough.
“Get down!” Spencer shouted.
The explosion wasn’t massive, but the shockwave slammed through the small basement hard enough to knock the air out of your lungs.
Flames crawled instantly up the walls. The ceiling above you groaned, debris raining down.
You tried to stand, dragging the victim with you, but a beam crashed down between you and the stairs with a deafening crack.
Smoke filled your lungs.
“Spence!” you coughed.
Across the room, Spencer shoved a fallen board aside, scrambling toward you through the smoke.
You could hear wood snapping above you. The house was starting to collapse.
The woman sagged heavily against you. “Go,” she wheezed weakly. “Just go.”
“No,” you said hoarsely, trying to pull her up. “We’re not leaving you.”
Spencer reached you just as another beam crashed down behind him.
“Come on!” he shouted.
You tried to haul the woman with you, but she cried out in pain and collapsed again. Her leg was trapped under a chunk of fallen wood.
Spencer grabbed your arm. “We have to go.”
“We can get her out!” you yelled over the noise, trying to lift the debris.
The ceiling creaked violently, dust pouring down around you.
Spencer looked between you and the victim, then up at the sagging beams overhead. The whole structure was seconds from coming down.
“Help me!” you shouted, still trying to free the victim.
A huge crack split the ceiling above you.
Spencer’s grip on your arm tightened. “I’m sorry.”
Before you could react, he yanked you toward the stairs.
“Spencer— no!” you shouted, twisting back toward the woman. But he didn’t let go.
He dragged you up the steps just as the basement behind you collapsed in a roar of splintering wood and fire.
The heat blasted against your back as you stumbled out the front door and onto the grass.
You shoved away from him immediately.
“Why would you do that?!” you shouted.
Your chest heaved as you stared back at the burning house.
“She was right there!” your voice cracked. “We could’ve saved her!”
Spencer spluttered, coughing as he braced himself on his knees.
“We didn’t have time—”
“We left her!”
The words hung in the air between you.
Spencer’s wiped at his face. “We all would have died if we stayed. I couldn’t let you do that.”
“Why not?” You cried.
“Because—“ His voice broke slightly. “Because I love you.”
The words landed like a gunshot. Your breath caught. You knew he didn’t take those words lightly; it’s why you still hadn’t said them to each other after months.
Spencer looked almost horrified with himself for saying it, like it had escaped before he could stop it.
He swallowed hard. “I couldn’t let you die.”
Your chest tightened painfully.
Because you loved him too.
That was the problem.
You shook your head slowly. “That’s exactly why we can’t do this.”
Spencer went still.
“If we’re out there making choices like that,” you said quietly, “then we’re not agents anymore.”
You gestured helplessly toward the house.
“We’re just… two people trying to save each other.”
“Oh my God!” Emily’s voice rang out, cutting through the moment as she jogged up to the both of you. “Are you guys okay?”
The rest of the team approached quickly from their SUV’s, looking the two of you over and getting the rundown on the situation.
You and Spencer didn’t get to finish the conversation, but as Emily pulled you into a hug, you met his gaze over her shoulder.
You shook your head.
Just like that, it was over.
You remained civil at work. But there were no more sleepovers.
He threw out your toothbrush.
You gave back his sweater.
But every now and then, he still dropped a coffee on your desk without saying anything.
So no, you and Spencer were not friends.
You weren’t quite sure what you could call it now.
Synopsis: Being Bruce Wayne’s assistant means handling a huge workload that Jason Todd thinks is easy.
You knew Bruce Wayne’s schedule more than you remembered your own birthday.
Which was exactly why it irritated you to no end when someone tried to interfere with it.
“Mr. Wayne has a board call in twelve minutes,” you said calmly, not looking up from your laptop. “If you need something, I can schedule you for later this afternoon.”
Silence.
Then—
“I don’t need to schedule time with him.”
The voice was deep. Annoyingly confident. Close.
You looked up.
And immediately regretted it.
Because standing in front of your desk was the most irritatingly attractive man you had ever seen.
Dark hair. Green eyes. Expensive suit worn like he hated it. A faint scar near his lip. Broad shoulders. The kind of presence that filled a room whether he tried or not.
You narrowed your eyes,
“And you are..?”
His mouth twitched, “Jason.”
You waited.
You quirked an eyebrow, waiting for him to elaborate.
“Jason…?
As he leaned one hand on your desk you straightened up.
“Jason Todd.”
Oh.
Bruce’s… ward. Adopted son. Occasionally missing. Occasionally involved in company affairs. Rumored to be brilliant. Rumored to be difficult.
Rumored to be a nightmare.
“Right. I have heard of you..” You say tilting your head with a polite smile.
“Good things, I hope.” He smiled mockingly.
You mockingly smiled back as you stood up, “Hm.. Is there anything I can assist you with, Mr. Todd?”
His eyes flicked to your screen. Then to the color-coded schedule beside you. Then to the stack of briefing folders arranged with precision.
He was assessing you.
“I’m here to sit in on the board call,” he said.
You blinked.
“No you’re not.” You chuckle as if he’s joking
One eyebrow lifted.
“And why not?”
You grab the files you’re supposed to drop off and begin walking out your office and down the hall.
He follows.
You hear his shoes shuffle behind you faintly through the clicking of your kitten heels.
You smirk.
“Because,” you said sweetly, “you’re not on the attendee list.”
His step picks up and before you know it, he’s beside you.
Then he smiled.
Not friendly.
Challenge.
“I am now.”
You stop in front of the elevator and click the button. You turn and look at him.
A beat.
“You can’t just add yourself to a meeting with the board of directors.”
“I can if Bruce says I can.”
“Bruce isn’t here yet.”
“He will be.”
The elevator dings as the doors slide open. You step in and he follows in suit.
You scoff.
You click the button of the floor the meetings on.
57th Floor.
“And when he gets here, I’ll confirm.”
For a second, neither of you spoke.
It felt like a staring contest.
He leaned closer.
“You always this territorial?”
You smiled right back.
“Are you always this entitled?”
Something sparked in his eyes.
A beat.
Oh.
So he liked fighting.
Good.
Because so did you.
Bruce arrived three minutes later, coffee in hand, already mid-conversation on his phone.
You stepped beside him smoothly, “Good morning. The quarterly projections are in Folder A, investor notes are highlighted, and legal flagged two clauses for review. Also—”
You gestured slightly.
“—Jason Todd is here requesting access to the board call.”
Obviously you’d assumed that Bruce would say no.
Bruce glanced between you.
Then smiled.
“He’s joining.”
You froze.
Jason didn’t even try to hide his satisfaction.
You recovered instantly.
“Understood,” you said, professional again. “I’ll add him to the documents.”
Bruce headed inside the conference room.
Jason lingered outside it while you were adding him into the documents on your tablet.
“You heard the boss,” he murmured.
You met his eyes, your fingers pausing.
“Yes,” you said quietly. “I did.”
You glanced inside to see Bruce situating himself at the head of the table.
Then you leaned forward just enough that only he could hear you.
“Try not to embarrass yourself in there.”
His grin was immediate.
“Worried I’ll outshine you?”
You smiled back.
“Not remotely.”
The problem started after the meeting.
Because he was good.
Annoyingly good.
He caught inconsistencies in a financial projection before the CFO did. Proposed a restructuring idea that made two board members actually sit up. Spoke confidently without sounding arrogant.
You hated it.
Mostly because you could tell he was watching your reactions the entire time.
Like he wanted approval.
Or competition.
Or both.
When the meeting ended, executives filtered out, talking numbers and logistics.
You and Bruce had walked out as he talked with an exec about ways to fix inconsistencies.
You were already reorganizing Bruce’s afternoon when Jason appeared beside you again.
“You missed a conflict,” he said casually.
You didn’t look up.
“I didn’t.”
“Three-thirty donor call overlaps with transit time to the gala venue.”
You paused.
Checked.
…Damn it.
Traffic estimate update.
You corrected it quickly.
“Fixed,” you said.
He crossed his arms.
“I could’ve handled that.”
You finally looked at him,
“I’m sure you could’ve.”
“You think I can’t do your job?”
“I think,” you said pleasantly, “you don’t understand my job.”
His jaw shifted slightly.
“What even is your job. Scheduling?”
You stared at him and put your tablet beneath your arm.
“I manage a multinational CEO’s life,” you said evenly. “I coordinate executives across time zones, prevent legal disasters before they happen, maintain investor relationships, organize philanthropy initiatives, anticipate crises, and ensure this company runs smoothly enough that Mr. Wayne can focus on strategy instead of logistics.”
A beat.
Then—
“But yes,” you added sweetly, “there’s also scheduling.”
“Doesn’t sound too hard..” Jason huffed out as he began walking over towards Bruce.
You look up at him annoyed, “Then you do it.”
He froze and turned to face you with a dry chuckle, “I’m sorry.” He started towards you, “You want me, Jason Todd, to do Y/N Y/L/N’s job for her because..?”
“You’re belittling my job and I would like to see how you act about it when it’s your burden..” You cross your arms with your tablet to your chest.
Listen, if you freaks are gonna write your creepy rape/pdf fics at least tag them right. I really hate clicking a fic that just says "... x reader" and the first sentenced is how reader is kidnapped in a basement. "You hate that you like the way he assaults you" is possibly the worst sentence I've ever read. Get off tumblr and go shower, cuz I know you smell like shit. While you're at it, call your mother and apologize to her. She grew you for 9 months, protected you with her body, spent her life raising you, and you turn out like this?? Disgusting. I can only imagine the shame she feels knowing she raised an actual turd.
The issue I have with writers doing a "plus-size reader being insecure, so sex is the solution" trope is that it just sexualizes us. Insecurity can also stem from sexualization, just like it can from rejection. Plus-size people face objectification every day, and you're a part of it. It's also so unrealistic; if I'm feeling insecure about my body, the last thing I'd want is someone groping my naked body. Imagine if you were really thirsty and instead of someone giving water, they spit in your face and say, "Well, it's a liquid." That's what y'all are doing with those fic tropes. You're saying, "Oh, you have insecurities? Here's a fic about you getting your puss ate." Also, 99% of these authors who write plus-size characters like that are not plus-size themselves. So, instead of doing research or even talking to a bigger person, they write a crappy, half-assed fic that they think is so different. They praise themselves like they're fucking Liberace. I can give you a quick outline of these fics.
•reader tries on dress
•reader is insecure
•character comes in
•reader cries
•character and reader have sex.
You're like everyone else who treats us like we are not more than our bodies, you're just doing it in a performative way. You're not different, nothing you're doing is new, and if I'm being honest every insecurity->sex fic I've seen has been fucking trash.
These drabbles are killing me guys. I need depth. I need substance I need romance. I need a slow burn. Maybe an unconventional pairing. Maybe something that isnt 2 minutes long that just leaves me more disappointed than a McDonald's milkshake machine.
WHAT HAPPENED TO ENEMIES TO LOVERS SLOW BURN?! Why am I in the first paragraph of a fic and all is see is "i hate him....right?" AHHHHHHHHHH NO NO NO. STOP TRYING TO GET TO THE POINT. MAKE ME FEEEEELLL. I WANT TO CRY, I WANT TO LAUGH, I WANT TO SCREAM IN ANGER, I WANT MY HEART TO EXPLODE. GIVE ME THAT SWEET SWEET ENEMIES TO LOVERS THAT IS 500K WORDS LONG WITH A HAPPY ENDING
summary | after a night of patrol, your fiancee brings another child to your home. jason todd is nothing you have seen before, but you are willing to try it all to make him feel loved
pairing | bruce wayne x kent!reader. platonic dick grayson x kent!reader, platonic jason todd x kent!reader
warnings / tags | fluffy, jason is a bit sassy but he quickly falls for his mama !!!!!!!!!!!!!!! actually this is so sweet i can't - we have fluffy family, fluffy siblings jason & dick — there are mentions of miscarriage and the aftermath because reader has happened through this and is suffering from it but it turns into a such soft cute moment
word count | 4.9k
authors note | hi there!! english is not my first languaje so there might be some mistakes, or not, it can depend :)
this is part of the kent!batmom!reader series. this can be read as part 9. you'll the other parts on the masterlist.
THE BATCAVE HAD BECOME SOMETHING LIKE A SECOND SKIN TO YOU.
A strange, quiet sanctuary that buzzed softly with hidden life, bathed in cold shadows and humming screens. You’d always imagined you’d end up somewhere simple—on a porch in Smallville, maybe, with warm pie cooling on a window ledge and wheat swaying outside your kitchen. But here you were. Soft plaid pants, Bruce’s oversized Henley, thick socks, and cross-legged in the large chair that you insisted to buy, manually rerouting millions of dollars through encrypted donation nodes under the name "Demeter."
The temperature was the same as always—a little too cold, a little too dry—but you were used to it. Your fingers danced across the keyboard with practiced ease, eyes fixed on the spreadsheet that ticked off your anonymous contributions to Gotham's structural recovery efforts.
You always liked the name. A nod to where you’d come from, to the woman who grew up running barefoot through cornfields in Smallville, who learned the importance of giving before receiving. You remembered what it was to lose the harvest. And now, with what Gotham had taken from so many, the least you could do was try to plant something new in its place. Schools. Emergency clinics. Builders for neighborhoods gutted by supervillain crossfire. And always the families — always the children.
“Food pantries, rebuilding funds, clean water programs, trauma centers...” you murmured aloud, voice soft and absentminded, reading the causes out loud for your own reassurance. “Half a million to rebuilding that shelter in Crime Alley. They’ll need volunteers come winter. Might see if I can drag Clark into a coat and—”
The cursor blinked on your last donation. You were drafting a note to the city housing authority when the Batmobile's distant roar echoed through the metallic veins of the Cave. The noise would’ve startled anyone else — sudden, grating, monstrous. To you, it was just Bruce coming home.
