chervbs

[chervbs]

thinking about a sam drabble of him being super sweet and romantic as an apology after becky spells him into marrying her because even though it wasn’t his fault (and reader knows that) he still feels bad :(( sammy as a romantic lives in my mind rent free

⋆. 𐙚 ̊ always you,

summary. becky's spell is finally broken and sam wants to prove to you just how much he loves you and only you

pairing. sam winchester x reader genre. soft smut ( mdni )

wordcount. 807

notes / warnings. the softest back-together-sex, very light smut.

You forgave him the second you saw his face.

Wide, horrified eyes. That panic he never hides when it comes to you. His hands reaching for yours like they ache to be there, even though they just spent the last two days in someone else’s.

It wasn’t his fault. You know that. Becky was… well, Becky. And witchcraft is a bitch.

But Sam? Sam’s been walking around like he cheated on you.

Which is why he’s standing in your motel room now — quiet, nervous, his massive hands wringing each other like they’ve got sins to confess.

“Say something,” he breathes, finally.

You just look at him. Barefoot. Hoodie hanging off one shoulder. You’re not angry. Just… tired. From worrying. From missing him, even when he was right there and not himself.

“I missed you,” you whisper.

Sam blinks. Like he didn’t expect that. “I—”

He steps forward.

Then stops himself.

Like he’s not sure he has the right.

Your chest aches.

“Sam.”

He finally meets your eyes.

“You didn’t do anything wrong.”

His jaw tightens. “I still said yes. I didn’t know I was spelled, but I still said—”

You cut him off, voice soft. “She drugged you, Sam.”

He breathes through his nose. Still doesn’t move.

You go to him.

Fingers curling into his flannel. Tugging him down just enough so your forehead meets his. It’s the only way to get him to breathe. To stop holding all that guilt in his spine.

“Stop looking at me like that,” you whisper. “Like I’m gonna break.”

“I hurt you.”

You nod, honest. “Yeah. But not because of anything you did. You weren’t you. And I knew it. Even when she had you smiling like an idiot in her Hello Kitty bedspread, I knew.”

His breath catches — a laugh and a sob all tangled up.

You lean up. Kiss his cheek.

Then his jaw.

Then pull him to your lips like you’re reminding him what home tastes like.

It starts slow.

Like he’s still afraid.

But then his hands are in your hair, and you’re backing him up until the backs of his knees hit the bed, and oh, he needs this.

He needs you.

He lets you straddle him, big hands gripping your thighs like he’s scared you’ll disappear. His mouth moves against yours like prayer, apology, and promise all at once.

“I love you,” he murmurs between kisses. “I love you. I swear I—”

“I know,” you whisper, rolling your hips into his. “I know, baby.”

You tug off his flannel, your hoodie joining it on the floor. His hands roam like he’s cataloging you all over again — thumb brushing under your bra, fingers skating down your spine.

“I hated not touching you,” he whispers. “Even when I didn’t know what was wrong, I felt it.”

You guide his hands to your hips. “Then touch me now.”

His mouth is on your neck instantly. Gentle. Searing. He sucks the skin just enough to make you gasp, then soothes it with soft lips, like he’s kissing away the days you spent sleeping alone.

Your nails scrape up into his hair, tugging just enough to make him groan.

“Lie back,” you whisper.

He does.

He always does when you ask like that.

You kiss your way down his chest — soft, slow, reverent. His stomach tenses under your tongue, every muscle drawn tight like he’s trying not to rush. Not to flip you over and lose himself.

You kiss the waistband of his jeans, and he shudders.

“Please,” he whispers. “I just… I need to feel close to you again.”

You smile. “You’re already here.”

And you are. When you finally take him in, it’s not about making him forget — it’s about making him remember.

Who he is.

Who you are.

What you never stopped being, even when he was looking at someone else with someone else’s name in his mouth.

He moans when he’s inside you, hands splayed on your hips, like he doesn’t know what he did to deserve this.

He keeps whispering things — you’re so beautiful, i love you, thank you, thank you — until you’re both gasping and trembling and holding each other like the world outside doesn’t exist.

After, you’re curled into him, cheek on his chest, legs tangled.

His voice is hoarse when he breaks the silence.

“I don’t think I could live with myself if I’d lost you.”

You press a kiss over his heart.

“You didn’t.”

He holds you tighter. Hand stroking up and down your spine like he’s still afraid you’ll disappear if he stops.

You tip your head up and meet his eyes. Soft. Honest. Safe.

“I was always yours, Sam.”

His throat bobs.

“Still am.”

And he kisses you again — slow and deep and full of every sorry he’s ever felt.

ꔛ. navigation 𓂃˖ ࣪ all drabbles ; compatibility readings ; support my work .ᐟ

[chervbs]

sammy being rough with you but talking all sweet and gentle the whole time 🥀🙏

sam winchester is the kind of man who makes you feel worshipped even while he’s fucking you senseless.

you’re face-down in the pillows, thighs trembling, soaked and overstimulated—and he’s still fucking you like it’s the first thrust. deep, deliberate, slow enough to make you feel every inch of him but hard enough to make you gasp with each punishing thrust.

you sob into the sheets, hips bucking against his grip. sam leans over you, voice smooth and honeyed, whispering like he’s cherishing every second of your surrender.

“shh, sweetheart. you’re doin’ so good for me,” he murmurs, brushing the sweat-soaked hair off your face. “taking it like my perfect girl, aren’t you?”

his cock drags over that spot inside you again and your body arches, breath hitching, every inch of you begging for more.

“hurts,” you whimper, but your body moves instinctively, pressing back against him. wanting more. needing more.

he kisses your shoulder, the touch soft but his hands gripping you hard enough to leave marks. “i know, baby. i know it’s a lot. but you’re makin’ me so proud.”

he pulls out almost all the way before slamming back in—your breath catching as the air leaves your lungs, and you cry out, broken and undone.

“you want me to stop?” he asks softly, thumb tracing your clit in slow circles, a teasing reminder of his control.

“n-no—please don’t,” you choke out, tears mixing with the pleasure.

he presses his lips to your temple, his smile gentle and possessive.

“that’s my girl.”

[chervbs]

light of the morning

in which spencer sneaks into bau!reader's hotel room and they share a little more than just the bed

18+ (smut) warnings/tags: softdom!spence x sub reader, munch!spence, unprotected piv sex (dont do that), creampie (hate that word btw) praise, mentions of having to be quiet because morgan is right next door LOL, fluffy, established co-workers/friends with benefits, soooo idiots in love a/n: here is the promised smut. i am literally kicking my feet and twirling my hair and giggling and blushing at my own writing. I'm gonna have a freak out. requests are open like my legs

It’s late when the knock finally comes. Late enough that you’re dozing on the bed above the covers. 

It takes you a moment to reorient yourself—you’re rubbing your heavy eyes when you finally get the door. 

"Hi."

"Hey," says Spencer, hands awkwardly shoved into his pajama pants pockets. It’s funny, really. He never gets any better at this. 

You step aside and he enters the room, looking around as you close and relock the door. 

"Did I wake you?"

"How could you tell?"

"You’re in pajamas. And you look tired. I mean—you don’t look bad. You never look bad, I just meant… you don’t look tired but you’re not—I didn’t mean to—"

"Relax," you yawn, putting him out of his misery. "I was joking. I know I look tired." You glance at the digital clock on the nightstand. "It’s late. We have to be up early tomorrow."

"Yeah, I got, uh, sidetracked. Sorry."

He was reading. If it was anyone else, you'd be offended--but a sinkhole could open up under Spencer's feet and he probably wouldn't notice if he was absorbed in a book.

You shrug, a knowing smile lifting the corner of your mouth. 

"It’s fine. But I don’t know if tonight is a good night. I really am exhausted."

His eyebrows dart up. 

"That’s fine. That’s totally fine. I’ll just, uh—"

When you don’t move from in front of the door, he pauses, unsure. You bite the inside of your cheek, studying his rangy frame and choice of clothing. Blue pajama pants, slippers, grey CalTech zip up hoodie. It feels wrong to describe a 6'1 man as adorable, but that’s how he looks in his sleep clothes. There’s a very real chance, you find yourself thinking, that you are the only member of the BAU to ever see him in something other than slacks and a button-down. He looks so cozy that you kind of really want him in your bed even if he’s not doing anything but sleeping. The invitation slips out before you can think too hard about it. 

"You could… stay, anyway, if you want?"

His mouth parts slightly, and those eyebrows raise again. There’s a moment of awkward silence and you are very much beginning to regret your offer, wondering if you somehow violated the sanctity of your co-workers/friends with benefits situtationship. Clumsily you try to backtrack. 

"Sorry, I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable, you can—"

"No, no! You didn’t, I just don’t want you to feel obligated to invite me to stay in your room. I’m right across the hall, I can go back if you want me to."

You smile awkwardly, silent relief replacing the brief anxiety. 

"It’s fine. It’s not like we haven’t shared a bed before." And not like you wouldn’t have ended up doing it tonight anyway, if things had gone as originally intended.

He chuckles, looking to the floor and nodding. The blush on his face does not go unnoticed by you. "Fair enough."

It’s incredibly endearing how nervous he still gets after six months of this little arrangement. 

"Do you wanna get your stuff, or…"

"No, that’s okay. I’ll just go back early tomorrow. The chances of someone seeing me leave your room are significantly higher if I do it so soon after entering."

You squint, unable to tell if he’s fucking with you or if that’s an actual statistically sound probability. And then you realize, blissfully, that you don’t really care. 

"Okay, well. Make yourself comfortable. I’m just going to brush my teeth."

Once you’re enclosed in the bathroom, hotel vanity lights blinding you as you brush, you find that there is a jittery sort of apprehension buzzing in your chest. But that’s silly. As you yourself pointed out, the two of you have shared a bed many times over the past few months. But the sleeping together is always a byproduct of the sleeping together. Never have you shared a bed in a completely decent, virtuous, strictly non-sexual manner. It’s always been a matter of convenience—less bother if he doesn’t have to worry about sneaking back into his room in the middle of the night when you’re both exhausted. Or maybe that’s just what you’ve been telling yourselves. 

You rinse your mouth out and exit the bathroom, flicking off the light and finding that Spencer has indeed made himself comfortable. The hotel room is dark and he’s already under the covers, fiddling with his phone. 

"What time should I set the alarm for?" He asks, looking over at you as you crawl into bed, drawing the covers over yourself. "I was thinking 6:23. That should give me enough time to—"

"Sounds perfect," you affirm, wiggling under the blanket as you get comfortable. He schedules the alarm and sets his phone on the bedside table, dousing the room in complete darkness. Your eyes stay open despite, waiting for them to adjust. A few moments of utter silence and stillness pass, and you can tell Spencer is completely stiff next to you. 

"Spencer."

“Yeah,” he answers immediately. Like he’s even more wired about this whole situation than you are. 

"You know you don’t have to avoid touching me at all costs, right? I’m not a leper."

He looses a nervous laugh. 

"I know. We’ve just never really done this."

You frown at the darkness.

"We’ve definitely slept in the same bed before."

"Yeah, but… this feels different."

That, you can’t argue with. Can friends with benefits share a bed just to be near each other? Does that blur some line? And why does it feel more intimate than the sex? 

Screw it. If there is one thing you don’t want your relationship with Spencer to be, it is uncomfortable. Uncertain, you can work with. But not uncomfortable. You reach for him, hand sliding under the duvet—and find his hand already waiting for yours. 

"I don’t think it’s that different," you lie, interlacing your fingers together slowly. 

"Prolonged physical non-sexual contact does have measurable health benefits…" the words are murmured, like the moment is fragile and he doesn’t want to shatter it. 

"Can’t argue with the facts," you breathe, trying to modulate the shakiness of your voice. But you have a feeling you’re doing about as good of a job at concealing your nerves as he is. He shifts.

"Can I…"

"Yeah."

Your heart is pounding as he slips one arm under your neck and the other around your waist, pulling you close. Instinctually you curl into him, slinging your top leg over him as you’ve done before, but always dismissed as post-sex brain chemicals making you feel all warm and fuzzy. A neurological reaction that is so solidly scientific, neither of you ever questioned it. But it feels bigger now. 

He exhales as you settle against each other—a sound of relief that mirrors your own. He’s so warm, so safe as he envelops you, physically and sensorially. In such close proximity, so clear-headed, you notice each layer of his scent. Toothpaste, lavender, vetiver, detergent. You sort of feel like a creep, but you can’t deny how comforting it is. Nor can you deny the pirouette your heart does when he begins minutely rubbing your back, like he’s not even thinking about it. 

"Goodnight," you whisper into his shirt. 

"Goodnight," he whispers back. 

You fall asleep pretty quickly after that. 

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

It’s unclear what wakes you up—maybe it’s the blue-grey dawn light filtering in through the filthy window (doubtful, it’s still mostly dark) or maybe it’s the blinking green digital clock on the nightstand. 5:02 AM. Your alarm will go off in an hour and 21 minutes.

Sometime in the night you shifted, turning over in your sleep, but Spencer is still holding you close. The arm slung so casually over your waist is slightly domineering, but you manage to rotate again and face him once more. Mere inches away from his face you can see every detail. His expression is so peaceful, it makes your heart ache. 

But you’re just friends. 

Perhaps he felt you moving, because his eyes flutter open and you watch as they flood with consciousness. He takes you in, takes in his arm over your waist. For a split second you’re nervous he’ll pull away. 

"What time is it?" His voice is scratchy with sleep. 

"Five."

"Why are you awake? We have over an hour til the alarm goes off."

"Sometimes waking up early is okay."

His eyes flicker between your own, and momentarily you’re paralyzed as you realize this is a limbo state for the two of you in which you’ve never operated. You don’t know what’s acceptable. You don’t know what to do. Being close to him feels so good, that the idea of separating hurts. But you don’t want to make him uncomfortable, or—

He leans forward and kisses you softly. In the blue light of dawn, rather than frenzied and hidden in the dark, a desperate tear of clothes and teeth and hands—it’s almost freeing. All the anxiety you were feeling just seconds ago begins to melt. 

Friends. 

"You looked anxious," is his whispered answer after he pulls away a moment later, like a kiss is the simplest remedy in the world. He brushes a lock of hair behind your ear. "We should go back to sleep."

"I don’t want to go back to sleep."

The corner of his mouth twitches as he studies you.  

"No? What do you want?"

Emboldened by your mutual indiscretion, it’s your turn to kiss him. You feel him smile against your lips, hand finding the back of your neck and raking up through your hair to pull you closer. 

The delirium of sleep seems to have softened you, filed down the rough edges of your boundaries and kicked away the lines in the sand. What’s a kiss or two when you’ve just woken up? A small, innocuous display of affection while you’re still barely conscious. Nobody could fault either of you for that. People don’t think clearly when they’ve just been asleep.

So what if your lips part against his, and his other hand finds its way under your shirt to stroke the bare skin of your waist and hips? So what if you hitch that leg over him again and press closer?

Spencer breaks the kiss, still ghosting over your lips. 

"I thought it wasn’t a good night?"

"It’s not night time anymore, is it, genius?"

You sneak another kiss, nipping his bottom lip gently as you pull away. 

Instead of whatever array of responses you were expecting, Spencer smiles slightly, eyes almost sparkling in the faint light. The hand on your hip moves to your face, gently thumbing across your cheek. He begins to say something, and stops himself—biting his lip to hold back the words. 

"What?" you ask, heart dropping. Illusion fracturing. 

"I was just—" he begins, pausing for a moment before the words all come out in a rush. "I was just going to tell you how beautiful you are, but I don’t know if that’s something I should say, or if it would feel too… I don’t know…"

He trails off. A rare instance in which he doesn’t have the words. 

You do. Intimate. Real. Romantic. And he’s right, it does feel too much like all of those things. But that doesn’t mean you don’t like it, perhaps more than is strictly good for you. 

"It’s fine. Thank you."

He continues chewing on his lip for a moment. 

"Did I just ruin the mood?"

"No," you laugh, "not at all."

"Thank god," he sighs, surging forward again. 

"Since when do you thank god?" You manage between kisses. 

He moves to press his lips to your jaw and down your neck. 

"Do you want me to talk about the historical and cultural transition of religious expressions into ubiquitous secular colloquialisms right now?"

"Kind of," you breathe.

"No you don’t," he murmurs against your neck as his hands find the hem of your shirt. "You want me to take your clothes off."

Well, he’s not wrong there. 

You help him tug the shirt over your head before leaning back into the pillows as he situates himself over you and lavishes more kisses down your neck and collarbones, pausing to suck a mark only when he knows it’s low enough to be covered by your clothing later. 

You gasp when his lips brush over your nipple, before running his tongue over the sensitive skin. He glances up at you, and though his mouth is occupied, you can see the humor in his eyes. He loves how sensitive you are—how easy it is to get a reaction out of you. 

Of course, you continue to prove him right when he takes the other into his mouth, trying to hold back your little whimpers as he darts his tongue over the peak. Maybe somebody else wouldn’t hear them, but Spencer does. He’s hyper attuned to the sounds you make. Something of a catalogue has begun to form in the back of his mind; he knows exactly what each noise means and how to get them out of you. 

Once satisfied, he moves to press a kiss to your sternum. 

"You’re gonna be quiet for me, right?" Another kiss above your bellybutton. "Because Morgan is sleeping right on the other side of that wall, and we don’t want to wake him up."

"I’ll be quiet," you promise, somewhat breathlessly. Spencer’s mouth trails lower until he’s pulling your shorts down your legs, leaving you completely naked. He tosses them somewhere on the floor and hooks your legs over his shoulders. 

"Good." He plants one last kiss to your thigh and the next one lands right between your legs. 

You regret the need to be silent almost as soon as he drags his tongue over your clit. It’s not like the two of you have ever had the privilege of making a lot of noise, as the hotel rooms are always so close to each other, but it doesn’t make it any easier. 

Instead you opt to rake your hands through his hair and try to take deep breaths. But he knows exactly what you like—he knows starting light and slow, teasing around your most sensitive spot will work you up to the brink of insanity, just like he knows gentle circles make your back arch and elicit the prettiest little moans. 

"More," you beg, and the hands wrapped around your thighs rub soothingly, reassuring you that if you can just be patient you’ll get what you want. 

He takes your aching clit into his mouth, sucking lightly and you’re forced to clap a hand over your mouth, muffling the sob of pleasure you can’t hold back. Spencer keeps it up until you’re practically riding his face, teasing your dripping entrance with the tip of his tongue when you get too close. 

"Fuck, please, Spence," you whisper through your fingers, hips rutting in your desperation. Somehow it always ends up like this—with him in charge and you begging. Not that you have a problem with it, of course. 

He hums into you, and if the way his tongue moves back to circling your clit with newfound fervor is any indication, is apparently satisfied with your entreaty. 

You gasp and try to control your breathy moans, but his mouth feels so good on you that your vision is going out and you’re losing touch with reality ever so slightly. You use the last of your brain power to bite down on the back of your wrist, hoping it adequately muffles the noises you make as you come on Spencer’s tongue and he greedily continues lapping at you. There’s really no way of knowing—your ears are ringing anyway. 

When you come to a moment later he’s peppering kisses on your thighs, rubbing your hips gently. 

"So pretty," he murmurs, climbing back up so your lips can meet again. "Everything about you is pretty."

You paw at his shirt, signaling that you want it off as you moan at the taste of yourself on his tongue, feel your slippery arousal staining the kiss. Spencer helps you, sitting up briefly to unzip his hoodie and pull off his shirt. 

You’re the one to drag him back down, and you notice that he pulls the covers back over the both of you in a sweet gesture he probably didn’t even think about. 

"Need you to fuck me," you beg, reaching down to try and undress him further. 

"So crude. What happened to my nice, sweet girl?" He mumbles against your neck, but helps you with his pants anyway. 

"You must have me confused with someone else."

"Doubtful."

You don’t have much time to consider what that could mean before he’s running the head of his cock over your clit and you’re gasping into his mouth, saying please like it’s the only word you know. 

"There she is," Spencer croons, slipping inside you slow enough for you to feel every inch but quick enough for it to expel all the air from your lungs. Once he’s opened you all the way up, impossibly deep and close, you’re seeing stars, barely breathing. His head has dropped to your shoulder but now he drags his lips up your neck and jaw. "We okay?"

It’s been a while, you realize, since that last case in Maine. He always takes some getting used to. Hardly able to think around the pressure of his cock you nod, trying to string together a few words. 

"Fuck, I need a second." The words come out choked, but you manage. Spencer rubs your hip, his lips brushing yours as he speaks. 

"Relax, sweetheart. I don’t want to hurt you."

He curses to himself, dropping his head momentarily. You’re so fucking soft, and warm, and perfect, he can’t think straight. But he has to try because he has to take care of you. 

"Spence," you gasp, failing to verbally communicate the intensity of the physical sensation. 

"I know, baby," comes his sympathetic coo. "You know you can take me. Deep breaths."

"Mhm," you squeak, trying to take follow his directions and soften your muscles. Spencer keeps rubbing soothingly over your hips, stomach, whatever he can get his hands on, really, pressing kisses all over your face and telling you how good you are, how perfect you feel for him. After a few moments he feels you fluttering around him and experimentally pulls out halfway, before pushing back in equally as slowly. Your jaw drops as he begins to leisurely fuck you, arms wrapping around his back. He gets deeper than you expect every time, rubbing you raw and stretching you out in the most delicious way. 

"Perfect, baby. Such a good listener, did exactly what I asked."

You cry out when he begins fucking you impossibly deeper, but still so slow and sweet.

"You feel so fucking good for me," he groans. "This is what you were made for, huh?" You agree enthusiastically, eyes fluttering shut. 

"Only for you."

Just three words—but he wasn’t expecting to like hearing you say that as much as he does. A strong desire to possess you overtakes him—one that he’ll probably have the decency to feel guilty about later, but for now feels fucking fantastic and intoxicating. 

"Only me?"

You moan an affirmation. 

"Good. I don’t want anyone else fucking you, do you understand me?"

"Yes!"

"I’m the only one who gets to touch you," he breathes, speeding up ever so slightly, "nobody else is going to feel you like this. Such a good girl, spreading her legs for me at five in the fucking morning. You’re not doing this for anybody else, baby."

"Uh-uh, please, pleasepleaseplease Spence—"

He knows what you need, reaching a hand down between your bodies to rub your clit. 

You gasp an airy, high pitched curse, hips twitching but unable to escape the near-punishing rhythm of his own. It’s obvious that your orgasm is close, but you can’t even warn him, too overwhelmed with pleasure. He kisses you, swallowing your moans that have probably become just a bit too loud given the whole hotel thing. 

No words are exchanged between the two of you as you near the finish line for a change, open mouths slipping against each others in what is too messy to be called a kiss. Your orgasm body-slams you, a choked silent scream as you tighten around Spencer and he seems to come at nearly the exact same moment—deep inside you, slowly rolling his hips in a few more strong thrusts as he finishes. 

You let out a delayed moan at the sensation of being filled up, still pulsing around him as he comes to a halt, buried inside of you. He drops his head to your neck, and you can feel each breath against your flushed skin. Other than the panting, you’re both silent for a while. Spencer seems to gather himself sooner than you do, finally breaking the quiet. 

"You okay?"

All you can manage is a little squeak, at which he looses a breathy chuckle. His hand slides to your hip, gently stroking the skin with a thumb. 

"Need your words, angel girl."

"I’m okay," you coo into his shoulder, but he has to strain to hear it above his own breathing. 

"Yeah? Why so quiet?"

But it seems that at least for the moment, he’s gotten all the words he can out of you. When he tries to move, you whimper indignantly, clutching onto him tighter. 

"I really did a number on you this time, huh?" He laughs when you nod into him. "Are you falling asleep?"

"Mhm," you hum dreamily, little puffs of warm air slowing against his neck. 

"You can have…" he cranes his head to check the digital clock, "48 minutes."

"An hour."

He settles his weight on you once more, pressing a chaste kiss to your throat. His voice is low and gentle as he admonishes you. 

"I said 48 minutes."

But it doesn’t matter—you’re already asleep, or close enough to it. Spencer takes the opportunity to shift you to your side, and the way you wrap around him like a vine even unconsciously makes his heart ache. He really should go now—the earlier he gets out of your room the less likely certain complications will arise—but how can he possibly leave you like this? A vulnerable, dreamy girl with tangled hair haloing around her on the pillow case, clinging to him with blind trust that he’ll watch over her as she sleeps? No—there’s no way he’s leaving yet. Instead, he brings you closer. 48 perfect minutes will go by far too quickly, he’s sure. 

[chervbs]

Black Sheep

Summary : The Winter Soldier fell in love with his doctor. Bucky Barnes remembers.

Pairing : Bucky Barnes x doctor!reader (she/her) 

Warnings/tags : Protective!Bucky, slow-burn, trauma bonding, whump, bit of fluff and a lot of angst, violence, mentions of death, medical trauma, human experimentation, psychological manipulation, emotional and physical abuse, attempted and threatened sexual assault, isolation. Protective!Bucky, slow-burn emotional bonding, and angst. Reader discretion is strongly advised, especially for survivors of sexual violence or abuse. (Please let me know if I miss anything!!!)

Word count : 9.2k 

Requested by : Anon! Based on this request

Note : If you’d like to be on the taglist, message me! It gets lost in the comments sometimes. Enjoy!

When you took the job, you didn’t ask too many questions

The recruiter approached you late—long after you’d sent out resumes, long after your student loan grace period had dried up and your dreams of a hospital residency were smothered under interest rates and rejection emails. They found you exactly when they knew you’d be desperate. 

The offer came in a nondescript envelope. No return address and company name. Just a number to call, and a time limit.

It sounded too good to be true. It offered full medical license activation and triple the usual pay. Off-books, but government-sanctioned, they claimed. You’d be working with elite personnel in a high-clearance, undisclosed location. It was a matter of national security, they said. 

When you made contact, they brought you to a warehouse and made you read non-disclosure agreements—dozens of them. They didn’t let you take them home to review. You signed everything in a windowless room with a clock that ticked too fast, and signed up to the project.

Your official title was “Classified field medic for enhanced personnel. Clearance Level 6 required.” It sounded impressive, official. You told your parents it was part of a DOD black ops program and that you weren’t allowed to say more.

You were happy you could finally help— 

 they had far too much medical debt to ever dig their way out.

And… They were proud.

If only they knew.

You were told you’d be assigned to “classified subjects.”

When they finally gave you the details of the work, you noticed the facility wasn’t listed on any public records. The address they gave you wasn’t on any GPS. The car that picked you up had no license plates. You were blindfolded before arriving.

You should have run then. But you didn’t, because they paid in advance.

You paid off your loans in one go and gave the rest to your family, promising you’d be earning more over the next couple of years. 

The facility you were assigned to didn’t have windows. The lights never changed. Days bled into each other until even your internal clock began to fail you. The air was too clean, the silence too dense—like the walls were swallowing sound. They injected you with yellow liquid when you arrived, and you weren't allowed to ask for details. Cameras were in the corners, always watching. 

You weren’t allowed to ask names. You weren’t given files.

You weren’t allowed your phone. No clocks. No outside contact unless you had prior clearance.

They never called it a hospital, because it wasn’t.

It was a slab of steel buried deep underground in Siberia, and you worked under it like a cog in the coldest machine you’d ever known. The men you reported to didn’t wear name tags or rank insignias. They all looked the same— pale-faced, dressed in black. You didn’t know their names, and you have never heard them use yours, either.

At first, you told yourself it was temporary. Just for a year. Just until you paid off your loans. Just until you figured out where you really belonged.

But then you saw the red flags. You folded them neatly and tucked them away with your conscience.

See, they knew the kind of people to look for— desperate ones. They recruit smart people who were overworked, drowning in debt or grief or fear. The ones who couldn’t afford to ask where the money came from. 

And by the time you realised who you were really working for, it was too late. Because no one leaves that facility unless it was in a body bag. 

Hydra was predatory like that.

—

You had been patching up STRIKE team operatives for almost a year. You were good—efficient, clean, and silent. You didn’t pry, and what made you valuable.

You never asked where the injuries came from. Bullet wounds, knife gashes, torn ligaments, crushed bones—you treated them all. You developed antiseptics that worked faster than standard-issue cream and learned how to seal a shrapnel wound in under ten minutes. You fixed what needed fixing, and you didn’t get in the way of the mission.

One morning, you were pulled from your bed at 0400 hours without an explanation. Two men in black shook you awake by the arm and took you to an elevator that descended farther than you knew the facility even went. There was a change in the air the deeper you went—thicker, colder. Like the walls were full of ghosts.

They didn’t tell you what your new assignment was, not until you stepped into the white-lit room and saw him.

He was on a reinforced chair, with blood crusted over his ribs and soaked through his cargo pants. The metal arm was twitching with little sparks, the seams dripping oil and blood in equal parts. His right eye was swollen shut and his lip was split.

And still— he didn’t look away.

You’d heard whispers about him before— the Asset.

They called him It.

Not a name. Not a person. A living weapon— built, not born.

You expected more people guarding the cell, but the only other man in the room was his handler— Colonel Vasily Karpov. You’d met men like him before, but none who looked so openly afraid of the thing they commanded.

"The previous doctor had been terminated due to noncompliance,” Karpov said, which was Hydra-speak for the Asset snapped his spine in two like a breadstick.

Your mouth went dry. "And I’m next in line?"

“You’re competent,” he said. “And replaceable.”

He walked out before you could respond.

The door shut behind him with a final hiss, like a coffin sealing.

And then there was just you— and him.

You took a step closer. He tracked your movement with his blue, calculating eyes. You could tell he didn’t know what you were—but knew how to kill you if you got close.

You didn’t speak at first. You just moved slowly, methodically. 

Eventually, you became brave enough to clean the blood. You assessed the damage. His injuries were extensive— fractured ribs, dislocated shoulder, deep lacerations across his abdomen. Most people would’ve gone into shock hours ago.

But he sat there, still breathing like a machine.

He didn’t flinch when you treated him.

Not even when you pulled a broken tooth from the inside of his right bicep.

He winced, though, when you put a hand on his shoulder to soothe him. And later, when your gloved hand rested gently on his chest, while rubbing small circles to calm him down, his eyes flicked to your face.

It was the first time he looked at you. 

Afterward, you logged the treatment. You followed the protocol. You filed the injury report.

In the official files, they referred to him as an it. But in your private notes, you called him he.

—

Over the next year or so, you were his doctor. 

And apparently, you were the only doctor who survived more than eight months.

You’d fix up his ribs when they were fractured. You cleaned bullet wounds from his side, his shoulder, the meat of his thigh. You iced swollen knuckles and stitched torn flesh, always so amazed how quickly his body healed. 

But still, they used him until he broke. They froze him from time to time, but after he was out, they dragged him back and told him to put the pieces together.

You worked in silence. He sat in silence.

Most days, his eyes were washed-out and programmed.

But sometimes, during the worst of the injuries—when your hands pressed into open wounds, when you whispered sorry— his eyebrows softened.

At this point, you had memorised his injuries, and the places his enemies targeted again and again. You started pre-packing supplies before he even arrived. 

The handlers noticed.

You began modifying your ointments—adding subtle numbing agents, to match his supersoldier metabolism. 

You weren’t supposed to. They wanted him in pain. 

But you did it anyway.

Once, they brought him in half-conscious, his metal arm sparking at the joint, blood soaked through the tactical gear. There was a knife wound under his ribs— and it was too deep. 

He grunted when you pressed gauze to it.

It was not a reaction to pain. It was a warning. His eyes met yours, and they were clearer than usual— as if he was fighting something.

And then, for the first time, you realised: He knew what was happening to him.

Maybe not always. Maybe not fully.

But there was a man inside the machine, and today was awake just long enough to hate it.

That night, they froze him and drilled the trigger words into his brain again. 

—

Tonight, he came back worse than usual.

Bruised. Bloodied. Shot in seven different places. His face was partially swollen, split lip crusted with dried blood, a jagged tear across his side soaking his uniform black-red. His metal arm twitched violently, fingers clenching and unclenching with a mechanical rhythm— as if the programming inside him was short-circuiting.

He was strapped into the chair again, the restraints digging into his wrists deep enough to turn the skin purple. Four guards had hauled him in like he was an animal— one of them nursing a broken arm. 

They left you alone with him and chuckled, “good luck.” 

The Asset’s head was bowed low, hair falling like a curtain over his eyes. The tension in his shoulders was wrong. Too rigid, too coiled, like a wire stretched too tight and ready to snap.

You stepped closer, and he jerked suddenly against the restraints—and his metal hand nearly caught your arm.

You froze.

In your peripheral vision, the guards laughed behind the glass.

He didn’t look at you.

He was breathing hard and shaking violently, as if was trying to stay in his body.

You looked at the camera in the corner, swallowing back a panic and anger.

“I can’t treat him like this,” you said. If he didn’t calm down enough for you to stitch him up soon, he was going to bleed out.

Your voice was sharper than you meant it to be. It was… unprofessional. 

A few seconds passed before the speaker crackled.

“That’s too bad,” said Karpov’s cold, detached voice. “It is your job.”

You stared at the glass behind which they watched— always watched.

Then you turned back to him.

You tried, as always, to be gentle. To be careful. You knelt to clean the gash under his ribs. You threaded your needle, soaked the wound with antiseptic.

But his body thrashed again.

You dropped the needle.

His metal arm lunged forward, nearly catching your throat before the restraints snapped him back into place.

He didn’t mean to, you reminded yourself.

But the part of him that killed without asking questions was surfacing, and you were too close.

Your hands shook.

He turned his head away from you as if ashamed. Or furious. 

Fuck.

You were losing him.

So you did the only irrational, human thing that came to mind.

