cursedenbytechnique
cursedenbytechnique
"... i don't want to regret the way i lived..."
43 posts
//twenty-one\\ ||man, i don't know what i am either|| \\painfully online//
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cursedenbytechnique · 1 month ago
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goosebumps as a concept are so funny ur brain is like "oh no we're threatened! quick! make us look bigger!" and your skin, that absolutely does not have the ability to do that, is like "absolutely. right away boss"
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cursedenbytechnique · 2 months ago
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Btw Gojo and Choso both walk like this if you don’t give them enough attention
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cursedenbytechnique · 2 months ago
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Walker: I've got a five-year plan.
Bob: Five years. Cool. I've got the next two and a half hours planned, and then there's darkness.
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cursedenbytechnique · 2 months ago
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satoru gets jealous of inanimate objects.
why is the pillow getting more hugs than him? why is your phone funnier than he is? why does the blanket get wrapped around you instead of him when he’s literally right there, built like a heater, available and desperate for affection? he’s six feet of love-starved muscle, and you’re choosing a glorified sack of cotton over him?
it’s not that he’s dramatic (he is). it’s not that he craves your attention like it’s oxygen (he does). it’s just that he knows he can do it better. he can be softer than your pillow. warmer than your blanket. funnier than your timeline. he has jokes, okay? and arms. and a body that you used to cling to like a koala in your sleep, so what happened to that? what changed? was it something he did? is this punishment? have you… outgrown him?
“you haven’t hugged me all day,” he sulks, chin digging into your shoulder, arms wrapped tight around your waist like a vice. “you hugged that stuffed animal for a solid ten minutes. is he funnier than me, too? is he taller? stronger? does he have an eight-pack?”
“he’s a bunny, satoru.”
“a ripped bunny, probably. emotionally intelligent. good with taxes. i bet he remembers anniversaries.”
he would know. he bought it. it was one of those claw machine wins at the arcade on your second date, the kind where he burned through twenty dollars like it was pocket lint until he finally, triumphantly, fished the floppy-eared thing out by the foot. he made you name it. declared it your shared child. called it his competition from day one. satoru even gave it a tiny ribbon scarf, because he said it needed to look presentable when it went toe-to-toe with him for your affection.
he was all smiles and smug winks back then—thought it was funny. he’s not laughing now.
because here he is, years later, still glaring at the bunny across the bed like it wronged him personally. like it’s out here stealing his wife. he swears it watches him with beady little judgmental eyes. plotting. scheming. waiting for the right moment to hop in and take his place.
“do you love it more than me?” he deadpans, already pulling you into his chest like he doesn’t want to hear the answer. dramatic gasp. “oh my god, you do. you love the bunny more. i’m losing to polyester stuffing.”
you roll your eyes, but he’s already burying his face into your neck, all whiny and clingy and hot breath against your skin like a puppy who hasn’t seen you in years. he makes a noise when you finally stroke his hair, a pleased little hum, arms squeezing tighter like he’s won a prize. like he’s claiming you back from his fuzzy rival. his biggest nemesis to date.
“this is better,” he mumbles. “way better.”
(pillow: -1. bunny: forever suspect. phone: on thin ice. satoru: smug as hell and back in his rightful place—in your arms.)
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cursedenbytechnique · 2 months ago
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cursedenbytechnique · 2 months ago
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This may be my favourite scene from the whole movie,
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cursedenbytechnique · 2 months ago
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KEEP CALM AND STAY BEHIND BUCKY.
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cursedenbytechnique · 2 months ago
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Imagine fighting with a chicken. Such animal cruelty.
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cursedenbytechnique · 2 months ago
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FROM THIS
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cursedenbytechnique · 2 months ago
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Comms Interference | Bucky Barnes x Reader
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Summary: The team knew something was off about you, the one who kept hijacking their comms and saving their asses with pop music and precision. What they don’t know is that you’re Bucky Barnes’ secret wife.
MCU Timeline Placement: Thunderbolts*
Master List: Find my other stuff here!
Warnings: blood and injury detail, combat violence, gunfire, language, references to past trauma, mentions of HYDRA and Red Room conditioning, high-adrenaline tension, implied PTSD, emotionally repressed idiots in love
Word Count: 9.3k
Author’s Note: ok this was unhinged levels of fun to write and i regret nothing. i love the chaos. thank you again to the incredible request!! will i be writing more of this flavor of secret marriage? absolutely. also: i’m working through more requests soon so if i haven’t gotten to yours yet, i promise i haven’t forgotten!! thank you for being here and screaming with me always <3
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The mission had gone to shit six minutes ago.
Yelena had called it first, with that vicious kind of sarcasm she reserved for the moments just before blood hit the concrete. “Ah, yes. Reinforcements. Wonderful. So glad we were not warned about that.” Somewhere ahead of her, gunfire cracked in frantic bursts, too far left for the recon drone’s range. The team had split off in the chaos. Ava had gone radio silent, Alexei had wandered too far into the smoke, and John—somewhere in the middle of it all—was bleeding too much for someone who insisted he had it handled.
Bucky moved like a phantom, silent and sharp, pulse pacing steadily with the beat of crisis. Not panic. Not anymore. He’d spent too many years being the last line between chaos and carnage to waste energy on nerves. But this was the kind of mission that reeked. Hasty intel. Unexpected players. A mess of underpaid mercenaries with too much firepower and no clear objective.
Something was wrong. And it wasn’t just the lack of backup.
He ducked behind a half-collapsed column, adjusting the comms in his ear. “Ghost, come in.”
Nothing.
“Belova, status?”
“Busy,” Yelena snapped back, followed by the heavy thud of a body hitting concrete.
“Walker?”
Crackling. Then, “Still upright. Not loving it.”
Not a lot to love. Their extraction point had been pushed back two miles, and the enemies just kept coming. Sloppy formation, uncoordinated, like someone was using them to smoke them out. But why? Sure, they were the newly named “Avengers”, but they weren’t even a proper unit yet. Just a bandage stretched too tight across a bleeding world.
A second burst of gunfire lit up the smoke ahead of him. Bucky pressed forward, adjusting the rifle over his shoulder. 
His ribs ached. Something had cracked when he hit the wall earlier, but he was used to working broken. There wasn’t time to slow down. Another figure emerged from the mist and he recognized the clumsy footwork, the huffing breath. Walker. He was limping, red blooming across his arm, jaw clenched tight enough to crack enamel.
“They’re circling back,” he growled. “Either we regroup or we go down swinging.”
“We’re not dying here,” Bucky said simply.
The comms hissed.
Just a stutter of static at first. Barely enough to make anyone flinch. Then a pulse. Faint. Rhythmic. Almost like—
“Oh god,” Bucky breathed, just as the bass dropped.