A smile curled against your lips without effort, and you didn’t look up, still typing as you talked.
“I moved some things around today,” you said, eyes on the screen. “Got the third rebuild permit passed for the Narrows apartment complex. I’ve been tagging it under ‘Demeter’ as always, but if the mayor’s office tries to sniff around, Lucius is ready to block them.”
The car hissed to a stop. You could hear his boots hitting the platform, heavy but measured. The click of his gauntlets being unclasped. You continued, voice light with mock exasperation, “And for the record? That tea I went to with Missus Penhollow and the other Gargoyles of Gotham? A complete disaster. They tried to argue that Park Row doesn’t deserve a new rec center because it might lower the ‘historical value’ of the cobblestones. I may have insulted someone’s great-grandfather.”
Still, you didn’t look up.
“Oh, and Dick studied all afternoon. He’s really pushing himself. I’m proud of him. We’ll go over flashcards after breakfast tomorrow. Assuming he passes that exam, I already have the reward picked out — oh, and —”
You turned in your chair to face him finally, fingers still lingering on the keyboard. “—If you’re not too tired, I was thinking maybe we could watch something new tonight. Something not so—”
The thick pause that followed swallowed the rest of your words.
He wasn’t alone.
There was a boy beside him. Barely taller than your desk. Thin, rail-boned, with clothes that didn’t fit—not because he was trying to wear a style but because they genuinely weren’t his. A hoodie torn at the sleeve, jeans too long, frayed at the hem. His sneakers were beat to hell. He wasn’t shivering but he looked like he should be. And dirt clung to his skin like it had soaked into the pores. His eyes—
His eyes weren’t afraid.
They were wary. Observant. Maybe even defiant.
Like he'd survived something. Like he’d survived a lot.
You blinked. Your breath caught somewhere in your chest. And maybe it was because he looked so much like Dick had, once. Small, proud, desperate not to be seen as a kid, not to be pitied.
But he was younger. Rougher. More… hunted. And yet somehow hunting, too.
He reminded you of Harry Potter — if Harry had never received a Hogwarts letter. No owl. No escape hatch. Just the cupboard, and the concrete, and the cold.
You looked at Bruce.
He was calm. That quiet calm he only wore when something big had happened. But his jaw was relaxed, not tight. His body language told you he wasn’t just enduring the situation—he had already decided something. And he wasn’t regretting it.
His jaw flexed faintly, blue eyes scanning your face for the impact. You waited. Waited for the words. Waited for the meaning.
Bruce exhaled through his nose, placed a gloved hand on the boy’s shoulder. Not forceful. Just steady.
“Y/N,” he said quietly, “this is Jason. Jason Todd.”
You blinked once. “Jason,” you repeated.
The boy looked at you squarely.
“Hey,” he said. His voice was rough, scratched at the edges, and there was a challenge in it, like he was daring you to be offended by his existence.
You stared for a long moment.
“Hey,” you said softly, something warm but aching blooming behind your ribs.
Bruce stepped toward you, his shoulders shedding tension. He leaned down, kissed your temple like he always did, and when he pulled back, there was the faintest trace of tired humor in his voice. “He tried to steal the Batmobile.”
You blinked. Then stared again. Then slowly looked at Jason, who smirked ever so faintly.
“Didn’t know it was yours,” he said, a little too proud.
“What did you think it was?” you asked, half-stunned, half-intrigued.
He shrugged. “Cool car. Keys were in.”
You looked at Bruce. “You left the keys in the Batmobile?”
“It was a trap,” Bruce said.
“Of course it was.”
The silence settled again, but this time, it wasn’t empty. It was full of things unsaid, things felt.
You stood slowly, bare feet padding softly over the stone floor until you were in front of the boy. Jason didn’t flinch, didn’t shy away. He met your eyes.
You studied him, and then, smoothly, you crouched a little, still eye level.
You smiled softly. “I’m (Y/N). Bruce’s… better half, depending on who you ask.”
“Fiancée,” Bruce said flatly, like the correction mattered.
You rolled your eyes. “Fiancée, yes. Technically.” You took another slow step forward. “I’m also the one who stocks the fridge, knows the code to the good cookie cabinet, and makes sure Alfred doesn’t drown you in formal dining etiquette.”
Jason blinked.
“Are you hungry?” you asked, gently. “Have you eaten anything today?”
He blinked, like that hadn’t been the question he expected.
“Not in a while,” he said.
“Good thing Alfred made banana bread,” you murmured, with a small smile. “Come upstairs. You can shower, eat, and if you want, you can stay in one of the guest rooms if you want. I could get you some clothes from my kid.”
You smiled — soft, not too wide, not too much. You knew how to read boys like this. How to be gentle.
“Let’s go slow,” you said. “There’s cocoa upstairs with your name on it.”
Jason made a sound that might’ve been halfway to a scoff. “Cocoa.”
“Don’t knock it till you try it. Alfred makes it with shaved dark chocolate, not powder.”
“…That sounds fancy.”
“It is. And it has little marshmallows.”
“…You’re serious.”
“Deadly.”
He narrowed his eyes at you. “This a trap?”
You let out a laugh — soft and warm. “No. But now I kind of want it to be. So if I start asking you riddles mid-sip, blame yourself.”
His mouth twitched. Not a smile — but maybe the ghost of one.
You caught it anyway.
Bruce came to stand beside you as Jason stepped toward the stairs. His fingers brushed against yours, just once, before he peeled off to put the suit away, letting you take the lead.
“Thank you,” he murmured, so low only you could hear.
You didn’t answer him out loud. Just touched his arm and followed Jason into the manor proper.
It was late. The kind of late that made Wayne Manor feel like an abandoned museum. Quiet hallways, soft creaking from old pipes, everything still. Jason walked ahead of you like he wasn’t sure if he was being tested.
The kitchen was warm, filled with a low golden light. Alfred had left a note on the counter — as if he knew. The stew was in the warming drawer. Fresh bread on the side. A slice of cherry pie covered in foil. A single mug left upside down near the kettle.
Jason froze in the doorway.
You tilted your head. “You okay?”
He didn’t answer for a moment. Then, softly: “This place is huge.”
You smiled, stepping past him to plate the food. “It’s a little much, yeah. I used to get lost all the time. Your room is going to be just down the hall from Dick’s. He’s sixteen, and he’ll talk your ear off if you let him.”
Jason’s eyes flicked to the pie. “Dick. He’s Robin?”
You paused. “Is, yes. Kind off on a hiatus right now.”
He looked up.
You raised your brows, expression open. “Needs to pass this semester so he can do the last one next year. School is important, you know? Not everything has to start and end with the mask.”
Jason stared at you. “You really talk like a mom.”
The words struck something unexpected in your chest. Not because they were meant to hurt — but because they didn’t. He’d said them with a level of passive observation, like someone who couldn’t remember what having a mom felt like but still knew how one should sound.
You set the plate in front of him. “That’s ‘cause I am one.”
Jason hesitated, then climbed into the stool at the counter. When he took the first bite, his shoulders stiffened. Like his body didn’t trust food to taste that good anymore. He tried to play it cool — but he ate fast. Not enough to choke, but fast enough to know he wasn’t used to seconds.
You didn’t say a word about it.
Just made him another bowl.
When he finished that too, he finally leaned back, eyes half-lidded from warmth and fullness. And for the first time, he looked... twelve. Not a soldier. Not a street-rat. Just a tired boy with a belly full of stew.
“I’m not gonna stay,” he said, voice small but firm.
You nodded. “Okay.”
“But... maybe for tonight.”
You smiled. “That’s more than fine, sweetheart.”
He blinked at the word. Swallowed. Didn’t argue.
And when you took the empty bowl and started running water, Jason watched you for a long while, silent.
Maybe just making sure you were real.
Maybe, for the first time in a long time, daring to believe you were.
You didn’t need a mirror to know you looked tired. There was a shadow under your eyes that concealer couldn’t hide, a dull pinch in your lower belly that had you subconsciously rubbing your side every so often. It wasn’t sharp — not like it had been a few nights ago — but it lingered, just enough to remind you.
It had been just over a week since the miscarriage.
Not your first. You and Bruce had spoken in hushed voices before about the chances — how the odds could lean cruel, how early loss was so common it had practically become a statistic. But this one had gone past four weeks. Past five. You had started keeping track on your calendar. Whispering to Alfred when you thought Bruce might overhear. Even allowed yourself one foolish glance at baby names. Not aloud. Just a daydream. A soft one.
Long enough to start picturing a future. Long enough to smile when your chest started feeling tight, when your appetite shifted. Long enough to think: Maybe this one’s the one.
So when it ended, quiet and uneventful, in the middle of the night while Bruce was off, you had simply sat on the bathroom floor, palms over your belly, and waited for the pain to catch up to the ache. It had.
You didn’t tell Bruce until the next morning, once your voice had steadied.
Now, in the kitchen, your body still hummed with that dull soreness, a heaviness in your joints, in your heart, in your hope. But today, you told yourself, you’d focus on something else.
Like the fact that Jason Todd had slept under your roof for the first time.
Like the fact that he was sitting at your dinner table, knees pulled up slightly into the chair, both hands wrapped tightly around a glass of orange juice as if it might vanish if he didn’t guard it.
He didn’t talk much this morning, but he didn’t look away from you either. There was something settling behind his eyes — not quite trust, but a kind of testing comfort. He was still wary, but he hadn’t bolted during the night, and for you, that was enough of a beginning.
Across from you, Bruce sat with his own mug in hand, posture relaxed in a way that rarely happened outside these walls. His hair was still damp from the shower, sleeves of his black thermal shirt pushed to his forearms. He looked, for all the world, like a man at peace.
It made something in your chest ache in both directions.
A soft, bounding rhythm of footsteps echoed from the hall.
Dick.
Your head tilted slightly in instinct before he even arrived. He entered with the kind of kinetic energy you could spot from any room — hair still damp, shirt half tucked, school satchel swinging from his shoulder.
“Morning!” he called out as he breezed in.
Jason stiffened, just slightly.
You saw it. So did Bruce.
But then Dick spotted him, and his gait faltered, only for a second. His eyes took in the new face, the hoodie now replaced with one of his old pajamas, the guarded expression, the size of the boy in the chair.
“Hey,” Dick said gently, a little softer now.
Jason paused mid-chew, then gave a small nod — more acknowledgment than greeting.
Bruce sipped his coffee, eyes over the rim as he watched the moment unfold with quiet patience.
You smiled faintly, fingers warming on the ceramic of your mug. “Dick, this is Jason. He stayed with us last night.”
“Cool,” Dick said, lips twitching with his natural ease. He walked over to the counter and dropped his bag onto one of the stools. “You like Alfred’s toast? He hides the cinnamon bottle, but I found it once.”
Jason’s eyes flicked to Bruce, who gave the most subtle of nods. He looked back at Dick. “It’s good.”
Dick grinned. “Yeah, I know. I usually eat five. He tells me that’s why we never have any left.”
The boy blinked at that, almost confused.
But then — then came something like a spark. A tiny curve of his mouth. Not quite a smile, but an echo of one. Like he’d just seen someone slip on ice but didn’t want to admit it was funny.
Bruce leaned back in his chair, arm resting over the back, watching the two of them with a calm that spread like quiet joy across his features. You could see it in the corner of his mouth, the way his eyes crinkled, the soft line of his brow. For all his intensity on the streets of Gotham, mornings like this were what allowed Bruce Wayne to breathe again.
You reached under the counter for a folded napkin and wiped some of the steam from your coffee mug before lifting it toward your lips.
The pain came before the sip reached your mouth.
A dull throb. Low, deep, familiar.
You hesitated, pressing the mug to your lips and not drinking. Your eyes fluttered briefly, blinking past the sting, and you inhaled slowly through your nose.
It passed. It always did.
But it left a shadow behind it, curled deep in your lower belly like a reminder. Not of something lost — not only that — but of something you had dared to hope for.
That was what made it harder than the others.
Not the pain. You could handle pain.
It was the pieces of nursery ideas you had tucked away in your phone. The image of how Dick had smiled when you told him — how you’d wondered what kind of big brother he’d be again. The way Bruce had held you that first night after, with his whole body curled around yours, whispering that it wasn’t your fault, over and over and over.
You placed the mug back on the counter without sipping. Your hand brushed lightly against your side.
Bruce caught the movement. He didn’t say anything right away. Just met your eyes.
You smiled faintly, soft around the corners.
“I think,” you said gently, brushing some hair behind your ear, “I might stay home today.”
His gaze darkened slightly. “You hurting?”
“Not much,” you lied.
Bruce wasn’t fooled. His hand found yours over the table, his thumb brushing the back of your knuckles. “You could stay in bed all day if you wanted. Alfred can bring you anything.”
“I know.”
“You could let me cancel my meetings.”
“I know.”
“Y/N,” he said, voice firmer now. “You don’t have to do anything right now. Not until you feel better.”
Your throat tightened, but you gave him a small smile. “I know that as well, my love.”
“Do you want to call Leslie?”
“No. No, she said this might happen for a few days. It’s manageable.”
Across the table, Dick watched the two of you with something like quiet reverence. He’d been with you long enough to understand that sometimes you and Bruce spoke a language only grief could teach. He leaned forward slightly.
“Do you want me to stay?” he asked, his voice gentle, teenage bravado softened into real concern. “I could skip school today. It’s just the exam.”
You shook your head instantly, reaching to smooth back his hair. “Absolutely not. That exam is important. And you’ve studied so hard.”
He hesitated. “But if you need—”
“I need you to do well,” you interrupted, tapping his nose lightly. “I already convinced the principal to let you retake it. You promised me a B or better. You know how hard it is to talk that man down from his ivory tower?”
Dick let out a small laugh. “Harder than taking on Two-Face?”