You… sang.

“Baa, baa, black sheep, have you any wool…”

Your voice cracked on the first line. It had been years— you hadn’t sung it since you were small— curled up on your mother’s lap while she ran her fingers through your hair and kept the nightmares away.

You saw his breathing slow down, just slightly. 

“Yes sir, yes sir, three bags full…”

He…  didn’t flinch again.

You kept singing while you threaded the needle and stitched the worst of the gash along his side. His trembling eased.

You spoke without really meaning to, your voice almost a whisper.

“My mother used to sing it to me,” you lulled. “I only realised later what it meant,” you continued. “‘One for the master, one for the dame…’”

You wiped sweat from your forehead, working on a deeper wound now.

“Servitude, right? ‘One for the little boy who lived down the lane.’ Maybe lullabies sung to entertain children. Maybe they’re for making people… obedient,”

You paused, still stitching, thankful he calmed down. 

“Because I think…,” you said, tilting your head as you managed to fish a bullet out of his side. “Obedience it taught. Not born.”

And then, like the thought slipped out of your mouth without permission, “Were you taught well?”

You didn’t expect a response. 

But this time, his head turned and he looked at you.

His voice came out rough, underused, gravel dragged across rusted metal. But these sounds were not growled nor screamed.

“It was the only thing I remember learning,” he whispered. 

You froze.

It was the first time you had ever heard him speak.

The needle slipped from your hand, fell into the tray with a clink. You were stunned. 

Through all that, he watched you. 

You knelt beside him, picked up the needle again with shaking hands.

His eyes followed you as you resumed treating him. He was silent the rest of the session. 

But something had changed.

—

The first time he leaned into your touch was a couple of months later. 

You were bandaging a wound just beneath his collarbone in tight, methodical loops when your fingers brushed the skin of his neck. He let out a deep breath and tilted his head just slightly toward your hand.

He… made a conscious choice. 

You didn’t say anything, and neither did he. But your hands lingered a little longer than usual.

Sometimes, when he was lucid, he’d look at your hands while you worked— following their motion like they were the only real thing in the room. You weren’t sure what he was seeing. 

Then… you started narrating aloud. It was partly for him, partly for you. “This’ll sting a little,” you’d say, cleaning a wound.

“Pressure here—sorry, hold on…”

He never answered at first. 

Then one day, he did.

You were stitching a deep tear in his thigh when your thread caught. “Sorry,” you said under your breath.

“You always say that.”

You looked up, needle halfway through the thread. “Say what?”

“‘Sorry,’” he managed, “it’s not your fault.”

“Sorry,” you mentioned sheepishly. “I’ll stop saying it.”

Then, you resumed your work.

The next time he came in, he was limping badly, and for once, the restraints weren’t used. Maybe they knew he couldn’t stand. Maybe they didn’t care if he bled out.

And he didn’t even make it to the chair. He sat on the floor instead.

When you knelt beside him, your knees touching his, he didn’t pull away. He let you cut the fabric from yet another ruined suit— fifth one this month— or year? You have long lost track of time in this Siberian bunker. 

Still, he let you clean the blood from his temple.

“Don’t they ever give you a break?” you asked, not expecting an answer.

“No,” he said simply. 

You frowned. 

Still, your hands were steady.

You started humming when he came in—low, quiet melodies under your breath. Sometimes lullabies. Sometimes nothing at all—just sounds, like a lifeline tossed into water. He never asked you to stop.

One night, after they’d brought him in burned—his arm singed, the edge of his jaw blistered—you held an ice pack against his skin and whispered, “You shouldn’t be alive after half of this.”

He didn’t speak for a long time. Then, after careful consideration, he said, “Sometimes I think I’m not.”

Eventually, he started helping you—lifting an arm for treatment, shifting his weight when he knew it would help you work faster. He never said much. Never more than a sentence or two. But the words, when they came, were clear. 

“Thank you.”

“Be careful.”

One night, he asked for your name.

You told him. But when you asked him what his was, he only said, “I don’t know.”

But for the first time in a very long time, The Asset smiled. 

Because it was the first time anyone ever cared to ask.

—

When he wasn’t in cryofreeze, they kept him in a reinforced room that wasn’t technically a cell, but wasn’t anything else either. It had a cot, a chair, and a toilet.

You called it the holding room.

They called it the kennel.

You’d come in for treatment checks once or twice a week between missions— tended his joints, monitored the fluid viscosity in his metal arm, checked for infection. 

But the guards watched him too. Always. From the control room, behind the glass, hands on the mic.

They joked about him.

At first, it was petty things— how much blood he could lose before he passed out, how many bones had healed crooked.

But it got worse.

Much worse.

They joked about his body when he was in heat. How he “rutted in his sleep sometimes.” How they’d seen the security feed catch him grinding against the mattress, the cot, the restraints, whatever he could in his animal state after missions.

“He’s always desperate after a kill,” one of them said once, laughing. “Bet he doesn’t even know what he’s doing. Fucking the pillow like a mutt.”

You had frozen when you heard it. But today—today, it went further.

“Bets?” one of them said. “Ten rubles on the mattress tonight. Twenty on the wall.”

All three of the guards stationed to watch that night laughed. 

“Stop,” you said, through gritted teeth. “What you’re doing is disgusting. Watching him like that—mocking him— when his agency’s being taken from him? He’s a fucking person and you need to grow up.”

What followed was the longest ten seconds of silence in your life. 

And then one of them leaned forward in his chair and sneered. “If you think he’s a person, why don’t you go in there?”

You blinked. “What?"

“Go on,” The other guard grinned and got up from his seat. “If you think he’s man and not machine, let’s test it.”

You stepped back, realising what their plan was. “Don’t touch me.”

“Too late.”

Their hands grabbed your arms.

You fought—kicked, screamed, bit one of them hard enough to draw blood—but there were three of them, and you were half their size. One of them slammed your head into the wall hard enough to daze you. 

You didn’t know where the pain began — your scalp where they’d yanked your hair? The side of your jaw where a fist had struck you clean across the face? 

Still, you fought. You slammed your elbow into one guard’s windpipe hard enough to make him choke. You thrashed and tried everything, but they were stronger. 

And they enjoyed it.

You’d never seen teeth like that — bared in joy at suffering. One of them— Maksimov had blood on his knuckles and another— Yuri had both hands up your shirt before you bit him hard enough to draw blood.

You screamed, “He—we— a person!” not knowing whether you meant yourself or the Winter Soldier.

But they didn’t care.

One of them tore at the buttons of your shirt while another held your arms behind you. The fabric split as your bra snapped and air hit your chest and you curled inward, shaking, humiliated, trying to hide your body with trembling hands.

“He’ll definitely go for her pussy,” one of them muttered like it was a bet at a bar.

“I’d go for the ass first,” another chuckled. “Tighter.”

Then came the worst line.

“I bet the dumb beast doesn’t know the difference and finish in her mouth in under three minutes.”

The laughter didn’t stop.

Your legs gave out once they dragged you through the hallway to the lower levels. You stumbled, bleeding from your lip, your breasts half-exposed, nails broken from the fight. They hauled you back up and slammed your back into the steel door before keying it open.

You saw the inside of the room for only a second before they shoved you in and locked the door behind you with a clang.

“Have fun, soldat!” A guard, Anton, said.

You fell, and started trembling.

Everything hurt.

And then you looked up.

He was there.

The Asset — him. The Winter Soldier.

He was standing in the center of the room. He wasn’t strapped down this time, his long hair damp and clinging to his cheeks. His chest was bare, streaked with drying blood and oil. His eyes locked onto you the moment you hit the floor.

You froze.

Your arms flew across your body, trying to cover yourself as you backed yourself into the wall.  You curled in on yourself, heart hammering so loud it drowned out the rush of blood in your ears.

He’ll fuck you, they had said. He’ll take the choice away from you. He’ll use you as a way to satisfy himself.

You believed it for a second.

You’d seen what he could do — seen the machine they’d made him into. You’d see the bloodlust in his eyes when he came back from missions. 

You were terrified.

You curled tighter.

He took one step forward.

And… stopped.

You took a chance and looked at your face.

He wasn’t looking at your chest. He wasn’t leering. His pupils weren’t blown wide with mindless hunger. He wasn’t hard, or panting, or unchained from reality.

He was staring at your injuries.

At the torn fabric, at the swelling in your cheek. The handprint rising red on your arm. And the grip marks on your breaks. The blood at your lip. His brow furrowed.

And his whole body… melted.

The heat was gone, almost instantly. 

Slowly, he lowered himself to one knee.

“Who…” he rasped, “did this to you?”

His voice was hoarse, barely there. But there was no mistaking the rage that had formed underneath it — nothing like the lust the guards had imagined.

He handed you his only blanket, and you clutched it. He let you wrap yourself in it, and when you couldn’t stand, he helped you sit up, not touching your skin unless he had to.

“Maksimov, Yuri, and Anton,” you whispered, lip trembling.

His teeth clenched.

He reached out slowly — slow enough that you could move away, slow enough that you knew it wasn’t force — and brushed the blanket more tightly around your shoulders, like he was covering you from the world, from the camera, from the three guards he knew were watching.  

You were still crying. You didn’t realise it until his human thumb brushed away a tear from your cheek.

He didn’t say anything for a while.

He just sat there, at your level, holding the blanket closed with one hand, eyes locked on yours. Not on your body. Not on your skin. 

You folded into his chest, not because he demanded it, but because it was safe. 

He wrapped his arms around you like he’d never learned how to hold a person without breaking them. And still — he didn’t break you.

He just held you, shivering, until your breathing slowed.

And in the silence, you heard the quietest thing of all. “I won’t hurt you.”

Once again, The Asset had made a choice. 

A human one.

—

Hours passed.

The two of you stayed curled together on the concrete. You had stopped crying eventually, but your body still trembled now and then— from shock, from adrenaline.

You still felt his arm around your shoulders—gentle, not possessive.

The guards who had been watching were probably bored. You thought maybe—maybe—you’d be left alone. Maybe they’d gotten the message. Maybe they wouldn’t push again.

You were proven wrong when the heavy steel door hissed open.

You barely had time to pull the blanket tighter.

The same three guards entered and they were prepared. They carried sleek, matte black rifles. Loaded, to deal with The Asset should he go rogue. 

And then you heard the voice.

“Что с тобой, солдат?” — What the fuck is wrong with you, Soldat?

Yuri stepped forward, gun dangling casually in his hands, eyes not even on The Asset— but on you.

“Мы дали тебе дырку, и ты даже не воспользовался ею?” — We gave you a hole and you didn’t even use it?

You flinched so hard your head hit the metal wall behind you.

The Asset stood up and stepped directly in front of you, body between yours and theirs, fists clenched. He was…shielding you.

The guards exchanged glances, laughing now. One of them cocked his gun and slung it over his shoulder like a prop in a theatre.

“Ладно. Тогда мы сами её трахнем,” —Fine. Then we’ll use her ourselves. Maksimov said, smiling.

And then Yuri moved fast. He reached out and grabbed your ankle, hard, yanking you out of the blanket.

You screamed.

And The Asset snapped.

No hesitation, No programming.

Just rage.

The Asset’s metal fist punched Yuri square in the chest and launched him into the far wall. The impact was loud enough that you heard a crack—maybe the wall, but most likely Yuri’s spine.

Before anyone else could react, he twisted and ripped the rifle from Anton’s hands. Without really aiming, he pulled the trigger and shot Maksimov in the throat.

Blood sprayed the walls, and Maksimov gurgled once before slumping to the ground.

Anton raised his hands to surrender.

Too late.

Bucky pivoted, metal arm slamming the barrel of the rifle into Anton’s face with brutal force, then fired— one shot, clean through the eye.

He dropped the gun.

It clattered to the floor, ringing louder than the gunshots had.

He turned back toward you, his shoulders rising and falling with every breath.

He knelt. “I’m sorry you had to see that.”

You blinked, still clutching the blanket, hands shaking.

—

Within minutes of the bodies hitting the ground, you heard the sound of heavy boots walking in.

Karpov entered the cell like he owned the air in it.

He didn’t look at you.

He didn’t look at the corpses.

He only looked at The Asset who was still crouched in front of you, body curled like a shield.

Karpov simply pressed a switch on a small black device he held in his gloved hand.

There was a crack of electricity, and The Asset screamed.

You jolted, reaching for him—but it was no use.

His body seized up as the taser pulse ran through his spine, his metal arm locking tight against the floor, 

He didn’t resist. He didn’t even try.

When he collapsed unconscious beside the cot, Karpov turned to you without missing a beat.

“Come.”

You shook your head. “He—he was protecting me—he saved me—”

“You’ll have time for your little report later,” he snapped, throwing you some clothes to put on. “For now, come.”

—

The interrogation room was cold. 

Karpov stood across the table from you, arms folded.

“You will explain,” he said coldly.

Your eyebrows furrowed, still half in shock. “Explain what?”

He tilted his head. “You calmed him down.”

Your mouth opened, then shut.

"You do understand," he said in his frigid Russian-laced English, “that he should have either killed you, or fucked you.”

You froze.

He watched your reaction like a scalpel watches skin.

“That’s what the programming was designed to do,” he continued. “You are aware of his conditioning, yes?”

You nodded slowly, not trusting your voice.

“Then you know what heat was for.”

You have heard of why it was drilled in his brain— but you didn’t answer.

Karpov did not wait for permission to continue.

“It was an instinct trigger. Embedded in his biological and neural mapping through synthetic hormonal injections and psychosexual conditioning. During these ‘heat’ cycles, he was supposed to be motivated—” He paused, eyes narrow, “—it was supposed to encourage mating.”

Your throat closed. Did he really not care about the dead guards? Was the project really his main concern?

“The Soldier’s DNA is nearly perfect.” he said, as if it was. “Hydra wanted progeny. Super soldiers born, not built.”

He leaned in then, elbows on the table, steepling his fingers in front of his mouth.

“But every woman they introduced… didn’t survive long enough to be useful. He tore through them out of instinct. So the project was abandoned years ago. The heat was too unstable, and he had no control.” He sat down across from you. “Until you.”

Your stomach lurched.

“You,” Karpov said slowly, “calmed him down.”

“I—I didn’t do anything,” you whispered. 

“You must have!” he snapped. 

You flinched. 

“I’ve studied his tapes for years! I've watched him crush skulls with his bare hands, tear out throats. Rip people in half when the words are spoken. But you—” Karpov stood, circling the table again. “—you knelt half-naked in front of him while he was in heat—and instead of fucking you to death, he held you.”

“I don’t know,” you said hoarsely. 

Karpov stared at you for a long moment, then sighed. He picked up the file from the table and turned to leave.

At the door, without turning back, he said, “You’re being reassigned.”

—

When you went back to your quarters. Your bunk was gone.

Your locker was cleared and stuffed neatly into a duffel bag. 

On the floor was a folded piece of paper.

REASSIGNED TO: THE KENNEL Effective Immediately. Observation: Subject Winter Soldier Objective: Behavioral stabilization Note: Subject's physiological response indicates reduced volatility in your presence. Further utility assessment pending.

You sank onto the cot.

Now, to Hydra, you weren’t just a doctor. You were a leash.

—

The cot wasn’t meant for two.

It was military-issue— narrow, hard-edged, bolted to the floor like everything else in the kennel. At first, you didn’t even sit on it when he was there. You’d sleep on the floor with your back to the cold steel wall, too awkward to mention what happened that day. The blanket was wrapped tight, pretending it wasn’t humiliating, pretending you weren’t always cold.

At first, he’d just watch, afraid of crossing a line— especially after what had happened to you. 

Then, after a week, he motioned for you to sit beside him on the cot when you changed bandages or administered injections.

Then, a month in, after a mission where he came back with his knuckles broken and a gunshot wound near his ribs, you were too exhausted to curl back up on the floor. You’d been crying silently that night, your hands trembling as you stitched him, your eyes stinging, wondering where everything had gone wrong. 

When you’d finished, he looked at you. “…You don’t have to sleep on the floor.”

Your eyes flicked up.

“What?”

He shifted to make room. One side of the cot opened up to you.

You hesitated. Then nodded.

That night, you lay stiff as a board beside him, back to back, flinching to touch. You barely slept, afraid to breathe too loud.

But the next night, when you came back from the showers and the lights dimmed for sleep, he scooted over before you even asked.

By the second month, your backs were pressed together at night. 

By the third, you’d curl inward, and he’d curl, too. One of your legs would brush his. Your forehead might graze his chest. His arm, the flesh one, sometimes draped around your side in the middle of sleep and didn’t pull away when you shifted closer.

—

When his heat cycles came—and they always came—you prepared.

You stayed calm and gave him space. 

You… would sing to him. Lullabies, mostly— songs meant for children too small to understand how cruel the world could be.

He never moved toward you during those nights. He never touched you without invitation. He’d sit on the cot, the muscles in his neck pulled tight.

Sometimes he’d whisper things to himself, half-delirious.

"No. Not her. Not her."

—

When he was frozen, you stayed in the kennel alone.

You didn’t think you’d miss him, but you did.

You’d find yourself sitting on the floor beside his cot, staring at the sealed cryo-chamber, singing to yourself just to fill the space.

And when they unfroze and reset him, you were still his doctor.

You still iced his knuckles. You still placed his dislocated shoulder back. You still pulled bullets from his flesh and closed the wounds with care no one else gave him.

But after the first few months, he started looking at you differently.

Like he knew you. Even after resets. Even after ice.

—

One day, after a mission that had stretched on far longer than any of the others—he came back. He was quiet when he entered. He did not say a word. 

But after two hours of working on his wound, he whispered, “Bucky.”

You tilted your head, confused. You weren’t sure you’d heard right. 

Then he said it again, firmer this time. “My name is Bucky.”

What?

Your mouth opened slowly, your breath finally catching up. 

He… remembered?

“…Okay, Bucky,” you said, voice quieter than you meant it to be— because anything louder might shatter whatever this was—perhaps a glimpse of the man buried beneath all the programming and pain. “Can you please lift your arm for me?”

He did.

And for the first time, he looked… not just present. Not just there.

He looked real.

—

You were still asleep when the cold hands tore the blanket from your body.

Two Hydra agents stormed into the kennel, and before you could even sit up, they had you by the hair, dragging you off the cot like a rag doll.

Bucky shifted awake next to you, but the third guard tased him before he could fully even register what was happening.

“What—what are you doing—?!”

They didn’t answer. They just manhandled you down the corridor, your bare feet scraping along concrete, your heart still stuck between dreams and dread.

In the interrogation room, one of them shoved you into the metal chair so hard the back of your skull smacked against steel. A hand grabbed your chin, wrenching your face toward him. The other paced behind, a cattle prod crackling ominously in his grip.

You recognised the person in front of you as Karpov. “What did he tell you?”

You blinked. Your ears rang. You were still half-asleep, disoriented. 

Then you realised: 

Oh. 

Someone saw the footage.

Someone saw what happened last night. Someone heard Bucky say his name.

Your mouth opened, before shutting again. You weren’t even sure what to say. He didn’t tell you anything else, but if you said so, would they even believe you?

But Karpov demanded more.

“Did he say his designation?”

“Did he say anything else? Was there a code?”

“What did he tell you, girl?”

The prod surged forward with a snap of electricity, kissing your side. You screamed—more from shock than pain—but the heat seared like fire across your ribs. You convulsed in the chair, gasping, trying to curl away, but the restraints held you firm.

And then—through your haze—you saw a flicker in the hall.

You heard a grunt. A thud.

And suddenly—he was there.

The Winter Soldier. No—Bucky.

His body still shook from the effects of the tasers, but his eyes were burning. 

One of the agents turned in time to catch a brutal kick to the gut that sent him sprawling. The other barely got a hand to his weapon before Bucky lunged, using the full weight of his body to knock him back. You saw blood and heard bone crack.

In seconds, it was over. Even Karpov was hauled away to safety. 

Bucky was at your side, kneeling, his trembling fingers working clumsily at the restraints. 

“Bucky—” your voice cracked. “You’re hurt—your face—”

He didn’t answer right away. His eyes didn’t meet yours.

The cuffs snapped off.

You sagged forward, into his arms before you even realised you were doing it. You felt the thrum of his chest, the rise and fall of ragged breathing. 

He cupped your face with his human hand, and for a second you thought he might kiss you — but no. He pulled back.

Because he knew if he did, he wouldn’t have the strength to lose you.

“You need to go.”

You froze. “What?”

“There’s a tunnel—service corridor—they don’t watch it after hours. It connects to the south barracks. You can get outside the perimeter.”

“Bucky—no,” you said through gritted teeth, “I’m not leaving you.”

He clenched his teeth. 

“You have to,” he said. “I can’t protect you here.”

“I don’t care—”

“I do.”

That stopped you cold.

His voice cracked on those words. He looked away, just for a second, as if ashamed of how much he meant them. “I— I’m starting to know things I shouldn’t,” he said softly. “I need you to go. If I don’t… if I’m not… If they wiped me…”

You shook your head. “Don’t.”

“I need you to promise me,” he said, almost begging now. “Don’t come back for me.”

“I—please—”

His lips brushed your forehead, right before he shoved you gently but firmly toward the hall.

“Go.”

So you did.

—

Thirty Years Later.

The world had changed. 

Until yesterday, James Buchanan Barnes was a congressman. He didn’t go looking for redemption anymore. And he certainly didn’t go looking for you.

What would be the point?

You were probably… what? In your sixties? Seventies? If you’d survived at all— and Hydra said you hadn’t, that they’d caught you in one of the tunnels and killed you— he could only hope you’d built a life—married someone kind, had children, found a place where the past couldn’t follow you. If you had managed to find peace, he wasn’t going to rip it open like an old scar just to ask, Do you remember me?

So he never tried.

But he never loved again either.

Because even if he never said it out loud, Bucky Barnes had once loved you in a place where love wasn't supposed to exist. 

He still did.

That kind of love didn’t fade. It just lay quiet beneath the skin, like a healed-over wound that never quite stopped aching.

It wasn’t something he talked about. Not to Sam. Not to Steve, before he left. 

Until...

—

New York. Post-Void.

The sky was still clearing after the void had swallowed New York City whole

The Thunderbolts were scattered across the debris-littered street, dragging survivors from the wreckage after Valentina smirked smugly from successfully introducing them to the world as the New Avengers.

Bucky was scanning for movement in the fallen concrete.

That’s when he heard it.

It was faint, like madness like a lullaby from another life.

“Baa baa, black sheep… have you any wool…”

His whole body went still. 

He whipped around, scanning the dust and rubble, and—

There.

You were kneeling beside a crying girl on a broken stoop, blood smeared down her shin, and she had a sprained ankle— maybe. Nothing fatal—but you held her like she was made of glass, one hand gently pressing a bandage against her knee, the other stroking her curls as you sang.

And you… you hadn’t changed.

There was not a wrinkle on your skin, not a gray hair on your head. You didn’t look a day older than the last time he saw you, thirty years ago.

He was so stunned, he forgot how to breathe. 

“You know her?” Yelena asked, stepping beside him, flicking blood from her forehead.

“Yes sir, yes sir, three bags full.”

You calmed the little girl down when she started sobbing, making sure you were gentle with her injuries. 

Bucky didn’t answer.

Couldn’t.

His lips parted like he might say yes, but no sound came out. 

“One for the master, one for the dame,” you sang as the girl sniffled, “and one for the little boy who lives down the lane.”

It was like his lungs had forgotten air. His heart beat painfully inside his ribs—too much, too fast, too sudden.

And then—

You looked up.

Saw him.

And smiled.

—

You walked over to him like you were in a dream—like every step was an act of defiance to everything that had broken you, bent you, tried to erase you. 

He was now sitting on the ground, legs sprawled like they couldn’t quite hold him up anymore. Blood streaked across his jaw, already drying in cracked lines. His chest rose and fell like he’d just come back from drowning.

Your boots crunched over broken glass and gravel as you closed in. You didn’t speak at first. You didn’t know if he could handle words yet—not until your presence fully registered. 

You crouched down, and he flinched when you touched his face—not because it hurt, but because he didn’t trust that any of this was real.

“You’re hurt,” you finally said. “Let me help.”

You pulled out the antiseptic, your hands shaking slightly. You dabbed the cotton gently along the edges of a deep cut above his brow. The moment the liquid touched skin, he shuddered.

And then he started shaking.

The tremble that began in his hands and spread to his shoulders, his chest, his teeth. His mouth parted like he wanted to speak, to ask something, but the words got lost 

Tears welled in his eyes before he could stop them. His breath hitched before the first choked sob, clawing its way up his throat.

And maybe it had been.

Because it wasn’t just about seeing you. It was about seeing you alive.

Alive.

Not a hallucination. Not a memory. Not like he saw you, in the void. 

Alive. With breath in your lungs and heat in your veins and the same look in your eyes that once held him when he was in pain. 

His lips moved—silent at first. Then the words came out shaky. “Do you… remember me?”

You froze for half a second, eyes softening in a way that shattered him all over again.

“Of course I do,” you whispered, brushing a stray hair away from his forehead. “I could never forget the love of my life.”

Was that what he was to you?

After all this time, he still meant the same thing that you did to him? 

He turned his face away like it might somehow spare him some tears, but it didn’t. The sob that followed ripped from the deepest part of his heart, almost primitive. Not the kind you cry when you’re sad, but the kind you cry when you realise your heart’s still beating after being convinced it was gone.

He collapsed into himself, shoulders hitching, breath stuttering out in ragged gasps. His metal hand clawed blindly at the ground like he needed something solid to hold onto before he slipped under.

You didn’t say anything else. You just moved closer, wrapping an arm gently around his shoulders, resting your forehead to his temple as he wept.

Yelena had wandered off a while ago—probably in search of someone else to pester— most likely her father. 

She hadn’t even looked back. She probably knew that this moment didn’t belong to her.

It belonged to him. And you.

He tried to say something else—an apology, maybe, or a confession—but all that came out was, “I—I…” he swallowed, “I— I…”

“Bucky…” You hushed him gently, thumb brushing the tears from his cheek. “We’ll talk somewhere private, yeah?”

He barely nodded. 

Because right now, language was too small a thing. All he could do was hold onto you. And all his mind could think was the way your hand fit in his like it always had.

—

You walked ahead of him, leading him down the cracked sidewalk with a hand hovering just near his arm in case he stumbled again.

He hadn’t stopped shaking.

Every so often, Bucky would glance sideways at you—like if he looked away for too long, you might vanish. His eyes were still red, his fists clenched like it hurt to hold himself together. Still, he followed.

It wasn’t far—just a few blocks. Somewhere between tourist traps and bodegas. 

The sign above the trauma clinic was clean and professional. Your name etched in utilitarian serif, easily overlooked.

You didn’t take him through the front. Instead, you circled to the alley behind the building and paused before a rusted steel door that looked like it hadn’t been used in years. But then—you looked directly at a small, seamless panel embedded beside the frame.

A red light swept across your retina, and when it recognised you— the lock hissed open with a pneumatic sigh.

“Come on,” you murmured as the door swung inward.

You descended a narrow staircase, the lights flickering on ahead of you one by one—clean, white fluorescence bathing the walls. At the bottom, it opened into a wide, reinforced corridor. 

And then you turned the final corner.

Oh.

That was all his mind could manage.

This was not a secret lab. Not some grim Hydra hellhole or impersonal bunker. 

No. This place was…

It was your life. A shrine. A sanctum buried beneath the city.

It was a sterile medical bay with sleek counters, an exam table and chair, sealed cabinets filled with trauma kits and gauze and every instrument a trauma doctor could need—but the walls told a different story.

To his right: a newspaper framed in glass. “Harlem Disaster Narrowly Avoided: Doctor Treats Over Fifty Civilians After Abomination Rampage.” Your name was in the byline. There was even a photo—blurry, taken on someone’s flip phone, of you, sleeves rolled up, arms smeared with blood as you performed a field tourniquet on a screaming man.

Then, “Unsung Hero of New York: Trauma Doctor Saves Dozens in Battle of Midtown.”

He kept turning. The memorabilia… evolved.

A cracked Daredevil helmet, dark red and scuffed.

A display case holding a single 9mm bullet, etched with the faint white skull of the Punisher— etched on it. 

A shattered web cartridge, unmistakably Spidey’s, with a bit of dried synthetic fluid still crusted at the nozzle.

Even a shelf with a glittery Ms. Marvel Funko Pop, clearly out of place, sitting cheerfully among medical books and gauze rolls.

Bucky’s voice, when it came, was nothing more than a breath. “What is this?”

You stepped beside him, your fingers trailing the little bobblehead. “Gifts from… friends.”

He turned to you. “Friends?”

You gave him a tired smile and joked, “Is it so unbelievable for me to have friends, Bucky?”

He blinked, startled by the levity. You gently nudged him to sit on the exam table, and he obeyed without protest as you cleaned his wounds. 

“I just…” he said, voice thin. “I don’t know how you’re still alive. Or how you still look so…” His eyes lingered. “…young.”

You didn't meet his gaze. “Thank Hydra.”

Bucky swallowed, but you continued. 

“When I got recruited, they injected me with something— they said it was just a stimulant— to keep me going longer, help me work longer hours.”

He went still.

“Later, I learned that it was something called the Infinity Formula. Not exactly a Super Soldier Serum, but it… slowed my aging significantly. I guess they didn't want to have to train more people.”

You kept working on the cuts on his face. 

“When you got me out… I didn’t know how to be in the world anymore. So I built this practice. I wanted to be… useful”

Your fingers paused briefly, then continued.

“But then, vigilantes started showing up. People who couldn’t go to hospitals— people who were bleeding, hunted, scared. It was a small community, so word spread.”

Bucky winced as you moved on to the next cut.

“I patched them up.” You nodded toward the artifacts on the walls. “No questions. Just… tried to keep them breathing long enough to get back out there. It became my life.”

Every artifact had a story, and you were the invisible thread stitching it together.

“A couple months ago, Fisk outlawed masked vigilantes and made everything worse. Not a lot come round anymore, but I still help. How could I not?” You looked up at him.“They show up half-dead, still trying to save people. They just need someone to believe they’re worth saving too.”

Bucky's hands curled into trembling fists at his sides.

You pulled the final stitch and wrapped the wound. “There,” you whispered. “You’re good.”

But Bucky didn’t move. He was staring again. Not at the artifacts, not at the walls. But… at you.

“You…” His voice cracked. “You never stopped.”

There was no more Hydra. No more handlers. No more needles.

And yet you continued doing what you do best. 

Back then, he'd thought he'd imagined it. That flicker of you— the only good thing in that place built to destroy anything good.

But now…

Now, here you were. Standing in front of him. Still real. Still breathing. Still looking at him like he was a man, not a weapon.

His voice, when it came, was hoarse and hesitant, like it hurt to say.

“Can I…?”

He didn’t finish the sentence. He looked at you, struggling to find his voice. “Can I touch you?”

You didn’t move for a heartbeat. But then you nodded.

And that was all he needed.

He pulled you ever closer, barely daring to breathe. He lifted his metal arm so gently, like you might vanish if he pressed too hard— he cupped your cheek.

His thumb brushed along your skin, just once.

It was real. 

His other hand followed, cradling your face between his palms. His calloused fingers trembled against you, his lips parting. A man who had faced death a thousand times over… and was now utterly undone by the fact that you were standing in front of him, alive.

Bucky pressed his forehead against yours, and the first sob slipped out of him like a wound opening in real time. His whole body curled inward, as if trying to shield you and collapse into you at the same time.

Your hands came up slowly, mirroring his motion like magnets finding their way to each other after centuries apart, holding him just as gently. “I missed you, Bucky.”

His eyes, that haunted blue, searched your face. “Why didn’t you come for me?” he asked, pain buried deep in his voice. You must’ve seen him in the news— during the Sokovia Accords, the ordeal with the Flag Smashers, or when he became a congressman. You simply have had to have seen him.

You swallowed hard, blinking away the sudden sting in your eyes. “I didn’t think…,” you admitted, “I didn’t think you’d remember me.”

His brows furrowed. “Of course I remembered you,” he said, a little broken, a little desperate. His thumb moved again, tracing circles against your skin. “But Hydra told me you were dead— I never believed them. But after everything, I thought maybe you’d moved on. That you were gone for good, one way or another.”

Tears welled in your eyes now, hot and brimming over, and you let them fall. “After what we’ve been through?” you asked, your voice trembling as a sad smile curled your lips. “How could I ever move on from you?”

He let out a sharp breath, like your words were a punch to the chest. Gently, as if giving you the chance to pull away,  he pulled you closer — chest to chest, heart to heart — until he helped you up and you were straddling his lap, your hands finding a perch on his shoulders, his arms caging you in like you were the most precious thing he’d ever held.

His forehead rested against yours again, breaths mingling, warm and shallow. 

“God, Bucky…After all this time,” you whispered in amazement, “what are we?”

He didn’t answer right away. 

Then, finally, with certainty, he said, “A choice.”

Your breath hitched.

“A choice,” he repeated, eyes locked with yours, his grip tightening slightly on your hips. “The first real choice I made after having my mind taken from me. The first person I cared for that were not orders, not missions.”

Oh.

You let your fingers trail up into his hair, letting yourself touch him like you’d dreamed about for so long. He leaned into it, eyes fluttering shut for a heartbeat.

You swallowed again, sighed when he leaned into your touch. 

“I…” you started, but  pulled back just slightly so you could see his face, your eyes meeting his. “Can I kiss you?”

He looked at you like you were the only person in the world that made any sense.

He could only nod. 

And you kissed him.

It was cautious at first, tentative, like a secret being unravelled — but the second he hummed, the world disappeared. His hand slid to the back of your neck, the other anchoring you to him as he kissed you like he’d been holding his breath for years. You melted into him, your mouths moving together like you’d done this a thousand times in your dreams.

