All my stories are R18. I write smut, and I may touch sensitive topics or topics that are not intended to be read by minors.
YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR YOUR OWN CONTENT CONSUMPTIONS.
Masterlist
Pairing: Bucky Barnes x F!Reader
Word Count: ~3.1k
Warning/Tags: Modern AU, Fluff, Smut, Light Angst, Jealous Bucky, Childhood friends trope, Friends to lovers, Mutual pining. If I'm missing any tag, I'll add it later.
Summary: A getaway to the Rogers' lake house leads to the final straw in your so-called friendship with Bucky.
Author's Note: This is my first entry to @juniebjonesin picnic! This was so beautiful to do, and it really helped to fight my writer block. I'm hoping I can do one more. Thank you so much for tagging me, sweetheart. I love you! Betaread by my lovely sweetheart @herejustforbuckybarnes!
Picnic Blanket Prompt:
🌊 LATE NIGHT LAKE SWIM daring love + hidden feelings → romantic tension / almost confessions
🌊 “It’s freezing. - “You jumped in first.” / “You look different out here.” / “If I say something stupid, blame the cold water.”
🤝 “WE'RE JUST FRIENDS” until it’s clearly not → blurred lines / tension / denial
🤝 “We’re not doing anything wrong.” / “Then why does it feel like we are?” / “Say it—we’re just friends.”
The lake trip was supposed to be fun. Not something you would use as an excuse to confess your feelings for Bucky, as everyone expected.
Natasha kept insisting that you finally told the truth. It had been almost four years since she learned you had feelings for him; at the moment, you all were just college-weird young people. And he was still just a fuck boy who never took any girl seriously. And you were just his ‘favorite girl,’ as he called you for years. You were just his silly best friend that he would never take for granted… at least as a friend.
The lake house looked like it had always looked—warm… and sticky vibes. The hot air from spring got you grumpy, and the fact that Natasha had spent all the trip talking about Sam and how great they were going to do there made you only feel pathetic. Bucky would probably bring someone new or someone for the week, and you would spend your days with Wanda and Steve.
The wooden lake house was Steve’s parents’, and basically, the friends group had taken advantage of it since you all got your driving license and were able to drive on your own—and more importantly—without parental supervision. But it was always the same since Sam and Nat got together; now the weeks there were more like a couple thing for them, and the rest of you were awkwardly around them.
Then, Bucky and Steve started bringing casual flings, and Wanda and you spent a girl’s weekend basically watching amateur porn being made in front of your eyes.
Natasha was finishing unloading the backseat of the truck while you were starting to unload the trunk when you felt his hand on your shoulder.
“What are you doing, worrying those pretty hands?” Bucky spoke behind you as he took your duffel bag from your hands. “Go inside; I’ll take care of this.”
He kissed your cheek and made you and Natasha walk into the house.
“So… this is finally the weekend?” Natasha hugged you by the shoulder.
“Yes, of course. I’ll tell him after the first quickie with whoever he brought, and he hasn’t promised anything weird to her.” You rolled your eyes.
Natasha scoffed a laugh. “He didn’t bring anyone this time.”
“Of course he didn’t bring anyone, Nat.”
Steve was stocking the fridge with alcohol, with Sam and Wanda helping around—but then, you didn’t see anyone strange around. Not a blonde girl giggling in the kitchen bar, not a redhead wandering around to see the house, not a brunnette sitting on the couch as if she were too superior to do any help.
“No special guests today?” Natasha asked, peeping at you.
“I wanted a free romantic tension weekend for me.” Bucky chimed in with all your bags on his arms.
“What a surprise.”
“But there’s a special guest today…” Pietro, Wanda’s twin, walked from the hallway that led to the rooms.
He had been abroad for years and barely visited the country since his school exchange program had taken all of him. You and Natasha screamed and ran to hug him. You two were just rambling over the other as Pietro hugged you by your waist.
“Why didn’t you tell us?!” You looked at Wanda.
“Kind of a surprise?”
You were still giggling on Pietro’s arms when Bucky nudged you on his way to the rooms—you shrugged it off as accidental. Steve followed him with the rest of your things and sat in the room you had always shared with Wanda, but Bucky noticed Wanda’s stuff wasn’t in the room.
“Where’s Wanda?”
“Oh… She’s staying with me… Pietro asked if he could stay with her for the night…” Steve scratched the back of his neck. He knew Bucky was going to get pissed.
“And couldn’t you tell him to fuck off? This is your fuckin’ house…”
“What was I supposed to say? Sorry, you can’t stay with her because Bucky will rip your balls off?”
“Basically…”
“Bucky… she had seen you for years to parade girls all over this same house; she had probably heard multiple girls moaning your name over here… and you are mad because one time a guy is asking to sleep next to her?”
“He hasn’t even been here for years!”
“Exactly, and they were close… even closer than you two… before he left. He was obviously going to ask to sleep next to her. This is not even something sexual…and even if it was… there’s nothing you can do about it.”
Bucky sat at the edge of the bed.
“Well, you’ve got one thing to do if you wanna keep him away.” Bucky looked up at Steve, “Fuckin’ confess.”
Later that night, you were sitting next to Pietro. You had missed him like crazy—he left just after you had realized your feelings towards Bucky, and even in the distance he kept trying to make you tell him how you felt. His hand caressed your back while you had your legs over his lap, and your head resting on your knees.
“So, nothing yet?” He asked, rubbing your back. You shook your head.
“He’s been all over the place with every girl he finds—I’m not gonna come straight up when a girl is still latched to his neck…”
“You know he was super mad earlier, right? He had been giving me the cold shoulder since he learned we’re sharing a room.”
You chuckled. “What if I do it and it turns out that I have read this whole thing completely wrong?”
Pietro rolled his eyes. “Look. Do I like him for you? No. Not at all. I can’t believe after all these years you’re still into him, but I know when he likes someone… and he really likes you; he’s just an idiot who hasn’t realized it, yet.”
“Or hasn’t accepted,” Natasha added, sitting in front of you.
“You too?” You tilted your head.
“The only two people who haven’t accepted that you two are in love are… you two…”
You looked over your shoulder just to notice Steve and Bucky bringing some coolers. The show was about to start, and it was the first time you could even wrap your mind around the idea of drinking.
You knew well if this ended badly, the whole group would collapse. It was enough having Steve and Natasha dating to add more to the equation.
You really tried to enjoy yourself, to make yourself treat him as you always did, but every time his hands grazed your skin, it made you feel somehow weaker. Every time he brought you that specific drink you had mentioned weeks earlier, and he remembered you loved, every small detail made you think this could go some way if you were more like the girls he had been screwing the last years.
The night ended with most of your friends passed out drunk as you just sat at the edge of the dock looking at the moon reflecting in the lake. Your head rested on your knees; the air cold from the forest made you squirm from time to time, and you had refused to go inside and put on a sweater after you heard Bucky talking on the phone with someone.
You were about to surrender and just go inside when you saw him walking outside. He was just hanging up the call when he saw you. You heard his footsteps getting closer in the mud and then his pace on the wooden floor; you only hugged your legs a little bit tighter.
“What’ya doing?” He stood next to you.
“Just contemplating the moon. It’s been a minute since we were here, and I realized I missed the sight,” you didn’t look at him.
“Do you remember the first times we came here?” He knelt and took one rock and threw it at the lake.
“We were like fifteen? Joseph and Sarah had to deal hard with all of us wanting to be all over the place.”
He chuckled. Steve’s parents had always been supportive of the friends group and had done more than any other parent to make you all close.
“I remember Joseph rushing from the house through here to save Pietro from drowning.”
Trying not to make a lot of noise, you snorted a laugh. “It was before he started to grow like a weed.”
“You seemed happy earlier to see him.” A hint of jealousy could be heard in his words.
“Of course I was… I missed him so much. He was my best friend even before I met the rest of the group.”
He hummed in response, and you really wanted to take one of the rocks and throw it at his head. How was it possible that he could sense all that but could not notice how much you liked him? He looked at you again, the way you hugged your arms as you tried to bring some warmth to your body.
“Hey,” he tried to bring your attention to him, “What about one midnight swim?”
“Bucky, we’re gonna freeze the fuck out of our bodies.”
“Yeah… That’s kinda the point.” He took off his jersey and, without thinking it through, dove. As soon as he came out of the water, you saw his damp hair falling over his forehead.
This had always been your favorite moment. When he called for a midnight swim with the group and everyone followed him, you used to love seeing him try to swim as he fought not to die from the cold water.
Without thinking about it much, you just dived in too. He caught you in the water and hugged you to his body. Your teeth were clicking from the cold, and his naked chest was paradise, grazing through the thin blouse you were wearing.
“It’s freezing, you’re freezing.” He mumbled in your ear, “We shouldn’t be here.”
“You jumped in first.” You looked up at him.
“Well, you didn’t have to follow me.” He scoffed, and between the cold water making you not think straight and the way he looked at you—something finally snapped.
You pulled him closer by the neck and kissed him slowly, closing your eyes—letting him decide what the next step he was going to take.
And, much to your surprise. He kissed you back.
His lips desperately devouring yours, his hands gripping your waist, roaming through your thighs to make you straddle him as he let the heat of the moment engulf him. Your hands stroked his hair while you tried to make the kiss last longer. And when he finally pulled away just to look at you, the only thing he could notice was the way the moonlight covered your face fully. Making you look like the most beautiful masterpiece he had ever seen.
“If I say something stupid, blame the cold water…” He mumbled before kissing you again.
“We can blame the cold water for everything.” You said between kisses, and he nodded eagerly.
In a matter of seconds, you both were already running carefully, wetting the floor of the house, to reach his bedroom. As soon as you reached his bedroom, he closed the door and held you against the door to start kissing you again.
“Bucky… We shouldn’t… We really shouldn’t be doing this…” Your breath came erratically; a soft moan left your lips between every word.
“We’re not doing anything wrong…” He said, before starting to kiss your neck, his lips finding the most sensitive spot your neck could have. Your head tilted back.
“Then why does it feel like we are?” You keened.
“‘Cause you keep letting your most rational side decide what’s correct and what’s not…”
He started to kiss down while he knelt in front of you. He looked up, and for the first time, all those embarrassingly wet dreams you had had through the years were coming to reality. Carefully, he pulled down your shorts and started to kiss your inner thighs. And, at that point, you weren’t even questioning what was going on. You just knew you loved the way he was taking his sweet time kissing every inch of skin he could reach.
Your mind was racing through all his touching, not completely focused on anything—this until his wet and warm tongue found your slit; he was lifting your leg to rest it on his shoulder while he dived on your core. His hands gripped your waist as you pulled him closer by the hair.
Before you could come to your senses, you were already pinned down on his mattress while he circled your clit and lined to your core.
“Are you sure you want it, sweetheart?” You weren’t thinking straight. You could only nod and pull him with your legs.
He finally bucked his hips and slammed his cock inside you, splitting you open. He noticed you were about to moan and placed his hand in your mouth, “We need to be quiet, baby… We don’t need them to know what we’re doing…”
You cried out in his palm and nodded.
“Fuck… you feel so tight… When was the last time…?” Your eyes widened, and he chuckled. “Too private? C’mon... I’m balls deep in you, and you can’t tell me that?”
“You’re enjoying yourself too much…” You were able to speak when he moved his hand from your mouth.
“Just enjoying what I got in front of me…”
He leaned over you, both his arms on your sides, still rolling his hips to get you to your highest; you were sure you had never felt like this before, and you were sure he knew that.
Clenching around his cock, you finally came, an aching feeling pooling on your lower stomach, fingers digging on his side, and then he pulled out, and warm ropes fell in your pelvis. His cock was still throbbing while he pumped himself to let all out.
When he finally fell over you, both of you started cracking a laugh.
“What did we just do?” You looked at him.
“I think… we just fucked…”
“No shit, Sherlock…” You said, cynically. “Blowing off some steam?”
You didn’t notice, but a hint of disappointment appeared in his eyes.
“Yeah… Blew some steam…”
He knew he should have said something, but then he couldn’t really understand what had just happened—and how he could call it.
You took a quick shower and went back to your room—there, Pietro faked to be asleep, but he noticed you had just arrived and all your clothes were damp… He was then curious to know if tomorrow Bucky would have some clothes drying on the porch rail.
And, unsurprisingly. There it was. Some of Bucky’s clothes drying and a clear… very clear hickey on your neck that you had done everything you could to hide with some makeup.
You tried to avoid Bucky—even when he was trying his best to catch your attention. And he had just been able to do it when everyone was already asleep—you were sitting on a rocking chair on the porch, a beer in your hands and a cigarette in the other.
“You look different out here…” He mumbled from the threshold of the house.
“Huh?”
“You look different… or at least for me…”
“Shut up, Bucky…”
“Shut me up…” He teased, and your cheeks heated.
By the third night out of five, Pietro had kept his mouth shut, even when he noticed you only arrived before dawn and slept there enough that anyone would notice you were sneaking out from Bucky’s bedroom.
This night was no different. You were already riding him as if your life depended on it.
“Fuck… Fuck… Bucky… We shouldn’t…” You moaned.
Your knees side by side, your hands steadying you on his chest—his arms were behind his head, as he looked at you bouncing on him with all the eagerness you have been holding for years.
“You look so good like this.” He husked, and you bit your lip.
You had heard him so many times talking like this to so many girls that listening to it for the first time directed to you felt like a teenage dream—you felt pathetic for the first time.
“Fuck… You have no idea how much I have waited for this…” He muffled a moan and leaned to pull you down into his chest, now pounding from below.
“What?” You tried to speak, but it came more like a cry out.
“You have no idea how much I love you…” He groaned on your ear. “I’ve been wanting this for so long…”
“But… we’re friends…” You mumbled, and he husked a laugh. “Why are you laughing?”
You felt his pace growing faster, your hands now hooked on his neck to help you stay put.
“Say it—” You furrowed, “Say we’re just friends after this...”
“Bucky…” You mewled, and he kissed your temple. “I can still taste your precious juices, and you keep calling us friends… I’ve been fucking you three nights in a row… I just told you I love you… and you keep calling us friends…”
“But what if they know?” You made him stop.
“Huh? Who? Them? Or Pietro?” He teased.
“Stop it with that… He’s nothing more than a friend for me…”
“Well, I’m supposed to be a friend too, Aren’t I?”
You rolled your eyes.
“I mean everyone… Aren’t we going to ruin the group if something happens?”
“Then let’s do it great…” He murmured in your ear and pulled out, making you whine. “I’m being serious…”
He leaned and made you sit on his lap.
“I really wanna do this… And I hate that I’m confessing now… Naked… after three nights of whatever that was… But I’ve been dying to tell you that I love you…” Bucky was stroking your hair while he spoke.
“I love you too, Bucky…”
“Then why is Pietro sleeping with you?”
You snorted a laugh… Because he wanted you to snap… and look… he hasn’t lost his touch…”
“He wanted what…?” He tilted his head.
“He was sure you loved me and wanted to prove a point.”
“Asshole…”
“But it worked…”
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Series Summary: Some wounds don’t bleed. They just teach you how to disappear. Before being adopted, you learned early that love had rules: don’t ask, don’t need, don’t take up space. Bucky – your brother in everything but blood – was the only exception. Now you’re an adult, brilliant, controlled, almost untouchable… until one dinner shatters the fragile balance.
Wordcount: 7.5k
Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Female Reader, mentions of past Steve Rogers x Female Reader (no use of Y/N), Bucky Barnes x Natasha Romanoff
Warnings: childhood trauma, adoption trauma, abandonment issues, orphanage abuse, corporal punishment mentioned, religious trauma-adjacent themes, emotional self-hatred, shame, suicidal ideation / one moment of passive suicidal thought, complicated family dynamics, raised-as-siblings but not blood-related romantic tension, implied non-explicit underage intimacy in the past, emotional aftermath of sex, verbal cruelty, heartbreak, therapy, healing, reconciliation. See the whole exhaustive list on the masterlist post.
A/N: Gentle reminder that this series is heavy on trauma so I beg you to read the whole list of warning on the masterpost. I won't tolerate any complaints about not being warned of something. Beta read by Cassie (@blobfishlol ) as always. This is the last chapter in the past.
Masterlist - Series Masterlist - Prev- Next
College hit you like sunlight.
Not the blinding kind – nothing that demanded you squint or brace or pretend – but the kind that warmed your skin slowly until you realized you’d been cold for years.
The first week felt unreal.
Not because the campus was impressive, or because New York suddenly looked like a movie set when you crossed it with a backpack and a schedule that belonged to your future.
Unreal because no one looked at you like you were a mistake.
No one asked why you were there.
No one counted your age against you as if intelligence had a proper timeline.
In high school, being two years younger had been a visible difference. A target. A story people thought they were allowed to narrate for you.
In university, it was… nothing.
There were nineteen-year-olds who still looked like teenagers, sure – but there were also twenty-eight-year-olds with wedding rings, and forty-somethings who sat in the back with notebooks full of careful handwriting, doing this because they wanted to start over.
There were veterans. Parents. People who worked full-time and showed up for evening lectures with tired eyes and determination.
Adults.
People who had lived long enough to understand that everyone arrived at the same place by different roads, and that being younger didn’t make you less legitimate.
For the first time in your life, you didn’t feel like you had to shrink to fit.
You could just… exist.
Your first archaeology lecture made your hands shake.
Not from nerves exactly – more from that rare, feral kind of excitement you didn’t let yourself feel often.
The room smelled like old paper and coffee. The professor spoke about stratigraphy like it was a language you were already fluent in, and your brain lit up, hungry, greedy, alive.
You took notes so fast your hand cramped.
And for once, you didn’t mind the ache.
Because it was proof you were doing what you were meant to do.
After class, you lingered near the front, pretending to reorganize your papers while everyone else filtered out.
Not because you wanted attention.
Because you wanted to ask a question and you’d spent your whole life learning not to be “too much.”
You were still debating whether to leave when a shadow fell across your notes.
“You,” a voice said, warm and amused. “Are the one who wrote three pages during a ten-minute introduction.”
You looked up.
Dr. Thor Odinson stood there like he’d stepped out of a story someone had told you as a child – tall, broad-shouldered, blond hair pulled back neatly, a Scandinavian accent softened by years in the States. His eyes were bright in a way that made you feel like he saw the world as a puzzle he genuinely enjoyed.
You blinked, caught off guard. “I… I take notes.”
His mouth quirked. “Clearly.”
You felt your cheeks warm. “Sorry.”
“Don’t apologize,” he said immediately, gentle but firm, like he meant it. “What’s your name?”
You gave it.
He repeated it once, as if tasting the syllables. Then he glanced at your notebook again.
“You’re not here for a general education credit,” he said.
It wasn’t a question.
Your chest tightened, the good kind this time. “No.”
Thor studied you for a beat, then nodded slowly. “Good.”
You hesitated, then let the question out before you could overthink it. “Do you think it’s possible–” Your voice wavered, then steadied. “Do you think it’s realistic to aim for field work before graduate school? Or should I focus on research first?”
His eyebrows lifted, impressed.
“Most first-years ask me if they can miss lectures because they went out the night before,” he said dryly. Then his expression softened. “You’re already thinking about field work.”
You shrugged, suddenly shy. “I want to… do it properly.”
Thor’s gaze held yours for a moment, something assessing in it – not judgment. Recognition.
“You’re one of the few,” he said quietly, “who walked into my classroom with the intention of going all the way.”
Your throat tightened.
It wasn’t praise that made your eyes sting.
It was being seen.
Thor tapped your notebook lightly with one finger. “Come by my office hours,” he said. “Not because you need help– because I think you might actually enjoy the kind of conversations I don’t get to have with most students.”
You nodded, breath caught somewhere in your chest. “Okay.”
Then, as if he realized he’d said something dangerously close to kindness and wanted to make it less intense, he added, “And for the record? Your notes are excellent. Keep doing that.”
You laughed softly, relieved.
Thor smiled, pleased, and walked away.
You watched him go with a strange ache in your chest, the kind that came when the world offered you something good and your first instinct was to suspect it was a trick.
But it didn’t feel like a trick.
It felt like… a door opening.
You blossomed.
There was no other word for it.
You found your rhythm quickly: mornings in lecture halls, afternoons in the library, evenings at your apartment with Wanda complaining about her sociology readings like they were personally attacking her, and Pietro making tea in the kitchen while pretending he wasn’t listening to every word you said.
Your apartment became its own ecosystem.
Wanda pinned schedules to the fridge with magnets shaped like little moons. Pietro insisted on buying plants, convinced they would “fix the vibe.” You let them, secretly grateful for anything that made the place feel alive.
And you– you became someone who belonged.
In the library, no one teased you for staying too late.
Professors didn’t roll their eyes when you asked questions. They answered them.
Classmates didn’t call you “weird” for being quiet. They assumed you were focused.
Some even gravitated toward you because your steadiness made them feel less scattered.
You started getting invited to study groups.
You started saying yes.
You started speaking in seminars without your voice shaking.
You started feeling, slowly and cautiously, like the version of you that existed outside survival might be allowed to exist for real.
The wounds of high school didn’t vanish.
They didn’t evaporate like mist.
But they stopped bleeding.
They scabbed over.
They became scars instead of open injuries.
And you realized how much of your pain had been amplified by being trapped in a world that treated adolescence like a coliseum.
College wasn’t gentle.
It was demanding, unforgiving, exhausting.
But it was fair.
It didn’t care about your past.
It cared about your work.
And you were good at work.
Steve returned to you in a way that felt like coming home.
Not romantic. Not complicated. Not threaded with “what if.”
Just… Steve.
You and he fell back into friendship the way your bodies remembered the shape of it – late-night texts about museum exhibits he loved, long walks through the city where he pointed out architecture like it was art, you showing him photos from a lecture trip and him looking at them like you were handing him pieces of a world you’d unlocked.
Sometimes he’d come over to your apartment and sit at your kitchen table while you studied, sketching quietly in a notebook.
Wanda would pass through and say, “You two are disgustingly wholesome,” and Steve would smile like he’d take that as a compliment.
Pietro would add, without looking up from his laptop, “It’s their brand.”
You would roll your eyes, but your chest would warm anyway.
Steve didn’t ask you to be someone you weren’t.
He didn’t expect you to perform.
He just… stayed.
And the longer he stayed, the more you realized that your breakup hadn’t destroyed what mattered.
It had saved it.
You could love him without fear now.
Without pressure.
Without the sense that you were living inside a fragile structure that could collapse if you moved wrong.
He was your friend, and that was enough.
More than enough.
Bucky came back too.
Not all at once.
Not with a dramatic apology or a late-night confession.
Bucky came back the way he always did – quietly, stubbornly, in pieces.
At first, he was careful with you in a way that made your spine tense.
Too polite. Too considerate. Like he was walking around a crack in the floor.
It made you angry, unexpectedly.
Because you didn’t want him to be fragile around you.
You wanted him to be normal again.
You wanted him to stop acting like he’d lost the right to exist in your space.
So one night, when he showed up with Steve at your apartment with takeout and a six-pack of something Pietro pretended not to judge, you looked up from your laptop and said, flatly, “You’re being weird.”
Bucky froze mid-step.
Steve coughed, immediately pretending he hadn’t heard.
Wanda grinned into her drink.
Pietro leaned back in his chair like he was settling in for a show.
Bucky’s jaw tightened. “What?”
“You,” you said, pointing your pen at him. “You’re acting like you’re scared I’m going to break.”
Bucky’s eyes flickered, guarded. “I’m not.”
“Yes, you are,” you said simply. “And it’s annoying.”
There was a beat of silence where everyone held their breath.
Bucky stared at you, something stormy behind his eyes.
Then, quietly, he said, “I’m not trying to annoy you.”
You swallowed.
You could have softened right then.
You didn’t.
Because softness was what had always gotten you hurt.
So you said, calmer, “Then stop acting like I’m made of glass.”
Bucky’s throat bobbed. He nodded once, jerky. “Okay.”
It wasn’t an apology.
It wasn’t closure.
But it was something.
And after that, he started… relaxing.
He started showing up the way he used to.
Dropping by your apartment with coffee because “I was in the neighborhood.” Arguing with Pietro about psychology like it was a personal insult that Pietro thought he knew more about human behavior than Bucky did. Teasing Wanda until she threw a dish towel at his head. Sitting on your couch and pretending he wasn’t watching you when you got excited about a paper.
Sometimes, you caught him looking at you the way he used to when you were kids.
Like checking that you were still there.
Like he still couldn’t quite believe you existed.
You didn’t call it anything.
You didn’t name the thing that had happened and then been buried.
You didn’t touch that bone still out of place.
But you let him be close again.
You let him be your brother again – in the way you’d always meant it.
The way you both had always pretended it was only that.
Dr. Odinson became a steady presence in your academic life.
He challenged you without condescension. He recommended books that made your brain ache in the best way. He wrote a note in the margin of one of your essays that simply said, You are thinking like a researcher. Do not let anyone dull that.
Once, after class, he asked you if you’d ever considered specializing in myth as cultural memory – how societies buried truth inside stories to make it survivable.
You’d stared at him for a moment, stunned by the question.
Then you’d answered honestly, “I think… I’ve been doing that my whole life.”
Thor had looked at you, thoughtful.
He hadn’t asked what you meant.
He’d just nodded like he understood more than you’d said.
And that was the thing about college.
About adulthood.
About this new world you were stepping into.
It didn’t demand your secrets in exchange for belonging.
It just let you belong.
By the end of your first semester, you realized something quietly monumental.
You were happy.
Not constantly.
Not perfectly.
But genuinely.
You laughed more.
You slept better.
You caught yourself humming while you made tea in the kitchen and froze because it felt unfamiliar – joy, unguarded, slipping out of you without permission.
You stopped flinching every time you heard your name.
You stopped feeling like the ground under you might vanish at any moment.
You weren’t healed.
Not fully.
But you were growing.
And for the first time, that growth didn’t feel like survival.
It felt like becoming.
Time didn’t pass in one clean line.
It moved in semesters. In deadlines. In acceptance letters and internship interviews and the slow, quiet way your twenties began to take shape around you without asking permission.
At first, the apartment was still the heart of everything.
Wanda’s music drifting from her room while she wrote papers with her feet tucked under her. Pietro pacing during exam season like a caged animal, memorizing theories out loud just to hear them. You hunched over your own work at the kitchen table, surrounded by highlighted articles and mugs that never quite made it back to the cupboard.
And then – little by little – the rhythm shifted.
Because people didn’t stay students forever.
Because the world outside the campus gates started calling them by name.
Wanda finished first.
It wasn’t that she was less intelligent, or less capable – Wanda was brilliant in the way people were brilliant when they actually cared. But she knew what she wanted: a life that was grounded in people, in reality, in something tangible.
She walked across the stage at graduation with her head high, her hair too perfect, and a look on her face like she was daring the universe to underestimate her.
Afterward, she hugged you so hard you almost dropped your bouquet.
“I’m free,” she whispered dramatically into your ear.
You laughed, warm and proud. “You’re unemployed.”
“I’m liberated,” she corrected, pulling back to point a finger at you. “Don’t ruin this.”
She didn’t stay unemployed long.
You watched her apply everywhere with the stubborn focus she usually reserved for moral arguments. She wanted something where sociology wasn’t just theory – where it could become practice.
And eventually, she found it: a job with a nonprofit that partnered with the city to support housing stability – tenant advocacy, community outreach, helping people navigate bureaucracy that was designed to exhaust them. Sometimes it was case management. Sometimes it was connecting families to resources. Sometimes it was sitting in a fluorescent-lit office and explaining, gently, for the fifth time in one day, that no, the system wasn’t fair, but yes, she would help them fight it anyway.
She came home on her first week with exhaustion in her eyes and fire in her voice.
“I had to argue with a landlord who told me a single mom ‘should’ve planned better’,” she said, throwing her bag onto the couch like it offended her. “I almost committed a felony.”
Pietro looked up from his notes. “Hypothetically?”
Wanda’s smile was sharp. “No.”
You made her tea. Pietro ordered dinner. The three of you ate on the couch while she ranted, and you realized something quietly:
Wanda had always needed purpose.
Now she had it.
And she looked more like herself than she had in years.
Bucky’s path was less dramatic, but just as inevitable.
He had chased Stark Industries in his head since he was ten, the dream polished smooth by years of stubborn longing. Engineering was the first thing he’d ever wanted that felt like it belonged entirely to him.
When he got the alternance offer, he tried to pretend it wasn’t a big deal.
He failed.
He showed up at your apartment with a bottle of champagne he absolutely could not afford as a student, grinning like he couldn’t contain it.
“I got it,” he said, breathless.
You stared at him for a second before your face split into a real smile.
“You got it,” you repeated.
Bucky’s eyes went bright. He nodded hard, as if he needed the confirmation to make it real. “I got it.”
Steve clapped him on the shoulder so hard Bucky almost stumbled. Wanda squealed and jumped up to hug him. Pietro raised his eyebrows like he was trying to act cool about it and failing.
You held Bucky’s gaze for a brief moment across the room, something unspoken passing between you.
Pride.
Relief.
And something older and deeper: the knowledge that you had watched him want this for so long, and now he was finally being handed the future he’d built himself for.
Bucky’s alternance became a routine.
Early mornings. Long commutes. Tired nights. He’d show up sometimes in your apartment doorway, still in his work shirt, hair damp from rain or sweat, dropping his bag with a groan.
“You look like you fought a war,” Wanda would tell him.
“I fought Excel,” Bucky would reply flatly.
He became… steadier.
Not softer. Not less intense.
But calmer, in the way people got when they finally had something to move toward.
And you saw it – the way working for Stark Industries wasn’t just a job to him. It was a place he could prove himself. A place where he could be excellent without apology.
He would graduate, and the alternance would turn into a real position, and that part of his life would make sense.
At least that part.
Steve surprised you less and less as the years went on, because you got used to the way the world saw him.
He didn’t chase attention. He didn’t posture. He just worked – quietly, relentlessly, with that stubborn discipline that had been forged in a childhood where everything had been unstable.
He built a portfolio that made professors pause. He got recommended for internships that made other students jealous. He got invited to private gallery events where he stood awkwardly by snack tables and texted you, Why is everyone wearing black like it’s a funeral?
By the time he was finishing his master’s, the offers started coming in.
Three museums.
Three different curators calling him “promising,” “rare,” “worth investing in.”
He told you about it like it was a weather report.
“Got an email,” he said one evening, leaning against your kitchen counter while you cooked. “The Met wants an interview.”
You almost dropped your spoon. “Steve.”
He blinked innocently. “What?”
You turned fully toward him. “The Met.”
Steve’s ears went pink. “Yeah.”
“Steve,” you repeated, because your brain needed his name to ground the fact. “That’s huge.”
He shrugged, but his mouth twitched. “I guess.”
Wanda rolled her eyes from the couch. “You’re allergic to pride.”
Steve glanced at her, amused. “I’m not.”
Pietro snorted. “You are. It’s terminal.”
You laughed, and Steve’s eyes softened when he looked at you.
Because you and he had survived becoming something else.
Because you were still here.
Because your friendship had endured the hardest thing it had ever had to endure: letting go of what it used to be without losing what mattered.
Pietro’s life clicked into place in a way that looked almost effortless from the outside.
Years of schooling, internships, supervised hours, exams that made him curse under his breath in three languages.
He was brilliant, but he was also human. He burned out sometimes. He got anxious about doing harm. He worried that he’d say the wrong thing to the wrong person and ruin them.
It made you trust him more.
When he found a practice that grouped several practitioners – one of whom planned to retire soon – he came home with that look on his face: the one that meant he was trying not to get hopeful.
“They said if it goes well,” he told you carefully, “I’ll get the list of patients when he retires.”
Wanda stared at him. “That’s… huge.”
Pietro exhaled slowly. “Yeah.”
You reached across the table and squeezed his hand. “That’s yours,” you said, voice quiet. “You earned that.”
Pietro’s eyes flicked to yours, something raw in them for a second before he masked it with his usual smirk.
“Of course I did,” he said, offended. “I’m delightful.”
You smiled anyway.
Because he was.
Because he had spent years being your anchor without ever asking to be thanked for it.
And you…
You kept going.
While everyone else peeled off toward adulthood – toward salaries and contracts and jobs that came with business cards – you stayed in the world of papers and archives and late-night research spirals.
There were moments when you felt left behind.
Not intellectually.
Not academically.
But socially.
Because the longer you stayed in school, the more your life began to revolve around people who weren’t in your original circle. Other graduate students. Professors. Researchers who spoke in references and field sites and grant deadlines.
And slowly, the apartment – the shared space that had held you all together – started to empty out.
Wanda got a job. Needed her own place closer to her office.
Pietro’s practice demanded privacy, quiet, a commute that didn’t take an hour each way.
Even you, who had once clung to the comfort of shared walls, began to feel the pull of something you’d never really had: a space that belonged to you.
Not your mother’s house.
Not a childhood bedroom filled with echoes.
Not a room you shared with laughter and arguments and noise.
Just… yours.
It happened almost accidentally.
Dr. Odinson needed a teaching assistant.
At first, you assumed you weren’t qualified. Then you remembered you’d been underestimating yourself out of habit for most of your life.
You applied.
You got it.
Assisting Thor Odinson wasn’t glamorous. It was grading papers until your eyes crossed, holding office hours for students who panicked over citations, running discussion sections where half the room was awake and the other half looked like they’d rather die.
But it was also stabilizing.
A paycheck.
A small sense of authority.
A role that wasn’t just “student,” but “colleague-in-training.”
Thor treated you like you belonged.
He corrected you when you apologized too much. He pushed you when you tried to stay small. He didn’t rescue you – he equipped you.
And the money – modest, barely enough by New York standards – was still enough.
Enough for a tiny apartment.
A real one.
Not big.
Not pretty.
But yours.
The first time you stood inside it alone, keys still warm in your palm, you didn’t know what to do with the silence.
It felt… vast.
The place smelled like fresh paint and dust. The floors creaked. The kitchen was basically a hallway with a stove.
Your bedroom could fit a bed and a desk and not much else.
And still, your chest tightened – not with panic, but with something close to wonder.
Because this was yours.
You didn’t have to worry about waking anyone up if you cried.
You didn’t have to hide your books in stacks to make room for someone else’s life.
You could leave a mug in the sink overnight and no one would comment.
You could breathe.
Wanda came over first, of course, because she always insisted on being the first to bless a new space.
She brought a plant. “For vibes,” she announced.
Pietro brought a toolkit and immediately started fixing things you hadn’t even noticed were broken.
Steve brought a framed print he’d picked up at a museum gift shop – something understated, warm, like he was quietly furnishing your walls with care.
And Bucky…
Bucky arrived last.
He stood in your doorway for a second, taking in the narrow hall, the small living space, the way your books were already stacked in one corner like they’d claimed the apartment before you had.
“You did it,” he said quietly.
It wasn’t dramatic.
But it landed.
You looked at him, keys still on the counter, heart strangely steady.
“Yeah,” you said. “I did.”
His gaze held yours for a moment longer than necessary.
Then he nodded once, as if sealing the truth into place.
“Proud of you,” he murmured.
You didn’t answer right away, because the words hit somewhere tender.
So you just stepped aside and let him in.
And for a moment, standing in your tiny apartment surrounded by the people who had shaped your life, you realized something else:
Growing up didn’t mean losing them.
It just meant learning how to hold them differently.
And you – finally – were learning.
The first year of your PhD was… normal.
Normal in the way academia could be normal – too much reading, too many deadlines, too much coffee. Normal in the way your life had settled into a routine that made sense: mornings in seminar rooms, afternoons in the library, evenings in your tiny apartment with your laptop balanced on your knees and your brain still running long after your body had asked for mercy.
You taught.
You graded.
You met Dr. Odinson twice a week, and he treated you less like a student now and more like someone he was actively shaping – pushing you toward conferences, nudging you into conversations with professors who mattered, asking you questions that didn’t have neat answers.
“You are not here to survive,” he told you once, frowning over a draft you’d brought him. “You are here to contribute.”
You had stared at him for a second, caught off guard by how simple and firm it sounded.
Then you had nodded, because you were learning how to accept things you’d earned.
Academically, nothing was on fire.
Emotionally… Emotionally was a different story.
Because Bucky… shifted.
Not dramatically. Not in a way you could point at and say this is the moment.
But in the small things.
In the way he started showing up a little more often, as if he had excuses but didn’t need them anymore.
In the way he lingered in your doorway when he came by to drop something off for your mother and ended up staying for an hour, sitting on your couch like it was still his right to be there.
In the way his gaze started catching yours across rooms again – steady, heavy, familiar.
Like he was remembering something you’d both worked so hard to bury.
It made your skin feel too tight sometimes.
It made your stomach dip in that dangerous way that wasn’t fear – wasn’t exactly desire either – but the combination of both, tangled with history.
Sometimes you’d be talking to Wanda in the kitchen, laughing about something stupid, and you’d look up and find Bucky watching you.
Not like he was checking if you were okay.
Like he was watching because he couldn’t help it.
And when your eyes met, there would be that pause.
That beat where the world seemed to inhale.
Then he’d look away first, jaw flexing, as if he’d caught himself doing something he didn’t have permission to do.
You didn’t call him out.
You didn’t name it.
You didn’t dare.
Because naming things tended to break them.
But at night, alone in your apartment, the quiet could become cruel.
You would lie in bed and stare at the ceiling, listening to the distant sounds of New York through your window – the muffled honk of a car, someone laughing too loud on the sidewalk, a siren slicing through the dark.
And you would catch yourself drifting into thoughts you didn’t allow during the day.
Not fantasies, exactly.
Hope.
Soft, humiliating hope.
The kind you told yourself you didn’t have anymore.
You would think about the way Bucky used to crawl into your bed when you were small, all sharp elbows and warmth, and how safe it had felt to have someone choose you in the middle of the night.
You would think about his hands – how careful they could be when he wasn’t angry, how gentle when he wasn’t afraid.
You would remember the way he said your name sometimes, low and rough, like it meant something more than a habit.
And then you’d hate yourself for it, because hope was how you got hurt.
Hope was how you convinced yourself to wait for people who didn’t know how to show up.
And still…
Still, you’d lie there and wonder if maybe… if maybe adulthood was different.
If maybe he had grown into something softer.
If maybe you had too.
If maybe the two of you could finally stop orbiting each other like something forbidden and start being honest.
The thought would make your chest ache.
And you would fall asleep with that ache pressed against your ribs like a secret.
Then Bucky met Natasha.
It happened the way the rest of life happened: casually, inevitably, without asking if you were ready.
You didn’t even hear about it from him at first – not properly.
You heard it the way you heard most news from Bucky these days: sideways, in fragments, in things he mentioned like they were small.
You had come home for dinner with your parents on a rare evening when your schedules lined up – your seminars ended early, his work day didn’t drag late, the universe briefly decided to be kind.
The house felt warm and familiar, smelling like whatever your mother had been simmering since mid-afternoon. The dining table was set properly because your mother still treated “all of you together” like an event, even when you were all adults with jobs and degrees and keys to your own apartments.
Your stepfather asked Bucky about work.
Bucky answered with the kind of vague competence he always used when he didn’t want to talk too much.
Your mother asked you about your research.
You told her the sanitized version – conference proposals, paper drafts, an upcoming lecture you were assisting.
No one said anything about feelings.
No one ever did.
And then, halfway through dinner, Bucky cleared his throat.
Not loudly.
Just enough that you looked up.
He didn’t look at you.
He looked at your mother, then your stepfather, then back at his plate like he was bracing for impact.
“I’ve been seeing someone,” he said.
The fork paused halfway to your mouth.
The air shifted.
Your mother’s face lit up instantly, delighted in that unguarded way that always made you feel both loved and slightly suffocated.
“Oh,” she said, hand flying to her chest. “Bucky.”
He rolled his eyes, but the corner of his mouth twitched. “It’s not that serious yet.”
Your stepfather leaned back in his chair, curious. “Who is she?”
Bucky hesitated, then said, “Natasha. Natasha Romanoff.”
Your mother repeated the name as if she was tasting it. “Natasha,” she said, soft. “That’s beautiful.”
Bucky huffed a laugh. “It’s a name, Ma.”
“It’s a beautiful name,” she insisted, because she was your mother, and she had always loved names and the meanings she could attach to them.
You forced your face into something steady.
You smiled.
You even managed to say, “That’s great.”
Your voice sounded normal.
Your eyes didn’t fill.
You didn’t flinch.
You didn’t break.
But inside… Inside, it was like someone had put their hand around your heart and squeezed.
Because the hope you had been letting yourself grow in the quiet – small, private, pathetic – collapsed in on itself like a paper structure in the rain.
You kept smiling anyway.
Because you had become very good at smiling while bleeding.
Your mother asked questions, of course.
Where did you meet? What does she do? Is she nice? When can we meet her?
Bucky answered, a little embarrassed, a little proud, trying to act casual while his ears went pink.
“She works in the same building. Different department,” he said. “We grabbed coffee a couple times. And yeah– she’s… she’s great.”
He said it like he meant it.
Not like he was forcing it.
Not like he was trying to prove something.
And that was the part that made it hardest.
Because you couldn’t tell yourself it wasn’t real.
You couldn’t tell yourself it was a rebound, a phase, a mistake.
You couldn’t hate her to make it easier.
You couldn’t even resent him properly, because Bucky was allowed to be happy.
Bucky deserved to be happy.
You had told yourself that for years.
You had built your entire emotional discipline around it.
So you kept smiling.
You asked one safe question “How long have you been seeing her?” and you listened like you were just his sister, like your chest wasn’t caving in.
Your mother reached across the table at one point and touched Bucky’s hand.
“I’m happy for you,” she said, eyes shining.
Bucky’s gaze flicked up, softer. “Yeah?”
“Yes,” she said firmly, like she could will it into being. “Yes. You deserve someone good.”
You swallowed around the lump in your throat.
So do I, something small and bitter whispered in the back of your mind.
You ignored it.
You always did.
Later, when you stood in the kitchen helping your mother rinse plates, your hands moved on autopilot.
Warm water. Soap. Ceramic sliding under your fingers.
Your mother hummed under her breath, content.
“You’re quiet,” she said gently.
You made yourself shrug. “Just tired.”
She studied you for a second, as if she wanted to push, then decided not to.
Your mother had learned, over the years, that you were like a locked drawer: she could shake it, pull at it, but it only opened when you decided it was safe.
She didn’t try to force it.
She only said, softly, “I’m glad you’re here.”
You nodded, throat tight, because it was true.
You were glad too.
You were glad you had a mother who loved you enough to make home a place you could return to.
You were glad you had a family.
You were glad you had a future.
And still… When you left that night and stepped out into the cold air, walking toward the subway with your coat pulled tight around you, you felt tears sting your eyes anyway.
Not because Bucky had done something wrong.
Not because Natasha existed.
But because you had let yourself dream, for a few weeks, that the universe might finally hand you something you wanted.
And now you had to do what you had always done.
Swallow it. Fold it up. Put it away somewhere no one could see.
The worst part came later, when you met her.
Not at dinner. Not that night.
A week or two after.
Bucky stopped by your place to drop off something your mother had baked – cookies, because your mother communicated love in food.
And Natasha was with him.
“Hope that’s okay,” Bucky said quickly, like he hadn’t meant to bring her but couldn’t avoid it. “She was nearby.”
You opened the door wider on instinct, because manners were muscle memory.
“Of course,” you said.
Natasha stepped in with a small smile that was careful but genuine.
She was… beautiful.
Not in the fragile, soft way that begged to be protected.
In the kind of way that made the air feel sharper.
She wore confidence like it was woven into her skin. She looked at you like she was reading you – not judging, just observing.
“Hi,” she said. “I’m Natasha.”
You forced your smile to stay steady. “I know. I’m–” You almost said his sister. The word caught in your throat in a way that made you want to laugh at the irony.
You said your name instead.
Natasha’s gaze warmed slightly. “Bucky’s told me about you.”
Of course he had.
You nodded, pretending it didn’t matter. “Only good things, I hope.”
Natasha’s mouth curved. “Only.”
You wanted to dislike her.
You wanted her to be rude, dismissive, smug.
You wanted to find something – anything – that would let you label her as a problem so your pain could feel righteous instead of pathetic.
But she wasn’t.
She was polite. She was sharp. She had humor that matched Bucky’s in a way that made him loosen around her.
And when he smiled at something she said, it wasn’t forced.
It was real.
You felt it like a bruise.
After they left, you stood alone in your apartment, staring at the container of cookies on your counter.
And you thought, distantly, almost bitterly:
It would have been so much easier if she wasn’t lovely.
Because then you could have hated her.
And hate would have been simpler than grief.
You didn’t know if it was the new hope – brief, quiet, humiliating – that had died on impact.
Maybe it was just exhaustion. Maybe it was the way your body always seemed to react when your heart was forced to swallow something sharp: by trying to find control somewhere else.
But a few days after that dinner at your parents’, after you’d smiled until your cheeks hurt and nodded until your neck felt stiff, you opened the folder on your laptop you hadn’t touched in months.
The one you kept buried beneath thesis drafts and bibliographies and teaching materials, as if hiding it under academic language could keep it from hurting.
Origins.
You stared at the word for a long time, cursor blinking beside it like a heartbeat.
Then you clicked.
And the first thing you felt was not grief.
It was relief.
Because this – this was something you could do.
Something you could research. Cross-check. Organize. Something with rules and sources and steps.
Something that didn’t require you to sit in the dark and wonder why Bucky’s smile at someone else felt like a knife.
You told yourself you were just curious.
That it was practical.
That you had always meant to.
You didn’t tell yourself the truth until later, when you realized you were working on it at two in the morning with the same intensity you used for your dissertation.
Like you were trying to outrun your own thoughts.
You didn’t talk to Wanda about it.
Wanda loved you fiercely, but Wanda also had a way of turning every wound into a battle, and you didn’t want this to become a war she fought for you.
You didn’t talk to Steve about it either, because Steve’s empathy was too steady, too deep. He would look at you and know you were hurting, and the idea of being seen that clearly made you want to bolt.
So you did what you always did.
You called Pietro.
It was late enough that the city outside your window had quieted into a low hum – cars in the distance, a neighbor’s TV bleeding muffled dialogue through the wall, pipes clicking faintly as if the building itself was shifting in its sleep.
Pietro picked up on the second ring.
“Hey,” he said, voice thick with sleep but immediate in its alertness. He never sounded annoyed when you called. Not once. “You okay?”
You swallowed, phone pressed to your ear, eyes fixed on the glowing screen of your laptop.
“I’m… fine,” you lied automatically.
There was a pause.
Pietro didn’t call you out.
He just waited.
You exhaled through your nose, fingers tightening around the phone. “Can I come over?”
“Of course,” he said, like you’d asked if you could breathe. “Door’s open.”
It wasn’t, literally. Pietro locked his door. He just meant: you don’t need permission.
Your throat tightened at that, too, because you always had.
His apartment was small but lived-in. Books everywhere. Plants he was keeping alive mostly out of spite. A half-finished mug of tea on his coffee table like he’d abandoned it mid-thought.
He opened the door before you even knocked properly, eyes a little tired, hair messy, but posture instantly protective when he saw your face.
He didn’t ask questions right away.
He just pulled you into his arms.
It wasn’t a romantic gesture. It wasn’t even dramatic.
It was Pietro – solid, familiar, wrapping you up like he could physically hold you together if you came apart.
You leaned into it for a second longer than you meant to.
Then you pulled back, embarrassed by your own need.
Pietro didn’t tease you.
He just guided you inside, flicked on a lamp, and put a kettle on without asking.
“You want to sit?” he asked gently.
You nodded and sank onto his couch, laptop bag still on your shoulder like you hadn’t quite convinced yourself you were allowed to take up space.
Pietro sat beside you, angled toward you but not crowding. He always did that – present without cornering.
He waited until the tea was steeping, until the room smelled like chamomile, until you’d taken a breath that wasn’t entirely locked in your chest.
Then he said, quietly, “Okay. Talk to me.”
You stared at your hands.
Your fingers were stained faintly with highlighter ink. You rubbed your thumb over the spot like you could erase it.
“I started looking again,” you said.
Pietro’s brow furrowed slightly. “Looking…?”
“My origins,” you clarified, voice small despite yourself. “The files. The names. Anything.”
Pietro didn’t react with surprise. He didn’t look disappointed. He didn’t look like he was waiting for the “real reason.”
He just nodded slowly, encouraging.
You swallowed.
And then the words came faster, spilling out now that the first crack had formed.
“I feel ridiculous,” you admitted. “Because I… I don’t even know why I’m doing it now. I mean, I do, but I don’t want to say it out loud.”
Pietro’s gaze stayed steady. “Say it out loud.”
You huffed a laugh that sounded like a sob’s cousin.
“I… thought,” you said, and your voice wavered, hate flaring at yourself for it, “that maybe… something could happen.”
Pietro didn’t flinch.
He didn’t look away.
He didn’t make a face.
He just inhaled slowly, as if he was taking in the confession like a fact, not a weakness.
You forced yourself to continue, because stopping now would make you choke on it.
“I know it’s stupid,” you rushed. “It’s not like he ever… he never said anything. He never–” Your throat tightened. “But things felt… different, for a while. He was looking at me again, and I–” You pressed your fingers to your eyes hard, as if you could physically shove the feeling back. “I started hoping.”
Pietro’s voice went softer. “That’s not stupid.”
“It is,” you snapped, then immediately hated yourself for snapping at him. Your shoulders hunched. “I’m sorry.”
Pietro shook his head once. “Don’t apologize. Not for feeling.”
You laughed again, bitter. “Well, apparently I’m great at it.”
Pietro’s jaw tightened – not at you, but at the idea of you having to say that. He reached for the mug of tea and handed it to you.
You wrapped your hands around it like it was the only warm thing left in the world.
“And then,” you continued, staring into the steam, “he met Natasha.”
Pietro’s expression didn’t change much, but his eyes sharpened with attention. “And that hurt.”
You nodded, throat too tight to speak for a second.
“It shouldn’t,” you said finally, voice thin. “It shouldn’t hurt like this. I’m his 'sister'. I’m supposed to be happy for him. I am happy for him, I just–”
You stopped, because the truth lodged behind your teeth like a stone.
Pietro waited again.
You exhaled shakily. “It would have been easier if she sucked,” you whispered.
Pietro let out a quiet, humorless breath. “Yeah.”
“She’s nice,” you said, almost offended by it. “She’s smart. She’s funny. She fits.”
Pietro’s mouth twitched, but there was no tease in it. Just understanding. “Of course she is.”
You blinked at him.
Pietro leaned back slightly, eyes still on you. “You don’t fall for someone like Bucky Barnes if you’re not built for intensity.”
The fact that he said Bucky’s name so casually made your stomach dip.
You swallowed hard. “I can’t do this,” you whispered. “I can’t keep–” Your hand tightened around the mug. “I can’t keep thinking about him. I can’t keep… hoping for things that I’m not allowed to hope for.”
Pietro’s gaze held yours. “You’re allowed.”
You shook your head quickly. “No. I’m not. Not if I want to survive this.”
Pietro didn’t argue. He didn’t force his view onto you.
He just said, quietly, “So you want move on.”
“Yes,” you breathed, relief and grief tangled in the same word. “I have to.”
Pietro studied you for a moment.
Then he nodded once, decisive. “Okay.”
Your chest loosened a fraction at the lack of judgment.
“I need to focus my brain on something else,” you confessed, voice raw. “Because if I don’t, I think about him. And then I get stuck. And then I start doing this stupid thing where I replay every look, every pause, every stupid second where he was nice to me like it meant something–”
Your voice cracked.
You looked away quickly, embarrassed.
Pietro reached out and took your free hand, grounding you.
Not squeezing too hard. Just… there.
“You’re not ridiculous,” he said firmly. “You’re human.”
You swallowed, eyes burning.
“I just want it to stop,” you whispered. “I want my head to be quiet.”
Pietro’s thumb brushed your knuckles once. “Then we give it something else to chew on.”
You let out a shaky breath. “That’s why I started looking again.”
Pietro nodded. “Okay. Show me what you’ve got.”
You pulled your laptop out of your bag with hands that trembled slightly. You opened the folder, the scanned documents, the notes you’d taken years ago and never finished.
Pietro leaned in, reading with you, shoulder brushing yours.
“You can do this,” he murmured.
You nodded, eyes fixed on the screen.
Because this was familiar territory.
Paper trails. Names. Dates. Systems.
Something you could dissect instead of just endure.
And for the first time since that dinner, since that smile you’d worn like armor, the ache in your chest eased – not gone, not healed – but quieter.
Like your mind had finally found somewhere else to rest.
Warnings: Mild Violence. Period expected misogyny.
Summary: A knight from another century crashes -literally- into a florist’s life and turns her world upside down.
Word Count: 4.3k
Previous Chapter - Masterlist
The brief encounter with the street outside the store had done nothing to prepare him for this.
He counted the buildings without meaning to. Four here. Six there. All of them tall in a way that offended his understanding of what stone and mortar were meant to do.
Small stone, at that.
He tilted his head back once, studying the face of a structure looming over the street, and felt something close to vertigo.
The bricks -if that was even the word- were absurdly small, identical, and stacked in rows so precise they might have been drawn with a ruler and simply willed into permanence.
Higher than any keep he'd laid siege to. Higher than the bell tower at Wintermouth Cathedral, which had taken forty years and three master masons and had still needed scaffolding twice in his lifetime.
How does it hold?
She stopped in front of one such building, smaller than its neighbors, though smaller was doing considerable work in that sentence, and mounted three steps to a set of doors.
She pulled one open without ceremony, without announcing herself to anyone, without a steward or a porter to bar entry to a stranger, and walked inside as though the building belonged to her the way a woman owns a shawl.
He followed, because there was nothing else to do, and stepped into a hall.
Marble underfoot, or something convincingly like it. A row of small brass boxes set into one wall, each with a slot and a number, they purpose entirely opaque. Light again without flame, hanging in a glass fixture overhead, steady and shadowless.
This is not a florist's household, he thought.
He knew what it was to walk into a great house as a guest and be received as one. He knew, with rather more bitterness, what it was to walk into a great house as staff, had spent enough of his squireship fetching, carrying, standing at attention in halls not unlike this one, waiting to be noticed or ignored, whichever suited the lord in question that day.
Was that it, then? Flowers by morning, service by evening? some second position in a household large enough to warrant it, explaining the marble, the brass, the strange indifferent grandeur of the place?
He said none of this. He had learned, in the space of one morning, that his conclusions about this century had a poor survival rate once spoken aloud. So he held his tongue and followed her toward a narrow staircase at the back of the hall.
The climbing did nothing to improve his opinion of the day, since each step was a constant reminder of the state of his bruised ribs. He kept his breathing even through will alone, one hand trailing the rail, and said nothing.
She glanced back once, near the second landing, some question half-formed on her face. He gave her nothing to work with, so she turned around and kept climbing.
By the third floor, sweat had gathered along his spine beneath the ruined shirt, and his vision had gone a touch too bright at the edges, a warning he chose to ignore in favor of counting doors instead of stairs.
---
She'd clocked it two flights ago, the careful, deliberate way he was breathing, the hand that never quite let go of the rail, the fact that a man who'd crossed half of Camden without complaint had gone very quiet somewhere around the second landing.
She didn't say anything. She had a feeling he'd sooner collapse on her stairwell than admit to needing a minute, and there was something in the set of his jaw - stubborn, absurdly proud, entirely unbothered by what it was clearly costing him - that she found herself, against her better judgment, a little charmed by. Which was not a thought she had time for right now, with a bleeding stranger three steps behind her and a landing still to reach.
She kept climbing. Slower than she strictly needed to. Just in case.
----
A corridor stretched ahead of them, narrow, lined with identical doors, and identical brass numbers screwed into identical wood.
He catalogued it out of habit -the width, how many doors stood between them and the stairs- before it occurred to him that there was likely nothing here worth defending against, and the habit still refused to switch itself off.
From behind one door, there was music. Not lute or pipe, but something layered and strange, a woman's voice threaded through with instruments he couldn't place.
From another, the smell of onions frying, rich enough that his stomach gave a low, traitorous rumble.
He frowned at that second door as they passed it.
The kitchens were on the third floor. It made no sense.
Kitchens belonged low, ground level, or below it if the house could afford the excavation, close to the well and the fuel stores, far enough from the sleeping quarters that smoke and grease didn't creep into a lord's bedding.
Every keep he'd ever served in, ever laid siege to, ever simply visited, kept its kitchens low. He turned it over, half convinced he was missing some obvious explanation, and came up with nothing.
Unless this household ran differently. Unless the entire logic of the place inverted itself the way everything else in this century seemed determined to.
She stopped in front of a door indistinguishable from the others save its number, and drew a ring of keys from her purse, finding the right one without hesitation, the ease of long habit. The lock turned, and the door opened onto a narrow entry, dim and modest, but unmistakably a dwelling.
He stood in the corridor a moment longer than necessary, his gaze moving once more down the row of identical doors stretching in both directions. Service quarters, he decided.
"You may introduce me to your employer at your convenience," he said, following her through. "I would prefer not to be mistaken for an intruder in his household a second time today."
She turned to look at him with an expression he was rapidly learning to be wary of, the kind that came right before she informed him he'd misunderstood something, in a manner she found simultaneously exhausting and, despite herself, a little bit funny.
He didn't yet know what he'd said wrong. That, too, was becoming familiar.
"My employer," she repeated.
"The lord of this house." He gestured back toward the corridor and its row of doors, already bracing -without quite knowing why- for the ground to shift under him again.
She closed the door behind him and looked at him a moment, one hand still on the latch, working through how precisely to explain something she'd clearly never had to explain to a grown man before.
"Mr. Barnes," she said slowly. "There is no lord."
"Then whose house-" He stopped himself. Every theory he'd voiced aloud today had met the same fate, and he saw no cause to expect this one would fare better.
"This is my apartment." She said the word carefully. "It's mine. I pay rent on it every month, out of what the shop makes. Every one of those doors you just walked past, that's not one household. That's a different family behind every single one. A different kitchen, different bathrooms. Strangers to each other, mostly, sharing a staircase and nothing else."
He stared at her, and felt the shape of the building rearrange itself in his mind. It was not a great house at all, but something closer to a hive. Dozens of lives stacked one atop the other with nothing holding them together but shared stairs and walls.
"An entire building," he said slowly, "of strangers."
"Yes."
"Stacked."
"...Yes."
She was watching him, but with an attention that had nothing to do with the conversation they were having, and he felt it land somewhere just beneath his collar before he'd decided what to make of it.
"Hey," she said, softer than before. "You look like you're about to go down again. Sit for a minute?"
She gestured toward a low, upholstered thing pushed against the far wall. Two cushioned seats joined into one continuous piece, the fabric a bright, unrepentant orange.
He had never seen its like. Not a bench, not quite a settle, too soft-looking for either, its cushions plump and uniform in a way no upholsterer he knew could have managed by hand.
It looked, if he was honest, extremely inviting.
It also looked new. Unmarked. The kind of thing a household kept for guests of consequence, and he was aware, with some discomfort, of exactly how far he fell from that description at present.
"I would ruin it," he said.
She blinked. "What?"
"The seat." He gestured at himself, at the dried blood, the dirt ground into the linen, the general catastrophe of a man who had crossed six centuries without the benefit of a bath. "That fabric will not survive contact with me. And I am not dressed to sit in a lady's parlor regardless."
Something flickered across her face, not quite amusement, but not quite exasperation either.
"It's not a parlor," she said. "It's just the living room. And it's a couch, Mr. Barnes, not a coronation throne. It'll survive."
"All the same." He held his ground, aware even as he did it that the ground in question was faintly ridiculous: a man arguing etiquette while swaying on his feet in a stranger's home, in a century that had already proven it cared nothing for the rules he knew.
He couldn't seem to let go of them regardless. They were, at the moment, nearly the only thing of his own he still had. "If you have something less consequential."
She studied him a moment longer, then exhaled through her nose in a way he was beginning to recognize as her particular flavor of surrender. "Fine. The kitchen, then."
She led him into a smaller room with a tiled floor, pale and clean, a window over a deep basin, and, against the wall, a small table with two chairs, their seats covered in the same relentless color as the couch, though blue instead of orange.
He lowered himself into one carefully, his ribs complaining the entire way down, and studied the chair beneath him.
Bright, even, unfaded blue. The kind of pigment that, in his experience, cost more per yard than the chair itself was likely worth.
For kitchen furniture.
"Water?" she asked, already moving toward the far wall.
He nodded, distracted, still cataloguing the room: the smoothness of every surface, the absence of soot anywhere. Then she opened a tall white cabinet set against the wall, and he stopped cataloguing anything at all.
Cold air rolled out of it. He felt it from where he sat, and some old instinct, the one that had kept him alive through winters of campaign, sat up and took notice before the rest of him had caught up.
"What," he said slowly, "is that?"
"The icebox?" She glanced back, one hand still on the door, a bottle in the other.
"It has no ice."
"It doesn't need ice, it's electric. Keeps things cold on its own."
He rose, forgetting his ribs for exactly as long as it took three steps to carry him there, and looked into the cabinet himself before she could object.
Shelves. Bottles. A bowl of eggs, pale and ordinary, sitting beside butter, unmelted, in a room warm enough that any butter he'd ever known would have long since gone soft and glistening on a table.
He found himself wanting, absurdly, to touch it, to confirm with his own hand what his eyes were telling him couldn't be true.
"How?"
"I don't actually know," she admitted, and there was something almost sheepish in it. "Something with wires, a motor… I don't know the mechanics of it any more than I know how a telephone carries a voice across town. It just works. You plug it in, and it's cold, and that's as far as my understanding goes."
He stared at the shelves a moment longer, at the ordinary miracle of butter refusing to soften, and felt something very close to wonder. And beneath the wonder, quieter, something that felt uncomfortably like grief.
Traveling through centuries, he had arrived at a place where a woman kept the dead of winter locked in a box in her kitchen and thought nothing of it.
She poured water into a glass -clear, flawless glass- and set it in front of him as though it were nothing at all.
He was hardly positioned to complain, since she had taken a bleeding stranger into her home and fed him besides, but he found himself glancing toward the cabinets regardless, expecting a jug of small ale, a pitcher of cider, anything a household of any means offered a guest before water.
Water alone, had killed men he'd known. Good men, careful men, who'd survived worse than a bad well and gone down anyway with their guts turned to fire. Almost every house's table poured ale or wine for that reason as much as for taste.
That this place, with its marble hall and its brass boxes and its indifferent grandeur, should hand him water and nothing else struck him as strange enough to notice.
He lifted the glass and drank anyway, telling himself that whatever this century had done to its water, it had also apparently solved the preservation of food in a cool box, and a man who trusted one miracle might as well trust the other.
The taste caught him off guard. It wasn’t unpleasant, but strange. No hint of the barrel it had traveled in, no faint rot at the back of the throat that a man learned to drink around.
It tasted, as far as he could tell, of nothing at all. Clean. He'd never had water that tasted that clean, and some old, wary part of him kept waiting for the sickness to follow regardless.
"Is it safe?" he asked, careful to keep the question light, a thing he was merely curious about, rather than a thing he genuinely needed answered before his next swallow.
"Perfectly. It's tap water, comes straight out of the faucet, city runs it through filtration before it ever gets to a pipe. You could drink it all day and never think twice."
Faucet. He turned the word over, another one for the stack, and said nothing.
She caught the blankness on his face and rose, crossing to the basin set into the counter.
"Here. If the jug ever runs dry and you want more, don't wait around for me. Just do this." She turned a small metal handle.
Water came. No need to pour, carry, or draw it up on a rope from some hidden well; it simply arrived, a clear, steady stream falling into the basin, as though the house itself had a vein opened somewhere and this was where it bled.
He was on his feet before he'd decided to be, some part of him needing, absurdly, to see the mechanism of it, as if enough looking might finally make it make sense. "Where does it come from?"
"Pipes. Underground, runs under the whole city, connects to a reservoir north of here. Every building's hooked into it." She watched him with open curiosity now. "You want it hot instead of cold, there's a second handle."
"Hot?"
"Mm-hm."
He looked at the two handles. Looked at her. Looked back at the water, still running, and felt the day's tally of impossible things tip over into something he no longer had the will to keep counting.
"You are telling me," he said slowly, "that every house in this city commands its own well. Hot and cold both. Without a servant, a bucket, or a rope."
"That's the general idea, yeah."
He said nothing for a long moment, turning it over, what a man could build, what a man could stop needing, if he never again had to haul water himself.
He thought, unbidden, of every squire and servant he'd ever sent down to a well at dawn, or even gone himself when he squired, and wondered what those boys would have made of this.
She reached past him and shut the tap. The water stopped as abruptly as it had come, and the silence that followed felt, absurdly, louder than the sound itself had been.
----
She watched him sit back down, slower than he probably wanted her to notice, and felt her own worry sharpen in response.
He was pale under the bruising. Worse than in the stockroom, now that the adrenaline of the street and the stairs had burned off and left him with nothing to run on but stubbornness. She was starting to suspect stubbornness was mostly what he had left today.
He needed a bath. Badly. And rest, and quiet, all of which she could actually provide here, behind a locked door, away from patrolmen and gossiping bakery owners. That part, at least, she could manage.
What she couldn't provide was clothes, and that was the part actually nagging at her.
He couldn't wear what he had on; there was no version of a corner grocery where a six-foot-something man in a laced medieval tunic and thigh straps walked in without every head turning. She'd been running through options since the stockroom and kept landing on the same one.
"I can wash what I'm wearing," he offered, apparently following the direction of her thoughts more accurately than she'd expected. "It only wants soap and water. I've done worse with less on campaign."
"It's not really a laundry problem, Mr. Barnes." She said it as gently as she could manage, not wanting to make him feel worse than he already seemed to about needing help. "Even clean, that's not something a man wears walking down Camden Street in this year."
"I have nothing to offer you outright," he said, after a moment, "but I could part with something of value. The belt. The leg straps." He nodded down at the heavy leather still buckled across his hips and thighs, the only thing of worth currently on his person. "The leather alone is good work. It should fetch enough for whatever I need."
She wasn't sure whether to be touched or exasperated, and settled, after a second, on both at once. There was something almost unbearable about how hard he was working to make sure he didn't owe her anything. "I'm not taking your pants apart for scrap, Mr. Barnes."
"It is not scrap. It is craftsmanship."
"I believe you. I'm still not doing it. I know a place. Charity, secondhand, mostly donated. You don't have to pay, and you don't have to give me your belt to make yourself feel better about not paying. It's fine."
He didn't look like he agreed that it was fine, but he said nothing further, which she was coming to understand was as close to agreement as she was likely to get from him. She'd take it.
"Stay put and drink your water," she said, smoothing her skirt. Then she crossed to a basket near the icebox and drew out a cloth bundle with biscuits, plain and slightly dense.
"You're probably still hungry. One sandwich isn't much, considering whatever it is you've been through today. Eat those while I'm gone. I'll be as quick as I can."
He looked at the plate, then at her, something in his face she couldn't quite name, and she decided not to push for a name for it.