“Worse,” you muttered. “Two-Face doesn’t call people ‘my dear’ in that patronizing tone.”
Jason snorted into his juice.
You turned to him, giving him the same warm smile you’d given Dick.
“And you, mister,” you said with mock gravity, “get to spend the day with me. Just us. We can do anything you like.”
Jason, mid-sip of juice, froze and slowly looked over at you, orange liquid still on his lip.
You grinned. “We’ll eat leftover muffins, maybe watch a few movies, and I’ll show you the one place in the house where Alfred actually hides the good cookies.”
Jason squinted. “There’s a hiding place?”
“There are five.”
Bruce coughed discreetly. “Six.”
You smirked.
Dick looked between the three of you and rolled his eyes. “You’re forming an alliance without me.”
“Of course we are,” you said. “Can’t be trusted with the cookie stash.”
“I am literally the most trustworthy person here.”
“Exactly why you can’t be trusted. You’d give them away to someone in need.”
Jason blinked. “That’s… bad?”
“No,” you and Bruce said in unison.
Dick leaned over and ruffled Jason’s hair—casual, quick. Jason flinched a little at first, not expecting the contact, but didn’t pull away.
“I’ll be back by three,” Dick said, pointing at him. “Don’t let her con you into yard work.”
Jason narrowed his eyes. “What’s yard work?”
“You’ll find out,” Bruce muttered, sipping his coffee.
You rested a hand on your belly again, this time more out of habit than pain. Bruce stood, kissing your cheek softly, and both of them left. This time, he would take him to school and then go directly to Wayne Enterprises.
The boy hadn’t said much about the house yet, but you saw the way he looked at it. Like it was a dream someone else was having. Not envy—just quiet disbelief. You were familiar with that look. You’d seen it on Dick when he first arrived too.
“So… what now?” he asked, voice cautious.
You smiled and stretched your arms over your head with a small groan. “Now? Now I’m going to show you around.”
“I’ve already seen the cave.”
You gave him a playful look as you rose from your chair. “You think the cave is the coolest part of this house?”
He tilted his head. “Isn’t it?”
You tilted your head. “We’ll skip the east wing. That place still scares me.”
“…You live here and you’re scared of it?”
“Alfred won’t even dust it after dark,” you replied solemnly. “There’s a vase that whispers.”
Jason squinted at you.
You raised an eyebrow, deadpan. “And a chair that moves.”
A pause. Then, after a beat: “You’re lying.”
“Am I?”
Jason snorted. “You’re weird.”
You beamed. “You’re observant.”
The morning sun slanted in through tall windows as you passed a series of family portraits—centuries-old paintings of Waynes long since buried, all looking equally unimpressed. Jason stared at them with narrowed eyes.
“They all look mad.”
“Most of them were,” you replied. “Luckily, the current Wayne in charge has a much better smile.”
Jason snorted, but you didn’t miss the twitch at the corner of his mouth.
The first stop—of course—was the library.
You led him in through the west entrance, and like always, the moment the doors swung open, the scent of old pages and polished mahogany hit like a comforting wave. Sunlight slanted through the tall arched windows, dust motes drifting lazily in the beams, soft golden puddles pooling across the antique carpet.
Jason didn’t speak for a long time.
You just watched him.
His head tilted back, eyes scanning the ceiling as if he was trying to understand how the shelves could possibly go that high. The silence wasn’t heavy—it was full of awe, of a stillness you didn’t dare disturb.
Then he walked forward, slow and wide-eyed, fingers trailing just an inch above the rows of hardcovers. His lips parted like he might say something, but didn’t.
You joined him quietly. “You like reading?”
He shrugged. “Sometimes. When I can find stuff.”
“There’s a whole section in here with first editions. And a smaller one for comics. Bruce keeps those in the far back corner. Says it’s for Dick, but I’ve caught him back there too.”
Jason looked at you then, eyes flicking upward. “Batman reads comics?”
“Batman reads everything.”
“…Even trashy romance?”
You smirked. “Especially trashy romance.”
Jason blinked. Then—finally, finally—he laughed. It wasn’t big, but it was real. Short and sharp, like he hadn’t meant to let it out, and a little startled when he did.
It made your heart ache in the softest, most beautiful way.
“I can help you pick something later,” you offered. “You’ve got time to explore. You don’t have to rush into anything.”
He shrugged again, but this one wasn’t so closed off. “Maybe.”
“Well,” you said with a little smile, stepping beside him, “everything in here is yours to read. No time limit. No late fees. Just don’t dog-ear the pages or Alfred will make you reorganize the whole fiction wall.”
You sat down on one of the cushions, pressing your hand against your belly again as the nausea flickered. This one was mild. Manageable. You took a breath, then another, and let yourself enjoy the quiet.
He stayed there longer than you expected. And when he finally looked up, his face was different. Not wide-eyed, not grinning, but softer.
“This room’s cool.”
You grinned. “Told you.”
“Still think the cave’s cooler.”
“Give it a week.”
After a little while, you nudged him toward the hallway with a soft promise of something even cooler, and he followed with only a minimal amount of grumbling. (You suspected it was for show.)
Outdoors, the garden was still damp from the morning dew, the stone paths glistening in the sun. You handed Jason a pair of boots that probably once belonged to Dick and rolled up the sleeves of your cardigan. The air was thick with the scent of flowers, soil, and the faint sweetness of lilacs drifting in from the far end of the orchard.
“This is my favorite part of the whole manor,” you said, unlocking the gate with an old iron key. “Clark used to joke I’d end up moving a whole cornfield to Gotham just to feel at home.”
Jason raised a brow. “Did you?”
“Tempting,” you said with a grin. “But no. I like flowers more. Crops are for feeding. This—” you gestured wide “—is for healing.”
He stood at the threshold a moment longer, uncertain. Then stepped in behind you.
The garden was large, sectioned into neat rows and patches—herbs on one side, blooms on the other, with a small vegetable section near the back. White trellises framed the path, crawling with jasmine vines, and the peonies were just starting to bloom.
“You ever garden before?”
Jason wrinkled his nose. “Not really. I used to dig up worms in the alley behind the shelter. That count?”
You laughed. “You’re halfway there, then.”
You handed him a small trowel and showed him where to kneel beside you. “We’re transplanting some herbs today. Basil and thyme, mostly. You just gotta be gentle. Like this.”
You demonstrated, slowly loosening a seedling from its nursery pot, cradling the rootball in your palm. Jason watched, silent but focused.
“Now you try.”
He did. A bit rough at first—yanked a stem too hard, sent dirt spilling across the mulch.
“Easy,” you said, gently guiding his wrist. “The roots are sensitive. Like nerves.”
Jason tried again. Slower. This time, the plant came out whole.
“There,” you said. “See? You’ve got a steady hand.”
He glanced at you, a bit skeptical. “So what’s the point of this?”
“Gardening?”
“Yeah. You just grow stuff?”
“Well,” you mused, settling into the dirt beside him, “you plant something. You give it time. Water. Care. And then—one day—it blooms. Or it doesn’t. Sometimes it dies. But even then, you learn something.”
He frowned slightly. “That sounds kinda… sad.”
“It can be.” You reached over and wiped a smudge of dirt from his cheek. “But it’s also really beautiful.”
He didn’t reply. Just looked down at the seedling in his palm and began to dig a small hole for it.
You showed him how to loosen the earth with the trowel, how not to dig too deep, how to make room for the roots without choking them. He was clumsy at first—hands too hard, gestures too fast—but you corrected him with gentle touches, soft nudges, a quiet laugh when he messed up.
“You’re not mad?” he asked once, after uprooting an entire seedling by mistake.
“Why would I be mad?” you replied.
“‘Cause I screwed it up.”
You met his eyes. “It’s just dirt, Jason. It grows back.”
He stared at you like you’d said something profound.
After that, he got quieter. More focused. Still a little sassy—he called the worms “nasty bastards” and asked if he could name one Bruce—but his hands got steadier. He followed your instructions. He listened.
Your nausea came back in waves. You paused now and then, pressed a hand to your stomach. Jason noticed once, tilted his head.
“You okay?”
You smiled faintly. “Just a little sick. It’ll pass.”
He didn’t press. Just went back to patting down the dirt around the roots, lips pursed like he was trying very hard not to destroy the basil entirely.
You lost track of time. The sun climbed higher.
Eventually, after you’d rinsed your hands and tucked your hair behind your ears, Jason stopped near the edge of a narrower path lined with wildflower hedges.
“What’s that?” he asked, pointing.
You stepped up beside him and followed his gaze.
At the far corner of the garden—nestled between two flowering trees and framed by white stone—was a narrow path. The flowers along its edge were all pale white: lilies, hydrangeas, baby’s breath. The soil was turned carefully. The edges trimmed with care.
Jason tilted his head. “Looks important.”
“It is,” you said softly.
He looked at you. You kept your eyes on the path.
“It’s for the . . little ones,” you said, voice quiet. “The ones I lost.”
Jason frowned. “What do you mean?”
You paused. Swallowed. Your hands were still damp from the soil. You rubbed them together slowly.
“I was pregnant,” you said. “A few times.”
He blinked, confused. “You don’t have a baby.”
You smiled, tired. “No. I don’t.”
He stood still, trying to work it out. The idea was clearly strange to him—this kind of grief. The kind with no picture frame. No face.
“They weren’t here long,” you said, crouching to touch the petals of a nearby bloom. “But they existed. Enough to be loved. Enough to be missed.”
Jason didn’t speak for a long while. Then, finally: “This garden’s really nice.”
You looked up at him. “Thanks.”
He looked back at the path. “Do you think they know? That you made this?”
“I hope so.”
Jason shuffled his feet. “My mom wasn't really nice much of the time. She got too many things. But I love her still. I think, wherever they are, they must love you too. You're nice.”
You smiled softly, eyes slightly glassy. “Well, thank you, mister. And I’m sorry for your mom.”
He shrugged. “S’whatever. I don’t even remember her that much anyway.”
“That doesn’t mean it doesn’t matter.”
He stared at the white flowers a little longer. Then turned to you. “Can I… plant something here too?”
Your breath caught.
You had never shared that space before. Dick wasn't much into gardening and Bruce never asked too much, just tended to admire it, kiss your temple, keep you close to him to never let you break too much.
But how much that idea of sharing something so special with a child your fiancee had already decided would stay — something you were in desperate need to agree —, with someone you would, one day, call a son, made your heart beat with a bit too much tenderness.
You nodded slowly. “Of course.”
“I mean… not for me,” he added quickly, his cheeks blushing. “Just… to help.”
You smiled through the tightness in your throat. “I’d like that very much.”
So you handed him the trowel again. And the two of you—hands dirty, hearts a little softer—began to dig.
pairing. bucky barnes x fem!reader
mcu timeline. post-thunderbolts.
synopsis. to everyone else on the team, you're a ball of sunshine, a quick-thinking spy, a genius pair of eyes keeping track of anything suspicious during missions. to bucky, however, you are the bane of his existence, the knife in his back, the ire in his blood. he'll stop at nothing to get you kicked off the team, even if it means risking his own life. unfortunately, he never planned for this: you pinned beneath him on the training mat, wide-eyed and fully aware how hard he is against your thigh. based on this request.
warnings. smut ( switch/dom-leaning!bucky, unprotected piv, oral - m & f receving, 69ing, fingering, face riding, ab riding, knifeplay - m receiving, manhandling, biting, dirty talk, dick+pussy pronouns, spit, one spank, like a second of thigh fucking + choking, voyeursim/mirror kink? idfk basically they are fucking and watching, bucky puts the reader in a headlock :), backshots ayo! honestly they're kind of fighting and fucking at the same time? idk just read it pls, i'm baring my horny soul to you here! ) bucky's pov & he's so annoying (i love him), one-sided enemies to lovers bc bucky's a loser and you're literally just vibing, spy!reader, lowkey himbo!bucky, bickering, jealousy, unwanted sexual advances ( not from bucky ), angst, fluff, gun violence, description of injuries + blood, a bad guy that i made up in my head therefore he sucks and has a very lame name :) for the purpose of plot: bucky is the 'leader' of the thunderbolts*
reader inclusivity. some implications of the reader being shorter/smaller than bucky, reader has a specific fear + a specific scar.
word count. 14.3k
hyde’s input. pray for me y'all, i'm going through something unimaginable 😔 (attempting to write a new fic after peaking w/ manchild)
Gun to his head and a demand to say one good thing about you? Bucky is taking the bullet.
In every sense of the word, you’re a good person. You’re a reliable partner, a shadow that lurks among crowds and keeps an eye out for your teammates. You’re patient, always the last to raise your voice when tensions are high and the others are divulging into a cacophony of outrage. You help Bob with the dishes, you give John tips on how to get blood out of his suit, you invest your time into researching methods to ease Ava’s chronic pain, you take care of Yelena’s guinea pig when she’s away on missions, and you encourage Alexei on all of his awful PR stunt misadventures.
It’s no wonder that the rest of the team adores you, yet, for reasons he can’t explain, Bucky can barely tolerate your presence for more than a minute without breaking out in hives and debating putting his own skull through a wall. The worst thing about hating you is knowing it’s irrational.
“Someone’s approaching your nine, James,” maybe, he ponders as your voice speaks through his earpiece, it’s your peculiar insistence on using his first name. “Roland Andrews, big shot lawyer and son of tech billionaire, William Andrews. His father has been accused of tax fraud more times than you clean your knives yet he always seems to get away with it, scot-free.”
Sure enough, the stout figure of a prematurely balding man is creeping along the left of Bucky’s peripheral. The champagne in his hand isn’t sweet enough to mask the bitter taste of admitting you’re correct.
“Thanks for the encyclopedia dump, what’s it to me?” Or maybe it’s the fact you make him irresponsible, nerves too frazzled to remember to be discreet when he speaks over the comms — the couple to his right are staring at him confused, surely wondering why he’s talking to himself.
