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houseofaegon · 1 month ago

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Don't Let Go ✩ Bob Reynolds

Pairings: Bob Reynolds x Thunderbolt!Reader

Warnings: +18 SMUT MINORS DNI. rough sex, emotional sex, public sex, mental health themes (trauma, guilt, PTSD), depictions of breakdowns, emotional, angst, praise kink, possessiveness, aftermath of violence, unprotected p in v, guilt, self-loathing, established trauma bond.

Summary: The mission was supposed to be clean. Routine. But nothing is simple when the Sentry is involved, when Bob loses control, and the Void takes over. And when he does, you're the only one who can pull him back.

Word Count: 4658

Author's Note: don't even ask me if I'm okay cause the answer is no. I'm destroyed. completely destroyed and emotionally wrecked. i am ruined. bob reynolds ruins me. if you finished this and also felt like your heart's been pulled out and kissed back to life, welcome to the club. my inbox is open if you want to send me your therapy bill—just know I’m probably gonna have to come with you cause what the fuck. i love you bobby you're everything to me!!! if you want to be added to my taglist just comment below!! <333 feel free to cry with me in the comments and scream in the reblogs. i need to go outside and touch some grass, reconnect with nature and breathe cause my heart is destroyed after this one. i literally can't stop writing for bob what the hell!! bucky is jealous cause bob's taking up space in my mind that used to belong to bucky. lewis pullman you babygirlllllllllllll

masterlist.

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The mission was supposed to be simple. In and out. Detain the targets, secure the entire facility, and minimize civilian casualties. Standard Thunderbolts cleanup. You'd done this dance before—storm in, assert dominance, extract data and bodies. Easy.

But you knew the moment Bucky said, "Bob's on this one," everything in your chest went cold.

The tower was quiet, too quiet, until it wasn't. Until the entire place was filled with hurried footsteps, shouts bouncing off the walls, and orders being thrown like grenades, gear bags being slammed open, weapons loaded with sharp clicks, and comms lighting up with rapid-fire intel. The whole floor shifted into emergency mode.

You'd barely finished gearing up when Yelena grabbed your arm and dragged you toward the elevator, her expression tight, mouth set in that grim, no-bullshit line that only ever meant bad news.

"Valentina wants all of us on-site," she muttered, pressing the call button with enough force to crack the panel. "Right now. Facility breach. Something about biotech. Hostages."

"Since when do we scramble before briefing?" you asked, yanking the zipper of your new tactical suit closed, holster strap still half-loose dangling on your hip. "Do we even have a plan?"

Yelena didn't answer. She didn't have to.

When the elevator doors opened, Bucky was already inside, pacing back and forth. His jaw clenched, comms piece buzzing with chatter. He looked up when he saw you—but he didn’t smile. Didn’t nod.

Jeez, so much for a good morning.

"Let me guess," you said, stepping into the elevator next to him. "Valentina's stunt?"

"She pulled Bob in last minute," Bucky said, his voice laced with frustration. "Didn't even care to fucking tell me. I found out when I saw his name on the team feed. Walker's there with him, Ava too."

"Are you fucking kidding me?" you froze. "She put him first? With Walker?"

“She wants to see if he's still 'field-capable.'" Bucky's voice dripped sarcasm. "Her exact words. She thinks this is some kind of game. Like we're testing out a new drone, not a man who nearly blacked out half of a city six months ago."

“Is she out of her fucking mind?” you hissed. “Bob’s not—he’s not ready. He shouldn't be anywhere near this.”

“No shit,” Yelena muttered from the other side, crossing her arms. “And we’re the ones who’ll have to clean up if he loses it again.”

You exhaled slowly, trying to damp down the rolling anger in your chest. Not at Bob—of course not, this wasn't his fault. You were mad at Valentina and her fucking need to push him to the edge. "Great," you muttered, rubbing your face with a hand. "Let's all just hold hands and pray he doesn't crack."

The VTOL sliced through the clouds like a blade, engines humming low and tense. Rain battered the sides in sharp bursts.

You sat strapped between Yelena and Alexei, your harness tight across your chest, heart beating even tighter beneath it. Across from you, Bucky was locked in, jaw clenched, staring out the side window with a look that could shatter the glass any moment. When he finally looked away from the window, he fixed his gaze directly on you.

"I need you to be ready," he said, voice low and rasped. "In case Void—" He paused, breathing raggedly. "In case Bob snaps."

You blinked. "Bucky—"

"If it happens," he cut you off, "if he breaks... don't wait for an order. Do not hesitate. You hit him with everything you've got."

Your mouth opened, but no words came out.

Because you hesitated.

Not because you didn't understand the danger. Not because you didn't know what Bob was capable of when the Void took hold. You'd seen it. Firsthand. The devastation. The aftermath. The look in his eyes—those dark, endless eyes—when he realized what he’d done.

But you'd also seen something else. You'd also seen the other side of him. The guilt

You'd been there the last time. When the Void clawed its way up his throat like poison, he dropped to his knees, shaking, burning with power, guilt, and fear. You were the only one who could get through to him. The only one who could touch him without him recoiling like he might shatter.

You'd whispered his name and watched his fist unclench slowly. You'd put your hand on his chest and feel his heartbeat slow. You'd seen how the black storm slowly evaporated, leaving a broken man sobbing against your chest.

That night was the worst for Bob.

You remember it vividly—his body trembling against yours, eyes wide and hollow after the Void had finally disappeared. He hadn't said a word. Just sank to the ground, hands fisting in his hair, like he was trying to hold his skull together.

You’d dropped down beside him, pulled him close, felt the heat radiating off his skin like a fever breaking. And when he finally clung to you—arms wrapped around your waist, face buried in your shoulder—it wasn’t just desperation. It was terror. Like if he let go, he’d fall into some pit that never ended.

He cried.

God, he cried so hard.

And you didn’t say anything. You didn’t try to soothe it away. You just held him. Let him shake. Let him break.

That night, you stayed with him.

He pulled you into bed like he didn’t even realize he was doing it—just moved toward your body like it was instinct, like your presence was the only thing keeping him tethered to the world. His fingers curled in your shirt, his face buried in your chest, breath hiccuping between exhausted sobs.

You thought he’d fall asleep eventually.

He didn’t. Not right away.

He kept whispering, voice barely audible: “Don’t leave. Please. Just… don’t leave.”

And how could you?

You didn’t.

So you stayed.

And when he finally passed out—curled around you like a second skin, little soft snores slipping past parted lips—you just watched him. His face was peaceful for once. Almost boyish. His lashes fluttered when he dreamed, but he didn’t cry out. Not with you there.

You tried to slip out once.

Just to stretch. To breathe. But the second your body shifted away, his arms tightened like a vice, dragging you back in, even in his sleep. Like his subconscious couldn’t bear the thought of you disappearing.

From that night on, it became… a thing.

Every time he had a nightmare. Every time the Void started to whisper again. Every time he needed quiet but didn’t know how to ask for it—he came to you.

He never knocked loud. Just a soft tap on your door, barely audible. You’d open it to find him standing there, shoulders hunched, hair messy, eyes big and guilty and so shy. Like he hated himself for needing you but couldn’t help it.

“Can I…?” he’d start to ask, voice barely above a whisper.

And you’d always let him in.

Always.

God, you loved it. Loved being the one person he came to. The one place he felt safe. The way he melted into you the second the door shut. The way he’d sleep tangled in your arms, legs hooked with yours like he needed as many points of contact as possible to stay grounded.

You never told anyone.

You never wanted to ruin it.

It was quiet. Sacred. Yours.

And now, strapped into this VTOL, Bucky’s words still echoing in your ears—“Don’t hesitate. Hit him with everything you’ve got”—all you could think about was how peaceful he looked in your bed. How tightly he held you. How terrified he was of being alone.

Because what if you could reach him again?

What if hitting him wasn’t the answer? What if all he needed was someone to see him before he disappeared completely?

Bucky must’ve seen the flicker in your expression, because his voice dropped lower.

“I know you’re close to him. I know he listens to you more than anyone else. But if that stops—if he doesn’t hear you this time... don’t let him take you down with him.”

He’ll hear me, you thought, jaw clenched.

He has to.

Yelena’s hand reached over, slow and steady, her fingers brushing against yours before curling around them. Her grip was warm, firm—anchoring. You turned slightly, meeting her eyes.

She gave you a small, quiet smile. The kind that didn’t promise everything would be okay, just that you wouldn’t be alone when it wasn’t.

“It’ll be alright,” she whispered. "We'll be right behind you."

You squeezed her hand back, once.

"Visuals confirm contact inside the facility," the pilot’s voice crackled through the comms. "We’ve got movement near the lab sector. Hostiles engaged. Sentry’s already on-site."

You looked up sharply. "Already?"

He wasn’t supposed to engage alone.

Bucky swore under his breath, ripping the earpiece out and jamming it back in. "Why the fuck didn’t you wait for us—"

Ava spoke through the comms, her voice shivering. “He didn’t wait. I told him to stand down, and he just… went in.”

Then the ground came into view through the viewport—flames licking up from the roof of the biotech facility, smoke pluming into the sky, the perimeter in total disarray.

"Doors open in twenty seconds," the pilot called.

You shivered. You could feel it. That humming tension in your bones, the kind that only came right before everything went to hell.

He's already slipping.

"Get ready," Bucky barked, snapping his rifle into place as he stood. "Move fast, eyes sharp. We don't know how bad it is yet."

Yelena stood up, nodding once, checking her gear. You followed closely behind.

“Hostiles are still active inside,” came another voice—Walker’s, sharp and panicked over comms. “But it’s—fuck, it’s a massacre down here. I don’t know what the hell he’s doing. I can't see him. He’s not fucking responding.”

Your heart clenched.

“Bob,” you whispered, barely audible.

Then: a boom.

A section of the lower level erupted in a plume of golden-white light, fire tearing up through the concrete as the building shook from the force of it. A pulse of energy rippled outward, flattening a chunk of the south wall like paper.

The VTOL lurched slightly from the shockwave.

“Doors opening!” the pilot shouted. “Deploy, deploy—go, go!”

The ramp dropped—and the storm hit you in the face.

Rain. Smoke. Sirens. And somewhere beneath it all, a familiar hum.

You ran.

Boots pounding against the rooftop, leaping the last few feet to the access hatch. Bucky and Yelena flanked you, weapons drawn, slicing through the chaos with practiced precision.

You barely had time to adjust before Bucky grabbed your arm, spinning you toward him. His face was grim, soaked, eyes blazing.

“Go!” he shouted over the roar. “You need to find him!”

“What about—?”

“We’ll handle the rest!” he cut in, already moving, already aiming down the chaos below. “If anyone can reach him before he turns this whole goddamn place to ash—it’s you. Yelena will be right behind you. Walker and Ava are already inside. Go!”

Your breath hitched.

Then you nodded, once, sharp and sure.

And you ran—straight into the smoke, straight into the fire.

Straight toward him.

The inside of the facility was a warzone. Emergency lights flickered through thick smoke. Sparks rained from broken ceiling panels. The walls were scorched, the tile beneath your boots cracked and slick with blood and water. You passed fallen bodies—some hostiles, some just gone, disintegrated into scorched outlines and ash.

He’d been here.

You ran faster. Your breath became shorter. Your fingers twitched at your sides.

And then you saw him.

Floating.

Just inches off the ground, his body trembling with power barely held in check. His suit was torn, soaked, blood-slick. His hair clung to his forehead in damp curls. His hands hung at his sides, fingers curled in like claws.

He hand't noticed you yet. He was talking to himself, low and frantic, like he didn't even realize sound was coming out of his mouth.

“I didn’t mean to—I tried, I tried, they didn’t listen—I told them not to run—why did they run—”

Your heart clenched. You took a breath, steady and slow. Lifted your hands, palms open, non-threatening. Stepped forward, one careful step at a time.

"Bob," you whispered.

His head jerked up like a struck animal. His eyes were pitch black. Not just his pupils. Everything. You could see the Void slowly taking over control of his entire body. Crawling across his skin in veins of shadow, threading through him like poison, claiming more and more by the second. There was nothing human in his face.

Then he saw you.

You took another step forward, heart hammering against your ribs.

"Bob," you said again, softer now.

His lips parted. The black in his eyes shimmered, like something beneath it was trying to break through, trying to remember.

You took another step.

"I'm here," you said, voice steady despite the tremble in your hands. "It's me."

"GET DOWN!" a voice screamed behind you.

You barely turned in time to see the soldier—young, shaken, finger already tightening on the trigger of his rifle, aimed straight at Bob.

“No!” you shouted, throwing a hand out. “Don’t—don’t shoot him!”

But it was too late.

You whipped back toward Bob—and his hand was already rising. Not fast. Slow. Deliberate.

Eyes locked on the soldier, face blank and unreadable, voice low and distant.

“Mine.”

“Bob!” you screamed, adrenaline tearing through your veins like lightning. You rushed toward him, arm outstretched. “STOP! STOP!”

A pulse of black energy burst from his palm. It didn’t make a sound. It didn’t explode. It just erased. The soldier was there—and then he wasn’t.

No scream. No blood. Just a curling wisp of smoke, and a blackened shadow scorched into the tile where he’d stood. Like reality itself had been scrubbed clean.

Your breath caught. Your body froze.

The soldier was gone. Just like that. And Bob? He didn't move. Didn't even flinch. Just stood there, hand still raised, void energy curling around his fingers like it wanted more.

You moved before you even realized it.

You ran.

“BOB!” you screamed, voice hoarse with panic.

You slammed into him, hands flying up to grab his face—rough, desperate, grounding. Your fingers dug into his jaw, into his cheeks, trying to feel him, shake him loose from the darkness overtaking his body.

“Bob! Look at me!” you yelled, tears already slipping down your face. “Fuck—look at me, please!"

His head twitched in your grip, eyes still black, but they widened. Like he didn’t know how you got so close. Like he didn’t even recognize his own name.

“You promised,” you choked out, forehead pressed against his. “You promised you wouldn’t let this happen again. You said I could help you. You let me in. Bob, please, I know you can hear me. Let me in. Let me help you."

And then—

He blinked.

Once.

Twice.

The black void in his eyes gone, replaced by fear. Replaced by gut-wrenching guilt.

And suddenly his hands were on you—gripping your arms, trembling hard. Holding you like you were the only thing keeping him from flying apart.

“I didn’t mean to,” he rasped, voice splintering in his throat. “I just… he—he pointed that gun at you. I—”

His knees buckled.

You caught him.

“I didn’t mean to,” he rasped again, clinging like he didn’t even realize he was doing it. “I didn’t—fuck, I didn’t mean to—”

“I know,” you whispered, trying to keep your voice steady, fingers stroking through his hair, down his back. “I know, it’s okay. You’re okay—I got you. I'm right here."

You could feel it under your hands—the tension building again. The static crawling across his skin. He was shaking harder now, like he was trying to hold himself together with bare hands and sheer will, and it wasn’t enough. It was never enough.

“I told them,” he growled, voice rising, wild and hoarse. “I told them not to send me. I told them—I told them!”

“Bob,” you tried again, your hands cradling his face, trying to ground him. “Stop—just breathe, okay? Look at me. Just look at me. It’s over. You’re okay. I’m here.”

“Bob—”

“Holy shit,” someone gasped.

You turned. Too fast. The team stood there. Yelena’s eyes were wide. Ava’s mouth hung open. Alexei looked stunned. Bucky was frozen mid-step.

And Walker? Walker’s gaze went straight to the scorched mark on the floor, and his lip curled.

“What the fuck did he do?”

That was it.

You snapped.

“You were supposed to look out for him!” you roared, your voice echoing down the hall like a whipcrack. “You knew he wasn’t ready! You knew, and you left him in there anyway—what the fuck were you thinking?!”

“Don’t yell at me because your little pet project finally snapped—”

You stepped toward him so fast Yelena actually reached out to stop you.

“Say that again, Walker.” you dared, low and deadly. “Say it. Fucking say it again.”

“Guys—” Ava started.

“Oh my god,” Yelena whispered behind you.

And that’s when you realized—Bob wasn’t in your arms anymore.

You turned, panic already in your throat. He was standing a few feet away, eyes locked on the floor, fists clenched. His shoulders were shaking, his jaw tight, like he was about to split open.

The way they were all looking at him. Like he was a monster.

And he saw it. He saw everything.

“No, no, wait—” you started.

But he was already moving. He shoved past you, not roughly—never roughly—but like he couldn’t stand to be touched anymore. Like he didn’t deserve it. And then he ran.

You didn’t hesitate.

You ran after him.

You found him down a back alley, drenched in rain, his back pressed to the wall like it was the only thing keeping him upright. His fists were clenched, jaw tight, chest heaving like he couldn’t catch his breath. He hadn’t looked at you yet, but you could see it—how close he was to falling apart, how the power still surged beneath his skin, barely contained. His body shook with it, with guilt, with the kind of rage that didn’t know where to go.

You took a step closer and he shifted like he was going to bolt again, eyes flicking to the shadows like he could vanish into them.

You grabbed his wrist. Tight. “Don’t run.”

That stopped him. His breath hitched, but he didn’t turn.

“Bob,” you said, softer now, over the pounding rain. “Please. Look at me.”

He turned slowly—and god, the look on his face broke you wide open. Soaked, shattered, eyes full of guilt and too many unsaid things. He looked like he didn’t believe he deserved to stand in front of you. Like just being seen by you hurt.

Then he kissed you.

Hard. Desperate.

Like he needed your mouth to remind him he was still real.

The kiss came out of nowhere. Teeth. Tongue. Desperation. You collided like two storms, all sharp edges and soaked skin. His mouth crushed yours, messy, uncoordinated, bruising. You dragged your hands through his rain-slick hair, pulled him closer until your bodies slammed together. He groaned your name like it hurt to say it, like it ripped something open inside him just to speak it.

You kissed him back with everything you had, dragging your fingers through his soaked curls, pulling him closer, crushing your lips to his until your teeth clacked and your breath fogged the air between you. He whimpered into it, raw and broken, hands clutching your waist through your suit like he didn’t know where to touch, like he needed to touch everywhere.

“I’m sorry,” he gasped against your lips, voice already hoarse. “I’m so fucking sorry—please, I didn’t mean to—I didn’t—” His words cut off with a sob. You shushed him with another kiss, slower this time, lips brushing his like a promise.

“I need you,” he breathed, voice broken. “God—I need you, I need you so bad—I can’t—fuck—don’t let go—please, don’t let go—”

Your gear hit the wall behind you, water slapping between you like applause. His mouth was on your throat, biting, sucking, moaning, as your hands worked beneath his already ripped suit, shoving it aside, frantic to get to skin. His hips rocked into yours like he couldn’t stand being apart from you even for a second.

“Please,” he groaned again, breath hot against your ear. “I’ll do anything. Anything. Just—fuck—just let me have you.”

You gasped, arching against him, letting him press you tighter to the bricks. You were already soaked—skin flushed, thighs shaking—and the way he clung to you like you were the only real thing left in his world snapped something open inside you.

You grabbed his face, kissed him hard, desperate. “Take it,” you whispered, voice shaking. “Take anything. Everything. I’m all yours, Bob.”

He whimpered—actually whimpered—and that was it.

Your suit came undone in ragged pieces, his hands tearing at fastenings with trembling fingers, your legs wrapping around his waist as he shoved your soaked underwear aside. His fingers dug into your hips hard enough to leave bruises, grinding his cock against your slick center until you cried out, nails raking down his back.

“Fuck—fuck, you’re so wet,” he gasped. “You want it, don’t you? You want me to lose it for you—inside you—?”

“Yes,” you sobbed, tilting your head back as he pushed in. “Yes, yes—please—”

He thrust into you in one deep, brutal stroke and you screamed, fingers clawing at his soaked suit, legs tightening around his hips. He was so deep, so hot, so real, and the way he fucked you—fast, rough, relentless—was like he didn’t know if he’d survive without this. Without you.

Every thrust hit something raw, something needy, his voice ragged against your ear. “You’re mine—you’re mine, say it—fuck, say it—”

“I’m yours,” you cried, body shaking. “I’m yours, Bob—fuck, don’t stop, don’t stop—”

He sobbed against your throat, thrusting harder, faster, panting between curses and broken prayers. “You’re perfect—so perfect—god, you feel so good—you make everything quiet. You make it all fucking stop—”

And when you came, it hit like a shockwave—your whole body convulsing around him, mouth open in a wordless scream as he slammed into you, burying himself deep and coming hard, spilling inside you with a desperate cry of your name like it was the only thing anchoring him to this plane.

He held you afterward like he might never let go, still shaking, still breathing like he’d run through hell. His forehead pressed to yours, voice wrecked.