When you finally pulled back, your forehead pressed to his again, both of you smiling like teenagers.

You let out a small laugh, “I’ve always wondered what your lips tasted like.”

He chuckled too, that low, boyish sound you hadn’t heard… ever. “Yeah?” he asked, fingers still tracing lazy lines along your spine. “Was it everything you imagined?”

You grinned, eyes still closed. “Better.”

He kissed your cheek, your jaw, the corner of your mouth and whispered, “I missed you, too.”

—

You and Bucky had taken it slow.

After those first intense days together, you both decided to learn about each other outside of Hydra. Just to see who you were now. 

You went on actual dates— coffee that turned into late dinners, morning hikes, lazy afternoons in museums, cooking together and arguing over whether pineapple belonged on pizza. 

Turns out, outside the cold walls of bunkers and laboratories and hidden bases, you and Bucky were more compatible than you'd even dared hope. He liked vinyl records and peaceful mornings. You liked stargazing and stealing his sweaters. You both loved old noir films, loved sushi, and had developed a strangely passionate shared hobby for urban beekeeping.

You laughed more. He smiled more. It was like discovering each other for the first time all over again.

You’d kept your medical practice open, still offering your services to non-traditional patients. But when the Watchtower was done and the New Avengers moved in, they asked you to help the team.

Your official title was Medical Liaison and Trauma Consultant, but mostly you patched up a rotating cast of stubborn supersoldiers and spies who swore they “healed fast” and then passed out on your med bay floor.

But today, the med bay was calm — just a light checkup for Alexei, a bruised rib for Yelena, and a lot of banter.

Everyone knew you and Bucky were dating, but no one had the guts (or stupidity) to ask questions. 

Until now.

You were cleaning up your tray of instruments when Bob leaned back in his chair and asked casually, “So… how did you guys meet again?”

You paused.

Bucky, seated on the edge of the exam table with his shirt half-buttoned, glanced at you.

“Oh, you know,” you blinked, “Mutual enemies.”

There was a beat of silence.

“What does that even mean?” Walker asked, clearly disappointed. 

You smiled sweetly. “It means you don’t want to know.”

Yelena squinted at you from the other bed. “It means the real story is either classified or deeply traumatic.”

“Or both,” Alexei said.

You laughed — a little too brightly for the topic — and handed Yelena her discharge form. “Exactly. Now who’s next for bloodwork?”

Bucky slid off the table, kissing your cheek quickly as he passed. Ava rolled her eyes so hard you could practically hear it.

Mutual enemies? Yeah, right. 

The more accurate term would be: the best thing Hydra never meant to happen. 

– end.

General Bucky taglist:

@hotlinepanda @snflwr-vol6 @ruexj283 @2honeybees @read-just-cant

 @shanksstrawhat @mystictf @globetrotter28 @thebuckybarnesvault @average-vibe

@winchestert101 @mystictf @globetrotter28 @boy--wonder--187 @scariusaquarius

@reckless007 @hextech-bros @daydreamgoddess14 @96jnie @pono-pura-vida

@buckyslove1917 @notsostrangerthing @flow33didontsmoke @qvynrand @blackbirdwitch22

@torntaltos @seventeen-x @ren-ni @iilsenewman @slayerofthevampire

@hiphip-horray @jbbucketlist @melotyy @ethereal-witch24 @samfunko

@lilteef @hi172826 @pklol @average-vibe @shanksstrawhat

@shower-me-with-roses @athenabarnes @scarwidow @thriving-n-jiving @dilfsaresohot

@helloxgoodbi @undf-stuff @sapphirebarnes @hzdhrtss @softhornymess

@samfunko @wh1sp @anonymousreader4d7 @mathcat345 @escapefromrealitylol

@imjusthere1161 @sleepysongbirdsings @fuckybarnes @yn-stories-are-my-life @rIphunter

@cjand10 @nerdreader @am-3-thyst @wingstoyourdreams @lori19

@goldengubs @maryevm @helen-2003 @maryssong23 @fan4astic

@yesshewrites1 @thewiselionessss @sangsterizada @jaderabbitt @softpia 

@hopeofwinter @nevereclipse @tellybearryyyy @buckybarneswife125 @buckybarneswife125

@imaginecrushes @phoenixes-and-wizards @rowanthomasknapp @daystarpoet @thefandomplace

@biaswreckedbybuckybarnes @herejustforbuckybarnes @kitasownworld @shortandb1tchy @roxyym

@badl4nder

[chervbs]

𝚂𝚃𝙸𝙻𝙻 𝚄𝚂 | 𝚂𝚃𝙴𝚅𝙴 𝙷𝙰𝚁𝚁𝙸𝙽𝙶𝚃𝙾𝙽

Pairings: Steve Harrington x gf!Reader

Word Count: 1,220 words

Summary: You walked away thinking you were second best. Steve let you. Two months later, he finally proves you weren’t. (This is part two of Hard To Love!)

Contains: Angst Turned Fluff, Reconciliation, Marriage, Domestic Future, Past Angst, Cheesy Reconciliation, Established Relationship, References to Marriage & Family Life

A/N: Based on this ask by @keerygal. I'm sooo sorry it took a while, I got sidetracked (fought with kids in online games) lmao. But here it is, hope y'all enjoy! 🩵

PS. I suck at looking up pictures so please bear with it. 😭

masterlist | part one

The spring gave way to summer without ceremony. The days got warmer. Hawkins got quieter. The cracks in your heart stayed the same.

You didn’t see Steve.

Not really.

You saw him in passing. In crowded spaces where the gang still hung out, though more carefully now. Like everyone could feel the shift but no one knew how to name it.

You stopped sitting next to each other. Your jokes didn’t land the same. You didn’t bring up movies anymore, and he didn’t offer to drive you home. The silence wasn’t angry, it was worse than that. It was resigned.

It wasn’t one big fight that broke you.

It was the echo.

That moment on the porch. The sound of Steve’s voice saying words meant for someone else. Words about a life you’d never be a part of, because he hadn’t pictured you in it.

And you’d been doing all the picturing.

God, that was the thing that hurt the most. You were all in. You’d imagined road trips, sharing apartments, staying up late and watching bad TV. You imagined watching him hold your kids. Watching him grow old.

You gave him every piece of your future.

And in the quiet of that pool party, you learned you’d never been part of his.

Steve felt it too.

Felt it in the way your name sat heavy in his throat, like it didn’t belong to him anymore. In the way he still saw your ghost in his car, in his house, in the songs you used to hum under your breath.

He hadn’t meant to hurt you.

But he had.

Not with malice. Not even with carelessness.

Just with honesty.

Because that version of the future he talked about? With Nancy? It wasn’t real. It was just a leftover dream he didn’t know how to stop carrying.

He didn’t want Nancy back.

But he wanted something simple. Something linear. Something familiar enough to not be scary.

And you were none of those things.

You were chaos and challenge and realness. You looked at him like you saw all his worst parts ,and still held out his hand. And he didn’t know how to let someone love him like that. Not fully.

So he’d held back.

And you’d noticed.

And now?

Now there was nothing to hold at all.

Robin asked about you once.

“Have you called her?”

Steve shook his head. “No point.”

“She didn’t ask for space, Steve. She asked for more. And you didn’t give it to her.”

“I didn’t know how.”

Robin frowned. “Then maybe she was right.”

Steve didn’t answer. Just swallowed hard and walked out the back door.

Your room felt different without him.

It wasn’t like you lived together, but his presence had seeped into everything. His sweaters were still in your drawer. His stupid tube socks were in your laundry. The corner of your mattress still dipped where he used to sit and pull off his sneakers.

He’d kissed you there once, soft and slow. Whispered something like “I think I could love you forever” into your neck.

You wished he hadn’t said it.

You wished you didn’t still believe it.

Two months later, Steve knocked on your door at 1:12 a.m.

It was raining, of course it was raining, and he looked like something out of a bad rom-com with his hair flat, shirt sticking to his chest, breathless like he’d run the whole way.

You opened the door before you even knew why.

And he said, “I can’t do this.”

You blinked, heart thudding. “What?”

“I can’t keep pretending like I didn’t screw everything up,” he said. “I can’t keep trying to go through my days like there isn’t this giant, gaping hole where you are supposed to be.”

You stared at him.

He took a shaky breath. “I was scared, okay? You were too good. Too real. You made me want things I thought I wasn’t allowed to have anymore. And I ruined it.”

You didn’t speak. Not yet.

“I said something stupid to Nancy. Something I didn’t even mean in the way it sounded. And if you heard it, and it made you feel like I didn’t see a future with you, then I failed. Because all I do is picture you. Us. A dog we both forget to feed on time. Kids that have your laugh and my hair and leave socks in the microwave or something stupid like that.”

You blinked, lips twitching despite yourself.

Steve stepped closer. “I don’t want that life with anyone else. Not anymore. Not even in my imagination. It’s you. It’s always been you, and I didn’t say it when it mattered. So I’m saying it now.”

“And if you never want to see me again, I’ll walk away,” he said, voice shaking now. “But if there’s even the smallest part of you that still loves me, I’m begging you...”

You didn’t let him finish.

You grabbed the front of his stupid soaked shirt and kissed him like you were starving.

Because you were.

And he kissed you back like he’d been drowning.

Three years later, you now stood in the backyard of a small two bedroom house just outside Hawkins.

The baby monitor sat on the patio table beside two half-finished drinks. The pool was quiet. The fairy lights Steve insisted on stringing every spring blinked lazily in the dark.

“Remember the last time we were at a pool party?” you teased, curling into his side.

He groaned. “Don’t remind me. Worst night of my life.”

“Could’ve been the last.”

“Was almost the last,” he said softly, pressing a kiss to your temple. “Glad it wasn’t.”

The baby monitor crackled softly.

You smiled.

Inside, your daughter, the little girl with Steve’s sleepy eyes, a head full of hair and your stubborn scowl turned over in her crib and sighed.

Steve glanced down at you.

“You know I still picture a future sometimes,” he said.

You raised a brow. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. But it’s not a dream anymore. It’s real. You, me, her. Maybe another one. A backyard. A swing set. You threatening to murder me if I forget to take the chicken out of the freezer again.”

You laughed, heart aching in the best way.

He squeezed your hand. “I know I was hard to love. But you did it anyway. And I’ll spend the rest of my life trying to be worth it.”

You kissed him, soft and slow.

“I already think you are.”

And under the string lights, with your daughter safe inside and Steve holding you like a promise, the future you once thought you'd lost bloomed around you, not a perfect one, not the one he once imagined with someone else.

But the one you built together.

The only one that ever truly fit.

[chervbs]

𝙷𝙰𝚁𝙳 𝚃𝙾 𝙻𝙾𝚅𝙴 | 𝚂𝚃𝙴𝚅𝙴 𝙷𝙰𝚁𝚁𝙸𝙽𝙶𝚃𝙾𝙽

Pairings: Steve Harrington x gf!Reader

Word Count: 1,613 words

Summary: A late night pool party at Harrington's residence with the rest of the gang and you overhear Steve reminiscing with Nancy about a future that doesn’t include you. It’s not cheating. It’s not betrayal. It’s something worse: the kind of honesty that unravels everything.

Contains: Angst, emotional miscommunication, overheard confessions, lingering history between Steve/Nancy, and heartbreak. (Let me know if I missed something else)

A/N: I was watching a Stranger Things reaction video on youtube and it was that episode where they stole the RV and Steve was talking to Nancy about having a big family with six kids and going on a trip or something and that inspired me to write this one. Like why not make it angsty. Hope you enjoy..or cry with me or whatever, lol.

masterlist | part two

The water glittered under the porch lights like a hundred tiny suns.

Someone had put music on, something low and easy, half drowned under the splashes and soft laughter. It should’ve felt nice. Safe. After everything you’d been through with the Upside Down, this kind of peace was rare. A backyard pool, cheap plastic chairs, towels strewn across the grass. The whole gang, together. Breathing. Living.

You were perched at the edge of the deep end, legs dangling in, beer untouched beside you. Robin and Dustin were mid-cannonball war. Max and Lucas bickered lazily over pool noodles. Nancy had just walked back from the house with a refill for herself and one for Steve.

Steve, your boyfriend, technically.

Except tonight, something was off.

He hadn’t touched you once. Not even a passing squeeze on your shoulder or a graze of your hand. Not cold, not distant. Just… quiet. Thoughtful.

And Nancy had been near him more than usual. Laughing at something he said. Sitting next to him on the pool steps. It was nothing. It had to be nothing. Everyone knows you and Steve are together, Nancy's in a lond distance relationship with Jonathan, and she's nice to you.

Still, your gut twisted.

You weren’t jealous. Not exactly. Not insecure, either. You knew Steve loved you. He told you often. Held you like it was sacred. But there was always that thing, that little thread that hadn’t quite snapped between him and Nancy Wheeler.

And that’s when you heard it.

You’d wandered inside for a towel, your own still soaked. Passing the sliding glass door, you paused. Not intentionally. Just long enough to hear Steve’s voice.

They were alone on the porch steps. Nancy and Steve, bathed in string light shadows.

“I used to think this would be our life,” Steve was saying. “You and me. Backyards. Pools. Maybe a couple kids running around with floaties and juice boxes…”

You froze. The towel slipped from your arms.

Nancy didn’t say anything.

Steve kept going. “Sometimes I still think about it. Like… maybe if things were different.”

You couldn’t breathe.

The conversation shifted after that. Lightened, turned casual. Nancy brushed it off with a joke. Steve laughed. The music grew louder. Someone shouted for more chips.

And you?

You walked straight back into the yard, dropped the towel, and dove into the pool.

Not to cool off.

To drown it all out.

Like your skin wasn’t burning. Like your stomach hadn’t dropped straight into the concrete below you.

And you smiled when Steve caught your eye across the pool minutes later. When he handed you a drink. When he sat close and made some cheesy joke.

You laughed. You played along.

But you didn’t forget.

You didn’t sleep that night.

You hadn’t confronted him. Not that night. Not the next day.

You hadn’t said anything at all. That pool party. The echo of his voice around the corner of the house, talking about white-picket futures and poolside kids… with Nancy.

But you felt it, the way something inside you cracked open, quiet and sharp.

The worst part was that Steve didn’t even know what he’d broken.

It’d been days since the party. Since the moment your chest hollowed out and you didn’t know what part of your relationship was real anymore.

Now you sat in the passenger seat of his car, the windows fogging slightly from your takeout bags and the heater blowing half-heartedly. The air between you was too quiet. Even the music on the radio felt like it was holding its breath.

You weren’t fighting.

Not yet.

But you were unraveling.

And Steve was oblivious.

“I was thinking,” he said casually, shifting gears as the road curved through the woods. “We should take a weekend trip somewhere. Just get out of Hawkins. Like, I dunno, Chicago or something.”

You hummed.

That was all.

He glanced at you. “You good?”

You nodded. But your fingers were clenched in your lap. Your jaw was tight.

Steve frowned. “You’ve been weird all week. Did I do something?”

“No,” you said, then hesitated. “I mean, maybe. I don’t know.”

“Okay, well… if I did something, just tell me.”

You stared out the window, the trees blurring past like they were fleeing from something.

“I think I’m starting to feel like I don’t know where I stand with you,” you said softly.

Steve blinked. “What?”

“I mean, I’m here, yeah. I’m your girlfriend. We go on dates. You hold my hand. But sometimes it feels like you’re… somewhere else. Like part of you is always still chasing something that doesn’t involve me.”

Steve frowned. “Where is this coming from?”

You finally looked at him, eyes stinging. “Do you ever think about being with her again?”

His hands tightened on the wheel. “Who?”

“You know who.”

He didn’t answer right away. Which was already enough of one.

“I’m not still in love with her, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“But you miss her,” you said, voice cracking. “You miss what you had with her.”

Steve exhaled sharply. “I don't…”

“You talk about the future like you already imagined it with someone else first. Like I’m just trying to fill a blueprint that doesn’t even belong to me.”

“That’s not fair,” he said, pulling the car over suddenly onto a dirt patch off the road. “You’re putting words in my mouth.”

You turned to him, voice trembling. “Do you love me, Steve? Or am I just convenient? Because I can’t keep pretending this is okay when I feel like I’m always standing in someone else’s shadow.”

He was quiet. Too quiet.

“I care about you,” he said finally, but it didn’t sound like a promise. It sounded like a confession. A limitation.

You felt something inside you fold in on itself.

“I need more than that,” you whispered.

He looked at you, really looked like he was trying to summon the right thing to say but all he had were half-truths and memories that didn’t belong to you.

“You make it hard to be loved sometimes, you know?” you murmured. “Because you leave the door open. Just wide enough that people think they can reach you, but never wide enough to actually come in.”

Steve flinched, his jaw tightening.

“You act like you're all in,” you continued, “but you’re still holding a piece of yourself back and I don’t think you even realize it.”

He stared ahead, eyes fixed on the dashboard. “You think I don’t want to be this person. That I choose to fuck it all up. But I don't know how else to be.”

And there it was.

The truth. Sharp. Exhausted. Bare.

You nodded slowly, feeling everything and nothing all at once.

“I’m tired of competing with ghosts, Steve,” you said, reaching for the door handle.

He didn’t stop you.

You stepped out into the quiet night. The wind was cold, but it didn’t cut nearly as deep as his silence did.

He watched you walk away.

And still, he didn’t follow.

You’d been gone for five days. Not out of Hawkins, just out of him. Like the version of you that had been wrapped up in his warmth, in his hand holding, movie watching, ride giving affection, that person had vanished the second you stepped out of the car that night.

And the worst part?

He hadn’t gone after you.

He told himself it was because he needed to respect your space. That it wasn’t fair to chase someone when you couldn’t promise anything back. But really? Deep down?

But weeks passed.

Just silence.

And then the silence turned to distance.

He still found your things.

A sweater in the back of his car. Half used cherry lip balm in the glove compartment. One of your earrings under the passenger seat. Small, forgotten parts of you that felt like landmines now.

He thought about the pool party sometimes.

How dumb it was, how reckless to say something like that out loud. To Nancy.

Not because he was still in love with her. He wasn’t. He hadn’t been for a long time. But there was a version of his life he used to cling to like a stupid dream, the white picket fence, six kids, backyard summer version of himself he thought he’d grow into.

And somehow, Nancy had always been the placeholder in that dream. Because she was safe. Familiar. The first heartbreak. The one that left a blueprint in his chest.

But then you came along.

And you weren’t safe. You were real.

You didn’t fall for the Steve Harrington charm package. You didn’t get wrapped up in the story, you wanted to write a new one with him.

And he couldn’t give it to you.

Because he was still holding onto a memory instead of making new ones.

[chervbs]

i love you, i'm sorry | steve harrington

pairing: steve harrington x fem!reader

summary: a fight causes an odd silence between hawkins' couple y/n and steve. a week later steve comes back with the dumbest, sappiest, but perfect romantic gesture to win his girl back.

warning: use of y/n, some swearing, giving the vibes of a cheesy 2000s romcom (that one scene from 10tihay) im just a girl, not proofread

a/n: for my beloved @keerysbrowneyes (everyone act surprised) <3

masterlist !

⋆ ˚ ｡ ⋆ ୨୧ ˚

y/n isn't sure why steve's being such an asshole.

well, at least more of an asshole than normal. and in the girl's defense, he always claims to have a soft spot for her ever since they started dating in their sophomore year of high school.

sure they had their ups and downs. a few minor fights over stupid things: once steve dropped and broke y/n's favorite abba record when trying to clean out her bookshelf for her. a few months later when y/n spilled a milkshake in steve's car. (yes it still smells like strawberries).

those petty fights were stuff the two could overcome in a few days, a week at most.

however this fight, is one the two can't seem to resolve. two weeks after it's beginning.

remember how y/n mentioned that steve's being more of an asshole than normal? well, steve's currently sharing his anger with a certain mullet haired new kid in their school, who steve always claims he's hitting on his girlfriend.

"i just don't know how you don't see it," he repeats himself, "he's constantly around you trying to take you from me!"

y/n rolls her eyes for probably the hundredth time tonight. "steve i can assure you, he's not. even if he was we both know i wouldn't go out with him."

steve shakes his head, "so why does he always ask you to hang out after school? or ask if you need a ride home?"

y/n sighs, "did you not hear a word i just said steve?" she places her hands on her hips, watching steve start to pace back and forth in his living room.

"even if billy was hitting on me, i wouldn't leave you for him," she reiterates, "i wouldn't leave you for anyone."

steve's mind is going a mile a minute. even as y/n's words sink in his mind, her words trying to comfort him, his mouth moves faster than his own brain can stop him.

"says the person who kissed tommy freshman year."

the room is silent. steve lightly gasps sat his own words, then sighs as he looks down at the ground. y/n is simply in shock.

"that was before we even started dating steve," she immediately starts defending, "and it was during a stupid game of truth or dare. it meant nothing!" her voice raises.

now steve feels as if he needs to defend something, to feel higher in power, "but you kissed him after we talked about wanting to start something between us!"

y/n shakes her head, and tried to make her voice louder, in order for steve to try and hear her.

"i told you i wasn't ready for a relationship yet steve, you knew that!"

steve scoffs, "oh, so you weren't ready for a relationship but then whored around with tommy. why don't you just go date him? it's not like him and carol will last."

steve now sits on the couch, his back facing y/n. the girl stood behind him can't believe the words that just came out of steve's mouth. he leans forwards rubbing his hands over his face. he's trying not to picture how y/n looks. how dejected she must feel.

y/n doesn't even try to give him a response. the feeling of water pooling at her waterline of her eyes is enough. she hastily wipes her eyes as she turns and walks out of steve's house, making sure to slam the giant door behind her.

steve stays seated on his couch, gripping onto his hair as he blinks rapidly, trying to blink away any tears begging to be released. his breathing becomes ragid, and he swears he can hear his heartbeat making it's way up his throat. he takes his hand out of his hair, trying to grab ahold of anything else. he grabs the tv remote on the table in front of him, before throwing it against the wall across from him. the plastic shatters, hundreds of tiny pieces already becoming lost in the carpet, and the batteries rolling aimlessly on the floor.

steve stands, stares at the remote, then stomps upstairs towards his bedroom, slamming his own door just like y/n had done five minutes ago.

⋆ ˚ ｡ ⋆ ୨୧ ˚

a week passes.

a full week of y/n ignoring steve. ignoring his calls, or the three bundles of flowers left at her front door. ignoring the longing looks he sends her way in the school hallways. ignoring the notes stuffed in her locker, scribbled with apologies from the boy.

the eighth day after the fight is probably the hardest for y/n. mostly because it's the first time steve seems to be fine. like he seems to be over it, unlike her.

they have their homeroom together, and as y/n goes to sit in front of her friend robin buckley, she notices steve talking to tommy and carol, and a few other popular kids. yet he doesn't dare look up at y/n, which he's done every simgle day this past week.

"harrington still being all mopey over you?" robin asks y/n as she sits.

y/n can't even take her eyes off the boy in question as she responds, "not at all, actually."

on the contrary, steve was in fact still thinking and moping over y/n.

however, last night as he sat in his room missing the girl, he came up with his most brilliant plan yet.

at nine forty-six pm last night, steve drove to the nearest drug store. still clad in his old pajama pants and worn out hawkins high shirt, he grabbed everything he thought he might need.

the clerk gave him a questioning look while scanning all the items. steve muttered out, "last minute school project," before paying and practically running back to his car to get home.

as soon as steve closes his bedroom door, he throws the contents of the bag onto the floor.

a giant posterboard, glue, colored paper, markers, and a brand new shiny speaker covered his floor. before he starts, he rummages through his closet, trying to find a cd he knows he has, thanks to y/n.

he lets out a chuckle once he finds it, and starts working on his poster. he spends at least two hours cutting different paper, and gluing each one meticulously to the board. sure he could've simply used a sharpie, but he wanted this to be more than normal. he'd even say he wants it to be perfect.

which explains why steve is happily almost skipping from class to class today. his bright idea, literally and figuratively, is sitting in his locker, just waiting to be used in between fourth period and lunch.

⋆ ˚ ｡ ⋆ ୨୧ ˚

y/n groans as she walks out of her fourth period calculus class, knowing damn well she just failed that test.

she walks towards her locker, wanting to shove her calculus book so far in the metal box that it would never have to torment her again.

as she's grabbing her history book for after lunch, people whispering and mumbling steve's name all around her made the girl confused. she turned, and saw what the whispers were for.

steve stood in the middle of the school hallway, with a giant poster in his hand, and a small portable cd player connected to a speaker by his feet.

y/n looks down to read the bright poster.

"i know i'm not abba probably dont deserve a second chance"

y/n's eyebrows come together as the sign seems incomplete. steve then realizes, and simply turns it around. y/n reads the rest.

"but maybe this will prove you wrong about one of those things"

once again, y/n's left confused.

steve puts the poster down and leans down to press play on his cd player. the familiar opening chords to abba's honey honey begin filling the hallway and it's students' ears.

y/n's heart begins to warm, as steve seems to have remembered her favorite abba song. she watches as he begins to perform the song in front of her. he even pulls a microphone out of his back pocket, and begins dancing up to her, and around her.

as his silly performance continues, the crowd around the two grows. many students begin cheering people on. but y/n can only feel her heart breaking.

of course she believed this gesture was more than sweet, and wonders how much effort it took steve to put into all this: the poster, actually learning all the lyrics, and not caring what others think about him in this very moment.

halfway through the song, y/n can't help herself but stop him. she walks forward, leans down, and pauses the cd.

now steve looks towards her more than confused.

"what are you-" he mumbles out breathlessly.

y/n looks around at the crowd around them a bit awkwardly, but replies quietly, "i don't need a grand gesture steve. i just need you to talk to me."

with that, y/n walks around him, and through the now dispersing crowd. steve turns and watches her walk away. he feels defeated, dejected, thrown away like some sort of trash. he walks back and picks up his tragedy of a plan to win y/n back, ignoring all the looks thrown his way by his peers.

⋆ ˚ ｡ ⋆ ୨୧ ˚

to make steve's day even worse, during his last class, p.e., he had to deal with the root of his and y/n's fight. billy hargrove.

the class was in the middle of playing basketball. it was shirts versus skins. of course billy picks skins being the stuck up guy he is, steve thinks.

steve currently has the ball, and is dribbling it towards his teammate, however he gets pushed over by none other than billy. the whistle blows as the ball ends up falling out of steve's hands and rolling out of bounds of the court.

billy leans down to help steve up. steve unwillingly grabs ahold of billy's hand.

billy brings steve close to him, so he can almost whisper in his ear.

"that performance in the hallway harrington," he starts, "real cute of you. all that work, and still no girl."

"this is none of your business bi-"

"still no girl," billy cuts off steve and repeats himself, "just means more for billy."

billy finishes by pushing steve back down on the ground. steve sits up, watching as the game begins again.

as he stands, he notices y/n stood by the gym doors. her back tucked tightly under her arm, and her eyes being a mixture of simply watching something she knows she can't have, and longing.

the shrill of the school bell takes the two out of their staring trances. y/n turns abruptly and walks out of the gym.

steve makes it his mission to catch her before she actually leaves the school grounds. he runs haphazardly back into the locker rooms, doesnt even bother changing out of his gym clothes or showering. he grabs his backpack and tries closing the zipper, still while running out of the gym towards the parking lot.

steve's eyes filter over the large crowd exiting and loitering around the parking lot. he tries remembering if he saw her car that morning at all, maybe being able to find where she'd be walking to.

he begins running again, brushing past people and towards the direction of where he could think y/n would be.

he'd say he knows her pretty well by now, and can confidently say he knows y/n wouldn't ever park near the gym. she never wanted to be in the middle of sweaty jocks and cheerleaders at the end of her day, trying to get to her car.

he passes the gym parking lot as well as the main lot, knowing y/n hates how crowded it is before school. she's never able to find a parking spot there so she simply avoids it.

he then runs to the parking lot in the back of the school, and almost pushes a teacher onto the ground on his way. he makes his way around the final corner, and sighs in relief watching as y/n hasn't made it to her car yet.

"y/n!" he yells, catching the attention of the other students parked back here, along with the attention of y/n.

y/n immediately takes notice of his appearance. the green gym shorts showing off more of his legs than he'd ever be comfortable with, and his sweaty grey hawkins high shirt sticking to his torso.

"steve, what on earth is-"

steve cuts her off, "you said earlier you don't want some big grand gesture, and that you just wanted me to talk to you."

he takes a breath before continuing, "i know i messed up okay? i'm very aware of that fact. i know i shouldn't have brought up billy and his flirting. you obviously knew how to handle it, and i should've just let you be with it. and-" he cuts himself off catching his breath again, "and god i wish i could take back what i said about tommy. you're not a whore, first of all, you never were. and yeah we weren't together then so i shouldn't have even brought it up again."

steve pauses to finally make eye contact with y/n after his long rambling. she just stares at him as he can't help but continue talking, thinking that his excessive rambling will win her back.

as he finishes rambling, he ends with, "i'm an idiot for everything that went on that night," he then stumbles over his next words, "i love you, and- and i'm sorry."

y/n gasps.

steve harrington loved her.

her first boyfriend loved her.

the first person who she loves, loves her back.

steve goes wide eyed as he realizes what had just come out of his mouth.

of course, the boy begins rambling once again. however this time, y/n walks up to him to do something about it. quietly cutting him off with her closeness, y/n grabs his face in her hands and brings his lips to hers.

his breath gets caught in his throat at the feeling of y/n's lips on his. once realization hits him like a truck, he grabs onto her hips, bringing her impossibly close to him.

"i love you too, by the way," she mutters against his lips, not daring to pull away from him.

"oh thank god," steve praised as his shoulders sagged, letting any stress leave his body as he kissed y/n again.

[chervbs]

sunscreen - steve harrington

summary: you and steve share a tender moment before facing hawkin's chaos, barely disturbed by the annoying teenagers and adults around you

Steve grumbled silently, but didn’t move his face from the firm yet soft grip you had on him. Nancy, Eddie and Robin were all waiting in the curly haired boy’s van, yelling teasing words as you glided the sunscreen stick over your boyfriend’s face. Steve pouted lightly, eyelashes fluttering as you ran the stick up his face, closer to his eyes.

You pulled the stick off Steve’s face, putting the lid on it as Steve turned around, ready to rush into the van. “We’re not done, Harrington.” Steve’s cheeks flushed a light pink as he did the walk of shame back to you, more teasing comments coming from your friends in Eddie's white van.

From the other side of you, the teenagers squished into your car yelled in annoyance at the time you were spending taking care of your boyfriend. You patted your clean fingers on Steve’s face, making sure the sunscreen reached all areas of his face.

“Okay.” You announced, leaning forward to press a chaste kiss onto Steve’s lips. He grinned, a hand cupping your cheek to bring you back into the kiss for a couple of more seconds, before pulling away, a cheeky grin on his face. You kept your eyes trained on your boyfriend as Steve trotted towards the van, getting into the back seat with Robin.

“Do we not get the same treatment!?” Eddie called out from the driver’s seat, leaning over Nancy to yell out of the open window as you hurried over to the driver’s seat of your car.

You heard Eddie’s whine of pain as Steve punched him in the shoulder at his words. Turning on the engine of the car, you threw a separate bottle of sunscreen to the back seat, where Mike, Lucas, Will and Lucas were smushed. Max laughed at the sounds of their struggle from where she sat next to you in the front seat.

“Put some on, the last thing you need is a sunburn.” You instructed, pulling out of the drive way. “Are they doing it max?” You asked the girl, glancing back at the four boys who were practically sitting in each other’s laps.

“Yeah.” She confirmed, grinning widely at their now pale faces. “Not Lucas though.”

“I can’t get sunburnt!”

“Lucas, you very much can get sunburnt!”

“Fine, mom!”

“Now your turn, Max, you’re a ginger.”

“HEY!”

[chervbs]

thinking about bob (reynolds) thinking he doesn't deserve a blowjob :(( he just wants you to feel good and thank you for loving him!!! then one day you convince him, and he can't help but protest, even as your lips are wrapping around him and his hand is winding into your hair :(( my pookieeeeeeee

the pleasure dilemma.

robert reynolds x reader.

￫ summary: you convince robert reynolds that it’s okay to receive pleasure.

￫ word count: 2K.

￫ warnings: blowjobs, deep throating, smut and fluff.

￫ authors notes: this is my first time writing for robert reynolds! i hope i’ve done him justice 🥹 my main masterlist can be found here! 💌

He was always so caring and considerate. You gave him warmth and comfort. In return, he gave you sweet little acts of service to show you how truly grateful he was that you were kind and patient with him. 

He would make your food, even if he had little energy that day. A pot of instant noodles was presented with love. He would buy you small craft sets for whatever hobby you were into. He would wait up all evening if he knew you were coming back late, so that he could listen to what you had to say. 

But most of all, he practically demanded to be comfortably nestled between your thighs, his warm mouth on your cunt and pushing you to the brink of overstimulation every time. 

You loved exploring each other's sexuality together, but the one thing he always denied you was giving him head.

“What is it, Bob, hm?” You asked him tenderly as you sat on his lap at the edge of his bed. You hooked your finger under his chin, causing him to look at you. “Is it that you’ve never had one before? Are you nervous?”

“No—” he half heartedly laughed. “I have… I just don’t feel like I deserve it, y’ know? You do so much for me, and I want to show you how much I love and appreciate you.” His large palms were on your waist, holding you against him as you sat on his lap. He pulled you in tighter; that underlying force that bellowed inside of him was ready to flip you over and spread your thighs before him.

