Status: ongoing
Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Reader
Genre: Romance • Mystery • Drama
Warnings: Fake Dating, Family Secrets, Media Scrutiny, Slow Burn
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↳ Prologue
↳ Chapter One
↳ Chapter Two
↳ Chapter Three
↳ Chapter Four
↳ Chapter Five
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Fresh out of college, you land your first job as a journalist determined to make a name for yourself. When you're assigned to cover the prestigious Miss Congeniality competition, you expect a simple story. Instead, you find yourself tangled in rumors, family secrets, and a fake relationship with the last person you should trust: Bucky Barnes.
This is why Pride is not just a party. It's a joyful celebration, but it's also a pointed and colourful two-finger salute to a world that stood back whilst so many of us died. And we'll never go quietly, never again.
Warnings: ummm pining bucky, friends to pining, frat!bucky
a/n: Hi! I haven't been able to write for some time, so I'm having a drabble spree over the next week or so, writing based on prompts from this list. If you send me a category, I'll pick a prompt!!
This fic was based on this prompt in the Forbidden Love category: "You're the one person I promised myself I would never cross that line with."
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It was sudden, like the split decision to take an exit off the freeway and change your dinner plans. Bucky felt his life shift—just a fraction. Enough to be noticeable, but not enough to throw him off his axis. Maybe it had always been there, maybe it hadn't. But, either way, things felt different. He felt different, sitting in the horridly lit Denny's at two in the morning, his university-branded crewneck dipping off your shoulder as you inhaled a plate of fries.
"God, these are terrible," you moaned, drenching another floppy stick in ranch. "Why did we come here?"
"You begged me to," Bucky threw back, shifting in the booth uncomfortably.
"Tell me no next time."
"That hasn't gone over well, historically."
You snorted and then turned back to your fries.
You had always been a constant in Bucky's life—first in middle school, then high school, and now entering your last year in college. Inseparable was a common term used to describe your relationship, but there was something that separated you, and it had been a more... recent development.
Bucky had joined a frat. A very popular frat. You had not liked the frat, but you put up with it. But then Bucky started sleeping with women, and you put up with that far less, because Bucky started sleeping with... a lot of women. So, it was fair. You kept your distance, made your own friends, and you made time to see each other when you could.
Bucky coveted those times, even if he wouldn't admit to it. Even if each quick dinner, each passing coffee in the dining hall, began to feel like he was falling off a cliff. A very sudden, very steep cliff.
The women were not a distraction at first. He was supposed to have sex with women. That's what guys like him did in college. But, recently, for the past few weeks, they were a distraction. A distraction from you. He couldn't stop thinking about you, and that wasn't the plan.
"Why are you staring off into space like a freak?" you laughed, tossing a fry at his face. It smacked between his eyes.
"I'm not," he argued. "What, a guy can't think anymore? That illegal?"
You puffed out a laugh. "What could you possibly be thinking about?" You shoved the plate away and rested your face in your hands. "The next girl you'll waste the time of? Maybe you're worried that you left one in your bed and now she's going through your underwear drawer."
"Ha. Ha," Bucky mocked. "No, smart ass. I was thinking about what to get you for your birthday, but now, since I'm not allowed to think, I think I'll just forget."
"Not my birthday!" you gasped, hands coming down on the table. "You said you were going to take me to Disneyland."
"I was kidding about that. You actually want to go to Disneyland?"
"Not anymore. Not after you've dangled it in front of my nose like this."
Bucky let out another sarcastic laugh, sliding out of the booth after tossing a few bills on the table. He shrugged his jacket on and held out an expectant hand that you stared at dubiously before taking with a roll of your eyes.
"Yeah, yeah," Bucky droned. "Let's get out of here before your hysterics get us kicked out."
He helped you into your own jacket, lingered with his nose by your temple and greedily took time he wasn't allowed, and then pushed a rough kiss to the side of your head because that was a normal thing to do. He was being normal. His feelings were normal.
You tugged him into the parking lot and blabbed on about Disneyland and terrible fries and looked at him like you always did, and he looked at you like you were holding his entire life in your hands. You didn't seem to notice the difference.
Bucky kept it to himself and pretended he wasn't crossing a line.
A line he swore to himself in that moment—as you flipped on the cabin light in his car and rifled through his glovebox looking for a pack of gum you were adamant you lost in there a month ago—he would never cross with you. He couldn't.
This scene kills me because of what it implies. Zemo says, "He will do anything you want." If Bucky had been a female character, the message would’ve been pretty clear, but it often gets overlooked. It speaks volumes about how his body and autonomy have been used, and how normalized that exploitation was.
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