“Don’t leave me,” he whispered. “Please don’t ever leave me.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” you whispered back, and this time, it was a vow.

His breathing was ragged.

Shallow gasps against your neck, chest rising and falling like he was still trying to outrun something only he could see. The rain hadn’t let up. It fell in heavy sheets around you, but neither of you moved. You stayed wrapped around him, trembling, your back against the soaked alley wall, his body still buried in yours, shaking with the aftershocks.

He didn’t speak.

Didn’t even lift his head.

His arms stayed locked around your waist like a vise, like if he let go even a little, you’d disappear. You felt him swallow, once, twice—and then his shoulders began to shake in a different way.

“Bob?” you whispered, hand sliding up to the back of his head, fingers weaving through his soaked hair. “Hey. Hey, I’m here.”

He sobbed.

Quiet at first. Just a ragged breath that stuttered out of him like it had been waiting for too long. Then another. And another. His whole body trembled, forehead pressed to your shoulder as he finally—finally—let himself fall apart.

“I didn’t want to hurt anyone,” he choked out. “I tried—I tried so fucking hard—I just wanted to be useful, I wanted to help—and I killed him—”

You shushed him softly, rocking him gently where you stood, your hands stroking down his back.

“You came back to me,” you said, voice low. “That’s all that matters. You came back.”

“I don’t deserve this,” he rasped, holding you tighter. “I don’t deserve you.”

“Shut up,” you whispered, tears mixing with the rain on your cheeks. “You do. You do. You’re still here. You’re still you. That’s all I care about.”

You stayed like that for what felt like forever—him wrapped around you like a lifeline, your bodies still locked together, breathing in sync. The heat between you slowly cooled, but the weight of it all stayed heavy, real.

Eventually, his head lifted, eyes red-rimmed, cheeks wet.

He looked at you like he didn’t believe you were real. Like maybe you were the only thing left in the world that hadn’t abandoned him.

“I’m scared,” he whispered.

You cupped his face, thumb brushing over the scar just below his eye.

“I know,” you said. “But I’ve got you.”

And he leaned into your hand like a man starved for touch.

Back at the tower, everything was chaos—shouting, agents scrambling to do damage control, the team fighting with each other, trying to put the blame on someone—but none of it touched you. Not when you had him. Not when he never once let go of your hand.

You didn't go to the infirmary. Didn't sit through the debrief. Bucky tried to say something, but you just shook your head. Bob didn't even look at him. At no one.

You led him straight to your room.

The second the door clicked shut behind you, his body sagged like the air had left him entirely. You helped him out of the rest of his suit, piece by piece, your fingers gentle even when your heart still ached from the weight of it all. He did the same for you, so soft, so gentle, like he was afraid to hurt you.

You pulled him into your bed without a word.

He followed like he always did. Like he couldn’t not.

He wrapped around you the way he always did—legs tangled, arms tight around your waist, face buried against your neck. But this time it wasn’t just comfort.

It was clinging.

He didn’t speak. Didn’t ask. Just held on.

You stroked his hair, tracing slow patterns into his scalp, letting your breath match his until he calmed, until that tremble in his shoulders finally stilled.

But he still didn’t sleep.

You felt him shift closer, nose brushing your collarbone. His voice, when it came, was wrecked and so, so quiet.

“Do you think they’ll ever look at me the same?” he asked, voice barely more than a breath.

You didn’t answer right away. You could feel how tightly he was holding his breath, like he was bracing for the worst. You pulled him closer, your fingers threading through the back of his hair, your lips brushing against his forehead.

“It’s not your fault,” you whispered. “They know it. Even if they won’t say it out loud. This—what happened—you didn’t want this. And they know that.”

He didn’t reply, not at first. But you felt it—the way his chest stuttered, how he finally let himself breathe.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, broken.

“I know.”

“I was so close,” he said, voice cracking like glass. “I could feel it. Like I was right there. One more second and I wouldn’t have come back.”

“But you did,” you murmured, pressing your forehead to his. “You came back to me.”

He shuddered, breath hitching again as he buried his face in the crook of your neck. Leaving a soft kiss that made your heart clench. “You’re the only one that brings me back,” he whispered. “The only one.”

You didn’t say anything else.

You just held him tighter.

And finally—finally—he started to drift.

It wasn’t peaceful. He twitched. Mumbled things you couldn’t make out. Flinched like his dreams were still trying to drag him under.

But he didn’t wake.

Because you were still there.

And he knew it.

taglist ⊱☆⊰ @notreallythatlost @mandoalorian @urfavfakeblonde @sunday-bug @ruexj283 @mylifeofcalculatedchaos

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lesmana-enterprise-ltd · 4 months ago

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Seraphim Coach Class

For those who seek both comfort and affordability, the Seraphim Coach Class provides spacious seating with deep blue ergonomic chairs designed for long-haul relaxation. Overhead luggage compartments ensure a clutter-free space, while the warm glow of the ceiling lights adds to the welcoming ambiance.

BONUS: A12 Seraphim on Rail, Photo op Lot

Capture the thrill of high-speed travel with the A12 Seraphim on Rail photo op lot! This scenic location is the perfect backdrop for Sim stories, machinima, and breathtaking screenshots.

Positioned along an elegant elevated railway, the A12 Seraphim glides through a picturesque landscape, surrounded by lush greenery and golden-hour lighting that enhances every shot. Whether you're creating a travel blog, showcasing futuristic transportation, or simply looking for a cinematic rail-themed scene, this lot offers stunning views and dynamic compositions.

Set up your Sims for dramatic departures, high-speed action shots, or tranquil countryside journeys—all with the A12 Seraphim as the star.

Techincal Informations

Packs Used

Download via SFS

Windslar M-Train Station : Download A12 Seraphim Photo op : Download

Sul Sul!,

Lesmana Enterprise Co., Ltd.

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running-with-kn1ves · 1 year ago

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Fitness Trainer

A/N: I blended some french terms of endearment with English don't come for me. But is Antoine really French, or is he feigning this way to get closer to you? (Had a fem idea for this too)

Synopsis: Another day at the gym, your personalized trainer is helping you out a lot more intimately than he would with most clients.

TW: Creep gym trainer, yandere themes, mentions of future stalking/imagined groping, sensual content

And up... and down, just like that."

The squeeze on your hips kept you stable, even with your fingers shaking, mouth agape as hot breath was sucked in, and out.

"One more, you can do one more for me."

"I can't..." you huffed, thighs quaking as the barbell on your shoulders made you ache.

"Yes you can. C'mon sweetheart, we'll do it together."

He gripped the barbell beside where your sweating hands were, chest flush against your back as his feet entrapped the outside of your own.

“Do it with me now,” He pulled the weight lower, forcing you to squat despite the agony in your ankles and tailbone. “Push through it, baby.”

The sweet name just slipped out, breathy against your ear as his hot exhales slowed compared to your huffs. It almost made you slip.

You could feel the muscles in your wrists shaking, vision going blurry as sweat drips into your eyes. One of his hands leaves the barbell to grip your hip, forcing you back into a standing position as your knees nearly give out.

You rise slowly back up with the barbell in your hands, nearly groaning in pain at the strain. You finally lift your arms to your chest, finishing the rep with a strained frown as your personal trainer forces the weight off of your arms. His taller stature makes it easy to put the barbell back on the rack in front of you.

You feel as if you could collapse, an hour and a half of intense training brought upon by your own determination leaving you exhausted and a little discouraged. You thought you could do more, push yourself harder-- but at the end of the day, the amount of reps your body would let you do, was it. You’d crack if you tried to go even further, end up tearing something or worse.

Your trainer could tell; the way you sweat, your eyebrows furrowed as you kept that hard, strained look with each motion he made you do.

“I hate to say it, but you’re done for today.”

You look up at him from your place on the ground, water bottle hanging from your grip as you try to catch your breath.

Antoine had only worked with you for a couple weeks now, what started as once a week now thrice, if you had the time after work of course. But somehow, he always enticed you to come back.

His body, which should’ve been motivation, was more or less disheartening-- rippling muscles and bulging quads peeking beneath his tight ‘TRAINER’ black tee and athletic shorts as the perfect ensemble.

He was so sweet, so encouraging and upsettingly positive. Always filling up your water bottle, saying how he’s always admiring the growth of muscle definition in your back, giving you light touches to show which area of your body that a machine might work out. He even offered post-exercise massages to make sure you didn’t get sore after each session, free of cost as a perk of joining the gym’s ‘premium membership’, an idea he sold you on. That, along with the complementary protein shakes made that were hi “specialty.”

You knew it was his job to hook you in, but who could say no to that sweet meathead’s face? Which is why you were here, on a late saturday afternoon, in this nearly empty gym with him that he convinced you to love.

You couldn’t help but feel a little guilty, even if he was the one persuading you, offering to use his time off to come in and help train you.

“Feelin’ sore?” Antoine bends down next to you, offering a small towel from his pocket. The twinge of accent in his speech makes him sound funny, dry lips parted as he looks you over. “You went harder than usual today.”

“Yeah,” You let out after a gulp of water. “Definitely gonna feel this later tonight; ha, maybe I’ll actually take you up on one of those massages.”

You point with your water bottle, grinning tiredly as Antoine’s eyes seem to shine. He licks his lips to hide a giddy grin.

“Of course-- definitely, I’d be more than happy to. These hands can work magic you wouldn’t believe.”

Antoine shuffles behind you, pulling at your shoulders to make you sit up straight.

“Wha- you mean right now? I’m all, sticky.”

“Now’s the best time, your muscles are just coming down from the effort they’ve exerted. Best to prevent any aches and pains as soon as possible rather than waiting.”

He begins gentle rubs against the base of your neck; vast, warm fingers grace your collar with a softness you hadn’t expected. Usually when people try to massage your shoulders they’re too harsh, too grippy; but Antoine was rhythmic, pushing into your back with his palms as he made his way down to your shoulder blades.

“But considering you’ve pushed so hard, I don’t want to see you back here for a couple of days.” Antoine insisted.

“Awe, you want me outa here that badly?” You joked, laying your head forward as Antoine’s fingers made their way to the back of your neck, running pressed thumbs down from your hairline. “I see how it is, prefer your other clients over me.”

It felt sort of weird, having him massage you so deeply on the gym floor out in the open. But the only person here in the middle of the afternoon was an older woman, paying more attention to her cellphone on the treadmill than anything you two were doing.

Antoine shook your shoulders.

“Don’t say that, now!” He leaned his head over next to yours from behind, getting so close your nose almost brushed against his cheek. “It’s not funny; I hope you don’t see me that way.”

“It’s just a joke,” You titter, running your handtowel down the front of your shirt.

“I never understand your jokes.” He sighs, hands moving down to your tailbone. He lifts the bottom of your shirt sticking to your skin, digging his hands against the soft flesh.

“Woah, hey,” You turn to look at him, but his head is down, looking at his fingers.

“I have to get to your hips, you can’t do so many squats without release. And at the rate you were going to day… well, you see what I mean.”

The bottom of your tanktop covers his knuckles as he pulls and kneads the skin of your lower back.

“O-okay.. I guess..”

He’s not usually so insistent, but he seems so genuine about it-- and, he’s the trainer, shouldn’t they know best?

He begins with little strokes to your skin, almost caressing. You grow anxious until his thumbs push deep lines into your flesh.

“Does that feel a little better, Mon cœur? Less pain?” He asks up close, staring at your heated and perspiring cheeks.

You’re awed by how good it actually feels, the tension melting away with each push of his knuckles into your skin, and grip of his hands around your waist as each of his thumbs digs into your sides.

“Yeah… feels a lot better..”

“You can rest your head on my shoulder, don’t be embarrassed, sweetheart.”

You do as he says, arching your back with your head against his shoulder. He had easier access into your back, working his hands up beneath your shirt to reach your mid abdomen.

The deeper Antoine kneaded, the farther he grew up your back, the more… audible, his groans became. Each dip was another breathy moan into your ear. It was fine at first, just the sounds of his work; and then, it became almost, uncomfortably sensual.

“Just like that...” He mumbled, giving a deep hum.

With your neck so close, his nose dips against your jaw to sneak a sharp inhale of your scent. It was heightened from your hour of strenuous work, a smell he couldn’t get enough of.

But you jumped forward before he could nuzzle as deep against you as he wished.

“Uh! Thanks, I feel a lot better now. Really… got all the kinks out.”

You clutch your towel, facing your trainer to prevent him from working his “magic fingers” again.

“Of course. And that’s just a taste, a fully body massage would leave the workout you just completed to drain away, as if it was just a dream.” He wiggles his hands with a sheepish grin, one so simple and sincere your guard fell again.

Sure, guys at the gym could be creeps, but he was your trainer, eyes kind and a little foreignly clueless, who only wanted to see you thrive; he’d never try something with you, his client.

“Yeah, maybe next time. But now, I need to shower and get this stink off of me.” You bring yourself to your feet, all wobbly and achy-galore. Even with Antoine’s work on your shoulders, you can feel your back beginning to seize up. It’s gonna be hard to bend down for a while.

Offering a hand to Antoine still on the rubbery gym floor, he takes it with a slight ease. He doesn’t use the weight in his hand to get up, knowing he’d just drag you back down to the floor if he did.

“Thanks again-- I mean, I know it’s your job but--”

“Don’t thank me; it’s always a treat to have you here, my cherie. I’d train you for free, you know!”

You laugh, flattered at the idea. If you were a bit more forward, you’d ask him for that little perk. Hey, paying for his service certainly wasn’t cheap!

Making your way to the bathroom, you thank your lucky stars the hard part’s over. Too bad you can’t look at Antoine’s pretty face anymore, though.

Antoine on the other hand, follows your stumbling body with his eyes, watching as you disappear behind the water fountain and bathroom door.

His eyes jut back and forth between the machines and front door for witnesses, seeing none before snatching up your forgotten towel. How’d you never notice they didn’t just give these things out?

He’d brought the cute handkerchief from home, wanting to appear the most of a gentleman. And, in the hopes that you’d use it every and anywhere.

Oh, he thrived off that scent, pushing the white damp cloth heavy against his nose. It smelled even more potent of you, moreso than the few inches away of sniffs he usually got.

His tongue just barely brushed against it, writhing in ecstasy from how it still held the stickiness of your sweat. You didn’t know how intoxicating it was to him, watching each bead of sweat leave your neck, the dip of your back when he got the chance to help hold that barbell with you… it was almost maddening, how strictly he had to restrain himself from lapping at your hot skin and running his hands beneath your gymwear.

No, he had to save this for later. What would his manager think if he saw him acting so ferally?

Besides, there were more important matters to attend to. Such as, taking out the bathroom trash, a simple excuse to slide his manager for the opportunity to watch you shower.

Who knew working here would have such great advantages in getting close to you.

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cinnamanz · 5 months ago

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— ⋆✴︎˚｡⋆ MAMMA MIA ⋆౨ৎ˚ .ᐟ SOPHIA LAFORTEZA

❝𝐌𝐀𝐌𝐌𝐀 𝐌𝐈𝐀, 𝐇𝐄𝐑𝐄 𝐈 𝐆𝐎 𝐀𝐆𝐀𝐈𝐍

𝐌𝐘, 𝐌𝐘, 𝐇𝐎𝐖 𝐂𝐀𝐍 𝐈 𝐑𝐄𝐒𝐈𝐒𝐓 𝐘𝐎𝐔?❞

there’s always been one rule in the group: don’t bring up y/n. no one really knows why, but it’s clear sophia would rather leave her ex-best friend in the past. once inseparable, their friendship dissolved after a summer camp that no one talks about, and y/n vanished, moving god-knows-where without so much as a goodbye. some say it was a fight. others say it was something more. only sophia knows the truth—or maybe not even she does. now, as the third year at dream academy begins, sophia is blindsided by y/n's unexpected return. gone is the familiar, easygoing childhood bestfriend she remembers. in her place is someone sharper, colder, and—unfortunately for sophia—hotter than ever. (who gave her the permission to look so fine?)

tags .ᐟ smau, crack, fluff, awkward idiots, grumpy x sunshine (or at least my attempt to), childhood bestfriends to lovers, theatre children, coarse language, suggestive themes, nonceleb! au, university au!, sexual jokes, kys nd die jokes, mentions of substances, my writing

featuring .ᐟ katseye, p1harmony, ive, le sserafim and etc

pairing .ᐟ sophia laforteza x female reader

status .ᐟ ongoing

notes .ᐟ this smau was made for fun and entertainment. it is not an actual portrayal of the people mentioned in this smau, nor are the photos used to portray y/n. ignore timestamps. dream academy is a performing arts university. divider cred: @/adornedwithlight. TAGLIST CLOSED.

❝𝐌𝐀𝐌𝐌𝐀 𝐌𝐈𝐀, 𝐃𝐎𝐄𝐒 𝐈𝐓 𝐒𝐇𝐎𝐖 𝐀𝐆𝐀𝐈𝐍?

𝐌𝐘, 𝐌𝐘, 𝐉𝐔𝐒𝐓 𝐇𝐎𝐖 𝐌𝐔𝐂𝐇 𝐈’𝐕𝐄 𝐌𝐈𝐒𝐒𝐄𝐃 𝐘𝐎𝐔?❞

PROFILES

rock, paper, 👩‍❤️‍💋‍👩 (and keeho) — mommy day care

01. oomfchella @ school

02. dire omen

03. livin la vida loca

04. tying the noose as we speak

05. lore

06. just like old times

07. extracurricular

08. for evermore

09. best friend of the year

10. casting

11. square up

12. a b c d e f g

13. love finds a way

14. petty

15. nonchalant mfs

16. getting somewhere

17. shady ahh tweet

18. concerned

19. easy to draw

20. u look like u hump trees

21. cry to ur homeboys

22. cool cover!

23. for free

24. onto sumn

25. I WILL NOT BE SILENCED

26. tom holland

27. awkward!

28. thoughts nd prayers

29. hardest battles

30. let her cook

31. party on you

32. does yn know ab this?

33. hooked up

34. good driver

35. NEW COUPLE ALERT

36. pack it up

37. they hit the pentagon

38. keeho

39. OH FUCK NO

40. our last summer

41. etsy witch

42. CLOCKED

43. women scaring women

44. wealth changed you

more in progress!

™ CINNAMANZ 2025

— please do not repost, copy, translate, or take from my work in any way without permission. thank you! xx

#cinnamanz's works .ᐟ #cinnamanz's navi .ᐟ #dividers by adornedwithlight #katseye #katseye x reader #katseye smau #wlw #katseye x female reader #smau #gxg #sophia laforteza #sophia laforteza x reader #sophia laforteza x female reader #sophia katseye #sophia laforteza katseye #sophia x reader #sophia x female reader

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rafey-baby · 8 months ago

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what would sensitive!reader do without older!rafe protecting her from the invisible monsters in their home?

18+ mdni!

c/w: mostly fluff, her being scared & rafe comforting her while also being a menace, teeny tiny bit of angst regarding their age gap, use of daddy (once)

wc: 1.7k

unfortunately won’t be watching a single scary movie this halloween cause she’s literally me but happy kinktober & spooky season xx

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

She’s not exactly sure why she agreed to watch the new horror film Rafe’s friends wanted to see at a Halloween themed gathering he’d dragged her into. She wasn’t even the biggest fan of his friends, which is why she didn’t want to go in the first place.

However, when he’d mumbled a honeyed ‘it’s no fun without you ‘n don’t wanna leave my girl alone on Halloween’ into her hair, she’d reluctantly agreed; not one to refuse him of anything when he looked at her with that specific softened blue coloring his eyes.

And there was also the prospect of making him happy that finally made her melt into his wishes.

And she wanted to like his friends, she really did. But it wasn’t exactly easy when they kept bragging about their accomplishments and how much money they had every opportunity they found in such an arrogant tone, it made her roll her eyes when they weren’t looking.

Luckily, she could at least converse with their partners who were always fun company to sip wine with and giggle about anything and everything. And along with the warmth of Rafe’s gaze flickering over to her every once in a while, as he talked with his friends and coworkers, she was actually beginning to enjoy herself.

Up until the point when someone suggested they watch a movie.

“You sure you wanna watch this? S’okay if you wanna go home, could come up with somethin’ else to keep us entertained…” Rafe had murmured into her ear with his arms around her on the couch the whole group had settled down on.

He knew how paranoid she could get; how easily she’d turn into a scaredy cat who once couldn’t sleep alone for a month after sitting through an entire scary movie in the cinema.

