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🩸 If You Hold Me Without Hurting Me Chapter 5: "if you hold me without hurting me, you’ll be the first who ever did" Pairing: Bucky Barnes / Yelena Belova Also Featuring: Robert Reynolds | The Sentry Rating: E Spoilers: Thunderbolts (2025) Word Count (Ch. 5): ~3.5k AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/65393155/chapters/168665157 Inspired by: Cinnamon Girl by Lana Del Rey

Summary: Yelena is supposed to keep Bob stable. Bucky is supposed to keep his distance. Neither of them are doing a very good job.

Chapter Summary: The goodbye was never going to be clean. He tried to leave it unsaid. She didn’t let him.

v. james

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if you hold me without hurting me, you’ll be the first who ever did

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The dinner table was quieter than usual that night.

Alexei was shoveling pierogi onto his plate like it was his last meal. Ava kept checking the clock, like maybe it’d buy her more time. Even Walker, for once, wasn’t talking. Just chewing—slow, methodical—like he was trying not to say the wrong thing.

Bob and I had our bags by the door. Everything we owned packed up in two duffels. We were leaving at zero-dark-thirty. One final sleep, if any of us even managed it.

I’d tried to make it normal. I really had. I even helped cook, and for a second, when Ava started humming over the stove and Alexei cracked a joke about Walker’s metabolism, it almost felt like a regular night.

Almost.

Then I looked up.

No one said it was a goodbye dinner. But it was.

Bucky was sitting at the end of the table.

Same chair he always took—quiet, angled just enough to look like he wasn’t really part of it. He hadn’t said much all night. Hadn’t touched his food. Just sat with his arms crossed, watching the middle of the table like it might explode.

Then someone—probably Alexei—made a toast. Something rough and honest, like,

“To getting through whatever’s next.”

Everyone raised their glasses.

Everyone but Bucky.

We talked around it—hovered near the edges of what tomorrow meant. Laughed too easily. Ate too slowly. The kind of night where everyone pretends they’re fine, just long enough to survive the meal.

I was the first to stand.

I hugged Ava first. She didn’t cry, which surprised me. Just pressed her forehead to mine and whispered,

“Make them regret not choosing you first.”

Walker raised his glass to that.

Alexei pulled me into a hug that felt like it might crack something in my chest. Held on longer than usual.

“I’m proud of you,” he said. “I get it.”

Then, gruff and quiet:

“But you better call. Or I’ll find you.”

I nodded. Swallowed hard. Tried not to let it show.

When I turned to say goodbye to Bucky—he was gone.

His chair sat empty at the end of the table. The wine in his glass untouched.

“Where’d he go?” I asked, trying to sound casual.

“I think he said he had a call to make,” Walker offered, shrugging. “A few minutes ago.”

I didn’t respond right away. Just stared at the chair like it might offer a better answer.

Bob was sitting on the edge of the couch, elbows on his knees, fingers tapping his thigh like he was working through an equation he didn’t quite believe in.

I sat down next to him.

We didn’t speak for a while.

Then, without looking at me, he said:

“You should go see him.”

My stomach twisted.

“I don’t know what I’d say.”

“You don’t have to say anything,” he said. “Just… don’t leave with it still stuck in your chest.”

He paused. Then added, softer:

“I’ll be okay.”

And that—

That was all it took.

Not permission. Not absolution.

Just that.

I stood up. My legs felt too heavy.

“Don’t wait up,” I said.

He didn’t.

xxx

I waited until everyone else had peeled off—until the hallway lights were low and Ava’s door clicked shut behind her.

Then I went looking for him.

I wasn’t pacing anymore. Wasn’t weighing pros and cons. I didn’t know what I was going to say, not exactly—but I had half a mind to say something. Something real. Something that mattered.

Because if it was ever going to happen—whatever it was—it had to be tonight.

I stopped outside his door. Took a breath. Knocked three times—soft and uncertain. The kind of knock that says, I’m not sure what I’m doing, but I showed up anyway.

No response.

I waited anyway.

Then I tried the handle.

The room was dark. Empty. Clean—too clean. Like he hadn’t touched anything since walking out of the kitchen.

No clutter. No clothes. No dent in the bed. Just the faintest trace of something familiar in the air—soap, sweat, metal. Him.

It hit all at once.

He wasn’t here.

I stood in the doorway, blinking like maybe I’d missed something. Like maybe he was hiding just out of sight. Maybe he’d step out and say something first.