“Bob…” You let out a giggle as he returned to kissing your neck to distract you. “You do so much for me!” You protested back at him, but it fell on deaf ears as he pressed kisses down your neck and shoulders.

Your fingers found their way through his soft curls and tugged a little as his lips sucked on your tender flesh. 

“Bob!” You protested again with laughter. You lifted his face to meet yours, and he wore a smug smile due to his attempt at distracting you. “Tell me. Why?”

His eyes shifted from yours to stare at the ground, and his fingers played with the hem of your t-shirt.

“It’s fucking stupid.” He mumbled out.

“I can promise you, it won’t be.” You reassured him with a soft smile and tucked a stray strand of hair behind his warm ear. 

“I don’t… I don’t want to be a burden, or be a hassle, or be annoying—”

“A blowjob is annoying to you?” You raised your eyebrows at him with a smirk. 

“No!” Bob laughed and brushed it off. “It’s not that. I don’t think I deserve it because you do so much for me, and I don’t want you to feel like you have to, and then I don’t want you to stop being so kind to me because—” 

A flurry of words left his mouth in a panicked rush, and you could see how his chest was beginning to rise and fall faster with each breath. 

“Bob. Bob.” You stopped him mid-rambling and directed his worried gaze back to yours. “You do deserve it. I want to give you a blowjob, and I will always, always love you and want to care for you, my sweetheart.” 

He didn’t say anything in return; he just nodded. You pressed down harder on his lap and slowly began moving your hips across his clothed cock. He drew his bottom lip in between his teeth and hummed. 

“Please let me, Robby?” You lilted with a sweet and pleading tone.

“O—Okay.” He swallowed thickly. A rosy flush crept up his neck and blossomed on his cheeks. 

Truth be told, Bob had played out this exact scenario countless times when he was alone in the shower. His cock hardened beneath you as he pictured how pretty you would look on your knees and took his cock to the hilt. 

You pressed your lips to his and kissed him slowly. Your hands found their way back into his curls and pulled gently, causing him to groan against your mouth. 

You continued to move your hips against his lap, and you mumbled against him. “Remember, you can tell me to stop anytime, baby.”

He hummed in agreement and squeezed his palms tighter against your hips, feeling the last draw of your ass over his cock before you shifted off him and knelt between his thighs.

His hands naturally found their way into your hair as you ran yours up and down his clothed thighs. You littered teasing kisses over the fabric, but when you pressed firmer kisses to his growing bulge, he let out a loud moan.

Your fingers messily found the waistband of his sweats and pulled them down and off, followed by his underwear. You let out a whimper when you saw how achingly hard Bob was already. His cock was pressing against his torso, which was littered with the soft and messy curls of his pubic hair. 

You had seen his cock plenty of times, but knowing that Bob was baring himself to you like this for you to give him pleasure, caused a surge of pleasure to rip through your stomach. Your cunt twitched momentarily, and you ached to be filled with him.

You were holding back from burying his cock in your mouth to the hilt so quickly.

You placed your hands on his bare thighs and gently squeezed at them, trailing kisses along his warm flesh. He shuddered and let out a whimper. You wrapped your hand around his shaft. It was hot under the touch, and it throbbed as you firmly palmed at it. Your lips met his tip with a soft kiss, and another whimper escaped him.

“A—Are you sure, baby?” He was questioning you with his words, but his body reacted entirely differently. His hands were winding tighter into your hair and tugging at your scalp. It was a subconscious twitch to pull you down onto his cock and chase that feeling he so desperately craved.

“I’m positive, Robby.” You convinced him between a flurry of kisses to his shaft.

Your lips wrapped around his tip, and you sank lower down his shaft. He bucked his hips forward, and a longing groan left his lips, his secret pleasure daydream now becoming a wild reality.

You moved your tongue along the base of his cock, and a more resounding groan tore from his throat.

“Fuck!” Hearing him curse your name above caused your stomach to twist, and arousal seep through your underwear.

His fingers entangled deeper into your hair as you sank lower. You moved your head along his shaft at a rhythmic pace, with your tongue drawing long strokes against his base. Your palms spread across his thighs to steady yourself, with the aid of Bob’s hand messily in your hair to guide you.

Your body bounced rhythmically in time, and with a deep swallow, you took his cock to the hilt, burying your nose into the base of his curls. His swollen tip hit the back of your throat, and he choked out a groan, startled by the sudden movement. His sweet noises of contentment turned into breathy whimpers as your warm mouth took him whole. You mercilessly continued to push his tip to the back of his throat, and a curse of your name tore from his throat.

“Shit! O— Oh my fuckin’ God! You feel so fucking good, m— my sweet girl.” He stumbled over his words with breathy moans.

You pulled back momentarily, and his eyes fell on the string of saliva connecting his tip to your bottom lip. You ran your thumb across your lips, collecting the saliva into your mouth with a smirk. He cursed again.

You took his length back into your warm mouth, but this time, removed your hand from his thigh and gently cupped at his swollen balls.

“O—Oh…” He gasped with relief.

You drew yourself off his cock to ask, “Does that feel nice?”

“Yeah… Please… Keep going.” He was asking politely, but his voice had a heavy sense of demand. You were firmly reminded of the weight of his powers that rumbled and coursed through his veins.

You placed your mouth back around his cock, and your hand massaged his balls. You kept a continuous pace, sliding your lips up and around his cock, and slowly added a firm pressure to the grasp on his balls. He continued to let out a string of hurried curses of your name, groaning every time his pulsing tip hit the back of your throat. 

You gently bounced on your knees against the carpet. You were pathetically humping the air in an attempt to gain any friction against your clit that was throbbing against your underwear.

“Let me look at you, please, baby.” He murmured. One of his hands left your head to cup at your jaw and tilt your gaze upwards. Tears were pricking at the corners of your eyes from the continuous deep throating. A sheen of salvia was drooling down your chin, and your cheeks flushed a deep crimson colour.

Bob had envisioned this moment countless times, but nothing compared to the pretty sight below him. 

Your eyes directly met his. His gaze bore into yours, and you saw the shimmery, golden speckles flutter around his pupils. 

It caused a shudder to spread down your spine. 

“I’d like to experience this more often, please. You look so pretty for me.” He breathed out with shaky breaths but with a sure smile. 

He was always so damned polite.

You did your best attempt at a smile but hummed in agreement. The vibrations sent around his cock caused him to stutter out another moan, and you took that as your sign to continue your ministrations.

You repeated the same rhythmic actions, and Bob couldn’t hold on for much longer. His hips were starting to buck impossibly closer to your face, and the grip on your hair grew tighter.

“I think… M’ gonna…” He blurted it out so suddenly that his taste in your mouth caught you off guard. “D— Don’t stop… Please! Oh fuck!” He groaned out with shaky breaths as he spilt into your mouth, and his head rolled backwards. 

You continued to pulse your mouth around his twitching cock, causing him to whine as his thighs trembled beneath you. Another flurry of curses left his lips, pushing him further into overstimulation.

You licked along the base of his sticky shaft twice more before removing your mouth completely. 

You gazed up at him and watched how the golden sparkles thrummed around his pupils before dissolving completely.

His cock was sheened with a mix of his cum and your saliva. A rosy flush was blossoming across his cheeks, and a pleasure-induced smile spread on his face.

He was such a beautiful sight to behold. 

You wiped your thumb over your bottom lip, collecting the final droplets of his spend into your mouth. 

You placed yourself back on his lap, and your hands found his hair again. As you placed a kiss on his lips, he let out a muffled groan as he tasted himself. 

Bob pulled back from the kiss and let out a gasp when he felt your arousal seeping through your underwear and coating his softening cock.

“Have you been this wet the entire time, baby?!”

You blushed and hid your face in the crook of his neck. “Yeah.” You mumbled as you mouthed at his flesh. 

“Can I give you head now, please?” He politely asked with a playful tone. You pulled back and nodded eagerly. 

“You can, but I’m giving you another blowjob late—” You let out a yelp, followed by bubbles of laughter as Bob used his underlying force to pick you up so effortlessly and lay you out on the bed.

He grinned as he towered above you and drew his hands up your ankles to part your thighs. “Fine by me, my sweet girl.” 

taglist: @floydsmuse @beachbabey @tallrock35 @unmistakablyunknown @kmc1989

tagging those who may be interested: @becks-things @peachystenbrough @lewmagoo @rhettabbotts @hangmanapologist @rhettmotel @mustaaarrd @beautifulandvoid @auroralightsthesky

[chervbs]

official introductions

a part 2 to this fic, but it can also be read as a stand alone.

summary: you and Alpine meet Thunderbolts for the first time.

warnings: use of y/n, (not anymore) secret wife trope, fluff and crack, Bob needs to be protected at all costs, thunderbolts spoilers

a/n: thank you for all the love on cat's out of the bag 😭 I was note expecting that at all. had so much fun writing those dynamics that I'm back with another part!

silence filled your apartment, the only sounds being the purrs of Alpine, who was held close to Bucky's chest. you stood next to him, staring at The New Avengers as they tried to come to terms with Bucky not just owning a cat or having a cosy apartment, but also having a wife.

all except Bob, who was busy trying to pet Alpine, both of them getting to know each other in a silent gazing fest.

"so this is my wife," Bucky introduced you to the rest of the team, one hand falling down on the small of your back as he balanced his cat in the other. "y/n, meet the team."

"since when are you married?" John asked.

"only a year," you answered.

"a year?!"

"nobody knows except our close friends and my family," you added, trying to diffuse the looks of betrayal on each of their faces.

Bucky levelled one of his infamous stares at the entire team, staring into their souls one by one before announcing, "I'd like to keep it that way."

"secret wife, that so cool!" Alexei grunted. "like a real spy." he glanced at Yelena, who rolled her eyes.

Alpine apparently agreed with the giant, giving a meow.

"and this little ball?" Yelena cooed at the cat who was currently trying to get out of Bucky's hold, no doubt to run back into the room where she was hiding before, but Bucky knew he needed to keep her here for at least five more minutes. he wasn't getting his team out of the house if she disappears before everyone gets a chance to see her.

and he wanted them out of his apartment stat.

"we adopted her two months ago," you said, giving Alpine scratches behind her ear, which seemed to calm her down a little. "Buck found her outside the building."

"but that's so... normal," Ava squinted her eyes at the cat, as if expecting her to start wielding some kind of a weapon.

you grinned at her, glancing at Bucky who gave you a soft smile, barely perceptible except to your trained eyes.

"can I touch her?" Bob asked, his hand outstretched. Alpine stared at his fingers, but did not slap it away, which prompted Bucky to nod in agreement, deciding it was safe and Alpine would not attack Bob.

all the adults in the room held their breath as Bob gingerly laid his hand on Alpine's back, the soft fur parting beneath his fingers as he softly rubbed. when the feline did not protest, he braved a little further, going up to her head and scratching it slowly.

Bob let out a short laugh when Alpine purred, clearly enjoying his closeness and trusting him.

"I got Alpine's approval!" he gave a small cheer.

this prompted Alexei to step forward, his own hand outstretched. Bob backed away immediately. Bucky tightened his hold on Alpine, making sure she wouldn't jump out of his embrace to attack the approaching man.

she gave him an intense stare, assessing him much like she had assessed Bucky and you when she first met you.

the team had positive assessment results.

all of them, one by one, got to pet Alpine, the cat clearly enjoying their attention. it was only when Walker had been scratching her for more than fifteen seconds that she let out a yowl, slapping her paw at his hand.

"ow!" he yelled out, inspecting his hand for scratches.

"relax, you're fine," Bucky had turned away Alpine to prevent any further violence.

"she does that sometimes when her social battery is running out," you offered, hoping Walker does not take Alpine's attack personally. you knew your husband wouldn't care either way, but you were trying to be a good host to his team. in hopes that they liked you.

"that's enough of meeting Alpine," Bucky declared. he let her leave his arms, the cat jumping down and immediately leaving the living room, going back to finding a new hiding place. Bucky stood next to you again, his hands wrapping around your waist. "you can all leave my home now."

"Bucky!" you slapped his chest lightly, eyes squinting up at him, admonishing.

"they don't need to stay, doll," Bucky reminded you.

"but we want to get to know y/n!" Yelena yelled, sounding a lot like a whining baby, everybody else nodding in agreement.

Bucky sighed, his fingers gripping your sides tighter. "she has work and we have that mission," he muttered, eyes closing tightly, knowing he's in a losing war.

"it's fine, babe. I want to meet them too," you said, rubbing his shoulder gently, easing the tension there. he leaned into you subtly, a sign of his exhaustion.

"and the mission will be fine," John reminded. "routine mission, remember? simple recon."

"would you guys like something to drink?" you asked. "oh, and please sit!" you gestured towards your couch.

the team looked at the available seating options, Alexei, John, and Ava settling in the big couch in the middle, Yelena in one of the armchairs, and Bob settling on the carpet in front of the coffee table, right next to Yelena's chair.

"just water would be fine," Ava answered your previous question.

"alright!" you chirped, going to the kitchen to get them their glasses of water. Bucky followed you, hugging you from behind as you hummed.

"I'm sorry for dropping all of this on you suddenly," he whispered in your ear.

"it's fine. I'm more concerned about you. are you okay?" you turned in his hold once the five glasses were set on the tray. your hands rested on his neck, playing with his hair.

he sighed, his head leaning on your forehead. "I'm fine. just annoyed at them."

"you're always annoyed at them," you snickered.

"yeah, well, they're idiots."

"I like them," you concluded.

"of course you do," he shook his head, planting a kiss on your forehead and nose. "you have the kindest heart."

you leaned up to kiss him properly, a soft and gentle press of your lips. the butterflies in your stomach seem to come alive every time you kissed your husband.

"you have the softest lips," you said once you parted, eyes lidded and faces merely inches apart.

"you do," he swallowed your protest with another kiss. when you separated this time, you took a step back, his hands following you.

"we should head back out," you reminded him.

he groaned but let you go.

you entered the living room again, tray in hand, Bucky in tow.

"here," you smiled at each of them as you handed the water.

Bucky sat down on the only remaining armchair in the room, and you sat on one of his thigh, his arm holding you to his chest, your side pressed to his front.

"what do you do for a living?" Ava asked, eyes scanning the paper on top of the stack that you had cleared out previously.

you answered her, telling her about your work and colleagues, gushing about your last completed project. Bucky smiled at your passion, keenly hearing you talk even if he knows all about your work.

"Bucky helps me out some times, when I'm stacked and he's free," you ended, flashing him a grateful smile.

"just a little task here and there," he shrugged, cheeks flushing a little.

"how long have you known each other?" John asked next.

"quite long. the blip screwed a little with the exact numbers, but roughly since he was in Wakanda. I was working with Shuri in her lab in USA when she took me to Wakanda, where I met him."

you remembered the early days, the brooding and awkward man trying to talk to you, but he wasn't used to talking to 'normal' people (his words). there were a lot of stutters, murmurs, and half sentences in between his sessions with Shuri and Okoye and your work in the lab. Shuri had always pushed you two together, calling herself the "captain of the ship" and sending you off on little breaks every time Bucky came to see you.

he might have been a mess, but he was adorable and respectful, and you were drawn to his electric blue eyes. he had carved a place in your heart without even you realising, and when he was free from the Winter Soldier, you remembered the joy on his face, the ease in his movements, as if a weight had been lifted from him. you did not know much, only bits and pieces, but you were glad to share in his celebrations. your first official date was a picnic, three days after his freedom, in the fields of Wakanda near his designated hut. he was affectionate, light brushes of hands and lips on your cheek. he had never been so open with you before and it tugged at your heart strings to see him relax. Shuri had managed to capture the memory when she came to check up on you two. it was your favourite polaroid, presently tucked away in his wallet.

"so you were dating during the whole Flag Smashers ordeal?" Walker asked.

"engaged, actually," you smiled.

the Agent sputtered and looked at Bucky. "I didn't even know, geez."

"you're not a very smart man, John." Bucky quipped, his hands rubbing your sides in a comforting manner.

"will you visit him in the Tower now that the secret's out?" Bob asked.

"I don't see why not," Bucky shrugged, smiling at the thought of acquainting you with the shenanigans and chaos of the tower. "I would still prefer if nobody else knows."

"why so secretive?" Ava asked.

"to protect her," his hold tightened. "I wouldn't be able to live with myself if she got hurt because of me."

"we will protect her." Alexei said, flexing his muscles.

"yes." Yelena nodded. the rest of the team also nodded, which flushed you with gratitude and love at the protectiveness of the team.

"thank you," you said.

Bucky did not say anything, a lump in his throat from the rush of emotions at his team's determination to protect his family, but he gave them a silent nod in thanks.

"so you know Sam, too?" Walker asked.

"yes, he was at the wedding," you told him.

"can you ask him to get off our backs?" Yelena asked. "we're tired of the domestic spat between him and Bucky affecting our working."

you chuckled. "believe me, I've been trying."

"he'll come around," Bucky said, hoping to reassure himself as well as everyone else in the room.

a silence descended over the group, and you started playing with Bucky's fingers while trying to decide whether or not this was an uncomfortable silence or a comfortable one.

"where's your ring?" Bob asked when he realised Bucky has no wedding band around his fingers.

Bucky fished out a silver chain from beneath his tactical gear, the clink of metal on metal filling his room. he held it out, the dog tags almost covering the small ring.

"figured it would have gotten lost during action," Bucky said.

"yeah man, I lost my ring once in the field. had to scour the entire area again to find it." John said. "opted for a chain later, too. it's more practical."

it was a rare sight to see Bucky agreeing with John.

your ringtone interrupted this oddity, you wincing upon seeing the caller ID. "it's work, I gotta take this." you stood up, leaving the room.

"I approve of her," Yelena announced.

"did she need our approval?" Bob asked, looking around at the room. "then I approve, too."

"no she does not need your approval." Bucky sighed, rubbing his temples.

"of course she does! she'll be spending much more time with us now," Ava said, as if Bucky was being stupid.

"will she bring Alpine with her?" Bob's eyes lit up.

"I think you're all going a little too fast," Bucky said.

"don't be crazy, y/n would love to-" John was stopped by your re-appearance.

"I would love to what?" your smile was full of confusion.

"visit us at the Tower!" Ava said.

"I make you good food," Alexei nodded.

"oh, I would love to," you smiled. you heard your husband sigh. "if Bucky is alright with it." you added.

"don't listen to him," Yelena waved her hands in his direction. "at least he'll spend more time with us if you're also there."

"team bonding!" Alexei shouted. "good for morale."

your hands started to massage Bucky's shoulders again, standing behind his chair.

"he'll attend more team bonding sessions, I promise." you said to his team.

"with Alpine?" Bob pressed.

"no promises," you chuckled. "Alpine does what she wants."

hiding in the cabinet of the side table next to your TV, Alpine gave a small purr upon hearing her name.

[chervbs]

cat's out of the bag

pairing: Thunderbolts!Bucky Barnes x wife!reader

summary: how Bucky's top secret was revealed to the Thunderbolts. ft. a secret wife and Alpine.

warnings: some thunderbolts spoilers (if I'm missing anything, please let me know!)

a/n: thank you for helping me reach 400 followers! I have a small celebration going on where I'm accepting requests for drabbles and fics, go check it out if that's your thing! I love you all <3

part 2

the signs were all there, since the start. it was just a matter of time till someone made a connection. which never happened, fortunately for you both. which does not bode well for their capabilities as spies and enhanced humans, but oh well.

the first clue should've been Bucky's tendency to be a little too protective over his things. his duffel bag, his wallet, everything was off limits from the team. not even during emergencies were they allowed to go through the duffel bag, he swore there were no last minute medical supplies hiding there anyways; and even if they got locked out of their room? nope, he won't be opening his wallet. there was no keycard there, he was sure.

had anyone decided to see what was inside his duffel bag, they would find his tactical gear, some medical supplies that he was harbouring, a few knives, guns, and ammunitions, and finally, notes from you that you left every time he was leaving for a mission. there would be some little heart shaped candies that have grown on Bucky a lot more since he met you. there would also be a small metal box that was filled with doodles you had made for him, especially to look at when he was missing you more than usual.

his wallet would not have as many trinkets but has a single photo that frames him just as easily as the duffel bag does. there, hidden amongst the hotel keycard, some cash, and a few business cards, was a polaroid of you and Bucky, clicked by Shuri back in Wakanda. his flesh arm was wrapped around your waist, the metal one lying somewhere in his hut. he was grinning from ear to ear, lips pressed to your cheeks, eyes closed in contentment. it was the happiest he had looked in any photo, celebrating his freedom from the Winter Soldier with you.

well, it was good that nobody ever touched his things.

a second clue that could've been his undoing would've been the way he always hid his phone from the team, not letting them touch it or use it even in cases of emergencies. now, the Thunderbolts were not nosy – okay that's a lie, but not as nosy as they'd like, for they were scared of Bucky's wrath – but that was something that they understood and didn't pry much on, what with Bucky being so private and shit.

his phone wallpaper, the one that opened after unlocking the thing, was your photo, a candid he had taken on one of your picnic dates. the sun rays had illuminated your face and cast an ethereal glow, your eyes shining. my angel, he had called you. Bucky was a smart man, though, and his locked screen wallpaper was something non-descript, knowing that it wouldn't be incriminating at all to have an abstract design on his screen.

another clue should've been the fact that Bucky always 'fucked off' (in John's words) to an unknown place after every long or arduous mission. Alexei had tried to get him to stay, calling the post-mission team bonding as an important chance to increase morale, but Bucky never listened.

he would be too eager to go back to the home he shared with you on the other side of the city, a regular apartment that was filled with pictures of you and him, comfort, and his favourite sight: his two girls, you and Alpine curled up on the couch.

Alpine was a recent addition to your household. Bucky had found her roaming the street below at 2 AM as he was returning from a mission, yowling and snipping at all strangers who tried to come close. but when Bucky had stood and stared at the kitten, she stared right back, tilting her head as if she was assessing him.

her assessment must have been positive, because the next thing he knew, Alpine was strutting over to him, tail dangling and paws grabbing at his shoes until she was picked up and held near his chest, where she promptly purred and closed her eyes in satisfaction.

she had a similar reaction to your presence, sniffling your outstretched palm before deciding that you were going to be a better pillow than Bucky for the night, leaving his embrace and jumping into yours.

Bucky wouldn't say it out loud, but he was grateful for Alpine in more ways than one. her presence around the house was much needed ever since he joined The New Avengers, which had him out of the house more days than he'd like.

that damn cat would be his undoing, both of you would've never guessed.

"what's that?" Yelena asked one day, eyes narrowing in on the tendrils of fur that stuck to his black jacket, the contrast making it easier to spot the cat hair.

Bucky cursed in his mind, remembering that he forgot to brush his jacket while he was cleaning his other clothes. how was he to know that Alpine, the sweet little menace that she was, would find his jacket even in the depths of the closet?

yeah, he should've known. that cat brought more chaos than anyone else he's known in the last century.

Bucky shrugged, inspecting the hair as if he was seeing it for the first time. as if it wasn't a daily occurrence for him to scold Alpine while you brushed off the hairs from his clothes.

"looks like cat hair," Bob added, hoping he was helping the conversation.

he wasn't. Bucky wanted to glare at him and shut him up, but even Bucky wasn't that grumpy to mistreat Bob.

"you own a cat now?" John asked, directing the question at Bucky.

"no." he stated firmly. "must have come from the kitten I petted on the way here."

"you snuggle street cats?" Ava asked.

"this one was cute," Bucky shrugged.

"you, Bucky Barnes, pick up random street cats and pet them?" she asked again.

"what's so hard to grasp about that?"

"you ignored all the animals when we went to that petting zoo that Bob wanted to see," Yelena wondered.

"they were not as cute as this one," Bucky knew he was losing the argument.

"I don't buy it." John, ever the smart one, stated the obvious.

"buy what?" Alexei entered the room, late for their meeting. "what are we purchasing today?"

Bob filled him in on the conversation so far.

"the hair is all over your back, too, Mr. Soldier," Alexei picked one up to emphasise on his point. "the stray cat also got to your back?"

"okay, fine," Bucky sighed, deciding to come out with the truth. he was running out of patience. "I... own a cat."

silence fell over the briefing room. the team looked like personifications of the buffering symbol that Bucky has seen on some internet websites.

"can we see?" Bob was the first one to recover, totally on board with Bucky being a cat owner and excited at the prospect of meeting the said cat.

"I don't have photos," Bucky lied. he had plenty of photos in his gallery. in fact, the only photos in his gallery were of Alpine. with you.

one secret out was enough for one day, he thought.

Bob's face fell, nodding.

"but I'll click some and send you today?" Bucky offered, hating that he cared about this kid the way he did.

"okay!" his face lit up again.

"why can't we all just meet the guy?" John asked.

"girl," Bucky corrected.

"okay, girl."

"where is she now?" Yelena asked.

"in my apartment."

"who's taking care of her?" that was Alexei. "you should not leave pets unattended. could be harmful."

"she's not alone," Bucky answered before thinking.

instant regret filled him when he looked at the team who was buffering again.

"let's get back to the mission," Bucky tried. a failed attempt, he knew before he even said the words out loud, but he was now desperate to change the subject.

"who's taking care of her?" John asked again.

"do you have a cat sitter?" Bucky was glad to find the perfect lie, silently thanking Ava for her suggestion.

"yeah," he nodded, confidently. "something like that." he whispered under his breath.

which was a bad idea, considering there were two other super soldiers in this room.

maybe you were right, Bucky should really start to get full sleep. he was not as sharp as he'd like.

"something like that?" John repeated.

"yeah, I've got a cat sitter." Bucky stated, his tone authoritative.

"who is it? are they always taking care of her when you're out on missions?" Yelena asked.

"yes." was Bucky's curt reply.

"can we meet the cat?" for a grown man equalling the size of a bull, Alexei looked more like a child in a candy store.

"no."

"why not?"

"Alpine does not like strangers."

"we're your team," Bob pouted. "please?"

damn Bob and the soft spot he held in Bucky's heart.

".... fine." he said after a few minutes of silence, trying to think of how to get out of this predicament but coming up blank.

so that's how The New Avengers were huddled in the lift of his apartment building, the new mission briefing completely forgotten.

"ah, it's a recon mission, routine. we can come back to it later," John had reassured the team when Bucky tried to get out of this impromptu team outing one last time. he was met with Bucky's glare, but what other choice did Bucky have than to take them to meet his cat?

and that's how you opened the door to find your husband with the team you had only seen on TV and in articles before.

your eyes widened, mouth agape at the sight of your husband, brows furrowed and lips downturned in a grumpier expression than usual, flanked by five super heroes.

"uh..." you tried to make sense of the sight in front of you.

"hi, doll," Bucky breathed out. he stepped inside, a soft kiss dropping on your hair before he lowered his head to whisper in your ear. "I might have fucked up."

"he's awfully close with his cat sitter," Yelena murmured, the other five people in the hallway all nodding in approval.

"I can see that," you whispered back to your husband, peering at his team over his shoulder. "should I welcome them in...?"

he nodded, turning back to the idiots he called his team.

"come on in," his voice was strained, not at all a polite host.

one by one, they were herded inside and to the living room, where your work laptop was on.

"I'm sorry, let me just clean up," you frantically organised the papers and shut down the laptop. "I'm sorry for the mess, we weren't expecting, uh, visitors."

"we?" John, ever the parrot.

"where's the feline that has enamored Barnes?" Alexei asked.

"Alpine?" you looked at Bucky, who nodded solemnly. "oh, she must be here somewhere. let me try and find her."

"your cat sitter does not know where your cat is?" Yelena asked again when you left the room, muttering something about the damn feline. "she's not very good." Bucky shrugged in response.

Bob's gaze was sweeping all around the house before he silently stepped closer to Bucky, voice low.

"she's not your cat sitter, is she?" he asked him, unbeknownst to the rest of the team.

"no," he whispered, already having observed Bob taking in all the photographs in the hallway and the living room, as well as the ring on your finger.

"it's good to meet your wife," he smiled, then.

Bucky returned the smile, the lines on his forehead relaxing a little.

you came back to the room, the white furball held to your chest. "here's Alpine."

Bucky took her from your arms, and that's when Yelena caught sight your wedding band, gleaming in the sunlight pouring from the windows.

"wait, you're married?" Yelena sputtered.

"yes?" you turned to Bucky, more confused than ever. "what... what's going on?" you whispered.

"they think you're his cat sitter," Bob, who was standing next to Bucky, whispered back, his eyes trained on Alpine who was staring back at him just as curiously.

"oh."

"what does your husband think of you sitting around in another man's house taking care of his cat?" John asked.

"and him kissing your head in greetings," Ava added.

"and him calling you doll," Yelena piled on.

"I..." you shrugged, playing off like this was an every day, casual conversation. "he's fine with it. knows I love the cat and we could use the extra money."

"Mr. Soldier! you even attended her wedding, that's so cute!" Alexei pointed at one of the photos from your wedding that you had framed up on the wall.

Bucky sighed, a hand running down his face. "you are all idiots." he muttered.

he knew it was only a matter of time now.

"wait," Yelena was in her buffering mode again. when she was done assessing her surroundings and you two, a loud gasp filled the silence. "you," she pointed at Bucky. "and you." she pointed at you.

John and Ava seem to be reaching the same conclusion, wide eyed and gasping.

"what?" Alexei's brows were furrowed as he gazed around the room. "what is it, Yelena?" he looked to his daughter for support.

"they're married!" Yelena shouted.

this one was a little all over the place but I hope you enjoyed. do let me know what you think. likes, comments, and reblogs are greatly appreciated <3

and that's how The New Avengers, Earth's mightiest heroes, figured out Bucky Barnes' secret.

part 2

[chervbs]

A Kindred Spirit

Pairing: Thunderbolts!Bucky Barnes x Female Reader

Summary: Bucky meets a kindred spirit while he's grocery shopping.

Word Count: Over 2.2k

Warnings: Alpine the cat (is that a warning?), established relationship, humor, sweetness, fluff, Bucky Barnes (he's a warning, okay?).

A/N: More Tower Shenanigans. @buckybarnesfic, this is for you! ❤️ Not beta read and written on my phone, so any and all mistakes are my own. Divider by the talented @saradika-graphics. Please follow @navybrat817-sideblog for new fics and notifications. Comments, reblogs, feedback are loved and appreciated!

It was Bucky’s turn to go grocery shopping, which he enjoyed and loathed. It was nice being able to pick out his own food, but he had to bite back a retort every time someone left their cart in the middle of the aisle or took a little too long when they stood in front of a shelf. He should’ve asked you to join him, but he was already out running another errand and didn’t want to bother you. If you were there with him, you would’ve giggled when he grumbled at the list. You would have also agreed with him when he complained about the high cost of food, wondering why everything was so expensive. It was insane.

Walking through the store, he kept an ear open while trying not to draw attention to himself. It was an old habit from when he was on the run. He willed his shoulders to relax, but instead, he glared up at the fluorescent light, his hand twitching with the desire to hold yours. He enjoyed holding your hand, which grounded him, and loved how your heart skipped a beat whenever he kissed it.

The sooner he finished shopping, the sooner he’d get back to the tower and you.

“Why are there so many PopTarts on this list?” he muttered as he went to the cereal aisle and put them in the cart. To be fair, he hadn’t realized there were so many flavors, and he knew he wouldn’t hear the end of it if he didn’t get the right ones.

He snorted when he saw that deodorant was next on the list, immediately clocking John’s handwriting. “That’s not food, so I’m not getting it.” Yeah, it was petty of him, since he could technically buy non-edible products at the grocery store. Maybe he was still annoyed by John's comment about your ass. You had a stunning ass, capable of leaving people in awe. That didn't mean he wanted the junior varsity Captain America to ogle it.

While Bucky had a tendency to get John the generic brand of foods, he did take dietary needs and favorite foods seriously. There was a particular brand of hot sauce that Yelena preferred, and he made sure to get the largest bottle possible. He made sure to get different types of fries as well, as there was an ongoing debate about whether regular, crinkle, or curly cut fries were the best. John almost flipped the table, but the argument died down when Bucky said he’d always share his fries with you. Ava said that was love.

She was right.

The thought of you softened his demeanor, and it softened even further when he saw your handwriting. “Chocolate, please, and thank you. You’re the best!” He traced the letters with his fingers and smiled. If he had the money, he’d buy you an entire chocolate shop. Because he didn't, he made sure to grab more than enough, anticipating that Alexei might try to steal some.

Thinking it over, he grabbed one more bar. “Just in case,” he whispered.

He grabbed some flowers for you, too, because you deserved them.

As he checked out, he balanced the reusable bags Bob insisted on using and tried not to sneer at the total. It wasn’t the worst shopping trip. He finished up a lot quicker than he expected. Maybe the two of you could go for a ride on his bike once everything was unpacked.

He managed to take your keys out of his pocket without dropping any of the bags, smiling again. Using your car was easier for shopping trips and he liked that it smelled like you. He was also one of the only people you trusted to drive your vehicle, which he prided himself on.

What he did not expect to see when he got to your car was a white ball of fur curled up on the hood. “What the hell?” he muttered.

His eyes flickered around the parking lot, and he listened for anyone calling out for a cat. The cat had no collar, and he had no clue if it had a name, but that didn’t mean it didn’t belong to someone. He liked to think someone would be in distress if their pet was missing, but he didn't hear or see anyone come out to claim it. It didn’t move either when he put the bags in the trunk and placed the flowers in the passenger seat.

What the hell was he supposed to do?

Putting his hands on his hips, he stared at the animal until it lifted its head. A pair of crystal blue eyes stared back at him, unafraid and not at all bothered. He had to smile because it strangely reminded him of you, unwavering and always willing to look right at him. “Hey there,” he said, tentatively holding a hand out. He didn’t want to spook the cat. “You lost? You're not hurt, are you?”