And she truly doesn’t know why she didn’t just tell him she wanted to leave when the film started playing on the big screen of Topper’s television. She was going to, but when her eyes flitted over to him bringing a glass of whiskey to his lips in a carefree manner; she didn’t have the heart to ruin his fun because he seemed to be enjoying himself. After all, it wasn’t often he let himself relax due to his hectic work schedule packed with tedious meetings and whatnot.

And on top of that, she’s already self-conscious over the age-gap between her and Rafe; sometimes gets a headache over the notion of him meeting someone more mature one dreadful day and deciding he doesn’t want to play house with her any longer.

After all, his friends were all getting engaged left and right, while she still holds the title of being his girlfriend. And even if she isn’t sure she’d be ready for marriage quite yet, she’s still slightly upset that he’s never even so much as mentioned the matter.

And she's not sure if it's because she's younger than him and he assumes she doesn't want a ring on her finger too soon or if he simply just doesn't want to make things too definitive with her.

Nonetheless, it's something she's been thoroughly overthinking and mulling over recently, even if she knows it doesn't benefit her in any shape or form. Apparently, her mind just likes to always have some topic to ruminate over and obsessively worry about, or else it'll have too much free time.

Therefore, she can admit that she didn’t want to appear as a big baby who couldn’t stomach anything even remotely scary (she really couldn’t). And was it such a crime to not want to make a scene in front of all his friends?

That’s why she ends up meekly nodding her head and assuring him she was fine — which he didn’t entirely believe — but smiled nonetheless at the fact that she was willing to get out of her comfort zone for his sake, before pulling her closer to his side.

However, when the white letters of the end credits finally rolled after a few gruesome and eerie hours later, she was anything but fine.

Her weakened frame is trembling and she’s entirely too jumpy even after they’ve said their goodbyes and stepped past the threshold into the safe haven of their home.

“Told you we should’ve just left,” he tuts when she flinches when the October wind rustles the leafy foliage outside the window.

“Rafe, what was that?” she squeaks out when she hears another sound coming from outside — presumably their neighbor — however, there’s always the possibility of it being a serial killer simply waiting for the right moment to pounce.

“What was what?” he huffs out a chuckle in amusement, causing her to pout.

“This isn’t funny. I’m scared,” she whines, heart beating faster than ever along with her breathing unsteady.

“I know you are. Shit, forgot why I don’t let you watch scary movies,” he shakes his head, padding over to the kitchen to fill up a glass of water; her feet immediately running after him.

“Hey, hey, m’right here, yeah?” he laughs tenderly when she practically glues herself to his big and comforting arm with how tightly she’s hugging it against her chest.

“Promise you’re not gonna leave me alone?” she blinks up at him with her pupils dilated, nervous.

“It’s past midnight. Of course, m’not leaving, m’exhausted. Let’s get ready for bed, yeah?” he suggests calmly, managing to placate her some with his appeasing presence. Although the spine-chilling scenes still play behind her eyelids with every blink.

She follows him to the bathroom and he tries not to laugh when she insists on staying there even while he’s peeing.

“Want me to check under the bed for monsters?” his sickly-sweet tone is a stark contrast to the annoying smirk plastered on his face when they pad over to their bedroom after brushing their teeth.

“Ray…I’m being serious,” she scowls.

“So am I?” he feigns confusion with a furrow of his brows.

Before she has the chance to complain about him being mean, he’s already crouching down on the floor and poking his head under the bed into the darkness he’s braved himself to submerge into. And she’s far too curious not to peer down as well, however, she can’t really see a thing from behind his broad shoulders.

Suddenly, he lets out a loud gasp — making her jump back and nearly trip on her feet — before his breathy giggle follows soon after.

“That’s not funny,” she grumbles as exasperation drags her lips downwards.

“I’m sorry, baby. You jus’ make it so easy,” he approaches her with an apologetic expression that doesn’t come off as all that empathetic when he’s fighting off an amused grin the entire time.

“C’mere, yeah?” he coaxes before tugging her into his strong arms; not letting go even when she tries to pull away since she’s still mad at him.

“This one really got to you, huh?” he murmurs into her hair before beginning to soothingly rock back and forth when she finally halts her pursuits of escape.

A faint hum is the only response she grants him.

“Think the last time you were this scared was when we went to that haunted house with your friends last year, remember?” his warm chest rumbles in a pacifying manner in tandem with his words.

“How could I forget,” she huffs out.

“Why didn’t you tell me you didn’t wanna watch it? I wouldn’t have cared if we left,” he speaks softly.

“I don’t know…just didn’t wanna seem like a baby in front of your friends,” she sniffles.

“Since when do you care what they think? You hate them,” he argues with a lopsided smile when he releases his hold on her in order to unzip his jeans and change into something more comfortable for the night.

“Hate is a strong word,” she defends herself as she pulls one of Rafe’s old t-shirts over her head and tries to focus on his familiar scent still lingering on the worn-out fabric instead of the imaginary monsters lurking behind the windows.

“Is it?” he graces her with a lighthearted narrow of his eyes.

“Fine. I don’t like them but they’re your friends, which means that I want them to like me,” she mumbles out.

“Don’t really give a shit if they like you or not, which they obviously do. Think a little too much since you can’t help but be the sweetest angel even to the people you hate,” he grumbles out as he walks over to close the bedroom door.

“And honestly, would much rather just stay with you than those pretentious idiots. Next time you wanna go home, just tell me. Don’t want you lyin’ to me, okay?” he says with something sincere sparkling in the lagoons of his eyes.

“Okay,” she promises when suddenly, he switches the lights off with a click, causing her muscles to tense.

“Ray, why would you do that?” she sounds alarmed; inhales and exhales growing labored because the bedroom is now pitch black and there could be anything hiding in the murky corners of the room since she can’t even see herself.

“Shh, calm down. I’ll protect you, yeah?” he croons, before he’s guiding her under the covers with a big hand on the small of her back; following shortly behind her and tugging her flush against his steady chest.

“You’re safe with me. Daddy’s not gonna let anything happen to you, alright?” his saccharine murmurs reach her racing mind and offer it momentary rest on the soft petals of his tranquil voice.

She hums against the skin of his neck as her eyes begin to slowly adjust to the darkness surrounding them; the dingy shadows crawling along the walls appearing less and less threatening by the second when she’s in the warmth of his protective embrace.

“Want your stuffie?” he asks, knowing her all too well.

“Mhm,” she nods against him before he’s reaching a hand behind the pillows because somehow her stuffed animal always manages to end up in the most peculiar of places. At this point though, he already knows where to look since he’s usually the one who has to locate it for her.

Nowadays, she doesn’t need it too often since she has Rafe volunteering to be her own personal teddy bear, but whenever he’s working past midnight, she likes to hold onto something that brings her comfort because she isn’t particularly fond of the idea of sleeping alone.

He soon offers her the plushy lamb and she gives him a grateful smooch against his cheek along with a muffled ‘I love you’.

And that night, he lulls her into dreamland with a warm palm resting on her tummy and his mellow breathing placating her distraught mind.

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jaeminvore · 9 days ago

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Credit Card Baby | Z.CL — PREVIEW (read here)

“Who do I gotta fuck for barricade tickets to Sabrina Carpenter around here?”

PAIRING: Chenle x Fem!Reader

SYNOPSIS: Four days, three broke girls, two possible outcomes, and one solution. What are you willing to sacrifice in exchange for a night seeing a long-awaited Juno pose five feet away from your eyeballs? Your dignity, probably because it just so happens that one (1) Chenle Zhong could be the solution to your current girl problem. Only, you don’t really do well with charity. Nothing in life was free and everything had a price, but Chenle likes to think differently—that he's simply helping a friend out. Like the many times he did before. There should be sugar-daddy-sugar-baby joke around here somewhere.

alternatively: ‘three dumb bitches telling each other ‘exactlyyyy’.’ — ‘A sugar-daddy (kinda) au with no age-gap, but with a financial gap that no one asked for’.

CONTENT TAGS & WARNINGS: mildly suggestive themes, crack treated seriously, comedy, college au, fluff, friends to a secret third thing, sugar daddy au (kinda).

TEASER WORD COUNT: 770

FULL FIC WORD COUNT: estimated 15K (more or less)

RELEASE DATE: June 26, 2025 — 11 PM PST

TAGLIST: send an ask if you want to be notified when the full fic is posted!

NOTE: if you listen closely, you can hear me screaming because no one is more excited than me, who finally got around to writing a Chenle fic after so long of telling myself that I will. Eventually. And now we're here YAAAAAAAAAAAY!!

“Guess who might have found a solution to our ticketing problem!”

You slid onto the cushioned seats of the breakfast nook—a breakfast nook, Jesus—right across from Minjeong sipping her to-go cup of thai milk tea. She wordlessly slid one towards you. You took a generous drag of the stuff.

“Actually, it was more of Renjun’s idea—which I am effectively stealing.”

Yizhuo, who was in the middle of plating a hefty amount of pad see ew, looked like she swallowed something toe-curlingly sour. “Oh so you were with Renjun-ge.”

An easy smile curled on your lips as you lifted a shoulder to shrug, sweetly batting your eyelashes. “What can I say? The guy gives good head–” (“I did not need to know that.”) “–anyways, my idea.”

“Mine was probably better.”

“Oh yeah?” you drawled, egging Yizhuo on. “Let’s hear it then.”

“Breaking into the thrift store and stealing everything from the cash register.”

“She claimed if her parents found out about her crimes, they’d have to bail her out from prison and then restore her money privileges,” Minjeong glared at the youngest who simply whistled to Espresso as she carried on with the food. “Then I had to remind her of her reputation.”

“Good thing you did ‘cause that’s the dumbest fucking idea I’ve ever heard,” you said and you made sure it showed on your face as Yizhuo wilted underneath your tangible disappointment that she would even risk an integral part of her privileged life when she had used it as a counter-argument to the whole OnlyFans thing. “So we’re going with my solution to our broke-ness—Chenle Zhong.”

Yizhuo did not look pleased whatsoever. “What does Caillou have to do with Sabrina Carpenter?”

You ignored Minjeong shrieking with laughter. “Chenle’s got money,” you said as if you were talking to a toddler barely getting a grasp on words having their designated meanings. “And do you know what we need to get tickets? Money, and Chenle has a lot of it.”

“It took Renjun for you to realize that Chenle could be our solution?” Yizhuo exclaimed in disbelief, head in her hands. “Oh my God—it took Renjun telling you, then you telling us that he could be our solution? How could I’ve been so stupid?”

Her head jerked upwards, ponytail swishing along and gave you a look so sharp and abrupt that you jerked in surprise. You fixed your posture so fast that your grandmother would have been proud. For once. “You’re definitely asking Chenle.”

“Uh—first of all, why me? Don’t rich people have, like, some sort of kinship with one another? Like, hey, can I borrow ten-thousand dollars? I’ll pay you back with five-percent interest.” You were sure that wasn’t how deals between rich people were made, but whatever. “Second, why not you, money bags?”

“He’ll never say yes to me,” she said brusquely, clicking her tongue. “I kicked his ass a bunch of times in PUBG and he’s still bitter about it. It’s not my fault he sucks absolute balls. There’s like, a compilation of him complaining on stream about how I was cheating–” Yizhuo made air quotations “–on TikTok. It’s so funny. Actually, I’ll send you the link—”

You turned your gaze towards Minjeong for help, eyes widened a fraction for an added pathetic flair as the younger one focused on scrolling through the damn clock app.

“Don’t look at me. Chenle’s just cheap with everyone—actually, maybe except for you,” Minjeong pointed a long, black almond tipped nail in your direction. “the favorite.”

“You say it like it’s an insult.” You slurped your milk tea at an obnoxious volume, shrinking in your seat. “Maybe he’s just nicer to me because I’m nice to him unlike you two.”

“Is that what we’re calling it these days?” Minjeong said, eyeing you curiously.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

She moved her gaze elsewhere. “Nothing.”

You squinted. “Uh-huh.”

“Anyways,” she said, pointedly keeping her gaze forward. “He started it. I asked him if I could borrow money for my Lyft and he laughed in my face.”

You pressed your lips together to keep yourself from laughing too because, yeah, the image was a little funny. “You’re exaggerating,” you said evenly.

Yizhuo made a half-wince, half-smile sorta thing with her face. “Are we though?”

“Lele’s not that much of an asshole,” you defended. “He drives me home. You could have hitched a ride with us is all I’m saying.”

On the other hand, Minjeong looked like she was heavily debating whether she should smack you upside the head, or not. “For someone smart, you’re real stupid.”

You frowned. “Hey.”

TAGLIST: @jaylaxies @hoondrop @gojosmojodojo @justalildumpling @dammit-jjk @learnthisfeeling @90s-belladonna

#zhong chenle x reader #chenle x reader #nct dream x reader #nct x reader #zhong chenle fluff #chenle fluff #zhong chenle one shot #chenle one shot

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thatsveryvortex · 8 months ago

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Writing Tools for Planning Your Story

I've tried tons of writing apps and sites, so you don't have to. Here's a list of free sites to plot out your novel, with my review and some images of how I use it.

Milanote

Milanote is like having a giant pinboard with folders. You can upload anything onto it [yes even your main doc] and then draw over it or connect things with lines and arrows

Milanote lets you add up to a hundred things for free, not including drawing. This is one of the downsides of the site as I've found myself reaching that limit recently.

For me, the best part is being able to draw over stuff, and the color swatches.

Milanote is a lot less structured than other sites I've used, and personally, I don't think their templates are worth using.

8/10 overall, Milanote is what I mainly use. Here are some pics of how I use it:

Miro

Miro is a flowchart website mainly used for corporate jobs, however, it can be a great plotting tool for that reason

Miro has a lot of great starter templates if you are looking for a more structured freeform experience. It also comes with a blank page as well.

Unfortunately, I'd argue that it's a bit of a hard tool for beginners to use without a template, I've learned copy-paste is my best friend with Miro the hard way.

It's much better than most platforms at making timelines though.

It has a limit of three boards which is a bit disappointing but overall, I think it's worth the try.

5/10 Miro is very middle of the road for me due to the limited ability to customize things and the free limit. Here are some pics:

[I wrote that part weeks ago, I am now fully using Miro and believe it's the best for making timelines and charts, I just wish it let me make more boards 8/10]

Hiveword

This might be someone's jam, I can't really say it's mine though.

First off, the unpaid version is really just a few boxes saying "Write a summary here." which makes it just not worth it in my opinion

There really isn't any way to customise things which is my favorite part of most of these softwares

I've barely used this, so maybe there's something I'm missing but

1/10, Just use Google Docs at this point, here's a couple pics

World Anvil

People like this software, it's mainly used for tabletop, which is just a different way of writing adventure, and I've seen it recommended by authors.

Unfortunately, I'm going to disagree with a lot of people and say it's hard to use and isn't even really good at plotting.

I may be biased on this one as every time I've tried to use it in the past I've struggled. However, it seems like another just write it in a document and create a folder.

I'd say it's closer to an organizing tool, but even then just use something else.

3/10, I have nothing to say about it but maybe you'll enjoy it, all here are two photos

Campfire

This is the one I think I've heard the most about, but have never actually tried.

right off the bat, I'm going to say this is 100% worth it, you'll see at the end with the photos but this is like if Miro and World Anvil had an organization baby.

It's extremely easy to understand, and it makes timelines, it's more for writing your whole book but idk about that yet.

7/10, its themes are really pretty but it limits how much you can do to 20 I believe. Here are the photos

That's all for now, honestly, I think you should use Miro if you are looking to plot things out, and Milanote if you want to collect and organize your thoughts for writing, as that's what I do. Obviously what I like won't be for everyone, but hopefully, this helped you see some options

#writeblr #writers on tumblr #creative writing #worldbuilding #plotting #writing advice #writing tool #writing #writers #writing plans

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cbeargyu · 2 months ago

Text

what you want

summary: you and taeyong have been best friends since college, sharing your adult lives side by side—your flower shop, his branding firm, countless shared memories. but as you near your 30s, the yearning to become a mother grows unbearable. during a reunion trip to jeju island, a tipsy conversation turns into something tender, raw, and irreversible. what begins as comfort and shared vulnerability becomes something deeper—intimate confessions, unspoken love, and the beginning of a quiet forever.

pairing: bestfriend taeyong x fem!reader

genre: slow-burn, friends to lovers, emotional smut, soft romance, hurt/comfort, domestic fluff, eventual pregnancy.

warnings: breeding kink, unprotected sex (consensual, emotional context), impregnatio, pregnancy mention, emotional vulnerability, suggestive adult themes (18+), heavy romantic tension with soft resolution.

wc: 4,5K

notes: hi hiiii, okay so i've been dying to read smutty taeyong fics lately and it's been ALMOST impossible to find 😭 like 90% are mxm and there's barely any tae x reader content out there... if anyone has recs pls drop them in the comments ily. alsooo it's probably painfully obvious by now that i'm obsessed with the whole breeding kink + domestic fluff combo BYE that's literally my favorite thing ever 😩🫠💗

you’ve always been close to taeyong.

since college, really—when you met in that ridiculously stuffy marketing class during your second year. he was late that day, hair still damp from a rushed shower, a printed branding portfolio tucked under one arm, and somehow, he still managed to slide into the seat beside you with an easy smile and that soft voice.

you became inseparable after that. group projects, late-night convenience store runs, silent study sessions that turned into hours of talking about everything and nothing. you built a quiet rhythm with him, one that never required a label or explanation.

you opened your flower shop right after graduation. taeyong built his own creative agency, specializing in branding and design—sleek, intentional, always poetic in its aesthetic. you sent him flowers for his launch day; he designed the logo for your storefront for free. "it’s a gift," he said when you tried to pay him, his voice warm over the phone. "besides, i owe you for all the coffee you bought me during thesis week."

now in your late twenties, things feel stable. solid. your dreams are real. you run a blooming business. taeyong’s agency is doing well. life, on the surface, is soft and good. but there’s one thing that sits heavily in your chest.

you want a baby.

you’ve wanted one for years. even when you were young, you imagined yourself as a mother before anything else—before being a florist, a business owner, a woman navigating city streets with earbuds in and a tote bag full of errands. you crave that connection, the physicality of pregnancy, the quiet intimacy of raising someone who came from you.

but dating? nonexistent. your schedule is tight, your circle small, and the men you do meet are more interested in weekend flings than parenting plans. you’ve been obsessively reading about IVF, sperm donors, even traditional remedies your grandmother used to whisper about. you bring it up to taeyong one night, half-laughing as you scroll through forums.

“i don’t know what to do,” you admit, looking over the rim of your mug at him. “i’m not seeing anyone. i don’t want to wait until i’m forty. and i want to carry them. i want to feel them growing inside me.”

taeyong goes quiet.

he doesn’t have the answers, but he listens. tells you that you’d make an amazing mother. suggests maybe you could consider adoption, but you shake your head gently.

“i want to be pregnant,” you whisper. “i want them to be mine from the start.”

he nods.

he doesn’t push.

a few days later, he messages you.

taeyonggie👺 [11:13am]: remember our old classmates? they’re planning a reunion trip to jeju. want to go? they said you’re welcome too.

you hesitate, then say yes. maybe a change of scenery is what you need. something about the sea and the quiet and the way jeju always smells like citrus and wind.

you don’t expect to feel so at ease.

you arrive together, him beside you on the plane, headphones shared between you as you both doze off mid-flight. you’re staying at a cozy hotel not far from the beach—modern but warm, all wood accents and soft lighting.

there’s a mix-up at check-in.

“two rooms for y/n and taeyong?” the clerk asks.

“no, just one,” taeyong corrects, glancing at you. “two beds, please.”

you nod. it’s nothing new. you’ve stayed over at each other’s apartments before. this is the same. right?

your room has two full-size beds, a window view of the ocean, and barely enough space for both your suitcases. you joke about how you’ll end up tripping over each other, and taeyong just grins, tossing his duffel onto the bed by the wall.

the first two days are calm.

nakamoto yuta—now a travel content creator, all sun-kissed skin and open laughter—is the life of the group. seulgi, working as a creative director for a fashion label, is effortlessly elegant, always with a camera around her neck. also in the group: kwon eunbi, a vocal coach; hwang minhyun, managing a production company; kim seolhyun, running a podcast on pop culture; and kim hanbin, now a choreographer.

you spend your days exploring the island.

taeyong helps you pick tangerines from the orchard. you braid small wildflowers into your hair, and he snaps a photo when you’re not looking. he buys you honey ice cream and insists on carrying your bag when your shoulder starts to ache.

it feels like nothing’s changed.

but there’s a moment.

you’re inside the hotel lounge, grabbing drinks. yuta and taeyong sit near the back, shoulders low, conversation soft between them.