But no one came.

No voice. No movement. Just quiet.

Heavy, final.

I stepped inside. Just for a second. Just to be sure. Then backed out fast—like the longer I stayed, the more it might break me.

Of course he’s gone, I thought. Of course I waited too long.

I didn’t say it out loud. Just shut the door behind me—too hard, too loud.

Then stood there in the hallway.

Still. Stupid. Empty-handed.

Bob’s voice came back to me: Don’t leave with it still stuck in your chest.

Too late, I thought. It’s already lodged somewhere I can’t reach.

Whatever might’ve been—it wasn’t anymore.

And maybe that was safer. Maybe that was easier.

But it didn’t feel like it.

xxx

I lay awake for hours.

Didn’t even try to sleep, really. Just stared at the ceiling and tried to rehearse the things I would’ve said. If I’d found him. If he’d answered. If I hadn’t waited too long.

It was stupid. All of it. The silence. The waiting. The pretending.

I’d blown it.

I knew that.

I just wanted a glass of water. Something to do. Something to hold. Something that wasn’t this.

I padded barefoot through the dark hallway, one hand trailing along the wall, the other tugging the hem of my sweatshirt lower.

When I rounded the corner into the living room, I stopped short.

He was there.

Bucky.

Alone. Half-shadowed by the firelight. Sitting in the armchair like he hadn’t moved in hours, eyes unfocused, shoulders curled forward like the weight of the last week was finally settling on him.

He didn’t see me right away.

Or maybe he did, and just didn’t say anything. Either way, he was slouched in the armchair, legs stretched long in front of him, one arm draped over the back, the other hanging loose at his side. Staring into the fire like it owed him something.

He looked wrecked. Not drunk. Not disheveled. Just… like someone who hadn’t let himself break, and was starting to realize that was a mistake.

Something about that—about finding him here when I’d already convinced myself I wouldn’t get to say goodbye—hit me harder than I expected.

“Where were you?”

His head snapped up. Not startled, exactly—but off balance, the way I’d been the night of the gala, when he walked in on me and Bob. Like he was caught mid-thought, mid-something.

“I went to your room,” I said. “To say goodbye.”

He blinked, jaw tightening. I could almost hear the click of him locking everything down again.

“I didn’t think you’d come.”

“Yeah?” I stepped into the room. “Well, I did.”

I crossed to the edge of the rug, just far enough to feel the fire’s heat on my shins.

“Where were you?” I repeated.

He exhaled through his nose, rubbed a hand over his face like he was buying himself time.

“Out,” he muttered. “Trying to walk it off. Or drink it off. I don’t know.”

He didn’t look at me. That part stung more than I thought it would.

“I thought… it’d be easier not to say anything,” he added.

I let out a dry, humorless laugh.

“You really think that made it easier?” I said, sharper than I meant. “For who?”

His head turned, slow and deliberate. That same look he’d given me so many times before—steady, unreadable, a little too focused.

“You think this is easy for me?” I said. “You think I want to leave?”

That landed.

He sat forward, elbows on his knees now, hands clasped like he was bracing for something. Or trying not to fall apart.

“No,” he said. “I don’t think that.”

“Good. Because it fucking sucks.”

Silence. The fire popped once. His eyes didn’t leave mine.

“I know what this looks like,” I said. “You’ve been watching me, waiting for me to screw it up, and maybe I did. But not with Bob. I’m not choosing him—I’m choosing not to let the world burn.”

He flinched—barely. But I caught it.

“It wasn’t like that,” I said, softer now.

He looked down. Swallowed. His voice came out rough.

“I know.”

“Then why’d you keep acting like it?”

That cracked something open. He sat back again, jaw clenched tight.

“Because I couldn’t stand watching it. You—him—it felt like I was already losing you, and I hadn’t even had the chance to—” He stopped. Shook his head.

I stepped in closer.

“To what?” I asked. “To what, Bucky?”

He looked up at me like it hurt. And maybe it did.

“To want you.”

Silence.

My chest tightened. My fingers twitched.

“You could’ve said something.”

“And what?” he snapped. “Said I wanted something I shouldn’t? Said I couldn’t stand losing you, when you were never mine to begin with? Said I—”

He stopped again. Swallowed the rest.

I moved in until we were almost eye level. Close enough to feel the heat coming off him. Close enough to remember what it felt like when I was the one being interrupted.