It was unmistakable. Blown-out, over-compressed pop blaring directly into his left ear. Not military comms. Not interference. Music. High-energy, aggressively hyper-feminine, shamelessly catchy.
“Don’t cha wish your girlfriend was hot like me…”
“Are you—what is that?” Walker barked, slapping at his ear like the sound had crawled inside it.
Yelena’s voice buzzed back into the channel. “Is someone playing Pussycat Dolls on our frequency?”
Bucky didn’t answer. Couldn’t. His blood had turned to static. That song. That voice—not the lyrics, but the one threaded over the top of it, smooth and low and familiar. One he hadn’t heard in weeks and one he wasn’t supposed to be hearing for another few days.
“Miss me?”
Bucky turned and it was like watching the opening beat of a nightmare you hadn’t allowed yourself to dream in years.
The smoke curled around you first—black against the pale concrete, shivering in the aftermath of a concussion blast—and then you stepped through. Leather at your thighs, a familiar half-mask pulled just low enough to show your mouth, batons already swinging. One of the mercenaries clocked you too late. You dropped him with a strike to the temple, pivoted cleanly into another, ducked a swing and hit back twice as hard.
You weren’t supposed to be here.
Not in this fight, not in this city, not in this life.
At least, not anymore.
You had promised. Not with words, never with words, but in the quiet, liminal moments between missions. The soft touches passed like contraband between bodies that only knew how to break things. The way you said enough without ever needing to say it. The way you’d disappeared, with him, years ago, when it became clear the world didn’t need you anymore.
But you’d always needed him.
That much, apparently, hadn’t changed.
“Who the hell—” John started, eyes wide as he tracked your path through the battlefield.
“Shut up,” Bucky snapped. Too loud. Too fast. Too revealing. He kept his eyes on you. Didn’t dare blink.
You moved like you’d never stopped. Like the years hadn’t dulled you. Like civilian life had been a dream someone else lived for you.
Another merc tried to grab you from behind. You shattered his kneecap without looking, then tased him mid-collapse with a baton charged enough to light his vision up for a week. You were grinning now. Not wide. Not cocky. But with the same edge he’d seen years ago when you’d told him you didn’t believe in peace, just long stretches of boredom between moments worth bleeding for.
The team closed in slowly, instinct dragging them toward you without understanding why. Ava reappeared from a wall, phasing in with her hand on her weapon. Alexei lumbered forward, red suit charred at the edges. No one said a word. They all watched as you handled the remaining mercs like it was nothing. Like it was fun.
Then came more boots.
Bucky heard them before anyone else did, just barely, just over the last distorted chorus still crackling through the comms. A dull percussion of heavy soles slamming rhythmically into the concrete, coming fast through the fog of gunpowder and ruin. More reinforcements. He didn’t need eyes on them to know they weren’t freelancers this time. These steps were uniform. Trained. Unrushed.
Whatever this operation had started as, it had just shifted into something colder. Measured. Intentional.
“Movement,” he said, sharp into the mic. “East side. Full formation.”
Ava phased halfway through a concrete wall, scanning. “Tactical gear. Gas masks. No insignia.”
“Of course,” Yelena muttered. “Because today wasn’t already a flaming dumpster.”
They were boxed in. Walker had maybe one clip left. Ava was half in and half out of phase, red bleeding under her ribs. Yelena’s shoulder was hit. Alexei’s arm was dislocated again and he kept wrenching it back into place like it was a door hinge.
And then there was you.
Standing calmly in the center of the chaos, blood on your knuckles, mask cracked at the jawline. Not tense. Not afraid. Just… assessing. Like you’d seen this play out already.
The first soldier in the oncoming wave raised a weapon.
And you moved.
Not back. Not for cover. Forward.
The stereo signal shifted with you, leaping from Bucky’s comms to the mercenaries’ headsets, hijacking every open frequency on-site. A different song—now louder, sharper, folding itself into the space like a knife into bone. The bass thudded through the pavement, disorienting, impossible to ignore.
“This place’s about to blow—”
The lyric hit just as you sprinted toward the advancing line, coat flaring behind you, batons tucked back into your belt. You didn’t need them now.
Two soldiers opened fire. You dropped low into a slide beneath their aim, boots skimming waterlogged concrete. You came up spinning, driving an elbow into one throat, then swinging around to knee the second across the jaw with enough force to crack his visor.
Bucky couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t move.
You were in the center of it now, alone. Completely surrounded.
And utterly untouchable.
One mercenary tried to grab you in a bearhold from behind. Your head snapped back into his face before he could tighten the grip, cartilage crunching under the blow. You twisted free, used his moment of stunned pain to launch yourself off his chest, flipping backward into a double-leg kick that sent two more sprawling.
They were trying to flank you. Six at once now. You moved too fast to corner, slipped between them like smoke through fingers.
You caught a rifle midair—torn from one man’s grip—then swung it by the barrel, not to shoot but to break. Shattered it across another soldier’s helmet. Sparks flew. He screamed.
You tossed the ruined weapon aside like trash.
Another tried for a taser jab. You caught his wrist in one hand, yanked it forward, and let your forehead crack against his temple with a sickening thunk. He dropped. You rolled over his body, grabbed a sidearm from his hip, twisted the battery cell out of it mid-motion, and used the casing as a projectile. Hurled it into the next man’s throat with such force that he stumbled backward coughing blood.
You weren’t improvising. You were performing. A display in violence so surgical, it felt rehearsed.
There was nothing showy about it. No wasted breath. No excess.
But it was beautiful.
More than one of them hesitated now. The last cluster fell back into each other’s lines, rifles up—but jittering. Off-sync. Unsteady. You were outnumbered five-to-one and you looked like you were winning.
No comms. No backup. No partner on your six, despite Bucky standing right there.
And still, no one could touch you.
Alexei had frozen, one hand still holding his dislocated shoulder. He squinted through the haze. “Is that—are they doing this without a gun?”
“She’s using a speaker and spite,” Yelena said, breathless.
Bucky barely heard them. Every atom in him had locked onto you.
He hadn’t seen you like this in years. Not since the war-torn corners of places no one dared map. Not since missions that left no record. He’d watched you walk away from this life—bloody, ragged, swearing you were done with men who handed out orders and didn’t come home.
But here you were.
“This place's about to blow—oh oh oh—”
The beat peaked again. You moved with it.
Bucky didn’t realize until later, until the playback logs came through, that you’d used the signal bounce from the comm hijack to trigger a proximity ping in one of the mercenaries’ own mines. Subtle. Elegant. Just a single pressure charge set beneath the concrete underpass.
You’d timed it to the music.
The explosions hit not with a flash, but a boom—a deep, guttural bass that ripped through the center of the formation. It threw bodies. Concrete cracked. Rebar snapped like bones. The wave of force didn’t kill anyone outright—it was too clean for that. But it sent the force scattering, screaming, radios buzzing with confused shouts in languages the translation software couldn’t keep up with.