The cat’s fur was surprisingly pristine, but that didn't mean it wasn't in pain or sick. After sniffing Bucky’s hand, it meowed and bumped its head against his hand, making his heart melt. The fur was so soft, and he swore he heard a purr. It was adorable.

“Yeah, you're cute, but here’s the thing,” he said, shaking his head at himself since he was talking to a cat. “I can’t drive with you on the hood, so…”

As if the cat understood him, it stood up and stretched. He panicked for a moment when he thought it would scratch the paint, but there wasn’t a single mark from the claws. And instead of jumping onto the street like he expected, the cat silently walked right to him and stared into his eyes again.

An agile and stealthy little thing.

“...What?” he asked as they stared at each other down.

With a gentle meow, the white ball of fur placed its front paws on his chest and crawled into his arms. He stood perfectly still, wondering what he looked like at that moment; an imposing man in a leather jacket holding a bright white ball of fluff. It had to be a sight.

“Since you don't have a collar and I don't see anyone searching for you, I can take you to a shelter,” he suggested. The second the words left his mouth he knew it wasn't happening, and there was another meow, softer and sadder that had his walls crumbling.

“Listen, you really are cute, but I can’t just take you home.” He stopped with a huff. “I’ve never had a cat before. I wouldn't know what to do with you.”

The response was to further burrow itself in his arms. 

“I have crazy roommates,” he continued. The team was in a good place, but it didn't take away that they were an entire range of crazy. How could he throw a cat into the mix? “And what would my girl say?”

He just knew the idea of a pet would thrill you, especially since the cat was so cute. Though he couldn't just spring that on you, could he? And could he spring that on the team? It was their home, too. 

But the cat didn’t budge, content being in Bucky’s arms. He found that he was content, too. Had he become a cat person in a matter of seconds?

Just like when he met you, he was fucked. 

“Okay, here’s the thing,” he said, balancing the light creature in one arm as he took his phone out to call you. “I have to clear this with my girl, and when she approves because she will, we need to make sure you aren’t chipped or anything, okay?”

Looking at the feline, he had a feeling there was no chip, that there was no home or a family. He wondered if there was a reason she chose to lay on the car he drove today. Was it looking for its own family? A place to fit in? Wasn’t that what everyone wanted?

He could give it that.

“Hey.” He let out a happy sigh at the sound of your voice. “You still at the store?”

“Sort of,” he replied, chuckling as the feline curled up more. He wasn’t even sure if it was a girl or a boy. “That’s actually why I’m calling.”

“Is everything okay?” He could hear you moving around, likely heading to the door. “Do you need me to meet you?” 

“I’m good, thanks,” he promised, touched that you were ready to go to him. “Have I mentioned you're the best?”

Nothing like buttering up his girl before mentioning the cat. 

“You are the best. I wrote it on the list,” you said. He could hear you smiling. “But why are you trying to butter me up?”

Of course, you knew what he was up to. “Because we may need to make another shopping trip for some cat stuff,” he replied, holding his breath.

You paused on the other end. “Cat stuff? Why would we need to buy cat stuff?” you asked, gasping. “Bucky, did you get a cat?!”

He breathed out. At least you didn't sound upset. “Well. Um, hang on.” He pulled up the camera and snapped the best photo he could. After sending it to you, he didn't put his phone back up to his ear right away, knowing you were about to shriek. You were usually considerate with his enhanced hearing, but this was a very cute cat.

“Oh, my GOD!” The cat tilted its head when your voice rang out through the speaker, but didn't seem unphased otherwise. “I’m sorry I yelled.”

“It’s okay. You-”

“But that is the cutest fucking cat I’ve ever seen in my life,” you continued, making him chuckle. “Where did you find her?! Did you adopt her?!”

Bucky held her closer. “I found her on the hood of the car when I came out of the store, and why do you assume it’s a girl?” 

“That beauty is a girl. I just know,” you said with complete confidence. “Okay, we need a collar, bowls, food, a litter box, a scratching post… Ooh, a little helmet so she can go on rides with you!” That did sound adorable. “Hang on. I need to make a list.” 

He chuckled again at your enthusiasm. “Before we do any of that, we need to make sure she isn’t chipped,” he said, trying not to feel guilty for not doing that before calling and getting your hopes up. And what about her shots? Were those up to date?

“If she has an owner, we’ll fight them,” you said like it was no big deal. 

Mischievous blue eyes gazed up at Bucky, and he laughed all over again. “That’s my girl,” he fondly said. “And I think she heard you and agrees.”

“So, assuming all is well, we're keeping her?” you asked, trying to sound casual but he heard your hopefulness.

Bucky's heart picked up when you said “we” because it was a reminder that he had someone by his side. “Yeah, I think we are.”

“Yes! It’s about time we got a pet,” you said, careful to not shout this time. “And cats choose their people. You know that right?”

“You think so?” he asked. 

“I know so. She was sitting on the hood of my car in a parking lot, and I think she wanted you to find her. And judging from the photo you sent, she looks right at home curled up against you,” you said. He wondered if that would've been the case had he been on his bike. Would the outcome be the same? “I’ll bet you two are kindred spirits.”

“Just like us,” he said. Pieces that just fit together. 

Your happy sigh made him smile. “Just like us,” you agreed. 

“Let me bring her by so I can drop off the food, and then we’ll take care of everything.” 

“Ten bucks says she hisses at John and adores Bob,” you teased. You were probably right. “I can’t wait to see you!” 

“I can't wait either,” he said, glancing down when he heard the soft meow. 

“I was clearly talking to her when I said I can’t wait to see you.” You giggled when Bucky growled. “I’m kidding, I’m kidding. Drive safe.”

“I will.” He exhaled once you hung up. “Well, that went well.” He helped the cat into the car and placed her next to the flowers. “You’ll love my girl. She’s the best.”

The beautiful feline meowed and curled up on the seat. He realized he’d have to come up with a name for her. Something special for such a beautiful cat, something that fits well. He had a feeling that the right name would come to him by the end of the day, or that you would help him if he got stuck.

“I think you’ll like the gang, too. They’re…” Bucky tapped a finger on the steering wheel. “They’re something.”

The team had been lost in many ways before becoming their own crazy sort of family.

Before he could stop himself, he said, “I know what it's like to be lost, but I’ll take care of you from now on, okay?” She lifted her head and stared with knowing eyes before he pet her head. Satisfied when she meowed, he smiled and started up the car. “Let’s go home.”

Had to bring Alpine in, okay? Love and thanks for reading! ❤️

Masterlist ⚓ Bucky Barnes Masterlist ⚓ Ko-Fi

[chervbs]

Comms Interference | Bucky Barnes x Reader

Summary: The team knew something was off about you, the one who kept hijacking their comms and saving their asses with pop music and precision. What they don’t know is that you’re Bucky Barnes’ secret wife.

MCU Timeline Placement: Thunderbolts*

Master List: Find my other stuff here!

Warnings: blood and injury detail, combat violence, gunfire, language, references to past trauma, mentions of HYDRA and Red Room conditioning, high-adrenaline tension, implied PTSD, emotionally repressed idiots in love

Word Count: 9.3k

Author’s Note: ok this was unhinged levels of fun to write and i regret nothing. i love the chaos. thank you again to the incredible request!! will i be writing more of this flavor of secret marriage? absolutely. also: i’m working through more requests soon so if i haven’t gotten to yours yet, i promise i haven’t forgotten!! thank you for being here and screaming with me always <3

The mission had gone to shit six minutes ago.

Yelena had called it first, with that vicious kind of sarcasm she reserved for the moments just before blood hit the concrete. “Ah, yes. Reinforcements. Wonderful. So glad we were not warned about that.” Somewhere ahead of her, gunfire cracked in frantic bursts, too far left for the recon drone’s range. The team had split off in the chaos. Ava had gone radio silent, Alexei had wandered too far into the smoke, and John—somewhere in the middle of it all—was bleeding too much for someone who insisted he had it handled.

Bucky moved like a phantom, silent and sharp, pulse pacing steadily with the beat of crisis. Not panic. Not anymore. He’d spent too many years being the last line between chaos and carnage to waste energy on nerves. But this was the kind of mission that reeked. Hasty intel. Unexpected players. A mess of underpaid mercenaries with too much firepower and no clear objective.

Something was wrong. And it wasn’t just the lack of backup.

He ducked behind a half-collapsed column, adjusting the comms in his ear. “Ghost, come in.”

Nothing.

“Belova, status?”

“Busy,” Yelena snapped back, followed by the heavy thud of a body hitting concrete.

“Walker?”

Crackling. Then, “Still upright. Not loving it.”

Not a lot to love. Their extraction point had been pushed back two miles, and the enemies just kept coming. Sloppy formation, uncoordinated, like someone was using them to smoke them out. But why? Sure, they were the newly named “Avengers”, but they weren’t even a proper unit yet. Just a bandage stretched too tight across a bleeding world.

A second burst of gunfire lit up the smoke ahead of him. Bucky pressed forward, adjusting the rifle over his shoulder. 

His ribs ached. Something had cracked when he hit the wall earlier, but he was used to working broken. There wasn’t time to slow down. Another figure emerged from the mist and he recognized the clumsy footwork, the huffing breath. Walker. He was limping, red blooming across his arm, jaw clenched tight enough to crack enamel.

“They’re circling back,” he growled. “Either we regroup or we go down swinging.”

“We’re not dying here,” Bucky said simply.

The comms hissed.

Just a stutter of static at first. Barely enough to make anyone flinch. Then a pulse. Faint. Rhythmic. Almost like—

“Oh god,” Bucky breathed, just as the bass dropped.

It was unmistakable. Blown-out, over-compressed pop blaring directly into his left ear. Not military comms. Not interference. Music. High-energy, aggressively hyper-feminine, shamelessly catchy.

“Don’t cha wish your girlfriend was hot like me…”

“Are you—what is that?” Walker barked, slapping at his ear like the sound had crawled inside it.

Yelena’s voice buzzed back into the channel. “Is someone playing Pussycat Dolls on our frequency?”

Bucky didn’t answer. Couldn’t. His blood had turned to static. That song. That voice—not the lyrics, but the one threaded over the top of it, smooth and low and familiar. One he hadn’t heard in weeks and one he wasn’t supposed to be hearing for another few days.

“Miss me?”

Bucky turned and it was like watching the opening beat of a nightmare you hadn’t allowed yourself to dream in years.

The smoke curled around you first—black against the pale concrete, shivering in the aftermath of a concussion blast—and then you stepped through. Leather at your thighs, a familiar half-mask pulled just low enough to show your mouth, batons already swinging. One of the mercenaries clocked you too late. You dropped him with a strike to the temple, pivoted cleanly into another, ducked a swing and hit back twice as hard.

You weren’t supposed to be here.

Not in this fight, not in this city, not in this life.

At least, not anymore.

You had promised. Not with words, never with words, but in the quiet, liminal moments between missions. The soft touches passed like contraband between bodies that only knew how to break things. The way you said enough without ever needing to say it. The way you’d disappeared, with him, years ago, when it became clear the world didn’t need you anymore.

But you’d always needed him.

That much, apparently, hadn’t changed.

“Who the hell—” John started, eyes wide as he tracked your path through the battlefield.

“Shut up,” Bucky snapped. Too loud. Too fast. Too revealing. He kept his eyes on you. Didn’t dare blink.

You moved like you’d never stopped. Like the years hadn’t dulled you. Like civilian life had been a dream someone else lived for you.

Another merc tried to grab you from behind. You shattered his kneecap without looking, then tased him mid-collapse with a baton charged enough to light his vision up for a week. You were grinning now. Not wide. Not cocky. But with the same edge he’d seen years ago when you’d told him you didn’t believe in peace, just long stretches of boredom between moments worth bleeding for.

The team closed in slowly, instinct dragging them toward you without understanding why. Ava reappeared from a wall, phasing in with her hand on her weapon. Alexei lumbered forward, red suit charred at the edges. No one said a word. They all watched as you handled the remaining mercs like it was nothing. Like it was fun.

Then came more boots.

Bucky heard them before anyone else did, just barely, just over the last distorted chorus still crackling through the comms. A dull percussion of heavy soles slamming rhythmically into the concrete, coming fast through the fog of gunpowder and ruin. More reinforcements. He didn’t need eyes on them to know they weren’t freelancers this time. These steps were uniform. Trained. Unrushed.

Whatever this operation had started as, it had just shifted into something colder. Measured. Intentional.

“Movement,” he said, sharp into the mic. “East side. Full formation.”

Ava phased halfway through a concrete wall, scanning. “Tactical gear. Gas masks. No insignia.”

“Of course,” Yelena muttered. “Because today wasn’t already a flaming dumpster.”

They were boxed in. Walker had maybe one clip left. Ava was half in and half out of phase, red bleeding under her ribs. Yelena’s shoulder was hit. Alexei’s arm was dislocated again and he kept wrenching it back into place like it was a door hinge.

And then there was you.

Standing calmly in the center of the chaos, blood on your knuckles, mask cracked at the jawline. Not tense. Not afraid. Just… assessing. Like you’d seen this play out already.

The first soldier in the oncoming wave raised a weapon.

And you moved.

Not back. Not for cover. Forward.

The stereo signal shifted with you, leaping from Bucky’s comms to the mercenaries’ headsets, hijacking every open frequency on-site. A different song—now louder, sharper, folding itself into the space like a knife into bone. The bass thudded through the pavement, disorienting, impossible to ignore.

“This place’s about to blow—”

The lyric hit just as you sprinted toward the advancing line, coat flaring behind you, batons tucked back into your belt. You didn’t need them now.

Two soldiers opened fire. You dropped low into a slide beneath their aim, boots skimming waterlogged concrete. You came up spinning, driving an elbow into one throat, then swinging around to knee the second across the jaw with enough force to crack his visor.

Bucky couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t move.

You were in the center of it now, alone. Completely surrounded.

And utterly untouchable.

One mercenary tried to grab you in a bearhold from behind. Your head snapped back into his face before he could tighten the grip, cartilage crunching under the blow. You twisted free, used his moment of stunned pain to launch yourself off his chest, flipping backward into a double-leg kick that sent two more sprawling.

They were trying to flank you. Six at once now. You moved too fast to corner, slipped between them like smoke through fingers.

You caught a rifle midair—torn from one man’s grip—then swung it by the barrel, not to shoot but to break. Shattered it across another soldier’s helmet. Sparks flew. He screamed.

You tossed the ruined weapon aside like trash.

Another tried for a taser jab. You caught his wrist in one hand, yanked it forward, and let your forehead crack against his temple with a sickening thunk. He dropped. You rolled over his body, grabbed a sidearm from his hip, twisted the battery cell out of it mid-motion, and used the casing as a projectile. Hurled it into the next man’s throat with such force that he stumbled backward coughing blood.

You weren’t improvising. You were performing. A display in violence so surgical, it felt rehearsed.

There was nothing showy about it. No wasted breath. No excess.

But it was beautiful.

More than one of them hesitated now. The last cluster fell back into each other’s lines, rifles up—but jittering. Off-sync. Unsteady. You were outnumbered five-to-one and you looked like you were winning.

No comms. No backup. No partner on your six, despite Bucky standing right there.

And still, no one could touch you.

Alexei had frozen, one hand still holding his dislocated shoulder. He squinted through the haze. “Is that—are they doing this without a gun?”

“She’s using a speaker and spite,” Yelena said, breathless.

Bucky barely heard them. Every atom in him had locked onto you.

He hadn’t seen you like this in years. Not since the war-torn corners of places no one dared map. Not since missions that left no record. He’d watched you walk away from this life—bloody, ragged, swearing you were done with men who handed out orders and didn’t come home.

But here you were.

“This place's about to blow—oh oh oh—”

The beat peaked again. You moved with it.

Bucky didn’t realize until later, until the playback logs came through, that you’d used the signal bounce from the comm hijack to trigger a proximity ping in one of the mercenaries’ own mines. Subtle. Elegant. Just a single pressure charge set beneath the concrete underpass.

You’d timed it to the music.

The explosions hit not with a flash, but a boom—a deep, guttural bass that ripped through the center of the formation. It threw bodies. Concrete cracked. Rebar snapped like bones. The wave of force didn’t kill anyone outright—it was too clean for that. But it sent the force scattering, screaming, radios buzzing with confused shouts in languages the translation software couldn’t keep up with.

You walked through the smoke, now. No urgency.

One of the last men standing raised a trembling pistol.

You were on him in a breath—disarmed him with a spin, yanked the weapon apart in two brutal motions, and slammed the butt of the magazine into his vest until he collapsed, gasping, eyes wide with disbelief.

Bucky took a step forward. And then another. He didn’t know he was moving until the smoke curled at his boots.

Silence followed like a held breath.

When the last one fell, your music still bumping faintly over the comms, you finally looked at Bucky.

“Hi, baby.”

It wasn’t breathless. It wasn’t mocking. Just a quiet, dangerous kind of intimacy.

His heart felt like it stopped.

You moved to him casually, eyes raking over the bruise at his temple, the smear of blood under his collar. You tilted your head, inspecting him like he was a car you’d loaned out and found parked crooked in the wrong neighborhood.

The mask muffled your voice slightly, but not enough to hide the dryness in your tone. “Now that was a proper encore.”

The comms crackled again, faint and dazed.

“…Okay,” Walker muttered. “What the fuck just happened.”

No answer. Not from anyone.

Bucky approached you like someone walking through a minefield he already knew was active. Your eyes met his, slow and deliberate, as you reached up and peeled the broken edge of your mask back enough to speak.

“You look like shit,” you said simply.

“You blew up a fucking parking garage.”

“I nudged the pressure plate,” you corrected. “The garage blew itself up. Poor structural planning.”

Yelena finally spoke, somewhere off to the right. “Who are you?”

You didn’t look at her. Just exhaled through your nose like the question barely warranted a pause. “Old friend,” you said simply. “Fewer ethics, better taste in music.”

It hung there, ambiguous enough to pass but barbed enough that it didn’t invite further questions. You knew exactly how to deflect. How to disappear even while standing in plain sight.

You turned back to Bucky. The tilt of your head, the shift of your voice—both softened, only fractionally, but enough that he would feel it in his ribs. That awful, aching familiarity.

“You weren’t going to tell me about this op,” you said flatly, voice low, just for him.

“You're not supposed to be tracking me.”

You hummed. “And yet.” You tapped a gloved finger to his chest. Right above the hidden seam of his tac vest. He knew there was a tracker there. Or, he would now.

Behind you, the others were beginning to recover, weapons slack in their hands, confusion settling in like dust.

“Again, who is that?” Ava asked, still half in phase, her eyes narrowed.

“Nobody,” Bucky said quickly.

You turned to him again, one brow lifted.

He didn’t flinch.

The silence pressed in again. You could hear Walker muttering something—something about vigilantes, unregistered allies, probably some offhand comment about being underpaid—but it didn’t matter. Not right now.

You leaned in close enough for only Bucky to hear. “I don’t care who you work for now,” you murmured. “But if you’re going to keep playing hero, I’m not going to sit at home hoping you come back with all your pieces. You trained me better than that.”

“I didn’t train you to break into comms systems mid-op and hijack the sound system with—what was that?”

“Don’t Cha.” You smiled faintly. “It slaps.”

He closed his eyes for half a second. Breathed deep. Then opened them again. “You can’t do this.”

“Sure I can. I’m not a part of your team. I don’t need clearance. I just need one good signal bounce and an encrypted network to patch into.”

“And a speaker,” he added, dry.

You shrugged. “I improvise.”

Another pause.

“I’m not here to start saving the world again,” you said. “But I will show up when you’re two seconds from bleeding out in a parking garage in Bratislava because your team has shit intel and someone decided not to bring extra clips.”

He didn’t argue.

You patted his cheek briefly. Nothing overt, just enough to make the breath catch in his throat.

Then you turned, vanishing into the smoke just as casually as you’d arrived, music still pulsing faintly behind you.

Yelena said what everyone was thinking.

“What the fuck just happened?”

No one had an answer.

Bucky didn’t offer one either.

He just stood there, aching in every limb, and wondered how many more of his missions were going to end with Pussycat Dolls blaring through government-issued earpieces—and how many more trackers he was going to have to tear out of his suit.

The debrief had ended thirty minutes ago.

No one had left.

Yelena sat cross-legged in one of the overstuffed chairs, a protein bar crumpled in her palm like she’d forgotten she was holding it. Her blonde hair was scraped back in a half-twisted bun that had begun to unravel midway through the meeting, and her expression had only grown more pointed with every breath Bucky refused to waste explaining you.

Across from her, Walker was pacing—slow, agitated, like a caged animal that hadn’t quite figured out what corner to piss in yet. He’d ditched the tac vest but kept the sleeves rolled, flexing a bruised bicep every time he turned. Alexei had already snagged half of the post-mission snacks from the shared kitchenette and was now loudly crunching on something suspiciously orange. Ava sat against the far wall next to Bob, legs crossed at the ankle, arms folded, as silent and sharp as a scalpel.

Bucky sat alone near the far end of the table, arms folded loosely across his chest, gaze fixed on the blacked-out screen of a wall monitor.

“So,” Yelena said, picking at the wrapper. “Are you going to tell us who they were, or do I have to keep guessing?”

Bucky didn’t move.

Alexei pointed a carrot stick in his direction. “They knew you. Very well. This is not up for debate. They called you ‘baby.’” A pause. “Is that normal? Do coworkers in America do that now?”

“She hijacked our comms with bubblegum pop and flipped a full tactical team without breaking a sweat,” Ava said quietly. “I’d like to know who’s training with that kind of precision and not wearing a uniform.”

“She’s not on any registry,” Yelena added. “I checked. No files. No background. No facial ID. She doesn’t exist.”

“She’s not a threat,” Bucky said. Flat. Final. The tone of someone who’d been interrogated before and wasn’t interested in playing along.

“No. You don’t get to do that,” Yelena said, sliding off the table with a thud. “You don’t get to stand there all quiet and broody after someone cartwheeled through an active war zone, made our entire unit look like unpaid interns, and then blew up a parking garage with what I’m pretty sure was a Bluetooth speaker.”

Walker let out a bark of laughter and didn’t bother hiding it. “Thank you. Finally. I thought I’d imagined that.”

“You did not,” Ava said flatly, still watching the skyline. “I checked the audio logs. She used a frequency bounce to route music through nine of their channels simultaneously. Bounced it again to mask her own comm signature. She was using earpieces as echo chambers.”

“That’s not even real,” Walker scoffed. “That’s comic book shit.”

“So are we,” Yelena shot back.

Bucky rubbed his jaw, said nothing.

Bob looked up from where he’d been twiddling with the strap of his watch in the corner of the room. “I liked the song.”

Four heads turned toward him.

He blinked slowly. “I listened to the audio logs too. It was catchy.”

Alexei made a noise like he was preparing to argue with the furniture itself. “She took out twenty-five men, minimum. With her hands. And rhythm. I am sorry, but this is not someone who just wandered in from the street. This is not some random playlist enthusiast. You know her.”

Bucky didn’t flinch. “Yeah.”

That answer hung there, not quite satisfying.

Yelena stepped closer, arms folded, chin tilted like she was examining a lie for cracks. “Okay. So who is she. What’s her name.”

“I don’t know if she’s using one right now,” Bucky lied easily. “We worked together a long time ago. That’s all.”

Walker barked out another laugh. “Bullshit.”

“We ran ops in a couple regions,” Bucky said. “Mostly when things got too quiet for comfort. Off-books. Years ago. She walked away before everything really came apart.”

“She tracked you across a continent,” Yelena said.

He met her eyes. “She likes to be thorough.”

“Was she CIA?” Ava asked. “Because I’ve seen their psychological profiles and that was not the average ex-operative response to stress.”

Bucky shook his head. “No. Not Langley.”

“HYDRA?” Walker said too quickly.

“Jesus,” Yelena muttered.

“She moved like someone from a program,” Ava said, voice quiet but deliberate. “Someone conditioned. That kind of precision doesn’t come from basic black-ops.”

“She trained under someone worse than HYDRA,” Bucky said.

And just like that, the room shifted. The quiet got heavier. Bob looked away. Alexei stopped fidgeting. Ava stilled completely.

Yelena narrowed her eyes. “Red Room?”

“I didn’t ask,” Bucky said. “Didn’t need to.”

“But she knew you.” Ava again, calm, focused. “That kind of familiarity doesn’t just show up after a few jobs.”

Bucky looked up at her. “I didn’t say it was just a few.”

“You said she walked away.”

He paused.

“She did.”

Silence again.

Walker shifted, elbow on the back of his chair. “Well, wherever she walked to, she kept your damn tracking frequency. I still can’t get the ringing out of my left ear.”

Bucky didn’t look at him. “You’re welcome, by the way. For being alive.”

“Sure,” Walker said dryly. “Thanks to your mystery friend with a war crime mixtape.”

“And now she’s… what? A rogue asset?” Ava asked, tilting her head. “A merc? A vigilante with a playlist?”

“She’s not on anyone’s leash,” Bucky said simply.

“Except yours,” Walker muttered.

Bucky’s glare snapped to him. “She doesn’t answer to anyone. Not to me. Not to you.”

Alexei muttered something in Russian under his breath that sounded vaguely admiring and possibly inappropriate.

Bob finally spoke again, more alert this time. “She’s not joining us, is she?”

“No,” Bucky said.

He said it fast.

A beat.

“I’m sorry, why not,” Alexei said, throwing both hands into the air. “We have room! We have so much room! She could have the bunk above mine, I would even switch.”

“She doesn’t want to be on a team,” Bucky said. “She’s not the type.”

“You mean she’s not the type to follow orders,” Yelena said, eyes narrowing again.

“No,” he said slowly. “I mean she doesn’t give a shit about headlines, or missions, or doing this the right way. She shows up because she wants to. That’s it.”

“And you’re okay with that?” Ava asked. “Someone that volatile just showing up whenever she decides?”

“She’s not volatile,” Bucky said, the words a little sharper than intended.

Yelena caught it. Instantly.

She stepped forward, crossing into his space—not aggressive, but direct. Like someone circling a bruise. “You trust her.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“No,” she said, “but you didn’t have to.”

Bucky didn’t speak.

“She’s not just an old op,” Yelena said, eyes still locked on his. “That wasn’t nostalgia out there. That was instinct. You moved like someone watching something yours walk into fire.”

Ava glanced between them. “She did save your life.”

“She saved all of us,” Bucky threw back.

“Okay, but why doesn’t she have a file,” Walker cut in. “Why doesn’t anyone know about her? If she’s that good, someone would’ve picked her up.”

“She’s good at disappearing,” Bucky said.

“And you just let her go?” Walker said. “After she pulls a fucking Mission: Impossible and struts off into the fog like a Bond girl?”

“I don’t let her do anything,” Bucky said. “She’s not mine to handle.”

Yelena leaned back in her chair. The protein bar wrapper crinkled in her palm.

“She’s not going to show up again, is she?”

Bucky shrugged. “Depends on whether I do something stupid again.”

He didn’t mention that you’d texted him two hours ago asking if he wanted to stop for groceries on his way back. He didn’t mention that the front porch light would be on tonight. That you’d probably be curled on the couch in socks and one of his old shirts, pretending you hadn’t crossed any borders this week.

They didn’t need to know that.

He rose from the table and grabbed his jacket off the back of the chair. The room watched him like he was walking out of an interrogation and back into something no one else could follow.

“Tell Val I’ll finish the debrief report tomorrow,” he said.

Yelena tilted her head. “And where are you going?”

Bucky paused in the doorway.

He didn’t look back.

“Home,” he said.

And then he was gone.

The porch light was on.

Not a floodlight, not a security cam. Just the soft golden bulb above the narrow step that flickered twice when the wind caught it wrong. One of the screws had loosened a few months back during a storm. Bucky had said he’d fix it. You’d said it didn’t bother you. It still hadn’t been fixed.

His boots were scuffed and his shoulder ached and there was probably still smoke in his hair, but he stood on the welcome mat for a second longer than necessary anyway, hand resting on the doorframe like he needed to feel something solid.

Then he unlocked it. Quiet. Familiar. Two clicks, one turn.

Inside smelled like clean laundry and old books and that lemongrass balm you always used for burns.

The record player was humming in the background, stylus long since run dry. You must’ve forgotten to turn it off again. He stepped into the living room and shrugged off his jacket, moving through the space like muscle memory. His eyes caught on the half-finished mug on the end table, a folded blanket on the couch, the sleeves of one of his shirts pushed up over your forearms where you were curled up sideways, knees tucked, reading a book with your bare feet propped against the armrest.

You didn’t look up. Just turned a page.

“I thought you’d be home earlier,” you said softly.

“Got cornered by the team.”

Your voice was light, almost teasing. “They want answers?”

“They want blood.”

You snorted and finally glanced over the edge of the book. “Yelena first?”

“Obviously.”

“Did she throw anything?”

“Just looks.”

You hummed and set the book aside, leaning forward to make room as he collapsed onto the couch beside you. He sat like a man whose bones hadn’t stopped vibrating. You shifted, swung your legs over his lap, and rested one arm lazily across his chest like it had always belonged there.

He didn’t speak. Just closed his eyes for a moment, the side of his head tilted toward yours.

You let the silence stretch. He needed that.

Then—

“Bob said he liked the song.”

You grinned against his shoulder. “He’s got taste.”

“He said it was catchy.”

“He’s not wrong.”

“Again, you blew up a parking garage.”

“I was subtle.”

“You were wearing a speaker rig stitched into your coat.”

“I didn’t say I was quiet.”

He huffed, a small thing. Almost a laugh.

You leaned your head back against the cushion and studied the ceiling. “They’ll figure it out eventually.”

He didn’t ask what.

You didn’t clarify.

“They’ll dig,” you continued, “because that’s what they do. Not because they don’t trust you. But because they can’t afford not to. You don’t keep ghosts around without asking where they sleep at night.”

“They’re not stupid.”

“No,” you said. “Just loyal.”

He rubbed a thumb along the inside of your wrist. You’d skinned it, just barely, probably during that slide beneath the gunfire. 

“They think we’re ex-coworkers,” he said after a beat.

“Mm. That won’t last.”

“I know.”

You shifted to look at him, gaze steady. “You want me to stay gone next time?”

“No.”

It came out faster than he meant it to. And quieter.

You didn’t say anything.

His fingers ghosted across the edge of your thigh. “I just—this thing with the team. It’s still new. Messy. They’re watching me like I might snap. Or disappear.”

“You’ve earned that,” you said, not unkindly.

He nodded.

“They trust you more than they think,” you added after a moment. “Even Walker.”

“Walker thinks I’m one fight away from dragging a metal arm through a convenience store and snapping someone in half over a cereal shelf.”

You smiled. “You did that once.”

“I was sleep-deprived and the guy had it coming.”

“I’m just saying,” you murmured. “They’re not wrong to wonder.”

He let the silence settle again, the weight of your legs grounding him where he sat. Then he glanced over at you. “And you?”

You raised a brow. “Do I think you’re going to snap and kill the team in a cereal aisle?”

“Do you think you’re going to keep crashing my missions with bubblegum pop and a body count?”

You smiled, sharp and warm at once. “Only if you keep making it interesting.”

He stared at you for a moment. Then he reached out, brushed his fingers under your jaw—light, thoughtful, like he was confirming you were still here.

“I meant what I said,” you added, quiet now. “I wasn’t there to play hero. I’m not looking for redemption. Or recognition. That world chewed me up and spat me out long before I met you. I’m not going back.”

“I know.”

“But I’ll always come back. For you.”

His throat tightened.

You felt the shift before he said anything. The way his fingers stilled just under your jaw, how his gaze dropped for the barest second, like whatever he was about to admit weighed more than it should have.

“They’re going to find out,” he said finally. Voice low. Steady, but only just. “Not just who you are. What we are.”

You didn’t look away. “You sound like you’re bracing for it.”

“I am.” He leaned back slightly, enough to study your face. “I’ve kept a lot of things buried over the years. Some of it for good reason. Some of it because I didn’t know how to tell anyone without it sounding like a confession. But this—us—it’s not something I want in the crosshairs.”

You tilted your head. “You think they’ll aim at it?”

“I think people don’t like what they can’t label. And right now, you’re an anomaly with a body count, a comms breach, and no file. Add in a secret marriage to someone like me, and that’s a storm waiting to happen.”

You were quiet for a moment. Then: “You really didn’t tell them anything?”

“No.”

“Not even that we live together?”

“No.”

You nodded. Not in judgment. Just understanding.

“You scared they’ll treat me like a threat?”

He hesitated. “No. I’m scared they’ll treat us like one. Like I’ve been compromised. Like I’m… hiding something dangerous.”

“You are,” you said, with a small, lopsided smile. “But that’s never stopped you before.”

He didn’t smile back. Just ran a hand down his face, thumb braced at his temple. “Yelena’s already circling. Ava’s not far behind. Walker’s an idiot, but even he knows something’s off. And Alexei—Christ, I think he’s trying to adopt you.”

“I could do worse,” you deadpanned.

“He asked if you wanted the bunk above his. Said he’d move.”

You laughed, soft and sharp. “God, he’s going to be crushed when he finds out I’m not single.”

Bucky’s jaw tightened. “That’s not funny.”

You reached for his hand, interlaced your fingers with his. His skin was calloused, palms scarred, familiar in ways your body had memorized years ago.

“James,” you said, and your voice gentled, “I don’t care if they like me. Or believe in this. Or approve. I don’t need them to. I didn’t marry them. I married you.”

His eyes flicked to yours, something fierce and unspoken just behind them.

“You’re not a risk I regret,” you added. “And if they want to dig, let them dig. We’ve survived worse than a nosy debrief room.”