“you still in love with her?” yuta asks, voice easy but not teasing.

taeyong chokes on his drink. coughs. blushes.

“no,” he says, eyes flickering. “i mean, not anymore. that was...college. i’m over it.”

yuta raises a brow. “you sure?”

taeyong doesn’t answer right away. his fingers tap against the glass, slow. thoughtful.

“she wants a baby,” he says eventually. “that’s all she talks about now.”

“so give her one,” yuta shrugs.

taeyong laughs quietly. like it’s ridiculous. like it’s tempting.

he doesn’t bring it up again.

but something shifts.

you notice him watching you a little longer than usual when you laugh. his gaze lingers on the curve of your jaw, the line of your collarbone, the way you absentmindedly rest a hand over your stomach when you’re lost in thought.

you don’t say anything either.

you’re still just friends.

sharing a room.

sharing a life.

almost.

dinner that night is golden.

the kind that stretches out with laughter, grilled seafood, tangerine wine, and flickering lanterns strung up between pine trees. the restaurant is open-air, tucked near the cliffside with a view of the ocean glowing beneath the full moon.

everyone's a little tipsy by the time dessert comes around. yuta’s telling stories about backpacking in morocco and the time he accidentally ended up at a wedding. seulgi keeps taking pictures of everyone's reactions, cheeks flushed from wine. hanbin and seolhyun are arguing about the best era of k-pop choreography. eunbi sings a soft verse of something nostalgic, and minhyun smiles so softly you wonder if he's thinking of someone he left behind.

taeyong is beside you. always beside you. refilling your glass with something citrusy. resting his arm along the back of your chair. letting his knee bump into yours and not pulling away. the heat from him is steady. familiar. almost too much.

later, the drinks keep flowing back at the hotel. minhyun brings out a bottle of plum soju he brought from seoul, and that’s when it really starts. shots. dares. flushed cheeks and slurred memories.

you’re warm. glowing. a little too honest.

“i mean it,” you say, your voice low, shoulders loose as you sit with taeyong on the floor by the balcony door, away from the noise. “i think about it every night. sometimes i dream about it.”

he looks at you, gentle. “dream about what?”

you lean your head against the windowpane, watching the wind rustle the curtain.

“having a baby,” you murmur. “being pregnant. the little kicks. the soft cries. the weight of them on my chest. it’s so clear in my mind. like… i can almost feel it already.”

taeyong swallows.

you’re drunk. not sloppy, just vulnerable in a way you rarely let yourself be.

“i’ve tried not to obsess over it,” you continue, voice quieter now. “but it’s hard. i want it so much. and i know it’s selfish to want the whole experience—the belly, the pain, the birth. i just… i don’t want to feel like i missed it, like i missed the chance to be the kind of mother i’ve always seen myself becoming.”

taeyong doesn’t know what to say. you can feel it in the silence. his fingers curl slightly, brushing the edge of your sweater.

“you’d be such a good dad, you know,” you say suddenly, eyes half-lidded, smiling gently now as the alcohol softens your words. “like… annoyingly good.”

taeyong blinks.

“you’d be the kind that warms up the milk just right. that kisses tiny foreheads. that always carries extra snacks. that reads the bedtime story even when he’s tired. you'd probably cry when they take their first step.”

he laughs under his breath, a little shaky. your words are melting something in him.

“and your baby would have your eyes,” you add, like it’s nothing. “those pretty lashes. and maybe your laugh. and you’d panic the first time they got sick. and hold them all night until they stopped crying.”

he’s staring at you now. full-on. wide-eyed, a little undone.

“you’d be so gentle,” you whisper. “you already are.”

taeyong shifts. swallows again. his voice is rough when he finally speaks. “don’t say that.”

you tilt your head, confused. “why not? it’s true.”

“because,” he breathes, gaze flicking down to your lips for half a second before pulling back to the ceiling. “you’re drunk. and i’m trying really hard not to do something i’ll regret.”

you blink slowly, the alcohol making everything feel suspended.

you’re suddenly aware of how close you are. how intimate this has always been. not the words. not the night. just you and him.

taeyong stands. runs a hand through his hair, frustrated.

“i’m gonna get some water,” he mumbles, stepping away from the room.

you stay behind, heartbeat thudding, his warmth still lingering beside you.

you meant every word.

but you don’t know if he’ll ever believe that.

taeyong returns to the table with your glass of water clutched between his fingers like it’s something to hold himself together. his pulse is still uneven, the weight of your words clinging to him like sea salt in the air—soft but undeniable.

you’re laughing at something when he returns. yuta’s grinning, telling a story about a disastrous photoshoot in cambodia that involved a monkey, a drone, and his own foolish confidence. your cheeks are still flushed, but your expression dims a little when your eyes catch his, like you can feel the shift. like you remember what you said.

taeyong sets the glass in front of you gently, and you whisper a quiet “thanks” without looking up.

he doesn’t sit down again. instead, he hovers, letting the chatter of the group wash over him, standing on the edge of it all. seulgi pulls hanbin into a debate about concept staging in idol tours, seolhyun’s already half-asleep on the couch, and minhyun is texting someone with a small smile. the night has thinned out. the fire outside has died, leaving only the dim golden lights strung overhead and the soft hum of a playlist playing someone’s nostalgic mix of late 2010s ballads.

by the time the clock hits nearly two in the morning, someone mumbles about calling it a night.

you blink blearily, your words slurring just a bit now, your weight leaning more and more toward the backrest of the couch. taeyong’s already there before anyone else moves, slipping a hand beneath your elbow and helping you to your feet like it’s the most natural thing in the world.

“come on,” he says quietly, warm breath by your temple. “let’s get you to bed.”

you nod sleepily, your body soft, trusting. your fingers find the edge of his jacket sleeve as he steadies you, and he doesn’t pull away. the walk to the room is silent, the hallways dim and muffled. your steps are clumsy, and he catches you more than once, his hand curling around your waist like second nature.

inside the room, it’s dim and warm. the faint scent of saltwater and clean cotton lingers in the air from earlier. you collapse on the edge of the bed you claimed the night before, one of two queen mattresses sitting side by side with a single nightstand in between. the tension returns with the silence, thick and cloying. he walks to the dresser and grabs a bottle of water, offering it to you.

you drink half of it. then sit there. watching him.

he avoids your gaze at first. fiddles with the hem of his shirt. looks out the window like he might say something—then stops himself.

but you’re still drunk. and honest. and maybe a little bold in the way you never let yourself be.

“you know,” you start, voice quiet, “i wasn’t drunk when i said you’d make a good dad.”

taeyong turns slowly. you meet his eyes.

you swallow thickly, fingers wringing the edge of your pajama top. “i’ve thought about it before.”

he blinks, lips parting like he wants to ask but isn’t sure if he should.

you continue.

"not just in the abstract. not just... you as someone’s dad. but you as my—" you stop, heat blooming up your neck. you exhale. “sometimes, i think about what it’d be like if you were the one.”

he says nothing, but his expression crumbles—something tender and wounded flickering behind his eyes.

“i mean, we’ve been in each other’s lives forever,” you say, softer now. “we grew up together in every way that matters. you’ve seen me fail and get back up and fall apart again. you’ve never walked away. not once. not even when i was unbearable. i trust you with everything. i always have.”

taeyong doesn’t breathe.

you keep going.

“so yeah. i think about it sometimes. about what it’d be like to have your kid. to raise them with you. to wake up to you and a messy little human with sleepy eyes and your stupid laugh. and maybe i’m insane, maybe it’s just my hormones or my loneliness or whatever—but the thought doesn’t scare me. it grounds me.”

you laugh, a little bitterly, wiping at the corner of your eye. “and that’s the worst part. because i know you don’t see me that way. or if you did once, it’s long gone. and i shouldn’t be saying this—i know that. but there’s something about tonight that makes me feel like i’ll burst if i don’t.”

taeyong moves before you can finish.

quiet. careful.

he kneels in front of you. not touching you. not yet. just there, looking up at you like he’s memorizing every curve of your face.

his voice is raw.

“don’t say i don’t see you.”

you meet his eyes.

“i’ve always seen you.”

your breath hitches.

taeyong lets out a quiet, shaky laugh. “you talk about me being a dad like i wouldn’t spend every second wondering how the hell i got so lucky to build a life with you. like i haven’t already imagined it too. maybe not with words. maybe not out loud. but… i have.”

you whisper, “you have?”

he nods.

“every time you smile like that. every time you bring me coffee with your name scribbled next to mine. every time you hug me like home. yes. i have.”

you don’t move.

he reaches for your hand—slow, reverent, like he’s afraid you’ll disappear.

“but i never let myself say it,” he murmurs. “because i didn’t want to mess this up. not with us. not with you. and definitely not like this. but if i’m being honest… the thought of you carrying my child?” he swallows. “that doesn’t scare me either.”

the room is silent.

you stare at him, your fingers trembling in his grip.

you whisper, “then kiss me.”

he does.

not rushed. not heated.

just true.

the kind of kiss that feels like coming home after years of wandering.

like maybe—just maybe—you weren’t crazy after all.

the kiss deepens slowly.

taeyong’s hands are warm on your cheeks, cradling you like you’re the most precious thing he’s ever held. you melt under his touch, your fingers sliding up his neck, into his hair, pulling him closer, closer still—like you’re afraid he’ll vanish if you let go.

he’s the one who gasps first when your lips part just enough to whisper his name. it falls from your mouth like a secret you’ve kept buried for too long, and he swallows it whole.

he pulls back slightly, forehead resting against yours, his thumbs brushing over your flushed skin. you can feel his heart racing beneath his shirt.

“y/n…” his voice is hoarse. “are you sure?”

you nod, soft and breathless. “i’ve never been more sure.”

and there’s something in your voice—something so certain, so full of quiet longing—that makes taeyong inhale like he’s taking you in for the first time.

his lips find yours again, slower now, more deliberate. his touch trails from your face to your waist, pulling you gently into his lap, like he needs you close enough to feel everything—the way your body trembles against his, the way your thighs tighten around his hips, the way your breath stutters when his mouth moves down your neck.

he tastes your skin like a prayer, like something he’s dreamt about in the quiet hours of the night when your voice was the only thing that could calm him down.

you whisper into the space between kisses, into the curve of his jaw, “i want it to be you.”

his breath hitches.

“i want your baby,” you murmur, your hand pressing over his chest, right where his heart is pounding. “i want to carry your child. someone small and perfect and warm, someone who has your eyes… your smile.”

taeyong lets out the softest sound, almost like a whimper, and you feel his fingers tighten on your hips, his body tensing like he’s trying to hold himself back.

you lean into his ear and say it again—this time slower, your voice shaking. “i want your baby inside me, tae.”

his hands slide up your sides, under your shirt, reverent and gentle. “god,” he breathes. “you have no idea what that does to me.”

“tell me.”

he leans back just enough to look at you—really look at you. his pupils are blown wide, his cheeks flushed, lips swollen and parted.

“i think about it all the time,” he says, barely more than a whisper. “what you’d look like with my baby growing inside you. your belly round and soft, your body glowing. coming home to you with your shirt stretched over the bump, your hands cradling it like it’s the most natural thing in the world.”

he presses a kiss to your collarbone, then another, lower. “i want to see you like that. i want to wake up and run my hands over your belly, feel it kick. talk to it. kiss it.”

you whimper, your fingers knotting in his hair. “tae…”

his hands slip beneath the waistband of your shorts, thumbs brushing over your hipbones like they belong there. “i want to fill you up,” he murmurs, voice thick and trembling. “not just for tonight. not just for the fantasy. i want this to meansomething. it does mean something.”

you nod, cupping his face. “i know. it does to me too.”

he kisses you again, deeper now, one hand at the small of your back, guiding you down onto the mattress. the room is quiet, lit only by the moonlight spilling through the window, and everything feels soft. intimate. warm.

he undresses you slowly, carefully, as if every piece of clothing he removes reveals another piece of your heart. your legs wrap around his waist instinctively, pulling him closer until there’s no space between you, nothing but breath and bare skin and whispered names.

when he enters you, it’s slow and deep, like he’s savoring every inch, like he’s trying to memorize the way you feel wrapped around him. your back arches, and he moans into your neck, your name a broken sound on his lips.

you’re both trembling—emotion thick in your chests, tears brimming at the corners of your eyes. because it’s not just sex. not just lust. it’s home. it’s years of friendship and quiet yearning finally coming undone in the safest way possible.

taeyong presses a kiss to your temple and whispers, “you’re perfect. you’re mine.”

you cradle his face in your hands, smiling through the tears. “give me everything, tae. i want to feel you. all of you. i want to feel you stay.”

his rhythm falters, just for a second, overcome by the weight of it all. “i’ll give you everything. i’ll give you a family.”

you tighten around him at the words, gasping.

“i want to make you a mom,” he whispers. “tonight.”

you nod frantically, lips parting, “do it. please. i want to feel it—i want to feel you—when you fill me.”

taeyong groans, hips stuttering, burying his face in your neck. “fuck. y/n…”

you whisper, “put a baby in me, tae.”

he thrusts deeper, harder now, the restraint beginning to crumble. your bodies are slick with sweat, moving together with a kind of desperation that feels like both a beginning and a promise.

when he finishes—inside, just like you wanted—it’s with a gasp, his arms locked around you tight, like he’s scared to let go. and for a long moment, neither of you move.

“i want you full of me,” he says against your mouth, already hardening again. “i want to make sure.”

you nod, dazed. open. warm.

“don’t stop,” you whisper. “please don’t stop.”

and he doesn’t.

he makes love to you over and over again, slow and focused, like each time is another chance to seal your wish into reality. sometimes he holds your hips, watching your face as you fall apart for him. other times he lays you on your side, kissing your shoulder while whispering how beautiful you are, how perfect you’d be with his child inside you.

when dawn breaks, you’re tangled together in silence. your body aches, sweet and sated. your thighs sticky, your heart full. his hand rests on your stomach again, like he’s already waiting.

he is groaning your name, whispering over and over, “mine. you’re mine. our baby. our future.”

you’re crying. he is too.

and when the trembling stops and the world is still again, he kisses your lips, then your cheeks, then your stomach.

“i can’t wait to see you grow,” he whispers, resting his head just below your ribs.

you run your fingers through his hair, heart pounding.

you whisper back, “i hope it has your eyes.”

the sunlight pours through the thin curtains like a slow, golden confession. the air smells like salt and lemon shampoo. taeyong wakes up first this time, his arm heavy over your waist, your back pressed flush against his chest. sunlight filters through the cream-colored curtains, warming the bare skin of your shoulder.

it kisses your bare shoulder first, then the soft curve of your waist, then the scattered marks taeyong left across your chest like constellations only he could read.

you’re the first to stir, eyelids fluttering open to the unfamiliar ceiling of the hotel room. for a second, you forget where you are. but then you shift slightly and feel the weight of an arm draped across your stomach, the steady rise and fall of a chest pressed into your back, and the unmistakable warmth of taeyong’s body, still wrapped around you like a second skin.

his breath ghosts against your nape, slow and deep, and you realize he hasn’t let go of you all night. not once.

you smile.

when you turn your head just enough to see his face, it nearly knocks the air out of your lungs. he’s peaceful like this—softer, younger somehow. his lashes rest against his cheeks, and his mouth is parted slightly, lips still swollen from all the kisses you gave him. his hand, large and warm, is splayed gently across your lower belly, protective and possessive in the same breath.

you reach down and lace your fingers with his.

as if he feels it, he stirs, humming sleepily against your skin. his nose nuzzles into your shoulder. “mmm… morning,” he mumbles, voice thick and low, still soaked in sleep.

you twist around slowly in his hold so you’re facing him. he blinks a few times, eyes still heavy, but when they focus on you, they soften in that way they always have—like you’re the center of his world and he’s been waiting all night just to see you again.

“you stayed,” you whisper, thumb brushing his cheekbone.

he smiles lazily, eyes fluttering shut again. “of course i did. where else would i go?”

you tuck yourself into his chest, your nose against his collarbone. “you feel so warm…”

his arms tighten around you instantly, drawing you closer until there’s no space between you. “you kept me warm first,” he murmurs, and you can hear the smile in his voice. “i didn’t want to let go.”

you stay like that for a while. breathing together. existing.

and then you feel him shift, one hand still resting over your belly, thumb drawing lazy, absent-minded circles over the skin there. he hums, low in his throat. “do you think… do you think it worked?”

your breath catches.

you look up at him, searching his face. he’s watching you carefully now, no longer groggy, eyes wide open and impossibly tender.

“i don’t know,” you whisper. “maybe.”

he leans in, kisses your forehead. then your temple. then the spot just below your eye. “i kind of hope it did.”

you feel your throat tighten with emotion.

“you do?”

“mmhm,” he nods, nudging his nose against yours. “i kept thinking about it last night… the way you’d look months from now. the way i’d get to take care of you. rub your back. cook for you. kiss your belly every morning.”

you let out a small laugh, wiping at your eyes with the back of your hand.

“i’d be so annoying,” you murmur. “always crying. craving weird stuff. complaining about everything.”

he smiles, brushing your hair behind your ear. “you’d be perfect. i’d love you more every day. and our baby… our baby would be lucky.”

you bury your face in his chest, overwhelmed by the sweetness of it. the certainty.

he strokes your back gently. “and if it didn’t happen this time… we try again,” he says softly. “no rush. no pressure. just us. just love.”

you pull back, tearful and smiling all at once. “you want to try again already?”

he grins, lips brushing your cheek. “i want to make love to you every morning for the rest of my life. but yes… also for the baby.”

you laugh, breathless, and he kisses the sound right out of you.

his hands start to wander again—slow, exploring, remembering. he murmurs against your lips, “can i stay inside you today too? just like this… all day?”

you nod, whispering, “don’t leave me empty.”

and he doesn’t.

he makes love to you again—this time slow and languid, under the weight of sunlight and morning warmth. he kisses your face like you’re already glowing. like you’re already carrying a part of him.

when he comes again, deep inside you, he doesn’t look away. he holds you through it. kisses your tears. whispers your name like a promise.

afterward, he pulls the blanket over your bodies, still tangled. still joined. he keeps his hand on your belly, and you both stay quiet, smiling softly.

as if the future is already there.

739 notes · View notes

danysdaughter · 29 days ago

Note

(first off, i adored come home to me so much)

can u pls do one where bucky and the reader knew each other before the hydra thing, but they both ended up in hydra's clutches, and instead of completely dehumanizing the two, zola programmed them to be some form of ally/handler situation, so when they both break out of hydra's clutches it gets very angsty and they argue/hate each other because they don't know if their bond was them or hydra-made. and then the ending's up to you.

no srsly, ur writing is literal art. its like fantastic in ways i cant describe.

i can die happy if u'll take this idea.

did I go a bit overboard? yes. do i have any regrets? no. I really tried to make it as you described, babe, hope you enjoy 💕

The Soldier and The Vixen

pairing | 40s!bucky x fem!reader & winter!soldier x fem!reader & post!tfatws!bucky x reader

word count | 14k words

summary | Once comrades bound by war and affection, two soldiers-turned-weapons are reshaped into monsters by Hydra, their humanity fractured and memories blurred.

Now free but haunted, they struggle to untangle love from programming, grief from guilt, and healing from the wreckage of who they used to be

tags | ANGST! ANGST! and more ANGST! graphic violence, torture, emotional trauma, brainwashing, PTSD, abuse, trauma bonding, psychological manipulation, non-consensual experimentation, abuse, power imbalance, gore, unhealthy attachment, angst/no comfort, miscommunication, mutual destruction (a bit too much?)

a/n | wowww, I am not gonna lie, I actually cried while writing this, also this fic explores dark themes with little to no comfort (we die like men)

likes comments and reblogs are much appreciated ✨✨

ᴍᴀsᴛᴇʀʟɪsᴛ

divider by @cafekitsune

Village Outskirts, France, 1945

The earth was damp beneath your stomach. Rain must’ve come through earlier — you could smell it in the mud, the churned-up grass, the faint rot of old stone and war.

Through your scope, you watched two Hydra guards lounging outside a crumbling checkpoint. They were smoking and laughing about something in German, distracted, backs too often to each other. Sloppy.

You pressed the button on your radio once, holding it close to your mouth. “Movement. Two guards at the eastern entry. Smoking. Lazy. Easy targets.”

There was a short pause.

Then Bucky’s voice crackled through, “Fox, you always know how to sweet-talk a guy.”

You almost smiled. Almost, “Only the ones who talk less than they shoot, Sarge.”

A muffled laugh came through the line. Morita muttered something you didn't quite catch, probably teasing Bucky again. He was an easy target.