You walked through the smoke, now. No urgency.
One of the last men standing raised a trembling pistol.
You were on him in a breath—disarmed him with a spin, yanked the weapon apart in two brutal motions, and slammed the butt of the magazine into his vest until he collapsed, gasping, eyes wide with disbelief.
Bucky took a step forward. And then another. He didn’t know he was moving until the smoke curled at his boots.
Silence followed like a held breath.
When the last one fell, your music still bumping faintly over the comms, you finally looked at Bucky.
“Hi, baby.”
It wasn’t breathless. It wasn’t mocking. Just a quiet, dangerous kind of intimacy.
His heart felt like it stopped.
You moved to him casually, eyes raking over the bruise at his temple, the smear of blood under his collar. You tilted your head, inspecting him like he was a car you’d loaned out and found parked crooked in the wrong neighborhood.
The mask muffled your voice slightly, but not enough to hide the dryness in your tone. “Now that was a proper encore.”
The comms crackled again, faint and dazed.
“…Okay,” Walker muttered. “What the fuck just happened.”
No answer. Not from anyone.
Bucky approached you like someone walking through a minefield he already knew was active. Your eyes met his, slow and deliberate, as you reached up and peeled the broken edge of your mask back enough to speak.
“You look like shit,” you said simply.
“You blew up a fucking parking garage.”
“I nudged the pressure plate,” you corrected. “The garage blew itself up. Poor structural planning.”
Yelena finally spoke, somewhere off to the right. “Who are you?”
You didn’t look at her. Just exhaled through your nose like the question barely warranted a pause. “Old friend,” you said simply. “Fewer ethics, better taste in music.”
It hung there, ambiguous enough to pass but barbed enough that it didn’t invite further questions. You knew exactly how to deflect. How to disappear even while standing in plain sight.
You turned back to Bucky. The tilt of your head, the shift of your voice—both softened, only fractionally, but enough that he would feel it in his ribs. That awful, aching familiarity.
“You weren’t going to tell me about this op,” you said flatly, voice low, just for him.
“You're not supposed to be tracking me.”
You hummed. “And yet.” You tapped a gloved finger to his chest. Right above the hidden seam of his tac vest. He knew there was a tracker there. Or, he would now.
Behind you, the others were beginning to recover, weapons slack in their hands, confusion settling in like dust.
“Again, who is that?” Ava asked, still half in phase, her eyes narrowed.
“Nobody,” Bucky said quickly.
You turned to him again, one brow lifted.
He didn’t flinch.
The silence pressed in again. You could hear Walker muttering something—something about vigilantes, unregistered allies, probably some offhand comment about being underpaid—but it didn’t matter. Not right now.
You leaned in close enough for only Bucky to hear. “I don’t care who you work for now,” you murmured. “But if you’re going to keep playing hero, I’m not going to sit at home hoping you come back with all your pieces. You trained me better than that.”
“I didn’t train you to break into comms systems mid-op and hijack the sound system with—what was that?”
“Don’t Cha.” You smiled faintly. “It slaps.”
He closed his eyes for half a second. Breathed deep. Then opened them again. “You can’t do this.”
“Sure I can. I’m not a part of your team. I don’t need clearance. I just need one good signal bounce and an encrypted network to patch into.”
“And a speaker,” he added, dry.
You shrugged. “I improvise.”
Another pause.
“I’m not here to start saving the world again,” you said. “But I will show up when you’re two seconds from bleeding out in a parking garage in Bratislava because your team has shit intel and someone decided not to bring extra clips.”
He didn’t argue.
You patted his cheek briefly. Nothing overt, just enough to make the breath catch in his throat.
Then you turned, vanishing into the smoke just as casually as you’d arrived, music still pulsing faintly behind you.
Yelena said what everyone was thinking.
“What the fuck just happened?”
No one had an answer.
Bucky didn’t offer one either.
He just stood there, aching in every limb, and wondered how many more of his missions were going to end with Pussycat Dolls blaring through government-issued earpieces—and how many more trackers he was going to have to tear out of his suit.
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The debrief had ended thirty minutes ago.
No one had left.
Yelena sat cross-legged in one of the overstuffed chairs, a protein bar crumpled in her palm like she’d forgotten she was holding it. Her blonde hair was scraped back in a half-twisted bun that had begun to unravel midway through the meeting, and her expression had only grown more pointed with every breath Bucky refused to waste explaining you.
Across from her, Walker was pacing—slow, agitated, like a caged animal that hadn’t quite figured out what corner to piss in yet. He’d ditched the tac vest but kept the sleeves rolled, flexing a bruised bicep every time he turned. Alexei had already snagged half of the post-mission snacks from the shared kitchenette and was now loudly crunching on something suspiciously orange. Ava sat against the far wall next to Bob, legs crossed at the ankle, arms folded, as silent and sharp as a scalpel.
Bucky sat alone near the far end of the table, arms folded loosely across his chest, gaze fixed on the blacked-out screen of a wall monitor.
“So,” Yelena said, picking at the wrapper. “Are you going to tell us who they were, or do I have to keep guessing?”
Bucky didn’t move.
Alexei pointed a carrot stick in his direction. “They knew you. Very well. This is not up for debate. They called you ‘baby.’” A pause. “Is that normal? Do coworkers in America do that now?”
“She hijacked our comms with bubblegum pop and flipped a full tactical team without breaking a sweat,” Ava said quietly. “I’d like to know who’s training with that kind of precision and not wearing a uniform.”
“She’s not on any registry,” Yelena added. “I checked. No files. No background. No facial ID. She doesn’t exist.”
“She’s not a threat,” Bucky said. Flat. Final. The tone of someone who’d been interrogated before and wasn’t interested in playing along.
“No. You don’t get to do that,” Yelena said, sliding off the table with a thud. “You don’t get to stand there all quiet and broody after someone cartwheeled through an active war zone, made our entire unit look like unpaid interns, and then blew up a parking garage with what I’m pretty sure was a Bluetooth speaker.”
Walker let out a bark of laughter and didn’t bother hiding it. “Thank you. Finally. I thought I’d imagined that.”
“You did not,” Ava said flatly, still watching the skyline. “I checked the audio logs. She used a frequency bounce to route music through nine of their channels simultaneously. Bounced it again to mask her own comm signature. She was using earpieces as echo chambers.”
“That’s not even real,” Walker scoffed. “That’s comic book shit.”
“So are we,” Yelena shot back.
Bucky rubbed his jaw, said nothing.
Bob looked up from where he’d been twiddling with the strap of his watch in the corner of the room. “I liked the song.”
Four heads turned toward him.
He blinked slowly. “I listened to the audio logs too. It was catchy.”