"Thank you," he said, quiet enough that she almost missed it over the sound of her own keys. "And… Bucky." He said it almost before he'd decided to. "Please. Call me Bucky."
She paused with her hand on the door, caught off guard. It was a small, private surprise hearing a man this formal hand her something informal on purpose, like he'd decided she'd earned it.
"Alright then," she said. "Bucky."
She was out the door before she could decide what to do with the rest of it.
----
She took the stairs two at a time, bags of flour-sack cloth knocking against her hip with every step, and allowed herself a small, private satisfaction over the haul.
Two pairs of trousers, both plain, both in decent shape. Two undershirts. Three button-up shirts, all in the largest size the donation bin carried; apparently the largest size was also the least popular, because she'd had her pick of three, tags barely worn off. Socks, a few pairs, unmatched but clean.
She'd even swung by the little men's shop on the corner for the one thing charity boxes never carried enough of, sliding two pairs of short underwear across the counter to a clerk who hadn't so much as blinked. Small mercies.
Not bad, she thought, climbing the last flight. Not bad at all for forty minutes and whatever cash she'd had folded in her coat pocket.
The apartment was quiet when she let herself in, quiet enough that her stomach gave one small, unpleasant lurch before she registered why. The living room was empty, and for one dumb second her mind went straight to worst-case: gone, hurt because he meddled with something unknown, collapsed somewhere she couldn't see.
She set the bags down just inside the kitchen doorway and leaned in.
There he was. Exactly where she'd left him, same chair, same table, the plate of biscuits reduced to crumbs and one lonely survivor. Relief hit before she'd even fully processed why she'd been braced for something worse.
His head had tipped back against the wall at some point, throat exposed, mouth slightly open, one hand still loosely curled around the water glass as though he'd meant to keep drinking.
He hadn't heard her come in. Whatever was going on with him, and whatever had actually happened to leave him bruised and half-convinced he was a knight out of a storybook, the exhaustion was real, and something about seeing it made her chest ache a little more than she felt entitled to on a few hours' acquaintance.
She crossed the room slowly, quiet out of some instinct she didn't examine too closely and stopped a few feet away. He frowned in his sleep, and she found herself wondering what a man like him dreamed about. Nothing good, probably.
It was, she noted with some irritation at herself, deeply unfair how good-looking he still managed to be while doing it. Even bruised, even filthy, even asleep in a kitchen chair with his neck at an angle that was going to cost him.
Great, she thought. That's exactly the thought you needed to be having right now.
She shook it off, mostly, and refocused on the more immediate problem: he was going to wake up with a crick in his neck to rival his ribs if she let him stay like that much longer.
"Hey," she said, gently, crouching down to something closer to his eye level before she reached out. She touched his shoulder. Lightly, carefully, and tried to say his name again.
It happened faster than she could track.
One second her hand was on his shoulder, his name half-formed on her lips for the second time, and the next, his eyes had snapped open, his hand had closed around her wrist like a manacle, and his other hand was at her throat.
Not gripping, not yet. Just a half-second suspended somewhere between reflex and intention, fingers pressed light but certainly against her skin, the pressure of a man who knew exactly where to close his hand and how much force it would take, poised on the edge of applying it.
Her whole body had gone very still, some animal part of her taking stock of the situation faster than the rest of her could catch up.
Then he saw her. Not whatever ghost his sleeping mind had conjured in her place, and his hand recoiled from her throat like he'd touched a stove.
He let go of her wrist a half-beat after, both hands snapping back, and shoved himself away from her so hard the chair legs shrieked against the tile.
"I'm sorry." Low, fast, wrecked. "I'm sorry- I didn't- are you hurt, milady? Did I hurt you?"
Milady? Well, at least it wasn’t wench.
"I'm fine." She kept her voice level, even though her pulse hadn't quite caught up with that fact yet, one hand coming up unconsciously to touch her own throat, still warm from where his'd been. "I'm… fine."
He didn't look like he believed her, and honestly, she wasn't sure she believed herself either. Not shaken by what he'd done, exactly, but by how close it had come, and how little time there'd been between his eyes opening and his hand finding her throat with that kind of certainty.
He was staring at his own hands now, jaw working, color gone from his face in a way that had nothing to do with the morning's injuries.
"May I see?" His voice had dropped, quiet and careful, stripped of all its usual formal armor. "Please. I need to see that I didn't-" He didn't finish it. "Please."
She lowered her hand and let him look, some instinct telling her this wasn't a moment to argue with him about it, that he needed the proof more than she needed the space.
He stepped close, close enough that she could feel him not quite touching her, his eyes moving over her throat, but there was nothing to find. The barest ghost of pressure, gone already, nothing that would leave a mark.
She was abruptly, uselessly aware of how near he was standing, and annoyed with herself for noticing it now of all moments.
He looked at her face once he was satisfied, and whatever was in his eyes in that moment, she didn't have a word ready for it.
"I shouldn't have grabbed you like that," she said finally, quiet. "Waking someone up out of a dead sleep, I should've known better. My fault too."
"No." His answer was fast, firm, and with no room in it for argument. "It is not. A man does not require permission to be startled to see reason before he raises a hand to a woman who has done nothing but show him kindness. No excuse covers what I nearly did. I won't let you make one for me."
She opened her mouth to push back -some instinct to smooth it over, to meet him halfway- then closed it again, because the look on his face told her plainly this wasn't a fight she'd win today, maybe not ever.
"I'm sorry," he said again, and this time it landed somewhere lower and more tired than the first two.
She let it sit a moment before she moved. Then she nodded toward the doorway, toward the bags still waiting where she'd left them, glad for once to have somewhere else to point his attention, and hers.
"C'mere. I want to show you what I got."
It wasn't subtle, the redirection of the topic, and she suspected he knew exactly what she was doing. But he let her do it anyway and followed her the few steps to the kitchen table, watching her upend the flour-sack bags across it with something that might, in a better hour, have been curiosity.
Trousers. Shirts, still stiff with the fold-lines of whoever had donated them and never worn out. Socks in mismatched pairs. A single undershirt he picked up and turned over in his hands, studying the cut like it was a garment he half-recognized, and half didn't.
"They're not much," she said, "but they'll get you through the next few days. We'll figure out the rest as we go."
He set the undershirt down and looked over the rest of the pile with careful attention.
"Thank you," he said. She was starting to lose count of how many ways he'd found to say it, and how much he seemed to mean it every time and how much, against all reason, she was starting to like hearing it.
"Don't thank me yet." She managed something close to a smile, enough to pull the air in the room back toward ordinary. "You still have to survive a bath. And getting dressed. I have a feeling that's going to be its own adventure."
He looked at her like he had no idea what she meant by that.
PAIRING: professor!bucky barnes x student!reader
WORD COUNT: 299
WARNINGS: angst, breakup, no use of y/n.
SONG PROMPT: the dark end of the street by james carr
LYRICS: “oh, darling, please don’t cry.”
NOTE: has anyone noticed that i’m addicted to writing angst? i don’t know what’s wrong with me lmao, this was not the initial direction i was gonna take this but oh well 😭😭 anyway, today’s prompt should be up later, northern attitude is one of my fav songs ever 🥹
event masterlist | day twenty-six | day twenty-eight | m. masterlist
"I can't let this go on any further."
For a moment, you're not sure you heard him right, but that look of devastation on his face tells you that you did.
"You're. . . you're breaking up with me?"
Bucky's hands tighten around the edge of his desk that he's leaning against, nodding once— firm, final.
"You. . . no." Bile rises quick in your throat before you force it down.
"If someone, anyone, finds out you could lose your place—"
"I don't care." You choke out, "No, I—"
"Please, listen to me? You could lose your scholarship, and sweetheart I know how hard you worked to get it. I'm not worth losing that."
"But what if you are?" Your voice cracks, "I love you, please, don't— we'll be more careful, I promise—"
"We can't risk it." Bucky rasps, pushing himself to stand.
You try to make sense of it all, where this sudden change is coming from, but come up empty, "I— you were fine yesterday? We were— we were okay?"
He gives a single incline of his head, gaze fixed on the floor between you. That inevitable growing distance that'll soon be there.
"So why are you doing this?!"
"Because I love you enough to let you go!" He snaps finally, chest heaving.
You blink, chin quivering as you try to contain the turmoil churning inside you, "Just because I don't want to let you go doesn't mean I don't love you."
"Oh, darling, please don't cry— I know," Bucky breathes, hands cupping your cheeks as your own squeeze his wrists tightly, "Do you?"
He nods instantly, resting his forehead against yours, "I do, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said it like that, I just—"
Bucky's jaw tightens, thumbs caressing your cheekbones, "I can't be the one to ruin your life."
🏷️: @metal-armed-muse @kileyking @nightfirecomit @juniebjonesin @chocolatemilkshakex @spring-soldier @spideyskywalker @phoenix-in-writing @buckytakethewheel @i-loveyoubutyourenotmine @erina00 @m1rrorcr1ss @stanmarvelous @sassandscribbles + to be added to the tag list? comment on this post or send in an ask!
𓂃 𓈒𓏸 envy i
pairing: tj hammond x reader
prompt: “why does he/she get your smile when I’m the one who deserves it more?”
warnings: angst, drug use/mention, relapse, bestfriend!tj, cuddling, hair stroking, unrequited-ish feelings, i defo missed a bit lol . . .
word count: 958
a/n: so like... i didn't wanna write angst per se.......... but *runs*
event masterlist || navigation
The night swept away from you like water between fingers. A vague memory of going out with some guy, your friend having set you up with her partner's coworker. You settled at some bar in the city that was far too expensive for you, yet you indulged anyway seeing as he was respectable enough to pay, and especially as conversation settled into silence that would've felt fuller and easier if said man in front of you was someone else.
You didn't want to think about it, about your best friend as you smiled and laughed at all the right times with the correct amount of charm. And you especially willed your mouth not to chew in the same number of syllables of his name.
But the night faded into strained niceties, polite kisses to the cheek, and a hand hovering over your waist as if to seal the 'not interested' deal. And now — barefaced and barefoot, your sleep shirt unfortunately smelling a bit too like skin with how many uses — you believe the counting the beats of his name manifested him to your apartment, with a long rap of his fist to your door.
TJ looked tired himself, it lands on his cheeks and the bags under his eyes, but the lids themselves look pried open. You already know, before you've fully woken up and wiped the scratch of sleep from the corners of your eyes, that he's relapsed. Hard.
And through the incessant murmuring of rants, his boots heavily thudding back and forth the second your latch unlocked with a metallic click, you almost, almost, worry about the noise complaint that will surely come in the morning, he finds himself finally facing you, a sneer on his lips, pointing accusingly.
“I-I mean, really, come on! Why does he get your smile when I’m the one who deserves it more?” With colour darkening his cheeks, he calms after the question leaves him, as if his body forced it out like an exorcism, and he softens into himself.
"Jesus, Teej," you sigh under your breath, a pebble lodges in your throat. "Please, you're fucked up—"
"I know!" He exclaims. "Fuck! I know, I know, I just… Fuck!"
His fingers trembled as they covered his puffy eyes and raked through his hair.
"Listen, you can stay here, okay?" A sigh caves your chest in. "Just… I need to call someone, your mom—"
"You are not calling my mom."
"Doug then," swiping your hand down your face, you will yourself to suppress the tears that sting your waterline, but the waver and slight whine to your voice makes it all too noticeable. "TJ, I need to call someone just to let them know you're okay and in good hands. Your family trusts me, right?"
You hate to think it but he looks too pretty when he cries. The pool of blue that halos his abnormally large pupils in contrast to the red and pinks surrounding his eyes and nose, the pout of his rosy lips, spit lick and bitten.
He gives you a small nod, keeping his eyes down.
"Yeah… Yeah, they do… they love you," he sniffles, exhaling a wobbly laugh that uncovers his snaggletooth, and his face almost lights up with the lightest tilt of a smile. "I love you."
It's meant to settle deep and stay within you like a cat curled atop a blanket, kneading its paws and purring a sweet, melodic vibration. And it does. It always has with TJ. But its on these nights where he's pumped up full of god knows what, pupils swallowing the colour you grew to adore, restlessly fidgeting, pacing, heart sputtering a mile a minute as he stresses and cries in your arms looking for solace and safety — It all melts away like salt on ice.
With your hands finding purchase on his shoulders, you squeeze for his attention, pulling him back into the room and not the thoughts flickering upon the screen that was his head.
"I love you too," and you mean it, and you smile sweetly because it's earnest. Your eyes find the ceiling mildly interesting as you sigh and the tears unhelpfully fall. Fat streaks that you realise have been shoved back for years, they're almost a mix of relief and pain. "But you can't keep doing this to yourself. It's not fair on you, or your family, or me."
And the night repeats itself, as it does usually. A tight embrace, TJ's stubble scratching at your neck, breath hot and shaky, and he smells like leather and sweat, it's so sickeningly familiar you have to fight off the need to nose at his temple. His hands ball into tight fists on the back of your shirt, before one holds you to by the back of the head, keeping you close, and he promises to stop. He asks for five more minutes.
"Just… I never let myself have this anymore. I miss it."
It breaks your heart, just how the routine goes on and on, how you can't ever say no to him. Especially how your fingers feel so right dug into the forest of his damp hair, and how correct his arms feel wrapped around your middle.
You can't trust yourself at two in the morning. So you let the heavy weight of your best friend settle as his breathing eases, and you let your phone light up with notifications from the coffee table because you dare move TJ from the reprieve that was unconsciousness, until your own eyelids start to drop, and your cheek lulls on his head, nosing closer into him as your brain conjures up the worst; that you'll likely only get this close when the warmth still courses through his veins.
summary › every other weekend, sam hosts a cookout at the docks. every other weekend, bucky pretends he isn’t looking for the same girl standing by the water at sunset.
pairing › bucky x female reader
content warnings › set during tfatws, soft/nervous bucky, (attempted) flirting, sam being a meddling cutie
word count › 1.4k
authors note › a little fluff for summer! if you guys couldnt tell tfatws bucky is my obsession. i love him and need him forever and ever.
Every other weekend in Delacroix, somebody lights a grill, drags coolers out onto the dock, and pretends life has always been this simple.
Sam calls them “casual little cookouts,” which is a lie considering there’s always enough food to feed a football team, music echoing through the boatyard, at least one argument over who burned the burgers and about twenty people yelling over each other while the Louisiana sunset turns everything gold.
Bucky usually keeps to the edges of it all.
Not hiding exactly, just observing. Helping when someone asks. Nodding along to conversations. Holding a beer long enough that people stop offering him another one. And every single cookout for the last two months, somewhere around sunset, he notices you. Always near the water. Sometimes sitting on the edge of the dock with your sandals abandoned beside you, sometimes leaning against one of the old wooden posts near the boatyard. Always looking out toward the horizon like you’re listening to something no one else can hear.
The first time he saw you, he thought to himself how pretty you were, the way the reflected sun off the water glowed across your face. The second time he wondered if you were waiting for someone else to join you. By the fourth cookout, he started looking for you before he even got out of the truck.
Tonight is no different. Bucky stands near the cooler pretending to listen to Sam and Torres argue over seasoning while his eyes drift automatically toward the water, and there you are. Leaning against the fence near the boats, drink hanging loosely from your fingers while the sunset paints orange light across your skin.
Bucky stares too long. Again.
“Jesus Christ,” Sam mutters beside him without even looking up from the grill. “Go talk to her before you wear a hole through the poor girl.”
Bucky nearly chokes on his beer.
“I’m not—”
“You are.”
“I’m just standing here.”
“And lookin’ at her like she hung the moon.”
Bucky scowls while Sam grins into the smoke curling from the grill.
“You got exactly five minutes before somebody else gets the nerve first.”
“That’s not—”
“Five.”
Bucky hates that his stomach actually drops a little at the thought, because he hasn’t done this in a long time, not like this not when it matters. Across the yard, you laugh softly at something one of the Wilson kids says before drifting back toward the quieter end of the dock again. Alone.
Bucky exhales slowly.
Say something to her. Anything.
Before he can talk himself out of it, he starts walking. The wooden boards creak beneath his boots as he approaches. Closer now, he notices details he couldn’t from afar, the condensation sliding down your cup, your hair moving gently in the breeze off the water, the way your shoulders relax out here away from the noise. You glance over at the sound of his footsteps. And suddenly Bucky Barnes the former assassin, war veteran, and literal super soldier—completely forgets how conversations work.
“You uh—”
Brilliant start.
“You’ve been standing there a while.”
The second the words leave his mouth, Bucky wants to launch himself directly into the bay.
Nice going, Barnes.
But then you laugh, soft and surprised and warm enough to knock the air from his lungs.
“Oh, yeah,” you admit, looking back toward the sunset. “Guess I have been.”
Then your eyes flick back to his.
“I didn’t think you’d notice me.”
And Bucky, the poor bastard, his brain short-circuits entirely. Because how is he supposed to answer that honestly?
I notice you every single time you walk into a room.
I started showing up early hoping you’d be here.
I know exactly what your laugh sounds like from across the yard.
Instead what comes out is something much clumsier.
“I’d have to be blind not to notice you.”
Your cheeks flush immediately and Bucky’s soul leaves his body.
“I mean—” he starts quickly, panic rising fast, “not like I’m staring at you or anything—I just meant like—”
You save him then, with that warm gentle smile of yours.
“It’s okay,” you say softly. “I know what you mean.”
The relief nearly takes his knees out. Then after a tiny pause, your voice gets quieter.
“I notice you too.”
Bucky stares at you, stares like he’s trying to process whether he imagined that.
“You do?”
Smooth. Very cool.
You laugh again, ducking your head slightly.
“Kind of hard not to.”
Something warm unfolds slowly in Bucky’s chest. Shock first, then confusion, then happiness so sudden it almost feels dangerous. And when you smile at him again, all shy and sunlight-soft in the fading evening glow, he thinks distantly to himself.
This is good, right? Yeah. Okay. Time to send it home.
Bucky clears his throat.
“I uh—”
God. Why is he suddenly sixteen years old again?
“I notice,” he says carefully, glancing toward your cup, “your drink is empty.”
You look down at it like you forgot you were holding it.
“Would you maybe wanna get another,” Bucky asks, trying very hard not to sound like this is the most nerve-wracking moment of his life, “with me?”
There’s half a second where he’s convinced he ruined it somehow. Then you smile bright enough to rival the sunset behind you.
“Yeah,” you answer softly. “Yeah, I’d like that.”
Bucky tries to play it cool, he really does, but as the two of you start walking back toward the lights and laughter of the cookout together, he can’t stop the small smile pulling at his mouth. And behind the grill, Sam Wilson watches the whole thing happen before immediately shouting aloud for everyone to hear.
“IT’S ABOUT DAMN TIME.”
Bucky flips him off without hesitation which makes you laugh so hard you nearly spill your drink again as he shakes his head and mutters something about this being a setup.
"A setup?"
"You and Sam."
"We've never discussed you."
"That's exactly what somebody discussing me would say."
The two of you reach the cooler then, and Bucky bends down to grab fresh drinks before you can.
"What are you having?"
"Lemonade."
He already knows, you've had lemonade at every cookout. Still, hearing you say it feels oddly satisfying. Bucky twists the cap loose before handing the bottle over, and your fingers brush his. It's brief, barely there, the kind of touch most people wouldn't even notice. But Bucky does.
The warmth of it lingers embarrassingly long.
"Thank you."
"You're welcome."
Neither of you pull away quite as quickly as you probably should and it makes Bucky's heart do something deeply inconvenient.
You seem completely unaware or maybe you're pretending to be, he honestly can't tell. The realization gives him a strange burst of courage. Because you've been smiling at him for the last half hour, because you noticed him too. Because if he leaves tonight without asking, Sam will probably never let him live it down. Mostly because he doesn't want to wait another two weeks to talk to you again.
Bucky clears his throat and immediately, you glance toward him and suddenly the nerves return full force.
"Hey."
"Hey."
Very smooth, professional even, he thinks.
You bite back a smile and Bucky points at you.
"Don't."
"I'm not doing anything."
"You are."
"I haven't said a word."
"You're thinking things."
That finally earns a laugh and the sound settles some of his nerves, just a little, just enough. Bucky rubs the back of his neck. Then, before he can overthink it.
"Would you maybe wanna come to the next cookout with me?"
Your eyebrows lift slightly.
His stomach drops, so he rushes onward.
"I mean—not that you aren't already coming. Obviously you're already coming."
Fantastic.
"God."
You laugh again.
Bucky closes his eyes briefly.
"Let me start over."
"Okay."
He's smiling now despite himself.
"So. Next cookout."
"Next cookout."
"Would you wanna come with me?"
The teasing fades from your expression and something softer takes its place. Your smile becomes smaller, warmer, the kind that twinkles across your eyes.
"I'd like that."
Relief crashes through him so quickly he almost laughs.
"Yeah?"
"Yeah."
You nudge your shoulder lightly against his, this time definitely on purpose.
"I've kind of been hoping you'd ask."
And for the rest of the night, Bucky can't stop smiling. Not even when Sam catches his eye from across the grill and points both thumbs triumphantly toward the sky. Not even when you laugh at that too. Not even when your head finds his shoulder, or stays there.
Series Summary: Some wounds don’t bleed. They just teach you how to disappear. Before being adopted, you learned early that love had rules: don’t ask, don’t need, don’t take up space. Bucky – your brother in everything but blood – was the only exception. Now you’re an adult, brilliant, controlled, almost untouchable… until one dinner shatters the fragile balance.
Wordcount: 6.8k
Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Female Reader, mentions of past Steve Rogers x Female Reader (no use of Y/N), Bucky Barnes x Natasha Romanoff
Warnings: childhood trauma, adoption trauma, abandonment issues, orphanage abuse, corporal punishment mentioned, religious trauma-adjacent themes, emotional self-hatred, shame, suicidal ideation / one moment of passive suicidal thought, complicated family dynamics, raised-as-siblings but not blood-related romantic tension, implied non-explicit underage intimacy in the past, emotional aftermath of sex, verbal cruelty, heartbreak, therapy, healing, reconciliation. See the whole exhaustive list on the masterlist post.
A/N: Gentle reminder that this series is heavy on trauma so I beg you to read the whole list of warning on the masterpost. I won't tolerate any complaints about not being warned of something. Beta read by Cassie (@blobfishlol ) as always. We're still in the past.
Please remember I need to stay alive to keep on posting. Don't think about murdering me too much.
Masterlist - Series Masterlist - Prev- Next
The house was quiet in the way it only ever was past midnight, the kind of silence that amplified every small sound – the distant hum of the fridge downstairs, the faint creak of floorboards settling.
You lay curled on your side, facing the wall, trying to keep your breathing even enough that it wouldn’t give you away. It didn’t work. It never did with him. The tears had started again, hot and relentless, soaking into your pillow as memories of Steve's gentle goodbye replayed in your mind, tangled with the ache for something deeper, something forbidden.
The door creaked softly, a familiar sound that pulled at the edges of your awareness.
You didn’t turn. You didn’t have to. You knew it was him, the way you always did, like an instinct woven into your bones from years of shared secrets and stolen glances.
Bucky crossed the room without turning on the light, his footsteps muffled on the carpet. He sat on the edge of your bed the way he always used to, careful not to jostle you, like you might shatter if he moved too fast. The mattress dipped slightly under his weight, and you felt the warmth of him radiating through the thin blanket.
“Hey,” he whispered, his voice rough from sleep but laced with that quiet concern that had always been your anchor.
Your answer broke in your throat before it reached your mouth, a choked sob escaping instead.
He sighed, something tired and helpless in the sound, heavy with the weight of all the nights he'd listened to you through the walls. And then he was there – one arm around your shoulders, pulling you gently against his chest. Familiar. Instinctive. The place you had always ended up when everything else fell apart. His shirt was soft and worn, carrying the faint scent of his soap and the lingering trace of the laundry detergent your mom used, a smell that wrapped around you like a memory.
You cried into his shirt, fingers twisted in the fabric like you were afraid he might disappear if you let go. Your body trembled against his, and he held you tighter, his hand rubbing slow circles on your back, each stroke a silent promise.
“I’ve got you,” he murmured, over and over, his breath warm against your hair. “I’ve got you.” The words vibrated through his chest, steady and reassuring, chasing away the shadows in your mind.
Time stretched. The night thickened around you, the world narrowing to the space between your bodies.
At some point, your breathing slowed. The sobs eased into something quieter, more fragile – hitched breaths that spoke of lingering hurt. His hand moved, brushing your hair back from your face with a tenderness that made your chest ache. His thumb lingered on your cheek, warm and slightly calloused from whatever he'd been working on that day, as if grounding himself as much as you. The touch sent a subtle shiver through you, not from cold, but from the electric awareness of how close he was, how his presence filled every corner of your senses.
You lifted your head without meaning to, your eyes meeting his in the dim light filtering through the curtains. The room was shadowed, but you could see the concern etched in his features, the way his blue eyes searched yours with an intensity that stole your breath.
You were too close. Inches apart, the air between you hummed with unspoken things – the years of almosts, the childhood games that had blurred into something more, the love you'd both buried under layers of denial.
The realization settled between you like a held breath, heavy and charged.
Neither of you moved away. Your forehead nearly brushed his, and you could feel the soft rhythm of his heartbeat mirroring your own frantic pulse.
Something unspoken passed in his eyes – fear, want, confusion, all tangled together like the sheets around you. Your heart hammered so loudly you were sure he could hear it, a wild drumbeat echoing the turmoil inside.
“Are you okay?” he asked, barely audible, his voice a low rumble that sent warmth pooling in your veins.
You nodded. Or maybe you just didn’t pull back. Your hand, still clutching his shirt, loosened slightly, fingers tracing the line of his collarbone without thought, a tentative exploration born of comfort and longing.
The moment stretched, taut and fragile, until it snapped with a gentleness that belied the storm building within. Bucky's gaze dropped to your lips, his breath catching in a way that mirrored your own hesitation.
Then, slowly, as if testing the waters of a dream, he leaned in. His lips brushed yours – soft, tentative, like the first raindrop before a downpour. It was a question, a whisper of what had always been there, waiting.
You answered without words, your eyes fluttering shut as you tilted your head, pressing back with a shy urgency that surprised even you.
The kiss deepened almost immediately, the timidity giving way to something raw and inevitable. His hand cupped the back of your neck, fingers threading into your hair, holding you steady as if afraid you'd vanish. Your free hand slid up his chest, feeling the rapid thump of his heart beneath your palm, a rhythm that synced with yours in perfect, aching harmony.
It was as if the kiss unlocked a floodgate, years of suppressed longing surging forward to claim control.
The world narrowed to the heat of his mouth moving against yours, the soft press and pull that grew hungrier with each passing second. Tongues met in a tentative dance that quickly turned fervent, breaths mingling in short, desperate gasps.
Bucky's other arm wrapped fully around your waist, pulling you flush against him, the thin barrier of clothing doing little to hide the warmth of his body or the subtle shift in his hold – protective yet possessive now.
Your fingers, emboldened by the fire igniting between you, tugged at the hem of his shirt, sliding beneath to trace the firm planes of his abdomen.
He broke the kiss just long enough to murmur your name against your lips, a sound laced with wonder and need, before capturing your mouth again.
With a shared, unspoken agreement, hands moved with purpose – his lifting the edge of your nightshirt, yours working the buttons of his shirt free, fabric whispering as it parted.
Piece by piece, barriers fell away: his shirt slipped from his shoulders, your nightdress tugged over your head, leaving skin to meet skin in the cool night air.
The touches grew bolder, exploratory – his palms gliding along your sides, yours mapping the contours of his back – each contact sending sparks through your veins. The kiss never fully broke, only paused for breaths, for the quiet sounds of fabric pooling on the floor.
As the last of your clothes joined the shadows on the carpet, the intensity peaked, bodies pressing together in a tangle of limbs and unspoken promises.
The night enveloped you both, fading into a haze of whispered affections and shared warmth, the details lost to the intimacy that finally bridged the gap you'd both feared to cross.
The morning after felt wrong in a way you couldn’t explain without saying the thing you refused to say.
You woke up to sunlight bleeding through your curtains and the sharp, sick awareness of change sitting in your chest like a stone. For a few seconds you didn’t move, because moving meant confirming it was real.
Bucky was there – awake, rigid, sitting on the edge of the bed like a statue placed too close to you. His hands were clasped together hard enough to whiten his knuckles. His eyes weren’t on you. They weren’t on anything.
You swallowed, throat raw.
“Buck?” Your voice came out small.
He flinched like you’d said his name too loudly, then stood so fast the mattress shifted under you.
“I’ve gotta go,” he muttered.
That was it.
No “are you okay.” No “I’m sorry.” No “we need to talk.”
He didn’t look at you.
He didn’t touch you.
He walked out of your room like he was stepping out of a fire.
You lay there, staring at the door, waiting for the part where he came back. Waiting for the part where he admitted he hadn’t meant to leave you alone in the aftermath.
He didn’t come back.
Downstairs, an hour later, the house moved like it always did.
Your mother asked if you wanted breakfast. Wanda texted you a meme. Pietro sent you a stupid voice note complaining about a teacher. Steve didn’t come over – he was keeping distance because you had asked for it, because he was trying to be respectful even while his own heart was bruised.
Bucky ate toast at the counter like nothing had happened.
He talked to your mother about homework and summer plans and how the coach was being an idiot, and he did it with the same tone he used every day.
Normal.
So normal it made you feel like you were losing your mind.
When his gaze flicked to you, it passed over you like you were furniture. Like you were a shadow that belonged in the room but didn’t require acknowledgment.
And you understood, with a cold clarity that made your stomach twist:
He had decided to erase it.
So you did too.
You became excellent at pretending.
You smiled when you were supposed to smile. You laughed at the right jokes. You answered questions with the correct number of words. You showed up. You performed. You kept your hands steady.
But you weren’t really there.
Not the way you used to be.
You moved through your days like your body was doing you a favor by functioning without asking your permission.
At school, Wanda talked about summer like it was a promise. Pietro was already ranting about colleges and internships and how everyone around you acted like the future was a straight line. Bucky walked Dot to class sometimes, like prom hadn’t been the beginning of the end – like he could still wear normal on his shoulders.
You sat with them.
You nodded.
You made the right noises.
And all the while, something in you curled inward and locked the door.
Because if you opened it – if you let yourself feel what that morning had done – you were terrified you’d never get control back.
The worst part wasn’t just that Bucky ignored you.
It was that your brain started to interpret it as proof.
Proof that you’d been wrong to want comfort.
Proof that you’d crossed a line and you were the only one who deserved to pay for it.
You told yourself, over and over You did something horrible.
You told yourself that until it started to sound like fact.
Until your own skin felt wrong to inhabit.
Three days.
It took Pietro three days to notice.
Not because he didn’t pay attention – because he did, obsessively, in his own way. But because you were good at hiding. And because Pietro had known you since you were four; he’d seen you go quiet for normal reasons, too. Stress. Exams. The tail-end of grief from Steve. The weight of being younger than everyone and always trying to keep up.
But by the third day, he stopped accepting your performance.
It happened after school, near the parking lot behind the gym, when the air tasted like cut grass and spring heat. Wanda was already gone – her mother had picked her up. Bucky had disappeared with a group of guys, headed toward practice. You were halfway to your mother’s car when Pietro stepped in front of you.
He didn’t smile.
He didn’t tease.
He just looked at you with that unnerving steadiness he had when he was done playing around.
“Okay,” he said. “Stop.”
You blinked at him, confused on purpose. “Stop what?”
Pietro tilted his head slightly. “Stop pretending you’re fine.”
You forced your mouth into a small, polite expression. “I am fine.”
Pietro’s eyes narrowed. “You haven’t been fine since Monday morning.”
Your stomach dropped.
You tried to step around him. “I’m tired. Finals are coming–”
He grabbed your wrist – not hard, not violent, just enough to keep you from escaping.
“You don’t get to lie to me,” he said quietly.
The words hit something in you that had been holding on by its fingernails.
You felt your face shift before you could stop it – the smallest crack, the tiniest tremor.
Pietro saw it.
His grip softened immediately, thumb rubbing over your skin once like an apology.
“Hey,” he said, voice lowering. “Talk to me.”
You stared at him for a long moment, fighting the urge to say nothing. Fighting the instinct to protect everyone by swallowing your own pain.
Pietro didn’t rush you.
He just waited, as if he had all the time in the world.
And finally, the only thing you could manage came out in a whisper.
“I did something bad.”
Pietro’s expression tightened, not with judgment – with alarm.
“What do you mean, bad?”
You swallowed hard. Your eyes stung, but you refused to cry here. Not in the parking lot, not with cars passing, not where someone might see you.
“I–” Your throat closed. You tried again, voice shaking. “I did something wrong. Something… horrible.”
Pietro stared at you like he didn’t understand the sentence.
“Okay,” he said carefully. “Tell me what happened.”
You shook your head, panic rising. “I can’t.”
Pietro’s jaw clenched. “Yes, you can.”
You let out a sound that wasn’t quite a laugh and wasn’t quite a sob.
“No,” you whispered. “I can’t. Because if I say it out loud then it’s real and I–” Your breath broke. “I’m… I’m monstrous.”
Pietro went very still.
His hand stayed on your wrist, anchoring you, but his posture shifted – protective, serious, as if something deep in him had decided that whatever this was, it had to be handled with care.
“You are not monstrous,” he said, voice firm.
You flinched at the certainty, because you didn’t deserve it.
“You don’t know,” you whispered.
Pietro’s gaze held yours. “Then tell me.”
You shook your head harder, tears finally threatening.
“I can’t,” you repeated, and it came out like a plea. “Please don’t make me say it.”
Pietro stared at you for another long second.
Then he exhaled and made a decision.
“Okay,” he said, gentler. “Then you don’t say it today.”
Your shoulders sagged slightly in relief that felt like nausea.
Pietro nodded once, as if confirming a plan to himself.
“But you’re coming with me,” he added.
“To where?”
“My house,” he said simply. “We’ll sit in my room. My mom won’t bother us. We’ll talk about anything else if that’s all you can do.”
You opened your mouth to protest, but Pietro lifted your hand – still holding your wrist – and said, quietly, “If you go home right now, you’ll pretend again. And you’ll break yourself doing it.”
Your throat tightened.
You hated that he was right.
So you nodded.
And Pietro, without making it a big deal, walked you to his car like he’d done it a hundred times.
Like he’d always done it.
At his house, you sat on his bedroom floor with your back against the bed frame while Pietro sat across from you, legs crossed, elbows resting on his knees.
He didn’t push immediately.
He asked about your dissertation idea – your newest obsession with ruins, the way you spoke about history like it was alive. He asked about Wanda. About finals. About the stupidest maths teacher you ever had that you both hated.
And you answered.
Because you could answer safe questions.
But every time there was a pause, your chest tightened like it was bracing for impact.
Finally, Pietro said softly, “Okay.”
You looked at him.
He didn’t move. Didn’t lean in. Didn’t invade your space.
He just said, “When you said ‘monstrous’… that’s not a normal word to use about yourself.”
Your stomach twisted.
You looked away.
Pietro’s voice stayed calm. “Did someone tell you that?”
Your throat closed.
Pietro’s gaze sharpened, but his tone stayed gentle. “Did someone make you feel like that?”
You stared at the carpet, hands clenched.
And you didn’t answer.
Because answering meant letting the truth exist in the open.
Because answering meant risking that he’d look at you differently.
Pietro waited. Then he said, softly, “I’m not going anywhere.”
Your eyes burned.
You whispered, “I did something I shouldn’t have.”
Pietro nodded once. “Okay. Did someone hurt you?”
“No,” you said quickly, almost violently. “No.”
“Did you hurt someone?”
Your mouth opened.
Closed.
You swallowed hard.
“I…” Your voice broke. “I don’t know.”
Pietro’s face tightened with concern. “You don’t know?”
You pressed a fist to your mouth, shaking your head like you could shake the words back inside.
“I think I… I made someone do something,” you whispered.
Pietro went still again, the way people did when they were trying to keep their own fear from contaminating your fear.
“Did you force someone?” he asked, carefully.
Your head snapped up, horrified. “No… God, no.”
Pietro’s gaze stayed on you. “Okay.”
You took a shaky breath. “I didn’t force anyone. I just–” Your throat closed. “I shouldn’t have needed it. I shouldn’t have wanted–”
You stopped.
Pietro didn’t interrupt.
He let the silence stretch until you were forced to live inside it.
And finally, you whispered, barely audible, “I was sad. And I shouldn’t have… reached.”
Pietro’s eyes softened. “You were hurting.”
You flinched at the word like it was too kind.
Pietro’s voice went lower. “Who was it?”
Your whole body locked.
Pietro saw it, and his expression didn’t change – only his understanding sharpened.
“Okay,” he said, quietly. “I have a guess. You don’t have to confirm it today.”
You stared at him, terrified.
Pietro kept his voice steady. “But I need you to hear me clearly.”
You blinked.
“If you were hurting,” Pietro said, “and you went to someone you trust, someone who has been safe for you your whole life, that doesn’t make you disgusting.”
Your eyes stung.
“You don’t know,” you whispered again, weakly.
Pietro leaned forward just slightly. “It doesn’t make you monstrous. It makes you human.”
You let out a small, broken sound.
Pietro didn’t move closer. He didn’t touch you without permission.
He just stayed there and let you fall apart in slow motion.
When you finally cried, it wasn’t dramatic. It was silent and shaking and humiliating.
Pietro handed you a tissue like it was nothing.
And when you whispered, “I’m disgusting,” he said, immediately, firmly, “No.”
You tried again later, “I’m horrible.”
“No.”
You tried again the next day, “I ruined everything.”
“No.”
And Pietro kept doing that – kept answering your self-hatred with blunt refusal – until your brain started to learn that maybe your thoughts weren’t facts.
It took days before you told him the name.
Days of circling the truth like it was a wound you couldn’t look at directly.
And when you finally said it – voice shaking, eyes fixed on the floor – Pietro didn’t gasp. He didn’t recoil. He didn’t call you stupid.
He just shut his eyes for a second, exhaled through his nose, and said, quietly, “Okay.”
Then, after a pause: “What happened after?”
You swallowed hard. “He acted like it didn’t exist.”
You nodded once, miserable. “The next morning. Like I’d… like I’d done something wrong.”
Pietro’s jaw tightened, anger flickering across his face so fast it startled you.
But he didn’t aim it at you.
He aimed it outward.
Because you were sixteen.
And Bucky was eighteen.
And you had been drowning, and he had been the person you’d always believed would reach for you.
Pietro’s voice went very quiet. “Listen to me.”
You looked up at him, eyes red.
“You did not make him do anything,” Pietro said, each word deliberate. “You did not commit a crime by needing comfort. You did not become filthy because you were hurting.”
You shook your head helplessly. “But I shouldn’t have–”
“Stop,” Pietro snapped – not cruel, but firm. “Stop punishing yourself for having a body and a heart.”
Your breath hitched.
Pietro’s voice softened immediately again. “If there’s guilt here, it’s not yours to carry alone.”
You stared at him, chest aching.
“You’re not disgusting,” Pietro repeated. “You’re not monstrous. You’re not ruined.”
You whispered, “It feels like I am.”
“I know,” Pietro said, so quietly it almost didn’t sound like him. “That’s why I’m here.”
It took weeks.
Weeks of you trying to swallow the shame and Pietro refusing to let you.
Weeks of him catching you mid-sentence when you called yourself horrible and forcing you to rephrase. Not with fake positivity – just with truth.
Weeks of him reminding you, again and again, that you were allowed to need.
That you were allowed to want comfort.
That you didn’t become less worthy of love because someone else didn’t know how to handle what happened.
Sometimes you’d sit in silence on his bedroom floor while his parents watched TV downstairs, and Pietro would talk about anything – college applications, stupid jokes, Wanda’s dramatic opinions – until you could breathe again.
Sometimes you’d cry and hate yourself, and he would simply say, “No,” like he could build a wall between you and your own cruelty.
You didn’t stop feeling it overnight.
You didn’t wake up magically healed.
But slowly – so slowly it almost didn’t count at first – you began to speak about yourself with less venom.
You began to exist again.
Not fully.
Not yet.
But enough that Wanda stopped squinting at you like she was trying to figure out what had stolen your light.
Enough that your mother stopped asking if you were sick.
Enough that you could look at yourself in the mirror without wanting to flinch.
Bucky noticed, too.
He noticed that you were quieter. That you didn’t meet his eyes as often. That you laughed less. That your presence in the room felt like a ghost of itself.
And some nights, when you cried anyway – because healing wasn’t linear, because shame didn’t disappear just because someone told you it was unfair – Bucky would pause outside your door.
You’d hear it, even without seeing him.
That weight.
That hesitation.
But he didn’t knock.
He didn’t come in.
He stayed on the other side of the door, trapped in his own silence.
And you learned, in the most painful way possible, that some people could be your safety for years – and still fail you the moment you needed them most.
The day after graduation, the house still smelled like leftover cake and cheap champagne.
Your diploma sat on the kitchen counter for hours because your mother kept walking past it just to touch it – like proof that it was real, like proof that you were real in the way she always needed you to be. She didn’t make a big speech. She didn’t cry loudly. But she looked at you with that quiet pride that always tightened something in your throat.
“You’re coming with me,” she said, like it was an order dressed up as a gift.
You blinked at her. “Coming where?”
“Rome,” she answered. “Two weeks.”
You stared.
Your mother’s mouth quirked, pleased with herself. “Don’t argue. You graduated. With honors. First of your promotion.” She lifted a brow. “I’m allowed to be dramatic about it.”
You should have laughed.
You did, but it was careful at first, like your body had forgotten the shape of relief.
Rome sounded like a fantasy – too far away, too warm, too full of history to feel like something that belonged to you.
And maybe that was precisely why you needed it.
Because every street in your neighborhood held a memory. Every corner had a ghost.
Bucky in the doorway, grinning like the world couldn’t touch him.
Steve on the porch steps, waiting for you with patience you didn’t deserve.
Wanda and Pietro on your living room floor, sprawled in a pile of textbooks and snacks, making plans like the future was guaranteed.
Two weeks away from all of them felt less like a vacation and more like a breath you’d been holding since childhood.
So you didn’t argue.
You packed.
And when your mother pointedly didn’t invite anyone else, didn’t mention any “group trip,” didn’t even tell your stepfather to come with you, you understood what she was offering.
Not just a reward. A refuge.
The airport was its own kind of limbo – bright lights, rolling suitcases, bodies in motion. You kept your face composed out of habit, but your stomach fluttered with that familiar discomfort as you watched the plane through the glass.
You hated the sensation of being suspended in air. Not fear. Not panic. Just the wrongness of it.
Your mother noticed the way you stared at the runway too long.
She slipped her fingers around yours, steady and warm. “You’ll be okay,” she said softly.
You nodded. “I know.”
She squeezed once. “And if you’re not, you tell me.”
That made your throat tighten more than any turbulence ever could.
You wanted to say, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you everything. You wanted to say, I’m sorry I learned how to hide so well you didn’t notice.
Instead you swallowed and nodded again, because sometimes love was its own kind of language, and your mother spoke it in actions.
On the plane, you took the window seat. You always did. As if staring at the sky could make it less unsettling.
Your mother sat beside you, pulled out a small paperback, and then – after a minute of watching you watch the clouds – she closed it and said, quietly, “You don’t have to be strong with me, you know.”
You turned your head, surprised.
Your mother didn’t look at you when she said it. She stared at the seatback in front of her like she didn’t want to make it harder by forcing eye contact.
You swallowed. “I’m not–”
She gave a small, tired smile. “Yes, you are.”
Heat stung behind your eyes.
Your mother’s fingers brushed your wrist again – gentle, like she was reminding you she was here without cornering you.
“You don’t have to explain anything you can’t explain yet,” she added. “But you don’t have to pretend either.”
Your breath wavered.
You stared out the window again because looking at her felt like standing too close to a bright light.
But something in your chest loosened anyway.
Rome hit you with warmth and sound.
The air smelled different – sun-baked stone, exhaust, coffee, something floral drifting from a balcony you couldn’t see. The streets were louder than New York in a completely different way: not the constant hum of urgency, but a chaotic, lived-in rhythm. Scooters weaving through traffic like the laws of physics were suggestions. Voices rising and falling in Italian that sounded like music even when it was clearly an argument.
Your mother hailed a taxi with the confidence of someone who had decided you would enjoy yourself whether your brain cooperated or not.
You watched the city blur past the window – yellow buildings, laundry lines, ancient walls tucked between modern storefronts.
And you felt something strange.
Not happiness, exactly.
Not yet.
But distance.
A widening space between you and the tight little knot of the past.
Your hotel wasn’t expensive, but it was charming in a way your mother clearly chose on purpose: pale walls, a small balcony, a view of terracotta rooftops and a slice of sky.
The first thing you did after dropping your bag was step outside onto the balcony and inhale.
The air felt warm in your lungs.
Your mother leaned beside you with her elbows on the railing.
“Well?” she asked, voice soft.
You didn’t trust your voice for a second, so you just nodded.
Then, because she deserved the truth, you whispered, “Thank you.”
Your mother’s gaze flicked to your face. Her expression softened in a way that made her look younger.
She reached up and tucked hair behind your ear, like you were still small enough for her to do that.
“You don’t have to thank me for loving you,” she said.
Your throat tightened again.
You turned away quickly so she wouldn’t see the way your eyes glistened.
Rome was everything you wanted it to be.
It was history layered on history, like the city itself had refused to forget.
The Colosseum made you stop dead the moment you saw it – far larger than any photograph could convey, its arches open like broken ribs, sun pouring through the stone.
You walked into it slowly, almost reverently.
Your mother stayed a half-step behind you, letting you have the moment.
You traced your fingers lightly over the rough stone when no one was looking. It was warm under your skin.
You tried to imagine the noise that once lived here – the roar of crowds, the clash of metal, the life and death turned into spectacle.
Your stomach twisted.
And then, instead of being overwhelmed by the darkness of it, you felt… clarity.
This was what history was.
Not sanitized.
Not romantic.
Real.
Layers of human choices, human cruelty, human brilliance, all pressed into the earth.
You looked over the arena floor and felt your pulse quicken with something that wasn’t anxiety.
It was certainty.
You turned to your mother and said, without thinking, “This is it.”
She blinked, then smiled. “This is it?”
“This,” you said again, gesturing helplessly. “All of it. It’s–” You swallowed, searching for the right word. “It’s like I can feel how many lives were here.”
Your mother watched you for a moment, then nodded slowly. “Then archaeology is the right choice.”
You exhaled, tension releasing from your shoulders.
Later, in the Roman Forum, you moved like someone in a dream – columns broken and still beautiful, ruins that looked like a skeleton of an empire. You listened to tour guides with half an ear, but mostly you listened to your own mind: the way it lit up when you saw a foundation line, the way you found yourself guessing what stood where, how it connected.
You didn’t have to force interest.
It was there, steady and bright.
Your mother watched you like she was watching you come back to life.
Some days you did tourist things – gelato with too much pistachio, throwing a coin into a fountain, wandering into tiny shops where the owners tried to convince you every trinket was “very special.”
Other days your mother let you lead, and you dragged her into museums, into churches, into any place that smelled like stone and incense and time.
The Vatican was overwhelming.
Not just the crowds, but the sheer accumulation of art and power. You walked through halls where the walls were more precious than any building you’d ever been in, your neck craning upward until it ached.
When you entered the Sistine Chapel, you fell silent.
So did your mother.
You didn’t even want to speak. It felt wrong, like talking might fracture the moment.
You stood under Michelangelo’s ceiling and felt small in a way that wasn’t humiliating.
Small in a way that was… peaceful.
Your mother leaned close and whispered, “You okay?”
You nodded.
Because you were.
You were okay.
For the first time in weeks, you realized you had gone an entire hour without thinking of Bucky.
Or Steve.
Or the way your bedroom door had become a barrier between you and the person you used to trust most.
The thought didn’t hurt the way it used to.
It just… existed.
And then it drifted away, like a leaf carried by water.
At night, you and your mother ate late dinners on little terraces with warm lights and crowded tables.
She tried wine. You tried pasta that tasted nothing like American pasta. You tasted olive oil that made you understand why people wrote poems about food.
Some nights your mother talked about mundane things – work, neighbors, how proud she was that you’d managed to survive high school being younger than everyone.
Other nights she grew quieter.
And one night, after a long day walking, she reached across the table and covered your hand with hers.
“You’ve been sleeping,” she said softly.
You blinked. “Yeah.”
Your mother’s eyes searched your face. “Really sleeping. Not just… passing out.”
You swallowed.
The truth was, in Rome, you didn’t cry at night.
Not because you weren’t sad.
But because the distance gave your nervous system permission to unclench.
Because your mother’s presence made the world feel less sharp.
Because there were no familiar footsteps in the hallway, no door you dreaded opening, no name that made your stomach twist.
You nodded slowly. “Yeah,” you repeated.
Your mother’s thumb brushed your knuckles once. “Good.”
Then, carefully, she asked, “Do you want to talk about why you needed this trip?”
Your throat tightened.
You looked at your plate, at the last smear of sauce.
You didn’t want to lie. Not here. Not with her.
But you also didn’t have words yet that didn’t turn everything into a mess.
So you shook your head a little. “Not… not yet.”
Your mother nodded like she accepted it completely. “Okay.”
No disappointment.
No insistence.
Just okay.
Then she added, quieter, “But I want you to know– whatever it is, you don’t have to carry it alone.”
You blinked fast and looked away.
“I know,” you whispered.
And you did.
Maybe you hadn’t always known.
Maybe you’d had to learn, painfully, that needing people didn’t make you a burden.
But you knew it now.
On the last day, you went back to the Colosseum in the late afternoon.
The crowds were smaller. The sun was lower, turning everything gold.
You stood near the railing again, looking down into the arena, and it felt different this time.
Less like an ache.
More like a promise.
Your mother stood beside you, quiet as always when she sensed you needed space.
After a long moment, you spoke.
“When I finish my doctorate,” you said, voice steady, “I’m coming back here.”
Your mother turned her head, studying you.
You looked at the ruins as you said it, because saying it to the stone felt easier than saying it to a person.
“I’m not saying for vacation,” you added quickly, as if the words needed defending. “I mean… I want to work here. Or somewhere like this. Europe. Italy. Greece. Anywhere that feels–” You swallowed. “Anywhere that feels like I can breathe and think and be… useful.”
Your mother’s gaze softened.
She didn’t tease you.
She didn’t tell you it was unrealistic.
She didn’t remind you how hard academia was.
She just nodded like it made perfect sense.
“Then you will,” she said simply.
You turned to her, startled. “Just like that?”
Your mother’s mouth quirked. “Just like that.”
You frowned. “It’s not that easy.”
Your mother lifted her eyebrows. “You got first in your class and promotion while being younger than everyone. You’ve wanted something your whole life without even letting yourself admit it. If you want this, you’ll do it.”
Your chest tightened.
“I don’t know if I–”
“You do,” your mother cut in gently. “You’re already deciding. I can see it in your eyes.”
You stared at her, heart thudding.
Then you let yourself believe it for one second.
Just one.
And in that one second, the future didn’t feel like a threat.
It felt like a road.
You exhaled slowly, sunlight warm on your face.
Your mother slipped her arm around your shoulders and pulled you close, and you didn’t stiffen. You didn’t pretend you didn’t need it.
You leaned into her.
And for the first time in a long time, you let yourself think:
Maybe you could build a life that didn’t revolve around surviving.
Maybe you could build a life that was yours.
New York welcomed you back the way it always did – loud, impatient, uncaring.
The airport smelled like stale coffee and rushed goodbyes. The cab ride home was a blur of familiar streets that should have felt comforting and somehow didn’t. Rome had been sunlight on stone and quiet mornings. New York was horns and heat trapped between buildings, the city pressing its palm to your back and saying, keep moving.
Your mother carried her suitcase up the steps like she had done it a thousand times before, and you followed, shoulders tight, bracing for the moment the front door opened and the past reattached itself to your skin.
Inside, everything was exactly where it had been.
The same framed photo on the hallway wall. The same shoes by the entryway. The same faint scent of laundry detergent that clung to the curtains.
And Bucky – Bucky was there, leaning against the kitchen counter like nothing in the world had ever shifted.
He looked up when you came in.
“Hey,” he said.
Just that.
Not awkward. Not guilty. Not heavy.
Like you’d been gone for a weekend, not two weeks of distance that had let your lungs expand again.
You froze for half a second, suitcase handle still in your grip.
He didn’t come closer. He didn’t reach for you. He didn’t ask about Rome.
He just nodded once, eyes flicking over your face like he was checking for injuries, then down to the luggage, then away again – back to normal, back to safe, back to the version of him who pretended the night in your room had never existed.
Something in your chest clenched.
Not surprise.
Not even anger.
Just that quiet, familiar ache of being asked – without words – to erase yourself.
You forced your mouth into something that almost resembled a smile. “Hey.”
Your mother watched the exchange like she was reading something neither of you were saying out loud. She didn’t comment. She didn’t push.
She only squeezed your shoulder once as she passed you, a silent I’m here, and went upstairs to unpack.
The house resumed its rhythm.
Bucky made jokes at dinner. He talked about summer work. He argued with your stepfather about which neighborhood in New York had the worst traffic. He asked your mother if she wanted help with the groceries.
He was so normal it was almost convincing.
Almost.
But you knew him too well.
You knew the way his laughter was half a second delayed, like it had to pass through a filter first. You knew the way he never let his gaze linger on you when you weren’t looking. You knew the way his shoulder would tense if you got too close in the hallway.
Normal wasn’t peace.
Normal was avoidance with good manners.
And somehow, it was worse than awkwardness would have been, because awkwardness would have meant acknowledgment.
This meant… burial.
So you did what you had trained yourself to do best.
You adapted.
You became polite. Present. Functional.
You let the night remain unnamed.
The practical stuff started almost immediately, because the future was a machine that didn’t care what you were carrying.
College brochures lived on the kitchen table. Financial aid papers. Lists of dorm requirements even though none of you were dorming. Your mother’s calendar, your highlighters, Pietro’s typed schedule he’d made like a ridiculous overachiever. Steve’s acceptance letter for the art program came in a thick envelope that he pretended wasn’t a big deal.
It was a big deal.
Everyone knew it.
Steve came over more often again after Rome, as if your return reactivated the old orbit.
He was careful at first. A little tentative, like he didn’t want to crowd you.
But you were the one who hugged him first, because you missed him in a way that was safe to miss.
Steve hugged you back like he’d been holding his breath for two weeks.
“You good?” he murmured into your hair.
You pulled back and nodded, keeping your voice light. “Rome was incredible.”
His eyes searched yours. He didn’t push. He just smiled a little. “Knew you’d love it.”
Bucky was in the room when Steve said it.
Bucky’s jaw tightened for half a second, then released.
He reached for a glass, took a sip, and turned away like it meant nothing.
Like everything meant nothing.
It was easier, you realized, to treat it like nothing.
So you did.
For now.
The apartment hunt became the new obsession – the thing everyone could talk about without touching the landmines beneath the floorboards.
Bucky and Steve found a place first.
Not too far from the art school, not too far from the engineering program. A second-floor walk-up with creaky wooden floors and a narrow staircase that smelled like someone’s cooking no matter what hour it was.
Bucky talked about it like a project.
“We’ll make it work,” he said, flipping through photos on his phone. “Two bedrooms. Tiny kitchen. But the living room’s decent.”
Steve squinted at the pictures, amused. “Decent is generous.”
Bucky rolled his eyes. “It’s New York. You want decent, you need money.”
Steve smiled faintly. “And you’ll have money?”
Bucky’s mouth twitched. “Eventually.”
You sat cross-legged on the couch with Pietro and Wanda, watching the two of them argue over the most banal things – furniture, lease terms, whether a futon counted as a real bed – and it was so familiar it hurt a little.
The dynamic was the same.
Steve, steady and quiet, making jokes under his breath.
Bucky, intense and stubborn, acting like he didn’t care while caring too much.
You, the bridge between them when they got too heated.
It felt like a photograph you could step into.
Except you knew there was something behind it now.
A crack in the glass.
Still, you listened. You nodded. You let them plan.
Because planning was the closest thing to hope you had.
And because if you kept moving forward, maybe the past would eventually get tired and stop chasing you.
Your own plan took shape more slowly, but it was yours.
You didn’t want to live alone. Not yet. Not when you still woke sometimes with your heart racing and your mind trying to replay a morning you refused to name.
You wanted Wanda and Pietro.
You wanted their noise. Their presence. Their normal.
Wanda was the first one to commit.
“I’m doing sociology,” she announced one afternoon, sprawled on your living room floor like she owned it, chewing on a pen cap. “I’m sick of everyone acting like people don’t matter. People matter. I want to understand why they do what they do.”
Pietro snorted. “You just want permission to psychoanalyze everyone legally.”
Wanda flicked a sock at his head. “And you’re going into psychology because you’re nosy.”
“I am going into psychology because I am smart,” Pietro corrected, smug.
You smiled despite yourself.
Wanda looked up at you. “What about you? Still archaeology?”
You nodded, and the certainty in the motion surprised you a little even now. “Yeah.”
Pietro’s gaze softened, proud in that quiet way he had when he thought you weren’t looking. “Of course you are.”
The three of you sat at the table later with your laptops open, comparing schedules and campus maps and the cheapest neighborhoods within a reasonable commute.
Wanda wanted sunlight.
Pietro wanted somewhere with enough space to actually breathe.
You wanted… safety you could pretend wasn’t safety.
You wanted somewhere that felt neutral. A place that didn’t hold childhood ghosts in the walls.
You circled options and narrowed them down until it felt real enough to scare you.
When you finally told your mother, she didn’t react the way you expected.
She wasn’t angry exactly.
She just went quiet.
The kitchen clock ticked loud in the silence.
“You’re leaving,” she said.
It wasn’t an accusation.
It was a fact she was trying to fit into her mouth.
You swallowed. “I’m going to school. In the city. It makes sense.”
“I know it makes sense,” your mother said softly. “I’m not… I’m not arguing logic with you.”
You blinked, throat tightening.
Your mother leaned against the counter, arms crossed like she was holding herself together. “I just–” She stopped, exhaled. “I waited so long to have you. I waited so long to have you safe under my roof.”
Guilt flared sharp and immediate, the way it always did with her because you loved her, because she had saved you, because sometimes it felt like your existence was a promise you had to keep repaying.
You stepped closer. “I’m not leaving you.”
Your mother’s eyes glistened.
“I know,” she whispered. “I know. It’s just… hard.”
You hesitated, then touched her arm.
For once, you didn’t pull away from the tenderness.
Your mother covered your hand with hers. “You need independence,” she murmured, more to herself than to you. “You’ve needed it for a while.”
You swallowed, voice small. “I’m still going to call.”
Her mouth quirked, watery. “Every day.”
You managed a smile. “Every day.”
She nodded once, as if making peace with it.
Then, because she couldn’t help herself, she added, “And if that apartment has roaches–”
Pietro, from the doorway, cut in cheerfully. “We’ll name them and charge them rent.”
Your mother laughed despite herself, wiping at her eyes like she hadn’t been crying.
And you felt something in your chest ease.
Not fully.
But enough.
By the time summer really started, the pieces were set.
Steve and Bucky had their lease.
You, Wanda, and Pietro had yours.
Schedules were printed, color-coded. Lists were made. Boxes started appearing in corners of rooms like evidence of change.
Bucky acted like it was exciting.
Like it was simple.
Like it was the beginning of something clean.
You let him.
Because you needed the illusion of clean too.
And because, for now, the best you could do was step into the future with your head high and your heart guarded – pretending that what happened in the dark couldn’t follow you into the light.
➴ PAIRING: Brother's Best Friend!Bucky x Reader
➴ WC: 6k
➴ WARNINGS: reader is 18, bucky is 20, college!bucky, romanogers, SMUT (p in v, protected sex for once, fingering, dry humping, car sex, virginity/virginity loss, BCB (big cock bucky), pussyjob if you squint really hard) yearning, j*hn w*lker is a dick, miscommunication, YEARNING, slow burn but not but super slow burn?, excessive use of eye rolls, he's down bad, tooth rotting fluff, open ending.
➴ SUMMARY: Your prom date ditches you, and Bucky, ever the gentlemen, offers to take you. He gives you the full senior prom experience even though he's your brother's best friend and your crush for the past decade.
+fran: I wrote this with greasy hair, after work, before a shower. apparently I reach a flow state when I'm feral. this is my baby and I love this fic so much please for the love of all that is holy, tell me what you think. can be read alone, it will have sequels tho.
⤷ songs/playlist for this: there she goes - the la's, always everywhere - charli xcx, ruin the friendship - taylor swift, back to friends - sombr
more
The Rogers' backyard was, for all intents and purposes, the hottest wedding venue in town.
At least if anyone asked nine-year-old you and 11-year-old Bucky, as much was true.
The cracked sidewalk leading to the clothesline was the aisle, peony and dandelion flower beds were the decorations. The old apple tree was the altar at which Steve stood taller on an upside down wooden crate, one of your father's old dress shirts over his shoulders to pretend he was a preist, or a pope, or some sort of higher entiry able to witness this whole thing.
Bucky had one of your dad's suit jackets on, the navy fabric completely swallowing his frame, overlapping at the front and masking the Yankees jersey he had on, and all the dirt and grass stains on it.
You had a pillowcase that definitely needed to be in the hamper for laundry day pinned to your hair with your favorite hair clips, of a little crystal blue butterfly.
"Everybody be quiet," Steve announced, nose high up in the air like he was presenting a case to the Supreme Court. "This is serious business."
"It is serious business," you agreed immediately, failing to bite back a grin, missing your top right canine tooth.
One that Bucky held your hand the whole time so you'd let Steve run away with the string and pull it out.
"We are gathered here today because Bucky and my sister wanted to play wedding instead of baseball."
"You said you'd play too!" you accused.
Steve ignored and just kept going. "Now, Bucky Barnes." He cleared his throat, trying to make his voice lower. "Do you promise to be nice to her forever, always save her a seat to watch fireworks on my birthday, and never eat the last s'more?"
Bucky rolled his eyes, his dimple coming out as he smiled wth the side of his mouth. "Yeah," he said simply. "I promise."
You raised your brow, mock-scolding him. "You're supposed to say I do."
"Okay, yes," Your heart did an odd flip. "I do."
Steve then turned to you next. "And do you promise to be nice to Bucky forever, not tell Mrs. Barnes when he sneaks cookies before dinner, and always let him have the red Popsicle if there's only one left?"
"But they're the best ones!" You whined.
Steve sighed, ever the dramatic, looking at Bucky with fake sorrow. "Okay, then I guess you don't love him as much as—"
That set panic in your little heart. "I do! I do!" His face changed immediately, and bucky smiled at you.
The kind of smile that always made you feel like maybe the sun shined a little brighter on your side of the street than everybody else's.
Steve smiled, as if everything was back on track. "Now, for the rings."
Bucky dug into his pocket and produced two dandelions he'd twisted into little circles. Your eyes widened. "You made those?"
He nodded, brown hair bouncing up and down his head with the gesture. "Took me forever, but they're your favorites."
He held one carefully between his fingers before sliding it onto yours with all the concentration in the world.
"You made me a flower ring." Your grin stretched so wide your cheeks hurt.
Bucky shrugged. "Yeah."
Steve interrupted your thoughts, "Okay, okay. By the power in this vest… or in me, whatever they say in movies, you are now married." He pointed at Bucky. "No cooties." Then at you. "And don't make him play tea party every day."
Your stomach did that weird fluttery thing it always did around Bucky Barnes. It did the same thing when you rode rollercoasters, felt like it was gonna fly away and take you with it.
"You may now high-five the bride." Steve announced, stepping down from the crate.
Bucky extended his pinky towards you, "We'll be best friends forever."
"No take-backs." You smiled, wrapping your pinky around his.
TEN YEARS LATER
As time passed, you grew up. You got new interests, all of you got new friends, and the found family you had just seemed to get bigger. Of course, you weren't as close with Bucky anymore, no college sophomore wants to hang out constantly with his best friend's kid sister.
It's kind of uncool.
The house was loud in that familiar, comfortable way—the kind of loud that doesn’t feel chaotic so much as lived-in. Every sound has a place. Every voice belongs. Bucky, as much as he isn't family by blood, grew up running up and down these stairs the same you and Steve did, as Steve did in his house.
Both of your moms were best friends since diapers, and it was only fate that Bucky and Steve were too.
The kitchen doorway had his height and age and name scratched on it just the same as it did yours, he knew that house in the dark just as much as Steve, trying to sneak around to get snacks during late nights playing video games.
Controller clicks. Steve muttering under his breath. Bucky’s low laugh every time he wins—because of course he’s winning.
“Dude, you’re cheating,” Steve groans, tossing his controller down for a second.
“I’m just better than you,” Bucky shoots back easily, stretched out on the couch like he owns the place, long legs kicked up, completely at home.
He always is.
Him and Steve drove back home from their Sophomore college parties for your graduation weekend, still half-running on energy drinks and bad decisions from the night before, which just happened to fall in the same one as your prom, only separated by three days.
They could hear your speaker booming in your bathroom while you got ready with your two best friends, Yelena and Kate, and Natasha, Steve's girlfriend, helped you with your makeup.
It was a mix of Megan Thee Stallion playing and giggles coming from the three of you, your two best friends gushing over their dates.
Makeup scattered across the counter. Curling iron plugged in and dangerously close to knocking something over. Dresses half-hanging, half-draped over the shower rod.
And Natasha’s laugh, warmer, older, threaded through all of it as she tried to keep things somewhat under control.
Kate is perched on the edge of the tub, kicking her heels against the porcelain. Yelena is leaning into the mirror, fixing her lip gloss with unnecessary intensity.
And you—
You’re standing between them, half-finished, dress still unzipped, hair clipped up, trying to decide if you feel as good as you’re supposed to.
“Okay, no—seriously,” Kate says, pointing at you like she’s making a case in court. “John is going to lose his mind.”
Yelena hums in agreement. “He already looks at you like he has no thoughts.”
You laugh, a little breathy. “That’s not even true.”
“It is completely true,” Kate insists.
“You’re just saying that.”
“We are not just saying that,” Yelena shoots back.
Natasha, standing behind you, gently brushes powder along your cheek, more focused than the rest of them—but she’s listening. And she notices there's a sparkle in your eye that's missing when John's the subject.
He's nice, he's good looking, he's captain of your football team, maybe he has some anger issues with other guys, but all in all he's a solid boyfriend. He's just not—
“Alright,” Natasha says finally, pulling you from your thoughts, lightening her tone again. “Turn around. Let me see the full thing.”
You do as she asks, and she takes in her work of art, your hopeful eyes, and the soft blownout curls of your hair framing your face.
"Perfect!"
Careful with your steps as she reaches for the zipper, pulling it up your back slowly, sealing you into the dress, into the night, into everything that’s supposed to happen.
A knock sounds on the bathroom door. "You girls alive in there?" Steve calls. "Or did the hairspray fumes get you?"