He leaned forward again, this time slower, and rested his forehead against yours. The press of skin, the shared breath, the quiet tension wound tight between your ribs—none of it felt like surrender. Just something harder to name.

He spoke quietly. “If this gets out, they’ll question my judgment.”

“Let them.”

“They’ll dig into your past.”

“Let them.”

“They’ll—” He cut himself off, exhaled. “They’ll try to separate us.”

You tilted your chin. “They can’t.”

It wasn’t a challenge. It was a fact. Solid. Unmoving.

Bucky didn’t answer, but you felt the way his breath dragged out through his nose, how his grip on your hand shifted—fingers tightening, not like fear, but habit. Like holding onto you was muscle memory. Like letting go wasn’t an option he entertained anymore.

You reached up with your free hand and pushed your fingers into his hair, slow and loose at the nape where it was just starting to curl from the heat. It was damp. He hadn’t showered yet. He hadn’t really come home yet. Just crossed the threshold.

“Go wash off the garage dust,” you said. “You smell like diesel and nerves.”

“Thought you liked how I smelled.”

“I do,” you murmured. “But I like it better when it’s under cedar soap and not post-combat sweat.”

He stayed where he was for another beat, forehead still resting against yours. Then he pulled back enough to look at you, just long enough for his gaze to drop to your mouth. He didn’t kiss you. Just studied you the way he always did when you told him the truth—like he was adding it to some invisible tally, a list only he kept track of.

Then he rose without a word.

You watched him walk down the hallway, unzipping the tactical vest as he went, shoulder muscles moving beneath the black fabric like tension still hadn’t learned how to let go. The bathroom door clicked open. You heard the water pressure shift in the pipes before the sound of the shower started.

You waited thirty seconds. Then you stood, peeled his shirt off your frame, and followed.

It had been nearly five months since Bratislava.

Since the parking garage. Since the Pussycat Dolls. Since you’d lit up half a mercenary task force with a smirk and a frequency bounce. Since you’d vanished again into the smoke like a goddamn myth, only to be curled up on the couch that next night asking if he wanted to split a sandwich or order out after the two of you spent far too long in the shower.

In that time, the team had gotten better. Not good, no one in that unit would ever be clean enough to call themselves that, but sharper. More in sync. Intel got vetted. Missions ran smoother. Yelena had even stopped threatening to stab Walker more than once per week.

But the bruises still came. The blood still dried in the seams of their suits. And when shit did go sideways, which it inevitably did, it was always in ways that no one could predict.

The second time you showed up, Bucky had barely made it through the post-mission patch-up before Yelena cornered him outside medical with her arms crossed and murder in her eyes.

“Was that Britney Spears?”

He didn’t answer.

She didn’t need him to. Ava had already ID’d the audio footprint as a hacked signal ping bounced from a cell tower two miles outside the safe zone. Alexei had hummed the song for three days afterward. Walker sulked about it until Bob offered him a playlist of his own.

Three weeks after that, you crashed an op in the Balkans with the entirety of Beyoncé’s Renaissance album queued up in reverse order. You landed halfway through “Pure/Honey,” took down thirteen hostiles, winked at the drone cam, and disappeared before the satellite feed could reorient.

By the time mission four hit, some remote hellhole near the Georgian border with shit reception and worse exits, the team was already halfway joking about which track you’d use next.

It was Kesha again. Naturally.

You’d popped out of a burning APC with "TiK ToK" already mid-chorus and a grin like you’d been waiting for someone to hit the big red button. That time, you didn't leave right away. You passed Bucky a protein bar before the team got on the extraction chopper, kissed his temple, and told Alexei he had a nice ass. He hadn't shut up since.

They were still digging, of course. Yelena and Ava, mostly. Alexei kept making increasingly unhinged guesses about your background—sometimes Russian ballet, sometimes MI6, sometimes something about Vatican ninjas that no one had the heart to correct. Bob just watched. Always quiet. Always listening. And Walker…

Walker had developed a twitch.

He’d started referring to you—loudly, bitterly—as “Bucky’s little bat-signal,” like if he said it enough times it’d turn into a punchline and not an ache. It never landed. Not really.

No one could prove anything. Not about your identity. Not about your methods. You moved too fast. You left nothing behind.

And Bucky never said much.

He never needed to.

But they were all watching. Closer. Louder. Testing the tension in every mission like they were waiting for it to snap.

Which is why, when everything finally went to hell, no one was surprised when Yelena snapped first.

The op was supposed to be simple. In and out. A weapons drop moving across eastern borders, underground tech funneled through an abandoned train yard. Bucky had checked the coordinates himself. The team had split into pairs. Ava and Walker on overwatch. Alexei by the perimeter with a surveillance drone. Yelena at Bucky’s six, teeth gritted, gun loaded.

It wasn’t an ambush.

It was an execution.

There had been too many of them, real mercenaries this time. Not freelancers. Not idiots. Not chaos agents looking for a payout. These ones moved together. Synchronized. Coordinated. Ava had gone down first, wounded. Not out, but down. Phasing between pain. Walker had followed, clipped hard in the leg, trying to cover her.

Alexei was pinned.

And Bucky was breathing too hard, right arm shattered at the elbow, the sound of blood slapping metal every time he moved.

Yelena was cursing. Loud and vicious. Ducking behind rusted train cars as bullets slammed through metal and concrete like the world had narrowed to pure impact.

“Fuck,” she spat, reloading. “We are going to die in a parking lot for stolen tech and Valentina’s shitty paycheck—”

Bucky’s teeth were red. His side was worse.

He grunted, low. “We’ve been through worse.”

“Speak for yourself,” she hissed. “This is bad. This is the bad kind. Unless your little friend plans to show up again with backup dancers and a boom box, we’re dead.”

Bucky would have replied—maybe something bitter, something deflective—but his jaw locked before he could open his mouth. His vision was graying at the edges, muscles refusing to follow orders. His right arm was entirely dead weight now, slung awkwardly against his chest, blood still slick at the wrist. He couldn’t tell if the warmth in his boots was from a burst vein or just the heat of the rail yard’s scorched concrete.

And you weren’t here.

That was the thought that hit him hardest. Not the pain, not the bodies, not the brutal math of angles and ammunition. You weren’t here.

You’d always been here before.

Not early. Not announced. But you showed up. On the edge of disaster, somewhere between the breaking point and the fallout, wrapped in leather and snatched frequencies and songs that shouldn’t have made sense on a battlefield but always did when it was you. And he never called you, never asked. You just came.

Because you always found him.

Because you tracked him.

Because you always knew.

He’d grown used to it without realizing. The hum of music bleeding in when the comms got too quiet. The shape of you moving through smoke like it wasn’t a threat but a threshold. He’d never said it aloud, but it had comforted him. Knowing you were out there, watching, waiting. Knowing he couldn’t disappear without you noticing.

But this time?

This was the worst it had been in months.

And still… nothing.

A part of him, the part that hadn’t already fractured under the pressure, felt it like abandonment. A dull edge of fear pressed hard to his sternum. Not because he doubted you, but because it meant something was wrong. Maybe the tracker hadn’t worked. Maybe the jet wasn’t prepped. Maybe you were late. Maybe you were hurt.

Before Bucky could fully spiral into his own thoughts, a sound split the air.

A low, dull rumble that climbed too fast, too smooth, to be more gunfire.

His head snapped toward the east quadrant of the yard, vision still smeared at the edges from blood loss. The others heard it next—Yelena ducked lower, muttering another string of obscenities. Walker flinched, dragging Ava back behind a stack of rusted shipping containers, weapon raised. Alexei braced one arm against a splintered wall of aluminum and groaned something about incoming air support.

“Jet,” Ava gritted out, barely upright. “No clearance on the feed. That’s not ours.”

Bucky blinked once. Hard.

The shape sliced low across the clouds. A short-range VTOL, clearly military-grade, but gutted and rebuilt. Fast. Loud. 

Yours.

And then the music hit.

“Let’s go, girls.”

“Is that—” Walker squinted, staggering.

“I swear to God,” Yelena muttered, slapping another magazine into place. “If that hatch opens and she’s wearing denim, I’m going to cry.”

The jet didn’t touch down gently. It landed loud and hot, braking hard against concrete and kicking up a storm of soot that coated every blown-out car and corpse in a hundred-foot radius. The engines hadn’t even cooled before the rear hatch cracked open with a hiss and the speakers ratcheted louder.

“Man, I feel like a woman…”

And there you stood.

Framed by smoke and floodlights, one hand braced on the hydraulic frame, the other already holding a med bag like you’d jumped in from a dream with combat boots and a temper.

No weapons. No fanfare. Just get in the fucking jet energy radiating off your entire body.

“Everyone in,” you barked. “Now.”

Walker didn’t wait. He hauled Ava toward the ramp with one arm slung around her waist. She was still phasing in and out, blood coating her knuckles, the blur of her shoulder wound sparking faint with tech static.

Alexei limped next, muttering something about Canadian pop singers and spinal trauma. Bucky barely registered it. He couldn’t feel his arm. Could barely hear the pounding in his ears over the scream of the engines and the bassline.

You moved before he could, stepping off the ramp and into the smoke, boots crunching across grit and glass as you crossed the yard at a dead sprint.

“Jesus,” you snapped as you reached him, one hand already going to the blood-soaked hem of his jacket. “What the fuck, James.”

He didn’t answer. Couldn’t. You pressed one palm to his side, felt the heat radiating off his ribs, and looped your other arm under him to carry him to the jet.

“I couldn’t get the signal,” you said, voice tight. “The tracker was acting up.”

He hissed through his teeth as you shifted his weight, setting him down on one of the jet seats. “Where was it this time?”

You didn’t blink. “The right boot. Back corner. You never put your shoes back in the closet, so I figured I’d stick one there.”

Yelena turned her head so sharply it was audible. “What?”

You ignored her.

Bucky narrowed his eyes, breath still ragged. “I hadn’t even worn those boots in a week.”

“Yeah,” you said, voice edged and sharp, as you tugged off his jacket, “and you left them by the dryer again, James, so guess what? That’s where I put it. Along with three aspirin packets, a ten-dollar bill, and the spare keys you keep forgetting to bring with you.”

Yelena’s eyes went wide. “Wait. Wait, what?”

“Not now,” you snapped. “Stitches first, questions later.”

Yelena froze.

She had just stepped into the bay behind Alexei, one arm looped around a support pole, blood streaked down her left cheek. Her head turned slowly—very slowly—back toward the now closing loading ramp, where you were currently pressing gauze to Bucky’s side and muttering something about his inability to buy new med kits even though you were the one who’d asked for them on the last Target run.

“Hold on. Spare keys,” Yelena repeated, voice pitching up like a red flag had just gone up in her brain and she was sprinting to catch it.

You didn’t look up.

Neither did Bucky.

There was a beat—just one—but Bucky felt it ripple through the cabin like a hairline fracture under pressure. Yelena didn’t blink. Ava, still bleeding and silent, lifted her head just an inch off the headrest. Walker muttered something low under his breath, too quiet to catch. Alexei stilled completely.

You were still working.

You’d stripped back the ruined plate of his tac vest, fingers moving fast over the gauze tape. Your hands weren’t shaking, but they weren’t calm either—tight at the knuckles, decisive in that way they always were when someone you cared about had bled more than they should have.

Bucky sucked in a breath. It rattled at the end.

He could feel it happening. The shift. The attention tilting, zeroing in. It was like watching a tripwire get brushed in real time.

“Did you just say Target run?” Yelena’s voice cracked straight through the tension. “Like the store?”

You didn’t respond.

Walker made a strangled sound. “Hold on. You’re telling me this—this frequency-hacking psycho just casually shops for med kits in her downtime for you?”

“I didn’t say I shopped,” you muttered. “I said I asked. He’s the one who keeps forgetting the list.”

“I got the shampoo,” Bucky said through his teeth.

“You got the wrong shampoo.”

“It had the same label!”

“It was 3-in-1.”

“That’s efficient—”

“It’s disgusting, James.”

And just like that, the whole jet tilted again—only this time it wasn’t from blood loss or the pitch of the wind. It was the silence. The stunned, dawning silence that came from realizing something was very, very off.

Ava blinked. “James?”

Yelena’s mouth opened.

Then: “No, no. You don’t get to just drop a spare key confession mid-evac and not explain. What the fuck are you two on about?”

“Explain what?” Bucky barked, more out of pain than defensiveness, but it landed anyway.

Alexei staggered up from his seat, bleeding from the shoulder and grinning like he’d just watched his favorite soap opera hit a mid-season twist. “You two live together, yes?”

“No,” you said, at the same time Bucky said, “Yes.”

Yelena stopped cold. “What.”

“Fine. She has a drawer,” Bucky muttered, wincing as you pressed harder with the gauze.

“You have a drawer?” Yelena repeated, voice rising. “Do you have a shared grocery list too? Matching towels?”

“Technically,” you said, “we share an Amazon account, but only because I hate ads—”

“You share an address?”

You didn’t answer.

Walker limped past, dragging himself into the seat across the aisle. “I swear to God, if this turns into some Mr. and Mrs. Smith bullshit, I’m out.”

Bucky exhaled sharply through his nose. “It’s not like that.”

“Then what is it like,” Yelena snapped. “Because the last I checked, secret girlfriends don’t get comm access and personal extraction aircraft with customized playlists!”

“She’s not—” Bucky started, then stopped.

You paused, fingers frozen just inside his tac vest as you reached for the dressing pack in his inner lining. “James.”

His jaw flexed. “She’s not some secret girlfriend.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Yelena said, eyes wide now, practically vibrating with the sudden thrill of someone else’s exposed personal business. “Are you saying she’s not a girlfriend because she’s a roommate with benefits, or because she’s a literal government ghost you, what? Accidentally fell into bed with during an overseas op and neglected to tell us for five fucking months—”

“She’s my wife.”

The words snapped out like a misfired round—loud, brutal, final.

The silence that followed was thick enough to choke on.

You straightened slowly, the antiseptic wipe still in your hand, now hovering somewhere between the edge of Bucky’s ribs and the cratered hole in his bloodstained shirt.

No one moved.

No one spoke.

Then Walker, voice hoarse and stunned: “I’m sorry. Wife?”

Ava, barely conscious, cracked one eye open. “What?”

Alexei groaned from the corner. “I knew it. I said they were either married or psychic. Maybe both.”

“Wait. Wait, no,” Walker held up a hand, bleeding. “You’re married? Like—married married? To her?”

You finally looked up. “Do you have another her in mind?”

Bucky winced. “Now’s not the time—”

“No, no, I think it is exactly the time,” Yelena said, stepping forward, pointing between the two of you. “Because we’ve all been getting tossed around like ragdolls for months while you two have been playing he’s mine, she’s chaos behind the scenes.”

You rose slowly, blood on your palms, face shadowed by the hatch lighting.

“We weren’t hiding it,” you said simply.

Yelena threw both arms in the air. “You were absolutely hiding it!”

“We were keeping it quiet,” you corrected. “There’s a difference.”

Walker sat down hard on the floor. “I’m gonna pass out.”

Ava, leaning against the wall, finally let out a low breath that might have been a laugh. “That explains so much.”

“I—what the fuck?” Walker’s mouth opened and closed twice. “Like with rings and vows and tax brackets?”

“Jesus Christ,” you muttered. “It was a courthouse in Budapest. No photographer. No playlist. Not even a Pinterest board.”

Alexei, who had been silently mouthing tax brackets, perked up. “How long?”

“None of your business,” Bucky said immediately.

“Four years,” you said, at the exact same time.

Yelena made a noise like a cat being punched.

“Four years?” she barked. “You’ve been married for four years and not one of us knew? Not even a hint? Not even a bad fake name on your emergency contact form?”

“Technically, it’s under her alias,” Bucky said, wincing as you pressed gauze to his side with more force than strictly necessary.

“Her alias,” Ava echoed from the back, eyebrows barely raised but eyes locked on you. “That’s comforting.”

Yelena dragged her hands down her face. “I need to sit down.”

“You’re already sitting down,” Walker said numbly. “We’re all sitting down. In hell.”

Alexei was shaking his head slowly, staring at you like you’d sprouted horns. “I can’t believe we have been flying into death zones with Captain Popsicle and his mystery combat Barbie and the two of you have been married this whole time?”

“Don’t call her that,” Bucky snapped.

“I meant it with admiration!”

“She’s a human being,” Ava said flatly.

“And his wife,” Yelena added, throwing her hands up again. “Which apparently gives her license to break every rule of engagement we’ve ever signed.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” you bit out, finally stepping away from Bucky just long enough to snap a fresh syringe out of the case and toss it to Ava. “Would you have preferred I not show up with an extraction vehicle and leave you all dying in a pile of your own egos?”

“You’re not even cleared!” Walker said, still stuck somewhere between disbelief and cardiac arrest. “You don’t have files. You don’t have a record. You married a former Hydra asset with no fucking paper trail—”

“John,” Bucky said, and his voice didn’t rise, didn’t shout. But the threat in it stopped everything.

Dead.

Walker’s mouth clamped shut.

You turned your back and crouched again, cracking open a package of suture strips with steady, sharp fingers. He didn’t look at you, but he didn’t move away either.

“You married him,” Yelena said slowly, like she was putting the last piece into a conspiracy board. “And you didn’t tell anyone.”

“Correct,” you said, without looking up.

“Why?”

You paused. For the first time since stepping onto the jet, you were still.

Then, quieter: “Because it was ours.”

Yelena blinked.

Walker slumped sideways, muttering something that sounded like Jesus Christ, I’m too concussed for this.

Ava didn’t say anything. She just studied you like she was adding this new truth to a map no one else could read yet.

Alexei, voice quieter now: “You could’ve told us.”

You straightened again, turned, met his eyes.

“We didn’t owe you that.”

And no one, not one of them, could argue with that.

No one said anything for a long time.

The jet rumbled beneath them, steady now. Altitude rising. Stabilizers evening out. The air had gone colder, thinner. Bucky could feel it in his lungs. How the heat of the rail yard had been replaced by that sterile chill of recycled pressurized air and drying blood.

He sat slumped against the inner wall of the aircraft, the pain at his side dulled but ever-present, a pulse of heat beneath the bandages. The lights overhead buzzed faintly. Across from him, Walker had gone quiet. Not passed out, just silent. That silence that came when you didn’t know how to re-enter a world that had just rearranged itself without warning.

Yelena didn’t have that problem.

“Where are the rings?”

You didn’t even blink. Just kept pressing the edge of a suture strip flat against Bucky’s ribs, calm as ever. “We don’t wear them on missions.”

“No, I mean—where are they. What are they. Are they like, hidden daggers? Laser-tracking nanotech? Poison darts? Do they explode?”

“We got tungsten bands off a street vendor in Pest,” you said, flicking the end of the strip down with surgical precision. “Ten bucks each. Mine’s probably under the couch.”

Yelena stared. “You’re telling me you got married with street metal and hid it like it was a war crime?”

You finally looked up. “We didn’t hide it. We protected it. There’s a difference.”

“Yeah,” Yelena muttered, flopping back against the padded bulkhead, “try that line at our next psych eval.”

Alexei perked up slightly. “Did you write vows?”

“Alexei—”

“No, I’m curious! Was it romantic? Did she threaten him? Did he cry?”

You turned to Bucky then, not grinning, not smirking—just steady. “Did you?”

He didn’t answer right away.

He remembered the cold marble floor of the consulate. The cheap pen. The tension in your hand when you signed. The way you didn’t smile, not once, but your shoulders had dropped like something finally let go. He remembered how you’d kissed him afterward, not like a new beginning but like something that had already been burned into your bones and you were just honoring the facts of it now.

He hadn't cried.

But he remembered feeling something break open inside his chest that hadn’t fully closed since.

“No,” he said quietly. “You did.”

That earned a scoff from Walker, who still looked half-sick. “You people are insane.”

“And you’re alive, you’re welcome,” you shot back, not even looking at him.

That shut him up.

Ava tilted her head slightly from where she sat, chin resting against her shoulder. “Are there any other secrets we should be aware of? Kids? A bunker in the Alps? Shared Spotify?”

“We don’t talk about the Spotify,” you said immediately, too flat to be joking.

“I knew you had a playlist,” Yelena muttered.

“Who do you think you’re talking to? I have several,” you corrected.

Bucky let the rhythm of your voice wash over him, the way it always had. It calmed something in him he didn’t have the words for. He wasn't sure he'd ever have the words for it. But that was the thing, wasn’t it? You’d never asked for the language of it. You just stayed. When everything else fractured. When he did.

He let his head tip back against the wall, the throb of the flight engines a dull hum against his skull.

You kept talking.

Yelena asked about Budapest—what song was playing in the cab, what flavor the celebratory gelato was, whether you’d told anyone or if you’d just ghosted the next assignment like it never happened. You didn’t flinch under any of it. You answered what you wanted to. Dodged the rest with a precision that made it clear you'd spent years doing exactly that.

And Bucky watched you.

Listened to the cadences you used with the team—how they shifted only slightly when you got tired, how your sarcasm always dulled at the edges when you were checking someone's wound without being obvious about it. How you deferred to Ava without making it feel like yielding. How you redirected Yelena’s prying with just enough detail to satisfy, just enough space to stay unreadable.

They’d come around.

Eventually.

They always did.

But it wasn’t for them that you showed up in a jet at the eleventh hour. It wasn’t for glory. Or redemption. Or to earn your seat.

It was for him.

And that, Bucky thought, pressing a blood-soaked gauze pad tighter against his ribs, was something no intel report could ever quantify.

He let his eyes slip shut, your voice still in his ears, arguing now with Yelena about the legality of impersonating air traffic control in four different countries. He didn’t smile. Not really.

But he breathed easier.

For the first time in hours.

Maybe days.

Maybe longer.

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[chervbs]

Still Yours

pairing | thunderbolts!bucky x fem!reader

word count | 9.4k words

summary | bucky lets his relationship slip into the background for the sake of duty and public image. but when the distance starts to break them, he realizes he’ll do anything to fight for the love he almost lost.

tags | (18+) MDNI, smut, unprotected sex, p in v, THUNDERBOLTS* SPOILERS, fluff, angst, hurt/comfort, soft!bucky, miscommunication, established relationship, mentions of mental health/trauma

a/n | I enjoyed writing this so much omg. an apology for my last angst fest fic, based on this request. just two emotionally constipated dumbasses in love.

likes comments and reblogs are much appreciated ✨✨

ᴍᴀsᴛᴇʀʟɪsᴛ

The first thing you felt was the drag of his mouth along your collarbone—hot, wet, unhurried.

Then his body—solid, heavy, familiar—settled deeper between your thighs, pinning you to the sheets like he belonged there.

Like he knew he belonged there.

“Fuck,” Bucky rasped, hips rolling in slow, punishing thrusts that pulled gasps from your throat. “You feel so good—always feel so fuckin’ good…”

Your legs tightened around his waist, heels pressing into the curve of his ass, urging him deeper.

“You gonna come for me, sweetheart?” he panted, forehead resting against yours. “Come on, I know you’re close.”

You could barely form words. Everything was heat and friction and the slow climb to a peak that had been building for days. He’d been gone—missions, briefings, whatever other bullshit Val had piled on him—and you hadn’t had this, hadn’t had him, in far too long.

Now, you were starving for him.

And from the way he was panting against your mouth, he was just as gone for you.

Bucky’s rhythm faltered for a second—just a split moment—as his cock pulsed deep inside you and he moaned, low and wrecked.

Then—bzzzt.

The phone on the nightstand lit up.

The sound sliced through the heat like cold water.

You groaned, your hands clawing into his shoulders, nails dragging down the flex of his back. “Ignore it,” you muttered, voice thick.

He nodded without looking, mouth already on your throat again. “Wasn’t gonna stop.”

Bzzzt.

He hesitated. You felt the tension in his hips, the shift in his weight. The way his hand twitched like he wanted to grab it—like his fucking conditioning made him twitch toward the sound.

“James,” you growled, pulling his face back to yours. “Focus.”

He smirked—flushed, wild-eyed, strands of hair clinging to his sweat-damp forehead. “Yes, ma’am.”

He rocked back into you, deeper this time, harder. You gasped, arching into him, fingernails biting into his arms.

“You’re such a good girl,” he grunted, “always take me so—”

Bzzzt.

The sound felt louder now.

Persistent.

You tensed beneath him, and he slowed—just a fraction. His head dropped into the crook of your neck, his breath hot and ragged.

You whispered, dangerously low, “James Buchanan Barnes, don’t you dare.”

He paused. Exhaled. “I won’t,” he murmured.

And he didn’t.

Not when you kissed him. Not when your legs tightened around him again, pulling him back into that rhythm. Not when your hips met his in frantic, greedy movement, the sound of skin on skin filling the room.

But then—

Bzzzt. Bzzzt. Bzzzt.

Buzzing. Relentless.

Like it knew it was ruining something.

His rhythm faltered again. Slower this time. His breath hitched.

And you could see it—feel it—his mind slipping.

“Two seconds, baby,” he whispered, barely coherent.

Then he reached.

You froze. Staring.

He reached for the phone.

“For fuck’s sake—” You shoved his chest, hard enough to make him fall back slightly, the weight of him disappearing as you slid out from under him.

“What?” he asked, dazed, already answering the call. “Where’re you going?”

You grabbed your robe from the edge of the bed, slipping it on in one fluid motion, not even sparing him a glance as you stalked toward the kitchen.

“To make a goddamn sandwich,” you snapped over your shoulder.

And then Bucky was left there, shirtless and half-hard, with the call pressed to his ear and the echo of your frustration ringing louder than the goddamn phone ever did.

────────────────────────

The quiet creak of the bedroom door broke through the stillness as you stood at the kitchen counter, barefoot, chewing slowly on the sandwich you’d slapped together out of spite and mild hunger. Your tiny silk robe hugged your hips, and the morning light from the window behind you cast a low, golden glow across your back.

You didn’t look up. You didn’t need to.

You could feel him watching you—feel the apology radiating off him before he even spoke.

A few seconds later, Bucky padded into the kitchen fully dressed, freshly showered, dog tags glinting faintly beneath his shirt collar. His hair was still damp, slicked back lazily with his fingers.

Your stomach twisted.

He stopped beside you, hands in his pockets, jaw tense. “It’s the team.”

You nodded, still chewing.

You didn’t need him to say it. You’d known the second that phone buzzed three times in a row.

“In the city?”

He nodded. “Watchtower. Just a briefing. Maybe recon. Shouldn’t be long.”

You nodded again, finishing the bite and setting the crust on the plate. The silence stretched.

Bucky leaned in, crowding into your space slightly like he always did when he needed you to ground him. “You angry?”

You sighed, licking a crumb from your bottom lip. Then you turned, finally facing him, and your arms slid easily around his neck.

He exhaled the moment you touched him—like that one gesture released the tension wrapped around his ribs.

“No,” you murmured, voice quiet but firm. “I’m not angry.”

His arms circled your waist, pulling you flush against him. “You sure?”

You nodded into his shoulder. “I know what I signed up for. You’re out there saving the world.”

He pulled back just enough to look at you, brows furrowed, voice softer now. “Still. Doesn’t mean I don’t hate leaving.”

You looked up at him for a long beat, reading the guilt in his eyes. Then, deadpan:

“Well. You did spend the last ten minutes of our morning trying to ignore your phone while balls-deep in me. I’d call that balance.”

He huffed a low, surprised laugh, forehead dropping to yours. “Jesus Christ.”

You shrugged, lips twitching. “Hey. You asked.”

He kissed you, slow and lingering, and whispered against your mouth, “What did I ever do to deserve you?”

You pulled back just enough to give him that classic stare—the flat one that usually made Bob flinch.

“Honestly?” you said, voice dry. “Just the luck of the draw, hon.”

Bucky barked out a real laugh this time, low and raspy. “That sounds about right.”

You smiled—small, real—then leaned in and brushed a kiss to the corner of his mouth.

He didn’t move. Didn’t pull away. His hand trailed down your spine, fingers resting at the hem of your robe, his lips ghosting along your jaw now.

“I told them I’d be there in fifteen.”

“Mmhm.”

“But the drive’s only ten.”

You hummed, finishing your sip of water, eyes moving to your sandwich.

“So,” he murmured, mouth back at your ear now, voice dipping low, “technically that gives us five minutes to finish what we started.”

You turned your head, meeting his gaze under lowered lashes.

The look in his eyes was full of hope. And want. And a little desperation.

You kissed him—once, slow and sultry—letting him feel your mouth move over his.

Then you pulled back, just enough to whisper against his lips, “Mm. No.”

He blinked. “What?”

You turned, picking your sandwich back up and walking away toward the couch. “You already finished once today. Let a girl eat.”

Behind you, Bucky groaned, dragging a hand down his face. “You’re evil.”

“And yet, here you are,” you called over your shoulder, settling down and flipping through the remote like your thighs weren’t still sticky from him.

He watched you for a second longer, eyes lingering like he was committing you to memory. Then he sighed, picked up his jacket, and headed for the door.

“Call me after?” you said casually.

He looked back, already halfway out.

“Always.”

────────────────────────

The conference room in the Watchtower was, unfortunately, real. Sterile and over-lit with its polished black table and transparent display screens, it felt more like the waiting room of a tech-startup funeral than the nerve center of the New Avengers.

Bucky sat at the far end of the table, jaw clenched, half-listening as Val paced in front of a projected graph that looked like it was bleeding red. His phone buzzed once in his pocket—his eyes flicked down—but it wasn’t you, and the hollow ache behind his ribs twisted a little deeper.

This was the thing that had pulled him away. Not a mission. Not a world-ending threat. Just PR bullshit.

Val tapped the screen with her manicured finger like it had personally offended her. “The numbers are bad. Public trust in the New Avengers is declining, and fast. People don’t like what they don’t recognize. And right now, you’re a bunch of strangers with messy optics and zero cohesion.”

At her side, Mel nodded without looking up from her tablet. “Engagement down 22% week-over-week. Headlines are skewing nostalgic. Keywords trending: ‘wish Cap was back,’ ‘where’s the heart,’ and ‘vigilante vibes.’”

Yelena lounged back in her chair like she’d rather be anywhere else. Her feet were propped on the table’s edge, one boot bouncing with slow, deliberate disinterest. “Maybe they’re just mourning the glory days,” she muttered, twisting her gum around her finger. “Old team got shiny deaths and glossy documentaries. We get memes.”

Ava, seated across from her, gave a quiet snort. “We’re not here to trend. We’re here to finish missions.”

Val didn’t even blink. “You’re here to represent global security and inspire public trust. And without that trust, you’re nothing more than privately-funded vigilantes in almost matching gear.”

“I like our gear,” Alexei rumbled helpfully from the end, arms crossed over his chest like a stubborn bear.

Val spared him a look. “You’re the closest thing we have to comic relief, Alexei. Lean into it.”

“Is that what they call ‘noble heroism’ now?” he huffed.

Walker sat ramrod straight, jaw working, his suit perfectly zipped. “You think Cap worried about popularity? We’re not running a fashion campaign.”

“No,” Val said flatly. “But Cap didn’t publicly decapitate someone with a shield on live television either.”

Yelena snorted. “Yikes.”

John’s jaw tightened, but he said nothing.

“Point is,” Val continued, “you all need a rebrand. Yelena—your personality makes you relatable. Media loves you. You’ll handle most interviews.”

Yelena rolled her eyes. “Great. I’ll practice my ‘Good Morning, America’ smile.”

“Ava,” Val said, turning, “your trauma narrative plays well. But lean into redemption. Soft lighting. No more disappearing mid-interview.”

Ava’s response was a flat stare. “I’ll try not to phase through my own dignity.”

Val didn’t even acknowledge the jab.

“John,” she said, and his head snapped up like a soldier awaiting orders. “Less cowboy, more Captain. Smile more. No threats on-camera. Pretend you like people.”

He scoffed under his breath, muttering something about “hand-holding and fairy tales.”

“Alexei,” she said, deadpan, “people like the Soviet uncle bit. Keep it up.”

Alexei beamed.

“Bob, you’re doing fine. Stay polite. And no more jokes about punching through tanks, they’re fact-checking you.”

Bob looked vaguely hurt. “It was metaphorical.”

Val finally turned her gaze to Bucky, her expression shifting slightly—not warmer, but sharper, more calculated. She paced a slow step closer to where he sat, hands clasped behind her back like a politician delivering bad news with a smile.

“You, Barnes, are the key,” she said simply. “You’re the most recognized face on this team, and not just because of your past as the Winter Soldier.”

She gestured toward the screen behind her, now displaying a montage of Bucky’s appearances—post-congressional interviews, old wartime footage, newer press photos where he stood stoically beside Sam.

“You were a war hero before you were ever the Winter Soldier. Sergeant James Barnes, the Howling Commando, the man who fought beside Captain America during the most iconic conflict of the 20th century. And, until very recently, a U.S. Congressman advocating for post-snap veteran reform. Your file reads like a patriotic fantasy novel.”

Bucky didn’t move. Didn’t even blink. But something in his jaw ticked.

Val leaned in a little, her voice softening, but not with kindness—just control.

“What we need now is that Bucky. The leader. The charming, respectful, golden-era face people want to believe in. Friendly. Accessible. And most importantly…”

She paused.

“Available.”

That made Bucky’s eyes lift, expression tightening. “You do know I have a girlfriend, right? I’m in a committed relationship.”

Val didn’t miss a beat. “One the public doesn’t know about. And doesn’t need to.”

He sat forward slightly, steel entering his voice. “You’re asking me to lie.”

“No,” Val said, waving a hand. “I’m asking you to protect her. Think of it this way—if no one knows who she is, no one can leverage her. No threats. No gossip. No crossfire. It’s smarter this way.”