Alexei made a noise like he was preparing to argue with the furniture itself. “She took out twenty-five men, minimum. With her hands. And rhythm. I am sorry, but this is not someone who just wandered in from the street. This is not some random playlist enthusiast. You know her.”
Bucky didn’t flinch. “Yeah.”
That answer hung there, not quite satisfying.
Yelena stepped closer, arms folded, chin tilted like she was examining a lie for cracks. “Okay. So who is she. What’s her name.”
“I don’t know if she’s using one right now,” Bucky lied easily. “We worked together a long time ago. That’s all.”
Walker barked out another laugh. “Bullshit.”
“We ran ops in a couple regions,” Bucky said. “Mostly when things got too quiet for comfort. Off-books. Years ago. She walked away before everything really came apart.”
“She tracked you across a continent,” Yelena said.
He met her eyes. “She likes to be thorough.”
“Was she CIA?” Ava asked. “Because I’ve seen their psychological profiles and that was not the average ex-operative response to stress.”
Bucky shook his head. “No. Not Langley.”
“HYDRA?” Walker said too quickly.
“Jesus,” Yelena muttered.
“She moved like someone from a program,” Ava said, voice quiet but deliberate. “Someone conditioned. That kind of precision doesn’t come from basic black-ops.”
“She trained under someone worse than HYDRA,” Bucky said.
And just like that, the room shifted. The quiet got heavier. Bob looked away. Alexei stopped fidgeting. Ava stilled completely.
Yelena narrowed her eyes. “Red Room?”
“I didn’t ask,” Bucky said. “Didn’t need to.”
“But she knew you.” Ava again, calm, focused. “That kind of familiarity doesn’t just show up after a few jobs.”
Bucky looked up at her. “I didn’t say it was just a few.”
“You said she walked away.”
He paused.
“She did.”
Silence again.
Walker shifted, elbow on the back of his chair. “Well, wherever she walked to, she kept your damn tracking frequency. I still can’t get the ringing out of my left ear.”
Bucky didn’t look at him. “You’re welcome, by the way. For being alive.”
“Sure,” Walker said dryly. “Thanks to your mystery friend with a war crime mixtape.”
“And now she’s… what? A rogue asset?” Ava asked, tilting her head. “A merc? A vigilante with a playlist?”
“She’s not on anyone’s leash,” Bucky said simply.
“Except yours,” Walker muttered.
Bucky’s glare snapped to him. “She doesn’t answer to anyone. Not to me. Not to you.”
Alexei muttered something in Russian under his breath that sounded vaguely admiring and possibly inappropriate.
Bob finally spoke again, more alert this time. “She’s not joining us, is she?”
“No,” Bucky said.
He said it fast.
A beat.
“I’m sorry, why not,” Alexei said, throwing both hands into the air. “We have room! We have so much room! She could have the bunk above mine, I would even switch.”
“She doesn’t want to be on a team,” Bucky said. “She’s not the type.”
“You mean she’s not the type to follow orders,” Yelena said, eyes narrowing again.
“No,” he said slowly. “I mean she doesn’t give a shit about headlines, or missions, or doing this the right way. She shows up because she wants to. That’s it.”
“And you’re okay with that?” Ava asked. “Someone that volatile just showing up whenever she decides?”
“She’s not volatile,” Bucky said, the words a little sharper than intended.
Yelena caught it. Instantly.
She stepped forward, crossing into his space—not aggressive, but direct. Like someone circling a bruise. “You trust her.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“No,” she said, “but you didn’t have to.”
Bucky didn’t speak.
“She’s not just an old op,” Yelena said, eyes still locked on his. “That wasn’t nostalgia out there. That was instinct. You moved like someone watching something yours walk into fire.”
Ava glanced between them. “She did save your life.”
“She saved all of us,” Bucky threw back.
“Okay, but why doesn’t she have a file,” Walker cut in. “Why doesn’t anyone know about her? If she’s that good, someone would’ve picked her up.”
“She’s good at disappearing,” Bucky said.
“And you just let her go?” Walker said. “After she pulls a fucking Mission: Impossible and struts off into the fog like a Bond girl?”
“I don’t let her do anything,” Bucky said. “She’s not mine to handle.”
Yelena leaned back in her chair. The protein bar wrapper crinkled in her palm.
“She’s not going to show up again, is she?”
Bucky shrugged. “Depends on whether I do something stupid again.”
He didn’t mention that you’d texted him two hours ago asking if he wanted to stop for groceries on his way back. He didn’t mention that the front porch light would be on tonight. That you’d probably be curled on the couch in socks and one of his old shirts, pretending you hadn’t crossed any borders this week.
They didn’t need to know that.
He rose from the table and grabbed his jacket off the back of the chair. The room watched him like he was walking out of an interrogation and back into something no one else could follow.
“Tell Val I’ll finish the debrief report tomorrow,” he said.
Yelena tilted her head. “And where are you going?”
Bucky paused in the doorway.
He didn’t look back.
“Home,” he said.
And then he was gone.
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The porch light was on.
Not a floodlight, not a security cam. Just the soft golden bulb above the narrow step that flickered twice when the wind caught it wrong. One of the screws had loosened a few months back during a storm. Bucky had said he’d fix it. You’d said it didn’t bother you. It still hadn’t been fixed.
His boots were scuffed and his shoulder ached and there was probably still smoke in his hair, but he stood on the welcome mat for a second longer than necessary anyway, hand resting on the doorframe like he needed to feel something solid.
Then he unlocked it. Quiet. Familiar. Two clicks, one turn.
Inside smelled like clean laundry and old books and that lemongrass balm you always used for burns.
The record player was humming in the background, stylus long since run dry. You must’ve forgotten to turn it off again. He stepped into the living room and shrugged off his jacket, moving through the space like muscle memory. His eyes caught on the half-finished mug on the end table, a folded blanket on the couch, the sleeves of one of his shirts pushed up over your forearms where you were curled up sideways, knees tucked, reading a book with your bare feet propped against the armrest.
You didn’t look up. Just turned a page.
“I thought you’d be home earlier,” you said softly.
“Got cornered by the team.”
Your voice was light, almost teasing. “They want answers?”
“They want blood.”
You snorted and finally glanced over the edge of the book. “Yelena first?”
“Obviously.”
“Did she throw anything?”
“Just looks.”
You hummed and set the book aside, leaning forward to make room as he collapsed onto the couch beside you. He sat like a man whose bones hadn’t stopped vibrating. You shifted, swung your legs over his lap, and rested one arm lazily across his chest like it had always belonged there.
He didn’t speak. Just closed his eyes for a moment, the side of his head tilted toward yours.
You let the silence stretch. He needed that.
Then—
“Bob said he liked the song.”
You grinned against his shoulder. “He’s got taste.”
“He said it was catchy.”
“He’s not wrong.”
“Again, you blew up a parking garage.”