"We're decent!" Natasha calls back.
Steve pokes his head in for a second. "Oh."
You raise an eyebrow. "Oh?"
His expression shifts immediately into something resembling offense. "What happened to my little sister?"
"Oh my God." You snorted.
Steve's broad frame now came into full view in the tiny bathroom as he stood on the dorway. "Who is this grown woman and where did she put the gremlin that used to steal my fries?"
You rolled you eyes. "I'll still steal your fries."
He shakes his head. "You look beautiful, Bug."
Your expression softens. "Thanks, Stevie."
As Pietro and Bob scrolled their phones impatiently at the bottom of the stairs, making small talk with Steve and Bucky, you were almost wearing a path into the carpeted floor of your bedroom.
Seconds after he was supposed to arrive with the other two, he texted you some shitty excuse as to why he was taking Olivia, his ex, to prom instead.
“I was gonna explain,” John says finally, like that makes it better.
You let out a short, disbelieving laugh. “Explain what? That you’re ditching me the night of prom?”
“I’m not ditching you,” he says quickly, defensive already. “It’s just—Olivia asked me to go with her and it’s complicated.”
“Complicated?” you repeat, your grip tightening around your phone. “John, it’s prom. We’ve had this planned for weeks.”
“I know, I know,” he says, exhaling like you’re the one making this difficult. “But she’s going through stuff right now and I don’t wanna make things worse.”
Your chest tightens. “So you thought canceling on me last minute wouldn’t make things worse?”
“That’s not what I said.”
You huffed. “That’s exactly what you’re doing.”
He goes quiet again for a second, and you can practically hear him thinking—calculating—trying to figure out how to spin it in a way that makes him look less like the bad guy.
“Look,” he says finally, voice shifting into something more controlled, “you’re gonna have fun no matter what. You’ve got your friends, it’s not like you’ll be alone.”
The words hit harder than anything else he’s said.
Because they’re so easy for him. So dismissive.
“So that’s it?” you ask, quieter now, but it wavers anyway. “You just—drop me and go with her, and I’m supposed to be fine with that?”
“I’m not dropping you,” he insists again, frustration creeping in. “It’s one night.”
“It’s prom,” you snap, the word catching in your throat. “It’s not just some random thing, John.”
“Why are you making this such a big deal?” he shoots back.
That’s what does it.
Your eyes sting, tears blurring your vision as you shake your head even though he can’t see it. “I’m making it a big deal?” you echo. “You’re the one who decided, what, an hour before we’re supposed to leave, that I don’t matter as much as your ex?”
“It’s not like that,” he says, sharper now. “You’re twisting it.”
“I’m not twisting anything,” you say, your voice breaking despite your best effort to keep it steady. “You just told me exactly where I stand.”
He exhales, long and annoyed, like he’s already over the conversation. “You’re being dramatic. The words land like a slap. And for a second, you can’t even respond.
“Okay,” you say finally, and your voice is quieter now, but steadier in a way that feels final. “Okay. Go with her.”
“—See? That’s all I’m saying, it’s not that—”
“No,” you cut him off, shaking your head again, even though he still can’t see you. “I get it now.”
There’s a shift on his end, like he didn’t expect that. “Wait—”
“Have fun at prom, John.”
And before he can say anything else, you hang up.
The silence that follows is immediate and heavy, pressing in around you as you stare at your reflection, your chest rising and falling too fast, your phone still clutched in your hand.
For a second, you just stand there. And then your face crumples, and the tears come before you can stop them.
Great. You think. An hour of Natasha's hard work gone in two seconds.
You ripped a couple squares of toiled paper off of the roll, trying to dab away the tears when a knock interrupted you. You didn't even have time to tell whoever it was to leave you alone, the door opened anyway.
And of course it was Bucky.
"Hey, Walker finally—" Then he saw your face. The red rimmed eyes, the puffy nose and lips, he'd recognize your crying face if he was in a dark room blindfolded and you were three states away. "What happened?"
His voice wasn't panicked our loud, just immediate.
"Apparently my boyfriend had a better offer." You said with a humorless laugh, fiddling with the corner of the tissue.
His expression then changed to confusion, then disbelief, then anger. "He did what?"
Your eyes stayed on the paper, humiliated. "He took his ex to prom instead." It sounds ridiculous out loud. Embarrassing. "I know it's stupid—"
He shook his head. "It's not stupid."
You shrugged one shoulder anyway. "It kind of is."
"It kind of isn't." Bucky insisted.
Your laugh broke apart into another shaky breath. "He said I was being dramatic." Your voice was small, like a small part of you almost believed John.
"No the fuck he didn't." Bucky's voice, on the contrary, sounded like he was about to make sure John was in three zipcodes at the same time.
You wiped at your face furiously. "Can we not do the whole protective older brother routine thing right now? Steve's probably already planning a felony downstairs."
Bucky nodded, as if agreeing that yes, Steve should be planning felonies. "Good."
Despite yourself, a tiny laugh escapes you. "Bucky."
"I'm serious." He took the couple steps needed to lean back against the sink, back to the mirror, while you faced it. The familiar weight of him beside you settled something in your chest. "You know what I think?" he asks.
You sniffled. "What?"
"I think he's an idiot."
You snort. "Very eloquent."
"You spent weeks excited about tonight." You shrug. "You talked about your dress for months." A smaller shrug, your head shaking like you agreed with him three weeks was a little excessive. "And some guy decides at the last second that he doesn't feel like showing up?"
His eyes looked for yours, and he continued once you met his gaze. "That's his loss."
Downstairs someone was shouting something about finding the car keys. "I just feel stupid."
His brows furrowed immediatelly. "Why?"
"Because I was excited." The words came out smaller than you meant them to. "I really thought tonight was gonna be special."
Bucky's expression softens. "It still can be."
You laughed weakly. "My date literally dumped me an hour before prom."
"Okay." He says, like the solutions is obvious. Like a dragon staring you in the face.
You were confused. "Okay?"
"Okay." He stands up straight. "Counterpoint." You raise an eyebrow. "I've seen enough terrible teen movies to know where this goes." Despite yourself, curiosity wins.
"Oh yeah?"
"Oh yeah." He nodded, and started counting on his fingers. "Option one: you go with your friends and have an incredible time."
"Mm." An amused smile played on your lips.
He continued. "Option two: Steve commits a crime."
You smiled widened. "Likely."
"Or a secret, better option three—"
You quirked a brow. "There are three options?"
Bucky rolled his eyes playfully. "There are always three options." You gestured for him to continue and he grinned. "Option three: some devastatingly handsome college sophomore heroically steps in and saves prom."
You stared at him in disbelief. "Bucky Barnes."
"What?"
"You are not asking me to prom."
"Why not?"
"Because that's ridiculous." You stammered. "You're a college guy and it's gonna be a bunch of drunk high school seniors and—"
"Seems pretty straightforward to me."
You crossed your arms over your chest, the action making your breasts stand out more, and Bucky had to hold back from looking briefly. "You drove eight hours home from college."
"Correct."
"You haven't slept." Another excuse.
"Also correct."
Truth is… You didn't trust yourself not to ruin your friendship, and Steve's, with Bucky as your date. Yes it was a childhood crush, yes it was stupid, yes he only saw you as a little sister, but for some reason every time you smelled sandalwood and listened to divorced dad rock, your stomach did the same fucking thing it always did.
It flipped.
"I'm serious." The grin on his face faded into something gentler. "You shouldn't miss your prom because some idiot couldn't see what was standing right in front of him."
Your throat tightens. "I don't want a pity Bucky Barnes date."
"I wouldn't dream of it." Bucky shook his head. "I want to go to a high school prom sleep deprived, listen to bad music, and drink shitty punch."
You pretended to think about it. "I want milkshake and fries from Juniper's after."
Bucky got down on his knees dramatically, clutching his hands together, play-begging. "Please, let me spend my hard earned student loans on a malted brownie shake for you, m'lady."
You signed, as if you weren't blushing seven shades of red at the moment, all hidden by Natasha's foundation. "I suppose."
After Nat talked Steve down from whatever Law Abiding Citizen crap he was gonna pull, Bucky borrowed one of your dad's suits while you touched up your makeup, and off into his jeep you went.
Bucky lingered back as he watched you walk to the old car excitedly, Natasha stopping right beside him as your friends walked to their cars, watching you get twirled by Kate.
Bucky noticed Natasha staring at him and raised a brow in question. "What?"
She gave a noncommittal noise. "Nothing."
"Romanoff." Bucky scoffed.
She put her hands up in surrender. "I didn't say anything."
"You've got the face."
Now it was her turn to raise a brow, trying to bite back a grin. "What face?"
Bucky rolled his eyes. "The face where you've figured something out before everyone else."
Nat shrugged her shoulders. "I always figure something out before everyone, Bucky." Tapping him on the shoulder and turning arounfd to go inside.
The prom commitee worked very hard to make sure the night looked exactly like every movie promised it would.
String lights draped from the ceiling of the gymnasium like stars somebody had caught and hung overhead. Balloons clustered in the corners. A photo booth occupied one wall. The basketball hoops had been disguised beneath enough tulle and fairy lights to fool almost everyone.
Turns out, getting ditched by John Walker was the best thing that ever happened to your prom night. You didn't even notice when Olivia was cryingin the bathroom because she caught him making out with someone else.
No.
You were too busy slow dancing with Bucky Barnes.
When the first chorus of the song came on, he held out his hand. "May I have this dance?"
You rolled your eyes. "You're such a dork."
"Tick tock, Rogers." He wiggled his fingers impatiently.
You took his hand as if it didn't make your fingers go numb with excitement, and Bucky quickly nestled a hand on your low back, your forehead to the side of his jaw.
"You know," Bucky said after a minute, "this is definitely better than my prom when I was your age."
"Okay, grandpa." You laughed softly. "What happened at your senior prom?"
"My date spent forty-five minutes crying in the bathroom because her friend wore the same shoes she did."
You clicked your tongue. "That's tragic."
"It was devastating." Bucky agreed, nodding his head, laughing softly.
You nudged his jaw. "I'll try to hold it together."
"I appreciate that."
A moment passed, then another, and you spoke up. "Thank you for doing this for me."
"Anytime." He let out a soft breath, leaning back the slightest bit so he could look at you. "You do look beautiful, I mean it."
Thank fuck for Natasha's foundation, powder, and concealer for hiding your flush. "Thank you, Bucky." Oh how you wished you hadn't looked into his pretty eyes, reflecting the lights off of the mirrorball back onto the dancefloor.
The ten seconds seemed to stretch an entire decade. Somehow Bucky's face getting closer and closer to yours, eyes switching from your lips back to your eyes and to your lips again.
"Hey." The word cut through the moment like broken glass. Fucking John Walker. King of never in the history of the world reading anything. Specialy the fucking room. "Can we talk?"
Bucky's hand tightened around your waist, "What do you want, John? Olivia is probably looking for you."
"C'mon, baby, you're not gonna throw our relationship away over one bad call, are you?" He was seriously trying to play this off. "I made a mistake." His hand reached for you but you stepped away.
"I'm not your baby."
He scoffed. "Aw, c'mon." And tried again.
This time, Bucky got between you two. "She's done, Walker. Walk away."
Now John got… Defensive. "This isn't any of your business."
Bucky clicked his tongue. "She kind of is." The words slipped out before he could stop them.
The air stood still for a minute before the football bros came to get John, leaving you and Bucky with the weight of unsaid words and unspoken looks.
Juniper's was closed by the time you finally left prom.
Not closed enough to stop Bucky from leaning halfway out of the driver's side window and convincing one of the employees locking up to sell him two milkshakes and an order of fries out of pure pity.
It wasn't until you were stargazing in his jeep with soft music from his Spotify mixing with the crickets hiding in the grass that your heart settled again.
You were in the passenger seat, your burger already eaten, just finishing your delicious fries and your milkshake with Bucky in the same predicament in the driver's seat.
Now the two of you sat on the hood of his Jeep in the empty parking lot overlooking the river, the New York spring air cool enough that your bare shoulders prickled every time the wind picked up.
Without a word, Bucky shrugged off his suit jacket and draped it over your shoulders. You blushed. "Thanks."
He shrugged. "'M not using it."
"You literally had it on 30 seconds ago." You rolled your eyes. Bucky just muttered details between a mouthful of fries.
"You know," you said eventually, "this wasn't exactly how I pictured prom going."
Bucky laughed quietly. "No?"
"I don't know. There was significantly less public humiliation in the original draft." You laughed softly. "But I like this version better."
Bucky nodded. "I had fun."
You looked over. "Yeah?" Hopeful little edge in your voice giving you away to anyone that knew you remotely well.
"Yeah." His expression softened. "Got to dance with a pretty girl."
Heat climbed into your cheeks immediately. "You flirt with everybody." You rolled your eyes.
Bucky made an offended expression, clutching his chest. "I absolutely do not."
"You absolutely do." You lolled you head to the side, raising a brow to make your point. He laughed.
God, you loved his laugh. Always had. The thought came and went so quickly you almost didn't notice it.
Your eyes drifted back toward the sky. "You know what this reminds me of?"
"Hm?" He lifted his eyes from the milkshake cup he was trying to get every last bit out of.
"The meteor shower."
Bucky smiled immediately. "Oh man."
You grinned. "You remember?"
"Remember?" Bucky chuckled. "I had baseball tryouts the next day and I was up all night to make sure you didn't miss it."
It stopped you dead in your tracks. He did what? "No, you didn't. Your mom came and woke us up."
Bucky nodded. "Yeah, because I woke her up. I was outside waiting for it while you and Steve snoozed it off. Played like shit the next morning." He continued. "You had the date circled on the calendar."
Your brow furrowed. "I did?"
He nodded. "You drew stars around it."
"Oh my God."
Bucky chuckled, his own head lolling to the side on the head rest to look at you. "You made Steve and I promise we wouldn't stay up late the night before because we had to be rested."
You buried your face in your hands. "That sounds insufferable."
"It was kinda cute." He smiled at you like he always did, and your heart promptly forgot how to function. Bucky, meanwhile, was blissfully unaware of the devastation he'd just caused.
Trying so desperately to change the subject to something that wouldn't make you tear up or your heart jump, you fiddled with your milkshake, taking a sip and making a face. "You know, I think this thing is eighty percent whipped cream."
Bucky grinned. "I can see that, it's all over your face." His left thumb came up to wipe down the leftover shake on the corner of your mouth, and it lingered just a second too long.
For a second, or three years, the world felt like it stilled. A moment frozen in a snow globe to be forever replayed.
Neither of you moved, not entirely sure how to. Suddenly Bucky was very close, close enough to see the tiny scar in his eyebrow from falling off his bike when he was fourteen, to count the freckles dusting across his nose, enough that you could feel your heartbeat somewhere in your throat.
His eyes flicked down to your mouth, then back up, and your heart and lungs stumbled over themselves.
His hand lowered slowly, resting on your thigh. The night around you seemed quieter somehow. Smaller, as if the entire world had narrowed down to the space between you.
"Buck..." His name came out softer than you intended.
His expression shifted into something you'd never seen directed at you before. "If you don't want—"
And then your body moved forward on instinct, your brain a mess of fuzzy TV static, and when you came back to your body, your lips were on his.
Not because you were brave or even confident, just mostly because if you let him finish that sentence you thought your heart might actually explode.
For one terrifying second you were convinced you'd made the biggest mistake of your life. Then you felt the warmth of his hand on your cheek, pulling you closer and deepening the kiss as his tongue slipped past your lips.
The kind of kiss that felt less like fireworks and more like coming home after a very long trip.
One of your hands quickly found the nape of his neck, gently scratching your manicured nails against his scalp. He whined against your lips, hand drifting to your waist, and just as much as he pulled you onto his lap, you climbed over the console to him, food wrappers forgotten on the floor.
You shrugged the suit jacket off, accidentally honking the horn with your butt in the process, and Bucky's hands rubbed up and down your thighs as you rocked your hips against him, feeling the heat of him against the suit pants.
Your hands dropped from his shoulders down to his arms, then forearms, directing him to paw at the zipper on the back of your dress.
That made him pull away, looking for your eyes. "Are you—"
You could not have nodded more feverishly if you were a damn bobblehead. Bucky needed no further incentive, he made quick work of the zipper, excitement bubbling in your stomach like freshly popped champagne while he peppered kisses along your jawline and neck.
The now bothersome fabric of the dress fell to your waist as you worked on the buttons of his shirt, hands moving to his belt and pants after. He kissed you again, deeper as his hand snuck under the hem of your dress to find the wet spot on your panties.
You moaned against his mouth, your own hand finding its way inside of his boxers. You broke the kiss, gasping for air. "Is this— I mean— okay?" It was hushed and murured against his lips as you stroked his length. "I've never— oh!"
You got rudely interrupted by Bucky's index and middle fingers rubbing your sensitive clit over the blue cotton of your panties. He nodded against you, "Y-yeah, you're— fuck— you're doing so good." His hips bucked up against you, and the second he slipped out of his pants with your movements his hand left your core and now were both squeezing your ass.
Bucky brought you flush against him, the angry red tip of him begging for friction found it when you started to dry hump him through your underwear, gasping into his mouth every time it nudged your clit.
"Bucky, please…" He couldn't not give you what you wanted, right? "I can't take it." Not when you begged this pretty.
He nodded against you, "I know, baby." And his right hand went under your dress, behind you, and pulled your panties to the side. "I know."
The second his bare cock made contact with your wet slit, he hissed, and a lightbulb went off in his head.
Condom.
He did not trust himself to pull out. Not of you. "Condom." His voice was almost distant to you, like it hadn't crossed your mind to use protection. Not with Bucky, anyway. He'd never hurt you, he was your—
"I—" You were dazed, lost and drunk in the scent and thought and feel of him. "My purse." His hands let you go and you leaned over the seat to grab your purse from the backseat, your ass right beside Bucky's head.
Of course he took advantage of that fully pull your panties down, now that you had the leg space.
You sat back down on top of him with a little huff, trembling hands fumbling with the wrapper.
Bucky hissed as you rolled it down on him, and one of his hands lined himself up with your entrance.
As you sank down on him, you thought maybe you should've thought twice about it. I mean, you knew he was packing, you walked in on him changing one time a couple years ago, there was no way you could—
"Hey," Bucky's voice brought you back from your spiral. "Look at me." Beautiful cerulean eyes stared up at you like the moonlight was made to bounce off them specifically. "Breathe."
His other hand brushed your hair away from your face, just as the hand that was holding his shaft traveled up, thumb finding your clit rubbing soothing circles on it. "Just take it slow." Your eyes fluttered closed.
"How do you not get knocked over hauling this thing around?" That brought a chuckle out of him, landing straight onto the skin of your neck. "Oh, God..."
You rocked yourself back and forth, until he was fully inside of you, your lips touching the light hair at the base.
Bucky kissed all over your face, his thumb never stopping its work. "You're doing so good, baby."
"Feels full." He laughed softly. squeezing your waist and helping guide you into a rhythm. "Feels good."
"Yeah?" Hushed and right by your ear, you felt like drowning and the happiest person alive at the same time. "You're so tight," He continued. "So warm."
You whined against his lips, the vibration going all the way down to his core.
He moved you up and down his cock, listening to the obscene wet squelch each time you sat up and sank back down on him, and each time it dawned on him what was actually happening, he got louder.
Bolder.
He bounced you on his length, hissing each time, you squeezed around him. "Feel good, Buck. Hah!"
It surprisingly didn't take long for Bucky to have you right at the edge, not as long as people online led you to believe losing your virginity would feel like. "Can feel you fluttering." His thumb worked faster.
"Wanna come, Bucky." You whined, kissing him, and pulling away with his bottom lip between your teeth, "Can I?"
He hissed, the question making it hard for him to not blow his load right then and there. "F'course you can, pretty girl, c'mon."
Your release felt like a million meteors hitting you at once. Like Earth came apart and got put together all in the same breath.
It felt entirely different, better, than when you tried to do it on your own. And your orgasm triggered Bucky's, waves of pleasure milking rope after rope of cum from him into the unworthy latex of the condom.
For what it felt like forever for the milionth time that night, neither of you spoke. Your breaths and the crickets were the only sounds.
It was quiet after.
Just… quiet.
The kind that only existed when two people had known each other so long that silence wasn't something to fill. Starts lit up the sky that was now your ceiling, and Bucky had taken the condom off and tied it, throwing it inside of the trash with the fry bag and the milkshake cups.
For once in his life, James Buchanan Barnes appeared to be completely out of words.
Which was concerning.
You smiled a little, back in the passenger seat with the suit jacket around your chilly shoulders. "What?"
He glanced over. "Hm?"
"You're thinking too loud." That got a laugh out of him. A quiet one, but still a laugh. "Sorry."
A beat of silence, then another. "I don't want this to ruin anything."
Your smile faltered slightly.
Of course, you thought. Of course he doesn't feel that way about you, why would he—
"Oh, Buck." You faked a smile as his eyes met yours. "We'll be okay."
A sheepish, hopeful look hit his face. "Yeah?"
"Of course." You nodded and reached over and laced your pinky with his. "We're us."
His expression softened when he looked down at your joined fingers. "We're us," he echoed.
You smiled. "We survived Steve's bowl cut phase." You listed off. "The great Thanksgiving mashed potato incident."
"Traumatic." He chuckled.
"The time I accidentally backed your Jeep into Mrs. Russo's mailbox." You continued.
He scolded you playfully. "You still owe me for emotional damages."
You laughed softly. "We'll be best friends forever."
The words came so naturally, so easily. The same words you'd said years before ona hot day beneath a tree. A pinky promise.
Forever.
Beside you, Bucky went quiet. Of course she wouldn't want anything to do with you, you're her brother's best friend. That shit only works in mov— "Right." His eyes dropped for a moment. "Friends."
Your stomach twisted at the word for the first time in your life. Because why did that sound disappointing?
Why did it sound like something had slipped through your fingers without you realizing you were holding it?
a little bit of fran in your life: okay did we like it??????? it was meant to read like a first chapter but also a standalone in case you wanted to just be done with it. yippieeeeeeee
⭐︎ warnings: nsfw, greece au, fluff, smut, enemies to lovers, banter, arguments, alcohol, manchild player bucky, mean!bucky, john walker back to playing the role of a toxic bf, cheating (not by bucky), jealousy, oral (f!receiving), squirting, overstimulation, reader mentions she's on the pill (no pregnancy), praise, dirty talk, angst, alpine feature, dead rat, miscommunication, insecurities, hurt/comfort
⭐︎ word count: 17.8k
⭐︎ a/n: if you like mamma mia, this fic might be up your alley. this is my contribution for the bwat summer collab hosted by the lovely @barnesonly and @iamthatonefangirl. thank you for taking the time to keep us in check. be sure to check out the other fics in this masterlist! happy brat summer even though it was two years ago
synopsis:
If managing a housing complex in Greece during peak tourist season wasn't hard enough, your stupid, DJ manchild of a tenant, Bucky Barnes, goes one step further to make it even more difficult—that is, until he overhears an argument between you and your boyfriend, John, and decides to prove that he actually cares about you for more than just pissing you off with his loud music.
← previous fic | main masterlist
Oonts. Oonts. Oonts.
It was the same wretched sound all over again.
From where you sat in the complex’s office, the bass emitting from Bucky’s room was thumping and vibrating the very walls around you. The ground shook, and you swore you could see dust and pebbles straying off the ceiling and landing right into your cup of coffee.
There was no one else in the office, so you screamed as loud as you could.
“Keep it down, Barnes!”
But of course, your angry voice was met with even more thumping bass and weird techno noises.
Mumbling curses to yourself, you angrily picked up the office phone—which barely worked—and dialed his number. You pressed the receiver hard to your ear, foot tapping impatiently as you heard it ring once, twice, three times, until finally…
“Hey, you reached Bucky. Sorry I couldn’t get to the phone right now. Please leave your name and number—”
He had left your phone calls unanswered so many times, you had already memorized his voice message word for word.
With another curse, you slammed the phone back down, pushed out of your rolling chair, and stomped your way up to his room.
It was peak summertime, meaning that vacationers were flooding the streets of Greece looking for accommodations, meaning that your rundown complex had available rooms for cheap rent, meaning you had to leave your one-man post just to take care of the obnoxious tenant you should’ve kicked out years ago.
Finally reaching his door, you knocked angrily with a strength that threatened to break the hinges.
“Barnes, open up!” you shouted.
I wanna dance to me, I wanna dance to A. G—
“Bucky! Don’t make me break down this door!”
I wanna dance with George, I wanna dance to SOPHIE.
Christ. What the hell was he playing? Whatever this noise slop was, it felt specifically designed by Bucky himself to give you a headache.
“God, this fucking… fucking asshole—” you cursed to yourself, fishing for your keys in your pocket.
You unlocked his door and pushed it open. Lo and behold, you found him seated in the exact same position you always found him in every time you barged into his room for a noise complaint. Bucky’s music was so loud he didn’t even hear you enter, his focus entirely on his fancy DJ setup and speakers that probably cost more than his rent.
“Bucky!” Your face scrunched as it took every vocal cord in your body to muster the shout.
Bucky whipped his head around to face you, looking very much like a boy who had been caught red-handed watching porn—except this music was much worse than mediocre sex-on-a-screen.
He finally lowered the volume, allowing you the ability to actually hear your own thoughts.
“What the hell are you doing in my apartment?”
You crossed your arms, jutting your hip out as you glared at him with an unpleasant and as equally disappointed frown.
“I tried calling your phone, but it went straight to voicemail. I need you to turn this music down.”
Bucky didn’t react.
He had heard this exact complaint from you more times than he could count. It was always the same routine. You’d yell at him, your body hot from the lack of AC circulation this shitty complex provided, leaving you standing in his doorway in a tank top—no bra—and tiny daisy dukes that left little to his imagination. And once you were done yelling, you’d go back downstairs to your office, and he’d turn the music right back up.
But of course, he always had a knack for making your job much harder than it actually was, purely because he loved seeing you get riled up.
“Oh. Is Georgia from the third floor complaining?” He tilted his head like an innocent puppy, knowing damn well that Georgia was a senior citizen who was legally deaf.
You scrunched your nose, looking even more pissed—which only made Bucky’s smile widen.
“No, but I’m complaining, and that should be enough to get you to shut the hell up—considering I’m your landlord.”
“Aw, but I’m dedicating this song to you.”
You wanted to stomp over to his desk and slap him right across the face to shut him up for good—but dealing with a lawsuit and a restraining order was the last thing you needed when you were responsible for running this shitty complex during peak tourist season.
“I’m not going to argue with you today,” you said, though it sounded like you were trying to convince yourself rather than him. “Soon, this complex is going to be packed with tourists and I need you on your best behavior. That means no loud robot music that’ll scare potential tenants away.”
Bucky flinched, looking offended.
“Robot music?” he scoffed, spinning back in his chair to face his laptop. “And you say this shit every year. Summertime, tourists, rent... but you’re lucky if even one person books a room.”
Your brow twitched. You hated how right he was. “Regardless, I need you to give the music a rest. If I’m not the one complaining, someone else will.”
You were ready to leave it at that. You turned around, your hand gripping the doorknob, prepared to slam the door behind you so he wouldn’t have the space to argue back. But of course, Bucky just couldn’t help himself.
“Whatever you say, sweetheart.”
You spun around so fast your hair whipped across your face. “What the fuck did you just call me?”
Bucky kept his back turned to you. You didn’t even need to see his face to know he was wearing a smug, shit-eating grin.
“My music is harmless,” he muttered, clicking away at his screen. “And who knows? Maybe your future tenants will actually find it entertaining. I might even draw people in.”
“No, it won’t,” you hissed. “You’ll scare people away.”
Bucky shrugged. “Then what the hell am I paying you rent for if I can’t even listen to music in my own apartment?”
The way he said it was so casual, but you knew he had thrown those words out just to pull the pin right out of your heart.
Over the years, you had seen several tenants come and go, break their leases, or even scam you out of money. Taking over the building with little to no hope for business had been completely exhausting, and Bucky—along with Georgia—had been the only loyal tenants you had left.
In reality, the two of them were the ones keeping the place afloat.
You grimaced, facing the door again.
“Just… keep it down,” was all you said, because you no longer had it in you to keep up the fight.
Bucky had kept his promise to keep the music down—but that only lasted about a day. And Bucky being Bucky, if he didn’t have the ability to piss you off one way, he’d make sure to do it another.
You weren’t sure if it was entirely intentional or not, but regardless, it made your skin burn with irritation. While you were talking to a man seated across from your desk, the sound of a girl’s loud laughter echoed right above the office—and it certainly wasn’t the voice of any girl you recognized who lived in this complex.
You smiled through it. As long as you ignored it and didn’t address it, then maybe the man in front of you—who seemed to have every intention of staying here during his months long vacation—wouldn’t notice.
“But yes, as you can see, the building is very close to the beach—walking distance, actually!” You smiled, hands folding primly on the desk in front of you. “And the beaches in Greece are beautiful. I’m sure you’ve seen them while doing your research. You said you like to surf, right? This spot is very convenient for—”
“Haha—you’re so silly, Bucky!”
“I know. But you like it.”
The man in front of you glanced at the ceiling, frowning at the sound of the girl giggling, and you swallowed hard.
“—surfing….”
Instead of answering your question or addressing anything else you said, he kept his focus on the wooden ceiling above him and pointed up. “I take it this place is pretty busy—considering all the noise.”
You gripped your hands tighter.
If you weren’t able to secure this guest, you were going to make sure Bucky got an earful from you after this.
“That’s a good thing, right? Shows how lively Greece is during this time of the year.” You tried your best to salvage the situation, but your own words only gave you secondhand embarrassment.
The man chewed the inside of his cheek, his expression apprehensive. His eyes darted around the office, suddenly taking in the white plug-in wall fan that was making a suspicious whiiiirrr noise, along with the poorly painted window panels you hadn’t gotten around to fixing yet.
“Look, you seem like a nice, responsible, and hardworking young lady, but—” He stood up and started grabbing his bags. “I don’t think this place is right for me.”
“W-wait!” You scrambled from your chair, nearly lunging across the desk just to get him to stop. “We have much quieter rooms on the second floor! Facing the courtyard! You won’t hear a single thing over there, I promise!”
Fuck. What were you even saying? Bucky’s room was on the second floor.
The guy was already heading for the exit, his heavy duffel bag slung over his shoulder. He gave you a tight, sympathetic smile that felt more like a slap to the face before walking out.
“Sir, please! I can offer you a discount on the first month! Ten percent—no, fifteen!”
Your voice was pitching higher in distressed panic, but the bell above the office door gave you a cute and mocking ting! before he pushed it open and stepped out into the burning Greek heat. The door shut behind him, leaving you alone in silence with the stupid run down fan.
Well, almost silence.
Aside from the consistent whirring from the fan, another loud giggle squealed through the floorboards right above your head. Then came the thud of Bucky’s mattress hitting the bed frame.
Your eye twitched as your hands curled into tight fists. The payment that man would have given you had he settled in today—even with a fifteen percent discount—was supposed to be your grocery budget for the next three weeks.
Your sandals were already stomping up the stairs to Bucky’s floor. By the time you shoved the key into his lock, twisted it, and slammed the door open without so much as a knock, you were seeing red.
“Barnes!” you screeched, not even caring that the unknown woman lying in his bed was half-naked.
She squealed and yanked the blanket up to her chest, trying to cover herself, but you didn’t so much as glance at her.
“Bucky, I didn’t know you had a girlfriend!” she yelped, looking at Bucky with wide, terrified eyes.
Well, at least this one had some decency compared to the others. Most girls would look at you with swollen lips and a proud, “gotcha” smile to match. Bucky pushed himself up with a groan, giving you a glare that could have killed you right where you stood.
“She’s not my girlfriend,” he grumbled, wiping his wet lips with the back of his hand. “She’s my landlord.”
“Oh.” The girl’s shoulders slumped in relief—and a part of you wished Bucky hadn’t clarified that, just so you could have kept the upper hand.
“Are you fucking kidding me, Bucky? You scared another potential renter away!”
Bucky didn’t look remotely remorseful. If anything, he looked mildly annoyed that his afternoon had been interrupted. He swung his legs over the side of the mattress, getting up to meet you at the door.
You didn’t even care that he was wearing nothing but a pair of boxers that hung low on his hips—you had walked in on him one too many times to even bother telling him to put on a pair of pants.
“I didn’t do anything,” he said, his voice gravelly from whatever he’d been doing earlier. “I was minding my own business.”
“I’m sorry, but your ‘business’ becomes everyone else’s when you’re being too fucking loud!” you shouted. “I was seconds away from closing a three-month lease, Bucky. Three months! Do you know what I could do with that kind of money right now? I could finally fix the plumbing so the water doesn’t smell like eggs!”
The girl in his bed looked back and forth between the two of you, awkwardly clutching the sheet to her collarbone. “Um… should I leave?”
“Yes!” you snapped.
“No,” Bucky countermanded, running a tired hand through his already tousled hair. “Stay, Eleni. My landlord was just leaving.”
“Like hell I am,” you hissed, crossing your arms. “I swear to God, Barnes. If you keep this up, I’m going to tear up your lease and evict you.”
Bucky huffed a laugh. That was new. He had pushed your buttons enough to unlock a brand new threat—even if it was one you both knew you probably wouldn’t follow through with.
“Yeah, sure. Go ahead and kick me out,” he challenged, stepping closer. “You need me more than I need you, anyway.”
You were seconds away from going ballistic—from grabbing his precious DJ setup and throwing it right off the balcony. Every hair on your body stood up like a threatened cat, and you were ready to tear Bucky Barnes apart in his own room.
You sucked in a deep breath to unleash a litany of curses, and Bucky stood up straighter, bracing himself to return the sentiment right back, until a familiar voice called out from the office downstairs.
“Honey? Are you here?”
Both of you froze. Your accusatory finger hung in midair as your head instinctively turned towards the open door.
Of course. Your boyfriend, John, always managed to show up at the absolute worst timing possible.
“Would you look at that,” Bucky sighed—though you couldn’t tell if it was out of relief or annoyance. “Your knight in shining armor, coming to save me yet again,” he said sarcastically.
You shot Bucky one last lethal glare— forgetting all about Eleni still laying in his bed—and turned on your heel, stomping back down the stairs to tend to your boyfriend. As you hurried down, you flattened your hair and adjusted your tank top, trying to make yourself look somewhat presentable, though it was a lost cause.
“Hi, John,” you said, sounding more tired than endeared as you leaned in to press a kiss to his cheek.
“Hey, you,” he grinned before pulling back to look at you, his expression turning from a smile to displeasure.
“Wow, you look terrible.”
Your boyfriend always had such a way with words.
You sighed, your shoulders slumping in defeat. With John here, you felt like now was the great time to talk about your day, hoping that it’d relief just a tiny bit of stress.
“I look terrible because my day is going terrible. I feel like a hamster running on a wheel that leads nowhere. It’s barely afternoon, and the day is already kicking my butt—”
“Did you hear that I got promoted today?”
You blinked at his blatant interruption. “I’m… I’m sorry?”
“No worries,” he waved his hand with a guileless smile, as if you were actually offering him a sincere apology when, in fact, you were just giving him the opportunity to rethink his interruption. “I said I got promoted. Valentina finally saw how hard I’ve been working and decided to give me the next position up. I’m making double the amount I made before!”
You felt utterly and completely defeated.
Here you were, feeling like a dog that had been beaten to the ground, and the man you proclaimed as the love of your life was flaunting his success. You should have been happy for him, but every sentence that left his lips only felt like a slap to your face.
“I’m happy for you, John,” you said, your voice wavering. You were happy for him—you really were—but John didn’t buy it.
He frowned. “Well…?”
You blinked again, your brows furrowing in confusion. “Well, what?”
“Are you going to take me out to celebrate?”
“Celebrate?” You huffed a laugh, taking his words as a joke. But one look at John’s face told you he was entirely serious.
Your lips twisted right back into a frown, your brows furrowing as dread began to settle in your gut.
“John… look around you. I can barely afford to keep this place running, much less take you out to celebrate your promotion. And besides, you’re making so much more than me now. Wouldn’t it financially make more sense for you to take us out if you really wanted to celebrate?”
You knew the words were blunt and straightforward, but truthfully, you didn’t have it in you to beat around the bush to cushion John’s feelings. You were drowning, and you needed to be honest with your partner.
John sighed, stepping closer and resting a hand on your shoulder.
“Honey, if money was that important to me—then I wouldn’t be with you right now, would I?”
Before you even knew it, you were looking at your partner not with the eyes of a lover—but with the eyes of an enemy.
“Excuse me?” You ripped yourself away from his touch, his hand dropping as you stared at him in utter disbelief. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
John let out a long sigh, his classic way of telling you that you were blowing things out of proportion. “I’m just saying, I don’t care about your financial situation. I’m looking past it because I love you. You don’t have to get so defensive.”
You wanted to cry. Your body was so coiled with nothing but rage, and right now, the only person you wanted to take it out on was John.
“Look past it?” Your voice cracked as it began to rise. “You’re looking past the fact that I run myself dry trying to keep a roof over my head with zero support from you? I can’t afford groceries, and instead of asking how I am, you walk in here, cut me off, brag about your money, and insult my business!”
“Oh, here we go with the drama,” John scoffed, throwing his hands up as if he were the victim. “It’s a rundown complex in Greece, honey, not the Hilton. You’re overreacting like you always do—”
“I am not overreacting! You are being incredibly selfish—”
“What’s going on here?”
You were so caught up in the yelling match that you hadn’t even heard the footsteps creaking down the stairs and into the office.
Both you and John turned to find Bucky and Eleni standing by the archway that led to the stairs. Bucky was dressed appropriately this time. By the looks of it, he had no intention of eavesdropping—he was just politely leading Eleni out of the building.
You swallowed hard. What a funny predicament to be in—complaining about Bucky and his noise just minutes ago, only to end up doing the exact same thing.
“It’s nothing,” you mumbled, averting your attention back to John. But John was already looking elsewhere—more specifically, right at Eleni.
“You sure? Sounded like things were getting pretty heated in here,” Bucky said, trying to make a joke that landed flat. “I was just leading Eleni out. You can go right back to tearing at each other’s throats once I escort her out, thanks.”
Eleni had been following close behind Bucky like a lost puppy, looking a little flustered, until her eyes scanned the lobby and landed squarely on the man standing next to you—who was already staring at her.
She froze, her jaw dropping. “John?” she gasped.
The color drained from John’s face, his cocky posture instantly stiffening into a defensive stance. “…E-Eleni?”
You blinked, looking between your boyfriend and the woman who had just been in your tenant’s bed. “Wait. You two know each other?”
Eleni gave you the exact same treatment you had given her earlier. She zipped right past you, completely forgetting about you and Bucky, and folded her arms tightly over her chest. “John, you asshole! You ghosted me after Cabo! You blocked my number and never returned any of my calls!”
The office went dead silent. Aside from the whirring fan, of course.
You felt your heart drop into your stomach. Cabo? John had mentioned going on a ‘business conference’ to Cabo—but that was only two months ago.
No.
He couldn’t have…
You slowly turned your head to look at John, silently pleading to whatever cruel God that was currently tormenting you to just give you a break. You hoped John would deny it, that he would tell this interloper to get lost, even if you hadn’t had the guts to do it yourself when she was upstairs.
But he didn’t. All he did was dart his guilty blue eyes around the room, looking anywhere but at the two women he had wronged.
“John…?” you whimpered.
And under just a smidge of pressure, John folded.
“I’m sorry!” he barked out defensively. “Look—it was a one-time thing, okay? I got drunk with Lemar on the beach, and… we lost track of time, and Eleni came up to me and—”
“Get the hell out.”
John’s shoulders slumped. He reached out for you again. “Honey, you don’t mean that—”
“Get out of my fucking face, John!” you screamed, slapping his hand away.
“Please, just listen to me for one second!” John pleaded, taking another step closer despite your screaming.
“I know I messed up, okay? I know it was a mistake—but look at the bigger picture here! I just got promoted. I’m making double now! I can take care of you. I can fund this entire complex and even… even fix the plumbing smell you’re always complaining about! Whatever you want! You won’t have to worry about a single cent anymore. Just please, don’t throw us away over a stupid slip up.”
Slip up?
Was this what he thought this was?
Years of being together, and his infidelity was just a slip up? A stupid moment of weakness?
You had thought that having a boyfriend—someone who loved you unconditionally—was the one thing you could have to yourself in this cruel world. You and John had your ups and downs, sure, but the idea of being in love was what kept you going.
Now, you felt entirely sick to your stomach—humiliated, exhausted, and broken.
“Stop it,” you choked out, a tear finally spilling down your cheek. You stepped forward and weakly slammed your palms against his chest, trying to push him towards the exit. “Just stop talking. Get out!”
Your hands were trembling, completely devoid of the strength you had wielded against him and Bucky just minutes ago. John barely budged under your weak shove. He sighed, reaching out to grab your wrists to stop you.
“Honey, stop. You’re hysterical right now, just calm down and—”
Before his fingers could even brush your skin, Bucky’s broad frame wedged itself between the two of you. He clamped a heavy hand hard onto John’s shoulder, shoving him back as he used his own body as a shield to protect you.
“You heard the woman,” Bucky gritted through clenched teeth, glaring down at your now-ex-boyfriend. “She told you to get the hell out.”
John stumbled back a step, swallowing hard as he looked up at the much larger man.
He tried to reclaim some of his lost dignity, puffing out his chest. “Hey, man, back off. This is between me and my girlfriend. It’s none of your business.”
“When you’re being that loud, your business becomes everyone else’s,” Bucky hissed. “You have three seconds to pack up your pathetic excuses and get your feet off this property before I throw you off it myself.”
If you weren’t such a fragile mess, you might’ve laughed at the fact that Bucky had just used your exact words to throw right back at John.
John looked at Bucky’s tight fists, then glanced past his shoulder at you, where you were wiping away your tears. He huffed a bitter laugh—he knew he couldn’t win a physical fight against Bucky, but that didn’t mean his pride was going down without a fight.
“Wow. Blew one of your tenants so he could act as your security guard since you couldn’t afford one?” John’s face twisted into an ugly, resentful sneer. “Fine. Keep her. I’m leaving.”
You were too busy sniffling behind Bucky—of all people—to notice that his shoulders were shaking with anger.
Bucky knew he wasn’t a saint, especially towards you, but hearing you get degraded by a man like this—a man you had given your heart to—made him unfathomably angry.
If you weren’t in such a sensitive, vulnerable state, Bucky probably would’ve had this guy pinned to the floor by now.
“While you’re at it, go ahead and take Eleni out with you,” Bucky added, nodding toward the woman dismissively, as if he hadn’t been tongue deep in her mouth just minutes ago. “Sounds like you two have some catching up to do, anyway.”
John muttered curses under his breath as he pushed through the exit, a timid Eleni trailing quickly behind him.
When the door shut, leaving just you and Bucky in the office, he turned around to finally look at you—and his heart broke right there in his chest.
He knew he had said and done things to purposefully get under your skin in the past, but seeing you now, looking so small with your cheeks stained with tears, it made him feel like the worst kind of man, despite not being the one who broke your heart.
“Hey,” Bucky murmured gently, resting both hands on your shoulders and leaning down so he was at eye level. “Are you okay—”
He nearly stumbled back from the impact of you burying your face into his chest.
You gripped his shirt tightly as you broke into the most gut wrenching sob he had ever heard in his life.
Without another thought, his arms came up to wrap securely around your body, holding you close against him. One large palm rested at the back of your head, soothing you with a comforting caress.
Bucky didn’t know what to say.
There had been times when he had almost made you cry out of sheer frustration, yeah, but that was almost. Now with you breaking down in his arms, he hated the very idea of you crying, period.
“Hey, he’s gone, okay?” he murmured against your temple. “You’re okay. You’re okay.”
He didn’t know what else to offer other than a couple of “you’re okays” and the occasional “I’m here.”
“I—I don’t understand—” you whimpered into Bucky’s shirt, which was now damp with your tears. “What did I do to deserve this?”
Guilt clawed at his heart while his teeth caught his lower lip hard enough to draw blood.
He knew your words were also a partial reflection on him and how he’d been treating you—constantly making your job so much harder than it needed to be. He sighed, holding you a little closer.
“Nothing. You did nothing,” Bucky said, his tone gentler than you had ever heard it before. “You don’t deserve any of this. And I’m sorry.”
“Thank you,” you sniffled. “For standing up for me. I… I didn’t know what to do. I’m just so tired.”
Bucky felt like the Grinch—his chest tight as his heart softened with each broken word you cried out.
For the first time since he had moved into your complex, he was hearing a thank you leave your lips. He might have expected it if he ever turned his music down on the first ask, or helped you take out the trash. But not once had you muttered those words to him until now, while you were weeping in his arms and holding onto him like he was the only person you could rely on.
He felt terrible.
He, of all people, didn’t deserve your gratitude.
“Hey, don’t get sappy on me now.” He sighed, caressing your hair again as he rested his chin on the top of your head.
“You’re a strong girl. You’ll be okay.”
As the day bled into the rest of the week, Bucky felt like he was getting whiplash.
One day, you were crying in his arms and seeking his comfort, and the next, it was like you slapped your cold mask back on and went right back to being his personal landlord from hell.
He had made a promise to himself to help you out in small ways—like keeping his mixer at a lower volume, or offering to help paint the window frames. He hadn’t even invited a single girl over since your breakdown. It was selfish of him to think you’d soften up just because he held you while you cried, but you didn’t. Instead, it was the same usual business from you.
“Bucky, turn down your music!”
“Your music is giving me a headache. Lower it.”
“I can’t believe people actually listen to this robot music.”
Today, he had his friends over—Steve and Sam—whom you seemed to detest just as much because of the volume they brought with them.
Sam was lounging in the beanbag chair, his legs sprawled out, while Steve found comfort on Bucky’s bed. All three of them had a cold Mythos beer in hand, taking slow swigs while Bucky focused on mixing a new track on his laptop.
“Turn the music up,” Steve said, gesturing to the monitor with his bottle. “I want to hear how the bass hits on that drop.”
Bucky’s hand hovered over the master volume knob, then hesitated. If he recalled correctly, you had a lot of important calls to make down in the office today. The last thing he wanted to do right now was add more to your plate.
Slowly, he pulled his hand back, leaving the volume exactly where it was. “Nah, it’s loud enough.”
“No way, man. The walls are usually shaking from how loud you play this stuff,” Sam said, furrowing his brows. “Come on. Turn it up.”
Bucky kept his attention glued to his laptop, his hands adjusting everything on his mixer but the volume.
“My landlord is making calls downstairs,” he muttered, trying to sound as dismissive and nonchalant as possible in the hopes his friends would just drop it.
But of course, they don’t.
Steve sat up on the bed, his arms resting on his knees while the green bottle dangled loosely in his fingers. “Hold on. Since when do you care about what your landlord thinks?”
“Especially when it comes to your music,” Sam egged on, that teasing grin spreading across his face.
Bucky felt like he was a cat being cornered. He chewed the inside of his cheek, attempting to play around with the BPM to distract himself, but ended up completely messing up the transition.
“I don’t care what she thinks,” Bucky said quickly, his voice a little too defensive as he clicked aggressively on his trackpad. “I just don’t feel like hearing her run her mouth today.”
“You know, speaking of running her mouth—” Sam pushed himself up on the beanbag chair with a groan. “How did she react when she walked in on you and Eleni? Surely she heard all the noise you two were making, right?”
Steve barked out a laugh, waiting to hear Bucky’s response.
Bucky grimaced at the memory.
Despite them bringing Eleni up, his mind wasn’t on her at all—it was entirely on you and everything that had unfolded that day.
Normally, he’d chug his beer with his track set to the highest volume, laughing alongside Sam and Steve about how you were constantly on his ass, pestering him like a mother. But this time, he recoiled at the way his friends were talking about you.
He didn’t even know how to begin explaining it.
How could he explain that he hadn’t actually slept with Eleni because he’d overheard you arguing with your boyfriend, John? The very same John who got outed for cheating on you with Eleni—the girl Bucky just so happened to have brought home that day.
“We didn’t even sleep together. We were just messing around on the bed, and she came in to complain about the noise,” Bucky muttered with a casual shrug. “That’s it.”
Sam hummed in thought, pausing in the middle of sipping his Mythos. “You know what it sounds like your landlord needs? She needs to loosen up.”
Bucky frowned.
They had no idea what you were going through at all.
“Yeah,” Steve agreed. “Take her to one of your gigs tonight—show her how good your music actually is, and what keeps her rent money coming in.”
Bucky couldn’t picture it. You, loosening up in the middle of a crowded dance floor, actually enjoying the music you constantly complained was nothing but “robot noise.”
“Yeah,” Bucky scoffed. “Like that’s ever going to happen.”
Steve shrugged. “A girl like that wouldn’t be hard to impress. Who knows, maybe she’ll realize the nightlife she’s missing out on here in Greece, ditch her lame boyfriend, and give you a chance instead—”
“Alright, alright, enough.” Bucky waved his hand, spinning around in his chair to glare at Steve. He hated how obvious it was that he cared. “Can we just get back to working on my mix? I need it ready and sounding perfect by Friday night.”
Sam’s brows rose. “Oh, Friday night! That’s the perfect amount of time for you to convince her to come out—”
Bucky groaned, rubbing the space between his brows to soothe his impending headache. “Christ, Sammy. Would you just shut up—”
“Eeeeek!”
Bucky was cut off by a loud, piercing screech echoing from down the stairs—straight from your office. He immediately sat up straight in his chair, his eyes widening.
Steve grimaced. “Jesus. What’s wrong with her now—”
But before Steve could even finish his sentence, Bucky was already throwing himself out of his chair. He lunged out the door and raced down the stairs toward you. As his feet pounded against the creaky steps, his mind scrambled through every worst case scenario.
Had John returned to threaten you?
Was a potential tenant giving you a hard time?
Either way, he was ready to tear them apart. And he didn’t care if Steve or Sam were right behind him to witness it.
“Hey!” Bucky barked, breathless as he rounded the corner into the office. “Are you okay—”
“Oh my god, oh my god, get away! No! Don’t get any closer!” you squealed.
Bucky froze in the doorway, only to find you stranded on top of your desk chair, your legs wobbly as you tried to keep yourself from falling. Your eyes were wide with terror, staring down at the floor. Bucky tilted his head to get a better look at what was going on.
Sitting right at the base of your chair was a stray white cat. Her tail was swishing lazily against the floor, and she was proudly holding a very dead, very fat rat between her teeth.
Bucky’s shoulders instantly slumped as he realized he wouldn’t be throwing hands with John after all—and just how ridiculous this entire situation was.
“Bucky, help me!” you wailed, pointing a shaky finger at the feline. “Get it out! Get it out of here right now!”
“Which one?” Bucky crossed his arms, making absolutely no effort to rush to your rescue. “The rodent, or the cat?”
“The rat, Bucky! Oh my god—she’s getting closer, ew!” You whipped your head toward him, frazzled. “Do something!”
Bucky sighed heavily.
He was on a tight time crunch, needing his mix ready by Friday for a gig at a massive club here in Greece—and now his precious time was being spent trying to wrestle a stray cat.
Then again, he had made a silent promise to himself to start helping you out.
He stepped away from the doorframe and closer to you, making exaggerated shooing motions at the animal.
“Shoo! Go on, get out of here. And take your friend with you.”
The cat looked up at Bucky with big, round blue eyes that perfectly matched his own, let out a raspy mewl, and turned her head right back to you. Wanting to ensure her favorite human accepted the prize, the cat pushed herself up on her hind legs, stretching her paws onto the seat of the chair to drop the limp rodent right at your feet.
“Oh my god, no! Don’t do that! Ew, ew, ew! No!”
You could’ve sworn you saw the dead rat twitch.
Panic completely overrode your system. Without a single thought for your pride or your dignity, you launched yourself off the chair and jumped straight into Bucky’s arms.
Bucky looked up, his eyes widening as he realized what you were doing, but it was already too late to brace himself.
He let out a oomph! as your body collided with his, nearly knocking him right off his feet. With a huff, his arms hooked around your waist and thighs to catch you before you both could hit the floor. He stumbled back, struggling to find his balance as you wrapped your arms around his neck, burying your face into the crook of his shoulder in panic.
He had never expected to find you in his arms again so soon—much less over a damn cat.
“You’re okay,” Bucky sighed, caressing your back. “Look! She’s already taking the rat away.” He reassured, despite the cat not moving a single paw.
You kept your face buried, your fingers tightly bunching the fabric of the back of his shirt. “Is she really? Promise me you’re not lying, Bucky.”
“Buck! We’re coming! Hold on—”
Steve’s voice echoed through the hallway as he and Sam burst through the office doorway in a sprint. Both of them had their shoulders squared and their fists clenched, ready to throw down in whatever fight Bucky had gotten himself into.
But they came to a halt, their eyes wide as they took in the view.
There was Bucky, holding the very woman he claimed to detest so much securely in his arms—bridal style, at that.
“Oh,” Sam chuckled, raising a brow. “Are we interrupting something?”
Bucky’s neck flushed a deep crimson. Even with your body tucked firmly against his, he was focused on the mortification of Steve and Sam drilling their stares directly into the side of his head.
“Get the rat out of the room!” he hissed through clenched teeth.
He tried to speak quietly so he wouldn’t startle you with the word rat, but the attempt obviously failed—because, well… you were right there, and you squealed in response.
Sam didn’t move, his grin only widening. “I don’t know, Buck. Pest control wasn’t really on the itinerary today. What’s the magic word?”
Bucky now understood why you hated his friends so much.
“Sam, I swear to God—”
Seeing that his best friend was about to combust from embarrassment, Steve finally took pity on him.
“Alright, alright, I’ve got it,” Steve reassured, stepping past them. He grabbed a plastic clipboard from your desk, using it like a makeshift shovel to carefully scoop the dead rodent off the chair.
“Ugh, that thing is huge,” Sam pointed out—eliciting another loud squeal from you—as he held the door open for Steve so they could dump it in the trash bins outside.
“Is it gone?” you whimpered into his chest.
Bucky looked down, his eyes softening as he took in the way your nose was pressed directly into his shirt. “It’s gone. I promise.”
With a relieved breath, you gently pushed yourself out of Bucky’s grasp until your feet hit the floor. He hated the sudden, empty space between the two of you.
Trying to bridge the gap you just created, Bucky stepped closer again, resting a warm palm on your shoulder. “Are you alright?”
He spoke so softly, with a gentleness that caught you off guard.
Heat tickled the back of your neck, your heart beating rapidly from the embarrassment of your outburst—and the fact that you had run straight into Bucky’s arms for comfort yet again.
“I-I’m fine,” you stammered, straightening yourself.
Steve and Sam were just about to walk back inside, but they stopped when they saw Bucky leaning down, his thumb now softly caressing your cheek.
They knew their friend had a long track record of being a blatant flirt and a playboy, but never once had they seen him soften up the way he was right now. Exchanging looks, the two of them played it smart and silently agreed to turn around, letting their friend have his chance.
You gently stepped away from Bucky’s touch, letting out a soft sigh at the cat still perched in the middle of the office floor. You hoped averting your attention elsewhere would soothe the awkwardness.
“Why’d you do that, Alpine? Are you trying to scare me to death?” you murmured, kneeling down to give her a gentle pat on her dusty head.
Bucky furrowed his brows. “She has a name?”
“She was a stray hiding near the trash bins a few weeks ago. I ran to the market next door to buy some food for her, and she’s been following me ever since. But I didn’t think she’d stick around long enough to gift me a…” You shuddered at the mere thought. “…a rat.”
He chuckled, kneeling down right next to you to offer the cat a few pets of his own.
“That’s cute,” he murmured. “Look at you, always on top of taking care of things—even the neighborhood strays.”
You let out a small laugh, the sound soft, warm, and genuine against his eardrums.
Bucky felt like his chest was going to explode. You were so close, smiling brightly in a way he almost never saw from you. As the last of your laughter trickled in the air, he realized this was his perfect opportunity.
The atmosphere between you two was soft. Your walls were down, and he could take this conversation exactly where he wanted it to go.
Are you free this Friday night?
Do you want to come see my set at the club? We could even dance together.
I actually named one of my tracks after you.
But you spoke up before he could. “Oh, I almost forgot. I wanted to say thank you.”
Bucky shrugged casually. “The rat was no problem—”
“No, not just for the rat. I meant for everything else,” you clarified, sitting up straight and meeting him in the eye.
“These past few days, I’ve noticed you’ve been… well, on your best behavior.” You offered a sheepish smile as you struggled to find the right words. “You’ve been lowering your music whenever I ask you to, and I really appreciate it. So, thank you.”
Bucky huffed a laugh.
Here you were—showing gratitude just because he was finally giving you the bare minimum. He didn’t deserve you.
“Yeah, well, even if my music isn’t blasting at full volume, it still sounds good,” he joked, flashing you a confident grin.
You rolled your eyes, letting your hands gently pet down Alpine’s spine. She was purring.
“You keep telling yourself that,” you teased back. “I still don’t know how you can listen to music like that all day, much less produce it.”
“It’s not music you listen to all day,” Bucky adjusted his posture so he was a bit more relaxed as he sat on the floor. “It’s music you listen to when the stars are out while strobe lights are blinding you.”
Without even realizing it, he started rambling.
“It’s the kind of music that's meant to make you feel good. To push all the thoughts out of your head, drown out the noise of the rest of the world, and just let yourself loose for a little while.”
You hummed in thought.
For the entire time you’ve known Bucky, you had never bothered to ask about his DJing simply because you didn’t care to.
You’d always figured it was just a stupid hobby he did to piss you off and disrupt your peace—but the way he talked about it now, passionately getting lost in his own words, made you interested to say the least.
“You should come to one of my gigs one day and see what it’s like,” he murmured, his voice sounding far more vulnerable than his usual confidence. “It’ll be fun.”
You blew a raspberry, though you weren’t entirely put off by the idea.
“I appreciate the invite, but look around you, Bucky,” you huffed, letting out a self-deprecating laugh. “This place is running on my bare hands alone. I can’t afford a night off.”
“Then let me help you,” Bucky interrupted, turning his body so he was giving you his undivided attention. “You need help painting the window frames and fixing the plumbing, right? I’ll take care of it.”
You blinked, your eyes widening in surprise.
Bucky… helping you?
This was completely out of character for him. You braced yourself for the catch, waiting for him to follow up with something like, “As long as I can bring home whoever I want, play my music as loud as I want, and get a discount on my monthly rent,” but nothing came.
“I don’t know, Bucky—”
“Come on, sweetheart,” he grinned, that taunting tone creeping back into his voice. “Let someone help you for once.”
You searched his eyes, trying to catch a punchline, but still, there was nothing.
You didn’t quite believe him. You figured this was just his way of tossing you sympathy points to get you to praise him some more, only for him to end up doing absolutely nothing.
So, you just sighed, rolled your eyes, and pushed yourself up off the floor.
“Whatever you say, Barnes.”
To your surprise, Bucky had actually made true to his promise and helped you around the complex.
He was already up most mornings before you even arrived, blasting his music from his speakers. Instead of just fixing the paint on the window panels, he reinstalled new ones and painted them over with the pretty blue you’ve been eyeing.
It made you feel giddy, seeing him in a tank top and jeans that were covered in both dirt and blue paint.
“Morning,” you shouted over the music, setting your cup of coffee down at your desk. Alpine was still here—curled up in your chair. Bucky must’ve let her in.
“You’re already working on the window panels?”
Bucky didn’t hear you at first, sweeping his paintbrush back and forth until he lifted his head in your direction. He reached over to his Bluetooth speaker, lowering his music to a much more appropriate volume for seven in the morning.
“Oh, yeah.” He pushed himself up with a groan. “Thought I’d get started on the easy stuff first.”
He crossed his arms, taking a step back to admire his work. Then, he looked at you for your reaction.
“How… how do you like it?”
You wanted to jump up and down in glee with how beautiful the windows looked. The bright blue color made everything much more welcoming and inviting, but you didn’t want to give Bucky the opportunity to gloat just yet.
“Hm,” you tilted your head. You could feel Bucky growing anxious beside you—though he tried his best not to show it. “I think I want it in a different shade of blue, actually.”
Bucky’s eyes nearly bulged out of their sockets. He raised his hands, about to protest, but you broke down in a laugh.
“I’m kidding,” you said, wiping a tear at his reaction. “It’s perfect. I love it.”
He let out a heavy sigh of relief, but you could still see the grump lines on his face. “Good. Otherwise I would’ve painted your face blue,” he muttered, motioning to the paintbrush.
“Oh? You mean like this?”
You quickly snatched the brush out of his hands, and before he could even process what was going on, you had already swiped a stripe of blue paint over his stubbled cheek.
Bucky stood there, wide eyed. He swiped his thumb over the paint and looked down at his fingers, appalled. But while you were busy laughing in his face, a slow smile cracked across his lips. He suddenly lunged for you, wrapping his strong arms around your body from behind. He hooked the paintbrush back out of your hands, smearing a streak of blue over your face as well.
“Bucky, stop!” you yelled, thrashing in his arms as you just barely dodged the bristles that were tickling your chin with paint. “Stop! I can’t be covered in paint—I have to work!” you argued, despite the breathless laughter breaking in between your words.
“Yeah, well. You should’ve thought about that before you attacked me first, sweetheart.”
From that day onward, your week with Bucky had been filled with more laughter than you’ve had in the entire course of previous months.
Each day was eventful—Bucky was always up early in the morning working on the complex, somehow always managing to find new things to fix, while you arrived with cups of coffee and a bag of treats for Alpine.
During break times, you and Bucky would eat lunch together in his apartment, and he introduced you to more and more of his music.
Every time you two worked, he always had his music playing. Slowly, you started to become fond of it. There were even a few tracks of his that you liked so much, you actually saved them to your own playlist. And every time you asked him for the track title, Bucky would laugh and say, “See? I told you my mixes are good.”
Now, you were sitting on his beanbag chair with your legs crossed, the two of you eating pitas with cold beers to wash them down.
“It’s all about the frequencies,” Bucky said, gesturing to the DJ controller sitting on his desk. He set his beer down, leaning forward as his fingers traced the knobs and sliders. “You’ve got your lows, mids, and highs. If I want to drop the bass out to create suspense before the hook hits, I twist this dial right here.”
He clicked a button, and the beat lost its thump thump, turning into an airy synth. Then, he slid a fader up, and the thumping beat came back in.
“That’s pretty cool. It’s a lot more complicated than I thought.” You leaned your head back against the beanbag, looking up at him with a sheepish grin. “Honestly, I just thought guys up there would bop their heads to pre-made music and pretend like they’re doing something. I didn’t think they played it all live.”
Bucky chuckled, his shoulders shaking as he swiveled his chair to face you. “Surprising, isn’t it?”
He glanced at his desk, then back to you. “Come here,” he nodded his head toward the console. “Try playing something.”
“What?” you said, sitting up straight. “No. Knowing my luck, I’d touch something and it’d break.”
Bucky huffed a laugh.
Who would’ve thought that the very woman who had threatened to throw his entire DJ setup out the window was actually too scared to even touch it?
“Enough of that. Come here, I’ll show you.”
Judging by the look on Bucky’s face, you knew he wasn’t going to let this up. With a reluctant sigh, you pushed yourself off the beanbag chair and walked over to him. He scooted his chair back, giving you the space to step right up to his setup.
You felt your face warm up instantly when he swiveled right back around, locking you between his desk and his lap.
“Sit down,” Bucky instructed from behind you.
You glanced over your shoulder and swallowed hard. His lap was spread, and he was leaning as far back in his chair as possible to make space for you. You wanted to make an excuse, to say you were much better off standing, but you knew Bucky would just fight you on it.
Mustering up your courage, you sat down, pressing your bottom directly into his lap. Bucky didn’t seem to mind it at all—meanwhile, your face was burning like crazy.
“Here,” he murmured, reaching around you to grab your arm. He guided it toward one of the sliders and placed his hand firmly over yours, setting your fingers down gently on the control.
Bucky’s palm was rough and warm against the back of your hand.
He leaned in closer, his chest pressing into your back, and you could feel the rumbly vibration of his chuckle against you.
“Relax,” he murmured right against your ear, his breath tickling your neck. “I’m not gonna bite. Unless you ask nicely.”
You hated him. You really did.
“Bucky, I swear to God—”
Bucky nudged your hand forward, forcing your fingers to slowly push the slider upward. As the fader moved, the track playing through the monitors began to warp.
“That’s the high-pass filter,” Bucky explained softly. He shifted slightly beneath you, adjusting his thighs under your bottom. “Hear how it cuts out the low end? Now, wait for the timer on the screen to hit zero, and slam it back down.”
You did exactly as instructed, yanking it down the second the timer hit zero, and a smile broke across your face at the bass.
“Wow, that sounds pretty good,” you breathed.
Curiosity got the best of you, and you started to play around with the different sliders on your own—creating a whole new funky and out of beat mix. You messed with the distortion and the reverb, and it sounded terrible enough to make you burst into laughter, with Bucky laughing right along beneath you.
You pressed a button, then a beep! noise came after. A red light started blinking at the soundboard.
“You’re recording now,” he said. “Want to sing something?”
“God, no.” You laughed.
Sooner or later, you felt his hands slowly drift from your arms down to your hips. Surprisingly, you didn’t mind his touch one bit. It felt entirely natural. Like his hands were always meant to be right there—guiding you, holding you…
“Come watch me play on Friday,” he murmured gently.
You looked down at him over your shoulder, and your breath caught. Bucky had been staring up at you this entire time. His blue eyes bored right into yours the minute you made eye contact, with no intention to break it first.
“Bucky, I…”
“I can get you in for free—you can skip the line, or come whenever you want. Just take one night off for yourself. You deserve it.”
You chewed your lower lip, feeling apprehensive. You and Bucky had done enough hard work over the last few days to compensate for the rest of the week, essentially clearing your schedule.
Looking into Bucky’s eyes—seeing the blue glimmer with hope just like the Greek ocean does on a sunny day—made it so much harder to say no. He had done so much for you these past few weeks, and the very least you could do was watch him do something he was truly passionate about.
“Fine. But only if you play my favorite tracks,” you said with a teasing smile.
Bucky blinked, as if he hadn’t heard you right.
Then, his lips pulled into the biggest, brightest grin you’d ever seen from him. His grip on your hips tightened before trailing up to your waist. Hell, he’d delete this entire set he had been working on for months if it meant you’d come watch him.
He was so overjoyed with excitement that he didn’t offer any words to prove it.
Instead, he pulled your waist a little tighter, tilted his head up, and kissed you.
You froze, your eyes going wide as his warm lips connected with yours.
You?
Kissing Bucky?
You never thought you would see the day. But the second his slick lips began to dance with yours—the second his tongue pushed past your lips to taste you—it was like all the stress from before this, all the emotional drain from your breakup with John, disappeared in an instant.