“You got him good,” Dum Dum grinned from somewhere behind you.

Steve’s voice cut in — level, steady. “Enough chatter. Fox, take the lead. We move on your signal.”

But you were already moving.

You didn't need backup for this. The hill rolled down into a slope that gave you full cover, and you slipped down it like water over rock. Quiet. Efficient. Knife drawn. You counted your steps with your breath. When the first guard turned his back, you were already there.

One sharp jab under the ribs. Drag him behind a crate.

The second didn't even turn in time.

Ten seconds. Two bodies. No gunfire.

You tapped your radio again.

“Checkpoint clear.”

As you were climbing back up toward the rendezvous, Bucky was waiting at the top of the ridge, crouched behind a low wall. He glanced at you, smirking.

“Miss me?”

You scoffed, brushing dirt from your sleeves. “I was gone ninety seconds.”

“That’s longer than I like you being out of sight.”

You arched a brow. “Is that concern, Sergeant Barnes?”

“It’s tactical observation, doll.”

There it was — the nickname again. You didn't bite. Bucky flirted with anything that had a skirt, and you were the only girl on the team. You’d learned not to take him seriously.

Behind you, Gabe whispered over the comm, “God, just kiss already.”

You blinked. “Excuse me?”

Bucky turned sharply and pretended to check his rifle. He didn't say another word. You frowned, completely missing the flush rising in his cheeks.

You shook your head, then returned to the task. The rest of the unit fellin. You walked point. Bucky took his usual position at your flank, and the rest of the squad fell into formation like a well-oiled machine.

The village ahead was half-destroyed from past shelling. Stone walls broken down to the foundation. Trees blackened by fire. The kind of place where shadows hid snipers and death sat behind every door.

You spotted it first — a tripwire buried in the dirt, nearly invisible. You paused, raised your fist to halt the line, then rerouted them five feet to the left.

Dum Dum muttered, “You’ve got eyes like a hawk.”

“I’ve got better things to do than walk into obvious traps,” you muttered back.

You didn't make it twenty feet past the tripwire before you heard the explosion — further down, where another route would’ve taken you.

“Hydra knows we’re here,” you said into the radio. “Get to cover. Rooftops—snipers at twelve o’clock.”

The first shot cut through the air a moment later.

You hit the ground, narrowly dodging the bullet. Dust sprayed over your face. A hand grabbed your vest — yanked you behind a broken column.

Bucky.

He positioned himself between you and the direction the shot came from, body tense.

“I had it under control,” you whispered.

He didn't even blink. “Didn’t say you didn’t.”

He was still too close. Too steady. His eyes flickered to you, just for a second, like he was making sure you were still in one piece. You didn't notice. You never noticed.

You moved past him before he could say anything else.

Firefight erupted in bursts. The unit scattered into cover, returning fire. You darted through the alleys, knife flashing when you came across two patrols rounding the corner. Your blade slipped beneath ribs and across throats. You didn't flinch. You’ve done worse.

Bucky caught your eye across the street — both of you ducked behind separate walls. You tilted your head. He nodded once. You moved again, clearing a side stairwell while he took the main door.

“Tech’s inside that chapel,” Steve said over the comm. “Fox, Bucky, with me.”

You kicked the door open first. Bucky was right behind you.

He tossed a flash grenade — you shielded your eyes, waiting for the burst, and swept left as soon as it cleared. Two Hydra agents — you took one in the leg, knocked his rifle away, finished it with your knife. The second one came at you with a baton, but Bucky had already taken him down with a clean shot to the chest.

When it was over, the silence was louder than the fight.

The tech was here — something glowing with an unnatural blue pulse. You didn't go near it.

You turned to Bucky instead, breathless. Dust in your hair. Blood on your sleeve.

“Think this’ll finally get me a promotion?”

He was looking at you differently. A flicker of something unreadable in his eyes. Maybe it was the way the light hit your face. Maybe it was the fact you were both still alive.

“You deserve a medal, Fox.”

You grinned, wiping blood from your cheek.

“Only if it’s chocolate.”

────────────────────────

Somewhere in the French Countryside, 1945

The mission had been hell, but tonight, the world was quiet.

The campfire crackled in the middle of a half-collapsed barn, broken beams overhead like the ribs of a long-dead beast. Outside, wind stirred through wheat fields. Inside, there was warmth — not from the fire, but from the laughter.

You sat with your knees pulled up, perched on an overturned crate. Your boots were still muddy. Blood on your sleeve had dried to a dark rust. Dum Dum had found a bottle of something vaguely alcoholic, and it’d been passed around in uneven sips.

Morita was telling a story — probably the fifth exaggerated war tale of the night — gesturing wildly with his hands.

“…and then this guy,” he pointed at Bucky with a dramatic flair, “says, ‘I got this,’ climbs onto the back of the Hydra truck barefoot, like a damn lunatic—”

“I didn’t think they’d be hot-wiring it in motion!” Bucky cut in defensively.

“That’s not even the dumbest part,” Gabe added, smirking. “The dumbest part is that he forgot the explosives.”

Laughter broke out around the fire. Bucky groaned and dropped his head back with a loud, sarcastic, “Thanks, fellas.”

You tried to hold in a laugh — and failed. He shot you a look, mock offended.

“You too, Fox?”

You shrugged, biting down on your grin. “Well. I was the one who had to double back and grab the damn charges.”

“She ran through enemy fire like it was a morning jog,” Steve added with a small, proud shake of his head.

Bucky nudged your shoulder with his. “Guess I owe you another one.”

“You’re keeping score now?” you asked, dryly.

He smirked. “Only when I’m losing.”

The fire cracked again, glowing warm across the faces of your brothers-in-arms. Everyone relaxed in a way they rarely could — backs against crates and sandbags, boots kicked off, dog tags clinking faintly as they leaned into one another’s stories.

Gabe tilted his head toward you, half-grinning. “Alright, Fox. What about you?”

You blinked. “What about me?”

“If you weren’t doing all this,” he said, gesturing vaguely around the barn. “If you weren’t dodging bullets and saving our sorry asses, what would you be doing?”

Immediately, you shook your head. “Nope.”

Cackling broke out around you. Morita leaned forward eagerly. “Oh, come on.”

“Not happening,” you said, waving them off.

“You gotta tell us now,” said Dum Dum. “That reaction alone just guaranteed it’s embarrassing.”

Bucky grinned beside you. “C’mon, Fox. We tell you our secrets. Like how Morita’s terrified of goats—”

“I am not—”

“—and how Dum Dum can’t wink without sneezing—”

“It’s a medical issue—”

“—so it’s only fair we get yours.”

You sighed, shaking your head slowly. “Fine. But if any of you ever breathe a word of this outside this barn, I will personally replace your shaving cream with gun grease.”

They leaned in, like children around a ghost story.

You looked into the fire, picking at the fraying seam of your glove. Then.

“I used to want to be a singer.”

Silence.

Then, chaos.

“No shit?”

“What kind?”

“Like on stage?”

“Do you have a stage name? Wait—please tell me it was Foxy somethin’—”

You groaned again, instantly regretting every life choice that led to this moment.

“It was just something I wanted when I was a kid,” you muttered. “Doesn’t mean I was any good.”

“But like, jazz club singer?” Dum Dum asked. “Torch songs?”

You didn’t answer. The heat in your cheeks did.

And then Gabe — bless him — decided to chime in, puffing his chest out like he had the perfect line.

“I mean… I just can’t picture you doing something that… you know. Girly.”

You turned your head toward him, slow and sharp.

“What?”

The fire seemed to go still.

Gabe blinked. “No—I mean—just like, you’re so good at, you know. The not-girly stuff. Like, killing people—uh—”

You raised a brow, voice flat. “So I’m in the military and that means I’m not allowed to be girly?”

Gabe opened his mouth. Closed it. Tried again. “No! That’s not—I didn’t mean—like, you can, obviously—”

The others had lost it by now. Bucky had his head buried in his arm, shaking with silent laughter. Morita was wheezing. Dum Dum was crying.

You nodded slowly, arms crossed. “Uh huh. That all you got?”

Gabe looked around like someone might save him. No one did.

“I just meant… you seem so… sharp! And you don’t… I mean you never… like, dresses—not that I wouldn’t like if you wore one—not that you need to—”

“Dig up, Gabe,” Bucky offered helpfully.

You shook your head and pointed your canteen at Gabe like a knife. “One more word and I swear I will make you run laps in full gear tomorrow.”

“Thank you,” Gabe said, finally surrendering to his embarrassment. “Thank you for your service.”

Once the laughter died down, Dum Dum leaned forward with a mischievous grin.

“Alright, Fox. Now sing us something.”

You stared at him.

“Not a chance in hell.”

“Oh, come on—”

“Absolutely not.”

“Just a few notes—”

“You’d have to drug me.”

“Well,” Bucky said, elbowing you gently, “I do still have some morphine left in my pack—”

You shoved his arm away with a scoff, but couldn’t help the flicker of a smile.

And as the boys erupted into more teasing, and Gabe tried to crawl under a tarp in embarrassment, you leaned back against the crate, warmed more by the people around you than the fire. You didn’t sing, not that night. But Bucky stayed next to you, quietly.

And he didn’t laugh when you said you used to want to sing.

He just looked at you like he really wanted to hear it.

────────────────────────

Moments After Intercepting Zola's Train— Alpine Forest Edge, 1945

The wind had sharp teeth.

It howled between the trees like it was mourning too. Snow swept across the ground in restless swirls, half-covering the train tracks already. Everything was white and still and wrong.

The wreckage lay behind you, steel twisted into the mountainside, black smoke curling up into the gray sky. Arnim Zola had been secured. Hydra’s tech recovered. It was supposed to be a win.

But Bucky had fallen.

The team stood in the brittle silence of it. Steve was turned half away, jaw clenched so hard you could see the muscle twitch in his cheek. Morita and Dum Dum said nothing, eyes fixed on the ground. Gabe was pacing, too angry to stop moving, like stillness would make it real.

You stood near the edge of the embankment, where it dropped into a forest of pine and snow. Your lungs burned with cold, but you kept staring down, searching the white for anything — a shape, a shadow, hope.

Finally, you squared your shoulders.

“Cap.”

Steve didn’t answer at first. You stepped closer, louder now.

“Steve.”

His eyes flicked to you, red-rimmed and hollow. “What?”

“I want permission to go after him.”

Silence.

Then a bitter breath of disbelief. “Fox…”

“You know I’m the best tracker we’ve got,” you said, tone steady, firm. “I know how to read the land. If anyone can follow his path through that fall, it’s me.”

“There’s no way he—” Steve cut himself off. His throat bobbed as he swallowed hard. “No one survives a drop like that. And it’s too dangerous. You can’t go alone.”

“I have to go alone,” you insisted. “A squad would slow me down. I’ll move faster on my own, quieter. Look—”

You crouched down in the snow and started sketching with your glove. “That ridge curves around. It’s a drop, yes, but if he hit snow, or an outcrop, or even slid—”

“Even if by some miracle he lived,” Steve said quietly, “he wouldn’t last long. Not in that cold. Not with the injuries he’d have.”

You stood again, breath quickening with urgency. “If he’s alive, he’s got a chance—but not if I waste time arguing.”

“Fox—”

“If I don’t, he dies. Hypothermia will set in fast — minutes, if he’s bleeding. I might not have long, but I might still have enough time. You give me two days. Just two. If he’s alive, I’ll bring him in. If he’s not…” your voice faltered, just for a second, “then I’ll bring his body home.”

No one spoke. The wind did.

You kept your eyes locked on Steve. Pleading without begging. Heart breaking but hands steady.

“I’ve gone on solo missions before. You know I can handle it. The Colonel trained me for it.”

His jaw flexed again. You could see the battle behind his eyes. Orders versus loyalty. Logic versus love.

And then his shoulders dropped.

“Two days,” he said hoarsely.

Relief hit you like a wave. You gave a quick nod, already reaching for your gear.

But Steve stepped closer, and his voice lowered — gentler, just for you.

“Keep safe out there… alright?” he said softly. “Seriously. And if you need backup, you radio. Doesn’t matter what time. Doesn’t matter what. I’ll come running.”

You paused, swallowing hard. The cold stung your eyes, but you didn’t blink.

“Understood, Captain.”

Steve looked at you for a long moment. Then, softer still — your name. Not your call sign.

“Come back.”

You stood at attention, gave a crisp salute.

“I will.”

Then you turned, and vanished into the snow.

────────────────────────

The snow had swallowed your tracks hours ago.

You ran anyway — boots crushing down through the icy crust of the forest floor, slipping sometimes, catching yourself hard against trees. Your lungs burned with each breath, white puffs turning sharp in the frozen air. You followed the slope of the mountain where the train had disappeared from sight — zig-zagging across ridges, checking every ravine, every indentation in the powder.

It was somewhere along a narrow ledge above a frozen stream that you saw it — the faint suggestion of disturbed snow, barely visible unless you were looking for it. A jagged slide mark. Something heavy had fallen.

Your heart slammed in your chest as you scrambled down the embankment, knees hitting ice, hands out to brace yourself. You moved quick, scanning, scanning—

Then you saw red.

You froze.

Blood in the snow — bright, brilliant, and far too much of it.

It streaked in uneven drags from the edge of a rock face down into the brush, and then—

Your breath caught.

Bucky.

He lay sprawled half on his side, unmoving. Snow clung to his lashes, his uniform soaked through. His left arm — what was left of it — hung at an unnatural angle, nearly torn from the shoulder. His mouth was parted like he’d tried to call out and never finished the sound. Blood had soaked the snow beneath him dark and wide.

You were moving before your brain caught up.

“Sarge?” you gasped, skidding to your knees in the snow beside him. “Sarge— Bucky—Bucky, come on—”

Your gloved fingers hovered over him for a split second, terrified to touch, terrified he’d be cold—

But his chest moved.

Faint. Shallow.

You pressed two fingers to the side of his neck, heart pounding as you felt it—

thud.

...thud.

Faint, but there.

Your voice broke with urgency. “Hang on, James. I’ve got you. You’re okay, you’re not gone—”

You dropped your pack, already pulling out your emergency wrap, trying to stem the bleeding. His skin was ice. His lips had gone pale blue. You leaned over him, shielding him from the wind, fumbling for your radio, trying to think past the adrenaline crashing like waves—

Crunch.

Snow behind you shifted.

You didn’t hesitate — one leg snapped out behind you hard, boot slamming into the weight approaching fast from your blind spot. You felt it connect — a grunt, a body collapsing in the snow.

You twisted, low and fast, grabbing your knife from your belt, coming up just in time to block the arm of a Hydra soldier lunging in. Steel clanged against steel. You shoved back with everything you had, pushing the fight away from Bucky’s broken form.

You ducked a strike, twisted the knife out of his hand, and drove your elbow into his face—

But then another set of boots crunched through the trees.

A second soldier tackled you from the side.

You hit the ground hard — snow exploding under you, your knife skidding out of reach. You twisted, managed to throw him off just long enough to scramble back toward Bucky—

Only for a third shadow to emerge from the trees. Then a fourth.

You swung out with your arm, striking one across the temple, disarming another. You were fast—a blur of movement, rage, and desperation—but even you had limits.

A rifle butt slammed into your ribs. You doubled over. Hands grabbed at you. You kicked out, catching one in the knee—

But something cracked against the side of your head.

A sharp, searing light burst across your vision— And then nothing.

Darkness took you.

────────────────────────

Hydra Facility — Undisclosed Location

Consciousness came back like drowning in slow motion.

First, the cold. It bit deep into your skin, sharp and metallic. Then, the ache — deep in your limbs, like your bones were filled with lead. And then the restraints.

Metal bands across your wrists and ankles. Another across your chest. Your head lolled to the side, sluggish from whatever they’d pumped into you — sedatives, maybe. Or worse. You blinked against the blinding fluorescence above, and the white ceiling bled into sterile silver walls.

Then you heard it.

A scream.

Your pulse lurched.

It wasn’t just pain. It was agony. The kind of sound that tore through a person’s throat, primal and ragged. The kind of scream that told you someone was being unmade.

Your neck turned slowly — every muscle protesting — and you saw him.

Bucky.

His body was arched against the restraints on a second slab just feet away from yours, eyes wide, back bowed, mouth open in a raw, broken scream.

There were wires threaded into his temples. Metal rods at his temples, at the base of his skull. Tubes and cables running into his chest. You couldn’t see what they were pumping into him — only that whatever it was, it was wrong.

“Bucky!” your voice cracked out of your throat, hoarse and half-broken. “James—!”

No response. He didn’t hear you. Or he couldn’t. His eyes didn’t see anything.

“Stop it!” you screamed at them instead. Your voice echoed against cold steel walls. “STOP—he’s not a test subject, you bastards, HE’S A PERSON—”

You thrashed, muscles seizing against the restraints, lungs burning, tears springing from your eyes without your permission.

Across the room, a man in a white coat calmly noted something on a clipboard.

A technician adjusted a dial.

Bucky screamed again — hoarse now. And then it broke off into choking. You watched his body convulse against the slab, chest heaving. His face twisted in confusion, pain, terror—like he didn’t know who he was anymore.

You didn’t care what they were doing to you. You didn’t care if your arms were bound or if the sedatives were still in your bloodstream.

You fought.

You fought like hell.

“Let him go!” you shouted, voice nearly gone now. “Let him go, you motherfuckers!”

Someone finally turned toward you — a man with cold eyes behind round spectacles. Calm. Curious.

Zola.

He stepped closer, glancing at your vitals on a nearby monitor. “Interesting,” he murmured in a thick accent, adjusting his gloves. “She is already… aware. So soon.”

“I will kill you,” you spat. “I swear to God—”

“Oh,” Zola said gently, “I think you will be quite useful to each other.”

And then the world tilted again.

Another needle. Another rush of cold in your veins. And the lights above you fractured into fragments.

The last thing you heard before the blackness swallowed you whole… was Bucky sobbing like a child.

────────────────────────

Time had stopped meaning anything.

It could’ve been days. Weeks. Months. You didn’t know.

All you knew was the burn.

Your veins felt like they were filled with acid — crawling fire under your skin, surging in waves that left your limbs trembling, your fingers twitching, your pulse racing like it was trying to outrun death itself. You’d stopped asking what they were putting in you. Every time they came near, you tensed out of instinct. But the sedation would hit before you could do anything.

They never said what it was.

You didn’t know it was the serum.

You only knew that afterward, your body would spasm uncontrollably. Your mind would short-circuit. You’d hear voices that weren’t there. Remember things that hadn’t happened. Feel your strength surge… and then vanish.

But worse than the pain… was him.

Bucky hadn’t spoken in days.

Maybe longer.

He lay still on the other slab, eyes open but unseeing, lips dry and cracked. His breathing was shallow. His face had gone hollow, sunken in the cheeks and under the eyes — like something was draining him from the inside out. They didn’t sedate him anymore. They didn’t need to. Whatever they'd done had left him... vacant.

His new arm — if you could even call it that — sat like a slab of cold iron where his left one had been. Crude stitches and blackened bruises ringed the place it had been fused to bone and muscle. You could see the puckered scars, raw and inflamed, where metal met skin. It looked like it hurt just to exist.

You doubted he could even lift it.

And yet… they’d called it a success.

Whatever that meant.

Now, finally — mercifully — the room had gone still. No needles. No voices over the intercom. No restraints being tightened. Just… stillness.

A few minutes. Maybe hours. You couldn’t tell anymore.

Your throat was dry. Your body, sore and exhausted. But you shifted — weakly — on the slab beside him, head tilting just enough to face him. The cold of the metal table seeped into your bones, but you ignored it.

“Bucky…” you whispered, voice rasping out like broken glass. “Sarge… can you hear me?”

He didn’t move. His eyes stared at the ceiling, unfocused.

You didn’t care.

You turned more toward him, trembling slightly as your fingers strained to reach across the few inches of space. You couldn’t touch him — the restraints didn’t let you — but you reached anyway, as if the effort alone could bridge the gap.

“I’m gonna get us out of here,” you murmured, voice cracking. “I swear. You’re not gonna die in here. I won’t let them take you like this.”

Silence.

You kept talking. You had to.

“You remember the fire escape outside our barracks? That stupid thing that barely held two people? You used to sneak up there and fall asleep. Said it was the only place quiet enough to think.”

Your throat tightened.

“You promised me, one day, you’d go back to Brooklyn. Fix that bike of yours. Open a little garage. Said I could come help out if I wanted to. You remember that?”

No response.

You felt your heart break, slow and jagged, like a fault line cracking open.

“Please, Bucky… just—just look at me. Just one sign. I need to know you’re still in there. I need you.”