“I was subtle.”
“You were wearing a speaker rig stitched into your coat.”
“I didn’t say I was quiet.”
He huffed, a small thing. Almost a laugh.
You leaned your head back against the cushion and studied the ceiling. “They’ll figure it out eventually.”
He didn’t ask what.
You didn’t clarify.
“They’ll dig,” you continued, “because that’s what they do. Not because they don’t trust you. But because they can’t afford not to. You don’t keep ghosts around without asking where they sleep at night.”
“They’re not stupid.”
“No,” you said. “Just loyal.”
He rubbed a thumb along the inside of your wrist. You’d skinned it, just barely, probably during that slide beneath the gunfire. 
“They think we’re ex-coworkers,” he said after a beat.
“Mm. That won’t last.”
“I know.”
You shifted to look at him, gaze steady. “You want me to stay gone next time?”
“No.”
It came out faster than he meant it to. And quieter.
You didn’t say anything.
His fingers ghosted across the edge of your thigh. “I just—this thing with the team. It’s still new. Messy. They’re watching me like I might snap. Or disappear.”
“You’ve earned that,” you said, not unkindly.
He nodded.
“They trust you more than they think,” you added after a moment. “Even Walker.”
“Walker thinks I’m one fight away from dragging a metal arm through a convenience store and snapping someone in half over a cereal shelf.”
You smiled. “You did that once.”
“I was sleep-deprived and the guy had it coming.”
“I’m just saying,” you murmured. “They’re not wrong to wonder.”
He let the silence settle again, the weight of your legs grounding him where he sat. Then he glanced over at you. “And you?”
You raised a brow. “Do I think you’re going to snap and kill the team in a cereal aisle?”
“Do you think you’re going to keep crashing my missions with bubblegum pop and a body count?”
You smiled, sharp and warm at once. “Only if you keep making it interesting.”
He stared at you for a moment. Then he reached out, brushed his fingers under your jaw—light, thoughtful, like he was confirming you were still here.
“I meant what I said,” you added, quiet now. “I wasn’t there to play hero. I’m not looking for redemption. Or recognition. That world chewed me up and spat me out long before I met you. I’m not going back.”
“I know.”
“But I’ll always come back. For you.”
His throat tightened.
You felt the shift before he said anything. The way his fingers stilled just under your jaw, how his gaze dropped for the barest second, like whatever he was about to admit weighed more than it should have.
“They’re going to find out,” he said finally. Voice low. Steady, but only just. “Not just who you are. What we are.”
You didn’t look away. “You sound like you’re bracing for it.”
“I am.” He leaned back slightly, enough to study your face. “I’ve kept a lot of things buried over the years. Some of it for good reason. Some of it because I didn’t know how to tell anyone without it sounding like a confession. But this—us—it’s not something I want in the crosshairs.”
You tilted your head. “You think they’ll aim at it?”
“I think people don’t like what they can’t label. And right now, you’re an anomaly with a body count, a comms breach, and no file. Add in a secret marriage to someone like me, and that’s a storm waiting to happen.”
You were quiet for a moment. Then: “You really didn’t tell them anything?”
“No.”
“Not even that we live together?”
“No.”
You nodded. Not in judgment. Just understanding.
“You scared they’ll treat me like a threat?”
He hesitated. “No. I’m scared they’ll treat us like one. Like I’ve been compromised. Like I’m… hiding something dangerous.”
“You are,” you said, with a small, lopsided smile. “But that’s never stopped you before.”
He didn’t smile back. Just ran a hand down his face, thumb braced at his temple. “Yelena’s already circling. Ava’s not far behind. Walker’s an idiot, but even he knows something’s off. And Alexei—Christ, I think he’s trying to adopt you.”
“I could do worse,” you deadpanned.
“He asked if you wanted the bunk above his. Said he’d move.”
You laughed, soft and sharp. “God, he’s going to be crushed when he finds out I’m not single.”
Bucky’s jaw tightened. “That’s not funny.”
You reached for his hand, interlaced your fingers with his. His skin was calloused, palms scarred, familiar in ways your body had memorized years ago.
“James,” you said, and your voice gentled, “I don’t care if they like me. Or believe in this. Or approve. I don’t need them to. I didn’t marry them. I married you.”
His eyes flicked to yours, something fierce and unspoken just behind them.
“You’re not a risk I regret,” you added. “And if they want to dig, let them dig. We’ve survived worse than a nosy debrief room.”
He leaned forward again, this time slower, and rested his forehead against yours. The press of skin, the shared breath, the quiet tension wound tight between your ribs—none of it felt like surrender. Just something harder to name.
He spoke quietly. “If this gets out, they’ll question my judgment.”
“Let them.”
“They’ll dig into your past.”
“Let them.”
“They’ll—” He cut himself off, exhaled. “They’ll try to separate us.”
You tilted your chin. “They can’t.”
It wasn’t a challenge. It was a fact. Solid. Unmoving.
Bucky didn’t answer, but you felt the way his breath dragged out through his nose, how his grip on your hand shifted—fingers tightening, not like fear, but habit. Like holding onto you was muscle memory. Like letting go wasn’t an option he entertained anymore.
You reached up with your free hand and pushed your fingers into his hair, slow and loose at the nape where it was just starting to curl from the heat. It was damp. He hadn’t showered yet. He hadn’t really come home yet. Just crossed the threshold.
“Go wash off the garage dust,” you said. “You smell like diesel and nerves.”
“Thought you liked how I smelled.”
“I do,” you murmured. “But I like it better when it’s under cedar soap and not post-combat sweat.”
He stayed where he was for another beat, forehead still resting against yours. Then he pulled back enough to look at you, just long enough for his gaze to drop to your mouth. He didn’t kiss you. Just studied you the way he always did when you told him the truth—like he was adding it to some invisible tally, a list only he kept track of.
Then he rose without a word.
You watched him walk down the hallway, unzipping the tactical vest as he went, shoulder muscles moving beneath the black fabric like tension still hadn’t learned how to let go. The bathroom door clicked open. You heard the water pressure shift in the pipes before the sound of the shower started.
You waited thirty seconds. Then you stood, peeled his shirt off your frame, and followed.
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It had been nearly five months since Bratislava.
Since the parking garage. Since the Pussycat Dolls. Since you’d lit up half a mercenary task force with a smirk and a frequency bounce. Since you’d vanished again into the smoke like a goddamn myth, only to be curled up on the couch that next night asking if he wanted to split a sandwich or order out after the two of you spent far too long in the shower.
In that time, the team had gotten better. Not good, no one in that unit would ever be clean enough to call themselves that, but sharper. More in sync. Intel got vetted. Missions ran smoother. Yelena had even stopped threatening to stab Walker more than once per week.
But the bruises still came. The blood still dried in the seams of their suits. And when shit did go sideways, which it inevitably did, it was always in ways that no one could predict.