“Mmm,” you moaned into the kiss. Your hands flew to the back of his neck, burying into his messy brown hair and giving it a firm tug that made him groan right back against your mouth.
Bucky’s hands slid up from your waist, his large palms smoothing against your ribs and moving to your back to pull you closer against him.
He tasted like the cold beer, but his mouth was intoxicating heat.
Bucky had his fair share of kisses with women—just as you had your fair share of makeout sessions with John. But neither of you had to say a single word to know that this was it. This kiss shared between you two was like no other.
His hands roamed under your tank top, his fingers tickling your lower back as he trailed upward.
Of course, you had no bra on. You never wore one in this suffocating summer heat. That was one of Bucky’s favorite things about you.
Bucky broke the kiss to catch his breath, his head leaning back against the chair to gaze up at you. His eyes flickered down, lifting the hem of your shirt to reveal your smooth belly. He had seen your midriff from a distance whenever you bent over in your office—but never up close like this.
He groaned hungrily, then leaned in, pressing soft, warm kisses to your abdomen.
“A—ah, Bucky…” you mewled, squirming from the ticklish sensation.
He looked up at you with the softest eyes a boy could have, leaning his cheek right against your fluttering stomach. His stubble made you ticklish, but he didn’t pull away.
“I love it when you say my name like that,” he sighed dreamily. “You’re so beautiful.”
Your face warmed and you stammered, avoiding eye contact.
It was clear to Bucky that you weren’t used to receiving compliments, especially not from your no-good ex-boyfriend, John Walker.
But that was okay, because Bucky was here to change that.
“The most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen,” he murmured. You tried to shy away from his compliment again, but his fingers trailed up to your chin, tilting your head down so you were forced to look at him.
“The prettiest eyes, the prettiest smile,” his thumb traced patterns on your bare hip. “And the prettiest lips. God, those lips.”
He leaned in to press his lips against yours once more. Your tongues danced in a warm embrace as he slowly began to undress you, starting with your tank top. His hands eagerly lifted the fabric, breaking the kiss momentarily just so he could pull it over your head before his mouth crashed right back down onto yours.
In between kisses, he would murmur things like, “So beautiful,” and “Mine,” every soft word matching the steady blood flow pumping from his heart and straight to cock.
When his hands found the button of your shorts, you rolled your hips forward, grinding that hot, delicious heat right against the growing bulge in his jeans.
He chuckled raspily against your lips before pulling away, his lips swollen and his chin sheen with exchanged saliva.
“Eager little thing, are you?”
You groaned in annoyance, though it sounded incredibly sexy to his ears.
You worked at his belt, then moved to the button of his jeans. “Take these off.”
Bucky clicked his tongue. His hand caught your wrist, gently prying it away from his pants. “You’ve ought to learn how to say please.”
His arms wrapped securely around your body, lifting you up from the chair so suddenly that you yelped, wrapping your legs around his waist instinctively. He led you quickly over to the edge of his bed, setting your body down and tucking himself right between your thighs.
“Besides,” he breathed, eagerly pulling your shorts down along with your panties and throwing them over his shoulder. “I’m still not done with you. I want to take my time worshiping this fucking body.”
You lay there sprawled out and bare while Bucky was still fully clothed. It was overwhelming, but you didn’t have time to fully process it before Bucky’s head tucked between your thighs, his nose pressing to your base as he inhaled deeply.
“Fuck, you’re dripping already.”
You arched your back, letting out a shocked gasp. “B-Bucky—! What are you—!”
“Relax,” he murmured against your sensitive skin, his hands finding your outer thighs and prying them wider for him. “Just want to taste you, baby.”
Bucky’s tongue swiped flat against your dripping center, the tip of his tongue flicking your sensitive clit. He groaned, letting the taste of you linger on his mouth.
He glanced to look at you between your legs, and the sight of your face—brows pinching together with your bottom lip caught between your teeth—made his cock painfully hard. You lying bare in front of him was an invitation for him to sink his cock into you, but he wanted to savor this.
He tucked his head back down, lapping at your pussy sloppily. His warm tongue would tease your entrance with every flick, before slowly dragging up. He’d press his whole mouth against your pussy, pushing his tongue deep against your clit and dragging his tongue up and down quickly to make you cry out in pleasure.
“Bucky—please, oh god, Bucky—!”
He swirled his tongue around the swollen peak of your clit, sucking it into his mouth with a light tug that had your toes curling around his head.
You were so deprived of intimate touches, never being ate out in a way that Bucky was eating you out, and you already felt like you were about to cum embarrassingly fast.
“Don’t stop, I’m gonna cum—” you whimpered, hand coming up to your mouth to muffle your cries.
Bucky had no intention of stopping.
He doubled his efforts, the sound of his wet tongue squelching against your cunt, lapping at every drip your arousal gave him. He was eager to make you fall apart, to listen to you cry out his name as you came all over his face.
Bucky inhaled sharply as you began riding his tongue with abandon. You were being selfish—chasing your high. He knew you were that kind of woman, to take what you wanted, and fuck, did he love you for it. Especially when you’re riding his face for your own pleasure, not even caring if he could breathe or not.
“Yes, yes, yes,” you moaned, tossing your head. “Fuck me with your tongue, Bucky. I’m gonna cum—!”
Your eyes went wide when you realized you were about to let out more than you could handle. But you couldn’t stop—not when Bucky was pressing his tongue firmly against your clit and holding your thighs down with his strong hands.
“Bucky—wait, I…” before you could warn him, your back arched off the bed into a cry.
Your orgasm came hot and hard, pleasure suddenly flooding your senses as you felt yourself gush around his tongue. Bucky’s face was drowning with your juices, your puffy cunt clenching around his mouth. Your wet essence trickled down your thighs and stained his bedsheets vulgarly, leaving a wet spot beneath you.
“Oh my god,” you panted, face burning hot as you fought to catch your breath.
Bucky finally pulled away, a smug grin plastered on his face while his chin was dripping with your juice. You watched as he licked his lips, the gesture only making you want to sink deeper into his bed from embarrassment.
“Look at that,” he kneeled back, hand rubbing his hard cock through his jeans. “You made a real mess on my bed.”
Your eyes were shamelessly glued to the way his dick was printed against his pants. It was strained tight against the denim, and you could see the heavy outline of his tip, spurting pre-cum and dampening his thigh with his own juice.
“I’m… I’m sorry…”
Bucky chuckled—a deep, raspy sound that made you clench around nothing.
“God, baby. You’ve got my dick so hard, it hurts,” he rasped, finally pulling his cock out of his pants and kicking the article off the bed. “You already came so much. I don’t know if you can go another round.”
You weren’t sure, either. But with the way he was jerking himself off, that heavy string of pre-cum dangling from his tip, and the way his balls looked so full and desperate for relief, you were determined to go another.
He crawled over you, dragging his tip along your shaking inner thigh and against your entrance, coating himself in your wetness as he probed you.
You were so sensitive, your pussy puffy and aching, yet when he pushed his tip in to test you, your cunt parted for him so easily. You winced, your overworked pussy already fluttering around his tip despite yourself.
“Please, Bucky…” you whined, and it might’ve been the cutest thing Bucky had ever heard. “Put it in. It hurts…”
“It hurts? Aw, baby. But I bet you’re not hurting as much as I am.” He grabbed your hand, guiding it down to his cock. It was so hot, his skin smooth as it twitched under your fingertips. “Feel that? It’s aching for you, baby.”
Bucky grabbed your hips, aligning himself perfectly so he could sink in deeper, pushing his tip past your tight walls until half of his cock was embraced by your warmth.
“Fuck, you’re tight… even after cumming,” he hissed, his face tightening as he eagerly pushed his hips forward to stretch you out. “Like you were made for this.”
Already sensitive, the sudden fullness was overwhelming. A high-pitched gasp tore from your throat as your walls clamped down hard on him, tightening around the middle of his cock where he was thickest.
You whimpered and winced, trying to accommodate him, and Bucky felt his heart soar.
You were usually always so demanding, wound up so tight from constantly being overworked, and now you were wound up tight from his cock bottoming out in your pussy. Each moan and gasp of breath that left your lips made his cock twitch and his balls heavier.
“Those cute little noises—it makes my cock throb so hard,” he groaned.
Once his cock was fully sheathed inside, he started to pick up the pace, his balls slapping against you with wet and obscene smacks. His room—usually filled with the sounds of his music—was now filled with the sounds of your moans, and that was the greatest sound Bucky had ever produced.
He was fucking you so deep, each thrust met with curses and grunts. “So fucking beautiful,” “What a tight little pussy, fuck.” “You’re gonna make me cum so fast. M’already getting close…”
Each moan that left his lips made white spots dance around your vision. He was so deep, you could feel him in your gut. Pressure was building fast in your lower abdomen—a fullness that was equally agonizing and overwhelming.
Bucky’s big body was enveloping yours, his chest pressed into your sweaty one as he rocked his hips sensual and deep. He quickened his pace, in and out, in and out, until he felt his balls clench up.
“Shit, shit—” he gasped into your shoulder. “Not gonna last.”
Your pussy was like a drug. It was addicting, the way you would squeeze and flutter around him. Despite him making you squirt all over his sheets just minutes ago, you were already edging on your next orgasm. He felt every ripple and pulse your cunt had to offer—pumping him with your pussy before you cried out in pleasure so overwhelming, it made you see stars.
“Bucky!” you screamed, “oh my god—I’m cumming again—I can’t—”
Fuck, this was the fastest he had ever came.
“Please tell me you’re on the pill,” he pleaded with a broken voice.
That was essentially your warning that he was gonna cum inside. And when you nodded, that was his invitation to do it.
His entire body coiled up tight as he started pumping you full of his backed up seed. He couldn’t even remember the last time he had sex before you. All that mattered now was that his balls were finally being drained inside the person he wanted to pump them in the most—his precious landlord.
“Shit. I’m cumming, fuck! You’re squeezing me so tight—” he gasped as his body collapsed over you, huffing angry groans as his body tensed—draining every drop of his cum into your overly fucked pussy.
The two of you lay tangled in each other’s sweaty limbs, melting under the shared, musky scent of sex.
While Bucky was catching his breath, he peppered you with wet kisses—to your collarbones, shoulders, neck, and chin.
“You’re so pretty. Could lay with you forever—just like this.”
Who knew that Bucky Barnes, of all people, was the one person you slept with who made you feel more pleasure and adored than John ever had?
Your heart felt too big for your chest, and you felt like you wanted to cry. The way he held you and murmured sweet things to soothe your heart—it all became too much.
A small sniffling sound escaped you before you could stop it, and Bucky caught it immediately. He tilted his head up and looked at you, wide eyed.
“Hey, hey,” he cooed so softly, his palms coming up to caress your cheeks so you would look at him. “What’s wrong? Are you okay? Did I hurt you?”
Bucky was so soft, looking at you with wide, adoring eyes, like you were the only woman in the world and the only one he wanted to be with. It was hard to believe that this was the same man who always made sure to get a rise out of you just weeks ago.
“I’m… I’m okay,” you stammered. “I just… didn’t expect all this.”
Bucky frowned, his touch so delicate as if he were afraid of hurting you.
“I’m sorry—”
“No, don’t apologize,” you interjected gently, your fingers running through his sweaty strands of dark hair so you could see his eyes. “I loved every bit of it.”
He searched your eyes, his brows furrowing with vulnerability as he tried to find the truth in your words. When you held his gaze, showing how sincere you were, his frown tilted back into a sheepish smile—a far cry from his usually smug grins that you always wanted to wipe off.
“Good. Because I don’t regret a single bit of it,” he leaned in, capturing your lips with a wet kiss. “You better come on Friday. Watch me play. Then, after my set, we’ll come back home and make love all over again.”
You grinned at how blatant he was. But lying here with him, soaked up in each other’s essence, it was hard for you to say no.
“Fine. I’ll take your word for it.”
With how busy you were taking care of the complex, Friday night came in the blink of an eye.
Despite living in Greece, on an island notorious for its nightlife, you weren’t a fan of clubbing at all. You were always so busy, elbows deep in the run down housing complex just to keep it afloat—so naturally, you didn’t have anything to wear.
When you had asked Bucky for advice, he told you, “Whether you wear a short skimpy dress or a skirt that goes down to your ankles, I’ll be tearing it off later in bed.”
You had rolled your eyes at that before settling on a dress that was far too short and far too tight for your liking. But you couldn’t be bothered to care, considering the club would be dark and packed enough with bodies that no one would notice your outfit anyway.
You arrived later than you had anticipated, having been caught up with last minute paperwork and calls. By the time you got there, the club was already packed nearly shoulder to shoulder, with colorful neon strobe lights dancing across the crowd.
Your eyes naturally gravitated to the stage, where a familiar—if slightly fancier—DJ setup stood right in the center.
And of course, Bucky was right behind it.
He was manning the mixer, getting lost in his own music while the lights danced around him. One hand was resting on the mixer while the other rested on his headset. He kept his promise of playing your favorite tracks—and you couldn’t help but smile with the way he had everyone dancing in the center.
You felt out of place, standing awkwardly by the bar while everyone danced drunkenly around you. Unlike Bucky, this was not your element at all. But you took the night off, making a promise to yourself, and Bucky, that you would enjoy yourself.
Remembering Bucky’s instructions from earlier that day, “Just go up to the bar, tell them you’re with me, and get whatever you want,” you pushed your way through the crowd to get the bartender’s attention for a drink.
A guy with a slammed expression who looked like he’d been dealing with unruly tourists all night finally looked at you.
“Hey,” you shouted over the music.
“What’ll it be, miss?”
“A double Tsipouro—I’m with Bucky,” you hiked your thumb over your shoulder, pointing at the DJ who was currently mixing your favorite track.
The bartender paused, looking at Bucky on stage, then back at you with an irritated scoff.
“Yeah, like I’ve never heard that one before,” he grabbed a double shot glass, filled it to the brim, and slid it towards you. “That’ll be €8.”
You frowned. You contemplated on arguing back, but the local girls next to you giggled after they eavesdropped on the interaction, and by then, the bartender was already tending to the next person.
With a sigh that felt almost self-deprecating, you downed the shot without a chaser, and tried to enjoy the rest of the night listening to Bucky’s set without letting that interaction get to you.
After a couple of shots—that you all paid for—you went from being buzzed to intoxicated. You were dancing by yourself in the crowd, relishing every bass and beat that Bucky was throwing up on stage. When an unexpected hand came to rest on your lower back, you instantly spun around to tell the guy off.
“Hey, get your hands off—!” but you stopped when you saw Steve standing right in front of you with Sam right next to him.
“If it isn’t Bucky’s landlord,” Sam teased with a tone that brought good intentions, “I didn’t think we’d ever see you here.”
“Did Bucky drag you out tonight?” Steve asked.
With the alcohol bubbling in your bloodstream, you weren’t sure if you hid your flustered expression well.
You had no clue how much Bucky had told his friends about you—how you two were technically a ‘thing’ now, despite not officially talking about it.
“Yeah,” you shouted back. “He wanted me to come out tonight to watch his set. He’s really good.”
“He definitely is,” Steve agreed, then grabbed your hand. “Well, if you’re out here to party, better make the most of it.”
You laughed as Sam and Steve pulled you further into a clearer pocket of the crowd. With the two guys next to you—warding off the other drunk men who tried getting close to you—you actually started to let loose. You were laughing, your chest feeling lighter than it had in months.
During a transition, you looked up at the stage to see if Bucky had noticed you in the crowd yet.
But then your smile faltered, and you realized you were no longer dancing.
A small group of girls—dressed in tight outfits and looking beautiful—had managed to bypass the side security and were now crowding his DJ setup. They were drunk, based on the way they were stumbling and trying to grind on Bucky—who you thought was just trying to focus on his music. But he smiled.
You didn’t know if that was him trying to save face because he was right there, in front of a whole crowd, but from where you were standing, it seemed like he enjoyed every bit of the attention they were giving him.
You looked down, suddenly feeling incredibly self conscious in your dress.
“Don’t worry about that,” Sam reassured you as he continued dancing. “People get on stage all the time, no matter who’s playing. His set is ending soon, anyway.”
Based on Sam and Steve’s expressions, they weren’t soothing your insecurities, but rather assuming you were just expressing concern for a friend’s safety. They didn’t know you and Bucky had a thing going on at all.
You tried to push those thoughts away for the rest of the night, but how could you? Not when every single time you looked up to see Bucky—the person you came out tonight for—he was being smothered by and dancing with half dressed girls.
You tried to get lost in the music, but instead, you were getting lost in your own thoughts.
It was a horrible, familiar feeling.
It was the exact same feeling you had felt with John, who had sworn he only had eyes for you while routinely crossing boundaries, making you feel like you were crazy for caring, and eventually cheating on you. You had promised yourself you would never let a man make you feel that way again.
And yet, here you were.
You thought about the night you and Bucky had just shared. But what was it to him? Just a fun distraction with his landlord? The woman he always swore he hated? Were you just another checkbox on his list—one he sought after simply because you were ‘playing hard to get’ in his eyes?
Bucky was a playboy. His friends knew it. You knew it. And hell, even the only other tenant in the complex—who was deaf, mind you—knew it.
You were the one who had to watch him constantly bring different girls back to his place week after week. You were the one always barging in on them with noise complaints. He was charming, hot, and clearly popular in clubs, and he knew exactly what to say to get what he wanted.
“Just go up to the bar, tell them you’re with me, and get whatever you want.”
And on top of it all, you remembered what the bartender had said.
“Yeah, like I’ve never heard that one before.”
He had heard it before because Bucky had probably used that exact same line on a dozen other girls.
You weren’t special.
You were just the latest girl on his list, foolish enough to believe his sweet compliments after he ravished you in bed—the very same bed he had shared with countless other women.
Tears stung the backs of your eyes, blurring the flashing strobe lights into a messy smear of color. Your throat choked up, your chest tightening so hard it hurt to breathe.
“Hey,” Steve leaned down, noticing your expression. “You okay?”
You couldn’t even answer him. If you opened your mouth, a sob would escape.
You tried to give Bucky the benefit of the doubt—that this was just his job, that he had to put on a pretty smile and perform. But as you looked up and saw him with a drunk smile, leaning closer to a woman who had her hand on his chest and was shouting something in his ear, that was it for you.
“Sorry, I—I… um, I forgot to finish some paperwork that’s due tomorrow morning,” you lied, trying your best to sound steady. “Have fun tonight.”
Steve and Sam offered to take you home, but you couldn’t let them. You needed to be alone.
And that’s exactly what you did.
You took a cab back by yourself, drunkenly stumbling into the complex’s office with only one thing on your mind. It wasn’t because of stupid paperwork or bills. It was to tear up Bucky’s lease.
You shoved the key into the lock with a clumsy hand. Bursting inside the small office, you slammed the door shut behind you.
The office was dark, but sitting right there in the very center was Alpine. The white cat lifted her head from her food bowl, kibble crumbs decorating her white, fuzzy chin as she blinked tiredly at you.
The sight of her made the tears spill over your cheeks. You were intoxicated, heartbroken, and your emotions were at an all time high— looking at the cat you two took care of together only made the anger burn hotter in your already fragile heart.
“Don’t look at me like that,” you choked out, pointing a shaky finger at the cat. “You and your stupid dad. Your stupid, lying, playboy dad!”
Alpine blinked before letting out a mighty yawn for such a small body. Then, she turned her attention back to her food, completely indifferent to your emotional breakdown.
“Yeah, go ahead and eat!” you cried, wiping furiously at your wet face. “Enjoy it, because both of you are packing your bags! He thinks he can just… smile and say the right things, and I’ll just let my guard down and let him in?”
You marched past the cat and stormed over to the filing cabinets. You grabbed the handle of the bottom drawer and yanked it open so hard that it rattled.
“Where is it…” you muttered, your vision blurred by tears as you began rummaging through the folders. You tossed utility bills, maintenance requests, and old plumbing receipts over your shoulder. “Where is that stupid piece of paper?”
You were going to find his lease.
You were going to tear it into a million pieces, throw it in his face, and kick Bucky Barnes out of your complex.
The office door suddenly pushed open, and you jumped at the unexpected intruder who just barged in.
Bucky stood in the doorway, his chest heaving as the moonlight outlined his body from behind. Any other woman probably would’ve seen him as a god, but to you, he just looked like a man spawned from the very depths of hell.
He looked like he had run all the way from the club—but he couldn’t have, not with how fast he got here.
“Why did you come back here?” He panted.
“Get out of my sight,” you mumbled, so quietly that it was like a part of you didn’t want to mean it.
He ignored you, stepping closer as he caught his breath. “Steve told me you left before I could finish my set—said that you had paperwork to do, but that can’t be right. You told me you cleared your schedule just so you could go to the club tonight—”
“Yeah—well, plans change,” you muttered, finally pulling his folder out from the others. You sorted through it until you found his paperwork, gripping it firmly in your hands.
When Bucky stepped closer and realized what you were doing—your fingers positioned in a way that looked suspiciously like you were about to rip it—he stormed over and snatched the paper right out of your hands.
“What the hell are you doing with that?!”
You glared up at him, your head spinning so fast it hurt. “I’m tearing up your lease. I’m evicting you.”
Bucky blinked, his face a mixture of frustration and confusion.
“Are you trying to play with me right now?” He sighed, setting the paper safely on top of the filing cabinet before bending down to try and lift you up. “Come on. Let’s get you to bed. You’re drunk right now—”
You slapped his hands away, pushing yourself up to stand on your own. “What? Get me in bed so you can add me to the long roster of women you fuck?”
“What?” Bucky’s eyes went wide, looking nearly as hurt as you felt just from that accusation alone. “What are you talking about?”
“Don’t think I don’t know!” a sob ripped from your throat, and you hated how weak it made you sound. “You and your notorious record for being nothing but a player who plays stupid music. You know—it makes sense, actually!”
You hiccuped, slurring your words between tears.
“You being a DJ and playing in clubs and all. It’s such a classic tale, isn’t it? How easy it is for men like you to just… pick up women and bring them home in the middle of the night. And I’m always the one cleaning up your messes and kicking them out the next morning,” you laughed at yourself.
You probably looked insane in his eyes, but you didn’t care.
“Now, look at me. I’m the mess, and no one is there to clean me up. I was stupid to think I was different.”
What the hell were you saying?
None of it even made sense to you anymore. All you felt was an overwhelming wave of anger and hurt. Your head was pounding so bad that you just wanted to lie down and sob until there were no more tears left.
Despite every cruel word you hurled at him, Bucky didn’t get angry. How could he? When almost every word you said was nothing but the truth. All the talk about him being a player, blasting his stupid music loud enough to hurt your eardrums—he couldn’t deny any of it.
Except for one thing, and that was you thinking you weren’t different.
With a soft sigh, his shoulders slumped. He stepped closer, moving quietly so as to not startle you like a cat. When he was finally within reach, he wrapped his arms tightly around your body, pulling you close against his chest in a comforting hug.
“I’m sorry,” he muttered gently against your temple, his voice rough. “You saw all those girls huddled around me at the club, didn’t you? I’m so sorry I made you feel like this.”
You jammed your fists against his chest, weak and uncoordinated. But the alcohol had drained all your strength, leaving you hollowed out and drowning in your own tears.
Bucky took every pathetic blow you gave him, and instead of pulling away, he just tightened his arms around you. With a broken sob, you collapsed into his chest, burying your wet face in his shirt.
You hated this. You hated how every time you were upset, Bucky was always right there, comforting you in this very office. And you especially hated that, despite him being the cause of your current distress, you were still seeking his comfort.
One of his large hands came up to cradle the back of your head, his fingers caressing through your hair, while his other arm held you around your waist.
“I’ve got you, baby. Just breathe.”
You were a weeping, hiccuping mess, your shoulders shaking violently as months of built up insecurity and old, unhealed wounds from John came pouring out all at once. You stained his shirt with your tears and ruined makeup, but Bucky didn’t seem to care at all.
He just held you, swaying you slightly from side to side in the quiet, dark office.
“I know what you’re scared of,” Bucky started with a gentle murmur. “You’ve gotten your heart broken, and you’re scared of opening up and getting hurt again.”
He rested his chin on your head with a sigh, looking blankly at the wall with eyes full of regret.
“And I don’t blame you for feeling that way towards me. I’ve been an awful guy to you from the start, and even now, I failed to make you feel secure with me.” He pressed a kiss to your temple, hoping it would help.
“There was no woman that came before you, and I have no intentions of anyone coming after.”
You wanted to believe him, but everything that left his mouth was just noise. Even drunk and vulnerable, you could feel your heart closing on him to shut him out.
You slowly pulled back, your hands pressing against his chest—not out of anger, but out of a desperate need for distance.
Bucky let you go reluctantly, his hands sliding down to rest loosely on your hips, his blue eyes searching your face with a fragile and heartbreaking hope that made it even harder for you to look away.
“I can’t do this, Bucky,” you whispered. “I like you. I like you so much, and I want to love you... but I can’t. I don’t want to get hurt again. I just want things to go back to the way it was before. Me as your landlord, and you as my tenant. That’s it.”
Bucky knew he deserved every ounce of your doubt, but he hadn’t braced himself for the hurt that came with it.
Still, he forced a pained, tight lipped smile, his eyes telling you just how much he was hurting. His hands twitched on your hips, a painful urge passing through him to pull you back, to hold you against his chest and never let you go.
The words I love you rushed to the tip of his tongue, burning to be said. He wanted to shout it, to promise you the world, to prove to you that he was entirely yours.
But as he looked down at your tear-stained face—at the exhaustion and fear written in your eyes, all because of him—he stopped himself.
Even drunk, you still had the strength to look out for yourself. And because he cared about you more than his own need to fix things, he respected your wishes. He wouldn’t use your vulnerability to force a confession on you. He had always been a selfish man, but he couldn’t afford to be one now.
Bucky swallowed hard, a visible lump forming in his throat as he forced the words back down. His shoulders slumped as he finally accepted defeat.
Slowly, his hands dropped from your hips. He took a single step backward, giving you the space you asked for.
“I get it. I’ll leave you alone. But if you’re ever ready to open your heart to someone again—please, let me be that person.”
Bucky kept his word and left you alone.
Yet, there were countless times when he found himself pacing in his room, or lingering just outside your office, waiting to see if you would open your heart to him again. He held onto the smallest bit of hope that the words you had shouted in a drunken blaze were words you didn’t truly mean—that they had simply come from a place of deeply unhealed hurt.
He stayed close, waiting for a knock on his door, hoping you would tell him you were ready to talk. But that knock never came.
Just like him, you also kept your word and went right back to treating him as if he were nothing more than the annoying tenant from the very beginning.
He still helped you around the complex whenever he had the time—entirely on his own insistence. But every time he found himself in the same room as you, you would make up some excuse just to get away from him.
“I need to stop by the store and buy litter for Alpine.”
“Georgia forgot to pick up her mail. I’m going to hand it to her.”
You were like a stone of indifference—not happy, but not angry either. It was starting to get frustrating.
He knew he should have respected your space, but the more you strayed away from him—not only emotionally, but physically—the more restless he grew. Maybe it was the immature side of him creeping in, but he started to take your pleas as a challenge. You wanted things to go back to normal? Back to how things were before his heart fell for you?
Fine. He would make sure to do exactly that.
The next afternoon, the entire building—which had been quiet for the past few days—began to shake.
It was that same, robotic warping noise that always rattled the ceiling of your office. It started with the usual thump, thump, thump, before the bass dropped into the most annoying sound nonsense you had ever heard in your life.
It was Bucky’s music. Except this was nothing like the tracks he knew you actually liked, and it was louder than it had been in months.
For the past few weeks, he had been playing his music through headphones or keeping the volume respectful. But right now, he was blasting it with a vengeance, the aggressive electronic beats making the light fixtures tremble.
You tried to ignore it for ten minutes. You tried to focus on your paperwork, but the relentless oonts oonts oonts was making your teeth rattle and your head pound. You knew exactly what he was playing at. He was trying to get your attention—but you wouldn’t give in. You refused to.
But then, a family of tourists walked past the front of your office. The daughter pointed up at the building, and the mother scrunched her nose, shaking her head in disapproval at the noise.
Shoving your chair back, you marched out of the office and stormed up the stairs.
You banged on Bucky’s door roughly. “Bucky! Turn that music down right now!”
You were furious, but for Bucky, this was the greatest moment of his week. He grinned, pretending not to hear you, and bumped the volume up just a tad louder.
You knocked again, but he ignored it. When you started cursing under your breath—which Bucky thought was the cutest thing he’d heard in what felt like forever, aside from Alpine’s meows—you finally fished out your master keys to unlock his door yourself.
“Do you mind?” you snapped, stepping into his apartment. “I have potential tenants walking past, and your absolute garbage music is running them off!”
Bucky was leaning back in his chair, lazily reaching over to slide a fader down.
“Garbage?” Bucky echoed, the cocky grin on his face not shrinking one bit. “You didn’t call it that when you were sitting on my lap and playing with my mixer, sweetheart.”
Your eyes widened—whether with anger or embarrassment, he couldn’t tell. Either way, he had gotten a reaction out of you, and to him, that was like a man finally finding water in the desert.
“Just turn it down!” you demanded, already turning away and slamming the door shut behind you.
Throughout the rest of the week, Bucky realized he couldn’t hold your attention for more than five minutes with just his music blasting alone.
He was working on a mix—one that wasn’t meant for his club sets, but one that would definitely catch your attention. What was distracting him more, though, was the sound of your giggles echoing all the way from your office.
A tourist had been sitting in there with you. Initially, Bucky thought it was just a potential renter. But as the minutes dragged into over an hour, he realized that the man in question had absolutely no intention of signing a lease. He was trying to get with you.
With the floorboards being so thin, Bucky could hear everything. The guy was a blatant flirt, and you were laughing and giggling cutely at every single word he said, convinced you were just sealing the deal on an apartment.
Bucky, moved by petty retaliation, queued up special track he was working on.
The beat was slower than usual—the exact kind that would have people drunkenly grinding against each other at a club. He dialed a knob, weaving the explicit, unmistakable sound of a woman’s breathless moans right into the track, letting it echo loudly through the thin flooring.
Downstairs, your laugh died in your throat.
Your eyes widened slightly, your jaw hanging loose before a rush of heat flooded your cheeks. The tourist blinked, his charming smile faltering as the loud, provocative audio filled the small office space.
“What an interesting song,” he forced an awkward chuckle. “Didn’t know you had a DJ living in here.”
You sat stiffly in your chair, a storm of emotions thundering in your chest. Embarrassment came first, but right behind it was a wave of shock and a sickening twist of jealousy that nearly choked you.
He brought a girl over? While I'm down here working?
He actually had the audacity to do that after everything he said to you? After he said he’d be your person once you opened your heart again?
“So, anyway,” the tourist continued, oblivious. “Since you’re a local—do you think you could show me some cool spots around here? Maybe we could start with dinner?”
You didn’t even realize how jealous you actually were until that exact moment.
Knowing that another woman might be in his apartment, touching him, making those sounds, made your blood boil and your fists curl tightly under the desk. You thought you were protecting your heart by keeping him at a distance, but hearing this only proved your heart was still hopelessly tied to him.
And right now, those ties were threatening to snap and hit him right in the face.
“Excuse me,” you choked out to the man seated in front of you, abruptly stepping away from your desk.
Every step up the stairs was a stomp accentuated by your anger, the explicit moaning getting louder and more humiliating with every flight you climbed. By the time you reached his door, you were already drowning in an emotional cocktail of rage and heartbreak.
You threw the door open, ready to scream at him and whatever woman he had hidden away in his room.
“What the fuck is your problem, Bucky!”
The door banged hard against the wall as you stormed into the apartment, your chest heaving, your vision tunneling with pure rage. You were so flustered, so blindingly angry, that the words just started spilling out of you before you could even think to filter them. You were desperate to cover up the humiliating jealousy tearing through you, but it only made you sound more unhinged.
“I am trying to run a business downstairs! I just had a guy down there, a potential tenant, and then... then you had to go and bring some woman over and—and do this while—”
You paused, letting your eyes sweep across the room, only to find an empty bed.
“Where is she?” you hissed.
Bucky leaned back in his chair, leg crossing the other as he folded his arms over his chest, looking far too smug for his own good.
“Where’s who?”
Your brow twitched with annoyance. You huffed a stray hair out of your face, waving a hand around the room. “The girl.”
Bucky tilted his head, playing dumb. “What girl?”
“The girl!” you screeched out. “The girl you have over right now—that’s… that’s making all these vulgar and indecent moaning noises because you don’t know how to keep your dick, much less your promises, in your pants for more than a week!”
Bucky’s lips quirked up into a smile.
“I have been keeping both of those in my pants, thank you very much.” He turned back to his screen, his hands hovering over his mixer. “And you mean your vulgar and repulsive moaning noises?”
You crossed your arms tightly over your chest, defensive. “What?”
“Listen to it closely,” he said, slowly amping the volume up. Your soft and breathy moans of pleasure filled the room.
“That’s you.”
Your face twisted. With the heavy distortion overlaid by the beat, you couldn’t tell if he was just pulling your tail or being serious. You didn’t even remember recording anything like that when you played with his mixer.
“Stop playing in my face, Bucky.”
Bucky, still impassive as ever, simply shrugged. “You don’t recognize your own voice?”
Then, a breathy little whine came in that sounded much too familiar. “Bucky, Bucky, oh—”
Your eyes shot open so wide that your pupils stung. That was you, no doubt about it, just remixed in a way that an outsider couldn’t tell.
“That’s you moaning my name, sweetheart,” Bucky said, turning to you again with a smile.
He watched as your once angry posture began to deflate into a look of pure embarrassment. You started to stammer, your eyes darting everywhere in the room that wasn’t him. “I… I—I don’t even remember recording that.”
Bucky pushed himself off the chair with a light groan, sauntering over to you with confidence now that he knew he had the upper hand.
“You pressed the record button yourself when you were playing with my table a few weeks ago,” he explained casually.
Standing in front of you, he lifted his hand to gently caress your cheek. When his palm made contact with your soft skin without you pushing him away, his smile grew wider, and the prideful flames in his heart glowed hotter.
“What’s with that face?” he taunted, his voice low and gravelly in a way that did nothing but make your heart race faster. “After everything I said to you, did you really think I would bring a girl up here? Hm?”
Bucky tilted his head, trying to meet your eyes, which were currently glued to the ground—refusing to give him any attention.
“Don’t tell me—are you jealous?”
He knew the answer, and you did too—you just didn’t want to admit it. Despite you telling him, “No more relationship!” there was a part of you that didn’t want anyone else to have him, as selfish as it might be.
“No,” you lied.
“Okay,” he hummed in amusement. “But I am.”
You scoffed. “What are you on about?”
His eyes trailed the curves of your face—the very curves he had fallen in love with and peppered with kisses just a few weeks ago.
“I’m jealous over the fact that you have a guy downstairs making you laugh, when I haven’t seen a smile from you in days,” he murmured, letting his thumb brush over your lower lip. The sensation made you shudder.
You hated how much you were leaning into his touch. And you hated even more how much you liked the idea of him being jealous over you, just as you had been over the simple thought of him having another woman over.
“I’ve tried so hard to be patient,” he continued. “To wait and see if you’ll open your heart to me again. To see if you’ll finally let your walls down and believe the words I said. But I can’t be patient when there’s a guy down there capturing your attention so easily, when the only way I can get yours is by playing loud music.”
“And you playing a track with my moans in it makes you think you’ll win me over?” You furrowed your brows at him. “If anything, it only pisses me off. You’re distracting me and my customers, and I need you to stop.”
You tried to make yourself sound more furious than you actually felt, but it didn’t translate very well. Bucky simply licked his lower lip before catching it in a subtle bite, making your body tingle all over again.
“I’ll stop,” he promised. “If you give me just one more chance to prove to you how much I care about you and how serious I am.”
You wanted to hold onto your anger, to keep that shield locked up with the key swallowed. But as you stared at him, hearing every sweet word that came out of his mouth, you realized how terribly you missed him.
God, you missed him.
You missed the moments when he would hold you in his arms after every problem, big or small. You missed the stupid afternoons down in the office, when you were supposed to be doing paperwork but ended up doing baseless chores with him instead—with Alpine inevitably scrambling up onto the desk and squeezing right between you two, demanding her own share of the attention. You missed hearing his music up close, sitting right on his lap while he guided your hand with his on the turntable.
You tried your best to keep your face stoic, to force down the screaming of longing in your chest so you wouldn’t cave. But Bucky saw right through you. He watched your shoulders ease up slightly, the way you chewed at your lower lip, and the way you were slowly unlocking that key in your heart.
Letting out a reluctant sigh that sounded like music to his ears, you mumbled, “Fine.”
Bucky’s smile widened.
“But you better not play this track anywhere. Not even to Steve or Sam,” you continued before he could speak, swatting weakly at his chest. “I’ll shoot you dead, Barnes—I mean it. That track is for your ears only.”
Rather than backing off, Bucky reached down and wrapped his arms firmly around your lower waist, pulling you close against him until your hips hit his, making you fluster at the proximity.
“Deal,” he whispered, leaning down even closer. “I’ll delete it if it makes you feel better, but only if I get to make you moan again like that for real—live and in person.”
Your breath hitched as his lips slid down to the line of your jaw, his stubble scraping pleasantly against your skin. Even though you two had been together like this before, the sudden closeness after days of agonizing distance made everything feel brand new, yet exactly right.
It was a feeling that, despite everything, you missed all too much.
“Don’t get your hopes up,” you breathed out as a final and weak attempt at keeping your guard up.
Bucky’s lips hummed deliciously against your neck, his mind already filled with things more than just hope.
“I’ll try.”
if you've made it this far, i hope you enjoyed, and thank you so much for reading! while you're here, might i suggest taking the opportunity to check out the bwat summer masterlist that this fic is part of here!
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Summary: Chris has no regrets when it comes to you.
Word Count: 300
Playlist Prompt: Pink Pony Club - Chappell Roan / “Every night's another reason why I left it all”
Warnings: Established relationship, fluff, having a baby with Beck, Chris Beck (he's a warning, okay?).
A/N: Day 10 of the June Jukebox Scribbles Challenge by @societynsoelsscribbles . ❤️ Not beta read and written on my phone, so any and all mistakes are my own. Divider by the talented @saradika-graphics. Please follow @navybrat817-sideblog for new fics and notifications as I no longer do taglists. Comments, reblogs, feedback are loved and appreciated!
Chris Beck was a responsible guy.
He had to be in his line of work. Being a flight surgeon meant he took care of others, making sure the crew members were healthy, fit, and able to perform their duties safely. He did his job well. He always had.
But when the opportunity for a new mission came up, he turned it down.
Because he had a new responsibility now.
He smiled gently as he stood in the nursery doorway, watching you hold your son as you rocked in the chair. The sight warmed his heart. Being away from you would’ve been tortuous enough. Being away from you and his son? He couldn’t do it.
He was needed here.
“How’s CJ doing?” he asked when you looked up.
You thought CJ would be a cute nickname for Chris Jr., and he agreed.
“Needy for attention, like his father,” you teased.
He laughed and walked over, crouching down to give his son a kiss on the top of his head. “Of course, we’re needy for your attention. You’re my wife. You’re his mother.”
You smiled at him. “Well, we love having your attention, too,” you said, your smile fading just a touch. “Can I ask you something?”
“Anything.”
“You sure you don’t regret turning that mission down?”
His brows furrowed before his lips touched your forehead. “I will never regret it,” he promised.
The stars reminded him how vast and wondrous the universe could be, but he had his entire world right in front of him.
Every night’s another reason why I left it all.
You blinked away the mist in your eyes. “I love you.”
“I love you, too,” he whispered, giving his sleepy son a tender smile when he wrapped his small hand around his finger. “Love you, too, son.”
May I give him a family, please? Love and thanks for reading. ❤️
Getting cheated on mere weeks away from the holidays has you fleeing to your parents' holiday house upstate. What you don't expect is to find and fall for the groundskeeper there who seems to know more about you than you might think.
▸ PAIRING: Bucky Barnes x F!Reader
▸ WARNINGS: NSFW 18+, hurt/comfort, fluff, cheating (not bucky), fingering, eating out, penetration (with condom hurrah!), slight miscommunication?
▸ WORD COUNT: 22.8K
▸ A/N: unintentionally the longest fic i've written to date <3 tis the season of giving, please know that you are keeping authors warm with your generous likes / reblogs / comments in these cold months. thank you sm in advance if you give this story a chance!!!! groundskeeper used loosely (he just does everything around the house). also written as part of @blowingbarnes's romcom rewrite collection (ily bbl) with this being partially inspired by love actually!
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Many may call you lucky. Lucky to have met your boyfriend when you were kids with missing teeth. Lucky to have been with him for seven years and counting. Lucky to have parents who showered you with unconditional love growing up. Lucky to have a lucrative career doing what you absolutely love. Lucky to have saved enough for an apartment that you own in the city.
Call it luck. Call it privilege. You’ve long accepted that you are incredibly fortunate that the biggest hurdle you’ve faced — and persistently face — is writer’s block. It’s a damned concrete wall that can seem impossible to hammer through, but one that you always manage to break. Otherwise, your life has been pretty fine and dandy. You have it all.
Until you don’t.
Some may label you foolish for missing the signs. You’ve read every romance column known to women, familiarizing yourself with these so-called symptoms of a failing relationship. Looking at Max and the life you’ve built, you never thought to give any of them credence.
So what if he works countless late hours in the office, he’s continuing to build his parents’ legacy — of course, he would work hard. So what if he puts his phone face down when you enter the room, smiling up at you tight with a stiff crinkle in the corner of his eye that you brush off — he just wants all his focus on you. So what if he decides to get a separate credit card for his personal items — he doesn’t want to burden you with his spending.
You’re not naive by any means. Many have called you cynical, evidenced by the articles you write that often renounce simplistic forms of love, pure perspectives on life with no consideration of the horrors of the human mind.
It’s not that you’re naive. It’s that your edges, the ones that face him, have been smoothed over time. Chipped away and sanded until they are curves that he can hold onto, keeping a firm grip on you to free his other hand to reach for another.
When you first step past the threshold of your home, the last thing you expect is to hear voices. Max was supposed to be at work. Your heart lifts, the innocent thought that he had come home earlier to surprise you crossing your mind. It’s a consideration that does not last very long when a woman appears, skipping out into the living room which you have a clear line of sight into from the doorway.
A woman who looks very much like Max’s secretary. The one who always prepares you coffee when you stop by. The one who always simpers so sweetly at you, but lingers her sultry gaze a little too long on your boyfriend. The one Max told you not to worry about.
A woman who is in nothing but her bra and panties.
At first, she doesn’t see you, giggling carefree with her bare feet against your hardwood floors. Only when she does a twirl does she see you in your doorway. Only then does she do a double-take, stumbling over her own foot and nearly toppling over your very nice vase.
“Shit,” she squeaks out quietly, righting herself into an awkward stance.
The words die in your throat. While your mind could attempt to do the mental gymnastics of justifying why your boyfriend’s secretary would be practically nude in your place, you’re not granted the opportunity when the man of the hour comes running up to her, broad arms that you once called your home wrapping around her.
“Come back here,” he laughs, lips attaching to her delicate neck. The one adorned with a pearl necklace that you remember seeing him sneak into the apartment, but never reached your hands. “What are you—”
At least, you aren’t the only one caught off guard. It seems to be a three-way standoff the way everyone freezes where they stand. There is only a brief second of silence, you could hear a pin drop, before the chaos unfurls.
Safe to say, your beloved vase does not survive the five minutes it takes to chase the two of them out of your home. The vase ends up scattered across the hallway outside your door, lodged against his skin and maybe even hers. You’ll be the first to fully admit that you can’t fully recall what exactly transpired in the moments following the betrayal.
When all is said and done and you’re left in the aftermath of what just happened, two weeks before Christmas, all you can think is — ‘tis the fucking season.
—
By the time you roll to a stop in front of your parents’ upstate home, you’ve comfortably settled into the third stage of grief. Ire flows through your veins the entire drive up, blood rushing to your foot for you to floor the accelerator the entirety of the three-hour ride over. The music that blasts through your speakers is deafening. It’s angry, it’s hurt. It’s a reflection of you.
While you had been numb when you first called your parents to request permission, asking to use their home under the guise of a quiet place to focus on work with your pressing deadlines, that paralysis has quickly subsided into fire that sears through your entire being. Despite the early December chill, all you feel is hot.
Flames enveloping your heart in pure, unbridled white-hot anger. How dare he. Seven years. Seven of the best years of your life. Seven years shredded into nothing in five minutes. Five fucking minutes. He couldn’t have even bothered sitting you down, telling him that he was no longer interested in you, that he no longer loved you. He couldn’t even bother extending the courtesy of breaking up with you.
Hell, he couldn’t have even bothered booking a goddamn hotel room like any other cheater out there. He took her — the woman he promised you never needed to worry about — to your home. Your safe space. The one you purchased with your hard-earned work.
Your fingers itch with the urge to dial up his number, to give him a piece of your mind that certainly will last a lot longer than five fucking minutes. But you bite back that impulse because it’s not worth it. He’s not worth it.
He already tainted every single piece of your home by bringing her there. All the good — the whispered kisses under the covers, the tangling of your legs on the couch with the television purring quietly in the background, the clanging of pots and pans for your dinner dates — is gone. Memories stained with permanent ink. When you imagine your pristine apartment, all you can see are the spots — the marks that can never be erased. Smudges over the flawless house you’ve built.
For a while, you sit behind the wheel, knuckles tight where you grip. The tears are warm in your eyes, you will them away, but they stick. They roll down fast, soft lines down your face that can’t seem to disappear, no matter how many times you wipe them.
For a moment, you think you’ve regressed in your grief — the guilt seeping back in through the cracks of your wrath. The self-blame question in the margins of your mind has only partially formed when a knock on your window jolts you back to reality.
Quickly swiping away the wet streaks on your face, you squeeze your eyes shut and force your face to be brave. You plaster on a shaky smile before you unlock your car and slide out.
“Marta, it’s been too long.”
Marta is a four-foot-nine lady who’s been working here since you were two running around in nothing but your diapers. She mostly keeps the house clean, but she has had to occassionally wear a few hats, including babysitting you when you’re being a bigger brat than usual.
Her thick arms swathe you in a warm embrace, one that you didn’t know you desperately needed until your own limbs return the affection. She doesn’t say anything about your swollen eyes or your sniffly nose. Instead, she holds you at arm’s length and smiles softly. “Dear, it’s been much too long. You haven’t been here in years. The last time I saw you, you were off to start your first year in the city.”
Remorse slinks around you again, hovering close by. “I know, I’m sorry. It’s been busy. Life, I mean. I haven’t really had the chance to come back here.”
“No matter,” she tuts quietly with a pat on your shoulder. “I’m glad to see you’re doing well. You look healthy at least. Probably could use my squash soup, you used to love that.”
“I still do,” you grin back.
Marta takes you on a tour of the home, refreshing your memory of where things are stored and the renovations your parents have done on certain rooms, including turning your bedroom into a home gym. The two of you spend an hour or so catching up, her lighting up with every piece of your life that you share with her. By the time she bids her farewell, the sun is slowly sinking over the horizon.
The rush from the day has slowly given way to weariness that weighs heavy on your eyelids. You barely register her words when she tells you that your parents have hired a full-time caretaker for the property who lives just down the road. You barely remember drifting towards the living room couch and stretching out, letting sleep swallow you.
When you come back to, the room is bathed in a gradient of purple and orange. The sun peeks shyly over the horizon as you stretch your exhausted, aching arms long into the air with a groan. Your phone lights up to indicate that it’s barely six, which means you’ve slept more than you have this past week alone.
You tug the throw blanket around your shoulders, fabric dragging by your feet as you step across the creaky, cool floors into the kitchen. You reach for a fresh glass and fill it with tap, tipping the crisp water down your throat to quench your parched throat.
Sleep hadn’t been kind to you. Even — especially — with your eyes closed, all you can see is the betrayal that plagues you. The scenes shift throughout the night — your home, his office, a restaurant that you used to frequent with Max. Each one once a memory of the good you had, now soiled with her face replacing yours. It’s her hand he’s holding. It’s her eyes he’s looking into.
You’re standing in the fringes of these moments, like an outsider watching through a window.
Your head pulses with an ache that doesn’t seem to cease. Instead, you try to distract yourself by fussing with the kettle to make some tea, hoping that the caffeine would ease your drowsy mind. While you wait for the kettle to whistle, your hand automatically reaches for your phone, your first instinct is to scroll through the news notifications.
A wedding in Brooklyn. Another stupid comment from the president. An alien invasion in Metropolis.
You can’t tell if some higher power above finds destroying the world you live in to be the ultimate cosmic joke. This is why you don’t like writing about real news; it’s too depressing. At least you find interest in the topics you write, even if they aren’t always the most critical things the world needs.
You’re halfway through this article from The Daily Planet that you’re convinced is another outlet similar to The Onion when you spot movement in your periphery. The blood-curdling scream leaves your lips when you see the dark figure standing by your kitchen.
Said figure then steps into the streaks of gold the sunrise paints across your floors. Slowly, his face is illuminated — it’s his broad chest that you notice first, hidden beneath the fabric of his t-shirt. Your eyes then shift to his equally broad shoulders, covered by a plaid button-down that hangs loose over his middle, tight around his biceps. Then his bearded jaw comes to life before the slope of his nose and finally his bright blues.
While you aren’t a particular fan of home invasions, maybe there is something to the way this man looks ridiculously handsome. Ridiculously, effortlessly handsome. He doesn’t even seem fazed when you lunge for a knife, pointing it in his direction. In fact, he looks rather amused.
“Who the fuck are you?”
“Never knew you had such a potty mouth.”
A scowl descends on your face. “Never answered my question.”
“I’m Bucky,” he says simply. When you don’t put your weapon down, he sighs. “Marta didn’t tell you? I work here. Been helping your parents with construction, renovation, and plumbing, along with some other odd tasks.”
Bucky? “What kind of name is Bucky?”
His lips curl again, amusement deepening the dimple in his cheek. His eyes twinkle with mischief, like he’s about to respond with a ridiculously stupid line. Your annoyance burrows deeper into your heart as you tighten your grasp around the knife.
“You gonna put the knife down or are you gonna keep acting up?”
There’s something in his voice, the curl of his syllables, the drop in pitch of his tone. It almost makes you want to listen. Almost. Your hand falters for a second, he notices. His smile stretches again.
“What? I gotta show you my state ID?” He chuckles, reaching into his pocket and pulling out and jingling the keys in his hands. “Telling you that I have keys to the place. I didn’t realize you were coming so soon. Thought it would be a couple of days. Upstairs toilet has been acting up so I was going to take a look before you came.”
Pinching your lips, you slowly lower the knife. You slip it back into the block but keep your eyes on him the entire time. “Alright, I’ll bite.”
“Bet you do,” he mutters under his breath, low enough that you nearly miss it. But the morning is quiet, a far cry from the constant cacophony of sirens and honks in the city. For a second he pauses, his curious eyes appraising you silently. They analyze you carefully from the top of your head to where your toes are curled into the tiles.
Then they fly back up to meet yours. You make the mistake of letting a gasp escape. You didn’t think it was possible but he grins even wider. He looks even more handsome with that smile. “What?” You snap, crossing your arms over your chest, covering yourself up further.
“Nothing,” he huffs a laugh, “just look cute in the morning.”
Your heart stutters against your ribcage. He doesn’t even wait before he tromps up the stairs, footsteps disappearing along with the ghost of his voice caressing your ear.
The way your heart skips is new. You’ve been with Max for so long that you forget the thrill of the flirting game. The little comments. The teasing looks. You tell yourself that it’s because you’re freshly heartbroken. It’s not because Bucky is alluring in the way Max never was. Rough bumps rather than smooth surfaces. You’ve slipped on that slope before; maybe it’s time to try something different.
—
For the most part, you keep to yourself. Bucky putters around and outside the house doing all sorts of things. Sometimes he’s carrying a toolbox, other times a sledgehammer. There are instances when he walks around with nothing at all. But through it all, he’s always fucking stripping.
He would come into the house with at least two layers. Over the course of the day, he would peel off his shirt and drape it over the kitchen chair. Then, when he’s under the sink plugging away, he tugs his t-shirt over his head. By the time you look up for the second time that hour, he’s already exposed in front of you.
It’s not easy to ignore, not when you see the way his abs flex with every move. Or how he grunts every time he does something a little hard. Or the attractive furrow of his brows when he can’t figure something out.
You’ve been sitting on this desk by the window for the better part of the day, but your eyes have wandered more than a handful of times to him. It’s enough times to make it embarrassing when he catches your gaze straying to him one too many times. When his lips tip up with that stupid twinkle in his eyes. That’s when you duck your head back down behind your laptop screen.
At some point in the afternoon, Bucky does come up to you. He opens his mouth and, before he can say anything, your stomach rumbles. Loud.
Shit.
It’s worse when you see him clearly resisting a laugh, his teeth catching his bottom lip, his eyes shining with mirth. It looks even brighter in the light — closer to a baby blue than cerulean.
“What?” You glower at him when he doesn’t say anything.
“You wanna go out and eat?” The question catches you by surprise, obvious when the creases on your forehead melt into your raised brows.
Bucky shoves his hands into his jeans, his naked chest still open in front of you. You almost want to look at the mirror and write whore on it with how closely you’re tracing the lines on his stomach. Maybe it’s time to write a piece on attractive parts of a man that aren’t sexual. Like the clavicles. His are quite attractive.
“There’s no food in the house. Your parents cleared it all out when they left on their cruise,” Bucky clarifies, hand reaching up to scratch the back of his ear. For the first time since you met him, he looks almost… awkward. It’s satisfying.
“Right, that would make sense,” you say, equally as awkward. “Where were you thinking?”
“I needed to go into town to pick up some supplies, need it to fix up that toilet upstairs. There’s a bistro there with decent sandwiches — nothing crazy like you city folks are used to but it’s food.”
As if on cue, your stomach protests again. Loudly. Bucky doesn’t hold back his laugh this time. Heat crawls up your neck as you scrape your chair back. “Fine. Let me get changed first.”
“Why?” Bucky looks at you, eyes falling to your clothes before coming back up.
He can’t be serious. You’re in frumpy, wrinkled pajamas that cover your toes. “I can’t tell if you have shit taste in clothes or if you’re just being nice.”
Thankfully, Bucky only smiles at you and lets you know that he’ll wait outside. When you finally step out in a much more appropriate sweater and jeans, Bucky’s leaning against a pickup truck, arms crossed over his chest. He seems to be deep in thought, eyes laser-focused, face devoid of emotion. His gaze is on the dirt in front of him. He only looks up when the front door slams shut a little too loud.
The sharpness in his eyes chips away when they land on you. You’re not entirely sure what to make of that change and choose to tuck it away in a box of questions for another time.
The drive into town is relatively quiet, Bucky has some radio station playing music with static that he hums along to. You choose the safer route of looking out the window to the wide expanse of forests and farmland. Your mind slides slowly back to why you’re here in the first place, a dangerous territory you would rather avoid.
“How long are you staying?”
You jerk around to face him. “Oh, um, I haven’t really figured that out yet. Maybe Christmas? New Year’s? Who knows?”
He’s quiet for a beat then continues, “Why’d you decide to come up? Figured you’d want to spend the holidays with friends — your boyfriend — in the city, especially with your parents gone.”
You know what he’s doing. He’s testing the waters, wading his fingers in slowly to see if anything will bite. So you sigh. “You don’t have to beat around the bush. I haven’t told my parents yet but I found my boyfriend with his practically-naked secretary in my apartment. Packed up my bags same day and wound up here within five hours.”
An expletive leaves his lips. “That’s… shit.”
You can’t help the bark of a laugh that comes out of your mouth. “One way of putting it. It’s pretty shit, especially when I gave him seven years of my fucking life.” Now that the floodgates have been opened, all your words come pouring out. They spill out in questions about whether you’re good enough, whether you did something wrong to deserve this, to push him to that point. They stream out in expressions of irritation, a combination of how dare he with that motherfucker with a sprinkling of who the fuck does he think he is.
By the time you run out of phrases to curse out your ex, Bucky is pulling up to a parking spot in this quaint town. It’s the kind of small town you see in movies where people greet each other walking down the sidewalk, where the flowers are always yellow, and the skies are clear. It’s the complete opposite of the storm brewing inside of you.
That is when you realize what you’ve just done. Embarrassment swiftly spreads across your entire body, rippling in goosebumps. “I’m sorry.”
“Why?” He asks, sincerity coating the single syllable.
“I said too much. You didn’t want to know all that.”
Bucky shrugs. “Didn’t mind it. Helpful context. Plus, think you needed that.”
You do feel a little lighter, a little less tense. You’ve had nowhere to channel all your thoughts and energy since yesterday evening, worsened by the fact that you haven’t eaten a single bite since lunch. For the first time since you left your house, you’re able to take a breath without your lungs quivering. It’s steady. Your heartbeat even.
“Thanks,” you say quietly.
Another huff of a laugh. He rubs your head, an affectionate gesture for a guy you’ve just met this morning, but you don’t mind it. There’s a familiarity to his touch that you lean into. He seems surprised but smiles. “No need to thank me. Let’s get some food in you.”
Lunch with Bucky is an experience, mainly because, by the end of it, you’re convinced he’s some sort of celebrity in town. No fewer than five people stop by to say hello and coo about how nice Bucky is. The waitress comes by with a slice of pie on the house. The chef knows the way Bucky likes his burger by heart. You get plenty of you’re so lucky’s that you blanch at, much to Bucky’s entertainment. If you didn’t know any better, he planted these extras and you’re waiting for someone to jump out and say you’ve been punked.
“Did I accidentally walk into a cult and you’re the high priest or something?” You ask when you finally leave the restaurant, a paper bag in Bucky’s hand of extra dishes the chef had whipped out for him.
His lips shift into a smirk. “Now why would you say that?” You’re not going to give him the satisfaction so you clamp your mouth shut and look away. Bucky touches your head again, and you do swat it off this time. “I have to go to the hardware store for the things. Did you want to join me or explore?”
The face you involuntarily make is apparently answer enough.
“Alright, grump. Give me your phone, we’ll trade numbers. Meet you back here in an hour?”
“It takes you an hour to pick up supplies for a toilet?”
Bucky shakes his head as he returns your phone. “A lot of questions. Might start charging you for answers.”
Before you can say anything else, he’s already stalking down the street. You’re left standing there, wondering what in the world you’re going to do to kill an hour. So you just start walking, your feet taking you down corners, twists, and turns. You wander around a farmer’s market for a while and end up with two bags of fresh produce to hopefully last you the week. Without fail, each stall owner points out that we haven’t seen you around here before, welcome to town!
It’s slightly unnerving but perhaps you aren’t used to eastern hospitality. Usually, when someone acts nice in the city, they probably want something from you. You try not to let your cynicism show and merely say I’m only in town for a little bit.
You’re making your way back towards the car when a bookstore not too far away from where you’re parked catches your eye. The titles are a little worn, but they look like they’re taken care of. There are a few classics that you’ve been meaning to read, time that you invested in your boyfriend now freed up for you to regain your literacy. You stack a few copies in your hand, only stopping when you can no longer balance them with your grocery bags.
When you go to put the bags down, you catch a fascinating sight.
Bucky is walking towards you but he doesn’t seem to have noticed you yet. On his journey, he suddenly stops, turns to look inside a store then goes in. Your eyebrow raises in question which is quickly answered when the door swings open and an old lady walks out, chattering excitedly at Bucky who is now carrying three additional bags. He packs them away inside her trunk and she pinches his cheek, which he winces at.
Then he continues walking only to pause again when he hears a group of kids bickering in front of a shop. He talks to them for a moment, the sheepish looks on three of their faces growing before they mumble apologies and run off. The one kid remaining thanks him profusely, lighting up in a smile that could power a city.
His final pause was when he spotted a dog sitting patiently on the sidewalk. He crouches down and gives the dog a few good rubs, lips moving in a murmur you can’t hear from the distance. The dog rolls over to show its belly which Bucky provides equal attention to.
Finally, he stops in front of his car and looks around. That’s when his eyes catch you and a slow smile spreads across his lips. He struts over to you — yes, strut because the way he walks makes him look like a model.
“Find anything interesting?” He teases, nodding to the pile in your hand.
You purse your lips. “Yes, a few. I’ll go pay and be right out.”
Bucky plucks the stack from your hand, flipping through them with an easy smile and putting away the ones he says are in your parents’ library. Only two remain. Instead of handing them back to you, he peeks his head inside the bookstore. “Mr. Moore, put them on my tab, will you?”
Mr. Moore is fast to agree and wave him off.
“You have a tab here?”
“Yes, I’m surprisingly literate.”
“That’s not what I meant,” you scowl.
“Mr. Moore only takes cash and he’s nice enough to let me keep a tab in case I don’t bring enough cash.”
Oh. When Bucky senses you aren’t going to ask follow-up questions, he picks up your bags from the floor and tucks the books between his arm and his waist.
“I can carry them myself, you know.”
“I know.”
You don’t need to look at him to know he’s smiling again. Damned flirt. Bucky opens the door for you again, waits for you to slide in and hook your seatbelt, before he drops off the items in the trunk and goes over to his side.
When you prepare dinner that evening, a risotto recipe you found online and somehow manage not to destroy, you find yourself quietly stirring the mixture. It’s not as if you’re thinking about your breakup again or the fact that you have just lost seven years of your life to a man who couldn’t keep in his pants and had the gall to lie to you about it. You’re only feeling a little… listless.
For that reason, you are thankful that Bucky is still tinkering around upstairs. You haven’t gone to check on him once but you assume he isn’t destroying your mother’s precious porcelain tiles. The noise is comforting. It’s a relief to know that you’re not alone in this expansive, overwhelming space. You’re not engulfed in deafening silence that rings all too sharp in your ears.
As you switch off the stove, you hear Bucky land on the final step downstairs. Typical man — no help in the kitchen but arrives when the food is ready. His voice carries into the room as you keep your back turned towards him. “Toilet upstairs should be good to go. I’m going to head out for the day.”
That has you freezing. Muscles involuntarily spasming. You’re not entirely sure why you lock up. It’s not as if you know this man, as if you want him to stay. Because why would you want him to stay? Again, you don’t know this man.
Slowly, you turn, shifting your gaze away from him and onto the flowers dotting the wall. “I made too much for dinner. Followed a recipe with multiple servings. Did you want some?”
Bucky observes you for a second, silent as he searches your face. You can see his eyes moving from your periphery but you refuse to meet them. Then he breathes out, “Sure. That would be nice.”
“Wash your hands,” you automatically say, wincing when your habit comes out. Your now ex-boyfriend had the terrible habit of coming in from god knows where and putting his hands on everything in your spotless home.
The man before you doesn’t seem to take offense; in fact, he looks humored. “I was going to. Scout’s honor.”
Dinner passes relatively peacefully. Between the tang of lemon on your tongue and the mushrooms melting in your mouth, Bucky peppers you with surface-level questions. What do you do for work? How’s life in the city? What are you working on these days? You hate to admit it but you are grateful that you’re not entirely alone here.
You have a feeling that Bucky understands that too. He keeps the conversation flowing, not a moment of silence for you to overthink your current circumstances. Even as the two of you are working through the dishes side by side, Bucky makes you laugh over some of the things your parents have done in the house, their kooky requests that he has had to draw the line on. Your heart feels a little lighter once more.
But as the night dwindles down and the crickets begin to chirp outside your window, Bucky moves slower, like he’s delaying his departure. When you look at him from across the room, he seems hesitant for a second then asks.
“You don’t remember me, do you?”
His question catches you off guard, your grip on the sink faltering. “Uh, have we met?”
Bucky tilts his head, like he’s trying to gauge whether your response is genuine. “Never mind,” he shakes his head with a small smile. The look has you prickling in annoyance, partly because it seems like you’re not in on the inside joke playing in his head. Still, you don’t give him the satisfaction of reacting to it. “I’m going to head out, let you get some rest. I’ll be back here early tomorrow morning,” he smirks, “just a heads up so you don’t launch that knife at my head.”
Your eyes roll instinctively. “If I throw a knife at your head, it’s more likely because you’re insufferable.”
“Mhmm, sleep tight. If you need anything, call me. I’m just down the road and I can be here in five minutes, yeah?”
The offer is comforting — an olive branch. You don’t tell him as such, but he seems to know when your shoulders slacken, tension draining from your bones. “Yeah, thanks, Buck. Bucky—” you quickly correct yourself.
His pink lips curve up on one corner. “Buck is fine too. Goodnight, doll.”
Before you can protest the unprompted nickname, the front door is closing behind him. When you reach up to touch your cheeks, you find them warm.
–
The following days pass in a hazy blur. You continue to work around the house, moving your laptop from one place to another whenever you run into a block. Sometimes you pace, take a lap around the house. What you won’t admit to yourself is that, every time you move, you find yourself chasing after Bucky.
You’re still not entirely sure what work he does around the house, but apparently it’s everything. One moment he’s fixing the leaking tap in the kitchen, the next he’s climbing on the roof to fix the shingles. He’s always covered in dirt-stained clothes, always ends up shirtless in the house at the end of the day. It’s all incredibly distracting.
If Bucky notices you trailing after him, he doesn’t point it out. He keeps to himself, occasionally looking up to check on you then goes back when he sees that you’re still sitting there, fingers chipping away at your keyboard. Once he does notice, which is unfortunately after the second time you followed him, he always gives you a heads up.
“I’m going to work on the kitchen sink, do you need more time here?”
“The balcony upstairs has a clear view of the garden and the roof.”
Small gestures that don’t go unappreciated by you. The two of you make it a habit of sharing lunch, you whip up something easy when you need a break from writing, and Bucky tries his hand at a new dish when you’re fully immersed in your work (spoiler: both of you put both bathrooms in the house to good use).
The noises he makes as he works — the clanging of his tools, the hissing of loose air, the little grunts he lets out — become your soundtrack. A soothing sort of white noise that keeps you company as the words fall onto the pages. You don’t think you’ve ever been so productive in your life.
When the day bleeds into hues of pinks and purples in the sky, you find that sinking feeling returning. Dinners with Bucky are comfortable with the two of you sharing bits and pieces, like a precursor to dessert that leaves you hungry for more. Each time Bucky shares a small bite, you have the urge to take a bigger one. He seems to know, drinking in the curiosity in your eyes, and offering you more.
However, as each night winds down and the silence begins to settle again into the air, you’re left to your own devices. At the end of the night, he always leaves. There are words sitting on your tongue that risk falling free, a plea for him to stay, to keep your nightmares at bay. Alas, your pride has them crumbling into ashes, and he is gone before you can even whisper your desire into the quiet.
This is one of those nights and you find yourself twisting and turning in the guest room, the sheets feeling a little too scratchy, the bed a little too firm, and the room a little too silent. Throwing the covers off, you pad back downstairs and attempt to tire yourself with work. Only the sentences come out a garbled mess and you end up closing your laptop in frustration, nearly tossing that darned thing out the window. You’d give something else for Bucky to repair.