Your voice dropped to a whisper. “You saved me. You always did. So let me do it now. Let me get us out. Just hang on. Please.”

You didn’t cry.

You didn’t have the water left in your body to spare. Just dry eyes, raw throat, and a heart held together by frayed sinew and willpower.

Your arm shook from the strain of keeping it extended.

And still, you kept reaching.

Even when he didn’t move.

Even when the silence stretched so long it pressed on your ribs like weight.

Even when your vision started to dim again from the drugs.

“I’m here, Sarge,” you breathed, barely audible now. “You’re not alone.”

The only sound was the soft hiss of the air vents above. The low electric hum from the lights. And the faint, hollow echo of two hearts still beating.

One stronger than the other.

But still alive.

────────────────────────

Hydra Conditioning Chambers – Months Later

You’d lost track of how many times they brought you in.

They stopped asking questions. Stopped pretending it was about compliance. This wasn’t interrogation anymore. It was reshaping.

It started with pain. Always pain. Electric currents through your skull, your spine, the base of your neck. Your nerves became war zones. Your teeth cracked from clenching. You screamed until your throat was raw, until the air itself tasted like metal and blood.

They were trying to make you forget. Rewire your instincts. Strip you of anything you and replace it with something Hydra. Something obedient.

Something empty.

It worked on Bucky.

At first, he resisted. He screamed. Fought. Raged.

But you saw the moment it broke him. You heard it — the silence that followed a round of electroshock so violent it left him convulsing, slack-jawed, frothing at the mouth. His eyes had gone glassy. His lips trembled, whispering things in Russian that made no sense to him — things they had fed into his brain on repeat. Words he didn’t understand but couldn’t stop.

“Зимний Солдат.”

Winter Soldier.

You heard the way they said it. Like it was sacred. Like it was done.

And you—

You were next.

But you wouldn’t break.

Not like him.

You bit down so hard during one session your molar cracked. They doubled the voltage. You passed out and woke up vomiting, body convulsing on the floor, your restraints slick with blood from split wrists. You couldn’t tell if the screaming in your head was yours or theirs.

Still, they failed.

Still, they couldn’t crack you.

You were fire in frostbite. And it drove them mad.

“Too resilient,” one of the German doctors muttered in frustration as he scribbled notes on a clipboard, his glasses slipping down his nose.

“Willful,” Zola corrected. “It’s in her nature. A Colonel's daughter. Born to take orders, yet somehow defies.”

“And yet she will yield,” said the Russian operative beside them, arms folded, watching you with reptilian calm. “We will make her. The лисица will hunt for us in time.”

Vixen, they called you.

The name they gave your file: sleek, lethal, deceptive. Born to track. Built to seduce and eliminate. A predator with a soft face.

You were their ghost soldier. Their shadow. Their whisper in the dark.

But only if they broke you first.

That session, they left you strapped to the chair, soaked in your own sweat and blood, nerves twitching like wires cut loose. Alone. Left to steep in the pain. Like Bucky had been.

You lifted your head an inch. Just enough to glance across the room.

He was there.

Sitting still.

Not restrained. Just… motionless. Eyes forward. Breathing shallow.

He didn’t even look at you anymore.

They had him.

And you were next.

Your throat burned. Your eyes felt too dry to cry. You weren’t sure your vocal cords worked. But still, out of nowhere — out of a deep, primitive place inside you that remembered being human — you sang.

Softly. Shakily. Croaky and cracked.

“I’ll be seeing you… in all the old familiar places…”

“…that this heart of mine embraces… all day through.”

It wasn’t a melody anymore. Just broken notes wrapped around splinters of memory.

Home. Whiskey laughs. Bucky smiling sideways when you called him “Sarge.” Steve saluting you for the first time. Dum Dum tipping his hat. Warm fires. Rations shared.

“In that small café… the park across the way…”

Your voice gave out halfway through.

But you kept whispering the words. Just for you. Just to remember.

Because even if they hollowed you out — rewired you, broke you — they couldn’t take that. Not all the way. Not yet.

You were still Fox. Somewhere under the blood and static and numbness.

You had to be.

Because if you weren’t… who would save him?

Years Later

They became Hydra’s ghosts. Whispers in the dark. Proof that monsters weren’t born — they were made.

When the war ended, and the world began to stitch itself back together, Hydra burrowed deeper. Quieter. Smarter. And in the vaults of ice and concrete beneath their hidden facilities, they began sculpting legends.

One of steel.

One of silk.

He was not subtle.

Where silence was needed, he brought screams.

Where compromise existed, he crushed it.

The Winter Soldier was Hydra’s enforcer, the blade they drove into the heart of history. He appeared across decades like a fracture — impossible to trace, impossible to stop. A phantom draped in shadow, eyes like glacier glass, grip like a bear trap.

He assassinated presidents. Ministers. Scientists. He sabotaged governments with the pull of a trigger. One shot — a bullet through a man’s skull, or through the spine of a nation’s future.

His missions were clean. Untraceable.

No witnesses. No evidence.

Only death.

Hydra rewired him with electroshock and Russian syllables. They hollowed out James Buchanan Barnes and replaced him with a weapon that did not question orders, did not feel guilt, did not hesitate. A ghost of a man with a new metal arm and no memory of mercy.

Cryogenic stasis kept him sharp, young, lethal. He lived in decades like they were days. A century’s worth of kill orders etched into his hands.

He never left survivors.

Unless Hydra told him to.

If the Soldier was Hydra’s hammer, the Vixen was their scalpel.

She bled behind enemy lines in silence, slipping through borders and barricades like a breath. She did not wear fear on her face. She did not leave blood in her wake — only secrets gutted open and missions left in ruin.

They called her лисица, the vixen, because she was cunning. Patient. Uncatchable. A whisper with teeth.

But it wasn’t always about killing.

She was Hydra’s infiltrator, a master of mimicry and seduction, of dismantling men without lifting a weapon. Where the Soldier brought force, she brought erosion — crumbling fortresses from within.

And to Hydra, she was a triumph of psychological warfare — what the Red Room would later attempt to replicate in their Widows. But she came first. She was the original phantom siren.

They used her face. Her softness. Her voice — when she remembered to use it — like a lullaby over a knife's edge. Where the Soldier was brute force, the Vixen was infiltration. Persuasion. Seduction when required, annihilation when ordered.

Her body was honed to perfection. Her mind, conditioned for silence and obedience — and yet, it never bent as cleanly as they wanted.

Not completely.

At first, it was small things.

Moments of hesitation. A flicker of something behind her eyes. The way her hands trembled after some kills — not with fear, but memory. Recognition.

She began humming to herself between assignments. Little songs from another life. She’d sit still in her stasis chamber before freezing, humming fragments of a tune they never taught her.

“We'll meet again, don't know how, don't know when…”

There were reports she disobeyed a kill order once. Let a target live because he had no evil in his eyes. They punished her for it. Re-conditioned her. Electroshock, isolation, more injections — but the slip had happened, and Hydra never trusted her fully again.

They realized she wasn’t like him.

The Soldier could be overwritten.

The Vixen resisted.

Not in screams or defiance. But in subtle, terrifying cracks.

Hydra scientists began to fear her — not for her violence, but her unpredictability. Her lingering humanity. That sliver of soul they couldn’t seem to carve out.

So they adjusted her protocol.

Where the Winter Soldier was deployed like a machine, again and again, the Vixen was locked away.

Preserved in cryo between missions. Thawed only when absolutely necessary. Only when no one else could do the job.

Only when they were desperate enough to risk the memories bleeding through.

They didn’t trust the leash they’d put on her. They only trusted the chain they wrapped around her throat.

And the serum? The serum wasn’t meant for kindness. It didn’t amplify goodness or nobility.

It magnified potential.

And under Hydra’s hands, that meant war.

The Winter Soldier's muscles knit themselves tighter. Bone density quadrupled. His reflexes reached inhuman speeds. Pain dulled. Healing accelerated. A shot to the chest became a stumble. A shattered femur became a limp for a few hours.

He didn’t stop.

He couldn’t stop.

The serum made sure of that.

And when paired with the metal arm — the marvel of Soviet-German engineering — the Winter Soldier became a force no one could match. Stronger than ten men. Faster than bullets. Unbreakable.

A walking extinction event.

He wasn’t meant to survive.

He was meant to erase.

The Vixen, however… she changed differently.

Hydra never expected the serum to work the same way. She was smaller. Lighter. Delicate in the ways he was brutal. But she was no less a weapon — just… sharper. More precise.

The serum didn’t bulk her up. It refined her.

Her muscles compacted into long, lean coils of strength. She moved like liquid shadow. Fast enough to vanish between blinks. Quiet enough that her footsteps could barely be heard on glass.

But it was her senses that changed the most.

Hydra didn’t know what to make of it at first — the way she would flinch at footsteps down the hall before they ever echoed. She could hear things miles away — the tick of rifle safety on a distant rooftop, the soft breath of a man in a hidden hallway. She could hear heartbeats. Lies. The subtle shift in someone's pulse when they spoke told her more than any interrogation.

They tested her. Over and over.

She could feel sweat in the air.

Taste adrenaline on a man’s breath.

Smelled metal, blood, gunpowder — emotions. Fear had a scent. Anger tasted like copper.

Her eyes could track the fall of a snowflake mid-battle. Her balance was inhuman. Her touch, so precise she could disarm a man without waking him.

Hydra called it a miracle. Zola called it evolution.

She was a new breed of operative — not just fast and strong, but impossibly aware. And that terrified them.

Because if she chose to disobey, to turn on them…

Even the Winter Soldier could not stop her.

They never told her she could overpower him.

They couldn’t risk it.

So instead, they bound her.

Psychologically. Physically. Systematically.

They paired her to the Soldier — not as an equal. As a subordinate. A tool under his control.

Her handler.

Her shadow.

Her leash.

When she failed a mission, when she hesitated, when she lingered too long near a song or a memory — he was the one they sent.

No guards. No scientists.

Just the Winter Soldier.

He’d enter the chamber where she sat — barefoot, arms folded over her knees, breath slow. She never ran. She never fought. Not unless she wanted it to be worse.

And he would carry out the punishment.

His face never changed.

His hands never trembled.

His eyes never closed.

Sometimes it was his fists.

Sometimes it was the silence between them — worse than any bruise.

They trained her to submit to him on instinct. A single word in Russian, a glance, a subtle shift of his body — she would obey.

But it wasn’t fear.

It was conditioning.

They had threaded her loyalty into his silhouette. Turned the man who once bled beside her into a god she knelt for.

The only one who could touch her.

The only one she responded to.

────────────────────────

Hydra’s underground compound groaned with the mechanical cold of concrete and fluorescent hum. Sterile, sharp. The air reeked of antiseptic and gun oil — a scent soaked into every slab of metal, every breath pulled through narrow lungs.

They’d returned just an hour ago from an operation in Prague.

The Soldier had gone first, dragged down the corridor by two guards, silent and compliant. They always processed him first — quick, efficient. He was easy. Slumped shoulders. Dull gaze. Programmed silence. The memory wipe rarely took more than ten minutes anymore.

But she had lingered.

Stripped of her weapons. Her boots left sticky with blood. Hands twitching at her sides like she didn’t trust they were done. Her pupils hadn’t shrunk. Her breathing hadn’t calmed. She stared at the floor like it was moving beneath her.

And when they reached for her—

When gloved hands touched her arm—

She snapped.

No scream. No warning.

The first man’s throat tore open before the others knew her fingers had moved. His blood sprayed up her face — red mist over pale skin — and she didn’t stop to see him fall. She pivoted. Fast. Precise.

A whirlwind of fists and sharp bone and snarled breath. The second scientist’s head slammed into the wall with a crack, spine folded in an unnatural twist as he slumped.

Then the alarms began.

Boots thudded down the hall. Gunfire stuttered from two directions — panicked, wild — and only some of it came from her. The rest came from soldiers firing before they aimed, hands shaking, watching Hydra’s most elegant weapon unspool into a beast.

It was like she could hear the triggers before they clicked.

Bang. Duck. Slide. Elbow to temple. Gun lifted. Two shots — center mass. Next.

She didn’t pause.

Not until there was no one left moving in the corridor but her.

Fifteen seconds of silence.

The floor gleamed with blood.

She stood in the middle of it all, chest heaving, smeared head to toe in scarlet. Her jaw twitched. Her eyes — still dilated — flicked up, wide, unblinking. Animal stillness. No longer in a mission. No longer in control.

Something had broken. Fully. Utterly.

In the surveillance room, a handler shouted.

“Отправьте солдата. Положите Виксен. Сделайте это сейчас—”

(Send in the Soldier to put the Vixen down. Do it NOW—)

Metal boots struck the floor.

He came with no hesitation.

The Soldier entered the corridor through the main blast doors, smoke curling from the edges of spent gun barrels. His face was blank. Cold. His metal arm hissed as it flexed, fingers twitching from a reset.

He stopped when he saw her.

Standing there like a revenant. Covered in blood, chin lifted, hair matted and damp. A raw tremble in her shoulders. Eyes glowing with something ancient, something nameless.

She didn't kneel. She didn't bow.

She just watched him.

The room seemed to shrink. Lights buzzed above them like flies. The blood beneath their boots had not yet dried.

His weight shifted. Right foot forward. Arm lowering slightly — coiled, ready.

Their eyes locked.

Like wolves before the first bite. No orders. No speech. No false names. Just… waiting. A battle written in stare alone.

Then he moved.

And so did she.

He lunged — fast, brutal. A fist like steel screaming toward her temple.

She ducked, slid beneath it, spun her heel into his ribs. He grunted, staggered — not from pain, but from surprise. She was faster. Not more powerful — not quite — but she was sharper. Tighter.

They wove through each other like old ghosts dancing.

His hand gripped her wrist mid-blow, twisted. She hissed, kicked at his shin. He blocked, slammed her into the wall. Her breath shot out. His arm pressed at her throat — but she rolled, broke free, slammed her forehead into his chin.

Crack.

He blinked, dazed for half a second.

She struck again.

Hard. Violent. Chest to chest, elbow to his jaw, knee toward his side — he blocked, shoved her back. They breathed in unison, rapid and harsh. His hair clung to his forehead. Her lip bled from the inside out.

Still, no words.

Just eye contact — burning. Challenging. Grieving.

The stalemate lasted three heartbeats.

Then the blast doors behind him hissed open again — dozens of Hydra agents storming the corridor with tranquilizers, guns, electric rods. The spell broke.

He made the decision.

He lunged — again — but this time not to strike.

Her back hit the floor hard, her limbs twisted beneath her, wrists already bruising. He was on top of her, pinning her down with the weight of a machine, his metal hand locked around her throat, thumb pressed against the pulse of her artery.

Her chest heaved, sharp and slow, like breath was foreign now. Like she didn’t care if she took it.

He should’ve done it already.

Should’ve squeezed harder. Should’ve watched her eyes roll back and her body fall limp like the countless others he’d ended. His expression was carved from granite — unreadable. His face spattered with blood that wasn’t his. But inside, something shook.

His fingers trembled.

It was the first warning.

She didn’t resist anymore. No kicks. No sharp elbows or desperate knees. No flash of canines, no snap of a snarl.

Just eyes.

Looking straight into his.

Open. Unblinking. Empty.

As if she wanted this.

As if the idea of dying — under his hands — was better than returning to the dark. To the chair. To the ice. To the silence.

That was the second warning.

A part of him flinched. Something far beneath the code, beneath the frostbite of his brain, beneath the echo of the Winter Soldier. Something warm. Ancient. Like a bone-deep memory of summer.

He tightened his grip.

He really did.

Muscles flexed. Metal joints locked. His jaw clenched so tightly his teeth ached.

Her skin was warm under his hand. Her pulse soft — waiting.

And she just kept staring.

Her pupils enormous. Dark. Not afraid. Not submissive. Just… ready.

A flicker of her lashes. A twitch in her lip.

And that was when he realized — she didn’t want to fight him anymore.

She didn’t believe he could choose not to kill her.

And she might’ve been right.

Because how many times had his handlers commanded him to hurt her? Punish her? And he had.

With precision. With obedience. With terrifying force.

They’d made him the hand that carved pain into her again and again. Bones broken. Breath taken. Blood spilled — by him.

And yet… she always came back.

Returned to her feet. Returned to him.

The punishments never took her away permanently.

She was still his. Not in name, not in language. But in the way gravity belongs to the planet. She was the only thing he’d ever hurt that didn’t vanish.

And now — he was supposed to end her.

To kill her.

And the Soldier — the one they’d broken, rebuilt, erased a thousand times — felt something crack.

His chest stuttered.

His other hand gripped her forearm like he was trying to tether her to the ground, to him, to something real. His breath began to shake — fast, shallow. His vision swam. He could see nothing but her eyes now. No blood. No ceiling. No walls.

Only her.

Her eyes were the only thing in the world he never forgot.

His fingers began to slip.

His breath rasped in his throat, caught between fury and anguish, and something deeper — something scarier.

His whole body trembled now. His forearm bulged with the strain of holding back. And then — like something finally snapped — he let out a guttural, choked yell, half agony, half animal.

He let go.

His hand released her throat.

He struck the concrete beside her head — hard — the ground splintering with the force, a web of cracks blooming under his fist. The shockwave trembled through her ribs. Dust curled into the air. His breathing was ragged, hoarse, chest rising and falling like a man who’d just outrun death and failed.

He didn’t look away from her.

He leaned down — slow, deliberate — and pressed his forehead to hers.

Not soft. Not tender. But grounded. Desperate.

Like he was anchoring himself to the only thing that still existed in his mind.

His forehead was burning.

Hers was cold.

They stayed like that — a tableau of blood and breath and failure. She didn’t move. He didn’t flinch.

Their foreheads touching.

Their eyes still locked.

Breathing each other in like that was the only way they remembered what it felt like to be human.

And for the first time in all the years Hydra made them into things — weapons, monsters, ghosts — the Soldier’s silence didn’t mean compliance.

It meant defiance.

He would not kill her.

Not her.

Never her.

Even if he didn’t know her name.

Even if he didn’t know his own.

He knew this.

Her eyes.

Her breath.

And her blood beneath his hands.

The blood hadn’t even dried when the reinforced doors slammed shut.

Alarms were finally silenced — but the aftermath echoed louder. Metallic clangs as bodies were dragged. Snapped bones. Severed limbs. The dead Hydra scientists were scattered across the floor like discarded parts. The walls dripped with their arrogance.

She lay on her back, still breathing.

Eyes wide, unblinking, staring at the splintered floor where his fist had broken through. One hand loosely curled at her ribs. The other slick with blood — hers, theirs, it didn’t matter.

He hadn’t killed her.

And that, to the watching Hydra handlers, was the most terrifying detail of all.

They didn’t ask questions.

They just knew she had broken. Completely.

She had killed without permission. Reacted without instruction. Moved through a room of trained guards and armed scientists like they were made of glass.

No trigger words had stopped her.

No handler had calmed her.

Not even him.

Only exhaustion had slowed her.

Only his mercy had spared her.

And that — that was unforgivable.

When they came to sedate her, he was already there. Standing over her like a specter, silent and immovable. The guards hesitated. The doctors murmured. Not a single one would meet his eyes.

His hands remained at his sides, but his presence was a warning.

Don’t hurt her. Don’t kill her.

They could see it in the way his jaw locked, in the way his body coiled like a tripwire. His programming demanded obedience — but something deeper, older, more human, was watching them with predatory stillness.

They kept her sedated through every moment. Through the wipe that never took properly. Through the muttered arguments in clipped Russian and panicked German about what to do with her. Through the decision that the risk was no longer worth the reward.

She wasn’t the Winter Soldier.

She couldn’t be tamed by words and pain.

She was something else. Something worse.

And he watched it all.

Not understanding why his chest hurt.

Not understanding why he remembered her face when everything else turned to static.

When they lowered her into the cryogenic pod, he followed. Shadowed them down the sterile hall without orders. The guards gave him distance — he didn’t look at them, didn’t need to. His eyes were fixed only on her.

She didn’t stir.

The inside of the chamber was lined with reinforced polymer. Her restraints were reinforced. But her expression was blank. Breathing slow. Completely still.

He stood just beyond the edge of the fog as the lid began to lower.

No commands came. He didn’t need any.

He simply stared.

As if some part of him knew that she was the only thing that ever made him hesitate.

The only thing that ever looked back at him — even when he hurt her — and saw him.

And now they were taking her away from him again.

Not killing her. But erasing her again.

He didn’t move until the hiss of the cryo chamber sealed shut. Didn’t speak. Didn’t blink. Just stood there as the glass frosted over, her face vanishing into the white.