“His father has been linked to the likes of Kingpin and, more relevantly, Hydra. So if we’re hoping to investigate the rumours of their resurgence…” As if your voice in his ear isn’t enough, fate chooses the perfect moment to have him spot you over the rim of his champagne flute, standing across the museum hall, sparkling beneath the chandelier. Your eyes are somewhere else; unlike how the small crowd surrounding you has busied themselves with focusing on their own reflections in the glass, you seem to take genuine interest in the exhibit behind the pane. “Sorry, I assumed you read the mission brief.”
No, he hadn’t. In fact, the time that should have been dedicated to reading the brief had been wasted on watching you. Specifically, the way your knee bounced across from him on the Quinjet. Had the plane not landed when it did, Bucky would have leaped over and put a stop to your distracting movement.
“I was busy,” this time he makes sure it’s but a whisper, loud enough for only the mic to pick up. “What do we know about his father’s links to Hydra?”
“Not much, unfortunately. Rumours, at best. An entire history of funding them, at worst,” the man grows closer while your voice grows more distant over the earpiece, an interference of two strangers conversing near-by. “He’s closing in on you. Leave the line open.”
Bucky wants to disobey.
He wants to turn off his mic and drop it into the remaining bubbling liquid in his glass. He wants to rip out the earpiece and crush it beneath the heel of his italian leather shoes. He wants to make a big scene, point down the length of the display hall and announce your presence to each and every overly-wealthy, underly-empathetic tech-head and government body within the vicinity.
It matters little that he would be blowing your cover, unveiling your role as a quiet partner of the Avengers, and subsequently putting the oligarchs in the room on edge. It would all be worth it, even the part where he’d be risking his own place within the team, if it meant you would get the boot and no longer be here, hovering in his peripheral like a persistent, buzzing little bee.
Unfortunately, a baritone voice stops him from giving into his wildest fantasy.
“Good evening, Congressman Barnes,” Roland Andrews is every bit the image of a hot-shot lawyer, right down to the Rolex living obnoxiously on his wrist and the bottle of cologne he appears to have doused himself in. “Though I suppose it’s just Barnes now. Avenger Barnes? It’s hard to keep up with all those… heroic names.”
“I know he’s insufferable, James, but unclench your hand. You’re a second away from snapping the innocent neck of that champagne flute.”
His fingers almost tighten as you whisper through his earpiece.
“Do they call you Lawyer Andrews-”
“You’re being hostile!” Bucky can feel your eyes on him, unnerving him.
He bites back a scoff, coughs up a plastic smile, “Just call me Mr Barnes.”
“So, you've heard of me,” of course that is all a man like Roland would pick up on, salivating at his mouth for that little morsel of validation to feed his ego’s belief in his right to be in a room like this, surrounded by the other ‘big-deals’ who managed to wrangle themselves an invite to the exclusive event.
“It’s hard to tell from all the way over here but I swear you knowing his name has got him so excited, he’s popped a boner,” you’re in his ear again, just as Bucky takes a sip of his drink.
The sharp inhale he pulls almost causes him to choke and, for a moment, he can’t help but shoot a quick glare your way.
A glare you don’t even notice, too invested at blinding a stranger with your aggravating smile.
“Yeah, well, don’t go feeling too flattered,” a twisted feeling of satisfaction nestles itself in his gut as he watches the man’s face fall to a frown. “I know your father.”
If decades of being a puppet through which others’ enacted evil and bloodspill had taught James Buchanan Barnes anything, it was to notice everything. The way his shoulders straighten a little at the mention of his father. The way his weight shifts from his right foot onto both. The way the pupils of his alcohol-stained eyes stretch an inch, growing with his interest.
For a lawyer, he’s got an awful poker face.
“Is that so?” While the man’s mouth is stoic, his voice is laced in intrigue.
“Well done, you’ve got him hooked. Now, reel him in.”
Bucky is really wishing he’d shut off the line.
“We once worked together,” there’s always a bitter aftertaste that comes with a lie, that’s what Bucky has come to learn, like his mouth is physically rejecting his own dishonesty. “You could even say, we’re old friends.”
“My father and you,” he’s familiar with that tone behind the lawyer’s words. Not disbelief but disgust, the kind one stares down at a wretched bug with. “Worked together? He never told me he’d taken any interest in your campaign for congress.”
“You know what you have to do,” you’re watching again. He knows it because the hairs on the back of his neck rise and his chest feels tight, like it’s boxing his lungs in.
“Like I said, old friends,” Bucky had thought the scheming and the calculated words would all come to an end alongside his term in congress. It’s missions like this that remind him it never ends, not when he’s stuck inside a sandbox full of snakes, waiting for him to turn his back on them for a chance to take a bite. “Our organization met some obstacles a few years back. But, what’s that old saying? Cut off one head, two more shall take its place.”
There Mr Andrews goes again, spilling all his secrets onto his visage. There’s a subtle stilling of his breath, a twitch in his left brow, a parting of his lips.
Recognition stares Bucky in the eye. And, for the first time since he regained his mind, it seems Hydra is staring at him too.
The torture, the mind control, the words that turned him into an unfeeling monster…
“Say it,” you’re there to cut off his next thought, his next memory.
As easy as slipping on a tailored suit, those old words roll off Bucky’s tongue, “Hail Hydra.”
Like a wave, ice cold and chilling to the bone, nausea washes over him. He blinks and, behind his eyelids, a montage of violence that wears his face yet lacks his soul. Pain shoots up his left arm, nonsensical and impossible in every way, yet it's there all the same, stabbing at his metal arm and lingering along the missing nerves.
What a punch in the guts it is — after so many years of working on himself, bettering himself, remembering himself — to be cruelly reminded of his inability to ever fully escape his past. No pardon and no psychologist could ever suck the evil fully out of James Buchanan Barnes, so long as he was living beyond his lifetime and walking amongst the collateral victims of his violence.
Instinct commands him to reach for two things.
First, a glance over at you. Closer than before, hovering among a crowd of eager-eyed suits. Just like the rest of his team, you have them effortlessly wrapped around your finger, clinging onto every ounce of attention you fill their cups with.
A sneer on his lips, the soldier looks away.
And, secondly, he tilts his glass up and reaches for a final sip.
“Good boy, James,” this time, he does choke.
Champagne burns the back of his throat and his neck nearly snaps at the speed his head turns to you, still playing your cards of flattery to your crowd of loyal watchers and completely unaware of the paleness taking over Bucky’s face, the anger clenching its fist around his heart, and the heat melting his loins.
Why would you say such a thing? How could you say such a thing, and have the gall to not even be looking at him? It isn’t fair, in any universe, for you to be so unaffected while you nearly kill him with three words. You must not be human, must not be real, must not be trusted.
There, that’s what it is.
Bucky doesn’t trust you, that must be why he wants you gone.
“Beautiful woman,” Rolland Andrews commands Bucky’s attention back to him, and that’s when the soldier realises his mistake.
He’s been staring at you, openly and undoubtedly, making the subject of your investigation not only aware of your existence but of Bucky’s interest in your whereabouts.
His right palm is growing sweaty.
“You think?” Bucky makes a point of taking two steps to the right, blocking the view of you over his shoulder and forcing a load of eye contact onto the lawyer. If he plays his cards right, he can pivot the conversation away from you and back over to the point of the mission. “I hadn’t noticed. She’s just-”
“His assistant,” there’s your voice again, but it isn’t in his ear. It’s by his side and accompanied by you coming fully into view between the two men. Bucky watches your hand shake the outstretched paw of Mr Andrews before you turn your attention onto him, a mellow smile pairing well with the red of your lipstick. “Sorry to interrupt, Mr Barnes, but there’s been an incident downtown that requires your assistance.”
He doesn’t mean for his eyes to narrow, but that’s just the kind of reaction you inspire in him: confusion and disgruntlement.
“What a shame,” there’s nothing confusing about the way the lawyer’s leopard-like eyes are glued to the neckline of your dress. Perhaps the soldier’s jacket would be of better use over your shoulders. “You’re stealing him away just when our conversation was getting interesting.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry, sir!” You slip right past Bucky’s attempt to grab your forearm, and lay a hand on the man’s shoulder, a faux apology in your gaze. “But this really is a pressing matter. Here,” you’re back to keeping your hands to yourself, too busy rifling through your clutch to entertain whatever perverse thoughts are growing in Andrew’s mind. “Take Mr Barnes’ card, perhaps we can arrange for you both to continue this conversation somewhere a little more private.”
As easy as a dog herds sheep, you escort a bewildered Bucky Barnes away from the target.
You lead the charge, weaving through the clusters of people so effortlessly that he struggles to keep up, his path occasionally thwarted by an unmoving mass and forcing him to watch as you continue your pursuit of the up-ahead, leaving nothing but the shape of your dress to follow. It’s only once the chill of the night bites at exposed skin that he manages to catch a hold of you, halfway down the entrance staircase.
“What was that?” He seethes into your ear from one step behind, hand wound around your arm.
“Smile, James,” you glance back at him, “unless you want to end up on the front page of the news with accusations of mistreating your poor assistant.”
Waiting beneath the staircase sits a promenade of black cars and personal drivers, queuing up to collect their decorated debt otherwise known as their employers. Alongside the white light of burning headlights, there’s the incessant flash of cameras going off, a wall of photographers and journalists hungry to catch a glimpse and steal a moment from those attempting to flea the event’s festivities.
“You’re not taking another step until you answer my question,” he mutters all the same, grip reinforcing itself on your arm.
Despite that, Bucky doesn’t stop you from journeying down another two stairs.
“Your question wasn’t very clear,” at this point he’s certain you must be doing it on purpose, picking and choosing the words you need to drive the soldier up the wall.
“I had him right where we wanted him, and you-”
“I what?” Again, you’re looking back at him, and again, you’re smiling perfectly for the cameras, manoeuvring him to loosen his grip on your arm and switch to locking elbows instead, just in time for the press to take notice of his presence and begin turning their lenses. “Come on, use that caveman brain of yours.”
“Do you get a kick out of ruining my missions?” He registers a shout of his name, and then another, and then another.
Like a pack of starved vultures, the press scramble to gather at the bottom of the stairs, microphones and cameras grasped in their talons as they screech out questions he has no intention of answering.
“We’ve been over this before, James,” if you’ve noticed the fact he is descending slower in light of the chaos that awaits, you say nothing. You simply match his pace. “I get a kick out of helping.”
Bucky remembers the last time you said those very words, both of you lost in the outskirts of France and struggling to find any signal. When he was sure that would get you reprimanded for inefficiency, you pulled through and managed to salvage the mission.
Before that, there was a late night in Tokyo, where you and Walker boarded the jet with blood drying into the cracks of your fingernails. Despite the bloodshed, the mission was a success, and Bucky’s chastising words aimed at you fell upon deaf ears.
In truth, he still the first time you said those words, two days into the job and faced with his interrogative eyes in the dark of the kitchen whilst you were trying to sneak away with a midnight snack.
“Funny, cause you never seem to help.”
“Roland Andrews may be an obnoxious asshole but he’s not an idiot,” as you lift your foot to tackle another step, the heel of your shoe catches on the hem of your dress. His elbow locks and his vibranium hand is steadying you before he can even ponder what a satisfactory sight it would be to watch you roll down the stairs and strike out the press in some twisted game of bowling. Much to his own disgruntlement, his subconscious doesn’t know how to let harm come your way. “He wasn’t about to confess in the middle of the Smithsonian that your old torturers are planning a resurgence. Thanks to me, he has your card. Which means he has your number, which means he’ll call.”
His pride won’t give in and allow him to tell you it’s a good plan, so he narrows his eyes and questions it instead, “Why are you so sure?”
The press are so close now, a mere three steps below, yet he hears you perfectly clear among all their harmonious yelling.
“Like you said, you had him right where we wanted him,” his eyes follow your own as they glance backwards. At the top of the stairs, Rolland Andrews stands watching you both leave. “Trust me, he’ll call.”
Five weeks pass before the call arrives.
On a Thursday morning, six forty three am, with dawn smearing the horizon in shades of tangerine, Bucky wakes from a dream he can’t quite remember. There is light, there is laughter, and there is someone laying by his side, keeping count of his heartbeat while he traces constellations over a naked thigh. Then, the phone rings and he’s thrust back into his body, sweating beneath sheets and consumed by the empty space to his right.
On the other end of the line is not the most-anticipated Roland Andrews. It’s his assistant, with a voice as chirpy as a bird singing its morning song, relaying a short list of demands veiled as an invitation — one of which leads him to now, four hours later, pacing the living room while you wax poetic about your genius, world-saving, revolutionary plan.
The very same plan that’s going to send Bucky to his belated grave.
“Absolutely not,” he says for what feels like the millionth time, metal fingers tangling themselves in the web of his hair. The sting against his scalp is the only thing that seems to ground him, aiding him in holding back even a modicum of the frustration your persistence is simmering within him. “Over my dead body.”
“It makes perfect sense, James,” in opposition to his own rabid demeanor, you’re cool as ice, spread out atop the couch and sipping away at your morning coffee. Movement is occasional, optional — in the desperate times when he’s intercepting the path between your eyes and the television, where reruns of some awful reality show hold your attention captive. “Come on, you know my plans always work.”
They do, and he hates it. Despises it. Wishes you would hurry up and screw up enough to stop being put in harm’s way. But no, you just have to be perfect at everything.
“How many more times do I have to say it? No,” like a broken record or an ever-looping echo, he’s repeating words, over and over, all in the futile hope you’ll sniff out the suspicious nature of Andrews’ demand and agree to Bucky’s terms instead.
“You’re being stubborn,” you lean to the left, trying to catch a glimpse at the screen past his stoic stance.