The second time you showed up, Bucky had barely made it through the post-mission patch-up before Yelena cornered him outside medical with her arms crossed and murder in her eyes.
“Was that Britney Spears?”
He didn’t answer.
She didn’t need him to. Ava had already ID’d the audio footprint as a hacked signal ping bounced from a cell tower two miles outside the safe zone. Alexei had hummed the song for three days afterward. Walker sulked about it until Bob offered him a playlist of his own.
Three weeks after that, you crashed an op in the Balkans with the entirety of Beyoncé’s Renaissance album queued up in reverse order. You landed halfway through “Pure/Honey,” took down thirteen hostiles, winked at the drone cam, and disappeared before the satellite feed could reorient.
By the time mission four hit, some remote hellhole near the Georgian border with shit reception and worse exits, the team was already halfway joking about which track you’d use next.
It was Kesha again. Naturally.
You’d popped out of a burning APC with "TiK ToK" already mid-chorus and a grin like you’d been waiting for someone to hit the big red button. That time, you didn't leave right away. You passed Bucky a protein bar before the team got on the extraction chopper, kissed his temple, and told Alexei he had a nice ass. He hadn't shut up since.
They were still digging, of course. Yelena and Ava, mostly. Alexei kept making increasingly unhinged guesses about your background—sometimes Russian ballet, sometimes MI6, sometimes something about Vatican ninjas that no one had the heart to correct. Bob just watched. Always quiet. Always listening. And Walker…
Walker had developed a twitch.
He’d started referring to you—loudly, bitterly—as “Bucky’s little bat-signal,” like if he said it enough times it’d turn into a punchline and not an ache. It never landed. Not really.
No one could prove anything. Not about your identity. Not about your methods. You moved too fast. You left nothing behind.
And Bucky never said much.
He never needed to.
But they were all watching. Closer. Louder. Testing the tension in every mission like they were waiting for it to snap.
Which is why, when everything finally went to hell, no one was surprised when Yelena snapped first.
The op was supposed to be simple. In and out. A weapons drop moving across eastern borders, underground tech funneled through an abandoned train yard. Bucky had checked the coordinates himself. The team had split into pairs. Ava and Walker on overwatch. Alexei by the perimeter with a surveillance drone. Yelena at Bucky’s six, teeth gritted, gun loaded.
It wasn’t an ambush.
It was an execution.
There had been too many of them, real mercenaries this time. Not freelancers. Not idiots. Not chaos agents looking for a payout. These ones moved together. Synchronized. Coordinated. Ava had gone down first, wounded. Not out, but down. Phasing between pain. Walker had followed, clipped hard in the leg, trying to cover her.
Alexei was pinned.
And Bucky was breathing too hard, right arm shattered at the elbow, the sound of blood slapping metal every time he moved.
Yelena was cursing. Loud and vicious. Ducking behind rusted train cars as bullets slammed through metal and concrete like the world had narrowed to pure impact.
“Fuck,” she spat, reloading. “We are going to die in a parking lot for stolen tech and Valentina’s shitty paycheck—”
Bucky’s teeth were red. His side was worse.
He grunted, low. “We’ve been through worse.”
“Speak for yourself,” she hissed. “This is bad. This is the bad kind. Unless your little friend plans to show up again with backup dancers and a boom box, we’re dead.”
Bucky would have replied—maybe something bitter, something deflective—but his jaw locked before he could open his mouth. His vision was graying at the edges, muscles refusing to follow orders. His right arm was entirely dead weight now, slung awkwardly against his chest, blood still slick at the wrist. He couldn’t tell if the warmth in his boots was from a burst vein or just the heat of the rail yard’s scorched concrete.
And you weren’t here.
That was the thought that hit him hardest. Not the pain, not the bodies, not the brutal math of angles and ammunition. You weren’t here.
You’d always been here before.
Not early. Not announced. But you showed up. On the edge of disaster, somewhere between the breaking point and the fallout, wrapped in leather and snatched frequencies and songs that shouldn’t have made sense on a battlefield but always did when it was you. And he never called you, never asked. You just came.
Because you always found him.
Because you tracked him.
Because you always knew.
He’d grown used to it without realizing. The hum of music bleeding in when the comms got too quiet. The shape of you moving through smoke like it wasn’t a threat but a threshold. He’d never said it aloud, but it had comforted him. Knowing you were out there, watching, waiting. Knowing he couldn’t disappear without you noticing.
But this time?
This was the worst it had been in months.
And still… nothing.
A part of him, the part that hadn’t already fractured under the pressure, felt it like abandonment. A dull edge of fear pressed hard to his sternum. Not because he doubted you, but because it meant something was wrong. Maybe the tracker hadn’t worked. Maybe the jet wasn’t prepped. Maybe you were late. Maybe you were hurt.
Before Bucky could fully spiral into his own thoughts, a sound split the air.
A low, dull rumble that climbed too fast, too smooth, to be more gunfire.
His head snapped toward the east quadrant of the yard, vision still smeared at the edges from blood loss. The others heard it next—Yelena ducked lower, muttering another string of obscenities. Walker flinched, dragging Ava back behind a stack of rusted shipping containers, weapon raised. Alexei braced one arm against a splintered wall of aluminum and groaned something about incoming air support.
“Jet,” Ava gritted out, barely upright. “No clearance on the feed. That’s not ours.”
Bucky blinked once. Hard.
The shape sliced low across the clouds. A short-range VTOL, clearly military-grade, but gutted and rebuilt. Fast. Loud. 
Yours.
And then the music hit.
“Let’s go, girls.”
“Is that—” Walker squinted, staggering.
“I swear to God,” Yelena muttered, slapping another magazine into place. “If that hatch opens and she’s wearing denim, I’m going to cry.”
The jet didn’t touch down gently. It landed loud and hot, braking hard against concrete and kicking up a storm of soot that coated every blown-out car and corpse in a hundred-foot radius. The engines hadn’t even cooled before the rear hatch cracked open with a hiss and the speakers ratcheted louder.
“Man, I feel like a woman…”
And there you stood.
Framed by smoke and floodlights, one hand braced on the hydraulic frame, the other already holding a med bag like you’d jumped in from a dream with combat boots and a temper.
No weapons. No fanfare. Just get in the fucking jet energy radiating off your entire body.
“Everyone in,” you barked. “Now.”
Walker didn’t wait. He hauled Ava toward the ramp with one arm slung around her waist. She was still phasing in and out, blood coating her knuckles, the blur of her shoulder wound sparking faint with tech static.
Alexei limped next, muttering something about Canadian pop singers and spinal trauma. Bucky barely registered it. He couldn’t feel his arm. Could barely hear the pounding in his ears over the scream of the engines and the bassline.