That was the last time Hydra made use of the Vixen.

1989.

Until they could find a better way to control her —

A better cage.

A better chain.

They put her back to sleep.

And that’s where she stayed — frozen, ghostlike, remembered only by the monster who’d once been ordered to destroy her.

2024

Rain lashed the cracked windows of the safehouse, a forgotten building on the edge of eastern Europe that smelled like rust and damp wood. The small desk lamp on the table buzzed faintly, casting long shadows over the spread of maps, photos, and red string that looked like a conspiracy board torn straight from a nightmare.

In the center of it all stood Bucky Barnes, his metal fingers clenched tight around the edge of the table, knuckles pale against steel.

Sam Wilson stood a few feet behind him, arms crossed, surveying the chaos.

“You really think it’s her?” he asked, voice low and measured.

Bucky didn’t answer right away. His eyes were fixed on a blurred photo — a grainy, static-frozen capture from a destroyed security feed. A woman with a mask over her mouth and nose making her face obscured, walking away from a warehouse swallowed in fire. But her posture, the deliberate stillness of her movements — he knew it.

“I know it is,” he said finally, like a fact carved from stone.

Sam let out a quiet sigh, rubbing the back of his neck. “Buck, we’ve been chasing shadows for six weeks. People say this is a ghost story. Urban legend. Vengeance incarnate. You sure it’s not just... projection?”

“She’s alive,” Bucky said, without even looking up.

The words fell like weight onto the room, pulling the silence taut. Sam studied his friend’s profile — the faint lines of fatigue around his eyes, the way his mouth twitched with restraint, with desperation.

“You say that like you’ve seen her,” Sam said gently. “But that pod in Belarus was dead. Power was out for years. She came out confused, probably didn’t even know what year it was. You think she’s operating on logic?”

“No,” Bucky murmured. “She’s not.”

He thumbed through a series of photos on the table — each one more brutal than the last. A scientist dissected in Munich. A financier found hanging upside down in Prague. Every man in the stack had once had ties to Hydra. However minor, however indirect. And each death had been executed with surgical precision. Silent. Clean. Gone.

Sam stepped forward, pointing at a red pin on the map. “Bucharest hit. Three Hydra affiliates. No alarms, no signs of forced entry. Security feed glitched for thirty seconds.”

“She’s learning,” Bucky whispered. There was no pride in it — only awe. And dread.

“She’s not just surviving,” Sam said, his voice edged with something colder. “She’s hunting.”

Bucky didn’t flinch. He nodded slowly, eyes flicking across the network of red thread. The ghosts of his past. And hers.

Sam hesitated before asking, “What if she’s not just targeting Hydra? What if she’s coming for you too?”

That stopped Bucky cold.

“She has every reason to,” he said after a long moment, the words thick with regret. “I hurt her.”

Sam was quiet. He didn’t need to ask what he meant. The history between them — the conditioning, the missions, the punishments — Bucky had carried them out without mercy. Not because he wanted to, but because they’d made him.

Sam hesitated before asking, “Then why keep looking for her?” His voice was soft, careful.

But something in Bucky snapped at that — not loud or explosive, just sharp. A quiet fracture under pressure.

“Because I have to,” Bucky said, voice low but rough, his hands bracing hard against the table. “Because she’s been frozen for thirty goddamn years, Sam.”

Sam blinked, standing a little straighter.

“I’ve been out for five. Five years free, and that’s not even counting the Blip. Or all the time Hydra dragged me out and used me,” Bucky went on, the words starting to slip faster, heavier. “And during all of that, I was hurting her. Again and again.”

His jaw clenched as he stared down at the mess of papers, eyes tracing her blurry silhouette as if it were some ancient ghost trying to speak back.

“She was always stronger than me,” he said, quieter now, almost like it hurt to admit it. “Mentally. She fought them. She never broke easy.”

He looked at Sam then, eyes rimmed in something not quite anger but something old and burning — a weight that lived in his bones.

“I owe her this,” he said. “I owe her the truth. And if she wants to kill me for it, I’ll let her. But I’m not going to stop until I find her. Even if she wants me to let her go, I will.”

But the truth was carved into his face. He couldn’t. He never would again.

────────────────────────

You sat on the edge of the couch like you didn’t know how to exist in a space this quiet.

Your eyes traced the seams between the floorboards, your hands folded neatly in your lap, unmoving. You hadn’t spoken more than a sentence since Bucky brought you there.

Not when he offered you a glass of water, not when he showed you where the bathroom was, not even when he—hesitantly—told you that you could have his room, while he slept on the couch.

You just nodded.

One, clean nod. Always polite. Always precise.

But not the way you used to be. Not the way he remembered.

In the 40s, you had fire in your voice. You had sharp comebacks, a cheeky grin that curled higher when you got under his skin. You could outrun, outshoot, outthink most of the Howlies, and still managed to hum a tune while cleaning your rifle.

Now, you barely ate. You hadn’t said more than a clipped “fine” or “okay.” You hadn’t looked him in the eye since you stepped inside.

Bucky still didn’t even know how he’d convinced you to come with him as he watched you from the kitchen, leaning his forearms on the counter, gripping the edge like it was the only thing keeping him tethered. His metal hand creaked quietly against the granite.

“You want me to put something on?” he asked, his voice low, worn. “TV, music… white noise?”

You turned your head slightly, the barest flicker. Your lips parted, like you might speak, then closed again. You shook your head, slowly.

He sighed. Not in frustration. Just... helplessness.

“You used to yell at me for humming off-key,” he said gently, like maybe a memory would draw you closer to the surface. “Said I could scare off birds from miles away.”

No answer.

Just your stillness. Just your silence.

And that ache behind his ribs grew sharper.

He stared at you, at your hunched shoulders and distant eyes, and for the first time, truly wondered if this was how Steve had felt.

Always reaching. Always hoping. Trying to pull someone he cared about out of the fog. Trying to bring Bucky back from the brink, even when Bucky had forgotten who he was. Steve had never stopped. Not when everyone else had written him off as a weapon. Not even when he’d fought against him on a damn helicarrier.

Now here Bucky was—on the other side. And he finally understood just how exhausting, how heartbreaking it had been. Watching someone you knew still existed beneath the wreckage, and not knowing if you’d ever reach them again.

He wanted to say something else, but then your voice cracked the quiet—raw, broken, hesitant.

“I remember… my father’s voice. Not his face. Just… how he said my name.”

Bucky went still.

You didn’t look at him when you said it. Your head tilted slightly toward the window, where the last of the day’s light bled across your cheekbone like gold dust.

“I used to hum while I tracked,” you said. “To stay human.”

He didn’t speak. Didn’t dare move. He just listened.

“I think I forgot how to feel warm,” you murmured. “Even when I’m not in the ice anymore.”

Your fingers twitched once, like your body remembered the motion of a weapon, or maybe a tremor from a distant past. The moment was fragile, stretched thin.

Bucky’s throat tightened. God, he wanted to tell you everything—that you weren’t alone, that he would wait as long as it took.

But he knew better. You weren’t ready for comfort. Not from him. Maybe not from anyone.

────────────────────────

It was a quiet afternoon. The sun filtered through the half-drawn curtains in pale streaks, painting long bars of gold and dust across the wood floor of Bucky’s apartment. The television was on, low volume, something benign playing that neither of you were truly watching. A news segment passed with a fleeting image.

Your eyes tracked the screen, not really watching. But then a flash of red, white, and blue passed across it. A helmet. A shield.

Your voice was flat when you spoke, cutting through the silence between you and Bucky like a knife. “I remember seeing him on TV. Cap.”

Bucky didn’t respond right away. You could feel his hesitation more than you could see it. His body shifted from where he sat across from you—still, guarded. You finally turned your head toward him.

“Where is he?”

He ran a hand through his hair, the metal fingers brushing just behind his ear.

“He’s gone,” Bucky said eventually, voice quiet.

You blinked once. Slowly. Processing.

“Gone?”

Bucky sighed through his nose. “Steve went back… after everything. After we won.” He paused. “He went back in time. Lived out his life. Came back… older. Real old. He passed away earlier this year.”

You stared at him. Not blinking now.

“So he left you behind.”

The silence after your words was sharp. Bucky’s brow creased. “No,” he said quickly, too quickly. “He didn’t—he was just—”

“You mean he could’ve taken us both home,” you said, not cruel, just even. Hollow. “Could’ve brought us back. But instead we’re stuck here. In a world that doesn’t know us. Doesn't want us.”

Bucky shook his head. “It wasn’t like that.”

“He gave up.”

“He didn’t give up!” Bucky’s voice rose, sharp with something he hadn’t meant to let out. “He gave everything, you don’t—he did what he thought was right.”

You looked at him, head tilting slightly. That same detached focus, the way your eyes pinned him—not with malice, but with cold fact. You weren’t being emotional. You weren’t attacking. That was what made it worse.

“He was selfish.”

Bucky stood now. Tense. His jaw clenched, his fingers twitching by his sides.

“Don’t say that,” he muttered. “You don’t get to say that.”

You stood up too, slow, unhurried. “He left you. After everything you went through. After everything we went through.”

“Stop it.”

“He took peace for himself and left us with the ruins.”

“That’s not what happened—he thought I’d be okay—he trusted that I could—”

“That’s not trust. That’s abandonment.”

“Stop it!” Bucky snapped, voice rough, cracking, fists clenched so tight his knuckles—flesh and metal—strained. “You weren’t there. You didn’t see how broken he was. What he lost. He earned that life.”

You didn’t flinch. Just stared at him, eyes dim but focused. “And what about what we lost?”

Bucky started pacing, running a hand through his hair like he could scatter the frustration from his scalp. “That’s not fair.”

“No,” you said, tone still maddeningly flat. “What’s not fair is waking up seventy years after your last memory and realizing the only people you trusted are either dead, ghosts, or decided to stay in the past.”

You turned, already walking toward the hallway, not angry — just done with the conversation.

“Don’t walk away,” Bucky said sharply, stepping after you.

His hand reached out — not fast, not forceful — just to touch your arm. Something gentle.

You flinched before he even made contact. The shift in your body was instantaneous — reflexive. A dodge like a breath, like muscle memory. Your spine stiffened as your arm slipped from his grasp, your eyes suddenly sharp.

“Don’t touch me,” you snapped, voice cold and loud and carved out of something ancient.

Bucky froze. His hand still hovered in the air. He stared at you.

You weren’t looking at him anymore. You weren’t really even here. Your eyes had gone somewhere else, farther back. You were breathing too fast, too shallow. Your body stiff, locked down.

And that was when Bucky understood. Really understood.

It wasn’t about him.

It was about him.

The one with the metal arm who used to drag you through concrete floors when you disobeyed. Who'd wrap his hand around your throat when your eyes held too much rebellion. Who struck you, again and again, because someone ordered him to.

Even when Bucky had been free for years, the ghosts still lived in his hands.

And you… you still saw them.

His hand dropped. Guilt flooding every inch of his face.

“I didn’t mean to—” he tried, voice lower now, thick in his throat.

You didn’t answer. You just walked past him, through the narrow hallway, closing yourself into his room, he had given you, without a word.

Bucky didn’t move for a long time. He just stood there. One hand pressed flat over the other. Like he could keep himself from reaching again. Like he could pretend it hadn’t happened.

But the truth was branded now—burning beneath the surface of his skin.

He hadn’t earned your trust.

And maybe he never would.

────────────────────────

You didn’t want to go.

That was the first thing you made clear, arms crossed, jaw set, suspicious eyes watching Bucky like he might lead you off a cliff instead of down the D.C. Metro escalator. You hadn’t asked where he was taking you. He didn’t tell you, either. Just said, “It’s important.” You didn’t like the way that word made your chest tighten.

The museum was too bright.

Too open. Too filled with noise and breath and movement. Everything felt too fast and too slow at once. Your boots echoed on the polished floors, steps cautious and silent like instinct, like old habits that had never really died.

Bucky stayed near but didn’t try to touch you — not since that day. He led you quietly, nodding at the security guards like this was something he did often.

You hated how many people were looking. Even when they weren’t.

When you entered the exhibit, the air shifted. Cooler. Calmer. Reverent.

A bronze plaque on the wall read: Captain America and the Howling Commandos. Beneath it — sepia photographs. Names. Artifacts behind glass. There were curved helmets, worn boots, faded letters.

Bucky paused beside you.

“This was the first place I came after I got out,” he said, voice quiet, like it didn’t want to disturb the ghosts on the walls. “Didn’t know where else to go. Didn’t even know who I was, really. Just… remembered pieces. Faces.”

Your eyes traced the familiar ones. Dumb Dum Dugan, Gabe Jones, Montgomery Falsworth. Jim Morita. Happy grins and tilted hats and the smell of gunpowder you could almost still taste.

Then you saw it.

Your own memorial.

It was set apart, just slightly — not grandiose, but longer than the others. The image they’d chosen was one you didn’t remember being taken. You were young — about twenty two— perched on a wooden crate in fatigues rolled at the sleeves, head turned mid-laugh, hair slicked back but wind-loosened, fingers curled around a rifle too heavy for your frame. Your expression was too soft for war. Your eyes too alive.

You blinked at it.

Above the frame was your name, carved in brass. First Lieutenant, Tactical Reconnaissance. Grey Fox.

And beneath it, the words Presumed KIA, 1945. Missing in Action. Last seen on mission in the Austrian Alps.

You felt your throat tighten and couldn’t explain why.

“Why is mine longer than the others?” you asked, quietly, too still.

Bucky glanced over at you, then at the plaque. “Because you were a big deal.”

You gave him a look, skeptical.

He shrugged, stuffing his hands in his jacket pockets. “Only woman in the Howling Commandos. One of the first women to serve actively alongside combat troops. You were kind of… a symbol. They said your service helped inspire the Women’s Armed Services Integration Act in ‘48.”

You scoffed, faintly. “So they threw me on a wall.”

Bucky smiled, just barely. “They honored you. You meant something to people. Still do.”

You stepped closer to the glass. The uniform behind it was familiar. Yours. The same patches, same leather. There was even your knife — the one Howard Stark had gifted you before that last mission. The one you lost in the snow.

You didn’t remember losing it.

Didn’t remember dying.

Your voice was flat. “They thought I was dead.”

Bucky was quiet for a long moment.

“Yeah,” he said at last. “They did.”

You turned to him. “Did you? After Hydra.”

Bucky didn’t look away. “For a while.”

Something in you curled tighter, like a spring wound too far. “When did you remember?”

He shifted, brow furrowing. “Not right away. It was all… fragments. Flashes. And even when I saw your face, I didn’t know if it was real. Steve had to tell me. He said you’d come after me — that the day I fell off that train, you went looking.”

Your breath hitched.

“I don’t—” you started. “I don’t remember that.”

“That’s okay,” he said softly. “I don't either.”

You looked back at the photo — that too-young version of yourself, all spark and reckless pride, before Hydra carved you hollow. You felt something stir in your chest — not grief, not quite. More like the shape of grief, wrapped around something else. Something you didn’t have words for.

It should’ve been easy to keep walking.

To follow the curved path of the exhibit, to drift past the tributes like a ghost among glass and old light. But your steps faltered when your eyes caught it — the photo.

It wasn’t a combat shot. Not a press photo or wartime propaganda. It was a quiet moment. Just the two of you. The Colonel stood in uniform, hat tucked under one arm, and you beside him, barely twenty. The background looked like the docks, water glittering, your dress hem catching the wind like a flag. He had one hand on your shoulder, firm but gentle. You were laughing — head tipped toward him, eyes squinting in sunlight, mouth open in mid-word.

Your stomach turned.

You hadn’t seen his face in decades. Not like this.

People always assumed a man like that — a military father, a colonel — would be stern. Emotionless. Cold. But he wasn’t. He was exacting, yes. Fierce when it came to protocol and discipline. But when it was just you and him? He was warmth and humor and the smell of clean shaving soap. The only one who called you by your full name and somehow made it sound like affection.

He was your favorite person in the world.

You reached out before you realized what you were doing — fingertips hovering above the glass, as though you could touch the edge of the photograph and fall through it.

Beside the picture was a framed newspaper clipping. A headline in bold type:

“Decorated Colonel Honors Missing Daughter in Public Address”

— November 3rd, 1945

Your throat clenched.

You hesitated. Then stepped back.

“I can’t,” you said quietly. “I don’t want to read it.”

Bucky glanced at you, then down at the plaque. “Want me to?”

You nodded once.

But He stepped closer, eyes scanning the plaque. His voice was low, a little rough.

“To say that I lost a soldier would be true. But to say I lost just a soldier would be a terrible injustice.”

“My daughter — the one you knew as ‘Grey Fox’ — was many things. A tactician, a tracker, a fighter more ruthless than most men I’ve commanded. She earned her place in the Howling Commandos not because of her name, or mine, but because she earned it. Day after day. Battle after battle. She was sharper than steel, braver than men twice her age, and she never ran from anything — not even fear itself.“

“She was stubborn from the start — wouldn’t follow the rules if she thought they were wrong, wouldn’t back down from any fight worth having. And yet she was kind. She was soft in the way only the strongest people are. She made people better just by standing beside them.”

“They’ll tell you she was tactical, skilled, a leader. All of that is true. But I want people to remember who she was when the orders were done. She liked swing music. Had too many pairs of shoes. And twice as many dresses. Spoke her mind without apology and carried a silver locket with her mother’s photo, that she thought no one ever noticed.”

You felt it then — the sting behind your eyes. The tears building, slow and traitorous. You turned your head away, lifting your hand as if the simple motion could shield you from what the words were doing to you. But they kept coming.

“And though the world may mark her as lost — let me be clear. My daughter is not forgotten. She lives in every fire lit in the dark, every brave voice in the silence, every young girl who believes she can stand in a place no one thought she should.”

“She gave everything to her country. And I don’t know how to say goodbye to her. I don’t know how to let go of my little girl—”

Then his voice cut off.

You waited. One breath. Two.

And when the silence stretched too long, you asked quietly, “Why’d you stop?”

Bucky didn’t look at you. He kept his eyes on the plaque, jaw locked. “That’s where it ends,” he said softly. “The article says he couldn’t finish the speech. He—” Bucky hesitated. “He walked off the podium, too choked up.”

You turned toward him slowly, scoffing.

“No,” you murmured, voice thick. “The Colonel never cried.”

It came out too genuine to be anything but memory. Something certain. Like gravity.

You shook your head, pressing your hand to your eyes as the tears spilled freely now, silent and hot, streaking down your cheeks without restraint. There was no sobbing. No sound at all. Just that kind of grief that closed in around the chest, so dense it felt like the world had narrowed to a pinhole.

“Thank you,” you said quietly, voice breaking on the edges. “For reading it. For bringing me here.”

Bucky stood beside you, hands flexing at his sides. He didn’t reach out. Couldn’t.

Not because he didn’t want to — but because he knew you wouldn’t let him.

And maybe, in that moment, standing in front of a monument to a life you couldn’t remember and a love you’d buried somewhere deep — that was enough.

────────────────────────

You sat at the window again, the late morning sun slicing through the thin curtains like a scalpel. You didn’t feel it. Couldn’t, really. You were aware of the light, the way it bled over your hands resting on your knees—but it didn’t feel warm. Just… distant. Like everything else.

Bucky was in the kitchen, fumbling with something—probably another attempt to make coffee the way you liked. You didn’t tell him he never got it right. He tried too hard. He always had.

The silence between you two was the loudest part of this place. Even when he tried talking, even when he looked at you like you were a wound he couldn’t cauterize. It made your skin itch.

He thought he owed you. You knew it. That was what this was. This apartment, this half-life, these careful touches and softer tones—this was guilt. This was his penance.

You didn't know who you were anymore, not really. The world had moved on. Your war was over but still echoing in your blood. Bucky was the only familiar thing left, and even he felt warped—like a shadow of something you couldn’t remember clearly. You used to laugh with him. Tease him. Steal his rations and call him pretty boy. Now… you couldn't even meet his eyes for longer than a breath.

You weren’t stupid. You knew trauma bonding. You knew conditioning. You knew how Hydra twisted wires until they sparked like emotion, cracked whips until loyalty sounded like love. What the Vixen and the Winter Soldier had wasn’t a bond. It was survival.

This thing between you and Bucky—whatever it was, whatever it had once been—it was born in the dark, bred in pain, sharpened by orders and obedience. Hydra’s hands were all over it. You felt it every time he looked at you too long. Every time he brushed your arm and you flinched.

This wasn’t real. It couldn’t be. And he was too deep in his guilt to see it.