Perhaps a little overzealous, Bucky had hoped your proposal of continuing the conversation somewhere private would be just that: private. It seems the lawyer and his different definition of privacy had other plans in the form of a summoning to attend an exclusive gala at his family’s estate. The point of contention, however, is the request tacked on at the end of the invite: Mr Andrews requests your assistant come too, as his personal date for the evening.
“And you’re being reckless!”
“Newsflash, that’s kind of my job.”
The first thing Bucky learnt about you was your history — better said, your lack of history.
A life lived in silence. Quaint and quiet are pretty synonyms for invisible. Your existence is nothing but a blank, untraceable slate, up until you at last appear on the proverbial map of agents and demons, as merely a drop in the ocean formerly known as S.H.I.E.L.D.
Sometimes, Bucky thinks he remembers seeing you. Just once, with the Winter Soldier shielded by shadows in Pierce’s office. You stood on the other side of bulletproof glass, a mournful Steve to the right of you and the despicable mass of Alexander Pierce in front of you, face painted in faux sympathy and a hand squeezing down on your shoulder. But the waters of his memory are murky and leave him needing to come up for air before he can ever make a real shape out of anything.
After the downfall of Hydra, you returned to being a ghost. Unheard from and inactive, until the war between heroes, a silent partner in Sharon Carter’s ploy to steal back Steve’s shield and Sam’s wings. While Bucky was turned back to ice, you were running around Europe, protecting the whereabouts of the men who fought for his freedom. Then came the dark days, after half the world turned to dust. Somewhere along the record books, you became a mercenary.
An agent turned killer for hire, and one of the top earners under Valentina’s payroll. When the time came for her to do away with all the loose-ends of her crimes, you were lucky enough — or just busy enough — to ignore her deadly invitation into the furnace that housed Bob. Seven weeks after he was declared an Avenger, Miss De Fontaine turned up at the tower’s door with you. Sweet smile, sharp senses, one job: look out for the team.
From agent, to mercenary, to glorified babysitter.
“Your job is to gather intel, to be an informant, to keep a close eye,” the pacing has seized and Bucky has now taken to facing you, right knee popped out and hands on his hips, the very image of a parental figure mid-lecture. “It’s not your job to answer to some daddy’s boy on a power trip.”
“This might be our only chance to get a lead on the Hydra rumours,” whether it’s prompted by the change in his stance or by your own disinterest, you reach for the control and turn the television off. “You owe it to yourself to let me help.”
The only noise that remains is you two bickering, while the rest of the tower’s inhabitants are sleeping away their morning how you had hoped to — before a certain soldier pulled you out of your slumber—: undisturbed and uninterrupted.
“I’m going alone,” before he can even fully commit to his sentence, you’re standing up and rounding the coffee table.
“Please, just take a minute, breathe, and think about this rationally,” your approach is one that calls for peace, the demeanour of someone trying to calm a street cat: hands stretched out in front of you and a plea in your eyes that screams ‘please don’t run away’. “Andrews isn’t just inviting you to one of his posh parties, James. He’s testing you, trying to see how easily you’ll grant his request. He wants to see how much he can trust you. I’m tougher than I look, okay? Let me be the collateral to you getting the answers we need.”
One of the worst things about you is your ability to make a good point, even out of a damn circle. Your argument is just the correct mixture of rational, impactful, and personal to almost have him giving in and accepting your offer to help.
But, why should you have to be tougher than you look? Last time Bucky checked, your skill is stealth and brains, not muscle — he is all the muscle you, or, better said, any mission could ever need.
Though frozen in thought, the soldier can see those open arms growing closer, and closer, and closer. You’re two inches away from resting your hand on his hunk of vibranium when Bucky finally reacts, flinching out of a touch he doesn’t quite get to feel and turning away from you.
“I’m not pimping you out,” he shakes his head, voice stern and brow furrowed. “Not to Andrews. Not to anyone. You’re an agent, not an escort.”
“Honey traps have existed since way before your day and age-”
“I’m the leader of this team, my word is final,” for his own self-preservation, he’ll pretend he doesn’t notice the smile sliping down your face. “You’re not coming.”
Bucky’s beginning to doubt this team knows the definition of the word ‘leader’.
Otherwise, he wouldn’t be dressed to the nines and looking like a ten, people-watching out the tinted window of a car in an effort to distract himself from your reflection in the glass and the cloud of titillating spice your perfume floats his way.
Of course you end up coming with him to Mr Andrews’ event, and so Bucky Barnes has to result to gaslighting himself into believing this is what he really wanted all along: him in another suit, you in another dress, and nothing between you but the thinning space of a middle seat. The illusion shatters each time he recalls that the silk resting atop your skin has been hand picked by the lawyer himself, delivered to Bucky’s office with a note that conveniently never found its way to you — For that pretty assistant of yours, Barnes. Tell her to wear nothing beneath.
The subtle strain of your hardened nipples has him uncomfortably aware that you’ve complied with Roland’s request, despite being none the wiser to its existence.
“Don’t drink anything you’re not there to witness being poured,” his throat is raw from the lack of use, the forty minute drive in silence nearly coming to an end as the grand gates to an estate come into view. “I don’t trust Rolland Andrews, there’s something… off.”
“Yes, James, that’s why we’re here.”
“Did you just-” His head finally turns away from the window to look at your image in full dimension, something more than just a poor-man’s imitation of you in the window. “Did you just roll your eyes at me?”
“Roll my eyes at you? Never, my dear leader!” And you have the audacity to offer him a mint, hand mid-rifle through your purse. He accepts it, and prays the sharp flavour on his tongue will be enough to calm the jitterbug traversing through his veins. “I was trying to catch a glimpse at my brain, that’s all.”
“The only chance of seeing your brain is with a microscope,” the gates open slowly, dramatically, and do nothing to aid in the soldier’s uneasy feeling.
“Have you ever considered becoming a motivational speaker?” You chirp, and cross your right leg over the other. “With words as kind as that, I feel empowered to take on the world!”
Once more, you’re a liability to Bucky, a distraction in the shape of a shin peeking out. He’s not usually so bothered by a woman’s skin… But when it belongs to someone he loathes entirely, it’s hard not to seeth at the sight of it.
At the top of an obnoxiously long driveway sits the Andrews estate, a courtyard mansion stripped right out of the Renaissance and sticking out like a sore thumb atop nine acres of flat terrain. Cars are queued up, one after the other, slowly rounding a central water feature, disposing of their passengers, and driving back out of the expensive lot. Unlike the Smithsonian, not a single member of the press is circling the masses with screeching questions or invasive cameras, and, in a twist not even the soldier expects, he almost wishes there was someone, if only to document whatever evil may take place beyond those walls.
“Tell little miss Totally-Spies she looks pretty,” for a moment, Bucky mistakes the voice for his subconscious… But no, it’s just Yelena, no doubt laughing at him all the way over on the Quinjet.
“What? No she doesn’t,” something bitter comes over his tongue. “Tell her yourself.”
“How can I tell her when she is not wearing a wire, genius?” Bucky takes a mental note, adding Yel to the list of women who have rolled their eyes at him this evening — so far, it's two for two. “Oh, and do you copy? Walker says to check our connections before you two step into your high-school Hydra reunion.”
“Of course I fucking copy-” He should have retired to a farm when he had the chance.
The evening does not unfold in the disastrous way Bucky anticipates — it’s even worse.
Barely a foot in the door, the man of the hour conjures before you both as if from thin air. He greets you first, hands laying themselves over all the right places to rile Bucky’s nerves as the man pulls you in to press a sloppy kiss against your cheek. The smile you shoot at the soldier is one of pacifism, a non-verbose reminder to remain calm and focus on the object of your mission.
Since he cannot spare you from Andrews’ wandering touch, Bucky intercepts the wine glass he attempts to hand you, swallowing it down in one large gulp with the blind hope that his super soldier serum has any possible inbuilt date-rape repellent.
Rolland Andrews is possessive, infectious — an invasive species that is destroying the already endangered ecosystem of Bucky’s tolerance. As the night unfurls, he wears you like the watch on his wrist, a silent jewel perched on his arm and paraded throughout the room. Expected to smile and encouraged to stay quiet, you play your role to perfection. Bucky can’t help but watch you, study the way you shapeshift into someone he’s never met, a chameleon whose nature it is to blend in with her surroundings.
For hours, he’s forced to watch the light shade of your dress be eclipsed by the lawyer’s dark tux. Across the room or stood among the same circle of oligarchs, the sight of you burns his eyes all the same. To add salt into the agitated wound, he has yet to achieve a moment of real privacy with Andrews. And, so, the soldier decides you are not a distraction, but an obstruction.
If Bucky’s eyes stick to you like glue, it must be for two very simple, extremely logical, and completely impersonal reasons.
Firstly, despite the lack of respect he’s afforded by you all, he’s a good leader — a man made of responsibility, who has sworn to take care of his agents, no matter how often he flirts with the idea of you being kicked off the team. And, secondly, in hopes that you’ll notice the panicked widening of his eyes and help steer the lawyer into taking Bucky someplace private to resume their dealings from the Smithsonian’s gala.
It’s not until he finds himself in the mansion’s central courtyard, lost in a mass of swaying bodies and nursing his fourth whiskey on the rocks, that Bucky loses sight of you.
You’re gone, until you’re not. A glimmer of light in the corner of the soldier’s eye, beckoning him to look up. Row after row of empty balconies protrude from the mansion’s walls, staring down onto the festivities below. When he finally spots you, his stomach drops.
“Something’s wrong,” he reaches for the comms like it’s a crutch, something that will steady this uneasy feeling.
“Don’t be cryptic, Bucky,” Yelena’s voice rings through within a moment, somehow sounding equally alert as she is bored. “It does not suit you.”
Traveling over quicksand is easier than moving through this crowd — Bucky would know. He makes it seven steps, sight glued to you, before a solid figure forces him to look away.
After carving out a new path to get inside the home, his eyes find you right where they left you, “She’s on a top-floor balcony.”
“O…Kay? Are you worried she is going to fall in love with the view and betray us?”
“No!” His sudden outburst garners a few looks. Bucky pushes harder through the rows of bodies, neck tilting to watch how your dress dances in the wind. “No. It’s just… weird.”
To the left of you Bucky notices the blurry shape of Rolland Andrews. Were he as logical as you, perhaps he’d see this as the perfect opportunity to snatch a moment alone with the lawyer. Instead, all he sees is a threat at your side, causing a fresh wave of nausea to crash over him and his footsteps to fall a little faster.
“Why?”
“Because she’s afraid of heights,” the words are a reflex, pouring out of Bucky with no thought put behind them — the only thought he seems capable of is you.
“She is?” Walker jumps on the line. “When did she mention that?”
“She didn’t mention it,” an elbow digs into him as a woman stumbles over her heels and, suddenly, a martini glass smashes to pieces on the floor and the stench of vermouth stains his clothes. “I just noticed.”
“Oh, so you notice things now?”
“Don’t say it like that,” he quietly chastises Yelena as he side steps both the woman profusely apologising and the stranger approaching him with tissues in their hands.
There’s no time for interruptions or distractions, he needs to keep moving.
“Like what? This is just my voice.”
“Like there’s something you’re not saying.”
“Busted,” the Widow’s tone conjures outrage inside him, and stains his ears in hues of red. There’s a tight feeling in his chest, in his throat, uncomfortable and unwelcome as she continues to speak. “I’m just thinking how much someone needs to watch her to notice that.”
It only takes him a second to notice you are uncomfortable, cornered against the balcony’s ledge while the target of your mission hides his face in the crook of your neck, arms much stronger than your own caging you in.
Perhaps this is all the makings of Bucky’s own feelings, his own discomfort at the sight of an agent under his care being put in this position, somehow being irrationally projected up onto you. Too good at your job for your own good, never once has he known you to let your guard slip. Does your disdain of heights affect you so viscerally that it’s now cracking away at your hard-shell exterior?
A throat clears itself over the comms.
“Yeah, well, it’s not exactly hard to tell when you sit through a six hour flight with her bouncing her knee,” remembering to reply grows harder as he continues to search for a break in the crowd of foreign faces.
There’s an ache in Bucky’s neck, one that promises to be unforgiving when he wakes up tomorrow morning. Putting his pain on the backburner, he tilts his head back further.
“It must have been so hard for you,” something curls up inside his loins, ashamed, as Walker speaks, mockery bleeding through the speaker. “Wishing she was bouncing on your dick inste-”
“I’m going up. Get the jet as close as you can.”
The pieces fall into place in perfect harmony: a doorway back inside the mansion appears on his right, just as Rolland disappears off the balcony and leaves you all by yourself.
The ascent is one of desperation, a disgraced angel scrapping its way back up the stairway to Heaven. Bucky tackles the marble steps in pairs of twos and threes, using the length of his legs and the strength in his muscles as an advantage to cut down time. When he reaches the top floor, each breath is the result of a heaving chest and sweat is pooling at the base of his neck.
The third room on the left is where he finds you, back turned on the view of the courtyard and lip caught between your teeth.
“What are you doing out here?” He doesn’t mean to startle you, to have your shoulders jump in surprise at the sudden appearance of his voice, but it’s like he just can’t help himself, he cannot stand another moment of seeing you like this — hunched in on yourself, itching to be anywhere but where you stand.
“James,” amidst your fear, you’re still more level-headed than he’s ever been around you. While most see your disregard of your feelings and fright as another testament to your skills, he’s increasingly finding it to be a sign of recklessness. Would it kill you to put yourself first, for once? “Get lost! If Andrews comes back and finds-”
“Finds what?” Bucky challenges as he steps out onto the balcony. There’s your perfume to greet him, again, washing over him with the breeze of the night. “Me speaking to my assistant?”