So you give into your last resort which is to step outside into the brisk air and sit on the steps of your front porch. At least out here the crickets and the wind lull you to a sense of peace. A peace that you haven’t found on your own since you left the city. You almost miss your small apartment and the cracks on your floor, the sounds of city traffic and impatient rush-hour drivers pouring in for the day. But you rather enjoy the fresh air. You needed it — to take a step back.
When you think about Max now, the ache doesn’t pulse as painfully anymore. Your heart throbs dully, a reminder of what you have suffered and survived. When you really turn it in your mind, you realize that what you had in him was comfort. It’s difficult to describe what you had as love when you can barely describe what it means to be in love with him. Romantic media has soiled your idea of love and sparks and butterflies, pushing you to the other end of the spectrum to believe that love is much more practical. Love is about checks and balances, building a strong, grounded foundation to last.
And you’re left wondering if you’ll ever find a love that feels like the movies.
Before you can dwell on it for too long, you hear the sound of gravel crunching and your skin pebbles in fear. You have no weapon out here. You’re near hypothermic in your flimsy pajamas. Your fingers will likely crack if you even think about clocking this intruder.
Luckily, you don’t have to think about self-defense when Bucky emerges from the shadows. The moonlight casts him under a pale glow, gleaming gold with the lamp hanging by the front door. “You scared me,” you mutter with a huff, heartbeat soothing into a gentle rhythm.
“You scared me. I thought I was going crazy when I saw someone sitting on your porch. Figured I’d check to make sure you were okay.”
A light laugh slips past your lips. “Why were you up?”
“Why were you?”
“Stop turning it around on me.”
“You’re such a brat.”
A gasp. You narrow your eyes at him. “Excuse me?”
“And you’re barely wearing anything. You must be freezing.” Bucky doesn’t waste a beat before he shrugs off his thick coat and drapes it over your shoulders. The warmth that surrounds you is immediate — what remains of Bucky’s body heat that clings to the fibers of the fabric. “What in the hell are you doing out here?”
You sigh. “Couldn’t sleep. Couldn’t work. Thought I could use some fresh air.”
“Doll,” Bucky grunts, sounding almost disappointed.
“Why do you call me that?” The question springs from your lips before you can think twice. “Just— not that I mind, I’m just wondering.”
He pauses only for a second before he shrugs. “Because you look like one.”
“You objectifying me, Barnes?” You raise an eyebrow, crossing your arms over your chest to bury yourself deeper into his jacket.
It smells like him. You’ve been getting whiffs of him while he works — sometimes he smells like citrus and pines, other times like sweat and grime. Both are equally intoxicating and you can’t tell which you prefer. This jacket is a balance of the two, placated by the crisp winter air.
“Only if you want me to,” he shoots back with an easy grin, leaning against the wooden frame opposite of you.
You hate to admit it but there is something so effortlessly sexy about him. A lazy kind of confidence that doesn’t come embellished with hours of primping that you’ve seen your ex do. The fine lines on his face, the exhaustion in the shadows under his eyes. They make him feel real.
Bucky adds, “Are you okay?”
The million-dollar question. “Not sure,” you confess, eyes wandering into the open field. You see his house in the distance, blinking like a single star in the stretch of darkness. “I think I’m getting there.”
Bucky drops down next to you, scooting closer while also nudging you to make room for him. You do. For a moment, the two of you sit in the stillness. Two people existing, hovering but never touching. His voice is gentle when he asks, “Do you want to talk about it?”
The first instinct is to say no. You’ve barely met the man, you already told him too much once, you refuse to do it again.
But the voice inside your mind tells you to trust him, to open up to him. He’s a stranger, one who you’ve been following in the time you’ve been here. But his presence feels like a safe haven.
When the words come out, they are intentional. “I’ve been playing back the last few years in my mind. Seven years is a long time to spend with someone. I keep trying to find that single point of inflection, the time when it all went wrong. When did he decide that I wasn’t enough? Or maybe that I was too much? When did he figure out that it wasn’t me that he wanted forever? When did he realize that this risk was worth losing me?”
The questions that have been swirling in your mind for the better part of your nights spill out into the silence. You take in a shaky brath, your heart pressing against your bones, tight in the way it shrinks and inflates. Bucky doesn’t respond and it coaxes more out of you. The doubts you’ve been too fearful to address.
“I think I come back to the question of why. Why did he do it? Why didn’t he just break up with me if he didn’t love me anymore? Why did he take her to our home? Why her? Why not me?”
When you turn to look at him, he’s already staring right back at you. His gaze is kind. There is no weight to the way he scans your face crumpled into a resistance to your tears.
“It’s not on you. His decisions are not a result of your actions. His mistakes are not a reflection of who you are. Guys fucking suck,” he spits out and you giggle, the sound a little frayed. “It’s true — well, most guys suck. This one in particular because he couldn’t see what was right in front of him. Hopefully this one asshole doesn’t deter you from finding someone better. Someone who loves you. Deserves you.”
Your voice betrays the hope that tinges it. It’s fragile, small. “You really think there’s someone out there like that?”
Bucky’s eyes are soft, the frozen chips in his eyes thawing into clear water. “Loves you, yes. Deserves you, never.”
Your heart palpitates a little too loud, a little too fast. The skip of a beat. Your fingertips tingle with the urge to reach out to him, bury them in his thick hair. It would be easy, sliding your hand to close the whisper of a distance. It would be simple to scooch over until your knees touch, until you can brush your lips against his skin. Until you can draw them up to his.
His glance falls to your mouth, a brief millisecond, before flying back up.
Easy. It’s easy.
Too easy almost.
“Come on, let’s get you inside.” Bucky gently bumps your shoulder with his, breaking the spell. You look away quickly, hoping the warmth that’s crept up your neck doesn’t give away your intrusive thoughts.
The two of you rise to your feet, Bucky reaching out a steadying hand which you don’t take but appreciate anyway. He walks you to the door, some form of upstate gentleman hospitality that’s severely lacking where you live in the city.
There’s a crackle of a spark in the air, one that flashes so quick you nearly miss it. It’s a zap of lightning in clear skies. It weighs in the atmosphere like the residues of humidity after a downpour. The feeling sticks to your skin but it’s not uncomfortable, only unfamiliar.
“Try to get some sleep,” Bucky says as you stand just past the threshold of your doorway. You almost invite him inside, lips parting with the request ready. Without waiting for you to ask, he responds, “I’ll see you tomorrow. Promise.”
You can only nod. “Thanks, Buck.”
“Anytime. Have a good night,” he calls out as he jogs down the steps, figure half cloaked in the darkness.
A breeze whips past your neck and that’s when you realize— “Wait, your jacket.” You whirl around just as he turns back to look at you.
Then there’s that charming grin again, and your heart stupidly lurches for him again. “Keep it,” he beams, stealing the air from your lungs, “it looks better on you.”
—
Something has changed. You can’t quite put a finger on it, but you sense the shift to his demeanor. An unfamiliarity that makes the hairs on your arms stand. While the morning starts like any other, Bucky feels… different. He’s still wearing his uniform tee and plaid shirt combo, red this time, greeting you with a sleepy grunt at seven as he trudges into the house. Yet, the air teases with a new kind of tension.
It begins with breakfast when you’re deftly flipping some eggs and bacon, a hearty meal you have been preparing every morning. Bucky goes towards the stove, undoubtedly to steal some food as he always does. Only this time, he brushes behind you, a little too close for comfort when you can feel his body heat against your back. As he plucks a piece of bacon from the pan, his hand settles on your spine — high enough to be appropriate, low enough for you to notice. It’s not uncomfortable, but the weight and warmth say I’m here. When he drifts away, his palm drags to your hip, squeezes lightly, then releases you. He leaves you with the echo of his footsteps disappearing down the hall.
It’s not a material change. Not really. It’s not something you would outwardly question with him. It’s not that you mind that he’s suddenly comfortable enough to put his hands on you. You haven’t known Bucky that long but, when you’ve spent nearly every living moment together for the past few days, there is an automatic intimacy that connects the two of you. A red thread if you will.
You hate to describe it as dependency; whenever he exits a room you’re in, the temperature drops a degree lower; when he returns, the sun is pleasant where it kisses your skin. You want to chalk it up to the fact that you really haven’t been in this house for too long, and Bucky radiates the kind of contentment with being accustomed to the space. The voice in your head calls you a liar in denial.
You try not to listen to her too much. What does she know?
Bucky slithers back into the room a couple of hours later, this time in coveralls. A system in your brain appears to have malfunctioned at the sight because it can’t compute exactly what you’re seeing. If Bucky notices your blank stare, he doesn’t point it out. Perhaps it’s the years of evolution — and a decade of staring at men only in boring, stiff suits, but that same voice earlier is now screaming in your ear that’s a fucking hot working man. That voice is likely influenced by your knowledge that he actually does work with his extremely capable hands. It begs the next question: what other things are those hands capable of?
Your self-control tried and failed to slam the brakes on finishing that thought. How easily did you forget that seven-year relationship that almost destroyed you. What you need now is some healthy distance from romance and all of its associated variables. What you don’t need is to be thinking about how broad his chest looks underneath that navy fabric that stretches across it, or how his thick arms seem to fill it out, or how he’s now starting to tie his hair back into a bun.
Life isn’t fair. Some higher power up there is testing you and your self-restraint, which is admittedly not very strong.
“You okay?”
Bucky’s voice helps you drag your attention away from cataloging every single detail you find delicious about him today, quickly creating and filling a little memory box in your head to the brim. It’s probably a bad decision since you haven’t exactly gotten laid in a while, and Bucky is someone who you very much can imagine doing the laying.
Swallowing the thick, aroused lump in your throat, you nod and smile. Tight. “Fine. Great.” Your voice comes out embarrassingly breathless.
Thankfully, Bucky lets it slide. “I need to go into town to help out a friend. Did you want to come along? Figured we could do a night out after I wrap up. Dinner maybe.”
Your brows jump. Is he— “Are you asking me out?” You blurt out before you can stop yourself.
Bucky’s lips tug up on the corners, pretty pink surrounded by his dark stubble. He has trimmed it down, giving you a clearer view of his sharp jawline and shallow dimples. You can’t tell which one is worse for your libido.
“Do you want me to ask you out?”
You press your tongue against the inside of your cheek, heart skipping a beat over how casually confident he looks. That lazy smile, that devilish glint in his eye. “Touché,” you mutter, “let me get changed.”
Looking at your options, you are — well — stumped. It’s not as if you packed to star in some cheesy romcom, playing out this potential something with your parents’ employee. You packed for comfort, which means a wide array of cozy, ratty sweaters and sweats, more than enough leggings to avoid a wash, and a single pair of jeans. You tell yourself you’re not trying to dress to impress Bucky, why should you? It’s not a date. Still, you find yourself digging through your pile for more options, praying for something more enticing than home clothes that drown you.
Past-you clearly thought you needed this and you find a flowy, maxi skirt which you throw on with your most presentable sweater. You spend a bit of time on your makeup and hair — enough to make you look like you have been getting eight hours of sleep a night, not enough to make Bucky think you’re putting in that much effort for him.
Now, you look good. You may even look good enough for a date. Which this is not.
When you get to the bottom landing of the stairs, Bucky’s head immediately lifts from his phone. The slow smile that sprawls across his face is certainly worth the extra push you put into your appearance. He doesn’t comment, instead giving you a leisurely once-over that has your chest rising with the hitch of your breath. His eyes dark with his pupils blown.
For some reason, it feels infinitely heavier than a compliment.
The drive out into town is plagued with air thick with tension, the music crooning from the speakers doing nothing to ease it. It’s like sparks of electricity crackling here and there, enough times for you to notice, but so de minimis that you can choose to ignore them.
“You feeling better? Didn’t catch a cold from last night, did you?”
“No,” you murmur, “I’m fine. Just— hasn’t really been easy sleeping away from home. I’m used to the crowds and the noise.”
Bucky pauses. You can practically hear the gears in his head turning. “Anything I can do to help?”
You almost — almost — let slip that his being around does help. That his voice is soothing, his presence calming. The proximity and his warmth a balm for your aching soul. “No, think I just need to grow into it,” you shrug with a sigh, then add, “but thank you for checking in on me last night — and for your words.” You stop to take a deep breath. “It’s a little embarrassing actually to tell you all that, I hope I didn’t make you uncomfortable.”
“Doll,” Bucky says, the word tinted with the slight hint of exasperation. “I’m glad you talked to me, alright? Shouldn’t be thinking all of that alone. Don’t want you thinking that you’re to blame for someone acting real stupid.”
You hum, looking away to bite back the smile that threatens to crawl up your lips. “Thanks, Buck.”
His shoulders loosen, rolling back slightly as he reaches his free hand over to your knee, giving it a squeeze. It’s barely anything, but it feels like everything.
“This okay?” He asks, voice so low that you almost miss it beneath the quiet purr of his car.
His hand is a comforting weight on your knee. His fingers grounding without overwhelming you. His eyes search you in brief glances, almost wary. You can feel his grip loosening, his hand slipping as you wait a beat too long to respond.
“Yeah, it’s okay,” you say, equally quietly, but you know he hears it when he slides his hand back firmly over your knee and keeps it there.
When you arrive and Bucky releases you, you feel the loss almost instantaneously. You wonder if it’s your heartbroken-riddled mind playing tricks on you, craving the touch of a man you barely know to replace the one you thought you did. His gaze finds you again, kind and warm. There’s reassurance in the way his blue eyes shine, and you take satisfaction in that for now.
Bucky helps you down, careful to take your hand and slip his fingers through yours as he tugs you towards the open door of the garage. You don’t question why he keeps your hands interlinked, you don’t want to risk him letting go.
“Great, you’re finally here,” a tall blonde man pops out from behind the car. “I can’t get this running. I don’t think the battery’s busted but—” His eyes find you a smidgen too late, but are quick to drop to your hand in Bucky’s.
Instinctively, you pull away, tucking your hand behind your back. It’s not shame, it’s embarrassment. You don’t know this man. He doesn’t know you. Neither of you can define the nature of your relationship with Bucky so neutrality seemed to be the best option.
Bucky peeks at you, slightly amused, but doesn’t comment. “Yeah, give me a second and I’ll take a look. Come say hi first, don’t be rude.”
The man swaggers over towards you, legs as long as Bucky’s carrying him to the two of you in a few quick strides. He wipes his hands, stained in oil and grease, on a rag that looks equally soiled. He sticks it out and Bucky smacks it away.
“Don’t get your greasy paws on her.”
The man is handsome in that traditional sense, a typical all-American. The light to Bucky’s dark, with the exception of the black smear on his face. He grins easily and nods his head at you. There’s a knowing look in his eyes that you can’t understand, but Bucky seems to, judging by the glower he throws at him.
“I’m Steve, Bucky’s friend.”
You introduce yourself and stick out your hand for Steve to shake. His smile stretches a little wider as he accepts it, and it morphs into a smirk when he turns to Bucky.
“Bucky didn’t tell me he was bringing a pretty lady around. Hell, I didn’t even know he knew any ladies, let alone pretty ones. Have you met Sam yet? Did you bring her around to meet Sam? He’ll love her. He’ll love you.” His attention consistently shifts between the two of you with every question.
“Shut it, Steve.”
His gruffness is leveled by the fondness in his voice. It’s clear they have a good relationship. Good enough that Bucky lets parts of him that he hasn’t even shown you shine through. It’s endearing.
Bucky shoos his friend away, then turns to you. “Assuming you don’t want to stick around a couple of grease monkeys, I can drop you off in town when I go to pick up some supplies for that guy. I can pick you up whenever you give me a call. It’ll be a couple of hours at least before I finish up, but we can go to dinner after? You can also stay here if you want. I grabbed your laptop on the way out in case you wanted to do work or relax with us. Steve has WiFi.”
In the last few years, you don’t think Max has thought anything through beyond getting takeout together after work or shooting you a quick message if he gets a last-minute reservation somewhere. Perhaps your standards have stooped to levels lower than the floor in the years you’ve been together — resignation mistaken as comfort, but the thought that Bucky has put into making sure you’re comfortable is nice.
“You can drop me off in town. I can walk here after, it’s not too far.”
“Doll, I’ll pick you up, don’t—”
“Can you relax?” You huff, crossing your arms over your chest. “I can read a map, Barnes. You finish up whatever you need to do here so then we can go to dinner. I want that Italian spot. The one you keep talking about with the good ravioli.”
His lips quirk up as he shakes his head slightly, a huff of a laugh escaping his lips. “Alright. I already made a reservation there, you’ve been talking my ear off about it.”
“I have not.”
“Alright, doll,” he relents. “Come on.”
Bucky keeps his hand on your knee again for the duration of the ride, completely oblivious to the fact that your heart is about to leap out of your chest and onto his dashboard. He releases you to come out and open your door, his hand around yours again in an instant, like he can’t bear to not touch you for even a second.
Before Bucky separates from you to head to the hardware store, he clasps your hand a little firmer. “Call me if you decide you want me to pick you up. I’ll have my phone on me the entire time, yeah?”
You sigh, rolling your eyes. “Yeah, Buck.”
Bucky chuckles again. “Such a brat.” You scowl. “I’ll see you later.” With one final pat to your head, he walks away.
The town is a nice place to stroll around in. Given that you’ve been cooped up at home, being more than aggressively productive with work and your deadlines, it’s nice to actually use your legs for something other than going to the kitchen or the bathroom. You stop by little shops and pick up little trinkets that remind you of Bucky, realizing later that he may not even need them. You start to overthink it, panicking on the sidewalk over how it looks, when a door opens.
“Come to look for more books?”
Mr. Moore. “Oh, hello. I, uhm, honestly am just browsing for now,” you say sheepishly, scratching your cheek. “But I’ll certainly be back when I’m interested in more.”
“Don’t worry. I was just surprised James was with a pretty lady, never seen him around here with anyone — and he is around here quite a lot.”
Heat creeps up your neck at the pretty lady, second one you’ve gotten today. Instead, you opt to address— “James?”
“The young man you were with. He comes by a lot for books. Says he is building out a library for someone.”
A library? James? “Bucky’s building a library? For someone?”
“Ah, yes, that’s what he prefers to go by. Yes, he comes by to pick up a new book every once in a while. His taste is quite eclectic and I’m not sure if he’s even read any of them,” Mr. Moore laughs lightly, unaware of what his words have just done.
Your heart may have splintered a bit. Despite what you try to tell yourself, that you’re not trying for anything with Bucky, this disappointing news has dashed what little exists of your hope. It feels a bit childish to be so… possessive over a man you’ve just met. You only know him in the context of your little bubble, within the confines of your home. He probably does have a life outside of it all, why wouldn’t he? You’re only meeting Steve for the first time and he seems to be a very good friend.
You try not to think about it too much as you start the slow walk back to Steve’s place. Even the hustle and bustle of this quaint town does nothing to distract you from the multitude of thoughts swirling through your head. You’re still thinking about them even when you stop in front of the open garage again.
Steve perks up when he spots you. “Hey! You’re back.”
Bucky slides out from underneath the car fast and your heart traitorously jumps. His coveralls are now spotted with grease and oil, his hair messier from lying on his back, top buttons of his coveralls popped open in the heat of the work. His eyes are bright when they find you, but his brows immediately pucker.
Fuck, are you really that obvious?
He gets to his feet and wipes his hands down, cursing when he sees that he isn’t getting rid of them that easily. He almost looks pained when he approaches you, looking down at your hands. “Sorry, don’t want to get you dirty,” he mutters, bitterness tinging his voice.
“It’s okay,” you can only say.
Bucky tilts his head, seeming to assess you and your expression. You don’t know what face you’re making, but it’s clearly concerning enough to have him frowning. “Everything okay? Did something happen?”
You’ve known this man less than a week and he can already read you like a book. Meanwhile, you apparently haven’t even begun to read the important chapters of his life. “Yeah, I’m good,” you force a smile.
Looking far from satisfied with your response, he gives you an easy out by pivoting to look at the bag in your hand. “Got anything nice?”
Now the gift feels a little silly. You pull out the small item from the bag. “Um, it’s a fridge magnet. A ravioli. Thought it would be cute since we’re having that for dinner tonight.”
“S’cute,” he murmurs, eyes only briefly flicking to the item in your hand before refocusing on your face.
“It’s for you,” you state lamely.
Bucky’s eyes sparkle even brighter as he looks at it in awe. He reaches out to take it from you, flinching at his dirty hands again as he stops. “Thank you, I love it,” he says softly, “hold onto it for me, will you? Don’t want to get it dirty.”
You hum and nod.
“Doll, did something happen? Was someone bothering you?”
Your head jerks up. “What? No. Nothing happened.”
“Then why do you look like someone kicked your puppy?”
Do you? “I don’t have a puppy,” you sarcastically respond. Bucky gives you a pointed look. “Nobody was bothering me, promise. I’m just… thinking about something.”
“You gonna share that thought with me?”
Highly unlikely. You’re not here for any longer, you may as well save yourself the embarrassment of bringing up hey, so I thought we had something starting here, but you seem to have someone else you’ve been interested in for a while.
Fortunately, before you can answer, Steve calls out. “Shit, Buck, need your help with this.”
He looks pained once more when his attention flies briefly to Steve and returns to you. “We’ll talk later. I gotta help this guy. He’s fucking hopeless when it comes to cars.”
You end up sitting against the wall on one of the workstations, your laptop propped up in front of you. Despite having all the time in the world while waiting for Bucky, you can’t seem to concentrate. It’s a good thing you’re ahead of most of your work. The rest of these pieces can be pushed to January, which leaves your holidays untouched. You end up pulling up a book you’ve been meaning to read and flipping through it.
The pages do keep you occupied, stopping you from going down a rabbit hole of despair. Every once in a while, Bucky would stop by and say, “Sorry, not that much longer.” He’d check in to see if you were hungry, if you wanted a drink, if you were enjoying the book, if you were comfortable, if you were warm enough.
His concern is sweet, but you can’t help thinking that this is probably how he is with everyone. If he’s like this with you, you can’t imagine what he’s like with the recipient of that library he’s crafting.
Each time, you would reassure him that you’re fine and to focus on the task at hand. He doesn’t look very convinced.
When you’re a third of the way into the volume, Bucky comes up to you, looking weary but glowing with contentment. “Took longer than I expected. Sorry about that. I’m going to go wash up and we can go?”
“Sounds good.”
Bucky lifts his hand up again, fingers twitching, only to pull it back in frustration. You don’t have time to solve what that was about when he then goes into Steve’s house. Steve is still tinkering away lightly but you can feel his gaze drifting towards you every once in a while.
“You finding the house okay?”
His question pulls you back to the present. “Ah, yeah, it’s been good. Bucky takes great care of it.”
“Mhmm,” Steve singsongs, like he knows something he won’t share. Him and Bucky have that tendency, you’re not gonna take the bait. “What do you think of him?”
The question catches you off guard. Steve is probably being a protective friend. Bucky has been spending an awful amount of time around the house. Maybe he’s worried that he’s left him defenseless to a stranger from the city — not that that man can be defenseless, he can probably fling you across the room with one hand. The mental image does nothing to help when you press your legs together.
“He’s a good guy.”
“The best, really,” Steve emphasizes, “loyal too. Like a dog.”
You let out a small snort at the comparison. “Think he’ll twirl three times and bark if I tell him to?”
“Think he’ll do anything you tell him to,” Steve flashes a cheeky grin.
You’re not sure what to make of that. His words are cryptic, saying little but hinting at so much more. As a writer and a reader, you’ve always been able to read between the lines — except for when it comes to things related to you. In this case, while you are slightly hopeful about his words, you’re not going to let it get out of hand.
“How long have you known him?”
Steve pretends to think for a second, but you know the answer is top of mind. “Since high school. We went to different colleges for a bit, but ended up back here anyway.”
This is someone who knows Bucky well. Really well. Maybe even too well. Perhaps he would know this person that he’s supposedly interested in. You could be nosy and ask, play it off as genuine curiosity, but who are you to invade his privacy?
“That’s a while,” you choose to mutter instead.
“Not longer than you though,” Steve shrugs.
Your brows immediately meet in a frown. “What do you—”
“Ready to go?”
Bucky’s return interrupts your train of thought and your head instinctively turns to find his voice. The words fizzle out in your throat when you see him. You’ve seen Bucky down and dirty, grease-stained, dirt-covered. You’ve seen him shirtless under your sink, on your roof, behind your house. But you’ve never seen him like this.
To others, it may be nothing to write home about. A crisp button-down, black trousers. He’s rolling up his sleeves as he approaches you. His hair is tugged up into a bun with a few strands (aptly named slut strands by your friends) loosely framing his face.
The closer he gets, the louder your heart beats. You wonder if he can hear you, wonder if it’s obvious how your brain is completely short-circuiting at the sight of him looking deliciously put together.
While you can’t find the words to say, Steve lets out a low whistle behind you. “Look at you, haven’t seen you look this clean since senior prom.”
“Quit it,” Bucky grunts. If you didn’t know any better, you swear you see his ears tinged pink. He shifts his focus to you, eyes softer. “Ready to go?” He repeats.
Unfortunately, all you can manage is a nod. Mentally, your jaw is on the floor, dragging behind you as he leads you back to the car, a warm hand on your back.
It’s been so long since you’ve been this… affected by someone. Max dressed in custom suits and shirts that cost him thousands at least, but none of them have your heart beating out of your chest, your legs pressing together, or your breath knocked out of your lungs. Bucky changed that quickly.
Once again, you’re left wondering if this is all the aftermath of your breakup. You can’t help but constantly contemplate whether your attraction towards Bucky is spite towards your ex, or a search for something more, or a temporary filler for that cavity in your chest. The questions are a test of your rational decision-making. Emotions are difficult to decipher after a major incident, but you find yourself enjoying Bucky’s company and maybe that’s enough for now.
Bucky keeps his hand on your knee again on the drive over, the weight strangely soothing. A familiar touch. He doesn’t press further on your quietness from earlier, but you don’t miss the way he keeps glancing your way with inquiring eyes.
The Italian place is nothing fancy, nothing like the Michelin-starred establishments in the city. It’s a small, family-run bistro that Bucky apparently frequents because the host and the owner greet him like family, kisses on his cheeks and everything.
“And look at this pretty lady you’ve brought with you,” Maria beams, immediately welcoming you with a hug and a kiss on each cheek as well. “My, my, I can’t remember the last time you’ve brought a date here.”
“Maria,” Bucky scolds teasingly, affectionately, “I’ve never brought a date here.”
“You’re right,” she hums, eyes sparkling with a mirth that you don’t understand. “Come on, I have your table set up for you. Good thing you called, we have the Millers coming in later for Harry’s sixtieth so you know they’re filling the whole place.”
A groan resounds next to you as Bucky guides you to follow Maria with a hand on your back. “So much for a nice, quiet dinner.”
Maria only smirks before she leaves you at the table to get some water. You finally manage to get your first question out, and it’s not even the most pressing one. “Do you all just know each other around here?”
He chuckles, shaking his head. “No, not everyone. Some are more active in the community than others, so you tend to see the same faces. The Millers are a large, rowdy bunch, you’ll always see the group of them at town events. Maria’s family has been here for generations and she does food donations every Sunday.”
“And you?”
Bucky leans forward, arms folded on top of each other on the table. His baby blues shine under the low overhead lights. His smile almost teasing. “What about me?”
Warmth crawls up your neck again. “How does everyone know you?”
“Not everyone knows me,” he says and you immediately reward him with an eye-roll over his fake modesty. He laughs, “It’s true. I help out around town, I’m pretty handy, but nothing compared to some of the good people around here.”
“I think if you kidnapped someone’s dog, they would probably thank you for taking such good care of them.”
A snort slips past his lips. “Glad you think so highly of me.”
Dinner is a lovely, quiet affair. Bucky’s compliments did not do the ravioli justice as the pasta melts in your mouth with that delicious ooey-gooey filling. You’re pretty sure you blacked out and threatened to marry Maria at some point if that would get you her secret recipe. She laughed and told you that you don’t think Bucky would ever let that happen.
“Oddly protective of your ravioli, Mr. Barnes,” you grin.
“Oh, trust me. It’s not the ravioli he’s protecting,” Maria smiles, winking at the two of you before disappearing back into the kitchen.
You’re too food-drunk to fully process her words, instead choosing to scoop up more sauce onto your pasta and into your mouth. Another moan leaves your lips at the tangy, fresh tomato flavor.
“You make those noises every time you eat?” Bucky asks from across the table.
You finally look up from the divine dish, finding him amused, pupils dark where they’ve expanded. You don’t even have the capacity to be embarrassed when the food is worth it. “Only when I get something really, really good in my mouth.”
Bucky’s lips part before his tongue darts out to wet his bottom lip. He closes his eyes for a moment, releases a sigh, and once again shakes his head. “The mouth on you.”
Sure enough, the moment the Millers arrive, the restaurant descends into pure chaos. You’re surprised Maria even let Bucky keep the table when their family takes up the remainder of the seats, some of them squeezed together shoulder to shoulder. Their voices pulse off the walls, rambunctious in a way that only a large family can be. You find yourself both endeared and amused; after all, growing up, it’s only been you and your parents.
“Wonder what it would be like to have a big family,” you murmur quietly.
“Think you want a lot of kids?”
“First date and we’re already talking about having kids?” You grin, relishing the way he flushes pink again.
It’s not a date, the voice in your head chooses to emphasize then. Two friends having dinner. Remember, Bucky has someone he’s actually interested in. The reminder has your stomach churning and suddenly, panna cotta on your tongue doesn’t taste as sweet anymore.
“Hey, where did you go?” Bucky drags you out of your thoughts again. His gorgeous face is marred by the furrowing of his brows. You blink at him, the grey clouds slowly rolling away. “Lost you for a second there,” he murmurs, “what are you thinking about?”
“Nothing,” you answer a little too quickly.
“Are you sure? Sure seems like something’s bothering you. If I can do anything to help, you know I will.”
Unfortunately, this is not a problem he could help with. Not unless he suddenly loses interest in whoever he’s building a romantic library for. “I’m fine,” you force out a smile, “just work.”
“Thought you were doing well with your deadlines.”
Shit. You’ve always wished that men would pay more attention to the things you say; now, you’re starting to regret hoping for that. “I am, I’m thinking about my line of work for January. Hoping I have enough to sell to publications.”
Bucky stretches his hand across the table and takes yours, thumb brushing the back of it gently. “You’ll do great. You’re good.”
“You’re just saying that,” you laugh, your heart threatening to burst again with how aggressively it’s thumping. Your hand feels like it’s on fire where it’s tucked into Bucky’s.
“No, I’ve read your work. You do some nice fluff work, but there are a lot of your analytical think pieces that I enjoy.”
A squeak escapes you. “You’ve read my writing?”
“Don’t look so surprised, your parents talk about you all the time. How proud they are of you. I get forwarded all your articles.”
You groan, pressing your free hand against your forehead. “I’m going to murder them. I’m so sorry.”
“Why should you be? I like reading them.”
“They’re force-feeding it to you.”
Bucky laughs, grinning wide. “Actually, they did offer to stop after a while but I told them to keep ‘em coming. Makes me feel more intellectual compared to all the how-to-fix-a-bathroom guides I’ve been reading.”
It’s irritating how you keep drawing comparisons between Bucky and your not-to-be-named ex. The latter worked in finance and barely had the time to give your work the time of day. You didn’t think much of it, figured it just wasn’t his cup of tea. Little did you know that his cup of tea was bending his secretary over his desk.
“Well, I appreciate it,” you say, hoping your embarrassment of being perceived isn’t too obvious.
Bucky turns to look at the increasingly unruly crowd to the side. “Ready to get out of here? With the amount of wine Harry’s drinking, I have a feeling the tables will be their new floors soon.”
With a laugh, you nod. Bucky swipes his card before you can even pull out yours, which pulls a protest out of you. He only smiles, “First date, right? You can take the next one.”
Oh, how you love the way your heart skips a beat.
You didn’t have a single drop of alcohol yet you feel wine-drunk the entire ride home. With Bucky’s hand on your leg and his humming in your ears, this feels like a high you haven’t experienced in a while — or at all for that matter. You almost wished he would drive slower, take his time so the night wouldn’t end. Once the night comes to an end, he’ll be gone again and you’ll be alone again.
The car pulls to a quiet stop in front of your house and the engine clicks off, bathing the two of you in a thick silence. The dread sinks in fast. It’s not only about being left on your own, it’s specifically about having distance between you and Bucky. Today feels different; it’s not like all those times spent in your kitchen sharing a meal or the drives out into town for a purpose. There is a heavier taste to the air that leaves you wanting more, craving a fix that you can’t quite name.
“Walk you to your door?” Bucky asks softly, to which you manage a nod.
There aren’t enough steps between the car and the door. By the time you exhale, you’re already on your front porch, your key in the door. Bucky hovers behind you wordlessly.
Once the door is open, you rotate to look at him again. “Thanks for dinner, I really enjoyed it. We should do it again sometime.”
“Mhmm, just say when and I’ll take you.”
Then that word sticks again to your mind, begging to be freed. The one plea that you’ve managed not to say, but rests so heavy on your tongue that you want it to just roll off. Bucky looks at you with eyes searching for any signs.
Stay.
His eyes widen, revealing more of those beautiful blue irises, gold flecks glowing underneath the warm oil lamp. You realize then that you’ve said it out loud.
Moritification is etched onto your face when you quickly add, “For wine. I picked up a bottle last time we were in town. Um, it’s still early. If you want. You don’t have to, I’m sure you’ve got better things to do but—”
“Nothing better to do,” he easily interjects, “nothing else I’d rather do.”
Your chest blooms with hope as you take a step back into your house, swinging the door open further for him. “I’ll get the opener.”
The two of you settle in the living room. The television flickers quietly as background noise as you take another sip of the burgundy wine. It tastes delicious, a twenty-dollar bottle that could pass as two hundred. Maybe it’s not the wine itself, maybe it’s the company. Bucky pokes at the logs blazing in the fireplace before setting the metal rod aside and sitting back down next to you.
The conversation flows easily, lubricated by the alcohol buzzing in your veins. You take one glass after another, finding yourself a little lighter, a little less anxious in talking to him when he’s so close to you like this. He listens to you with rapt attention, even when you start going on tangents, arms moving around animatedly. He asks you follow-up questions, intrigued when you reveal more details about your story.
You tell him about life in the city, your friends, your colleagues. You don’t even think about your ex as you describe it to him, your life doesn’t center around him after all, and you realize that now. You tell him about the stories you’re thinking of writing, more think pieces that he enjoys, and he asks you to send him the draft when you’re done, tells you that he’d love to read it in advance.
“Why would you want to read the draft? It’s not going to be perfect,” you say, crinkling your nose.
Bucky’s lips twitch with the ghost of a smile. “I like seeing how your works progress. How they can only get better. Plus, gives me some idea to the raw makings of your mind.”
You laugh at that. Bucky grins even wider.
When you realize how long you’ve been talking — how much, you stop abruptly. “Shit, I’m sorry. I’ve been rambling. I tend to do that.”
“Don’t apologize, I like hearing you talk. You haven’t really been doing much of that since you got here.”
The way Bucky’s looking at you now, like you’re the only thing in the world worth paying attention to, has butterflies fluttering inside your chest. Your stomach flips when you see the flames flicker, casting his features in this warm glow, the other half shadowed where he turns to look at you.
He looks beautiful. He always has been. But in this light, on this specific night, you don’t think you’ve ever seen anyone more irresistible.
You blame the alcohol for what you do next. Looking at the clock, you see that it’s gotten quite late. The two of you have spent the last couple of hours chatting right here on this couch. A very comfortable couch.
“You’ve had a good amount to drink,” you whisper, scooting closer to him.
He’s had one glass. Barely anything. He probably doesn’t feel a drop with how big he is.
He looks at you, his gaze falling to your lips before slowly, hesitantly drawing back up. “I have,” he lies for you.
“You should just stay the night. S’not safe for you to drive,” you say, keeping your eyes locked on your hand as it reaches over to slide up his lap. His thick thigh tenses beneath your fingertips and your mouth begins to salivate instantly.
“Sounds like a good idea,” he confirms as he leans closer towards you. His breath ghosts the shell of your ear as he does so, lips grazing the length of your neck as he inhales deeply. “Y’smell so good.”
You bite back a moan, swallowing it down with the taste of the wine. “New perfume.”
“Don’t think I’ve smelled it before.”
“Didn’t think you were paying attention to how I smelled.”
Bucky chuckles low, puffs of air meeting your sensitive skin as he presses his lips against the side of your neck. A shiver snakes up your spine as your eyes slide shut. His presence is heady, like a drug seeping into your veins.
“I always pay attention when it comes to you.”
Fuck. Not only is your heartbeat crescendoing, there’s a new but not unfamiliar pulse between your legs that pulls a whine from your lips. Bucky shifts back and you feel that loss almost immediately, body instinctively drawing closer to seek him out again.
“Are you sure about this? You’ve had quite a bit to drink,” Bucky says gently, gaze laced with concern as he stares at you.
You can feel him pulling away, becoming more hesitant, but your hand squeezes his thigh, the same way he’s been doing all day. “Never been so sure of anything in my life. Promise.”
Before the flickering flames, Bucky slides a hand up your neck, thumb pressing gently against your jaw, which has you parting your lips ever so slightly in soft pants. He watches it carefully, how your lips stick together before separating, how your eyes glaze over at the small act. Then he leans closer, you can feel his breath against your skin. Your eyes slide shut expectantly, lips closing in anticipation.
“Keep your mouth open, doll,” he says, voice clear and stern.
You feel that order between your legs, pussy clenching. But you do as you’re told and you open up your lips again. Bucky closes the distance with a groan and licks your bottom lip. It’s like the first breath of air when you’ve been choking for so long, the first drop of liquor for an addict who just wants a taste. His tongue pushes into your mouth and you moan needily, fingers crawling up his chest to claw at his collar and draw him closer.
Bucky doesn’t waste a second and hoists you up to his lap, legs bent and straddling him, before kissing you again. His moan reverberates straight through you, straight to your core where it squeezes with the need for attention. His hands around your back, one to cup your ass and the other to bury in your hair. He tugs it back, gentle enough not to hurt you, but firm enough that you can feel your eyes rolling to the back of your head.
He tilts your head slightly to the side to open your neck up for his lips. His teeth. His tongue. He’s lapping at you like a dog while you grind down on his lap like a bitch in heat. His mouth feels hot and delicious against your sensitive skin, his growing erection digging against your thigh until you position yourself right on top of it. You thank the heavens you decided to wear a skirt, the thin fabric of your underwear is the only thing that stands between you and heaven. His cock feels thick against you, growing with desperation.
“Tastes so good, as sweet as I imagined,” Bucky mumbles against your skin. “Are you wet for me, doll? Can feel you leaking on my pants.”
Shame doesn’t even reach you when you’re slammed with the urgent need to feel more of him, pressing yourself down with a hungry whimper.
Bucky slips his hand underneath your sweater and tugs it over your head. You let him without a single letter of protest. The house is warm with you sandwiched between the fireplace and Bucky’s body heat. Your body feels like it’s been lit on fire with how Bucky ravenously drinks you in, his keen bright eyes memorizing you with a weight that has you shuddering.
“Always imagined what you looked like underneath all those cute sweaters and hoodies,” he says softly, palm stroking up your side and thumb reaching to brush your nipple over the fabric. You jolt in his hand, back arching slightly to his touch. “Could never compare to the real thing. Look at you. Fuckin’ beautiful.”
“Buck,” you whimper, the beginnings of embarrassment settling in the more he stares at you.
His gaze is casual but alert, like he’s taking his time committing the sight of you, every part of you, to the parts of his mind that he will constantly bring to the forefront. “Don’t get shy on me,” he smiles slow, “been thinkin’ about this for far too long. You don’t know how many ways I’ve imagined taking you. How many nights I spend with my cock in my fist, the sound of you in my fuckin’ ears like you’re right there with me.”
You let out another curse at the visual. All those nights you spent turning alone in your bed, you could’ve been with Bucky. You could’ve had his cock in your fist, could’ve been giving him the real reactions that he so desperately wants.
Bucky pops open the hooks of your bra, carelessly tosses it aside, before he dives in. His mouth latches onto your nipple while his hand gropes you eagerly. Fingers pinching, palms kneading, stimulating every inch of you, before he switches sides. Your nipples are slick with spit as you throw your head back, pushing your breasts more into his mouth, which he accepts with a wet groan.
“Pretty fuckin’ nipples, couldn’t have pictured anything better,” he grumbles, teeth nipping lightly to tug your nipple.
It would be humiliating to hear him narrate all this, but everything that comes out of his mouth is fire on your skin. “More, Buck, need more,” you stutter a gasp.
“Yeah? So needy. God, you’re fuckin’ unbelievable. Look at you grinding your hips down like a slut for me. You want my cock that badly?”
Bucky pulls away for a moment, seeming worried that he has gone a step too far when he frowns to check on you, but you’re still weighed down by your labor breaths, your chest constricting. You put your own hand on the back of his head to push him back towards you. “D-don’t stop.”
You don’t need to ask him twice. He’s back on you, tongue swirling around your peaked nipples, breath hot against the moist skin. Drunk on the feeling, you barely register Bucky laying you down on the couch, stretching you long as he crawls between your legs. He pushes your skirt up to your hips slowly, the fabric tantalizingly exposing each inch of your leg until he sees the damp fabric of your panties.
His thumb digs into the wet spot as he chuckles. “So wet for me already. So desperate. Thought I was the only one who wanted this. But looking at you now, so sweet on me, rubbing your pretty pussy against me before I even do anything,” he groans, breath hot against your skin. His tongue darts out to stroke up your clothed pussy, getting a hint of your saccharine taste.
“Buck,” you whine, fingers burrowing in his thick hair. His bun has loosened now, more of his hair brushing against your legs. “I can’t— I want your cock. Please. Can’t wait anymore.”
“No can do, doll,” he smiles, pressing a firm kiss against your clothed cunt. “Need to make sure I take care of you first. Prep you first. I don’t want to hurt you with my cock.”
The idea of how thick he is, how big, that he has to prepare you properly. You can only weakly nod as he ducks his head again and begins to thumb your clit while he mouths on your pussy, soaking your panties further with his spit. Before long, he’s hooking a finger to drag your panties to the side and touching his tongue to your center. The first stroke has your hips lifting, a gasp yanked out of your throat involuntarily.
“So fuckin’ sweet, this is what I wanted for dessert,” he grumbles, keeping his lips attached to your pussy. His tongue swipes up the lips, meeting his thumb at your clit to stimulate that sensitive bundle of nerves. “Would’ve taken you right there at the restaurant if you asked.”
“Bucky,” you whine. You could say more, but his name says enough. I want you. I need you. Your mind already struggles to string words together with him, let alone when you have him between your legs. His breath stokes the fire deep in your belly as he continues mouthing you hungrily.
“Mmm, keep calling my name, doll. Always pictured what you sound like beggin’ for me,” Bucky grunts and finally pushes a finger into you. He looks up at you as he does, watching as your expression morphs from a frustrated frown to blissful desire. He pumps the finger in and out of you slowly, enough to tease you, to edge you. With every stroke, he changes his tactics based on how you’re responding. He curls his finger inside when he sees your lips part, he pulls it out when you squeeze your eyes shut. His tongue joins two of his fingers then as he scissors you open, stretching out your insides.
His ministrations are relentless and you’re left squirming and whining underneath him, his free hand pressing down on your hip to keep your steady. You’re leaking all over the couch, the smell will likely last for days, but that seems to be the last of his problems.
“Should’ve taken you at mine,” Bucky grunts in annoyance. “I wanted you to drip all over my bed, my sofa. I wanted your smell to linger for days. Every time I lie down to sleep or rest on the couch after a long day, I’ll smell you everywhere. I’ll jerk my cock to the thought of you, knowing you’re probably doing the same with your pretty fingers right here.”
“Shit, Bucky, please. I can’t do this anymore,” you gasp breathlessly, “I need you. Please. I need you inside. I want you to cum with me.”
“Doll, you keep me down here and I’ll cum untouched, I promise you. Don’t need my dick wet in you to cum. You don’t know how long I’ve been waiting for this, how long I’ve wanted this. How many times I pictured bending you over the kitchen counter, or eating your cute cunt on the balcony.”
Desperate whines leave your lips again as you tug on the strands of his hair, a feeble attempt to get him to come up. The more he talks, the closer you get to your orgasm. But you want him. You want him inside you.
“I’m begging you, please. Just— just come up here and fuck me properly.”
Luckily, Bucky relinquishes and crawls his way up, his lips wet with your juices dragging up your skin as he makes his way back up. When he meets your lips again, you can taste both of you on him. You never thought you’d like it, but the way Bucky enjoyed himself down there was enough to have you giving in.
Bucky strips off his shirt, flinging it across the room, and unbuttons his pants. He quickly takes everything off before climbing back on top of you. While he keeps your mouth busy, his hands are tugging down your panties to your ankles. You don’t even know when he grabbed a condom but he’s already rolling it on while your brain is still stuck in this hazy fog of lust.
“So hard for you,” he heaves, “been hard for days. Balls so full. No matter how many times I cum, every time I see you, I get so hard again. You’ve turned me into a mess. Desperate only for you.” He positions himself at your entrance and the first push of his thick tip into you already has the two of you moaning. He inches himself in slowly, if not for you then for him. Bucky lets out a gasp as your pussy clenches tight around him. “So fuckin’ tight, doll. Fuck. Pussy was made for me. Got me locked in a death grip. Like she doesn’t wanna release me.”
Bucky eases into you slowly, excruciatingly. Every drag of his cock inside of you feels like the strike of yet another match to set you on fire. Your knees are bent and he’s fucking deep inside you, sweat beading his brows not from exhaustion, but the energy exerted to keep himself in check, to stop himself from finishing embarrassingly fast.
“Could cum right now, doll. But want you to enjoy it. Want you to feel how fucking hard I am for you.” His fat cock splits you open as you lie there and take it, as you let him use you however he wants. You savor the way his face transforms every time he pumps inside you. His eyes shutting and opening, a battle between the need to control himself and the desire to watch you as your cunt swallows him. His lips separating with hot, heavy breaths. His chest rising, stomach tightening, until you can see his chiseled torso gleaming in the light.
“Buck, I’m so close,” you whisper, trust in your own voice slipping through your fingers. “Needa cum. Just, mmm, feels so good. Need you.”
Bucky presses his forehead against yours, capturing your lips once more as he fucks into you. His cock is hot and heavy and thick inside you, a weight that grounds you into the cushions. Your insides coil tight. Your entire body buzzing alive with a desperate need for a satisfaction that’s so close you can practically taste it.
“So fuckin’ gorgeous, doll. You’re made for me. This pussy, gonna mold it to my cock. I’m gonna keep you in here, fuck you stupid every day. You don’t have to worry about a thing, I’ll take good care of you, you know that, right?” He rasps, shifting away slightly only to search your eyes. When you can’t find the energy to respond, he punctuates a “Right?” With a particularly deep thrust.
You nod, unsure of what you’re even agreeing to. At this point, all you have in your mind is Bucky and his smell and the feel of his cock delicious inside of you. You feel so full, each nerve vibrating for attention as Bucky continues to pump into you. Sweet and filthy words spill from his lips, each syllable dragging you closer and closer to that climax you so desperately crave.
“Now that I’ve had a taste of you, don’t think I’ll ever let you go.”
“Going to have you cockwarm me, just sit on my cock and look pretty.”
“Make you cum every day, until you can’t think about anyone or anything but me.”
From this moment alone, you know Bucky can keep his promise. Your brain is repeating his name over and over again, wretched pleas falling from your lips as he ruts his hips to push himself deeper inside of you. You can practically feel him inside your stomach, his length disorienting.
“Bucky, p-please, I wanna cum. Please let me cum.”
“Yeah, you want to cum, doll? Want to cum all over my cock? You’re already soaking my cock right now, can’t wait to have your cream all over me.”
His words have you wheezing, gasping for air in your choked lungs. You beg him one more time, the permission to release.
“Alright, doll. Cum around my cock. Squeeze my dick. I want you to milk me dry. Cum for me.”
Your orgasm wracks through you like lightning, the crack striking you as your pussy convulses around his cock, your stomach tightening with the release that catches you. Your body quakes beneath him as he too finds his completion, burying his face in your neck, beard scratching your sensitive skin, as he spurts into the condom, filling the rubber with evidence of his pleasure. Bucky’s hips stutter a few more times as he slumps on top of you, careful not to hurt you, but his weight a steadying presence.
Your cunt is still throbbing around him, his cock twitching inside of you, when you finally swallow around your dry throat. Bucky jerks back, quickly assessing you as he lifts himself up. Your hand wraps around his bicep to keep him there, keep his cock inside you a little longer.
“You okay?” He asks warily. “Did I hurt you?”
A laugh of disbelief rises from your chest. “Oh fuck you like you didn’t just give me the best damn orgasm of my life.”
His frown melts away into a wide smile. “Yeah? Best one, huh? That’s a big compliment.”
“Don’t get ahead of yourself.”
He presses his lips against yours again, tasting you slowly once more before he draws away and kisses your temple. “Well, now I have to figure out how to make it better than best.”
Somehow, you don’t think he’ll have a problem doing that.
–
A one-time fix was never going to be enough. Now that you’ve had a taste of him, you can’t seem to get enough of him. Whereas you were already following him around the house before, you can’t keep your hands off him now. Anywhere he’s willing to take you, you will.
Not that it’s any different from Bucky who hasn’t let you out of his sight for a second since that night. When the two of you wake up the next morning, sticky with each other’s body heat, Bucky joins you in the shower and soaps you up before he sinks his cock back into you, taking you against the hot stream of water pouring down from above, pressing you up against the cool tiles until your legs are shaking.
With the wine glasses still in the sink, stained red from the night before, he has one of your legs over his shoulder as he devours you again. This time, you do cum around his tongue and, based on the groan and the way his shoulders shake, he finishes untouched inside his pants.
The two of you bounce between your bed, the kitchen counter, against the outdoor shed. You get on your knees for him until he’s begging for you to stop. You don’t and he cums in your mouth, cock hitting the back of your throat as he spills white into you. He returns the favor by pressing you down onto a wooden workstation and your legs clamped around his face as he eats you out, eyes fixated on you the entire time.
You still do activities outside, of course. When Bucky tries to work on the sink, you end up slithering over and fucking him on the floor. When you try to write outside on the porch, Bucky has you sliding your wet pussy along his cock until he cums all over your belly.
Sometimes, you still drive out to town and you tease him so much in the car that he ends up swerving into a deserted road to fuck you in the backseat. The two of you go at it like rabbits anywhere and everywhere, days of build up feeling like months of separation. So much so that—
“Shit, I’m out of condoms,” Bucky curses with two of his fingers inside you and one hand trying to fiddle with his wallet.
At this point, he’s riled you up enough that you say, “I’m clean. I’m on the pill.”
Bucky’s lips tilt into a small amused smile at the desperation in your voice, how you greedily grind against his hand. “As enticing as that sounds, I want to be safe with you.”
So you drive into town and stop by the nearest store. Bucky picks up two boxes of condoms, smirking when you question him teasingly if that would be enough. The store clerk eyes the two of you with disdain as Bucky pays for it, once again pushing your wallet away.
On the way back home, you’re still vibrating with need but there’s a calm with Bucky that has you leaning back in surprise, watching you carefully.
“What’re you thinking about?”
Bucky huffs a laugh, smiling as he turns to you. “It’s my favorite time of day. Driving you.”
It’s unexpectedly soft and you can’t help yourself from leaning over to press a kiss to his cheek. Bucky turns then to peck you quickly before his hand takes yours on your lap.
Through all this, you can’t help that tiny, niggling, persistent voice in the back of your mind that reminds you of what Mr. Moore had said. About this person that Bucky is trying to court. Your brain is struggling to draw the line between him having this grand romantic gesture of building someone a whole damn library and the fact that he’s fucking you of all people right now. Not only once or twice or thrice, but you’re running out of fingers.
The only reason that your brain helpfully supplies is that you are a filler. It is the only reason that makes any semblance of sense. A good time. A good lay that he indulges in from time to time to keep him busy and distracted since he can’t seem to be with the one he is actually interested in. You want to ask him, want him to clarify what his intentions are — if this is all temporary or if he hopes for it be something more. Every time you come close to asking, your pride stands in your way; your last shred of dignity telling you that it’s better not to know rather than get an answer that puts an end to all this. You end up replacing that urge with his lips instead.
If you can’t have him forever, at least you can have him now.
Bucky doesn’t appear to suspect any of these thoughts from you. After all, every time he notices a shift in your mood, every time a question hangs on the tip of his tongue, you climb on top of him and push his attention to your body instead. It’s a defense mechanism, one that you’ve used hundreds of times before to avoid disappointing conversations. It’s apparently a tactic that works on Bucky too.
Still, sometimes, when all is said and done, and you’re tangled up in your sheets, Bucky says, “I know there’s something on your mind, I don’t want to push you to talk if you’re not ready. But I want you to know that I’m here and I’ll listen.”
Those times, your heart aches a little louder.
However, the conversation happens sooner than you think. It all comes full circle to where it began. You’re fully sated, limbs tingling all over from the delicious fuck that Bucky just put you through, stretched out like a feline on the couch — one that you replaced under the guise of a Christmas gift to your parents.
Bucky’s naked ass, his very gorgeous naked ass, is within your line of sight as he adds more logs to the fireplace. He had gotten up the moment you shivered a little bit. When he returns to you, he sets up pillows on the floor and tugs you down with him. A blanket covers both of your nude figures as he wraps an arm around you to keep you close and warm.
In addition to that invasive thought, another question comes to mind when you retrace your steps with Bucky.
“Something you said when I first met you,” you start and Bucky hums, “you mentioned something about me not remembering you. Have we really met before?”
His body shakes with laughter and you swat his chest, cheeks warm not only from the dancing flames. “We have.”
“When?” You ask in exasperation, knowing full well he’s only dragging this out for his entertainment.
“A long time ago. We met a good number of times actually,” he continues. When you give him a look demanding more, he only smirks. “My dad used to work for your parents. He did all of the upkeep on the property until he passed a couple of years back, then I took over.” You whisper a quick sorry for his loss with a kiss to his cheek which he gratefully accepts with a squeeze of your knee. “We lived in that same house but I used to come around and help him with odd jobs around here, especially when he got older. Your parents also just let me hang around because I was learning from my dad. That’s when I first met you.”
You’re struggling to piece together the memories from your childhood. Fragments of scenes in this house that you frequently visited during school holidays or lived in only for certain seasons. It’s all a little hazy but you vaguely recall a dark-haired kid. Always with a scratch on his face. A streak of dirt on his white t-shirt.
“Back then, you only came up here every summer and fall. Only time I got to see you. Grew up kinda alongside you. I’m a little older than you, a little scrawnier then—”
It hits you then. “James?” You blurt out. “You’re James?”
Bucky laughs, eyes twinkling delightedly. “Yeah, I’m James. It’s my first name. Bucky’s short for my middle.”
You remember this guy, older than you. He used to toil around in the garden, planting all sorts of vegetables and fruits that your parents would use to whip up the occasional home-cooked meal. You remember telling him once that daisies are your favorite and, three days later, you found beds of them in the backyard ready to pick. You hadn’t picked any of them; instead, you’d spend hours just laying on the grass reading by the flowers. You remember your friends coming to visit and they would tease you relentlessly for living with a boy because James was always there. They weren’t being mean, they were just innocently poking fun. You remember denying your crush on him, a crush long forgotten when you started getting to know Max more in the city.
Still, James is always on the outskirts of your memories. Helping your mom with groceries, talking to your dad about his car, out and about around the house. He lingers on the edges of your periphery, never quite in the center after a while. You can’t believe you nearly, completely forgot about him.
Now, what Mr. Moore said makes sense. Calling him James. You never connected the dots.
“Did you eat a truck or something?” is the first thing you ask. The James you knew, the blurry visage in the back of your mind, was lanky and skinny. He was always a little tall even for his age, but never this big. Not as big as Bucky is now. It seems like your graduation and full move into the city had removed him altogether from your thoughts.
“I grew up,” Bucky smirks. He sure did.
“Why didn’t you say anything?”
He shrugs. “You didn’t remember me, there wasn’t a point to bringing it up. Plus, it was cute seeing you squirm around someone you thought to be a stranger for a while.”
He practically is a stranger. The years of distance have put a wall between the two of you, one that you failed to look over. But you’ve been chipping away at it slowly over the past week, taking down the bricks to reveal the man on the other side. The man you had known and the man as he is today.
With one mystery down, you brave yourself for the second — one that has the potential to break your heart.
“I was talking to Mr. Moore that day, when we visited Steve.” Your words have Bucky perking up, shifting to look at you with deep curiosity. “He told me that you come by there a lot, that the reason why he knows you so well is because you’ve been buying a lot of books to build a library for someone.”
Bucky pales even in the warm light of the fireplace. Your heart sinks.
“I just— if you were interested in someone, you don’t have to— I mean, if she or he or they are here, I don’t really understand why we’re doing this. I just assumed they’re not here and so you couldn’t, you know, be with them. Because it’s insane to think that someone wouldn’t want to be with you. I guess what I’m saying is—”
He shuts you up with a kiss, lips sealed firmly on yours. “Shut up.”
“Excuse me,” you scoff.
“For someone I consider to be incredibly smart, you’re an idiot.”
“Again, excuse me?”
“Doll, you’ve touched that library.”
That takes you aback, you look at him incredulously. “What?”
“The books you’ve been going through. That library upstairs.”
The realization dawns on you fast, melting like snow on your fingertips. The neurons in your brain are rattling off signals into the abyss, piecing together things you’ve heard, things that have happened in the last few days. Mr. Moore’s words. Steve’s vague teasing. Bucky’s behavior.
Oh god.
Before you can spiral further, Bucky takes your hand in his and brings it to his mouth. He places soft kisses on your palm and on your wrist, feeling the pulse underneath with his lips. “You read so much growing up. I remember you raided your parents’ books until you ran out. You’d complain about not having enough so I used to clean out my pocket money to buy you more. You lit up, thinking your parents finally heard you, and you finished those books in no time. It just became a habit,” he adds.
“You’re still buying books today?”
“Never stopped,” he replies simply, as if it’s the easiest thing in the world. “You hadn’t come around in a while but I figured that you’d like it once you did. I’m not consistently buying things,” he chuckles, “just whenever I see something that makes me think of you, I’ll get it and shelve it.”
The library had been sparse growing up, shelves with empty slots that had you irritated even as a teenager. You never questioned the new books that popped up from time to time, thinking it was your parents finally adding to their collection. The library today is filled to the brim, books upon books filling the racks. The ones that don’t fit sit on a couple of neat stacks on the floor.
“Was that what had you up in your head all this time? You thought I was buying books for someone else?”
At that, you snap back into reality, embarrassment creeping up on you.
Bucky laughs and you whine for him to stop, burying your face in your hands. He takes your hands and uses them to draw you closer, peppering your face with kisses that have you squirming and giggling. “Fuckin’ cute. After all the time I spent with you and you thought I was trying to court someone else?”
“I didn’t know!”
“Doll, I’ve been into you since we were kids. Into you even when you were gone. You think I’d let this chance go when you’re here?”
You look up sheepishly at him. “I’m sorry I didn’t remember you.”
“Don’t be sorry,” he murmurs sweetly against your lips. “We have all the time in the world to make up for it.”
–
Your morning routine hasn’t changed much since everything that has transpired. You still make breakfast for the two of you, Bucky still comes into the kitchen groggy. Except now Bucky is strolling in straight from your bed, head rumpled with sleep, and eyes that quickly darken at the sight of you. He sidles up behind you, strong arms wrapping around your waist as he pastes his lips on the back of your bare shoulder where your pajama shirt has slipped down.
“Morning, doll,” he rumbles tiredly, tucking his chin over one shoulder.
“Morning,” you hum and pluck a piece of crisp bacon to hand-feed it directly to him.
It always starts like this, an innocent act stained the moment Bucky puts his mouth on you. He closes his lips around your fingers, licking the grease and flavor off completely and pressing his morning erection against your ass. “Want you,” he says, sleep slowly bleeding out of his voice.
“You had me last night, yesterday afternoon, at lunch, and in the morning,” you say with a smug smile. He looks equally pleased with himself when he realizes how many times, how many ways he has had you in the past twenty-four hours.
“Can’t get enough of you,” Bucky grins, switching off the stove and shoving his hand past the elastic of your pants. “I want to feed this greedy little cunt too.”
Before long, you’re a moaning mess with your cheek against the counter as Bucky fingers you open — not that he has to anymore with how much he’s fucked you last couple of days — and thrusts his cock deep inside you. He’s pounding into you from behind, fingers solidly buried in the flesh of your hip. He bends forward to press his front against your back, nipping your ear as his hand comes around to lock around your throat.
The light squeeze has you dizzy, whimpering for more. Bucky keeps you full, tells you how you’re such a good girl for him for always warming his cock in the morning. How your pussy is still so tight around him even after the number of times he has stretched you open.
You’re in that halfway state of lustful daze and barely-there consciousness when Bucky stiffens behind you. Turning back to look at him, you whine petulantly. “Why’d you stop?”
“Do you hear that? Someone’s coming.”
You grunt, nudging your ass back against him. “It’s fine. It’s probably the mailman, we can get it later.”
However, Bucky still doesn’t move an inch, which makes you huff. The sound of the car rolling up towards the house has him freezing. “Shit, I know that car.” He abruptly pulls out of you, cursing under his breath again as he helps you pull your pants up.
“Whose car is it?”
“Your parents.”
“Shit.”
The world drops at your feet as you scramble to put yourself together again. While your parents know you’re not their innocent little girl anymore, it doesn’t mean they approve of you christening every inch of their holiday house with the man they hired to maintain it.
Panic claws at your stomach but Bucky quickly kisses you, kind eyes grounding you. “Okay, let me make sure we didn’t leave anything behind. You go talk to them first.”
Always the rational one. The one with the solutions. All you can think about is — “They were supposed to be gone for another few days!”
“I know, doll,” he murmurs softly then kisses your forehead. “Go.”
Your stomach flips, and you can’t tell if it’s because Bucky’s being extra soft with you, or the fact that your parents nearly caught you getting your insides rearranged with Bucky fucking you seven ways to Sunday.
You reach the door just in time to hear the keys jingle. Grabbing the handle and swinging it open, you greet them with the brightest smile you can muster. “Mom! Dad! You’re back so early. I thought you were supposed to be in Cancun for a couple more days.”
Your dad wraps you in a hug first, his jacket chilly against your thinner pajamas. When he embraces you, you finally catch sight of the intruder who at least has the decency to look contrite when he catches your eyes. Your fists ball together tight at the sight of him.
“What’s he doing here?”
As your mom wrangles you into a hug of her own, your dad beams brightly at you, seeming almost proud for doing such a good deed. “Oh, honey, we thought it would be such a shame for you to spend Christmas alone and working, so we left our cruise earlier and picked him up on the way up here. I was surprised to hear Max didn’t come up with you. He’s welcome here, you know.”
“Okay, but—”
Max, the fucking asshole, has the nerve to interrupt you with a pointed look and that practiced smile on his face. “And we are so, so grateful for that,” he declares, sliding an arm around your shoulders and pecking your cheek. You wanted to hit him with an uppercut to his fucking jaw. His hand squeezes your arm. “We wouldn’t want anything to ruin Christmas, would we?”
Your parents love the holidays. They think it’s the time to reconnect with loved ones, spread magic, and sprinkle holiday cheer. You’ve been celebrating the season with Max, your parents, and his parents in the city for years, a convening of the two sides likely to be officially family soon. But this year is clearly different and your parents have yet to catch wind of what has happened.
You hate to break their heart, especially since you know they wanted to do something nice for you. So you keep your mouth shut — for now. The threatening glare you sear into Max’s head behind your parents’ back as they enter is enough to have him cowering slightly.
As if the universe is determined to set your life on fire, Bucky comes down the hall just as the front door closes behind the lot of you. His eyes are warm when they find your parents, but you can see the wall that slams up when he spots Max next to you, his arm around you. You quickly shrug it off with a frown, trying to reassure him with your gaze but he’s already shifting his attention to your parents.
“James! Good to see you, son. I see you’ve been taking good care of the place and our girl. The two of you haven’t seen each other in some time, right?” Oh boy. He’s been taking real good care of you, that’s for sure.
Bucky’s lips tug up into a genuine and partially amused smile as he nods. “Just doing my job.”
The look he throws at you is knowing, sparkling almost with mischief. You breathe a sigh of relief seeing some of the light return to his eyes as he looks at you, almost quietly asking if you’re okay. You only manage a quiet nod, pursing your lips to inform him that you’ll update him on the situation later.
Expectedly, Max’s glance bounces between the two of you, the small wheels in his mind spinning and working on overdrive. The genius that he is puts two and two together, and he narrows his eyes at Bucky. Good thing your real man isn’t one to be fazed and he sizes Max up as they greet each other.
“Max, the boyfriend,” Max smiles confidently, almost snarkily, as he sticks his hand out.
Bucky looks at it, looks at him, and clenches his jaw. “Funny, that’s not what she told me about you,” Bucky snips right back.
That wipes the smile clean off Max’s face and you’ve never seen anything to satisfying.
Your dad — god bless his soul — is oblivious to the showdown happening under his roof and only claps his hands together. “Let’s do a family dinner tonight. James, you’re welcome to join us, of course. We will order in and have a feast. A celebration of the holidays and joyous reunions.”
You wonder how you’re going to get yourself out of this mess.
The dinner is only tense for you, Bucky, and Max. Your parents are enjoying the catered meals, Maria having outdone herself with the selections once again. While your parents chatter your ears off about the cruise, you’re nervously looking between Max to your right and Bucky diagonally across you. He hasn’t said a word the entire time, while Max has been currying favor with your parents. He’s always been good at that, sweet-talking his way into situations. He just doesn’t know how to keep himself there when he can’t keep it in his pants.
“So, Max, tell us, come on. When are you doing it?”
“Doing what, sir?”
“Proposing to my daughter, of course!”
You can hear a pin drop in the silence that follows. Your mother waits with bated breath, you tense down to your toes, Max is frozen solid, and Bucky looks like he has stopped breathing altogether. The awkwardness weighs heavily at least between the three that understand the situation, but your parents only look at him with hopeful eyes.
“Sweetheart, you two have been dating for god knows how long now. It’s about time, don’t you think?” Your mother coos. “She wants children and this is a good time to start. We’d love to be grandparents.”
Marriage? Children? As good as Maria’s cooking is, you can feel the food coming back up your esophagus. Max glances at you and forces out a smile. A smile both to convince your parents and to convince you. “Soon. Whatever it takes. I’ll get her to marry me.”
It’s not only a promise to them. It’s a promise to you. He’s determined to win you back.