“You said in my room that night,” I murmured, “that I wasn’t the only one with urges.”

His throat worked around a swallow.

“You weren’t wrong.”

He just looked up at me like I’d split something in him open—and he didn’t know how to close it back up.

That same look.

The one he gave me the night of the verdict. When I’d crossed the room, slow and quiet and stupid with want, and he’d said nothing—just watched me move closer like he didn’t trust himself to stop it.

He hadn’t touched me then. Had barely breathed.

But I remembered the way his voice cracked when he said, “Long day.”

And I remembered how that sentence had gutted me. Not because it was cold. But because it was mercy.

This wasn’t that.

There was no more space for mercy.

So I broke it for him.

My hand went to his jaw—steady, certain—and his eyes fluttered closed like he’d been waiting for it longer than he wanted to admit.

I didn’t pull him in. I just held him there. Let the moment hang between us, like the end of a sentence we were both too scared to say.

“You should’ve answered the door,�� I said, quieter now. “I was ready to say goodbye.”

“I wasn’t,” he said. “Not to you.”

He didn’t say anything now. Just looked up at me with that same tension in his jaw—like if he moved, even an inch, he might break something.

And I thought about that night in his room—the night of the verdict.

When I’d asked why he was always there. When he told me I wasn’t the only one who felt things.

It hadn’t been a confession. It had been a reckoning. And I hadn’t known what to do with it then—but now I did.

So I reached for him.

I leaned in and kissed him—slow at first, aching, like I was trying to memorize the shape of his mouth. Like I was afraid I’d forget how he tasted.

But he didn’t let me stay soft for long.

His hands found my waist like he’d been waiting for permission he thought he’d never get. And then we weren’t careful anymore.

We were teeth and breath and hands. We were frustration and grief and guilt, spilling out all over each other.

He stood up too fast and I didn’t let him pull away. I pressed into him, fingers dragging up under the hem of his shirt, desperate to feel skin, to feel him—solid and real and here.

His breath hitched.

“Is this really happening?” he murmured—low, rough, almost like it wasn’t meant to be out loud.

“Yeah,” I said. “It is.”

He looked at me like he was still catching up. Like he’d been bracing for this moment so long he didn’t know how to step into it.

Then he kissed me—hard. Like he was done thinking. Like the answer had always been yes.

We weren’t careful. We weren’t soft. We were burning the house down because neither of us knew how to mourn it quietly.

But neither of us stopped.

He pushed me back into the wall with a groan, and I swore I felt the floor tilt under us.

My shirt was halfway off when a floorboard creaked down the hall.

We both froze.

His breath caught in my mouth. Mine caught in my throat.

“Shit,” I whispered.

I looked at him. Hair mussed, lips swollen, shirt wrinkled. He looked back at me like he was already bracing for someone to come walking in.

“We should probably—”

“Get a room?” I finished. He nodded.

We made it halfway down the hall before I pressed him into the wall again.

I couldn’t help it.

His hands were already under my shirt. Mine were tangled in his hair. And every time I remembered this was our last night, I wanted to crawl inside his skin and stay there.

“This is crazy,” I breathed against his mouth.

He kissed me harder.

We barely made it to the bedroom. I stumbled backward through the door, pulling him with me, his mouth still on mine like we were going to fall apart if we stopped touching. Maybe we were.

The door clicked shut behind him.

For a second, we just stood there—breathing each other in. Close enough to feel the heat still radiating off our skin. Close enough that I didn’t know where I ended and he began.

He stared at me like he didn’t want to blink.

Like if he did, I’d disappear.

And suddenly I needed words. Not just hands. Not just breath.

I didn’t know if I was holding onto him or holding myself up.

“Bucky,” I whispered. “tell me what you’re thinking.”

He looked at me like it hurt.

“I’ve been trying not to want you for a while now,” he murmured.

“Me too,” I said. “Didn’t work.”

This time, when I kissed him, he didn’t hold back.

I kissed him again—slower now. Not to prove anything. Not to make a point. Just to feel it. To feel him. Solid and real and mine, even if only for tonight.

His lips moved against mine like he didn’t quite believe it. Like he was waiting for me to change my mind.

“You sure?” he breathed, brushing his nose against mine.

“Yes.” I tangled my fingers in his hair. “Stop asking.”

He swallowed hard. His hands curled around my waist like he needed something to hold.

“You don’t have to do this,” he said. “Not for me.”