You moved before he could, stepping off the ramp and into the smoke, boots crunching across grit and glass as you crossed the yard at a dead sprint.
“Jesus,” you snapped as you reached him, one hand already going to the blood-soaked hem of his jacket. “What the fuck, James.”
He didn’t answer. Couldn’t. You pressed one palm to his side, felt the heat radiating off his ribs, and looped your other arm under him to carry him to the jet.
“I couldn’t get the signal,” you said, voice tight. “The tracker was acting up.”
He hissed through his teeth as you shifted his weight, setting him down on one of the jet seats. “Where was it this time?”
You didn’t blink. “The right boot. Back corner. You never put your shoes back in the closet, so I figured I’d stick one there.”
Yelena turned her head so sharply it was audible. “What?”
You ignored her.
Bucky narrowed his eyes, breath still ragged. “I hadn’t even worn those boots in a week.”
“Yeah,” you said, voice edged and sharp, as you tugged off his jacket, “and you left them by the dryer again, James, so guess what? That’s where I put it. Along with three aspirin packets, a ten-dollar bill, and the spare keys you keep forgetting to bring with you.”
Yelena’s eyes went wide. “Wait. Wait, what?”
“Not now,” you snapped. “Stitches first, questions later.”
Yelena froze.
She had just stepped into the bay behind Alexei, one arm looped around a support pole, blood streaked down her left cheek. Her head turned slowly—very slowly—back toward the now closing loading ramp, where you were currently pressing gauze to Bucky’s side and muttering something about his inability to buy new med kits even though you were the one who’d asked for them on the last Target run.
“Hold on. Spare keys,” Yelena repeated, voice pitching up like a red flag had just gone up in her brain and she was sprinting to catch it.
You didn’t look up.
Neither did Bucky.
There was a beat—just one—but Bucky felt it ripple through the cabin like a hairline fracture under pressure. Yelena didn’t blink. Ava, still bleeding and silent, lifted her head just an inch off the headrest. Walker muttered something low under his breath, too quiet to catch. Alexei stilled completely.
You were still working.
You’d stripped back the ruined plate of his tac vest, fingers moving fast over the gauze tape. Your hands weren’t shaking, but they weren’t calm either—tight at the knuckles, decisive in that way they always were when someone you cared about had bled more than they should have.
Bucky sucked in a breath. It rattled at the end.
He could feel it happening. The shift. The attention tilting, zeroing in. It was like watching a tripwire get brushed in real time.
“Did you just say Target run?” Yelena’s voice cracked straight through the tension. “Like the store?”
You didn’t respond.
Walker made a strangled sound. “Hold on. You’re telling me this—this frequency-hacking psycho just casually shops for med kits in her downtime for you?”
“I didn’t say I shopped,” you muttered. “I said I asked. He’s the one who keeps forgetting the list.”
“I got the shampoo,” Bucky said through his teeth.
“You got the wrong shampoo.”
“It had the same label!”
“It was 3-in-1.”
“That’s efficient—”
“It’s disgusting, James.”
And just like that, the whole jet tilted again—only this time it wasn’t from blood loss or the pitch of the wind. It was the silence. The stunned, dawning silence that came from realizing something was very, very off.
Ava blinked. “James?”
Yelena’s mouth opened.
Then: “No, no. You don’t get to just drop a spare key confession mid-evac and not explain. What the fuck are you two on about?”
“Explain what?” Bucky barked, more out of pain than defensiveness, but it landed anyway.
Alexei staggered up from his seat, bleeding from the shoulder and grinning like he’d just watched his favorite soap opera hit a mid-season twist. “You two live together, yes?”
“No,” you said, at the same time Bucky said, “Yes.”
Yelena stopped cold. “What.”
“Fine. She has a drawer,” Bucky muttered, wincing as you pressed harder with the gauze.
“You have a drawer?” Yelena repeated, voice rising. “Do you have a shared grocery list too? Matching towels?”
“Technically,” you said, “we share an Amazon account, but only because I hate ads—”
“You share an address?”
You didn’t answer.
Walker limped past, dragging himself into the seat across the aisle. “I swear to God, if this turns into some Mr. and Mrs. Smith bullshit, I’m out.”
Bucky exhaled sharply through his nose. “It’s not like that.”
“Then what is it like,” Yelena snapped. “Because the last I checked, secret girlfriends don’t get comm access and personal extraction aircraft with customized playlists!”
“She’s not—” Bucky started, then stopped.
You paused, fingers frozen just inside his tac vest as you reached for the dressing pack in his inner lining. “James.”
His jaw flexed. “She’s not some secret girlfriend.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Yelena said, eyes wide now, practically vibrating with the sudden thrill of someone else’s exposed personal business. “Are you saying she’s not a girlfriend because she’s a roommate with benefits, or because she’s a literal government ghost you, what? Accidentally fell into bed with during an overseas op and neglected to tell us for five fucking months—”
“She’s my wife.”
The words snapped out like a misfired round—loud, brutal, final.
The silence that followed was thick enough to choke on.
You straightened slowly, the antiseptic wipe still in your hand, now hovering somewhere between the edge of Bucky’s ribs and the cratered hole in his bloodstained shirt.
No one moved.
No one spoke.
Then Walker, voice hoarse and stunned: “I’m sorry. Wife?”
Ava, barely conscious, cracked one eye open. “What?”
Alexei groaned from the corner. “I knew it. I said they were either married or psychic. Maybe both.”
“Wait. Wait, no,” Walker held up a hand, bleeding. “You’re married? Like—married married? To her?”
You finally looked up. “Do you have another her in mind?”
Bucky winced. “Now’s not the time—”
“No, no, I think it is exactly the time,” Yelena said, stepping forward, pointing between the two of you. “Because we’ve all been getting tossed around like ragdolls for months while you two have been playing he’s mine, she’s chaos behind the scenes.”
You rose slowly, blood on your palms, face shadowed by the hatch lighting.
“We weren’t hiding it,” you said simply.
Yelena threw both arms in the air. “You were absolutely hiding it!”
“We were keeping it quiet,” you corrected. “There’s a difference.”
Walker sat down hard on the floor. “I’m gonna pass out.”
Ava, leaning against the wall, finally let out a low breath that might have been a laugh. “That explains so much.”
“I—what the fuck?” Walker’s mouth opened and closed twice. “Like with rings and vows and tax brackets?”
“Jesus Christ,” you muttered. “It was a courthouse in Budapest. No photographer. No playlist. Not even a Pinterest board.”
Alexei, who had been silently mouthing tax brackets, perked up. “How long?”
“None of your business,” Bucky said immediately.
“Four years,” you said, at the exact same time.
Yelena made a noise like a cat being punched.
“Four years?” she barked. “You’ve been married for four years and not one of us knew? Not even a hint? Not even a bad fake name on your emergency contact form?”