A stare-off ensues, one that gives him far too much time to notice how the moon sits reflected amidst a pool of stars in your eyes, then you finally huff in defeat, “Dammit, you’re right.”
“For once.”
“Feels nice, doesn’t it?”
Something else feels nice when he catches a glimpse of your smile.
Not the sly, temptress curls of your lips you’ve been shooting at Rolland all night, but the loud smile — the one that puts your teeth on display, and pushes the swells of your cheeks up, and wrinkles the corners of your eyes. Bright and real, the kind that lights up the whole tower when it's an ungodly hour and you spot Bucky emerging into view as you dig into your usual midnight snacks.
A heavy gust of wind arrives to remind you of where you are, sweeping the smile right off your lips.
Anxious feet dance beneath the trail of your dress, the click of heel upon marble reaching his ears. As any good leader should, he takes a step closer and takes a hold of your wrist, too aware of the shake in your hands to fully envelope them with his own. He moves one step back towards the room and beckons you to follow.
“Come on, let’s get you away from the ledge-”
“Wait, just a second,” you’re turning to fully face him, invading his space.
For a moment, it feels like the world is caving in around you both, the walls of the universe nullifying the distance between you with a force greater than gravity. All he can see, all he can smell, all he can feel is you. His lungs are running out of oxygen. When was the last time he took a breath?
You’re in the air, and in his eyes, and pressing a single finger to his cheek.
“You’ve got something on your face, righttt… Here!” You inch back enough to display your pride and joy to him, a single eyelash perched on the tip of your finger. How is it that something so tiny, so inconsequential can capture your attention so easily, while Bucky — for all his power, and all his valor, and all his strength — can barely get you to look at him most days? “Make a wish.”
A myriad of words dangle off the tip of his tongue, thoughts that have echoed through his head from the moment you stepped foot into his life — not just as a ghost in Steve’s stories, but as someone tangible, and real, and blood-boiling. I wish you would… Leave the team, stop helping, notice when I clean your gun, realise it’s not Bob who keeps ordering all the food you like, acknowledge that I don’t like you, inch closer and kiss me.
He doesn’t get to make a single wish.
All he gets is the harrowing view of playful eyes staring at him, unaware of the glowing red dot dancing up the length of your face before coming to a halt at your temple.
With no time to alert you, Bucky pulls your frame against his and dives back into the room as a bullet cuts through the air. Both of you tumble to the ground in a tangle of limbs before the soldier hauls you behind the wall. With the comfort of you hovering at his back, tucked safely against him, he peeks his head out just in time to catch the sniper’s laser stretched out across the courtyard. A second shot is fired, and a window is blown to smithereens.
“We’ve got an active shooter situation,” he barks into his microphone, ducking out for another glimpse at the sniper’s location. “Third floor, west wing, can’t tell which room.”
“James,” he barely registers the soft call of his name.
“On it,” Yelena responds, a thread of ease to weave his fraying mind back together.
“James.”
“You two get to the roof, I’m bringing the jet around,” as John’s voice fills the line, so does the sound of the plane’s engine.
Selfish as he is, Bucky can’t just walk away from tonight, can’t let you being put in harm’s way, again, all be for nothing.
“Leaving compromises the mission, Walker. I need to speak with Andrews first-”
“Bucky!”
The soldier’s neck snaps to look at you, a rush of whiplash burning down the left side. The yell knocks something out of you, your back slowly descending down the length of the wall while your legs give out beneath you. Like a mirror, he mimics your movements, coming to a crouch beside you on the cold floor.
Bucky can no longer smell the spice of your perfume. Now there is only metal, something sticky that drags down his throat upon inhaling and fights its way out of him. Sickly sweet and traumatically familiar, his limbs freeze in its presence.
“You’re bleeding,” he speaks with wonder, disgust, disbelief as a river of red flows down the length of your left leg.
“Listen to me,” there’s an eerie calm in the way you’re speaking, one that does not pair well with the way your hands tremble through their attempts to drag your dress up. Four hands work faster than two, and so his own join you in your mission, flinching to grab at the meat of your thigh upon the wound coming into view. “I need you to make me a tourniquet.”
“Andrews set this up,” his eyes feel like they’re about to fall out their sockets, opened wide and refusing to blink as his brain short circuits out of control. Nothing seems to be making sense. He spotted the sniper, just in time, and got you away from the danger. So why is there a bullet lodged in your upper thigh and why are his hands stained with your blood? “That sniper was meant to kill-”
“Hey!” There’s a sharp sting against his scalp and his attention jumps right up to your face. “Snap out of it. You keep saying you’re the leader of our team, yeah?” He nods into the grip of your fingers, letting the tension of straining strands knock the sense back into him “So be a leader, cut off the bleeding, and get us both out of here. Alive.”
The skirt of your dress winds up ripped in half and tightened in a knot around your upper thigh. You shoulder the pain like a champion, quiet and unbothered if not for the grip he lets your nails dig into his arms with, and the permanent indent of your teeth clamping down onto your lip. Eased back onto your feet, the soldier tolerates a total of three winced steps before he’s scooping you up into his arms and against his chest, silencing your protests with a pointed look.
“There’s a door at the end of this hallway, around the corner,” your voice is methodical, running through words like they’re programmed to come out of you rather than something you’re conjuring with your own mind. “That should get us up to the roof.”
“How do you know that?” He’s moving as carefully as he can, painfully aware of your blood drying into his skin.
“Lesson one, James,” the return of his first name has never stung so much. “Always know the layout before you enter a building.”
A shot rings out from behind before he can respond.
Emerging from the stairway is one of Andrews’ bodyguards, weapon on display as he openly fires at you both. Bucky doesn’t even have to tell you to reach into the hidden compartment of his suit, your fingers already fishing out his gun and pointing it over his shoulder.
The guard fires again and Bucky ducks to the right, leaving the bullet to lodge itself in the wall. As he picks up his pace, you fire a few rounds back at your attacker.
“Instead of wasting our bullets, maybe try aiming next time,” Bucky snaps as you blow out a window.
“Sorry, aims a little shaky right now on account of the whole bleeding out thing,” you fire and miss, again. “They don’t exactly teach you this at spy school!”
“Spy school?” He parrots back, readjusting his grip on you.
The end of the hallway is close enough he can taste the sweetness of freedom and the chill of the night air.
“Less questioning my methods of distracting myself with humour,” a final shot rings out in Bucky’s ear before he hears the unmistakable sound of a body hitting the floor. “More getting us to safety.”
Yelena is already awaiting you both as you reach the rooftop, a spray of someone else’s blood across her cheek. The pair work in unison to move you onto Bucky’s back and, as the familiar shape of the jet comes into view, the soldier warns you to hold on tight before grabbing hold of the dangling rope ladder. Climbing his way up to safety, Yelena follows close behind.
“Get us out of here, Walker!” Bucky’s quietly thankful for the blonde’s outburst, too busy tending to you to take control of the situation.
Guiding your frame down to the floor, his hand finds your face, your skin cold to touch despite the sweat dripping down your forehead.
“Tell me again how your plans always work,” he says in an effort to keep you awake, the weight of your eyelids growing with each slow blink you take.
The war zone of your leg is too much to handle, yet something compels him to take a peak, turning his own stomach at the bloody wound. Were he more sane of mind, he’d question why it’s affecting him so gravely after a whole century of working in the field of guts and gore. Tightening the bloodied scraps of your dress is of far more immediate concern to the soldier.
“Don’t go throwing your ‘I told you so’ party yet,” your voice is weaker than he’s used to, none of that calm confidence that shakes up his bones. Uneasy fingers tear the necklace off your neck and drop it into his palm, flipping the feature gemstone over and presenting a nearly unnoticeable bug microphone. “Let’s just say Andrews gets mouthy when he gets touchy.”
Bucky replaces you with a new enemy — time.
Where it used to fly, now, clipped of its wings, it crawls. There’s a drag behind every second, a noticeable existence surrounds every minute. Hours turn to days, and days fade into weeks. Midday in the tower is chaos, no level-headed voice to break through the yelling egos, while his midnights are quiet, somber, absent of any loud smiles when he creeps into the kitchen for a glass of water.
You being kicked off the team was never supposed to go like this.
It was supposed to be harm-free, a necessary solution to the problem of your hazardous lifestyle. It wasn’t supposed to be due to a bullet slicing right through your thigh, forcing you into temporary sick leave.
Worst of all, Valentina refuses to give up your location — citing some bullshit excuse about protecting your rehabilitation from any distractions. The soldier would sooner believe it’s the team she means to save from distraction, prying their focus away from whatever awful, stomach-turning, mind-numbing state you’re in.
Five months have passed, winter has brought destitution, and the team has slowly winnowed down those involved in the Andrews’ conspiracy to reestablish Hydra. Thanks to your little bugging trick, Rolland’s hands now only touch the steel bars of a jail cell, his father’s enterprise of tax fraud has at last been brought down, and any real hope of seeing you fully removed from your role as spy has fled Bucky’s grasp.
What is in his grasp, however, is the handle to your bedroom.
One turn of the latch and he confirms what he already knows awaits him beyond the door: an empty room full of your absence. It’s a cruel ritual that takes place when the soldier finds himself alone in the tower — John is visiting his kid, Ava and Yelena are somewhere in Europe working on extraditing someone, Alexei and Bob are in the West Coast negotiating PR deals. And Bucky is completely alone. Or, at least, he should be.
Until he hears a crash followed by a slew of words a nun would never dare repeat.
Knife in hand, Bucky treads through the tower with practiced ease, a silence in his steps reminiscent of his days as an assassin. He sticks to shadows, avoids any sparse ray of sunshine bleeding in through the windows as he clears the place, room by room. On his way past the empty maintenance room, the intruder makes noise once more and alerts him to their location: the training room.
Carefully pushing the door open, the last thing he expects is a high-pitched scream.
“Oh my god, James!” Hand clutched to your chest, your back is hunched over in search of both a steady heartbeat and breath. “Why are you sneaking around like some crazed serial killer?”
“Me?” The heavy door slams behind him as he pushes further into the room, the mirrors that circle the room reflecting his slow approach towards you and the way he safely tucks his knife away. “You’re the one banging around the place like a burglar!”
“Oh please, who on Earth- No, actually, in the entire universe would want to steal your stinky vests and rusty weights?”
He knows that he should reply, that he shouldn’t settle for you speaking to him in such a way. But he can’t. Not when you step out fully from behind the leg press and put your skin on display, the tiniest pair of black running shorts clinging to the plush of your thighs.
The visible loss of muscle definition is to be expected, yet it still hits him in the chest like a sledgehammer, knocking the wind right out of his lungs. The lack of usual bruising should be a comfort, yet it pulls on one of his heartstrings until it snaps, another reminder of how you’ve been out of commission. And then there is the scar.
Resting atop the outside of your left thigh is a patch of fresh skin. It stands out in both its colour and texture — an almost waxy, freshly polished finish behind the way it reflects the angry white lights of the training room ceiling. The scar tissue is new, gnarly, and squeezing at his throat with its existence.
You weren’t supposed to get hurt.
“What are you doing here anyway?” He forces himself to speak, and rips his eyes away from your thighs in search of distraction.
“I was going to do some weight training but, as you can see,” your outstretched hands point at the cluster of fallen weight disks. “The whole thing decided to collapse on me.”
“You’re supposed to be on medical leave,” there’s a pinch in Bucky’s forehead as he pries you away from picking up the mess, the permanent frown you rouse in him at long last returned. “How are you still finding ways to be a nuisance?”
An evil torturer wrapped in lycra, you reach for something to the right of him as he’s knelt down to grab the final disk, putting your legs perfectly on display before him.
“It’s all for the love of the game, James.” At your airy giggle, he looks up and finds you smiling down at him, one hand slipping inside a familiar boxing glove before you’re landing a cushioned, mock-punch against his cheek. “We should spar.”
You’ve changed your shower gel. Bucky can smell it on your skin: once a wall of musk and earth, now layers of something fruity and floral. The deep inhale that follows is intended to stabilise him but only seems to unnerve him even more.
“Not happening,” he tries to grab at your wrist, but you twist it out of the way, leaving his hand to brush over your midriff. “Leave.”
“But I just got here,” you whine, and Bucky must be suffering from an injury of his own — a concussion, perhaps — because something carnal is melting into his loins at the sound, sight, smell of you. “Do you know how hard it was to get Valentina off my back? C’mon, train with me.”
“I’m not fighting you,” at last successfully grabbing a hold of you, he rips his boxing glove off your hand and tosses it over his shoulder to land elsewhere in the room. “You’re injured.”
There’s a downside to capturing you: you’re touching him now, too, prying his hand off your wrist and leading it southbound.
“Pft, that was a flesh wound! See?” You press him against your thigh, the ghost of a gunshot beneath his fingertips almost enough to distract him from the warmth of your flesh. Almost, because he feels it, just like he feels you: alive, present, tempting. “I’m fine, so fight me, Barnes.”
A lingering brush along your thigh follows the soldier’s ascent, snagging on the hem of your shorts as he rises off his knees and towers over you. His hand snaps back to his side like it’s just touched open flame, skin blistering under the heat of feeling you, rebuking your touch.
“No,” he brushes past you, shoulder bumping shoulder, and manages no more than five steps.
“Winner chooses the punishment,” you barter, delicate fingers grasping around Bucky’s forearm and holding him in place in the centre of the training room. It doesn’t matter where his eyes run to hide, he sees you in every mirrored crevice of the walls. “Any punishment.”
The fighting tug he puts up against you is powerless, a flicker of the strength coursing through the livewires of his veins, but it’s easier than letting himself believe he’s giving himself up to your will.
A pause of intense staring between you both persists until the soldier cracks like an egg, “As soon as you surrender, you’re going back on sick leave.”
“Surrender’s a big word for you, James,” you wink and he feels himself falter. “Better get used to the shape of it in your mouth.”