“I’m not doing it for you,” I said, resting my forehead against his. “I’m doing it because I want to. Because I want you.”

That undid him.

His hands tightened at my sides. His mouth found mine again—hungrier this time, like he finally let himself believe it. Like he was kissing me with everything he hadn’t said out loud.

We didn’t rush.

We didn’t stumble.

It wasn’t frantic.

It was careful. Intentional. Like we were building something fragile and already grieving its collapse.

By the time we made it to the bed, Bucky Barnes wasn’t the man sitting by the fire, trying not to fall apart. He wasn’t the soldier, or the spy, or the one who always watched from the edge.

He was mine. And I was his.

And we were done pretending we didn’t want this.

Clothes came off slowly, like we were peeling back armor. Each layer a surrender. Each breath another promise we couldn’t keep.

When he slipped his hands beneath my shirt, his touch was reverent. Like he wasn’t sure he was allowed to touch—but needed to anyway.

“You really want this?” he asked again, voice hoarse.

I grabbed his hand and pressed it flat over my chest, right above my heart.

“I want you.”

His eyes darkened. His breath caught.

“Okay.”

He kissed me like he meant it—steady, grounded. Like he was trying to hold me in place with his mouth, like if he let go for even a second, I’d disappear.

I let him lead.

I let him take me apart with his mouth, his hands, his breath against my skin. He kissed down my ribs like they meant something. Traced the curve of my waist like it might break if he rushed.

And when he knelt between my legs and slid my underwear down, it felt like both a question and an answer.

“You’re sure?” he asked again, barely above a whisper.

“Please,” I said, threading my fingers into his hair. “Just—please.”

That was all it took.

He buried his face between my thighs like he’d been starving. His fingers curled inside me, coaxing soft, shuddering gasps from my throat. Every touch—every sound—ratcheted up the tension already thrumming in my chest. I felt like I was burning from the inside out.

“How long have you wanted to do this?” I managed, breathless.

He kissed up my body, slow and deliberate, until he was hovering over me again.

“Since the Void,” he murmured.

Surprise must’ve crossed my expression. His mouth quirked—wry, but soft.

“You walked in, asked if I was okay… and I lied through my teeth. Figured it was safer if you didn’t know I was already gone for you.”

I stared up at him.

“That long,” he said again, quieter now.

Something in my chest cracked open.

I didn’t want to wait anymore. I’d waited enough.

“Bucky,” I gasped. “Please. I need you.”

He brushed a thumb over my cheekbone. His voice dropped.

“You want me, Yelena?”

It wasn’t teasing. It wasn’t a game. He was still asking like he needed permission. Like he didn’t quite believe he was wanted.

“I want you,” I said, firm. Then again, rougher—meaner, because I was coming apart. “I want you.”

I fumbled with his pants, fingers shaking, and wrapped my hand around him. He groaned—low and guttural—and dropped his forehead against mine.

“Say it again,” he whispered, grinding against me, fingers still between my legs.

“I want you so fucking badly, Bucky,” I whimpered. “Please. Just—fuck, please.”

He lined himself up and pushed in all at once.

I gasped—loud, broken—and he caught it in a kiss.

He moved slow at first. Measured. Like he was learning the way I felt around him. Like he didn’t want to miss a thing.

Every thrust landed deep, precise. My body arched beneath him, straining to meet every inch.

And then—just as the pressure built, just as I felt myself start to fray—he whispered it.

Soft. Quiet. Right against my mouth.

“I love you.”

I froze for half a second.

Not from fear. From impact.

He swallowed hard. His rhythm faltered.

“Had to say it,” he murmured. “At least once.”

My breath hitched.

His hand found mine.

And that—

That was it.

I shattered.

I came around him with a cry, clinging to him like I could hold the moment still. He followed with a groan, spilling into me with a shudder, his face buried in my neck.

We stayed like that—sweaty, tangled, breathless.

Two ghosts playing at being human.

I let myself pretend, just for a second, that we weren’t both trained to disappear.

He was still holding me. Still breathing like he hadn’t quite come down.

I stared at the ceiling, let myself imagine—for just a second—what it would be like to stay.

“Did you mean it?” I asked. Quiet. Like if I said it too loud, it wouldn’t be true anymore.

He didn’t look at me right away.

“Do you want me to?”

The corner of his mouth twitched—like he meant it, but couldn’t stand to say it first.

I looked at him for a long time.

“I just…” I shook my head, stopping myself.

But the words kept burning anyway.