“Technically, it’s under her alias,” Bucky said, wincing as you pressed gauze to his side with more force than strictly necessary.
“Her alias,” Ava echoed from the back, eyebrows barely raised but eyes locked on you. “That’s comforting.”
Yelena dragged her hands down her face. “I need to sit down.”
“You’re already sitting down,” Walker said numbly. “We’re all sitting down. In hell.”
Alexei was shaking his head slowly, staring at you like you’d sprouted horns. “I can’t believe we have been flying into death zones with Captain Popsicle and his mystery combat Barbie and the two of you have been married this whole time?”
“Don’t call her that,” Bucky snapped.
“I meant it with admiration!”
“She’s a human being,” Ava said flatly.
“And his wife,” Yelena added, throwing her hands up again. “Which apparently gives her license to break every rule of engagement we’ve ever signed.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” you bit out, finally stepping away from Bucky just long enough to snap a fresh syringe out of the case and toss it to Ava. “Would you have preferred I not show up with an extraction vehicle and leave you all dying in a pile of your own egos?”
“You’re not even cleared!” Walker said, still stuck somewhere between disbelief and cardiac arrest. “You don’t have files. You don’t have a record. You married a former Hydra asset with no fucking paper trail—”
“John,” Bucky said, and his voice didn’t rise, didn’t shout. But the threat in it stopped everything.
Dead.
Walker’s mouth clamped shut.
You turned your back and crouched again, cracking open a package of suture strips with steady, sharp fingers. He didn’t look at you, but he didn’t move away either.
“You married him,” Yelena said slowly, like she was putting the last piece into a conspiracy board. “And you didn’t tell anyone.”
“Correct,” you said, without looking up.
“Why?”
You paused. For the first time since stepping onto the jet, you were still.
Then, quieter: “Because it was ours.”
Yelena blinked.
Walker slumped sideways, muttering something that sounded like Jesus Christ, I’m too concussed for this.
Ava didn’t say anything. She just studied you like she was adding this new truth to a map no one else could read yet.
Alexei, voice quieter now: “You could’ve told us.”
You straightened again, turned, met his eyes.
“We didn’t owe you that.”
And no one, not one of them, could argue with that.
No one said anything for a long time.
The jet rumbled beneath them, steady now. Altitude rising. Stabilizers evening out. The air had gone colder, thinner. Bucky could feel it in his lungs. How the heat of the rail yard had been replaced by that sterile chill of recycled pressurized air and drying blood.
He sat slumped against the inner wall of the aircraft, the pain at his side dulled but ever-present, a pulse of heat beneath the bandages. The lights overhead buzzed faintly. Across from him, Walker had gone quiet. Not passed out, just silent. That silence that came when you didn’t know how to re-enter a world that had just rearranged itself without warning.
Yelena didn’t have that problem.
“Where are the rings?”
You didn’t even blink. Just kept pressing the edge of a suture strip flat against Bucky’s ribs, calm as ever. “We don’t wear them on missions.”
“No, I mean—where are they. What are they. Are they like, hidden daggers? Laser-tracking nanotech? Poison darts? Do they explode?”
“We got tungsten bands off a street vendor in Pest,” you said, flicking the end of the strip down with surgical precision. “Ten bucks each. Mine’s probably under the couch.”
Yelena stared. “You’re telling me you got married with street metal and hid it like it was a war crime?”
You finally looked up. “We didn’t hide it. We protected it. There’s a difference.”
“Yeah,” Yelena muttered, flopping back against the padded bulkhead, “try that line at our next psych eval.”
Alexei perked up slightly. “Did you write vows?”
“Alexei—”
“No, I’m curious! Was it romantic? Did she threaten him? Did he cry?”
You turned to Bucky then, not grinning, not smirking—just steady. “Did you?”
He didn’t answer right away.
He remembered the cold marble floor of the consulate. The cheap pen. The tension in your hand when you signed. The way you didn’t smile, not once, but your shoulders had dropped like something finally let go. He remembered how you’d kissed him afterward, not like a new beginning but like something that had already been burned into your bones and you were just honoring the facts of it now.
He hadn't cried.
But he remembered feeling something break open inside his chest that hadn’t fully closed since.
“No,” he said quietly. “You did.”
That earned a scoff from Walker, who still looked half-sick. “You people are insane.”
“And you’re alive, you’re welcome,” you shot back, not even looking at him.
That shut him up.
Ava tilted her head slightly from where she sat, chin resting against her shoulder. “Are there any other secrets we should be aware of? Kids? A bunker in the Alps? Shared Spotify?”
“We don’t talk about the Spotify,” you said immediately, too flat to be joking.
“I knew you had a playlist,” Yelena muttered.
“Who do you think you’re talking to? I have several,” you corrected.
Bucky let the rhythm of your voice wash over him, the way it always had. It calmed something in him he didn’t have the words for. He wasn't sure he'd ever have the words for it. But that was the thing, wasn’t it? You’d never asked for the language of it. You just stayed. When everything else fractured. When he did.
He let his head tip back against the wall, the throb of the flight engines a dull hum against his skull.
You kept talking.
Yelena asked about Budapest—what song was playing in the cab, what flavor the celebratory gelato was, whether you’d told anyone or if you’d just ghosted the next assignment like it never happened. You didn’t flinch under any of it. You answered what you wanted to. Dodged the rest with a precision that made it clear you'd spent years doing exactly that.
And Bucky watched you.
Listened to the cadences you used with the team—how they shifted only slightly when you got tired, how your sarcasm always dulled at the edges when you were checking someone's wound without being obvious about it. How you deferred to Ava without making it feel like yielding. How you redirected Yelena’s prying with just enough detail to satisfy, just enough space to stay unreadable.
They’d come around.
Eventually.
They always did.
But it wasn’t for them that you showed up in a jet at the eleventh hour. It wasn’t for glory. Or redemption. Or to earn your seat.
It was for him.
And that, Bucky thought, pressing a blood-soaked gauze pad tighter against his ribs, was something no intel report could ever quantify.
He let his eyes slip shut, your voice still in his ears, arguing now with Yelena about the legality of impersonating air traffic control in four different countries. He didn’t smile. Not really.
But he breathed easier.
For the first time in hours.
Maybe days.
Maybe longer.
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cursedenbytechnique · 2 months ago
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Me getting ready to hit refresh on the thunderbolts x reader tag
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cursedenbytechnique · 2 months ago
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HE SAAAUUUUURRRRR CUTE I CANT
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cursedenbytechnique · 2 months ago
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they had matching shirts oh my god i think we should all kill ourselves
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cursedenbytechnique · 2 months ago
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They better make this a juju stroll
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cursedenbytechnique · 2 months ago
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cursedenbytechnique · 2 months ago
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cursedenbytechnique · 2 months ago
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Thunderbolts* (2025) + text posts
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