Your mother practically swoons. “Look at that, how romantic. Isn’t that just sweet?” As if things couldn’t get any worse, she then moves her attention to Bucky. “James, what about you? We’ve known you for as long as these two and I’ve never seen you with anyone. Do you have anyone special? You’re free to bring them around, you know. You’re practically family.”
Your heart knocks against your ribcage in anticipation. What would he say? Is this it? Is this the time to reveal everything?
However, Bucky doesn’t even as much as spare you a glance before he turns to your mom with a tight smile. “No, no one special right now.”
The collective disappointment is palpable around the room, but it’s most obvious on you. Bucky still won’t meet your eye, instead picking apart the food on his plate to keep himself distracted and his hands busy. Your parents continue to talk through dinner but none of you seem to be listening anymore. The five of you work quickly to put away the dishes and clean up the table for the evening.
With every passing second, your heart sinks deeper into the floor. You can feel Bucky slipping away, his presence, his mind elsewhere even as he putters around the house to help.
“Well, we’re going to call it a night, kids. We’ll see you in the morning. Perhaps we can go for a hike!” Your dad announces enthusiastically, only to be met with the groans of everyone in the room. “Okay, so hike up for debate, we can discuss this tomorrow.”
Your mother only shakes her head, shooting apologetic glances at the three of you. “He’s had a long day. Have a good night. Max, you can stay in the same room. We know you’re both adults, we trust you to act accordingly. And wear protection.”
“Mom!” You snap and she only laughs as she pushes your father up the stairs into their room. You mutter curses under your breath about how unbelievable your parents are.
When they’re finally out of sight, you turn towards Bucky, taking a step towards. However, he takes a step back, shaking his head. “I should head out for the night. Your parents are still here. We can talk in the morning.”
“Buck—”
“You have some things you clearly need to sort out too,” he smiles and you don’t like that it’s tinged with sadness. A preemptive disappointment that you want to wipe away.
You’re about to reach out for him again when Max catches your hand and shakes his head, telling you to stay. That one moment of distraction is all it takes for Bucky to leave the house with a quiet click and his car roaring to life. By the time you step out onto the porch, he is already driving down the winding road.
It is then that you turn the maximum strength of your seething glare towards Max. “You really have some fucking nerve.”
“They showed up at your door, thought I’d be home. They called me, what was I supposed to do?”
“Don’t pick up! Tell them you’re cheating scum! Literally anything but tagging along and fucking showing up here when nobody wants you here.”
Max sighs. “Baby, come on.” The pet name grates on your nerves now, sounding like the scrape of nails on a chalkboard. “It was one time—”
“Was it really? Because the two of you sure as hell seemed real comfortable in my home, fucking on my bed.”
“We weren’t fuck—” he stops when he sees the look on your face, “not that time. No. Look, I made a mistake. We have something good here, don’t we? We’ve been together for so long. That was an error in judgment on my part. She was temporary. You’re forever, baby. You’re it for me. We’re meant to be together. Your parents love me. Why throw away a good thing?”
When he extends his hand towards you again, you smack it away with your stomach churning in disgust. “You’re fucking vile. This was never a good thing. Meeting Bucky here, the way he treats me, the way he sees me, I know now that I was never anything more than a convenience for you. So you can shove that mistake and whatever good thing you think we have up your fucking ass.”
“You’re really going to disappoint your parents over Christmas?”
“My parents care more that I’m genuinely happy, and I can tell you — from the bottom of my heart, with the greatest sincerity known to man — that I am genuinely happier with Bucky than I have been with you all these years. I can’t believe I wasted all my time on you, but at least now I know I was preparing myself for someone much, much better than you.”
Max opens his mouth again and you’re getting real sick of his bullshit so you pin him yet with another glower, daggers landing a hairsbreadth away from his head. That shuts him up.
“I want you gone in the morning. I’m not a heartless asshole like you so you can stay on the couch. You’re going to keep your bags packed and you are going to go. I will explain everything to my parents so you don’t have to face them again. Or would you prefer I tell my dad now so he can whoop your ass back into the city?”
The look of pure, unfettered fear on his face is more than satisfying. While your dad is the most easygoing man you’ve ever known, he is also fiercely protective, especially when it comes to you. The last thing Max wants when your dad learns the truth is to be under the same roof as him, a confined space and acres of land in his backyard to hide the skeletons.
“Fine. I’ll leave in the morning. But I’m telling you right now, you’re making a huge mistake.”
“I’m sure you think that, but I don’t think I’ve ever been more confident in anything in my life.”
With that final word, you throw the door open and head out to the shed. You don’t want to arouse suspicion from your parents, so you can’t take the car and risk them noticing you peeling out of the driveway, but you also need to see Bucky tonight. Right now. You don’t like the look that he left with, like he’s saying goodbye without a proper farewell. Your rickety old bike leans against the wall. It looks like a death trap but it’s a death trap that’ll work to get you where you need to go.
In hindsight, biking in the dark is likely your dumbest idea to date. The flashlight on the creaking hunk of metal flickers in and out, leaving you blind in the darkness for a good portion of your ride. The tires are almost completely flat so it takes you a bit more work to get it moving. Your sweater catches on a few branches on your way there, probably collecting a bird’s nest by the time you reach Bucky’s home. You’re squinting at the mailboxes you pass by and finally screech to a halt when you see Barnes painted onto one of them. You turn into his driveway and break into a run the moment you hop off the bike; in fact, you’re only halfway off your bike as it spins and hits the ground when your own feet pound against the dirt.
Your fist knocks repeatedly, banging louder and louder with every second. He’s in there. He can’t pretend not to hear you. The side of your palm is starting to sting with how hard you’re knocking on his door when you land another hit, the same time the door opens, leaving you swinging into thin air.
“Doll, you’re going to wake up the whole damn neighborhood.”
“It’s not my fault you weren’t answering.”
Bucky looks behind you, notices something, and then looks at you with wide eyes. “How did you get here?” You open your mouth then promptly close it because you know he won’t like the answer. A scowl descends on his face. “You did not bike here. Tell me you didn’t bike here.”
“Okay, I won’t tell you that.”
“Are you insane? Do you know how dark out it is? Not to mention that bike is a death trap. Chain barely works, everything is rusted, the light is busted. You have no reflective attachments whatsoever which means cars can’t even see you. What if you got hit? What if you got hurt? What’s the matter with you?”
It’s your turn to give him a dirty look. “Oh, get off that high horse, Barnes. You wouldn’t even look at me, what was I supposed to think?”
“I told you we’d talk in the morning.”
“Well, we both know that you’re good at keeping secrets and who knows what you would’ve concocted in your head before the night is over.”
Surprisingly, he doesn’t argue with you. He only sighs and tugs you inside, muttering about how cold it is before he grabs a jacket from the coat rack and wraps it around you. “Alright, fine. Yes, I was thinking a lot about dinner. Maybe it got in my head a little bit.”
“I knew it,” you hiss. “And you still left?”
“I figured you’d want time to talk to your ex.”
“Why would you even think that?”
Bucky licks his lips, crossing his arms over his chest. He looks bigger this way, broader, but there’s something vulnerable to his stance that pinches your heart. “Look, I just wanted you to have the full opportunity to consider your options. We’ve had a great few days. This last week has been unbelievable. Sometimes, I still can’t believe this is real — and that you’re real. But if this is a rebound thing for you, fine. Just— I can’t really do that, not with you. I don’t trust myself to keep my distance.” He breathes out, his exhale shaking along the notes. “Also, you deserve better than that tool over there. Even if you don’t end up with me, even if you don’t stay with me, don’t go back to him. You could do so much better.”
This is when you take a step towards him, your hands reaching out to untangle his arms and wrap them around you. Your own hands slide around his torso, wrapping around his middle as you look up at him. “Bucky, listen to me very, very carefully. This is not a rebound. You are not a rebound. I haven’t thought about my dickwad of an ex in days. When I do, it’s only to compare how shitty he was to how incredible you are. I would never go back to him. I didn’t want to upset my parents for Christmas, which is why I kept my mouth shut tonight. I’m telling them about Max first thing in the morning. It’s not because I didn’t want to tell them about you because I do — and I think they’ll be happier seeing me with you anyway.”
He tilts his head. Light is already returning to his eyes and you melt into his hold as he tightens his arms around you. “Why do you say that?”
“Because I’m much happier with you too,” you grin, reaching up to kiss him quick on the lips.
Bucky leans down to chase your mouth again, slanting his lips over yours. He sighs into your parted lips. “You still live in the city, doll. This wouldn’t work. I can’t take you away from your life there.”
“Well, I do work remotely most of the time and my parents barely use this house. I could move back in while I figure out what to do with my apartment. The train is an easy trip into the city, I could still see my friends, or I can invite them up here for a getaway.” You look up at him with coy eyes, a teasingly shy smile. “Introduce them to my very gorgeous boyfriend.”
He practically glows with your words. The smile that threatens his expression breaks out in full force across his handsome features. “Boyfriend, huh? Think I could get used to that.”
“You better because that’s what I’m going to be calling you from now on. Boyfriend.”
“Fuckin’ tease,” he chuckles and lifts you up, your legs wrapping around him. “Well, how about you let your boyfriend take real good care of you tonight?”
✶ ― SYNOPSIS. fleeing from a messy situationship, you embark on a journey to travel across the globe and discover the hidden beauties earth has to offer. you find the rarest beauty of all in him, bucky barnes. honey eyed, smooth-talking, and capable of working just about every job under the sun. as you continue to crash into him with every country you travel through, a chilling thought starts to take hold of your heart: is fate pushing you together, or is something darker chasing you? this fic is part of the bwat summer collab !
warnings .ᐟ mdni! no use of y/n, vacation/backpacking au, romcom au but make it a thriller too, stalker!bucky, strangers to unethically sourced lovers, smut (dubcon, sex via coercion/manipulation, piv, dacryphilia, blowjob, cum eating, spit swallowing, mirror sex, pussy slapping, tummy bulge, recording sexual acts, implied panty stealing, creampie), stalking, creepy behaviour masked as romantic, bucky is a major loser he just hides it well, harassment (from a character that isn't bucky), descriptions of scars and an anxiety attack. the reader in this fic is pretty much dense and trusts a man too blindly. if you don't enjoy reading that, no worries, this fic just isn't for you. see you in the next one <3
ᯓ★ hyde's input. this entire fic is a joke that went too far. thank you to the amazing @barnesonly & @iamthatonefangirl for organising this collab ily both so dearly <3 brat dividers by @/barnesonly
disclaimer. instead of possessing a bionic arm in this au, bucky is a survivor of a burn injury along his left arm. i have tried to handle the subject as respectfully as possible, sincerest apologies if i did not succeed at that.
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TRAVEL&co kiosk, between gates 31/32 & gates 33/34.
An overwhelm of options can paralyse choice.
Bursting from the metal confines of the display stand, a rainbow of pamphlets cry out for your attention, each more desperate than the last to be picked off the shelf and purchased. Titles in bold, italics, underlined; every old trick in the book, intended to capture the eye, stands before you.
Top 20 Tourist Stops in East Asia.
DOs & DONTs of Hostel Living.
HIDDEN GEMS: a Guide to Rural Sight-Seeing.
Trust your gut, you can practically hear your mother’s voice in your head, guiding you to put your faith in something arbitrary. While her motherly advice is typically welcome, this time the thought leaves an acidic taste in your mouth that lingers, souring your expression and becoming the root of your furrowing brows.
Your gut has unfortunately been a source of misery as of late, leading you down the regretful path of trusting a man, putting all your patience and hope in his ability to change, eventually, for you. What a selfishly naive belief, to think you could change fate, scrub the mould off a man’s heart and bring him back to the land of the feeling. No affection that requires you to humiliate yourself is ever worth it, and god have you learn it the ugly way: tears dripping onto the carpet beneath your knees, chest heaving for breaths, and his lame-ass excuses, I’m just not ready for commitment, baby.
More the fool you for believing a man pushing thirty, incapable of holding down a job, and still riding the high of his days as the high school quarterback could ever face something as challenging as putting a label on the months of ‘messing around’ you both had been partaking in. Now here you stand, suitcase checked in and a one-way boarding pass in hand, frozen before the overwhelming display of travel books one of the airport’s many kiosks has to offer, and hellbent on placing as much distance as possible between you and that man.
A last minute decision, filling the neglected well of spontaneity in your life. Your parents had thought you mad, your friends had insisted on keeping you company. With both groups of protesting figures in your life, you put your foot down and demanded the solitude you craved. After all, you can’t exactly embark on a solo-trip around the planet with someone by your side — even if that someone is your mother or closest friend.
But maybe loneliness is not all it’s cut-out to be. You’d give up everything just about now to have someone to help pluck out the right pamphlet, something sure to serve you not just your first stop but for the entirety of your travels.
“You’re looking at stand like it owes you a debt.”
At first, you think you’re hearing things, brain so desperate for validation it’s taken to imagining company. Then something moves in your peripheral and you’re struck with a sight that feels like something the universe has sent directly to mock your battered and bruised heart: a man.
Not just any run-of-the-mill man, but a man made of blue eyes, sharp cheeks, and a smile so pearly-white you feel you’re staring into the mouth of a predator, inches away from sinking it’s canines into your delicate skin and devouring you whole… But no beast looks like this, enchanting and handsome in a manner that has you questioning where this stranger has been hiding from you all along — until, of course, you remember you’re in an airport and it’s likely this man is merely passing through your city, a temporary stop on his journey to who-knows-where.
Is it too late to change your flight?
“And now it seems the debt is mine,” the stranger lets out a chuckle at his words, wolfish smile stretching wider along his cheeks and making you painfully aware of the creases that mark the skin around his eyes — evidence of a life well-lived, the wrinkles of happiness. They only serve to make him all the more enticing to stare at, a deer caught in the glow of a very beautiful headlight. “Any chance I can pay it off with a little advice?”
Why has it taken you so long to realise the man is talking to you?
A scramble for breath, for words, for something that won’t deepen the embarrassment already scorching your cheeks, you muster a sophisticated, “Huh?”
… and instantly wish the linoleum flooring would spontaneously drop to reveal a sinkhole big enough to swallow you.
“Here, let’s go with,” the man drags out his word, bending at the waist as he leans forward, arm reaching down to pluck something from the stand. You barely have time to admire the way he fills out his trousers, jeans clad skin tight against the swell of his ass, before his spine has straightened and he’s waving a booklet in your face. “This sounds pretty useful, don’cha agree?”
The tiniest twang of an accent kisses your eardrum, scratching an itch you hadn’t even been aware of until now. You almost feign mishearing, just for a chance to hear the stranger repeat himself. But your eyes are drawn downwards, towards the title in his palm, and all hope of feigning ignorance flies out the door.
The Wise Traveller: navigating safety as a solo-travelling woman.
Hackles rise, an old reflex from the days you payed your gut any mind. Your mouth dries, and your eyes widen slightly, and you’re suddenly reminded of the fact this stranger is a man, mankind’s greatest predator.
“How do you know I’m travelling alone?” The question is a bite, one you deliver before sense can tell you better.
By the way the man’s smile falters, a minuscule tremble in the corners of his mouth, your hostility was unexpected. Nevertheless, the man makes no attempt to impose his presence on you, shoulders slouching in on themselves and dampening the height he holds over you.
“I don’t know how to explain it,” his words are sheepish, almost, a twinge of embarrassment painting a rosy streak over his cheeks. A hand winds its way up to the back of his neck, a self-soothing method you know far too well, fingers rubbing over skin. “You just… have the look. I’m really sorry miss, I didn’t mean to make you uncomforta-”
“It’s fine,” a mixture of shame and guilt has you cutting him off, eyes shooting back to the display and making a hasty decision to pick up the first guide they land on. “Thanks for the advice, but I’m all caught up on safety. This is what I was looking for.”
An Idiot’s Guide to Germany. It sits pretty in your hold, thin enough to read before the plane descends back onto solid ground, and completely useless to you.
But the man in front of you doesn’t need to know Germany is far from your destination.
So you scurry off, ready to put the embarrassing interaction in your rear-view mirror and re-vowing to yourself to put an end to interactions with men that make you want to claw out your skin — whether the fault be theirs or your own — and shoot off in search of the till. But something halts you on your way, turning on your ankle to face the beautiful stranger once more. He’s watching you with an endearment in his eye that makes your guts tangle in knots, sickly butterflies flying the nest and spreading through your body.
Men can be so unfairly pretty sometimes, especially when built like the model-esque figure before your eyes.
“Have a safe flight!” And with this final and only attempt at politeness, a last-ditch effort to salvage a conversation your own paranoia has already butchered, you shoot off to pay for a travel guide that will soon make a home for itself at the bottom of your bag, never to be kissed by the light of day again.
Paying for your unwanted good and stuffing it into your purse, your pursuit of escaping as swiftly as possible is hindered by the sudden tap of a finger on your shoulder, coaxing you to glance over your shoulder and find the same beautiful stranger, smile still plastered across his million-dollar face and sporting a plastic bag in his grasp, extended out to you and awaiting your acceptance.
“Please,” the blue-eyed man presses, plastic rustling in his grasp. “I’m sure you’re a smart girl, and that you’re more than capable of keeping yourself safe. But I have a little sister and- Well, it just wouldn’t sit right on my conscience to not do my part in keeping a woman safe.”
You accept his offering, fingers looping through the holes of the bag, because it feels cruel to deny him, to send him off with his tail tucked between his legs and his well intentions stomped all over the floor.
The man excuses himself, rushing off who knows where as you begin your own journey towards your assigned departure gate. Only as you settle in to the exhausted queue of antsy passengers, desperate to start their holidays or return to their families at last, do you take a peak into the plastic bag.
There it sits, just as you expect, The Wise Traveller.
Before you can think better of accidentally advertising to your fellow travellers your vulnerable state of solitude, the booklets is in your grasp and you’re flicking through the opening pages. Blue ink, smudged by the press of pages, catches your eye; an inscription from your handsome stranger.
There’s no such thing as being too careful.
Stay safe, be wise, & enjoy your trip.
- Bucky
Dragon Crest Mountain, Thailand.
The view from the top of the world is beautifully depressing.
Beautiful because the horizon stretches below you, curves and edges of green treetops and mountainous terrain. An infinite expanse of mother nature’s art painted shamelessly over the canvas of the Earth, unmarred by the hands of man nor the wheels of machines.
Depressing because, despite the view, your mind is elsewhere; enthralled by visions of tangled sheets, and bruising touches, and tear-filled tissues.
With the fellow hikers that surround you moved to silence by the ethereal view, no chattering mouths can muffle your ears from the buzz coming from your bag. A familiar pattern of three, buzz buzz buzz, you can easily picture the screen lighting up with his name, treacherously innocent for a man who masks the Devil behind his shy smile and his careful caresses.
You groan, louder than intended, and surrender with an apologetic smile towards the group of elderly women shooting daggers in your direction. Your frustration cannot be helped, really. It is utterly and entirely justifiable, given the texts staring back at you from the screen in your hand, freshly fished out your bag and clasped within your sweat-dampened grip.
DONT REPLY!! (tony) — 10:48 you'll never guess who i ran into today, honey.
DONT REPLY!! (tony) — 10:48your mother, she said your flight landed safely!
DONT REPLY!! (tony) — 10:49 i'm glad but i can’t help wishing you were here. my bed isn’t the same without you.
Psychological warfare.
That is what this is, the manipulative moves of a man who knows all the right words to say at the worst of times. How can he speak of missing you, when he couldn’t even appreciate you when you were right in front of him, nothing short of begging him to need you as much as you needed him?
Still, your ex-situationship’s messages worm themselves into your mind, planting seeds of doubt into your dignity and sanity. Your thumb swipes up on the screen before you can think better of it, the lingering muscle memory of a lovesick fool who at last has felt the exhilarating rush of hearing from the man who makes your usually rock solid heart feel like it is made out of glass.
It wouldn’t hurt to reply, surely. It would be the polite thing to do. After all, you and him are friends. Good friends, with years of history outside of the sultry looks exchanged atop mattresses. And he just wants to know you’re okay, right? A perfectly human reaction to having the person you spend nearly every day beside suddenly up and leave, bags packed with a one-way ticket and a declaration that you are going to see what else the world has to offer, both the good and bad.
Just as you type the opening letters to a calculatedly casual reply, another message enters the chat, lighting a fire in your chest and flooding your mouth with the bitter taste of anger.
DONT REPLY!! (tony) — 10:53 but it’s okay. take your time. i’d rather you work through your little hissy fit first.
Scoffing before you can help it, you hastily switch off the phone and shove it back into your bag, eyes rolling and mouth curling with a snarl as you mutter, “Rich coming from a man who cries every time his shitty team loses.”
The remedy to the ugly feelings swirling up a storm in your chest lays ahead, dragging your eyes back out to the view of the world at your feet, a vastness that manages to make yourself, and consequently your troubles, feel minuscule and unimportant. You can cry a thousand times about a man who will never change his ways nor mature beyond the mindset of a frat-boy, and the Sun will still do her job regardless of your pain: rising, falling, and blessing the lands with her warmth.
And so, ultimately, no matter the heartbreak locked behind your phone screen, you are truly a girl who is going to be okay. Maybe not today, or tomorrow, or in any recent days that follow. But at some point, as you jet from country to country, checking off box after box on your bucket list, and nourishing your well of experience, you will feel your phone buzz with a notification and the last thing on your mind will be the hopeful dread of it being from Tony.
Something flashes in the corner of your eye.
Startled, your shoulders jump as you turn, just in time to be blinded by the obnoxious flash of a camera, shutter snapping shut as the camera’s owner takes a picture. Sight still blurred by the blinding white light, you faintly make out the shape of a dark haired man, camera still raised at shoulder height.
“Oh, sorry,” you stumble over the apology, too busy trying to shuffle out of the lens’ way. “Let me just- I can move, so you can get the full-”
The cameraman chuckles and the sound runs right through you, a visceral reaction stirring within as you feel the hairs on the back of your neck rise and your palms grow sweaty. It’s like you know that laugh, the deep chortle that has an uptick in pitch at the end, itching at a particular spot in your ear.
“No, no, it’s fine- Don’t move!” The man, amidst his laughing, exclaims with a panic that manages to freeze your fleeing feet. Camera back to his face, he points it unmistakably at you and clicks capture, flash firing in your eyes again. “Sorry, sorry! It’s just- Wow.”
Doing your best to not show your confusion — though a part of you is painfully aware of the awe in the stranger’s tone, and the Tour Guide name tag dangling from his lanyard, and the curious American twang voice — you settle on a tightlipped smile, polite enough to gift a stranger yet not void of the utter confusion coursing through your veins.
“Sorry, gosh… You must think I’m some kind of creep,” the man continues his spew of apologies, shaking his head as he lowers the camera and let’s it drop, strap tightening around his neck and halting the device from crashing to the floor. “I normally ask before I, you know, take pictures of the tour guests. But the sunset was hitting you perfectly, and you looked so candidly peaceful, and I didn’t want to ruin the picture by making you… Aware. People get awkward when they know a camera is watching them.”
“Oh, yeah, that’s-” whatever words awaited at the end of your sentence are lost to space and time, as the cloudiness finally drifts, no longer obstructing your line of sight, and you find yourself face to face with eyes so blue, you would have to be an idiot to forget them. “Bucky!?”
Taking on the role of confused bystander, the blue-eyed man is now the one shooting you a tightlipped smile, a questioning gaze skimming over the length of you. You swear you can almost see the cogs turning in his brain, like he is actively trying to replay any memory that features your face.
When it hits him, it is a visible recollection, one that sends his mouth stretching into a full-blown smile and has you embarrassingly aware of how white his teeth are, canines glinting under the shine of a lowering sun.
“Hey, I remember you!” Connection established, he takes a step closer to you, lowering his voice in an attempt to not interfere with the quiet solace the rest of the hikers are seeking. The dampening of volume is not enough to deafen the excited recollection in his voice. “Kiosk Girl! Wow, this is- How was Germany?”
“What?” Mouth moving quicker than mind, you let your confusion rule over your sense before you are struck over the head with the rest of the scene that unfolded at the kiosk stand. The staring at pamphlets, the interruption of a handsome stranger, the offer of a survival guide. Your defensive denial, the awkward reach for a booklet all about a country you weren’t even travelling to, the gift of the survival guide, inscribed with the handsome stranger’s name. “Germany, right. Yeah, uh, it was great. Bit cold but-”
“Cold, in June? Strange,” Bucky, now even closer than moments before, is staring down at the camera, back in his hands and flicking through a series of photos. Photos of you, bated in hues of orange and purple, staring out to a blanket of greenery, sundress trapped in motion by the rustling of a warm breeze. “I always heard the weather was good there this time of year.”
Like a glass of cold water splashing over your face, the man’s words are enough to leave you shaken, the ice-cold embarrassment that soon melts into the shame of lying — and lying badly, of all things — to someone with a smile as earnest as his.
Too deep now to back out, you nod and commit to your deceit, praying you live long enough to someday forget this interaction ever happened, “Yeah, they- Well, the locals said it was a fluke. Global-warming, you know, changing the natural order of the world.”
If there is a higher being watching over your interactions, it is made of cruelty and spite, for only a creature made of all things not-nice would thrust you into a position where you embarrass yourself in front of a beautiful stranger not once, but twice — the same stranger, too. Incidents weeks apart, yet the burning sensation of bile biting at the back of your throat is just the same as the one you felt in the airport, rushing away to pay for the neglected German guide you had shamefully abandoned on the plane.
Bucky, the stranger who has unknowingly become the agent behind your most embarrassing moments in recent times, is none-the-wiser to your internal panic, nodding in acceptance of your explanation and shifting focus over to the camera in his hand.
“I’m sorry, again, for taking this without asking. I didn’t mean to scare you,” is it fair for a man to look so effortlessly good, one hand reaching up to push a set of overgrown brown curls from his forehead, hooking one particular long strand behind his ear? Rarely a fan of long locks on a man, there is something about the way he wears his head of hair, dishevelled yet, strangely, not a hair seems out of place, falling perfectly in a way that frames his sharp features. His voice fills your ears again, pulling focus down to his rosebud lips. “But, uh… If you don’t hate the pictures, I can pass them along to you.”
“If I don’t like them? Are you kidding?” Overcompensating for your frazzled nerves, your enthusiastic display as you glance down at the photograph burnt into the camera’s screen is hopefully enough to atone for your earlier sin of lying. “These are- Wow! I mean, are you a professional photographer? You should be photographing models, not working here as a tour guide-”
And now you are just overdoing it.
Because, truth be told, the picture is not even that good. You are barely in focus, the background is more pixelated than one would hope, and there is an intruding figure in the corner, the sandal-clad foot of a man who had been standing off to the side.
“You really think so?” Bucky drinks in your praise, cheeks glowing a rosy hue as he basks in your eager praise. Men really are so simple at their core, happy to believe they are overqualified in a skill they barely have at the slightest of celebration. “I was just messing with the lens, didn’t think I’d even do that good… Oh, but, actually-”
He pauses, hesitation on his face as he mulls over a thought.
You encourage him to speak his mind, eyebrows furrowing as you question him with your gaze.
“It’s just, I completely forgot, we’d have to exchange phone numbers if you’re wanting me to pass the photos on. Which I totally understand if you’re not comfortable with! I mean, I’m a man, and I’m a stranger, and-” Like he is aware of his own mouth racing off ahead of him, Bucky draws his tongue back in and tries to settle a little composure into himself, straightening his shoulder and clearing his throat. “Or we could meet somewhere in a few days, if you want a printed copy of it. Would Wednesday work for you?”
The shake of your head comes swiftly, shooting his offer down, “Sorry, I leave for Tokyo on Tuesday. But I don’t mind! Exchanging numbers, I mean.”
To the outside, you must sound like a pair of mumbling, stumbling fools. Sentences barely cohesive and rarely uninterrupted by a hum or a haw, thoughts actively unravelling as you both speak them into existence.
But a part of you can’t help feeling a certain wave of charm roll over you, an endearment that clutches at your heart and has you wondering how a man with a face like that could ever sound unsure of himself.
“Oh, in that case…” and Bucky has already taken to digging through his back-pocket, slipping a black phone into his grasp. You watch him press the power button, only to be met with the familiar sign of a dead battery: black screen, white charger symbol. “Shit, sorry. Do you mind if I type my number into your phone? Mine’s dead as a dodo right now.”
It would be rude to say no. And, really, what other choice do you have? Other than, of course, to suddenly change your mind and decide you don’t want the mediocre picture, but then that would require you to be rude. Besides, it’s not like you weren’t going to end up having his number anyway, what difference does it make if he types it in?
Your hands are scouring through your bag, searching for the familiar green of phone case well-past its sell-by date — with more bumps and scratches along its surface than a reckless teen’s first car — when you feel the violation of his stare wandering into the contents of your bag.
It doesn’t take long for you to both zero in on a familiar booklet, tucked neatly into an inner-pocket and seemingly sporting a few dog-ears.
“You kept it,” he notes, gaze still glued to The Wise Traveller, and the comment almost makes you hurl — because it’s like he knows you abandoned the other guide you purchased that day.
“Uh, yeah,” your reply comes a little more breathless than you would like, as you try not to think too hard about the engraving along the inside of the pages, the very place you had first learnt his name. “Figured you were right, back in the airport. Can’t be too careful these days.”
Then it hits you.
You’ve not even told this stranger- Bucky your name.
Here you are, a fool fumbling over words at the sight of his pretty face, freely handing over your phone for him to pluck into his own grasp and begin swiping over the screen, and you’ve yet to once offer him the appropriate politeness of sharing your name.
Only, as you finally give it up and introduce yourself, you’re met with a reply that from any man less attractive would have had you running for the hills: “Oh, I know!”
As though he can feel your wide eyes, watching him with a measured caution, Bucky is quick to fire into a chuckle and shake your phone in your direction, screen opened on your contacts and brandishing your name along the top.
“It says it right here. Cute name, by the way. Makes sense for a pretty girl like you,” thumbs swipe across your phone, numbers punched into a new contact. Meanwhile, Bucky continues to make small talk, with a smile on his face you have quickly decided comes far too easily to him — surely no one is that happy, all the time? You’re almost certain if you peel back the complex layers of reasoning behind his grin, you’d find customer service at the root of it all. “Is it any good?”
Too focused on studying his more-than-good looks, it takes you a moment and one too many slow blinks to realise he’s back on the topic of the safety guide, “Oh, uh, Yeah. It’s great. Very… safe, you know?”
Here you go again, lying for the sake avoiding the awkward conversation where you tell the very stranger — very kind stranger, mind you, who has extended you nothing but a show of good faith, a man so used to playing the role of big brother that he could not stop himself from instilling some level of safety into a lonesome woman — that you had not opened the book he had gifted you beyond that pages of his footnote. All those apparent dog-ears? Wrinkles in the book’s corners, a result of shoving the poor thing and crushing it amongst the other contents of your bag.
“Can’t be that good, surely,” guilt coats the back of your throat. You swallow it down and keep your focus on Bucky, who has finished inserting his contact details and now balances your phone between two fingers, awaiting your eventual acceptance of it back into your grasp. “Pretty sure you just broke rule number one.”
“I- What rule?”
Like a wind-up toy, Bucky clears his throat and recites with practised ease, “Never tell a stranger your travel plans.”
Your whole world goes still.
A heart that no longer beats. Lungs that no longer inflate. Hands that run cold with a nervous sweat.
Birds chirp in the distance, the noise louder than ever before. Voices, muffled as though you are submerged in water, swirl around you in an unidentifiable cluster — men, women, children; every one more monotone than the last.
It’s his laugh that pierces through the threatening haze of quiet, throaty and inviting, tickling at your own humour despite the fact you can’t seem to pinpoint what exactly is so funny about this situation.
Maybe this Bucky guy is just a little awkward, the type to fall back on laughter when he feels stifled by silence.
You don’t get the chance to investigate your sudden theory any further, for the duties of a tour guide seem to catch up to him at last. The flock of older women have swarmed him like vultures, each trying to get him to help them focus the binoculars that dangle from their necks. Before they can fully sweep him away, the handsome stranger offers you one last grin and some parting words.
“Have fun in Tokyo!”
Bondi Beach, Australia.
Like any true, modern day feminist, the last thing you enjoy doing is agreeing with a man… But Anakin Skywalker certainly made some good points against sand.
It is coarse, it is rough, it is irritating, and it does get everywhere.
Right now, it’s wedged between your hallux and index toe, irritating the skin with each step you take, grinding against the toe post of a sandal and driving the bothersome granules deeper into you. So, it’s safe to say you dive at the first sight of respite, just about throwing yourself into an empty bar stool.
Pearl Waves Beach Club is certainly a sight to behold.
A beacon of white, with floor to ceiling length windows that look out towards golden sun and aqua waters, and an overwhelming aura of wealth and excess that makes you feel less than adequate, wandering through the air-conned space clad in a burgundy two-piece bathing suit, a hastily tied shawl around your waist, and shoes that announce your every move with a harsh slap against marble flooring that echoes out into the tranquility of the beach club.
None of that matters now that you’re nestled in a seat, the lingering dampness from the ocean that still clings to your bikini bottoms now wetting the dark leather beneath it. The sticky residue of suncream has mixed with your sweat, creating an uncomfortable film atop your body, and salt has embedded itself into your scalp, doing its best into coercing you to scratch at and relieve the pinch in your skin. Despite all that, you feel nothing short of blessed, covered in the tell-tale stains of someone who has spent the better half of their day strewn upon a sandy beach and basking in the sun’s radiance, like if you lay there long enough, you will eventually evolve and gain the skill of photosynthesis.
“Well, well, look what the cat dragged in.”
Barely believing the vision unravelling before your very eyes, you blink twice before making a show out of rubbing your knuckles against closed eyelids. Sight readjusting to the brightness of the beach club, you find your eyes have far from deceived you: there, making his way up the length of the bar, with a dishtowel tossed over one shoulder and a pearly-white grin plastered along a clean-shaven face, is none other than your handsome stranger.
“Oh my-” Cutting yourself off before you can fully form the words, you gape at him in shock, pointer finger aimed at his direction as though you are accusing him of something — like the crime of running into you for a third time on your trip around the globe, or the more unforgivable sin of daring to look better with each run-in. Even now, the luscious locks you had admired back in Thailand chopped and traded in for a far shorter, more polished slick of dark hair, held in place by a lick of hair gel, he looks better than ever. There’s only one issue- “James?”
That is what sits engraved into his golden name tag, clipped to a black button up that sits stretched a little too tightly around his forearms.
Following your line of sight, chin near pressed to his sternum as he looks down at his chest, Bucky — or James, or whatever his name is — is flooded with a wave of red, embarrassment burning at the apples of his cheeks and the tips of his ears.
“Afraid my name’s not actually as cool as something like Bucky,” his hands plant themselves on the bar, as the man positions himself directly across from you over the counter top.
Try as you might, you can’t resist the invisible magnet that draws your attention down to his arms, bare in a way they never have been before. While you want to follow the trail of veins that dance up the length of each forearm, you instead find yourself staring where politeness says you shouldn’t.
Because where you expect to find skin as golden as the one along his right arm, you find a story of pain instead. Splotches of pink paint the otherwise white skin with colour, with a shine that does not match the typical look of flesh. Where some spots appear unnaturally smooth, other flecks of tissue appear sunken in, visual marks of trauma along his left arm.
Catching yourself as you blatantly stare, regret making impact with your chest, you force yourself to meet those aqua eyes of his, watching you with the patience of someone who is beyond used to the rude — even if well intentioned— stares.
“I don’t know if cool is the right word for Bucky,” opting for diffusing with humour, you tease your handsome stranger. Though, really, maybe he is no longer a stranger. With how often fate seems to be driving you together, maybe it’s time you consider him an acquaintance. “Sounds like the stage name for one of those horses, you know? Make some noise, folks, for Bucky the Bucking Bronco!”
Mouth contradicts hand, as James struggles to contain his amusement, pouring out of him in melodies of laughter. All the while he grasps at something dramatic with his palm, colliding over where his heart sits beneath layers of cotton and flesh and bone, clutching as though you have freshly driven a dagger into him.
“Harsh! Call me a loser next time, why don’cha?” There it is again, that lilt of an accent, curving over the man’s words as he feigns offence. Palms up in defeat, Bucky shakes a chuckle out himself before pinning you under his intense stare, “Go on, tell old Loser McGee over here wha’cha want, before they kick you out for harassing an innocent bartender.”
A familiar overwhelm befalls you, leaving your stomach feeling like a led balloon as you fix your attention on the boards behind Bucky, where options upon options, upon options lay scribbled in chalk. Brands of liquor, strains of beer, every cocktail under the sun; they all sit compiled in a list so overflowing with choice, it paralyses you once again.
“I,” you drag out the sound, mouth paused and agape while you try to pick something, anything to drink… Before ultimately confessing, “Have no idea. There’s too much to choose from.”
“You’ve got a real problem making decisions, you know that?” You are almost taken aback by Bucky’s brash declaration. No matter how true it may be, you never expected the man made up of bashful smiles and shaky words to just come right out and say it like that, no tact in his choice of words that could soften the blow of reality. “Between here and that kiosk, I’m starting to worry about how you’ve been getting by without me on the rest of your trip.”
While you might have tuned your gut out nearly two months ago, she has a nasty habit of screaming her way back into the forefront of your mind. And right now, she’s screaming a tale of seduction, one where she is trying her best to convince your sharper senses that there is a flirtatious undertone behind the way Bucky cocks his head and tilts one side of his mouth up into a smirk, just waiting on your response to his teasing.
A bad habit that doesn’t die at all, apparently, you give in to the noise of your gut and try reach a place of equal footing, arms crossing over your chest and subtly squeezing your nylon clad breasts closer together, deepening the line of your cleavage.
“You don’t have to worry, James,” elbows kiss the cold of the bar counter as you shuffle closer and lean against it, ignoring the bolt of electric heat that shoots down your spine as you notice blue eyes lower from your face and fall right into your cross-armed trap. “The world’s full of handsome strangers eager to help a girl like me decide.”
“Is that so?” There’s a tick in his jaw, which you swear you witness him clench, only for him to distract you with the sight of his back muscles, straining as he turns and begins reaching for various colourful bottles you barely recognise. “Then let me be the one to decide for you today, hmm?”
An unmeasured amount of time pases with his back turned on you and your eyes attempting to peak over his shoulders, catching glimpses of how he chops at fruits, and measures liquids, and grabs at ice. Everything culminates in a grand finale of his hands grasping at two metal cups, one jammed into the other as he begins to shake, and shake, and shake.
Bucky is nothing short of peacocking, dazzling you with easy flips and twirls of the shaker, each toss more riskier than the last. Braced for breath, you half expect him to fail any moment now, make a fool of himself and send the contents of the cups spilling all down the front of him.
Surprisingly, this does not end up being the case.
Instead, you watch him turn with a smug, satisfied grin and lay a colourful concoction in front of you, decorated with a handful of fruit and a sprinkle of mint leaves.
“What’s this?”
“Don’t ask, just drink,” Bucky encourages you, two fingers pinched around the neck of the straw and guiding it to your waiting mouth. Just as you wrap your lips around the plastic, an angry yell breaks out from the opposite end of the bar, where you spot a red-faced, uniform-clad man glaring daggers at your handsome stranger- No, acquaintance's* direction. “Oh, shoot… I’ve gotta go, that’s my manager. Enjoy!”
Before disappointment at the sight of him racing off down the bar can solidify itself in your chest, you feel a rush of relief as you witness him come face-to-face with his manager — who you almost swear you witness rip Bucky’s name tag clean off his shirt — for the moment you take a sip of his cocktail, something in your stomach turns…
It might just be the most disgusting thing you’ve ever tasted.
Therme București, Romania.
“I have a new nickname for you,” your declaration is half-slurred, on account of your face being nose deep in the headrest of a massage table. “Buck-Of-All-Trades.”
A laugh you’ve grown too familiar with echoes over the zen playlist that has been filtering out of a speaker for the past thirty minutes. Incense burns in one corner, while a glass door that has long ago steamed up with the heat of the room sits on the opposite side. Melting into PVC leather, you are naked with nothing but a thin, pristine white towel to cover your most delicate areas. And, with knees that squeeze into your waist with every smooth roll of his hands along your oil-slicked back, is your handsome acquaintance.
Weeks and miles away from the events upon the Australian beach, you had walked into your much anticipated massage with one thing in mind, an apology given by a staff member after a forty minute wait: “The original masseuse you booked with has fallen sick, so we have matched you up with one of our newer experts. Thank you for your patience!”
Had you admittedly been a little frustrated? Well, yes!
Had that very same frustration evaporated the moment you watched Bucky step into the room, hair a little fluffier than before and sporting a five o’clock shadow? Well… Yes!
“Hmm, how so?” Like he is trying to torture you, there is a certain strain of exertion in James’ voice, a sound that pairs with the relaxing roll of his palms up the length of your back as perfectly as red wine goes with steak.
“Because,” half the word collapses into a breathy sigh as you feel the tips of his fingers press into a knot. One third of the way down your spine, burrowed beneath the point of your right shoulder blade, he sniffs it out like a police dog sent to find drugs. “Every time I see you, you have a new job.”
You leave out the part where this is the first one you’ve witnessed him be good at.
In a way, you’ve grown fond of that less-than-perfect photograph he captured of you on Dragon Crest. With a view so ethereal, it would be selfish to think anything as cheap and measly as a camera could dare capture it in all it’s glory.
And his cocktail, though far from drinkable, had certainly looked beautiful, brandished all over your Instagram story and paired with the perfect caption: Custom cocktail from a handsome bartender <3
Tony definitely had not reacted well.
You happily left his messages on read, his demands for your return abandoned to the void of your chat.
“That’s not a very nice nicknames though, doll,” a tut comes from behind you, and it takes just about every inch of will you own inside your body to not raise your head and glance back. The fear of not surviving the sight of Bucky, thick thighs spread and arm muscles rippling under his repeated touching along your naked back, is what really holds you in place. “Ain’t the rest of that sayin’ meant to imply I have no real skills? Master of none?”
With a dismissive wave of your hand and a relaxed shh, you sink deeper — if that is even possible — into the massage table, swallowing back a pleasured moan as his thumbs begin working at the knot.
“You men are all the same,” you mumble before you can think better of it, sighing as you close your eyes and visualise a montage of Tony and all his nagging words. “Can’t just take a damn compliment, always gotta turn it into an argument.”
“‘S that so?”
“Yes, that is so.”
Like he feels your breath hitch at a particular pressure, he reinforces it, thumb pressing right where you need him to, “You’re speaking from experience, I take it.”
A groan fires out of you, half because you are frustrated under the reminders of Tony that swirl around in your mind and half because there is an embarrassing rush of blood shooting straight for your core with every roll of his fingers, a slow pulse making itself known between your legs that practically begs you to grind down into the hardened leather. But you don’t, because you can’t.
Because that would be wrong.
Because that would violate Bucky’s trust and safety as a professional.
Because he would feel it the moment you even dare try, his own groin all but resting against your lower half.
“Too much experience,” you manage a response, finally. “My ex-boyfriend… Actually, I can’t even call him that. But anyway, he was the worst.”
“Oh yeah?” He passively replies with the very words you want to chant as his fingers skim and find another knot to undo, unknowingly undoing other parts of you too.
“Y-yeah,” you sigh, shoulders rolling back as you squirm and try to get comfortable, despite the slick forming between your thighs. “He used to argue with me, all the time. And he wasn’t afraid to get mean with it.”
“What a jerk.”
“Yeah, he is a jerk,” much like your body needed the physical therapy of steady hands loosening all your muscles, your mind is basking in the healing nature of finally trashing a man who had made you feel so inadequate, you had to run halfway across the earth just to escape your scorned heart. “Do you know-” a rhetorical question, for poor Bucky has absolutely no idea who you are talking about, “He couldn’t even drive 10 minutes to come pick me up once? My clutch broke and I had no way to get to work, and he complained when I asked him for a favour. He literally works down the street from me!”
“Jesus, darling,” he follows it up with a low whistle, just in time to cover up the faintest huff of a moan pushed from your mouth. “No wonder you’re so tense, dealin’ with boys like that.”
As good as the validation feels, to have a voice outside of your head paying testament to your woes and sympathising with your troubles, you are still plighted by the cruel torture of thinking too much about Tony at once. And, so, you cut the conversation short, drag it someplace else.
“What’s your story, then?”
Hands pause along your back, mapping over the skin like Bucky is searching for the next tweak to undo in your spine. Finding one quicker than you expect, he sinks his touch back into you and matches your question with his own, “Who says I have a story?”
“Oh, come on,” the effect the massage is having on you grows harder to suppress with each passing moment. “You don’t travel the world, working every job under the sun, and not have a story!”
Mask slipping a little too far, a moan crawls its way from out your chest. It is nothing dramatic, a simple hum of affirmation, a noise that says yes, keep going without you needing to part your lips.
“Okay, okay, I’ll give you my story,” Bucky is likely paying you some kindness, refusing to acknowledge the noise that just left you.
Never have you been more relieved to be in his presence. Then again, the more you think about it, his presence tends to be accompanied by relief: saving you from choosing at the kiosk, sparing you from the silence of the mountain, rescuing you from the threat of dehydration at the bar.
You catch the next hum before it can make too much noise, a subtle squeeze of your thighs relieving the burn between your thighs if only for a moment.
“I was a smart kid but I never really had any direction in life. No big burning passion, you know?” You nod into the headrest, then nearly laugh as you imagine what you must look like from his point of view right now. “So when my friend Steve showed up one day and told me he was enlisting in the military, it was like the universe handed me a task. I mean, when I say this kid was scrawny, I mean he looked one gust of wind away from being swept away to the land of Oz.”
Laughing is a mistake that only leads to a broken moan, his thumbs once again pressing just right.
“Stop that,” Bucky scolds softly, reinforcing the pressure behind his touch like he is trying to coax you into letting the noise fully form, let your pleasure perforate the calm room. “‘S just you, me, and the incense in here. I promise no one’s gonna judge you, so sing your little heart out. Let’s me know I’m doing a good job.”
Latch unlocked, permission granted; it’s embarrassing how quick you are to obey. Hypnotised by his words, you find your lips parting with permanence, throat relenting and becoming a vehicle for your pleasure, the zen playlist quickly becoming a backing track to your gentle moans.
“There we go. Isn’t that nice? Lettin’ loose, letting yourself feel good?” When had his hands reached so low, fingertips dancing along the hem of the white towel strewn along your lower back? “I quickly learned I liked the military. I was good at it. The routine, the demanding physicality, the yes, sir, yes and all the other stupid things they make you chant.”
It damn near gives you whiplash how easily James slips back into relaying his story to you, voice void of a previous layer of sultriness and now coated by something more careful, something practised. The monotony of a story told one too many times and perfected to hit all the right story beats to keep his listener engaged.
“But then there was an accident,” for the first time since he planted himself atop your back, the hitch in your breath is caused by something other than his tender touch. Memories of his left arm, scar tissues wrapped around him like vine, suddenly hits you. “I pissed some guys off, got one too many push ups handed to them by pointing out their misdemeanours to our superiors. I don’t remember how the prank was actually meant to play out but, next thing I know, I’m waking up to my bed sheets on fire and the feeling of death clawing up my arm. And that was that. A month in hospital, many more months in physical therapy. I quit the military, so did Steve.”
It feels selfish to moan right then, but Bucky only seems to light up at the sound, massaging deeper into the tissue of your back, relishing in your vocal praises.
“Then,” his pause is for dramatic effect. “I just sat and felt sorry for myself. For months. It was more excruciating than the pain, that boredom. It felt like I lost my life, even though I was still alive and fully intact, save for the scars left behind by the fire. And… I don’t know. There’s really only so long you can do that before you have to get up and go. Do something again. I just decided to do everything. Everywhere I want to go, I go. Every job I want to try, I apply. What’s the worst thing that can happen? I get rejected? I guarantee that’s less pain that what’s going on in my arm.”
Though your reasons are far smaller, far less visible, the scarring along your heart feels seen by Bucky’s words.
The massage finishes far sooner than you would like.
Bucky at last gets a chance to dismiss himself from you without some outside source dragging him away, giving you just enough time to suspect there’s hesitation in his voice, as he draws out his goodbye before exiting the massage room and leaving you to re-dress.
Bones turned to jelly, heart a little lighter too, you’re too blissed out to care that your underwear has gone missing, no longer stuffed neatly into the pocket of your trousers.
Nonno Gio’s Cooking Class, Italy.
You realise too little too late that you’ve fallen for a tourist trap.
Because Nonno Gio, who you expect to embody the essence of Italy, turns out to be a middle-aged American man who seemingly has watched one too many episodes of The Sopranos. A golden chunk of chain sits clasped around his bright red neck, and his accent is plucked right out of New Jersey.
It’s a little too hard to lament the loss of a few hundred euros, however, while watching your cooking partner whisk away at a selection of dry and wet ingredients… Particularly because the cooking partner in question is your handsome friend — yes, he has received an upgrade in titles — Bucky.
“We seriously need to stop meeting like this,” had been his version of a greeting, shoulders shaking and mouth laughing with disbelief as he watched you saunter up to the very cooking station he had been assigned. “It’s starting to get creepy.”
“Creepy?” You echoed, throwing an apron over your head, at last standing by his side. “If me stalking you all across the globe is creepy then, sure James, I’m creepy!”
Taking charge, Bucky leaves you to laugh at your own silly joke while his hands grasp at the strings of your apron. Pulling the fabric flush against your front, guarding the pretty pale yellow of your sundress from any dusting of flour or splashes of liquid, he threads the strings into a tight bow and punctuates the action by smoothing his hands over your hips, undoing a ruffle that has formed along your waist.
The entire class is a practice in patience, a way to prove to yourself just how good your ability to endure has become.
Because Bucky is an example of visual torture.
Floppy hair that falls over his eyes as he concentrates on chopping onions, a single tear slipping down his cheek. You take a deep breath and force your hands to focus on your own task, instead of brushing the locks from his face.
Muscles that ripple beneath the confines of a white shirt, sleeves rolled up to his elbows and light cotton sitting loose around his bicep, just see-through enough to grant you the view how toned they are. He kneads at the pizza dough, meanwhile you need three stabilising breaths to calm your less than kitchen-friendly thoughts.
Sharp cheekbones, one side sporting the delicate swipe of flour staining his tanned skin, right where he foolishly wiped away an invisible bit of lint without fully washing his hands. You want to laugh at the sight, or to lick the pad of your thumb and swipe the powder away, but you are too busy reeling from those same flour-covered fingers grasping at your chin, tilting your eyes up to meet his blue ones, and smudging your own cheek with flour.
“There,” he mutters, cool as a cucumber and nowhere near as affected as you. “We’re matching, Now we look like a real team.”
It’s after you both ship off your pizza into the specialised oven, with Bucky insisting you both grasp at the peel and feed your wonky masterpiece, possessing a shape closer to a square than a circle, in together, that you finally feel yourself lose the ability to trap your tongue, mouth flying off to speak your thoughts before you can swallow the words back down.
“This might sound insane, so feel free to call me crazy,” is always a promising, stable way of starting a sentence. It is truly a miracle the handsome man entertains your wording with an endeared smile. “But I feel like there is a reason behind why we keep running into each other. Like… Like the universe is pushing me in your direction, you know? I mean, what are the chances?”
Silence.
The other members of the cooking class chatter around you both, but you don’t hear them, too focused on the fragile bubble that surrounds you and Bucky.
“You’re crazy,” straight to the point, monotone voice and deadpanned stare. It’s safe to say James does not give you the answer you were expecting… At least not immediately. But then the tension on the surface of his face cracks and he breaks out into an easy smile, something similar to relief swimming in the pools of his eyes. “But I’m glad you said it, ‘cause I’ve been thinking the same thing. For a while now.”
Despite the hazard lights flashing from within your gut, screaming warnings at you to not repeat previous mistakes, to not hand a man the ability to make a fool out of you, you take a leap of faith and pray this time you don’t wind up weeping with your knees pressed into the floor — there’s not even a carpet to soften the blow this time.
“I leave for France tomorrow,” this time, you share your plans knowing full well it is the number one rule in The Wise Traveller not to. You justify this violation of safety with the fact Bucky is no longer a stranger. He is your friend, right? “I’ll be in Bordeaux. You know, in case you’re struggling to pick where you’re going next. I wouldn’t mind the company.”
Thankfully, Bucky is better at cooking than he is at mixology, and when the pair of you tuck into your less-than-authentic Italian pizza, you’re suddenly thankful you fell for Nonno Gio’s tourist trap.
How else would you have (possibly, maybe) scored a friendly date in Bordeaux?
Super-Bass Club, Greece.
The nightclub’s name is far from an exaggeration: you can feel the bass infiltrating your heartbeat.
Or maybe it’s not the bass, but adrenaline; kicking in and raising your heart rate.
The straps of your heels dig painfully into the skin around your ankles, rubbing them raw and no doubt drawing blood to the blistered surface. Every hurried step forces you to tug down the hem of your dress, riding up under the force of your strides. Sweat stings at your eyes and bodies swarm all around you, swaying out of tune to a DJ who loves his job a little too much, despite the fact he can barely succeed at a simple cross-fade into the next track.
At the very least, you suppose, the DJ is playing the club classics, the records that never fail to get a crowd screaming out the lyrics at the top of their lungs. It’s his only saving grace.
Safety lays ahead, a beacon of light shinning from where the exit to the club sits, new bodies spilling into the venue while all you want to do is escape.
A hand around your wrist halts you, drags you back with a squeal before you can dive out the doors.
You don’t have to turn to know it’s him, the very same stranger who has been harassing you for the past half hour, unwilling to take the hint of your side-eyes and disapproving glares as he attempted, time and time again, to grind up against you on the dance floor. While at first you had tried to flee subtly, it quickly became obvious that rejection was not something the bull-headed man took well.
The moment your footsteps had sped up across the floor, he began pursuing after you.
And now he’s caught you, a wriggling fish trapped in the painful hook of his hand. He wastes no time, another set of fingers reaching to roughly grab at your face, tilt your face up to his, and-
A scuffle ensues, one that you seem to be trapped in the middle of; a tug of war where one hand is dragging you towards your pursuer and another two, more careful, are prying you backwards.
Two trumps one, without a doubt, but not without the aid of a third set of hands, this time clamping down around the assailant’s wrist in a painful grip and ripping the unwanted hand off of you, arm twisting unnaturally as your third defender pins the stranger’s hand behind his back. Through the shock of it all, you barely register the other four hands dropping their grasp from you, nor the pair of security that grapple with the man responsible for your shaky hands and jackhammer heart.
You manage to concentrate enough to notice him, however, relinquishing his hold of the stranger to his fellow bouncers and approaching you with the caution of a scared lamb, blue eyes wider than ever before as they frantically search over your body for signs of injury.
“Are you okay? Does anywhere hurt?” Bucky — like every time before — looks better than the last time you saw him. Beard fuller, hair softer, worried face a reflection for the swirling neon lights around you both. Dressed from head to toe in black, a splash of white sits across his chest in the bold shape of SECURITY. “See, doll? This is why you need to be more careful, hmm. Where’s that guide I bought you?”
Tuning out the condescension, filtering it through a part of your brain that registers his words as only the worried rambling of someone concerned about their friend, you take to answering his first questions instead.
“I’m fine,” your voice sounds miles away to you, lost in the crowd along with the rest of the drunken fools. The buzz of alcohol has long simmered away within you, nothing but a static flatline remaining that leaves you tasting bile and wanting your bed — not the bed in your hostel, your bed, back home, where the sheets still smell like Tony. “Just my wrist hurts.”
That is enough to kick Bucky into gear, and the next thing you know, you’re sat outside the club atop a plastic chair, ice pack pressed to your skin, a jacket wrapped around your shoulders, and Bucky crouching by your feet.
A soft crack rings out into the Grecian night as he twists the lid off a bottle of water, offering it up to your lips and gifting an approving nod as he watches your throat bob, swallowing down a few sips.
“Your taxi should be here in ten minutes,” Bucky keeps his voice to barely a whisper, afraid to startle you. If you weren’t still so shaken, or stewing in a frustration towards him you thought you had got over weeks ago, you would laugh and point out the still very audible thump of Greece’s shittiest DJ entertaining the masses back inside the club. “I’m sorry… About that man. He’s been- Dealt with. Banned for life, no doubt, that’s what usually happens with-”
“Why didn’t you come?” Your question seems to hurt him more than the pain in your wrist, eyebrows furrowing and gentle smile slipping into an almost pout. “I waited. I thought I would hear from you. But you never came, and I explored Bordeaux alone.”
Knees kissing the dirtied ground, Bucky leans closer and perches his hands on your naked thighs, inches from where your dress rests around your legs, “Did you want me to come?”
“I told you I would be there.”
“That’s not the same as asking me to go,” he kisses those pearly teeth with a hiss, adjusting his grip on your legs and glancing over his shoulder, like he’s waiting for a taxi to finally pull up to the club’s entrance. Is he that desperate to see you leave? “I know you’re used to snapping your fingers and getting what you want, but I’m not that easy. Gotta use your words, baby. I can’t read minds, can only do as much as you ask of me.”
Intoxicated by his cologne, by the alcohol in your veins, by the sudden waft of cigarette smoke blown your way from bystanders to the left, there is suddenly only one question on your mind for Bucky… What a shame you speak it out loud.
“Would you kiss me?”
No further questioning is needed.
Bucky moves lazily, hand reaching up to grasp at your cheek. A thumb swipes over the swell of it, before steady fingers press your head to tilt it down to give him easier access to your mouth, pushing up from the ground to take possession of you.
His lips are soft, pressing carefully against your own. Bucky lets you take the lead, moving at whatever pace you set. At first slow, tentative, memorising the shape of his mouth against yours. And then desperate, lips widening with each smack and tongues reaching to taste each other.
Car horns blare, strangers chatter, and the bass continues to thump obnoxiously under the command of the DJ, but none of that matters right now. All that matters is Bucky, kissing you with equal fervour, groaning into your mouth as you sigh against him. The taste of mint hits your tongue, remnants of gum he had long ago chewed.
Your own wandering hands ruin the fun, gliding down the stretch of his black top and hooking two fingers beneath his belt, dragging him closer as you mutter, “There’s a spare bed back at my hostel.”
Disappointed does not even begin to cover what you are feeling when Bucky pulls back, head shaking and hands grasping at your wrists, prying your touch from off of him. Before you can feel the shame of rejection, though, he’s pressing a gentle kiss to your cheek and offering you an apology.
“I’m not the kind of guy who sleeps with a girl in your state, doll,” his hands take to tightening his jacket around your shoulders, a sudden gust of wind filling the night with a chill that runs right through you. You shiver for a whole other reason, however, when Bucky’s breath hits the shell of your ear as he mumbles into it, “Besides, I want you remembering every second of our first night together, not some drunken blur.”
Your taxi arrives quicker than you would like.
Bucky walks you over to it, holding the door open for you all the while he spills out directions in Greek to the driver. Only as he goes to slam the door shut do you remember the weight of his jacket around your shoulders, hand shooting out to pause the door.
“Wait! Here, your jacket,” you drunkenly exclaim, trying to unwind yourself from the warmth of him around you.
But Bucky is already shaking his head, hands insisting on tightening the fabric back around you, “Where are you going next, after Greece?”
You answer without hesitation, because Bucky is not a stranger.
He’s not even a friend.
He’s a man you almost just dragged to bed.
“Portugal.”
“Okay then. Give it back to me in Portugal,” with a slap of his hand atop the roof of the car, Bucky throws you one last grin before shutting the door on you, a single promise kissing your eardrums and setting your heart aflame the rest of the drive back to your hostel: “I’ll call you!”
Prisioneiro do Mar Hotel, Portugal
Bucky keeps his promise.
Calls you the next morning, arranges to meet with you in Portugal, wishes you a safe flight and even tells you that you looked beautiful the night before, even if deep-down you know you looked a mess after your run-in with the handsy stranger.
It is you who messes up this time.
“Bucky, I’m so, so sorry,” your apologies are almost as frantic as your hands, riffling through another suitcase and dumping piles upon piles of your clothing onto the hotel room floor.
The entire room is a mess, clothes strewn across just about every surface imaginable and every cupboard has been pried apart — even the safe lays with it’s door wide open, showing off your collection of jewellery to any wandering eyes.
How fortunate that the only other eyes in the room are Bucky’s, who stands by the foot of the bed and is trying his best to soothe your panic.
He’s not doing a very good job.
“I swear to you, I packed it. I remember packing it!” You, admittedly, are not the most sound of mind in this moment. A weight sits on your chest, heavy heart making every breath feel harder. Sweat gathers at the base of your neck, dampening the licks of hair at the back of your head. And, no matter how hard you try not to think about, memories of Tony are running on repeat in your mind. “God! I’m such a fucking idiot- I… How do you even lose a jacket?!”
Tearing through another bag, you’re none the wiser to Bucky as he inches closer to you, weaving his boot clad feet through empty spaces in the floor that don’t possess your clothing, unwilling to stain your pretty dresses with his footprint.
Your cheeks are overrun by tears in the blink of an eye. Angry, rotten little things that track rivers down your skin and drip all over the open bag you are kneeling over. Soft hands meet your shoulders, cradling them just as they begin to shake under the violent sobs that rack through your chest.
More than anything, you are embarrassed to be causing such a scene, especially when Bucky seems so unaffected by the loss of his jacket.
“Hey, hey,” his voice is practically a gentle coo, while his hands are dragging your body upright off the floor and forcing you to face him. “No need to cry, doll.”
“I know, I’m sorry,” this apology comes with a fresh wave of tears. At the very least you’re able to laugh, even if only a little, at your mess of a state, painfully aware that your understanding of his words does not pair well with the tears tracking down your cheeks. “I just- I can’t help it- Can’t stop them from falling. Think it’s some- Trauma response, or something.”
Breathing becomes a struggle as your chest pulls tight, lungs squeezing out every drop of air you attempt to feed them with. All the while, Bucky watches you with caring eyes, a pout nearly overcoming his pretty lips while he tries help you syncopate your breathing with his, hand pressing your own to his chest and forcing you to feel every strong inhale and easy exhale he makes.
“It’s just Tony. I remember it, this one time,” you speak in fragments, stretches of sentences huffed out with each breath, a little less shaky than the last under Bucky’s guidance. “I lost one of his shirts… Or he left it at someone else’s apartment, one of his other fuck buddies. Anyway, he didn’t react well. He was screaming at me, for hours, calling me useless, and stupid, and- God. Sorry, this just-”
“Stop apologising,” Bucky wipes away a tear before it can even fall, lets it stain his finger while he continues to soothe it over your cheek, big blue eyes commanding you to relax under their stare. Far away from Tony, he wants you to remember where you are: in a hotel room, in Portugal, with him. “Don’t have to worry, doll. ‘M not gonna yell at you.”
You thank him softly, let yourself lean forward and collapse into his arms, emotional exhaustion taking grip of your soul as your forehead meets his shoulder.
Bucky holds you like you are made of porcelain, hands barely daring to fully cup at your body as you press yourself against him.
When he hums, you feel it run right through you.
“‘Cause I know you’ll make it up to me, won’t you? I can trust you to make it right, can’t I?”
Nodding a little too frantically, nervous energy still coursing through your veins, you pull back just enough to look him in his darkening eyes, “Of course! There’s a mall not far from here, we can go and find a replacement for the jacket.”
But you’re not even finished talking when Bucky starts to shake his head, one hand flattening itself atop your shoulder and applying pressure. You’re already halfway to the floor when you realise the man is guiding you onto your knees, heartbeat beginning to pick up for a whole other reason than some stupid, misplaced jacket.
“That jacket was one of a kind, baby,” his statement confuses you. You could have sworn it carried a label from H&M on the inside. Or had you misread it, mistaken a luxury brand for something a little more familiar to you? “You don’t seriously think some small town mall’s gonna have anything worth apologising with, do you?” You shake your head without even realising, too busy watching the way his spare hand has fallen over his belt. “No, exactly. ‘S better you put your money where your mouth is instead, give me a proper apology.”
The entire act of his fingers undoing his belt, while the others slip from your shoulder and travel up to flatten themselves atop your scalp, bitten fingernails scrapping over the roots of your hair, it feels like the antithesis to everything you’ve ever enjoyed before.
With Tony, things were fast-paced yet fairly vanilla. He never wanted to draw out the experience, make his movements linger until you find yourself on the very precipice of needy, mouth watering at just the sight of a happy trail.
Which is exactly the state you’re in now, watching with anticipation as the man towering over you unthreads his belt and loosens the button of his jeans. The sound of a zip being undone fills the hotel room, reverberating off the walls of your skull and having a Pavlovian effect over you, thighs involuntarily squeezing in search of friction at the thought of what Bucky hides beneath his quickly-disappearing layers.
As it turns out, he’s hiding a lot. More than you expect.
You’re no expert in size, guesstimating that he’s definitely an inch or two over what most men possess. The tip of his cock is an angry red, crowned by a bead of pre-cum dripping from the slit and slipping over the curve of a mushroomed head. While you’ve never been a great aficionado of the male genitalia, something in you feels entranced, suddenly more than willing to sit here all day and just study the shape of Bucky.
Unfortunately, you are barely granted a few seconds to admire before the hand on your head is pulling you forward, closer, until you have no choice but to part your lips and make space for him.
“There we go,” Bucky, eyes more overblown by pupil than the pretty blue you have grown accustomed to, sighs out with guttural relief, head falling back as his hips give the smallest of juts forward into your mouth, feeding himself deeper. “God, don’t you just look gorgeous, huh? Pretty lips stretched round my cock, shit. Gonna need to relax your jaw.”
Caught under his spell, you’re left with no autonomy to stop yourself from obeying his every command, jaw falling lax and tongue flattening itself beneath the weight of his dick as he gives another roll of his hips, this one a little deeper and teasing at your gag reflex. This seems to delight the man, eyes lighting up momentarily as you choke on the beginning of a gag.
“Now, you want to make it up to me, don’t you?” Your attempt to nod just makes him laugh, biting back a groan as he feels your tongue drag over the underside of his length. “Then what I need you to for me is just sit there, keep your mouth open, and let me use your throat. Can you do that for me, doll?”
This time, you don’t try to nod. Instead, you hum affirmatively around his tip, relishing in the slight wave of power you feel as his eyes roll back and he instinctively thrusts into your mouth.
He starts with careful movements, barely-there rolls and ruts that press his cock a little heavier against your tongue with every one he makes. Tears still drying into your skin, it’s hard to tell if the slight salty tang invading your tongue is from you or him, precum mixing in with your excess of saliva.
The wetter your mouth grows under the invasion of him, your cunt rushes to match, slick turning your panties sticky and uncomfortable as you shift weight from one thigh to the other. A friction that Bucky cruelly cuts off, a disapproving tut coming moments before he nudges one foot between your legs and forces them apart, leaving nothing but the cool air of the hotel room to kiss your soaked underwear, a feeling so uncomfortable, it has you wishing you could peel them off.