Bucky’s not at all disappointed when you drop his arm in exchange for stretching out your muscles. Not one bit. That deepening of his frown? It’s nothing more than a side effect of realising he truly has to fight you just to get you to obey.
Facing each other, hands raised to the level of your eyes, the faux battle commences. Where the soldier pulls his strength, resulting to grappling with your punches and blocking the swipes to take at his feet, you ram full speed ahead. A kick to his shin, a knee to his guts, a failed attempt at tangling your legs around his neck — it seems Yelena has been training you in the Widows’ specialty.
You get the better of Bucky, eventually, taking advantage of the pause in his strategy that comes at the flinch of returning your injured leg to the ground. His right foot goes first, kicked out from behind, and then your shoulder shoves into him and knocks him on his ass.
“Best of three,” and he’s back on his feet within seconds, cutting off your incoming declaration of victory.
The second round is tougher, longer, one that doesn’t feature Bucky being as delicate as before. Still playing nothing but defense, his hands simply grab a little rougher, hold a little tighter, restrict your movements a little harder than before. You lift your leg and attempt to swing it at his face but the soldier is faster, grabbing your ankle with a firm squeeze and flipping you over.
But you like to play dirty.
A hand balling at his shirt, fingers that tighten their grip and rip him down alongside you. The cotton tears in two, all the while his vibranium arm flies out just in time to break his fall and save you from shouldering the entirety of his weight collapsing atop you.
Two chests that move in perfect sync — for each of his inhales, you exhale, and vice versa. Your limbs are both a tangled web of legs and arms, and your faces are suffocatingly slow, the warmth of your breath melting at his skin until a bead of his sweat drips down and lands on your lips. Holding his gaze with your own, your tongue licks off his residue and reaffirms why Bucky Barnes will always hate you.
“You’re reckless,” he seethes in your face, teeth bared like a feral animal as he slowly presses more of his weight down onto you — not completely, just enough to make you struggle through your next breath and give you a burn of the fire you insist on playing with. “You know that? Conceited, too, always bragging about your little plans that only work when something goes wrong.”
A light flickers overhead and his shadow casts over you a little darker, a little more all consuming, smothering you beneath the figurative weight of his outline.
“And you’re selfish,” he continues with no protest from you, lips slightly parted as you gaze up at him from your brows, a salacious parody of the famed Kubrick stare. “You don’t give a shit about how you distract me from doing my job when you go off script and make me worry about you.”
His mouth is a loose cannon, firing off thoughts he’s kept hidden under lock and key for far too long. It’s electrifying, freeing, sending a buzz of pent up energy right down to his toes as he spreads your legs with his own and presses even more of himself against you, pinning you to the foam mat beneath.
Motionless and trapped, you blink up at him with the desperation of prey longing to be free.
“You thinking of saying anything,” he quirks a brow, biting back the satisfied smile twitching at his cheek. “Or are you just going to keep fawning at me like a little doe?”
The glaze over your eyes fades away into something far more sinful, far more daring, as a fit of giggles bubbles out from your chest.
“Can’t you feel it, James?” You shift beneath him. “You’re hard.”
Denial is freezing cold, turning him into an iceberg — the real danger lurks beneath the surface of his Calvin Klein’s and is currently poking against your inner thigh.
Fury resolved through friction, you roll your hips up into him and render him useless, mouth agape in a broken attempt at capturing a grounding breath.
That’s all it takes for Bucky’s entire world to tilt over its axis as he’s flipped onto his back. Instead of the ceiling, his eyes find you, sitting atop his torso and pinning him between your legs. He tries to tilt his head down, better his view of your shorts riding up, but he’s met with an immovable force pressed against his neck.
“Close your mouth, James,” your hips swivel, inching up his body, and the blade of his own knife tickles his skin. “You’ll catch a doe. Or, actually, the doe will catch you.”
Try as he might, he can’t seem to pick up his jaw as you struggle to get comfortable atop him, the search for a seat quickly dissolving into a search for traction, your knees digging into the mat on either side of him while you cant your pelvis back and forth.
You pry off the tattered remains of his shirt with one hand while reinforcing the other’s grip on Bucky’s knife, the sweet sting of an almost cut teasing at his neck.
“I thought we were fighting,” an expert at self-sabotage, the soldier can think of nothing better to say to ruin this moment.
“Who says we’re not?” You chirp, tilting your head to the side and gifting him the inquisitive look of a puppy. “I am holding a knife to your throat.”
The blade scrapes at his skin as he swallows down a ball of nerves, a sharpened edge that effortlessly slices along his three-day long stubble. His body, more treacherous to itself than the days of mind-control, responds to you grinding against him by tightening the strain beneath the layers of gym shorts and boxers.
“Then hurry up and put me out of my misery,” he grits out, unsure of how exactly he wants you to do so.
Would slicing his neck work? It would certainly be a finite solution, if you did it right, a permanent end to his days of playing the role of dog herding up the headless sheep of so-called New Avengers. Maybe his request is not quite as dramatic, an exaggerated plea to be put back on his feet to spar with you one last time before he sends you on your un-merry way back to quiet nights and days of rehabilitation.
“I suppose, if you’re bored, you could always just…” you pause for dramatic effect, rolling your hips as you roll your tongue. “Surrender.”
The fever brewing in his loins, in his chest, all over his body has him fearing the worst — that he wants you like this, mounted atop him, one hand to his throat and the other laid flat above his racing heart.
No sooner than that wave of fear crashes over him, the knife begins to journey down his skin. Delicate as glass, you drag its pointed edge over the curve of his collarbone, through the valley of his chest, over the bumps and ridges of his abdomen. When the blade reaches the blockade of your body, you let it dance over your skin too. The soldier holds his breath as he watches it slip over your scar.
“You’re so good at sharpening knives, James. I bet this could just-” hooking his knife beneath the waistband of your shorts, an effortless flick of your wrist is all it takes to bring the fabric to ruins. “Cut right through cloth.”
When Bucky woke up this morning, he went back to bed.
Not for long, barely clocking in an extra twenty minutes of sleep. Realistically, he had not truly been tired — it was about principle, about enjoying one morning to himself where no one was going to interrupt him with news of the kitchen burning down or a world-ending crisis.
Right now, as he flickers all over the shape of you — naked from the waist down, pussy slicked by your own arousal and hovering a few inches above his skin — the soldier’s not so sure he ever did wake up.
You must be a dream.
“Fucking Christ,” is the tamest of things that come to his mind as he watches you.
And, oh, does he watch.
Eyes turned to steal, a metal force that locks them in place, unmoving and unblinking as you bring the knife to your core. Flat on its side, the sharp edge and its pointed tip angled safely away from the puffy, delicate, desperate flesh of your cunt, you draw the weapon up over the glistening folds and against the hidden pearl of your clit.
“Say ah,” is your only command as you bring the knife up to his mouth, where instinct has betrayed him and presented his tongue to you.
The taste of you stains his blade, a mouthwatering tingle against his taste buds that hijacks his system and hardwires a new addiction into him. Never again will he sink his knife into an opponent and not think of this, of you. You’ve cursed him forever, a hindrance that will haunt him even when you don’t.
You’re back to grinding against him, skin pressed to skin. Over his abdomen is a trail of your wetness that, upon noticing it, has his arm gripping at your undulating hips and guiding them down harder against him. There’s something magnetic in the way you move, holding his focus to every half-gasped moan that ripples out of you, and every strain of your muscles, and every roll back of your eyes.
It’s all so appetising, he could eat you.
“If you’re going to rut against me like a bitch in heat, at least do it on my face.”
“That’s no way to speak to a woman wielding a weapon,” despite the warning, you give no protest to the way his hands are leading you up and over his body.
Your knees now knocking at each side of his neck, the soldier salivates as you sit against his chest, your sweet pussy teasing him, too close and not close enough.
“What are you waiting for?” Bucky gruffs out, all his confusing feelings drowning in the pools of your eyes.
“Nothing,” the gentle shift in your voice has him stilling, heart sucked up into a mini-tornado before it lurches back into his chest. When your hand cups his face, he wonders what he did to deserve it. “Just admiring the view.”
“You can admire it from here,” the soldier regains some of his sanity in manoeuvring you up to his mouth.
You sink down onto his face and Bucky goes to heaven. Quite literally dies and meets his god — goddess.
Flattening his tongue, the soldier licks a tentative stripe up your cunt, hands squeezing tight against your waist and halting your attempt to flee from his touch. Once you’re secured in his hold, he’s diving deeper, tongue claiming ownership of your body for as long as you’ll allow him.
Sweet and heady, he smells your arousal all around him as your hips rejoin the dance in honour of your pleasure, the tip of his nose bumping against your clit once, then twice, then a third prolonged time while he presses you fully down on his face.
“God, James,” a full-chested moan ripples out of you and his knife at last slips out your grasp, meeting the floor with a cushioned thud.
Bucky has always known you would be the death of him, he just never imagined he would die like this. Tongue buried in the tight walls of your cunt, nose nestling into the repeated ruts of your clit, the all-consuming, brain-melting, life-changing weight of you pushed down on his face. If he’s to suffocate between your thighs, he’ll go happily into whatever after-life awaits him.
The soldier shifts his legs, bending them at the knee and planting both feet on the ground, driving your lustful stare away from his and glancing over your shoulder instead.
“Are you pitching that tent just for me,” you turn further around, one hand sliding over the expanse of his abdomen and dipping its fingers beneath his waistband. “Or are you always this hard during fights?”
Much to his own reluctance, Bucky lifts you off his mouth.
“Bit of both,” a featherlike touch brushes over the tip of his aching cock and nearly drives him feral, a hiss caught between his teeth before he sinks them into the meat of your thigh. “Fighting’s an adrenaline rush.”
“Then what am I?” You barely manage, voice divulging into a gasp as he bites you again, harder, tattooing indents of his teeth into your supple skin.
“You,” he drags the word out, just like he drags a soothing lick of his tongue over his bite mark. “Are a pain in the ass.”
The soldier can feel you trying to tug down his shorts but the angle is awkward and, for every inch of skin you reveal, the waistband slips up another two inches. And while it rouses a frustrated sigh out of you, it’s fully driving him into the depths of desperation, the epicentre of his heartbeat shifting from a thump in his chest to a throb in his dick.
So he’s more than complicit when you do a one-eighty.
“Since I’m such a pain in the ass,” you arch your back, pawing your way down the expanse of him, and Bucky swears he witnesses your hole wink at him, sticky and wet and inviting him back in for another taste as it hovers above his face. “Enjoy the view of mine.”
Each side of you sinks down on him in sync, your cunt against his lips and your mouth around his cock. You become everything, all his, grinding your hips against his tongue while your own lathers itself in the salty taste of his skin, gliding up the length of his dick.
Bucky’s left hand grips at your thigh while the other imprints his fingertips into the globe of your ass cheek, grounding himself with a squeeze of your flesh amidst the hazy clouds of pleasure that threaten to swallow you both whole.
The soldier decides you must be a masterpiece, crafted by the hands of a visionary genius and lost to the hands of time, only to wind up here, tangled atop the training mat with him, feeding him with a honey of sin and moulding something new out of him with a hand steadying the base of his cock while you swallow down all you can take of him. Even then, it’s not enough for Bucky.
His own hips lift off the floor, feeding an inch of two more into your gaping mouth before he soon hits the back of your throat.
“Wish I could see it,” the rasp in his throat makes it hard to speak, while the feeling of you gagging on his dick makes it hard to think. “That pretty little mouth of yours finally being put to good use.”
His fingers seek you out, passing over the puckered hole of your ass before burrowing themselves — middle and ring — into your cunt. While your hand busies itself massaging your drool along his shaft and over his balls, he’s switching between beckoning you towards him with curling fingers, pressing against the gummy walls of your pussy, and scissoring you open while his tongue laps up the molten pleasure you spill over his knuckles.
“There you go, doll,” there’s a thrill to running his mouth, unabashed and unguarded, spewing out the first obscenity that pops in his head and watching how you viscerally react, a whining, moaning, desperate thing falling apart just for him, because of him. “Take him as deep as you need. Practically begging me to paint that mouth white, aren’t you?”
You bob your head over him, the vibrations of your moans shooting right down to his base and pulling his balls tight and desperate for release.
“Want you to cum down my throat, James,” you grind back against him as he mouths at your clit. “Wanna taste how you surrender.”
That word snaps Bucky’s mind back into place, awakens him like a sleeper agent.
In a matter of seconds, you go from straddling his face to being shoved onto all fours atop the training mat, manhandled like the perfect ragdoll he wants you to be. Malleable and manipulated into whatever position, angle, hole he wants from you.
Even a saint, when faced with the sight of your arching back, couldn’t hold themselves back from landing a skin-tingling slap against your ass — and the soldier is no saint. The spank is not enough to bruise, just enough to have you choking on a breath and keening back into the apologetic kiss he soothes the stinging flesh with.
“Please, oh god,” you moan when, for old times sakes, Bucky helps himself to another taste of you, tongue prodding at your hole from behind.
“Don’t reckon he’s willing to save you now,” he punctuates his snark by spitting on your hole — not because you need the extra lubrication, but because he craves to see you dripping in at least one of his fluids.
You melt away the minute his cock enters you — one fatal thrust of his hips that burrows him all the way to the hilt inside of your dripping pussy — your arms giving out beneath the weight of your body and winding up outstretched along the floor as your face meets the ground too.
One shallow thrust, a barely-there roll back of his hips, and he feels your walls squeezing to hold him inside.
“‘S this what you were needing, huh?” The hand gripping at your waist is gentle, soothing, his thumb rubbing over your skin, yet his tone is anything but — authoritative, chastising, in charge. “All those times I berated you over your misactions, who knew I should’ve just tried fucking some sense into you.”