He was helping you because he had to. Because he’d hurt you. Because he'd bruised you in those white walls and watched handlers drag you by your hair. And this… this domesticity—it was the last bullet in his gun, a way to sleep at night.

So you stayed quiet. You stayed small. You tried not to think about the way he used to make you laugh just by cocking an eyebrow. You tried not to remember how you’d watch his reflection in puddles during missions, not because you were tracking him, but because you felt safer when you knew where he was.

That was all conditioning. It had to be.

It had to be.

────────────────────────

She sat at the window again. She always sat at the window.

Bucky stood in the kitchen, palms braced against the counter. The coffee machine groaned, spitting out something bitter. He didn’t look at it. He couldn’t stop looking at her.

Her profile was the same. Sharp. Still. But her shoulders—he remembered them being straighter. Her spine taller. Now they curled inward, like she was trying to fold herself into nothing. And it gutted him.

She hadn’t smiled in weeks. Not the way she used to. Not with that smart-ass grin that used to crinkle her nose and make the whole damn camp warmer. Back in the barracks, before the frost, she used to razz him about his hair. Called him “Sargeant Shampoo” once. He’d laughed so hard he dropped his tray.

That was real. It was. He knew it in his bones.

But she didn’t believe it. She thought he was helping her out of guilt. That their bond was a Hydra artifact. And Bucky could barely look at her without wanting to scream.

Because if that wasn’t real—if her laugh wasn’t real, if her hand in his wasn’t real, if the way she used to stay up for him when he came back from solo missions wasn’t real—then nothing was. Then he wasn’t real. Then everything he'd clung to in that white noise void of the Winter Soldier—every memory, every flicker of light—was a lie.

And goddammit, she wasn’t a lie.

She was the reason he didn’t put a bullet in his own head when the voices got too loud. She was the reason he hesitated in ‘89. The only one who ever fought him like an equal, and the only one who made him feel like he was more than just a loaded weapon.

She thought this was guilt.

Bucky had been guilty a long time. That was nothing new. He could live with guilt. What he couldn’t live with was this—this chasm between them, this damn wall she kept her heart behind. Like he was just another ghost from the operating table.

He closed the distance between them slowly, cautiously. She didn’t look up. Just stared at the sky, as if she was waiting for the war to start again.

“I know what you think this is,” he said finally, voice low. “You think I brought you here because I feel sorry. Because I’m trying to make up for what I did.”

She didn’t say anything.

“But that’s not why I’m here,” he continued. “I remember you. Not just in Hydra. Before. You—”

His voice cracked.

“You used to make fun of how I tied my boots. You once saved our whole squad by yourself. You—You were kind. Brave. And we were real.”

That made her flinch. He saw it in the way her fingers curled.

“I never hurt you because I wanted to,” he said. “I hurt you because I wasn’t me.”

She looked at him then. Her eyes were glassy, but not soft.

“And what if I’m not me?” she asked.

Bucky didn’t have an answer.

He watched her rise, walk toward the bathroom, close the door without a word. He could hear the faucet turn on, even though she never washed her face until after dark. He stared at that closed door for a long time.

And somewhere in his chest, something cracked.

────────────────────────

“This isn’t working,” you said, voice low, raw.

You stood in the middle of the living room, your arms wrapped around yourself as if you were trying to hold your own ribs in place. The quiet stretched, thick and suffocating, like it had weight. Bucky stood across from you, like always—close, but never quite close enough to make it feel real again.

He blinked, as if trying to make sense of the words. As if you’d just spoken in a language he forgot how to understand.

“What do you mean?” he asked, but he already knew.

You didn’t look up at him when you said, “I don’t think we should be around each other anymore.”

The silence after that was devastating. You didn’t mean for it to sound like a kill shot, but it landed that way anyway. He staggered where he stood, barely, but you saw it. Like your words had stabbed him clean through and now he had to pretend it didn’t hurt.

His breath hitched. His jaw clenched. “We can still try,” he said, desperate, his voice cracking like splintered ice. “We’ve come this far. Don’t walk away now. Please.”

Your heart fractured. You wanted so badly to feel what he felt, to be what he needed, to believe this could still be something salvageable. But every moment you were around him, it was like being underwater—your body drowning in silence, your mind screaming against the weight of ghosts.

“I don’t know how to be around you without... without being afraid,” you whispered. “Of myself. Of what this is. Of what it means.”

“You’re not afraid of me,” Bucky said quickly, eyes wide with something that looked like grief. “You never were.”

“I’m not afraid of you,” you corrected softly. “I’m afraid with you. I don’t know how to stop waiting for the other shoe to drop. I keep waiting for the white walls to come back. For someone to scream an order. For the part of me that was me to vanish again.”

His mouth opened, but no words came.

You looked defeated. Not angry. Not cruel. Just tired—of yourself, of this world, of the weight you both carried. The kind of tired that lives in the bones.

Bucky took one small step forward. Then another.

“Just stay,” he begged, broken. “I’ll be better. I’ll—”

You shook your head. “It’s not you.”

He stopped.

“It’s what’s left of me.”

And then—because you didn’t want to leave him without at least one last thing—you opened your arms.

You let him touch you.

His hands trembled as they slipped around you, pulling you in like you were something sacred, something breakable. Your arms went around his neck, slow, unsure. His chin rested against your temple. Your heart raced and calmed at the same time, a contradiction of longing and fear.

You stayed like that longer than you should have. And when you finally moved to pull away, his hands reflexively tightened around your back. You stilled at the pressure—not rough, not painful, just… desperate.

A sad, shuddering sigh left your lips as you rested your forehead against his collarbone. You let him hold you a little longer.

Then, when you pulled away enough to meet his eyes, you looked at him like you were looking through time. As if you saw the boy from the barracks, not the broken man standing before you.

“I’m sorry,” you said, “that I couldn’t save you.”

Bucky’s eyes welled with tears, his throat working around something he couldn’t speak.

“I promised I would,” you continued, barely above a whisper. “Back when they took us. I swore I’d get us both out. And I didn’t.”

His hands loosened. Just slightly.

“I’m also sorry,” you said, voice trembling now, “that I don’t know how to be okay.”

You leaned in, pressing a single kiss to his cheek—a soft, lingering goodbye that clung to him like a fingerprint burned in time.

When you stepped back, his arms dropped, slowly, as if his body refused to let you go even though his mind knew you were already gone.

And Bucky—he didn’t cry. He just stood there.

Frozen.

Watching you walk toward the door like he’d watched so many things slip through his fingers. Like he had all the strength in the world but none of it could stop the fact that this time, he was losing you not to Hydra, not to death—but to your own will. And there was nothing he could do to stop it.

You left him standing in the center of that apartment. Alone. Still reaching.

Still waiting.

Still loving you like it might make a difference.

Welp, if you've actually reached the end and want to read something that will make you feel better, I recommend, Come Home To Me

also:

#bucky barnes #bucky barnes x reader #bucky x reader #bucky x you #bucky barnes fanfiction #bucky barnes fluff #james buchanan barnes #james bucky buchanan barnes

1K notes · View notes

brawberryz · 4 months ago

Text

The fallen warrior

Batfam Yan! × Negleted! Reader

《Platonic》

Note: English is not my first language, sorry if there is any translation error / M.list

Tw: yandere behavior, manipulation, murder, torture, isolation, child neglect, child abandonment, mommy/daddy issues, use of katanas/knives, gore, eating disorders, hallucinations, corruption, dark themes, religious themes

The devil is real

He's not a little red guy with a tail and horns

He may be beautiful

Because he was a fallen angel, and God's favorite

A fallen angel destined to burn in the flames for his actions

You kept looking at your food without touching it, it was another lonely night in the mansion

It was the same old routine

Getting up

Training

Going on a mission

And 'eating'

Even though that food entered your mouth years ago, every time a bite entered your mouth you ended up throwing up

Any normal parent would have started to worry because their child wasn't eating

But you knew your family didn't care, nothing mattered

You got up from the table and threw your food on Titus' plate

You went back up to your room, the only noise in the mansion was the thuds of your footsteps on the old floors of the mansion

You opened your room it looked as dirty and messy as ever, it was far away from all the other rooms

You walked in and closed the door as you took off your clothes and left them lying somewhere in the room

Your bathroom felt cold and lifeless, some shampoo bottles lying around and other things you didn't even remember you had

The cold drops from the shower fell down your scarred body, your body shuddered when the soap touched those unhealed scars

Your body was full of them, in a way you felt disgusting about it

Some were from battles lost or won, others you caused yourself but they all had a story to tell

You leaned against the shower wall as the water fell on you

You felt tired

Tired of this life

Tired of having to pretend that you weren't affected by what others said about you

You could still remember those moments, you just stayed quiet and bowed your head

You were just a dog, a pet

A pet that would do anything for a prize

And that prize was their attention

Sometimes you thought about retiring from everything, being a person "normal" but you knew it was impossible

The only thing you knew how to do was hurt others, you were raised to be a weapon

A monster

They took an innocent child and turned him into a weapon to fulfill the whims of others

A bird whose wings were broken so that it could never fly

A bird in which it sees other birds flying from its cage

A bird that also wishes to be free

A bird that wants to be free

When a child grows up without love in their family

Being ignored and hurt all the time, most people believe that they will end up being aggressive people

Full of hate and resentment

And although it is a valid response, it is not always the case

They grow up feeling ashamed

Ashamed of themselves

Ashamed of not being able to be themselves, ashamed of not being able to show their emotions

Ashamed because they believe they are not enough

They believe that love must be earned

They believe that because their parents never gave them the affection they needed meant that they were never enough

They are afraid of not being loved

Of making a mistake and being ignored again

Of being hurt again

Ending up distancing themselves from everyone, being ashamed of being helped

Ashamed of asking for help

Broken people who unintentionally end up breaking others

And they also end up breaking themselves more

Your body moved faster than normal, this was supposed to be an easy mission

That's what your father told you, you just had to stop another stupid plan from your riddler and everything would be fine

But it wasn't, his riddles were confusing but you were smart and it was easy to solve them

But then you realized that it was all a trap, he had snuck the bomb somewhere else

It was all a trap, a very clever trap

You had little time but I wasn't going to let innocent people die

You arrived faster than you thought, you broke one of the building's windows to enter the place

You went through the entire abandoned place until you heard the crying and calls for help from some people

You entered the large room and found people inside a transparent box

Next to them was the bomb connected to a cable, you had to be fast if you didn't want people and this whole place to end up destroyed

You tried to deactivate the bomb but it was in In vain, you even tried to destroy them but it was in vain

So you decided to free the people, you took all those scared people to a fire escape and told them to get down as fast as possible

I wasn't going to let everyone get crushed

You sent a call to the batcave saying you needed help

You weren't going to be able to get all the people near this building to leave

In a few minutes it was going to be destroyed by the bomb and you needed help

It was the first time you asked someone in the family for help, you always did it alone

You never asked anyone for help, you thought you were weak

Your mother came from a dangerous family, full of sorcerers and powerful assassins

And your father was literally batman

You couldn't be weak, you couldn't allow yourself to ask for help

But now you really needed it

You were strong

But sometimes even the strongest needed help

When you were sending the signal you heard a cry, this one didn't sound like the others

It seemed more childish and scared

You walked through all the halls following the sound

It was supposed that only these people would be here but you were wrong

In a small room there was a little girl crying while she was lying on the floor

You approached her trying to calm her down, saying that everything would be okay

She clung to your suit scared that something would happen

"Calm down little girl, I'll get you out of-"

And then you heard it, the sound of the bomb

The clock had stopped meaning that the bomb was going to explode right now

This wasn't supposed to happen, there was still too much time before the bomb was detonated

"Shit!"

All you could remember was the sound of the bomb exploding and the building shaking, the girl cried louder and you tried to protect her with your own body

The building ended up falling leaving a mess all over the street, broken cars and you could hear the ambulances and firefighters approaching the area

You felt your body weak, you thought you had received all the damage

Since you could swear that almost all the games in your body were broken

"Hey little girl, are you okay-"

You couldn't believe what you saw, your arms and suit were covered in blood

The lifeless body of the girl, that scared look was still in her eyes

She was dead

No, no, NO!

This isn't supposed to happen, heroes are supposed to save everyone

And now because of you someone as innocent as a child is dead

Your body couldn't move, you could only cradle the lifeless body of the little girl

Your mother was right

A monster will never stop being a monster even if it acts nice

Your mother's soft hands cleaned your blood covered body

"Mommy is so proud of you honey, you did perfect"

You could only watch as the water in the bath turned red as the blood left your body

But you could still feel the blood

It was like it was stuck to your skin, no matter how many times you tried to clean it off that blood never went away

Your mother's hands cradled your face

You accepted the affection she gave you, it was rare that she acted so kind to you

There were times where she acted like you were the best thing that ever happened to her

And there were other times where she simply treated you like garbage

She gave you love and understanding and then took it all away from you

It was a cycle that repeated itself all the time, you wanted her to always be proud of you

You wanted her to hold you at night when those nightmares kept you awake

Her love was so shallow and fake

Your hugs felt so cold and uncomfortable

Mom

Am I still young?

Can I sleep in your arms?

Would you still love me after all I did?

Look into my eyes and tell me

Tell me I'm enough

Tell me I've done enough

Please

Just look at me

Look at me

Your eyes slowly opened, you felt your body burning

You saw the bandages that covered your body, and one of your arms was in a cast

Great

Now you weren't going to be able to train in peace anymore, although you didn't care

When you were with your mother and her clan they made you fight even if all your bones were broken

A simple broken arm wasn't going to stop you, and your family would never care

You had been on the verge of death too many times and they never cared

You got up from your bed staggering a little but you held on to the small piece of furniture next to your bed

You mentally told yourself that you could do it

You weren't weak

You couldn't see yourself weak

You left your room limping a little, with every step you took you felt your bones hurt

You passed by Bruce without even looking at him, you didn't want to see him or talk to him

"You have a broken arm"

Your father said making you stop

You sighed tiredly, you didn't have enough spirit to talk or argue with him

"I know, I'm not blind"

When you were about to leave you felt a hand on your shoulder, that sudden contact made your skin crawl

Since the first time you arrived at the mansion you had had very little contact with him, only some morning greetings that were rarely returned

"You're hurt, you must rest, now"

He gave you those looks that he only gave to criminals when he was being batman

But he didn't intimidate you, he never did

You pushed his hand away with a sharp movement

"Don't touch me, don't pretend that you care about me when we all know that you don't"

You said for the last time before leaving through the halls without even listening to what he said to you

You didn't want to hear it, His words weren't worth it

You didn't need him, you were fine on your own

All people were cruel and mean

In a world as selfish and evil as this, you're either the prey or you're the hunter

And you stopped being the prey a long time ago

After that strange and awkward encounter Bruce was left wondering

What was wrong with you?

Why are you acting so angry? He thought it was because of the recent events of your previous mission.

But something about your rejection made his chest hurt. Why are you rejecting him like that?

Maybe he wasn't the best father, but he tried

Well, he tried to be a good father to others

But not to you

Those thoughts kept him awake at night

He couldn't even have a quiet day without that thought of guilt consuming him completely

He tried to get close to you for a few days But all he got was a dirty look and an insult

You refused any kind of interaction from him, you didn't even let him touch your shoulder

He thought you just didn't like physical contact, but when he saw you hug Alfred it made something inside him flare up with anger

And soon your attention became more than just an interest, it became an obsession

Why did you treat others so well but not your family?

And this strange behavior did not go unnoticed by the others

Richard was the first to notice it, he saw how Bruce tried to spend more time with you

Which seemed strange to him, before Bruce seemed too disinterested but now it seemed as if something turned on inside Bruce

He thought he was just being paranoid or plotting something

He decided to go talk to you, surely you would have answers!

"Fuck you" was the only thing that came out of your mouth when Richard asked you something

Richard's face changed drastically when those words left your mouth

Why were you so defensive?

"Excuse me?"

"What you heard, fuck you I don't care what happens to Bruce, if you want answers go and ask him, don't be fucking me up with stupid questions"

You said one last time before closing the door to your room in his face

Richard was left processing everything that happened

What the fuck was that?

He knocked on the door again but no one answered

Why were you rejecting him like that?

He's supposed to be your older brother! Why did you treat him like that

Although well, he doesn't remember the time that either of you talked

But you should have at least had one conversation, right?

God...

He really screwed up

You thought Richard would be the last person to bother you but sadly that wasn't the case

It felt like the whole family had come together to notice you existed for the first time in your life

And you hated that

You hated being treated like you didn't know what they did to you

But you weren't going to give in that easily, if they wanted something from you they could fuck off

You weren't going to let anyone hurt you again

I'm not your friend

I'm not your partner

I'm not your sister

And I'm not your daughter

I bite

"Hey (name)!, do you-"

"Fuck you Tim"

You didn't even give him time to speak when those words cut through you like knives

You didn't even think about it, they came out on automatic

He just stood there with the words hanging in his head as he watched you walk away from him

He felt something weird when you so rudely rejected his invitation

You just walked away disinterested, you didn't feel like talking to him

You didn't have time to talk about stupid things

Seriously, what's wrong with this family?

First your father, then Richard and now Tim!?

You need a break right now

Apparently Tim wasn't the only one who started to take an interest in you

When your father sent you and Damian on patrol you thought it was the worst thing that could happen to you tonight

But you were wrong

You hated that little demon with all your soul, his mere presence made you want to break his neck or run katanas through his body

You were both agile and it was normal

You two were sons of powerful and dangerous mothers

Sometimes you thought Bruce had some fetish for women who could easily kill him

The patrol was "normal" or if you could call it that

You could feel Damian's penetrating gaze on your neck

"What the hell is wrong with you? You've been looking at me like that the whole patrol"

You said without thinking when you two stopped at a building to rest

You couldn't stand it anymore, you were a direct person and you were tired of having to put up with his childish behavior

"Nothing's wrong with me"

"Liar"

You accused him, you knew when someone was lying or hiding something from you

Damian didn't answer and ignored you the whole patrol

And it's not like you cared

But what Damian hadn't told you was that he was jealous

The previous week he saw you hug a child and give him affection on a mission

Bruce had sent some members of batfam on a rescue mission

And seeing you comfort someone made him jealous, why did you treat a strange child that way?

The way you hugged that child and whispered to him that everything would be okay made his blood boil with jealousy

He's supposed to be your real brother, why did you treat a stranger better than him!?

It wasn't fair

He wanted that affection too

And he wanted it just for himself

You could say that Jason was the worst, one day he just decided to show up in your room and force you into the mansion's library

You protested for him to put you down but he just ignored you

He literally had you on his back like a sack of potatoes, he made you sit down reluctantly in one of those comfy chairs

He sat down next to you and started reading

Was this some kind of joke!?

He literally pulled you out of your comfy bed and then brought you here to sit down doing nothing??

"I'm leaving"

"No, you're not"

You said without flinching as he grabbed you by the collar of your shirt and made you sit back down

You just grumbled and swore

You sat there for hours, you started to tease him thinking that this way he would let you go

"Can I go now?"

"No"

"And now I can go now?"

"No"

"I can-"

"NO"

He said that last word annoyed forcing you to sit down again

This day was going to be very long and strange...

And as the days passed this obsession grew more in them

To a point where they didn't even let you make your own decisions

For some strange reason you had some family member watching your every move all the time

It got to a point where it was just suffocating

And you tried to escape, maybe you could go back to your clan

I was sure your mother would welcome you with open arms

Yeah, you betrayed your clan and killed almost half of their sorcerers and assassins but it was for a good reason

But this time you weren't going to be so lucky

They weren't going to let you escape from their clutches so easily

"LET ME GO!"

You screamed trying to free yourself from your father's grip but it was in vain

He had you pressed against the cold floor of your room, he had caught you just as you tried to escape

You tried to fight but it was in vain, in size and strength he far surpassed you

"I didn't want to do this (name)"

"What are you talking about-"

You could barely finish your sentence when a scream of pain came from your annoying

You could feel that scream completely tearing your annoying

Your father

Your own father had broken one of your legs

You could feel how that place swelled and the only thing you could do was cry

He carried you in his arms while you tried to scratch his body But it was in vain

In this pitiful state you could never go anywhere

Your wings had been torn from your body, causing you to fall into that eternal fire

You fell like a jerk when he is shot by his prey

Maybe one day your wings will grow back

And you will be able to taste that sweet wind

But all you can do is admire that paradise that seems so far away but at the same time so close

Locked in a cage, of course the cage gives you love and food

But that will never change that it will continue to be a cage

An angel with cut wings

And a bird with broken wings

They both have the same dream

To be free

I like writing angst because people can't see when I'm venting and projecting

That aside, I hope you like this shit

I might make the story longer if I'm not too lazy

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