Mel tapped her tablet again. “We’ve already scrubbed mentions, just in case. Nothing linking her name to yours comes up in connection to the New Avengers.”

Bucky clenched his jaw. He hated this. Every inch of it.

“Why is it so important that I look ‘available’?” he asked flatly.

Val’s smile sharpened. “Because people want to like you. And people like what they want. It’s a psychological pull. You become more desirable, more approachable—someone they imagine they could know. That they could be with. It builds trust, makes you more likable. Marketable.”

He stared at her for a long beat.

“You want to make me into a fantasy.”

“I want to make you into a symbol,” Val corrected coolly. “And symbols don’t get girlfriends.”

Across the room, Yelena let out a low, mocking whistle. “Wow. That’s not creepy at all.”

Ava shook her head. “What’s next? Tinder profiles and fan edits?”

John rolled his eyes. “It’s optics. We all knew this came with the job.”

But Bucky barely heard them. His mind was already drifting—to you, still barefoot in the kitchen, silk robe sliding over bare thighs, chewing your sandwich with zero interest in who he was to the rest of the world. Just who he was to you.

And now, he had to pretend you didn’t exist.

He didn’t respond. Just sat back in his chair and regretted every second he hadn’t spent in your arms this morning.

────────────────────────

The Watchtower always smelled like metal and over-sterilized air. You hated it.

Fluorescents buzzed overhead as you stepped off the elevator, holding a small, zippered pouch in your hand—the charger Bucky had forgotten, again, even though you reminded him three times before he left.

The place felt like a cross between a tech firm and a concrete bunker: all gray walls, touchscreen doors, and state-mandated potted plants.

The main floor—what passed for a communal living space—was half chaos, half nap zone. Yelena was sprawled on one end of the sectional couch, flipping through something on her tablet and eating dried mango slices from a bag she probably stole from someone else.

Ava stood leaning against the wall nearby, arms crossed, watching the room like she was waiting for someone to step out of line so she could phase them through a floor. Bob was sitting cross-legged on the floor with a comic book held way too close to his face, murmuring what you assumed was commentary under his breath.

Alexei was telling a story. Loudly. And probably badly.

Bucky spotted you first. He was standing near the open kitchen area, talking with Mel—Val’s too-efficient assistant who always looked like she was plotting the next step of a corporate coup.

His entire expression changed when he saw you. The tension in his shoulders dropped a little, the corner of his mouth lifted, and for a second, he didn’t look like the unofficial leader of a barely-tethered government strike team. He just looked like your boyfriend.

You handed him the charger without ceremony.

“You left this.”

He took it with a sheepish smile, rubbing the back of his neck like it was the first time he’d ever been caught forgetting something (it wasn't). “Thanks. Thought I had it packed.”

“Nope,” you said, popping the “p.”

You didn’t mean to stay. You weren’t supposed to linger. But Bucky motioned for you to walk with him, and you didn’t say no.

Up close, you noticed the tired edge in his face. Like whatever conversation he’d been having before you arrived had worn him down more than a mission ever could.

He told you about it—about Val’s latest brainstorm. That the team needed to be more “media-friendly.” That they wanted him to lean into the good ol’ days: Sergeant James “Bucky” Barnes, WWII hero, former Congressman, the smile-that-could-end-wars poster boy.

You listened without interrupting, arms crossed, eyes squinting toward the ceiling as you tried to think through what he was actually saying.

When he finished, you just shrugged.

“Well,” you said, “sounds like when celebrities fake relationships before a movie comes out. Or pretend they’re single to sell tickets.”

Bucky blinked. “How do you even know that?”

You gave him a flat look, expression unreadable. “I was born in 1995, babe. Not the fucking 40s.”

Behind him, Walker snorted loudly. He’d been pretending not to listen, but of course he was.

“Damn,” he said, leaning against the fridge like he was waiting for someone to ask for his input (nobody did). “My wife would’ve never let me get away with that.”

You turned to look at him. Not annoyed. Not even angry. Just blank. Like staring at a particularly ugly lamp in a hotel room.

“That’s why she’s your ex-wife,” you said, voice calm. “And good for her.”

Yelena, without looking up from her tablet, let out a noise that might’ve been a laugh. Ava smirked quietly. Even Alexei stopped mid-sentence to grin like someone had dropped his favorite sitcom back into rotation.

Bucky watched all of it happen with a complicated kind of amusement. But it didn’t last.

Because then he had to say the next part.

He rubbed his hands down your arms, slow and hesitant, like bracing you.

“Val advised…” he started, then caught himself. “She recommended that maybe—for now—you don’t come around the tower. Or get seen with us in general.”

He didn’t say “hide.” He didn’t have to.

Your face didn’t change much. Not really. But he saw it. That tiny prickle of tension in your jaw. The slight shift in your eyes when you looked away from him for just a second too long.

You muttered something low. A lazy, “Whatever.” But the way you pulled your arms away said everything.

“I need to go anyway.”

Bucky stepped closer, voice soft but strained. “You don’t have to leave right away.”

You didn’t answer right away. Just looked at him, eyes unreadable, lips pressed in that almost-smile that wasn’t really a smile at all.

Then you leaned in and kissed his cheek, slow and warm, the way you always did when you were trying not to let the weight of something show.

“See you at home,” you murmured.

Your voice dipped at the end, barely above a whisper as you pulled back. “If you’re still allowed to come home, anyway.”

It wasn’t angry.

It wasn’t bitter.

It was worse.

It was tired.

Before he could answer, before he could say anything at all, you turned and walked to the elevator, the soft sound of your footsteps swallowed by the Watchtower’s chaos.

He didn’t follow.

And that hurt more than you cared to admit.

────────────────────────

It was slow. Almost imperceptible, at first.

A missed call here. A text left on “read” longer than usual. A two-day mission becoming a four-day stretch at the tower. No big fights. No yelling. No doors slammed.

Just quiet.

But that was the thing about quiet—Bucky had lived in it for too long. He knew its weight. Knew how it filled rooms like fog, hiding the way things shifted underneath.

Now, it was in everything.

He sat on the edge of his bed in the Watchtower, staring at the wall, phone still in hand from a message he hadn’t sent. His thoughts weren’t here—weren’t in this too-bright room, or with Val’s next debrief, or on the press event they had the next morning.

They were in Brooklyn.

Your shared apartment. The one with the soft light and creaky floorboards, and the tiny espresso machine you swore was better than anything Bucky had ever tasted. That place was home. It smelled like your lavender detergent and your coconut shampoo and your weirdly specific collection of candles labeled things like “wet grass” and “Scandinavian night.”

His body ached to be there. Just... there. On the couch. Next to you.

He used to spend three days a week here, tops. Two, if he could push it. The rest he’d guard selfishly for you—days spent sleeping beside you, cooking breakfast together, reading on opposite ends of the couch while your foot found his thigh and stayed there. You’d talk to him, let the silence stretch and snap and re-stitch. You never pushed. You never pried.

You were his quiet. The right kind of quiet.

Now? Now he barely remembered the last night he’d actually fallen asleep next to you. Really slept. Not just crashed on the bed after some back-to-back PR gig that left him in a suit with aching teeth from smiling too much.

He hated it.

He hated talking to the press, hated the way they asked questions like they already had the answers written. He hated being told to laugh, to charm, to tell stories that didn’t feel like his anymore. He hated Val’s smug reminders that likability mattered. That perception mattered.

Sometimes, he wished he’d never gone to Congress. That he hadn’t let convinced himself into the platform, the speeches, the idea that he could do good with a microphone instead of a mission.

Sometimes, he wished he’d just… faded.

Found a quiet nine-to-five. Something with a routine. Something boring.

Something normal.

Like you had.

You worked corporate communications. You clocked in and out. You had a clean desk, ergonomic chair, sarcastic co-workers. You went for runs in the park on weekends, had lunch dates with your girlfriends, took yoga classes when you weren’t too exhausted from the week.

You lived in the world like a real person.

And he’d wanted that so badly. Not for himself—but with you.

Because you were his normal. His constant. The stillness that didn’t suffocate. The grounding he’d clung to after years of floating through someone else’s chaos.

But now?

Now he didn’t know how to reach for it without dragging it into the spotlight with him.

And every time he came home and found you already asleep, back to him, or out with friends instead of waiting, or just… quiet in a way that wasn’t yours anymore—

He felt it.

The drift.

And he hated it.

────────────────────────

You didn’t talk about it.

You didn’t let yourself think about it.

The distance. His absence. The too-quiet apartment, the untouched half of the bed, the silence when your phone didn’t buzz all day. It wasn’t worth thinking about. People were dying in the world—actual, breathing, bleeding people—and you were going to be pathetic about your boyfriend missing dinner?

No.

Absolutely the fuck not.

So you cleaned. You ran. You worked. You answered emails with snide internal commentary and booked your usual yoga class for Tuesday even though you hated the new instructor’s voice. You refused to call it coping.

It was just living.

And tonight? Tonight was fine.

It was Saturday. He’d said he’d be back for dinner.

You didn’t text to confirm because you didn’t want to hover. Didn’t want to be needy. He’d said it, he’d meant it, and you would trust that. Like always.

So, you cooked.

Beef stew—slow and thick and comforting. Heavenly mashed potatoes, made with way more butter than you’d ever admit to aloud. Roasted vegetables, because Bucky needed something green on his plate or he’d sulk. It was all simmering gently on the stove while you lay curled on the couch in your oldest pair of yoga shorts and a hoodie, eating straight from a pint of mint chocolate chip.

It was fine.

Okay, it was your cheat day.

Okay, you’d had more cheat days than planned recently.

You’d also bought a new pair of jeans in the next size up, but that was irrelevant. You were not stress-eating. You were just... adapting to your changing lifestyle.

Had Bucky noticed?

The thought came and went before you could kill it.

He hadn’t said anything. Not that you needed him to. But still.

The sound of the TV murmured in the background, some fluff piece news channel you’d forgotten to mute while scrolling your phone. Something about the New Avengers. You tuned in just enough to glance at the footage—drone shots of a crumbling government facility somewhere in Eastern Europe, flames curling up the side of a building like hands.

You recognized the team instantly. Yelena, tossing her baton mid-air like it annoyed her to carry it. Ava disappearing through smoke. John looking way too pleased with himself.

And then—there he was.

Bucky.

His tactical suit was soot-streaked, sleeves rolled up, hair tied back, face streaked with ash. He was helping someone—no, two people—down the fire escape, guiding them through smoke with one hand steady on their backs.

Then it happened.

One of the women—civilian, blonde, maybe late 20s—turned and kissed him on the cheek. A hard, grateful kind of kiss. The kind that left a smudge of ash on his jaw.

She clung to him like he’d saved her life.

Maybe he had.

And Bucky? He smiled.

Not his press smile. Not the tight, practiced one. But something else—softer. Real.

You blinked.

Let out a breath through your nose. “Jesus Christ.”

It wasn’t like he kissed her. It wasn’t like he meant anything by it. She’d probably thought she was about to die, and then Bucky Barnes dragged her out of a collapsing building, and she just… reacted.

You weren’t jealous.

You were just being dramatic.

This was not about you.

But somehow, that one moment served to curdle the rest of the evening.

You changed the channel without saying anything, the ice cream melting slowly in your hands. The scent of stew floated in from the kitchen, warm and rich, but you didn’t move.

Dinner would keep.

You weren't sure if he would.

────────────────────────

It was past ten by the time Bucky stepped into the apartment.

The hallway had been dark. The front door had creaked louder than usual. And the only light inside was the kitchen, glowing soft and golden like a memory. It lit the space just enough to reveal the forgotten dinner plates covered in cling film on the counter, the quiet hum of the microwave keeping your meal warm—like it was still waiting.

But you weren’t.

His breath caught in his throat as he toed off his boots, silence wrapping around him like a punishment.

He said six.

Not “around six,” not “if I can swing it.” Just six. Sharp. He said it with his hands on your waist and his lips in your hair the night before. Said it like he meant it.

And now it was 10:18.

He could barely look at the time. The guilt clawed at him, sharp and low and constant. Every second he’d spent at the tower—every extra minute talking to reporters, doing damage control, smiling on cue—had eaten at him like acid.

He was supposed to be here.

In your shared space. In this soft, too-warm apartment that smelled faintly like roasted vegetables and your perfume.

And the worst part wasn’t just that he’d missed dinner. It was that he knew exactly what you’d done in his absence.

You wouldn’t have texted. Wouldn’t have called. You would’ve made his favorite meal anyway. You would’ve set out two bowls. You would’ve eaten alone, probably on the couch, probably in silence. And you would’ve told yourself—it’s fine, it’s fine, it’s fine—like you had any interest in believing it anymore.

The bathroom door clicked open.

He froze.

You stepped out, already dressed for bed—an oversized button-down, sleeves rolled up to your elbows. Your hair was twisted up and pinned in the messy, practical way you always wore it when you were done for the day. Slippers scuffed softly against the floor as you walked into the hall, blinking slightly at the light.

You stopped when you saw him.

Both of you just stood there for a moment—frozen in that strange tension where neither of you knew which role to play yet. He looked at you like he didn’t know if he was allowed to speak.

Then he remembered how to breathe.

“I’m sorry I’m late,” he said quietly, voice rougher than he meant. Like he’d been holding it in all night. “I—I got caught up. I didn’t mean to—”

You didn’t answer right away.

Just blinked at him. No surprise on your face. No anger.

Just quiet.

Then you gave a little shrug—small and tired, the kind of shrug that said what else is new?—and turned toward the kitchen.

“There’s food in the microwave if you’re still hungry,” you said simply.

And then you walked past him.

No kiss. No touch. No sarcastic jab.

Just your scent, and the ache of knowing that he wasn’t even sure if he was following you to the bedroom or to the guest room tonight.

The door clicked softly behind you.

And Bucky stood alone in the glow of a kitchen he didn’t deserve.

────────────────────────

It was almost midnight when Bucky finally walked into the bedroom.

Not because he was tired. He’d been tired for hours.

He just needed to be sure you were asleep.

The microwave had long since gone silent. He’d eaten half the stew in distracted mouthfuls, barely tasting it, then spent an hour sitting in the living room in the dark, elbows on his knees, forehead resting on steepled hands. The guilt gnawed at him—not loud or dramatic, just steady, like water dripping against stone. It never stopped.

He pushed open the door slowly, as if afraid it would creak too loud. The room smelled like your shampoo, your skin, your cocoa body butter. His sanctuary. The place he used to walk into and feel immediate calm.

Now it just reminded him of everything he was missing, even while it was still right in front of him.

You were already in bed.

Covers pulled halfway up. Lights dimmed. Hair pinned back in the soft way you wore it only at night. You slept with your back to the door—back to him—and it made something inside him pinch.

He hesitated in the doorway, watching the gentle rise and fall of your breath, the way your fingers curled under your pillow. Still. Quiet. Entirely out of reach.

He stripped silently, down to boxers and a threadbare black t-shirt, and slid beneath the sheets with a care that bordered on reverent.

Then—inch by inch—he moved closer.

It was tentative. Like approaching a deer in the woods. Like if he moved too fast, you might flinch and disappear.

His arm slid around your waist. Cautious. Testing.

You didn’t move.

So he let his chest press against your back, warm and slow. Let his knees curve behind yours, let his other hand reach up and tuck gently under your ribcage, pulling you flush.

Then—finally—he buried his face in the crook of your neck. Breathed you in like he hadn’t seen home in weeks.

A beat passed.

Then another.

Still, you didn’t stir. No tensing. No pulling away.

Just the soft, subconscious hum of sleep.

And that—that tiny, unconscious mercy—was enough to let him exhale for the first time all night.

It wasn’t much.

But it was something.

And he held on to it like it might save him.

────────────────────────

The apartment smelled like detergent and coffee. Morning light streamed in through the windows, dust catching in the gold. On the surface, it looked like a Sunday—peaceful, slow, quiet.

But it wasn’t.

You sat on the couch, folding laundry with the precision of someone who needed something—anything—to occupy your hands. T-shirt, fold. Socks, fold. Hoodie, fold. The pile on the coffee table grew in neat little stacks, organized by drawer and category.

Bucky leaned in the doorway, watching you. Barefoot, hair tied up, one of his sweatshirts hanging loose around your shoulders. It should’ve been comforting. Familiar.

It wasn’t.

He moved to the kitchen, filled two mugs with coffee, brought yours over without a word. Set it down next to your knee. You gave a nod, murmured “thanks,” without looking up.

His stomach twisted.

He sat across from you, mug cradled in both hands, trying not to overthink it. Trying to act normal. Pretend that everything didn’t feel like it was three steps left of what it used to be.

“So,” he said, voice easy, like he was just easing into the day with you. “You still going to that yoga class on Tuesdays?”

You didn’t look at him. Just kept folding a pair of socks, thumbs pressing the fabric into place. “Yeah.”

He waited for more.

Nothing.

“You like it?”

You shrugged, moved onto a fitted sheet. “It’s fine.”

Bucky nodded slowly, feeling the distance like a cold draft under a closed door.

That was how you talked to people you didn’t want to get stuck in a conversation with. To strangers. To coworkers who overshared. To the people you were polite to but had no desire to know.

He remembered how your voice used to sound when it was just the two of you—low, dry, threaded with sarcasm and occasional sweetness you tried hard to hide. He remembered the way your eyes used to flick up mid-conversation just to check that he was still smiling. He remembered you saying, “I hate everyone but you,” with a hand on his chest and a smirk you couldn't keep down.

Now?

Now you sounded like someone tolerating him.

And it broke something inside his chest that he didn’t know how to fix.

He took a sip of his coffee, staring into the steam, words catching behind his teeth.

You weren’t angry.

You weren’t cruel.

You were just... gone.

And it was killing him.

The silence had stretched too long. Not peaceful. Not content. Just tense.

Bucky watched you fold a hoodie and set it aside like it mattered. Like it was worth more attention than him. He had tried—coffee, questions, anything to coax out that sliver of warmth you used to give him without thinking.

Now it was measured. Distant. Like he was on the other side of something neither of you had noticed building until it was too high to climb over.

He stared into his coffee like it might offer an answer. It didn’t.

So finally—quietly, but not gently—he asked, “Are we okay?”

You froze mid-fold.

Your hands stilled, holding one of his long-sleeve shirts in your lap, fingers curled around the soft fabric.

And then, for the first time that morning, you looked at him.

Not a glance. Not a nod. You looked at him.

There was a frown on your lips. A deep furrow between your brows. The kind of look you gave when something was broken and you weren’t sure whether to fix it or walk away from it.

“I don’t know,” you said honestly.

The words hit harder than he was ready for.

You didn’t know.

And that terrified him.

He nodded slowly, like he was trying to process it, but nothing quite stuck. His hands tightened around the mug in his grip.

You looked down again, slowly folding the shirt in your lap. Your voice dropped, softer now. Barely above the hum of the fridge.

“I try not to think about it.”

Bucky’s throat tightened.

You weren’t trying to hurt him. But it hurt anyway.

Because that was the truth of it, wasn’t it? Neither of you had talked about it. You’d just lived in the quiet space between exhaustion and effort, pretending the love was enough to keep everything from shifting.

You still loved him. He knew that.

But love wasn't fixing it. Not when you felt like strangers in the same home.

“I miss you,” he said, voice rough. “Even when I’m right here. I miss you.”

You didn’t look up.

Didn’t answer.

Just smoothed your fingers across the folded shirt like maybe if you kept them busy, the truth wouldn’t get too loud.

He wanted to reach across the coffee table, wanted to take your hands, wanted to say something to undo it all.

But neither of you were good at this part.

You were good at sarcasm. At quiet nights. At sex in the kitchen and lazy Sundays with pancakes and him pretending not to burn the bacon.

You weren’t good at asking for what you needed.

And right now, neither of you knew how to say what came next.

So the silence stretched again—thicker now, heavier.

The laundry was folded.

That’s what you clung to, bizarrely, like it meant something. Order. Control. You stacked the last shirt on the table and smoothed your palms down your thighs, blinking at nothing in particular.

You hadn’t spoken since I miss you.

Not because you didn’t want to.

Because you didn’t trust what might come out if you did.

Across from you, Bucky hadn’t moved much either. Just sat with the cooling coffee in his hands, elbows on his knees, staring at the place you used to lean into him without hesitation.

The silence thickened until it felt like breathing through gauze.

You stood up, grabbed your coffee, and walked into the kitchen. You weren’t thirsty. You just needed something to do.

Behind you, Bucky’s voice broke the quiet.

“This isn’t what I wanted,” he said.

Your back tensed. The mug clinked slightly against the counter.

“I didn’t want this either,” you said, not turning around.

“You used to talk to me,” he murmured. “Even when you were annoyed. Even when you were tired. You still talked.”

You closed your eyes.

“It’s hard to talk,” you said, voice flat, “when you’re not around to listen.”

The armchair scraped back against the floor. Footsteps. Closer.

“I am listening,” he said, more desperate now. “I know I’ve been— I’ve been stretched. But I’m here now. Just talk to me.”

You turned around slowly, coffee mug still in your hand. You looked at him, really looked. And something inside you cracked—not because you didn’t love him.

Because you did.

That was the problem.

“I don’t want to be another thing you manage, Bucky.”

He froze.

You shook your head slowly. “You manage the media. You manage the team. You manage your image. I don’t want to be another box you tick at the end of the day.”

“I don’t think of you like that—”

“I know,” you interrupted softly. “That’s what makes it worse.”

He stared at you, helpless.

“I don’t doubt you love me,” you continued. “But I can’t keep living in the spaces between your obligations. You show up late, you leave early. You touch me like you’re scared I’ll vanish. And maybe I will, because I don’t know how much more of this I can take without losing myself.”

Your voice didn’t shake.

Your hands didn’t clench.

You weren’t yelling.

But you might as well have torn your heart out and set it on the counter between you.

Bucky swallowed hard. “So what? You’re done?”

You looked at him, and for the first time, there was no sarcasm. No tight-lipped smile. Just a hollow kind of truth.

“I’m tired,” you said. “And I don’t know how to not be tired anymore.”

He opened his mouth. Closed it again.

Your voice dropped lower. “I can’t be the only one holding the thread, babe.”

The silence returned. Bigger now.

You stepped around him, walked to the bedroom, and closed the door behind you—not slammed. Just shut.

Soft. But final.

While Bucky stood in the kitchen, frozen.

The coffee in his mug had gone cold.

The apartment felt foreign, like he’d wandered into someone else’s life and forgotten how to get back to his own.

He sat down on the edge of the couch, hands in his hair.

He couldn’t lose this. He wouldn’t.

You were it. His peace. His pulse. The only thing in his life that ever made him feel real.

He didn’t care what Val said, or what public image they wanted to build, or how many staged smiles he had to fake for camera crews.

If it meant losing you?

Then it wasn’t worth anything.

And he would fix it.

He didn’t know how yet.

But he would.

Because if this ended, if you walked away and didn’t look back—

He’d be nothing but a name in a file again.

And he’d already spent too much of his life feeling like a ghost.

────────────────────────

Bucky had never cared for formal events, especially not since becoming the public face of a team that didn't particularly want one. But tonight wasn’t about optics. It wasn’t about strategy or good PR.

It was about you.

The invitation had landed on Val’s desk a week ago—a high-profile charity gala for Clean Futures, an international organization funding mental health programs for post-Blip survivors. Your company had a long-standing partnership with the group, which meant you’d be there. Representing. Smiling for photos. Dressed to kill.

And you hadn’t told him.

You didn’t need to. He hadn’t earned that kind of openness in weeks.

So Bucky had taken the opportunity and run with it.

He stood in front of the full-length mirror in the Watchtower’s prep room, tugging at the lapels of the black suit that Mel had somehow sourced last-minute. The cut was sharp, classic, tailored to emphasize broad shoulders and trim waist. His hair was slicked back, jaw clean-shaven, cufflinks engraved with the new Avengers insignia.

It felt like armor.

It wasn’t for the cameras. It wasn’t for the team.

It was for you.

Because maybe if he showed up—not as a soldier or a symbol or a ghost of a man who couldn’t keep promises—but as your man, he might finally break the wall you’d built brick by slow, exhausted brick.

"You look like a magazine ad for heartbreak,” Yelena said flatly as she passed him in the hallway, already halfway into a glittering black gown. “That is not a compliment.”

Bucky didn’t flinch. “You know she’s gonna be there?”

“Do I look like her personal assistant?” she replied. “You’re the one who made Val jump through hoops to drag us into this.”

“It's for a good cause,” he said.

Yelena narrowed her eyes. “Uh-huh. Sure. Purely selfless.”

Ava walked by next, heels clicking. “You’re nervous,” she noted, glancing at him sideways.

“I’m not—”

“You’re sweating through a thousand dollars worth of tailoring. That’s nerves.”

He rolled his eyes.

Alexei, coming down the stairs in a tux that looked like it belonged to a different century, clapped him on the back. “You want advice? Make her laugh. Women like a man who makes them laugh.”

“Or,” Bob said quietly, trailing behind them with his bowtie untied and suit wrinkled, “you could just apologize. That works too.”

Bucky ignored them all as he fastened his bowtie and adjusted the cuffs one last time.

He didn’t know if you’d speak to him.

But he’d be damned if he stood across a ballroom from you and didn’t try.

────────────────────────

The camera flashes started the moment the New Avengers stepped out of the sleek black convoy outside the grand hotel.

Reporters lined the ropes, shouting names and questions, bulbs flashing like strobe lights in a storm. Val stood smug just off to the side, soaking it in like she’d orchestrated the whole damn thing.

Inside, the ballroom was already humming with rich voices, tinkling glassware, soft jazz echoing beneath a grand chandelier. Politicians, CEOs, heads of NGOs, tech royalty—all of them looking to shake hands and write checks.

Yelena rolled her eyes as a photographer barked her name, whispering something to Bob, who stayed glued to her side. Ava immediately veered away from the attention. John lapped up the press like a plant under a grow light. Alexei was already loudly asking where the vodka was.

But Bucky wasn’t looking at the cameras.

He wasn’t smiling.

He was scanning the ballroom, eyes darting over sequined gowns and tuxedoed silhouettes with laser focus. Looking. Searching. Waiting.

And then he saw you.

It hit him like a sucker punch.

You descended the marble staircase on the far side of the ballroom, a vision in crimson. He hadn’t seen the dress before—he would’ve remembered. The deep red clung to your body like it knew exactly where you wanted to be touched.

It shimmered subtly under the chandelier light, catching the gold in your skin, the delicate slope of your collarbone, the shape of your legs moving with slow, elegant precision.

You were talking to someone—corporate, probably. Networking. Smooth and composed, all polished charm and business poise. The person in front of you was smiling wide, laughing, but your expression was mild, professional. Exactly what it needed to be.

But then—

Like you felt him.

You turned.

Your eyes swept the crowd and locked on him like gravity itself had bent the light to make it happen.

Bucky froze.

Time narrowed.

The din of the gala dulled. His heartbeat went hot in his ears. All he could see was you—standing there in that goddamn dress, looking like a memory he hadn’t earned and a future he didn’t deserve.

And for a second, just one second, your expression broke.

Just a little.

Recognition. Surprise. And something else—something softer. Sharper.

Then, just as quickly, it was gone.

You turned back to your conversation, spine straightening, mouth curving into that polite smile you wore when you wanted to end something without causing a scene.

Bucky stood rooted in place, jaw clenched, hands curled at his sides.

Right.

He’d told you not to be seen near them. Told you to stay away, for safety. For PR. For a million reasons that didn’t mean a damn thing anymore.

And now?

He couldn’t just walk up to you. Couldn’t confess his love in front of the board members and donors and paparazzi. He knew you. Knew you’d hate it. Knew it would make you glare instead of melt.

So he’d have to find another way.

One that would mean something.

One that would be yours.

And Bucky Barnes had never been more ready to fight for something in his goddamn life.

────────────────────────

Bucky spent most of the night like a man caught in the wrong timeline.

The team had dispersed—mingling, sipping wine, taking photos they didn’t want to take. Yelena charmed a table of older donors by being blunt and hilarious.

Ava was already in a corner having a serious conversation about resource allocation. Bob, somehow, had gotten pulled into a group selfie with a senator. Even John had managed to slap on a half-decent smile and talk to two reporters without saying anything arrogant.

But Bucky?

Bucky stood there.

Dark suit, jaw clenched, drink untouched in his hand.

Watching you.

You moved through the room like you weren’t breaking his heart a little with every step. Laughing politely at something someone said. Holding your glass just so. The fabric of that crimson dress whispering around your ankles as you walked.

Every now and then, your eyes flicked to his. Brief. Electric. Then gone again.

He didn’t know what to do with himself.

And then—heels clicking, voice like an ice pick—Val appeared beside him.

“You’re up.”

Bucky blinked. “Up for what?”

Val gave a thin, dry smile. “Speech. On behalf of the New Avengers. Seeing as the rest of your team has at least attempted to behave like functioning public figures, and you’ve done nothing but stand here looking like an emotionally repressed Greek statue all night.”

He blinked again. “I wasn’t told—”

“You are now,” she interrupted, already turning away. “It’s already been cleared with the host. Mic’s ready. Try not to say anything too traumatic.”

And with that, she pivoted away, already bored of him.

Public speaking. God help him.

But then his eyes found you again.

Still glowing under the chandeliers. Still you.

And he thought, maybe this is it.

He walked onto the stage to the quiet hum of low conversation and the gentle clinking of glasses. The host introduced him with a few polite words—"Representative of the New Avengers, veteran of WW2..."—and then stepped aside, leaving Bucky with the mic and a ballroom full of people who had no idea what he was about to say.

He gripped the podium tighter than he meant to.

Cleared his throat.

You were near the center, now seated at a table with your company’s execs. And your eyes were already on him.

God.

He hadn’t even started yet, and he was wrecked.

He cleared his throat. “Good evening.”

A few polite nods from the audience.

“I’m not… great at speeches,” he started, eyes sweeping the crowd once—but only once—before settling back on you.

“But I’m honored to speak tonight. Because this cause… matters. Mental health support for Blip survivors—that’s not just a talking point. It’s life-saving.”

People leaned in.

“I’ve seen firsthand what coming back can do to someone,” he said slowly, carefully. “What it feels like to be displaced. Lost. Like time’s moved on without you, and you’re just… dragging behind it, trying to catch up. And the worst part of that isn’t the confusion. It’s the loneliness.”

His voice was low, careful. This part, at least, he could manage.

“I think we talk a lot about the logistics of the Blip—people gone, people returned, the chaos. But we don’t talk enough about what it did to the people who stayed. Or the ones who came back and didn’t recognize the world anymore. People who survived, but didn’t feel alive.”

You shifted slightly in your seat. His eyes never left you.

“And I’m saying this not just as an Avenger or a veteran… but as someone who’s been there. Someone who came back from the dead—twice. And there were days I didn’t know how to keep going. I’ve spent years working on being more than what happened to me. I’ve sat in rooms trying to explain why it still hurts. Trying to find meaning.”

A pause.

“And I wouldn’t have made it if I hadn’t had someone to come home to.”

That’s when the shift happened.

Eyes widened. A few murmurs from the crowd. Even Val froze near the back.

“I’m not… great with this kind of thing,” Bucky said, adjusting the mic slightly. “But I’m standing here in front of all of you, not because I’m part of a superhero team, or because someone handed me a title. I’m standing here because there is a woman in this room who keeps me tethered.”

He didn’t blink.

Didn’t glance away from you, not even once.

“She’s my rock. My clarity. The only person who ever looked at me and saw something worth saving. She didn’t ask me to be a hero. She just asked me to be me. And somehow… she still loved what she saw.”

A breath.

“She is the reason I believe I deserve peace.”

Your eyes were locked on him, wide, unmoving.

Some of the audience was blinking. A few whispering.

But Bucky didn’t care.

Because he wasn’t talking to them.

He was talking to you.

“I was a soldier. Then a weapon. Then a politician. Now I’m trying to be a man. And I can’t be that without her.”

He swallowed, but didn’t falter.

And for the first time in weeks, his voice felt steady. Because for once, he wasn’t hiding. Not his love. Not his pain. Not what you meant to him.

He took a breath.

Then finished, simply:

“So thank you for supporting this cause. It’s not abstract. It’s personal. For all of us.”

A pause.

Then the room erupted in applause.

But Bucky didn’t hear it.

He was still looking at you.

And for the first time in weeks, he didn’t feel the distance.

────────────────────────

The applause was still echoing faintly through the ballroom, conversations blooming again like nothing had shifted—but Bucky knew better.

Something had shifted.

He stepped off the stage and straight into the tide of well-dressed bodies. Donors, board members, media people—shaking hands, smiling, complimenting him, dropping half-formed praises about “moving” and “authentic” and “genuine vulnerability.”

But he didn’t care.

He barely registered any of it.

His eyes were scanning the room. Looking for you. Like if he could just find you, ground himself in your orbit, maybe he could believe that what he’d just done was enough.

But you weren’t by the bar. You weren’t at the staircase. You weren’t by the back exit or near the dance floor or—

Then he felt it.

A hand—your hand—sliding around his arm, fingers warm against the fabric of his sleeve.

He turned, heart already beating faster.

You didn’t say anything.

Just gave him a look.

And gently, almost imperceptibly, tugged him away from the crowd.

Bucky followed without thinking, letting you lead him through a discreet side corridor, past a curtained alcove where the sounds of the gala dulled to a hum.

And when you stopped, when you turned to face him, he opened his mouth—

But he didn’t get a word out.

Because your hands were on his face, firm and sure, pulling him down into a kiss that knocked the breath from his chest.

It wasn’t slow.

It wasn’t cautious.