“Bucky,” your voice is muffled against the foam mat.
“Oh so now you want to call me that,” he tries another thrust, eyes glued to the view of his length retreating from the grip of your pussy lips, covered in your juices. “Finally feel close enough to me now that I’ve got you stuffed full?”
“So full,” you’re babbling and drooling, a wet patch forming just below where you press your cheek against the floor and glance back at him.
“You wanted to fight me, so go on,” it nearly kills him to pry his hands off you. “Use those hips like a fucking weapon.”
The soldier can tell it takes a moment for you to process his words, eyes glazed over as you gape at him from the floor, but you catch on eventually. Clench your walls, take a deep breath, and at last begin moving.
You fuck yourself back against his cock in slow, stuttered movements, fingers flexing along the floor in search of a piece of reality to grip at while your nails press into the foam, permanently marking the training room with evidence of your reckoning. The view is enthralling and tongue-tying, driving him mad in search of appraising words that falter into nothing but pleased hums.
His hands resist the urge to touch you, to guide you back against him, too stubborn in his desire to see you work for it, work for him. A pathetic mess sprawled out on the floor, yearning for any friction you can get from holding his cock snug within your walls and rutting your hips back against his own.
Bucky can only deny temptation for so long.
“Shh, atta girl,” every drop of mockery in his tone is intentional, heartfelt, his pity for you only going far enough to rouse a faux pout on his lips as he starts to meet your cunt with thrusts of his own and watches you start to sing a broken melody of moans and whines. “I know he’s big but you’re taking him like a champ, she’s taking me like a champ.”
A hand skirts down the expanse of your spine, enhancing the arch of your back as his hips slowly start to dig out a rhythm, fucking you deeper, harder, better. By the time his fingers reach the back of your neck, he’s forcing your head down against the ground and relishing in the sound of his balls slapping against your soaked folds as he works his dick inside of you.
One glance ahead sends Bucky down a new avenue of desire, something more primal and carnal stirring in his guts.
“Look at us,” his words are drawn out by wonder as the hand at your neck rearranges your head until your chin is pressing into the mat and your eyes face forward, meeting his steely blues in the mirror. “This is how it’s supposed to be. The leader on top, and you grovelling on your knees.”
Your reflections are nothing but sin, capturing every movement that passes between you both. The perfect dance of how your body welcomes him in. The way the soldier’s mouth gapes open, firing off capricious words and man-whore moans. The way your eyes are borderline lost behind your eyelids.
That last one has Bucky outraged, resolute to change the attention you give to the mirror.
The hand at your neck curls around the front and hooks you in the grasp of his elbow, before Bucky’s yanking you up, your back to his chest while he holds you in a headlock.
“You’re too perfect like this to miss, sweetheart,” he croons in your ear, eyes pinned to both your reflections. “So look.”
“James,” his name sounds like a blessing, brought out in your time of need.
He echoes your own name back to you, pleased to find your eyes blown wide open and equally as enraptured as he is by the show you’re both putting on.
Your hands find his bicep and cradle the capture it’s taken over your throat. Bucky finds himself wishing he’d peeled your top off, the tight fit compression gear denying him the luxury of watching your breasts bounce alongside his ministrations. Before he can lament for too long, his free hand graces over the scar in your thigh and there’s something more pressing that upsets him.
“That bullet was meant for your head,” a gasped out confession, interrupted by your hips grinding down on him. “I nearly watched you die. You think that’s fair?”
He hates the way you shrug, like the prospect of being permanently gone means nothing to you, “You still would’ve- Ahh- Caught Andrews.”
“I didn’t give a shit about him,” his face turns towards yours, nose flattened against the side of your temple as his lips brush over your cheek, breathing you in. “It would’ve all been for nothing if I lost you.”
“James,” you whisper, his thrusts brought to a complete halt under the intensity of your eyes — your real eyes, not a reflection — finding his own when you turn to face him. “I’m right here.”
He blinks, slow, and when his eyelids reopen, you’re still there for him to behold. Infuriating, blood-curling, heart-shaking you and that loud smile.
You give him what he needs most, hand finding his jaw and your lips meeting his. The kiss is careful and composed, an explorative union of mouths, until it’s not. Until he’s desperate, hungering for more of you, his tongue brushing into your awaiting mouth and his lips moulding themselves against yours in hopes they fuse you both together, forever.
Bucky finds it impossible to turn away from you, so you do it for him, fingers gripping at his jaw and forcing his gaze forward again, bringing him back to where he needs to be. In this room, with you in his arms and him in your cunt, equal players in this game of pleasure.
One last kiss seared down into your shoulder and the soldier’s back to fucking you properly, winding his hips back just to admire the way you welcome his whole length, embrace his whole girth so pliantly. There’s an end in sight, one that promises momentary bliss, and all he wants is to take you there, to the very brink of ecstasy.
“D’you want to cum?” He slurs in your ear, the hand at your thigh snaking its way over to pinch at your clit. “Yeah? Then say you surrender.”
“You surrender,” and, oh, you must feel so smart, his beautiful vixen, a choir of giggles spilling out of you.
He tightens his hold around your throat, flexes the muscle in his arm, and watches how the silence is choked into you, no noise remaining but a broken moan.
“C’mon, baby,” Bucky needs it, just as much as you do, that greenlight to finally let himself explode. “Wanna feel her squeeze me real tight. Say it, for me.”
“I sur-” You’re cut off by your own pleasure, a half-shrieked scream that rips out of you while the soldier does the impossible and, tilting at a new angle, fucks deeper, tip bumping against what has to be your cervix.
“Uh-huh, that’s it,” the mirror spills all his secrets and feeds you the sight of his kisses being peppered up your neck, against your cheek, and sweat-soaked strands of hair that sit glued to his forehead. “Say it nice and clear for me.”
“I surrender,” you manage the full word, barely, and Bucky’s so proud of it, of you.
Of how you fall apart for him, hands grabbing at his arm in search of something grounding amidst the chaos of your shaky legs, and spasming walls, and weepy eyes. Of how you give yourself up to him, let him guide you through the blinding haze of your orgasm, cunt swallowing every subtle nudge his dick bullies into it. Of how pretty you gasp his names for him, a spillage of Jameses and Buckys all over the training room floor.
And of how, as his own orgasm crashes over him, you help him too, don’t even protest when his cock leaves you empty, slipping out only to search for friction between your two thighs. You squeeze them around him, marvel at the blush of his leaking tip as it rocks back and forth up to your clit.
When Bucky spills at last, it’s with his teeth clamped down on your shoulder and a hand clutching at your thigh as the thick, hot, white ropes of his cum paint your skin.
Exhaustion melts you both to the floor. A few moments in grasping at breaths pass before his hands are turning you around, in search of your face. When he finds it, there’s still a challenge in your eye.
“I lost,” you concede. “What’s my punishment, sergeant?”
The only response he can muster is to roll his hips.
Seasons ebb and flow into new ones.
Spring blooms and brings flowers into Bucky’s life, a handful a week delivered discreetly in the dark of a midnight rendezvous. With summer comes the heat — in both the temperature and the accusatory looks from the team each time his hand lingers on you during debriefs. In autumn, the leaves come crashing down alongside the truth, a pile of ‘I knew it!’s mixed in with the disgruntled paying of debts to Alexei for winning the ‘When Will They Tell Us?’ betting pool. And now, a whole year passed in the blink of four eyes, winter has returned.
More aggressive than ever, it seems, as Bucky stares out the window to a sea of desolate white.
Perhaps it's not so much about the season as it is about his location, the clue very much being in the name: Iceland.
“Come back to bed,” a soft drawl from behind him, the gentle rustle of limbs stretching over a mattress. “It’s cold, James.”
Of course you’re cold, naked atop the wrinkled sheets with his fingerprints burned into your skin and his cum leaking out your slit.
The soldier rolls his eyes in feigned annoyance, turning away from the fogged up window and crossing over the creaking floorboards to rejoin you, grabbing the blanket — discarded during earlier activities — off the ground.
“That snow’s showing no sign of stopping,” he shares the observation as he crawls up the bed to you, lips brushing over your skin as he goes. At the top of your thigh, he pauses, takes the effort to kiss the marred skin gently, a silent ritual where he gets to thank whatever power in the universe delivered the bullet there instead of your skull. “We’ll be trapped here at least another night.”
“Oh no, what a shame!” Grabby hands that hook under his arms to drag him the rest of the way up to you. “I guess we’ll just have to keep warm somehow.”
The soldier holds you how he knows you like it best: his left arm as your pillow, his right one resting at your neck, and his legs tangled in yours in an indecipherable mess. Silence lasts but a second or two before his thoughts get the better of him, memories of how wrong the first part of today had gone with the arrival of the blizzard.
“Am I allowed to say I told you so yet?” Even with your eyes closed, he knows you’re aware of the teasing smile on his face.
“Do you really think I don’t know how to check a weather app?”
“You’re seriously stalling us both here while there’s bad guys to be caught.”
“There’s always bad guys to be caught,” your fingers flex in the grasp of his own, a satisfied sigh sweeping through your chest as you find warmth at last. Not from any blanket resting heavy on you, but from him and the way he holds you. “There’s not always a snowed-in cabin, or time to enjoy having my half-naked hunk in bed with me.”
“You’re making me irresponsible,” still, Bucky’s resting further into the pillow beneath his head, eyes welcoming the dark.
“When it comes to me, you’ve always been irresponsible.”
He has, and he hates it. Loathes it with every fibre of his being.
The worst thing about loving you is how entirely it consumes him.
“...Six, seven, eight,” you whisper out into the dark of the cabin.
“Mhmm,” a hand finds your thigh, fingertips tracing manmade constellations into your skin. “What are you counting?”
“Your heartbeat.”
+ extra hyde.
· my headcanon of bucky being incapable of processing emotions manifests in two ways: 1) unspoken yet undying devotion (manchild!bucky) and 2) deducing that any positive feeling must actually be a negative one because that's all he's ever known & thus mistaking love for hatred (the loser bucky present in this fic)
· besties, somebody needs to throw me an intervention on how to properly list warnings on a fic, it's getting ridiculous.
· dear anon who requested this: i hope you enjoyed, i'm sorry if you didn't! i know your request wanted banter, however, i was kind of worried too much banter would just turn this into the exact same reader i wrote in manchild and i didn't want to do that ( probably did it anyway by accident, oopsy daisy!)🧍♂️
· anyway i'm about to hit post like its a detonate button and the only safety distance from the explosion is to log out of tumblr for 24 hours, see you on the other side <3
· lore accurate photo of bucky in this fic;;
authors note: non canon harley cause she’s not so insane so just pretend it’s harleen quinzel | i’ll do a part 2 if anyone wants one 😭
You were sat at your desk, your fingertips gracing the keys as you mindlessly type yet another essay that will not, in any way, be useful in the real world.
“Hi.” You hear a high pitched voice from behind you, the New York accent belonging to your roommate, that you sort-of-definitely-have-a-thing-for, Harley Quinn. “Whatcha working on?” As she speaks, she leans in closer, having absolutely no concept of personal space.
You let out an exasperated sigh, that you cut off with a chuckle. “Nothing special.” You say, your eyes never leaving the screen. A small smile tugs at the side of your lips, feeling the lingering presences of Harley from behind you.
“Sorry, Harls. Gotta work on this.” If you’d turned around, you’d have seen the over-dramatic pout she was putting on.
It was almost comical how she could make any small gesture and it would instantly pull your attention her way. You did, in fact, turn to look at her finally and were caught off guard by the playful pout that was now on her lips. It brought a sudden rush of air, almost as if you’d forgotten to breathe.
“No reason to look at me like that. I still have like… another hour, at least, to work on this. Can’t let it get too close to the deadline.”
“I wasn’t doing anything.” Came the quick answer from Harley. It was almost like she could sense where your eyes would be looking next, because now she was standing in the way of your computer screen.
“You could be doing something other than working.” She whined, leaning back over and placing her hands, on the edge of your desk, on either side of your keyboard.
“Oh, yeah?” The flirty words roll off your tongue before you can stop them, almost muscle memory at the point. Your head peers round her waist, trying to focus on your work and not the close proximity.
She laughed at your inability to focus on the task at hand. The proximity between the two of you, she knew, had to be distracting for you too. “So,” her hands moved, and she stood a little straighter, allowing you a proper view back at your computer screen.
“What do you have planned for the rest of the day?” The flirtatious banter was easy with Harley, but there was an understanding beneath this playful behaviour which felt nice.
“Nothing.” You replied, though the tone of your voice, the body language you were exuding said the exact opposite. Harley was enjoying the back and forth between the two of you; the feeling of tension as her proximity continued to remain very close to yours.
She had been waiting for the moment where you’d have no excuse, no excuse to not ask her to hang out more. And this was the perfect opening, she was offering to spend time with you, outside of your shared apartment.
“Wanna do something?” She says, “You know, together. When you’ve done.” Her voice is almost too eager, if she didn’t have such a bubbly personality, you’d have been more curious.
“Yeah, I’d like that.” You reply, this was what you’d been waiting for. That invitation, that openness. The playful back and forth banter between you was one thing. And your roommate situation was a whole entirely different situation, which felt like it was a bit of a hindrance to this budding, whatever was going on.
“Maybe something to eat,” she started, “Something outside of these walls.” She was so hyper-focused on the space between you, your proximity, you felt almost as if she was breathing for the both of you.
“Yeah, sounds great.” In your concentration, you dart out your tongue to wet your bottom, a gesture that doesn’t go unnoticed by her.
An hour later, you finally click the save button and close your laptop down. You stand up, stretching as you move with a small groan, and you head toward Harleys room. As your bare heels hit the floor, you hear the prettiest little whines coming from her room. You’re about to knock when you hear a low whimper of your name.