“Uh-uh, no,” Bucky protests at the way your eyes squeeze shut, a pleasured pain shooting through your throat as he slowly begins to fuck deeper into your mouth. With deeper, faster is always soon to follow, until barely a moment or two seems to pass between the gargled sounds of his head hitting the back of your throat, forcing spit to slip past the corners of your lips and to drip down your chin, spilling all over the pretty colours of your blouse. “Want you watching me, doll. Want those pretty eyes on me when I fill this-ngh. This fucking tight throat.”
Bucky does as Bucky says, hot ropes of salty, thick cum spurting out to coat the back of your throat, tainting your mouth in a pearly whiteness that mixes with your spit, a messy string of fluids connecting your lips to his cock even as he pulls it free from your lips.
Before you can think too long, notice how he’s not even softened after spilling his seed all over your tongue, you’re busy being pulled back onto your feet and forced to welcome Bucky back into your mouth, this time his own tongue meeting yours. He hums in approval, swallowing back the flavour of himself all over your mouth, physical evidence of how easily he has claimed you as his.
So easily, you’ve barely even realised.
“Keep your mouth open,” Bucky mutters, thumb swiping over your lower lip and invading your mouth, pressing down on your tongue as you watch Bucky feed a string of his own spit onto your taste buds. Thumb retreating and pushing up against your chin, forcing your teeth to knock together, his instruction is simple, “Swallow.”
How you get from the messy floor to the messy bed, you’re not sure.
You’re even less sure how you wind up naked in the blink of an eye, panties tugged off by Bucky with an almost disapproving look, like the sight of them offended him.
Planted directly across from the bed stands a full length mirror, angled perfectly for you to watch as Bucky, his large frame engulfing you from behind, guides your thighs to part and puts your soaked cunt on display both of you to watch in the reflective glass, chest heaving so hard your breasts bounce with each breath.
Never have you felt so desperate, so warm, so in need of someone to put you out of your misery and give you the satisfaction of their touch. And Bucky seems to be aware of this, for he is torturing you, dragging lazy fingers down the stretch of your thighs and laughing in a way that is nothing short of mocking as a shiver runs through you and you squirm.
“Knew you’d be like this,” he’s talking more to himself than you, thumb ghosting over your clit and quickly evading as you attempt to grind down on the feeling. “Such a needy, desperate little thing. Perfect for me, aren’t you?”
You’re mid-nod when you’re forced into a pathetic yelp of, “Yes!” as Bucky’s palm slaps down against your cunt, nerve-tingling pain than soon melts into pleasure.
“When I ask, you answer, okay?” Three fingers rub at the raw skin of your cunt, two more slaps having preceded his warning. “Verbally, properly. You understand?”
You almost nod, until you think better of it, “Yes, Bucky.”
“Good girl,” his simple praise should not send your heart into arrest. But then maybe there is a lot about this situation that should not be playing out the way it is. “Now, eyes on the mirror, doll. Want you watch as I spread you open on my cock.”
Eyesight trained forward, you see the brief flash of his fingers lining his dick up against your wet hole, before he thrusts right in to the hilt and steals the air right out your lungs. One hand by your hips, the other wraps around the front to grasp at one of your tits, large hand staking claim over the entire swell of it and giving a teasing squeeze. It is hardly comfortable, pressing against the breast tissue, yet you find yourself enjoying it all the same, back arching into his touch.
Between your legs, visual sin is on display, a repeated back-and-forth motion of Bucky dragging his cock out of you a little further each time, light catching on the way your arousal clings to him in a wet sheen, before he buries himself back inside. At the base of your abdomen, right where your untrustworthy gut should sit, a shadow lingers beneath your skin, the faintest shape of him pushing up against your flesh.
“Look at us, doll,” ditching your breast, his hand grasps at your chin, stabilising your attention back on the mirror after you let yourself tilt your head back against his shoulder. “Do you like what you see? I’m everywhere, taking over you. Aww that’s it, cry all pretty for me again.”
Tears are slipping down your cheeks, overwhelm overcoming you at his words, his touch, his stare. Bucky really is everywhere, consuming you and grounding you all at once, a steady figure at your back that the universe sent you, no doubt an apology for whatever the hell Tony was.
“Bucky,” his name has never sounded so pathetic, falling from your lips in the shape of a whine, toes curling against his calves as he deepens the angle of his thrusts. Once again, the deeper it goes, the faster it grows, the soft echo of skin slapping against skin beginning to play out in the room.
“I know, baby, I know. We look so pretty, don’t we? Here,” you almost whine when one of his hands abandons you, but he silences you with the other diving between your legs, thumb effortlessly finding your clit and gifting it some much needed attention. “Take some pictures, doll. Told you I want our first time to be memorable, so go on and give us something to look back on.”
Your first thought isn’t that his phone is no longer black like you remember, this one red and sporting scratches along the back.
People change phones all the time, right?
Besides, who has time to notice silly details, when Bucky is back to touching you all over, both hands claiming parts of your skin?
Screen already unlocked, you try your best to steady your shaky thumb, guiding it up to the Recent Apps tab and attempting to press the camera icon… But Bucky just so happens to deliver a particularly spine-arching thrust, tip budging right against the spongy spot inside you that has you seeing stars, and your thumb presses on a familiar purple square before you can stop it.
And then your heart stops.
Bucky stops too, physically coming to a halt as he registers what exactly you’re staring at on his phone screen, “Well, shit.”
There, on his screen, sit two profile icons hovering over the same spot on a Life360 map: your picture, and Bucky’s.
And, try as you might to convince yourself, you know you never granted him permission to your location, never even got a notification of him attempting to befriend you on the app.
Bile stings at your throat. Your stomach drops to your knees. And, much to your own disappointment, your cunt pulses around his stilled member, buried inside you.
“There, that’s the solo-traveller look you asked me about,” Bucky somehow seems unshaken by your discovery, chuckling with near satisfaction as he watches your eyes focus back on the mirror ahead of you, stare wide and mouth paralysed with… “Fear, like you don’t know what to do with yourself.”
“James, what the hell is-”
“Shh,” he hushes you with both his mouth and his hips, grinding the head of his cock against you. Despite the situation at hand, you cannot deny the way your body physically reacts to him, walls squeezing around his cock and a moan slipping through the cracks of your frowning lips. “Thought we weren’t going to yell at each other, doll.”
“That was before I found out you’ve been stalking me!”
“Stalking is a little harsh. Watching over you sounds nicer, don’t you think?” He asks, like the wording drastically changes the result of his actions. Both hands are on your hips now, tilting them as he continues earlier ministrations, a slow roll of his own that are meant to distract you from the gut-wrenching revelation. “You were so eager to hand over your phone in Thailand, remember? You were practically begging me to add you on Life360. Bet you just wanted that comfort of knowing someone responsible was watching over you, huh?”
Did you beg? Had you mentioned the app to him at any point?
Months past, so many things happening between then and now, you are struggling to remember. Maybe Bucky is telling a version of the truth you’ve simply forgotten.
“We both know how bad you are at asking for what you want, baby. Was it so wrong of me to help you?” Warmth pooling in your spine, you barely even register the way you begin to wind back against him, bodies moving in perfect, effortless harmony as he begins fucking you properly again. “Could see it, how badly you wanted me but you just wouldn’t dare ask. Was it so wrong of me to give us a little man-made fate?”
That word almost pulls you out his trance, memories of how vulnerable you had felt confessing it back to him Italy flooding back in. And all along it had just been him, not the universe, following in your footsteps and manipulating your encounters.
Like he can feel the shadow of doubt creeping back over you, Bucky reinforces his sweet talking, mouth momentarily latching onto your earlobe and delivering a gentle scrape of teeth that forces you to listen.
“I mean, think of everything I’ve done just to have you, doll. Think of how far I was willing to travel, just for the chance to see you,” the worst thing is, it’s working. You can feel your resolve slipping, will giving into him the closer you’re moved towards the crescendo of your orgasm. “Meanwhile, Tony couldn’t even drive 10 minutes down the street for you. Is that what you think you deserve, baby? Someone who puts no effort into being yours?”
You give a nod, or a shake, or a something of your head, teeth clamping down on your lower lip as finally the first waves of your orgasm roll over you. Thighs shaking, yet he holds you steady against him.
Could you be steady, with him? Is that something Bucky can bring you?
No more crying on carpeted flooring, no more questioning where you stand in someone’s life, no more waking up to find your late night companion already gone.
“When I ask, I expect answers.”
You swallow back the ball in your throat, force away the doubt and the fear and the panic, and give into the warmth of his hands.
The same hands that orchestrated your fate, placed you in one another’s path. Isn’t that what you had been waiting for all along, to be chosen by someone?
“No,” the moment the two letter word leaves you, you feel him spill into your womb, groaning loud and proud into your ear. “I think I deserve you, Bucky.”
Bodies move languidly, collapsing into one another atop the bed, clothing strewn all around you from your earlier worries.
Your head meets Bucky’s chest, where a heart beats rapidly beneath the confines of flesh and bone.
His left arm curls around your naked body, dragging you impossibly closer. You cringe ever so slightly as you feel his cum spill out onto your inner thigh, all the while Bucky’s hand soothes the top of your head, lulling you to let yourself relax into him and let your eyes slip shut, accepting the way he cages you in.
“You do, baby. Deserve all of me. And you can have that, if you let me have all of you.”
+ extra hyde!
· guys i'm being so fr, do not do anything the reader did in this fic. y'all are too precious to wind up being the subject of a netflix documentary.
· and before anyone comments that the reader has no self respect... well, yes! that is the plot. subject is very much aware <3
· no but why did any of my friends encourage me to write this silly fic??
goddman, hyde!!! i don’t remember the last time i was so entertained by a fic. this could truly be a mini-series or a romcom movie… thank you so much for feeding us with bucky again!! (i was reading it bumpin’ that).
Series Summary: Some wounds don’t bleed. They just teach you how to disappear. Before being adopted, you learned early that love had rules: don’t ask, don’t need, don’t take up space. Bucky – your brother in everything but blood – was the only exception. Now you’re an adult, brilliant, controlled, almost untouchable… until one dinner shatters the fragile balance.
Wordcount: 6.8k
Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Female Reader, mentions of past Steve Rogers x Female Reader (no use of Y/N), Bucky Barnes x Natasha Romanoff
Warnings: childhood trauma, adoption trauma, abandonment issues, orphanage abuse, corporal punishment mentioned, religious trauma-adjacent themes, emotional self-hatred, shame, suicidal ideation / one moment of passive suicidal thought, complicated family dynamics, raised-as-siblings but not blood-related romantic tension, implied non-explicit underage intimacy in the past, emotional aftermath of sex, verbal cruelty, heartbreak, therapy, healing, reconciliation. See the whole exhaustive list on the masterlist post.
A/N: Gentle reminder that this series is heavy on trauma so I beg you to read the whole list of warning on the masterpost. I won't tolerate any complaints about not being warned of something. Beta read by Cassie (@blobfishlol ) as always. We're still in the past.
You all have no idea how much this week chapters are going to hurt. You're going to hate them, hate me, and probably throw rocks at me.
Masterlist - Series Masterlist - Prev- Next
Bucky didn’t just date Dot.
He committed to her in a way that made the whole school notice.
Dorothy – Dot – was the kind of girl people watched without meaning to. Captain of the cheerleaders, loud laugh, confident walk, hair always perfectly done like she had a personal agreement with gravity. She had friends who took up space in hallways and boyfriends who thought they were lucky just to be seen next to her.
And somehow, she chose Bucky.
Or maybe Bucky chose her like he was making a point.
Because at first it looked like one more name on his list – one more girl he’d walk to class, one more set of fingers tangled with his for a week until he got bored.
But a week passed.
Then two.
Then a month.
And Dot was still there.
You started seeing her at your house sometimes, sitting at the kitchen counter while your mother made snacks, chatting like she’d always belonged there. She called your mother ma’am at first, then stopped, like familiarity snuck up on her and stayed. She started greeting you like you were normal, like she wasn’t walking into the middle of something she couldn’t possibly understand.
And Bucky – Bucky looked different with her.
Not softer.
Not gentler.
Just… placed.
Like he had found a spot to stand that didn’t require him to keep shifting his weight.
He put an arm around her waist in public. He waited for her after practice. He walked her to her car. He sat with her at games, laughing at things she whispered into his ear.
He did all of it loudly enough that no one could miss it.
And you hated that the sight of it made your chest ache.
Because your relationship with Steve was good.
It was steady and kind and safe in a way that felt almost miraculous. Steve never made you feel like you were too much or not enough. He didn’t make you earn affection. He didn’t punish you with silence. He didn’t keep score.
If anything, after your first time together and the tattoo and the tiny rebellion of it all, you felt closer to Steve than ever. Like you were building something real, brick by brick.
So it made no sense that seeing Bucky with Dot – seeing him keep her – hurt.
At first you told yourself it was just adjustment. Just surprise. Just the weird whiplash of watching your brother figure out what commitment looked like.
But the pain wasn’t logical.
It lived in the same part of you that flinched when Bucky’s eyes passed over you too quickly. The same part that remembered the nights he used to climb into your bed when you were little, bringing safety like it was something he could hand you.
It wasn’t jealousy in a clean, obvious way.
It was something messier.
Something like grief.
Because Bucky staying with Dot meant he wasn’t just dating.
He was choosing.
He was investing.
He was giving someone time, attention, space in his life.
Things he had always given to you without thinking – until he stopped.
And watching him hand those things to someone else made your stomach twist with a strange, private kind of mourning.
You found yourself noticing stupid details you didn’t want to notice.
The way Dot laughed and shoved his shoulder playfully and Bucky actually let his face soften for it. The way he’d roll his eyes when she talked and then lean closer anyway, like he couldn’t help it. The way he’d hold her hand without looking like it cost him anything.
And then you’d catch yourself thinking, Good. He deserves to be happy.
And immediately after, So why does it feel like he’s leaving me?
It was the kind of thought you didn’t tell anyone.
Not Steve.
Not your mother.
Not Pietro.
Not even Wanda, who could usually drag the truth out of you with a single raised eyebrow.
You swallowed it.
You filed it away.
You told yourself it wasn’t important.
The air shifted as winter crept in.
Not just the weather – though the mornings got colder and the sky darker and everyone started talking about Christmas break like it was a finish line.
It was something else, too.
A sense that the present was running out.
That soon, you wouldn’t all be trapped together in the same building every day. That the hallway dramas and lunch table politics and after-school practices were temporary.
One afternoon in early December, you were all piled into your living room in various stages of doing homework and pretending not to do homework.
Steve was on the floor with a sketchpad, eraser shavings scattered around him like snow. Wanda sat cross-legged on the couch, flipping through a magazine and commenting on outfits she claimed she’d never wear. Pietro was sprawled in an armchair with a textbook open, actually reading for once. Bucky was leaning against the wall near the doorway, watching Dot text him while he tried to act like he wasn’t smiling.
And somehow – without anyone planning it – the conversation drifted.
“What are you doing after graduation?” Wanda asked out of nowhere, eyes bright with the thrill of imagining a future that didn’t smell like cafeteria food.
Pietro didn’t even look up. “Psych.”
Wanda blinked. “That’s it? Just… ‘psych’?”
Pietro shrugged, a smug little smile tugging at his mouth. “Psychology. Bachelor’s, then grad school. I want to be a therapist.”
Steve glanced up from his sketchbook, brows lifting. “You’ve had that decided forever.”
Pietro finally looked up, expression unbothered. “Some of us enjoy having a plan.”
Wanda made a face. “Couldn’t be me. I just want to get out of this town and breathe for a while.”
“Translation,” Pietro said, dry, “Wanda wants to party.”
Wanda threw a pillow at him. “I want to live.”
Steve laughed quietly and went back to shading something on the page. “Living is good.”
Bucky snorted, pushing off the wall. “You’ll live in a museum.”
Steve looked up, unoffended. “Maybe. At least museums are quiet.”
Bucky rolled his eyes, then – almost unconsciously – glanced at you like he was checking whether you were listening.
You were.
You always were.
“What about you?” Wanda asked Steve, chin tilted. “You’re doing what, art school?”
Steve’s cheeks flushed a little, but he nodded. “Yeah. If I can get in. I want to do fine arts. Maybe illustration. Maybe gallery work. I don’t know yet.”
“You’ll get in,” Wanda said confidently, like she’d decided it was a fact.
Steve’s eyes warmed. “Thanks.”
“And you,” Pietro said, turning to Bucky, “are going to be insufferable.”
Bucky raised a brow. “I already am.”
Pietro’s mouth twitched. “Fair. But I meant professionally. Stark Industries. Engineering. You’ve been talking about it since you were, like, ten.”
Bucky’s expression shifted – subtle, but real. Like the topic hit something genuine under all the bravado.
“Yeah,” he said, voice quieter. “That’s… the plan.”
Dot texted again, and his eyes flicked to his phone before he could stop himself. Then he tucked it away, as if he didn’t want anyone to notice how much she mattered.
Steve smirked faintly. “Stark’s gonna put you in a lab and never let you out.”
Bucky scoffed. “Better than being broke.”
Pietro hummed thoughtfully. “You’ll be broke too. You just won’t know it because you’ll be surrounded by expensive equipment.”
Wanda grinned. “He’ll finally stop talking about Stark like he’s a god.”
Bucky shot her a look. “He is a god.”
You snorted despite yourself.
Your mother, passing through with a basket of laundry, rolled her eyes at the phrase the way she always did when teenage boys worshipped businessmen.
“Okay,” Wanda said, turning again – because she was always the one who dragged conversations into the light. “We’ve got Pietro saving everyone’s mental health, Steve painting sad people in museums, Bucky building robots for Tony Stark, and me… existing.”
Pietro smirked. “Accurately summarized.”
Wanda pointed at you.
“And what about you?”
The room went a little quieter.
Not dramatically.
Just enough that you felt it.
Steve’s eyes lifted immediately, soft and attentive. Bucky’s gaze slid to you too, as if he’d been waiting for this question without realizing it.
You stared at your hands in your lap.
Because the truth was: you didn’t know.
Not in the way Pietro knew. Not in the way Bucky had known for years. Not even in the way Steve’s uncertainty was still anchored by passion.
You were smart. Everyone told you that like it was a destination and not just a trait. You had skipped classes and been “the gifted kid” and had adults praise you so often it started to feel like pressure disguised as love.
And yet, when it came to the future -
You had only ever focused on surviving the present.
Pietro leaned forward slightly, eyes curious but gentle. “What do you like?”
You almost laughed.
What did you like?
You liked books. History. The feeling of understanding something no one else had seen clearly yet. You liked puzzles. Languages. Old maps. Museums that smelled like dust and paper and time.
But saying that out loud felt silly, like a hobby wasn’t a career.
Steve, quietly, filled the silence. “You light up when you talk about ruins.”
You blinked and looked at him.
Steve shrugged, a small smile on his mouth. “You do. Like… when you explain things. You get that look.”
Pietro’s brows lifted. Wanda nodded slowly like she could see it too.
Bucky’s gaze stayed on you, sharper than the others, as if he was trying to solve you like he always had.
“You ever think about archaeology?” Steve asked, carefully. Like he didn’t want to steer you, just offer.
The word hit you like a bell.
Archaeology.
Not history as a subject you read about.
History you unearthed.
History you touched.
History you brought back into the light.
Your stomach twisted – not with fear, but with recognition.
Because it fit.
It fit the way your brain worked. The way you craved answers. The way you wanted origins, context, proof. The way you had always felt like you were missing a piece of your own story and had spent your life compensating with knowledge.
You exhaled slowly.
“I…” you began.
Then you looked up, and the room felt different – like for the first time, you could see a path.
“I think,” you said, voice steadier now, “I think archaeology makes sense.”
Wanda grinned. “That’s hot.”
You blinked. “What?”
Wanda waved a hand. “No, like, cool. Cool. Smart. Mysterious. You’ll be in the desert in a hat.”
Pietro snorted. “Indiana Jones but with better grades.”
You rolled your eyes, but the warmth in your chest stayed.
Steve’s smile was soft, proud. “Yeah,” he murmured. “I can see that.”
Bucky didn’t say anything at first.
He just stared at you, expression unreadable.
Then, quieter than the others, he said, “You’d be good at it.”
The words landed oddly.
Not because they weren’t kind.
Because they were… sincere.
And because they came from Bucky in that tone that meant he wasn’t teasing, wasn’t posturing, wasn’t trying to win anything.
Just telling the truth.
You met his eyes for a moment.
There was something in his gaze that made your throat tighten – something like acceptance, and something like loss, braided together.
Then Dot’s name lit up Bucky’s phone again, and the moment fractured.
He looked away first.
You looked down.
The conversation moved on.
But later that night, lying in bed with winter wind tapping softly at the window, you replayed it all.
Bucky with Dot – serious, chosen, steady.
Your own future – finally forming into a shape you could name.
And beneath all of it, a quiet, unsettling truth you weren’t ready to say out loud yet:
You were all starting to pick the directions you’d walk in.
And even with Steve’s hand in yours, even with your heart safe and loved, some part of you still watched Bucky choose someone else and felt, impossibly, like you were being left behind.
Prom night arrived like a movie you’d half convinced yourself wouldn’t happen to you.
It was ridiculous in all the ways it was supposed to be – too much effort, too much money, too much glitter – and somehow it still felt… perfect.
Not perfect because it was flawless.
Perfect because for one night, everything slid into place like it had always belonged there.
Wanda came over to help you get ready, practically vibrating with excitement. She had spread makeup across your bathroom counter like she owned the place, music playing from her phone, humming as she pinned your hair with more precision than you thought she was capable of.
“You’re going to murder people,” she announced, stepping back to evaluate you.
You blinked at your reflection, unsure what to do with the girl staring back.
You wore a dress that made you feel like you’d stepped into someone else’s life – something soft and elegant, long sleeves, a neckline that didn’t demand attention but still made you look older than you felt. You looked… sure of yourself.
Or at least, you looked like someone who could be.
Wanda smiled at your face in the mirror. “See?” she whispered, like she was letting you in on a secret. “You were always there. You just needed the right lighting.”
Downstairs, Pietro whistled like a menace the moment you walked out of your room.
Steve was waiting at the bottom of the staircase.
He froze when he saw you.
Not dramatically – just a stillness that softened his whole face, like his brain took a second to catch up with how beautiful you looked.
Then he smiled, slow and warm.
“Hi,” he breathed.
You felt your chest tighten. “Hi.”
He stepped closer, offered his arm like it mattered, like you weren’t just his girlfriend but something precious he was proud to stand beside.
“You look…” Steve started, then stopped like he didn’t want to use the wrong word.
Your lips twitched. “Like what?”
Steve swallowed, eyes steady on yours. “Like you.”
And somehow that felt better than any compliment.
He leaned in and kissed you – gentle, careful not to smudge anything Wanda had done – then rested his forehead against yours for half a second, as if he needed to anchor himself before stepping back into the world.
Bucky showed up later, of course.
With Dot.
Dot made an entrance the way Dot always did – hair perfect, dress loud enough to start a rumor, her smile practiced and bright. She held onto Bucky like she was claiming him.
Bucky, for his part, looked uncomfortable in his suit for the first ten minutes, then started to relax the moment he realized people were looking at him.
Because Bucky could pretend not to care, but he always did.
You watched him from the hallway for a second.
He looked good – annoyingly good – handsome in that effortless way that made girls sigh and made teachers soften when they yelled at him. Dot leaned into his shoulder and laughed at something he said.
And you felt it, that familiar, complicated ache.
Not jealousy.
Something older.
Something quieter.
Steve’s hand slid into yours, grounding you.
“Hey,” he murmured, leaning close. “You okay?”
You nodded. “Yeah.”
And you meant it.
Because you were there. With him. In a dress you’d chosen. In a life you were beginning to actually live.
The gym had been transformed into a cheap imitation of elegance – string lights, a balloon arch, a DJ playing songs that made everyone scream even though half of them didn’t know the words. The punch was awful. The photos were aggressively staged. The floor was sticky by ten o’clock.
And still.
It was perfect.
You danced with Steve until your feet hurt. You laughed, genuinely, when Wanda dragged you into a ridiculous group dance and Pietro acted like he was too cool for it before getting pulled in anyway. Steve spun you once – awkward, endearing – and you laughed so hard you had to cling to his shoulder to stay upright.
At one point, Steve pressed his mouth to your ear over the music.
“This is nice,” he said.
You nodded, blinking against the sudden sting behind your eyes. “Yeah.”
“It feels like…” Steve hesitated, searching for the words. “Like we made it.”
You tightened your arms around him, cheek against his shoulder. “We did.”
And for a while, you believed it.
The crown happened at the end of the night.
Everyone gathered around the little stage, half drunk on sugar and adrenaline. Dot’s friends were already squealing, already shrieking her name like the outcome was inevitable.
You watched Dot stand with her hands clasped in front of her, smile wide, eyes shining with calculation.
You watched Bucky beside her, tall and broad, looking bored.
Like he didn’t care.
Like he wasn’t part of her strategy.
The announcer fumbled the envelope, made a few jokes. People booed and laughed.
“Prom Queen: Dorothy ‘Dot’–”
The gym exploded.
Dot shrieked and clapped a hand over her mouth like she couldn’t believe it, then immediately stepped forward as if she’d been practicing the walk all year. Her friends screamed. Someone pushed her gently toward the stage. She turned back and threw her arms around Bucky’s neck so the cameras would catch it, kissed him like it was part of the performance.
Bucky kissed her back.
But there was a stiffness in it you caught even from where you stood.
A second later, he stepped away from her mouth with a smile that didn’t reach his eyes.
Dot put the crown on her head, accepted the sash, posed. Posed again. Posed again.
And you saw Bucky watching her like he was suddenly looking at a stranger.
You didn’t think much of it in the moment.
Not until later.
Not until the night finished and you were back home, shoes kicked off, makeup half smeared, your ears still ringing with music.
Not until the following week, when Dot stopped showing up at your house.
Stopped laughing as loudly in your living room.
Stopped texting Bucky constantly.
Bucky didn’t say anything at first.
He made jokes. He shrugged. He acted like it didn’t matter.
But you could see it anyway.
The way he stared at his phone too long. The way he stopped being quite as loud with his friends. The way his shoulders carried something heavier, even when he pretended they didn’t.
It didn’t take long for the truth to surface.
You overheard it by accident.
Dot’s name, giggled in the hallway, followed by someone saying: “Of course she stayed with him until prom. She needed the crown.”
The words hit you like cold water.
And when you looked up, you saw Bucky at the end of the corridor, frozen.
He had heard too.
He didn’t storm off.
He didn’t yell.
He just stood there, jaw tightening, eyes glassy with something he refused to let become tears.
Then he walked away like nothing had happened.
But that night, a few days later, you found him sitting on the back steps of your house.
No Dot. No friends. Just Bucky, hunched slightly forward, elbows on his knees, staring at the yard like it held answers.
You hesitated in the doorway.
Bucky didn’t look up. “Can’t sleep.”
You stepped outside anyway, the night air cool against your bare arms.
You sat beside him with a careful distance.
Neither of you spoke for a long moment.
Then you said softly, “I heard.”
Bucky’s breath hitched almost imperceptibly.
He didn’t ask what you meant.
He didn’t have to.
“Yeah,” he muttered.
You glanced at him, at the tension in his jaw, at the way he kept his eyes forward like if he looked at you he might break.
“I’m sorry,” you said, and you meant it.
Bucky let out a small, bitter laugh. “Don’t be.”
“It was shitty,” you insisted.
Bucky’s shoulders rose in a shrug that wasn’t convincing. “Whatever. She wanted the crown. She got it.”
You studied him carefully.
He wasn’t devastated.
Not the way you thought heartbreak looked.
He was… bruised.
Disappointed.
Quietly embarrassed.
Like someone had played him and he’d been arrogant enough to think it couldn’t happen.
Still, it mattered.
Because it was the first time you’d seen him genuinely hurt by a girl.
Not in an ego way.
In a trust way.
You shifted a little closer.
“You didn’t deserve that,” you said.
Bucky finally glanced at you sideways.
And for a second, his eyes looked younger.
Less cocky.
More human.
He looked at you like he didn’t know what to do with your sympathy.
Then he exhaled, long and shaky.
“Guess I’m not as smart as I thought,” he muttered.
You swallowed, throat tight. “You’re smart.”
Bucky scoffed softly. “Yeah? Then how did I not see it?”
You didn’t answer.
Because the truth was, he hadn’t seen it because he hadn’t wanted to.
Because he’d liked having something simple. Something that looked normal.
Dot had been a costume Bucky could wear: the popular girlfriend, the easy relationship, the boy who was wanted.
And now the costume had been yanked off, and he was left with himself.
Bucky stared at the ground for a moment.
Then he said, quieter, “It doesn’t… destroy me. I’m not–” He shook his head, frustrated. “I’m not broken over it.”
“I know,” you whispered.
He looked at you again, more directly this time. “It’s just… humiliating.”
You nodded. “Yeah.”
Another silence.
Then Bucky leaned back slightly, head tipping against the railing.
“Steve’s gonna marry you one day,” he said suddenly, voice flat but not cruel.
Your stomach flipped.
You stared at him.
“What?”
Bucky didn’t look at you, eyes still on the dark yard. “You heard me.”
You swallowed. “That’s not–”
“It is,” he cut in, not harshly. Just certain. “He looks at you like you’re the only person in the room. Like you’re…” He frowned, searching. “Like you’re a religion.”
You huffed a weak laugh through the tightness in your chest. “That’s ridiculous.”
Bucky shrugged. “Maybe. But it’s true.”
You didn’t know what to say to that.
So you said the safest thing. The thing that wouldn’t reveal how much your skin still reacted to him noticing you.
“I’m happy,” you said quietly.
Bucky’s jaw tightened again.
“Good,” he murmured.
But it didn’t sound like a celebration.
It sounded like resignation.
You stayed on the steps with him until the night air made you shiver and Bucky finally stood, rolling his shoulders like he was shedding something.
He didn’t hug you.
He didn’t touch you.
He just said, “Go to bed,” like he was still older and still protective and still refusing to be anything else.
You watched him disappear inside.
And you told yourself it had been nothing more than siblings, sharing the aftermath of a bad relationship.
You told yourself that over and over.
A few weeks before the end of school, Steve asked if you could talk.
He didn’t say it like a threat.
He said it like someone asking to sit down before a storm hit.
You met him in the small park near the school, the one with the old swings and the benches where you’d studied together freshman year. The grass was damp. The air smelled like spring trying to arrive.
Steve sat beside you on a bench, hands clasped tightly between his knees.
You watched him for a moment.
He looked exhausted.
Not physically.
Emotionally.
“Hey,” you said softly.
Steve looked at you, and his eyes were too bright already.
You felt your stomach drop.
“What’s wrong?” you asked.
Steve swallowed hard. “Nothing is wrong with you.”
That sentence hit you like a warning.
You stared at him.
“Steve…”
He exhaled shakily, staring at his hands. “I love you.”
Your throat tightened instantly. “I love you too.”
Steve nodded, eyes closing briefly. “That’s the problem.”
You went still.
“What–?”
Steve opened his eyes again and looked at you with something raw in his expression.
“I can’t pretend I don’t see it,” he said quietly. “I can’t pretend it’s not… there.”
Your chest tightened. “See what?”
Steve’s jaw worked like he was trying not to cry.
“Bucky,” he said.
Your pulse thudded hard.
Steve looked away toward the swings, voice lower now.
“I’ve tried,” he admitted. “I’ve tried to be mature about it. Because I know you love him in a way that’s not simple. And I know he loves you in a way he doesn’t know what to do with. And I–” His voice cracked. “I don’t want to be the thing that keeps you tied in knots for the rest of your life.”
You shook your head quickly. “Steve, no–”
“It’s not about cheating,” Steve said immediately, like he could read the panic on your face. “It’s not about you doing something wrong. You’ve never done anything wrong.”
He turned to look at you again, eyes wet.
“It’s about the fact that every time his mood shifts, you shift too,” he whispered. “Every time he’s quiet, you get quiet. Every time he looks at you, you… you disappear a little.”
Your throat burned.
You opened your mouth.
Nothing came out.
Because he wasn’t wrong.
Steve’s voice softened, almost tender in its honesty.
“I love you enough to want you free,” he said. “Not just… loved. Free.”
You stared at him, hands trembling in your lap.
“Are you breaking up with me?” you asked, voice barely there.
Steve flinched like you’d punched him.
“I don’t want to,” he whispered. “God, I don’t want to.”
Tears slipped down your face before you could stop them.
Steve reached out immediately, wiping them with his thumbs the way he always did, like your tears were something precious he didn’t want the world to see.
“It’s not because I don’t love you,” he said fiercely. “I do. I do so much.”
You swallowed hard, breath shaking. “Then why?”
Steve let out a broken laugh that wasn’t humor. “Because I love you,” he said simply. “And because I can’t be the person you choose out of fear.”
Your eyes snapped to his.
Steve’s gaze held yours, steady and devastated.
“You’re safe with me,” he said, voice trembling. “And I think you love that. I think you needed that. And I’m grateful– God, I’m grateful I got to be that for you.”
Your chest ached so badly you thought it might split.
“But when I look at you,” Steve continued, tears sliding down his own cheeks now, “I don’t want you to stay with me because it’s easier than facing what’s between you and him. I don’t want you to wake up at twenty-five and wonder if you chose the wrong person because you were trying to make the complicated thing go away.”
You shook your head, sobbing quietly. “I didn’t– I wasn’t–”
“I know,” Steve whispered, leaning in until his forehead touched yours. “I know you didn’t mean to.”
He inhaled, shaky.
“And maybe you’d never choose him,” Steve said. “Maybe you’d stay with me forever and we’d be fine and we’d be happy and you’d bury it all and it would still work.”
You clutched at his sleeve like you could anchor him with your hands.
Steve closed his eyes.
“But I don’t want ‘fine’,” he whispered. “Not for you.”
You were crying openly now.
So was he.
“You’re my best friend,” you choked out. “You’re… you’re my–”
“I know,” Steve said, voice breaking. “And I’m not leaving you. I’m not disappearing. I’m not going to stop being in your life.”
He pulled back just enough to look at you.
“We can still be us,” he said. “Just… different.”
You shook your head again, helpless. “It hurts.”
Steve’s smile was wet and soft and ruined. “Yeah,” he whispered. “It does.”
He leaned forward and kissed you – slow and gentle and familiar, like he was memorizing you. Like he was giving you something to carry.
When he pulled back, his thumb brushed your cheek.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered.
You swallowed, throat raw. “Me too.”
Steve shook his head. “Not you. Not you.”
And even as you sat there with your heart cracking, you knew something else too.
He was doing what Steve always did.
Choosing the hardest thing.
So you wouldn’t have to keep living inside a triangle you never asked for.
You stayed on that bench until the sun dipped lower and the air grew colder, your fingers laced together like you were both afraid to let go.
When you finally stood, Steve pulled you into his arms and held you for a long time.
And you held him back just as tightly.
Because even if it was the end of the relationship – it wasn’t the end of the love.
That night, you didn’t even make it to the part where the house settled.
You went through the motions because that was what you did when your insides were collapsing – brushed your teeth, washed your face, folded your dress from earlier like it mattered, answered your mother’s questions with the right amount of normal. You even laughed once at something Pietro said at dinner, the sound thin and wrong.
Then you climbed into bed.
And the moment the door closed and the light went out, your body stopped pretending.
At first it was silent – just your throat tightening, your breath catching, the ache spreading through your ribs like a slow bruise.
Then the first sob slipped out of you, involuntary, ugly in a way you weren’t used to allowing.
You clapped a hand over your mouth, pressing hard, trying to force it back down.
It didn’t work.
You turned onto your side and curled in on yourself like you could fold the pain small enough to fit somewhere you could ignore it.
You couldn’t.
Steve’s voice replayed in your head, quiet and devastated.
I love you enough to want you free.
The sentence was a knife that cut both ways.
Because it was love.
Because it was true.
Because it was the kindest thing anyone had ever done to you – and it still felt like being left.
Your pillow was damp under your cheek.
Your chest hurt.
Your throat burned.
You tried to breathe quietly.
You tried to stop.
But grief didn’t care about your rules.
So you cried, shaking, muffled, trying not to let the sound carry through the walls.
Trying not to let anyone know.
Trying not to let Bucky know most of all.
Bucky heard anyway.
Because Bucky always heard.
He was halfway down the hall when the sound reached him – a small, broken noise that didn’t belong in your room. Something thin and strangled, the kind of crying you did when you thought no one could see you.
He stopped dead.
For a second, he thought maybe you’d had a nightmare.
That was what it used to be. When you were little. When thunderstorms made your skin buzz and you’d lie awake staring at the ceiling until your breath turned too fast.
He used to fix it by climbing into your bed like it was nothing.
But he didn’t do that anymore.
He hadn’t in years.
Because you weren’t a kid.
Because you were sixteen and Steve’s girlfriend and the world had rules now, even inside your own house.
Bucky stood in the hallway, fists clenched, listening.
Another sob.
The sound hit him in the gut.
It wasn’t a sniffle. It wasn’t a soft cry.
It was pain.
Real pain.
The kind you tried to hide.
Bucky moved without thinking.
He crossed the hall, stopped at your door – hand hovering, jaw tight.
He almost knocked.
Almost opened it.
Almost did what he’d done a hundred times when you were small – walked in and pulled you close and made the world quiet again.
He didn’t.
He stood there, breathing hard, like the door itself was a barrier he couldn’t cross without changing everything.
Then he heard you whisper something into your pillow, words muffled and broken.
Not a name.
Not anything clear.
Just… that sound, like you were pleading with the universe to undo what had happened.
Bucky’s face tightened.
He turned on his heel and walked away fast, like he was afraid he might go back and do something he couldn’t take back.
He went downstairs.
He didn’t go to your mother.
He didn’t even go to his own room.
He went exactly where his instinct took him.
Across the lawn.
To Steve’s house.
Steve’s porch light was on.
Bucky didn’t bother ringing the bell.
He knocked once – hard enough that it rattled the door.
Steve opened it almost immediately, like he’d been sitting there waiting for something.
His face was tired. His eyes were puffy, like he’d been fighting his own tears all evening.
When he saw Bucky, his shoulders tensed.
“Buck–”
“What did you do?” Bucky demanded, voice low and sharp.
Steve blinked, expression tightening. “What?”
Bucky stepped closer, just inside the doorway, like the porch wasn’t enough space for the anger filling him.
“She’s crying,” he bit out. “In bed. Like–” He cut himself off, jaw working. “Like something’s wrong.”
Steve’s gaze flicked away for a split second.
That was all Bucky needed.
Bucky’s eyes narrowed. “What happened?”
Steve exhaled slowly, like he’d been holding his breath since the park.
“We talked,” Steve said quietly.
Bucky stared at him. “Yeah? And?”
Steve’s throat bobbed as he swallowed. “And we broke up.”
The sentence landed like a punch.
Bucky went still.
His face didn’t change at first – just a blank, stunned stillness, as if his brain refused to accept the words.
Then the shock shifted into something sharper.
“What?” he said, and it didn’t sound like a question. It sounded like disbelief.
Steve didn’t flinch. “We broke up.”
Bucky’s breath hitched.
He took one step back, then forward again, like his body didn’t know where to put itself.
“You’re–” His voice cracked with frustration. “You’re kidding.”
Steve shook his head once. “No.”
Bucky stared at him like Steve had just admitted to burning the house down.
“Why?” Bucky demanded. “Why would you do that? You were happy.”
Steve’s eyes flashed. “We were.”
“You were,” Bucky insisted, voice rising. “I saw you. Every day. You were fine. You were–” He swallowed hard, anger tightening his throat. “She was happy, Steve.”
Steve’s face crumpled for a moment – grief flickering across it.
Then he forced himself steady again.
“I know,” he whispered.
Bucky laughed once, harsh and incredulous. “Then what the hell is she doing crying like that?”
Steve’s jaw tightened. “Because breakups hurt even when they’re the right choice.”
Bucky’s eyes went wild.
“The right–?” He stepped closer, furious. “Don’t. Don’t do that. Don’t talk like you’re some kind of saint. You don’t just– you don’t just leave her when she’s finally–”
He cut himself off mid-sentence.
Because what he meant to say was: when she’s finally safe.
When she’d finally chosen something steady. When she’d finally let herself be loved without fear.
But Bucky didn’t say that out loud.
Because the thought hit too close to something he didn’t want to touch.
Steve watched him, breathing hard.
“Buck,” Steve said softly, like he was trying not to escalate. “This wasn’t because I stopped loving her.”
Bucky’s hands curled into fists at his sides. “Then what was it?”
Steve hesitated.
And the hesitation made Bucky’s stomach drop in a way anger never did.
“Steve,” Bucky warned, voice low. “What did you do?”
Steve’s eyes snapped to his. “I didn’t do anything to her.”
“Then why–”
“Because of you,” Steve said, and his voice cracked on the words.
Silence.
Bucky went very, very still.
“You’re lying,” he said, immediately, reflexive.
Steve’s laugh was bitter. “I wish I was.”
Bucky stared at him as if the room tilted.
“I didn’t–” Bucky began, then stopped. “I didn’t do anything.”
Steve nodded, too fast. “I know. She didn’t cheat. You didn’t–” He swallowed. “You didn’t even say anything. Not recently.”
Bucky’s eyes narrowed. “Then what the hell are you talking about?”
Steve looked exhausted.
Like he had carried this thought alone too long.
“Look at me,” Steve said quietly.
Bucky’s jaw clenched. “I am.”
Steve’s voice went softer, almost pleading. “You don’t see it, do you?”
Bucky stared at him, breathing through his nose, the anger beginning to shift into something that felt uncomfortably like fear.
“See what?” Bucky demanded.
Steve hesitated again.
Then he said it anyway.
“The way she reacts to you,” Steve whispered. “The way she… changes around you. The way she tries to make herself smaller when you’re in a mood. The way she watches you even when she’s laughing with me.”
Bucky’s throat tightened.
“That’s not–” he started, but the denial tasted weak even to him.
Steve stepped closer, voice trembling. “She loves you, Buck. I don’t even think she knows how deep it goes, but she does. And you–” Steve’s eyes shone. “You love her too. I’ve known that for a long time.”
Bucky’s face flickered – pain, shock, something raw.
“No,” he snapped. “That’s– she’s my sister.”
Steve’s expression didn’t change.
Because he wasn’t buying it.
“Technically,” Steve said quietly, “she’s not.”
Bucky’s breath hitched.
His hands shook slightly.
He hated that Steve could say it out loud like that.
Hated that the words made something in him feel exposed.
“You don’t get to decide that,” Bucky said, voice low and dangerous. “You don’t get to decide what she feels.”
“I’m not deciding,” Steve whispered. “I’m seeing.”
Bucky’s eyes stung, suddenly, violently.
He blinked hard like he could shove it away.
“Then why did you leave her?” he demanded again, desperate now. “If you love her. If she loves you. Why would you do that?”
Steve swallowed, tears finally spilling.
“Because I love her,” he said simply. “And I don’t want her staying with me because she’s scared of what she wants. I don’t want her choosing me because it’s easier than admitting something else.”
Bucky’s voice cracked. “Something else.”
Steve nodded slowly, wiping at his face with the heel of his hand, angry at his own tears.
“She deserves to be free,” Steve whispered. “Even if that freedom hurts.”
Bucky stared at him, chest tight.
“You broke her,” he said, and it came out rough and devastated.
Steve flinched. “I didn’t.”
Bucky’s jaw clenched. “She’s crying, Steve.”
Steve’s own voice broke. “So am I!”
Silence stretched between them, thick and vibrating.
Bucky looked away, like he couldn’t stand the sight of Steve’s grief.
He didn’t know what to do with this.
He didn’t know how to fit it inside his head.
Because Steve and you had been the plan.
Steve and you had been the safe option.
The clean one.
The one Bucky could watch from the sidelines and pretend it didn’t matter because it didn’t involve him.
And now Steve had stepped away, and suddenly there was nowhere left to hide.
Bucky swallowed hard, throat raw.
“She didn’t tell me,” he muttered.
Steve’s gaze softened despite everything. “No. She didn’t.”
Bucky’s eyes flicked to him. “Why?”
Steve shook his head slowly. “Because she doesn’t want you to feel responsible for her pain. Because she thinks she has to hold it alone.”
Bucky’s stomach turned.
He thought about you in your bed, crying into your pillow like you were trying to disappear inside yourself.
He thought about the sound through the door.
And something in him – something he had kept locked down for years – shifted.
Not neatly.
Not safely.
But undeniably.
Bucky’s voice came out low. “I don’t understand.”
Steve nodded, tears still clinging to his lashes. “I know.”
Bucky looked at him for a long moment.
Then he whispered, almost like he didn’t mean to let the words exist.
“But you were happy.”
Steve’s mouth trembled.
“We were,” he repeated softly. “We really were.”
Bucky’s eyes burned.
He turned abruptly, like staying one more second might make him fall apart in front of Steve.
He walked out onto the porch, the cold air hitting his face like a slap.
Behind him, Steve didn’t follow.
He didn’t call out.
He just let Bucky leave with the weight of the truth.
Bucky stood on the steps for a moment, staring out at the dark yard between his house and yours.
The distance felt wrong.
Too big.
Like a gap he couldn’t cross without changing everything.
Then he walked back home, fast.
Not to your room.
Not to your bed.
Just… back into the house that suddenly felt too quiet.
And as he reached his bedroom door, he heard it again – faint through the walls.
Your crying.
Bucky stopped.
His hand hovered on the knob.
His chest hurt like he’d been punched.
He didn’t go in.
He didn’t know how.
So he leaned his forehead against the wood of his own door and shut his eyes, breathing hard, like he could will the world back to the way it had been.
But it was already different.
And he could feel it in the same place he’d always felt you – deep under the ribs, where love didn’t ask permission and didn’t care what anyone called it.
summary: On vacation, you don‘t feel as comfortable in your body as you expected, but your boyfriend reminds you that there is nothing you need to worry about.
word count: 1.4k
warnings/tags: body image insecurities, some angst, mostly fluff, bucky is an amazing boyfriend
author‘s note: I wrote this about two weeks ago when I bought myself a new bikini for the summer, decided to post it now because me and my best friend went to the lake today and when I put my bikini on at home I didn‘t actually want to go anymore. I still had so much fun with her today, so maybe let this be your reminder that the way your body looks in a bathing suit doesn‘t determine wether or not you‘re gonna have a good time.
I figured that I‘m probably not the only one struggling with this kind of stuff now that it‘s getting warmer again and hope that if you can relate, this will help you feel a little more comfortable in your own skin again- just like it‘s supposed to be.
dividers by @chateaubarnes
"Sweetheart, are you ready? The others are already down at the beach."
Even though his voice is muffled, you can hear Bucky loud and clear through the door. He is probably sitting on your shared bed, waiting for you to finally come out so the two of you can start your vacation as well, but you don't feel ready to come out just yet.
Bucky doesn't come in, either, which you appreciate. Even though the door isn't locked, it's closed for a reason.
You have been staring at the mirror for the last five minutes and with every second you keep looking at your reflection, the urge to just stay in the beach house grows.
You know that you don't actually want that, at least not really.
This is the first time that the whole team is on vacation together, your first vacation with Bucky, and you don't want to miss a second of it.
Still, you can't really bring yourself to look away from the mirror.
You know that your body looks good in your bikini. The colour looked amazing on you when you'd tried it on in the store and will look even better as soon as you'll have a little tan to your skin.
It compliments you well, the bottoms showing off the curve of your hips whilst the top holds your breasts perfectly, showingi off the curves of your body that you know damn well always drive Bucky crazy.
You've grown to like the way your body looked, though it hasn't always been that way.
But right now, you could feel an all too familiar knot in your stomach starting to tighten again.
Your body isn't the problem, at least not exactly.
But it feels like your skin is.
In the bright light of the sun shining through the window, you are painfully conscious of how pale you actually look.
The purple stretchmarks spreading over your skin stand out more than they usually would, exposed and uncovered for everyone to see.
And they're everywhere.
On the soft skin of your thighs, your hips, the curve of your breast.
You didn't usually mind them too much- there is nothing you can do about them, after all.
Plus, you have an amazing boyfriend who reassures you more often that you can count just how beatiful you are.
Rationally, you know that they are nothing to be ashamed of.
Unfortunately, insecurities barely ever have something to do with logic.
The longer you look into the mirror, the more flaws you detect. Suddenly, your thighs feel too thick and you don't feel like the shade of your bikini is flattering anymore. Now, all it does is show just how dark the marks on your pale skin are, how soft the curves of your body actually look. The strap of your top sits too tightly against your neck and you you don't feel like the bikini fits as well as you thought it did anymore.
Is it too much? Are you showing too much cleavage? What if you were wrong and Bucky doesn't like it? Even worse, what if he's going to be embarassed by the way you look?
"Doll, can I come in?" His voice is even closer now, and you're assuming that he is standing right at the door now, his hand probably already resting against the handle.
You really don't want him to come in, but you also can't bring yourself to say anything, not wanting him to see you like this but also unable to think of an excuse that would make him stay outside.
Or just go to the beach without you, preferably.
You see the door open in the reflection of the mirror, slow enough for you to stop him if you really wanted to. You don't, though, and just watch as Bucky enters the bathroom, his shirtless figure almost taking in the entire doorway.
For five very long seconds, all he does is stare at you.
His pupils widen visibly as he swallows, eyes running over your body appreciatively.
You know him almost better than you know yourself and you are well aware of what those things mean.
Technically.
"Should I just put on a shirt?"
The question slips out without you actually meaning to ask it and Bucky's expression turns into one of surprise and shock so quicky, it would be funny if you didn't feel so horribly insecure right now.
"What? No, of course not. Why would you do that?"
You only shrug as words fail you, your throat tightening as your eyes start to burn uncomfortably.
Bucky, perceptive as he is, notices immediately and crosses the distance between you in three quick steps. "Hey, what's wrong?"
You hate how emotional you are getting over this. The vacation is supposed to be fun, damnit, and here you are, crying on the first day.
"C'mon sweetheart, look at me. What's going on?"
When you still don't lift your gaze from where you are staring at the floor, you feel Bucky's finger nudge against your chin and the gesture is so gentle it makes you want to cry even more.
The second your eyes meet his, you can't really keep it in anymore.
"Do you think I'm ugly?"
Admittably, you could have phrased that a little better, which the look on Bucky's face immediately confirms.
"Why on god's green earth would you think that? Sweetheart, you're-" An incredelous laugh slips past his lips as his eyes run up and down his body again. "You're the most beautiful women I've ever seen in my whole life. You're etheral. I could look at nothing but you for the rest of my life and I would never get sick of it"
Despite his words- or maybe because of them, you're not entirely sure, tears slip down your eyes despite your efforts to hold them back.
Bucky cradles your face in both of his hands now, carefully wiping them away. "Where is this coming from, doll?"
"I just-" Your voice breaks and you try to calm yourself down at least a little bit, taking a deep breath. "I don't like the way my body looks in the bikini. The color feels off, my thighs look fat and you can see my stretchmarks, Bucky. All of them."
You can see how your boyfriend's eyes soften in real time and for a second, you are distracted by how his face changes with it.
"Doll, I can assure you that there is not a single part of your body that you would need to be ashamed of."
That makes you laugh a little now, even though you're pretty sure it sounds more like a sob. "Your opinion doesn't count. You're biased."
Happy that he at least got something close to a laugh out of you, Bucky smiles. "Hell yeah I am biased. I've seen and memorised every single inch of that beatiful body. As a matter of fact, my opinion counts the most. I'm an expert when it comes to you. And as an expert, I am telling you that this bikini looks stunning on you."
His hands both start to roam over your body, even though his eyes stay fixed on your face.
"I'm serious, love. I ain't a religious man, never have been, but when it comes to you? I could worship you for the rest of my life and I'd die happier than I ever could be."
You know that Bucky could be shameless when it came to you, but this?
He really isn't playing fair.
"Tell me something." Bucky's tone shifts into something a little more serious now, though not less gentle. "Do I mean less to you because of my scars? Because of the prosthetic?"
The thought alone seems almot offending, so you immediately shake your head. "Of course not."
"Exactly," Bucky agrees. "And the same goes for me. I love your stretch marks just as much as I love every other part of your body. And those thighs?" Bucky squeezes them like he can't help himself. "I adore them. Your curves are beautiful, just as every other part of you. And the way you look right now- sweetheart, if it was up to me, I'd lay you down on our bed right fucking now and show you exactly how much this is getting to me."
Your thighs clench at the thought and Bucky grins, because of course he would notice that. "And I'll do that tonight, sweetheart. But now, all I wanna do is go down to the beach and enjoy some time with my girl. Sound like a plan to you?"
"Yeah" A laugh slips out of you, all your prior the doubts not gone but your thoughts definitely quieter now. "Thanks, Buck."
Series Summary: Some wounds don’t bleed. They just teach you how to disappear. Before being adopted, you learned early that love had rules: don’t ask, don’t need, don’t take up space. Bucky – your brother in everything but blood – was the only exception. Now you’re an adult, brilliant, controlled, almost untouchable… until one dinner shatters the fragile balance.
Wordcount: 7.2k
Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Female Reader, mentions of past Steve Rogers x Female Reader (no use of Y/N), Bucky Barnes x Natasha Romanoff
Warnings: childhood trauma, adoption trauma, abandonment issues, orphanage abuse, corporal punishment mentioned, religious trauma-adjacent themes, emotional self-hatred, shame, suicidal ideation / one moment of passive suicidal thought, complicated family dynamics, raised-as-siblings but not blood-related romantic tension, implied non-explicit underage intimacy in the past, emotional aftermath of sex, verbal cruelty, heartbreak, therapy, healing, reconciliation. See the whole exhaustive list on the masterlist post.
A/N: Gentle reminder that this series is heavy on trauma so I beg you to read the whole list of warning on the masterpost. I won't tolerate any complaints about not being warned of something. Beta read by Cassie (@blobfishlol ) as always. We're still in the past.
Masterlist - Series Masterlist - Prev- Next
The relationship didn’t blow up the way Bucky had expected it to.
That was the part that made his stomach twist the most.
At first, he’d waited for it to fizzle – for Steve to get tired, for you to pull away, for something to go wrong the way things always did when anyone got too close to you. He told himself he was being realistic. Protective. That he’d seen enough couples implode in the span of a semester to know how teenage romance usually ended.
But weeks passed.
Then more.
And you kept showing up in the mornings with your hair still damp, backpack slung over one shoulder, and Steve’s hand waiting for you the second you stepped off your porch like it was the most natural thing in the world.
Steve still lived next door. Close enough that Bucky could hear his screen door sometimes. Close enough that the glow from his kitchen window bled into their own if the blinds weren’t shut all the way.
Close enough that it was impossible to pretend Steve was temporary.
Pietro and Wanda were still only a hundred meters down the street – close enough that Wanda’s laugh carried when the windows were open, close enough that Pietro’s footsteps on the sidewalk became a familiar rhythm in the mornings. The four of you had fallen into a routine years ago, the kind of routine that made adulthood seem far away and unthreatening: meet outside, walk together, complain about homework, stop at the corner store if someone had a few quarters, then spill into the school building like you were a unit.
That routine didn’t change.
Not really.
It just… rearranged itself around the new fact of you and Steve.
Bucky noticed it in pieces, at first.
The way Steve always waited.
He didn’t honk from the driveway or shout your name like he owned you. He waited on the sidewalk, or on his own porch if it was cold, hands shoved in his jacket pockets, posture relaxed but alert – like he was paying attention to the world around you even when you weren’t looking.
And when you came out, Steve’s face always softened.
Not dramatically. Not in that showy, performative way some boys got when they wanted to be seen being a “good boyfriend.”
Just… naturally.
Like his body did it without asking permission.
Bucky hated noticing that.
Hated how sincere it looked.
He tried to tell himself it didn’t matter. That it was just Steve being Steve – polite, predictable, nice in the way that came easy to him.
But then he started noticing the other things.
The small ones.
The kind that didn’t happen on purpose.
Steve walking on the side of the sidewalk closest to the street without thinking.
Steve carrying your books when your hands were full, no teasing, no “you owe me,” just taking them like it was obvious you shouldn’t have to struggle.
Steve slowing his pace when you slowed – not dragging you forward, not acting impatient, just matching you like he belonged next to you.
Bucky watched it from the periphery every morning, jaw tight, pretending he wasn’t watching at all.
Pietro noticed everything, of course. Pietro had always noticed everything. He’d started walking a little faster lately, like he wanted to get out of the way. Wanda had started humming to herself, headphones in, eyes deliberately fixed on the road ahead as if she could feel how tense the air got when Bucky was too quiet.
And Bucky was too quiet.
Because every time Steve’s fingers brushed yours – casual, instinctive – Bucky felt something in his ribs tighten, sharp as a pulled muscle.
He told himself it was just habit.
Jealousy disguised as concern.
The old brother instinct.
That line he’d been clinging to like a life raft, because without it, he didn’t know what he was.
But it got harder to pretend when nothing bad happened.
Steve didn’t push you into corners.
Didn’t try to show off.
Didn’t make you smaller.
If anything, Bucky started seeing you… expand.
It was subtle.
But Bucky had known you your whole life. He knew the way you walked when you were braced for impact. He knew the way your shoulders crept up when you were waiting for someone to demand something.
And with Steve, some of that tension eased.
Not all of it – you were still you, still cautious, still too careful with your own feelings – but there were moments where you forgot to be guarded.
Like when Steve said something stupid on purpose just to make you laugh.
Like when he leaned down and murmured something by your ear and you rolled your eyes, but the corner of your mouth lifted anyway, soft and helpless.
Bucky saw it.
Every time.
It felt like swallowing broken glass.
One morning, it was raining hard enough that the street looked like it had been lacquered. You’d come out with your backpack tucked under your jacket, hair braided hastily, and Steve had stepped off his porch already holding an umbrella.
Not for himself.
For you.
He moved without hesitation, crossing the short stretch of lawn between their houses and lifting it above your head before the rain could soak you through.
You froze for half a second – that reflex of yours, the one that always flinched at unexpected care.
Then you let yourself step under it.
Let yourself be covered.
Steve didn’t comment. Didn’t tease you. Just angled the umbrella to keep the rain off your shoulder and started walking like it was normal.
Bucky stood on his own porch for a beat too long, watching.
Pietro called from down the street, “You coming, Barnes?” in that loud, casual way that made it seem like nothing was wrong.
Bucky forced his feet to move. Forced his face into something neutral.
He caught up, falling into step beside Pietro, with Wanda already ahead – closer to you, closer to Steve – like she was subconsciously choosing the warmest part of the group.
The umbrella bobbed between you and Steve, a small private world in the middle of the sidewalk.
Bucky kept his eyes forward.
Pretended he didn’t see the way Steve angled it again when you shifted.
Pretended he didn’t see the way you leaned a fraction closer to Steve to stay under it.
Pretended he didn’t feel that faint, humiliating pulse of relief in his chest alongside the pain.
Because the truth was – as much as it twisted him up, as much as it made him want to lash out again just to stop the change…
Steve was good to you.
Steve was gentle in a way Bucky hadn’t known how to be at seventeen.
Steve didn’t demand. He didn’t punish. He didn’t make you earn affection like it was a scarce resource.
He just… gave it.
And you, slowly, cautiously, started to believe you were allowed to have it.
Bucky told himself he should be happy.
He told himself this was what he’d wanted – someone safe. Someone steady. Someone who wouldn’t hurt you.
He told himself that, over and over, like repetition could turn it into truth.
But some mornings, walking between Pietro’s easy chatter and Wanda’s quiet presence, watching Steve’s hand brush your sleeve like it was a promise–
Bucky couldn’t help the thought that rose anyway, bitter and aching.
He’s getting the version of you I was supposed to have.
And it wasn’t fair.
Not to Steve.
Not to you.
Not even to Bucky, really – because Bucky hadn’t known what he wanted until he’d already made it impossible to ask.
So he swallowed it.
He carried it like a stone in his chest.
And he kept walking with the group like nothing was wrong, because that was what he did.
He watched.
He endured.
He learned, slowly, that losing you didn’t look like you disappearing.
Sometimes, it looked like you staying exactly where you were…
Just no longer reaching for him first.
A year made things feel steadier.
Not perfect – nothing ever was in a house where emotions moved like weather, unpredictable and sometimes violent in their shifts – but steady in the way you could rely on. In the way you could breathe without bracing for impact.
You and Steve had lasted through all the little things people liked to swear would break teenage relationships.
Through exams and late-night study sessions. Through the awkward phase where holding hands in the hallway stopped feeling like a performance and started feeling like habit. Through the slow learning of each other’s boundaries – what made you go quiet, what made him go stubborn, what made both of you retreat when you should have leaned in.
Steve never pushed.
Not for kisses when you weren’t ready. Not for touching that lingered too long. Not for anything you didn’t offer first.
Sometimes you caught him stopping himself – his hand hovering at your waist and then dropping away, his mouth parting to ask something and then choosing to wait.
At first, it had made you nervous. Like he was afraid of you.
Later, you understood: he wasn’t afraid of you.
He was afraid of being like the people who took.
And that… did something to you.
Because you weren’t used to people being careful with you by choice.
You weren’t used to the idea that your body wasn’t a thing you had to tolerate, or a thing you owed, or a thing that existed to keep the peace.
A year into it, you started thinking about it – really thinking.
Not the abstract concept of sex that floated around school like gossip and bravado, like something people did to prove they were grown. Not the half-truths in locker room stories, the crude jokes, the girls whispering in bathrooms.
You thought about Steve.
About the way he kissed you – slow, patient, like every time he touched you he was asking permission again. About the way he held your hand when you were anxious, thumb brushing circles on your knuckles without even realizing he was doing it. About the way he could look at you like you were something precious and not something to conquer.
And you realized you wanted it.
Not because you felt pressured.
Not because you wanted to keep him.
Not because you were trying to be normal.
Because you trusted him.
Because you wanted to be close to him in the one way you hadn’t let yourself imagine you could want.
Because you knew – deep in your bones – that if you said stop, he would stop.
And that knowledge was the most intimate thing you’d ever been given.
Still… wanting didn’t automatically make it easy.
You could feel the discomfort of the conversation sitting in your throat like a stone.
The world had not taught you how to ask for tenderness.
The world had taught you how to be quiet and grateful and low-maintenance.
So you did what you always did when you couldn’t find the language alone.
You went to Pietro.
It happened on a Saturday evening when Wanda was out and your mother had gone to bed early. Bucky wasn’t home – out with yet another girl, laughing too loudly at the end of the driveway like he wanted the whole neighborhood to hear him having a life.
You found Pietro in the living room, cross-legged on the carpet with textbooks spread around him, highlighter in his mouth as he flipped pages.
He looked up when you hovered in the doorway.
“Something’s wrong,” he said immediately.
You rolled your eyes faintly. “Hi to you too.”
Pietro pulled the highlighter out of his mouth and grinned, but his eyes stayed sharp. “Hi. Also: something’s wrong.”
You stepped into the room slowly and sat down on the couch, hands clasped together so tightly your knuckles were pale.
Pietro watched you for a moment, then closed his book and set it aside.
“Okay,” he said, tone gentle now. “Talk.”
You stared at your hands.
The silence stretched.
Pietro didn’t fill it.
He waited you out like he always did.
Finally, you whispered, “I want to… do it.”
Pietro blinked once. Then twice.
He didn’t laugh. He didn’t make a crude joke. He didn’t act weird.
He just stared at you, processing.
“With Steve,” you added quickly, cheeks burning.
Pietro’s mouth twitched, like he was trying very hard not to tease you out of habit.
Instead, he asked, carefully, “Do you want to because you want to? Or because you think you’re supposed to?”
You swallowed. “Because I want to.”
Pietro nodded slowly. “Okay.”
You exhaled, shaky.
“And I know he’ll be… good,” you said, voice small. “I know he’ll stop if I say stop. I know he’ll listen. I just–” You winced. “I don’t know how to bring it up without sounding stupid.”
Pietro leaned back against the couch, studying you.
“You’re not stupid,” he said simply. “You’re nervous.”
You stared at him, eyes stinging slightly. “It’s embarrassing.”
“It’s vulnerable,” Pietro corrected, like he was rewriting the word for you. “Embarrassing implies you’re doing something wrong. You’re not.”
Your fingers tightened. “I don’t want to freak him out.”
Pietro snorted softly. “Steve? Freaked out by you asking for consent and closeness? The boy who apologizes when his elbow bumps you in the hallway?”
You let out a reluctant, shaky laugh.
Pietro softened. “Listen,” he said. “You don’t have to perform. You don’t have to make it smooth. You can literally say: ‘I’ve been thinking about it, and I think I’m ready. If you are too’.”
Your throat bobbed as you swallowed.
“And if you’re not ready?” Pietro added, voice quieter, more serious. “You can stop. Even halfway. Even at the last second. Even after you’ve said yes. You’re allowed to change your mind.”
You stared at him, heart hammering.
“You know that, right?” Pietro asked gently.
You nodded, but it was small. Uncertain.
So Pietro reached up and tapped your forehead lightly with his finger.
“Not just here,” he said. “Here too.”
You blinked hard.
“Okay,” you whispered.
Pietro’s expression turned softer, almost proud. “You’re doing good,” he said. “Not because of the sex thing. Because you’re choosing. Because you’re trusting someone and still keeping your agency.”
You didn’t know what to do with that, so you just sat there breathing through the tightness in your chest until it eased.
Then, quieter, you asked, “Do you think it’s… weird?”
Pietro’s brows knit. “Weird how?”
You hesitated. “Like… because of everything. Because of Bucky. Because–”
Pietro’s gaze sharpened, immediate. “No.”
He said it firmly enough that it made you blink.
“It’s not weird to want to be intimate with your boyfriend,” Pietro said. “It’s not weird to want to be loved gently. And it’s not weird to choose someone who makes you feel safe.”
Your throat tightened again.
“And Bucky?” you asked, barely audible.
Pietro’s mouth twisted. “Bucky is… Bucky.”
That was the most accurate answer he could’ve given.
Pietro continued, voice more measured. “He’s learned, at least, that Steve treats you well. Better than he expected. Better than he wanted to admit.”
You looked down.
Pietro watched you carefully. “That doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt him.”
You nodded once, because you knew that too.
Because even now – after a year – Bucky’s eyes still tracked you sometimes when he thought you weren’t looking. Still went tense when Steve kissed your temple. Still got sharper on the days you laughed too freely.
But he didn’t interfere anymore.
Not openly.
He’d swallowed the worst of it and packed it away in the place where he stored all the things he didn’t know how to say.
And you could tell – because you knew him – that some part of him was proud of Steve.
Even if it stabbed.
Even if it made him feel like he was losing something he’d never been allowed to claim.
Bucky had started respecting Steve in a new way.
Not as his best friend.
As your boyfriend.
As the person who could touch you and not break you.
And that terrified him as much as it relieved him.
He showed it in the smallest ways.