It was needy. Real. Like you’d been starving for weeks and finally allowed to taste again. Like he was something you couldn’t help but want.

He melted into you with a sound that wasn’t quite a sigh, wasn’t quite a groan—just relief. One hand gripping your hip, the other tangling in your hair like he couldn’t believe this was real.

When you finally pulled back, breath warm against his lips, you didn’t let go.

Didn’t step away.

You just leaned your forehead to his and whispered, voice tinged with a half-smile—

“You’re gonna be in so much trouble.”

He huffed out something like a laugh. “Worth it.”

Your fingers lingered against his jaw.

The soft glow from the hallway barely reached the small alcove where you stood, still tucked away behind velvet drapes and polished columns. The noise of the gala felt far-off now—like another world neither of you belonged to.

Bucky wouldn't let go of you. His hands still rested on your waist like he didn’t trust the moment to last. Like if he blinked, you might fade again.

You leaned your shoulder into the wall, breathing finally steady. He looked at you—really looked at you—and reached for your hand.

“I’m gonna try,” he said, voice low, steady in the dark. “I know I’ve said it before, but this time… I mean it. I’m gonna try, really try. I don’t care how many speeches they want. I don’t care what the media says or what Val plans next. You’re it. You’re my whole damn life.”

Your lips parted, but he kept going.

“I love you,” he said. “And I know that’s not always enough to make it easy. But I want you to know that if you asked me—if you looked me in the eye right now and said to walk away from the Avengers, from all of it—”

His hand cupped the back of your neck.

“I would.”

Your heart twisted, eyes burning in that way they always did when he got too sincere.

You reached up and cupped his cheek, fingers brushing along his clean-shaven cheek, thumb skimming the line of his jaw.

“I know,” you whispered. “But you know I’d never ask that.”

He leaned into your hand, eyes fluttering shut for just a second. “Doesn’t change the fact that I would. You come first. You always do.”

You smiled, so gently he almost missed it.

“I don’t need you to walk away,” you murmured. “I just need you to walk back. To us. To me.”

He nodded. “I will.”

You kissed him again—slower this time. Like a promise. Like you were giving him something he already owned but forgot how to hold.

And when you pulled away, his mouth curved, that old smirk creeping back into place as his hands slid subtly down your back.

“You know,” he said, voice dipping, “this is a pretty dark corner. Not a lot of foot traffic.”

You snorted. “James.”

“I’m just saying,” he grinned, leaning in, “no one would see.”

You arched an eyebrow. “Keep it in your pants, Barnes.”

“What about when we get home?”

You kissed his jaw and murmured against his skin— “When we get home, Sergeant.”

His grin bloomed—lazy, boyish, free—and before you could say anything else, he kissed you again.

Longer. Slower. Sweeter.

[chervbs]

spencer reid x shy!reader

[chervbs]

It's warm in your room. Too warm. His bare chest is sticky against your back, his breath heavy and damp where it ghosts against your neck.

You’re tangled up in him, the two of you still half-naked, sheets kicked down to your ankles. He’s curled around you like he’s afraid someone’s going to rip you out of his arms, like the last hour wasn’t proof enough that you finally let him in- for real this time.

Remmick always talks after. He needs to. Needs to fill the quiet like he’s afraid it’ll mean something’s changed if he doesn’t.

And God, he can’t shut up.

"I thought about you," He murmurs into the shell of your ear. "Like this. For too long." He’s still trying to catch his breath, but his hands are already roving again- lazy now, just skimming your waist, mapping the softness of your hips with a desperate adoration.

"Every night I’d lie there and imagine this. Not just the sex- I mean, that too, obviously." He snickers, eyes flitting between your entwined bodies.

"But shit, baby, you’re just so... perfect." He nuzzles closer, planting a kiss under your jaw, voice dipping into that velvet tone he only uses when he’s honest. "But this. You letting me stay. Letting me touch you after. Hold you."

You reach back and tangle your fingers in his hair. It’s damp with sweat. He practically purrs at the contact, pressing a kiss to your shoulder like he wants to crawl inside your skin.

"Wasn't too much, was I?” he asks, quieter now. He murmurs with something raw, almost something boyish. But you know better. The smirk in his tone when he says it- he knows. He knows you couldn't get enough.

When you shake your head, he presses another rewarding kiss to your neck, humming in pleasure.

"That's what I thought." He whispers, squeezing you close. "You gon' let me in tomorrow night too, yeah?"

"Remmick-"

"Shh." He hushes you, shaking his head in mock displeasure, a finger coming up to your lips to quiet you. "Just nod your pretty little head."

You think of what could happen- what you're doing. Letting a killer love you like this. But against your better judgement, you nod, looking into those lovestruck eyes he casts on you.

A slow grin spreads across his face. You're already underneath him when he slides back in- half hard, too sensitive, and still not done. The room smells like sex, humid and sweet, and his chest is flushed as he rolls his hips slow, lazy.

"You feel that? Nah, that’s love, darlin'. That’s me loving you so slow, so deep, so damn good no one else could ever even try." His voice is a broken overstimulated growl.

He kisses your spine once. Then again. Then again.

"This is all ours." He urges, baring his teeth, "Never gon' let anyone take it from us." He promises, almost obsessively into your shoulder, letting you feel him stretch you open.

You believe him. You feel it in every lazy, desperate thrust. In the way he wraps himself around you tighter, keeps you locked against him. You briefly realize that you're all he has.

And he won't ever, ever let you go.

[chervbs]

A Daddy's Girl | Stack Moore

Pairing: Elias 'Stack' Moore x Reader Summary: You're just Stack's type — feisty, strong willed, and damn pretty. Only thing is.. You won't give Stack the time of day on account of your daddy.

Your upbringing was a lil' different than girls your age. It was 1932 — you were nineteen, having grown up on your daddy's ranch. Instead of white cotton dresses, neatly combed hair, and puppies, you were raised wearing stained skirts, your hair wild and curly, riding horses and rejecting every boy that dared come near you.

Mama died when you were real young — too young to remember her face without staring at a photograph. Daddy did his best, though. He didn’t much care for you doing "girl’s work" when there were fence posts to mend and cattle to brand. So he raised you like he would’ve raised a son: rough around the edges, stubborn as a mule, and twice as fast with a rifle. By thirteen, you were driving the wagon solo into town. By sixteen, you could outshoot most men at the fair. And by nineteen, most folks knew better than to speak to you sideways.

Still, no matter how tough you acted, there was something that always drew in men. It was a competition almost. Any time you walked home from the schoolhouse at age 16, you heard them talkin'. The boys. Betting on who could secure a kiss first, maybe a date.

"First one to kiss the farmer’s daughter gets braggin’ rights for life," one of ‘em would say, real cocky. Like you were a trophy instead of a person.

But you weren’t some daisy to be picked. You were wild thistle — sharp, stubborn, and grown in hard soil.

None of those boys ever made it past your front gate. One tried and ended up limping back home with a busted lip and a bruised ego. After that, they mostly kept their distance. Called you a spitfire. A man’s girl. Trouble wrapped in curls and sunburn.

And maybe they were right.

You didn’t care much for dresses, or dancing, or sitting pretty at socials. You cared about the land, about your daddy, about making it through the droughts and the hard winters. You were proud of the calluses on your hands and the dirt under your nails. You knew how to clean a gun, break a horse, and break a man’s nose if need be. You didn’t need anyone — and that scared the hell out of every suitor that came sniffin’.

Until Stack Moore.

He was the opposite of his brother, though they were both law breakers. They'd come back into town like a storm, claiming it back again when they got sick of being men of war or taking over Chicago. They brought money, they brought booze, and they regained the enemies they'd always had before.

Your daddy knew exactly what type the Smokestack twins were. That's why he was so put out the day Stack spoke to you.

It was hotter than hell that afternoon, the kind of heat that made the air shimmer off the dirt road. You were hitchin’ the mule to the wagon outside the general store, sweat rollin’ down your spine, dust clingin’ to your boots. Stack leaned against a post with a matchstick between his teeth, lookin’ like the devil dressed in Sunday black — suspenders off his shoulders, shirt unbuttoned just enough to make your throat go dry.

"Need a hand, sweetheart?" he drawled.

You didn’t answer him. Just wiped your brow and kept workin’, jaw tight, heart louder than it oughta been. You felt his eyes on you like heat from a fire. That was the first time he spoke to you.

You grunted, finally getting it hitched, before glancing up at Stack with irritated (and curious, though you wouldn't admit it) eyes.

"I got it. Somethin' I can help you with, Stack?" You responded coldly. In a moment, your daddy would be coming out of the store. He wouldn't take kindly to Stack chatting you up.

Stack smirked, slow and easy, like he had all the time in the world and not a care who saw him spending it on you. That matchstick rolled between his teeth as he looked you over, not lewd, not disrespectful — but bold. Real bold.

"Nah, darlin’. Just figured I’d say howdy," he said, voice molasses-smooth with that slick edge he and his brother hadn’t lost, even after years in the city. "Hard not to, when you’re standin’ there lookin’ like trouble in a skirt."

You narrowed your eyes. "Keep talkin’ like that, and you’ll find yourself wearin’ that matchstick in your eye."

He laughed — a warm, low sound that made something flutter deep in your belly, though you kept your scowl firm. He liked that. You could tell. The way his head tilted slightly, his eyes sharpened like he was memorizing the way your mouth twitched when you were pissed.

"I like a woman who bites," he said.

You opened your mouth to fire back, but the screen door of the store slapped shut behind you. Daddy stepped out with his purchase — a sack of flour and a bottle of tonic. His boots hit the porch with that heavy rhythm that always said someone was about to get corrected.

Stack’s smirk didn’t fade, but he straightened up. He tipped his hat slow and easy, like he wasn’t worried one bit about the man standing between him and a shallow grave.

"Afternoon, Mr. L/N," Stack said, polite as a preacher.

Your daddy didn’t respond. Just stared Stack down, eyes like steel under the brim of his weather-beaten hat. You could feel the tension crackling in the air, thick and dangerous.

"You got business here?" your daddy asked, voice flat.

"Just admirin’ the view," Stack replied, not looking away from him — but the weight of his words sat heavy between you and your daddy. Like a line drawn in the dust.

You cleared your throat, loud enough to break the moment. "We done here, Daddy?"

Your father gave Stack one more look — the kind that could kill a lesser man — before nodding to you. "Yeah. Let’s get home. Storm’s comin’."

You climbed into the wagon without another word, trying not to think about how your skin still tingled from Stack’s gaze. As the mule started off, you glanced back once, just once — and saw him watching you, arms crossed, eyes lit up like he’d just spotted a gold vein in a rock.

It was the first time Stack Moore spoke to you. And the last time you knew peace for a long while.

When you got home, Daddy cleared his throat awkwardly, cleaning his gun in the common room of the house.

"Y/N." He called to you from where you stood in the kitchen.

You paused, hands deep in the dish basin, the soapy water stinging a nick on your finger you hadn’t noticed ‘til now. His voice was gruff, but there was something under it — something tight. Wary. Protective in that way only a father could be when he knew his daughter had just caught the eye of a wildfire in a man’s body.

"Yes, sir?" you called back, wiping your hands on a dish rag as you stepped through the archway into the common room.

He didn’t look up right away. Just kept running the cloth over the barrel of his Winchester with a quiet, deliberate focus. You could tell he was turning something over in his head, chewing on it like a dog with a bone.

"Stack Moore," he finally said, like the name tasted bad. "You stay away from him."

You blinked, caught off guard by the bluntness.

"Didn’t plan on inviting him for supper," you muttered, crossing your arms.

Daddy looked up then — sharp and dead serious. "I ain’t jokin’, girl. That boy’s got blood on his hands and more comin’. His kind don’t leave nothin’ but ruin behind."

You didn’t say anything. Mostly ‘cause you weren’t sure what you wanted to say. It was the first time a man had looked at you like you were a woman and not just the farmer’s wild daughter in scuffed boots. And maybe that was dangerous. Maybe Daddy was right. But maybe you didn’t give a damn.

"I know you think you’re grown,” he went on, his voice softening a bit, “but there’s men out there who take one look at a girl like you and see a challenge. Not a future. Stack Moore’s one of ‘em."

You swallowed, throat dry. "I’m not stupid."

"I didn’t say you were. I said he’s trouble. And I’ll be damned if I let him put you in harm’s way."

Silence hung between you. Thick as molasses. You could hear the wind picking up outside, dust scratching against the shutters. Storm was comin’, alright. But it wasn’t just in the sky.

You finally nodded. "I hear you."

He held your eyes for a long moment.

"You're better off with that Boone. If you really hafta marry. He's a nice boy and ain't gonna put you out when he has his fill."

Boone was a ranch hand your daddy had hired. He wasn't unattractive, no. He was tall, strong, worked with a smile and never complained. His parents were respectful and they were fans of how your daddy did business. Boone was who you should've been with, if you gave any man a chance.

He'd been pining after you since the two of you were sixteen.

You rolled your eyes, smirking in amusement.

"You like Boone so much, why ain't you marryin' him?"

Daddy’s face went dark, like you'd just knocked over a beehive.

"I’m your father. I make the calls ‘round here."

I folded my arms and leaned against the table, matching his glare. "Ain’t no law says I gotta marry the man you pick."

He set the gun down with a heavy thud. "It ain’t about law, girl. It’s about keepin’ you safe. Boone’s steady. He don’t bring trouble like those Moore boys."

You groaned.

"I ain’t sayin’ I’m takin’ up with Stack. But don’t reckon I’m gonna be Boone’s bride just ‘cause you want it."

He sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. "You’re stubborn as a mule, just like your mama."

You knew that was the final word.

But that night, long after the lights were out and the crickets had taken over the silence, you found yourself sittin’ on the edge of your bed, fingers twitchin’, heart restless. Because even though you’d said you understood, and even though you knew what kind of man Stack Moore was…

You also knew you weren’t the kind of girl who turned her head away from fire.

Your friend Lizzie had to beg you to go out.

"I swear, Y/N, one night won’t kill you," she said, tugging at your arm as you rolled your eyes. "You need to dance. Laugh. Hell, even just drink something that ain’t water or dust."

You weren’t exactly the type for blues clubs or lipstick-stained whiskey glasses, but Lizzie had that kind of persistence that wore you down like river water over stone. So by the time the sun dipped low and the sky bled pink, you were dressed — not dolled up like the city girls, but enough to turn a few heads in town: a dark skirt that hugged your hips, boots polished cleaner than usual, and your wild curls pinned just enough to look like you tried.

Club Juke was loud, smoky, and packed to the rafters. Lights glowed like sin on velvet, blues players' moaned from the corner stage, and the air buzzed with liquor and secrets. You followed Lizzie in, your fingers hooked into the belt loop of her dress, and tried not to flinch when a man brushed too close or looked too long.

You made it to the bar and ordered something you didn’t even hear over the noise — some whiskey drink served in a chipped glass. Lizzie had already pulled a fella onto the dance floor, leaving you with a half-sip of burn down your throat and the sudden awareness that someone was watching you.

You didn’t have to look far.

There he was. Stack.

Sitting in a corner booth like he owned the place (because he did), sleeves rolled, collar unbuttoned, smoke from a lit cigar curling around his jaw. His eyes were on you, unmoving. He didn’t smile. Didn’t wave. Just looked like he’d found exactly what he came here for.

Your pulse jumped. Damn it all.

You turned back to the bar, heart thudding. Maybe if you ignored him, he’d —

A warm voice slid in behind your ear like a sin on Sunday morning.

"Well now," Stack drawled, low and slow, "ain’t you a sight. Didn’t expect to see you in a place like this."

You didn’t turn around. Just took another sip of your drink, ignoring the heat rolling off him in waves.

"Didn’t come for you," you said coolly.

He chuckled. "Maybe not. But I figure fate don’t give a damn."

He moved beside you, close enough that your elbows brushed. You could smell leather, smoke, and something sharper — danger, maybe. He rested his forearms on the bar and nodded to the bartender.

"Two of whatever she’s drinkin’."

You shot him a glare. "What’re you doin’, Stack?"

He looked at you then — really looked — and for a moment, the noise of the club faded under his steady gaze.

"Tryin’ to figure out why a girl raised to fear me keeps lookin’ like she’s itchin’ to find out what makes me so damn interesting."

You swallowed.

Then, you fixed the usual glare back onto your face.

"Well, what the hell makes me so interesting? Everyone with a dick in this town can't look away."

Stack barked a quiet laugh, low and raspy, like he wasn’t expecting you to come back that sharp — but damn if he didn’t like it. He leaned in just a hair closer, eyes flicking from your mouth to your eyes and back again, that grin of his growing just a little wider, a little darker.

"What makes you interesting?" he echoed, voice like smoke. "You walk into a room like you own the land under everyone’s feet. You don’t smile unless you mean it, and you don’t flinch at a man like me." He tilted his head, still watching you. "That kinda thing makes folks look. Makes ‘em wonder."

You crossed your arms, hip cocked, not letting him get the upper hand. "You mean it makes ‘em bet. Run their mouths. Act like they got a chance."

Stack shrugged. "Let ‘em. Boys bet. Men watch. I’m just here enjoyin’ the view."

You scoffed. "You’re all the same."

His expression shifted then — just a flicker of something deeper beneath the charm. He leaned in again, but this time his voice dropped lower, real low, just for you.

"No, darlin’. If I were like them, I’d already be braggin’ about what I could do to you. Not sittin’ here waitin’ to see what you’ll let me do."

That shut you up for a second. Long enough for the air between you to grow thick and heavy.

Before you could fire back, the music kicked into a new number — a slow, sultry blues rhythm that rolled across the club like honey.

Stack held out a hand. "Dance with me."

You looked at his hand like it might bite you.

"I don’t dance."

He smirked. "Then just stand close and sway. I promise I bite softer than I look."

You stared at him, heart thudding somewhere stupid.

And then, without knowing why, you placed your hand in his.

His palm was warm. His grip was gentle. And your daddy’s voice was nowhere in your head when Stack pulled you onto the floor like he’d been waitin’ his whole damn life for this.

The floor didn’t feel real under your boots.

Stack's hand rested firm against the small of your back, pulling you close — but not too close. Just enough to feel the heat rollin' off him in waves, enough to smell the faint scent of whiskey and smoke on his collar. Your fingers hovered just barely on his shoulder, stiff at first, like you were afraid of giving in.

"You’re stiff as a fence post," he murmured against your temple, voice rough and warm. "Ain’t nobody lookin’ to bite."

"You just told me you were," you shot back, eyes narrowing even as you swayed to the rhythm.

That earned a quiet chuckle from him — one that rumbled in his chest and traveled straight through you.

The music curled around the two of you like a fog, blues guitar crooning through the haze of cigar smoke and perfume. Other dancers swayed nearby, but none quite like you and Stack. You moved like magnets pulling in, fighting it, pulling in again. A war with no guns — just glances, breath, and the occasional accidental brush of leg against leg.

His thumb stroked a small, deliberate circle at the back of your waist. You stiffened — just slightly — and he caught it.

"You alright, spitfire?" he asked, voice a low purr. "Ain’t used to men touchin’ you, or just not used to likin’ it?"

You glared up at him, lips parting to throw fire — but the words got stuck somewhere between your pride and the warmth blooming beneath your ribs.

"…You think just ‘cause you talk smooth, I’m gonna fall at your feet?" you finally snapped.

Stack leaned in, close enough that his breath kissed the edge of your jaw.

"No," he said. "I think you’ll fight me every inch of the way. And I like a fight."

The tension snapped taut between you, so tight it hummed. His hand slid just a breath lower on your back. Your fingers curled tighter into his shirt. You weren’t smiling, but you weren’t pulling away, either.

"I ain’t your conquest," you muttered.

"No," Stack said, eyes locked to yours like a vow. "You’re the kind of woman a man earns. Or dies tryin’."

The music slowed to a crawl. The last long note of a saxophone kissed the silence.

Neither of you moved.

You didn’t know who leaned in first — but suddenly your face was inches from his. Lips barely apart. Breath tangled.

"Lord.. If you ain't the devil."

His mouth curved just slightly — not a smile, not quite — something darker. Hungrier.

"Then what’s that make you, sweetheart?" he murmured, breath brushing your lips. "The lamb wanderin’ into the fire… or the flame that keeps draggin’ me back to hell?"

You blinked up at him, your heart thudding so loud you swore the whole club could hear it.

Everything inside you screamed to pull away — to do what you’d always done when boys got too close, when their hands wandered and their eyes lingered too long. But Stack wasn’t like those boys. He didn’t leer. He didn’t plead.

He waited.

Like a man sure of the storm and patient enough to let it come to him.

Your voice came low. Dangerous.

"I ain’t no lamb. And I sure as hell ain’t chasin’ you."

He laughed — a quiet, genuine sound that rolled through his chest.

"No," he said again, like he was committing it to memory. "I'm chasin' you, baby."

Then his hand slid up — not low, not greedy — just firm and reverent, fingers skimming the side of your jaw like he was feeling the edges of something sacred.

"And I’m tellin’ you now," he added, voice dropping like molasses in your ear. "You keep lookin’ at me like that… I will find out what you taste like when you stop pretending you hate me."

Before you could bite back, before you could even think, the club doors burst open again —

And Boone’s voice came, loud and panicked: "Y/N! What the hell are you doin’?!"

The spell shattered.

You jerked back like burned, your spine stiffening, eyes snapping toward the entrance.

Boone’s chest heaved, face red and soaked in sweat. Eyes darted from you to Stack, and the rage built fast — like a match tossed in dry brush.

Stack turned lazily toward him, jaw twitching. The charming smirk faded into something else. Something sharp.

"You know," he said, stepping just slightly in front of you, “if he was any kinda gentleman, he wouldn't swear at a lady."

Boone didn’t flinch. Just pointed a finger, shaking with fury. "Your daddy’s gonna hear ‘bout this. And when he does, he’ll bury that bastard himself."

Your breath caught.

"Boone, it's—"

"Oh hell no. This ends now."

You stiffened, pulling away from Stack slightly. A glare rose to your face.

"You think you control anything I do? You're daddy's ranch hand, you ain't his informant, and you definitely ain't my husband, so I don't reckon you should be telling me what ends now."

Boone's jaw dropped.

"You know this is against his damn wishes. He wants you with me, not with Stack Moore."

Stack smiled, his gold grill glinting in the light of the juke.

"She don't want you, Boone Jones. Hell," he snorted, stepping forward. "She don't even really want me. I suggest you get to movin' before my brother and I toss you out this juke."

Boone’s eyes flashed, muscles tightening like coiled steel. "You got a real mouth on you, Stack. But don’t think for a second I’m scared of you or your brother."

He stepped forward, the heat between them crackling like a storm about to break.

You swallowed hard, heart pounding. The tension was thick enough to slice through, and neither man was backing down.

Stack’s grin twisted, teeth flashing like daggers. "Well then, looks like we got ourselves a showdown. You ready to back that up, Boone?"

Boone faltered for a moment. He spotted the gun on Stack's hip, glinting under his jacket. He was torn. But eventually, he turned away from the two of you.

"Get home, Y/N. I'm warnin' you. Your daddy'll be out lookin' for you soon as I tell him this shit."

With that, Boone spat on the floor and walked out.

The jukebox sputtered a slow country tune as Boone’s heavy footsteps faded into the night. Stack turned to you, smirking like he’d just won a war without firing a shot.

"Well, looks like the ranch hand knows when to fold ‘em."

You stood frozen, the weight of Boone’s warning settling deep in your chest.

Stack’s voice softened, almost mockingly gentle. "Now, tell me… what’re you gonna do with all this heat you’re sittin’ on?"

Your eyes burned with quiet defiance, but inside, a storm was brewing — one that wouldn’t be settled so easily.

Without another word, the defiance and want burning in your chest boiled over. You pulled Elias Moore into a crushing kiss, ruffling his suit jacket.

Stack’s smirk faltered for just a heartbeat, a flicker of surprise flashing behind his gold teeth. His hand lifted slowly, fingers brushing the side of your jaw with a teasing, deliberate lightness that sent a shiver down your spine. His voice dropped, low and dangerous, like a velvet promise edged with steel.

"Careful, baby. You’re playin’ with fire."

But you didn’t pull away. Instead, your breath hitched, and your heartbeat thundered in your ears like a wild stallion breaking free. The air between you thickened, charged with a heat that wasn’t just from the summer night or the sticky tension in the jukebox’s flickering neon glow. It was raw, electric, and impossible to ignore.

Your fingers curled into the lapel of his jacket, tugging him closer, hungry for the heat that radiated off his body. The scent of leather, musk, and something uniquely Stack invaded your senses. Your lips pressed harder against his, demanding more, needing more. His hands found your waist, strong and possessive, pulling you flush against him until there was no space left — only the desperate dance of two bodies claiming their own wild territory.

His mouth moved over yours with fierce intention, teasing and tasting, trailing a path of fire down your neck. You arched against him, breath mingling, every nerve alight. The weight of Boone’s warning dissolved somewhere in the back of your mind, drowned out by the thunderous storm between you and Stack.

Stack’s voice, rough and low, was a whisper against your skin. "You gonna be my woman. One way or another."

His hands slid lower, fingers digging into the curve of your hips, grounding you even as your pulse raced with reckless abandon. You tugged at the buttons of his shirt, exposing the warm skin beneath, your nails grazing, marking. Every touch was a challenge, every breath a promise.

Your lips parted in a silent plea, and Stack answered, his tongue tracing the line of your jaw, down to the swell of your collarbone. The heat in your chest ignited into a blaze, scorching and sweet. It wasn’t just passion — it was war, desire, defiance, and something dangerously close to surrender.

The air thickened, charged and heavy with all the words neither of you dared say. His fingers tightened on your hips, pulling you impossibly closer, as if he wanted to press you into him and make sure you couldn’t slip away. Your hands trembled slightly, caught between the urge to push him away and the desperate craving to keep this fire alive.

Stack’s breath hitched as his mouth dipped lower, kissing the hollow at your throat, leaving a trail of heat that seared through your skin. Your fingers tangled in the coarse fabric of his shirt, dragging it open just enough to feel the steady thump of his heart beneath your touch. Every beat was a promise, wild and relentless.

That night, you thought you'd be in wicked trouble with your daddy.

You got home and he was sitting in his chair, rifle by his side. There was no glare. No anger. No fight. Just disappointment.

His eyes met yours — quiet, heavy, like the weight of every unspoken word between you.

"Boone stopped by. Said you was almost kissin' Stack in the back of his juke joint. That the truth?"

You froze in the doorway, the screen creaking shut behind you. Your boots felt heavy against the floorboards.

"Is that the truth? I won't ask again." he asked again, voice like gravel and smoke, worn down from years of silence that meant more than shouting ever could.

You swallowed, but your throat was dry. "Yes, sir."

Your daddy looked away then, toward the window. The moonlight spilled across the hardwood like spilled milk, cold and pale. He didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t even shift in his chair.

“Didn’t raise you to chase heat just ‘cause it burns bright.”

You stepped further inside, your heart thudding in your chest. “It ain’t just heat.”

He turned back to you, slow and steady, the way storms roll in without hurry. "That boy’s trouble, Y/N. His people bring it like flies bring rot. You think Stack Moore gives a damn about you come winter? When the crops are dry and the nights are long?"

“I ain’t askin’ for your blessing,” you said, quietly. “But I ain’t askin’ for forgiveness, either.”

His jaw worked, clenched and tight. The rifle stayed at his side, but his hands curled on the armrests like he was gripping the weight of every fear a father could carry.

"You know I’d ride to hell for you, girl." "I know."

A beat. A breath. The porch creaked under the weight of the wind.

"Then don’t make me bury you for someone who wouldn’t ride back. If you think Stack Moore is worth it, I can't stop ya," he asserted wisely. "But he better be. Because if a single tear drops to this floor and he's responsible for it, I'm buryin' him. And his brother."

Your breath hitched, but you didn’t let it show.

He wasn’t threatening. He was promising.

That old chair creaked as he leaned forward, forearms braced on his knees, eyes pinning you like a hawk pins its prey.

"You understand me, girl?" His voice was low, but there was thunder in it — a quiet kind of rage built on love and fear and the kind of heartbreak only a father can carry.

You nodded, chin up even though your chest was tight. "I understand."

He let out a long breath through his nose, like he’d been holding it for years.

"Then go on to bed. And think real hard ‘bout the kind of man you’re givin’ your name to. 'Cause once you do… you don't get to take it back."

You stood there for a moment longer — the screen door groaning open behind you again, the wind pushing against your back like even the night was trying to warn you.

But you didn’t look back.

The next day, Stack stopped by the ranch, as if he was askin' for a gun to go off towards his head. You were out back, tending to the horses, brushing your favorite tenderly.

The horse, Annie was her name, blew air out of her nose, as if she knew trouble was approaching. You cooed at her.

"Settle down, pretty girl. Ain't nothin' comin' to get you."

But even as you said it, your eyes flicked toward the dust trail creeping down the long dirt drive — slow and deliberate. A dark car. Stack’s.

Annie shifted under your hand, hooves stamping once against the earth. You didn’t blame her. You felt the same tight pull in your chest. That mix of anger and ache, nerves and want, all tangled together like barbed wire.

Stack stepped out like he owned the goddamn world. Boots still dirty from whatever hellhole he'd walked through last, and that cocky tilt to his mouth like he'd slept just fine while the storm he stirred brewed all night long.

He spotted you in the paddock, and his smirk deepened like he’d expected a bullet and got a welcome mat instead.

You didn’t wave. Didn’t call out.

Just kept brushing Annie’s side like you weren’t burning from the inside out.

Stack leaned on the fence, one arm slung over the top rail, eyes fixed on you like you were the only thing that ever moved slow in his world.

"You didn’t call," he said, voice low and teasing. "Thought maybe Boone talked you outta me."

You looked up then, slow and measured.

"No one talks me outta anything, Stack. Least of all a man who runs when daddy’s rifle’s on the porch."

That knocked the smirk clean off his face for a second. Then he chuckled — slow, deep.

"Figured I’d come back ‘round today. Let your old man know I ain’t runnin’. I’m standin’."

You shook your head, a bitter little smile tugging at your lips.

"He already knows. Question is… do you?"

Stack’s jaw twitched. His eyes dropped to your hands on the horse — the way they moved, firm but gentle. Like you could break things and fix them all the same.

He straightened off the fence.

"I ain’t scared of your daddy," he said. "And I ain't here for a quick trip to the sheets. You're the typa woman worth marryin'."

You froze.

Annie huffed beside you, but you barely heard her over the rush of blood in your ears. Stack’s words hit you like a hammer to the ribs — not because you didn’t believe him, but because deep down… maybe you did.

Still, you kept your hands busy, brushing through Annie’s mane like she was the only thing keeping you grounded.

"You don’t even know what marryin’ me means, Stack Moore," you said quietly. "It ain’t just Sunday dresses and kissin’ under porch lights. It’s long winters and hard land and family that don’t forget where you came from."

He stepped into the paddock without asking, boots crunching over the straw and dirt. That alone told you something — Stack had never waited for an invitation in his life.

"I know it won’t be easy," he said, stopping just a few feet from you. "I know your daddy don’t think I’m good enough. Hell, maybe I ain’t. But I know this — I’d rather fight every damn day for your heart than spend a single one without it."

Your hand paused on Annie’s shoulder. For the first time, you looked at him — really looked.

There was no grin now. No sharp teeth. Just a man, standing there with his scars and swagger stripped down to something real.

"You’re serious," you said, more to yourself than him.

"I’ve been in fights I ain’t walked away from. I’ve stared down the barrel more times than I can count. But you?" He stepped closer, voice low and steady. "You’re the first thing that’s ever made me scared to lose."

Your chest tightened.

Goddamn him.

Because you wanted to believe it. Wanted to throw your arms around him, take him in the barn, and kiss the past right off his mouth. But you’d learned too young that want didn’t make a man stay. Promises were easy when the sun was out — it was the nights that told the truth.

So you swallowed hard and said the only thing you could.

"Then don’t say you want me, Stack. Show me."

His eyes flickered, something fierce and warm lighting in them.

"I intend to, darlin’," he said. "Every damn day. Starting now."

And when he reached for your hand, you let him take it. Just for a moment.

Just long enough to remember how it felt.

He raised it to his mouth. Kissed it gently, if Stack Moore was even capable of being gentle.

"Now.. Take me inside to see your daddy. I'm sure we can find somethin' to agree on. Gotta get along before I ask for the blessin'."

You snorted, tying Annie up and kicking his boot with your own.

"It ain't that easy. You've got to court me before you marry me, and even then, you gotta impress daddy."

Stack chuckled low in his chest, the sound rich like molasses and twice as thick with trouble.

"Darlin’, I didn’t think anything about you would be easy," he said, falling in step beside you as you started toward the house. "Hell, if you were, I wouldn’t be out here riskin’ a shotgun sermon and a boot up my ass."

You cut him a sideways glance, amused despite yourself. "You’ll get more than a boot if you don’t stop runnin’ that mouth."

He grinned, flashing that infamous gold tooth like a warning sign. "That mouth’s gonna be the reason you marry me, just you wait."

You stopped at the bottom of the steps, boots crunching in the dirt. Stack did too, waiting for your lead. Waiting, you realized, for your say-so — and that was rare.

"You serious about this?" you asked, voice lower now. No teasing. No fire. Just the honest question of a woman who knew how easily hearts cracked under pressure.

He nodded once. No swagger this time. Just steel and heat.

"I want a wife. I want babies. I wanna hang my guns up until I need 'em. And I want you. So, little lady, let's go."

You held in a tear, the only tear that had ever developed in your cold e/c eyes since mama died. Then, you willingly threaded your fingers into Stack's and tugged him towards the house.