The way he didn’t crack jokes when you and Steve left for a date.
The way he’d quietly move out of the living room if Steve’s arm slid around your shoulders, giving you space without making you feel watched.
The way he didn’t look at you like an accusation anymore.
Just… like a bruise he didn’t know what to do with.
Later that night, when you finally went to your room, you lay on your bed staring at the ceiling, replaying Pietro’s words.
You could say it plainly.
You could say it awkwardly.
You could say it in a whisper if you had to.
The point wasn’t perfect.
The point was consent.
The point was choice.
The point was that you wanted Steve – not because you were trying to prove anything, but because you trusted him with the most vulnerable part of you.
And for once, wanting didn’t feel like a trap.
It felt like a door you were allowed to open from the inside.
You waited three days after talking to Pietro.
Not because you were changing your mind – because you weren’t – but because you needed the words to stop feeling like glass in your throat. You needed them to become something you could hold without cutting yourself.
It happened on a Thursday evening, in Steve’s room, with his sketchbook open on his bed and your math homework spread across the floor like neither of you had actually been doing any work for the past hour.
Steve was sitting against the headboard, knees bent, pencil tapping idly against the page. You were cross-legged at the foot of the bed, pretending to read your notes and failing.
At some point, Steve looked up and caught you staring at nothing.
“You okay?” he asked softly.
You blinked, heart kicking hard. “Yeah.”
Steve didn’t believe you, but he didn’t push.
He set his pencil down and shifted a little closer, careful, like he always was.
“You’ve been quiet,” he said.
You swallowed.
Your hands were sweating.
You wiped them on your pajama pants without thinking, then immediately hated that you’d done it, because Steve saw and his expression softened into concern.
“What is it?” he asked, quieter.
You stared at your hands for a second.
Then you forced yourself to look at him.
It was easier when you looked at him.
His eyes were steady. His mouth relaxed, not impatient. His whole posture said: I’m here. I’m not going anywhere. Say it however you can.
So you did.
“I’ve been thinking about… something,” you said.
Steve’s brows lifted slightly, then he nodded. “Okay.”
You took a breath. The words came out in a rush, like if you didn’t say them fast enough your courage would dissolve.
“I think I’m ready,” you said. “To–” You faltered, cheeks burning. “To have sex. With you. If you… if you want that too.”
Steve went still.
Not frozen in a bad way.
More like the sentence had hit him and his brain needed a second to catch up.
His ears turned pink. Then his cheeks.
His mouth opened, closed, then opened again.
You felt your stomach drop, panic flashing hot.
“Steve, it’s okay if–”
“I do,” he blurted, voice too fast. Too earnest. Too loud for a room that suddenly felt like it was holding its breath.
You blinked.
Steve swallowed hard, eyes wide with the same nervousness you felt clawing at your throat.
“I mean–” He rubbed a hand over the back of his neck, embarrassed. “I do want to. I just… I didn’t want to pressure you. Ever.”
Your lungs loosened.
You hadn’t realized how tightly you’d been holding your breath until you could finally exhale.
“I know,” you whispered.
Steve’s gaze flicked to your face, searching. “Are you sure?”
You nodded. “Yes. But–” You hesitated. “I want us to do it… right. Like. Safely. And–” You made a face, because you couldn’t believe you were having this conversation. “I want to plan. A little.”
Steve let out a small, shaky laugh that sounded almost like relief.
“Thank God,” he murmured.
You blinked. “What?”
Steve shook his head quickly, cheeks still red. “Nothing. Just– I’m glad you said that. Because I’m…” He exhaled. “I’m terrified.”
That made something warm and almost funny bloom in your chest.
“You’re terrified,” you repeated.
Steve looked at you like he expected you to laugh at him.
You didn’t.
You just scooted closer and touched his knee lightly, a grounding point.
“I am too,” you admitted.
Steve’s shoulders eased a fraction.
He reached out, hesitated, then took your hand – gentle, like he was holding something fragile and sacred at the same time.
“We don’t have to,” he said immediately. “Not now. Not ever, if you decide you don’t want to. I’m not–”
“I want to,” you interrupted softly. “With you.”
Steve stared at you for a second.
Then he nodded, once, slow. “Okay.”
The word sounded like a promise.
It didn’t happen right away.
Because wanting it and doing it were two different things.
Because you were both awkward and careful and strangely practical about something that felt enormous.
You talked about protection with the kind of seriousness you usually reserved for exams. Steve went to the pharmacy with a hood pulled up like he was committing a crime, then came back to you with the small paper bag hidden inside his backpack and an expression so mortified you thought you might die laughing.
You didn’t laugh.
Not at him.
You thanked him, quietly.
He looked so relieved he could’ve cried.
You talked about where. You didn’t want it to be rushed. You didn’t want it to be in a car or on a couch where you’d be listening for footsteps the whole time.
The only place that felt truly safe was Steve’s house – his bedroom, his bed – on one of the rare weekends when his father was away on a business trip.
Steve’s father traveled often enough that it wasn’t suspicious.
But the idea still made your stomach twist with nerves.
So you planned anyway.
You picked a night. You made sure Wanda would cover for you if your mother asked questions. Pietro didn’t ask for details, but he looked at you like he already knew what you were doing and just said, “Text me if you need me,” like the whole point was making sure you never felt alone in it.
The day it happened, you almost backed out three times.
Not because you didn’t want Steve.
Because you were terrified of what it meant to let someone see you like that.
To be vulnerable in a way you couldn’t control with words or grades or politeness.
Steve met you at his door with the same nervous energy, like he was trying to act normal and failing.
“Hi,” he said.
“Hi,” you replied.
You both stood there for a second, staring at each other like you were about to take a test you hadn’t studied for.
Then Steve cleared his throat and stepped aside to let you in.
The house was quiet.
Too quiet.
No TV. No distant footsteps. No adult presence. Just the hum of the refrigerator and the faint tick of a clock in the hallway.
Steve led you upstairs like he was afraid the walls might hear.
His room looked the same as always – messy in that Steve way: books stacked everywhere, sketch pages scattered across his desk, a hoodie thrown over a chair.
But his bed was made.
Neat.
Intentional.
You noticed, and something in your chest softened.
He’d tried.
Steve shut the door behind you.
Then he turned, hands hovering awkwardly at his sides.
“Do you… still want to?” he asked, voice low.
You nodded, throat too tight for anything else.
Steve exhaled slowly, like he’d been holding his breath for hours.
“Okay,” he whispered. “Me too.”
He came closer, careful, giving you time to step back if you wanted.
You didn’t.
He leaned in and kissed you – slow, gentle, like he was reminding you of something you already knew.
That he wasn’t going to take.
He was going to ask, every step of the way.
His hands moved to your waist, then paused.
“Is this okay?” he murmured against your mouth.
You nodded again. “Yes.”
Steve’s forehead rested against yours for a second, and you felt him trembling just slightly.
You smiled, small, because you weren’t the only one scared.
“I’m nervous,” you admitted.
Steve let out a breath that sounded like a laugh. “Yeah. Me too.”
“Okay,” you whispered, and the word wasn’t just agreement – it was courage.
So you moved together, slowly.
Clumsy in places, because neither of you knew exactly what you were doing. But gentle. Always gentle.
Steve kept checking your face like it was the only thing he trusted. Kept asking quiet questions – this okay? still okay? – like it mattered more than anything else.
It hurt, a little.
A sharp, brief discomfort that made you stiffen and suck in a breath.
Steve froze instantly.
“Did I–?” he whispered, panicked. “Are you okay? Should we stop?”
You swallowed, eyes stinging – not from pain, really, but from the overwhelming rush of being cared for so intensely.
“It’s okay,” you breathed. “It’s… it’s not that bad. Really. I had period cramps worst than that. Just– give me a second.”
Steve didn’t move.
Not a muscle.
He held still like a statue, eyes wide and focused entirely on you, as if he would’ve stayed frozen for an hour if it meant you didn’t hurt.
You let out a shaky laugh.
“What?” Steve asked, still tense.
“You’re… ridiculous,” you whispered, voice trembling with something warm.
Steve blinked. “I’m sorry.”
You shook your head quickly. “No. Don’t be. Just–” You took a breath. “I’m okay. Keep going. Slowly.”
Steve swallowed hard, then nodded.
And when he moved again, he did it like he was handling something precious.
The discomfort faded into something else – something strange and tender and intimate in a way you hadn’t expected. Not fireworks. Not some movie-perfect moment.
Just closeness.
Just Steve’s breath against your skin, his hand holding yours like an anchor.
And because it was his first time too – because he was nervous and overwhelmed and trying so hard – it didn’t last long.
You felt him tense, a soft, startled sound leaving his throat, and then he went still again, eyes fluttering closed as if he couldn’t believe what had just happened.
For a second, you just lay there, breathing, hearts pounding like you’d run a mile.
Then Steve opened his eyes and looked at you like he was terrified you’d be disappointed.
“I’m–” he started, mortified. “I’m sorry. I–”
You cut him off immediately, voice soft but firm. “Don’t.”
Steve froze.
You shifted closer and pressed a kiss to his cheek – gentle, reassuring.
“It was good,” you whispered. “It was… us.”
Steve’s eyes stung. You could see it – the moisture gathering, the emotion he didn’t know how to hide.
He swallowed hard. “I didn’t want to hurt you.”
“You didn’t,” you said honestly.
Steve stared at you, breathing unsteady, like he couldn’t decide whether to laugh or cry.
Then he reached out and held you – careful, protective, arms wrapping around you like he needed to make sure you were real.
You stayed there for a long time.
Not talking.
Just… existing in the aftermath, in the quiet.
Steve’s fingers traced small circles on your back through your shirt, soothing without thinking.
And somewhere in that softness – somewhere in the way he held you like you were something he didn’t want to break – you felt the words rise up in your chest.
You’d thought you’d say them one day when it was dramatic.
When it made sense.
When the timing was perfect.
But lying there, warm and safe, it felt simple.
It felt true.
So you whispered it into the space between you, voice small and honest.
“I love you.”
Steve went completely still.
Then his arms tightened around you like he was holding onto a lifeline.
He pulled back just enough to look at you, eyes wide and shining.
“You do?” he breathed, like he couldn’t believe he was allowed to hear it.
You nodded, throat tight. “Yeah.”
Steve stared at you for a second longer, then his face crumpled in something like relief.
He kissed your forehead, your cheek, your mouth – soft, reverent kisses that felt like gratitude more than hunger.
“I love you too,” he whispered, voice breaking on the words.
And for the first time, the phrase didn’t feel like a risk.
It felt like home.
In the days that followed, nothing about you and Steve looked different in a way anyone could point at.
You still went to class. You still complained about homework. You still sat together at lunch. Steve still walked you home when it got dark earlier and earlier, the air turning sharp with winter.
But something had shifted.
Something quiet and private that sat under your skin like warmth.
And you carried it differently.
You didn’t mean to.
You weren’t trying to advertise anything.
It just… changed the way you existed around him.
Steve’s hand found your back more often – light, guiding touches in hallways, fingers briefly resting at your waist when you stopped in front of your locker. He started brushing your hair behind your ear without thinking. You started leaning into him without checking first if you were allowed to want that much closeness.
You kissed his cheek in public sometimes now – quick and soft, like it was nothing.
It never felt like nothing.
And Bucky noticed.
He didn’t know why.
He didn’t have context. He didn’t have details.
But Bucky had always been terrifyingly good at reading what other people tried to hide – micro-shifts in posture, the way someone’s eyes softened, the difference between a casual touch and a touch that meant mine.
A week after, you caught him watching you from the doorway of the living room as Steve sat on the floor with you, your legs tangled casually around each other while you studied. Steve looked up at you at one point and smiled – small, private.
Your chest warmed.
And Bucky’s gaze sharpened.
It wasn’t anger, exactly.
It was something unsettled.
Like he’d missed a step in a song he’d known his whole life and couldn’t figure out where the rhythm had changed.
When you looked at him, he looked away too quickly, jaw tightening.
He didn’t say anything.
But you started noticing the small things.
The way he’d clear his throat and leave the room if Steve’s hand lingered on your knee for too long.
The way he’d slam a cabinet a little harder than necessary if you laughed at something Steve whispered in your ear.
The way he’d watch Steve like he was trying to confirm – again and again – that Steve still deserved you.
That you were still safe.
Even if it hurt.
You didn’t confront him.
You didn’t want to name it.
You didn’t want to give it power.
So you let the tension sit, thin and tight like a wire, and you stayed in your lane – Steve’s hand in yours, your heart steadying in a way it never had before.
By the time December rolled around, the world looked like it had been wrapped in paper.
The mornings were darker. The sidewalks were dusted with frost. The school had started decorating early, as if hanging cheap tinsel could convince everyone winter wasn’t going to drag on forever.
One afternoon, you and Steve were sitting on the bleachers behind the gym, sharing a coffee you’d bought with stolen lunch money. Your fingers were cold, even through the cup.
Steve rubbed his thumb over your knuckles absentmindedly, a quiet habit he’d developed without realizing.
“I’ve been thinking,” he said.
That phrase, coming from Steve, always meant something real.
You lifted your brows. “That’s dangerous.”
Steve huffed a laugh, then grew serious again.
“You know how… we keep talking about things being permanent?” he asked.
Your stomach dipped.
Not in fear – more in that soft, startled way your body reacted whenever Steve tried to give you something big.
You swallowed. “Yeah.”
Steve looked down at his hands, then back up at you.
“I want something that’s just ours,” he said quietly. “Something that… stays. No matter what happens later.”
Your chest tightened.
You knew what he meant. You knew it wasn’t about breaking up or leaving. It was about the world – about the way everything could change on a dime. About the way home sometimes didn’t feel guaranteed.
You stared at him for a moment, then whispered, “What kind of something?”
Steve hesitated, cheeks flushing slightly.
“A tattoo,” he said, like he was bracing for you to laugh.
You didn’t.
You just blinked, heart thudding.
A tattoo.
The idea hit you in two waves.
The first was warmth – because it was romantic in that Steve way, earnest and deeply symbolic, an “I’m choosing you” that wasn’t performative.
The second was a jolt of nerves.
Because it wasn’t just about ink.
It was about autonomy.
It was about doing something permanent to your body without asking your mother first.
And you had never – never – done that.
You had lived your life by rules you didn’t even remember being taught. A lifetime of making sure you didn’t take too much. Didn’t want too much. Didn’t become too much trouble.
Your mother was loving, yes.
But you still carried that old instinct like a reflex: permission first. Always permission first.
Steve watched your face, immediately concerned.
“We don’t have to,” he said quickly. “It was just a thought. I’m not trying to–”
“I want to,” you said, surprising even yourself with how fast the words came out.
Steve blinked.
You swallowed, forcing yourself to breathe.
“I want to,” you repeated, quieter. “I just… I’ve never done anything like that without telling my mom.”
Steve’s gaze softened. “Do you want to tell her?”
Your mouth tightened.
You imagined your mother’s face. The worry. The protective instinct. The questions. The lecture.
You imagined, too, the way your chest always tightened when she asked if you were okay, if you needed anything, if you were sure.
Like love sometimes came with strings you didn’t know how to untangle.
“I don’t want to ask,” you admitted, voice small. “I want to… do it. And then deal with it.”
Steve stared at you like he was seeing you in a new light.
Then he smiled – slow, proud, careful.
“Okay,” he said softly. “We can do it like that.”
You picked a Friday afternoon, a few weeks before Christmas, when school let out early and the cold air felt clean enough to make you brave.
Steve found a small tattoo shop that didn’t look sketchy, that had clean equipment and calm artists and no neon signs screaming regret.
You walked in holding his hand so tightly your fingers hurt.
The place smelled like antiseptic and ink and faintly like peppermint gum. The buzzing sound from the back room made your stomach flip.
Steve leaned close to you and whispered, “We can leave.”
You shook your head, though your heart was pounding. “No.”
You were shaky when you sat down and the artist asked, “First tattoo?”
Steve answered for you, voice gentle. “Yes.”
The artist smiled knowingly, like he’d seen hundreds of kids like you, thinking this was the moment they became adults.
You chose something simple.
Words.
Because you were still you, still a person who clung to language like it was a lifeline.
You didn’t want a symbol. You wanted a sentence you could anchor yourself to.
Steve went first.
You watched, breath held, as the needle touched his skin. He flinched slightly, jaw tightening – but he didn’t pull away.
He looked at you, eyes steady, and smiled through it.
No matter where.
Your turn came.
You sat down, rolled your sleeve up, and tried not to shake.
When the needle touched your skin, it stung – sharp and insistent.
You sucked in a breath, fingers curling in your lap.
Steve immediately took your free hand, lacing your fingers together.
“Breathe,” he murmured, close enough that you felt the warmth of his voice more than heard it.
You did.
The pain didn’t stop, but it became manageable. Like cramps. Like discomfort. Like something you could endure because you had endured worse things without anyone holding your hand.
You stared at Steve’s face while it happened, not wanting to look at the needle, and watched the way his eyes stayed on you like you were the only thing in the room.
When it was done, the artist wiped your skin clean and showed you the words in the mirror.
No matter where.
They were fresh and angry-red around the edges, but they were there – real, permanent.
You swallowed hard.
Steve looked at you like he wanted to say a dozen things at once.
Instead, he just kissed your knuckles.
“You okay?” he whispered.
You nodded.
And you realized – suddenly, intensely – that you felt… proud.
Not because of the tattoo.
Because you had done something without asking for permission.
You had chosen.
You walked out of the shop with your wrists wrapped in protective film, your hands linked, the air outside cold enough to bite.
You were both giddy in a quiet, stunned way.
Like you’d stolen something sacred and gotten away with it.
You didn’t get away with it.
Not even twenty-four hours.
Your mother noticed the moment you walked into the kitchen the next morning.
She was making coffee, hair up, robe tied tight. She turned as you reached for a mug -
And her eyes locked on the wrap around your wrist.
“What is that?” she asked, instantly alert.
You froze with the mug half in your hand.
Steve wasn’t there. He’d gone home the night before.
You were alone.
Your mother stepped closer, gaze narrowing. “Why is your wrist wrapped?”
Your throat went dry.
“It’s… nothing,” you tried.
Your mother’s eyes sharpened. “Don’t.”
That single word made your stomach drop.
Because it was the tone she used when she was genuinely scared. When she thought something bad had happened.
You swallowed. “It’s a tattoo.”
The silence that followed was immediate and heavy.
Your mother stared at you like she didn’t understand the sentence.
Then her face shifted – shock first, then disbelief, then a kind of wounded anger that made your chest tighten.
“You got a tattoo,” she repeated, slow.
You nodded once, small.
“You got a tattoo,” she said again, louder. “Without telling me.”
“It’s not–” you started, then stopped.
Because what were you going to say?
It’s not a big deal?
It felt like a big deal in the way her eyes brightened.
Her fear came out as anger, because fear always did with her.
“You are sixteen,” she said, voice rising. “Sixteen. Do you understand what that means? You made a permanent decision about your body and you didn’t even– you didn’t even talk to me.”
“It’s my body,” you whispered before you could stop yourself.
Your mother went still.
The words hung between you like a challenge.
She stared at you, lips parted, as if she couldn’t believe you’d said it.
Then her expression cracked – not soft, not yet, but shaken.
“Of course it’s your body,” she snapped, but her voice trembled. “But I am your mother. I am supposed to know when you do something like that. I’m supposed to keep you safe.”
You felt tears sting your eyes, not because she was wrong, but because she was right and you still needed to have done it anyway.
“I was safe,” you said, voice small. “It’s clean. It’s– it’s just words.”
“That’s not the point,” she said sharply. “The point is that you didn’t tell me. The point is that you did it like you were afraid I’d stop you.”
You didn’t answer.
Because you were.
And because admitting that out loud felt like stepping onto a ledge.
Your mother’s chest rose and fell, breathing hard, trying to control herself. She looked at you – really looked at you – and her eyes softened just a fraction.
“Show me,” she said, quieter now.
You hesitated.
Then you peeled back the protective wrap slowly.
Her gaze landed on the fresh ink.
She read the words.
Her mouth tightened.
And for a moment, something flickered in her expression – pain, understanding, something that made her look older than she usually did.
“You did this with Steve,” she said.
It wasn’t a question.
You nodded.
Your mother closed her eyes briefly and pressed two fingers to her forehead like she had a headache.
“Oh, sweetheart,” she whispered, but the tenderness didn’t erase the frustration. “You can’t just… you can’t make decisions like this and cut me out.”
You swallowed hard. “I’m not trying to cut you out.”
“But you did,” she said, voice rough. “Even if you didn’t mean to.”
The lecture that followed was long.
Not screaming, not cruel – just intense. A proper scolding, the kind that left you exhausted by the end of it.
She talked about health risks. About regret. About permanence. About how much she loved you, and how much it terrified her to realize you were becoming someone she couldn’t protect by simply being present.
You stood there and took it.
You didn’t argue much.
Because you understood.
And because a part of you – small but stubborn – still felt proud.
When your mother finally stopped, her shoulders sagged.
She reached out hesitantly and cupped your cheek.
“I’m angry,” she said softly. “And I’m scared. But I love you.”
Your throat tightened. “I love you too.”
She kissed your forehead, then pulled back, eyes still wet.
“Next time,” she said firmly, “you talk to me.”
You nodded.
Even if you weren’t sure you could promise it.
Because for the first time, you’d learned the difference between asking permission…
And telling someone the truth about who you were becoming.
Later that day, when Bucky came home and saw the faint redness around the wrap on your wrist, he paused in the doorway.
His eyes narrowed, suspicious.
“What’s that?” he asked.
You didn’t answer right away.
You just met his gaze, steady.
Bucky stepped closer, reaching without thinking.
Then stopped himself.
Because he’d learned, slowly, painfully, that he didn’t get to grab at you when he was unsettled.
He waited.
You lifted your wrist slightly. “A tattoo.”
Bucky blinked.
“A tattoo?” he repeated, incredulous.
Your lips twitched. “Yeah.”
His gaze flicked – immediately – to the hallway, like he could see Steve through the walls.
Then back to you.
“You did that with him,” he said.
Not a question.
You nodded.
Bucky’s jaw tightened.
For a second, you thought he’d explode.
Instead, he exhaled sharply through his nose and looked away.
“Mom knows?” he asked, voice rough.
“She does,” you said.
Bucky huffed a short laugh that wasn’t funny. “How bad was it?”
You shrugged. “I got a pretty good lecture.”
Bucky nodded slowly, like he could picture it perfectly.
Then his gaze landed on your wrist again, and something unreadable crossed his face.
Because it wasn’t just ink.
It was proof.
Proof that you and Steve were becoming something real. Something lasting. Something you weren’t asking Bucky to approve of.
And that realization – sharp and quiet – sat behind his eyes like a bruise.
He didn’t say anything else.
He just walked past you into the kitchen, shoulders tense, as if he needed to put distance between himself and the fact that you were growing up.
(any version of) bucky with reader and her single mom
he treats her mom like his own (after a while of dating reader he starts calling her mom too)
really attentive and sweet (brings flowers for both of them, takes them both out to eat at least once a week)
puts his strength and charm to use (helps with grocery shopping and lifting or anything her mom needs fixing in her house)
he talks about his own mother too like food she cooked or things she bought for him when he was a child and readers mom will try to make it for him or buy it for him and he gets all “( ;´ - `;) thank you mom.”
he constantly expresses his gratitude for how she raised her daughter and maybe he even asks for her blessing before he proposes to reader
aa i don’t know if this is a weird thing to req ヽ(；▽；)ノ but i love my mom sm (if its possible can you not mention readers father whatsoever;; ?)
thank you c: 🪿!!
The first time Bucky meets your mom, he shows up ten minutes early with a bouquet in each hand.
You open the door expecting him to be his usual steady, a little awkward self—but he looks… nervous. Not mission nervous, not “facing down a room full of armed men” nervous. Just a guy, standing on your porch, holding two sets of flowers like they matter more than anything.
“One’s for you,” he says, offering you the smaller bouquet, soft pinks and whites. Then he lifts the second—bigger, fuller, warmer colors. “And these are for your mom.”
Your heart does something embarrassingly soft in your chest.
“You didn’t have to—”
“I wanted to,” he cuts in gently, already glancing past you like he’s trying to make sure he does this right.
Your mom appears from the kitchen, wiping her hands on a towel, curiosity written all over her face. She takes one look at him—at his broad shoulders, the careful way he stands, the quiet respect in his posture—and then at the flowers.
“Oh,” she says, surprised. “Those are for me?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Bucky answers immediately. “I mean—if you’ll have them.”
That’s all it takes.
By the time dinner is over, he’s helped set the table, insisted on doing dishes, and somehow managed to fix the slightly crooked cabinet door your mom has been complaining about for months.
And when you catch her watching him later, something soft and knowing flickers in her eyes.
---
It doesn’t take long for Bucky to become a constant.
At first, it’s just little things—stopping by with takeout after your late shifts, offering to carry in groceries when he notices your mom struggling with too many bags, fixing the porch light that’s been out for weeks.
But then it becomes routine.
Sunday dinners.
Midweek coffee runs.
“Accidental” extra portions of whatever he’s cooked that he insists on dropping off.
And always—always—flowers.
“For you,” he says, handing your mom a fresh bouquet one evening like it’s the most natural thing in the world.
She laughs, shaking her head. “James Barnes, you are going to spoil me.”
He ducks his head, a little bashful. “Just returning the favor.”
“For what?”
He glances at you then, something warm and certain settling in his expression.
“For raising her.”
The room goes quiet for just a second—not uncomfortable, just… full.
Your mom presses her lips together, clearly touched, and reaches out to squeeze his hand.
“Well,” she says softly, “you’re doing a pretty good job taking care of her now.”
His answer is simple. Steady.
“I’m trying.”
---
It happens slowly—the shift.
One night, you’re all sitting around the living room after dinner, your mom halfway through telling some story from when you were a kid. Bucky’s listening like it’s the most important thing he’s ever heard, leaning forward, elbows on his knees, completely locked in.
“And then she tried to convince me the dog ate her homework,” your mom laughs. “We didn’t even have a dog.”
Bucky huffs out a quiet laugh, shaking his head.
“You were trouble, huh?”
You roll your eyes. “I was creative.”
“Uh-huh,” he murmurs.
Your mom nudges him lightly. “Oh, don’t let her fool you. She still is.”
He grins, but then something softer settles over his features.
“My ma used to say the same thing about me,” he admits. “Said I had too much charm for my own good.”
“Sounds about right,” your mom says easily.
He hesitates, just for a second.
Then, quieter—almost unsure—he adds, “She used to make these dumplings when I got in trouble. Said if I was gonna be a menace, at least I’d be a well-fed one.”
Your mom’s expression changes instantly. Curious. Warm.
“Dumplings, huh?” she says. “You remember the recipe?”
“Not exactly,” he admits. “Just… how they tasted.”
She hums thoughtfully, already filing that away.
—
The next time he comes over, your mom greets him with a plate.
“I tried something,” she says, a little shy.
Bucky looks down and freezes.
Dumplings.
Not perfect. Not exactly the same. But close enough that something in his chest aches.
“For me?” he asks, voice softer than usual.
“Well, I couldn’t have you missing out,” she says lightly. “Tell me if they’re any good.”
He takes one biten and then just… stops.
You watch his throat work as he swallows, eyes blinking a little too slowly.
“They’re—” he starts, then clears his throat. “They’re really good.”
Your mom smiles, pleased. “Yeah?”
He nods, more certain now. “Yeah. Thank you mom.”
The word slips out naturally.
Easily.
And for a second, all three of you just sit there.
Your mom’s eyes soften in a way you’ve never quite seen before, something maternal and fiercely gentle.
“Well,” she says quietly, “you’re welcome, sweetheart.”
Bucky looks like he might actually fall apart.
---
After that, it sticks.
He calls her mom without thinking. She fusses over him like he’s always been hers.
He fixes things around the house without being asked—loose railings, leaky faucets, anything that requires strength or patience. He carries in groceries like they weigh nothing, even when your mom insists she can handle it.
“You’ve done enough,” she tells him once, hands on her hips.
He just shrugs, already reaching for another bag. “Let me help.”
And when he takes both of you out to dinner—because he insists on it at least once a week—he makes it feel like something special.
Pulling out chairs.
Remembering your mom’s favorite dishes.
Listening—really listening—to every story she tells.
He doesn’t just love you.
He honors where you came from.
---
The night he asks for her blessing, he’s more nervous than you’ve ever seen him.
He shows up alone this time, no flowers—just a quiet, steady determination.
Your mom raises an eyebrow when she opens the door. “Where’s my girl?”
“Out with a friend,” he says. “I—uh… I wanted to talk to you.”
That’s all it takes for her to step aside and let him in.
They sit at the kitchen table. For a moment, he just stares at his hands, flexing his fingers like he’s bracing for something.
Then he looks up.
“I love her,” he says simply.
Your mom smiles a little. “I know.”
“I mean it,” he insists, voice rougher now. “She’s… everything. And I know I don’t have the cleanest past, but I’m trying every day to be someone she deserves.”
“You already are,” she says gently.
He swallows hard.
“I want to marry her.”
Silence settles between them—but it’s not heavy. Rather cognizant of how important this moment is.
“I was hoping,” he continues, softer now, “that I could have your blessing.”
Your mom studies him for a long moment. Really looks at him—the way he sits, the way he holds himself, the sincerity in every word.
“You treat her well,” she says finally.
“I always will.”
“You treat me well, too,” she adds, a small smile tugging at her lips. “Not every man thinks to bring flowers for the mother.”
Bucky huffs a quiet, nervous laugh. “Seemed important.”
“It was.”
She reaches across the table, placing her hand over his.
“You already feel like family, James,” she tells him. “So yes. You have my blessing.”
The relief that washes over him is immediate. Visible.
“Thank you,” he breathes. “Thank you, mom.”
She squeezes his hand.
“Just make sure you keep bringing the flowers,” she teases.
His smile—soft, a little watery, completely genuine—is one of the most beautiful things you’ve ever seen.
I kiss you with all the innocence I posses, you kiss me back with all your sin.
Petal’s love notes: I love a good medieval fantasy story 😋 this was quite tricky to write, but I hope you enjoy!
Summary: You both knew the roles you were destined to play. Duty is an all-too-familiar word that has been ingrained in you since the moment you were born. So why is your appointed knight making responsibility so difficult?
Word count: 8.2k
Warnings: 18+ mdni / fluff / angst / unrequited / forbidden love / smut! / oral (both receiving), unprotected p in v / no use of y/n
He is written in winter ink.
He is the dark and shadowed corners of the night, the quiet warning before a storm.
You are written in sunbeams.
The warmth after the cold winter night, a breeze that gently kisses the flowers to open and bloom.
He is your knight, you are his princess.
The meadows were always so beautiful this time of the year.
Being sealed within the cold stones of your castle has always the most difficult part of the blue bloodline you were born with.
Hence, why the meadow at its most flourished state has always been one of your greatest joys. The warmth of the sun, the colors around you, the vastness of the sky, they all make up for the time you are spent locked away.
"Princess, its time to go."
A gruff voice cuts behind you, snapping you out of rapture.
It is your knight, the shadow that has been trailing behind you for the past five years like a moving fortress, unyielding and shielding you from harms way.
"Bucky," you reply with a gentle whine, tone eloquent and soft. "You can't possible ask me to go back now, its the first day of blooming season."
Bucky sighs at your stubbornness, eyes closed and head hung downwards. There is a furrow in his brows as he readies himself to do this all-too-familiar dance with you once again.
"Princess," he says sternly, yet not enough to overstep. "Must I remind you again to address me properly? I am on duty."
You huff at that, eyes still focused on the colorful petals scattered by your side.
"But you're always on duty."
He doesn't correct you because you're not wrong. Looking after the princess is an around the clock job that he has devoted his life to, but he does not answer to that.
"Come, now." Bucky says with firmer requisition. "Allow me to escort you home."
At the finality of his words, you decide to turn and look back at your knight.
He stands behind you only paces away, as usual, never any further nor any closer than that. Clad in silver armor which contrasts his dark hair and shadowed eyes which stare down deeply at you.
You shudder at the sight, not out of fear, but because of the familiar yet overwhelming sense of devotion your knight has for you. This man has been raised to be undeniably yours the moment he was born. His father was the devoted knight of your mother before he died in battle, hence his eagerness to follow in his footsteps.
The code of knights is one that you are no stranger to. Chivalry and duty to the crown, a recollection of their oath echoes in your memory. You've attended multiple knighting ceremonies to remember it by now.
Chivalry and duty to the crown.
It was a promise to bleed for you, to die for you.
But sometimes, you like to indulge yourself with the thought of Bucky's devotion extending beyond his code.
"Alright, alright." You say grumpily, getting up at dusting of flower petals from the expensive silk of your dress. "I'm coming, Sir James."
You finally comply with his request to be addressed formally, but not without an eyeroll and a tiny tantrum.
A ghost of a smile etches itself on Bucky's face that you think that you imagined it.
But the softening of his eyes on you is hard to miss.
Five years of being shadowed by Bucky has allowed you to study and understand him despite his preference for silence. You know that he finds irritation in royals who speak in loud and obnoxious volumes. You know that he finds amusement in your bratty nature that only seems to come out when you are alone with him.
You know that he finds peace and solace when he has to accompany you to the meadows that you frequent, that he doesn't want to leave this area yet, just as much as you do.
"Can we come back tomorrow?" There is a wishful tone to your voice that you know Bucky can't resist.
"Of course, Princess. Anything you want."
He says with promise. Bucky offers a hand out for you to take to guide you out of the flower patch, still maintaining his respectful distance from you.
"But for now we really need to go back. You're needed at the royal court." He reminds you.
"I hate those."
"I know."
₊˚ ✧ ━━━━⊱⋆⊰━━━━ ✧ ₊˚
"We have the Kingdom of Hydra knocking at our borders everyday, Your Majesty." a seasoned advisor preaches, looking up at your father who sits in the center throne beside you, while gesturing animatedly in the middle of the hall.
"They're after our Vibranium, just like everyone else." The King waves a hand at this. "How are our defenses fairing?"
Beside him, you and your mother listen to the exchange of power between the men. 'Let your father handle the war efforts,' she had taught you all those years ago, 'as women, our responsibility is to hold peace.'
You shift uncomfortably at the heated exchange, unsure what your role is in this hall except to sit down and live up to the vision of perfection the kingdom upholds you to.
In attempt to find comfort in your unease, your eyes drift to the side to find Bucky's. His broad figure is against the wall, in your corner of the room.
As if he immediately feels your gaze land on him, he shifts his eyes to meet yours and gives you a subtle nod of reassurance. A silent, secret language that has developed throughout the years you've spent together.
'You can do it, just a few minutes till court ends.' it's as if he tries to say.
'I know, but I can't take it anymore.' you blink up at him, absorbing his comforting gaze.
'I want to go back to the meadow with you.' is what you want to tell him, but there's only so much you can communicate with just a quick gaze.
"-should be time for the Princess to step up to her responsibility." the last bit of words coming out of the senior advisor's mouth snaps both you and Bucky out of the silent exhange.
You turn your attention back to the main hall in front of you, and are met with the full attention of the court. Beside you, your mother and father wear worried expressions.
"What?" Your small voice cuts through the heavy tension in the air.
The advisor sighs, obviously irked at your unreliability to focus on the court session. But why would you when these men never seem to care about the words of a woman?
"I was saying, Princess." His tone carries a hint of animosity in it. "That we can no longer keep up with protecting the borders from Hydra. It will end in blood bath with the way they are rapidly expanding their Kingdom."
Your father clenches his fists at this before speaking.
"They just want our resources, right? Why don't we open the trade routes for Vibranium-"
"The atrocious Kingdom of Hydra will not stop there, Your Majesty."
You continue to wear a confused expression on your face as your father slumps back into his throne. He has always been an excellent king, so seeing him look so defeated worries you.
"...Father?" You whisper out to him.
All he gives you is an apologetic look.
"The best course of action for this is to seal an alliance with them. As I was saying, this should be the perfect time for the Princess to step up to her role as our symbol of diplomacy and peace... by matrimony" The advisor continues.
What?
You tenses once you come into realization with wide eyes. Beside you, your parents' carry wistful expressions as they fall into acceptance at the advisor's suggestion.
On your opposite side, you hear armor clink as the body underneath it stiffens.
Anger floods your veins almost instantly at how okay everyone seems to be with this... outrageous solution.
"You can't be serious?" you stand up from your smaller throne. "I am not going to be a peace treaty for those... barbarians! Father, tell them!"
"With all due respect, Princess. Your duty is to secure alliances for the Kingdom." The advisor bites back at your sudden outburst.
"I know that!" You admit to the obligation you've grown to painfully accept years ago "But not to these... sadistic savages!"
"Their Grace, Duke Fisk, should make an available bachelor for the matrimony." He ignores your argument by continuing on with his proposal to the King.
"He- He's twice my age!" This is too much. You're spiraling as the situation continues to get worse and worse. "Father, please say something! Tell him you do not agree!"
Desperately, you come to your knees in front of him, begging to get you out of this.
The King stays silent for a moment and the whole court waits for his response. He was never a cruel father to you, but duty and obligation came first for your family. He was always the King first.
"We must keep our Kingdom safe. It is of upmost importance right now. Draft the proposal for union." Your father gets up from his throne to walk past you and exit the hall, signaling the dismissal of court.
You stay frozen in front of the empty spot of where he once was as the crowd disperses almost immediately to make the arrangements.
"Oh, honey." Your mother kneels down beside you. "It will get better as the days pass, you'll see. Think about how many lives you will be saving." She coos.
You ignore her, continuing to let out soft sobs as the emptiness and despair you feel inside eating up at you.
The sound of heavy armor walks toward your pathetic figure on the floor.
"I'll take her from here, Your Majesty."
"Yes, thank you Sir James. She listens to you more than me." She tells him knowingly. "Look after her, alright?"
The look your mother gives him is one of familiar fondness. He has the same eyes as the knight that once looked after her before he fell.
"I will." Bucky replies.
He waits for the hall to clear out completely before kneeling down to your level.
"Princess." His gruff voice tries to get your attention. He tries to hide the pity in his voice the best he can.
You ignore him, still wallowing in your own misery.
"There's still a bit of light out, Princess." The tone he uses with you tries to be gentler now, attempting to be what you need at the moment despite his naturally brooding manner. "I'll take you back to the meadow. We still have time."
"No," you manage sniffle a response, "I-I'd like to be escorted to my chambers, please."
He respects your wishes obediently, just like he's supposed to.
"Anything you want, Princess."
₊˚ ✧ ━━━━⊱⋆⊰━━━━ ✧ ₊˚
Bucky shuts your door gently, leaving you alone for now. Your soft cries muffled within the confines of your chambers.
He takes a step back from the barrier separating the both of you, and only then he finally lets his composure break.
He presses his thumb and forefinger to the bridge of his nose and lets out a deep, shaky exhale that has been stuck in his throat since the announcement was made at court.
"...Time for the Princess to step up to her role as our symbol of diplomacy and peace... by matrimony" the cruel words of the royal advisor rings in his ears like venom. They play on loop in his head.
He can feel his regularly collected mind begin to spiral on the sixth replay of those words, causing him to lean suddenly on the cold stone wall next to your door just to keep himself upright.
There is definitely shame in the current state he finds himself in.
Shattered, lost, devastatingly heartbroken.
But he had played his role so perfectly for years now.
Been what you had needed him to be- your sword and shield, your protector, sworn to both death and devotion to you.
Chivalry and duty to the crown.
A good knight. He's acted exactly the way his father had taught him.
Doesn't he deserve this one moment to wallow in his feelings?
"Fuck," Bucky mutters, hitting a fist at the cold stone wall. "Fuck, fuck, fuck."
He can feel himself slipping. The cold mask that he's worn around you slipping more and more with every break of his heart.
"Bucky, when you become a knight you have to be ready to fight. You have to be ready to die." He remembers the words of his father when he was just a squire training under him.
He was just a boy then, with great admiration for the royal guard. His father, after all, is the appointed knight of the queen. Sworn to her protection and devotion to be by her side at all times.
"You must put your hand over your wound and hold it there. Keep walking and fighting until you can guarantee the crown's safety. That will be your duty."
True to his word, his father had taken a sword to the heart by the enemy kingdom just after Bucky was knighted and appointed to you. He was protecting the queen till his very last breath.
His father's advice had pulled him through every difficult battles without fail, until now.
How is he supposed to put a hand over his wound, when the wound is deep inside his heart? How is he to keep fighting... When he knows you will be taken away from him in the end?
There was never a word of advice for this kind of battle.
But he's seen it before. Once, twice, maybe a few too many times.
The way he looks at his Princess when no one is watching is a similar look to the way he would catch his father's gaze lingering longingly at the queen.
"You never taught me this..." He whispers to the air, as if his words would reach the grave his father is buried in. He's mastered every art of the sword and chivalrous act that could be passed down to him. But to deal with the pain of seeing his Princess be married off? He was clueless.
₊˚ ✧ ━━━━⊱⋆⊰━━━━ ✧ ₊˚
Getting out of bed the next day required the use of tremendous mental strength that you just didn't have. It's two clock strikes after breakfast, yet you lay still within you cocoon much to your lady-in-waiting's disapproval.
"Leave me alone, Nora! I told you I'm sick!" You feel a sense of guilt for yelling at the elderly maid for just doing her job.
Her kind eyes stare down at your sulking form buried under blankets and pillows with a pitiful expression. She has always been a mother figure to you, hence her ability to easily see through your white lies just to stay in bed longer.
Nora exits your chambers with a tired huff, greeting Bucky who's stationed outside your door.
"You get her up, Sir James. She'll listen to you." She lets out exhaustedly. "I'm getting too old to go back and forth with her now. You'll help an old woman out, won't you?"
That's exactly how you and Bucky find yourselves in your current predicament: blanket wrapped around you and clutched tightly into your fists, while he tugs at the other end with just enough force to nudge you.
"Come on, Princess-" He grunts, "quit giving Nora a hard time."
"I'm having a hard time." You bite back at him "Leave me alone, Bucky!"
It's almost comical, how his huge frame and otherwise terrifying demeanor looks like within the confines of your dainty and pink room.
You hear the sound of his metal arm shift, likely him running a hand through his hair in frustration. Both at your refusal to listen to him and your use of his nickname which is otherwise considered unprofessional.
"Come on," another irritating tug nudges you forward.
"You're being a brat."
At that comment, you peak up at your knight who looms over you with an irked expression. It's a sight that would probably make you feel intimidated if it weren't for the feeling of safety his presence brings you.
"Is that any way to speak to royalty, Sir James?" You challenge him from under your covers.
"No. But you wouldn't tell on me."
"Who says I wouldn't tell on you?"
"You've never told on me before, Princess."
The way Bucky points out your fondness for him makes you feel instant embarrassment, which you hide with a scowl and an eye roll, ducking yourself under the covers once again.
Suddenly, the tugging on your blanket stops. You hear Bucky let out a tired sigh.
"Hey," he says in a gentler tone this time, trying a different approach. "What about I take you to the meadow again today, Princess? It's a nice day out."
Apparently, this is all it takes for you to agree to get out of bed. A mention of the meadow that you love and some time alone with your knight.
Bucky delivers the news of victory to Nora, who reenters your chambers again with newfound delight.
"That knight of yours, really!" She exclaims amusedly while brushing your hair. "Quite scary, isn't he? I knew his father back then. He too had that same brooding expression that he carried around everywhere."
This earns a soft laugh from you.
"That's just how Bucky is, Nora." You tell her with a warm tone at the mention of his name. "He's actually very sweet once you get to know him. Funny too."
Nora stares at you with a look of skepticism through the mirror as your use of such affectionate adjectives for the otherwise frightening knight.
"I believe that's just your soft spot talking, Princess." She teases you knowingly.
"What?! Nora!" The maid laughs at your flustered expression as you begin rambling about how you see him as nothing more than a companion and a friend. But she knows better.
"He's just like his father, after all." She whispers to herself sadly, a comment that you do not completely understand just yet.
₊˚ ✧ ━━━━⊱⋆⊰━━━━ ✧ ₊˚
The shade of the tree covers the both of you as you sit amongst the brightly colored flowers. Pockets of sunbeam hit your skin through the little gaps of the foliage above.
A unfinished flower crown keeps your hands busy while Bucky lays against the bark of wood, maintaining his usual few paces of distance away from you.
"I could run away, you know?" You break the comfortable silence between the both of you with a ridiculous thought. "Run away and be rid of it all."
"Not happening, Princess."
Bucky remains unfazed by your words with a nonchalant expression. He's much too used to your outrageous thoughts by now.
He's learned the hard way that it's better to entertain and go along with your crazy ideas than to ignore them, as doing so earns him a pouting Princess muttering about how he's 'no fun' and how she wants 'a change of knights'.
The last comment rubs him the wrong way.
At his rebuttal, you turn your attention away from your flower crown to look up at him with a frown. You're surprised to see him already lookin gat you from the corner of his eye, a relaxed expression on his face.
"I can! I'll climb out my window and everything." You argue back. It's obviously a joke, but there is a hint of honesty in your tone.
"You're clumsy. I'll hear you while you're trying to sneak out." Another instant shut down.
"But if I do manage to make it out of the palace-"
"I'll find you." He says almost instantly.
There was no winning this argument with him, making you groan and slouch back defeatedly. A faint huff of laughter is heard as Bucky finds amusement in your surrender.
It's silent again for a beat, before you decide to break it again. Shifting a little bit closer to him before you do.
"You can always try to steal me away too, you know?" any trace of banter is suddenly erased as pure honesty slips out this time from your lips. Your voice is soft. He hears it loud and clear.
Bucky's freezes at your suggestion. Eyes going wide as he looks up at you with longing.
"I-I think I'd go anywhere with you." You tell him shyly. "Even if it's just a small town... I'll learn how to cook for you, o-or you can teach me how to tend to the fields, or-"
You catch yourself spewing out nonsense, stopping yourself before you could embarrass yourself further.
Beside you, Bucky's heart is pounding in his ears. It's beating so much that he thinks if you were to put a hand over his chest, you'd feel it over the Vibranium armor.
This is just one of your outrageous thoughts that you expect him to entertain. He thinks to himself. You don't mean that.
He clears his throat before indulging in your request.
"Sure, Princess." He says with quiet promise and a soft, loving tone that he only has for you. "Anything you want."
₊˚ ✧ ━━━━⊱⋆⊰━━━━ ✧ ₊˚
"Duke Fisk has agreed to the proposal" Your father tells you over dinner, making you tense.
It's been a few days since he sent out the proposal for union between your two Kingdoms. The news has finally sunk in, but has not gotten any easier to accept.
Your mother eyes you with a solemn expression. Day by day, the light has been dimming from your eyes as you grow closer to accepting your fate.
"I'm sorry, honey. We wish things could be different." She coos, sympathizing with you. "But you know our duty would never allow us to marry for love. This union is a necessity."
'Yes! Yes, I know that!' You want to scream at them. You've known this since you were a child. It's a fate that you've made peace with a long time ago.
'But why do I have to get married off to a tyrant!? I have the right to be angry!' Your brain continues to fight them for you, while you stay silent.
"We are taking care of the all arrangements as we speak." The royal herald speaks from his place next to the King. "The Duke Fisk will not be available until the day of the wedding, but he does want to know in advanced how the transportation of Vibranium will-"
You stand up abruptly at that.
Even your husband to be can't bother himself with meeting you before the wedding? The Duke does not even care to ask about you, and instead wants to discuss the Vibranium supply that he is marrying into.
The sudden action causes silence as all eyes turn towards you.
"I'm not hungry." You say bitterly, storming out of the dining hall and aggressively shoving the double doors leading towards the hallways.
The calls of your parents are left ignored as you keep your head down so that they don't see the angry tears rushing down your cheeks. You just needed to get away from everything.
Your violent exit is met with Bucky who was stationed right outside the door. Of course he's there, he always is. the presence that usually fills you with a sense of security is replaced by irritation.
"Don't follow me!" You order him just as he's about to walk towards you in concern.
"What?- Princess, wait." You hear his armor as he takes long strides to easily catch up with your brisk pace.
He continues following next to you despite your attempts to walk away from him. "I can't do that, Princess. You know I have to be with-"
"Leave me alone, Bucky!" you spin around to face him just as you make a turn towards an empty hallway.
He doesn't halt his steps in time. Your sudden movement causes him to crash into you accidentally.
The usual distance he tries so hard to place between you gets shortened into a breath. He stands so close now, that your chest nearly touches the suit of his armor.
Neither of you make an effort to correct the distance.
"Princess-" He breathes out.
"-Find her! King's orders!" You hear one of the palace guards command to his men.
The distraction is enough to make you jump, causing you to walk backwards away from Bucky in shock.
You don't get too far. Not when his cold metallic hand wraps around your waist, keeping you against him. Before you can question it, he's walking you backwards into a nearby alcove.
It's a dark and tight space. You're pressed between him and the wall as his dark armor makes the perfect camouflage for the both of you, shielding you from the passing guards.
You hear their footsteps come and go as they search the castle for the Princess who just stormed off.
"You'll get in trouble if they find out." You tell Bucky with a soft whisper. He's pressed up so close against you, that if he were to lean down just a bit, his lips would graze the crown of your head.
"Then we won't let them find out." He reassures you with a gruff whisper of his own. "You won't tell on me. Right?"
You look up to see him smiling fondly down at you. The distance doing nothing to calm your aching heart.
"I want to get out of here, please Bucky."
"Of course, Princess. Anything you want."
₊˚ ✧ ━━━━⊱⋆⊰━━━━ ✧ ₊˚
Bucky leads you through the night, passing through all the dark corners with such stealth and fluidity, that you don't realize where he ends up taking you.
You're met with a small wooden door. A very modest looking one that you easily could've missed due to how mundane it looks next to the much grandeur doors you're used to.
"It leads outside," Bucky tells you in a hushed tone, as his hand continues to gently guide you towards it by the small of your back. "They won't notice we're gone if we take this exit."
He pushes the door open for you and you're instantly met with cool fresh air. Your lungs take fuller breaths now, helping you calm down from the events of today.
"Further down, Princess. Let's keep going." The hand at the small of your back continues its gentle hold on you.
You try your best not to show him just how much this newfound touch is affecting you. The hammering of your heart is easy enough to hide, but the same cannot be said for the blush on your cheeks.
Straight ahead is one of the castle's cast iron gazebos. It's placed so distantly away from the castle grounds, just outside the perimeter, that you almost forget that it's there.
The domed roof is decorated with intricate patterns. Untouched flowers and foliage cover the architecture from floor to ceiling
"You calm down better when you're around nature." Bucky notes as he watches you observe the location with awe "they'd check the meadow, but not here. It's practically forgotten."
Turning your attention away from the flowers, you face him with a hint of surprise in your expression. "How did you find it? I didn't even know we had a gazebo like this here."
"I like to get away when the thinking gets too much."
You let the familiar silence comfortably envelop the both of you, finally finding it in you to relax and let the reality of the situation you're in consume you.
The thoughts of duty, marriage, and unspoken feelings for your knight make your heart feel heavy once again. Making your eyes well up in shimmers as you try to fight them from falling.
You refuse to cry over this any more. Tears feel pointless now.
Bucky easily reads your thoughts through your expression. He feels it all in that moment; anger, hurt, frustration, and that thread of tenderness that never seems to leave when he looks at you.
He looks away, turning his gaze heavenward with a clenched jaw as he tries to compartmentalize his own emotions.
"You're making it damn hard for me not to take you up on that offer." the rasp of his voice cracks through you.
"What?"
"Stealing you away, Princess. You have no idea how bad I want to get you out of this mess."
A melancholic chuckle makes its way out of your mouth at that. Your hands play with a loose thread of your silk dress.
"Don't joke around like that, Bucky. I just might get my hopes up." But when you look up at him with a crinkle in the corner of your eyes, you see that he's not wearing the same joking expression.
He looks at you with his forehead creased, eyes filled with longing and flickers of desperation before he just breaks.
"I can't pretend anymore."
Before you can question what he means, he takes a few strides closer to you. The distance between you closes once again just as it did earlier in the hallway.
"Bucky-"
"You need to know that I care for you, Princess. Deeply. It's not just about my code- it's never been about that."
His voice breaks halfway as he confesses what he's been too afraid to speak out loud all these years.
"We- We can't, Bucky. What are you doing?" You bring up a hand to his chest in attempt to push him away, but he takes it as an opportunity to grab your wrist and keep you in place.
"Please. Please just listen to me." He says with more determination now.
Your silence is all he needs to keep going. He takes a deep breath before he does.
"You're everything, Princess. Everything." A hand reaches up to caress your cheek, while the other pulls you closer by the waist. "and I ache for you. It hurts, but I can't stand to be anything else but in love with you."
Bucky's confession is every impossible dream you've ever had. But as he lays his heart out to you, you can't help but feel your own break.
"I love you too, Bucky." you tell him with your own loving eyes reflecting back at him, pained with the need to turn him down. It's the right thing to do. "...But we-"
"Don't finish that sentence." He cuts off your rejection quickly.
Your breath hitches as he rests his forehead on yours, leaning you back until you're almost seated at the built-in bench of the gazebo's infrastructure. The flowers frame you for him, and he stares at the picture it paints for him in admiration.
"Just for tonight." He says softly, tightening his grip on you and leaning down to press a chaste kiss on your cheek.
Warmth floods the area his lips meet. His lips trail lower to your jaw until his mouth closes around the pulse in your neck.
"We shouldn't, Bucky." but the words come out breathless as your head begins to spin from the pleasure. Actions don't match your resistance as you grant him more access to the column of your throat.
"Just for tonight," he repeats against your skin. "Let me pretend you're mine, Princess."
Your heart throbs at the word 'mine'. It's all you've ever wanted- but why does every kiss of his feel like he's letting you go?
Bucky's lips meet the corner of your mouth this time, getting so close to an actual kiss which makes you let out a gasp.
"I'll pretend you're mine as well." You answer back at him in a hushed whisper, expecting him to kiss you now at your compliance to his make-believe.
Instead, Bucky shakes his head in amusement at you.
"Princess, you don't need to pretend." His lips are inches away from you now. "I've always been yours."
The way Bucky kisses is not gentle. It's desperate and dangerous, a contrast to the way he takes care of you. There's absolutely nothing holding him back anymore from this moment that he has with you.
After all, you agreed to be his- even if it's just for tonight.
"You sure?" Bucky pulls away for a moment to ask you with a softness in his voice, as if he wasn't just kissing you like it was a lifeline.
"Yes. I'm sure." You tell him earnestly.
He wastes no time grabbing you by the nape of your neck to bring your lips back to his rougher this time.
Bucky is everywhere all at once.
HIs hands slip down to your ass, palming and groping, making you moan into his mouth. You're practically melting as all you can do is hold onto him and take it while he moves his lips down to your neck once again.
"Mine." He states with certainty. "You're mine. You love me."
"Yes, I'm yours. I love you." your hands glide up his hair as you're pushed further into the pillar of the gazebo, leaning all of your weight against it as he kisses lower and lower.
Your words make him moan into your skin, causing a shiver to course through you.
He's suddenly on his knees in front of you, tugging at his armor to let it fall down with a hard clank. You'd be worried about the noise it created, if it weren't for his hand suddenly trailing from your ankle to your knee, and back down again.
"I'm going to kiss you here, Princess. Are you okay with that?"
The small, shy nod of your head is enough for him to pull your dress up and to the side, making him groan at the bare sight of your slick before him.
Bucky's tongue runs up between your folds, circling your clit slowly. A loud, desperate moan comes out of you almost immediately at the contact.
You make contact with him as he stares up at you with affection from in between your thighs.
"You're doing so good, love... That's it." he praises you with a growl.
His fingers squeeze at your ass as he sucks your clit into his mouth. You feel how he envelops you with the warmth of his tongue pressing flat against it to flick up harshly, before sucking it once again.
The pattern continues until you're a wreck against him, whimpering and writhing. Bucky's metal arm holds you in place while the flesh of his other hand moves from your ass to push two fingers inside you.
It's amazing how he finds the spot you want him the most in almost instantly.
Bucky's pace increases as his fingers pump in and out of you, fucking you in perfect rhythm and coordination with his tongue. The feeling keeps building and building as you cry out, desperately tryin got chase more.
"O-oh, fuck. Bucky I'm-" you whimper, wound up so tightly that it feels hard to breathe. "I think I'm going to -"
The words never leave you as every part of you spasms. Your whole body is tingling and throbbing while Bucky continues to suck your clit deliciously, while his fingers continue to fuck into you.
You come with a scream of his name, a declaration of love, and a series of curses unfit for a princess.
Bucky cleans you diligently with his tongue patiently, coming up from his knees once he's sure he's collected every drop you gave him.
It takes you a few moments to recollect yourself from finishing on his tongue. Bucky is patient as he strokes your hair, waiting for me to calm down.
"Did so good for me, love." He whispers softly, "so beautiful, so fucking mine."
Once the aftershocks have passed, you decide to reach a hand down to palm him over his pants.
"Can I?" you ask Bucky shyly, worried about your lack of experience yet motivated by how much you want to return the favor.
He chuckles at your eagerness "No, we don't have to-"
"Please? I want to."
Before he can protest, you're already on your knees in front of him, eyeing the outline of his hardness through his pants. You can tell it's big, and the idea of his size makes you nevous.
"Y-you need to teach me, Bucky." you tell him timidly.
"Okay, Princess." he says with a gentle tone.
He takes himself out, tightening his fist around the base a few times and giving it a few pumps. He bends down to give you a kiss on your forehead "Tell me whenever you want to stop, alright?"
One hand positions itself at the back of your neck, while the other guides his dick to your mouth. "Stick your tongue out, baby."
You do as your told, and give the head of his dick some experimental licks before taking the tip into your mouth.
"Shiiiit" he moans. "Such a good girl, baby."
You continue to suck him off gently at first, while his hands find your hair as he continues to moan loudly. His reactions make you more confident in yourself as you take more of him in your mouth now, until he hits the back of your throat.
"Fuck yes, just like that." He groans.
You look up at him through your lashes as he makes experimental thrusts into your mouth. As you don't seem to object to this, he starts rutting into you now in rhythm. letting out satisfied grunts.
"Yes, god yes." He continues to chant, thrusting a few more times before pulling you up to your feet.
"I won't last if you keep that up." He pants. "I want to be inside you when I cum, Princess."
With one last check-in with you if you're sure, you feel him line himself up to your entrance.
"Gonna fuck this pussy like it's mine." he says as he puts the tip in, stretching you out as you feel the sudden weight of him inside you.
"F-fuck! Bucky!" You yelp at the foreign feeling.
"And you're gonna take it like a good girl. Won't you, Princess?" He asks before thrusting himself inside completely.
Bucky has left you both a panting mess within the confines of the gazebo, where anyone passing by the gardens will have an obvious view of what you're doing- but at that moment, lost in pleasure, neither of you seem to care.
You're soaking wet around him and squeezing him so tight, that it's hard for him to think about anything else but you.
Pulling back, Bucky thrusts forward with gentle rocks of his hips to help you get used to his size. Only then putting more force into his thrusts once he sees you moaning in pleasure.
"You feel so good, Princess. Such a perfect pussy." He pants in your ear as he fucks you deeper. "You like that, baby? You like getting fucked like this?"
"Oh my- it's so big, 'm full, Buck." you whisper as his cock brushes your sensitive spot over and over again "Right there!"
"Yeah, I'll fuck you right there baby. Don't you worry." Bucky moves a cold metal hand to your bundle of nerves, urging you to milk his cock tighter by pushing you to your orgasm.
"A-Ah! Bucky- wait, too much!-" But it's too late. You come on his cock in hot spurts, tightening around him so deliciously that he can't help but get pushed to the edge with you.
You collapse into each other, breathing heavily for a moment.
"I love you, Princes." he whispers as he cradles you in his arms.
₊˚ ✧ ━━━━⊱⋆⊰━━━━ ✧ ₊˚
For the next few days, you and Bucky are feral.
Years of sexual tension boiling down into moments.
He eats your cunt vigorously in your chambers, sneaking inside early in the morning before your ladies-in-waiting come to fetch you. You suck him off behind the tree in that meadow you both love, knees cushioned by the soft petals of flowers.
And of course, you both sneak away to the gazebo at night, so he can fuck you pressed up against the pillar just like before, or bent over one of the railings so that he can stretch his dick deeper inside you.
It's weeks of this. Neither of you want to rest, completely enamored by love and attraction for one another.
In every single way possible, you are aware of how Bucky is corrupting your innocence- your purity.
But you love it. If you were to give yourself to a man, you're glad its him. You're glad that he gets to touch you before the person you've been sold away to can lay his eyes on you.
It's a clear day when you meet your parents in the morning.
You've become less belligerent towards them about the situation, likely due to the way Bucky gets to make you forget about everything for a few moments when he gets you alone.
Before meeting them today, Bucky had snuck in your chambers again and that morning and ate your cunt so fucking good. He made you cum on his tongue twice then fucked you from behind with his dick before escorting you to the hall.
So it comes as quite a shock to you when your parents give you the updates on your marriage.
"We've scheduled the wedding. He's agreed to formalize the union by the end of this week." Your father tells you casually, finally coming into acceptance that him having to marry his daughter to a man such as Duke Fisk is for the betterment of the Kingdom and its people.
"T-this week?" You repeat in shock.
Your mother tries to be the voice of reason in this situation. "I know it's soon, but Duke Fisk needs the trade routes for the Vibranium secured, honey." she sighs.
Her worried eyes glance at your tensed up shoulders and clenched fist.
"I-I... I understand." is what you reply to her.
Your compliance shocks you, as a few weeks ago you would have fought and yelled despite knowing that there was nothing you could do to get out of it.
The facts outweighed every once of yearning you have in your heart. You were always going to be a princess first. Trapped into the responsibility forced upon you since birth.
When you get yourself alone with Bucky that night, you throw yourself onto him in desperate endeavor.
"What's gotten into you?" He had asked.
You form no explanation, but the worried look in your eyes is enough to make him understand.
"Make me forget. Please, Bucky."
He glances down at you sadly before pressing a kiss into the crease of your brows.
"Of course, Princess. Anything you want."
₊˚ ✧ ━━━━⊱⋆⊰━━━━ ✧ ₊˚
The day of your wedding comes in a blink, that you barely have time to mourn the life you're leaving behind.
Nora dresses you up in the white wedding dress that feels suffocating to be in. She tries to keep a chipper expression as she combs through your hair one last time, but the sadness is evident.
"It may not be so bad, dear. After all, It worked out for your mother." She tells you fondly.
But you don't listen. You don't care that its worked out for anyone else before, you only want Bucky.
You stay silent. Nora does not push.
When you're ready, Bucky is stationed outside your chambers as always, ready to escort you to your wedding ceremony.
It's a bitter ending for the both of you. He's there to guide you all the way up till the point where he has to give you away to a man that you have never even met, nor seen before.
He stares at you with a serious expression, trying not to break in front of you. You, on the other hand, are not fairing as well as he is.
Tears form almost instantly at the sight of him.
"I'll give you both some space." Nora says softly before exiting the hall of your chambers.
You're alone now, but the tension is thick. The extravagant bouquet in your hands aren't nearly as beautiful as the dainty little flowers in the meadow.
"I can still steal you away, Princess." Bucky says in a soft tone, just in case anyone else could hear. He's more serious than he's ever been when he brings it up. "Just say the word. There's an exit we can take. They won't find us if we leave now."
His words are quick and desperate, making your tears fall down harder at this. Bucky's hand catches them from falling, making you lean into his touch.
"Oh, Bucky." You say exhaustedly. It makes his heart break. "You know we can't"
He pulls his hand away, and steps back from you. Maintaining the familiar distance- just a few paces away from you.
"I know." He agrees with you solemnly. “But I’d let Kingdoms go to war if it meant keeping you, love.”
A sad smile forms on your face as you tell him. “You knew this was waiting for us at the end.”
The both of you make your painful walk towards the doors of the ceremony, where you're greeted by a grand ballroom filled with people. Your parents are waiting by the door to receive you.
"You look beautiful." Your mother compliments sadly. Next to her, your father looks tense, a cold expression on his face as he tries to act strong for the three of you.
"Remember," he says, "its for the Kingdom. You're doing your duty."
Duty.
The word echoes in your head like an insult.
Duty.
You feel your mother and father beside you, guiding you towards the end of the isle where your betrothed waits. You lock eyes with him for the first time.
Bucky stays in his place behind you. That's where he will always be, watching you create a new life with this stranger all for the sake of
Duty.
You freeze in the middle of the aisle, before slowly turning back. Your father looks at you with confusion, while your mother’s eyes widen with knowing realization.
Bucky watches you with wide eyes at your action. All these years of familiarizing himself with your unpredictability, but he does not expect what you do next.
You take a slow step back towards him. Towards your knight.
All eyes are on you, but you only look ahead.
"You can always try to steal me away too, you know?" any trace of banter is suddenly erased as pure honesty slips out this time from your lips. Your voice is soft. He hears it loud and clear.
The conversation in that meadow replays in your head.
“Bucky!” You call out to him desperately, a cry for you knight’s rescue.
"I-I think I'd go anywhere with you." You tell him shyly.
At your call, Bucky moves almost instinctively to fetch you in the middle of the aisle. His eyes never leave yours as he runs toward you before clasping your hand in his.
Around you, people are stunned to silence. Your father attempts to make the first move to react, but is stopped by your mother’s hand on his.
“Take care of her.” Your mother whispers to him, voice filled with emotion at the both of you.
She sees herself and her knight in you and Bucky, making her agreeable to letting you go.
Bucky offers her a curt nod, before quickly pulling you out the ballroom in haste before the order to go after you is issued.
₊˚ ✧ ━━━━⊱⋆⊰━━━━ ✧ ₊˚
It’s been a few years since the Princess disappeared. A forgotten story that people no longer pay attention to, as even bigger news circulated the Kingdoms.
Hydra has fallen. The small neighboring Kingdoms have banded together in war efforts that stopped them from their brutal expansion. A much more effective solution than what a marriage union could have done.
“Come one Princess, it’s time to go.” A gruff voice calls from behind you.
You smile at the sound of it, turning around to meet Bucky’s affectionate gaze.
“I told you not to call me that anymore.” You correct him lovingly.
“Habit, I guess. Can’t blame me.” He walks over to you to help you out of your spot on the soft dewy grass of the meadow.
Being 7 months pregnant has made movement all the more difficult from you. You’re gracious for Bucky’s assistance.
“Honestly,” he sighs, “if I knew you were going to spend all this time at the meadow, I would’ve built our house right here.”
You giggle at his absurdity. The house is just a few minutes away, isolated and quiet. Hidden away in a small hamlet just at the edge of the Kingdom that used to be yours.
“Oh, hush you. That’s no way to speak to your wife.” You slap his shoulder playfully. “Escort me back home, will you?”
Bucky presses a kiss to your temple as you finally manage to stand all the way up.
